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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Saturday, January 15, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, January 15, 2022

  • States Hoarding Billion Of Welfare $$$ featuring Naomi Karavani, a comedian, who uses sarcastic comedy to expose, under covid's government policies, how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer--from Redacted Tonight's channel on YouTube (07:06).
  • Hang On…. Have We All Been CONNED By Jan 6th?! featuring Russell Brand, a British comedian, turned serious political analyst, astutely commenting, on what sounds like the Deep State, regarding the latter's distorted and hostile emphasis on the Jan. 6 protests at Congress--from Brand's channel on YouTube (18:05).
They’ve been working tirelessly to ensure that the internet serves as a net positive for themselves and a net negative for the rest of us, manipulating the large-scale movements of information so that dissident voices are increasingly marginalized and inconsequential while giving themselves the ability to funnel propaganda into public minds far more rapidly and efficiently than ever before. If they succeed in their objectives, ordinary people will wind up no better at sharing unauthorized ideas and information than they were before the internet, while our rulers will be far more effective in controlling the way we think at mass scale.
  • Andrew Cuomo Investigations DROPPED! featuring Jimmy Dore and whoever is posing as Cuomo as a sarcastic commentary on the dropped charges by various prosecutors--using his channel on YouTube (06:37).  
  • Pentagon Just Admitted They're Unaccountable featuring Lee Camp, a comedian, using his humorous asides to maintain his comedy, but meanwhile lambasting media corporations for cooperating with the Pentagon (under the Department of "Defense") to downplay its unaccountability--from his Redacted Tonight's channel on YouTube (07:37).
The world is entering what looks like a new, even more complex cold war, in which any misunderstanding, mishap or false move could rapidly escalate into nuclear confrontation
 
My reaction: I've recently been in communication with a friend who is traveling the world, and he has observed that a secret US base in some nation is acting as a relay base to send a huge contingent of American troops to other areas. This worries me.
  • Kazakhstan coup fails, US-Russia talks go nowhere. Is war on horizon? featuring Pepe Escobar in a lengthy, but an important interview conducted by Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone using the latter's channel on YouTube (1:50:12). My reaction: I obviously haven't listened to all of this interview, but I will. I consider Escobar as the world's top journalist.
Max Blumenthal and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar discuss the violent coup attempt in Kazakhstan, and its crucial importance as an ally of Russia and the center of China's Belt and Road Initiative. Pepe addresses US and Turkish meddling, and why this massive and misunderstood country is suddenly at the heart of the new cold war.

They also talk about the failure of the US-Russia talks in Geneva and if war could be on the horizon. 
  • Kazakhstan Chaos: An Opportunity, But for Who? by Brian Berletic, an independent blogger, ex-Marine, who lives in Thailand with his family--from New Eastern Outlook. My reaction: Berletic points to US organizations whose policies are propaganda and subversion.
Sean Twomey, an Irish physicist, flew into clouds to measure their reflectivity, and found that the smaller and more numerous the water droplets, the higher the albedo. Watching the white spray from crashing waves, John Latham realized that Twomey's idea could work to keep the Arctic cool. If tiny droplets of seawater could be seeded into clouds, they would reflect more sunlight, and prevent ice from melting in the summer. He asked #StephenSalter to design a system to make it work. He did. Peter Wadhams agrees that this method would apply a sticking plaster to global warming and buy time to restore the climate. The same process could help preserve coral reefs.
 
Now the question is, can someone be found to finance the operation soon enough to prevent the melting of the Arctic and subsequent release of methane? As #PaulBeckwith points out, it's not rocket science. Instead of sending rockets into space, if Messrs. Musk, Bezos, or Branson would focus on saving the planet, they could provide the ships needed for marine cloud brightening. #PeterWadhams notes that the cost is low for such a powerful intervention and well worth it. It could save the sea ice, the coral reefs, and help cool the ocean. If nations won't do it, maybe a scientifically minded billionaire can rise to the challenge. 
 
My reaction: The capitalist ruling classes that are in control of the US/British/Zionist Empire are certainly not going to fund this effort because it is not profitable or won't extend their power. Depending on billionaires to save us is foolish. Meanwhile, the leading nations who have declared independence from the Empire have all they can handle to survive the ongoing efforts of the Empire to destroy them.
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Friday, January 14, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, January 14, 2022

