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There is a truism that I often cite when discussing the various analytical approaches to assessing the wide variety of geopolitical problems facing the world today—you can’t solve a problem unless you first properly define it. The gist of the argument is quite simple—any solution which has nothing to do with the problem involved is, literally, no solution at all.
Israel has characterized the attack carried out by Hamas on the various Israeli military bases and militarized settlements, or Kibbutz, which in their totality comprised an important part of the Gaza barrier system, as a massive act of terrorism, likening it to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. Israel supports this characterization by citing the number of persons killed (some 1,200, a downward revision issued by Israel after realizing that 200 of the dead were Palestinian fighters) and detailing a wide variety of atrocities it claims were perpetrated by Hamas, including mass rape, the beheading of children, and the wonton murder of unarmed Israeli civilians.
The problem with the Israeli claims is that they are demonstrably false or misleading. Nearly a third of the Israeli casualties consisted of military, security, and police officers. Moreover, it turns out that the number one killer of Israelis on October 7 wasn’t Hamas or other Palestinian factions, but the Israeli military itself.
Recently released video shows Israeli Apache helicopters indiscriminately firing on Israeli civilians trying to flee the Supernova Sukkot Gathering held in the open desert near Kibbutz Re’im, the pilots unable to distinguish between the civilians and the Hamas fighters. Many of the vehicles that the Israeli government has shown as an example of Hamas perfidy were destroyed by the Israeli Apache helicopters.
Likewise, the Israeli government has widely publicized what it is calling the “Re’im massacre,” citing a death toll of some 112 civilians it claims were murdered by Hamas. However, eyewitness accounts from both surviving Israeli civilians and military personnel involved in the fighting show that the vast majority of those killed died from fire from Israeli soldiers and tanks directed at buildings where the civilians were either hiding or being held hostage by Hamas fighters.
It took two days for the Israeli military to recapture Re’im. It only did so after tanks fired into the civilian residences, collapsing them onto their occupants, and often setting them ablaze, causing the bodies of those inside to be consumed by fire. The Israeli government has publicized how it has had to make use of the services of forensic archeologists to identify human remains at the Kibbutz, implying that Hamas had burned the occupants’ home. But the fact is it was Israeli tanks that did the destruction and killing.
Footage from Israeli Apache helicopters of attacks on Israeli civilians, October 7, 2023
This scene was repeated in other Kibbutzes along the Gaza barrier system.
The Israeli government treats the Kibbutz as being purely civilian, and yet has publicized how armed security teams of several Kibbutzes—drawn from the so-called “civilian” residents—were able to mobilize in time to successfully repel the Hamas attackers. The reality is that every Kibbutz had to be treated by Hamas as an armed encampment, and as such assaulted as if it were a military objective, for the simple fact that they were—all of them.
Moreover, until Israel relocated several battalions of IDF forces to the West Bank, each Kibbutz had been reinforced by a squad of around 20 IDF soldiers who were billeted in the Kibbutz. Given that Hamas had planned this attack for well over a year, Hamas had to assume that these 20 IDF soldiers were still located in each Kibbutz, and act accordingly.
The Israeli government has had to walk back its claims that Hamas beheaded 40 children and has provided no credible evidence that Hamas was involved in the rape or sexual assault of a single Israeli female. Eyewitness accounts describe the Hamas fighters as disciplined, determined, and deadly in the attack, and yet courteous and gentle when dealing with civilian captives.
The question arises as to why the Israeli government would go out of its way to manufacture a narrative designed to support the false and misleading characterization of the October 7 attack by Hamas on the Gaza barrier system as an act of terrorism.
The answer is as disturbing as it is clear—because what happened on October 7 was not a terrorist attack, but a military raid.
The difference between the two terms is night and day—by labeling the events of October 7 as acts of terrorism, Israel transfers blame for the huge losses away from its military, security, and intelligence services, and onto Hamas. If Israel were, however, to acknowledge that what Hamas did was in fact a raid—a military operation—then the competency of the Israeli military, security, and intelligence services would be called into question, as would the political leadership responsible for overseeing and directing their operations.
Hamas video still of drone attack on Israeli guard tower, October 7, 2023
And if you’re Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this is the last thing you want.
Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. He was already facing a crisis of his own making, having pushed for legislation which re-wrote Israeli Basic Law in a way which placed the Israeli judiciary under the control of the Knesset, effectively terminating its status as a separate but equal branch of government (so much for Israel being the “greatest democracy in the Middle East”). This act brought Israel on the verge of a civil war, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets to denounce Netanyahu. What makes Netanyahu’s actions even more despicable is that it represented little more than a naked power play designed to prevent the Israeli court system from trying him on several credible allegations of corruption which, if Netanyahu were found guilty (a distinct probability), would have put him in jail for many years.
Netanyahu had billed himself as Israel’s top defender, a specialist on the threats facing Israel abroad, and how to best respond to them. He has openly advocated a military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. Netanyahu is also a proponent of political Zionism in its most extreme application and has promoted the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which use tactics that forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes and villages, as part of an overall plan to create a “greater Israel” that mirrors that of Biblical times.
Part of Netanyahu’s strategy to accomplish this dream of a “greater Israel” is to weaken the Palestinian people and their government to the point of irrelevancy, thereby preventing them from achieving their dream of obtaining an independent Palestinian state. To facilitate this strategy, Netanyahu has, over the course of the past two decades, promoted the growth of Hamas as a political organization. The purpose of this support is simple—by promoting Hamas, Netanyahu weakens the Palestinian Authority, the governing body of Palestinian people, headed by its President, Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu’s plan was working—in September 2020 Netanyahu signed the Abaraham Accords, a series of bilateral agreements brokered by the administration of then-President Donald Trump that sought the normalization of relations between Israel and several Gulf Arab States, all at the expense of an independent Palestinian nation. Prior to the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel was on the cusp of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, an act which would have proven to be the final nail in the coffin of Palestinian statehood.
One of the main reasons for Israel’s progress in this regard was its success in creating a political divide between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
On October 7, however, this success was washed away by the victory that Hamas achieved over the IDF. The precise means by which this victory took place is the subject for another time. But the basic elements of this victory are well-established.
Hamas effectively neutralized Israel’s vaunted intelligence services, blinding them to the possibility of an attack of this scope and scale.
When the attack occurred, Hamas was able to strike with precision the very surveillance and communication nodes the IDF relied upon to mobilize a response in case of an attack.
Captured Israeli Merkhava tank, October 7, 2023
Hamas defeated those Israeli soldiers stationed along the barrier wall in a stand-up fight. Two battalions of the Golani Brigade were routed, as were elements of other vaunted IDF units.
Hamas struck the Headquarters of the Gaza Division, the local intelligence hub, and other major command and control facilities with brutal precision, turning what should have been a five-minute response time into many hours—more than enough time for Hamas to carry out one of its primary objectives—the taking of hostages. This they did with extreme proficiency, returning to Gaza with more than 230 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The Marine Corps defines a raid as “an operation, usually small scale, involving a swift penetration of hostile territory to secure information, confuse the enemy, or to destroy his installations. It ends with a planned withdrawal upon completion of the assigned mission.”
This is precisely what Hamas did on October 7.
What were the objectives of this raid? According to Hamas, the purpose behind the October 7 raid were threefold.
First, to reassert the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland not defined by the Abaraham Accords.
Second, to release the more than 10,000 Palestinians held prisoner by Israel, most without having been charged with a crime, and none with any notion of due process.
Third, to return the sanctity of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest place, which had been desecrated repeatedly by Israeli security forces over the past years.
To accomplish these goals, the October 7 raid needed to create the necessary conditions for victory. This was achieved by humiliating Israel sufficiently to provoke a predictable outcome—the implementation of the Dahiya Doctrine of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza, combined with a ground attack on Gaza that would lure the IDF into what was in effect a Hamas ambush.
The taking of hostages was meant to provide Hamas with negotiating leverage for the release of the 10,000 prisoners held by Israel.
The Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza has resulted in international revulsion against Israel as the world recoils from the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding before their very eyes. The streets of major cities around the world are full of angry protestors demonstrating on behalf of the Palestinian people—and Palestinian statehood. The United States is now stating that a two-state solution—something the Abrahams Accord was designed to prevent—is now the only way forward for peace in the Middle East.
The United States would never have said this on October 6.
The fact that the United States has taken this stance is because of the Hamas raid of October 7.
Attendees, Meeting of Islamic States in Saudi Arabia
Israel is in negotiations with the United States and others about a possible prisoner exchange involving the Hamas hostages and certain categories of political prisoners—women and children—held by Israel (yes, you read that right—children. And now you know the wisdom of Hamas’ decision to take Israeli children hostage.)
Such a possibility would never have occurred if it weren’t for the Hamas raid of October 7.
And in Saudi Arabia, the largest gathering of Islamic nations in modern history has convened to discuss the Gaza crisis. One of the top agenda items is the issue of the Al Aqsa Mosque and ending Israeli desecration.
This was a discussion that would never have taken place if it were not for the Hamas raid of October 7.
It goes without saying that the Hamas raid of October 7 unleashed a firestorm of brutal recrimination in the form of bombs, shells, and bullets on the civilian population of Gaza. These are people who, for nearly eight decades, have been denied a homeland of their own by the Israelis, who violently evicted the Palestinians from the land currently called Israel in one of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing in modern history—the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948.
The destruction of Gaza by Israeli forces, October 2023
These are people who have suffered untold deprivation at the hand of their Israeli occupiers while awaiting the moment they will see their dream of a Palestinian homeland come true. They know that a Palestinian homeland cannot be realized so long as Israel is governed by those who embrace the notion of a Greater (Eretz) Israel, and that the only way to remove such people is by defeating them politically, and the only way to trigger their political defeat is to defeat them militarily.
Hamas is accomplishing this.
But there is a price to pay—a heavy price. The French lost 20,000 civilians killed to achieve the liberation of Normandy in the Summer of 1944.
So far, the Palestinian civilians of Gaza have lost 12,000 civilians killed in the effort led by Hamas to militarily defeat their Israeli occupiers.
That price will go higher in the days and weeks to come.
But it is a price that must be paid if there is to be any chance of a Palestinian homeland.
The sacrifice of the Palestinian people has compelled an Arab and Islamic world which, with few exceptions, has been mute over the depravations carried out by Israel against the Palestinian people. Who did nothing as the cause of Palestinian statehood was mooted by the Abraham Accords.
Only because of the suffering of the Palestinian people is anyone paying attention to the cause of Palestinian statehood today.
Or the welfare of the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Or the sanctity of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
These were all stated objectives of Hamas in launching their attack of October 7.
And all objectives are being accomplished as we speak.
Only because of the actions of Hamas and the sacrifices of the Palestinian people.
Which makes the October 7 assault on Israel by Hamas the most successful military raid of this century.
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Featured image: Hamas paraglider troops cross into Israel, October 7, 2023 / All images in this article are from the author
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Howard Woodhouse, professor of history and philosophy of education at the University of Saskatchewan, is the author of a remarkable study published in 2009 by McGill-Queen’s University Press: Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market. In that opus, he demonstrated how, in the context of the advent of the economic and political ideology known as neoliberalism, and despite considerable faculty opposition, the “market model of education” has been imposed on universities in Canada and the Western world in general.
This process was triggered in two ways by most governments’ systematic underfunding of higher education in the name of “fiscal responsibility”.
First, this close-fistedness made universities increasingly dependent on corporate largesse and therefore responsive to corporate demands, thus curtailing academic freedom and undermining the autonomy of universities. (Wealthy donors have indeed not hesitated to block publication of articles and veto academic appointments, for example at the University of Toronto.)
Second, it forced institutions of higher learning to morph into businesses, “selling” education in the open “market”, competing with other institutions for students who can afford the rising tuition fees. This obviously lowers the quality of education, downgrading students to the status of “educational consumers” and turning academic degrees into commodities, similar to McDonald hamburgers, whose price varies as it depends on the purchasing power of the targeted consumers. The market model of higher education also reproduces, and even increases, social inequality, as a higher education becomes more and more expensive and therefore the privilege of a wealthy minority.
Inspired by the ideas of pioneers in the field of education, such as Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Paolo Freire, Woodhouse argues convincingly that education, including higher education, should not be made to conform to the “market model” or “corporate model”. The main reason for that is that the logic of the market is entirely different from that of education, that the two have incompatible goals. The market’s objective is the private accumulation of wealth, primarily the already gargantuan wealth of banks and corporations and the “one percent” in general, while education is about producing, and sharing, knowledge for the benefit of all. In other words, as Woodhouse puts it: “teaching and learning have a value beyond monetary reward”. The Canadian philosopher of education thus challenged what has become the dominant paradigm with respect to higher education, that “the market model is the only way forward”. He argued that governments have a responsibility to fund universities, making it possible for them to become again what they are supposed to be, namely, “the only places in society where the critical search for knowledge takes precedence”.
In an equally engrossing book published in the spring of this year by Routledge in New York, Critical Reflections on Teacher Education: Why Future Teachers Need Educational Philosophy, Woodhouse has turned his attention to primary and secondary education and teacher training not only in Canada, but also in the US and the UK. He observes that at this level too, education has been forced to conform to the market model, with schools increasingly becoming businesses and teachers as well as administrators morphing into “managers of small businesses”, providing young people with the kind of training deemed necessary for them to find a job and for the corporations and entrepreneurs who will employ them “to compete in the global market”. As in the case of higher education, what is prioritized is private material gain, normally in the form of money, whether for the students in their future career or for their future employers. What students learn, and what educators are required to teach, are the skills and knowledge that meet this overriding goal.
However, education at the primary and secondary levels should not be exclusively a for-profit enterprise, since it is capable of producing knowledge that can be shared for the common good. Rather than promoting the goal of “amassing private wealth,” education has the power to strengthen what Woodhouse calls the “goods of the civil commons”, namely those “life goods” available regardless of the ability to pay, such as clean air and water, universal health care, public libraries, and public broadcasting. In other words, education should be about teaching “human beings to live in ways that sustain the lives of all, including the earth and other species”.
As Woodhouse writes, echoing the late Brazilian specialist in the field of education, Paulo Freire, a system of education that adopts such a mission is much more likely to encourage “organic” and “creative” growth in young people who are “inherently curious and active creatures capable of independent, critical thought” and a “desire to know”, thus making education a “joyful mental adventure”. Conversely, Freire denigrated what he called the “banking approach” to education, whereby “all-knowing teachers”, acting on behalf of “an educational machine”, fill the “empty vessels” that happen to be the minds of children, with knowledge deemed to be useful by the current powers that be, useful, that is, for the purpose of “what the market designates as value”: making money.
Obviously, a Freirean alternative approach to education would require teachers capable of inspiring and guiding young people, and this brings Woodhouse to the topic of teacher education. As he sees it, teachers would benefit from studying, and should be enabled to teach, a discipline for which there is currently little or no room, namely philosophy as a process of inquiry about matters of everyday life.
Philosophy in this sense is above all about critical thinking, posing questions about human relationships, and engaging students in their capacity to reason about entrenched ideas, for example how the market may be undermining the earth’s capacity to sustain a wide diversity of species.Teachers should be able to introduce children to elementary principles of “philosophical reasoning”, teaching them not so much “what to think” but “how to think”, and helping them to understand or — to use Freirean terminology — “name” the world. Well established practices along these lines, known as “Philosophy for Children” (PforC), “bringing teachers and children together to discuss things that matter” so as to respect the views of others, have proved to be quite successful.
Teaching philosophy to children, then, means teaching them to think critically, and Woodhouse explains that this can be done in a variety of ways within the established curriculum.“Story-telling, dancing, drawing, music-making, writing, and science” can be useful for the purpose of stimulating “philosophical dialogue” in the sense of “use of imagination, questioning, dialogue, self-criticism, [and] respect [for] differences of opinion”. Such Freirean “praxis” can enable young people to deal with issues such as “racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression” and with the huge problems that afflict our society and the world in general, including the climate crisis.
In Canada and the US, unlocking young people’s potential for philosophical thinking should also involve exposing them to traditional indigenous thinking, especially with respect to the importance of land and other forms of the commons, solidarity with other living beings, and, last but not least, the crisis of climate change and environmental degradation, for whose gravity it can provide “an understanding that builds upon hope rather than despair”. Indigenous “two-eyed seeing” can and should indeed be used “in conjunction with Western science” to educate students about the climate crisis, since the two share much “common ground”.
The title of Howard Woodhouse’s stimulating book is “Critical Reflections on Teacher Education”, and its subtitle is “Why Future Teachers Need Educational philosophy”.However, it is hoped that this compact opus will be read not only by future educators: despite the dismissive way in which philosophy is treated in the dominant market model of education, we can all learn a lot from the critical reflections offered by this remarkable philosopher of education.
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He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Big Business and Hitler
Author: Jacques R. Pauwels
ISBN: 9781459409873, 1459409876
Published: October 31, 2017
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
For big business in Germany and around the world, Hitler and his National Socialist party were good news. Business was bad in the 1930s, and for multinational corporations Germany was a bright spot in a world suffering from the Great Depression. As Jacques R. Pauwels explains in this book, corporations were delighted with the profits that came from re-arming Germany, and then supplying both sides of the Second World War.
Recent historical research in Germany has laid bare the links between Hitler’s regime and big German firms. Scholars have now also documented the role of American firms — General Motors, IBM, Standard Oil, Ford, and many others — whose German subsidiaries eagerly sold equipment, weapons, and fuel needed for the German war machine. A key roadblock to America’s late entry into the Second World War was behind-the-scenes pressure from US corporations seeking to protect their profitable business selling to both sides.
Basing his work on the recent findings of scholars in many European countries and the US, Pauwels explains how Hitler gained and held the support of powerful business interests who found the well-liked oneparty fascist government, ready and willing to protect the property and profits of big business. He documents the role of the many multinationals in business today who supported Hitler and gained from the Nazi government’s horrendous measures.
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Israel’s plans for the Gaza Strip are becoming increasingly clear. Zionist pro-war propaganda relies on the narrative of a supposed “fight against Hamas” to convince public opinion, but Israeli officials are becoming explicit in their statements, making it clear that the “problem” they see in the region goes beyond of Hamas, having a dissatisfaction with the Palestinian control over that territory.
In a recent statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas has already lost territorial control of northern Gaza, adding that Zionist forces will remain in the region after the end of hostilities. According to Netanyahu, Tel Aviv will not allow Palestinians to teach their children to “hate Israel”, which is why there will be Zionist forces in the Strip to “supervise” the Gazans’ attitudes.
“There is no substitute for victory. We will eliminate Hamas and save our hostages (…) The IDF has completed the encirclement of Gaza City. They are on the outskirts of Shifa Hospital and have killed a lot of terrorists (…) Hamas has lost control in the north of the Gaza Strip. They have no safe place to hide. We will not stop until the mission is completed. We are doing everything to be worthy of their sacrifice and heroism. [Gaza] will not be a civil authority there that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, or to eliminate Israel. There cannot be an authority who didn’t condemn the massacre. There will have to be something else, but in any case [it will be under] our security control. I stand by it and don’t intend to give up”, he said at a press conference on November 11th.
By saying that there will be no “civil authority” in Gaza, Netanyahu contradicted his own words, as a few days earlier the prime minister had mentioned that Israel’s objective was only to “demilitarize” – and not “govern” Gaza.
“What we have to see is Gaza demilitarized, deradicalized and rebuilt (…) We don’t seek to conquer Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy Gaza. And we don’t seek to govern Gaza”, he said on the 9th. However, on the same occasion he also said that the IDF should “enter Gaza and kill the killers [at any time, to] prevent the emergence of another Hamas-like entity.”
Apparently, Netanyahu is getting more and more explicit in his plan for Gaza. It is clear that the aim of the war against the Palestinians is not simply to defeat Hamas, but to ensure full Israeli control over the Palestinian-majority territories. By talking about not allowing a civil authority in Gaza and by calling for IDF readiness to enter Gaza and kill Palestinians at any time, Netanyahu is promising that the Gazans will not have the right to self-determination or the creation of self-defense militias. In other words, he is admitting that his war in Gaza is a war of occupation against the Palestinians.
There is nothing really “new” in what Netanyahu said, but it is noteworthy because of its explicitness. So far, the Zionist propaganda machine has managed to garner some support for the war because the excuse used by the Western media is a supposed “need” to “defeat Hamas.” However, with Zionist officials openly talking about maintaining the illegal occupation, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify support for Tel Aviv in the eyes of the Western public.
For this reason, American officials asked Netanyahu for clarification about his speech. On the 12th, Israeli TV channels, citing unidentified American sources, stated that Netanyahu’s words left American decision-makers “perplexed.” According to Kan, a state-owned Israeli TV network, American partners are demanding explanations from Netanyahu about what exactly he is referring to when he talks about controlling Gaza after the conflict.
Recently some frictions of this type have occurred. For example, John Kirby, spokesman for US National Security, stated that the US is against an Israeli occupation of Gaza. Obviously, the US does not support Palestine, but Washington’s position is based on a rational pro-Israel strategy. The more occupation of Palestinian territory, the more conflict there will be – and therefore the more difficult it will be for Americans to continue helping the Zionist state.
What is happening is a clash of different views on what is best for Israel. Westerners support a more “humanitarian” solution for Gaza because they need to reconcile their unrestricted Zionism with the values spread in their propaganda machine. On the other hand, a more radical Israeli wing defends a final solution, with ethnic cleansing and military occupation. And the more Tel Aviv becomes explicit in its alignment to this radical view, the more its international isolation increases.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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Your gallbladder is an abdominal organ that stores and concentrates bile produced by your liver. The bile helps your body break down and absorb the fat that you eat. When you eat a fatty meal, your gallbladder will contract and squeeze more concentrated bile into the small intestine to aid in the breakdown of the fat
Since your gallbladder is involved in the breakdown of dietary fats, digestive problems — especially when eating fatty foods — can be indicative of a problem, even if you have no other symptoms. Digestive symptoms include frequent abdominal bloating, gas, nausea and/or diarrhea shortly after eating
Gallstones are one of the most common types of gallbladder problems that can occur, affecting an estimated 15% of the U.S. population. Women are twice as likely as men to develop them, especially during pregnancy or if using birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy
One of the reasons for this gender difference is because the extra estrogen increases cholesterol while simultaneously slowing down gallbladder emptying. Obesity, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, liver cirrhosis, sickle cell disease, intravenous feeding, a family history of gallstones, use of cholesterol-lowering drugs, high-fat/low-fiber diets and fasting are also risk factors
While your gallbladder performs an important function, you can live without it. Your liver still produces and sends bile into your duodenum, so you can still break down fats to a certain degree. But it’s not as efficient, so people who have had their gallbladder removed are advised to limit the amount of fat in their diets and take digestive aids such as ox bile and digestive enzymes
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Your gallbladder is a 3- to 4-inch long pear-shaped sack in your abdominal cavity located beneath your liver. It stores and concentrates bile produced by your liver. The bile helps your body break down and absorb the fat you eat.
When you eat fat, your liver sends bile directly into the duodenum (small intestine). Your gallbladder will also spring into action, contracting and squeezing more concentrated bile through the common bile duct into the small intestine to aid in the breakdown of the fat. Carbs and proteins are more easily digested and don’t need this extra bile.
Bile is made up of water, cholesterol, lecithin, bile salts (which break fats into smaller droplets that are easier for digestive enzymes to process) and bile pigments. The primary bile pigment is bilirubin, made from red blood cells that are broken down in the liver. This pigment is responsible for making urine yellow and stool brown.
Your pancreas also plays an important role in the digestive process. It produces and sends enzymes into the common bile duct via the pancreatic duct. Together, the digestive juices from your liver and pancreatic enzymes break down the food you eat into liquid form so that your body can absorb the nutrients from it.
Since your gallbladder is involved in the breakdown of dietary fats, digestive problems — especially when eating fatty foods — can be indicative of a problem, even if you have no other symptoms. Digestive symptoms include frequent abdominal bloating, gas, nausea and/or diarrhea shortly after eating.
Risk Factors and Symptoms of Gallstones
Gallstones are one of the most common types of gallbladder problems that can occur, affecting an estimated 15% of the U.S. population.1 Women are twice as likely as men to develop them, especially during pregnancy or if using birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy.
One of the reasons for this gender difference is because the extra estrogen increases cholesterol while simultaneously slowing down gallbladder emptying. Obesity, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, liver cirrhosis, sickle cell disease, intravenous feeding, a family history of gallstones, use of cholesterol-lowering drugs, high-fat/low-fiber diets and fasting are also risk factors.2,3
Gallstones typically consist of crystallized bile, and if large enough to block a biliary duct, can cause varying degrees of pain. Left untreated, the blockage can lead to cholecystitis, or inflammation of the gallbladder. Common symptoms of cholecystitis include:
A gallbladder infection needs to be treated to avoid gallbladder rupture, which can be life-threatening, gangrene, or a gallbladder abscess. Abscesses occur when a pocket of pus forms inside the gallbladder. In severe cases of cholecystitis, the gallbladder is removed, but milder cases may be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs.
This is why you want to be really careful with your gallbladder and at the first sign of symptoms treat it as if you didn’t have a gallbladder so you can reverse the process and not have it surgically removed as so many people do. Not much you can do after a surgeon removes it for you as no way are you getting a gallbladder transplant.
Other Types of Gallbladder Disease
Cholecystitis can also develop in the absence of stones, although it’s far rarer. Only 5% of acute cholecystitis cases are so-called acalculous, meaning there are no stones present.4
Acalculous gallbladder disease is thought to be caused by bile build-up due to a lack of oxygen to the gallbladder. In these cases, the gallbladder is typically removed. Other potential gallbladder problems include:5,6
Can You Live Without a Gallbladder?
While your gallbladder performs an important function, you can live without it. In fact, many do, as gallbladder removal is one of the most commonly performed surgeries in the U.S.7
Your liver still produces and sends bile into your duodenum, so you can still break down fats to a certain degree. But it’s not as efficient, as the bile from your liver is less concentrated. This is why people who have had their gallbladder removed are advised to limit the amount of fat in their diets and take digestive aids such as ox bile and digestive enzymes.
Fat malabsorption is also common among people with functioning gallbladders. Symptoms such as sticky stools, stools that float, frequent diarrhea, digestive upset, gas and/or soft foul-smelling stools right after meals, chronic dry skin and hair loss are common symptoms suggesting you may not be digesting fats properly.8
How to Improve Digestion of Fats
Whether you’ve had your gallbladder removed or not, you can improve your digestion of fats using:
Bitters — Bitters help stimulate the production of bile to boost the digestive process. The first signals for bile production come from your tongue, so taking a tablespoon of bitters right before eating can get the flow of bile going.
Betaine hydrochloride (HCI) — Betaine HCI — not to be confused with betaine or trimethylglycine (TMG) — increases the concentration of stomach acid, which is required for digestion of food. It also signals your pancreas to release digestive enzymes. If your stomach acid is too low, some of the food you will remain largely undigested.
Digestive enzymes — In many people, the pancreas doesn’t produce enough digestive enzymes. In this case, taking a digestive enzyme supplement with each meal can help. There are five primary digestive enzymes, each designed to help break down different types of food:
Protease breaks down protein
Amylase breaks down carbohydrates, sugars and starches
Lipase breaks down fats. If you have IBS, cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, no gallbladder or gallbladder dysfunction, you may benefit from higher levels of lipase
Lactase breaks down milk sugar (lactose) in dairy products
Sucrase breaks down sucrose sugars
Taking a blend of enzymes is usually ideal, as no single enzyme can perform all the necessary functions throughout your digestive tract. That said, if you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, no gallbladder or gallbladder dysfunction, you may benefit from higher levels of lipase in particular.
Ox bile — Ox bile, which is most similar to that of humans, is particularly important after you’ve had your gallbladder removed. Ideally, take one tablet along with a lipase-containing digestive enzyme shortly before meals.
As noted by biohacker Dave Asprey, you can also improve your digestion of fats by eating the right fats:9
“C8 MCTs (caprylic acid) … skips a few steps in digestion. You don’t need bile for your cells to use it. Having a little bit of caprylic acid every day will help your body replenish the fats it’s been missing out while you haven’t been digesting fats.
Eating more fats will stimulate your liver to produce more bile, which will mix with stagnant bile and thin it out. Eating high quality fats like avocados, salmon and coconut oil to get things flowing.”
How to Avoid Gallstones
While it’s still unclear why gallstones form, a number of lifestyle strategies are known to lower your risk, including the following:
Get regular exercise
Clean up your diet — Avoid processed foods and grains, keep hydrated, opt for healthy high-quality fats and eat more high-fiber foods such as fruits and vegetables
Lose weight gradually — Rapid weight loss may raise your risk of gallstones
Avoid extended fasting, not only will it help your gallbladder, but it will increase your health as fasting is not as healthy as I previously believed as it increases your stress hormones and worsens mitochondrial function
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***
During his (November 4) meeting with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan, the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was angry and overtly upset – his Arab hosts raised some questions instead of their normal nods of submissions.
As the death toll approached 10,000, the foreign ministers were visibly concerned with genocide and mass atrocities in Palestine.
Their fear is that the wholesale assaults on innocent civilians is inciting popular resentments and is deepening discontent among their people. They requested Blinken to have mercy on them as the popular protests eventually endanger the survivability of Washington’s Arab protectorates.
Blinken was unmoved and asserted that Washington will not tolerate popular protest or any support for the Palestinian cause in any part in the Arab World.
And that the Arab governments have no choice but to obey and submit. The fearful foreign ministers got the message that Washington would not accept any sympathy for Palestinians. They got the impression that he fully embraced the Israel’s plan to pacify the Palestinians with bombs, bullets, and forever occupation.
In his instructions, Blinken left no room for guessing where he stood and why he was there. Arab hosts understood that he was there to ensure submission to Israeli will and that any dissent would be dealt with harshly and swiftly. The hosts looked at each other’s face and were asking themselves if they would face the same fate of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, and Libya where destruction is everywhere and misery is widespread.
More importantly, the foreign ministers knew that the self-appointed Avenger from Tel Aviv, Bibi Netanyahu, dictated the talking points for Blinken. And this is where Blinken was clear more than ever. It is Bibi’s words and instructions that he conveys both to his hosts and to President Biden. So, when Blinken’s god stated, “There will be no ceasefire . . .[and it] should be completely removed from the lexicon,” elite in Washington listen.
Left with no other options, the Arab foreign ministers who met with Blinken begged his forgiveness and asked his blessing. They requested him to understand their dilemma — justifying the killing and genocide in the Holy Land to their constituencies while projecting themselves as the defender of the Arab people. Some Arab states have been more successful than others in misleading the public. However, most of them have done a great job in promoting Israeli narrative in their media while pressuring their citizens not to show any public support for Palestinians.
Jordan and Egypt have aggressively sought to avoid enraging Washington’s elite while showing sympathy to Palestinians only for public consumption. Saudi Arabia and the UAE outlaw public protests. The most damaging act to the Palestinian cause, however, is the report in the New York Times (November 5) which indicated that the Egyptian government quietly agreed to Israeli plan to “transfer . . . several hundred thousand [Palestinians ] civilians from Gaza” and settle them in Egypt. This is an important development in the search for ending the Palestinian cause.
During the press conference with Blinken, the Arab foreign ministers could not escape the fact that he spoke with contempt, disdain, and disregard. This has deepened their fear of what the future holds and simultaneously reinforces their feeling of inferiority. Indeed, these corrupt Arab politicians consider the mere existence of Palestinian question is troubling nightmare.
Perhaps, Blinken was amused that his hosts have no soul or are not driven by any national Arab cause, and that, quoting the Iraqi poet Muzafer Al Nawwab, “the pigsty is cleaner than they are.” No wonder Blinken is not denouncing the call to annihilate Palestinians in Gaza by members of the government in Tel Aviv. As reported by the Times of Israel (November 5), Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called to end Palestinian troubles by using ‘atomic bomb on Gaza Strip.’
There is no doubt that the Arab authoritarian regimes understand very well that Washington’s elite will seize any opportunity to humiliate Arabs. For these elite having Arabs waiting in line begging for food and mercy is an ideal situation. This fact was captured by a former senior State Department officer, Michael Ledeen, who stated
“we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell . . . is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American. . . is . . . singing the praises of the United States of America.”
Likewise, as Vice President at that time, Dick Cheney argued that the best strategy to pacify the Arab people is to use force against them. He argued
“I firmly believe that strong, firm U.S. response . . .to threats to the United States would go a long way, frankly, toward calming things in that part of the world.”
This view is commonly shared by Washington’s elite and appears to be promoted by Blinken.
Nevertheless, these regimes do not mind collaborating with Washington in making it wishes a reality. They have mastered the art of projecting themselves as defenders of national causes. The unfolding events in the Holy Land evidence the failure of Arab regimes to take any credible stand to end genocide and save Palestinian lives.
Without any doubt, Blinken knows that if the Arab regimes express wholehearted support for Palestinians, neither Israel nor the U.S. will engage in acts against the people in the region. The leaders of the Arab autocratic regimes are morally defeated. Their survival is primarily guaranteed by Washington even though they are despised by their citizens. For years, Washington has been driven by the notion that the best leaders for the Arab states are those who are brutal and crooked. This belief is bigoted, dangerous, and catastrophic.
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Abbas J. Ali is distinguished University Professor, Eberly College of Business, IUP. Indiana, PA. He is the author/co-author of ten books and about 200 journal articles. His most current books are Sectarianism in Islam: Power, Tribalism, and Commercial Interests, Nova Science Publishers, and Business Ethics in Islam. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar.
Featured image: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Source: Celal Gunes – Anadolu Agency)
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***
We have both been reporting on and protesting against U.S. war crimes for many years, and against identical crimes committed by U.S. allies and proxies like Israel and Saudi Arabia: illegal uses of military force to try to remove enemy governments or “regimes”; hostile military occupations; disproportionate military violence justified by claims of “terrorism”; the bombing and killing of civilians; and the mass destruction of whole cities.
Most Americans share a general aversion to war, but tend to accept this militarized foreign policy because we are tragically susceptible to propaganda, the machinery of public manipulation that works hand in hand with the machinery of killing to justify otherwise unthinkable horrors.
This process of “manufacturing consent” works in a number of ways. One of the most effective forms of propaganda is silence, simply not telling us, and certainly not showing us, what war is really doing to the people whose homes and communities have been turned into America’s latest battlefield.
The most devastating campaign the U.S. military has waged in recent years dropped over 100,000 bombs and missiles on Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, and other areas occupied by ISIS or Da’esh. An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that more than 40,000 civilians were killed in Mosul, while Raqqa was even more totally destroyed.
The shelling of Raqqa was the heaviest U.S. artillery bombardment since the Vietnam War, yet it was barely reported in the U.S. corporate media. A recent New York Times article about the traumatic brain injuries and PTSD suffered by U.S. artillerymen operating 155 mm howitzers, which each fired up to 10,000 shells into Raqqa, was appropriately titled A Secret War, Strange New Wounds and Silence from the Pentagon.
Shrouding such mass death and destruction in secrecy is a remarkable achievement. When British playwright Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, in the midst of the Iraq War, he titled his Nobel speech “Art, Truth and Politics,” and used it to shine a light on this diabolical aspect of U.S. war-making.
After talking about the hundreds of thousands of killings in Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Nicaragua, Pinter asked:
“Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes, they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy.”
“But you wouldn’t know it,” he went on. ”It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
But the wars and the killing go on, day after day, year after year, out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. Did you know that the United States and its allies have dropped more than 350,000 bombs and missiles on 9 countries since 2001 (including 14,000 in the current war on Gaza)? That’s an average of 44 airstrikes per day, day in, day out, for 22 years.
Israel, in its present war on Gaza, with children making up more than 40% of the more than 11,000 people killed to date, would surely like to mimic the extraordinary U.S. ability to hide its brutality. But despite Israel’s efforts to impose a media blackout, the massacre is taking place in a small, enclosed, densely-populated urban area, often called an open-air prison, where the world can see a great deal more than usual of how it impacts real people.
Al Jazeera correspondent Wael El-Dahdouh cries as he holds one of his family members who were killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on October 25, 2023. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)
Israel has killed a record number of journalists in Gaza, and this appears to be a deliberate strategy, as when U.S. forces targeted journalists in Iraq. But we are still seeing horrifying video and photos of daily new atrocities: dead and wounded children; hospitals struggling to treat the injured; and desperate people fleeing from one place to another through the rubble of their destroyed homes.
Another reason this war is not so well hidden is because Israel is waging it, not the United States. The U.S. is supplying most of the weapons, has sent aircraft carriers to the region, and dispatched U.S. Marine General James Glynn to provide tactical advice based on his experience conducting similar massacres in Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq. But Israeli leaders seem to have overestimated the extent to which the U.S. information warfare machine would shield them from public scrutiny and political accountability.
Unlike in Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa, people all over the world are seeing video of the unfolding catastrophe on their computers, phones and TVs. Netanyahu, Biden and the corrupt “defense analysts” on cable TV are no longer the ones creating the narrative, as they try to tack self-serving narratives onto the horrifying reality we can all see for ourselves.
With the reality of war and genocide staring the world in the face, people everywhere are challenging the impunity with which Israel is systematically violating international humanitarian law.
Michael Crowley and Edward Wong have reported in the New York Times that Israeli officials are defending their actions in Gaza by pointing to U.S. war crimes, insisting that they are simply interpreting the laws of war the same way that the United States has interpreted them in Iraq and other U.S. war zones. They compare Gaza to Fallujah, Mosul and even Hiroshima.
But copying U.S. war crimes is precisely what makes Israel’s actions illegal. And it is the world’s failure to hold the United States accountable that has emboldened Israel to believe it too can kill with impunity.
The United States systematically violates the UN Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force, manufacturing political justifications to suit each case and using its Security Council veto to evade international accountability. Its military lawyers employ unique, exceptional interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which the universal protections the Convention guarantees to civilians are treated as secondary to U.S. military objectives.
The United States fiercely resists the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), to ensure that its exceptional interpretations of international law are never subjected to impartial judicial scrutiny.
When the United States did allow the ICJ to rule on its war against Nicaragua in 1986, the ICJ ruled that its deployment of the “Contras” to invade and attack Nicaragua and its mining of Nicaragua’s ports were acts of aggression in violation of international law, and ordered the United States to pay war reparations to Nicaragua. When the United States declared that it would no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ and failed to pay up, Nicaragua asked the UN Security Council to enforce the reparations, but the U.S. vetoed the resolution.
Atrocities like Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the bombing of German and Japanese cities to “unhouse” the civilian population, as Winston Churchill called it, together with the horrors of Germany’s Nazi holocaust, led to the adoption of the new Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949, to protect civilians in war zones and under military occupation.
On the 50th anniversary of the Convention in 1999, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is responsible for monitoring international compliance with the Geneva Conventions, conducted a survey to see how well people in different countries understood the protections the Convention provides.
They surveyed people in twelve countries that had been victims of war, in four countries (France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.) that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and in Switzerland where the ICRC is based. The ICRC published the results of the survey in 2000, in a report titled, People on War – Civilians in the Line of Fire.
The survey asked people to choose between a correct understanding of the Convention’s civilian protections and a watered-down interpretation of them that closely resembles that of U.S. and Israeli military lawyers.
The correct understanding was defined by a statement that combatants “must attack only other combatants and leave civilians alone.” The weaker, incorrect statement was that “combatants should avoid civilians as much as possible” as they conduct military operations.
Between 72% and 77% of the people in the other UNSC countries and Switzerland agreed with the correct statement, but the United States was an outlier, with only 52% agreeing. In fact 42% of Americans agreed with the weaker statement, twice as many as in the other countries. There were similar disparities between the United States and the others on questions about torture and the treatment of prisoners of war.
In U.S.-occupied Iraq, the United States’ exceptionally weak interpretations of the Geneva Conventions led to endless disputes with the ICRC and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which issued damning quarterly human rights reports. UNAMI consistently maintained that U.S. airstrikes in densely populated civilian areas were violations of international law.
