We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, November 27, 2021

Israel’s Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, announced on Friday November 26, 2021 that the country is on the verge of a state of emergency after three people tested positive for the new ‘Omicron’ variant of the coronavirus.
  • 💥Riley Waggaman: Why is Russia Going Full COVID1984? from the channel of Geopolitics & Empire on Odysee (48:34). This is a best post. (Note: You should know the meaning of "QR codes".) My reaction: This is an absolutely fascinating & disturbing discussion between two open-minded thinkers regarding pandemic conditions in Russia. I don't necessarily agree with any or all views expressed in this discussion, but I think it is necessary for you to listen to it.
  • The Great Narrative And The Metaverse, Part 2: Will The Metaverse End Human Freedom? by Derrick Broze from The Last American Vagabond. My reaction: I think that the excitement designed to sell the metaverse is promoted for the benefit of the ruling class to better control us via identity cataloging of all of us humans. Why else are we seeing such excitement? These naïve employees are willing to hitch a ride on the latest ruling class adventure for greater wealth opportunities until the time when they are disposed of by the introduction of artificial intelligence which is designed by them. Then they will join us in the ranks of the unemployed or underemployed. This is the secret of the success of our master-billionaires in the ruling capitalist class. The latter has gotten rid of one group of workers after another--the latest being small businesses. 
Broze concludes his article with these words:
 
The web of Technocrats working to build this reality should be cause for alarm to any thinking mind. Meta, Microsoft, Google, Apple, the World Economic Forum, Amazon, and others are absolutely intending to bridge the gap between virtual and physical reality. The Metaverse serves their ultimate vision of dominating humanity via digital technology and erasing privacy and individuality.

The only thing standing in the way of this technocratic dystopia are the free hearts and minds of the world. We must reject this effort and instead strive to reconnect to the physical world around us. While the technocrats have attempted to use COVID-19 as a method to sever human connection so that we might crave something akin to The Metaverse, we ought to push past this propaganda and reconnect to our fellow humans and the abundant natural world. Now is the time to fight for our humanity before the Predator Class completely abolishes our physical connection to each other and the planet. 
Israel’s Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, said this Tuesday that Iran is now at “the most advanced stage” of developing a nuclear weapon, with Israel stating that it believes Tehran will acquire the bomb within five years. Again Israel seems to move its goalpost and has revised its earlier predictions.

Friday, November 26, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, November 26, 2021

At present, based on the most recent government data, only about three Americans in a thousand could conceivably transmit Covid-19 to someone. In other words, nearly 99.7 percent of people in the United States are currently no threat to anyone of spreading the virus. And despite the large case count, 24 out of every 25 cases are recovered, meaning not only that those people are no longer threats, but also that they now have the strongest form of immunity against Covid-19.

Those numbers may sound counterintuitive — or at least counter to the usual presentation of official Covid numbers.
 
... Schallenberg, who descends from a long line of blue-blooded Austro-Hungarian nobles, was hand chosen to replace Sebastian Kurz as chancellor last month as the latter became embroiled in a testy corruption probe. Immediately following Schallenberg’s appointment, wily Covid-19, perhaps seeing a golden opportunity for a power play amid the chaos, surged in the country.

