Polish leaders at all levels continue to speak with enthusiasm about the need to fully support “peaceful protests” in Belarus and to help them morally and financially. However, with widespread protests across Poland now, the same national leaders are angrily condemning their “peaceful protesters.” Not only do they condemn the protestors, they are also supporting the use of police violence and threaten harsh prison sentences.
The Belarusian protests are for the impositions of neo-liberalism. The Poles however are protesting about abortion rights. Although the reason for protests in Minsk and Warsaw are completely different, they are both using the same methods to protest.
For example, on Sunday the leaders of the women’s strike in Poland officially legitimized the introduction of their advisory council, similar to the Coordinating Council of Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Polish protest leader Marta Lempart makes it clear that she has been inspired by events in Minsk:
“We are looking at Belarus and we see the importance of coordinating action.”
Just like in Belarus, the ultimate goal of these Polish rallies is for the unconditional resignation of the government. The official bodies created by Tikhanyovskaya and Lempart, in their own words, should facilitate a “peaceful transfer of power.”
The glorification of events in Belarus by the Polish media, along with the active participation of Warsaw, led the Poles to emulate their protesting neighbors. It is no coincidence that posters saying
“They educated us by romanticizing the uprisings and now they are surprised that we are protesting,” have appeared at rallies in Warsaw.
Weeks ago, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote directly about the need to support protestors in Belarus and even announced a drawing contest to “illustrate the courage and heroism of Belarusian women.” Some of these creative images were used by Poles during a mass rally in Warsaw last Friday.
However, the Polish Prime Minister is now outraged at his people’s methods of protest, calling them “barbaric and illegal,” as well as actively urging law enforcement agencies to arrest protestors. For several weeks, the Polish authorities demanded widespread condemnation of the Alexander Lukashenko government for supposed repression against the Belarussian opposition. And now Polish Deputy Justice Minister Michał Woś is calling on the prosecutor’s office to launch a crackdown on protesters.
“All Polish prosecutors should consider the organizers of illegal meetings to be criminals. Threats to life and health will put them at risk of imprisonment for up to eight years,” Woś said threateningly in an interview with Radio Maryja.
Polish authorities attribute the repression against the protesters to a difficult COVID-19 situation. Local state television channels are constantly spreading the word about how large crowds of people are adversely affecting the health of others during a severe pandemic. Hypocritically, the same media in support of the mass protests in Minsk did not have any health concerns for the Belarusian protestors.
However, the people involved in anti-government actions in Poland are by no means innocent and often resort to harsh and provocative actions. They were aggressive towards law enforcement officers, government officials, and attacked the Catholic Church and priests. Contradictorily, Polish media completely ignore the provocations of Belarusian protestors. In addition, state-run television does not hesitate to call the protesters “left-wing fascists attacking Polish values.”
Another point of contradiction is that Belarusian protest icon Tichanovskaya has paid Polish women with ingratitude. Polish women have continually supported her, but she has expressed no solidarity with their struggle. This is because the Belarusian opposition are afraid of losing their main financial backers, Warsaw.
Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Linas Antanas Linkevičius is also constantly announcing support for the Minsk protesters and emphasizes his admiration for “the incredible courage of Belarusian women.” But the minister has not uttered a single word in support of the Polish women protesting or their actions.
Strangely, Warsaw, which does not hide their direct interference into the domestic affairs of Belarus, has started looking for “external influence” as responsible for the protests in Poland. Even Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński, leader of the Law and Justice Party in Poland, has already named “Russian agents” as responsible for the protests in his country.
Russia has long been well aware that interfering with the internal affairs of other states can spill over into another country. The latest Polish example proves this. By sowing discord in Belarus, Poland is now facing a similar uprising, albeit for different reasons. However, this has exposed Poland’s deep contradictions and hypocrisy.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Featured image is by Krzysztof Kaniewski/ZUMA wire/picture-alliance
The late prominent scholar of settler-colonialism, Patrick Wolfe, reminded us repeatedly that it is not an event, it is a structure. While settler-colonialism in many cases has a historical starting point, its original motivation guides its maintenance in the present.
By and large, settler-colonial projects are motivated by what Wolfe defined as “the logic of the elimination of the native”. Settlers’ wish to create a new homeland almost inevitably clashes with the aspirations of the local native population. In some cases, this clash leads to the physical elimination of native populations, as seen in the Americas and Australia; in others, such as South Africa, settlers enclave the indigenous population in closed areas and impose an apartheid system.
Zionism in Palestine is a settler-colonial project, and Israel remains to this day a settler-colonial state. This depiction is now widely accepted in the scholarly world, but rejected by mainstream Israeli scholars.
On 2 November 1917, Arthur Balfour, then British foreign secretary, endorsed the idea of a “national home for the Jewish people” without “prejudice” against the “civil and religious rights” of the “non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. While this might imply that Jews were the native and majority population of Palestine, in reality, they comprised 10 percent of the population.
This misrepresentation of the Palestinian reality in the Balfour Declaration shows how applicable the settler-colonial paradigm is to the case of the Zionist movement in Palestine. The settler movement obtained the support of a colonial and imperial power, one that it would disown from 1942 onwards, and shared the perception of the local population as – at best – a tolerated minority, and at worst as usurpers. Britain granted international legitimacy to this act of colonisation, sowing the seeds for the future dispossession of the native population.
Many historians explain the Balfour Declaration in terms of British strategic thinking. It was part of an attempt to prevent a Muslim holy land, and an apprehension that other European powers might support the Zionists.
British support for creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine had its roots in evangelical Christian Zionist dogma, already mushrooming on both sides of the Atlantic by the early 19th century. Long before the Balfour Declaration, Christian settler-colonialism penetrated North America and Africa.
Defenceless and leaderless
The British branch of Christian Zionism focused more closely on the religious significance of a Jewish “return” to Palestine – a precursor for the Second Coming of the Messiah. This millenarian ideology influenced key British politicians at the time of the Balfour Declaration, including then-Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
Connections between the British empire, Zionism and other settler-colonial projects became even clearer in the years that followed the Balfour Declaration. It became a crucial factor in the history of the country when it was integrated into the mandatory charter the League of Nations granted Britain over Palestine.
Palestinians flee Qumiya village during the Nakba in 1948 (Archive/Palestine Remembered)
Its importance was enhanced by the appointment of Herbert Samuel, a pro-Zionist Anglo Jew, as the first high commissioner of Palestine. Immediately upon his arrival to Palestine in 1920, Samuel put in place policies that allowed the settler-colonial movement to bring in more settlers and expand its foothold in the country by purchasing land, mainly from absentee landlords.
The Palestinian national movement was organised enough to resist by popular and violent means. In the early years, the vulnerable Jewish colony was protected by the British, who were particularly important during the 1936-39 Palestinian revolt, brutally crushed with all the might the British empire could muster. This resulted in the destruction of the Palestinian military and political elite, with many killed, wounded or expelled – leaving Palestinian society defenceless and leaderless when it was needed most in 1948.
Western hypocrisy
There is a direct line connecting the vague British promise given to the Zionist movement a century ago and the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people in 1948. A few British policymakers must have developed second thoughts about the declaration’s validity. In 1930, they pondered the repudiation of the Balfour Declaration, but retreated quickly from such a dramatic U-turn.
In 1939, British policymakers tried to restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine and the purchase of land, but they were later castigated for this policy due to the rise of Nazism and fascism, which turned Palestine into one of the few safe havens for Jews escaping from Europe. The condemnation came from a hypocritical western world that did very little to save the Jews during the Holocaust, or to open its gates to survivors immediately after the war.
The British had to accept an international verdict that European Jews should be compensated by allowing the Zionist movement to further colonise Palestine. They also became the enemies of the Zionist movement. These pressures, together with the transformation of Britain from a world power to a second-grade actor on the international scene, led to its decision in February 1947 to refer the question of Palestine to the United Nations.
Britain was still responsible for law and order between February 1947 and May 1948, and within this responsibility it witnessed, remained indifferent towards and at times acted as an accomplice to the final and disastrous outcome of the Balfour Declaration: the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
Blueprint for ethnic cleansing
The British decision prompted the military and political leadership of the Jewish community to devise its own version of “the logic of the elimination of the native”. In March 1948, this leadership produced Plan Dalet, which I believe was a clear blueprint for the systematic removal of Palestinians from Palestine.
The plan’s significance lay in how it was translated into a set of operative commands despatched to Jewish forces in March, April and May 1948. The essence of these orders was to occupy villages, towns and neighbourhoods, expel their people, and in the case of the villages, detonate houses so as to prevent any return to them.
The British were already retreating from parts of Palestine when this ethnic cleansing commenced, but they were present in the urban space of Palestine, and it was there that the main ethnic cleansing efforts took place. They watched and mediated, as in the case of Haifa, but did not intervene when the people who began to leave under an agreement were shelled by Jewish forces en route to the harbour.
This was a shameful chapter, as shameful as the declaration itself. When the ethnic cleansing ended, half of Palestine’s population was expelled, half of its villages demolished and most of its towns depopulated. On their ruins, Israel built kibbutzim and planted European pine trees to try and erase the Arab nature of Palestine.
The path forward
Britain recognised quite quickly the Jewish state and contributed further to the Palestinian disaster by supporting the partition of post-mandatory Palestine between Jordan and Israel. Moreover, the British did all they could to prevent the making of a Palestinian state in even part of Palestine. The ruination of Palestine became the inevitable consequence of the Balfour Declaration.
Yet, the settler-colonial project of Zionism is not as successful as the American or Australian ones, and may still have an ending similar to the one in South Africa. It is too early to tell, but through this prism, one can understand better why there is a conflict in Israel and Palestine and what – at least in principle – should be the way forward for solving it.
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Ilan Pappe is a professor of history, and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies and co-director for the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies at the University of Exeter.
The current “war against the Coronavirus” is primarily an information war, with the corporate media putting forth a unified message they want the public to believe, and any efforts to present alternative information is vigorously opposed and ridiculed.
Six major companies own almost all of the media outlets in the U.S., including TV, print, and Internet, which includes video games.
WebFX documented this a few years back with an infographic. The Infographic is a bit dated, as AT&T bought Time Warner in 2018, for example, which just led to further consolidation of the media giants.
In modern America, it feels like you have an unlimited variety of entertainment and media options right at your fingertips.
Television, film, and video game companies seem to come out of the woodwork in today’s startup-centric economy. Who knows what they’ll do next? But while it may seem like you have limitless options, most of the media you consume is owned by one of six companies. These six media companies are known as The Big 6.
While independent media outlets still exist (and there are a lot of them), the major outlets are almost all owned by these six conglomerates. To be clear, “media” in this context does not refer just to news outlets — it refers to any medium that controls the distribution of information. So here, “media” includes 24-hour news stations, newspapers, publishing houses, Internet utilities, and even video game developers.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at each of The Big 6, who control them, and what they own.
Walter Cronkite was one of the most famous TV journalists and perhaps one of the most trusted men in America in the 1960s and 1970s. He read the news on the CBS TV network each evening Monday through Friday from 1962 through 1981.
This is what Walter Cronkite wrote in the introduction to the 1996 book Censored – The News That Didn’t Make the News- And Why, by Carl Jensen. Walter Cronkite wrote:
A handful of us determine what will be on the evening news broadcasts, or, for that matter, in the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal…. Indeed it is a handful of us with this awesome power… a strongly editorial power.
…we must decide which news items out of hundreds available we are going to expose that day. And those [news stories] available to us already have been culled and re-culled by persons far outside our control.
Late night comedian Conan O’Brien produced some clips some years ago that showed how these corporate media companies control the narrative on your local and national news stations to broadcast a unified message, showing that very little, if any, real investigative reporting was being done.
Watch:
Campaign Final Days Can Get a Little Salty:
The Easter Bunny’s Springless Steps
Where Can You Enjoy Cyber Monday Sales?
The End Of E-mail Overload?
Using “Medical” Doctors to Sell Products or Ideas – Appeal to Authority
As I reported recently (Doctors vs. Doctors: Who’s Telling the Truth?), there is a huge difference between medical doctors out on the frontlines actually treating patients, and political or TV doctors who do not actually treat patients, but use their American-accepted status symbol of authority to try and convince the masses to believe what the Corporate Media companies, and their sponsors, want you to believe.
Today, the main sponsors of the six largest media corporations are pharmaceutical companies.
But some 60 years ago, those sponsors were mainly the tobacco industry.
Here are some “blasts from the past” that most of our readers are probably too young to remember.
If any of these gems from YouTube disappear, let us know, and we will get them back up on another platform.
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The text of this commentary is updated from an earlier Portuguese-language version of the author’s column at Amazônia Real.
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The BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) Highway was built in the early 1970s by Brazil’s military dictatorship, but was abandoned in 1988. In 2016, a “maintenance” program was authorized, and the highway is now passable during the dry season.
The currently proposed “Reconstruction” of BR-319, which would build a new paved road atop the old dirt roadbed, is certainly among the most consequential decisions facing Brazil today. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the project has been submitted to the licensing agency (IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency), where it is receiving accelerated treatment for what appears to be a foreordained approval. The hasty authorization of a project that implies a major expansion of the area in Amazonia that is exposed to deforestation is extremely unwise.
So far, deforestation has been almost entirely limited to the “arc of deforestation” along the southern and eastern edges of the Amazon forest in Brazil, and to the eastern half of the region where road access is already implanted.
Brazil’s Legal Amazon region. The “arc of deforestation” is the red area along the southern and eastern edges of the forest. The BR-319 cuts the remaining Amazon basin forest in half, providing access to vast areas of standing forest by those who have deforested the eastern and southern portions of the region. Deforestation data courtesy of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Large-scale impacts
The impact of the BR-319 will extend far beyond the strip along the highway route that is the subject of the EIA.
The BR-319 opens the central and northern portions of Amazonia to the migration of land grabbers (grileiros), loggers, cattlemen, individual squatters (posseiros) and organized landless farmers (sem-terras). These actors are already present in the “arc of deforestation” and have moved into areas in the southern portion of the state of Amazonas where there is road access, including Apuí, Igarapé Realidade and Lábrea (see black and white map below).
Critically, BR-319 is associated with plans for additional roads, such as AM-366, that would open the vast area of intact rainforest in the western part of the state of Amazonas.
Opening this “Trans-Purus” region in western Amazonas to deforestation would be catastrophic for Brazil, leading to loss of critical environmental services. These include water supply to the city of São Paulo: the Trans-Purus area is the last great block of intact forest in Brazilian Amazonia, and losing this area means losing the Amazon forest’s function of recycling the water that is carried in the “flying rivers” to Brazil’s major urban and agricultural areas (see here, here, here, here and here). Amazonia is supplying 70% of the water during the peak of the rainy season in São Paulo, when the reservoirs that supply the city fill. São Paulo has nearly run out of water several times, even with Amazonia’s water cycling function still intact.
The environmental impact assessment (EIA) for reconstructing the “middle stretch” of the BR-319 is now publicly available. The EIA defines an “area of direct impact” (ADA) and an “area of indirect impact” (AIA) that excludes the wider impacts of the highway, including the critical “Trans-Purus” region to the west of the Purus River.
The BR-319 Highway and its planned side roads, including AM-366 that would open the vast intact forest area between the highway and Brazil’s border with Peru (Source: Fearnside & Graça, 2006).
Despite the many deficiencies of the EIA, buried in the document’s 3735 pages there are passages that recognize many of the project’s true impacts, for which the authors should be congratulated. Among these is the threat that reconstructing the BR-319 poses to the Trans-Purus region by unleashing a chain of events that would result in opening the planned AM-366 road, thus allowing deforesters to enter this critical region:
The repaving and full operation of the BR-319 along its entire length may encourage regional politicians to pressure the government of Amazonas to resume the project to implement the AM-366 highway. This risk is very concrete in that, a few years after the opening of BR-319, a “picadão” [big trail] linking BR-319 to the city of Tapauá was opened by an initiative that was probably from private agents. (ECI-Apurina, p. 119).
The EIA also mentions the relevance of Brazil’s current presidential administration to the increased danger of the AM-366 being built:
In the political-institutional conditions now present in the region and in the country, added to the initiatives of the executive branch of the federal government to review environmental protection measures and to facilitate the advance of agribusiness in southern Amazonas — as previously noted — it is quite possible that the AM-366 could obtain sufficient political support for its implementation. (ECI-Apurina, p. 119).
The potential for invasion of the areas opened up by the AM-366 road and the illegal side roads along its route between Tapauá and the BR-319 is mentioned:
[AM-366] would offer migrants from the south and southeast regions, and especially those from Rondônia, an open route for opening lots in government lands — at zero cost. (ECI-Apurina, p. 83).
The EIA also mentions the likelihood of the AM-366 sprouting side roads (ramais) to provide access to oil and gas production areas planned for exploitation under the massive “Solimões Sedimentary Area Project”:
The question of the exploration of the blocks in the Solimões [Upper Amazon] basin. ,,, gains greater relevance due precisely to the possible interconnection between the BR-319 and the municipalities of Tefé and Coari via the AM-366 highway, from which ramais [side roads] could “branch off” to the locations of the oil installations … (ECI-Apurina, p. 106).
Illegal side roads (ramais) branching off BR-319 are already being built, such as one begun in February 2020 entering a protected area, the Lago do Capanã Grande Extractive Reserve. There are also illegal roads being built in the opposite direction, starting from towns on the Purus River and progressing towards the BR-319. In addition to the illegal side road being built from Tapauá (ECI-Apurina, pp. 119-121), the EIA mentions a similar illegal road being built to connect Canutama to the BR-319, which is already 40 kilometers long (EIA, p. 2565). The obvious lack of governance in the area is a key issue in the battle over licensing.
Bridge built across a stream in February 2020 on an illegal side road (ramal) branching off of BR-319 and penetrating a protected area, the Lago do Capanã Grande Extractive Reserve. Image courtesy of Indigenous leader whose identity is withheld.
The oil and gas project is a major threat to the forests of the Trans-Purus region because the scale of the project means that the companies exploiting the oil and gas would have a major motive for pressuring the government to provide road access.
The EIA touches on the responsibility of DNIT, Brazil’s National Department of Transportation Infrastructure, for the disastrous outcome that would result from the BR-319’s role in increasing the likelihood of the AM-366 being built:
….this chain of events…, in a certain way, gives the entrepreneur some degree of responsibility for the eventual terrestrial connection of BR-319 to the city of Tapauá …. (ECI-Apurina, p. 120).
Despite some passages in the EIA recognizing the BR-319’s wider impact, this does not translate into recommendations about what to do about it. Instead, the focus is restricted to the ADA and AIA, and the recommendations are limited to pointing out that governance is needed to minimize impacts. Questioning the existence of the project, or delaying it for a substantial period of years while governance is established, are not presented as serious options.
Instead, the recommendations for avoiding the massive impacts are limited to the standard call for “governance,” but the chances of such a program being implemented on a scale that would avoid disaster are near zero. The BR-319 area is essentially lawless today, with land grabbing (grilagem) and illegal land invasions, logging and building of side roads occurring with impunity. It is simply fictitious that “BR-319 will be an example of sustainability for the World,” as the members of the Legislative Assembly of the state of Amazonas claim.
The BR-319 is now passable in the dry season due to a “maintenance” program begun in 2016. (Photo: P.M. Fearnside).
Impacts on Indigenous peoples
The Indigenous component is critical. This project element was apparently submitted to the licensing agency (IBAMA) some time after the rest of the EIA. Although the separation in time was relatively short in this case, it is an important irregularity, repeating the scandal that surrounded the 2015 EIA for the São Luis do Tapajós Dam. As with that controversial dam, the Relatório de Impacto Ambiental (RIMA), which is the document that serves for public discussion of the BR-319 project (including the public hearings), was obviously completed before the Indigenous component was available and contains no information on Indigenous peoples.
The question of consultation of Indigenous peoples affected by the BR-319 highway project represents a key test of Brazil’s legal system. Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry (a public prosecutor’s office established by Brazil’s 1988 constitution to defend the rights of the people) has long been trying to bring the rule of law to Brazil in this regard, but these efforts have so far failed, as in the cases of the Belo Monte and São Manoel Dams (see here, here and here).
The EIA for the BR-319 mentions the fact that Brazilian law and Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO-169), of which Brazil is a signatory, require prior consultation of affected Indigenous peoples. This legally required consultation needs to not only occur before the construction work begins, but rather before any decision is made on whether or not to go ahead with the project:
And Article 15 of the Convention makes it explicit that this consultation must take place before governments undertake or authorize any program for prospecting or exploiting resources that exist in the habitat of Indigenous peoples. (ECI-Apurina, p. 27).
In the case of BR-319, no Indigenous people have been consulted, despite the project’s bidding already having been opened and its initiation being immanent in violation of ILO-169 and by Brazilian law (10.088, de 5 de novembro de 2019, formerly 5.051, de 19 de abril de 2004), which implements the convention.
However, DNIT plans to do its “consultation” while the road construction is underway. The plan is to only consult five Indigenous areas, despite the road’s impact extending much farther. IBAMA’s internal regulations (Portaria Interministerial Nº 419, de 26 de outubro de 2011, Anexo II) consider all Indigenous areas within 40 kilometers of a highway in Amazonia to be “directly impacted” and requires them to be included in the Indigenous component of the EIA. In the case of the entire BR-319 highway (not only the “middle stretch”), there are 13 Indigenous areas within the 40-kilometer limit.
Reconstruction of the middle stretch is what would trigger the socio-environmental impacts from the entire road by opening the floodgates for traffic and migration. ILO-169 and its replication in Brazilian law have no distance limit for impacts requiring consultation. These impacts clearly go far beyond the area considered in the EIA. In addition to adversely affecting Indigenous peoples already living within the areas of migration flow that the highway would stimulate, such as those in the state of Roraima, deforestation from the highway route itself can spread far beyond 40 kilometers. If a 150-kilometer limit is considered, 63 Indigenous areas would be considered impacted.
In conclusion, reconstructing the BR-319 highway would have enormous impacts and few benefits. In addition to the need to comply with legal requirements such as obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples, Brazil’s leaders should pause to consider the wisdom of the project itself, given the threat it represents to the country’s national interests. Risking the loss of Amazonia’s environmental services, such as supplying water to São Paulo, is no small matter for Brazil.
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Featured image: The BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) Highway passes through large areas of intact rainforest, seen here in 2018 with road “maintenance” underway. Source: Folha de São Paulo.
Many states allow voters to fix and resubmit ballots rejected for technical reasons. It’s called “curing” votes, and the GOP is trying to prevent them from being counted because they could help Biden win.
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Victoria Benedict, a stationery store owner in Atlanta who has been voting by mail for years, was surprised last month when she went to the Georgia secretary of state’s website and found her ballot had been rejected. A problem with her signature — the state said the one on her ballot did not match what it had on file — set her on a dayslong quest to make sure her vote would be counted.
County staff told her that she would either have to show up at the local election office to sign her ballot or vote in person on Election Day. Either option would risk her health during a pandemic. Instead, on the advice of a friend who volunteers with the state’s Democratic Party, she filled out a form known as a ballot cure affidavit. This time, her vote was accepted.
“I knew to press,” Benedict said. “It just worries me that other voters who didn’t may fall through the cracks.”
The blue wave widely predicted by pollsters never came Tuesday. Now, the unexpectedly thin margins in key states, combined with the vast increase in voting by mail, are highlighting the esoteric process of “curing” ballots, in which people whose mailed ballots are rejected because of signature or other problems are given a second chance. Since mailed ballots in most states tilt Democratic, curing them so that they can be counted is believed to help former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The cure process is going to be really important for a lot of close states,” said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the voting advocacy group Vote At Home, which tracks rejection rates and suggests best practices for states to cure rejected ballots.
Even a few thousand cured ballots could potentially affect the outcome in states still in play in the presidential race as well. As with other aspects of the mail voting process, curing is now the focus of attacks by the GOP. Republicans have already sued in Pennsylvania to block the counting of cured ballots. In many states, voters don’t have to submit their cured ballots until a week or more after Election Day, potentially delaying a final count. In the meantime, Biden campaign workers are engaged in a post-election get-out-the-vote effort, calling and texting these voters and encouraging them to cure their rejected ballots.
While the term may be new to many voters, the curing of rejected ballots has been part of the American electoral process for decades.
“We need to let election administrators finish their work,” said Ben Hovland, the chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Hovland is a Democrat who was appointed by President Donald Trump. “The cure process is simply part of counting, as it always has been, and we need to allow the professionals to finalize the count and certify the results.”
Curing rules vary from one state to the next. In Wisconsin and Michigan, cured ballots must be returned on or before Election Day. In North Carolina and Nevada, ballots can be cured until a week or more after the election. In Michigan and Georgia, election officials must tell voters that their ballots have been rejected, providing an opportunity for curing; Michigan’s legislature added this requirement in fall, after hundreds of curable ballots were rejected in its August primary. In Wisconsin, notification is only encouraged, as was the case in North Carolina until August, when a federal judge ruled that the board of elections must provide a cure process.
In Nevada, 3,536 mail ballots have been rejected for signature problems as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Nevada secretary of state. Those voters have until Nov. 12 to fix their ballots so they can count.
The number of rejected ballots in Nevada could grow because officials are still collecting mail ballots from drop boxes and the U.S. Postal Service. And whether they’re cured could matter because Biden’s current lead in the state is less than 8,000 votes. Officials said they’ll release more resultson Wednesday night.
Counties make lists of voters whose ballots were rejected available to the parties. Democrats in Nevada are organizing hundreds of staff and volunteers to remind voters to cure their ballots before the deadline, according to state party spokeswoman Molly Forgey. Democrats have already successfully fixed 2,340 ballots, compared with 825 Republicans and 1,354 independents, according to data from the secretary of state.
The Nevada Republican Party didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a statement, the party complained it wasn’t being allowed to observe or challenge signature matches. The GOP has sued to stop counting mail ballots in Clark County, the state’s largest and most Democratic, but a judge rejected the Republicans’ motion for a temporary restraining order.
Republicans in Pennsylvania have challenged ballot curing in lawsuits in state and federal court.
In Pennsylvania, a voter whose ballot was rejected can’t mail in a new one. Instead, curing takes a different form. The secretary of state released guidance Oct. 21 that voters whose absentee or mail-in ballots were rejected by county boards of elections could be issued a provisional ballot on Election Day. The county board of elections would then determine later whether the ballot should be counted, according to the guidance.
On Tuesday night, Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican who represents the northwestern corner of the state, and others sued the secretary of state over the policy in Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The suit seeks to block rejected ballots from being cured by casting a provisional ballot.
It’s not clear how many such ballots there are, and a spokesperson for the secretary of state declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
In a separate federal suit challenging 98 cured ballots in Montgomery County, a judge seemed unmoved by Republican lawyers’ arguments at a Wednesday morning hearing in Philadelphia. The case is still pending.
“Taken together, these lawsuits amount to an argument that boils down to: ‘Voters get one chance, and if they make a mistake, too bad,’” said Michelle Kanter Cohen, senior counsel at the nonpartisan Fair Elections Center. “This isn’t the way to approach our fundamental rights in a democracy.”
In Georgia, any voter whose ballot is rejected is notified by the county and then will have until Friday to submit a cure form that will allow their signature to be validated. The law requires count officials to reach out to voters by phone or by email, and they must send a letter with instructions if a voter’s contact information is unavailable. Gabriel Sterling, a state official who manages Georgia’s voting equipment, projected on Monday afternoon that the state would reject about 3,000 total ballots.
McReynolds said Vote At Home believes the Georgia outcome will come down to as few as 1,000 votes, making even a small number of rejected ballots crucial to the final result. Neither the Trump nor Biden campaigns have requested the names of voters whose ballots were rejected, but the state would do so if asked, said Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state. North Carolina will be counting cured ballots as well as absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day until Nov. 12, an extended deadline that was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in late October despite two separate attempts by Republicans to block the extension.
Data from the State Board of Elections on Tuesday indicated that 6,148 voters have cured their ballots so far, with an additional 6,947 voters whose ballots are “pending cure.” Barack Obama won the state in 2008 by 14,177 votes. The board has reported Trump leading by 76,701 votes, with 117,000 absentee ballots that were requested and have yet to be returned.
The Biden campaign has organized post-Election Day door knocking and phone-banking through Fight for NC to encourage voters to cure rejected ballots. Laurel Birch Kilgore, executive director of the Democratic Party chapter in Wake County, which is the most-populous county in the state, said she had planned to take the day after the election off but has instead been working to recruit volunteers for canvassing. Attempts to reach the North Carolina Republican Party for comment were unsuccessful.
Voters whose ballots need curing tend to be relatively young. Those voters are disproportionately more likely to have their signatures rejected because they have fewer examples on file with the state — either at the department of motor vehicles or the elections office — to check against. “On average, Coloradans have about eight signatures on file, but younger people might have zero or one or two,” said Jenna Griswold, secretary of state for Colorado. “So their rate of rejection is going to be higher — it can be as much as triple that of older voters, but as you get older the rate decreases.”
Izzy Bronstein, a national grassroots organizer for Common Cause, said curing is most prevalent where it’s easy, as in Florida, where it can mostly be done online. She added that curing can be especially impactful in state and local races: “In a presidential election, a single ballot sometimes isn’t going to change anything, but in a city council election it might.”
Beena Raghavendran, Ariana Tobin, Ian MacDougall, Derek Willis and Rachel Glickhouse contributed reporting.
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Justin Elliott is a ProPublica reporter covering politics and government accountability. To securely send Justin documents or other files online, visit our SecureDrop page.
Jessica Huseman covers voting rights and election administration for ProPublica.
Isaac Arnsdorf is a reporter at ProPublica covering national politics.
Dara Lind covers immigration policy for ProPublica in Washington, DC.
Lydia DePillis covers trade and the economy.
Sally Beauvais is an engagement reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative.
Ash Ngu is a journalist, designer and developer with ProPublica Illinois.
Featured image is by Brian Scagnelli, special to ProPublica
Lost in this whole pandemic hysteria are some key considerations that when carefully analyzed place the whole COVID-19 narrative in a highly questionable light. The gatekeepers of information dissimulation are manufacturing consent at an alarming rate, but their fatigue is setting in, and their masks are falling off. What better, albeit unlikely, source to go for some much needed illumination than the New York Times?
During a considerably quieter time, back in 2007, the New York Times featured a very interesting exposé on molecular diagnostic testing — specifically, the inadequacy of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in achieving reliable results. The most significant concern highlighted in the Times report is how molecular tests, most notably the PCR, are highly sensitive and prone to false positives. At the center of the controversy was a potential outbreak in a hospital in New Hampshire that proved to be nothing more than “ordinary respiratory diseases like the common cold.” Unfortunately, the results wrought by the PCR told a different story.
Thankfully, a faux epidemic was avoided but not before thousands of workers were furloughed and given antibiotics and ultimately a vaccine, and hospital beds (including some in intensive care) were taken out of commission. Eight months later, what was thought to be an epidemic was deemed a non-malicious hoax. The culprit? According to “epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists … too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test .. led them astray.” At the time, such tests were “coming into increasing use” as maybe “the only way to get a quick answer in diagnosing diseases like … SARS, and deciding whether an epidemic is under way.”
Nevertheless, today, the PCR test is considered the gold standard of molecular diagnostics, most notably in the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, a closer analysis reveals that the PCR has actually been pretty spotty and that false positives abound. Thankfully, the New York Times is once again on the case.
“Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive; Maybe It Shouldn’t Be,” according to NYT reporter Apoorva Mandavilli. Essentially, positive results are getting tossed around way too frequently. Rather, they should probably be reserved for individuals with “greater viral load.” So how have they’ve been doing it all this time you ask?
“The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample . .. the more likely the patient is to be contagious.”
Unfortunately, the “cycle threshold” has been ramped up. What happens when it’s ramped up? Basically, “huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus” are deemed infected. However, the severity of the infection is never quantified, which essentially amounts to a false positive. Their level of contagion is essentially nil.
How are they determining the cycle threshold? If I didn’t suspect that it was based on maximizing the amount of “cases,” I would find the determination pretty arbitrary. More than a few of the professionals on record for Times report appear pretty perplexed on this vital detail which is essentially driving “clinical diagnostics, for public health and policy decision-making.” Considering all that’s at stake and everything that hinges on positive vs negative case tallies, it’s outrageous that these tests would be tweaked in a way that would inflate the positive rate totals and percentages. According to one virologist, “any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive.” She went on to to say, “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive.”
Personally, I think the science is just about settled on COVID-19. The conclusion? We’ve been duped!
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Featured image: Public domain image from Wiki’s COVID-Protest page.
Congressmen Eliot Engel (D-NY) and a number of his colleagues from both sides of the isle have introduced legislation into the House that would prohibit the sale of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE unless a long list of conditions are met that would ensure the sale doesn’t jeopardize Israel’s “Qualitative Military Edge,” something which the U.S. is beholden to do under federal law involving arms sales in the Middle East.
To say nothing of the UAE’s complicity with the war of genocide in Yemen, Engel maintains that it’s Congress’ job to ensure that Israel maintains the ability to militarily outgun any of their Muslim neighbors.
Stating that the Trump Administration has no qualms about selling arms to dangerous governments, which as seen from the exercise of his Presidential veto on 22 joint resolutions which passed the Senate last year, is true, Engel resolves that “it’s up to Congress to consider the ramifications of allowing new partners to purchase the F-35 and other advanced systems”.
“We need to know that such weapons will be used properly and in a way aligned with our security interests, which include protecting Israel’s qualitative military edge and ensuring adversaries can’t get their hands on American technology,” said Engel, who chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee.
It’s already to the great shame of the Obama and Trump administrations that the United States launched, continued, and then failed to stop, the Saudi-UAE persecution of the Yemenis, which has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by the UN. It’s been more than a year since the UN models predicted that at least 140,000 victims of the war on the people of Yemen have been children under the age of 5, and the same report predicted that if things carried on in the same vein that the number would become 316,000, and the total human deaths closer to half a million.
The Yemen Civil War
In 2015 when the former Saudi-supported President of Yemen, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was chased out of Sanaa by a Zaydi-Shia rebel group called the Houthis, Saudi Arabia took charge of a military coalition that includes Bahrain, the UAE, the United States, France, Senegal, Qatar, and Morocco, called the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen.
Radio host and foreign policy expert Scott Horton has described it as “a deliberate campaign of genocide against the civilian population,” while adding that his sources claim American Air Force pilots fly in the Saudi and Emirati jets “all the way to the target”.
Blockades of the ports in the south of Yemen by the UAE have contributed to the food shortages that in 2018 were placing 13 million men, women, and children at risk of starvation.
Yemen has also played host to the largest cholera epidemic in recent history, and in 2017, approximately 700,000 cases of cholera had been recorded according to Human Rights Watch.
