Author: paulm100m

Human Crises & Saving the Planet

Human Crises & Saving the Planet
Human Crises & Saving the Planet

Can  the  COVID-19  pandemic create a change of heart in humanity,  and create a more just  and sustainable world?

As we have seen in  the past few weeks of the Coronavirus (or COVID19) outbreak, mankind continues to seek to  eliminate all  risk to itself.

Craig Murray  elicits a lucid outline of the  contradictions in  such  an  approach. All  living things are mortal. If we were immortal,  the consequences for the planet would be even more horrendous than they  are now.

Man’s current predilection for moving him or herself rapidly around the globe has allowed what  would have been  a very localised outbreak in Wuhan  city, Yunan province,  China, to become a global  epidemic in  a few short weeks.  The response  therefore in  most countries in  the world has been  to  eliminate  movement to  reduce transmission . Airline passenger numbers globally  have dropped precipitously and factory production has stalled,  resulting in a remarkably fast  transition to  an  (at  least  temporarily)  cleaner world and where other  animals  and vegetation retake  their rightful  place on the planet .

Other strategies however like  those used to  contain  tourists in  their cruise ships when a COVID19 infection occurs on-board by  circulating air in  the closed-system air conditioning units of the ships to  every passenger,  or the U.K.s initial  strategy  of  ‘herd immunity’, or simply blind ignorance  as in Sweden or the United States, where lockdowns    have largely failed to  occur because  of economic slowdown  fears, and have  instead vastly increased the risk of contagion and thus increased long-term economic risks considerably.

However we also  know that  that  the more transmission human  to  human  that  occurs,  the more likely  humans  will   adapt to  the new  virus, as will  the virus itself adapt to  humans and  thereby reduce its impact  on  the body  once infected. An acknowledgement that  all  humans (as do  most other species)  have large amounts of “foreign”  living entities in their bodies  which  are constantly adapting to  the  changing human bioome, permits us to be more cognizant (even welcoming)  of new bacteria and viruses that invade our bodies.

But we also need to  acknowledge that  those humans whose bodies are already  compromised by  other health issues  are much  more at  risk  from  this new  virus in  our bodies.  To  save as many lives as possible,  we need to  slow the onslaught on our medical  systems to  a  manageable level and thus help  reduce the death  rates..

The response to COVID19  has  exemplified the frailties of humans.  Our  insistence that   economic activity  and ‘taming’  (destroying) our living world  take precedence over all   other matters, has been  shattered by  our new global  understanding that  the interconnected world we have created in  the past few decades puts us all  at  immediate risk   when  new biological  threats occur.

COVID19  has also presented in  stark  terms the  childishness and stupidity of many of our leaders:  from the U.K prime minister Boris Johnson   happily shaking hands with COVID19  victims on   a hospital  visit  and now recovering  himself after being in Intensive Care, to  the pathetic tantrums of Donald Trump  petulantly  threatening to  de-fund the vital role of the World Health Organisation because they  clearly demonstrate the bizarre  inadequacies  of the for-profit  U.S.  ‘public’  health  system.

Perhaps though it is the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro  who  epitomises all  that is wrong with  such  politicised state leadership;  where  decisions are made not in  the interest of the country and its human  population (let along other living entities there) but in  the interests and petty ignorance of the leader alone-  so  he can  cling to  power regardless of the  devastation and death  mounting around him, But we also  see some other bizarre  enactments of the frailties of the democratic process;  in Belarus, or in Nicaragua where the Sandinista government appears to  basically deny they have a problem,  or Sweden,  relying on  a rogue epidemiologist to  undertake an  experiment in ‘herd immunity’  on its older people and other  vulnerable populations. Sadly Hercule Poirot’s ‘little grey  cells’  are not in  evidence  in  any of these so-called ‘leaders’.

Politicians and mainstream  media have continued their ongoing  scaremongering about Russian  threats  to  “our  way  of life”;  and/or the Chinese apparently ( according to  many  Western politicians and MSM)  for some obscure reason choosing to hide the fact  that  they had a pandemic for more than  two  weeks  from  their local  population and the world, and have been  covering up  the data  ever since . Why?-  well  because they  are ‘evil people’ basically and not like us!- and because ultimately, if the United States is to  retain  its  rapidly diminishing status as the ‘exceptional  nation’,   it is going to  have to  bomb the hell  out of any up-and-coming nation that  threatens its imperial  hegemony in  the world..

As had been noted by  the World Health Organisation and many other epidemiologists, the Chinese government response to  the Wuhan  pandemic has been rapid and responsive and effective. More effective than other country’s response to date. However the mainstream  media and other Western  commentators like to  spin  it,  the reality is that  the amazing reduction in   deaths and  infections in Wuhan  and across China has not been because “China is an authoritarian  state’,  but because it has mobilized all  aspects of society; businesses,  state organisations and community  organisations in a very  systematic way, and not because, as one U.S.  epidemiologist  has said:  ‘ the most important( reason) is that the impact of physical distancing achieved in China has been hard to accomplish elsewhere, mostly because of the freedoms we correctly value in liberal democracies’. That  commentary  is  simply a sad  reflection of  many Western  countries’ lack  of will,  leadership and a cultural awareness of community and society rather than  pure individuality and how  the  short term  imperatives of  the business economy ‘trumps’  everything else, including  people’s well-being in our individualist  neo-liberal  world.

Knowing when  a series of similar cases is in  fact  an epidemic is extremely difficult for any health  agency;  and  given  that  COVID-19  is a totally new virus,  the response to  the epidemic in Wuhan  was surprisingly fast. The work  done in Wuhan is described in  detail  here. Western media continue  to belittle that response and cast  doubt on  the  accuracy  of the data  while all  the time  providing misleading death  figures by  often excluding  non hospital  deaths,  and particularly people in  aged care facilities,  or people with  other morbidities like cardiovascular disease who  would not have died at  that time  without COVID-19 complications .

In a few years  once the politics of all  this faded on  to  something else,  we will  find that the death  rate in Europe and the U.S.  was substantially  higher than  has been  reported to  date. The equation is simple- what is a ‘normal’ death  rate for a particular time period and location ,  and what  was the rate under COVID-19?

Western  oriented  states continue to collaborate with  the United States in  enforcing  sanctions against  North  Korea,  Iran,  Cuba, Syria, Russia and Venezuela, to name a few,  in  the ongoing hope that  the sanctions will  cause enough deaths and deprivation for their populations to  rise up  against  their “evil  governments”. ( We know we’re on  the ‘right side’ don’t we?)