  • My Head Talking About Zircon And Other Things. By Andrei Martyanov from his weblog  Reminiscence of the Future... in a video presentation via his channel on YouTube (25:18). My reaction: This is a classic post by Martyanov, an American military expert and emigrant from Russia. I think his views are reasons for Escobar's recommendation that the USA and NATO, the US/British/Zionist Empire's military, should not provoke Russia.
  • Tibet, the CIA & the Dalai Lama… by Mickey Z., a reliable political analyst, from his weblog on Substack. My reaction: I'm omitting a part of the post's title because I don't see what the article has to do with Thelonius Monk, but it has everything to do with the ever-deceptive CIA and its operations in Tibet.
  • Paolo Sorbello: Kazakhstan Protests Sparked by Inequality, Inflation, & Lack of Representation posted by the interviewer from Geopolitics & Empire's channel on YouTube (36:01). My reaction: The (unnamed) interviewer (now living in Mexico but has lived in a number of countries including Kazakhstan) who wants to get the real story on the Kazakhstan protests, interviews an acquaintance (I think) who lives in Kazakhstan, but is vacationing in Italy, about his opinions on what he thinks about the uprising. Sorbello was born and raised in Sicily.
The editors distinguish four periods in the methods of management of sovereign debt by States and private creditors. We largely agree with their division into four periods, of which I offer here a short summary. 
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Thursday, January 13, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, January 13, 2022 (Abbreviated aggregated post because of an eye appointment.)

Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association and a social theorist. He has published more than 100 articles in leading scientific journals, on physics and environmental science. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism.
  • Fascism in the USA (part 2 of 2) featuring a video (1:09:24) of three participants in a discussion of Jan. 6 demonstration at Congress from Breakthrough News. (Note: I didn't have time to listen to most of the discussion.)
Brian Becker, Claudia De La Cruz and Gabriel Rockhill continue The Socialist Program’s coverage of the anniversary of the January 6 assault that dispersed Congress. One year after the attack attempted to overturn the election, the architects of that plan have yet to face prosecution and a movement of the far-right consolidates.
 
Brian is joined by Claudia De La Cruz, co-Executive Director of The People’s Forum, popular educator, community organizer and theologian, and Dr. Gabriel Rockhill, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop and Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University.
  • Monday~Choices by John Allen from his new weblog on Substack. My reaction: I welcome Allen back! He would like you to subscribe to his new weblog to replace others from his former weblog on Medium where he was suspended because of their censorship rules.
  • Science Update: Did We Just Blow It? featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--18:19), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his career on the climate crisis.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, January 12, 2022

As of now, the province is looking to make this financial penalty “significant” claiming that something like $50 or $100 is not significant enough. However there is no estimation of what the cost will be as of yet.
 
[Premier] Legault also stated that “the vaccine is the key to fight the virus,” a common talking point used by politicians and health authorities that is not backed up by science. Mounting evidence continues to indicate that the vaccine does not prevent COVID-19 transmission and is not necessary for younger individuals as their rates of severe disease are extremely small. This means by blanket mandating vaccines and boosters, many people’s lives are unnecessarily being put at risk.
But before we begin talking about that, Professor Hudson, another reason I wanted to have you today is to talk about a big story that went viral. It was just published, and it’s on the website Wall Street on Parade. It went so viral that the website actually went down, because it was being shared so much.

This is an article just published at Wall Street on Parade. I have it up in the archive because the website is down. And the article is titled, There’s a News Blackout on the Fed’s Naming of the Banks that Got Its Emergency Repo Loans; Some Journalists Appear to Be Under Gag Orders. And this is by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, published on January 3.
 
(Note: I posted this article from Wall Street on Parade on Jan. 4, 2022--second from the bottom.)
 
My reaction: The moral of this (short) story is "go to the source of this issue" (the critiques of Wall Street contained in Wall Street on Parade's weblog rather than read this lengthy transcript. The only reason for this interview is because of Hudson's publication of Super Imperialism (back in 1972) after which he attracted many leftist critics. Since then, Hudson has played it safe (def.) mostly to preserve his career at the University of Missouri.
The populist left has slowly understood that the institutions and networks of power that rule over us are systematically corrupt, and that they will continue on the current ecocidal path to maintain their power. This left is internally divided – and largely ineffective – because it cannot agree on whether the remedy is to be more assertive in seeking reform or to work towards overthrowing the corrupt system. 
 
But soon he gives another related insight to the title of this post:
 
Those who try to open up a little space – in politics, academia, and journalism – to think critically about our society and how power is misused are the chief targets. Western establishments have grown increasingly concerned about the expansion of popular freedoms that arrived with social media a decade or so ago, which have allowed us to analyze and critique elite interests and strategies. This has posed a very obvious threat to the establishment’s continuing ability to propagandize us and has led to far more unpredictable and unstable social and political landscapes.

Our increased ability to bypass corporate, billionaire-owned media has led to inevitable polarization. We have seen the emergence of three antagonistic tribes, based largely on the way each consumes media. 
High-level international banking officials and organizations last month gathered in Israel for a global “war game” exercise simulating the collapse of the global financial system.

The tabletop exercise was reminiscent of “Event 201” — the pandemic simulation exercise that took place in October 2019, shortly before COVID-19 entered the global scene.
The breakdown of the messy Kazakh op necessarily starts with the usual suspects: the US Deep State, which all but “sang” its strategy in a 2019 RAND corporation report, Extending Russia. Chapter 4, on “geopolitical measures”, details everything from “providing lethal aid to Ukraine”, “promoting regime change in Belarus”, and “increasing support for Syrian rebels” – all major fails – to “reducing Russian influence in Central Asia.”

