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Economic Devastation: The Real “Long COVID” The “pandemic” has already plunged a quarter of a billion people into poverty, and IMF “Covid loans” are set to make it all much worse.

Colin Todhunter

Audio Version New Feature!

There is a terrifying prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people will fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone. Without immediate radical action, we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory.

That is according to Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.

She adds this scenario is made more sickening given that trillions of dollars have been captured by a tiny group of powerful men who have no interest in interrupting this trajectory.

In its January 2021 report ‘The Inequality Virus’, Oxfam stated that the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn between 18 March and 31 December 2020. Their total wealth then stood at $11.95tn, a 50 per cent increase in just 9.5 months.

In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. This despite the IMF’s own research showing austerity worsens poverty and inequality.

Barely days into the shutdown of the global economy in April 2020, the Wall Street Journal ran the headline ‘IMF, World Bank Face Deluge of Aid Requests From Developing World‘. Scores of countries were asking for bailouts and loans from financial institutions with $1.2 trillion to lend.

Prior to that, in late March, World Bank Group President David Malpass said that poorer countries would be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various COVID-related lockdowns. However, any assistance would be on condition that further neoliberal reforms became embedded.

Malpass said:

For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”

Two years on and it is clear what ‘reforms’ really mean. In a press release issued on 19 April 2022, Oxfam International insists the IMF must abandon demands for austerity as a cost-of-living crisis continues to drive up hunger and poverty worldwide.

According to Oxfam’s analysis, 13 out of the 15 IMF loan programmes negotiated during the second year of COVID require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk. The IMF is also encouraging six additional countries to adopt similar measures.

Kenya and the IMF agreed a $2.3 billion loan programme in 2021, which includes a three-year public sector pay freeze and increased taxes on cooking gas and food. More than three million Kenyans are facing acute hunger as the driest conditions in decades spread a devastating drought across the country. Oxfam says nearly half of all households in Kenya are having to borrow food or buy it on credit.

At the same time, nine countries, including Cameroon, Senegal and Suriname, are required to introduce or increase the collection of VAT, a tax that disproportionately impacts people living in poverty.

In Sudan, nearly half of the population live in poverty. However, it has been told to scrap fuel subsidies which will hit the poorest hardest. A country already reeling from international aid cuts, economic turmoil and rising prices for everyday basics such as food and medicine. More than 14 million people need humanitarian assistance (almost one in every three people) and 9.8 million are food insecure in Sudan.

In addition, 10 countries are likely to freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs, which could mean lower quality of education and fewer nurses and doctors in countries already short of healthcare staff. Consider that Namibia had fewer than six doctors per 10,000 people in early 2020.

Prior to Covid, the situation was bad enough. The IMF had consistently pushed a policy agenda based on cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest and moves to undermine labour rights and protections. As a result, 52 per cent of Africans lack access to healthcare and 83 per cent have no safety nets to fall back on if they lose their job or become sick.

Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s senior policy advisor, says:

The IMF must suspend austerity conditions on existing loans and increase access to emergency financing. It should encourage countries to increase taxes on the wealthiest and corporations to replenish depleted coffers and shrink widening inequality.”

It is interesting to note what could be achieved. For instance, Argentina has collected about $2.4 billion from its one-off pandemic wealth tax. Oxfam estimates that a ‘Pandemic Profits Tax’ on 32 super-profitable global companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020 alone.

Many governments are nearing debt default and being forced to slash public spending to pay creditors and import food and fuel. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports. Oil and gas giants are reporting record-breaking profits, with similar trends expected to play out in the food and beverage sector.

Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) have also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next five years.

Oxfam says that, despite COVID costs piling up and billionaire wealth rising more since COVID than in the previous 14 years combined, governments — with few exceptions — have failed to increase taxes on the richest.

Gabriela Bucher rejects any notion that governments do not have the money or means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and ensure their health and welfare. She says the G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts and increase aid to poorer countries and act to protect ordinary people from an avoidable catastrophe.

Nabil Abdo says:

The pandemic is not over for most of the world. Rising energy bills and food prices are hurting poor countries most. They need help boosting access to basic services and social protection, not harsh conditions that kick people when they are down.”

The ‘pandemic’ is not over for most of the world – for sure. People too often conflate the effects of COVID-related policies with the impact of COVID itself. It is these policies that have caused the ongoing devastation to lives and livelihoods.

What it has amounted to is a multi-trillion-dollar bailout for a capitalist economy that was in meltdown prior to COVID. This came in the form of trillions of dollars pumped into financial markets by the US Fed (in the months prior to March 2020) and ‘COVID relief’.

As the world’s richest people lined their pockets even more in the past two years, COVID IMF loans are now piling more misery on some of the world’s poorest people. For them, ‘long COVID’ is biting austerity – their ‘new normal’.

All this resulting from policies supposedly brought in to protect public health – a claim that rings hollower by the day.

Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture and is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal. You can read his “mini e-book”, Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Cultivating Resistance, here.The author receives no payment from any media outlet or organisation for his writing and relies on the generosity of readers. If you appreciated this article, please consider sending a few coins his way: [email protected]

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MoonRush
MoonRush
Jun 15, 2022 6:12 PM

This is very sad because COVID really hit hard on economics of every country that are on world right now and who just wanted to live a normal life and feel a good future. But people right now are sitting at their homes and just doing nothing because they can’t even get to those workplaces, and they need to use no refusal payday loans canada to be prepared for all necessary money spending that can happened to everyone, and we can’t really solve it another way, or you have a lot of money before all of it, or you’re just sitting and doing nothing and waiting.

William
William
May 13, 2022 11:27 PM

Facts seem to be not much of a bother for many people. We see this displayed on Linkedin and in too many publications to mention almost daily. I assume most people know the world’s wealth has gone into the pockets of the world’s wealthiest people since they see the same news as I do. But, for the most part, people seemed unconcerned, reminding me of an old Ronald Reagan quote about a recession is when your neighbor is out of work, and depression is when you are. Are people paying attention? It seems as if they are not. We must also consider the mechanism that has created this reality was made.

Guy
Guy
May 8, 2022 1:28 PM

Thanks, can you put a download for the audio, or add to speed up the lecture?

moneycircus
moneycircus
May 6, 2022 2:04 PM

Famine and pandemic are a pincer movement. Colin captures it well.

My upcoming article is called Shanghied.

For several hundred years men would be seized in the street, drugged, tricked or kidnapped, and pressed into the service of the British navy or merchant fleets.

Now a sort of reverse Shanghai is taking place. The same financial and business class that profited from international trade — the slavers and the merchant ships — tell us we are the “useless classes” and the Shanghai has gone into backward gear.

In China’s largest city today there is no end in sight to the imprisonment of millions in their apartments. Lockdown is, of course, a prison term. Canadians can’t fly out of their country without submitting to jabs and Australian ports have been opened to citizens but for how long?

In Shanghai you may be beaten or seized in the street but this time confined to your home or thrown into quarantine camp (the regulations of the biosurveillance state have been eased but not removed).

