Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
The key standoff in the Middle East, that between Israel and Iran, has been steadily ramping up.
Over the last two months Israel and its allies, primarily the US and Saudi Arabia, have done quite a bit to antagonize Iran and attempt and impair it from achieving its ambitions.
Iran’s response is coming, and the aim is an asymmetric counter attack that would heavily hamper Israel’s interests.
Tehran’s response will likely be two-pronged:
On the one hand through its proxies and allies – namely the Houthis in Yemen who are pushing back Saudi Arabia and inflicting heavy losses on it. Iran recently sent advanced suicide drones to Yemen, so Riyadh appears to be in for a surprise.
Separately, it’s operating through its allies in Iraq and Syria, as reports of US convoys suffering explosions are becoming a rather regular occurrence.
On the other, Iran’s nuclear program appears to be developing steadily, and the Wall Street Journal even stoke the oven by claiming that Tehran was nearing production of a “key material for nuclear warheads”.
There’s been no confirmation to that, but it also works to Iran’s benefit and will be used as a mechanism to check if Israel is willing to attack its nuclear program, once again, after allegedly killing Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Tehran is working to produce its enriched uranium, which it maintains is for peaceful purposes, and uses this as a lever to pressure the United States and force Israel’s hand. Most recently, Iran said that Washington’s return to the Nuclear Deal, as incoming President Joe Biden has signaled, was simply “extortion” if its not accompanied by a lifting of sanctions.
As such, Iran says that not only must Washington want to return, but it also needs to do something to make up for their past failures – namely, lift the sanctions the Trump Administration imposed.
Israel, feeling the urgency of its situation, warned that if the US were to return to the Nuclear Deal, it would feel forced and strike the facilities being used in Iran’s nuclear program, in order to hamper any progress, it may be having towards an alleged weapon. If this really happens, this will easily lead to a large-scale regional war.
Currently, Israel and the US have largely played their hands – attacks on various proxy positions, as well as various threats and military deployments.
For Iran, the field is wide open and its Tehran’s turn to make its move and it is likely to be an asymmetric action, not focused in a single point of tension, but rather on several.
Inoculation with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine began four days before New Year’s Eve in Norway. Since Svein Andersen [67] at the Ellingsrudhjemmet elderly home became the first Norwegian to take the jab, over 33,000 Norwegians have received the vaccine in the subsequent weeks.
It was announced in advance that the vaccine may cause side effects of varying severity, and now the Norwegian Medicines Agency has mapped which ones have occurred in the country. A total of 29 side effects were reported, yet with an alarming share of deaths.
“Of these, there are 13 deaths, nine serious side effects and seven less serious side effects”, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency Steinar Madsen told national broadcaster NRK.
A total of 23 deaths have been reported by the Norwegian Medicines Agency in connection with the vaccination. However, only 13 of these have been assessed so far.
All the surveyed deaths have occurred among frail, elderly patients in nursing homes. All of the dead are over 80 years old and some of them are even over 90.
“It seems that some of these patients get such severe side effects in the form of fever and malaise that it can lead to a very serious illness even, an more serious one, which may lead to death”, Madsen said.
At the same time, Madsen emphasised that these cases are rare and that many thousands of frail people have been vaccinated without a fatal outcome. “Frail” means patients with advanced heart conditions, dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other serious diseases.
Madsen said his authority is not worried about the extent of side effects confirmed so far.
“We are not alarmed by this. It is quite clear that these vaccines have very little risk, with a small exception for the most frail patients”, Madsen said.
The nine patients who have had serious side effects complained of allergic reactions, strong malaise and severe fever. The seven less serious side effects included severe pain at the injection site.
Still, the Norwegian Medicines Agency cautioned the authorities to carefully consider the order of vaccination.
“Doctors must now carefully consider who should be vaccinated. Those who are very frail and at the very end of life can be vaccinated after an individual assessment”, Madsen said.
This is in line with the recommendations realeased by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health earlier this week.
Previously, six people died during the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trials, but only two of them were actually given the vaccine. The other four were given a safe placebo solution of salt and water.
Norway has seen over 57,000 cases of COVID-19 and over 500 deaths.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”―George Orwell, Animal Farm
What should we expect in 2021?
So far, it looks like this year is going to be plagued by more of the same brand of madness, mayhem, manipulation and tyranny that dominated 2020.
Frankly, I’m sick of it: the hypocrisy, the double standards, the delusional belief by Americans at every point along the political spectrum that politics and politicians are the answer to what ails the country, when for most of our nation’s history, politics and politicians have been the cause of our woes.
Consider: for years now, Americans, with sheeplike placidity, have tolerated all manner of injustices and abuses meted out upon them by the government (police shootings of unarmed individuals, brutality, corruption, graft, outright theft, occupations and invasions of their homes by militarized police, roadside strip searches, profit-driven incarcerations, profit-driven wars, egregious surveillance, taxation without any real representation, a nanny state that dictates every aspect of their lives, lockdowns, overcriminalization, etc.) without ever saying “enough is enough.”
Only now do Americans seem righteously indignant enough to mobilize and get active, and for what purpose? Politics. They’re ready to go to the mat over which corporate puppet will get the honor to serve as the smiling face on the pig for the next four years.
Talk about delusion.
It’s so ludicrous as to be Kafkaesque.
A perfect example of how farcical, topsy-turvy, and downright perverse life has become in the America: while President Trump doles out medals of commendation and presidential pardons to political cronies who have done little to nothing to advance the cause of freedom, Julian Assange rots in prison for daring to blow the whistle on the U.S. government’s war crimes
You’d think that Americans would be outraged over such abject pandering to the very swamp that Trump pledged to drain, but that’s not what has the Right and the Left so worked up. No, they’re still arguing over whether dead men voted in the last presidential election.
