The Military Must be De-Funded Along with the Police

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Dan Kovalik

As Vijay Prashad explains in his book, Red Star Over The Third World, domestic fascism in the West has reflected the West’s pre-existing colonial practices abroad. Citing Martinique communist Aimé Césaire, Prashad explains: “What had come to define fascism inside Europe through the experience of the Nazis – the jackboots and the gas chambers – were familiar already in the colonies. . . . [F]ascism was a political form of bourgeois rule in times when democracy threatened capitalism; colonialism, on the other hand, was naked power justified by racism to seize resources from people who were not willing to hand them over. Their form was different but their manners were identical.”

As Prashad and Césaire teach us, the fascist tactics used by our Western governments in the Global South will inevitably be brought home to be used against us. In the case of the US, these tactics have surely been introduced here, and we are now seeing this clearly as our police, sometimes backed by the military itself, are battling protestors in the streets in the same manner that a military force does as a foreign occupying power. Indeed, as a number of commentators have pointed out, the very tactic which killed George Floyd – the knee on the neck – was imported by the Israeli Defense Forces (themselves bankrolled by the US) who use this tactic against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories and who are now training US police units, including the Minneapolis police force, to use it as well.

Moreover, the police are using not only the cruel military tactics used to oppress people abroad, they are also using the military’s very equipment to do so.

Democratic President Bill Clinton opened the door wide for this police militarization in the 1990s with the National Defense Authorization Act which created a program, the 1033 program, through which police departments are given surplus military equipment. As recently explained by Michael Shank in an article in The New York Review of Books, entitled “How Police Became Paramilitaries,” pursuant to this program, “local law enforcement began to adopt the type of military equipment more frequently used in a war zone: everything from armored personnel carriers and tanks, with 360-degree rotating machine gun turrets, to grenade launchers, drones, assault weapons, and more. Today, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment—most used, some new—has been transferred to civilian police departments.”

And, once the police receive this equipment, they must use it. As Shank explains, the 1033 program “requires that law enforcement agencies make use of such equipment within a year of acquisition, effectively mandating that police put it into practice in the public space.” In other words, the police are actually required to turn the military’s high-tech guns against their own people.

The militarization of the police, moreover, can be seen as a by-product of the US’s over-reliance on the use of military force and war to solve all of its problems, to the near exclusion of all other alternatives. Indeed, the US has given up on trying to lead the world through economic and technological prowess, or through moral suasion. Instead, our leaders have decided that brute military force alone will allow the US to dominate the planet, and our nation’s coffers are being looted to the tune of over $1 trillion a year to do so. The result is the starving of our educational system, our social safety net and our nation’s vital infrastructure. This, of course, then leads to mass deprivation and despair which then leads to mass unrest. And, just as it deals with the rest of the world, our rulers have decided to deal with the unrest at home, not by solving the social ills plaguing this nation, or by fixing a few bridges or dams, but by beating us down with military-style violence.

Military force, indeed, has become the only instrument in our government’s toolbox, as quite starkly illustrated recently by the White House’s decision to give our valuable medical workers military flyovers costing $60,000 an hour instead of providing these workers with the protective equipment they have been desperately demanding. As with all things, our government has money and resources for instruments of violence, but none for human needs. This is literally killing us, just as surely as it is killing hundreds of thousands of people – nearly all people of color, not coincidentally – in foreign lands. The fight against police brutality and racism must therefore be linked to the fight to de-fund our military and to the broader fight to de-militarize our very society and culture.

Mass Distraction And Fake “V-Shaped” Recovery Provide Cover For The Fed Induced Crash

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Brandon Smith

Source: Alt-Market.com

This article, originally titled ‘The Fed Just Got Cover For The Collapse Of The US Economy’, was written by Brandon Smith and first published at Birch Gold Group

The scapegoating has already started. In almost every sector of the economy that is collapsing, the claim is that “everything was fine until the pandemic happened”. From tumbling web news platforms to small businesses to major corporations, the coronavirus outbreak and the national riots will become the excuse for failure. The establishment will try to rewrite history and many people will go along with it because the truth makes them look bad.

