Three New Reads – November
Philip Roddis
At the beginning of this month the most dangerous nation on earth held the four yearly circus[1] by which presidents and other occupants of high office are chosen.
Four weeks on, so much has been written, some of it by me – here and here for instance – that I’ve steered clear of it in my chosen reads for this month.
My themes instead are a murder two days ago in an eastern suburb of Tehran, the contempt of our media for truth, and the dangers – by no means confined to the impoverishing of billions of really existing human beings – of the concentration of the planet’s terra firma into fewer and fewer hands.
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Top Scientist Assassinated as Israel and US Stage War Provocations on Iran (1510 words)
This year began with the murder of Iran’s General Quassem Suleimani. (Think Winston Churchill – with a soupcon of Nelson Mandela, JFK and John Lennon thrown in – for an approximation of the respect and affection in which he was held by the chap on the Tehran omnibus.) I used it as the organising theme for all three of my January reads. Now we have a second hit to digest, that on Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh two days ago.
Writing in the Guardian the next day, Simon Tisdall begins:
The assassination … has heightened suspicions that Trump, in cahoots with hardline Israeli and Saudi allies, may be trying to lure the Tehran regime into an all-out confrontation in the dying days of his presidency. Trump’s four-year-long Iranian vendetta is approaching a climax – and he still has the power and the means to inflict lasting damage.
Speculation that Trump might soon initiate or support some kind of attack on Iran … had swirled across the Middle East in the wake of last weekend’s unprecedented meeting in Saudi Arabia between Netanyahu, Mike Pompeo, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Note the use, de riguer for Guardian and all mainstream media, of the term, ‘regime’. It vilifies Iran’s government (as it does others insufficiently compliant with Washington’s will) to build our consent for subjecting its people to lethal sanctions and the possibility of all-out attack.
Note that ‘vendetta’. It trivialises the issue, reducing the acceleratingly titanic struggle between a declining West and rising Eurasia to one more instance of Trump’s volatility.
Yes, there are differences between neocons and neoliberals over how best to contain Iran and its backers in Moscow and Beijing, but they are over means not ends. Moreover, there are powerful players in Washington – some likely to serve in Joe Biden’s cabinet – who’ll be there long after Trump has packed his bags and gone; men and women who do indeed espouse a violent ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ not just of Iran but of two ascendant economies, both of them nuclear powers.[2]
Note the inclusion of bin Salman alongside Pompeo and Netanyahu, as though such a trio were bosom buddies. If Saudi Arabia is in for the ride, and it most likely is, then it must be the most jittery member of the gang. In my second January read on the Suleimani hit, Professor Michael Hudson, looking at things through Shia theocratic eyes, said this:
Beyond Iraq looms Saudi Arabia … the Great Satan, the supporter of Wahabi extremism, the terrorist legion of US mercenary armies fighting to maintain control of Near Eastern oil and foreign exchange reserves, the cause of the great exodus of refugees to Turkey, Europe and wherever else it can flee from the arms and money provided by the U.S. backers of Isis, Al Qaeda in Iraq and their allied Saudi Wahabi legions.
The logical ideal, in principle, would be to destroy Saudi power. That power lies in its oil fields. They already have fallen under attack by modest Yemeni bombs. If U.S. neocons seriously threaten Iran, its response would be the wholesale bombing and destruction of Saudi oil fields, along with those of Kuwait and allied Near Eastern oil sheikhdoms. It would end the Saudi support for Wahabi terrorists, as well as for the US dollar.[3]
Though Iran is on paper weaker than the region’s major powers – Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey – she has invested heavily in the ability to wage asymmetrical war. Nuclear Israel rightly fears her.
In short, here as in other arenas, we won’t get a lot of depth from the Guardian. Pending more telling analyses over the next few days, my selected piece offers a useful start point.
I do, however, distance myself from its final two paragraphs. I do not share the WSWS view – indeed, I find it quite bizarre in its lack of class analysis, more befitting Graun and Beeb than an organisation seeking to rebuild the Fourth International – that Trump is set for a fascist power grab.
Fascism is a specific response by a capitalist ruling class to serious challenge from the Left. No such challenge can currently be seen in the USA, so why would its rulers, for all their divisions, back a far-right subversion of its largely sham (see my second read) democracy? The question is touched on in my recent post on America’s Christian Right.
That aside, this is a useful introductory corrective to Tisdall’s predictable superficiality.
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The Ruling Elite’s War on Truth (3225 words)
As if to underline the thrust of this piece, when I checked my own link to it, I was greeted by this:
Chris Hedges, Presbyterian minister and journalist of many years standing, can no longer gain a mainstream hearing for his critiques of imperialism. Like others – Jonathan Cook and John Pilger spring to mind, though the list is longer – he must turn to marginalised outlets. This leads to his dismissal as at best a crank and at worst – when, as here, he writes in RT – a “Putin-bot”.
Judge for yourself. As I do Cook and Pilger, I’ll always give a Hedges piece a read, and suggest you do the same. Introducing my previous read, I called America’s democracy a sham. Consent, as any contract and tort lawyer will tell you, is meaningless if not informed. I put it to you that, by extension, democracy is meaningless if not informed.
Cue for this admirably succinct encapsulation of just how badly, and deliberately so, we are kept in the dark not just by mainstream media but in an increasingly reined in cyberspace.
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Uneven Ground: Findings of the Land Inequality Initiative (Exec Summary) (3127 words)
Land inequality is significantly higher than previously reported. This directly threatens the livelihoods of an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide in smallholder agriculture.
It is also central to other inequalities – of wealth, power, gender, health, and environment – and linked to global crises of democratic decline, climate change, pandemic, migration, unemployment, and intergenerational injustice. Land inequality undermines stability and sustainable societies, affecting all of us in almost every aspect of our lives.
Land is a common good, providing water, food, and natural resources that sustain all life. It is the guarantor of biodiversity, health, and equitable and sustainable livelihoods. It is immovable, non-renewable. How we manage and control land has shaped our economies, political structures, communities, cultures, and beliefs for thousands of years.
