Yearly Archives: 2021

The Great Battle for the Future

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By Cory Morningstar

Source: Organic Radicals

A nightmare totalitarian industrial world, in which everything living is being poisoned to death and in which dehumanised people are subjected to full-spectrum physical and psychological control by slave-masters they never dare question.

So here is where the modern world and its self-mythologising cult of “progress” was leading us… Who’d have thought it, eh?

The warnings have been there, of course, whether from science fiction writers and filmmakers (They Live!, The Terminator,  Equals...), musicians or the dozens of thinkers featured on this website.

They warned us where this would end up if we didn’t do something, but we collectively spurned their advice and here we are, on the very brink of a long-term and probably fatal dystopia.

The important question now is how we are going to get out of this global hi-tech concentration camp.

Part of the answer is that we need to keep alive, and spread as widely as possible, a vision of how the world could be, of another way of living which is utterly different from the sterile and robotic hell currently lined up for us and those who will come after.

It is very much part of the ruling elite’s propaganda to insist that their future is the only future, that no other possibility even exists.

They are always keen to dismiss the idea of a different society as totally fanciful, empty-headed or even positively dangerous, removing us from the protective bliss of the prison they have built around us.

This lie is reinforced in people’s minds by the way that the other, possible, world is increasingly distant from contemporary reality.

It is hard to imagine a transition from where we are today (let alone where we are heading) to where many of us would like to be.

It is particularly hard, even impossible, if you go along with the ruling elite’s deliberate confusion of the passing of time with the strengthening of their industrial profit-system.

If you see “the future” as necessarily an extension of the path that has brought us from the past to the present, then their version seems inevitable. It is therefore crucial to break free from this idea of some kind of predestined vector taking us towards a hyper-industrial destiny.

Industrial capitalist development was never the only possible form which human society could have taken over the last few centuries. The shape our present has taken is not due to the passing of time but to very specific processes and actions which have occurred.

If we want to reconnect with the “other world” in our hearts, and understand why it seems so unattainable, we would therefore do well to look back at how we landed up on the disastrous path of industrialised tyranny.

A key period to analyse is the Middle Ages, when capitalism first started to take over our lives.

Silvia Federici makes some very interesting observations on this period in her book Caliban and the Witch. (1)

She rejects the conventional wisdom that a “transition to capitalism” occurred as some kind of natural social evolution.

Instead, she points out that the power of the ruling elite was being threatened by the growing confidence of the 99%, who were increasingly rebelling against authority and servitude.

With the outright slavery of the Roman Empire left behind, these medieval rebels saw ahead of them a better future, one based on social justice, freedom and local autonomy.

They were on the path leading towards the light, towards genuine social progress rather than to the fake “progress” of technological sophistication and profusion.

But this didn’t go down well with the ruling class, who feared that their power and privilege would be lost for ever.

Instead of escaping from slavery into freedom, our ancestors therefore found themselves engaged in a Great Battle for the Future with the dark forces of tyranny.

This battle raged for centuries all over Europe and in the parts of the world colonised and occupied by the dominant system.

In England the most famous uprising was the peasants’ revolt of 1381, during which radical preacher John Ball told his contemporaries that the time had come when they could “cast off the yoke they have borne so long and win the freedom they have always yearned for”. (2)

But there were plenty of others, such as the Kett’s Rebellion of 1549 in which the rebels seized control of Norwich, then the second biggest city in the country.

The 17th century radicals of the English Revolution, such as Gerrard Winstanley, represent perhaps the last flowering of this wave of revolt.

The Great Battle for the Future was even fiercer on continental Europe. As Federici points out, the uprisings of the Cathars in France and the Anabaptists in Germany were not just about isolated local grievances but represented an ideological and metaphysical challenge to the world of authority, power and property. (3)

Federici argues that capitalism was in fact the reaction of the ruling elite against their potential loss of control.

She writes: “Capitalism was the counter-revolution that destroyed the possibilities that had emerged from the anti-feudal struggle – possibilities which, if realized, might have spared us the immense destruction of lives and the natural environment that has marked the advance of capitalist relations worldwide. This much must be stressed, for the belief that capitalism ‘evolved’ from feudalism and represents a higher form of social life has not yet been dispelled”. (4)

There is a strange echo here with the 20th century, when fascism emerged at a moment when the ruling elite (by this stage firmly capitalist) again faced the threat of popular insurrection.

The parallel even extends to the way in which the medieval bourgeoisie, often depicted as leading the radical onslaught against feudal power, sought common cause with their supposed enemies in the nobility in order to stamp out popular revolt.

This same bourgeoisie, which by the 20th century liked to think of itself as “liberal“, was likewise happy to see the boot of fascism keep the rabble in their place.

Capitalism – the new form taken by malevolent ruling-class domination – subjugated our ancestors by cutting them off from their sources of subsistence and autonomy.

Common land was confiscated – enclosed – making self-sufficiency impossible. Food could no longer be freely gathered or hunted, rivers could no longer be fished, wood for fuel could no longer be picked up in the privatised forests.

People were forced into the money system, forced to earn “wages” just to live, forced into factories and workhouses, reduced to craven dependency on the capitalist system.

Federici describes the period as one of “relentless class struggle” in which “the medieval village was the theater of daily warfare”. (5)

“Everywhere masses of people resisted the destruction of their former ways of existence, fighting against land privatization, the abolition of customary rights, the imposition of new taxes, wage-dependence, and the continuous presence of armies in their neighbourhoods, which was so hated that people rushed to close the gates of their towns to prevent soldiers from settling among them”. (6)

In order to impose the New Normal of capitalism on the unwilling people, the power elite used what Federici terms “social enclosure”, (7) a precursor of today’s “social distancing”.

She writes: “In pursuit of social discipline, an attack was launched against all forms of collective sociality and sexuality including sports, games, dances, ale-wakes, festivals, and other group-rituals that had been a source of bonding and solidarity among workers”. (8)

“Taverns were closed, along with public baths. Nakedness was penalized, as were many other ‘unproductive’ forms of sexuality and sociality. It was forbidden to drink, swear, curse”. (9)

In another striking parallel with the 2020s (and indeed the 1920s/1930s) the rich elite tried to create “a new type of individual” (10) – a servile, malleable and thus profitable type.

To this end it set out to separate us from our bodies and from our very sense of who we are.

