Two for Tuesday
Reply
Category Archives: culture
What Will You Say When Millions Of People Starve To Death?
By Michael Snyder
Source: End of the American Dream
For a long time, those of us that were claiming that a global famine was coming were widely mocked.┬а The skeptics could see the exact same trends that everyone else could see, but they just assumed that we would find a way to muddle through somehow.┬а So they didnтАЩt want to listen to common sense, and they werenтАЩt interested in warnings from тАЬgloom and doomersтАЭ┬аsuch as myself.┬а But I donтАЩt consider myself to be a тАЬdoom and gloomerтАЭ because I am actually a very optimistic person.┬а I am so excited to be living during this time in human history, but I also know that very difficult times are ahead of us.┬а One of the major trends that I keep writing about over and over is famine, because the truth is that there simply is not going to be enough food for everyone on the planet in 2023 and beyond.┬а Of course the mainstream media is also starting to issue similar warnings.┬а For example, the following comes from┬аa Yahoo News article entitled┬атАЬMillions in East Africa face starvation due to droughtтАЭтАж
The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that millions of people in East Africa face the threat of starvation. Speaking at a media briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that drought, climate change, rising prices and an ongoing civil war in northern Ethiopia are all contributing to worsening food insecurity.
Over 50 million people in East Africa will face acute food insecurity this year, a study from late July by the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization found. Roughly 7 million children are suffering from malnourishment and, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, hundreds of thousands are leaving their homes in search of food or livelihoods. Affected countries include Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.
In Somalia, authorities are projecting that vegetable and grain production will┬атАЬdrop by about 80% this yearтАЭ┬аdue to the endless drought that they are currently experiencing.
Millions of precious people in Africa are facing imminent starvation. But most of us in the western world donтАЩt care, because our grocery stores are still full of food.
If you are one of those people that are choosing to ignore what is happening on the other side of the planet, you can afford to be cocky for now.
But conditions are starting to change here too.
Earlier today, I came across an excellent article about how the multi-year megadrought in the western half of the country is absolutely devastating the ranching industryтАж
The megadrought in the Western U.S., the regionтАЩs worst in 1,200 years, is threatening AmericaтАЩs cattle heartland: withering pastures, wrecking feed harvests and endangering a quintessential way of life.
The drought is forcing ranchers here in Texas and across the Southern plains to make an agonizing decision: Sell early now for less money than they planned on тАФ or hold on, pray for rain and risk losing everything.
Sadly, more ranchers are deciding to sell off cattle with each passing day.
If you can believe it, the rate at which cattle are being sold is now 120 percent above last yearтАЩs levelтАж
Over the last two weeks of July, the national cattle sale rate also jumped to 120 percent above 2021 levels тАФ an average that reporting by The Hill and KAMR suggested conceals even higher frenzies of sales in some markets.
What this means is that lots of beef is coming on to the market.
Beef prices had been soaring, but in the short-term all of the cattle that are being slaughtered will help to moderate prices.
However, the outlook for 2023 is grim. The national cattle herd just keeps getting smaller and smaller, and some beef producers in Oklahoma are now predicting that ground beef тАЬcould eventually top $50 per poundтАЭтАж
Thanks to the unending economic symptoms of the pandemic and 2022тАЩs inflation double-punch, average beef prices are currently about twice what they were in 2019. Add in the deepening widespread drought, a shortage of hay and feed, skyrocketing prices, transport costs, and various other metrics, some Southwest Oklahoma beef producers suggest cheap ground beef could eventually top $50 per pound.
If the price of ground beef does reach 50 dollars a pound, what do you think our country will look like?
Needless to say, at that point there will be absolutely no debate about whether we are in a global food crisis or not.
And we are also being told that we could soon be facing shortages of potatoes and tomatoes. The following comes from Zero HedgeтАж
Days ago, we said the next food insecurity problem that may impact AmericansтАЩ eating habits could be an emerging potato shortage. Now there appears to be another issue: Tomatoes are getting squeezed, and risks of a ketchup shortage rise as a severe drought batter CaliforniaтАЩs farmland.
California accounts for a quarter of the worldтАЩs tomato output. The worst drought in 1,200 years has forced farmers to abandon fields as crops turn to dust amid a water crisis.
I recently wrote an entire article about the coming tomato shortage that you can find right here. Unless some rain comes along, the tomato crop in California this year is going to be absolutely disastrous.
So are you ready to eat less pizza because there isnтАЩt enough pizza sauce to go around?
And are you ready to pay twice as much for spaghetti sauce at the grocery store?
On top of everything else, we are also potentially facing an extremely painful shortage of cottonтАж
Intense drought has forced cotton farmers to abandon millions of acres that have produced so little cotton that they are no longer worth harvesting, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Farmers will harvest an estimated 7.13 million acres, abandoning approximately 5.35 million acres due to an ongoing drought hammering southern U.S. states, representing an estimated abandonment rate of 42.87%, according to the National Cotton Council of America, who based their analysis on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. This represents the smallest harvest by area since 1868, The Wall Street Journal reported.
What I have touched on in this article is just the tip of the iceberg.
Agricultural production is going to be way down all over the planet this year.
But we will surely find a way to тАЬmuddle throughтАЭ somehow, right?
If you have been a skeptic of reports of shortages and famine, it is time to wake up.
We really are staring an unprecedented global crisis right in the face, and the months ahead are going to be filled with pain.
Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
By Margaret Kimberley
Source: Black Agenda Report
Why would Black people laud the FBI or criticize protection against self-incrimination? The FBI search of Donald Trump’s home has reawakened Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Progressives love the FBI? Leftists embrace the Espionage Act? Of course, one man is responsible for this madness, and he is none other than Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States. The fallout from the FBI search conducted at TrumpтАЩs home shows the rank confusion spread by people who call themselves liberal but who are as dangerous as anyone on the right. From the moment that Trump announced the raid they were in full fascist mode, even as they claimed to be fighting fascism.