For instance, its human rights report for the 2nd quarter of 2007 documented UNAMI’s investigations of 15 incidents in which U.S. occupation forces killed 103 Iraqi civilians, including 27 killed in airstrikes in Khalidiya, near Ramadi, on April 3rd, and 7 children killed in a helicopter attack on an elementary school in Diyala province on May 8th.
UNAMI demanded that “all credible allegations of unlawful killings by MNF (Multi-National Force) forces be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force.”
A footnote explained,
“Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area.”
UNAMI also rejected U.S. claims that its widespread killing of civilians was the result of the Iraqi Resistance using civilians as “human shields,” another U.S. propaganda trope that Israel is mimicking today. Israeli accusations of human shielding are even more absurd in the densely populated, confined space of Gaza, where the whole world can see that it is Israel that is placing civilians in the line of fire as they desperately seek safety from Israeli bombardment.
Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are echoing around the world: through the halls of the United Nations; from the governments of traditional U.S. allies like France, Spain and Norway; from a newly united front of previously divided Middle Eastern leaders; and in the streets of London and Washington. The world is withdrawing its consent for a genocidal “two-state solution” in which Israel and the United States are the only two states that can settle the fate of Palestine.
If U.S. and Israeli leaders are hoping that they can squeak through this crisis, and that the public’s habitually short attention span will wash away the world’s horror at the crimes we are all witnessing, that may be yet another serious misjudgment. As Hannah Arendt wrote in 1950 in the preface to The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain.”
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Featured image: Girl holds improvised white flag, to tell Israel to respect Geneva Conventions and spare her fleeing family. Photo credit: Yasser Qudih
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***
For five consecutive weeks, hundreds of thousands of people in Britain have held demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against the settler-colonial regime based in Tel Aviv.
Many of the participants are calling for a ceasefire while others want to express their support for the Palestinians resisting the onslaught of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with the backing of the United States, Britain and other Western European states.
On Saturday November 11, the Metropolitan Police in London estimated the number of marchers to be 300,000. Organizers said that the crowd was at least 500,000. This turn out was the largest since the beginning of the siege of Gaza on October 9.
This mobilization was coordinated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a broad alliance of political and community organizations with affiliates throughout the country. The large numbers of demonstrators every week illustrates clearly the popular concerns over not only the situation in Gaza, it is a condemnation of the foreign policy of Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who is a staunch ally of the government of the State of Israel.
These demonstrations have been peaceful, and the only arrests made on November 11 were to apprehend a small group of right-wing counter-protesters who showed up to agitate the Palestine solidarity activists. There were news stories claiming that the pro-Israeli counter-protesters had attacked the police prompting the arrests.
Just a few days prior to the November 11 actions, former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman published an opinion piece in a leading newspaper, The Times, where she seemed to urge a ban on the demonstrations saying that the marches were pro-Palestinian mobs exuding hatred. Braverman noted in her diatribe that November 11 was Armistice Day, the 106th anniversary of the ceasefire at the conclusion of World War I.
The then Home Secretary accused the police of being lenient towards the Palestine solidarity marches. In response, the director of the police publicly rebuked Braverman and stated that there was no legal basis for placing a ban on the marches. Organizers of the demonstrations said that the latest mobilization coinciding with armistice day was quite appropriate for the existing war against the Palestinian people.
Gaza siege places journalists in danger (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
Braverman was relieved of her position on November 13 and replaced by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. To replace Cleverly, Sunak appointed former Prime Minister David Cameron who resigned in 2016 after losing the referendum on Brexit. These changes in the British government are a reflection of the lack of a coherent policy for both domestic and foreign issues.
Just one day prior to the massive rally and march in Central London, a direct-action protest was carried out aimed at highlighting the military links between Britain and the State of Israel. According to a report in the Arab News:
“UK trade union members on Friday blockaded a British military equipment maker in southeastern England, calling for a cease-fire in Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Demonstrators brandished banners and placards reading ‘no business as usual’ and ‘taxpayers have blood on their hands’ outside the gates of the BAE Systems factory in Rochester. Organizers said they were aiming to shut down the factory ‘which provides components for military aircraft currently being used by Israeli forces in the bombardment of Gaza.’ They said it was part of an ‘International Day of Action for Palestine’ organized in response to a call by Palestinian trade unionists.”
In Western European states there has been a growth in participation for demonstrations against the IDF war on Gaza. Despite the bans placed on this protest activity in France and Germany, people have defied these orders by governments and the police to turn out in large numbers in solidarity with Palestine.
“About 21,000 people took part in a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels on Saturday, and in Paris, left-wing lawmakers were among some 16,000 protesters who marched with pro-Palestinian banners and flags to call for a ceasefire. Some French leftist politicians have welcomed President Emmanuel Macron’s call this week for a ceasefire and opposition to Israel’s bombing campaign.”
French President Emmanuel Macron did say in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that he is in favor of a ceasefire. Nonetheless, Macron was one of the first western heads-of-state to travel to Tel Aviv and meet with Netanyahu pledging support to the Zionist state. The French president even went further calling for a coalition to fight “terrorism” while never condemning the blanket bombing of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) over Gaza.
U.S. Backlash Against Growing Solidarity Movement
Since October 7, there have been thousands of demonstrations across the U.S. calling for a ceasefire and expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. These actions have taken place in most major municipalities and on college campuses.
The pro-Palestinian sentiment among students and progressive faculty members has drawn the ire of the supporters of the State of Israel. At Columbia University in New York City, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have been banned on the campus.
These efforts are obviously emanating from the U.S. ruling class and their functionaries. Al Jazeera reported in an article on November 12 that:
“A billionaire real estate tycoon in the United States is rallying support for a high-dollar media crusade to boost Israel’s image and demonize the Hamas armed group amid global pro-Palestinian solidarity protests. The media campaign — called Facts for Peace — is seeking million-dollar donations from dozens of the world’s biggest names in media, finance and technology, according to an email seen by news website Semafor. More than 50 individuals are being courted, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Dell CEO Michael Dell and financier Michael Milken. They have a combined net worth of around $500bn, Semafor said. Some of the individuals, such as investor Bill Ackman, have publicly threatened to blacklist pro-Palestine students who are critical of Israel. On October 10, Ackman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he and other business executives wanted Ivy League universities to disclose the names of students who are part of organizations that signed open letters criticizing Israeli policies in Gaza.”
The desire on the part of these groupings is to get ahead of the rapidly shifting public opinion against the State of Israel and the administration of Joe Biden. However, they are horribly late in their efforts particularly since the politico-military posture of Washington and Tel Aviv have been characterized as war crimes and genocide.
Palestinians forced to flee their homes again (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
Moreover, many people view the policies of the U.S. in West Asia as inevitably leading to another major deployment of Pentagon troops in the region. The situation in the region coupled with the Biden proxy-war against the Russian Federation is quite costly for the working class and oppressed peoples in the U.S.
Corporate Media Bias Challenged by Journalists
To illustrate the degree to which many mainstream newspaper, radio and television workers have changed their positions on the Palestinian question, a large number of journalists have signed an open letter criticizing the corporate and government-controlled media houses for their unconditional commitment to protecting the economic, military and diplomatic status granted to Tel Aviv within the U.S. political system. The journalists cite the bias of the ruling class aligned newsrooms for their double standards in designating organizations such as Hamas as terrorists while justifying the actions of the Netanyahu administration and the IDF in their attacks on the Palestinians, characterizing this oppressed nation in terms which question their humanity and moral character.
Even the Times of Israel, which can in no way be considered antisemitic or anti-Zionist, covered this important development points to the concern over the shifting public opinion within the U.S. and Western Europe where ruling class endorsements of successive administrations in Tel Aviv is being challenged. The fact that these journalists and news analysts would risk their careers to point out the biased and hypocritical editorial stances of the media agencies which have broad sway over influencing people of all generations and sectors of the population, is obviously a cause for concern among both dominant political parties and the ruling class interests which finance their operations.
“Over 750 former and current journalists around the world have signed a petition calling on the media to begin using terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel’s actions in the conflict with the Palestinians, while blasting international media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. The petition, posted on Thursday (Nov. 9), urged an end to what it alleged was the targeting of journalists by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, citing the deaths of dozens of Palestinians working for foreign media outlets during the war…. Journalists from Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The Washington Post are among the signatories. Abdallah Fayyad, a former editorial board member at The Boston Globe and 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist, told The Washington Post he hoped the letter would ‘push back on the culture of fear around this issue… and to make decision-makers and reporters and editors think twice about the language that they use.’”
These emerging trends in the political and intellectual culture of influential institutions within U.S. society could very well impact the foreign policy imperatives of Washington and Wall Street. As in previous imperialist wars in geopolitical regions encompassing Korea, Vietnam, China, Southern Africa, etc., the outlooks of millions within the U.S. can be transformed in a manner which will have a profound impact on the balance of forces within a global context.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Detroit Palestine solidarity activists block the entrance to Sen. Stabenow’s offices (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
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***
For anyone wishing to bury secrets, especially of the unsavoury sort, there is one forum that stands out. Call it a higher education institution. Call it a university. Even better, capitalise it: the University.
This is certainly the case in Australia, where education is less a pursuit of knowledge as the acquiring of a commodity, laid out spam for so much return. On that vast island continent, the university, dominated by a largely semi-literate and utterly unaccountable management, is a place where secrets are buried, concealed with a gleeful dedication verging on mania.
In its submission to what will hopefully become the Australian Universities Accord, the Australian Association of University Professors (AAUP) notes the following:
“Unfortunately, university managements are increasingly disconnected from and unaccountable to academic values and academic communities. Students, Government and granting bodies, pay universities to deliver services according to academic values, but academics are impeded from working in accordance with academic values by interfering management. Further, the managers themselves do not work in accordance with academic values.”
Those in the defence industry have taken note. By turning such institutions of instruction into supply lines for research and development in armaments, they can be assured of secrecy conditions the envy of most intelligence agencies. Consulting, viewing, gaining access to relevant agreements, documentation and projects for reasons of public discussion is virtually impossible. These are always seen as “commercial” and “in confidence”.
Only the overly fed and watered members of the University Politburo are granted such access. Entry into the arcana of its deliberations is ceremonially tolerated via Academic Board meetings or Senatorial deliberations. Furthermore, academics throughout the university sport a reliable, moral flabbiness that will prevent them from spilling the beans and airing a troubled conscience, even in cases where leaking the documentation might be possible. Middle class, mortgage-laden status anxiety is the usual formula here, one that neuters revolutionary spirits – not that there was much to begin with.
Across Australia’s universities, the AUKUS military initiative between the US, UK and Australia, primarily focused on developing nuclear powered technology for a new submarine design, has titillated the managerial wonks of the tertiary education sector. In September, the Defence Department announced that 4,000 additional Commonwealth supported places (CSPs) for undergraduate students would be funded as part of its “Nuclear-Powered Submarine Student Pathways” strategy.
Institutes have sprung up running short courses to rake in the cash, such as the UWA Defence and Security Institute, which proudly claims to have created the “essential course for those seeking to gain a greater understanding of AUKUS Pillar 1 (nuclear powered submarines) and the impacts for Western Australia and beyond.” A course running for thirteen hours does not seem particularly hefty, but this is a field of glitz over substance.
Image: Elbit Systems 900 take off (cropped & levels) (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Then come the true villains of the piece, the arms manufacturers and companies that make the military-university-industrial complex intimate and obscene. One of interest here is Israel’s Elbit Systems. For years, it has hammered out a reputation for manufacturing such lethal products as the Hermes 900 drone, which was first deployed in 2014 against targets in the Gaza Strip. It supplies the lion’s share of drones used by the Israeli Defence Forces for strikes and surveillance (the figure may be as high as 85%).
The company has managed to beef up many an activist’s resumé. Members of the Palestine Action group claim to have scored a victory in securing the permanent closure of two of Elbit’s sites in 2022, including the London head office. “The cracks in Elbit’s warehouse windows,” the organisation trumpeted in August this year, “do not simply represent cosmetic damage but also symbolise the crumbling foundations of Elbit’s relationship with the British State’s so-called defence interests.”
The corporation has also fallen out of favour with a number of investors. HSBC and the French multinational AXA Investment Managers divested from the company in 2018 and 2019 given its role in producing and commercialising cluster munitions and white phosphorus shells. In May 2022, the Australian sovereign wealth fund, Future Fund, excluded Elbit Systems Limited from its investment portfolio for much the same reasons.
Despite this blotched and blotted record, Elbit could still stealthily establish a bridgehead in the university sector down under through its creation, in 2021, of a Centre of Excellence in Human-Machine Teaming and Artificial Intelligence in Port Melbourne. Elbit Systems of Australia (ELSA) had two special clients: the state government of Victoria, which provided some funding via Invest Victoria, and RMIT University’s Centre for Industrial AI Research and Innovation. The two-year partnership with ELSA’s Centre of Excellence was intended to, according to ELSA’s then managing director and retired Major General Paul McLachlan, “research how to use drones to count the number of people in designated evacuation zones, then to co-ordinate and communicate the most efficient evacuation routes to everyone in the zone, as well as monitoring the area to ensure that everyone has been accounted for.”
Despite such seemingly noble goals, the opening ceremony in February 2021 had a distinctly heavy military accent, with senior representatives from the Royal Australian Airforce, DST (Defence Science and Technology) Group and the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG). No one present could deny that technology used in the context of civilian evacuations in the face of natural disaster could just as well be deployed in a military security context. As Antony Loewenstein has observed,
“If you partner, as a state or a university, with a company like Elbit, you have blood on your hands because the record of Elbit in Israel-Palestine, on the US-Mexican border and elsewhere is so damned clear.”
Since the Hamas attacks on Israeli soil that took place on October 7, the ELSA-RMIT-Victorian relationship has seemingly altered. A war of horrendous carnage is being waged in the Gaza Strip. Activists claim to have scored a famous victory in securing the university’s hazy termination of any partnership with ELSA.
“This is a significant victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in Australia,” claims Hilmi Dabbagh of BDS Australia. “Australian universities have been put on notice that they will be targeted if they partner with any Israeli company or institution complicit in human rights abuses and attacks on Palestinians.”
Such confidence is admirably fresh, if a touch green. It is worth looking at the university statement, which is revealing in ways that have been entirely missed in the enthusiastic pronouncements of the BDS movement. The university claims to “not design, develop or manufacture weapons or munitions in the university or as part of any partnership. With regard to Elbit Systems, RMIT does not have a partnership with Elbit Systems or any of their subsidiaries, including Elbit Systems of Australia (ELSA).” Such wording avoids the language of termination, leaving the question open as to whether it ever had an arrangement to begin with, with its requisite project links. This will, as with much else, be deemed commercial, in confidence, and buried in the bowels of secrecy we have come to expect from the antipodean university sector.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
The Horror is of thousands and thousands – tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands — dead bodies disintegrating in the rubbles of indiscriminately IDF-bombed hospitals, apartment buildings, mosques – you name it. The Horror is of universal bearing, especially since the world – HUMANITY, yes, humanity – just looks on. That, in itself, is beyond words, beyond imagination, beyond the spirit of anything that calls itself human.
Authorities in Kiev are attempting to organise a direct conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former US President Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate expected to run against the Democrats in 2024. This comes as Joe Biden seeks re-election amid his deteriorating image in US public opinion and as Trump’s popularity grows.
Erythema multiforme (EM) is among the oral mucocutaneous side effects of COVID-19 vaccines. Review: 90 patients with Erythema Multiforme (EM) as a side effect of COVID-19 vaccination across several studies.
At the time, evidence of the criminality of the Public Health™ and pharmaceutical in developing experimental gene therapies marketed as “vaccines” and then enforcing brutal, siege-style lockdowns and mandates on the population with the explicit aim of enforcing “compliance” by taking them was mounting. Denialism — which had been the predominate strategy up until that point — was no longer viable.
Armistice Day is one of those disturbing occasions of the year when humanity’s folly is laid bare. It should be an occasion to remind said humanity about the stupid waste occasioned by war and its war-crazed planners who generally elude the dock; instead, it’s an occasion to extol its virtues and remind the reactionaries that war can be a mighty fine thing to pursue in the name of an ideology, cock-eyed belief or a sense of self-worth.
There are many ways to kill: slow or quick, silently, insidiously and by imperceptible degrees — or cataclysmically loud, as in open battle. And we are seeing all of them play out across our stricken globe.
Since human character traits are developed in childhood, educators must be trained who are capable of raising a generation that can realise a new and humane social order. Since young people often complain that their parents do not understand them and therefore resent them, it is of great importance that both generations are reconciled with each other. This is most successfully achieved through psychotherapy.
There can’t be democracy and colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other to fascism. Meanwhile, once welcomed mavericks are heretics now in an underground of journalism amid a landscape of mendacious conformity.
The plan envisages the subsequent opening of a “humanitarian corridor” to transfer the Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian desert of Sinai, then doing the same with the Palestinians of the West Bank.
The Biden administration is killing people, openly in Ukraine and Gaza and secretly around the world. It has continued to use the killing machinery crafted by President George W. Bush, expanded by President Barack Obama, and employed by President Donald Trump. These presidents have used drones and other unmanned projectiles to target persons in foreign countries with which the United States is not at war.
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This important article was originally published by Dr. David Halpin on January 24, 2011. Dr, Halpin is a powerful voice, committed to the People of Palestine.
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Introduction
The deliberate injury of the limbs of 23 boys by high velocity weapons has been logged and described by Defence for Children International – Palestine Branch (DCI-P) since March 2010. (1) Some of the facts have been published in national newspapers. These barbarous acts contravene international and national law but there are no judicial responses. The caring professions see the physical and mental pain of those who suffer and they should be in the vanguard in calling for this great cruelty to cease forthwith. Political leaders have failed to act.
The Geneva Conventions Act 1957, which is of central importance in holding war criminals to account in the jurisdiction of the UK, is being emasculated.
Context
Most of the 1.5 million population of the Gaza strip is impoverished. Half are refugees from Mandate Palestine or their stock. About 50% of the male population is without work. It has been isolated and occupied for decades. A commercial port was being built in 2000 but that was bombed by Israel. The isolation and the hobbling of its commerce was increased by a siege which was started in March 2006 in response to the election of a majority of Hamas members to the legislature. It was further tightened in June 2007 after the Hamas government pre-empted a coup by the Fatah faction that was led in Gaza by Mohammad Dahlan.
The misery was further deepened with ‘Operation Cast Lead’ that was unleashed 27/12/08. This was promised 29/02/08 (2). “The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.” – Matan Vilnai Deputy Defence Minister to Israeli Army Radio.
There was a massive bombardment which killed 220 adults and children in the first 15 minutes. This was followed by a full scale invasion. 1400 humans were killed and approximately 5000 injured physically. The minds of very many more were injured too. 4000 homes were totally destroyed, almost all the factories and 40 mosques. The two gleaming science blocks of the Islamic University of Gaza were flattened by very powerful thermobaric bombs, the blasts being heard throughout the 360 square kilometres of the Gaza ‘Strip’. The siege has been even more draconian since. Cement, ballast and steel rods are only let in at about 5% of the rate needed for rebuilding, the pretext being that ‘bunkers’ could be constructed. At the present rate it will take 78 years to rebuild Gaza. (3) Chocolate, writing paper and all manner of things have been blocked. The 1000 tunnels at Rafah have provided a way in for goods but in the face of bombing and roof falls.
The lack of any work and the extreme poverty of the large extended families has drawn the boys and men to scavenge for broken concrete (‘gravel’) in the evacuated Eli Sinai ‘settlement’ and in the industrial zone by the Erez border control post at the northern limit of the ‘Strip’. The factories of the industrial zone have been progressively demolished by Israeli shelling etc. They are seen to the west as one enters Gaza through Erez. A donkey and cart, shovel, pick, sieve, muscles and courage are the tools. The rubble is used to make cement blocks and poured concrete with the cement that is imported largely through the tunnels. Many dozens of men and boys do this work for precious shekels in the shadow of manned watch towers and under ‘drones’ above.
The 23 boys who have been shot between 26/03/10 (Said H) and 23/12/10 (Hatem S) are listed in the table below with skeletal facts. These points are made:-
In 18 there were single shots and not automatic fire
The reported range in most cases confirms that the weapon was a sniper’s rifle in the hands of a sniper
Almost always there were many dozens of other men and boys at work; these victims were picked off
A leg was the target in most cases. Where the leg was not the target it is likely the sniper was ‘aiming up’ so the flank, elbow etc was hit instead.
No weapons were being borne by the gravel workers so they posed no threat to the Israeli Occupation Force personnel. Instead they were bending their backs to their menial work within their internment camp
The histories refer often to the recovery of the injured boy by friends and relatives under fire. This was a feature during ‘Cast Lead’ or instead the paramedics were barred from getting to the victims so they died without care.
The history of the injury and sequel for each boy are linked to in (1). It has been done meticulously and the translation into English is perfect. The pain, and often the terror, felt by the boy as the bullet struck home are vividly recorded. No bullets have been recovered yet so the calibre/type is unknown.
How many boys will regain full, or nearly full function is difficult to judge without the radiographs being present. Cases 3,4, 5,7,13 and 15 are likely to have joint involvement and thus some lifelong disability.
In cases 1 and 3 there is nerve injury. If that proves to be an axonotmesis in either, it is possible that a first class repair will not be available in Gaza.
The fractures are open by definition and no doubt comminuted. Delayed or non-union is possible. Deep infection is a real risk, antibiotic therapy not withstanding. The risk of deep infection relates to a. the possible inclusion of fabric b. the high energy injury causing irregular and wide devitalisation of the tissues c. the probability that these difficult bullet wounds were not laid open and a complete wound toilet performed. One or two of these boys might end with an amputation.
Almost all the boys have been frightened off or forbidden from gravel work. There are few, if any, other means of earning shekels.
The shooting to wound and kill Palestinians is relentless. DCI-P notes that according to a UN study, between January 2009 and August 2010, at least 22 Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed and 146 injured in the arbitrary live fire zone adjacent to the border with Israel and imposed at sea. At least 27 of these civilians were children. It also notes that the targeting of civilians is absolutely prohibited under international law, regardless of circumstances.
These quotations from the available stories convey a little of the poverty, the suffering and the courage:-
‘The three of us would wake up every day at around 5:30am and leave to collect gravel. We were not the only ones doing this type of work. Hundreds of youngsters aged between 13 and 22 used to work with us, despite the danger we faced because we were close to the Israeli border.’ Awad W- 3
The work was exhausting and dangerous. ‘Israeli soldiers would sometimes shoot at us, and sometimes shoot in the air to intimidate us,’ recalls Ibrahim . ‘Sometimes they would shoot at the carts, horses and donkeys we used to move the gravel. But we had to do the work despite the dangers, because we didn’t have any other job to do.’ Ibrahim K- 4
Mohammad was taught by his neighbours to watch for birds flying away from the watch towers, as this was a sign to start running, as it meant soldiers were climbing into the towers and the shooting would soon begin. Mohammad M – 6
‘They killed our three horses and one donkey in four months, and we had to spend the money we earned on replacing them.’ ….. ‘They were down on their stomachs pointing their rifles towards us, but they didn’t shoot. We got used to such things.’ Mohammad S – 11
Silence is complicity.
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I thank Gerard Horton and DCI-P for the availability and excellence of this information, and for supporting publication in a medical forum. I also thank Dr Khamis Elessi in Gaza for information.
Conflict of interest: I founded the Dove and Dolphin Charity 110119 <http://www.doveanddolphin.co.uk/> with a voyage to Palestine 8 years ago and chair its trustees. It attends to the welfare of children in Gaza in the main. No pecuniary benefit is derived from this charity.
David S Halpin FRCS is an author, human rights activist and a former, orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Torbay and Exeter Hospitals Devon UK. David Halpin can be contacted via <[email protected]> His website is <http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/>.
This paper was submitted to the Lancet and the British Medical Journal 4 January 2011 under the title ‘Ethical’. The refusal from the latter is here:-
BMJ/2011/850099
The methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza by snipers of the Israeli Occupation Force
by David Sydney Halpin
Dear Mr. Halpin
Thank you for sending us your paper. We read it with interest but I regret to say that we have decided not to publish it in the BMJ.
Clearly soldiers shooting at children is awful, but we didn’t think your article gave a clear reason why we should be publishing it now. The information comes from the Defence for Children International (Palestine section) website, there isn’t much context, there’s no description of the Israeli soldiers’ explanation for these events, and the article just sort of ends.
We receive over 8000 submissions a year and accept less than 10%. We do therefore have to make hard decisions on just how interesting an article will be to our general clinical readers, how much it adds, and how much practical value it will be.
I am sorry to disappoint you on this occasion.
An editor at the British Medical Journal
The Methodical Shooting of Boys at Work in Gaza by Snipers of the Israeli Occupation Force
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***
Authorities in Kiev are attempting to organise a direct conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former US President Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate expected to run against the Democrats in 2024. This comes as Joe Biden seeks re-election amid his deteriorating image in US public opinion and as Trump’s popularity grows.
The initiative by Kiev comes amid opposition in the US Congress to allocating funds to Ukraine, according to sources close to Zelensky’s office, cited by the Ukrainian publication Strana. The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives has blocked the release of funds to Ukraine, raising concerns within the Ukrainian regime about crucial funding to address challenges in the country, including issues related to security and defence.
Kiev’s authorities seek to establish direct communication between Zelensky and Trump in an attempt to resolve this issue, however, even if the chat does occur, it is very unlikely that the Ukrainian president will be able to change the mind of the American billionaire who will almost certainly give priority to Israel instead of Ukraine, which he has already been critical of.
“Trump now controls the House of Representatives of the US Congress, which blocks allocating funds to Ukraine. In Kiev, they understand this and are therefore trying to organise a direct conversation between Trump and Zelensky,” a source told the Ukrainian outlet.
Such a measure is seen as an attempt to overcome political obstacles and guarantee necessary support for Kiev. While Biden pursues an extremely aggressive foreign policy, especially in relation to the war in Ukraine, Trump has been projecting himself as an opponent of the conflict and even believes that he can resolve the war in “one day, 24 hours”.
Asked in June how he plans to settle the war, Trump suggested that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putinand Zelensky, which would resolve the war within 24 hours.
“I know Zelensky very well, and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelensky, ‘No more. You got to make a deal’,” he said.
Zelensky’s pursuit of speaking with Trump reveals his desperation when it is recalled that as recently as November 5, he questioned Trump’s claim that he could quickly resolve the war in 24 hours.
“If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes – yes, 24 minutes… to explain (to) President Trump that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin,” Zelensky said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
In the same interview, Zelensky praised US President Joe Biden for visiting Ukraine earlier this year, saying
“I think he understood some details which you can understand only being here. So I invite President Trump.”
This gaslighting of Trump and the typical arrogance of Zelensky will prove to be another killer blow to Kiev’s war ambitions if the billionaire is re-elected. More recent polls place Biden behind Trump, with a dramatic drop in voting intentions among young people and Arab-Americans, groups that were fundamental to the current president’s victory in the 2020 elections.
A New York Times/Siena College poll published on November 5 found Trump leading Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, five out of six key states that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 election. A CBS News poll published on the same day as the New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump leading Biden in a hypothetical match-up, 51% to 48%. A CNN poll published on November 7 found Trump ahead of Biden by 49%-45% in a hypothetical rematch.
At the same time, the funding impasse for Ukraine has also been highlighted by the sceptical stance of the new speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, regarding allocating new funds for the Eastern European country’s needs. Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, expressed doubts even as Russia’s special military operations in the region intensified.
Johnson and the Senate remain at odds over the Biden administration’s request to pass more than $100 billion in national security funding at a time when the White House has warned that US funds available for Ukraine are quickly running out. Biden is urging Congress to pass the supplemental bill, which includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine and $14.3 billion for Israel, as a “comprehensive, bipartisan agreement.”
With extra funding for Ukraine struggling to be approved, it explains why Zelensky is desperate to speak with Trump, believing that he can change the former president’s mind, who still wields a lot of influence in the Republican Party despite not yet being announced as the official candidate for next year’s election. However, it is extremely unlikely that the Ukrainian president can change Trump’s mind, who is very evidently frustrated with the war and wants it to end quickly, which will mean Zelensky accepting Ukraine must recognise ceded territory to Russia.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
Papers Reviewed
2023 Jun (Murata et al) – Erythema Multiforme Induced by Zonisamide and Triggered by the First Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech)
Erythema multiforme (EM) is among the oral mucocutaneous side effects of COVID-19 vaccines
Review: 90 patients with Erythema Multiforme (EM) as a side effect of COVID-19 vaccination across several studies
EM is a skin inflammatory condition, typically caused by infections (herpes simplex virus and mycoplasma), medications and internal diseases
to date: 984 cases of EM due to vaccinations (mumps, measles, Hep.B)
EM minor: skin lesions < 10% of body surface with minimal or no mucosal
EM major: skin lesions > 10% body surface with mucosal involvement
Oral EM: oral mucosal ulcers without any skin lesions
In this review of 90 EM patients after COVID-19 Vaccines:
mean age 51, women 2x than men
79% of the vaccines were mRNA vaccines 47% Pfizer, 32% Moderna
45% developed EM less than 3 days after jab
EM is an acute self-limiting reaction caused by exaggerated immune response, which is characterized by targetoid skin lesions that may be associated with mucosal involvement as well.
mRNA elicits cellular immune response to antigens through CD4 type 1 T-helper cells, and induce the release of interferon IFN-gamma and eventual activation of autoreactive system in genetically susceptible individuals.
Treat: Corticosteroids are prescribed topically, orally (30–90 mg prednisolone daily) or intravenously (0.5–1 mg/kg body weight methyl prednisolone every 8 hours) for more severe cases
2023 Feb (Karatas et al) – Erythema multiforme reactions after Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) COVID-19 vaccination: A case series
CASE 1: 61M had 1st dose Moderna 10 days before onset of symptoms
Physical examination (P/E) revealed scattered, non-tender, erythematous, targetoid plaques on the face, trunk, and extremities, including the palms and soles
also had bilateral conjunctival erythema with multiple vesicles and erosions in the oral mucosa
Diagnosis; EM major with extensive oral and nasal involvement
CASE 2: 21F had 2nd dose of Pfizer mRNA 3 days prior
Presented with rash on hands and feet, swelling and joint discomfort
She was diagnosed with EM, put on steroids and rash resolved
CASE 3: 50M had 2nd Pfizer mRNA dose 5 days prior onset of symptoms
Presented with worsening rash and pruritus for 4 days.
had erythematous targetoid plaques on trunk and extremities and hemorrhagic crusts on oral mucosa
was diagnosed with EM and put on prednisone taper and also topical steroid
CASE 4: 53F had 2nd Moderna mRNA dose 2 days prior to onset
presented with a 3 week history of rash and pruritus on hands, arms and legs
P/E: erythematous targetoid plaques on hands and extremities, no mucosal involvement.
Diagnosed with EM and treated with topical steroid.
pathogenic mechanism of EM after infection is thought to be a cell-mediated immune reaction with activation of T helper cells and cytokine production,resulting in a robust mucocutaneous inflammatory response.
The mechanism of EM after vaccination is not entirely clear, but it is likely to be a similar mechanism
2022 Nov (Fadul et al) – Sever erythema multiforme post-COVID-19 Moderna vaccine: Case report and literature review
36F woman had 1st Moderna mRNA 24 hours prior to onset
presented with sore throat, painful mouth ulcers, bilateral red and itchy eyes and itchy skin lesions that started on her chest, back and genital area and quickly spread to the rest of her body, becoming intensely itchy
2022 Mar (Petruzzi et al) – Oral erythema multiforme after Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination: a report of four cases
Case Series of 4 cases post Pfizer mRNA Vaccination
CASE 1: 55F had 1st Pfizer mRNA dose 10 days prior
presented complaining of painful lesions on lips, oral mucosa, hands, knees, and feet
CASE 2: 15M had 1st Pfizer mRNA dose 7 days prior
developed oral erythema, erosions, and pseudo-membranes throughout the oral mucosa, associated with severe pain and dysphagia
CASE 3 – 49F had 2nd Pfizer mRNA dose 24 hours prior to onset
presented with erythematous and bullous like lesions on tongue and mouth floor
CASE 4: 20F had 1st dose of Pfizer mRNA 18 days prior
presented with pain and bleeding from the mouth, dysphagia and dysphonia
P/E: erosions on the gingival and lips mucosa, squamous crusted lesions on the labial skin and vermillion
21 patients were referred to Dermatology Clinic with skin reactions after COVID-19 Vaccination
One patient our of 21 (67 year old man), 48 hours after the second dose of Moderna vaccine, developed a bullous erythema multiforme, which required hospitalization
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
The “pandemic amnesty” narrative emerged almost a year or so ago to the day.
At the time, evidence of the criminality of the Public Health™ and pharmaceutical in developing experimental gene therapies marketed as “vaccines” and then enforcing brutal, siege-style lockdowns and mandates on the population with the explicit aim of enforcing “compliance” by taking them was mounting. Denialism — which had been the predominate strategy up until that point — was no longer viable.
“Amnesty” has more or less been the company line for Branch COVIDians to modern day, as echoed by devotee Scott Galloway on Bill Maher’s show recently (featuring, by the way, disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who should be rotting in prison for his COVID crimes instead of being rehabilitated in corporate state media.)
“A leading academic at New York University wants amnesty for people who pushed lockdown policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marketing professor Scott Galloway made the comment during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher this week. He claims those who supported lockdown protocols did not fully understand the consequences of such decisions.
‘I wanted a harsher lockdown policy. In retrospect, I was wrong,’ Galloway said. ‘The damage to kids from keeping them out of school longer was greater than the risk.’…
Galloway continued, saying that policymakers were ill-informed about the coronavirus. Therefore, he said, these individuals should not be held accountable for the outcomes of their decisions.
‘We were all operating with imperfect information and we were doing our best,’ Galloway said, eliciting applause from the studio audience. ‘Let’s bring a little bit of grace and forgiveness amid the s— show that was Covid.’”
This is quite a change of tune for Galloway. Compare his current take to what he wrote back in 2021 in an op-ed titled “Half of America has its head up its ass. It’s time for a vaccine mandate.”
“I was planning on writing about edtech startups and Section4. However, I can’t focus on anything but my disappointment — disdain really — in the lack of leadership at a federal level (Biden) and the voluntary manslaughter at a state level (DeSantis)…
Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination.”
Galloway was unironically calling Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ refusal to enforce vaxx mandates “voluntary manslaughter” when, if anything, we know in retrospect he was saving lives. That’s how hyperbolic and unhinged the rhetoric got from Branch COVIDians like Galloway.
So, to answer, Galloway’s halfhearted, entitled plea for forgiveness absent any real mea culpa or offered means by which to remedy his sins, the answer from me is “no dice.”
First of all, the Public Health™ bureaucrats were not “doing their best” on behalf of the American public that pays their salaries. They were doing what was in the best interest of their pharmaceutical industry sponsors and their lackeys in the media, who held the economy and society hostage through terror and government lockdowns until the public relented and accepted the jab.
As just one example, Anthony Fauci admitted to repeatedly moving the “herd immunity” goalpost in terms of how many Americans had to be injected before the economy could re-open not based on science or public interest but based on how high he could ratchet up the percentage while maintaining political viability – until finally admitting (after the shots had been distributed) that “herd immunity” for a constantly mutating coronavirus was always a pipe dream.
These were not honest mistakes; they were lies, disseminated intentionally, in the service of promoting whatever narrative du jour. The Public Health™ bureaucrats were lying – and people died and had their livelihoods destroyed based on those lies.
The second problem here is that there has been no accountability whatsoever – for COVID Warlord Anthony Fauci or the Pfizer executives who knowingly engaged in fraud to get their emergency use authorization all the way down to the lowliest county-level Public Health™ bureaucrat.
No one has been made to pay a price, either criminal or civil, for what they did. Anthony Fauci, like his co-conspirator Andrew Cuomo, should be rotting in prison on RICO convictions – and thankful he lives in a country that rarely executes the death penalty – but instead is allowed to run wild in “retirement,” still influencing government policy and making an obscene amount of money from speaking engagements.
The talking point surrounding the recent October 7th attack by Hamas is that, with the 1,400+ civilian death toll, it´s “equal to X 9/11’s” in proportion to Israel’s smaller population.
But, if we’re going with such comparisons to 9/11, how does the death toll from COVID-19 – from the initial release of the virus (developed using U.S. taxpayer dollars that Fauci funneled to the Chinese government through EcoHealth Alliance) and also from the devastating economic and mental health toll of the lockdowns combined with the vaxx mandates – factor into this formula?
Is it 1,000 9/11’s?
Is it 10,000?
And why are the victims of the brutal COVID-19 Public Health™ regime – who outnumber any act of terror in recent memory by orders of magnitude — not treated with the same reverence and concern as victims of biomedical terrorism?
All of the people who were in the actual decision-making positions of authority who enforced pseudoscientific, authoritarian, transparently immoral vaxx/masking/lockdown mandates must be prosecuted – to exact punishment for what they did and to serve as a deterrent against future overreaches, both of which are recognized as legitimate functions of the criminal justice system.
*
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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from NaturalNews.com
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
November 13th, 2023 by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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***
I. Preamble
In 2022, the vicious cycle of democratic pretensions, dysfunctional politics and a divided society continued in the United States. Problems such as money politics, identity politics, social rifts, and the gulf between the rich and poor worsened. The maladies afflicting American democracy deeply infected the cells of US politics and society, and further revealed US governance failure and institutional defects.
Despite mounting problems at home, the US continued to behave with a sense of superiority, point fingers at others, usurp the role of a “lecturer of democracy”, and concoct and play up the false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism”. To serve the interests of none other than itself, the US acted to split the world into two camps of what it defined as “democracies and non-democracies”, and organized another edition of the so-called “Summit for Democracy” to check how various countries had performed on meeting US standards for democracy and to issue new orders. Be it high-sounding rhetoric or maneuvers driven by hidden agenda, none can hide the real designs of the US — to maintain its hegemony by playing bloc politics and using democracy as a tool for political ends.
This report collects a multitude of facts, media comments and expert opinions to present a complete and real picture of American democracy over the year. What they reveal is an American democracy in chaos at home and a trail of havoc and disasters left behind as the US peddled and imposed its democracy around the globe. It helps remove the facade of American democracy for more people worldwide.
II. American Democracy in Chronic Ills
The US refuses to acknowledge the many problems and institutional crises confronting its democracy at home and stubbornly claims to be the template and beacon of democracy for the world. Such imperiousness perpetuates the ills of its democracy and causes dire consequences for other countries.
1. American Democracy in Further Decline
The functioning of American democratic institutions may look as lively as a circus, with politicians of all stripes showing off themselves one after another. But however boisterous the show is, it cannot hide the lethargy in addressing the long-standing, grave problems. Le Monde points out that 2022 is a year of doubt for US democracy. A silent civil war has taken root in the US, and repairing damaged democracy requires a sense of nation and public interest, both of which are currently lacking. This is sad for a country that has long held itself up as a model. In 2022, the Swedish think tank International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance added the US to its “list of regressive democracies”.
Two years after the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021, the US system of democracy still has difficulty in learning the lessons, as political violence continued to grow and deteriorate. The Washington Post and The New Yorker observe that American democracy is in a worse state than ever before, with the congressional riots fully exposing social rifts, political divisions and rampant misinformation. The two parties, although not unaware of the age-old ills of American democracy, have neither the resolve nor the courage to pursue changes, given the increasingly polarized political atmosphere, as well as their focus on party interests.