Some writers have subsequently that  the world must   and will  change because of COVID19: that  we will  become more caring and connected communities,  that   neo-liberalism  has demonstrated its  complete indifference, callousness  and  incapacity to  respond to such  global  crises  and the human  suffering it causes,  and will  go  down the plug-hole of history,  or even that greed  and selfishness  will  be  inexorably replaced by  caring and just  communities. Sadly ,  it is very  unlikely that  any of those hoped for  responses will  occur in the sort to  medium  term.

For as long as this economic system  can  continue  to  exploit our living world and our less fortunate human populations,  and a few people can make a huge amount of money;  then  the depredation of this planet will  continue and the planet  will  continue  its path to  destruction.

It is not by  the goodness in  people’s hearts, or lecturing by  this or that  environmental  group  or the Extinction Rebellion,  that  much  of the world’s populations will  begin  to  interact  in  sustainable  ways with  our living world;  it will  be because  they  are forced  to make pragmatic changes that  allow they and their families and communities to survive in  a rapidly changing  climate and green  world.

However there is hope.  As we  plunge headlong ever faster to  environmental  global  disaster,  global  shocks to  our fragile and  senseless economic system will  begin  to  multiply. Insurance companies will  go  bankrupt,  debt-ridden incompetent governments will  increasingly  become unable to   prop  up existing  exploitative  companies,  world tourism and air-traffic will  decline precipitously,  and people’s livelihoods will  steadily become re-oriented towards sustainable  activities and “essential’  service.

 

Then,  and only then,  will  we begin  the journey  back  to  a  sustainable world where we can live in  harmony  with our fellow living beings.

As the tongue in cheek  image from  Facebook  demonstrates, we are indeed seeing  animals and birds and presumably other more invisible species,  reclaiming their birthright in  our human oriented  environments as  human  busi-ness recedes. So  many humans are now rejoicing in  being  able to once again   interact  with our fellow species   …

Other New Antarctica Links

Sustainable Agriculture: It is possible

Momento Mori – Unpopular Thoughts on Corona Virus

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/is-the-coronavirus-really-more-dangerous-than-the-flu.html#more

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/number-coronavirus-pandemic?

How China Broke the Chain of Infection

COVID-19: How the Media Hyped the Public Into an Anti-China Frenzy

New Research Shows Anti-Coronavirus Drugs Could Be Produced for Pennies

People ‘shed’ high levels of coronavirus, study finds, but most are likely not infectious after recovery begins

Testimony of a surgeon working in Bergamo, in the heart of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak from medicine

That ‘Deal of the Century’

Jared Kushner,  Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who  has read 25 books on the Palestinian issue, has just released the Trump regime’s  bizarre ‘Deal of the Century’, or in U.S. doublespeak, ‘Peace to Prosperity: a Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian  and Israeli  people’.

As Craig Murray   notes in his summary  of the proposal, the Kushner plan, and the responses to  it from Western  governments, underscore the  long-term hypocrisy  of Western  nations and particularly the United States ( as the ‘honest’  broker)  in pretending to  support the much  brutalized Palestinian people into  believing there could ever be such  a thing as a  viable ‘two  state  solution”.

Mountains & Cliffs
Mountains & Cliffs

If it were not for the fact  that  successive Israeli governments since 1948, have terrorized, stolen, destroyed houses, lands and property,  tortured and imprisoned many thousands of  Palestinians  (including many children)  for the crime of wanting to  retain  their own  homes and lands, then  this could almost be some stupid farce;  a joke by  puerile amateurs who  know nothing of history,  and certainly nothing about human  rights or even compassion.

If you have the stomach  for it,  read the daily litany of extreme abuse, racism  and terror inflicted by  Israeli  army soldiers and “settlers”  on  the Palestinian  people  at  https://imemc.org/

The news outlet  IPSNews, notes: The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has described the much-ballyhooed US Middle East peace plan as “more like Swiss cheese– with the cheese being offered to the Israelis and the holes to the Palestinians”.

https://www.palestinecampaign.org/
The Ever Shrinking “Palestine” https://www.palestinecampaign.org/

As we, and increasing members of the  politic have  demonstrated with  facts over the years, a two  state solution was never going to  be a viable option for Palestinians whilst  the Israeli  regime continued to  steal  lands from  an  embattled Palestinian people .

There is now only one solution;  and that  is a single state entity which  recognizes all  peoples in  the lands of what  is now Israel/Gaza and the West  Bank  as having equal  rights:  which  recognises the right of return of   those millions of Palestinians  dispossessed of their lands  and liberty since 1948 by  the Israeli  machine, and which  provides appropriate compensation for those losses….

 

Links

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Peace-to-Prosperity-0120.pdf

Non-Condemnatory International Reaction to Trump’s Bantustan Lite Palestine Plan Shows the “Two State” Solution Was Always a Lie

Who Made the Palestinian Authority a ‘Police State?’

THE ANGRY ARAB: Trump ‘Solves’ the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Relevant NewAntarctica Links

Christmas 2017 & The Dishonest Broker

 

Lieutenant-General Soleimani & the Red Flag of Qom

 

Sardar Qasem Soleimani
Sardar Qasem Soleimani

Lieutenant-General  Soleimani; leader of Iran’s   Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force,  was, as Soleimani  himself expected, assassinated by  United States drone or helicopter rockets on the morning of Friday 3rd January  2020,  while leaving Baghdad Airport by car after a civilian flight in to Baghdad from  Tehran to  meet  with  the Iraqi  prime minister.

Soleimani was revered  by  many Shiite Muslims around the world for his  military successes in helping  Shiite Hezbollah  protect  and defeat  an Israeli  invasion  of Lebanon (part of Israel’s  ‘grand’  strategy  of building a mythic “Greater Israel”),  but more importantly,  for his work in  both  Iraq and Syria coordinating the largely successful battle against  Al Qaeda  in Syria (or HTS)  and ISIS (otherwise known as Daesh).

As Iran has consistently and publicly stated,  and the evidence confirms,  both Al Qaeda and ISIS, were  not only funded and supported by  the lunatic Wahhabist Saudis, but also  by  the United States and other Western  countries,  particularly the U.K.  (long a mercenary   supporter of the Wahhabist Saudi  tribe since Lawrence of Arabia in  the First  World War.  Also note the very  apt comment from  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson  that  Soleimani was a ‘threat  to  our interests”.

The Wahhabist Muslim  sect  believes that  all  non Sunni Muslims are ‘heretics’ and should either be forcibly converted or killed . General  Soleimani was therefore following the lineage of the great Shiite Imams of medieval  times,  in  protecting all  Shiites -this time from  the scourge of Wahhabism.

