radiofree.asia

Category: Opinion

  • How to Dull People’s Minds and Then Kill Them

    Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, born in Berlin in 1950, is a German medical doctor, a scientist and teacher. He practices foremost in the US, but also gives regular seminars in Germany.

    In the following one-and-a-half-minute video, Dr. Klinghardt says it all. What to do to totally control, dumb and eventually kill people: You spray their food with Glyphosate (Bayer/Monsanto), contaminate the air with aluminum dust from chemtrails, and add some more aluminum to vaccines, for example, Covid-19 injections. Actually they are not vaccines.

    The US CDC has only granted manufacturers of the mRNA-type inoculations temporary permissions to call them “experimental gene therapy”. They are not to be named vaccines. If governments, the media and the medical community at large does it anyway, they are lying to you.

    What is further needed, Dr. Klinghardt says, are certain electromagnetic frequencies (5G), to kill the detox enzymes in your body. And precisely these frequencies are brought to us via our cell-phones, to which 99% of people living in western societies are virtually “married”.

    In conclusion, he observes, that behind such a diabolical plan, there must be evil scientists and evil politicians. See the video (in German with English translation), here.

    What to do? Abstain from taking PCR tests which have nothing to do with actually detecting the never isolated SARS-CoV-2 virus. They are based – unnecessarily – on taking slime samples from way up in your nose, touching the thin membrane that separates your sinuses from the brain. You may bet that the tests have another agenda. The “tests” introduce chemicals into your brain which dull your Pineal gland, so as to diminish and eventually kill your sensibility and sensitivities.

    What these non-vaxxes also do is they have a strong sterilizing effect on women and drastically reduce men’s sperm count. It all fits in with the eugenists’ agenda of massive depopulation.

    What to do? Simple. Abstain and don’t let yourself be coerced into taking PCR tests and mRNA-type experimental gene therapy jabs.

    Yes, you may be temporarily confronted with many restrictions for travel and attending public events. Stick it out. This crime of epic proportions is in the process of being laid open. Lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, and his team of the international-German Corona Investigative Committee has already begun filing class-action suits in Canada and the US, and is suing institutions and individuals in Germany and in Europe at large.

    The post How to Dull People’s Minds and Then Kill Them first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • They Live but “It” Doesn’t

    Two years ago I considered myself a communist, or a fucking commie as I would say now.  I believed that communism must be the answer to all the evils of capitalism, for what other options were possible?  An online commie rag seduced and groomed me with praise, and I became a senior contributing editor at what I now suspect to be a three letter agency operation.  I was an unwitting propaganda producing shill for the New World Order long before ever hearing of Klaus, Prince Charlie, and their gang of thugs.  But I’ve mended my ways and seen the light.

    Covid madness began at the same time I became aware of the Chinese Social Credit System and my world shook until my former enlightenment lay in smoldering ruins all around me.  Searching in vain for something solid to hold onto, I began serious research into vaccines.  Thanks to the likes of Kennedy, Tenpenny, Bigtree, and many others, my lifetime suspicions were confirmed.  Vaccines are a complete fraud, and are largely responsible for weakening, sickening, and overly-drugging the world population with “treatments” for the chronic diseases caused by the toxic jabs.  Vaccines, with their complete immunity to legal recourse, are a vile but lucrative business model.

    As my internet studies bent in what I believe was M.L.K.’s long arc of justice, from the far left to far right, and then off the political spectrum and into the loving arms of volunteerism, I began to understand how John D. Rockefeller took over complete control of the world’s healthcare systems, and shut down all views contrary to his father’s Snake Oil Model.  I discovered that Rockefeller, Morgan, Rothschild, Carnegie, and a small cabal of co-conspirators worldwide, have long controlled politics, the military, intelligence agencies, and police, public education, nearly all food production, radio, television, newspapers, transportation, and banking.  Not certain when the tradition started, but the scions of our original owners often refer to us as “the rats”, at their international orgies of power and depravity.

    We rats are resources to be managed and harvested, and it is clear that their Great Reset plans include a much smaller infestation of two-legged rodents than are now breathing their air.  They want us dead, but like demonic little children, they want to torture us for some amusement.  They’ve managed to (con)vince most of their rats to line up for the rat poison injection, and who’s to know whether it’s mostly euthanasia or transhumanism on their agenda.  We know that the jabs were produced by DARPA, and that we the people of the USA and the world are under attack by our own governments.  Their entrainment of a vast majority of rats is absolute, likely irreversible, and enhanced by recent transhuman upgrades and 5G technology.  These are now the walking dead, and will invariably refuse to be saved from inglorious demise.

    The rest of us rat-proles who understand that we’re at war with those who assume absolute authority, have studied the enemy to varying degrees, and are forming our battle plans.  Right now the truth and freedom community is distracted by the whole Wuhan Lab leak theory, which I believe to be no less than part of the biggest bread and circuses production ever staged.  Rockefeller shut down all discussion of Germ Theory vs. Terrain Theory a century ago, and the general public has been cowering in fear of the lie of the virus ever since.

    Those of us who haven’t signed up for the ongoing international genocide know that only the truth can save us from untimely demise, set us free, and preserve some degree of freedom for our progeny.  If you’re among the almost consensus-level huge majority who still debate the virus origins, you might want to consider a few incongruities.  SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has never been shown to exist.  There are no studies anywhere which have completely isolated any virus.  Viral particles are produced inside cells and are debris from the tens of billions of dead cells which we rats shed each day.  They do not cause disease, nor do they fly five and a half feet from our respiratory orifices.  There are no studies anywhere which prove that viruses cause disease.  Instead, disease is almost certainly caused by toxins and deficiencies.

    Jonas Salk was a card-carrying eugenicist who believed that the rat population must be managed by the wise use of pharmaceuticals.  He proudly shared his philosophy  in “Survival of the Wisest” (1973).  By the way polio, the summer disease, disappeared at the same time DDT was prohibited.  Tony Fauci pulled off the AIDS Pandemic with the same slight of hand.  Luc Montagnier, who discovered the HIV virus, did not believe that viruses cause disease.  Kary Mullis, who invented the PCR test (Covid and AIDS test) died conveniently a few months before Covid-19 arrived.  He said often and loudly that Fauci is a scoundrel and a liar, and would welcome televised debate with him.  He also insisted that the PCR test can not be used to detect disease.

    They pulled off the Spanish Flu and AIDS pandemics with the same slight of hand they now use.  Sicken with a jab or outlawed chemotherapy drugs (like AZT), call the effects of the toxic jab or drugs a viral disease, then test vast numbers of rats with no symptoms with a test not designed to detect any disease, administer more jabs or drugs to everyone, then bury the bodies.  Simple population control.  So necessary to keep the damnable common rats in check.  They Live.  Whether their humanlike appearance is truly human or reptilian is interesting debate material, but no matter which, they must be stopped.

    Since the private banking cartel called The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 They have been creating money out of thin air, and have convinced most Americans for more than a century that those paper notes have value.  The existence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was easy to pull off.  Cute little computer-generated spike-protein covered colorful spheres could be imagined flying through the air like a miniscule invisible invading army.  The media played and is playing its role in making certain there is no debate over the subject. Money, viruses, and fear…all from thin air…brilliantly vile.

    They Live but “It” doesn’t.  There is no virus causing a disease.  Germ versus Terrain?  Both are theories.  Covid-19 is a black cloud obscuring the truth.  Once all visions of a disease causing virus are gone, there will be no vestiges of fear left behind.  There is a battle ahead, and when we deny the virus and remove the emperor’s fig leaf, we’ll also discover that he has no balls.  Then there will be a second judgment at Nuremberg, and we can put our extensive prison system to some good use.  My list is long.

    The post They Live but “It” Doesn’t first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Another of the the Bristol Kill the Bill defendants has been remanded. They need our support.

    Another Kill the Bill demonstrator has been remanded in prison for allegedly taking part in clashes with police outside Bristol’s Bridewell Police Station in March. As the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill makes its way to the House of Lords, it’s important we don’t forget those who are either in prison, awaiting sentence, or facing trial for resisting it.

    Collective self defence

    On 21 March, in the aftermath of the bill’s second Commons reading, police viciously attacked those participating in a Kill the Bill demonstration outside Bristol’s Bridewell Police station. Mounted officers charged the crowd with batons flying. The crowd defended themselves, and by the end of the evening police vehicles had been set on fire.

    Facing prison for resisting police violence

    The defendant remanded last week – (whom we are choosing not to name) – pled not guilty to charges of riot and arson. He could remain in prison until his trial, which is not until 26 January 2022.

    Ryan Roberts – who was part of the same demonstration – has also been on remand in HMP Horfield since April 2021. Roberts’ trial is scheduled for 25 October this year.

    Four more people have pled guilty to charges relating to the confrontation outside Bridewell and are facing prison time. Three of them pled guilty to riot, which carries a ten year maximum prison sentence. They’re due to be sentenced later this month.

    At least 65 people have been arrested since 21 March, and 21 people charged; the majority of them with riot. The use of the charge of riot, which is the most serious public order offence in English law, is unmistakably political.

    We need to step up and support those imprisoned

    I was at the demonstration on 21 March along with other writers from The Canary. And it’s clear to me that those who fought back were acting to defend their comrades from police attack. They were also part of the UK-wide movement to stop the authoritarian Police Bill, a bill that, if passed, is set to destroy the livelihoods of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and give the police even greater powers to clamp down on political dissent.

    Those who have been arrested face a police force and Crown Prosecution Service that are baying for blood and emboldened by the likes of Priti Patel. Patel called the demonstrators “thugs“. Additionally, there’s a mainstream media that seems more than happy to go along with the state narrative.

    Prison conditions have been made worse by the pandemic

    Those remanded could spend many months in prison while they await their trial, during a time when the Coronavirus pandemic has made UK prison conditions even worse. Prisoners have been locked in cells for 23 hours a day since the pandemic, and there’s no sign of those conditions easing. The Chief Inspector of Prisons has said that prisoners are “losing hope” and that their mental health is being affected.

    A report from the Independent Monitoring Board found, for example, that prison conditions at HMP Lewes were “not humane”, as prisoners were only allowed out of their cells for one hour a day.

    Call for support from Ryan Roberts

    Ryan Roberts – one of the two people remanded – is asking for letters of support. According to anarchist website Autonomy News:

    We need to make sure we don’t forget about those imprisoned after the confrontation with the police on 21 March. The act of resisting the Police Bill was an act of community self defence against state violence and control. Supporting our comrades who are in prison for taking part in that resistance is just another part of our self defence against repression.

    Featured image via Shoal Collective

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • In 60 seconds Kier Starmer shows he knows nothing about Northern Ireland’s peace agreement

    Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party is already hanging by a thread. Polls have consistently shown him way behind the Tories. And recent by-election results have been disappointing, to say the least. Now, his performance on a BBC Newsline interview has revealed either his shocking ignorance about the peace agreement in Ireland or his lack of concern for its terms. And it would be difficult to know which would be worse.

    “I believe in the United Kingdom”

    On 10 July, a Twitter user posted a video of Starmer speaking during an appearance on BBC Newsline. The interviewer asked him whether there would be a referendum on the status of the north of Ireland under a Starmer-led Labour government. Though it wasn’t what the interviewer asked him, Starmer responded:

    I, personally as leader of the Labour Party, believe in the United Kingdom, strongly. And want to make the case of the United Kingdom, strongly

    An admission of either ignorance or contempt for Good Friday Agreement

    In 1998, the Irish and British governments along with most of the north’s major political parties signed a peace accord. This accord is known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or the Belfast Agreement. It brought the three decade-long conflict in Ireland, sometimes called ‘the Troubles’, to an end. A key provision of the document is a clause that provides a peaceful, democratic route to a fully independent, unpartitioned Ireland. The clause says that the British government should call a border poll on the continued status of the six counties (the north of Ireland) within the United Kingdom, should there be evidence that there is significant support for it.

    This was central to gaining the support of Irish nationalists and Irish republicans, who support a united Ireland. Under the terms of the GFA, the British government must remain impartial in the event of a border poll. This is so only voices that represent people in the north can make their case to the people who live there during a referendum campaign. This is particularly important for Irish republicans, who view Britain as a foreign, occupying force. Starmer’s answer to the interviewer’s question, therefore, shows him to be either ignorant of the terms of the GFA or contemptuous of them. Again, it would be difficult to determine which would be worse.

    The Brexit bomb

    The issue of partition in Ireland gained newfound prominence following the result of the UK’s 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union (EU). Before then, the mainstream media and British government had largely claimed there was no indication of substantial support for a united Ireland. However, the result of the EU referendum changed that perception immeasurably. First of all, while the majority of people in the UK as a whole had voted in favour of leaving the EU, the majority in the north of Ireland voted to remain. This then led to the question of special status for the north, since taking it out of the EU would go against its majority remain vote.

    Furthermore, the north shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. And since the singing of the GFA, there has been an open border without border check points. The EU customs union and free movement principle, meanwhile, meant that goods could travel seamlessly between the north and the Republic. The UK’s exit from the EU, however, opened the possibility of border check points, which would violate the terms of the GFA because it commits to an open border. The government of Boris Johnson initially promised a ‘special protocol’ that would ensure an open border. But now he appears to be yielding to pressure from hard Brexit factions who want to overturn it.

    Growing support for an end to partition, even amongst unionists

    The Brexit bomb has had the effect of increasing support for a united Ireland. Obviously, a united Ireland would mean no border whatsoever on the island of Ireland. It would also mean the north could rejoin the EU by becoming part of an already existing member state. This has made the idea of a single, island-wide independent Ireland more attractive to many people in the north. This even includes some from the unionist community. Unionists have historically supported the continuation of the north’s status as part of the UK.

    To be sure, some remain as staunchly pro-British as ever. Loyalist paramilitaries, for instance, have withdrawn from the GFA and other hardline unions have taken to rioting on the streets in protest of the ‘special protocol’. However, there are now also indications that other, more moderate unionists are willing to ‘think the unthinkable’ by voting for a united Ireland. As part of a Channel 4 program about support for a united Ireland, Ian Marshall, a lifelong unionist and a former president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, said that there are “ideas that are being floated that were beyond consideration before and certainly wouldn’t have been entertained by anyone, including myself, in unionism”. Another lifelong unionist, Prof. James Dornan, a physician and lecturer, said:

    I would traditionally be thought of as being quite happy with the union… but it’s not so much that I’m thinking the unthinkable, I think everything is on the table at the present.

    Reaching parity between unionists and nationalists

    Meanwhile, the nationalist and republican population’s support for a united Ireland has been further solidified. This community has historically been in favour of a united Ireland though had shown signs of being content within the post-GFA northern jurisdiction before Brexit. Now, however, it appears to be more uniformly in favour of leaving the UK. The nationalist and republican communities together had historically made up about one third of the north’s population. However, as a result of higher birth rates in the nationalist and republican communities, and an aging unionist population, the north is now almost even in terms of religion and ideological orientation.

    As a result of all these factors, the prospect of a united Ireland is looking more and more likely. The genius of the GFA is that it provides a mechanism for both supporters and opponents of that outcome to pursue their political goals through peaceful, democratic channels. By doing so, it ultimately attained majority support from both sides of the community in the north and on both sides of the border on the island of Ireland. In short, the GFA represents the will of the people of all of Ireland and therefore must be be given the utmost respect. As former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn put it, the GFA must be followed “to the letter”.

    In addition to having been an early advocate for peace, Corbyn has always been deeply committed to the GFA. Starmer, on the other hand, seems to either not know what he’s talking about or simply doesn’t care what the GFA says. And this puts another nail in the coffin of his already failed leadership.

    Featured image via Flickr – Jeremy Corbyn and Flickr – Reading Tom

    By Peter Bolton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • In 60 seconds Kier Starmer shows he knows nothing about Northern Ireland’s peace agreement

    Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party is already hanging by a thread. Polls have consistently shown him way behind the Tories. And recent by-election results have been disappointing, to say the least. Now, his performance on a BBC Newsline interview has revealed either his shocking ignorance about the peace agreement in Ireland or his lack of concern for its terms. And it would be difficult to know which would be worse.

    “I believe in the United Kingdom”

    On 10 July, a Twitter user posted a video of Starmer speaking during an appearance on BBC Newsline. The interviewer asked him whether there would be a referendum on the status of the north of Ireland under a Starmer-led Labour government. Though it wasn’t what the interviewer asked him, Starmer responded:

    I, personally as leader of the Labour Party, believe in the United Kingdom, strongly. And want to make the case of the United Kingdom, strongly

    An admission of either ignorance or contempt for Good Friday Agreement

    In 1998, the Irish and British governments along with most of the north’s major political parties signed a peace accord. This accord is known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or the Belfast Agreement. It brought the three decade-long conflict in Ireland, sometimes called ‘the Troubles’, to an end. A key provision of the document is a clause that provides a peaceful, democratic route to a fully independent, unpartitioned Ireland. The clause says that the British government should call a border poll on the continued status of the six counties (the north of Ireland) within the United Kingdom, should there be evidence that there is significant support for it.

    This was central to gaining the support of Irish nationalists and Irish republicans, who support a united Ireland. Under the terms of the GFA, the British government must remain impartial in the event of a border poll. This is so only voices that represent people in the north can make their case to the people who live there during a referendum campaign. This is particularly important for Irish republicans, who view Britain as a foreign, occupying force. Starmer’s answer to the interviewer’s question, therefore, shows him to be either ignorant of the terms of the GFA or contemptuous of them. Again, it would be difficult to determine which would be worse.

    The Brexit bomb

    The issue of partition in Ireland gained newfound prominence following the result of the UK’s 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union (EU). Before then, the mainstream media and British government had largely claimed there was no indication of substantial support for a united Ireland. However, the result of the EU referendum changed that perception immeasurably. First of all, while the majority of people in the UK as a whole had voted in favour of leaving the EU, the majority in the north of Ireland voted to remain. This then led to the question of special status for the north, since taking it out of the EU would go against its majority remain vote.

    Furthermore, the north shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. And since the singing of the GFA, there has been an open border without border check points. The EU customs union and free movement principle, meanwhile, meant that goods could travel seamlessly between the north and the Republic. The UK’s exit from the EU, however, opened the possibility of border check points, which would violate the terms of the GFA because it commits to an open border. The government of Boris Johnson initially promised a ‘special protocol’ that would ensure an open border. But now he appears to be yielding to pressure from hard Brexit factions who want to overturn it.

    Growing support for an end to partition, even amongst unionists

    The Brexit bomb has had the effect of increasing support for a united Ireland. Obviously, a united Ireland would mean no border whatsoever on the island of Ireland. It would also mean the north could rejoin the EU by becoming part of an already existing member state. This has made the idea of a single, island-wide independent Ireland more attractive to many people in the north. This even includes some from the unionist community. Unionists have historically supported the continuation of the north’s status as part of the UK.

    To be sure, some remain as staunchly pro-British as ever. Loyalist paramilitaries, for instance, have withdrawn from the GFA and other hardline unions have taken to rioting on the streets in protest of the ‘special protocol’. However, there are now also indications that other, more moderate unionists are willing to ‘think the unthinkable’ by voting for a united Ireland. As part of a Channel 4 program about support for a united Ireland, Ian Marshall, a lifelong unionist and a former president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, said that there are “ideas that are being floated that were beyond consideration before and certainly wouldn’t have been entertained by anyone, including myself, in unionism”. Another lifelong unionist, Prof. James Dornan, a physician and lecturer, said:

    I would traditionally be thought of as being quite happy with the union… but it’s not so much that I’m thinking the unthinkable, I think everything is on the table at the present.

    Reaching parity between unionists and nationalists

    Meanwhile, the nationalist and republican population’s support for a united Ireland has been further solidified. This community has historically been in favour of a united Ireland though had shown signs of being content within the post-GFA northern jurisdiction before Brexit. Now, however, it appears to be more uniformly in favour of leaving the UK. The nationalist and republican communities together had historically made up about one third of the north’s population. However, as a result of higher birth rates in the nationalist and republican communities, and an aging unionist population, the north is now almost even in terms of religion and ideological orientation.

    As a result of all these factors, the prospect of a united Ireland is looking more and more likely. The genius of the GFA is that it provides a mechanism for both supporters and opponents of that outcome to pursue their political goals through peaceful, democratic channels. By doing so, it ultimately attained majority support from both sides of the community in the north and on both sides of the border on the island of Ireland. In short, the GFA represents the will of the people of all of Ireland and therefore must be be given the utmost respect. As former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn put it, the GFA must be followed “to the letter”.

    In addition to having been an early advocate for peace, Corbyn has always been deeply committed to the GFA. Starmer, on the other hand, seems to either not know what he’s talking about or simply doesn’t care what the GFA says. And this puts another nail in the coffin of his already failed leadership.

    Featured image via Flickr – Jeremy Corbyn and Flickr – Reading Tom

    By Peter Bolton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • We must support those facing prison for standing up against the Police Bill

    As the authoritarian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passes its third reading in the Commons, we need to defend those who fought against it.

    Back in March, in the aftermath of the bill’s second Commons reading, police viciously attacked those participating in a Kill the Bill demonstration outside Bristol’s Bridewell Police station. Mounted officers charged the crowd with batons flying. The crowd defended themselves, and by the end of the evening police vehicles had been set on fire.

    The police and the government have been out for blood ever since. Those who fought the police have been labelled thugs, and their ‘wanted’ photographs have been plastered all over the mainstream media.