Either way, no matter which candidate lost to the other, it was always going to be the Deep State that won.
And so you have it: reduced to technicalities, distracted by magician’s con games, and caught up in the manufactured, highly scripted contest over which beauty contestant wears the crown, we have failed to do anything about the world falling apart around us.
Literally.
Our economy—at least as it impacts the vast majority of Americans as opposed to the economic elite—is in a shambles. Our infrastructure is falling apart. Our government has been overtaken by power-hungry predators and parasites. And our ability—and fundamental right—to govern our own lives is being usurped by greedy government operatives who care nothing for our lives or our freedoms.
Our ship of state is being transformed into a ship of fools.
We stand utterly defenseless in the face of a technological revolution brought about by artificial intelligence and wall-to-wall surveillance that is re-orienting the world as we know it. Despite the mounting high-tech encroachments on our rights, we have been afforded a paltry amount of legislative and judicial protections. Indeed, Corporate America has more rights than we do.
We stand utterly powerless in the face of government bureaucrats and elected officials who dance to the tune of corporate overlords and do what they want, when they want, with whomever they want at taxpayer expense, with no thought or concern for the plight of those they are supposed to represent. To this power elite, “we the people” are good for only two things: our tax dollars and our votes. In other words, they just want our money.
We stand utterly helpless in the face of government violence that is meted out, both at home and abroad. Indeed, the systemic violence being perpetrated by agents of the government—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—has done more collective harm to the American people and their liberties than any single act of terror or mass shooting.
We stand utterly silenced in the face of government and corporate censors and a cancel culture that, in their quest to not offend certain viewpoints, are all too willing to eradicate views that do not conform. In this way, political correctness has given way to a more insidious form of group think and mob rule.
We stand utterly locked down in the face of COVID-19 mandates, restrictions, travel bans and penalties that are acclimating the populace to unquestioningly accede to the government’s dictates, whatever they might be (as long as they are issued in the name of national security), no matter how extreme or unreasonable.
We stand utterly intimidated in the face of red flag laws, terrorism watch lists, contact tracing programs, zero tolerance policies, and all other manner of police state tactics that aim to keep us fearful and compliant.
We stand utterly indoctrinated in the collective belief that the government—despite its longstanding pattern and practice of corruption, collusion, dysfunction, immorality and incompetence—somehow represents “we the people.”
Despite all of this, despite how evident it is that we are mere tools to be used and abused and manipulated for the power elite’s own diabolical purposes, we somehow fail to see their machinations for what they truly are: thinly veiled attempts to overthrow our republic and enslave the citizenry in order to expand their power and wealth.
It is a grim outlook for a new year, but it is not completely hopeless.
If hope is to be found, it will be found with those of us who do not rely on politicians that promise to fix what is wrong but instead do their part, at their local levels, to right the wrongs and fix what is broken. I am referring to the builders, the thinkers, the helpers, the healers, the educators, the creators, the artists, the activists, the technicians, the food gatherers and distributors, and every other person who does their part to build up rather than destroy.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, “we the people” are the hope for a better year. Not Trump. Not Biden. And not the architects and enablers of the American Police State.
Until we can own that truth, until we can forge our own path back to a world in which freedom means something again, we’re going to be stuck in this wormhole of populist anger, petty politics and destruction that is pitting us one against the other.
In that scenario, no one wins.
There’s a meme circulating on social media that goes like this:
If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti Mask. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar … and why?
Whether red ants will really fight black ants to the death is a question for the biologists, but it’s an apt analogy of what’s playing out before us on the political scene and a chilling lesson in social engineering. So before you get too caught up in the circus politics and conveniently timed spectacles that keep us distracted from focusing too closely on the government’s power grabs, first ask yourself: who’s really shaking the jar?
WC: 1347
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أصبح الغرب يبحث عن مثقّفين يُعادون حكوماتهم التي تقف في وجه الأطماع الغربية، ويروّجون لأعمالهم، ويطلبون منهم الانشقاق واللجوء إلى الغرب لتصحيح مكانتهم ودورهم.
حين كنّا طلاب جامعيين في سبعينيّات القرن الماضي، كان ينطبق علينا المثل القائل: “قل لي ماذا تقرأ أقل لك من أنت”. وكان أوّل سؤالٍ يسأله الطالب لزميله ما هي الكتب التي يقرؤها فيكون الجواب كافٍ ليصدر الحكم الفوري ما إذا كان هذا الطالب شيوعياً أم بعثياً أم رجعياً.
كان الانقسام حاداً بين من يؤمن أنّ الأدب والفنّ والمسرح فنونٌ ملتزمة تعبّر عن وجدان وقضايا منتجيها، وبين من يؤمن أنّ الالتزام بالقضايا المحليّة والوطنية يحدّ من قيمة العمل الأدبي والفنيّ ويقف حائلاً بينه وبين وصوله إلى العالمية.
مما لا شك فيه أنّ الاتحاد السوفياتي في ذلك الوقت، والأحزاب الوطنية الناشئة بعد فترات الاستقلال، كانت تؤيد الالتزام بالقضايا الوطنية في الأدب والفنّ، ولم ترَ أن هذا الالتزام يُضعف من ألق وتميّز العمل الأدبي المقدّم.