In collaboration with the Russians, a  revitalized Syrian Arab Army (Assad’s forces), a re-armed Iraqi Army, and Shi-ite militias under his command, Soleimani  had at  the time of his death  largely succeeded in  defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The jaws are rapidly closing in on the remnants of Al Qaeda, HTS, ISIS and other Saudi and Western backed jihadists in Idlib in Northern Syria and Iraq. There is real  fear in Washington “intelligence” circles that mainstream media will finally be forced to expose the direct linkage between Washington and the head-chopping jihadists.

The recent death in Ankara of James Le Mesurier, leader of the White Helmets, supposedly humanitarian aid workers in Syria, but in reality well funded propaganda units for the jihadist groups and their backers, is likely to be directly linked to the  imminent exposure of the White Helmets as fakes, and the revelation of Western governments’ manipulation and likely bribery of senior staff at the OPCW to create a ‘scientific finding” that the Assad government had gassed civilians. Western  governments will consequently be finally forced to acknowledge their appalling collaboration and support of pyschopathic jihadist killers in the Middle East- all in  the name of oil and support for the Israeli entity.

American  intelligence agencies consequently panicked  and reasoned that a decisive provocation against Iran, would ensure that Iran would ‘over-react”,  and could thus be seen by the world as the crazed religious pariah state that the United States has always tried to  portray  Iran  as being since the Islamic revolution.

It might be useful  at  this point to  list just  some of  the legitimate grievances Iran  has against the United States.

  1. The deposing of Iran’s democratic government under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom’s MI6,  and the installation of the brutal Shah.
  2. The arming and support for Saddam Hussein’s attempted invasion of Iran which cost at least  a million Iranian lives (and in which ferocious war, Soleimani learnt his battle skills)
  3. The provision of poison gas and equipment to Iraq, which resulted in further Iranian deaths and injury  in that war.
  4. The shooting down of a civilian Iranian Airbus A300 by a US warship in the Persian Gulf , with  290 resultant deaths. There was no official apology  from the  United States although  some compensation was paid out belatedly.
  5. Ongoing promotion of Iran as a pariah state at the UN and with other Western governments, which resulted in severe sanctions and the deaths of many innocent Iranians because of Iran’s non existent nuclear weapons programme.
  6. Unconditional support by the United States of the Wahhabist Saudi clan who have funded and managed Sunni jihadist groups, killing many Shi-ite across the world, but particularly in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
  7. United States unconditional  support for the Israeli entity, in their desire to create a “Greater Israel” by the theft and extremely brutal occupation of land from (largely Sunni) Palestinians, Shi-ite Lebanese and Syrians.

Perhaps it might therefore be understandable why Iran’s leadership calls the United States, the “Great Satan”.

Iran is, unlike many of the United States’ allies in the Middle East, a democracy of sorts. However the rules for democracy are managed and controlled at a central level by its Shi-ite  Islamist leaders, and democratic choice is very limited (not too dissimilar in fact to the U.S. presidential election process).

While there are undoubtedly many in Iran who long for what Western democracy  appears to promise, most are also fiercely patriotic;  proud of their many thousands of year’s history as Persians. Faced with ‘existential” external threats, as Iranians have been since the Islamist revolution in 1979, few Iranians would support an overthrow of their current government.

Soleimani’s death was mourned by  hundreds of thousands of  Shiites in  Iraq and Iran. Memorials in Tehran  had to  be postponed because of the size of the crowds mourning  him  in other cities in Iran,  but the most crucial  memorial  was held for him  in the  Iranian  city of Qom .   “Qom is considered holy by Shiʿa Islam, as it is the site of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa, sister of Imam Ali ibn Musa Rida[6] (Persian Imam Reza, 789–816 CE). The city is the largest center for Shiʿa scholarship in the world, and is a significant destination of pilgrimage, with around twenty million pilgrims visiting the city every year..” -Wikipedia.

The  red  Shi-ite flag of the blood of the martyrs and revenge, was raised in Qom at  his funeral  procession. According to local reports it is the first time in the Qom mosque’s history – a holy site since the Middle Ages – that the red flag has been raised over the building.

It should be noted that  the raising  of the red-flag over Qom  is not simply an Iranian government contrivance,  but a religious appeal  to  all  Shi-ite believers  around the world to  avenge Soleimani’s death -one who  battled with  the forces of evil  to  save Shi-ites.

Albawaba .com  notes that ‘Last night Khamanei and Rouhani consoled Soleimani’s family.

‘Who is going to avenge my father’s blood?’ One of the commander’s daughters asked.

In response, Rouhani promised her that ‘everyone will take revenge’ and assured her as she wept, ‘we will, we will avenge his blood, you don’t worry.’ 

‘The Americans did not realize what a grave mistake they have made. They will suffer the consequences of such criminal measure not only today, but also throughout the years to come,’ Rouhani said.

‘This crime committed by the US will go down in history as one of their unforgettable crimes against the Iranian nation.’  

Iranian  government news sources also  quote IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami  as saying that: The assassination of martyred General Qassem Soleimani will be followed by a strategic revenge which will definitely put an end to the US presence in the region…” 

Is it possible that United States intelligence  officials were unaware of the paramount importance of Soleimani to  the 112 million people in  the Shiite world?  Did they  not understand that   his killing would provoke a desire for revenge against  the United States which  would be  unstoppable?

As the Shi-ite Hezbollah  leader in  Lebanon,  Nasrallah stated on the Sunday  following his killing; ‘When the coffins of American soldiers and officers begin to be transported … to the United States, (President Donald) Trump and his administration will realize that they have really lost the region and will lose the elections…” 

No  matter whether  President Trump  carries out his threats to  bomb 52 targets in Iran including “cultural  sites”. (which  would of course be a war crime,  but nothing new to  the United States,  which  has been  guilty of horrendous war crimes and genocide  in  so  many parts of the world  since  the U.S began:  see our  blog article;  America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars) or whether the United States might lose its residual  sanity and nuke Tehran, the revenge would continue .

The United State’s only option now is to  seek  forgiveness from the Iranians and negotiate  a deal  which  allows their soldiers  to  leave safely from  their many many bases circling Iran.


In just one example, the United State’s main  military  base  in the Persian Gulf  is located on the island of Bahrain. Bahrain is ruled by  an  autocratic and brutal  Sunni ‘prince” over a population which is 62% Shi-ite. It would not require any intervention on  the part of the Iranians for a rebellion to  once again  boil  over to  depose   the  Bahrain Al Khalifa royal family and for Shi-ites in   Bahrain to   destroy  the U.S.  base there and its occupants.

While Western  media choose to portray  any actions by  Shi-ite groups  around the world as being  by “Iranian proxies”, Shi-ite groups, whether military of otherwise,  will  seek  to  avenge the death  of Soleimani; they have  now been called to  do  so.

