Archives: Articles

By Peter Koenig

On 26 May the 2022 WEF concluded not with a bang, but with a whimper. When mainstream journalists start questioning the usefulness of the WEF, the world should listen.

They asked to what extent WEFs slogan, “Committed to Improving the State of the World”, was relevant.

Improving the State of the World – Really?

What did the WEF and all the illustrious attendants of the Davos meeting do to stop the Ukraine War? Nothing. Zilch.

Professor Schwab, didn’t even offer to mediate for Peace. Instead, he introduced President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on video, who addressed the WEF in his brown t-shirt – a brown that may otherwise and during WWII have been associated with the Nazi-color – coincidence?

In an aggressive tone, Zelenskyy demanded from the West more billions of cash and weapons to kill more Russians. He was very clear that Peace was not an option, but more war against his archenemy, Russia.

Winning that war is indeed not the slightest option, despite all the western propaganda. And Zelenskyy knows it. So, why continue a useless war that kills thousands and thousands of innocent people, more Ukrainians than Russians? Instead of accepting the proposals to talk, to negotiate which had been initiated in Istanbul in late March? What’s the hidden agenda – or perhaps not so hidden, as NATO, not Zelenskyy is calling the shots?

Instead, Zelenskyy got a standing ovation from the WEF crowd, presumably for Zelenskyy’s aggressive, belligerent tone and requests for more fire and killing power from the west. The applause was like enhancing the propagated and truly indoctrinated hatred for Russia within the Forum and around the world. The Forum, consisting of luminaries dubbed the “Davos Man”, for individuals who are bought and sold by “Davos”.

But, Professor Schwab, the founder and eternal CEO of the WEF, the overlord of the world’s good-doers, the one who is “Committed to Improving the State of the World”, did not offer Peace mediation with one world. How would that have been received by the world? Maybe the WEF wants to keep its ambiguous image between “doing good” and “doing right” – or both, or neither?

Can you imagine? Not one word towards Peace, towards seeking a negotiated solution for Peace.

Strangely, Peace and what could be done about it rather than sending more killing material, was hardly mentioned throughout the WEF’s 4-day Forum. Doesn’t that speak for itself and for the WEF’s irrelevance?

Perhaps not. Let’s see.

Of course, there was a multitude of behind close-door sessions taking place. They were secret. Not accessible to the public at large. That’s where the game-making decisions are and were taken. What was playing out in the open Forum was sheer diversion, with a hint of mind-manipulation.

In comes Henry Kissinger, the famous “Realpolitik” statesman, close to 100 years old, (mentor of Klaus Schwab) he who is credited with “opening” China for President Nixon and subsequent US Administrations. He dared suggest, that for Peace, Ukraine may have to cede some territory to Russia.

He was referring to the mostly Russian Donbas area, of about 45,000 sq. km, and 4.1 million people. Compare this to the entire Ukraine, about 604,000 sq. km and roughly 44.1 million people, rapidly declining, though, due to war refugees leaving the country.

This is, of course, “Realpolitik”. Any serious analyst would agree. However, Zelenskyy was furious and aggressively rejecting the idea; Kissinger was verbally insulted with four-letter word by one of Zelenskyy’s aides.

As to the overall gist of the globalist WEF, Kissinger’s attempt to seek a solution didn’t match the globalist’s agenda – another move away from globalization by Henry Kissinger? Is the world listening? Or is it just a farce?

Peace Negotiations?

Shortly after WEF’s closure, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, proposed to President Putin to sit down with Zelenskyy for Peace negotiations. It was not clear whether the two were also proposing to moderate these talks.

image: Macron and Scholz at Munich Security Conference, February 2022

Mr. Putin immediately accepted, saying he and Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, had proposed such talks on several occasions, but were always rejected.

Will they be accepted this time?

Zelenskyy hasn’t responded yet. Of course, NATO has to be involved and NATO has to give the “green light” …

Logically, NATO knew, or even initiated the idea. Otherwise, the overture by the two leaders (sic) – both scholars of Klaus Schwab’s academy for “Young Global Leaders”, wouldn’t have been possible.

Why are we made to believe something that isn’t?

Are we Being fooled?

Remember, nothing is coincidence, and nothing is what it appears, and you are trained – by media and endless highly sophisticated propaganda – to believe the truth is a lie and vice-versa.

And so, they keep you confused, so that you laugh, when you should scream and vice-versa.

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false.” — William J. Casey, CIA Director (October 2020)

Most surprising, or not, were Ms. Von der Leyen’s remarks, when she praised the Ukraine army for the progress, they made against the Russian Bear (not her words) … and this coming from a former Minister of Defense (Germany). It is surely not naïve, but sheer lie-propaganda – to attract more money from the world’s billionaires, the EU and individual EU countries? Or to fool you once more, into believing that Ukraine really made progress against Russia and may be at the verge of winning this war?

It’s hard to believe by cold logic. But when it comes from her, THE Eminence of the EC, plus as former German Defense Minister, well-versed in war games, it must be true. And this, despite all the reports from independent journalists in the “field”, commenting directly from the war zones.

Independent reports have confirmed that many of the atrocities on the Ukrainian civil society are not perpetrated by the Russian army, but by the Ukrainian Forces, including the Nazi-Azov battalion(s) – yes, there are more than one.

Yes, they are deadly “false flags” inflicted by the very Ukrainian compatriots, and the western news casters know about it, and so does Ms. Von der Leyen.

Why would the journalists lie? They have all to lose by telling the truth. They are doing an independent job, exposing their lives, not only for being at the front line, but also because they are telling the truth.

Is Blatant Lying Necessary?

If blatant lying is necessary at the WEF and that from the – let’s face it, unelected – President of the European Commission (EC), then, the WEF has been sinking very deep – and maybe seriously losing its grip on “globalization” namely Schwab’s dream, of “Global Governance”. Good riddance!

That’s what we hope. But are they really losing out on Globalization? Because one deception chased the next, and we don’t know any more what is real and what is fake.

That’s the purpose. Our brains are getting weaker and weaker.

Eventually we believe whatever the Matrix-commanding authority says, jumping from one belief to the next. At the end we jump from the bridge to our death, if the commander says it’s the best thing we can do for society.

Confusion makes us compliant.

And the world will notice this deglobalizing trend, the intellectual world anyway, even those who have been staunch adherents to the WEF’s annual oligarch get-together.

What was also remarkable and should be noted, in connection with the WEF’s “declining usefulness” – none of the key world leaders were present: Not President Putin (he was most likely not invited), not President Xi (he may have declined either out of solidarity with the Russian leader, or because of “covid” and the zero-covid policy China defends, or both); and not even Joe Biden, the chief globalist himself, was present. Maybe he confused the dates with his trip to Asia.

The absence of the three world leaders clearly shaded the WEF’s luster as well as the pretense of globalization and Global Governance, the ultimate objective of The Great Reset.

Instead, Biden went to South Korea and Japan, to threaten North Korea with additional sanctions which the UN Security Council rejected; and in Japan to gather two-fold support for his aggressive threat on China that the US would go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack of the mainland. Biden’s brain must have forgotten that Taiwan was declared by the UN already in 1971 as an integral part of China, what it historically is.

Maybe this faux pas was also part of the chess game to fool us once more and to plant more confusion.

And, second, to seek Japan’s support for the WHO “Pandemic Treaty” which he, Biden, initiated and proposed, and which is currently being discussed by the ongoing World Health Assembly. If approved, it would transfer WHO into WHT – for World Health Tyranny.

Remember, it is no coincidence that the WEF and the World Health Assembly or the “Pandemic Treaty” take place in parallel. The Pandemic Treaty is an integral part of the WEF’s Great Reset. All is connected.

WHO’s “Pandemic Treaty” on Hold

Here are the good news. At least the first attempt to push this two-fold treaty through seems to be blocked by the African States. That’s a good omen for the world, being rescued by Africa. See this.

According to latest news, WHO withdraws 12 of the 13 Biden proposed ‘sovereignty’ amendments; in other words, of the proposed changes to WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR). This occurred apparently amid fierce opposition to WHO’s “Pandemic Treaty”, not only from Africa. See this.

However, this doesn’t mean the battle is won, and the world, the people should not become complacent now. The globalists won’t let go easy. Remember, the WEF and especially financial institutions behind the WEF have enormous money power. And if all fails, they may apply other means of pressure – blackmail and worse.

More importantly, people opposing this WHO Pandemic Treaty, must remain on the ball. For example, pressuring their government’s for exiting WHO, and by seeking alternatives to WHO, by creating an alternative international health body, with the purpose of primarily seeking disease prevention, instead of mainly curative means, like high-risk vaccines and other medication, that serve the interests of the WHO controlling elite, as is the case today.

See this: 17,000 doctors launch a plan to break away from the WHO and create a parallel medical universe (this link will give you the Portuguese version. On this link, go to “change language” and switch to English and the English text will appear, however, without changing the website link).

Disapproving the WHO’s amendments to the IHRs and eventually of the “Pandemic Treaty, would be a clear move away from globalization towards individual countries’ sovereignty. Granted, at this stage it would be just winning a battle in what could become a long war of the People against a tyrant health governance of our globe – our humanity; and wars against more tyranny imposed by the globalists.

Further down the road we may be told that Africans have been convinced of the “good” of the “Pandemic Treaty”, for the good of humanity, for preventing future pandemics.

Let’s not be fooled again!

All is possible. Remember, nothing is coincidence, and all is connected – and in this total chaos – what it seems – we are hopelessly lost, and believe what we are told, even if evidence and logic may tell us something different or the contrary. We can’t cope anymore. We just believe what we are told to believe. It’s cognitive dissonance on steroids.

Let me interject here a personal note. We, The People, Shall Win. Not just the battle, but also the war. The sun, the LIGHT, is on our side.

No Snow in Davos. The WEF: “Eternal Globalist Agenda Pusher”

This year, the WEF – the eternal globalist agenda pusher – played out in a pre-summer Davos, no snow, no snow-covered roofs with white-uniformed, hazmat-looking, machine-gun toting face-covered police and military. Much less impressive without snow.

But, all the same, the police and military were everywhere, many hidden, plain-clothed, but all wearing a discrete armband indicating that they were the custodians of WEF-protection.

Ever-so-often they harassed a journalist, who was known to be critical – not mainstream, of course – just for show, and possibly “fear-making” à la “beware of misbehavior, you are in the city of the WEF”. Well, yeah, at least for these 6 days, including the two days of the luminaries’ arrival last weekend.