The United States has been selling weapons to the Saudis and Emiratis for years, and it has been airstrikes that have been responsible for the vast majority of battlefield deaths in the conflict.
As Shi’ites, the Houthis violated the United States’ stance in the Middle East of restricting Iranian influence in the region, and it’s been alleged by the Pentagon and State Department that the Houthis are funded by Iran.
However al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the direct perpetrators of the September 11th attacks, is also present in the country, aiding and ignoring the Sunni Saudi-UAE coalition forces. In reality, the U.S. stands only 2 degrees of separation away from flying as al-Qaeda’s air support in the War in Yemen.
Taking all this into account, it doesn’t seem possible that a man with even half a heart would fail to suggest that sales of advanced fighter jets to a country actively bombing a civilian population in league with AQAP, should be the principle topic in any legislation to restrict the sale of arms, an action which Congress has limited involvement in.
However, as Philip Weiss recently wrote, Engel is nothing if not ardently aware of every potential threat towards Israel.
Dual Loyalties
Receiving nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions from right-wing pro-Israel groups, Engel bragged at an American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) meeting that “there’s a bunch of legislation coming out of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I want to tell you that I sit down with AIPAC on every piece of legislation that comes out. I think it’s very, very important. In the past 30 years I have attended 31 consecutive AIPAC conferences in March, I haven’t missed one”.
Supporting progressive policies like the Green New Deal, universal American healthcare, better treatment of immigrants, and higher minimum wages hasn’t stopped Engel from ensuring Israel is continually militarized and protected against all things, even from his colleagues’ occasional criticism of their treatment of the Palestinian people.
Engel has been chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee since 1994, and could be considered as a paramount force in pushing the base of the Democratic Party towards the U.S.-Israeli alliance. He criticized Trump for withdrawing troops from Germany, since Germany is used by the United States as one of the closest American power centers to the Middle East.
He is the perfect example of men in Washington that have, as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MI) described last year, “dual loyalties”.
“Protecting Israel’s qualitative military edge,” is something that Engel has devoted his whole career to, and so it’s unsurprising that the focus of the proposed arms limitations for the UAE is how it affects Israel, even though she recently normalized relations with the UAE after 26 years, and not on how it may affect the people of Yemen.
Far from simply idle tunnel vision, Engel boasted in his 2018 AIPAC speech about becoming head of the Appropriations Committee, in addition to the Foreign Affairs Committee, meaning that at any time he could rally his fellow Congressmen, who last year voted in the House and Senate to invoke the War Powers Resolution to end all support to the Saudi-UAE bombing in Yemen, to alter the National Defense Authorization Act so as to appropriate nothing for Yemen-related activities.
Instead the NDAA for fiscal year 2021 added no such restrictions on the allowances for action in Yemen, leaving almost nothing in American law to protect the Yemenis.
All they have to hope for now is that Engel’s law passes, and the UAE doesn’t violate two subject lines in the bill which state: “the recipient country will not violate international humanitarian law or internationally recognized human rights,” and “the recipient country will consult with the United States relating to the mission, flight plan, and purpose of use of the weapons.”
International law forbids war on civilians, targeting civilian infrastructure, and targeting international aid facilities, but a lot of good those laws have done the Yemenis thus far.
It’s for speculation why men like Engel and Trump care so much about Israel and the UAE, and so little about Yemen, even though it’s Yemen that the world will look back on in the 2030s as potentially the site of the greatest tragedy of the century, the culpability of which rests largely in the lands of the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
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Andy Corbley is an American writer based in Italy, and the founder and editor of World at Large News, a small news outlet focusing on American foreign policy, travel, health and fitness, and environmental news.
The forecast of 4,000 people dying per day from COVID-19 by next month could be four or five times too high and does not reflect the current situation, a leading Oxford professor has warned.
The incredible figure was presented by Sir Patrick Vallance during Saturday’s TV briefing where the Prime Minister announced the UK would be thrust into a second lockdown.
But it has emerged the forecasts are out of date and inaccurate, with SAGE accused of ‘misleading’ the public and MPs by cherry-picking the scariest data.
Professor Carl Heneghan from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford said he ‘cannot understand why they have used this data’.
The 4,000 deaths per day forecast was based on the assumption of there being an average of 1,000 per day at the start of November. The real number is significantly lower, with 162 confirmed for yesterday in the whole UK.
The scenario of 4,000 deaths a day by December is based on there being an average of 1,000 deaths per day in the UK right now. In reality the daily average was 182 last week, according to Department of Health data.
Conservative MPs said they were worried the forecasts were ‘misleading’.
David Davis told the Telegraph: ‘The first responsibility of the scientific advisors to the Government is to give the truth to the public and not to cherry-pick the data.
‘This is a fairly major error on their part if they’ve used old data which effectively misleads the public.’
Steve Baker, who was initially support of a second lockdown, said: ‘This evidence does appear to indicate that the death models are already wrong and by quite a considerable margin.’
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One of the lesser known aspects of Keir Starmer’s assault on the left of his party since becoming Labour leader is his growing silence on Palestine.
Silencing the Palestinian lobby in Britain has always been a goal of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which has gone to some lengths to condition debate inside the Labour Party on Israel.
In 2017, an Al Jazeera documentary exposed the efforts of the ministry’s man in London, Shai Masot, to start a youth wing in the Labour Party. Masot was also filmed by an undercover reporter saying he wanted to “take down” government ministers and MPs considered to be causing “problems” for Israel.
When Masot was rumbled and expelled, a continuous feed of Jeremy Corbyn’s meetings as a backbench MP with Palestinians, dating back in some cases over a decade, was created to stoke the furore over the then-Labour leader.
This feed was doctored.
When Corbyn met three Hamas politicians whose Jerusalem IDs had been revoked and had staged a sit-in a tent in the grounds of the Red Cross (this was a cause celebre at the time and many Israelis went to show solidarity with the case), the presence of a second Labour MP, Andy Slaughter, who is not a Corbyn ally but is pro-Palestinian, was excised from British reports.
However, a picture of Slaughter appeared in Israeli news channel i24’s exclusive of “Corbyn’s secret visit” in its report in 2018, which was eight years after the MPs’ visit took place in November 2010.
Role of Shin Bet
The precise details of Corbyn’s visit to Israel in 2010, including who was on it, who arranged it and who they met, were monitored and logged by Israel’s domestic security service, Shin Bet.
When these visits were over, Shin Bet invited Corbyn’s local fixer in for what turned out to be five hours of questioning in a police station in Haifa.
Shin Bet told her they were relaxed about her charity work for the Palestinian cause, but would not tolerate her campaigning inside the Houses of Parliament in the UK.
If she did not heed the warning, she would spend the rest of her days in prison as an enemy of the state. Her lawyer told her that such a charge could indeed be fabricated against her and that an Israeli court would send her to prison if this happened. She is an Israeli citizen.
At the very least, the warnings given to Corbyn’s fixer confirm that Israel’s security services had set their sights on the MP at least five years before he became Labour leader and long before antisemitism in Labour became a newsworthy issue.
Nobody in the Labour Party was bothered with Corbyn’s travels, which certainly were not secret. He was a backbencher on the fringes of the party. Only Shin Bet took note.
The smear campaign has been wonderfully effective. Of course, many groups joined in for different reasons, including people indifferent to the conflict in Palestine who had shown no past interest in it.
The compromising material of Corbyn’s past contacts would have had no purchase had there not been a determination within the Parliamentary Labour Party and at Labour headquarters to stop Corbyn at all costs. But taken together, it worked.
A poll conducted by Survation last year asked member of the British public who were aware of antisemitism in Labour what percentage of party members had complaints against them.
Their mean average reply was 34 percent. The real figure is a fraction of one percent. The perception of antisemitism was over 300 times the reality in Corbyn’s party.
Palestine lost
Since becoming leader, Keir Starmer has avoided contact with Palestinian leaders, either in Israel or in Britain.
Starmer has had two opportunities to engage.
On 26 June this year, 15 members of the Knesset who comprise the Joint List wrote to all party leaders in Britain to urge them to “actively oppose” attempts by Israel to annex territory unilaterally.
The Joint List, the main coalition representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, is the third largest group of MKs in the parliament. The letter was sent by Yousef Jabareen, the head of the Joint List’s international committee.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson instructed one of his ministers, James Cleverly, minister of state for the Middle East and North Africa, to reply.
“We continue to urge Israel not to take these steps. The prime minister has conveyed the UK’s opposition to unilateral annexation to Prime Minister Netanyahu on multiple occasions,” Cleverly wrote.
Starmer did not reply, and still has not replied. Jabareen received an automated reply from Starmer’s office, telling him that he receives hundreds of emails each day.
On 16 September, a group of leading British Palestinians, many of whom were members of Labour, but some not, wrote an open letter to the Labour Party insisting on “the right of Palestinians to accurately describe our experiences of dispossession and oppression” and rejecting Labour’s attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
The letter was accompanied by emails to Starmer to set up a meeting. They were told that Starmer was too busy to meet them. They were referred to Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, who also declined to meet them.
A ‘dressing down’
However when Stephen Kinnock, who comes from the right wing of the party and is a bitter critic of Corbyn, called in a parliamentary debate for the UK to “ban all products that originate from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories”, Nandy found the time to intervene.
Nandy told the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council – according to a source quoted by MailOnline – that Kinnock, a consistent and long-standing critic of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, had been given a “dressing down” for his remarks made during the Commons debate.
“Lisa made no secret of the fact she and the leader were angry with Kinnock,” the source is quoted as saying.
“Especially after all the work that has been done to try and restore Labour’s relationship with the Jewish community.”
Nandy herself proposed a ban on the import of goods from illegal settlements in the West Bank, but only if Israel pressed ahead with annexation.
Starmer’s sole intervention in this debate occurred when he was asked by Jewish News about sanctions and he stressed the need instead to maintain a “strong working relationship with Israel”.
Image on the right: Starmer speaking at a leadership hustings in Bristol in February 2020 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Starmer said:
“I don’t agree with annexation and I don’t think it’s good for security in the region, and I think it’s very important that we say that.
“Whether sanctions follow is another matter but at the moment let’s resolve this in the proper way. But this is not good for security in the region. That should be a paramount consideration.”
When pressed further, he added:
“There needs to be a strong working relationship where we are able to exchange views frankly, as you would with an ally and on some of these issues, a frank exchange is what we most need, I think.”
Labour’s history
This Monday marks 103 years since the Balfour Declaration committed British governments to support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The 1917 document predates Labour’s emergence as a political force in the years after World War One, but the party has a history of its own in the Middle East which no leader can ignore.
In 1944, when the territory of Palestine was still under British control, its national executive committee authored a motion, passed by conference, which read: “Palestine surely is a case, on human grounds and to promote a stable settlement, for transfer of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in. Let them be compensated handsomely for their land and let their settlement elsewhere be carefully organised and generously financed.”
But it has history more recent than that.
The suspension of Corbyn after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into antisemitism last week contrasts with Corbyn’s treatment of Tony Blair, who as a former Labour prime minister was excoriated by the 2016 Chilcot Report over his decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
John Chilcot, a former senior diplomat, eviscerated Blair, stopping short of accusing him of lying to parliament.
Chilcot said that at the time of the invasion, Saddam Hussein “posed no imminent threat” and revealed a private note that Blair sent to Bush in July 2002 which read: “I will be with you, whatever.”
In a two-hour press conference following the publication of the report, Blair was unrepentant. “I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer,” he declared.
He argued that he had acted in good faith, based on intelligence at the time which said that Iraq’s president had weapons of mass destruction. This “turned out to be wrong”.
Corbyn’s suspension
Corbyn offered a total apology on behalf of the party for the decision to invade Iraq.
He said:
“So I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003. That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed. They have paid the greatest price for the most serious foreign policy calamity of the last 60 years.”
He went on:
“The apology is also owed to the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq or who have returned home injured or incapacitated. They did their duty but it was in a conflict they should never have been sent to.”
Blair at the time was just a member of the party, in the same situation as Corbyn was last week.
Corbyn, however, did not suspend Blair for not apologising and uttering words which went against the party line.
Instead, the opposite was happening. The “party of war” within the Parliamentary Labour Party went on the offensive against the leadership.
MPs who had backed the Iraq war, and consistently voted against inquiries into it, went after Corbyn.
Of the 71 MPs who voted no confidence in Corbyn in 2016 and who had been in parliament in 2003, 92 percent had voted in favour of the Iraq war and seven against.
In justifying his action to suspend Corbyn, Starmer said that the former leader had defied his response to the EHRC report, which condemned anyone trying to claim that antisemitism had been exaggerated for political reasons.
The night before the report was published, Starmer phoned Corbyn to say he would not be condemning him by name in his statement of reply to the EHRC report. Corbyn and his team repeatedly asked Starmer what he would say in his statement. Starmer said he would send them his lines.
Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, also promised Corbyn’s team that she would send them the lines of Starmer’s statement. Both failed to do so. The reactions of the two men were thus set on collision course.
Corbyn appeared as if he was defying the leadership, even though at the time he spoke, he had no idea what Starmer would say on a key point that defined their dispute.
Corbyn subsequently failed to back down, but one possibility is that Starmer’s team knew what Corbyn would say, while Corbyn himself was kept in the dark until it was too late.
The left bites back
Corbyn did not defend himself against allegations that he tolerated antisemitism or that he himself was an antisemite, claims that are still being made today. To the extent that he let this campaign run unchallenged in the High Court, he himself is responsible.
On the day Corbyn was suspended, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the original complainant in the EHRC investigation, wrote to Starmer and David Evans, the general secretary, demanding investigations into 32 members of the Labour Party, including Angela Rayner, Starmer’s current deputy, and 10 other MPs.
In response, seven trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party and one which backed Starmer as candidate, published a statement expressing “serious concern” about the manner and rationale for Corbyn’s suspension, suggesting it had undermined party unity and democratic processes.
Far from being his “Clause 4” moment – the issue that Tony Blair used to define New Labour by dropping the party’s historic commitment to state ownership of key industries – the suspension of Corbyn could define Starmer’s leadership in the same way that Blair’s decision to invade Iraq has cast a shadow over everything a man elected three times as prime minister did. The ghosts of Iraq follow Blair around to this day.
Quite apart from the fate of Corbyn, support for Palestine is much greater in the party than Starmer is comfortable with. Palestine, which he knows about much less than Corbyn, is his blindspot.
Unless Corbyn is reinstated quickly, the decision to suspend him from the party could prove to be a permanent and defining stain on Starmer’s leadership.
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David Hearst is the editor in chief of Middle East Eye. He left The Guardian as its chief foreign leader writer. In a career spanning 29 years, he covered the Brighton bomb, the miner’s strike, the loyalist backlash in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Northern Ireland, the first conflicts in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia and Croatia, the end of the Soviet Union, Chechnya, and the bushfire wars that accompanied it. He charted Boris Yeltsin’s moral and physical decline and the conditions which created the rise of Putin. After Ireland, he was appointed Europe correspondent for Guardian Europe, then joined the Moscow bureau in 1992, before becoming bureau chief in 1994. He left Russia in 1997 to join the foreign desk, became European editor and then associate foreign editor. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he worked as education correspondent.
The mainstream pro-Biden media is poking fun at Donald Trump’s suggestion that there could be fraud involved in the post-election receipt of mail-in ballots. Apparently they’re not familiar with the election-theft case of Lyndon Johnson, who would go on to become president of the United States.
The entire matter is detailed in Robert Caro’s second book in his biographical series on Johnson. The book is entitled Means of Ascent.
Johnson election theft took place in 1948, when he was running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, one of the most admired and respected governors in the history of the state.
In the primary election, Stevenson led Johnson by 70,000 votes, but because he didn’t have a majority of the votes, he was forced into a run-off. The run-off was held on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning after the run-off, Stevenson was leading by 854 votes.
As a New York Timesreview of Caro’s account stated, the day after the run-off election it was “discovered” that the returns of a particular county had not yet been counted. The newly discovered votes were overwhelmingly in favor of Johnson. Then, on Monday more returns came in from the Rio Grande Valley.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday, the State Election Bureau announced that Stevenson had won by 349 votes. Nothing changed on Wednesday and Thursday after the election. On Friday, precincts in the Rio Grande Valley made “corrections” to their tallies, which narrowed Stevenson’s lead to 157.
But also on Friday, Jim Wells County, which was governed as a personal fiefdom by a powerful South Texas rancher named George Parr, filed “amended” returns for what has become famous as “Box 13” that gave Johnson another 200 votes. When all was said and done, Johnson had “won” the election by 87 votes.
It was later discovered that one of Parr’s men had changed the total tally for Johnson from 765 to 965 by simply curling the 7 into a 9.
Where did the extra 200 votes come from? The last 202 names on on the election roll in Box 13 were in a different color ink from the rest of the names, the names were in alphabetical order, and they were all in the same handwriting. When Caro was researching his book, he secured a statement from Luis Salas, an election judge in Jim Wells County, who acknowledged the fraud and confessing his role in it.
As the Washington Postreported, to investigate what obviously appeared quite suspicious Stevenson employed the assistance of Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who had trapped and killed Bonnie and Clyde. It was to no avail. Johnson got a friendly state judge to issue an injunction preserving the status quo, after which the Democratic executive committee, by one vote, declared Johnson to be the winner.
Stevenson took the matter to federal court but the Supreme Court punted, declaring that it had no right to interfere with a state election.
So, Lyndon Johnson stole the election and ended up going to Washington as Texas’ U.S. Senator. Ironically, if Stevenson had become the state’s senator instead, Johnson would never have been selected to be John Kennedy’s vice-presidential running mate and, consequently, would never have been president.
No wonder Donald Trump is worried about those Democrats! For that matter, those Democrats should be just as worried about those Republicans!
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.
“Caring for each other. Because we are all in this together.”
What a blatant hijacking of virtue. I simply can’t see something like that and not speak out. If for no other reason, because I don’t want to become numb and accepting to such brainwashing. They might as well point at the moon and tell us it’s the sun. What is caring about any of these pointless and unwarranted COVID-19 restrictions?
When one looks at the facts they will not find any proof that there ever was a deadly coronavirus pandemic. And even the mainstream media admits to the many harms of the (ineffective) corona containment measures.
Notwithstanding, we have the WHO locking people up, the media counting common cold infections like they were cases of the Bubonic plague and church bizares selling homemade masks.
These types of contradictions set up stress within peoples’ heads.
The government is committing harmful acts against its own people while calling such actions “caring,” “compassionate” and “keeping everybody safe.”
“No! There’s no way our government would do such a thing. You’re nuts! You need help!” Someone emailed me this not-so-convincing argument last week.
Sadly, one only has to look to recent Canadian history to see that the government has committed far worse acts against 150,000 aboriginal children from 1879 until 1986. Richard Wagamese summarizes the life of these native children, abducted from their homes and forced into labour camps (disguised as schools), run by pedophiles (disguised as priests), in his book Indian Horse:
“The beatings hurt. The threats belittled us. The incessant labour wearied us, made us old before our time. The death, disease, and disappearances filled us with fear. But perhaps what terrified us most were the nighttime invasions…. We’d push our faces into our pillows or bury our heads beneath our blankets, to drown out the surf of woe that came each night… Other times boys would be led from the dorms. Where they went and what happened to them was never spoken of.”
The next morning the children would be seated in the chapel for Mass, at the end of which the priest would proclaim: “We brought you here here to save you from heathen ways, to bring you to the light of salvation of the one true God. What you learn here will raise you up, make you worthy, cleanse your body, and purify your spirit.”
But the government wasn’t aware of what was going on, one might argue.
Really? John S. Milloy’s A National Crime cites a review printed in a 1908 by the Honourable S.H. Blake, for the Minister of Indian Affairs, which says: “The appalling number of deaths among the younger children appeals loudly to the guardians of our Indians. In doing nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the Department within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter.”
Five years earlier, Dr. J. P. Rice arrived to serve as principal of Red Deer Industrial Institute in Alberta. He reported: “… the sight of the ragged ill-kempt and sickly looking children was sufficient to make me sick at heart.”
Compulsory schooling and mainstream media has done a good job at teaching us to believe what we are told, not what we perceive. That’s why history is able to repeat such crimes. Governments have a reputation for sinking into tyranny under the guise of keeping its trusting masses safe.
Albert Camus said in his essay, A Homage in Exile: “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”
This type of tyrannical caring appears to be happening again as countries return to self-destructive lockdowns. But the COVID crimes can be stopped. We need only trust our own common sense, look at the facts and resist in any way we can.
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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.
The richest and most powerful country on earth — whether due to ineptitude, choice or some combination of both — has no ability to perform the simple task of counting votes in a minimally efficient or confidence-inspiring manner. As a result, the credibility of the voting process is severely impaired, and any residual authority the U.S. claims to “spread” democracy to lucky recipients of its benevolence around the world is close to obliterated.
At 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the day after the 2020 presidential elections, the results of the presidential race, as well as control of the Senate, are very much in doubt and in chaos. Watched by rest of the world — deeply affected by who rules the still-imperialist superpower — the U.S. struggles and stumbles and staggers to engage in a simple task mastered by countless other less powerful and poorer countries: counting votes. Some states are not expected to finished their vote-counting until the end of this week or beyond.
The same data and polling geniuses who pronounced that Hillary Clinton had a 90% probability or more of winning the 2016 election, and who spent the last three months proclaiming the 2020 election even more of a sure thing for the Democratic presidential candidate, are currently insisting that Biden, despite being behind in numerous key states, is still the favorite by virtue of uncounted ballots in Democrat-heavy counties in the outcome-determinative states. [One went to sleep last night with the now-notorious New York Times needle of data guru Nate Cohn assuring the country that, with more than 80% of the vote counted in Georgia, Trump had more than an 80% chance to win that state, only to wake up a few hours later with the needle now predicting the opposite outcome; that all happened just a few hours after Cohn assured everyone how much “smarter” his little needle was this time around].
NYT’s predictive needle for Georgia less than four hours later, at 12:12 a.m., early Wednesday morning.
Given the record of failures and humiliations they have quickly compiled, what rational person would trust anything they say at this point? A citizen randomly chosen from the telephone book would be as reliable if not more so for sharing predictions. And the monumental failures of the polling industry and the data nerds who leech off it, for the second consecutive national election, only serve to sow even further doubt and confusion around the electoral process.
A completely untrustworthy voting count is now the norm. Two months after the New York state primary in late June, two Congressional races were in doubt by what The New York Times called “major delays in counting a deluge of 400,000 mail-in ballots and other problems.” In particular:
Thousands more ballots in the city were discarded by election officials for minor errors, or not even sent to voters until the day before the primary, making it all but impossible for the ballots to be returned in time.
It took a full six weeks for New York to finally declare a winner in those two primary races for Congress.
The coronavirus pandemic and the shutdowns and new votings rules it ushered in have obviously complicated the process, but the U.S. failure to simply count votes with any degree of efficiency, in a way that inspires even minimal confidence in the process, pre-dates the March, 2020 nationwide lockdowns. Even if one dismisses as aberrational the protracted, Court-decided, and still-untrusted outcome of the 2000 presidential election — only four national election cycles ago — the U.S. voting process is rife with major systemic failures and doubt-sowing inefficiencies that can be explained only as a deliberate choice and/or a perfect reflection of a collapsing, crumbling empire.
Recall the mass confusion that ensued back in January, in the very first Democratic Party primary election in the Iowa caucus, where a new app created and monetized by a bunch of sleazy Democratic operatives caused massive delays, confusion and an untrustworthy outcome. Later in the process, many Super Tuesday states — including California — were still counting votes weeks or even longer after the election was held (more than a week after the Democratic primary, California had still only counted roughly 75% of the ballots cast, depriving Bernie Sanders of a critical narrative victory on election night).
The 2018 midterm elections were also marred by pervasive irregularities. The Washington Post noted “thousands of reports of voting irregularities across the country…. with voters complaining of broken machines, long lines and untrained poll workers improperly challenging Americans’ right to vote.”
Voter suppression in NY is rampant and repressive.@NYGovCuomo is acting in the interests of Wall St, Big Pharma, and luxury developers by allowing 1.8 million New Yorkers to languish without representation.
Right in line with GOP tactics to suppress ppl of color at the polls. https://t.co/fsUaixkqrv
And the full extent of the “irregularities” and treacherous outright cheating by the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 primary race between Clinton and Sanders was never fully appreciated given how pro-Clinton the press was. As just one example, “200,000 New York City voters” — many in pro-Sanders precincts — “had been illegally wiped off the rolls and prevented from voting in the presidential primary” (for one of the best-documented histories of just how pervasive were the shenanigans and cheating in the 2016 Democratic primary across multiple key states, listen to this TrueAnon episode).
However one wants to speculate about the motives for all of this, one thing is clear: it does not need to be this way. To eliminate all doubts about that fact, just look at Brazil.
After the pervasive voting problems in the 2018 midterms, I wrote an article with my Brazilian colleague Victor Pougy describing the extraordinary speed and efficiency with which Brazil — a country not exactly renowned for its speed and efficiency — counts its votes.
Brazil is not a small country. It is the fifth most-populous nation on the planet. Although its population is somewhat smaller than the U.S.’s (330 million to 210 million), its mandatory voting law, automatic registration, and 16-year-old voting age means the number of ballots to be counted is quite similar (105 million votes in Brazil’s 2018 presidential election compared to 130 million votes in the 2016 U.S. presidential election). And on the same date of its national elections, it, too, holds gubernatorial and Congressional elections in its twenty-seven states.
And yet Brazil — a much poorer and less technologically advanced country than the U.S., with a much shorter history of democracy — holds seamless, quick vote counts about which very few people harbor doubts. The elections are held on a Sunday, to ensure as many people as possible do not have work obligations to prevent voting, and polls close at 6:00 p.m.
For the 2018 presidential run-off election that led to Jair Bolsonaro’s victory, 90% of all votes were counted and the results released by 6:00 p.m. on the day of the election: the time the last state closed its polls. The full vote tally was available within a couple of hours after that. The same was true of the first-round voting held three weeks earlier — which also included races for governor, Senator and Congress in all the states: full vote totals were released by computer shortly after the polls closed and few had any doubts about their accuracy and legitimacy.
Hundreds of millions of Americans went to bed on Tuesday’s election night seeing Trump in the lead in key states, with the data experts of major outlets indicating that his victory in many of those states was highly likely. They woke up to the opposite indication: that Biden is now a slight favorite to win several if not all of those remaining key states. But what is clear is that it will be days if not longer before the votes are fully counted, with judicial proceedings almost certain to prolong the outcomes even further.
No matter what the final result, there will be substantial doubts about its legitimacy by one side or the other, perhaps both. And no deranged conspiracy thinking is required for that. An electoral system suffused with this much chaos, error, protracted outcomes and seemingly inexplicable reversals will sow doubt and distrust even among the most rational citizens.
The next time Americans hear from their government that they need to impose democracy in other countries — through wars, invasion, bombing campaigns or other forms of clandestine CIA “interference” — they should insist that democracy first be imposed in the United States. An already frazzled, intensely polarized and increasingly hostile populace now has to confront yet another election in the richest and most technologically advanced country on earth where the votes cannot be counted in a way that inspires even minimal degrees of confidence.
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The article below was written by Zafar Syed Zaffsyed for the Pakistan Independent and published on November 2, 2020. The original is available here. The text below was translated by Reprieve staff.
Our thanks to Reprieve for bringing this important article to our attention
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“I learned about my father’s case on Google when I was twelve or thirteen years old, using Wikipedia. My name is Jawad. I am the son of Ahmed Rabbani who is in Guantánamo Bay. I am 17 years old and I have never met my father.”
Jawad Rabbani, the son of Guantánamo Bay detainee Ahmed Rabbani, spoke to an Independent Urdu correspondent in Karachi about his life. Here is his story.
“I was born five or six months after Abu went to prison,” he said. “When I was little, I didn’t tell my friends who my father was and where he was. I used to say he is not in the world. When we first spoke, he said he was in prison. I asked him, ‘Why are you in jail? Are there bad people in jail?’”
Ahmed Rabbani is on hunger strike and says he is prepared to die. He has written a letter to Independent Urdu, stating:
“it is not possible to be released from this prison in life, so I want to die and get rid of this prison. Americans are afraid to starve me to death, so they force-feed me every day, but this is no less than torture.”
Five thousand dollar deal in Musharraf era
According to official US Department of Defense documents published in the New York Times, Rabbani has admitted to being an al-Qaeda facilitator and working directly for al-Qaeda’s senior planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The US considers him “high risk” and claims he should be kept in custody.
Clive Stafford Smith, co-founder of the UK-based human rights organisation Reprieve which is fighting for Ahmed Rabbani’s rights, told The Independent Urdu that Rabbani had no links to al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation. There is no connection and these confessions were obtained from him through torture.
Stafford Smith says Pakistani authorities sold Rabbani to the United States in exchange for $5,000 saying he was a terrorist called Hassan Gul. Oddly enough, the real Hassan Gul was arrested in 2004, held with Rabbani in the same prison, but released by the Americans after only three years. According to Stafford Smith, Hassan Gul rejoined the terrorists and was killed in a drone strike in Waziristan in 2012.
According to a report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Ahmed Rabbani was subjected to “Enhanced Interrogation,” which means torture. [The report notes that he was held in the ‘Dark Prison’ in Afghanistan for 540 days, where he was hung from the ceiling until his shoulders dislocated, beaten, threatened and kept in total isolation and darkness, among other tortures.]
“My volunteer American lawyers documented 60 methods of torture, from ordinary beatings to fake executions,” Rabbani told Independent Urdu.
Ahmed’s hunger strike
Ahmed Rabbani has been imprisoned all this time, and is still being held at Guantánamo Bay. He has started a hunger strike to protest against this.
“Due to the continuous hunger strike, Rabbani has lost 37 kg, and is forced to be given liquid food daily through a tube,” said Stafford Smith.
Mahvish Ahmed Hayat Khan, a human rights lawyer working with Reprieve and author of My Guantánamo Diary, told The Independent Urdu:
“Ahmed Rabbani was arrested due to a misidentification. The United States has acknowledged that they do not have wanted people, but some are still being held captive. This is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law and the US Constitution. 740 out of 780 prisoners have been released before Ahmed, which has made him very depressed.”
In a letter to Independent Urdu, Rabbani writes that he has no choice but to go on a life-threatening hunger strike. “They have kept me locked up for more than 18 years and in my eyes there is no end to this suffering.”
Behaviour of the Dark Ages
Rabbani is force-fed daily to prevent him dying of starvation.
“They are trying to keep me alive, not because they care about me, but because if I die, it will make them look bad. They ruined my life, destroyed my family and subjected me to the Dark Ages,” Rabbani wrote in the letter.
“One day I was wearing a long T-shirt that came down to my knees. I called the supervisor and asked him to take a photo of me so that he could use it in his medical class. Students should learn what a person looks like shortly before their death.”
“I am nothing but skin and bones and I move around with a cane. I’m only 51 but I look like a 95-year-old. I saw my shadow through the window and thought I might be in the movie Unbroken which showed American pilots who died of starvation as prisoners of war in World War II.”
Why are they tortured?
“My American captors also want me to say goodbye to my conscience and my caste for a little food, to betray my religion and morals. It’s not possible for me to do that,” Rabbani wrote.
“Maybe I will finally go to my family in a coffin and escape from Guantánamo completely. I hope that doesn’t happen. But they think that after all these years, they can weaken my peaceful protest with more violence. It’s not going to happen, so I just have to follow the path that has been chosen until the government of Pakistan takes me to my family.”
Reprieve has created a website about Ahmed Rabbani’s hunger strike which can be viewed here.
Ahmed Rabbani’s son Jawad Rabbani, who is studying in Karachi, has written to President Trump about his father’s case, but received no response “If someone commits a crime and it is proven, then it is a different matter, but we do not know why Abu is in jail, nor does Abu know,” Jawad said. “Why is he in jail?”
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The 2020 presidential campaigns have ignored foreign policy more this year than in any election since the turn of the century, but the 2020 election will have significant foreign policy consequences no matter the outcome. The neglect of foreign policy by the campaigns and the media has been a great disservice to the country, since the president wields such extensive power in this area. The choices that a president makes can have devastating effects on tens of millions of people in other countries, and they can sometimes impose huge costs on the United States.
By all rights, foreign policy should account for the majority of what presidential candidates talk about, because it is such a large part of what presidents do once in office, but the public’s lack of interest has created incentives for the candidates and journalists to pay it as little attention as possible. It is no wonder that we have no accountability in foreign policy when foreign policy plays such a small part in the process of selecting a president.
If Trump defies the odds and wins re-election, he will take it as a vindication for his destructive unilateralist policies, and he will presumably be more aggressive in pursuing those policies in a second term. The national security team in a second Trump term will likely be a Who’s Who of the worst hard-liners, possibly including Ric Grenell, Tom Cotton, and Lindsey Graham. A Biden win will in all likelihood lead to an attempt to revive a pre-2016 consensus that was already hollowed out and discredited by the failures of the last two decades.
There will therefore be some major differences in policy depending on the outcome. A Biden win might mean more confrontational policies toward Russia and North Korea, while a Trump victory would all but guarantee continued relentless hostility toward Iran and Venezuela. Tensions with China seem likely to increase in different ways no matter which candidate prevails. Neither candidate is offering foreign policy restraint as we understand it, but a Biden administration might at least be open to some ideas from restrainers. A second Trump term seems likely to be dominated even more by the president’s loyalists and the hard-liners he has surrounded himself with for the last four years.
The final presidential debate included some brief discussion of foreign policy broadly defined, but almost all of that time was consumed by mutual accusations of corruption and taking foreign money. Voters have never heard a substantial exchange of views between the candidates on what they would do overseas in the next four years, because the candidates prefer not to talk about it and no one seems inclined to ask them. Other than attacking Trump over engagement with North Korea and the dubious Russian bounty story, Biden has said very little recently about specific Trump policies that he opposes. During the primaries, we heard some commitments from him that he would treat the Saudis like pariahs, end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen, and reenter the nuclear deal with Iran, but there has been precious little discussion of the other wars that the U.S. continues to wage in at least half a dozen countries. Other than boasting about the Israel normalization agreements that have been concluded in recent months, Trump has said very little about his record because there is so little to tout.
The candidates’ reticence is understandable. Biden’s foreign policy record is hardly awe-inspiring, and at different points he has taken some awful and misguided positions. His vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq is well-known, and it stands out as the worst decision in his career, but we shouldn’t forget that he has been a consistent and vocal backer for NATO expansion, including in Ukraine and Georgia. Adding these countries to the alliance in the near future is very unlikely, but it does not bode well for our government’s Russia policy that the next president could be one of the biggest cheerleaders for this terrible idea. He has repeatedly poured cold water on the idea of engagement with North Korea, and he sticks to an outdated demand for denuclearization that North Korea is never going to accept.