What the new Austrian chancellor seems to have forgotten, however, in his desire to play medical dictator is that people have a right to self-autonomy over their bodies. Strongly encouraging civilians to receive a vaccination is one thing; forcing it upon them by coercion – on pain of financial penalties and even imprisonment in the event they cannot pay – is crossing the humanitarian red line. That much, at least, has been determined by the United Nations.
  • Rich people things features Chris Hedges interviewing Chris Lehmann, an editor-at-large for The New Republic and The Baffler, and the author of Rich People Things, from RT America's channel on YouTube (27:05). My reaction: I think that Hedges is an old-fashioned capitalist, and I suspect Lehmann is also. Both journalists have enjoyed well-paid careers working for major publications, but now they have themselves very much alienated from the new ruling class that has taken over--the transnational ruling class of financiers, sometimes identified as "neoliberals". Both feel threatened by the financiers because the latter have threatened and harmed the middle class of which they are a part.
  • Good News This Week featuring James Corbett with James Evan Pilato (from Corbett's weblog) discussing good news found on alternative media reporting the worldwide protests against the pandemic restrictions, and other constructive efforts by people attempting to cope with the "new normal".
  • Efforts To Groom Us For War With China Are Getting More Forceful by Australian Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. My reaction: Johnstone is seeing increased efforts to prepare the American public for war with China using the defense of Taiwan propaganda. She focuses on a piece The Hill recently published entitled "American must prepare for war with China over Taiwan", an article authored by a retired CIA officer. She impugns the article by writing that the CIA was formerly used to infiltrate the media, but now is the (mainstream) media. This is an argument that I have been making for some time, and is correct.
Perpetual fear of something is characteristic of the white American psyche. Especially when the fear is about non-white people. Among the newest race related fears haunting white people are ‘Critical Race Theory’ (CRT) and ‘Wokeness.’ Both of these terms are being used as harmful code language employed by both Democrats, and Republicans and promoted by their propaganda arm — the white-owned corporate media. What makes these terms harmful is that they are being used to counter Black people’s long-standing demands for justice. 
  • 'Democracy' Circus by Bernhard, an exceptionally skilled German independent political analyst whose weblog is Moon of Alabama. My reaction: I think the title of his weblog is such because, understandably early on, he feared retribution from authorities.
  • 💥The CIA’s Cocaine Corridor from the channel of Tales of the American Empire on YouTube (09:03) tells a concise, true story of the ruling capitalist class's secret organization (CIA) involvement with the trafficking of cocaine. This is a best post. My reaction: I have lived through this history and I can attest to its accuracy by my own efforts over many years to follow independent media and reports from independent investigators like Gary Webb (not reports from media corporations). (You might do a search using "Gary Webb" on one of my search engines throughout my website. Don't be distracted by the meaningless bold type you may encounter in some of my posted articles--they represent a change years ago of Google's format on Blogspot, their weblog software.)
  • Did the CIA kill JFK? Oliver Stone on his explosive new film features an interview (22:25) conducted by Anya Parampil from The Grayzone. My reaction: The simple answer to the question posed by the title is an emphatic "yes!". This is another post by old-fashioned pro-capitalist, when most businesses were relatively small, but now the owners are fabulously rich (and powerful), funded by major financiers, and supported by major capitalists, is now attacking the new ruling class which are now in control of an Empire--the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire. There is so much for which to attack them. Most of the young, like James Corbett, etc., as well as older activists like Stone and Hedges are attacking the new ruling class for the same reasons. It is the capitalist system we, in the remaining years of our existence, must change into socialism.
  • Who Wants Some Ukraine? by Dmitry Orlov from "The Saker" weblog. (I'm posting this from "The Saker's" weblog because it is behind a paywall on Orlov's weblog.
  • 75 years of CIA and MI6 regime change in Syria – interview with Primo Radical [Vanessa Beeley] by Vanessa Beeley from her weblog The Wall Will Fall. My reaction: I think YouTube posted the video featuring a report by Beeley because it portrays her as a "primo radical" instead of an independent journalist. We can't have independent journalists reporting the news other than media corporations! (sarcasm and my insertion)
  • Greeting to Ernst Haeckle HS (please read description below) featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--03:03), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout his career on the climate crisis. My reaction: McPherson offers us and the students at this high school some wise advice as we humans face the "End of the World".
Introduction for an event hosted by the "Ethics at the End of the World" presentation group at Ernst Haeckel High School in Germany. Please keep the audience in mind as you watch.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, November 25, 2021

With 100 percent of the country having taken at least one vaccine dose by the end of last month, the country reopened its borders on November 15 to tourism, roughly a tenth of its economy, and has reopened schools. This makes Cuba an outlier among low-income countries, which have vaccinated only 2.8 percent of their combined populations. This is owed largely to vaccine hoarding by the developed world and their jealous guarding of patent monopolies, which bar poorer countries from developing generic versions of the vaccines that were produced through public funding in the first place.
 