That the world is rather moving away from the globalization craze, the WEF’s flagship, could be seen on various fronts. Or is it just wishful thinking? Deception in disguise? Nothing is what it seems and nothing is coincidence.

The Money-making “Green Capitalist” Agenda

Other than no Peace suggestion by the WEF, there was of course also Climate Change on the agenda. It’s a must on every world event. There are some thousand or more scientists trained and available to defend this horrifying climate change theory – man-made climate change. A money-making green capitalist agenda, against which very few intellectuals and scientists dare to argue.

How dare you!!!

Now, the Climate Change talk is presented in a new dress. It shifted from man-made CO2 to the Oceans which absorb CO2 and give off CO2 – to keep the world in balance. A perfect system that has worked for millions and millions of years. As if science didn’t know that before. NASA has been studying this phenomenon for over thirty years in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.

Now the new twist is, because of man’s abuse in producing CO2, perhaps the Ocean’s capacity is no longer sufficient to absorb it all. After all the years of a completely other climate change narrative, we are suddenly presented with this astounding fact – mea culpa – we simple humans, are responsible for releasing and producing so much CO2 and other climate pollution, that the Oceans can no longer absorb it, can no longer keep Mother Earth in balance, what the Oceans have been doing, since Mother Earth exists.

Some two or three decades ago, an Australian scientist said, based on ample studies, that not only does the climate change all the time, nothing is stagnant in the universe but that by far the principal influence on Mother Earth’s climate is the sun, different phases of sun movements.

Man had practically zero influence in the earth’s weather / climate pattern.

There have been long periods of no sun movements that resulted in what is called “Snowball Earth” some 700 million years ago. This is what google has to say:

“These dramatic “Snowball Earth” events occurred in quick succession, somewhere around 700 million years ago, and evidence suggests that the consecutive global ice ages set the stage for the subsequent explosion of complex, multicellular life on Earth.” See this.

“Green Capitalism” cum “Progressive Neoliberalism”

Be it as it may – this scientific evidence doesn’t fit the globalist agenda. It is not even mentioned to be argued about. The Global Warming narrative, that indeed started some three decades ago absorbing everything “environment”, was later converted into “Climate Change”. There was a time, when the entire Environment Department of the World Bank focused only on Climate Change. It was the narrative the world had to believe – and still has to be indoctrinated with it.

Any idea why?

When mankind is presented with its guilt, a guilt that can realistically not be changed, because the guilt is not real, so, whether true or false, we must believe it, to become vulnerable for manipulation and the entire Climate Change panorama offers itself for a new GREEN style of capitalism cum neoliberalism, as those who can still see straight will have observed.

But hardly anybody seems to notice this absurd controversy between the elite’s climate sermon, and their flocking to Davos, in hundreds of private jets, clogging the Zurich airport, then many take a helicopter to get to Davos in 20 minutes instead of the two-hour train ride.

These billionaires or wannabe billionaires, certainly couldn’t give a flying sh*t about CO2 and “man-made climate change”. It’s one of those flying-in-our-face lies, that we so gallantly ignore.

Total Confusion and Scare Mongering

Now that we are totally confused about what’s what and what to believe – and our brains are running crazy, wanting to rest – that’s when the Great Reset comes in, with the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We can’t believe what’s presented, so we laugh and shrug it off as impossible and untrue.

To make the point even stronger, Klaus Schwab hired the Israeli “futurist scientist” Yuval Noah Hariri, apparently Klaus Schwab’s closest advisor, as far as his dream world “The 4th Industrial Revolution” goes, an all-digitized world. Hariri produces videos galore to convince the people that they are mere “hackable” animals, and eventually will be subjected to brain manipulation, either by implanted chips or directly by 5G ultra-short-waves.

It’s part of scare-mongering, but also part of truth-telling about their intention. This dark cult must divulge their intention in whatever convoluted way so that their plans may come through. That’s part of the cult’s rule.

And because our brains are vulnerable and can be chipped or otherwise manipulated, The Reset’s final doctrine, “You own nothing but will be happy” may also be true.

Global Deception. Addicted to Misinformation

This reminds me of a recent article by The Cogent – “Revelation of the Method”. It is a brilliant masterpiece in describing how we are being deceived in plain sight, know it, and still believe in the deception.

We are hopelessly addicted to misinformation to justify our own behavior – there is no escaping, unless we have a shock break-through and jump the fence of the matrix. Within the matrix many of us, totally off-mainstream, believe we are chewing the red pill; in reality we are sucking on the blue pill. Only once we jump the matrix’s fence are we in a position to chew and swallow the red pill.

It will be a big loneliness. Only a drastic jump in consciousness to the level of Fifth Dimension, where the light will be on our side, will make us resistant, red pill-capable.

It is not impossible, but it takes a sea-change in peoples’ thinking and reasoning, especially in the highly educated, a.k.a. indoctrinated, and comfortable western world. But we shall not give up. See this for more details. May I suggest you read this relatively short explanation on the sophisticated psychological war game that, we the People, are being exposed to.

This is my non-conclusive WEF 2022 conclusion. Are they on the winning side, with a well working deceptive program, keeping us confused, and eventually believing in lies, instead of the truth – both of which are presented to Us, The People, simultaneously, and / or sequentially?

Just follow he Climate Change Agenda; the Vaxx Agenda; or the fully orchestrated vaxx propaganda dialogue between Klaus Schwab and Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO – and the Schwab-invited “standing ovations”. See this.

See Video: Conversation between Klaus Schwab and Albert Bourla

In the end, we humanity must and will win this existential war, a war between the dark cult, led by off-humans – and Us, The People.

Our entire Civilization is at stake.

It is as serious as that.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

30 May 2022

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Kevin Reed

The baby formula crisis that is threatening the lives of infants across the US deepened this week as the out-of-stock rate for baby formula on store shelves surged to 70 percent for the week ending May 22. The shortage rate during the previous week was 45 percent, according to the retail tracking firm Datasembly.

The supply shortage is so severe that there are now reports in some areas of the country of mothers attempting to purchase breast milk online from anonymous and independent sources such as Facebook and Craigslist. Pediatric nutritionists are warning that such measures are potentially very harmful to children.

The crisis of powdered formula supplies, 90 percent of which are produced by four monopolies that dominate the US pediatric nutrition industry, is not a mistake or a product of unforeseen circumstances. It is the outcome of a society run by a ruling elite that, in its singular preoccupation with increasing its wealth, is totally indifferent to the lives and well-being of children.

There has been a combination of criminal negligence, corporate profiteering, stock market manipulation and government complicity that have resulted in the shortage of the essential food needed by infants and toddlers, especially those from poor and working-class families.

The supply shortage began almost immediately following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in February 2020 when supply chains and transportation were disrupted internationally. During the initial days of the pandemic, families stockpiled the formula and emptied shelves. This was followed by a sharp fall in sales, and manufacturers cut back on production.

Now, with an uptick in births and a dramatic decline in breastfeeding rates among new mothers, demand has shot up again. The inability of the producers to adapt to fluctuations in demand is itself an expression of the anarchistic and unplanned nature of capitalist economics.

The primary cause of the recent surge in the shortage stems from the shutdown in February of the baby formula factory operated by Abbott Labs in Sturgis, Michigan, the largest in the US. The plant is responsible for 25 percent of the US supply and produces the popular brand names Similac, Alimentum and EleCare.

In February, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) forced Abbott Labs to recall products and shut down the Sturgis facility. This action was taken only after it became clear that the conditions in the plant were so unsanitary that the federal government agency, which has a long history of collaboration with the corporations in the food and drug industries, could no longer look the other way.

During congressional testimony Wednesday, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said the agency’s inspection of the Sturgis operations that began on January 31 revealed conditions that were “shocking” and “egregiously unsanitary.”

Dr. Califf told the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the “totality of evidence” obtained during the inspection caused the FDA to conclude that infant formulas manufactured at this plant “were produced under insanitary conditions.” He added that the formula “may be contaminated” with bacteria that is known to be fatal in infants.

Among the unsanitary conditions uncovered at the Sturgis factory were that multiple swab samples “later tested positive for the bacteria Cronobacter sakazakii,” cracks in the spray dryers used in the manufacturing process are “an issue related to previous foodborne illness outbreak in powdered infant formula” and water leaks and condensation that are known risk factors for deadly bacteria were found “in areas where dry powdered formula was produced.”

Califf also reported leaks in the roof, standing water in the factory and two instances in the past, based on internal company documents, when finished baby formula was known to have “environmental contamination with Cronobacter sakazakii.” The FDA commissioner claimed that these poisoned batches, which were produced by Abbott Labs in 2019 and 2020, had been destroyed by the company.

The FDA inspection was motivated in part by the fact that four infants, who had been fed nutrition products from the Sturgis factory, had been hospitalized between September and December 2021 with Cronobacter infection. Cronobacter sakazakii is a serious foodborne pathogen that can cause “severe, life-threatening infections,” including sepsis and meningitis as well as bowel damage. Two of the children died from their infections.

The agency was also belatedly responding to a report by a whistleblower who disclosed in October 2021 details about the dilapidated conditions at the Michigan factory. The whistleblower also highlighted the retaliatory policy of company management and its firing of employees who objected to the failure to follow FDA requirements, falsification of records, releasing untested products onto retail shelves and failure of antiquated equipment at the Sturgis facility.

Abbott Laboratories is a $200 billion global corporation that produces medical devices and health care products and was founded in 1888. The multinational has profited enormously over the past two years from its pandemic-related COVID testing products while its less profitable pediatric nutritionals operations have been starved of resources.

Meanwhile, the company—whose Executive Chairman Miles D. White earned $27 million and CEO and President Robert Ford earned $25 million in 2021—has rewarded its investors with billions of dollars in quarterly stock buybacks while the bacterial contamination of its baby formula products were well-known. In December 2021, after the FDA had notified Abbott Labs of a planned inspection of its Sturgis facility, the company announced a $5 billion stock repurchase authorization.

Throughout the bacterial contamination crisis, Abbott Labs has claimed there is no proof that its products have caused infants to become sick and die from life-threatening infections. The company has also maintained that the allegations in the 34-page whistleblower report are untrue.

The belligerence of Abbott Labs in the face of facts that it has acted in a criminally negligent manner has been bolstered by the FDA and the US Justice Department which signed a consent decree with the corporation on May 16. This agreement guarantees that Abbott Labs will not be prosecuted or held responsible for the bacterial contamination of its baby formula products, in exchange for restarting its manufacturing operations at the Sturgis plant.

