CNN’s report from a single unnamed US government source that the North Korean leader “is in grave danger after undergoing a previous surgery” isn’t all that credible, but the very fact that it’s being pushed so strongly at this particular moment says a lot about the intentions of the network’s “deep state” patrons.

The Root Of The Rumor

Speculation is swirling all across the world about the possibility of an unexpected regime change in North Korea following CNN’s report from a single unnamed US government source that Kim Jong-un “is in grave danger after undergoing a previous surgery”, with some outlets even going as far as to predict that his sister Kim Yo-Jong might soon take his place. China and South Korea played down the reports about his supposedly serious health crisis, but questions still remain about why hasn’t he been seen in public for over 10 days after failing to appear at a celebration commemorating his grandfather’s birthday on 15 April (his last public appearance was several days prior to that). CNN’s original report also said that “A second source familiar with the intelligence told CNN that the US has been closely monitoring reports on Kim’s health”, though that doesn’t in and of itself mean that his life is in danger, just that someone allegedly confirmed that the US intelligence community is performing one of its most basic duties monitoring reports about the health of a rival leader.

Is The “Broken Clock” Right?

Considering what’s factually known thus far, it’s obvious that something is amiss since Kim Jong-Un wouldn’t otherwise have missed his grandfather’s birthday celebration, though it’s unclear exactly what’s wrong. More than likely, it’s probably because of some health issue, but nobody knows for sure whether it’s serious or not. Still, news about North Korea almost always succeeds in capturing international media headlines, and the very fact that CNN of all places was the first to report that he’s “in grave danger” is enough to be suspicious of its veracity. It might very well be the case that “a broken clock is right twice a day” and that CNN’s report turns out to be credible, but it could also turn out that it isn’t and that the network’s patrons in the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracy (“deep state”) have ulterior motives for “leaking” this story to the press.

Rehabilitating CNN’s Reputation

First off, it’s noteworthy that the alleged source (if they even exist) reached out to CNN instead of any Trump-friendly outlet. This suggests that their motives are either to improve the network’s credibility amid the President’s regular claims that they’re fake news (provided that the report is vindicated) and/or undermine his unprecedented policy of engagement towards North Korea. About the first-mentioned explanation, it makes sense from a soft power standpoint for CNN to occasionally release “real news” so that it improves the odds of its target audience believing the plethora of fake news that it usually produces. Since many observers were already wondering why Kim Jong-Un didn’t attend his grandfather’s birthday celebration, it’s plausible that some health problem or another is responsible, which lends some credibility to CNN’s report that it might be even be a serious one (which can’t ever be known for sure unless he actually steps down or passes away).

Divide & Rule

Concerning the second explanation, it possibly consists of two parts — complicating Trump’s personal relationship with Kim Jong-Un and/or pressuring the President to concede to South Korea’s proposed defense payment to the US. On the one hand, the American leader has excellent relations with his North Korean counterpart, but on the other, they’re very fragile and are opposed by some members of their “deep states”. This means that the mostly symbolic progress that’s been made thus far on North Korea’s denuclearization commitment might be reversed if Trump makes an “undiplomatic” remark about Kim Jong-Un’s health and personally offends him, though he wisely avoided doing so yesterday in response to a question about that topic. Had he reacted differently, then that would have played into the hands of Trump’s Democrat-aligned (and naturally, CNN-aligned) “deep state” foes who are against his peaceful policy of avoiding war with North Korea.

The Art Of The Deal

As for the second part of the explanation, Trump recently revealed that he rejected the sum that South Korea offered to pay in response to his earlier demand that it compensate his country more handsomely for its military services, which Reuters reported would have been an increase of 13%. The President is trying to press all of his county’s traditional partners for more advantageous deals that he believes more fairly share the burden of America’s responsibilities to them under its envisaged world order, which has been met with sharp criticism from the mostly liberal-globalist international elite and their domestic allies in America (i.e. the Democrats, their affiliated media, and the “deep state” faction that patronizes them both). In the event that there’s some credibility to CNN’s report about a looming leadership crisis in North Korea that could potentially make the country even more unpredictable than before, then Trump might be compelled to “settle for less” and give in to whatever Seoul is proposing in the interests of “national security”.

Concluding Thoughts

It’ll of course remain to be seen what — if anything — happens in North Korea in the coming weeks, but it’s nevertheless worthwhile to wonder what might be going on behind the scenes with America’s “deep state” to motivate one of its representatives to “leak” a story to CNN about Kim Jong-Un’s health at this particular moment in time. As was mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, there’s some plausibility to the speculation that he’s either ill or recovering from some kind of surgery, even if the latter isn’t anything serious but might make him look “undignified” in public should he make an appearance (which would be taboo to do in that case given the country’s political culture). Still, history shows that most news about North Korea is either entirely fake or highly exaggerated, with very little of it ever being proven true, especially if it comes from CNN. Everyone would certainly be surprised if the report in question turns out to be credible should he step down or pass away, but the odds of either of those two scenarios unfolding anytime soon are extremely low.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On April 20, gunmen attacked a vehicle of the US-led coalition moving along the road near the village of Roueished in the province of al-Hasakah. Syrian state media reported that the vehicle was destroyed and several US service members were injured in the attack. The US-led coalition has not officially commented on these claims yet.

This became the second report of this kind, which appeared in media this month. On April 6, Hezbollah-linked al-Mayadeen TV said that militants killed a US soldier and several members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. If these attacks really took place, it is likely that the supposed US soldiers killed in the attacks were in fact US-linked private military contractors. Therefore, the Pentagon does not report them as casualties among US personnel.

Syrian security forces seized weapon caches belonging to radical militants near Damascus and Quneitra. The seized weapons and equipment included a Malutka anti-tank missile, several RPG rounds, machine guns, mortars, hand grenades, satellite broadcasting and telecommunications devices, medical equipment and even several cars.

The Damascus countryside and the southern part of Syria have been for long time formally liberated from terrorists. Nonetheless, government forces regularly face various kinds of terrorist activity in these areas. Terrorist cells operating there receive support from the militant held parts of northern and western Syria, and the terrorist threat cannot be fully removed as long as these areas remain in the hands of radical militant groups protected by Turkey.

On April 19 and April 15, Russian fighter jets intercepted US Navy P-8A Poseidon spy planes off the Syrian coast. The increased US reconnaissance activity in the eastern Mediterranean often comes ahead and ahead of the escalation of the conflict. It is possible the Washington leadership also believes that the military situation in Greater Idlib also has chances to explode in the near future.

Since the signing of the March 5 de-escalation agreement in Moscow, Turkey and Russia have achieved no progress in its implementation besides the establishing ceasefire regime in southern and eastern Idlib. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other radical groups used the pause to fortify their positions in the region. Turkey also used this time to deploy additional troops and equipment there. Ankara’s actions demonstrate that it is in fact allied with al-Qaeda-linked groups in Idlib. So, its forces are likely preparing for a new confrontation with the Syrian Army.

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“Deer in the headlights look,” wrote someone on social media about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who was shown in an unflattering photo, after workers at a Smithfield plant in her state tested positive for the corona virus. “That head would look just right mounted on my wall,” the commenter continued. Noem did not issue a state-wide lockdown order, as many states did, preferring to use a “targeted approach,” she said in an NPR story last week, issuing safety guidelines and allowing businesses to decide whether or not to close. South Dakota is one of eight states that have not declared state-wide stay-at-home orders. In an April 16 NPR story, “Data Doesn’t Show a Need for State-Wide Stay-at Home Order,” the governor said that she remains “teachable’ and talks with other governors regularly. She has said that a state-wide lockdown of all businesses may not have prevented employees testing positive at the Smithfield plant.

Media reports that many Smithfield workers tested positive for the virus, and two days ago, one died. I was stunned by the almost gleeful storm of stories across most U.S. newspapers about employees testing positive and then horrified when I read the comment in which the commenter likens the governor to a deer. adding that her head would look right mounted on a wall. This is a death threat against a public official that someone presumed he could make anonymously. We may disagree with what this elected official did. Many people throughout the country, public figures and ordinary citizens, disagree with the federal and state governments’ handing of this virus with many stating that the damage to the economy and to communities and resulting deaths from economic despair, isolation, domestic violence, suicide, addictions are far worse than infections and some deaths from a new virus. Such cruel, and even deadly, comments from people who disagree have been become much more common lately.

This governor has been described as a “Trump ally, ” which may explain the rampant hostility, even violent language towards her, as the county has become increasingly and dangerously polarized these last few years. People often seem unable to see one another’s humanity, with some seeing Trump supporters or allies as having some kind of genetic defect or as epitomizing evil. I am no fan of the guy (or most politicians) and do not listen to his inflammatory or crude speech.  When co-workers or students or acquaintances have tried to sniff out who I voted for or where I land politically, as has been common cultural policing practice the last few years, my answer usually has been, “I am so independent, I don’t think I count.”

Though I vote independent, I find astonishing the often bald hatred of any idea or person close to Trump. I heard a respected peace activist say recently, while he noted abuse of whistle-blower Julian Assange, that his wife had told him before the interview to make sure to add that Trump is the worst president in history. “No matter what else I think,” I hear often suggested or blatantly spoken by various people, independent thinkers usually on a range of controversial topics, “Trump is the worst president in history.”  Really? Worse than those who destroyed the nation of Iraq for no reason? I try to remember what he has done that makes Trump or anyone near him (or anyone who does not summarily condemn him or anything he is associated with) worse than a public figure who, say, orders a nuclear bomb dropped on a Japanese city after Japan had already surrendered at the end of WWII,  or another who signs off on drone bombing Pakistan, or convenes meetings to issue secret kill lists of people around the world to assassinate under the so-called War on Terror. What about carpet bombing for years the small, remote country of Cambodia? Or, rejecting Jewish refugees attempting to escape Nazi Germany during WWII?

There is disagreement about how to best cope with this virus, but hatred, vitriol, bullying, and ostracism may cloud our judgment further in a time when we need to keep reading, talking, listening, and most importantly, thinking.  Shockingly, there is even disagreement about the numbers of infected people and numbers who have died or how deaths from this virus are tallied. There is disagreement about where and how the virus originated. Further, scientists and health professionals do not all agree that national lockdown is the best way to stop the spread.

Allowing hatred, fear, and paranoia to cloud our judgment harms society. In the extreme, someone on the Internet, for instance, could think it acceptable to call for shooting a public official like game and mounting her head on the wall when she did not order businesses in her state to close. She may be right. People at that Smithfield plant may have gotten infected anyway. I am not certain we know all the details. Or, she could have made a mistake. I am perplexed, however, that people commenting on social media, and even journalists, would seem almost happy that the infection spread at that plant, in order to expose that this governor deserves our contempt.

Rampant cruel speech reminds me of school yard bullying and ostracism of those who act or think differently from dominant groups. We may disagree; people get things wrong often, but the character of Internet and mainstream media speech I read and hear now disturbs me.

Some church pastors resisted state orders closing churches and held services anyway. When various church goers tested positive for the virus subsequently (I question how and why they were even tracked down for tests), media outlets and social  media platforms, went abuzz with “gotcha” comments and almost happiness, it seemed to me, with the chance to portray religious people, who still wish to exercise their Constitutional right to assemble and  worship, as ignorant, backwards, and closed-minded. So ignorant that they deserve to get sick and die if they dare act outside of current government controls. Comments on social media are often derisive, even vicious towards what is seen as a type — religious people, particularly Christians lately. Christians, like anyone else, can be narrow-minded and judgmental. I saw appear on a published prayer list this week, “people who do not take the virus seriously.”  Religious people or church goers or believers in God, however you wish to describe them, are not all one way, are not one type, not during this virus lockdown time nor during any other time. Further, I am not converted to the notion that all,  or even most, religious people are backwards and uneducated, and I find such suggestions offensive anytime and especially hurtful during this time of world-wide fear and confusion.

Additionally, as more people protest state lockdown orders, I hear those who silently conform to the lockdowns condemn protestors as ignorant — and as all one type or a couple of types. “Trumptards,” I have heard them called, angry white men with AKs, camo, and Confederate flag emblems, or people so dumb they deserve to contract the virus and die. Some protestors are stereotyped as religious zealots, howling for the Rapture they think will occur at any moment now.  An inflammatory and cruel Internet meme appeared today that pictured a flag image of a snake that usually has the caption, “Don’t Tread on Me.”  Instead the mocking caption said, “I Demand to Be allowed to Go to Applebee’s”.  Closing the economy, causing people to not be able to pay rent or utility bills or buy food – or to lose their businesses — should not be likened to going to Applebee’s.  I suspect many in economic despair, women in unsafe home situations, people ravaged by addictions as their in-person support groups have been stripped may not even have the energy or inclination to comment on social media, write letters to the editor or articles, or attend public protests.  I believe we are now only seeing protest a vigorous and determined few, some extremists. I know many families at my school are suffering quietly now, especially small business owners, wage workers in service industries, or factory workers.  Many do not have the privilege, as I do sitting here now, as a teacher, to still receive a state government paycheck, while working from home.

As we look closer, we may see that protestors of government-mandated lockdowns of all businesses and cultural events and sites nationwide, are not all one type or even a couple of types. I disagree that they are all “right wing” as a New York Times headline stated this week. In a video of a protest last week, I heard a nurse from Ohio interviewed. She had lost her job as whole hospital wings closed down because of cancellations of appointments and procedures. She said that lockdown and isolation were wrong and would ultimately make the virus stronger and last longer as people were not able to build immunity naturally and gradually. Another protestor was an immigrant who had lost his family business he spent his life building. Another thought it wrong to keep liquor and tobacco stores open, while not allowing people to go to work or church, when alcohol sales are up 200 percent. Critics and protestors of these government lockdowns around the world are from various ideological perspectives – civil libertarians, health professionals, scientists, business owners, people of faith, common workers, who have lost a paycheck and either have lost or fear losing everything.  This is time for us to think independently and creatively, to transcend political party divisions, which many believe is just one party rather than the illusion of two. Maybe it is time for labels, such as “Liberal,” “Redneck,” “Trumptard,” “Libtard”  to mean less and less, time to see that we have much more in common than we are manipulated into believing.

It serves us poorly to name-call, to summarily dismiss people as ignorant slobs, whether it is blatant in social media or subtle in the ways journalists cull and write certain stories in certain ways. We have been primed for this kind of vicious talk for a few years now. Not being able to see the humanity of those who are not aligned with our ideas or our version of reality has impeded our ability to solve problems like how to best care for sick people, now or in the future,  or how to listen to and help desperate people, suffering through what may be a collapsing economy.

Whatever people’s views on this calamitous time in our culture or how to deal with it, death threats against a public figure doing her best to make decisions for the state she was elected to represent are a sign of serious problems overtaking us – cruelty and bullying and typecasting. Governor Noem may have a husband and children and neighbors whom she does her best to care for. Would we want someone to call for the head of our neighbor or fellow church member to be placed on a wall like game killed? Whatever people may think of Donald Trump as a politician, he also has a wife and a teenaged son, as I have a teenaged son, home now from school, probably scared about what will happen next.

Derisive, narrow-minded language is often directed at religious leaders and church members generally, I have noticed, and now, the volume on such speech is turned way up. Religious leaders are attacked as uneducated zealots for wanting to hold services. Some have persisted anyway.

The Bishop in Los Cruces, New Mexico was the first in the U.S, to resume public masses, the Catholic News Agency reported April 15. Bishop Baldacchino said that he was called to bring hope and consolation while still following guidelines to protect people’s safety. Participants received mass in their cars while the priests wore masks and gloves. When I hear cruel comments about religious people, I remember that church members and leaders, as their faith calls them, have often been firsts to go to places torn with conflict, violence, and disease. Religious people have ministered to some of the sickest and most destitute throughout history. Minnesota has a large population of Somali people because the Lutheran Church there arranged and paid for them to come to the U.S during their country’s civil war. While civil war raged in Somalia, I learned that dominating, bullying countries took advantage of what they thought had become an unprotected, failed state by dumping their toxic waste, including nuclear waste, on Somali’s shores, causing deaths, cancers, and horrible birth defects that continue now.

When I read or hear disparaging, hostile, even violent comments about religion and religious people, I wonder what Jesus (or other religious martyrs) would do during this reign of virus terror with governments’ lockdowns of whole societies. As a nonconformist, mocked and called naive, he may protest already very rich politicians selling off stock they thought would lose them money right before this government lockdown of the economy in response to a new virus; he may not stand silent while politicians’ companies made them huge sums of money in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while many men sent to fight those wars now battle daily debilitating migraines and cognitive impairments from Traumatic Brain Injury caused by explosions, injuries they may have to endure for the rest of their lives.

He may get it wrong a few times first, but I imagine Jesus would not comply silently while the U.S. now spends more on war and violence than has been spent in the history of the world when a small percentage of that money would buy food and medicine for millions. In this time of fear and confusion. I think he would reject harmful stereotypes and rigid categories to be present among the sick and suffering, the lonely and lost, would step lightly and act prudently while leaving doors open. I could be wrong, but I believe this.

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Christine E. Black‘s work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal,  Sojourners Magazine, English Journal, Amethyst Review, and other publications. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Pablo Neruda Prize. 

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Is the CIA Preparing a Color Revolution in Cuba?

April 22nd, 2020 by Germán Gorraiz López

The cessation of the United States blockade against Cuba, demanded for the twenty-eighth consecutive year in the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization and overwhelmingly approved by 187 votes in favor, 3 against (USA, Israel and Brazil ) and 2 abstentions, reaffirms the freedom of commerce and navigation in the face of an anachronistic blockade established by Kennedy in 1962 and which would have meant direct and indirect losses for the Island estimated at $ 110 billion according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 

Is Trump obsessed with Cuba?

The cosmetic measures taken by the Obama Administration in its First Presidential Term following in the wake of the Clinton Administration (relaxation of communications and the increase in the sending of remittances to the island as well as the start of a round of talks on immigration issues), they left the blockade intact and did not substantially change Washington’s policy, although they reflected the consensus of broad sectors of the American people in favor of a change of policy towards the Island sponsored by the decision of the Cuban regime to end state paternalism and allow free initiative and self-employment. Thus, after the intervention of Pope Francis in the secret negotiation carried out between Cuba and the US to break the thaw between the two countries through the exchange of Alan Gross and a US official for three members of “The 5”, we witnessed the disappearance of Cuba from the US list of Terrorist Countries and the subsequent opening of Embassies.

However, Donald Trump would have adopted as leitmotif of his Presidency to eliminate all vestiges of the Obamanian legacy. Thus, after the attempt to end Obamacare, the announcement of the revision of the NAFTA Treaty and the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement against Climate Change, the next step was to undo the diplomatic and commercial advances achieved with Cuba under the mandate of Barack Obama. with the intention of increasing regulations and supervision to make it difficult for US companies to sign agreements with Cuba as well as for Americans to continue traveling to the country and would be the result of the strenuous pressure of the prominent Cuban-American representatives Marco Rubio and Mario Díaz- Balart, both Republicans. In addition, the automatic renewal by the United States for another year of the trade embargo on the island would undermine the current international financial and political system and could mean losses to Cuba estimated at nearly $ 70 billion, leading the Cuban regime to suffocation. economic, being “peremptory” the settlement of a blockade that runs the risk of becoming endemic and that can become lethal after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Is Trump Looking for an Orange Revolution in Cuba?

The new strategy of the Trump Administration is to strengthen commercial and military ties with the Petrocaribe countries in the face of the danger of mimetic contagion of the Chavista revolutionary ideals by depending exclusively on the Venezuelan Petrocaribe for its energy supply, so the Trump Administration is it would have set as an immediate objective the termination of Petrocaribe. Petrocaribe was created in 2005 at the initiative of Chávez with the objective of supplying fuels to member countries under advantageous conditions of payment, such as soft loans and low interest rates, and was made up of 18 countries (including Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Republic Dominican, Haiti, Belize and a dozen Caribbean islands).

Thus, Mike Pence announced the implementation of new measures against two companies that transport Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba, as well as against the 34 ships that PDVSA uses for this purpose with the avowed objective of causing the “energy suffocation of Cuba” through the amputation of the umbilical cord that unite Venezuela and Cuba following the Kentian theory of “stick and carrot” exposed by Sherman Kent in his book “Strategic Intelligence for North American World Policy” (1949). In this book, Kent states that “war is not always conventional: indeed, a large part of the war, from the remote and the closest, has always been carried out with unconventional weapons: […] weapons [. ..] political and economic. The kind of war in which […] (they are) the political war and the economic war. ”

Continuing with the repressive escalation, the US Treasury Department has recently imposed sanctions on the Cuban state company Cubametales for “its continued importation of Venezuelan crude and support for the Government of the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.” As a consequence of this measure, the assets that the company may have under US jurisdiction are frozen and financial transactions with US entities are prohibited since Cubametales would be according to the US Government. “Responsible for guaranteeing total fuel imports and exports to and from Cuba.”

All this will mean that the Island is bound to suffocate with unpredictable results after the collapse of tourism caused by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic on the Island, which has accounted for 862 confirmed cases, 151 healed and 27 deaths. However, in the paroxysm of insolidarity, the Trump Administration would be blocking the purchases and deliveries of masks, lung ventilators and other basic health supplies for the treatment of patients with Covid-19, since the ultimate goal of the Trump Administration would be to achieve shortages Total oil, food and vital health supplies to face the COVID-19 pandemic, a scenario that will be remotely controlled by the CIA to provoke an Orange Revolution that shakes the current status quo of the Island.

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In the aftermath of two national catastrophes (Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and 911 in 2001), past history has shown that the US Congress seized the opportunity to penalize Americans  and deprive them of their constitutionally guaranteed civil and individual rights – even though it was the intel agencies which failed to do their job to protect the country.

Under the guise of protecting the public’s health and safety, there is every reason to believe that the Congress will again betray the American public in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis which provides just the right foil to further deprive Americans of additional Constitutional privileges.

Even though Congress is out of town until May 4th, it would be ridiculously naive to assume that a version of a Bio Weapons Safety Act (BWSA) is not already in the legislative pipeline and, in fact, during this recess, that the votes may already be lined up.

The Numbers

Despite a frightened public willing to remain in home detention, the CDC’s own numbers do not provide the justification for another law in the lineage of a totalitarian state while the mortality numbers are not indicative of a pandemic or even an epidemic.

The CDC numbers should be suspect especially given the agency’s close association with Big Pharma when, in 1983,  a negligent Congress allowed the agency to accept Foundation and  outside sources of funds. In other words, Big Pharma and its friends are regular contributors to the CDC who will always recoup their investment in some way.

Keeping in mind that the CDC’s annual average number of flu deaths is 35,000, the CDC reported 38,979 corona-related deaths on April 19th which included 4,593 ‘probable’ corona deaths; meaning there were 34,386 so-called ‘confirmed’ corona deaths at that time.  [The confirm category does not confirm the virus] On the same day, the NYT was reporting 34,726 corona related deaths. Considering that these mortality numbers are out of a reported of 750,000 corona infections which originate  from a 330 million population, are these numbers sufficient  to justify a near total shutdown  of the economy or to justify the level of hysteria warranting a home detention et al response.  Another question that pops up is that with CV described as “highly contagious,” why have no more than 750,000 Americans been infected and given its ‘highly contagious’ reputation, wouldn’t a bio-engineer weapon have created significantly more infections and mortality?

In addition, it is interesting to note that, according to CDC numbers, there were 80,000 flu related deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season and 56,000 flu related deaths during the 2012-2013 season – neither of which were sufficient to declare a pandemic or even an  epidemic.

An additional rationale for a BWSA is that a lethal bio-engineered biological weapon has created great economic and devastating health consequences throughout the country and in order to preclude a second round, the American public needs to be better prepared and take the necessary cautions immediately.  However, with social distancing and school closures, the opportunity to create herd immunity has been lost; thereby encouraging a second round to occur.   In addition, just as certain States announce their plan to reopen, a ‘hot spot’’ suddenly emerged which may be indicative of the ability of those who mastered control of the electro magnetic frequency in the 1980’s

Congress: Enemy of the People

Even before the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, Sen. Joe Biden drafted the Omnibus CounterTerrorist Act  which laid the foundation for the Patriot Act.  Biden’s bill opened the door to infringing  American rights and liberty beyond the National Security Agency (NSA) while creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ which could be invoked by citing  political beliefs.

In October, 2001, a few weeks after 911 and as a national anthrax attack was aimed at recalcitrant Senators daring to question its justification, the Patriot Act was adopted.  As if it had been in the wings waiting for just the right occasion, the Act  took another giant step towards  establishing a police state to spy on US citizens. Out of 535 Members of Congress, only two (Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Russ Feingold) had the political courage and the intellectual honesty to vote NO.  

Once a feckless Congress returns and the BWSA sees the light of day, a mad scramble to ram their latest Constitutional travesty through in  lickity split time could be expected before a distracted public catches on to what is happening.  The Patriot Act took little more than 48 hours and  was a  slam dunk with none of the usual legislative process like hearings and roll call votes as the American public were caught totally unaware.

It should also be expected that Big Media, Big Science and Big Pharma will unite to overwhelm the American public with exaggerated claims and lies about the CV coronavirus rate of infection and mortality along with hypothesizing a dire future filled with unavoidable biological weapons as justification,

It may be that the Bill Gates Mandatory Vaccination program and its required digital biometric identification component including a personal contact list may be subject for another time.  Presumably, the BWSA would address limitations to daily life such as travel within or State to State transit, limits on public congregations, increased social distancing,  a ban on back yard gardening, night time curfew, mandatory masks as well as limits on buying (and amount) of non-essential items with onerous civil and criminal penalties for any violation/ like what Michigan’s inflammatory  Gov. Gretchen Witmer has imposed.

Here is one prediction on how Congress will respond to the BWSA  based on previous history.

The bumptious Progressive Caucus with a righteous belief in its own existence, has little experience in acting like true blue progressives while they  whimper and wring their hands. they will fold faster than a tent – just as they did for the Patriot Act, its December 2019 renewal and Obamacare.

Then there is the alleged Freedom Caucus which loudly brags about liberty but has shown little inclination to protect the liberty and freedom of American citizens.  They also allowed renewal of the Patriot Act  to quietly slip through Congress without a murmur.

And let’s not forget the double-dealing Black Congressional Caucus which has a reputation for hosting great parties yet has rarely ever acted in the best interests of their own black constituents.  Dr. Fauci has already met with them and they can be expected to line up in support of BWSA en masse.

On the Senate side which voted 96 – 1 (Sen. Rand Paul) in favor of the recent rapacious $2.2 Trillion Omnibus Relief Bill, fancy themselves as privileged models of erudition given the Senate’s history.  The truth is that they have shown the same level of contempt for the civil liberties of Americans as have  bumpkins on the House side.

While millions of Americans were hustling to fill their freezer and pantry in anticipation for what the government said was a lethal, out of control virus heading their way, the odious Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsay Graham slipped a  fast one by on March 11th.  The Judiciary Committee held a hearing  on another authoritarian piece of legislation dubbed the Earn It.

Under the guise of preventing child predation, Earn It would allow the government to monitor and scan all on line messages with law enforcement access to all digital communications.  Big Tech would be legally liable for everything their users post; thus increasing censorship as Earn It would end encryption services.  Here is another example of offensive legislation  from a civil liberty point of view introduced while Americans are distracted.  When Congress reconvenes, it will be ready to roll forward toward enactment.

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If any of us believe that the current coronavirus situation is an anomaly of nature or still rely on Big Media for the latest news, or that medical  martial law is anything but martial law no matter how you spin it, then it is time to acknowledge that the limits of living in a simulated, dense,  three dimensional reality as described in The Matrix has arrived. 

To have a glimmer of understanding of where the clash of civilizations is today as the Quantum World monitors humanity’s reaction, Edward Bernas described the New World Order agenda in his book Propaganda published in 1984:

 “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions  of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”  with Bernas revealing his own distorted, demented thinking as he labels his totalitarian state a democracy so that he might continue to exist in a simulated world.  Further revealing the truth of his thinking, Bernas stated Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. “

Bernas words of an invisible government are as true today as they were in 1984.

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Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC.  Renee is also a student of the Quantum Field. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Pixabay

What the head of the UN’s World Food Program just said should be making front page headlines all over the globe.  Because if what he is claiming is true, we are about to see global food shortages on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history.  Even before COVID-19 arrived, armies of locusts the size of major cities were voraciously eating crops all across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, and UN officials were loudly warning about what that would mean for global food production.  And now the coronavirus shutdowns that have been implemented all over the planet have brought global trade to a standstill, they are making it more difficult to maintain normal food production operations, and they have forced countless workers to stay home and not earn a living.  All of this adds up to a recipe for a complete and utter nightmare in the months ahead.

David Beasley is the head of the UN’s World Food Program, and on Tuesday he warned that we could actually see famines of “biblical proportions” by the end of this calendar year.  The following comes from ABC News

The coronavirus pandemic could soon double hunger, causing famines of “biblical proportions” around the world by the end of the year, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Beasley warned that analysis from the World Food Programme, the U.N.’s food-assistance branch, shows that because of the coronavirus, “an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people.”

He described what we are facing as “a hunger pandemic”, and he insisted that urgent action must be taken in order to avoid a nightmare scenario.

But in some parts of the globe a nightmare scenario is already unfolding.  For example, close to half the population of South Sudan is currently facing starvation, and for many of them the only food that is available is what gets dropped from the sky

The villagers hear the distant roar of jet engines before a cargo plane makes a deafening pass over Mogok, dropping sacks of grain from its hold to the marooned dust bowl below.

There is no other way to get food to this starving hamlet in South Sudan. There are no roads, and the snaking Nile is miles away.

Over in South Africa, the “chronic food shortages” have already become so severe that they are starting to spark rioting, looting and civil unrest…

UNREST broke out in parts of South Africa amid chronic food shortages sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

Looters raided shops, attacked each other, the army and police after breaching one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the mobs but local community leaders fear more outbreaks of violence are imminent.

Here in the western world we don’t have to worry about such things yet, but without a doubt the number of needy people is rapidly rising.

This past Saturday, vehicles literally began lining up at 2 AM in the morning for a food distribution event at the San Antonio Food Bank

The San Antonio Food Bank teamed up with Atascosa County to feed meals and hope to hundreds of people Saturday morning. Vehicles began to line up around 2 AM Saturday outside the county courthouse, winding through neighborhoods at least two miles away.

I have never heard of people lining up so early before.

I have heard of vehicles lining up at the crack of dawn around the country in recent days, but 2 AM is absolutely nuts.

But these people realize that when the food is gone there will be no more handouts that day, and there are many that are absolutely desperate to get something to feed their families.

As this coronavirus pandemic has created an enormous amount of fear all over the country, empty shelves have been reported in frozen food sections all over the nation, and the fact that an increasing number of meat processing plants are being temporarily closed down is certainly not helping things.  According to CBS News, at least 17 meat processing plants in the United States have been shut down so far…

Coronavirus infections in at least 17 meat processing plants across nine states are contributing to a spike in confirmed cases in the Midwest. Although 13 plants are already closed temporarily or operating at reduced capacity, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds says shutting down plants would hurt farmers and the national food supply.

In a desperate attempt to keep as many facilities in her state open as possible, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has enlisted the help of the National Guard

Hundreds of National Guard personnel are being activated in Iowa as coronavirus sweeps through meat-processing plants in a state that accounts for about a third of U.S. pork supply.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said 250 National Guard members have been moved to full-time federal duty status and could help with testing and contact tracing for workers at plants operated by Tyson Foods Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.

The good news is that authorities are telling us that any product shortages should just be temporary and that all of these processing plants will eventually be brought back on line.

But for the planet as a whole, life is not going to be getting back to “normal” any time soon.

In fact, Takeshi Kasai of the World Health Organization is warning that we need to accept “a new way of living” until a vaccine finally arrives

“At least until a vaccine, or a very effective treatment, is found, this process will need to become our new normal,” he said.

“Individuals and society need to be ready for a new way of living.”

But now that scientists have discovered approximately 30 different strains of this virus, that is going to greatly complicate matters.

Coming up with a successful vaccine for any coronavirus would be a historic feat, and now scientists also have to hope that they will pick the particular strain of COVID-19 that will become dominant in the future.

And of course many people around the globe will not want to take any vaccine that is developed under any circumstances.

So those that are thinking that there will be an easy way out of this crisis are likely to be deeply disappointed.

Meanwhile, the global economic downturn is getting deeper with each passing day, and global food supplies are getting tighter and tighter.

A global famine is coming, and the UN is sounding the alarm.

Unfortunately, most people in the western world are still not listening.

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Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, whose articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. He has written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Featured image is from TMIN

Rising Trend of Islamophobia in India

April 22nd, 2020 by Md Irshad Ayub

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Ten years ago today, disaster struck the Gulf of Mexico, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded some 40 miles off the coast off Louisiana. The explosion killed eleven workers and released at least 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, in what remains one of America’s worst environmental disasters.

The blowout and resulting pollution would last for months, and devastated communities along the Gulf Coast, as oil spread relentlessly both seen and unseen across the region. At one point, oil slicks from the blowout covered an estimated area of 57,000 square miles or some 149,000 square kilometers.

In those long ten years since the disaster, the world has moved on. And with many severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the disaster feels as if it were a long time ago. But just as it happened with the Exxon Valdez spill, the long dark shadow of the disaster still haunts many communities and businesses both in the United States and in Mexico. Hundreds of legal cases are still being pursued against the company.

Moreover, the pollution still seeps into the Gulf, slowly and silently poisoning the marine life, waters, mangroves, corals, lagoons, and mudflats of the Gulf. The local fishery industry has not yet recovered, either.

It could take at least up to 25 years for the Gulf to recover because of the toxic contamination. It could take longer. Evidence from the Exxon Valdez is that the pollution may well haunt future generations, as it has this one.

It is worth remembering that not only did the spill cause devastation, but so too did the dispersants used which broke the oil down into invisible pollution. Science takes years often to catch up with real world events. We are still only beginning to understand how toxic the spill was.

In February this year, for example, scientists at the University of Miami School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, published research that toxic and invisible oil spread well beyond the known satellite footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Even though this was not seen – it was essentially “invisible oil” – toxic enough to destroy about half the marine life it encountered.

Marine life has still not recovered. Since 2010, studies show a 50 to 80 percent population decrease in deep water fish populations near the blowout site.

Earlier this month, research by the University of Florida found ongoing spill impacts on fish species in the Gulf. Other researchers at the University of South Florida sampled more than 2,500 individual fish representing 91 species from 359 locations across the Gulf of Mexico. They found evidence of oil exposure in all of them, including some of the most popular types of seafood.

One of the scientists, Steven Murawski, from the USF College of Marine Science said: “Literally all the fish that we’ve tested have some level of hydrocarbon; there are no pristine fish in this system.”

As the marine life still suffers, communities still fight for compensation, including many communities in Mexico, which were dependent on fishing before the disaster and have seen their livelihoods evaporate. The President of one fishing cooperative tells The Guardian “we’ve been mocked, humiliated and discriminated against by British [Petroleum] …and let down by our own government. Ten years of struggle and nothing.”

However, there have been no long-term studies monitoring the impact of the spill or dispersants conducted in Mexico. A lawsuit against BP is currently on hold in the country. In Louisiana, over a hundred cases involving thousands of Mexicans remain to be heard, too.

In contrast, the oil industry wants you to believe that the disaster is long forgotten and that they have learned from their deadly mistakes and are much more prepared again in what they say is the highly unlikely chance of anything untoward happening again.

They point to the formation of what is known as the Marine Well Containment Company, a company set up with USD $1 billion in the wake of the disaster, to point to the fact that they are better prepared than before for any oil spill and spill response.

The spin-machine from the industry and Trump Administration also argues that the subsequent formation of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) means the Gulf is a safer place now than before the disaster.

Last month BSEE Director, Scott Angelle told members of Congress that “We’ve made our regulations safer.” He said the new agency had increased inspections “per facility by 86 percent” and “numbers of inspectors by 12 percent.”

But as usual with the oil industry not everything is as it seems. As the Chicago Tribune reports, under Angelle’s stewardship, key spill prevent measures such as the blowout preventer as well as other “well-control rules have been weakened, and many staff members are reportedly demoralized.” Many believe the agency is on the way to be “recaptured by the oil companies.”

If you unpick the spin and the lies, nothing has been learnt from Deepwater. The Trump Administration has gutted many of the protections brought in after the disaster, not least the Well Control Rule brought in by the Obama Administration.

The Washington Post reports that since coming into office the Trump administration has “rolled back” rules “by eliminating the need for independent inspectors.” That followed “the issuance of approximately 1,700 waivers to industry” by Angelle’s BSEE, which argued the rules were causing “unnecessary burdens.”

Due to Trump’s rollbacks, it is hardly surprising that many commentators believe we are heading for trouble. The Guardian reports that, according to experts, a “massive deepwater oil spill is nearly as likely today as it was in 2010.”

Indeed, Steven Murawski, from the USF College of Marine Science believes that “another deep-water blowout as inevitable.”

Elizabeth Johnson Klein, the Interior Department’s associate deputy secretary under Obama, told HuffPost,“The question of whether we’re any better off? My concern is we’re actually headed towards the exact same type of circumstances that were in place” at the time of the Deepwater disaster. “I don’t feel good about it.”

Last week, the NGO Oceana published a report in the lead up to the 10th Anniversary. “Offshore drilling is still as dirty and dangerous as it was 10 years ago,” said Diane Hoskins, Oceana’s campaign director.

Hoskins continued: “If anything, another disaster is more likely today as the oil industry drills deeper and farther offshore. Instead of learning lessons from the BP disaster, President Trump is proposing to radically expand offshore drilling, while dismantling the few protections put in place as a result of the catastrophic blowout… When the drill they spill.”

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The Doctrine of Cyber Manipulation

April 22nd, 2020 by Germán Gorraiz López

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, stated at a conference at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) that:

“the dominance of the United States that determined the international agenda after the Cold War, it is over and will not be restored during the life of the next generation, “adding that” none of the world powers can achieve world hegemony under current conditions, so the United States must better choose the conflicts in which it will participate now. that the consequences of a mistake could be devastating”.

Brzezinski, AP PhotoBrzezinski, author of the book “The great world board. The United States’ supremacy and its geostrategic imperatives ”(1997), considered the White House geostrategic Bible as well as the leading book of the successive generations of geostrategists and political scientists, would have taken record of the beginning of the decline of the USA Empire, stating that“ it is true that our dominant position in international politics is not the same as it was 20 years ago, since since 1991 the United States, in its status as world power, has not won a single war ”, so in its opinion“ to States United, the time has come to understand that the contemporary world is much more complicated and more anarchic than in the last years after the Cold War, with which the accentuation of our values as well as the conviction in our exceptionalism and universalism, are at the less premature from the historical point of view ”. Following on from his thesis on US decline, in a speech at a Council on Foreings Relations (CFR) meeting, Carter’s former adviser warned that “US domination was no longer possible due to an acceleration of driven social change. for the instantaneous communication that has brought about the universal awakening of the political consciousness of the masses (Global Political Awakening) and that is proving detrimental to external domination such as that which prevailed in the era of colonialism and imperialism ”.

The doctrine of cyber manipulation

This control would have begun after the Second World War with the implementation of the ECHELON program (the largest spy and analysis network to intercept electronic communications in history) and whose existence was denounced in 1976 by Winslow Peck and later verified by the European Parliament in 2001. Said “Strategic Telecommunications Control” was in the hands of the UKUSA community (United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand) and would control more than three billion communications every day and includes automatic analysis and classification of interceptions that they would be used for economic espionage in addition to the invasion of privacy, later being renamed the Alliance of Five, based in the facilities of the GCHQ (Government Headquarters for Communications) based at the RAF base in Menwith Hill ( England) and having as a motto “He who has nothing to fear has nothing to hide.”

For his part, Brzezinski, in an article published in the Foreign Affairs magazine (1970), exposes his vision of the “New World Order” by affirming that “a new and bolder vision is necessary with the creation of a community of developed countries that they can effectively deal with the broad problems of humanity “, outlines of a theory that he will outline in his book” Between Two Ages: The Role of the United States in the Technotronical Era “(1971), where he explains that the era of rebalancing has arrived world power, power that must pass into the hands of a new global political order based on a trilateral economic link between Japan, Europe and the United States.

In the aforementioned book “Between two Ages,” (19.71), he also advocates “by stating that” the techotronical era involves the gradual emergence of a more controlled and elite-dominated society without the restrictions of traditional values, so it will soon be possible to ensure almost continuous surveillance of each citizen and keep up-to-date the complete files that contain even the most personal information about the citizen, files that will be subject to the instantaneous recovery of the authorities, ”which would already announce the subsequent implementation of the PRISM program. This program would be a tool to monitor the communications of non-US citizens through their metadata and become a true virtual monster that would have extended its tentacles to the servers of companies such as Google, Apple, Micros Eloft, AOL, Facebook and Yahoo, approved by the US Congress at the request of the Bush Administration in 2007 but which continued apathetic inertia under Obama’s mandate and as a culmination to the drift of cybernetic mass control, the scandal of the so-called “affaire Spyon” of the NSA.

Internet censorship

After the attempt to control the cloud through secret programs such as the aforementioned PRISM Program, in the coming years we will witness the end of the democratization of information (following the path taken by the so-called “totalitarian countries“, through the imposition of laws that prohibit the use of certain terms to continue with the implementation of filters on ISP servers, which would be the paradigm of the SmartFilter manufactured by the US company Secure Computing. Thus, according to a study by the OpenNet organization (made up of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Toronto), 25 countries would exercise censorship of websites with “dangerous” political or social content and would also prevent access to applications such as YouTube or Google Maps using sophisticated censorship methods thanks to the collaboration of Western companies.

On the other hand, the need to escape the control of the Big Brother in networks such as Yootube, Twitter or Facebook would have led a minority to use the TOR network, also known as Dark web and created by advocates of free software to protect the identity of users. This network would have initially had the blessings of Western governments to allow access to the Internet in “totalitarian countries” but after the jihadist attacks in Paris, the TOR Network was being monitored and filtered by Western security agencies. This would have forced users to use the Telegram application en masse as its contents are encrypted, since groups of up to 200 contacts can be formed and secret chats can be used where propaganda material self-destructs with the consequent difficulty of Western secret services to access their contents.

China and the Big Brother

The ban on downloading Plague Inc. for IOS in all Chinese territory would be the penultimate episode to impose a total censorship on the information about the coronavirus on the Internet by the Chinese Politburo. Thus, China demands to eliminate encrypted messages on WhatsApp and Telegram, restrictive measures that have as a collateral effect the impossibility of open access (Opens Access) to the contents of the Network for Chinese citizens as the Internet becomes an exclusive tool for political elites , economic and Chinese military. In a new attempt to preserve the anonymity of users on the Net, we witnessed the appearance of VPNs or Virtual Private Networks, tools that hide the identity of users and allow us to maintain communication with any country in the world free of surveillance, what would be paradigm the young Chinese blogger Chen Qiushi in unknown whereabouts who was in charge of x-ray Wuhan’s anguish through his videos posted on YouTube through VPNs, which would have prompted China to impose rules for user access to these tools.

In addition, the Chinese government has resorted to technology giants in its attempt to monitor coronavirus infections in real time, and according to the Reuters agency, the giant Alibaba has launched a function that assigns a color QR code that would represent the state of health of residents in Hanfzhou. After completing a questionnaire, residents receive a color-based QR code through the DingTalk chat application administered by Alibaba and, according to the corresponding color, must take the prophylactic measures prescribed in that application. This, together with the implementation of the Internet firewall and the huge deployment of surveillance cameras with artificial intelligence for facial recognition of people even with masks (200 million cameras) as well as the use of police drones, will make China the Big Brother that will monitor all Chinese citizens in real time (Big Brother).

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The Future Impact of the Pandemic

April 22nd, 2020 by James J. Zogby

“Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those who lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before.”

–Tweet from @realDonaldTrump, April, 8, 2020.

Along with the childish exaggeration and capitalisation and the gross insensitivity to those who have lost loved ones, this tweet is dangerously naïve in its assumption that after the coronavirus runs its deadly course, we will all just get back to our “normal lives.” In addition to the profound structural changes that this pandemic is already producing in our social, economic and political spheres, equally concerning will be the psychological impact of the trauma and general unsettledness resulting from all these changes. It is our reaction to this shock that will ultimately shape how we view our lives, understand our world and deal with challenges in the post-pandemic order.

We have seen this repeatedly play out in human history, including here in the United States. During the last century, the impact of two World Wars and the Great Depression resulted in severe social and economic dislocation, which only later spawned profoundly transformative movements. Both World Wars, for example, fueled intense xenophobia and nativist movements that caused enormous suffering for millions of immigrants and their descendants. As massive numbers of young men went off to fight in these cataclysmic conflicts, women entered the workplace to fill the jobs left vacant. At the same time, Black Americans migrated north in search of employment. New industries and cities grew as the wartime economy flourished to meet the needs of a burgeoning military.

When the wars ended and “Johnny came home,” many were shaken by trauma, lost, and unable to return to normalcy. Those who were able to go back to work ended up displacing the women and Black Americans who had filled those jobs, thus planting seeds that would later grow into the women’s movement and the northern civil rights movement. At the same time, the dislocation brought on by rapid urbanisation, especially in the South, gave rise to a uniquely American form of religious fundamentalism.