That was the master concept. Implementation fell to the MI6-Turk connection.
 
Escobar's final sentence is: "Beware the rage of a humiliated Empire."
  • The Straight Gas on Kazakhstan’s Recent Upheaval by Phil Butler from New Eastern Outlook. My reaction: Butler provides initial evidence that subversive agents were behind the chaos in Kazackhstan. I've found throughout foreign events since WWII that when major US "news" outlets initially interpret foreign events in one way before the "dust has settled", it is a sure sign of US involvement behind the events.
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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, January 11, 2022

  • The Dark Secret History of Capitalism featuring Lee Camp, a comedian, that concentrates the history of capitalism in 9 minutes and 48 minutes while occasionally injecting humor from RT America's channel on YouTube. My reaction: Camp gets away with his expose because YouTube has already impugned RT as sponsored by Russia, the ruling class's enemy number one, while impugning Jimmy Dore as a comedian. Both examples illustrate how YouTube "cancels" any of their influence on you, but both are astute individuals who see what is false about the indoctrination that you receive in educational institutions, Hollywood films, etc. and propaganda shows of the daily "news reporting" by media corporations.
NATO officials have thumbed their noses at Putin’s concern with Russia’s security. Trump’s National Security Advisor and neocon warmonger John Bolton encourages more provocation of Russia, which as Putin has made clear will result in war.

Clearly as 2021 comes to an end, there is no intelligence to be found anywhere in the Western World as all vie to show how tough they are with Russia.

When Putin says Russia has nowhere left to which to retreat, he is telling the idiot West that Russia has reached the extent of its ability to avoid war. “We simply have no room to retreat” means Russia has done all she can do to avoid war and now the Americans must get off Russia’s doorstep.
 
Putin is relying on Biden to show awareness and responsibility and to work for peace by acknowledging Russia’s legitimate security concern. But what if Biden is just a figurehead, and the shots are called by the military/security complex who will go for profits despite the risk that Putin will not back down?
 
What if Washington’s concern is limited to destabilizing Russia in the interest of US hegemony and Russia’s security is precisely what Washington intends to undermine, not secure.
 
My reaction: Roberts knows the Deep State well (see this, this, and this).
The US and organizations including NATO will hold a series of emergency meetings with Russia this week, beginning with Monday's US-Russia meeting in Geneva. Then it moves on to the Russian-NATO Council in Brussels on Wednesday and ends on Thursday's meeting in Vienna at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
 
My reaction: If the Global Times reflects the thinking of the Chinese Communist Party, as some major writers have argued, the Chinese government, in the world's most populous nation, sympathizes with Russia. This is the second most popular article from this source--behind a news item that an earthquake destroyed a section of the Great Wall. For they (China) have experienced similar threats, and they, too, have been painted as an "enemy" by the aggressive growing encroachment of the US/British/Zionist Empire. 
 
The Chinese Communist Party recognizes that the right-wing aggressive capitalist cabal, which took control of the USA after WWII using mostly the highly secretive CIA, has matured into a Nazi-like hegemon, which is in its last desperate stages, with their long sought after goal of ruling the world. As such, the Empire has recently unleashed multiple fronts in this undeclared war: a pandemic led by their corruption of the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) in the hope of damaging the Chinese economy (and some other purposes), the ever-expanding NATO bases adjacent to Russia, a barrage of economic sanctions against anyone who refuses to submit to their Empire diktats, and a variety of subversive acts designed to topple governments of the latter and replace them with more compliant governments as they did in Ukraine. We are, indeed, living in dangerous times! 
  • A Little Bit Of My Talking Head. By Andrei Martyanov, a emigrant from Russia, who is a reputed expert on weapons systems and recommended by Pepe Escobar, from his weblog Reminiscence of the Future.... (Note: I used the "CC" button of this post to access a machine translation of what he said via his channel on YouTube--I understood most of it. The video lasts until about 17:50 followed by a pitch for more support.)
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S.-led Western powers became deluded with arrogant entitlement. As Krainer points out, the Western empire-builders presumed to have the right to wage wars and flout international law. For much of the past three-decade period, Russia was too weak economically and politically to challenge this reckless aggression. But now it has grown strong enough to “check-mate the empire’s global ambitions”. This is why war or regime change in Russia has become an obsessive goal for the U.S. and Western partners. It accounts for the relentless sanctions, Russophobia and surge in tensions over Ukraine and more recently Kazakhstan.

Russia is perceived as an obstacle to Western control over the strategically vital Eurasian continent. The prize of Eurasia has long been coveted by Western imperialists, from the British Empire’s Sir Halford Mackinder to the U.S. strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski.
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