The fact that millions of families are now desperately searching for baby formula on empty store shelves and forced to make life and death decisions to feed their infants is proof that the corporations and the government do not care about what happens to the lives of millions of children. This fact was confirmed in the recent comment by President Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg who washed his hands of the crisis, saying, “The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make formula.”

“Let’s be very clear,” Buttigieg said, “this is a capitalist country.” Precisely. While Buttigieg made this statement to justify a position that the government should do nothing, the entire crisis condemns the social and economic system that the Biden administration and the entire state apparatus defends.

The formula shortage—coming in the midst of a massive surge in prices throughout the world and an ongoing pandemic that has already killed more than one million people in the United States—is another demonstration of the urgent necessity for the socialist reorganization of society.

Baby formula production and distribution—and other essential products and services required to sustain the lives of millions and billions of people on the earth—must be taken out of the hands of the financial parasites who own them. The working class must transform these resources into public property and operate them based on social need and not profit.

Originally published by WSWS.org

28 May 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

Part II

By Michael Welch and Abdul Jabbar

“I feel we are back in 1939; Munich. Czechslovakia has been taken. Will the word community appease a market of 1.2bn or will it stand up for justice and humanity? If a conventional war starts between 2 countries, nuclear countries anything could happen.

“Supposing a country 7 times smaller than its neighbour; faced with a question. Either you surrender, or you fight till the end. I ask myself this question. And my belief is ‘La ilaha illAllah’, there is no God but one. We will FIGHT!”

– Imran Khan, from his speech at the United Nations General Assembly Seventy-fourth session, 9th plenary meeting (September 27, 2019)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The Removal Of Imran Khan Part 2: Back to Dismantling Pakistan’s Relationships with China and Russia

A month following the vote of his political rivals to eject him from power, Imran Khan is riding perhaps the biggest waves of popularity that he has ever surfed upon!

And with legions of supporters propping up his stature, he has launched the campaign “Ghulami Na Manzoor,” a call to unseat the “Imported government” of the recently installed Prime Minister Shehbaaz Sharif. Starting after May 20th, less than a week from the time this is written, a new vote of confidence will be launched from the very grassroots population against the individuals who have conspired to remove the leader they put in place nearly four years ago.

The onslaught of the public would enter into Islamabad and hound the Prime Minister everywhere he goes with slogans of “thief and traitor.” Those unable to make the trip would protest locally in their own communities.

That being said, the actual rules of governance would not likely recognize such tactics as anything more than a protest. Power appears to have returned to the old guard leaving U.S. interests in their leading role in the Pakistan stage.

One writer who has taken an interest in the current Pakistan plight, Abdul Jabbar, described the situation in Pakistan as being the latest example of what he calls Indirect Colonialism. HE puts it bluntly:

“In this kind of colonialism, the colonizing power uses local self-seeking, nation-betraying leaders to sacrifice national interests for the sake of self-advancement.

“The colonizer does not have to spend its resources on launching a formal invasion to occupy a country. Local corrupt politicians prostitute national interest to do the colonizer’s bidding.”

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, Jabbar, this week’s feature guest, takes us through just how far back the new government in charge has taken the country already, away from partnership with Russia and China and towards advancing U.S. geopolitical aims. But this interview is preceded by a replay of one of Imran Khan’s most impassioned speeches, the one at the UN General Assembly relating to Islamophobia and the ever contentious Kashmir region. Toward the end of the program, we bring to the attention of listeners the role of a local terrorist army now appearing to attack Chinese in the province of Balochistan.

Imran Khan is the recently removed Prime Minister of Pakistan. He currently commands broad support within the grassroots population of the West Asian country.

Abdul Jabbar is a scholar originally from Pakistan. He has taught interdisciplinary studies (including political science) in the United States for nearly half a century, so he has been following the developments in Pakistan with great interest and concern, both from professional and personal points of view.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 355)

Transcript – Interview with Abdul Jabbar, May 9, 2022

Global Research News Hour: This is Michael Welch for the Global Research News Hour, and the story of the Pakistan coup against Imran Khan is still an ongoing issue. Now one month into the new regime is in power, and Imran is delighting the many hundreds of thousands in the streets.

So we’re going to get a take by a new individual. His name is Abdul Jabbar. He taught English and Interdisciplinary Studies for 36 years on a full-time basis at City College of San Francisco, including visiting professorship at University of California-Berkeley, he’s a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and two National Endowment for the Humanities Awards, he received his PhD in English from Case Western University in Cleveland Ohio, and has written three books, his latest, The Promise, Reality, and Potential of American Cultural Diversity is in the process of publication. He’s published several articles on literary, political, and similar topics. His video lectures are available on YouTube, and has been following developments in Pakistan with great interest and concern both from professional and personal points of view. Professor Jabbar, welcome to the Global Research News Hour.

Abdul Jabbar: Thank you for having me on the program Michael.

GR: Since Imran Khan was replaced from power one month ago, has there been any fundamental changes in terms of policy that he’s brought forward?

AJ: His policies have been completely turned around. His policy was for independent foreign policy, that was a major concern and that has been completely diluted with the new government because the new government is really [inaudible] in a sham When you have a coup like this, I don’t think we have any idea. For us, it’s just a matter of simple foreign policy decision to bring in someone who will cooperate with our view of the region. We don’t think much more than that. It leads to so many ramifications for the affected country, it’s hard to even imagine.

So right now, what’s happening is that the new prime minister is scrambling all over the world to get funding. He got some funding from Saudi Arabia and requesting the IMF to extend the loan. And you know every new regime that comes in uses the previous regime for causing the problems, but you know time will tell, I am not sure to what extent is it accusations that there was bad governance on the part of Imran Khan’s government. I’m not so sure to what extent I can believe it, but mainly what is of concern is the assassination attempts on Imran Khan. When we make foreign policy decisions to replace someone, I don’t think we really deep down want the person to be eliminated.

But the local people who take power, they have to then guard themselves against reprisal, repercussions, so they just eliminate the person, the opponent. So this time there is a lot of talk of assassinating Imran Khan, and a lot of warnings from the government, and a lot of advice from even the military that he should not call his big meeting where he expects about two million people to show up this month. There’s attempt also to have him arrested, so that’s the situation right now.

GR: So you mean to say that the deals with, the defense deal between Russia and Pakistan is over, that Pakistan is no longer part of the CPEC with China?

AJ: The deal with Russia was close to being completed when Imran Khan was overthrown, so that hasn’t gone through. That was a huge breakthrough for Pakistan’s economy, 30% discount oil, 30% discount on wheat, and Imran was just working for the benefit of the masses who are struggling with this global inflation with COVID thrown in. And that was not completely carried out, and I think it will not happen. The US will dictate terms. The US government will dictate terms with regard to Russia for sure. With China, remember China is the biggest investor in Pakistan’s market. With close to 60 billion dollars of investment in the program called CPEC, which means China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

And they are, well there are many projects which are going to be very beneficial to Pakistan in China, US has never liked the close relation of Pakistan to China. Because China is a potential threat to US economy, and the US government forgets that in 1971, Pakistan that enabled the first meeting between US and China, it was a secret meeting when Kissinger flew to Islamabad to Pakistan, and then Pakistan government arranged that secret meeting. So they were brought together, the two powers, so Pakistan was instrumental in doing that. So my take is Michael that Pakistan could play a centre role to bring either Russia and the US to clear the tensions. Pakistan believes in, believds under Imran Khan, no bases in Pakistan, no foreign bases.

No participation in foreign and I don’t know what is going to happen now with terrorism in Pakistan. All the Taliban are attacking Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated and there were 47 Taliban killed inside Afghanistan. So this is been happening in the past and now this will escalate…. Terrorism brought under control under Imran Khan because he [inaudible] will have a negotiated settlement with the Taliban is no [inaudible] resolution. He was perfectly right. What we, out of 20 years of war, was to replace the Taliban with Taliban with trillions of dollars of expense and so many debts. So I think that the reversal it has taken place in the foreign policy with the new government.

GR: What can you tell me about the new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif?

AJ: Shehbaz Sharif has many cases pending against him for corruption and money laundering like his older brother. He has power to have those cases honed in the federal judiciaries. The judiciaries in the system of the whole [inaudible] [inaudible] situations is totally still the same that was there before Imran Khan. The system is the same, he tried to change from one. He failed miserably. Because the system is there and what they do is, like whenever there’s a hearing, the judges will postpone the hearing to the next day, to the next day. So Imran was furious, a few times he said the Judiciary is not doing its job.

So he had a lot of cases. He doesn’t have a clean slate. You can say that he’s almost like on the hill, and so are many of his cabinet members. But he’s a good manager, when he was chief minister of Punjab which is the biggest province in Pakistan. He did some good work and building his home city Lahore, and the area, so he, he’s a good manager, and I believe he will do whatever the US wants him to do, and since he may be able to get Pakistan some benefit in the short run.

But the people are not going to accept it. See millions of people are coming out all over the world. They demand election. In the elections, Imran will have two-thirds of majority that he needs. His problem was, Michael, that he didn’t have an absolute majority when he won elections in 2018. He had to work, compromise, with people with whom he totally disagreed. So it was very difficult. Now if the elections are held, he will have an absolute majority, and even then implement the vision that got postponed, because of the corruption in all these institutions that he inherited.

GR: It sort of brings us to your latest essay, American Style Colonialism and Imperialism with Pakistan the Latest Victim. You lay out how the status as an American conquest is protected by the local puppets who succeed one another. Every once in a while, somebody will actually place the interests of the country ahead of the welfare of US wealth and undue political interests. In Pakistan, before Khan, we had Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 1977. What were the dynamics that played out in that case?

AJ: 2007, think she was assassinated. ‘77 is when Zia-ul-Haq overthrew the democratic government of Bhutto and then he was hanged by Zia-ul-Haq. That is the last clear demonstration of US interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan. It was in 1977, July 5th, to be accurate, I had flown to Pakistan on a visit on July 4th because I know the people there didn’t travel much it was an American plane. So I travelled and I woke up to the news that the country’s government is overthrown and I came to know, I heard some people in the military, some friends, I came to know that the last pieces of the strategy were finalized in the American embassy on [inaudible]. So Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown. And then a couple of years later he was executed. What happened to the country since then, what did Zia-ul-Haq bring to the country, this is mind-boggling.