                                                                            *************************** 
 
Several aspects make Cuba’s vaccines unique besides their country of origin, according to Helen Yaffe, senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. At the heart of it is Cuba’s decision to pursue a more traditional protein vaccine rather than the more experimental mRNA technology used for the COVID vaccines we’ve become familiar with, which had been in development for decades before the onset of the pandemic led to a breakthrough.

Because of this, Cuba’s vaccine can be kept in a fridge or even at room temperature, as opposed to the subpolar temperatures the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at or the freezer temperatures Moderna’s vaccine requires. “In the Global South, where huge amounts of the population have no access to electricity, it’s just another technological obstacle,” ....
 
Later on, the author writes:
 
There’s one more factor that sets the Cuban vaccine apart. “The Cuban vaccine is 100 percent entirely a product of a public biotech sector,” says Yaffe.

While in the United States and other developed countries, lifesaving medicines are developed thanks largely to public funding before their profits and distribution are ruthlessly privatized for corporate enrichment, Cuba’s biotech sector is wholly publicly owned and funded. That means Cuba has de-commodified a vital human resource — the exact opposite policy direction that we’ve seen in these last four decades of neoliberalism.
  • US Media’s BLATANT Lies About Cuba & Colombia features a rather cynical discussion by Jimmy Dore and Ben Norton (The Grayzone) by major US media regarding initially the recent elections in Nicaragua, but concentrates on their reporting of events in Cuba and Columbia--from Dore's channel on YouTube (40:01).
During lockdown in Sydney, Australia, Matt Austin produced his first album, "I Bloody Told You This Would Happen!", a collection of 11 songs on the critical issues we are facing under the Covid mandates. His description: 

"When people don't understand how democracy works, democracy doesn't work.
Hidden corruption of 'free' media; the lobby industry; State infiltration of activist groups; mass surveillance by government institutions and Big Tech; centralized power; Digital ID's and a Central Bank Digital Currency; Coerced acquiescence, propaganda and censorship.

  • Science Update: U.S. Military Unprepared for Climate Change featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--12:49), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout his career on the climate crisis. (Note: McPherson reads various excerpts from major media corporations and makes cynical comments on most of them.)

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, November 24, 2021

  • Wall Street’s Diabolical Plan to Financialize All Nature by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.
     
    It’s called a Natural Asset Company. With it the New York Stock Exchange has unveiled the most radical and potentially most destructive plan yet to make literally trillions of dollars on something that is the natural right and heritage of the entire human race—nature itself, all nature, from air, fresh water to rainforests to even farmland. It is being promoted as a way to incentivize the preservation of nature. In fact it is a diabolical scheme to financialize potentially trillions of dollars of nature, ultimately allowing a globalist financial elite to control even this. And the Rockefeller Foundation is a founding partner. The combination of the NYSE and that foundation ought to sound loud alarm bells.
It looks very much like the major owners of assets (billionaires) are planning to privatize nature with the effect that indigenous people will be thrown off their lands if they, in any way, threaten the billionaires' interests in nature. They are setting up a giant casino for this purpose. This effort is accompanied by the most outrageous propaganda such as saving the planet and "public-private partnerships". 
 
What Engdahl, Corbett, and others are not aware of (I don't know about Webb) is that abrupt climate change is real, but the transnational capitalist ruling classes, which are in control of a de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire, are spearheading this "Great Reset" drive, and a part of this project is this new Wall Street-type innovation.
 
