Bulletin N° 1101 

 

“I … for Icarus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqRE60IgHYg

V.O.

(1:57:30)

or

https://m.ok.ru/video/1313228786201

(2:08:36)

with English subtitles

by Henri Verneuil and Didier Decoin

1979

The film's plot is based on the Kennedy assassination and subsequent investigation. This film, starring  Yves Montand, Michel Albertini, and Roland Amstutz , begins with the assassination of President Marc Jarry, who is about to be inaugurated for a second six-year term of office. Henri Volney, state attorney and member of the commission charged with investigating the assassination (based on the Warren Commission) refuses to agree to the commission's final findings. The film portrays the initial controversy about this, as well as Volney and his staff's reopening of the investigation.

+

Commentary

https://www.globalresearch.ca/lord-vaccines-health-terrorist-ideology-where-do-you-think-going/5758117

by Dr. Pascal Sacré

 

Contemporary Update: from "SolutionsWatch"

National Citizen's Inquiry

https://www.corbettreport.com/solutionswatch-inquiry/

 

 

Subject : “Après moi, le déluge.”

 

 

 

Grenoble

May Day, 2023

 

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

We began our presentation of Thorstein Veblen’s classic 1914 study, The Instinct of Workmanship on April 10 with Ceimsa Bulletin N°1098. The final two chapters of this book examine the state of industrial arts in modern times, specifically in the setting of early modern Europe.

 

The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts

 TABLE OF CONTENTS                                                                          

CHAPTERS                                                                                                                                                     PAGES

CHAPTER I           Introductory………………………………………..…………………………………...….......….………... i    
CHAPTER II          Contamination of Instincts in Primitive Technology ……………….………......…....…. 38
CHAPTER III        The Savage State of the Industrial Arts …………………………….….....…….....….……… 103
CHAPTER IV        The Technology of the Predatory Culture ………………………………......…....…..….… 138
CHAPTER V         Ownership and the Competitive System ………………………….....…......…………..….. 187
CHAPTER VI        The Era of Handicraft ……………………………………………….....….……….....….….…....… 231
CHAPTER VII       The Machine Industry ……………………………………………………….…........……...….….. 299

 

 

We have seen already in chapter 5 how Veblen approaches “a genetic account of economic life,” suggesting that natural human instincts gave rise to social institutions from earliest times and that since the Neolithic era, institutions have changed according to how these instincts have been “contaminated” by the institutions themselves. Thus we see the early political economy of humankind evolve from what Marxists have called “primitive communism” into various economic forms (principally that of slavery, in antiquity; feudalism, in the middle ages; mercantile capitalism, in early modern times; and industrial capitalism, in the modern era.) Veblen’s theory presupposes that our species is endowed with certain genetic traits that are vulnerable to provisional influences by given social and political environments. However these de jure changes in the social environment do not permanently alter the genetically acquired instincts, which are simply repressed to conform to newly adopted social laws imposed by new institutions. While de facto human genetic instincts are necessarily repressed to achieve survival in new social environments, these instincts were actively at play in earliest times and served to facilitate the survival of the species in the “savage” period of our prehistory. These instincts remain part of our genetic makeup; they include the need to create useful products for the community in which we live and the need to be socially recognized for our efficient contributions by the community in which we live and work.  These instincts are the hallmark trait of our species, and, despite their being contaminated by the generations of institution building imposed on societies over the millennia, they remain present, like all inherited traits, in our biological composition. The equivalent phenomenon that comes to mind is the image of eating at a sumptuous banquet with a rag tied around our tongue. The potential of fulfillment is suppressed by a conventional construct that is imposed on us by eons of adaptive behavior to institutional requirements.

 

At this point, in chapter 4, Veblen describes the formation of new social classes and other institutional changes that developed over time in early modern Europe and which served to further “contaminate” the de facto human instincts and create de jure individual rights based on socially sanctioned inequalities, in violation of “an assumed human propensity for activity tailored to the efficient achievement of a goal.”

 

The author introduces this discussion of “The Era of Handicraft” by differentiating the state formations in early modern history.

 

Owing, probably, to the peculiar topography of Europe, small-scale and broken, the pastoral-predatory culture has never been fully developed or naturalised in this region; nor has a monarchy of the great type characteristic of western Asia ever run its course in Europe. The nearest approach to such a despotic state would be the Roman Empire; which was after all essentially Mediterranean, largely Levantine, rather than peculiarly European. And owing probably to the same conditioning limitations of topography the subsequent sequence of institutional phenomena have also been characteristically different in this European region from that in the large and fertile lands of the near East. It is necessarily this run of events in the Western culture that is of chief interest to the present inquiry; which will therefore most conveniently follow the historical outlines of this culture in its later phases, in so far as these outlines are to be drawn in economic terms of a large generality.


In a passably successful fashion the peoples of Christendom made the transition from a frankly predatory and servile establishment, in the Dark Ages, to a settled, quasi-peaceable situation resting on fairly secure property rights, chiefly in land, by the close of the Middle Ages. This transition was accompanied by a growth of handicraft, itinerant merchandising and industrial towns, so massive as to outlive and displace the feudal system under whose tutelage it took its rise, and of so marked a technological character as to have passed into history as the ''era of handicraft." Technologically, this era is marked by an ever advancing growth of craftsmanship; until it passes over into the regime of the machine industry when its technology had finally outgrown those limitations of handicraft and petty trade that gave it its character as a distinct phase of economic history. In its beginning the handicraft system was made up of impecunious craftsmen, working in severalty and working for a livelihood, and the rules of the craft-gilds that presently took shape and exercised control were drawn on that principle. The petty trade which characteristically runs along with the development of handicraft was carried on after the same detail fashion and was presently organised on lines afforded by the same principle of work for a livelihood.

Presently, however, in early modern times, larger holdings of property came to be employed in the itinerant trade, and investment for a profit found its way into this trade as also into the handicraft system proper. The processes of industry grew more extensive and roundabout, the specialisation of occupations ("division of labour") increased, the scale of organisation grew larger, and the practice of employing impecunious workmen in organised bodies under the direction of wealthier masters came to be the prevailing form taken by the industry of the time.

From near the beginnings of the handicraft system, and throughout the period of its flourishing, the output of the industry was habitually sold at a price, in terms of money. In the earlier days the price was regulated on the basis of labour cost, on the principle that a competent craftsman must be allowed a fair livelihood, and much thought and management was spent on the determination and maintenance of such a "just price." But in the course of generations, with further development of trade and markets, this conception of price by degrees gave way to or passed over into the modern presumption that any article of value is worth what it will bring; until, when the era of handicraft and petty trade merges in the late-modern regime of investment and machine industry, it has become the central principle of pecuniary relations that price is a matter to be arranged freely between buyer and seller on the basis of bargain and sale.


The characteristic traits of this era are the handicraft industry and the petty trade which handled the output of that industry, with the trade gradually coming into a position of discretionary management, and even dominating the industry of the craftsmen to such an extent that by the date when the technology of handicraft begins to give way to the factory organisation and the machine industry the workmen are already somewhat fully under the control of the businessmen. Visibly, the ruling cause of thi§ change hx the relations between the craftsmen on the one hand and the traders and master-employers on the other hand was the increasing magnitude of the material means necessary to the pursuit of industry, due to such a growth of technology as required an ever larger, more finished and more costly complement of appliances. So that in the course of the era of handicraft the ancient relation between owners and workmen gradually re-established itself within the framework of the new technology; with the difference that the owners in whose hands the discretion now lay, and to whose gain the net output of industry now inured, were the businessmen, investors, the owners of the industrial plant and of the apparatus of trade, instead of as formerly the owners of the soil.


Under the handicraft system, and to the extent to which that system shaped the situation, the instinct of workmanship again came into a dominant position among the factors that made up the discipline of daily life and so gave their characteristic bent to men's habits of thought. In the technology of handicraft the central fact is always the individual workman, whether in the crafts proper or in the petty trade. In that era industry is conceived in terms of the skill, initiative and application of the trained individual, and human relations outside of the workshop tend also by force of habit to be conceived in similar terms of self-sufficient individuals, each working out his own ends in severalty.


The position of the craftsman in the economy of that time is peculiarly suited to induce a conception of the individual workman as a creative agent standing on his own bottom, and as an ultimate, irreducible factor in the community's makeup. He draws on the resources of his own person alone; neither his ancestry nor the favour of his neighbours have visibly yielded him anything beyond an equivalent for work done; he owes nothing to inherited wealth or prerogative, and he is bound in no relation of landlord or tenant to the soil. With his slight outfit of tools he is ready and competent of his own motion to do the work that lies before him, and he asks nothing but an even chance to do what he is fit to do.


Even the training which has given him his finished skill he has come by through no special favour or advantage, having given an equivalent for it all in the work done during his apprenticeship and so having to all appearance acquired it by his own force and diligence. The common stock of technological knowledge underlying all special training was at that time still a sufficiently simple and obvious matter, so that it was readily acquired in the routine of work, without formal application to the learning of it; and any indebtedness to the community at large or to past generations for such common stock of information would therefore not be sufficiently apparent to admit of its disturbing the craftsman's naive appraisal of his productive capacity in the simple and complacent terms of his own person.


The man who does things, who is creatively occupied with fashioning things for use, is the central fact in the scheme of things under the handicraft system, and the range of concepts by use of which the technological problems of that era are worked out is limited by the habit of mind so induced in those who have the work in hand and in those who see it done. The discipline of the crafts inculcates the apprehension of mechanical facts and processes in terms of workmanlike endeavour and achievement; so that questions as to what forces are available for use, and of how to turn them to account, present themselves in terms of muscular force and manual dexterity. Mechanical appliances for use in industry are designed and worked out as contrivances to facilitate or to abridge manual labour, and it is in terms of labour that the whole industrial system is conceived and its incidence, value and output rated.


Such a fashion of conceiving the operations and appliances of industry seems at the same time to fall in closely with men's natural bent as given by the native instinct of workmanship; and fostered by the consistent drift of daily routine under the handicraft system this attitude grew into matter of course, and has continued to direct men's thinking on industrial matters even long after the era of handicraft has passed and given place to the factory system and the large machine industry. So much so that throughout the nineteenth century, in economic speculations as well as in popular speech, the mechanical plant employed in industry has habitually been spoken of as “labour saving devices;” even such palpable departures from the manual workmanship of handicraft as the power loom, the smelting furnace, artificial waterways and highways, the steam engine and telegraphic apparatus, have been so classed.


There need be no question but that these phenomena of the machine era will bear such an interpretation; the point of interest here is that such an interpretation should have been resorted to and should have commended itself as adequate and satisfactory when applied to these mechanical facts whose effective place in technology and in its bearing on the economy of human life has turned out to be so widely different from that range of manual operations with which it is so sought to assimilate them.(**)


___________
** NOTE: A classic passage of Adam Smith shows this handicraft conception of the mechanics of industry: "The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes. ..." "But this proportion [of the produce to the consumers] must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances; first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed." Wealth of Nations, Introduction (p. I).


Adam Smith consistently speaks of industry in terms of manual workmanship, as the traditions and the continued habitual outlook of that generation unavoidably led him to do; and the sweeping way in which his interpretation of economic life finds acceptance with his contemporaries shows that in so doing he is speaking in full consonance with the prevailing conceptions of his time. He writes during the opening passages of the machine era, but he speaks in terms of the past industrial era, from which his outlook on the economic situation and his conception of normal economic relations had been derived. It may be added that his conception of natural liberty in economic matters is similarly derived from the traditional situation, whose discipline during the later phases of the handicraft era inculcated freedom of ownership as applied to the workman's product and freedom of bargain and sale as touches the traffic of the typical petty trader. And so thoroughly had this manner of conceiving industry and the economic situation been worked into the texture of men's thinking, that the same line of interpretation continues to satisfy economic theory for a hundred years after Adam Smith had formulated this canon of economic doctrine, and after the situation to which it would apply had been put out by the machine industry and large business management.

 

The discipline of the handicraft industry enforces an habitual apprehension of mechanical forces and processes in terms of manual workmanship, - muscular force and craftsmanlike manipulation. This discipline touches first, and most intimately and coercively, the classes engaged in the manual work of industry, but it also necessarily pervades the community at large and gathers in its net all individuals and classes who have to do with the facts of industry, near or remote. It gives its specific character to the habits of fife of the community that lives under its dispensation and by its means, and so it acts as an overruling formative guide in shaping the current habits of thought.


The consequences of this habitual attitude, for the technology of the machine era that presently follows, are worth noting. The mechanical inventions and expedients that lead over from the era of handicraft, through what has been called the industrial revolution, to the later system of large industry, bear the marks of their handicraft origin. The early devices of the machine industry are uniformly contrivances for performing by mechanical means the same motions which the craftsmen in the given industries performed by hand and by man power; in great part, indeed, they set out with being contrivances to enable the workmen to perform the same manual operation in duplicate or multiple—(as in the early spinning and weaving machinery) or to perform a given operation with larger effect than was possible to the unaided muscular work (as in the beginnings of steam power). In their beginnings the new mechanical appliances are conceived as improved tools, which extend the reach and pov/er of the workman or which facilitate or lighten the manual operations in which he spends himself. They are, as they aim to be, labour saving devices, designed to further the workmanlike efficiency of the men in whose hands they are placed. The early history of steam power shows how closely this workmanlike conception limited the range of invention.


It was first employed to pump water out of mines. In this use the pressure of the air on a piston, in a low-pressure cylinder, was brought to bear on a lever so suspended as to yield formally the same motion as a like lever previously moved by human muscle. After a long interval, sufficiently long to make the use of this intermittent pressure and the resulting reciprocating motion familiar and impersonal in men's habitual apprehension, the reciprocating motion was turned to use to produce a rotary motion,—after the fashion suggested by the treadle of a lathe or spinning wheel, which was already familiar enough to have been divested of something of that fog of personality that had doubtless surrounded it at its first invention.(**) The next serious move in the development of the steam engine is the invention of the automatic valves, for admission and escape of steam from the cylinder. According to the ancient myth, a boy whose work it was to shift the valves by hand, contrived to connect them by cords with the moving parts of the machine in such a way as to lift them at the proper moment by the motion of the machine itself; so making the machine perform what had in the original concept of the valve mechanism been a manual operation. Later still, after the due interval for externalisation and assimilation of this mechanical valve movement as an impersonal fact of the machine process, further improvement and elaboration of the elements so gained has worked out in the highly finished mechanism familiar to later times.

 

_______

**NOTE: The case of the treadle applied to the production of rotary motion is typical of what happens to a technological element of the general class here under discussion. Such a new technological expedient appears at the outset to be apprehended in terms of manual workmanship; but presently it comes, through habitual use, to take its place as a mechanical functioning of the tools in whose use it takes effect,—to be associated in current apprehension with the mechanical appliances employed in its production and, by so much, dissociated from the person of the workman.


In a measure, therefore, it falls into the category of impersonal facts that are available as technological raw material with which to go about the work in hand. With further use, and particularly with the interjection of further mechanical expedients between the workman and this given technological element, it will be conceived in progressively more objective fashion, as a fact of the mechanics of brute matter rather than an extension of the workman's manual reach; until it passes finally into the category of mechanical fact simply, obvious and commonplace through routine use; in which there remains but a vanishing residue of imputed personality, such as attaches to all conceptions of action. The given technological element in this way may be said to pass by degrees out of the workman's "quasi-personal fringe" of manual effects, into the domain of raw material available for use in workmanship; where it will, in apprehension, be possessed of only such imputed quasi-personal or anthropomorphic characteristics as are necessarily imputed to external facts at large.


Concretely, the concept of the treadle seems in its beginnings to be a variant of the same conception that leads to the use of the bow-drill.


Both inventions comprise at least two distinct forms. In each the simpler and presumably more primitive form converts a reciprocating longitudinal motion into a reciprocating rotary motion; and it is apparently only after an interval of familiarity and externalisation of this mechanical achievement that the next move takes place in the direction of the perfected treadle, which converts a reciprocating longitudinal into a continuous rotary motion.

 

Detail scrutiny of any one of the greater mechanical inventions, or series of inventions, will bring out something of the same character as is seen in the sequence of successive gains that make up the history of the steam engine. It is to be noted in this connection that time appears to be of the essence of the process of mechanical invention in any field; so much so, indeed, that it will commonly be found that any single inventor contributes but one radical innovation in any one particular connection; which may then presently be taken up again as a securely objective element by a later inventor and pushed forward by a new move as radical as that to which this original invention owed its origin. This time interval which plays such a part in mechanical inventions appears necessary only as an interval of habituation, for the due externalisation of the element, to relieve it, by neglect, of the personal equation with which it is contaminated as it first comes into use, and so to leave it such an objective concept as may be turned to account as mere technological raw material.


It appears, then, that the accumulation of technological experience is not of itself sufficient to bring out a consecutive improvement of the industrial arts, particularly not such an advance in the industrial arts as is embodied in the machine technology of late-modern times. In this modern machine technology the ruling norm is the highly impersonal, not to say brutal, concept of mechanical process, blind and irresponsible. The logic of this technology, accordingly, is the logic of the machine process,—a logic of masses, velocities, strains and thrusts, not of personal dexterity, tact, training, and routine. In the degree in which the information that comes to hand comes encumbered with a teleological bias, a connotation of personal bent, it is unavailable or refractory under this logic. But all new information is infused with such an anthropomorphic colouring of personality; which may presently decay and give place to a more objective habitual apprehension of the facts in case use and wont play up the mechanical character and bearing of these facts in subsequent experience of them; or which may on the other hand end by giving its definitive character and value to the acquired information in case it should happen that the facts of experience are by use and wont bent to an habitual anthropomorphic rating and employment. To serve the needs of this machine technology, therefore, the information which accumulates must in some measure be divested of its naive personal colouring by use and wont; and the degree in which this effect is had is a measure of the degree of availability of the resulting facts for the uses of the machine technology. The larger the available body of information of this character, and the more comprehensive and unremitting the share taken by the discipline of the machine process in the routine of daily life, therefore, the greater, other things equal, will be the rate of advance in the technological mastery of mechanical facts.