وبعد أن درسنا في الغرب واطّلعنا على ما تيسّر لنا من أدبه وتاريخه وفنونه، كما اطلعنا على ما أُتيح لنا معرفته من ثقافاتٍ وكتابات أدباء القارات الأخرى كأميركا اللاتينية وأفريقيا وآسيا، وجدنا أنّ المحليّة والالتزام قد شكّلا رافعةً لمعظم الأدباء والكتّاب الذين وصلوا بكتاباتهم إلى العالمية الحقيقية وليس العالمية التي تشير إلى الدول الغربية فقط.
واكتشفنا أنّ التّهم التي كانت تُوجَّه لكثيرٍ من الكتّاب وخاصةً النساء، بأنّهم يرتكزون في كتاباتهم على قصصهم الشخصية أو على معارفهم المحليّة، هي تُهمٌ تنطبق على كبار الكتّاب العالميين من تولستوي إلى تشيخوف وماركيز وبيرسي بيش شيلي وجون ستيوارت ميل وماري ولستون كرافت وغيرهم الكثير. بمعنى آخر، المحليّة والالتزام لم يكونا عائقاً أبداً في الوصول إلى العالمية بل كانا العاملين الأكثر أهميةً في اعتلاء سلّمها.
وبعد انهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي وسيطرة القطب الواحد على مقدّرات وإعلام وناصية الفنون الأدبية والسينمائية والمسرحية في الغرب، اختفى هذا الجدل ليحلّ مكانه جدلٌ أكثر خطورة، وهو أنّ التميّز والإبداع حكرٌ على المؤسسات الغربية؛ فهي التي تمنح جائزة نوبل وجوائز الأوسكار، وهي الوحيدة التي لها القول الفصل في تحديد من يحتلّ الصدارة في أعلى قائمة المبدعين من كل أنحاء العالم.
وكون الغرب بأجهزته السياسية والمخابراتية هو الذي يُنفق على هذه المؤسسات والجوائز، وهو الذي يشكّل لجان التحكيم، فقد أصبح له القول الفصل بغض النظر عن أيّ قرارٍ آخر في تحديد مستوى الإبداع وأسماء المبدعين.
وصل هذا الأمر إلى مرحلةٍ خطيرة لأنّ عدداً من الكتّاب والفنّانين والمبدعين من أبناء الدول التي استعمرها هذا الغرب لعقودٍ طويلة، أخذوا يتنافسون بالكتابة وفق معايير وقيم الغرب، ناهيك بالكتابة بلغته، والتي هي أمرٌ مفهوم لإيصال الرسالة، ولكنّ فحوى الرسالة هو المهمّ، ومضمونها منوطٌ بالقيم الوطنية والحضارية للكاتب نفسه لا بتقمّصها لقيم المستعمر وأخلاقه أملاً في إرضائه والفوز بقبوله وتقييمه الإيجابي.
ومن هذا المنطلق، أخذ بعض الكتّاب من المغرب العربي والمشرق يتنافسون على ودّ الغرب وقبوله والكتابة وفق ما يرضيه، من خلال تكريس كل الهنات والعيوب المجتمعية التي يتّهمنا الغرب بها وتضخيمها والتركيز عليها، وكأنّ الغرب لا شائبة فيه، بل والادّعاء بأنها هي علّة العلل في مجتمعاتنا كي تلقى أعمالهم الرّواج المطلوب في الغرب، وكي يتمّ تبنّيهم في المؤسسات الغربية واعتماد إنتاجهم الفكري.
ويحضرني في هذا المضمار، رواية الطاهر بن جلون على سبيل المثال لا الحصر “ابنة الرمال”، والتي كُرّس فيها مفهوم توق العربي لأن يُرزق بالصبي بدلاً من البنت، والمدى الذي يمكن أن يذهب إليه كي يحقّق في عائلته الذّكورة، وهي حلمُ ورغبةُ كلّ رجلٍ عربيٍّ كما صوّرها. وطبعا،ً صدرت الرواية بالفرنسية ولاقت رواجاً هائلاً، ونال الطاهر بن جلون كلّ الأهمية التي يسعى إليها في أعين الفرنسيين، ومثلُه كُثُر طبعاً.
ومن هنا، أصبح الطريق إلى العالمية مشروطاً بتبنّي وجهة نظر الغرب عن أنفسنا والتركيز على عيوبنا كما يراها الغرب، والتشهير بمجتمعاتنا وتراثنا بما ينسجم مع آراء المستشرقين الذين شكّلوا الفكرة السلبية الأساسية للغرب عن العرب، وتناولوا مثالب تاريخهم وعيوب حضارتهم ومشاكل مجتمعاتهم.
ومن هنا أيضاً، بدأ الغرب يحارب حكومات الدول المتحرّرة حديثاً، فيطلب أعمالاً أدبيةً تعكس الأوضاع السياسية وتضخّم فيه عيوب مجتمعه وأخطائه، كما عملت الصومالية المسلمة (أليفة علي) حين قدّمت صورةً مشوّهةً عن بلادها وشعبها ودينها كي يتمّ قبولها في المراكز البحثية الغربية.
وفي المقابل، امتنع الغرب عن نشر المنتجات الفكرية التي تتحدث بواقعيةٍ وصدقٍ عن العرب، وإذا ما حصل وتمّ نشر بعضها في ساعة غفلةٍ منه، حرص على عدم الترويج لها أو حال دون وصولها إلى مراكز الشهرة التي تروّج للواقع الحقيقي لأخلاقيات هذه المجتمعات العربية.