Trump did what he usually does, play fast and loose with the truth. Of all former presidents only he would ignore subpoenas and claim to have declassified documents when he hadnтАЩt done so. He canтАЩt get out of his own way and thus makes himself a target. But Democrats should know that the search is seen as nothing more than a personal attack against him. Millions of people who love Trump will love him all the more and conclude that the raid was meant to keep him from running for president again. Liberal dead-enders will be happy, but everyone else will say that something rotten was conducted at Mar a Lago.
Attorney General Merrick Garland says that the documents were subpoenaed but the former president didnтАЩt respond. The FBI search warrant states that the search encompassed three different issues: gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, which is part of the Espionage Act; concealment, removal, or mutilation concerning the handling of records and reports; and the destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy, which is part of a section dealing with obstruction of justice. The warrant also states a search for information on Roger Stone and on the President of France.
Aside from the item descriptions, no one knows what Trump had or what the FBI found. Leaks from the Justice Department indicate something about nuclear weapons, but no one knows what that means. The lack of information hasnтАЩt stopped the speculation which Trump always causes. There is conjecture that he was selling information to Russia or to Saudi Arabia or was plotting some other treason. There are even claims that documents were buried with his recently deceased ex-wife. It is fascinating that there can be so much guesswork about issues no one can know.
The years long Russiagate investigation is responsible for ordinarily sensible people losing their minds. Hardly anyone recalls that the charge of collusion was actually disproven, that Robert Mueller only indicted for process crimes, such as those which occur when people let down their guard and talk to the FBI. Most Americans who know the name Paul Manafort think he was a Russian spy but donтАЩt know that he went to jail for tax and bank fraud. Propaganda works very well when it is repeated over and over again.
Worse than the silly Trump inspired derangement is the way that those who call themselves left or progressive have chosen to defend federal law enforcement and bad legislation like the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act is a relic from the earliest days of the cold war, and Woodrow WilsonтАЩs infamous Palmer Raids which targeted the left for persecution and prosecution. Barack Obama used it more than all previous presidents combined in order to prosecute journalists who published what the state didnтАЩt want us to know. As for the FBI, its Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, created dissension in the liberation movement, targeted individuals for prosecution, spied on Martin Luther King and told him to commit suicide, and killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark among others. The FBI continues to use informants to entrap Black people in phony terror cases.
It is truly shameful to see Black people exalt the FBI and act as if punishing Trump is the organizing principle of all political activity. The Trump organization is also under investigation by the New York Attorney and the former president refused to answer questions put to him in a deposition. The right to remain silent is one of the most important in American law and should be used a lot more often. But copaganda television shows and Trump hatred have caused their own form of insanity, and his exercise of a fundamental right was widely lampooned. No one should ever be condemned for utilizing their fifth amendment right, not even Donald Trump.
Of course, this spectacle is also used to deflect from Biden administration failures. His approval rating is still low, for the simple reason that he didnтАЩt do what he claimed he would for American voters. He continues to pour public money into the losing effort in Ukraine and needlessly provokes Russia and China. But who is paying attention if there is speculation that Trump put files in IvanaтАЩs casket?
It is time to nip this foolishness in the bud before it goes any further. Trump should not live rent free in our collective consciousness any longer. He cannot be allowed to distract from the current presidentтАЩs actions or become a rallying point for politics which will inevitably be useless. No one has to follow TrumpтАЩs shenanigans any longer or allow the corporate media or the democratic party to make him their focus. Doing so only makes it harder to do the already hard work of recreating Black politics.
At the Lost and Found
By Edward Curtin
Source: Behind the Curtain
тАЬNothing is more real than nothing.тАЭ
Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
Those who are never lost are forever lost. Only those who know they are lost and that life is a shipwreck have a chance to find their way to shore.
The worldтАЩs great religions, including Taoism and Existential philosophy, understand that at the heart of human existence is the presence of the not (death, emptiness, void), but this negative reality, this тАЬnothingnessтАЭ interpenetrates with the positive of being alive so that our knowledge coincides with our ignorance, our lives with our death, and our truth with untruth. This is also common sense.
Everyone is a pilgrim on the way, and because there are no maps, we all get lost. And it is only by getting lost in a deep sense that we can find ourselves and discover the truth about the world.
It is well known that Ernest Hemingway made famous the phrase тАЬthe lost generationтАЭ when he opened his novel The Sun Also Rises with the epigram тАЬYou are all a lost generation,тАЭ attributed to Gertrude Stein, who said she heard it from a garage owner who said it about a young auto mechanic in his employ.
It is less well known that Hemingway later wrote тАЬthat all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be тАжBut to hell with her lost-generation talk and all the dirty easy labels.тАЭ
He was thinking of how the madness of war with the calls to patriotism and God and country and the never-ending official lies about everything maimed people at very deep levels. His words in A Farewell to Arms have lasted because they are so true in their dismissal of abstract obscenities and their embrace of the concrete:
I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain тАж. And I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards of Chicago if nothing were done with the meat except to bury it тАж. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
No doubt he was also thinking of the existential anxiety of being alive and the fear of death and nothingness that is conveyed in his powerful short story, тАЬA Clean Well-Lighted PlaceтАЭ that appeared in the 1930 volume Winner Take Nothing. He was well acquainted with nothing (the not, nada) and knew that social circumstances only add to it, particularly wars and the nihilistic death wishes of lying political leaders.
Some say nothing has changed for millennia and that every age is similar and people are the same, always complaining about the present and recalling the good old days. There is some truth in this, but the issue of assessing today in all its uniqueness remains paramount. For every age and every generation is different; therein lies its potential and dangers. Each can only be understood within its place and time. We live in the era of high technology that has never before existed. It is unique. And it is uniquely dangerous.
