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 LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday and Saturday, January 21 & 22, 2022

Attempting to solve that one isolated problem is likely to create more problems elsewhere given the design of our current society. We need to think about a new system all together. And then put a plan in place to transition towards it quickly.

Wholesale discussion around redesigning society is where we are at. As someone who has been thinking about this for almost 20 years, it’s exciting to see how many people around the world are embracing this reality as well.
Russia has the single objective of removing the existential threat presented by these preparations and planning of war against it, of surviving, of freeing itself from the US-NATO threat once and for all, so it can develop and prosper as a free and sovereign nation. 
 
My reaction: The American people know nothing of the hostile actions of the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire, their media corporations have not informed them of the latter, and they are concerned with solely surviving within pandemic mandates that severely threaten their well-being.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts discusses US-Russia tensions and corona tyranny. He doesn't see how events in Kazakhstan could've been anything else but an attempted color revolution. While prior U.S. administrations in the 20th century worked to defuse tensions with Russia, Washington today is removing safeguards, not taking security talks seriously, and is expanding NATO and military installations. Russians feel they are threatened and are taking actions to ensure their security. These developments are extremely discouraging. At the start of the pandemic, he had no reason to question the CDC and NIH. However, over time he began to see holes in the narrative. He fears many people will be injured as a result of mass experimental vaccination and we may see social collapse. He believes there must be some sort of conspiracy and can't fathom the level of global coordination going on. The lockdowns have created inflation which has created serious problems for the U.S. dollar. We don't know what else they may release. There's a tremendous amount of evil at play. If things don't clear up this year, it may very well be the end of the world.
There has been a marked shift in the balance of power in the world as the US has recently intensified its attempts to regain world domination, including through sanctions against countries trying to demonstrate their independence from Washington. And in this respect, Beijing’s attempt to create a multipolar world based on an alliance with countries that have already felt pressure from Washington, in particular Iran, is noteworthy. [my emphasis]

In the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran is virtually the only country that poses a serious threat to regional American hegemony. 
In the occupied Golan Heights, the population of Settlers and Syrians is approximately equal, but experts fear that a new Israeli project will turn Syrians into a demographic minority on their own land.
  • The smearing of Emma Watson by Sut Jhally and Roger Waters from Peoples Dispatch. My reaction: Very insightful because they differentiate antisemitism from criticizing the policies of right-wing or fascist Jews of Israel.
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Friday, January 21, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, January 21, 2022 (My aggregated post has disappeared while I was finishing. Thus, today's post will be combined with tomorrow's post.)


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Thursday, January 20, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, January 20, 2022

  • The Supreme Court Blocks OSHA’s Mandatory Vaccine or Vaccine/Test Rule for Employers with 100+ Employees from JDSupra. My reaction: I have found virtually nothing in the alternative media about the important judgment by the Supreme Court on the Osha case. It would take a Constitutional lawyer to figure things out regarding the ruling. It appears to me that the ruling changes nothing as briefly explained in this post. Private employers have permission to institute policies regardless of their size, but it leaves in place medical facilities' options to require existing policies. It seems to reaffirm state's rights to determine such basic human rights, and completely ignores the Nuremberg Principles.
Once upon a time, there was a government so paranoid about its hold on power that it treated everyone and everything as a threat and a reason to expand its powers. Unfortunately, the citizens of this nation believed everything they were told by their government, and they suffered for it.   
Coronavirus and Covid-19 are but one focal point, among others to expose this truth. We could also focus on the obscene inequality of American capitalism where tens of millions of workers and their families are facing poverty, unemployment, hunger and homelessness while the system lavishes its oligarchs.

We could also focus on the countless wars and deaths that US imperialism has inflicted on the planet over decades – all to satiate its voracious corporate profits. That’s pathological right there.
The beat went on and on like a broken record until some time in 2013… when something changed. 
China, and to an extent Russia have demonstrated that America can be rebuffed, and their example has emboldened other countries to make choices it couldn’t before.
Julian Assange once said that if wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth. Assange suffered immeasurably, with Britain and America taking him away for revealing facts about US war crimes in Iraq, while notorious Iraq War liar Tony Blair was knighted.