On the plus side, Biden reportedly advised against intervening in Libya, and he opposed Obama’s surge in Afghanistan, but he lost those internal battles and can’t easily criticize those policies without impugning the judgment of the man who chose him to be vice president. If he becomes president, he will be able to get his way, but it is anyone’s guess whether he will follow his more cautious instincts or indulge his more conventional hawkish views. The names being floated as possible choices for Biden’s national security team don’t inspire confidence that it will be the former.
Trump’s foreign policy record has little to recommend it, especially for those interested in restraint. He has made a mockery of real diplomacy with photo-op summits and Potemkin agreements, and at the same time he has thrown up as many roadblocks as possible to impede meaningful negotiations with Iran in the future. Few presidents have talked so much about making deals while delivering so few. The failure to extend New START is a case in point. Even though it would have been very easy, and it would have put some meat on the bones of his promise to cooperate with Russia, he has dithered and dragged his feet with the apparent goal of letting the treaty die. The president has refused to take the foreign policy equivalent of a lay-up because it would require him to acknowledge that his predecessor may have been right about at least one thing. The rest of his arms control agenda amounts to tearing up one treaty after another and inviting a new arms race in Europe.
The Iran crisis that he precipitated when he reneged on the JCPOA has taken the U.S. to the brink of war more than once, and that crisis is far from over. The pitiless economic wars that he has waged on the civilian populations of Iran, Venezuela, and Syria have achieved nothing except to starve and impoverish tens of millions. Pseudo-engagement with North Korea has yielded no results except to interfere with South Korea’s own genuine efforts at rapprochement.
The continued, enthusiastic backing of the Saudis in their war on Yemen and the determination to keep the U.S. involved in that atrocious mean that the president has taken full ownership of an indefensible policy that he has made worse. U.S. support for the Saudi coalition has been going on for five and a half years, but almost four of those years will have been on Trump’s watch. Yemen is the blackest mark on Trump’s record, because it is the most destructive policy and it is the one that he could have easily ended at any point. Congress gave him the perfect opportunity to end U.S. involvement in that war by passing a war powers resolution last year. Instead of doing the right and smart thing by signing it, the president vetoed it. He had a chance to end a foreign war, and he refused because he wants to sell more weapons to the client states that are destroying the poorest country in the region.
Trump and Biden are separated by wide divides on many specific issues, but one thing they continue to have in common is their commitment to maintaining U.S. primacy. The president understands this more in terms of domination and military strength, and Biden is much more supportive of multilateral agreements and institutions, but both remain wedded to an activist U.S. “leadership” role that no longer makes sense for this country. The U.S. will continue to exhaust itself in unnecessary wars and unwise security commitments as long as leaders in both parties believe that U.S. global hegemony and dominance are beyond question. No matter which candidate wins the election, the U.S. will remain committed to a strategy of primacy, and it will be at least another four years before the voters are presented with a serious alternative to that failed strategy.
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Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
This article by the late Andre Vltchek was first published in 2019.
In 2019, I have written a long analysis about “the Uyghur issue”; analysis which will be soon published as a book.
For some time, I have been warning the world that the West, and the United States in particular, are helping to radicalize the Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province and outside.
And not only that: I clearly mapped movement of the Uyghur radicals through some countries like Indonesia, towards Turkey, from where they are then injected into brutal war zones like Idlib in Syria. I worked in Idlib area, with the Syrian commanders, and I spoke at length with the Syrian internally displaced people; victims of the Uyghur genocidal attacks.
The majority of Uyghur people are Muslims. They have their own, ancient, specific culture and most of them are, of course, very decent human beings. Northwest China is their home.
The “problem” is that Urumqi, Xinjiang, are located on the main branch of BRI (The Belt and Road Initiative) – an extremely optimistic, internationalist project which is ready to connect billions of people on all continents. The BRI is infrastructural as well as cultural project, which will soon pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and under-development.
Washington is horrified that China is taking a lead in building a much brighter future for humanity. It is because, if China succeeds, it could be the end of Western imperialism and neo-colonialism, leading to real freedom and independence for dozens of until now suffering nations.
Therefore, Washington has decided to act, in order to preserve the status quo and its dominance over the world.
Step one: to antagonize, provoke and to smear China by all means, be it over Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China Sea or, above mentioned “Uygur Issue”.
Step two: to try to turn a part of China’s constitutionally-recognized national minority – Uyghurs – into “rebels”, or more precisely, terrorists.
Turkey, a member of NATO, offered the U.S. a helping hand. Uyghurs were flown with their families to Istanbul, with Turkish passports, through hubs in Southeast Asia. Then, their passports were confiscated in Istanbul. Many Uyghurs were recruited, trained, and then transported into war-torn Syria. Smaller group stayed in places like Indonesia, joining jihadi cadres there. When terrorist groups in Syria were almost thoroughly defeated, some Uyghurs were moved to Afghanistan, where I also used to work, and investigated.
Needless to say, Afghanistan has a short but important border with China.
Why all this complex operation? The answer is simple: NATO/Washington/West hope that the hardened, well-trained Uyghur jihadi fighters will eventually return home to Xinjiang. There, they would start to fight for “independence”, and while doing that, they would sabotage the BRI.
This way, China would be injured, and its most powerful global project (BRI) would be disrupted.
The Chinese government is, naturally, alarmed. It is clear that the West has prepared brilliant trap: 1) If China does nothing, it will have to face extremely dangerous terrorist threat on its own territory (remember Soviet Union being dragged into Afghanistan, and mortally injured by Western trained, financed and supported Mujahedeen? West has long history of using Islam for its Machiavellian designs). 2) If China does something to protect itself, it will get attacked by the Western media and politicians. Precisely this is what is happening now.
Everything is ready, prepared.
On 12 September 2019, South China Morning Post, reported:
“US Senate passes Uygur Human Rights Policy Act calling for sanctions on Chinese officials over Xinjiang camps
Bill also urges Trump administration to prohibit export of goods and services to state agents in Chinese region where upwards of 1 million Uygurs are being held
Beijing describes move as a ‘gross interference in China’s internal affairs’”
Naturally, the so-called rights act to interfere in Xinjiang’s affairs is one great exercise in hypocrisy and intimidation.
Let us not forget that the United States is treating Muslim people with absolute spite. It even bans them from entering the country, if they happened to live in certain nations. It arbitrarily bombs them in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, worrying nothing about the loss of civilian lives. It tortures Muslims, and it humiliates them at home and even in their own countries.
And frankly: by trying to trigger the Uyghur insurgency in China, Washington is clearly doing a great harm to the Uyghurs themselves, and actually to all people of Northwest China. It is not just wrong; the United States is committing crime against humanity.
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China is a multi-national, multi-cultural country. The Muslim culture is part of PRC’s identity. I suggest anyone who doubts that, to travel to Xi’an, one of three ancient capital cities of China.
Xi’an is where the old great Silk Road originated (ancient BRI, one could argue). Until now it is proud of its tremendous Muslim monuments, as well as of wonderful Muslim food and music. Every year, tens of millions of Chinese visitors travel to Xi’an, to understand its legacy, and enjoy its culture. The city is loved and appreciated, mainly because of its vibrant Muslim identity.
It is thorough nonsense that China is ‘anti-Muslim’. Both China (and Russia) are much more tolerant towards Islam than the West. Historically, and currently.
The same nonsense is to claim that China is building “concentration camps” in Xinjiang.
China’s position is clear: what the West describes as camps, are “vocational training centers” where “trainees” can learn Chinese and gain job skills to stop them becoming victims of “terrorism and religious extremism”. A group of Muslim Indonesian leaders, which gained access to these so-called ‘camps’ in Xinjiang, recently told my colleague, that people who spend some time in these institutions can actually sleep at home, at night.
Hardly a Guantanamo Bay, frankly speaking.
The self-proclaimed “judge”- the United States – has hundreds of high-security prisons, scattered all over the country. It is well known fact that throwing often innocent people to jail is big (privatized) business there, already for long decades. Millions of people are locked in for nothing. How can a country with one of the greatest number of prisoners on earth (on per capita bases) dare to preach anyone about justice? It is actually a great mystery.
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What is the true purpose of such acts?
The answer is easy to define: It is that the determined unwillingness of the U.S. to share influence on the world, with other, much more humanistic countries, such as China; it is its unwillingness to compete, on the basis of great ideas and goodwill.
The more nihilist the U.S. foreign policy becomes, the more it accuses others of ‘murder’.
The way things function is simple: Washington creates some terrible conflict, somewhere. When the victim-country tries to resolve the conflict, and so-to speak ‘extinguish fire’, it is accused of ‘violating rights’ and gets slammed by sanctions.
All this has to stop, at some point, soon. This policy of Washington turns millions of human lives into agony.
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This article was first, in shorter version, published on China Daily.
The great bard remarks in Henry VI: Part II that all the lawyers ought to be killed. In entertaining this homicidal formula, William Shakespeare had yet to encounter that barnacle breed known as the pollster. There is much to suggest that those practising this dark and futile art ought to be done away with, with their special ability to suggest realities buried in the entrails of malleable opinions. Their failings have been regular and profound: the Brexit referendum in 2016; the US presidential victory that same year for Donald J. Trump.
Cue to 2020. The scene set before the November 3 vote: the wooden, barely breathing Joe Biden, whose only claim to fame in this presidential race has been not being Trump. A vote for Biden; a vote for a return to amnesia, self-denial and the fiction of “decency”. Trump, campaigning manically across several swing states in the last days; Biden, doing his little bit in Pennsylvania, strumming his Scranton, working class tune to voters.
Democrats were again counting on the weakness of their opponent, misreading him. Strategists could only see a monster, an apparition that would pass. Left unseen was a campaigner who never left the rally; a person whose four years in office has been one long pitch to retain power. In the meantime, despite the president’s predations and the personalisation of high office, Trump’s supporters have noted the hum of the economy (prior to the coronavirus), delighted in his hard stance on treaties, his pugilism towards Washington’s allies and foes.
The death rate of COVID-19 might have seen him off; indeed, Trump might himself have become a viral casualty were it not for the highly priced medical treatment he received. But even here, this mendacious wonder managed to suggest that he contracted it for the American people, did it for them; the foolish minimiser of disease turned brave warrior, albeit it one with a large medical bill attached.
In this mess were the pollsters – again. Data from Real Clear Politics suggested that Biden would sail into the White House on a sea of blue, ahead with 51 percent compared to Trump’s 44 percent in the seven-day rolling average. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll reported a 10 point lead favouring Biden (52 percent to 42 percent).
Emblematic in all of this was the result in Florida. Victory was secured by Trump by a margin three times that of 2016. The polling suggested that Biden would be breathing easy with a margin of 2.5 points. Another glaring error for the books.
Looking at Florida, John Podhoretz raged, wondering why “we fell for their crap again.” Such polling could only be seen as “a fraud. It claims to measure something that, it is now unmistakably clear, cannot be accurately measured. Polling’s seductive promise is that it will take the guesswork out of understanding a complex and changing set of circumstances and replace that uncertainty with something that looks like science.”
Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson was similarly livid. Suggesting that the polling industry was “dead”, he advocated mass firings. “I could name some of the people who should be fired immediately.”
One figure in the firing line of vituperation was Nate Silver, editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism blog described by Aaron Timms in The New Republic as having “no politics – or rather, no politics beyond a mute approval of the status quo.” Silver has turned into a shape changer over the years, moving beyond the astrology of polling into strident pontifications, some of which are suitably dotty. But elections are meant to be his ham and eggs, and in November 2020, he was nodding the way of a convincing Biden victory.
This prompted Erik Engquist, senior managing editor of The Real Deal, to release a volley of indignation. “How many elections can Nate Silver’s model do this before people stop taking him seriously? It gave Biden a 95% chance to win MI, 94% chance to WI, 69% to win FL etc.” Reuters investigative reporter Joel Schectman suggested that Silver had “a lot of mansplaining to do” though took the barb off his remarks by claiming irony; Ashlee Vance of Businessweekwondered how many poles it would take “for Nate Silver to get a forecast right.”
Away from the convenient, readymade fictions of the polling industry, the US political ground is looking ugly, fractured and desperate. This has not stopped Democrats remaining wrapped up in an entitlement narrative that continues to repel voters with its own form of snobbery. Biden’s promise on Election Day that “there will be no red states or blue states just the United States of America” is supremely fanciful when looking at a country distinctly divided between them. What is abysmal for the Donkey Party this time around is not that Trump just might win (again), but that his record on pandemic mismanagement, politicisation of US institutions and science, to name but a few, did not guarantee a blue stampede. Across the country, the revolted remain in revolt.
Instead, Trump has managed to turn the political fabric of the US inside out, sowing seeds of chaos and now, with a promise of litigation, to reap them in the various courts of the country. His overt turn to hucksterism – the claim that an electoral fraud has been committed – is very fitting. “This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.” The pollsters have now been replaced by the vote counters. The lawyers, far from being done away with, are being hired by the platoon.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
In my article last week, ‘Why the Record Vote Turnout May Not Matter’, I predicted the election via electoral college would look very much like 2016: the 3 swing states (PA, MI, WI) would determine the outcome again, and maybe one other state could flip (either Arizona or, less likely, North Carolina). I predicted, as of a week ago, the electoral college vote was very close, with 244 votes for Biden and 248 for Trump.
As of last night, Nov. 3 late, it was exactly that, according to CNN. 44 to 248. This morning, Nov. 4, it’s come down to NV, AZ, WI, MI likely ending up for Biden once final votes are counted; and GA, NC likely for Trump. With Pennsylvania undetermined for days yet. And maybe weeks should Trump take legal action to stop the mail in vote count, which is likely.
As I also predicted last week, Trump came before the TV cameras late last night Nov. 3 and declared the election was a fraud, that the vote counting of mail in ballots should halt in all the swing states only, and that he was going to the US Supreme Court.
Democrats’ naive prediction during the election that they would carry several of the big red states: Texas, Florida, Ohio turned out, as I predicted in my article last week, to be ‘wishful thinking’. As I argued then, these states were long time notorious voter suppression states and would remain Trump’s. Georgia and Florida each already prevented the right to vote, or have impounded, hundreds of thousands of eligible voters in each of those two states, as reported by investigative journalist, Greg Palast.
As of noon today, Nov. 4, should Biden win MI, WI, NV, AZ, where he now leads, and also carry the one special district in Nebraska, he will then have 269 electoral college votes. He won’t win GA or NC. And Pennsylvania is undetermined.
So where could Biden get votes to put him over the required 270? Only one state left: Maine with its 4 votes.
If this scenario holds, the US election will be therefore determined by less than five votes. The country remains fundamentally split and divided.
The policy gridlock concerning economic stimulus will likely continue as a result, as the Senate appears will remain in Republican hands and Senate votes will be driven by the Republican right wing led by Rand Paul who wants no more stimulus but wants more austerity cuts to government spending.
Republicans in Senate will continue their stacking of the Federal courts, and will rely on the ideological partner of the US Supreme Court, with its 6-3 Trump majority, from time to time, to help them block and undermine legislation already passed.
In many ways the election map now looks very much like 2016, with one or so states flipping Democrat but not much change except two ‘blue wall’ swing states going Biden by very thin margins.
In terms of government policy to follow, however, the country will look more like 2012–with McConnell’s Republican Senate thwarting initiatives on economics (stimulus, health, jobs, taxes, etc.) by the US House of Representatives and President (presuming Biden wins).
Consequences for the US economy are not good. The chances are less than 50-50 that a stimulus bill of necessary proportions will be passed before January 2021, just as Covid worsens and dampens household spending and business investment. But big corporations will be happy with this continued gridlock, since it means it is unlikely their massive 2018 tax cut of $4 trillion plus will be reversed for another four years, as the McConnell Senate now prevents all efforts to raise revenues for stimulus spending.
Another important outcome of the election is that the Democrats have actually lost seats in the US House, but not yet control. They expected a ‘blue wave’ that did not occur. The Democrats also failed to take back the US Senate. And Biden as president has no clear mandate. They are in a very weak position to make changes but in a position to be blamed for the failure to make changes which will have negative impact on them in 2022 midterm elections.
The Democrats failure in general, apart from maybe squeaking out a presidential win, shows their election strategy was wrong. As I argued back in November 2018 after the midterms, their strategy of focusing on the suburbs and upper middle class professionals and independents, would not succeed in a general election. It hasn’t.
So where does the country go politically from here?
First, Trump will not go away. That means not just leave office quietly–but also Trump as a social-movement will remain and likely grow stronger as his base believes the election was ‘stolen’ from him as he so often warned. Trump is an unstable, reactionary social movement, not just an unstable individual.
Second, both political parties may split before 2024 (and certainly before 2028) causing a basic party realignment in the US.
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Dr. Jack Rasmus writes on his blog site where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces and their allies continue to storm Armenian positions in the mountainous terrain near Shusha and the Lachin corridor in Nagorno-Karabakh. After making rapid advances, the Azerbaijani forces now appear to be stuck in a kind of positional fighting. The intensity of the clashes has not lessened and both sides still regularly suffer notable casualties. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani forces are still deployed just south of Shushi and pose a serious threat to the defenders of the town. Some sources say that they are now even regularly shelling the road linking the Lachin corridor to the town. If the reports about the Azerbaijani side having fire control over the road turn out to be true, the situation in Shusha for the Armenian forces will become more and more difficult as the fighting continues.
Armenia, from its side, insists that its forces have been successfully repelling all Azerbaijani attacks. For example, on November 3, the Armenians reportedly repelled an Azerbaijani attack in the Karvachar area killing at least 6 troops, destroying 2 battle tanks and capturing an infantry fighting vehicle. An alleged ‘special forces unit’ of Azerbaijan was also ambushed by Armenian forces near Tagavard. As of November 4, the Armenian military says that its forces have surrounded – and are working to eliminate – another group of Azerbaijani troops south of Shusha.
Meanwhile, the number of Azerbaijani casualties claimed by Armenia since the start of the war has reached 7,095. 251 UAVs, 16 helicopters, 25 planes, 685 armoured vehicles and 6 rocket launchers have allegedly also been destroyed.
Azerbaijan reports regular successes on the battlefield while pro-Azerbaijani sources vow to capture Shusha and the Lachin corridor in the coming days (which is unlikely due to the heavy fortifications in the area). Armenian saboteur groups also appear in statements by the Azerbaijani military as a permanent factor impacting the situation behind the frontlines. Azerbaijan still has a lot of work to do if it wants to secure the recently captured areas.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry officially confirms operations in the Tartar, Aghdam, Khojavend, Zangilan and Gubadli areas. According to them, on November 3 and November 4, a large number of Armenian forces, two T-72 tanks, three D-30 howitzer-guns, a “Zastava M-55” anti-aircraft gun, a tactical UAV, and 3 military trucks were destroyed.
In an interview with the La Repubblica newspaper, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that he is ready to stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. This statement was covered by Armenian sources as a kind of sign of an imminent Armenian victory due to the fact that Azerbaijani forces are exhausted by heavy clashes and casualties and that winter is coming. In fact, Aliyev repeated that Armenia must agree on the withdrawal of troops from the contested region for peace to be achieved and said that the only possible compromise with Yerevan is Armenian withdrawal from Azerbaijani territory.
In general, the Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc still keeps the initiative but the Armenians used their chance to stabilize the situation and if Baku does not achieve a breakthrough in the coming month, the deteriorating weather conditions together with increasing losses will slow down the Azerbaijani advance even further. The issue of the presence of Turkish-backed Syrian militants fighting on the side of Azerbaijan also does not play into the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey.
In an interview with Kommersant, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the number of Turkish-backed militants in the area had reached 2,000.
“We are, of course, concerned about the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the involvement of militants from the Middle East. We have repeatedly called on external players to use their capabilities to stop the transfer of mercenaries, whose number in the conflict zone, according to available data, is already approaching two thousand,” he said.
The Armenian leadership seems to understand this and recently increased its media and diplomatic activity using the ‘anti-terrorist narrative’. If Yerevan is able to convince the international audience that the actions of the Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc in Nagorno-Karabakh increase the terrorist threat not only in the South Caucasus but also in Europe, it will become much easier for Armenia to receive additional support in the ongoing standoff.
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After months of campaigning and a record $14 billion spent by the Trump and Biden teams, it all comes down to results in 5 battleground states.
Here’s where things stand at the moment with vote counting still ongoing:
Pennsylvania: Trump leads by 9.1% — with 36% of votes to be counted, most mail-in ones favoring the challenger.
Keystone State results may be decisive. Pre-election, I told a friend that if Trump wins PA, Ohio and Florida, he should triumph over Biden.
Wisconsin: Biden up by 0.6% — with 5% of votes to be counted.
Michigan: Biden ahead by 0.7% — also with 4% of votes to be counted.
North Carolina: Trump leads by 1.4% — with 6% of remaining votes to be counted.
Georgia: Trump up by 2.2% with 6% of votes to be counted.
If Trump wins Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, Biden taking Wisconsin and Michigan, DJT will need Nevada’s 6 Electoral College votes for a 270 majority over Biden by a whisker.
As things stand at mid-morning Wednesday, Biden has 238 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 213.
Note: The above differential is the Wall Street Journal’s spread.
For the NYT, it’s 227 to 213, favoring Biden.
The Washington Post puts Biden ahead by a 224 – 213 margin.
At this time, things can go either way. In the popular vote that doesn’t matter, Biden leads Trump by a 50% – 48% margin.
According to the most recent pre-election polls, Biden was projected to win the popular by over 7 points.
Three polls had him up by 10 points, another by 11. One poll alone called the race a near-dead heat, Biden ahead by one point.
As things now stand, that poll was closest to how things may turn out — a very close race that likely won’t be decided at least for a few more days.
Results depend on how quickly remaining votes will be counted.
With completing Pennsylvania’s vote count likely to be last among the above swing states, its final tally may decide things for Trump or Biden.
A sidebar to the election is the amount being bet on the outcome.
Reportedly it’s around $1 billion, double the amount in 2016.
According to head of the British sports political betting firm GVC Matthew Shaddick, the Trump/Biden race has been a boon for UK betting houses.
Betting at GVC’s Ladbrokes, Coral and BWin houses have Biden winning over Trump.
Yet according to Shaddick, 70% of bets placed over the past week were for Trump, calling the turnaround “astonishing.”
Rival house William Hill also has the Dem candidate as the favorite.
Shaddick called the US presidential race the biggest betting event of the year.
William Hill’s spokesman Rupert Adams made a similar comment, adding:
It’s because “colorful character” Trump brings out the animal spirits of gamblers.
The race without him would attract much less interest.
No matter who wins, gaming houses profit hugely when volume is high.
Given teams of lawyers representing both candidates with a possible High Court battle ahead, counsel for Trump and Biden will be winners no matter how the race turns out.
Although well short of an Electoral College majority on Wednesday, Trump declared victory pre-dawn.
Never short of hyperbole, he said, “(w)e were winning, and all of a sudden it was just called off.”
He accused Dems of trying to “disenfranchise” his voters, adding:
“They knew they couldn’t win. This is a fraud on the American public.”
Separately, his campaign manager Bill Stepien said “(w)e trust our data.”
“We trust our math. It’s called this race spot on to this point. It’s why we feel the confidence we have in the votes left to be counted.”
“If we count all legally cast ballots, we believe the president will win.”
According to senior Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller, “(w)e are obviously leading a full-court press to make sure that we have all of our legal teams…in place.”
“We want to make sure that all legally cast ballots are counted.”
“We also want to make sure that illegally cast ballots are not counted.”
Whenever US elections are held, privileged interests benefit exclusively at the expense of ordinary Americans — exploited, not served.
That’s the disturbing reality of US fantasy democracy — benefitting the privileged few at the expense of the great majority.
Instead of improving over time, things noticeably worsened in recent decades.
The chasm between super-rich Americans and the nation’s working class is likely greater than ever before in the nation’s history.
It’s at a time of Greater Depression with harder than ever hard times perhaps to continue for years.
If Trump surprises by defeating Biden and Depression conditions deepen next year — what’s likely — will many DJT supporters have voter remorse?
Whatever the outcome, hard times are likely to be around for some time.
Both right wings of the one-party state are committed to serve monied interests alone.
On that score, Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coin. So are Republicans and Dems.
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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.”
The exit of the American forces from Iraq and Syria, finding a solution to the Palestinian issue and the Syrian and Libyan crisis and ending the war in Yemen is what the Arab World wants, in addition to ending the US interference in the internal affairs of sovereign Arab countries.
Most of the Gulf states prefer Biden to win because Trump forced them to pay huge sums and sign agreements in exchange for the purchase of weapons. But there is an exceptional case, Saudi Arabia, where Mohammed bin Salman prefers Trump’s victory because he does not have a good relationship with Biden.
If Biden wins, then Mohammed bin Salman’s throne is in great danger because the Democrats are closer to the alliance of Muhammad bin Nayef and may work to restore his strength in the event that Biden wins, and so far the Saudi leadership has not forgiven Obama for signing the nuclear agreement with Tehran in 2015.
Between Trump’s policy towards the Middle East and Biden’s policy, Biden prefers the Arabs, especially Libya, Syria, and others for one reason, which is that Biden, the representative of the Democratic Party, was the architect of the so-called “Arab Spring” during his tenure as Vice President to Obama, who brought havoc to the Arab world and divided its countries, unlike Trump, who did not escalate and start new wars … while “Netanyahu” wants Trump to win what he has achieved with what is called “normalization with Israel” with a number of Arab countries, including the UAE and Bahrain.
What Americans want from the next president of the United States?
They want the economy to get stronger and that means:
more jobs in all industries: vehicles, weapons, energy, agriculture and manufacturing among others
lowering the taxes on the middle-class while making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, and avoid paying none
reducing the deficit of the USA
supporting American-made products
Health care for all Americans. The Affordable Health Care Act, also known as Obama-Care, made it possible for millions of Americans to be covered on their first medical insurance. The extremely poor in USA have access to free medical services, but the poor working class did not have any medical coverage.
Bringing the American troops back home completely from places such as: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries areas of conflict
Police reforms which would address police brutality of African Americans, or minority persons, as well as better methods to stop the raging crime statistics in USA. People generally want better security, while maintaining human rights of minorities
The European Union is backing up Biden because in the last 4 years Trump put tariffs on the EU products coming in to the USA that caused huge losses to the ٠EU, and Trump forced NATO to pay the USA to defend Europe, while treating European leaders with little respect
The American people don’t want war, and do want the US troops back home, but the they don’t mind having others acting as their foot-soldiers such as what Obama and Biden did in the Middle East previously. The American people feel they will not be affected by their part in wars for regime change
Many Americans will support their President no matter what mistakes he makes, as long as the US remains the superpower.
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It was not Covid, therefore the news went almost unnoticed: Japan will release over a million tons of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. The catastrophic incident in Fukushima was triggered by the Tsunami that struck the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, submerging the power plant and causing the core of three nuclear reactors to melt.
The power plant was built on the coast just 4 meters above sea level with five-meter-high breakwater dams, in a tsunami-prone area with waves 10-15 meters high. Furthermore, there had been serious failures by the private company Tepco managing the plant, in the control of the nuclear plant: the safety devices did not come into operation at the time of the Tsunami.
Water has been pumped through the reactors for years to cool the molten fuel. The water became radioactive, and was stored inside the plant in over a thousand large tanks, accumulating 1.23 million tons of radioactive water. Tepco is building other tanks, but they will also be full by mid-2022.
Tepco must continue pumping water into the melted reactors and has decided to discharge, in agreement with the government, the water accumulated so far into the sea after filtering it to make it less radioactive (however, to what extent it is not known) with a process which will last 30 years. There is also radioactive sludge accumulated in the decontamination filters of the plant, stored in thousands of containers, and huge quantities of soil and other radioactive materials.
As Tepco admitted, the melting in reactor 3 is particularly serious because the reactor was loaded with Mox, a much more unstable and radioactive mix of uranium oxides and plutonium.
The Mox for this reactor and other Japanese ones was produced in France, using nuclear waste sent from Japan. Greenpeace has denounced the danger deriving from the transport of this plutonium fuel for ten thousand kilometers.
Greenpeace also denounced that Mox favors the proliferation of nuclear weapons, since plutonium can be extracted more easily and, in the cycle of uranium exploitation, there is no clear dividing line between civilian and military use of fissile material.
Up to now, around 240 tons of plutonium for direct military use and 2,400 tons for civil use (nuclear weapons can however be produced with them), were accumulated in the world (according to 2015 estimates), plus about 1,400 tons of highly enriched uranium for military use. A few hundred kilograms of plutonium would be enough to cause lung cancer to 7.7 billion inhabitants of the planet, and plutonium remains lethal for a period corresponding to almost ten-thousand human generations.
A destructive potential has thus accumulated, for the first time in history, capable of making the human species disappear from the face of Earth. The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the more than 2,000 experimental nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, at sea and underground; the manufacture of nuclear warheads with a power equivalent to over one million Hiroshima bombs; the numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons and those involving civilian and military nuclear plants, all this has caused radioactive contamination that has affected hundreds of millions of people.
A portion of approximately 10 million annual cancer deaths worldwide – documented by WHO – is attributable to the long-term effects of radiation. In ten months, again according to the World Health Organization data, Covid-19 caused about 1.2 million deaths worldwide. This danger should not be underestimated, but it does not justify the fact that mass media, especially television, did not inform that over one million tons of radioactive water will be discharged into the sea from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, with the result that it will further increase cancer deaths upon entering in the food chain.
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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
A freelance Australian-Ukrainian reporter named Demjin Doroschenko (lead image), employed by the Australian, British and US press to report from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, has been exposed this week as an agent of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). Reporting to a figure he calls “my SBU handler”, he had been operating in the Donetsk area before and after the crash, and had been spying on groups fighting the Ukrainian regime in Kiev.
In the record of an interview Doroschenko gave to agents of the Australian Federal Police and Australian foreign ministry in Kiev in March 2015, the man admitted he had been paid by the SBU to pass himself off as a freelance journalist for western media in the Donetsk area before and after the MH17 shoot-down. He had met, he said, with Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Dutch police in July 2014, and then again in November of that year, to give them physical evidence he said he had taken from the crash site, as well as purported witness testimony identifying a Russian missile unit as the cause of the aircraft shoot-down. The evidence appears to have been given to him by the SBU.
Doroschenko also ackowledged that he had been trying to sell his information to Dutch police investigators until the SBU confiscated his computer files, and handed them over to the Dutch directly.
The media which paid Doroschenko to report from the MH17 crash scene included the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), a state broadcaster; the Murdoch press in Sydney and in London; Associated Press; and NBC of New York.
Of the 298 passengers and crew killed on board the aircraft, 189 were Dutch; 44 were Malaysia; 27 Australian; 12 Indonesian; and 9 British.
Reporting to the Sydney Morning Herald on July 18, the day after the shoot-down, Doroschenko categorically denied the Ukrainian government forces were responsible.
“They don’t have any weapons like this that could have brought down an airliner at ten thousand meters. No way. So it had to come from the other side and only a very modern weapon system could have done that. I can only think it would have been deliberate, because air defense systems have IFF recognition system so you can tell if it is a military aircraft or a civilian aircraft you are going to shoot down. It could only have come from across the border. It is an act of absolute barbarism and terrorism in my opinion.”
The press reports of the time identified Doroschenko as either a “photojournalist”, a “videojournalist”, or a newspaper reporter. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), he had been born in the Ukraine in 1971, migrated to Australia, and taken Australian citizenship. There is no record of any publication by Doroschenko in Australia before MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014. He had reportedly returned from Australia to Ukraine at the beginning of 2014, when the US-directed protest movement against the Yanukovich government in Kiev’s Maidan Square, was beginning to attract worldwide press.
Doroschenko told ABC on February 1, 2014, that he himself had been “hit with rubber bullets and had stun-grenades hurled in his direction as he filmed and photographed the demonstrations last month. ‘People who were unprotected were the main targets,’ he told the ABC. ‘I was next to one fellow who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet and he fell like a tree…The plight of Ukraine has often been ignored in the West and we really need to stand up and tell the West this is what is happening in our [sic] country, and this is what the government is doing to peaceful protesters.’”
The ABC made no attempt at the time – or since – to verify what Doroschenko was reporting from Kiev. The state propaganda unit published pictures Doroschenko claimed he had taken. The possibility that their source was a Ukrainian disinformation agent did not occur to the Australians.
On March 1, 2014, Doroschenko said he attempted to fly from Kiev to Simferopol in Crimea as a reporter for the international Murdoch media. He was reported by Sky News as claiming “the plane was told to turn around. We tried to land in Simferopol but that was refused, we tried to land in Odessa but that was refused, so we had to go back to Kiev.”
Doroschenko fumbled his cover story. In Kiev on March 12, 2014, Doroschenko, wearing a yellow vest with press accreditation, told SkyNewshe had been born in Australia and was living in New Zealand.
“V.K Demjin Doroschenko is one of the best know[n] figures in the [Maidan] square but his accent betrays his background. He was born in Australia and is based in New Zealand, but descends from a family that ruled Ukraine at various times over the last century”.
Doroschenko was a “first generation Australian-Ukrainian [who] was in the region working as a freelance journalist when MH17 was shot down,” ABC reported later. “The 45-year-old [in 2016] said he was one of the first on scene and formed the self-proclaimed MH17 Donbass Recovery Team. He said he collected pieces of evidence for ‘safekeeping and out of reach of the forces of the Russian Federation. It needs to be rescued or otherwise the Russians will appropriate any other pieces that they can use in their case against the Joint Investigation Team [JIT],’ he said.”
The ABC did not report how Doroschenko, who speaks English with an Australian accent, came to be in eastern Ukraine at the time, or what his credentials as a journalist were. The media publishers did not suspect, as Doroschenko admitted to Australian government officials in Ukraine at the time, that he was a Ukrainian government employee. The Australian police and intelligence agents were happy for their state media to be printing what they knew to be Ukrainian propaganda.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on July 18 the “Australian journalist” at the site of crash:
“Denjen [sic] Doroschenko, an Australian journalist working in Ukraine, said he had seen about 60 bodies, including several children, many of whom he had uncovered himself… Emergency services on the ground appeared to be ineffective and separatist organisations were ‘sort of in control’, Doroschenko said… Doroschenko reported that pro-Russian rebels had tried to prevent access to the crash site by blocking major roads. He and three other journalists travelled to the scene by car using back roads.”
He quoted “rebel fighters with guns” as apologising to him for what, Doroschenko implied, they had done.
On air on July 18, Doroschenko was asked by a commercial Australian television news broadcaster whether the Ukrainian government was responsible for the shoot-down. He said:
“They [the Ukraine Government] don’t have any weapons like this that could have brought down an airliner at ten thousand meters. No way. So it had to come from the other side and only a very modern weapon system could have done that. I can only think it would have been deliberate, because air defense systems have IFF recognition system so you can tell if it is a military aircraft or a civilian aircraft you are going to shoot down. It could only have come from accross the border.”
