The Death of Andre Vltchek, a Passionate Warrior for Truth
Edward Curtin
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?”
Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down (1998)
For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who travelled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice.
In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight.
This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications, who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them, so they stopped publishing his writing. He went where so many others feared to tread, and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence. He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense.
Now he is dead. He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul, Turkey. He was sleeping, and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel, she couldn’t. He was 57-years-old.
Let him sleep in peace, but let his words ring out, his passionate cries for justice and peace in a world of violent predators.
Those who knew him and his work feel a great, great loss. His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye.
As Koenig says, Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people, the Others, the non- whites, victims of Western wars, both military and economic, in places such as West Papua, Iraq, Syria, Africa, etc. He had a chip on his shoulder, a well justified chip, against the one-sided Western media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities.
He was recently in the United States, and here is what he wrote:
But notice one thing: it is them, telling us, again, telling the world what it is and what it is not! You would never hear such statements in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. There, people know perfectly well what it really is all about, whether it is about race or not!
I have just spent two weeks in the United States, analyzing the profound crises of US society. I visited Washington, DC, Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. I spoke to many people in all those places. What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world.
The United States, a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades, is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world. People, including those from the media, are outrageously ignorant and provincial.
And they are selfish.
I asked many times: “Do black lives matter all over the world? Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and do they matter in West Papua?” I swear, I received no coherent answer.
Somebody has to tell them…Somebody has to force them to open their eyes.
A few years ago, I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa (my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit, about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo), where millions of black people are dying, in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence.
But before I was allowed to present, I was warned: ‘Remember, people here are sensitive” Do not show too much of brutal reality, as it could disturb them.’
Hearing that, I almost left the event. Only my respect for the organizer made me stay.
Now I am convinced: it is time to force them to watch; to see rivers of blood, which their laziness, selfishness, and greed have triggered. It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others.
But as everyone knows, it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so. Andre tried so hard to do that, and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears.
He was a relentless fighter, but he was a lover, too.
His love for the people and cultures of the world was profound. Like Albert Camus, he tried to serve both beauty and suffering, the noblest of vocations. A lover of literature and culture, the best art and beauty ever produced, he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance, illiteracy, and the grip of propaganda so tight that “what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”
He sensed, and said it, that nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world. It was selfishness run amok. Me me me. It was, he felt, soul death, the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair. He wrote:
It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; I’m intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it. Poetry, music, great literature, these he loved as he fought on the barricades for peace.
I urge you to read his article, Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism.
He was a rare and courageous man. Let us ring bells in his honor.
Here’s a Kenneth Rexroth poem for Andre, the fighter with the poet’s heart:
No Word
The trees hang silent
In the heat…
Undo your heart
Tell me your thoughts
What you were
And what you are…
Like the bells no one
Has ever rung
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Did he ever write about or meet the US deplorables? Or did he hang out in the large cities among the “vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence”. He might have discovered the soul still exists in the US. It was just driven into the countryside left to fend for itself.
The moment someone is told about the suffering inflicted upon the “Third World” for the sake of increasing the overall wealth of their world – and simply pooh-poohs the whole thing: it’s at that moment their soul dies.
Given that metric, a great many Americans are soulless – for they believe it is they who are exploited for the sake of helping other people of the world through “Foreign Aid.”
I don’t accept your premise. Poor powerless people living in the borders of the empire have nothing to do with the exploitation of powerless people by the empire in other countries. Poor Americans have not gotten wealthier. They are poorer, they have no influence on their politicians, their life expectancy has dropped, and they have no job prospects for a better future. There is no benefit for the average American in having an empire. This has been obviously true for at least 30 years now. Less so obvious for the last hundred years. Poor powerless people in other countries need to look at their own corruption and their own leaders. Most of them are bribed to be compliant to US hegemony. The ones who aren’t are either killed, jailed, or slandered to limit their effectiveness. Blaming poor Americans for this is pointless and useless. They have no power to change this and have all they can do to fight their own corrupt leaders. There are Americans fighting this who are not soulless. Those living in “piggish opulence” are certainly soulless. This is a very tiny minority of Americans. The coastal elite who snub their noses at the “rust belt” and “flyover” country. These people are the enemies of mankind. They are the modern day totalitarians and we are all worse off having let them consolidate so much power and wealth.
The poor will always be with us; but even the poorest of the poor in America are rich in comparison to the poorest in many Third World countries. When is the last time we heard of mass migrations of Americans to other countries? Yet that’s a regular occurrence in other parts of the world.
We’re constantly told they want to come here because we have it so good. Yet when it no one abroad is looking, we turn the tables and lament how bad we have it. Which is it?
Movies and TV series have created a wrong impression in people outside the US.
He was obviously white, so many places he could not go. Look at the footage of Kennedy’s election campaign, 1960. I have seen footage of Robert Kennedy being outraged about how Southerners lived – in 1960. Americans just like to fatten themselves up at someone else’s expense, generation after generation.
Check out Palantir, what they do and how much money they get, and what they delivered for it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a non-productive company commanding huge fees is very symbolic for the US mentality. And then there is a scandal: Zhenhua doing exactly the same with Chinese accidentals – double standards are lovely.
Life develops slowly. US is still some kind of hegemon but Full Spectrum Dominance has not been achieved and will not be achieved. Presidents in Washington – who cares, nothing changes. When India and China have a change that convinces them to work together instead of against each other, then the change will come. India and China in lockstep could be quite strong, although the Indian rape culture needs to be cured before the civilised world can accept them at their table.