In 2022, the US Congress was brought into another paralysis, not by riots, but by partisan fights. The farce of failing to elect the 118th House speaker lasted four days and a decision was only reached after 15 rounds of voting. In the last round, divisions were such that Republicans and Democrats voted strictly along party lines. The New York Times warned that Congress could see repeated chaos like this over the next two years. Brad Bannon, president of a US political consultancy, put it bluntly, “The impasse in the US House of Representatives over the election of the Speaker is another demonstration of the decline in our political institutions.”
This has aroused concerns among the general public. The Brookings Institution concludes in a 2022 report that the once proud American democracy is facing a systemic crisis and is accelerating its decline. The impact is spreading to all fronts in domestic politics, the economy and society, posing a mortal threat to the legitimacy and health of capitalism. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warns in a report that American democracy is at a dangerous inflection point, declining faster as the inherent ills of American capitalism worsen. Multiple challenges such as voting restrictions, election fraud, and loss of trust in government are accelerating the disintegration of American democracy. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, writes that America’s dysfunctional politics raises fears that the 2024 presidential election would again provoke deadly violence in the country. A large number of hot button issues continued to provoke public anger and questions on the legitimacy of the US political establishment. Many worried about how long American democracy could continue to function.
2. Political Polarization Intensified by Partisan Fights
With radical factions rising in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, the two were increasingly at odds in many aspects, such as voter base, ideology and identity. As a result, the traditional inter-party balance based on policy compromise became more difficult to sustain. The two parties saw each other not only as political opponents, but also as a threat to the country. The New York Review of Books points out that America is already “a binational state” with the Republicans and Democrats leading two sharply opposed national communities that effectively operate as confederations under a single federal government. The United States of America has become the disunited states. The discord between “the two Americas” was deepening day by day, and political polarization reached an unprecedented level.
Amid the escalating political battles, politicians put the interests of their political parties and factions above those of the country and acted in an unbridled way to attack and pin blames on each other. On 8 August 2022, law enforcement raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, and Trump accused the Justice Department of playing politics to stop his second presidential bid and of political persecution. The Republicans, on their part, were relentless on the discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden’s residence, launched investigations into the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and demanded accountability. US state apparatus was reduced to a tool for political parties’ self-interest.
Party politics increasingly followed race and identity lines. According to the Financial Times, Republicans are white, small town and rural while Democrats are now almost entirely urban and multi-ethnic. More than a third of Republicans and Democrats today believe violence is justified to achieve their political ends. When one party loses, its voters feel as though their America is being occupied by a foreign power. Political scientist Barbara Walter considers the US “a factionalized anocracy” — the halfway state between autocracy and democracy.
Political polarization was more of an obstacle to policy decision-making. GovTrack, an online non-governmental source of legislative information and statistics, reveals a steady fall in the number of laws successive US Congresses could enact — from 4,247 by the 93th to 98th Congresses down to 2,081 by the 111st to 116th. The drop was even more pronounced when one considers how many bills could become laws, from 6% in the 106th Congress to 1% in the 116th, a slide of 5 percentage points over two decades.
The tactics used in partisan fights were more scandalous. Professor Larry Diamond of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University believes the norms of democracy, such as self-restraint in the exercise of power and rejection of violence, which should have been observed by the participating parties in elections, have begun disintegrating in the US. A growing number of politicians and elected officials in the US have been willing to bend or abandon democratic norms in the quest to achieve or retain power. And as common political ground vanishes, rising proportions of Americans in both camps express attitudes and perceptions that are blinking red for democratic peril. Democracy in the US is at serious risk of breaking down.
3. Money Politics Surged
“Make money your god, and it will plague you like the devil,” so admonished British playwright Henry Fielding. In the US, money is the breast milk of politics and elections increasingly morph into monologues of the wealthy, while the public call for democracy is made only “a jarring note”. With the devil of money lurking in every corner of American politics, fairness and justice is naturally strained.
The latest illustration is the 2022 midterm elections. The whole exercise has a price tag of more than US$16.7 billion — breaking the 2018 record of US$14 billion — as found by Reveal, an online platform tracking the flow of political donations in the country. This amount dwarfs the 2021 GDPs of more than 70 countries. Federal Senate races in some states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Ohio sucked in more than US$100 million on average. Over 90% of those elected as lawmakers won by splurging funds. It was impossible to identify how much “dark money”, or funds from undisclosed sources, was involved.
American politics has increasingly revealed its nature as the “game of the rich”. US think tank the Brennan Center for Justice finds that the top 21 families making political donations contributed at least US$15 million each, totaling US$783 million, far more than the US$3.7 million of small donations. Billionaires provided 15.4% of federal election funds, and most of it went to super PACs that can accept unlimited donations.
The enormous bills did not bring effective national governance in return. They only stimulated pork barrel politics. An article on Lianhe Zaobao observes that the past few decades has witnessed a decay in Western democracy. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Politics is controlled by the rich and politicians to serve their own interests. Despite a right to vote, the public does not have real sway over politics. This sense of powerlessness and loss of confidence in political parties and government has given rise to populism, and the problem remains unresolved.
4. “Freedom of Speech” in Name Only
The United States has always prided itself on free speech. In reality, however, freedom of speech in the United States is upheld according to self-centered “US standards”. Partisan interest and money politics have become the “two big mountains” that weigh on free speech. Any speech that is detrimental to the interests of the US government or capital is subject to strict restrictions.
The US government has all-encompassing regulations on media and technology companies to intervene in public opinion. In December 2022, Twitter CEO Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi posted back-to-back tweets that exposed “Twitter files”, revealing that the US government is heavily scrutinizing all social media companies. Sometimes it directly intervenes in big media companies’ reporting, like frequently having Google remove certain links. Twitter censored sensitive information about presidential candidates ahead of the 2020 election, creating “blacklists” to limit the exposure of unpopular accounts and even hot topics, and working with the FBI to monitor social media content, all the while giving the US military the green light to spread disinformation online. All this has undoubtedly torn off the fig leaf of free speech in the United States.
Capital and interest groups basically can get anything they want when it comes to public opinion. In the face of capital and interest groups, American media’s “freedom of speech” smacks of hypocrisy. Most American media firms are privately owned and serve the powerful and the rich. Whether it’s the owner of the media or the investment and advertisement income that the media depends on, all of them are related to capital and interest groups. In his book The Hypocritical Superpower, Micheal Lueders, a well-known German writer and media professional, elaborated in detail how the “filtering mechanism” of American media, under the influence of interest groups, chooses and distorts facts. In January 2023, Project Veritas, an American right-wing group, published a video about Pfizer that went viral. It recorded Jordon Trishton Walker, a senior executive at Pfizer, saying that Pfizer was exploring plans to “mutate” the coronavirus, that the coronavirus vaccine business was a “cash cow”, and that US regulators had vested interests in drug companies. To deal with the PR crisis, in addition to issuing a statement, Pfizer even had YouTube remove the video immediately on ground of “violating community guidelines”.
The US uses social media to manipulate international public opinion. In December 2022, the independent investigation website “The Intercept” revealed that agencies affiliated to the US Department of Defense had long interfered in public opinion in Middle Eastern countries by manipulating topics and waging deceptive propaganda on social media such as Twitter. In July 2017, US Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler sent to the Twitter public policy team a form containing 52 Arabic-language accounts, asking for priority services for six of them. Following Kahler’s request, Twitter put these Arabic accounts on a “white list” to amplify messages favorable to the United States. Eric Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war organization, commented on this incident that Congress and social media companies should investigate and take action to ensure that, at the very least, the citizens are fully informed when their tax money is being spent on putting a positive spin on the endless wars.
In September 2022, the explosion of the “Nord Stream” natural gas pipeline shocked the world, and the international community was eager to know the identity and motive of the perpetrator. On 8 February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article exposing the US government as the culprit of the incident. However, American and European mainstream media, known for their sensitivity to such scoops, stayed eerily quiet on this piece of explosive news. As observed by Canadian website Western Standard and German television channel ZDF, Hersh’s report was one of the biggest stories of the decade, but few media in North America wanted to talk about it because the West does not want anyone to find out about the truth and the surveillance technologies it has deployed in the Baltic Sea. Western media even try to bypass the crux of the issue by questioning the authenticity of Hersh’s report. On 15 February, Hersh wrote another article, accusing the US government and mainstream media of covering up the truth of the “Nord Stream” pipeline explosion. Analysts pointed out that given Western media’s obedience to the US, their blocking of Hersh’s revelations is not surprising.
5. The Judicial System Blind to Public Opinion
As an institution undergirding the country’s Constitution, the US Supreme Court, like the American society, has become deeply divided. Judicial power is hijacked by public opinion, and partisan struggle has spread to the judicial system. Increasingly, Supreme Court decisions reflect the huge chasm between “two Americas”—the conservatives and liberals, and have been reduced to a tool of political warfare. The “separation of powers” is constantly being eroded. Partisanship has abandoned tradition and crossed the line.
Both parties pursue their agenda by changing the political orientation of the Supreme Court. The presidential election has in some ways become a partisan battle for the right to appoint judges. The passing away of Supreme Court justices gave Trump the opportunity to appoint during his term three justices who took a conservative stance, giving conservative justices an overwhelming advantage over liberal ones. After Trump, radical white evangelical fundamentalists have taken the reins of the Supreme Court, according to an article on the South African website Daily Maverick. It’s hardly surprising that the Supreme Court almost always makes decisions in favor of Christian evangelicals, big corporations and the Republican Party.
The US Supreme Court’s decision on abortion rights fully demonstrates the consequences of being involved in partisan warfare and out of touch with society. On 24 June 2022, the Supreme Court flagrantly endorsed religious conservatism by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and removing constitutional protections for women’s abortion rights. The decision triggered protests across the United States. Polls show that more than half of Americans believe that stripping away abortion rights is a setback for the country. Israeli media “Haaretz” commented that on the issue of abortion rights, the Supreme Court has undermined democracy in the name of defending it, which is a typical case of “tyranny of the minority”. Here is an unrepresentative Supreme Court, with its justices appointed by an unrepresentative president and confirmed by an obviously unrepresentative Senate; but it has made a decision that will affect the United States till 2030, 2040, and even 2050.
The Supreme Court also struck down a New York state law that had been in place since 1913 restricting people from carrying concealed firearms. As the nation reflects on gun violence, such a reckless reversal of New York’s gun control law is intolerable, noted the governor of New York. American political commentator Matthew Dowd pointed out that the problems facing the United States today are rooted in the fragmentation of democracy. What American citizens want are a fair ruling in Roe v. Wade, a real gun reform, higher minimum wages, steeper taxes on the super-rich, better health care for all, and other reforms that heed popular calls.
6. Americans Increasingly Disillusioned with American Democracy
Americans’ pride in their democracy has dropped sharply, from 90% in 2002 to 54% in 2022, according to a joint Washington Post-University of Maryland survey. A poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that Californian voters have widespread concern that American democracy is going off track, with 62% saying the country is headed in the wrong direction, 46% pessimistic about the prospect of Americans with different political views working together to resolve differences, and 52% dissatisfied with the current way American democracy works. According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 67% of respondents believe that American democracy is in danger of collapse, and 48% think there could be another Capitol riot in the United States. According to a Pew Center poll, 65% of Americans believe that the American democratic system needs major reforms, while 57% of respondents believe the United States is no longer a model of democracy. A UCLA study shows that the US government has been losing its ability to govern and its sense of democratic responsibility in recent years, and lacks effective measures to push forward large-scale reforms or address issues such as electoral justice and media fraud.
Contents
I. Preamble
II. American democracy in chronic ills
1. American democracy in further decline
2. Political polarization intensified by partisan fights
3. Money politics surged
4. “Freedom of speech” in name only
5. The judicial system blind to public opinion
6. Americans increasingly disillusioned with American democracy
III. The United States’ imposition of “democracy” has caused chaos around the world
1. Foreign policy held hostage by political polarization
2. Inciting confrontation and conflict in the name of democracy
3. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions
4. Undermining democracy in international relations
5. Foisting a trumped-up narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism”
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Nov. 11, 2023 (VIDEO ABOVE) – 28 year old Ghana professional soccer player Raphael Dwamena collapsed during a game in the 24th minute in Albania Super League and died suddenly.
Nov. 4, 2023 – PIetermaritzburg, South Africa – 32 year old AmaZulu Football Club striker Bonginkosi Ntuli has died after a very short battle with aggressive cancer.
Oct. 27, 2023 – Germany – 40 year old Marc Dippold, died suddenly on Oct. 27, 2023.
Oct. 16, 2023 – 57 year old Mexican soccer player Efraín “Fanny” Munguía died suddenly on Oct. 16, 2023.
Oct. 14, 2023 – Slovakia – 30 year old professional soccer player Ondrej Chren died in his sleep on Oct. 14, 2023, his partner couldn’t wake him up.
Oct .7, 2023 – Glasgow, Scotland – 39 year old James McCourt, professional soccer player and captain died suddenly on Oct. 7, 2023. Cause of death not reported.
Sep. 30, 2023 – Brazil – 33 year old former professional soccer player and lawyer Germano Radin felt sick during a soccer game, suffered a cardiac arrest and died suddenly on Sep. 30, 2023.
Sep. 30, 2023 – 43 year old youth soccer coach Matt Milne, of Whitstable, Kent, UK, was on a 6,000-mile-long flight to London Heathrow following a work trip to Singapore when he suffered a deep vein blood clot in his leg. Off-duty paramedics on board the flight rushed to his side and battled to save his life, he died in the hospital after plane landed. He died, presumably of pulmonary embolism on Sep. 30, 2023.
Sep. 29, 2023 – Brazil – 43 year old Lucas Oliveira, professional soccer coach in 3rd Division of the Goiano Championship, died suddenly of a “heart attack” in early hours of Sep. 29, 2023.
Sep. 20, 2023 – UK – 27 year old Maddy Cusack, English professional soccer player died suddenly on Sep. 20, 2023.
Sep. 12, 2023 – 26 year old Sylvester Sackey, professional soccer goalkeeper for Ghana Premier League Club Legon Cities, died suddenly on Sep. 12, 2023.
Sep. 6, 2023 – SOCCER PLAYER DEAD – Guatemalan soccer player Denilson Estuardo Perez Gomez collapsed 24 minutes into a soccer game and died suddenly on Sep. 6, 2023.
Sep. 5, 2023 – Ireland – 21 year old Andrea Baker, University Student in Biomedical Engineering and a soccer player was diagnosed with cancer and died less than 2 months after diagnosis.
Sep. 5, 2023 – 17 year old Naomi Mendoza, International goalkeeper (Canary Islands U17) had meningitis, fell into coma for weeks & died suddenly on Sep. 5, 2023.
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
The Omega-3 Index test measures the amount of EPA and DHA, the two long-chain omega-3s found in marine sources, in red blood cell membranes, expressed as a percentage of the total fatty acids in the membrane
Most Americans have an index of 4% to 5% of EPA/DHA in their red blood cell membranes, and the target is between 8% to 12%. To raise your index from 5% to 8%, you need roughly 1,000 mg to 1,200 mg of EPA/DHA per day
Higher omega-3 index has been linked to better health across the board, and appears to lower the risk of most, if not all, chronic diseases
Another ratio commonly referred to is the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, but this ratio is not nearly as useful or important as the omega-3 index
EPA and DHA help thin the blood, lower the risk of stroke and heart attack, lower serum triglyceride levels, blood pressure and inflammation, add structural stability to the mitochondrial membrane and aid mitochondrial energy processes
*
In this video, I interview William (Bill) Harris, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on omega-3 fatty acids. He’s been studying omega-3s since 1980 and has published more than 300 scientific papers on fatty acids and health.
Three years ago, he founded the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI)1 in South Dakota, which specializes in epidemiological research, where they look at the relationship between blood omega-3 levels and risk for disease. He’s also a faculty member of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
“We’re trying to build a case that omega-3 levels in the blood are as, if not more, important than knowing your cholesterol level when it comes to your health and being able to control it,” he says.
The Omega-3 Index
What he’s referring to is the level of omega-3 in your red blood cell membranes. Two decades ago, his team developed a red blood cell membrane-based omega-3 test called the Omega-3 Index. You can take the Omega-3 Index test at their website for only $49.95.
The Index measures the amount of EPA and DHA, the two long-chain omega-3s found in marine sources, in red blood cell membranes, expressed as a percent of the total fatty acids in the membrane.
“We thought that was absolutely the best way to assess your body’s omega-3 status, and so we’ve been using that ever since,” he says. Harris has conducted correlation studies showing the Omega-3 Index test reflects the status of the heart in heart transplant patients, for example. Commenting on the usefulness of the index, Harris says:
“It responds very well to increased intake of EPA and DHA, like a good biomarker should, and higher levels have been linked to better health across the board of a variety of disease conditions, so I think it really is meaningful.”
Higher Omega-3 Consistently Linked to Better Health
Harris goes on to discuss the relevance of epidemiological, population-based studies, which is where you look at large datasets of people. The Framingham Study is one classic example, where they sought to determine why so many men were dying of heart attacks in a Boston suburb in the 1940s.
Healthy men and women were recruited and data were collected on their lifestyles, diet and bloodwork. Participants were then followed for decades, to see who died of heart attack. The Framingham studies developed the concept of risk factors, which for heart attack include high blood pressure and smoking.
In the mid-1970s, offspring of participants in the original Framingham study were recruited for additional research. This is known as the Framingham Offspring Study, and it included Omega-3 Index testing of stored blood samples.
“The people, on average, were about 65 at the time that blood was drawn in the early 2000s. We then asked the question, ‘If you have a high (or low) omega-3 index at that age, does that predict any disease outcomes?’ Yes, it does. It predicts risk for Alzheimer’s disease. It predicts risk for heart disease. It predicts risk for death from any cause.
With higher levels of omega-3, people live longer. That’s a microcosm of the kinds of studies we work on at the Fatty Acid Research Institute because there have been 50 or 60 Framingham-type studies all around the world. [A]lmost all have measured omega-3 levels and disease outcomes. This is our sandbox!”
What About the Omega-6 to Omega-3 Ratio?
Another ratio commonly referred to is the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, but Harris doesn’t think this ratio is nearly as useful or important as the omega-3 index. For starters, it’s not very precise because there are other omega-3 fats besides EPA and DHA, such as DPA and ALA.
There are also seven different types of omega-6 fatty acids, and we don’t know a whole lot about them. One exception is linoleic acid (LA), which I’ve written about on many occasions. I also cowrote a paper on LA2 with Christopher D’Adamo, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients in July 2023.
“So, when you say omega-6 or omega-3, you don’t really know what the denominator is and what the numerator is, and it presumes that all the omega-3s behave the same and have the same health benefits, and all the omega-6s have the same health benefits or detriments, which is really not true,” Harris explains.
“That’s not very nuanced in my view, because we’ve seen some studies where some omega-6 fatty acids are apparently good. They’re associated with better outcomes, whereas, others are not. So, to pool them into one metric where you don’t know how it’s made up is another reason I don’t like this particular ratio.
I guess the third one is, you can have a high level of omega-6 and a high omega-3, or a low omega-3 and a low omega-6 and have exactly the same ratio. It’s really the amount that’s there that’s the most important. What we’re lacking in America, or in the West in general, is the long-chain omega-3s. That’s the biggest problem.
I hate to distract from that problem by digging into the omega-6 side of it because some people could say, ‘Well, I can fix my ratio just by eating less omega-6 and not increasing my omega-3,’ and I don’t think that’s going to help.”
The counterargument to that would be that there are enzymes, desaturases and elongases, that take the baseline essential fats — ALA and LA — and convert these precursors into the long chains products, EPA/DHA and ARA, and if you overwhelm the system with LA, you essentially monopolize those enzyme systems and the omega-3 products are harder to make.
If you consume preformed long-chain omega-3s, then that is not an issue, but if you don’t, then excessive omega-6s will prevent the conversion of omega-3. Limiting omega-6 can, in this way, be somewhat helpful, as it allows for the shorter chain omega-3 (ALA) to be converted to the longer chain EPA and DHA. Harris responds:
“That’s true, but there are certain metabolites of even arachidonic acid that are beneficial. For example, lipoxgenase A1 is anti-inflammatory, and prostacyclin prevents platelet aggregation.
There are metabolites of linoleic acid itself that don’t go through arachidonic that have at least beneficial relationships with blood pressure and inflammation. It’s a much more complicated system, I think, than just omega-6 is bad, omega-3 is good. It’s just much more nuanced than that.”
OmegaQuant does offer an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio test called Omega-3 Index plus Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio. But when it comes to addressing a bad ratio, Harris still believes the best way to do that is to increase your EPA and DHA intake, as opposed to merely lowering your omega-6 intake.
Why Omega-3s Are so Beneficial to Health
So, what is it about omega-3 EPA and DHA that makes them so important for health? In summary, these fatty acids:
Why Fish Oil Is Not an Ideal Omega-3 Source
While most reach for fish oil to increase their omega-3 level, this isn’t the best choice. In fact, most “fish oils” on the market today are actually synthetic ethyl esters, which are different from the triglyceride and phospholipid forms omega-3 found in sea foods, which are roughly 50/50 triglycerides and phospholipids. Krill oil also delivers omega-3 primarily in the phospholipid form. Harris explains:
“Yes, there are two natural forms. The omega-3s are found in triglycerides, which we classically think of as oils. A triglyceride has three fatty acids on each molecule. Typically, in most fish that are rich in omega-3, one of those three will be EPA or DHA, so about 30% of the fish oil will be omega-3. That’s the triglyceride.
The other natural form that marine omega-3s are found in is phospholipids. Phospholipids are the primary constituents of cell membranes, and it’s in the cell membrane where the omega-3s do their primary work.
There are two spots for fatty acids on a phospholipid, and it depends on the fish, but typically about maybe 20% to 30% of the phospholipids have EPA and DHA. Those two forms are natural. You get both triglycerides and phospholipids when you eat a salmon steak or any other “oily” fish; these are the highest in omega-3.
The ethyl ester is a completely synthetic product. It starts out as a raw fish oil. That’s where that EPA and DHA molecules comes from in the first place, but at the refinery, all the fatty acids get chopped off of the triglyceride backbone. Then they throw away the monounsaturates, the saturates and the small amount of omega-6s, and that leaves the omega-3s by themselves.
The omega-3s have to be hooked to something before encapsulation, and so the favorite thing is to hook them up to ethanol (alcohol) to make “ethyl esters.” When all they have in the vat is now omega-3 ethyl esters, then they can pack more EPA and DHA into each capsule, so the concentration is higher.
Virtually all of the pharmacologic products that are omega-3-based are ethyl esters, and they have been used since the mid-1990s. But there is nothing “natural” about an ethyl ester.
I guess there’s debate on how effective they are. We do know that if you take the ethyl ester on an empty stomach, you’re not really going to absorb it. They’re very poorly absorbed.
Their absorption can be improved if you take the ethyl ester with a fatty meal, because that will stimulate the digestive juices and allow some of it to be absorbed, but it’s not the best form for absorption. Triglycerides and phospholipids are much better forms for absorption.”
Yesterday I spoke to a few hundred people at the Documenting Hope Conference in Orlando and was able to share my latest insights on how to optimize your health and prepare for the next crisis. I was surprised that people fly in from around the world to see me.
Are Ethyl Esters Beneficial?
In the Italian GISSI-Prevenzione Trial,3 published in 1999, heart attack survivors were given one capsule of Omacor (an ethyl ester form with 840 mg of EPA+DHA per 1 g capsule) a day. After two to three years of follow-up, they reported a tremendous drop in cardiovascular death and all-cause mortality.
However, there was no placebo group. They merely compared it to standard of care. It was also an open-label trial, with no objective assessment of compliance.4 Moreover, the study was funded by companies that sell the product, so there’s a conflict of interest there that may have influenced the results.
Indeed, since then, several studies have used Omacor (or Lovaza, the US version) and have produced mixed results. Some showed no benefit at all, others were positive. An example of the latter is the REDUCE-IT Study, which used an EPA-only ethyl ester called Vascepa, made by Amarin. Patients at high risk for heart disease were given 4 grams a day.
Compared to placebo, at the five-year mark, the treatment group had a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, nonfatal heart attacks and all-cause mortality. That was a very positive outcome. However, the placebo was an indigestible mineral oil, which may have confounded results. Did Vascepa really improve health, or did the “placebo” increase the risk of cardiac events?
“That’s been hotly debated,” Harris says. “Of course, if your placebo really is harmful, even if your drug does nothing, it will look like the latter is doing great because it’s doing better than the placebo, which is supposed to be neutral.
Well, there is considerable evidence now that at least some of the apparent benefit of the EPA ethyl ester was derived from a worsening of outcomes in the placebo group. Taking 4 grams, almost a teaspoon of mineral oil a day for five years, well, that’s just not natural at all.”
See Me Speak Live in Miami Next Sunday
Next Sunday I will be speaking at the Everything Matters Event in Miami. It will be a very small event of only a few hundred people at the Sacred Space in Miami and we will be diving deep into the world of quantum healing and spiritual connection. For the first time ever I will be sharing my spiritual journey and my latest insights on how to optimize your health through bioidentical progesterone therapy that I just learned last week and am using myself to balance my hormones.
It is a rare opportunity to hear me speak as the next time I am scheduled to speak will be at Biohacking in June next year. You will also have an opportunity to have dinner with me on Sunday evening. And one of the biggest surprises is that the tickets for this event are 95% less expensive than Biohacking. The dinner and admission is only $200 next week and is $5000 at Biohacking. My guess is that tickets for the event will sell out today.
So come and see me speak live and have dinner with me next Sunday at the Everything Matters Event in Miami. You can enjoy the warm weather and sunshine with temperatures projected to be 82 for a high and 72 for a low in lovely south Florida. It will likely be the last opportunity to hear me speak before the next crisis hits. Hope to see you there.
How Much Omega-3 Do You Need?
So, in summary, the best sources of omega-3 DHA and EPA are cold-water fatty fish like wild-caught Alaskan salmon (farm-raised salmon has omega-3 but in lower amounts than it used to since farmers have been adding vegetable oils to the salmon feed), mackerel, herring, sardines and krill oil.
The next question is, how much do you need for optimal health and disease prevention? This brings us back to the Omega-3 Index. Most Americans have an index of 4% to 5% of EPA/DHA in their red blood cell membranes, and the target is thought to be between 8% and 12%.
From Harris’ studies, raising your index from 5% to 8%, you need roughly 1,000 mg to 1,200 mg of EPA/DHA per day. As for the ratio of EPA to DHA, Harris says the general recommendation is either a 60-to-40 or 40-to-60 mix. “Just don’t do a 10-to-90 mix.” The ratio is a nonissue if you’re getting your omega-3s from fatty fish, which provide these fatty acids in a fairly balanced amount.
“Personally, I try to eat fish a couple of times a week,” Harris says. “But I don’t always succeed, so I do what a lot of people do. I take a supplement. I take about 1,400 mg a day, EPA and DHA.”
The best way to determine the dose you need is to do an Omega-3 Index test, available from OmegaQuant. It’s a dried blood spot test and the kit is sent to your home. The basic test is about $50, and you get your results about five days after it’s received in the lab. After a few months of supplementing, retest to see where you’re at, and adjust your dose accordingly. In closing, Harris notes:
“Again, my mantra is the Omega-3 index. EPA and DHA [levels] are what need to be improved, need to be increased. It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s one thing you CAN do something about cheaply, safely, easily, quickly. There’s not a disease yet that we’ve seen that has not benefited from having a higher omega-3.”
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Armistice Day is one of those disturbing occasions of the year when humanity’s folly is laid bare. It should be an occasion to remind said humanity about the stupid waste occasioned by war and its war-crazed planners who generally elude the dock; instead, it’s an occasion to extol its virtues and remind the reactionaries that war can be a mighty fine thing to pursue in the name of an ideology, cock-eyed belief or a sense of self-worth. Unquestioning solemnity, medals and tears are the order of the day, the ritualistic plat du jour.
These occasions are never challenged, nor impugned. The origins of the war that gave name to the occasion are simplified, if they are ever mentioned. And never shall that injunction be violated. That is certainly the view of Suella Braverman, the UK Home Secretary who must be increasingly getting under the skin of the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
Being a cut and dried jingo, Braverman treats Armistice Day as the sort of occasion to be revered and kept in aspic. No politics should ever enter unless she politicises it, nor criticism about war and its viciousness be permitted. Peaceniks are especially reviled. Remember debts and lost lives; never ask why those debts were incurred in the first place.
There is then a supreme irony in terms of Braverman’s views on peace protests that take place on Armistice Day, one which, by definition, involved the laying down of arms and the cessation of conflict. But that is the lot of the war loving demagogue in search of votes: irony is rarely acknowledged.
In a throat grabbing exercise of some ferocity against the vast sea of protests against the Israel-Hamas War, Braverman took to The Timesto attack marches running into the hundreds of thousands as an unquestioned “assertion of primacy by certain groups – particular Islamists”. She was particularly beside herself that they should take place on, of all days, November 11.
For the Home Secretary, these were unquestionably “hate” marches that would be more commonly associated with the lusty sectarians of Northern Island. Even worse were those selective senior officers in the Metropolitan Police picking favourites when it came to protests. “Right-wing and nationalist protestors who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law?” By the time Braverman had finished her bulldozing, she had insulted the whole constituency of Northern Ireland, mocked those favouring the Palestinian cause for freedom, and lacerated the operational independence of London’s own police forces.
The sense about Braverman making her own unilateral dash in all of this was confirmed by a spokesperson for Sunak. The article, we are told, was not “cleared” by Number 10 ahead of time. Editorial suggestions made by the PM’s office were roundly ignored. As for the Saturday protest, Sunak had met the Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley ahead of time to discuss security regarding the march. Neither thought it problematic that it should take place, given that the protests would avoid the Whitehall area and stay away from The Cenotaph, where the customary, holy delusions were to take place.
Her views have certainly struck a satisfactory note for some, suggesting that such feigned outrage might have some political weight among the spectral majority populists always love screeching about.
“In her comments about the pro-Palestinian Armistice Day protests and the actions of the police, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, was bravely stating what the majority of the country thinks,” wrote one reader of The Daily Telegraph.
The Daily Mailagreed, expressing fury at the “soft policing of these protests” packed with “snarling bigots” contemptuous of Britain’s glorious history of war. Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson affirmed the position, claiming the Home Secretary was merely “guilty of saying what most of us are thinking”.
These were certainly not the views shared by a number of Conservatives. Lord Soames, for one, opined that, whether in agreement or not with the pro-Palestinian protests, they should go ahead.
“It’s nowhere near the Cenotaph. It’s in the afternoon and most of these people, 90% of those people are not there to make trouble.”
Ex-cabinet minister Baroness Warsi firmly insisted that Braverman be sacked.
“She’d been briefed by the Met of what the route of the march was going to be, and the fact that they didn’t have concerns at this stage, she has now made this a live political issue because that’s the way she operates, right?”
As a result, patriots had turned into arsonists.
“They set this country alight, they pit community against community, they create these fires. And that is not the job of a government.”
Dominic Grieve, who served as attorney general between 2010 and 2014, had one line of advice for Sunak:
“The best thing the Prime Minister can do for us is to ensure that there is a new home secretary (before Sunday).”
That she remains in office suggests not just Sunak’s absence of backbone, but Braverman’s imminent bid for his job. To now sack her would be something the newly minted martyr would be able to dine out on for months to come, all the time plotting for a Number 10 bid.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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***
Yesterday I decided to break routine and take a trip along the coast northwards, outside the clutches of the bureaucratic matrix that is Wellington, once comedy central for the single source of truth, to listen to a little poetry and music.
The village I landed in is kinda nowhere, save for a beach that reveals the vastness of the Pacific, and the people who gathered in the converted church hall were content to do nothing but listen to the words and sounds. One of the poems and one of the piano compositions had emerged from the 2020 New Zealand lockdown, that insanely unjustifiable imprisonment of the healthy; but for the two hours of an afternoon, as the light slowly changed, and as the art came to an end, our small group of reverent listeners felt a little freedom from the fetters which, since 2020, seem merely to be lying in wait.
Notwithstanding the quiet joy of congregating and sharing, we could not help but be reminded, on this unusually sunny day, that just these kinds of events had, by government decree, been forbidden. Would the hammer come down again, and when, and would we all meekly accept another death-blow to our intrinsic rights?
Nobody voiced these concerns but everybody was, I’m sure, aware — the crowd had that look I’ve come to be familiar with among the denizens of the ‘freedom movement’ here: colors, glow, geniality, saying nothing much in the aftermath of the performance because what, after all, can be said as we absorbed its nourishing repercussions?
When I strolled along the beach and peered out at the Pacific, I was reminded of things maritime and of a visit I had made to a submarine moored in Philadelphia’s naval shipyard. As I descended into the bowels of the machine I was struck not only by the confined spaces, but by the realization of the reduction of the submarine’s inhabitants, whoever they may have been, to mere machines themselves serving the greater god of a strange mechanical beast. The purpose of every seaman, sleeping as they did in the narrowest of bunks, was geared to ensuring the efficient propulsion and mission of a metal monster. Once beneath the waves there was no way out, of course, and to think of trusting myself to such a contraption made me shudder. When I climbed out to land that day long ago, it was with a vastly more profound recognition of the insignificance of human life in relation to the compelling States that exploited it.
We are each of us born into a world whose roads, services, telecommunications, transport and comforts give the impression of a vast benign governing being, an organization of human accomplishment that might as well be God, for all we know or feel, holding our small souls in its embrace. We accept it, we trust implicitly and wordlessly in it — until something happens to jolt us out of our sleepy acquiescence.
Well, perhaps the only good arising from the devastating crisis that was — and is, the not-quite-finished covid psyops — has been the thunderous destruction of illusions. Those institutions we assumed were there to have our backs, the ones in place to safeguard our health, to protect the rule of law, to honor our inborn rights, to ensure the integrity of professional medical practice — they’ve all been exposed as criminally fraudulent.
For example, the few doctors here in New Zealand who took it upon themselves to practice in consonance with their professional principles are still hounded and persecuted by a corrupt Medical Council. These colleagues who dared to treat patients suffering from covid and/or the Jab, who dared to advocate for informed consent, and who dared to remain faithful to the Hippocratic Oath they swore when they received their medical degrees — they have lost licences to practice and are being hauled before kangaroo court tribunals as if they were criminals.
You see, in these past few years we have been slowly conditioned to accept the once unthinkable: that natural immunity counts for nothing, that genetically-altering inoculations which prevent neither transmission nor infection of the pathogen it was manufactured to protect against are wonderful, and that sudden deaths in the young and excess deaths overall are just ordinary features of life, nothing here to see!
There are many ways to kill: slow or quick, silently, insidiously and by imperceptible degrees — or cataclysmically loud, as in open battle. And we are seeing all of them play out across our stricken globe.
Since 2020 we’ve been living under a kind of martial law in this war being waged against the better parts of humanity. Censorship, coercion and murder become the norm, whether the war has been declared or not, whether the war is prosecuted by armies on the killing fields of Europe and the Middle East or, vastly more cleverly, by an invisible hand pushing a phony pandemic to exterminate our rights, followed by an injection that maims and eliminates our very selves.
I am not sanguine about the nature of human nature, seeing the addiction to destruction as a fundamental aspect of our species. The emergent properties that characterize our institutions tend mainly in the direction of control. The quest for knowledge is mostly a disguised quest for power.
But there is human good, as the small gathering in a seaside village can confirm from time to time when poetry and music are in the air.
As we prepare for the next onslaught I think our greatest challenge will be to make comrades of those who in their naivete or ignorance or carelessness or, perhaps, their opportunism, accepted the impositions of the Real Enemy, that coterie of people who, embalmed by their riches and lust to rule, succeeded in shutting down a world while convincing those shut down to praise them — and to carry on their work with smug virtuousness.
How brilliant, how shrewd! But how devoid of anything to aspire to.
As I drove back along the ocean road yesterday I thought that going nowhere and doing nothing couldn’t be better, and I knew that we would have to fight tooth and nail to preserve this right. So be it, it’s up to us, it’s always been up to us, and the fight never ceases.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/ where this article was first published.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Image by fernando zhiminaicela from Pixabay
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Note: Daniele Ganser will be the featured speaker at the First Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture on Sunday, December 3, where he will discuss this book and related current topics. The lecture is hosted by the International Center for 9/11 Justice and UK Column. More information is available here.
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book.
Ganser takes us on a tour of meticulously documented historical events that would be shocking to anyone committed to fairness and basic human decency. His intention is to strengthen the peace movement, which encompasses people all over the world — including in the US — who reject war as well as the lies and propaganda used to initiate and perpetuate wars. Throughout the book, he emphasizes three key pillars to the peace movement: the United Nations ban on any kind of violence or aggression, mindfulness (allowing one to recognize and see through war propaganda and lies), and viewing all people as members of the human family.
Before delving into history, Ganser sets the stage in Chapter 1, “The USA Poses the Greatest Threat to World Peace.” He backs up this assertion with a dizzying array of figures about how many countries the US has bombed since 1945 (at least 23), how many military bases it has in foreign countries (more than 700), the US world record on military spending (now approaching $1 trillion annually), the number of US troops abroad (over 200,000), and the US status as the only country to have deployed nuclear weapons. He shares results of a Gallup poll of 67,000 people in 65 countries that asked, “Which country poses the greatest threat to world peace today?” to which 24% named the US, while between 5% and 9% named one of six other countries and less than 5% named one of twelve other countries.
Chapter 2, “The USA Is an Oligarchy,” spotlights an ominous manifestation of empire: the astronomical disparities in wealth and income (540 billionaires vs. over 100 million living in poverty, not to mention impacts around the world) resulting from an oligarchy of super-rich running the empire and manipulating information flows with little meaningful influence by voters.
Chapters 3 and 4 describe key precursors to empire both before and after the new US republic established its independence from Britain in the late 18th century — namely, the mass murder and displacement of Native Americans and the importation and exploitation of slave labor from Africa in much of the new nation.
Chapter 5 covers the overt launch of imperial actions in the mid and late 19th century, when the US initiated wars based on lies and often false flag incidents to annex half of Mexico and conquer former Spanish colonies either as outright possessions (Puerto Rico and Guam) or with nominal autonomy but under tight US control (Cuba and the Philippines). The Kingdom of Hawaii was captured and annexed under threat of violence.
Chapter 6, devoted to World War I, elaborates on how, even prior to the US entering combat in 1917, US-based war profiteers flourished. J.P. Morgan & Co. was financing England and France, and US corporations sold arms to Europe. Hence, vested US interests in intentionally prolonging the war cost millions of avoidable deaths. War propaganda thrived, with Germans — who had done nothing to the US — being severely vilified. Hamburgers became “Liberty Steak” and sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” (Remember how in 2003, when France hesitated to join in the war on Iraq, the US Senate cafeteria sold “Freedom Fries”?) The Espionage Act was passed to prosecute pacifists (including Eugene Debs) and deny free speech — and is still being used today to persecute Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes in Iraq.
Chapter 7 scrutinizes the US role in World War II, unravelling its carefully cultivated image of fighting honorably on the side of righteousness, and exposes both belligerent proclivities and mixed loyalties. Ganser reminds us that US companies were allowed to sell oil to Nazi Germany both before and well into the war. Without that fuel supply, the Nazi threat may have dissipated prior to some of the worst atrocities being committed. Again, the war was unnecessarily prolonged.
Though officially allies of the Soviet Union, the US and Great Britain were pleased to see Hitler taking action against communist Russia, and they avoided opening a western front until mid-1944, when it looked like the Soviet Union (which lost 27 million citizens in World War II) would be the sole victor over the Nazis. Ganser unearthed this remarkable June 1941 quote by then-US Senator and later President Harry Truman: “If we see that Germany is winning the war we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany. And that way let them kill as many as possible, although I certainly don’t want Hitler to win in the end.” Divide et impera — divide and conquer.