“According to Max Weber, the reform of the body is at the core of the bourgeois ethic because capitalism makes acquisition ‘the ultimate purpose of life,’ instead of treating it as a means for the satisfaction of our needs; thus it requires that we forfeit all spontaneous enjoyment of life. Capitalism also attempts to overcome our ‘natural state,’ by breaking the barriers of nature and by lengthening the working day beyond the limits set by the sun, the seasonal cycles, and the body itself, as constituted in pre-industrial society”. (11)

The communal cohesion traditionally woven by, and among, women was specifically targeted by the ruling class in their efforts to disempower and enslave the common people, says Federici.

This took the form of the notorious fearmongering over “witches”, resulting in the murder of untold numbers of innocent women: “The witch-hunt destroyed a whole world of female practices, collective relations and systems of knowledge that had been the foundation of women’s power in pre-capitalist Europe, and the condition for their resistance in the struggle against feudalism”. (12)

She adds: “The witch-hunt deepened the divisions between women and men, teaching men to fear the power of women, and destroyed a universe of practices, beliefs, and social subjects whose existence was incompatible with the capitalist work discipline”. (13)

The witch hunts were thus part of the general philosophical war being waged by industrial capitalism on any way of thinking not flattened and reduced to the pitiful level of its own limited, sterile and life-hating slave-dogma.

Explains Federici: “This is how we must read the attack against witchcraft and against that magical view of the world which, despite the efforts of the Church, had continued to prevail on a popular level through the Middle Ages. At the basis of magic was an animistic conception of nature that did not admit to any separation between matter and spirit, and thus imagined the cosmos as a living organism, populated by occult forces, where every element was in ‘sympathetic’ relation with the rest”. (14)

The primary tool used by the ultra-rich minority to oppress the majority was, of course, the state.

Far from representing some kind of benign collective self-interest, as some absurdly persist in maintaining, the modern state emerged in the 14th century “as the only agency capable of confronting a working class that was regionally unified, armed and no longer confined in its demands to the political economy of the manor”. (15)

Whether claiming to be fighting “heresy”, “witchcraft” or disorder, the ruling elite deployed all the violence and propaganda of its inquisitions, wars and laws to bring the population to heel. And, as we all know to our cost, it won that Great Battle for the Future.

But because its sociopathic greed knows no end, because its “growth” is based on ever-increasing profit for the ultra-rich, it can never stop treading us further and further into the toxic industrial dust of its total control.

Today we have reached another key moment in history, when the ruling elite – under the feeble pretext of combatting a flu virus – hopes to essentially return us to the slave status we escaped a thousand years ago.

All its liberal pretence at “democracy” is going out of the window as the brutal reality of elite power becomes clear to those who have eyes to see.

There will be resistance, you can be sure of that, even if the advance disabling of certain potential sources of dissent means it may take a while for rebels to regroup and find their common voice.

Those of us who do resist will be embarking on another Great Battle for the Future.

We will be fighting for the same world of freedom and humanity and closeness to nature which inspired our ancestors hundreds of years ago.

Moreover, awareness of this historical context will be key to the way we resist.

We can never go back to the past but we can refer back to it and take our sense of direction from it.

It is clear that our defeat in the last Great Battle for the Future (and many subsequent struggles) saw us shunted down the wrong path, away from the bright future of which we dreamed and deeper and deeper into the gloom of enslavement.

We will not be able to reach our lost future by continuing along this path as it can only take us further and further from our desired destination.

The key realisation here is that industrialism, including all its technology and infrastructure, is simply an aspect of capitalism, of the slavery imposed upon us hundreds of years ago when we looked set to break free from the domination of the ruling elite.

Industrialism is not neutral. It is not something that can be turned around and used for our good. It is the prison in which we are locked.

The newnormalist technological tyranny currently being unleashed will hopefully make this inconvenient truth more evident and widely understood.

However, the underlying problem does not lie in industrialism’s excesses but in its very essence and raison d’être, as a means of control and exploitation.

We will not find the better future of which we dream in a world still polluted by factories, airports, motorways, pipelines, pylons, refineries and power stations.

The long-term happiness and self-fulfilment of humankind will not arrive via internet connections, phone networks and electricity supplies, but from their absence.

We need to destroy the whole industrial capitalist machine at the same time as we shake off this latest notching-up of repression, otherwise it will all just happen again and we will never be free.

Our victory in this 21st century Great Battle for the Future has got to be final and conclusive.

1. Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004).
2. Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (London: Fontana, 1993), p. 91.
3. See also Paul Cudenec, The Stifled Soul of Humankind (Sussex, Winter Oak Press, 2014).
4. Federici, pp. 21-22
5. Federici, p. 26.
6. Federici, p. 82.
7. Federici, p. 84.
8. Federici, p. 83.
9. Federici, p. 137.
10. Federici, p. 135.
11. Ibid
12. Federici, p. 103.
13. Federici, p. 165.
14. Federici, pp. 141-42.
15. Federici, p. 84.

COVID-19 Vaccine Passports Are Here – But Who Benefits Most From Them?

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By David Helfrich

Source: The Pulse

Whether it’s a restaurant in Quebec or a hotel in Portugal, you will now need to furnish a Covid-19 vaccine passport verifying vaccination status prior to entering these spaces. Proponents of the vaccine passports argue that these health passes allow businesses to re-open in key economic sectors while encouraging vaccination that will benefit public health. Critics of these passports – which are often utilized in the form of a digital health pass – argue that there are considerable ethical, technical, and scientific challenges that render Covid-19 vaccine passports both impracticable and unequitable.

Covid-19 vaccine passports raise serious questions about the commitment society has for fundamental rights surrounding bodily autonomy and integrity: the concept that each human being has autonomy and self-determination over their own body.

While it is true that vaccine mandates have been around for quite some time, and have been administered as requirements for children to attend public school and are sometimes required to travel to parts of the world where viruses like diphtheria and yellow fever are prevalent, mandating Covid-19 vaccines as a universal requirement for travel, employment and/or access to broader public services and benefits is breaking new ground with regards to removing choice by compelling one to take a vaccine in order to participate in the broader economy and access opportunity.

Regardless of one’s personal view on the Covid-19 vaccines (I personally chose to get vaccinated to mitigate the chance of infection and transmission to more vulnerable populations), this is an area where our principles are challenged. Do we really stand for the concept of “my body; my choice” – or do we only rally for this principle when it appeals to our politics/personal beliefs?