The trauma brought on by the Vietnam War also had a severe impact. The pain of loss in that war still haunts the lives of survivors and their families and, for a time, psychologically damaged returning veterans swelled the ranks of the urban homeless and addicted. In addition, the controversy fomented by this unpopular war created a deep divide in American society. On one side stood flag-waving “patriots,” while on the other we saw the emergence of a counter cultural movement that challenged and transformed American cultural mores. These divisions have continued to haunt the “Vietnam generation” until the present day.

We need not, however, go back to last century’s World Wars, the Great Depression, or the War in Vietnam and the transformations brought on by these unsettling “shocks to the system.” Instead, we can look to the impact of the more recent Great Recession of 2008-2009 as a case in point.

In late 2008, a sudden financial collapse wreaked havoc on the American economy. Banks were closing, major industries were in danger of collapse and the financial markets were plummeting and in disarray. In a matter of just a few months middle class Americans saw their pension funds depleted, unemployment doubling and one-in-five homeowners threatened with foreclosure. The immediate impact was in evidence in our polling. Up until that time, when asked what we call the “American Dream” question, “Will your children be better off than you are right now?” respondents would answer “Yes” by a margin of two-to-one. Now, the tables had turned and by the same two-to-one margin Americans were answering “No.”

What was fascinating was that in the November 2008 election, voters responded not by recoiling in fear but with hope for the future by electing Barack Obama as president. Republicans, however, sensing an opportunity, preyed on the vulnerabilities of the traumatised middle class. They launched, funded and organised the “Birther Movement” and the “Tea Party” exploiting racial resentment (their “go to” tactic since the days of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”) and fear of immigrants and minorities, especially Arabs and Muslims (which they had cultivated in the wake of 9/11), and the mistrust of government (that ironically grew as a result of the dishonest and failed wars led by the Bush Administration as well as its disastrous bungling of Hurricane Katrina). It might very well be said that the seeds of “Trumpism” were planted in this period. But what is important to remember is that while the GOP planted the seeds, it was the traumas from 9/11 through the Recession of 2008/9 that created the fertile ground enabling them to grow and bear their bitter fruit.

In the midst of this current crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, we are witnessing yet another traumatic shock to the system. Signs of unsettling dislocation are everywhere: unemployment is skyrocketing; schools, businesses and churches are closed; many small businesses are shuttered, never to reopen; a “wartime gig economy” of individuals providing needed services is flourishing; candidates for elective office have been forced withdraw or alter how they reach voters, elections are being postponed, and political conventions cancelled; city centers have become ghost towns with many workers, obeying lockdown orders, now teleworking from home; essential services are strained to the breaking point; and the government is taking on massive new debt in an effort to forestall economic collapse. Millions are living in forced isolation and the strains and fears of the illness and economic uncertainty are taking a toll.

One day we may discover an effective way of treating this virus and/or a vaccine to protect us from it. At that point, the lockdowns will end, and we may return to work. But will we, as some naively predict, go back to living as we did before? Or will the changes we are now experiencing, transform the way we conduct our lives?

There have been a number of thoughtful essays about what the future will hold for our economy and our social and political institutions. They are fascinating and the discussion they are prompting us to have is an important one. But aside from the structural changes that may occur, what concerns me here is the impact that this trauma will have on our collective psyche.

While we cannot predict where this will lead us, we can be certain that the shock and fear created by the pandemic are once again plowing fertile ground for future social and political movements. How long it will take for them to ferment; how many of them will emerge; what their messages may be; who will lead them; and how effective or long-lasting their impact will be – this we cannot predict. But what we should know is that we will not just go back to where and how we were before the pandemic.

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The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.

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We have been given a very clear narrative about the declared coronavirus pandemic. The UK State has passed legislation, in the form of the Coronavirus Act, to compel people to self isolate and practice social distancing in order to delay the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2). We are told this “lockdown”, a common prison term, is essential. We are also told that SC2 has been clearly identified to be the virus which causes the COVID 19 syndrome.

At the time of writing SC2 is said to have infected 60,733 people with 7,097 people supposedly dying of COVID 19 in the UK. This case fatality ration (CFR) of 11.7% is seemingly one of the worst in the world. Furthermore, with just 135 people recovered, the recovery rate in the UK is inexplicably low.

Some reading this may baulk at use of words like “seemingly” and “alleged” in reference to these statistics. The mainstream media (MSM) have been leading the charge to cast anyone who questions the State’s coronavirus narrative as putting lives at risk. The claim being that questioning what we are told by the State, its officials and the MSM undermines the lockdown. The lockdown is, we are told, essential to save lives.

It is possible both to support the precautionary principle and question the lockdown. Questioning the scientific and statistical evidence base, supposedly justifying the complete removal of our civil liberties, does not mean those doing so care nothing for their fellow citizens. On the contrary, many of us are extremely concerned about the impact of the lockdown on everyone. It is desperately sad to see people blindly support their own house arrest while attacking anyone who questions the necessity for it.

The knee jerk reaction, assuming any questioning of the lockdown demonstrates a cavalier, uncaring disregard is puerile. Grown adults shouldn’t simply believe everything they are told like mindless idiots. Critical thinking and asking questions is never “bad” under any circumstances whatsoever.

Only the State, with the unwavering support of its MSM propaganda operation, enforces unanimity of thought. If a system cannot withstand questioning it suggests it is built upon shaky foundations and probably not worth maintaining. Yet perhaps it is what we are not told that is more telling.

Among the many things we are not told is how many lives the lockdown will ruin and end prematurely. Are these lives irrelevant?

We are not told the evidence for the existence of a virus called SARS-CoV-2 is highly questionable and the tests for it unreliable; we are not told that the numbers of deaths reportedly caused by COVID 19 is statistically vague, seemingly deliberately so; we are not told that these deaths are well within the normal range of excess winter mortality and we are not told that in previous years excess winter deaths have been higher than they are now.

We didn’t need to destroy the economy in response to those, far worse, periods of loss so why do we need to do so for this?

We will look at this in more detail in Part 2.

Understanding mainstream media disinformation

Before we address what we are not being told it’s worth looking at how the MSM is spreading disinformation. On February 22nd one rag printed a story which absurdly alleged, without a shred of evidence, that Russia was somehow deliberately spreading disinformation about coronavirus. It reported this uncritically, questioning nothing. Their opening paragraph read:

Thousands of Russian-linked social media accounts have launched a coordinated effort to spread misinformation and alarm about coronavirus, disrupting global efforts to fight the epidemic, US officials have said.”

On March 10th the same rag reported another story about disinformation in which it was noted:

Disinformation experts say, there remains little evidence of concerted efforts to spread falsehoods about the virus, suggesting that the misleading information in circulation is spread primarily through grassroots chatter.”

The irony shouldn’t be overlooked. Directly contradicting their own previous disinformation, this MSM pulp assumes we are all so stupid we won’t notice their perpetual spin and evidence-free claims. The UK’s national broadcaster the BBC is perhaps the worst of all the disinformation propagandists. The sheer volume of disinformation they are pumping out is quite breathtaking.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out what freedom of expression means. All human beings are born free with equal dignity and rights. All are afforded these rights without any distinction at all. Article 19 states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The BBC, who obviously couldn’t care less about human rights, gleefully supported the censorship of so called conspiracy theorist David Icke. They did so by spreading disinformation. Icke raised concerns about the possible link between 5G and the spread of coronavirus. He did not incite violence, as suggested in the BBC’s disinformation. The BBC misled the public utterly when they stated:

“Conspiracy theories linking 5G signals to the coronavirus pandemic continue to spread despite there being no evidence the mobile phone signals pose a health risk.”

While I agree with the BBC that there is no evidence of a link between 5G and the apparent coronavirus, we certainly can’t rule it out. Because the second half of their statement, that there is no evidence that mobile signals pose a health risk, was a mendacious deceit.

There iswealth of evidence of that risk.

The leading medical journal The Lancet noted these risks in 2018:

…mounting scientific evidence suggests that prolonged exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation has serious biological and health effects.”

Why are the BBC so willing to mislead the public and expose them to unnecessary health harms? Is it deliberate or are they just shoddy journalists?

Either way, quite clearly they are habitual pedlars of disinformation. They appear to no better than the worst clickbait sites that have proliferated over recent years.

The MSM is responsible for the majority of misinformation and disinformation circulating at the moment. We must diligently verify every claim they make and check the evidence ourselves. They are not to be trusted. As the BBC quite rightly points out:

STOP BEFORE YOU SHARE
CHECK YOUR SOURCES

(If it’s the MSM check to see if they offer any evidence at all or if it’s just their opinion. If it’s their opinion ignore it. It’s almost certainly unfounded)

PAUSE IF YOU FEEL EMOTIONAL

(If you do feel emotional you have probably just been manipulated by the MSM)

“Science led” means cherry picking science

The UK State has been keen to insist that we all believe their lockdown response is led by the science. However they have cherry picked the science to roll out the lockdown and ignored the considerable scientific evidence which contradicts it. Both the UK and U.S. governments used the computer models of Imperial College London (ICL), predicting millions of deaths, to justify the removal of our civil liberties.

Almost as soon as the lockdown was in place the scientists, having launched their vaccine research fund raiser, downgraded their projections from an estimated 550,000 deaths in the UK to 20,000 or even lower. Neil Furguson, the lead scientist responsible for the initial ICL report stated that they had revised the figures because of the effectiveness of the lockdown safety measures.

Claiming the lockdown would need to last for at least 18 months until a vaccine is found. ICL are grant recipients of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They have shown no interests at all in researching possible preventative treatments, reducing the need for a vaccine, such as hydroxychloroquine.

The initial ICL computer models were based upon unproven assumptions. They assumed that SC2 would spread like influenza. This was contrary to the findings of the World Health Organisation who stated both that SC2 did not appear to spread as quickly as influenza and was less virulent.

The WHO found up to a 20% infection rate, where people were exposed to SC2 in crowded settings for prolonged periods, and a 1-5% infection rate in the community. This was nothing like the spread of the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

However, publishing their paper on March 16th, the ICL completely ignored the WHO research which was published a month earlier and stated, without any justification whatsoever:

COVID-19, a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918”

Public Health England (PHE) disagreed with ICL’s evidence free assumptions and downgraded COVID 19 from a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID), due to relatively low mortality rates.

However, ignoring both the WHO and PHE, the UK and US decided only the ICL knew what they were talking about. Cherry-picking their highly dubious research, they insisted the lockdown was necessary to “flatten the curve” and, in the UK, protect the NHS.

The science the State has chosen to believe is the minority view it seems. Epidemiologists, epidemiological statisticians, microbiologists, mathematicians and many other scientists and academics the world over have repeatedly warned that the lockdown is precisely the wrong thing to do.

COVID 19, the disease supposedly caused by SC2, is experienced as little more than a bad cough or cold by the vast majority of relatively healthy people. Dr Knut M. Wittkowski (Ph.D) is among the growing number of globally renowned scientists who question what we are told by the State and its MSM. In regard to both SC2 and COVID 19.

Dr Wittkowski stated:

“With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus. it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated….If we had herd immunity now, there couldn’t be a second wave in autumn.”

Such scientists and academics are all completely ignored by the State. Yet they believe others, such as Professor Neil Ferguson and Professor Karine Lacombe without hesitation. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the scientists the State chooses to believe overwhelmingly appear to have close links to the globalist foundations and pharmaceutical corporations developing the vaunted coronavirus vaccine.

Are you sure about the coronavirus lockdown?

Those who reject all criticiam of the lockdown, and simply accept whatever the State tells them, presumably believe the State only has our best interests at heart and would never do anything to harm us. Perhaps they believe that to question the claims of the State can only ever be conspiracy theory.

Certainly that’s the message constantly reinforced by the MSM.

However, there is also plenty of evidence that the State frequently deceives the public. We only need look to the WMD lies told to start an illegal Iraq war in 2003 to understand that the State is willing to further the interests of the powerful and cares little about lives lost in the effort.

Therefore, in the UK, it is worth recapping what it is we are consenting to with the Coronavirus Act:

We consent to increased State surveillance of ourselves and our family.

We are happy that we could be detained, without charge, because some state official suspects, or claims they suspect, we may be infected.

It is fine with us that we or our loved ones can be sectioned under the Mental Health Act on the recommendation of a single doctor and neither we nor they need to have the protection of a second opinion before we are locked up.

We accept that the state can retain our biometric data and fingerprints for an extended period.

We consent that jury trials are a bit of an anachronism and Judges can hear more evidence by video or even audio link.

We think its fine that the evidence required, and processes undertaken, to determine and record our or our loved one’s deaths can be eroded to the point where they can be registered by people with no medical or legal expertise at all.

We don’t think the NHS needs to adhere to practice standards or bother with assessing the needs of some patients, especially older people.

We are also fine with the complete suspension of democracy in Britain.

We accept all of this based upon a unique subset of scientific opinion which, contrary to every known scientific principle, can never be questioned.

We agree with the MSM that people who question any aspect of the stories they tell us are dangerous because these people just don’t care if their own loved ones die. Only true believers care about their families.

We also accept the need for the State to invest considerable resources creating counter disinformation units whose purpose is to censor anything and everything which questions our firmly held beliefs. The beliefs informed by the many of the same people doing the censoring.

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi -world leading microbiologist

I don’t know about you, but I remain unconvinced by the evidence I’ve seen so far. I have no doubt that there is a health crisis and excess seasonal deaths, but I have seen no evidence at all that the numbers are unprecedented or unusual in any way. Evidence we will explore in greater detail in Part 2.

I accept that we should exercise the precautionary principle and take steps to limit the risks to the most vulnerable but I do not accept that the lockdown is the best way to go about it. Nor do I see any necessity at all for all the other dictatorial clauses in the Coronavirus Act. I do not consent.

If you think this will all be over soon and won’t get worse I’m afraid you may be disappointing. The UK state have based this lockdown on the scientific rubbish spewed out by ICL. Here’s another one of the ICL’s recommendations:

The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more).”

There is nothing to suggest this isn’t the intention of the State. Certainly voices in the U.S. are already indicating their desire for an 18 month lockdown. Apparently taking their cue directly from the discredited ICL report and steadfastly ignoring everything else. Nor should we assume the draconian powers seized by the state won’t get worse.

Most of this response is being driven by globalist policy emanating, on this occasion, from the World Health Organisation. Speaking at the daily WHO press briefing on the March 30th Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said:

Lockdowns and shutdowns really should just be part of an overall comprehensive strategy…..Most of the transmission that’s actually happening in many countries now is happening in the household at family level….Now we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner.”

Given that we now live in a de facto dictatorship there’s no reason to believe that states across the globe won’t use this as justification to start removing people from their homes. My hope is that sense will prevail and, as it becomes clear the pandemic is waning, public pressure will mount to repeal this dictatorial legislation.

However, given some of the comments I have seen on social media over the last two weeks, the panic buying and attacks upon anyone questioning the State’s narrative, it seems many people are so frightened they desperately need to believe the State is trying to save them.

This fear is based upon apparent ignorance of the economic severity of the lockdown and the monumental health risk it poses. People don’t seem to want to know there is considerable doubt the Coronavirus Act is even legal in international law. There is also doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is an identifiable virus and the statistics we are given may well be based upon tests that can’t identify it anyway. There is evidence that the statistics we have been given have been deliberately manipulated to exaggerate the health risk and there is no evidence these excess deaths are “unprecedented.”

If you are among the few willing to look at this evidence I hope you will read part 2 of this article series. Click here.

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Coronavirus False Flag

April 22nd, 2020 by Mark Taliano

The coronavirus crisis is a false flag on a global scale. Sound evidence demonstrates that the mortality rate is similar to that of the flu — about .1% — so the “lockdown” shock is clearly unjustified. (1)

Unreliable evidence has been wrapped around a preplanned policy to destabilize and impoverish the world with these unjustifiable lockdowns.

So who benefits? If China is falsely blamed for the fabricated catastrophe, then the military industrial complex will benefit. War plans against China will be escalated, courtesy the Corona false flag.

But fabricated foreign enemies are not and will not be the only casualties. We the people are also being targeted. The pre-planned implosion of the economy will impoverish the vast majority globally, but the large corporations, the large monopolies — all bailed-out by you and me — will benefit by buying undervalued assets and bankrupted businesses. Corona will be falsely blamed for the bankrutpcies and widespread poverty.

Healthcare will also suffer. If hospitals are forced into bankruptcy(2) because they are largely empty, privateers will move in to do what they do best — privatize healthcare even further, thus making accessible healthcare even more inaccessible to the masses.

Ruling classes, the Big Monopolies, Big Money will gain from the wholesale destruction of Western economies. Assets will be cheap and bought in volume by institutions. The shock will numb the majority to realities, and more bailouts (3) will continue to flow to the very same entities that need to be de-monopolized, thus furthering the neoliberal cancer that has delivered the economic malaise and the corruption.

The public should identify the cancer and push back, but the monopolies/Big Media also own the messaging.

Neoliberal economic models do not work. They are not self-sufficient. They require bailouts and economic crashes. They breed corrupt fake “regulators” like the WHO(4) itself and the CDC. (5) This fake capitalism, which is to a large degree divorced from production, is a real cancer, a real driver for war and more war, and a real menace. It must be dismantled. Currently the opposite is happening. The shock of the fabricated crisis has us dazed, confused, desperate — exactly the scenario that predatory faux capitalists create and exploit.

The war against Western populations, and the entire globe, is a self-devouring manifestation of the failure of current neoliberal political economies. It should be identified as such and then changed, radically.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) Tony Cartalucci, “Stanford Study Proves Covid-19 Was Overhyped. ‘Death Rate Is Likely Under 0.2%’ ” Global Research, 19 April, 2020.
(https://www.globalresearch.ca/mit-tech-review-smears-study-proving-covid-19-overhyped/5710088) Accessed 21 April, 2020.

(2) The Editorial Board, “Sending Hospitals Into Bankruptcy” WSJ. 19 April, 2020.
(https://www.wsj.com/articles/sending-hospitals-into-bankruptcy-11587326607) Accessed, 21 April, 2020.

(3) The Last American Vagabond, “Your Government Is Using Coronavirus To Create The Largest Transfer Of Wealth In American History” (video) 5 April, 2020.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_hwCEXZphQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0ARHj6HbP6KsEJpiJUcz-uMkFEwxTZySX_NpQsslJpnDUkeHXb5iov2Hk)

(4) Vaccine-Free Foundation, “WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) Who finances the WHO?” 28 March, 2020.
(https://www.marktaliano.net/world-health-organization-who-who-finances-the-who-by-vaccine-free-foundation/ ) Accessed 21 April, 2020.

(5) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “The CDC is actually a vaccine company” (video) RT. 8 April, 2020.
(https://www.marktaliano.net/the-cdc-is-actually-a-vaccine-company-robert-f-kennedy-jr/) Accessed 21 April, 2020.


Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Author: Mark Taliano

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Hybrid War 2.0 on China, a bipartisan U.S. operation, is already reaching fever pitch. Its 24/7 full spectrum infowar arm blames China for everything coronavirus-related – doubling as a diversionist tactic against any informed criticism of woeful American unpreparedness.

Hysteria predictably reigns. And this is just the beginning.

A deluge of lawsuits is imminent – such as the one in the Southern District of Florida entered by Berman Law Group (linked to the Democrats) and Lucas-Compton (linked to the Republicans). In a nutshell: China has to shell out tons of cash. To the tune of at least $1.2 trillion, which happens to be – by surrealist irony – the amount of U.S. Treasury bills held by Beijing, all the way to $20 trillion, claimed by a lawsuit in Texas.

The prosecution’s case, as Scott Ritter memorably reminded us, is straight out of Monty Python. It works exactly like this:

“If she weighs the same as a duck…

…she’s made of wood!”

“And therefore…”

“A witch!!!!!”

In Hybrid War 2.0 terms, the current CIA-style narrative translates as evil China never telling us, the civilized West, there was a terrible new virus around. If they did, we would have had time to prepare.

And yet they lied and cheated – by the way, trademark CIA traits, according to Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo himself. And they hid everything. And they censored the truth. So they wanted to infect us all. Now they have to pay for all the economic and financial damage we are suffering, and for all our dead people. It’s China’s fault.

All this sound and fury forces us to refocus back to late 2019 to check out what U.S. intel really knew then about what would later be identified as Sars-Cov-2.

“No such product exists”

The gold standard remains the ABC News report according to which intel collected in November 2019 by the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), a subsidiary of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was already warning about a new virulent contagion getting out of hand in Wuhan, based on “detailed analysis of intercepted communications and satellite imagery”.

An unnamed source told ABC, “analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event”, adding the intel was “briefed multiple times” to the DIA, the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even the White House.

No wonder the Pentagon was forced to issue the proverbial denial – in Pentagonese, via one Col. R. Shane Day, the director of the DIA’s NCMI:

“In the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.”

Well, if such “product” existed, Pentagon head and former Raytheon lobbyist Mark Esper would be very much in the loop. He was duly questioned about it by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Question: “Did the Pentagon receive an intelligence assessment on COVID in China last November from the National Center for Medical Intelligence of DIA?”

Esper: “Oh, I can’t recall, George,” (…) “But, we have many people who watch this closely.”

Question: “This assessment was done in November, and it was briefed to the NSC in early December to assess the impact on military readiness, which, of course, would make it important to you, and the possible spread in the United States. So, you would have known if there was a brief to the National Security Council in December, wouldn’t you?”

Esper: “Yes (…) “I’m not aware of that.”

So “no such product exists” then? Is it a fake? Is it a Deep State/CIA concoction to trap Trump? Or are the usual suspects lying, trademark CIA style?

Let’s review some essential background. On November 12, a married couple from Inner Mongolia was admitted to a Beijing hospital, seeking treatment for pneumonic plague.

The Chinese CDC, on Weibo – the Chinese Twitter – told public opinion that the chances of this being a new plague were “extremely low.” The couple was quarantined.

Four days later, a third case of pneumonic plague was identified: a man also from Inner Mongolia, not related to the couple. Twenty-eight people who were in close contact with the man were quarantined. None had plague symptoms. Pneumonic plague has symptoms of respiratory failure similar to pneumonia.

Even though the CDC repeated, “there is no need to worry about the risk of infection”, of course there was plenty of skepticism. The CDC may have publicly confirmed on November 12 these cases of pneumonic plague. But then Li Jifeng, a doctor at Chaoyang Hospital where the trio from Inner Mongolia was receiving treatment, published, privately, on WeChat, that they were first transported to Beijing actually on November 3.

The key point of Li Jinfeng’s post – later removed by censors – was when she wrote, “I am very familiar with diagnosing and treating the majority of respiratory diseases (…) But this time, I kept on looking but could not figure out what pathogen caused the pneumonia. I only thought it was a rare condition and did not get much information other than the patients’ history.”

Even if that was the case, the key point is that the three Inner Mongolian cases seem to have been caused by a detectable bacteria. Covid-19 is caused by the Sars-Cov-2 virus, not a bacteria. The first Sars-Covid-2 case was only detected in Wuhan in mid to late December. And it was only last month that Chinese scientists were able to positively trace back the first real case of Sars-Cov-2 to November 17 – a few days after the Inner Mongolian trio.

Knowing exactly where to look

It’s out of the question that U.S. intel, in this case the NCMI, was unaware of these developments in China, considering CIA spying and the fact these discussions were in the open on Weibo and WeChat. So if the NCMI “product” is not a fake and really exists, it only found evidence, still in November, of some vague instances of pneumonic plague.

Thus the warning – to the DIA, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and even the White House – was about that. It could not possibly have been about coronavirus.

The burning question is inevitable: how could the NCMI possibly know all about a viral pandemic, still in November, when Chinese doctors positively identified the first cases of a new type of pneumonia only on December 26?

Add to it the intriguing question of why the NCMI was so interested in this particular flu season in China in the first place – from plague cases treated in Beijing to the first signs of a “mysterious pneumonia outbreak” in Wuhan.

There may have been subtle hints of slightly increased activity at clinics in Wuhan in late November and early December. But at the time nobody – Chinese doctors, the government, not to mention U.S. intel – could have possibly known what was really happening.

China could not be “covering up” what was only identified as a new disease on December 30, duly communicated to the WHO. Then, on January 3, the head of the American CDC, Robert Redfield, called the top Chinese CDC official. Chinese doctors sequenced the virus. And only on January 8 it was determined this was Sars-Cov-2 – which provokes Covid-19.

This chain of events reopens, once again, a mighty Pandora’s box. We have the quite timely Event 201; the cozy relationship between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WHO, as well as the Word Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins galaxy in Baltimore, including the Bloomberg School of Public Health; the ID2020 digital ID/vaccine combo; Dark Winter – which simulated a smallpox bio-attack on the U.S., before the 2001 anthrax attack being blamed on Iraq; U.S. Senators dumping stocks after a CDC briefing; more than 1,300 CEOs abandoning their cushy perches in 2019, “forecasting” total market collapse; the Fed pouring helicopter money already in September 2019 – as part of QE4.

And then, validating the ABC News report, Israel steps in. Israeli intel confirms U.S. intel did in fact warn them in November about a potentially catastrophic pandemic in Wuhan (once again: how could they possibly know that on the second week of November, so early in the game?) And NATO allies were warned – in November – as well.

The bottom line is explosive: the Trump administration as well as the CDC had an advance warning of no less than four months – from November to March – to be properly prepared for Covid-19 hitting the U.S. And they did nothing. The whole “China is a witch!” case is debunked.

Moreover, the Israeli disclosure supports what’s nothing less than extraordinary: U.S. intel already knew about Sars-Cov-2 roughly one month before the first confirmed cases detected by doctors in a Wuhan hospital. Talk about divine intervention.

That could only have happened if U.S. intel knew, for sure, about a previous chain of events that would necessarily lead to the “mysterious outbreak” in Wuhan. And not only that: they knew exactly where to look. Not in Inner Mongolia, not in Beijing, not in Guangdong province.

It’s never enough to repeat the question in full: how could U.S. intel have known about a contagion one month before Chinese doctors detected an unknown virus?

Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo may have given away the game when he said, on the record, that Covid-19 was a “live exercise”. Adding to the ABC News and Israeli reports, the only possible, logical conclusion is that the Pentagon – and the CIA – knew ahead of time a pandemic would be inevitable.

That’s the smokin’ gun. And now the full weight of the United States government is covering all bases by proactively, and retroactively, blaming China.

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Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Morning Star

Vietnam Has Reported No Coronavirus Deaths – How?

April 22nd, 2020 by Robyn Klingler-Vidra

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Why Were Pro-Western Militants Arrested in Hong Kong

April 22nd, 2020 by Andre Vltchek

It has all been evolving in accordance with the script penned in Washington, London, and other Western capitals: pro-Western militants were first identified, then recruited. Riots were financed and supported; society, at least to some extent, destabilized. When the government could not just stand by and watch, when it finally acted, the Western media went into overdrive, attacking it ferociously for ‘violating rights’ and for ‘acting undemocratically’.

Nothing new, really. Tens, perhaps hundreds of governments have already been overthrown, all over the world, with the help of this ‘libretto’.

It is always done “in the name of freedom and democracy”, at least on paper. In reality, the burlesque and cheap tragi-comedy is performed for one and only reason: to keep power in the hands of Western governments, particularly Washington. It goes without saying that the West never really cared about the lives of non-Westerners. In virtually all parts of the world, including China, the lives of ‘The Others’ have been continuously sacrificed for the mercantile and other pragmatic interests of Western empires.

Hong Kong is no exception. And it takes great discipline not to see and understand it.

All that has been done in 2019 and 2020, is to harm the most populous and greatly successful socialist country – China. And the reason why China is, among a few other nations on Earth, singled out for smearing and continuous attacks, is because it has managed to develop and implement a much more prosperous political, economic and above all, social system, than the West. It puts its people first, and it is relentlessly searching for novel concepts which bring benefits to its population of 1.4 billion, and to the entire world.

The more successful China gets, the more endangered the Western regime becomes.

Washington, London and others, have already tried to infiltrate Mainland China with propaganda, with countless hostile NGOs and an entire army of ‘academics’ and journalists. But they have squarely and patently failed. Subversions and interference in China’s domestic affairs have been detected, confronted and finally stopped.

Hong Kong was identified as the “soft spot” or “Achilles Heel”.

The West has thrown tremendous resources into the territory, first in 2014 (during the so-called “Umbrella Revolution”), and later in 2019. On both occasions, it recruited mostly young people who have been frustrated with the fundamentalist capitalism, corruption and prohibitive cost of living. Highly professional Western propagandists made sure of totally twisting the reality, directing the wrath of some uninformed and unsatisfied people towards socialist Beijing, instead of at the reminiscences of the perverse regime which had been injected into Hong Kong by the British colonialists.

But even this approach and strategy, which has been so ‘successful’ in countless countries worldwide, has failed again.

With great determination, China (including Hong Kong), defeated COVID-19, all over its vast territory. While the West has clearly failed its people, and instead of fighting the virus, resorted to ugly propaganda and the cheapest imaginable disinformation tricks, snapping at China, Russia and other confident and socialist countries.

But the West has never really given up: Hong Kong, until now is still designated as the place to be destabilized.

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This is how Reuters began its report, reprinted by The Globe and Mail, and many other publications, on 19 April, 2020:

“Suppressing Hong Kong’s democracy movement is a priority for China, even in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, a top pro-democracy leader said on Sunday, a day after police arrested him and 14 others in a surprise crackdown.

The United States and others criticized the arrest of the 15 on charges of organizing and participating in anti-government protests last year, the biggest crackdown on the pro-democracy movement since the outbreak of the protests almost a year ago.

“This is all happening while we are in midst of a pandemic,” pro-democracy activist Avery Ng told Reuters by telephone.”

This is how propaganda works. Instead of reporting the news first, or quoting official Chinese or Hong Kong sources (as would be the case if the arrests, including of such dissidents like Mr. Assange, took place in London or New York), Reuters opens its piece with some quote from a militant. Not only is this bad journalism, but it goes against all norms of ‘objective’ reporting.

But all gloves are obviously off, and reporters seem to be paid not just by the number of words they produce, but by how much they succeed in smearing China.

The logic of such articles is obviously pitiful. It can, and should be thrown back to its source, and read:

“Suppressing democracy all over the world is a priority for Washington, even in the midst of the coronavirus crises, which so far has infected 755, 533 people in the United States (by 19 April, 2020), while claiming 33,903 lives.”

On top of it, the proposed Hong Kong Extradition Bill (from 2019) has never clearly been explained to anybody by the Western mass media. The Bill was actually designed to protect the people of Hong Kong from the oligarchy, corruption and the safeguards erected exclusively for the elites, at the expense of the ordinary citizens. This point will be addressed by me, as well as documented, in detail, during and after my next visit to Hong Kong.

The 15 people who were recently arrested, actually broke the laws of Hong Kong, interfered in the due legislative process of their own territory, and helped to ignite violence which threw their amazing city onto its knees. All this was done under the British and UK colonialist flags, and under the banners of the U.S. and Germany. All this, while the National Anthem of the United States was blasted from the portable speakers of rioters. Public property was destroyed and people were injured, some killed. The Police which reacted in extremely restrained, mild manner, was shamelessly smeared by countless Western media outlets. I witnessed this violence, reported on it, and documented it.

As was noted above, the script has already damaged countless countries. But it is an old script. And it no longer inspires almost anyone, except those in the old and new imperialist countries of the West.

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This article was originally published on China Daily Hong Kong.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative”,China and Ecological Civilization”with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitter and his Patreon.

“They were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” — Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

I have never known any government to put the best interests of its people first, and this COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.

Now this isn’t intended to be a debate over whether COVID-19 is a legitimate health crisis or a manufactured threat. Such crises can—and are—manipulated by governments in order to expand their powers. As such, it is possible for the virus to be both a genuine menace to public health and a menace to freedom.

Yet we can’t afford to overlook the fact that governments the world over, including the U.S. government, have unleashed untold horrors upon the world in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.

While the U.S. government is currently looking into the possibility that the novel coronavirus spread from a Chinese laboratory rather than a market, the virus could just as easily have been created by the U.S. government or one of its allies.

After all, grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.

For instance, did you know that the U.S. government has been buying hundreds of dogs and cats from “Asian meat markets” as part of a gruesome experiment into food-borne illnesses?

The cannibalistic experiments involve killing cats and dogs purchased from Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam, China and Ethiopia, and then feeding the dead remains to laboratory kittens, bred in government laboratories for the express purpose of being infected with a disease and then killed.

It gets more gruesome.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been removing parts of dogs’ brains to see how it affects their breathing; applying electrodes to dogs’ spinal cords (before and after severing them) to see how it impacts their cough reflexes; and implanting pacemakers in dogs’ hearts and then inducing them to have heart attacks (before draining their blood). All of the laboratory dogs are killed during the course of these experiments.

It’s not just animals that are being treated like lab rats by government agencies.

“We the people” have also become the police state’s guinea pigs: to be caged, branded, experimented upon without our knowledge or consent, and then conveniently discarded and left to suffer from the after-effects.

Back in 2017, FEMA “inadvertently” exposed nearly 10,000 firefighters, paramedics and other responders to a deadly form of ricin during simulated bioterrorism response sessions. In 2015, it was discovered that an Army lab had been “mistakenly” shipping deadly anthrax to labs and defense contractors for a decade.

While these particular incidents have been dismissed as “accidents,” you don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins.

At the time, the government reasoned that it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society such as prisoners, mental patients, and poor blacks.

In Alabama, for example, 600 black men with syphilis were allowed to suffer without proper medical treatment in order to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. In California, older prisoners had testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts implanted in them to test their virility. In Connecticut, mental patients were injected with hepatitis.

In Maryland, sleeping prisoners had a pandemic flu virus sprayed up their noses. In Georgia, two dozen “volunteering” prison inmates had gonorrhea bacteria pumped directly into their urinary tracts through the penis. In Michigan, male patients at an insane asylum were exposed to the flu after first being injected with an experimental flu vaccine. In Minnesota, 11 public service employee “volunteers” were injected with malaria, then starved for five days.

In New York, dying patients had cancer cells introduced into their systems. In Ohio, over 100 inmates were injected with live cancer cells. Also in New York, prisoners at a reformatory prison were also split into two groups to determine how a deadly stomach virus was spread: the first group was made to swallow an unfiltered stool suspension, while the second group merely breathed in germs sprayed into the air. And in Staten Island, children with mental retardation were given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured.

As the Associated Press reports, “The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs … because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.”

Moreover, “Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the ’60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated.”

Media blackouts, propaganda, spin. Sound familiar?

How many government incursions into our freedoms have been blacked out, buried under “entertainment” news headlines, or spun in such a way as to suggest that anyone voicing a word of caution is paranoid or conspiratorial?

Unfortunately, these incidents are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the atrocities the government has inflicted on an unsuspecting populace in the name of secret experimentation.

For instance, there was the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men. As NPR reports, “All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret and weren’t recorded on the subjects’ official military records. Most do not have proof of what they went through. They received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. And they were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time, leaving some unable to receive adequate medical treatment for their injuries, because they couldn’t tell doctors what happened to them.”

And then there was the CIA’s MKULTRA program in which hundreds of unsuspecting American civilians and military personnel were dosed with LSD, some having the hallucinogenic drug slipped into their drinks at the beach, in city bars, at restaurants. As Time reports, “before the documentation and other facts of the program were made public, those who talked of it were frequently dismissed as being psychotic.”

Now one might argue that this is all ancient history and that the government today is different from the government of yesteryear, but has the U.S. government really changed?

Has the government become any more humane, any more respectful of the rights of the citizenry?

Has it become any more transparent or willing to abide by the rule of law? Has it become any more truthful about its activities? Has it become any more cognizant of its appointed role as a guardian of our rights?

Or has the government simply hunkered down and hidden its nefarious acts and dastardly experiments under layers of secrecy, legalism and obfuscations? Has it not become wilier, more slippery, more difficult to pin down?

Having mastered the Orwellian art of Doublespeak and followed the Huxleyan blueprint for distraction and diversion, are we not dealing with a government that is simply craftier and more conniving that it used to be?

Image on the right: In this June 25, 1945 picture, army doctors expose patients to malaria-carrying mosquitoes in the malaria ward at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Ill. (Source: AP)

Consider this: after revelations about the government’s experiments spanning the 20th century spawned outrage, the government began looking for human guinea pigs in other countries, where “clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules.”

In Guatemala, prisoners and patients at a mental hospital were infected with syphilis, “apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.” In Uganda, U.S.-funded doctors “failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study… even though it would have protected their newborns.” Meanwhile, in Nigeria, children with meningitis were used to test an antibiotic named Trovan. Eleven children died and many others were left disabled.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Case in point: back in 2016, it was announced that scientists working for the Department of Homeland Security would begin releasing various gases and particles on crowded subway platforms as part of an experiment aimed at testing bioterror airflow in New York subways.

The government insisted that the gases released into the subways by the DHS were nontoxic and did not pose a health risk. It’s in our best interests, they said, to understand how quickly a chemical or biological terrorist attack might spread. And look how cool the technology is—said the government cheerleaders—that scientists can use something called DNATrax to track the movement of microscopic substances in air and food. (Imagine the kinds of surveillance that could be carried out by the government using trackable airborne microscopic substances you breathe in or ingest.)

Mind you, this is the same government that in 1949 sprayed bacteria into the Pentagon’s air handling system, then the world’s largest office building. In 1950, special ops forces sprayed bacteria from Navy ships off the coast of Norfolk and San Francisco, in the latter case exposing all of the city’s 800,000 residents.

In 1953, government operatives staged “mock” anthrax attacks on St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Winnipegusing generators placed on top of cars. Local governments were reportedly told that “‘invisible smokescreen[s]’ were being deployed to mask the city on enemy radar.” Later experiments covered territory as wide-ranging as Ohio to Texas and Michigan to Kansas.

In 1965, the government’s experiments in bioterror took aim at Washington’s National Airport, followed by a 1966 experiment in which army scientists exposed a million subway NYC passengers to airborne bacteria that causes food poisoning.

And this is the same government that has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.

So, no, I don’t think the government’s ethics have changed much over the years. It’s just taken its nefarious programs undercover.

The question remains: why is the government doing this? The answer is always the same: money, power and total domination.

It’s the same answer no matter which totalitarian regime is in power.

The mindset driving these programs has, appropriately, been likened to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews. As the Holocaust Museum recounts, Nazi physicians “conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.”

The Nazi’s unethical experiments ran the gamut from freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia, tests to determine the maximum altitude for parachuting out of a plane, injecting prisoners with malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis, exposing prisoners to phosgene and mustard gas, and mass sterilization experiments.

The horrors being meted out against the American people can be traced back, in a direct line, to the horrors meted out in Nazi laboratories. In fact, following the second World War, the U.S. government recruited many of Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and order and experimentation, and implemented his tactics in incremental steps.

Sounds far-fetched, you say? Read on. It’s all documented.

As historian Robert Gellately recounts, the Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo.

The FBI was so impressed with the Nazi regime that, according to the New York Times, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen.

All told, thousands of Nazi collaborators—including the head of a Nazi concentration camp, among others—were given secret visas and brought to America by way of Project Paperclip. Subsequently, they were hired on as spies, informants and scientific advisers, and then camouflaged to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. All the while, thousands of Jewish refugees were refused entry visas to the U.S. on the grounds that it could threaten national securi

Adding further insult to injury, American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since. And in true Gestapo fashion, anyone who has dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties has found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.

As if the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II wasn’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—have since fully embraced many of the Nazi’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them repeatedly against American citizens.

It’s certainly easy to denounce the full-frontal horrors carried out by the scientific and medical community within a despotic regime such as Nazi Germany, but what do you do when it’s your own government that claims to be a champion of human rights all the while allowing its agents to engage in the foulest, bases and most despicable acts of torture, abuse and experimentation?

When all is said and done, this is not a government that has our best interests at heart.

This is not a government that values us.

Perhaps the answer lies in The Third Man, Carol Reed’s influential 1949 film starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. In the film, set in a post-WW II Vienna, rogue war profiteer Harry Lime has come to view human carnage with a callous indifference, unconcerned that the diluted penicillin he’s been trafficking underground has resulted in the tortured deaths of young children.

Challenged by his old friend Holly Martins to consider the consequences of his actions, Lime responds, “In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, so why should we?

“Have you ever seen any of your victims?” asks Martins.

“Victims?” responds Limes, as he looks down from the top of a Ferris wheel onto a populace reduced to mere dots on the ground. “Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays.”

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this is how the U.S. government sees us, too, when it looks down upon us from its lofty perch.

To the powers-that-be, the rest of us are insignificant specks, faceless dots on the ground.

To the architects of the American police state, we are not worthy or vested with inherent rights. This is how the government can justify treating us like economic units to be bought and sold and traded, or caged rats to be experimented upon and discarded when we’ve outgrown our usefulness.

To those who call the shots in the halls of government, “we the people” are merely the means to an end.

“We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become obsolete, undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that, in the words of Rod Serling, “has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.”

In this sense, we are all Romney Wordsworth, the condemned man in Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man.”

The Obsolete Man” speaks to the dangers of a government that views people as expendable once they have outgrown their usefulness to the State. Yet—and here’s the kicker—this is where the government through its monstrous inhumanity also becomes obsolete. As Serling noted in his original script for “The Obsolete Man,” “Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man…that state is obsolete.

How do you defeat a monster? You start by recognizing the monster for what it is.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

The Democratic Party of President Moon Jae-in won a  phenomenal victory at the parliamentary election on April 15.  

This victory has been widely reported in media throughout the world with flattery terms. Most of the media seem to attribute this victory to the remarkable success of Moon Jae-in government’s handling of the corona virus crisis.

I join the international media in praising Moon’s victory. But I am asking three questions in order to better see the meaning of the victory.

How was it possible to hold an open general election in a situation where the COVID-19 is still threatening? What are the fundamental determinants of the election outcome? What are the impact of the victory of the Democratic Party on internal policies and North-South relations?

The Election Process and Results 

The April election was astonishing not only for its planning and management of organization but also for its outcome.

Three factors seem to explain the surprising success of the election planning an organization.

First, the Election Commission and the media were successful in convincing the people to come out vote so that they can tell the government what they want.

Second, a well planned programme of the election process and the people’s respect for the government instruction was an important factor.

Third, the brilliant performance of the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) has inspired to the people to vote.

The rate of votes was as high as 66.2%. Of 44 million eligible voters, 30 million came out and voted. It was the highest rate of votes since 1992.

This is just amazing. In the world, more than 47 countries have postponed or cancelled the election because of the COVID-19. Korea is the only country that has dared holding a large-scale election with success, despite the threat of the corona virus.

The well planned and well managed process of voting was a factor of the success.

It began with the sanitization of election booths. The voter had to wear mask and put on plastic gloves. They were obliged to line up with 3 meter distance.

At the entrance to the voting booth, voters’ temperature is measured. If it is above 37.5 C, the voter was taken to separate voting booths. The voters obeyed these instructions and rules

The Korean parliament system is the unicameral system. There are 300 seats.

Before the election, of 300 seats, 270 were elected by single seat constituencies, while 30 seats were proportional representation seats.

Now, after the election of April 15 this year, the proportional seats increased from 30 to 47 seats. The idea was to better represent the people’s wish that is not properly reflected by the seats elected at electoral constituencies.

The National Assembly (NA) is, by and large, represented by two loosely defined political ideologies: the right-wing (conservatives) and the left-wing (welfare state regime).

The April election was for the 21st NA, which will begin to operate on May 31st. Until then, the 20th NA will operate.

The comparison of the composition of the two NAs will show the surprising results of the April 15 election.

In the 20th NA, the left-wing was represented by the Democratic Party (DP) with 123 seats and the Justice Party (mild socialism) with 6 seats. Thus, the left-wing had 129 seats accounting for 43%of the total number of seats in the NA.

On the other hand, the right-wing included the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) with 122 seats and the People’s Party with 38 seats giving a total of 160 seats, accounting for 53.3%.The independents had 11 seats, that is, 3.7%.

Thus, in the 20th NA, the left-wing had 43% of the total number of seats as against 53.3 % for the conservative party.

The DP representing the left-wing was the “first party” in terms of the number of seats and it was the ruling party. But, having less than 50% of the total number of seats in the NA, the DP had to rely on the conservative party (LKP) to pass laws.

The April election has changed drastically the seat composition of the NA.

The left-wing represented by the DP with 163 seats, Citizen Party with 17 seats, the Justice Party with 6 seats and Open Democratic Party with 3 seats assured as many as of 189 seats, that is, 63% of the total number of seats.

Now, the right-wing composed of the United Future Party (UFP) (new name of the LKP) with 84 seats, Future Korea Party with 19 seats and People Party with 3 obtained only 106 seats representing 35.3%

There are 5 independents representing 1.7%. These independents are former member of the LKP. This means that the right-wing seats in the 21st NA are 111, that is, 37%.

Thus, the number of the left-wing seats increased from 129 seats (42%) to 189 seats (63%), while that of the right-wing seats fell from 160 (58%) to 111 (37%).

Determinants of the Left-Wing Victory led by the Democratic Party

The amazing outcome of the April election is attributable to the way each party has deal with the threat of the COVID-19, on the one hand, and, on the other, the performance of each party at the 20th National Assembly.