At that moment, as the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD reported later, the Ukrainian Army had several batteries of Buk anti-aircraft missiles in operation in eastern Ukraine.
Doroschenko claimed that “pro-Russian rebels” had “actually apologised” while he was at the crash site.
“Yes, they were filming…They stood with us looking at the bodies on the ground, and just shook our hand and said, you know, we’re sorry.”
“the 43-year-old [in 2014], who has been covering Ukraine-Russian tensions for six months, said he had rummaged through some of the passengers belongings, determined to retrieve personal information including their passports and boarding passes for their families. But he said many of the passengers had items from their luggage stolen and not one wallet found had any money in it. ‘I arrived last night [July 18] when almost no-one else was here so I started looking around the site for Australians,’ Doroschenko said.”
It is now known that Doroschenko was a Ukrainian secret service (SBU) plant in the area who was paid to pretend to be an Australian journalist; report what the Kiev regime wanted to appear in the western press as the Russian cause of the crash; and present evidence from the crash site which Doroschenko had obtained from the SBU.
Doroschenko’s propaganda was widespread in the international media for several days.
“Australian, UK, and US media all made use of Demjin’s services on the day. He was interviewed by ABC (AUS), The Sun (UK), NBC (US), Triple M, News Limited, Seven News, 6PR, The New Daily, Ten News, 3AW, Associated Press, The Mirror. Subsequently, Demjin went on to work exclusively for Seven News in Australia, providing coverage in the aftermath of the event.”
Australian government officials knew Doroschenko was a Ukrainian agent because he told them himself. On March 4, 2015, at a Kiev hotel Doroschenko was recorded in interview with Australian Federal Police (AFP) and other Australian agents claiming to be from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In the official, secret transcript, Doroschenko and one of the police mentioned he had already had interviews with them in July and again in November of 2014. The AFP admitted those interviews with Doroschenko had taken place at an SBU office in Kiev.
“DORESCHENKO was at the Intercontinental Hotel speaking with members of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in relation to his Visa”, reads the header of the document. This was false. As a dual Australian-Ukrainian national, Doroschenko carried two passports, and did not need a visa so long as he remained in Ukraine or returned to Australia.
At his July 2014 meeting with the AFP, Doroschenko claimed he had provided crash site evidence.
“I did hand over some items to some AFP guys who were in in [sic] July some items. We forensically handed them over, that’s how we handed things over. They were quite happy with the way I had forensically dealt with each item.”
The AFP agents were identified as “Alex” and “Trevor”. Doroschenko boasted to the AFP that “in terms of specialisation I’m actually highly specialised in explosives and firearms so you’d be quite surprised by what I can do, my skill set is quite extensive.” The Australian police knew this training – if Doroschenko wasn’t faking — had come from the SBU.
The documentary record has come from the case file of the Dutch prosecutors in The Hague. It is part of the trial of four men, three Russian soldiers and a Ukrainian, accused by the Dutch of firing the missile which brought MH17 down. For the story of the trial, read the book.
The file document, uncovered this week, has been tagged by the prosecutors “Primo 170-470 and 170-401”. The document was reported in The Hague Times, a publication in English, by Max van der Werff. The report, issued on October 27, can be read here. Click to read the full transcript of the interview record.
The press office of the AFP was asked yesterday to confirm the authenticity of The Hague Times document, and to confirm that AFP officers in Ukraine had interviewed Doroschenko in July and November 2014, and March 2015. The AFP replied that it will not confirm or deny the Doroschenko record; it is not disputing the authenticity of the leak.
No Australian newspaper, commercial television channel, or the state broadcaster, which had originally published Doroschenko’s claims from the crash scene, has reported that he has been uncovered as a Ukrainian spy and media disinformation agent.
Doroschenko told the AFP that at the time he was working in eastern Ukraine he was an SBU agent. The Australian police told him this added to the credibility of the information they were asking him to hand over – photographs at the crash scene; records of local interviews; pieces of MH17 wreckage he claimed to have picked up himself. “I’ve got some work to do with the SBU,” Doroschenko told the AFP, “ who have requested me to continue on with my work there.”
In January of 2015, he said, he had run into trouble at a Ukrainian border checkpoint. “When I was taken by the Ukrainian Border Security they stole my computers, money and hard drives and other things. I was promised to get them back, I submitted a complete incident report but nothing has happened since the 6th of January. A similar incident happened on the 17th or 18th of January, while they worked out who I was and called my SBU handler and say he’s fine, he’s with us, let him go.”
“You’ve taken some good photos that is [sic] of interest to us,” the AFP interviewer told Doroschenko. He answered: “I worked on the sight for 5 months.” The AFP transcription misspelled sight for site. The time period Doroschenko was referring to was from July through December of 2014.
Doroschenko added: “I’ve collected a few more things, taken a few pictures, still trying to triangulate where the rocket motor of the BUK is. Have got very close to it, have got physical pieces of the missile as evidence to give to the JIT but the engine is of course the smoking gun, we need it because it has all the serial numbers that will implicate Russia to the letter.”
He was following the script he had been given by his “SBU handler”. The Australian policeman wasn’t sure he was telling the truth. Doroschenko acknowledged he had been trying to sell his services, and also his purported evidence, to Dutch investigators from the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), the Dutch police, and Dutch prosecutors working for the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). “They said that my work was exemplary and we’d like you to work with us and we’ll pay you. That unfortunately hasn’t happened yet although the promises still remain. I spent twenty thousand Euro working on the sight [sic], it’ll be great to get paid by the Dutch and their promise to pay for the work I’ve done which is great. It hasn’t happened and Dutch Safety Board said they would pay as well and that hasn’t happened either.”
The AFP agent replied:
“We’d love you to hand over this evidence that you say you have, we’d love you to hand over the belongings because they might have evidentiary value. We have to get past this. We are not going to pay you, the JIT is not going to pay you. That’s been specifically talked about and I’m here to tell you the JIT will not be paying you for that. And as the senior Australian representative here I am telling you that with absolute fact.” [Doroschenko] So why was I offered by the DSB [Dutch Safety Board] and the JIT? [AFP] I can’t speak for that but the JIT never offered it and I know that for a fact because I’ve been here for a long time too. The JIT never offered you money.”
Record of payment for evidence of the kind Doroschenko was offering to hand over, and of the role the SBU played in recruiting, coaching and fabricating crash site witnesses, has already been revealed in the Dutch prosecution records. The Dutch lawyers in the MH17 trial have failed to use it in defence of the accused, however.
Doroschenko asked the AFP why their investigators did not go to the Donetsk area to search for evidence. The Australian policeman told him he was under orders from Canberra not to go into the region. Both of them understood that Doroschenko was operating undercover as a journalist whose fake accreditation had been accepted by the Donetsk and Lugansk administration authorities.
But that cover was blown when Doroschenko was leaving the Donetsk sector and trying to return to Kiev through the Georgievka checkpoint on January 7, 2015. A Russian language website, Russkaya Vesna, published by the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), reported on Doroschenko’s arrest by Ukrainian border guards.
The report also exposed the Australian government’s involvement in the false journalist operation.
“Through Western media, [Doroschenko] spread false information about Russia’s involvement in the downed plane, and also stated that ‘as an eyewitness’ he watched ‘as militias robbed the property of the dead.’ Earlier, Doroschenko stated through the Ukrainian media that he was a ‘Maidan activist’ and was ‘fighting for the independence of Ukraine.’ He wrote about the alleged ‘violence from the Berkut’ and called on the protesters to ‘retaliate.’”
According to the website report, the Australian Embassy in Kiev tried intervening on Doroschenko’s behalf on both sides of the border. As a result of this contact with the DPR Foreign Ministry,
“for the first time it was possible to find out the name of the detained journalist, and [we] also informed the Australian government and media about the detention of an Australian citizen by the SBU. Only through this did the Australian authorities have to respond to this message. Currently, the Australian media carefully picks up the words that corroborate this fact. Indeed, according to the laws of Australia, Doroshenko can be declared a terrorist (the cartridges found give reason for this) and imprisoned… the official statement of the DPR Foreign Ministry as a specialized state body emphasizes the inadmissibility of detentions and obstruction of journalistic activities in general, regardless of the views, beliefs and political orientation of the journalists themselves. I wonder how the Ukrainian authorities will decide his fate when they find out that they arrested their own?”
From this time on, Doroschenko and the Australian agents agreed, he could no longer go back to DPR territory.
“[AFP] It’s not safe for us right now. Which is why we have given you warning after warning about your own position down there and advised you not to go back and that’s been well documented as well. And again I say you should not be down there, it’s not safe. [Doroschenko] Well this is my country [Ukraine] as well and I do work for this country.”
Doroschenko repeated he was working for the Kiev regime.
“I have my job to do here for the Government, ok? very specific and people with my training don’t really exist in Ukraine. It’s that simple. So after I’ve done this particular task we can discuss this further.”
He also said he was considering selling evidence and testimony to a Dutch law firm, Van Der Goen Advocaten. According to Doroschenko,
“I’ll have to speak to the Dutch legal team representing the victims and their position about what you’ve both said today and they can say we know and yes it’s good or no it’s not and we’ll talk to the JIT and the Dutch Safety Board and we’ll organise something. I have been categorically [told] by them not to hand anything over to the JIT at all.”
At the time in Amsterdam, the principal of the law firm, Bob van der Goen (right), was highly critical of the Dutch Government. Later, he would tell the Dutch press, the Dutch had “completely botched” the investigation. According to Doroschenko, he told the AFP, “I’ll contact these Dutch guys because I don’t want things to blow up and I become responsible for some legal thing because the Dutch have got up in arms about these guys and the victims are suing the Dutch Government and suing the JIT team and anyone else that may be involved in any what they can see as inappropriate actions done by you guys… if they [SBU] decide to hand over X Y Z to these guys [Dutch lawyers] then that will be the end of it. I have to cover my arse essentially.”
Doroschenko was threatening to switch sides if he were paid. The Australian policeman warned:
“Forget the lawyers, you’ve got to remember that lawyers representing the families of crash victims have other motives than just seeing an end result. They will work towards compensation issues and that type of stuff. That is why you have to be very careful about what advice you take from them. They are lawyers not law enforcement officers, they are not involved in the investigation into this crime, we are. So you have to think which ones are you going to trust, the people charged with investigating it or the people representing the families of the people that were killed in it.”
In retrospect, after this interview in March 2015, Doroschenko was discredited as a source by both the Australian police and the SBU. In April 2016, the AFP told Australian state media: “ ‘Items recovered from the MH17 crash site should not be used to obtain a profit or benefit,’ an AFP spokesman said. ‘To do so only harms the families of victims who are looking for a resolution that could be provided by investigators having access to all of the crash site evidence. The AFP and JIT are aware that Mr Doroschenko may have visited the MH17 crash site and have provided him with a process of how he can provide those items to the JIT.’”
The real reason for the AFP warning against Doroschenko was not that he was trying get paid for his evidence. Rather, Doroschenko was threatening to become a witness to the faking of evidence from the crash site by the SBU, the Australian police, and the Dutch prosecutors.
He has since disappeared from print. Whether his silence has been remunerated is not known; he was still alive last week. According to the report by The Hague Times: “We contacted mister Doreschenko and had an exchange of emails. However, he did not send us any verifiable information.”
As the SBU’s conduit of disinformation on the MH17 story Doroschenko has been replaced by the NATO and British-funded Bellingcat group. According to its figurehead, Doroschenko’s evidence of faking of the MH17 evidence should not be believed.
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In the 2020 documentary film, The Plot Against the President, filmmaker Amanda Milius examines the conspiracy to sabotage President Donald Trump.
“The true story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the President of the United States.
Following the book The Plot Against the President by investigative journalist Lee Smith, this feature length documentary explores new information and additional interviews as the case unfolds.”
Watch full documentary below.
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As countries across Europe went into lockdown earlier this year to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, there was one early and obvious casualty: transparency. In the rush to obtain critical supplies, many countries suspended their usual public procurement rules, resulting in billions of euros of spending that remains largely hidden from the public.
So we at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) decided to find out what happened to that money.
Along with media partners in 37 countries, we collected information from over 37,800 COVID-19 related tenders and contracts worth over 21 billion euros (U.S $24.9 billion), running from February to October this year. They cover key goods such as personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, tests, and medications.
What we found was often fascinating. Governments bought respirator masks at prices that varied wildly, from just 20 cents per unit to 37 euros each. The pandemic also prompted a boom for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, controversial drugs promoted by many as a miracle treatment for COVID-19, despite limited evidence. Data obtained by reporters showed the number of large contracts for these drugs increased 15-fold so far this year. Dexamethasone, a steroid that has met with more clinical success, saw a 36-fold increase.
The data is far from complete, but it gives an unprecedented view of just what Europe’s governments have been spending their billions on — and where things may have gone astray.
Bargains and Black Holes
The data we obtained gives just a snapshot of Europe’s COVID-19 spending. We pulled data from the European Union’s procurement portal, Tenders Electronic Daily, and national and regional governments.
The number of contracts we obtained from each country reflected its level of transparency, not necessarily how much it spent.
We obtained the most contracts, roughly 15,000, from Portugal. Despite its relatively small size, it was one of the few European countries to publish all its contracts online, along with an overview of its COVID-19 related purchases.The runner-up, with 12,000 contracts, was Russia.
Other countries have been virtual black holes of information. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark rejected reporters’ data requests outright, typically arguing that it was necessary to preserve secrecy so as to not undermine negotiations for the purchase of goods. In response to a freedom-of-information request, Norway provided some details on contracts, such as company names, but would not give price information.
Big Contracts, Little Competition
The 20.8 billion euros’ worth of contracts that we collected included some very big deals.
Nearly half the total (10 billion euros) are contracts from the U.K., including a series of PPE purchases by the Department of Health and Social Care for 4.9 billion euros.
The largest single national contract was in Spain, where the government bought 181 million euros’ worth of PPE in a no-bid deal.
We obtained 3.4 billion euros’ worth of tenders from the European Commission on joint procurement and two billion euros of tenders from Germany.
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I have been covering the fraud that happens every year with how the CDC tracks incidents and deaths due to the annual influenza for almost a decade now.
The numbers used each year to scare the public into getting the flu vaccine are based not on actual data, but estimates of number of people who die from the flu according to the CDC. Basically, anyone dying from “influenza-like” symptoms are all lumped together into supposed flu deaths each year. Autopsies are seldom performed to prove cause of death.
The CDC has admitted publicly in the past that these numbers are just “estimates.” If the real number of those infected with the influenza virus, and resulting deaths, were vastly lower than what the CDC reports based on their “estimates,” the public would have no way of knowing it.
So this has presented quite a dilemma for the CDC for the first couple of weeks of the 2020-21 flu season, which have just passed.
Because “flu-like” symptoms could also be attributed to COVID-19, and they have the now widely known ineffective COVID PCR test to back up these claims, which also kicks in federal funding for hospitals to treat COVID patients.
As one might expect, with the media widely reporting that cases of COVID are now increasing just as flu season starts, reports of flu cases have dropped dramatically during the same time period last year. Across the globe, it has been reported that incidents of influenza have dropped by about 100%. (Source.)
Whoops! How did the CDC allow these numbers to be published?
In an apparent response to media reports about the fast declining flu cases here at the beginning of the 2020-21 flu season, the CDC did what any corrupt agency would do which doesn’t want the public to know the truth: They decided to “suspend data collection for the 2020-21 influenza season.” (Source.)
To my knowledge, this is unprecedented, and has never happened before.
Correlation Between Flu Shot and Senior Deaths Allegedly due to COVID
It is important to remember that most of the deaths in the U.S. attributed to COVID have occurred among those over 70 years old, with co-morbidity factors.
Another factor to consider is that seniors over 65 in the U.S. get a different flu shot than everyone else each year, one that is much stronger.
Most of the initial deaths attributed to COVID in early 2020 occurred in nursing homes or assisted care facilities for the elderly, where the flu vaccine is routinely given every year as a matter of policy.
Deaths in these facilities are common every year just after administering the flu vaccine, but never reported in the corporate media.
Health Impact News had a nurse whistleblower contact us in 2014 to report that 5 seniors in a Georgia assisted care facility died the same week the flu shot was given. We were threatened with a lawsuit for reporting this. See:
A recently published study out of Mexico confirmed the correlation between senior flu shots and COVID deaths.
A recently published study in PeerJ by Christian Wehenkel, a Professor at Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango in Mexico, has found a positive association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination rates in elderly people worldwide.
According to the study, “The results showed a positive association between COVID-19 deaths and IVR (influenza vaccination rate) of people ≥65 years-old. There is a significant increase in COVID-19 deaths from eastern to western regions in the world. Further exploration is needed to explain these findings, and additional work on this line of research may lead to prevention of deaths associated with COVID-19.”
To determine this association, data sets from 39 countries with more than half a million people were analyzed. (Read the full article.)
Verified Death Statistics Will Tell the True Story
Once 2020 is complete, it will probably be seen that total deaths that have been recorded will be similar to previous years.
The difference will be the number of deaths attributed to COVID to justify all the government fear and tyrannical actions, as deaths by other causes will drop so that the end result will be about the same.
These kinds of stats are becoming more and more difficult to find, but here is one projected total compared with total deaths from the previous 3 years.
I am not sure of the original source of this graph (it is most likely a compilation of available health statistics), but the graph was published here.
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On November 2, Trump signed an executive order that aims to manipulate the minds of young children.
“We will state the truth in full, without apology (sic),” he said, adding:
“We declare that the United States of America is the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on earth (sic).”
If bipartisan US hardliners get their way, education at all levels may resemble Nazi Germany and Israeli indoctrination of children.
After Nazis gained control in 1933, the infamous Nuremberg Laws followed.
Education featured indoctrination and loyalty to the Reich. It laid the groundwork for wars to come.
Scholar Louis L. Snyder witnessed Nazi rallies and practices firsthand.
He explained that “(t)here were to be two basic educational ideas…”
“First, there must be burnt into the heart and brains of youth the sense of race.”
“Second, German youth must be made ready for war, educated for victory or death.”
“The ultimate purpose of education was to fashion citizens conscious of the glory of country and filled with fanatical devotion to the national cause.”
As one of the world’s most militarized societies, Israel resembles Nazi German.
It’s notably by indoctrination through education, waging wars on Palestinians and neighboring state, along with mandating military service as a rite of passage.
Militarism is fundamental in Israeli society, young children brainwashed to be warriors.
Starting in pre-school, it continues through higher education.
What’s ingrained in young children at an impressionable age sticks most often when becoming adolescents, youths and adults.
When I attended public schools long ago, teachers taught and children learned, preparing me and many others for higher education and later life.
Historically in the US, local authorities determine educational policy, not the federal government.
The 10th Amendment was the basis for making it a function of individual states and local communities.
Nationwide, local school districts decide on how it’s to be financed and administered.
Until the 1960s, the federal government had virtually no role in setting policy.
Since then, it’s been involved in fostering equal access to education, along with safeguarding constitutional rights of students and teachers.
While not constitutionally protected it as a universal right, the 14th Amendment safeguards it against discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or disability, or ethnicity.
Federal funding of education also plays a role in its content. Funds can be advanced or withheld based on whether local authorities stick to federal standards.
Trump’s EO establishes a so-called President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.
It’ll be charged with “work(ing) to improve understanding of the history and the principles of the founding of the United States…”
According to remarks by Trump weeks earlier, he’s opposed to truth-telling works like Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States — what he called “left-wing indoctrination,” adding:
We will “reclaim our history, and our country, for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed.”
He and hardliners surrounding him want children, adolescents and youths brainwashed in the American way — its mindset ingrained into their consciousness by sanitizing the nation’s history.
They want an obedient population for easier control.
Samuel Johnson called patriotism “the last refuge of scoundrels.”
Thomas Paine called dissent its highest form. So did Howard Zinn.
When governments ill-serve, exposing wrongdoing is vital.
It takes courage and involves sacrificing for the greater good.
It includes risking personal harm and welfare.
It means doing what’s right because it matters.
It reflects patriotism’s highest form.
It’s not what Trump and other US hardliners have in mind by his EO.
Their ideas are more akin to the USA Patriot Act that trampled on the Bill of Rights — eroding fundamental freedoms, not protecting them.
Each new US ruling regime advanced things toward greater totalitarian rule.
Perhaps over the next four years, remaining freedoms will disappear altogether.
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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.”
Since 1928, rising stock market valuations favored incumbent US presidents 86% of the time, according to Bloomberg News. Results this year are mixed.
Investment strategist Sam Stovall noted that in US presidential election years since 1944, rising equity prices from July 31 – October 31 usually correspondent to an incumbent’s electoral triumph.
Results for the S&P 500 this year were down but nearly flat for this period.
Compared to the July 31 close at 3,271.12, the S&P 500 stood at 3,269.96 on October 31.
On election eve November 2, the S&P 500 rose 1.78%. Other major averages were also sharply higher.
When polls closed Tuesday, S&P futures rose. According to Stovall’s “Presidential Predictor,” Tuesday’s rally was positive for Trump.
Real Clear Politics noted that polls, on average, from October 25 – November 2 gave Biden a 7.2 point advantage over Trump.
Polls were wrong in 2016. Defying the odds and predictions of most pundits, Trump defeated Hillary.
It’s too early to tell after polls closed Tuesday in what’s shaping up to be a close race. It’s unclear if he’ll surprise again.
The stock market predictor isn’t perfect. In 1956, despite a 7.7% S&P decline from 7/31 – 10/31, Dwight Eisenhower defeated challenger Adlai Stevenson for a second term.
It was wrong in 1968, Republican Richard Nixon defeating Dem Hubert Humphrey.
It was wrong again in 1980 when Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter.
Despite falling from a record high on September 2, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained around 2% last week.
After pulling back on Friday, the averages posted sharp election eve gains.
According to market analysts, these results favor Trump.
Yet pre-election events this year are unlike any others in modern memory — notably because of economic collapse.
Real unemployment is 26.9%, not the phony BLS 7.9%.
For 32 straight weeks, over one million jobless Americans filed for unemployment benefits.
Nothing remotely like what’s gone on ever happened in US history, not even during the depths of the 1930s Great Depression.
Congressional wrangling failed to extend vitally needed aid to the nation’s unemployed.
The great majority of Americans are experiencing the hardest ever hard times in their working-age lives.
It’s at a time that David Stockman called “fiscal and monetary madness…the nation spiraling toward the mother of all financial disasters” no matter how election 2020 turns out.
Republicans and Dems both one-sidedly favor Wall Street over Main Street, along with whatever benefits the nation’s military, industrial, security complex and other corporate favorites.
As a previous article explained, 2020 has been a bonanza for America’s 644 billionaires.
Profiting hugely from economic collapse, their super-wealth increased by nearly $1 trillion — at a time when Federal Reserve data show over 100 million working-age Americans without jobs.
An unprecedented disconnect exists between bubble-level equity prices and dismal main street economic conditions gone largely unaddressed by the US ruling class when vital help is most needed.
Presidential election 2020 results may not be known for days or longer.
Around 100 million US registered voters cast ballots in advance by mail or in-person. Tabulating the former totals will take time.
Like most often before, key battleground states will decide if Trump gets a second term or is unseated by Biden/Harris.
Early results after polls closed have the incumbent winning Ohio and Florida, two key swing states.
No Republican won the White House since the Civil War without taking Ohio.
Pennsylvania results may decide the outcome. Counting the high volume of mail-in votes only began after polls closed Tuesday.
Tabulation will take days or longer.
A Final Comment
After rising when polls closed, Dow futures fell sharply before Wednesday’s market opening in response to Trump calling vote tabulations a “major fraud.”
Swinging widely, they then turned slightly positive before Wednesday’s market opening.
Late Tuesday, he claimed victory over Biden, telling supporters at the White House:
“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win” — despite undecided results from key battleground states Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia.
Pre-dawn Wednesday, he and Biden were short of an Electoral College majority.
Yet Trump said there’s “a major fraud” going on…So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court.”
With Trump ahead in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, tens of thousands of mail-in votes remain to be counted, most of them likely favoring Biden — whether enough to win these states unknown.
In Pennsylvania with most mail-in ballots remaining to be counted, most likely favoring Biden/Harris, Trump is ahead by a 55.7% – 43.1% margin.
With nearly all Wisconsin votes counted, it’s a dead heat.
With over 80% of Michigan votes counted, Trump leads Biden/Harris by a 51.6% – 46.8% margin. Remaining mail-in ballots to be counted may or may not lose the state for DJT.
With over 90% of ballots tabulated in North Carolina, Trump is ahead by a slim 50.4% – 49.1% margin.
Biden told reporters: “I am here to tell you tonight we believe we are on track to win this election.”
In Georgia, Trump leads Biden/Harris by a 50.5% – 48.3% margin with nearly all votes counted.
Trump claimed that he’s “up big, but they are trying to steal the election,” adding:
“We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed!”
No evidence backs his claim.
Trump said he’ll contest results at the Supreme Court. If he gains an Electoral College majority, Biden/Harris may challenge the result.
When US elections are held, dark forces — not voters — have final say over who’ll be president and hold key congressional posts.
At the same time, on issues relating to war by hot and/or other means v. peace and stability, corporate empowerment, and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers, both right wings of the US one-party state are on the same page.
Names and faces change over time. Yet dirty business as usual continuity is always assured when US elections are held.
The jury remains out on whether Trump gets a second term of if Biden/Harris succeed him in January.
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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.”
In this article I want to document a sample of the rapidly increasing evidence of how this coup is taking shape and to reiterate a strategy for defeating it.
The coup was designed to take immediate measures to ensure that fundamental rights and freedoms, only ‘won’ (in name at least) after many centuries of struggle, were stripped away from us and to do it in such a way that people would fearfully accept it.
This is why the idea of a virus ‘pandemic’ was quite clever.
Because the fear of contracting the virus (and its possibly deadly consequences) could be grotesquely magnified by inflating the figures, constant harping on it by the World Health Organization, the medical industry (in league with the pharmaceutical industry) and governments, and then magnified by the corporate media – with one outlet laughably suggesting COVID-19 could be worse than the flu outbreak in 1918 (falsely attributed to Spain): see ‘COVID-19 has the potential to become as severe as the Spanish flu’– it made virtually all people submissive to any measure taken, or order given, ostensibly to prevent the spread of the virus.
Fear manipulated by propaganda defeats knowledge and evidence every time, as history has endlessly demonstrated. Just ask Joseph Goebbels how they did it in Nazi Germany. Play on the fear, play on the fear….
But if you are not too scared to seek out the evidence, you get an utterly different picture of what is taking place.
So, for example, US physician Dr. Annie Bukacek observes that (image right)
‘The real number of COVID-19 deaths are not what most people are told and what they then think. How many people actually died from COVID-19 is anyone’s guess. … Based on inaccurate, incomplete data, people are being terrorized by fear-mongers into relinquishing freedoms.’
If you would like to read a wider sample of the literature and videos discussing how the infection and death rates from COVID-19 have been deliberately misinterpreted, inflated and presented in a way that induces fear, and hence willing submission to elite control, see the daily updates on
As a result of this pandemic of fear, the human rights to privacy (Article 12), freedom of movement (Article 13.1) and freedom of assembly (Article 20.1), for example, which are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (but not necessarily legislated into law by individual countries and routinely violated by governments in any case) have now been publicly and completely eviscerated in one fell swoop with bans on gatherings, legal requirements for ‘social distancing’ and even greater surveillance of our private activities with barely a murmur of protest.
For a comprehensive global summary, which monitors individual government responses to the pandemic that affect civic freedoms and human rights focusing on emergency laws, see the ‘COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker’.
Denied these fundamental rights, others – including those preventing arbitrary arrest or detention (Article 9), entitlement to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in response to any criminal charge (Article 10), to make a living in the manner of our choosing (Article 23), to adequate healthcare irrespective of personal circumstances (Article 25.1) and to have some say in how we are governed (Article 21) – have, if they previously existed in practice, largely disappeared as many governments around the world have used a variety of illegal and sometimes unconstitutional measures – ranging from ‘lockdowns’ and curfews to martial law and suspensions of parliaments in favour of dictatorships – to usurp more complete control of national societies.
For just a brief taste of what is taking place in some countries, see
In addition, by deliberately crashing national economies it was easy to conceal the fact that they were on the brink of crashing anyway. In the words of Scott C. Tips:
Moreover, adverse outcomes from the use of COVID-19 to wreak this economic destruction will multiply rapidly but the underlying corporate dysfunctionality will now escape the blame from most observers just as COVID-19 will help to obscure the elite’s true purpose in precipitating this crisis.
But apart from these more obvious encroachments on our rights, freedoms and economic well-being, there is a vast range of encroachments happening either outside or on the periphery of public view, given the phenomenal corporate media attention focused on COVID-19 to distract us.
Talking about US government surveillance in 2014, former Technical Director of the NSA, William ‘Bill’ Binney, explained that the NSA sought ‘total population control’. See ‘Whistleblower: NSA Goal Is “Total Population Control”’.
Six years later it is clear that the global elite is now making another push in its ongoing and longstanding effort to achieve total control. Will this be the final push?
As you consider this question, here is another small sample of those encroachments and devastating impacts that are happening while our attention is elsewhere:
If you think this is fairyland stuff, check out the website of the elite agents advocating it: ‘The need for good digital ID is universal: The ability to prove who you are is a fundamental and universal human right. Because we live in a digital era, we need a trusted and reliable way to do that both in the physical world and online.’ See ‘The Need for Good Digital ID is Universal’.
Without thinking too hard, I can list a few ‘fundamental and universal human rights’ that I would nominate before I got too excited about my digital identity. I wonder if these people are concerned about whether I have enough to eat, whether I am clothed and housed…. Of course, I know they have no interest in my privacy given that digital ID and the surveillance that goes with it will make that non-existent.
The deployment of the highly dangerous 5G which, under the guise of improving internet speed and capacity, will vastly expand everyone’s exposure to electromagnetic radiation with its long list of seriously adverse health impacts. For a taste of the extensive documentation on this point, see the ‘International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’.
Obviously, I am heartily in favour of ending war. But this is only going to happen when we campaign strategically to do so and provided we have sufficient political freedom to do it. See ‘Strategic Aims’ (for ending war).
Dramatic increases in absolute impoverishment among marginalized individuals and communities throughout the Global South who barely survive day-to-day under their usual, difficult economic circumstances. As one Asian NGO network, engaged in attempting to secure emergency relief to assist those most adversely impacted, has just reported: ‘We are receiving alarming reports that ADB and AIIB project-affected communities across Asia, especially South Asia and South East Asia are in an absolute state of crisis. Due to the enforced lockdown, they have no work or access to sanitizers and food supplies. Leaving them completely exposed and vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The state responses are slow and in some cases non-existent.’ See ‘COVID-19 Community Emergency Fund’.
And Arundhati Roy wrote an evocative account of how the Indian government’s lockdown exposed the ‘brutal, structural, social and economic inequality’ in that country and the government’s ‘callous indifference to suffering’ as the lockdown caused employers and landlords in cities and towns to drive out millions of impoverished, homeless and hungry workers to walk the hundreds of kilometres to their villages. Many have died along the way, but not of COVID-19. See ‘Social Devastation and Despair. How Coronavirus Threatens India’.
What Ms. Georgieva didn’t mention is that these loans will no doubt be done on the usual highly conditional and exploitative basis for which the IMF has built its reputation for destroying the lives of ordinary local people by opening the door for corrupt or naive governments to accept corporate exploitation of their people and natural resources while building unsustainable levels of national debt trying to pay back the loans and interest to the IMF. For more detail on how this exploitation works, see the many Global Justice Now reports on the IMF and the book The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
In contrast, World Bank President David Malpass was not so coy, clearly declaring that COVID-19 would be used to further exploit poorer countries by making any funding conditional on a willingness to make such exploitation easier in future: ‘Countries will need to implement structural reforms to help shorten the time to recovery and create confidence that the recovery can be strong. For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.’ See ‘Remarks by World Bank Group President David Malpass on G20 Finance Ministers Conference Call on COVID-19’.
To reiterate: The World Bank will help existing heavily exploited countries with some funding for short-term health measures directed at containing COVID-19 provided the country removes laws that would make it difficult to exploit it indefinitely thereafter.
And while there has been a short-term reduced negative impact on the climate as a result of the slowdown in industrial activity and the use of fossil fuel-powered vehicles, the ongoing COVID-19 coup has been used to destroy whatever momentum has been achieved by the climate and environment movements in recent years.
While COVID-19 is causing problems for the 100,000 skilled technicians responsible for controlling, maintaining and fuel loading/unloading of the 96 remaining nuclear power plants in the USA, given the confined space in which the technicians work which make ‘social distancing’ virtually impossible, ‘The industry is now using the Coronavirus Pandemic to rush through a wide range of deregulation demands. Among them is a move to allow radioactive waste to be dumped into municipal landfills.’ See ‘Terrified Atomic Workers Warn That the COVID-19 Pandemic May Threaten Nuclear Reactor Disaster’.
If you are a US citizen and wondering how the ‘largest industrial project in the history of the planet’ will be financed, look in your own purse or wallet and wonder how much more will be taken from you so that, as usual, you pay the upfront costs associated with the vast profits they plan to make. Of course, you will also pay with budget cuts to health, education and social security funding.
The 13-point list above is actually very short – and confined to readily observable ‘moves’ – but, hopefully, it gives you some idea of what is taking place behind the elite’s barrage of COVID-19 fear-mongering. Needless to say, it is the ‘moves’ that we do not know about that are, no doubt, even more troubling.
So what can we do in response to this fear-mongering and the coup it is being used to disguise?
Resisting the Elite Coup Powerfully
I have previously outlined this nonviolent strategy, identifying its political purpose – obviously ‘To defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite’– and I have set out a basic list of 26 strategic goals, of which eleven are as follows:
(1) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by wearing a global symbol of human solidarity, such as an image of several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands.
(2) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting all corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) and by seeking news from progressive news outlets committed to telling the truth.
(3) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by withdrawing all funds from the corporate banks that are supporting the coup and to deposit their money in local community banks or credit unions.
(4) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting the medical and pharmaceutical industries – including by conscientiously refusing to submit to vaccination – and by seeking health advice and treatment from natural therapists. (If you are unfamiliar with the different philosophies underpinning these approaches, and hence why many natural therapies are so much more effective, there is a straightforward explanation here: ‘Pasteur vs. Bechamp: An Alternative View of Infectious Disease’.)
(5) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting corporate supermarkets and by supporting small and family businesses, and local markets.
(6) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in other locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible nonviolent actions in the document ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.
(7) To cause the workers [in trade unions or labor organizations T1, T2, T…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include withdrawing labor from an elite-controlled bank, media, pharmaceutical or other corporation operating in your country.