But much else goes to the makeup of use and wont besides the routine of industry and the ultilisation of those mechanical processes and that output of goods which the modern machine industry places at men's disposal. To put the same thing in terms already employed in another connection, the sense of workmanship is still subject to contamination with other impulsive elements of human nature working under the constraining Limitations imposed by divers conventional canons and principles of conduct; besides being constantly subject to self-contamination in the way of an anthropomorphic interpretation that construes the facts of experience in terms of a craftsmanlike bent.

 

As bearing on the effectual reach of this self-contamination of the sense of workmanship it is pertinent to recall that craftsmanship ran within a class, and so had the benefit of that accentuated sentiment of self-complacency that comes of class consciousness. From its beginnings down to the period of its dissolution the handicraft industry is an affair of the lower classes; and, as is well known, class feeling runs strong throughout the era, particularly through the centuries of its best development. Whether their conceit is wholly a naive self-complacency or partly a product of affectation, the sentiment is well in evidence and marks the attitude of the handicraft community with a characteristic bias.


The craftsmen habitually rate themselves as serviceable members of the community and contrast themselves in this respect with the other orders of society who are not occupied with the production of things serviceable for human use. To the creative workman who makes things with his hands belongs an efficiency and a merit of a peculiarly substantial and definitive kind, he is the type and embodiment of efficiency and serviceability.


The other orders of society and other employments of time and effort may of course be well enough in their way, but they lack that substantial ground of finality which the craftsman in his genial conceit arrogates to himself and his work. And so good a case does the craftsman make out on this head, and so convincingly evident is the efficiency of the skilled workman, and so patent is his primacy in the industrial community, that by the close of the era much the same view has been accepted by all orders of society.


Such a bias pervading the industrial community must greatly fortify the native bent to construe all facts of observation in anthropomorphic terms. But the training given by the petty trade of the handicraft era, on the other hand, is not altogether of this character. The itinerant merchant's huckstering, as well as the buying and selling in which all members of the community were concerned, would doubtless throw the personal strain into the foreground and would act to keep the self-regarding sentiments alert and active and accentuate an individualistic appreciation of men and things. But the habit of rating things in terms of price has no such tendency, and the price concept gains ground throughout the period. Wherever the handicraft system reaches a fair degree of development the daily hfe of the community comes to centre about the market and to take on the character given by market relations. The volume of trade grows greater, and purchase and sale enter more thoroughly into the details of the work to be done and of the livelihood to be got by this work. The price system comes into the foreground. With the increase of traffic, book-keeping comes into use among the merchants; and as fast as the practice of habitual recourse to the market grows general, the uncommercial classes also become familiar with the rudimentary conceptions of bookkeeping, even if they do not make much use of formal accounts in their own daily affairs.


The logic and concepts of accountancy are wholly impersonal and dispassionate; and whether men's use of its logic and concepts takes the elaborate form of a set of books or the looser fashion of an habitual rating of gains, losses, income, and outgo in terms of price, its effect is unavoidably in some degree to induce a statistical habit of mind. It makes immediately for an exact quantitative apprehension of all things and relations that have a pecuniary bearing; and more remotely, by force of the pervasive effect of habituation, it makes for a greater readiness to apprehend all facts in a similarly objective and statistical fashion, in so far as the facts admit of a quantitative rating.

 

Accountancy is the beginning of statistics, and the price concept is a type of the objective impersonal, quantitative apprehension of things. Coincidently, because they do not lend themselves to this facile rating, facts that will not admit of a quantitative statement and statistical handling decline in men's esteem, considered as facts, and tend in some degree to lose the cogency which belongs to empirical reality. They may even come to be discounted as being of another order of reality, or may even be denied factual value.


Doubtless, the price system had much to do with the rise of the machine technology in modern times; not only in that the accountancy of price offered a practical form and method of statistical computation, such as is indispensable to anything that may fairly be classed as engineering, but also and immediately and substantially in that its discipline has greatly conduced to the apprehension of mechanical facts in terms not coloured by an imputed anthropomorphic bent. It has probably been the most powerful factor acting positively in early modem times to divest mechanical facts of that imputed workmanlike bent given them by habits of thought induced by the handicrafts.

 
This reduction of the facts of observation to quantitative and objective terms is perhaps most visible not in the changes that come over the technology of industry directly, in early modern times, but rather in that growth of material science that runs along as a concomitant of the expansion of the mechanical industry during the later era of handicraft. The material sciences, particularly those occupied with mechanical phenomena, are closely related to the technology of the mechanical industries, both in their subject matter and in the scope and method of the systematisation of knowledge at which they aim; and it is in these material sciences that the concomitance is best seen, at the same time that it is the advance achieved in these sciences that most unequivocally marks the transition from mediaeval to modern habits of thought. This modern interest in matter-of-fact knowledge and the consequent achievements in material science, comes to an effectual head wherever and so soon, as the handicraft industry has made a considerable advance, in volume and in technological mastery, sufficient to support a fair volume of trade and make thoughtful men passably familiar with the statistical conceptions of the price system.


It is accordingly in the commercial republics of Italy that the modern growth of material science takes its first start, about the point of time when industry and commerce had reached their most flourishing state on the Mediterranean seaboard and when the attention of these communities was already swinging off from these material interests to high-handed politics and religious reaction.


The higher interests of church and state came to the front, and science, industry, and presently commerce dwindled and decayed in the land that had promised so handsomely to lead Western civilisation out of the underbrush of piety and princely intrigue.


Next followed the Low Countries, with the south German industrial centres, where again industry of the handicraft order grew great, gave rise to trade on a rapidly increasing scale, and presently to an era of business enterprise of unprecedented spirit and scope. But the age of the Fuggers closed in bankruptcy and industrial collapse when the princely wrangles of the era of statemaking had used up the resources of the industrial community and exhausted the credit of that generation of captains of industry. Here too religious contention came in for its share in the set-back of industry and commerce. In their economic outlines the two cases are very much of the same kind. Central Europe ran through much the same cycle of industrial growth, commercial enterprise, princely ambitions, dynastic wars, religious fanaticism, exhaustion and insecurity, and industrial collapse and decay,—substantially repeating, on an enlarged scale and with much added detail, the sequence that had brought South Europe into arrears. Meantime the material sciences had come forward again in the West, and flourished at the hands of the Netherlanders, South Germans and French scholars, who under the favouring discipline of this new advance in industry and commerce had slowly come abreast of the same matter-of-fact conceptions that had once made Italy the home of modern science. And here again, as before, princely politics, with the attendant war, exactions and insecurity, followed presently by religious controversies and persecutions, not only put an end to the advance of industry and business but also checked the attendant development of science nearly to a standstill.


So that when a further move of the kind is presently made it is the British community that takes the lead. Great Britain had been in arrears in all those respects that make up civilisation of the Occidental kind, and not least in the material respect; until the time when the peoples of the Continent by their own act fell into the rear in respect of those material interests—technology and business enterprise—which afford the material ground out of which the Occidental type of civilization has grown. In Great Britain the sequence of these cultural phenomena has not been substantially different, taken by and large, from that which had previously been run through by the Continental communities; except that the same outcome was not reached, apparently because the sequence was not interrupted by collapse at the same critical point in the development.


The run of events under the handicraft system in England differs in certain consequential features from that among the Continental peoples,—consequential for the purposes of this inquiry, whether of similarly grave consequence from the point of view given by any other and larger interest. These peculiar traits of the British era of handicraft yield a side light on the methods and reach of the handicraft discipline as a factor in civilisation at large, at the same time that a consideration of them should go to show how slender an initial difference may come to be decisive of the outcome in case circumstances give this initial difference a cumulative effect.


As regards the ultimately substantial grounds of the British situation, in the way of racial make-up, natural resources, and cultural antecedents, the British community has no singular advantage or disadvantage as against its Continental competitors. What is true of England in respect of peculiarly favourable natural resources later on, about and after the close of the era of handicraft, does not hold for the beginnings or the best days of that era. Racially there is no appreciable difference between the English population of that time and the population of the Low Countries, of the Scandinavian peninsulas, or even of the nearer lying German territories; and no markedly characteristic national type of temperament had at that time been developed in Great Britain, as against the temperamental make-up of its Continental neighbours,—whatever may be conceived to have become the case in the nearer past.

 

The characteristic, and apparently decisive, peculiarities of the British situation may all confidently be traced to the insular position of the country. Owing to the isolation so given to the Island the British community was notably in arrears in early modern times, as contrasted with the more cultured, populous and wealthier peoples of the Continent; and this backward state of England in the earlier period of the era of handicraft is no less marked in respect of technology than in any other. As is well known, England borrowed extensively and persistently from its Continental neighbours throughout the era, and it was only by help of these borrowed elements that the English were able to overtake and finally to take the lead of their competitors. Similarly, the British commercial development also comes on late as compared with the Continent; so much so that the British had substantially no share in the great expansion of business enterprise that has been called the Age of the Fuggers. This late start of the English, coupled with their peculiar advantage in being able to borrow what their neighbours had worked out, conduced to a more rapid rate and shorter run of industrial advance and expansion in the Island, and so, among other consequences, hindered the rounded system of handicraft, industrial towns, and gild organisation from attaining the same degree of finality, and ultimately of obstructive inertia, that resulted in many of the Continental countries.


Again, owing to the same geographic isolation that long held England culturally in arrears, the English community lay, in great measure, outside of that political "concert of nations" that worked out the exhaustion and collapse of industry and business on the Continent.


Not that the English took no interest in the grand whirl of politics and princely war that occupied the main body of Christendom in that time. The English crown, or to use a foreign expression, the English State, was deeply enough implicated in the political intrigues of late mediaeval and early modern Europe; but as modern time has advanced the English community has visibly hung back with an ever growing reluctance. And whatever may be conceived to be the share of the English crown in the political complications of the Continent, it remains true that the English community at large, during the mature and concluding phases of the era of handicraft, stood mainly and habitually outside of these princely concerns.(**) In effect, after the handicraft era was well under way, England is never for long or primarily engaged in international war, nor, except for the civil war of the Commonwealth period, in destructive war of any kind. Hence the era runs to a different outcome in England from what it does elsewhere. It ends not in the exhaustion of politics, but in the industrial revolution. The close of the handicraft system in England comes by way of a technological revolution, not by collapse.

 

______

**NOTE: The adventures of Charles I and James II sufficiently illustrate this insular temper of the industrial and commercial community as contrasted with the crown and the court party.

 

To this attempted explanation of the English case, as due to its geographic isolation, the objection may well suggest itself that other cases which parallel the British in this respect do not show like results. So, for instance, the Scandinavian countries enjoyed an isolation nearly if not quite as effective as that of Great Britain during this period of history; whereas the outcome in these countries is notoriously not the same. The Scandinavian case, however, differs in at least one essential respect, which seems decisive even apart from secondary circumstances. These countries were too small to make up a self-supporting community under the conditions required by the system of handicraft. They had neither the population nor the natural resources on such a scale as a passably full development of the handicraft system required. At any advanced stage of its growth the system can work out into a self-balanced technological organisation, with full specialisation of labour and local differentiation of industry, only in a community of a certain (considerable) size. This condition was not met by the Scandinavian countries. Hence they remained in a relatively backward state, on the whole, through the handicraft era, and never reached anything like an 252 The Instinct of Workmanship independent position in the industrial world of that time, either technologically or in point of commercial development; hence also they failed to achieve or maintain that degree of independence, or isolation, in their political relations that left England free to pursue a self-directed course of material development.


At an earlier period, as, for instance, from Neolithic times down to the close of paganism, under the slighter, less differentiated, less complex technological conditions of a more primitive state of the industrial arts, the Scandinavian countries had, each and several, proved large enough for a very efficient industrial organisation; and, again, during the early historical period they had also proved to be of a sufficient and suitable size to make up national units of a thoroughly competent sort, autonomous politically as well as industrially and working out their own fortunes in severalty, —very much as the British community does later on, in the days of the later handicraft era and the early growth of the machine industry. But during the era of handicraft, and indeed somewhat in a progressive fashion as the technology of that era grew to a fuller development and required larger territorial dimensions, the Scandinavian countries lost ground, relatively to the larger communities of Great Britain and the Continent; in a degree they progressively lost autonomy both in the political and the industrial respect, and much the same is to be said for their position in point of general culture. This falling into arrears and dependence is least marked in the case of Sweden, the largest and still passably isolated community among them; and it is most marked in the case of Norway and Iceland, the most isolated but at the same time the least sizable units of the Scandinavian group. In material sciences, that most characteristic trait of the Western culture, the case of these peoples is much the same as in the matter of technology and cultural autonomy at large; the largest of them has the most to show.


Great Britain, on the other hand, fulfilled the conditions of size and isolation demanded in order to a free development of the industrial arts during this era, when the traffic in dynastic politics stood ready to absorb all accessible resources of industry and sentiment. And England accordingly takes the lead when the era of handicraft goes out and that of the new technology comes in.(pp.231-253)

 

 

Veblen continues his description of the state of handicraft industry by looking at the discipline of skilled labor that developed in this period and how it came to permeate the entire culture of the pre-machine era.  

 

What is known to economic history as the era of handicraft is for the purposes of the political historian spoken of as the era of statemaking. The two designations may not cover precisely the same interval, but they coincide in a general way in point of dates, and the phenomena which have given rise to the two designations have much more than an accidental connection. It is not simply that the development of handicraft happens to fall in the same general period of history that is characterised by the dynastic wars that went to the making of the larger states. The growth of handicraft had much to do with making the large states practicable and with supplying the material means of large-scale warfare; while the traffic of dynastic politics in that time had in its turn very much to do with bringing that era of industrial and commercial enterprise to an inglorious close. The new industry supplied the sinews of war, and the wars ate up the substance of the industrial community.


The new industry gave rise to a growth of industrial towns and commercial centres, primarily occupied by the traffic of the itinerant traders. One of the immediate consequences of this extension of merchandising enterprise was the improvement of means of communication, both in the way of an extension and improvement of shipping—itself a technological fact—and in the way of improved routes of communication. A secondary consequence was a growth of population, coupled with its concentration in urban centres, together with a growth of wealth, in good part drawn together in the same centres.


These changes enabled the powers in control to extend an effectual coercion over larger distances and over larger aggregations of population and wealth; it became practicable, mechanically, to swing a larger political aggregation and to hold it together in closer coordination than before. The physical conditions requisite to the formation and enduring maintenance of large political organisations were in this way supplied by the new industrial era as an incidental result of its technological efficiency.


More direct and obvious, though of no graver importance, is the contribution made by the new technology to the means of coercion placed at the disposal of the warlords, in the way of improved weapons and armour, defences and warlike appliances. The improvements worked out in the means of warfare during the early half of the era of handicraft exceed in material effect and in boldness of conception all the traceable improvements wrought in that line by all the warlike peoples of classical antiquity and all the fighting aggregations of Asia and Africa, from the beginning of the bronze age down to modern times. The craftsmen spent their best endeavours and their most brilliant ingenuity on this production of arms and munitions, with the result that these articles still lie over in the modern collections as the most finished productions of workmanship which that era has to show. The (unintended) result at large was that these improved appliances enabled the warlords and their fighting men to control the industrial classes for their own ends and to levy exactions on trade and industry up to the limit of what the traffic would bear, or perhaps more commonly somewhat over that limit. It was, in this way, their own technological mastery that furnished the means of their own undoing, directly (mechanically speaking) and indirectly (in the resulting growth of warlike sentiment).


That the craftsmen went so diligently into this production of ways and means for their own discomfort and abiding defeat is due not to any innately perverse bent of the sense of workmanship as it comes to expression in the spirit of the handicraft community, but rather to
the exigencies created by the price system, with its principles of self-help,—a secondary, conventional product of the handicraft industry. As has been noted already, with perhaps tedious iteration, there runs through the handicraft community a high-wrought spirit of individual self-sufficiency. So soon as the petty trade has grown to effective dimensions the individual workman comes into somewhat direct relations with the market, and except for the collective interest and action embodied in the gild organisations the craftsmen stand in little else than a pecuniary relation to one another and bear little else than a pecuniary responsibility to their fellow craftsmen or to the community. It is the place of each to gain a livelihood by honest work through his own individual skill and enterprise. Notoriously, the craftsmen were in effect lacking in that sense of solidarity that makes an efficient organisation for defence or offence; concerted action, outside the regulative activity of the gild, was to be had only with extreme difficulty on any other basis than individual pecuniary advantage.


Each worked for himself, with an eye steadily to the main chance. And the main chance, from an early date in this era, meant gain in terms of price. So the craftsman worked for such customers as would pay his price, and he spent his skill and ingenuity on such goods as were in demand. The trade in arms and weapons was good at that time. These appliances were a means of livelihood to the men at arms and a means of income and prestige to their princely employers. So the traffic went busily on, and the individual craftsmen put forth their best efforts toward enhancing the efficiency of the ruling and fighting classes, whose endeavours, without much collusion but by the inevitable drift of circumstance, converged on the subjection of the community of craftsmen at large and on the exhaustion of the community's resources.