Premier of Victoria, Dan Andrews is a caricature of a crimp if ever there was one. Crimps, originally British slang for “agent,” used trickery, intimidation, or violence to put an unwilling sailor on a ship, for which they were paid up to three months of the man’s salary. Some enterprising crimps also became suppliers of naval clothing and equipment — and were also paid to kit out their unwilling recruit.

The reason why we are being Shanghaied is simple: the owners have no use for us; at best new plans. Perhaps the consumer economy no longer benefits them. Maybe they see something juicier. It may even be true that carbon dioxide will extinguish life (some say CO2 does the opposite and it is oxygen that oxidizes us). The evidence of the past two years implies that none of the above impels them — that the motive lies elsewhere.

On this trajectory we would with alacrity swap our fates with those of old, and take our chance as a crewmate to old Shanghai.

To rekindle, in order to confront, the evils of old may be our destiny. We need an endurance that surmounts our fears.

https://moneycircus.substack.com

WorkingClassHero
WorkingClassHero
May 6, 2022 12:06 PM

Magic up a trillion to pay all the plebs for a couple of years… Now the minister of finance is confused as to why there is inflation.

Let me explain… It was designed this way.

Please STOP already with the “who me” shit. The gig is over. Even silencing everyone at this point will not help the cause.

I’m told this is the way it’s always been. I disagree. The Second Amendment is proof it was corrected by some in the recent past. We are the many.

Technocracy Unsustainable
Technocracy Unsustainable
May 6, 2022 10:26 AM

Is this the international order we should fight to preserve?

“What you have today is the economy imagines that the financial sector, the real estate speculators are part of the economy and part of GDP instead of being an overhead, a tumor.” ~ Michael Hudson

World poverty is viewed as a solution, not a problem. The World Bank and IMF think of poverty as low-priced labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity is an economic solution that’s built into their models. ~ Michael Hudson

Neoliberalism impoverishes. [It] is a financial class war against labor, against industry, against governments. It’s the financial class against the whole rest of society seeking to use debt leverage to control companies, countries, families and individuals by debt.
~ Michael Hudson

The IMF/World Bank are the chosen instruments to enforce neoliberalism worldwide, forcing nations in debt to make them cough up their public assets and natural resources as repayment. Part of the IMF’s war on governments is by disallowing them to use fiscal policy for public purpose, lying about “reducing deficits”, which MMT revealed is a huge myth.

Since the creditor class artificially created all of this unnecessary private debt by not letting gov’t normally invest in the public sector, heterodox economists like Steve Keen say that ALL private debt should be cancelled, since it never should have happened in the first place.

The creditor class seized control of government 40 yrs ago, cutting off normal gov’t investment in the public sector, allowing private banks to rake in billions in penalties and fees, causing a massive private debt that today is at peak level, meaning it can never be repaid.

Banks don’t want people to pay off their debts because they rake in billions in penalties and fees. In fact, they call those who DO pay off their debts “deadbeats” because they are no longer generating profit for them. 

Life in a Creditocracy

Does this sound like a unipolar hegemony to you?

“Out of 195 countries, only 30 have honored the US sanctions on Russia. That means about 165 countries in the world have refused to join the sanctions.”

 On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides with Russia Over US

“The IMF crushed democracy in Ukraine, crushed any chance of Ukrainians to make their own policy. Finance is the American mode of warfare against democracy.”

The IMF Won’t Save Ukraine

MOVE OVER, NATO AND IMF: EURASIA IS COMING

“The creation of a development bank will make it possible to bypass the IMF for balance-of-payment loans, thus avoiding the organization’s onerous austerity requirements.”

mgeo
mgeo
May 7, 2022 8:10 AM

+1

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 9:50 AM

Didn’t Oxfam join in the mass poisoning campaign?

Nigel Watson
Nigel Watson
May 6, 2022 7:27 AM

Brits are suffering from falling living standards due to rising inflation. The Covidian morons only have themselves to blame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdqPp5xrZ8Y

Antonym
Antonym
May 6, 2022 7:12 AM

True and now Xi Jinping wants to show he was right to other CCP faction with his extreme lockdowns so he’s going to double down: Xi Jinping says China’s Covid policies will ‘stand the test of time’ in Shanghai Presidential selection up ahead end October 2022.
Additional economic degradation even in Shanghai!

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
May 5, 2022 11:16 PM

Good article, a 5, but what is “COVID itself”? Have we proven there is a unique disease caused by a unique pathogen? Was this posted here?

NickM
NickM
May 6, 2022 5:38 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

I agree that Colin’s customary exactitude is slightly smudged by the words “Covid” and “Pandemic” to obscure the Truth: “Con(fidence trick)-19” and “PLandemic”. Otherwise, an excellent piece by Colin as usual.

For those that are interested in English Lit, the word “Oligarch” can be found with its modern meaning (an infinitely rapacious virtue signalling Anglo Zio Capitalist) a century ago, in an essay by GK Chesterton on “Milton versus Merry England” (last chapter of “Fads versus Fancies”, 1923). Contains many enlightening quotations on literary style as well as property distribution, eg:

“… ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay” — Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village.

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:00 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

Millions of people who experienced “omicron” , myself included, know it is a unique disease and the causative agent is artificial. The distortion (not loss) of the sense of smell so that certain foods smell like burnt chemicals is unique and abnormal. Otherwise it is like a mild flu and requires no medication. I took only one aspirin as I felt a mild fever and had things to do.

I suppose strong antioxidants and detox agents would not be a bad idea.

I believe it is a failed chemical weapon. The artificial spike protein is the poison and is unlikely to be transmitted by a “virus” . What remains to be understood is how it was spread around. I believe the original victims were poisoned in hospitals. After mass vaccination the spike protein spread by shedding off from vaccinated people, which is how “omicron” emerged.
It is also likely the poison was introduced to populations via flu and other vaccines.

mgeo
mgeo
May 6, 2022 10:34 AM
Reply to  PUT IT IN VLAD

They have completed the test of the bioweapon for now. See Dr. Sankara Chetty’s experience, and statement to the “Court of Public Opinion”.
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/covid-19-a-biological-weapon-targeting-ethnicity-and-body-systems/

Viridis
Viridis
May 7, 2022 2:55 PM
Reply to  mgeo

The apparent christian anti-abortion bias of that blog is a no-go sign for me.

NickM
NickM
May 6, 2022 3:47 PM
Reply to  PUT IT IN VLAD

+1

Rachelk Wild
Rachelk Wild
May 5, 2022 9:44 PM

Meanwhile, back in Blighty… With vulnerable people freezing to death in their own homes, people dying in isolation because they can’t afford to go anywhere & suicide rates off the charts, there’s mumblings of a windfall tax… We seriously couldn’t make this stuff up! https://rachelwild.substack.com/p/windfall-tax-on-record-profits-whilst?s=w

Nigel Watson
Nigel Watson
May 5, 2022 5:26 PM

More organised chaos that they hope will lead to us begging for a digital police state. They need your permission, hence the use of #hegeliandialectic They will use economic chaos as the problem, they anticipate social unrest as the reaction to the problem, hoping we’ll beg for this as the solution

austrian peter
austrian peter
May 5, 2022 9:34 PM
Reply to  Nigel Watson

Excellent Nigel, thank you well found. I hadn’t heard of the expression ‘Hegelian Dialectic’ but certainly understood the principle as I have been rabbiting on about it for 10 years after I wrote a book following the bank robbery in Cyprus 2013.
https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-localisation?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyOTUwMzA1MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTM1ODI2MzQsIl8iOiJaTlo1QyIsImlhdCI6MTY1MTc2NDQ4NSwiZXhwIjoxNjUxNzY4MDg1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNzYyNzkyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.NaQe4Lyl-NKmz3YXluPmVVqczBBLlzPB85Z1bFlyizg&s=w

austrian peter
austrian peter
May 5, 2022 9:35 PM
Reply to  Nigel Watson
The Coming Revolution
The Coming Revolution
May 6, 2022 12:19 AM
Reply to  Nigel Watson

IMO using the expression “Hegelian Dialectic” to refer to the situation where crises are deliberately created that call for specific desired solutions is misleading. To the impatient mind, specially in this rushing age, that reference will seem to imply that Hegel has something to do with that tactic, whereas the truth is that he hasn’t, not in any way; a tactic that must have been resorted to ages before Hegel.