And what is the truth? The truth is that the U.S. economy – and in some ways, the global economy – was already collapsing. The system’s dependency on ultra-low interest rates and central bank stimulus created perhaps the largest debt bubble in history – the Everything Bubble. And that bubble began imploding at the end of 2018, triggered primarily by the Federal Reserve raising rates and dumping its balance sheet into economic weakness, just like it did at the start of the Great Depression. Fed Chair Jerome Powell knew what would happen if this policy was initiated; he even warned about it in the minutes of the October 2012 Federal Open Market Committee, and yet once he became the head of the central bank, he did it anyway.

For a year leading up to the pandemic, the Fed was struggling to maintain and suppress a repo market liquidity crisis. National debt, corporate debt and consumer debt were at all-time highs. Companies were desperate for new stimulus, and they were getting crumbs from the Fed, rather than the tens of trillions that they needed just to stay afloat. The central bank had sabotaged the economy, but they had to keep it in a state of living death until they had a perfect cover event for the collapse. The pandemic and inevitable civil unrest do the job nicely.

What many people do not understand is that the Fed does not care about the economy. In fact, every Fed action since its inception in 1913 has led to the downfall of the U.S. The Fed is not a maintenance man trying to stave off collapse; the Fed is a suicide bomber willing to destroy everything including itself in order to serve a greater ideology.

Total global centralization is the goal, and every new disaster is exploited to this end by the establishment. “Order out of chaos” is the motto of the global elites; in other words, in every crisis there is “opportunity”. This crisis has been no different. Suggested solutions have ranged from the creation of a cashless society operating on a digital currency system, to permanent lockdowns in the name of stopping “global warming”, to a surveillance state and medical tyranny utilizing 24/7 tracking of citizens in order to “stop the spread of the virus”. But how does the establishment plan to get people to go along with such freedom-crushing policies?

The pandemic by itself is not enough. The George Floyd riots may be a motivator, but they might fizzle out over time. The real catalyst, as I have said for many years now, will be an ongoing economic crash. This crash, engineered in 2008, has been a long time coming. Everything that is happening today is an extension of what happened over a decade ago. That said, the current phase was set in motion in 2018, as noted above.

The virus and the lockdowns solidified the crash, and while some people including Trump are calling for a V-shaped recovery, this is not going to happen. Perhaps Trump is referring to stock markets artificially inflated by the Fed stimulus backstop? Is anyone gullible enough to believe the stock market represents the real economy? Because today’s jobs report from the BLS, despite all the hype, does not suggest V-shaped recovery to me. The US lost 40 million jobs in the span of 6 weeks. The BLS reports a gain of 2.5 million jobs in May as the country “reopened”. So, we are still down nearly 38 million jobs in the past couple months yet the BLS stats are being called “stunning” and a “sign of recovery”?

The assumption being made here I think is that job gains will now be constant each month from now on. I think not. I think the jobs that were gained in May are the peak, and every jobs report after today will disappoint. Here’s why…

The latest Fed models predict a GDP plunge of 52.8%, and the manner in which the Fed calculates GDP is actually rigged to the upside. It is difficult to predict the REAL fall in data, but we know it will likely be larger than 52%. Keep in mind that this crash is in the 2nd quarter, while the Fed pumped trillions into the system. What exactly did this money printing buy? Well, stock markets stabilized, but the rest of the economy didn’t, and stock market optimism isn’t going to last much longer either is there are renewed lockdowns.

The primary reason we now face a second Great Depression is because the small business sector has been destroyed. Small businesses are vital to the U.S. economy, representing around 50% of the job market. The closures resulted in around 40 million job losses in the past two months. Add that to the 95 million Americans that have been out of work but not counted by the BLS as unemployed – as well as the 11 million people that are counted – and you are looking at nearly 150 million working age people not generating an income.

The latest BLS jobs gains and the way they are being hyped by the media are suspicious to me. It seems as if the establishment is trying to convince the public that the pandemic will have no affect on the economy and that their jobs will simply be waiting for them after every new shutdown (as long as they adhere to the rules and restriction set up by state and federal governments).

But it’s only going to get worse from here on…

The public doesn’t realize it yet, but many of the businesses that shut down over the past couple months are not coming back. Sure, a lot of them will try to reopen, and there will be a last gasp of activity during the next month or two, but the levels of debt attached to these ventures was already high before the pandemic hit. The recent small business bailouts seemed as if they were designed to give people false hope. According to figures out of JP Morgan, of the 300,000 clients that applied for the small business aid, only 18,000 actually received any. And, of that 18,000, many were larger corporation, not small businesses.