هي كتاباتٌ بعيدةٌ كلّ البعد عن التشويه المتعمّد الذي ألحقه الغرب بهذه المجتمعات بعد أن نهب ثرواتها واستعبد أهلها لعقودٍ من الزمن. وهكذا، أصبح الغرب يبحث عن مثقّفين يُعادون حكوماتهم التي تقف في وجه الأطماع الغربية، ويروّجون لأعمالهم، ويطلبون منهم الانشقاق واللجوء إلى الغرب لتصحيح مكانتهم ودورهم.
اليوم، نعلم علم اليقين أنّ الصراع على أرضنا وثرواتنا ومجتمعاتنا ما زال قائماً وأنّ تغيير شكل الحروب العسكرية إلى حروبٍ إرهابية وأدواتٍ من المرتزقة لم يغيّر من واقع الأمر شيئاً؛ فما زال الغرب يعمل جاهداً لإبقاء احتلاله لأرضنا وفكرنا وعقلنا ووجداننا والدعوات اللاوطنية التي تدعو إلى التحرّر من قضايانا الوطنية بحجج المعارضة السياسية وعدم الالتزام بقضايا الوطن والمجتمع. كلّ ذلك يصبّ في خانة خدمة من يريد إبقاءنا مادة طيّعة لمؤسساته وقيمه وأحكامه.
في حمأة هذا الصراع غير المسبوق وبأدوات جديدة كلياً على أرضنا ومستقبلنا، تعود قضية الالتزام بقضايا الشعب والوطن لتحتلّ المرتبة الأولى، وخاصةً بعد أن أكّد كبار المبدعين في العالم أنّ المحليّة هي الشرط الأول للانطلاق إلى العالمية.
لقد اعتمدت القوى الاستعمارية والصهيونية أسلوباً جديداً اليوم، وهو أنّ الإبداع يجب أن يكون حرّاً ومنفلتاً من أيّ قيمٍ سياسية أو مجتمعية أو أخلاقية أو وطنية، وهذا محض هراء، بل هذا أمرٌ خطير يُقصد به تجريد القضايا الوطنية من أهمّ الأقلام المدافعة عنها بحجّة أنّ الإبداع يجب أن يكون حراً وأنّ المبدع لا تنطبق عليه المعايير التي تنطبق على أبناء جلدته.
والسؤال هو: هل يطبّق الغرب هذا المعيار على مبدعيه وفنانيه؟ أم أنّ كلّ ما ينشره وكلّ ما ينتجه من أدبٍ وأفلامٍ ومسرح وما يقدّمه من جوائز، يهدف إلى تكريس قيمه الاستعمارية والترويج لكلّ ما يؤمن به وتبرير ما ترتكبه حكوماته ضد الشعوب، ليس في أنظار شعبه فقط وإنما في أنظار العالم.
ما نحتاجه اليوم نحن في سوريا والعالم العربي ومعظم البلدان المتحررة، هو أن نؤمن بقضايانا وقيمنا وأن نعلن التزامنا بمسار ومصير شعوبنا دون خجلٍ أو وجل، وألاّ ننتظر شهادة حسن سلوك من أعدائنا؛ فنحن نخوض معركة تحرير الإرادة اليوم، كما خاض أجدادنا وأبطالنا البارحة معركة تحرير الأرض وما زالوا.
تحرير الإرادة والانعتاق من التبعيّة اللّيبرالية المزيفة والالتزام الجريء بالقضايا الوطنية الصافية والإنسانية الحقّة، هو المعيار المطلوب والضروري في هذه المرحلة من تاريخنا.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Today and during the last few days new “measures” – restrictions of freedom imposed by governments for reasons of “public health security”, i. e. preventing the spread of covid infections – have been tightened throughout Europe. Literally, these treacherous governments say, “we have to tighten the screws”. Seriously. WTF – who do they think they are? Servant of the people who elected them and who pay them. This is high treason. But people take it without asking too many questions, some complaints but not strong enough… we are living in the midst of the Sheep Syndrome.
They – these supposedly people friendly governments – call them “measures”, a euphemism for lockdown – sounds better in the ears of a public tired of continuous and more and more repressions. This second, in some countries even third lockdown, includes further business closing, more severe control on home-office work, police-enhanced social distancing, mask wearing, no indoor group activities, only 5 people may meet in an apartment… and, and, and.
For example, there are about 75 studies – give or take a couple – about the uselessness and even dangers of mask wearing. They address especially the danger for children and young adults… but nobody, nobody in the bought-compromised and coerced, bribed – western governments pays any attention to them, nor does, of course, the presstitute mainstream media. They keep to the narrative – MUST wear a mask – MUST keep the safe 6ft. distance – police enforced.
They also impose homeoffice, knowing damn well that any serious psychologist and sociologist tells you how devastating this is for the individual – loneliness, lack of physical contact, encounter and interaction with colleagues – as well as for society as a whole. Without physical contact it breaks apart. This is of course all wanton – thus, all restaurant closings, all events where people gather and interchange, is forbidden.
People are unhappy. Yes, but not enough to stop this tyranny! – Well, I better behave otherwise I’m going to be punished. – FEAR! – Fear leads to the sheep syndrome – that deep-deep social disease which besets us today – and has done so for a while. People, we got to get out of it.
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But, it seems, people are not yet tired enough to stand up in unison, screaming “enough is enough”, we do not continue this is government tyranny, we stop beying.
And yes, to give the tyranny more weight, more credibility, it is enhanced by a so-called Task Force (TF), a group of coopted “scientists”, especially established by the Powers that Be, to inform them what to do. It is an old method of a decision-making duality, when governments have to, or want to, take decisions that are not popular, they ask the Task Force for advice. However, the TF has been told and knows exactly what they have to advise. That’s a premeditated lie.