(8) To cause the small farmers and farmworkers [in organizations F1, F2, F…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include distributing farm produce through (existing or created) grassroots networks to small and family businesses as well as local markets rather than through corporate supply chains.
(9) To cause the indigenous peoples [in organizations IP1,IP2, IP…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include utilizing indigenous knowledge to improve local self-reliance in food production and in other ways.
(10) To cause the soldiers and military police [in army units AU1, AU2, AU… and MP1, MP2, MP…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].
(11) To cause the police [in police units P1, P2, P…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].
Rather than detail all 26 strategic goals here, you can read the ‘Strategic goals for defeating a political/military coup conducted by the global elite against humanity’ by scrolling down the page at ‘Strategic Aims’.
Remaining pages on the website fully explain the twelve components of the strategy, as illustrated by the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. These include the need to provide leadership and mutual aid at local levels, which are already happening in many places, as part of the overall effort.
It is worth emphasizing that, in some contexts, there is a place for large public nonviolent actions for those who are inclined to plan and conduct them. And the article just referenced will assist you to conduct them with minimal risk of violent repression. However, because the bans on public gatherings are being implemented widely, I have concentrated on providing tactical options in the examples above that do not depend on gathering in one place.
Nevertheless, as more people become aware of the coup and the energy to resist it gathers pace, it will be worthwhile to choose a locally significant date on which as many people who are willing to do so act to ‘End the Lockdown’ in that country. Using a locally relevant focus, or perhaps several, for which many people would traditionally be together – a cultural or sporting event, a community activity such as working to establish a community garden to increase local self-reliance, a birthday celebration and/or a return to work – we can mobilize people to collectively resist the coup that is taking place. Because the actions taken will be dispersed with large numbers of people responding in a vast number of locations, it will be impossible for police and military forces to inflict violent repression against everyone, particularly if local organizers have implemented the points in ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.
Equally importantly to any of the points above, particularly given the pressing threat of human extinction – see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’– but also because becoming more self-reliant is vital to our ongoing capacity to resist elite encroachments on our rights, freedom and economic security, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. This project also explains how to take full advantage of non-monetary forms of community where goods and services are exchanged directly, without money as a medium of exchange. Money only has value in certain types of economy and these types of economy must be superseded if humans are to survive.
And given the enormous pressure on children at the moment, as their lives are upended, it would be useful to spend time listening to them. Of course, if you know an adult who is having trouble coping, it will help them enormously as well if you listen while giving them the opportunity to talk about, and focus on feeling, their own emotional reactions to what is taking place. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. If you do not have anyone who can listen to you, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.
Moreover, because the foundation of this entire elite-controlled world, and the coup it is now implementing, is the submissively obedient individual, the world can only be rebuilt as we might like it if we stop terrorizing children into being submissive. So I would start by parenting and educating children so that they become powerful. See ‘My Promise to Children’ and ‘Do We Want School or Education?’
Given that the statistics clearly show that the COVID-19 ‘pandemic’ is already fading in most places where it previously had serious impact, it is possible that the global elite will not complete its execution of this coup against humanity in the near future. It will be content with the demonstration of its phenomenal power to manipulate populations into passively submitting to its bidding and defer its final putsch for a short time.
If that is the case, the damage wrought by this socalled pandemic – on our rights, freedoms, economic security, opportunities, democratic governance, the global economy and the environment – will be irreparable and it would take many years to even restore a partial version of what we thought we had while knowing that they can be taken away, again, at any time just as they were on this occasion.
But, quite frankly, if I was a member of the global elite and had witnessed the remarkably submissive manner in which even activists were deceived by the COVID-19 coup, I would advocate for completing the coup now and lock us down, force-vaccinate us with our own unique digital ID and surveillance chip, and promptly implement all of the measures necessary to take final control of the prison planet previously known as Earth.
However, because I am not a member of the global elite, I will continue to draw attention to what is taking place and encourage people to resist in the strategic ways I have outlined above.
And then do what I can to ensure that as many people as possible, who are powerful enough to do so, respond before it is too late.
I would rather act sooner, while we still have some room to move, rather than later, when we might have much less.
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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to ‘Global Research’.
The Earth Pledge
Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:
I will listen deeply to children (see explanation above)
I will not travel by plane
I will not travel by car
I will not eat meat and fish
I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
I will not buy rainforest timber
I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.
“If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.” – Julius Caesar
The illegal invasion of Libya, in which Britain was complicit and a British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s report confirmed as an illegal act sanctioned by the UK government, over which Cameron stepped down as Prime Minister (weeks before the release of the UK parliament report), occurred from March – Oct, 2011.
Muammar al-Gaddafi was assassinated on Oct. 20th, 2011.
On Sept 11-12th, 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyron Woods and Glen Doherty were killed at two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi.
It is officially denied to this date that al-Qaeda or any other international terrorist organization participated in the Benghazi attack. It is also officially denied that the attack was pre-meditated.
On the 6th year anniversary of the Benghazi attack, Barack Obama stated at a partisan speechon Sept 10th, 2018, delivered at the University of Illinois, that the outrage over the details concerning the Benghazi attack were the result of “wild conspiracy theory” perpetrated by conservatives and Republican members of Congress.
However, according to an August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report (only released to the public in May 2015), this is anything but the case. The report was critical of the policies of then President Obama as a direct igniter for the rise of ISIS and the creation of a “caliphate” by Syria-based radical Islamists and al-Qaeda. The report also identified that arms shipments in Libya had gone to radical Islamist “allies” of the United States and NATO in the overthrowing of Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi. These arms shipments were sent to Syria and became the arsenal that allowed ISIS and other radical rebels to grow.
“AQI [al-qaeda –iraq] SUPPORTED THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION FROM THE BEGINNING, BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND THROUGH THE MEDIA… WESTERN COUNTRIES, THE GULF STATES AND TURKEY ARE SUPPORTING THESE EFFORTS… THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEYSUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT,IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…” [emphasis added]
Screenshot below from Judicial Watch:
Image on the right: Ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was murdered on Oct. 20, 2011.
Another DIA document from Oct 2012 (also released in May 2015), reported that Gaddafi’s vast arsenal was being shipped from Benghazi to two Syrian ports under the control of the Syrian rebel groups.
Essentially, the DIA documents were reporting that the Obama Administration was supporting Islamist extremism, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
There was just one problem; Lt. Gen. Flynn was backing up the reliability of the released DIA reports.
Lt. Gen. Flynn as Director of the DIA from July 2012 – Aug. 2014, was responsible for acquiring accurate intelligence on ISIS’s and other extremist operations within the Middle East, but did not have any authority in shaping U.S. military policy in response to the Intel the DIA was acquiring.
In a July 2015 interview with Al-Jazeera, Flynn went so far as to state that the rise of ISIS was the result of a “willful decision,” not an intelligence failure, by the Obama Administration.
In the Al-Jazeera interview Flynn was asked:
Q: You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?
FLYNN: I think the Administration.
Q: So the Administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?
FLYNN: I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Q: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
FLYNN: It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.
Flynn was essentially stating (in the 47 minute interview) that the United States was fully aware that weapons trafficking from Benghazi to the Syrian rebels was occurring. In fact, the secret flow of arms from Libya to the Syrian opposition, via Turkey was CIA sponsored and had been underway shortly after Gaddafi’s death in Oct 2011. The operation was largely run out of a covert CIA annex in Benghazi, with State Department acquiescence.
This information was especially troubling in light of the fact that the Obama Administration’s policy, from mid-2011 on, was to overthrow the Assad government. The question of “who will replace Assad?” was never fully answered.
Perhaps the most troubling to Americans among the FOIA-released DIA documents was a report from Sept. 16, 2012, which provided a detail account of the pre-meditated nature of the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi, reporting that the attack had been planned ten days prior, detailing the groups involved.
The report revealed that it was in fact an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group that was responsible for the Benghazi attack. That despite this intelligence, the Obama Administration continued to permit arms-trafficking to the al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels even after the 9/11/12 attacks.
In August 2015, then President Obama ordered for U.S. forces to attack Syrian government forces if they interfered with the American “vetted, trained and armed” forces. This U.S. approved Division 30 Syrian rebel group “defected” almost immediately, with U.S. weapons in hand, to align with the Nusra Front, the formal al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
Obama’s Semantics War: Any Friend of Yours is a Friend of Mine
“Flynn incurred the wrath of the [Obama] White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria… He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out.” – Patrick Lang (retired army colonel, served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency)
Before being named Director of the DIA, Flynn served as Director of Intelligence for the Joint Staff, as Director of Intelligence for the U.S. Central Command, and as Director of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command.
Flynn’s criticisms and opposition to the Obama Administration’s policies in his interview with Al-Jazeera in 2015 was nothing new. In August 2013, Flynn as Director of the DIA supported Gen. Dempsey’s intervention, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in forcing then President Obama to cancel orders to launch a massive bombing campaign against the Syrian government and armed forces. Flynn and Dempsey both argued that the overthrow of the Assad government would lead to a radical Islamist stronghold in Syria, much like what was then happening in Libya.
This account was also supported in Seymour Hersh’s paper “Military to Military” published in Jan 2016, to which he states:
“Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he [Flynn] said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’
[According to a former JCS adviser]’…To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing U.S. intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State [ISIS].” [emphasis added]
According to Hersh’s sources, it was through the militaries of Germany, Israel and Russia, who were in contact with the Syrian army, that the U.S. intelligence on where the terrorist cells were located was shared, hence the “military to military”. There was no direct contact between the U.S. and the Syrian military.
“The two countries [U.S. & Syria] collaborated against al-Qaida, their common enemy. A longtime consultant to the Joint Special Operations Command said that, after 9/11, ‘Bashar was, for years, extremely helpful to us while, in my view, we were churlish in return, and clumsy in our use of the gold he gave us. That quiet co-operation continued among some elements, even after the [Bush administration’s] decision to vilify him.’ In 2002 Assad authorised Syrian intelligence to turn over hundreds of internal files on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and Germany. Later that year, Syrian intelligence foiled an attack by al-Qaida on the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and Assad agreed to provide the CIA with the name of a vital al-Qaida informant. In violation of this agreement, the CIA contacted the informant directly; he rejected the approach, and broke off relations with his Syrian handlers.
…It was this history of co-operation that made it seem possible in 2013 that Damascus would agree to the new indirect intelligence-sharing arrangement with the U.S.”
In Sept. 2015, Russia came in and directly intervened militarily, upon invitation by the Syrian government, and effectively destroyed ISIS strongholds within Syrian territory. In response, Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 on Nov 24th, 2015 for allegedly entering Turkish airspace for 17 seconds. Days after the Russian fighter jet was shot down, Obama expressed support for Erdogan and stated at a Dec. 1st, 2015 press conference that his administration would remain “very much committed to Turkey’s security and its sovereignty”. Obama also said that as long as Russia remained allied with Assad, “a lot of Russian resources are still going to be targeted at opposition groups … that we support … So I don’t think we should be under any illusions that somehow Russia starts hitting only Isil targets. That’s not happening now. It was never happening. It’s not going to be happening in the next several weeks.”
Today, not one of those “opposition groups” has shown itself to have remained, or possibly ever been, anti-extremist. And neither the Joint Chiefs nor the DIA believed that there was ever such a thing as “moderate rebels.”
Rather, as remarked by a JCS adviser to Hersh, “Turkey is the problem.”
China’s “Uyghur Problem”
Imad Moustapha, was the Syrian Ambassador to the United States from 2004 to Dec. 2011, and has been the Syrian Ambassador to China for the past eight years.
“‘China regards the Syrian crisis from three perspectives,’ he said: international law and legitimacy; global strategic positioning; and the activities of jihadist Uighurs, from Xinjiang province in China’s far west. Xinjiang borders eight nations – Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India – and, in China’s view, serves as a funnel for terrorism around the world and within China. Many Uighur fighters now in Syria are known to be members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement – an often violent separatist organisation that seeks to establish an Islamist Uighur state in Xinjiang. ‘The fact that they have been aided by Turkish intelligence to move from China into Syria through Turkey has caused a tremendous amount of tension between the Chinese and Turkish intelligence,’ Moustapha said. ‘China is concerned that the Turkish role of supporting the Uighur fighters in Syria may be extended in the future to support Turkey’s agenda in Xinjiang. We are already providing the Chinese intelligence service with information regarding these terrorists and the routes they crossed from on travelling into Syria.’ ” [emphasis added]
This view was echoed by a Washington foreign affairs analyst whose views are routinely sought by senior government officials, informing Hersh that:
“Erdoğan has been bringing Uighurs into Syria by special transport while his government has been agitating in favour of their struggle in China. Uighur and Burmese Muslim terrorists who escape into Thailand somehow get Turkish passports and are then flown to Turkey for transit into Syria.”
China understands that the best way to combat the terrorist recruiting that is going on in these regions is to offer aid towards reconstruction and economic development projects. By 2016, China had allegedly committed more than $30 billion to postwar reconstruction in Syria.
The long-time consultant to the Joint Special Operations Command could not hide his contempt, according to Hersh, when he was asked for his view of the U.S. policy on Syria. “‘The solution in Syria is right before our nose,’ he said. ‘Our primary threat is Isis and all of us – the United States, Russia and China – need to work together.’“
The military’s indirect pathway to Assad disappeared with Dempsey’s retirement in September 25th, 2015. His replacement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Joseph Dunford, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2015, two months before assuming office, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.”
Flynn’s Call for Development in the Middle East to Counter Terrorism
Not only was Flynn critical of the Obama Administration’s approach to countering terrorism in the Middle East, his proposed solution was to actually downgrade the emphasis on military counter-operations, and rather focus on economic development within these regions as the most effective and stable impediment to the growth of extremists.
“Frankly, an entire new economy is what this region needs. They need to take this 15-year old, to 25 to 30-year olds in Saudi Arabia, the largest segment of their population; in Egypt, the largest segment of their population, 15 to roughly 30 years old, mostly young men. You’ve got to give them something else to do. If you don’t, they’re going to turn on their own governments, and we can solve that problem.
So that is the conversation that we have to have with them, and we have to help them do that. And in the meantime, what we have is this continued investment in conflict. The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop,that just fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done, but I’m looking for other solutions. I’m looking for the other side of this argument, and we’re not having it; we’re not having it as the United States.” [emphasis added]
Flynn also stated in the interview that the U.S. cannot, and should not, deter the development of nuclear energy in the Middle East:
“It now equals nuclear development of some type in the Middle East, and now what we want… what I hope for is that we have nuclear [energy] development, because it also helps for projects like desalinization, getting water…nuclear energy is very clean, and it actually is so cost effective, much more cost effective for producing water from desalinization.”
Flynn was calling for a new strategic vision for the Middle East, and making it clear that “conflict only” policies were only going to add fuel to the fire, that cooperative economic policies are the true solution to attaining peace in the Middle East. Pivotal to this is the expansion of nuclear energy, while assuring non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, which Flynn states “has to be done in a very international, inspectable way.”
When In Doubt, Blame the Russians
How did the Obama Administration respond to Flynn’s views?
He was fired (forced resignation) from his post as Director of the DIA on April 30th, 2014. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who was briefed by Flynn on the intelligence reports and was also critical of the U.S. Administration’s strategy in the Middle East was also forced to resign in Feb. 2015.
With the election of Trump as President on Nov. 8 2016, Lt. Gen. Flynn was swiftly announced as Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser on Nov. 18th, 2016.
Just weeks later, Flynn was targeted by the FBI and there was a media sensation over Flynn being a suspected “Russian agent”. Flynn was taken out before he had a chance to even step into his office, prevented from doing any sort of overhaul with the intelligence bureaus and Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was most certainly going to happen. Instead Flynn was forced to resign on Feb. 13th, 2017 after incessant media attacks undermining the entire Trump Administration, accusing them of working for the Russians against the welfare of the American people.
Despite an ongoing investigation on the allegations against Flynn, there has been no evidence to this date that has justified any charge. In fact, volumes of exculpatory evidence have been presented to exonerate Flynn from any wrongdoing including perjury. At this point, the investigation of Flynn has been put into question as consciously disingenuous and as being stalled by the federal judge since May 2020, refusing to release Flynn it seems while a Trump Administration is still in effect.
The question thus stands; in whose best interest is it that no peace be permitted to occur in the Middle East and that U.S.-Russian relations remain verboten? And is such an interest a friend or foe to the American people?
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Cynthia Chung is a lecturer, writer and co-founder and editor of the Rising Tide Foundation (Montreal, Canada).
In early November, the Azerbaijani-Turkish advance in the directions of the Lachin corridor and the town of Shusha in the Nagorno-Karabakh region slowed down.
The main factors are the fierce resistance of Armenian forces, the complicated terrain, deteriorating weather conditions and overextended communications that run through recently captured territories, where Armenian sabotage units are still able to deliver regular attacks. 9 villages, the capturing of which Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced recently, are in fact located inside the territory captured by Azerbaijani forces earlier. This showcases the lack of progress of Baku’s forces in the recent battles.
Commenting on this situation, Armenian sources argue that right now Yerevan has been preparing a powerful counter-attack to push the Azerbaijanis out of the south of Karabakh. The only factor that allegedly stops Armenia from such a move right now is the commitment of the Armenians to the reached ceasefire agreements that Baku blatantly violates.
Meanwhile, the Armenian side continues to regularly release updates about the losses of Azerbaijan in the conflict. The Azerbaijani military allegedly lost 10 UAVs, 21 armoured vehicles, and 103 soldiers in recent clashes. While the high casualties of the sides are not a secret and widely confirmed by visual evidence regularly appearing from the ground, the claims that the Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc somehow lost the strategic initiative in the war are at least overestimated. Azerbaijani artillery, combat drones and even warplanes still regularly pound fortified positions, manpower and military equipment of the defending forces. The Armenians do not have enough means and measures to protect its supply columns and manpower from regular and intense airstrikes.
As of November 3, Azerbaijani forces supported by the Turks and Turkish-backed Syrian militants are still deployed within striking distance of Lachin and Shusha. The loss of any of these points may mark the collapse of the entire Armenian defense in the area. Any large Armenian counter-attack, if it does not deliver a rapid and devastating blow to the Turkish-Azerbaijani forces, will likely not allow to achieve a strategic success. Instead, it will uncover the existing Armenian units and increase the number of casualties from air and artillery strikes. The dominance in the air also means an advantage in reconnaissance and target accusation. In these conditions, small regular counter-attacks mostly aimed at disturbing the advancing Azerbaijani-Turkish units, and undermining their efforts to secure the newly captured positions, look more likely. Despite the lack of notable Azerbaijani gains in recent days, the Armenian defense is still in crisis and, if Ankara and Baku succeed in securing communications and regrouping their forces, the new push towards the Lachin-Shusha-Stepanakert triangle seems to be inevitable.
The diplomatic attempts to de-escalate the conflict have so far led to little progress as Turkey and Azerbaijan feel themselves too close to the desired military victory. President Aliyev wants to write his name down in history as the leader that returned Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, while his Turkish counterpart Erdogan sees himself as the sultan of the New Ottoman Empire, pretending be the leader of the entire Turkic world and even wider – of all the muslims in the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia.
The entire Turkish foreign policy of previous years was a policy of aggressive advances, confrontations and raising bets. This led to particular diplomatic and economic problems on the international scene and undermined the Turkish national economy. However, it looks like the Turkish leadership believes that the potential revenue of turning the Neo-Ottoman and pan-Turkic declarations into a hard reality will generate revenue of such a scale that it would allow to compensate for existing tactical difficulties. Therefore, the Turkish-Azerbaijani stance towards the further confrontation in Karabakh is not something surprising.
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Incisive article first published on April 14, 2020
“Researchers in Wuhan…reported that, of 37 critically ill Covid-19 patients who were put on mechanical ventilators, 30 died within a month. In a U.S. study of patients in Seattle, only one of the seven patients older than 70 who were put on a ventilator survived; just 36% of those younger than 70 did.” (“With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19”, STAT News)
Think about that for a minute. What these figures mean is that, if you’re over 70 and you’re put on a ventilator because you have coronavirus, you’re probably going to die. More importantly, it means that it was probably the ventilator that killed you. Isn’t that something the public ought to know?
I think it is.
“One in seven” is very poor odds. They aren’t the odds a rational person would bet his life on unless he had a death wish or a very serious gambling problem. So what’s going on here, and why is there so much misleading blabber about ventilators?
The root problem seems to be that coronavirus is a relatively new phenomenon and the methods for treating it are still in their early phases. Nothing is set in stone, not yet at least. Even so, you might have noticed that, when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson contracted the infection and was bundled off to ICU, the medical team did NOT put him on a ventilator, but put him on oxygen instead. And the difference couldn’t be more striking, because today, after 3 days in ICU, Johnson is alive, whereas he probably would be dead if he was intubated. Yes, I am making a judgment about something of which I cannot be entirely certain, but I think I’m probably right. If Johnson had been put on a ventilator, he probably would have died.
But, why, that’s what we want to know?
The answer to that question can be found in the article cited above. Take a look:
“Many (coronavirus) patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead. But they’re not gasping for air, their hearts aren’t racing, and their brains show no signs of blinking off from lack of oxygen.
That is making critical care physicians suspect thatblood levels of oxygen, which for decades have driven decisions about breathing support for patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, might be misleading them about how to care for those with Covid-19. In particular, more and more are concerned about the use of intubation and mechanical ventilators. They argue that more patients could receive simpler, noninvasive respiratory support, such as the breathing masks used in sleep apnea, at least to start with and maybe for the duration of the illness.
The question is whether ICU physicians are moving patients to mechanical ventilators too quickly. “Almost the entire decision tree is driven by oxygen saturation levels,” said the emergency medicine physician, who asked not to be named so as not to appear to be criticizing colleagues.” (“With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19”, STAT News)
Okay, so doctors are making their decisions based on “blood oxygen levels”, right? But blood oxygen levels might signal the need for a different treatment for coronavirus patients than they do for pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients. In other words, one size does not fit all. The problem is that too many people are ending up on ventilators when ventilators are undermining their chances for survival. Here’s more:
“….one of the most severe consequences of Covid-19 suggests another reason the ventilators aren’t more beneficial. In acute respiratory distress syndrome, which results from immune cells ravaging the lungs and kills many Covid-19 patients, the air sacs of the lungs become filled with a gummy yellow fluid. “That limits oxygen transfer from the lungs to the blood even when a machine pumps in oxygen,” Gillick said.
As patients go downhill, protocols developed for other respiratory conditions call for increasing the force with which a ventilator delivers oxygen, the amount of oxygen, or the rate of delivery, she explained. But if oxygen can’t cross into the blood from the lungs in the first place, those measures, especially greater force, may prove harmful. High levels of oxygen impair the lung’s air sacs, while high pressure to force in more oxygen damages the lungs.
“We need to ask, are we using ventilators in a way that makes sense for other diseases but not for this one?” Gillick said. “Instead of asking how do we ration a scarce resource, we should be asking how do we best treat this disease?” (STAT News)
Can you see the problem? Virus victims develop a mucousy-yellow gunk in their lungs that prevents oxygen from transferring to the blood. Forcing more air into their lungs with a ventilator, doesn’t help that process, it just damages the lungs. In short, it is the wrong treatment for this particular illness. This explains why Johnson was not put on a ventilator, because the risks far outweighed the potential benefits. Here’s more from the same article:
“In a small study last week in Annals of Intensive Care, physicians who treated Covid-19 patients at two hospitals in China found that the majority of patients needed no more than a nasal cannula. Among the 41% who needed more intense breathing support, none was put on a ventilator right away. Instead, they were given noninvasive devices such as BiPAP; their blood oxygen levels “significantly improved” after an hour or two. (Eventually two of seven needed to be intubated.) The researchers concluded that the more comfortable nasal cannula is just as good as BiPAP and that a middle ground is as safe for Covid-19 patients as quicker use of a ventilator…..“Anecdotal experience from Italy [also suggests] that they were able to support a number of folks using these [non-invasive] methods,” Japa said.” (STAT News)
So the treatment for patients with coronavirus is rapidly evolving, but serious mistakes are undoubtedly still being made. One can only wonder how many people might have survived their trip to ICU had their physicians been more aware of the non-invasive alternatives? But don’t think for a minute that I’m blaming anyone for using methods or devices that may be discarded in the near future. I’m not, but from my vantage point, it looks like the over-dependence on ventilators might have been a very costly mistake. Check out this last clip from the article:
“Because U.S. data on treating Covid-19 patients are nearly nonexistent, health care workers are flying blind when it comes to caring for such confounding patients. But anecdotally, Weingart said, “we’ve had a number of people who improved and got off CPAP or high flow [nasal cannulas] who would have been tubed 100 out of 100 times in the past.” What he calls “this knee-jerk response” of putting people on ventilators if their blood oxygen levels remain low with noninvasive devices “is really bad. … I think these patients do much, much worse on the ventilator.”
That could be because the ones who get intubated are the sickest, he said, “but that has not been my experience: It makes things worse as a direct result of the intubation.” High levels of force and oxygen levels, both in quest of restoring oxygen saturation levels to normal, can injure the lungs. “I would do everything in my power to avoid intubating patients,” Weingart said.” (STAT News)
“Flying blind” sums it up perfectly. Doctors and health care workers have proceeded on the basis of guesswork and intuition without any empirical evidence that they’ve settled on the proper treatment for the infection. That should give us all pause.
Assuming that we’re still in the early days of the pandemic, many of us might have to decide whether we’ll allow ourselves or a loved one to be put on a ventilator. This new research could help us to make a more informed decision. I certainly hope so.
Please watch this excellent 6 minute video of Dr Cameron Kyle Sidell, E.R. and Critical Care Doctor, NY City
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
According to “racist thinking”, certain groups of people innately have inferior characteristics that make them undesirable, unworthy, and dispensable. The purveyors of racist views believe they, in contrast, are superior, exceptionally worthy, and indispensable.
There is a virtually unrecognized form of racism that affects almost every human being on Earth.
It is a form of racism that denigrates billions of people and abusively claims that almost all in that group are intrinsically weak in character and hopelessly so.
More specifically, this is a racism that claims that all human beings are, by nature, predominantly and hopelessly selfish and largely unworthy. It is a racism directed against the entire Human Race.
Who has promoted this perception of Human Nature and the Human Race? How accurate, complete, and wise is this perception? Who benefits from its promotion?
This view of the Human Race happens to be the cornerstone, the foundation of the world’s prevailing economic model-–an economic model that affects everyone on earth. This economic model, Corporate Capitalism, espouses a shallow, incomplete, negative, pessimistic, and abusive view of Human Nature. Capitalism claims that human beings, by nature, are predominantly selfish and hopelessly so.
Capitalists use this view to claim that capitalism is “the only realistic economic model” and that economic models based on Human Goodness and altruism are doomed to failure, “because of Human Nature.” Corporate capitalism justifies itself with this view. Corporate capitalism depends upon, requires, and rewards this view of Human Nature and Human Beings.
The above view of human nature accentuates the negative behavioral capacities of human beings and is incomplete. It largely ignores the positive capacities of human nature. It is anti-people in that it shows little respect for and little faith in the positive behavioral capacities of human beings. It also ignores how the social milieu can up-regulate or down-regulate expression of people’s positive or negative behavioral capacities, individually and collectively.
There is another, more positive, more complete, more accurate, deeper, healthier, and more helpful understanding of “human nature.” It is this:
All human beings innately have capacities for both altruistic and selfish behaviors. There is probably a spectrum regarding the extent to which individual people possess and express innate altruistic capacities versus innate selfish capacities. At one end of the spectrum are people who possess and express large capacities for altruism, compared to their capacities for and/or expression of selfishness. At the other end are people who possess and express large capacities for selfishness, compared to their capacities for and/or expression of altruism. In the exact middle are people who possess roughly equal capacities (for altruism and selfishness) and express those capacities roughly equally. There is probably a bell-shaped curve regarding the distribution of these innate capacities and the ability to express them—although it is likely that this curve, in actuality, is shifted considerably towards the altruistic end—that is, considerably more than half of people probably fall along the altruistic half of the spectrum. (See Note #9, Human Nature—A Graphic Depiction.)
This more comprehensive understanding of Human Nature also emphasizes the great extent to which the social milieu can either up-regulate or down-regulate expression of the behavioral capacities of people, individually and collectively.
As with all forms of racism, the racism that capitalism directs against the entire Human Race is abusive, oppressive, demeaning, dispiriting, demoralizing, depressing, controlling, shaming, powerful, and leaves people, individually and collectively, feeling insecure, unworthy, “dirty,” fearful, ashamed, powerless, and hopelessly trapped. Though not as horrific in scale, these feelings are similar to those experienced by women who have been chronically subjected to the physical and emotional torment of abusive, controlling men who systematically damage a female’s self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. Though not as horrific in scale, these feelings are also similar to those endured throughout history by oppressed populations throughout the world—Africans; African-Americans; indigenous peoples on all continents; and exploited, impoverished, and abused peoples throughout the world.
So, the racism that affects the most people in the world is the anti-Human racism espoused, promoted, practiced, and powerfully imposed by corporate capitalism. Just as abused women deserve to be freed from the abusive men who control them; all members of the Human Race deserve to be freed from the view of Human Nature that corporate capitalism uses to control and abuse them. Just as abused women and the many severely oppressed populations in the world deserve to discover, celebrate, and protect their abundant goodness and worth; the Human Race as a whole deserves to discover, celebrate, and protect its human goodness and worthiness. Just as informed solidarity helps abused women and other oppressed groups to challenge their oppressors; informed solidarity can help free the Human Race from the oppression of corporate capitalism and its racist view of Human beings. In this liberation effort, those who have experienced the greatest degrees of racism and have been exploited the most can provide invaluable insight and great leadership. They deserve our greatest attention.
Although capitalism’s negative and abusive view of human nature and the Human Race is the greatest source of its power and control over human beings, this view is also its greatest weakness, its Achilles heel. For, if this view of human nature is exposed and effectively challenged, capitalism’s power will collapse. Just as the power of an abusing male dissolves when he is exposed and held to account; the power of corporate capitalism will dissolve when its view of human nature is fully exposed and it is held to account.
Just as liberated women are free to evolve into the marvelous women they were intended to become; a Human Race, liberated from capitalism’s abusive view of Human Nature, becomes free to develop new, healthy social arrangements and the Social Beauty that human beings were intended to create and enjoy.
So, in addition to continually addressing the horrible systemic racism that has been directed against specific groups within the Human Race (e.g. the racism experienced by African Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans, et al), the systemic racism that capitalism has directed against the entire Human Race also needs to be exposed and corrected. While continuing to address the racism that has been directed against individual groups of people, it will be important for all groups to avoid generalization, stereotyping, divisiveness, intolerance, and violence—all of which are counterproductive and distract from the additional task of recognizing and correcting the racist view of Humanity promoted by the capitalist economic model. Capitalism depends on a strategy of “divide and conquer” to gets its way. Such division distracts people from recognizing and addressing the deepest roots of their oppression. The Human race must avoid falling into that trap of division and entrenched polarization. (At least to some extent, have we already fallen into that trap—a trap set by and even financed by powers behind corporate capitalism?)
Liberation of the Human Race and creation of widespread Social Beauty will become possible only when one of the most pervasive and powerful forms of racism—the anti-Human racism espoused, practiced, and imposed by corporate capitalism—is effectively challenged. Exposure and correction of the anti-Human racism promoted by capitalism is a key to the elimination of the horrific racism experienced by Africans, African-Americans, indigenous populations, and oppressed people throughout the world. Elimination of all forms of racism and creation of Social Beauty will require replacement of the capitalist economic model and its abusive view of Human Nature with an economic model based on a healthier and more accurate view of Human Nature. All of Humanity, including all the most obvious historical and current victims of racism, can unite to develop a healthier economic model, healthier social arrangements, and, thereby, Social Beauty bereft of racism.
In short, we must all become anti-racists, and this includes being anti-capitalist—because capitalism, fundamentally, is based on, justified by, and depends upon its anti-Human racism. Capitalism without its anti-human racism is no longer capitalism.
Bottom line: Capitalism is a racist economic model. It promotes a negative, abusive, denigrating, demoralizing, and inaccurate view of human nature and the entire human race, and it leads to unhealthy social arrangements and behaviors. We need to expose this abuse and replace capitalism with an economic model that is based on a more accurate understanding of human nature and creates kinder, more healthy and helpful social arrangements. This is best accomplished by encouraging all groups of people to unite and collaborate to expose and replace capitalism with a deeper understanding of human nature and a healthier economic model (e.g. Public Economy).
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Rob Rennebohm, MD is a pediatrician, pediatric rheumatologist, and social clinician who writes about Social Beauty and encourages all to evaluate illness of society in the Social Clinic. His writings, including analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic, are posted on the following website: notesfromthesocialclinic.org
Bulgaria’s veto against North Macedonia’s accession into the European Union (EU) remains very likely despite initial speculations that it would not obstruct the former Yugoslav country from joining the bloc. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva said that her country would block North Macedonia from joining the EU if it did not recognize that its national identity and language has Bulgarian roots.
If decisionmakers in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje agree, then Sofia is ready to recognize Macedonian as one of the official languages of North Macedonia as long as it “acknowledges the historical truth.”
“We are not disputing their right for self-determination, neither their right to call their language what they like. We are ready to re-confirm the current realities, but they have to acknowledge the historical truth,” Zaharieva told Reuters.
Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of North Macedonia when it separated from collapsing Yugoslavia in 1991. It was first called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia when it achieved independence. However, despite being the first country to recognize its independence, Sofia does not recognize their language as Macedonian and emphasizes that not only is their language a dialect of Bulgarian, but also their ethnicity.
Sofia and Athens stress that the Macedonian nation and language was engineered by Yugoslav communists in the late 1940’s to legitimize Marshal Tito’s claims over the northern Greek province of Macedonia, and to also weaken Bulgarian identity in the region so they would not make demands for unification with Bulgaria. Сenturies earlier, most people in what is today’s North Macedonia considered themselves Bulgarian. So the Yugoslavs had established a committee in 1945 to “create” a Macedonian language. In fact, Venko Markovski, a communist politician who participated in the Commission for the Creation of the Macedonian Alphabet in 1945 stated in an interview for Bulgarian National Television only seven days prior to his death that ethnic Macedonians and the Macedonian language do not exist and were the result of Comintern’s plans for the Balkans.
However, with the collapse of European communism in the early 1990’s, attempts of re-Bulgarianization were made against the people now calling themselves Macedonian. Further complexing the issue is Skopje’s insistence that a Macedonian minority exists in Bulgaria.
“Our concerns come from the never-ending claims for a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. The acknowledgment of Bulgarian roots would put an end to this,” Zaharieva told.
Last Thursday, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said he hoped the two countries would find a solution, but said that the identity and language of the country were not up for debate. It appears that North Macedonia’s first steps towards accession into the EU will end even before they begin.