Despite their centrality to many global challenges, inequalities in rights to land and the benefits from it are on the increase, while unsustainable land use is placing a huge burden on those least able to bear it.
The “uneven ground” of the title is where most rural people are increasingly finding themselves. Smallholders and family farms, indigenous peoples, rural women, youth, and landless rural communities are being squeezed into smaller parcels of land or forced off the land altogether, while more and more land is concentrated in fewer hands, serving the interests of corporate agribusiness and distant investors, utilising industrial models of production that employ fewer and fewer people.
It amazes me how little is said of capitalism’s inexorable tendency to monopoly. Empirically, it is visible everywhere you look. Britain’s pubs are closing at a rate of one every twelve hours, with independents taking the brunt. In a hospitality sector not only of high volume and low margins, but of staying one step ahead through complete pub makeovers once or even twice a decade, very few indies can stay afloat.[4]
It’s the same on high streets dominated by the likes of Greggs, Superdrug and Poundland at the specialist end of retail, the half dozen big supermarket players at the generalised end. Ditto the coffee shops, ditto even the dental practices. Monopoly is the only game in town.
And these examples, selected more for visibility than global clout, are the tip of an iceberg. The world is ruled by capital concentrated into ever fewer hands. It helps to have an understanding of value – Mandel’s 1969 Introduction to Marxist Theory takes some beating – but for these purposes that is to take a sledgehammer to a walnut.
Anyone incapable of seeing the dialectic by which capitalist competition leads – via the need to drive down prices and consequent need for economies of scale – to its own antithesis[5] is unlikely to be reading the likes of me!
The age of imperialism – north-south export of capital, and south-north repatriation of profits – is premised on that capital being monopoly capital. Think about it. Am I right, or am I right?
What I’ve been less aware of, however, is the extent to which the same process plays out in land ownership. This report by the Land Coalition plugs the gap. I don’t agree with all of its proposed remedies, though it does make the important point – frequently lost on reformers unable to see that wealth creation rather than distribution is the nub of capitalism’s life negating nature – that land redistribution alone is no solution. Nevertheless, its executive summary sets out the scale and hydra-headed nature of the problem most admirably.
And as with every other aspect of capital’s logic, the problems go way beyond the simply unfair, obscene though that is.
NOTES:-
[1] That ‘four yearly circus’ is grotesque even by the abysmal standards of other Western ‘democracies’. In addition to market driven media, vital to the reconciling of class rule with the trappings of democratic accountability, America adds evils of its own. One reason thinking people do not dismiss out of hand Trump’s claims of a stolen election, is that its systems are deeply flawed, To which we can add that the cost of running a presidential campaign is now put at between two and three billion dollars.
[2] Tisdall’s trivialisation of the hit by personalising it is echoed in today’s Observer Editorial, whose kicker has this to say: ‘As the president lashes out wilfully during his last days in office, it seems likely that he at least gave the nod to this killing.’ Which seems to me a textbook example of how our media can be narrowly right (probably) and yet so profoundly (and, at some level of consciousness, mendaciously) wrong.
[3] “It would end the Saudi support for Wahabi terrorists, as well as for the U.S. dollar.” Elsewhere in the cited piece, Hudson – held by some to be America’s greatest living economist – argues that Saudi Arabia is an ally even more vital to US hegemony than Israel. The vulnerability of Saudi oilfields, hence the petrodollar system, to asymetric strikes by Iranian or proxy forces must make for as many frayed nerves on Wall Street as in Riyadh.
[4] “Very few indies can stay afloat.” As ever, the few exceptions are those operating in a niche – Sheffield’s Fat Cat and Kelham Island pubs being cases in point. They draw a clientele sufficiently affluent to have priorities other than the cheapest pint, and as such are exceptions who prove the rule, analogous to those of the middle classes who shun Amazon. (I don’t knock the latter for this. Indeed, I have principled pals among their number. I reserve my scorn for those who, assuming their personal boycott can and should be joined by one and all, seek the moral high ground and thereby betray a root and branch misdiagnosis of the problem.)
[5] In a post last month I likened this intrinsic contradiction within capital’s own laws of motion to the fermentation process, in which yeast is killed by its own product.
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Tisdall’s trivialisation of the hit by personalising it is echoed in today’s Observer Editorial, whose kicker has this to say: ‘As the president lashes out wilfully during his last days in office, it seems likely that he at least gave the nod to this killing.’ Which seems to me a textbook example of how our media can be narrowly right (probably) and yet so profoundly (and, at some level of consciousness, mendaciously) wrong. In the few years between what could jokingly be referred to as my “formal education” and chronic self employment (if you want something to be done properly, do it yourself) I did a gig economy (a.k.a. ‘freelance’) stint as a numeric journeyman in the retinue of a Great Performer. At one point during that adventure I severely miffed my direct employer by noting that if the Great Performer, whom I never saw closer up than onstage, had not been a Chosen One then his money-driven promoters would have readily found an equally profitable substitute, temporal talent being as thick on the ground as Simon Cowell knows it to be. In that regard I invite you to consider the revelatory value of the statistical “moving average”, whether it’s perceived intuitively or calculated mathematically: Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society. Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity. This is where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that… Read more »
I’m afraid by default I don’t believe in assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists or any nuclear scientists unless of course the evidence is clear – won’t go into why but in this case let’s just take a look at what good old Wikipedia tells us about the assassination. If anyone finds the description of the assassination convincing please say why. Please bear in mind: media/government tell us many, many things that aren’t true. I saw a video the other day and most annoyingly I can’t remember what it was to get the exact snippet but in it Rumsfeld says as if “Well, of course” that things are told that aren’t true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohsen_Fakhrizadeh On 27 November 2020, Fakhrizadeh was ambushed while traveling in a black Nissan Teana (pictured right) on a rural road in Absard, a city near Tehran.[7][35][43][44] Accompanied by a convoy of three armored vehicles, he was driving with his wife in a bullet proof car.[45][46] Many reports of the incident are conflicting and there are multiple competing narratives.[45] Several accounts describe a Nissan truck, carrying explosives hidden beneath a load of wood, that detonated near Fakhrizadeh’s car.[47][48][49][note 1] According to The New York Times and the BBC, gunmen then emerged who fired upon Fakhrizadeh’s car. Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards then clashed with the gunmen.[7][41] In the gunfight, three bodyguards were killed by the attackers, while others were wounded. Iranian sources reported that three to four of the attackers were killed. Fakhrizadeh’s family members were also killed or injured in the attack.[5][41] There were also reports of a suicide attacker who later died from his injuries.[50] Another report describes a team of 12 highly trained special forces. According to the report, they were accompanied by a support team of around 50 personnel who offered logistical support and cut power to the… Read more »
Just to add: think of any reason for the choice of Absard as the location for this alleged event?