Something I wrote a month ago on dialectics:

“Just to point out that Hegelian dialectic is NOT ‘Problem – Reaction – Solution’, and Hegel would be the first to protest against this unforgivable simplistic interpretation, even if we agree that the language used by German idealists is far from being that easy to grasp. If I may summarize what the philosophy of change is to Hegel, and again, he would be revolving in his grave just at the sound of the word ‘summarize’, is that every creation and subsequent expansion contains the seed of its own contraction and subsequent destruction. Hegel didn’t invent dialectics by the way; he just discovered that change occurs because of contradictions, conflicts. Is there anything more obvious than that? Indeed, if there is no contradictions, there is no reason to change, is there? A graphic illustration of the philosophy of history may be also found in the Yin/Yang symbol: the black point inside the white expansion (and vice versa) is the seed that’ll cause the future contraction and final destruction. As something expands, it creates with that expansion the means of its own contraction.

“There is nothing odd about that; it’s in nature and commonly called homeostasis; the law that governs changes and equilibriums.

“To suggest that Hegel has ever anything to do with the tactic of manufacturing crises in order to provoke desired reactions that call for desired solutions is a gross mistake. It would be like blaming Albertus Magnus, the credited discoverer of the natural element Arsenic, for every arsenic poisoning.”

Hegelian Dialectic by Hegel:

https://off-guardian.org/2022/04/29/localization-an-alternative-to-the-new-normal/#comment-503294

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:09 AM

Western philosophers have nothing to say (despite the thick books) compared to orientals. That they are so highly regarded is just more western colonial supremacism, ignorance and arrogance.

The Coming Revolution
The Coming Revolution
May 6, 2022 3:15 PM
Reply to  PUT IT IN VLAD

We need all the voices, oriental or not, specially today, and any voice that helps understanding and clears out confusion is welcome.

My point was to exonerate Hegel from a widespread false belief that he was the mastermind of a tactic used by dictators and other special interests to get what they want.

George Mc
George Mc
May 5, 2022 4:19 PM

NY Times is now doing its bit to elevate Tucker Carlson as the latest Evil Right Wing White Supremacist who rejects such bold Left Wing projects as BLM and mask mandates, and who won’t accept the true horror of the Capitol coup attempt and even suggests it was a false flag – just like all Evil Right Wingers do.

rememberingmonkey
rememberingmonkey
May 5, 2022 11:23 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Don’t forget monogamy, hiking and reading the Bible. We fascists are a under attack. First they took God out of the schools and then mopped that one up with Christian deconstructionism. To suppress hiking, [ aka keeping in touch with the real world ] they bioengineered ticks. I literally fear grass and trees now and for good reason. Monogamy? Well now that you can identify as a six year old and play dress up with the neighbors children, who needs that kind of drag on your life?

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:22 AM

The Bible is what brought us here. Upholding it makes you a slave to the fake god of the Old Testament. The script for the NWO comes from there. Christians and their apocalyptic, hateful, enslaving script have no part in the future of humanity (if any).

rememberingmonkey
rememberingmonkey
May 6, 2022 11:47 PM
Reply to  PUT IT IN VLAD

Your ignorance is breathtaking.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:17 AM
Reply to  George Mc

BLM is a black people’s movement that was hijacked and appropriated by “democratic” and fake left wing parasites.
The riots and looting were not carried out by lame skinny antifa white kids They were carried out by underclass/ working class black people who had enough and just don’t give a shit anymore, as well as provocators wanting to provoke an armed response by the National Guard. This is the case with every large riot.

Researcher
Researcher
May 6, 2022 4:14 PM
Reply to  PUT IT IN VLAD

BLM is based on fraud and hoaxes.

It’s funded by the very same cartel that created and profited by the pandemic fraud. Splitting people into opposing factions is how the controllers divide and conquer. Meanwhile it’s the controllers themselves and their iniquitous system of debt slavery, creating all the poverty, violence, terror, trauma, hoaxes and psyops.

Maxwell
Maxwell
May 5, 2022 1:41 PM

The first rule about the magic money tree is you don’t talk about the magic money tree.
The most historically accurate method to understanding monumental global events is to ask two simple questions:

1) What does it accomplish?

2) Who profits?

The Covid-19 Event rained misery down upon the vast majority of humanity.

Lockdowns eliminated the potential for millions of children around the world and squashed the livelihoods of countless people across the globe.

The dignity of the elderly was stolen. Forbidden from seeing their family and friends, their last days and months were spent in forced isolation, their final moments surrounded by masked ghosts.

Psychological trauma became the norm. Everyday, people walked around with masks plastered to their faces, their fellow humans– and themselves– reduced to mobile germ bags, vectors of transmission.

The list of what was taken from us during this time is immeasurable and few of these things can ever be returned.

Yet, not everyone suffered. A small but powerful group benefited handsomely during the Covid Era.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the ‘Covid Crisis’ was the pharmaceutical industry and its investors. In late 2019, the pharmaceutical industry, inarguably the most profitable industry in the US had sunk to the bottom of industry rankings in terms of how Americans view different industries, all while the pharmaceutical industry’s financial prospects were in steep decline.

The arrival of Covid-19 erased these problems of public trust and financial adversity, at least temporarily.

Data on the value of shares of Big Pharma before and after the declared “pandemic” reveal a historic reversal of fortunes. The prophets of high finance who had the wisdom, and connections, to foresee such events did not suffer, they cashed in.

Let’s pause to speculate. Who knew what and when did they know it?

wardropper
wardropper
May 5, 2022 3:25 PM
Reply to  Maxwell

Third question:
When do we put them on trial?

Penelope
Penelope
May 5, 2022 7:28 PM
Reply to  Maxwell

You’re right, Maxwell. And the Russo-Ukraine conflict is just a continuation of the war on us, our economy and our civilization.

NickM
NickM
May 5, 2022 9:27 PM
Reply to  Maxwell

“The dignity of the elderly was stolen. Forbidden from seeing their family and friends, their last days and months were spent in forced isolation, their final moments surrounded by masked ghosts.

“Psychological trauma became the norm. Everyday, people walked around with masks plastered to their faces, their fellow humans– and themselves– reduced to mobile germ bags, vectors of transmission.