Ironically, many who do not recognize the right for a woman to exercise autonomy over her reproductive choices are now claiming the right to exercise bodily autonomy to make their own medical decisions. Conversely, many pro-choice activists are now mocking those who refuse the vaccine by claiming that they don’t have the right to bodily autonomy in this instance because their decision affects other people — which is exactly the argument pro-life activists rely upon (claiming that a pregnant woman is making a decision that affects the unborn) in their attempts to deny a woman’s right to choose.

While the more efficacious vaccines have proven to be instrumental in both mitigating infection rates as well as severe disease should a breakthrough infection occur, not all vaccines are created equal. The current Covid-19 vaccines in use around the world vary significantly with regards to efficacy, durability, and their respective capacity to protect against emergent strains.

Presumably, a passenger from the United States vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine and a second passenger from Chile vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine may be considered “fully vaccinated” – depending on one’s definition – despite the fact that the latter vaccine features efficacy that is but a fraction of the former’s.

Access to the more efficacious vaccines remains scarce and is driven by economic, political, and geographic factors creating a special luxury travel class for vaccinated travelers hailing from high-income countries, while disadvantaging travelers from low-income countries and/or regions with little or no access to effective vaccines. This creates a glaring disparity that limits one’s ability to move about the world, access opportunity, and visit loved ones, exacerbating global inequities that disproportionately affect communities that have already been ravaged by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, particularly in the Global South.

Before any vaccine passport system can be equitably rolled out, the problem of universal access must be solved. Even in high-income countries where an inordinate amount of resources have been thrown at vaccine rollout efforts to ensure wide access, alarming health disparities based on race continues to persist. In the US, Black and Brown communities continue to have lower SARS-CoV-2 vaccine rates compared to the overall population, and their historic (and often well-founded) distrust of the for-profit health system should not prevent them from enjoying basic rights, accessing opportunity, and engaging in much needed social activity after over a year of isolation and lockdowns that have taken a toll on our collective physical/mental health and well-being.

Additionally, vaccine passports pose significant privacy concerns and raise a myriad of complex problems and moral conundrums as it pertains to civil liberties, surveillance, and mobility that aren’t easily resolved. From Verizon’s attempt to deploy thermal cameras to detect fevers in football stadiums to New York’s IBM “Excelsior Pass” app that leverages blockchain technology to prove that you’ve been vaccinated, tech companies are scrambling to cash out on innovative ways to peer into our private lives while undermining our civil liberties. Without a strong commitment to legal protections for privacy, the data that will be collected by big tech companies every time our vaccine passport credentials are shared will inevitably be sold for commercial purposes and even shared with law enforcement, which would lead to further burdens on over-policed communities. The prospect of being tracked in this manner would not only further isolate communities that should be encouraged to access public benefits and spaces, but could also presumably further undermine public confidence in even getting the vaccine to begin with.

There is historical precedent for how a crisis has been used to curtail civil liberties and basic freedoms. Just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Congress took advantage of the widespread fear and panic to pass the Patriot Act, expanding its authority to spy on its own citizens. Despite the Patriot Act being touted as an essential tool to combat terrorism, the Department of Justice itself admitted (in 2015) that the Patriot Act failed to help solve any major terrorism cases whatsoever. Despite this, it has taken immense efforts to try and salvage even a fraction of the civil liberties that the Patriot Act sought to undermine. Once such liberties are curtailed, it can become exceedingly difficult to reclaim them.

Without famed whistleblower Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures revealing the scope and scale of mass government surveillance, we may still be in the dark about how these immense government powers have been abused. Now, Snowden (along with many other civil liberties experts) warn that pandemic powers seized during this global health health crisis will be used to build a new “architecture of oppression” that could see liberal democracies transformed into autocratic countries imposing social credit scores, widescale restrictions on movement, and draconian censorship on free speech and expression.

When we ponder the real-world utility of implementing a Covid-19 Vaccine Passport — the question must be asked: Who will benefit most from this immensely complicated and inequitable proposition? Will it be the public health and civil liberty of the global population? Will it be Big Tech companies leveraging new surveillance technology? Will it be governments infringing upon data privacy rights? There are always unintended (and intended) consequences to such measures that must be thoroughly scrutinized, debated, and considered prior to enactment.

Particularly in the United States, vaccination status has become yet another tribal rift in a society replete with identity divisions and divergent opinion as it pertains to just about everything. Regardless of one’s view on how best to achieve the expeditious end to this global pandemic, perhaps a universal rallying call delivering a message to world governments to respect civil liberties and address global inequities would be a unique area where the tapestry of humanity can coalesce to stand for both the rights of the individual and the collective, rebuking those over-reaching forces that aim to exploit a crisis by curtailing hard-fought civil liberty gains at every turn.

Dive deeper with this conversation: The Glaring Issues With Vaccine Passports

The Way to Defeat the Globalist Reset: Local Production for Local Consumption…

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By Peter Koenig

Source: Dissident Voice

The Globalists have semi-clandestinely introduced some kind of “covid-Martial Law” that overrules everything that is an otherwise Constitutional Right. We are in most of the western world a direct dictatorship. In most countries the Constitutional Amendment from “Democracy” to Dictatorship has happened clandestinely or at least semi-clandestinely. That’s what dictators do. Most of the people have no idea. Many of those who do know, don’t agree. They launch initiatives for new laws – that fall by the way side, because they have no teeth under a Martial Law-broken Constitution.

In Switzerland, the situation is slightly different, better of sorts. The Confederation Helvetica (CH) has a semi-direct Democracy. With 50,000 signatures, scrupulously verified for their validity, Swiss citizens can launch a referendum against a specific law. The referendum may eventually come to a popular vote, and a government/Parliament let law may be overruled. Though, this happens very rarely – the money lobby-propaganda is too strong – occasionally the people may have a chance. In these covid-times, it may actually happen.

We are currently undergoing the worst “tyrannification” of society in human history and in all western world countries. Covid-martial law overrules everything. This happened very fast. Within 18 months, from the beginning of 2020 to about mid-2021 citizens have basically no longer the very rights they could otherwise call as a human right. HRs have become worthless. In most cases police and military are under strict orders to obey. Those who don’t may lose their jobs, or worse.