Unfortunately, I operate in great ignorance of world affairs, all I really understand are psyops. Nevertheless, that understanding helps to a degree. I think we can take the alleged assassination of Suleimani with a grain of salt. The footage that they show of it is highly unconvincing and whenever we see the words “reportedly” or “allegedly” our suspicions should be raised – in their psyops they always give us the clues. So the Guardian tells us: Qassem Suleimani: moment Iranian general killed by US strike reportedly caught on CCTVhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hApKcYbTB70 Reportedly caught on CCTV? Why the doubt? What we definitely know for sure though is that the alleged retaliation by Iran with the shooting down of PS-752 was staged. There are a number of anomalies: 1. A major point to consider is that there is no clear evidence of reality of the crash – this is a serious anomaly of itself. People are always ready to offer possible explanations (if not compelling ones) for anomalies put forward but surely to goodness if an airliner crashes in flat, rural terrain it should be easy to point to convincing evidence of that event. If you’re inclined to believe the crash was real I ask the reader to consider what clear evidence there is of this crash before putting forward any possible explanations for the following anomalies and if you can’t find any please give that fact the significance it deserves. 2. There are no images of the crashed plane that convincingly show a white plane with yellow and blue livery that resembles a UIA aircraft. UIA aircraft – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752 Do an internet search for images of PS-752 crash 3. The footage of the plane crashing is not convincing. 4. The images of the plane “wreckage” include no seats or people. As Aussie analyst,… Read more »
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.com
Arizona Election Fraud Hearing LiVE NOW
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55128305
“Covid: Alcohol ban for Welsh pubs and restaurants from Friday
Welsh pubs, restaurants and cafes will be banned from serving alcohol from Friday and will be unable to open to customers beyond 18:00 GMT.
First Minister Mark Drakeford announced the new rules to tackle a rise in coronavirus cases.”
Another banning of the regular social and business activity for …a rise in “cases”?
Surely even the most obtuse members if the public can now see that the banning of gatherings and the ceasing of all regular transactions is the true aim of all this and not the eradication of a disease that was barely credible even to begin with?
What are they really thinking?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-55133313
Is Rita thinking, “Oh shit! I got found out there so I’ll have to go through the public plea for forgiveness now so here goes …”?
Or did she actually say, “ Oh for fuck’s sake, nobody actually believes this crap so just fuck off!” And then the journalists thought, “Well we can’t report that. So we’ll have to make up the contrition scene”?
Ooh can’t meet people because of a health scare that, even making allowances for mainstream gullibility, lost all credibility after the first lockdown!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54537519
Adhering to the mask regulations is a really groovy motherfucker thing to do!
Meanwhile
https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-54985622?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16067558083304&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-europe-54985622
“German media said Covid-deniers from the “Querdenken” (outside-the-box thinkers) group had been mobilising for days along with anti-vaccination campaigners and far-right activists ahead of what had been termed Day X.”
“Far right activists”. Not real groovy motherfuckers then. Indeed:-
“Inflamed by right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists, they’ve taken to the streets a number of times over the last few months.”
Really not cool at all!
I love the way the news channels talk about this vaccine as if they are announcing the second coming- as if they automatically presuppose that viewers will be bursting into tears over this.
Is anyone really buying this? I know of one work colleague who just blandly assumes he’ll have to take it because he plans to go abroad next year and won’t be able to do so without the vax. He didn’t sound as if he actually believed any of the virus talk.
Capitalism leading to monopolies is happening everywhere and in the most insidious ways. My favorite little dog boarder/vet has been taken over by a huge corporate outfit – with worse service and higher prices! And of course every company now has the obligatory smartphone app that you need in order to utilize their services.
Our local craigslist style trading website is full of businesses posing as individuals to sell cars, clothes, etc. Shopping sites like etsy, that were created for handmade and antique items, are now overrun by Chinese manufactured goods made to look handcrafted or vintage.
So, OffG, hehe, we where right all the way, and now I can give you the answer we all have awaited, I knew it would come but as before, sometimes things do take time, thats life, despite me been an horrible inpatient person, I have sometimes just banged my head into an wall and remind my self, that as in a lot of areas/cases, patient is indeed an virtue. Because the reward when you do that and have endured it, usualy is greater than rushing headlong into something without forberance and knowledge. The Coreman Drosten rewiue report.External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results.https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/ This have been covered before by OffG but this nails it even better, and should be read by everybody, and it also confirms what we all have suspected, apart from some eh….. deniers, hehe. AND: I am not shure your what of the headline in this link when i leave, will show off the enitre headline, but this is an complet list and reponces to an request aka FOI about Corona aka the Covid 19 virus isolation and purification. Its an PDF and consists of 123 pages. https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FOI-responses-re-covid19-virus-isolation-purification-38-institutions-Nov-29-2020-chrono.pdf I just scanned it but it should to be an must read, again this confirms what we have belived to be true since this scamdemic was introduced, they have nothing, infact jackshit, and yet they claim their science is setled. I in light of this, I sincerely hope some other sites whom have vigeriously pimped the official bullshit is adult enough to admit that they where wrong, either intetional or just by been ignorant, I am not educated in medicine, but in ind. processing and have extencive expirience so I… Read more »
I think the Left position on covid can be clarified by saying that they see covid as a kind of microscopic proletariat. The virus will destroy capitalism. And that’s why the Left approach to the virus is either to magnify its effect or to turn away and whistle nonchalantly.