It would be timely for someone  in Washington who  is sane,  and with more than  the level of intelligence  currently displayed,  to  seek the mediation skills of someone with  credibility to  both  sides,  like Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov-  who  may be able to help  forestall what  currently looks like the inevitable tragedy  for the 60,000  plus United States soldiers stationed in  the Middle East, as a result of General Soleimani’s killing.

Links

https://www.albawaba.com/news/iran-raises-flag-revenge-qom-city-after-us-killing-qassem-soleimani-1330888

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/05/615439/US-soldiers-coffins-Soleimani-Hezbollah

Fragmentation in the Axis of Resistance led to Soleimani’s death

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/03/615247/Qassem-Soleimani

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1365976/middle-east

https://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Kick-Starts-Raging-20s-by-Pepe-Escobar-Assassination_Iran_Iran-Versus-Israel_Iranian-Foreign-Minister-Javad-Zarif-200105-814.html

Lies, the Bethlehem Doctrine, and the Illegal Murder of Soleimani

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russia-highlights-qassem-soleimanis-role-in-fight-against-isis/

The Donald Is Now America First’s Own Assassin

Le Mesurier, Syria, Corruption & the OPCW

James Le Mesurier
James Le Mesurier

As Craig Murray  has eruditely noted,  even  the greatest of scoundrels who  die, have  wives, children  and other people who  love and care for them and who  mourn  their loss.

That James le Mesurier,  likely “ex”-MI6  operative and founder of the White Helmets, was a scoundrel  and a man  with  few ethics is indisputable;  however you would certainly  not know that  from  Martin Churlov’s fawning obituary  in  the Guardian .

What  however we do  get  from  that obituary  is an  acknowledgment of the close ties that  Le Mesurier and MI6 had and continue to have with  Israeli  secret  police and military  in  brutally putting down  what  Churlov describes as the Gaza “insurgency” ( a curious  but telling name for an  uprising against  the disgusting barbaric ( and internationally illegal) Israeli occupation and imprisonment of Gaza’s population). But again;  this should not come as a surprise;  we know the U.K.  intelligence  community’s and UK Military’s longstanding and ongoing involvement with  corruption,   torture  and murder across the Middle East , and its mercenary  longstanding involvement with   the Saudi  regime’s jihadist  terror and genocidal  campaigns against  Shiites.

If you believe Martin Churlov,  Le Mesurier was able to  somehow mysteriously  access large amounts of  Western government money  to  establish  and maintain and provide Western  logistics  to  a band   of humanitarian workers   who  operated in  areas where the officially recognised Syrian  Red Cross could not access because the jihadists would have killed them.

In  Wikipedia we are told (without any hint of sarcasm) that: The Times reported that Le Mesurier was “the subject of an intense black propaganda campaign for years by pro-Assad activists and Russian diplomats”.[28][29] The New York Times reported that the group and Le Mesurier were the target of “unfounded conspiracy theories”.[3] It was alleged that Le Mesurier’s British Army background meant that he was effectively operating as a British state agent.[30] Janine di Giovanni has written the claim he was a spy lacks any evidence.[31] The accusations, from those who are opposed to any Western involvement in Syria and are backers of the Assad regime, include bloggers connected to the English-language Russian media who claim the White Helmets and Le Mesurier were intending to push for regime change in Syria.[32][33]

One of  the White Helmet’s  key  functions ( unlike any other  internationally  recognised humanitarian  mission),  was to  publicise itself and the  supposed military actions of the Syrian Arab Army  (SAA) under Assad. The recent expose of reports  made by   the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after the allegations by  the White Helmets of  SAA  chemical  weapons use in Douma,  clearly show corruption at  a senior level in the OPCW to  manipulate evidence and come to  conclusions not supported by  their investigators .

Le Mesurier died mysteriously;  somehow falling from  his balcony at his home  in Ankara to  his death in  the middle of the night without his wife hearing anything. And yes, security cameras reveal  no breach of security  at his home-  so  presumably-no  evidence of murder.

Did Mesurier jump  because he knew he was soon to  be exposed to  the world as the charlatan  he was,   and not the  humanitarian portrayed so  well  in  the White Helmet’s  expensive movie and Western mainstream  media?

White Helmets | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix – YouTube

Or was he pushed because he knew too  much? Perhaps we will  never know.

We do  know from TASS   however that  the British have been  getting increasingly concerned about the ongoing ever-deeper  incursions into  Idlib  in Northern Syria by  Russian  and SAA  troops,  where most of their intelligence operatives are working alongside the jihadists and particularly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) , the Al  Qaeda affiliated  group funded by  the Saudis. A  captured British operative  in Idlib could reveal  much  of the  very  embarrassing support   by the British  French,  US and Turkey of  the jihadists (including the White Helmets),  and their  links to  Israeli operatives.

In  addition, “Old Boy” Boris Johnson’s Etonian and City of London  links might be put  even more at  jeopardy  if any  of this little escapade comes to  light during the current British  General  Election…

As with  U.S.  foreign policy, we need to  understand that  British realpolitik  is simply about the money.  How much  can I or my cronies   get  out of this next  little war?

External Links

The Sad Death of James Le Mesurier

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/13/james-le-mesurier-obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/17/british-government-army-accused-covering-up-war-crimes-afghanistan-iraq

https://tass.com/world/1089495

The USA’s History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change

The ‘White Helmets’ and the Inherent Contradiction of America’s Syria Policy

Who is James Le Mesurier?

OPCW Losing Credibility As Even More Revelations Surface On Douma

International Middle East Media Center- and Israeli violations of norms of humanity

Relevant New Antarctica Links

Lieutenant-General Soleimani & the Red Flag of Qom

No flies in Syria

15 Ways To Stop Destroying Our World

15 ways to stop  destroying our world won’t be easy  changes to make – but they  have to  be made. 

We need to  immediately stop  the race to  the edge of ecological  abyss. There are indeed practical and viable alternatives to  the way  we  live our lives as humans. The transition wont be easy, and most of the rich  bastards are going to  go  to  the wall-  c’est  la vie!

But we need to  start now before  large scale catastrophe forces us to  stop  this crazy way  of interacting with  the world we live in. 