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In the UK and France new lockdown measures were imposed already for days, Austria and Switzerland announced them a couple of days ago – the EU as an entity – says nothing, does not coordinate, does not want see that these lockdowns are not only destroying the individual nations’ economy, but they bring the entire EU to economic suicide. The EU is hamstrung by Washington and by NATO.
The new lockdowns – and possibly more are planned as more waves of covid are in the making – until everybody is vaxxed – and has his / her electromagnetic gel injected in their bodies with an DNA-altering substance. So now, they are totally controllable over time. And the time horizon set for total digitization of everything is 2030. AI and robot control of humans – making them into transhumans that’s the goal for the UN Agenda 21-30. And the instrument to achieve it is the Bill Gates created Agenda ID2020 (see https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-causes-effects-real-danger-agenda-id2020/5706153 )
More lockdowns are killing more small businesses, shops, and restaurants. Creating more hardship of small business owner, more bankruptcies, more misery for the people and their families, losing their jobs.
Just imagine – home-teaching, a family of 4, both parents work, the kids have to have each one a reasonably powerful computer to be able to connect to the school teacher – the kids have to have reasonable computer skills to manage home-learning, and the parents, even if they have time, do they all have the reasonable computer skills to help their kids? – Does every family in the already much covid-hardship affected society have the resources to spare for buying the needed electronic gear for the kids?
It is a disaster. Again, a wanton disaster. Because it will result in less or non-educated children in the west – non-educated kids will become easier manipulatable adults – well, they are expected to fall – in lockstep – into their parents Sheep Syndrome. – Or will they? – That’s where dynamics may not meet linear elite thinking and expectations.
Now, this is happening in the Global North. Imagine how it is in the Global South, where increasing poverty, misery and famine is ravaging entire societies, in cases more than two thirds of a country’s population. How will these kids be distance-taught? – They simply won’t. So, we have a situation where the Global South produces uneducated kids, because they simply don’t go to school. Most of them will remain poor, they will be the perfect laborers for the elite – or cannon fodder for the wars the rich nations have to (or want to) fight to satisfy their greed. Never forget, wars are profitable. But foremost because of their sociopathic thirst for more and more power and money.
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Listening and talking to people in the street and to small business owners, they are all upset, and many of them say they may not survive, may never reopen, despite the subsidy they receive form governments. In Switzerland, the head of “Gastronomie Suisse” said with another lockdown, up to 50% of restaurants may not survive. A similar figure had been mentioned in Germany and Austria – and surely the situation is likewise devastating elsewhere too.
We are talking predominantly for the west. The situation in the East, Russia and China and their allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is different, in as much as they have a people-friendlier approach to covid-eradication.
In the west, in some cases, people’s entire lifesaving, their life achievements, their family businesses, are killed for the sake of a useless and purely oppressive rule. The purpose of this rule is not to stamp out a disease, but covid is a means to instill fear and make us compliant, for worse times to come. Because, let me tell you, whatever you may think that in the summer of 2021, or next year, 2022, we will get back to normal – we will not. Never. If we let them do what they are doing now.
This small Globalist Cabal, via its ultra-rich handlers – billionaires with two and three digits of Silicon Valley – does not only have the power to censoring whoever is against the Matrix, but they are all censuring in unison the President of the United States. What does that say about a country, or about a society we live in, a society that calls itself “democratic”?
No matter how much you like or dislike your President, doesn’t it occur to you that this is the embodiment of freedom of speech that is taken away from you? – But again, we do nothing. We watch and complain, but we do nothing. We let it happen. Wouldn’t this be a golden opportunity to block and boycott all social media platforms? Period. – Live without them, for Christ’s sake, some 20, 30 years ago we didn’t even know that they existed, or to what extent we will be hooked on them.
If we can still think independently, it’s now the time to cut yourself loose from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and what all their names are — don’t use them. Get back to regular human-to-human communications, dialogues, meeting each other, calling on the phone, landline if possible. Yes, I’m serious.
Think about the consequences of following this trend of no free speech, but a steady increase in AI-ization by algorithms that are precisely using the data you give them on the social platform to further enslave you; by ever more robotization and digitization – to the point when we don’t even realize that our brains have been wired and “hacked” by DARPA-developed super-computers, and we will believe and follow orders we are directly implanted by such super-computers, managed, guess by whom – by the Globalist Cabal – at which point we have irreversibly become the embodiment of the Sheep Syndrome. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is an advanced research and technology branch of the Pentagon.
Does anyone want that? I doubt it.
We have to find a way to act now. I don’t have the solution. But maybe collectively connecting with each other spiritually, we will find a solution – or we will make a solution emerge.
That would be the noble way – changing an utterly abusive environment with conscientiousness and with spiritual thinking; emitting high-vibrating vibes that influence our collective destiny. But we have to believe in it and in ourselves as a solid and solidary collectivity.
If we fail as humans to claim back our human and civil rights and preserve them, eventually Mother Earth will clean herself. She will clean out the inhuman swamp. Maybe it needs one or two huge and lasting cataclysms; a massive earthquake with a disastrous tsunami, a gigantic eruption of one or several volcanos, darkening the sky for weeks, or a monster hurricane or ice storm that destroys and paralyzes parts of civilization, or a huge solar explosion, knocking out the world’s electric and electronic grid – ending digitization of everything on the spot. – All this might be much worse than what covid, or its inventors, ever did.
After such a cataclysm, much of humanity might have to start from scratch – from near-to-zero, and certainly without digitization – but with the now lost freedom, to start afresh and develop freely and sovereignly according to our needs.