Webb refers to a part of this project as the "green" plan, or Corbett cynically refers to as "saving Mother Earth", but actually it is called Natural Asset Company. Corbett has previously called (what I call a well-engineered Covid-19 pandemic) a "scamdemic" implying that the pandemic is fake and designed as a part of their final plans to privatize everything for their benefit. As a result, they impugn the concern for capitalist ruling classes concern for the very real climate crisis that is currently facing humans. The capitalist ruling classes are simply using casino-like tools, as they have always done when facing difficult problems, as a method to deal with the impending catastrophic global warming. 
 
The climate crisis is real, but capitalist methods are ridiculous self-serving attempts to deal with the crisis. Corbett, Engdahl, and others are "throwing out the baby (the global warming crisis) with the bathwater (the ruling classes efforts to deal with it)" by claiming and arguing that the climate crisis and their concerns are fake.
  • US jobless claims plunge to the lowest level since 1969 by Molly Smith of Bloomberg but posted on Al Jazeera. (Note: I'm posting this article on Al Jazeera's website because Bloomberg has very tight requirements for access to their articles.) My reaction: You must read an article from a capitalist source within the framework of capitalist ideology. This is illustrated with this article that never mentions government and employer mandates as influencing the low "labor market"(yes, workers are a labor market because capitalists compete for workers as a cost of doing business), reports on the interests of "owners" and investors of industries (remarks about the Federal Reserve), and offers other reasons for the low "labor market". An earlier article published by Al Jazeera, which is a publication that carefully avoids irritating capitalists, blames workers for quitting their jobs.
  • THE ANGRY ARAB: The Rise and Fall of Aljazeera by As`ad AbuKhalil from Consortium News. (Note: I don't necessarily endorse this article--I simply have no opinion as to correctness. I think that offers much information on the online publication.)

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, November 23, 2021

In a world where scientific and medical dissent is marginalized, ridiculed or censored, Alliance for Natural Health International and co-hosts at the Westreich Foundation, presented an uncensored conversation chaired by a leading, highly published, U.S. professor of family medicine and public health, Paul Mills, Ph.D.

His guests were world leading cardiologist, Peter McCullough, M.D. MPH FACC, vaccinologist, Geert Vanden Bossche, DVM Ph.D. and our founder, Rob Verkerk MSc DIC PhD FACN. The topic of conversation was nothing less than some of the key issues around COVID-19, mass vaccination and early treatment that have split societies all over the world.

This polarization now threatens social coherence and public trust in governments, health authorities and the medical establishment. 
  • Pathologized Totalitarianism 101 by CJ Hopkins, a wise satirical US comedian, currently living in Germany, in an age when satire is dead and he is now devoting himself to serious essays, from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc. 
... it has no contemporary relevance but is old-hat, ancient history, stuff for conspiracy-obsessed people with nothing better to do. The general thinking is that the assassination occurred more than a half-century ago, so let’s move on.

Nothing could be further from the truth, for the assassination of JFK is the foundational event of modern American history, the Pandora’s box from which many decades of tragedy have sprung. 
I listening to all three visual recordings of British historian David Irving, and as a result, I've reinforced my conclusion that I reached yesterday in the second post: to respect and listen to the evidence of people with associations (other class orientations, lifestyles, beliefs, etc.) different from my own. I wasn't sufficiently aware that there were two versions of capitalism: the old-fashioned nationally-oriented capitalism and the new neoliberal transnational-oriented version. In reading this post and listening to all of David Irving's speeches, I have reaffirmed my faith in class analysis.

When a former ruling class has been taken over by more recent ruling classes as has happened to the old-fashioned, nationally oriented ruling capitalist class being taken over by the new neoliberal, transnational capitalists, one must take the former's grievances seriously. It was a mild mistake I made to lump the two together as capitalist ruling classes. This was a result of my correct thinking that the two were identical, but different stages of development.

Ron Unz and Paul Craig Roberts, both old-fashioned capitalists, support Irving's WWII history. But where we these two, or similar figures, before the transnational, neoliberal capitalists took over and established the US/British/Zionist Empire? Nowhere to be seen or heard.
 