He has done the most amount of damage to the country single-handedly. It was a liberal democracy under Bhutto. Bhutto was not perfect. Just talking about the democracy that was in place, and it was a liberal democracy. Zia-ul-Haq brought in the extreme Wahhabi, Saudi Arabian imported version of Islam. And curtailing women’s rights, freedom of speech, and he came for 90 days to have elections but he stayed in power until he was assass– he was killed in an airplane crash. So that also were brought in all kinds of terrorists from over the world.

So they were funded by the US through Pakistan, the US and Saudi Arabia funded them under Zia-ul-Haq to fight the Soviet Union ‘79 invasion of Afghanistan. And so just imagine, those people came from 40 different countries, and they landed in Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan ISI and the US training. So what happened, they destroyed the social fabric of the society. Because once the war was over. they were there. They weren’t leaving. I grew up in Pakistan. I don’t remember any household owning Kalashnikov. And after the Soviet invasion, the US and this [inaudible] for the US, all that changed the country’s society completely.

We could walk in Pakistan at 1 a.m. 2 a.m. freely, but then it was just a matter of being caught for ransom if you go to visit Pakistan. Things changed under Imran Khan simply because he said we should be in negotiated settlement and it is cultural imperialism to command another culture to obey us. And that was why he was respected by the Taliban, then we started calling him Taliban Khan. So really ironic.

GR: The elections in Pakistan are set for 2023. What do you think will take place in the interim to foil Khan’s attempts to return to power? I made you mentioned a possible assassination. Are there other things they could do to finish him off in case he can avoid assassination?

AJ: Just yesterday he said that there are a lot of attempts from all kinds of quarters. He expects some of those, but even if he’s assassinated it will not change the momentum because the youth, which is more aware than ever before, they want the restoration of the government that is representative of their will. And his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which means just “his party,” Pakistan Movement for Justice, they will sweep the election. And the current government is trying to postpone the election until as you said 2023. And that, in the interim, many things can happen. You can have… Hopefully the worst scenario is civil war. That is nobody wishes. In Syria, we didn’t think anything would happen when we interfered others interfered, one side was Russia, on the other side was the US, the proxy war. Two and a quarter million people have been killed, so many millions displaced… We don’t know, you see when these things happen, they have their own momentum.

They take the ugliest possible terms, you can’t imagine, so what will happen Michael is anybody’s guess. The worst scenario is civil war. Within my own family there’s a civil war going on. So I can tell you that this, there’s a lot of tension, people and Saudi Arabia there was a spontaneous demonstration against Shehbaz. He had gone to Saudi Arabia and get funding. Here it pretty much is a convention to go to those holy sites in Saudi Arabia to offer prayers. So Shehbaz went there, Shehbaz Sharif and the crowd saw him recognized him and the Pakistan is living in Saudi Arabia they erupted with “Thief! Thief!” And there was a pretty much of a riot. The police came in and then more people joined in and Sharif and his Entourage were attacked and the Saudi Arabian government arrested people from both sides, and they have some draconian punishment for that. Saudi Arabia doesn’t…the government doesn’t want any protest, especially at that time in that place. And as you know they don’t like protest, period. So they’re going to give huge sentences.

The worst part of that incident was to me an FIR registered in a city in Pakistan to implicate to introduce the idea of assassinating Imran on religious grounds that he has done a sacrilege to a holy site because he’s behind the whole riot, that he instigated it. He was in Pakistan of course, there is no legal ability to this and it won’t win in the court. The problem is it instigates, it unleashes a tsunami of hatred and fanaticism.

It was a governor in Pakistan who simply said the blasphemy laws should be used carefully because a Christian woman was being hanged according to sources for blasphemy. And he intervened, he said, blasphemy is a very sensitive legal item, we have to use it very carefully. He was assassinated by a fanatic. Because he thought if he was being too soft on Christian minority and defaming and blaspheming the prophet. So this was the attempt to create a legal basis First Information Report. FIR is a legal document the police registered. And then it unleashes all these currents of hate, totally unfounded. So, you know, that is the worst-case scenario that could happen, that kind of assassination could take place.

Civil war is a possibility, and it’s also possible to be very hopeful, that the current government will continue until the election and the interim will not see any big upheavals other than Imran Khan [inaudible] And he insists on nonviolence. He does not want his followers to do any violence. So, it is possible that probably will be the best-case scenario short of elections.

GR: Well, that’s fascinating reality is playing out. Professor Jabbar I’m afraid we’re out of time now , but you brought us a lot to think about. Thank you for joining us.

AJ: Thank you very much for having me on your program!
______________________________________

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

15 May 2022

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Mike Whitney

“I can’t believe it’s monkey-pox season already and I haven’t even taken my Ukrainian decorations down.” Robin Monotti

Bill Gates’ prediction that the world would face an unexpected smallpox outbreak is miraculously unfolding. Should we be surprised?

I know I’m not. Here’s the money-quote that was delivered by Gates 6 months before the first case was recorded.

“It’ll take probably about a billion a year for a pandemic Task Force at the WHO level, which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call ‘germ games’ where you practice… You say, OK, what if a bioterrorist brought smallpox to 10 airports? You know, how would the world respond to that?” Bill Gates, Sky News, November 6, 2021

One can only marvel at Gates’ extraordinary powers of perception. He’s like some kind of Software Soothsayer able to divine the future from the entrails of animals. Is that it, or does he have a crystal ball tucked-away somewhere in the bowels of his Lake Washington mansion? Whatever it is, it’s trully astonishing. Here’s more from the World Socialist Web Site:

“An unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox virus has officially spread to 10 countries outside of Africa, with 107 confirmed or suspected cases reported as of this writing, in the United Kingdom (9 cases), Portugal (34), Spain (32), France (1), Belgium (2), Sweden (1), Italy (3), Canada (22), the United States (2), and Australia (1).”

Much remains unknown about what is causing the outbreak, which is the most geographically dispersed and rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1958. In the coming days and weeks, more data and scientific understanding will emerge, but already there is profound concern within the scientific community and among the public, which has found wide expression on social media.” (“Over 100 monkeypox infections detected in 10 countries as unprecedented outbreak spreads globally“, World Socialist Web Site)

Repeat: The most “rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1958.”

I wonder if that “rapidly spreading” part has something to do with the way that researchers have been tweaking the gain-of-function of these unique pathogens in order to make them more contagious and more lethal? Is that what’s going on?

We’ll probably never know.

And, is it fair to ask whether monkey-pox might be another lab-generated virus that was concocted in the 300-or-so Pentagon-funded secret labs sprinkled around the world that are presently conducting a massive war on humanity to further the ambitions of billionaire elites who are committed to reducing the global population while imposing strict, police state surveillance on every sentient being on planet earth?

We probably won’t get an answer to that one either.

In the interest of fairness, though, we should mention that “reputable” media outlets, like Newsweek magazine, have refuted the claim that Gates made the prediction that we allude to above. Here’s Newsweek’s explanation:

“While Gates has talked about the possibility of bioterrorist smallpox attacks in the past, his comments have been drawn slightly out of context and don’t mention monkeypox.” (Fact Check: Did Bill Gates Predict The Monkeypox Outbreak? Newsweek)

“Slightly out of context?” You mean, Gates did NOT draw attention to a particular infectious disease (smallpox) that magically reemerged from extinction just months later? What “context” is the author talking about? We’d like to know.

Strictly speaking, it doesn’t matter what Newsweek says or doesn’t say, after all, Gates has become the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with today’s Public Health Gestapo, which is why he’s become a magnet for criticism. And, whether he’s been treated fairly or not, a sizable number of people believe quite strongly, that Gates is the mastermind behind a plan to use lab-generated infectious diseases to subjugate the global population in order to establish a tyrannical New Order controlled by voracious elites like himself.

And the WHO’s new sovereignty-eviscerating treaty further underscores this point, in fact, it seems to suggest that Gates and his fellow travelers believe their lifelong ambition to rule the world is now within their grasp. Check it out:

In researching this article, I stumbled across a number of tidbits that readers might find interesting. For example, I discovered that there had been a tabletop exercise simulating a global pandemic involving an unusual strain of #monkeypox” that took place in March 2021. It’s astonishing how many of these ‘preparatory drills’ seem to take place just prior to some particularly horrific event. Can we dismiss them all as mere coincidences? Check out this blurb from the Brownstone Institute:

“… media outlets around the world are on red alert over the world’s first-ever global outbreak of Monkeypox in mid-May 2022—just one year after an international biosecurity conference in Munich held a simulation of a “global pandemic involving an unusual strain of Monkeypox” beginning in mid-May 2022.

Monkeypox was first identified in 1958, but there’s never been a global Monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa until now—in the exact week of the exact month predicted by the biosecurity folks in their pandemic simulation. Take these guys to Vegas!

The global Monkeypox outbreak—occurring on the exact timeline predicted by a biosecurity simulation of a global Monkeypox outbreak a year prior—bears a striking resemblance to the outbreak of COVID-19 just months after Event 201, a simulation of a coronavirus pandemic almost exactly like COVID-19. ” (“Monkeypox Was a Table-Top Simulation Only Last Year”, Brownstone Institute)

And here’s a minute and a half video that helps to explain the excerpt above. (Video) You may notice that the anchor reporting the (simulated) outbreak says, “Scientists have decided that this monkeypox virus was engineered.”

Uh huh. And, further along, one of the analysts offers these prescient words of advice: “We’re seeing far fewer cases where governments’ took early and decisive action”

What do you think that means? Could it mean that we’d better prepare ourselves for another round of experimental clot shots? Is that what it means?

So, here’s your Pandemic Quiz for the Day: What do you think the chances are that an oddball affliction, like Monkeypox, could spontaneously break out in 10 different locations around the world (where it had never appeared before) at the exact same time?

How about “zero” chance? Is that too high?

I’m going to go out-on-a-limb here and say there is zero chance that this new disease occurred “naturally”. The only rational assumption one can make, is that monkey-pox, like Covid, is a lab-generated pathogen spread by covert agents that are prosecuting a bio-war on the global population. But we’ll have to consult Dr Fauci on the matter and see if he agrees. Here’s more from the WSWS:

“In preliminary posts, scientists speculate that the virus, which is endemic in parts of Africa, could have evolved to become more contagious and better suited to human-to-human transmission. In addition, nearly all people under 42 years old have not received a smallpox vaccine (which is 85 percent effective at preventing monkeypox infection) since smallpox was eradicated in 1980. As a result, they have no immunity, and younger adults can be infected as easily as children.”(WSWS)

This simply confirms that another mass vaccination campaign is on the way. Here’s more from the same article:

“The emergence of multiple cases across different countries is deeply problematic….“Given that we have seen now confirmed cases out of Portugal, suspected cases out of Spain, we’re seeing this expansion of confirmed and suspect cases globally, we have a sense that no one has their arms around this to know how large and expansive it might be….