Business sectors most affected include retail and service, which crashed a record 16.4% overall in April. Food service lost approximately 30% of sales. Electronics and appliances lost 60%. Clothing plunged 78%. Auto sales fell 33% in May, and the expected rebound after the reopening has been disappointing.

The businesses most likely to die first are those that had large debt obligations before the lockdowns, as well as those that received no bailout money. Even though companies like General Electric, Verizon, IBM and Tesla all have massive debt issues, they may be kept alive by government bailouts, at least for a time. Small businesses, on the other hand, appear to be slated for destruction.

In particular, I suspect most restaurants besides major chains will go into bankruptcy. Boutique stores and clothing outlets will run out of money fast. Movie theater chains will collapse. Car rental outlets will collapse. Tourism businesses will close en masse and tourism towns will suffer profit losses despite the “reopening” in some states. Larger companies, like airlines, will continue to decline, and they will have to diversify into other areas, such as shipping, in order to survive. The auto industry is not coming back any time soon.

In the case of restaurants, the social distancing requirements reduce the number of customers that they can seat at any given time. Restaurants were already suffering major declines before the pandemic, and while take-out venues might have seen an uptick because of the lockdowns, this will not last as people begin to run out of cash and start cooking at home.

The same goes for small boutique stores, which rely on consumers with expendable cash flows. Such consumers no longer exist, and notions of “extra cash” will disappear along with waning government checks. As for tourism, I think there will be some travel, as lockdown restrictions are partially lifted. Many people in the cities will try to get away for a week or two just to escape and feel normal for a little while. However, I also think mainstream economists are underestimating the number of people who will refuse to travel because of concerns about coming in contact with the coronavirus. Just as retail refuses to rebound, so will tourism profits.

Air travel is unlikely to improve for the same reasons. Social distancing makes airplane flights a losing investment as passenger capacity is reduced. New car sales will remain stagnant because people are traveling less, and the used car market is being stocked with product as average people sell off vehicles to get extra cash to make ends meet.

All of these factors result in long-term job losses and debt defaults for small businesses as well as some larger companies. Which means much higher poverty rates and further dependency on government welfare programs.

The real test for the public will come when lockdowns return. I realize that there is a bit of denial in the population when it comes to this idea. I see many people operating on the assumption that the “reopening” is a long-term situation. I assure you, it is not. As I have noted in many previous articles, the establishment intends to use what I call “wave theory”, or a cycle of shutdowns and openings over the span of a year or longer. There WILL be new lockdowns, if not in the name of a resurgence in COVID infections, it will be in the name of stopping the national riots.

The response from the American people will be critical here. Will we support further lockdowns or martial law, even though the measures would harm us economically? Or will the public resist? Will the political left embrace a second lockdown in the face of further infection spikes? Will conservatives embrace lockdowns in the face of leftist protests and riots? Both sides of the political spectrum are being tempted with the use of a totalitarian government response in order to ensure their personal “safety”.

People must be made to understand the reality of our situation: the economy has already been undermined and this threat is far greater than either the virus or the riots. This is the danger that is being hidden by the pandemic and civil unrest distractions, and it is a threat that the government has no means or intention of saving us from. We must save ourselves, and doing that requires preparation and acceptance that the world is changed.

Why We Stay Asleep When Covid-19 Is Trying to Wake Us Up

Posted on June 16, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Kelly Brogan, MD, Ali Zeck, Sayer Ji

Source: KellyBroganMD.com

There’s a phrase we all keep hearing: It doesn’t make sense.

We’ve heard it from citizen journalists, from hospital and police force whistleblowers, and from otherwise compliant and law abiding self-quarantiners whose personal, lived experience simply isn’t adding up to what they are being told is happening by mainstream media.

So what is it that doesn’t make sense?