Here is David Irving, a suppressed historian, who has thoroughly investigated history obtained from primary sources, and as a result has had to ward off the "slings and arrows" which threatened his career as an author and historian. To be sure, nothing I discovered in Irving's history of WWII conflicted with my history that I obtained from primary sources during the 1930s that led up to WWII. Irving's history says nothing about a right-wing capitalist cabal lodged in the Council of Foreign Relations and the State Department conspired to ascend to world domination by taking control of the USA, combining with what was left of the British Empire, carefully constructing a new Empire, and having recently morphed into a transnational capitalist ruling class displacing the old nationally-oriented ruling capitalist classes.
 
If for no other reason, taking into consideration the Zionist occupation of Palestine, their mistreatment of the Palestinians, and the tremendous efforts by Zionist organizations to prohibit any other history of WWII than theirs, etc., one must be extremely doubtful about the history of WWII that was taught to them in public schools. I think that Irving's history of WWII is accurate.
 
Because Irving went to Germany and worked in the steel mills when he was in his early 20s, he had reason to doubt the official sources that portrayed a false history after WWII. He, no doubt, was indoctrinated by the history taught to him in British schools that extolled the British Empire. This attitude of his was reflected in two rather off-hand remarks he made in the videos. I noticed this brief remark in the first video at approximately 1:13:05 (about how he always "considered the British Empire as the great civilizing cultural influences in the world"), and another place in his talks. Apparently Irving thoroughly believed in this version of history taught in British schools, and believed no other ruling class has lied to the general public. Unz and Roberts don't mention this obvious contradiction anywhere because they agree with Irving's complete views about the benevolent influence of the British Empire. They are both pro-capitalists and support the old capitalist ruling classes when capitalism was mostly limited to small businesses.

One must be aware that all of history is written by and for the ruling class. And, that is why everyone should adopt a class analysis, to be conscious of the class structure of societies, ruling classes and their self-serving deceitfulness. With this in mind, one must question the current pandemic, the urgent impositions of vaccinations, and to doubt the reports of government authorities that are under the control of the ruling capitalist class.
 
As to other intellectuals and assorted figures Unz recommends in the 1930s, I would not include Walter Lippmann and Charles Lindbergh among them. Lippmann was a ruling class propagandist and Lindbergh was a fascist who admired prominent Nazis as many other prominent ruling class figures did. I would include historian Charles Beard as a giant among historians. Therefore Unz recommends a mixed bag of writers and other famous figures, and I can only conclude that he is confused as to which class he owes allegiance. I think he is also deceiving himself.
  • Monday~Cracks by John Allen from his weblog on Medium. (Note: You will have to subscribe @ $5 per month to access his weblog.)
  • How Abrupt is Abrupt Climate Change? featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--11:27), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout his career on the climate crisis.

Monday, November 22, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, November 22, 2021 (shortened version because of time limitations)

  • Episode 242: The Vanden Bossche Interview featuring an interview with a world-renowned immunologist and epidemiologist conducted by Del Bigtree. (Note: I don't normally post lengthy posts such as this one, but the questions asked by Bigtree in the first half-hour impressed me.)
  • Vaers Whistleblower features an interview with whistleblower. An interview with Deborah Conrad, a hospital physician’s assistant by Del Bigtree via YouTube (1:05:50), a post which is a shortened version of the longer video posted on The Highwire's website. (Note: Conrad is no longer employed by that hospital organization.) My commentary follows: 
I did diligent research on Bigtree, Conrad, and associated others. I discovered findings that connected with mildly disturbing to disturbing information regarding Bigtree's background, his lawyer Aaron Siri, and Epoch Times Newspaper. I didn't like the religious and conservative background of Bigtree, and I was quite disturbed to find information regarding Siri as follows:

Prior to founding Siri & Glimstad, Mr. Siri was a litigation attorney at Latham & Watkins for over five years. Before Latham, Mr. Siri clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel (Aharon Barak) from 2004-2005 where he advised the Chief Justice of relevant American, English (including Commonwealth Countries), and International Law precedents for cases of first impression, including the implications of Israel’s planned removal of its citizens from the Gaza Strip/West Bank.
 