For decades the Global Cabal has showered us with self-aggrandizing lies, with promises of comfort, of well-being, but with the notion that competition rather than cooperation will be the salvation. These well-thought-out lies led to a society of egocentric psychopaths – not only, but enough to influence the trend of society, of our dystopian lives. We have gradually acquiesced in LOCKSTEP to a move of societal, even civilizational destruction, from where there is no return.
Let’s work ourselves out of the Sheep Syndrome – NOW.
The FBI says armed protests are being planned in all 50 states from January 16 until Joe Biden’s inauguration day on January 20.
It’s a living nightmare in the US right now – what else can be said?
“Hysteria” is the one word which described the United States in 2020, but in 2021 we are witnessing what happens when a hysterical sprinter just can’t stop sprinting – it is ugly.
I can objectively report that since the Electoral College decided the presidency – following the end of the Capitol Hill protest – seemingly everybody here is depressed and unhappy. The US cannot handle what is going on and everyone feels things are spinning out of control. What’s worse is that they cannot even help themselves from contributing to the spinning: The solution of those who opposed the armed protests is to antagonise the potential armed protesters?
It is ugly.
This is a pretty ambitious column, if “ambitious column” isn’t a journalistic oxymoron: I think all of the upcoming paragraphs can be turned into stand-alone columns because the US is, sadly, in such a hideously twisted shape.
It’s totally absurd to compare 9/11 to “1/6”, but that is what The New York Times did today – it only shows how inoculated modern Americans are from war on their own soil. Do Americans realise that the Capitol Hill protests are exactly what Washington has encouraged in Hong Kong, Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, etc.? And that’s just in your recent memory banks – go back to World War II and the’ve done this in half the world. I can report absolutely nobody in the Mainstream Media here is making that connection. Well, America, the sight of a bloody and brewing civil war is pretty terrible, isn’t it? Like I wrote this is a whole column, but the US has hit what is a comparatively tiny bump in the road – when compared to what they have so gleefully fomented for so very long and with such self-righteousness – and Americans are absolutely falling to pieces.
Do Americans realise that the worst thing to do right now is to spend much time consulting their corporate-dominated media? The Capitol Hill protest was spectacular for ratings, and this country – which totally lacks a sizeable, patriotic and neutral government media – wants to make big bucks until at least inauguration day by hyping what should not be hyped. Do not tune into the news during this time of hysteria – you will thank me for it.
I also have encouraged people to not tune into social media. It’s not that the average person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about – I always insist that the “person on the street” interviews I do often provide me with better insights than interviews with degreed experts – it’s that there simply is no filter. Trump is toxic on his social media because that’s what American social media is – toxic. Western, uncensored social media is seemingly designed to provide a direct counterweight to the Asian cultural model of “saving” and “giving” face. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of Americans – after this roughly 15-year experiment with it – would say that social media has been a societal and personal disappointment.
On the macro level of social media: the US has created a monster, as there simply is no way to regulate Big Tech. They are clearly a monopoly power which can shut down political speech, like with the app Parler, and yet it is their “legal right” to do so because they are a business and not a press – i.e., they have no social responsibilities, but do have all the human rights America insanely grants to corporations. This, of course, enrages an American populace which (falsely) believes their country is a global leader in defending the human right to free press. Facebook took down PressTV’s page for a few hours – of course: If they will ban President Trump on Twitter why would they hesitate much longer for Iran? We are only just comprehending what “social media” can really do to a society, but the negative case study is: the US 2020 election.
Joe Biden is being tasked with healing the whole country even though he also spent the last four years demonising half the country. That is perhaps the best way to gauge what the upcoming chances are for “reconciliation” in America. I just don’t find the idea that the United States will rally around a hugely discredited and wilfully, remorselessly divisive Democratic Party even remotely credible.
Biden has just picked his head of the CIA – it was a person who was also a top candidate for the Secretary of State (foreign minister) post. That the nation’s top spy and top diplomat are interchangeable – and that this goes uncommented upon – says a lot about the United States. Washington does not try to persuade anyone – they just apply pressure, spy on them and make sure the national needs of their allies are subverted to the national needs of the US. Angela Merkel denounced Trump’s Twitter ban, just as she denounced Obama spying on her calls. The US has no allies, and while they will blame Trump for losing all their “international standing” the reality is they had none and want none.
Today’s impeachment of Trump is a spectacularly foolish errand: they will never get the Senate supermajority to actually impeach Trump; he’s leaving in seven days; Trump is correct that it will – of course – cause “tremendous anger”; it is clearly designed to sabotage Trump’s 2024 election chances, at whatever cost to national unity; 40% of the country already feels like their presidential vote was disenfranchised – now you want to impeach their leader (which comes after the censorship of him and before the prosecution of him)? It’s just useless theatre – the US election circus continues.
Is it possible that I was wrong to say that a violent right-wing movement – something comparable in determination (though not at all comparable in aims) to what the US saw last summer in response to never-ending police brutality – cannot ever grow strong enough in the US to “Occupy Capitol Hill”, or something similar? I still don’t think I am wrong and that once this final week passes so will these protests. American conservatives are too status-quo loving, too law and order-worshipping and too jingoistic to really try and change America.