Today is a time of unprecedented official lies about everything, endless wars hot and cold, class wars of the rich against the poor, medical wars of international elites against everyone, etc. тАУ it is a daily electronic digital barrage meant to pound people into the deepest despair. Call it тАЬThe Lost World of the Information Superhighway.тАЭ These lies have sown a vast sense of bewilderment, as intended. Lostness for so many, including those who donтАЩt know it and take those lies for truth. People who donтАЩt know that there are still places, although they are shrinking, where truth can be found. The problem is, of course, that even when they are told about media sites and writers that operate honestly and outside the propaganda mill, they usually refuse to go there. They prefer to live inside what Jim Garrison, the former New Orleans District Attorney who brought the only trial in the assassination of President Kennedy, correctly termed тАЬthe DollтАЩs House.тАЭ
Picking through the bins at the lost and found on the Internet, which is dominated by intelligence services and their Silicon Valley big tech partners, many who feel lost find тАЬthingsтАЭ they think they have lost but which are counterfeit. They cling to them as to false gods, not realizing that they have been placed there by the elite mountebanks and their accomplices, a process similar to a document dump that contains fabricated records. It is an old trick. Often what is really lost is the sense that life makes sense and is meaningful, but this awareness is often replaced with shards of false reassurance meant to distract and far too much information for anyone to comprehend.
WhatтАЩs up? Check your cell phone and head down the primrose path to unreality.
Just as there are two senses to being lost, one based on the awareness that if we refuse to grasp at straws and proceed through life by faith, the unknown road will bear us up (Thoreau said, тАЬHow vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid itтАжтАЭ), and the other being the more socially induced one of incessant propaganda, so too there are two ways of thinking about nothing. The existential sense as described by Hemingway in his famous story mentioned above, and the sense of trivia or superficial preoccupations that distract. C.S. Lewis described the latter sense very well:
The Christians describe the enemy as one тАШwithout whom Nothing is strongтАЩ. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a manтАЩs best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
This is a perfect description of the passivity of scrolling the internet or social media. Much ado about absolutely nothing but distractions. Tranquilized by trivia.
Our current situation has been long in coming. Back in the early 1960s, there was a highly touted intellectual named Marshall McLuhan whose 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, was gobbled up by the baby boomers raised on television, whose rebellious members protested the inhumanity of IBM computer technology of that time. Ironically, it was members of this generation who later created the computer revolution and have promoted the digital revolution. They carry cell phones as sidearms to defend themselves from reality.
Newsweek called McLuhan тАЬthe oracle of the New Communications.тАЭ He was an obscurantic celebrator of the electronic media and retribalized man long before the Internet, cell phones, personal computers, and digital mania. McLuhanтАЩs paeans to technology sounded very profound and liberating with their vaguely Gnostic and Jungian rhetoric, which also fit with the 1960s тАЬvibes.тАЭ He called the electronic media our gods whom we must serve, for they in turn would liberate us. He gave life to things while taking it from persons. He wrote:
Electromagnetic technology requires utter human docility and quiescence of meditation such as befits an organism that now wears its brain outside its skull and its nerves outside its hide. Man must serve his electronic technology with the same servo-mechanistic fidelity with which he served his coracle, his canoe, his typography, and all other extensions of his physical organs. But there is this difference, that previous technologies were partial and fragmentary, and the electric is total and inclusive. An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness. [my emphases]
Clearly this was a message of a prescient religious crank: mystical, mythological, technological nonsense perfectly in tune with the dawning new age. Not any coming of the Age of Aquarius, however, but that of the Age of Digital Control and endless wars.
By turning the person inside out and giving life to things, McLuhan was certainly anticipating and promoting the developments of the past forty years. His ideas gave legitimacy to the passivity of the person in the face of the burgeoning mass media consumer culture. They supported the growing commodification of all aspects of life, especially people. By externalizing the person, McLuhan was eliminating the idea of the autonomous self and opening the way for todayтАЩs era of consumers, blank screens for the reception of advertising, public relations, and propaganda on a vast scale. In fact, what he wrote of television runs deeper for cell phones and computer screens. тАЬ тАж with TV,тАЭ he wrote, тАЬthe viewer is the screen. He is bombarded with light impulses that James Joyce called the тАШCharge of the Light BrigadeтАЩ that imbues his тАШsoulskin with subconscious inklings.тАЩ тАЬ
Inklings of abstract obscenities at war with the lost world of reality.
While many people sense this, they still embrace their killers, feeling that they would be lost without them. They have become appendages of their electronic appendages. The current push to transform all person-to-person life into a digital one run by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies with its mass surveillance powers is recognized by many but dismissed as a weird conspiracy. This is so far from the truth. A good indicator of this nonchalant attitude toward such developing trends is the vastly increased popularity of on-line shopping. Its innocence conceals the future that is coming.
I recently won a very high-tech looking electric toothbrush at the dentist. When I opened it, I discovered it contained a gadget with a suction cup that could hold a тАЬsmart phoneтАЭ that you could attach to the mirror. The phone could electronically be linked to the toothbrush and it would monitor your brushing as you watched yourself brush. Poor me, I felt so stupid: a man without a smart phone!
While everybody knows that the boat is leaking and the captain lied, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, such knowledge is abstract. It is a sort-of knowledge, sensed but also denied. Real but unreal. Known but unknown. And thatтАЩs how it goes. It is very difficult for many conventional people to admit that the life they have known is disappearing while they dawdle in fantasy land, believing the propaganda of their rulers. To live in the U.S.A. is to live in Neverland where no one ever has to be alone, never grow up, and always be тАЬin touchтАЭ through the ether. It is a country of lost children.
You can choose any issue of importance and its official explanation is certain to be untrue, obvious or subtle propaganda. The lies about Ukraine and Russia; Covid-19, lockdowns, and vaccines; China and Taiwan; U.S. forces in Syria and U.S. support for Israeli aggression against Syria and the Palestinians; its support for Saudi ArabiaтАЩs ruthless policies and war against Yemen; the economy, central banking, and inflation; the increasing censorship of dissident voices; digital IDs, digital programmable currencies, and social credit systems; the persecution of Julian Assange; the Great Reset; a series of binaries meant to suggest false alternatives, etc. The list is endless. All official lies to support a sinking ship captained by psychopathic liars seemingly intent on a world war that will destroy the world. MelvilleтАЩs Captain Ahab writ large. Like those traveling on the Titanic, todayтАЩs passengers on the flailing American empireтАЩs Good Ship Lollipop are in for a surprise, and it wonтАЩt be a sweet trip to a candy shop.