Biggest joke: desperately and repeatedly spinning that Andre was “American”. He was a proud South American.
He displeased Sultan Erdogan once too often with tales of Uighurs, fake passports, terrorist training, Captagon, etc.
I hope Pepe Escobar – another wide-ranging and straight-shooting journalist – puts his affairs in order.
Nobody with a middle class existence should be made to feel guilty for what they have (except, perhaps, for how they might have obtained it.)
A friend of mine was friends with an economist who set out to calculate the total amount of wealth there was in the world, and they found that the total amount of wealth was so great that if it was shared equally, everyone in the world would be able to have an abundant, upper middle class existence. The super rich are so rich, and so much is being squandered.
So many of us hate to hear about the sufferings and deprivations in the developing world because we feel powerless to do anything about it. If a restructuring were to occur that allowed the majority of us to have a sense of power then most people would be very willing to help their fellow humans, even in the most remote places.
with what I see the people in the most remote places have a much better chance of survival than us if they can hang on to what is left of the natural world around them
Two fine posts. “Squandering” vs “Survival”. One post elucidating the other. Both right.
Yes. Both are right.
https://www.quoteswave.com/picture-quotes/435675
I read these comments. Some very nice words. Should we do something?
just found the answer. Hunter S. Thompson said “…if you don’t do anything someone will do it for you…” re: politics
I think the climate has shifted. Remember 2008 Obama’s election campaign? Change we can believe in, he said, and many people believed him.
But then he was such a profound disappointment that people are starting to call a spade a spade. He was supposed to end a war or two – but instead brought new ones .
Mindsets have shifted. We look at the BS with different eyes. It may be a while until it translates into actions on the ground, but we have reached that phase in history of which the grandchildren will say ‘it couldn’t have gone on like that’.
Obama is the fakest A$$wipe ever. Even as he was on TV announcing that he was pulling troops out, my poor boy said “BS, we’ve already been told we’re going into Syria next”.
Around 2015/06/20, this few words from Andre Vltchek, he wrote:
“I cannot breathe!” A man shouted before he died, before he was murdered by the regime.
“I cannot write!” I thought. Which to me was almost the same as not being able to
respire.
I originally had this post as a response to Lefty Left’s usual Left baiting below but I reckon it should go in as a general remark:
The entire “Left/Right” paradigm has generally been deployed to separate deep structural analysis (associated with the Left) from “conspiracy theory” (which has of course been relentlessly cordoned off from general expression but permitted on the Right where it acts as a double deterrent with respect to the Left).
As this indicates, the Left has been the primary focus of propaganda. It is the Left that has played the part of the main opposition – so necessary to the appearance of democracy. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the vast majority of the UK population identify with the Left. Or, at least, the majority of those who consider themselves oppositional. Which is why it is essential for the rulers to defuse the rising critique of the COVID narrative by relentlessly associating it with the extreme Right and with QAnon (which I suspect was deliberately set up to accumulate a reservoir of potential agent provocateurs). This link which I have already provided before (and which has also appeared in The Graud) has a hysterical edge which suggests that the rulers are getting nervous:
https://twnews.co.uk/gb-news/quite-frankly-terrifying-how-the-qanon-conspiracy-theory-is-taking-root-in-the-uk
George Mc, the intelligence “community” often responds to successful arguments by caricaturing them– this vaccinating rational people against them before they’re informed about them: “Oh, I’ve heard about this; it’s that crazy idea that x. Ha-ha, ha.”
Perhaps it’s worthwhile to look at a not-so-crazy version of QAnon:
QAnon holds that elements of the Deep State have long used the practice of pediphilia to reinforce the sense of being above the law and not bound by society’s norms. Also that lower-echelon followers permit themselves to be videotaped in illicit acts as a means of becoming “absolutely dependable” to TPTB, thus garnering advancement.
QAnon even goes so far as to say that some are practicing parabiois, a long-known technique in which the blood circulation of an old animal is conjoined to that of a young one. Experiments with mice and others have found that the old animal becomes more youthful– his fur even becomes shiny. https://www.nature.com/news/ageing-research-blood-to-blood-1.16762
This technique has been known since the 1970s, but disappeared from view at that time.
LOL, No. Don’t get me wrong, i Love the FBI n i’d Love to be in the FBI…But no, i am not..am just a boring Med Student, and no am not tryin to out anyone https://abs-0.twimg.com/emoji/v2/svg/1f602.svg …it’s just that my profession teaches me no matter what the situation is, trying to kill someone isn’t ever an option.
9:30 PM · Sep 19, 2020·Twitter Web App
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Likes
Andy
@Imokyoureokok
·
Sep 19
Replying to @rajareddy41
@lizzz_818
and @CNN
Rather contradictory given your admiration for the military who try and succeed in killing many people, especially those who live above oil.
Try watching this all the way through and see if you retain your admiration.
Eye opening history.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1307410343983902720/gOiM6_zt?format=jpg&name=small
The Coming War on China – True Story Documentary Channel
The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United Stat…youtube.com
1
raj reddy
@rajareddy41
·
Sep 19
i’ll be honest with you. i did not click on the video link you sent me and you might be right to an extent too. Also Yes, they might not be all perfect, but who is? I understand your emotion. But am sorry, as the son of a veteran i can’t ever lose my admiration for The Military.”
*A recent example of a ‘sensitive’ US citizen, future MD nonetheless.
This isn’t twatter.
(You love the FBI? Have you seen a specialist?)
“The coming war on China” assumes that everybody will join in, because you cannot do war on China if you have not collaborators.
