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

Friday, March 18, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, March 18, 2022

  • The WHO Is Spearheading An ‘International Pandemic Treaty’, a video interview (14:20) conducted by Joe Martino of The Pulse with Shabnam Palesa Mohamed of the World Council For Health. My reaction: I have commented before that I believe the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire has "captured the UN's WHO because of the major funding by Bill Gates of WHO and the support of the US behind the Tigray forces in Ethiopia. Nothing Mohamed said undermines this conspiracy theory. Remember the Empire consists of powerful and rich transnational capitalists and they are intent on reducing the world's population because of the impending climate crisis to preserve their system.
  • Blind as a Corona Bat by Todd Hayen, PhD from Off-Guardian. My reaction: Referring to the gullible propaganda followers of media corporations, he writes:
I am most troubled by this phenomenon experienced in close friends and family. Now that Covid has passed the torch onto the Russia/Ukraine conflict it seems we are seeing Act Two of a very frustrating global, and personal play.

Of course we all know both of these events are scenes in one big theatrical event, one that has been going on for quite a while but mostly in out of town tryouts—Covid was the first act of the play finally opening on the Big Broad Way.

The tryouts are over. The Great Reset, now the hottest show in town, opens in the big time.
 
But, is he saying that the war in Ukraine and the covid "pandemic" are related? 
  • The Awesome Power Of US Propaganda: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (07:06), but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog. My reaction: I have seen the "awesome power of US propaganda" here in southern Minnesota. Everyone, excepting a few stubborn individuals, seems to swallow propaganda "newscasts" whole like the voice of one of their Christian gods. (I know this last sentence may turn away some of my readers, but I can't stop telling the truth as I see it.)
  • White House Using TikTok Influencers For Ukraine War Propaganda features Jimmy Dore and guest Max Blumenthal (founder of The Grayzone) reporting and laughing at the latest government propaganda to influence young people in the proper views--using Dore's channel on YouTube (17:55). My reaction: It appears that the only ones that are allowed to express alternative views from the government are comedians.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International claim to be independent, but they have a revolving door with the US government, and serve its foreign-policy interests, with funding from CIA-linked foundations and billionaire oligarchs. 
US and European leaders are preparing “painful” sanctions on Moscow, which could include sabotaging Germany’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and hitting Russian gas giant Gazprom. Putin says the Ukraine crisis is being used as an excuse for the economic attack.
  • My Response features Russell Brand, a British comedian turned serious analyst of geopolitical events, who reports he is under pressure to shut down--from Brand's channel on YouTube (17:04)--and offers a response to this pressure. 
  • 💥Five Random Topics by Coach Red Pill (35:16) from EarthNewspaper featuring a video of an American highly educated resident of Karkov, Ukraine, which is in the northeast corner of Ukraine near the Russian border, describing current military events in Ukraine and offers his analysis of the US dollar.
  • Day 22 – where do we go from here? Two decisions by Andrei Raevsky (the "Saker"), an immigrant entrepreneur, from The Saker weblog. (Note: This article, according to him for reasons of health, is his last post on the subject. No, I don't know what he means by including "PL" in his phrase "US+UK+PL").
For the past three weeks, I have tried to debunk the US PSYOP narrative, alongside folks like Andrei Martyanov at Reminiscences of the Future and Bernhard at Moon of Alabama.  My health does not allow me to sustain such a crazy tempo and I need to enter something of a “temporary rest mode” if I want to avoid being forced into rest by my body. [my emphasis]

Yet I still get a daily deluge of questions from those who did not “get it” and, frankly, I am exhausted trying to debunk the same stuff over and over and over again.

So, one last time ....

  • All That Glitters Is Not Necessarily Russian Gold by Pepe Escobar from The Saker weblog. My reaction: Escobar attempts to explain the Russian gold problem. Read the article to see if he succeeds, and also his explanation of how he reaches this conclusion:
Way beyond its confiscated foreign reserves and tons of gold sold in London, what matters is that Russia remains the ultimate natural resource powerhouse. Shortages? A little austerity for a little while will take care of it: nothing as dramatic as the national impoverishment under the neoliberal 1990s. And extra boost would come from exporting natural resources at premium discount prices to other BRICS and most of Eurasia and the Global South.

The collective West has just fabricated a new, tawdry East-West divide. Russia is turning it upside down, to its own profit: after all the multipolar world is rising in the East.

The Empire of Lies won’t back down, because it does not have a Plan B. Plan A is to “cancel” Russia across the – Western – spectrum. So what? Russophobia, racism, 24/7 psyops, propaganda overdrive, cancel culture online mobs, that don’t mean a thing.
  • Alfred De Zayas - Shoot the Messenger features a video of Alfred de Zayas, PhD, a Harvard educated attorney, briefly commenting on the arrest and long-term incarceration of Julian Assange from Renegade's channel on YouTube (01:49). My reaction: Censorship of any real (as opposed to propaganda) reports has become a part of the "new normal" in our current "brave new world". 
  • I Post It Here.... Martyanov is referring to the recent interview conducted by Eva Bartlett with him--from Martyanov's weblog Reminiscence of the Future.... My reaction: Because my old ears can't understand much of what he said (because of his thick accent--and the subscript on YouTube doesn't help), I am posting this anyway because the interview has been re-posted on Vanessa Beeley's weblog.
  • States of Emergency: Keeping the Global Populations in Check, a recently published book by Kees van der Pijl is reviewed by Edward Curtin from his weblog Behind the Curtain. My reaction: This is another excellent book that should be read by all Americans. Remember: the ruling class doesn't think that you read books; therefore they don't censor them, yet.
The Russia-Ukraine war, however, is placing the Palestinians before one of their greatest foreign policy challenges since the collapse of the Soviet Union. For Palestinians, neutrality is not an option since the latter is a privilege that can only be obtained by those who can navigate global polarization using their own political leverage. The Palestinian leadership, thanks to its selfish choices and lack of a collective strategy, has no such leverage. 
  • Meet Ghislaine: Heiress to an Espionage Empire by Whitney Webb from her weblog Unlimited Hangout. My reaction: There is no one like Webb that covers the background story of Ghislaine Maxwell like she does. The implications of her work are that Ghislaine is more than just about sex trafficking which "meets the [conventional] eye" (def.). (My insertion.)
Despite being found guilty late last year for her role in sex crimes against minors, Ghislaine Maxwell, the “madam” and chief accomplice of the intelligence-linked pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, may soon walk free. A juror in the case, Scotty David, subsequently took credit for the jury’s decision to find Ghislaine Maxwell guilty and “inadvertently” revealed that he had incorrectly answered a pre-trial questionnaire. As a result, the possibility of a mistrial, and Ghislaine walking free, now looms large.

David has some interesting connections, as he currently works for the Carlyle Group – the global investment firm whose ties to the bin Laden family during the early 2000s have come under scrutiny.
  • The Lost Victory on Wake Island from the Tales the American Empire's channel on YouTube (12:21) challenges the conventional history of the Pacific area of WWII as depicted in a Hollywood movie. My reaction: Could this version regarding Wake Island be for political reasons of FDR to extend the war in the Pacific to justify his recently declared war on Germany?