Truman, as US president, ordered the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in history so far, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and terrorizing many more at a time when Japan was already prepared to surrender. Ganser documents how, in order to gain popular support for the US entering the war, it intentionally goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, providing the desired casus belli. The infamous December 7, 1941, attack was no surprise to President Franklin Roosevelt, who let it happen, sacrificing thousands of US servicemembers. As will become relevant to Chapter 12 on the September 11 attacks, Ganser notes that a Hollywood movie, “Pearl Harbor,” parroting the surprise attack myth, was released in May 2001, priming the public subliminally for what was to follow a few months later on September 11.
Chapter 8, “Covert Warfare,” tells us how the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council were born in the post-war years. It includes a laundry list of how the US used them to perpetrate multiple coups d’état (Iran, Guatemala, Chile), assassinations (Lumumba in Congo, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Diem in Vietnam, Che Guevarra in Bolivia), assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and the failed invasion of Cuba in 1961. President Kennedy ultimately became so outraged by these illegal operations that he fired CIA director Allan Dulles.
Note that Ganser devoted an entire previous book, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, to numerous additional covert operations involving the US, via NATO and the CIA, that are not covered in the present volume. These include false flag assassinations, bombing of civilians (blamed on communists), and fixing elections in much of Western Europe throughout the Cold War.
Chapter 9 focuses on the Kennedy assassination, summarizing evidence exonerating Lee Harvey Oswald and implicating Allan Dulles in a conspiracy to commit this heinous murder. After District Attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans brought much of the evidence to light in 1967, questioning the validity of the Warren Commission Report (authored by Dulles), the CIA created and widely publicized the notion of “conspiracy theorist” as a derogatory term for anyone who challenged the official narrative. Interestingly, Ganser notes that in 1979 the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations “saw a high probability that two men had shot Kennedy. . . . The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” This report was conveniently obscured by the media, and few are aware of it today.
Chapter 10, on the Vietnam War — which rapidly escalated after Kennedy’s murder — is a painful reminder to those readers who lived through it of the needless suffering inflicted on millions of Vietnamese and on tens of thousands of US soldiers and the peripheral damage to neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The latter two countries were bombed by the US without provocation, inciting the brutality of Khmer Rouge communists, whom the US could demonize to deflect from its own role in the bloodshed. Ganser reminds us of the false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 that was used to provoke a dramatic escalation of the war in Vietnam. While we were repeatedly warned of the propagandistic “domino theory,” there was in fact no chain reaction of neighboring countries turning communist after Vietnam prevailed and defeated the US in 1975 — hence all that death and destruction was in vain, other than benefitting war profiteers.
In Chapter 11 on the Iran-Contra Affair, Ganser elucidates another example of the US pitting two of its adversaries against each other when it supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s war against Iran while simultaneously and covertly selling weapons to Iran and secretly using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, who supported the dictatorial Somoza regime. Ganser further shows how the CIA hypocritically engaged secretly in the cocaine trade to finance its covert operations.How many people’s lives have been upended by those operations abroad and in drug-infested US cities?
In Chapters 12 and 13 on 9/11 and the War on Terror, respectively, the US empire ushers in the 21st century with an overwhelming display of shock and awe. The first sub-heading is prescient: “A New Pearl Harbor” refers to a prophetic statement in the year 2000 by the neocon Project for a New American Century, noting that it would be difficult to get the US population to accept massive military spending and upgrades for fighting multiple wars simultaneously “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”
Ganser offers three ways of evaluating the events of September 11, 2001: (1) Surprise attack catching everyone in the US, including top leadership and intelligence services, completely off guard; (2) LIHOP (let it happen on purpose), implying foreknowledge by key players of what was going to happen but intentionally failing to stop it; and (3) MIHOP (made it happen on purpose), involving direct complicity of certain players within the US military-intelligence apparatus and their agents. He disproves (1) and points to (2) and (3) as much more plausible, leaning toward (3).
Abundant research has been conducted debunking the official 9/11 story that 19 Muslim hijackers and a few men in a cave in Afghanistan were solely responsible for the death and destruction that day, and Ganser includes references to much of it in his footnotes. Bringing us to the present day, the author of this review refers readers to the International Center for 9/11 Justice for an up-to-date collection of relevant 9/11 research.
In this volume, Ganser touches on a handful of key anomalies: obvious fallacies of the official 9/11 Commission report authored by Philip Zelikow, a Bush administration insider; the utter failure of the multi-billion dollar US defense system to prevent an attack, including on its own heavily fortified headquarters; the millions in profits made by unnamed individuals who invested heavily in put options in the days before September 11, 2001 (betting that United and American airlines stocks would soon plummet), indicating specific foreknowledge; the clear evidence that World Trade Center Building 7 was destroyed later that day by controlled demolition and the refusal of US authorities or media to even entertain that possibility; and the evidence for the use of explosives in the destruction of the Twin Towers.
With the fall of the Soviet Union ten years before, the US empire had been searching for a new major enemy, and the crimes of 9/11 offered an “ideal” replacement: the never-ending and amorphous “War on Terror,” which could be and has been used to justify numerous military incursions and the proliferation of US bases anywhere “terrorists” are deemed to be lurking.Ganser details the US role in illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq (initiated by spreading lies about alleged weapons of mass destruction), and Syria, all of which left millions dead in their wake, not to mention the horrendous abuses of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
On a note of optimism, Ganser points out how the blatant injustice of the wars in the Middle East — like the injustice of the Vietnam War before them — energized the peace movement in the US, prompting massive demonstrations and civil disobedience in opposition, indicating vast numbers who denounce war and empire and seek peaceful coexistence with all peoples. Beyond famous peace movement leaders like Jeannette Rankin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, he highlights the role of everyday citizens affirming their commitment to all people as members of the human family and rejecting attempts by the elites to divide and conquer. He also points out how the rise of alternative media has played a role in allowing for dissemination of information that counters the mainstream lies and war propaganda. The explosion of the internet and social media can be a two-edged sword, however, as Ganser points out in Chapter 14, “The Digital Empire,” with consolidation and monopolization of technology and information flows by such digital giants as Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
The 15th and final chapter, called “The Fight for Eurasia,” details the US role in the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine — which was a catalyst for ensuing violence that has now escalated exponentially — as well as the relentless eastward expansion of NATO, contrary to US assurances in 1991 that this would not happen, which is another key causative factor in the havoc being wreaked there today. The original German edition was written two years prior to Russia’s 2022 “special military operation” in Ukraine. This new English edition does add a few paragraphs condemning Russia’s invasion as a violation of the UN Charter, while noting the provocations by NATO and Ukraine that fueled this proxy war between the US and Russia.
The book likewise does not include the up-to-the-minute status of the US relationship with China, but does note in the last chapter that China’s humiliation by the British Empire during the 19th century Opium Wars has prompted caution in its current relations with the West. We learn about China’s 2013 announcement of the “New Silk Road” in the form of a massive transcontinental infrastructure project also known as the Belt and Road Initiative, now well underway, designed not as an imperial land and resource grab but rather to mutually benefit all participating nations, allowing them to respect each other’s sovereignty and reducing tensions among them.
In his conclusion, Ganser notes that “the peace movement must trust that a world without war is possible.” He is “convinced that a fundamental exit from the spiral of violence is possible. The decisive factor is whether we really want inner and outer peace. If this will is strong enough, we can orient ourselves according to the following three principles: the human family, the UN ban on violence, and mindfulness.” These three principles, he notes, can be applied to overcome polarization, profiteering, and propaganda. A key tool of empire is dividing people into those who are favored and those who are demonized, pitting them against each other while enabling elites to generate profits for the few from the fighting of the many. Mindfulness can help people “wake up and quicky realize that war and lies always go hand in hand.” Those who practice mindfulness can no longer be so easily deceived by psychological operations.
In the words of President John F. Kennedy, invoked by Ganser in the introduction to the book,
“Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by men.”
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Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claim to have targeted Israel with ballistic missiles over the Red Sea, causing Tel Aviv to respond last week by deploying missile boats. These recent developments may once again place the region under the spotlight. The issue of the Palestinian conflict in fact has long been a divisive matter in the wider African continent, and within the African Union (AU), as the South African condemnation of what it described as the Israeli “Apartheid” last year clearly showed. The dramatic situation that is unfolding in Palestine today is having massive repercussions globally, and the North of Africa, the so-called Horn of Africa, especially, can be particularly affected by it. To better understand this, one needs to go back in time about three years, though.
Since the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords, and the subsequent normalization agreements with Israel signed by states such as the United Arab Emirates (UEA), tensions over the issue have arisen in the continent, and particularly in North Africa. The timing of the Abraham Accords is interesting: the Horn of Africa has been increasingly dominated by rising Gulf states, as Alex de Waal, a World Peace Foundation’s executive director, wrote in a 2019 paper. The 2020 Israel-UAE deal in particular, and notably their joint naval drill in November 2021, raised some eyebrows. Among other reasons for that, the UAE can be described as a rising military regional power, with a presence in Eritrea and Somalia, for instance, and also having, together with Tel Aviv, been occupying Yemen’s Socotra Island.
Far from being merely a matter of normalizing relations with the Jewish state, these agreements with Tel Aviv in fact have opened the door to security and military cooperation, thus increasing Israel’s presence in Africa – a presence which includes private companies with close ties with the state such as the NSO Group, but also the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency), the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) themselves. Such has been a key part of Netanyahu’s diplomacy – often described by critics as “buying friends by selling weapons” or sometimes as “spyware diplomacy” – for the last six years at least.
For one thing, one quarter of the Jewish states’s maritime trade goes through the port of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba. Alex de Waal describes the Red Sea as “Israel’s back door”, the coastal countries there (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen Eritrea, and Djibouti) all being, in Tel Aviv’s perspective, “pieces in the jigsaw of its extended security frontier.” As Waal reminds us, about 10 percent of the global maritime trade is carried through the straits between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Besides its concerns regarding the Red Sea’s security, Tel Aviv’s foreign policy has also focused on gaining African support pertaining to votes at international bodies, Palesting obviously being a hot topic.
Thus far, such a strategy had been gaining Israel new allies, for sure, but, at the same time, fueling domestic tensions within these very states – and, more critically, inter-state frictions, as well. Morocco, for instance, is another point of contention: in a kind of “quid pro quo” over Morocco’s own normalization deal with its Israeli ally, former US President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan claims over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, controlled by Algerian-backed rebels, thus increasing the heat in what already was a boiling pan. Already in December 2020, Algeria’s then Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad denounced the Israel-Morocco deal in strong language, describing the agreement as a “dirty alliance” through which the “Zionist entity” (in his word) tried to get closer to Algerian borders.
When it comes to state officials in the region, anti-Israel speech is fueled by security concerns, from the perspective of some of these states such as Algeria, but such feelings have frequently found an echo in popular opinion whenever Tel Aviv bombs civilians in Palestine, something which happens, with varying intensity, quite often. The next year, in May 2021, Israeli bombing of residential buildings in Gaza, for example, sparked a humanitarian crisis and pro-Palestine protests, further polarizing the Middle East – again with an impact in the Horn of Africa.
The ongoing Israeli military campaign which started in October, after the Hamas attacks, is, one could say, unprecedented in its scale – and its diplomatic and geopolitical consequences will probably be so as well. Washington has long treated its Israeli ally as a kind of exception to international law and this seems to be backfiring. As I wrote, Turkish-Israeli ties in all likelihood are going back to the freezer – not to mention the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia.
All of this is very bad news for the Jewish state, considering all its strategic interests in the Red Sea and in the Horn of Africa, a region troubled by the complex situations unfolding in Sudan – not to mention a number of hydropolitical conflicts. As the aforementioned Alex de Waal reminds us, anti-Israeli feelings fueled by indignation over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza plus Hama’s boldness will encourage Islamists groups such as Somalia’s al-Shabaab – not to mention the Houthi movement.
In addition, Israel and Turkey already compete for influence in North Africa, as the former seeks to connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea as part of its geostrategic oil and gas interests, and with both countries’ relations severely damaged as of now (over Gaza), the area may increasingly become yet another point of contention.
Moreover, as I wrote in January, post-Nord Stream Europe has been in quest for energy alternatives to Russian gas, and both Algeria and Morocco have been competing for European markets, however it would be unrealistic to expect a robust energy supply from North Africa pipelines, considering the region’s ongoing tensions. This is particularly true now, as Middle Eastern stormy waves reach the Horn of Africa and beyond – thus the European continent’s industrial, economic and energy crises remain deadlocked – and so do emerging North African power aspirations towards becoming key energy providers, as the current Middle-Eastern conflict risks spilling across the Red Sea.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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Below is the full text (Transcript) of President Bashar al-Assad at the Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, hosted by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Transcript
Below is the full text of President al-Assad speech in front of the Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit:
Your Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Your Majesties and Highnesses,
Gaza has never been the issue; rather Palestine is the central cause and Gaza is an embodiment of its essence and a blatant expression of the suffering of its people.
Talking about Gaza individually misses the point, as it is part of a whole, and the recent aggression against it is just an event in a series of events dating back to seventy-five years of Zionist crime, with thirty-two years of a failed peace, the only absolute, irrefutable result of which is that the entity has increased its aggression, and the Palestinian situation has become more unjust, and miserable.
Neither the land nor the right has returned, neither in Palestine nor in the Golan. This situation has produced a political equation stating that more Arab meekness towards them equals more Zionist ferocity towards us, and that more hand extended by us equals more massacres against us. Zionist entity knows nothing about peace.
In light of this very clear equation, the aggression against Gaza cannot be investigated in isolation from the context of the Zionist massacres against the Palestinians committed previously, and the continuation of this – without a doubt – later.
In addition, we cannot isolate this ongoing crime by dealing “as Arab and Islamic countries” with the recurring events in a fragmented manner regarding the Palestinian cause. Our continued dealing with the aggression against Gaza today with the same methodology means paving the way by us for Israel to complete the massacres until the annihilation of the people and the death of the cause.
The emergency situation at our summit today is neither aggression nor killing, as both are ongoing and both are inherent and characteristic of the entity, but the emergency is Zionism outpacing itself in barbarism, which places us before unprecedented responsibilities, both humanly and politically, at a minimum, if we put aside the national security of our region.
From a humanitarian standpoint, there is no dispute about our duty to bear a large share of restoring the minimum requirements of life, whether through immediate aid or rebuilding the necessary infrastructure later, but do we continue to revolve in a vicious circle of killing and aid, then massacres, then aid, attacks, then statements?
The most important question is: What does the Palestinians need from us? Do they need humanitarian aid from us first, or do they need protection from us first from the upcoming genocide?
Here lies our role, and here lies our political work, but if we do not have real tools for pressure, then any step we take or speech we deliver has no meaning. The minimum that we have are the actual political tools, not the rhetorical ones, the most important of which is stopping any political track with the Zionist entity, with all what the political track includes, whether economic or other issues, so that its return is conditional on the entity’s commitment to an immediate and long-term cessation, not a temporary one, of crimes against all Palestinians in all of Palestine, while allowing bringing immediate aid into Gaza.
As for talking about the two states and launching the peace process and other details and rights, despite their importance, they are not the priority at this emergency moment, even though we know that talking about them will not bear fruit, because there is no partner, no sponsor, no reference, and no law, and because it is not possible to restore a right when the criminal became a judge, and the thief became a judge, and this is the state of the West today.
By our will only, my brothers, apart from our demands on Western countries, international institutions and others to assume their responsibilities, they bear only historical colonial responsibilities based on the oppression and plunder of peoples. By our will only, by the overwhelming popular public opinion in our countries, with the new reality imposed by the Palestinian resistance in our region, we possessed those tools. Let us use them, and let us take advantage of the global transformation that has opened for us political doors that have been closed for decades, so that we can enter through them and change the equations, and let the precious souls who rose in Palestine be a rewarding price for achieving what we were unable to do in the past and what we must accomplish in the present and in the future.
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Introduction by Peter Koenig
This article by Chris Hedges is what best describes the Horror – indescribable Horror Israel is committing in Gaza and soon in the West Bank, where ethnic cleansing has already begun.
It is a Horror – that is beyond words.
A dentist living in a suburb of Gaza – that had not yet been bombed — received an early morning phone call from an Israeli IDF Secret Service agent,
“You have 2 hours to evacuate the three high-rise apartment buildings where you live. Afterwards we must bomb them.”
To prove that they meant business they sent a rocket into one of the buildings. The dentist became a forced evacuator and an evacuee at once. He barely managed to get people out, some in pajamas, others in prayer robes, before the bombing started. Reported by Swiss Bluewin News in German.
This was as humanitarian as it gets by some IDF or secret service people, who most likely are under pressure that even their damaged conscience could no longer tolerate. So, they saved maybe hundreds of lives – children, women, elderly — and normal people.
Where is the Human Rights Commission when it is needed?
What is the UN good for?
The entire system in which we believed for decades as the measuring stick for international law and for political justice is now revealed to be utterly corrupted and sold to the Big-Bucks, to the criminal Biden Administration and the five-fold Financial-Military-IT-Media and Pharma Complex pulling the strings out from darkness.
The Horror is beyond words and beyond imagination.
The Horror is of blood and shredded children.
The Horror is of thousands and thousands – tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands — dead bodies disintegrating in the rubbles of indiscriminately IDF-bombed hospitals, apartment buildings, mosques – you name it.
The Horror is of universal bearing, especially since the world – HUMANITY, yes, humanity – just looks on.
That, in itself, is beyond words, beyond imagination, beyond the spirit of anything that calls itself human.
Read on Chris Hedges depicting reality.
Peter Koenig, November 13, 2023
The Horror, The Horror
Israel’s genocidal attacks, which are killing hundreds of Palestinians a day, including some 160 children, have expanded to shelling the remaining hospitals in Gaza.
DOHA, Qatar: I am in the studio of Al Jazeera’s Arabic service watching a live feed from Gaza City. The Al Jazeera reporter in northern Gaza, because of the intense Israeli shelling, was forced to evacuate to southern Gaza. He left his camera behind. He trained it on Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex. It is night. Israeli tanks fire directly towards the hospital compound. Long horizontal red flashes. A deliberate attack on a hospital. A deliberate war crime. A deliberate massacre of the most helpless civilians, including the very sick and infants. Then the feed goes dead.
We sit in front of the monitors. We are silent. We know what this means. No power. No water. No internet. No medical supplies. Every infant in an incubator will die. Every dialysis patient will die. Everyone in the intensive care unit will die. Everyone who needs oxygen will die. Everyone who needs emergency surgery will die. And what will happen to the 50,000 people who, driven from their homes by the relentless bombing, have taken refuge on the hospital grounds? We know the answer to that as well. Many of them, too, will die.
There are no words to express what we are witnessing. In the five weeks of horror this is one of the pinnacles of horror. The indifference of Europe is bad enough. The active complicity by the United States is unfathomable. Nothing justifies this. Nothing. And Joe Biden will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide. May the ghosts of the thousands of children he has participated in murdering haunt him for the rest of his life.
Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper. They did not apply in Iraq. They do not apply in Gaza. We will pulverize your neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. We will wantonly murder your women, children, elderly and sick. We will set up blockades to engineer starvation and the spread of infectious diseases. You, the “lesser breeds” of the earth, do not matter. To us you are vermin to be extinguished. We have everything. If you try and take any of it away from us, we will kill you. And we will never be held accountable.
We are not hated for our values. We are hated because we have no values. We are hated because rules only apply to others. Not to us. We are hated because we have arrogated to ourselves the right to carry out indiscriminate slaughter. We are hated because we are heartless and cruel. We are hated because we are hypocrites, talking about protecting civilians, the rule of law and humanitarianism while extinguishing the lives of hundreds of people in Gaza a day, including 160 children.
Israel reacted with indignation and moral outrage when it was accused of bombing the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza, which left hundreds of dead. The bombing, Israel claimed, came from an errant rocket fired by Palestine Islamic Jihad. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that struck the hospital. Those of us who have covered Gaza have heard this Israel trope so many times it is risible. They always blame Hamas and the Palestinians for their war crimes, now attempting to argue that hospitals are Hamas command centers and therefore legitimate targets. They never provide evidence. The Israeli military and government lie like they breathe.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which has staff working in Al-Shifa, issued a statement saying patients, doctors and nurses are “trapped in hospitals under fire.” It called on the “Israeli government to cease this unrelenting assault on Gaza’s health system.”
“Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment. Al-Shifa hospital complex, the biggest health facility where MSF staff are still working, has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries,” the statement read. “The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped. MSF teams and hundreds of patients are still inside Al-Shifa hospital. MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients.”
Three other hospitals in northern Gaza and Gaza City are encircled by Israeli forces and tanks, in what a doctor told Al Jazeera was a “day of war against hospitals.” The Indonesian Hospital has reportedly also lost power. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 20 of 36 hospitals in Gaza no longer function.
Israel and Washington’s cynicism is breathtaking. There are no differences in intent. Washington only wants it done quickly. Humanitarian corridors? Pauses in the shelling? These are vehicles to facilitate the total depopulation of northern Gaza. The handful of aid trucks allowed through the border at Rafah with Egypt? A public relations gimmick. There is only one goal – kill, kill, kill. The faster the better. All Biden officials talk about is what comes next once Israel has finished its decimation of Gaza. They know Israel’s slaughter will not end until Gazans are living in the open without shelter in the southern part of the strip and dying because of a lack of food, water and medical care.
Gaza before Israel’s ground incursion was one of the most densely populated spots on the planet. Imagine what will happen with 1.1 million Gazans from the north piled on top of over 1 million in the south. Imagine what will take place when infectious diseases such as cholera become an epidemic. Imagine the ravages of starvation. The pressure will build to do something. And that something, Israel hopes, will be to push the Palestinians over the border into the Sinai in Egypt. Once there, they will never return. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza will be complete. Its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank will begin.
That is Israel’s demented dream. To achieve it, they will make Gaza uninhabitable.
Ask yourself, if you were a Palestinian in Gaza and had access to a weapon what would you do? If Israel killed your family, how would you react? Why would you care about international or humanitarian law when you know it only applies to the oppressed, not the oppressors? If terror is the only language Israel uses to communicate, the only language it apparently understands, wouldn’t you speak back with terror?
Israel’s orgy of death will not crush Hamas. Hamas is an idea. This idea is fed on the blood of martyrs. Israel is giving Hamas an abundant supply.
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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: The Executioner’s Song – by Mr. Fish
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Einleitung
Ein Artikel in der linken deutschen Tageszeitung „Junge Welt“ vom 9. 11. 2023 über die Weltjugendkonferenz in Paris mit dem Titel: „Die Jugend muss eine Vorreiterrolle übernehmen“ (1) veranlasste mich als Vater, ehemaligen Lehrer und Psychologen, die Frage zu stellen, wie die Jugend in die Lage kommen kann, bei der Gestaltung der Zukunft eine Vorreiterrolle zu übernehmen.
Da sich die Charaktereigenschaften des Menschen bereits in der Kindheit entwickeln, müssen Erzieher ausgebildet werden, die in der Lage sind, eine Generation heranzubilden, die eine neue und menschliche Sozialordnung realisieren kann.
Da sich junge Menschen oft darüber beschweren, dass die Eltern sie nicht verstehen und sie ihnen deshalb grollen, ist es von großer Bedeutung, dass beide Generationen miteinander versöhnt werden. Das geschieht am erfolgreichsten in einer Psychotherapie.
In kleinen Schritten wird die Jugend dann ihre Kompetenzen entwickeln und in die Lage kommen, die Zukunft zusammen mit den Erwachsenen zu gestalten.
„Die Jugend muss eine Vorreiterrolle übernehmen“
Im Artikel der „Jungen Welt“, einem Gespräch mit dem Moderator der Weltjugendkonferenz Rafael Vergara heißt es, dass Delegierteaus über 60 Ländern auf der Weltjugendkonferenz in Paris aktuelle Krisen sowie Wege nach vorne diskutierten. 400 Jugendliche seien bis zum 5. November dem Aufruf des Netzwerks „Youth Writing History“ gefolgt und hätten Antworten auf die Krisen und Kriege unserer Zeit gesucht.
Auf die Frage „Wie geht es weiter?“ antwortete Moderator Vergara unter anderem:
„Langfristig wollen wir ein globales Netzwerk der internationalistischen Zusammenarbeit etablieren. (…).
Wir denken, dass die Jugend, als dynamische Kraft der Gesellschaft, dabei eine Vorreiterrolle übernehmen muss. Der Aufbau einer anderen Welt darf nicht auf morgen verschoben werden, sondern wir wollen im Hier und Jetzt am Aufbau eines freien Lebens arbeiten.“ (2)
Ein schönes Ziel, doch stellt sich die Frage, wie die Jugend in die Lage kommen kann, bei der Gestaltung der Zukunft eine Vorreiterrolle zu übernehmen.
Da sich der Charakter der Menschen in der Kindheit entwickelt, ginge es darum, Erzieher auszubilden, die fähig sind, eine Generation mit dem Ziel der Verwirklichung einer neuen, menschlichen Sozialordnung heranzubilden. Das hat bisher gefehlt.
Erzieher befähigen, eine Generation heranzubilden, die neue, menschliche Sozialordnung verwirklich kann
Dass die Charakterstruktur des Menschen durch seine Erlebnisse und Eindrücke in der Kindheit vorherbestimmt wird, ist eine Entdeckung der Tiefenpsychologie. Es sind die Familienatmosphäre und die erzieherische Haltung der Eltern, die die Charakterbildung des Kindes weitgehend bestimmen. Sie formen den seelischen Horizont, der dem Kind frühzeitig eine bestimmte Haltung gegenüber sich selbst und den Mitmenschen nahelegt. Diese aus der Familiensituation entsprungenen Charakterzüge bleiben größtenteils unbewusst.
Charaktereigenschaften sind nicht etwas Angeborenes und Unveränderliches, sondern lediglich das Ergebnis zahlloser Kindheitserlebnisse. Dabei haben die Persönlichkeit der Eltern und ihr erzieherisches Verhalten den allergrößten Einfluss. Es ginge also darum, Eltern und Unterrichtende aufzuklären und sie zu einer gewaltlosen und vernunftgemäßen Erziehung ihrer Kinder und Schüler zu führen.
Aufgabe der Erzieher ist es, Menschen zu bilden, die fähig sind, unabhängige, mutige und gemeinschaftliche Persönlichkeiten zu werden. Es ist in erster Linie die Qualität dieser Beziehung, die den jungen Menschen befähigt, den pädagogischen Absichten des Erziehers zu folgen.
Neue, menschliche Sozialordnung
Eine neue und menschliche Sozialordnung muss auf den Prinzipien der Freiheit, der Gleichheit und der Brüderlichkeit aufgebaut werden.
„Freiheit“ bedeutet konsequente Anwendung des freiheitlichen Prinzips im menschlichen Zusammenleben. Jegliche Über- und Unterordnung widerspricht dem freiheitlichen Prinzip. Freiheit bedeutet Selbstbestimmung des Menschen. Das heißt, sein ganzes Tun und Trachten ist das Ergebnis seiner eigenen Wünsche. Er gestaltet sein Leben, seine Beziehungen zu den Mitmenschen und die gesellschaftliche Organisation selbst.
Herrscht das autoritäre Prinzip vor, dann wird das Verhalten des Menschen durch Befehle, Sanktionen und Strafen erzwungen. Im freiheitlichen Zusammenleben ist die Kommunikation das Mittel der Verständigung.
Die Freiheit ist ein Bedürfnis der menschlichen Natur. Üben Eltern und Lehrkräfte Druck und Zwang aus, kann das Kind in seiner Hilflosigkeit und Abhängigkeit keine gesunde Beziehung einüben: Misstrauen, Angst, Unter- und Überordnung sind dann die Resultate.
Gleichheit und Brüderlichkeit sind ebenfalls grundlegende Bestandteile der neuen menschlichen Sozialordnung (3).
Jugend braucht politische und psychologische Bildung
Die Menschen werden von allen Institutionen – angefangen von der Erziehung zuhause, von der Kinderstube bis hinauf zur Rekrutenschule und das „Feld der Ehre“ – so programmiert, dass sie dann alles machen, was die anderen, die Machthaber von ihm wollen. Das ist bewusstes Programm.
Deshalb ist es wichtig, dass der Jugend insbesondere in der Schule politische Bildung vermittelt wird; dass sie zum Beispiel erfährt, dass alle Kriege ein gutes Geschäft sind und in der Politik nichts zufällig passiert. Wenn es passiert, kann man darauf wetten, dass es so geplant war.
Hinzu kommt die psychologische Bildung. In Familie und Schule sollte dem jungen Menschen vermittelt werden, wie er seine Probleme lösen soll und kann. Wichtig ist sein Lebensgefühl, seine Meinung über sich selbst, über seine Kameradinnen und Kameraden sowie seine Meinung über die Gemeinde und den Staat.
Jugend nicht für politische Propaganda einspannen
Junge Menschen, die als Schüler eigentlich lernen und sich bemühen sollen, dass sie in der Schule vorankommen, dürfen nicht für politische Propaganda eingespannt werden. Ganz egal, wozu sie aufgerufen werden: ob sie Flugblätter verteilen oder demonstrieren sollen. Kinder und junge Leute dürfen für politische Zwecke nicht missbraucht werden.
Ursachen der Jugendverwahrlosung
In Berichten über verwahrloste Jugendliche taucht oftmals der Begriff „Psychopathie“ auf. Damit soll angedeutet werden, dass die jungen Menschen, die in irgendeiner Weise aus dem Rahmen fallen, an angeborenen Persönlichkeitsdeformationen leiden. Diese Auffassung ist jedoch als irrtümlich und oberflächlich erkannt worden.
Die wichtigste Quelle der Jugendverwahrlosung ist die seelische Heimatlosigkeit im Kindesalter. Man weiß heute, welche ungeheure Bedeutung dem kindlichen Geborgenheitsgefühl für die Entwicklung des Menschen zukommt. Das Menschenkind ist mehr als alle anderen Lebewesen liebesbedürftig. Es braucht Schutz und freundliche Führung, um in die äußerst komplizierte Menschenwelt hineinwachsen zu können.
Wo es im Erwachsenen frühzeitig infolge seiner Lieblosigkeit oder Unzuverlässigkeit den „Gegenspieler“ erkennt, schließt es sich von seiner Umwelt ab und verfällt einer Isoliertheit, die von einer verständnislosen Umgebung in ihrer Tragweite kaum erkannt wird.
Versöhnung der Kinder mit den Eltern
Bereits im Jahr 1927 schrieb der Individualpsychologe Alfred Adler im Buch „Menschenkenntnis“ über Klagen von Eltern und Kindern:
„Es ist eine oft hervorgehobene und empfindliche Tatsache, dass die Menschen aneinander vorübergehen und vorüberreden, den Zusammenschluss nicht finden können, weil sie sich fremd gegenüberstehen, nicht nur im weiteren Rahmen einer Gesellschaft, sondern sogar im engeren Kreis der Familie.
Nichts tritt uns öfter entgegen als Klagen von Eltern, die ihre Kinder nicht verstehen, und von Kindern, dass sie von den Eltern nicht verstanden würden. (…).
Die Menschen würden viel besser zusammenleben, wenn die Menschenkenntnis größer wäre, weil gewisse störende Formen des Zusammenlebens wegfielen, die heute nur deshalb möglich sind, weil wir einander nicht kennen und so der Gefahr ausgesetzt sind, uns durch Äusserlichkeiten täuschen zu lassen und auf Verstellungen anderer hineinfallen.“ (4)
Die Lehre Adlers (1870-1937) ist zu einem Grundpfeiler der Tiefenpsychologie geworden und heute aus der psychologischen Forschung nicht mehr wegzudenken, auch wenn die Individualpsychologie nur teilweise die Anerkennung gefunden hat, die sie tatsächlich verdient und die sie auch für ihre bahnbrechenden Errungenschaften beanspruchen darf.
In dem Moment, wenn wir als Kinder den Eltern grollen, sind wir im Unrecht, dann wissen wir nicht Bescheid.
In der Regel ist es die erste Aufgabe, wenn ein Mensch in die Psychotherapie kommt, dass er mit seiner Situation – zum Beispiel mit seinen Eltern – versöhnt wird. Der junge Menschfühlt sich oft von ihnen beleidigt und grollt ihnen, weil sie ihm angeblich Unrecht getan haben. Sie haben ihn zum Beispiel geschlagen oder ihm einen Knäuel Dummheiten vermittelt.
Aufgabe der Psychotherapie ist es, das zu beheben und ihn mit den Eltern zu versöhnen. Er muss einsehen, dass man die Eltern nicht verantwortlich machen kann, weil sie ebenfalls im Stich gelassen und nicht informiert wurden. Sie haben nicht gewusst, wie sie ihr Kind unterrichten, informieren sollen. Die Menschen werden dann einsehen, dass die Eltern auch die „armen Teufel“ waren.
Mit Besonnenheit und Ausdauer kommt die Jugend in die Lage, in kleinen Schritten ihre Kompetenzen zu entwickeln.
In meinem Buch „Sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen! Erkenntnisse aus der Begegnung mit dem Psychologen Friedrich Liebling und seiner freiheitlichen Psychotherapie“ schrieb ich auf Seite 35f.:
„Meines Erachtens stehen junge Menschen im Laufe ihrer Entwicklung vor vielfältigen Anforderungen, die sie in der Regel gut bewältigen. Um die Lebensaufgaben mutig angehen zu können, sind Heranwachsende jedoch auf die Einbettung in eine haltgebende Umwelt als Lebenswelt und eine einbettende Kultur angewiesen.
Halt und Orientierung erfahren sie, wenn die Familie Wertvorstellungen und Tugenden vermittelt, die in den gesellschaftlichen Institutionen wie Kindergarten und Schule verstärkt und konsequent durchgesetzt werden. Zu nennen sind: Mitmenschlichkeit, Gerechtigkeit, Wahrheit, Friedensfähigkeit, Toleranz, Gemeinschaftssinn, Konfliktfähigkeit und Kompromissbereitschaft.
Damit sich diese sozialen Werthaltungen und Tugenden im Heranwachsenden festigen, ist praktische Teilnahme an sozialen Aktivitäten unerlässlich.
Ich glaube an die Jugend, an ihre Lernfähigkeit, ihre Kreativität, ihre Einfühlsamkeit, ihr Verantwortungsgefühl, ihre Einsichtsfähigkeit und ihre Bereitschaft zur Veränderung von Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen.
Meistens fehlt jungen Menschen nur etwas Besonnenheit und Ausdauer, damit sie in kleinen Schritten ihre Kompetenzen entwickeln können.“ (5)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
(3) Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen! Erkenntnisse aus der Begegnung mit dem Psychologen Friedrich Liebling und seiner freiheitlichen Psychotherapie. Grafoprint d.o.o. Gornji Milanovac, Serbia
(4) Liebling, Friedrich (1992), Aufsätze. Verlag Menschenkenntnis. Zürich
(5) Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen! Erkenntnisse aus der Begegnung mit dem Psychologen Friedrich Liebling und seiner freiheitlichen Psychotherapie. Grafoprint d.o.o. Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, S. 35f.
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Introduction
An article in the left-wing German daily newspaper “Junge Welt” on 9 November 2023 about the World Youth Conference in Paris entitled: “Young people must take on a pioneering role” (1) prompted me, as a father, former teacher and psychologist, to ask how young people can take on a pioneering role in shaping the future.
Since human character traits are developed in childhood, educators must be trained who are capable of raising a generation that can realise a new and humane social order.
Since young people often complain that their parents do not understand them and therefore resent them, it is of great importance that both generations are reconciled with each other. This is most successfully achieved through psychotherapy.
In small steps, young people will then develop their skills and be able to shape the future together with adults.
“Young people must take on a pioneering role”
The article in “Junge Welt”, an interview with the moderator of the World Youth Conference Rafael Vergara, states that delegates from over 60 countries discussed current crises and ways forward at the World Youth Conference in Paris. By 5 November, 400 young people had responded to the call of the “Youth Writing History” network and sought answers to the crises and wars of our time.
In response to the question “Where do we go from here?”, moderator Vergara replied, among other things:
“In the long term, we want to establish a global network of internationalist co-operation. (…).
We believe that young people, as a dynamic force in society, must play a pioneering role in this. The construction of a different world must not be postponed until tomorrow, but we want to work on building a free life in the here and now.” (2)
A fine goal, but the question arises as to how young people can take on a pioneering role in shaping the future.
Since people’s character develops in childhood, it is important to train educators who are capable of raising a generation with the aim of realising a new, humane social order. This has been lacking until now.
Enabling Educators to Raise a Generation that Can Realise a New, Human Social Order
The fact that a person’s character structure is predetermined by their experiences and impressions in childhood is a discovery of depth psychology. It is the family atmosphere and the educational attitude of the parents that largely determine the formation of the child’s character. They shape the mental horizon that suggests a certain attitude towards oneself and others to the child at an early age. These character traits, which arise from the family situation, remain largely unconscious.
Character traits are not something innate and unchangeable, but merely the result of countless childhood experiences. The personality of the parents and their educational behaviour have the greatest influence. It is therefore a matter of educating parents and teachers and guiding them towards a non-violent and rational upbringing of their children and pupils.
The task of educators is to form people who are capable of becoming independent, courageous and communal personalities. It is first and foremost the quality of this relationship that enables the young person to follow the educator’s pedagogical intentions.
New, Humane Social Order
A new and humane social order must be built on the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity.
“Freedom” means the consistent application of the principle of freedom in human coexistence. Any subordination and subordination contradicts the principle of freedom. Freedom means human self-determination. This means that all his actions and endeavours are the result of his own wishes. He shapes his life, his relationships with his fellow human beings and the organisation of society himself.
If the authoritarian principle prevails, then people’s behaviour is enforced by orders, sanctions and punishments. In a free society, communication is the means of understanding.
Freedom is a need of human nature. If parents and teachers exert pressure and coercion, the child cannot develop a healthy relationship in its helplessness and dependence: Mistrust, fear, subordination and superordination are then the results.
Equality and fraternity are also fundamental components of the new human social order (3).
Young People Need Political and Psychological Education
People are programmed by all institutions – starting with education at home, from nursery school right up to recruitment school and the “field of honour” – in such a way that they then do everything that the others, those in power, want them to do. This is a conscious programme.
That’s why it’s important that young people are taught political education, especially at school; that they learn, for example, that all wars are good business and that nothing happens by chance in politics. If it happens, you can bet that it was planned that way.
Then there is psychological education. In the family and at school, young people should be taught how they should and can solve their problems. What is important is their attitude to life, their opinion of themselves, their comrades and their opinion of the community and the state.
Do Not Use Young People for Political Propaganda
Young people who are supposed to be learning and endeavouring to make progress at school must not be used for political propaganda. No matter what they are called upon to do, whether it is to distribute leaflets or demonstrate. Children and young people must not be misused for political purposes.
Causes of Youth Neglect
The term “psychopathy” is often used in reports about neglected young people. This is intended to imply that young people who fall out of line in some way suffer from congenital personality deformities. However, this view has been recognised as erroneous and superficial.
The most important source of youth neglect is emotional homelessness in childhood. Today we know the enormous importance of the child’s sense of security for human development. The human child is more in need of love than any other living being. It needs protection and friendly guidance in order to grow into the extremely complicated human world.
Where it recognises the “antagonist” in the adult at an early stage as a result of his unkindness or unreliability, it closes itself off from its environment and falls into an isolation that is barely recognised in its extent by an uncomprehending environment.
Reconciliation of Children with Their Parents
As early as 1927, the individual psychologist Alfred Adler wrote about the complaints of parents and children in his book “Knowledge of Man”:
“It is an often emphasised and sensitive fact that people pass each other by and talk past each other, cannot find union because they are strangers to each other, not only in the wider framework of a society, but even in the narrower circle of the family.
Nothing is more common than complaints from parents who do not understand their children, and from children that they are not understood by their parents. (…).