Hemingway was surely right that тАЬWinner Take Nothing.тАЭ Yet losers also exit empty-handed. Everybody knows this but goes on surrounding themselves with stuff, lots of things. Hoarders are a popular TV subject because they represent the extreme form of this madcap method of trying to secure oneself from loss. It is a form of mental and spiritual despair that could only exist in advanced capitalist consumer society. Too many possessions and too much information. Cluttered minds, cluttered abodes. There is a reason why the worldтАЩs poor are called the dispossessed. One could say hoarders are the possessed, and it is a form of demonic possession.
Recently I was called upon to help a hospitalized elderly relative by checking on her house. The house is filled from attic to basement, in every nook and cranny, with collected things that serve no life purpose but were kept to provide a security blanket that was really a strangulation cord. I will spare you the details, except to say that this relative is an intelligent woman, as was her deceased husband, and yet they surrounded themselves with so much тАЬstuff,тАЭ never threw things out, kept papers from 70 years ago, old keys and coins, empty jewelry boxes by the score, etc. An overwhelming scene to behold. And why did they do this? Because they thought they were protecting themselves against loss, against nothing, nada.
As T. S. Eliot wrote in The Wasteland: тАЬThese fragments I have shored against my ruins.тАЭ But there is nothing that will protect against the loss Eliot was referring to тАУ the social, psychological, and spiritual fragmentation of Europe as a result of World War I. A wasteland created by politicians. Like today.
We too are now living in a wasteland, and the only way to find our way forward is to acknowledge that we are lost and to jettison the false security of believing the vast tapestry of lies promulgated by the captains of the American-led Titanic.
I often think of the words of the poet Rilke as good advice, a step in the right direction where there is a lost and found worth visiting and insights await us. While primarily writing about the artist who time and again is that someone who emerges from the crowd and whose тАЬwinged heart everywhere beats against the walls of their time,тАЭ I think his words apply to every person, including journalists. To plumb the depths of our sordid current world demands aesthetic, political, and spiritual resistance rooted in the open sociological imagination, a willingness to go wherever the facts and intuition leads us. Rilke said:
Not any self-control or self-limitation for the sake of specific ends, but rather a carefree letting go of oneself; not caution, but rather a wise blindness; not working to acquire silent, slowly increasing possessions, but rather a continuous squandering of all perishable values. This way of being has something na├пve and instinctive about it, and resembles that period of the unconscious best characterized by a joyous confidence, namely the period of childhood тАж. [the child] has no anxiety about losing things тАж. And whatever he has once been lit up in love remains as an image, never more to be lost, and the image is possession; that is why children are so rich.
For a country of lost children, this is a good place to start.
Saturday Matinee: Beasts Clawing at Straws
Director: Kim Young-Hoon
Cast: Jeon Do-Yeon, Jung Woo-Sung, Bae Sung-Woo, Youn Yuh-Jung, Jeong Man-Sik, Shin Hyun-Bin, Jung Ga-Ram, Jin Kyung, Park Ji-Hwan, Kim Joon-Han
Running Time: 108 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Source: City of Fire
Adapted from a Japanese novel by Keisuke Sone, Beasts Clawing at Straws marks the directorial debut of Kim Yong-hoon, who also penned the script after being impressed by the novels intertwining story. Onscreen itтАЩs easy to see why it made for a compelling big screen outing, as an impressively cast ensemble come together for an almost Shakespearean comedy of errors that focuses on 10 characters, all of whom are looking to get their hands on a Luis Vuitton bag stuffed with cash.
Taking place in the North Western harbour city of Pyeongtaek, giving the surrounds of Beasts Clawing at Straws a welcomely different aesthetic from the usual Seoul set thrillers, we initially meet a down on his luck bathhouse worker played by Bae Sung-woo (Metamorphosis, The Great Battle). LifeтАЩs been giving Sung-woo a tough time after going bankrupt, which isnтАЩt made any easier by living with his mother, played by Youn Yuh-jung (Minari, Keys to the Heart). Suffering from the onset of dementia, she feels sure his wife (Jin Kyung тАУ The Witness, Veteran) is trying to kill her, and matters are confounded further by their daughter having to take a break from studying to work so she can afford the tuition fees. Sung-woo and his family are fundamentally good people, the only ones in the entire cast, however when he finds the bag in question stuffed in one of the bathhouse lockers, the contents understandably prove hard to resist.
Meanwhile a frazzled immigration officer played by Jung Woo-sung (Steel Rain, Asura: City of Madness) is also in debt and being pressured to repay a vicious loan shark, played by Jung Man-sik (The Swordsman, Rampant). His limbs are on the line, and to make matters worse his girlfriend has disappeared, although in reality sheтАЩs running a hostess bar across town. Played by Jeon Do-yeon (The Shameless, Memories of the Sword), sheтАЩs always on the make and seems to be two steps ahead in whatever shifty deals are afoot. Working in the hostess bar is a newcomer played by Shin Hyun-bin (Seven Years of Night, Confidential Assignment), a character forced into the world of hostessing after she fell victim to a financial scam, but equally to get away from her abusive husband. When a Chinese customer (Jung Ga-ram тАУ The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale, Believer) falls for her, he offers to assist with getting rid of her violent spouse.
All of these disparate scenarios gradually end up connecting with each other in different ways across the 108 minute runtime, and for a first time director Yong-hoon does an amicable job of balancing them all in a way that lets us get to know each character just enough to be invested in them. While the synopsis may indicate that Sung-woo is as close as we get to a main character as the everyman who ends up out of his depth, onscreen we get to spend just as much time with Woo-sung as the immigration officer and Do-yeon as the hostess bar madame. ItтАЩs the first time for the pair to share the screen together, and as 2 of the most recognisable faces in Korean cinema for more than 20 years, itтАЩs a fitting vehicle to show off their talents. Woo-sung here is in the same hyper tense state that we saw him in Asura: City of Madness (although he doesnтАЩt end up half as bloodied), and itтАЩs undeniably fun to see him return to this kind of role.