Bulgarian demands are not new and it is likely they will opt to veto. Western powers interested in North Macedonia’s accession into the EU are expected to push Bulgaria to take a step back from their demands or form a compromise. North Macedonia’s problem is that even if accession negotiations start, there is still a long way to go.
On the other hand, there are many internal problems in the EU. This makes it difficult for the bloc to move towards enlargement in the coming years. At the top of the problems is the pandemic that is enough to put a brake on all enlargement processes. But there is also the deep division within the EU on how to deal with Turkey’s aggression against member states Greece and Cyprus.
From the Greek perspective, Bulgaria’s opposition to North Macedonia joining the EU is humiliating. Not only has it undermined Greece’s supposed elevated position to guide Balkan countries into joining the EU, but undermines Greece’s decision to recognize a Macedonian language in 2018. Athens effectively involved itself into a dispute that does not concern them, especially since there is no specific international agreement that defines language.
The 2018 Prespa Agreement that settled the name of “North Macedonia” between Athens and Skopje, was solely signed so that North Macedonia could join NATO, creating a host of other issues.
A few months ago, Bulgaria submitted to the capitals of the other EU Member States a lengthy memorandum entitled “Explanatory Memorandum on the Relations between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia in Relation to the EU Enlargement, Accession and Stabilization Process.” Central to this memorandum is the national and linguistic interventions that took place in North Macedonia after World War II.
However, for all of Bulgaria’s opposition for North Macedonia to join the EU, they made no objections to them joining NATO. This suggests that Bulgaria found resisting Russian influence in the Balkans to be a bigger priority then the reclamation of the Bulgarian language and identity in North Macedonia. This of course is a curious decision, even when ignoring Bulgaria’s shared religion, alphabet and Slavic heritage with Russia.
Although Bulgaria’s independence was only secured thanks to Russian assistance against the Ottoman Empire, today Sofia is fully integrated into the Atlanticist world system, which is why they did not oppose North Macedonia’s accession into NATO, but takes a different line into integrating the former Yugoslav country into the EU. Bulgaria will likely veto the process into starting North Macedonia’s accession into the EU. For Brussels, this will not be a major issue as they are already dealing with a second wave of COVID-19, Turkish aggression against two member states, and a new wave of terrorism that has already struck France and Austria.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
President Donald Trump has succeeded, aided and abetted by a willing and corrupt senate, in ramming through his third Supreme Court nominee, the very conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Her successful appointment to the nation’s highest court does not bode well for freedom and justice at home or abroad.
There has been much conversation about Barrett’s Catholic faith, which, in and of itself, is entirely irrelevant to any discussion of her qualifications. But there are many issues that are pertinent to any conversation about her lack of suitability for her new position, and one of them does relate to her religious beliefs.
While Barrett’s association with the ‘People of Praise’ cult should have disqualified her, one might argue that that is placing too much emphasis on her religious beliefs. This writer thinks that emphasis is completely appropriate, but if not, let’s look at another extremely troubling aspect of her history.
For several years, a terrorist organization called the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (Mujahadeen-e-Khalk; known simply as MEK) was officially designated a terrorist organization by the United States government. The sole purpose of the existence of the MEK is to overthrow the government of Iran and install a right-wing replacement, one that would be reminiscent of the brutal reign of the Shah of Iran.
Masquerading as a pro-democracy organization, the secretive group is responsible for the deaths of at least 12,000 Iranians. On June 28, 1981, the group bombed the Islamic Republic Party headquarters in Tehran, killing seventy-three people. The group has been accused of working with Israel to assassinate Iranian scientists.
The MEK was started by Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, who fancied themselves the next rulers of Iran, once they and their 2,000 – 3,000 followers were able to convince the 80,000,000 Iranians to reject the Islamic Revolution they fought so hard for, and follow them. Like Giuliani, realistic thinking is not their strong suit. As of this writing, Massoud Rajavi is believed to be dead, and his wife is seldom, if ever, seen in public.
This is the organization that the United States’ newest Supreme Court justice has defended. These are the people – who have killed thousands of Iranians and who support the overthrow of the sovereign, people’s government of Iran – that Barrett says are not terrorists. The Intercept reported that many female members over the years were force to have sex with Rajavi; many were forced to be sterilized, so they would not be distracted by children, and could fully devote their time to Rajavi and his unholy cause. Based on her association with the ‘People of Praise’ cult, this is probably just fine with her.
As of this writing, the U.S. election has not been decided. It is disheartening to imagine that so much of the citizenry has bought into Trump’s lies, Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism and misogyny. A Biden victory will not bring substantial change, but would not necessarily spell the end of any semblance of democracy. Should Trump be re-elected, it is likely that the MEK will continue to receive praise and financial assistance from the U.S. government. Other organizations, perhaps Black Lives Matter, may be designated terrorist organizations. In the Orwellian world of Donald Trump, this is only too possible. And the gradual erosion of human rights and respect for international law, neither of which the U.S. ever cared much about anyway, will become a fast-moving landslide.
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In 36 years of living in Latin America I have learned that any time a country changes its conditions so that poverty decreases and the standard of living improves, the United States wages some kind of war on that country. It has waged unconventional warfare on Nicaragua since the Sandinistas returned to the presidency in 2007 providing millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations, more than 25 different media, three “human rights” groups and many individuals whose job is to lie for their salaries. Since 2017, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has disbursed over $89 million with the primary focus on “governance” and promoting challenges to the Nicaraguan government. Another aspect of US aggression is the economic sanctions. The U.S. uses its influence to oppose any loan, financial or technical assistance to the government of Nicaragua from international banks and organizations.
In July this year, USAID contracted a US company to head up the current phase of their war through the November 2021 elections. The plan is titled RAIN – Responsive Action in Nicaragua. It is a thinly veiled plan to mount domestic and international pressure for “regime change” in Nicaragua. RAIN is a plan to undermine public order with actions [violent and otherwise] before, during and after the 2021 elections. The document suggests there is a crisis and “economic debacle” with potential to become a “humanitarian emergency” due to Covid-19. Since March the opposition focused most of their attention on telling lies in the media. This strategy had some success internationally but not much at home since Nicaragua has the lowest Covid mortality rate in the region.
The opposition is now on to new topics – like trying to spread the lie that some of the grass-fed beef that is exported to the US is from Indigenous land supposedly stolen in recent years. Although Nicaragua has had some problem with this, it has been much less under the Sandinista government than under the three previous US-supported governments.
One reason the government has a good relationship with much of the Indigenous is their commitment to granting title to the original territories. There are now autonomous indigenous governments elected according to their ancestral forms of organization. There are 23 original territories with 314 communities and 200,000 people. Nearly 38 thousand square kilometers have been titled to the indigenous groups. They have non-transferrable titles, helping to curb illegal land sales and deforestation. The authorities that administer these lands are designated by the communities themselves.
This is 31% of the national territory and more than 55% of the territory of the Caribbean Coast where 61% have some type of forest. Nicaragua has gained great credibility in environmental issues and was just voted to be part of the World Bank’s Carbon Fund Board (Informe Pastran, 23 Oct. 2020).
There is now a special battalion patrolling these extremely large expanses of land in coordination with many of the Miskito and Mayagna communities. Since 2007 special emphasis has been given to improving every aspect of life in the Autonomous Regions increasing dramatically health and school facilities, electricity, potable water, sanitation, good paved roads and decreasing every aspect of poverty.
There are internal disputes related to selling land among the 75 different communities of the Mayagna. Their communities elect their own authorities. But things aren’t perfect and the violence is sometimes internal. On Jan. 29, Gustavo Sebastian, president of the Mayagna indigenous territory government, said that a group of Mayagnas shot at a group of community members in an act of revenge for a December 2019 action. Four men were killed, two hospitalized with injuries and 12 homes burned. Then on February 12 the police captured the leader of the group responsible for the January violence in Alal and Wakuruskasna. (Radio La Primerisima, 12 Feb. 2020)
On October 22, Solón Guerrero, director of the Federation of Nicaraguan Cattlemen’s Association, stated that they will present documents that prove that their group signed agreements to protect the reserves held by the indigenous populations. The executive director of the Nicaraguan Chamber of the Meat Industry, Juan Bautista Velásquez, said that the cattle that are processed are identified with two tags, because the cattle come from farms certified by the Institute for Agricultural Protection and Health (IPSA). He said that if the North American market was cancelled, more than 600 thousand people would lose their jobs and 140 thousand producers would be affected.
This misleading story is being promoted by members of Nicaragua’s opposition who are paid with USAID or NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funds. It is a new attempt to interfere with and hurt Nicaragua. Now it is under the guise of protecting indigenous people. While it is true that things are not perfect in Nicaragua, the advances and protections for Indigenous people are much better than in most other countries. Certainly the U.S. treatment of indigenous people is no model to follow. While there are periodic incidents of friction or conflict in the vast expanse of the autonomous zones, this has little to do with the cattle raising and beef export industry where hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans work.
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Nan McCurdy is a United Methodist Missionary and 36 year resident of Nicaragua. She is currently working with the rural poor in Puebla Mexico and can be reached at [email protected]
Good people of the Third World should not let themselves be taken in by worldwide satellite beamed CIA-fed media prattling on continuously about American democracy during ongoing presidential elections. Sadly, Americans are duped into participating in elections that back crimes against humanity ordered by the ruling genocidal Wall St. plutocracy which militarily and financially plunders 3rd World humanity.
The good people of the Third World should not let themselves be taken in by worldwide satellite beamed CIA-fed media prattling on continuously about American democracy during ongoing presidential elections. Sadly, Americans are duped into participating in elections that back crimes against humanity ordered by the ruling genocidal Wall St. plutocracy which militarily and financially plunders 3rd World humanity and corrupts American society.
A great many Americans voting believe the lies their criminal corporate media pours out daily, and are therefore gung-ho proud of Americans killing media-designated ‘bad guys” all around the world. These completely fooled Americans are happy to vote for the next commander-in-chief, but a substantial amount of Americans voting know they have been and are unhappy with what they feel is a mockery of the so called democratic process that has them voting for a choice that is still represents evil.
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, once the highest law officer of the USA, who helped write both important civil rights laws, speaks to his fellow Americans clearly, and meant that all the world should know this truth.
“We’re not a democracy. It’s a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we’re a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.”:
One of the most internationally powerful plutocrats in US history, John Pierpont Morgan, in a candid moment admitted, ”Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy”:
The well respected third president of the USA, Thomas Jefferson, saw the plutocracy coming when he said,“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Already in 1922, America’s most famous economist Thorstein Veblen wrote,
”The current situation in America is by way of being somethingof a psychiatrical clinic...Perhaps the commonest and plainestevidence of an unbalanced mentality is to be seen in a certainfearsome and feverish credulity with which a large proportion ofAmericans are affected…. There is a visible lack of composure andlogical coherence, both in what they will believe and in what theyare ready to do about it.”
Veblen assumed depression to be the normal condition in a business-enterprise economy, to be relieved in periods of excitation caused by stimuli not intrinsic to the system like war and expansionabroad. Veblen saw the modern business leader as essentially a latter-day predatory warrior. [Thorstein Veblen by Douglas Dowd, 1966]
Veblen’s observation is born out by Americans always having been willing to follow criminal orders and bomb, invade and occupy other people’s lands the world over.
Paul Craig Roberts, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Undersecretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, in his article, The Looting Machine Called Capitalism, wrote,
“Americans are the least exceptional people in human history. Americans have no rights at all. We hapless insignificant beings have to accept whatever capitalists and their puppet government impose on us. And we are so stupid we call it ‘Freedom and Democracy America.’”
Americans today are wildly mesmerized in avid interest in who will be president for the next four years. However, given the continual American wars in smaller countries and perpetual ramped up fear of nuclear Armageddon, its obviously of some greater significance who will serve as Commander-in-Chief of the American worldwide genocidal killing machine, because whether Americans realize it or not, they, each citizen, has a portion of citizen co-responsibility for the crimes of their fellow Americans ‘serving’ as soldiers following criminal, and therefore illegal, orders.
Those Americans voting, who believe the lies their criminal corporate media pours out daily and are therefore gung-ho proud of Americans killing media-designated ‘bad guys” everywhere and anywhere, believe US democracy makes them and all Americans to be above the law – above all law. On the other hand, that substantial amount of Americans voting, who know they have been frightened into voting for what they hope is the lesser of two evils are well aware of their tacit complicity in the crimes against humanity in other peoples countries. Some more modest amount of Americans voting, or refusing to vote, realize that they have already been prosecuted in the court of public opinion and in the hearts of parents of children blown to pieces or starved to death by the actions of Americans. Hopefully, this is what people overseas, especially in nations under American attack, understand.
At the same time a multitude of Americans vote, other Americans have been fueling, arming and target selecting for the Saudi airstrikes for five years. Already back in November 2017, Save the Children reported that 130 children were dying every day, with 50,000 children already believed to have died in 2017. The U.N. officials said more than 20 million people, including 11 million children, are in need of urgent assistance, with 7 million totally dependent on food assistance. The U.N. has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”
US CIA controlled media is so sure of the headlock it has on the American public, its mainstream media can even inform of Yemeni children dying from bombs & starvation knowing its captive audience will not turn against their American killing machine. Even the most eye-rebounding photos published in wars supporting New York Times Yemen Girl Who Turned World’s Eyes to Famine Is Dead (Published 2018) and seen on PBS television channels did not put a dent in American solidarity with its government’s and military’s genocidal actions in Yemen – prosecutable genocidal crimes against humanity.
During the current presidential election campaign criminal war promoting news and entertainment networks are making no mention of President Trump’s veto of a bipartisan Congressional resolution that would have forced an end to American military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s civil war in Yemen a year and a half ago.
In One American Ear and Out the Other
In 2008, for two weeks the major networks telecasted as humorous, Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s cry, his finger pointed to the sky, “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!”
In 2012, prime times news during the Republican debates of presidential candidates, candidate Rep. Ron Paul was heard denouncing “all US bombings and invasions beginning with those in Korea as illegal, unconstitutional and a horrific loss of human life.”
But nothing seems to effect a change in American dedication to their military and its military’s heritage (of gore, death and destruction).
American film maker Michael Moore’s castigates his fellow Americans as“sick and twisted violent people that we’ve been for hundreds of years, it’s something that’s just in our craw, just in our DNA.Americans kill people, because that’s what we do. We invade countries. We send drones in to kill civilians.”
In one American ear and out the other.
Martin Luther King made bold headlines in newspaper throughout the world with, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my government. In Vietnam we may have killed a million already, mostly children.” King cried out,“Silence is treason!”but at home extremely few Americans spoke out in agreement, many spoke against him, most were silent, and King was shot to death within the year.
This archival research peoples historian activist is convinced that no change will be coming from anywhere in the American led First World, especially now as it is hard pressed losing its hegemony to a future multipolar world with China’s economy now the largest.
Some of us work to somehow make this Americans killing millions of children come to be a topic of conversation in the Third World for the children’s lives that could be saved once enough people became enraged enough to demand prosecution and justice.
Once USA-EU loses world economic hegemony and can no longer sanction, the many nations that have seen their children murdered by Americans and their European allies will demand justice in the courts of a reconstituted and reorganized democratic United Nations. In the meantime let’s have faith that the astounding intelligence witnessed in the miraculous achievements in outer and inner space will eventually manifest itself in ending the five centuries of European and American genocide for money and power.
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This article was originally published on Countercurrents.org.
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.
A final rule to remove the iconic species from the Endangered Species Act has now been published. Read more about the science and politics of wolf conservation.
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As expected the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today issued a rule that would remove gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the protection of the Endangered Species Act.
The long-in-the-works move becomes effective 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register on election day — Jan. 4, 2021. It will put wolf conservation back in the hands of states and tribes, each of which would then have the right to decide on their own acceptable wolf population levels or hunting limits.
Ironically, the new rule comes less than a week before residents of Colorado will vote on a ballot measure to reintroduce wolves to the state. Many states maintain their own endangered species lists, which can offer protection if federal rules do not, but experts argue that states lack the resources to protect endangered species within their borders without federal support.
The announcement was made during an off-the-record phone call to which few media were invited, and to which this reporter’s request to attend received no response.
Still, it immediately generated criticism from scientists and conservationists, who have worked for decades to restore the species in the lower 48 U.S. states.
“This delisting is an unfortunate and politically driven decision as the best available science provides evidence that the gray wolf’s population is not fully restored throughout its historic range,” wroteJacob Carter of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Five scientists who are experts on gray wolf taxonomy, ecology and genomics reviewed the FWS’s proposed delisting of the gray wolf last year and found serious issues with the science.”
The Service and livestock trade groups, on the other hand, position the current state of wolf recovery as a major success. “Today’s action reflects…the parameters of the law and the best scientific and commercial data available,” Secretary of the Interior David L. Bernhardt said in a press release, which positioned the rule as part of ongoing efforts to “reform” the Endangered Species Act. “After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery. Today’s announcement simply reflects the determination that this species is neither a threatened nor endangered species based on the specific factors Congress has laid out in the law.”
Conservationists argue that wolf populations have not reached sustainable levels and that delisting the species would then open them up to future hunting, which could further devastate populations. To see what could happen, look no further than Idaho, where wolf hunting is legal. Recent analysis by the Western Watersheds Project found that 570 wolves — including 35 pups, some just weeks old — were killed by hunters, trappers and government officials in the year ending June 30.
This delisting effort continues a twisting, turning path toward wolf conservation in this country, which has seen the iconic species gain and lose protection multiple times.
And as always, the story is not yet fully written. Conservation groups have already announced their intention to sue — a process they’ve won in the past.
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John R. Platt is the editor of The Revelator. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in Scientific American, Audubon, Motherboard, and numerous other magazines and publications. His “Extinction Countdown” column has run continuously since 2004 and has covered news and science related to more than 1,000 endangered species. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. John lives on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., where he finds himself surrounded by animals and cartoonists.
Having conquered, colonised and regimented cyberspace and its flow of data, driven away from us and in to orbit in secret stores, telecommunications companies are now looking to occupy public infrastructure with their next generation data network 5G.
Because 5G technology needs a much denser network of 10 to 100 times as many antenna locations, companies are vying to carve up city-owned, public infrastructure — utility poles, streetlights — to host new equipment. When the conflict comes out in to the open in congress this year and climaxes it will raise questions about and draw public attention towards the tensions between the cumbersome but constitutional processes of local government and the demands of corporations to have their way quickly.
“Today, it can take a year or more to get a permit, but only an hour to install a small cell. This has to change,” says Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure.
Local governors have voiced critique over corporations’ use of their clout in the state legislatures to override, suppress, local democracy. Corporations keep restating the tired efficiency argument over and over again. Why should their cheapest, chosen method triumph over public will? Why should we foot the bill of interception and surveillance we never voted for? They own a company, or conglomerate. But a company or conglomerate is not the entirety of the public will. They aren’t because they are privatised, Wall Street floating authoritarian transnationals that offer nothing but secrecy, control and social and environmental degradation. They have the same effect on democracy, justice and equality as fascism. Corruption has allowed these companies to come in and rob all our private data the better to target us as captive consumers. We got nothing in return. They added nothing to the community but an invisible prison.
If you value your voice and freedom your only choice is to oppose 5G’s assault on local democracy and vote for candidates that defend your power and the principle of public ownership. Apathy, by signalling public acquiesence in the prostration of legislature to corporate agendas, will result in no less, no more than an escalation of lobbying that runs against the public interest, to further simplify, streamline and automate our captivity. Like the vast censorship and surveillance systems they created, corporations are hybrids, old elite networks as well as armed with cyber-equipment. It is no accident nor footnote to history that the success of silicon valley and its vision resulted in the single biggest expansion of control over citizens ever seen. Physical occupation of public utilities is a natural consequence and farthest extension of the algorhythmic logic of a new age society in which the current problem is the conquest of unaccountable power over cyberspace. Many of us have unwitting been attending to the task of bloating corporate data warehouses on social media, sleepwalking in to dystopia. But having to see our land and utilities weaponised against us so blantantly in this heist may wake us up, may be one step too far.
Make no mistake, this technology has been engineered to service more than consumer needs alone. Let’s for a second pretend it was. Then why would it be included and praised in a congressionally-mandated National Security Strategy report released by the White House? The report mandates federal agencies use startup technology more quickly in the field and pushes to improve deployment strategy. It also hopes for more collaboration between technology companies and the Defense Department, essentially creating, or staunching, an interface between Defense and Silicon Valley. Why is it wrong to hack and hold to account a government when we are monitored through the technology we consume, when government is supposed to be based on a fair balance of power? The disparities grow deeper per byte of information created or consumed.
The telecoms and big data lobby must not be allowed to control politicians. That the system allows it is a symptom of a deeply dysfunctional political culture where politicians spend less time representing citizens than on lobbying work for corporations to fundraise for re-election. Communities must be listened to and grassroots expertise and ownership of utilities acknowledged if we are to make democracy an enduring reality and put an end to censorship and surveillance.
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Scotland has failed to meet a ten-year-old target to prevent damage to precious marine wildlife, according to a leaked Scottish Government report seen by The Ferret.
The report reveals that “priority” seabed habitats meant to be protected around the coast have declined in five large areas since 2011. Seagrass, flame shells, seaweed beds and tubeworm reefs have been destroyed by the fishing industry and pollution, it says.
Campaigners warn that these habitats – vital for fish and as a store for carbon – are now “perilously close” to being wiped out after a “decade of decline”. They accuse ministers of breaking promises made a decade ago to prevent the marine environment from being harmed.
Experts describe the declines as “shocking” and “tragic” and call for damaged habitats to be restored. The Scottish Government says it is “working towards a full assessment” of the state of Scotland’s seas that will be published “in due course”.
The Marine Scotland Act was agreed by the Scottish Parliament in March 2010. It required the Scottish Government to ensure the “protection and enhancement of the health of the Scottish marine area”.
This involved conserving a series of key habitats, seen as vital for plants and animals and as nurseries for fish. They are described as “priority marine features”.
They include swaying green fields of seagrass and small, bright orange, multi-tentacled shellfish called flame shells. There are also beds of purple seaweed known as maerl and “serpulid” reefs created by red, pink and orange tubeworms.
Video thanks to Howard Wood
The leaked report is called a “Scottish Overall Assessment 2020” and examines the state of six vital habitats in 11 marine regions around Scotland. It is a draft dated October 2019 compiled by scientists from the government’s NatureScot, formerly Scottish Natural Heritage, and Marine Scotland.
The report’s main conclusion is that the marine habitats in five regions have shrunk between 2011 and 2019. “The target of no loss…has not been achieved in the Moray Firth, West Highlands, Outer Hebrides, Argyll and Clyde regions,” it says.
A summary table from the report lists the five areas in red for having failed to meet the target. There is “insufficient data” to judge whether Scotland’s six other marine regions have met the targets or not, it adds.
Summary table from leaked Scottish Government report, showing habitat losses between 2011 and 2019.
The report blames the declines on dredging, trawling, anchoring, overfishing and engineering works. It also fingers climate change, ocean acidification and pollution from fish farms and other sources, as well as diseases and storms.
Losses have been particularly severe in the Argyll marine area. Since 2011 it has lost 53 per cent of its flame shell beds and 35 per cent of its serpulid tubeworm reefs, known as aggregations, as well as unspecified areas of seagrass and horse mussel beds.
The report highlights a “marked deterioration” and “widespread fragmentation” of serpulid reefs in Loch Creran in Argyll. The cause is said to be “uncertain”, though there has been damage from fishing and pollution in the past.
According to the leaked report, more than 90 per cent of the serpulid reefs in Loch Teacuis, an arm of Loch Sunart in the West Highlands, have been lost. Virtually all of the blue mussel beds in the Dornoch Firth, part of the Moray Firth marine region, are said to have gone.
Loch Fyne in the Clyde region has lost 10 per cent of its maerl beds and nine per cent of its flame shell beds. The report points out these have been damaged by scallop dredging in the past.
The Sound of Barra in the Outer Hebrides has lost 27 per cent of its seagrass beds, partly because of the construction of the causeway connecting Eriskay and South Uist in 2001.
The report stresses that there is “low confidence” in its overall assessments because records only exist for a “small proportion” of the habitats. There is also “uncertainty” over how much human activities can be blamed for the declines, it says.
Video thanks to Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST).
The unpublished government report was obtained by the campaign group, Open Seas. It contrasted the report’s bleak scientific assessments with the Scottish Government’s upbeat announcement in September that 30 per cent of Scotland’s seas was now protected by marine conservation areas.
Phil Taylor, head of policy for Open Seas, accused ministers of failing in their duty to protect and enhance the health of the marine environment. “The declines are really serious and show these habitats are now perilously close to being effectively wiped out in our seas,” he said.
“Human impacts, including expansion of scallop dredging in the 1990s and the deregulation of bottom trawling in inshore waters, have contributed to widespread decline. Scotland’s underwater habitats have been reduced to isolated patches covering a fraction of their former extent.”
Taylor pointed to estimates in the report suggesting that only small beds of flame shells and maerl were left in the Clyde marine region. Both were believed to have been widespread 50 years ago.
“These habitats are the foundation of a functioning ecosystem, and they are important for capturing and storing carbon, for fish to spawn and feed,” he told The Ferret.
“We cannot afford yet another decade of decline. The Scottish Government is required by law to protect inshore marine habitats from bottom-towed fishing, but has repeatedly missed its own deadlines.”
Professor Murray Roberts, a leading expert on marine ecology from the University of Edinburgh, urged action to stem the losses. “The declines in iconic Scottish marine habitats in this unpublished report are shocking,” he said.
“It is simply tragic to think that we might have lost over 90 per cent of the beautiful tubeworm reefs from the western Highlands. Thanks to global climatic change, the seas across the world are warming, becoming more acidic and running short of the oxygen vital to life.”
He added: “It’s essential humanity’s use of marine ecosystems becomes sustainable and that we protect and restore the patchwork of iconic habitats that define Scotland’s marine natural heritage.”
Underwater wildlife on a flame shell bed. Photo thanks to NatureScot.
Our Seas, a coalition of 69 coastal business, community and environmental groups in Scotland, described the situation as urgent. “The last fragments of these once widespread habitats are being further degraded within our own lifetimes,” said the group’s co-ordinator, Ailsa McLellan.
“The Scottish Government maintains that 30 per cent of our seas are protected. But this is misleading because many of these supposedly protected areas have no protective measures in place at all.”
She maintained that only around five per cent of the inshore seabed had permanent protection from bottom-towed fishing gear. “If the Scottish Government continues to sit on its hands whilst remnant habitats disappear from our seas, then it will be failing us as a nation,” she said.
The Scottish Greens contended that targets were useless without government action to meet them.
“These figures show a shocking level of environmental destruction to Scotland’s marine environment,” said the party’s environment spokesperson, Mark Ruskell MSP.
“The Scottish Government cannot continue to hide behind its targets. It needs to act to stop this destruction now.”
Close-up of serpulid reef. Photo thanks to NatureScot.
The Marine Conservation Society warned that business-as-usual was driving a “spiral of ocean decline” that had to be reversed. The new findings painted “a worrying picture”, according to the society’s head of conservation in Scotland, Calum Duncan.
“If hundreds of hectares of valuable carbon-storing, nursery-providing, biodiversity-enriching living reef and seagrass habitat have been lost in the years since the Marine Scotland Act was established to help protect and enhance our seas, then everyone should be concerned,” he said.
“The true picture of loss is likely to be even greater since the trends for most habitats in most regions appears to be unknown.”
Video thanks to Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST).
The Scottish Government’s wildlife agency, NatureScot, confirmed that it had contributed to the leaked report as part of a full assessment of Scotland’s seas. “NatureScot’s assessment is based on data from seabed surveys carried out mainly in marine protected areas between 2011 and 2018,” said a spokesperson for the agency.
“The losses reported may be caused by a range of pressures including those associated with human activities or natural drivers of change including storm action and fluctuations in recruitment of the habitat-forming species.”
Nature Scot pointed out that management measures were put in place in 2016 to protect the most sensitive seabed habitats. “It will take time for the benefits of these measures to be seen and for this to be reflected in the results of our marine protected area monitoring work,” the spokesperson added.
The Scottish Government reiterated that more than 30 per cent of Scotland’s seas were covered by protection areas designed to achieve conservation objectives while allowing “sustainable use” to continue.
A government spokesperson said: “We are working towards a full assessment of Scotland’s waters that will inform our vital work in supporting nature conservation, marine planning, and helping to develop new approaches to marine management. This work will be published in due course.”
This committed this fishing industry to “taking all necessary and appropriate measures to ensure that the fisheries and ecosystems in which they operate are accessed and managed responsibly to preserve their sustainable use for current and future generations.”
SFF said it “supports the principle of marine protected areas for conservation of biodiversity and geodiversity features in particular areas, and will continue to work towards striking a balance between conservation and sustainable harvesting.”
It also “acknowledges that its fisheries are a shared resource at national and international level” and promised to “cooperate with all relevant stakeholders.”
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The Ferret’s policy is to publish documents on which our stories are based whenever possible. In this case, however, we have decided not to release the full text of the draft Scottish Government report on the marine environment in order to protect sources.
This story was published in tandem with the Sunday National.
On October 29, 2020, Joseph Cannataci, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy delivered an address to the General Assembly warning that “Widespread use of contact tracing technology to fight the Covid-19 pandemic has led to almost incessant and omnipresent surveillance in some parts of the world.”
Cannataci continued:
“This is a very disturbing trend; all-pervasive surveillance is no panacea for COVID-19” According to the news release, he was “concerned about reports of personal and health data being used to exert control over citizens, possibly to little public health effect.”
The UN Secretary-General expressed exactly his own concern that “certain governments or national entities are using the pretext of COVID to increase surveillance and limit the space for dialogue.”
This is an alarming trend, and the General Assembly’s Third Committee (Human Rights) held an interactive dialogue on 29 October, 2020 with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. The resolution on the right to privacy in the digital age has been adopted by the Third Committee since the sixty-eighth session without a vote. This year, Brazil and Germany introduced an updated draft, which covers such topics as use of artificial intelligence, spread of misinformation, digital divides, and protection of the right to privacy while developing technological means in response to disasters, epidemics and pandemics (COVID-19). As of today, this draft has been co-sponsored by more than 40 Member States.
This concern is paramount, as wide-spread, and, indeed, targeted surveillance has been used to terrorize people, a devastating example of which occurred during the McCarthy witch-hunts in the United States. These abuses did not end with McCarthy’s demise, as the FBI continued dictatorial abuse of their powers, keeping under illegal surveillance such public leaders as Martin Luther King, the renowned actress Jean Seberg, and any and all dissidents during the anti-Vietnam war organizations in the USA, and the Sanctuary Movement. The surveillance and lies spread about the courageous American actress Jean Seberg were tantamount to psychological rape, staggering and criminal violation of all the most intimate spaces of her life. This violation of her privacy led to her suicide, a goal undoubtedly sought by the Bureau. The FBI was often complicit in murder of both well-known and little-known dissidents, including the Black Panthers, who were, almost to a man, murdered.
An important documentation of this deadly national surveillance by the FBI was published in the non-fiction book, “The Burglary,” by Washington Post correspondent, Betty Metzger. Files violating the privacy, violating the most intimate spaces of the lives of peaceful demonstrators, were compiled in the so-called democracy of the USA, and these abuses of privacy, rationalized by pseudo-threats to “national security” have been a scourge and a menace to the lives of American citizens. One of the most scandalous and egregious examples of FBI Gestapo tactics can be summarized by J. Edgar Hoover’s description of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as “The most dangerous woman in America.” The FBI file on the widow of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was larger than 6000 pages. Her authorship of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was considered communist propaganda. Eleanor Roosevelt described the FBI as an American Gestapo, the description of them also used by Ernest Hemingway, whom they hounded to suicide.
The abuse of Covid-19 intimate personal data provides a perfect opportunity and mask for political repression, and ultimately for political violence. The United Nations attention to this danger is crucial. It is also a recognition that certain so-called conspiracy theories may be based on fact.
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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York.
Jeremy Corbyn “is as much a racist or anti-semite as my former boss Nelson Mandela” and must be restored to membership of the Labour Party, former South African MP Andrew Feinstein told a rally in defence of the ex-Labour leader on Sunday night.
Mr Feinstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor who lost 39 relatives in the Nazi camps of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, stressed that the Labour left must have “zero tolerance” for anti-semitism.
But he denounced “an attempt by the mainstream media and the Labour Party leadership to wish away left-wing Jews” who supported Mr Corbyn, “to behave as if we do not exist … an attempt to do away with an extraordinary tradition of Jewish socialism and support for liberation movements from Pretoria to Palestine.”
The former MP spoke at a Defend Jeremy Corbyn, Fight Racism, Build Socialism rally called by the Radical Alliance, a group of Labour and non-Labour socialists, alongside MPs including John McDonnell and Ian Lavery, trade unionists and socialist and anti-racist campaigners and activists.
Unison assistant general secretary Roger McKenzie, speaking in a personal capacity, said that he would not walk away from his friend Mr Corbyn, having “stood side by side with him on picket lines and at anti-racist demonstrations. This is someone who hasn’t flinched from the anti-racist struggle in the 30-plus years I’ve known him.”
Unite’s Howard Beckett said that Britain could have a Labour government now, potentially avoiding the Tories’ disastrous mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, had Mr Corbyn not been undermined by Labour MPs and staff and by “a shadow cabinet, Keir Starmer foremost among them, who betrayed our class over Brexit and allowed it to divide us to the extent that we failed to win an election.”
Julia Bard of the Jewish Socialists Group warned that the entanglement of anti-semitism in Labour’s left-right struggle in recent years had “made anti-semitism on the left much more difficult to challenge.”
But when minorities including Jews are under attack around the world, “who should we go to for support — institutions that have declared support for Trump like the Board of Deputies, that refuse to criticise the Tories for their close links to fascists across Europe, or to people like Jeremy, who has anti-racism woven through his political being?”
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Featured image: South African political legends Nelson Mandela, former South African MP Andrew Feinstein and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (Source: Morning Star)
According to the various associations of Doctors for the Truth, concluded based on their experience, more than 50% of the so-called RT-PCM deliver “false positives”.
There doesn’t appear to be much difference between the testing protocols of the dozens of pharmaceutical companies that are working on developing a vaccine for the elusive (and therefore dubious) SARS virus that has not actually yet been isolated in the lab, much less been reproducibly-grown in living tissue cultures.
No matter which party wins the White House on November 3, one thing is certain: The objective crisis of the system will force the winning political party to be guided by a logic that concludes domestic repression and warmongering abroad are necessary.
No matter who wins this presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.
On Sunday, October 11, Mohammad was lying on the road, holding his foot and screaming in pain. “You treat us worse than dogs!” he shouted at the hospital. A twenty-year-old refugee from the province of Homs in Syria he, like so many of his countrymen, had fled the war in an attempt to build a life in Europe.