    At least 65 people have been arrested, accused of taking part in the confrontation outside Bridewell on 21 March. 21 of them have now been charged. The majority of them have been charged with riot, which carries a maximum ten year sentence in the UK.

    Ryan Roberts is currently on remand in Bristol Prison after being arrested for riot and two counts of arson.

    Four people have entered guilty pleas, three of them to charges of riot. They are due to be sentenced on 30 July. The judge has told all of them to expect a custodial sentence.

    Riot is the most serious public order offence in English law, and the use of the charge is undoubtedly political. For the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to charge people with riot, they must first get permission from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

    We need to remember who our friends are

    Its not the MPs who overwhelmingly rubber stamped the Police Bill, or the cops who attacked people for raising their voices against it. Its not mainstream journalists, who happily published ‘wanted’ pictures of our friends, and whose poison pen pieces  – parroting the CPS’ allegations against the defendants – are paving the way for even more reactionary sentencing. Its not the court system either, which is gearing itself up to hand out long sentences to our comrades if they are convicted.

    Our friends are the people who stood up and fought back against police violence on 21 March outside Bridewell. Now we need to stand up for them.

    We need to defend those who were brave enough to fight back

    We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are going through the court system. As someone who has been dragged through the courts plenty of times myself, I know from experience that the police and CPS use the court and charging processes as extrajudicial punishments against defendants. While I was awaiting my trial, police imposed bail conditions on me which made me homeless and raided my house repeatedly. Similar tactics are being played out again this year in Bristol.

    The psychological and emotional effects of the repression on me and my co-defendants was massive. But the material and emotional support that came from our comrades, and the solidarity we received, made a huge difference.

    We need to be there for the Bristol defendants in the same way.

    Political prosecutions like the one going on in Bristol right now, backed up by the threat of long prison sentences, are designed to grind defendants down, and separate them from people who would give them support. We need to do everything in our power to defend those who are being prosecuted, and those in prison.

    Bristol Defendant Solidarity (BDS) is organising to support the defendants. A message from BDS reads:

    #KillTheBill: Bristol legal support in the streets and in the courts

    **UPDATE: There have now been more than 60 arrestees from #KillTheBill protests in Bristol. Police raiding homes have used force to enter, and threatened a 16 year old girl with Tasers  before realising she was not the person they were looking for. Our injury support team have reported many more people who’ve been injured by police violence. If you can, please donate today and help us reach our stretch goal of £30,000 so we keep supporting people through the court process.**

    Looking back at the 2011 riots

    Ten years ago, I remember watching as a group of young people looted a department store in Croydon. It was during the Summer 2011 riots. A group of people in masks were running in and out of a sports shop with armfuls of clothing and leaving them in a pile so the crowd could take what they needed. Those people were our comrades too.

    I remember as over a thousand people were sent to prison after the UK riots, egged on by Boris Johnson waving a broom calling on us all to help clean up. Current Labour leader Keir Starmer was the DPP who authorised the prosecutions, and even went on morale boosting visits to all-night extraordinary court sittings.

    Defendants were sentenced to a total of over 1,800 years in prison. The response from radicals in the UK was woefully inadequate; we didn’t do enough to defend people who were being railroaded to prison. And the result was a lost generation of people who had been willing to stand up and fight, and who were viciously stamped on as a result.

    Learning the lessons

    The repression of those charged with riot in Bristol is following the same pattern as the political prosecutions of the past. We need to step up and defend those facing court cases and prison, because they are our friends and allies.

    Defending each other against state repression is a crucial part of community self defence. On 21 March, people defended themselves physically against police violence. Our response now is just another part of defending ourselves against that attack. And developing ways to defend each other from state repression is an important part of building our power from the bottom up. We are at a crucial moment right now, and we need to rise to the challenge.

    Featured image via Shoal Collective

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Australia Blindly Follows the United States, Regardless of National Interest

    One of the more disturbing features of Australian foreign policy is engagement in foreign military activities of minimal importance to Australia’s real military needs. It is a policy that has been pursued by both Liberal and Labor governments and it has a very long history.

    In the post-World War II era Australia first became involved in the Korean war from 1950 to 1953. As has been well documented, the United States took advantage of the temporary boycotting of the Security Council by Russia, and that the Chinese seat on the UNSC was occupied by the Nationalist regime that had the previous year lost the Chinese Civil War and moved to exile in what had been previously designated the Republic of Formosa during resistance against the Japanese takeover in the late 19th century.

    The second foreign military adventure that Australia would eagerly join its American masters, yet again, was the war in Vietnam. As with Korea, this was essentially a civil dispute between competing factions. Australia’s involvement in that dispute lasted 10 years until the Whitlam Labor government withdrew Australian forces in 1972, thereby earning the lasting distrust of the Americans. Even the now revealed secretive linkages of the Bob Hawke Labor government to the Americans never fully regained American trust.

    The Vietnam misadventure was followed by Australia’s involvement in the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. That has only just ended with an unseemly Australian withdrawal from that country hot on the heels of President Biden’s announcement that United States troops would be withdrawn by September of this year. Such was Australia’s unseemly rush for the Afghanistan door that they had failed to make proper provision for the hundreds of Afghanis who had loyally helped them and whose lives are now in danger.

    Whether the United States withdrawal actually occurs remains to be seen. The regular force troops are to be replaced by mercenaries, at least 10,000 at last count. An important part of their role will be an attempt to cling onto the lucrative Afghanistan heroin trade, a hugely significant contributor both to United States power and the CIA’s illicit coffers for the past two decades.

    The Australian withdrawal from Afghanistan came immediately after Biden confirmed that United States troops would be withdrawn. Without United States approval it is impossible to believe that Australian troops would have been withdrawn. A likely fatality of the withdrawal will be the abandoning by the military prosecuting services of any trial against the Australian soldiers reported to have been involved in serious war crimes. The explanation for abandoning the prosecution will be the Taliban and the difficulty of working with them. The Taliban are advancing at the speed that apparently even they did not anticipate, and their taking effective control of the country can now only be a matter of weeks.

    The Taliban were initially overthrown because of their alleged refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden, for his equally alleged role in the events of 11 September 2001 in the United States. In fact, the invasion of Afghanistan for multiple reasons was discussed at the first cabinet meeting of the new Bush presidency in January 2001.

    Bin Laden was never more than a smoke screen to obscure the real reasons for invading the country which among other reasons including its vast natural resources, and its geography

    The Labor Party, which had opposed the initial invasion of Afghanistan, did nothing to withdraw Australian troops during their six years in power. This is a measure of the extent to which Australian governments, regardless of party affiliation, obey their American masters.

    The other war that Australia willingly joined despite the complete absence of any identifiable vital Australian interest, was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. They are still there, despite a unanimous resolution of the Iraqi parliament in January 2000 and all uninvited foreign troops should immediately leave their country. Again, the Australians took their cue from the Americans who simply ignored the demand of the Iraqi parliament that they should leave.

    There is a similar, but almost completely unmentioned involvement of Australian troops in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq’s neighbour Syria. Despite the demands of the legitimate Syrian government, United States troops continue to occupy the oil producing areas of Syria and are stealing their oil on a daily basis.

    There is absolutely no justification for United States troops to be in Syria, and their continued occupation there is a perfect illustration of the point that United States concern for what they are pleased to call the “rule of law” is utterly meaningless when their geopolitical goals clash with the rights of the offended country.

    It has now emerged, again without Parliamentary debate or even any adverse comment by the Labor opposition, that Australia is involved in the NATO military exercises currently underway in the Black Sea.

    It is almost impossible to be further from Australia’s territorial waters, let alone being able to identify a legitimate Australian interest in this clearly provocative baiting of Russia in that country’s territorial waters. As with almost every other Australian military venture, and especially when it totally lacks any real relationship to Australia’s national security interests, discussion on the point is completely absent from the parliament and from local media.

    The United States is desperately trying to put together a quartet of countries (with India, Japan and Australia) to pursue its interests in the region of the world they call the Asia Pacific. In truth, it is no more than an anti-Chinese coalition cobbled together to assist United States geopolitical interests in a region of the world in which they have no business.

    China is Australia’s largest trading partner, taking 40% of all its exports. It would be difficult to imagine any action more contrary to its own vital interests, than for Australia to join such a manifestly anti-Chinese grouping.

    Unfortunately, as Australia’s entire post World War II history amply demonstrates, when the United States says “jump”, the only Australian response is “how high”? It is a policy choice that is beneficially not in Australia’s interests, yet one they are intent on pursuing. There will inevitably be a day of reckoning.

    The post Australia Blindly Follows the United States, Regardless of National Interest first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • How do we father in the era of #metoo?

    I have two young kids, and love discussing the joys and challenges of fatherhood with different audiences. I’ve been grappling with a dilemma ever since we first heard news of alleged sexual assault and harassment stalking Canberra’s corridors of power. If it’s a father’s role to help raise kind, confident and respectful individuals who treat people with equality, why doesn’t our community encourage men do this to their best ability? Do we really entrust men with the emotional and social development of their own children?

    I’m still struggling with these questions, but here’s what I do know. We assume men are not willing, interested or capable carers of their own children. I find this so incredibly frustrating because recent studies demonstrate men want time to be dads first and foremost. A survey of almost 900,000 millennial dads found 83 per cent believed family was more important than career. Even before COVID-19, the Diversity Council of Australia found that young fathers wanted more flexible work conditions, with 79 per cent of those surveyed wanting to choose their hours and work a compressed week. Apparently most Australians also believe parenting should be shared equally between partners.

    If men really want more time raising their kids, what exactly is stopping them? I explored this challenge with an expert panel at the University of Canberra’s Equals Now Symposium. During the conversation, it became clear we have in fact three sizeable systemic barriers stopping men from being active fathers: cultural tropes, workplace rigidity and outdated public policies.

    Our culture encourages men to be breadwinners and not carers. We assume kids learn about life while dad works. This includes even the trickier lessons around love, intimacy, heartache and relationships, where positive role modelling and honest, ongoing conversations with young people are so crucial. Fathers tend to do twice as much paid work as childcaring. COVID-19 didn’t uproot this presumption, with significantly less men continuing flexible work practices after the 2020 lockdowns compared to women.

    During the panel, Charles Jenkinson, a specialist training in Cardiothoracic Surgery and fatherhood advocate, explained that the reality of the breadwinner label is a relentless pressure to work, “I think the biggest example of this when was when [my wife] had to take an overseas trip, and I was really struggling, in the workplace, being a solo parent for the week. When I asked people at work if I could just come in fifteen minutes later, after I’d been chastised because I couldn’t get my daughter to daycare in time, I was told, you’re the Training Specialist, you have to suck it up and get on with it.”

    If our attitudes are to change, so too must our workplaces. Most organisations do not have targets for men’s engagement in flexible work, and about 48 per cent of workplaces still offer no paid parental leave. Yet Coleen MacKinnon, founder of Inclusivity Quotient, a consultancy engaging men in workplace gender equality, argues that many industries are now far better at supporting fathers, “the most significant trend, which is a game changer, is shared care or equal, non-gendered parental leave. It’s a policy that incentivises men to care for their children and women to return to work. A father can access extended paid parental leave in the first year of his child’s life, typically about 12 weeks, if his wife is returning to full time work.”

    Positive workplace changes are crucial but incomplete without national policy reform, where Australia remains a laggard by OECD standards. Government provides a meagre two weeks of ‘Dad and Partner Pay’ at minimum wage. Our commercialised early childhood education system stands in bleak contrast to the free, universal access of primary school. Andrew Hunter, Adviser to the Minderoo Foundation’s Thrive by Five Initiative, argues that to progress further, more men must advocate for better policies that invest in caring, “you can’t remove fatherhood from the way we think about the modern Australian family, it would be like taking wetness out of out of water. For me, the modern Australian family of 2030 is one where both parents participate equally at home, and they participate equally in the workforce”.

    Men can be amazing carers. When they actively care for their children, they become more emotionally open and nurturing. They better role model gender equality at home by sharing the parenting load, managing the household, and supporting their partner. In turn, they help display a healthier, more inclusive version of masculinity to their children. That is change Australia sorely needs. Normalising men as carers is one of the most enduring and positive changes we could make to the country right now.

    Rob Sturrock is a father of two children, advocate on fatherhood, gender equality and healthy masculinity, and is the author of Man Raises Boy: A revolutionary approach for fathers who want to raise kind, confident and happy sons

     

    The post How do we father in the era of #metoo? appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • As the Police Bill gets its third reading in parliament, we’ll fight it to the bitter end

    The terrifyingly authoritarian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has reached its remaining stages in the House of Commons. Protesters gathered at Parliament Square while police vehicles lined up down Whitehall, as far as the eye could see. Inside parliament, discussion on the bill only began at 3.30pm. This barely gave MPs any time at all to discuss the 300-page bill, let alone put forward amendments.

    But even if MPs are able to rush through some key amendments, this won’t be good enough. We want to see the bill scrapped, and we will fight it to the bitter end.

    Probably the biggest attack on our freedoms since the Public Order Acts of the ‘80s and ‘90s, the bill will give police new powers to clamp down on protests. Network For Police Monitoring (Netpol) says:

    the Bill introduces new powers for policing demonstrations and makes huge changes to public order legislation to allow police to criminalise anyone using civil disobedience and direct action tactics.

    A racist bill being brought in by a racist government

    But of course, it isn’t just our right to protest that’s at stake. Marginalised communities will be the most adversely affected by the bill – and it’s up to all of us to defend them. Netpol told The Canary:

    While we welcome MPs’ calls to protect the right to protest, Netpol is calling for this Bill to be scrapped in its entirety. Even if draconian new police powers to restrict protest were removed, the Bill’s racist crackdown on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, as well as new measures which would see an increase in harsh criminal sentencing and an expansion to stop and search powers, much be challenged.

    Through the bill, the government will introduce Serious Violence Reduction Orders. These would give police significantly more power to stop and search people on the street. It is, of course, Black people who will be disproportionately affected. Statistics from 2019 showed that Black people were 9.7 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched.

    Travellers rights are human rights

    Moreover, the bill will enable authorities to seize the vehicles of traveller communities. This would effectively  mean they would be stealing homes and making families homeless. And those who don’t immediately leave a piece of land could face arrest or imprisonment, merely on the suspicion of causing antisocial behaviour.

    As it stands, there aren’t enough legal sites for travellers to reside, making a nomadic way of life almost impossible in the UK. And this is exactly what Patel and Johnson want: any remnant of a non-conventional way of living stamped out forever.

    Fight to the end

    But Traveller communities will not give up without a fight. Drive To Survive is a coalition of Romany Gypsy, Irish Traveller and Roma activists and community organisations. They say that they’re “determined to use peaceful protest and civil disobedience to highlight this threat to the freedoms of all people”. On Wednesday 7 July, they’ll gather in Parliament Square to Kill The Bill, and they want you to join them:

    The government has been at the receiving end of countless criticisms over the bill, from campaigners, lawyers, politicians and NGOs. But despite all opposition, Patel and the Tory government continue to push on in what looks like an attempt to create their own warped, fascist state. It’s vital that we join the final protests as we continue to fight this draconian bill.

    Featured image via YouTube

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Why is the government’s list of coronavirus symptoms still woefully inaccurate?

    Back in April 2020, I wrote an article criticising the government and the woefully incomplete list of coronavirus (Covid-19) symptoms it was sharing with the public. I compared our government’s advice to that of other countries.  And what I found was that the NHS’s list of coronavirus symptoms was one of the most incomplete in the world.

    At the time, my housemate and I were certain that we had coronavirus, although we had none of the listed symptoms. “It feels like I’ve smoked a whole packet of cigarettes,” my friend had moaned at the time. A few days later, his condition deteriorated. “It feels like someone is sitting on my chest,” he wheezed.

    Fast-forward to July 2021, and I am recovering from coronavirus again. This time I was able to get an official diagnosis. Like the majority of people in the UK, it’s very likely that I was infected by the Delta variant: a strain of coronavirus that feels quite different to the virus we knew in early 2020.

    The variant has changed…

    The Delta variant is currently sweeping the UK and spreads much more easily than its predecessors. I had only been given one dose of the vaccine when I caught the virus. Yet friends I had been socialising with found themselves in bed even after receiving two vaccinations. I was shocked that Delta could spread so rapidly among people who had been double-vaccinated.

    On top of this, the new Lambda variant – which is proving deadly in Peru and the rest of Latin America – has also made its way into the UK. Its transmission rate is thought to be higher than all other variants. And scientists fear that a new mutation of the strain is resistant to vaccines.

    …so why hasn’t the NHS’s advice changed?

    With so much knowledge of how the virus has changed over the course of a year and a half, it’s disturbing that the government hasn’t bothered to update the advice they’re giving to the public. This is particularly concerning given that coronavirus cases are rising steeply again.

    The NHS still only lists three symptoms to watch out for:

    • a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
    • a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
    • a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

    Yet the ZOE app – the largest ongoing study of coronavirus in the world – lists different symptoms to watch out for. If you’re not vaccinated, ZOE lists the most common symptoms as being:

    1. Headache
    2. Sore Throat
    3. Runny Nose
    4. Fever
    5. Persistent cough

    ZOE says:

    Loss of smell comes in at number 9 and shortness of breath comes far down the list at number 30, indicating the symptoms as recorded previously are changing with the evolving variants of the virus.

    And if you’ve already been given two vaccinations, ZOE lists the most common symptoms as:

    1. Headache
    2. Runny nose
    3. Sneezing
    4. Sore throat
    5. Other

    That’s none of the symptoms listed by the NHS. ZOE says:

    The previous ‘traditional’ symptoms as still outlined on the government website, such as anosmia (loss of smell), shortness of breath and fever rank way down the list, at 11, 29 and 12 respectively. A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having COVID.

    With such dire advice still coming from the government, it’s no wonder that infection rates are shooting through the roof.

    DHSC response

    The Canary contacted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for a comment. The department said:

    Since the start of the pandemic we have acknowledged COVID-19 has a much longer list of symptoms than the ones initially used in the case definition and our experts keep the list of symptoms under review.

    But the DHSC didn’t address the question we asked, which was “why hasn’t the government updated its symptom list in almost a year and a half?” Instead, the DHSC told us:

    Anyone experiencing the key symptoms – a high temperature, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to sense of smell or taste – should get a PCR test as soon as possible and immediately self-isolate along with their household.

    PCR tests are mainly for people who have symptoms, and a swab is sent off to a lab. The DHSC continued:

    With around one in three people not showing symptoms of COVID-19, we have made regular, rapid testing available twice a week for free for everyone in England. Over 100 million LFDs have been carried out so far with over 200,000 cases identified that would not have been detected otherwise.

    LFDs, or lateral flow tests, give results within 30 minutes and should be used if a person has no symptoms. Yet their effectiveness in picking up whether someone has the virus is questionable. I myself received a negative LFD result before getting a positive PCR result.

    The government is still proving that it’s incompetent

    Boris Johnson’s government seems content that although coronavirus rates are increasing, our death rates are still low. But the government isn’t taking into account that, even if people don’t die, the effects of long Covid can be devastating. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth also argued:

    Letting cases rise with no action means further pressure on the NHS, more sickness, disruption to education – and risks a new variant emerging with a selection advantage.

    The emergence of new variants is particularly worrying. Because the more the virus mutates, the greater the chances of a vaccine-resistant strain developing. Meanwhile, states such as Germany continue to close their borders to UK citizens, citing the country as a new area “of variants of concern”.

    As the UK government proudly prepares to ease all lockdown restrictions, Germany and others will, once more, be watching closely. Johnson will continue to try to convince the public that he’s doing a wonderful job. But, as always, he’s fooling no one.

    Featured image via Flickr / NIAID-RML

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The Gladiators Are Back

    A gladiator (Latin for “swordsman”) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and later in the Roman Empire, in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. The fights were to the people’s delight. At the end of a fight the winner looked to the yelling, hurling and screaming audience or to the “moderator” – what to do next? Thumbs up meant give him mercy, let him live; thumbs down: kill ‘em. A cheering crowd would watch these horrendous games of mostly men fighter. There were some female exceptions. As in today’s world there are also some female gladiators.

    Today, there are female competitions in almost all sports. But they are generally in lesser demand than men-events. After all, we live in a macho-world. Wars and other conflict confrontations are mostly led by men, and those who suffer most, are women, children and the elderly.

    The Gladiator fights date back to the 3rd Century BC. Nowadays’ gladiator games are adapted to the 21st Century.

    The origin of gladiatorial combats is not clear. There is some evidence that they were used in funeral rites during the Punic Wars of the 3rd Century BC. The Punic Wars were a series of confrontations fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Empire of Carthage (based in what today is Tunisia and stretching over western North Africa). Those were for pure entertainment of the masses, to deviate from war losses, and to show winner’s ego, pride – propaganda for more fighting and more violence.

    The tradition of gladiator games lasted for almost a thousand years, until the 6th Century AD. Their origins appear like ceremonial, but later, when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire – they served as brutal entertainments for the masses to deviate their attention from what the empire was doing at home, or “cooking” abroad, in foreign lands, with resources – “taxes” – taken from the people. Resources of the people being diverted to causes that served only a small elite.

    Not unlike today, where resources from the people, “taxes” from peoples’ earnings are used for purposes that are decided by the elite in power to a large extent, for reasons and projects that do not serve the people at all. Just take the military budgets. They serve a small group — the war and destruction industry — but not the people. People do not want wars.