As with almost any production she appears in though, itтАЩs Do-yeon that steals the show whenever sheтАЩs onscreen. One of the worldтАЩs best actresses, after recent appearances in disaster flicks like Ashfall and Emergency Declaration which offered solid but unremarkable roles, itтАЩs a real pleasure to see her here in a role fitting to her talents. Perhaps even more ruthless than the loan sharks who turn out to be as much on her tail as they do Woo-sungтАЩs, itтАЩs Do-yeonтАЩs character who lingers most in the memory as the end credits roll.
ItтАЩs also another of Do-yeonтАЩs movies that I was reminded of the most when watching Beasts Clawing at Straws, with the whole concept of various unsavoury characters in pursuit of a stash of dubiously acquired cash recalling Ryoo Seung-wanтАЩs 2002 crime caper No Blood No Tears. Yong-hoon employs a similar caper style feel to his debut, and despite the fact that characters repeatedly get killed off left right and centre (in various gruesome ways), the violence never feels like its breaking from the black comedy tone which is established from the outset. At its core itтАЩs a tale of dog-eat-dog, with each dog never knowing if thereтАЩs a bigger dog just around the corner, and itтАЩs a scenario which allows for a brisk pace and some unexpected surprises.
The tension is ratcheted up further by the arrival of a cop from Seoul looking into a dismembered body thatтАЩs washed ashore. Played by the always welcome Yoon Je-moon clocking in a special appearance, ironically the last time he clocked in a special appearance was also playing a cop alongside Jung Woo-sung in 2017тАЩs Asura: City of Madness. Je-moonтАЩs character, who seems just as keen on hanging out in the local hostess bars and downing a few beers, has a habit of turning up at the most inconvenient of times, pushing half the cast who are already on edge just that little bit closer to it. Indeed itтАЩs the concoction of the characters that populate the narrative that makes Beasts Clawing at Straws so much fun, with everyone suffering from some kind of bad luck, debt, or simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or right, depending on which way you look at it).
The biggest surprise that Yong-hoon has up his sleeve is that itтАЩs only revealed mid-way through that weтАЩre in fact watching a non-linear tale play out, and have been watching a number of timelines that are playing out concurrently rather than chronologically. ItтАЩs executed in an unassuming way, and shows off first time director Yong-hoonтАЩs strong grasp of storytelling, almost certainly making him a talent to watch out for in the future. Matched with the scripts unbiased approach to who gets killed off next, while thereтАЩs been countless movies that prove going after a bag stuffed with cash of unknown origin always turns out to be a bad idea, Beats Clawing at Straws does enough with the concept to keep it feeling fresh.
With that being said there are moments when Yong-hoonтАЩs inexperience shows through. In particular the plot thread involving Shin Hyun-binтАЩs rookie escort pairing with Jung Ga-ram as the customer that falls for her, and the subsequent sub-plot that sees Ga-ram offering to kill off her husband, feels undercooked. The scenario plays out, however in the end it doesnтАЩt feel particularly important to the overall plot, coming across more like an inconsequential aside that should have either been dropped or spent more time connecting to the bigger picture. Similarly for Youn Yuh-jung as the meddling and paranoid mother, whoтАЩs character ultimately just feels kind of there, but fails to serve any real purpose.
These are minor flaws though in whatтАЩs an undeniably fun movie, and itтАЩs easy to imagine the tagline for its western release going something alone the lines of тАЬNo Country for Old Men meets Pulp Fiction!тАЭ ThereтАЩs arguably traces of both the Coen Brothers and Quentin TarantinoтАЩs filmmaking DNA throughout both the tone and structure of Beasts Clawing at Straws, but Yong-hoonтАЩs success is that it never feels like itтАЩs being derivative of either. The distinctive locales of hostess bars, late night saunas, and scrappy apartments forever bathed in the neon of the surrounding nightlife mean thereтАЩs no question weтАЩre in Korean territory. With a healthy mix of black comedy, typically brutal violence, and colourful characters, the lesson on offer is one we should already know, but as a reminder to leave bags stuffed full of cash exactly where they are, Beasts Clawing at Straws is an entertaining one.
Watch Beasts Clawing at Straws on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15296509
More Billions to Ukraine as America Falls Apart
By Ron Paul
Source: Ron Paul Institute
There is a video clip making the rounds showing President Biden speaking at a recent NATO summit about the seven billion dollars the US government had – at that time – provided to Ukraine. Attached to that is another clip showing the horrific state of several US major cities, including in Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio. The video of American cities is shocking: endless landscapes of filth, trash, homelessness, open fires on the street, drug-addicted zombies. It doesnтАЩt look like the America most of us remember.
Watching Biden bragging about sending billions of dollars to corrupt leaders overseas with American cities looking like bombed-out Iraq or Libya is US foreign policy in a nutshell. The Washington elites tell the rest of America that they must тАЬpromote democracyтАЭ in some far-off land. Anyone who objects is considered in league with the appointed enemy of the day. Once it was Saddam, then Assad and Gaddafi. Now itтАЩs Putin. The game is the same, only the names are changed.
What is seldom asked, is what is in this deal for those Americans who suffer to pay for our interventionist foreign policy. Do they really think a working American in Ohio or Pennsylvania is better off or safer because we are supposedly protecting UkraineтАЩs borders? I think most Americans would wonder why they arenтАЩt bothering to protect our own borders.
A reported 200,000 illegals crossed the border into the US in July alone. You can believe they are learning quickly about the free money provided by the US government to illegals. TheyтАЩll probably get a voting card as well.