Don’t collaborate, don’t enlist and discourage the young ones from enlisting.
Don’t be like the then Australian MP Mike Kelly who acquired a serious health issue while in the military waging war on Afghanistan and had to resign from Parliament.
Instead of warning the young generation off to not enlist he now works for the military contractor Palantir who rakes in the government Dollars and does not deliver a thing.
I admit that I was beginning to wonder if/when OffG was was going to post something about Mr. Vitchek’s sad and untimely passing. I think that Mr. Curtain has done justice to Vitchek’s legacy with this piece.
His death is being investigated by the police as suspicious.
The police, however, are NOT being investigated…
Why the West is Awakening – Andre Vltchek
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk07r0lfp5Q
stunning clip. i believe he has captured the truth.
Thanks – excellent clip.
Personally I am quite content when people realize that the system is being run by criminals, especially if they are willing to fight to unseat them. I do not also insist that their motives should be altruistic.
Many people never saw through untrue arguments that Britain & America & NATO were actually fighting to unseat tyrants. An actual FACT (not an argument) which affects yourself & family is MUCH more visible. It’s rather cry-babyish to say “But they’re not awakening for the right REASON.”
Very sad news. RIP.
I’m very saddened by Andre’s death. A great soul!
Nice to read an a very meaningful article on something other than COVID.
“…nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world.” I’m sorry, but this alleged ‘denial’ by an entire people looks microscopic compared to the huge denial so routine on this site: that enormous and blatant racism, hate, violence and oppression is much more common among humans without US passports than with. For example, posters hardly ever condemn tyrannical and extremely violent communists and Islamists, but never stop condemning the great Satan US. This is unhinged, bigoted behaviour, a double standard. Posters would express utter outrage were any Muslim or black nation or their citizens demonised like this, and rightly so. Leftists who refuse to condemn and fight today’s huge levels of hate and violence by non-American people are abandoning any claim to the moral high ground and ruining the integrity and thus the appeal of progressive politics. Such leftism can only increase hate, never reduce it, which of course is why I reject leftism and urge others to do the same.
Can’t understand why anybody would hate America? Millions dead in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, Syria, etc. all from wars started by the U.S. to steal resources and for cheap labor for Western corporations.
“Hate America”
It is not America one should hate, but the war racketeer corporate fascist oligarch mobster psychopaths that hold it and the world hostage and threaten nuclear Armageddon should anyone try to bring them to account for the many and horrible crimes they have committed.
Shhhh…! You’ll wake ILeftTheLeft from his beauty sleep.
Yes, well said. But you forgot to distinguish between the gangster, the NWOers at the top and the American people. Those who are awake don’t know how to change what American foreign policy is– or the loss of rights at home.
There are a great many here who try to be well-informed. They watch the nightly newscast and read major papers like the NYT. If they are university-educated they’ve had even more propaganda shoveled at them. To castigate the propagandee rather than the propagandist– or the bankers and billionaires who are the prime movers– is just another species of injustice.
Save your ire for the evil, not the deluded. To hate an entire nation in all its variety is just dumb.
anybody who obtains their understanding of the world from the New York Times, and considers themselves to be “well-informed”, is hardly innocent.
THX-1143, It is perilously easy to judge others because they have not attained the level of one’s own knowledge. Except in a facetious or witty sense one cannot regard those who have not unmasked the NYT or BBC as guilty.
To do so is to throw away one’s future allies. Have you never heard of persuasion– of rational conversation? It is something that we must all learn to do if we are to prevail against dark forces.
In my own country those in the know are tempted to describe anyone wearing a mask as a “sheep”. I have actually talked to such and usually found it not to be the case. This is a time when failure to come together is quite perilous.
I remember rational conversations. The last one was around the mid 1970s, I think.
Future allies? more like future traitors- all they care about is virtue signalling and squirelling away for their retirement. Especially in the UK.
It is far too late for persuasion. The herd animal is different in kind and does not respond to what you may regard as clear and open communication: that is perceived as a threat.
The truth is not only unimportatn to them, it is a threat to their fragile delusions. What matters to them is to be seen to be doing the right thing.
Annul, you are certainly right about some & have expressed it well–
but you will never discover that vast silent army that is reachable by persuasion if you don’t try. Sometimes fighting the good fight requires a little effort, you know?
Communists?….Islamists?….Can’t recall any of them claiming to be the Greatest Democracy on Earth….If this were true, maybe there would be a lot less complaining
remind me of the last time that “Islamists” invaded Vietnam, or “Communists” bombed Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya.
or the last time that “covid” decimated the population of the Earth…
Ora t least decimated the economy and mental health of the planet.
The “Islamists” are not angels but my point was that unlike the US, they never claimed to be….Nor do the the world’s remaining Communist nations and unlike the US, they are not in the habit of bombing, murdering, maiming and torturing people in countries all over the world.
Everything you said has a grain of truth; but a grain is not a whole truth. The indisputable and unmistakable truth is that only the United States has the wherewithal to impose its will and inflict its evil tendencies on the rest of the world. No one else can do that. The US military is by far the largest military on Earth – not an insignificant or irrelevant fact.
The US has managed to make its dollar the standard currency in most of the world – again, this is not insignificant. And whenever another nation attempts to establish any other medium of exchange – as Libya had done; that nation suddenly becomes overrun with jihadists and must be “saved” by NATO.
Left, right, center: all can agree. The biggest, baddest wolf is the most feared and, therefore, the most hated.
It’s not the US that made the dollar the standard but the CFR at Bretton Woods, and the privately owned Federal Reserve kept it that way.