In order to reach the Paris Accord goals according to the Intergovernmental Panel, the world would need to see:

  • rapid and far-reaching” changes in energy systems (immediate end of fossil fuels), 
  • land use (agricultural land replanted with trees), 
  • city layouts and transportation (to reduce car use), 
  • buildings (all retrofitted to renewable energy), 
  • vast reduction or elimination of road and air travel, and 
  • worldwide checks on human material consumption. 
In other words, the end of capital civilization as we know it and its replacement by low-energy, pre-industrial, self-sufficient local and regional economies  —within a decade.
From https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/26/the-illusion-of-saving-the-world/
Seagul and
seagull and fledglings
However much more is needed to save our world; including….
  1. Education of the young (and older humans) about the vital  importance of respecting and protecting all  living things-an  understanding that other species are not commodities for human use and are essential  for our mutual survivability.
  2. An  understanding and  agreement that  technology  will  not save the world from  the climate emergency  or catastrophic species loss-  natural  living  solutions are the only solution
  3. The planting of  indigenous trees and shrubs in  every  available green  space  
  4. The banning of artificial pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers
  5. The planting of billions of indigenous trees -replacing areas used for monoculture farming; particularly meat and dairy production
  6. The pulling up of vast  areas of concrete and tar and replacing it  with  perennial  vegetation trees and shrubs
  7. The end of all  ‘growth’  economies-  a return  to  no-growth- (an end to  consumption for its own  sake)
  8. The encouragement of wildlife into  urban areas
  9. The banning of killing of all  wildlife
  10. The re-enlivening of buried urban  rivers and streams
  11. The  end of  non repairable goods
  12. The  compulsory  education of all  children in permaculture gardening
  13. The banning of all non essential air traffic
  14. The construction of efficient light-rail rail  networks
  15. The building of food and energy  self-sufficiency in all  communities

Even  then, the cumulative  impacts of 2000  years of global  species loss,  and 200  years of CO2 and other gas emissions into  our atmosphere will not be ‘put right’  in  a few hundred years…

Economists, politicians and business-people alike know full  well  that  a closed system like our world, cannot produce indefinite economic  “growth” (a completely flawed concept in itself). Why are they  pushing the world to the precipice ever faster? 

Therefore the sooner we begin to  implement the above processes and policies, the easier the transition  will be, with less loss of human  and other species lives.

Other   Links

The Illusion of Saving the World

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/saving-the-planet-means-overthrowing-the-ruling-elites/

Greta Thunberg & the Consolation of Doubt

The Great Acceleration….

Selling your Mother…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/12/doughnut-growth-economics-book-economic-model

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/rewilding-britains-rainforest-planting-trees

Yemen, Saudi Arabia & War

The September 19th precision  attacks on  the  oil processing facility  at  Abqaiq  in Eastern  Saudi  Arabia  have raised many questions for the Saudis and their allies in  UAE, the United States and Israel. How did the attackers ( whether they be  Houthi, Iranian or  Saudi  dissidents or a combination of any of those),manage to  breach  what  should have a very  well protected  site from  air borne attack.

The attacks should not have come as a surprise however.  The  Houthi  “rebels’ in Yemen  (against  which  the Saudis  and their British, U.S. , Al Qaeda and UAE allies  have been conducting a barbaric  war of attrition for the past  4 years ) have both  threatened and carried out increasingly  ambitious attacks on Saudi  infrastructure  in  the past year with  drones and missiles to  varying effect. (note the map below showing earlier Houthi  drone  attacks on the oil pipeline leading to  Abqaiq.)

Drone attacks on Saudi Pipeline

Recent  news releases from  the Houthi  indicate major military  successes against  the  Saudi  mercenaries on  the front line.;  and the latest  report of 500  Saudi  mercenaries  killed and  2000  captured  in  ongoing  Houthi/Yemen  Army raids into  Saudi  territory  is  outlined here.

The U.K., France and Germany have all joined the chorus of condemnation of Iran  from  the Saudis and United States  for the  Abqaiq attacks, despite any evidence. As noted in  previous blogs here ,  the ability of the Iranians to  ship   quantities of large missiles and drone components to  Yemen  through  a very  tight naval  blockade of its ports and coastline  is problematic to  say  the least. That  blockade  is part of the deliberate  humanitarian  disaster  that  the Saudis and their allies have inflicted for 4 years  against   the population of Yemen. That genocide  is compounded by the deliberate  bombing of civilian  infrastructure  with  active  military support  and coordination by  the British  and the Americans. Those actions are war crimes on a  massive scale.

Going back  to how the Abqaiq could have possibly happened; given the massive investment the Saudi  clan have put into  war  machinery  from the U.S.  and U.K. , Craig Murray  notes: Saudi Arabia’s entire weapons capacity is massively focused on Iran, as are the manifold detection devices of the numerous US bases. Besides modern air defence systems are omnidirectional

Saudi oil refinery drone hit
Note the precision of the holes in the distillery tanks from the South -West (not from from Iran in the East)

 The Patriot missile defence system is not the best in the world, though it is the most expensive; however you cannot just creep up behind it and shout “boo!” Not even the Saudis would pay billions of dollars for that.

So  if by  some absurd chance , what  Western  governments are saying is true;  how did the Iranians fly drones and missiles  at  Abqaq from  across the Persian  Gulf directly in  the face of large  batteries of Saudi  and American  air defenses? The analysis by “Juliet Guy Oscar” clearly shows that  Houthi   manufactured Quds1 cruise missiles have both  the capacity and range to  have attacked Abqaiq and beyond.

The Americans, using brutal  sanctions, theft of Iranian  assets  and threats, want to   bludgeon  Iran into  both  pulling back  on its extensive and very  effective missile programme,  and its support for   its local  allies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen  and Palestine above all. As E.J. Magnier notes- pulling back  on  either of those two  programmes is simply not an option for the Iranians.

For  U.S. Secretary of State  Pompeo  to  state  that “the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war and to fight to the last American,(and) we’re here to build out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution to this,” is of course pure nonsense and lies. America wants to  make Iran once again a client state like the Saudis , Egypt  or Jordan,  which  can bend to  the expansionist  whims of the Israelis.

While its very  likely that  the Houthis have  been using and adapting Iranian  missile and drone technology, the evidence suggests that  the Yemen military,  supported by  the Houthis,  have also been  making their own or adapting  military  equipment salvaged from  the Saudi/UAE conflict – with  perhaps technological advice from Iran.

The Saudis,  amusingly enough,  cannot believe that   Houthi  “savages” could  develop  and  deliver such  weapons. ( the  same kind of sad racist  mistake that  the Americans have continuously made against  the Russians, Chinese,  North Koreans and many other nations. (“If they   have such  weapons then  they must  have stolen the technology  from us”.)

The Yemen ‘rebel’  commentary on  the attacks is however interesting,  noting that “various kinds of combat drones were used in the Second Deterrent Balance Operation, noting that they were launched from three different locations according to their flight endurance and designated targets.   He underlined that the third generation of domestically-designed and -manufactured Qasef (Striker) combat drones, long-endurance Sammad-3 (Invincible-3) drones – which have an operational range of 1,500 kilometers to 1,700 kilometers and newly-developed drones equipped with jet engines.