    In the early years of the first millennium (70 AD), the Roman Colosseum was built, where most gladiator games were fought. They were entertaining “compensation-deviation” for the people, so they would not think about what was going on with their monetary resources in foreign lands or even at home against their vital interests of wellbeing. Their attention was focused on small-scale violence, leaving the big behind-the-scenes stuff to the elite.

    The gladiator battles that pitted armed combatants against one another in brutal but often highly choreographed duels to the death were by far the most popular kind of entertainment that unfolded in the Colosseum.

    Today, modern-day Colosseums are football and soccer stadiums. Thus, modern-day gladiator fights are back. They are not as violent and as deadly as those fought in the ancient Roman Colosseum, but today’s emotion-loaded sports events are also destined to deviating peoples’ attention from the “deadly games”, games played by a minute world elite, well hidden from the entertained masses. So well hidden and prepared for decades that they hit the people like a ton of bricks when they are finally let loose on the innocent masses – masses for years misled by their governments’ propaganda machine.

    Right now, the plandemic, called covid-19, has within 18 months already devastated the lives of billions of people throughout the UN’s 193 UN member countries – not by disease (SARS-CoV-2) caused death, but rather by a devastated economy, induced poverty, famine, despair and eventually death from desolation, famine and misery.

    Within a year and a half, basic human rights have been stolen, abridged, taken away in warp speed, and what were thought to be at least remnants of democracies, especially in the Global North, have become tyrannies, almost overnight; legalized tyrannies many of them under swiftly and semi-clandestinely passed martial law.

    Driven by fake news and lavishly paid false propaganda, people have been lulled into fear – constant fear of death from an invisible enemy “V” for virus – from a monstruous fear-machine – false and fabricated disease figures, that they – and the entire society, what’s left of it — is breaking apart, incapable of living normal lives. Indeed, because normal life has been extinguished with the well-in-advance planned pandemic; i.e., plandemic.

    An obscure ultra-rich world elite that pretends to call the shots on everything, ordered governments to submit to The Virus, a corona virus, SARS-Cov-2, the version two of the SARS virus launched principally on China in 2002/2003. The “order” came on 11 March 2020, from the pharma-compromised World Health Organization (WHO) declaring SARS-Cov-2, alias Covid-19, a worldwide pandemic. It is virology 101, no virus strikes naturally the entre world all 193 UN member countries at once. This was the beginning of the UN Agenda 2030, also called Agenda 21.

    It’s also the beginning of the modern-days’ gladiator games.

    In this ten-year-program, UN Agenda 2030, a complete structural change of society, if not our civilization, is planned to be implemented, leaving behind what the World Economic Forum (WEF) calls “The Great Reset”, a world that belongs to a few diabolical dark, rich beings, served by a drastically reduced world population.

    The death knell to bring the population down is a gigantic drive of “vaccination” with precisely what the CDC calls an “experimental gene-therapy”, so-called mRNA jabs. Governments around the globe lie, calling it a vaccine. They spend the peoples’ billions, if not trillions, in tax money to lavishly reward the pharmaceuticals – in return for “vaccines”.

    Already the immediate reaction to the coerced jabs is a severe death toll, reaching within the first 6 months of the “vaxx-drive” reported serious injuries and deaths that are exponentially higher than those of regular vaccinations over the past 50 years together.

    The European Union reports 1.5 million serious vaccine injuries and 15,500 Deaths from the mRNA-jabs, as of 25 June 2021. See here. And by far, not all injuries are reported.

    That already indicates that this tyrannical drive to vaccinate more than 7 billion people on Mother Earth, against a virus which has a proven death rate of no more than 0.3% to 0.8 %, about equivalent to the common flu, has nothing to do with health; absolutely nothing. To the contrary.  Its wanton injury, and even better: death. And 193 UN member governments are coopted, either by (deadly) threats or by lush rewards, or simply by being given a placebo instead of a deadly mRNA-experimental toxin.

    While all is done to convert the lie – a universal crime of biblical proportions – into the truth, by billions of dollars or euros spent on false propaganda, the real truth does slowly seep through. Real science is exiting the matrix of the bought and corrupted science – and is revealing against all odds and threats, the truth. It is still largely suppressed, but gradually emerging – and ever more of the lulled masses are waking up to life-threatening lies and crimes of their governments.

    “It’s time to insert a break” so, the elite, those who shall not be named, but are invisibly commanding the visible elite of our governments. And mind you, those who resist may disappear.

    It’s time for the modern-days gladiator games, sports events like soccer championships, the European Cup, the American Cup, a variety of tennis championships, Wimbledon (UK), French Open, US Open, Australian Open, the summer Olympics starting these days in Japan…

    Fights between today’s gladiators are normally not about death and life – but they nevertheless let bottled-up emotions explode — like you’d never think humans are capable of letting off so much steam. Just watch the slow-motion replays of a goal in one of these soccer championships matches. It is almost unbelievable the energy let loose by the players as well as by the public. Reality is forgotten. That’s the plan.

    Just imagine the shall-remain-unnamed billionaires, and others belonging to the dark and wicked masterminds behind the scenes and above the governments, leaning back in their armchairs watching a soccer game, elated of joy, smiling.  We have them where we want them to be.  Giv’em another month or two of diversion, then we’ll lock them down again. This time even harsher, so they get used to it, become familiar with the method — with the infamous carrot and stick approach.

    And the stick is getting bigger and bigger and the carrot proportionately smaller, just a little piece of sugar, of hope to have you accept the master’s scepter coming down on you, ever more forcefully, bringing ever more hardship, misery, disease and death. You shall learn to be obedient.

    Tyrants Don’t Create Tyranny. Our Obedience Does. See also this article.

    This may well be the plan. The covid-tyrants will tell the media: After all, it’s their fault. We told them to be careful, to wear masks, keep social distancing; get vaccinated….

    And the media go in over-drive: The new strong variants, like the ever-stronger Delta variant is spreading rapidly. It’s affecting sports players as well as spectators. The media is already warning that “infection cases” are rising, related to the sports events, that people were careless in their behavior and may have to bear the consequences at the end of summer, or before, when the virus, or new “variants” of the virus hit and over-burden hospitals.

    The Third Wave is in the coming. It is already being announced openly by the media. They never fail to announce their plan in advance.  It’s part of the satanic ritual.

    In Australia the “Delta Variant” has already locked down Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and maybe other cities. This is scary. Others be prepared, You may be next.

    In the meantime, to keep spirits up and going, to incite even more “transgressions” against obedience, marketing outlets (are being sold to) say that flying in the Global North may be back to “normal” by 2022. Giving hope to normalcy. Nothing is more deceiving than one’s hopes being crashed and that for “mea-culpa” because we, the people, transgressed against all precautions, against risks.

    The winter may hit us hard. Lower our moral. Make us more obedient. Make us see the stick, the ever-present stick.

    They say, the “D” for Delta Variant is so much stronger – they are already developing a new vaccine for it. So, those who have had already their two shots and are still alive, may need to get a third one to ward off the Delta Variant. Such a nonsense. Variants are usually weaker than the original virus and they usually differ no more than 5% from the original in the case of corona viruses.

    But in the meantime, and while we live the northern summer, let’s enjoy football, soccer, tennis, Olympics – what have you – all sorts of sports that brings out the animal in us in terms of emotions, and yelling and screaming and mass waving for a team, a player, mass celebrations, thumbs up, and thumbs down.  Let’s do, and be, gladiators and enjoy their game.

    It’s nothing but a prep for the real killing game, where We, The People, are in the arena, exposed to the “swordsmen” – and those high above us, social media giants, computer moguls, eugenists, bankers of the “chosen ones” – again, they shall remain unnamed – those above the UN and all the member governments, those who are watching us, have been watching us for at least the last century – these un-people, will eventually lift or lower their thumbs when they see us crumbling and already beaten by fear.

    Shall we live or die?  It really depends on us.

    Do we want to wake up, step out of the Matrix and take the Red Pill, taking responsibility for a new world which WE, the People are to create in solidarity? Or do we, as a majority, submit to comfort and to the agenda of the WEF’s Global Resetters, and those that command the Global Resetters, hoping and trusting to be happy at the end when we own nothing.

    Mind you, this gladiator game – call it also “the process” — is currently planned to end by 2030 or earlier, if we continue the way we have been. The way it looks right now, from the Global Gladiators vintage point, we will continue to just submitting to massive vaxxing, followed by horrifying “side effects” and death, hoping to survive, being happy as digitized humanoids, owning nothing and being managed by AI robots, becomimg the new norm.

    The post The Gladiators Are Back first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Koenig.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Drinking Coffee in the Early Morning Rain and Thinking of Donald Rumsfeld

    It’s been raining incessantly for three days.  It is a cool early morning in the beginning of July and I have just made a cup of coffee. Now an electrical power outage has occurred and so I am sitting in a rocking chair in the semi-darkness savoring my coffee and feeling thankful that I made it in time.  I have a close relationship with coffee and the end of night and the break of day.  As for time, that is as mysterious to me as the fact that I am sitting here in its embrace. The electric clocks have stopped.  I think: To exist – how amazing!

    More than the coffee, however, I am luxuriating in the sound of the tumbling rain.  Its beautiful music creates a cocoon of peace within which I find temporary joy.  The joy of doing nothing, of pursuing no purpose.  Of knowing that whatever I do it will never be enough, for me or anyone, and the world will continue turning until time stands still, or whatever time does or is according to those who invented it.  I will be gone and others will have arrived and the water will flow from the skies and the clocks will still tell people what they don’t know – time – although they will continue to tell it.

    Humans are the telling animals.

    A few weeks ago, when this area was in a mini-drought, the local newspaper, in the typical wisdom of such cant, had a headline that said “there is a threat of rain later this week.”  They are experts at threats.  This is the corporate media’s purpose.   Rain is a threat, joy is a threat, doing nothing is a threat, the sun is a threat – but the real threats they conceal.  To create fear seems to be their purpose, as they do not tell us about the real threats.  Their purpose is not to tell the truth, but if you listen closely you can hear it.

    In the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom, and outside the small bathroom window I watched the rain engulfing the lower roof and sluicing down the shingles in two heavy streams.  I thought how the desiccated mind of the headline writer must be feeling now, but then I realized that he or she was asleep, as usual.  There is a moist world and a dry one, and the corporate media is run by arid souls who would like to make the world a desert like their masters of war in Washington.

    Then as I sit here my brief peace is roiled by the memory of reading Tacitus, the Roman historian, and his famous quote of Calgacus, an enemy of Rome:

    These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

    I think of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on his recent deathbed.  Here was a man whose entire life was dedicated to the American Empire.  He spent all his allotted time making war or making money from the spoils of war.  He was a desert maker, a slaughterer for the Empire.  No doubt he died very rich in gold.

    I can no longer hear the rain because my mind is filled with the loud thought of what Rumsfeld thought as he lay dying.  Was he sorry?  Did he believe in God or was his god Mars, the Roman god of war?   Did he smile a bloody smile or say he was sorry and beg for forgiveness from all his innocent victims?  Did he see the faces of the children of Iraq that he slaughtered?  Or did he pull an Eichmann and say, “I will leap into my grave laughing”?

    Your guess is as good as mine, but mine leans toward the bloody smile of a life well spent in desert making.  But that is a “known unknown.”

    Rolling thunder and a lightning strike in the east jolt me back from my deaf dark thoughts.  The sound of the rain returns.  The coffee tastes great.  Peace returns with the unalloyed gift of the ravishing rain.

    Yet the more I sit and listen and watch it soundly stipple the garden and grass, the more thoughts come to me, as my father once told me: Thoughts think us as much as we think thoughts.  It’s what we do with our thoughts that count, he said, and like lightning, if we don’t flash when we are given the gift of life, when we’re gone, it will be as if we never were, like the lightning before it flashed.

    Thomas Merton’s prophetic words from his hermitage in the Kentucky woods in 1966 think me:

    Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By ‘they’ I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

    There are moments in many lives when, if one is lucky, they are initiated into a ritual that sustains them throughout life.  To others these experiences can easily seem paltry and meaningless, but to the receiver they offer a crack into deeper dimensions of being and becoming.  For me it was my introduction to coffee during a hurricane.

    My father had driven my mother, three of my sisters, and me to Jones Beach on Long Island.  This was before people checked the weather every minute.  The sky in the southwest grew darker as we drove, but on we went.  The beach was deserted except for some gulls and the parking lot empty.  My father parked the car close to the beach and while my sisters and mother sat in the car, and my mother, listening to the weather reports, issued warnings to us, my father and I ran like wild dogs into the heavy surf despite her admonitions that the hurricane from the south was arriving sooner than expected.  It started to rain hard. The surf picked up.  We swam and got battered and shouted exultantly and came out shaking with the chills.  A pure white sea gull landed on my wet head and my father laughed.  Awe-struck, I stood stock still and my shaking stopped. In its mouth the sea gull held a purple ribbon, which it dropped at my feet as it flew off.  I grabbed the ribbon and we jogged up to the concession building where there was one man working.  My father ordered coffee and a hot chocolate for me.  But they had run out of hot chocolate.  So my father ordered two coffees and filled mine with three or four sugars. I had never sampled coffee and didn’t like the smell, but my father said to drink it, with the sugar it will taste good and it will warm you up.  It strangely tasted like hot chocolate. We toasted our adventure as I drank my Proustian madeleine at eleven-years-old.

    I had put the ribbon on the counter as we drank.  When we were going back to the car, I noticed there were words on the ribbon. They said: Rest in peace.  I have long lost the ribbon but retain its message.

    So now every morning between the end of night and the break of day, I sit with my coffee and listen.  And even when it isn’t raining, I watch the birds emerge from their nightly rests to greet the day with their songs.  They tell me many things, and they are all free.

    This morning I am wondering if Donald Rumsfeld ever heard them.

    I suspect their message was an “unknown unknown” for him, just like the gift of rain.  He preferred the rain of death from the skies in the form of bombs and missiles.  He was only doing his job.

    He made a desert and called it peace.

    The post Drinking Coffee in the Early Morning Rain and Thinking of Donald Rumsfeld first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Edward Curtin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Samoa Observer: The nation’s chief justice – a gift from above

    EDITORIAL: By the Samoa Observer editorial board

    How quickly things change.

    If, as the old cliche goes, a week is a long time in politics then a month is an eternity.

    As a story on the front page of the Weekend Observer revealed, the caretaker government is once again seeking to shape the outcome of judicial decision-making.

    Caretaker Prime Minister Tuila’epa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi and the Attorney-General, Savalenoa Mareva Betham-Savalenoa, have presented the Supreme Court with a motion requesting that certain judges not preside over a contempt of court motion filed against them.

    The justices the pair are seeking to have removed via a recusal motion are the Chief Justice, Satiu Simativa Perese, Justice Vui Clarence Nelson and Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren (“Tuilaepa wants judges off contempt case”).

    Saturday’s revelation is the latest in a long and complex string of attempts by the caretaker Prime Minister to influence the judicial branch of government in his favour. But is also reflective of a curious trend: that Tuila’epa’s hand-picked jurist has fallen out of the caretaker Prime Minister’s favour.

    Efforts to influence and bombard the court have recently reached their peak as the nation undergoes a constitutional crisis over Parliament’s failure to convene after April’s national election.

    But these attempts to make the court empathetic to the caretaker Prime Minister were in fact underway long ago. They date back to when Tuila’epa was searching for a Chief Justice to replace Patu Tiava’asu’e Falefatu Sapolu who resigned in April 2019.

    That time feels like a different era: before the measles epidemic, the global covid-19 pandemic and our current constitutional crisis.

    Tuila’epa took an unhurried approach to choosing a permanent replacement for Patu, the longest-serving Chief Justice in Samoan history, with nearly 27 years of judicial experience under his belt.

    In fact, Tuilaepa openly admitted that he was taking a passive approach to selecting the appropriate candidate and waiting for divine inspiration to guide him to select the best candidate.

    “I am still praying and once I acquire the whispers from God, then a decision will be made,” Tuilaepa said at the time.

    “If it takes up to six months, that’s not a bad thing at all,”

    In fact, it took much longer than that. Samoa was without a permanent Chief Justice for more than a year while the Prime Minister waited for that divine whisper.

    He eventually settled on Justice Satiu who was sworn-in in June last year.

    The Prime Minister did not disclose the contents of any whispers he may have received from on high to guide his choice.

    But at his swearing-in ceremony, Tuila’epa defended the amount of time he took in selecting a replacement, again maintaining that Justice Satiu’s installment was guided from above.

    “It takes time to seek God’s face and turn to the Bible for guidance. And these things take time and the whispers [from the Holy Spirit],” he said.

    As it happens, Justice Satiu has been resolute in changing the direction of the court.

    But it has not been in the way that the caretaker Prime Minister perhaps envisioned; he has proven to be more of a thorn in Tuila’epa’s side than a blessing.

    Justice Satiu, born in Magiagi, is deeply rooted in Samoan tradition, but he has also been influenced by the principles of judicial independence taught at the universities he attended in New Zealand and America. This commitment has been shown in his rulings on a flurry of post-election legal petitions.

    His Honour, has time and time again, shown his loyalty to the principle of judicial independence during a time of intense legal wrangling.

    But in doing so, the Chief Justice has countered widely held expectations about how he would rule from the bench.

    In an April statement, issued shortly after national elections which are the root cause of our current power crisis he issued a short statement outlining his simple judicial philosophy.

    “We are in a state of uncertainty after the General Election, but I wish to reassure ourselves as a community, that the role of the Judiciary as the Independent Branch of Government is to do right by all manner of people, without fear or favour affection or ill will,” he said.

    “As sworn members of the Judiciary, we uphold that Oath to the best of our abilities so to adhere to the Rule of Law.”

    All jurists know to affirm their commitment to judicial independence; sticking to them in practice is a different question altogether.

    It was widely assumed that because such a long time was taken to approve his selection, Justice Satiu would lean towards the constitutional interpretations of Tuila’epa and that of his Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP).

    But much to the caretaker Prime Minister’s frustration, Justice Satiu has upset all expectations by remaining cool and composed throughout the current legal onslaught and applied the law completely straight.

    Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, the leader of the Faatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party condemned his early release from quarantine in May as a political manoeuvre “so that he [could] sit in on the electoral petitions.”

    That led to Tuila’epa to leap to his defence as a principled jurist, while he was attacking unnamed members in Samoa’s judiciary of being biased against him:

    “It’s apparent from the criticism that the Chief Justice is an honest person,” he said on his programme on state-owned radio 2AP.

    “[Fiame’s…] criticism is due to the fact [the Chief Justice] is independent.”

    But now Tuila’epa is seeking to avoid having him preside over a trial in which he is involved. How quickly perceptions change.

    Before the month of May was out and the FAST party held its own swearing-in ceremony on the lawns of a locked down Parliamentary precinct, the appraisal of the Chief Justice’s integrity has changed considerably.

    The office of the government’s lawyer, the Attorney-General, maligned his integrity in a later retracted media statement claiming he had too often ruled in FAST’s favour and was even a “close relative” of Fiame’s.

    He also drew criticism for walking to Parliament to try and open its doors on May 24 after being on a panel that determined Parliament had to sit on that day. (The doors had been locked on orders of the former Speaker Leaupepe Toleafoa Faafisi, who is himself facing a motion of contempt).

    “The actions of the Chief Justice indicate that he may be in contempt of Parliament,” a statement from the Attorney-General’s office said.

    But throughout this personal disparagement during our current constitutional crisis, Justice Satiu has maintained cool and composed and methodically applied the law and stayed true to his oath to protect and uphold Samoa’s constitution.

    Perhaps His Honour Satiu Simativa Perese was indeed a gift from God — just not the kind that the caretaker Prime Minister was hoping to receive.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Samoa Observer: The nation’s chief justice – a gift from above

    EDITORIAL: By the Samoa Observer editorial board

    How quickly things change.

    If, as the old cliche goes, a week is a long time in politics then a month is an eternity.

    As a story on the front page of the Weekend Observer revealed, the caretaker government is once again seeking to shape the outcome of judicial decision-making.

    Caretaker Prime Minister Tuila’epa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi and the Attorney-General, Savalenoa Mareva Betham-Savalenoa, have presented the Supreme Court with a motion requesting that certain judges not preside over a contempt of court motion filed against them.

    The justices the pair are seeking to have removed via a recusal motion are the Chief Justice, Satiu Simativa Perese, Justice Vui Clarence Nelson and Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren (“Tuilaepa wants judges off contempt case”).

    Saturday’s revelation is the latest in a long and complex string of attempts by the caretaker Prime Minister to influence the judicial branch of government in his favour. But is also reflective of a curious trend: that Tuila’epa’s hand-picked jurist has fallen out of the caretaker Prime Minister’s favour.

    Efforts to influence and bombard the court have recently reached their peak as the nation undergoes a constitutional crisis over Parliament’s failure to convene after April’s national election.

    But these attempts to make the court empathetic to the caretaker Prime Minister were in fact underway long ago. They date back to when Tuila’epa was searching for a Chief Justice to replace Patu Tiava’asu’e Falefatu Sapolu who resigned in April 2019.

    That time feels like a different era: before the measles epidemic, the global covid-19 pandemic and our current constitutional crisis.

    Tuila’epa took an unhurried approach to choosing a permanent replacement for Patu, the longest-serving Chief Justice in Samoan history, with nearly 27 years of judicial experience under his belt.

    In fact, Tuilaepa openly admitted that he was taking a passive approach to selecting the appropriate candidate and waiting for divine inspiration to guide him to select the best candidate.