It’s like a std it will destroy their sex life is the metaphor they embody in regards to covid.
And have to wear protection and take medicine and put on lotion to have any diseased free sexual intercourse without too much pain or discomfort or riddling someone else with their rancid bits on the loose.
This looks like fun: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51176409 “The government has confirmed that the new tiers system will “come into effect from the beginning of Wednesday 2 December”, marking the end of the lockdown. In all tiers, all non-essential retail, including indoor and outdoor markets and car boot sales, can reopen from Wednesday, but must follow Covid-19 secure guidelines.” The “Covid-19 secure guidelines” directs us to a page with the daunting introduction: “These 14 guides cover a range of different types of work. Many businesses operate more than one type of workplace, such as an office, factory and fleet of vehicles. You may need to use more than one of these guides as you think through what you need to do to keep people safe. Priority actions are outlined at the top of each guide.” After which: “There is different guidance for: · schools, further education and childcare providers · weddings and civil partnership ceremonies and receptions and celebrations · public transport operators” Well I’ve already been through this kind of thing in my own workplace and let me just note a particularly potent device for annulling all resistance or even any access to any information: the despair inducing profusion of information accumulating in mountainous masses before you. Recall those happy days, when to find out e.g. the times of a particular train journey all you had to do was phone up the local station and talk to an actual person? Long gone now I’m afraid. Now it’s relayed phone calls via innumerable automatic messages to put you on hold while listening to cool jazz and you eventually end up being told nothing helpful or even intelligible. It’s the same shit with this internet page after page bull. In my work there were increasingly bulky “risk assessments” ending up with something that looked like a Bible and… Read more »
This is also important:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55106268
Part of the con is that the rulers finally retreated before the onslaught of protest groups to give in to “our” demands. Now it appears that our lords and masters are indeed cowering in fear before us – and that is why they had to impose lockdown even though they really opposed the idea and indeed were trying to deny the existence of covid all along….yes, I know, we have now got to the point where the idiocy of the entire narrative has reached such a staggering peak of sheer audacity that even scare quotes no longer seem to suffice!
We’ll be seeing more of this kind of thing:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55124286
Blathering statistical gobbledygook with nice charts and a little bit of hope thrown in to justify the most recent clampdown but this material ready to take off in the opposite direction should the conditions of the aforementioned clampdown be relaxed at all. A little easing followed by a huge trumpeting of doom mongering around some slight and much magnified increase of figures – with more charts, perhaps this time with a more ominous colour scheme to trigger the most dire associations in the audience.
Every time Bono clapped someone died… Now every time they count, someone gets covid.
The ‘free and fearless’ British propaganda machine in lockstep this morning that ‘cases’ down by a third since the lockdown. They must have got better counters. No mention of deaths now, of course.
A delusional accepting public ruled by Psychopaths. I think that sums it up. The belief that life goes on as normal is missed, because it doesn’t. It amazes me that after all the atrocities caused by said Psychopaths, mankind still has trust in an inevitable outcome.
It must only be about me, seems to be the overarching theme in today’s society. As long as i’m happy. I like greed and everything that comes with it. Why should i care about anyone else.
Sad!
To think for a second that society has moved beyond this simple fact, is deluded.
When has it been any different at anytime in humanity?
Humans are stupid yet think they are smart. Walking contradictions and full of superstition
There’s only about a handful of smart people per Generation and the baying public feed off their intelligence and endeavor eg inventions like flight, telecommunications, medicine and so on.
Now we’re seeing a kleptocratic and a plutocracy coming to the fore
I do agree, its hard not too. Yet, i still believe that society has either got dumber or more excepting of blatant bullshit. After all, stupidity holds no bounds.
Just youtube bloopers and fail videos there’s millions. All the evidence you need.
MOA’s remaining followers are getting fed-up as B seems to lose touch not only in his nonsensical COVID coverage but also in his writings about US domestic affairs and geopolitics and especially about Trump supposed noble intentions about to be realized but blocked by deep state Including CIA Democrats.
By signing on to lockdowns under his watch American people’s economy was destroyed by COVID sham used to cover up of another $6T FED bailout and $3T Congress corporate bailout under guise of phantom COVID disease while terrorized by government usurpers of power people and economy suffer.
Only destruction of Imperial regime may pave a way for changes millions of desperate Americans seek to safeguard their welfare amid vicious genocidal oligarchic attacks on people who work for living. But such positions are not allowed to enter debate as much in MSM as in MoA blog as more readers complain, as frustration grows.
Swami Donkeynanda is a troll. Only appeared a few days ago. I find covid boring. I love both OffGuardian and MoA, but generally not reading their Covid articles. Both websites are a gem, minus the covid.
B routinely censors blog posts. Often even brags about it. He should be the last to complain about trolls if they are really trolls as I do no see them any disruptive to the blog despite their criticism of B narratives and conclusions. Even quote I posted (Swami..) in my comment has nothing in it that warrants censorship or violate blog rules..
Far more disruptive are those “trolls” who viciously attack different than B opinions and people ad hominem with no comment about Necessity of civil discourse or any reprisal for violation of blog rules from B at all.
Perhaps some of those banned may have tried to put their censured points across by assuming new identities, as their accounts were blocked or posts automatically removed regardless of content. Calling those as trolls is absurd.
these are not only COVID opinions that B censors. I was banned there three years ago for criticizing Putin’s policy in Ukraine and Syria as too appeasing the west or cutting pensions. Was it disruptive? Of course not, especially that I was posting just one of two comments a week. Simply, B did not like my opinion, critical of his Idol” and act in Orwellian autocratic style.