The government of Moon Jae-in has shown outstanding performance in handling the corona virus crisis.

As I have shown in my previous Global Research paper (1) the government has been handling well the crisis owing to the apolitical approach, its reliance on science and technology, remarkable Moon’s leadership and the people’s participation in the fight and cooperation with the government.

In contrast, the conservative party the UFP has been telling the voters that the government’s fight against the virus was a failure.

The voters knew that the Korean model of COVID-19 war became the object of global praise and many countries were soliciting Korea’s help including the U.S. The voters did not like the conservatives which criticize the government for the sake of criticizing.

There was another reason for not liking the conservatives. The swift propagation of the corona virus was started and sustained by the members of the cult sect, the Shincheonji.

The conservative party gave the clear impression that it supported the cult’s criminal behaviour of propagating the virus.

In this way, the Democratic Party had to fight against an alliance between the conservative party and the COVID-19.

The conservatives made another mistake. Since the establishments Moon’s government in 2017, the right-wing political parties led by the LKP (now UFP) did every possible trick to paralyze the function of the NA.

In a situation where 60% of Koreans approve Moon’s policies, such behaviour of the UFP was a suicidal approach.

The combination of all these damaging factors has led to the humiliating defeat of the conservative party.

Challenge of the Victorious Democratic Party

The Democratic Party has won a crushing victory. With more than 180 seats, it can pass laws without the votes of the opposition party.

But, it must be aware of one thing. The conservatives have lost the seats, but, still, in terms of votes, they represent about 40% of the total number of votes in the NA. It means that, if the Moon’s government does not meet the people’s expectation, it may lose at the next presidential election in 2022.

What are the people’s expectations?

It appears that we can group people’s expectations into four groups: final victory of the anti-virus war, the recovery of the economy, the definitive destruction of the corruption culture and the North-South economic cooperation.

The fight against the corona virus is not over yet. It is true that the number of newly infected is single-digit figure but some of the “cured” are re-infected; the risk of imported infected is still there.

Korea is relaxing the confinement starting with restaurants, parks and some other places. Korea was contemplating also the opening of schools, but the recent experience of Singapore seems to delay such decision. In Singapore, as soon as the schools were open, the number of the infected skyrocketed.

If the victory over the corona virus fight had the first priority after the election win, the next priority is the recovery of the economy.

We must remember that even without the invasion of the virus, Korean economy was in deep trouble largely because of decades-long neoliberal pro-Chaebol and export-led economic growth policies.

The results of these policies were the shrinking growth rate of GDP because of Chaebols’ losing international competitiveness on the one hand and, on the other, worsening income distribution and shrinking domestic demand.

Moon’s government has undertaken a series of measure to balance the lopsided income distribution along with the vitalization of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to assure more sustainable economic growth. This policy will be accelerated. But at the same time, the government has to inject a huge amount of money into the economy to rescues SMEs hard hit by the corona virus crisis.

The social reform and the purification of 7-decades old corruption culture of the conservatives will have to go on. The first step is to reform the Bureau of Prosecutors and the police. Then, in the long run, the government should confiscate the wealth hidden by the conservatives in various forms of assets throughout the world.

Then, there is the difficult task of assuring greater autonomy in dealing with the North-South relations.

It appears that North Korea is hit hard by the COVID-19, but it has no physical or financial capacity to cope with, largely because of decades of U.S.-led sanctions.

It is the time to improve the North-South relations hoping that it will lead to the reopening of the Gaesung Industrial Complex and the Kumgang-san Tourist Center.

These two facilities are under sanctions imposed unilaterally by the conservative government of Lee Myong-bak who is judged guilty of corruption and abuse of power; he has been sentenced for 17-year imprisonment.

It is true that the Democratic Party has gained almost two-third of the sears in the National Assembly. It is true also that it will be easier to pass laws.

But the people’s expectation is proportional to the number of seats. The people of Korea has given to the government the tall order to eliminate the corona virus, make the economy grow, generate jobs, free Korea from the corruption culture and hold hands with North Korea for peace on the peninsula and co-prosperity for all Koreans. Good luck!

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) – the Centre d’Études de l’intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Note

(1) Joseph H. Chung (March 31, 2020). globalresearch.ca/korean-model-anti-covid-19-war-how-successful-why-successful/5708164

Featured image is from Xinhua

Little by little, Americans are understanding just how badly our government has let us down by its belated and disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how thousands more people are dying as a result. But there are two other crises we face that our government is totally unprepared for and incapable of dealing with: the climate crisis and the danger of nuclear war. 

Since 1947, a group of scientists with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have warned us about the danger of nuclear war—using their Doomsday Clock to symbolize just how close we are to destroying human civilization on Earth. Over the years, the minute hand on the clock has gone back and forth, measuring the rising and falling risks. 

Unbeknownst to most Americans, in January 2020, just before the Covid-19 crisis broke, the Atomic Scientists, who include 13 Nobel Prize winners and dozens of scientists and other experts, sounded the alarm that the double risks of nuclear war and climate change have now brought us closer to self-destruction than at the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. For the first time ever, they moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock beyond the 2-minute mark to 100 seconds to midnight

“The world is sleepwalking its way through a newly unstable nuclear landscape,” they wrote, highlighting the New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, plans to “modernize” their nuclear arsenals and “lowered barriers to nuclear war” as a result of new “low-yield” nuclear weapons. Arms control treaties between the U.S. and Russia that took decades to negotiate are being abandoned, removing restraints that were carefully calibrated to prevent either side from upsetting the balance of terror that made it suicidal to use nuclear weapons. What is now to prevent a conventional war from escalating to the use of “low-yield” nuclear weapons, or a low yield nuclear war in turn escalating to Armageddon?

On the climate crisis, the annual UN Conference of Parties (COP) in Madrid in December 2019 failed to agree on any new steps to cut carbon emissions, despite record heat, unprecedented wildfires, faster melting of glacial ice, and a scientific consensus that the commitments countries made in Paris in 2015 are not sufficient to avert catastrophe. Most countries are falling short of even those insufficient pledges, while U.S. CO2 emissions actually rose by 2.6% in 2018, after falling by only 11% under the Obama administration. Obama’s policy of using natural gas as a “bridge fuel” for U.S. power plants fueled a huge expansion in the fracking industry, and the U.S. is now producing more oil and more gas than ever before in our history. 

Now the next COP in Glasgow has been postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the pandemic, further delaying any chance of decisive action. Covid-19 is temporarily restraining our destruction of our own life support system. But this will be only a temporary respite unless we pivot from lockdowns to a COP in Glasgow that launches a global program to very quickly convert our energy systems from fossil fuels to green energy.

The Atomic Scientists wrote that both these existential dangers are severely compounded by political leaders who “denigrate and discard the most effective methods for addressing complex threats – international agreements with strong verification regimes – in favor of their own narrow interest and domestic political gain… these leaders have helped to create a situation that will, if unaddressed, lead to catastrophe sooner rather than later.”

It is the political leaders of the United States, not Russia or China, who have withdrawn from nuclear arms agreements, undermined the Kyoto Protocol (the only binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gases), rejected the jurisdiction of international courts, failed to ratify 46 multilateral treaties and systematically violated the UN Charter‘s prohibition against the threat or use of force.

The Republicans have been more aggressive in many of these policies, but Democratic leaders have also gone along with them, consolidating U.S. imperialism and disdain for international law as bipartisan U.S. policy. When UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the BBC that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegal under the UN Charter, Senator Joe Biden, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dismissed that out of hand. “Nobody in the Senate agrees with that,” Biden sneered. “There is nothing to debate. He is dead, flat, unequivocally wrong.”

The Democratic Party has now closed ranks behind Joe Biden as its presidential candidate, presenting Americans with a choice between two leaders from the two administrations that have governed the U.S. since 2009 and therefore bear the greatest responsibility for the current state of the nation. Biden has based his candidacy on the premise that everything was just fine in America until Trump came along, just as Trump based his 2016 candidacy on the idea that everything was great until Obama came on the scene. 

Most Americans understand that our problems are more entrenched and systemic than that, but we remain trapped in a closed political system that presents us with limited choices between leaders who have already proved unable to solve our problems, even when the solutions are well-known or obvious and have broad public support, like Medicare For All.

When it comes to war and peace, the American public wants to keep the U.S. out of wars, but leaders of both parties keep fueling the war machine and stoking dangerous tensions with other countries. The Russiagate fiasco failed to bring down Trump, but it succeeded in unleashing a propaganda blitz to convince millions of Americans, from MSNBC viewers to Members of Congress, that Russia is once again an irreconcilable enemy of the United States and a threat to everything Americans believe in. In the hall of mirrors that is American politics, Democrats now hate Russia more than China, while Republicans hate China more than Russia—although the Biden campaign is now vying with Trump to see who can be more hostile to China. 

Bipartisan hostility to Russia and China is only helping to justify the Pentagon’s pivot from “counterterrorism” to its New Cold War with our nuclear-armed neighbors and trillions of dollars in spending on new weapons that make the world more dangerous for all of us. 

With almost no public debate, Members of Congress from both parties quietly rubber-stamp every record military budget placed in front of them. Only 8 Senators (4D, 4R) and 48 House Members (41D, 6R, 1I) dared to vote against final passage of the outrageous $712 billion 2020 Pentagon budget. The Trump administration is fully committed to Obama’s plan to spend at least a trillion dollars to “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which the Atomic Scientists warn is taking us closer to nuclear catastrophe than ever. Of this year’s Democratic presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders is the only one who routinely votes against record military budgets, approving only 16% of military spending bills since 2013.

On this and many other issues, Sanders has dared to say what Americans know but no major party candidate would say before: that our neoliberal emperors sit stark naked on their thrones, tossing sacks of money to their friends as they rule over an obscene empire of corruption, inequality, war, poverty and racism. 

In dogged defiance of American conventional wisdom, Sanders built a political movement based on real solutions to the structural problems of American society, directly challenging the powerful interests who control and profit from the corrupt status quo: the military-industrial complex; the prison-industrial complex; the medical-industrial complex; and the Wall Street financial complex at the heart of it all.

Sanders may have lost the Democratic nomination, but he successfully demonstrated that Americans don’t have to be passive in the face of a corrupt political system that is leading us down a path to self-destruction. We do not have to accept a dysfunctional for-profit healthcare system; ever-worsening inequality and poverty; structural racism and mass incarceration; an overheated, dying natural world; or a military-industrial complex that fears peace more than a nuclear apocalypse.

A political system that is structurally incapable of acting for the common good, even when millions of lives are at stake, is not just failing to solve our problems. It is the problem. Hopefully, as we struggle to emerge from today’s tragic pandemic, more and more Americans are understanding that healing our sick, corrupt political system is the vital key to a healthy and peaceful future.

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Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK, and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

WWIII Scenario

President Trump vowed over the weekend to end US funding to the tune of $3.7 million that had been approved to the Wuhan Institute of Virology by the Obama administration.

With questions swirling over the lab being the possible source of the coronavirus outbreak, Trump addressed the issue when asked at the press briefing.

“The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million. I’ve been hearing about that. We’ve instructed that if any grants are going to that area, we are looking at it literally about an hour ago and also early in the morning,” Trump said.

“We will end the grant very quickly. It was granted quite a while ago. They were granted a substantial amount of money. We are going to look at it and take a look. But I understand it was a number of years ago.” Trump further noted.

The President asked the reporter who brought up the issue when the grant when given. When she replied 2015, Trump said “2015. Who was president then? I wonder.”

Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who had previously raised the issue in an appearance on Fox News, tweeted his approval for Trump’s promise to end the funding:

The President’s promise came with an acknowledgement that the government is investigating the origins of the virus, including the lab in Wuhan:

Fox News reported, meanwhile that the US has launched a ‘full scale investigation’ into the matter, with US intelligence operatives gathering information regarding the laboratory and the initial outbreak.

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We have never seen an “employment apocalypse” in the United States like we are witnessing right now, and it is not going to end any time soon.  Over the past several days, “coronavirus shutdowns” have officially been extended all over the nation, and the longer these shutdowns last the more jobs our economy is going to lose.  And because most Americans were living paycheck to paycheck before this pandemic hit us, many unemployed workers are already unable to pay their bills.  Yes, our authorities may be slowing down the spread of the virus, but in the process they have absolutely killed the economy.  On Thursday, I was stunned to learn that another 5.2 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week.  That brings the grand total for the last four weekly reports “to a staggering 22 million”

About 5.2 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.  Jobless claims provide the best measure of layoffs across the country. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated that 5.5 million Americans would file initial applications for unemployment insurance last week.

That brings the total claims over the past four weeks to a staggering 22 million. By comparison, the labor market added 21.5 million jobs since the Great Recession.

Just think about that.

22 million jobs wiped out in one month.

And the true number of jobs lost is actually even higher, because not everyone that loses a job files for unemployment benefits.

Prior to this year, the highest number of initial claims for unemployment benefits during any four week period that we had ever witnessed was 2.7 million during the fall of 1982.

So 22 million in four weeks truly puts us in uncharted territory.  Just look at this chart.

We aren’t just beating the old records, we are absolutely obliterating them.

You know that things are really, really bad when even NBC News sounds just like The Economic Collapse Blog…

“The labor market is obviously very, very important, and has a high correlation with what is going on in the economy,” Jay Bryson, the acting chief economist at Wells Fargo, told NBC News. “It is showing us what I think we all know, that the economy is falling off a cliff at an unprecedented rate.”

In other words, the chief economist at Wells Fargo is saying that the U.S. economy is completely and utterly collapsing.

According to Zero Hedge, “we have lost 710 jobs for every confirmed US death from COVID-19 (30,985).”  Our politicians have prioritized saving lives over saving the economy, and many people out there seem convinced that was the right choice, but the economic devastation has been immense.

The socialist “stimulus payments” and unemployment benefits will help all of these unemployed workers temporarily, but the payments from the federal government are supposedly just a one time deal, and it won’t be too long before many states start running out of unemployment money

Six states — including New York, which has the highest number of cases in the US — can only fund up to 10 weeks of unemployment benefits from their state coffers before money runs out and they have to turn to the federal government for additional funding, according to a recent estimate from the Tax Foundation.

Another 15 state trust funds don’t meet the federal Department of Labor’s recommended minimum solvency standard, which requires being able to pay benefits for a year in an economic downturn similar to the Great Recession.

So what will the federal government do once we get to that point?

I imagine that Congress will eventually want to borrow and spend trillions more dollars that we don’t have, and it is likely that “conservatives” and “liberals” will both be quite eager to vote for another pork-filled bill.

But it is probably going to take some time for Congress to get through the process of passing another crazy spending package, and meanwhile deep economic suffering is erupting all over the nation.

On Thursday, vehicles were lined up for two miles in Miramar, Florida as needy individuals waited for hours to get handouts from a local food bank.  We are starting to see food lines like this all over the country, and if things are this bad already, what will things look like a few months from now?

The chief economist at Grant Thornton in Chicago is calling this “the deepest, fastest, most broad-based recession we’ve ever seen”, and I can’t argue with that assessment one bit.

For a moment, I would like for you to consider just a few of the economic news items that we have seen over the past few days…

-United Airlines has reduced its schedule of flights for May and June “by about 90%” as demand for air travel has absolutely plummeted.

-U.S. retail sales were down 8.7 percent in March.

-J.C. Penney is “considering bankruptcy”.

-Housing starts just collapsed by the most that we have seen in 36 years.

-The mayor of Los Angeles says that large gatherings in his city will likely be banned until 2021.

-Facebook has canceled all large events until June 2021.

-Chinese GDP just experienced the largest drop ever recorded.

Of course nearly every nation will soon report absolutely staggering declines in GDP.  The shutdowns have brought economic activity to a standstill all over the globe, and no region is immune.

The following is how the Daily Mail is describing the current state of global trade…

The coronavirus pandemic is crippling global trade because crews on transport ships have been stranded at sea for months and food processing plants have been forced to close, threatening to bring the world’s supply chain to a grinding halt.

Shipping workers at sea are denied entry into ports, truckers can’t get to work in some countries or are confronted with complications at borders, food plants are closing and farm harvests going to waste in the crisis.

Does that sound like a “perfect storm” to you?

Well, the truth is that it is just getting started.

Eventually this pandemic will subside, but now that all of the economic dominoes are starting to tumble it will be exceedingly difficult to reverse that momentum.

And as I pointed out the other day, most Americans are not likely to resume all of their normal daily activities once the restrictions are finally lifted, and fear of this virus is going to be a dominant economic force for the foreseeable future.

What all of this means is that we are facing incredible economic pain for the short-term, the mid-term and for a long time to come.

At this point, we should no longer speak of “economic collapse” as something that will happen in the future.

It is here.

It is now.

And it is going to get a lot worse.

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Michael Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, whose articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. He has written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Featured image is from The Falling Darkness

Turkey seems to be getting inspiration from China by engaging in “mask diplomacy” and is helping many coronavirus affected countries. Even though Turkey is being devastated by the pandemic with over 100,000 cases and 2,200 succumbing to the infection, it has taken the opportunity to try and create good will after it tarnished its reputation when it attempted to asymmetrically invade Greece with illegal immigrants in February and March.

Turkish coronavirus aid is reaching all corners of the globe from the Americas to Africa, from Europe to East Asia. However, one of the most surprising locations for Turkish aid is Israel. The Israeli government has been extremely quiet about this fact, especially since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was happy enough to thank China and the United States for their aid.

For years Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been vocally defending the Palestinian cause, so-much-so that he openly announces his friendship with the Hamas terrorist organization that has controlled Gaza since 2007. Hamas has been the justification used by Israel to impose its inhumane blockade on the tiny territory wedged between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Israel has endlessly accused Erdoğan of being allied to terrorists. But despite the frosty words, this has not stopped the thriving economic relations between the two countries that accounted for nearly $6 billion in trade in 2019.

An interesting factor in Turkey’s “mask diplomacy” with Israel is that masks extended to the Palestinians were only bound for the West Bank and not to Erdoğan’s allies in Gaza. This demonstrates that perhaps Erdoğan has given up provoking Israel as Tel Aviv recognizes the Fatah government in West Bank but not Hamas in Gaza. It now appears that Erdoğan no longer wants to take on the mantle as the “Champion” of the Palestinian cause after the majority of the Arab world abandoned Palestine to focus on initially Iran, but shifting more towards resisting Turkey’s expansionist ideology in the Arab world.

As Erdoğan strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood that aims to depose Arab authoritarian monarchs from power, such as those in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, it has created a split in the Muslim World, putting the Palestinian cause on the sidelines. However, the Muslim Brotherhood does not only take aim at Arab monarchies’, with the exception of Qatar who also fund the organization, but also secular government’s like those in Egypt.

With the Muslim world in disarray, Israel is no longer seen as the enemy, or at least a priority. Israel will take the Turkish-offered aid without hesitation and remember that Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize the Jewish State and that Erdoğan will not always be in power. For Erdoğan though, it is critical that he gets the Israelis back on his side since the Palestinians are of little strategic value and there is no more prestige behind “championing” the Palestinian cause.

At the same time a trilateral relationship between Israel, Cyprus and Greece is emerging in the military and energy sectors. As Turkey becomes increasingly isolated in the region with few friends, having strengthened relations with Israel again means a potential rupture in Tel Aviv’s relations with Greece and Cyprus.  The coronavirus pandemic is serving as another front in geopolitical games, and although China is leading the pack in this, Turkey does come in at a distant second place.

As energy prices are tumbling, the construction of the East Med pipeline between Israel, Cyprus and Greece appears to be threatened which would be to Turkey’s advantage. This pipeline will reshape the power structures of the Eastern Mediterranean and make it difficult for Turkey to legitimize its illegitimate claims over Greek and Cypriot maritime space in defiance of the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea.

Although Turkey will be hoping for the collapse of the ambitious pipeline and to strengthen relations with Israel through “mask diplomacy,” Erdoğan must survive the economic and social repercussions of his domestic coronavirus policy. While most of the world was preparing to deal with the pandemic, pro-Erdoğan television stations were having discussions whether Turkish genetics could protect the people from coronavirus. Authorities in Turkey were also arresting journalists and social media users who contended that the true case and death toll from coronavirus in the country were purposefully underreported.

With Turkey being economically devastated by not only the coronavirus, but by years of corruption and nepotism, the country has now run out of foreign reserves and the Turkish lira is plummeting. The question then becomes whether Turkey can maintain a highly militarized and aggressive foreign policy, and whether “mask diplomacy” will be enough to bring some respite from financial hardship. Israel will remember Erdoğan is volatile and can very well easily turn against them again despite flourishing trade relations, and Europe has not forgotten how only some weeks ago Turkey attempted to flood the continent with illegal immigrants. “Mask diplomacy” might not be enough to save Erdoğan from his all his past aggressions, nepotism and financially irresponsibility.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

As thousands of Boeing employees head back to work in the Puget Sound region over the last week, the Washington-based aircraft manufacturer has noticed a string of recent cancellations of the grounded 737 MAX jet.  

Last Tuesday (April 14), Boeing announced a total of 150 MAX cancellations in March, including 75 previously reported from Irish leasing company Avolon. Cancellations also came from other buyers, including 34 of 135 aircraft ordered by Brazil’s GOL.

Now on Monday morning (April 20), China Development Bank Financial Leasing Co. (CDB) has joined the cancellation party, slashing 29 MAX planes from its order, worth about $2.9 billion, reported Bloomberg.

The MAX jet has been grounded globally for a little more than a year after two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

“In light of evolving aviation market dynamics, we’ve been working together with Boeing over many months to re-calibrate our MAX order book to be in line with our long-term view of the market and related opportunities,” Xuedong Wang, chairman of CDB Financial unit CDB Aviation, said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange Monday.

The statement says CDB’s outstanding MAX order is now 70 after the adjustment.

The coronavirus pandemic coupled with MAX groundings, has crushed Boeing. CEO Dave Calhoun recently warned that the commercial jet market could take years to recover.

Boeing published a statement on Monday outlining how it continues to partner with CDB amid challenging times.

“As we work to return the 737 MAX to service, our focus remains on addressing our customers’ fleet needs while optimizing the delivery of the more than 4,000 airplanes in our 737 backlog,” it said.

“As market conditions normalize, Boeing anticipates that lessors who have restructured or reduced their order books will continue to add MAX aircraft to their portfolios through sale-leaseback agreements with airlines,” Boeing said. “Longer term, we expect these lessors will again place orders for direct MAX purchases.”

Boeing suspended MAX production in January, and it plans a phased restart by the end of April. We noted last month how the struggling company drew down a $13.8 billion revolver and is also seeking billions of dollars in bailouts from the US government.

Boeing shares are down several percent on Monday morning (April 20) following the news of more cancellation orders.

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Cuban Drug to Strengthen Natural Immunity in Trial Phase

April 22nd, 2020 by Angel Guerra Cabrera

Given the threat posed by the new coronavirus, it is encouraging to learn that trials are underway in Cuba of a vaccine to strengthen innate immunity, to help reduce the risk of infectious agents entering the human body.

The new drug, CIGB 2020 Immunopotentiator, is applied nasally or sublingually, and has proven effective with confirmed COVID-19 patients, limiting progression to stages of greater complexity and severity, especially in older adults.

The product has been developed by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) in collaboration with other scientific institutions, explained Dr. Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general director of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines, during the Mesa Redonda television program. He added that the vaccine is capable of stimulating the immune system at locations where the virus “enters” the body.

According to Dr. Eduardo Martínez Díaz, president of BioCubaFarma, the project aims to impact the disease’s propagation “curve” since, as it is known, asymptomatic individuals carrying the virus can infect others or suddenly develop life-threatening symptoms, as occurs with the 20% of patients who end up in serious condition or die.

In view of this situation, the challenge has been to develop a vaccine that prevents the virus from overtaking the body’s immune system and, at the same time, allows for a balance reflected in the so-called natural or innate immunity, which can help, according to the researcher, save the lives of many people and offer significant benefits for the most vulnerable groups.

The vaccine, approved for the clinical trial phase, has shown, in blood tests and tonsil and sublingual scrapings, how molecules on the cell surface are stimulated, indicating the activation of the innate immune system to viruses, explained Dr. Gerardo Guillén Nieto, director of Biomedical Research at CIGB.

“We are working at two levels: demonstrating activation of the innate immune system, and how this activates specific immunity against the virus,” said the scientist, who added that, to date, there are no vaccines for this purpose, although Cuba has several products now being perfected.

Similarly, scientists on the island are working on the development of antivirals such as CIGB 210, CIGB 300 and CIGB 258 (the latter for patients in serious condition), and is progressing on four test models that will allow the country to have its own diagnostic tools for COVID-19.

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Featured image is from Dunia Álvarez/Granma

Hungry Americans

April 22nd, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

In more normal times than now, tens of millions of Americans face hunger and food insecurity in the world’s richest country.

It’s because of widespread poverty, unemployment, underemployment, overall deprivation, and eroding social justice even though vital services are widely needed for the nation’s most disadvantaged.

It’s also because both right wings of the one-party state serve privileged interests exclusively at the expense of public health and welfare gone begging.

The so-called land of opportunity lacks it for its tired…poor…huddled masses…wretched refuse…yearning to breathe free.

America is separate and unequal. The privileged few benefit hugely, including by generous government handouts in good and hard times.

Ordinary Americans get unfulfilled promises in the United States of I don’t care.

Trump, hardliners surrounding him, and most congressional members are indifferent to the rights, safety and welfare of ordinary people at home and abroad.

Tens of millions of Americans are out of work, many more heading to join them, breadwinners with little or no savings — unable to pay rent, service mortgages, cover medical expenses, many dependent on aid to feed family members.

In more normal 2017, over 40 million Americans were food insecure — unable  to provide what’s needed for their families.

Around one in six US children don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Millions rely on free or low-cost school lunches that aren’t available because education in America is shut down.

People of color in the US are disproportionately affected. At times now, public need is greater than ever.

On April 8, the ACLU asked the following:

“If COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate, then why are Blacks (in the US) dying at higher rates?”

Why are Black communities hit hardest by the effects of COVID-19 outbreaks?

In Chicago, data show around 70% of COVID-19 related deaths are Black city residents.

In Milwaukee County, it’s 81%, in Louisiana 70%. Clearly what’s happening is from poverty, unemployment, and related issues that affect health and well-being.

Black Americans have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, asthma, and other diseases than their white counterparts.

While most Americans shelter in place, Blacks and Latinos disproportionately hold jobs in food stores, distribution warehouses, as home health aides, and other positions where social distancing isn’t practiced.

Since Trump took office, his regime presided over the repeal or flouting of anti-discrimination, social and economic justice policies.

For weeks, he dismissively ignored the need for widespread testing. He’s done nothing to aid hard-pressed/low income communities throughout the US.

Meager federal COVID-19 related aid may withhold it from individuals based on prior convictions or arrests.

In US urban areas nationwide, most Blacks are segregated in low-income communities.

Blacks and Latinos comprise about two-thirds of the US prison population, the world’s largest by far — including countless numbers of wrongfully convicted individuals, many others for misdemeanors too minor to matter.

All of the above outside of prison walls relates to widespread hunger in the US during more normal times that’s greatly exacerbated at times like now.

When the nation’s most vulnerable needs federal, state and local help, what’s provided is meager at best, not forthcoming at worst.

Long lines of cars and people on foot beyond what the eyes can see are queued at food banks nationwide for help when it’s the only recourse for poor unemployed Americans with little or no savings.

For them, it’s a perfect storm with no idea of how long their personal crisis will last.

America’s debt-fueled bubble economy burst, COVID-19 the trigger, not the cause. Deprivation for countless millions in the US is likely to be long-lasting.

Many lost jobs are gone because countless numbers of small businesses won’t survive.

Stores, restaurants, theaters, other recreational facilities, and other public places won’t likely see large numbers of people interacting in close quarters for some time, fear of contagion restraining them.

Food banks are overwhelmed by demand and too little supply for the hungry and food insecure. They lack enough volunteers to pitch in and help.

With hotels, restaurants, and schools closed, farmers are destroying crops and other fresh foods for lack of customers, dairy farmers dumping millions of gallons of fresh milk daily because they don’t have the manpower and/or can’t bear the cost of transporting it to food banks.

In hardest hit parts of the US, food pantries and distribution centers are struggling from over-demand and lack of ability to serve it.

National Guard forces are helping in some areas, but it’s way short of manpower needed, along with enough supply to feed the hungry.

Images of what’s going on in the world’s richest country nationwide are heart-rendering.

Large-scale food aid needed in more normal times is greatly overwhelmed by the highest US unemployment heading higher since the Great Depression that could continue for some time.

Its underlying cause is the same at all times — widespread poverty with inadequate resources and government help for essentials to life and welfare.

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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.”

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Video: A Letter to the Future

April 22nd, 2020 by James Corbett

I do not write these words for my contemporaries.

We are the damned.

It is our lot now to watch as the lamp of liberty is extinguished, our burden to bear witness to the final flickering of the flame of freedom. …

Read the letter here.

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The war is on. A crucial weapon in the attack is Roundup (glyphosate), a herbicide that’s being used for something for which it was never intended[1]: the forced ripening of crops, called desiccation, all but guaranteeing it will wind up in our food.

Roundup hinders biosynthesis by poisoning the shikimate pathway in plants. Humans don’t rely on the same chemistry as plants, but we were never supposed to actually eat this herbicide in food. It turns out our bodies rely on trillions of microorganisms integral to our immune systems that do employ the shikimate pathway, which means Roundup contributes directly to the suppression of our immune systems.[2]

Ignoring this, Bayer execs seek to dominate the fast-growing desiccation market, and have purchased Monsanto and, along with it, thousands of lawsuits filed by people who claim to have contracted cancer while applying Roundup. None of these lawsuits are from consumers who have inadvertently consumed Roundup in their food because it will forever remain impossible to clinically prove one’s immune system may have been impacted so long as conventional medicine fails to help us boost overall health, pushing patented, pharmaceutical vaccinations instead. In fact, the government has never required any long-term research into the possible immunological impact of Roundup, and shows no interest in doing so.

Don’t bother looking, and you won’t find any bad news, is the maxim being applied. And it’s working marvelously.

Strangely, none of the settlements to date against Bayer have been for farmers. Wouldn’t farmers be the first to succumb to illness if Roundup (glyphosate) was a carcinogen and applying it was the problem? Does this mean the Roundup lawsuits are just a diversionary tactic in a much larger battle?

Shareholders are certainly worried. But Bayer executives have everything to gain from a protracted legal battle, replete with dire headlines warning that Roundup is dangerous, so long as no one figures out that the real problem isn’t with people applying Roundup; it’s with people eating it.

Anyone who believes Werner Baumann, the CEO of Bayer, made a big mistake when he signed the deal to buy Monsanto, doesn’t understand his role in the globalist agenda. To say nothing of the crucial role Roundup is potentially playing in the Covid-19 “pandemic” through immune suppression, and how Covid-19 is itself playing into the larger globalist agenda, and may even be an integral part of it.[3]

Desiccation is the target market for Bayer execs. But first, they have to become indemnified against any future claims of injury, whether by those who apply or consume Roundup,

  • just as vaccine companies were indemnified by President Reagan in the 1980s,
  • just as Big Tobacco was indemnified in the 1990s by President Clinton.

In both cases, all future liabilities were passed on to We the People, while the mounting cost of regulatory compliance, a direct consequence of that protracted legal process, resulted in monopoly control.

In short, Bayer plans to swallow up all of the off-brand makers of glyphosate (generic Roundup) as a thicket of new “safety” regulations are implemented surrounding the manufacture and use of Roundup, leaving only Bayer standing as the sole global supplier of this herbicide that corporate farmers can’t live without; that consumers can’t live with. In fact, Baumann’s “people” will already be working with regulators to make sure everything is worded just right, with the allowable “safe” limits for ingesting Roundup remaining based on outdated LD50 testing (Lethal Dose 50% in lab animals).

These were toxicological tests, not immunological. To repeat again, no one has ever tested how Roundup impacts the immune system that teams with microorganisms that ARE adversely impacted by Roundup through interruption of the shikimate pathway. And if Bayer execs gets their way, no one ever will.

Have you noticed no one argues any longer about whether smoking causes cancer? Admitting the problem only grants license to perpetuate the problem. It’s what happened in the meat industry in 1906, with the repeal of Prohibition of alcohol in 1933, GMOs in the 1990s, cellphone towers in 1996, cellphones thereafter, and it’s happening right now with 5G.

All of which begs the following two questions:

  • Does Roundup cause cancer as is being claimed in the Roundup application lawsuits? It doesn’t even matter in this scheme.
  • Should Roundup be banned outright? No my friend; that’s just one side of a false dichotomy. It’s certainly dangerous when misused. But even if it was always dangerous, both sides already agree Roundup will never be banned. If it was, how would all the lawyers get paid?

The overuse and misuse of Roundup is also contributing to the final destruction of the family farm by allowing for fewer, low-skilled laborers to harvest large tracts of land, leading to total corporate control over food production. Remember what Kissinger said about controlling food?

It’s madness. But so far, no one in Washington cares, with the exception of JFK’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, God bless him for his principled stand against Bill Gates and vaccines,[4] doesn’t hold office.

Whatever this Covid-19 “pandemic” turns out to be, and whatever the NEXT one turns out to be, can anyone deny we’re LESS healthy than our ancestors were? Since when did harvesting a crop become impossible without the aid of a toxic substance? Remember the “failure of imagination” we were told prevented intelligence agencies from foreseeing 9-11? Don’t fall for it again.

Baumann, his phalanx of lawyers, accountants, right alongside his creditors, their phalanx of lawyers and accountants, AND their ratings agencies and insurers… all knew exactly what they were getting into when Bayer bought Monsanto. He’s playing the role of the victim… but would better be described as the cat who ate the canary.

Meanwhile, if you can contract Covid-19 more than once, can someone please tell me what good a vaccine will be? Never let a crisis go to waste. And when you can’t find one, make one up.

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Mischa Popoff grew up on a grain farm and worked as a USDA, CFIA and EU organic farm and process inspector. He’s written about the selling-out of the American organic industry to China for such outlets as The Daily Caller, Breitbart, Consumer Affairs and The Capital Research Center, and is the author of a self-published book titled Is it Organic? Three-quarters of the organic food you see on the store shelf is imported, and almost half tests positive for prohibited pesticides. He now writes on occasion for Dr. E. Michael Jones’ Culture Wars magazine where a more detailed version of this article will appear in June.

Notes

[1] “Glyphosate is not a true desiccant.” Ian Schemenauer, “Desiccation and pre-harvest glyphosate” Government of Saskatchewan, Ministry of Agriculture, 22 October 2016.

[2] Roundup is also widely used on many GMO crops during the growing season, which certainly contributes to this problem. But the application immediately prior to harvest all-but guarantees this herbicide will be present in our food.

[3] Henry A. Kissinger, “The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order; The U.S. must protect its citizens from disease while starting the urgent work of planning for a new epoch.” The Wall Street Journal, Opinion, April 3, 2020.

[4] “Robert F Kennedy Jr. Exposes Bill Gates’ Vaccine Dictatorship Plan – Cites Gates’ Twisted ‘Messiah Complex’” on Fort Russ News, April 10, 2020.

Featured image is from Mike Mozart/Flickr/CC

Il distanziamento sociale è molto di più di una semplice misura contingente alla pandemia, stravolgerà il nostro modo di vivere. A dirlo è il Massachusetts Institute of Technology. L’Istituto è al centro di numerosi progetti di ricerca, molti dei quali finanziati dalla Fondazione di Bill Gates. Insieme alle Rice University, il MIT sta mettendo a punto dei “certificati digitali”, serviranno, tra le altre cose, per controllare chi è guarito e chi ha ricevuto il vaccino. I dubbi sul certificato digitale nascono dal fatto che esso non è una semplice tessera sanitaria, ma verrà implementato con dei punti quantici a base di rame, iniettati nel corpo insieme al vaccino. Questi punti diventano una specie di tatuaggio, un codice a barre. La Fondazione Bill Gates dichiara di voler utilizzare questa tecnologia in Africa, insieme a quella dei microchip per regolare la fertilità delle donne. Per scoprire di più su questi temi abbiamo parlato con il geografo e giornalista Manlio Dinucci. #Byoblu24

Ci stiamo organizzando per la difesa della libertà di espressione. Hanno già firmato 50mila persone la campagna #CogitoErgoParlo. Firma e fai firmare tutti i tuoi conoscenti: https://go.byoblu.com/patto

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The major reason for Cuba’s travel restrictions-­‐-­‐ always used as grounds for slandering the Cuban state-­‐ is the extreme difficulty Cuba has maintaining foreign exchange reserves essential for international trade-­‐-­‐ esp. since the end of trade-­‐in-­‐kind with the COMECON. Every traveller from Cuba spends pesos that have to be covered by Cuba’s USD or EUR reserves. Since there are already more than enough obstacles imposed by the US embargo, every forex transaction is critical for Cuba’s balance of payments-­‐ -­‐ for its ability to buy what it cannot produce. In fact those who can still recall crossing from West Berlin to East Berlin will also remember that it was necessary to exchange DM 30 for M30 for every day one spent in the GDR. This was heavily criticised in the West, especially by travellers who would complain that it was impossible to spend the M 30 in a day since everything was so inexpensive. Of course the GDR was trying to compensate for the discriminatory exchange rates that made trade with the West a drain on its foreign currency reserves.

While many ordinary visitors complained and the Western media encouraged Germans in the East to complain about the buying power of the GDR mark, the fact is that throughout the world national economies only survived the Bretton Woods regime as long as they maintained currency controls. A major element in the economic warfare waged by the US Empire since 1945 has been to abolish fixed exchange rates. Having rigged the post-­‐war international monetary regime to replace the British pound with the US dollar as the benchmark currency, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were deployed to stabilise the US dollar with advantage over the old European currencies.

Although officially these were international institutions, they were organised like private corporations. The decisions were to be made by the majority of shares held in the IMF or World Bank. Since the US held the majority of capital in both, it was endowed with the most votes over any Fund or Bank decision. The quasi-­‐currency of the Fund and the Bank was called special drawing rights (SDR). These units of account were based on a weighted value of the underlying “reserve” currencies, mainlythe USD. SDRs could be used to resolve balance of payments discrepancies. Members of the IMF were extended SDRs according to the relative strengths of their economy. Based on the SDRs allocated to a country it could draw dollars or another reserve currencyin amounts sufficient to pay temporary imbalances between imports and exports, transactions that after WWII were almost all USD business.

As the late Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley once pointed out-­‐-­‐ when the Bretton Woods agreements were signed most of the countries, like Jamaica, were still colonies or protectorates of some European or North American power. Hence no provision was made for them to even have independent economies or national currencies. As a result most of the world’s population and any of the newly independent countries that did not adopt a version of a Euro-­‐American currency had no way to monetize their economic activity in international trade. They were left entirely dependent upon the USD, GBP, and for foreign trade of any kind. In order to limit USD hegemony in Africa, the French invented the CFA-­‐ Franc. This African franc tied its former African colonies to France by giving the CFA-­‐franc a favourable exchange rate with French franc, although not parity. Overall however the post-­‐war independence movements were all faced with the inherent dependence of their currency systems from the machinations of US and European banks with their control over the two major foreign exchange markets, the City and Wall Street. The exceptions to this regime were the Soviet Union and COMECON as and after 1959 Cuba.

When the US economy faced possible financial collapse toward the end of its war in Vietnam (it had been fairly successful in transferring the costs of the Korean War to the “United Nations”), secret negotiations by the Nixon administration with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ad through their offices

within OPEC, saved the USD by abolishing the gold fixing and establishing the USD as the sole currency for the world oil trade. At one fell swoop any country that did not have domestic oil supplies or had to trade oil on the world market was forced to use US dollars. To prove the point the US regime has never hesitated to wage war against any OPEC member that does not comply with this iron rule.Of course the US is the only country which can issue US dollars and its banks are the only ones who can sell USD denominated debt, directly or indirectly, hence the central role of the Federal Reserve System-­‐-­‐ the private banking cartel chartered to issuedollars and control US monetary policy. The US regime has also pursued rigorous policies-­‐-­‐ even if not always entirely successful-­‐-­‐ to draw all those dollars back into US assets or to permit US entities to acquire foreign assets through the unlimited capacity to generate USD and to monetize private business (while on the other hand prohibiting the monetizing of public debt for social services, infrastructure etc.)

This is the context in which the current economic war with China and to a lesser extent with Russia has to be seen. This economic war entered a new phase with the Wuhan attack.

Fast-­‐forward: European and US authorities order various degrees of “lockdown” and international travel, even within the EU itself, comes to a virtual halt. Airlines, hotels, and the rest of the travel sector have practically no more than essential business. The transport sector is also substantially restricted. The everyday economy is almost in coronary arrest.

What are the benefits of the general lockdown in the West? I sit really possible that the corona virus was so shocking that the economy as a whole was only an afterthought? Are we to believe that it was merely an oversight on the part of government to contemplate contingencies for epidemics but not for economics? It would be nice to think that Western governments care so much about the health of their citizens but that is rubbish. What is really very important-­‐-­‐ in fact, it is the only important issue for those who own our governments is MONEY and of course the powerthat goes with it.

What are the immediate consequences of the lockdown in economic terms?

  • restriction of travel by masses of a generally mobile and consuming population (at least in the EU)
  • restriction-­‐-­‐ soon to reach extinction of a substantial percentage of SMEs
  • obstruction of supply chain transactions, not least of which with China
  • increased unemployment beyond the already deliberately understated figures.
  • inevitable price increases, whether scarcity induced or because of added “safety”costs
  • the creation of potential for a layer of corruption and contraband traffic that will not only raise the prices of everyday life but partly criminalise it.

At the same time we have heard more than a few reports of new QE aka (giving trillions to so-­‐called banks). [1]

In the Western media one finds accusations that China caused the “corona crisis” to benefit from a fall in asset prices (not only stock markets but also for businesses damaged by the lockdown) to buy them up on the cheap. Personally I follow a golden rule when reading Western official statements, whether directly from regime mouthpieces or through their Great Wurlitzer: what they accuse is what they are hiding. It is like that classic scene in many a classroom: the bully slaps another pupil. Pupil slaps back and bully screams. The teacher only sees the return slap and never the first strike. The slapped pupil is punished and the bully rewarded.

If we ask critically what the new QE is supposed to do-­‐-­‐ is it to protect all these banks from another 2008 failure? No, not really. Instead it is to fill the “banks” with cash for pre-­‐emptive buying following the price crashes so that China can be blocked out of any further investment in the West’s critical sectors.

It is also survival money so that all the defaults and bankruptcies in the SME sector can be written off without damaging the overall profit line.

In other words a) and b) can be directly linked not only to strategic population control objectives, linked also to the now infamous universal vaccination programme, but also to the imposition of currency controls. In Europe, fewer euros will flow to China and in the US obviously the USD flows will be reduced. c) The disruption of supply chains is mainly an organisational measure. This will reduce the number of channels by which China can trade in the West. In the first stage it will also facilitate the consolidation of the economy in fewer hands so that those supply chains can be better managed from the top.

d) As argued elsewhere, purchasing power has declined steadily over the past thirty to forty years for most of the working population on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a need for a fundamental demographic adjustment. Germany for instance has used imported labour since its reestablishment in 1949. First it was a substitution for labour shortages immediately after its defeat by the Soviet Union. The so-­‐called Economic Miracle-­‐-­‐ the reconstruction period-­‐-­‐ in large part funded by orders from the US war machine in Korea-­‐-­‐ quickly absorbed its available German labour force. Hence it started to suck workers from impoverished Italy and Greece. If the German government is to be believed, then the domestic labour force is too old or too small to meet current demands, hence while domestic workers are under house arrest, the flow of persons displaced by NATO wars, e.g. in Syria, continues uninterrupted. Thus the new generation of industrial and technical labourers at the bottom of the German social hierarchy will not be Turkish but Arabic speaking. There is no reason that they will be able to return to their homes any time soon since NATO is not finished destroying them.

At the same time the crushing of the domestic small and medium sized sector will-­‐-­‐ as it always has-­‐-­‐ have a positive effect by forcing wages down even more. If the virus is really as effective as some claim at killing people aged 60 and above, then the state pension funds will be able to declare surpluses soon, net revenues from immigrants and a sudden decline in beneficiaries.This sounds cynical but the insurance model for social security installed under Bismarck anticipated much shorter lifespans and fewer eligible retirees than today. The government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 70 cannot solve the problem because there are no jobs for these 65+ citizens. Hence they have to live from savings or the dole. Better just let them die.

If there is an economic meltdown in the West, then these assets have to remain denominated in USD/ EUR denominated in order to prop up these currencies and preserve the fortunes of dollar/ euro/ or sterling billionaires.

Now add to this the lockdown and recall the case of CUBA.

The lockdown makes good economic sense from the commanding heights of the Western economy! By more or less crushing the SME sector with its increasing exposure to China, e.g. import of components and finished goods for resale, a substantial foreign exchange gap is closed. China is deprived of these payments. Thus foreign trade with China becomes ever more concentratedin the few cartels that share control over the monetary policies of the FED, Band of England and ECB.