Is it:

that many medical experts have actually downgraded the potential threat of Covid-19 from initial projections by orders of magnitude, including Dr. Anthony Fauci himself, in a New England Journal of Medicine report where he wrote that “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) …” yet we are seeing unprecedented, draconian style control measures being implemented by executive order?
that there were staged planning events in October 2019 including Urban Outbreak and Event 201, nationwide CDC Quarantine Program job postings from November of 2019, a coronavirus patent, World Bank pandemic bonds, well in advance of when this pandemic supposedly started, and spontaneously erupted and disseminated globally in a manner that could never be explained through person to person contagion?
that doctors are being told to code all deaths as covid without so much as the facade of testing when up to 99% of case fatalities are in individuals with multiple pre-existing conditions, the vast majority of them elderly?
that hospitals are supposedly full to the brim with intubated patients when hospital staff are being laid off or furloughed, and whistleblowers are speaking to iatrogenic harm and death (including through intubation) being systematically committed by physicians?
that the plan for “return to normal” is being dictated by an unelected software technocrat who happens to also fund GMOs (including non-meat synthetic products), 5G, all of the labs currently working on the vaccine, implantable tracking devices, and the WHO?
that people were dying en masse from all manner of preventable illnesses ranging from obesity to hunger to properly prescribed medications with no historical precedent for governmental intervention around these far deadlier epidemics, but now we are to believe that the government cares so much about us that it will “keep us safe” even against our will?
that we should consent to be traced and tracked as law-abiding, healthy civilians even when convicted felons and many sex offenders are not?
that facial coverings ranging from a scarf to a reused surgical mask with mm pore sizes are going to “keep out” what we are calling a virus which is nm in diameter? ¹
that mask-wearing has been enforced when the Surgeon General, the WHO and even Fauci say to not wear them, and elected officials congregated on television have never worn them?
that Walmart, Target, and Costco are open while small businesses, parks, and beaches have been shuttered since March 14th, many of which will remain permanently closed due to the irreversible economic impacts of the shutdown?
that the list of the virus’s associated symptoms have grown and changed, all the while without there being unequivocal evidence of the virus’s point-of-origin in isolation in Wuhan or proof of global contagion?
that 5G networks are being installed during a time of “essential work only” in every major metropolitan area while we are quarantined in our homes?
that the immune system thrives on diversity of exposure, sunlight, time in nature and in loving company of others, but we are being told to hide alone, indoors?
that 30 million people in this country alone have suddenly lost their jobs through “essential business” restrictions, however there happened to be a 1000 page piece of legislation spontaneously prepared to institute the roll out of a system of government handouts and cashless currency?
that numbers of cases are determined through testing methods that do not confirm Covid-19, have tested positive in fruit and animals, and which the test inventor said should not be used to identify a specific disease?

This is just a starter list of all that “does not make sense,” and each question invokes a state of cognitive dissonance or confusion…which, when courageously explored, can be a very fertile state for the evolution of thought, perspective, and belief. Courage, in this sense, refers to action in the face of fear. And there is tremendous fear that is brought up through the rupture of trust in our government and associated authorities.

The fear is in place as an emotional caution tape between our defensive survival strategies of childhood and the emancipated sovereignty of individuated adulthood.

This is operative for so many right now who feel the irrepressible tension between what we are being told is happening (a deadly virus is spreading that we need protection from) and the sense that there is more to the story. But so many minimize, dismiss, or otherwise defend the mainstream narrative because to do otherwise would require truly cutting the umbilical cord connecting them to mommy medical system and daddy government. It would require stepping into their adult authority which is their own, individual truth and sovereign power…a terrifying initiation to self that can feel like the world as you know it must end in order to accommodate this new truth and perceived reality.

If we want to feel free, then why would anyone continue to trust and obey an authority that is not here to protect but rather to control and enslave?

Why we stay asleep: unhealed trauma

Aldous Huxley said that the brain is a reducing valve for a much vaster consciousness. We allow in what we are able to, so what constricts the valve?

A child needs to believe that her caregivers fundamentally are doing the best they can to care for and love her. She also believes that they could abandon or reject her at any turn and that this could be life threatening. So she develops many strategies to survive in the unavoidable setting of her dependency on these deficient parental authorities. These strategies involve suppressing her true feelings, her true beliefs, and blaming herself (“I must deserve this”). They lead to dominant thoughts that reflect the parents’ introjected statements or imagined opinions such as “you’re only lovable if you’re useful/keep the peace/follow orders” or “you’re worthless and your body isn’t yours, it’s mine to handle as I see fit” or “you don’t deserve to be happy because you’re bad.”

How does a child stand up to a parent that is abusing them when they are powerless to defend themselves? They don’t. They acquiesce, submit and align with the reality of their abuser in order to stay safe.