    “I am still praying and once I acquire the whispers from God, then a decision will be made,” Tuilaepa said at the time.

    “If it takes up to six months, that’s not a bad thing at all,”

    In fact, it took much longer than that. Samoa was without a permanent Chief Justice for more than a year while the Prime Minister waited for that divine whisper.

    He eventually settled on Justice Satiu who was sworn-in in June last year.

    The Prime Minister did not disclose the contents of any whispers he may have received from on high to guide his choice.

    But at his swearing-in ceremony, Tuila’epa defended the amount of time he took in selecting a replacement, again maintaining that Justice Satiu’s installment was guided from above.

    “It takes time to seek God’s face and turn to the Bible for guidance. And these things take time and the whispers [from the Holy Spirit],” he said.

    As it happens, Justice Satiu has been resolute in changing the direction of the court.

    But it has not been in the way that the caretaker Prime Minister perhaps envisioned; he has proven to be more of a thorn in Tuila’epa’s side than a blessing.

    Justice Satiu, born in Magiagi, is deeply rooted in Samoan tradition, but he has also been influenced by the principles of judicial independence taught at the universities he attended in New Zealand and America. This commitment has been shown in his rulings on a flurry of post-election legal petitions.

    His Honour, has time and time again, shown his loyalty to the principle of judicial independence during a time of intense legal wrangling.

    But in doing so, the Chief Justice has countered widely held expectations about how he would rule from the bench.

    In an April statement, issued shortly after national elections which are the root cause of our current power crisis he issued a short statement outlining his simple judicial philosophy.

    “We are in a state of uncertainty after the General Election, but I wish to reassure ourselves as a community, that the role of the Judiciary as the Independent Branch of Government is to do right by all manner of people, without fear or favour affection or ill will,” he said.

    “As sworn members of the Judiciary, we uphold that Oath to the best of our abilities so to adhere to the Rule of Law.”

    All jurists know to affirm their commitment to judicial independence; sticking to them in practice is a different question altogether.

    It was widely assumed that because such a long time was taken to approve his selection, Justice Satiu would lean towards the constitutional interpretations of Tuila’epa and that of his Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP).

    But much to the caretaker Prime Minister’s frustration, Justice Satiu has upset all expectations by remaining cool and composed throughout the current legal onslaught and applied the law completely straight.

    Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, the leader of the Faatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party condemned his early release from quarantine in May as a political manoeuvre “so that he [could] sit in on the electoral petitions.”

    That led to Tuila’epa to leap to his defence as a principled jurist, while he was attacking unnamed members in Samoa’s judiciary of being biased against him:

    “It’s apparent from the criticism that the Chief Justice is an honest person,” he said on his programme on state-owned radio 2AP.

    “[Fiame’s…] criticism is due to the fact [the Chief Justice] is independent.”

    But now Tuila’epa is seeking to avoid having him preside over a trial in which he is involved. How quickly perceptions change.

    Before the month of May was out and the FAST party held its own swearing-in ceremony on the lawns of a locked down Parliamentary precinct, the appraisal of the Chief Justice’s integrity has changed considerably.

    The office of the government’s lawyer, the Attorney-General, maligned his integrity in a later retracted media statement claiming he had too often ruled in FAST’s favour and was even a “close relative” of Fiame’s.

    He also drew criticism for walking to Parliament to try and open its doors on May 24 after being on a panel that determined Parliament had to sit on that day. (The doors had been locked on orders of the former Speaker Leaupepe Toleafoa Faafisi, who is himself facing a motion of contempt).

    “The actions of the Chief Justice indicate that he may be in contempt of Parliament,” a statement from the Attorney-General’s office said.

    But throughout this personal disparagement during our current constitutional crisis, Justice Satiu has maintained cool and composed and methodically applied the law and stayed true to his oath to protect and uphold Samoa’s constitution.

    Perhaps His Honour Satiu Simativa Perese was indeed a gift from God — just not the kind that the caretaker Prime Minister was hoping to receive.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Good riddance to Donald Rumsfeld – liar, warmonger, corporate lackey extraordinaire

    One of the founding fathers of US neo-conservativism has died. There’s a saying that ‘we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead’. But while this might be a reasonable rule of thumb for civilians, if applied to public figures it would preclude a proper examination of their impact while in public life. Worse still, doing so could mean shielding serious crimes from the critical examination and condemnation that they rightfully deserve.

    A long career in Washington, beginning in the 1960s

    On 30 June, former US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld died at the age of 88. A spokesperson for the family said that his death was caused by a type of blood cancer.

    Rumsfeld had a long career in Washington, serving in many different roles under three different presidents. He entered the US congress in 1962 at the age of 30 representing the midwestern US state of Illinois. His first role to bring him major attention was as an aide to the infamously corrupt Richard Nixon. Nixon was US president from 1969 until his resignation in disgrace in 1974. Rumsfeld later became secretary of defence when he was appointed to the role by Nixon’s successor in the White House, Gerald Ford.

    But it was for his second stint as secretary of defense under George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks, that he’s now best remembered. During his time in the Bush administration, he was a close ally of then-vice president Dick Cheney. And along with Cheney, John Bolton, and Bush himself, Rumsfeld was amongst the major proponents for the US’s so-called ‘War on Terror’.

    No remorse or admission of fault

    As would be expected, the corporate-owned media largely gave Rumsfeld a free pass in their obituaries. They showed a particular tendency to give inordinate attention to trivia and anecdotes. Some regaled his purportedly prolific production of memos. Others referred to his status as the youngest secretary of state under Ford and then second oldest under Bush. The New York Times, meanwhile, reminisced about “his one-handed push-ups and his prowess on a squash court.”

    Fortunately, however, some publications broke the mold. Crucially, they called Rumsfeld out for the liar and warmonger that he was. The Atlantic, for instance, described him as “the worst secretary of defense in American history”. It even deemed him “worse than the closest contender, Robert McNamara”. McNamara served in the role during some of the bloodiest years of the US’s involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia.

    But unlike Rumsfeld, at least McNamara admitted some fault and expressed some remorse for his complicity in the hundreds of thousands of deaths his decisions caused. Crucially, he eventually resigned and called for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Rumsfeld, on the other hand, stubbornly refused to admit fault and was ultimately fired by the Bush White House in 2006. Till the day he died, he never expressed any regret for the Bush administration’s foreign policy decisions.

    A warmonger and a liar…

    Some of the worst of these decisions include:

    • Spearheading the war in Afghanistan, which ended up becoming the longest in US history.
    • Serving as one of the major architects of the Iraq War, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a protracted insurgency against occupation forces.
    • Deliberately misleading the public by lying about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ possessed by the Iraqi government (while simultaneously giving a free pass to the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East – US ally Israel).
    • Supporting the use of torture to obtain intelligence.
    • Supporting illegal detention of suspects, many of whom were held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention center.

    Rumsfeld was also infamous for his arrogance. He had a penchant for reveling in the US’s peerless military might and unilateralism. He was once asked, for example, whether the US would ‘go it alone’ in Iraq without the support of the UK. Rumsfeld responded dismissively that, though he would welcome British involvement, there were “work arounds” should the UK withdraw support for the planned invasion.

    …and a corporate lackey too

    Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Rumsfeld’s character and career, however, was his shameless toadying to corporate interests. Though largely ignored in the corporate media, there is, in fact, considerable evidence that the Bush administration’s foreign policy was guided in large part by the interests of US corporations.

    As The Canary has previously reported, in the wake of the Iraq invasion, lucrative contracts were handed to some of corporate America’s biggest players. Petroleum giant Halliburton, for instance, was the recipient of a $1.7bn deal to operate in the oil-rich country. A decade later the amount had risen to over $39bn. Bechtel, another major US corporation, received a $680m contract to rebuilt Iraq’s infrastructure, which was later increased by $350m.

    Escaping the prospect of justice

    Writing in Jacobin, Ben Burgis points out that:

    In 2006, Berlin attorney Wolfgang Kaleck filed a formal criminal complaint against Rumsfeld and several other American officials for their involvement in torture. Needless to say, Rumsfeld never had to see the inside of a courtroom in Germany or anywhere else.

    This is a prime example of the incredible, self-serving hypocrisy behind the entire neoconservative mentality. Rumsfeld’s type are constantly banging their drum about ‘law and order’. Yet, as they call for longer sentences for petty street criminals, their own crimes of much greater magnitude are committed in an atmosphere of near total impunity.

    Though, of course, reveling in another person’s death would be vulgar, we must also point to the crucial reality. Namely that, thanks to Rumsfeld’s actions and decisions, many people never made it anywhere close to 88 years of age. As Burgis puts it, since he never faced justice for his actions: “In that sense, and only in that sense, Donald Rumsfeld died too soon”.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons – Erik Drost and Flickr – Gage Skidmore

    By Peter Bolton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The DUP’s non-apology for its anti-LGBTQI+ bigotry is an utter joke

    DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) leaders have apologised for the party and its members’ anti-LGBTQI+ prejudice. As a bisexual man, I can safely say they may as well have not bothered.

    The DUP: founded in homophobia

    The DUP has a long and illustrious history of rampant heterosexism/gaycism (what some people perhaps wrongly call homophobia), prejudice, and incitement of hate. As Bernadette C. Hayes and John Nagle wrote for the London School of Economics (LSE):

    What drives the DUP’s anti-gay rights agenda? A credible answer concerns the DUP’s roots as an evangelical Protestant party which frames homosexuality as a sin and an abomination against Biblical scripture.

    They noted that:

    Most infamously, in 1978, Rev. Ian Paisley, then an MP, collected nearly 70,000 signatures as he led a petition to stop the ending of criminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland – a campaign titled ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’.

    This kind of heterosexism continued over the years. For example, former DUP MP Iris Robinson said in 2008 that LGBTQI+ people can effectively be cured. Oh, and she also compared being LGBTQI+ to child abuse, saying it in parliament.

    An ongoing issue

    But DUP members being rabid bigots continues to be a reality, as Pink News documented. In 2014, during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Gregory Campbell MP claimed that:

    so-called equality is now being viewed by many as an oppressive threat to religious freedom, and that such freedoms should be protected by the introduction of a conscience clause

    Nigel Dodds MP said similar. Campbell’s comments are unsurprising, given he once also said:

    I would see homosexuality as something which merited the curse of God.

    Then, in 2016, Sammy Wilson MP said HIV/AIDS was due to gay and bisexual “lifestyle choices”; ignoring that about half the people living with the disease in the UK are straight.

    Clearly, though, the issue of the DUP’s entrenched heterosexism is becoming a problem for the party. Because its leader and deputy have decided to come out (no pun intended) and apologise.

    “Hurtful comments”

    On Thursday 1 July, DUP deputy leader Paula Bradley spoke at a Pink News event. PA reported that she said some of the things said by the party over the past 50 years had been “absolutely atrocious”:

    I can certainly say I apologise for what others have said and done in the past, because I do think there have been some very hurtful comments and some language that really should not have been used.

    Then, after Bradley’s comments, the new DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson weighed in on the issue. This is the same man who opposed same-sex marriage on the basis that it would lead to incestuous ones. No – really.

    ‘Sorry if our homophobia offends you’

    On Friday 2 July, Donaldson told BBC Radio Ulster he agreed with Bradley. PA reported that he said:

    There is no doubt that in the past things have been said that should not have been said across a whole range of issues, and not just by the DUP, I have seen people on marches and at rallies say things about the DUP that have been hurtful to us and our members as well.

    I have seen things said about people from faith communities that have been hurtful and should not have been said.

    I think it is right to apologise when we have said things that have been hurtful to others.

    There are differences in our society, differences and deeply held views on social issues, and what I want to see in Northern Ireland is a discourse that is respectful of difference.

    People can hold their sincerely held views without the need to say things that are hurtful to others. We can disagree but we can disagree well.

    Where we have said things that have hurt others then it is right that we say sorry for that. Sorry needn’t be the hardest word.

    “Sorry” is the only word suitable for Donaldson’s comments; as in, ‘sorry – what…?’ Because it’s clear from what he and Bradley said that the DUP hasn’t changed at all.

    A “social issue”?

    Being LGBTQI+ isn’t a “social issue”. It’s not something that needs to be debated. Nor is it something where the dividing lines of opinion merit all sides of the argument being heard. Because our sexuality is not a choice (unless you think straight people choose to be that way). It is a fundamental human right and not something that can be turned on and off like tap.

    Take the issue of “gay marriage” – or just ‘marriage’ generally if you prefer not to lace your comments with tired tropes. As a bisexual man, the English state allows me to marry my current partner, because she’s a woman. I can also marry a man if I choose to. But if I wanted to live in the north of Ireland, and the DUP had had its way, gay marriage would not have been allowed. So, I could’ve married my female partner – but not a male one.

    Why? Obviously I am suddenly less offensive to the DUP as a bisexual man because I’m having sex with a woman.

    It’s just prejudice

    So there really is nothing to “disagree” about – unless you are heterosexist. Using religion as an excuse for your prejudice just doesn’t cut it. My mother, a devout Christian, welcomed my previous male long-term partner into her life like a second son.

    The DUP is institutionally bigoted, end of. Bradley and Donaldson can espouse hollow platitudes as much as they want. But unless the party’s members and MPs have all suddenly seen the light, then little will have changed. If the north of Ireland wishes to be a truly progressive country, then these bigots need to be rooted from power and work done to change the views of some of their supporters. Anything else is just lip service.

    Featured image via the Democratic Unionist Party – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Classified documents found at Kent bus stop hint at reality of UK military strategy

    Secret military documents found at a Kent bus stop show us how British foreign policy works. The papers were reportedly found by a member of the public and then ended up with the BBC.

    The documents contained important details of a naval confrontation between Russian forces and a UK warship. And an investigation is being conducted into their loss. The documents provide a brief snapshot of the UK’s international conduct and also ask serious questions about it.

    Crimea clash

    On 23 June, the destroyer HMS Defender passed close to waters claimed by Russia. The ship had left Odessa, where UK defence firms had signed a deal with Ukraine to build military bases and supply patrol ships.

    Aboard were BBC journalists. Defender found itself ‘buzzed’ by Russian aircraft and ships. The journalists filmed the events. And the entire incident was framed as one of Russian aggression.

    However, the surprise discovery of the papers turns the UK narrative on its head.

    Theatre

    Among the details revealed by the BBC after receiving the documents were plans for the Crimean mission, dubbed Op [Operation] DitroIte. And the BBC‘s reporting appears to show officials discussing possible outcomes of the ship’s passage. Their comments suggest that the UK sought an aggressive reaction from Russia.

    A Powerpoint slide in the files shows two possible routes. One was close to Crimea and likely to attract what officials term a “welcoming party”. But the other did not pass through contested waters.

    The BBC reported:

    Alongside the military planning, officials anticipated competing versions of events.

    We have a strong, legitimate narrative”, they said, noting that the presence of the embedded journalists (from the BBC and Daily Mail) on board the destroyer “provides an option for independent verification of HMS Defender’s action.

    Arms exports

    The documents contained details of arms exports.

    The BBC was cagey about what it disclosed. On the arms exports its says:

    The bundle includes updates on arms exports campaigns, including sensitive observations about areas where Britain might find itself competing with European allies.

    The shadow war

    The files also suggested that high-level discussions were underway about Afghanistan troop deployments after withdrawal this year.

    Because the US appears to have requested UK special forces troops stay in the country after withdrawal in 2021. The BBC reported few details, saying they could endanger lives.

    The files acknowledged great danger to any troops who remain, for instance:

    “Any UK footprint in Afghanistan that persists… is assessed to be vulnerable to targeting by a complex network of actors,” it says, noting that “the option to withdraw completely remains.”

    Behind-the-scenes

    Naturally, the BBC released very little about the files.

    And it appears the Crimea incident was stage-managed at the British end to shape public perceptions. So it seems quite likely the BBC were onboard to report the UK narrative.

    These files may only represent a snapshot. But subjected to stage-managed events like Crimea, it’s no wonder the public can’t easily understand Britain’s role in the world. Moreover, serious questions need to be asked about how the UK media works with the UK military.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Royal Navy

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • NZ has managed to dodge the covid-19 bullet, again. Here’s why

    ANALYSIS: By Arindam Basu, University of Canterbury

    New Zealand has avoided community transmission, even though an Australian visitor tested positive for the delta variant which dominates Australia’s latest covid-19 outbreaks.

    New Zealand health authorities were quick to react, isolating and testing contacts and suspending travel. Of the traveller’s 2,609 contacts, 93 percent have now returned a negative test result.

    But given the delta variant is up to twice as infectious as the original strain, the unique nature of how covid-19 spreads also partly explains why New Zealand has managed to stave off an outbreak.

    Among the factors that influence viral transmission, one variable is often overlooked: the K factor. This describes how a virus spreads in clusters and through superspreading events, and we now know that this is an important aspect of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19.

    We have become more familiar with the R numbers — R0 which describes the number of people an infected person will pass the virus on to, on average, if no public health measures are in place, and Re which describes the infection rate once public health measures like masks, social distancing and vaccines have been introduced.

    But early studies and modelling of how covid-19 spreads highlight the K factor, suggesting only about 10-20 percent of infected individuals account for 80-90 percent of the total number of cases. This implies that most infected people don’t pass the infection on to others.

    Few people do most of the spreading
    This pattern of spread triggers superspreading events. It is quite possible the infected tourist belonged to the 80-90 percent of non-spreaders and did not pass the infection on to many other people. He himself may have been infected in a superspreading event in Australia.

    New Zealand has successfully eliminated covid-19 and doesn’t have any known clusters, thanks to comprehensive border control and precautionary measures. This means any new cluster or community transmission chain would need several rounds of introduction to get started.

    You can think of it in this way. If 10 infectious people arrived in the country, only one would be likely to spread the virus to levels that could outpace contact tracing.

    This was shown in a study that used genomic data to trace how the first wave of community transmission took hold in New Zealand. The data not only confirmed the effectiveness of quick public health interventions, but also highlighted the importance of the K factor.

    The effective reproductive number, Re, of New Zealand’s largest cluster decreased from 7 to 0.2 within the first week of lockdown. Similarly, only 19 percent of virus introductions into New Zealand resulted in ongoing transmission of more than one additional case.

    Vaccination and public health measures
    Beyond these considerations, as the infected individual had already received a single vaccine dose in Australia, it is possible this reduced the virulence of the infection.

    It is also possible that some of the people he interacted with had also already received one or two doses of the vaccine. We can’t rule out a vaccination effect in keeping the infection mild, or even breaking the chain of transmission.

    What can New Zealand do to keep the delta variant at bay? The initial success of New Zealand’s elimination strategy helped to reset the country to a situation where all new variants are imported rather than mutating from existing local infections. This is critical as the rate of mutation is higher during periods of uncontrolled spread. That didn’t happen in New Zealand.

    New Zealand’s strict border control and quarantine, even during times of zero community transmission, helped to keep new variants at bay.

    Looking ahead, several issues will be critical. New Zealand needs to continue border control measures to keep overseas infections in check. We will need to negotiate travel bubbles based on developments in other countries.

    I also support calls for an accelerated vaccination rollout and the continued use of masks in public places and transport. Last but not least, using the contact tracing app is critical here as it helps “reverse contact tracing” to rapidly identify superspreading events.The Conversation

    Dr Arindam Basu is an associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Gavin Ellis: Dregs in the news media paywall teacup

    COMMENT: By Gavin Ellis, Knightly Views

    I have been reading the tea leaves in the bottom of the online subscription cup.

    My fortune-telling has been assisted by some very interesting international statistics.

    The pattern in the bottom of the cup is telling me that the winner-takes-most paywall phenomenon that has characterised the US market may not be repeated in the New Zealand market in the longer term.

    If we follow the American example of great success by the New York Times and Washington Post, The New Zealand Herald (which is the subscription leader in New Zealand with more than 110,000 online premium subscribers) will soak up the majority of those willing to pay for their news.

    In the United States, where 21 percent have paid for online news in the past 12 months, more than half subscribe to either the New York Times or Washington Post and less than a quarter to local or regional sites.

    In Britain, the heavyweight nationals – Telegraph, Times, and Guardian – command 55 percent of the paid online market and the very small percentage of Brits who are prepared to pay (only 8 percent) won’t look at paying for papers further down the food chain.

    However, the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report contains statistics that suggest winner-takes-most may not be a foregone conclusion. We could follow the Scandinavian experience.

    Norwegian model
    In Norway, where close to half the population pay for online news, the three biggest national titles do command a significant subscriber audience between them but so, too, do regional and local news sites. Almost half of the subscribers take either VG, Aftenposten or Dagbladet but almost 60 percent subscribe closer to home.

    In Norway, according to the Reuters survey, local newspapers are seen as the “go-to” source for politics (71 percent), crime (73 percent), coronavirus news (53 percent), and things to do (46 percent).

    “Our research this year also shows a link between how attached people are to their local community and levels of local news consumption,” the report states. “Respondents in both Austria and Switzerland are amongst those countries that feel most strongly attached and – like Norway – these are also countries where local news consumption tends to be higher and the value of local newspapers is more keenly felt…

    “None of this is to suggest that publishers in countries with more attachment are not also suffering from the impact of digital disruption. We see blind spots and decline in most markets, but the fact that local newspapers in Norway are still valued for a local newspaper bundle of different information services gives them a stronger chance of persuading people to pay for online news.”

    New Zealand is a country that traditionally has had a regional and local focus in paid-for news. There are historical reasons for that. Transport in the newspaper industry’s formative period was difficult and the country’s topography means it remains expensive.