For normal mortals this is insane, why would the West want to crush the lower third of its economy? For years people have been whining about the 1% butotherwise not doing very much about it. In fact, the 1% can live very well without most of the normal economy as long as they have currency stability for their stores of wealth in the world.

Not only travellers, like for Cuba, but much of the real economy, constitute a genuine risk to the monetary system the great Western private banks created in the BoE, in 1913 with the FED, and later with the ECB. The ECB and the euro can be sacrificed as long as the USD and GBP remain world standards.

e) One of the virtues of the system which could emerge as a short-­‐term or medium-­‐term result of the lockdown and its associated policies and practices is the creation of a new class of criminal activity-­‐-­‐ the real economy. Since it is unlikely that the West can suborn China and together with Russia impossible, the West has an obvious potential as far as I can see has hardly been mentioned. Perhaps it is worth recalling from mainstream history the narrative of feudalism: the peasants were tied to the land. The aristocracy and royalty fought over land plus the chattel (the people occupying and working the land). Movement from the land was forbidden without permission by the feudal lord (a prohibition also enforced by the Church, e.g. through the Inquisition). Pursuing a craft or trade was almost only possible in cities, which may or may not have been “free”. The details can be found in most standard history books about this period.

However we have almost no peasantry left-­‐-­‐ something that can be detected in the abysmal quality of food found in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain. Instead there are only “free labourers” some of whom imagine they own their homes. Immediately after the collapse of the GDR any traveller could see an explosion in the number of hairdressers and small restaurants or similar personal service enterprises. Much of this business was the desperate attempt to recover earning capacity after West German government and business closed GDR factories and other employing institutions causing an explosion in unemployment that is still vastly understated and concealed by half-­‐ hearted social policies. These businesses are vulnerable to taxation and other cost-­‐intensive regulations that are characteristic of modern bureaucratic states like Germany. It is also no wonder that they offer little more than a marginal income that often has to be compensated by some other job or social benefit.

At present that is all very exhausting and frustrating for the vast majority of people in this low-­‐income sector. Yet it is still legal. The first step toward terrorizing the bulk of the soon to be even more under-­‐ or unemployed is to restrict or effectively prohibit the personal service sector-­‐-­‐ for health reasons. Now it is almost impossible to get a haircut or a manicure anywhere because these businesses have been forced to close as part of the policy of “social distancing”. Reality however knows no such prohibitions. Those people who have no other means of earning a living except personal services and hoset who need those services will find a way to meet and transact business.

This is where the spirit of Mr Gates is especially pernicious-­‐-­‐ but not simply because of some billions more that he may steal. What Mr Gates, as the poster boy, and the whole public health paramilitary/ civil affairs regime that is nascent as I write offer us-­‐-­‐ or may well force upon us-­‐-­‐ is spiritually and socially akin to the Prohibition regime created by the Volstead Act in the US. Prohibition was introduced ostensibly to control alcohol abuse. However it failed to get substantial legislative support until people like Henry Ford-­‐-­‐ then along with Rockefeller one of the world’s richest men-­‐-­‐ insisted that Prohibition would give them the power to destroy the meeting places of immigrants, especially those from Eastern and Southern Europe where beer and wine were integral to social life. Forbidding alcohol to people who for centuries considered wine and beer part of their diets was a serious attack on their private and family lives. However since this was a “health” issue the Volstead Act did not violate any constitutional rights. Any place could be closed for serving alcohol of any kind. The meeting venues for almost all immigrants could be shut by armed police wholly within the law.

Although this was a draconian law, it was not really enforceable. In fact, the famous Kennedy political dynasty was only one family whose wealth came from breaking the law. At no time during the period of Prohibition in the US was the ruling class deprived of intoxicating drink. Moreover the covert sale of alcohol, the bribery of police and other officials, the payment of protection money to gangsters, created an entire corporate structure, which survives today although its product range is based mainlyon opiates. The illegal and legal drug businesses constitute one of the main pillars of USD supremacy, along with oil and weapons, but that is just a detail here.

The important point here is that the culture of prohibition has clearly mutated into the field of “communicable disease”, i.e. highly infectious viruses. Whether or not Mr Gates and his friends will succeed in their ID2020 scheme-­‐-­‐ vaccine or subcutaneous identity chips-­‐ is certainly a very serious question. But even if this particular model doesnot get forced under our skin, the struggle in the lower half or third of the population to survive through personal services and hospitality will become a target for the same kind of parasitical class that developed and enriched itself under the Prohibition regime, and in the environment of permanent war (which was what1984most nauseatingly described) scarcity and corruption are designer processes-­‐-­‐ intended to punish and discipline the majority of the population while extracting every bit of surplus from their already meagre incomes. This artificially created illegality will empower a class of people who profit from serving it and have no interest whatsoever in return to normal human relations. The already immanent price increases and due to increased unemployment parallel decline in wages-­‐-­‐ with the risk that one can be excluded from work or income for “health” reasons-­‐-­‐ will further enrich those at the top while undermining solidarity downward as people become caught in the net of this policing regime.

Therefore it is absolutely essential to resist any further imposition of this state of siege. In this matter, I cannot help paraphrasing some otherwise noxious colonial from the 18th century: we must all be sick together, or each of us will be sick separately-­‐-­‐ in isolation.

There are some people who read George Orwell’s books as prescriptions; after all he spent his last years working for an office in the British “Ministry of Truth”. Then there are those who completely misread his books as attacks on the Soviet Union and communism. However those who read his books carefully will see that he understood the spirit and actions of his employers very well. Orwell’s fiction is ambivalent, like his entire career and his nonfiction works as well. Perhaps the best way to understand them is as the diaries of a colonial police officer, who knew his duty and no matter how disagreeable did it.That duty was to hold down the hands and feet of the ruled while the rulers emptied their pockets. Orwell knew he was working for gangsters, but he needed the job. That was the price he paid.

AND yes, if Madeleine Albright was ready to see half a million Iraqi children dead for the policies she was appointed to represent, you can bet that some 60 million, dead or enslaved, is also a price the 1% find worth paying to keep their privilege on this planet in tact.

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Dr T.P. Wilkinson writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is also the author of Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa

Note

[1] QE = quantitative easing: a term of financial jargon used by the US Federal Reserve System to denote privileged financial support to the top tier “banks” to prevent them from suffering (or collapsing) under the weight of their own elaborate extractive operations, e.g. debt siphons and gambling rackets. The mechanism involves the quasi-­‐governmental (but actually privately owned and managed) Federal Reserve System purchasing the “bad” or uncollectible debts or gambling chits of these top tier “banks” by issuing Treasury obligations (e.g. so-­‐called T-­‐notes), basically certified claims that these “banks” may then assert against the US government to siphon tax receipts and other public income into their coffers. These claims are negotiable too, meaning they are traded on financial markets and can be used like money to buy non-­‐financial assets.

Closedown vs. No Closedown

April 21st, 2020 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Every country with the exception of Sweden found it necessary to close down at least part of the economy in order to prevent the highly infectious virus from overwhelming their medical care systems.  The exponential rate of infection together with a lack of sufficient health resources obviously meant an overwhelmed system that would be unable to provide care for those suffering from other illnesses and deadly conditions, such as heart attacks.

The need to reduce the caseload was also influenced by the uncertainty of treatment.  It has been only through experimentation that health care professionals have found some successful treatments and learned that ventilators were causing deaths.  Knowledge about the virus and its attack on vital organs is still emerging. The long incubation period and the fact that people can spread the virus without themselves having symptoms makes the virus far more challenging than flu, with which it is often mistakenly compared.  The fact that people of all ages and health conditions have died from the virus, or from inappropriate treatment and prior conditions, and the impossibility of knowing in advance the severity of any person’s case produces a situation that can easily explode out of control.

The policy of isolation and social distancing has worked.  It has reduced the infection rate to a manageable one in most places.  One consequence of this success is to increase the sense of safety and the belief that the virus is a hoax being used to take away civil liberties.  There is no doubt that the deep state and other agendas will make use of the virus for their purposes.  But the virus is definitely real and not a hoax.

The success of social isolation has produced a belief that the virus was over-hyped, causing some people to call the policy into question.  Crowds in violation of the social distancing policy are protesting against the policy, with some marching around with weapons.  

No doubt that the policy has costs that offset in part its benefits. But the question remains whether protest is an intelligent response or selfishness and a paranoia of its own. 

In Chinese and Japanese cities where the spread of the virus was successfully controlled and the cities reopened, the result has been a second wave of infections (see this). 

In contrast in North Florida, the closing of beaches and vacation rentals has resulted in the area being essentially free of virus cases.  Based on the Chinese and Japanese experience, we should expect a reopening provoked by impatience to reignite the infection rate.

Possibly health care providers have learned better how to treat the disease and perhaps the supply of protective gear for health care providers has improved and masks have become available for a reopened work place.  If not, impatience will stampede us again into crisis.

If we had been prepared with protective gear, with an adequate supply of tests that work, with an understanding of the virus and its treatment, closedowns, other than perhaps in congested cities heavily dependent on public transportation such as New York city, could have been avoided.

The protesters are wrong in thinking that a low death rate of the virus makes it a non-threat.  It is certainly possible that many more people have the virus than is known (see this) and that many of the deaths attributed to the virus are results of other causes.  The virus is nevertheless dangerous because it is highly contagious, because the severity of cases widely differs without the ability to know in advance the severity of any case, because treatments are uncertain, because people without symptoms spread the virus, and because some recovered people have insufficient antibodies to prevent reinfection.

Business and political interests want the economy reopened, but if we are careless about the process the outcome can be a worse economic and health crisis.

Belief that the best policy is to let the virus spread in order to develop “herd immunity” is undercut by reinfection.  There is no herd immunity to common colds or flu. I know people whose winter colds are followed by summer colds and people who get flu every year, flu shot or not.  

There are many lessons that we should learn from the virus challenge. One is that a profit-driven health care system results in inadequate structure to deal with a pandemic.  We need to break the hold of Big Pharma on our health care and medical education and substitute public health motivated medical professionals in place of profit.  Another is that we must prevent selfish agendas from using disease to the disadvantage of the health and rights of the public. Politically weaponizing the virus, as has been done, is irresponsible in the extreme.

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

A weeks earlier agreement between them collapsed, a new unity deal struck.

Netanyahu prevailed. Gantz’s surrender to his demands split his Blue and White (B &W) party.

It may have ended his chance to become prime minister, his political career perhaps ruined by reportedly agreeing to most Netanyahu demands — a Gantz Versailles as things now stand.

On Monday night, capitulation was formalized, a “national emergency government” formed, ending over a year of political stalemate.

Gantz tweeted the following:

“We prevented fourth elections. We’ll safeguard democracy” (that’s nonexistent under apartheid rule).

“We’ll fight the coronavirus and look out for all Israeli citizens. We have a national emergency government.”

Netanyahu remains prime minister at least for the next 18 months, Gantz to serve as deputy PM and war minister with veto power over who’ll serve as Knesset speaker, Gantz ally Gabi Ashkenazi (another former IDF chief) to be foreign minister.

Terms of the deal give Netanyahu veto power over appointments of Israel’s next attorney general and state prosecutor.

In other words, he’ll have say over who’ll prosecute him for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in trial proceedings scheduled to begin on May 24 — unless postponed again, a real possibility.

Netanyahu and Gantz will share power on appointment of new judges, along with other members of Likud and remnants of the Blue and White party.

Given how Netanyahu got Gantz to capitulate on key terms of their deal, the PM will likely have most say on who’ll become appointed judges, ones favoring his interests likely to be chosen.

Should coalition government unravel during the next 18 months, Gantz would take over as prime minister.

If Netanyahu retains the post over this time period and remains free from imprisonment for serious offenses, it’s unclear if he’ll relinquish his portfolio to Gantz as terms of their deal stipulate.

All along from early last year to now, he manipulated things to get his way, his tactics likely to continue as long as he remains in power.

Yet Israel’s High Court could disrupt his best laid plans by disqualifying him from serving as prime minister if convicted of charges against him.

If this occurs, new elections would be held, returning things to an unsettled status quo.

Many Gantz supporters feel betrayed by his capitulation to most Netanyahu demands.

While Gantz and remnants of his Blue and White party have some degree of checks and balances power under the deal agreed on, Netanyahu showed he’s wily enough to get his way most often.

A founding Blue and White party source said the Netanyahu/Gantz deal agreed on breached B & W’s “founding vision” while retaining some power over Netanyahu’s Likud.

Since COVID-19 outbreaks began in Israel on February 21, Netanyahu used the situation to his advantage, including postponement of his trial scheduled to begin on March 17.

Gantz agreed to let him proceed with annexation of whatever Palestinian land was signed off on by the Trump regime, including the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea that comprise about 30% of the West Bank.

Israeli plans for the area include further urban, agricultural, and energy development — Palestinians already prohibited from entering or using nearly 90% of the territory for any purpose.

Almost half of the Jordan Valley is called state land, most of the rest designated closed military zones, nature reserves, and land set aside for regional councils administered by local officials of settlements.

Annexation would formalize grand theft, more Palestinian land seizures to follow, according to Israel’s longterm plan for full control over all valued historic Palestinian territory.

After vowing never to be part of a coalition government headed by Netanyahu, Gantz yielded to his key demands — destroying B & W party unity along with his own standing in the eyes of many supporters.

Saying he’s “at peace with (himself) and…with (his) decision” defies reality.

Haaretz editors slammed his capitulation, saying his “lack of understanding is colossal,” adding:

“Instead of pursuing his wish to restore Israel to a path of statesman-like behavior and the rule of law, he may turn out to be the person extricating Netanyahu from his legal predicament.”

COVID-19 “is a smokescreen used by Netanyahu to maneuver (Gantz) into a unity government trap…turn(ing) his back on (supporters, letting) Netanyahu…use (him) to dismantle the rule of law.”

His actions likely prevent enactment of Knesset legislation that “would prohibit a person under criminal indictment from forming a government.”

His capitulation permitted what should be impermissible.

Instead of demanding that Netanyahu be held accountable for charges against him in trial proceedings as soon as possible, Gantz handed him a possible stay out of jail free pass.

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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.”

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Video: COVID-19: Closing Down the Economy Is Not the Solution

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 21, 2020

While the lockdown is presented to public opinion as  the sole means to resolving a global public health crisis,  its devastating economic and social impacts are casually ignored.

The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of  mass unemployment, bankruptcy and extreme poverty.

A Government Against the People

By Philip Giraldi, April 21, 2020

The 24/7 intensified media coverage of the coronavirus story has meant that other news has either been ignored or relegated to the back pages, never to be seen again. The Middle East has been on a boil but coverage of the Trump administration’s latest moves against Iran has been so insignificant as to be invisible. Meanwhile closer to home, the declaration by the ubiquitous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that current president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker did generate somewhat of a ripple, as did dispatch of warships to the Caribbean to intercept the alleged drugs, but that story also died.

Iran Defies American Naval Power

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, April 21, 2020

Iran is already beginning to challenge American naval power. The country recently reported on the development of an advanced mapping and communication network for submarines. The network consists of a complex wireless communication system called “Waza” and integrates an entire national defense project: with land and sea forces inferior to those of enemy countries, such as the United States, Iran invests in its submarine power, since it has several different classes, many of which were built by Russia decades ago and are still capable of venturing into distant waters.

The Gates Foundation’s Vaccination Activism

By Eric Wagner, April 21, 2020

In the corona crisis, billionaire Bill Gates makes a high-profile appearance as a vaccination activist. The essence: a vaccine is the solution, it is only a matter of implementation. According to Gates, the G20 should now “address the logistics of a global immunisation project”. There seems to be little interest in further discussions and the consideration of alternatives. Time is pressing and people are relying on Gates, who had identified the danger of a pandemic early on and would therefore know what to do. How justified is this trust?

Desertions in the Desert: US Mercenaries at Syrian Base Are Leaving

By Steven Sahiounie, April 21, 2020

The last Syrian ‘rebel’ unit on the US payroll is dissolving by desertions.  A former senior officer in the US-backed mercenary unit Maghaweir al-Thowra (MAT) deserted his unit in Syria on April 14.  Samir Ghannam al-Khidr deserted the Eastern Syrian desert along with his whole family and 26 armed men.  The convoy was subject to a video on social media, which showed 8 pickups, 1 truck, 11 small arms, including 5 M-16 rifles, 4 large-caliber machine guns, 5 grenade launchers and 6-7 thousand rounds of ammunition.  All of the vehicles and weaponry were US military property. Al-Khidr left the illegal US base at Tanf, which is home to about 200 US soldiers, and about 100 mercenaries of MAT. Previous desertions occurred in early April.

Coronavirus Capitalism: Entrenching Dispossession and Dependency

By Colin Todhunter, April 21, 2020

Things in the US hardly merit optimism for radical change either. The Federal Reserve estimates over 47 million will lose their jobs in the US, taking unemployment to almost a third of the labour force. This is more than during the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, in a series of short explanatory films for the layperson, analyst John Titus shows that US capitalism and the privately owned Fed are not going to change their spots: Wall Street and its top executives will continue to enrich themselves, while the public will suffer throughout the duration of lockdown, which could persist in various forms for 18 months.

As US Shale Oil Plunges, Trump Admin Takes Aim at Venezuela

By Whitney Webb, April 21, 2020

With oil extremely cheap at the moment, some of the issues raised by shale oil bankruptcies are not necessarily of immediate concern while demand remains low. Yet, if enough U.S. domestic oil producers go bankrupt, once current lockdowns are relaxed and oil demand creeps back up to relatively normal levels, there will be less domestic oil available, despite the SPR. As a result, the U.S. will again have to look more to other countries in order to make up the difference. Though the media thus far has explored the economic effects of this eventuality, less attention – if any – has been given to how it will impact U.S. foreign policy.

The Agribusiness Model Is Failing

By F. William Engdahl, April 21, 2020

The imposition of unprecedented mass quarantine, school and restaurant closings, factory closings across most of the world is putting the focus on the alarming vulnerability of what is a global food supply chain to severe breakdown. Before the lockdown an estimated 60% of all food consumed in the United States today was consumed outside the home. That includes in restaurants, fast food places, schools, in university cafeterias, company cafeterias and the like. That has now been all but shut since March, creating huge disruptions to what had been a well-organized supply chain delivery. Large restaurants or company cafeterias receive supplies of everything from butter to meat in entirely different volumes and packing than a retail supermarket. A major vulnerability exists in the mammoth agribusiness concentrations known as CAFOs or Concentrated Agriculture Feeding Organizations.


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The transit industry was one of the most important in Latvia and was established during the Soviet era. In the first years of Latvia’s independence in the 1990’s, it was destroyed. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has significantly lowered Latvia’s gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for this year, estimating that Latvia will have the sharpest economic downturn in the Baltic States this year at a massive 8.6%. A massive part of this downturn is precisely because of the failure of the transit industry.

Although the IMF does not decipher what factors led it to forecast the sharpest decline in GDP in Latvia, the Baltic country has the largest share of air transport in the region and the decline in the aviation sector will be very large. The difficulties in the aviation sector are entirely the result of the coronavirus pandemic of course, but the situation is different with the transit sector. While a significant drop in turnover is observed in Latvian ports and railway transportation, the Klaipeda port in Lithuania achieved a record monthly turnover last month at 4.5 million tons.

This effectively means that coronavirus is not to blame and rather it was the deliberate destruction of the transit industry that is attributed to the U.S. sanctions imposed and implemented by the New Conservative Party against Russia. This is in addition to the changes in the port administration model and the dismissal of the Riga City Council.

In Latvia, common sense and economic benefits were sacrificed for the emotional joy of the anti-Russian elites who came to power and associated the country’s ports and railways as belonging to the wrong political ideas and Russia. The new party gave up €380 million for the electrification of Latvian Railways, thus permanently returning the transit sector to Lithuanians ports and transportation networks. Latvia’s political elites chose to destroy the country’s economy for ideological reasons.

The whole pathos in the first years of independence was aimed at the fact that industry is something “foreign” to the Latvian people. From the political elite’s view, industry in Latvia must be destroyed as it embodies so-called Soviet occupation and Russian invasion. Even agriculture could not be saved from these purges. The old agricultural structures were considered to be ideologically harmful and therefore were destroyed. Effectively Latvia has been de-industrialized in a crazed frenzy to also de-Sovietize their societies, but at what price?

Latvia gave up its industry because it believed that it could potentially be a pressure point against Russia on behalf of the West and with its blessing. During a meeting with the German and Baltic Chambers of Commerce in February, Latvian President Egils Levits, said that it is important his country considers itself a part of the West but can be a bridge to Russia. Levits also emphasized that Latvia is an active member of the European Union and participates in discussion of all issues.

“We are thinking about the specific situation of Latvia so that these common decisions would benefit Latvia, but at the same time we also think about the fact that these common decisions in the EU would benefit the entire EU,” the President emphasized. In his view, this is the right approach, although it is more difficult for a small country to implement than for larger countries. “Therefore, our foreign policy and also our European policy is based on multilateralism,” he claimed.

Such positive comments towards the EU is rather just gestures in the hope to get money from the Bloc as Latvia surely enters into an economic crisis. The concept of connecting the East and West through the Baltics was developed by the Baltic states themselves who tried to convince the EU that they knew Russia best because they were part of the Soviet Union. However, such a bridge is only necessary when contacts do not exist between the West and Russia, and Moscow has never needed a mediator nor has anyone appointed Riga for this role.

Latvia has never been a mediator in relations between Russia and the EU in the political sense, but has acted as a transit hub for the supply of cargo and energy resources from Russia. However, even this is being reduced now in favor of Lithuania as the Latvian government continues to follow an aggressively anti-Russian policy.

With Riga not needed as a bridge between East and West, and Latvia now a deindustrialized country, it is now facing one of its worse economic crises that it created itself despite the coronavirus pandemic. It is also unlikely that the EU will bail them out since expansion into the Baltics was already achieved and Brussels has its eyes set on the Balkans instead.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

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Unprecedented: “Oil Prices Can Go Negative”

April 21st, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Last month, analyst Paul Sankey warned that “(o)il prices can go negative” in today’s environment. On March 18, he wrote:

“The physical reality of the market is that oil is pumped out of the ground and has to be consumed or stored.” 

“When the cost of storage goes high enough — or space runs out — companies might pay customers to take it.”

He wasn’t alone in this assessment, reports weeks earlier saying prices indeed can go below zero because of falling demand and increasing supply.

With global storage capacity close to its limit, negative oil prices if sustained would force producers to pay customers to take deliveries because the cost is cheaper than shutting down wells.

On Monday, the May spot futures contract for WTI (West Texas Intermediate oil) closed at an astonishing negative $37.63 a barrel, an unprecedented price collapse.

Commenting on what happened, oil analyst Louise Dickson said “(i)t’s like trying to explain something that is unprecedented and seemingly unreal,” adding:

“(M)idstream players are now paying ‘buyers’ to take oil volumes away as the physical storage limit will be reached. And they are paying top dollar.”

On Monday, the June futures contract for WTI closed down 18.3% at $20.03 a barrel, a figure unlikely to be a floor if economic conditions remain weak.

Last week, Schlumberger CEO Olivier Le Peuch said Q II is “likely to be the most uncertain and disruptive quarter that the (oil) industry has ever seen.”

A Halliburton assessment was grim, saying it “expect(s) activity in North America land to sharply decline during the second quarter and remain depressed through year-end, impacting all basins.”

Analyst Edward Moya said “no one wants to take delivery because storage capacity is getting close to being reached.”

Analyst Phil Flynn noted “demand ground to a standstill.” The Russian/Saudi led deal among global producers to cut output by 10 million barrels a day did nothing to stabilize prices because far greater production cuts are needed.

On Monday, Brent crude for June delivery closed at $25.57 a barrel because it’s more seaborne than WTI that’s mostly supplied more quickly via pipelines.

On Tuesday, AP News reported that “(t)he world is awash in oil. There’s little demand for it, and we’re running out of places to put it.”

On Monday, WTI crude for May delivery ranged from an astonishing +$15 to -$40 a barrel, closing near its low price.

Production continues daily at a slower pace. Output has to go somewhere, but to where if storage capacity is near its limit.

While one day’s price volatility is technical, according to analysts, negative WTI prices reflect economic weakness that’s likely to be around for some time.

Some pressure may be relieved by filling the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity.

Gasoline is the cheapest in many years because most people aren’t driving, the same true for jet fuel because of limited air travel.

According to CNBC, the overnight price for late May delivery of WTI is $35.77 a barrel, a figure likely to swing widely in trading during the day and what follows.

Its website showed an image of parked commercial passenger planes sitting idle that normally would be in service. A second image showed a near-deserted passenger airline terminal.

As bad as things are at a time of weak economic conditions, OilPrice.com struck a positive note, saying:

“(N)egative oil prices do not mean curtains for the oil industry.”

The higher-priced June contract that expires May 19 “is a better representation of the true oil market” even though it shows price weakness because of low demand, adding:

“While (Monday’s spot oil prices) “may not be as bleak as they seem, there is still trouble ahead for the oil industry.”

Since around mid-March, about 260 US rigs were shut down for lack of demand, the number expected to rise.

If oil prices stay well below the cost of production for some time, many producers will likely declare bankruptcy — some reorganizing to continue operating, others shutting down permanently.

According to Rystad Energy, hundreds of oil exploration and production companies will go out of business if $20 crude continues through 2021.

It’s an ideal time for the Trump regime to launch a new Middle East war or escalate ongoing ones in Syria, Yemen, and/or Libya that surely would increase oil prices significantly.

Hard times for oil producing nations and companies are temporary.

But in a weak economic environment that could get weaker and stay soft throughout 2020 or longer, low prices may be around for some time.

Global economic shutdowns are uncharted territory. When they end, things won’t likely be as they were before current troubles began.

Privileged interests are benefitting from the current environment at the expense of ordinary people in the West and elsewhere.

They face greater poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and overall deprivation.

Hard times for them have been getting harder since the neoliberal 90s, especially post-9/11, and now economic shutdowns, countless millions struggling to get by.

For the vast majority of ordinary people, in the West and elsewhere, the outlook ahead is bleak.

Today’s perfect storm will likely cause more harm to more people than global wars, most of it under the radar so the true toll won’t likely be reported.

Expect the worst, what’s likely coming this year and what follows.

I remember and wrote about numerous economic downturns and wars, including WW I and II, the latter I remember well before the television age.

Long ago, I never imagined anything like what’s happening now and believe it’s not accidental.

Opportunities abounded for me what I entered the workforce in 1960.

The environment for today’s youths in the US and West is bleak.

Opportunities I had don’t exist for most people, just for the privileged few.

It’s sad testimony to America gone off the rails — never beautiful throughout its history.

Today it’s never been more unsafe and unfit to live in for the vast majority of people.

Both right wings of the one-party state are enemies of ordinary people at home and abroad.

The nation I grew up in no longer exists, things getting disturbingly worse, not better — a grim assessment for what likely lies ahead.

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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.”

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

As the nation struggles to slow the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration has approved an antibiotic considered critical in the ongoing fight against the global tuberculosis pandemic for use as a pesticide on California citrus groves.

This marks the third straight year the so-called “emergency” approval has been granted for use of streptomycin to fight citrus greening disease in citrus trees like oranges, tangerines and grapefruits in California. As has become routine under the Trump Environmental Protection Agency over the past year, the emergency approval was not publicly announced but quietly posted to agency’s Emergency Exemption Database.

“The Trump administration’s shortsighted approval of medically important antibiotics as pesticides has very dangerous long-term consequences,” said Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These are lifesaving medicines, and we risk losing them forever if we keep using them as short-term fixes for reoccurring agricultural diseases.”

The EPA’s own analysis indicates that the widespread use of streptomycin could have negative long-term effects on all mammals that forage in treated fields, including chipmunks and rabbits. The EPA has also not analyzed how this change could affect endangered and threatened species that forage or nest in these citrus groves, or that rely on waterways contaminated by the antibiotic.

The emergency approvals are also controversial because they sidestep the typical pesticide safety review and because the World Health Organization has discouraged overuse of this antibiotic. Streptomycin is considered “critically” important to treating human disease, such as multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

In part because the misuse of antibiotics has fueled resistance in tuberculosis-causing bacteria, the global TB pandemic still kills more than 1 million people around the world every year. In the United States antibiotic resistance results in the deaths of an estimated 35,000 people every year.

The Center is currently litigating the EPA’s failure to release documents relating to concerns expressed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration about the use of antibiotics on agricultural crops.

“It makes no sense that, even as we struggle to find a treatment for COVID-19, the Trump administration is promoting overuse of an important drug in the fight against another pandemic,” said Donley. “The coronavirus crisis should serve as a wake-up call about the high costs of ignoring our leading scientists. We can fool ourselves, but we can’t fool nature.”

Background

Both the European Union and Brazil have banned the use of streptomycin as a pesticide on agricultural plants.

Yet for years the U.S. EPA has routinely allowed use of a range of unapproved pesticides, including antibiotics, under the pretext of an “emergency” when no actual emergency exists, according to an analysis by the Center.

The EPA has used the emergency exemption to approve the use of medically important antibiotics on citrus across 23,000 acres in California and more than 330,000 acres of Florida farmland.

The state of Florida has received an emergency exemption for streptomycin for the previous five years for use on citrus crops. Its current emergency approval is set to expire at the end on this year.

The emergency approvals come as the EPA has proposed a blanket approval that could see as much as 650,000 pounds of streptomycin used across half a million acres of citrus fields throughout the United States. By contrast only about 14,000 pounds of that antibiotic class are used for human medicinal purposes each year. If finalized this blanket approval would no longer require states to apply for emergency exemptions.

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SouthFront offers a scientific-based survey providing an in-depth look at the real death toll statistics and the spread of SARS-COV-2.

1. The research issued by the Bonn University Hospital

The research issued by the Bonn University Hospital and made by the group of scientists including Prof. Dr. Hendrik Streeck (Institute of Virology), Prof. Dr. Gunther Hartmann (Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, Spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2), Prof. Dr. Martin Exner (Institute for Hygiene and Public Health), Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmid (Institute for Medical Biometry, Computer Science and Epidemiology).

In the framework of the research, all residents of Germany’s Gangelt were tested on the existence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

Gangelt is one of the most COVID-19-affected German municipalities. It is believed that the outbreak was caused by the carnival held on February 15, 2020. After the event, several people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Preliminary result: the existing immunity was determined at about 14% (IgG against SARS-CoV2, method specificity>, 99%). About 2% of people had current SARS-CoV-2 infection detected by the method of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The overal infection rate (the presence of a current infection or antibody in the body) was about 15%. The mortality (mortality rate), based on the total number of infected people in the Gangelt community, is approximately 0.37% based on the preliminary data of this study. The mortality rate based on the total population in the Gangelt is currently 0.06%.

2. A new Epidemiological bulletin from German Robert Koch Institute

A new Epidemiological bulletin from German Robert Koch Institute – “Estimation of the current development of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Germany” issued on April 15 confirms that:

in general, it is true that not all infected people have symptoms, not all who has symptoms go to a doctor’s office, not all who go to the doctor are tested and not all who test positive are recorded in a survey system. In addition, a certain amount of time passes between all these individual steps, so that no data collection system, however good, can make a statement about the current infection process without additional assumptions and calculations.”

Meanwhile, April 18 Daily Situation Report of the Robert Koch Institute shows that 86% of deaths, but only 18% of all cases, occurred in persons aged 70 years or older. The median age was 82 years. Pneumonia was reported in 2,764 cases (3%). COVID-19 related outbreaks continue to be reported in nursing homes and hospitals. In some of these outbreaks, the number of deaths is relatively high. The current estimate is R= 0.8 (95% confidence interval: 0.7-1.0).

3. On 13 April, the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, published its third ad hoc statement on the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (the group of 26 Prof. Doctors)

The statement, which supplements its two predecessors, describes strategies for a stepwise lifting or modification of measures against the pandemic, taking into account psychological, social, legal, pedagogic and economic aspects. The document recommends in particular the re-opening of classroom primary and lower-level secondary education as soon as feasible, giving priority to the former, with observation of hygiene and physical distancing measures.

SARS-CoV-2 Mortality Is Distorted

SARS-CoV-2 Mortality Is Distorted

The National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina takes a stand with psychological, social, the legal, educational and economic aspects of the pandemic, following key recommendations:

  • Optimizing the basis for decision-making: The data collection, which has so far been largely symptom-based, leads to a distorted perception of the infection process. It is therefore important to collect the infection and substantially improve the immunity status of the population, in particular through representative and regional survey of infection and immunity status.
  • Enable a differentiated assessment of the risks both for social and individual dealings with the corona pandemic, contextual classification of the available data is important. Data to serious illnesses and deaths must be compared to those of other illnesses and related to the expected risk of death in individual age groups. A realistic one. Presentation of the individual risk must be clearly illustrated. This also applies to systemic risks such as overloading the health system and negative consequences for the economy and society.
  • To cushion psychological and social impacts: measures taken for implementation intrinsic motivation based on self-protection and solidarity is more important than the threats of sanctions. Providing a realistic schedule and a clear package of measures for gradual normalization increases the controllability and predictability for everyone. This helps to minimize negative psychological the physical andeffects of the current stress. Firs of all, aid and support should be provided for high-risk groups, such as children, who are particularly affected by the consequences of current restrictions in difficult family situations or people who are exposed to domestic violence must be provided become.

There are more another recommendations in the third ad hoc statement of the German National Academy of Sciences that now are being implemented by German leadership.

4. New research from the United States

Group of authors from Stanford University, Stanford University School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Health Education is Power, Inc., The Compliance Resource Group, Inc., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Bogan Associates, 8 ARL BioPharma, Inc., Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine measured the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Santa Clara County and made some conclusions.

The data received and conclusions of the US team are well corresponding with the research of German Bonn University Hospital taking into account that the German research came out on April 9, and the American one on April 14, with the reasonable assumption that the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the German city of Gangelt began at least two week earlier (February 15, 2020) than in the American Santa Clara.

The US researchers estimated that under the three scenarios for test performance characteristics, the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara ranged from 2.49% (95CI 1.80-3.17%) to 4.16% (2.58-5.70%). These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases. Conclusions. The population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection is much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. Population prevalence estimates can now be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.

5. More data from the United States

Between March 22 and April 4, 2020, a total of 215 pregnant women delivered infants at the New York–Presbyterian Allen Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. All the women were screened on admission for symptoms of Covid-19. Four women (1.9%) had fever or other symptoms of Covid-19 on admission, and all 4 women tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 1). Of the 211 women without symptoms, all were afebrile on admission. Nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from 210 of the 211 women (99.5%) who did not have symptoms of Covid-19; of these women, 29 (13.7%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, 29 of the 33 patients who were positive for SARS-CoV-2 at admission (87.9%) had no symptoms of Covid-19 at presentation.

Our use of universal SARS-CoV-2 testing in all pregnant patients presenting for delivery revealed that at this point in the pandemic in New York City, most of the patients who were positive for SARS-CoV-2 at delivery were asymptomatic, and more than one of eight asymptomatic patients who were admitted to the labor and delivery unit were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Although this prevalence has limited generalizability to geographic regions with lower rates of infection, it underscores the risk of Covid-19 among asymptomatic obstetrical patients. Moreover, the true prevalence of infection may be underreported because of false negative results of tests to detect SARS-CoV-2.

6. Hypothesis and justification from a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Milan State University, Italy

The real number of COVID-19 cases in the country could be 5,000,0000 (compared to the 119,827 confirmed ones) according to a study which polled people with symptoms who have not been tested, and up to 10,000,000 or even 20,0000,000 after taking into account asymptomatic cases, according to Carlo La Vecchia, a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the Milan State University.

This number would still be insufficient to reach herd immunity, which would require 2/3 of the population (about 40,000,000 people in Italy) having contracted the virus.

The number of deaths could also be underestimated by 3/4 (in Italy as well as in other countries) [source], meaning that the real number of deaths in Italy could be around 60,000.

If these estimates were true, the mortality rate from COVID-19  would be much lower (around 25 times less) than the case fatality rate based solely on laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths, since it would be underestimating cases (the denominator) by a factor of about 1/100 and deaths by a factor of 1/4.

7. SARS-CoV-2 mortality in Italy

As for now, it is a well-known publicly recognized fact that Italy labels anyone who died with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of the real causes of death, as the victim of the pandemic. At the same time, the objective fact is the increase of the overall mortality in Italy. According to Istat (Istituto nazionale di statistica), there is a general increase in mortality from all causes ⩾20% from March 1 to April 4, 2020 compared with the average for the same period in 2015-2019. Bergamo is at the top in the growth of mortality among municipalities, + 382.8% of deaths.

However, the mortality grew not only and not so much from the causes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A few examples:

  • Albino town: from February 23 to March 27, 2019 – 24 people died; from February 23 to March 27, 2020 – 145 people (SARS-CoV-2 causes – 30 dead).
  • Skandzoroshyate town: from January to March 2019 – 45 deaths; from January to March 2020 – 135 (SARS-CoV-2 – 20 dead).
  • San Pellegrino Terme town: March 2019 – 2 deaths, March 2020 – 45 (SARS-CoV-2 – 11 dead).
  • These numbers could be explained by the lack of SARS-CoV-2 tests in the specified period.

At the same time, the mortality from other diseases increased significantly in the comparative period of April 1-4, 2020 compared to April 1-4, 2019. The lack of transparence of the Italian system also should be noted. For example, on April 17, Istat said that at that moment it was impossible to draw any conclusions about the increase of the mortality in Italy in general (as well as in regions and provinces) from the data obtained by Istat for the first four months of 2020 and compare it with the same period in 2019. These graphs and tables show statistics:

SARS-CoV-2 Mortality Is Distorted

8. SARS-CoV-2 mortality in Spain

Spanish Minister of Health Salvador Illa stated that every dead person, that tested positively to SARS-CoV-2, is considered as a SARS-CoV-2 death.

The mathematical model employed by the University of Carlos III in Madrid (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, UC3M) demonstrates that in the last decade in Spain, an average of 1,150 people die from all causes every day in March. According to the records of acts of civil status, from March 16 (the day quarantine began), the number of daily deaths from all causes began to increase, sometimes reaching 1,400 per day. From March 17 to March 30, 21,243 deaths were recorded in Spain. This is 5,398 more than the prediction based on the extrapolation of data from previous years. The forecasted number for the same period is 15,844 – 34.1% less. At the same time, the total number of deaths from whom SARS-CoV-2 during the period from March 17 to March 30, 2020 was 7,591 people. This is a consequence of the general recognition of SARS-CoV-2 as the cause of deaths regardless of the actual situation. In any case, there is no exponential growth of the overall mortality in Spain or Italy.

Conclusions

In this survey, we demonstrated the researches and approaches of about 100 eminent scientists from around the world. In general, they agree that the current statistical data does not reflect the actual state of affairs, and the publicly distributed media estimates of the mortality rate are at least incorrect, and do not correspond to the actual picture.

The actual number of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection or people that already passed through COVID-19 early-stage or without symptoms is several dozen times higher than the public numbers show.

This is primarily due to the approaches and scope of testing. The public numbers have little to do with science. This is, to a greater extent, either media or politically motivated data. You should also consider the factor of a special picture of the course of the disease, which affects medical statistics (RKI Epidemiological bulletins).

Accordingly, the real mortality rate from SARS-CoV-2 is 25-60 times less than the figures presented to us by MSM and a number of governments.

The number of people with SARS-CoV-2 virus, but without the COVID-19 disease or with a mild form of the disease, according to various estimates, ranges from 85% to 95%. This group, as a rule, does not fall into official statistics, as it is not tested, not hospitalized, and does not seek medical help.

The negative consequences for life and health of people from ill-conceived social measures can at times surpass the threat posed by SARS-CoV-2. There has been a significant increase in the mortality from diseases unrelated to SARS-CoV-2 already.

Countries, whose leadership works closely with scientists, consistently and quickly responds to changes in the situation and the emergence of new data, will receive a huge advantage in the post-COVID-19 world.

The current actions of politicians in a number of countries are difficult to explain with anything other than incompetence or deliberate actions to achieve their personal/clan political ambitions or promote interests of external actors.

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Trump caught his political opponents flatfooted when he endorsed the patriotic protests against several Democrat Governors’ unreasonable quarantine demands, channeling the nascent Color Revolution spirit nationwide to show the rest of his compatriots that he truly has the people’s support as he gradually reopens America, which was a strategic twist to World War C that also represents his greatest counterstrike against the “deep state’s” Hybrid War on his country.

“Making America Great Again” One Protest At A Time

Americans of all political dispositions were surprised when Trump tweeted his support for the patriotic protests against several Democrat Governors’ unreasonable quarantine demands late last week, with his followers proud that their nascent Color Revolution attempts attracted the President’s attention of all people while his critics like Washington Governor Inslee claimed that he was “fomenting domestic rebellion“. The author asked at the beginning of the month, “Can Color Revolutions Stop The Coming COVID World Order?“, concluding that it would be dangerous for Americans to organize in support of their rights and the economy’s accelerated reopening unless they had the tacit backing of one of the US’ “deep state” factions. That, for as unlikely as it was to ever happen, is exactly what took place after the President himself threw his backing behind their growing protest movement. He sympathized with their civil disobedience against the ridiculous measures imposed upon them such as the Michigan Governor’s prohibition on seed sales and gatherings of any size, the Virginia Governor’s efforts to exploit this crisis in order to take away people’s Second Amendment rights, the closure of some churches during Easter, and police harassment of citizens who are self-isolating in public places, among many other examples.

“Liberating” America From Democrat Tyranny

Trump’s brazen call for Americans to “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”, and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” were notable for only targeting states led by Democrat Governors even though other protests were taking place in those run by Republicans, leading some observers to suggest that the he had ulterior political motives in calling out those three specifically. That might very well be the case, which would actually be a shrewdly strategic move by him in three key swing states whose people are divided like never before over their Governors’ harsh quarantine measures. The protesters succeeded in what they set out to achieve, which was to draw national attention to their plight, casting their state leaders in the worst light imaginable after Trump seized the opportunity to portray them as tyrants taking advantage of a global pandemic to expand their power beyond all reasonable limits per his deeply held belief that the Democrats are ironically anti-democratic to the core. The protests also coincided with his plan to “Open Up America Again“, which is regarded as long overdue by his supporters but dangerously premature by his detractors.

The COVID Controversy

The crux of the controversy comes down to the questionable danger of COVID-19. The virus is extremely contagious and can worryingly incubate for up to two weeks before patients display symptoms, during which time they can still spread it to at-risk members of the population such as the elderly and those with preexisting conditions. This is understandably a cause for serious concern, though on the other hand, the argument can be made that it doesn’t necessitate shutting down what was hitherto the world’s best-ever economy, especially when some strongly believe that it would have been more reasonable to recommend that only those vulnerable members of society stay home instead of everyone else doing the same too. The case has been put forth that a better policy in hindsight would have been to quickly respond to the country’s hot spots such as New York, possibly imposing a comparatively stricter health regime on its residents out of an abundance of caution but nevertheless continuing to keep the economy open. This debate is so fierce because many Americans don’t have the financial wherewithal to weather a sudden period of unemployment that could seemingly last indefinitely, which is all the more stressful because they’ve seen Trump’s disputes with the “deep state” play out on their television screens almost daily over his desire to responsibly reopen the economy as soon as possible.

The Brouhaha Over Hydroxychloroquine

The President pushes hydroxychloroquine as a prophylaxis and potential treatment, but he’s regularly rebuffed by the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci. The author wrote about this more in detail in his earlier piece about “Hydroxychloroquine & The Hybrid War On Trump’s America“, which explained how this drug is being politicized by Dr. Fauci and the anti-Trump members of the country’s permanent military, intelligence, diplomatic, and other bureaucracies (“deep state”). The “skeptics” (whether they sincerely are in this respect or are just faking it for show) assert that hydroxychloroquine hasn’t been clinically trialed to the extent that they feel comfortable recommending it to the American public, whereas its enthusiasts like Trump insist that it’s better to give it a try considering its reported successes in other countries than to let people get sick and possibly die anyhow. On the political level, hydroxychloroquine represents hope for responsibly reopening the American economy, which is why Trump is in favor of it so as to improve his re-election prospects while his enemies are against it in order to ruin his aforesaid chances. With or without this drug’s mass distribution into society, however, Trump took the bold move to issue federal guidelines for gradually reopening the economy, which is what his supporters wanted after they realized that its shutdown is largely a “deep state” plot.

The People vs. The “Deep State”

Sensing which way the wind was blowing in anticipation of Trump once again standing up to his “deep state” foes, protests started breaking out nationwide against some states’ draconian lockdown measures in the run-up to him releasing his plan to “Open Up America Again”, which dealt a powerful political blow to their targeted Democrat Governors and had a tremendous effect on shaping perceptions nationwide once the President publicly took up their cause with his surprise tweets. However risky it might be to gradually reopen the economy despite COVID-19’s ultra-infectious nature, Trump can now point to the passionate grassroots support that he has for this policy, which Americans are literally protesting in support of for simple economic and political reasons. In a sense, these Americans felt compelled to resort to Color Revolution tactics after seeing their President’s daily disputes with the “deep state” over the question of hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness, realizing that their leader needs as much support as he can muster if he’s to continue his crusade against the Democrat-aligned “deep state’s” unprecedented plot to oust him in November by — as they see it — purposely killing the economy through their deliberate overreaction to COVID-19. With the people behind him, they knew that Trump would soon thereafter come out hard against the “deep state”, which is exactly what he’s done.