In nearly every public statement by epidemiologists, they have all admitted to being bewildered by how entrenched the virus already is in communities, given that it is normally extremely rare. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told STAT News, “this is starting off with much more of a foothold, in a much more distributed way, and we don’t understand how it got into those networks.” (“Over 100 monkeypox infections detected in 10 countries as unprecedented outbreak spreads globally“, World Socialist Web Site)

So, it’s everywhere already? Then, what do we do?

The obvious answer is lock-down, mask up and get vaccinated as soon as possible. Otherwise, most of the world’s population could face an agonizing death… just like Covid, remember?. Of course, some people might conclude that we are being deliberately misled again, and that 2 pandemics in 2 years is a statistical impossibility. But why be reasonable when mass-hysteria is the order of the day? Here’s more:

“The number of severe side-effects of the smallpox vaccine makes its use in a mass vaccination campaign problematic. However, due to the long incubation period for monkeypox, the smallpox vaccine can work as a post-exposure prophylaxis in a “ring vaccination” model….” (WSWS)

In other words, don’t be dissuaded by the sky-high rates of heart attacks, strokes, blood clotting or death. Just follow the CDC’s thoughtful recommendations and everything will be just fine. Besides, the government has already purchased 13 million of these new-improved poison-death shots (U.S. Buys 13 Million Doses of Monkeypox Vaccine) so just calm down, take a deep breath and roll up your sleeve. We all know the drill by now.

We do, however, scratch our heads when we read about the suspicious goings-on at the Pentagon’s secret bio-labs that appear to be engaged in all manner of illicit skullduggery including the industrial-scale creation of lethal pathogens that could exterminate billions of people in one fell-swoop. That does keep us up at night. Check out this article in Tass:

“The US researched Ebola and smallpox viruses in Ukraine, says Irina Yarovaya, Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Commission on Investigation of US Biological Laboratories in Ukraine.

“Today, we presented an analysis of which pathogens the US was particularly interested in in Ukraine,” she told reporters Friday. “Aside from the pathogens that are territoriality bound to Ukraine, [the laboratories] researched viruses and pathogens that are endemically very far from Ukraine, such as Ebola and smallpox.”

According to the legislator, the information obtained indicates “aggressive goal-setting that underpins the foundation of these programs, de facto implemented by US Department of Defense on Ukrainian soil.”…

“I would like to underscore that the dialogue that we had with the SVR chief today, combined with the proof obtained by the commission, fully confirms the US-created network of biological intelligence worldwide and the implementation of active military-biological exploitation of the globe, and Ukraine in particular. This essentially poses a serious global threat”….

“But at the same time, [it should] urge the global community to seriously get to the bottom of this secret and dangerous military biological activity, implemented by the US. So that comprehensive measures pertaining to common, equal and indivisible security could be developed. Given the distinction between peaceful and non-peaceful use of bacteriological research and the study of toxins, it must be completely transparent and controlled. And there simply must not be any bacteriological weapons in the world, this is Russia’s principal position.” (“Key Russian lawmaker reveals illicit Ebola, smallpox research at US-run Ukraine biolab”, Tass)

So, what’s going on here? Why does the Pentagon have over 300 bio-labs spread around the world conducting secret gain-of-function research on pathogens that pose a clear threat to all of humanity? And why has the Pentagon partnered with notorious elites whose links to the eugenics, depopulation and climate movements suggest the research may be shaped to a particular strategic agenda that could involve significant casualties?

And what if Monkeypox is not, in fact, a natural occurring virus but merely the next phase of a relentless war on Constitutional government, individual freedom and the basic institutions of modern civilization? Perhaps, we are being prepared for a different civilization altogether, a civilization in which all of our decisions will be made for us by enlightened elders, corporate stakeholders and well-meaning philanthropists. Is that possible?

It’s certainly worth thinking about.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State.

23 May 2022

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Gideon Levy

If there is one thing completely missing from the public agenda in Israel, it is the long-term view. Israel does not look ahead, not even by half a generation.

Children are important in Israel, and the time and energy devoted to them may substantially exceed what is typical in most other societies, yet no one talks about what lies ahead for them or for their own future children.

There is not a single Israeli, not one, who knows where his country is headed.

Ask any ordinary Israeli or any politician, any journalist or scientist, from the political centre or the right or the left: where are you going? How will your country look in another 20 years? Or 50? They can’t even describe what 10 years from now might be like. Few Israelis could even say where they would like their country to be going, apart from empty slogans about peace and security and prosperity.
Troubling question

Also very instructive is the one question that does arise about the long term: will Israel still exist in another 20 or 50 years? That is all you will hear queried in Israel about the future. And meanwhile a different question – Will there ever be peace? – which a generation or two ago was omnipresent, is no longer on the agenda and almost never asked.

There are very few places where people ask whether or not their country will exist a few decades hence. People don’t ask that in Germany or Albania, or in Togo or in Chad. This question may not be pertinent for Israel either – a powerfully armed regional power, impressively well-connected, with such technological prowess and such prosperity, the darling of the West.

Yet consider the fact that so many Israelis continue to ask this question, more often lately than ever. Note the incredible efforts Israelis expend to obtain a second passport for themselves and their children – any passport! Let it be Portuguese or Lithuanian, the main thing is to have some option beyond an Israeli passport, as if an Israeli passport is some kind of temporary permit nearing its expiration date, as if it weren’t possible to go on renewing it forever.

All of that suggests that the Israeli habit of burying their heads in the sand about the future of their country disguises a deep-seated, and possibly very realistic, fear about what the future may hold. Israelis are afraid of the future of their country. They brag about their country’s power and ability, a righteous nation, a chosen people, a light unto the nations; they are exceedingly boastful about their army, about their skills, while at the same time a primordial fear gnaws at their innards.

The future of their country is hidden from them, shrouded in mist. They like to talk in religious terms about eternity, “a united Jerusalem for eternity” and “God’s eternal promise to Israel”, while deep down they have no clue what will be happening to their country tomorrow or, at the latest, the day after that.
Self-delusion provides no answer

The name of the game is repression, denial, self-delusion, on a scale unknown in any other society that comes to mind. Just as for most Israelis there is no occupation, and definitely no apartheid, despite the mountains of evidence towering higher all the time – so, for most Israelis, tomorrow is not a thing. Tomorrow is not a thing in terms of the environment or climate change in Israel; tomorrow is not a thing in terms of relations with the other nation living alongside us with our knee on its throat.

Just try asking Israelis what it is going to be like here one day with a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and in the best case you’ll get nothing but a shrug. Where is it all headed? Will we live forever by the sword? Is it worth the price?

What you’ll discover is that – guess what? – Israelis have never asked themselves this question before and no one has ever queried them about it before, either. Their expression will tell you that they’ve never heard such a strange question. In any event, there will be no answer. Israelis have no answer.

This situation is very unhealthy, of course. A society cannot go far with its head buried in the sand, and will certainly be unable to cope with the real challenges confronting it. The occupation, which more than anything else is what defines Israel today, presents more than a few challenges – with which Israel refuses to grapple. What will happen with the occupation? Where will it take the two societies, occupier and occupied, Israeli and Palestinian? Can the occupation go on forever?

Until recently, I was convinced that the occupation cannot last forever. History has taught us that a people fighting to be free generally wins and that rotten regimes, like the military occupation of the Palestinian people by Israel, collapse of their own accord, crumbling internally from the decay that always pervades them. But as the Israeli occupation drags on and its end continually recedes, doubts have riven my once-solid conviction that something will surely happen soon to bring down the occupation, like a tree that looks robust but has rotted from within.

The most frightening case in point is that of America and the Native Americans, a story of a conquest that became permanent, with the conquered herded onto reservations where they have independence and self-determination only in theory and their national rights are ignored.
Indefinite occupation

In other words, there are indeed occupations that go on indefinitely, defying the odds and all the predictions, persisting and persisting until a conquered people stops being a nation and becomes an anthropological curiosity living in its cage on a reservation. This happens when the occupation is particularly powerful and the conquered are especially weak and the world loses interest in their fate. A future like that now looms over the Palestinians. They are at their most perilous hour since the Nakba in 1948.

Divided, isolated, lacking strong leadership, bleeding at the side of the road and slowly losing their most precious asset in terms of the solidarity they aroused all over the world, especially in the global south.

Yasser Arafat was a global icon; there was nowhere on earth that did not know his name. No Palestinian leader today even comes close. Worse yet, their cause is gradually disappearing from the world’s agenda as it pivots to pressing issues like migration, the environment and the war in Ukraine. The world is tired of the Palestinians, the Arab world tired of them long ago and the Israelis were never interested in them. That could still change, but the current trends are deeply disheartening.

Another Nakba on the 1948 model would not seem a realistic option for Israel at the present time; the second Nakba is an ongoing one that creeps along insidiously all the time, but without drama. There are certainly those in Israel who toy with the idea that under the cloak of some future war, Israel could “finish the job” only partially completed in 1948. Threatening voices in that key have sounded louder lately but they remain a minority in Israeli discourse.

Continue with the settlements? Why not. Most Israelis just do not care. They have never been to the settlements, will never go there and couldn’t care less whether Evyatar is evacuated or not.

The struggle has long since moved to the international front. The crucial shift will come only from there, as happened in South Africa. But part of the world has simply lost interest, and the rest clings to the formula of a two-state solution as if it were sanctified by religious edict. Yet, most decision-makers already know that the two-state solution is long dead, if in fact it ever lived and breathed.
Equality is the path

The only exit from this depressing impasse is by creating a new discourse, a discourse of rights and equality. People must stop singing the songs of yesteryear and embrace a new vision. For the international community, this should be obvious; for the Israelis and to a lesser extent the Palestinians, the idea is revolutionary, threatening, and exceedingly painful.

Equality. Equal rights from the river to the sea. One person, one vote. So basic and yet so revolutionary. This path requires a parting of the ways with Zionism and the rejection of Jewish supremacy, and letting go of the entire self-definition of both peoples – but it represents the only ray of hope.