I was reading MoA even after I was banned but when he started censoring people who simply copy and paste CDC and FDA statements or links to major scientific papers that contradicted his hysterical COVID narratives, a line of basic decency and trust was crossed as he showed his true agenda directed by not science but by MSM and political forces behind it.The curious attitude of investigative Journalist or analyst he was known for in the past, suddenly disappeared so his integrity.
Please don’t stop posting on here Kalen. I appreciate it.
The attack/s on Iran have been lurking in the shaddows for an long time now, so when this happened, it wasnt an surprice, and we all know whom is behind it, and I could link but I rather write the headline you need to update your self on the idiot barrage served on Iranians so called Nuke program, something even the Moronikan Intels denie, on top of it, I recoment to seatch for The Phantom Menace, not Star wars, but about ISISraelis decades long propaganda about Iran getting an nuke every minute now….. yup, and it should tell you what you need to know. And the eh….. election despetion stil rocks, even when they serve total bollocks, and I just read something about an eh…. Delta force going in on an Al-CIAeda server farm in Germany, and in the same lines I read that this eh….. server farm was used by the Cubans, Chines etc you know, the uh…. commies to highjack the election in the imperial banana republic, yup, you cant stack so much contradictions on top of eatch other unless you inted that to be read by an average Moronikan Six-pack Joe and Soccermoom, not that their borthers and sisters in the European main lands is much better this days, whom have an IQ level witch would be an insult even to sheeps. But hey, everything goes, like this riddicilous hype and nonsense story about an Monolit. eCONnomy. Instead of debatin/deadbeating various theorems etc, I can boil it down to some few points, and one of them is Austeritys, if you dont get that, and what it did/do to nations economy we indeed have an problem, socialisng private owned Corps debt is by all defentions theft of our money, period, and go back to 2008 and forward, from… Read more »
Serves you right for supporting Kill Gates Microsoft – collaborator
Celebrities are to be enlisted to persuade people to take the ”Covid” vaccine. This is exactly what happens in a piece of predictive programming from 6 or 7 years ago called Utopia, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain, and subsequently remade (badly) in the USA. A two-part series that’s well worth watching, even though it’s very gruesome.
Now, then – who are the familiar faces who are going to be shilling this poison? From over here, David Beckham, maybe; he’s used to selling things (underpants, mainly). There’s bound to be a Hollywood star or two. Perhaps Clint Eastwood, in a reprise of his Dirty Harry role? Something about feeling lucky, but leaving out the ”punk” bit? And for general, all-round celebrity-vacuousness appeal, maybe Kim Kardashian will get involved! Wow!
The possibilities are as vomit-inducing as they are tedious.
Who ? I will GUARANTEE that Stephen Fry will be used. You know, nice, resonable, highly intelligent Stephen, in his softest, fluffiest tones, informing us lesser mortals that it would be most unreasonable of us to refuse the kindly asistance of dear uncle Bill and his syringe of love.
And don’t forget the selling of the vax to the kids. Teletubbies, Tweenies, Fimbles – they’ll all be enlisted.
“Over the hills and far away
The new vaccine comes to save”
“Teletubbies love the vaccine very much! (Big Vax!)”
“Time for Tubby vax vax,
Time for Tubby vax vax”
They’ve already used characters from Peppa Pig in an advert which implores kids to wash their hands as often as possible. They sing ”Wash, wash, wash your hands…” to the tune of ”Row, row, row your boat…”.
I’m genuinely surprised that my laptop’s still in one piece after I saw that.
My son has autism. Sometimes I think he’s better off that way!
I’m sorry to hear that George. I’m sure he’s still a very smart character though. Maybe smarter than Dad?
Oh WAAAY smarter. He can play me like a fiddle!
You might be right! One of the residents where I work is preverbal. I’ve never met anyone who’s as ”in his own world” as he is.
And that’s just kids. I know marriages that almost came unglued because the husband (Oxbridge-trained accountant in his 50s) would spend all his time and money on Poke-eggs and Poke-gym.
Ha! Yep. His name did cross my mind.
Tom Hanks and his untalented wife Rita Wilson started the whole thing. What a couple of arseholes those two are.
No disagreement from me on that one. Arseholes, indeed.
You mean were.
And yet… Try telling someone that entertainment is a direct extension of the military-intelligence complex… We might as well have two heads.
Oh Jesus! I hadn’t even considered the roping in of celebs and various strands of pop culture to sell the vax. As they did to sell the fear in e.g. Neil Diamond rewriting Sweet Caroline (“Hands/Not touching hands” Yuk!) or the Beatles’ “I Wanna Wash My Hands”.
For the vax, how about:
“Oh happy day (Oh happy day)
Oh happy day (Oh happy day)
When the vaccine washed (the vaccine washed)
Oh when the vaccine washed (the vaccine washed)
When the vaccine washed (the vaccine washed)
It washed that bug away (Oh happy day)”
Or
“Does it wash up? It always washes up
Does it clean up? It always cleans up
Does it brush up? It always brushes up
It does everything, the vax does everything!”
G’day George and luv ya work! Are you aware of the “:Last Waltz” 1976. Every band member wondered why Neil Diamond was on the list. A complete mystery to them all. Have a listen to one of the greatest love songs every written.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfBqWNFOVo8
Yes – as a huge fan of Bob and Van (…and …er…both Neils!) I have seen TLW. I recall a remark (I think it was from Griel Marcus ) that it was a film that was more exciting than the event itself. But then it WAS filmed by Mr Scorsese!
O’K then i better play this number,
Isn’t it ironic that Van, i.e. the one who you’d think to be the least political of the crowd, turns out to be the one releasing anti-lockdown protest songs?
(My own favourite Van tale is of a rant he went into during a show when someone shouted out, “Oh get on with it, you boring old bastard!”)
Glad you did, Shin! Van the Man on top form.