We need to arrest the architects of US foreign policy, and not coincidentally the Covid exaggeration and the global warming hoax. To hate the instrumentality that they have built is to continue to allow yourself to be blinded by the mask they wear– in this case, the US. They are those behind the foundations, the think tanks, the largest transnational corps, and all those NGOs. By hating the mask you fail to identify those behind it.
Hello Penelope: Correct. The Council of Foreign Relations (and other such NGO instruments) perpetrate all economic wars. Social enslavement and thought controls are not limited to the United States. Your comments are appreciated.
My thought has always been that those who carry out the dictates are guiltier than those who propose them. After all, the central bankers et al have no power on their own to enforce their edicts; they must rely on nation states to carry out those edicts.
Just as a matter of principle, I must take exception to the concept that global warming is in and of itself a hoax. It is not. It is very real and is happening. However, there is a hoax being perpetrated by the “ruling elites,” who have simply taken the climate and biosphere crisis and misrepresented it in order to further enrich themselves.
“Global warming hoax”??….It is hard to take anything else you say seriously when you come up with such nonsense.
Maxine, it is I who say that global warming is a hoax. I wish that it were possible to defend that statement truly briefly. In lieu of it, I’d like to say something about the source of your belief that the planet is indeed in danger from global warming if that’s all right with you.
You know that the mainstream media lies to us continually; that they propagate entirely fictional stories to cover military and other exploitative crimes against the comparatively helpless. Perhaps you can name other categories of lies– like the constant promise that if we’ll only vote one more time for the right person that things will improve.
You may have doped out that the reason the media lies is to serve the ultimate power structure. Is it possible that the same power structure WANTS you to believe in global warming, and has put into the press all those convincing stories? There is a US Senate report that meticulously lays out the actual foundations, NGO’s, etc employed by that power structure. It specifies the means by which the message of the green organizations is controlled by them.
That report is here, and I want to apologize in advance for the title. Truth (and its falsification) is neither right nor left. http://leftexposed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2014-Senate-Billionaire-Club-Report.pdf
The ultimate program called for by the covid exaggeration and what I believe is the global warming hoax is identical– It’s Agenda 21 or Agenda 30 or The Great Reset. It’s totalitarianism.
I appreciate that you are strongly persuaded by the global warming coverage, but have you sought out the strongest arguments on the other side?
There’s just no space to go into it here, but here’s something brief. Go to any major US paper in the summer of 1934. Look at the “heat wave” temperatures. Yet the US has once again been told this year that we’ve just had the hottest summer yet. It’s all lies.
Easier, here’s a link to pictures of the newspaper clippings:
https://realclimatescience.com/heatwave-of-may-june-1934/
By the way, the site is a good one to acquaint you with the arguments on the other side.
Regards,
I don’t mean to presume answering for Maxine. However, in defense of the concept of global warming and climate crisis in general, my “go to” source is NEVER the mainstream media; and rarely ever the established “climate scientists” – because things like the IPCC do not acknowledge geoengineering/climate engineering.
My primary source of information regarding climatic matters is Dane Wigington of geoengineeringwatch.org. Obviously, I don’t have the wherewithal to personally validate the data he presents, such as global temperatures – which, according to him, have far exceeded the l.5 centigrade the IPCC acknowledges (he says it’s more like 3.5 C).
I’m 100% on board with concluding the Green Revolution to be 100% hoax. I strongly recommend the Michael Moore produced documentary “Planet Of The Humans,” which exposes the “Greens” for the sham they are – and, I might add, does so far more eloquently and convincingly than, say, a James Corbett ever could.
Dane Wigington also highly recommends “Planet Of The Humans.” Plus, he has had hands on experience with “Green” energy (solar panels); and states categorically that it is just another ruling class scam – which, incidentally, requires a far greater hydrocarbon footprint in order to get up and running than using the hydrocarbons themselves as primary sources of energy.
Howard, i believe Dane Wigington is playing “good cop” in a “good cop/bad cop routine.” Mr. W has not cited the sources for his conclusions. Obviously, regarding temperature readings we are all dependent on the actual thermometer readings in the weather stations. If W were honest, he could cite the stations and temperature readings upon which he’s relying.
The mainstream program claiming a temperature increase is simply impossible to start with because most areas of the world haven’t had weather stations for long enough. US, Britain, some parts of Europe have the oldest continuously operating weather stations.
Further, mainstream “calculations” of temperatures in many parts of the world are accomplished by omitting some of the coldest temperature stations and freely estimating where there are none. The idea that one could measure the temperature of the world to within a degree by such a process is laughable.
The Australians have held hearings on the subject in which outraged citizens have presented data showing the falsification of the temperature record in their country.
For the same reasons that it’s quite impossible for TPTB to measure the world’s temperature within a degree, it’s impossible for Mr. W to establish that it’s actually something different.
We do have the data to establish that sealevels and the extent of glacier-melt have been constant since the end of the last Ice Age, although slowed a bit by the Little Ice Age. I believe it’s something like 1 mm/annum– that is, the thickness of the wire of a common paperclip
.
If you are interested in penetrating the truth concerning global warming, I recommend that you choose one small area– like ocean acidity or sealevel rise or temperature variance over the past 100 years in just ONE area of the world. Then read both sides on just this one area. It will be clear to you where the truth lies. And I’m sorry, but it will also expose Mr. Wigington.
Thank you for caring about the topic. I expect you know how important it is. And if I am officious in recommending a course of action to you, please forgive me.
Thank you for sharing this information; and no, you’re not being the least officious.