But what happens if we never reclaim ourselves from this imprint? What happens when the feelings that surface when we reconsider allegiance to those big, looming authorities that we imagine could crush us if we don’t comply? This is the pattern of intergenerational trauma we see running through the lineage of humanity now, where unexamined trauma leads to a fugue state of dissociation from self and intuition in service of a preserved trust and loyalty to parentified authorities.

And this is how and why world citizens told to go to their room lest the boogie man get them, dutifully comply, stay inside of their homes, and await further orders, welcoming in the “new normal” for themselves and their children.

Global Stockholm Syndrome

There is a name for the psychemotional dynamic of defending the parentified aggressor and we are seeing this surface en masse. It is called Stockholm Syndrome. It refers to a positive bond of attachment formed between a victim of abuse and the abuser. It’s why women defend their right to birth control, antidepressants and medicalized birth, without perceiving the dangerous shadow side of these technologies. And it’s why, today, all around the world, people are shaming, judging, and otherwise deputizing themselves to coerce dissenters into compliance. “Wear a mask! You’re killing people!”

When the wounded and traumatized child is pulling the strings behind the curtain, she says that you can’t handle the emotions that might surface if you choose to relinquish trust and dependency on an outside authority. She says that you will be abandoned, rejected, and may even die. So, if you are feeling powerless, then bully someone else and diffuse some of the discomfort. On an individual level and on a collective level, these dynamics keep us divided against the true oppressor — the authority we unduly empower. This Stockholm Syndrome is characterized by:

Positive regard towards perpetrators of abuse or captors.
Failure to cooperate with police and other government authorities when it comes to holding perpetrators of abuse or kidnapping accountable.
Little or not effort to escape.
Belief in the goodness of the perpetrators or kidnappers.
Appeasement of captors. This is a manipulative strategy for maintaining one’s safety. As victims get rewarded—perhaps with less abuse or even with life itself—their appeasing behaviors are reinforced.
Learned helplessness. This can be akin to “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” As the victims fail to escape the abuse or captivity, they may start giving up and soon realize it’s just easier for everyone if they acquiesce all their power to their captors.
Feelings of pity toward the abusers, believing they are actually victims themselves. Because of this, victims may go on a crusade or mission to “save” their abuser.
Unwillingness to learn to detach from their perpetrators and heal. In essence, victims may tend to be less loyal to themselves than to their abuser. ²

So how is this dynamic upheld? Why wouldn’t we recognize that we are aligning with the perpetrators of our victimhood?

Tactical capture: manipulation and mind control

“The conscious intelligent manipulation of the organized opinions and habits of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.” ~ Edward Bernays

One of the great perils of any survival strategy that relies on a benevolent parentified authority and power structure is that we are unable to see how and where and why this system may not share our same values and may indeed be doing us harm. Such systems rely on the empathic and compliant nature of dependent individuals for manipulation and mind control. These psychological operations are totally ineffective if the subject sees through the presented reality to the darker agenda beneath — the story behind the story.

In this way, propaganda can be delivered as a mass public relations campaign, hidden in plain sight to manufacture consent. At this point, every single consensus narrative — on climate change, 9/11, the suffragette movement, war, HIV/AIDS, vaccination, and yes, today’s pandemic — is a smokescreen for deeper agendas that we have been strategically manipulated to accept. Strategic marketing campaigns are also behind the transformation that Bill Gates has enjoyed from a corrupt software engineer to a global philanthropist. It has been through philanthropocapitalistic infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into the global media (including NPR, and even seemingly impartial “fact checking” organizations), that this reputation has been manufactured out of thin air generating a shared public perception that is divergent from if not antithetical to a lived private reality.

It is because of our unexamined traumas that we fail to critically think, question deeply, and see what is for the seeing. And the fear that these traumas keep active in our present day leads us to abdicate freedoms in exchange for the illusion of safety. We may never question whether the perceived danger originated with the very authority to which we have sacrificed our freedoms. This is why today, we see citizens self-quarantining, policing their neighbors, and begging for a vaccine. Create a problem, agitate the public, and offer a solution that would not have been easily introduced without the previous two steps.