In Israel until just a few years ago this idea was viewed as subversive, treasonous and illegitimate. It is still viewed that way but with somewhat less force. It has become mentionable. It now remains for civil societies in the West and then the politicians to embrace the change. Most of them already know that this is the only solution left, but are afraid to admit it lest they lose the magic formula for a continued Israeli occupation provided by the now dead two-state solution.

The present is deeply discouraging, the future no less so. And yet to persist in thinking that something can still be hoped for, some action can still be taken, is of the utmost importance. The worst thing that could happen in this part of the world would be for everyone to lose interest in what happens here and resign themselves to the current reality. That must not be.

Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. Levy joined Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor.

23 May 2022

Source: www.middleeasteye.net

By Caitlin Johnstone

19 May 2022 – Oh my God. It happened. I can’t believe it really happened.

During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University’s George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that.

While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment:

“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.”

And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, “Iraq too. Anyway.” He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his “Aw shucks gee willikers I’m such a goofball” persona than he ever has in his entire life.

And Bush’s audience laughed. They thought it was great. A president who launched an illegal invasion that killed upwards of a million people (probably way upwards) openly confessing to doing what every news outlet in the western world has spent the last three months shrieking its lungs out about Putin doing was hilarious to them.

There are not enough shoes in the universe to respond to this correctly.

As comedian John Fugelsang put it, “George W. Bush didn’t do a Freudian slip. He did a Freudian Confession.”

One of the many, many interesting things about this occurrence is the likelihood that Bush’s words tumbled out in the way they did because he’s either heard a lot of criticisms of his invasion or has been thinking a lot about them; a familiar neural pathway would explain why his brain chose the exact worst word he could possibly swap out for “Ukraine” in that moment. This would be a small light in the darkness for we ordinary folk who oppose war and love peace, because it suggests that even the worst empire managers cannot fully insulate themselves from our criticisms.

The bullshit doesn’t get any more brightly illuminated than this, folks. All that spin and narrative management they’ve been pouring into the US proxy war in Ukraine, and Bush undoes it all with the Bushism to end all Bushisms.

While the western political/media class constantly rends its garments over “disinformation” about the Ukraine war even as US officials openly admit they’ve been using the media to circulate disinformation about that same war, and even as the Biden administration imprisons and persecutes a journalist for exposing US war crimes, we get a square admission that the US is no better than Russia and that the only thing obscuring this is the fact that we are all swimming in a sea of disinformation and propaganda provided by that same political/media class.

And this admission comes not from any low-level empire lackey, but from the man himself. The guy. The man whose name alone serves as a one-word debunk of every claim made about how uniquely nefarious Vladimir Putin is on the world stage and how uniquely depraved is his invasion of Ukraine.

If you really look at what just happened, really truly ingest it, this one incident just by itself is enough to show you that we are swimming in a sea of lies designed to give us an upside-down and ass-backwards perspective of what’s going on in the world. If Bush himself can’t always tell the difference between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Ukraine, then this means our news media and our politicians are lying to us constantly. They lied to us through 2002 and 2003, and they never stopped lying, and they are lying now in the year 2022.

The entire mainstream worldview is a perceptual distortion filter which obscures the public understanding of world events so severely that Bush has been not just forgiven for his crimes but actively rehabilitated in the public eye, while the enemies of the United States are continuously compared to Adolf Hitler and condemned throughout the US-dominated world.

In reality the US is the single most tyrannical and destructive government on this planet, and it is only because the public is fed a nonstop deluge of propaganda that this isn’t universally obvious. Even the worst empire managers know deep down that this is true, and, in their less guarded moments, sometimes the truth slips out.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium.

23 May 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Robert Bridge

15 May 2022 – North Americans are being shepherded to the next emoji crusade – the latest being Russia’s special operation in Ukraine – like consumers waiting in line for junk food and Happy Meals. When does the mindless virtue-signaling end?

While some Westerners may find a kindred spirit with McDonald’s and its anti-war posturing against Russia, a little more consistency on the issue of war and peace would be a most welcome development.

The fact is, nothing screams ‘Russophobia’ more than the spectacle of McDonald’s abandoning the Russian market amid Moscow’s conflict with Ukraine, especially when it is remembered that Ronald kept flipping his burgers all the while as George W. Bush and Barack Obama were indulging themselves on a killing spree in numerous ill-fated countries.

Aside from the question of America’s flagrant double standards when dealing with Russia, there lurks an even more mysterious and disturbing riddle: How is it possible to continue triggering Americans into a non-stop virtue-signaling crusade on behalf of various causes? Moreover, if the media was not there to point them to the Next Big Thing, would Americans even know that one existed?

With whiplash swiftness, Americans have gone from taking a knee to Black Lives Matter (even as this group was going on a billion-dollar, 20-state rampage, which entered the record books as America’s most expensive protest ever), to demonizing those wary of new Covid-19 vaccines, to lining up on opposite sides of the Roe v. Wade abortion rights showdown.

Amid these increasingly frequent domestic earthquakes, Russia has always found itself at the epicenter of the action. It’s a bit like the Chris Rock of countries, getting slapped in the face every day without rhyme or reason. There is a whiff of a slick McDonald’s advertising campaign at the heart of America’s perennial obsession with Russia. Just like those wonderfully deceptive TV ads that show a deliriously happy (and mysteriously healthy) family gorging themselves on Big Macs and Happy Meals, a trip to McDonald’s tends to always leave behind a bitter aftertaste, if not outright intestinal issues. In other words, the corporate hype rarely lives up to the reality.

A similar sort of advertising campaign has been aimed directly at Russia for many years, albeit in reverse. Not unlike Edward Bernays, the ‘father of public relations’, and his ability to convince American women in the 1920s that smoking cigarettes was a symbol of feminine empowerment, propagandists today have successfully peddled the fake news to an unsuspecting public that Russia is the root of all evil.

Unless people ditch these carefully crafted stereotypes and physically board an airplane, they will probably never know that Russia’s portrayal by Hollywood and the mainstream media is quite simply the worst form of propaganda. Once an individual experiences the reality of Russia without the second-hand smoke and mirrors – as millions of sports fans did during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, for example, where dozens of football matches were held in 11 Russian cities – they quickly understand that the doom and gloom stories about this part of the world are a wicked pack of lies.

But alas, not everyone in the world can travel to Russia and see the reality for themselves. Unfriendly foreign countries, in cahoots with a venal media, perfectly understand this handicap, which allows them to portray Russia as the ‘evil empire’, something straight out of a Bond flick. And then one day, when Russia finds itself in a situation where it is forced to say ‘enough!’ and resorts to what it considers to be a legitimate act of self-defense – certainly no less legitimate than the military offensives undertaken by the Western hemisphere over the years – a vicious virtue-signaling campaign against Russia and Russians begins in earnest, and to great effect.

The reaction to the events in Ukraine has demonstrated the concentrated power of the US media and government to channel the self-perceived virtuousness of the entire Western world practically at will. The US establishment could just as easily have weaponized a virtuous campaign on behalf of other embattled people, like in Yemen, for example, which has been under relentless siege for seven years by Saudi Arabia, with the assistance from the usual (Western) suspects. According to UNICEF, the humanitarian agency for children, “more than 10,200 children have been killed or injured” since the start of Riyadh’s military blockade, which has led to disease, famine, and death throughout the country.

And what about the long-suffering people of Donbass, the Russian-speaking region of Ukraine that has been under siege by pro-Kiev forces for eight years? How many Americans know that this tragedy can be traced back to a US-led coup that ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected government in 2014? Had the virtue-signaling crusaders shone the spotlight on the plight of these oppressed peoples, asking why the Minsk Protocol for a ceasefire was being regularly violated, there very well could be peace in Ukraine today.

Self-serving companies like McDonald’s and countries like the United States shout from the rooftops that they are the ultimate defenders of the oppressed. The reality, however, is more sobering. The reality is that their virtue-signaling theatrics are of a very selective type that has a strong tendency for aligning with the foreign policy dictates of Washington, as opposed to the actual needs of the downtrodden. Virtuosity should know no political master, otherwise it’s just cheap virtue-signaling on behalf of ulterior motives.

Robert Bridge is a North American writer and journalist.

23 May 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Mike Billington

May 12—Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the nationalist leader
of the Philippines whose massive development programs for
his nation were crushed in one of the first “color revolutions,”
run by then Secretary of State George Shultz and his neocon
Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, in 1986, has been elected President of
the Philippines in the May 9 election. While not yet official,
Marcos crushed his opponent, Leni Robredo, the darling of the
regime-change set in Washington, in preliminary statistics, by
two to one, setting a record in Philippine presidential elections
of 31 million votes.

Bong Bong Marcos, as he is known, or BBM, held rallies before
huge crowds across the country during the campaign, but gave
few interviews and simply skipped most of the debates.
Although he served as a senator, he had a sparse record of
legislative accomplishments.

So why the massive victory? In fact, Marcos was swept into
power on the hope by the masses of Filipino citizens that he
can restore the policies of the much beloved Ferdinand Marcos

Sr. His overwhelming victory, beyond the reach of the infamous
vote fraud capacities in the Philippines, serves to prove to the
Western world, at least, to those who appreciate the truth rather
than the fake news and information warfare now dominating the
Western press and governments, that his father and his
mother, Imelda Marcos, who worked closely together during the
Marcos era as President from 1965-1986, to build the
Philippines miracle—leading Southeast Asia in scientific,
industrial, medical and agricultural development, making it the
envy of its Asian neighbors.

Is this the way you remember the Marcos era? Is this the way
the Marcos legacy is reported in your newspapers? Rather,
what is reported ad nauseum is some variant of this lead article
in the May 9 Washington Post:

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator whose family
plundered billions of dollars, was elected president of the
Philippines by a landslide, according to preliminary results, 36
years after his father was ousted in a historic revolution. For
critics, it marks a further backward slide for a nation—once
admired as one of the few democracies in Southeast Asia—that
continues to trudge down the path of populism.

Whether Marcos will follow his brilliant father’s legacy is not
certain, but his campaign slogan was “Together, we shall rise
again,” reflecting both his call for unity in the heavily divided
country, but also clearly the revival of the Marcos family policies
and values. He also had the support of the outgoing President
Rodrigo Duterte, whose daughter Sara was elected Vice
President in an even more resounding margin of three to one.