Although, there are vivid and positive signs that the tides are turning. For example, at a London anti-covid-measures, anti-vaxx-certificates rally in London. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, Corona Committee, spoke via a huge video screen to the crowd on Trafalgar Square, tens of thousands of people, telling them that class actions suits are under way in the US, Canada, and that institutions and individuals, especially those responsible for the invalid PCR-tests, particularly in Europe and the US, that are the basis for governments lying about “cases”, serving to manipulate up-and-down the “infection” figures, leading to false numbers on hospitalization and death, about a virus that is less deadly than the common flu. Yes, you read correctly, less deadly than the common flu. This is the onset to Nuremberg 2.0 – where justice will prevail, as much as light prevails over darkness.

Dr. Fuellmich closed his talk on a positive and encouraging note.

It is humanity, versus inhumanity. We are human. We can laugh, cry, sing and hug. The other side can’t. The other side has no access to the spiritual side. Therefore, the other side, without any doubt, the inhuman side, will lose this inhuman battle for life….

See this 10-min video.

The transformation is beginning to take place. This is the health side, the human side, the most immediately important side – where real science is overcoming “bought” science, in order to avoid a genocide of biblical proportions – which is the eugenists plan, probably developing over the past about 100 years. However, there are two other, complementary plans which also need to be stopped.

The first one of the two is the digitization of everything. It is already descending upon humanity, had actually started already decades ago – and is now in its final round – just so as to coincide with the massive population reduction. It includes not only digitization of all forms of monetary transactions – which is rapidly pushing forward, through Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and most importantly, the vehicle to drive it all, the worldwide installation of 5G and soon to come 6G. This is foreseen to turn the entire globe into an electromagnetic field. And humans will be turned into “transhumans”, especially those that have survived the experimental, untested messenger spike protein injections called mRNA inoculations, falsely called “vaccines”.

This is not a joke. This is actually the plan already divulged in 2016 by Klaus Schwab, founder and forever CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in an interview with Swiss French TV broadcast, see this 2-min video:

According to Klaus Schwab’s “The Great Reset”, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots will soon rule the masses. By 2025, give or take a year or two, about half of today’s jobs will be run by AI. This electronic technology will in turn be ruled by some dirty-rich individuals, who somehow have given themselves the liberty to “run the world”. And we, the people, have let them.

They – the Deep Dark Statlers – call them Satanists – have planned this for about the last century. With great precision and intensity at times – and – what’s worse, much worse, right in front of our eyes. We have ignored them. Anybody who dared to draw attention to their evil machinations was dismissed with the convenient label “conspiracy theorist”.

Imagine, according to the Great Reset, half of our jobs will be taken over by AI, in just the next 5 years or so. By 2030, only about 5% to 10% of the current jobs will be existing and carried out by humans – maybe “transhumans”. All the others may be gone. Massive unemployment?  Maybe. But Schwab tries to tranquilize the world, saying that there will be new jobs for which newly unemployed people will be trained. They may be transhumans, because training is done by, and in partnership with, AI – and for the Epsilon People, the down-to-earth working class, robots will do the supervising.

This may sound depressing, despairing. It ain’t, if we think about the situation which we, pretty much on our own, have allowed to happen. It is not the end of the road, but only a stepping stone, onto which we too can step, when awakened – and not in anger, but with the bright spirit of light – a new world shaped by humans, shaped with the forces of light, Leaving the devil behind. Not even mentioning the beast. No letting it bother our minds. We are up to something much higher, much cleaner, clearer and much nobler. Our project is for humanity, for planet earth with all her sentient beings.

The simple model “Small is Beautiful” may be an appropriate vision forward. It may include another simple principle:
Local production for local consumption with local money, a local community run central bank working with a public banking system. Trade will be practiced with like-minded mostly neighboring sister countries, benefiting from comparative advantages. The money supply will be a reflection of the local economy. It will be backed by the local economy. Quite different from the current globalist-run fiat money pyramid.

This appears like a perfect recipe for de-globalization. And deglobalize we must. We must become again individuals that can and want to bond, not separate, individuals for whom solidarity is not just a term from a rusty vocabulary but means “we do it together”. This is the way to go, we will be satisfied with what we can achieve as a common, as a society with goals that serve the people, with values that do not depend on vertical growth, but rather reflect horizontal expansion of social infrastructure and well-being.

Let’s imagine a new type of economy with novel yardsticks – Happiness Indicators. Actually, not so novel, just not often talked about. In July 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy. The first Happiness report was issued by the UN in April 2012.

If we are able to abandon the magical concept of “growth” and exchange it for happiness, we not only protect and preserve Mother Earth but will also preserve our human health – our sanity. Our today’s society is sick. It strives for ever more growth, for more possessions, for more affluence, for more control – but happiness that is the basis for a healthy life – is but an abstract term in today’s business-driven world. Happiness is more often than not confused with material wealth.

The no-growth, but social growth concept, is the basis for our escaping from the globalist agenda.

Human wealth comes from the heart. And it is through the heart that we may pass it on, replicate it. How does one define Happiness? There surely is no blueprint for happiness, as we are moving away from the all-modelled sets of values, away from the “musts” and the “Must-nots”.

The website “LifeHack.org” offers a few definitions of Happiness. Among them, the following two:

Happy people find balance in their lives. Folks who are happy have this in common: they’re content with what they have, and don’t waste a whole lot of time worrying and stressing over things they don’t. Unhappy people do the opposite: they spend too much time thinking about what they don’t have,; and,

According to the Dalai Lama, Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. And let me add, from our actions driven by our heart and soul.

The General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 66/281 of 12 July 2012 proclaimed 20 March the International Day of Happiness recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world.

How does the UN define “Happiness”? Happiness is not contained in GDP, and less in GDP growth. To the contrary. It’s most important that we start detaching from material wealth, that we see the moral and friendship wealth in our society. That we see and strive for equality, inclusion, solidarity – that we learn to smile at each other, even in adverse situations. This requires an elevated spirit, a mentality of light that defeats satanic darkness.

Happy people abide by the golden rule: They let stuff go. Happy people realize this, are able to take things in stride, and move on – without fear.

That’s what we have to do – shed the fear – and move on, in a higher spiritual mode, floating out of the darkness into the light. It’s possible. Let’s give it a collective try. ‘They’ are blackmailing us into accepting the poisonous jab they fraudulently call vaccine. They may go as far as blocking us from getting food, from entering supermarkets without the vaccine certificate – or getting the test every time you need food. – No worries. They won’t succeed.