Concluding Thoughts

Trump’s patriotic Color Revolution call was therefore a strategic twist of the greatest magnitude imaginable during World War C since it turned the tables on his “deep state” foes by showing them just how much grassroots support he has for gradually reopening the economy despite their fearmongering about hydroxychloroquine and the lingering danger of COVID-19. After resupplying the nation’s hospitals with thousands of ventilators and other related equipment, coordinating a nationwide response to this crisis through regular conference calls with his country’s Governors, and proving through statistical data that America has largely passed the peak of the outbreak except for a few hot spots, it was only natural that he’d take the lead to responsibly return everything to as “normal” as can be under the circumstances. Giving the states the prerogative to decide how this will unfold was a stroke of political genius that capitalizes on the best that America’s federal system has to offer while also redirecting the growing rage against the country’s shutdown away from his administration and towards the state ones instead. This was a brilliant counterstrike against the “deep state’s” Hybrid War on his country which instantly put tremendous grassroots pressure on many of his Democrat opponents and showed how skillfully he can evade his enemies’ most devious traps.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Disney-ABC Television Group/flickr/cc

A Government Against the People

April 21st, 2020 by Philip Giraldi

The 24/7 intensified media coverage of the coronavirus story has meant that other news has either been ignored or relegated to the back pages, never to be seen again. The Middle East has been on a boil but coverage of the Trump administration’s latest moves against Iran has been so insignificant as to be invisible. Meanwhile closer to home, the declaration by the ubiquitous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that current president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker did generate somewhat of a ripple, as did dispatch of warships to the Caribbean to intercept the alleged drugs, but that story also died.

Of more interest perhaps is the tale of the continued purge of government officials, referred to as “draining the swamp,” by President Donald Trump as it could conceivably have long-term impact on how policy is shaped in Washington. Prior to the virus partial lockdown, some of the impending shakeup within the intelligence community (IC) and Pentagon were commented on in the media, but developments since that time have been less reported, even when several inspectors-general were removed.

To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency. Whether one argues that what took place was due to a “Deep state” or Establishment conspiracy or rather just based on personal ambition by key players, the reality was that a number of top officials seem to have forgotten the oaths they swore to the constitution when it came to Donald Trump.

Be that as it may, beyond the musical chairs that have characterized the senior level appointments in the first three years of the Trump administration, there has been a concerted effort to remove “disloyal” members of the intelligence community, with disloyal generally being the label applied to holdovers from the Bush and Obama administrations. The February appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard “Ric” Grenell as interim Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a position that he will hold simultaneously with his ambassadorship, has been criticized from all sides due to his inexperience, history of bad judgement and partisanship. The White House is now claiming that he will be replaced by Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe after the interim appointment is completed.

Criticism of Grenell for his clearly evident deficiencies misses the point, however, as he is not in place to do anything constructive. He has already initiated a purge of federal employees in the White House and national security apparatus considered to be insufficiently loyal, an effort which has been supported by National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many career officers have been sent back to their home agencies while the new appointees are being drawn from the pool of neoconservatives that proliferated in the George W. Bush administration. Admittedly some prominent neocons like Bill Kristol have disqualified themselves for service with the new regime due to their vitriolic criticism of Trump the candidate, but many others have managed to remain politically viable by keeping their mouths shut during the 2016 campaign. To no one’s surprise, many of the new employees being brought in are being carefully vetted to make sure that they are passionate supporters of Israel.

While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president, even several layers down into the administration where employees are frequently apolitical. As the Trump White House has not been renowned for its adroit policies and forward thinking, the loss of expertise will be hardly noticeable, but there will certainly be a reduction in challenges to group think while replacing officials in the law enforcement and inspector general communities will mean that there will be no one in a high enough position to impede or check presidential misbehavior. Instead, high officials will be principally tasked with coming up with rationalizations to excuse what the White House does.

Trump’s recent claim that he has the sole authority to shut down or open up the country is clearly unconstitutional based on Article 10 and his warning that he will use his executive authority to adjourn the continuing virtual session of congress to enable him to approve hundreds of pending recess appointments plausibly qualifies as impeachable. His exhortation last Friday to his followers to “liberate” three states from the control of their governors is insurrection, a dangerous provocation that undeniably meets the requirement to qualify as a “high crime” as defined by the constitution.

Trump’s latest firings of top level officials are notable because they have involved two inspectors general. The first one to go was the inspector general of the intelligence community Michael Atkinson. Atkinson, who admittedly was not well liked because of his job responsibilities, was reportedly fired because he had been the official who had forwarded to Congress the initial whistleblower report on the notorious Ukrainian telephone call. Trump explained his decision in a letter to the two congressional intelligence committees: “As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as President, have the power of appointment … it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”

It should be noted that Atkinson had a statutory obligation to forward the report to initiate congressional oversight of an alleged executive criminal action. After the firing, Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz rejected Trump’s criticism of Atkinson, saying he had handled the whistleblower matter correctly. It was, of course, a phone call that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment, so Atkinson had to go and Horowitz might just be next.

Subsequent to the defenestration of Atkinson, Trump went after another inspector general Glenn Fine, who was principal deputy IG at the Pentagon and had been charged with heading the panel of inspectors that would have oversight responsibility to certify the proper implementation of the $2.2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief package. As has been noted in the media, there was particular concern regarding the lack of transparency regarding the $500 billion Exchange Stabilizing Fund (ESF) that had been set aside to make loans to corporations and other large companies while the really urgently needed Small Business Loan allocation has been failing to work at all except for Israeli companies that have lined up for the loans. The risk that the ESF would become a slush fund for companies favored by the White House was real, and several investigative reports observed that Trump business interests might also directly benefit from the way it was drafted.

Four days after the firing of Atkinson, Fine also was let go to be replaced by the EPA inspector general Sean O’Donnell, who is considered a Trump loyalist. On the previous day the tweeter-in-chief came down on yet another IG, the woman responsible for Health and Human Services Christi Grimm, who had issued a report stating that the her department had found “severe” shortages of virus testing material at hospitals and “widespread” shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Trump quipped to reporters “Where did he come from, the inspector general. What’s his name?”

On the following day, Trump unleashed the tweet machine, asking “Why didn’t the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!”

A comment about foxes taking over the hen house would not be amiss and one might also note that the swamp is far from drained. A concerted effort is clearly underway to purge anyone from the upper echelons of the U.S. government who in any way contradicts what is coming out of the White House. Inspectors general who are tasked with looking into malfeasance are receiving the message that if they want to stay employed, they have to toe the presidential line, even as it seemingly whimsically changes day by day. And then there is the irony of the heads at major agencies like Environmental Protection now being committed to not enforcing existing environmental regulations at all.

Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly “regulated” corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency. The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People.

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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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Iran Defies American Naval Power

April 21st, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Iran is already beginning to challenge American naval power. The country recently reported on the development of an advanced mapping and communication network for submarines. The network consists of a complex wireless communication system called “Waza” and integrates an entire national defense project: with land and sea forces inferior to those of enemy countries, such as the United States, Iran invests in its submarine power, since it has several different classes, many of which were built by Russia decades ago and are still capable of venturing into distant waters.

However, a new and important step was taken by Tehran in its quest to fortify its maritime and underwater power. A few days ago, Iranian Admiral Hossein Khazandi claimed that his country is seriously considering the possibility of developing nuclear submarines. In his words:

“It would be negligent on the part of Iran not to consider the use of nuclear powered submarines […] So we are thinking about it”.

Iran already has a very well-equipped fleet of several submarines, from small submersibles to some capable of carrying more than 50 crew members and crossing turbulent waters. However, they all use conventional propulsion. Nuclear-powered submarines have better operational capabilities than conventional ones, as they do not need to refuel frequently and can operate autonomously for a longer period of time, explains the admiral. For this reason, the strategic importance of creating nuclear powered submarines must be discussed, as it would take Iranian maritime power to a new international level.

As we can see, there is still no exact definition of what will happen or when Iran intends to start developing such submarines, however, it is an agenda that is gaining more and more strength among the defense sectors of the country. The Iranian admiral said that Tehran has “its own capacity” to build larger vessels than the current light submarines of the Fateh class, which gives Iran greater freedom to proceed with its project, since it apparently does not depend on foreign technological aid.

A curious fact is that this discussion was heightened due to a recent episode in the Persian Gulf through which the world became aware of Iran’s naval potential. On April 15, Iranian Revolutionary Guard military speedboats carried out a series of maneuvers against several American ships that were patrolling the region. “IRGC boats repeatedly passed the bow and stern of American ships at an extremely close distance and at high speed,” says the American report, noting that some have passed within 50 meters of the bow of the expeditionary mobile ship USS Lewis B. Puller and 10 meters from USCGC Maui, the US Coast Guard patrol ship of the Island class. The other American ships surrounded by the naval siege were the USS Paul Hamilton guided-missile destroyer, the USS Firebolt and USS Sirocco patrol ships, and the Coast Guard’s USCGC Wrangell. The Navy notes that these ships participated in operations in international waters with US Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.

Western media reacted to Iran’s maneuvers with disapproval and scandal, considering it unacceptable and worthy of sanctions. The US Navy published notes stating that the siege of vessels conducted by the speedboats was extremely irresponsible, disregarding international navigation standards and creating a serious risk of miscalculation, which could result in collisions. However, little or no attention has been paid to the fact that Iran was only responding to foreign occupation in the region. After all, what standard of international law guarantees the US patrol power in the Gulf ensuring that there will be no response from countries in the region? Where does Washington’s international police power come from?

There is a whole context behind the siege conducted by Iran. The US has been conducting military operations in the Persian Gulf since the end of March, with the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and its attack group arriving on the waterway in early April. The Persian Gulf has become an area of ​​international risk, as it is located between the regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, the latter US ally, and for much of the world’s maritime oil trade to pass through the waterway. As has often been seen over the past few decades, when any regional tension arises between two sovereign National States, the United States sends out highly equipped troops with high destructive power to “guarantee international peace and security”. In fact, there is no interest in peace and security, Washington just wants to protect its interests – which specifically in this region coincide with the Saudi ones – and to that goal it sends its armed forces, but does not like it and reacts with fiery speeches when any other country also aims to guarantee its own interests, opposing to American impositions.

This time, however, the world saw a reaction with equivalent power. Iran surrounded American vessels as a warning to Washington to immediately cease to act as a global maritime police. Gradually, the United States is forced by its own conditions to yield to these reactions, as its strength to guarantee a hegemonic status is crumbling. In other times, Americans would react to Iran by attacking their speedboats and conducting amphibious attack operations, but now they know that they may no longer have the strength to conduct conflicts of this magnitude, so that reacting to Iran would be extremely irresponsible.

Gradually, the sea becomes multipolar.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Freedom of Speech: The Next Casualty of COVID-19?

April 21st, 2020 by Brett Jordan

The question of free speech in our current COVID climate is something that begs revisiting, particularly since there have been enough recent incidents on the global stage that have appeared to diminish the potency of that freedom. 

I believe most people generally hold to the value of freedom of opinion and that the majority of us, likewise, endorse the freedom to actually express that opinion.  Being a Canadian, I draw first from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the assurance provided therein that every person has the fundamental freedom of “thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication” (Section 2).  Furthermore, Section 24 of the same Charter assures us of the freedom to pursue legal courses of action if any of these freedoms are “infringed or denied” in any way.

Similarly, the First Amendment of the US Constitution clearly holds that “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” is a violation of constitutional rights.  As a general proclamation, the Constitution specifically “guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely” (Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School).

Unsurprisingly, if we look to our Atlantic neighbors in the United Kingdom we find an identical spirit of embraced freedoms carried over from the European Convention on Human Rights, not the least of which is the “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” as well as “the right to freedom of expression” (The UK Constitution / House of Commons).

Furthermore, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlines that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”  This includes “the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (United Nations).

While we could easily draw further confirmations of similarly-held values across our shared planet, I think we get the point. Plainly speaking, those of us who subscribe to a healthy standard of civilization that is rooted in the highest ideals of Democracy tend to take issue with any person, agency or policy that either infringes or outright prohibits our freedom to speak our mind and share our perspectives.

Many of these constitutions do include some form of exemplary clause, however, which is intended to safeguard against any potential harms that may arise from such freedoms.  Hate speech, in particular, tends to be the most obvious example in this regard.  It is also understood that the US Constitution, by way of example, discourages any form of expressed opinion which may incite “imminent lawless action” (Walker, 2018, p.1).  Naturally, we would consider these to be sensible and preventative aspects of any constitution – the lack of which could arguably result in some pretty disastrous outcomes.

With these things in mind, I think it’s worth revisiting the way in which freedom of speech may be at risk of being undermined in light of our current global pandemic.  Specifically speaking, I’m referring to the emerging controversy surrounding alternative views of COVID-19 itself.

While my aim here is not to necessarily promote any particular viewpoint regarding the questionable origins of COVID-19, I do take serious issue with the way in which such viewpoints (as espoused by many individuals in the world) has been vilified, discouraged and ultimately forbidden on various social media platforms and online video sharing services. Not only that, I find it equally if not more disturbing that such censorship is being partnered with initiatives to replace such expressions with deliberate exposure to more culturally and corporate-approved perspectives.

For example, a lot of attention has recently been placed on a recent episode of London Real, which is a popular video podcast series hosted by Brian Rose.  On April 6th, Rose interviewed veteran conspiracy researcher David Icke, only to have YouTube pull the episode very soon afterwards – purportedly as a result of Icke’s comments linking COVID-19 with the rollout of 5G technology.  UK’s Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden reportedly placed pressure on Ofcom (the British communications regulator) to investigate and address the content which aired on that particular night.  Dowden himself is quoted as referring to Icke’s comments in the interview as “lunatic conspiracy theories,” and that “no sensible person would give them a moment’s thought” (Metro News UK, April 9, 2020).

Vimeo, a widely-used American video platform, also pulled the episode from their listing the day after it aired, presumably for similar reasons.  While the episode can still be viewed on the independent websites of both London Realand David Icke, platforms such as YouTube are tightening the reigns on any content that seems to question the official narrative of COVID-19, in addition to anything that attempts to draw a link between the alleged virus and 5G technology.  According to one of YouTube’s media spokespersons, the platform has “begun reducing recommendations of borderline content such as conspiracy theories related to 5G and coronavirus, that could misinform users in harmful ways”  (The Guardian, April 5th).

On April 16th, NBC released an article detailing how Facebook will be taking affirmative steps to curtail and redirect consumers away from posts that contain alternative views on the coronavirus, and ultimately towards information backed by the World Health Organization.  As the article explains:

“Users who have liked, commented on or otherwise reacted to coronavirus misinformation that Facebook has flagged and removed as “harmful” will be directed to a website debunking coronavirus myths from the World Health Organization.”

The NBC article took the liberty of blatantly labelling any non-WHO endorsed perspective as “misinformation,” “misleading claims,” “misinformed beliefs,” “false,” as well as a “massive infodemic.”  The article specifically uses the term “harmful” throughout its length and, like the majority of its mainstream media news counterparts the world over, generally delivers its message from the preconceived assumption that the official designation of COVID-19 is already scientifically proven and is therefore journalistic Gospel.  The very idea that there could be alternative medical, technological and social insights on this global pandemic is simply not entertained, and the official story continues to be held up.  Appropriately, the standard narrative is further reinforced through a virtual arsenal of shaming tactics, not the least of which is the FCC’s Brendan Carr’s recent diagnosis of a COVID-19 / 5G connection as being “straight from the most dangerous depths of tin foil hat land” (CNET News).

While an argument can be made that such alternative views may incite “lawless action” (referring to the reported destruction of 5G towers in both the UK and the Netherlands), I am convinced that this is essentially a red herring fallacy that has no more credibility than the idea that anti-vaccination opinions are leading to widespread arsons at pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.  A reasonably intelligent consideration would regard this as borderline conflation, while also recognizing the immaturity of silencing a specific idea out of fear that it could trigger a whole array of undesirable behaviours.

But surely we have moved beyond this crude form of logic in our overall pursuit of Democracy, have we not?  I, for one, have no desire to retreat backwards.  Is not the calculated effort to censor and suppress alternative perspectives the more fundamental problem that we are dealing with here? And yes, I do understand how information which challenges the standard WHO position could be interpreted as potentially harmful to the more vulnerable members of our society, but I would argue that this perspective, likewise, is born out of mere assumption rather than unilaterally-accepted scientific fact.  I dare say it is regarded as fact merely because we are told it is so.  The reality is that it is simply the dominant perspective, and one which seems to carry an insidious and unprecedented contagion of censorship – the likes of which our culture seems to be more than happy to swallow under the oft-repeated mantra that “we’re all in this together.” Forgive my saying this, but I can’t help but be reminded of a certain US President who, not that long ago, uttered the words “you’re either with us or….”

May I politely challenge this mantra by questioning whether the idea of being “in this together” is actually referring to a genuine embracing of our human diversity (including our varied perspectives on such a huge issue), or simply just a uniform and unquestioned brand of obedience to something that we have not actually bothered to investigate properly? How many of us can’t help but inwardly cringe whenever we hear that hollowed-out phrase echoed from our radio stations and supermarket loudspeakers, as it reminds us not of our shared humanity – but rather of an assumed stance of ‘responsible’ behavior which, if not collectively adhered to, is akin to social homicide?

Don’t get me wrong.  While I remain skeptical to the official narrative, I’m not about to be flippant in how I behave with other people who are feeling nervous and vulnerable over this whole pandemic.  I’m not about to go around touching every piece of produce at the grocery store while licking my fingers in a gutsy show of bravado between each handling.  Nor am I about to ridicule others for following the prescribed social guidelines for physical distancing.  But that’s the whole point.  I think we need to give due credit to our fellow members of society as having the sense of decency and respect toward each other that they will not deliberately make others feel unsafe, regardless of whatever personal beliefs or opinions they may have.  In that sense, is such a broad pandemic of speech censorship really necessary?  Is that really where we are?

Maybe what I find particularly unfortunate is the way in which this culture of censorship has managed to bleed its way down to the surgical gloved-strewn street level of our everyday life.  My observation is that one is apt to face strong skepticism, if not outright disgust, when any alternative insight on COVID-19 is expressed in a social setting.  Speaking personally, there is a sense of utter disapproval that borders on religious exclusivity which – naturally – makes it challenging to believe that my nation’s Charter is fully on board with my inherent desire to search, question and share information that I feel might be of benefit to people.

Funny, but I thought we really were “in this together.”

Maybe that’s why I continue to feel driven to find out what “this” is really all about.

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Brett Jordan is a registered Social Worker working in an ER of a local hospital in Metro Vancouver, BC, and have been writing about issues of emotional and spiritual health.  

Featured image is from TruePublica

Trump Blames China for His Own Failings

April 21st, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

The US is a nation in longterm decline, a process ongoing for decades, notably post-9/11.

Its focus on militarism, war-making, corporate welfare, and police state harshness comes at the expense of economic and human development.

Other nations are rising, notably China, heading toward becoming the world’s leading economy, its political influence growing worldwide.

It’s a reality not going down well in the US, what lies behind Trump’s China bashing and trade war.

US hostility toward Beijing is all about its sovereign independence, growing economic, industrial, and technological development, along with its increasing preeminence on the world stage.

Will US anti-China rage lead to war? What’s unthinkable is possible because hardline Republican and Dem leaders tolerate no challenges to US global dominance that’s waning.

Did COVID-19 spring like Topsy or was its emergence planned? US intelligence and the Pentagon knew of the threat long ago.

The US warned Israel and other allies of possible outbreaks last year.

According to ABC News, a November 2019 Pentagon National Center for Medical Intelligence warned of widespread coronavirus outbreaks.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported that US intelligence warned the Netanyahu regime of the threat posed by the coronavirus.

According to analyst Kevin Barrett, the US “torpedo(ed) the entire global economy to break the global supply chains so that the economy would become less globalized and individual countries would be looking elsewhere rather than to China for their goods.”

The strategy aims “to stop the rise of China to number one world power status. To do that it has to slow down Chinese economic growth considerably.”

China owns over $1 trillion worth of US Treasuries. Does the Trump regime intend confiscating them to pay damages to US businesses harmed by COVID-19— what Beijing had nothing to do with?

Will Sino/US relations be damaged longterm because of intensified Trump regime’s war on the country by other means?

According to Bloomberg News on Saturday, Trump is increasingly blaming China for COVID-19 outbreaks.

“(W)e’re doing investigations (sic),” he said. If Beijing was “knowingly responsible…there should be consequences.”

The die is cast, the Trump regime blame game taking shape.  Congressional legislation is in the works to let COVID-19 businesses and ordinary Americans sue China for damages.

Not a shred of credible evidence suggests it’s responsibility for global outbreaks. Facts never interfere with US intentions.

Trump falsely claimed “(o)ur relationship with China was good until they did this (sic).”

“The question was asked, ‘would you be angry at China?’ Well, the answer might very well be a very resounding yes, but it depends: was it a mistake that got out of control, or was it done deliberately?”

Falsely claiming the latter is where things are heading.

A Trump campaign fund-raising email accused China of lying about the origin on COVID-19 outbreaks.

On Sunday, China’s Global Times said “(e)very move to stigmatize (the country) evokes our historical memory,” adding:

“Many Chinese netizens have responded strongly,” saying:

“They want compensation? If they want to get even with China, let us start from the damage China suffered since the first Opium War in 1840!”

A Global Times editorial slammed US COVID-19 Big Lies. In an election year with public support for Trump waning, based on recent polls, he’s going all-out to blame China for COVID-19 while falsely claiming he’s doing a great job to combat it.

Polar opposite is true on both counts. On Friday, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) said the following:

“Trumpist quackery takes on a few key forms, one being that the Chinese government is responsible for unleashing the virus on the world as some act of germ warfare…”

Another US view is that “scientific wisdom on responding to the crisis is liberal fakery meant to unnecessarily cripple the economy,” adding:

“We can’t disregard these as lunatic conspiracy theories on the fringes.”

“These speculations, rumors and outright lies have a way of starting in partisan media and bubbling up to a level where they affect our political discourse and public health.”

Lunatic fringe claims of Chinese biological warfare show how far extremists in Washington and establishment media are willing to go — facts never backing their claims because none support them.

US media-spread disinformation shifted from the debunked bat theory to COVID-19 escaping or released from a Chinese bio-lab. No evidence supports either claim.

When repeated endlessly, Big Lies take on a life of their own, notably about China in the current environment, the convenient bogeyman of the times.

Carpet bombing Americans with fake news about the country will likely worsen ahead.

Most people are none the wiser, believing what’s pounded into their minds by establishment media with no credibility.

COVID-19 will pass in the fullness of time.

Harm to ordinary people and Sino/US relations will surely be long-lasting — to the detriment of public welfare and world peace.

A Final Comment

According to MarketWatch, “US  public opinion toward China is at an all-time low, and it’s not solely about the coronavirus,” adding:

“Americans…blame China’s government for the pandemic and believe Beijing can’t be trusted on a range of issues.”

A March Gallup poll showed two-thirds of Americans view China unfavorably.

According to senior Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones:

“Americans’ views of China have rarely been positive over the past four decades, but they have never held the country in lower regard than they do today.”

Poll results were published in early March before COVID-19 outbreaks began escalating greatly.

Current sentiment among Americans toward China is likely less favorable than weeks earlier.

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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.”

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Gates Foundation’s Vaccination Activism

April 21st, 2020 by Eric Wagner

In the corona crisis, billionaire Bill Gates makes a high-profile appearance as a vaccination activist. The essence: a vaccine is the solution, it is only a matter of implementation. According to Gates, the G20 should now “address the logistics of a global immunisation project”. There seems to be little interest in further discussions and the consideration of alternatives. Time is pressing and people are relying on Gates, who had identified the danger of a pandemic early on and would therefore know what to do. How justified is this trust?

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The foundation of former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” (BMGF), is controlled by its three trustees: Bill and Melinda Gates and hedge fund manager Warren Buffett. The foundation holds assets worth about $50 billion – about half of which originates from Buffett – and finances a large number of charitable projects.

Second only to the USA, the BMGF is one of the largest donors to the World Health Organization (WHO) and paid it more than $200 million in 2018 – more than Germany, France and Sweden combined in the same period. But this is not the only way in which the WHO is financed by Gates. GAVI, formerly known as the “Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation”, provided the WHO with an additional $150 million in 2018. One of GAVI’s main donors is again the BMGF, with $1.5 billion in 2016, for example.

It can therefore be said that the BMGF and thus the Gates family and Warren Buffett are the main source of income for the WHO through direct and indirect channels, which raises questions about its independence from these sources of finance. In addition, the BMGF also provided funding for the establishment of the “Coalition for Epidemic Prevention Innovation” (CEPI), which is concerned with the research and development of vaccines, amounting to around $100 million in 2017. In addition, the Foundation regularly supports non-governmental organisations such as PATH, which are involved in the development of vaccination technologies, with millions of dollars in funding. The list of BMGF’s beneficiaries also includes the largest global pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Aventis. The comprehensive influence of the BMGF in the vaccination sector is therefore obvious.

“Crisis-related” funding

In the Corona crisis, it is striking that institutions that currently play an important role are likewise supported by the BMGF. For example, Johns Hopkins University which maintains the worldwide corona statistics that are disseminated in all media, regularly receives large donations. In the last ten years only, more than $200 million have been transferred to the university by the Gates Foundation. The purpose of the donations was family planning programs.

In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute as the responsible national epidemiological agency received $250,000 in November 2019. The Charité in Berlin (employer of Prof. Christian Drosten, one of the most important government advisors during the crisis) received a total of more than $300,000 in 2019 and 2020. As with the WHO, the presumption of a conflict of interest is obvious if these institutions or their employees make policy recommendations that have an impact on companies that the Foundation sponsors or in which it invests for financial purposes.

In the meantime, the German website “Frag den Staat” (“Ask the State”) has been used to enquire about contacts and financial connections between the Federal Ministry of Healthor the Charité and the BMGF, the results of which could be revealing.

The Foundation’s activities in Germany are not limited to health aspects. It also provides financial support to established media. For example, Germany´s leading news magazine DER SPIEGEL received $2.5 million in December 2018 and the leading weekly newspaper Die ZEIT received $300,000 in December 2019. One may assume that this is not happening for nothing and that as a result critical research by these media regarding the activities of the Gates Foundation is not necessarily more likely.

Furthermore, the Foundation is one of the organisers of the pandemic simulation known as “Event 201”, which took place in October 2019 shortly before the outbreak of the corona crisis. Other participants were – again – Johns Hopkins University and the World Economic Forum.

Given the many financial connections to influential institutions in the health care industry and the media, the BMGF and its associated institutions should be given special attention. This applies in particular to the prominent role that Bill Gates wants to assume in crisis management and which he is also offered without any critical consideration.

Why the vaccination activism?

On the question of the aim of Gates’ vaccination activism, it is worth listening to Gates himself. At a TED talk in 2010 he stated the following regarding the CO2 problem and a possible part of its solution:

“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.”

He thus says that vaccinations and reproductive health services can contribute to a reduction in population, which in turn helps solving the climate problem, even if only to a small extent. Now there are probably various viewpoints on this statement, which we shall not discuss further here. However, one could agree that such steps should only be taken in cooperation with the people involved and with their explicit consent. This includes, above all, complete information about the consequences and risks of such interventions. That this is not the case with the projects of the BMGF and the institutions financed by it is illustrated by the following case.

Vaccination abuse in Kenya

In October 2014, the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya raised accusations in the context of the tetanus vaccinations carried out by WHO and UNICEF. This was done because there were differences compared to previous vaccination campaigns which seemed peculiar to the people in charge. For example, the Catholic Church, as the provider of many medical facilities, was not involved in the campaign, and publicity was very limited, unlike previous polio vaccination campaigns. Furthermore, the tetanus vaccinations were administered without any particular health necessity and only to women between the ages of 14 and 49, which gave rise to the suspicion that they might be covert vaccinations for birth control. These are related to human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the hormone responsible for the onset and maintenance of a pregnancy.

In February 2015, the gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Wahome Ngare, on behalf of the Kenyan Catholic Medical Association, published an article in the Catholic Medical Quarterly of the Catholic Medical Society of Great Britain, in which he explained the accusations. According to his article, the vaccine was deliberately imported and had a different batch number for designation than usual tetanus vaccines. In addition, five rounds of vaccination were planned, each with intervals of six months, which is unusual for tetanus but normal for hCG vaccines to prevent pregnancy.

He also referred to such “hidden” and methodologically similar sterilization measures in Mexico in 1993 and in Nicaragua and the Philippines in 1994, where girls and women were unknowingly sterilized. He described how the Catholic Church complained to the Kenyan Ministry of Health after the accusations became public and demanded a test of the vaccine, which was rejected. In the further course of the case, the Catholic representatives then succeeded in gaining access to some doses of vaccine and having them tested by an independent party.

According to Ngare, the vaccine contained the suspected pregnancy hormone, which in his opinion proves the leading role of the WHO in deliberate mass sterilizations for birth control. Before the secret vaccine analyses were made public, the World Health Organization expressed its “deep concern” about the “misinformation” of the Catholic Church, for which there would be no evidence. After the results were published, it agreed to submit the vaccine to a joint commission for re-analysis.

Confirmed by scientific work

A scientific paper published in October 2017 by the Universities of Louisiana (USA) and British Columbia (Canada), together with Dr. Wahome Ngare, confirmed the allegations made. The planned five vaccinations instead of the usual procedure for tetanus were identical to those for population control and the exclusive composition of the target group of girls and women of childbearing age could not be convincingly justified.

Moreover, the campaign was coordinated from a hotel rather than a medical facility, and the delivery and collection of the vaccine was carried out under police protection. The work of the nurses was also monitored by WHO and police. Pregnancy hormones were detected in the secretly tested vaccine doses, while the vaccine doses delivered later by the WHO tested consistently negative, the scientists said. The suspicion of an attempted manipulation by swapping the vaccine is therefore obvious and would also explain the extensive and unusual safety measures taken when handling the original vaccine. The essential role of the WHO in covert measures of forced sterilization and thus population control could therefore be proven for Kenya.

Planning for population control in the WHO since 1972

In this context, the scientists also looked at the history of population control measureswithin WHO, which has been operating under the euphemistic name of “family planning” since the organization was founded in 1945. The WHO research programme on vaccine development for population control started in 1972 and a study was published in 1976. According to the scientists, the WHO “services” of sterilization without the consent of those affected have been known since the 1970s, while the cases mentioned by Dr. Ngare also caused outrage in Mexico, Nicaragua and the Philippines in the 1990s.

The Gates Foundation, originally established in 1994 by Gates’ father William Gates Sr., still funds family planning activities today. As mentioned above, Johns Hopkins University has received more than $200 million for this purpose in the last ten years. In addition, the BMGF also funds the Planned Parenthood organization, which was led by Bill Gates’ father when the younger Gates was a teenager, and which originally emerged from the American Birth Control League. The funding of the WHO and the vaccination activism of the Gates Foundation, also in the name of population control, seem to be the continuation of a family tradition.

Vaccination abuse not an isolated incident?

A direct involvement of the BMGF in vaccine abuse was not proven. However, questions remain open, as a case from India in 2009 shows. There, the Foundation-financed organization PATH conducted a study of 16,000 girls between the ages of 9 and 15 with a vaccine against cervical cancer. Afterwards, many of the girls fell ill and five died, while elsewhere, out of 14,000 children, two did not survive the consequences of the vaccination. PATH and the BMGF were accused of not having informed the children’s parents, most of whom were not literate, about the vaccine, its risks and its objectives.

The lawyer and vaccination critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lists in an article a whole series of abuses in projects supported by Gates. His organization “Children’s Health Defense” urgently warns against a Gates vaccine in the context of the corona crisis.

ID 2020 – the digital identity

With regard to other projects financed by Gates, an even more extensive misuse of vaccination is conceivable.

The “Digital Identity Alliance”, or “ID 2020”, says it is concerned with the creation of a digital identity that will enable people to identify themselves across borders while retaining control over their personal data. The founding partners of the project are Gates’ company Microsoft, the Gates-sponsored vaccination alliance GAVI, the management consultancy Accenture and the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the oldest and wealthiest foundations in the USA.

Since September 2019, the “Digital Identity Alliance” has been cooperating with the government of Bangladesh to introduce digital identities. This involves combining vaccinations with the recording of biometric data, such as fingerprints, to enable digital identification of the respective person.

By February 2020, 100 million digital identities had been created, as the responsible minister reported in an article for the World Economic Forum. This collection is marketed as “digital inclusion”, supposedly to include disadvantaged people in the benefits of the modern world.

Traveling only with a “digital immunity proof”?

Also in Europe, the first approaches to establish the technology are emerging. Journalist Norbert Häring, for example, reports on an application within the framework of the “Known Traveller” program of the World Economic Forum, which provides for an initially voluntary data release for preferred handling in air travel. In the long term, however, a mandatory regulation also appears possible, once the system has been established. Gates explainedon 24 March in an interview with TED host Chris Anderson:

“Eventually what we’ll have to have is certificates of who is a recovered person, who is a vaccinated person, because you don’t want people moving around the world where you have some countries, that won’t have it under control, sadly. You don’t want to completely block off the ability for those people to go there and come back and move around. So eventually there will be sort of this digital immunity proof, that will help facilitate the global re-opening up [after the lockdown].”

The last – very explosive – sentence was cut out in the official TED version of the interview (minute 33:55). Norbert Häring comments on this:

“Having the proof in digital form sounds practical because it’s faster and easier. But if a digital proof for international travel is to be globally applicable, it needs a storage location for the receipts that is considered secure and generally accessible, a standard for data exchange that works everywhere, and a global standard for certifying the authenticity of such a proof. The Known Traveller Program, which is being driven by the US Homeland Security and the World Economic Forum, wants to develop and implement all of this. Bill Gates is one of the most influential members of the World Economic Forum, if not the most influential.

The current cooperation between Google and Apple in providing a unified corona app to identify possible Covid-19 infected individuals for the two all-dominant mobile phone operating systems Android and iOS could create the globally accessible storage location. (…) And already the Known Traveller program is ready with a first application. (…) Everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to travel and use the app, or whether they prefer to stay at home.

Since Google and Apple are working closely and trustfully with the security authorities and intelligence agencies anyway, it will not be a problem to add further application areas. First of all, the security authorities can check the box “may not travel” or “to be watched closely” if necessary. After that, the system could be further refined at will (…) Thanks to Covid-19, the Brave New World is approaching in giant strides.”

In the long term, the measures allow for comprehensive control to which anyone who still wishes to participate in any way in life is to be exposed. The current crisis situation now appears to provide a suitable pretext for accelerating the implementation of such plans.

“We will give this vaccine to seven billion people”

Fittingly, the leading German TV news program “ARD Tagesthemen” offered Gates a platform on 12 April to present his project to the German public. The host, Ingo Zamperoni, acted as Gates’ assistant in a discussion which resembled more a press conference of the BMGF than a news programme interested in clarification. Fully in line with Gates, Zamperoni came to the conclusion that “despite all our efforts, we will only be able to control the pandemic if we develop a vaccine”.

Gates agreed and stressed that we could only return to normality “when we have either found a miracle cure that works in 95 percent of cases or when we have developed a vaccine”. He also emphasized that “we” (!) will ultimately administer the vaccine to be developed “to seven billion people”. The question arises as to who Gates is thinking of when he speaks of “we” in this context. One may assume that it is also the institutions supported by his foundation.

A more critical approach to the Gates Foundation and its activities as well as thorough information on the developments already underway, especially in the combination of vaccination activism, digital identity and far-reaching control and surveillance, seems urgently necessary.

Which measures have meanwhile become possible is demonstrated by the legal permission of forced testing, forced vaccination and forced treatment in Denmark. The failure to make such measures and structures known to a wider public could, in the current crisis situation, result in a society sleepwalking into a police and surveillance state, about which it may not become fully aware until the digital handcuffs have already closed.

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Eric Wagner, born in 1990, studied education, history and political science in Leipzig, followed by Southeast European studies in Belgrade and Ljubljana. He works as an educator at a free community school in Germany.

Featured image is from multipolar

The last Syrian ‘rebel’ unit on the US payroll is dissolving by desertions.  A former senior officer in the US-backed mercenary unit Maghaweir al-Thowra (MAT) deserted his unit in Syria on April 14.  Samir Ghannam al-Khidr deserted the Eastern Syrian desert along with his whole family and 26 armed men.  The convoy was subject to a video on social media, which showed 8 pickups, 1 truck, 11 small arms, including 5 M-16 rifles, 4 large-caliber machine guns, 5 grenade launchers and 6-7 thousand rounds of ammunition.  All of the vehicles and weaponry were US military property. Al-Khidr left the illegal US base at Tanf, which is home to about 200 US soldiers, and about 100 mercenaries of MAT. Previous desertions occurred in early April

The official Twitter account of MAT was busily posting scenarios in English.  Their ‘spin-doctor’ belittled the deserter and made it seem that MAT allowed him to leave peacefully as if they packed him a lunch for the road.

Textbook level English 

The MAT is made up of various Eastern Syrian tribes.  English as a second language is taught beginning in 4th grade in all Syrian public schools, which are free of cost and are compulsory through the 9th grade.  However, the level of English would be very basic, and anyone writing English texts on Twitter, for example, would be easily recognized as a novice in the English language.

However, the level of English used to explain and defend the MAT on their official Twitter account is of the highest level, comparable to an American, for example.  Most likely, the account holder of the MAT Twitter account is not a member of the MAT, but rather a member of the US Special Forces.  A US soldier was likely tasked with being the official public relations representative for MAT and sits at a laptop every day fielding complaints, accusations and commenting on charges against MAT in the news and social media.

Syrians use Arabic as their first language.  When University educated Syrians, who have more than basic English language skills, were asked to review the Twitter account postings for MAT, they all could tell that was not written by any Eastern Syrian tribesman, carrying a machine gun, and looking like a ‘Hollywood-Double’ for ISIS.  The members of MAT work for the US military, but they are not US-educated.

The illegal US base at Tanf

The US Army Special Forces have trained MAT at Tanf since 2016 to fight against ISIS, which was defeated in 2017.  It would follow that MAT should have been disbanded several years ago, except the US could see a use for them as local guards of the small contingent of US soldiers.  The MAT also was guarding the Baghdad-Damascus highway, which is a strategic trade route. Tanf is a US military base in Syria which is illegal under international law. There is no purpose for the base at Tanf except to thwart the free movement of goods and people on the Iraq-Syria highway.

Drugs, smuggling, and exploiting refugees

The recent deserter, Samir Ghannam al-Khidr, has been accused of being a drug dealer and smuggler between Jordan and the illegal US base at Tanf. He was accused last year of drug dealing and was detained but allowed to return to the US base at Tanf.  This is not the first time drugs have made headlines in connection with the US Special Forces at Tanf. In June 2018, MAT was involved in a large drug bust at Tanf.  The drugs were estimated to be valued at about $1.4 million.  The unit captured more than 300,000 Captagon tablets.  Captagon is classified as an “amphetamine-type stimulant” and has been used by ISIS as it keeps the fighters awake and has a mental effect of diminishing the conscience, allowing them to be vicious killers.  Captagon is also the popular illicit drug throughout the Arab Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

MAT may have been introduced to the value of drug dealing in an area in Syria which has no government, or police supervision.  The US base at Tanf is in a ‘no-man’s-land’ without any police, courts or judges. The Syrian government is not present there, and the US military likely turned a blind eye to the crimes being carried out by their mercenaries MAT.

The Rukban Refugee Camp is near the base at Tanf, and MAT has been used to provide security for the camp.  Thousands of refugees have been living in squalor and suffering there; however, many have left the camp by paying bribes to MAT, to leave for the Syrian government-controlled city of Palmyra.  Abu Muhammed recalled his ordeal at Rukban after leaving and told of how MAT would sell aid items that had been donated by international relief organizations.

“Sometimes, we received aid from the Red Crescent, but we only saw a small portion of it, most often sold to us, not given for free. The militants take the free aid and resell it to the refugees — that’s their business. To get money, we had to work at the camp. They set up a brick factory and we had to work like dogs there,” he said, and added, “They are all armed, they walk the camp with rifles, they have semi-military equipment and they own the place.”

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

WHO and China: A Case of Geopolitical Misdirection

April 21st, 2020 by Hassanal Noor Rashid

Who is at fault?

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a real roller-coaster ride as far as geo-politics is concerned.

Through the chaos and the barrage of information and updates on the on-going pandemic, there are still those, especially among the political elite who have moved ahead of the pandemic management curve and have begun investing time and energy into calling for accountability and reparations from those they claim were the chief cause of many catastrophic global, social infrastructure failures.

As of 20th April 2020, the United States has over 764,000 cases of Covid-19 with a staggering number of lives lost at over 40,000.

The question that is on everyone’s mind is how did a supposedly first world country like the United States, which has spent trillions of dollars in its overly inflated military budget, continue to send aid worth USD$3.8 billion to Israel, and touts itself as the global superpower unrivalled by any other, do so poorly in mitigating this crisis, but has allowed it to cripple its societal and economic balance at such an unprecedented scale?

Many are familiar with the rhetoric now that the United States (US) have directly blamed the World Health Organization (WHO), especially its chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, of not only failing to characterize the appropriate level of severity of the virus, but also for being too China-centric, depicting both of these as failings that have led to the present level of the pandemic.

As a result, Trump has decided to cut funding for the WHO, a crude retaliation for the perceived failing of the WHO to effectively inform about the severity of the virus.

The Trump Administration has also levelled criticism towards China’s reported cases of the Covid-19, accusing it of inaccuracies and false reporting, which is what was claimed tohavemisled many on the severity of the virus.

The varying and predictable responses were given, and blame was laid first and foremost at the WHO and China’s feet.

But is this truly a fair assessment?

Authority, responsibility and reality

It has to be acknowledged that during the initial phase of the virus pandemic, there was lacking a sense of urgency when it came to understanding the severity of the virus. The hardest affected country then was China, beginning in January, with over 80,000 cases.

The WHO, in the early stages of the pandemic, did mention that there was no evidence of human to human transmissions, that there was no need to impose any travel restrictions or bans to affected countries, and it did mention, too, that there was no need to wear face-masks.

Obviously, these previous statements did inform in some way on how seriously people took the disease, and perhaps contributed to the perception and misinformation that the virus was no worse than the flu.

So, is the WHO at fault for not considering the issue as severe from the very beginning?

Partly.

As an authoritative and trusted world body, its advice on matters pertaining to public health is crucial for policymakers and world leaders to ensure appropriate action and decision-making.

But with China reporting a downward trend of infections and local Covid-19 casesby February 2020, the worst was thought to be over. It was assumed that as the totalitarian measures taken by China to contain the virus had worked.

China’s virus looked like it was mainly China’s problem and there was no need to worry.

However, the pandemic, had begun to ramp up around the globe only in March 2020 with South East Asia and much of Europe suddenly begun turning into the new epicentres of the virus, with many falling to the virus at unexpected levels.

With this in mind, the situation that the WHO found itself in was one of shock, to the core, as within the span of a couple of months, the virus had attacked more viciously than ever and had outpaced our ability to respond.

The Chinese trust deficit: The China COVID-19 numbers

The first case of Covid-19 was reported by Beijing on December 31, 2019.

Was there an attempt at concealment, of the epidemic initially?

Strong evidence suggeststhat there was censuring. Those who spoke out about the virus, most notably Dr. Li Wenliang, who was the first to whistle blow on the virus was censured.

However, such secrets as the scale of the infection, cannot be kept hidden long and by January the whole world knew about the virus.

One may also recall that when the virus had hit its peak in China, on February 13th, Xi Jinping had moved to remove Communist Party officials who were in charge of the Hubei Province and Wuhan city. They were thoroughly replaced with Beijing’s hardliners.

Soon after, the city was in full lockdown, and the number of cases started pouring in.

But are these numbers trustworthy? After all the Chinese government has had a long-standing reputation for secrecy and censuring,

It is wholly understandable why people would mistrust their internal reports.

This move was made after the previous local government had reportedly attempted to subdue to the severity of the virus. Drawing from the country’s previous experience with the SARS pandemic, the Chinese government most likely knew that the secretive approach it had previously taken would not work.

As Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations had noted, the truthfulness in China’s reporting may be trustworthy, mainly because it is in its best interest to report the accurate numbers. After Xi Jinping’s firm reshuffling of the Hubei Province leadership, the Chinese President ordered more resolute efforts to bring the outbreak under control.

A comparison of China’s fatality rate by the virus with those outside of the Hubei province, and its regional neighbor, South Korea, closely matched. Data corroboration such as these confirm the validity of the numbers there. Hubei Province began reporting consistent updates ofcases and fatalities as well and their numbers were higher because the number of cases overwhelmed the local healthcare system and given the early stages of the virus’s discovery, many didn’t know how to best treat the virus.

The biggest spike in the number of cases on February 13th, 2020, was when it had begun to use CT scans on patients’ lungs rather than just traditional lab-test confirmation, allowing people to be isolated faster. China had changed the way it had detected cases several times but given that the pandemic was in its infancy, it is understandable.