I don't recall what my online research led me to Epoch Times, but I was quite disturbed reading the numerous anti-communist articles on it. I've also, in the past, examined this newspaper for real and found it full of anti-communist propaganda.

However, I also ran into a post by Jefferey Jaxon, investigative journalist (see the next post) which really impressed me, particularly the last paragraph as follows:

When the media circles its wagons to collectively protect one specific product made by a notoriously untrusted Big Pharma industry the public must question why. When both the media and its small, exhaustively cited stable of “experts,” try and force an idea of “settled science” while stifling debate, the public must demand transparency. When the safety of a profitable product from previously criminal manufacturers can no longer be questioned, the scientific community must call out the lack of proper safety studies.
 
I decided to ignore the negative signs and to respect people whose other characteristics and politics disturbed me. I thought I must practice what I have preached: to respect all of those whose politics I didn't like, my mild tendency to ignore them, and thus decide to take them seriously by actively listening to them in order to pursue the truth. 
This post, by an old-fashioned conservative, illustrates how we should not be blinded by ideology to disrespect anyone's views, specifically Unz's views. He correctly assesses the independence of both journalists, that is, both Greenwald and Assange intended to function as true journalists. Once again, we are offered a non-ideological perspective on these two journalists by an old-fashioned conservative, Ron Unz, who is partly, if not solely, concerned with the truth. 
 
We see the multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar tried to corrupt Glenn Greenwald with his money, and Greenwald was not going along with Omidyar's well-concealed motive. Greenwald was not corruptible. This could be a revelation of the grand strategy of the rich ruling class who have corrupted so many journalists employed in media corporations and with controlling heads of other institutions. With awareness of Assange's integrity, they didn't even try to corrupt him.
 
And although he is too charitable to say so, I think Greenwald must have realized that his colleagues probably considered him a dangerous threat to their own job security. By a very wide margin, he was the most prominent journalist on Omidyar’s payroll, and perhaps at some point his argument that Russiagate was indeed a ridiculous hoax might carry the day in the public arena. But if the naive billionaire eventually concluded that he had been hoodwinked, he might grow angry at the legions of his well-paid yes-men who had spent years participating in that deception, and perhaps cancel their generous sinecures.
 
I have just read all of Unz's article and partially listened to video #3 presented in his article. I will extend this commentary in a future post after I have viewed this third video and have further thought about Unz's lengthy article. I now expect that his article will have a profound effect on my thinking, but time is running out today to express my thoughts.
  • The Rittenhouse Verdict by Glenn Greenwald via Rumble (49:43) explaining as a lawyer that the verdict was just in the Rittenhouse case in spite of corporate media's bias. My reaction: This court case was another illustration that one should not listen to the fake "woke" interpretation of news from media corporations to learn about major events. I explicitly wrote "fake 'woke' ... news" because I firmly believe that the ruling capitalist class via their media corporations intentionally prepare their newscasts on the basis of the fake "woke" perspective. I will argue this in the future based on real future events which will illustrate this phenomenon. The ruling class is, once again, cynically wounding people up and causing divisions among the public for their self-serving interests mostly to divert attention from their own crimes. This phenomenon has nothing to do with civil rights or racist considerations, but has much to do with the ruling class's tendency to manipulate the public purely for their political interests.
  •  The Art of Media Warfare by Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: This appeal applies to the American people. We have suffered from media manipulations like no other people to exploit the rest of the world for the benefit of our masters in the ruling capitalist class. Because they have shared some of this loot with us, we have gone along far too long.
We must ensure that every coup attempt, destabilizing, demoralizing or manipulative action (economic, military or financial) financed by the CIA or its planetary network of accomplices, is immediately reversed and returns to them like a boomerang that explodes in their faces. We need vaccines against bourgeois ideological viruses, and we need a method of symbolic production that advances in the territory of critical, emancipatory, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist thought.