“Sir” Tony Blair may now be paraded around as a model citizen of the United Kingdom and the West, an appropriate display of the “values” our civilization now represents. Be a spreader of lies and violence like this goblin, and you will be honored. Happen upon evidence of a war crime by the state, or even by a foreign regime the UK has allied itself to, and you will be punished.
The smearing of critics of Israel as anti-Semitic serves to deflect attention away from the crimes against Palestinians. But it may also make real anti-Semitism (the right-wing fascist variety) more respectable and legitimate—and thus even more deadly. 
On December 24, 2021, Libya was supposed to hold a popular vote for the country’s first president, but it never did. If “outside players” had not interfered in the general elections, these would have been held long ago, Libyans and many observers believe. However, the US, which has a direct interest in establishing its stable position of influence in the country, is well aware that if the voting were to take place now, Libyans would likely support the candidacy of Khalifa Haftar or Saif Gaddafi, which clearly contradicts Washington’s intentions.

Therefore, the West made every attempt to disrupt it, and an important tool for this was the return of Stephanie Williams from the US to the position of head of the UN mission, after which the situation in Libya has changed dramatically with the establishment of practically an external government by the United States through the UN program.
As we traveled through Ethiopia, BT News met with Minister of Education Dr. Berhanu Nega, of the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice party and a former political prisoner of the TPLF and Minister of Culture and Sport Kejela Merdasa of the Oromo Liberation Front, to get their views on Ethiopia's current political moment, the nation’s political future, and why the US has offered such strong support for the regime change attempts by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front or TPLF.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, January 19, 2022

UK Prime Minister has announced the end of all restrictions allegedly brought in to combat the spread of the “Omicron variant”.
Under questioning from Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, high-ranking US Government officials refused to say whether undercover FBI agents were involved in the January 6 riots at the US Capitol Building, fueling suspicion and conspiracy theories about FBI involvement in provoking the Capitol invasion.
  • No, 270 “Doctors” Didn’t Criticize Joe Rogan featuring Jimmy Dore commenting on the smears on Joe Rogan's show from various media corporations, and guest Kurt Metzger, a comedian mostly interjecting humorous satirical comments, from Dore's channel on YouTube (32:21). 
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General and overseer of the UN’s global coronavirus response, has established a shadow relief operation that sidesteps the authority of Ethiopia’s sovereign government and directly coordinates with his political allies in the country’s civil war.

The alleged actions by Tedros, which have come to light through leaked audio conversations of UN workers, constitute a violation of UN code, which stipulates staff maintain neutrality and refrain from intervening in the affairs of member states. A participant in the leaked discussion also states that Tedros tried to replace the UN’s top coordinator in Ethiopia with someone willing to advance his political objectives.
 
My reaction: I have a well-reasoned suspicion that Tedros has been corrupted by the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire to serve the Empire's interests, but here he is also accused of following his own interests and that of the Tigray state in Ethiopia. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has a number of close connections with the Tigray state of Ethiopia.
Many have long suspected that the wealthiest humans would like to have the world to themselves. Aside from an underclass of servile worker bees, the elite, some think, would just as soon see the planet purged of ‘useless eaters.’

They’ve gotten awfully ballsy about admitting it, too.
  • The Surprise Ending by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (but you may miss supporting examples, links, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog. She offers this important insight:
The surprise twist at the end of the quest for liberation is the realization that true freedom comes from setting life free. That freedom from slavery to one’s conditioning and the ability to experience life in its natural boundlessness is only possible with a letting go of all effort to control things; to control outcomes, to control our experience, to control others, to control life. All egoic patterning is ultimately born of a desire to control, and freedom from that patterning can only come when there’s a letting go of that desire.
... when it comes to BBC News, it is time we all grew up and rejected the absurd fiction of BBC ‘balance’ and ‘impartiality’. Over the past two decades, we have provided endless examples of deep BBC bias, distortions and omissions. On our 20th anniversary last year, BBC News featured heavily in our round-up of ‘propaganda horrors’: see Part 1 and Part 2.