Many of the numbers had been listed out in a comprehensive report on February 28th by the Chinese CDC and the WHO, which highly detailed the age brackets, methods on how the virus was contracted and the affected areas.

And finally, unlike the SARS outbreak which was only reported four months after the first case, the Covid-19 cases were reported within days of the first cluster which had appeared in Wuhan.

Between January 30th to February 16th, China had conducted 320,000 tests in the Guangdong province alone, which were all reported on a fairly regular basis.

China has been fairly transparent with its reporting and documentation, during the initial stages of the Covid-19 Pandemic and throughout, even sharing the mapped-out genetic sequence of the viruswas revealedwithin weeks of the first case.

It is to China’s credit that it had managed to contain the virus as well as it did, especially in a country of 1.39 billion people.

As Matteo Chinazzi from the Laboratory for the Modelling of Biological and Socio-Technical Systems at the Northeastern University in Boston had noted in his publication to Science, China’s efforts had cut the number of Covid-19 cases by 77 percent.

This understanding of the differences in governance and cultural make-up between Western and East-Asian societies explains why the Chinese experience cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Such factors which many have pointed out, is due to the highly-controlled governance of the Chinese state, its technologically sophisticated surveillance infrastructure, and highly coordinated social-mobilization; no other country can tout the same level of social mobilization as China does.

Its hard-handed approach towards maintaining social cohesion and control, may be seen by others as a human rights travesty, but it has allowed China to mitigate the spread of the virus domestically.

Decisive crisis management and the lessons learned

With all that has been mentioned so far, does it still stand to reason that the WHO and China are to be blamed for the current crisis shaking much of the world?

Did countries like the U.S and many others in Europe not have enough time to adequately prepare, and if they had more heads-up and more trustworthy numbers would the impact have been mitigated?

Despite having news of the virus in early January, there was no caution taken to successfully mitigate its spread in the West.

There have even been reports that indicated the U.S’ own military intelligence agencies had tried to raise alarms about the epidemic in China as early as November 2019, well before even China had first reported it to the WHO.

Reportedly, many analysts at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, a subsidiary of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, had alerted Donald Trump’s administration officials months before. When the report had finally reached the President’s attention it would then purportedly undergo weeks of vetting and analysis.

So, if the U.S knew that the virus was already a severe issue then, how can it stay on its claim that the WHO and China were responsible for the severity of the US and European cases?

The WHO funding cut, and the accusations laid towards China are more indicative of an internal political dispute that is being played out in the U.S. with geopolitics involved.

With China having recently lifted the lockdowns on Wuhan, it has begun to re-ignite the engines of its economy. Depending on how the crisis plays out, some speculate that China may have the economic advantage to get ahead of the curve while its rivals are still in quarantine and lockdown, with their economies at a standstill.

To the elites of the hegemon, this is unacceptable.

This perhaps also explains why President Donald Trump had expressed intentions to re-open the U.S economy in May, a prospect which many of his health advisors have deemed as overly optimistic.

So perhaps the desperation of restarting the U.S economy, to rectify the surging joblessness crisis, the need to counter-balance China’s own reboot, is the main driving factor in this case.

It is no secret that much of the perceived success of U.S President Donald Trump, relies heavily on the alleged economic boom that he engineered bringing the US to new heights.

The Make America Great Again dream is quickly being undone by Covid-19.

If the U.S were to slump even further because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this will provide more proverbial ammunition for the President’s political rivals to tear him down and threaten the future of his presidency.

To hope for a well-guided future

With all that has been mentioned, laying blame for the Covid-19 on China and the WHO doesn’t hold much water, and perhaps doesn’t hold much relevance in the present situation.

The crisis that has been unfolding, had begun back in January 2020, but given the spread of the virus and the impact beginning to take shape in March 2020 around the world, there was perhaps little to no time to adequately prepare.

A lot of the blaming and finger pointing are exercises in political disaster control that is frankly not needed at this time.

It only serves to confuse andanger, which does not benefit anyone.

What is needed is strong decisive leadership and management from not just the political elites, but from local governments and community leaders. In the U.S much praise has been lauded towards Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been regularly updating on the virus and its impact towards the citizens of New York. In Malaysia, the Health Director General Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah has received much praise in his handling and management of the pandemic with many Malaysians looking to him for guidance.

Praise needs to also be given to the local groups and front-liners whose initiatives are helping to us all ease through the crisis, as none are playing a small part in these trying times.

But if the Chinese experience is to be examined and contrasted with what is going on elsewhere, the lesson to be drawn here is that perhaps it is not just the preparation of a crisis that helps mitigate its impact, but, more importantly, the management of it which determines the outcome.

Rarely are we actually able to fully prepare adequately, but at this time, strong leadership, coordination and cooperation are the essential to succeeding against the virus.

In times of peace there are politicians, but in times of crisis, the true leaders emerge.

 

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Hassanal Noor Rashid is a Programme Coordinator for the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

What If the Lockdown Was All a Big Mistake?

April 21st, 2020 by Rep. Ron Paul

From California to New Jersey, Americans are protesting in the streets. They are demanding an end to house arrest orders given by government officials over a virus outbreak that even according to the latest US government numbers will claim fewer lives than the seasonal flu outbreak of 2017-2018.

Across the US, millions of businesses have been shut down by “executive order” and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Americans, who have seen their real wages decline thanks to Federal Reserve monetary malpractice, are finding themselves thrust into poverty and standing in breadlines. It is like a horror movie, but it’s real.

Last week the UN Secretary General warned that a global recession resulting from the worldwide coronavirus lockdown could cause “hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths per year.” As of this writing, less than 170,000 have been reported to have died from the coronavirus worldwide.

Many Americans have also died this past month because they were not able to get the medical care they needed. Cancer treatments have been indefinitely postponed. Life-saving surgeries have been put off to make room for coronavirus cases. Meanwhile hospitals are laying off thousands because the expected coronavirus cases have not come and the hospitals are partially empty.

What if the “cure” is worse than the disease?

Countries like Sweden that did not lock down their economy and place the population under house arrest are faring no worse than countries that did. Sweden’s deaths-per-million from coronavirus is lower than in many lockdown countries.

Likewise, US states that did not arrest citizens for merely walking on the beach are not doing worse than those that did. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem said last week, “we’ve been able to keep our businesses open and allow people to take on some personal responsibility.” South Dakota has recorded a total of seven coronavirus deaths.

Kentucky, a strict lockdown state, is five times more populated than South Dakota, yet it has some 20 times more coronavirus deaths. If lockdown and house arrest are the answer, shouldn’t those numbers be reversed, with South Dakota seeing mass death while Kentucky dodges the coronavirus bullet?

When Anthony Fauci first warned that two million would die, there was a race among federal, state, and local officials to see who could rip up the Constitution fastest. Then Fauci told us if we do what he says only a quarter of a million would die. They locked America down even harder. Then, with little more than a shrug of the shoulders, they announced that a maximum of 60,000 would die, but maybe less. That is certainly terrible, but it’s just a high-average flu season.

Imagine if we had used even a fraction of the resources spent to lock down the entire population and focused on providing assistance and protection to the most vulnerable – the elderly and those with serious medical conditions. We could have protected these people and still had an economy to go back to when the virus had run its course. And it wouldn’t have cost us six trillion dollars either.

Governments have no right or authority to tell us what business or other activity is “essential.” Only in totalitarian states does the government claim this authority. We should encourage all those who are standing up peacefully and demanding an accounting from their elected leaders. They should not be able to get away with this.

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There is surprisingly a certain degree of optimism around at the moment, despite virtually entire populations and economies on lockdown. Although things are really bad for millions right now due to the effects of lockdown, economist Mariana Mazzucato believes that the Covid-19 crisis will shine light on societal and economic systems all across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism.  

After lockdown ends, Mazzucato believes societies can be reshaped to become more inclusive. She says an overly financialised business sector has been siphoning value out of the economy by rewarding shareholders through stock-buyback schemes, rather than shoring up long-run growth by investing in research and development, wages and worker training. Mazzacuto thinks we can use the current state of emergency to start building a fairer and more sustainable economy with the state playing a leading role to serve the public interest over the long term.

Her optimism is also shared by others who think that out the wreckage of the current crisis, the state and citizens can work together to shift towards more stakeholder capitalist or even more socialist oriented societies. 

The reality, however, may merely mean the entrenchment of the prevailing system. For example, does anyone really believe that the ruling Conservative administration in the UK genuinely cares about the well-being of ordinary people or has any kind of commitment to publicly funded institutions? The Conservative Party has devastated millions of lives courtesy of an ideologically driven austerity agenda for over a decade. And for over three decades, it has been waging war on workers, unions and the public sector on behalf of global capital.

The situation is not unique to the UK. In India, successive administrations have been facilitating neoliberal policies that have led to a wholly avoidable agrarian crisis, marked by farmer suicides, child malnourishment, growing unemployment, increased informalisation, indebtedness and an overall collapse of agriculture. If anything, the current Modi administration has been keen to further open up the sector to the demands of Western agrocapital. 

Things in the US hardly merit optimism for radical change either. The Federal Reserve estimates over 47 million will lose their jobs in the US, taking unemployment to almost a third of the labour force. This is more than during the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, in a series of short explanatory films for the layperson, analyst John Titus shows that US capitalism and the privately owned Fed are not going to change their spots: Wall Street and its top executives will continue to enrich themselves, while the public will suffer throughout the duration of lockdown, which could persist in various forms for 18 months.

Even if we take a brief, more general look at what is happening, we can see that, for instance, factory farms in the US are expected to receive $23.5 billion in stimulus money. The Center for Biological Diversity and allies have urged congress to direct these funds to small and mid-size farmers instead of big agri-food concerns. With the threat of environmental regulation rollbacks also on the cards, it is clear the current crisis is being used to consolidate the position of major players in the sector.

Consider too that, according to a recent piece in the New York Times, the $2 trillion-plus coronavirus relief package making its way through US congress will give bailouts to a number of key industries and companies that have indulged in the types of shameful activities that Mazzucato outlines. The airline industry is expected to get some $50 billion in cash and loans and Boeing, which asked for $60 billion, is widely expected to receive some part of a $17 billion fund.  

During the past decade, most of the companies in line to get taxpayer money did not prepare for a downturn. For example, the airline industry, which is prone to booms and busts, collectively spent more than $45 billion on stock buybacks over the past eight years. Viewed in context, The New York Times says the relief package still amounts to a bailout of private capital and the endorsement of self-enriching practices.

Further Neoliberal reforms

The current crisis is hitting workers hard across the world, possibly more so in India than elsewhere. Consider that nearly half of India’s workforce of 467 million is self-employed, 36 percent are casual wage workers, while only 17 percent are regular wage workers. Two-thirds of them work without contracts and more than 90 percent lack any social security or health benefits in the workplace. The six-week coronavirus lockdown has made survival extremely difficult for them.

But is there hope on the horizon? World Bank Group President David Malpass recently stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various lockdowns that have been implemented in response to the Covid-19 crisis. However, before getting anyone’s hopes up too much, this ‘help’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms and the undermining of public services are implemented and become further embedded.

Malpass says:

“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.”

Ranil Salgado, mission chief for India at the IMF, echoes the views of Malpass by saying that when the economic shock passes, it’s important that India returns to its path of undertaking long-term reforms. 

In the face of economic crisis and stagnation at home, this would seem like an ideal opportunity for Western capital to further open up and loot economies abroad. On 20 April, the Wall Street Journal ran the headline ‘IMF, World Bank Face Deluge of Aid Requests From Developing World. Scores of countries are asking for bailouts and loans from financial institutions with $1.2 trillion to lend. An ideal recipe for fuelling dependency.

Global conglomerates will be able to hollow out the remnants of nation state sovereignty, while ordinary people’s rights and ability to organise and challenge the corporate hijack of economies and livelihoods will be undermined by the intensified, globalised system of surveillance that beckons.

This is a sentiment shared by economics professor Michel Chossudovsky, who implies Covid-19 provides ideal cover for rebooting the global economy via a global debt crisis and the subsequent privatization of national states. The current crisis will certainly have the effect of impoverishing hundreds of millions of workers and increasing the national debt of nations. It could prove so devastating to economies that bailout packages from global financial institutions might saddle nation states with debts that prove almost impossible to pay back.

Dollar denominated loans will help secure the global hegemony of the dollar, which has been looking increasingly fragile in recent years.

At the same time, with mass unemployment and workers’ pay decimated, ordinary people in both rich and poor countries will have finally reached the finishing line in the race towards the bottom. Workers’ rights and well-paid jobs will be at a premium, with a global reserve army of labour waiting in the wings to snap up any work that is available.

In India, neoliberal reforms have already devastated many livelihoods and the US – via the WTO and World Bank – has since the 1990s been pushing India to further open up to Western goods and corporations. Pressure has been applied to further reduce subsidies to the farm sector and to dismantle mechanisms which have ensured some degree of food security for the hundreds of millions who rely on state support.

As the lockdown plays out in India, we see stories of fractured supply chains and of farmers who cannot sell their produce. In rural areas, millions of migrant workers have returned to the countryside. Rural affairs commentator P Sainath paints a dreary picture of the impacts of India’s lockdown. He discusses the desperate plight of migrant workers, a shortage of cash to buy food and a potential shortage of food as farmers are unable to complete their harvests.

He notes that Dr. Sundararaman, a former executive director of the National Health Systems Resources Centre, asserts that there is a desperate need to “identify and act on the reverse migrations problem and the loss of livelihoods. Failing that, deaths from diseases that have long tormented mostly poor Indians could outstrip those brought about by the corona virus.”

But no doubt cash-rich Western capital which will gain from the trillions being pumped into the system will see many strategic opportunities to benefit. It has been pushing via the World Bank to bring Indian agriculture under corporate control for a long time. This would involve forcing GMO food crops into the country, the displacement of peasant farmers, corporate consolidation and commercialisation based on industrial-scale monocrop farms incorporated into global supply chains dominated by transnational agribusiness and retail giants.

This would amount to the wholesale restructuring of Indian society. What we could see is the acceleration of existing processes which have already led to what Sainath describes as a crisis of civilisation proportions.

Across the world, people need to question the narrative, the data and the data collection methods surrounding Covid-19 and assess whether lockdowns and their devastating effects are in line with the risks involved. Because, five years from now, given what is at stake and the massive hardships being endured, it will then be too late to look back and say it was all based on flawed data and wrongheaded responses and was driven by vested interests who were set to benefit financially.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

President Trump recently praised a deal reached largely by Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the top oil producers in the world who together dominate the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), saying that the agreed upon production cuts would “save hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in the United States.”

Despite the president’s rosy tone, most analysts have called the agreement – which presumably will freeze the Saudi-Russian oil price war that broke out last month – “too little too late” and have noted that a slew of bankruptcies from the U.S. shale oil industry are inevitabledespite the actions that have been taken. Even the Federal Reserve has stated that around 40% of domestic shale companies now face bankruptcy in just a few months if the price of oil remains under $30, a figure it is unlikely to pass for some time due to slumping demand caused by global lockdowns, among other factors that have emerged as the current coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis has played out. Trump has since fielded the possibility of imposing tariffs on oil imports to drive up oil prices and favor the domestic consumption of U.S. shale oil, but it remains to be seen if that policy will materialize.

Michael Hudson, President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a former Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, told The Last American Vagabond that, not only are numerous shale oil companies set to go out of business, but the entire shale oil industry in the U.S. “can’t be saved.”

“We have peak shale oil,” Hudson stated, “It was always an awful idea … It’s an over indebted sector and is one of the first to go.”

Hudson further asserted that the U.S. government’s “nurturing” of the shale oil sector in recent years was chiefly aimed at targeting Russia’s oil industry by driving down global oil prices, calling it an unsuccessful “anti-Russian cold war campaign” that has since backfired. He added that Trump’s recent overtures with respect to the shale oil industry are likely aimed at “making an excuse to give huge loans to the shale oil producers, as if it’s to keep them in business, and then they [the oil companies] are just going to pay the loans to themselves and go out of business. It’s a cover story for a huge corporate giveaway before this sector falls and goes bankrupt.”

Thus, the imminent reckoning for shale oil in the U.S. is unlikely to be stopped, despite the new production cuts and Trump’s efforts last month to set aside billions for the purchase of shale oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a move critics labeled as a bail-out for domestic “Big Oil” producers. In addition, the fate of U.S. shale oil is compounded by the possibility that the production cuts will not hold and that the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia could flare up again at any time. Previous yet recent OPEC-brokered deals of a similar nature have ended in this way, and it is very possible – if not likely – that it will happen again.

With oil extremely cheap at the moment, some of the issues raised by shale oil bankruptcies are not necessarily of immediate concern while demand remains low. Yet, if enough U.S. domestic oil producers go bankrupt, once current lockdowns are relaxed and oil demand creeps back up to relatively normal levels, there will be less domestic oil available, despite the SPR. As a result, the U.S. will again have to look more to other countries in order to make up the difference. Though the media thus far has explored the economic effects of this eventuality, less attention – if any – has been given to how it will impact U.S. foreign policy.

For years, President Trump has publicly claimed on several occasions that U.S. foreign policy objectives in the Middle East were no longer guided by oil due to the U.S. having obtained “energy independence,” “independence” that relies heavily on U.S. shale oil production. However, critics – including Michael Hudson – have long charged that this claim of energy independence is a “deliberate falsification.” Such claims are also supported by the fact that U.S. foreign policy in IraqSyria and elsewhere has remained linked to oil in key ways during this period of so-called “domestic energy independence” under Trump. Yet, the bankruptcies of 40% (or perhaps more) of U.S. shale oil producers would likely greatly increase the role oil plays in guiding U.S. foreign policy.

While there are many reasons as to why oil has long been a key factor in U.S. foreign policy (with the petrodollar ranking chief among them), another often overlooked reason is the U.S. military’s heavy reliance on oil. Indeed, the U.S. military is the largest institutional purchaser and consumer of oil in the world and, therefore, securing a reliable, stable and –ideally – geographically nearby source of oil has long been deemed a critical, strategic objective by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has said as much on numerous occasions, stating recently that

 “… longer operating distances, remote and austere geography, and anti-access/area denial threats [areas or nations unfriendly to the U.S.] are challenging the Department’s ability to assure the delivery of fuel. As the ability to deliver energy is placed at risk, so too is the Department’s ability to deploy and sustain forces around the globe.”

In other words, long distances from fuel sources as well as fuel sources located in or near areas/nations that are hostile to the U.S. directly threaten U.S. empire and its global military presence. In addition, control and influence over global oil flows has long been a key component of military strategy, as noted in the “Wolfowitz Doctrine.”

It is also worth noting that the economic calamity that threatens the domestic oil industry is not the only reliable, stable and geographically close oil supply to be hit by the crisis. For instance, Argentina’s shale oil industry in the “Vaca Muerta” area also faces ruin, an endeavor that had largely been “kick-started” by Exxon Mobil after that company had been ejected from Venezuela and also includes considerable investments from another U.S. oil giant, Chevron – a company ordered by the Trump administration to stop doing business in Venezuela by April 22.

US returns attention to Venezuela amid domestic oil collapse

Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has also made a seemingly odd reappearance on the Trump administration’s list of priorities during the current coronavirus crisis. On March 26, the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General William Barrannounced narco-terrorism and other criminal charges against top Venezuelan officials, including the country’s president Nicolás Maduro, alleging that these officials are involved in the trafficking of cocaine to the United States. The charges were odd for a few reasons, one of the main ones being that the U.S. government’s own data shows that Colombia, not Venezuela, is the source of the vast majority of cocaine that ends up in the U.S.

Then, on March 31, former CIA director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a plan entitled “Democratic Framework for Venezuela,” where he demanded that Maduro resign and the “opposition” figure Juan Guaidó also relinquish his claim to the Venezuelan presidency, a claim to power that the U.S. had previously backed. Pompeo’s plan calls for the formation of a council that would be led by an “interim president” (a title the U.S. had previously reserved for Guaidó) and that the council would be formed by members of Venezuela’s largest four political parties, including that led by Maduro. Unsurprisingly, Maduro’s government rejected the plan.

The criminal charges against Maduro and Pompeo’s “democratic” plan were quickly followed with much more troubling news. Announced at a press conference on April 1, President Trump, alongside top government officials, announced that U.S. Southern Command would begin a new “counter-narcotics effort” targeting Venezuela that would include the deployment of Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft, helicopters and more. The official justification of this large deployment is to surveil, disrupt and seize shipments allegedly containing “drugs” that are leaving Venezuela.

“We must not let narco-terrorists exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives,” Trump said at the time.

It was also announced that other countries would be joining the U.S. in what amounts to both a military build-up and a de facto blockade of Venezuelan exports, including its oil.

Soon after the announcement regarding this new build-up and de facto naval blockade of Venezuela, U.S. media accused President Trump of using these announcements to deflect criticism about his administration’s handling of the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. One report in Newsweek revealed that these initiatives with respect to Venezuela had been planned several months ago and were set to be announced this May. That report also alleged, citing senior Pentagon officials, that the administration had decided to announce the planned crackdowns on Venezuela sooner in order to “redirect attention.”

However, there may be another reason that these initiatives targeting Venezuela were sped up: the carnage in shale oil markets in the U.S. as well as Argentina and the implications of that for U.S. access – particularly the military’s access – to oil supplies once lockdowns and their associated economic effects begin to lessen.

Michael Hudson told The Last American Vagabond that the U.S. pivot towards Venezuela was “absolutely” related to the carnage in global oil markets and particularly the U.S. oil industry. He further argued that the U.S. was seeking to reimpose a debt-for-oil system that it had enjoyed under pre-Chavista governments in Venezuela:

“Under U.S.-backed dictators, Venezuela provided the collateral [for its debt] with all of its oil reserves… [Now,] America wants to give IMF [International Monetary Fund] loans to Venezuela and [oversee] the collateralization of Venezuela’s foreign debt with its oil reserves and then foreclose. [They want to] find an excuse to do to Venezuela what it did to Argentina, to grab Venezuela’s oil reserves as collateral by … preventing Venezuela from paying its foreign debt, [thus] forcing it to default on its foreign debt.”

This certainly seems to be a big part of the equation, as the U.S.-backed Juan Guaidó has long promoted IMF loans and personally sought sizable loans from that organization to finance his “interim government,” which controls essentially nothing in Venezuela. More recently, the IMF rejected Venezuela’s request for a loan to help it combat the coronavirus crisis, but the IMF has reportedly offered to give the country such a loan were Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, to step down and cede authority to a U.S.-backed “emergency government.”

Yet, there is much more to be concerned about than the IMF and the U.S.’ interest in imposing a debt-for-oil scheme on Venezuela. As Hudson told The Last American Vagabond, one very notable “great threat” is the parallel between the recent U.S. policy and military moves towards Venezuela and the moves that were made by the George H.W. Bush administration just prior to the 1989 invasion of Panama. “America would like to grab Venezuela’s oil and it wouldn’t be the first time,” said Hudson.

Regime change in the time of coronavirus

Though recent mainstream media reports claimed that the sudden reappearance of Venezuela on the White House’s agenda was merely political theater, subsequent events suggest something else. This past Saturday, U.S. envoy for Venezuela – war criminal and Project for a New American Century neo-con Elliott Abrams – stated that, if Venezuela’s Maduro did not agree to the Pompeo plan for a new “transition government,” a transition in Venezuelan governance would still occur, but would be more “dangerous and abrupt.” Abrams’ comments failed to generate much buzz in the media, as the April 1 press conference and announcement had done, despite the fact that Abrams was essentially starting that “dangerous and abrupt” action would be taken to force Maduro from power.

There is also the added mystery of an incident that took place right before the announcement of the large deployment of U.S. military assets to target “narco-terrorism.” On the last day of March, a Venezuelan coast guard ship asked a Portuguese cruise ship, the “RCGS Resolute,” that was in Venezuelan territorial waters to accompany it to port. Instead, the cruise ship rammed the Venezuelan vessel, sinking it. Maduro subsequently claimed that the cruise ship “was being used to transport mercenaries,” noting that Dutch authorities in Curacao, where the “RCGS Resolute” is currently docked, had been instructed to not inspect the ship. The company that owns the cruise ship, however, asserts that it is carrying no passengers and disputes Venezuela’s account of why the coast guard vessel was sunk.

In addition to this disconcerting event, there is the fact that the U.S.’ recently announced military build-up is the largest in the region since the U.S. invasion of Panama, which took place in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush administration. Disturbingly, the same Attorney General that greenlit the invasion of Panama once again serves in that same role in today’s administration, William Barr. At the time of the Panama invasion, it was Barr who created the legal justification for the war, arguing that the U.S. had the “legal authority” to arrest Panama’s then-dictator Manuel Noriega on drug charges, despite him not residing in the U.S. To think that Barr would not do so again is naive, especially considering that Trump had previously pushed to invade Venezuela, citing the invasion of Panama as an example of successful “gunboat diplomacy,” and has long talked about “taking the oil” of foreign countries and, in places like Syria, has used military force to do just that.

Though the 1989 invasion of Panama was dressed up in the typical rhetoric of restoring “democracy” and promoting “human rights,” it was actually waged with the intention to utterly destroy Panama’s military. Why would the U.S. want to destroy Panama’s capacity for self-defense? The answer lies in the treaty that then existed between Panama and the U.S. over the Panama canal, whereby control over the canal would eventually be returned to the Panamanians.

The only “loophole” for the U.S. to retain control of the canal, per that treaty, was if Panama became incapable of defending it. Notably, the gradual turnover of control of the canal was set to begin just ten days after the Bush administration’s invasion of Panama ended. Not long after the invasion, in 1991, the U.S. passed a law that ensured an indefinite U.S. military presence in the canal zone due to the fact that Panama (thanks to the U.S. invasion) could no longer defend that territory.

There are other notable points regarding the invasion of Panama that are seemingly relevant today as well. For instance, media’s effort to manufacture public consent for the invasion was largely centered around pointing out Manuel Noriega’s involvement in narco-trafficking and Panama’s lack of democracy under his rule. Of course, this rhetoric has obvious similarities to current rhetoric involving Venezuela.

However, this media campaign, in Noriega’s case, failed to note that the Noriega’s role in drug smuggling was largely on the behalf of U.S. interests and that Noriega had closely collaborated with then-President, George H.W. Bush, when he had served as CIA director. In addition, Noriega was well known at the time to have been on the CIA payroll for years. Such reports also overlooked the fact that the CIA had recently been caught driving the trafficking of drugs and weapons between Central America and the U.S. as part of the Iran Contra scandal. If these reports had pointed this out, it would have made Noriega’s involvement in these matters, including his supporting role in Iran Contra, appear negligible by comparison.

Similarly, today, efforts to link Venezuelan leadership to the drug trade fail to note that the U.S.-backed Juan Guaidó took selfies with a narco-paramilitary organization just a few months ago and that Colombian leadership and its military, the U.S.’ biggest regional supporter of its Venezuela regime change agenda, both share direct ties to drug cartels.

It is also worth pointing out that, not only did the U.S. military hide the actual civilian death toll and cover up the war crimes committed during the invasion, they tested out new experimental weapons on the Panamanian people, which CounterPunch noted was “a kind of dress rehearsal for the Persian Gulf War the following year.” As many readers of this article are likely aware, the Trump administration has been making strong overtures about regime change, and potentially war, in Iran alongside their push for regime change in Venezuela. Were a similar invasion to occur in Venezuela, it seems likely that this pattern would repeat and would be treated as an experimental battlefield for a subsequent war in Iran.

The current confluence of factors suggests that such a Panama-style invasion of Venezuela is not only a possibility, but increasingly likely. Indeed, as previously mentioned, the U.S. has ordered the few U.S. companies that have been given waivers to avoid sanctions for their operations in Venezuela (namely Chevron) to terminate their dealings in the country by April 22 – next Wednesday. In addition, soon after that date, Venezuela’s oil sector is set to resume two joint oil ventures, one of which involves two European oil companies and another that involves Russia’ Rosneft, which the U.S. sanctioned in February for doing business with Venezuela’s state oil company. Those projects are due to re-initiate in May and July, respectively. The U.S. is openly opposed to these projects going forward and has threatened sanctions (and further sanctions in Rosneft’s case) against the companies involved.

Taken in combination with Elliott Abrams’ recent statements, the massive U.S. military build-up and the collapse of U.S. oil markets, such events seem to be pointing in the direction of an invasion being more likely than not. There is also the added layer of the U.S. facing a new “Great Depression” and these major economic downturns are often followed by the U.S. entering a major war. On the other hand, there is also the fact that most of the U.S. population is on lockdown due to the coronavirus crisis, making domestic resistance against such an invasion unlikely to manifest in any significant way. If Americans aren’t careful and don’t quickly begin to pay attention, the country could soon sleepwalk into another devastating and deadly “war for oil.”

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Whitney Webb is a MintPress News contributing journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

Featured image is from Alliance for Global Justice

Finance Versus the People in the Era of the Pandemic

April 21st, 2020 by Prof Prabhat Patnaik

The current pandemic has brought to the fore, and with exceptional clarity, the fundamental contradiction underlying contemporary globalisation, namely, the contradiction between the interests of finance and thoseof the people. Indeed this contradiction, which characterizes the era of globalisation as a whole, has now come to a head.

It is becoming clearly visible in country after country. Take the case of India. Millions have been suddenly rendered jobless, and lakhs of migrant workers trekking home from far away places, where they had been employed but no longer are, find themselves quarantined with little or no money. The paramount need of the hour is for the government to provide succour to these working people; and the government can do so immediately by enlarging the fiscal deficit.

But it refrains from doing so because a large fiscal deficit is not to the liking of globally mobile finance capital. The finance minister comes up therefore with a package of measures that is paltry beyond belief, where the total expenditure promised as help to the distressed households, ignoring re-packaged measures, comes to a mere Rs 92,000 crores (consisting of Rs 34,000 crore of cash transfers, Rs 45,000 crore of transfers through the public distribution system, and Rs13,000 crore of transfers in the form of gas cylinders). This comes to about 0.5 per cent of the country’s GDP, which is a trivial sum in the context of what is generally considered the worst tragedy to hit the country after independence!

But consider the state of the economy. The government is sitting on a whopping 58 million tonnes of foodgrain stocks (77 million tonnes if we include grains available but not yet ready for immediate distribution); the rabi crop promises to be good; industry has for long been demand-constrained with lots of unutilised capacity (in fact the country was sliding into an industrial recession before being hit by the pandemic); and foreign exchange reserves are at a record half a trillion dollars. A larger fiscal deficit under these circumstances cannot possibly have any harmful effects for the economy; but people are suffering because finance capital would not like it.

The official fear is that, if the fiscal deficit increases further, then the credit-rating agencies would downgrade India’s status, which would undermine the “confidence of the investors” and trigger a capital flight. This would cause a further fall in the value of the rupee which may become cumulative.

In all this however a simple point is lost: if this denouement actually comes about then there should be no hesitation in putting restrictions on capital outflows. Even a Hindutva government should not demur at putting such restrictions, if necessary, at a time like this.

But such is the stranglehold of finance capital that the very thought of capital controls, even in a pandemic, does not enter the government’s head. Hence any possibility of capital controls is simply ruled out from the very outset, so that even before any dire consequences of enlarging the fiscal deficit have actually materialised, the sheer thought of this happening frightens the government into sacrificing the interests of the people to satisfy the whims of finance.

The union government’s pusillanimity vis-à-vis global finance is also tying the hands of state governments. They have to bear a sizeable burden of the expenditure necessitated by the pandemic; and given the enormous centralisation of resources that has occurred of late, where they cannot even alter commodity taxation rates without the permission of the GST Council at which the centre is represented and has a dominant voice, they basically have to depend upon transfers from the centre.

Even their borrowing limits are controlled by the centre. Hence if the centre is strapped for funds, then so are the states; if the centre is hamstrung by the dictates of finance, then so are the states. The centre’s pusillanimity, in other words, restricts public expenditure down the line, for ameliorating the people’s distress during the pandemic.

Exactly the same conflict, between the people’s interest and that of finance, is clearly visible in Europe too. Many countries in southern Europe, notably Spain and Italy, have been hit very hard by the pandemic. Raising resources for public expenditure to meet the crisis at the level of each country would be extremely expensive as the yields on individual country bonds would be high; so a proposal has been made to float Eurobonds which would be the liability of a pan-European body and therefore entail lower yields. It is as if the whole of Europe would be borrowing on behalf of Italy, Spain and other needy countries instead of these countries themselves doing so.

This suggestion, made in particular by Italy, has however been opposed by Germany and the Netherlands, because German finance capital which dominates the Eurozone is opposed to a socialisation of the risks of borrowing by individual countries; the argument is that if at all a country needs to enlarge its fiscal deficit then it must be willing to pay the price for it. Angela Merkel as the head of the German government is articulating the position of German finance capital, exactly as she had done during the Greek crisis when Greece’s request to re-schedule debt had been stoutly opposed by German finance capital.

There have been international appeals by economists, and intellectuals generally, to Angela Merkel to relent on this. Even the example of a century ago, when the harsh terms for Germany in the Treaty of Versailles after the first world war, had increased the depth of the recession in that country, giving rise to the growth of Nazism, has been hinted at in the appeal. (Lenin, it may be recalled, had highlighted these harsh terms in his speech to the Second Congress of the Communist International as evidence of the maturing of the conditions for a world revolution). But finance capital has remained unmoved by such appeals.

A large number of third world countries, which have to meet their debt repayment obligations in the midst of the pandemic, have approached the International Monetary Fund for loans and also for arranging a rescheduling of their debt. The IMF’s own resources being meagre, it is in no position to provide sufficient loans to accommodate the interests of both financial creditors and the pandemic-hit people. And the debt-rescheduling that the IMF can arrange is unlikely to be enough to leave adequate resources for succour to the working poor in these countries.

Thus all over the world the conflict between finance capital and the interests of the pandemic-hit people is becoming acute and moving centre-stage. This conflict had always been camouflaged in verbiage about “high growth rates” (supposedly of benefit to all), and “wealth creation” (supposedly for the “nation” as a whole, of which all its citizens were legatees). The idea sought to be presented was that the interests of finance coincided with the interests of the country and its people, that serving the former ipso facto served the latter.

This idea was wearing thin anyway because of the world economic crisis. It was clear that no amount of interest rate reduction was going to get the world economy out of the crisis; what was needed was a fiscal stimulus. Given the objections of finance capital to any such fiscal stimulus (for which fiscal deficits would have to be expanded), no single State was in a position to engage upon such a fiscal stimulus while remaining within the framework of financial globalisation. For if it did so, then there would be an outflow of finance from its shores creating severe problems for it.

But now the vacuity of this idea of coincidence between the people’s interest and that of finance stands fully revealed by the pandemic; it can no longer be camouflaged by verbiage. There is a stark urgency about reaching help to the people, but the hurdle against doing so is the one imposed by the dictates of finance.The intensification of this conflict in the days to come will sound the death-knell of financial globalisation.

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Video: Perspectives on the Pandemic by Dr. John Ioannidis

April 21st, 2020 by Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis

In this long-awaited follow-up to his interview in late March, Dr. John Ioannidis discusses the results of three preliminary studies, (including his latest, which shows a drastically reduced infection fatality rate), the worrisome effects of the lockdown, the Swedish approach, the Italian data, the ups and downs of testing, the feasibility of “contact tracing”, and much more.

Watch the interview below.

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This brave and intelligent respiratory therapist has blown the whistle on the fake pandemic that is COVID-19. He joins the ranks of a growing number of doctors on the frontlines who are reporting that this so-called pandemic simply doesn’t add up, due to various reasons that have been reported by independent and citizen journalists: empty hospitals, inflated figures and people being falsely counted as COVID-19 cases.

This respiratory doctor also exposes the COVID-19 test itself as useless. It is not testing for the virus but rather the reaction to the virus. Since it is a PCR test and not the gold standard of isolation and purification etc. (Koch’s postulates discussed here), it is merely testing for RNA sequences that could be caused by many other things, not a dreaded new coronavirus strain.

The PCR test is limited in function and flawed if used for broad diagnosis; it uses cycles to amplify the RNA sequence, which leads to many people getting a “positive” that in reality could be from cancer, radiation or many other things. He also had some scathing things to say about his fellow doctors just going along with the program and not asking the tough questions, a sad reflection on the profession, since it is well-known people look up to doctors and give away their power to perceived authority.

 


Full transcript is below:

“Good evening YouTube. This is our future and the power’s with the people. Just wanted to let you know I am a respiratory therapist and I’ve been doing this for 21 years. I’ve been kind of all over the place doing this. I wanted to show you our equipment room here. So we want to talk about COVID-19 for a few minutes and the first thing I want to say is: does it look like there’s a ventilator shortage? There’s not, okay! As a matter of fact, we’re running less ventilators right now than we would normally run and that’s cause people are just staying home. They’re not having elective surgeries. I want to talk about the numbers and the criteria that goes into what a COVID patient is or a patient under investigation (what’s also called a PUI). Basically right now, and the way it has been last couple of months when they locked us down, is that any patient that came in with a respiratory problem was labeled COVID. Now that doesn’t matter if it’s you got stage 4 lung cancer, pancreatitis, heart disease, liver failure and everything else – you’re still, because you come in with breathing problems, you’re labeled a COVID patient.

Now we have one lady that could do the testing at first that would go … those tests went to the CDC. Only one person was qualified to to test that for the whole place. So several of these patients under investigations were never tested and maybe they died or whatever. Then they would die of COVID and not of stage 4 lung cancer or these things. This is clear that this is what’s come out every single patient that needs one of our pieces of equipment here … any of this if they need any of this stuff, okay, then they are a rule-out COVID. And these tests have taken as long as 2 or 3 weeks to get back. We’re finally getting what they claim; they’ve been claiming this for a month but we’re finally getting in-house testing that’s going to change the game. I think that’s that’s what’s going on in most places and what that also means is isn’t it now you’re going see the numbers either go up or go down, and I would suspect we’re gonna see them spike up, and then spike down real quick, and this is the reason for the number of deaths. So you have to recognize that if every single patient is under COVID investigation and dies, then that goes into a COVID death, and they’re showing the numbers like a football game to scare you. They’re showing you loading bodies into a tractor trailer to scare you. I’ve never in my career ever seen bodies loaded into a tractor trailer. It just doesn’t happen. I wonder if those were even bodies. I really don’t believe it! All of this stuff is fake, okay?

Look at our ventilators. Let’s talk about ventilators and why there would be a shortage of ventilators. Well this is non-invasive ventilation here. CPAP or BiPAP: this is a mask that gets strapped on in we can help you breathe with that. We’re not allowed to use those okay? We’re finally opening up to where we can use them a little bit but for the most part since COVID came out they said absolutely not; that’s going to cause the virus to spread all over the place by spraying air slaws everywhere and so we can’t use it you have to let the patient crash and go straight to a ventilator, okay? Traditionally that’s not the way we would treat a patient. We also have air slides medications (bronchodilators) – we’re not allowed to use those either. So everything that we would traditionally do we’re not allowed to do. Every patient that comes in no matter what their history is labeled a COVID under investigation, so if that patient dies that becomes a COVID death, okay?

So, there’s a lot of weird things going on when it comes to the testing itself. I’ve been looking at this for about a month now but you can also look for yourself. They were open about it on CBS News the other night. They’re not testing for a virus, like if you go to you get sick you go to the hospital; traditionally you get tested for flu A and B.  Flu A by the way is H1N1 (the one that killed everybody in 2008). They’ll test you for RSV. Those are actual viruses that, you know, they will test you for. This COVID test is different. They’re testing for an RNA sequence from a reaction to the virus. Look this up! Please look it up! They’re not testing for a virus! There’s not one test to test for a virus okay? Then they put it in a PCR. It’s a PCR test which means it amplifies it so if there’s any little one little shred of that RNA sequence from a damaged cell in your lungs or in your nasal passage, you’re going to test positive. Now that can come from cancer, that can come from radiation, that can come from several things, so … and then you hear all this talk on the news about antibody therapy and all of us are kind of stuff people want to donate plasma everything else, but they’re not talking about the virus itself. They’re not testing for the virus itself, and that’s a big big issue, because that makes you say: “Well, is this as infectious as they’re telling us it is?” because if it was as infectious as they’re telling us that it is, these would all be in use and everybody would be dying and we’re not seeing that, okay? This is unbelievable – every bit of this has been created, okay?

If you cannot use the non-invasive ventilation and have to go straight to this the ventilator that creates a ventilator shortage but you also want to ask why it’s Ford and GM in the business of making ventilators when we have plenty of companies that already make ventilator you know what kind of ventilator is it? What does it do who’s going to train us on those ventilators and you know how is it going to be tested and then what is the cost per ventilator that the United States is paying for it in GM for these these products that really aren’t obviously needed so all this talk you hear on the news by the governors and everybody else we’re having shortages of ventilators it’s not true it’s not true, okay? So how about health care workers. Yeah we’re getting one or two healthcare workers or coming up positive and you know that would be expected but I would actually expect a lot more healthcare workers to get sick and come up positive and we’ve had some extreme contamination issues from patients that didn’t show any symptoms what and a patient under investigation and then all of a sudden came up positive and none of those health care workers came up positive got sick carried a fever or anything else just to show you real quick here’s my PPE that I have to wear sorry here’s my PPE that I have to wear. This an N95 mask in here and a face shield and of course we got some gowns and stuff but we’re going wearing this or 5 shifts minimum before we can get a new one all right so I’m contaminating myself every time I put this N95 masking the shield in this bag it’s contaminated. it’s contaminating over and over and over again and then I’m putting the mask on, okay? I’m still here I’m not sick and nobody else is either except with the exception of one or two.

If you look at the areas that these people are in where the hot spots are like such in Georgia, Albany and Atlanta you really have to say well why are all these places happening in these condensed areas? Well I truly believe this is something else that’s causing this all these patients have comorbidities they’re all older the ones that are you know in life-threatening situations and and the mortality rate is really not that low so if you actually look at what’s going on compared to H1N1 … H1N1 was a million times more scary than the COVID 19 hen it comes to a vaccination you cannot vaccinate yourself really for a sinus infection it’s just not going to work. You can’t vaccinate yourself for every little human ailment that there is you know people are going to get sick. What traditionally happens with viruses such as this if this is a virus and I’m not so sure it is but you’re going to have a real spike such as in SARS Zika H1N1. You gotta have a spike and then it’s going to lose its its efficacy and it’s going to drop and and the mortality rates going to drop I mean the people that get really sick is going to drop you know so you have this initial little bang and then it drops off that’s what a fire wrist normally does I’m not completely convinced this is a virus. I’ve been doing this a long time. Do your own homework do your research but the equipment should speak for itself – does this warrant shutting down the country? Does this warrant $6 to $10 trillion in economic stimulus just for this country? Does this warrant all these things that are being put in place? I mean does this warrant the trillions lost? Does this warrant locking everything up? Beaches, you know, hiking trails, tennis courts, bars, restaurants, pool halls, arm, schools … Does this warrant this? yeah I really don’t think it does – not even close.

So y’all need to be asking some some really hard questions here and questioning your government and questioning and people in charge and also questioning your doctors because the doctors believe this stuff just as much as everybody else does but they’re not looking at the real information all they’re doing is they’re told something and hey guess what they got lives they got jobs they got everything else you got. Plus on they don’t care I mean they do care but they’re not gonna go look it up they’re not gonna look up exactly what this test is they’re not gonna look up that hey why aren’t we getting these in fact you know they look up the little things that they’re told look up and that’s it just like anybody else would okay so you know these questions really have to be asked and then for the Trump supporters out there I’m gonna ask you something think about this for a minute we’re doing the same thing they’re doing in France we’re doing the same thing they’re doing in Italy we’re doing the same thing they’re doing any UK so does that mean Trump’s really in charge of this whole thing because I really don’t think he is I think he’s being told to do what he’s doing and and and that’s the way it is I mean this is a deep state Illuminati stuff and this is the real deal and they’re shutting the world down okay y’all people really need to understand this the world okay and they’re putting our kids and grandkids and severe debt – that will never be paid off and if you think of how many taxes you’re paying now can you imagine what our children and our grandchildren are gonna have to pay for this scam so please look up do your homework ask questions look at our equipment room ask why can’t we use this if we’re not seeing the infections yeah you know why can’t we use this non-invasive equipment why are we having auto manufacturers make ventilators. Who’s testing the ventilators? What kind of ventilator price per ventilator all these things the economic stimulus package you know is this gonna be another corporate bailout where they you know give themselves million-dollar bonuses while we starve I bet you it will be so this is real dangerous time we’re coming in – when it comes to the vaccinations I promise you.”

Fake Tests, Fake Bodies, Fake Pandemic: All to Keep People in Fear

As this respiratory therapist reveals, there are so many levels of fakery going on with this scamdemic. We have now entered the Brave New World of COVID-1984. We are in a new War on Bioterror, where everyone is a suspected or asymptomatic carrier, and the PCR test can replace the judge to prove your innocence or guilt. There are truly dangerous and unprecedented times. It is vitally important for everyone to not only question government but also to question their doctors so enough people.