    Newspapers developed around regional and local population centres. Even if they don’t buy it each day, most people will be able to tell you the name of their local newspaper. It is a different story with free-to-air broadcasting.

    After short private enterprise experiments, broadcasting became government-owned and news management centralised. Network technology solidified the national focus of television in particular.

    Closest to national daily
    We have never had a national daily general newspaper. The closest we came was National Business Review’s five-year stint as a daily from the late 1980s. Efforts a decade later to fly The New Zealand Herald into Wellington and the South Island (The Dominion was briefly flown into Auckland) were expensive exercises that could not be sustained as revenue declined and internet use grew.

    And, in any event, the Herald was an additional purchase for the majority of buyers in those centres, not an alternative.

    Like most countries, New Zealand is still feeling its way through the conundrum of payment for news in the digital age. There are various forms of subscription in the online news market but the most obvious (and numerically superior) is the paywall.

    The New Zealand Herald had first mover advantage on paywalls in the daily general news market (National Business Review had long ago introduced an expensive and impenetrable paywall on anything worth reading on its site). It also has far and away the largest regional population base.

    So, although it has done remarkably well with its premium subscriptions, it is premature to put the title up there with the winner-take-most titles The New York Times, Washington Post and Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

    Stuff has yet to take the subscription plunge but it will come in one shape or another. The donation strategy it currently pursues is drawing support but it is too haphazard in terms of contributions to cashflow. It relies on goodwill and there is no real downside to not donating. How it characterises its subscription strategy will be the key to success or failure.

    If it sells itself as a national news source serving all of the country it may come second. NZME is already pursuing that strategy with the Herald brand. It is banking on New Zealand following the US/UK model and last November unveiled plans to make the Herald “New Zealand’s Herald” by, among other things, rebranding its regional titles – Bay of Plenty Herald, Rotorua Herald, Hawkes Bay Herald and so on.

    NZME has first-mover advantage
    If the US/UK model is working here, NZME has a clear first-mover advantage. If, however, the New Zealand market does not perform to that model, Stuff may capture the same sentiment that is manifesting itself in Norway. If it capitalises on the legacy value of its regional titles as subscriber brands, that could be more successful than the perception of a bunch of JAFAs playing fast and loose with a local masthead that has been around for more than a century.

    This does not necessarily mean a host of separate news sites that could be a nightmare to administer. Technology is now clever enough to construct individual and group offerings that are tailored to need. What appears to be a separate site may, in fact, be a subset of Stuff determined by algorithms.

    Stuff might like to look to Canada’s Globe and Mail (whose publisher is one-time New Zealand Herald chief executive Phillip Crawley). It has developed artificial learning technology, which it calls Sophi, to automate and optimise a host of publishing decisions around its paywall.

    It can, for example, determine what covid-19 information to put behind the paywall and what to provide free for everyone to access. It is a powerful engine that is now used by 11 different publishers across 50 outlets.

    The leaves at the bottom of my cup tell me that regional and local brand identity will play a crucial role when the major paid-for news outlets go head-to-head in a subscription contest.

    Time will tell whether the dregs of my cup are better at foretelling the future than the cup of someone’s desk at NZME. If I have any advantage it may be that I make a very nice cup of Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China and Russia Quiet about US Past Genocides and Ongoing Genocide in the Middle East and Africa

    The world facing desperate situations of climate change, planetary degradation and nuclear war preparation desperately needs protection from inhumane deceiving war promoting Western media, and from where shall it come if not from the bountiful and powerful two great designated adversaries of the Western powers, China, the world’s most populous nation and largest economy, and the Russian Federation encompassing 11% of the planet’s landmass.

    Seems That the World Has Let Americans Get Away With Murderous Genocide in So Many Countries

    Let’s begin with acknowledging that officials of the United States of America, its military, its clandestine operating CIA, and personnel within its criminal media cartel have been committing crimes against humanity free of any worry or concern of prosecution.

    Let us also acknowledge that though there is relatively free speech throughout most of the world, no one seems to ever be talking about the multitude of legally prosecutable monstrous crimes against humanity committed by Americans with impunity, many of which involve the death of millions of innocent men, women and children. There is a strange absence of much talk about them even as the horrific acts of genocide that they were.

    The World Court of Public Opinion Is Not Yet in Session Regarding US Crimes Against Humanity

    Sure, there are quite a few anti-imperialist books in print that are critical of US genocides, but the great court of world pubic opinion has not been in session since 1945 when there was consensus among people throughout the world for demanding the ultimate legal punishment of the leaders of the nations for the murderous horrors perpetrated during their invasions and bombings in the course of the Second World War.

    American Officials are Vulnerable for Having Confessed or Bragged about Their Illegal, Unconstitutional and Genocidal Crimes

    How is it that even government officials of nations presently under attack by the United States of America, and those of nations invaded and bombed by the US in the past, passively continue to allow Americans to get away with murder, the present murdering of thousands and the past mass murder of many millions, when massively murderous crimes against humanity have even been openly admitted to by high officials of the government of the United States of America by their openly characterizing them either as having been mistakes or by bragging about their having been successful.

    –  American officials claiming that their mega genocidal invasions, bombings and occupation wars in Vietnam and Iraq were honest mistakes are the two most devastating examples. “We were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.” –former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.1 “It was a mistake, and I acknowledge that.” — Presidential candidate Joe Biden referring to his vote in favor of the Iraq invasion war when he was chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.2 But no talk of Americans paying for their years of ‘mistakes,’ murder and maiming of millions and the destruction of their countries.

    –  The CIA official in charge of the the US/UK covertly engineered bloody overthrow of Iranian democracy in 1953 has even written a book bragging about his crime,3 which the CIA has publicly admitted to.4

    –  American murderous invasions of Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada and covertly arranging and financing devastating civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador that are openly acknowledged (without any sense of responsibility for the suffering).

    –  The undercover arrangements for the brutal assassination of democratically elected popular first Congo President Patrice Lumumba were entertainingly reviewed in a televised segment of the US government’s Smithsonian Institute Channel in US mainstream media,5 no contrition indicated.

    No Uproar in Reaction to Americans Massive Murdering of Millions of Innocent Men, Women and Children in Their Own Beloved Countries far away from the Invading United States of America

    Martin Luther King’s & Nelson Mandela’s Exceptional Outcries

    Oh, from time to time there have been accusing outcries from individuals: “The greatest  purveyor of violence in the world is my own government,” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 made headlines in newspapers throughout the world,6 and South African President Nelson Mandela in 2003, “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities it is the United States of America,”7 Of course, CIA controlled criminal mainstream media vilified King, didn’t report Mandela’s outcry, and has made sure that few people ever heard of King’s condemnation of his government again. However, neither King nor Mandela called for prosecution of the perpetrators and compensation for victims of the atrocities they decried. (King did say that Americans ‘must make what reparations they can for the damage they did and provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in the US if necessary, but said nothing about prosecution of Americans.)

    In Western alternate media, the finest independent journalists, top intellectuals and historians stick to reporting and chronicling events of human horror as if they were imperial RealPolitik, as unchallengeable as the weather, rarely including the whole truth that they are obviously prosecutable as crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and genocide. Inversely, in the case of domestic homicide on a city street anywhere in the world, the public clamors to know whether or not what happened was a crime or not. Amazingly, in world coverage independent journalism this writer finds the word ‘crime’ is never or hardly ever employed. Journalists report mass murderous world events as terrible or mistaken foreign policy, rarely, if ever, citing a need for reparations, indemnity, or compensation for surviving victims.

    Sadly, when an Iraq mom, managed to get her lawsuit against President Bush and members of his administration as far as a US Federal Court of Appeals, it received only a very modest amount of coverage even in anti-imperialist independent alternate media.

    There’s Freedom of Speech but No One is Speaking Out

    Why is there is no outcry around the world against the dozens of US invasions, bombings, occupation wars and deadly sanctions in and on smaller nations? The US bloodletting is probably rarely even much of a topic of pubic conversation anywhere except within the populations of the countries under US attack. Independent peoples historians assume that it is because of the enormous influence of monopolized CIA overseen giant worldwide media conglomerates.

    For decades, powerful CIA controlled Western news and entertainment media, with it’s television’s worldwide satellite reach has mesmerized and totally bamboozled its planetary audience into ineptitude with its programing of indulgence, of very restricted and twisted selective news, deceitfully blacked out critical information, misinformation, and often outright lies ultimately portraying the many US regime change invasions, bombings, sanctions and occupation wars as benevolent and necessary to protecting American freedom and democracy.8

    Way back in 1950, Albert Einstein explained “Under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”9

    Albert Einstein wrote that in 1950, even before the CIA operation Mongoose10 had completed its control over everyone of any appreciable importance in American media and sources of information and in much of Western Europe and on the other continents, see the lengthy article: Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A. 12/26/1977, The New Times.11,12

    Powerful Western Media Has Anesthetized Majority Humanity but Why Are Even those Nations under US Attack Relatively Silent Re US Crimes Against Humanity?

    Unfortunately, some nations currently under American military attack have pro US war lord governments installed by American occupying forces as in the case of Afghanistan and Somalia, and the populations of many nations formerly invaded, bombed and sanctioned by Americans, like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia want to put their enormous suffering behind them. Their governments seek to avoid confrontation with the USA, long become trading partners.

    A majority of small countries in the world once attacked by Americans, British or French have governments either economically, politically and militarily controlled by the USA or by a Western colonial power, or if enjoying a degree of independence, fear criticizing the US would bring economic punishment and/or covertly arranged disturbances.

    Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Syria, Yemen and North Korea For Years Under Mortal Attack From USA! China & Russia  Targeted with Nuclear Missiles — All Have Independent Governments

    This is all to say that humanity can only hope for calls for international law to come down on the past and present murderous lawlessness of the  American empire from nations presently under attack which have independent governments free from US control, like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Syria, Yemen and North Korea. However, up to now, the these nations have not taken advantage of the US wars confessed to as mistakes, which it seems could easily be profiled into world public awareness of USA guilt of genocide, at least in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq.

    Likewise would the repeated quoting publicly of Martin Luther King’s blistering condemnations of his government damage the credibility of Western media, which has for more than a half-century blacked-out Kings damnation of his government. These glaringly obvious ways to fight back against the insanely criminal USA that is attacking their nations and constantly threatening world war are not being taken advantage of though many nations suffer US sanctions and worse.

    Solidarity and Truthful Counter-Propaganda from Independent Nations Under US Attack Woefully Insufficient

    The US was sued by Nicaragua in the World Court in 1984 for mining Nicaragua’s harbors and other hostile acts (Nicaragua v. United States). The Court ruled in Nicaragua’s favor and found the US in violation of customary international law. The court put the United States of America under obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua. The US ignored the ruling but apparently stopped the mining. The suit brought international attention to US being guilty of crimes against a tiny country and it considering itself above the law.

    This conviction by the International Court of Justice should not have been allowed to be forgotten as well as the US mega genocides committed in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Iraq, and all the other regime change murderous invasions, bombings and deadly sanctions of Latin American, Middle East and African nations.

    An Absence of Law

    No leader anywhere ever seems to call for prosecution of US invasions under the Nuremberg Principles of International Law. Even the very leaders of nations under illegal US NATO attack fail to even speak of laws broken during yearly UN General Assembly Debates

    There has long been an atmosphere of appeasement in the UN General Assembly’s yearly General Debate. Delegate after delegate from Africa, Asia and Oceania seem to adhere to some ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ not to embarrass the great and powerful United States of America when describing the appalling conditions prevailing throughout the 3rd World.

    How strange, mysterious, unexplainable, illogical, baffling and painful for millions grieving over past genocidal military action and the millions facing death or worse today, that since the inception of the United Nations, no delegate to the UN General Assembly, with one exception (to the best of this historian’s knowledge), has called for justice under the law, for any of the the tens of millions of survivors of past mega profitable crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and forms of genocide. The single exception this author could find was Muammar Gaddafi’s comprehensive UN General Assembly address calling for investigation of all wars and restitution for victims of US NATO UN crimes against humanity.

    That one exception occurred during the UN General Debate in 2009, when Gaddafi, leader of the Revolution of the Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, spoke in the name of the African Union: “We are about to put the United Nations on trial; the old organization will be finished and a new one will emerge.”  Gaddafi called for investigations into past wars of permanent members of the Security Council, the US, UK and France, to be followed by trials of those guilty of causing these wars and millions of deaths and suffering “that has surpassed that brought by the Nazis.”

    Speaking before the UN General Assembly in 2009, Gaddafi, had called the Security Council a “Terror Council” for the sixty-five wars it has failed to prevent, even approving or participating in most of them. How prophetic for what would come Gaddafi’s way so soon. (See “Time to Expose Media Manufactured Uprising CIA Terrorists US-NATO Air Strikes on Wealthy Libya“)13

    By not using their veto power, two giant independent nations, Russia and revolutionary China, gave the colonial powers the 2011 No-Fly Zone resolution which US and NATO military used to destroy all Libya’s army and militias which had been successfully fighting a CIA created terrorist rebel army that was executing black Libyans.14

    China and Russia also voted for a resolution precipitously accusing Libya’s government leaders and armed groups of violently suppressing peaceful demonstrations.

    However, the Prosecutor of International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda, stated that Mr. Gaddafi is just one of several individuals in Libya whose alleged criminal acts could fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC which continues to monitor criminal actions of armed groups in the country. These armed groups represent a major threat to long-term peace and stability in Libya.” There never was a single documenting video or photo of a peaceful anti-government demonstration, let alone, one being fired upon. To the contrary, there was a near million wildly demonstrating in favor of Gaddafi and Libya’s Green Book socialism while NATO planes bombed never reported in the New York Times or elsewhere in the US or Europe.15

    The colonial powers had sufficient influence in both the Arab League and the African Union to have both organizations vote against Gaddafi, which in turn influenced China’s UN posture.

    China, after indicating it was against military intervention, abstained instead of voting no on the UN Security Council resolution calling for war on the Libyan government with the fig lief of enforcing a no-fly zone to protect civilians — a war by white neocolonialist powers on their former African colony that had raised its Arab socialist living standard to be higher than nine European nations including Russia.

    China lovers were instantly stumped into incomprehension, bewilderment, dismayed, the rug pulled out from underneath their feet. Their confidence lost that the fifth of Mankind with wisdom gained during five thousand years of practical living would protect the rest of us from the insanely barbaric, homicidal imperialism wrought by predatory capitalism that had once colonized the whole nonwhite world, including China. This confidence or hope was now destroyed with our witnessing China going along with a classic example of false flag violence fostering a civil war in the age old imperialist principle of divide and conquer.

    Vladimir Putin was not president of Russia during the Libyan debacle, and this author later published “Russians Calling Medvedev a ‘Traitor’ for Not Vetoing UN NATO War on Libya in Larger Context” — the article’s larger theme is the willingness of humanity to accept White world profitable investments in genocide until world economic power shifts from Europeans and their descendant nations overseas to the six sevenths of humanity they plunder. Article portrays the immediate before and after of the preposterous destruction of Libya.

    The White folks nations led by the US have been throwing up a solid anti-Russian and anti-Chinese barrage of accusations, but the two great designated adversaries of the West remain polite and defensive.

    China is accused of cultural genocide in Xinjiang, US President Biden labels Russian President Putin “a killer,” while even the West’s obvious backing of horrific ISIS goes unmentioned by the Russians and Chinese. (See “An American Senator Writes of ISIS ‘Hellish Filth We’ve Recruited, Armed and Trained for 8 Years!’” “The Syrian War had ” much to do with clandestine actions of CIA, MI-6, Mossad, Turkish MIT, French DGSE, Saudi GID and others. It would never have occurred without American planning and execution (and criminal media complicity).16

    In ISIS IS US, a panel of cutting-edge researchers tell what ISIS really is, and what has been going on behind the scenes in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The conclusion: Like Iran-Contra, the ISIS death squads were set up by the US to crush a nation.))

    Chinese & Russian Diplomacy Quiet Re America’s Massive Genocide17 in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan

    About 2.4 million people have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while about 1.2 million have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. About 250,000 Libyans have been killed in the war, violence and chaos that the U.S. and its allies unleashed in Libya in February 2011. It is estimated that about 1.5 million people have been killed in Syria since the Islamic terrorists, ISIS and others were introduced into Syria. Estimates of people killed in Somalia since 2006 must be somewhere between 500,000 and 850,000. Estimates for Yemen are about 175,000 people killed, a minimum of 120,000 and a maximum of 240,000.

    After 16 years of war, about 6 million violent deaths, and the killing continues as we read this.

    After 21 years of war, 6 countries utterly destroyed and many other destabilized, and this reality carefully omitted from what qualifies as the evening news on telecasts in America, Europe and most of the TV watching world audience.18 Would that a compassionate supreme being looking down at planet Earth, would somehow see to this information being presented to Earthlings, that they might be motivated to put a end to such a inhuman catastrophe.

    The world facing desperate situations of climate change, planetary degradation and nuclear war preparation desperately needs protection from inhumane deceiving war promoting Western media, and where shall it come if not from the bountiful and powerful two great designated adversaries of the Western powers, China, the world’s most populous nation and largest economy, and the Russian Federation encompassing 11% of the planet’s landmass.

    Until now, seems that both Russia and China have confined themselves to presenting convincing domestic media and have spent only modest resources in reaching out internationally beyond cultural and scientific news coverage.

    It bears mention that if China and Russia sought to seriously expand their international news coverage to include some occasional  overview of the mega massive loss of life in the millions brought about by the genocidal foreign policies of the United States of America and its allies since 1945, both could expect some somewhat similar charge of at least one genocidal policy each. China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1976, as the New York Times alleged that leader Deng Xiaoping stated as “to teach Vietnam a lesson” — a lesson that took the lives of 30,000 human beings. Over the span of years from 1991 through 2017, Russia first lost the Chechian war for independence, then reconquered Chechnya amid a terrific loss of life and deadly Islamic terror, and in 2008 fought a heavy handed war with Georgia over the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia.

    However, it is China and the Russian Federation that represent humanity’s hope and profound desire for a peaceful world of cooperation and non-belligerence. At present a wild insistence is being broadcast for war preparation with its seemingly unlimited financing constantly demanded in the media of the US-led Western neo-colonial capitalist democracies. The list of genocidal regime change wars, invasions, bombings and sanctions perpetrated by the US led Western powers since 1945 is inclusive of nearly a majority of the formerly militarily colonized peoples of the world and the deadly violence continues in more than a half dozen nations. This is what needs media attention for protection of those who will otherwise continue to suffer death, maiming and immeasurable suffering.

    Though for the Chinese, confrontation, both in the martial arts, as in Kung-fu, and in social behavior and personal demeanor is a face and balance losing stance, Chinese cities are targeted with US nuclear warheads, and since either by accident, mistake or intention, a million-fold catastrophe could occur, it would seem some outspoken attention, some awareness, some warning for all humanity is in order. NATO has threateningly declared China a global security challenge.19

    Military and nuclear confrontation seems to be no problem for President Putin, however given the awesome challenge of climate change and planetary degradation being derailed by the mega enormous financial and human resources wasted on military spending, a facing off in a tough cold war posture does not seem a sufficient response to the continuing menace from the United States of America and her allies.

    In this no win situation, may some Chinese philosophical wisdom be introduced in some fresh world media in time to prevent the third world war being so assiduously invested in, planned, prepared for and promoted, while the effects of climate change and Earth degradation slowly inundates humanity in a lethal future.

    1. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, writing in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect, on the management of the Vietnam War.
    2. Presidential candidate Joe Biden referring to Iraq invasion war. During a 2020 presidential debate, Biden delivered an apology for Iraq War vote] As Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Joe Biden’s enthusiastic support for war on Iraq was crucial.
    3. Countercoup: The Struggle for the control of Iran is the memoir of CIA man Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of former US President Theodore Roosevelt.the book recounts his role in overthrowing democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh with triumphant zeal.
    4. The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow. The US national security archive at George Washington University published a series of declassified CIA documents. 8/19/2013, The Guardian.
    5. Devil Eisenhower ordered the assassination of President Patrice Lumumba, YouTube 1/13/2017, BBCFOUR Smithsonian Channel telecasted https://www.bing.com/videos/search.
    6. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City.
    7. AP in Johannesburg and agencies, 30 Jan 2003.
    8. “Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent revisited,” The Listening Post 12/22/2018, You Tube.
    9. Albert Einstein, Essays in Humanism.
    10. Mockingbird was a secret operation by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. Begun in the 1950s, organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts and also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns.

      After 1953, Operation Mockingbird had major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The usual methodology was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to witting or unwitting reporters. Those reports would then be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services. These networks were run by people with well-known pro-American big business and anti-communist views.

      The CIA currently maintains a network of individuals around the world who attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda, and provide direct access to a large amount of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”

      After leaving the Washington Post in 1977, Carl Bernstein spent six months looking at the relationship of the CIA and the press during the Cold War years.

      — Carl Bernstein, “The CIA and the Media.”

      For those unfamiliar, Operation Mockingbird was a CIA operation began as the Cold War ramped up in the 1950’s. In an attempt to gather …

      “Newly Declassified Govt Docs Reveal Operation Mockingbird is Alive and Well,” Oct 2, 2015.

    11. Church Committee (the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a U.S. Senate select committee in 1975-6 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church amazingly criminal findings must have the publishers of the New York Times some obligation to report on covert criminal activity the Church Committee had brought to public attention.

      Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, 1988.