I think the Capitol Hill protest was a one-time act of civil disobedience which spontaneously grew beyond the intentions of the mass majority of protesters – I have seen that happen countless times in person as a journalist. It obviously never morphed into an “Occupy Capitol Hill” multi-day protest because it was obviously never intended to (and for the same reason above). The people at the front lines of such protests are always a different breed; always run the range of political views from right to left; always have a range of motivations, from being mere adrenaline-seekers to genuine political integrity. I have also seen the video footage – captured by a left-wing Black Lives Matter member (because there is always this range of values) – of a Capitol cop, whose life was not threatened, shoot and kill female protester Ashlii Babbitt. I’m appalled there’s not more MSM discussion about that, because the footage is so clear that this was police brutality, but any such discussion radically changes how the protest has to be covered by the MSM: it means taking a break from demonising the protesters, and the US corporate media does not want that.
It was totally clear in the week since Capitol Hill: It’s not enough that Biden won – the US anti-Trump elite wants blood. They want Twitter and Facebook to ban Trump, so they can censor and others (as they just did with Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and Iranian state media PressTV). They want to imprison the Capitol Hill protesters, so they can prevent any anti-Biden political protests in the next four years. They want to impeach and jail Trump, so they can prevent Trumpism from growing beyond their idiotic, “how did I get here” leader into something which could upend the world’s oldest duopoly.
These are all columns because they are all huge issues which cannot be resolved in a few sentences – only summed up. I’m only stopping because I have word limits – feel free to point out which issues weren’t included.
The bottom line on the Democrat side is: Many Americans have spent four years hysterically demonising Trump supporters – they can’t turn it off: Winning the Electoral College obviously wasn’t enough. They want animals put in cages whom they can go poke; they want to fabricate a moral high ground which they believe is so high that it exonerates them from open debate; they want compound interest on the four years they wasted on the perennial US political circus.
The other bottom line on the Republican side is: Trump supporters are in shock that they lost – every one I talked with was so very certain of his victory. Then many of them were certain the Donald would pull it out, but what the Donald did was pass up every opportunity to take a courageous stand and to essentially say, “I’ve been using you supporters all this time.” Trump supporters now see this atrocious past week as if the US elite is presenting them with only two choices: either return to being mainstream Republicans or leave politics altogether. Many will choose the latter. Many Americans will not miss them. They will still be here, I point out to the victors.
I also point out to the victors: Trump losing the election did not solve all this country’s problems, as it was long promised. America in 2021 has way too many problems for such a simple solution.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
“It’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,” Rumsfeld said. “They’re also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that’s what’s going to happen here.”
I suspect most people, and the majority of Trumpists, would agree Trump is an imperfect political vehicle and that Trumpism, as political movement, is under-defined, inconclusive, and inchoate. The best that can be said about Trumpism is that it does not represent the tenets of contemporary Republicanism, or Democratic Bidenism. Trumpism is a startling new ism. That America, a staid state known to reject all forms of novelty and innovation, should seek to exorcise an unknown cancerous ism making sudden appearance within the body politic is perfectly understandable. But what exactly is being rejected, cast out, exorcized? What is the modus operandi of Trumpism? How do we know it?
As best as can be determined, there has been no clear articulation of Trumpism apart from the fact it includes the wearing of a red baseball cap. Donning such an accoutrement today will likely result in the wearer being placed on a no-fly list, suspected of political crimes, disciplined by loss of employment, denied the protections of the First Amendment, refused counsel, labelled as a deplorable, racist, riotous, misogynist, insurrectionist, white supremacist, fascist, terrorist, being actively shunned as one among 78 million other outcasts, publicly derided before being immediately convicted in advance of indictment and then punished to the full extent of the law. America will never tolerate mob rule.
During the entirety of the January 6th, 2021 two- and one-half hour “seizure” of the Capitol no reported fires were set. Unlike the Washington events of June 2020, neither the Capitol, nor the capital, were so much as singed. There was no declaration of independence, no assertion of the Capitol as a satellite province of CHAZ, no manifesto calling for the abolition of the police, the armed forces, and prisons, no demand for full legal immunity, no spray painting of slogans, epithets, or any other attempt at violent redecoration, no attempt to raise a foreign flag, or to alter existing accepted forms governance. There was no degree of looting apart from one lectern. The participants, apart from a half-naked vegetarian dressed in furs and horns and carrying a spear adorned with the stars and stripes, looked much like your average deplorable. There were no signs of rebellion derived from a Monty Python sketch; Monty Python was entirely absent. There were no reports of a dead parrot.
On June 23rd, 2020 President Trump declared “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try, they will be met with serious force!” This declaration was deleted by Twitter on the grounds it violated the company’s policy against abusive behavior: “specifically the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.” Twitter did not identify this group and Trump did not elaborate.
I am no lawyer. But I think there exists an outside chance the 70 odd Trumpists presently facing criminal sanction for their conduct between 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on January 6th, 2021 may eventually have their day in court. Before they are shipped to the Gulag for re-education, their counsel may wish to plead the following:
That in the months preceding January 6th, 2021 America experienced an outburst of mob violence, a destructive pyromania which levelled entire city blocks. This was coupled with extensive looting, multiple shootings and unlawful deaths, the destruction of $1 to 2 billion in insured property nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history—and clear evidence of insurrection as is to be found in declarations of political independence and demands to abolish the police, the armed forces, and the prisons.