Share this information. Knowledge dispels fear. Once enough people climb out of fear, naturally they will begin to unite and rise up in anger to demand freedom. Self-respect will kick in. The NWO manipulators who orchestrated this entire event will have a much harder time rolling out their plans when a united and aware citizenry protest en masse and refuse to buy into the fear and refuse to tolerate any more lockdown, house arrest or quarantine.

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This article was originally published on The Freedom Articles.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and FB.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHhyLvH7FQg

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

https://thefreedomarticles.com/new-war-on-bioterror-everyone-suspected-carrier/

Amid a health crisis that has made Brazil the country with the largest number of COVID-19 cases in Latin America, President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration closed its embassy and consulates in Venezuela on Friday.

At least 38 people boarded in a Brazilian Air Force plane bound for Brasilia. Among the returnees were diplomats, officials, and their families.

On March 5, Brazil’s president ordered the withdrawal of all his officials in Venezuela, an action framed in the U.S. strategy against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his fellow citizens.

Bolsonaro administration also notified its neighboring country to withdraw its diplomatic representatives from Brazilian territory.​​​​​​​

In this way, Brazil endorsed its alignment with the U.S. geopolitical proposal, which seeks to establish a transitional government in the Bolivarian nation.

“Since Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019, Brazil has become a close ally of the Donald Trump administration and shares its vision on Venezuela,” outlet Infobae recalled.

On March 17, the Brazilian regime ordered the “partial” closure of the borders with Venezuela, arguing that this measure would prevent a further spread of COVID-19.​​​​​​​

As of Saturday morning, Brazil had reported 34,485 COVID-19 cases and 2,181 deaths.

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Featured image: President Jair Bolsonaro leaves the Palacio do Alvorada, Brasilia, Brazil, March, 27, 2020. | Photo: EFE

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COVID-19: The Economic and Social Impact on Ocean Islands

April 21st, 2020 by Kester Kenn Klomegah

Understandingly, it has become important to analyze the spread of coronavirus and its impact on the economy of small islands especially Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros. These islands, which are favorite tourist posts and foreign investors, have also closely diverse geopolitical relationship with the world.

It comes into spectacular focus for this research study, although in general, the islands seem to have the lowest cases of the pandemic, and efforts taken in preparedness against the disease, and the possible effects on their economies and sociocultural lives of the population. Part of the research and monitoring is presented here in three headings as follows: (i) The Islands and Coronavirus: An Overview, (ii) Economic Impact of Coronavirus on these Islands and (iii) Current Scenarios and Lessons for the Future.

The Islands and Coronavirus: An Overview

The coronavirus disease appeared first in 2019 in Wuhan city in China. The disease was, first identified in Wuhan and Hubei, both in China early December 2019. The original cause still unknown but its symptoms include high body temperature with persistent dry cough and acute respiratory syndrome. Some medical researchers say it is a pneumonia-related disease.

Late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of the disease in the city of Wuhan in China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus – named COVID-19 by the WHO – have spread around the world. WHO declared the outbreak to be an international health concern only on 30 January, and then recognized it as a “pandemic”on 11 March 2020.

The basic transmission mechanisms of the coronavirus are the same worldwide. But the speed and pattern of spread definitely varies from country to country, urban to rural and place to place. It depends on cultural practices, traditional customs and social lifestyles. A densely populated township can have a different trajectory to a middle-class suburb or a village. The epidemic can spread differently and among nomadic peoples.

There have been claims that this coronavirus may not likely survive in hot countries due to the tropical climate in these regions, yet cases of this virus confirmed in these tropical countries. There are officially confirmed coronavirus cases on the islands of Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros.

On the Cape Verde, about 300 miles (483 kilometers) off the west coast of Senegal, consists of 10 islands and five islets, all but three of which are mountainous. The island has a total of 55 reported cases among its half a million population, according to the Cape Verde’s Public Health National Institute.

Mauritius is a very small island far away from China – and yet greatly affected by the coronavirus. Mauritius is a country reliant on tourism. The sector accounts for roughly a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Since the first three case investigated and confirmed on 18 March, Mauritius now has 324, including 65 recoveries and 9 death, according to the Health Ministry.

On 15 April 2020, no new cases were reported, three patients who recovered from the coronavirus agreed to donate their blood through Plasmapheresis, according to the official coronavirus website of the Health Ministry.

Maldives, officially referred to as the Republic of Maldives, is a small island in South Asia, located in the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean. Its population, one of the most geographically dispersed, is nearly 400,000 and the island attracts many foreign tourists throughout the year.

The disease got to Maldives on 7 March 2020 from an Italian tourist who had returned to Italy after spending holidays in Kuredu Resort & Spa. Thereafter, the Health Protection Agency of the Maldives confirmed two more cases in the Maldives, both employees of the resort. Following this, the hotel was closed down, several tourists stranded on the island.

On 27 March, the government announced the first confirmed case of a Maldivian citizen with COVID-19, a passenger who had returned from the United Kingdom. And that brought the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 16; there are other 15 foreign citizens. Thus, in April the figured climbed to 28 cases.

Seychelles, located in the Indian Ocean, reported its first two cases on 14 March. The two cases were people who were in contact with someone in Italy who tested positive. On 15 March, a third case arriving from The Netherlands was confirmed, and the next day, there were four confirmed cases, visitors from The Netherlands. As at 20 April, there are only 11 confirmed cases and two patients quickly recovered and have been released.

Vanuatu is a Pacific island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. It is east of northern Australia, nearer to New Guinea, Solomon and Fiji islands. Vanuatu has a population of approximately 250,000. All these islands’ mainstays of the economy are agriculture and tourism. They attract tourists throughout the year. As of 3 April 2020, it has no coronavirus but still vulnerable, if strict measures are not adopted. It, however, continues its surveillance.

There are five public hospitals, and one private hospital with 27 health centers located across the islands and more than 200 aid posts in more remote areas. The two major referral hospitals are located in Port Vila and Luganville in the country.

The Union of Comoros, an island nation to the east is Mozambique and northwest is Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, gained independence from France on 6 July 1975. In mid-2017, Comoros joined the Southern African Development Community (SADC) with 15 other regional member states. The Comoros share mostly African-Arab origins. It economic activities are the same as other ocean islands.

On 17 April, Chief Epidemiologist, Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth, indicated that 269 people have been tested so far, 106 men and 163 women. The number of confirmed cases is still at 14 as the official counted figure. One has died, one is still in the hospital, 10 are safe and three are active. 18 are being actively monitored and 12 are still in quarantine because they returned to the island after the measures were announced.

The Medical & Health Affairs Department (G & Gz) of the Ministry of Health, Environment and Nature (GMN) keeps a close eye on how the new coronavirus spreads and behaves worldwide. The G & Gz team is in direct contact with Curaçao Airport Partners (CAP), Curaçao Tourist Board (CTB), Curaçao Hospitality and Tourism Association (CHATA), the Analytical Diagnostic Center (ADC), Curaçao Medical Center (CMC) and Department of Immigration.

Here are the aforementioned coronavirus figures: Cape Verde (55), Mauritius (324), Maldives (28), Seychelles (11), Vanuatu (0) and the Union of Comoros (14), it would be erroneous to attribute tourism as the key reason for comparatively high numbers of cases in Mauritius. Of course, more Chinese are attracted there so as South Africans. There is propensity that the figures may not rise as the island governments have also taken strict control measures.

Economic Impact of Coronavirus on these Islands

The already weak capacity of health care system on these four islands – Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros – is likely to exacerbate the pandemic and its impact on their economies. These islands’ coronavirus disease burden is not so different from each other. But in each case, the key factor is the economic models and what these mean for this circumstance.

As an example, Maldives took an admirable step in the health sector. The Maldivian government turned the resort island of Villivaru in the Kaafu Atoll into a quarantine facility, described as “the world’s first coronavirus resort”, where patients would enjoy a luxurious stay and free medical care. According to Minister of Tourism, Ali Waheed, the Maldives had 2,288 beds available for quarantine as of late March 2020.

Obviously, other economic implications of the coronavirus are detrimental not only to public health systems but to trade and travel industry. On all the islands, small-scale agriculture that includes fishing, local industries as well as retail markets are largely affected. More than 80% of people in rural areas depend on subsistence farming for survival; however, restrictions on market activities would limit market access.

It is worth to say that both agriculture and fishing in these islands are conducted at subsistence level and for small-scale exports. Seafood is very popular and resultantly export of seafood is curtailed. The Maldives’ economy is dependent on tourism, which dropped severely due to travel restrictions amid the pandemic. Experts warned of an economic contraction and possible difficulties paying back foreign debt, especially to China.

Specifically, it is estimated that the shutdown implemented to control the pandemic costs the Mauritian economy about 5% of the country’s GDP for the full 15-day lockdown announced by government on 20 March. Later, there was sanitary curfew started on 23 March and was extended up to 15 April 2020. Now, the lockdown was again extended till 4 May to further contain the spread of the COVID-19 in Mauritius.

As already known, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros depend mostly on the travel industry. Due to the outbreak of this coronavirus, all these governments have imposed restrictions on travel to the islands that have the best climate and attractive beaches. Travel restriction imposed, thus paralyzing tourism industry in all the four islands.

The Government of Maldives and the Tourism Ministry of the Maldives with the guidance of the Health Protection Agency of the Maldives (HPA) placed a temporary travel restriction for the following countries to control new cases. Since then, there are no passengers (traffic) originating from, transiting to or with a travel history of said country/province is to be permitted into the Maldives. Maldivians and spouses of Maldivians who are foreign nationals are allowed in, but subject to observe quarantine measures.

The Cape Verdean authorities have closed all sea borders and stopped internal flights between the islands. Travelers are required to comply with any additional screening measures put in place by the authorities. As a further step, the government has declared a state of emergency for the whole country until 17 April, the details of which can be found here (in Portuguese). This has activated a series of measures including significant restrictions on movement nationally and internationally.

However, all citizens have been instructed to remain at home unless they needed to carry out the following activities. These are: (i) to buy food or other essential items, (ii) to go to work if unable to work from home, (iii) to go to hospital or health centers, (iv) to carry out caring or similar duties or in case of real need, and (v) to walk pets. Cape Verde’s Public Health National Institute pledged to help in cases of emergency.

Since the beginning of March, the Mauritian authorities have been conducting ‘Contact Tracing’: people who have been in contact with infected patients have been placed under quarantine, including doctors, nurses and police officers.

Seychelles banned any person from Seychelles from travelling to China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. These countries have high cases. An exception is made for returning residents, under similar rules taken by Cape Verde, Mauritius and Vanuatu.

The most significant remittances to Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles,Vanuatuand the Union of Comorosas a source of financial stability come from the islanders who work as temporary laborers around the world, disappeared. The Union of Comoros depends heavily on remittances. For instance, there are between 200,000 and 350,000 Comorians in France. Official statistics are hard to find especially most of the government sources and international organizations become inaccessible for required information.

There have been a steady development or facelift in the cities over the past years. A substantial process of urbanization is still unfolding in Cape Verde, especially to the cities of Praia and Mindelo. The same trend city’s development and expansion in Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatuand the Union of Comoros.

Beyond all the points raised above, Dr Antipas Massawe, a former lecturer from the Department of Chemical and Mining Engineering, University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, East Africa, strongly insisted that “the scale of the challenges facing the health sector is tremendous, it requires extensive investment of resources and governments have to direct focus on the sustainable solutions.”

Charles Prempeh, a lecturer in Africana Studies at the African University College of Communications (AUCC), and a doctoral candidate at University of Cambridge, also explains in an email thatthere are deficiencies – ranging from poor health policies through inadequate funding of health infrastructure to training and research – that have characterized the health sector in Africa. Ocean islands have similar pitfalls or problems.

Amid the fast spreading coronavirus in some regions, it is simply providential that the African continent has not recorded high numbers, compared to the so-called western countries. But it is also true that even with the relatively smaller number of cases that most countries in Africa have recorded,there are deep-seated doubts that the health system can match squarely with the debilitating effect of the virus, as they have come under disproportionate strain, according to him.

“The current situation is serious setback,” both academics acknowledged. But further suggested that small island governments draw a long term development plan, make consistent efforts at mobilizing resources for realizing – support for education, health and employment generating sectors, – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Current Scenarios and Lessons for the Future

It is time for solidarity, to fight the end the global health mess. The key lessons for epidemic response are to act fast but act locally. That is exactly what Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros are focusing on now.

But as the international response gains momentum, some financial assistance may be extended to these islands. The islands hospitals need testing kits, basic materials for hygiene, personal protective equipment for the professional health workers, and equipment for assisted breathing. There is a global shortage of all of these and a shameful scramble among developed countries to get their own supplies – relegating Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles,Vanuatu and the Union of Comoros to the backyard.

The islands absolutely have no pharmaceutical companies to produce the needed medicaments. The medical supplies, equipment and whatever have to be imported from the United States and Canada, Europe, Asian countries such China and India.

Media reports said Mauritius and Seychelles had received a few tons of medicine including thousands of hydroxychloroquine tablets from India to help in their fight against COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug used by some doctors to treat COVID-19 patients, though its efficacy is still being tested. Mauritius and Seychelles are favorite tourist posts, and have long-time close geopolitical relationship with India.

The COVID-19 epidemic is currently forcing governments to cut agricultural expenses and prioritize health-related expenditures. This will heavily affect the economy in the future if the restrictions continue, and further expected to bring additional economic hardship in the nearest future to these poor ocean islands. More than 80% of people in rural areas depend on subsistence farming for survival, restrictions on market activities would limit market access.

Repeat: Most of these people derive their livelihoods from the informal economy, small-scale farming, open market trading, livestock keeping and fishing. Workers in the formal sector have low incomes. Only a few of them have social security, and some may not even have saving accounts. This means with the lockdown, these islands are likely and adversely affected.

The above scenarios complicate the situation for poor people, who have little resources or insurance to cushion the social and economic impact of the pandemic. These small islands are, indeed, in a quagmire both, at the state level and the individual. While much depends on post-pandemic internal policies directed at transforming the economy, strategies to expand practical collaboration with foreign partners, the islands still have to keep good diplomatic relationship with the world. Nevertheless, global leaders have called for a comprehensive approach to mobilizing support for least developed countries, and so it is time to show absolute solidarity with Cape Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles, Vanuatuand the Union of Comoros.

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

Kester Kenn Klomegah is a Special Representative of the Russian Trade and Economic Development Council on interaction with Africa. He is also an independent research writer on African affairs in the EurAsian region and former Soviet republics.

Featured image is from Avas.mv

When Your Bank Goes Bust…Run! Or…

April 21st, 2020 by Brett Redmayne-Titley

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.” – Bertolt Brecht

Daily, a thus distracted public is told that the financial patsy for the growing worldwide economic disaster is simply a virus. As Americans fearfully watch passively as the US Congress throws the ever-mounting trillions in Bail-out funds so quickly at the feet of their puppet masters, the paltry cash reserves of all American bank depositors have never been more at risk.

“I’m sorry, Sir. We are unable to cash this check,” were the rather ominous words delivered to me by a fresh-faced, none-too-friendly, Wells Fargo Bank assistant manager. He had just kept me waiting ten minutes while in consultation with others about my pending transaction. Returning to his Wells’ colored cubicle he sat down quickly, straightened in his chair and then looked at me intently through narrowed eyes before delivering the bad news.

Four feet away, between us and in front of him, were three forms of my personal identification face up. Looking down, this budding banker particularly glowered at two personal checks, also laying on the desk before him, written to me as payment by a client and drawn on his bank. Not being a “Wells” customer I had expected a shake-down, hence I had brought with me multiple forms of ID including passport.

These two checks totalled the small sum of almost US$8,000.00. Not expecting this much difficulty I insisted on a reason, to which he now looked up from once again carefully considering the two checks and replied, “I’m sorry, but the bank does not have sufficient funds on-hand to cash these checks.”

Oh, dear.

*

For those fortunate Americans who have personal cash savings available and would prefer to keep them, the unspoken reality is: that in 2010  your Congress legalized any bank’s total control over your savings deposits should, by financial urgency, the banks say that they need them.

Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the 2008-9 Great Recession the US Congress, then, approved a 30,000-page bill that you were told would fix, once and for all, the ills of the evil banks and the need for them to ever be “Bailed-Out” again. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in part provided the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) with new powers and methods to guarantee depositor’s savings. Incredibly, congress failed via Dodd-Frank to regulate the derivatives trade despite this type of fiscal Russian roulette applied to worthless mortgage-backed securities being the root cause of the original 2008 recession for which everyone-except Wall St. – suffered dearly.

The resultant lack of regulation has seen  OTC derivatives increase to$640 trillion at end-June 2019.

Considering that banks currently reward depositors for this unreported risk with virtually zero- or negative– interest rates, the made-wary depositor would do well to reassess the long-held fallacy that banks have sufficient cash reserves to meet their obligations to a depositor’s cash deposits. Or, that your cash is safe. Neither is true. With the crashing financials of the nation’s largest banks flash in crimson red, your cash has never been more at risk.

Naturally, like the majority of incorrectly informed US bank depositors, I had assumed that this here bank, today, would have lots and lots of cash on hand.

Au contraire.

Unapologetically the Wells manager informed me that he was “sorry” but he could only cash one of the checks at this time. Both checks were for about the same amount. I inquired if this was new bank policy and was told that the bank simply did not have enough cash on hand, and, “no,” I could not come back at the end of the day after the bank had received the day’s cash deposits. However, he informed me that, if I ventured to a larger Wells Fargo branch they might be able to handle both checks at once.

This rather unique news seemed worthy of delving into further, so I declined his kind offer and left with both my onerous financial instruments in hand. Being away on business, I decided to wait and stop by my home town’s main Wells Fargo branch office and investigate this further.

Thus began my quest to pick-up a paltry eight large in cold, hard cash.

Turned out, since Dodd-Frank, I no longer had a primary right to my hard-earned deposited cash, anyway. Nor, even, a secondary right. In fact, when it came to my cash, I, as the bank’s cash depositor, and my money was these days legally a tertiary banking financial obligation at best.

Oh, dear!

*

“… people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”  –Henry Ford

The banks have known this new economic crash was coming for years. Post-2009, US banks also knew well that most American people, thanks to the omissions and distortions by media mythologists, are still woefully ignorant regarding the nuances of the genius of their bank’s financial alchemy that magically creates money out of thin air. Most live daily in the illusion that their financial institutions will protect their deposited savings. This is because they missed their bank’s greedy preparations for the next stock market crash to come.

In the aftermath of 2009, a year later the banks understood that Americans, Europeans and UK citizens had lost all enthusiasm for any future government Bail-Out, most people preferring instead that any institution suffering self-inflicted financial distress should –next time– enjoy the fruits of their crimes via formal bankruptcy proceedings.

After the Obama era Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) chucked its own $trillions into the 2009 trough back then, the “Too Big to Fail,” (TBTF) banks developed a very fraudulent and elitist connotation as did the applicable term, “Bail-Out.” To millions across the world who had lost their homes, pension funds, retirement plans- and dreams– these were both now very tired monikers for financial oppression and fraud. In 2010, the previously bailed-out TBTF banks were provided with a far more magnificent definition: “Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions” (G-SIFI).

As for the much-maligned and properly vilified “Bail-Out”? No… No. That, too, recalled those days of congressionally imposed privation. Would not a “Bail-In” sound much more welcoming? More acceptable? “Bail-Outs,” may have lost their popular flavour but in the new world of the G-SIFI, the next bank bail-out is actually just a “Bail-In,” away.

Yes, Bail-Ins are now the new “systemically” correct term for publicly guaranteed banking fraud. With the Bail-out thus discredited, this new politically correct renaming has now been incorporated in newly crafted national policies and laws appearing in multiple other countries as well. These finance laws, such as Dodd-Frank and its similar UK and European Union versions, turn the intent of Dodd-Frank on its head and make future Bail-Ins legal. The difference in the definition should shock any bank depositor.

These Bail-Ins allow failing G-SIFI banks, should they need to avoid insolvency, to legally convert the cash funds of “unsecured creditors” (the bank’s depositors) into bank capital. This also includes “secured” creditors, like state and local government funds. Like pensions.

The 2008-9 reaction to the financial damage of the recession was a massive effort to avoid that systemic financial bankruptcy. The increased and unregulated use of derivatives was a primary cause of the fiscal damage then. In the aftermath, rather than regulation, thanks to Dodd-Frank, derivatives suddenly were amazingly provided “super-priority” status in any future bank bankruptcy.

Worse, at the same stroke of Obama’s pen, formerly secure cash depositors were suddenly demoted to “un-secured” status.

As America once again impotently watches a new orgy of massive “Bail-Outs” being thrown just as quickly at Wall Street as during  2008-9, one might also recall how their corporately controlled Federal Reserve Bank and US Congress threw, then, several trillions of US taxpayer dollars just as quickly at US corporations and banks. Massive public funding under TARP also went then to any corporation with enough political pull to be defined as “Too Big To Fail” (TBTF). These were the Bail-outs of yore.

The financial law firm Davis Polk estimates the final length of Dodd-Frank, the single longest bill ever passed by the US government, is over 30,000 pages. Before passage, the six largest banks in the US spent $29.4 million lobbying Congress in 2010 and flooded Capitol Hill with about 3,000 lobbyists prior to Obama predictably signing its final unreadversion. Reportedly, no US congressperson, senator, or staffer had bothered to read it.

However, the bank’s congressional minions were told to vote for it. And dutifully they did.

But, the authors of Dodd-Frank did little about derivatives. Banks almost exclusively hold this risk exposure. Today, that estimate is pushing three-quarters of a quadrillion dollars. What this means today for cash depositors is that applied to Dodd-Frank and these same again failing banks, all these upcoming bad bank bets will be paid-off first-not last- using the savings of depositors who are now legally last on the minds of the banks.

Normally in any managed court-ordered capital liquidation via corporate bankruptcy proceedings, secured creditors- such as a bank’s depositors- are paid off first because theirs were hard assets when first deposited, not investments. In the past, secured creditors normally had a mandated and legal priority during any liquidation. However, under the new “Bail-In” of the Dodd-Frank mandates, your government has re-prioritized your bank’s exposure and your cash deposit. Derivatives and other similar banking high-risk ventures are now more highly protected than any bank depositor’s savings which are now treated as un-secured instead.

Similarly, in the 2013 example of Cyprus, Germany and the ECB also made depositors inferior to other bank holdings and investments leaving depositors with, after many months, a small remaining fraction of their deposits.

And then came Greece.

“It’s [FDIC] already indicated that they will confiscate [savings] funds…”. -US congressman Ron Paul

With this recent history in mind, I entered my town’s main branch of Wells Fargo. The two checks in hand. On the way in I was greeted warmly, one after the other, by three more fresh-faced and eager proteges, all smartly uniformed to match the Wells décor, and who proffered in turn, “Good morning, Sir!,” again, and again… and again. Certainly, these little fish were not in possession of authority sufficient to cash my two mammoth checks, so I asked for bigger game: the Branch Manager.

Thus, I explained my plight to a very lovely lass who predicted she, “would be glad to help me.”

“Cheryl,” patiently explained that I had come to the right place and she would be glad to cash both checks. Regarding my previous polite banking experience, she admitted that it was indeed bank policy to have limits on the availability of cash for withdrawals and that different branches had different limits. This was the main branch so my request here was meritorious. Further, she admitted that whatever daily cash coming into the branches in the form of deposits was not available for withdrawal, but was sent from the branch for daily accounting at a central point common to all area Wells bank branches. Only a prescribed amount of cash was provided to each bank for daily customer cash withdrawals. The amount was kept at par to begin each day.

“A couple of times your current request,” was Cheryl’s cautious response to my question about her branch’s limits on check cashing. Not to be put-off, I asked about a hypothetical US$25,000 check. She admitted this would be beyond her branches authority. “But,” she smiled, “Today, you’ve come to the right place.”

We are told that the near-certain global economic collapse was caused most decidedly by a pernicious virus branded as COVID-19. True, but that virus would much better titled, “Unregulated Capitalism.” This week, depositors were repeatedly told by media whores that the banks are safe and not to withdraw cash. This lie was obviously reverse psychology since the lines for ATMs were long and many ran out of cash within hours. CNBC and others assured worried savers that banks will not be given taxpayer bailouts next time. True.

The preamble to the Dodd-Frank Act claims, “…to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts.”

But then, how does a failing bank get a Bail-In as a designated G-SIFI without receiving another taxpayer Bail-Out?

No problem. Enter the FDIC and another new banking term, “cross-border bank resolution.”

As the US agency required to pay back depositors who lose savings up to $250,000, FDIC is insufficiently armed with a paltry US$25 billion war chest. Under Dodd-Frank, the FDIC is the mechanism to replace deposits lost or squandered by banking largesse. Sadly for the public, the bank’s US depositors have claims to an estimated US$7.36 trillion in cash. Once the banks steal your savings to pay-off their superior obligations, the FDIC will be more than a tad short of the funds needed.  How to fix this mathematical shortfall?

On December 10, 2012, a joint strategy paper was drafted by the Bank of England (BOE) in conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) titled, “Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions.” Here the plot to steal depositor’s savings is laid out.

The report’s “Executive Summary” states,

“… the authorities in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) have been working together to develop resolution strategies…These strategies have been designed to enable [financial institutions] to be resolved without threatening financial stability and without putting public funds at risk.”

Sounds good until you read the fine print.

Despite the movement of the Congress to rescind the provision, Title II of Dodd-Frank gives the FDIC a new enforcement arm, the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) which is similar to its British counterpart the Prudent Regulation Authority (PRA). Both now have the authority to punish the depositors of failing banking institutions by arbitrarily making their savings deposits subordinate- actually tertiary- to bank claims for the replacement value their derivatives, junk mortgage exposure, and propagation of economic sector bubbles of historic proportions.

Further, with US banks holding $7 trillion in personal cash savings deposits compared to approx. $230 trillion in US derivative obligations, the FDIC’s $25 billion will still not be quite enough. The creators of Dodd-Frank knew this before it was signed. As John Butler points out in an April 4, 2012 review in Financial Sense,

“Do you see the sleight-of-hand at work here? Under the guise of protecting taxpayers, depositors… are to be arbitrary, subordinated… when in fact they are legally senior to those claims…”

Oh, but bank depositors can rest easy in the knowledge that replacing their savings via FDIC will not come out of their yearly taxes via a Bail-Out. Thanks to Dodd-Frank, the first line of defence for depositors will allow Congress to instead replace personal savings via the FDIC with a government paid for $7 trillion bail-in…of your cash savings.

But, what’s another $7 trillion after $6 Trillion last month on top of $23Trillion in accrued national debt after yet another $1trillion yearly US budget deficit?

Fiscal insanity.

Worse than this monetary conjuring act, Dodd-Frank gives new powers to the FDIC and its OLA that allows for an even more powerful and draconian resolution: any deposited funds in a bank, from $1 to $250,000 (the FDIC limit), and everything above, can instead be converted to bank stock!

Since this will eliminate their responsibility, FDIC has provisions within Dodd-Frank so that this can be done, via OLA, quite literally overnight.

An FDIC report released in 2012 reads:

“An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from the original creditors [depositors] of the failed company [Bank] into equity [stock].”

Additionally, per an April 24, 2012, IMF report, conversion of bank debt to stock is an essential element of Bail-Ins included in Dodd-Frank.

“The contribution of new capital will come from debt conversion and/or issuance of new equity, with an elimination or significant dilution of the pre-bail in shareholders. …Some measures might be necessary to reduce the risk of a ‘death spiral’ in share prices.”

As was the case post-2009, in order for affected depositors to retrieve the cash value of what was formerly their cash account balance, the stock provided to them in lieu of their cash must next be sold.

When Lehman Brothers failed, unsecured creditors (depositors are now unsecured creditors) eventually got eight cents on the dollar.

This type of conversion of deposits into equity already had another test-run during the bankruptcy reorganization of Bankia and four other Spanish banks in 2013. The conditions of a July 2012 Memorandum of Understanding resulted in over 1 million small depositors becoming stockholders in Bankia when they were ordered to be sold- for their cash and without their permission- “preferences” (preferred stock) in exchange for their missing deposits. Following the conversion to common stock, these preferenceswere originally valued at EU 2.0 per share. Of course this stock in a bankrupt Bankia continued to tumble in value and like Lehman Bros. ended up being further devalued to EU 0.1 after the March restructuring.

Canada has also stated they were planning a similar “Bail-In” program. The Canadian government released a document titled the Economic Action Plan 2013 which says, “the Government proposes to implement a “Bail-In” regime for systemically important banks.”

However, don’t be getting cute by hiding your cash, precious metals, or passport in a US bank safe deposit box. This illusion of financial security is no longer safe either. Dodd-Frank took care of that, too.

Under Dodd-Frank the FDIC, using the auspices of Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) can legally, without a warrant, enter any bank vault, have the manager secretly open any and/or all safe deposit boxes and inventory, or seize the contents. Further, if a manager is honest enough to inform the depositor of the illegal incursion they are subject to criminal charges and termination from bank employ. Independent reports reveal that at this point all of America’s safe deposit boxes have already been invaded and inventoried for future consideration.

This situation happened in Greece. Depositors who visited their bank to remove their jewellery or precious metals or cash were met at the bank’s door by security, a metal detector and confiscation.

The power of the now remaining G-SIFI banks and FDIC was further evident when, cash finally in hand, I headed to my own evil bank, JP Morgan Chase, right next door to Wells Fargo. The manager confirmed that the cash withdrawal policy at Chase (which was called Great Western before Chase gobbled them up in 2009)  was in keeping with that at Wells; very little cash available on demand. I posed a slight untruth and inquired as to what I should do about my upcoming need for $50,000 in hard cash. No, his bank would not do that on demand, but arrangements could be made to have the cash transferred to his bank. That would only take “about two days.”

Of course, I would need to fill out a few forms. For approval.

Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.” – Dan Quayle

With the American public again on the hook-by law– for the anticipated losses of the banks a distressed depositor might think this plot thus complete. Of course, the realities of Dodd-Frank were, so far in this story, the exclusive purview of the Obama administration.

It should be noted that the only voice of economic reason at the White House at the time, former Fed Chairman, Paul Volker, divorced himself very publicly from this renewed banking scandal of  novel economic acumen. As head of Obama’s recession inspired, President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Volker ran into the challenge of renewed fiscal insanity for a year, resigning in January of 2011 in disgust. His departure thus coincided with the beginning of the next ten year orgy of financial criminality flaunted by the banks in the faces of the public as the DoJ let them off every time for pennies-on-the-crime.

The advent of the Trump regime went further to gut the supposed intentions of Dodd-Frank. Right away, the new president issued a memorandum that set in motion his plan to scale back the provisions of Dodd-Frank and repeal the Fiduciary Rule. As example, the House approved legislation on Feb. 2, 2017, to erase a number of core financial regulations put in place by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, as Republicans moved a step closer to delivering on their promises to eliminate rules that they claim have strangled small businesses and stagnated the economy. Said Trump,

 “I have so many people, friends of mine, with nice businesses, they can’t borrow money, because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations and Dodd-Frank.”

That’s funny on so many levels.

Never mind, at least, that these poor banks are holding derivative exposure grotesquely larger than the total cash deposits of US savers…nor that their ill-gotten riches- such as the UBS, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, RBS multi-billion dollar criminal prosecutions – were taken off-calendar in Federal court for approx. 15% of the total crime every time. The banks kept the rest. That’s banking.

Banks are worried, but have one big problem: They are still very profitable. So far.

Last week, JPMorgan reported Q1 adjusted revenue of $29.07 billion plunging from a year ago, with dividends down 70% to $0.78 per share. Despite their strong profitability, Wells, Citi and BofA all posted similar declines. However, in reaction to the looming disaster the Big 7 US banks this week set aside some $27 billion in credit loss provisions, a number which is 4x greater than the total provisions set aside a year ago, and the most since the financial crisis. Beyond derivatives, bank’s are already bracing for a surge in defaults and delinquencies on its loans amid the complete US economic shutdown.

On the derivatives front Capital One, the nation’s #11 bank by assets, is already in deep trouble on their derivative exposures. Reportedly, Capital One made highly speculative trades, betting via derivatives that oil would not plunge to where it is now at 17-year lows. With the recession just getting started the price of oil isn’t going anywhere. But Capital One likely is: Bankruptcy

German Deutsche Bank has for years been the face of worldwide banking fraud and risk personified and the working model for US banks. The German bank is again, thanks to derivative exposure, in really deep trouble this time. As Alasdair Macleod writes in an excellent article this week,

“…Deutsche provides us with a laboratory experiment for how a derivative virus can kill a bank.”The looming derivative crisis

Macleod uses Deutsche as the working model for the derivative disaster heading directly at the US and other world banks and their trickery in hiding this massive risk on their books. Using Deutsche Bank’s own accounting Macleod assesses:

“It [Deutsche] conceals derivative exposure under the headings “Trading assets” and “Trading liabilities” on the balance sheet. You have to… discover that under Trading assets… and under Trading liabilities, [there is] a difference of €1.062bn. This is relatively trivial. But wait, there is another table that breaks derivative exposure down even further into categories… The true total of OTC derivatives and exchange-traded derivatives to which the bank is exposed is €37.121 trillion. That is nearly thirty-five thousand times the €1.062bn netted difference in the balance sheet.”

The same equation of GAAP accounting fraud thus hiding a bank’s massive total derivatives risk is being used by all of America’s Big 7 banks right now. And, apparently, Capital One.

The non-banks, US financial institutions and corporations of any and all brands, have this past month shouldered-up together to the congressional piggy bank for a historic $6trillion give away. For any collapsing multinational already running out of tricks to game their stock price with phoney earnings statements, the rush to a global pan-panic could not have come at a better time.

Predictably, the media addled American public-the true Covidiots-have nicely ignored this massive scam in lieu of a, so far, mythical $1200 carrot. Wall Street got theirs, post haste, as congress quickly huddled close together… and America shuddered in lockdown.

Of course, at this point in American economic history the subject of cash to any dollar, Euro, or UK pound sterling only matters, by example, to 40% of the US public because reportedly 60% of American families have less than a grand total of $500 in savings in total. 23 million of them just entered unemployment in the past four weeks as well.

The 2020 stock market fire sparked to life upon a pyre of 2019 economic metrics already sufficient to burn the US national economy to a crisp like a wheelbarrow full of Reichsmarks. This was predicted yearly since 2014 by the champion of laissez-faire banking, JP Morgan/ Chase itself.

Unless one believes in a sudden dramatic resurgence of the US economy in the face of absolutely biblical economic metrics to the contrary- or that Keynesian economic witchcraft will actually prevail- a wise cash depositor might, at this juncture consider the actual safety of one’s life’s savings. The language of Dodd-Frank is the language of banking theft…personified.

*

As shown, daily the banking sector is in far worse shape than before 2010 and, just like the scores of other greedy corporations, banks will also need a Bail-out to avoid catastrophe.

But, since Dodd-Frank passed, the banking sector is restricted from receiving any federal Bail-outs this time? And, banks can legally only get a Bail-in? But, a Bail-in means that my savings deposits… willbe …?

Oh, dear!

With all this in mind, I stepped into the bright sunshine outside of the dim confines of Chase, having apparently cleaned out Wells Fargo of their cash just minutes before. Safely in my coat pocket rested all but $100.00 of my day’s take tucked deep down- and securely; Its final outcome, no one’s god damn business but my own.

So… if you’ve got cash, maybe you ought to get a hold of it soon. Or, when YOUR bank fails, don’t walk…. Run!

YOU do not want to be second in line.

Oh, dear!

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

Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 180 in-depth articles over the past ten years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan’s Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene ((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk

Featured image is from Wall Street on Parade

Three back-to-back developments over the past week prove that the Gulf Kingdoms are finally waking up to Hindu extremists’ inherent Islamophobia, the threat of which Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been warning about for a while now, suggesting that the rest of the world might eventually follow suit as more people become aware of the danger that this rapidly spreading ideological virus poses to the fifth of humanity living in South Asia.

The dark reality of modern-day India, which deceitfully presents itself as the self-proclaimed “world’s largest democracy”, is finally dawning on the influential Gulf Kingdoms after three back-to-back developments over the past week. Emirati Princess Hend Faisal Al Qassemi responded on Twitter to a Hindu extremist migrant worker living in her country who was ranting about his country’s conspiracy theory that Muslims are allegedly to blame for India’s coronavirus outbreak, which the author exposed in his piece earlier in the month about how “Hindu Extremists Ridiculously Believe That Muslims Are Responsible For World War C“. Saurabh Upadhyay, the man in question whose account has since been deactivated, was also disparaging Muslims in general and even went as far as to insult his host country by claiming that it’s become as successful as it has only “because Indians have built cities like Dubai from scratch”.

The royal wrote in response that

“The ruling family is friends with Indians, but as a royal your rudeness is not welcome. All employees are paid to work, no one comes for free. You make your bread and butter from this land which you scorn and your ridicule will not go unnoticed.”

She then shared a few screenshots of some of his screeds while warning all the guests in her country that “Anyone that is openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE will be fined and made to leave.” This exchange was notable because it was hitherto the highest-profile condemnation of Hindu extremism by any representative of the Gulf Kingdoms, whose countries host millions of Indian migrant workers. Just like some Western countries have belatedly realized that importing cheap labor from civilizationally dissimilar countries such as majority-Muslim ones comes with serious social risks, so too are some Muslim ones finally reaching the same conclusions vis-a-vis Hindu-majority India.

Princess Qassimi’s response to Upadhyay was preceded by Saudi scholar Abidi Zahrani writing on Twitter a few days prior that

“Gulf states host millions of #Indians some of whom are infected #COVID__19 are treated free of charge regardless of their faith While #Hindutva #Terrorists gangs are committing crimes against #Muslims citizens”,

and that

“I propose to all respected followers to list all militant Hindus who are working in the GCC and spreading hate against #Islam #Muslims or our be loved Prophet Mhmd PBUH under this #hashtag #Send_Hindutva_Back_home show a copies of their bio.”

His strong condemnation of the radical Hindu ideology (“Hindutva”) that’s seized control of Indian society in the six years since Prime Minister Modi’s election is due to the aforementioned conspiracy theory that the author touched upon earlier and the fact that “India’s Waging A State-On-Citizen Hybrid War To Build Modi’s Hindu Rashtra“, a Hindu fundamentalist state.

This seemingly sudden high-profile awareness among influential figures in the Gulf of the danger that the rapidly spreading ideological virus of Hindutva poses to the fifth of humanity that lives in South Asia prompted the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the de-facto Gulf-controlled Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to tweet that “#OIC-IPHRC condemns the unrelenting vicious #Islamophobic campaign in #India maligning Muslims for spread of #COVID-19 as well as their negative profiling in media subjecting them to discrimination & violence with impunity” and that “#OIC-IPHRC urges the #Indian Govt to take urgent steps to stop the growing tide of #Islamophobia in India and protect the rights of its persecuted #Muslim minority as per its obligations under int”l HR law.” In an instant, it became apparent that the billions of dollars a year that India spends importing energy from the region failed to buy those countries’ silence over its Islamophobia.

That shouldn’t be interpreted to automatically mean that the Gulf Kingdoms will put any credible pressure on the Indian government to stem the spread of state-backed Islamophobia in society, but it’s still a significant soft power victory for the victimized Muslims of that country. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been warning for a while now about the threat that Hindu extremists’ inherent Islamophobia poses, most notably during his speech before the UN General Assembly last September that the author analyzed in his piece about how “Pakistan Just Warned The World About The 21st Century’s Munich Moment“. Although ridiculed by Indian-sympathetic critics at the time for allegedly exaggerating the scale of the threat that Hindutva poses (and even claiming that it’s a threat to begin with), he’s since been vindicated after the world’s most prominent Muslim body came out to condemn India for the exact same politics of hatred that he’s been warning about.

Going forward, it’s foreseeable that the OIC will continue to hound India over its discriminatory treatment of the Muslim minority. In addition, there’s a possibility that the Gulf Kingdoms will seek to identify and deport the Hindutva migrants within their borders, or at the very least put immense pressure on them to respect their host states during their time of stay there and not dare spread their Islamophobic vitriol while living as guests in those Muslim-majority countries. In the event that there’s a systemic crackdown against Hindutva ideologues (whose adherents, to be clear, are radical Hindus that don’t represent Hinduism as a whole), then the economic void left by their deportation could be filled by Indian Muslims or fellow co-confessionals from elsewhere in the region, thus reducing some of the influence that India’s Hindutva-led government holds over the GCC. That, in turn, could free the bloc to more confidently oppose India on other related topics one day, such as Kashmir.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The Agribusiness Model Is Failing

April 21st, 2020 by F. William Engdahl

Over the past decades the organization of the entire world food supply from farm to consumers has been reorganized into a globalized distribution known as agribusiness. With most of the world in lockdown over the fears of spread of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, that global food supply chain is in danger of catastrophic breakdown. The consequences of that would dwarf deaths by coronavirus by orders of magnitude. Yet governments seem oblivious.

The imposition of unprecedented mass quarantine, school and restaurant closings, factory closings across most of the world is putting the focus on the alarming vulnerability of what is a global food supply chain to severe breakdown. Before the lockdown an estimated 60% of all food consumed in the United States today was consumed outside the home. That includes in restaurants, fast food places, schools, in university cafeterias, company cafeterias and the like. That has now been all but shut since March, creating huge disruptions to what had been a well-organized supply chain delivery. Large restaurants or company cafeterias receive supplies of everything from butter to meat in entirely different volumes and packing than a retail supermarket. A major vulnerability exists in the mammoth agribusiness concentrations known as CAFOs or Concentrated Agriculture Feeding Organizations.

CAFOs At Risk

On April 12, one of the largest pork processing plants in the USA, Smithfield Foods, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, announced it would close indefinitely after several hundred of its 3,700 employees tested positive for coronavirus, COVID-19. The closing of that one plant will impact some 5% of US pork supply. Smithfields Foods is one of the world’s largest agribusiness concentrations.

In 2018, Smithfields, the world’s largest pork producer, was forced to pay almost half a billion dollars in its Tar Heel, North Carolina plant for massive and unreasonable pollution. That one plant, the world’s largest processing plant, slaughters some 32,000 pigs daily. The animal fecal waste, mixed with massive doses of antibiotics to control infections, was cause of the lawsuit.

Smithfields Foods has facilities in Mexico, Poland, Romania, Germany, and the United Kingdom, mostly countries where regulations are lax. And the Virginia-based group today is owned by China. In 2013 the largest meat producer in China, WH Group of Luohe, Henan, purchased Smithfield Foods for $4.72 billion. That made the Chinese company one of the largest foreign landowners in the United States and owner of the largest pork supplier in the USA. Given that China suffered a devastating loss of its pig population in 2019 from African Swine Fever by as much as 50%, today there are huge competing demands on the pork production from Smithfields.

The COVID testing at the South Dakota plant is just the tip of a very precarious iceberg of infections and sickness, not only coronavirus strains, that is endemic to the huge concentration of agribusiness in North America and globally.

Another giant meat processing conglomerate, Tyson Foods, on April 6 was forced to shut its plant in Waterloo Iowa after death of two workers tested positive for coronavirus. On April 17 after four workers at a Tysons plant in Camilla, Georgia, died after being tested positive for COVID-19, pressure has been building for the company to close that plant as well. To date the company says it will do temperature testing and require face masks in the densely-crowded, low pay plant. The trade union is asking 14-day quarantine paid sick leave for workers tested positive, so far without success. There is no evidence of detailed examination into whether these workers died of co-morbitity from other infections and happened also to test coronavirus positive.

Tyson Foods, an Arkansas company, whose then head, Don Tyson, was instrumental in Clinton’s 1992 presidential victory, is the world’s second largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork, with sales of $46 billion in 2019. Tyson Foods is a major meat supplier to Wal-Mart, the huge Arkansas retail giant. It also supplies fast food chains such as KFC. Since an agreement in December, 2019, Tysons also exports significant volumes of chicken parts and pork to China to help fill the lack of pigmeat protein there, in addition to owning major poultry facilities in China. Reportedly, workers, typically low-paid, work elbow to elbow with no access to masks.

Even without coronavirus fears, the CAFO plants are rife with sickness and toxins. The size of the company’s facilities is staggering. One Tyson Foods facility in Nebraska produces enough meat products every day to feed 18 million people. Tyson, one corporation, controls roughly 26 percent of US beef production.

On April 13 JBS USA Holdings was also forced to close its main US facility in Greeley, Colo., for a deep cleaning, and all of its workers will be tested before they can return for their jobs after major numbers of coronavirus positive cases were tested there after two workers, one 78 years old, died. JBS USA is a subsidiary of JBS S.A., a Brazilian company that is the world’s largest processor of fresh beef, with more than US$50 billion in annual sales. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company. JBS USA controls some 20 percent of US beef production.

The third largest US meat processor, Cargill, has cut half its workers at their Fort Morgan Colorado meatpacking plant as multiple positive coronavirus tests emerged. In Canada, Cargill, has tested 358 coronavirus positives at its major Alberta meat-packing plant. The food-workers’ union there is calling for the plant to be closed for two weeks to develop a better health strategy, a plea so far ignored by Cargill. At the same time the company laid off 1,000 of its 2,000 workers at that plant, refusing to give details. The plant, one of two beef suppliers to McDonalds Canada, processes thousands of cattle daily. Cargill today controls about 22 percent of the US domestic meat market.