Through its side issue in the commercial enterprise which it fostered the handicraft industry brought to the hands of the politicians a further means of trouble. The trade brought on the price system, and so made it possible for ambitious princes to buy what they needed in their warlike negotiations; with funds in hand stores and munitions could be bought where they were needed, so enabling warlike operations to be carried on with greater facility at a greater distance than was feasible under the earlier rule of contributions in kind. The price system also enabled the warlords to hire mercenaries, and so to organise and maintain a standing force of skilled fighting men, mobile and irresponsible. But to hold one's own in the competitive use of this new arm the prince must have funds; which led incontinently to all available manner of exactions on trade and commerce, since it was from these sources almost solely that funds could be had. But it led also and equally to an increasing traffic between the princes and the captains of industry, for the use of funds. Funds had become the sinews of war, since the handicraft industry had come to turn out goods for sale and the merchandising trade had made funds accessible in sufficient volume to be worthwhile. So the princes dealt with the captains of industry, selling what they could and hypothecating what they could not sell, in a competitive struggle to outdo one another at war and diplomacy. The game was then as always an emulative one, in which any advantage was a differential advantage only. Hence the princes engaged, each and several, needed all the funds they could get the use of, and their need was ever present, not to be deferred. Hence they borrowed what they could and where they could, their borrowings being floated by the help of all manner of expedients. Some of these fiscal expedients brought monopolistic advantage to the captains of industry, and so contributed to their further gain and to the concentration of wealth in fewer hands.
Meantime, the princely chancelries, being in debt as far as possible, extorted further loans from the captains by seizure and by threats of bankruptcy; and whatever was borrowed was expeditiously used up in the destruction of property, population, industrial plant and international commerce. So, when all available resources of revenue and credit, present and prospective, had been exhausted, and all the accessible material had been consumed, the princely fisc went into bankruptcy, followed by its creditors, the captains of industry, followed by the business community at large with whose funds they had operated and by the industrial community, whose stock of goods and appliances was exhausted, whose trade connections were broken and whose working population had been debauched, scattered and reduced to poverty and subjection by the wars, revenue collectors and forced contributions. Meantime, too, habituation to the sentiments, ideals, standards and manner of life suitable to a state of predation had swamped the handicraft spirit and put abnegation and dependence on arbitrary power in the place of that initiative and pertinacious self-reliance that had made the era of handicraft. It was from this eventuality that England in great measure escaped by favour of her insular position and the inability of her princes to draw a reluctant industrial community into the traffic of dynastic intrigue that filled the Continent.


It will have been remarked that one of the essential moves in this sequence of events, from the beginnings of handicraft in impecunious and self-reliant workmanship to its eventual collapse in exhaustion, is the gradual accumulation of commercial and industrial wealth in relatively few hands. This accumulation of wealth, or rather its segregation in few hands, appears, as already indicated, to have entered as a potent factor in the course of things that lead the system of handicraft through maturity to collapse, as on the Continent, or to decay, as in England. It will accordingly be in place to go somewhat more narrowly into the circumstances of its beginnings and growth and the manner in which it
plays its part in the organisation of the handicraft industry.


It appears that this uneven distribution of wealth arises out of the technological exigencies of handicraft and of the petty trade which characteristically runs along with the handicraft industry in its early stages. In its earliest, impecunious beginnings, handicraft as known in medieval Europe was like its congener, the manual arts of the savage and lower barbarian peoples, in that the whole material equipment requisite to its pursuit consisted of a skilled workman and an extremely slender kit of tools. The tradition countenanced by historical students says that the beginnings of the handicraft system, with its specialised industry and trained workmanship, is due to such workmen, possessed of substantially nothing but their own persons, who escaped in one way and another from the bonds of the manorial system, or its equivalent, and found shelter on sufferance near some feudal protector or religious corporation that found some advantage in this novel arrangement.

On looking into this inchoate working arrangement between these masterless workmen and their patrons, and generalising the run of facts as may be permitted an inquiry that aims at theoretical presentation rather than historical description, the probable causal relation running through these obscure events will appear somewhat as follows. It happened in Europe, as it has happened now and again elsewhere, that the ownership of the soil in advanced feudal times took shape as a Landed Interest living at peace and under settled relations with the community from which they drew their livelihood and their means of controlling the community. Under these circumstances there grew up an ever-widening industrial system, under manorial auspices, in which the foremost place is taken by the mechanic arts, in the way of specialised crafts and mechanical processes and appliances. The tranquil conditions that prevail under such a settled, pacific or sub-predatory scheme of control bring out an increased volume of consumable products, particularly since these same settled conditions admit a larger and more economical use of all industrial appliances. The immediate consequence is that an increased net product accrues to the propertied class; which calls them to an intensified consumption of goods; which requires increased elaboration and diversity of products; which calls for an increasing diversity and volume of appliances and more prolonged and elaborate technological processes. The needs of the propertied class, particularly in the way of superfluities, reach such a degree of diversity that it is no longer practicable to supply these needs by specialised work within the industrial framework of the manor or its equivalent. The itinerant trade comes in to help out in this difficult passage by bringing exotic luxuries, curious articles of great price; but that is not sufficient to cover the requirements of the case, since there is much needed work of elaboration that cannot be taken care of by way of an importation of finished goods.

Here comes the opportunity of the skilled masterless workman. The growth of wealth has provided a place for him in the economy of the time, and having once got a foothold he and his followers congregate in industrial towns and find a living by the work of their hands. The point should be kept in mind in any consideration of the era of handicraft that its beginnings are made by these "masterless men,'' who broke away (or were broken out) from the bonds of that organisation in which the arbitrary power of the landed interest held dominion.

By tenacious assertion of the personal rights which they so arrogated to themselves, and at great cost and risk, they made good in time their claim to stand as a class apart, a class of ungraded free men among whom self- help and individual workmanlike efficiency were the accepted grounds of repute and of livelihood. This tradition never dies out among the organised craftsmen until the industrial system which had so been inaugurated went under in the turmoil of politics and finance or was supplanted by the machine era that grew out of it. With this class-tradition of initiative and democratic autonomy is associated, as an integral fact in the system, the concomitant tradition that work is a means of livelihood.

In these early phases of the system the individual workman is (typically) competent to work out his livelihood with the use of such a slight equipment of tools as could readily be acquired in the course of his employment. In great part, indeed, the craftsman of the early days made his tools and appliances as he went along.


But it follows necessarily that further training in the skilled manipulations of the crafts led to the use of improved and specialised tools as well as to the use of larger appliances useful in the technological processes employed, such as could scarcely be called tools in the simpler sense of the word but would rather be classed as industrial plant. With the advance of technology the immaterial equipment so requisite to the pursuit of industry in the crafts increases in volume, cost and elaboration, and the processes of industry grow extensive and complex; until it presently becomes a matter of serious difficulty for any workman single-handed to supply the complement of tools, appliances and materials with which his work is to be done. It then also becomes a matter of some moment to own such wealth.

As under any earlier and simpler industrial regime, so in this early advanced phase of the handicraft system the workman must also have command of that immaterial equipment of technological information at large that is current in the community, in so far as it affects his particular occupation; and he must in addition acquire the special trained skill necessary in his own branch of craft. The former he will, at that stage of technological growth, still come by without particular deliberate application, in the ordinary routine of life; it is made up of general information and familiarity with current ways of doing, simply, and on the level of general information which then prevailed no special training or schooling seems to have been needed to place the young man abreast of his time. In other words, the common stock of technological knowledge had not by that time grown so unwieldy as to require special pains to assimilate it. As for the latter, the special skill which would make him a craftsman, that was also accessible at the cost of some application; but under the rules of handicraft the early apprentice gained this trained skill at no cost beyond application to the work in hand. But the like does not continue to hold true of the material equipment; which presently was no longer to be compassed as a matter of course and of routine application to the work in hand. It was becoming increasingly important and increasingly difficult to be provided with these means with which to go to work, and the ownership of such means gave an increasingly decisive advantage to their owner.(pp. 268-278)

 

 

Veblen goes on to explain how specific material conditions in this era of handicraft gave rise to the universal notion of human rights, due to the pervasive influence that the life style of independent skilled craftsman had on the general culture.

 

The circumstances of life for the common man underwent more than one substantial change during the era of handicraft, and these changes were not all in the same sense. The dominant note changes from workmanship in the earlier phases of the era to pecuniary competition and political anxiety toward the close, particularly as regards the industrial communities of the Continent. The era is a long period of history, all told, running over some five or six centuries, from an advanced stage of the feudal age to the eighteenth century, or to various earlier dates in those countries where the handicraft system came to a provisional close in the era of statemaking; and the discipline of life does not run to the same effect in the earlier of these phases of the development as in the later. Not that handicraft ceased to be the prevailing method in the mechanical industries of these countries when the reaction overtook them, but the technological advance had been seriously checked, and such handicraft industry as still went on had ceased to dominate the economic situation and no longer held the primacy among the factors that shaped the life of the communities in question. Its place as a dominant force was taken by the new political interests and by such commercial enterprise as still went on.

But through the centuries of its earlier growth the handicraft industry, simply as a routine of workmanship, shaped the conditions of Hfe for the common people more pervasively and consistently than any other one factor. Its discipline, therefore, was of protracted duration and touched the current habits of thought in an intimate and enduring fashion; so as to leave a large and enduring effect on the institutions of the peoples among whom it prevailed. The English-speaking community shows these effects in a larger measure and a more evident manner than any other,—visible only in a less degree in the Low Countries, and more equivocally in the Scandinavian countries. These peoples had not been subjected to the handicraft discipline for a longer time or in a more exacting fashion than their Continental neighbours, but they had on the other hand escaped the full measure of the political activity of the era of statemaking that did so much to neutralise the effects of the handicraft system in the larger Continental countries.


Something has been said above of the way in which the discipline of life under the rule of handicraft shaped and coloured men's thinking in those materialistic sciences whose early growth runs parallel with the technological advance in modern times. It has also been evident that this training in the manner of conceiving things for the purposes of technology wrought certain broad changes in the theological and philosophical conceptions that guided the inquiring spirits of the same and subsequent generations. This effect wrought by the routine of life under the handicraft system on scientific and philosophical conceptions is of a very pervasive character, being of the nature of an habitual bent, an attitude or frame of mind, whose characteristic mark is the acceptance of creative workmanship as a finality. It became an element of common sense in the apprehension of thoughtful men whose frame of mind was formed under the traditions of that era that creative workmanship is an ultimate, irreducible factor in the constitution of things, accepted as a matter of course and used unsparingly and with ever-growing conviction as a terminus a quo and ad quem.(**)

 

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 **NOTE: Seen, as indicated above, in the matter-of-course resort of the scientists to the conception of efficient cause as a solvent of problems touching material phenomena, as well as in the theologians' and philosophers’ resistless drift toward creative efficiency as the ultimate term of their speculations.


Creative workmanship, fortified in ever-growing measure by the conception of serviceability to human use, works its way gradually into the central place in the theoretical speculations of the time, so that by the close of the era it dominates all intellectual enterprise in the thoughtful portions of Christendom. Hence it becomes not only the instrument of inquiry in the sciences, but a major premise in all work of innovation and reconstruction of the scheme of institutions. In that extensive revision of the institutional framework that characterises modern times it is the life of the common people, their rights and obligations, that is forever in view, and their life is conceived in terms of craftsmanlike industry and the petty trade. By and large, the outcome of this revision of civil and legal matters under handicraft auspices is the system of Natural Rights, including the concept of Natural Liberty. The whole scheme so worked out is manifestly of the same piece with that Order of Nature and Natural Law that dominated the inquiries of the scientists and the speculations of the philosophers.

 

. . .

The scheme of Natural Rights, and of Natural Liberty, which so emerges is of a pronounced individualistic tenor, as it should be to answer to the scheme of experience embodied in the system of handicraft. In the crafts, particularly during the protracted early phases of the system, it is the individual workman, working for a livelihood by use of his own personal force, dexterity and diligence, that stands out as the main fact; so much so, indeed, that he appears to have stood, in the apprehension of his time, as the sole substantial factor in the industrial organisation. Similarly under the canon of Natural Liberty the individual is thrown on his own devices for his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The craftsman by immemorial custom traditionally disposed of his work and its product as he chose, under the rules of his gild. He was by prescription in full possession of what he made, subject only to the gild regulations imposed for the good of his neighbours who were similarly placed. The most sacred right included in the scheme of Natural Rights is that of property in whatever wealth has been honestly acquired, subject only to the qualification that it must not be turned to the detriment of one's fellows. In the days of the typical handicraft system the petty trade runs along with the handicraft industry, in such a way that every master craftsman is more or less of a trader, disposing of his goods or services in plenary discretion, and even the apprentices and journeymen similarly bargain for their terms of work and at times for the disposal of their product; while the professional itinerant trader is a member of this industrial community on much the same footing as the craftsmen proper. So it is a secure item in the scheme of Natural Rights that all persons not under tutelage have an indefeasible right to dispose by purchase and sale not only of products of their own hands but of whatever items they have come by through alienation by its producer or lawful owner. And ownership is in natural-rights theory always to be traced back to the creative workmanship of its first possessor.

In the sequel this natural right freely to dispose of one's person and work, when it had found lodgment among the principles of civil rights in the eighteenth century, contributed substantially to the dissolution of that organ of surveillance and control that the craftsmen of an earlier generation had instituted in the gild system. The case is but an instance of what is continually happening and bound to happen in the field of institutional growth. Institutional principles, such as this item of civil rights, emerge from use and wont, resulting as a settled line of convention from usage and custom that grow out of the exigencies of life at the time. But use and wont is a matter of time. It takes time for habituation to attain that secure degree of conventional recognition and authenticity that will enable it to stand as an indefeasible principle of conduct, and by the time this consummation is achieved it commonly happens that the exigencies which enforced the given line of use and wont have ceased to be operative, or at least to be so imperative as in their earlier incidence. The control which the gilds were initially designed to exercise was a control that should leave the gildsmen free in the pursuit of their work, subject only to a salutary surveillance and standardisation of the output, such as would maintain the prestige of their workmanship and facilitate the disposal of the goods produced. The initial purpose seems, in modern phrase, to have been a creation of intangible assets for the benefits of the body of gildmen. Under the new conditions that came to prevail when capitalistic management took over the direction of industry these gild regulations no longer served their purpose, but they seem on the contrary to have become an obstacle to the free employment of skilled workmen.


A similar fortune was about the same time beginning to overtake this principle of Natural Liberty itself, and that even in the particular bearing which seems at the outset to have been its primary and most substantial aim. Initially, it seems, the point of interest, and indeed of contention, was the freedom of the masterless workman to dispose of his person and workmanship as he saw fit and as he best could and would,—to take care of his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness without let or hindrance from persons vested with authority or prerogative. With the passage of time, use and wont erected this conventional rule into an inalienable right. But included with it, as an integral extension of the powers which this inalienable right safeguarded, was the right of purchase and sale, touching both work and its product, the right freely to hold and dispose of property. Presently, toward the close of the handicraft era, or more specifically in the late eighteenth century in England, industry fell under capitalistic management. When this change had taken passably full effect the workman was already secure in his civil (natural) right to dispose of his workmanship as he thought best, but the circumstances of employment under capitalistic management made it impossible for him in fact to dispose of his work except to these employers, and very much on their terms, or to dispose of his person except where the exigencies of their business might require him. And the similarly inalienable right of ownership, which had similarly emerged from use and wont under the handicraft system, but which now in effect secured the capitalist-employer in his control of the material means of industry,—this sacred right of property now barred out any move that might be designed to reinstate the workman in his effective freedom to work as he chose or to dispose of his person and product as he saw fit.(pp.283-290)

 

 

Where the handicraft economy developed undisturbed by the feudal remnants of dynastic wars, a class consciousness arose which successfully resisted the fragmentation of society into survival entities to be used at the caprice of large landowners.

 

The Natural Rights which so found authentication at the hands of the jurists were of the individualistic kind which the discipline of the handicraft system had inculcated, and the authentication found in the jus naturale does not range much beyond the individualistic bounds so prescribed, nor are other Hues of ancient prescription, at variance with these rights, brought at all prominently into the light by the legal inquiries of the jurists. Whereas it is no matter of serious question that the chief bearing of the ancient findings embodied in the code is not of this individualistic character. The causes which brought on the modern acceptance of this scheme of Natural Rights are a matter of use and wont,
quite distinct from that line of argument by which the jurists established them on grounds of sufficient reason resting on ancient prescription.


The extreme tenacity of life shown by the system of Natural Eights may raise a reasonable doubt as to the adequacy of any account that assigns their derivation to the discipline of use and wont peculiar to any particular cultural era, even when the era in question is of so consistent a character and such protracted duration as the era of handicraft. What adds force to such a question is the fact that something like these preconceptions of natural right is not uncommon in the lower cultures. So that on the face of the returns there appears to be good ground in the nature of things for designating these conventional rights "natural." Something of the kind is current in an obvious fashion among the peaceable communities on the lower levels of culture, among whom the scheme of accepted rights and obligations bears more than a distant resemblance to the Natural Rights

of the eighteenth century. But something of the kind will also be found among peoples on a higher level, both peaceable and predatory; though departing more notably in point of contents from the eighteenth-century system. The point of similarity, or of identity, among all these systems of conventionally fundamental and eternal human rights is to be found in their intrinsic sanction they are all and several right and good as a matter of course and of common sense; the point of divergence or dissimilarity is to be found in the contents of the code, which are not nearly the same in all cases. In the mediaeval natural common-sense scheme of rights, prerogative, personal and class exemption, is of the essence of the canon; but the scheme is none the less intrinsically mandatory on those who had been bred into a matter-of-course acceptance of it by the routine of life in that age. Differential rights, duties and privilege give the point of departure in this mediaeval system of civil relations; whereas in the system worked out under the auspices of the handicraft industry the denial of differential advantage, whether class or individual, is the beginning of wisdom and the substance of common sense as applied to civil relations. The one of these schemes comes out of an economic situation drawn on hues of predation, ancient, prescriptive and settled, and its first principle is that of master and servant; the other comes of a situation grounded in workmanlike efficiency, and its first principle is that of an equitable livelihood for work done.