Counsel will likely seek to demonstrate that despite this violent unrest occurring in a number of major cities, minimal legal action was taken, and that the violence, intimidation, insurrection, looting, burning, and associated billions in property damage, was publicly reported as being a benign “peaceful demonstration.” Counsel will then ask how their clients can now be found guilty of what Biden labelled as “Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists” when on January 6th, 2021 there was no looting (the lectern excepted), no arson, no use of lethal weapons, no coherent political demand or manifesto, and no attempt to subvert or replace the existing political order. Evidence to be presented will show the defendants walked into a public building known as the “people’s house,” (both the Rotunda and Statuary Hall are acknowledged public spaces), entered through open doors, that the police removed barricades and ushered them forward, that the defendants took selfies with obliging police officers, and that defendants were standing in the company of police officers when an unidentified agent of the state executed one of their number with a single shot to the head, with no form of warning, for the misdemeanor of trespass. When at 4 p.m. everyone began to get an emergency text message from D.C. Mayor Bowser saying a curfew would be in effect from 6:00pm, the crowd proceeded to vacate the premises.
At this point in the proceedings, Counsel will state that his clients were present in the Capitol for the sole express purpose of affirming the Constitution of the United States of America.
Counsel will then draw the attention of the jury to Article II Section 1 clause 2 of the Constitution which states as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Counsel will demonstrate that this Constitutional document was formally ratified and therefore has present application to each state in the union without limit or exception to include the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia.
That the public record demonstrates that in each of these states the executive bypassed the legislature and, over the objections of the legislature, did unilaterally act to usurp the legislature’s sole prerogative to “direct” the manner in which the state shall appoint its allotted electors and in so doing did act in express violation of the provisions found in Article II Section 1 clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Each of the enumerated states therefore acted without lawful authority with the express intent to manipulate and ignore statute law duly enacted by the state legislature which statutes explicitly directed the manner of voting required to lawfully appoint that states electors.
In each of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, the executive acted in defiance of the will of the elected representatives of the citizens. In plain language, the executive violated both state law and the Federal constitution. They acted out of arbitrary self-interest. Such conduct may represent an element “of the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
That the state executive was under Democratic control, and the objecting state legislature was under Republican control, does not excuse such abridgement of the Constitutional rights afforded the citizens. You have either a written constitution and an applied, well respected body of law, or you have mob rule. When it comes to the law you cannot be half pregnant.
Further, Counsel for the defense is likely to produce for the jury the protections found in the First Amendment notably the right to assembly and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievance.
Counsel will then suggest that any citizen of a federation bound by the Constitution who gains knowledge that members of that same federation have knowingly acted in violation of the law to further their own political ends, that such knowledge constitutes significant ground for public grievance. The citizen is potentially disenfranchised by such Constitutional violations.
This public grievance is exacerbated by the fact Biden arranged for a “massive ‘election protection program,’ which includes former Attorney General Eric Holder and hundreds of other lawyers” One wants to think a former Attorney General has some understanding of the Constitution and its various provisions. (FOX News October 25th, 2020).
On October 29th, 2020 the organization factcheck.org spoke with T.J. Ducklo, the National Press Secretary, Biden for President, who stated “The President of the United States has already demonstrated he’s willing to lie and manipulate our country’s democratic process to help himself politically, which is why we have assembled the most robust and sophisticated team in presidential campaign history to confront voter suppression and fight voter fraud however it may present itself. The American people will decide the outcome of this election on November 3rd through a free and fair election, as they always have” (factcheck.org October 29th, 2020)
Given a demonstrated concern over the manipulation of the democratic process leading to the creation of the “most robust and sophisticated team in presidential campaign historyto confront voter suppression and fight voter fraud however it may present itself,” it seems reasonable to assume that this “robust and sophisticated team” would be sensitive to the enumerated violations of the Constitution. If you choose to believe FOX News and T.J. Ducklo, Biden had the assistance of a former A.G. and “hundreds of other lawyers” to achieve this worthy goal. With that amount of legal horsepower, it is difficult to understand how they overlooked such egregious violations of Constitutional law “however it may present itself.”
It will be argued the persons attending the Mall and the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, participated in an assembly joined for the express right to petition the Government for a redress of grievance. This assertion is proved by the fact that immediately before entering upon the grounds of the Capitol the grievers did attend a rally convened by the 45th President of the United States. That the President of the United States is bound by an oath which demands:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
That the President of the United States, one Donald J. Trump was, on January 6th, 2021, lawfully executing his responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend, the U.S. Constitution.
That the President has been regularly described in the media as a traitor and ass-clown, as a bombastic narcissistic psychopathic tool of Putin, and as a bedwetter. Regardless of this concerted public disrespect, on January 6th, 2021 the President was faithfully executing his duty to the best of his ability despite public scorn and rejection by the nation, the vicious slander and disapprobation of the press, abandonment by the courts, the repellent attacks of the Bidenists, and the cowardice of elected members of the Republican party.
The orange ass-clown was, on January 6th, 2021, the sole office holder of the US government acting to protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States of America.
Counsel will then seek to introduce Title 18 U.S. Code § 2385 – Advocating overthrow of Government which states that:
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
Counsel will then seek to address the definition of “force” and raise the question “Does the unlawful sanction and persecution of citizens of the United States of America for the lawful attempt to seek redress for grievance constitute the use of “force?” Does the denial of First Amendment rights by corporate entities domiciled in the United States of America constitute “force?” Does the termination of employment, or the threat of termination of employment for political speech, or the exercise of First Amendment rights, constitute “force?” Does placing persons on a no-fly list and denying them common carrier services for the fact of their political views constitute “force?” Does the conduct of the Speaker of the House acting to impeach a sitting President of the United States of America for the lawful exercise of his duties to the best of his ability constitute “force?” Does incitement on the part of the President elect to sanction citizens for their political speech, or views, constitute “force?” Does the summary execution of a U.S. citizen veteran by an anonymous agent of the state, without notice or warning, for the exercise of her First Amendment rights constitute “force?” The jury will be asked to render a decision on these questions.