Last Friday the Pentagon announced that yet another $775 million would be sent to Ukraine. As Antiwar.com reported, it was the eighteenth weapons package to Ukraine in six months. Has there ever been a more idiotic US intervention in history?
Supporters of this proxy war may celebrate more aid to Ukraine, but the reality is that it is in no way aid to Ukraine. ThatтАЩs not how the system works. It is money created out of thin air by the Fed and appropriated by Congress to be spent propping up the politically-connected military-industrial complex. It is a big check written by middle America to rich people who run Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Americans watch their budget being stretched to the limit while the Beltway fat-cats loosen their belts to continue enjoying the gravy train.
Bloomberg reported earlier this summer that inflation is costing the average American household more than $5,200 this year. Inflation is a tax on middle class and poor Americans. The wealthy тАУ like those who run Raytheon and Lockheed Martin тАУ always get the new money first, before prices go up. The rest of us watch as the dollar buys less and less.
As Washington salivates over fighting Russia in Ukraine, the rest of America feels like weтАЩre becoming Zimbabwe. How long until it takes a trillion dollars for a loaf of bread? Will there be a run on wheelbarrows?
There is a way out. ItтАЩs called тАЬnon-interventionism.тАЭ The war in Ukraine was caused by the US regime change in 2014 and the neocon insistence that Ukraine join NATO. The State Department and CIA thought it was a great victory to overthrow the elected government, but meanwhile the rest of us get the bill. No NATO and not one more penny for Ukraine!
RNA for ModernaтАЩs Omicron Booster Manufactured by CIA-Linked Company
Since late last year, messenger RNA for ModernaтАЩs┬аCOVID-19 vaccines,┬аincluding┬аits recently reformulated┬аOmicron┬аbooster,┬аhas been┬аexclusively manufactured by a little known company with┬аsignificant┬аties to┬аUS intelligence.
By Whitney Webb
Source: Unlimited Hangout
Earlier this week, the United Kingdom became the first country to approve ModernaтАЩs reformulated version of its COVID-19 vaccine, which claims to provide protection against both the original form of the virus and the significantly less lethal but more transmissible Omicron variant. The product was approved by the UKтАЩs Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) with the support of the UK governmentтАЩs Commission on Human Medicines.
Described by UK officials as a тАЬsharpened toolтАЭ in the nationтАЩs continued vaccination campaign, the reformulated vaccine combines the previously approved COVID-19 vaccine with a тАЬvaccine candidateтАЭ targeting the Omicron variant BA.1. That vaccine candidate has never been previously approved and has not been the subject of independent study. The MHRA approved the vaccine based on a single, incomplete human trial currently being conducted by Moderna. The company promoted incomplete data from that trial in company press releases in June and July. The study has yet to be published in a medical journal or peer reviewed. No concerns have been raised by any regulatory agency, including the MHRA, regarding ModernaтАЩs past history of engaging in suspect and likely illegal activity in past product trials, including for its original COVID-19 vaccine.
The approval comes shortly before several Western countries, including the UK, plan to conduct a massive COVID-19 booster vaccination campaign this fall. Moderna has also noted that approval for its Omicron booster vaccine are pending in the US, EU, Australia and Canada тАУ all of which are also planning fall vaccination campaigns focused on COVID-19.┬аThe companyтАЩs CEO, St├йphane Bancel,┬аhas called┬аthe┬аreformulated┬аvaccine тАЬour lead candidate for a Fall 2022 booster.тАЭ
However, unlike the companyтАЩs original COVID-19 vaccine, the genetic material, or messenger RNA (mRNA), for this new vaccine, including the newly formulated genetic material meant to provide protection against the Omicron variant, is being manufactured, not by Moderna, but by a relatively new company that has received hardly any media attention, despite its overt links to US intelligence. Last September, it was quietly announced that a company called National Resilience (often referred to simply as Resilience) would begin manufacturing the mRNA for Moderna COVID-19 vaccine products. Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, тАЬResilience will produce mRNA for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at its facility in Mississauga, Ontario, for distribution worldwide.тАЭ
тАЬReinventing BiomanufacturingтАЭ
National Resilience was founded relatively recently, in November 2020, and describes itself as тАЬa manufacturing and technology company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines and protecting biopharmaceutical supply chains against disruption.тАЭ It has since been building тАЬa sustainable network of high-tech, end-to-end manufacturing solutions with the aim to ensure the medicines of today and tomorrow can be made quickly, safely, and at scale.тАЭ It furtherplans to тАЬreinvent biomanufacturingтАЭ and тАЬdemocratize access to medicines,тАЭ namely gene therapies, experimental vaccines and other тАЬmedicines of tomorrow.тАЭ
In pursuit of those goals, the company announced it would тАЬactively invest in developing powerful new technologies to manufacture complex medicines that are defining the future of therapeutics, including cell and gene therapies, viral vectors, vaccines, and proteins.тАЭ It was founded with the reported intention тАЬto build a better system for manufacturing complex medicines to fight deadly diseasesтАЭ as a way to improve post-COVID тАЬpandemic preparedness.тАЭ
The company┬аinitially┬аmarketed┬аits┬аmanufacturing capabilities┬аas тАЬthe Resilience platformтАЭ,┬аand┬аoffers principally тАЬRNA ModalitiesтАЭ, including RNA development for vaccines, gene editing and therapeutics; and тАЬVirus ProductionтАЭ, including viral vectors, oncolytic viruses (i.e. a virus engineered to preferentially attack cancer cells), viruses for use in vaccine development and gene-edited viruses for unspecified purposes. It is worth noting that, to date, many controversial тАЬgain-of-functionтАЭ experiments have justified modifying viruses for the same purposes as described by National ResilienceтАЩs Virus Production capabilities. In addition, National Resilience offers product formulations and other modalities, such as biologics and cell therapies, to its clientele and the тАЬVirus ProductionтАЭ of its website has since been removed.