      The agency appears to be a serial violator of human rights around the world including inside America itself. The books shows everyone how to identify CIA …

      “Operation Mockingbird, CIA Media Control Program,” YouTube

      1976, Senator Church live with his investigating committee re Operation Mockingbird

    12. Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent 1988, Pantheon Books.
    13. A month before French and British planes would eventually destroy Libyan Armed Forces and militias, and hunt Gadaffi down there was a massive pro-Gadaffi Green Libya demonstration of a near million Libyans and Gadaffi address the multitude from hiding even while NATO planes bombed. It went unreported in Western media and videos of the event have recently been removed, blocked. For years they could be viewed at HUGE PRO GADDAFI RALLY IN TRIPOLI – RAW FOOTAGE, 7/2/2011, http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=14505 among other alternate media sites. All now blocked or no longer available.
    14. There were armed attacks on police stations (even traffic police) and vicious attacks on Chinese and Korea construction workers already two days before, and during the anniversary of the Danish Cartoons or “day of rage,’ executions of 50 captured Libyan soldiers, one beheaded, some hung along with police officers. And who knows how many ordinary Libyan civilians harmed by tough guys brought in to Benghazi and other Cyrenaican towns. This was reported by Reuters and BBC, but not CNN. There are (now were) some horrifically gruesome cell phone videos on the Internet of grisly hangings, beheadings, bloody beatings of blacks and others loyal to their government. (Libya has a black population, mostly in South Libya, of half a million. Libya under Gaddafi has eliminated a good deal of race discrimination, so black Libyans are especially loyal to the government.) Jay Janson, “There Was No Libyan Peaceful Protest, Just Murderous Gangs and Nic Robertson,” 16 June, 2011, Countercurrents.org.
    15. [14]
    16. Ask Hillary Who Buys ISIS et al Terrorists Helping US Oust Assad NewToyota Trucks/ Heavy Weapons.” Sec. Hillary oversaw regime change wars in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, S. Sudan, Syria, Yemen; should be asked to explain new Toyota trucks/heavy weapons coming to ISIS/other terrorists, who have been mass murdering US designated enemies in Assad’s Syria and Shiite wherever they are; why superpower US ‘fighting’ for 5 years can’t defeat ragtag force of 25,000; involved false flags attacks on US to prove innocence?

      John-Paul Leonard, ISIS IS US: The Shocking Truth: Behind the Army of Terror

    17. Article 2 of the The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations General Assembly effective 1/12/1951, defines genocide as

      … any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

      (a) Killing members of the group;

      (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

      (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

    18. Nicolas J.S. Davies, “How Many Millions Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars? Part 3: Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen,” Consortium News, April 25, 2018.
    19. M.K. Bhadrakumar, “NATO declares China as global security challenge in World, 18/06/2021.
    The post China and Russia Quiet about US Past Genocides and Ongoing Genocide in the Middle East and Africa first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Papuans protest over draconian bid by Jakarta to replace Governor Enembe

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Yamin Kogoya

    Indonesia’s most troubled province of Papua is become embroiled in another mass demonstration with protesters barricading provincial government buildings and offices over a draconian and undemocratic appointment.

    The latest unrest is in response to last week’s controversial appointment of Papua’s Provincial Government Secretary, Dance Yulian Flassy, as Acting Governor of Papuan province by Indonesia’s Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian.

    It has been alleged that Flassy sent a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs requesting to be appointed as Acting Governor of Papua.

    The letter no T.121.91/4124/OTDA dated June 24, 2021, was signed by the Ministry of Home Affairs General Director of Regional Autonomy, Akmal Malik.

    This sudden appointment shocked Governor Enembe, who has been in Singapore receiving medical treatment since May. The governor said that he had not been informed nor made aware of the appointment.

    He said that this was “maladministration” and an attempt to cause more trouble in Papua.

    Four points
    Governor Enembe wrote a letter to President Jokowi, which outlined four points:

    1. Governor Enembe will return to Papua to perform his duty as governor as soon as he is fully recovered;
    2. As an active governor, Governor Enembe has not been consulted, informed about, or agreed to Flassy’s appointment as Acting Governor;
    3. Governor Enembe was elected by his people in accordance with Indonesia’s constitution to administer the province and lead his people. He stated that when he took office, he took an oath to protect the unitary state of Indonesia. He is disappointed by this kind of unlawful and unconstitutional behaviour coming from the high office; and
    4. Governor Enembe requested President Jokowi to dismiss Flassy from office as he had misused his public portfolio in trying to take office without consulting Governor Enembe.

    “In addition to these [points], Mr Flassy has already done many things that contradict my policies as Governor,” said Governor Enembe (Fajar Papua.com, June 25).

    Governor Lukas Enembe
    Governor Lukas Enembe … receiving medical treatment in Singapore. Image: West Papua Today

    The Governor said he was surprised by the fact that Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian was the one who granted permission for him to go to Singapore for medical treatment in April. Governor Enembe asked: “Why, then, is Mr. Tinto trying to replace me, knowing that I am still alive and recovering?”

    Muhammad Rifai Darus, Governor Enembe’s spokesperson, said Enembe was still active as the head of Papua’s regional, provincial government and criticised the appointment in its breach of proper procedure and mechanism (as reported by Papua Today online news, June 25).

    Discriminatory move
    Ricky Ham Pagawak, the vice-chairman of the Democrat party in Papua, said that this appointment was discriminatory and a civil coup d’état against Governor Lukas’ office (Papua Post, June 26).

    Dance Yulian Flassy name board
    Papuan provincial office name board for the official named to “replace” Governor Enembe as “Acting Governor”. Image: APR

    Pagawak continues to criticise the appointment by saying the letter was issued in the morning and in the afternoon on the same day Flassy was appointed.

    “Is this fair?” he asked.

    In response, Papuans have already blocked several government buildings, including the office of the Democrat Party.

    “If there is no withdrawal of this appointment from the central government, Papuan people will continue to galvanize mass rallies and occupy provincial office until the matter is fully resolved,” said Pagawak (Suara Papua, June 26).

    Papuan provincial office barrier
    A barrier erected by protesters on the Papuan provincial office. Image: APR

    A member of the Papuan Provincial Parliament, Nason Utty, also expressed his disappointment at Flassy’s move, sending a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs, requesting to be appointed as Acting Governor of Papua.

    “It is inappropriate for the provincial secretary to do this. Mr. Enembe remains the legitimate Governor of the Papuan Province, so this is an important decision that should be consulted first with him,” said Nason Utty (SindoNews.com, June 26).

    Severe criticism
    Despite the severe criticism by Governor Enembe and Papuans, Luqman Hakim, Vice-Chairman of Commission II of the House of Representatives in Jakarta, said that this appointment was appropriate and proper procedures and mechanisms had been followed.

    “The decision of the Minister of Home Affairs to appoint Papua Provincial Secretary, Dance Yulian Flassy, as acting Governor was needed and legitimate. In the principles of constitutional law, it is not permissible for a government to have a power vacuum,” Hakim told DetikNews reporters (June 26).

    There is an element of common sense in Hakim’s statement –- such high office should not be left as a power vacuum infinitely. Especially in Papua, one of the most conflict-ravaged regions of Indonesia and the world.

    But even simple rules that govern such as common sense differ significantly between Jakarta and Papua.

    In Papua, strong local leadership is needed to respond to never ending impending crises.

    However, Jakarta is also notoriously known for introducing harmful policies, opposite to the wishes of Papuan people, which aggravate these conflicts and crises.

    One such failed policy is the infamous Papuan Special Autonomy Law No. 21 of 2001, introduced 20 years ago to deflect the ever-growing demand for Papuan independence, following the fall of Suharto’s 32-year iron fist rule in 1998.

    Autonomy law opposed
    This law will expire in November 2021. Jakarta’s insistence to extend what Papuans regard as a “failed and dead special autonomy” policy have already been met with severe criticism and massive rejection by Papuan society.

    Exacerbating these situations further, controversial labelling of any Papuans who opposed Jakarta as “terrorists” in recent months, following the killing of a senior Indonesian intelligence officer, General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha, also sparked outrage among Papuans and Indonesians alike.

    Papuan civil society groups and churches strongly rejected this “terrorist” label and asked Jakarta to revoke the decision. This harmful label will give the green light for security forces to shoot any Papuan regarded as a West Papua National Liberation Army member.

    Local media Suara Papua (Papua Voice) has recorded rare shocking footage on the current devastating humanitarian crisis in Papua’s highlands, as security forces continue to terrorise the locals in their pursuit for Papua’s liberation army.

    WATCH THE VIDEO ON FACEBOOK

    Jakarta’s unsympathetic approach in not respecting Papuan’s customary practice of 40 days of national mourning for the May 21 passing of their Vice-Governor, Klemen Tinal, rubs salt in Papua’s deep wounds.

    These are among many of Jakarta’s top-down, draconian policies that fan the burning flames in the hearts of Papuans in this decade-old-conflict-stricken region of the world.

    Because the central government doesn’t even have the courtesy of asking their own elected Governor about the appointment of another Indigenous Papuan as acting Governor, indicates that Jakarta is creating and nurturing conflicts among Papuan Indigenous people.

    Governors not consulted
    Jakarta also did not ask the governors of both provinces (Papua and West Papua) about the impact that the recent “terrorist” labelling of Papuans might have on the psychology of the Papuan people.

    It seems that Indonesia, a country that prides itself as the world’s fourth-largest democracy with an ambition to play a role in global affairs, struggles to decide what it stands for –- democracy and freedom? Or something else?

    This indecisiveness was demonstrated further when Indonesia decided to join 14 other countries (including North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and China) in rejecting a resolution on “The Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) and the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity during the vote in the UN Assembly in May this year.

    This ambivalence reflects in almost every policy Jakarta has introduced for Papua. We have the ruling elites in Jakarta making statements of removing all Indigenous Papuans from their ancestral homeland.

    On the other hand, President Jokowi wants to approach Papua through welfare.

    Unfortunately, the same president that talks about welfare also gives orders to his troops for a manhunt looking for “terrorists” in West Papua.

    The appointment of Flassy as Acting Governor without consulting Governor Lukas Enembe and Papuan people reflects Jakarta’s tragic mishandling of West Papua.

    Practising what is preached
    Jakarta should pick what principles and values it wants to live by and handle its affairs with Papuans accordingly.

    Otherwise, any meaningful and permanent peace cannot be installed in the land of Papua if Jakarta continues to approach Papua with self-contradictory policies. It’s a case of practising what you preach.

    Both Enembe and Flassy are Papuans and should be united in resolving the many challenges that their people face, not fighting over the top jobs. But unfortunately, elites in Jakarta continue to introduce policies that encourage Papuans to be at odds with one another for all sorts of things.

    That is the true colour of the old colonial strategy of “divide and conquer” at work. We learned what happened over the past 500 years of European colonisation –- they used this strategy in decimate local indigenous populations.

    Because of these unfortunate tragedies, Governor Lukas Enembe has stated that people in Papua remain calm and united to protect Papua and not be easily provoked by what is happening.

    He has asked if Papuan people want to express their frustrations over the appointment of Dance Yulian Flassy, to do it peacefully without causing harm to all life in the land of Papua.

    Muhammad Rifai Darus, Governor Enembe’s spokesperson, said Governor Enembe was alive and recovering.

    When he comes home, he will deal with Jakarta and appoint his Vice-Governor in accordance with proper procedure and mechanism.

    In the meantime, he asks the people in Papua to remain calm and not to provide any unnecessary opportunity for the enemy of Papua to use this moment to create more conflict and devastation.

    • Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
    • Other Yamin Kogoya articles


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Curb your McCarthyism: an early test for Israel’s new Minister of Education  

    These are early days for the self-styled ‘coalition of change’ in Israel, but it has already been presented with significant challenges in the form of the Jerusalem Flag March, the Evyatar outpost, and the Citizenship and Entry law. There is another one just around the corner.

    This week, the High Court of Justice informed the new Minister of Education, Yifat Shasha-Biton, that she has three weeks to decide her position regarding one of the last acts of her predecessor, Yoav Gallant of Netanyahu’s government. Before leaving his post, Gallant made a final decision as Education Minister not to award the high-profile Israel Prize in computer science to a professor at the Weizmann Institute, Oded Goldreich.

    Initially, Gallant vetoed the award of the prize back in April in the wake of a right-wing group ‘uncovering’ the academic’s alleged support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. In a follow-up to the veto, Gallant cast himself in the role of chief prosecutor in an investigation into the granting of the prize and Goldreich was summoned to a hearing whose function was to determine the answers to questions regarding petitions and open letters signed by him, his position regarding BDS and his activities in a group called Academia for Equality.

    Professor Goldreich has been clear about his nuanced position regarding sanctions against Israel but former Minister Gallant did not do nuance. For him, the hearing had a straightforward purpose: to examine ‘whether the professor’s current renunciation of the boycott movement is sincere and whether the information he provided to the court and the state in this matter is correct.’ Goldreich’s legal representative confirmed his refusal to cooperate with a process that was ‘blatantly McCarthyist.’

    Former Minister Gallant has history. He made headlines earlier this year for ordering the cancellation of a discussion in a school involving Hagai El-Ad, the director of human rights organization B’Tselem which had declared that Israel must now be considered an apartheid state. Gallant’s wider intention was to prohibit schools from inviting representatives of groups that discourage ‘meaningful service in the Israel Defence Forces’ and call Israel ‘false derogatory names.’

    As an Israeli politician, Gallant is one of the more enthusiastic when it comes to attempting to shut down voices which are critical of Israeli policy. But with Gallant now sent into opposition, a declaration of a full-blown form of McCarthyism in Israel would be arguably premature. Gallant’s hearing was only a tribute act to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the new Education Minister has a real opportunity to signal a change of culture.

    Shasha-Biton is well regarded but it won’t be easy. As a result of the Netanyahu years, there has been a substantial shift to the right in terms of what is acceptable to discuss in the public sphere. Direct censorship is uncommon in Israel but editorial selection, self-censorship and the mediation of Palestinian voices through Israeli journalistic ‘analysis’ result in compliant media organizations that readily provide platforms for far-right settlers, whilst moving down the news agenda anything relating to the daily reality of occupation.

    Gallant’s activities were part of a trend that exists beyond the farce of the Israel Prize controversy and his own Orwellian interpretation of the job of Education Minister. Benjamin Netanyahu can be proud that, although dethroned, he bestowed upon the nation a significant legacy in the form of the delegitimization of liberal opinion. He achieved a toxification of the adjective ‘left-wing’ and his constant rhetoric referring to the dangers of the left was designed to stoke fear. His language trickled down to the street, tacitly encouraging the harassment of those who don’t conform, those considered traitors – even on the right. These are, of course, the problems of the privileged. In this land, it is still much harder to be a Palestinian than a progressive Israeli.

    That said, beyond the influence of those in government, there is a layer of extra-parliamentary activity contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation and, yes, a nascent form of McCarthyism. It is worth taking stock here of some of the right-wing non-governmental organizations – sometimes described as ‘watchdogs’ or ‘think-tanks’ – which are active in the business of monitoring the left.

    One of these, ‘grassroots Zionist movement’ Im Tirzu, claims to have played a direct role in the lobbying of Gallant in the case of Professor Goldreich. Im Tirzu is present on the usual range of platforms, but the website is particularly informative. The organization is dedicated to defending Zionism and exposing ‘widespread efforts to delegitimize Israel from within, whether it is in the form of BDS or subverting sovereign policies.’ A key activity is the group’s ‘Know the Anti-Israeli Professor’ project which produces and publishes files on academics worldwide, including one dedicated to Goldreich. In my book, if it looks like a blacklist and reads like one, then it probably is one.

    Im Tirzu is not the only organization involved in monitoring individuals and the left in a broader sense and with challenging anything perceived as critical. Israel Academia Monitor is concerned with the activities of academics who ‘propound…false arguments that defame Israel.’ NGO Monitor focuses on ‘the anti-Israeli propaganda machine’ and the activities of NGOs such as B’Tselem ‘that claim to promote human rights.’ Honest Reporting is a website which exists to ‘combat ideological prejudice: in journalism and the media, as it impacts Israel.’ Ad Kan is a group specializing in ‘undercover work’ and infiltration, investigating ‘domestic organizations that discredit’ the name of the State of Israel.

    These NGOs, together with the current squatter of Balfour and his lapdogs like Gallant, are part of an ideological front which has an interest in engendering an atmosphere of national paranoia. This has not disappeared with the formation of a new government. Highly political NGOs could be argued to be part and parcel of debate in a democratic society, but Israel is not a normal country after 50 plus years of a corrupting occupation, as ‘anti-Zionist’ NGOs such as B’Tselem and Yesh Din have pointed out. The wider culture of intimidation and blacklisting spawned by Netanyahu and these NGOs and the increasingly narrow boundaries of public discourse, reflect this fact.

    It is not unpatriotic to be concerned about issues such as the occupation, and Professor Oded Goldreich has resisted the calls for public ‘renunciation’ in a show trial. Shasha-Biton has a decision to make which goes beyond the difference between her and Gallant, the new government and the old. At stake is not the integrity of the Israel Prize but the ability to express, or even hold, an oppositional opinion in the public arena in Israel. The likes of Gallant (and indeed Netanyahu, as we have learned) are ultimately accountable at the ballot box, but increasingly influential self-appointed watchdogs like Im Tirzu and Ad Kan operate freely. Unless there is an effort to transform the culture, they will continue to set the agenda through activities which identify, intimidate, and render vulnerable, those who think differently.

    The post Curb your McCarthyism: an early test for Israel’s new Minister of Education   first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What I Know and Don’t Know about SARS-CoV-2 Virus

    After fifteen months of assiduous reading, study, observation, and research, I have come to some conclusions about what is called COVID-19.  I would like to emphasize that I have done this work obsessively since it seemed so important.  I have consulted information and arguments across all media, corporate and alternative, academic, medical, books, etc.  I have consulted with researchers around the world.  I have read the websites of the CDC, the World Health Organization, and government and non-government health organizations.  In other words, I have left no stone unturned, despite the overt or covert political leanings of the sources.  I have done this as a sociologist and writer, not as a medical doctor, although many of my sources have been medical doctors and medical studies.

    My succinct conclusions follow without links to sources since I am not trying to persuade anyone of anything but just stating for the public record what I have concluded.  Life is short.  I am going to say it now.

    • I know that vast numbers of people have been hypnotized by fear, threats, and bribes to accept the corporate mainstream media’s version of COVID-19. I have concluded that many millions are moving in a trance state and do not know this. They have been induced into this state by a well-organized, very sophisticated propaganda campaign that has drawn on the human fear of death and disease.  Those behind this have no doubt studied the high incidence of hypochondriasis in the general population and the fear of an invisible “virus” in societies where belief in God and the spiritual invisible has been replaced by faith in science.  Knowing their audience well, they have concocted a campaign of fear and confusion to induce obedience.
    • I do not know but suspect that those who have been so hypnotized tend to be mainly members of the middle to the upper classes, those who have invested so much belief in the system. This includes the highly schooled.
    • I know that to lock down hundreds of millions of healthy people, to insist they wear useless masks, to tell them to avoid human contacts, to destroy the economic lives of regular people have created vast suffering that was meant to teach people a lesson about who was in control and that they better revise their understanding of human relations to adjust to the new digital unreality that the producers of this masquerade are trying to put in place of flesh and blood, face to face human reality.
    • I know that the PCR test invented by Kary Mullis cannot test for the alleged virus or any virus and therefore all the numbers of cases and deaths are based on nothing. They are conjured out of thin air in a massive act of magic. I know that the belief that it can so test began with the unscientific PCR Corona protocol created by Christian Drosten in Germany in January 2020 that became the standard method for testing for SARS-CoV-2 worldwide.  I am sure this was preplanned and part of a high-level conspiracy.  This protocol set the cycle threshold (amplification) at 45 which could only result in false positive results.  These were then called cases: An act of fraud on a massive scale.
    • I do not know if the alleged virus has ever been isolated in the sense of being purified or detached from everything else aside from being cultured in a lab. Therefore I do not know if the virus exists.
    • I know that the experimental mRNA “vaccines” that are being pushed on everyone are not traditional vaccines but dangerous experiments whose long-term consequences are unknown. And I know that Moderna says its messenger RNA (mRNA) non-vaccine “vaccine” functions “like an operating system on a computer” and that Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, says that the lipid nanoparticles from the injections travel throughout the body and settle in large quantities in multiple organs where the spike protein, being biologically active, can cause massive damage and that the FDA has known this. Additionally, I know that tens of thousands of people have suffered adverse effects from these injections and many thousands have died from them and that these figures are greatly underestimated due to the reporting systems.  I know that with this number of casualties in the past these experimental shots would have been stopped long ago or never started.  That they have not, therefore, convinces me that a radically evil agenda is under way whose goal is harm not health because those in charge know what I know and much more.
    • I do not know where this alleged virus originated, if it exists.
    • I know that from the start of this crisis, there was a concerted effort across the world to deny access to proven effective treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, steroids, ivermectin in a planned effort to vaccinate as many people as possible. This alone reveals an agenda centered not on health but on getting as many people as possible to submit to being vaccinated and controlled. Social control is the name of this deadly game.
    • I know that those pushing these vaccines – The World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, etc. – have a long history of wanting to drastically reduce the world’s population and that their promotion of eugenics under various names is very well known. I am convinced that the totally untested mRNA-type “gene therapy” is the key to their plan for population reduction.
    • I do not know if they will succeed.
    • i know they must be resisted.
    • I do not know why so many good people cannot see through this evil. I can only attribute it to having been seduced by a massive hypnotic propaganda campaign that has appealed to their deepest fears and will result in those fears being realized because they thought they were free. It is a great tragedy.
    • I know that all the statistics about cases and deaths “from” COVID-19 have been manipulated to create a fake pandemic. One of the most obvious proofs of this is the alleged disappearance of the flu and deaths from influenza. Only someone in a trance could fail to understand the absurd logic in the argument that this was the result of mask wearing when at the same time the air-born COVID-19 spread like wildfire until that stopped precipitously in January 2021 when a tiny number of people had been vaccinated.
    • I know there has been barely any excess mortality throughout all this.
    • I do not know where it will all end but hope against hope the growing opposition to this fraud will grow and defeat it despite the organized censorship that is underway against dissenting opinions. I know that when organized censorship on this scale takes place those behind it are afraid of the revelation of the truth. A simple understanding of history confirms this.
    • I know that the temporary reprieve the authorities have granted to their subjects will be followed by further restrictions on fundamental freedoms, the corona virus lockdowns will likely return, “vaccine” boosters will be promoted, and the World Economic Forum’s push for a Great Reset with a Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to the marriage of artificial intelligence, cyborgs, digital technology, and biology with the USA and other countries continuing to slip into a new form of fascist control unless people across the world stand up and resist in great numbers. I am heartened by signs that this resistance is growing.
    • Finally, I know if the authoritarian forces win the immediate battle, someone will write a book with a title like that of Milton Mayer’s classic, They Thought They Were Free. It will be censored. Perhaps it will first be shared via samizdat.  But in the end, after much suffering and death, the truth about this evil agenda will prevail and there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    We are in a spiritual war for the soul of the world.