I’ve had concerns regarding both Mr Wigington and his website. For instance, so much of his information is self-referential; that is, he will give a piece of information (in his weekly radio podcast); then refer the listener to something in his website to back him up.
Now in his defense I would say that he apparently has assembled a large number of “experts.” Many of the temperature and aerosol particulate readings he offers, he claims to have gathered independently of the official sites (such as NOAA, National Weather Service and NASA).
There is absolutely no question that Mr Wigington is very much persona non grata at establishment climate functions and seminars; so I really can’t see the “good cop/bad cop” dynamic in play here. He comes as close to being a “lone wolf” as anyone in the entire climate perspective.
The one thing I would focus on if I had the means of doing so is Kelp. According to Wigington, the Kelp forests, such as those off the California coast, are almost gone. Every time I do a search on Kelp, all I get are Wikipedia type descriptions of what Kelp is; rather than the current state of Kelp forests. Maybe if I keep searching, I’ll find something one way or the other. He’s made so much of the destruction of these Kelp forests, that this one thing could either “make him or break him.”
Howard, I confess I’m entirely uninformed about Kelp. Do you think it a reliable proxy for temperature measurement? I should think a thermometer in the water would be better, don’t you? I’m sure there must be such records. Arguments which omit so many steps are unconvincing– like “frogs dying, therefore GW” or “less kelp, therefore GW. In order to evaluate them one must study frog biology, ocean nutrients and who knows what else.
I think sufficient ice-melt to be measureable against our coasts would be a really convinclng argument. Sealevel rise or its absence is simply unanswerable.
“The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level is responsible for collecting and reporting of sea level data from the global network of tide gauges. This dataset includes 63 tide gauge records starting before 1950 and ending after 2015 which have more than 95% of the data. The graph below shows the running 20-year and 30-year trends of the average of the 63 tide gauge records. The missing data was linearly infilled and the seasonal signal was removed. The graph shows the 20-year and 30-year trend at December 2015 was 1.50 mm/yr and 1.30 mm/yr, respectively. The maximum 30-year trend was 1.34 mm/y ending November 1983.”
The sea level has been rising since 1860 at about 2 mm/year to 2000 as shown below.
Sea Level Data
There are graphs that make it all clear, but I’m not able to copy them.
https://friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=712
As you can imagine, there are reputable scientific organizations that keep track of such things. Just as you do politically and regarding Covid, ignore the media & look directly at the science, which is referenced on
friends of science, WUWT, notrickszone, and https://realclimatescience.com/ This last one is the most entertaining.
I won’t keep this up because we could go on for hours. But I do want to mention one thing which I believe is critical to Dane Wigington’s particular take on the Climate (Crisis).
One of his biggest concerns is what geoengineering is doing to the ozone layer – namely, rapidly depleting it, thus allowing UV C (the most dangerous UV ray) to enter the lower atmosphere in greatly increased quantity.
I mention this because Wigington’s primary focus is on forestry and its attendant biosphere. He has witnessed, and photographed, frogs he claims seem perfectly healthy dying in greater number than would normally be the case; he attributes this to being “fryed” by the UV-C rays. Also, he has noticed countless trees in his immediate area (Shasta County, California) in the process of dying.
How reliable it all is, I can’t say. But I get the impression he is sincere in what he says; rather than simply cherry picking facts to support an agenda.
Howard, Destruction of the atmosphere is, as you know, a different topic.
If GW exists I think it must increase the melt-rate of the ice, which must be reflected in an increased rise of sea levels. Instead I understand that ALL scientific studies find it to be rising at a constant, incremental rate since the last Ice Age. These differ from each other only by a fraction of a mm.
A common fraud regarding melt is to cite the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, which partially melts seasonly because it’s partially submerged. It is less than 10% of the Antarctic, which if I remember correctly is 50 degrees below freezing even in summer. Only Antarctica has enough ice to submerge major land areas, yet we are constantly told this will occur.
Regarding UV C: An ozone hole has long been asserted w/o evidence. The ozone layer is thinnest over Antarctica and thins further seasonally. So far as I am aware everyone agrees that the ozone layer stops all UV C, and most UV B.
It is irresponsible of Mr. W to assert the presence of an ozone hole or the penetration of UV C w/o evidence. It isn’t a difficult experiment to demonstrate the presence of UV C, were it present.
Here is a discussion of the issue w reference to studies. https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FoS_Ozone&CarbonDioxide.pdf
“The forests are dying, therefore UV C” is not science.
Yes, of course the earlier “contrails” were chemtrails and the residue may still be affecting trees, or it MAY be continuing in ways invisible to us, including at night.
It is primarily the melt of Arctic ice that Dane Wigington cites; he pretty much steers clear of Antarctica.
An interesting side note to the UV-C issue: Mr Wigington, whose organization has issued countless FOIA requests, received through an FOIA from NOAA, a 700-plus page document indicating the UV-C statistics for the past decade. Of those 700-plus page, all but a few were entirely redacted. The obvious question is: Why? If there’s nothing to hide, why the redaction?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m forever skeptical of the MSM and the political/corporate classes….But it’s so hard to believe that EVERYTHING we hear about Climate Change is a lie….For example, is it a lie that the Arctic glaciers are melting?….And in general, what shall we think of the excessive fires, floods and hurricanes we are experiencing in recent times?….How can they lie about all this?
Also, I did watch Michael Moore’s film….Definitely thought provoking.