Is this ever-more encroaching human rights abuse-tyranny a malicious provocation? See this.

Are they on purpose driving people to the edge? To provoke a revolution? And bring in NATO and maybe even UN troops to subdue the upheavals, personal freedoms, national sovereignty – and even national borders towards a globalist world, a One World Order, a One Government world, led by the WEF and the club of billionaires directed by a satanic cult?

It is possible. But we are stronger. We will defeat this evil cult. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich et al, from the Corona Council, has already launched class action suits in Canada and the US and is taking legal actions against EU institutions and individuals. The tide is turning. Of course, you will not read or hear about it in the mainstream media.

Think small. Think community – your community, think self-sufficiency as much as possible. Think local production for local consumption with local money and local banks for the wellbeing of all within the community. Think trading with friends and with think-alike nations, societies, people.

We shall overcome – and we will.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky: Truthteller Extraordinaire

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By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

History teaches us that eventually the fog of propaganda, no matter how thick and unrelenting, is dissipated by the sun of truth.

Not really: By truthtellers such as Michel Chossudovsky.

It often takes decades or much longer for that to happen and even then it takes openness of mind and spirit to accept it in all its disturbing reality, for propaganda often enters into the deepest recesses of the mind and soul and many find they must forever defend it even when it is patently exposed.  Even if the truth is finally accepted, however, the damage has been done.

Presently, we are far along the path to worldwide totalitarianism as a result of the corona crisis, what is euphemistically called the “New Normal.”  As C. J. Hopkins, a wise analyzer of this pathological development, has said:

We have watched as the New Normal transformed our societies into paranoid, pathologized, authoritarian dystopias where people now have to show their “papers” to see a movie or get a cup of coffee and publicly   display their ideological conformity to enter a supermarket and buy their groceries.

This crackdown on freedom and the growth of elite control has dramatically accelerated in recent days and only those blind to history refuse to see it.  It’s an old story with a new twist; create enough fear – this time with a virus – and many people will bow to the authorities. Censor dissenting voices and many will make believe it isn’t happening and that their freedoms are not at risk.  The great psychoanalyst and sociologist Erich Fromm called this refusal the “escape from freedom.”  This perennial human tendency to submit to authority whose lust for power is equally never-ending is only thwarted by the unquenchable thirst for freedom exhibited by courageous freedom fighters.

Michel Chossudovsky is a freedom fighter.

In the case of the corona crisis propaganda campaign, the truth has been available nearly from the start, and Chossudovsky, with his website Global Research, has been one of the most unrelenting voices of sanity and freedom.

Global Research has for decades been on top of the most important issues of our times, from the events of September 11, 2001 through the Iraq War, the endless so-called war on terror, the U.S. wars on Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Serbia, Palestine, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, etc., the multiple financial crises, CIA coups and assassinations of domestic and foreign leaders, the new Cold wars against Russia and China, right up to today’s world-wide covid propaganda war.

Started by Michel Chossudovsky on September 9, 2001, the website is part of The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which is an independent research and media organization based in Montreal, Canada.

Global Research has been a beacon of light for twenty dark years.  It has ignored no topic, no matter how controversial.  It has published an enormous amount of writing and research by many writers, exploring matters from multiple viewpoints, including conflicting ones.  Like any website that posts an enormous amount to engender debate, the quality of the articles varies, but on average it is very high.  Chossudovsky’s own writing has been outstanding and comprehensive.

Starting in January 2020, at the start of the corona crisis, he has been assiduously tracking its development in article after article. (Other contributors, such as Peter Koenig, et al., have also published very important work on the crisis at GR.)  Michel’s work (he is my friend and colleague and I am a long-time contributor) on this is similar to what he has done for twenty years since the murderous events of September 11, 2001 and the official propaganda about them. Global Research is a deep repository of research and writing exposing the official lies about those attacks.

In December 2020, he released a free E-Book of his corona crisis writings and has continually updated it, the last being on July 27, 2021.  In addition, he continues to write regular powerful articles on the corona propaganda and other matters.

What follows is a short quasi-review of Chossudovsky’s extraordinary contribution to exposing the vast official lies surrounding COVID-19. I say quasi because it will serve no purpose to repeat much of what he writes. Like all true gifts, his E-Book is given freely, but in the spirit of genuine gift exchange, readers of it should pass it on to others, for we are at a world-wide turning-point that has few if any precedents.  If you doubt that, a reading of his work will disabuse you of your reticence in recognizing its reality.  He introduces the book with these words:

We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in World history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the sequence of events since January 2020 has been blurred.  Worldwide, people have been misled both by their governments and the media as to the causes and devastating consequences of the Covid-19 “pandemic”. The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext and a justification to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of mass unemployment, bankruptcy, extreme poverty and despair. More than 7 billion people Worldwide are directly or indirectly affected by the corona crisis.

It’s the powerful financiers and billionaires who are behind this project which has contributed to the destabilization (Worldwide) of the real economy. And there is ample evidence that the decision to close down a national economy (resulting in poverty and unemployment) will inevitably have an impact on patterns of morbidity and mortality. 

Since early February 2020, the Super Rich have cashed in on billions of dollars.

Amply documented, it’s the largest redistribution of global wealth in World history, accompanied by a process of Worldwide impoverishment. 

Those are strong words, but they are accurate.  Perhaps even an understatement.  For we have now entered the phase of this crisis where the authorities have tripled their efforts at intimidation and fear-mongering to coerce those whom Anthony Fauci recently called “the recalcitrant ones” to submit to their control.

Obey or else is being shouted daily from the corporate media’s headlines, even as they report a mélange of facts that contradict their own claims in a stupefying display of intentionally created chaos.  Their method is to fragment and polarize populations while openly announcing their intentions to mock the public who can still think and choose to do their own research.  Those who fail to do so now and simply accept the authorities propaganda will bear a heavy burden of guilt in the years to come.

Chossudovsky’s E-Book will be an eye-opener for those who have not yet faced the facts.  He chronicles the historical evolution of the corona crisis from its start and provides a timeline; explains clearly what Covid-19 and SARS-CoV-2 are, how they are allegedly identified and estimated; lays out its devastating mental, economic and financial consequences; shows how its lockdowns have produced mass worldwide poverty and unemployment and enriched billionaires, etc.