    The post What I Know and Don’t Know about SARS-CoV-2 Virus first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Campaigners are calling for action to stop the government’s new mega prison in Lancashire

    Content Warning – this article includes references to imprisonment and suicide

    The Ministry of Justice recently announced that it plans to go ahead with a consultation over whether to build a new mega prison in Chorley. According to UK research group Corporate Watch:

    The government has announced plans to build a new mega prison in Chorley, Lancashire. It will be huge, locking up more than 1715 people. It is part of a wave of prison expansion…

    …The site is owned by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and sits next to two existing prisons, HMP Garth and HMP Wymott. It is close to Chorley, Leyland, Preston, and Southport and only a train ride away from Manchester. It will no doubt imprison people from communities across the North West.

    If the consultation is successful, the Ministry hopes to begin construction in 2022-3, and open the prison in 2025. And this could happen despite the suffering and exploitation that exists in the current prison system.

    Part of a plan to create 18,000 new prison places

    Corporate Watch has been tracking the government’s prison expansion plans for the UK since 2016, when plans were announced to create 10,000 new prison places “through the construction of six mega prisons and five new ‘residential centres’ for women”. The government also plans to create a further 8,000 places by expanding existing prisons.

    Two of the new prisons are already under construction: HMP Glen Parva in Leicestershire and HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough. In addition to the proposed prison at Chorley, plans have been announced for new prisons close to HMP Full Sutton in East Yorkshire and HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire. Another new prison “is due to be announced, most likely in the South of England”.

    The whole scheme could cost over £4bn.

    Prison expansion is linked to government plans for increased social control

    The government’s prison expansion plans look as if it’s part of a plan to increase repression and social control in the UK. The planned Police, Courts and Sentencing Bill will give police greater powers to arrest, and allow the courts to impose heavier sentences. Meanwhile, the government has already pledged to employ 20,000 more police officers. Basically these policies – combined with the massive new prison building programme – make it look as if the government is hoping to lock more of us up. This is illustrated nicely by this quote (pointed out by Corporate Watch) from Alex Chalk, the prisons and probation minister, which was included in documents related to the new prisons programme:

    The increasing numbers of police, in line with the Prime Minister’s commitment to recruit 20,000 additional officers, is also likely to contribute to a higher prison population, and we therefore believe that creating 18,000 additional prison places will help to mitigate pressure on prison places in England and Wales in the coming years.

    Expanding prisons will only bring more violence and suffering

    The new mega-prison in Chorley is being built close to HMP Garth and HMP Wymott. According to Corporate Watch, this is because:

    These locations have existing local prison economies; communities are already used to their presence and many people are employed by them. Chorley is no exception with HMP Garth and HMP Wymott next door to the proposed prison site. Are these local prisons good examples of what we may expect from a new mega-prison next door?

    In fact, these two existing prisons are good examples of why prisons should be abolished, rather than expanded. Corporate Watch points out that 29 people died in HMP Garth between 1995 and 2019. Ten of those people killed themselves. A recent inspection report shows that:

    In the six months preceding the inspection, there had been 119 violent incidents, with force used by officers more than 143 times. There was a massive 450 incidents of self-harm in the same period and 1406 complaints.

    Neglect and abuse by the prison system has been shown to have contributed to at least some of the suicides at HMP Garth. According to Corporate Watch:

    Andrew Jones took his own life after being illegally held in isolated custody without essential medication, access to showers, exercise, or telephone calls. An inquest showed the prison broke the rules at least 600 times. The jury found that “a failing by senior management to ensure understanding of, proper use of, and monitoring of” the segregation rules was the “greatest contribution” to Andrew’s death.

    Another prisoner Imre Paul Thomas died aged 47 after taking lethal doses of the painkiller tramadol. A total of nine medical appointments were cancelled by the prison before he overdosed on drugs.

    The story is similar at HMP Wymott, where 68 people lost their lives during the same period. According to Corporate Watch:

    Once again, many have died unnecessarily [at HMP Wymott] due to failing to access treatment they needed. Ryan McGrath died in 2016 aged 46 from a heart attack. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigated and said the healthcare was not equal to that in the community. His ongoing complaints of chest pains were ignored.

    Exploiting prison labour

    Corporate Watch’s report highlights that prisoners in the UK are already working for between £7 and £25 a week for companies like “DHL, Interserve, Ink2Work, Emerald Trading, Census Data, City Windmills and LMB Textiles” as well as Speedy Hire. However, Corporate Watch argues that many current prisons do not have workshops to enable prison labour to take place.

    Corporate Watch then points out that the consultation notes for the new prison at Chorley explicitly state that it will include workshops inside the prison. These workshops could enable private companies and the Ministry of Justice to exploit more prisoners for private profit.

    We asked the Ministry of Justice if it would like to comment on Corporate Watch’s allegations. It hadn’t responded by the time of publication.

    Making a fortune for private companies

    The government’s massive prison building programme allows it to hand out billions of pounds’ worth of contracts to private companies.

    There are huge amounts of money to be made locking people up. And there are huge government contracts available for the prison-builders, as well as the private companies running prisons or providing transport from prison to court; the high-tech companies providing surveillance equipment, and the private contractors working for the National Probation Service. All in all, the prison system is great for capitalism.

    We need to abolish this system that causes so much suffering and violence

    The prison system might be profitable for some, but it causes untold suffering for those behind prison walls. That suffering disproportionately affects working class people and People of Colour.

    Calls are growing louder to abolish the punitive prison system. According to Empty Cages Collective:

    It may seem difficult – almost impossible – to imagine a world without prisons. Despite their relatively short existence within human history, prisons have become ingrained in our understanding of justice. It is taken for granted by most that the response to crime is incarceration. Those who call for the end of prisons, the abolition of the prison-industrial-complex, are often called utopian, crazy or worse.

    According to Abolitionist Futures:

    More and more people are questioning whether prisons are the best response to harms in society and whether the police actually function to bring about a safer society. But how might we need to alter our thinking, practices and social institutions to build a world without prisons and policing?

    Stop the mega-prisons

    Since the US uprising against the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, many more people are being inspired by abolitionist ideas, and are collectively trying to answer that question of how we can build a world without the institutionalised violence of the police and prison system. But while we try to answer those big questions, we also need to resist the state’s immediate plans to lock more people up. The national Community Action on Prison Expansion (CAPE) is doing just that.

    A CAPE spokesperson told The Canary:

    The government may have big, well-funded and violent plans to expand the prison estate, but we must never underestimate how inefficient they are and how susceptible they have been to localised resistance. Communities in Port Talbot and Wigan defeated plans for mega prisons. Chorley and Buckinghamshire will be the same. Get involved! You don’t need any special skills, just dedication and a passion to stop state violence expanding.

    If it’s built, the planned mega-prison at Chorley will be a place of violence and suffering – just like the UK’s existing prisons. There’s still time to stop it from being built.

    Tom Anderson is part of the Shoal Collective, a cooperative producing writing for social justice and a world beyond capitalism. 

    Featured image via Flickr – miss_millions

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Remembering broadcaster and journalist Shiu Singh

    By Ian Johnstone, former manager of RNZ International

    All across the South Pacific, tribute is being paid to broadcaster and journalist Shiu Singh who has died in his home in Suva, Fiji.

    The sad news will be carried throughout Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia via media networks such as PACNEWS, which was pioneered and built up over years of dedicated hard work by Singh.

    In the 1960s, as Singh began a term of service in the RNZAF, his homeland Fiji and many other Pacific colonies of Britain, USA, New Zealand and Australia were preparing to become self-governing or independent, but were hindered because their only communication links were with their colonial masters.

    Pacific Islanders heard no news from or about their neighbours, and had no chance to talk with each other, swap advice, exchange experiences.

    In the 1970s, Singh, now back in Fiji with a fine reputation as a current affairs broadcaster set about changing that state of affairs.

    Soon after helping to establish the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) he took on the daunting task of gathering, editing, compiling and re-distributing Pacific news right across our region. It is largely because of his dedication and professionalism that PACNEWS exists today.

    Singh overcame many challenges, including a threat by Fiji’s military government to censor bulletins and destroy the credibility he had worked so hard to establish.

    His response was to say goodbye to his beloved Prabha and family and – after a two-day hiatus – resume the much valued PACNEWS from a new home in Vanuatu.

    We mourn the passing of an outstanding public broadcaster who gave great service to Pacific people in the course of a distinguished career marked by reliability, honesty, impartiality and extremely hard work.

    Vinaka vaka levu, Shiu. May you rest in peace.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality”

    The ultimate goal of every totalitarian system is to establish complete control over society and every individual within it in order to achieve ideological uniformity and eliminate any and all deviation from it. This goal can never be achieved, of course, but it is the raison d’être of all totalitarian systems, regardless of what forms they take and ideologies they espouse. You can dress totalitarianism up in Hugo Boss-designed Nazi uniforms, Mao suits, or medical-looking face masks, its core desire remains the same: to remake the world in its paranoid image … to replace reality with its own “reality.”

    We are right in the middle of this process currently, which is why everything feels so batshit crazy. The global capitalist ruling classes are implementing a new official ideology, in other words, a new “reality.” That’s what an official ideology is. It’s more than just a set of beliefs. Anyone can have any beliefs they want. Your personal beliefs do not constitute “reality.” In order to make your beliefs “reality,” you need to have the power to impose them on society. You need the power of the police, the military, the media, scientific “experts,” academia, the culture industry, the entire ideology-manufacturing machine.

    There is nothing subtle about this process. Decommissioning one “reality” and replacing it with another is a brutal business. Societies grow accustomed to their “realities.” We do not surrender them willingly or easily. Normally, what’s required to get us to do so is a crisis, a war, a state of emergency, or … you know, a deadly global pandemic.

    During the changeover from the old “reality” to the new “reality,” the society is torn apart. The old “reality” is being disassembled and the new one has not yet taken its place. It feels like madness, and, in a way, it is. For a time, the society is split in two, as the two “realities” battle it out for dominance. “Reality” being what it is (i.e., monolithic), this is a fight to the death. In the end, only one “reality” can prevail.

    This is the crucial period for the totalitarian movement. It needs to negate the old “reality” in order to implement the new one, and it cannot do that with reason and facts, so it has to do it with fear and brute force. It needs to terrorize the majority of society into a state of mindless mass hysteria that can be turned against those resisting the new “reality.” It is not a matter of persuading or convincing people to accept the new “reality.” It’s more like how you drive a herd of cattle. You scare them enough to get them moving, then you steer them wherever you want them to go. The cattle do not know or understand where they are going. They are simply reacting to a physical stimulus. Facts and reason have nothing to do with it.

    And this is what has been so incredibly frustrating for those of us opposing the roll-out of the “New Normal,” whether debunking the official Covid-19 narrative, or “Russiagate,” or the “Storming of the US Capitol,” or any other element of the new official ideology. (And, yes, it is all one ideology, not “communism,” or “fascism,” or any other nostalgia, but the ideology of the system that actually rules us, supranational global capitalism. We’re living in the first truly global-hegemonic ideological system in human history. We have been for the last 30 years. If you are touchy about the term “global capitalism,” go ahead and call it “globalism,” or “crony capitalism,” or “corporatism,” or whatever other name you need to. Whatever you call it, it became the unrivaled globally-hegemonic ideological system when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. Yes, there are pockets of internal resistance, but it has no external adversaries, so its progression toward a more openly totalitarian structure is logical and entirely predictable.)

    Anyway, what has been so incredibly frustrating is that many of us have been operating under the illusion that we are engaged in a rational argument over facts (e.g., the facts of Russiagate, Literal-Hitlergate, 9/11, Saddam’s WMDs, Douma, the January 6 “insurrection,” the official Covid narrative, etc.) This is not at all what is happening. Facts mean absolutely nothing to the adherents of totalitarian systems.

    You can show the New Normals the facts all you like. You can show them the fake photos of people dead in the streets in China in March of 2020. You can show them the fake projected death rates. You can explain how the fake PCR tests work, how healthy people were deemed medical “cases.” You can show them all the studies on the ineffectiveness of masks. You can explain the fake “hospitalization” and “death” figures, send them articles about the unused “emergency hospitals,” the unremarkable age-and-population-adjusted death rates, cite the survival rates for people under 70, the dangers and pointlessness of “vaccinating” children. None of this will make the slightest difference.

    Or, if you’ve bought the Covid-19 narrative, but haven’t completely abandoned your critical faculties, you can do what Glenn Greenwald has been doing recently. You can demonstrate how the corporate media have intentionally lied, again and again, to whip up mass hysteria over “domestic terrorism.” You can show people videos of the “violent domestic terrorists” calmly walking into the Capitol Building in single file, like a high-school tour group, having been let in by members of Capitol Security. You can debunk the infamous “fire-extinguisher murder” of Brian Sicknik that never really happened. You can point out that the belief that a few hundred unarmed people running around in the Capitol qualifies as an “insurrection,” or an “attempted coup,” or “domestic terrorism,” is delusional to the point of being literally insane. This will also not make the slightest difference.

    I could go on, and I’m sure I will as the “New Normal” ideology becomes our new “reality” over the course of the next several years. My point, at the moment, is … this isn’t an argument. The global-capitalist ruling classes, government leaders, the corporate media, and the New Normal masses they have instrumentalized are not debating with us. They know the facts. They know the facts contradict their narratives. They do not care. They do not have to. Because this isn’t about facts. It’s about power.

    I’m not saying that facts don’t matter. Of course, they matter. They matter to us. I’m saying, let’s recognize what this is. It isn’t a debate or a search for the truth. The New Normals are disassembling one “reality” and replacing it with a new “reality.” (Yes, I know that reality exists in some fundamental ontological sense, but that isn’t the “reality” I’m talking about here, so please do not send me angry emails railing against Foucault and postmodernism.)

    The pressure to conform to the new “reality” is already intense and it’s going to get worse as vaccination passes, public mask-wearing, periodic lockdowns, etc., become normalized. Those who don’t conform will be systematically demonized, socially and/or professionally ostracized, segregated, and otherwise punished. Our opinions will be censored. We will be “canceled,” deplatformed, demonitized, and otherwise silenced. Our views will be labeled “potentially harmful.” We will be accused of spreading “misinformation,” of being “far-right extremists,” “racists,” “anti-Semites,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “anti-global-capitalist violent domestic terrorists,” or just garden variety “sexual harassers,” or whatever they believe will damage us the most.

    This will happen in both the public and personal spheres. Not just governments, the media, and corporations, but your colleagues, friends, and family will do this. Strangers in shops and restaurants will do this. Most of them will not do it consciously. They will do it because your non-conformity represents an existential threat to them … a negation of their new “reality” and a reminder of the reality they surrendered in order to remain a “normal” person and avoid the punishments described above.

    This is nothing new, of course. It is how “reality” is manufactured, not only in totalitarian systems, but in every organized social system. Those in power instrumentalize the masses to enforce conformity with their official ideology. Totalitarianism is just its most extreme and most dangerously paranoid and fanatical form.

    So, sure, keep posting and sharing the facts, assuming you can get them past the censors, but let’s not kid ourselves about what we’re up against. We’re not going to wake the New Normals up with facts. If we could, we would have done so already. This is not a civilized debate about facts. This is a fight. Act accordingly.

    The post Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • West Papua unhappy over never-ending MSG membership tragedies

    ANALYSIS: By Yamin Kogoya in Port Moresby

    When I ring home to West Papua, my village people often ask me about the rumours that they have heard, of an upcoming Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) meeting. They ask, “When is the MSG meeting?” and if West Papua will be accepted as a full member.

    I tell them that I don’t know, and then, with a dispirited voice, they say to me that they will continue to pray for our membership.

    I respond the way I do because of two things: I truly don’t know of any proposed dates for the meeting, and I also don’t want to give false hope to the West Papuan people.

    The MSG often changes the date of their scheduled meetings at the last second, which unfortunately is becoming the norm for it.

    The foreign ministerial meetings and Leaders’ Summit of this regional body was scheduled for June 15 to June 17, 2021, but, unfortunately, it has been postponed again.

    It is now being rescheduled for June 22 to June 25, with no guarantee that this new date won’t be postponed further.

    Past Leader Summits were held in 2018 and February 2019, just before covid-19 hit in Suva, Fiji, where the ULMWP leaders addressed the meeting.

    Another significant year
    In 2016 it was another significant year for both MSG and West Papua. The Leaders’ Summit was held in July that year in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, and was supposed to be the moment that everyone thought West Papua would be finally accepted as a full member.

    Melanesian Spearhead Group headquarters in Port Vila, Vanuatu
    The Melanesian Spearhead Group headquarters in Port Vila, Vanuatu … membership rejected in 2016 due to some criteria issue that West Papua did not meet. Image: Jamie Tahana /RNZ

    But, again, it was rejected due to some criteria issue that West Papua did not meet.

    The semantic rhetoric in the media surrounding this momentous point of West Papua national liberation – advocated by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) back then – gave a lot of false hope and disappointment to the Papuan people.

    The climate at that time was forecast with anxiety and anticipation, like expecting your team to score a goal in the final of the FIFA World Cup. Hundreds of Papuans were fasting and praying in West Papua, supported by grassroot solidarities across Oceania.

    But tragically, the MSG leaders failed to score the goal everyone had cheered for.

    This tragedy was captured in the words of Melanesian leaders at that time. Joe Natuman, then Vanuatu’s deputy prime minister, said that “West Papua was sold out for 30 pieces of silver”, as reported by Asia-Pacific Report on July 20.

    West Papuans 'sold out' 200716
    “West Papuans sold out for ’30 pieces of silver’, says Natuman” – Asia Pacific Report, 20 July 2016. Image: APR

    At that time, the MSG’s Director-General Amena Yauvoli said: “I believe the MSG Secretariat has been working hard to formalise membership criteria from observer to full member.” Unfortunately, this hard work, never bore any fruit.

    Other forces at work
    Even though it was justifiable to grant ULMWP’s full membership in MSG, as expressed by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogovare when he hosted four Melanesian prime ministers of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji during the 23rd MSG Special Leader’s Summit in Honiara in 2016, there were other forces at work behind the scenes: sorting out the criteria of what constitutes “Melanesia”.

    Given these unfolding events regarding the fate of Melanesia, the late Grand Chief Michael Somare, one of the key founding fathers of the independent state of Papua New Guinea and MSG, also said on 14 July 2016: “We must make the right choice on West Papua.”

    In the same week, the Vanuatu Ambassador to Brussels at that time, Roy Mickey Joy, said, “The Melanesian Spearhead Group is too politicised; it has lost its Melanesian integrity and what it stood for.”

    For the Melanesian leaders, changing and postponing dates and sorting criteria for MSG’s membership seems inconsequential, but it is a matter of life and death for Papuans.

    Unfortunately, this tragic drama is playing out like a horror movie wherein innocent people are being chased by a monster, desperate to seek and enter a safe family home, but refused entry.

    Many Melanesian prominent leaders are passing away

    Deaths of leaders
    These tragedies have also been marked by the recent loss of many of the Melanesian leaders. For decades, they dedicated their lives to open the MSG’s door for the abandoned Melanesian family – Papuans.

    On 4 September 2014, Dr John Ondawame, one of the exiled Free Papua Movement (OPM) leaders who tirelessly lobbied the MSG leaders and countries, died in Port Vila. Another prominent Vanuatu-based West Papuan independent leader, Andy Ayamiseba, died in Canberra in February 2020.

    Tongan Prime minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva, an outspoken proponent of West Papua’s cause, also died in 2019. We have recently lost Grand Chief Michael Somare, the founder of MSG and the state of Papua New Guinea, in 2021.