 

Houthi drone
Houthi drone

 Each of the new drones can carry four precision-guided bombs with fissionable heads every time, and can monitor and hit their targets from several angles.“Other aircraft were also used so the main combat drones could hide in their shadow without being detected, and signal jamming devices effectively disabled the enemy’s air missile defense systems.” 

Like the Iranians,  the Houthi  and the Yemen military are fighting for their survival  against  much better equipped and financed  opponents. Opponents whose  ruthlessness and  commitment to  war crimes on  a grand scale is known to  all.

This will  not end well  for all  sides…but the writing is on th wall  for the Saudi  clan if Pepe Escobar’s analysis is anything to  go  by

Links

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201909201076843665-saudi-coalition-initiates-operations-yemen/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/19/us-dials-back-iran-rhetoric-and-seeks-peaceful-resolution-over-saudi-attack

http://thesaker.is/how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard/

Why Evidence of Iran’s Role in Attack Doesn’t Matter

 

http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/the-saudi-arabia-drone-attacks-have-changed-global-warfare/

Who Really Benefits From ‘Iranian Attack’ On Saudi Arabia?

 

New Antarctica  Relevant Links

America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars

The Saudi created hell in Yemen

America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars

We have often heard that  it is in  America’s “interests”  to  start this or that  war, to   “defend democracy and human  rights”  or some other  envisioning of the United States as that  Shining City on the Hill  of freedom  and light.  However when  we come to  examine what  particular Interests  are at  stake for the United States in  these  aggressions,  we somehow fail  to  note that  those interest  are solely business interests-  –  and not just  any businesses-  but big business-  large powerful corporations  with  tentacles in  many countries  whose financial  interests  may  either be jeopardized or opportunities   lost  if this or that  country  is not subjugated  once again  by  the U.S.  military  for  the profit margins of United States’ businesses.

Pity the poor country  that  dares to not bend its knee to  U.S.  corporate interest…it will be  sanctioned,  ridiculed,  its minority  groups funded and trained to  create  instability,  (or worse),  and if that  doesn’t succeed in  bringing that  recalcitrant country  to  the ‘negotiating’  table-  then  a little genocidal  war might help.

As U.S Major-General  Smedley  Butler has often been  quoted:

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. (1933)…

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism….

Supporting big business in  any way the U.S.  military  can ( regardless of international  conventions,  human  rights, human  lives,  human  decency  or any other ‘soft’  issue) is and always has been,  therefore the complete and total  sum  of United States international  relations-  it has no  other purpose.

We may  wonder who  profits from  the apparently senseless endless war  waged by  the United States in  Afghanistan-  could it be that  the CIA is once again filling its coffers with  the blood of  the drug-addicted? -or who  profits  from  supporting Israel’s slow genocide of the Palestinian  people,  or who  profits from  the human  catastrophe that  is the Saudi  war on Yemen?

“Foolish”  and soft issues like  the global  emergency ( maybe more like global  ‘catastrophe’?) are therefore a complete irrelevance. American exceptionalism  is seen in its true form-  red in  tooth  and claw as Alfred Lord Tennyson  wrote about nature. No  morality,  no ethics,  pure barbarism  and pure profit.

It is small  wonder that those poor American  soldiers coming back  from  America’s pointless and endless wars  of total  barbarism,  struggle  to  come to  terms with their “moral  injury” to  the propaganda they  have been  force-fed from  an  early age,  of the United States being a civilizing  and enlightened country in  a world of barbarism.

U.S. bases surrounding Iran
U.S. bases surrounding Iran

Peculiar to  those  pink-skinned Americans who  front for big business in  the military  and  in Washington, is a deeply entrenched racism  of those who  are “other” and darker skinned:-   whether they  be  Plains Indians,   Filipinos,  Japanese,  Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqi’s, Libyans, Syrians-  even  the Slavic Russian  and Serbian nations ..  the list  goes on  and on  and on….

It is time for the world to  recognise the savagery  and brutality of United States’  international  relations.  It is time to press for reparations for the  environmental  destruction,   the war destruction,  war crimes,  loss of life,  the torture  and the  murders  that  the United States has inflicted on  the world in  the fictitious name of “democracy  and freedom” in  the past  100  years. It is time to  end this  barbarism  and stupidity.

The United States is indeed ‘exceptional’,  but not quite in the way  that  their propagandists planned it. The American  state is  exceptional  in  it being a war  machine;  the government’s role is largely to  fund and plan  wars which  will  assist  the American  armament industry to  sell more weapons at  home abroad.

Links

https://original.antiwar.com/andy_corbley/2019/07/01/how-does-the-war-on-terror-stack-up-to-some-of-historys-most-infamous-genocides/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-united-states-of-genocide-putting-the-us-on-trial-for-genocide-against-the-peoples-of-korea-laos-viet-nam-cambodia-iraq-and-elsewhere/5352227

https://www.thenation.com/article/naming-americas-own-genocide/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/united-states-war-crimes/5561468

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/meet-american-empires-dr-death/

A Life in Many Kingdoms….

For most people who live in big cities ( an ever increasing proportion of the world’s population) the issue of species loss  seems an irrelevance.

What does it matter if one more species is irretrievably  lost for ever,  when I have my house and car and my job in the city?   Their lack  of connection with  the living world -other than other humans in  their urbanised world,  does not mean  that  they   are not inextricably linked to  the other species who  live on  this planet-  they  just cant see it. Their food  is bought at  the supermarket  in  vinyl  halls – plastic packaged and often pre-prepared. They  do  not see,  nor do  they  care ,  about where those former living things came from: -what  lives they  had,  how they  interconnected,  how they  communicated, their thoughts and feelings… The food they  gather at  the supermarket is simply a dead  product-  sublimely and most ridiculously illustrated by  the little plastic stickers on  the fruit we buy there.-the  ultimate  commodification of nature.

 

But the reality is that  all  that  food-  animal  and vegetable arriving  at  the supermarket storehouse, was once  living, was in  fact  directly connected to  the rest  of the living world in subtle

and often invisible ways to  humans.  That  interconnection between  species is the net that  keeps us all  alive-a net  that  is steadily being undone by  humans through ignorance and greed.

As recent research over the past decade has noted,  all  species on  the planet  not only posses their own  unique DNA, but also  multiple strands (often in  much larger volume) of DNA and micro

biomes from  multiple other species,  mainly microbes.  Anything  and everything, from  the bacteria that  inhabit our guts and allow us to  digest  food that  would be otherwise indigestible to  us, to the bacteria and microbes that  come into  contact  with our skin  and  that  we inhale.  As Bordenstein  noted in  2015- Animals and plants are no longer heralded as autonomous entities but rather as biomolecular networks composed of the host plus its associated microbes, i.e., “holobionts.”- from  ‘Host Biology in Light of the Microbiome: Ten Principles of Holobionts and Hologenomes’

Skin and Microbiome linkages.)