The Marcos Sr. Record

In a series of articles in EIR, this author presented the true
history of the 1986 coup against Marcos, portrayed to the world
by the whorish Western press as a “People’s Power” removal of
a vile killer and dictator:

• December 24, 2004: “Shultz and the ‘Hitmen’ Destroyed the
Philippines”
• May 16, 2008: “Why the Philippines is Starving—How Shultz
and the WTO Destroyed the Philippines Green Revolution”
• June 14, 2019: “U.S.-China Cooperation in the
Philippines—Operation Marcos: A Development Plan for Asia
and the World”

Here are some highlights:

Agriculture: Marcos was the first president of the Philippines
who did not rise from the elite class, but was a “commoner,”
trained as a lawyer. Making the nation self-sufficient in rice and
corn for the first time, he emphasized irrigation in the major
food-producing regions of Luzon and Mindanao. Credit
facilities, mechanization, and the introduction of high-yield rice
varieties, which needed irrigation, resulted in the self-
sufficiency in rice by 1968.

Eliminating the “latifundista” structure of agriculture under a
landed aristocracy was only possible after Marcos imposed
martial law in 1972. Although martial law was primarily aimed at
countering the communist insurgency in the country, Marcos
used it to break many aspects of the oligarchical control over
the economy. He proclaimed that the entire nation was to be
considered a “land reform area,” and declared that all tenants
working land devoted primarily to rice and corn were to be the
owners of that land, up to a specified limit. Over enraged
opposition from the oligarchs, the program, together with
infrastructure and mechanization improvements, made a
quarter of a million peasants into landowners and increased
grain productivity by half. [Box: Why Marcos Was a Target for
Regime Change]

Nuclear Power: In 1974, Marcos contracted with
Westinghouse to build a nuclear power plant in the Philippines,
which was to be, and is still today, the only nuclear power plant
in Southeast Asia. As originally contracted, the plant would
have cost about $1 billion, and produced 1,200 MW of
electricity by 1984. However, with the anti-nuclear hysteria
following the Three Mile Island (inconsequential) accident in
1979, the Carter Administration imposed retroactive safety
regulations which contributed to more than doubling the cost of
construction. After the 1986 color revolution placed Cory
Aquino, of the latifundista Aquino clan, in power, the fully
completed Bataan nuclear power plant was mothballed, never
to produce a single watt of electricity. Aquino agreed to her
controllers’ demands in Washington that the Philippine people
pay every cent of the inflated cost, for nothing.

Industrial Projects: Marcos launched 11 major industrial
projects, shifting the focus of the nation’s manufacturing
economy from consumer goods to basic heavy industry. This
included steel, petro-chemical, pulp and paper, a copper
smelter, aluminum, phosphate fertilizer, diesel engines, gas
and oil, a coconut industry, and the nuclear power program.
The administration tripled the country’s road network, doubled
the electrification of the country’s homes, increased irrigated
cropland eight-fold, and achieved rice and corn self-sufficiency.
Minimum daily wage rates tripled, although inflation, driven by
international oil price hikes and exploding U.S. interest rates,
more than wiped out these wage increases.

Philippine Heart Center For Asia: In 1975, under First Lady
Imelda’s leadership, Marcos established by presidential decree
the Philippine Heart Center for Asia, open for both paying
patients and charity patients from across Southeast Asia. It stands, still today, as one of the foremost heart hospitals in Asia.

All of these programs—every one, except the Heart
Center—were totally destroyed by the 1986 coup. The
oligarchs, placed in power to “save freedom and democracy,”
scrapped all the industrial programs, ended food self-
sufficiency, privatized power and water utilities, shuttered the
nuclear power plant, and much more, at the command of Wall
Street and Washington. The Philippines, once the envy of its
Asian neighbors, soon became the basket case of Asia, with
mass poverty, transportation bottlenecks, mass unemployment
and a horrendous drug addiction crisis.

Marcos Jr.’s Program?

While BBM has said little about his intentions, there have been
some signals. “We really have to look at nuclear power,” he
said in March, addressing the exorbitant and rising cost of
electricity. Although he goes along with the undependable and
expensive green energy hype for wind and solar, he said a
South Korean proposal to rehabilitate the Bataan nuclear plant
should be revisited: “Let’s look at it again.”

Antonio “Butch” Valdes, the founder of the Philippine LaRouche
Society and of the new political party KDP (Katipunan ng
Demokratikong Pilipino), has long campaigned to reopen the
Bataan plant and to build more nuclear plants across the
country, especially the new small modular reactors (SMRs)
which are now coming on line. He also has campaigned to re-
nationalize the utilities away from the oligarchs who have
demonstrated their failure to run them on behalf of the
population. The potential for BBM to revive his father’s
movement for an actual transformation of the nation will depend
on his willingness to take on these issues against the U.S.-
influenced oligarchical families.

The financial lords of Wall Street and the City of London are
distraught over the Marcos/Duterte victories. Goldman Sachs
complained that—

[Marcos] has sounded a less cautionary note on rising public
debt levels, while emphasizing measures such as subsidizing
key agricultural inputs or capping key food prices to contain
inflation risks, alongside initiatives to revitalize the industrial
sector and SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] to
provide more jobs.

Goldman has threatened that if Marcos is so reckless as to try
to build the economy and improve the living standards of the
impoverished population, then investors may “pull out and
outsource their services elsewhere,” leading to “massive
layoffs.” Their support for the defeated Leni Robredo was in no
way hidden, praising her throughout the campaign for her
subservience to Western finance and her rabid attacks on
China.

The Key Role of China

Indeed, it is the Philippine relationship with China that is the
crucial issue which will determine the success or failure of the
new Marcos era. BBM’s mother, Imelda, played a critical
foreign policy role in her husband’s administration, leading a
delegation to Beijing in 1974, meeting twice with then Prime
Minister Zhou Enlai and once with Chairman Mao Zedong,
arranging for the purchase of Chinese oil and China’s purchase
of Philippine exports. Bong Bong accompanied his mother on
that trip, and treasures the pictures of his meeting with Zhou
Enlai. Mao pledged to Emelda that the Cultural Revolution
leaders who had been training communist insurgents in the
Philippines had been deposed, and that, henceforth, China
would respect Philippine sovereignty under the Chinese
Communist Party’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

Today that relationship is even more important. As the Western
financial system collapses into a hyperinflationary breakdown, driving deadly inflation in the former colonial countries like the Philippines, and with Washington demanding that these impoverished nations kowtow to their efforts to destroy Russia and China, Marcos Jr. bravely asserted:

No matter what the superpowers are trying to do, we have to
work within the interest of the Philippines. We cannot allow
ourselves to be part of the foreign policy of other countries. We
have to have our own foreign policy.

Soon after his election in 2016, Duterte visited China, meeting
with President Xi Jinping, and other delegations from the
Philippines followed. A Six-Year Development Program for
Trade and Economic Cooperation was signed with China in
March 2017. In November 2018, President Xi visited the
Philippines and signed 29 cooperative agreements, lifting the
China-Philippine relationship to the level of “Comprehensive
Strategic Cooperation.” These agreements include bridges, a
dam, irrigation systems, highways, industrial parks, drug rehab
facilities, and more. While some of this is in process, the
COVID-19 pandemic, which had a devastating impact on the
Philippines, has stalled many of the projects. Hopefully, this
cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative will continue and
expand under the new Marcos administration.

Between them is Mike Defensor, candidate for mayor of
Quezon City.

Regarding the South China Sea, and the 2016 arbitration ruling
at The Hague which rejected Chinese claims over certain areas
also claimed by the Philippines, Marcos Jr. has said that since
China did not even attend the arbitration and does not recognize it, “it’s no longer available to us.” Nonetheless, he added, “We will not cede any one square inch to any country, particularly China, but will continue to engage and work on our national interest.” That will come through negotiations, he insisted, not confrontation.

As to relations with the U.S., Marcos Jr. insists that he respects
the historic relationship with the former colonial power, but told
a radio host:

If you let the U.S. come in, you make China your enemy. I think
we can come to an agreement [with China]. As a matter of fact,
people from the Chinese embassy are my friends. We have
been talking about that.

BBM was the special guest at an event in the Chinese
Embassy last October, when the Embassy invited him to cut
the ribbon for a new photo display of historic moments of
China-Philippines relations, including a photo of then Chinese
Premier Zhou Enlai and former President Ferdinand Marcos
signing the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of
Diplomatic Relations between the Philippines and China on
June 9, 1975—four years before the U.S. established official
relations with Beijing.

Speaking at that October event, Chinese Ambassador Huang
Xilian said:

While [we] always cherish and honor old friends, we hope that
more and more people from our two countries will be committed
to deepening our partnership and cooperation, so as to bring
more benefits to our two peoples and pass on our traditional
friendship from generation to generation. Together, we are
opening up a brighter future! As to the oligarchs’ view of BBM,
Antonio Carpio, the former Supreme Court Judge who led the
Philippines’ legal team at the arbitral tribunal, said Marcos’s
stance in regard to the South China Sea was a “betrayal. He’s
taken the side of China against the Philippines.”

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte had been more direct in
cutting ties with the U.S. neo-colonial policies, especially the
military agreements, although he has since softened and has
allowed the U.S. to set up military operations within five
Philippine Army Bases. How Marcos will deal with the U.S.
military presence, especially in the context of the mounting
belligerence of the “NATO in Asia” campaign by London and
Washington, is yet to be seen. There is a very real potential
that NATO will provoke China into military action against
Taiwan by threatening to recognize Taiwan as an independent
country, undermining China’s sovereignty over Taiwan under
the “One China” policy acknowledged by the U.S. in 1979 when
they recognized the People’s Republic of China in Beijing as
the “sole legal Government of China.” It has been shown by the
NATO provocations of Russia over Ukraine that the ultimate
purpose was to create a justification to wage direct economic
warfare, and proxy military warfare against Russia within
Ukraine, threatening a nuclear confrontation.

One complicating factor for Washington is that under current
U.S. law, Marcos Jr. and the rest of his family are not allowed
to enter the U.S. The family was held in contempt of court for
refusing to co-operate with the District Court of Hawaii ruling in
1995 which ordered the Marcos family to pay $2 billion of what
the court falsely declared “plundered wealth,” to be handed out
to people they declared to be “victims of Marcos Sr.’s rule.” If
the current madness in Washington is not stopped, to continue
the drive for world war and to do nothing about the collapse of
the entire Western financial system, it were better Ferdinand
Marcos Jr. stays away.