Maxine, there ARE no Arctic glaciers. There is no continent under the sea ice in the north. That’s a large factor in why it melts & recovers seasonally: The ice is in the water, and hence subject to every current of changing temperature. To judge the state of the Arctic sea ice you must compare its melt season or its maximum of this year with those of 10 or 20 or 50 years ago.
Some predictions of ice-free Arctic since 2006; obviously each is an admission that the previous ones were wrong. https://realclimatescience.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts-3/
History of the Arctic (much more interesting) https://realclimatescience.com/the-history-of-the-arctic/
It contains actual records, including satellite photos by the Denmark Meteorologic Institute, which indicate “Ice extent is very close to the 1981-2010 median.”
Actual comparative sea ice satellite photos: https://scied.ucar.edu/interactive/sea-ice-extent-maps-compare-arctic
Maxine, unless you have looked at the actual science, you have been reading pure propaganda. In the 70s there were more than 200 major media companies; today there are 6 & 2 of them have the same parent. They have pulled out the stops to deceive you re global warming and re covid. What is at stake is whether TPTB, a small group of billionaires, shall rule our world and everything in it.
When the “solutions” to the problem are organized by the manipulative billionaires who run our governments you know it is a scam. To give Corbett some credit he seems to have articulated the end goal quite clearly. The end goal is total control by a technocratic “elite”. Cap and trade through the IMF and world bank. They control who gets to use what resources and how much. They get to develop the global digital currency. They get to implement the “social credit scores” and tracking of all human movements. They get to control who gets to travel and who doesn’t based on these credit scores. Huxley wasn’t far off.
Quite so, goldhoarder. We must fight for the survival of a truly human civilization. I ask what strangers think is happening, then try to build bridges between that and a closer approximation to the truth. I always have a printed handout with me that will take them further.
Most people can only take 2 or 3 steps at a time; the cognitive dissonance (and the fear) are just too great. But there are a surprising number of real minds who are avid to know more.
But we must do more. We must enunciate a Platform– OUR vision of our future, of what the world can be. When that can be clearly seen I think the means will invent itself.
Thanks for your comment. It made me feel stronger.
And what about the California wild fires? Have these also nothing to do with Climate Change?
Howard, I think it is not upon nation states that the criminals rely, but on particular human beings– on bribed legislators, on journalists who barter honest reporting for easy career advancement,etc.
One cannot assign guilt to the entirety of a nation. Individual judgement & individual responsibility is the basis of our just longing for liberty.
The trouble with our longing for liberty is that those of us in the West – the “First World” – do not long for liberty in those parts of the world whose exploitation endows us with the kind and degree of leisure which allows us to pursue our own liberty.
Our liberty comes at the expense of those who have the “misfortune” to live in resource rich areas (think: Africa). Therefore, we invent negative character traits among those we exploit to explain away their inability to ascend to our level of attainment.
To say colonialism and neo-colonialism are both vicious circles is to be guilty of understatement.
Well said. Of course the culprits here would be overjoyed to know that they are regarded as “the biggest, baddest wolf”. That is their aim. They think it’s tough.
And they naively overlook what has always happened to bad wolves in literature…
Clearly the US military is not all powerful. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Russia should make this rather clear. The US does more with dollar hegemony than their military. They bribe and corrupt foreign governments to do their bidding. That is the primary source of US control. They run massive psyops campaigns and fund NGOs to organize against foreign countries self interests. The military is a last resource after that doesn’t work.
“I_left_the_left”. Would that have been before or after you left Planet Earth?
The US is The Great Satan. the others are just minions and wannabes. The crimes of the US (and their “international” friends) go far beyond mass murder and into the enslavement of the entire human species.
https://3speak.co/watch?v=rairfoundation/lsfworby&jws
Dr Schöning arrested in London
Dr Schoning is inviting people to Berlin on 10/10 in this video. The problem with the protests for people who dont live in Germany or England is that we are unable to attend because of the quarantines and its easier if there is some organization that arranges to take people there. All by yourself to do so from a different country is not really possible.
So at some point, I think there will have to be some international coordination, some international peaceful umbrella organization (with national and local sub-organizations), founded to bring together everyone who want to participate in bringing back a human life, and also to look after the practical side, making it possible for people to meet their counterparts, both in their own countries and abroad (I think many are totally isolated today),
provide as safe a place as possible for discussions, etc, and other events, and make it possible for people to participate in events, have their lawyers to help out those arrested, and so on and so forth. Because this time, its not a matter of people that already belong to political organizations, unions, or whatever, but of anyone highly concerned, and most dont have the means to even know who the others are, let alone do something, however much they may wish to, and if people felt that security that comes from belonging to an organized movement whose leadership they trusted, then I think its more likely to have the millions on the street.
When you have understood all this, you are free and learn to fly using your own wings and recognize the power that has been buried deep and uncalled within yourself.
Never rely on others if you don’t want to be left. Have unshakable faith in yourself. You will realize how inexperienced you were before and you will laugh about it. It is your new life as yourself that finally begins!
Note…..”Comments turned off.”
Quite. It’s hard to imagine Dr. Schöning requesting that himself…
The video has already been blocked by Youtube several times.
So much common sense. How have we reached this stage where you have to EXPLAIN common sense to otherwise intelligent human beings…?
Of course the 10/10 20/20 event he mentions will only be “peaceful” if the authorities allow it to be peaceful. It only takes a couple of thugs to give the media all they need to paint a picture of a huge legitimate demonstration as consisting of nothing but lunatics, drug addicts and old hippies, and if they can’t find their thuggish specimens easily, then those will be provided by the authorities themselves. Easy.