The microbiome concept, that is, the collective communities of microorganisms, their genomes and interactions, was first used in the context of microorganisms that inhabit the human body. Since then, numerous studies have adopted this term to describe microbial communities associated with other mammals, insects, fish or plants. For humans, the microbiome significantly contributes to metabolism and provides functions that humans did not need to evolve on their own (Gill et al., 2006). Hence, the genes present in the human microbiome are considered the secondary genome….  In the human microbiome, the highest density of microbes is found in the gastrointestinal tract, where ‘they synthesize essential amino acids and vitamins, and process components of otherwise indigestible contributions to our diet…..-Cross-kingdom similarities in microbiome functions, Rodrigo Mendes & Jos M Raaijmakers (2015)

Thus,  (the) nature-relatedness (a person’s level of connectedness with the natural world [58]), biodiversity of ecosystems in which humans reside or to which they are exposed, access to greenspace and/or habitation in rural environments can have beneficial effects on physical and mental wellbeing [59]…..(However the) erosion of environmental ecosystems is affecting biodiversity and microbial ecology. Together with declining nature-relatedness this is reducing human contact with immunomodulatory organisms found in natural environments – reflected in differences in skin microbes. This is increasingly being recognised as a risk factor for chronic inflammatory diseases……..There is now consistent evidence that environmental degradation, whether by climate change, invasive species or industrial activity, is linked to diminished human physical and mental health [110, 111].

The very existence of this skin-environment interface raises important questions about how erosion of global biodiversity, and declining contact with the natural environments is affecting skin ecosystems and human health [5]. Examining this question in the context of the epidemic rise of allergy and other inflammatory diseases is informative because allergy is one of the earliest manifestations of inflammation often first observed in the skin as disruptions in barrier function and atopic eczema. Furthermore, the declining microbial diversity that has been long linked to the rise in allergic disease also has important implications for other organ systems across the life course.  – The skin microbiome: impact of modern environments on skin ecology, barrier integrity, and systemic immune programming: Susan L. Prescott et al (2017)

Or again….It is increasingly evident that inflammation is an important determinant of cognitive function and emotional behaviors that are dysregulated in stress-related psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and affective disorders. Inflammatory responses to physical or psychological stressors are dependent on immunoregulation, which is indicated by a balanced expansion of effector T-cell populations and regulatory T cells. This balance is in part driven by microbial signals. …. With the global trend toward urbanization, humans are progressively spending more time in built environments, thereby, experiencing limited exposures to these immunoregulatory “old friends.” Here, we evaluate the implications of the global trend toward urbanization, and how this transition may affect human microbial exposures and human behavior.-The Microbiome of the Built Environment and Human Behavior: Implications for Emotional Health and Well-Being in Postmodern Western Societies. Stamper CE1 et  al  (2016)

The Implications….

  • All  organisms are capable of genetic change in  their own lifetimes through  external  microbiome absorption and adaptation ( an adaptation of the old Lamarckian  evolution  theory, with  a Darwinian  perspective)
  • The importance of being in  regular  physical  contact  with  the rest  of the  living world has been vastly under-rated  in  its effect  on health  and mental  wellbeing. An  organism’s health  and  wellbeing depends on   having a wide variety of external  microbiomes to  incorporate into  its body and genetic structures on  an ongoing  basis.
  • Modern  human  society is dramatically reducing,  not only human’s interchange with microbiomes,  but  also through  poisonous agribusiness   practice and destruction of habitats,  is irretrievably destroying  all  species’  capacity to   genetically adapt and change and to  have optimum  wellbeing.
  • The  steadily decreasing  number of species in  the world ( largely by  human  ecocide)   markedly increases all  species’  capacity for survivability
  • Human beings’  obsession with creating cities,  with   ‘clean’  environments and  the sealing over of the living world with  concrete  and tar, are rapidly reducing microbiome diversity on  the planet.
  • For  the human species to  survive for  further millenia it has to  acknowledge its interdependence with the rest  of the living world,  and stop  creating dead spaces on  the planet. Celebrate all  life!

Links

https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/why-food-actually-information

https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej20157

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_%28biology%29

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-guts-microbiome-changes-diet/

https://wellnessmama.com/130266/skin-microbiome/

https://consortiatx.com/the-science/the-human-microbiome/

https://waojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40413-017-0160-5

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27793224?dopt=Abstract

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4540581/

 

The Whirlpool of Environmental Collapse

Greta Thunberg is to sail across the Atlantic in a high-speed racing yacht next month to attend UN climate summits in the US and Chile ….which she described as “pretty much where our future will be decided”.

While 16 year  old Greta is  a passionate and well-meaning advocate for change to  our headlong dash to  climate  and species loss disaster;  it is eminently clear that  talk-fests by  leading politicians and climatologists are definitely not going to  make one damn bit of difference to  our current polices rapidly destroying the planet.

The Paris Accord, hailed as some  turning point in  human behaviour to our planet, was simply a cruel  facade and a hoax. Global  emissions have increased,  not declined since that accord was signed, and the environmental destruction of our living world has accelerated. We now elect clowns and idiots  to  run   our countries. Those who  participate in  those climate  talk-fests are those who  are in league with  those who  knowingly destroy our world-  the business men,  the media men, the investors,  the politicians-  all  locked in to  making more money  from  the destruction of the thin veneer of life  that used to  make our little blue world  a safe place for all its inhabitants.

The solutions are not to be found with  those who  have created this disaster. The solutions are simple ones which  do  not provide any profits or backhanders for those in  power. In  fact  the solutions  will  help  to demolish the lie of   the ‘human progress’  model  that  has been  sold to  us for the past 200  years.

Planting billions of indigenous  trees, ripping up  the concrete and tar that  seals the life out of our  once living earth;  growing plants  of all  kinds,  not for profit or ‘development’  but to  help  restore our natural  world, is our only saviour. We cannot ‘develop’  our way  out of this tragedy,  or find a new technological  solution-  that  is the way  of the con-man. We must  return  to  nature-  our natural  heritage.

Native  indigenous trees not only  breathe  in carbon  dioxide , they  provide a refuge for  enormous numbers  of living things, from  the insects that  feed from  trees, the  local fungi  and bacteria that   symbiotically  live near the roots of the trees, the birds that  live on  the insects  and the multiplicity of other organisms ( including humans)  that thrive in  proximity to  the trees. Trees also  have a huge capacity to  provide shade in  hot climates, to   eliminate human made toxins from  the air , and to  increase the  level  of water vapour  in  the air bringing life-giving rain  while protecting the soil  beneath  from erosion. Despite the ongoing hype and lies from  the mass- killers of animals –  we humans do  not need  to  consume the vast  amount of dead cows, pigs  and  sheep  that  we are led to  believe keeps us healthy.   Dramatically reducing  the area of land  used for   grazing  and replanting with  the trees that  once lived there, can  indeed help  save our planet.