Why Marcos Was a Target for Regime Change

Ferdinand Marcos Sr. wrote the book, An Ideology for
Filipinos, published in 1983. The following excerpt exemplifies
why he was targeted for regime change:

The western philosophic tradition locates man’s uniqueness in
his rationality: it defines man as a rational animal. The idea of
man does not necessarily lead to the philosophy of humanism,
for the concept of rationality could be construed
mechanistically: as a movement of thought that follows a set of
inflexible principles. The Cartesian conception of reason is
mechanistic in this sense. For it regards thinking as something
that can be pursued in one way: beginning with clear and
distinct notions, the mind moves forward, step by step,
following only the dictates of logic. What Cartesianism
overlooks is that element of creativity so essential to the
concept of human rationality. The recognition of man’s
creativity, or that impulse to create new forms and new modes
of coping with the demands of reality, has tremendous
implications—not only for a philosophy of man but also for
social policy and thus for ideology.

In a sense, we can regard the history of civilization as the
history of human creativity. The so-called scientific revolutions
represent man’s disengagement from traditional modes of
thinking….

The humanistic thrust of our ideology precisely takes into
account the fact that apart form being rational, in the Cartesian
sense of the term, man has a gift of creativity that expresses
itself not only in his art but also in his science and social
institutions. This creativity is what makes man truly human. In
fact, it seems more appropriate to define man not as a rational
animal, but as a creative being.

20 May 2022

 

By Jeremy Corbyn

In April, the UN’s climate scientists warned it’s “now or never” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. You can almost hear them screaming at their keyboards, desperate for governments to actually do something, when they outline the need for “rapid, deep and immediate” cuts in CO2 emissions. But their words are not just a warning about the future; they describe the present reality for billions of people.

South Asia is now into its third month of extreme heat, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius day after day. And it’s not just South Asia that is sweltering. In March, both the Arctic and the Antarctic were 30 degrees Celsius and 40 degrees Celsius above their usual average temperatures, respectively. Ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. Thirty million people were displaced by climate shocks in 2020. And these shocks store up more strife to come by wrecking harvests.

The supply chains that connect the world’s farms, mines, factories, shipping lanes, ports, warehouses, delivery networks and consumers are already massively disrupted, even before the full effects of climate breakdown are felt. In the heavily integrated global capitalist economy, disruption spells disaster. Already, more than 800 million people—1 in 10 people of the entire world’s population—go to bed hungry.

The price of wheat has doubled already this year. And it could rise further as the effects of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s resulting partial economic isolation are felt across the globe.

Wars lead to hunger, mental distress, misery and death for years after the fighting stops. There must be an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory and a negotiated settlement between the two countries.

If there isn’t, then not only will the Ukrainian people continue to face the horror of shells, tanks and air raid sirens; not only will Ukrainian refugees suffer uncertain futures and dislocation from their families and communities; not only will young Russian conscripts be sent off to be brutalized in the army and die in a foreign land for a war they don’t understand; not only will Russian people suffer under sanctions; not only will the people of Egypt, Somalia, Laos, Sudan and many others who rely on wheat from the belligerent nations continue facing rising hunger.

But everyone on earth faces the threat of nuclear Armageddon if the war in Ukraine continues. The threat of direct confrontation between Russian and NATO forces is a clear and present danger to all of us. That’s why it is so important that we support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which is now part of international law thanks to inspiring campaigning by countries in the Global South.

It will not be easy. Weapons companies do extremely well out of war. They fund politicians and think tanks. They have their many media mouthpieces. Those who strive for peace and justice are vilified because behind conflict stand the interests of the war machine. They threaten the ill-gotten wealth and power of the few.

We see it with painful clarity in the pandemic as Big Pharma refuses to share vaccine technology that was mainly developed with public funds. Who benefits? The pharma executives and shareholders. Who loses? Everyone else. More mothers and fathers die. More livelihoods are wrecked. And the threat of viral mutation hangs over everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

The state is used to prop up the wealth of the richest. Central banks pumped in $9 trillion in 2020 in response to the pandemic. The result? Billionaire wealth went up by 50 percent in one year, when at the same time the world economy shrank. The billionaires and corporations claim to hate government action. In reality, they love it. The only thing they hate is governments acting in your interests. And so, they fight to keep governments in their pocket and try to overthrow those that aren’t.

When we step back and survey all of these dynamics, a truth dawns on us. We used to think that there were a series of distinct crises: the climate crisis, the refugee crisis, the housing shortage crisis, the debt crisis, the inequality crisis, the crisis of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We tried to isolate each one and solve it.

Now we can see that we don’t face multiple separate crises. The system itself is the crisis. The global system is not in a crisis that can be resolved. The system is crisis and must be overcome, replaced and transformed.

The end of the world is already here—it is just unevenly distributed. The image of apocalypse—bombs and raids, oil spills and wildfires, disease and contagion—is a reality for people across the planet.

The periphery is the future, not the past. We were told that developed countries give the developing world an image of their future. But the periphery sits at the vanguard of history—where the crises of capitalism hit hardest, the consequences of climate collapse arrive the quickest, and the call to resist them rings the loudest.

That resistance is powerful and inspiring. The world recently witnessed the largest strike in history when Indian farmers and their worker allies resisted the neoliberal bills that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wanted to force through their parliament. The farmers stood up for themselves, their livelihoods and the needs of the poor. And they won.

Or take Amazon, the world’s sixth-largest company, which has made record profits during the pandemic. Its greed and exploitation are being fiercely resisted by workers, communities and activists on every continent in the world. They have come together to make Amazon pay.

In Latin America, the people are rallying to support progressive political leaders to say no more to the domination by imperialism, the destruction of their communities and the abuse of their environments.

But it’s not enough to just resist. We have to build a new world brimming with life, bound by love and powered by popular sovereignty.

How do we do that? We strengthen workers and rural workers in their struggles against exploitation, support people and communities in their fights for dignity and join progressive forces to mobilize state power. And we bring them all together into powerful people’s alliances with the capacity to remake the world. If we do that, we will breed hope over despair.

So I want you to commit today: Double your efforts in the struggles you are involved in. Join that campaign you’ve been thinking about joining. Show that real solidarity.

I want you to be able to look back in a generation’s time and say, yes, I built the trade unions, the community organizations, the social movements, the campaigns, the parties, the international platforms that turned the tide.

I want you to be able to say, yes, we produced and distributed the food, homes and health care so no one endures poverty; preserved and shared the wisdom of the people of this planet; spread love between people and communities; built the energy system to decarbonize our planet; dismantled the war machine and supported refugees; reined in the power of the billionaires; and secured a new international economic order.

Will it be easy? Of course not. We will face enormous resistance. Of course we will.

But, as the great and wonderful Chilean poet Pablo Neruda once wrote, “You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot stop spring from coming.”

And spring, my friends, is coming.

Adapted from Jeremy Corbyn’s inaugural speech to the Progressive International’s Summit at the End of the World on May 12, 2022.

Jeremy Corbyn is a member of the UK Parliament, former leader of the UK Labour Party and the founder of the Peace and Justice Project.

14 May 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

Palestine Update 551

Global Network for Palestinian Refugees and Displaced Persons
Indo Palestine Solidarity Network, India (IPSN)
Global Kairos for Asia Pacific Solidarity with Palestine GKAPPS)
Palestine Updates

MESSAGE ON THE OCCASION OF NAKBA DAY 2022

Today we stand here in India, and Asia-Pacific region, in unity with our people in the refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and in the countries of the distant diaspora, to declare that we are one people, we have one destiny, and that our return is certain.

Today we stand here to renew the pledge that we will continue to resist the ongoing Nakba. The Nakba is not a memory. The Nakba is ongoing with the continued domination of the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime. The Nakba continues with forced displacement, denial of return and residency rights, fragmentation and racial segregation, discriminatory planning and permit regimes, repression, arbitrary arrests and detentions, extra-judicial killings/executions and collective punishments, home demolitions, and denial of access to natural resources and services.

Today we stand here to say that ending the ongoing Nakba requires the dismantling of the Israeli system of colonialism and apartheid politically, economically, legally and ideologically. We stand here to recall that dismantling this regime is the responsibility of the Palestinian people as it is the responsibility of all the free people in the world, because colonialism, apartheid, forced displacement, denial of self-determination, and persecution in all their forms are crimes against humanity and international crimes that must be stopped.

We stand here to confirm that the services of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) are not a gift that the world would kindly give to the refugees of our people. UNRWA services are a right for Palestinian refugees, and providing them is an international responsibility incumbent on the United Nations and individual states. That is why we declare our total rejection of the imposition of political conditions by the United States of America and the European Union on UNRWA in exchange for funding. We reject forcing UNRWA to erase Palestine from the Palestinian curriculum, and reject turning it into a security agency spying on our people for the benefit of the Israeli regime and the donor countries. The project of transferring UNRWA’s services to countries of asylum or to other international agencies and organizations aims to liquidate UNRWA – the existing witness to the international responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian people and their displacement.

We stand to say that the Oslo Accords and the facts they produced are invalid and rejected, and that normalization serves the Israeli colonial – apartheid regime and not the rights of the Palestinian people or peace. We affirm that depriving refugees of their human rights in host countries does not serve return, but rather pushes them to death boats on the high seas and oceans.

Therefore, we affirm:

First: The return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to their original homes, the restoration of their properties and compensation is a national, legal and human right that is not subject to derogation, restriction, delegation or substitution, and that any solutions that do not expressly recognize this right are null and rejected.

Second: Ensuring a permanent and stable budget for UNRWA by the international community does not constitute a gift or favor from anyone. It is an international responsibility that is due to the Palestinian people, and it is not permissible to detract from it nor to use it for political blackmail.

Third: The necessity of recognizing the basic human rights of Palestinian refugees and not discriminating against them in host countries.

Fourth: Resistance and partnerships with the solidarity, rights and liberation movements in the world is the way to dismantle the system of colonialism and apartheid, not victim rhetoric or begging and seeking sympathy.

One people, one destiny, and our return is certain

Glory to the martyrs, healing to the wounded, freedom to the prisoners, and long live a free Arab Palestine

 

Signed by
*

GLOBAL KAIROS ASIA PACIFIC SOLIDARITY FOR PALESTINE

*

INDO PALESTINE SOLIDARITY NETWORK

*

PALESTINE UPDATES

14 May 2022

Source: palestineupdates.com