    In West Papua, Klemen Tinal, the Vice-Governor of Papua’s province, from the Damal tribe of Papua’s central highlands, died in Jakarta on 21 May 2021. Papuans can only lament these tragic losses with endless grief as many prominent churches and tribal and independent leaders continue to die in this war.

    Adding to these heartaches, the people of West Papua and Vanuatu also lost another great leader. Pastor Allen Nafuki, a prominent social justice campaigner, died on Sunday, 13 June 2021 — just two days before another proposed MSG meeting, which has now been rescheduled again, for June 22.

    Pastor Nafuki was responsible for bringing warring factions of Papuan resistance groups together in Port Vila in 2014, which helped precipitate much of the ULMWP’s international success. Vanuatu, West Papua, and communities across Oceania mourn the loss of this great beacon of hope for our region.

    Shared the Papuan burden
    Saturday, June 19, was announced as the day of mourning for Pastor Nafuki in West Papua. His picture and words of condolences have been printed and displayed across West Papua as they mourn for the great loss of their great father and friend who shared their burden for four decades.

    The ULMWP leadership paid their tributes to the late Pastor Nafuki through ULMWP’s executive director Markus Haluk’s words: “Reverend Nafuki is a father, shepherd and figure of truth for both Vanuatu and West Papua.”

    In another statement, ULMWP interim President Benny Wenda, said: “This is a great loss – but we also celebrate his legacy. He helped combine the destiny of the people of West Papua with the Republic of Vanuatu and helped bring about Papuan unity in 2014.”

    Papuans and their solidarity groups continue to put pressure on MSG

    Despite these tragedies and losses, Papuans and their solidary groups still fix their eyes on MSG.

    Matthew C Wale, the Solomon Islands opposition leader, tweeted:

    “MSG Leaders cannot continue to postpone the admission of West Papua into the group. It’s time the word ‘Spearhead’ in the title is given meaningful use. 30 pieces of silver & a mercenary approach cannot be the way decide the application for full membership.”

    Free West Papua Campaign Facebook page has also been inundated with photos of Papuans holding banners supporting West Papua admission into MSG.
    Image: Free West Papua campaign

    Bring West Papua back to the Melanesian family
    Bring West Papua back to the Melanesian family is the main message Papuans are trying to convey to the Melanesian leaders across the social media world. Although Melanesia itself is a colonial invention, Papuans take their identity as part of Melanesia seriously. They feel threatened by the large influx of Indonesian migrants into their ancestral land.

    In response to these growing demands, the MSG leaders granted observer status to ULMWP in 2015. However, Papuans insist that elevating it to full membership status will boost their confidence as they carry their cause to the wider world.

    This will legitimise the home-based regional support before asking anyone else for help. It also means someone out there recognises the 60 years of tragedy, as the world kicked West Papua around as they saw fit for their own selfish interests.

    The beginning of Papuan tragedies
    The modern history of West Papua since 1963 has been tainted with tragic stories of betrayal. It started when the Dutch prepared Papuans for independence on December 1, 1961, but then withdrew without saying anything.

    The controversial New York Agreement followed this betrayal in 1962, which gave the green light to Indonesia to re-colonise West Papua, sealing its fate with a sham Act of Free Choice in 1969.

    Ever since, Papuans have been trying to share these stories with the world, unfortunately, their fate was ultimately decided during that agreement. Two prominent Papuan leaders, Willem Zonggonau and Clemens Runawery, fled West Papua to Papua New Guinea to fly to New York to inform the United Nations that the Act of Free Choice was corrupt, but were stopped by the Australian government.

    The cover-ups of these betrayals and prohibition of international media and the UN to visit West Papua persist. Unlike the Palestinians, Papuan stories hardly make global headline news, remaining a secret war of the 21st century somewhere between Asia and the Pacific.

    The Greeks and MSG’s tragedies
    Today, West Papuans and their solidarity groups around the world continue to knock on the MSG’s doors. But the fact that the MSG leaders are reluctant to open their arms and embrace Papuans as part of their larger Melanesian nation-states, only adds another episode of tragedy in their liberation stories.

    The MSG’s decisions on ULMWP’s application for full membership are not in the hands of some celestial beings beyond human comprehension. These decisions that affect human lives are in the hands of individuals just like you and I, with family and conscience.

    This is true to what’s been happening in MSG and true to what had happened in the New York Agreement in 1962 or any other meetings held between the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Western governments about Papua’s fate.

    Mortal human beings, titled leaders, ministers, kings, and queens continue to make decisions that bring calamities to human lives, driven by self-deluded, egotistical importance, righteousness, greed, and power.

    We make wrong decisions for the right reasons and make right decisions for the wrong reasons, or sometimes are unable to make any decision at all, with all sorts of reasons, influenced by misleading information, misjudgement, and misunderstanding. Ancient Greeks wrote about these tragedies in the fifth century BC, but these tragedies are still unfolding in front of our eyes.

    Although the famous Greek Tragedy was set in a distant past in different cultural contexts, the basic theme is still relevant today because it tells us about the decisions we make about our relationship with other people, the consequences, and the unfairness of life itself.

    What happened and what is still happening to West Papuan people reflect these tragedies – being cheated, mistreated for decades, and forgotten by nations around the world as they turn their back on their fellow humans. MSG’s indecisiveness about West Papua’s full membership adds to this prolonged history of mistreatment of the Papuan people.

    MSG is at a crossroads
    These are uncertain times as humankind is slowly but surely being re-programmed to think and feel specific ways under the cursed covid-19 pandemic. It seems that the old world is dying, and a new one is being born, and we are in the middle of it – at a crossroads, gazing at some cataclysmic collapse looming all around.

    In this kind of climactic moment, a hero is needed to make bold decisions and set a precedent for future generations. These pressures compel us to reflect on these tragedies and ask why the Melanesian Spearhead Group was formed in the first place over 40 years ago.

    Was it to save Melanesia? Or destroy it?

    Overdue smile
    In Port Vila, October 2016, when Sogovare met and told Pastor Nafuki and West Papuan leaders Jacob Rumbiak, Benny Wenda, and Andy Ayamiseba about granting West Papua full membership, according to the Vanuatu Daily Post, the pastor “smiled a long overdue smile and breathed a sigh of relief, saying, ‘Now I can go to my home island of Erromango and have a peaceful sleep with my grandchildren, with no disturbance whatsoever’.”

    The beloved Pastor Nafuki, the chairman of Vanuatu Free West Papua Association, died on Sunday, 13 June 2021, just two days before when the MSG meeting was due, which has been postponed for another week.

    He is now certainly at peace on his island with his family, but the thing that thrilled him to utter these words, West Papua membership in MSG, is still unresolved.

    How long will the MSG leaders drag out these overdue smiles, tragedies, and betrayals? What should I tell Papuan villages who fast and pray every day for your decision?

    Should I tell them I don’t know? Or say, “yes, your prayers have been answered”, that the rest of the Melanesian family has now welcomed West Papua?

    West Papuans have been waiting a painfully long time for recognition, for salvation, for independence.

    • Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
    • Other Yamin Kogoya articles

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Here’s what the corporate-owned media won’t tell you about the arrests in Nicaragua

    Nicaragua has been under heavy fire from the corporate-owned media lately. The government of Daniel Ortega has arrested several opposition figures in the midst of an upcoming election. The US government and corporate media have been expressing their outrage about what they consider to be the growing dictatorial nature of the Ortega ‘regime’.

    But there is more to the story than they let on. A deeper investigation shows that the situation is not as clear-cut as they make out. And as is so often the case with Latin America, it falls to independent media to add some nuance and balance to the flagrantly right-leaning and pro-Washington coverage of the corporate-owned press.

    Predictable one-sided coverage from CNN, the Washington Post, and the Guardian

    On 9 June, CNN reported on a series of arrests of leading opposition figures in Nicaragua. It claims that this forms part of a long-established pattern within the Central American country, stating that “Ortega’s government has in the past not shied away from cracking down on the opposition”. The report even repeats a former Costa Rican president’s characterization of the saga as “the night of the long knives in the tropics” – a reference to Adolf Hitler’s purge of political rivals within the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany.

    A week later on 15 June, the Washington Post and the Guardian both reported on further arrests made by Ortega’s government. Most of the Post’s article was taken up by an anecdote about the arrest of one of these opposition figures, Juan Sebastián Chamorro. The Guardian, meanwhile, characterized the arrests as an “unprecedented crackdown on the country’s opposition” that forms part of “an apparent attempt to crush any serious challenge in November’s elections”.

    From reading these reports, one could be forgiven for thinking that Nicaragua has descended into an authoritarian nightmare bordering on the fascistic. But a deeper investigation shows that the situation is not nearly as black-and-white as these outlets make it out to be.

    An opposition that’s bankrolled by Washington

    First of all, we must keep in mind that Nicaraguan opposition have a history of being bankrolled by Washington. After all, both the right-wing opposition and dissident Sandinistas alike have received substantial funding from groups such as the Washington-based United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). USAID is essentially a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front organization that has been heavily involved in US ‘regime change’ efforts around the globe. NED, meanwhile, was formed in 1983 with the explicit purpose to “do today what was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” according to US historian Allen Weinstein.

    Ever since Ortega’s party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLNS), was brought back to power via an election in 2006, Washington has channeled tens of millions of dollars through USAID to help opposition groups destabilize the country and overthrow the government. One of the major recipients of this money has been the Chamorro Foundation, which was founded by the family of the very person whose arrest the Washington Post detailed. Other people arrested by Ortega’s government include:

    • Felix Maradiaga, founder of the Civil Society Leadership Institute, an NGO that has received money from the NED
    • José Adan Aguerri, former president of the Superior Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), which has received money from USAID
    • Violeta Granera, a member of the political council of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) movement, which journalist Ben Norton has described as “an integral part of the US- and EU-backed efforts to form an opposition alliance”
    • Arturo Cruz, who is believed to have received money from the US government as part of an effort to impose sanctions on Nicaragua

    Given the above, one then has to ask whether a country is obligated to tolerate the activities of organizations or individuals that take money from a hostile power (the US) with a long and prolific record of interfering in elections, propping up dictatorships, and even violently overthrowing governments that it doesn’t like all over the region. Needless to say, such behavior would hardly be accepted in the US itself given that treason is a capital crime according to US federal law.

    Presenting US regime change engineers as “foreign leaders”

    Corporate media outlets, however, completely leave out this reality. Instead, they largely repeat statements from US-based supporters of regime change as if they were representative of global opinion. CNN, for example, claims that the arrests “sparked outrage among human rights organizations and foreign leaders”. But rather than telling readers who these “foreign leaders” are, they instead provide quotes from: US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, acting assistant secretary for US Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Julie Chung, and the hardline Cuban-American exile House representative María Elvira Salazar. In other words, CNN tries to pass off US government spokespersons and a Republican Party congress member, all of whom make no secret of wanting to overthrow the Ortega government and replace it with something more obedient to US interests, as representing the “Global reaction” to the arrests.

    The “human rights organizations” it quotes, meanwhile, are the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and Human Rights Watch. The latter has been notorious for taking a pro-State Department line on Latin America and even contains former State Department personnel on its board of directors. The former, meanwhile, is led by an anti-government partisan who supports imperialist sanctions on her own country. As The Canary reported in December 2018, Jagger has not only expressed support for the crippling US sanctions already in place but even called for the European Union, Canada, and other Latin American nations to issue their own set of sanctions as well.

    Remembering the history of US intervention

    It’s important to also remember the historical context of US meddling in Latin America, and especially in Nicaragua, which has suffered from Washington’s regime change efforts since the early 1980s. After overthrowing the brutal US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the Sandinistas, as they are colloquially known, faced a violent attempt from Washington to replace them with a pro-US government.

    Washington even established a ruthless paramilitary organization called the Contras, which waged a protracted dirty war against the Sandinista government and civilians alike. Renowned for their ruthlessness, the Contras committed human rights violations including murder, kidnappings, and torture, and certainly met the US government’s own definition of ‘terrorists’. In short, the Ortega government can hardly be blamed for charging opposition figures who take US money with “inciting foreign intervention”.

    The likes of CNN, the Washington Post, and the Guardian, however, completely gloss over both this historical context and the funding of domestic groups that facilitate US intervention. We shouldn’t be surprised at their brazenly anti-government stance, though. The Guardian and Washington Post, in particular, have been notorious for their one-sided coverage of Nicaragua.

    The Guardian‘s ‘Wildly Inaccurate Coverage of Nicaragua’

    During an earlier round of anti-government protests in 2018, for example, the Guardian flagrantly misrepresented the situation by portraying the government as the sole committer of human rights abuses. As The Canary reported at the time, an open letter to the Guardian‘s editors signed by over a score of public intellectuals stated:

    despite plentiful evidence of opposition violence, almost all your 17 reports since mid-April blame Daniel Ortega’s government for the majority of deaths that have occurred

    The Open Letter To The Guardian On Its Wildly Inaccurate Coverage of Nicaragua added that the publication failed to report murders of government supporters committed by opposition supporters. These killings numbered at least 21 and went alongside recorded cases of attacks on public buildings and homes of government officials committed by anti-government actors.

    One of the letter’s signatories, human rights lawyer and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Dan Kovalik, said to The Canary:

    I am convinced that the mainstream coverage of the situation there represents the greatest misinformation campaign I have ever witnessed.

    He added:

    There has been no mainstream coverage I have seen about the violence perpetrated by the extreme opposition, though that violence has been substantial.

    Clearly, mainstream outlets like CNN, the Washington Post, and the Guardian can’t be trusted to cover Nicaragua in a balanced and fair-minded way. Because, as we can see, they consistently and flagrantly misrepresent the situation in order to provide a smokescreen for Washington and its internal proxies. The need for independent media to cut through the propaganda and add some balance, therefore, becomes greater with every passing day.

    Featured image via Flickr – Nicholas Raymond

    By Peter Bolton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Alternative Jewish Voices: Not at this hui, and not in our names

    COMMENT: Alternative Jewish Voices

    We, Alternative Jewish Voices, hope for a productive and unifying second day at the Christchurch anti-terrorism hui. Security is something we build together and give each other. A threat may be singular, but our safety is collective.

    We are saddened to hear that such a kaupapa has been disrespected and we are, additionally, horrified to hear Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses double down on her claim that she was expressing the sentiment of our national Jewish community.

    It was wrong to coopt the hui for statements that (according to the comments of those present) “securitised” and “essentialised” the Muslim community.

    We object to any statement that presumes Palestinian solidarity must imply a love of violence. Such statements are wrong, period; and it was additionallty wrong to bring those politics into the anti-terrorism venue in particular.

    We feel for those who have been hurt, but we are heartened to hear that the hui will continue with its mission.

    We have challenged the Jewish Council’s claim to represent our community. We repeat our statement in order to challenge Ms Moses’s present claim that the council’s politics represent the fears of all NZ Jews.

    The NZ Jewish Council records its mission thus: “The council is the representative organisation of New Zealand Jewry. Its objective is to promote the interests, welfare and wellbeing of New Zealand Jewry.”

    Chosen by regional councils
    However, as we understand it, NZ Jewish Council members are chosen by a number of regional Jewish councils. The NZ Jewish Council members seem to be appointed through a series of indirect institutional processes.

    Members of Alternative Jewish Voices who belong to synagogues — some for many years — have never had any direct input to the composition of the NZ Jewish Council. Jews who are not members of a synagogue don’t appear to have any voice in these processes at all.

    The NZ Jewish Council does not attempt to elicit, include or represent the spectrum of views within the Jewish community.

    We want our neighbours to understand that the ardent Zionist voices of the NZ Jewish Council and Israel Institute do not represent the whole community of New Zealand Jews. They emphatically do not represent us.

    Alternative Jewish Voices wishes all participants in the Christchurch hui wisdom and unity. We all need your kaupapa and we will all benefit from it.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The G7 will always look after themselves. It’s time to look to the resistance.

    The G7 summit has ended in Cornwall. It is, of course, no surprise that as the world’s richest leaders cosied up together, they achieved absolutely nothing.

    Charities and NGOs are expressing their deep disappointment that Johnson, Biden, Merkel and others didn’t deliver on either their plans to vaccinate the world, or to stop the planet from burning. But really, what did we expect? Do we learn nothing, year after year? When will we actually realise that the richest countries won’t ever let go of their wealth, or their grip on power? That their deals mean nothing, and their words are empty?

    The G7 summit was protected by more than 6,000 police, and created severe disruption for locals. The skies were filled with terrifying Chinook helicopters and drones, while the red arrows shot through the air to massage the macho egos of the world leaders. Meanwhile, the tranquil Cornish coast was littered with police and military vessels.

    While more than 15 million people in the country live in poverty, the UK spent more than £70 million on policing alone for the three-day summit.

    Internationalist resistance

    But each time summits are held, whether it’s the G7, G20, NATO or COP, they do unwittingly achieve one thing. And that is the coming together of activists to resist them. It is at protest camps where connections are made, bonds are strengthened, and where we get the courage and will to fight for a world beyond capitalism.

    This G7 was no different. From anarchists to XR, activists descended on Cornwall in their droves and occupied three different protest camps for three days of protest. Because of Covid, there weren’t the usual numbers joining us from mainland Europe. But this year, Kashmiri, Palestinian and Tigray communities travelled from all over the UK to make their voices heard, making it possibly the most internationalist resistance we have ever seen in this country. Others spoke about revolutionary resistance in Kurdistan, and the war on Yemen.

     

    Kashmiri and Palestinian activists
    Kashmiri and Palestinian activists gather to resist the G7 on 12 June

     

    Kashmiri and Palestinian activists resist the G7
    Kashmiri and Palestinian activists gather to resist the G7 on 12 June

     

    Kurdistan solidarity activist resists the G7
    A Kurdistan solidarity activist protests the G7’s support for the Turkish state

     

    One Kashmiri activist told the crowd:

    Who supplies the arms to Israel? America, Britain, which kill innocent people in Palestine. Many British supplies are armed to India, which kills people in Kashmir. France supplies arms to India, which kill people in Kashmir. In Kashmir, we have 900,000 Indian soldiers. They’ve been occupying Kashmir since 1947. This is a British legacy. Britain left us under occupation. We said to successive British governments, help us with the issue of Kashmir, but no help is coming. All they do is sell arms to India.

    He went on to say:

    Narendra Modi was going to come here to this G7 meeting. He was going to buy arms. In India, people are dying under the coronavirus. Yet Narendra Modi is going round to the world buying arms. Do Indian people need arms? Do they need food or medicine? So this is the question we are asking these so-called leaders.

    All ages came out to resist

    It was also possibly the most diverse age range of people we’ve ever seen at a summit. On day one, Fridays for Future, alongside Cornwall Youth Climate Alliance marched on the streets of Falmouth in a youth-led climate strike. And on the final day of the summit, hundreds of activists, young and old, barricaded the G7 media centre. They prevented journalists from entering or leaving as they protested the Policing Bill that is set to become law in this country.

    Kill The Bill Cornwall said that it targeted the media centre because:

    Approved journalists from the billionaire press are spinning the G7. An exclusion zone has been set up to report the essential news of what the world leaders and their spouses are wearing.

    The group went on to say:

    Six billionaires own or have majority share control of the majority of the UK press. These media moguls have a vested interest in protecting the interests of the rich. This includes protecting climate-destroying corporations, arms traders and the Tory government.

    This also means supporting clamping down on effective protest. They don’t want to see us taking effective action. Because effective action challenges their wealth and challenges their power. We’ve seen this is the way they’ve reported Kill The Bill protests. They repeated the police lies when they falsely claimed police officers were hospitalised at the Kill The Bill demos in Bristol. They described protesters as violent mobs when the cops attacked them. Police hit protesters on the head with the sides of their shields while they were sitting on the floor with their hands in the air. But the billionaire press claimed that it was the protesters who were the violent thugs.

    Kill The Bill Cornwall explained why we must keep resisting the draconian Bill:

    The policing bill is the biggest attack on the right to protest that we’ve seen in a generation. If passed, the police will be able to impose conditions on protests they see as too noisy. Meanwhile, if your protest causes serious annoyance, then you could face ten years in jail for taking to the streets. It threatens to criminalise trespass – in a country where we’re denied access to 92% of the land because it’s privately owned. It threatens the basic right to exist for Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities – outlawing their way of life.

    The streets are where we won our rights and built solidarity – and it’s on the streets that we’ll fight to defeat this bill.

    Fridays For Future Climate Strike
    Fridays For Future Climate Strike at the G7 summit

     

    Surveillance state

    It’s clear that the British state was twitchy. Anxious police sat outside the gates of the protest camps, surveilling those going in and out. Animal Rebellion’s camp was particularly targeted. It was raided by at least 60 police with dogs, and fifteen people were arrested. More were arrested when attempting to return to camp. According to the group, a total of 22 of their activists have been charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

    Meanwhile, at every opportunity, police intelligence gathering teams filmed activists both on the streets and on the beach, as surveillance drones followed people through town. Minibuses were stopped by police and delayed from getting to protests.

    police surveillance
    Police surveillance teams film activists at the G7 summit on 13 June

     

    Police surveillance drone
    A police drone surveils Kill The Bill activists protesting outside the G7 media centre in Falmouth on 13 June

    The resistance to this summit shows that things are changing in the UK. Activists who previously wouldn’t have worked together are now linking up in collective resistance. Whether we are from Palestine, Yemen, Kurdistan, Tigray, Kashmir or the UK, we know that we must unite to fight capitalism and fight our megalomaniac leaders. As Kill The Bill Cornwall says: “If they come for one of us they come for all of us”.

    All featured images by Eliza Egret

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.