Time and time again, we have shone a light on the nonsensical BBC claim that ‘we don’t do propaganda’; on the arrogance and ignorant boasts of BBC News; and on the serial propaganda by omission in BBC News coverage, covering for the crimes of ‘our’ governments.

Somehow we are supposed to overlook all this, or see it as just occasional ‘mistakes’.
 
My reaction: Today the BBC serves the ruling imperial capitalist class of Britain and they are an integral part of the US/British/Zionist Empire. The authors of the article include a particularly insightful quote of the quintessentially American writer and politician, Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
 
This insightful quote explains so much of human behavior in an era that Margaret Thatcher commented: "There is no such thing as society, there are only families ...", and if I may add, within a capitalist system. These three factors explain so much about the human species and their likely disappearance from planet Earth.
Eight years after the water crisis in Flint, Michigan began – few people have been held criminally responsible – despite the fact it was one of the worst manmade public health emergencies in US history. RT contributor Mollye Barrows takes a closer look at the investigation.
For the last few years, the name "Ghislaine Maxwell" has been synonymous with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. However, there is more to the story about this one-time socialite, who has been pictured with some of the most powerful people in the world. So who is Ghislaine Maxwell? RT's John Huddy gives us the story.
After nearly 8 years of civil war in Yemen – and years of involvement from its neighbors Saudi Arabia and the UAE – the Houthi rebels responded with a deadly attack on civilian infrastructure in Abu Dhabi – the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. An armed drone attack made its way about 1,000 miles to bomb an Emirati oil plant – killing 3 foreign workers and injuring many more. The Houthis took responsibility for the attack – citing this was payback for Emirati involvement backing the Saudis against them. Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof and founder of Mint Press News [based in Minneapolis] Mnar Adley join a panel to discuss. [my insertion]
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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, January 18, 2022

  • đź’ĄThe Last Days of the Covidian Cult by C.J. Hopkins from his weblog Consent Factory. This is a best post. My reaction: Hopkins, a satirical comedian, warns us about the "last days of the Covidian Cult" or, as I would put it, the last days of the transnational capitalist ruling class. Here is what he writes about the last days of their rule:
I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m not an oracle. I’m just a satirist. But we are getting dangerously close to the point where GloboCap will need to go full-blown fascist if they want to finish what they started. If that happens, things are going to get very ugly. I know, things are already ugly, but I’m talking a whole different kind of ugly. Think Jonestown, or Hitler’s final days in the bunker, or the last few months of the Manson Family.

That is what happens to totalitarian movements and death cults once the spell is broken and their official narratives fall apart. When they go down, they try to take the whole world with them. I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping we can avoid that. From what I have heard and read, it isn’t much fun.
Public statements from officials suggest that they consider any “anti-vaxxer” to be a threat to the public interest by undermining the vaccination programme. Thus they can justify barring entry to Djokovic (or, it should be said, any other “anti-vaxxer”) under the guise of “public interest”.

It’s about control, it almost always is.

In short, the government are scared that Djokovic’s very presence in the country is a threat to their neo-fascist lockdown.
  • đź’ĄIdeas For A Dystopian Novel by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog. This is a best post. My reaction: What she describes is not dystopia, but reality. We are living in a Truman Show. The dystopia she describes is our world of reality wherever we live in the (de-facto) US/British/Zionist Empire, and she and Foley are living in the worst part.
Did anyone out there actually expect things to turn out differently?  When the federal government kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, we were warned that this day was coming.  And when the Federal Reserve kept pumping trillions upon trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system, we were warned that this day was coming.  So why is anybody surprised by what is happening at this point? 
 
My reaction: It is the Empire's (the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire) financial system, not ours. US dollars are much of the world's currency. But, this is doubly wrong. In addition, the printing of money is spent on aggressive military adventures throughout the world in order to police their Empire and weaken their foes such as Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.--any nation that aspires to independence from the Empire. 
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Monday, January 17, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, January 17, 2022

Although hereditary factors are involved, scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London believe the growing popularity of Western-style diets is a major reason why autoimmune diseases are rising across the world by around 3% to 9% a year.