The fishing industry  empires, scouring the seas for the last surviving fish  in  our over-heated oceans are not required. Humans can  and will  have a much  smaller footprint on our earth.

Do  you need that  air plane trip  to  Bali  for your holiday? Do  you need that  new car? that  non- repairable piece of technology ?

Each  of us can  plant a tree, can  help  save our world-  now!

 

Links

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/trees-affect-weather1.htm

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/29/earliest-ever-earth-overshoot-day-shows-humanitys-consumption-planets-natural?

Democracy & the Power of Persuasion

Patient dummy
The dummy in the hospital bed

That  racist old warmonger, Winston Churchill,  has often been  quoted as saying,  “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”…

Is it true now?-  and was it ever true?

The capacity of taxpayer funded government institutions to  manipulate public opinion has grown over the past 100  years as the theories of propaganda and  the power to  influence  individuals’  beliefs with  media, particularly electronic media, has grown   exponentially.

Modern  government bureaucracies  have always constructed ‘stories’  for their publics about how the world is:  who  is our ‘enemy’ – what  is ‘safe’ and what  is  ‘appropriate’ etc;  and the major medium  in  the past has been  via  status quo  newspapers ( the vast majority of modern newspaper and visual  media publishers are  active mouthpieces of  state propaganda  ( as in  the U.K.  with the BBC and The Guardian)  perhaps because of the enormous  costs of printing and distribution which  requires substantial  funding from  status quo funders.

Solely online social  media however;  blogs and online newspapers require far less input and resources, and their legitimacy  and media sources can  be easily hidden. They are easily accessible at minimum  cost  to  every  member of society, and the public can be ‘fed’  the official line-subtly and invisibly through  advertising   and other online  preference algorithms. The one small  downside of the electronic medium  world for  governments however,  is that  ‘rogue’  alternative media outlets also have access to  this cheap  media distribution process  (hence the desperate measures by  ‘respectable’  news outlets and governments to  promote the ‘fake news’  narrative and the need for  major  search  engine algorithms  to  be tightly controlled by  ‘respectable governments.

To  foster  and maintain the government narrative therefore requires more and more input to  feed the official  media line. As Craig Murray  notes, in the U.K. there are very large amounts of tax payer money  going into   manipulating public opinion for the benefit of those currently in  power.  The 77th Brigade of the British Army, the Integrity Initiative, MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ all run major programmes of covert online propaganda. These information warriors operate on twitter, facebook, and in comments sections across the internet. 

We can  be sure that  those U.K. manipulation agencies also exist everywhere across the world where there is sufficient taxpayer money, and sufficient need to  maintain  the status quo.

We could accurately call  these individuals and agencies,  the ‘Secret  Thought Police’.

Perhaps, if those agencies had some access to  a higher truth;  a global  need for a better life for all, saving the planet  or simply creating a more equitable world,  we might be able to  possibly argue that  those secret agencies are to  our mutual  benefit. But the reality is far from  that. Those agencies are designed to  entrench  those in  power with more power,  and with more money,  and to  negate,   satirize  and destroy by  whatever means available, alternative arguments, alternative strategies  that  might benefit and save ourselves and the planet. They  are in  consequence,  administered by  humans with limited understanding of their world,  with vast  prejudices  and with limited ethics and morality.

With  those huge resources  of thought engineering at  their disposal,  ‘governments’ which   across the world,  have  demonstrated their blindness and  total incapacity to  respond to  the catastrophes of global   heating and species loss facing us now, have instead steadfastly maintained their incestuous linkages with  the very corporations and  industries which  have created the nightmare unfolding day  by  day  in front of us.

When  many Western  governments,  but especially the U.K.  and U.S.,  have  knowingly and actively collaborated with states,  individuals and agencies over many years in  many countries   that   create  public fear  through  violence (the anatomy of terrorism), then  we have a sick  and debauched set of governments who  have no  moral right to  govern. Certainly  the current  leaders of Britain  and United States will,  in  the future, be key defendants  in  the dock  for war  crimes in Yemen  and other countries.

The Colour revolutions of the  past  10  years , (harnessing local  discontents with   resources from  foreign  governments and NGOs  and businesses such  as Soros) which have destabilized both  authoritarian  and socialist  governments alike across the globe,  have also, perhaps inadvertently , cast into question the authority of ‘democratic’ governments. Election results  are  more easily able to be questioned and invalidated in  their eyes of their voting publics.  Even  those  governments who  have destabilised   other foreign  governments with  such  tools for many years;  particularly the U.K.  and the U.S. , now find  themselves the victims of such  anti-establishment processes.

We have the somewhat  unique situation of the U.K.s Brexit poll  being questioned by  many in  the U.K.;  not because  the voting was flawed,  but  simply because it was not the result that  the powers that  be ,  wanted. The U.K.   may therefore  hold further Brexit votes until  they  get  the answer they  want;  a process which naturally underlines the key premises of the democratic system-  that  you vote for a party or issue  at  a certain  moment in  time  to  make longer term changes which  you may  or may  not disagree with later.

The recent Hong Kong riots  are an  example of the complexity of the issues where governments are actively destabilised by internal groups. The fears that  the proposed new extradition laws from  semi-autonomous Hong Kong to  mainland authoritarian  China will  create opportunities for Hong Kong dissidents to be controlled or  imprisoned in  China are  likely correct. As a former British  colony , ceded by  the  Qing dynasty of China  to  the British after the  First Opium War,  a brutal  and ethically bankrupt  war raged by  the British  to  ensure  a good supply of Chinese opium addicts, British  Hong Kong was  governed by  a British  Governor appointed by  the British “Crown”  and who  had  significant powers of authority up  to  1997 . The current dissidents therefore hancor for a non existent time when  there was in  fact a democratic Hong Kong not controlled by  ‘foreigners”. It is very  likely that , in the current anti-Chinese climate being rapidly developed by  U/S.  intelligence agencies,  that  their British  underlings are supporting the dissidents in  Hong Kong to put further pressure on Communist China,  along with  the  National  Endowment for “Democracy”,  an  NGO front for the U.S.  government destabilization agenda.

We are in  desperate need of change. Our ‘democratic’  system  is deeply flawed,  easily manipulated by  the powerful, and does not benefit in  the  longer term or even,  in  many cases,  the short term ,  its constituent publics.

 

Links

https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brigades/force-troops-command/77-brigade/ 

How To Spot A Twitter Troll

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy

 

 

 

 

Links

http://www.twainquotes.com/19100424b.html