All this based on fraudulent PCR tests, fake statistics of “cases” and deaths from Covid-19, and the promotion of experimental and unapproved so-called vaccines that are in reality very dangerous “messenger” mRNA shots that are being mandated across the board.

To what end?  A high-tech digital dystopia controlled by and for the interests of the world’s wealthiest ruling elites.  Regular people need to reject their seductive lies, for they will find that they themselves, if they have bought into the vaccine propaganda, have already seen their numbers reduced by a demonic plan created by evil nihilists.

A reading of – and a watching of the videos included – in this E-Book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined.

Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place.  And if you find what I say here to be true, support Global Research in its twentieth anniversary year. It was right about 9/11, Iraq, the war on terror, etc., and is right again about the Corona Crisis.

That is quite a legacy in twenty young years.

Leaked Document Reveals ‘Shocking’ Terms of Pfizer’s International Vaccine Agreements

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Dr. Joseph Mercola

Source: Covert Geopolitics

Vaccine purchasers must “indemnify, defend and hold harmless Pfizer … from and against any and all suits, claims, actions, demands, losses, damages, liabilities, settlements, penalties, fines, costs and expenses … arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the vaccine.”

  • A leaked document broken down by Twitter user Ehden reveals the shocking terms of Pfizer’s international COVID-19 vaccine agreements.
  • Countries that purchase Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot must acknowledge that “Pfizer’s efforts to develop and manufacture the product” are “subject to significant risks and uncertainties.”
  • In the event that a drug or other treatment comes out that can prevent, treat or cure COVID-19, the agreement stands, and the country must follow through with their vaccine order.
  • While COVID-19 vaccines are “free” to receive in the U.S., they’re being paid for by taxpayer dollars at a rate of $19.50 per dose — Albania, the leaked contract revealed, paid $12 per dose.
  • The purchaser of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine must also acknowledge two facts that have largely been brushed under the rug: both their efficacy and risks are unknown.
  • Purchasers must also “indemnify, defend and hold harmless Pfizer … from and against any and all suits, claims, actions, demands, losses, damages, liabilities, settlements, penalties, fines, costs and expenses … arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the Vaccine.”

Vaccine makers have nothing to lose by marketing their experimental COVID-19 shots, even if they cause serious injury and death, as they enjoy full indemnity against injuries occurring from COVID-19 vaccines or any other pandemic vaccine under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, passed in the U.S. in 2005.

The full extent of their COVID-19 vaccine indemnification agreements with countries, however, is a closely guarded secret, one that has remained highly confidential — until now. A leaked document broken down by Twitter user Ehden reveals the shocking terms of Pfizer’s international COVID-19 vaccine agreements.

“These agreements are confidential, but luckily one country did not protect the contract document well enough, so I managed to get a hold of a copy,” he wrote. “As you are about to see, there is a good reason why Pfizer was fighting to hide the details of these contracts.”

An ironclad agreement, all on Pfizer’s terms

The alleged indemnification agreement, reportedly between Pfizer and Albania, was originally posted in snippets on Twitter, but Twitter now has them marked as “unavailable.” Copies of the tweets are available on Treadreader, however.

The Albania agreement appears very similar to another contract, published online, between Pfizer and the Dominican Republic. It covers not only COVID-19 vaccines, but any product that enhances the use or effects of such vaccines.

Countries that purchase Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot must acknowledge that “Pfizer’s efforts to develop and manufacture the Product” are “subject to significant risks and uncertainties.”

And in the event that a drug or other treatment comes out that can prevent, treat or cure COVID-19, the agreement stands, and the country must follow through with their order. Ivermectin, for instance, is not only safe, inexpensive and widely available but has been found to reduce COVID-19 mortality by 81%. Yet, it continues to be ignored in favor of more expensive, and less effective, treatments and mass experimental vaccination.

“If you were wondering why #Ivermectin was suppressed,” Ehden wrote, “well, it is because the agreement that countries had with Pfizer does not allow them to escape their contract, which states that even if a drug will be found to treat COVID19 the contract cannot be voided.”

Even if Pfizer fails to deliver vaccine doses within their estimated delivery period, the purchaser may not cancel the order. Further, Pfizer can make adjustments to the number of contracted doses and their delivery schedule, “based on principles to be determined by Pfizer,” and the country buying the vaccines must “agree to any revision.”

It doesn’t matter if the vaccines are delivered severely late, even at a point when they’re no longer needed, as it’s made clear that “Under no circumstances will Pfizer be subject to or liable for any late delivery penalties.” As you might suspect, the contract also forbids returns “under any circumstances.”

The big secret: Pfizer charged U.S. More Than Other Countries

While COVID-19 vaccines are “free” to receive in the U.S., they’re being paid for by taxpayer dollars at a rate of $19.5011 per dose. Albania, the leaked contract revealed, paid $12 per dose, while the EU paid $14.70 per shot. While charging different prices to different purchases is common in the drug industry, it’s often frowned upon.

In the case of the price disparity between the U.S. and the EU, Pfizer is said to have given a price break to the EU because it financially supported the development of their COVID-19 vaccine. Still, Ehden noted, “U.S. taxpayers got screwed by Pfizer, probably also Israel.” Also, Pfizer makes a point to note that countries have no right to withhold payment to the company for any reason.

Apparently, this includes in the case of receiving damaged goods. Purchasers of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines are not entitled to reject them “based on service complaints,” unless they do not conform to specifications or the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice regulations. And, Ehden adds, “This agreement is above any local law of the state.”

While the purchaser has virtually no way of canceling the contract, Pfizer can terminate the agreement in the event of a “material breach” of any term in their contract.

Safety and efficacy ‘not currently known’

The purchaser of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine must also acknowledge two facts that have largely been brushed under the rug: Both their efficacy and risks are unknown. According to section 5.5 of the contract:

“Purchaser acknowledges that the Vaccine and materials related to the Vaccine, and their components and constituent materials are being rapidly developed due to the emergency circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be studied after provision of the Vaccine to Purchaser under this Agreement.

“Purchaser further acknowledges that the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known and that there may be adverse effects of the Vaccine that are not currently known.”