These three giant corporate conglomerates, then, control more than two thirds of the total meat and poultry protein supply of the United States and additionally supply major exports to the rest of the world. That is a concentration which is alarmingly dangerous as we are beginning to see. Whatever coronavirus test results, they are huge cesspools of toxins that workers are exposed to. Covid-19 tests would indicate positive for such toxic infections as well as they do not directly test presence of any virus, merely of antibodies claimed to indicate COVID-19.

The Agribusiness Model

This unhealthy degree of concentration was not always so. It began as a strategic project of Nelson Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Foundation after World War II. The idea was to create a corporate strictly-for-profit vertical integration and cartelization of the food chain as John D. Rockefeller had done with Standard Oil and petroleum. Rockefeller money funded two Harvard Business School professors. John H. Davis, former Assistant Agriculture Secretary under Eisenhower, and Ray Goldberg, both at Harvard Business School got financing from Rockefellers to develop what they named “agribusiness.” In a 1956 Harvard Business Review article, Davis wrote that “the only way to solve the so-called farm problem once and for all, and avoid cumbersome government programs, is to progress from agriculture to agribusiness.”

The Harvard group was part of a Rockefeller Foundation four-year project in cooperation with economist Wassily Leontieff called “Economic Research Project on the Structure of the American Economy.” Ray Goldberg, an ardent proponent of GMO crops, later referred to their Harvard agribusiness project as, “changing our global economy and society more dramatically than any other single event in the history of mankind.” Unfortunately, he may have been not all wrong.

In fact what it has done is to put control of our food into a tiny handful of global private conglomerates in which the traditional family farmer has all but become a contract wage employee or bankrupted entirely. In the USA today some industrial cattle feedlots hold up to 200,000 cattle at a time driven by one thing, and one thing only, and that is economic efficiency. According to USDA statistics, the number of cow/calf ranch operations in the US has dropped from 1.6 million in 1980 to less than 950,000 today. Similarly, the number of small farmer/feeders – those who fatten the cattle in preparation for eventual slaughter – has declined by 38,000. Today fewer than 2,000 commercial feeders finish 87 percent of the cattle grown in the United States.

Food production, like electronics, has become global, as cheap foods are mass packaged and shipped worldwide. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Russian shops were flooded with Western agribusiness brand products from Nestle, Kelloggs, Kraft and the like. Domestic farm production collapsed. Much the same has taken place from India to Africa to South America as cheaper multinational products drive out local farmers. China before the current crisis imported 60% of its soybeans from US-controlled grain companies such as Cargill or ADM.

The system is essentially one in which farming has transformed to become factories to produce protein. It takes GMO corn and GMO soybeans to feed the animal, add vitamins and antibiotics in massive amounts to maximize weight gain before slaughter. The vertical integration of our food supply chain under globalization of the past decades has created an alarming vulnerability to precisely the kind of crisis we now have. During all past food emergencies production was local and regional and decentralized such that a breakdown in one or several centers did not threaten the global supply chain. Not today. The fact that today the United States is far the world’s largest food exporter reveals how vulnerable the world food supply has become. Coronavirus may have only put the spotlight on this dangerous problem. To correct it will take years and the will to take such measures as countries like Russia have been forced to do in response to economic sanctions.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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seeds_2.jpg

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl
ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2
Year: 2007
Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

A Decade on the Left

April 21st, 2020 by Leo Panitch

The 2010s were the end of ‘the end of history.’ Beginning in the shadow of the largest financial crash since the Great Depression, it was a decade in which the injustice of austerity tore away at the social fabric and consigned third-way politics to the rearview mirror.

In Britain, the decade began with the iconic student protest movement, the rise of UK Uncut and the TUC’s “March for the Alternative.” Soon, these protests against the political and economic order reached global significance with the rise of Occupy Wall Street in New York alongside the movements of the squares in Spain and Greece.

Before long, those countries would be at the forefront of attempts to elect left-wing governments in opposition to the European Union’s austerity measures, attempts which themselves prefigured the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

It has been a tumultuous period for the Left, one in which it suffered seismic defeats but also gained audiences far in excess of any it had seen since the early 1990s. To assess its ramifications Tribune sat down with Leo Panitch, co-editor of the Socialist Register.

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Ronan Burtenshaw (RB): Looking back over the last decade on the Left, you can identify three phases. It begins with the Occupy moment, a horizontalist response to the Financial Crisis which eschewed party politics. Then you have the development from the ‘movements of the squares’ across Europe to new left-wing parties of various kinds, such as SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain. At the end of the decade, you have this attempt by longstanding left-wingers to win power within the traditional left-of-centre parties in their respective countries, such as in Britain and the United States. How would you characterize these experiences? To what degree do you think progress has been made?

Leo Panitch (LP): I think enormous progress has been made. We saw a movement from protest to politics. It was a short bridge from the police riot against the G20 demonstration here in Toronto in 2010 to Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish indignados a year later. There is a path you can follow from this to Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party in 2015 and the Bernie Sanders candidacy in 2016 in the United States.

These were remarkable political developments. People began to realise a decade before, when parties like SYRIZA and Die Linke were formed, that you can protest forever – even with large and impactful protests – without changing the world. The anti-WTO protests began in 1995, then reached their height in Seattle in 1999, these were followed by the mass anti-war protests of the early 2000s. These were evidence that neoliberalism was actually far less popular than people imagined. But as the protests lingered on, people figured out that more was needed. No one sat down and figured it out, or gave instructions to the protestors.

It took some creative leadership, like when Alexis Tsipras said in 2012 ‘we will join with anyone to form a government and stop the torture’ or when Pablo Iglesias said ‘we need to move from the squares to some relationship with the state.’ In the UK it took Corbyn to say, when no other Socialist Campaign Group MP would say it, ‘I’ll run for leadership.’ His campaign in many ways built on years of anti-austerity movements and campaigning, but that moment was able to galvanise something that reached far beyond them. It tapped into a deep enthusiasm for change which those protests represented but which wasn’t capable of changing things fundamentally. Sanders has been much the same in recent years.

Today, even after the defeat in the general election, there are 40,000 members of Momentum. In the United States, similarly, there are 60,000 members of the Democratic Socialists of America. These are things to build on. That is not to say these organizations are always clear politically or know where they are going – they often do not. It is not to say they have done enough to sink deep roots in working-class communities, though many involved want to. But it is an important historical development and it is crucial that Corbyn’s defeat doesn’t lead to their demoralization.

RB: Where does the question of the party stand after this decade? Clearly, one part of what you have just laid out is the movement from the streets into the parties. Yet it has happened in different forms: SYRIZA brought together existing radical left groups, Podemos was a populist party based on digital organizing and a communications strategy, and in Britain it was an attempt to take the historic party of the labour movement back to left-wing politics. What do you make of these different models?

LP: In the 1960s there was this kind of creativity in the streets that led to the creation of historic social movements for liberation and against war. My generation back then already felt that the historic working-class parties had run their course as agents of transformative social change. That wasn’t to say we thought the party apparatuses, the MPs, the councillors, the institutions, didn’t have a long shelf life. We saw that they did. But we recognized that they weren’t going to be transformative any longer.

So we set off on the course of founding new mass parties. Some, not myself, set themselves the task of finding a better Leninism. Others, far fewer in number, tried to find a better Maoism. Some of us tried to found new mass democratic socialist parties, ones that would use the pre-First World War Second International as a model but try not to become so co-opted and oligarchic. My generation, in each of those efforts, failed. The younger generation has embarked on this path again.

It was surprising in some ways – certainly to people like me who had followed previous attempts to transform the Labour Party in the 1970s and ’80s – to see a socialist win the leadership. But he galvanized the same energy that was mobilizing those new parties in other countries in Europe at the time, which was clearly powerful. It is worth pointing out that many of those newer parties are now in deals of various kinds with the old social-democratic parties. In fact, in Spain, they are in coalition government. So there is a kind of coming together of these experiences.

Whichever path was pursued – building new parties or trying to bring the old ones back left – it was never going to be easy. There is a danger that even the new parties in countries with proportional representation voting systems will become ‘social-democratised’ in the bad sense of that word. We can see that now happening with SYRIZA under Tsipras. In some ways, the forces at work inside the Labour Party now and inside the Democratic Party in the United States are more on guard against these tendencies, they are more aware of the old problems of hollowed-out, top-down, centralized parties.

Every time there has been this attempt to transform the Labour Party – and it has happened many times – it has been the result of a great crisis of capitalism. In the early decades of the last century, there was the Great Depression and Ramsay MacDonald taking the party into national government, imposing harsh cuts on unemployment insurance and trying to resolve things from the right. The MacDonald faction became National Labour and the Labour Party itself won only won fifty seats in the 1931 election. Labour then moved left and elected a radical pacifist and socialist, George Lansbury, as its leader.

It was a time of huge unemployment marches and a great desire for change, but Lansbury and the Labour Party in parliament more generally struggled to resonate with the mood outside. Then, just before the 1935 election, Labour conference rejected his line on rearmament – Lansbury was opposed as a pacifist – and he resigned the leadership. Shortly afterwards, Labour regained about 100 seats in the general election under Clement Attlee. Attlee, of course, won the 1945 general election, and led the great post-war Labour government. But, with the exception of Bevan, who of course built the NHS, that was a government in which the Left was largely marginalized.

In that period, even a lot of previously left-wing MPs rapidly accepted the settlement with capital that government oversaw. They accepted that nationalization would be limited and wouldn’t have anything to do with industrial democracy, even though in the early stages the trade unions were voting for workers’ control at Labour conferences. Stafford Cripps, who was one of the founders of Tribune who was seen as a Marxist in the 1930s, became a very conventional chancellor of the exchequer by the end of the 1940s and introduced wage restraint. Bevan, of course, was the exception – he truly managed to carry out a radical reform in building the National Health Service on left-wing lines, although he admitted he had to ‘stuff the doctors’ mouths with gold’ to do it.

The Bevanites, who were then leading Tribune, like Michael Foot, were on the outside of that 1945 government and critical of its limitations. In fact, they stayed on the margins until the 1960s when a former Tribunite in Harold Wilson became prime minister. Some of them joined his cabinet – but it was an extremely disappointing government. It was under Wilson that the contradictions of post-war social democracy first began to show, and the settlement come apart, particularly as finance capital began flooding into London by the end of the 1960s. Under Wilson, wage restraint became almost the main aim of the Labour government, disciplining the trade unions to ensure that the economic crisis didn’t deepen. This got even worse in the 1970s. But by that time the great 1960s protest and social movements had begun to change the political landscape, and galvanize the New Left.

Image on the right: Michael Foot (1913 – 2010) was British Labour Party Leader from 1980 to 1983. Tony Benn (1925 – 2014).

The Bennites, of course, were those who attempted to take these energies into the Labour Party and transform it in a more democratic direction. People like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell were produced by that effort to move the party to the left, learning from and developing on the work of social movements in previous years. That was the most impressive attempt in any social-democratic party anywhere in history, in my view, to take a party that had become ossified and bureaucratized and co-opted by capital and make it a force for change again with democratic socialist politics. Tony Benn had been laying the ground for it since 1969 when he said ‘we need to go beyond the post-war reforms’, that unless we challenged capital and took control over the investment process, we would lose those reforms. He saw neoliberalism before it happened.

Together with the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) Benn fought a decade-long struggle for democracy and socialism inside the party. The CLPD used to say ‘if you can’t democratise the Labour Party, you can’t democratize the British state.’ The Bennites’ attempts to reform the party remain relevant today – making MPs accountable to members with reselection, giving them the right to elect the leader and making the cabinet responsible to Labour conference for its policies. Foot was, in a responsible way, I think, taking the need for party unity on his own shoulders – but we know what happened then.

After Foot, Neil Kinnock came in – another figure who had been on the left, and used his leadership to discipline the Bennites as well as drive others like the Militant Tendency out of the party. This, in turn, laid the foundations for New Labour to emerge in the 1990s. That project ended any idea that Labour would break fundamentally from neoliberalism. The lesson is that it’s very difficult to transform these parties. But there are encouraging signs – the size of Momentum, the role of left-wing unions in supporting Corbynism. There is a lot to be said for fighting to continue the effort in the coming years. But it won’t be done under an effort that puts uniting the party front and centre. That has been the calling card for all previous projects to defeat and marginalize the Left.

RB: I want to ask as well about the working class itself. At the beginning of this decade, in the years after the crash, you had severe austerity programmes across many countries and what remained of the welfare state came under attack. At the same time there was a rise of job casualization and insecure employment, and attacks in many countries – like in Greece, Spain, Britain, France – on the unions themselves. But looking at statistics about the days lost to strike action and union density, there hasn’t been a marked growth in trade union membership or in class struggle. What does that tell us about these left-wing projects of the past decade?

LP: Ultimately, it comes down to the success of the neoliberals in breaking the backs of the trade union militancy that was the response to the economic crisis of the 1970s. That was one big difference between Bennism and Corbynism. In Tony Benn’s case you had a real movement across the country of workplace organizing and struggle, then obviously through the 1980s you also had events like the miners’ strike. But that resulted, as we know, in a great defeat for the trade union movement.

The Thatcher government waged war on the union movement and the question has to be asked: why couldn’t the unions stop it? The answer to that is to be found in how the unions themselves developed over the course of the century, particularly in the post-war period, how they were pulled into corporatist relations with the state and were demobilized in the process. Beyond that, they never became the ‘schools of socialism’ that Marx and Engels had hoped for. Even when they were strong and winning things, they were increasingly winning things for their members so they could fill modern capitalism’s allotted role for them as individual consumers. Members knew, in those days, that the only way to improve terms and conditions was to gather together collectively in your workplace and demand it. But the improvements they demanded were increasingly so that they could participate more actively in the market as individual consumers.

The vision of taking power in the workplace, changing who owned things, solving social needs got progressively lost. The main example of this is, of course, the United States, where unions in some ways were involved in the privatization of the welfare state through healthcare. Workers in unions were given guaranteed insurance coverage through private systems while the public systems were dismantled and workers not in unions got thrown to the wolves. But it isn’t just an American question. When the great class struggles of the 1960s and ’70s happened in Europe, they were largely oriented toward being able to own a refrigerator or buy a car. They were about giving more layers access to this kind of society, rather than changing it. There was an anti-authoritarianism to it as well – I won’t be bossed around, or if you were a woman, I won’t be harassed – but it wasn’t really a political class struggle, aimed at changing which class was in power in society.

During the 1970s, Tony Benn would go to party and trade union conferences and sometimes criticise officials for not educating members about politics and the need for industrial democracy. He would talk more broadly too, he would say ‘do your neighbours know what you do as a trade unionist? Do they know why you do it?’ He was asking the question of whether union members would stick with the union through hard times, whether there was a deeper commitment. If you don’t have trade unions that are involved in class formation, in overcoming the differences between a nurse and a miner, inside the class itself, and building a class for itself, then you’re going to be left with a working-class that can be picked off industry by industry.

When you see this as the backdrop, it’s not hard to understand how precaritization developed in recent years. The demise of the unions and their changing character, too, where a young teacher, no matter how proletarianized, doesn’t have the same class-forming experiences as an industrial worker, creates a very different environment today.

RB: Would it be fair to say we have, in this era, attempted to overcome a relatively low level of class struggle with a political substitute? That’s not to say it was the wrong course of action, but that we elected a socialist leader of the Labour Party without any growth in workplace militancy or the development of a real working-class movement. It’s hard to win on those terms. What can we do in the next ten years to ensure we are not trying to do it all from above again, but that our left-wing projects can be backed by renewed workplace militancy?

LP: We don’t write history on our own terms. I think a lot of people would have hoped that the rise of Corbyn – who consistently backed unions and workers’ issues – would go alongside an increase in workplace activity. Certainly, that was one of the reasons that Corbyn got such strong support from left-wing trade unionists; and many unions in Britain had been coming around to the idea that there was a connection between broader movements and what happens in the workplace, you can see this by the role they played in things like Stop the War and the People’s Assembly.

It is certainly true that huge numbers of young people were galvanized into politics by Corbyn. You have to hope that the capacity is there for them to become active in their workplaces, that they undertake struggles in their own lives and take part in that class formation. Similarly, I was speaking recently to younger members of the DSA in the United States. One of them, Meagan Day, was describing a recent campaign of theirs in California, where they backed a black working-class activist [Jovanka Beckles] for state assembly. They didn’t win, but she said the real value of the campaign was the roots they built in black working-class communities. This meant that, when the teachers’ strike happened in January and February of last year, it was the Oakland DSA that was running the school luncheons outside the picket line, so that the local families didn’t have to cross the picket line to get a meal for their kids.

People are changed through their involvement in projects like the ones around Corbyn and Sanders. The process of trying to build a party that can transform a state itself creates a broader capacity in people to look at the world differently. When you’ve won people over to a project like that, they are prepared to sacrifice – and everyone knows you don’t win a strike without sacrifice. You don’t win a strike without collectivizing a part of your life, either, and that’s what being in a movement means. Strikes are rarely won without collective institutions at a local level, which help people see through a struggle. This is a long and slow process, it involves people dedicating themselves to become organizers.

RB: Arguably, the defining characteristic of Corbynism was its generational politics – that is the sharpest division and most pronounced shift we have seen in the past two elections. Corbyn’s base in the end was young people dealing with real class questions: low wages, high rents, student debt. Many of them saw in Corbyn’s Labour Party a possibility of improving their lives. As someone who has been around decades on the left, what would your advice be to this emerging generation of socialists?

LP: It’s easy to give advice, it’s much harder to follow it. I think this generation really threw itself creatively into electoral politics – not just in 2017 but in 2019 as well – and produced some of the most vibrant campaigns we have seen in a long time. They showed enormous dedication and selflessness. The hard answer to your question is, real change involves doing that on a more permanent basis. That’s difficult to do, especially if you’re in a precarious situation.

But there is a tradition of this on the left. Many of the old organizers were precarious. They went into places they didn’t know, places that needed organizing. They slept on people’s floors and in their attics, they shared food. They were an integral part of building up the collective capacity of workers to engage in class struggle. This can’t be done in isolation – it should be done alongside the trade union movement. I remember one leading figure in Unite once spoke to me about needing to have a Momentum in Unite. Well, when you have all these young people with such enthusiasm, many of whom have difficult working conditions, many of whom are already socialist, trade union leaders should be thinking about how to bring them on board to revitalize their own organizations.

As for Momentum, we need an organization that goes beyond just supporting Corbyn in elections. Or winning reselection and other democratic reforms inside the party. It needs to be permanently engaged in teaching people how to be organizers and in developing its members’ own political education, so they can work at the base to engage in what needs to be seen as class re-formation today. Organizers need to facilitate the process whereby the rider for Uber Eats, the call centre worker, the worker in a warehouse, and erstwhile professionals like teachers, who are being proletarianized, all recognize themselves as part of the new working-class.

I think my greatest piece of advice would be to commit for the long haul. The tenor of the moment is to say ‘we’ve only got five or ten years left’ because of the depth of the climate emergency. That kind of slogan was designed to get people to see how serious things are. But as a political strategy it is a dead end. We can’t think in those terms, no matter how desperate the climate situation. We have to be able to think in terms of ten, fifteen or twenty years. There is fundamental class and organizational rebuilding to be done. It takes time.

Even if Corbyn had won a plurality in December’s election, he would still have been forced to govern not only with the Scottish National Party (SNP) or the Liberals, but with many MPs in his own party who aren’t committed to socialism. How much would he really have been able to do without longer-term organizing happening outside the government? Without rebuilding class institutions? Without political education? We have to be sober about this, it’s a long fight.

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Leo Panitch is emeritus professor of political science at York University, co-editor (with Greg Albo) of the Socialist Register and co-author (with Sam Gindin) of The Making of Global Capitalism (Verso). His new book, co-authored with Colin Leys, Searching for Socialism: The Project of the Labour New Left from Benn to Corbyn (Verso).

Ronan Burtenshaw is editor of Tribune Magazine. Follow him at @ronanburtenshaw.

All images in this article are from The Bullet

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Video: COVID-19: Closing Down the Economy Is Not the Solution

April 21st, 2020 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail. 

While the lockdown is presented to public opinion as  the sole means to resolving a global public health crisis,  its devastating economic and social impacts are casually ignored.  

The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of  mass unemployment, bankruptcy and extreme poverty. 

This is the true picture of what is happening.

How is it implemented? The fear campaign plays a key role. The lockdown is presented to national governments as the sole solution.

No need to reflect or analyze the likely impacts. Corrupt national governments are pressured to comply.

The economy is the basis for the reproduction of real life.

It is also the basis for upholding public health endeavors.

This closing down operation affects production and supply lines of goods and services, investment activities, exports and imports, wholesale and retail trade, consumer spending, the closing down of schools, colleges and universities, research institutions, etc.

In turn it leads almost immediately to mass unemployment, bankruptcies of small and medium sized enterprises, a collapse in purchasing power, widespread poverty and famine.

VIDEO: COVID: Closing Down the Economy is not the Solution

O Distanciamento Social da Democracia

April 21st, 2020 by Manlio Dinucci

“O distanciamento social chegou para ficar muito mais do que algumas semanas. Num certo sentido, irá perturbar o nosso modo de vida para sempre”: anunciaram os pesquisadores do Instituto de Tecnologia de Massachusetts, uma das universidades de maior prestígio dos Estados Unidos (MIT Technology Review, We’re not goingback to normal, 17 March 2020).

Citam o relatório apresentado pelos pesquisadores do Imperial College London, segundo o qual o distanciamento social deve tornar-se uma norma constante e ser reduzido ou intensificado, de acordo com o número de pacientes hospitalizados pelo vírus, nas unidades de terapia intensiva. O modelo elaborado por estes e por outros pesquisadores não diz respeito só às medidas a ser tomadas contra o coronavírus. Torna-se num modelo social, real e preciso, do qual já se preparam os procedimentos e os instrumentos que os governos deverão impor como lei.

Os dois gigantes da Informática, Apple e Google, até agora rivais, associaram-se para inserir biliões de sistemas móveis para iPhone e Android, em todo o mundo, num programa de “seguimento de contactos” que avisa os clientes se alguém infectado com o vírus se  está a  aproximar deles. As duas empresas garantem que o programa “respeitará a transparência e a privacidade dos utentes”.

Um sistema de rastreio ainda mais eficaz é o dos “certificados digitais”, nos quais estão a trabalhar duas universidades americanas, a Rice University e o MIT, apoiadas pela Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a fundação americana criada por Bill Gates, fundador da Microsoft, a segunda pessoa mais rica do mundo na classificação da revista Forbes. Ele anunciou-o publicamente, respondendo a um empresário que lhe perguntou como retomar as actividades de produção, mantendo o distanciamento social:

“No final, teremos certificados digitais para mostrar quem se recuperou ou foi testado recentemente, ou quando tivermos uma vacina, se esse indivíduo a tomou. (The Blog of Bill Gates, 31 questions and answers about COVID-19, 19 March 2020).

O certificado digital de que Gates fala, não é o actual cartão de saúde electrónico. A Rice University anunciou, em Dezembro de 2019, a invenção de pontos quânticos à base de cobre que, injectados no corpo juntamente com a vacina, “se tornam em algo semelhante a uma tatuagem de código de barras, que pode ser lida através de um smartphone personalizado”.(Rice University, Quantum-dot tattoos holdvaccination record, 18 Dicember 2019). A mesma tecnologia foi desenvolvida pelo Instituto de Tecnologia Massachusetts (Scientific American, Invisible Ink CouldReveal whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated, 19 Dicember 2019).

A invenção desta tecnologia foi encomendada e financiada pela Fundação Gates, que declara querer usá-la nas vacinas para crianças,principalmente nos países em desenvolvimento. Também poderia ser usada numa vacinação à escala global contra o coronavírus.

Bill Gates

Este é o futuro “modo de vida” que nos é anunciado: o distanciamento social com estrutura variável sempre em vigor, o medo constante de ser abordado por um infectado pelo vírus sinalizado por um toque do nosso telemóvel, o controlo permanente pelo “código de barras” implantado no nosso corpo. Seria, essencialmente, uma extensão dos sistemas militares com os quais se podem seguir e acertar nos “alvos” humanos.

Sem subestimar o perigo do coronavírus – seja qual for a sua origem – e a necessidade de medidas para impedir a sua propagação, não podemos deixar nas mãos dos cientistas do MIT e da Fundação Gates a decisão de qual deve ser o nosso modo de vida. Também não podemos parar de pensar e fazer perguntas. Por exemplo:

É muito grave que o número de mortes devido ao coronavírus, na Europa, seja actualmente, quase 97.000, mas que medidas devem ser tomadas em proporção, contra as partículas finas, as PM2,5,  que – segundo os dados oficiais da European Environment Agency(Airquality in Europe – 2019 report)  – provocam, a cada ano, na Europa, a morte prematura de mais de 400.000 pessoas?

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Distanziamento sociale dalla democrazia

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

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Distanziamento sociale dalla democrazia

April 21st, 2020 by Manlio Dinucci

«Il distanziamento sociale è qui per rimanere molto più di qualche settimana. Stravolgerà il nostro modo di vivere, in un certo senso per sempre»: lo hanno annunciato i ricercatori del Massachusetts Institute of Technology, una delle più prestigiose università statunitensi (MIT Technology Review,We’re not going back to normal, 17 marzo 2020).

Essi citano il rapporto presentato dai ricercatori dell’Imperial College London, secondo cui il distanziamento sociale dovrebbe divenire una norma costante ed essere allentato o intensificato  a seconda del numero di ricoverati per il virus nei reparti di terapia intensiva. Il modello elaborato da questi e altri ricercatori non riguarda solo le misure da prendere contro il coronavirus. Esso diviene un vero e proprio modello sociale, di cui già si preparano le procedure e gli strumenti che i governi dovrebbero imporre per legge.

I due giganti statunitensi dell’informatica Apple e Google, finora rivali, si sono associati per inserire nei sistemi operativi di miliardi di cellulari iPhone e Android, in tutto il mondo, un programma di «tracciamento dei contatti» che avverte gli utenti se qualche infettato dal virus si sta avvicinando a loro. Le due società garantiscono che il programma «rispetterà la trasparenza e la privacy degli utenti».

Un sistema di tracciamento ancora più efficace è quello dei «certificati digitali», a cui stanno lavorando due università statunitensi, la Rice University e il MIT, sostenute dalla Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, la fondazione statunitense creata da Bill Gates, fondatore della Microsoft, la seconda persona più ricca del mondo nella classifica della rivista Forbes. Lo ha annunciato lui stesso pubblicamente, rispondendo a un imprenditore che gli chiedeva  come poter riprendere le attività produttive mantenendo il distanziamento sociale:

«Alla fine avremo dei certificati digitali per mostrare chi è guarito o è stato testato di recente, o quando avremo un vaccino chi lo ha ricevuto» (The Blog of Bill Gates, 31 questions and answers about COVID-19, 19 marzo 2020).

Bill Gates

Il certificato digitale di cui parla Gates non è l’attuale tessera sanitaria elettronica. La Rice University ha annunciato nel dicembre 2019 l’invenzione di punti quantici a base di rame che, iniettati nel corpo insieme al vaccino, «divengono qualcosa come un tatuaggio con codice a barre, che può essere letto con uno smartphome personalizzato» (Rice University, Quantum-dot tattoos hold vaccination record, 18 dicembre 2019).

La stessa tecnologia è stata sviluppata dal Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Scientific American, Invisible Ink Could Reveal whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated, 19 dicembre 2019).

L’invenzione di questa tecnologia è stata commissionata e finanziata dalla Fondazione Gates, che dichiara di volerla usare nelle vaccinazioni dei bambini principalmente nei paesi in via di sviluppo. Essa potrebbe essere usata anche in una vaccinazione su scala globale contro il coronavirus.

Questo è il futuro «modo di vivere» che ci viene preannunciato: il distanziamento sociale ad assetto variabile sempre in vigore, la costante paura di essere avvicinati da un infettato dal virus segnalato da uno squillo del nostro cellulare, il controllo permanente attraverso il «codice a barre» impiantato nel nostro corpo. Sarebbe in sostanza una estensione dei sistemi militari con cui si possono seguire e colpire i «bersagli» umani.

Senza sottovalutare la pericolosità del coronavirus, qualunque sia la sua origine, e la necessità di misure per impedirne la diffusione, non possiamo lasciare in mano agli scienziati del MIT e alla Fondazione Gates la decisione di quale deve essere il nostro modo di vivere. Né possiamo smettere di pensare, ponendo delle domande. Ad esempio:

È molto grave che le morti da coronavirus in Europa siano attualmente quasi 97.000, ma quali misure si dovrebbero in proporzione prendere contro le polveri sottili, le PM2,5, che – secondo i dati ufficiali  della European Environment Agency (Air quality in Europe – 2019 report) – ogni anno provocano in Europa la morte prematura di oltre 400.000 persone?

Manlio Dinucci

 

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The corona hype is not based on any extraordinary public health danger.

However, it causes considerable damage to our freedom and personal rights through frivolous and unjustified quarantine measures and restrictions.

The images in the media are frightening and the traffic in China’s cities seems to be regulated by the clinical thermometer.

Evidence based epidemiological assessment is drowning in the mainstream of fear mongers in labs, media and ministries.

The carnival in Venice was cancelled after an elderly dying hospital patient was tested positive.

When a handful of people in Northern Italy also were tested positive, Austria immediately closed the Brenner Pass temporarily.

Due to a suspected case of coronavirus, more than 1000 people were not allowed to leave their hotel in Tenerife. On the cruise ship Diamond Princess 3700 passengers could not disembark., Congresses and touristic events are cancelled, economies suffer and schools in Italy have an extra holyday.

At the beginning of February, 126 people from Wuhan were brought to Germany by plane and remained there in quarantine two weeks in perfect health. Corona viruses were detected in two of the healthy individuals.

We have experienced similar alarmist actions by virologists in the last two decades. WHO’s  “swine flu pandemic” was in fact one of the mildest flu waves in history and it is not only migratory birds that are still waiting for “birds flu”. Many institutions that are now again alerting us to the need for caution have let us down and failed us on several occasions. Far too often, they are institutionally corrupted by secondary interests from business and/or politics.

If we do not want to chase frivolous panic messages, but rather to responsibly assess the risk of a spreading infection, we must use solid epidemiological methodology. This includes looking at the “normal”, the baseline, before you can speak of anything exceptional.

Until now, hardly anyone has paid attention to corona viruses. For example, in the annual reports of the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) they are only marginally mentioned because there was SARS in China in 2002 and because since 2012 some transmissions from dromedaries to humans have been observed in Arabia (MERS). There is nothing about a regularly recurring presence of corona viruses in dogs, cats, pigs, mice, bats and in humans, even in Germany.

However, children’s hospitals are usually well aware, that a considerable proportion of the often severe viral pneumonia is also regularly caused or accompanied by corona viruses worldwide.

In view of the well-known fact that in every “flu wave” 7-15% of acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) are coming along with coronaviruses, the case numbers that are now continuously added up are still completely within the normal range.

About one per thousand infected are expected to die during flu seasons. By selective application of PCR-tests – for example, only in clinics and medical outpatient clinics – this rate can easily be pushed up to frightening levels, because those, who need help there are usually worse off than those, who are recovering at home. The role of such s selection bias seems to be neglected in China and elsewhere.

Since the turn of the year, the focus of the public, of science and of health authorities has suddenly narrowed to some kind of blindness. Some doctors in Wuhan (12 million inhabitants) succeeded in attracting worldwide attention with initially less than 50 cases and some deaths in their clinic, in which they had identified corona viruses as the pathogen.
The colourful maps that are now being shown to us on paper or screens are impressive, but they usually have less to do with disease than with the activity of skilled virologists and crowds of sensationalist reporters.

We are currently not measuring the incidence of coronavirus diseases, but the activity of the specialists searching for them.

Wherever such the new tests are carried out – there about 9000 tests per week available in 38 laboratories throughout Europe on 13 February 2020 – there are at least single cases detected and every case becomes a self-sustaining media event. The fact alone that the discovery of a coronavirus infection is accompanied by a particularly intensive search in its vicinity explains many regional clustersi.

The horror reports from Wuhan were something, that virologists all over the world are waiting for. Immediately, the virus strains present in the refrigerators were scanned and compared feverishly with the reported newcomers from Wuhan.

A laboratory which was the first to be allowed to market its in-house tests worldwide.

Prof C. Drosten was interviewed on 23rd of january 2020 and described how the Test was established. He said, that he cooperated with a Partner from China, who confirmed the specific sensitivity of the Charitè-Test for the Wuhan coronavirus. Other Tests from different places followed soon and found their market.

However, it is better not to be tested for corona viruses. Even with a slight “flu-like” infection the risk of coronavirus detection would be 7% – 15% . This is, what a prospective monitoring in Scotland (from 2005 to 2013) may teach us. The scope, the possible hits and the significance of the new tests are not jet validated. It would be interesting to have some tests not only on airports and cruising ships but on German or Italian cats, mice or even bats.

If you find some new virus RNA in a Thai cave or a Wuhan hospital, it takes a long time to map its prevalence in different hosts worldwide.

But if you want to give evidence to a spreading pandemic by using PCR-Tests only, this is what should have been done after a prospective cross sectional protocoll.

So beware of side effects. Nowadays positive PCR tests have tremendous consequences for the everyday life of the patient and his wider environment, as can be seen in all media without effort.

However, the finding itself has no clinical significance. It is just another name for acute respiratory illnesses (ARI), which as every year put 30% to 70% of all people in our countries more or less out of action for a week or two every winter.

According to a prospective ARI-virus monitoring in Scotland from 2005 to 2013, the most common pathogens of acute respiratory diseases were: 1. rhinoviruses, 2. influenza A viruses, 3. influenza B viruses, 4. RS viruses and 5. coronaviruses.

This order changed slightly from year to year. Even with viruses competing for our mucous membrane cells, there is apparently a changing quorum, as we know it from our intestines in the case of microorganisms and from the Bundestag in the case of political groups.

So if there is now to be an increasing number of “proven” coronavirus infections. in China or in Italy: Can anyone say how often such examinations were carried out in previous winters, by whom, for what reason and with which results? When someone claims that something is increasing, he must surely refer to something, that has been observed before.

It can be stunning, when an experienced disease control officer looks at the current turmoil, the panic and the suffering it causes. I’m sure many of those responsible public health officers would probably risk their jobs today, as they did with the “swine flu” back then, if they would follow their experience and oppose the mainstream.

Every winter we have a virus epidemic with thousands of deaths and with millions of infected people even in Germany. And coronaviruses always have their share.

So if the Federal Government wants to do something good, it could learn from epidemiologists in Glasgow and have all clever minds at the RKI observe prospectively (!!!) and watch how the virom of the German population changes from year to year.

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Some questions for the evaluation of the current findings:

  1. Which prospective, standardised monitoring of acute respiratory diseases with or without fever (ILI, ARI) is used for the epidemiological risk assessment of coronavirus infections observed in Wuhan Italy, South Korea, Iran and elsewhere (baseline).
  2. How do the comparable (!) results of earlier observations differ from those now reported by the WHO? (in China, in Europe, in Italy, in Germany, etc.)
  3. What would we observe this ARI-season if we would ignore the new PCR-testing?
  4. How valid and how comparable are the detection methods used with regard to sensitivity, specificity and pathogenetic or prognostic relevance?
  5. What is the evidence or probability that the observed corona viruses 2019/2020 are more dangerous to public health than previous variants?
  6. If you find them now, how can you proove, they were not there (e.g. in animals) before.
  7. How do you make shure, that a positive tested case is not in the same time suffering/dying from other virus co-infections?
  8. What considerations have been made or taken into account to exclude or minimise sources of bias (sources of error)?

 Some important questions for science:

  • Is Covid-19 in Italy a model for the pandemics that threaten the world?
  • What does the SARS-2-CoV test really measure?
  • Does the test give positive results in human pets or other tame animals?
  • Is it possible, that so many infected are so easily recovering if it is a really new virus?
  • What is the pathogenetic role and impact of Covid-19 compared to „normal” flu?
  • Which preventive actions are necessary in addition to those during normal flu-seasons?
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Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg is a distinguished physician and German politician. In 2009-2010, he was chairman of The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Committee (PACE), which investigated the WHO’s motives in declaring the H1N1 2009 a Worldwide pandemic. 
Wolfgang Wodarg, declared that the “false” H1N1 swine flu pandemic  was “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.” (Forbes, February 10, 2010) Scroll down below video for January 2010 statement by the European Parliament. 

Watch the video below for Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg’s opinion on the coronavirus.

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Concerns about the virus SARS-COV-2 that causes the disease called COVID-19 have centered around reported mortality rates. However, errors in reporting those rates have led to confusion regarding the true health impacts. Because estimated rates are dependent on the test used to identify infected patients, understanding that test and its history could lead to much needed clarity.

Errors in reported mortality rates have come from mistakes in calculation. An example has been equating the measured case fatality rate (deaths divided by patients actively infected) with the actual mortality rate (deaths divided by patients who were ever infected). The latter number is unknown and will not be known until antibody titers can be performed to see who has previously been infected. But that actual mortality rate is expected to be much lower, perhaps around 0.3% as estimated by an epidemiologist from Stanford University.

Another common error has been attributing the deaths of all infected people to COVID-19, regardless of other pre-existing illnesses. This error has been magnified by governments mandating that all deaths of presumptive patients be listed as death from COVID-19, even if the patient was never tested for SARS-COV-2 at all.

The mortality rate errors would be further worsened if there were errors in testing for presence of the virus. What is becoming increasingly clear is that there have been serious questions regarding the reliability of that testing.

The test in question uses a technique called reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to identify the presence of RNA from SARS-COV-2. Testing follows different protocols in different countries and the first problem was seen in China, the reported origin of the virus.

The Chinese Mystery

A scientific study was performed in China that targeted subjects who had been in close contact with SARS-COV-2 infected patients. The results were peer-reviewed and published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology on March 5th, 2020. The data-driven conclusion of the study was that “nearly half or even more” of patients testing positive for SARS-COV-2 did not actually have the virus. In other words, half of the results were false positives.

For perspective, this study was peer-reviewed and published in a Chinese state journal a month after COVID-19 was said to have surpassed the 2003 SARS epidemic and just as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. This was a full month after China had ordered a lockdown affecting over 36 million people.

Mysteriously, this peer-reviewed study was withdrawn a few days after publication and is no longer available for review. In response, one investigative team asked a Chinese graduate student to contact the lead author of the study, Dr. GH Zhuang, for explanation. Dr. Zhuang responded by email but did not cite a reason for withdrawal of the paper, only saying that it was “a sensitive matter.” Others then made the false assumption that the author had identified a mistake in the science despite the fact that no such mistake was ever identified.

As reported by the investigative team that contacted Dr, Zhuang,

 “Without access to the paper, nobody can assess the value of the work or determine whether it suffers from a scientific flaw. It’s also unknown if the paper was retracted for political reasons.”

To understand the concept of a false positive one should realize that analytical test methods need to be balanced with respect to quality considerations like sensitivity and specificity. If a test is not sensitive enough, the analyte of interest will not be found when it is there, giving a false negative. If a test is not specific enough, something else in the test sample will be identified as being the target analyte when it is not, giving a false positive.

In this case, a false positive could mean that the test is reacting to another virus or genetic source. Alternatively, the test could be detecting the presence of SARS-COV-2 residues after a previously infected individual is no longer sick. Lastly, even very small amounts of contamination in the laboratory can cause a false positive. No matter the cause, false positives mean higher reported mortality rates, more confusion, more fear, and more bad decisions.

The RT-qPCR test for SARS-COV-2 is being used as a qualitative test, despite the technique name including the word quantitative. This means that the actual amount of virus in a sample is not considered important, only the presence of even a small amount of virus. This concern would be lessened if the actual test results showing levels of virus detected were available. Unfortunately, all the public sees are numbers of positive or negative determinations.

WHO Guidance and the Test

The World Health Organization (WHO) originally based testing on a kit developed in Germany, not on the Chinese protocol. WHO has since developed general guidance for testing SARS-COV-2. This guidance requires some understanding of terminology so it’s helpful to understand the virus and the principle of testing.

RT-qPCR involves multiple steps. The sample is first lysed (i.e. the cells are cut) to release any viral material. Then the target RNA is converted into complementary DNA (cDNA) using an enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This is sometimes called the “extraction” step. After this, the cDNA is used as a template for amplification using qPCR, allowing the original quantity of target RNA to be determined.

The amplification is not done on the entire cDNA sequence but on segments that are expected to be representative of the specific genome of interest and, correspondingly, not representative of other genetic materials that could be present. Segments of the SARS-COV-2 genetic code that are usually targeted correspond to sections of the original RNA named ORF1a, ORF1ab, S, M, E, and N.

Synthetic primers and fluorescent probes are identified to match up with the target genetic segments to facilitate amplification and detection. The primers are small nucleotide sequences that bind to the target segments of the cDNA genetic sequence. The primers used are critical and issues with primer design can lead to variation in results.

As described in an article in The Scientist, the WHO-recommended primers first target the E gene of SARS-COV-2. The E gene is considered highly divergent and therefore more specific to the different coronaviruses. If a lab following WHO guidance obtains a positive screening test, it will do confirmatory testing targeting other areas of the virus genome. To avoid false positives, “every positive test has been confirmed with whole genome sequencing, viral culture, or electron microscopy.”

The U.S. Test

Unfortunately, the U.S. decided to follow its own rules for testing of SARS-COV-2. In fact, WHO and CDC never discussed the U.S. using the same test as being done internationally. Investigators from The Scientist found that it was “not clear why the CDC chose to develop a different assay to that selected by the WHO and taken up by other countries. The CDC declined to respond to questions.”

The CDC was criticized for its decision and problems were later found with its test kits. Although CDC has been secretive about the details, the concerns with its test appear to have included both test design issues and contamination.

CDC began manufacturing its test kit in January and shipped it on February 5th to state labs and to 30 other countries including 191 international labs. A week later, in a February 12th briefing at the CDC, problems with the test were reported. Although the statements made were unclear, it appeared that states were complaining the test was “inconclusive” and therefore CDC was going to focus on “redoing the manufacturing.”

It was reported that, “the CDC added to the confusion by providing limited information to labs in the weeks that followed. There was a period of time after the tests were recalled where there was near silence. It was about two weeks.” It was only after an open letter to Congress on February 28th, from more than 100 virologists and other specialists, that the CDC responded by allowing independent labs that had validated their own tests to begin testing.

The CDC test originally included three primers, all targeting one gene—the N gene of SARS-COV-2 that encodes for the nucleocapsid. The primers were denoted N1, N2, and N3. Nucleocapsids of RNA viruses “are fairly simple structures that contain only one major structural protein…This protein is usually basic or has a basic domain.”

Although the CDC test might have provided good sensitivity, it appears that it did not provide high specificity as it targeted only one basic gene of the coronavirus. CDC admitted the lack of certainty in a disclaimer noted in the method, saying, positive results “do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”

At first, due to CDC secrecy, problems with the test kit were difficult to understand. As the Washington Post reported, “The trouble with the CDC test arose because the third attempt at a match, known as the N3 component, produced an inconclusive result even on known samples of the coronavirus.”

But that was not the whole story.

On February 28th, as the open letter to Congress was being recognized, it was reported that the N3 primer of the CDC kit was contaminated. The contamination caused the negative control within the kit, containing DNA that was unrelated to SARS-COV-2, to react as if it was a positive hit for SARS-COV-2. In other words, the kits were generating false positives for negative controls.

How much contamination was present was not clear because, again, the actual test results giving amounts of virus found are not available to the public. And CDC has not been open with communications about the problems found. Oddly enough, in April, test kits in the UK were also found to be “contaminated with COVID-19.”

What did CDC do to correct the problems with the kit? Instead of re-manufacturing the N3 primer as originally planned, on March 15th the CDC simply told everyone who had the kit to remove the N3 primer and use the kits without it. Additionally, CDC changed its method requirements to eliminate the need to confirm positive results. This made the test kit that was based on detection of only one basic gene in SARS-COV-2 even less specific and told users that results didn’t need to be confirmed. These changes made the test less reliable in terms of identifying SARS-COV-2 and therefore made any subsequent estimates of mortality rates less reliable as well.

Summary

The history of testing for SARS-COV-2 infection has involved problems that have led to delays in testing and reporting of rates of infection than are falsely higher than actual. Complicating these issues are government mandates for medical professionals to list COVID-19 as cause of death for patients who have inconclusive causes of death and, in some cases, were never tested for SARS-COV-2 at all.

Understanding problems with the test performed for identification of infected patients can lead to much needed clarity and less panic. There are many questions that still need answers. For example: Are reported rates for other diseases like influenza dropping in proportion to the rise in reported infection by SARS-COV-2? What were the details of the Chinese study that was mysteriously retracted? What has investigation into the CDC kit contamination revealed? What other countries have based their mortality figures on test kits that provided unreliable results?

Citizens can help by calling on authorities and test facilities to publicly share the details of testing including the actual results of the RT-qPCR tests showing levels of virus present. In addition to information sharing, an international investigation into the problems seen with testing, starting with Chinese results and U.S. test kits, should be conducted. Such an investigation could lead to preventing the reporting of false positives and the ensuing panic and bad decision making that come from artificially high estimated mortality rates.

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