National Resilience, being such a young company, has very few clients and there is little publicly available information on its manufacturing capabilities aside from the companyтАЩs website. The firm only acquired its first commercial manufacturing plant in March 2021, located in Boston, MA and purchased from Sanofi, followed shortly thereafter by the acquisition of another separate plant located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Makeovers were announced for the plants, but little is publicly known about their progress. Prior to the acquisitions, the company had been subleasing a Bay area facility in Fremont, California. Reporters were puzzled at the time as to why a company with roughly 700 employees at the time had acquired a total of 599,00 square feet of manufacturing space after having only emerged from stealth less than 6 months prior.
In April 2021, National Resilience acquired Ology Bioservices Inc., which had received a $37 million contract from the US military the previous November to develop an advanced anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment. This acquisition also provided National Resilience with its first Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory and the ability to manufacture cell and gene therapies, live viral vaccines and vectors and oncolytic viruses.
Despite being in the earliest stages of developing its тАЬrevolutionaryтАЭ manufacturing capabilities, National Resilience entered into a partnership with the Government of Canada in July of last year. Per that agreement, the Canadian government plans to invest CAD 199.2 million (about $154.9 million) into National ResilienceтАЩs Ontario-based subsidiary, Resilience Biotechnologies Inc. Most of those funds are destined for use in expanding the Ontario facility that Resilience acquired last March and which is now manufacturing the mRNA for ModernaтАЩs COVID-19 products. CanadaтАЩs Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Fran├зois-Philippe Champagne, asserted at the time that the investment would тАЬbuild future pandemic preparednessтАЭ and help тАЬto grow CanadaтАЩs life science ecosystem as an engine for our economic recovery.тАЭ More recently, in 2022, the company has announced a few new clients тАУ Takeda, Opus Genetics and the US Department of Defense.
According to National ResilienceтАЩs executives, the companyтАЩs ambitions apparently go far beyond manufacturing RNA and viruses. For instance, Resilience CEO Rahul Singhvi has claimed that the company is seeking to build тАЬthe worldтАЩs most advanced biopharmaceutical manufacturing ecosystem.тАЭ Yet, Singhvi has declined to offer much in the way of specifics when it comes to exactly how the company plans to become the planetтАЩs most elite biomanufacturing company.
In an interview with The San Francisco Business Times, Singhvi states that Resilience is looking to fill its massive manufacturing plants with тАЬtechnologies and people that can set and apply new standards for manufacturing cell therapies and gene therapies as well as RNA-based treatments.тАЭ Prior to Resilience, Singhvi was CEO of NovaVax and an operating partner at Flagship Pioneering, which played a major role in the creation and rise of Moderna.
Singhvi has further insisted that National Resilience is тАЬnot a therapeutics company, not a contractor and not a tools companyтАЭ and instead aims тАЬto boost production using the new therapeutic modalitiesтАЭ such as RNA-based treatments, which have become normalized in the COVID-19 era. Whereas contract manufacturers тАЬare like kitchens, with pots and pans ready for any recipe,тАЭ тАЬwhat weтАЩre trying to do is fix the recipes,тАЭ Singhvi has explained. One member of ResilienceтАЩs board of directors, former FDA Commissioner and Pfizer Board member Scott Gottlieb, has described the company as seeking to act as the equivalent of Amazon Web Services for the biotechnology industry.
Essentially, Resilience bills itself as offering solutions that will allow тАЬfuturisticтАЭ medicines, including mRNA vaccines, to be produced more quickly and more efficiently, with the apparent goal of monopolizing certain parts of the biomanufacturing process. It also appears poised to become the manufacturer of choice for mRNA vaccines and experimental therapeutics in the event of a future pandemic, which some public health тАЬphilanthropistsтАЭ like Bill Gates have said is imminent.
Perhaps the companyтАЩs most noteworthy ambition relates to their claims that they support clients through the government regulatory process. Given the companyтАЩs emphasis on speedy mass production of experimental gene therapies, its stated intention of getting the тАЬfuturisticтАЭ medical products it manufactures to market as quickly as possible seems at odds with the slower, traditional regulatory processes. Indeed, one could easily argue that the approvals of mRNA vaccines for the first time in human history during the COVID-19 crisis were only possible because of the major relaxing of regulatory procedurse and safety testing due to the perceived urgency of the situation.
Resilience seems intent on seeing that phenomenon repeat itself. As previously mentioned, the company claims to allow for the setting and application of тАЬnew standards for manufacturing cell therapies and gene therapiesтАЭ and also says it plans to become a тАЬtechnology-aggregating standards bearer that helps therapies come to market more efficiently.тАЭ It previously offered on its website тАЬregulatory supportтАЭ and тАЬstrategy consultingтАЭ to clients, suggesting that it would seek to mediate between clients and government regulators in order to fulfill its goal of having the products it manufactures taken to market more quickly. In addition, upon launch, the company claimed it planned to obtain unspecified тАЬregulatory capabilities.тАЭ If so, it is certainly notable that former top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are either on the companyтАЩs board or, as will be noted shortly, played a major role in the companyтАЩs creation.
The People Behind Resilience
Resilience┬аwas co-founded by Biotech venture capitalist Robert Nelsen, who is┬аknown for┬аlistening тАЬto┬аscienceтАЩs earliest whispers, even when data are too early for just about anyone else.тАЭ Nelsen was one of the earliest investors in Illumina,┬аa California-based gene-sequencing hardware and software giant that is believed to currently dominate the field of genomics. As┬аmentioned in a┬аprevious┬аUnlimited Hangout┬аinvestigation, Illumina is closely tied to the DARPA-equivalent of the Wellcome Trust known as Wellcome Leap, which is also focused on тАЬfuturisticтАЭ and transhumanist тАЬmedicines.тАЭ Nelsen is now chairman of National ResilienceтАЩs board, which is a тАЬWhoтАЩs WhoтАЭ of big players┬аfrom┬аthe US National Security State, Big Pharma and Pharma-related тАЬphilanthropy.тАЭ
However, while Nelsen has been given much of the credit for creating Resilience, he revealed in one interview that the idea for the company had actually come from someone else тАУ Luciana Borio. In July of last year, Nelsen revealed that it was while talking to Borio about тАЬher work running pandemic preparedness on the NSC [National Security Council]тАЭ that had тАЬhelped lead to the launch of NelsenтАЩs $800 million biologics manufacturing startup Resilience.тАЭ
At the time of their conversation, Borio was the vice president of In-Q-tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA that has been used since its creation in the early 2000s to found a number of companies, many of which act as Agency fronts. Prior to In-Q-Tel, she served as director for medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security Council during the Trump administration and had previously been the acting chief scientist at the FDA from 2015 to 2017.