We have decades upon decades of experience of how propaganda works. Let’s use that experience to OUR advantage. The “authorities” are, after all, our servants, if only they realized it…
Yeah, that’s how it’s “framed” today. They have their own “agencies” to train and infiltrate provocateurs. I believe that the whole purpose of that quite surreal theater is to show us the absurdity of this rotten and totally corrupted, gutted system that treats us only like we are numbers (“consumers”).
As always, it hits the old, the weak and children hardest. We still had nature and adventure in or childhood days, could let our urge to move freely run. But today’s kids are driven to school by their frightened single mothers, as if in an emergency ambulance, to sit there with a face mask like in an operating room. Back home, they play for hours with their cell phones or Gameboy.
It was always so in wartime that the enemy radio stations were taken over first. This media power of the elites is gigantic. Millions of brain each day are indoctrinated. These unethical criminal machinations have no legal consequences. It is a paradox: one would have to reach people through the mass media in order to discourage them from consuming the mass media.
Though this is a trial run, it is also meant to begin the permanent warping children.
I am also in favor of seeing the opportunities. The situation should finally remind people that consumption is not everything in life. However, experience will show that the media soul robbers take their victims all the more firmly under control. The future will probably be a mixture of Orwell’s 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Idiocracy.
Many of us will be happilyy spared from the increased insanity by the mere limitation of lifetime. Unfortunately the development of mankind shows that it is not capable of learning, but remains greedy. Good approaches and ideas degenerate after a very short time to a tasteless sales trend (see “organic products”).
About Rwanda (with Eglish subs) from 2017
Another horrific episode in the American Century and the blood was all over those American hands, once again.
https://www.resetdoc.org/story/rwandas-untold-story-a-commentary-on-the-bbc-two-documentary/
thx
Second bite?
First was too crass? Obviously.
Andres work will endure. Like Biko. Like a Assange.
Be scared you Limited Hangout merchants. We are fighting back.
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.com
TRUMPS SUPREME DISASTER/
“Election Integrity Project” Suggests Firing Squad For Critic/
No Joke-“Ginsberg’s Death Pushed Me Into Satanic Temple”/
Soros.Gates Antifa Tie Exposed/
Biden Disqualified From Presidency?/
JPMorgan To Pay Record $1B Fine
TRUMP’S SUPREME DISASTER:
Barrett Is Pro-Lockdown.Pro-Forced Vaccine.Pro Detention.Pro Martial Law Opus Dei Style Authoritarian/
Not Independent- Defers To Pope/
Federalist Society Deep State Stealth Choice a la Bolton.Roberts
Past Controversies May Deny Her Seat – No 5th Vote On Election
He was a journalist who puts all the presstitutes in the media to shame.
He was a shining light for what good and passionate reporting should be like.
He leaves a huge hole and we hope there’s enough younger journalists sufficiently inspired by his integrity to fill the huge gap he has left.
RIP Andre. I enjoyed both his writing and the passion he so clearly had
Rest in Peace André.I spent an evening with André and friends a few years ago ,discussing the injustices foisted upon people that have little to no means of fighting back . We could have discussed geopolitics all night . Always on the side of weak , poor and down trodden. André claimed to be an atheist but I found him to be more of the true Christian spirit than most that I have come across wearing their Christianity on their proverbial sleeve ,rather than their actions. He inspired many and it was not hard to fall in love with this man’s heart and soul .He will be missed by all that knew him.
That’s a very nice tribute to him, Guy.
Thank Gwyn . It was the least I could do for this mild mannered man that touched so my many.
Cheers !
Andre Vltchek is a little too hard on the American people…… they are victims too. He asks them if they care about the rest of the world, ‘do black lives matter overseas?’……… well I would say the American people are still trying unravel what their own interests really are, through the blanket of smoke, mirrors, propaganda and lies they are being constantly bombarded with.
Thanks for intrtoducing me to Andre Vltchek he is very interesting
One the qualities of Andre Vltchek’s writing that I most deeply appreciated was his call to all of us to essentially “look in the mirror,” and to thus come face to face with our own complicity (willing or not) in the mayhem conducted daily in our names, and in the name of supposed “Western values” such as “democracy” and “human rights” – both mere fig leafs as they are for the neoliberal/neoimperial/neocon order of today.
Andre saw the world system as it is – a Western controlled order based in American led military violence – always and everywhere hovering oh so “exceptionally” above we mere mortals and raining down Western oligarchy’s divine vengeance on the poor of the world for their many moral failures and unforgivable sins. Perhaps for failing to exhibit complete and total “obedience” in the face of our superior methods of violence – instead daring instead to “resist.” Perhaps for the “sin” of whimpering too loudly (spoiling our cocktail hour) as they collectively suffer and die under – this or that or the other – illegal/immoral military occupation, or under yet another inhumane sanctions regime of food and medicines. Or perhaps for the sin of simply screaming too loudly in the many torture chambers of our many “humanitarian interventions” – and thus drawing the world’s unwanted attention to our collective 24/7 atrocity machine – always busily at work grinding the body’s of the world’s poor into ‘objective’ ‘measurable’ ‘evidence-based’ increases in the value of stock markets around the world.
Andre did not pull punches. He spoke from the visceral reality of the human suffering he witnessed and documented with his own eyes around the world – from wherever American “exceptionalism” was conducting its exceptionally amoral and lawless mass violence.
Some of us loved Andre for that clarity and courage. And of course he was roundly hated by just those one would expect to engage in denial, dissembling and the endless morally poisonous lies and propaganda of empire. He was and is hated – “by exactly the right people.”