“The list of what was taken from us during this time is immeasurable and few of these things can ever be returned.”

+10. WW1, Wilfred Owen. WW2, Randall Jarrell. And now, the poetry of WW3, the Global War Against Humanity.

[I remember waking up in terror for the only time in my life at the thought that my wife might disappear from the care home in which she was being held by court order, to suffer frozen panic “among masked ghosts”.]

Nigel Watson
Nigel Watson
May 6, 2022 7:28 AM
Reply to  Maxwell

The inflation started well before the Ukraine ‘war’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QwSGVo26e8&t=250s

banana
banana
May 5, 2022 1:28 PM
George Mc
George Mc
May 5, 2022 1:08 PM

On the one hand economic devastation. On the other this:

“INVENTOR CREATES CD-VINYL HYBRID THAT SOUNDS BETTER “THAN ANY OTHER FORMAT””

Well isn’t that just fucking amazing?

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
May 5, 2022 2:06 PM
Reply to  George Mc

To be fair, the little-boy-who-might-have-ended-up-as-a-genuine-techie in me quite likes technical innovations, and I don’t dislike this one (I googled it), even though I’m deaf as a post and hardly a hi-fi buff.

Genuine innovations that might prove useful that is, or at least give innocent pleasure to people. Not those like digital-ID or digital-currency which can be used to control and monitor people.

Howard
Howard
May 5, 2022 3:26 PM

I sincerely believe the good stuff they invent is purely to get people hooked on the idea of technology being the best thing since sliced bread (which in fact may well be over-rated anyway).

Then, once people are hooked, they hit them with the bad stuff – which was always there, waiting in the wings.

And the people reluctantly accept the bad stuff with the good: “How bad can it be?” (Famous last words.)

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
May 5, 2022 11:10 PM
Reply to  Howard

Not every technical innovation ( of the type I had in mind, anyway) is necessarily high-tech. Just human ingenuity finding better ways to do things.

Nigel Balchin wrote a novel (it might have been “The Small Back Room”, but I might be confusing it with another one) whose hero was an engineer.

In the forward, or maybe at the beginning of a chapter was the quote:

“An engineer is a man who can do for five bob what any bloody fool can make for a quid!” (It was obviously written in the days when £1 was real money.  😉  ).

(Google reveals that this is a quotation from Nevil Shute, who was himself an engineer, as well as a writer).

George Mc
George Mc
May 5, 2022 4:03 PM

The latest most fantastic clearest ever …etc. is the driving force behind this wondrous consumer world. It is inherently nihilistic since no matter how wonderfully magnificently utterly utterly etc. it is today it must be more so tomorrow when you scrap your vinyl for CDs, then your CDs for remastered CDs, then your remastered CDs for even more intricately mastered CDs and then they “reveal” that actually vinyl was better all along so then you re-buy the vinyl only to be told that you must now combine vinyl with CDs etc etc etc

Lizzyh7
Lizzyh7
May 5, 2022 5:22 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Yup. Never ending profits and massive amounts of waste. What’s not to love?

Ort
Ort
May 5, 2022 8:01 PM
Reply to  George Mc

It’s not just being led in circles with the bait of alleged New! Improved! physical media.

I admit that for a while I enthusiastically bought “reissues” of favorite bands’ albums (and CDs) that featured previously-unreleased “bonus tracks”.

I was aware that this practice was at least partly dodgy, unscrupulous commercial puffery. One of the early egregious examples of this approach occurred after Jimi Hendrix died; hours of stuff left on the studio floor, so to speak, were turned into posthumous “new releases” during the 1970s.

Some of the resurrected music is worthwhile; as a Beatles fan, I welcomed the “Anthology” series. Without naming names, there are some significantly re-mastered or re-engineered live concert records of superior quality compared to the original LP/tape releases. And there are “new” old tracks that ought to have been in original releases but were omitted for questionable reasons.

But eventually this reached a point of diminishing returns and over-exploitation– e.g. “anniversary” re-releases. Again, I’ve been a sucker for such promotions in the past. But I’m no longer as open-minded about this practice, which increasingly seems to reflect the degraded attempt at milking “marketable” names to extinction.

George Mc
George Mc
May 6, 2022 7:49 AM
Reply to  Ort

Bobby Dylan was one of the few who benefitted from release of previously unreleased and he did it right i.e. confine the unreleased stuff (largely) to its own series. But then his throwaways were the stuff that others would build whole albums round.

Also Bob was seriously unimpressed by CDs (“It sounds great but thre’s no impact!” was his curiously apt expression. When he heard the prices were coming down he said, “I’m not surprised. They’re not worth it anyway!”) Neil Young was even more scathing.

austrian peter
austrian peter
May 5, 2022 9:51 PM
Reply to  George Mc
Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
May 5, 2022 11:32 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Well, we can’t see eye to eye about everything, sadly, but I don’t think I was thinking in terms of consumerism, or even necessarily about high-tech things. But I do admire it when human ingenuity can produce something, or improve something that is useful, or enjoyable, or beautiful.

On a personal note, I am certainly not one to rush to get hold of the newest big thing. I am typing this on a venerable 2nd-hand Dell PC, and my wife has an equally venerable 2nd-hand one elsewhere. We have a couple of old 2nd-hand laptops around the place, used occasionally. I’d think that at least some of our digital devices are old enough to drink.

I was late getting a mobile phone which was a bottom-of-the-range Nokia “dumb” phone, which I only replaced because the 1st one broke. I was equally reluctant to get a “smart” phone, but eventually caved in when I could find a cheap way to do it. And only reluctantly replaced that with my current one when it started going wrong.

I must admit, I wasn’t sorry when vinyl went out, because I hated having to be ultra careful with the stylus, making sure it was clean & not worn, and having to clean the records as well. CDs were definitely progress as far as I was concerned, although not being a high-fi buff, I couldn’t tell the difference in audio quality between the supposedly better vinyl and the supposedly “flat” CD (but maybe that’s because my vinyls were all scratched up … ).

George Mc
George Mc
May 6, 2022 7:54 AM

Fair enough. As a cantankerous old git (as opposed to the cantankerous young git of yore) I am now supremely suspicious of all new gizmos since I now consider them pure money spinners. I have a reluctance with “aps” since I wonder if they come with thieving spyware. My son nearly got away with depleting my bank account of well over a thousand pounds for toys he had booked on my Amazon slot.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)
May 6, 2022 10:41 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Very sorry to hear that George. I share your distrust of apps, especially any with a financial connotation.

Pakistanicecream
Pakistanicecream
May 5, 2022 11:25 AM

I’m less mad about the crimes parasitic billionaires have committed against the world population than I am with ordinary people who actually admire them and see them as examplary. Just think of Elon musk, Jeff bezos etc.

wardropper
wardropper
May 5, 2022 3:27 PM

My feeling is that ‘ordinary people’ are much more ordinary now than they used to be.
Something in the water has removed half of their brain cells, and ALL of their human decency.