That some of the working systems of civil rights in customary force among the peaceable communities of the lower culture have more in common with modern Natural Rights than this mediaeval scheme, should logically be due to a similarity in the conditions of life out of which they have arisen. In these savage or lower barbarian communities, too, the principle of organization is work for a livelihood, and the conventional ground of economic relations is that of workmanship, as it is under the early handicraft system; but with the difference that whereas the technology of handicraft throws the skilled workman into perspective as a self-sufficient individual, and so throws self-help into the foreground as the principle of economic equity, among these savages and lower barbarians living by means of a technology of a less highly specialised character, with a material situation not admitting of the same degree of severalty in work or livelihood, the prime requisite in the relations governing the rights and duties of the members of the group is not the individual livelihood of the skilled workman but that of the group at large. The individual's personal claims come in only as secondary and subservient to the needs of the group at large; rights of ownership are loose and vague, and they lack that tenacity of life that characterises the like rights under the handicraft system. It is true, the product of industry belongs primarily to the producer of it, it is his in some sense that might pass into ownership if the technological situation admitted of work for a livelihood in strict and consistent severalty; but in the actual case as found on these lower levels the product commonly escapes somewhat easily from his individual possession and comes to inure to the use of the group. Except for such articles as continue to pertain to him by virtue of intimate and daily use, the producer's possessive control of his product is likely at the best to be transient and dubious, readily giving way before any urgent call for its use by other members of the group. (**)

 

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** NOTE: Illustrative instances of such a customary code of "natural" rights
and obligations are numerous in the late literature of ethnology. Good
illustrations are afforded by various papers in the Reports of the Am.
Bureau of Ethnology, on the culture of the Pueblos, Eskimo, and the
Indians of the North-West Coast; so also in Skeat and Blagden, Pagan
Races of the Malay Peninsula, or in Seligmann, The Veddas.


A fact of some incisive effect in this connection is doubtless the characteristic trait of handicraft that, in its early phases wholly and obviously and in its later development also somewhat evidently, it was the affair of a class; whereas in the savage communities with which it is here compared, the technology and the livelihood in question are those of the community at large, not of a class that stands in contrast and in some degree of competition with the community at large. The craftsmen were a fraction of the community by work for whose needs they got their livelihood, even though, in the course of time, they became the dominant element within the local community (municipality) whose fortunes they shared. And as between this fraction of the population and outside classes with whom they carried on their traffic, particularly the well-to-do and land-holding classes, there could be no constraining sense of a solidarity of interest. The ancient bond of master and servant had been broken by something like an overt act of class secession on the part of the craftsmen, and nothing like a bond of fellowship had taken its place. The fellowship ran within the lines of craftsmanship, while the traffic of each craftsman typically ran across the line that divided the craftsman from the old order and population outside of this industrial system.

That the eighteenth-century system of Natural Rights shows such a degree of approximation to the scheme of rights and obligations observed among many primitive peoples need flutter no one's sense of cultural consistency. Return to Nature was more or less of a password in the closing period of the era of handicraft and after, and in respect of this system of civil relations it appears that the popular attitude of that time was in effect something of a reversion to primitive habits of thought; though it was at best a partial return to a "state of nature" in the sense of a state of peace and industry rather than a return to the unsophisticated beginnings of society. That such a partial reversion takes effect in the habits of thought of the time appears to be due to a similarly partial return to somewhat analogous habits of life. The correspondence in the habits of thought is no greater than that in the habits of life out of which these habits of thought emerged. The primitive peoples that show this suggestive resemblance to the system of Natural Rights typically are living under a routine of workmanship and in a state of habitual peace,—in these respects being placed somewhat similarly to the handicraft community. The handicraft system comes true to the same characterisation in so far that it was dominated by a routine of workmanship and so far as, in effect, its life-history falls in an era of prevailingly peaceable conditions; and such a characterisation holds true of the industrial community proper through the period during which handicraft is the ruling factor in the community's habitual range of interest. It is not that the era of handicraft was an era of reversion to savagery, but only that the tone-giving factor in the community of that time reverted, by force of the state of the industrial arts, to habits of peace and industry, in which direct and detailed manual work takes a leading place. There is also the further point of economic contact with the savage state that in the handicraft community distinctions of wealth are neither large nor of decisive consequence during the long period of habituation that brought the preconceptions of that era into the settled shape that gave them the character of a finished and balanced system of principles.

It may be added, at the risk of tedious repetition, that the habits of life characteristic of the era, as well as the frame of mind suited to this characteristic routine of life, seem peculiarly suited to the native endowment of the European peoples,—perhaps in an especial degree suited to the native bent of those sections of the population in which there is an appreciable admixture of the dolicho-blond stock. That such may be the case is at least strongly suggested by the tenacious hold which this system of Rights apparently still has on the sentimental allegiance of these Western peoples, after the conditions to which these Rights owe their rise, and to which they are suited, have in the main ceased to exist; as well as by the somewhat blind fervour with which these peoples, and more especially the English-speaking section of them, go about the idyllic enterprise of rehabilitating that obsolescent "competitive system" that embodied the system of Natural Rights, and that came up with the era of handicraft and went under in its dissolution.(pp.293-298)

 

With the demise of the Era of Handicraft, humankind was increasingly faced according to Veblen with a solemn truism:

“Invention is the mother of Necessity.”

 

 

 

The following 21+ items are articles and essays circulating this week in the Anglophone social media, bringing new perspectives to current events as they are reported and/or censored in the corporate 4-profit media.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

Francis McCollum Feeley

___________

Professeur honoraire de l'Université Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur des Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
http://www.ceimsa.org

 

a.

 “The Sickness of ‘Artificial Intelligence’? The System”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62Dyy3DVm8

with RJ Eskow and Richard Wolff

(33:16)

 

+

“France's Working Class Is Challenging Western Capitalism”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyoxYFF12gY

with Richard Wolff

(9:02)

 

+

“Is Europe a vassal of the US?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyO2lmGq0_U

with Yanis Varoufakis, Julijana Zita, and Erik Edman

(1:04:26)

   

===========

b.

Assange: “The Truth They've Been Hiding from You”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl8XIr5vxhM

with Naomi Brockwell

(24:23)

Julian Assange, creator of Wikileaks, is an activist who has dedicated his life to exposing the lies and corruption of some of the most powerful governments on earth. He’s been honored with countless prestigious journalism awards, yet he languishes in prison under horrendous conditions, vilified as an enemy of the state. It’s hard for the average person to know what to think about Assange, because for over a decade his actions have been shrouded in a fog of conflicting narratives and media portrayals -- That is by design. In this video we’ll expose 6 lies about Assange that have been deliberately used to distract us from what is one of the most important precedent-setting cases for freedom of speech of our generation. If there’s one thing you should take away from this, it’s that most of what you think you know about Assange is false.

 

+

Time Must Not be Allowed to Run Out on Julian Assange

https://www.globalresearch.ca/time-mustnt-allowed-run-out-julian-assange/5816764

by Kim Petersen

Review of Guilty of Journalism by Kevin Gosztola

Despite whatever charges Julian Assange may be accused of, it is well known that the WikiLeaks publisher was targeted for exposing the war crimes of the US government. In an upside-down Bizarro World, the screws are being ever so gradually tightened on Assange by the war criminals and their criminal accomplices. It is, in fact, a slow-motion assassination being played out before the open and closed eyes of the world. — “The Slow-motion Assassination of Julian Assange

The above was written in 2020. Little has changed. In the foreword to Guilty of Journalism by Kevin Gosztola, American journalist Abby Martin writes, “Assange was only publishing the leaks. He never committed any crime. He only published evidence of the crimes.” (p xiii)

Assange’s “crime” is exposing the crimes of the US; especially revelatory was the Collateral Murder video where US troops in an Apache helicopter gleefully gunned dead 12 civilians on a street in New Baghdad. The murderers remain scot-free. For exposing war crimes, Assange and Chelsea Manning have been punished.

Kevin Gosztola who has followed much of the judicial proceedings against Manning and Assange presents his knowledge of the cases, in particular that of Assange, in Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange (Seven Stories Press, 2023).

What is readily apparent is that the releases by WikiLeaks triggered a tsunamic vendetta. This has resulted in a brazen miscarriage of justice manipulated by a red-faced United States with the connivance of allied nation states such as Australia; Sweden; Britain; after a change of presidents, Ecuador; and the bystander nations of the world.

The US seeks to try Assange under the Espionage Act, a relic from WWI designed to control the release of information (see chapter 4). Yet, such a prosecution of Assange is hampered by the US Constitution, as the First Amendment protects the freedom of the press. Prosecuting a publisher/journalist would entail grave implications for journalism and publishing in the US.

The book’s title, Guilty of Journalism, is apt. It speaks to the legal perturbations to eliminate a perceived threat to the US’s full-spectrum hegemony. For a hegemon to operate unhindered, it must control the medium and its messages. Thus, the US asserts that Assange is not a journalist, this despite Assange being recognized as a journalist by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, being a member of the International Federation of Journalists, being published in several media around the world, and having been awarded several prizes for his journalism. It is akin to blithely stating someone is not a lawyer despite having a law degree from a recognized law school, having passed the bar exam, having worked as a lawyer for several years, and having been celebrated for her accomplishments as a lawyer. It is patently a non sequitur to reject evidence purely on someone’s say-so.

See also: “Wiki-Gate”: Julian Assange Was Framed by the People Who Supported Him

 

===========

c.

“Democrats Threaten Journalist Matt Taibbi With Prison Over Twitter Files!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03-L4hl5LBY&feature=youtu.be

with Aaron Maté and Matt Taibbi

(23:09)

 

+

“MSNBC Host’s Lie Could Send Journalist to Prison!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWNh03Ma1SA&t=27s

with Aaron Maté and Matt Taibbi

(16:55)

 

+

“The Ministry of New Normal Truth”

https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/the-ministry-of-new-normal-truth?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by CJ Hopkins

Back in May of 2021, Matt Taibbi interviewed me for his Meet the Censored series. We talked about how critics of the official Covid narrative were being censored by global corporations like Twitter and Facebook. I got into my "GloboCap" shtick a little, but, all in all, it was pretty tame stuff.

How far we have come over these last two years!

Today, Matt Taibbi is being threatened with imprisonment by elements of the US government for reporting on what he and Michael Shellenberger have been calling "The Censorship Industrial Complex." My social media accounts are dead. I have been visibility-filtered into Internet oblivion by Twitter — yes, Musk's "free speech Twitter" — and Facebook, ingeniously buried by Google, disappeared by YouTube, and Amazon has banned my latest book in several countries.

Reporting on how US Intelligence agencies and members of the Biden administration apparently conspired to deceive the public and interfere in the 2020 US elections, and how the corporate media collaborated with them and are burying the story now, Matt offers the following sobering observation ... "An all-time media blackout is in effect. We’re experiencing real-time Sovietization."

 

===========

c.

PsyWars: “Introducing 5th-Gen Warfare: Terms and Tactics”

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/psywars?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Robert W Malone MD, MS

The 21st Century Battlefield.

Congratulations. You and the rest of the world have managed to survive the largest, most globally coordinated psychological warfare operation in the history of mankind: the COVIDcrisis. During this period, on a daily basis, we had to experience the US Government and many western nations deploying highly refined, military-grade fifth generation warfare technologies and PsyWar weapons against their own citizens. For those who avoided the genetic vaccine jabs, which are now proven to be neither safe nor effective in preventing infection, replication, or spread of SARS-CoV-2, and do not prevent disease or death attributed to COVID-19 disease, you deserve a medal for your ability to see through the fog of information warfare. For those, like me, who trusted the FDA and took the initial jabs only to suffer the adverse effects of same, perhaps a purple heart for being wounded in battle is in order. For the millions of battlefield dead, the excess mortality documented by Ed Dowd and so many others, a moment of silent mourning is in order. Then there are the countless children, who have endured masking and social distancing in school for years on end. How do they recover developmentally? How do we ensure that this never happens again?

This essay focuses on how to stop the military grade psyops from happening on a global or even national scale in the future. Or at the very least, how to learn to not be a target of these techniques and to be able to use them yourself to fight back “against the machine”. Because governments are currently planning for the next “pandemic” (“Plandemic?”) and they have no intention of scaling back their weaponized public health policies, which are being used to control us all. And this control is not just limited to COVID-19 policies; the ability to control populations through the use of psy-ops and 5th-gen warfare is just too tempting for governments and international organizations (such as the United Nations and The World Economic Forum), to not deploy in the future. The use of military-grade PsyWar methods on civilian populations to alter election outcomes, to weaponize fear, and to influence or control (literally) all information, beliefs and emotions of civilian populations is just to lucrative and enticing for those who subscribe to the logic that the ends justify the means. 

So, what is fifth generation warfare and why does it matter?

 

+

“The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-global-pandemic-treaty-what-you-need-know/5779993

with James Corbett

The World Health Organization has already begun drafting a global pandemic treaty on pandemic preparedness.

What form will it take? What teeth will it have?

How will it further the globalists in cementing the biosecurity grid into place?

(See also: https://www.corbettreport.com/globaltreaty/)

 

+

“WHO new treaty”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkhjH2ySMUw

with Dr. John Campbell

(20:12)

 

+

The Most Dangerous International Treaty Ever Proposed

https://www.globalresearch.ca/most-dangerous-international-treaty-ever-proposed/5816940

by Molly Kingsley

Human history is a story of forgotten lessons. Despite the catastrophic collapse of European democracy in the 1930s, it appears that the tale of the twentieth century – in which citizens, cowed by existential threats, acquiesced in the rejection of liberty and truth in favour of obedience and propaganda, whilst allowing despotic leaders to seize ever more absolutist powers – is perilously close to being forgotten.

Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to the apparent nonchalance which has greeted two international legal agreements currently working their way through the World Health Organisation: a new pandemic treaty, and amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, both due to be put before the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, in May next year. 

As concerned scholars and jurists have detailed, these agreements threaten to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the WHO, national governments, and individuals.

They would hardwire into international law a top-down supranational approach to public health in which the WHO, acting in some cases via the sole discretion of one individual, its Director General (DG), would be empowered to impose sweeping, legally binding directions on member states and their citizens, ranging from mandating financial contributions by individual states; to requiring the manufacture and international sharing of vaccines and other health products; to requiring the surrender of intellectual property rights; overriding national safety approval processes for vaccines, gene-based therapies, medical devices and diagnostics; and imposing national, regional and global quarantines preventing citizens from traveling and mandating medical examinations and treatments. 

A global system for digital ‘health certificates’ for verification of vaccine status or test results would be routinised, and a bio-surveillance network whose purpose would be to identify viruses and variants of concern – and to monitor national compliance with WHO policy directives in the event of them – would be embedded and expanded.

For any of these sweeping powers to be invoked, there would be no requirement for an “actual” health emergency in which people are suffering measurable harm; instead it would be sufficient for the DG, acting on his or her discretion, to have identified the mere “potential” for such an event.

It is hard to overstate the impact of these proposals on Member States’ sovereignty, individual human rights, foundational principles of medical ethics, and child welfare. As currently drafted, these proposals would deny UK sovereignty and governmental autonomy over health and social policies and, through the indirect impacts of forced lockdowns and quarantines and because each Member State would be required to commit a staggering minimum of 5 percent of national health budgets and an as yet unspecified percentage of GDP towards the WHO’s pandemic prevention and response, also over critical aspects of economic policy.

The proposed new powers would cut across not only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They would signal a new watershed in our understanding of cornerstone human rights: an express amendment to the IHR deletes language currently reading “[t]he implementation of these Regulations shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons” to replace it with a nebulous confirmation that “[t]he implementation of these Regulations shall be based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence…”.

See also: WHO’s WHO: New Pandemic Preparedness, “Authoritarian Model”

 

+

WHO’s Worldwide Power Grab: Beware of the New International Health Regulation and Pandemic Treaty, a Health Tyranny Never Heard of Before in Human History

https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-worldwide-power-grab-beware-new-international-health-regulation-pandemic-treaty-health-tyranny-never-heard-before-human-history/5816746

by Peter Koenig with Dr. John Campbell

(20:12)

Mr. Andrew Bridgen, Member UK Parliament, slams the new WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) and Pandemic Treaty as an unheard-of Power Grab – robbing all 194 WHO, member countries, the entire world, of their sovereignty over national health issues.

The new IHR and the Pandemic Treaty would be transferring the authority to decide what is a pandemic and what deserves the status of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and literally how any matters of health ought to be treated – a limitless mandate of dictates – to the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO Director General may call an outright prohibition with punishment on using “WHO-banned” medication, even though proven effective. This is precisely what happened during COVID. Medical doctors and pharmacies were not allowed to prescribe, recommend, and sell medication that was effective against COVID, because WHO prohibited to do so.

This WHO power would be expanded as an International Law, or rather as a “rules-based order”, the new tyrannical term chosen by the elite, to circumvent literally any national and international laws.

Both the IHR and the Pandemic Treaty will be voted on by the upcoming World Health Assembly, from 21-30 May 2023. The vote is planned on 24 May 2023. A two-thirds majority is needed by the 194-member delegates to pass.

See this 20-min video of Mr. Andrew Bridgen, UK Member of Parliament, explaining to the UK Parliament why the new WHO IHR and Pandemic Treaty must be voted against.

 

+

Watch “This Is How They’re Going To CONTROL You!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouf6xhiPh-c&feature=youtu.be

with Jimmy Dore

(18:56)

 

+

“Senate full lab leak document”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XccISIi-yo

with Dr. John Campbell

(22:25)

 

+

“International COVID Summit III: Join or Support!”

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/international-covid-summit-iii-join?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Robert W Malone MD, MS

Testimony in the European Parliament, May 03, 2023

 

+

Russia revives Virus scam — right on cue

Russia’s COVID Nanny Anna Popova, back to her usual trickery

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/russia-revives-virus-scam-right-on?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Edward Slavsquat

WHO says "jump", Russian government asks: "how high?"

Russia is bracing for a wave of highly infectious Arcturus, the newest and trendiest “COVID subvariant”, Rospotrebnadzor chief Anna Popova announced on Thursday.

Fellow BRICS member India is currently experiencing an “intense” outbreak of this computer model, and Russia—which has already registered four confirmed cases!—should expect its own Arcturus surge by the end of May, Popova predicted.

A sharp uptick in hospitalizations is not anticipated, but just in case, Russia’s healthcare system is ready for “additional stress and overload,” she reassured the public.

Do ordinary Russians care at all about the Dreaded Virus? No. But the Russian government is dialing up the Virus Fear anyway—in perfect synchronization with the WHO’s decision to “upgrade” Arcturus to a “variant of interest”.

 

===========

d.