Transitioning paradigms: waking up to adulthood

There is a narrative that is predicated on the belief that things are what they seem to be, or what we see is what it is: the President is an elected official and he makes decisions on our behalf and does the best he can to manage competing interests in service of his party’s priorities or that with our current political party system using elections, that we actually have a choice. There is also an underlying belief that government exists to serve the best interests of the people. There is a belief that our current medical system is a scientifically based care delivery approach that organizes itself around saving lives with safe and effective pharmaceuticals. And yet another belief that the mainstream media may be a bit biased in one direction or another, but is generally reporting on actual events as they unfold and that those who may be censored in the news or social media are disseminating harmful and dangerous information; so if they are censored, justice has been served and people were protected by the censorship. In this worldview, the government is at best, bumbling but functional in its role as protector of the people, and systemic problems are par for the course given the amount of people they are trying to serve and room for human error; and at worst, financially motivated, but not organized or malevolent.

And if our inherent belief is that there are no “bad” people in power, as defined by a significant privation of morality, and that there is a basic order of fairness to our world where justice evens out power imbalances, we will seek out information, people and sources to reflect that belief, and we will feel discomfort when presented with a contrary narrative. Likewise, if our values reflect a sense of benevolence and kindness then we will assume in a very naïve and egocentric way that everyone operates with kindness, maybe doing some harm unintentionally, but really doing the best they can, even when we are faced with opposing facts.

But for many, at some point, the perspective of the idealized authority ceases to align with a personal, lived experience, and our true selves begin to rattle the cage. This process represents, for many, the death of the former self, of familiar reality, and of all that is known.

We slide down the rabbit hole of critical thinking, and we see a the mainstream orthodoxy as reflective of agendas that are highly designed, intentionally deceptive, and strategically organized, whether by extraterrestrial vampires, the deep state elite, or the medical or military industrial complexes, and that reality is anything but what we have been told it is. In this narrative there is a deep conviction that morality has no place in politics and that power and advancement should be sought using any means necessary, no matter the lives lost or people harmed, the overall agenda of the ruling is the objective. There are layers and layers of information and ever deepening realities that begin to reveal a plan hidden in plain sight as in the widely accessible “possible scenarios” Lockstep 2010 document  and Agenda 2030, that reveal an intent to subjugate the human species into a new global governance structure (i.e., new world order), welfare state dependencies, real-time total surveillance and tracking, and biomedically delivered slavery.

And with this awakening to truth, you begin to see all of the ways in which you have supported, condoned, and permitted the parentified controller to manipulate you. It’s as if you are a 45 year old woman living at your parents’ house; and they abuse you, physically, emotionally, and verbally; they starve you, and control you; and you feel that you don’t have a choice to live on your own because you’d be homeless otherwise. Is that really the truth? What if the most incredible life awaits you just outside of your choice to self-emancipate? This narrative cuts cords with the belief that health and “safety” is anyone’s responsibility but our own. It leaves us with this: own your self, govern your self, and learn how to love your self so that we can finally honor one another and this planet.

Why it’s time to bring your shadow into the light

And we wait with the house of our civil liberties being burnt down right in front of us because first and foremost we have an aversion to looking not only at the darkness outside of us, but inside of us as well. This denial and lack of acknowledgement helps fuel the fire of our house burning down, as Martin Luther King said, “For evil to succeed, all it needs is for good men to do nothing.”

If you are ready to resolve your cognitive dissonance by stepping into awareness, it will be imperative that you resist the temptation to run victim stories around all that you discover. When you finally see beneath the veil of the manipulation, mind control, deceit, and social engineering that renders us dependent on a system that cares not for our well-being…this awareness can lead to rage, fear, indignation and a kind of demonization that ultimate keeps us donating our energy to the very source of our potential victimization.

So how do we hold this new awareness with sovereignty?

You recognize that the feelings have been there since childhood. They are not new, and they are not even necessarily about anything happening in the world today. So learning how to hold those feelings, release, and transform them can allow you to engage with equanimity and compassion. It allows you to remain self-possessed.

It’s possible that in this moment in time, our shadows are coming to light, meaning we are experiencing opportunities to see where and how we might be holding the very same energy of those we judge and condemn. We are seeing what we are capable of doing when we don’t know what we are capable of doing…in other words, the ways in which we unconsciously derive a sense of power through our need to be right, be in control, control others, and to otherwise imagine that we are important or superior to anyone else. When we look at these areas of our life and relationship (wherever there is conflict in one’s life), we will be given the opportunity to own it or deny it. When we own it, we see that the “enemies” in power are representatives of the suppressed parts of our collective and individual unconscious — the darkness of will within each of us that is disconnected from the heart. And we can simply choose to stop feeding that unconsciousness by remaining, always in our heart space as we allow our awareness to expand and expand and expand.