Lizzyh7
Lizzyh7
May 5, 2022 5:28 PM

Ordinary people have been trained for generations to venerate extreme wealth. Hollywood certainly played a part, as did advertising. I saw some ad for the latest “Downton Abbey” or however it’s spelled, full of scenes of beautiful massive homes and expensive clothes and jewelry. To some that sounds like just an innocent pleasure, nostalgia for a more “innocent time” when nothing could be further from the truth. I’m sure the movie will do great at the box office. People taught to live the fantasy that they too might have extreme wealth one day, or the even worse fantasy that the extremely wealthy are merely human and to be forgiven somehow that they lucked into all that wealth. All lies. But people believe it, they have been TRAINED to believe it. My even saying something like this to the unaware would merely be considered negativity or envy. How dare I shit on such a beautiful and comforting little story? Must be a conspiracy theorist, right?

Mark EL
Mark EL
May 6, 2022 9:03 AM
Reply to  Lizzyh7

Good comment.

mgeo
mgeo
May 6, 2022 12:00 PM
Reply to  Lizzyh7

“You will own nothing, and wistfully admire those who own a lot”.

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
May 5, 2022 10:54 AM

Africa has managed to dodge the poison pricks. They will get them with famines and poverty.

rubberheid
rubberheid
May 5, 2022 2:18 PM

they’ll get us all with one horseman or another! is their intent.

wardropper
wardropper
May 5, 2022 3:30 PM
Reply to  rubberheid

And after the horsemen have done their thing, they will turn around and focus on what’s left – the ‘authorities’.

You don’t bring about an apocalypse, then continue living your cosy cocktail-party life as if nothing had happened.

Mr Y
Mr Y
May 6, 2022 10:33 AM
Reply to  wardropper

> You don’t bring about an apocalypse, then continue living your cosy cocktail-party life as if nothing had happened.

Well said!

Bobby
Bobby
May 5, 2022 7:25 PM
Reply to  rubberheid

If the government said if you wear a red shirt you wont get sick from covid. There would be a billion people wearing red walking around the streets. You know why? Because most people are stupid. And will give up there freedom without a thought.

Penelope
Penelope
May 5, 2022 10:35 PM
Reply to  les online

les, it’s ironic that the wayne lusvardi/ lew rockwell article should have been inspired by the death of Bill Sardi. Bill gave a presentation 7 years ago in which he rejected the acidosis theory entirely. The presentation is remarkable in that it presents scientific evidence– actual studies– validating a remarkable cancer treatment.

Do take a look; I think you’d enjoy it.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/bill-sardi/do-we-know-how-to-cure-cancer/

les online
les online
May 8, 2022 1:22 AM
Reply to  Penelope

Thanks Penelope ! Interesting read of Bill’s thoughts of a time a few years before i came across him.
When the English historian Tony Judt offered “When the facts change i change my opinion” i thought it aptly described a fence-sitter. But then, as i do the same, it cant mean that…
In looking up the quote, i find that Judt appears to be quoting another. But it’s hard to get rid of first impressions. You can teach old dogs new tricks, it just takes longer…
Acid and Alkaline Foods:: The Real Story… Robert Smith & Andrew Saul…orthomolecular.org
(not secure) http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v15n13.shtml

Edwige
Edwige
May 5, 2022 10:16 AM

Their own graph shows the extent of their miserable failure since 2019:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/understanding-poverty

Drat that pandemic!

TFS
TFS
May 5, 2022 10:12 AM

Just another example of WW3 on the Population of this Planet.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 9:49 AM

How many lives could be saved if we had human beings in parliament?The warmongering is in full flight in the lead up to the Australian election (21st May).
Mr Dutton repeated today that a re-elected Coalition government would grow army forces by 30 per cent, to more than 85,000 personnel, and increase defence spending to more than 2 per cent of GDP’ (tens of billions).
Do these pricks work for us or the MIC ?
Don’t bother, I already know the answer.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
May 5, 2022 11:25 AM
Reply to  Johnny

12 more people died from the jabs in the last week, yet still the media prattle that a fake test is a case of covid infections and pretend that states are actually genome sequencing the fake virus. Almost all deaths and testing positive of course are among the jabbed

rubberheid
rubberheid
May 5, 2022 2:21 PM
Reply to  Johnny

increased personnel and spending to suppress their own population ? we are the enemy it appears.

or, for another scripted war in south china sea where Sinois prevail and colonise Oz?

mgeo
mgeo
May 5, 2022 9:24 AM

Over 30 years, 60 of the poorest countries paid $550 billion in principal and interest on loans of $540 billion; yet their outstanding debt remained at $523 billion. -John Perkins 2015 

The scam later affected even Western Europe, but not the world’s most indebted country.

Edwige
Edwige
May 5, 2022 9:33 AM
Reply to  mgeo

One reason the Germans stopped co-operating with reparation repayments after WW1 triggering the hyper-inflation crisis of 1923 was the realisation that the first payments they’d made hadn’t paid any of the reparations off but was merely paying off interest on the debt. The other, of course, was that they weren’t solely responsible for causing the war.

mgeo
mgeo
May 5, 2022 9:42 AM
Reply to  mgeo

Austerity and deregulation have never benefitted the victims [John Keynes 1936; Paul Krugman 2015], or even improved repayment [Michael Hudson 2021]. Instead, they are predatory. The financial centres utilise the repayments to acquire more cheap assets in the victimised country [Michael Hudson 2019].

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
May 6, 2022 4:14 AM
Reply to  mgeo

Someone on the left has woken up: Christian Parenti (dad would be proud). Better late than never?
Good article btw,

How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/

Yossi
Yossi
May 5, 2022 8:24 AM

A good summary of our collective plight and future prospects.

https://www.ecosophia.net/whispers-of-the-fall/

susan mullen
susan mullen
May 5, 2022 4:34 AM

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg in 2008 mentioned in passing that people always starve to death when food prices go up, then continued talking about another topic. Yes, it’s terrible but these people will never change. The only hope is for the US to be broken up into at least 3 parts.2/11/2008, “A new U.S. energy law will cause an increase in global food prices and lead to starvation deaths worldwide because it continues to promote corn ethanol, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday. “People literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up,” Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a U.N. General Assembly debate on climate change. The new U.S. law, which came into force late last year, increased fivefold the required amount of blending of biofuels like corn ethanol — creating higher demand for the grain that will push up corn prices.”…Reuters, “Bloomberg slams U.S. energy law over corn ethanol”…https://www.reuters.com/article/environment-climate-bloomberg-dc-idUSN1115230920080211

peterpaul
peterpaul
May 5, 2022 4:28 AM

Do some people in the UK not suffer in the same way? Surely access to the basics, housing , food and energy is the same whether in 1st world countries or these exotic far flung places. Or am I missing the point, after all its seems it’s a “journalist’s” bread and butter. How very Victorian. Not quite as sexy as someone suffering in Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds… (my perspective and not exclusive). Or look over there, nothing to see here? Nice work if you can get it. Or yes, relative poverty, suck it up peasant, you’re not that destitute. Are we aping the Daily Mail here? 33 African countries, that number again. Maybe I’m too much of a lefty and don’t understand. Not all of us want to cut our cocks off, grow tits and complain about our menstrual cycle! Ching, ching goes the register, NEXT! It seems some are blinded and are in for a shock in the next 12 months. Some of us fit the hand wringing already and have for some time.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
May 5, 2022 9:19 AM
Reply to  peterpaul

I was born in Northern England. We’re under attack by Sexual Neutrals and Female Facists imo.