Van at his peak Gwyn. He was a great friend of Richard Manual. A voice that choirs struggled to sing along with. I’ll play one:
Excellent! I love the vibe of The Band.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. They actually did that with the Neil Diamond and Beatles songs. I hadn’t heard about it.
*Must suppress murderous thoughts…must suppress murderous thoughts…*
Oh I think that was the least of it. Thankfully, I have repressed memory of the rest.
Let’s have a good laugh while we still can.
On the news here they shared a youtube video of some guy playing/singing a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” but with “Vaccine” and some embarrassing lyrics about how badly he wants to be injected.
Noooo…not Jolene! They shouldn’t be allowed to abuse songs in that way! The bastards.
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.com German Court: PCR Covid Test Invalid, Propensity To False Positives/
General On Trump Win.CIA Frankfurt Battle/ Firey Paris Protests.AZ Callup/
Facebook AI Kills Businesses.Zuck Funds Dem Races/
Firing Squads.Hanging Returns/
Ex-CIA Brennan: Pro Iran, Anti US/
EU Migrant Pact Changes Little
Although it may terrify you guys with it’s world vision, and claimed left-wing intent, where the Great Reset promises to address inequality, injustice, unemployment and provide a universal income and address many left wing concerns, don’t fret it will never deliver Marxism. The Great Reset tips its hat to the left, but will never deliver for them, just like Trump never delivered for the far-right, despite Steve Bannon’s, neo-Nazi performance during the election campaign. Praying on the innate, xenophobia and nationalism in traditionally left-wing voters. He skilfully used racism, nationalism and illusions of national greatness to get Trump acknowledged as leader.
Yes the USA is bankrupt, yes the dollars is in its last days, but the USA is pathological opposed to communism and it believes it is in the final stages of completely discrediting it and inflicting its hegemony on most of the world in a continuation of the same old story of US neoliberal roll out.
Broadly speaking there are two main camps supporting freedom of speech today.
Firstly: there are those who believe in the wide dissemination of intellectual ideas for its own sake and to improve the culture & debate, through continual stimulus and change. They believe ALL speech must be defended, especially that which offends and that which they disagree with.
In the second camp, they demand freedom of speech to use to incite political, racial or anti religious hatred. They want to provoke the mob into self righteous anger, sometimes via lies but often via a skilful use of the truth, to destroy their left wing enemies and eventually our ‘liberal’ democracy, so their own movement can seize political power, using their verbal and physical violence.
After grabbing power they will of course ban all unapproved speech. Freedom of speech is not part of their core beliefs, quite the opposite in fact, freedom of speech is merely a dispensable tool to achieving power, once achieved ideas must be controlled.
I have to suspect the mind set of those that down voted this blatantly obvious comment of the inevitable.
Covid was just the meal’s Appetizer, the main course will be the anti-Covid revolution, which the far-right, US social media and the likes of UK fifth column are stoking up.I Look forward to witnessing the largest CIA inspire, anti-democratic coup in history, as several governments around the world are toppled by far-right ‘freedom fighters’ in ‘popular uprisings’ in as part of the Covid revolt. We the people lose either way, as these fascist, client states of the USA, will be far worse than the democracies they overthrow.
‘the most dangerous nation on earth held the four yearly circus.’
Never a truer word spoken, or written, to describe what america has become…..unfortunately
The circus is much the same as it ever was, but the free bread now comes in a different form.
They need to loot the rest of the world to survive. The closer the ally the more they will pay.
They will need to loot the rest of the world to survive. The closer the ally the more they will pay.
https://youtu.be/9tHO0Fa_ywc
Old school journalism here in Ireland done the last week after no replies by Dr Luke O Niell who’s been plastered all over the main broadcasters here pushing the mandatory Vaccine deployment and back in March on our Friday night show said at LEAST one in every family will die from covid IN IRELAND.
Should be arrested for malfeasance and other liabilities I’m sure.
Yet he was very defensive about being doorstepped in Dublin city center and asked some REAL QUESTIONS about the new Vaccines.
Why aren’t we seeing this in any other country than Ireland in regards to forcefully getting into the vicinity of these types and calling them out?
World of comfortable cowards seems to be greatly exposed the full nature of human psychological malaise
Do enjoy!
“The Ruling Elite’s War on Truth”
Just lower the “security” settings in MSOffice that that warning won’t appear!
Off topic, but
In case aTED notice from 19/10/2020 went unnoticed.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) needs an AI tool to process the expected high number of side effects caused by the Covid-19 vaccination.
Did the beep report on it, anyone ?
Hopefully the doctors will really get the fasttrack vaccine first. Apart from them, nobody is in a position to sound the alarm. Concerned parents will surely be called conspiracy theorists again. Unlike Doctors.
„
The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details from the ADRs’ reaction text are missed.“
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:506291-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&tabId=1
yes yes yes
indeed indeed
10s of thousands of doctors and even more dancing nurse specialists
neil ferguson imperial types
the queer folk from westminster m15 types and dolphin sq elm guest house party goers
will all be desperate in queue for the cow pox pus juice with added terminator genes.
yes yes i agree let the hero go first
my guess they will get vit c or saline the good stuff is for you and you and certainly you
If i remember rightly the information regarding this which i saw recently was just a smokescreen and the deal for the provider had already been done
i shall use my googlefu skills
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/mhra-looks-to-ai-to-hunt-for-covid-19-vaccine-side-effects/
I think first of all we should read up on Klaus Schwab´s Great Reset Manifesto for the Meister sees „a chance to accelerate into a green economy“ and that “we have to prepare for a more angry world.” He and the elite club of unelected billionaires he´s founded in Davos is dictating how the rest of the world will live from now on.
WEF founder: Must prepare for an angrier world
“The Reich Shall Rise Again.”
“Mein Fuhrer I Can Walk!”
Nice one!
Klaus Schwab will be the self-appointed dictator of the proletariat.
“By 2030 you will own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy.”
I have been dreaming of that for decades. /s
He better keep drinking that baby blood extract or he will never make it to the Promised Land.