People would live together much better if there were greater knowledge of human nature, because certain disturbing forms of coexistence would no longer exist, which are only possible today because we do not know each other and are thus exposed to the danger of being deceived by outward appearances and falling for the pretences of others.” (4)
Adler’s teachings (1870-1937) have become a cornerstone of depth psychology and today it is impossible to imagine psychological research without them, even if individual psychology has only partially received the recognition it actually deserves and which it can claim for its ground-breaking achievements.
The moment we, as children, resent our parents, we are in the wrong, we are not in the know.
As a rule, the first task when a person comes into psychotherapy is to reconcile them with their situation – for example with their parents. The young person often feels insulted by them and resents them because they have allegedly done him wrong. For example, they have hit him or taught him a bunch of stupid things.
The task of psychotherapy is to remedy this and reconcile him with his parents. He must realise that the parents cannot be blamed because they were also let down and not informed. They did not know how to teach or inform their child. People will then realise that the parents were also the “poor devils”.
With prudence and perseverance, young people are able to develop their competences in small steps.
In my book “Sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen! Insights from my encounter with the psychologist Friedrich Liebling and his liberal psychotherapy”, I wrote on page 35f:
“In my opinion, young people face a variety of challenges in the course of their development, which they generally cope with well. However, in order to be able to tackle life’s tasks with courage, adolescents are dependent on being embedded in a supportive environment as a living world and an embedding culture.
They experience support and orientation when the family conveys values and virtues that are reinforced and consistently enforced in social institutions such as kindergarten and school. These include: Humanity, justice, truth, peaceableness, tolerance, a sense of community, the ability to deal with conflict and the willingness to compromise.
Practical participation in social activities is essential to consolidate these social values and virtues in adolescents.
I believe in young people, in their ability to learn, their creativity, their empathy, their sense of responsibility, their insightfulness and their willingness to change their attitudes and behaviour.
In most cases, all young people need is a little prudence and perseverance so that they can develop their skills in small steps.” (5)
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Dr Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist and qualified psychologist. After his university studies, he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a pensioner, he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and specialist articles, he calls for a conscious ethical and moral education of values as well as an education for public spirit and peace.
(3) Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Making the results of psychological research your own! Insights from an encounter with the psychologist Friedrich Liebling and his liberal psychotherapy. Grafoprint d.o.o. Gornji Milanovac, Serbia
(4) Liebling, Friedrich (1992), Essays. Publisher Menschenkenntnis. Zurich
(5) Hänsel, Rudolf (2023). Making the results of psychological research your own! Insights from an encounter with the psychologist Friedrich Liebling and his liberal psychotherapy. Grafoprint d.o.o. Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, p. 35f.
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There can’t be democracy and colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other to fascism. Meanwhile, once welcomed mavericks are heretics now in an underground of journalism amid a landscape of mendacious conformity.
Spartacus was a 1960 Hollywood film based on a book written secretly by the blacklisted novelist Howard Fast, and adapted by the screenplay writer Dalton Trumbo, one of the ‘Hollywood 10’ who were banned for their ‘un-American’ politics. It is a parable of resistance and heroism that speaks unreservedly to our own times.
Both writers were Communists and victims of Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, which, during the Cold War, destroyed the careers and often the lives of those principled and courageous enough to stand up to a homegrown fascism in America.
‘This is a sharp time, now, a precise time …’ wrote Arthur Miller in The Crucible, ‘We live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.’
There is one ‘precise’ provocateur now; it is clear to see for those who want to see it and foretell its actions. It is a gang of states led by the United States whose stated objective is ‘full spectrum dominance’. Russia is still the hated one, Red China the feared one.
From Washington and London, the virulence has no limit. Israel, the colonial anachronism and unleashed attack dog, is armed to the teeth and granted historical impunity so that ‘we’ the West ensure the blood and tears never dry in Palestine.
British MPs who dare call for a ceasefire in Gaza are banished, the iron door of two-party politics closed to them by a Labour leader who would withhold water and food from the children.
In McCarthy’s time, there were bolt holes of truth. Mavericks welcomed then are heretics now; an underground of journalism exists (such as this site) in a landscape of mendacious conformity. Dissenting journalists have been defenestrated from the “mainstream” (as the great editor David Bowman wrote); the media’s task is to invert the truth and support the illusions of democracy, including a “free press.”
Social Democracy has shrunk to the width of a cigarette paper that separates the principal policies of major parties. Their one subscription is to a capitalist cult, neoliberalism, and an imposed poverty described by a U.N. special rapporteur as “the immiseration of a significant part of the British population.”
War today is an unmoving shadow; “forever” imperial wars are designated normal. Iraq, the model, is destroyed at a cost of a million lives and three million dispossessed. The destroyer, Blair, is personally enriched and fawned over at his party’s conference as an electoral winner.
Blair and his moral counter, Julian Assange, live 14 miles apart, one in a Regency mansion, the other in a cell awaiting extradition to hell.
According to a Brown University study, since 9/11, almost six million men, women and children have been killed by America and its acolytes in the “Global War on Terror.” A monument is to be built in Washington in “celebration” of this mass murder; its committee is chaired by the former president, George W. Bush, Blair’s mentor. Afghanistan, where it started, was finally laid to waste when President Biden stole its national bank reserves.
There have been many Afghanistans. The forensic William Blum devoted himself to making sense of a state terrorism that seldom spoke its name and so requires repetition: In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries. It has attempted to murder countless leaders.
Perhaps I hear some of you saying: that is enough. As the Final Solution of Gaza is broadcast live to millions, the small faces of its victims etched in bombed rubble, framed between TV commercials for cars and pizza, yes, that is surely enough. How profane is that word “enough”?
Afghanistan was where the West sent young men weighed down with the ritual of “warriors” to kill people and enjoy it. We know some of them enjoyed it from the evidence of Australian SAS sociopaths, including a photograph of them drinking from an Afghan man’s prosthetic.
Not one sociopath has been charged for this and crimes such as kicking a man over a cliff, gunning down children point-blank, slitting throats: none of it “in battle.” David McBride, a former Australian military lawyer who served twice in Afghanistan, was a ‘true believer’ in the system as moral and honourable. He also has an abiding belief in truth, and loyalty. He can define them as few can. This coming week he is in court in Canberra as an alleged criminal.
“An Australian whistleblower,” reports Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Australian Human Rights Law Centre, “[will face] trial for blowing the whistle on horrendous wrongdoing. It is profoundly unjust that the first person on trial for war crimes in Afghanistan is the whistle blower and not an alleged war criminal.”
Image: David McBride (Sydney Criminal Lawyers)
McBride can receive a sentence of up to 100 years for revealing the cover-up of the great crime of Afghanistan. He tried to exercise his legal right as a whistleblower under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which the current attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, says “delivers on our promise to strengthen protections for public sector whistleblowers.”
Yet it is Dreyfus, a Labor minister, who signed off on the McBride trial following a punitive wait of four years and eight months since his arrest at Sydney airport: a wait that shredded his health and family.
Those who know David and know of the hideous injustice done to him fill his street in Bondi near the beach in Sydney to wave their encouragement to this good and decent man. To them, and me, he is a hero.
McBride was affronted by what he found in the files he was ordered to inspect. Here was evidence of crimes and their cover-up. He passed hundreds of secret documents to the the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and TheSydney Morning Herald. Police raided the ABC’s offices in Sydney while reporters and producers watched, shocked, as their computers were confiscated by the Federal Police.
Attorney-General Dreyfus, self-declared liberal reformer and friend of whistleblowers, has the singular power to stop the McBride trial. A Freedom of Information search of his actions in this direction reveals little, at most, an indifference.
You can’t run a fully-fledged democracy and a colonial war; one aspires to decency, the other is a form of fascism, regardless of its pretensions. Mark the killing fields of Gaza, bombed to dust by apartheid Israel. It is no coincidence that in rich, yet impoverished Britain an “inquiry” is currently being held into the gunning down by British SAS soldiers of 80 Afghans, all civilians, including a couple in bed.
The grotesque injustice meted out to David McBride is minted from the injustice consuming his compatriot, Julian Assange. Both are friends of mine. Whenever I see them, I am optimistic. ‘You cheer me,’ I tell Julian as he raises a defiant fist at the end of our visiting period. ‘You make me feel proud,’ I tell David at our favourite coffee shop in Sydney.
Their bravery has allowed many of us, who might despair, to understand the real meaning of a resistance we all share if we want to prevent the conquest of us, our conscience, our self respect, if we prefer freedom and decency to compliance and collusion. In this, we are all Spartacus.
Spartacus was the rebellious leader of Rome’s slaves in 71-73 B.C. There is a thrilling moment in the Kirk Douglas movie Spartacus when the Romans call on Spartacus’s men to identify their leader and so be pardoned. Instead hundreds of his comrades stand and raise their fists in solidarity and shout, ‘I am Spartacus!’ The rebellion is under way.
Julian and David are Spartacus. The Palestinians are Spartacus. People who fill the streets with flags and principle and solidarity are Spartacus. We are all Spartacus if we want to be.
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John Pilger has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism and has been International Reporter of the Year, News Reporter of the Year and Descriptive Writer of the Year. He has made 61 documentary films and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Royal Television Society prize. His Cambodia Year Zero is named as one of the ten most important films of the 20th century. He is the winner of Consortium News’ 2023 Gary Webb Award. He can be contacted at www.johnpilger.com and on X @johnpilger.
Featured image: Sen. McCarthy, center, confers with Roy Cohn, chief counsel for House Un-American Activities Committee, Aug. 23, 1953. (Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library/Wikimedia Commons)
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***
In an interview with the US network ABC, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to the question of whether he believes a ceasefire in Gaza is possible:
“A ceasefire would be a surrender to Hamas. It would be a victory for Hamas. A ceasefire after the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Centre would be no more possible than it would have been possible for you.”
When asked who should govern Gaza once the war is over, Netanyahu responds:
“Israel will have responsibility for security for an indefinite period, because when we have not that responsibility, what we have is the explosion of terror from Hamas.”
Netanyahu’s words are summarized as follows by the New York Times:
“Israel will govern Gaza”.
In other words, Netanyahu openly announced their plan: to take over Gaza by transforming it from Palestinian territory into Israeli territory.
This is confirmed by the fact that the Israeli armed forces are not only massacring the Palestinian population but are making Gaza no longer inhabitable by Palestinians: in the northern part of the Strip they have already destroyed over 30% of all buildings.
The plan envisages the subsequent opening of a “humanitarian corridor” to transfer the Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian desert of Sinai, then doing the same with the Palestinians of the West Bank.
In the game of roles, US Secretary of State Blinken went to Israel with the declared aim of obtaining a ceasefire in Gaza, which Netanyahu rejected. Behind this tragic play, there is reality. An example for everyone: the one-ton satellite-guided bombs that Israeli planes drop on Palestinian working-class neighbourhoods are supplied to Israel by the United States.
Regarding the “Hamas explosion of terror” which according to the Prime Minister makes it necessary for Israel to govern Gaza, Netanyahu forgets what he declared at a meeting of his party in March 2019:
“Anyone who wants to hinder the creation of a Palestinian State must support Hamas and transfer money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy: to isolate the Palestinians of Gaza from the Palestinians of the West Bank.”
These and many other facts (reported in the last 4 episodes of Grandangolo) demonstrate that the Israeli leaders and their secret services were not taken by surprise by the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas, but they made it happen to implement their plan. We are therefore faced with something similar to what happened in the United States on September 11, 2001.
*
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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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***
The Biden administration is killing people, openly in Ukraine and Gaza and secretly around the world. It has continued to use the killing machinery crafted by President George W. Bush, expanded by President Barack Obama, and employed by President Donald Trump. These presidents have used drones and other unmanned projectiles to target persons in foreign countries with which the United States is not at war.
They have done this notwithstanding the prohibition against taking life, liberty or property from any person — not just any American, but any person — in the Constitution each has sworn to uphold, and they have done so pursuant to secret rules that they themselves have established for these killings.
Last year, 11 senators and 39 members of the House of Representatives sent a harshly worded letter to President Joe Biden asking him to stop the secret, but not the public, killings. As of this writing, he has not publicly replied.
Here is the backstory.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — is to protect personal liberty by restraining the government.
The Fifth Amendment prohibits killing persons, restraining liberty, and taking property without due process; that means a jury trial at which the government must prove criminal behavior or fault, depending upon its goal.
If the country is at war — lawfully and constitutionally declared by Congress — obviously the president can use the U.S. military to kill the military of the opposing country. And if an attack on the U.S. is imminent, the president can strike the first blow against the military of the entity whose attack is just about to occur.
There are no other constitutional circumstances under which a president may kill.
When President Harry Truman targeted Japanese civilians as the Japanese government was within days of surrendering in World War II, he murdered them. Notwithstanding his unprosecuted war crimes, and with the government’s version of Pearl Harbor still fresh in many Americans’ minds, Truman was regarded as heroic for using nuclear bombs to cause the profoundly immoral, militarily useless, and plainly criminal mass killings of the hated Japanese.
Fast-forward to the 9/11 era, and Bush had precedent to begin his own presidential killings of people the government wanted Americans to hate. While Congress did authorize him to use force against those who caused or aided the 9/11 attacks, we all know that his thirst for Middle Eastern blood knew no regard for the Constitution, evidence, proportionality, civilian lives, morality or human decency. Thus, $3 trillion spent and 1 million dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Julian Assange sits in a British dungeon awaiting decisions on his extradition to the U.S. because he courageously, lawfully and constitutionally published documents and videos demonstrating conclusively that Bush’s use of drones targeted and murdered Afghan and Iraqi civilians, and his administration covered it up.
Obama took this to another level when he targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in the U.S. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, advised Obama that the killing was lawful, as al-Awlaki had encouraged folks in the Middle East to fight against American soldiers there. Holder likened killing al-Awlaki to police shooting at a bank robber whom they are chasing while he is shooting at them.
Holder forgot that al-Awlaki was unarmed, was not charged or indicted for any crime, was never accused of violence, and was not even the subject of an arrest warrant when a drone evaporated him while sitting at an outdoor cafe in Yemen.
The exercise of power by the federal government is largely based on precedent and politics. Whenever a president wants to kill, he need only find an example of a predecessor having killed with impunity — without due process, without a declaration of war and without an imminent attack. And then he needs only to calculate what he thinks he can politically get away with.
Joe Biden — whose drones in 2021 destroyed a dam in Syria, killing thousands, and who targeted civilians in Afghanistan, killing dozens, and whose shipments of guns to Ukraine and Israel are killing tens of thousands of folks he wants us to hate — is using unlawful powers that his modern predecessors used and got away with to target and kill unsympathetic persons. But the U.S. has not declared war on Russia or Gaza.
The nature of political power is to expand so that it fills a perceived need, unless there are mechanisms in place to restrain its expansion.
The founding generation believed that British monarchs had no limits on their powers and that was a good enough reason for the 13 colonies to secede violently. They also believed that they had crafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to impose sufficient restraints on the federal government. And they believed that the states could peacefully leave a federal government they had voluntarily joined when it exceeded its constitutional powers.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Its language is clear that only Congress writes laws and declares war, and presidents can kill only troops in wartime or civilians consistent with due process.
Sadly, the Founders were wrong.
Every president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as it was written, not as he may wish it to be.
Yet, today, the president writes laws and rules that let him restrain personal liberty and kill with impunity, and Congress and the American people let him get away with it. Formally, we still have a Constitution. Functionally, it has utterly failed to restrain the government.
Ultimately, we have ourselves to blame for these killings and undeclared wars. Why do we repose the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who subvert it? If a future president uses Bush’s lust and Obama’s logic and Biden’s hatreds to kill Americans in America, then no one’s life, liberty or property will be secure.
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Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, when he presided over more than 150 jury trials and thousands of motions, sentencings, and hearings. Judge Napolitano taught constitutional law and jurisprudence at Delaware Law School for one and half years and at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and at Brooklyn Law School for four years. He was often chosen by the students as their most outstanding professor. As Fox News’ Senior Judicial Analyst from 1997 to 2021, Judge Napolitano gave 14,500 broadcasts nationwide on the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. He is nationally known for watching and reporting on the government as it takes liberty and property. His weekly newspaper column is seen by millions every week. The Judge is a nationally-recognized expert on the U.S. Constitution and a champion of personal freedom.
In the past, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. World War III was something that we thought the invention of the atomic bomb, combined with common sense had torn from the pages of human endeavour. Today, a Third World War is seen as a likely scenario.
35 year old Chris Hardin was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma in June 2023 that rapidly progressed to Stage 4, didn’t respond to radiation or immunotherapy and became Stage 4 with tumor “growing on his spine, pressing on the vertebrae and crushing it while also wrapping around nerves.”
The US utilized the Muslim Brotherhood fighters in Syria, and partnered with the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to rig the election which brought Mohamed Mursi to power. This is why the US will never outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood in the US; because they are useful.
We are all shocked by the images of genocide suffered by the people of Gaza. Despite attempts to censor the truth about Israeli crimes, that truth breaks through to Western public opinion, arousing spontaneous opposition what we have seen in the last couple weeks on the street all over the world,but I remember very similar crimes that I saw with my own eyes nine years ago.
Religion has for a very long time been used as a cover for slaughtering people and seizing their land. This is true for the United States and Israel. It is built into their theological underpinnings. So it should not be at all surprising that the current Israeli massacre of Palestinians is fully supported by the U.S. government led by President Joseph Biden and by almost every presidential aspirant.
In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state.
One of the most common ideological tropes of the contemporary political West is its apparent obsession with environmentalism. The belligerent power pole simply adores to use it as a way to “prove” its supposed “civilizational superiority” over any other country that doesn’t share the same obsession.
The real purpose of the COVID jabs was to initiate a number of processes including global depopulation as well as those of the genetic modification of the survivors. As this attack was pushed forward, we began to observe that something fundamental had changed within our governments as reflected in the unreasonable constraints suddenly imposed on our most basic rights and freedoms.
Shortly after the start of the war against Gaza, Palestinian trade unions appealed to their colleagues worldwide for a boycott of arms supplies to Israel. That appeal is being heeded in many countries. That list of countries is growing every day.
Gay, in her infinite wisdom (President of Harvard, after all, right?) chose not to explain truthfully the “specific historical meaning” of the interpretation of the “From the River to the Sea” phrase as (supposedly!) advocating the “eradication of Jews from Israel” and “existential fears.”
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The Dishonesty
Harvard University President Gay, completely ignoring the University’s motto, Veritas (Truth), said:
“Our community must understand that phrases such as ‘from the river to the sea’ bear specific historical meanings that to a great many people imply the eradication of Jews from Israel and engender both pain and existential fears within our Jewish community.”
Gay, in her infinite wisdom (President of Harvard, after all, right?) chose not to explain truthfully the “specific historical meaning” of the interpretation of the “From the River to the Sea” phrase as (supposedly!) advocating the “eradication of Jews from Israel” and “existential fears.”
Had Gay the slightest desire to speak the truth (Veritas, you know) then she would have explained that it was the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who told the infamous lie about “eradication of Jews from Israel.” In 1961, David Ben Gurion lied to Israeli Jews by declaring with no evidence whatsoever that Arab armies intended to “push all the Jews into the sea, dead or alive.”
Had Gay the slightest desire to speak the truth, then she would have explained that the vast majority of Palestinians want what the Palestine Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat officially aimed for, which is to make ALL of Palestine (“from the River to the Sea!”) a secular democratic state in which Jews and non-Jews would be equals under the law and live in peace with each other.
Had Gay the slightest desire to speak the truth, then she would have explained what this perfectly just and noble and GOOD “from the River to the Sea!” goal—the goal of making ALL of Palestine “from the River to the Sea” be a secular democratic state in which all citizens were equal under the law regardless of ethnicity or religion—would mean. ees
She would have explained that it would mean the eradication of Israel (Yes!) as the kind of state that it asserts that it is and must be, namely:
a State of the Jewish People,
a state ONLY of the Jewish people,
a state in which ONLY its Jewish citizens and NOT the 20% of non-Jewish citizens are the official sovereign power,
a state in which the non-Jewish citizens are by law second class citizens (this links to a plain English description of Israel’s blatant discrimination against non-Jews under the law; can Harvard President Gay read English? Just asking),
a state in which the BASIC LAW (essentially its constitution) says it is illegal for anybody to stand for election to the legislature (Knesset) if they do not endorse the principle that Israel must do whatever it takes (and this has meant seven decades of violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and denying them their Right of Return in defiance of International Law) to ensure that the great majority (David Ben-Gurion said it had to be at least 80%) of the population was always Jewish.
Had Gay the slightest desire to speak the truth, then she would have explained that Israel is no more morally defensible right to exist than does a “State of the White People” (like the American Confederacy or the South African apartheid state) or a “State of the Master Race” like the Third Reich or a “State of the Muslim People” or a state of any specific ethnic/racial category to the exclusion of others who are also its citizens. This is an idea that LOTS of ordinary people without a Harvard diploma grasp very easily, and an idea that even a Harvard University president, although perhaps only with great effort, should be able to grasp, right?
Had Gay the slightest desire to speak the truth, then she could have explained that the just aim of abolishing the Jewish State, like the just aim of abolishing the Confederacy or the Third Reich or the South Africa Apartheid state does not mean killing all the people who live in it, obviously! Ordinary people understand this distinction. Is President Gay unable to do so?
Does President Gay think that the Union was aiming to kill all the people who lived south of the Mason-Dixon line, and the aim of anti-Nazis was to kill all the Germans, or the anti-apartheid people wanted to kill all the whites in South Africa? No? Then why does she act as if she thought there was some truth to the Zionist propaganda that says anti-Zionists want to “eradicate” all the Jews living in Israel? President Gay, if she had any desire to speak the truth, would have exposed how false is this Zionist propaganda.
“the suspension of students involved in the HBS confrontation [that was an anti-Zionism ‘die in’ at the Harvard Business School—J.S.] and disciplinary actions taken towards students chanting ‘eliminationist’ statements, specifically referencing the phrase ‘from the river to the sea.’”
President Gay could, of course, have decided to explain that the Big $ pro-Israel individuals ARE ANTISEMITES because they support the Israeli government’s attack on ordinary Jews that Zionist leaders have been waging since the days of the Holocaust, as one can (and should!) read about here (for the days of the Holocaust) and here (for recent days.)
But no! President Gay (Veritas, remember), chose to remain silent about the truth and instead (with her “the eradication of Jews from Israel” reference) to promote the Zionist “push all the Jews into the sea, dead or alive” lie that David Ben-Gurion invented back in 1961 to terrify ordinary Jews into obedience to their upper class oppressive Zionist rulers.
The Cowardice
None the Zionist lies about “From the River to the Sea” would have any traction if it were not for the fact that anti-Zionist leaders totally accept, rather than refute, the Zionist lie that says the conflict is one between “the Palestinians versus the Jews.” The truth (explained and proven in great detail here) is that the conflict is between the have-nots (both Palestinian and Jewish) and the haves who oppress them (both the billionaire ruling class of Israel and the Palestinian upper class rulers in the Palestine Authority and Hamas.)
But the anti-Zionist leaders never express this truth, i.e., the CLASS nature of the conflict. As a result, they tell their anti-Zionist followers to do things that emphasize the false (Palestinians versus Jews) framework, a framework that makes any support for the Palestinian have-nots equate to hostility to the Jewish have-nots, and vice versa. Thus these anti-Zionist mis-leaders tell their followers to wave the Palestinian flag and chant “Palestine will be free from the River to the Sea” (with no explanation of what that means) and NEVER to express any support for the Israeli Jewish working class people who are severely economically oppressed by the Israeli billionaire class that gets away with it ONLY by using the Palestinian bogeyman enemy that it creates by treating the Palestinians like dirt. Read all about this here and here.
Here’s how the Zionists persuade people that ant-Zionists are antisemitic. The Zionists assert the lie that Zionist violence against Palestinians is for one single noble purpose: to make Israeli Jews safe. And therefore, when anti-Zionists oppose this Zionist violence they are opposing that which is done to make Jews safe, which is antisemitic in EFFECT if not intent.
The anti-Zionists could easily refute the Zionist lie by talking about CLASS, about how the Israeli ruling billionaire class oppresses ordinary Israeli Jews and funds Hamas for that purpose, and does not whatsoever make them safe. But anti-Zionist leaders never talk about class; instead they only about “The Palestinians versus the Jews” and they never talk about the anti-working-class PURPOSE of Zionist violence against Palestinians—to create the bogeyman enemy it uses to control and oppress the Israeli Jewish working class.
As a result, anti-Zionists are today a SITTING DUCK for the accusation that they are antisemitic. For some reason, anti-Zionist leaders are AFRAID to talk about class. This is a cowardice problem, and it is crippling the anti-Zionism movement.
If anti-Zionists on college campuses organized teach-ins (like the Vietnam war teach-ins of the 60s) to educate student about how Zionist leaders are the enemy of BOTH ordinary Palestinians AND ordinary Israeli Jews, then they would be building a truly massive anti-Zionism movement consisting of people who were formerly pro-Israel, including LOTS of Jews who were formerly passionately pro-Israel. It is the cowardice of our anti-Zionism leaders that is preventing this from happening. (Or maybe it’s something more sinister than cowardice, as I discuss here.)
*
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***
Nov.10, 2023 – Coal City, IL – 35 year old Chris Hardin was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma in June 2023 that rapidly progressed to Stage 4, didn’t respond to radiation or immunotherapy and became Stage 4 with tumor “growing on his spine, pressing on the vertebrae and crushing it while also wrapping around nerves”
Nov.1, 2023 – 33 year old Etai David Gamliel was diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma in late June 2023. It did not respond to radiation or immunotherapy. Cancer spread to spinal cord, taking away his ability to walk, then further up his spine until it took away his ability to breathe.
Oct.25, 2023 – Brazil, IN – 28 year old Wesley Miller was going to have some cysts removed from his arm and abdomen. Instead, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma with lesions in the brain, lungs, liver and bones.
Oct.8, 2023 – Long Beach, CA – 32 year old Randi Young was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma Sep.21, 2023. She died 2 weeks later on Oct.8, 2023.
Oct.3, 2023 – Holiday, FL – 34 year old Joshua Gonzalez was diagnosed with melanoma on his back in July 2022, however it returned in Oct.2023 and is now Stage 4.
Aug.30, 2023 – San Clemente, CA – 22 year old Hailey Pressnell was finishing her Master’s Degree when she was diagnosed with Stage 3B melanoma. “cancer had already begun to spread”
Aug.11, 2023 – Weedsport, NY – 23 year old Mya Maloof got Stage 4 Melanoma while studying at Nazareth University. When she finished her Masters in Speech Pathology in May, she found out her cancer had spread. She died on Aug.11, 2023 at the age of 23. Her 43 year old mom also has Stage 4 Cancer.
Aug.3, 2023 – Boonville, IN – 26 year old Joshua Schmett was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma in Feb.2023. Despite treatment, it has spread to the lungs and is now Stage 4.
July 24, 2023 – Louisville, CO – 26 year old Caleb Chastain died after a battle with aggressive melanoma. He was a University athlete, sprinter, hurdler, track & field and was an avid skier, hunter, fisherman, mountain biker, trail runner, ultramarathoner, and mountain climber.
July 21, 2023 – Lakeland, FL – 35 year old Robbi Stokes is a US Marine who does manatee and scuba diving tours in Florida. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma with a tumor between his pancreas and liver, and a spot on his lung.
July 6, 2023 – Germany – 23 year old German handball world champion Liv Suchting was diagnosed with brain tumors which turned out to be Stage 4 Melanoma.
June 29, 2023 – Chilliwack, BC – 22 year old Kaylee Engle was diagnosed with lesions all over her body, in her lungs, liver, heart and brain. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma
June 13, 2023 – Ham Lake, MN – 28 year old Kaylah Eliabeth Stadler-Foss had melanoma when she was 22 but was in remission. She completed nursing school in Spring 2022. Her melanoma returned in April 2023 and spread to the brain. After a “fierce 10 week battle” she died June 13, 2023.
May 28, 2023 – Ludowici, GA – 25 year old Savannah Dollins was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma during pregnancy that had spread to her breast, lung, liver and other places.
May 4, 2023 – Blue Earth, MN – 32 year old Jon Trasamar is a professional golfer on the PGA Tour, who was diagnosed with Melanoma which quickly advanced to Stage 4
April 24, 2023 – Edmonton, AB – 32 year old David Kos was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma in Dec.2022 after experiencing back pain.
April 13, 2023 – Lithia Springs, GA – 28 year old Peyton Wooten was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma on Mar.2, 2023. He had one cycle of immunotherapy but cancer was rapidly moving from his lymph nodes to lungs, liver, kidneys, bones and soft tissues. He died 5 weeks after diagnosis on April 13, 2023
Mar.16, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – 34 year old Lindsay Stacy fought a 3 year battle with melanoma. However, over the last year, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 while pregnant with her daughter. It sounds like an aggressive recurrence.
Jan.5, 2023 – Suffern, NY – 24 year old Bryonna J Chapman was admitted to the hospital in July 2022 at 34 weeks pregnant because they found a 10cm mass collapsing one of her lungs. She was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, meaning it had metastasized all over her body, including to her placenta and possibly to the baby. She had a very dangerous C-section. She passed away Jan.5, 2023.
Dec, 2022 – San Marcos, TX – 25 year old Jacob Ricks was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma in his jaw (very rare tumor)
My Take…
Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines cause “Turbo Cancers”: extremely aggressive cancers that present at late Stage, grow rapidly, spread aggressively, are resistant to conventional treatments, and have a very poor prognosis with diagnosis to death typically 6 to 12 months or less.
First research papers are now starting to mention “Turbo Cancer” and are suggesting potential mechanisms. I will write a substack on this in the near future.
The 5 most common Turbo Cancers are: lymphoma, brain (glioblastoma), breast (usually triple negative), colon and lung.
Rounding out the top 10 would include: leukemias, melanomas, sarcomas, testicular and renal cell.
Special mention to hepatobiliary cancers, ovarian and cervical.
How do we know melanomas have skyrocketed since the vaccines rolled out?
UK government Disability Data shows 72% increase in disabilities due to skin cancer in 2022 (source):
The only category with a higher increase in this dataset, was “unknown primary”.
New advancements in immunotherapy have significantly improved the long term prognosis of metastatic melanoma (source 2020 Michielin et al):
However, Turbo Cancer melanomas don’t seem to respond at all to these Immunotherapy or Targeted Therapy treatments.
We need urgent research in this area as patients are not offered anything of value by their Oncologists.
Nov. 10, 2023 – Coal City, IL – 35 year old Chris Hardin was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma in June 2023 that rapidly progressed to Stage 4, didn’t respond to radiation or immunotherapy and became Stage 4 with tumor “growing on his spine, pressing on the vertebrae and crushing it while also wrapping around nerves.”
Nov. 1, 2023 – 33 year old Etai David Gamliel was diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma in late June 2023. It did not respond to radiation or immunotherapy. Cancer spread to spinal cord, taking away his ability to walk, then further up his spine until it took away his ability to breathe.
Oct. 25, 2023 – Brazil, IN – 28 year old Wesley Miller was going to have some cysts removed from his arm and abdomen. Instead, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma with lesions in the brain, lungs, liver and bones.
Oct. 8, 2023 – Long Beach, CA – 32 year old Randi Young was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma Sep.21, 2023. She died 2 weeks later on Oct. 8, 2023.
Oct. 3, 2023 – Holiday, FL – 34 year old Joshua Gonzalez was diagnosed with melanoma on his back in July 2022, however it returned in Oct.2023 and is now Stage 4.
Aug. 30, 2023 – San Clemente, CA – 22 year old Hailey Pressnell was finishing her Master’s Degree when she was diagnosed with Stage 3B melanoma. “cancer had already begun to spread”
Aug. 11, 2023 – Weedsport, NY – 23 year old Mya Maloof got Stage 4 Melanoma while studying at Nazareth University. When she finished her Masters in Speech Pathology in May, she found out her cancer had spread. She died on Aug. 11, 2023 at the age of 23. Her 43 year old mom also has Stage 4 Cancer.
Aug. 3, 2023 – Boonville, IN – 26 year old Joshua Schmett was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma in Feb.2023. Despite treatment, it has spread to the lungs and is now Stage 4.
July 24, 2023 – Louisville, CO – 26 year old Caleb Chastain died after a battle with aggressive melanoma. He was a University athlete, sprinter, hurdler, track & field and was an avid skier, hunter, fisherman, mountain biker, trail runner, ultramarathoner, and mountain climber.
July 21, 2023 – Lakeland, FL – 35 year old Robbi Stokes is a US Marine who does manatee and scuba diving tours in Florida. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma with a tumor between his pancreas and liver, and a spot on his lung.
July 6, 2023 – Germany – 23 year old German handball world champion Liv Suchting was diagnosed with brain tumors which turned out to be Stage 4 Melanoma.
June 29, 2023 – Chilliwack, BC – 22 year old Kaylee Engle was diagnosed with lesions all over her body, in her lungs, liver, heart and brain. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma
June 13, 2023 – Ham Lake, MN – 28 year old Kaylah Eliabeth Stadler-Foss had melanoma when she was 22 but was in remission. She completed nursing school in Spring 2022. Her melanoma returned in April 2023 and spread to the brain. After a “fierce 10 week battle” she died June 13, 2023.
May 28, 2023 – Ludowici, GA – 25 year old Savannah Dollins was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma during pregnancy that had spread to her breast, lung, liver and other places.
May 4, 2023 – Blue Earth, MN – 32 year old Jon Trasamar is a professional golfer on the PGA Tour, who was diagnosed with Melanoma which quickly advanced to Stage 4.
April 24, 2023 – Edmonton, AB – 32 year old David Kos was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma in Dec.2022 after experiencing back pain.
April 13, 2023 – Lithia Springs, GA – 28 year old Peyton Wooten was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma on Mar. 2, 2023. He had one cycle of immunotherapy but cancer was rapidly moving from his lymph nodes to lungs, liver, kidneys, bones and soft tissues. He died 5 weeks after diagnosis on April 13, 2023
Mar. 16, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – 34 year old Lindsay Stacy fought a 3 year battle with melanoma. However, over the last year, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 while pregnant with her daughter. It sounds like an aggressive recurrence.
Jan. 5, 2023 – Suffern, NY – 24 year old Bryonna J Chapman was admitted to the hospital in July 2022 at 34 weeks pregnant because they found a 10cm mass collapsing one of her lungs. She was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, meaning it had metastasized all over her body, including to her placenta and possibly to the baby. She had a very dangerous C-section. She passed away Jan. 5, 2023.
Dec, 2022 – San Marcos, TX – 25 year old Jacob Ricks was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma in his jaw (very rare tumor).
My Take…
Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines cause “Turbo Cancers”: extremely aggressive cancers that present at late Stage, grow rapidly, spread aggressively, are resistant to conventional treatments, and have a very poor prognosis with diagnosis to death typically 6 to 12 months or less.
First research papers are now starting to mention “Turbo Cancer” and are suggesting potential mechanisms. I will write a substack on this in the near future.
The 5 most common Turbo Cancers are: lymphoma, brain (glioblastoma), breast (usually triple negative), colon and lung.
Rounding out the top 10 would include: leukemias, melanomas, sarcomas, testicular and renal cell.
Special mention to hepatobiliary cancers, ovarian and cervical.
How do we know melanomas have skyrocketed since the vaccines rolled out?
UK government Disability Data shows 72% increase in disabilities due to skin cancer in 2022 (source):
The only category with a higher increase in this dataset, was “unknown primary”.
New advancements in immunotherapy have significantly improved the long term prognosis of metastatic melanoma (source 2020 Michielin et al):
However, Turbo Cancer melanomas don’t seem to respond at all to these Immunotherapy or Targeted Therapy treatments.
We need urgent research in this area as patients are not offered anything of value by their Oncologists.
End stage Melanoma patients should be offered:
High Dose Ivermectin protocols
High Dose Fenbendazole or Mebendazole protocols
High Dose Melatonin protocols
Because Turbo Cancer mortality is rising!
*
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from COVID Intel
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
A Ucrânia continua a cometer graves crimes de guerra e a violar os limites do território não militarizado russo. De acordo com imagens recentemente partilhadas pelas autoridades russas, drones ucranianos invadiram a região de Kursk e lançaram bombas coletivas contra a população local. O caso mostra claramente o desespero dos militares ucranianos em realizar operações que não têm valor estratégico, que podem ser consideradas atos de mero terrorismo.
Roman Starovoyt, governador do oblast de Kursk, relatou em 9 de novembro a incursão de um veículo aéreo não tripulado (UAV) ucraniano na região russa. O drone disparou diversas bombas de fragmentação na cidade de Sudzha, numa zona civil e industrial, sem qualquer relevância militar. O ataque ocorreu perto de uma fábrica de manteiga e colocou em risco a vida de cidadãos comuns e trabalhadores, mas felizmente não houve vítimas. As autoridades russas afirmaram que pelo menos uma das bombas lançadas pelo drone não explodiu, razão pela qual existe agora uma investigação sobre onde o projétil poderá ter se aterrado.
Como é sabido, as bombas de fragmentação são proibidas pelo direito internacional porque têm um elevado impacto humanitário quando utilizadas no campo de batalha. Por se fragmentarem no ar, essas bombas dispersam centenas de pequenos projéteis, gerando um grande número de vítimas. O pior, porém, é que nem todas as “minibombas” explodem durante os ataques. Muitos projéteis caem no chão e ficam sem detonar por meses ou até anos, funcionando como verdadeiras minas – sendo acionados quando tocados involuntariamente por um civil.
Embora proibidas, estas armas já se tornaram comuns entre as tropas ucranianas. Os EUA e o Reino Unido estão a enviar este equipamento para Kiev, possibilitando vários crimes de guerra. Muitos civis russos já morreram em consequência de ataques com bombas de fragmentação. Por exemplo, o jornalista Rostislav Zhuravlev, correspondente de guerra da RIA Novosti, foi assassinado em Julho num ataque aéreo ucraniano com bombas de fragmentação fornecidas pelos EUA.
Além disso, a Ucrânia já utilizou essas armas em diversas outras ocasiões. O país tem sido inclusive investigado por ativistas de direitos humanos e organizações internacionais devido ao uso constante de armas proibidas, o que tem causado diversas vítimas civis, incluindo mulheres e idosos. Em março foi publicado pela ONU um relatório sobre o tema, onde é possível ler:
“A Comissão encontrou casos em que as forças armadas ucranianas provavelmente usaram munições cluster e minas terrestres antipessoal lançadas por foguetes para realizar ataques na cidade de Izium, região de Kharkiv, de março a setembro de 2022 (…) Os três exemplos a seguir ilustram o uso de armas que apresentam as características das munições cluster da cidade de Izium naquele período. Em 9 de maio de 2022, um ataque atingiu uma área residencial, matando três pessoas e ferindo seis. No dia 14 de julho de 2022, um ataque atingiu a área em torno do mercado central, ferindo duas mulheres idosas. No dia 16 de julho de 2022, várias submunições atingiram uma área residencial, incluindo um jardim de infância, onde cerca de 250 pessoas procuraram abrigo, matando dois idosos”.
Na mesma linha, em julho a Human Rights Watch publicou um texto chamado “Ukraine: Civilian Deaths from Cluster Munitions”, que diz:
“As forças ucranianas usaram munições cluster que causaram inúmeras mortes e ferimentos graves a civis, disse hoje a Human Rights Watch (…) Uma nova pesquisa da Human Rights Watch descobriu que ataques de foguetes com munições cluster ucranianas em áreas controladas pela Rússia dentro e ao redor da cidade de Izium, no leste da Ucrânia, durante 2022, causou muitas vítimas entre civis ucranianos”.