Indemnification by the purchaser is also explicitly required by the contract, which states, under section 8.1:

“Purchaser hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Pfizer, BioNTech, each of their Affiliates, contractors, sub-contractors, licensors, licensees, sub-licensees, distributors, contract manufacturers, services providers, clinical trial researchers, third parties to whom Pfizer or BioNTech or any of their respective Affiliates may directly or indirectly owe an indemnity based on the research …

“from and against any and all suits, claims, actions, demands, losses, damages, liabilities, settlements, penalties, fines, costs and expenses (including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys’ fees and other expenses of an investigation or litigation … arising out of, relating to, or resulting from the Vaccine …”

Meanwhile, the purchaser must also keep the terms of the contract confidential for a period of 10 years.

Purchasers must protect and defend Pfizer

Not only does Pfizer have total indemnification, but there’s also a section in the contract titled, “Assumption of Defense by Purchaser,” which states that in the event Pfizer suffers losses for which it is seeking indemnification, the purchaser “shall promptly assume conduct and control of the defense of such Indemnified Claims on behalf of the Indemnitee with counsel acceptable to Indemnitee(s), whether or not the Indemnified Claim is rightfully brought.” Ehden notes:

“Pfizer is making sure the country will pay for everything: ‘Costs and expenses, including … fees and disbursements of counsel, incurred by the Indemnitee(s) in connection with any Indemnified Claim shall be reimbursed on a quarterly basis by Purchaser.’”

Buried in the March 17, 2020, Federal Register — the daily journal of the U.S. government — in a document titled, “Declaration Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act for Medical Countermeasures Against COVID-19,” is language that establishes a new COVID-19 vaccine court — similar to the federal vaccine court that already exists.

In the U.S., vaccine makers already enjoy full indemnity against injuries occurring from this or any other pandemic vaccine under the PREP Act. If you’re injured by a COVID vaccine (or a select group of other vaccines designated under the act), you’d have to file a compensation claim with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which is funded by U.S. taxpayers via Congressional appropriation to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

While similar to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), which applies to nonpandemic vaccines, the CICP is even less generous when it comes to compensation. As reported by Dr. Meryl Nass,25 the maximum payout you can receive — even in cases of permanent disability or death — is $250,000 per person; however, you’d have to exhaust your private insurance policy before the CICP gives you a dime.

The CICP also has a one-year statute of limitations, so you have to act quickly, which is also difficult since it’s unknown if long-term effects could occur more than a year later.

Pfizer accused of abuse of power

As is apparent in Pfizer’s confidential contract with Albania, the drug giant wants governments to guarantee the company will be compensated for any expenses resulting from injury lawsuits against it. Pfizer has also demanded that countries put up sovereign assets, including bank reserves, military bases and embassy buildings, as collateral for expected vaccine injury lawsuits resulting from its COVID-19 inoculation.

New Delhi-based World Is One News (WION) reported in February 2021 that Brazil rejected Pfizer’s demands, calling them “abusive.” The demands included that Brazil:

  1. “Waives sovereignty of its assets abroad in favor of Pfizer.”
  2. Not apply its domestic laws to the company.
  3. Not penalize Pfizer for vaccine delivery delays.
  4. Exempt Pfizer from all civil liability for side effects.

STAT News also referred to concerns by legal experts, who also suggested Pfizer’s demands were an abuse of power. Mark Eccleston-Turner, a lecturer in global health law at Keele University in England, told STAT:

“[Pfizer] is trying to eke out as much profit and minimize its risk at every juncture with this vaccine development then this vaccine rollout. Now, the vaccine development has been heavily subsidized already. So there’s very minimal risk for the manufacturer involved there.”

Signs of COVID vaccine failure, adverse effects rise

Pfizer continues to sign lucrative secret vaccine deals across the globe. In June 2021, they signed one of their biggest contracts to date — with the Philippine government for 40 million doses.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 “breakthrough cases,” which used to be called vaccine failures, are on the rise. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of July 19, 5,914 people who had been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 were hospitalized or died from COVID-19.

In the U.K., as of July 15, 87.5% of the adult population had received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 67.1% had received two. Yet, symptomatic cases among partially and fully vaccinated are on the rise, with an average of 15,537 new infections a day being detected, a 40% increase from the week before.

In a July 19 report from the CDC, the agency also reported that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had received 12,313 reports of death among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine — more than doubling from the 6,079 reports of death from the week before.

Soon after the report, however, they reverted the number to the 6,079 from the week before, indicating by default that no deaths from the vaccine had occurred that week,34 raising serious questions about transparency and vaccine safety.

Many other adverse events are also appearing, ranging from risks from the biologically active SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the vaccine to blood clots, reproductive toxicity and myocarditis(heart inflammation). As you can see in the confidential indemnification agreements, however, even if the vaccine turns out to be a dismal failure — and a risk to short- and long-term health — countries have no recourse, nor does anyone who received the experimental shots.

One question that we should all be asking is this: If the COVID-19 vaccines are, in fact, as safe and effective as the manufacturers claim, why do they require this level of indemnification?

MASS PSYCHOSIS – HOW AN ENTIRE POPULATION BECOMES MENTALLY ILL

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By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

“Mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of reality loses touch with reality and descends into illusions.”

When most people hear the term mass psychosis they think that it applies to everyone else but themselves. In the reality we’re sharing, however, we are all heavily influenced by the same negative forces, which have been assaulting the public psyche for decades now, and have only become increasingly more scientific and efficient in their ability to covertly influence the subconscious mind.

We are all targets in a war that aims to kill the mind, and cut it off from the ability to engage in rational thought and logical, reasonable discourse.

“Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot. It confuses those who think straight.”

In my quest to understand what is happening to people as a result of the mass-conditioning, mind-control and indoctrination oozing from every seam of our society, I’ve found that in order to root these forces out of your own mind, you can equip yourself with the same tools used against you, namely the reprogramming of the subconscious mind.

With the situation we are in now, we cannot expect for the current trends in media, propaganda and censorship to change in our favor any time soon. If we don’t turn the light of truth onto our own lives, we risk being swept away with the herd, going along just to be part of a tribe that only keeps you unhealthy, dysfunctional and afraid.

The following presentation does a helpful job of distilling the historical and philosophical understanding of what mass psychosis is, and how it manifests in our world as the most devastating social disasters and tragedies.