Andre spoke to our “better” nature.
Thank you for this fitting tribute Ed.
People who encourage us to judge someone negatively on account of his group identity rather than the content of his individual character and behaviour are called bigots. If you hate or demonise someone simply because he’s black, gay, trans, conservative, Israeli, Muslim or American, you have fallen into bigotry. Did Andre avoid this trap?
Indeed. He usually had a strong message. Not only to understand about the events going on but encourage readers to think about the enormity of it, the injustices and absurdities.
Well said, Gary.
Brilliant tribute to Andre Vltchek.
He recognised something that I found, not in any army, cos I am a pacifist, not working for any media company, cos I am not a musican nor a journalist.
But my wife and I have a spirit of adventure, and for many years, both before we had children, and after they had grown up…we would at very short notice, get a flight or sometimes a very heavily discounted holiday, not really knowing where we were going, then go hitch hiking, sometimes in a country, where very little English was spoken or understood.
We found the most extraordinary generosity, and welcomes, whereever we travelled. People would invite us into their homes, and cook a beautiful meal for us, and ask us to stay the night in their homes.
Often many of the people we met were incredibly poor, but their humanity was the richest in the world. They were happy, and would share everything they had with us.
I came to the conclusion, that the poorest people in the world are the most generous. All they wanted from us, was our company and to learn a little English. They would not take any money from us. We felt Blessed, and we always felt safe, and there is nothing special about us. Working class from Lancashire with a smile on our face.
Tony
Really beautiful comment on your world travel experiences, Tony. If only more people traveled like that, I’m sure they’d have many of the same amazing experiences and realize that we are all far more alike than we are different.
“.. the poorest people in the world are the most generous.”
This applies to aborigines, villagers, slum dwellers, etc. Their genorsity is linked to their daily inter-dependence. They are still not worth (are beneath) the attention of the middle class and their double-think.
mgeo, so now the entire middle class is guilty of double-think and of finding poor people unworthy?
Don’t you think you are giving yourself an unearned moral plum? Namely, that you are morally superior to the entire middle class to whom you gratuitously assign moral and epistemological faults.
I agree that the generalisation was unwarranted. However, this has been one way to maintain the hierarchy of control: promote the feeling that one is superior at least to someone, just as one thinks his masters are superior.
A friend, writer and reader who will be sorely missed as we fight together to overcome tyranny in all its shapes.
slightly off but related topic. The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an “extreme political stance” and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.
Get this: Anti-capitalism as an ‘extreme political stance’ in opposition to freedom of speech, anti-semitism and ‘endorsement of illegal activity.’ Neoliberalism and globalization okay then?
Moreover, Anti-capitalism was espoused by prominent Jewish intellectuals such as Marx himself, Isaac Rubin, Georgy Lukacs, surely they can’t have been both anti-capitalists and anti-semitic? As well as British intellectuals in and around the Fabian Society. What is more probable is that the DfE doesn’t know what it is talking about, which should not come as any great surprise.
wow, you’re not even allowed to quote from Karl Marx on this forum. good job, censors.
To learn who rules over you, find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
‘To learn who rules over you, find out who you are not allowed to criticize.’
Now there’s a phrase which continues to resonate!
Goodbye Mr Vitchek I didn’t meet you but read your words and your hunger for justice was outstanding
Who were the first people the Rhodes-Milner-Rothschild group recruited? Journalists and historians. Rockefeller-Carnegie carried the torch. Today it’s Wilson Center, Atlantic Council and others.
Who are the first to fall in the fight to expose the conspiracies of the warmongers and their bankers? Journalists, researchers and revisionist historians.
Which country has the worst record for silencing journalists? It might surprise you. It’s the home of precisely those financial and industrial interests.
Don’t go checking well-publicised, third-party lists. They’re compiled by NGOs financed by the same interests that silence the journalists.
Most of those killed never make it to the pages of the Grey Lady or other publications ( owned by the same interests that silence the journalists). So to accredited “journalists” these victims don’t count.
In memoriam Danny Casolaro, Mae Brussell, David McGowan, Michael Hastings, Andrew Breitbart and Andre Vltchek, and many more.
And Julian Assange also, who is fighting for his life at this very moment, a victim of the evil that is the USA and its corruption of UK too – or is it the other way around?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/peter-oborne-julian-assange-future-generations-journalists-not-forgive-us-we-do-not-fight-extradition/5723136
The war goes on and sadly Andre will be missing in action – a loss hard to bear
Someone finally mentions the memory-holed Dave McGowan! Good work!
Add to that list Gary Webb, moneycircus. He made it to the Grey Lady, alright, and the Washington Post. In that both papers villified him after his ground-breaking expose of the CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking for the contras.
I wonder if there are any investigative journalists left in America.
Yes, Gary Webb is always front of mind… Almost assumed… but we should never taken him for granted. His revelations were the most ground breaking. He stripped the CIA of what minimal respect it had left.
This is a magnificent tribute. I’m glad Off G have done a follow up.
Mr Curtin, one of the best writers on here writing about a brilliant journalist, also a writer here.
Both Edward and Andre put their heart and soul in their writing, which always comes across. We should all be honoured to be in the company of such talent, intelligence, dignity and compassion.
RIP Andre Vitchek. Thank you for standing up for Eritrea when nobody else would. Thank you for acknowledging the rivers of black blood in DRC, in Rwanda , to the East, to the West, in the US & via China. Blessed be your name for all eternity. May they fail in all their diabolical endeavours and may you forever rest in peace.