StephAmson
StephAmson
May 5, 2022 4:22 AM

Long covid is cover for vaccine acquired immune deficiency.

Edwige
Edwige
May 5, 2022 9:39 AM
Reply to  StephAmson

Partly perhaps – imo it’s more a cover for any long-term illness they can’t explain or the explanation would contradict another part of their agenda.

The symptoms of “long covid” are so vague they can cover many things. The similarities with ME from the 1990s are obvious. Much of the rest of the world calls such long-term illness neurasthenia but the US and Europe got tame psychologists to dismiss this as a mental illness years ago. The trail too obviously leads back into the microwave radiation soup we’re drowning in but they need for their virtual panopticon.

ken
ken
May 5, 2022 4:21 AM

Time to roll out the tumbrels. This crop of “leaders” needs replacing.
We have so many “leaders” religious, political , corporate and military.

So I ask you all – where have they led us ? And where are you now?
By a large margin Governments are the leading cause of death.
Think on that.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 7:45 AM
Reply to  ken

Ignorance is the leading cause of death Ken. Wilful and otherwise.

Paul _too
Paul _too
May 5, 2022 9:01 AM
Reply to  ken

“Time to roll out the tumbrels. This crop of “leaders” needs replacing.”

How about drastically reducing?

People need to learn to live without being ‘led’ by charlatans..

mgeo
mgeo
May 5, 2022 9:25 AM
Reply to  ken

+1

Howard
Howard
May 5, 2022 3:21 AM

As long as we keep pretending “the system” is broken, the rich will keep getting richer, the poor poorer.

The system broke the day after it was created. The mercantile system is like a skyscraper built with tinker toys.

By now, hundreds of years later, “the system” is a dead, rotting corpse on which people are still attempting to feed. Time to bury it and move on.

Bob the Hod
Bob the Hod
May 5, 2022 8:58 AM
Reply to  Howard

The system is functioning exactly as it is intended to function: To enrich the already very rich and to enslave the rest of us in feudalism whilst giving us the illusion of choice.

Howard
Howard
May 5, 2022 1:03 PM
Reply to  Bob the Hod

A system built on exploitation can only sustain itself for so long – right up to the point when the exploited have nothing further to exploit.

Those at the top of such a system are even more deluded than those at the bottom.

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:35 AM
Reply to  Howard

Check out the various World Fairs that took place in the West at the beginning of the last century… very revealing to those with eyes to see.

Kalen
Kalen
May 5, 2022 3:09 AM

Oxfam statistics may be useful but not comprehensive enough to grasp issue of poverty which is not failure of capitalism but one of its most desirable for oligarchs and profitable features so is joblessness or homelessness and fraudulent government programs seemingly to bring relieve while in fact they are nothing but fueling corruption and always serve as another corporate bailout. JPM scoops over $2 billions a year for servicing EBT cards.

However Oxfam solutions are worse simply because they create illusion or rather delusions that they constitute substantive remedies for post Covid deliberately created economic collapse and ensuing human tragedies stemming from deadly lockdowns worldwide.

Proposing minute tax on Covid profits that won’t see light of day anyway is an insult to billions whose lives were deliberately destroyed as a matter of government policies and corporate zealotry. Lives of those whose relatives, mothers and fathers or children , were medically murdered amid rampant fraud and malpractice of pushing harmful, untested and deadly protocols, treatments, procedures and drugs regiments for pr. While in the same time life saving treatments were callously denied or delayed by government bureaucrats. Deadly harvest we experience since 2021.

Edwige
Edwige
May 5, 2022 9:43 AM
Reply to  Kalen

Oxfam merchandise is more ‘woke’ than a caffeine-addict after their tenth espresso. Definitely not to be trusted (like pretty much every large charity).

peterpaul
peterpaul
May 6, 2022 9:26 AM
Reply to  Kalen

Is it not a failure of capitalism, or it’s evolution into neo liberalism? Under its own ideology of win at all costs and the zero sum game the fact the intervention of left wing “commie” (or more accuately socialist) policies of bailing out the uber capitalists in 2008 is the ultimate con, right? A situation that has compounded the misery ever since. In fact when you look at what has happened since the beginning of the 1980s particularly in the UK and the USA the situation has become worse every 10 years with its boom and bust cycle. UK – 1986, 1992, 1999, 2008, 2019. Which I think also echoes the USA.

I’d also go as far to say anyone who had a mortgage, stocks, shares and other financial investments including trust and private pensions funds prior to the 2006-8 monetary meltdown and still hold those now, are living off stolen money. It was stolen from you by the bankers but again where is the philosophy of winners and losers? You are directly culpable in this crime, you have stolen the money from the state. Like a parasite sucking the life blood from others; and here we are quite possibly at the footsteps of the ultimate shit show. At least those of us already at the bottom don’t have that far to fall and the ground is hard here.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 2:58 AM

We all know that the ruling oligarchy have always regarded third world and working class people as ‘dispensable’, either as cannon fodder, or the collateral damage of Capitalist avarice.
Under the plandemic the middle class have been relegated to the same dispensable category.
Get in line Folks. The cliff is over there.

Edwige
Edwige
May 5, 2022 9:44 AM
Reply to  Johnny

Cannon fodder or lab rats according to Doug Valentine.

Pig Swill
Pig Swill
May 5, 2022 1:57 AM

Yes it’s been interesting without any income the last 9 months here in Australia. Last attempt at finding work was knocked back by Arnott’s biscuits for a packing job. No skill or experience required. And still got knocked back. Funnily enough, I do have packing and factory experience.

red lester
red lester
May 5, 2022 8:41 AM
Reply to  Pig Swill

The only comfort I can offer is that you are the invisible in every ‘western/old world’ country. Without new jobs and industries, the clueless employers never have to work hard to find staff will still employ through agencies and tick box questions. Recruitment is another shell game. If you can find a genuine new business, they need people fast and probably don’t even ask your genuinely useful history. Then you will be working for a clueless kid manager.

Penelope
Penelope
May 5, 2022 12:39 AM

All of the economic policies causing poverty, famine & death were first excused as fighting covid; now the pretext for the same policies is the war.

Thinktwice
Thinktwice
May 5, 2022 12:39 AM

Italian Court Rules Mandatory Vaccination Unconstitutional, ‘Fatal Side Effects’ too Risky – RAIR

Sicily’s Court of Administrative Justice has ruled that Italy’s mandatory Covid vaccination obligation is unconstitutional. The court stated that the experimental mRNA treatments intended to protect the public from Covid have been shown to cause “serious or fatal adverse effects.”

https://rairfoundation.com/italian-court-rules-mandatory-vaccination-unconstitutional-fatal-side-effects-to-risky-video/

Big al
Big al
May 5, 2022 12:46 AM
Reply to  Thinktwice

Well glory be. Another, we’ve been saying that since the beginning thing. How can this court state that the jabs are unconstitutional because of the ultra proven at this point serious or fatal adverse effects, and every court on the planet not have to follow suit. The cat is out of the bag. “You cannot make me take a shot that might kill me, period, the end”.