“Common cold symptoms”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdTQbiflYU

with Dr. John Campbemm

(15:16)

 

+

Birds Aren't Real, But Technocracy Is!

https://www.corbettreport.com/nwnw517/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

with James Corbett

(26:07)

 

+

Fear & loathing on the home front

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/fear-and-loathing-on-the-home-front?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Edward Slavsquat

Angry patriots, oligarch in-fighting, and a deluge of "security" measures

Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin published an article on April 14 in which he made the following claims:

·         “The strategic role of Bakhmut is not so great. Bakhmut is followed by Seversk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka and Chasov Yar … [T]he capture of Bakhmut itself will not ensure a short-term victory over Ukraine, the road to the Dnieper, or even the capture of Donbass.”

·         “The US does not need a quick war”. Washington wants to drag the conflict out as long as possible in order to destabilize Russia and “collapse [it] into many principalities”.

·         Russia’s Deep State, “a community of near-state elites that operate independently of the political leadership of the state”, is actively sabotaging the war effort.

·         To prevent the Deep State from making concessions to Washington, Russia should announce the successful completion of the “special military operation” and consolidate territorial gains.

To summarize: An oligarch who is spearheading Russia’s only discernable offensive in Ukraine says the war will continue for the foreseeable future, even if/when Bakhmut is captured. Meanwhile, a powerful group of oligarchs and bureaucrats want to negotiate a backdoor deal with Washington that would have disastrous consequences for Russia.

Shocking and outrageous claims? Only if you’ve been getting your “war updates” from YouTube.

 

===========

e.

Economic Update: “The Emerging New World Economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s6F97zYJ1Y
with Richard Wolff
(30:20)

 

+

Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Corporatization of Academia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrxJyZ3S-A

with David Harvey

(26:59)

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey reflects on how universities in the US have shifted and evolved under advanced capitalism to function more and more like corporations. The ethos of the academic model is no longer about universities paying professors to teach, but rather that professors earn their keep by making money for the university. We are seeing increased bureaucratization, a push for entrepreneurialism among professors, and a growing corporate managerial structure. This reorganization of education around monetization has left professors disillusioned and despondent and cannot be sustained.

 

+

Economic Update: How Austerity Paves the Way for Fascism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIpi5Ui88MU

with Richard Wolff and Clara Mattei

(29:56)

In this week’s Economic Update, Prof. Wolff interviews Prof. Clara Mattei on her new book "Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism."

 

+

The New Face of Marxism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8QRGb8O4qc

with Christopher F. Rufo

(22:49)

The critical race theorists are “synthetic revolutionaries” who have filtered left-wing ideology through a postmodern lens. Speech in Budapest, Hungary.

 

===========

f.

Ex-CIA Mike Morell reveals, Blinken behind 'Intel officials Russia disinfo' letter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WPrMqIeOM&feature=youtu.be

with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris

(20:31)

 

+

INTERVIEW: The drums of war are beating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTELnl-tXFk

with George Galloway and Seyed Marandi

(17:20)

“The chance of war is high over Taiwan, says Professor Seyed Marandi. The US is taking a position from which it can’t back down. Taiwan is a Chinese province so China won’t back down.”

 

+

“Ukraine, calm before the storm. EU grain debacle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib-h9oTwsjY&feature=youtu.be

with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris

 (40 :49)

 

===========

g.

Will the West Turn Ukraine into a Nuclear Battlefield?

An Iraqi main battle tank on a highway south of Kuwait City destroyed in a Coalition attack during Operation Desert Storm. Image by Master Sgt. Kit Thompson.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/21/will-the-west-turn-ukraine-into-a-nuclear-battlefield/

by Joshua Frank

How the West plans to turn Ukraine into a radioactive war zone.

It’s sure to be a blood-soaked spring in Ukraine. Russia’s winter offensive fell far short of Vladimir Putin’s objectives, leaving little doubt that the West’s conveyor belt of weaponry has aided Ukraine’s defenses. Cease-fire negotiations have never truly begun, while NATO has only strengthened its forces thanks to Finland’s new membership (with Sweden soon likely to follow). Still, tens of thousands of people have perished; whole villages, even cities, have been reduced to rubble; millions of Ukrainians have poured into Poland and elsewhere; while Russia’s brutish invasion rages on with no end in sight.

The hope, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is that the Western allies will continue to furnish money, tanks, missiles, and everything else his battered country needs to fend off Putin’s forces. The war will be won, according to Zelensky, not through backroom compromises but on the battlefield with guns and ammo.

“I appeal to you and the world with these most simple and yet important words,” he said to a joint session of Great Britain’s parliament in February. “Combat aircraft for Ukraine, wings for freedom.”

The United Kingdom, which has committed well over $2 billion in assistance to Ukraine, has so far refused to ship fighter jets there but has promised to supply more weaponry, including tank shells made with depleted uranium (DU), also known as “radioactive bullets.” A by-product of uranium enrichment, DU is a very dense and radioactive metal that, when housed in small torpedo-like munitions, can pierce thickly armored tanks and other vehicles.

Reacting to the British announcement, Putin ominously said he would “respond accordingly” if the Ukrainians begin blasting off rounds of DU.

While the UK’s decision to send depleted-uranium shells to Ukraine is unlikely to prove a turning point in the war’s outcome, it will have a lasting, potentially devastating, impact on soldiers, civilians, and the environment. The controversial deployment of DU doesn’t pose faintly the same risks as the actual nuclear weapons Putin and his associates have hinted they might use someday in Ukraine or as would a potential meltdown at the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility

 in that country. Still, its use will certainly help create an even more lethal, all too literally radioactive theater of war — and Ukraine will end up paying a price for it.

The Radioactive Lions of Babylon

 

+

The Atrocity Mill: How the West Conjures Up Atrocities Overseas to Cover for its Own

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/04/21/the-atrocity-mill-how-the-west-conjures-up-atrocities-overseas-to-cover-for-its-own/?mc_cid=93b4828b56&mc_eid=7ddd08c64d

by Evan Reif

Recently, American doctor and ex-Marine Pete Reed was killed near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine. Since his death, Reed has been lionized as a selfless hero who lived a life of service. Ukrainian sources are quick to condemn his death as a horrible atrocity and Russian war crime.

Reed was a doctor working for his charity, Global Response Medicine, which he founded in 2017 to build “something good from the destruction of Mosul,” apparently without much thought to just who destroyed the city as he has worked in close collaboration with U.S. forces ever since.

The reaction to Reed’s life and death is illuminating. The political class and their thralls in the media are content to ignore American interventions overseas, and their rationalization of them, as they condemn Russia and accuse its soldiers of genocide. Through the life and death of Pete Reed, we can see how readily this system has conjured up atrocities from its enemies to justify its own wars and its own atrocities. The “human rights” that America so frequently accuses its enemies of violating are little more than a cudgel that this government wields against its enemies.

 

+
39 questions about the war in Ukraine”

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/39-questions-about-the-war-in-ukraine?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
by Edward Slavsquat

From Russia's Angry Patriots Club. For your consideration.
Igor Strelkov’s Angry Patriots Club (КРП) has published a list of questions it has about Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Most of their questions are highly pertinent; some of them are a bit superfluous; a few—in your correspondent’s humble opinion—are misguided and a bit silly.
But we decided to publish them all in hopes of starting a dialogue, and (this is really too hopeful) widening the abysmally narrow Overton Window that is asphyxiating “alternative media” coverage of this increasingly bizarre and precarious conflict.
As you read through these questions, keep in mind that many of them were being asked in the earliest weeks of the war by patriotic, pro-SMO voices in Russia.
We would also advise our readers not to dismiss the Angry Patriots Club as an irrelevant fringe group, even if you strongly disagree with them. The Russian government is not worried about Navalny supporters; it fears “turbo-patriots”— Russian officials have openly admitted it.
NOTE: This is not a perfect word-for-word translation (some of the questions were incurably convoluted so we had to rewrite them), but we did our best to honor the original meaning of each question. Also: Strelkov always puts Ukraine in “scare quotes” or prefaces it with “so-called”, to signify that he thinks Ukraine is not a separate country and is part of Russia. We removed all of this because it got way too repetitive and damaged the “flow” of the text. But, just so we aren’t accused of misrepresenting КРП’s position: they hold the belief that “the so-called Ukraine” is part of Russia.)

===========

h.

“EU versus Europe”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykSSRSkaByM&feature=youtu.be

with Glenn Diesen, Alexander Mercouris, and President Václav Klaus

(39:41)

 

+

“Is Europe a vassal of the US?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyO2lmGq0_U&t=61s

with Yanis Varoufakis, Julijana Zita, Erik Edman

(1:04:26)

Speaking during an official visit to China, Emmanuel Macron said that Europe should chart its own course and be a 'third pole' in world affairs between Washington and Beijing – and not be a vassal to either as the New Cold War threatens to escalate. Unsurprisingly, his comments have caused unease among many European leaders, for whom unquestioned alignment with Washington is the only way. Is Europe today “a vassal” of the US? And if we were to chart our own course, what should that look like? We’ll explore these questions in detail – including how they relate to DiEM25’s campaign for a New Non-Aligned Movement – and take your questions and comments. Tune in!

 

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“US vs. Russia: Who will win the Scam Olympics?”

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/us-vs-russia-who-will-win-the-scam?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Edward Slavsquat

What’s the difference between Russian-language media and so-called “pro-Russia” Western media? What’s going to happen in Ukraine? Are Russians getting hyped for the Multipolar World Order? Who is better at scamming the peasants, Washington or Moscow?

We put these hard-hitting questions to Lil’ Kremlin, a Russian who worked in Russian state media for more than a decade before disappearing into the taiga. From time to time he raps about clot-shots, cattle-tags and Anatoly Chubais; he is widely regarded as the #1 best rapper on these topics.

Enjoy!

 

You worked in Russian state media for many years before seeking greener pastures. Has the Russian media-sphere changed since you left? How would you compare Russian-language media to “pro-Russia” English-language media?

I left the Russian state media apparatus in early fall of 2019 – which was perfect timing on my part, since it was right before COVID and way before Russia’s «Non-War Special Excursion with Sporadic Use of Lethal Arms».

I think that when major world-changing scams like that happen you usually get to see the ugliest side of state media as they go into shill-overdrive mode basically doubling down on all the worst aspects of propaganda.

These include overzealously parroting everything the officials say and questioning absolutely none of it, blatantly lying or misleading people about everything that’s happening, while heavily promoting the Draconian laws that usually go right along with major events (scams).

I enjoyed seeing outlets like «Tsargrad» and «Katyusha» and a few others though questioning the official narrative and at least giving people a glimpse into the «other side of the coin», and I think these events were their perfect time to shine and really stand out.

So the media landscape hasn’t changed that much, but because of all the crazy events the different voices became more prominent as they all doubled down on the interests they promote.

It’s also weird to me that the «pro-Russian» English-language media sounds a lot more like Soviet-era propaganda than even some Russian press close to the government!

You still get stories about corruption and wrongdoing by local officials and things like that in the Russian media, but the English-language 5D Masters totally ignore all of the major domestic issues in Russia itself, focusing instead on how it’s winning the war against the crumbling hegemonic West.

 

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NATO’s Weapons Are Leaking to Black Market - Western Journalist

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-weapons-leaking-black-market-western-journalist/5816918

by  Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Confirming what several other analysts had already been reporting since the beginning of Western military aid campaign to Ukraine, an important American informant pointed out that several weapons sent by NATO are being sold on the black market. The result of this process is that weapons that should be used by the Ukrainian armed forces end up in the hands of foreign contrabandists, with no control over what will be their final destination.

The most recent report was made by the well-known and respected American journalist Seymour Hersh. Even though he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times informant, Hersh has recently suffered several reprisals and “cancellation” attempts for leaking evidence of crimes committed by the US government, such as the terrorist attacks against the Nord Stream gas pipelines. In the same vein, he now said that Western-supplied weapons to Kiev were actually “flooding” the military black market in countries like Romania and Poland.

“Poland, Romania, other countries on the border were being flooded with weapons we [the US and allies] were shipping for the war to Ukraine (…) Often, it wasn’t generals, it was colonels and others, who were given shipments of some weapons, [who] would personally resell them (…) to the dark market”, he said during a recent show of his journalistic program “Going Underground”.

See also: The Ever Widening War

 

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i.

“Is This Man a Russian Agent Operating in the Black Community of St. Louis?”

https://covertactionmagazine.com/fr/2023/04/24/is-this-man-a-russian-agent-operating-in-the-black-community-of-st-louis/?mc_cid=f712320171&mc_eid=7ddd08c64d

by Jeremy Kuzmarov

The Justice Department has just indicted him and three other members of the African People’s Socialist Party for advancing Russian propaganda—though it looks more like the Biden administration was looking for a scapegoat to justify its anti-Russia offensive and found one in a familiar place.

On April 18, the Department of Justice announced the indictment of four leaders of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) along with three Russian nationals for allegedly working on behalf of the Russian government and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in a “malign influence campaign” designed to “sow discord” and “advance Russian propaganda.”

The Department of Justice claims that the Russian defendants recruited, funded and directed APSP Chair Omali Yeshitela and three other APSP members (Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel and Augustus C. Romain, Jr.—aka Gazi Kodzo)—to act as unregistered (and therefore illegal) agents of the Russian government and that they covertly funded and directed candidates for local office in the U.S.

The charges carry a maximum of ten years in prison.

Kurt Ronnow, the Acting Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, said that the announcement “paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S. citizens to their efforts.”

According to prosecutors, one of the Russians charged, Aleksandr Ionov, operated an entity called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, which recruited U.S.-based organizations to help sway elections, make it appear there was strong support in the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and backed efforts such as a 2015 United Nations petition to decry the “genocide of African people” in the U.S, and a reparations tour by the APSP.

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Tucker Carlson SILENCED For Telling These Truths About The War Machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcgEf1W_Ss&feature=youtu.be
with Jimmy Dore and Aaron Maté
(16:43)

 

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Biden-Harris 2024. Fox News fires Tucker Carlson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Kna7Y12aE&feature=youtu.be
with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris
(13:41)

 

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Blackrock Owns 15.1% of the Fox Corporation

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/blackrock-owns-151-of-the-fox-corporation?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
by Robert W Malone
It doesn’t take a genius to know that yesterday, we got another really big flag to get off of main stream news if you seek any unbiased news analysis or editorial content. That the biases, the censorship is only going to get worse. And no, I am not necessarily writing of Tucker’s departure, although that too is another signpost.
What really has me concerned is that earlier this year, it was announced that BlackRock has increased its ownership position in Fox Corporation (FOXA).
This increase in stock ownership now means that Blackrock owns 15.1% of the Fox Corporation. They are the second largest owner, just after the Murdock family.
Now, the Family Trust Murdoch still owns 19% of the company, with other, smaller institutional investors owning the rest. The CEO of the Fox Corporation was Rupert Murdoch, but it is currently Lachlan Murdoch.
BUT with this increase in 2.7% of Fox Corp, it is clear that Blackrock is fast becoming a controlling entity in Fox Corporation.


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Jimmy Dore on Comedy, Woke Ideology & How To Enrage Both Conservatives

& Liberals – Ask Dr. Drew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQCHU4jnuIc
with Jimmy Dore on Ask Dr. Drew
(1:22:05)

 

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Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans for “Weaponized” Free Speech

https://www.globalresearch.ca/biden-doj-indicts-four-americans-weaponized-free-speech/5816828

by Caitlin Johnstone

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says “weaponized” the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ’s press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

See also: How the U.S. Establishment Lies Through Its Teeth, for War Against Russia

 

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Deep state of siege

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3V53CXAZks

with Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté

(1:23:36)

The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss bombshell revelations of the CIA's recruitment of two 9/11 hijackers and the FBI's indictment of the African Peoples Socialist Party for "weaponized speech" on behalf of Russia, as well as threats to jail journalist Matt Taibbi by a congressional Democrat.

 

 

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j.

“Environmental Activism as a Capitalist Trojan Horse, and the Bill Gates Factor”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/environmental-activism-as-a-capitalist-trojan-horse-and-the-bill-gates-factor/5816475

by Dr. Vandana Shiva and Michael Welch

(audio, 58:59)

For more than half a century, Earth Day is the time in April when all thoughts turn to love…of the planet.

Actions dedicated to conservation and reforestation of the planet, ending plastic pollution, limiting climate change and restorative agriculture are a few of the movements reflected in this giant engine of hope for all the masses on the globe. [1]

The initiative these days is supported by dozens of Non Governmental Organizations, including the Rockefeller backed Club of Rome. So, activism sanctioned by the major players world-wide. [2][3]

The problem one can run into, of course, is that as we saw with the COVID-19 “pandemic,” the Rockefellers, the Gateses, and the other higher entities are not exactly on the same page as the rest of us and are arguably using the crisis we are facing as an opportunity for some other objective.

It is true that simple corporations have jumped on the climate bandwagon each Earth Day. For example, Nestlé has pledged to cut their CO2 emissions in half by 2030. Though given their track record of child labor, pollution, price fixing and mislabeling, it is tempting to think of such commitments as old fashioned “greenwashing.”[4][5]

But the more urgent question facing all of us determined to do our part for the living world is the far more significant attempts to mislead. When the powerful players decide to use modern environmentalism for reasons other than maintaining a strong, vibrant Earth, we the people could end up feeling more than just profoundly screwed. Our sacrifices for our natural home and hearth could ultimately be in service to their profits, and at the end of the day, it would not alter the planet one iota!

Is our Earth Day and our environmental actions as subscribed by the billionaire masters leading us to our collective desperation or some place even worse? That is a question posed in this Earth Day episode of the Global Research News Hour.

In our first half hour, Australian Michael Swifte joins us to talk about the way the American and Australian philanthropists with their bought and paid for climate NGOs have suckered us into a form of de-carbonization that will not actually reduce emissions, but help the fossil fuel industry get even MORE oil and gas out of the ground. Then in our second half hour, the legendary  Indian scholar, environmental activist, and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva appears to address the role of the so-called philanthrocapitalists, and particularly of Bill Gates, in undermining food security and diversity in the supposed name of saving it.