I think first of all we should read up on Klaus Schwab´s The Great Reset Manifesto for the Meister sees „a chance to accelerate into a green economy“ and that “we have to prepare for a more angry world.” He and the elite club of unelected billionaires he´s founded in Davos is dictating how the rest of the world will live from now on.
WEF founder: Must prepare for an angrier world
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:506291-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&tabId=1
Covid was just the starter, the main course is the anti-Covid revolution, which the far-right, US social media and the likes of UK fifth column are stoking up.
I Look forward to witnessing the biggest CIA inspire anti-democratic coup in history as many governments around the world are toppled by far-right ‘freedom fighters’ in a ‘popular uprising’ in the Covid revolt. We the people lose either way as these fascist, client states of the USA, will be far worse than what they overthrow.
A lot of things pass muster due to the way that our culture is guided. One of the things that’s been puzzling me is the big “Why?”, as in “Why do we find it necessary to seek conflict with other societies?”. Iran is a good example. I am old enough to remember when Iran was ‘one of us’, with the Shah celbrated with glitz and glitter and only a few mentions of “Savak”. It really was an oppressive regime headlined by a West friendly autocrat who kept his people in check using a far reaching and completely beyond legal norms and practices secret police. Eventhally people had enough and got rid of him and his family and he was replaced by a set of west friendly ‘moderates’ which didn’t last long before the revolution proper happened. Everything that happend since followed a logical progression but ultimately Iran was just “Iran”, a different country (with different opinions about things like Zionism). We’ve been at war with them ever since — not necessarily a shooting war give or take a proxy and an airliner or two and a greater or lesser sanctions regime. What’s our end game? Do we even know why? (My personal theory based on knowing both Iranians and Israelies is that they are remarkably alike, the only problem from an Israeli perspective is that there’s ten times as mnay Persians than Hebrews so should the dam ever break and Iran is allowed to find its destiny it will wipe the floor economically and so culturally with Israel. No war needed.) As for our democracy, its been long said that America has “the best democracy money can buy”. (Who says that Americans don’t do irony?) This would be a local problem of no great import to the rest of the… Read more »
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555 As I see its firewalled…after one read.. “I know exactly how many knees I’ve hit, says Eden, who completed his service in the Israel Defense Forces as a sniper in its Golani infantry brigade six months ago. For much of the time, he was stationed along the border with the Gaza Strip. His assignment: to repel Palestinian demonstrators who approached the fence. “I kept the casing of every round I fired,” he says. “I have them in my room. So I don’t have to make an estimate – I know: 52 definite hits.” ?precrop=592,150,x0,y0&height=486&width=1920 But there are also “non-definite” hits, right? “There were incidents when the bullet didn’t stop and also hit the knee of someone behind [the one I aimed at]. Those are mistakes that happen.” Is 52 a lot? “I haven’t really thought about it. It’s not hundreds of liquidations like in the movie ‘American Sniper’: We’re talking about knees. I’m not making light of it, I shot a human being, but still …” Where do you stand in comparison to others who served in your battalion? A Young Gazan’s Dream, Amputated He Thought if He Just Ran Fast Enough, He Could Get Out of Gaza UN Council: Israel Intentionally Shot Children and Journalists in Gaza “From the point of view of hits, I have the most. In my battalion they would say: ‘Look, here comes the killer.’ When I came back from the field, they would ask, ‘Well, how many today?’ You have to understand that before we showed up, knees were the hardest thing to rack up. There was a story about one sniper who had 11 knees all told, and people thought no one could outdo him. And then I brought in seven-eight knees in one day. Within a few hours, I almost broke… Read more »
There are far better discussions of Marx’s value analysis than Mandel, in fact it is one of the worst. II Rubin’s book Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value is probably the best, including the intro by Freddy Perlman. Also see “Crisis of Value” in this issue of Internationalist Perspective. https://internationalistperspective.org/issue/internationalist-perspective-no-5152/ (PDF)
Just tell us what to do, Philip.
I think we’re about ready to do anything anybody suggests by now…
We know our enemy inside out, and we want him to be more scared of us than we are of him.
The descriptions of the global coup are now legion.
It’s an appalling scenario, and something has to stop it in its tracks.
Perform a Jedburgh’s action!
Alas, I’ve no answers, wardropper. I have no faith in either reformist or revolutionary roads to the overthrow of capitalism. As Gramsci says, “when that which must happen cannot happen, then we are in the age of monsters.”
All I and other likeminded souls do, I’m afraid – and this is as much to preserve a degree of sanity as anything else – is say it how we see it.
Here an article on the Iranian nuclear scientist’s assassination
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37851/everything-we-know-so-far-about-the-assassination-of-the-father-of-irans-nuclear-bomb
This is a warning to Iran and Biden. This no longer goes with Trump, Israel has skipped the time until January 20. And Biden agrees. Israel does not rule, the US Jews rule.
Anybody with a bit of brain can understand that Iran would never fall for such a stupid trick.
They all know that if the current president would be able to start a war, he would be entitled to remain in power.
The only logic behind this assassination is to complicate biden’s job in reversing the tronald dump’s decision to quit the oilbama/b-then nuclear agreement with iran.
Its like a comedy sketch
Cue Iranian Hackers and the power grid…..revenge for stuxnet….cue iranian hackers and the banking system
Cue EMP/dirty bomb
Wave the false flags in celebration
Not much of a comedy when people are being killed.
I quarrel with this:
I wish!
Fascism, whatever its form, eg Italy, Germany and Japan are all considered to have been Fascist states as the thing they all hold in common is the corporate state, the merging of big business and the state, smashing independent trade unions and the left, in all its expressions. Each faced a crisis of capital and it was either an attempt (again) at building a socialist alternative, or Fascism.