When WHO broadened its definition of global pandemic in 2009, H1N1 vaccine makers profited at taxpayers’ expense. COVID vaccine makers will likely reap even more benefits.
Tourism, which is the third largest export sector in the global economy, is among the worst impacted sectors by the global pandemic. According to the research data analyzed and gathered by StockApps.com, international tourist numbers in 2020 could decline by 58% to 78%.
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When WHO broadened its definition of global pandemic in 2009, H1N1 vaccine makers profited at taxpayers’ expense. COVID vaccine makers will likely reap even more benefits.
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In the years leading up to 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) worked alongside vaccine manufacturers, namely GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), to ensure that European and African countries entered into contracts to vaccinate their citizens in the event of an unforeseen global flu pandemic.
These dormant, or “sleeping contracts,” stipulated that if a global pandemic were to occur, it would trigger the contracts, specified pharmaceutical companies would manufacture flu vaccines and the respective governments would pay the vaccine manufacturers.
On June 11, 2009, WHO Director-General Margaret Chandeclared H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic, triggering the dormant contracts and throwing the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry into high gear.
Chan was able to make this declaration based on WHO’s official definition of a pandemic, which was updated just a month before declaring the H1N1 pandemic — WHO deleted its definition of a pandemic from the organization’s website and replaced it with a new, more flexible definition.
Under the new definition, WHO no longer required that anyone die from an illness before the organization could declare a pandemic. The new definition stipulated only that infections be geographically widespread.
At the time WHO declared the H1N1 swine flu a pandemic, only 144 people worldwide had died from the infection. As Wolfgang Wodarg, then chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Health Committee, explained:
“The WHO had a definition of a pandemic, which it defined as a virus with high mortality and high morbidity. And in 2009 they suddenly dropped those two characteristics, saying nothing about severity or mortality.”
WHO wasn’t solely responsible for the decision to declare H1N1 a pandemic. WHO officials had consulted an emergency panel of 160 scientists on the International Health Regulations Committee. Although the identities of these scientists weren’t publicly known at the time, a 2010British Medical Journal investigation revealed that many of the committee members who voted to declare H1N1 a pandemic had financial ties to flu vaccine manufacturers, including GSK.
The declaration of H1N1 as a pandemic launched $18 billion worth of “dormant” flu vaccine contracts, and allowed GSK to push its vaccine, Pandemrix, onto countries all over the world.
The Pandemrix vaccine caused severe, life-long, adverse neurological reactions, including narcolepsy and cataplexy (the sudden, brief loss of voluntary muscle tone triggered by strong emotions), in at least 1,300 children across Europe. It’s possible even more children were injured, as it’s estimated that only 10% of adverse reactions are reported through national adverse event reporting systems.
According to Reuters and other news reports, researchers believed the culprit behind the injuries caused by the GSK H1N1 vaccine was GSK’s AS03 adjuvant, added to the vaccine to stimulate a powerful immune response.
In Germany, controversy erupted when German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that top politicians and government employees were going to receive Celvapan, Baxter’s non-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine, even though the government was publicly promoting GSK’s Pandemrix.
According to a British Medical Journal investigation, GSK’s own internal safety reports showed that GSK was aware of the safety problems with Pandemrix, but never disclosed them to the public. The most alarming data point was a five-fold increase in deaths among those who received Pandemrix, compared with people who received H1N1 swine flu vaccines that didn’t contain the adjuvant.
Lawsuits against the drugmaker began to pile up, but taxpayers ended up footing the bill for millions in damages — because the dormant vaccine contracts included full legal indemnity for the vaccine makers.
The panic that surrounded H1N1 swine flu and the subsequent rush to get vaccinated was in part driven by inflated and widely disseminated models which incorrectly predicted thousands upon thousands of people would die from the flu.
These models were provided by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team of researchers at Oxford’s Imperial College. Ferguson’s group advised the UK government to prepare for at least 65,000 deaths. By the end of the pandemic, H1N1 swine flu had claimed the lives of just 457 people.
Eleven years later, on March 11, 2020, WHO, relying on the same attenuated definition of a pandemic, declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic.
Many governments based their COVID-19 prevention policies, including border closures and lockdowns, on computer models designed by Ferguson and his team at Oxford, despite the exponential inaccuracies of the model he had provided during the H1N1 pandemic.
Ferguson’s models predicted more than 2.2 million Americans would die from COVID-19. To date, about 229,000 have died.
Oxford’s Imperial College has received more than $180 million dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — making the self declared largest funder of vaccines in the world the second-largest funding source of Oxford’s Imperial College.
Oxford’s Imperial College also has financial ties to an organization founded and funded by the Gates Foundation, GAVI the Vaccine Alliance, a public–private global health partnership focused on increased access to vaccines.
Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientist in charge of U.S. efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine, now known as Operation Warp Speed, was GSK’s Chairman of Vaccines in 2009. Slaoui oversaw the development and safety testing of GSK’s H1N1 Pandemrix.
In July 2020, Sanofi and GSK secured a $2.1 billion deal to supply the U.S. with 100 million doses of their vaccine. The partnership is a collaboration between a modified Sanofi flu shot and GSK’s AS03 adjuvant, the same compound believed to be responsible for causing permanent brain damage in at least 1,300 European children during the H1N1 swine flu.
If history repeats itself and GSK’s COVID vaccine causes adverse effects, taxpayers — not the vaccine maker — will once again be on the hook for damages. This is because in March 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP Act, that broadens immunity for COVID vaccine makers, protecting them “against any claim of loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the manufacture, distribution, administration or use of medical countermeasures,” including vaccines.
These new protections are on top of those already granted to vaccine makers under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986. NCVIA’s purpose is to eliminate the potential financial liability of vaccine manufacturers in the face of vaccine injury claims.
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The real story behind the so-called “second-wave” Covid-19 infection
The entire world at this point in time is being conditioned that the Covid-19 infection has gotten worse and the “second wave” of the PLANdemic is already here to wreak renewed havoc. This mind conditioning is happening right now when herd immunity is already gradually seeping into the populace.
Governments are alarmed because if herd immunity becomes undeniably obvious, people will go through the daily grind of normal life and things will slowly stabilize. Economies will recover and get on the right track. This the governments don’t like as they toe their respective lines that draw mandate from their “overlord,” i.e., the US.
More immediately crucial in the general program of systems control is the vaccine whose development, production, and implementation is overseen by the US. People MUST be vaccinated by hook or by crook, so to speak. Having this in mind, it is therefore important to create the hype of a “second wave” to further scare people until that time when the vaccine is already available.
And if the thinking segment will seriously take note of and focus on what has been going on in laboratories where such vaccines are being developed, the so-called medical scientists involved in it are fast-tracking the process because they are running against time especially now that a growing number of people are getting into the realization that the “virus infection” is not as deadly and risky as the stories the scaremongers have been spreading around.
In other words, now that the vaccine isn’t quite ready yet, people should remain scared and in fact more scared than before as government creates an atmosphere of heightened alert even to the point of using the police–both local and national–to impose mobility restriction similar to what they implemented during the previous months from April to July.
The new hermeneutics of infirmity: A totalizing path pointing all illnesses to Covid-19
The “first wave” stabilized and the “second wave” has come in. What do we expect when the “second wave” stabilizes? Of course, the “third wave”. There will be “waves” and “stabilizations”. And who knows if these “infected” people are really infected by Covid-19 based on the testing instruments and procedures being used? The truth is, the fear campaign continues and the media will always be flooded with scare stories to hold people at bay. Are we already in the “second wave”? Then, we need to brace up for the third and the fourth and the fifth ad infinitum while in Sweden, there are none of these waves as life’s been going on normally.
In the rest of the world, “strict restrictions” go on as they are triggered by statistics based on tests being conducted without taking heed of their inaccuracies and therefore unreliability. Even those with a severe cold or the flu are tested positive and added on the list. The statistics get bloated and the paranoid populace gets alarmed and more scared.
Within the entire gamut of this plan is a trajectory of phases and the last phase is to finally promote and distribute worldwide the vaccine whose development and production have been financed and promoted by the same criminals behind the virus. And who are these criminals? These are the same people whose billions of earnings come from their control of the global information technology (IT) machinery.
Is it just mere coincidence that while they continually concoct scare narratives to terrorize the globe, people have to “work from home” (teleworking) and students have to study via online (home study)? Remember that in this circumstance, we ought to heavily rely on the computer, the computer programs, and the operating systems that they peddle. This entire state of affairs is nothing but pure and simple systematic manipulation of the global economy.
This is what they call “the new normal” which now reigns all over the world–a ruse that has been strongly defended by terrorized paranoids. The worst outcome of it is the way the economy has already been heading to disaster. Clowns are in control and instead of defying them, we have been toeing their lines.
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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences for more than fifteen years at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines.
Featured image: Crowds of people on Preciados street in Madrid on September 5.OLMO CALVO / EL PAÍS
November 3rd, 2020 by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
As the UN General Assembly gears up for a series of votes on 16 annual resolutions in support of Palestinian human rights, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) and the Coalition of Canadian Palestinian Organizations (CCPO) are calling on the Canadian government to repeat last year’s vote in favour of Palestinian self-determination.
“We were very pleased last year when Canada supported the UN resolution for Palestinian self-determination last year, despite the protests of right-wing groups,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “Nevertheless, repeating that vote this year would demonstrate that it was made on principle, and not simply a tactic to garner votes for Canada’s Security Council bid,” said Woodley.
The tendency since 2006 of Canadian governments to provide diplomatic cover for Israeli human rights abuses is understood to be one of the reasons why Canada lost its bid for a Security Council seat in June.
“It’s time for the Canadian government to prove its enduring commitment to the Palestinian aspiration for self-determination,” said the Coalition of Canadian Palestinian Organizations. “Canadian Palestinians expect Canada to show up for our community, which has suffered greatly from constant Israeli violations of our rights, whether under Israel’s occupation, as second-class citizens in Israel, or as refugees.”
The vote in 2019 to support Palestinian self-determination was a welcome change, as it broke with Canada’s recent pattern of voting “No” or abstaining on every Palestine-related motion. Through this vote, Canada aligned itself with both international law, and the vast majority of the international community: 167 countries voted “Yes” compared to only 5 who voted “No.”
For example, CJPME and the CCPO call attention to the resolution on Jerusalem, which stresses that Jerusalem remain a shared city, and calls for a negotiated agreement respecting the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinians and Israelis.
Perplexingly, since 2015 the Canadian Government has mostly maintained its pro-Israel voting pattern at the UN, which started in 2006. To make sense of these changes over time, CJPME has created a new resource, the UN Dashboard, which allows Canadians to explore how Canada has voted on these resolutions from 2000-2020.
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Death due to influenza is over-reported. The Centers for Disease Control distributes a figure of 36,000 deaths a year from the flu. But data from the American Lung Association reveals flu-related deaths as low as a few hundred in a year in the U.S. (See chart below). The overstated deaths are believed to serve as promotion for vaccination campaigns.
The Cochrane Group, a global network of independent investigators, analyzes the validity of scientific evidence. In 2018 the Cochrane Group published an analysis of eight clinical trials involving over 5000 elderly participants in an effort to determine if vaccination prevents the flu. The analysis revealed 6% of unvaccinated seniors (they were given a placebo shot) were reported to have the flu compared to 2.4% of vaccinated individuals (58% relative reduced risk).
The problem is, 94% of senior adults in this study did not get the flu. So, the success of massive vaccination programs to inoculate millions to spare a few people from getting the flu is limited from the get-go. Thirty (30) people need to be vaccinated to prevent one person from experiencing flu symptoms.
So, at best, flu vaccines can only be 3.3% effective in preventing the flu. The CDC will “advertise” that studies like this one indicate flu shots are 58% effective (6.0% to 2.4% reduction in flu cases). So, in hard numbers, the public is led to falsely believe 58 out of 100 people will be protected from getting the flu if vaccinated. That idea is deceitful. It is actually 6 in 100 get the flu and 2.4 in 100 get the flu if vaccinated; 94 in 100 receive no benefit from vaccination because they remain healthy and uninfected, presumably because their immune system wards off any respiratory tract infection.
Remote chance flu vaccine saves lives
The chance that flu vaccination reduces risk for death is even more remote. In this study of 5000 senior adults, death occurred in 1 in 177 who received an inactive (placebo) vaccine and 1 in 184 who received the flu shot. So, 5.6 in 10,000 seniors would get the flu and be hospitalized and die if unvaccinated and 5.4 in 10,000 seniors would get the flu and die if vaccinated.
What is the take-home lesson? Maintenance of the immune system is paramount.
According to conventional assessments of levels of immunity in populations at large, there are not sufficient antibodies to COVID-19 coronavirus to produce herd immunity. The world populations then must wait for a licensed vaccine. But antibodies are not the end-all measure of immunity.
“The death rate is more a result of whether or not your population is immune prepared more than the particular strain of the virus.” — Denis Rancourt, PhD, Ontario Civil Liberties Association
Most human populations are already immune
Antibodies are not being found to be a reliable measure of immunity. A number of studies now show that 20-50% of people with no known exposure to COVID-19 already exhibit immunity against this virus. This suggests vaccination would be almost meaningless to as much as half of the people.
Only a minority of people display antibodies against COVID-19. But (zinc dependent) T-memory cells, produced in the thymus gland, pre-exist and are ready to prevent COVID-19 infection in 20-50% of subjects.
Exposure à infection à disease NOT!
This means “exposure does not necessarily lead to infection, and infection does not necessarily lead to disease, and disease does not necessarily product detectable antibodies,” says a report entitled “COVID-19: Do Many People Have Pre-existing Immunity?, in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Therefore, the percentage of a population needed to produce herd immunity is far lower when a significant portion are unable to transmit the virus, the BMJ report reveals.
An immunologist says: “If you lift lockdown you should see an immediate and commensurate increase in cases (and deaths), but that hasn’t happened. That is just a fact!”
In Sweden, a study reveals 60% of family members of infected patients produced antibodies while 90% had T-cell activity.
Researchers concede that through vaccination, stimulation of antibodies and T-cells are hoped for to induce protective immunity.
Apparently, many people are already immune. The idea of mandated vaccination appears to be massive over-treatment given these realities.
Public health authorities and politicians are pre-committed to vaccination, have already pre-purchased billions of dollars of these vaccines, and are prematurely and overly committed to their use regardless of these facts. Stockpiling of unproven vaccines has already begun because politicians have pre-paid for them.
Rushed-To-Market Vaccines May Not Save Lives
Disease investigator Peter Doshi, speaking out in another volume of the British Medical Journal, says none of the trials of COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines are designed to prove whether these needle jabs reduce the likelihood of illness, hospitalization or death. None of the trials underway are fashioned to determine whether vaccines interrupt transmission of the virus.
In fact, these COVID-19 discoveries suggest the entire vaccine industry is propped by scientific ignorance of T-cell immunity.
The knowledge that T-cell immunity is dependent upon zinc, a trace mineral, suggests the public can protect themselves against all viruses and other infectious disease threats with an inexpensive, non-problematic, preventive remedy that is at hand.
An authoritative report entitled “T-Cells Are The Superstars In Fighting COVID-19,” posted at Children’s Health Defense quotes Carsten Geisler, a prominent researcher at the University of Copenhagen, to say: “When a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or ‘antenna’ known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D,” and if there is an inadequate vitamin D level, “they won’t even begin to mobilize.”
Very little if any of the information provided herein is getting to the masses. Public health authorities are solely committed to vaccination. It would be best to access Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense and the National Vaccine Information Centerfor accurate information about infectious disease and vaccines.
If considering vaccination, which will become THE major issue facing populations after the P model COVID-19 Vaccine Consent/Refusal Form by this author is available from Knowledge of Health, Inc. Proceeds go to the National Health Federation vaccine consent defense fund. Two copies of the 18-page consent/refusal form are available for $12.95 (shipping included). The consent form can be ordered online at www.covid19consent.com or by sending a check or money order for $12.95, payable to Knowledge of Health, Inc., 1502 Foothill Blvd, Suite 103, La Verne, California 91750.
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Since 2010, Drone Wars UK has been shining a spotlight on the military’s use of drones and the impact on peace and security around the globe. Now, both in the US and in Europe, large military-grade drones which fly ‘beyond visual line of sight’ (BVLOS) are moving from the battlefield to the domestic front.
Here in the UK, the government is rapidly pushing ahead with plans to enable large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly freely within UK airspace as part of its Airspace Modernisation Strategy. These plans are keenly supported by the growing drone industry and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) who are taking a significant lead in this area with plans, for example, to fly the latest version of the Predator drone – which the MoD is calling ‘Protector’ – in UK airspace. Ministers argue that the planned changes present exciting opportunities for business to create high-tech jobs and to boost the economy across the UK. While these plans may well be a boon for some, it is vital that the negative aspects of ‘beyond visual line of sight’ (BVLOS) drone use within the UK are examined, and if such flights are to go ahead, privacy and safety protections are factored in from the start.
It should be noted that there are no plans for primary legislation to implement these changes which would given an opportunity to subject these changes to democratic scrutiny via parliamentary debate. Instead a quango, the Airspace Change Organising Group (ACOG), has been established by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to coordinate and implement government plans in this area. We believe it is vital that this democratic deficit is publicised and challenged and the public have their say in controlling drones in UK skies.
Alongside our continuing focus on the military use of drones, we will now have a related programme examining the opening of UK skies to large BVLOS drones and in particular their use for security and surveillance purposes within the UK.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) recently admitted that lockdowns cause more harm than good. Following this announcement, one would have expected American politicians to immediately end the lockdowns. After all, the WHO ‘s pronouncements are considered infallible, so much so that social media sites silence anyone who dares challenge the great and powerful WHO. Yet, governors, mayors, and other government officials across the country are ignoring the WHO’s anti-lockdown position.
Instead of admitting that the lockdowns were a mistake, many in the political class, which includes a disturbing number of medical professionals whose positions and prestige depend on government, claim that we cannot return to normalcy until a coronavirus vaccine is in wide use. This suggests that people among the majority of Americans who do not wish to be vaccinated will remain under lockdown or be forced to be vaccinated against their will.
The assault on our liberty will not end with deployment and use of a vaccine. Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, a “public-private partnership” in charge of producing and delivering a coronavirus vaccine, has said that those who receive a vaccine will be monitored by “incredibly precise … tracking systems.” Slaoui has also indicated that tech giants Google and Oracle will help the government keep tabs on the vaccinated individuals. So, the vaccine program will lead to an increase in government surveillance!
Slaoui is just the latest “expert” to endorse forcing the American people to relinquish their few remaining scraps of privacy to stop coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates have urged development of a digital certificate for those vaccinated for coronavirus. People without the certificate would find their liberty severely restricted.
Those who think that the new surveillance system will be limited to coronavirus should remember that Social Security numbers were only supposed to be used to administer the Social Security program. They should also consider that the PATRIOT Act’s expansion of warrantless wiretapping was supposed to be limited to stopping terrorists. However, these powers have been used for a wide variety of purposes. Whenever government is given power to abuse our rights for one reason it will inevitably use that power to abuse our rights for other reasons as well.
Fauci and Gates’ digital certificate could, and likely will, be expanded to include proof individuals have received a variety of other vaccines and medical treatments. The digital certificate could even extend to monitoring a person’s lifestyle choices on the grounds that unhealthy habits make one more susceptible to diseases.
The digital certificate could also be tied to the REAL ID program to deny individuals who have not been vaccinated the right to travel. It could also be combined with a future mandatory E-Verify system to deny unvaccinated individuals the right to hold a job. Those who consider this “paranoia” should consider Britain is already developing a covid passport.
Liberty lost in the “war on covid” will not be voluntarily returned when the coronavirus threat ends — assuming the government ever stop moving the goal posts and declares the coronavirus threat is over. Instead, the people must be prepared to take back their liberty from the politicians. Fortunately, we still have the ability to do so by the peaceful means of educating our fellow citizens and pressuring our elected officials to reverse course. We must all do what we can to use these peaceful tools before we are in a “dark winter” of authoritarianism.
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More than a century on, millions of Palestinian refugees continue to grapple with the devastating upshots of the Balfour Declaration, which led to a significant upheaval in the lives of Palestinians.
Issued on November 2, 1917, the declaration turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” there.
The pledge came in the form of a letter from Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.
Though the Balfour Declaration included the admonition that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, the British mandate was set up in a way to equip Jews with the tools to establish self-rule, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.
The efforts made by the London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) in this regard have been on the go over recent years to urge Britain to apologize to the Palestinians for the tragedy that has befallen them as a result of the Balfour Declaration.
The Balfour Apology Campaign (BAC), kick-started by PRC some seven years ago, falls within the above context as it matches ongoing endeavors to hold Britain historically, morally, and politically accountable for the dispossession and displacement of 750,000 civilians from their own and only homeland—Palestine—to give way for the establishment of the self-proclaimed state of Israel.
As a result, nearly 7 million Palestine refugees have become scattered all over the world, torn from the nourishment of home and the warmth of family.
Reaching out to a plethora of British and EU diplomats and MPs, PRC has been striving to mobilize worldwide support for the campaign and communicate its demands to official bodies, mainly the British government. Contacts have been held around the clock with NGOs, youth movements, and student events to that very end.
In 2017, an e-petition headed up by PRC and launched on the official website of the British Parliament, attracted fewer than 14,000 signatures by British nationals. Duty-bound to respond to the petition, after it managed to pass the benchmark for an official response, the never-sorry government responded 10 days later, only to confirm that it will not extend any apology over the Balfour pledge.
“The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which HMG does not intend to apologize,” the government said at the time. “We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel. The task now is to encourage moves towards peace.”
A spokesperson said the Declaration was written in a world of “competing imperial powers” as the First World War raged and Ottoman Empire diminished, claiming: “In that context, establishing a homeland for the Jewish people in the land to which they had such strong historical and religious ties was the right and moral thing to do, particularly against the background of centuries of persecution.”
Yet, the Government’s statement accepted that the Declaration “should have called for the protection of political rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, particularly their right to self-determination” but said that lasting peace must now be established through a two-state solution.
The response sparked universal condemnation, with activists and NGOs dubbing it as a sign of Britain’s failure to pay heed to the horrendous crimes committed by Zionist gangs who crept into Palestine during the British Mandate and embarked on systematic massacres and ethnic genocides that brought about the displacement of millions of Palestinians from over 570,000 Palestinian villages in 1948.
As BAC campaigners sought to pass the 100,000 yardstick for a parliament discussion, the parliamentary follow-up committee abruptly altered the cut-off date, reducing it from six months to two months and a half only under the guise that snap elections had been called.
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Since Trump took office in January 2017, I’ve sharply criticized his domestic and geopolitical agenda — with ample supporting evidence to make my case.
I support neither right wing of the US one-party state — nor farcical elections when held that always turn out largely the same way.
The rarest of rare exceptions prove the rule.
The US is a predatory belligerent state, an imperial state, a pariah state, a rogue state, a police state — a nation fostering inequality between haves and have-nots.
Both right wings of the one-party state take turns running things.
While I deplore and oppose both a Trump v. Biden/Harris in power, I fear the latter more than the former over the next four years.
If you loved Obama/Biden’s 8-year record of shame, you’ll be wild about Biden/Harris.
Or will it be the latter alone because of the former’s diminished ability to perform what’s required of a head of state, a real possibility.
Examples are numerous, including twice on the stump confusing Trump with GW Bush as his opponent.
During Obama/Biden’s tenure, seven countries were terror-bombed in eight years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
None of the above threatened the US. Throughout the post-WW II period, no nations anywhere threatened US security.
Yet since June 1950, Washington has been perpetually at war against one country after another — by hot and/or other means.
The Obama/Biden regime launched preemptive wars on Syria and Libya, smashing and destroying both countries, transforming them into charnel houses.
Massacring hundreds of thousands of their people, displacing countless numbers more, ISIS and likeminded jihadists became US ground forces in both countries and elsewhere.
Obama/Biden staged coups in Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, and Ukraine.
They supported Israeli wars on Palestine, and tried replacing Venezuelan democracy with fascist rule.
They enforced puppet rule in Haiti and continued Plan Colombia aid that’s been responsible for massacres, disappearances and torture of regime opponents.
They were militantly hostile toward Russia and China, risking confrontation with both countries.
For eight years, they waged war on humanity at home and abroad, along with handing greater wealth to Wall Street, war-profiteers and other corporate predators.
There’s virtually nothing redeeming about Trump’s near-four years in office — with one major exception.
While continuing wars of aggression he inherited and waging it by other means on Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, North Korea, and other countries, he launched no new hot wars on his own.
Since Franklin Roosevelt goaded imperial Japan to attack the US to get the war he wanted, few US presidents served out their time in office without attacking other nations.
Gerald Ford was a rare exception.
Although surrounded by the likes of Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney — who never met an independent country they didn’t want smashed — the only belligerent stain on Ford’s record was permitting Indonesia to rape and destroy East Timor.
Jimmy Carter was another exception, at age-86 in 2011 saying:
During his four years in office from January 1976 to January 2000, “(w)e never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. We never went to war.”
To his credit as well, he called Bolivarian Venezuela’s election process “the best in the world” — real democracy, what’s banned in the US and other Western countries.
On issues of war and peace, his time in office was blemished by supporting an array of tyrants and drawing Soviet Russia into its Afghan quagmire in the 1980s.
Yet he didn’t preemptively attack another nation during his tenure, how most US presidents operated post-WW II — directly and/or by waging proxy wars to replace independent governments with subservient pro-US ones.
Obama/Biden’s 8-year tenure was pockmarked by endless wars.
Like most US presidents — Trump included — Obama broke every major pledge made, delivering betrayal, not “hope,” “change,” peace, “a new era of openness,” universal healthcare, financial reform, ending torture, illegal spying and detention without trial.
While campaigning in 2007, he said the following:
“I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out (of Afghanistan) by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do.”
“I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this (and the Iraq) war(s). You can take that to the bank.”
Both countries remain illegally occupied by unwanted US forces.
War in Afghanistan continues since October 2001 — against Iraq intermittently since March 2003, first directly, then using ISIS proxy forces, the nation unstable today because of US belligerence, other hostile policies, and presence of its occupying forces.
Obama also promised to close Guantanamo during his first year in office. It remains open, one of many US gulag torture prisons operating globally.
He vowed to “fulfill” the goal of Israel and long-suffering Palestinians “liv(ing) side by side” in two states at “peace.”
He pledged to end torture, illegal spying and detention without trial.
He said he’d observe “democratic values.”
All of the above pledges were systematically breached. Polar opposite policies were pursued throughout his time in office.
Biden partnered in all of the above and much more, a record hostile to peace, equity, justice, and the rule of.
In earlier articles, I explained his disturbing near-half century of shame as US senator and vice president — that should automatically disqualify him from any public office.
On Tuesday, voting-age Americans will go the polls to elect federal, state and local officials — other than about 90 million who already voted by mail or in-person and many millions more who’ll abstain because change for a nation safe and fit to live in is excluded from ballots.
Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain.
I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again.
When the dust settles post-election — that may take days or longer to learn if Trump or Biden/Harris won — not a damn thing worth voting for will change.
That’s the disturbing reality of how US fantasy democracy works — for privileged interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary Americans.
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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.”
With quarrels raging over disappearing campaign lawn signs, rattled American liberals may now appreciate how being ‘a minority’ feels.
Desecration and theft of lawn signs in support of Republicans or Democrats are reported in many American neighborhoods this year, with Democrats being particularly unsettled by what they regard as an existential threat. (Although their experience surrounding this issue is trifling compared to what Muslims, Black, and Jewish minorities historically encountered, and still face.)
I appreciate the panic aroused by gatherings of armed Trump supporters and other menacing actions, most recently against Biden’s bus. But perhaps fears manifest around lost lawn signs by these mainly white middle class folks are exaggerated and misplaced.
One local upstate N.Y. paper tactfully addresses the problem of stolen campaign posters with “When political signs disappear”. It may have adopted this approach to temper overstated calls for help.
I agree that anything stolen off one’s manicured lawn is upsetting. But, hey: it’s only a two-foot square paper poster pushed into the turf– a rather timid expression of one’s political leanings.
From reports of thefts I’ve tracked in my county, local police (often mistakenly perceived as solidly allied with ‘conservatives’) swiftly responded, charging two suspects—in one case a known teenage vandal, in the other, sole 20-year old. There was no indication of armed vigilantes shooting up Democratic neighborhoods or defacing homes. Although unfounded rumors prompted some Democratic supporters to remove their signs or spurn the suggestion they host one. (“I think I’ll pass this year”, or “Let me think about it.”) True, some signs were stolen or dislodged. But crying “I felt violated!”, as one householder wrote on a community website about a stolen poster. Really? What about brave citizens who film police wantonly brutalizing and murdering our Black men in the street?
The current dilemma over lawn signs doubtless derives in part from stress surrounding this contentious presidential election at the same time that Covid restrictions continue to unravel our lives.
Something else is at play. Fear aroused by these posters is related to changing demographics in regions like mine where a population of newcomers, mainly former New York and New Jersey urbanites, are not integrated into these rural surroundings. Many are retirees who had enough of city life. Others can afford a weekend home in the bucolic Catskills. Younger arrivals here find they can manage their business by internet. Growing herbs and squash, raising goats and chickens as a hobby, they constitute the new gentry. Only now, they realize they’re outsiders who arrived from places where they’d been the majority, snugly surrounded by other Democrats. They read their revered New York Times while frequenting country taverns where they share advice re local sources for multi-grain-seed-saturated breads, and rustic furniture. Perfectly understandable.
That’s their culture. Like migrant minorities anywhere, their values differ from longtime residents who in this region prefer beer, who like deer hunting, who fish for food, who regularly attend church, whose parents are military veterans, and who work in local diners and municipal offices. And yes, most own trucks.
There’s little socializing between the two communities. A newcomer driving through our forested hills reacts to a barn with a Trump sign plastered across its side as if there’s a sniper behind the weather vane on the roof. Self-proclaimed progressives assume any truck owner is not college educated, probably owns a gun, and really doesn’t understand politics. They call them ‘trumpers’ and whisper really ugly epithets about ‘them’.
These newcomers are rattled not because of any significant physical threat. They feel, in many cases for the first time, that they are a minority. When they realize this is the source of their discomfort, they can move forward, and maybe learn to dialogue with their opponents, something they have not managed despite proud declarations of ‘getting to know our neighbors’.
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B. Nimri Aziz is an anthropologist and journalist who’s worked in Nepal since 1970, and published widely on peoples of the Himalayas. A new book on Nepali rebel women is forthcoming. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The Modi government has earned the distinction as the “first non-western” voice to come out in support of French President Emmanuel Macron over the recent horrific killings in that country. This distinction apparently presents itself as too good to miss. The Rajya Sabha TV slotted a programme to castigate “Islamist terrorism” in France.
Religious fundamentalism is repugnant. Indians should know it better than anybody, and what is happening in France is not difficult to understand. The French condition bears striking resemblance to India’s widespread social pathology.
Islamophobia is on surge in French society, too. The thinly-veiled anti-Muslim statements, barbs and innuendos by senior French ministers are a daily occurrence. If assailants stabbed two Muslim women wearing veil near the Eiffel Tower, it no longer makes news. Patently anti-Muslim attitudes give respectability to Islamophobia and fuel social tensions, as France is also a multi-ethnic society like India.
The Pew Research Center found in their Global Attitudes Survey in 2017 that 54.2% of the French regarded themselves as Christians, with 47.4% belonging to the Catholic Church. Islam is the second-most widely professed religion in France. Christians number roughly 38 million while Muslims account for close to 5.5 million. [Around 21 million French people do not have affiliation with any religion.]
However, although Christianity is the most represented religion in France, there is deep disquiet in the Christian mind bordering on paranoia that feeds into Islamophobia.In democracies, it is a special responsibility for trade unions, churches, local newspapers and other public institutions to help foster social cohesion and promote civic participation and incubate the sense of responsibilities of citizenship, but that is not happening in France.
Social tensions are also exacerbated due to the uneven growth and yawning social inequalities. The Internet significantly contributes to the radicalisation of society. Most important, in the most recent decades, there has been an overall weakening of the national ideology of secularism. France’s political and intellectual traditions have weakened.
Enter Macron. Just a few days before the current mayhem, on October 2, in a long-awaited national address, Macron unveiled a plan to defend France’s secular values against what he termed “Islamist radicalism.”
“Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country,” Macron said. His core theme was that his government will make “no concessions” in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector in France.
He announced that the government would present a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France. The new measures, Macron said, are aimed at addressing a problem of growing “radicalisation” in France and improving “our ability to live together”.
This may seem a fine thing to do in the best traditions of separation of the state and religion. But the devil lies in the detail. Thus, while “secularism is the cement of a united France,” and Macron’s new law permits people to belong to any faith of their choosing, the outward displays of religious affiliation would be banned in schools and the public service! (By the way, wearing the hijab is already banned in French schools and for public servants at their workplace.)
Macron claimed he is seeking to “liberate” Islam in France from foreign influences by improving oversight of mosque financing. There would also be closer scrutiny of schools and associations exclusively serving religious communities. In effect, Macron announced that France is once again evaluating its relationship with its Muslim minority, the largest in Europe.
Macron’s remarks produced a furious reaction in the Muslim community. A prominent French Muslim activist tweeted: “The repression of Muslims has been a threat, now it is a promise. In a one hour speech Macron emboldened the far right, anti-Muslim leftists and threatened the lives of Muslim students by calling for drastic limits on home schooling despite a global pandemic.”
Macron was speaking one week after a man attacked two people with a meat cleaver outside the former Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, an assault condemned by the government as an act of “Islamist terrorism”!
What is Macron up to? In a nutshell, Macron is a besieged politician today. His electorate is abandoning him and he thinks he can save his political career by taking a page out of the far right’s playbook. Macron has failed to deliver on his promises, especially on the economy. Rampant street protests and major public sector strikes show that disaffection is growing exponentially. The so-called Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) protests highlighted the depth of alienation. Macron has to order force to quell the protests.
Major demonstrations erupted through last year against pension reforms, fuel-price hikes, police violence, and unemployment. The year ended with one of the longest public transportation strikes in French history, which paralysed the country.
The upheaval has halved Macron’s ratings from approximately 60 percent in 2017 when he got elected as president. In the last municipal elections in June, his party suffered a crushing defeat. Macron is getting frantic, as the presidential election in April 2022 draws closer.
Fanning the flames of Islamophobia is a desperate attempt by Macron at gaining political ground —- specifically, at the expense of the far right. Macron estimates that Islamophobia holds the key to galvanise the supporters of the far right.
Macron is succeeding. A chorus of media pundits and politicians across the political spectrum has lately united in the conviction that French “values” are under threat and that the general population needs to mobilise for a fight.