 

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Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) and the Turkey-Syria Earthquake: An Expert Investigation is Required

https://www.globalresearch.ca/environmental-modification-techniques-enmod-and-the-turkey-syria-earthquake-an-expert-investigation-is-required/5808207

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Update: The Political and Social Implications of the February 2023 Earthquakes

The economic, social and geopolitical impacts of the February 2023 two earthquakes in Southern Anatolia are far-reaching. 

Within Turkey, the earthquakes have not only resulted in political chaos to the detriment of the Erdogan government, they have also been followed by attempts on the part of US-NATO to undermine Erdogan’s reelection (May 14, 2023), largely in view of Ankara’s unspoken strategic alliance with Moscow, not to mention its rapprochement with Teheran. 

Turkey is both a “NATO Heavyweight” as well as “An Ally of Russia”. Sounds Contradictory 

Turkey abandoned NATO’s Air Defence System in favor of Russia’s “State of the Art” S-400. That acquisition of Russian military technology was part of a concurrent military cooperation agreement as well an alliance between Turkey and Russia established in the immediate aftermath of the failed July 2016 US sponsored coup d’Etatnot to mention the unsuccessful assassination plot directed against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Washington is fully aware that you cannot win a war against Russia when the second largest military power member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization namely Turkey is “sleeping with the enemy”.

 

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The Demise of Mesopotamia: The Geopolitics of Water. The Desertification of Iraq

https://www.globalresearch.ca/demise-mesopotamia-geopolitics-behind-desertification-iraq/5775765

by Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi

The decades following World War II witnessed massive investments in large dams and water reservoirs. The number of large dams increased globally from 5,000 dams in 1950 to around 50,000 in 2017, and irrigated areas doubled from 140 million hectares to 280 million hectares.

The development of public irrigation and hydropower energy, and their associated dams, was central to Cold War geopolitics and national state policies. Throughout the Cold War, water became more involved in both building up and demolishing regimes, supporting, and undermining political legitimacy, and empowering and disempowering social groups.

Today, over 263 international watercourses generate about 60% of global freshwater flow, cross the territories of 145 countries, and are home to around 40% of the world’s population. Conflicts over shared river waters cannot be interpreted without understanding the political power relations and the significance of upstream-downstream positioning of the competing or conflicting states.

For thousands of years being Mesopotamia (the land between two rivers), today’s Iraq faces water scarcity and desertification due to the continued reduction of the Tigris and Euphrates water flow into Iraqi territory. This is largely due to upstream developments on their headwaters in Turkey and Iran, and the steepening effects of climate change. In 2018, the UN Environment Program warned that Iraq was losing around 25,000 hectares of arable land.

The construction and operation of about 100 large dams and reservoirs on the Tigris and Euphrates headwaters in both Turkey and Iran in less than four decades, has drastically impaired the flow of the two rivers and caused severe land and environmental degradation including the desiccation of wetlands in Iraq.

In this article, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers mean annual flow rate records from the Ministry of Water Resources in Iraq (1960-2018) have been analyzed in correlation with dates of upstream dams filling and operation of tens of large dams in Turkey.

Conclusions indicate significant correlation that caused serious impacts including the desiccation of about 65% of the marshland’s areas in southern Iraq since the seventies to date, with continues degradation of valuable agriculture land into desertification, and other related environmental and socioeconomical aspects.

 

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k.

A Game of Dice With Russia: “Do You Realize What You Have Done?”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-game-of-dice-with-russia-do-you-realize-what-you-have-done-2/5480135

by  Luciana Bohne (The Greanville Post, 1 October 2015)

At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday’s last, the Russian Federation hoisted the United States on its own petard, blowing up the fourteen-year-old fictitious narrative of the War on Terror by proposing real action. While Obama went to UNGA without a single proposal, Putin proposed a coalition against terrorists, “like the one we had against Hitler”:

We are suggesting to not be guided by ambition, but by mutual values and shared interests. To unite our efforts based on international law to solve the issues we are facing, and to create a truly broad international anti-terrorism coalition.

You have to agree that the reference to Hitler was a rhetorical masterstroke, mocking the American political and media establishments’ frequent slurs of Putin as Hitler. Taking over the terms of a discourse is the first step in exposing its hidden connivance. It’s the petard in action. Polonius-like with doddering ramblings, but rank with clichéd sound-bites and sulking fury, Obama boasted like a cornered school-yard bully, ““I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country and our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.” Against which boast, with almost biblical thunder, pounced Putin’s accusation, ““Do you realize what you’ve done?”

A stunning question, for, without ever mentioning the US, referring to it instead as the “sole center of dominance” after the end of the Cold War, Putin recalled its attention to the devastating consequences of its foreign policy decisions. “A power vacuum for extremism,” in his words, had opened like a sucking vortex in the Middle East and North Africa, which “led to the creation of zones of anarchy, immediately filled by extremists.” The Islamic State, he said, did not materialize from nothing.

So, then, what now? The Islamic State must be destroyed—in all its permutations. Imagine Washington’s consternation as its pretext for rampaging across the globe was being deftly and swiftly removed from its propaganda control.

“‘The Islamic State must be destroyed—in all its permutations.’ Imagine Washington’s consternation as its pretext for rampaging across the globe was being deftly and swiftly removed from its propaganda control…”

See also: Russia to Use Air Force in Syria at President Assad’s Request to Destroy ISIS

 

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Auschwitz: IG Farben and the History of the “Business with Disease”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/ig-farben-history-business-disease/5701804

by The Dr. Rath Health Foundation (June 18, 2003)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz, January 27, 2020

The most powerful German economic corporate emporium in the first half of this century was the Interessengemeinschaft Farben or IG Farben, for short. Interessengemeinschaft stands for “Association of Common Interests” and was nothing more than a powerful cartel of BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and other German chemical and pharmaceutical companies. IG Farben was the single largest donor to the election campaign of Adolph Hitler. One year before Hitler seized power, IG Farben donated 400,000 marks to Hitler and his Nazi party. Accordingly, after Hitler’s seizure of power, IG Farben was the single largest profiteer of the German conquest of the world, the Second World War.

One hundred percent of all explosives and of all synthetic gasoline came from the factories of IG Farben. Whenever the German Wehrmacht conquered another country, IG Farben followed, systematically taking over the industries of those countries. Through this close collaboration with Hitler’s Wehrmacht, IG Farben participated in the plunder of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France and all other countries conquered by the Nazis.

The U.S. government’s investigation of all the factors leading to the Second World War in 1946 came to the conclusion that without IG Farben the Second World War would simply not have been possible. We have to come to grips with the fact that it was not the psychopath, Adolph Hitler, or bad genes of the German people that brought about the Second World War. Economic greed by companies like Bayer, BASF and Hoechst was the key factor in bringing about the Holocaust.

No one who saw Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List” will forget the scenes in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Read also: Auschwitz: The Role of IG Farben-Bayer

 

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“Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO’s Stay-Behind Armies”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-warfare-operation-gladio-and-natos-stay-behind-armies/5303061

by anomalies.net (September 03, 2012)

1940 In England Prime Minister Winston Churchill creates the secret stay-behind army Special Operations Executive (SOE) to set Europe ablaze by assisting resistance movements and carrying out subversive operations in enemy held territory. After the end of World War Two the stay-behind armies are created on the experiences and strategies of SOE with the involvement of former SOE officers.

1944 London and Washington agree on the importance of keeping Western Europe free from Communism. In Greece a large Communist demonstration taking place in Athens against British interference in the post war government is dissolved by gunfire of secret soldiers leaving 25 protesters dead and 148 wounded.

1945 In Finland Communist Interior Minister Leino exposes a secret stay-behind which is being closed down.

1947 In the United States President Harry Truman creates the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The covert action branch of the CIA, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) under Frank Wisner sets up stay-behind armies in Western Europe.

1947 In France Interior Minister Edouard Depreux reveals the existence of a secret stay-behind army in France codenamed „Plan Bleu“.

1947 In Austria a secret stay-behind is exposed which had been set up by right-wing extremists Soucek and Rössner. Chancellor Körner pardons the accused under mysterious circumstances.

1948 In France the “Western Union Clandestine Committee” (WUCC) is being created to coordinate secret unorthodox warfare. After the creation of NATO a year later the WUCC is being integrated into the military alliance under the name “Clandestine Planning Committee” (CPC).

1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is founded and the European headquarters is established in France.

1951 In Sweden CIA agent William Colby based at the CIA station in Stockholm supports the training of stay-behind armies in neutral Sweden and Finland and in the NATO members Norway and Denmark.

1952 In Germany former SS officer Hans Otto reveals to the criminal police in the city of Frankfurt in Hessen the existence of the fascist German stay-behind army BDJ-TD. The arrested righ-wing extremist are found non guilty under mysterious circumstances.

1953 In Sweden the police arrests right winger Otto Hallberg and discovers the Swedish stay-behind army. Hallberg is set free and charges against him are mysteriously dropped.

1957 In Norway the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protests strongly against the domestic subversion of his country through the United States and NATO and temporarily withdraws the Norwegian stay-behind army from the CPC meetings.

1958 In France NATO founds the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) to coordinate secret warfare and the stay-behind armies. When NATO establishes new European headquarters in Brussels the ACC under the code name SDRA 11 is hidden within the Belgian military secret service SGR who has its headquarters next to NATO.

1960 In Turkey the military supported by secret armies stages a coup d’état and kill Prime Minister Adnan Menderes.

1961 In Algeria members of the French stay-behind and officers from the French War in Vietnam found the illegal Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS) and with CIA support stage a coup in Algiers against the French government of de Gaulle which fails.

1964 In Italy the secret stay-behind army Gladio is involved in a silent coup d’état when General Giovanni de Lorenzo in Operation Solo forces the Italian Socialist Ministers to leave the government.

1965 In Austria police forces discover a stay-behind arms cache in an old mine close to Windisch-Bleiberg and force the British authorities to hand over a list with the location of 33 other MI6 arms caches in Austria.

1966 In Portugal the CIA sets up Aginter Press which under the direction of Captain Yves Guerin Serac runs a secret stay-behind army and trains its members in covert action techniques including hands on bomb terrorism, silent assassination, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare.

1966 In France President Charles de Gaulle denounces the secret warfare of the Pentagon and expells the European headquarters of NATO. As the military alliance moves to Brussels secret NATO protocols are revealed that allegedly protect right-wingers in anti-communist stay-behind armies.

Read also: NATO’s Secret Armies. Operation GLADIO and the Strategy of Tension

 

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Meet a Forgotten CIA Critic Who Presciently Characterized the Agency as a Cancer in 1970 Book

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/04/17/meet-a-forgotten-cia-critic-who-presciently-characterized-the-agency-as-a-cancer-in-1970-book/?mc_cid=93b4828b56&mc_eid=7ddd08c64d

by Jérémy Kouzmarov

In 1970, David W. Conde, an American journalist working in Japan, who had served with the U.S. Army Psychological Warfare Branch in World War II, published a now-forgotten book in New Delhi, CIA—Core of the Cancer.

Five years before publication of CIA whistleblower Philip Agee’s Inside the Company: A CIA Diary, the book provided a damning indictment of the CIA’s involvement in criminal operations—particularly in Southeast Asia—and manipulation of public opinion through tax-exempt foundations financed by large corporations that corrupted a generation of intellectuals.

Conde wrote that, “while there seems no question that historians will record that the CIA’s greatest defeat was its failure to overcome [Fidel] Castro’s forces at the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the CIA’s greatest victory may well turn out to be not its food poisoning, its ballot-stuffing, its coup d’états, or its mobilization of labor unions or students to serve U.S. interests overseas, but its research grants to U.S. and foreign scholars.”

These scholars played an influential role in helping condition the public in the U.S. and in countries around the world to support U.S. foreign policy interests and Cold War mobilization against the Soviet Union.

Conde noted that, “in Hitler’s Germany and Prince Konoe’s Japan, thought police used torture, and ordered death or [used] the threat of death to convert communists into anti-communists, but America being a rich country, relied upon the power of its money.”

This money had a deeply corrupting effect, tarnishing intellectual and scientific integrity, debasing political life and causing almost all societal institutions to be up for sale.

A Maverick Caught in the Cross-Hairs of an Anti-Red Psychopath

David William Conde was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1906 and moved to California with his first wife and kids in the 1930s. His father served in the 86th machine gun battalion of the Canadian army in World War I. Self-educated, Conde described himself as a “lifelong Democrat” and “original New Dealer” in a 1975 letter to Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA).

During World War II, Conde worked on Allied propaganda within the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) Psychological Warfare Branch under Colonels J. Woodall Greene and Bonner Fellers. He specialized in writing and producing anti-Japanese propaganda radio broadcasts and the development of “surrender” and demoralization leaflets that were dropped on Japanese troops in New Guinea.

 

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Old CIA Ways – Arms and Drugs. “The Re-Export of U.S. Weapons”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/old-cia-ways-arms-drugs/5816868

by Karsten Riise

CIA finances black operations with arms and drug business.

It has always been like that. In Cambodia, the export of opium exploded when the US military entered the country. The CIA was behind the opium export to finance local warlords in Cambodia. When the US military left Cambodia, the drug industry subsided. The same happened in Afghanistan. When the US military entered Afghanistan, opium exports boomed to finance US supported warlords. The US did the same, secretly sold weapons to Iran, and used drugs to fund murder squads in the dirty American war against Nicaragua. These things have been overwhelmingly documented.

See also: The Bottomless Pit of War Spending

 

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The COVID Trojan Horse: It’s Time to Move Beyond this Diabolical Deception to Understand the Real Agenda!

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-trojan-horse-time-move-beyond-this-diabolical-deception-understand-real-agenda/5816902

by Howard Bertram

On April 19, 2023, Robert Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy for Democratic nomination for President of the United States.  Kennedy said after taking the stage.

“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign, and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country.”

To begin to understand this Covid Trojan Horse, Kennedy’s speech in Berlin, on August 29, 2020 to over one million people becomes a critical starting point.

“ I must say one more thing … they have not done a very good job about protecting public health but they have done a very good job of using the quarantine to bring 5G into all of our communities and beginning the process of a digital currency which is the beginning of slavery …“ ” The pandemic is a crisis of convenience for the elites who are dictating these policies.”

Robert Kennedy Jr.  gave an important clue to the world in Berlin, linking the unprecedented rollout of 5G with the so called Covid Pandemic agenda.

The pretext of a pandemic has enabled a technology (5G) with no safety studies to be put into place around the world.  5G along with the nanotechnology now being discovered within the vaxx bioweapon becomes the foundational step for a transhuman agenda.

Bill Gate’s (Microsoft) Patent WO 060606 that was issued in March of 2020 delineates the madness of what Kennedy alluded to when he talked about,  “the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country”.

It is difficult to say when this transhuman agenda to control humanity began in earnest.

The beginning of  mind control experiments through programs such as MK Ultra  that took place in the United States and Canada from the 1940s to the 1960s could indeed be a starting point. MK Ultra and other programs led to the use of what has been termed synthetic telepathy – using technology to monitor the thoughts of individuals, as well as, transmit messaging to the minds of its victims.  For a select group of people who have reported hearing voices, they were unwitting test subjects.

The technological advancements as revealed by Dennis M Bushnell of NASA and all the nefarious agendas that were moved forward after 9/11 beginning with the Patriot Act to strip away the rights and liberties of We The People will be my starting point.

In July of 2001, a very important document was presented by Dennis M Bushnell of NASA.

“Future Strategic Issues/Future Warfare [Circa 2025]”

See also: Fighting the Corona War and Beyond

 

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EMERGENCY FREE PODCAST: This Is What Robert F Kennedy Jr Must Do Now

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=806546&post_id=116500423&utm_source=podcast-email&play_audio=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo4MTI5MzM4OCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTE2NTAwNDIzLCJpYXQiOjE2ODIyODc2MTMsImV4cCI6MTY4NDg3OTYxMywiaXNzIjoicHViLTgwNjU0NiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.lbreLICF_3409uon_sorMxvBSQOWH23issGL2jMfWJM&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#play

with Jon Rappoport

(audio, 20:55)

He launched his Presidential campaign; now he has to create a storm, and this is how

 

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l.

US Hegemony No Longer Threatens the World

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-hegemony-no-longer-threatens-world/5816855

by Renee Parsons

While the world teeters on a potential WW III scenario in Ukraine with the Biden Administration as full time participants, the US government and its Congressional Uniparty continue to enflame its pro war passion with reckless talk of US military involvement against two of the most powerful nuclear nations on the planet – both at the same time.    

Being deeply embroiled in Ukraine has not stopped those same US decision-makers from unceasingly beating the drums of war against China.  With a political establishment legendary for its refusal to accept responsibility for another costly defeat, the truth of Ukraine’s demise has remained concealed from the American public as questions of US military prowess  are little more than imagined superiority. 

At the same time, the once globally dominant US economy is staring at a potential economic bankruptcy beyond modern experience, threatening to reek unimaginable fiscal pain and suffering throughout every American family in the entire country.  Unable to come to terms with their own past tyranny and rather than accept the reality that the US is in an economic war with China, the Biden Administration prefers to spin an economic challenge into a military war since we all know that war is good for business. The 2023 $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act included $10 Billion for security assistance and weapons procurement for Taiwan.

Even as the fight is on in the House to make necessary cuts to the trillion dollar budget, it is the bloated military budget over the last two decades that has brought  the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Was it worth twenty years in Afghanistan and inflicting a devastating war on the people of Iraq and Libya because their Presidents dared to suggest moving off the dollar in favor of their own currency. Both Hussein and Gaddafi suffered the same fate.