Orthus
Orthus
May 5, 2022 6:27 AM
Reply to  Big al

Because one country’s courts do not create a precedent for another’s?

Geo Martin
Geo Martin
May 5, 2022 2:01 PM
Reply to  Big al

If we need a court to tell us that we are done. No one with an ounce of common sense should even consider taking any medical treatment for no reason whatsoever. If most people had acted that way the covid saga wouldn’t have taken off the ground, no govt can force/corce a substantial amout of the population to do anyhing.
If it’s down to court decisions it means the system wins. The judicial is part and parcel of the system that oppresses us.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 4:05 AM
Reply to  Thinktwice

RAIR foundation?
A Judeo- Christian organisation that is suspicious of communists (whatever they are) and Islamic Supremacy (whatever that is).
They also want your money.
Funny that.

Orthus
Orthus
May 5, 2022 6:26 AM
Reply to  Johnny

So that news about the Italian court is untrue? Thanks for the warning.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 7:47 AM
Reply to  Orthus

Not sure on the Italian court ruling Orthus but RAIR looks a bit sus.

Jarek Carnelian
Jarek Carnelian
May 5, 2022 11:57 AM
Reply to  Thinktwice

Uninterested in the politics of RAIR (American) but they are also providing some useful services:

“RAIR has assembled a team of experienced translators (German, Polish, French, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Arabic) who subtitle relevant mainstream and alternative media…”

I would be more concerned by any slant the translators may give to their interpretations and the items chosen for translation will obviously inflate the “relevant” bubble inhabited by RAIR.

There is no way to get much meaning out of free machine translations when the text is much beyond basic levels. It does help to simultaneously run a couple of engines to catch a few nuances though.

Is there a full and accurate text translation of the court ruling?

It is not the first to go the constitutional law route – I think it worked in Slovakia (so far)?

Ort
Ort
May 5, 2022 7:38 PM
Reply to  Thinktwice

Well, Sicily’s Court of Administrative Justice has done it now!

No more Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, etc. for you, you despicable community-standards violating disinformationists!

Marfanoi
Marfanoi
May 4, 2022 11:36 PM

The fix is in.Follow the money.Liverpool v Real Madrid again.Its happening.Follow the football.The fix is in.

Edwige
Edwige
May 4, 2022 11:15 PM

In the UK, Starmer coming out with some sort of ‘windfall tax’ scheme on the energy companies seems certain. It’s recycled Blairism with a green twist.

Marfanoi
Marfanoi
May 4, 2022 11:38 PM
Reply to  Edwige

I agree.Starmers a

Marfanoi
Marfanoi
May 4, 2022 11:44 PM
Reply to  Marfanoi

Tony Blairs coming back !

S Cooper
S Cooper
May 5, 2022 2:41 PM
Reply to  Marfanoi

BLAIRIGULA”
comment image

wardropper
wardropper
May 5, 2022 3:23 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

Today’s youngsters don’t even know who he is…

Grafter
Grafter
May 5, 2022 11:33 AM
Reply to  Edwige

The North Sea continues to be raped by oil companies. The industry should be nationalised.

Geo Martin
Geo Martin
May 5, 2022 2:09 PM
Reply to  Grafter

Nationalised? That would be great news for the corporate contractors that are ensconced in governments. The state foots the bills for all losses, risks and research and the private contractors pocket the profits for the production.
Same with the railways, they get nationalised in order to renew stock and repair and build infrastructure and the privatised again to reap the benefits from that. Rinse and repeat.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
May 5, 2022 11:27 PM
Reply to  Geo Martin

Shell got the oil we got the fart (natural gas)
Kind of them, “natural” became an ugly word in the North.

mgeo
mgeo
May 6, 2022 12:04 PM
Reply to  Geo Martin

+1

George Mc
George Mc
May 4, 2022 10:17 PM

A work colleague noted how the towns used to be full of bustle but there is now grass growing in the cracks in the pavements. That blessed return of “Nature” so longed for by the aesthetes above is now all around us.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 4:07 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Humans: Nil.
Earth: One.

New Name
New Name
May 5, 2022 7:27 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Local councils get rid of the grass with glyphosate.

Voz 0db
Voz 0db
May 4, 2022 10:13 PM

OPERATION COVIDIUS provided the BEST opportunity in decades to deploy a series of tools that couldn’t be deployed without it.

Little memory lane…
comment image

George Mc
George Mc
May 4, 2022 10:11 PM

I am reading speculations on how the abortion matter could spark off a whole series of reactionary measures blah blah … Well of course – Keep you doped on religion and sex and TV/But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 7:57 AM
Reply to  George Mc

‘Keep you doped on religion and sex and TV/But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see’
One of the greatest songs of all time.
Marianne does it full justice here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3N_rNz2oAGA

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
May 6, 2022 4:20 AM
Reply to  George Mc

We are in a Covid TM lull, the War in Ukraine TM is a dud, hey, lets resurrect Row v Wade!

TPTB need more division for more conquest. Get front row seats!

George Mc
George Mc
May 4, 2022 9:56 PM

Another easy ride for the covid show. Fauci says we need top up vax shots from now till the end of time. Oprah is appalled that with a million Americans who died of something or other we still have no formal memorial. And the magical realms of politics and showbiz blend seamlessly to generate the most groovy gravy train there has ever been.

Donald DuckDonald Duck
Donald DuckDonald Duck
May 5, 2022 7:48 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Looks like the eugenicists are getting what they want? How long will it take before the masses finally get it? How many deaths before it dawns?

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:48 AM

They will not get it in this lifetime. They are born and bred to comply.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
May 5, 2022 4:27 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Oprah! she’s a showbiz personality making a million a week, no doubt worth every penny. Queen black Vogue lol! What’s her weight this month?
Thanks George I need a laugh.

Caroline
Caroline
May 4, 2022 9:49 PM

…..the G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts…. thank you for an informative article and yes, agree with this quote.
I have been involved with the cry to cancel debt to the IMF since the 80s. In fact I would suggest the usury in all its forms is wrong. And debt is just another of those agreements like money, that keeps us all in chains.

Big al
Big al
May 4, 2022 11:30 PM
Reply to  Caroline

Someone decided they were the ones who could create money and so everyone said, OK, can I have some, and the money changers said, sure, for a price. And everyone said, OK. And so it was, and so it has been.

Edith
Edith
May 5, 2022 5:24 AM
Reply to  Big al

And one way or another said created money got into the hands of the elites while the incurred debt got lodged with the poorest. Isn’t that how it always works?

Paul Watson
Paul Watson
May 4, 2022 9:34 PM

That is according to Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.
Currently earning around $US 500,000 a year.

Orthus
Orthus
May 4, 2022 11:19 PM
Reply to  Paul Watson

Earning?

Oxfam International is pleased to announce Gabriela Bucher as its new Executive Director. Ms Bucher is a leader in the field of gender equality and human rights. She joins Oxfam from Plan International where she had a global leadership role as its Chief Operating Officer.

Nice work if you can get it.

Johnny
Johnny
May 5, 2022 8:04 AM
Reply to  Paul Watson

No one on Earth ‘earns’ that much.
There are not enough seconds in a year to justify that perverse amount.
And when push comes to shove and those corporate parasites and their ilk fuck up, they never, never, take responsibility. They just walk away and take the next gravy train.