Professor James Lee from the institute recently told The Observer newspaper that human genetics has not altered over the past few decades, so something is changing in our environment that is increasing predisposition to autoimmune disease. His research team found that Western-style diets based on processed ingredients and with a lack of fresh vegetables can trigger autoimmune diseases.

Lee says that numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the Western countries but are now also emerging in countries that never had such diseases before. These diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis.

It is estimated that approximately four million people in the UK have an autoimmune disease.
  • đź’ĄProfessor Ehud Qimron: “Ministry of Health, it’s time to admit failure” from Swiss Policy Research. This is a best post.
Thousands of renowned doctors and scientists from around the world have been opposing measures taken by government health authorities regarding the COVID pandemic, and one of the latest to do so is professor Ehud Qimron. He’s the head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University and one of Israel’s leading immunologists.

He has written a powerful letter to the Israeli Ministry of Health that summarizes many of the failings and disasters of the lockdown-based pandemic policies of the last two years, including the unacknowledged power of natural immunity, censorship of vaccine injuries and more. The letter was posted at Swiss Policy Research in Hebrew, you can find the english translation below the next paragraph.
The importance of this film is twofold:  It establishes an updated historical record since the Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) was established as a result of Stone’s 1991 breakthrough film, JFK, which forced the release of previously hidden documents, and, more importantly, it emphatically shows why JFK’s assassination is crucial for understanding the United States today.  For without a clear and unambiguous accounting of why he was killed and by whom (I do not mean the actual shooters), and who in the government and media has covered it up, we are doomed to repeat the past as this country has been doing ever since. 
 
My reaction: JFK was assassinated precisely because he moved away from the cabal's agenda which sought to rule the world which offered many rewards (e.g. military-industrial complex) to cooperative players in the form of careers, grants, wealth, and power. And, we see this same agenda being played-out today which is threatening all humanity.
A curious event occurred on Monday in Geneva. It seems that the only substantive outcome from the U.S.–Russia talks is that the U.S. has promised to provide a formal response to the earlier Russian demand for security guarantees within a week. The Russian counterparts outlined their own position unambiguously, and in full detail. This, however, was wholly disdained by the Biden Team, who, according to the Russians, were “diehard/stubborn”. The Russian delegation was told that its key request of ‘no more NATO eastward expansion’ was simply “a non-starter”.
 
It plainly was not then ‘a negotiation’.
 
Crooke concludes his article with the following worrying statement:

But will the U.S. practitioners of meme-politics, absorb and comprehend that this latest stance by the Russia ... may not be some same-ilk, meme-mobilisation, but rather, that their ‘red lines’ are ‘red lines’ … literally?

Unfortunately, probably not.
  • The rise of global totalitarianism, Syria and US hybrid war policy featuring an interview  with Vanessa Beeley, a British independent and truth-reporting journalist, conducted by Jesse Zurawell and Misty Winston using their Facts on the Ground's channel on YouTube (1:20:25), which was posted on Beeley's weblog The Wall Will Fall.
  • Scott Ritter: Point of No Return in NATO Expansions features an interview with Scott Ritter, he's a former U.N. weapons inspector, conducted by phone by "Thomas and Pele" using Fault Line Radio's channel on YouTube (26:30). My reaction: Ritter sees no alternative to war with Russia unless major European nations refuse to go along with NATO's aggressive actions.
  • Are You Cyber Resilient? by "iSecurityGuru" from PeakProsperity. (Note: The author's answer is "yes", and he/she recommends that you keep cash stored away somewhere.)
I contribute regularly to the international debate on Central Asian Affairs. I am a regular writer for Open Democracy Russia, and I am frequently interviewed in the Central Asia-focused podcasts organised by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I have been quoted in The Economist, the Financial Times, The Guardian, and the SĂĽddeutsche Zeitung.  
  • Science Snippets: Denial Comes in Many Forms featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--18:00), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his career on the climate crisis.
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