Borio is currently a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a consultant to Goldman Sachs, a member of the Bill Gates-funded vaccine alliance CEPI, and a partner at NelsenтАЩs venture capital firm ARCH Venture Partners, which funds Resilience. NelsenтАЩs ARCH previously funded Nanosys, the company of the controversial scientist Charles Lieber. Around the time of her conversation with Nelsen that led to ResilienceтАЩs creation, Borio was co-writing a policy paper for the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security that recommended linking COVID-19 vaccination status with food stamp programs and rent assistance as a possible means of coercing certain populations to take the experimental vaccine.
Borio is hardly ResilienceтАЩs only In-Q-Tel connection, as the┬аCEO┬аof In-Q-Tel, Chris Darby, sits on the companyтАЩs board of directors.┬аDarby is also on the board of directors of the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.┬аDarby was also recently a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), where members of the military, intelligence community and Silicon ValleyтАЩs top firms┬аargued for the need┬аto reduce the use of тАЬlegacy systemsтАЭ in favor of AI-focused alternatives as a national security imperative. Among those тАЬlegacy systemsтАЭ┬аidentified by the NSCAI┬аwere in-person doctor visits and even receiving medical care from a human doctor, as opposed to an AI тАЬdoctor.тАЭ The NSCAI also argued for the removal of тАЬregulatory barriersтАЭ that prevent these new technologies from replacing тАЬlegacy systems.тАЭ
Another notable board member, in discussing ResilienceтАЩs intelligence ties, is Drew Oetting. Oetting works for Cerberus Capital Management, the firm headed by Steve Feinberg who previously led the PresidentтАЩs Intelligence Advisory Board under the Trump administration. Cerberus is notably the parent company of DynCorp, a controversial US national security contractor tied to numerous scandals, including scandals related to sex trafficking in conflict zones. Oetting is also part of the CIA-linked Thorn NGO ostensibly focused on tackling child trafficking that was the subject of a previous Unlimited Hangout investigation.
Oetting is also the co-founder of 8VC, a venture capital firm that is one of the main investors in Resilience. 8VCтАЩs other co-founder is Joe Lonsdale and Oetting тАЬstarted his careerтАЭ as LonsdaleтАЩs chief of staff. Lonsdale is the co-founder, alongside Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, of Palantir, a CIA front company and intelligence contractor that is the successor to DARPAтАЩs controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) mass surveillance and data-mining program. In addition, Oetting previously worked for Bill GatesтАЩ investment fund.
Also worth noting is the presence of Joseph Robert Kerrey, former US Senator for Nebraska and a former member of the conflict-of-interest-ridden 9/11 Commission, on ResilienceтАЩs board. Kerrey is currently managing director of Allen & Co., a New York investment banking firm which has hosted an annual тАЬsummer camp for billionairesтАЭ since 1983. Allen & Co. has long been a major player in networks where organized crime and intelligence intersect, and is mentioned repeatedly throughout my upcoming book One Nation Under Blackmail. For instance, Charles and Herbert Allen, who ran the firm for decades, had considerable business dealings with organized crime kingpins and frontmen for notorious gangsters like Meyer Lansky, particularly in the Bahamas. They were also business partners of Leslie WexnerтАЩs mentors A. Alfred Taubman and Max Fisher as well as associates of Earl Brian, one of the architects of the PROMIS software scandal тАУ which saw organized crime and intelligence networks cooperate to steal and then compromise the PROMIS software for blackmail and clandestine intelligence-gathering purposes. Allen & Co. was a major investor in BrianтАЩs business interests in the technology industry that Brian used in attempts to bankrupt the developers of PROMIS, Inslaw Inc. and to market versions of PROMIS that had been compromised first by Israeli intelligence and, later, the CIA.
In addition to these intelligence-linked individuals, the rest of ResilienceтАЩs board includes the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Susan Desmond-Hellmann; former FDA Commissioner and Pfizer board member, Scott Gottlieb; two former executives at Johnson & Johnson; former president and CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals North American branch, George Barrett; CalTech professor and board member of Alphabet (i.e. Google) and Illumina, Frances Arnold; former executive at Genentech and Merck, Patrick Yang; and Resilience CEO Rahul Singhvi.
To Boost or Not to Boost
It is certainly telling that the normally publicity hungry Moderna has said so little about its partnership with Resilience and that Resilience, despite its ambitious plans, has also avoided the media limelight. Considering ModernaтАЩs history and ResilienceтАЩs connections, there may be more to this partnership that meets the eye and concerned members of the public would do well to keep a very close eye on Resilience, its partnerships, and the products it is manufacturing.
Given that we now live in a world where government regulatory decisions on the approval of medicines are increasingly influenced by corporate press releases and normal regulatory procedures have fallen by the wayside for being too тАЬslow,тАЭ there is likely to be little scrutiny of the genetic material that Resilience produces for the тАЬmedicines of tomorrow.тАЭ This seems to be already true for ModernaтАЩs recently retooled COVID-19 vaccine, as there has been no independent examination of the new genetic sequence of mRNA used in the Omicron-specific vaccine candidate or its effects on the human body in the short, medium or long term. For those who are skeptical of the outsized role that intelligence-linked companies are playing in the attempted technological тАЬrevolutionтАЭ in the medical field, it is best to consider ResilienceтАЩs role in the upcoming fall vaccination campaign and in future pandemic and public health scenarios before trying its тАЬfuturisticтАЭ products.