As a self-mastery coach, I help individuals ferret out the delusions that have been constructed in their own lives by their personal history and by the cultural influences hounding us to conform and join in the panic. They want us to lose touch with reality, therefore, we have to fight back by seizing total control of our own minds, bodies and behaviors.

Totalitarianism is on our door step. It is the obliteration of the individual. Your weapon in this war is your unique individuality, and when you step fully into this possibility, you become, simply, ungovernable and unencumbered by the forces tearing this society apart. If you’d like help in seeing how these forces are compelling you to sabotage your own life and never pursue the path of self mastery, contact me here. I love helping people remember who they really are amongst this insane backdrop of mass psychosis.

Saturday Matinee: Meet the Patels

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Review by Odie Henderson

Source: RogerEbert.com

The documentary “Meet the Patels” bills itself as a real-life romantic comedy. It embraces this notion by interspersing its subject’s quest for love with clips from successful examples of the rom-com genre. For this is the story of a man out to find a soulmate, and the film dramatically hinges on the outcome. While his camera-wielding sister films his quest, he is aided and abetted by his parents in scenes that all but guarantee a Hollywood remake. They can even get this film’s subject, actor-director Ravi Patel, to play himself.

Ravi’s older sister, Geeta, directs “Meet the Patels” with a tone of mischief recognizable to anyone who has a sibling. You can hear her laughing behind the camera at Ravi’s mistakes, and at one point she calls him an idiot with a mixture of love and disdain. She keeps Ravi’s biggest secret from her parents (but not from us). When he goes off on tangents, Geeta brings him back to the topic at hand. And though very supportive, she never lets him off the hook. She even pulls an older sibling’s “for your own good” move that is the film’s strongest moment: The documentarian in her overrides her brother’s reasonable request to shut the camera off. She shuts it off, but sneakily turns it back on, capturing a moment of high drama.

This probably sounds like someone’s home movies—Ravi jokes about this by pointing out the occasionally present boom mike and the shaky framing of some scenes—but “Meet the Patels” is about more than Geeta’s family. It tells a culturally specific story about love and marriage. Additionally, it speaks to the generational struggles over tradition and societal expectations, highlighting that children often have different ideas about life than their parents. These are universal subjects, so one does not have to be of Indian descent to appreciate “Meet the Patels.” You’ll either learn something new or nod your head with amused familiarity.

Geeta and Ravi are the unmarried children of Vasant and Champa Patel. Their single status is of concern to their father and a major point of ironic aggravation for their Mom. Mrs. Patel, who steals this movie from her son, has an unmatched reputation as a matchmaker, yet like a psychic she can’t use her powers for her own benefit. On a trip back to the area from which his parents emigrated, the question of marriage is on everyone’s mind. People already know of Ravi’s marital status, and every other person then tries to hook him up. “Think of that annoying relative who is always up in your business,” Ravi says. “Now imagine an entire village full of that person.”

With so much pressure to get married (“after a certain age, a single status becomes a code red,” Ravi warns), one can understand why Mrs. Patel has agita over her lack of grandchildren. When “Meet the Patels” opens, Ravi has just broken up with Audrey, a White woman he has been keeping from his parents for the past two years. It seems like she’s the one, but Ravi knows this relationship is controversial. Feeling the pull toward the expected tradition of marrying an Indian woman, Ravi finally decided to use his Mom’s services. This yearlong, cross-country search takes up most of the film.

Mr. Patel tells his son that Mrs. Patel was the twelfth woman his family introduced him to, and their one date before marriage consisted of a chaperoned visit where his future wife said very little. “There was a guy there, so no hanky-panky!” Mr. Patel says of his date. “Things are different now. You can go on multiple dates before deciding.” Ravi goes on date after date, none successful. When Geeta nonchalantly mentions that she’s gone on 200 dates without success, Ravi tells her she should be in front of the camera instead of him. Perhaps for the sequel.

Multiple dates may be ok, but some rules haven’t changed. As if finding a mate weren’t difficult enough, for Ravi and Geeta, It is strongly preferred that they find another Patel. If they chose one from India, there is also a geographical restriction regarding where one can find another Patel. I found this section fascinating, especially the sense of fraternity that accompanied one’s last name. If you’re a Patel, any other Patel will welcome you as if you were family, even if your interaction is temporary. There’s a hilarious animated vignette at an American motel where Mr. Patel’s driver’s license becomes a golden ticket for services the motel would never offer regular patrons. If only this fraternity/exclusive club thing worked for me with other Hendersons!

But I digress. In today’s Indian culture, the matchmaking game has been upped exponentially. Now there are websites and conferences devoted to getting one betrothed. The technology follows the standard rules for matchmaking. The most fascinating piece of non-technical marketing assistance is the biodata, a sort of personal resume that, like an employment resume, is usually full of bent truths. “I’ve never even seen my biodata!” one talking head reveals. “It creates a rosy picture of you that’s not you,” says another. 

On the biodata is a specific detail that took “Meet the Patels” to another place for me. Reading his own biodata, Ravi mentions “skin tone, wheatish brown.” He then lists other descriptions of brown skin, all of which are explicit about skewering toward the lighter shades. “The lighter you are, the more attractive you are,” one of the interviewees tells us. “Good luck finding a mate for your dark daughter with the pH.D!” Ravi jokes. We learn that some people buy skin-lightening cream or keep their kids out of the Sun so they can stay “wheatish brown.”

Now, as a brown person myself, I could not let the notion escape my head that, like my people, Indians have a “paper bag test”. It was a darkly funny revelation that, regardless of race, if you were brown you had to deal with both society at large and your own crew in this regard. “Meet the Patels” sneaks up on you with these mentions and subtle explorations of intraracial and interracial bias, and it does so without destroying the film’s light tone.

Like the rom-coms it emulates, the ending of “Meet the Patels” is never in doubt. But this film is about the journey, not the destination. I liked how, during the film, your allegiances change back and forth. Sometimes I agreed with the parents, sometimes with Ravi, and at times I grew irritated with both of them. If there’s a flaw, it’s in how the film presents the women Ravi encounters. There’s a detachment that doesn’t often work. Many times, Ravi comes off as shallow in regard to these women he’s meeting, and the dates all tend to blur together. I also wish I’d known more about his relationship with Audrey; the lack of this information makes the ending feel rushed.

Those issues aside, “Meet the Patels” is still a charming, informative and funny documentary.