The mood is captured in a tweet by a senior politician Meyer Habib, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the National Assembly — “To arms, citizens”, using an evocative phrase from the French national anthem.
The air is thick with highly provocative demands — that this “war” should include the rescinding of citizenship for Muslim migrants, obligation to adopt French first names, reinstatement of death penalty, etc.
Now, the belligerent rhetoric has also put on the defensive Macron’s main political opponent in the presidential election, the socialist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the France Insoumise (Unbowed France) party, against whom a smear campaign has begun for voicing disquiet over the stigmatisation of Muslims in the French society.
In an attempt to undermine the Left by associating it with “Islamism”, which has a very negative connotation in the minds of the French majority, Mélenchon has been branded as an “Islamo-leftist”. This character assassination campaign may work to Macron’s advantage.
But to be fair to Macron, he is only riding a popular wave, since for well over two decades, the French state has been moving in a vicious circle in its relationship with its Muslim citizens. Ali Saad, noted French sociologist and media critic focusing on the influence of mass media, wrote recently,
“The [French] state still does not acknowledge the fact that Islam is a religion of France, that it is not wise to systematically remind or refer to French Muslims by their racial or geographic origins, and that French Muslim issues are inherently French issues.
“The state does not want to recognise the fact that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that religion is a primary motivator for violent extremism and that radicalisation is a social phenomenon… The state has done little to address job and housing discrimination, police brutality, poverty and everyday racism and yet it accuses the French Muslim community of failing to “integrate” or even of “separatism”. It has relied on a security-centred approach in which Islam has been systematically perceived as an evil that society should confront, and Muslims as a threat to the way of life and to fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression.”
In a nutshell, the French state has separated itself from the Muslim segment of the population and is insisting on treating them as outsiders. There is refusal to acknowledge that multiculturalism is innate to plural societies and should be embraced as such. (This is where Britain puts France to shame.)
All in all, the Modi government shouldn’t have popped up as a flag carrier in the barricades where Macron has positioned himself. It draws attention needlessly to India’s deep-rooted malaise. It is sheer naiveté to assume that the crisis in France is over the the “French version of absolute liberty” (whatever that may mean.)
This is a familiar Indian sight: a discredited politician taking a plausible route to stage a comeback and get re-elected — and that too, in the chaotic times of the pandemic. Inability to see Macron for the cowardly politics he practises makes us apologists for bigotry.
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The U.S. election will end today, more or less, and we Americans will suffer another four years of putting up with serial nonsense out of a White House and Congress that couldn’t care less about us no matter who is elected. Whether the party where everything changes or the party where everything remains the same wins the inevitable result will be further aggrandizement of authoritarian power combined with increased distancing of government from the people who are ruled.
Amidst all the gloom, however, there is one great success story. That is the tale of how Israel and its friends in politics and financial circles have been able to screw every possible advantage out of both major parties simultaneously and apparently effortlessly. Israel might be the true undisputed winner in the 2020 election even though it was not on the ballot and was hardly mentioned at all during the campaign.
Jewish billionaires with close ties to Israel have been courted by the two major parties, both to come up with contributions and to urge their friends in the oligarch club and media to also respond favorably. The Democrats’ largest single donor is entertainment mogul Haim Saban while the Republicans rely on casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. It is estimated that 60% of the political contributions for the Democrats comes from Jewish sources and Saban is the single largest contributor. He is also an Israeli holding dual citizenship. Adelson, who may also hold dual citizenship and is married to an Israeli, is the major supporter of the Republicans, having coughed up more than $100 million in recent elections.
Both Saban and Adelson have not been shy about supporting Israel as their first priority. Saban is on record as supporting Joe Biden “because of his track record on supporting Israel and its alliance with the United States.” Adelson, who was drafted into the U.S. Army in the 1950s, has said that he would much rather have served in the Israel Defense Force. Saban and Adelson are joined in their love fest with Israel by a number of Israel-firsters in Congress and the Administration, all eager to shower unlimited political support, money and weapons on the Jewish state.
In the latest manifestation of noblesse oblige, Secretary of Defense Mark Esperstopped off in Israel last week to present his counterparts with a significant bit of assistance, all funded by the American taxpayer, of course. According to sources in Washington and Jerusalem, the U.S. “will grant Israel direct access to highly classified satellites such as the missile detection birds known as SBIRS and ensure Israel gets critical defense platforms in a very short time by using production slots planned for the U.S armed forces.” Israel will also be given “deeper access to the core avionic systems” of the new F-35 fighter that it has been obtaining from Washington.
The claimed rationale for the upgrade is the Congressionally mandated requirement for the U.S. to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in light of the impending sale of the F-35 to Arab states that have recently established diplomatic relations with Israel. At the time, Israeli sources were suggesting that the Jewish state might need $8 billion in new military hardware upgrades to maintain its advantage over its neighbors. It is presumed that the American taxpayer will foot the bill, even though there is a serious financial crisis going on in the U.S.
The satellite detection system operates from aerial platforms that are deployed on helicopters. The astute reader will notice that no U.S. security interest is involved in the latest giveaway to Israel. On the contrary, Israel will be receiving material from “production slots planned for the U.S. armed forces,” reducing America’s own ability to detect incoming missiles. And there will also be considerable damage to American defense interests in that Israel will inevitably steal the advanced F-35 technology that they will be given access to, re-engineer it for their own defense industries and sell it to clients in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They have done so before, selling U.S. developed missile technology to China.
Congress is also doing its bit. A bill, the so-called “U.S.-Israel Common Defense Authorization Act,” is making its way through the House of Representatives and will authorize the provision of U.S. manufactured bunker buster bombs to Israel. As the bombs would only be useful in Israel’s neighborhood to bomb hardened sites in Iran, the message being sent is obvious. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of destroying targets located deep underground. Oddly, Israel doesn’t have a plane capable of carrying that weight so the presumption is that the White House will also have to provide the bomber. The bill is co-sponsored by two leading Israel firsters in Congress Democrat Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Brian Mast of Florida.
Israel is also seeking an upgrade of some of its other fighter aircraft. It reportedly has approached the Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft that was originally developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). Its stealth capability, top speed, maneuverability combined with advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems, makes it the best air superiority fighter in the world.
Unfortunately for Israel, the F-22 is not currently available and is only operated by the USAF. Current U.S. federal law prohibits the export of the plane to anyone to protect its top secret advanced stealth technology as well as a number of advances in weaponry and situational awareness. But if deference to Israel’s wishes is anything to go by, one might safely bet that the Jewish state will have received approval to acquire the plane by inauguration day in January. And it is a safe bet that Israeli defense contractors will have reverse engineered the stealth and other features soon thereafter.
The U.S. government has been pandering to Israel in other ways, to include labeling, and sanctioning, prominent human rights groups that have criticized the Jewish state as anti-Semitic. It has also strengthened existing sanctions against Iranian financial institutions , reportedly in an attempt to make it more difficult for a President Biden to reinstate the suspended Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that sought to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. The sanctions come on top of other moves to destroy the Iranian economy, to include “…that the U.S., along with Israel, has in recent months carried out sabotage attacks inside Iran, destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at the port of Bushehr…”
Other recent developments favoring Israel include Congress’s legislating Israeli government veto authority over U.S. sales of weapons to any other Middle Eastern nation. The bill is called “Guaranteeing Israel’s QME [Qualitative Military Edge] Act of 2020” (H.R. 8494). There has also been the expansion by Executive Order of U.S. funded illegal West Bank Jewish settlements’ science development projects that will eventually compete with American companies.
In truth, the United States has become Israel’s bitch and there is hardly a politician or journalist who has the courage to say so. Congress and the media have been so corrupted by money emanating from the Israeli lobby that they cannot do enough to satisfy America’s rulers in Jerusalem. And for those who do not succumb to the money there is always intimidation, career-ending weaponized accusations of holocaust-denial and anti-Semitism. It is all designed to produce one result: whoever wins in American elections doesn’t matter as long as Israel gets what it wants. And it almost always gets what it wants.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Sheldon Adelson, left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Adelson’s wife, Miriam (photo by Eyal Warshavsky)
On Sunday, October 11, Mohammad was lying on the road, holding his foot and screaming in pain. “You treat us worse than dogs!” he shouted at the hospital. A twenty-year-old refugee from the province of Homs in Syria he, like so many of his countrymen, had fled the war in an attempt to build a life in Europe. He arrived on the Greek island of Samos, where he has been living for the last thirteen months.
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Mohammad is one of over 2.5 million refugees who since 2015 have been fleeing war, torture and rape—mostly in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq—and making their way to Europe. Many of them used Samos, Lesbos and several other Aegean islands as the gateway, making the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey in ramshackle boats. Initially they were permitted to continue to the Greek mainland and eventually on to Western Europe. However, the 2016 agreement between Turkey and the European Union forced asylum seekers to remain on the islands, turning them into virtual prisons. There they would stay—some of them for years—in abhorrent conditions, living in overcrowded, filthy camps that have been compared to concentration camps.
In the Samos camp, the conditions lead to serious health concerns.
“There are many hygiene-related diseases, such as scabies, lice, bedbugs and skin infections. I also see a lot of patients with mental health issues. They come here having experienced trauma at home, and then the camp conditions exacerbate their difficulties. I see a great deal of depression, anxiety, panic attacks and suicidal ideation,” said Dr. Andre Simpson, a doctor who works on Samos.
Despite the health problems, access to medical care is extremely limited. The single doctor in the camp—responsible for all 4,500 asylum seekers— is so overwhelmed that refugees often spend the night in front of his office in hopes of being seen the following day. For emergencies or to see a specialist they must go the local hospital.
Mohammad had not come from Syria alone. He brought with him two screws that surgeons had inserted into his right foot to repair a gaping hole left by several bullets.
“It looks like they opened up the foot and just stuffed all the bones in there that a foot should have,” said Dr. Simpson, who saw Mohammad’s X-rays on Samos. “It will need to be amputated.”
When Mohammad arrived on Samos, he immediately informed the camp authorities about his foot, but it wasn’t until eleven months later that he was finally able to see a doctor. (At the time, the hospital’s official policy mandated that only one refugee could be seen for every six non-refugees, creating enormous backlogs.)
The pain he had been enduring since the operation became excruciating when he slipped and fell in the camp the previous day. Four of his friends carried him down the steep incline from his tent (there is no stretcher in the camp) to the road, where a policeman agreed to call an ambulance to take him to the local hospital.
Mohammad speaks no English and asked me to translate for him at the hospital, but I was refused entry by the guard. I wondered how the doctors could possibly treat him without being able to communicate with him.
As I waited outside, a Syrian couple arrived. The woman was about to give birth, but the guard told her roughly to wait. She sat down in the street, in obvious pain. Eventually she was allowed to enter, but her husband would have to miss the birth of his child.
After two hours Mohammad emerged from the hospital, carried by his friend.
“They didn’t even look at my foot,” he seethed. “They gave me an injection and a prescription for painkillers. ‘Go! Go!’ they yelled at me. “I can’t take the pain anymore! I’m going to cut my foot off!”
Earlier in the day Mohammad had taken five times the maximum dose of the painkiller diclofenac. The injection in the hospital turned out to be the same drug.
“What they did was highly irresponsible,” said Dr. Simpson. “It is malpractice. The injection could have caused life-threatening kidney failure. All because they didn’t bother trying to talk to him.”
According to Greek law, the Samos hospital’s emergency room cannot turn patients away, but stories abound of it doing precisely the opposite.
“It happens all the time,” said Francois, a young Cameroonian refugee. “They just shout at us and wave us away.” The consequences of this behavior became tragic in June, when a young Ghanaian man died a few hours after being refused entry, complaining of severe headaches.
Many refugees come to Europe because of its reputation as a place where human rights are respected. They are shocked at the treatment they receive, both by the authorities and local residents.
“Nobody cares about our rights here,” Mohammad said. “I was better off in Syria.”
Some of my friends arrived and offered to give him a ride back to the camp. It felt like an absurd gesture, in the face of what had just happened at the hospital and all that he had experienced on Samos, and I was not surprised when he refused. He cursed and limped off slowly in the direction of the camp.
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The going narrative in the west is: “Covid is on the Rise – we are entering the second wave – we must protect our people.”
The offered recipe is testing-testing-testing – it is the instrument for increasing “cases”. The more you test, the more cases you have. Is that so difficult to understand? If tomorrow the world stops “testing”, covid is gone. Finito. Back to life. That’s what they don’t want, though. “They”, the higher-ups. Let me call them the diabolical Deep Dark State.
However, testing and the testing results are never analyzed. How many positives are asymptomatic, who are the “positives’, what are their age groups? According to all those doctors around the world who have stepped out of the Matrix and formed associations of medical professionals and related scientists, most of them call themselves Doctors for the Truth, in Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Peru, the USA and more – more than 80% of the “positives” are asymptomatic, meaning asymptomatic people feel nothing and never get sick.
About ten to fifteen percent have slight to more serious symptoms, but do not need hospitalization – and the rest who may be hospitalized is above 75 or 80 years of age almost all of them with one to several comorbidities. Of those who die, most die from a medical pre-condition – coronary disease, diabetes, cancer – with “tested” covid-19, but not from covid-19.
According to the various associations of Doctors for the Truth, concluded based on their experience, more than 50% of the so-called RT-PCM (Reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction) deliver “false positives”. Of course, the labs, hospitals and doctors who perform them are aware. But they are silenced with a carrot or a stick. And the “false positives” conveniently help drive covid statistics through the roof.
But who would have an interest in that?
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Curiously, very curiously – in the northern hemisphere – also called the Global North- the hundreds of years-old common flu has literally disappeared. From one year to another. We have just entered the season of the common flu, or “influenza”. Fall and winter are typical for the annual flu and cold. But nobody talks about it. Suddenly the flu has evaporated. – No flu statistics. No mainstream media, no coopted doctors, hospitals or Covid Task Force, and, of course, no government officials, especially not those from the sacrosanct Health Authorities, would ever mention the word flu or “influenza”. – Why? They don’t think that We, the people could get the idea. Or do they?
Is it possible that the flu has been adopted, integrated into covid? This is just an innocent question, of course. One ought not to speculate with things that could put authorities in a corner, or worse, imply that they have been lying to the people who elected them, to the very people who pay their salaries.
And why would they do that? Do they have an obscure reason? Someone, something high-high above them, who tells them, all 193 UN nations at once, they have to cheat their people, because these high-high above them, sinister dark un-people have an agenda to implement? Perhaps Bill Gates’ Agenda ID2020, accompanied by WEF’s Klaus Schwab’s “Covid-19 – The Great Reset” (July 2020, available on Amazon and everywhere)?
It is indeed, possible, that governments around the globe have been coopted, by carrot or by stick (to put it benignly), to drive up covid statistics, covid “cases”; and what’s more convenient in the fall-winter season than converting the common flu which in any case, when tested, will show corona viruses. The flu and covid viruses are very-very similar; they are practically undistinguishable in a test.
Ask the doctors who stepped out of the Matrix, the doctors for the truth, virtually all flu viruses contain a proportion of corona viruses, as high as 17% to 20%. So, telling what is what is almost impossible, and even less so, if the mix-up can be favorable for covid – and help drive the covid statistics up and up and up.
But who would be interested in making the pandemic look worse than it already is? Isn’t it, that everybody wants to “flatten the curve”? At least that’s what they said during the first wave. It justified the first lockdown. Why would it be different in the second wave? And yes, we are suddenly in the midst of the second wave. But nobody dares talking again about flattening the curve.
Virtually all governments have assured their people – frankly, we are more subjects, than people for them, subjects that are manipulated with lies and masks and social distancing, separated from their loved ones through senseless quarantines – these potentially resisting subjects, WE, were assured that there will be no second lockdown, that the countries, the world, could not afford a second lockdown. However, gradually but with giant steps, these dictatorial governments, almost all of whom have quietly and without consultation of the people, adopted “Health Emergency Laws” – a close equivalent to Martial Law – have closed all the windows and doors, so that “bang” another lockdown is on the plate. And again, nowhere to escape.
Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Greece, the UK, and so far, partly Switzerland – have just declared within the last 48 hours a lockdown, or a quasi-lockdown, with curfews and “house arrests” – isolation at home, shop closings, work-from-home rules, and more. Worse may follow. People take it. Benign protests only. But no steadfast and unrelenting resistance yet.
(French second full lockdown protest, initially until end November 2020 – AP Photo, Daniel Cole). Others governments are weighing in, rather “when” than “if” – they want to take this draconian step, eviscerating the last shred of the remaining economy, and causing detrimental damage to humanity, social damage, from isolation, social distancing – not being able getting together with family and friends. In some countries like Canada, the tyrannical Trudeau government has already announced that this year “Christmas may be cancelled” – meaning, no visits with families and friends. Others may follow suit. Can you imagine!
In a recent interview with RT, Stanford University Professor, medical doctor and President Trump’s Covid advisor, Scott Atlas, called the lockdown policies an “epic failure” and argued they are “killing people,”. Atlas added, “The public-health leadership have failed egregiously, and they’re killing people with their fear-inducing shutdown policies.” And further, “The lockdowns will go down as an epic failure of public policy by people who refuse to accept, they were wrong.”
Atlas then pointed to job losses, rising suicides, rising drug abuse and the harm being done to young people, tying the issues to the Covid-19 restrictions put in place. He referred to a study showing that 25 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 thought about killing themselves in June “due to the lockdown,” he said. And what’s maybe worse, “We’re creating a generation of neurotic children, forcing them to wear masks and be six feet apart from their friends, or not even have school in person.”
People do not take it! Resist!
France, under President Macron, is already considering a third wave. RT reports, “France’s minister of solidarity and health, Olivier Veran, has said he cannot rule out a third wave of the coronavirus, as the country enters a second national lockdown.
As they battle a new spike in Covid-19 cases, French officials are already concerned about the threat of a third wave. Discussing the situation on France Info radio, Veran told listeners that, due to the severity of the virus and the speed at which it’s spreading, it’s not possible to rule out a third wave, even if the second peak is brought under control.
Defending the government’s decision to implement a second national lockdown, which comes into effect at midnight on Thursday (29 October), Veran claimed that it’s “nobody’s failure,” but said there are challenges with containing the spread, as they are dealing with an “invisible enemy.”
A second wave, worldwide, was already predicted in May 2020 – because those who call the shots on the “innocent” people knew exactly that the flu season will come, as it does every year.
Now, the flu is blended in with covid, mixed up and adding to the dramatic hike of covid “cases”, covid statistics. This and the media hype will create more FEAR, more – or rather – THE justification for a second lockdown – and obedience, yes, the scared are weak and vulnerable, they are manipulable – especially when threatened at the same time with disproportionately huge fines for disobedience. FEAR is the strongest weapon of these tyrants.
The FEAR factor, makes new parents accept that hospitals impose upon them to wear masks when receiving their newborn. Faceless parents, fearsome world. Their newborn and later toddlers and children will know their parents with masks. Facial expressions are hidden.
That’s what this monstrous dictatorship, to which every government of this world is submissive, wants. Alienated children – a generation that grows up in a faceless society.
This is a sinister form of child abuse that may destroy an entire generation.
But that’s what the eugenists behind this covid cum 5G atrocity want – heartless, emotionless people, who may easily become dispensable. The dispensable people – is not a new term. It has been used regularly in the circles of the current US Administration – to designate people who are in their views worthless for society.
This reminds of an infamous Henry Kissinger saying,
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.
These words were spoken already in the 1960s, by a eugenist. That’s what Kissinger is, a Rockefeller protégé, sharing his Master’s deepest thoughts, and he is joined by Bill Gates, who doesn’t make a secret of wanting to reduce “drastically” the world population. It would therefore not come as a surprise, if the Great Reset also had in mind reducing food supply.
Even without disrupting food supplies, the poor will have no money to purchase food.
They will enter a painful phase of famine, parents seeing their children starve – and many will succumb to famine, death by famine.
This is the natural consequence of what’s already happening – bankruptcies abound, unemployment rises into unheard dimensions. The International Labor Office (ILO) predicts by end 2020 to mid-2021 that up to half of the world’s workforce may be out of work – most of them in the Global South, where about 70% of labor is “informal”, meaning no social safety nets, no pensions, no unemployment benefits, nothing.
Simultaneously, The World Food Program (WFP) predicts a Famine Pandemic – the consequences of which are far more disastrous than those of the so-called “covid-pandemic”. The WFP reports that today already 821 million people go to bed hungry every night, and an additional 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That means 135 million people on earth are marching towards the brink of starvation.
WFP predicts that Covid-19 will likely add another 130 million, who could be facing starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people on the brink of death from starvation by the end of 2020. (See this)
The world’s governments – and all 193 UN members participate in one way or another – they are genocidal, since they know exactly what they are doing.
Enter the Great Reset, referred to above. It presents a disaster plan of total destruction – the 4th Industrial Revolution, based on IT, algorithms, robotism, transferring assets from the bottom to the top, what’s left of them, converting them into an “eco-friendly” way into a new capitalism, painted green, The New Green Deal. Will people fall for it? Propaganda is strong. Propaganda had already started with the 1992 Environmental Conference in Rio (The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), from 3-14 June 1992. This conference set the pace for the climate hype that ensued and to which by now almost the entire world is enslaved, leading to “How Dare You” Greta – and now the New Green Deal.
In this 4th Industrial age, where robots call the shots, we the surviving people, other than the commanding elite, of course, would become tele-commanded obedient servants, a bit like Aldous Huxley’s futuristic “Brave New World”.
We can resist. Peacefully of course. For example, no more testing. Nobody goes “testing” – and within no time the covid figures would decline. Covid would actually stop. And the common flu, as it does every year, would bother us a bit. But no reason for fear, because there ae plenty of remedies – but NO Vaccines.
We have to peacefully engage in dialogue with the police and military, explain to them what’s at stake – they must understand that they are only the obedient servants of an abject rich elite’s agenda that has nothing to do with protecting public health, that, to the contrary, they are destroying public health and humanity. Police and military are just like us, We, the People. Once this dark sinister elite reached their goal of total control and take-over, police and military will be discarded and replaced by robots. That’s already in the books.
We have to talk to medical personnel in hospitals, clinics and medical practitioners, as well as to teachers from Kindergarten to primary school, all the way to universities – explain to them “sinister plan”- and what it has already done to humanity, to the world’s socioeconomic fabric.
And finally, we have to engage with the numerous country-associations of thousands of medical doctors, virologists, immunologists and other scientists in the bio-medical field, who have stepped out of the matrix and sided with the people, often at the detriment of their careers – and worse.
No more testing – and covid will be gone. And no vaccines.
Only in unison we are strong and can overcome. And overcome we shall.
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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
The horrific terrorist attacks in France and the confrontation that erupted between Paris and Ankara has questioned alliances and changed the geopolitical landscape in the East Mediterranean and Africa. Many are calling this a “clash of civilizations” between the liberal secular West, led by France, and reactionary extreme Islamism, led by Turkey.
However, a stronger argument to make is that the confrontation between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is nothing more than a reflection of the ongoing clash for dominance in the East Mediterranean and Africa. Paris and Ankara have their own reasons for camouflaging this confrontation in terms of a cultural and religious conflict rather than a struggle for geopolitical supremacy.
Macron is taking advantage of the justified anger against terrorist attacks perpetrated in France by radical Muslims so that he can galvanize the collective subconscious of Europe. He hopes that this will create the right environment for the imposition of sanctions against Turkey that the EU, particularly Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Malta, have been reluctant to pass despite Ankara’s daily violations of Greek and Cypriot sovereignty.
For his part, Erdoğan is consciously weaponizing a fake “Islamophobia” controversy. He is attempting to boost his reputation in the eyes of the Islamic World as the only leader that dares to challenge France’s neo-colonial policies. However, the Turkish president does this by enacting his very own neo-colonial policies in the East Mediterranean and Africa. At the same time, Erdoğan is challenging any potential sanctions against his country by presenting them as “Christian Europe’s” vengeful response to Muslim Turkey.
Both leaders however bear a corresponding responsibility for the rise of Islamic extremism in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before Macron was elected, French President Nicolas Sarkozy supported the jihadist invasion of Libya and played a key role in funding al-Qaeda-linked militant groups after the removal of long time Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. These jihadist groups then expanded into neighboring African countries and even reached as far as Syria in the Middle East. Although Macron may try and wipe his hands clean of the actions of Sarkozy and his successor François Hollande, it must be remembered that it was the current French president who said in a statement on April 14, 2018 that France’s “red line has been crossed,” referring to a chemical weapon attack on Douma that was initially blamed on the Syrian government but then debunked. Macron authorized French strikes to target the Syrian Army, thus once again directly supporting terrorist groups based in the Arab country.
Respectively, Turkey has been for years a supply station and a safe haven for organizations that eventually became the core of ISIS and Al-Nusra. As is often the case, both countries lost control of the extremist organizations they sponsored, with tragic consequences for the peoples of Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Both Macron and Erdoğan are taking advantage of the volatile security situation in France with absolute cynicism, while at the same time hiding their real responsibility for the rise of Islamic terrorism. Erdoğan says Macron’s agenda is an anti-Islamic crusade, but rather it is a campaign of dismantling Turkish-backed Muslim Brotherhood networks that have existed in France for decades.
The French president will also use this agenda to attack his political opponents too. French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer even accused left-wing politicians of “ideological synergy” in the terrorist attacks and named at least 50 Muslim groups as “moral perpetrators.” These groups are now threatened with closure by the French authorities.
Macron’s rhetoric is being echoed by a large section of the public that are angry over the horrific slaughter of innocent civilians by terrorists. Besides domestically attacking his opponents, Macron will use this fake notion of a “clash of civilizations” as an opportunity to galvanize EU-wide sanctions against Turkey in the context of his wider rivalry with Erdoğan in the East Mediterranean and Africa. Turkey has been making significant inroads in France’s former colonies in Africa and is rapidly expanding its influence. In fact, Erdoğan is so emboldened that part of this expansion includes direct support for terrorist organizations outside of France’s former colonies, like Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
France does not compete with the U.S. or the United Kingdom for influence and economic dominance over its former colonies in Africa. Turkey however has risen to the challenge, portraying itself as an Islamic “anti-colonialist”. However, in the East Mediterranean, Erdoğan is acting unilaterally and akin to 19th century imperial empires in his attempt to extract resources from the continental shelves of Greece and Cyprus, something that has also antagonized the French president. In fact, only yesterday Erdoğan admitted that every Turkish soldier that dies in Syria “means these lands become our own country,” suggesting he is engaging in territorial expansionism.
Both Macron and Erdoğan are engaging in a geopolitical struggle that has only galvanized and increased because of this false notion of a “clash of civilizations.” Rather, both leaders are using this notion to challenge each other as they struggle for dominance over Africa and the East Mediterranean. France, motivated by pan-Europeanism and protecting its corporate oil interests in the East Mediterranean, will continue to challenge Turkey’s efforts to extract resources from the continental shelves of Greece and Cyprus. Macron however will find it difficult to challenge Turkish advances in Africa as Erdoğan is utilizing Islamic solidarity and a persona of challenging French colonialism despite behaving as a traditional empire in the East Mediterranean and Syria.
The French-Turkish rivalry was once a bilateral struggle. But with Turkey encouraging terrorist attacks in France, Erdoğan has effectively forced Europe to strongly back Macron. This will likely lead to the decision to impose sanctions against Turkey in next month’s European Council meeting and Erdoğan has only made it difficult for Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Malta to veto the sanctions.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
No matter which party wins the White House on November 3, one thing is certain: The objective crisis of the system will force the winning political party to be guided by a logic that concludes domestic repression and warmongering abroad are necessary.
From occupied Philadelphia to occupied Palestine, the people in the colonized spaces of empire will find it hard to discern a difference between how Democratic and Republican oppressors treat them. In Philadelphia, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors borrowed a page from the Obama administration’s DOJ playbook. If folks recall, after the Baltimore uprisings in 2015, Obama’s DOJ slapped federal charges on the resisters Obama had referred to as “thugs and criminals.” Just last week, the Trump DOJ swept into Philly and nationalized a local law enforcement by arresting and slapping federal felony charges against four African activists.
So, while the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) takes no official position on the election or on its outcome, we have been consistent as an alliance: We are clear the fight for our people will continue. We do not have the luxury of believing any illusions to the contrary.
Opposing the militarization of U.S. police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program
Stopping Israeli training of U.S. police forces
Working for the closure of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Advocating for the closure of 800+ U.S. foreign military bases
Opposing Trump’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit” and all federal anti-crime measures
Opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades) and political interventions
Demanding an end to U.S. participation in the white supremacist NATO structure
Calling for at least 50% cuts to the U.S. military budget
Requiring the U.S. Department of Justice document and investigate the use of lethal force by domestic police officers
Demanding the passage of Congressional resolutions that commit the United States to uphold international law and the U.N. Charter
Calling on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation and/or resolutions to support the global abolition of nuclear weapons, such as seen with the U.N. Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons
BAP is clear: It is only through the construction of alternative, independent popular power that the suffering caused by the irreversible crisis of the system can be mitigated. We must move to create a new system in which war, militarism and repression are permanently eliminated from the realm of human concerns.
For the exploited, colonized and oppressed, our fate will not be determined on November 3. The U.S. duopoly is incapable of addressing our human needs because the interests of the people and the planet—and the goal of peace—are contrary to the narrow interests both the Democratic and Republican parties are committed to upholding.
Therefore, there will be No Compromise and No Retreat in the face of evil—lesser or otherwise.
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As judged by their public records, Trump and Biden are unfit for the nation’s highest office.
Time and again, both figures showed that they serve privileged interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people they’re dismissive toward.
It’s how Dem and Republican standard bearers consistently operate, the nation from inception a fantasy democracy, never the real thing.
Its ruling class members run things for their own benefit, most others exploited to serve their interests.
When elections are held, governance of, by, and for everyone equitably is off the ballot.
Same old, same old wins every time, wealth and powerful interests alone served.
This time is no different from any others earlier. The choice for voters is none at all when between the evil of two lessors.
That said, questions about Biden’s cognitive and physical fitness remain unanswered, but speculation is rife about his ability — or lack thereof — to serve in the highest US office.
Numerous US presidents were ill in office, including Trump with covid disease from which he’s reportedly fully recovered.
It’s likely given his marathon campaigning during which he’s shown no visible signs of physical impairment.
Eight former US presidents died in office, four from natural causes. Four others were assassinated.
Former presidents suffered from a range of serious illnesses while in office.
Throughout much of his tenure, George Washington was ill from a long laundry list of health issues, including influenza, pneumonia, diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, dysentery, and dental problems, along with visual and hearing impairment.
In 1944, Dem party officials knew Franklin Roosevelt was dying. So did close associates.
Yet he ran for reelection, won for the fourth time, took office in January 1945 and died around three months later in April.
Shortly before his death, Harry
Truman described him as “(p)hysically…going to pieces.”
Six former US presidents were incapacitated in office, including Woodrow Wilson from a severe stroke and Dwight Eisenhower after suffering a heart attack from which he recovered.
Little over a month after taking office, William Henry Harrison passed away in 1841.
Among other health issues, Andrew Jackson suffered from lead poisoning, Lincoln from smallpox, Grover Cleveland from cancer, Harding from congestive heart failure, Jack Kennedy from numerous illnesses.
Hospitalized over three dozen times when alive, JFK was given last rites three times.
Biden’s physical and cognitive health are matters of concern. Even WaPo last March said the following:
“It’s fair to speculate whether Biden is mentally fit to be president.”
If elected, he’ll be age-78 when taking office, his birthday on November 20.
He’ll be older than Ronald Reagan on the day he left office.
“There’s plenty of cause for concern” about whether Biden is able to handle the rigors of high office, said WaPo prior to his nomination as Dem standard bearer.
He’s made numerous misstatements while campaigning.
Earlier he said “I think we can win back the House” now controlled by Dems. He called Super Tuesday “Super Thursday.”
Campaigning earlier in South Carolina, he said:
“My name’s Joe Biden. I’m a (Dem) candidate for the United States Senate.”
Twice he confused Trump with GW Bush as his challenger for the White House.
Time and again, he’s been factually incorrect in explaining what he was involved in earlier, requiring damage control corrections from staff.
He falsely claimed to have worked with China’s Deng Xiaoping on the 2016 Paris Climate Accord. Deng died in 1997.
He claimed that “150 million people have been killed (by guns) since 2007” in the US — his false figure about 45% of the nation’s 330 million population.
He said Dems should “choose truth over facts.” Often he’s unsure what state he’s in.
He falsely called his late son Beau “the attorney general of the United States.”
He confused former UK Prime Minister Theresa May with Margaret Thatcher.
Most everyone makes gaffes at times and occasionally is forgetful. It’s part of the human condition.
For Biden, it happens repeatedly in public remarks. In August 2019, WaPo columnist Dana Millbank called him a “gaffe machine.”
In New Hampshire last year, he said: “What’s not to like about Vermont?”
He falsely said “Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King had been assassinated in the ’70s.”
Along with JFK in 1963, RFK and MLK were victims of state-sponsored assassinations in 1968.
While campaigning, Biden said “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”
He falsely said mass-shootings in El Paso and Dayton occurred in Houston and Michigan.
He mistook the Second Amendment for the First one.
He called Obama “the first African American in the history of the United States.”
He once introduced Obama as his “Barack America” running-mate.
He also called him “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean.”
He claimed Franklin Roosevelt appeared on television in 1929, long before it existed.
The gaffe list goes on endlessly. One thing about Biden is sure.
When unscripted — and even the other way around — when speaking publicly, it’s uncertain what he’ll say, mean, or understand.
Age isn’t the issue. It’s Biden’s physical and mental ability to handle the nation’s highest office, a condition that can be sound or impaired at any age.
After 1988 surgery for a brain aneurysm and pulmonary thrombosis, signs of Biden’s deterioration began appearing.
He’s not physically and mentally what he used to be long ago.
Yet what should be publicly explained is kept under wraps.
In public, he exhibited visible hand and body tremors that are common symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.
His handwriting is smaller than in earlier years. His frequent misstatements, confusion, and flawed memory are cognitive impairment symptoms.
If elected to succeed Trump, will running-mate Kamala Harris take over as president before end of his term in office?
They’re both tainted by considerable baggage, she notably by a disturbing prosecutorial and political history.
As Alameda County CA assistant DA, San Francisco DA, and California state AG, she blocked exculpatory evidence, defended unconstitutional practices, and prevented prosecution of wealthy individuals.
Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles/Law Professor Lara Bazelon explained that when urged to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then (as) state’s attorney general, (Harris) opposed them or stayed silent,” adding:
She “fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.”
Given Biden’s uncertain physical and cognitive state, electing him on Tuesday may elevate Harris to the nation’s highest office — a figure whose public record shows consistent support for privileged interests exclusively and injustice over the other way around.
Whatever presidential and congressional race results on Tuesday, wealth, power, and privilege will benefit exclusively like most always before.
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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.”