É também importante sublinhar que a área afetada pelo último ataque em Kursk está localizada a aproximadamente 10 km da fronteira com a Ucrânia. Não existem instalações militares russas próximas do local do ataque, razão pela qual não é possível afirmar que se tratou de um “erro” na rota do UAV. Houve de fato uma intenção ucraniana de realizar tal ataque e matar civis em Kursk. Na prática, isto mostra que Kiev está disposta a aumentar ainda mais os seus atos de terrorismo e violência contra civis.
Prevê-se que o terrorismo ucraniano se expanda ainda mais nos próximos meses. Com o fracasso da “contra-ofensiva” e a diminuição significativa da ajuda militar ocidental, Kiev não tem muitos recursos para continuar a utilizar no campo de batalha. O correto seria que o regime se rendesse e aceitasse os termos de paz russos, mas a OTAN não permite isso e obriga os ucranianos a continuarem a travar uma guerra invencível. Assim, as forças neonazistas recorrem ao terrorismo como forma de tentar “perturbar” os russos.
O problema é que esta “estratégia” pode ser uma armadilha para a própria Ucrânia. O uso de munições cluster em território indiscutível da Federação Russa é uma perigosa linha vermelha. Se Kiev continuar a usar essas armas fora da zona de conflito e conseguir matar civis russos em cidades desmilitarizadas, é provável que Moscou lance uma grande operação de retaliação. E, como é bem sabido, a Ucrânia não tem atualmente poder suficiente para enfrentar qualquer grande escalada, uma vez que as suas tropas estão perto do colapso absoluto.
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Israel is a plan that has been brewing and preparing for more than hundred years. Some people would even go back to the Old Testament where the term “The Chosen People” was coined. The Plan Israel is an Anglo-American Colonial project. Netanyahu is just the latest “executioner” of the Plan.
Zionists feel they are “the Chosen People”.
For this analysis and to avoid any confusion, the term Zionist also refers to Zionist Evangelical Christians as well as to some types of conservative and Orthodox Jews but foremost to Western politicians who – Jewish or not – support the Zionist concept of a “Greater Israel” and of annihilating all that may be in the way of achieving this idea.
In an Apartheid regime anybody not Jewish, not Zionist, must be ethnically cleansed, resembling much to the Holocaust concept of WWII.
Netanyahu and his entourage are perfect flag-carriers for this view. In practice, it means genocide and slaughtering of Palestinians, and by extension, wiping the entire Palestine off the map.
By day 33 of the genocide drive, November 9, 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed way more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and possibly close to 5,000 children — a true massacre. Since Gaza is largely cordoned off, much of the casualty data comes from Israeli sources – and may be way underreported. Actual figures are likely much higher.
Most of us, of the real world, not covered by the mainstream are speechless as Western politicians, criminals and cowards, look on in full tolerance of mass murder. See this and this.
It gets even worse. Last Sunday, Israel’s Jerusalem and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said in a radio interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, is “an option.” Netanyahu distanced himself from the statement and suspended the minister. For more details, see this.
For how many bloodthirsty hate-mongering Zionists this statement speaks from their “guts” because hearts they don’t have?
And more of IDF atrocities – destroying hospitals’ last sources of energy, their solar panels. Can these murderers, Netanyahu and his ilk, and the Biden’s, Sunak’s, von der Leyen’s, Scholz’s, et al, of this world still be called humans?
Nuremberg 2.0 must come, maybe in an updated format à la 21st century with digital punishment. No questions, no answers, but judgment.
As long as these obscure political monsters cheer the killings, Netanyahu will not call off the IDF and accept a ceasefire. Peace negotiations are not part of the agenda for Greater Israel.
Be it noted though that there are many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel and around the world, who do not agree with this murderous onslaught demonstrated by their Israeli leadership against Gaza. Thousands of them protested over the past weekend in Jerusalem and capital cities around the world, against Netanyahu’s merciless war policies.
Jews demanding for ceasefire in The Capitol (Source: Democracy Now!)
Maybe Zionists are already ruling the world, especially the Western world, without most people realizing it. Next step – “planned” only – is taking over also the East and then call it a One World Order (OWO) of One World Government (OWG). And the Zionists pull the strings. Quietly, discretely, invisibly.
Looking closer, much of the world ruling is already in Zionist domain. The United States, still one of the world’s foremost military and economic powers, is totally beholden to the Zionist narrative. The European Union (EU), at least the head of and the European Commission, as well as key EU members like Germany, France, Italy and more, are mere doormats for the Zionists’ ever more grandiose ambitions.
No wonder: the Crown of Great Britain revels in admiration of the Zionist Plan – a plan crafted by the very UK with support of the US and the US-controlled United Nations.
The Western banking system, anchored in the Dragon-protected “City of London”, in other words, the Western monetary flow, and to the extent of remaining dollarization of the East, that of Asia and Eastern countries, is controlled by Zionist banking royals.
Zionist power extends to Hollywood, the worldwide communication and information system – the “official” media – higher, elite-education (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and most Ivy League universities), the Information Technology (IT) complex, social-media networks; medical / health science, including the pharma industry; and even the arts are predominantly in the realm of Jews and Zionists and much more.
And, not to forget – psychology, mind control, social engineering — moving the masses in the direction wanted by the matrix, but against the interests of the people, in ways, the people stay oblivious to their manipulation and manipulators – are all controlled by the Zionist Movement.
The Federal Reserve (FED), also called the US Central Bank, is privately-owned by bankers who are almost exclusively Zionists. Of all the so-called hard currencies flooding the world, the US-Dollar dominates close to 60% of all liquidity. He who controls this liquidity – plus largely that of the Euro, an estimated 10% – controls the world.
Compare this with barely 5% of total circulating liquidity of the Chinese Yuan, the currency of the world’s second largest economy, or, depending on the criteria even the world’s largest economy.
Banking and money alone tell you who is in control of the Western money-enslaved world. Although de-dollarization is in full swing, counter-currents and resistance are strong – but not yet strong enough to halt the trend of breaking free.
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Albert Einstein’s Predictions
In his TV Show of 5 November, Jimmy Dore revealed a 1948 letter by Albert Einstein to Mr. Shepard Rifkin, Executive Director, American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, in New York.
On April 10, 1948, just a month before the official creation of Israel, 14 May 1948, by David Ben-Gurion, Einstein warned Rifkin – and the world – of a looming catastrophe in Palestine.
He said in his letter, if such a catastrophe should happen, the first responsible would be the Brits for proposing and sponsoring the establishment of Israel in Palestine, referring to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and the second responsible would be the “terrorist organizations built up from our own ranks.” He was no doubt referring to the World Zionist Movement.
Einstein finished his letter by exclaiming, “I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.”
Before the actual creation of Israel, Einstein’s foresight told him the criminal nature of the Zionists.
See full video clip (3-min) of the November 2, 2023 Jimmy Dore Show.
Did Einstein foresee, or sense, Palestine becoming Israel’s killing fields, from 1948 forward, to explode in a worldwide tolerated, even supported, and encouraged democide / genocide, just three-quarters of a century after the birth of Israel?
Does Netanyahu, his entourage – and the West – realize that the 75 years of Apartheid, of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and of wiping the Gaza Strip and eventually all the Palestinian land off the map is comparable to, or worse than the “Holocaust”?
In a letter on 4 December 1948 to the Editor of the New York Times (NYT), Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sydney Hook, et al, wrote –
“Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.”
“The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States.” See this for more.
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Einstein was well-aware of the establishment in 1897 of the World Zionist Movement in a Conference held in Switzerland. This Movement is what he most likely referred to in his letter to Shepard Rifkin when Einstein called the movement, those misled and criminal people.
For the Zionists, Palestine was the homeland of the Jews – from 3,000 years back, although even then, Palestine was only sparsely populated by people of the Jewish faith. They lived then peacefully together with the Arabs. Only some 1,500 years later, Islam was created (in 610 AD). And they still lived peacefully together for another 1,500 years.
The Jewish, alias Zionist, vs. Arab conflict started about 75 years ago, with the creation of Israel and the ensuing Nakba (Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war).
From that date on, the Zionist Israelis made sure that the sponsors of their country and the sponsors extended fists and boots – and firepower – across the shining Atlantic would always be on their side. No matter what. They had the supremacy. They were given the power by the United Nations which acted with the powers of the British and the American Empires.
And – not to forget – the Zionists controlled then and even more so today, most of the world’s monetary flow, and the financial and banking institutions emitting the money in circulation.
Some prominent politicians and historians dare to speak out and in defense of Palestine. One of them is Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, speaking at the Global Solidarity and Rally Free Palestine in London on 4 November 2023.
Dr. Mahatir reminded the world of what most Westerners, particularly Europeans, wish to forget – their 500-plus years of imperialism-colonialism. Israel is a mere product of this historic tyrannical western train of thinking. Listen to and watch Dr. Mahatir’s superb 8-min speech below.
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What is next?
We can only imagine where the west wants Israel to go – for the Western elite’s own sake. Zionists and the West live in a symbiotic relationship.
The West tends to supports Israel’s long war towards fulfillment of the dream of the Chosen People, a Greater Israel – one that would encompass at least half the Middle East, including Jordan, parts of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and more – see map (right).
These are the countries with the most hydrocarbon energy reserves, other than Russia, which the West and especially its elite covets to fulfill their wishful dream, a One World Order, alias a One World Government, run by a neo-capitalist scheme for profits of the wealthy.
These western so-called leaders know very well that for the foreseeable future hydrocarbon will be THE source of energy that fuels the world’s economy. No matter what they officially say and lie about the man-caused CO2 “climate change” – a farce — they need hydrocarbons for the world’s survival.
Today, about 85% of all energy used in the world stems from hydrocarbons, about the same as 30 years ago, when the farce was launched with the “Earth Summit” in Rio in 1992.
Their lies and mind manipulations are enhanced with the many different COPs (Conference of the Parties), so far 27 COPs were held since the “Earth Summit”, the last one in Egypt in November 2022. The next one, COP 28, is scheduled for December 12, 2023 in Dubai.
So, most common people, including many scientists, believe in this humongous deception. Especially those “scientists” who believe in the 24/7/52 hot media propaganda, instead of doing their own research.
The climate hoax officially started with the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or ‘Earth Summit’. However, preparation for this enormous Climate Deception began already much earlier with the Club of Rome – reflected in the Club’s infamous Report “Limits to Growth” (1972) which seeks any means to reduce the world population by close to 90% according to their wishful thinking. “Climate Change” is an excellent tool for their objective. See this.
Protection from fake “climate change” allows for a myriad of genocidal atrocities, like targeted geoengineering of the climate, causing droughts, exceptionally strong and destructive hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, glacier- and Arctic and Antarctic ice-melting, resulting in famine, poverty, and death, as well as the make-believe birth of “deadly viruses” against which the world must be vaxxed with potions of deadly biochemical mixes, or bio-weapons.
Fake “climate change” is also at the roots of wanton destruction of Western economies, by condemning the use of hydrocarbons because of CO2 that is pretended to increase the earth’s temperature, forcing leading economies to decline – maybe collapse; see Germany.
Israel – in her extended format – fits exactly in the picture. A larger Israel encompassing the Middle East’s energy resources is precisely what the Western elite needs.
The dark planners, the cabal, the Financial-Military-IT-Media-Pharma complex, controlled mostly by Zionists, who are also running the Great Reset / Agenda 2030-executing institutions and NGOs – the United Nations, the World Economic Forum (WEF), World Health Organization (WHO), the Governments of the US, UK and the European Union (EU) – have crafted a perfect symbiotic interdependence between the Zionists’ dream of a Greater Israel and the Western elite’s need for the resources controlled by the planned Greater Israel.
Palestine, as Israel’s killing fields, is a mere step towards a larger diabolical plan of a tyrannical One World Government.
Only if we allow it.
We MUST resist.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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Israel used white phosphorus on UNRWA schools in the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City on Thursday. Thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltered at the UN site.
Although the use of white phosphorus is not completely banned, it is restricted under international humanitarian law.
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Video shows the moment a Palestinian woman and her husband were arrested in Israel on terrorism charges over her WhatsApp status.
She’s one of many Palestinian citizens of Israel who’ve been arrested, suspended or expelled from jobs and universities, since October 7.
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been moving south from northern Gaza.
They are fleeing on foot carrying whatever they can.
But as Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports, many fear they will never be able to return to their homes.
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On October 7, Israel was attacked by Hamas, an armed Palestinian resistance group inside Gaza. The group killed 1,405 people, and kidnapped over 200 in Israel.
US President Donald Trump said that the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated a terrorist organization in the US, and Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, brought two bills to the Senate, but he did not have support because of the Democrats under pressure from President Joe Biden. Why would the US fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, while supporting a global terrorist network?
The answer is, that the US uses terrorist groups when it is in their interest. Military experts explain that you need fighters for a war, and if you can’t get a Congressional order to send US troops to a battlefield, then you use what assets you have on the ground.
The US utilized the Muslim Brotherhood fighters in Syria, and partnered with the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to rig the election which brought Mohamed Mursi to power. This is why the US will never outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood in the US; because they are useful.
However, in Gaza the Muslim Brotherhood are not useful to US-Israeli interests, so they must be eradicated.
Syria Regime Change
US President Barack Obama developed and engineered a plan for regime change in Syria. The plan was put into motion in March 2011 when armed men, masquerading as peaceful protesters, began a gun fight with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in Deraa. The Al Omari Mosque in Deraa was used as a weapons storehouse by militants who has smuggled arms from the US military base in Jordan. The US military had excess weapons confiscated in the US-NATO attack on Libya, which had been allocated to the terrorists in Syria by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Obama was sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and had ties to them, though he was not a member. The closest assistant to Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was Huma Abedin, who was from a family with high-ranking ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and former veteran of the Vietnam war, became the biggest supporter of the FSA, and lobbied Congress successfully for the armed group to receive additional weapons including anti-tank missiles, TOW.
McCain became so enamored of the FSA, he made an illegal trip into Idlib, Syria to meet with their general, Selim Idriss, and to sit with their commanders. McCain came under fire once his travel photos were posted by his office online, because one of the men he posed with was identified by kidnap victims as their captor in a highly publicized case when the FSA had kidnapped a large bus load of travelers on a religious pilgrimage.
McCain’s illegal trip to Syria flew in the face of McCain’s anger at Mexican migrants illegally crossing the border into America. McCain entered Syria illegally, without any visa, exactly mirroring the Mexican migrants.
The US military advisors had warned that the weapons the US was sending to the FSA in Syria could potentially end up in the hands of Al Qaeda. That is exactly what happened. The FSA proved to be a very weak, and ineffective fighting force against the SAA, which was a national army conscripted from every male over 18 in Syria who is not enrolled in a university.
The FSA lost battle after battle, until they put out a call to their brothers-in-arms, Al Qaeda, who immediately came pouring in the country from Turkey, which was a transit point for international terrorists on their way to fight jihad in Syria.
Obama was faced with a dilemma once his FSA had morphed into Al Qaeda. How could he continue to support them through Congressional approval? He got around that predicament by continuing to call them FSA, even though that group no longer existed.
Idlib under the Muslim Brotherhood
The final ‘rebel’ held territory in Syria is Idlib, a small province sandwiched between Latakia and Aleppo, and whose only resource is olive trees and agriculture. But, it sits strategically on the Turkish border, and Turkey continues to support and defend the terrorists in Idlib. Turkey is ruled by President Erdogan of the AKP party, and they are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Idlib is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, under the command of Mohamed al-Julani, who is a Syrian that fought against the US in Iraq with Al Qaeda, and an associate of ISIS leader Mustapha Baghdadi. The plan was for Julani to leave Iraq, go to Syria and set up an ISIS branch there, but instead Julani set up his own terrorist group in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, which became the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Their extreme brutal tactics in Syria against civilians got them listed as an outlawed terrorist group, and this created a dilemma for the US. How could they continue to fund and support a terrorist group? The Obama administration simply re-branded the group as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. A simple name change kept the funding, defense and support for the terrorists flowing from Washington, DC through their ally Turkey.
Every humanitarian truck passing from Turkey to Idlib is unloaded, warehoused and distributed by the terrorists. Julani built a large and modern shopping center, Al Hamra, in Idlib which sells the excess humanitarian aid from the UN and other international aid organizations which was withheld from civilians because they are not aligned with Julani and his terrorist group. If you complain about the fact Julani and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham refuse to allow women and girls to participate in education programs offered by international aid groups, you will be off the list of receiving aid, and be forced to buy the basic items you need with US dollars.
Julani became a star when he took off his war clothes, and wore an Italian silk suit and tie. The occasion was a high-level American media interview, in which Washington was trying to sell the western audience on supporting Julani, while he held 3 million civilians in Idlib as human shields.
The world is watching Gaza, and the contrasts between Gaza and Idlib are striking. In Gaza the US has an aircraft carrier and war ships offshore to support the Israeli Defense Forces, and in Idlib the Biden Administration is supporting the terrorists who hold 3 million civilians hostage.
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We are all shocked by the images of genocide suffered by the people of Gaza. Despite attempts to censor the truth about Israeli crimes, that truth breaks through to Western public opinion, arousing spontaneous opposition what we have seen in the last couple weeks on the street all over the world,but I remember very similar crimes that I saw with my own eyes nine years ago.
How the War in Ukraine Has Started
In May 2014, as a Polish journalist, I observed the presidential elections in Ukraine. I also went to Donetsk to see the first manifestations of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas, which, immediately after the pro-Western coup, was deprived of the right to use the Russian language in offices, schools and all social life.Just after the election day, I was at the railway station in Donetsk, observing the daily bustle. There were no protests that day, just crowds of people got off the trains to get to work. Then Ukrainian helicopters arrived. Without any warning, without any summons, Ukrainian soldiers started shooting at people in the streets, had fun flying low, chasing people away from the buildings they wanted to hide in. They fired rockets onto the rails, aiming at trains that were hastily trying to leave the station with panic crowds on boards.
With my own eyes, I saw the dead bodies of women, children, and workers who did not attend the schools, didn’t go to the factories that day, did not start their shift in the mines, and did not return home. Throughout the day there was chaos in Donetsk, with bodies lying everywhere, there was not enough space in hospitals, and Ukrainian troops and Nazi militias attacked Russian speakers throughout Donbas. In the evening, we listened to the speech of the newly elected President Petro Poroshenko, who announced the launch of the “Special Anti-Terrorist Operation”.
Nazi Ukrainian State
Image: Stepan Bandera (Source: Silent Crow News)
Sounds familiar, isn’t it?Donetsk then looked like Gaza today.
The war in Ukraine, which many people in the West heard about only in 2022, has been going on since 2014. And that’s not all. And the genocide of the Russian-speaking minority has been ongoing since 2014 too. On 3rd May in Odessa the unforgettable smell of burnt human bodies hung over the city. The day before, Nazi militias burned alive 42 residents of this wonderful, open, multicultural city. Odessa is the pearl of the Black Sea. Its inhabitants speak their own unique version of the Russian language and are known for their own regional identity and independence.
That was enough for the oligarchs to pay Nazis and hooligans to terrorise the internationalist capital of southern Ukraine. It is no coincidence that one of the first decisions of the new authorities, approved by the Western powers in Kiev after the coup in 2014, was the declining of the law on regional and minority languages…This mainly affected the Russian-speaking population of southern and eastern Ukraine. It was in fact declaration of war, a war against own citizens. Its next stages included an attack on the Orthodox Church. Nazi militias supported by the police occupied the main eastern temples, including the legendary Kiev Pechersk Lavra, attacked and beat believers, forcing them to join a new religious organisation founded by the state administration and worshiping Nazi criminals, such as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, as saints.
And it’s still not the end. In Zelensky’s Ukraine, the activity of independent trade unions is banned, workers’ rights are limited, employers, mainly oligarchs and Western capital, were given the right to lockout, and strikes are actually banned. Opposition political parties, socialist, communist and regional, are banned. Step by step, under the protection of the Anglo-Saxon powers, the Nazi state, the new Reich, is being built just next to the borders of the European Union!
75 Years of the Genocide in Palestine
And this is not a coincidence. Zelensky’s Ukraine is neither the first nor the only modern Nazi state. The Zionist, criminal experiment in Palestine has been going on for 75 years. 75 years of ethnic cleansing, 75 years of genocide, 75 years of permanent war.The ideological basis of the state of Israel was fascism, groups such as the Shtern Gang or Jabotinsky’s party of Zionist-Revisionists referred directly to fascism. It is no wonder that modern Zionism is a racist doctrine, based on apartheid and intolerance. Intolerance not only towards Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, but also towards Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, who oppose Zionism. Anti-Zionism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism is real anti-fascism today. We areanti-Zionists because we are anti-Nazism, because we are against the holocaust of the Palestinians.
Nazism and Zionism are two sides of the same coin. Ideologies of intolerance, which serve one goal: maximising the profits of global capital. This isn’t just killing for killing’s sake. The war in Ukraine, the war in Palestine, tomorrow maybe the war over Taiwan – these are the convulsions of global capitalism. On the one hand, they are opportunities to sell a huge number of weapons, and banks provide billions of subsidies to the regimes in Kiev and Tel Aviv, half of which probably immediately goes back to corrupt Anglo-Saxon politicians.
The UK delivered £2.3bn in military aid to Ukraine in 2022 and the Prime Minister has pledged to do the same in 2023, with further support to be delivered in the coming weeks and months. Is this money for war victims? For Ukrainian widows and orphans? Of course not, that money creates the profits of arms industry andincreases fortunes of Ukrainian oligarchs. The British government says it is providing humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. However, if Westminster had not supported the Zionist regime with its policy of ethnic cleansing, no aid would have been needed because Palestine would have been secure and sovereign, just as the United Nations promised the Palestinians in 1947.
Wars Mean Profit
Wars mean financial transfers, but war is also a great performance. This is a great opportunity for imperialists and capitalists to hide the symptoms of another great crisis. To evoke nationalistic emotions, to excite the masses with the smell of blood or to rename the perpetrators as the victims and find moral justification for further crimes.
110 years ago no one believed in the threat of world war, it seemed that the progress of humanity had completely eliminated this option, and conflicts could only occur in distant, wild countries in the colonies or in the Balkans. On the fields of Somme, and at Verdun our forefathers quickly saw how wrong they were.Perhaps in a few years the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East will be remembered as our grandparents saw the Spanish Civil War and Japanese aggression against China, as the early stages of a world war. If we do not clearly say NO today to Nazism in Ukraine, to Zionism in Palestine and to global capitalism, which sponsors both,another world war is only a matter of time.
During a world war no one thinks about the financial costs. Nobody cares about benefits. Nobody cares about the climate or the environment. Only capitalist accumulation matters. Rivers of blood are just flows of capitalists’ profits. While demanding peace in Ukraine and Palestine, we also support the peaceful transformation of the Nord/West, against the plutocracy and oligarchy that dominate this part of the globe.We should want a peace for Ukrainian, Russian, Palestinian and Israeli children because we want a better future for everyone.
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***
When humans embrace the dehumanization of others, we release our ugliest, most destructive selves. Dehumanization is a perverse force that propagates violence and justifies the lust for war and its atrocities.
On August 6, 1945, Sakue Shimohira was 10 years old when an atomic blast obliterated her home in Hiroshima, Japan, burning her mother into an unrecognizable block of ash. Afterward, the only feature that could identify her was a single gold tooth.
Sakue struggled to survive in Hiroshima’s post-apocalyptic, postwar landscape, while her older sister soon fell into despair and threw herself in front of a train. When the American soldiers of the occupying army arrived, Sakue remembered that they constructed an airstrip in front of the shack where she was living. “There were skeletons all over the area,” she said, “so when they built the airstrip, the bones were crushed into dust.”
The American soldiers handed out chewing gum and chocolate to orphans like her. Some of the Japanese children quickly learned how to say “hello” in English, but Sakue confronted the soldiers in her native Japanese. “Why?” she insisted. “Why did you kill my family? Why did they deserve to die?” She added, “Of course, they didn’t understand Japanese. They just smiled at me. ‘Give them back to me!’ I shouted.”
Recalling such memories so many decades later, Sakue’s face still reveals how that historically disastrous bombing blotted out her inner light. As she put it, “I carried this pain that I couldn’t talk about. Even today, I can’t say my sister’s name aloud. It hurts too much.”
Dehumanization and People Living Under the Mushroom Cloud
In recent years, I’ve traveled to Japan numerous times with university students to study the legacy of the first and only use of atomic weapons as World War II ended. In that way, my students and I became moral witnesses to the consequences of the terror for people under those mushroom clouds that shattered, incinerated, and flattened the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But in my own country, the United States, the continuing specter of nuclear catastrophe generally fails to pierce a commonplace apathy toward such weaponry. Instead, most Americans hold war’s ultimate horror at arm’s length, while rationalizing the way our country and so many others on this planet all too regularly lurch into such conflicts as the only right and just way to address human greed, tyranny, and fear.
Almost 80 years after those first atomic blasts, Americans have yet to seriously reckon with how easily we learned to rationalize such structural violence. Meanwhile, our country continues to pour endless money into the wasteful creation, stockpiling, maintenance, and now the “modernization” of those weapons of mass, even global, destruction. In his poignant diagnosis, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton concluded that we developed a deep “psychic numbing,” while becoming detached and morally disengaged from the growing possibility that such weaponry could, in the end, create a “nuclear winter” and destroy humanity.
In Japan, my students and I have had the distinct privilege of meeting atomic bomb survivors, or hibakusha as they are known there. One hibakusha, an elderly, somewhat stern man, told us that he was outside of the city of Nagasaki with his brother when the second bomb exploded. The two boys rushed into the city to search for their father and finally found his body near his workplace, burned (like Sakue’s mother) almost beyond recognition.
We listened as his testimony viscerally evoked that horror from so long ago as if it had only taken place days earlier. He remembered how, as a child, when he tried to prepare the body for burial, he touched his father’s head and the skull crumbled beneath his fingers, while parts of the brain oozed into his hands.
In those precious moments in Japan when my students and I heard the stories of hibakusha, we could also ask questions. “Do you hate Americans?” the students often asked. “What kind of assistance was there for you and other hibakusha in the terrible aftermath of months and years after the war?” And we would thank them for sharing their painful and invaluable stories with us, but it never felt like enough. So many of them have a single request: that we take their words back to the United States with us and share them with others here.
During our conversation with that elderly man in Nagasaki, one moment was particularly unforgettable. Despite the harsh struggle and war-time brutalization he endured as a child, the elder we now experienced was a soul of deep reflection and humane philosophical searching. During the question-and-answer period following his testimony, he told us about his life-long struggle to understand what had happened to him and why. He mentioned a book that helped him better grasp how the world arrived at such a place of inhumanity and violence, historian John Dower’s award-winning history, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
“I know that book!” I blurted out. He stared at me, and I stared back. Dower’s history had also deeply impacted my life and thought, so I felt a sudden powerful connection with that hibakusha and was simultaneously rendered speechless after my outburst, overwhelmed and amazed by the journey that man had taken in his life to meet me then and there.
Two Truths About War and Dehumanization
Dower’s investigation helped me better understand two truths about violence. First, dehumanization always precedes and paves the way for the horrors of war. Human beings won’t kill other humans if they truly believe their lives are as worthy as their own. In his book, Dower vividly exposes the dehumanizing, racist imagery that enveloped both the United States and Japan in the early 1940s. The Japanese were portrayed here as “vermin” and “apes,” “inferior men and women,” “primitive and childish” creatures. They were “the Yellow Peril” or “the menacing Asian horde.” Versions of such tropes of dehumanization lubricated the eruption of violence that followed and have emerged repeatedly in human history.
And it wasn’t just the Americans. Japanese cartoons from the era depicted Westerners as a kind of vermin like lice, caricatured President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a demon, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and FDR as “debauched ogres” looming over Mount Fuji, a sacred symbol of Japan. American cartoons typically drew Japanese bodies in bright yellow.
I remember my mother, who grew up in California during that war, remarking on a Japanese flag I brought home from one of my trips. “That was such a symbol of hatred when I was a child,” she told me. And such dehumanization paved the way for devastating violence as the only possible solution. Both sides plummeted into “victimage rhetoric” that portrayed the “enemy” as barbaric, irrational, and irredeemably violent, while “we” were moral, rational, and sensible. Tragically, this way of thinking justified the horrors to come. Given such an enemy, only through colossal destruction could we save the world, or so people came to think.
Dower’s book reveals a second truth about violence as well: dehumanization does more than just enable war. It also generates an annihilating energy all its own through which the atrocity-laden destruction of war multiplies exponentially. In the case of the Pacific front in World War II, violence begat ever greater violence and the hunger for it grew ever deeper and more insatiable until there was a veritable “frenzy of violence” on both sides in the final year of that war. More than half of all American deaths occurred in that single year and that was when the kamikaze, or suicide plane, became “the consummate symbol of the pure spirit of the Japanese” to “turn back the demonic onslaught.”
Meanwhile, the Americans abandoned precision bombing and initiated the full-scale firebombing of Japanese cities. The firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 burned to death more than 100,000 civilians in a single night. More than 60 cities were similarly targeted, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese in a final paroxysm of violence that preceded Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Today’s Escalation of the Drumbeats of Dehumanization
In these terrible recent days, we again can hear the drumbeats of dehumanization in Ukraine, Israel, and the Gaza Strip, as grief explodes in the face of unimaginable violence, loss, injury, and the sort of pain that rips at the very fabric of our world. Human beings are once again being described as “animals.” The other side is pure “evil.” The only remedy for such a conflict, people imagine, is to wipe the enemy out and achieve “full victory.” Indescribable destructive force against the other is rationalized as necessary because of the terrible violence wreaked on us.
But we won’t find our way out of such a morass of violence through more of the same, or through the further dehumanization of people we call our enemy. In the end, dehumanization destroys us, too, even if we don’t realize it. The perennial question facing the world is this: Is there a way for us to move toward a greater rehumanization?
In reality, we don’t have to accept psychic numbing or endless dehumanization and violence as the only possible responses to our broken world. We can glimpse a different way forward when we turn our attention to people whose experiences of horrific violence, amazingly enough, didn’t destroy them. Instead, their awareness was crystalized, leaving them with so much to share with the rest of us about the deep, irreplaceable importance of every human being and the immeasurable value of our fragile planet.
Along with the remarkable hibakusha I’ve been privileged to meet, I also have come to know U.S. veterans of war with the same astonishing kinds of awareness. I wrote a book about them and their struggles to remain human in a world all too saturated with violence titled And Then Your Soul is Gone: Moral Injury and U.S. War Culture.
Imagining a Different Veterans Day
As Veterans Day approaches, I’m thinking about those veterans I respect so dearly who have themselves come through such crucibles of horror. Many live with the deep despair that accompanies military moral injuries. Yet they refuse to give up on life, hope, and the belief that there could be a different way forward. They remind me of Sakue who, in the end, offered this reflection: “There are two kinds of courage. One type of courage is the courage to die. I chose the courage to live.”
American veteran and former Iraq War medic Jenny Pacanowski witnessed that conflict’s calamitous effects on Iraqi children. She shared her agony with a military chaplain, asking him, “Why would God do this to the children of Iraq, to the soldiers, to the medics who only want to bring healing?” The chaplain responded, “God works in mysterious ways.”
Such a facile response made her deeply angry. It was as though her soul could no longer occupy her physical body and left her to float above it, connected by only the most fragile tether, as she screamed in anger and sorrow. That was close to 20 years ago. As she told me, “To truly reintegrate, and invite my soul back into my body, I needed to tell my story in a secure space.” Today, Jenny is like a comet blazing a trail to support the peace-building activities of women veterans.
Recently, I was introduced to the poetry of Vietnam War veteran Doug Rawlings. He was in his early twenties when he was drafted and sent to Vietnam. Returning to the United States, like so many others, he was “confused, angry, and lost.” But he’s been writing poetry for more than 50 years and, in his most recent collection, he explains, “Most of us do not want to be vulnerable, especially men, and, exponentially, veterans. However, the vulnerability in the poet invites vulnerability in the reader/listener.”
One of Rawlings’ poems speaks to me strongly in this painful moment on our planet. Near the U.S. Army base at Long Binh in what was then South Vietnam, there was “a beautiful if dilapidated French villa.” During the war, it was repurposed as an orphanage. A hand-painted sign in front of it read in English: “Please don’t shoot the orphans.”
“Imagine all the interstates in and out of our cities Clogged with cars brought to a standstill by ‘Please don’t shoot the orphans’ plastered on placards
Their drivers stumbling out of their seats Onto the median strips crisscrossing this land Of the mobile and free to question
If not just for a minute How their own busy lives can possibly be Intertwined with the lives of orphans
Their hearts in their mouths when they realize
The hands on their steering wheels The fingers dancing across their radio dials
Hold the answer to those questions”
The answer is directly in front of us if only we would pay attention. Please don’t kidnap, maim, starve, or deny water, electricity, or healthcare to children anywhere. Don’t separate them from their parents, drown, bomb, rape, burn, imprison, shoot, bury in rubble, use as human shields, or kill the children. Please, do not find ways to justify such horrors. Instead, look them squarely in the eye and decide that you will demand an alternative.
If we are to remain human on this planet in this devastating moment, there is — or at least, should be — no other way.
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Dear Bobby,
As you know, I have supported your bid for the presidency even before you declared last spring. I have admired and believed in you for years, and when you entered the race I felt hope for the first time in decades that your non-violent impulses, honed by your tragic family history and a deep revulsion for our country’s imperial wars and violent history, would triumph and usher in a new era of peace. Despite the naysayers who dismissed you from the start, I said Yes, that you would shock those who ridiculed and maligned you and that you would be the man to carry out President Kennedy’s American University speech and fulfill his and your father’s legacy of “not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women” because “we all breathe the same air” and “we all cherish our children’s futures” and “we are all mortal.”
I suggested that you would heal the divide and not expand it. Seeing you stumble on your way by throwing your full support to the Zionist leaders of Israel has been a body blow to me. At first I thought it might be explained by your reaction to the false antisemitic accusations that were hurled your way once word emerged that you might enter the presidential race. But as time went on it dawned on me that I was wrong and that you were in sync with the powerful Israel Lobby. So now, I feel as if we are in the tenth round of fight for your soul’s compassion. That you have not defended the children of Gaza and condemned their massacre by the thousands has shocked and sickened me.
As a scholar of religion and its intersection with politics, I have been meditating on current events.
Religion has for a very long time been used as a cover for slaughtering people and seizing their land. This is true for the United States and Israel. It is built into their theological underpinnings. So it should not be at all surprising that the current Israeli massacre of Palestinians is fully supported by the U.S. government led by President Joseph Biden and by almost every presidential aspirant. You, however, as a self-styled anti-war candidate are a great surprise to me, although I may be naïve and shouldn’t be since you gave your unequivocal support to the Israel government a month ago, following the October 7 Hamas-led incursion into Israel that killed innocent Israelis (many of whom were also probably killed by the IDF as Jonathan Cooke has reported). Despite that, I still expected your conscience would surely prompt you to condemn what can only be described as genocide, the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza that is ongoing.
You have undermined your claim to “end the forever wars” and to defend children. Why you have done (or not done) this is a question that so many of your supporters and former supporters are asking. Only you can say. Perhaps we might only know if you unequivocally condemned Israel’s actions and faced whatever might come your way as a result. This is unlikely, I now realize, but one can still hope. I think it would take a spiritual miracle of moral courage, because of your claim that your historical analysis that you say is sincere and true that Israel now and always has been the just and innocent party and the Palestinians the evil ones. I find your analysis unbelievable and your silence as innocents are being slaughtered indefensible, even as I applaud so many of your other positions, as you know. Everyone knows that running for the U.S. presidency creates strange bedfellows, but your touting of the Israeli propaganda in which you conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas to justify massacring civilians is beyond strange – it is immoral.
I know how much you respect Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and you no doubt have heard his words before.
“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.”– Martin Luther King Jr.
Conscience calls to you, Bobby. Be true to that voice within. Politic as it may be, there is a heavy burden of guilt for abandoning the Palestinians to slaughter by silence. King learned this when he saw those photos of the napalmed and dead Vietnamese children and was conscience-stricken to come to Riverside Church in New York to give his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” You can do the same. The pictures of dead Palestinian children, victims of U.S. support for Israeli bombs, are there to see. Martin quoted your uncle, John, that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” He said that we can no longer worship the God of hate and retribution. He said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.”
Some of the wounded at al-Shifa hospital (Gaza Health Ministry)
You too, Bobby, can break your silence, step up high and let your conscience also leave you no other choice but to condemn the genocide in Gaza. As Martin said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
You say you are making “a moral case for Israel” as the justified party in its seventy-five year long war with the Palestinians. In doing so you have reneged on your campaign promise to emulate President John Kennedy, who would be appalled by your silence. Your website, Kennedy 24, declares that “[you] Kennedy will revive a lost thread of American foreign policy thinking, the one championed by his uncle, John F. Kennedy who, over his 1000 days in office, had become a firm anti-imperialist.” In genuflecting to the Israel genocide while touting your connection to JFK and your father, Senator Robert Kennedy, you have in fact taken a position toward Israel diametrically opposed to theirs. One could sense this coming when under pressure this past summer, you withdrew your support for Roger Waters, a strong Palestinian supporter who was falsely accused of being anti-Jewish, and you then allowed your “friend” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, killed your father in 1968 when you knew that was a lie and was part of a sophisticated intelligence conspiracy to blame the patsy who was said to hate Israel. To allow Shmuley to audaciously and heartlessly repeat a CIA trope about your father’s assassination was a telltale sign of worse to come.
For both the U.S. and Israel, the Bible has been used to cover up the crimes of their foundings. They have analogous histories rooted in religious myths. In both cases, the indigenous peoples were considered less than human – savages, infidels – or in the description of Palestinians by the current Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, “human animals.” Such racist, dehumanizing language has been repeated time and again throughout the American and Israeli narratives used to justify their crimes against those they killed and whose land they stole. The gloss of civilized hypocrisy has been unmasked by such language, just as it was when Hitler repeatedly called Jews “vermin.” Irony aside, the Nazi rhetoric of denigration and racial superiority to justify exterminating Jewish people has been repeatedly mirrored by American and Israeli leaders, whether it was against the Original Free Peoples of North America, Vietnamese, Koreans, Iraqis, etc. or the Palestinians. It is the master/slave mentality deeply rooted in U.S. and Israel history.
Bobby, you have said that you hope to be the second independent candidate to become president, the first being George Washington. Yet Washington was a racist and slave owner who supported the extermination of the Indian natives so the white settlers could take their land. He himself did so, speculating in Native lands together with most of the other prominent politicians from the early days of the Republic, including Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, et al. For the governors and legislators of the thirteen states it was also open sesame on the seizure of Indian land which required their slaughter in turn.
One can learn this in Peter P. d’Errico’s important recent book, Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples, where he makes clear how U.S. law was used to codify such “legal” theft and killing. Such federal law was, as d’Errico writes, a claim of unlimited U.S. power and not really law at all but the suspension of law as it granted the U.S. government complete authority over Native peoples, their lives, and their land. Legal theft, in other words. Like the English justification for their claim to their colonies – the “right of discovery” proclaimed in Henry VII’s commission to John Cabot: “to subdue and take possession of any lands unoccupied by any Christian Power” – a series of three Supreme Court rulings in the 1830s by Chief Justice John Marshall were based on the claim of “Christian discovery,” which in turn was based on a papal grant from Pope Alexander the Sixth in 1493 that gave to Christopher Columbus’s sponsors, Ferdinand and Isabella, ownership of any land Columbus might discover. This divine right required the killing and subjugation of non-Christian infidels and heathens who were considered brute animals, just as the Palestinians are today.