The fact that the US has “been at peace” for a mere sixteen years out of its two hundred and fifty year history at a cost of $6 trillion since 2001, confirms the US as the “most warlike nation in the history of the world,” according to former President Jimmy Carter.   Confirming how the US has found itself insolvent as wars are always budget busters, Carter explained that the US has been intent on forcing American principles on every other country including a US-imposed rules-based order rather than an order based on international law respecting each nation’s sovereignty.  It was Carter who articulated the One China Policy concept and provided diplomatic recognition to China in 1979 which is still in effect today acknowledging that the government of the People’s Republic of China as “the sole legal Government of China.” He pointed out that China has not been in military conflict since the Vietnam War and with their ‘peace dividend,’ Carter explained “China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us. In almost every way.” In 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reiterated the One China Policy acknowledging Taiwan  as a part of China.

With war hysterics against China on the rise, Col. Douglas MacGregor shared with Tucker that there will be “no war with China unless the US starts it.” MacGregor added that:

“This is the most reckless and irresponsible administration in living memory. We don’t have anyone who qualifies as a Statesman.  Statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. Beijing will not allow Taiwan to become a garrison state for American armed forces and if they think we are going to intervene to defend that island in event of a dispute, then we will be at war with China. We are not prepared for that; we are now provoking China over an issue that is .. strategically important to them” like the Crimea is to Russia.    

While former UN weapons Inspector Scott Ritter makes the point that China is creating a normalization strategy by ending war once and for all” as the BRICS are exploding with economic growth and innovative technology as it “redefines the world” beginning with the Saudi Arabia – Iran agreement. In addition, Ritter cites that with a population of one billion, China raised 300 million citizens out of poverty as the American middle class is shrinking.

See also: Rising Tensions with China

 

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The Most Important Line in the China-France Joint Statement

https://www.globalresearch.ca/most-important-line-china-france-joint-statement/5816946

by Ted Snider

On April 7, after three days and several hours of meetings, Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint declaration between France and China. The declaration contained much of interest on trade, nuclear war, the war in Ukraine, the food crisis, climate change, and more. 

But the most important line may be a short nineteen-word sentence that appears early in the document. In a section on “promoting global security and stability,” China and France declared that “They seek to strengthen the multilateral international system under the aegis of the United Nations, in a multipolar world.”

Multipolarity is the world-vision and language that frequently appears in China-Russia joint declarations. Now France has signed a document that, together with China, offers a multipolar world as an alternative to the unipolar world sought by the U.S. It is one thing for China, Russia, or the other members of multipolar international organizations like BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to call for balancing U.S. hegemony in a multipolar world. It is quite another for a key NATO ally to make the call.

This potentially seminal statement suggests a fundamental divide between France and the U.S. The U.S. seeks to maintain a unipolar world with America at its head, with no “potential future global competitors”—in the language of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance—and Europe as its subordinate partner. The joint declaration suggests that France seeks to break from that project. 

A world with several poles and all countries, large or small, having an equal voice has long been advocated by China and Russia. After his meeting with Macron, Xi said that Europe is an “independent pole in a multipolar world.” It is not surprising that Xi walked away from their meetings making such assertions. It is quite another thing for Macron to walk away from their meetings asserting the same world view. In an interview aboard his plane, departing from Beijing, Macron said that Europe must achieve “strategic autonomy” and become a “third superpower.” He advocated for a Europe that is not a junior partner in a U.S.-led unipolar world but for a Europe that “can be the third pole.”

 “Quite a few” European leaders may “think like Emmanuel Macron,” according to European Council president Charles Michel. “There is indeed a great attachment that remains present—and Emmanuel Macron has said nothing else—for this alliance with the United States. But if this alliance with the United States would suppose that we blindly, systematically follow the position of the United States on all issues, no.”

See also: Racing to Multipolarity

 

 

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Rebellion Grows Against the Dollar Empire

https://www.globalresearch.ca/rebellion-grows-dollar-empire/5816789

by Manlio Dinucci

While US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin convenes the “Contact Group for the Defence of Ukraine” in Germany to supply more and more weapons to Kyiv and fuel the war in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is visiting Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. In Latin America – the USA considers Latin America its “backyard” – a project is emerging and its development would undermine the foundations of US economic power in the region. Brazil and Argentina have signed an agreement to create a new common currency to be used instead of the dollar in trade between the two countries and other Latin American countries. In Brazil, Lavrov met with President Lula, who explicitly calls for “the end of the commercial domination of the dollar”.

See also: Video: Putin Just Scored a Knockout Blow to Europe and the WEF

 

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The ICC Wants to Start Arresting Politicians! I Think That's A GREAT Idea!

https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/the-icc-wants-to-start-arresting?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by James Corbett

As long-time followers of The Corbett Report will know by now, the International Criminal Court is that ridiculous, UN-spawned kangaroo court in The Hague that dispenses victor's justice at the behest of its Western backers, spending its time exclusively prosecuting Africans and asking the hard questions about Gaddafi and Viagra while studiously ignoring US and UK and Israeli war crimes.

Well, guess what? Embracing the "diversity, equity and inclusion" mantra that's all the rage in Western institutions these days, the ICC has finally gone out and issued an arrest warrant for a major European leader!

. . . If you count Russia as a European nation, that is.

That's right. In case you haven't heard by now, the illustrious international court of criminals has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being "allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children)" and of facilitating the "unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

Now, while your average news consumer is busy trying to figure out why the ICC can't stop bracketing the word "children," I, for one, am too busy applauding to ponder such peculiarities of punctuation.

Yes! Arrest the politicians! What a brilliant idea!

But now that we're taking the ICC's idea and running with it, we're faced with a new dilemma: who should we arrest?

So today, let's put on our thinking caps, don our Saturnalian robes of justice and slip into our international law pants and come up with a list of politicians who should be rounded up and locked away forever for their crimes against humanity. Are you ready?

 

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Watch "Ex-CIA Mike Morell reveals, Blinken behind 'Intel officials Russia disinfo' letter"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WPrMqIeOM&feature=youtu.be

with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris

(20:31)

 

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Video: America is at War with Europe

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-america-is-at-war-with-europe/5808102

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

First published on February 16, 2023

Update: There Never Was a “Secret Operation” 

There never was a “Secret Operation” with a view to preventing that the act of sabotage of Nord Stream be “traceable to the United States”.

The project had been discussed behind closed doors in 2021 as outlined by Seymour Hersh, but the actual planning of this so-called “secret operation” started in December 2021 extending to its execution in June 2022 and the actual sabotage on September 26-27, 2023.

In late December  2021, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened what was described as “a newly formed task force” (Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, State Department, and Treasury) pertaining to Russia’s War preparations.

Within the group, there was debate as to what action was to be taken regarding North Stream. “The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone [in the task force] involved understood the stakes”

Let us look briefly at the timeline of this alleged “Secret Operation”: Late December 2021 – June 2022 – September 26-27 2022: A period of nine months:

Late December 2021: “newly formed (inter-agency) Task force” convened by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan

Early 2022:  A covert operation was envisaged. The CIA reported to the Task Force: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.” i.e. which is “untraceable”.

A month later:

February 7, 2022: White House Press Conference together with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz (on an official visit to the U.S.),  President Biden makes the following statement: 

If Russia invades “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”

June 10, 2022: (approximate date)

The underwater planting of the bombs. Biden “wanted the right to bomb anytime, to set the bombs off anytime remotely by us”.

September 26-27, 2022 

Six bombs exploded underwater close to the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, destroying 3 of the 4 major pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2.(See S. Hersh, see map above)

The Biden-Scholz February 7, 2022 White House Press Conference:

See the video of the Press Conference in Annex to the article. See also The White House Transcript .

There was nothing “Secret”.  The public statements made regarding Nord Stream by President Biden and Chancellor Scholz are abundantly clear:

 

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“The Qatargate Scandal: Could It Signal the End of the ‘Brussels EU’?”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/qatargate-scandal-could-signal-end-brussels-eu/5816656

by Paul Anthony Taylor

With Europe increasingly distracted by the ongoing war in Ukraine and fears of a new banking crisis, the latest corruption scandal to engulf the continent’s so-called ‘European Union’ (EU) has conveniently dropped lower down the news headlines. Dubbed ‘Qatargate,’ the scandal involves allegations that a vice president of the European Parliament and other EU lawmakers have been bribed by the governments of Qatar, Morocco, Mauritania, and possibly other countries, in return for influencing the Brussels-based political construct. Following police raids, arrests, and the seizure of cash, computers, and mobile phones from suspects, some observers are already asking whether the scandal could even signal the end of the EU. Deeply damaged as a result of repeated ignominies over the past couple of decades, Qatargate comes hot on the heels of Brexit and our international exposure of the EU’s Nazi roots.

The early arrests in the Qatargate scandal took place in December 2022 and saw European Parliament vice president Eva Kaili, Antonio Panzeri (a retired EU lawmaker from Italy) and others detained as part of the investigation. Panzeri subsequently admitted to being the scheme’s ringleader and agreed to a plea deal whereby, in return for a shorter prison sentence, he would reveal the identities of those he bribed and conspired with. A further EU lawmaker, Marc Tarabella from Belgium, was later arrested in February 2023, while Andrea Cozzolino, an EU lawmaker from Italy, is currently under house arrest in Naples fighting extradition to Brussels. Some reports suggest that as many as 60 additional lawmakers could ultimately be dragged into the investigation.

A history of scandals and secrecy

While Qatargate is already predicted to go down in history as the largest ever scandal in European politics, it is hardly the first one to inflict major damage on the EU’s credibility. In 1999, for example, all 20 members of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, were forced to resign after a whistle-blower report revealed widespread fraud, nepotism, and serious management failings. Far from being the harbinger of change, however, the incident was simply a taste of what was later to come.

The Galvin Report, named after Robert Galvin, the EU’s internal audit official who authored it, was written at the end of 2006 as an audit of the expenses and allowances claimed by a sample of more than 160 lawmakers. Revealing shocking abuses, the report’s existence was deliberately covered up until February 2008 when news of it was leaked by Chris Davies, an EU lawmaker from the UK. Even then, its contents remained secret and only a select group of lawmakers were allowed to read it in a locked and guarded room. Had it not been published by Wikileaks in 2009, the report would likely still be secret today.

See also: What Is the EU?

 

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m.

The Geopolitics of “Soft Power”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/soft-power-multilateral-international-institutions-resources/5816845

by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

The ability of the state authorities to build and maintain international institutions.

If we are taking into consideration the relations between IR and diplomacy, founded on the contractual relations between the states, it can be argued that soft power in this case mostly depends on. From the time after 1945, as consequences of the bloody result of WWII, international, transnational, and supranational multilateral institutions and organizations became valued by the international community more and more primarily as a certain mechanism of the rule of international law for the sake to preserve the stability and functioning of the international system in global policy and IR. State authority can achieve soft power within the framework of institutional power, by designing institutions, agenda-setting, or creating the will of the coalition as a whole – like the policy of the USA within NATO, for instance.

In principle, there are five focal factors on which the soft power of the state authority directly depends within the framework of the international, transnational, and supranational institutions:

·         The state authority has to be familiar with the norms and rules of multilateral international, transnational, and supranational institutions. Most of those institutions are today still indispensable factors for the sake of the operation of international communication and IR regardless of the fact that some of them are unfair, corrupted, and unequal.

·         The state authority has to learn to set agendas not merely and visibly for its own selfish interest, but as well as for more broader public interest at least concerning the target group of the countries for the very practical reason that only the agenda which represents the greater number of public interest and political aims is having real chances to be accepted by others. Nevertheless, the process of setting the agenda surely reflects a discourse power but at the same time it as well as requires a state authority to have strong communication skills in order to create consensus in a group especially in the case when exists divergent and/or diametrically opposite views.[i]

·         The workable, attractive, and finally successful design solution for a problematic issue that is created by a state authority during the discussion usually attracts the representatives of other states or institutions/organizations to follow it and, consequently, increase its soft power.[ii]

·         Credibility-saving is as well as of extreme significance to the soft power of the state authority in any kind of multilateral international institution like the national image in IR is a crucial element or factor of soft power. In practice, for instance, if the state authorities more comply with international rules and norms, usually the reputation of their countries is rising and, therefore and consequently, they can create stronger social and political capital which can enhance the soft power of their governments in the international society.

·         An action by the state authority founded rather on inclusive interests than self-interests is increasing its soft power in IR. Contrary, selfish patriotic nationalism is becoming usually a disadvantage concerning the accumulation of soft power.[iii]

The soft power of any state government depends mostly on three fundamental resources:

1) The culture of the state, i.e., its people;

2) The political system of the state; and

3) The foreign policy of the government.

All three of these resources can be more or less attractive or not attractive for others for different political, ethnonational, confessional, or ideological reasons. For instance, soft power founded on the attractiveness of the government’s foreign policy can be fruitful only if others see it as legitimate according to the norms and rules of international law and having moral authority.

Nevertheless, there are parenthetical conditions that are the focal factors in determining whether the resources of soft power are going to be translated into the behavior of attraction that can influence others and direct their policies toward favorable outcomes. It has to be clearly noticed that with soft power, what the target thinks is of extreme importance followed by the target matters as much as the agents.

In many practical cases, culture is an important resource of soft power but usually and especially by the countries of Great Powers (GP).[iv] Culture, in general, is the pattern of social behaviors by which certain groups are transmitting knowledge and values to other groups, and it is functioning on multiple levels.[v] However, many cultural aspects are universal, some of them are national or very particular to social strata or small groups (for instance, ethnocultural minorities).

See also: Great Powers and Global Politics

 

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n.

9/11 Revelations – Is Washington Now Throwing Riyadh Under the Bus?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/911-revelations-washington-now-throwing-riyadh-under-bus/5816860

by Gavin OReilly

Recently released court filings outlining how two of the 9/11 hijackers had knowingly or unknowingly been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation, confirmed what was already open knowledge.

In July 2016, the infamous ‘28 Pages’ section of the official inquiry into the intelligence services activities before and after 9/11 was declassified, outlining the role that high-ranking Saudi officials and intelligence officers had played in the attacks by providing financial and logistical support to the hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

Indeed the Al-Qaeda organisation itself has its roots in Operation Cyclone, a Cold War-era CIA programme involving the arming, funding and training of Wahhabi militants known as the Mujahedeen, who were then sent on to wage war on the Socialist government of previously-Western friendly Afghanistan in 1979. One of the most well-known of the Mujahedeen was none other than Osama Bin Laden.

The 9/11 attacks also served as the pretext for the US to pursue an aggressive foreign policy in line with the aims of Project for the New American Century, a highly-influential Neoconservative think tank which envisaged the United States maintaining global hegemony through radical changes in its military and defence policy, including the removal by force of then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In ominous fashion, a September 2000 report by the PNAC predicted that the implementation of such policy changes would be slow and incremental, and that only an event on the scale of Pearl Harbour would allow for rapid upheaval, with such a catalyst conveniently occurring a year later in New York and Virginia.

See also: Will Regime Change Now Come to Riyadh?

 

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o.

News from Underground by Mark Crispin Miller

“They won't have to 'vaccinate' us once they start to 'vaccinate' OUR FOOD—which, 'in several states,' will start THIS MONTH, according to Tom Renz

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/they-wont-have-to-vaccinate-us-once?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Mark Crispin Miller

All eyes on Missouri, where an all-important bill—HB 1169—would require that all food be duly LABELED as to whether it's a "gene therapy product" (for which God bless the "Show-Me State")

 

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Pfizer Killed Your Friends & Family for Profit – 92% of COVID Deaths Were Among the Triple+ Vaccinated in 2022 According to UK Gov

https://www.globalresearch.ca/pfizer-killed-your-friends-family-profit-92-covid-deaths-were-among-triple-vaccinated-2022-according-uk-gov/5816943

by The Expose, 23 April 2023

The UK government has released official figures that show a shocking truth: the fully vaccinated population accounted for 92% of Covid-19 deaths throughout the entirety of 2022, and 9 in every 10 Covid-19 deaths in England over the past two years.

The figures were published by a UK government agency, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), on the 21st of February 2023.

The report, titled ‘Deaths by Vaccination Status, England, 1 April 2021 to 31 December 2022′, can be accessed on the ONS site here, and downloaded here.

The new report contains figures on mortality rates by vaccination status for all-cause deaths, deaths involving Covid-19, and deaths not involving Covid-19.

By looking at Table 1 of the dataset, we can see that the vast majority of Covid-19 deaths occurred among those who had received three or more doses of the Covid-19 injection.

Source

But this isn’t just an anomaly.

The figures show that Covid-19 deaths among the unvaccinated population have become almost negligible, while deaths among the vaccinated population have become more significant over time.

Source Click to enlarge

Record Excess Deaths in the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia — 1:1000 Population Died in 2022

 

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“Epidemic of 15-19 Year Olds Dropping Dead in Schools and Dorms Across USA and Canada in April 2023”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/epidemic-15-19-year-olds-dropping-dead-schools-dorms-across-usa-canada-april-2023/5816841

by Dr. William Makis

There truly seems to be an epidemic of sudden deaths in schools across USA and Canada recently. Here are the most recent tragic cases.

 

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Brain Aneurysms as a Serious and Common COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Injury in Young People

https://www.globalresearch.ca/brain-aneurysms-as-a-serious-and-common-covid-19-mrna-vaccine-injury-in-young-people/5816747

by Dr. William Makis

A month ago, on March 20, 2023, I wrote a substack about brain aneurysms killing young people. (click here)

There have been many new incidents since then, requiring another article.

 

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Doubled Pregnancy Loss Rate, Raised Foetal Abnormality Rate and Concentration of Lipid Nanoparticles in Ovaries – How Could They Call This Vaccine ‘Safe’?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/doubled-pregnancy-loss-rate-raised-foetal-abnormality-rate-concentration-lipid-nanoparticles-ovaries-how-could-they-call-this-vaccine-safe/5816438

by Alex Kriel and Dr. David Bell

The mRNA vaccines were released globally in early 2021 with the slogan ‘safe and effective’. Unusually for a new class of medicine, they were soon recommended by public health authorities for pregnant women. By late 2021, working age women, including those who were pregnant, were being thrown out of employment for not agreeing to be injected. Those who took the mRNA vaccines did so based on trust in health authorities – the assumption being that they would not have been approved if the evidence was not absolutely clear. The role of regulatory agencies was to protect the public and, therefore, if they were approved, the drugs were safe.