The US: There is no serious challenge from pretty much anybody, let alone a left, as everyone is worked up about Trump instead. Meanwhile…
The UK: There is no left;
France: Plenty of opposition, but a divided left;
Germany: Plenty of opposition but the same as France;
So we’ve got Fascism anyway! It’s not one that Mussolini would necessarily recognise but we have all the hallmarks of the corporate, security state.
Short of a lengthy debate on what fascism actually is, I’ll stick to to the context of my remark. Are you offering odds on your view that Trump will stage the power grab as predicted by WSWS?
Power grab? I seriously doubt it. What for? Biden as titular prez will continue the same policies and Trump will continue to stir things up. I think the WSWS have got their heads lodged firmly up their posteriors, which is a shame because they sometimes carry quite good news stories (when it doesn’t get in the way of their Trotskyist-tinted glasses.
“I seriously doubt it.”
Me too.
UK Column News – 27th November 2020 LIES, DAMNED LIES AND… BORIS JOHNSON PM LETS CAT OUT OF THE BAG WITH HIS FIRST THREE WORDS Lie No 1 – “The truth is…” Lie No 2 – “one in three people with Covid have no symptoms and may be spreading the disease without knowing they’ve got it…” Even Wuhan has quarantined 300 non-symptomatic people and not one of them developed or passed on the disease. There were no asymptomatic spreaders. Lie No 3 – “The only way to protect everyone is through mass testing… Liverpool shows what’s been achieved.” Mass testing does not identify cases. The PCR test is not fit for purpose. A Portuguese court found PCR test to be a fraudulent tool in diagnosis. Lie No 4 – “240,000 tests in Liverpool, with national restrictions, has reduced cases in Liverpool city regions by 2/3s.” How can doing random tests of healthy people reduce the number of Covid cases? Lie No 5 – “In due course where people test negative it may be possible to release families from restrictions even if their home area remains in tier three.” We’re are bribing people to get the test: with the health passport you may be allowed to fly. This is orchestrated. Lie No 6 – “Your tier is not your destiny. The allocation of tiers will be reviewed every 14 days. Every area has the means of escape. We can suppress the virus until vaccines come to our aid and then reclaim our lives and all the things that we love.” Patrick Henningsen: You are a prisoner but you may be able to shorten your sentence if you cooperate. Besides the vaccine according to the manufacturers does not give immunity it only reduces the symptoms. TWO TO THREE YEARS TO MOP UP… Read more »
“Your tier is not your destiny. The allocation of tiers will be reviewed every 14 days. Every area has the means of escape. We can suppress the virus until vaccines come to our aid and then reclaim our lives and all the things that we love.”
Maybe it’s just me – but I get visions of a certain moustached German leader making thundering pronouncements while waving his fist.
Covid was just the starter, the main course is the anti-Covid revolution, which the far-right, US social media and UK fifth column are stoking up.
I Look forward to witnessing the biggest CIA inspire anti-democratic coup in history as many governments around the world are toppled by far-right ‘freedom fighters’ in a ‘popular uprising’ in a Covid revolt. We the people lose either way as these fascsit will be worse than what they overthrow.
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere as long as it stays in the maze
Margaret Attwood
The Handmaids Tale
“Note the inclusion of bin Salman alongside Pompeo and Netanyahu…”
Looks reasonable to me. They represent the Axis of Fundamentalism.
Muslim fundamentalism…
Jewish fundamentalism…
And the fundamentalism of Mammon.
Does heavily promoting lockdowns, social distancing and face masks WSWS finally see the light of COVID fear mongering, panic and lockdown devastation and deaths?
Uh no. The WSWS has become quite comfortable with cognitive dissonance – even if it is in the same sentence.
“It amazes me how little is said of capitalism’s inexorable tendency to monopoly.”
Not really. This tendency is the driving force behind Event Covid. If people can’t see the capitalist iron fist when it’s dressed in such transparent clothes, they’re never going to see it.
As for dismal Tisdall and the Guardian, its analysis must of necessity be superficial. It represents a nanotech brand of liberalism that is worn like a trendy lightweight overcoat by those looking for the safe, repeatable memes of the dominant elite.
The Guardian claims to be the home of that elite, including members of self-serving castes like the neocon Blairite warmongers, the upper middle class Common Purpose cultists (who control the pinnacle of the promotion ladder that leads to unimaginable riches by most people’s standards) and below them a part of the self-interested public servant cohort that knows which side its bread’s buttered.
These people don’t need depth. They need the party line.
“Even though most of those hack twits never leave the mail room.”
Yes, the fact of covid’s handy acceleration of this “inexorable tendency to monopoly” and the equally obvious fact of the Left overlooking this fact also struck me. Sometimes economic tendencies can get a little boost from non-economic moves.
Every indicator is showing that the benefits of the Corona World Order benefit those at the very top of the capitalist pyramid. Yet, the left cannot/will not see any intentionality, order or program to this consistent pattern. It’s just that dumb luck always screws the 99%?
The astonishing thing is that they DO see it. The WSW continually points out how well the rich are doing out of the covid bollocks and yet somehow, despite all that, covid is presented as a herald of doom for the capitalist order. Well just let us know when the barricade storming starts comrade! (But give us plenty of warning. After all, we’ll have to claw our way out of our ICUs first!)
It’s just that dumb luck always screws the 99%?
never fear, such phenomena are easily explained (away) by a sufficiently sophisticated interpretation of Coincidence Theory, which postmodern academics are labouring day and night to elaborate.
The Left have been silenced. They have no platforms to speak out. The people claiming to be of the Left are not.
Galloway for one !
Yup.I agree. But the left used to understand itself by the various “platforms” out there. All of them – all of them – are controlled. I don’t use the term “left” anymore. That by itself is a major right wing victory. (I consider the Democrats to be a right wing party and liberalism to be capitalist to its core.)
I too found his amazement amazing. If capitalism has one inexorable tendency, it is the concentration of power, primarily as wealth. Destruction – of variety, tradition, competition, safety, lives, democracy, justice and the environment – is another effect. Having been subverted, all the religions equate wealth to virtue, and genuflect to the status quo.