Similar justifications have been used by Zionists for the killing of Palestinians and the seizure of their land in the name of the Biblical Jewish God and his instructions to them. This myth claims that God gave them the ancestral Palestinians’ land, therefore, like native peoples of North America who, according to the non-law U.S. Indian law, only had the right of occupancy, the Palestinians could be killed and dispossessed by the God-given rightful owners, which they were in 1948. Netanyahu has made such claims many times, as have his predecessors. He calls for a holy war of annihilation against the Palestinians, based on the Hebrew Bible. This is widely known and has a long history in the Zionist propaganda narrative that has allowed for seventy-five years of killing and the systematic shrinking of Palestinian land to its pitiful size today.
It is interesting to note that the three primary countries that intersect in the use of religious justification for colonial and imperial policies are England, the U.S., and Israel – together with the Papacy and its May 4, 1493 bull Inter Caetera issued by Pope Alexander the Sixth to declare Christian discovery. I mention this since I am an Irish-American Catholic, and it was the Irish uprising against the English colonial occupiers that has become a key inspiration for anti-colonial rebels throughout the twentieth century and beyond. I have taken inspiration from my Irish ancestors. This is your heritage also, Bobby, so it becomes even more surprising that you, even as you tout the American Revolutionary War rebel fighters against the English colonialists, would support the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. As a lawyer, you must be aware of Federal Indian Law and how it, like all law, is rooted in a metaphysics of being human; has presuppositions that are brought to the bar, and in the case of federal Indian law, a Christian nomos at odds with that of Native peoples’.
You surely know that the Israeli assault on Gaza is a massive war crime according to international law, and even within the moderate Catholic just war theory, is, by its distorted proportionality, evil and must be rejected as immoral and a terrible sin.
You claim to want to end all wars but support the ongoing slaughter of thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including so many children and women. Nor have you said a word against Biden’s saber rattling with aircraft carriers, U.S. drones, and assistance for Israel’s bloodthirsty assault that raises the threat of a much wider war that could turn nuclear.
Yes, the question is why such silence, which you can break now. I beg you to speak out. You are a man of conscience. MLK, Jr. speaks to us all still.
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.
Pax tibi,
Ed
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Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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“I don’t think that [the war] is a stalemate,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskytold NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday.
“They thought they would checkmate us, but,” he insisted, “this didn’t happen.” According to recent interviews, his military leadership disagrees. His political inner circle thinks his insistence is delusional.
Zelensky is facing pressure both from within Ukraine and from without. Growing pressure from within is coming from both the political and military leadership; growing pressure from without is coming from Ukraine’s key partners.
The battle is largely being played out in the Western media. Most intimately, Zelensky has faced criticism from his political inner circle. TIME magazine reports that some of the president’s advisors have become worried that his “belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia . . . “verg[es] on the messianic.” One of Zelensky’s “closest aides” said that Zelensky “deludes himself.” The aide complained, “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”
Some Zelensky aides say his intransigence hampers Ukraine’s ability to adapt to the changed reality on the battlefield and worry that negotiating a settlement with Russia remains “taboo.”
Domestic criticism is also coming from the top levels of the military. Zelensky is reportedly in conflict with his generals over the conduct of the counteroffensive and over his demands to defend Bakhmut and Avdiivka at any cost, which the military leadership sees as a strategic mistake that is already hurting Ukraine dearly in soldiers and equipment.
A senior Ukrainian military officer said that orders from the president’s office are, at times, disconnected from the battlefield reality and defended some front-line commanders who have begun second-guessing and refusing “orders from the top.”
Zelensky’s struggle with his generals intensified on November 3 when Zelensky fired General Viktor Khorenko, the commander of Ukraine’s special operations forces. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny,did not request his dismissal. The New York Times reports that “It was unclear whether General Zaluzhny, the overall commander of Ukraine’s forces, knew in advance of the planned dismissal” and that “[t]he firing appeared to undercut General Zaluzhny’s authority.”
The firing took U.S. military officers, who “described a close and effective working relationship with” Khorenko, by surprise. Khorenko’s special operations forces had had some success with long-range strikes and sabotage operations behind Russian lines. But the NYT reports that there had been tension over what the military had “perceived as politically guided decisions on strategy” that had been ineffective and costly.
Zelensky’s tensions with his generals reached a peak with Zaluzhny’s November 1 interview with The Economist. He asserted that the war had reached a “stalemate.” He conceded that “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
What’s worse is that Zaluzhny implied that the stalemate would evolve into defeat for Ukraine. A stalemate entails a long war of attrition. In a companion essay published simultaneously by The Economist, he explained that a long war “as a rule, in most cases, is beneficial to one of the parties to the conflict. In our particular case, it is the russian [sic] federation, as it gives it the opportunity to reconstitute and build up its military power.”
Zaluzhny said that in a prolonged war, Ukraine will run out of the “required volume” of missiles and ammunition while Russia, despite sanctions, is increasing its production capabilities. And even if it didn’t run out of weapons, he added, it will run out of men: a war of attrition “leads to the lack of Ukraine’s ability to achieve superiority over the enemy in reserves by increasing their number.” A close Zelensky aide told TIME that, even if the United States gave Ukraine all the weapons it needed, Kyiv doesn’t “have the men to use them.”
Zelensky’s office censured Zaluzhny, saying it “eases the work” of Russia and stirs “panic” among Ukraine’s Western partners. The New York Times calls the censure “a striking public rebuke that signaled an emerging rift between the military and civilian leadership.”
In addition to the pressure coming from within Zelensky’s inner political and military circle, diplomatic pressure is also coming from Zelensky’s international partners.
A November 3 NBC News article reported that “U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war.” The article went on to say, citing one current and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions, that “the conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal.”
The quiet talks suggest agreement by the U.S. and its European allies with Zaluzhny that Ukraine may not achieve its goals on the battlefield, that the realization of their aspirations may continue to dim with prolonged battle, and that some concessions may need to be made.
There is a remarkable convergence in the language used by the U.S. and European officials and the language used by Zaluzhny and Zelensky’s aides. NBC reports that the conversations “began amid concerns among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate.” NBC reports that, like Zaluzhny, “[s]ome U.S. military officials have privately begun using the term ‘stalemate’ to describe the current battle in Ukraine.”
Like Zaluzhny and Zelensky’s aides, “Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces.” According to “people familiar with the matter,” NBC reported, “President Joe Biden has been intensely focused on Ukraine’s depleting military forces.” “Manpower,” one of those sources is quoted as saying, “is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now.”
Echoing the “close Zelensky aide” quoted in TIME, the same source said, “The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good.”
These concerns, NBC reported, have led U.S. officials to concede privately that “Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin.”
That leaves only a couple of months. With the battlefield turning against Ukraine despite Zelensky’s intransigent “belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia,” the pressure targeted at Zelensky seems to be building, from both within and without,, to turn to the diplomatic front and face the beginning of the end of the war.
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Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and other outlets.
Featured image: Ukrainian snipers attend shooting training near the front line amid Russia-Ukraine war in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on February 18, 2023. [Source: businessinsider.com]
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***
Last Tuesday there took place a disgraceful display of visceral malignancy in the United States House of Representatives Chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building. The House, long characterized by its aversion to truth, justice and what was once the American way, has been corrupted by special interests who have effectively bought an overwhelming majority of legislators, to include the leadership of the two major political parties. In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaibwas censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state. Nearly all Republicans voted to condemn her together with a considerable number of her fellow Democrats.
On the following day, the White House added its own condemnation of Tlaib, referring specifically to the phrase “from the river to the sea” used by her, a slogan conveniently regarded by some like the fanatical Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an Arab rallying cry for the eradication of Israel. ADL’s ghastly director Jonathan Greenblatt inevitably equates use of the phrase with “antisemitism” and ADL insists that “’From the River to the Sea’ is a Hamas call to annihilate Israel” while also “claiming [that] it is a rally of coexistence [which] gives cover to terror.” Tlaib, for her part, was resurrecting a memory of the Palestine that once was, and she has asserted that the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.” Pro-Palestinian protesters do also use the slogan as a plea for their long-delayed nationhood, but groups like ADL prefer to claim that the activity provides “material support for Hamas,” and, as Hamas is a US listed terrorist group, that equates to aiding terrorists. Tlaib had also particularly angered the White House through her recently posted online video that accused President Biden of supporting genocide in the Gaza Strip, a seemingly undisputable assertion.
One might argue that even Congressmen are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Bill of Rights does not apply when Israel is concerned, either in the halls of Congress or on college campuses, where Palestinian groups are being harassed and banned. The Tlaib censure vote can be seen as part of the bipartisan effort to protect the state of Israel from any and all criticism. Rashida Tlaib broke no law, did not threaten anyone, nor did she call for the destruction of any nation, yet she was excoriated by a series of her comrade-speakers in the House for something akin to a crime against humanity due to her turning against what was repeatedly described as one of America’s closest allies, a best friend and the only democracy in the Middle East, all of which are lies. Israel is no ally, which would require a certain reciprocity, a word that apparently does not exist in Hebrew. And in the current crisis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated that he will not be moved by US interests to mitigate the slaughter no matter how much Blinken-Biden suck up to him to make him budge. And as for the claim of democracy, Israel only grants citizenship with full rights to Jews, hardly a democratic measure. Apparently, cutting off the massive amounts of US aid, including the current $14.5 billion to pay for exterminating the Palestinians, is not even on the table. Israel will always get its pound of flesh and will call all the shots in its relationship with Washington.
Tlaib’s comments are in the context of a White House that believes it it is free to send bombs to Israel to slaughter Palestinian children—without even revealing how many plane loads of weapons have been delivered or are on their way. And then there are members of Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who are free to advocate a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” i.e. the Palestinians. But verbal criticism of what is clearly a genocide and a massive violation of international law that has the US government as an accessory in a war crime is impermissible and there are even concerns that the Tlaib censure could become the foundation for a criminalization of any criticism of Israel under the assumption that all critics are ipso facto antisemites and the comments themselves amount to a “hate crime.”
Consider for a moment the precedents to Tlaib’s disgrace who are still in office untouched by any procedural steps to define what are acceptable rights of legislators. Beyond Senator Lindsey Graham’s unchallenged invitation to a mass murder, there is Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey whose apparent tendency to accept bribes has been a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. Both men are still walking around free of censure!
Israel’s love of the United States is only skin deep, if it as much as that. Recall for a moment the comments by Israeli prime ministers on the nature of the relationship. Consider Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment:
“Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it… I don’t care what the American people think, I own the congress!”
So that is what “America’s best friend’s” leadership actually thinks about the United States and its people! It is a cash cow to be milked and otherwise exploited for political cover before being disposed of when its usefulness is gone.
Sharon also famously said
“I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.”
It squares the circle on why the Gazans erupted in rage on October 7th. Palestine was one nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when Israel was founded in 1948. Since that time, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinians for three quarters of a century, has stolen and plundered their land, has replaced or eradicated hundreds of villages, has besieged Gaza for nearly 2 decades, and has engaged in mass starvation and now in genocidal mass killing. In the fighting preceding Israel’s independence, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and sent into refugee camps by Israeli militias, together with tens of thousands who were killed outright. Now the refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed together with churches, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks and we have only just learned that some Israeli officials are considering using one of their nuclear bombs to completely wipe out Gaza. It is surprising that the Palestinians have shown as much restraint as they have.
Given the damage that a corrupting Israel has done to America’s political system, it is important to ask what good the relationship with Israel has done for the average American whose tax dollars support the Zionist enterprise together with its plan to remove the Palestinians.
The answer is that nothing good has come out of the so-called alliance, which has cost the US $260 billion in direct aid adjusted for inflation since 1946. Plus there is the large sum of $14.5 billion more recently approved and pending currently as some kind of war fund to enable Netanyahu to crush the Palestinians. Israel regularly gets $3.8 billion yearly in direct aid from the US Treasury, a gift from Barack Obama, that is more than what goes to all other countries combined. And there is also more-or-less “off the books” considerable additional money from special and joint military projects, dubious charities and state level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion per year, which does not include the billions in financial aid that are in reality bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan to maintain peace with the Jewish state. The handout from Uncle Sam helps make Israel a very wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing.
And being joined at the hip to the Jewish state has a considerable downside, requiring the use of the US United Nations veto at regular intervals to protect the client state as well as involvement in unneeded wars in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Libya with Iran coming up next. Nor has Israel hesitated to kill Americans when it felt that the US was not fully supportive of its interests and the White House is so constrained by its “alliance” that it has essentially covered up the crimes against its own citizens. Last year’s sniper killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which produced only a whimper from the Jewish dominated State Department, plus acceptance of Israeli lies about the incident, is a prime example. And then there is the killing of 34 sailors and the injuring of 172 more on the USS Liberty in international waters on June 8th 1967. The US Navy largely unarmed intelligence ship was monitoring the ongoing fighting with Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Efforts to send US aircraft carrier warplanes to assist the ship were called back by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also orchestrated a cover-up exonerating Israel from blame. One hopes he and his Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara are now burning in hell.
The US government is so averse to challenging Israel that many believe that there are other unrevealed influences at play, possibly to include the Jeffrey Epstein/Mossad pedophile sex trafficking caper. It has long been true that candidates for high office in the US are approached by agents of the Zionist lobby and coerced into signing a pledge to support Israel. In return, the candidates who accept receive substantial political contributions and positive media. If they say “no” they are frequently targeted fjor defeat and go the way of Cynthia McKinney, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley.
Congressman James Traficant of Ohio was perhaps the most aggressive voice in Congress in the 1980s and 1990s in expressing a critique of Israel’s power. He was inevitably controversial and was eventually imprisoned for seven years on a corruption charge that many subsequently considered to be a government set up. He had argued, among other things, that
“Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government” explaining how Israel was “controlling much of our foreign policy” and “influencing much of our domestic policy.”
He claimed quite plausibly that former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz, working for Israel, had “manipulated” President George W. Bush into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Traficant maintained in the 1990s that
“We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress.”
If Traficant were still with us, he would be astonished to see how Jewish influence has actually increased, with 35 states having some rules or legislation punishing advocates of boycotts of Israel and bills currently before congress authorizing automatic war against Iran and even the expulsion of Palestinians from the US. The State Department has an ambassador who monitors so-called antisemitism and the White House has recently declared a war against what it describes as “surging antisemitism.”
Currently, everyone opposing the US engagement with Israel in its extermination of the Arab population in the area it controls is being labeled an anti-semite and speaking up for the Palestinians is becoming a good way to get kicked out of university and unemployed. Israel’s friends are busy compiling lists of students who support the Palestinians and are working on schemes to circulate their names to deny them jobs once they graduate. Rashida Tlaib is only the latest affront to the dignity and common sense of the US Constitution but she is certainly not going to be the last victim of the Jewish lobby, which must be labeled for what it is, made to register as the agent of the Israeli apartheid state, and excluded from unilaterally making the policies that all of us Americans have to pay the price for in the Middle East.
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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].
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***
One of the most common ideological tropes of the contemporary political West is its apparent obsession with environmentalism. The belligerent power pole simply adores to use it as a way to “prove” its supposed “civilizational superiority” over any other country that doesn’t share the same obsession. The much-touted “garden” has started dozens of neocolonialist wars against “jungles” around the world, but there’s no concern for the environment and pollution when it comes to the spreading of “freedom, democracy and human rights”. The “garden’s” bombs and cruise missiles are “obviously no threat” to the natural habitat of thousands of endangered species or an issue when it comes to their preservation.
And yet, the political West still insists on its “moral superiority”, so much so that it’s seeking to codify it in a way that affects its relations with the entire world. Namely, the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), or simply “carbon tax”, is an attempt to force the rest of the world to follow the “garden’s” guidelines on “environmental issues”. The law has been heavily criticized by India and China, both of which are massive production economies. The two Asian giants believe this is effectively an act of economic warfare and a new trade barrier that doesn’t take into account the vastly different stages of socioeconomic development. Neither of the two countries is willing to renounce growth and development.
For instance, China is making unprecedented improvements in the lives of its citizens. In order to continue this path, Beijing needs to give its economy the necessary freedom and resources. And exactly the same can be said about India. Both the China Iron And Steel Association (CISA) and the Indian Commerce Minister have openly spoken out against CBAM. Both countries are taking steps to ameliorate the negative impact of the latest EU tax, but are not hiding their contempt for it. They see it as a sinister way to at least slow down their economic development. On the other hand, Brussels keeps insisting that the new scheme is of critical importance to its plans to achieve zero carbon emissions across six earmarked industries.
According to OilPrice, the CBAM tax regime recently moved into what some legal experts dub the “transition phase”. Namely, since October 1, importers of various commodities (including steel) into the EU need to report the carbon emissions of their products. By 2026, the said importers will also be subject to legal fees. The EU aims to impose CBAM on non-Western countries with significant carbon emissions, but these countries see it as a way to undermine their economic development. And while the stated goal of the “carbon tax” is to force producers to reduce carbon emissions, what it will actually accomplish is an additional increase in the cost of steel, aluminum and other strategically important commodities.
For its part, China has been very vocal regarding CBAM. A few days ago, its steel association called it “a new trade barrier”. According to Reuters, CISA stated that it wants more talks with the EU on the matter. The Chinese organization also insists that “the new ‘carbon tax’ fails to take into account the different phases of development in different countries”, adding that “the levy goes against the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities”. And indeed, many experts predict that CBAM would be the main culprit behind the rising costs of commodities, with the exact numbers going anywhere from 4% to 6%, if not more. This is without even taking into account the effect on other industries.
Understandably, CISA is worried that this would be more than enough to render Chinese exports nonviable. India also shares the same concern and disapproves of the controversial new “carbon tax”, claiming that it would also effectively destroy the competitiveness of its EU-bound export products. Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal recently also criticized CBAM and predicted that the EU would soon realize its mistake, forcing it to stop its implementation. The effort to tackle the “carbon tax” issue isn’t limited to government bodies, as there are also meetings between trade associations and manufacturers that are working together to find the best solution to CBAM.
Just like Beijing, New Delhi also pointed out how the “carbon tax” doesn’t take into account the different stages of socioeconomic development in various countries. Minister Goyal also stated that the Indian government would find a solution, most likely a domestic tax tailored specifically not to negatively affect the country’s economy, while reducing carbon emissions. This would also render CBAM obsolete and, thus, unnecessary. On the other hand, Beijing is likely to respond with its own restrictions on EU exports to China, which could have severe consequences on the already troubled European companies. All this could lead us to an economic “Cold War” that would affect the whole world.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day as it is better known in the United States, is the official annual occasion to reflect and memorialize the sacrifices of so many men and women in uniform committed to serving their country during major military conflicts…in particular, World War I, World War II and North Korea. [1 ]
It is said that when the red poppy was first adorned more than a century ago, it was meant to stress the message “Never Again” to exhaust valuable lives in a conflict as horrid as the Great War. But the message has evolved, you might say, into saluting the courage, bravery and derring-do of so many young lads and lasses fighting for their nations, freedoms, etc. [2]
In the past, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. World War III was something that we thought the invention of the atomic bomb, combined with common sense had torn from the pages of human endeavour. Today, a Third World War is seen as a likely scenario. [3][4]
This massaging of our nation’s mentality toward war has been aided by a special re-framing of our news, our history, and even our education. In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Mediaby Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, corporate power by means of ownership and advertising, ends up compelling the minds of millions in a particular direction, in line with those directing modern methods of communication. Though today, in the age of the internet, we have beyond such archaic methods of control…haven’t we?
Actually, the propagandists of today employ old and new measures to bring the populace in line with the demands of peace through war. The military industrial complex, as coined by the former President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now referred to by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern as the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank Complex, or MICIMATT. We will explore a few of these avenues toward everlasting peace through unending wars financed by military industries and their various partners in this chapter of the Global Research News Hour. [5]
In our first half hour, ProfessorGlenn Diesen pays us a visit elaborating on the themes of his recent book: THE THINK TANK RACKET: Managing the Information War Against Russia. This is a book that points to Think Tanks, full of “experts” and paid for, in large part, by Weapons contractors, guiding politicians and media down the chute of military preparedness. HE also points to how Russia has been a particular victim of these groups.
In our second half hour, Global Research News Hour contributor Paul Graham embarks on a conversation with Canadian writer Owen Schalk, author of the recent book: Canada in Afghanistan: A Story of Military, Diplomatic, Political and Media Failure, 2003-2023. This talk reveals answers to the question of exactly what did Canadians do in the most costly encounter for Canadian soldiers since World War II, why, and what were the consequences now that the Taliban that they sought to overthrow is back in power!
Owen Schalk is an independent researcher and writer whose work focuses on domestic and foreign policy. His articles have been published by Alborada, Monthly Review and Protean magazine, and he contributes a weekly column to Canadian Dimension. he is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A Story of Military, Diplomatic, Political and Media Failure, 2003-2023, James Lorimer & Co., 2023. He lives in Petersfield, Manitoba, Canada.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.
CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.
Sarah Young, Sama Javed (November 11, 2021),’Why do some people wear white poppies on Remembrance Day?’, The Independent; https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/white-poppy-meaning-remembrance-day-colour-b1955754.html
In una intervista al network statunitense ABC, il premier israeliano Netanyahu così risponde alla domanda se ritiene possibile un cessate-il-fuoco a Gaza: “Un cessate-il-fuoco sarebbe una resa ad Hamas. Sarebbe una vittoria per Hamas, Non sarebbe più possibile di quanto sarebbe stato possibile per voi un cessate-il-fuoco dopo gli attentati di Al Qaeda al World Trade Center”.
Alla domanda su chi dovrebbe governare Gaza a guerra finita, Netanyahu così risponde: “Israele per un periodo indefinito avrà la responsabilità della sicurezza, perché quando non abbiamo tale responsabilità, quello che abbiamo è l’esplosione del terrore di Hamas”. Le parole di Netanyahu vengono così sintetizzate dal New York Times: “Israele governerà Gaza”.
In altre parole Netanyahu annuncia apertamente il piano: impadronirsi di Gaza trasformandola da territorio palestinese in territorio israeliano. Ciò è confermato dal fatto che le forze armate israeliane non solo stanno massacrando la popolazione palestinese, ma stanno rendendo Gaza non più abitabile dai palestinesi: nella parte settentrionale della Striscia hanno già distrutto oltre il 30% di tutti gli edifici. Il piano prevede la successiva apertura di un “corridoio umanitario” per trasferire i palestinesi di Gaza nel deserto egiziano del Sinai, facendo poi lo stesso con i palestinesi della Cisgiordania.
Nel gioco delle parti, si è recato in Israele il Segretario di stato USA Blinken, con lo scopo dichiarato di ottenere un cessate-il-fuoco a Gaza, che Netanyahu ha rifiutato. Dietro questa tragica recita c’è la realtà. Un esempio per tutti: le bombe da una tonnellata a guida satellitare, che gli aerei israeliani sganciano sui quartieri popolari palestinesi, sono fornite a Israele dagli Stati Uniti.
Riguardo alla “esplosione del terrore di Hamas”, che secondo il premier rende necessario che sia Israele a governare Gaza, Netanyahu dimentica quanto da lui stesso dichiarato a una riunione del suo partito nel marzo 2019: “Chiunque voglia ostacolare la creazione di uno Stato palestinese deve sostenere Hamas e trasferire denaro ad Hamas. Questo fa parte della nostra strategia: isolare i palestinesi di Gaza dai palestinesi della Cisgiordania.”
Questi e molti altri fatti (riportati nelle ultime 4 puntate di Grandangolo) dimostrano che i vertici israeliani e i loro servizi segreti non sono stati colti di sorpresa dall’attacco effettuato il 7 Ottobre da Hamas, ma se lo sono fatti fare per attuare il loro piano. Siamo quindi di fronte a qualcosa di analogo a quanto avvenuto negli Stati Uniti l’11 settembre del 2001.
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***
Hopium and dejection, fanaticism and pragmatism, reason and dementia are all in full conflict as human civilization wobbles precipitously on the edge of a global abyss. Currently the Middle East stands at the forefront of the devastation wrought by extremism unleashed. Even in the midst of this turmoil, however, there are, here and there, some promising signs of possible redemption. Key developments in these bright spots hold the potential of beginning the process of stopping and reversing humanity’s rapid fall into satanic devastation.
The Canadian province of Alberta where I live is the site of one such possible turnaround. It is becoming a very active laboratory for the testing of all sorts of experiments, interactions and innovations. As the realization continues to sink in of the fuller implications of the biowarfare aimed at all of humankind since the release of the mRNA injections in 2021, Alberta is one of a handful of jurisdictions where there is some potential for citizens to get together to bring a measure of ameliorative rehabilitation to our core institutions.
Rookie Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith, is near the centre of much of the hubbub. Last May Premier Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) won a renewed mandate to govern Canada’s most rebellious province. Smith’s still-growing popularity was recently confirmed by her hosting one of the largest annual general meetings of a political party in Canadian history.
Danielle Smith is a sprightly and attractive politician who is emerging as a more intelligent, erudite and abstemious version of populist Alberta Premier, Ralph Klein. I met Premier Klein in person shortly after moving from Ontario to Alberta in the early 1990s to take up my new job as a Native American Studies Prof here on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In a tee-pee encampment at the nearby Blood Reserve, I had a chance to observe that the late Ralph Klein was a pretty good Blackfoot speaker. Legendary for his carousing bouts of partying with average folks, Klein had a gift for relating in a very convivial fashion with all kinds of people and constituencies.
Image: Ralph Klein and Danielle Smith
Like Klein, Premier Smith did a stint as a broadcaster on her way to the province’s top job. While Klein had much help from the media in his ascendance to power, the same was not true of Smith.
At every stage of her campaign to become premier with a majority of seats in the Alberta Legislature, Smith has had to face strong headwinds of hostility from the press. No doubt those who stage manage the rigged theatrics disguised as democracy are loosing sleep because of Premier Smith’s ability to gain public trust in spite of the full force of a well-coordinated media smear campaign aimed against her.
During the recent election campaign, the legacy media lined up strongly to push the agenda and image of Rachel Notley. Between 2015 and 2019, Notley was Premier of Alberta. When she was defeated by the newly-created United Conservative Party, Notley became Leader of the Official Opposition Party in Alberta’s Legislature. As the manufactured COVID crisis touched down in Alberta as well as the rest of the world, Notley’s priority was to join in the unions’ push for more masking, more lockdowns, more mandates, more jabs, and more school tyranny. In fact the word “tyranny” well describes our relationship with our well-bribed and well-coddled governors who refused to protect us from the bioweapon attacks pointed our way.
In making her way into the premier’s job, Smith also had to contend with the divisions that developed in and around the United Conservative Party. The splits occurred when a sizeable portion of UCP members mounted a campaign to remove from office Alberta’s previous premier, Jason Kenney. Kenney had dismayed many Albertans when he went along with the globalists’ Covid policies pushed ahead with particular zeal by the now-notorious Justin Trudeau.
Partly because of these twists and turns, Alberta has come to epitomize some of the larger global trends currently underway. This phenomenon has its roots in the gradual realization among the independent-minded minority that has been paying attention to the coercive contortions executed in the name of a supposed medical fight to vanquish COVID-19.
We the attentive were early to come to the conclusion that the push to inject all the world’s people with the mRNA jabs was not what it was made to seem. The unprecedented procedure was not meant as a remedy for illness. Rather the attempt to universalize the jabs formed the basis of a damaging and deadly attack aimed at the global population.
The real purpose of the COVID jabs was to initiate a number of processes including global depopulation as well as those of the genetic modification of the survivors. As this attack was pushed forward, we began to observe that something fundamental had changed within our governments as reflected in the unreasonable constraints suddenly imposed on our most basic rights and freedoms.
We began to notice the courts in many countries almost uniformly ignored the many codified constitutional protections for our harshly violated rights and freedoms. Again and again judges sided with the unreasonable and unjustified constraints imposed by governments. With their COVID mandates and restrictions, these governments and judges that backed them were not acting in conformity with the principles of credible science.
We began to notice the consistency and the extremity of the media’s blinkered and censorious coverage of the manufactured COVID crisis. This coverage almost uniformly highlighted the interpretations of government officials while banishing from the big media venues highly-credentialed medical experts and practitioners. We began to notice that many of these top experts in their fields were subject to ruthless ad hominem attacks. We began to notice the so many of the genuine experts were subject to interventions by their professional associations whose intent was to damage and deplatform some of their most accomplished members. Ultimately the aim was to Shut the Experts Up.
These realizations were accompanied by a growing awareness that the deaths and serious injuries unleashed by the mRNA injections were far in excess of the problems created by the supposedly new coronavirus. In spite of the barrage of media lies and deceptions, we began to notice all that flowed from the World Health Organization’s empowerment of a worldwide network of Covidian commissars. These commissars basically took on the role of wolves charged to protect citizen chicken coops in one country after the next.
Premier Daniel Smith started her roll to the Premier’s Office by joining our informed minority of Covidian skeptics. In that capacity she assisted in the emergence of a distinctly Albertan version of the worldwide resistance movement that continues to coalesce. By now it is becoming increasingly clear that the originating process was hatched a time when we have a tremendous need for well-organized resistance against the predator class seeking depopulation along with the further enslavement of the survivors of the mRNA/lipid nanoparticle injections.
Defending the “Unvaxxed” from Discriminatory Oppression
Premier Smith’s inaugural UCP AGM in early November of 2023 can be seen as avant garde event giving an early signal of where some of the increasingly well-organized and energized activists in the the struggle against the COVID restrictions and mandates may be headed. We have seen through the lies and deceptions and are well aware that out governments and media have been participants in an ongoing scheme that already has killed and injured many in the global community including in Alberta.
We are aware, moreover, that the push to sterilize, depopulate and conduct unregulated medical experiments on human subjects is far from over and may continue under under a variety of banners including the fake fight to stop the climate from changing. Of course the weird alchemy attending the climate change controversy is becoming integral to the balance of power in Canada’s system of federal-provincial relations, but especially Ottawa-Edmonton relations.
The new premier of Alberta forthrightly condemned the discrimination entailed in the coercive tactics deployed worldwide to universalize the COVID jab. Premier Smith did so during an interval in 2022 after she had replaced Kenney as premier but before she received a popular mandate from the Alberta electorate. She indicated that the apartheid-like restrictions enforced to punish the so-called “unvaxxed” for their medical choices, formed the basis of the most discriminatory process she had ever witnessed in her lifetime.
Many in Canada and throughout the world agreed wholeheartedly with this bold statement, one that will go down in provincial and world history. Nothing quite like Smith’s comment has been uttered so far by any other top official at the head of a government with major economic and political clout. Not surprisingly, the statement proved to be polarizing. The comment sent Rachel Notley and her cheer leaders in the legacy media into spasms of indignant condemnation.
In completely denying the severe discrimination that Notley had herself advocated, the NDP Leader set a classic example of the internal contradictions within the perceptual cosmos of Woke extremism. Notley pushed aside Smith’s observation by falling back on stereotypical examples of racism to rationalize her blindness to the medical apartheid she champions.
Notley refused to address, for starters, her own advocacy of the loss of jobs, income, and access to education in order to severely punish those that refused to bend to the pressure to take the untested experimental injections. These clot shots ended up being just as lethal and injurious as many experts had predicted.
The murderous and injurious outcomes of this concerted attack on the health of the world’s population is becoming increasingly clear in spite of the ongoing cover up of the extent of the enormous crimes against humanity that have taken place and are continuing to take place. So far there has been no honest reckoning in governments and criminal courts with the implications of the huge surges of deaths from 2021 to the present.
These deaths point back to the high rates of injection that lead inexorably to high rates of death by blood clots, heart ailments, supercharged turbocancers, and many other so-called “adverse events.” The plague of death and illnesses from the jabs extend to children and formerly healthy young people. Nevertheless the denial and well-organized cover up and continues. Will Alberta be a place where new ground is broken in terms in terms of holding accountable those responsible for the crimes against humanity that permeate many facets of the manufactured COVID crisis. See this.
Compassionate Conservatism?
Premier Smith has yet to make good on her promise that the medical apartheid created by the coercive push to universalize the mandated injections will be made subject to the protections of Alberta’s Human Right Act. The need for such protections are especially pertinent now that it has been well documented by Sasha Latapova and others that the jabs are really Pentagon-developed bioweapons disguised as medical cures for a supposedly “novel” coronavirus. See this.
Premier Smith has not yet effectively delivered on her promise to assert the much needed disciplinary control over the free-wheeling medical empire of Alberta Health Services. (AHS). As it now stands, this seemingly unaccountable leviathan effectively forms an unaccountable government within a provincial government. The AHS spends almost half of Alberta’s $70 billion budget.
Like many similar publicly and privately-financed health care organizations throughout the world, the AHS is run by a handful of highly-placed operatives who are well integrated into global networks of related agencies. These agencies include the corporate infrastructure of Big Pharma and the UN’s World Health Organization. The Bill Gates group of “philanthropies” like Gavi are well integrate into the WHO which itself is largely funded by Gates. It is no accident that these supposed “health” organizations as well as the World Economic Forum are headquartered amidst the crime-ridden Swiss-based banking regime.
This regime includes the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank for central bankers still dominated by the circle of families revolving around the Rothschild clan. As was clearly illustrated for the attentive in the course of the COVID Hoax, this transnational network, within which the upper echelons of the AHS reside, can be conceived of collectively as a ruthless mafioso serving some of the most sinister lobbies on Earth.
In her speech at the annual general meeting of the United Conservative Party, Premier Smith promised that she would finally take on the AHS Behemoth that to this day is still promoting toxic fluoride in communal drinking water along with the discredited COVID-19 booster shots. “Decentralization” was the code word Smith used in announcing her plan to fix up or replace the AHS. Without some major rejigging, the AHS will remain unaccountable to the government of Alberta and to the tax payers that fund it.
Premier Smith’s speech was upbeat, tight and effectively delivered. Several times she referred to her core approach to governing Alberta as “compassionate conservatism.” I shall have more to say on Smith’s commitment to compassionate conservatism in light of the obscenities currently unfolding in the Middle East.
To me Smith’s commitment to compassionate conservatism conjures up memories of what used to be called Red Toryism. The Red Tory ideal was embraced, for instance, by Joe Clark. Clark is another Conservative Albertan who was briefly Prime Minister of Canada in 1979-80.
As a compassionate conservative, Premier Smith stands to claim a lot of political turf essentially abandoned by the Liberal and NDP parties. There have moved away from bread and butter issues as well as from the realm of rights and freedoms and civil liberties and even social welfare for average Canadians not engaged in the mysteries of exploring gender pluralism. Whatever their rhetoric, the resort of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his NDP backers to Woke authoritarianism is highlighting the common sense approach of Conservatives at both the national and provincial levels.
As Smith well explained in her AGM speech, a key to financing “compassionate conservatism” in Alberta lies in the conscientious development and wise exploitation of the treasure trove of oil and gas resources in Canada’s most immense and lucrative Oil Patch. The practical side of developing this major natural resource has been infamously attacked by the Trudeau government and especially by its primary green energy crusader, Steven Guilbeault.
In contrast to the Smith government, the Trudeau- Guilbeault duo do not have a solid political base beneath them to support the implementation of their Quixotic and science-bereft plans for a radical transformation of Canada’s political economy.
It seems fitting that Trudeau’s career is plunging in the midst of his attempt to force Albertans to put aside their careful development of one of the greatest energy sources in the world. This development has for some time employed hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast, spreading the wealth in ways that have elevated our country’s standard of living in many important ways.
At the heart of the current controversy is the federal government’s attempt to force on Albertans an electrical grid based largely on the highly problematic exploitation of wind and solar power. By investing so much political capital in this thoroughly retarded scheme, Justin Trudeau is being exposed as the rank amateur he is on anything other than plunging Canada into massive debt in order to distribute payola among his political cronies.
The borrowed money is for showering riches on likes of Drag Queen educators as well as contributing at least $10 billion to help along NATO’s sacrifice of Ukrainian soldiers, many of them Nazis, in a war they could never win. Little by little Trudeau escapades are catching up with him in spite of the bribed Canadian media’s efforts to protect him at every turn.
How much longer can Trudeau get away with travesties like honouring Nazi war veterans in Parliament or facing drug busts while supposedly attending to controversial diplomatic business in India? How much longer can Trudeau turn a blind eye to the military training of Khalistani separatists in British Columbia, or continuing to cover up of the lies and crimes of SNC-Lavalin? How much longer can Trudeau evade some reckoning with the overwhelming evidence he enabled the activities of Chinese spies in order to boost the Liberal Party’s otherwise flimsy electoral prospects?
Of course Premier Smith and several UCP cabinet ministers who made public presentations were able to score easy points by pointing much-deserved verbal barbs at Trudeau, an official that might as well be wearing a target on his back.
I was pleased to see the Alberta’s Energy Minister, Brian Jean, become defensive when referring to the wonky concept of “net zero” presently being put front and centre in the oil and gas industry’s environmental negotiations with government. The current point of contention between Ottawa and Edmonton is whether the goal for reaching “net zero” should be 2035 or 2050.
But what exactly is net zero anyway? Is the concept as empty as it seems promising some sort of nirvana to cure all that ails us? What proof is there to support the dubious contention that carbon, life’s main chemical component, is the ultimate enemy? CO2 is plant food that gives us vital oxygen in return. Why mess with such a synergistic exchange?
Jean seemed to apologize to the audience for adopting the empty terminology of “net zero.” He indicated that the Alberta government’s corporate partners in the oil and gas industry insist on using the term. What kind of explanation is that? Why not call the bluff of those engaged in the net zero hoax, part of the climate change chicanery? If the government of Alberta won’t do it, who will?
If the oil and gas industry is going to lead Albertans into a swamp of nonsensical game playing pretending to be science, maybe its time for Albertans to consider exercising our own sovereign proprietorship over our own provincial resource. Perhaps its time to follow Norway’s example of developing oil and gas resources ourselves.
Who is going to make the necessary case that there is no viable Plan B other than adopting much lower standards of living if cheap and muscular oil and gas is to be abandoned in the name going green.
Gaining a Sense of Exhilaration from Voting to Condemn Violations of Our Rights of Self-Determinations
For me, the highlight of the UCP’s AGM took place in the interval following Premier Danielle Smith’s presentation. The exercise was devoted to bringing forward policy proposals authored by several of the UCP’s 87 constituency associations. These policies covered a broad array of subjects.
The underlying design seemed to be to give the grass roots of the UCP membership the opportunity to assert the pre-eminence of the rights and freedoms denied to us so severely throughout the manufactured COVID crisis. Without our ongoing vigilance and willingness to resist, the COVID crimes will be made to merge with other pretexts for globalist agents to diminish us in the name of fighting more overhyped threats to, for instance, our health, our wellness, or our economic viability. In my view, the depopulation agenda is still proceeding.
The following policy proposal, which was passed by about 3000 UCP members in attendance. It gives a good idea of the kind of explanatory justifications presented for consideration to the delegates at the UCP AGM.
Policy Proposal 2 Policy Reference: P-0170
Sponsor: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul
Article: 403 RIGHTS .1 INFRINGEMENT PROTECTION
The United Conservative Party believes the Government of Alberta should… c) Protect an individual’s right to free expression.
Rationale
Recent events saw Albertans being censored for their scientific, personal, and or religious beliefs regarding government policies because there was a perceived societal benefit to do so. Our Prime Minister, Chief Medical Officers, health care authorities, the media, employers, unions, police, military, border security, schools, universities, businesses, and many other people in positions of authority took it upon themselves to censor, isolate, vilify, placed on leave of absence without pay, and or outright fire people that did not ascribe to their and or the government’s policy of the day. Many professionals, highly educated individuals, and or concerned critical thinking citizens were censored, ridiculed and or otherwise ignored for simply speaking out against and or not accepting the proffered government position on a subject and that may or may not have been correct, and such action on their part is reprehensible. Albertans were singled out and made to suffer hardships for no other reason than their beliefs were different from the authority/authorities in question.