Big al
Big al
May 4, 2022 9:21 PM

“Gabriela Bucher rejects any notion that governments do not have the money or means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and ensure their health and welfare. She says the G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts and increase aid to poorer countries and act to protect ordinary people from an avoidable catastrophe.”

Ya, it’s the same old story, same old song and dance. “Our governments”, whatever that might mean, could do it, but the government won’t. And why won’t “our governments” do it? Because at the top, our governments do not work for us, they works for the rich, their corporations, and their evil organizations like the IMF and World Bank and WHO and WEF and BIS.

My republican congressional representative has sent out a couple fundraising flyers recently bragging about her role in getting national money for our local pig shop, and her role in something or other at the border. Meanwhile, housing and rental costs are soaring and they do nothing. Rising food costs, food shortages, they won’t even talk about solutions. WTF could be more important than housing for the people and food and water to eat and drink? Somebody ask Maslow.

And now they have the abortion distraction to go with the US/NATO war with Russia and the proceeding of the Great Reset and the next pandemic lockdown and people are just trying to maintain a place to fucking sleep and ensure they have something to fucking eat. What’s next, oh ya, the fucking elections!
Somebody talk me down, man.

Shit, our governments are not OUR governments and until they are, they aren’t going to do anything but cause more pain and misery. It’s rich against poor, man, and people got to choose sides.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
May 5, 2022 3:50 PM
Reply to  Big al

A section of your society are continuing being paid to stay home. 18 jobs available per person quit Crying American.
These people are positive test Covidian opportunity SEEKERS!
Tell the Fucking Truth!

OH SHUT the HELL UP Bullhorning!!
The rising of rents is a consequence of testing leading to LESS RENTING Turnover so People who WANT TO WORK or could afford the RENT NOW CANT!
You’re A bloody COWARD! Thousands of miles away from Europe how the Fuck would you know ANYTHING other than using Poor people as a Political Weapon!!! AND watching TV!
NEXTED!!

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
May 4, 2022 8:45 PM

Pandemics can and will happen. Its a fact of life. Railing against them is a waste of time; our problems are entirely political, they’re due to an economic model foisted on us as “There Is No Alternative”, a model where everything, including life itself, is subservient to the demands of ‘the market’. With this prevailing mindset it should be no surprise that any shock to the system caused by, for example, a pandemic should not only be reflected in the winners sweeping the table but losers — actually just about all of us — being further mired into poverty and debt. Unfortunately, with all this money washing around its not in the least surprising that the winners can use some of their takings to cement their position — they can afford the finest, be it PR/propaganda to keep us happy or force to keep us cowed. Its a well known model, it follows the well known central American dysfunctional model where the economy is based on catering to the needs and protecting the interests of wealth to the detriment of the bulk of the population.

All the effort going into snide ‘anti-vax’ or ‘anti-mask’ memes might be amusing but I think of this as a massive diversion from economic realities. Like all good propaganda campaigns its self-financing (the best turn a profit, of course). Its the same with ‘alternative’ this and that — they’re obviously tolerated when they have little economic potential, just a way to amuse yourself, but Heaven help people if they present not even a threat but a mild challenge to the Status Quo.

Fugazi Shoe-gazy
Fugazi Shoe-gazy
May 4, 2022 10:40 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

But the pandemic was cooked up specifically for the upward transfer of wealth and power you speak of – it wasn’t something cynical opportunists jumped on. You seem to be taking the pandemic part at face value.

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
May 5, 2022 4:08 AM

You’ve read “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein? Crisis Capitalism doesn’t need to wait for a crisis to act, its quite capable of creating one, but at the same time if one just came along it would be a pity to let it go to waste.

Donald Duck
Donald Duck
May 5, 2022 8:02 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

Yep, it is/was the long-standing show on earth. Bring out the clowns for The great Eugenicist BS

First – it was the Covid BS

Second – the Ukraine/Russian war BS

Next up – coming attraction – the Economic collapse BS.

And for your future delectation – the mass Starvation BS.

If you haven’t twigged what’s been going on by now you never will friends” Adieu!

rubberheid
rubberheid
May 5, 2022 2:35 PM
Reply to  Donald Duck

aye, you forgot the winter freeze too : )

BS matters!

we’ll see.

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:54 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

There is no credible evidence that “pandemics” are anything to worry about.

The stories about the “black death” are not credible because that was right after WW1 (another crime against humanity by the same perpetrators).

The WHO changed their definition of the word in 2009 so that their pharma bosses could attempt the H1N1 scam, which would have been identical to Convid had they had such control of regulatory bodies and the internet back then. They
owe their success to Google and friends.

S Cooper
S Cooper
May 4, 2022 8:28 PM

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S Cooper
S Cooper
May 4, 2022 8:26 PM

“Respect for Human Rights, Civil Liberties, Bodily Autonomy (My Body, My Choice) and the Nuremberg Code is not a consideration for Nazi Boy and the Reich.”
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https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/a-war-against-humanity-canadian-government?s=r

“The Nazi psycho’s who force the Billy Eugenics Cull Juice upon us untermenschen useless eaters can also force sterilization, genital mutilation and force/prohibit abortion. Consider that.”

PUT IT IN VLAD
PUT IT IN VLAD
May 6, 2022 10:58 AM
Reply to  S Cooper

“lioness of judah” .. i’ll pass.

Fugazi Shoe-gazy
Fugazi Shoe-gazy
May 4, 2022 8:23 PM

Case in point to how naive most of the west is – seemingly no one thought about what a basic cost benefit analysis to lockdowns would look like. This information was out there as stated in the article but no one gave a shit – nothing new just the latent racism inherent to western bourgeoisie.

wardropper
wardropper
May 4, 2022 9:28 PM

It’s not even latent racism.
It’s just sheer laziness.

Read informative literature? Why bother…

Fugazi Shoe-gazy
Fugazi Shoe-gazy
May 4, 2022 10:34 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Of course there’s always laziness/ignorance on the part of the west but I think the response would be different if it was a quarter billion white ppl being plunged into poverty. A certain portion of middle class e workers and up are so sheltered they can’t even see what’s happening in their own cities (all the well meaning NYC liberals being cool w mandates while up to half or more of black New Yorkers aren’t vaxxed). So maybe it’s more of a class thing – but the MSM wasn’t harping on Ukrainians being blonde hair and blue eyed for nothing.

wardropper
wardropper
May 5, 2022 3:21 PM

Good point, although I’m not so sure the response would be so very different with white people.
These days, laziness concerning anyone except oneself has become so hellishly fashionable. It’s like an addiction to Me Me Me…

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
May 4, 2022 11:17 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Race, spit! Are southern Italians black.
Selfrightous bigotry is predictable to a Realist that’s never voted.
I’ve my bias within myself expressed through individual perception of the World around me, at any given moment. So much so my Art of performance follows a path of equilibrium.
A total one-ness with a machine, we are one, detached from reality. It’s beautifully based on natural abilities exceptance of this earth., The Machine.
A feeling of detachment.
My right and wrongs are only my shame.
My name was a racing driver.

Who are The Public?