Recently, a lengthy vaccine evaluation report sponsored by Pfizer and submitted to the Australian regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) dated January 2021 was released under a Freedom of Information request. The report contains significant new information that had been supressed by the TGA and by Pfizer itself. Much of this relates directly to the issues of safety in pregnancy and impacts on the fertility of women of child-bearing age. The whole report is important, but four key data points stand out:

·         The rapid decline in antibody and T cells in monkeys following a second dose;

·         Biodistribution studies (previously released in 2021 through an FOI request in Japan);

·         Data on the impact of fertility outcomes for rats;

·         Data on foetal abnormalities in rats.

We focus on the last three items as, for the first point, it is enough to quote the report itself: “Antibodies and T cells in monkeys declined quickly over five weeks after the second dose of [Pfizer Covid vaccine] BNT162b2 (V9), raising concerns over long term immunity.” This point indicates that the regulators should have anticipated the rapid decline in efficacy and must have known at the outset that the initial two dose course was unlikely to confer lasting immunity and would, therefore, require multiple repeat doses. This expectation of failure was recently highlighted by Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director at the U.S. NIH.

The three remaining items should be a major cause for concern with the pharmaceutical regulatory system. The first, as revealed in 2021, involved biodistribution studies of the lipid nanoparticle carrier in rats, using a luciferase enzyme to substitute for the mRNA vaccine. The study demonstrated that the vaccine will travel throughout the body after injection and is found not only at the injection site but in all organs tested, with high concentration in the ovaries, liver, adrenal glands and spleen. Authorities who assured vaccinated people in early 2021 that the vaccine stays in the arm were, as we have known for two years, not being honest.

Lipid concentration per gram, recalculated as percentage of injection site.

In terms of the impact on fertility and foetal abnormalities, the report includes a study of 44 rats and describes two main metrics, the pre-implantation loss rate and the number of abnormalities per foetus (also expressed per litter). In both cases the metrics were significantly higher for vaccinated rats than for unvaccinated rats.

Roughly speaking, the pre-implantation loss ratio compares the estimated number of fertilised ova and the ova implanted in the uterus. The table below is taken from the report itself and clearly shows the loss rate for vaccinated (BNT162b2) is more than double the unvaccinated control group.

In a case control study, a doubling of pregnancy loss in the intervention group would represent a serious safety signal. Rather than take this seriously, the authors of the report then compared the outcomes to historical data on other rat populations – 27 studies of 568 rats – and ignored the outcome because other populations had recorded higher overall losses. This range is shown in the right hand column as 2.6% to 13.8%. This analysis is alarming as remaining below the highest previously recorded pregnancy loss levels in populations elsewhere is not a safe outcome when the intervention is also associated with double the harm of the control group.

A similar pattern is observed for foetal malformations with higher abnormality rate in each of the 12 categories studied. Of the 11 categories where Pfizer confirmed the data are correct, there are only two total abnormalities in the control group, versus 28 with the mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2). In the category which Pfizer labelled as unreliable (supernumerary lumbar ribs), there were three abnormalities in the control group and 12 in the vaccinated group.

As with the increased pregnancy losses, Pfizer simply ignored the trend and compared the results with historical data from other rat populations. This is very significant as it is seen across every malformation category. The case control nature of the study design is again ignored, in order to apparently hide the negative outcomes demonstrated.

These data indicate that there is no basis for saying the vaccine is safe in pregnancy. Concentration of lipid nanoparticles in ovaries, a doubled pregnancy loss rate and raised foetal abnormality rate across all measured categories indicates that designating a safe-in-pregnancy label (B1 category in Australia) was contrary to available evidence. The data imply that not only was the Government’s ‘safe and effective’ sloganeering not accurate, it was totally misleading with respect to the safety data available.

Despite the negative nature of these outcomes, the classification of this medicine as a ‘vaccine’ appears to have precluded further animal trials. Historically,  new medicines, especially in classes never used in humans before, would require a very rigorous assessment. Vaccines, however, have a lower burden of proof requirement than ordinary medicines. By classifying mRNA injections as ‘vaccines’, this ensured regulatory approval with significantly less stringent safety requirements, as the TGA itself notes. In fact, these mRNA gene therapy products (to use the proper term) function more like medicines than vaccines in that they modify the internal functioning of cells, rather than stimulating an immune response to presence of an antigen. Labelling these gene therapy products as ‘vaccines’ means that, as far as we are aware, even today no genotoxicity or carcinogenicity studies have been carried out.

This report, which was only released after a FOI request, is extremely disturbing as it shows that authorities knew of major risks with mRNA COVID-19 vaccination while simultaneously assuring populations that it was safe. The fact that mainstream media have (as far as we are aware) completely ignored the newly released data should reinforce the need for caution when listening to the advice of public health messaging regarding COVID-19 vaccination.

 

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“Canadian Doctors Sudden Deaths Have Reached 150 Since COVID-19 Vaccines Roll-Out”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/canadian-doctors-sudden-deaths-have-reached-150-since-covid-19-vaccines-roll-out-our-canadian-medical-association-celebrates-the-occasion-full-page-pfizer-ad/5816776

by Dr. William Makis

These days, there are far stronger morals, ethics and honorable behavior in the Mexican drug cartels, than in Canada’s entire healthcare leadership.

We’ve just reached 150 Canadian doctor sudden deaths, since COVID-19 vaccines rolled out on Dec.14, 2020.

Canadian Medical Association, which continues to push the toxic Pfizer and Moderna mRNA jabs on its own doctor members, has chosen to mark this milestone with a full page Pfizer ad on the back cover of its April 2023 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, presumably in exchange for a few pieces of silver.


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National Citizens Inquiry - #SolutionsWatch

https://www.corbettreport.com/solutionswatch-inquiry/
with James Corbett
(35:14)

The National Citizens Inquiry is a citizen-led and citizen-funded initiative that is hearing testimony from Canadians and experts examining the nature, the legality and the effects of the Canadian governments' COVID mandates and restrictions.  Today James talks to the volunteer-run inquiry's volunteer communications director, Michelle Leduc Catlin, about the inquiry itself, what it is seeking to accomplish and how Canadians (and people around the world) can support it in its endeavours.

(35:14)

 

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p.

Sputnik V returns to Earth

https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/sputnik-v-returns-to-earth?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Edward Slavsquat

The "safe & effective" myth is running out of gas.

COVID-19 vaccines were responsible for a “significant proportion” of adverse drug reactions in Russia last year, according to the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare (Roszdravnadzor).

Approximately 60% of the 61,119 adverse events registered in 2022 were attributed to coronavirus vaccination. One third of vaccine-linked injuries were designated as “serious”, Roszdravnadzor disclosed in a 32-page report published earlier this month.

The agency did not provide further details.

Russia overwhelmingly uses Sputnik V for COVID vaccination. Production and distribution of two other domestic shots, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac, was halted in the first half of 2022 due to low demand.

Accredited medical organizations and professionals can report suspected adverse events to Roszdravnadzor’s Pharmacovigilance 2.0 database. However, information submitted to the registry is not available to the public, and Russia’s Ministry of Heath has stonewalled attempts by lawmakers to obtain safety and efficacy data.

Whistleblowers claim the vast majority of post-vaccination complications are never documented in Russia—similar to how only a fraction of cases in the United States are reported to VAERS.

“By verbal orders (an order that is given by telephone in conversation, and not on paper), the doctor is prohibited from writing down complications after experimental injections in the patient’s medical history or medical records,” Dr. Denis Ivanov, a member of Russia’s Doctors For Truth, said in a December 2021 interview with your correspondent.

Since the earliest days of Russia’s coercive mass vaccination campaign, the government has repeatedly vouched for Sputnik V’s squeaky-clean safety record.

Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted in June 2021 that “not a single serious case of complications” linked to COVID vaccination had been registered in the country.

 

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 “The Worst Atrocity in the History of the World has been Confirmed

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/the-worst-atrocity-in-the-history?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Robert W Malone

with no accountability or justice forthcoming

The World Health Organization estimates that (worldwide) there have been 763,740,140 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,908,554 deaths as of April 19, 2023. This does not include additional components of the excess mortality during the COVIDcrisis being documented by many in western nations, for which scientists and the various governments seems to not know what the causative agent is and no government seems to want to investigate… Although most will agree privately that these deaths are also related to COVID-19 “public health” policies in some way or another. These include deaths from lockdowns (famine, suicide, violence, alcohol and drug abuse), long COVID, vaccine deaths, lack of medical care for cancer and other diseases, etc. All told, the estimate for total deaths from the COVIDcrisis is probably around ten million people or more. Ten million people is a very big number. It is hard to even fathom.

 

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Watch NEW HOPE: Episode 4: GENOCIDE: The Elites KNEW Jabs Would Kill Millions from the Start…

https://link.healthsecret.com/a/1603/click/3359/1277822/29a367f7a9aeb5dad9b696ae3fc987c524c58bdc/23a0cc9d971f5eba2a2a37ce3e82f219192cf0f0

by Jonathan Otto

(1:48:22) 

Our first expert, Attorney Warner Mendenhall revealed what he legally could about their court case with "whistleblower Brook Jackson's" against Pfizer… 

 "Our premier case is the lawsuit against Pfizer under the False Claims Act representing whistleblower Brook Jackson, the Clinical Director at Pfizer."

 "We are alleging in that case that with Pfizer there was fraud in the clinical trials, and  they falsified data showing the shots were safe and effective… 

 “Brook Jackson, as the clinical trial director, had to make sure the clinical trials met the protocols. She states Pfizer falsified clinical trial records to get the vaccine approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) for C0V!D

 “Brook called the FDA and blew the whistle on Pfizer - and was fired 6 hours later."

Why is the Department of Defense (DOD) contracting Pfizer for a prototype project vaccine and injecting it in hundreds of millions of people?

 We know 3 million innocent people have been severely injured or disabled, and at least half a million are dead from the jab in the U.S. alone.  

 We need the courts to do their job.

 Will Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and all the other Big Pharma vaxx manufacturing companies be held legally responsible and accountable, and be punished in our courts?

Watch the rest of her story here.

 

===========

q.

COVID Crimes. When Will the Perpetrators be Prosecuted?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-crimes-when-perpetrators-prosecuted/5816638?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

by Mark Taliano

(17:35)

How did COVID-19 present itself?

It was fatal car crashes and ensuing trauma-related deaths falsely coded as COVID, it was bacterial pneumonia, falsely named, it was hospitals getting more money for COVID diagnoses and COVID protocols (1), it was false pronouncements of PHEIC from the globalist WHO attached at the hip to the WEF. (2)

It was the cold, it was the flu, it was data manipulation writ large, where jabbed patients are listed as unvaccinated weeks after their hospital admittances.  It was a perfect fabricated pretext for a global financial coup which continues to impoverish and kill us as the oligarchs grow richer and more powerful.

As long as global populations remain incredulous, fake pandemics can be fabricated through contrived Emergency Authorizations, coding changes to Death Certificates which falsely inflate deaths attributed to COVID, invalid testing, and data manipulation. This is what happened to us.

 

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r.

The Corona Wars have Engulfed the Globe: The Naive Belief in Governmental Benevolence

https://www.globalresearch.ca/naive-belief-governmental-benevolence/5816754

by Dr. Emanuel Garcia

Those who accepted lockdowns, virtuously donned their masks, and eagerly lined up for the jabs and the boosters –  people who think that I’m crazy to suggest that the COVID measures adopted by New Zealand were as reprehensible as they were inefficacious – the people who have swallowed hook, line and sinker the lies of State over lo these many years – share one important characteristic, perhaps the one that defines their unwillingness to think for themselves.

They cannot bring themselves to believe that their governmental authorities are capable of evil.

You see, it’s that simple. 

Despite a list of State atrocities over the lifespan of our human species that is nearly infinite, we here in the post-World War II West, refuse to countenance the idea of a murderous power elite masquerading as government for the good of all.

But how did such a conviction in the truthfulness of the State occur? How can so many be so certain of the unfailing goodness of the West?

Yes, this is a Western phenomenon – the advanced democratic, virtuous and egalitarian West of superior moral values, led by America.  It is, furthermore, directly linked to the Second World War – and, in particular, to a myth fostered by the Western victors, which goes like this:

In genocidal Nazism, the most heinous and exceptional evil was concentrated.  We who vanquished this  evil are therefore good, and will always be good, regardless of our occasional peccadilloes. State-sponsored evil is a phenomenon of Nazi Germany, and it has been laid to rest.

America in the Fifties, when I was born, through the Seventies as I grew into myself, provided comfort, opportunity and even wealth for the lower and middle classes, factors that contributed to a feeling that life was good and that the country creating such an environment was also good.

When JFK was murdered by the CIA/Deep State of the time, most looked the other way and naively bought the fish tale of a lone marksman and a magic bullet.

See also: Transition from Year 1 B.C. (Before Corona). Secrecy and the New Zealand Government in the “Year of Our Democide

 

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s.

Video: Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize Winning Inventor of PCR Test”. Died in August 2019

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-kary-mullis-nobel-prize-winning-inventor-of-pcr-test-died-in-august-2019/5816915

by Kary B. Mullis, RealHistoryChan.com, and Prof Michel Chossudovsky

A brilliant scientist and inventor, Kary Mullis, died just before the outbreak of the Covid-19 HOAX. His PCR duplication / amplification process (intended as a research tool only), earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

PCR was again recently misused to wrongly diagnose Covid and boost the fear.

Mullis warned us about this misuse of his PCR, and about Anthony Fauci while he was alive.

The PCR is a process. It does not tell you that you are sick.” –Dr. Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate and Inventor of the RT-PCR, passed away in August 2019.

“…All or a substantial part of these positives could be due to what’s called false positives tests.” –Dr. Michael Yeadon, distinguished scientist, former Vice President and Chief Science Officer of Pfizer

“This misuse of the RT-PCR technique is applied as a relentless and intentional strategy by some governments to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights, … under the pretext of a pandemic based on a number of positive RT-PCR tests, and not on a real number of patients.” –Dr. Pascal Sacré, Belgian physician specialized in critical care and renowned public health analyst.

The Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) Test

The slanted methodology applied under WHO guidance for detecting the alleged spread of the virus is the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test, which has been routinely applied all over the world since February 2020.

The RT-PCR test has been used worldwide to generate millions of erroneous “COVID-19 confirmed cases”, which are then used to sustain the illusion that the alleged pandemic is real.

This assessment based on erroneous numbers has been used in the course of the last two and a half years to spearhead and sustain the fear campaign.

And people are now led to believe that the COVID-19 “vaccine” is the “solution”. And that “normality” will be restored once the entire population of planet Earth has been vaccinated.

“Confirmed” is a misnomer. A “confirmed RT-PCR positive case” does not imply a “COVID-19 confirmed case”.

Positive RT-PCR is not synonymous with the COVID-19 disease! PCR specialists make it clear that a test must always be compared with the clinical record of the patient being tested, with the patient’s state of health to confirm its value [reliability]. (Dr. Pascal Sacré)7

The procedure used by the national health authorities is to categorize all RT-PCR positive cases as “COVID-19 confirmed cases” (with or without a medical diagnosis). Ironically, this routine process of identifying “confirmed cases” is in derogation of the CDC’s own guidelines:

“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms. The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection. This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.”8 (emphasis added)

The methodology used to detect and estimate the spread of the virus is flawed and invalid.

False Positives

The earlier debate at the outset of the crisis focused on the issue of “false positives.” Acknowledged by the WHO and the CDC, the RT-PCR test was known to produce a high percentage of false positives. According to Dr. Pascal Sacré:

“Today, as authorities test more people, there are bound to be more positive RT-PCR tests. This does not mean that COVID-19 is coming back, or that the epidemic is moving in waves. There are more people being tested, that’s all.”9

The debate on false positives (acknowledged by health authorities) points to so-called errors without necessarily questioning the overall validity of the RT-PCR test as a means to detecting the alleged spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Read also: Fake Science, Invalid Data: There is No Such Thing as a “Confirmed Covid-19 Case”. There is No Pandemic

 

The PCR Test Does Not Detect the Identity of the Virus

https://www.bitchute.com/video/C8cmW5yd05qp/

PCR TEST INVENTOR calls out FAUCI

 

===========

t.

FLASHBACK: 5 Stupid Ideas Governments Actually Tried (2017)

https://www.corbettreport.com/5-unbelievably-stupid-ideas-governments-actually-tried/

with James Corbett

(10:49)

 

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The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become,” said Tucker Carlson, three days before they fired him for it (and he was absolutely right)

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/the-more-you-tell-the-truth-the-stronger?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Mark Crispin Miller

(25:10)

A great talk by the journalist (whom I once despised), and an apt comment by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (another man of honesty, for which "our free press" hates him, too)

Robert F. Kennedy today on Facebook:

“Fox fires Tucker Carlson five days after he crosses the red line by acknowledging that the TV networks pushed a deadly and ineffective vaccine to please their Pharma advertisers. Carlson’s breathtakingly courageous April 19 monologue broke TV’s two biggest rules: Tucker told the truth about how greedy Pharma advertisers controlled TV news content and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless. For many years, Tucker has had the nation's biggest audience averaging 3.5 million — 10 times the size of CNN. Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma.”

 

===========

u.

Global Research: Selected Articles – April 21, 2023

“BRICS De-dollarization Hype — But Will Reality Begin to Dawn, that Nothing New Is on the Table, Really?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/selected-articles-brics-de-dollarization-hype-but-reality-begin-dawn-nothing-new-table-really/5816641?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

 

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The Defender : News and Views - April 25, 2023

“Exclusive: Public Health Emergency in U.S. Set to Expire May 11 - But EUA

Vaccines, Liability Shields Aren’t Going Away Anytime Soon
http://support.childrenshealthdefense.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=6361&em_id=3581.0

 

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Sunday Strip: The Modern World

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/sunday-strip-the-modern-world?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

by Robert W Malone MD