Another policy proposal demands remediation for the travesties that took place in the medical profession. It asserted
Policy Proposal 3 Policy Reference: P-0203
Sponsor: Calgary-Lougheed
Article: 206 HEALTH .7 HEALTH CARE WORKERS RIGHTS
The United Conservative Party believes that the Government of Alberta should… b) Protect a medical practitioner’s right to research, speak, and write; and protect Medical Doctors and all healthcare professionals from having their licenses to practice threatened for publicly expressing professional medical opinions in any public setting.
Rationale
During the Covid-19 crisis doctors had their physician licenses suspended and others lost their positions as university professors for speaking out about things like the importance of getting informed consent. Others were threatened for expressing their concerns about how quickly vaccines were being pushed upon the public without facing the test of time, or for expressing their concerns about serious negative side effects that they had witnessed after their patients had received a Covid-19 vaccine. The ‘scientific method’ requires skepticism and ongoing debate to ensure that medical practices and treatment are safe and effective. To ensure that we have the best medicines, vaccines, and medical practices possible we must always protect freedom of opinion and expression by medical professionals and scientists regardless of whether they are working in society, privately, or at universities, especially during times of crisis.
The range of topics is impressive. They pertained, for instance, to family farms, race and admission criteria to colleges, the privacy of health care information, the need to protect agricultural soil from the pollution of solar panel complexes, the need to embrace paper ballots and to reject the computerization of voting, the repressive intent of 15 minute cities, parental rights and schooling, the unreasonable prohibition of fertilizer production, pornography in children’s school books, and the need to protect female inmates from rape by other inmates who are male cross dressers pretending to be women.
It would be hard to describe the sense of exhilaration I derived from taking part in this exercise of voting in public in real time, along with thousands of other mostly like-minded people. Many of the subjects on which we voted, involved three hard years on the receiving end of literally thousands of arbitrary dictates whose effect was to overturn many of the most personal aspects of our lives.
Throughout these three years there were no openings at all for us to take part in, nor even respond to, the often ruinous, ridiculous or downright dangerous and damaging impositions that authorities, sometimes with guns, attempted to force on us. If we chose not to comply, the top official in the land deemed us to be nothing less than hate-filled bigots, racists, misogynists or worse.
Finally after all this time, simply holding up a sign along with others saying “yes” to the proposition of never again facing such outrageous dictates from above, seemed comforting. It felt like coming out of a desert lacking the revitalizing waters of self-determination. I can only imagine how distant is the the prospect of voting as we did on matters of such substance among out fellow Covidian skeptics in, say, Ontario or BC.
What will happen to our votes and resolutions? It remains to be seen if Premier Danielle Smith’s custodianship of the Office of Alberta’s Premier will fulfill the promise of the surprising turns of events that began with the manufactured COVID crisis.
Hardly a Peep of Protest to the Savage Massacre Underway in Gaza
As the official meeting wound down, many conference goers gathered in a hospitality suite where a group called Take Back Alberta gathered to engage in various forms of schmoozing and debriefing. One of the advertised events publicized at the gathering was the upcoming speech in Calgary to be delivered by Ben Shapiro. Indeed, earlier in the day I was approached by a young UCP organizer with an enthusiast suggestion that I should attend the Shapiro event on 16 November.
Some readers will be aware that Ben Shapiro is the principle public figure in the Clear Wire network of “Conservative” bloggers. Shapiro managed to attract Canadian Jordan Peterson into his operation. The relationship was formalized at a meeting in Jerusalem where Shapiro and Peterson sat down in for a meal with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since that meeting it has become clear that Peterson is very comfortable promoting Zionist positions in his official position as a prominent member of Shapiro’s Clear Wire Team. Peterson’s orientation was well expressed when he famously texted Benjamin Netanyahu to encourage him to give the Palestinians of the Gaza prison camp “hell.” In the current context this message amounted to an encouragement to kill more Palestinians more quickly.
I took note of the fact that throughout the entire UCP AGM, I did not hear one official or informal mention of the genocidal horror unfolding in Gaza. The silence on such a pertinent subject bothered me, especially in light of Premier Danielle Smith’s frequent references to “compassionate conservatism.”
Indeed even when one puts aside the humanitarian aspects of the Israel-Palestinian confrontation, it seems to me that the Albertan government overseeing one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, would want to convey some sense of the implications for the oil and gas sector in North America of what is going on in the Middle East. After all, under the auspices of John D. Rockefeller the oil and gas business was one of first truly globalized modern industries on the planet.
That transnational aspect of the primary energy sources for twentieth and twenty-first century industrialization, is surely a factor that demands some attention and analysis from the government of Alberta. For instance, what are the implications for Alberta of the new alliance of Saudi Arabia and Iran negotiated under the guidance of the Chinese government. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are famous oil and gas giants?
What are the implications for Alberta of the BRICS coalition that has become more and more cohesive in the course of the war between Russia and the NATO’s proxy army in Ukraine? The silence on such matters from UCP officials makes me think of the Smith government as rather parochial when it comes to Alberta’s part in the worldwide network of major players in the global operations of the oil and gas industry.
These reflections bring me back to Ben Shapiro and his prominent role in interpreting for Israel the conflagration underway in Gaza. This conflagration may go nuclear. It may spark an Arab and Iranian boycott of oil exports, with all that such a development would mean for Alberta.
I felt the impact of the Israel-Gaza crisis when I went to my familiar Albertan news sites on October 8. Our cozy coalition at Western Standard, True North, and Rebel Newswent up in flames when all these venues featured editorials waving the Israel flag and condemning as reprehensible any perspectives that did not conform with those of the Zionist Team.
For the purposes of this essay we can envisage the alliance between Peterson, Shapiro and Netanyahu as representative of the Zionist Team. In Alberta this Team is closely connected to the prominence of the brand of Christian Zionism that predominates in most of the big churches across the province. I am beginning in my writing to try to explore and explain what Christian Zionism is. See for example The Growing Menace of Zionism and Christian Zionism.
To conclude this account of the UCP AGM, let me relate my experience at the end of the event that gave me much spiritual and intellectual nourishment. The experience came complete with a surprise ending.
In the hospitality suite dominated by a UCP-related organization called Take Back Alberta (TBA), there was a prominent post advertising the Ben Shapiro event coming up in Calgary. When I expressed my dismay to the figure seemingly overseeing the proceedings in the crowded room, she snapped back at me that my concerns about Shapiro were totally irrelevant, that the subject had nothing to do with UCP affairs.
I disagreed and so did my wife, Helena. Advertising in a UCP venue the visit of Ben Shapiro to Calgary is very telling and consequential. Shapiro acts essentially as an extension of Netanyahu who vows to murder and displace 2.3 million Palestinian “refugees” in Gaza. Half of the Gaza population are children or young people. Many Palestinian youths have already been starved and then killed unlike the fantasy of the 40 Jewish babies said to be beheaded.
What is the role of Netanyahu role in permitting and even encouraging the Palestinian prison break from Gaza to create the rational for the savage massacre presently underway in Gaza? This massacre is drawing hardly even a peep of protest from the compassionate conservatives of the UCP, let alone from the Christian churches of Alberta and Canada.
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Dr. Anthony Hallis currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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A Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) spokesperson says it “did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any social media content regarding coronavirus vaccine side effects.”
This denial came in response to Twitter Files published by Matt Taibbi in March, which revealed that SIO’s so-called “Virality Project” had pushed platforms to treat user concerns about vaccine mandates and passports as “disinformation” and to consider “stories of true vaccine side effects” to be actionable content on social media.
The Virality Project was an initiative undertaken jointly by Big Tech, universities, and NGOs to combat “anti-vaccine misinformation.” SIO responded to Taibbi’s Twitter Files by claiming that his findings were “inaccurate and based on distortions of email exchanges in the Twitter Files.”
But new evidence shows that Stanford lied about the scope of the Virality Project and that its censorship efforts were undertaken on behalf of the US government.
As Public reported on Tuesday, new documents shared by the House Judiciary Committee revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), created the Virality Project’s predecessor, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), to censor protected speech. Explains the committee, “EIP reconstituted as the Virality Project” and continued working with the federal government. The Twitter Files also found that the Project partnered “with several government agencies,” including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Still, Stanford and the mainstream media insist that “disinformation” experts were merely conducting research, and not involved in actual censorship.
Now, an investigation by Public has uncovered clear evidence that the Project was directly and deliberately involved in successful censorship efforts. Public analyzed a trove of newly released Jira system tickets, the Virality Project’s tipline to social media companies. These tickets overwhelmingly contradict Stanford’s assertion that it did not try to get content censored.
The Virality Project, acting as a cut-out for DHS and CISA, worked directly with employees at Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and more, who were all signed up to their Jira system. Those companies regularly assured the Project that they were addressing the content it flagged. Companies responded with comments like, “Thanks for flagging this. We have actioned the content,” or “Thanks for escalating to us — our team is looking into this now.” The Virality Project kept track of actions on the content it flagged, and was frequently successful in getting content labeled or removed by platforms, and in getting users suspended.
The Virality Project appears to have played a major role in one particularly infamous case of Covid-related censorship. On March 15, 2021, Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff tweeted,
“Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”
No. Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children. https://t.co/qXtpM3QRY3
“Dear Twitter Team,” a representative of the Virality Project wrote in response to Kulldorff’s post, “This Tweet directly contradicts CDC’s advice.”
“Thanks team — we’re looking into this,” a senior Twitter Trust & Safety policy specialist wrote back.
Kulldorff’s tweet was then labeled as misleading and he was temporarily suspended from the platform. Internally, the Virality Project identified Kulldorff, a renowned biostatistician, as a “repeat offender.”
This process was indeed a deliberate, state-sponsored act of censorship. In many egregious instances, the Virality Project — again, a government cut-out — intentionally and knowingly worked to silence and deplatform social media users. Jira records vindicate the Twitter Files and are evidence of First Amendment violations.
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Featured image is from Public
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
Shortly after the start of the war against Gaza, Palestinian trade unions appealed to their colleagues worldwide for a boycott of arms supplies to Israel. That appeal is being heeded in many countries. That list of countries is growing every day.
When Israel unleashed its ruthless war of revenge against the people of Gaza, Palestinian trade unions appealed to their colleagues worldwide for a boycott of arms deliveries to Israel:
“As Israel escalates its military campaign, Palestinian trade unions call on our counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes – most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research. The time for action is now – Palestinian lives hang in the balance.”
The Belgian trade unions were the first to set a good example. In a joint press release they called for a stop to arms shipments destined for Israel. They refuse to contribute to the murder of innocent victims and call for an immediate ceasefire.
“We, the various trade unions active in the ground handling sector, call on our members to no longer handle flights shipping military material to Palestine/Israel, as there were clear agreements and rules at the beginning of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”
The Belgian example is being followed in many countries. The list grows every day.
In the United States, part of the United Auto Workers (UAW), which is currently waging a fierce battle for wage increases, is calling for a boycott of Israel.
“We watch with horror as the US sends American troops to assist in an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. We mourn the loss of civilian life. We categorically reject US support of the murderous Israeli regime in its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which has killed over 7,000 people and injured 16,000 more in airstrikes since October 7, and has cut off water, food, and power to the population of Gaza.
We call on the UAW to endorse and implement boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS).”
The United Tech & Allied Workers of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (UTAW-CWU) join calls from Palestinian trade unions for the international labour movement to end all complicity and take concrete action against arms supplies to Israel.
The Central Trade Union Council of India (AICCTU), which represents more than 600,000 workers, is appealing to unions for aboycott of arms shipments to Israel.
“We extend our full support to the call by Palestinian trade unions to all workers of the world and their unions to unite and boycott manufacturing or loading of weapons and military equipment destined to Israël and its brutal war.”
In Brazil, CUT, the largest trade union federation representing more than 7.4 million workers, passed a resolution pledging unwavering support for the Palestinians.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the country’s largest union with 75,000 members, adopted a resolution in solidarity with the Palestinian people, including a call for the government to “end its sale of arms to Israel.”
In Japan, the National Railway Motive Power Union of the town of Chiba (1 million inhabitants) responds to the call of the Palestinian unions. The Japanese government plans to supply weapons and financial aid to Israel, among other things. The railway association wants to prevent this: We wholeheartedly support the fierce struggle of the Palestinian people, and we will fight with all our might to overthrow the Kishida administration, a member of international imperialism: the cause of oppression of the people and the cause of war.”
In Colombia, the miners’ union wants a suspension of the supply of all minerals and fuels to Israel.
“As noted by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, these events ‘do not come in a vacuum’. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation; they have seen their land constantly swallowed up by settlements and plagued by violence.
Their economy was stifled, their people displaced and their homes destroyed. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight are fading.
The Israeli government’s response has been described by President Gustavo Petro as a situation similar to what was experienced in the Nazi concentration camps. It’s a genocide. In light of this barbarity, our President yesterday recalled the Colombian ambassador to Israel for consultations.
We fully support these decisions and encourage the government to suspend shipments of Colombian coal and all metals and minerals to Israel as leverage for an immediate ceasefire, as demanded by civil society, human rights organizations, churches and we join as a trade union organization.
Cease fire now!”
In Barcelona, port workers have decided not to allow materials to be sent to the conflict in the Gaza Strip. They do this for the “sole purpose of protecting the civilian population, regardless of territory. No reason justifies the sacrifice of civilians.”
The dockworkers consider it a collective “obligation” to defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “tooth and nail”. They criticize the fact that many countries seem to have forgotten that they signed the Declaration. They point out that these human rights are “currently being violated in Ukraine, Israel and the Palestinian territories”.
The dockers call for an immediate ceasefire and peaceful solutions to the various conflicts.
In Poland, the largest umbrella confederation of trade unions (OPZZ) is calling for an end to military cooperation with Israel.
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Marc Vandepitte is a Belgian economist and philosopher. He writes on North-South relations, Latin America, Cuba, and China. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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We are witnessing a tsunami of cardiac arrests since the advent of the worldwide mass genetic vaccination program. In virtually every case, the COVID-19 vaccination status is not disclosed to the public.
Additionally, the general autopsy can be “normal.” I am commonly asked what should a modern COVID-19 vaccine era cardiac autopsy look like:
Gross inspection, heart aorta, great vessels, lungs, pulmonary arteries
Heart weight <250 g for women, < 350 g for men
Coronary slices for atherosclerosis and thrombus
Myocardial slices for evidence of scar, congenital abnormalities, valvular disease.
Myocardial immunohistochemical staining for SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Nucleocapsid, inflammatory cells, amyloid protein
Buccal swab for Arrythmia and Cardiomyopathy Panel (In Vitae or equivalent)
Research assays
Anatomic coronary artery disease is highly prevalent in adults and it may be a bystander and not the direct cause of the arrhythmic cardiac arrest. Di Michele et al reported that small micro RNA fragments that are known to regulate genes, and in this circumstance, genes that control cardiac ion channels, do vary up or down in blood and cardiac tissue and help distinguish between a coronary event and a primary arrhythmic event.
Bernini Di Michele A, Onofri V, Pesaresi M, Turchi C. The Role of miRNA Expression Profile in Sudden Cardiac Death Cases. Genes (Basel). 2023 Oct 17;14(10):1954. doi: 10.3390/genes14101954. PMID: 37895303; PMCID: PMC10606010.
At this time it is possible that mRNA and adenoviral DNA vaccines could influence key miRNA’s in the causal pathway to a primary arrhythmic cardiac death in the absence of clinical myocarditis. So if you are involved in a circumstance with a family member or friend with an unexpected cardiac arrest, please push for the fullest autopsy possible. You will only have one shot.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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United States President Joe Biden recently stated that his country is not only “the most powerful in the world”, but also supposedly “in the history of mankind”. And while that assertion is highly debatable to anyone remotely familiar with the actual history of our planet, it’s true that very few countries (if any) can (or could’ve) match the US in terms of military (over)deployment.
Namely, while the exact number is not easy to pinpoint, Washington DC currently operates at least a thousand military bases, logistics hubs and centers, etc. around the globe. The belligerent thalassocracy insists that this is “necessary” to supposedly “maintain global security”. However, the vast majority of the people on our planet are perfectly aware that this is anything but true and that the US and its vassals and satellite states are by far the greatest security threat to anyone in the world.
And yet, in its endless hypocrisy and double standards, Washington DC keeps “expressing concern” when other countries establish a military presence on foreign soil, no matter how minuscule it is in comparison to the US. According to various reports, for the first time in its history, China is planning to establish a permanent military base in the Middle East. Washington DC is virtually bound to see this “as a significant challenge”, particularly as the planned permanent base is to be in the highly strategic (and volatile) Persian Gulf region. The US itself also has a major military presence, such as the Navy Central Command military infrastructure in Qatar and Bahrain. On November 7, citing “people familiar with the matter”, Bloomberg reported that “President Joe Biden has been briefed on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman”.
“This comes amid a broader effort by Beijing to deepen defense and diplomatic ties with the Middle East,” the report continues, further adding: “Biden was told that Chinese military officials discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. They said the two sides agreed to more talks in the coming weeks.”
The exact location of the future Chinese military infrastructure in Oman is still unknown. Back in August, Beijing and Muscat celebrated the 45th anniversary of the establishment of their formal diplomatic relations. In recent decades, the two countries have significantly improved their economic and military relationship, including joint exercises and other activities related to security and national interests. In addition, the port of Muscat is known for regularly hosting the ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Back in mid-October, the Royal Navy of Oman (RNO) and PLAN held joint naval drills and also promised “to expand their naval defense and military cooperation”. It should also be noted that China maintains very close relations with other countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which could also be a possible candidate for future Chinese military presence.
At present, the only significant military base that Beijing operates anywhere near the region is its military base in Djibouti, a small country in East Africa. It should be noted that China is prone to establishing a military presence only in areas that its leadership thinks are important for the security of its massive infrastructure projects such as the unprecedented One Belt One Road.
This Chinese-led multinational effort spans almost the entirety of Asia and large parts of Europe. It includes both land and naval facilities and infrastructure with a particular focus on trade and transportation. An important part of the project also includes Beijing’s plans to deepen ties with various major energy producers, a mutually beneficial effort that will further stabilize the otherwise volatile region. Bloomberg also suggested this is a major reason behind strengthened military ties between China and Oman.
And while the US doesn’t have a direct and permanent military presence in Oman (besides naval visits to its ports), it does have an official agreement with Muscat to use the country’s military bases whenever it needs them for operations in the region. This includes the Thumrait airbase of the RAFO (Royal Air Force of Oman), located near the homonymous city in the south of the country. The airbase is often used by the USAF. In addition, the US Navy also has a strong presence in waters off the coast of Oman. Its primary mission in the area is essentially “legalized piracy” that includes hunting for Iranian ships supposedly loaded with oil, weapons or anything else the US considers “illegal”. Needless to say, such activities by the US forces in the region only contribute to unnecessary tensions and destabilization. This stands in stark contrast to China’s plans, as Beijing maintains a strong partnership with everyone in the region.
In the last several years, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) began warning that China is supposedly “not content with its Djibouti base on the continent’s east coast, but is looking to establish a military presence on the Atlantic”. Washington DC sees this as a major threat to its much-touted “rules-based world order”. However, it’s obvious that Beijing’s military ambitions are nowhere near those of Washington DC and that the Eurasian giant simply wants to ensure the safety of its global infrastructure projects. It’s highly unlikely that the US will be able to force China’s partners in any of the areas where these projects are being conducted to stop them, let alone break growing ties with Beijing. For these countries, the choice is rather simple – it’s crucial to maintain close ties with the world’s most powerful production economy and a country that actually makes long-term investments in socioeconomic development.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Multiple voting machines in Northampton County in the swing state of Pennsylvania have been shut down due to reports of voting errors, including “votes getting flipped.”
The election issue surfaced in the early hours of Tuesday, which impacted the contest for the Pennsylvania Superior Court between Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor Stabile.
The Northampton County Elections Office reports that the malfunction seems to manifest itself when a voter chooses between “Yes” and “No” in regard to a candidate vying for a seat on the Superior Court of Appeals.
The selection for the opposing candidate was inaccurately recorded on both the paper ballot and the voting machine.
The error appears to have been confined to the re-election of Superior Court judges and solely manifested itself during the tallying of ballots for those who voted “Yes” for one candidate but “No” for another.
“I’m livid at the election folks and ES&S,” said Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.
The county has acknowledged the issue in a statement and provided reassurance to the public that efforts are being made to expedite the resolution of the malfunction.
The election officials acknowledged the error in a press release:
Northampton County Elections Office reports an issue with the recording of votes only for the races for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, affecting Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor P. Stabile.
It appears that when a voter selects a “Yes” or a “No” for one of the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, the selection is recorded on the paper ballot and on the machine for the other candidate.
The issue is limited to the retention of Superior Court Judges, and is only an issue when recording the votes for when a voter selected a “Yes” for one candidate and a “No” for another candidate.
The Elections Division of the County of Northampton notified all poll workers by text message that they are to instruct voters before the voter enters the voting booth that there is an issue with the recording of their vote for the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, that the paper receipt will record their selection for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court one candidate to the other candidate.
According to Lehigh Valley News, immediately following the opening of polling precincts, when errors with the voting machines were discovered, poll workers across the county discontinued using the machines and resorted to provisional ballots.
As stated in the county’s news release, county officials dispatched text messages to all polling locations in the aftermath of the initial incidents in order to maintain communication and keep poll workers informed of the situation. The occurrence has resulted in significant disturbances to the voting procedure, prompting numerous officials and voters to voice their discontent and apprehensions.
Merissa Hansen, an investigative journalist in Harris County, Texas, reported that there were voting machine issues at multiple locations, leading to shut downs.
I’m hearing from voters across District G about voting machines not working at various locations. Machines down at @FrostwoodElem. A few machines down at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Voters being turned away b/c ballot scanners aren’t scanning at River Oaks Elementary and at…
“I’m hearing from voters across District G about voting machines not working at various locations. Machines down at @FrostwoodElem. A few machines down at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Voters being turned away b/c ballot scanners aren’t scanning at River Oaks Elementary and at River Oaks Park. If you’re having problems please report it here: http://defendmyballot.org.”
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***
In the video below, Dr Mahathir is speaking at the Global Solidarity and Rally Free Palestine organised by Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia (FORSEA). Transcript is right after the video.
Transcript
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The October 1962 missile crisis that kept humanity in suspense ended with the signing by Kennedy and Khrushchev of the Nuclear Test Suspension Agreement (1962) which included the withdrawal of Russian missiles into Cuban territory in exchange for the withdrawal of US missiles stationed in Turkey, appearing in its small print the sine qua non condition of “no US invasion of the island.”
This agreement has protected Cuba for 60 years from a US invasion, establishing as a counterpart the figure of the “blockade” that has remained in force to date.
The cessation of the United States blockade against Cuba, demanded for the thirty-first time in the General Assembly of the United Nations and approved overwhelmingly by 187 votes to 2 (US and Israel) and Ukraine’s abstention reaffirm freedom of trade and navigation in the face of an anachronistic blockade imposed by Kennedy in 1962. In addition, the automatic renewal by the US for another year of the trade embargo on the island would threaten the current international financial and political system and could mean losses for Cuba estimated at about $7 billion.
Utopia would be the normalization of relations between Cuba and the US, final destination of a route marked by the necessary (termination of the energy block) and the possible (suspension of the anachronistic blockade) to what seemed impossible (normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States). The road ahead was marked by the challenges of ending the energy blockade of the island,
Cuba’s withdrawal from the list of “States Sponsoring Terrorism”,
the repeal of the Helms-Burton Act and finally,
the suspension of the anachronistic blockade in force since 1962 that would give way to the exchange of ambassadors and the desired normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States.
Ukraine has already received the status of a candidate country for the European Union and in the event that it is admitted as a full member and continues the dispute with Russia, Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union would oblige EU countries to enter into direct conflict with Russia.
Accordingly, the maintenance of the embargo against Cuba could generate a vacuum of unpredictable results in the middle of Cold War 2.0 between the US and Russia that could end up drawing a new geopolitical cartography in the Caribbean.
Thus, Russia would be forced to move its pieces and place them strategically in the so-called US “backyard” with the unequivocal aim of expanding the Russian military radio, as reported to the Russian news agency Sputnik by the Head of the Defense Committee of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament, Victor Borndarev,
“the establishment of a Russian military base in Cuba in a context of increasing US aggression, would respond to National Security interests”, and the Kennedy-Khrushchev Missile Crisis could be revived (October 1962) and the subsequent signature with Khrushchev of the Nuclear Test Suspension Agreement (1962).
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Germán Gorraiz Lopez is a political analyst and frequent contributor to Global Research
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The announcement late Sunday night by the US Central Command [CENTCOM] headquartered in Doha about the arrival of a Ohio-class American nuclear submarine in its “area of responsibility” presages a significant escalation of the situation around the Palestine-Israel conflict.
It is very rare that the use of these submarines is publicised. The CENTCOM provided no additional details but it posted an image that apparently showed an Ohio-class submarine in Egypt’s Suez Canal Bridge. Interestingly, CENTCOM also separately shared an image of a nuclear-capable B-1 bomber operating in the Middle East.
Taken together, these US deployments, coming on top of the formidable presence of two aircraft carriers and warships hundreds of advanced jet fighters in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea respectively, are with an eye on “the other side of the equation,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken quaintly described Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Friday.
In a related development, perhaps, the CIA director, William Burns arrived in Israel on Sunday for urgent consultations. The New York Times reported that the US is “looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel.”
Arguably, the most charitable explanation for the deployment of a US nuclear submarine, which forms part of the Pentagon’s “nuclear triad” –Ohio-class boats are the largest submarines ever built for the US Navy — near the war zone is that the Biden Administration is preparing for an escalation of the war into Lebanon to draw out Hezbollah, which may in turn trigger an Iranian reaction.
In his speech on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah seemed to anticipate precisely such a turn of events when he explicitly warned the US of consequences that couldn’t be any different from the catastrophic American involvement in Lebanon’s civil war in the early 1980s. Ironically, this is also the 40th anniversary year of the suicide bombing of the barracks housing US forces in Beirut International Airport in October 1983 in which 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed forcing a US withdrawal from Lebanon. (See me blog Hezbollah takes to the high ground.)
Clearly, the locus of the US strategy in the present Middle situation may be shifting from diplomacy, which has anyway lost traction. Blinken’s desperate attempts to address the mounting international criticism of Israel’s horrific war crimes by diverting attention to a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, et al, has been unceremoniously shot down by Netanyahu.
The point is, after pounding Gaza and its people with artillery and bombs, the Israeli army moved in on Friday. So far, it has reportedly advanced to the outskirts of Gaza City but not entered the Hamas stronghold. Fierce urban fighting is expected when it does.
Equally, the Biden administration’s hurried attempt to promote a vague outline for a post-war Gaza that might include a combination of a revitalised Palestinian Authority, a peacekeeping force, etc.has been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm at Blinken’s meeting in the weekend in Amman with the Arab foreign ministers -– from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates –-who instead demanded an immediate ceasefire, while Blinken said Washington wouldn’t push for one.
Blinken travelled to Ramallah from Amman where the head of the Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas also gave him short shrift saying that the PA would only be ready to shoulder full responsibility for the Gaza Strip in the framework of a “comprehensive political solution” that would include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — and, furthermore, that security and peace can only be achieved by ending the occupation of the territories of the “State of Palestine,” and by recognising East Jerusalem as its capital. The meeting lasted for less than an hour and ended without public statements.
Meanwhile, China and the UAE have since called for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council in another attempt to seek an immediate ceasefire, which the Biden Administration will certainly oppose. Suffice to say, the Biden Administration feels boxed in and the only way out is by something giving way through exercise of coercive means.
The US is watching with frustration as new regional equations are appearing among Muslim nations. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia held another phone conversation today. The OIC later announced that an extraordinary summit will be held in Riyadh on November 12 at the request of the current chairman, Saudi Arabia, to discuss Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people.
Certainly, the Iran-Saudi rapprochement, mediated by Beijing, has profoundly transformed the regional security environment with regional states distinctly preferring to find solutions to their problems without outside interference, and the old schisms and xenophobia promoted by the US to perpetuate its dominance having no takers anymore.
As the death toll in Gaza crosses 10,000, feelings are indeed running high in the Muslim world. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that “all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war” in Gaza. Khamenei added that as the war goes on, the reasons behind the US’s direct role would become more explicit.
The Fars News Agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also disclosed that Khamenei held a “recent meeting in Tehran” with the Head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh where he told the latter that Tehran’s support for the resistance groups is its “permanent policy.”
Evidently, Tehran no longer sees a problem in acknowledging its fraternal links with the resistance groups. This is a paradigm shift indicative of the shift in the power dynamic, which the US and Israel are compelled to counter through use of force, Washington’s diplomacy having failed to make headway to isolate Iran.
The Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday during a meeting in the Northern Command,
“We are ready to strike in the north at any moment. We understand that it can happen… We have a clear goal of restoring a significantly better security situation at the borders, not only in the Gaza Strip.”
No power on earth can stop Israel on its tracks now. Its stability and defence is inextricably linked to this war, which will also ensure abiding US commitment to its security as a key template of American global strategies for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Israel’s best chance of survival lies in expanding the scope of the war in Gaza into Lebanon — and possibly even into Syria — shoulder to shoulder with the Americans.
There is no question that the location of the US nuclear submarine to the east of Suez is an attempt to intimidate Iran from intervening, while Israel, with US backing, proceeds to open a second front in Lebanon. The Israeli authorities have announced evacuation of people from settlements located in a zone up to five kms from the border with Lebanon.
A war of indeterminate timeline is set to begin in the Middle East. As the call of the jihad begins, inevitably, there is no knowing how the 80-year old American president will respond.
No, this won’t turn into a world war. It will be fought in the Middle East only, but its outcome will significantly impact the making of a new multipolar world order. The past one month has shown the precipitous decline of US influence and the highly volatile global environment since the war began in Ukraine in February last year.
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Featured image: A joint meeting of the US and five Arab foreign ministers took place in Amman on November 4, 2023 to discuss the Palestine question (Source: IP)
November 10th, 2023 by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) welcomes Canada’s renewed support for a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on Palestinian refugees, but warns that this lone vote is insufficient in the face of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On November 9, Canada voted in the UNGA’s Fourth Committee for a draft resolution in support of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, after abstaining since 2011. However, in the same meeting, Canada voted against four other resolutions, including two supporting Palestine refugees and one condemning Israeli settlements. CJPME warns that Canada’s less-than-half-hearted approach indicates that it is not serious about addressing the human catastrophe that Israel is creating in Gaza.
“Today’s vote is a necessary correction. It was always absurd for Canada to abstain on UNRWA while giving millions in donations to the agency every year,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “However, this is hardly a step forward. Any positive message that Canada intends to send with this vote is vastly outweighed by its continued opposition to every other motion on UNRWA and Palestine refugees,” added Woodley.
CJPME notes that although Canada is a financial supporter of UNRWA, it has failed to directly condemn Israel for its attacks on UNRWA schools, which have killed over 90 UNRWA staff. More than 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced since October 7, and many thousands are sheltering in UNRWA facilities, which have been repeatedly bombed.
The resolutions which Canada voted against during today’s session include:
1. A resolution which recognizes UNRWA and urges the international community to support its work. It passed 160-4.
2. A resolution which reaffirms that Palestinian refugees are entitled to their property, and asks the UN to protect Arab assets and property rights in Israel. It passed 156-6.
3. A resolution to condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. It passed 145-7.
“It is shocking that Canada would vote in support of Israeli settlements in a year of unprecedented settlement expansion, and as attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers have forcibly displaced at least 15 herding communities in the West Bank. Israel’s ongoing colonization of Palestinian land is directly creating new refugees, with Canada’s support,” said Woodley.
There are 10-16 standing resolutions on Palestinian human rights which are considered by the UNGA each year. Although in the early 2000s Canada voted in support of nearly all of them, this approach radically changed under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who in 2011 began voting against nearly every one of these resolutions as a package. In 2019, Trudeau made a small shift by resuming Canada’s vote in favour of a single resolution on Palestinian self-determination. Last year, CJPME published a report titled “Voting Against Its Own Interests,” which revealed that career foreign affairs officials have warned the government behind the scenes that its staunchly pro-Israel voting record at the United Nations contradicts its own values and interests and harms its international reputation. CJPME’s UN Dashboard is an interactive resource which shows how Canada’s votes on these motions have changed from 2000 to the present.
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Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]
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An expansion of the scope of the war in Gaza is “inevitable” due to Israel’s heightened aggression, according to Iran’s foreign minister.
Hossein Amirabdollahian made the statement in a phone conversation with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Iran’s Press TV reported on Friday.
“Due to the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gaza’s civilian residents, expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” Amirabdollahian said.
It is unclear what he meant by an “inevitable expansion” of the conflict.
Separately, Amirabdollahian said on his X account on Thursday:
“Time is fast running out for Tel Aviv’s crimes to continue.”
زمان برای تداوم جنایات تلآویو بسرعت رو به پایان است. تنها فايده نتانياهو اين بود كه پایههای رژیم جعلی اسراییل را متزلزلتر ساخت و چهره جنایتکار، خشن و متجاوز رژیم صهیونیستی را در قتلعام زنان و کودکان در غزه به روشنی و بدون روتوش به نمایش گذاشت. بی تردید آینده از آن فلسطین است.
— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) November 9, 2023
“The only benefit of Netanyahu was that he made the foundations of the fake Israeli regime more shaky and showed the criminal, violent, and aggressive face of the Zionist regime in the massacre of women and children in Gaza,” he added.
“Undoubtedly, the future belongs to Palestine,” Amirabdollahian wrote.
Regional tension and cross-border clashes have intensified since Hamas, the Iran-backed group that runs Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7, triggering Israel’s war on the enclave.
Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, which is allied to Hamas, have swapped attacks. More than 60 Hezbollah fighters and 10 civilians have been killed, Lebanese security officials say. The violence has also killed at least seven Israeli soldiers and one civilian.
United States and coalition troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces as tensions soar over Israel’s bombardment. Forty-five US troops have been injured.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement has also launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Israel since October 7, all of which were either shot down or fell short.
In a move viewed as a show of force to regional rivals, and especially Iran, the US announced last week that it has deployed a nuclear-capable submarine in the Middle East.
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Featured image: Hossein Amirabdollahian (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
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The AI Nuke Dilemma
The major nuclear powers of the world now entrust decision-making to the digital bowels of artificial intelligence (immune to radioactive fallout, by the way), which (at best) harbors a moral indifference to humanity’s continued existence and, more likely, views it as a nuisance.
“The Biden administration plans to encourage China to work with the U.S. on international norms for artificial intelligence in weapons systems, a potential new area of cooperation amid tensions between the two powers.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has warned against relying on AI to make decisions involving the use of nuclear weapons and argues that humans should be involved in all critical decisions.
“We’ve seen through history numerous examples of where decision-making could be challenged by not having a human understanding the context of the technology, understanding the background of its use, and really not being able to make the most informed decision,” said Stewart, who suggested that maintaining human involvement in nuclear operations would be in China’s best interest.
The issue of AI use with nuclear weapons would also require discussion with Russia, which continues with its war in Ukraine. Russia has suspended its participation in the last remaining bilateral nuclear arms control arrangement known as New START amid heightened tensions with the West.”
Let’s be honest: the U.S. government is the epicenter of the AI takeover. Anything it accuses China of doing in this domain, including endowing AI with the decision-making capacity to drop nukes, it likely has already or is in the process of doing itself.
The entire point of mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine — the sole reason that Earth is still (somewhat) inhabitable in 2023 — is that the human members of human nations would not fire nukes against other nuclear powers because they would understand that it would result in a global catastrophe that they would not likely survive, either as a state or as individuals.
And it’s not just nukes that AI can be used to develop and deploy.
“When drug researchers used AI to develop 40,000 potential biochemical weapons in less than six hours last year, they demonstrated how relatively simple AI systems can be easily adjusted to devastating effect. Sophisticated AI-powered cyberattacks could likewise go haywire, indiscriminately derailing critical systems that societies depend on, not unlike the infamous NotPetya attack, which Russia launched against Ukraine in 2017 but eventually infected computers across the globe. Despite these warning signs, AI technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, causing the safety risks to multiply faster than solutions can be created.”
The regulatory attempts by governments to constrain AI — such as they are — is a giant game of Whac-a-Mole. There is no putting this genie back in the bottle, and it’s certainly not going to happen under the leadership of the Brandon entity, no matter how full of amphetamine they pump him, or future President Karamel-uh, whose only expertise is in whose dick she has to suck to get her next promotion.
Big Pharma Concocts ‘Vaccine’ to Treat Cocaine Addiction
This is the pharmaceutical- über-alles ideology at work.
To these people, there exists no problem that can’t be solved at the tip of a needle.
“Scientists in Brazil, the world’s second-biggest consumer of cocaine, have announced the development of an innovative new treatment for addiction to the drug and its powerful derivative crack: a vaccine.
Dubbed “Calixcoca,” the test vaccine, which has shown promising results in trials on animals, triggers an immune response that blocks cocaine and crack from reaching the brain, which researchers hope will help users break the cycle of addiction.
Put simply, addicts would no longer get high from the drug.
If the treatment gets regulatory approval, it would be the first time cocaine addiction is treated using a vaccine, said psychiatrist Frederico Garcia, coordinator of the team that developed the treatment at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
The project won top prize last week – 500,000 euros ($530,000) – at the Euro Health Innovation awards for Latin American medicine, sponsored by pharmaceutical firm Eurofarma.”
Moving forward, literally every social, psychological, cultural, and obviously physical ailment will come with an FDA-approved “vaccine” to treat it.
AI-Controlled Cars Run Down Women, Small Children
Look, bigot, you’re just going to have to come to terms with the new reality that, on occasion, cars driven by AI are simply going to mow down grandmothers and children in their way.
This is the price of Progress™.
Anyway, it’s their human fault for being small and feeble. If God wanted them to survive the Brave New World, he would’ve fashioned their bones out of titanium instead of calcium — or even better, rendered their consciousness ethereal and non-corporal in his own image like he did with our new AI overlords.
“AV companies hope these driverless vehicles will replace not just Uber, but also human driving as we know it. The underlying technology, however, is still half-baked and error-prone, giving rise to widespread criticisms that companies like Cruise are essentially running beta tests on public streets.
Despite the popular skepticism, Cruise insists its robots are profoundly safer than what they’re aiming to replace: cars driven by people. In an interview last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt downplayed safety concerns: “Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized.”
The concerns over Cruise cars came to a head this month. On October 17, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it was investigating Cruise’s nearly 600-vehicle fleet because of risks posed to other cars and pedestrians. A week later, in San Francisco, where driverless Cruise cars have shuttled passengers since 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced it was suspending the company’s driverless operations. Following a string of highly public malfunctions and accidents, the immediate cause of the order, the DMV said, was that Cruise withheld footage from a recent incident in which one of its vehicles hit a pedestrian, dragging her 20 feet down the road.
Even before its public relations crisis of recent weeks, though, previously unreported internal materials such as chat logs show Cruise has known internally about two pressing safety issues: Driverless Cruise cars struggled to detect large holes in the road and have so much trouble recognizing children in certain scenarios that they risked hitting them. Yet, until it came under fire this month, Cruise kept its fleet of driverless taxis active, maintaining its regular reassurances of superhuman safety.
“[Cruise’s] internal materials attribute the robot cars’ inability to reliably recognize children under certain conditions to inadequate software and testing. “We have low exposure to small VRUs” — Vulnerable Road Users, a reference to children — “so very few events to estimate risk from,” the materials say. Another section concedes Cruise vehicles’ “lack of a high-precision Small VRU classifier,” or machine learning software that would automatically detect child-shaped objects around the car and maneuver accordingly. The materials say Cruise, in an attempt to compensate for machine learning shortcomings, was relying on human workers behind the scenes to manually identify children encountered by AVs where its software couldn’t do so automatically.”
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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is licensed under Wikimedia Commons