Travel Tips

How do you know what’s real and what’s not? When your body gets clear, it tells you the truth. You feel it as a quiet, uncharged knowing, often in the depths of your gut. The truth never feels like fear or urgency, so let the emotions alchemize and then check in.

Who do you trust? Trust can be a donation of personal power, a vector of dependency, and a path to unconscious attachment. What if you treat everyone as if you don’t trust them, or everyone as if you do? What if you never give something away that is contingent upon the person you are giving it to protecting you in a way that you can’t protect yourself? This way, we remain centered in our own agency, relating as individuals without undo merger, but with listening ears and open hearts.

Does your truth matter or is that just ego? It may be an important time in human history to voice your truth. A time to dismantle the illusion that only experts get to speak. So do your research, find your voice, and share it without needing anyone to agree with you or even support you. Recognizing that it may be only your truth, and that it still matters even if it is.

What role does hope play? There is no savior on a white horse. No doctor, politician, president who is going to make everything alright. This is an inside job for each of us. It is time to adult, step into our power, resolve our internal and external conflicts with radical self-acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness, and begin to explore what it would be to recognize that the system isn’t broken, it was made this way. Can we move beyond external forms of governance and the illusion that we need to be protected? That we don’t know how to care for and heal ourselves? It may be time to find out, but it requires giving up all hope of salvation from the outside, and finding that deep faith, trust, and vigilant commitment to policing and governing oneself.

The truth is that we wake up when we are ready, and not one second sooner. And as we do, we’ll need each other to walk the path into the wild unknown to the experience of freedom, joy, and simple beauty that has always been our birthright.

References:

The War On Reality

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Wayne Janis

Source: OpEdNews

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, (Publisher Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company). is recommended to anyone wishing to understand the world in which we live.

The most dangerous war currently being fought is the “war on reality”. Of course this was Orwell’s greatest fear as expressed in 1984 – that reality itself would be appropriated, manipulated and obliterated at will by powerful forces. His original title for 1984 was “The Last Man In Europe” – i.e., the last man connected to reality.

We live in a world in which spurious realities are being manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups, all of which are filtered through major media conglomerates that are attached to the globalist ether (let’s call it the “globalist cloud”). This globalist cloud is controlled and manipulated by a globalist Intelligence Community for political/economic/social purposes.

The bombardment of pseudo-realities will produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. We need to detach the now essential and probably irrevocable social media matrix from this globalist ether and reign it in to do the good work of humanity at large. Net neutrality is one major initiative that must be pursued and won.

Net neutrality is the concept that all traffic on the Internet should be given equal treatment by Internet providers with little to no censorship, manipulation, interference, prioritization, discrimination or preference given based on user, content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, destination address, or method of communication. Any rules of conduct must be determined democratically and implemented equally.

In addition the globalist cloud has misappropriated, stored, monetized and misused the entirety of our personal digital data for corporate profit and social control. We will only reclaim our privacy by exerting the highest level political pressure.

“Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you don’t like to read…Just because this or that freedom might not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain just a fraction of the freedoms that my country was busily dismantling.” – Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (p. 208-209). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.

And we, the people, need a powerful reality motto. I have found no better one than:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away..Philip K. Dick

Only the courage and implacable resistance of authentic human beings to powerful corruptors of truth and reality will save us from a world much like that depicted in 1984. It is unknown whether there are enough such authentic human beings or whether the battle can be won no matter the number.

As Reinhold Niebuhr said, it takes a “sublime madness of the soul” to fight against the “malignant powers of the world”.

And Chris Hedges:

“There is nothing that’s going to rationally justify it. You can know that everything around you points to the fact that your struggle for justice, maybe your entire life, has been futile. But this knowledge doesn’t invalidate what you’ve done.”– Hedges, Chris. Unspeakable: Talks with David Talbot about the Most Forbidden Topics in America . Skyhorse Publishing. Kindle Edition.

People like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, John Kiriakou and others are examples of these brave and implacable martyrs who have paid the price for what is at its core a battle for the soul of humanity.

Historically, Galileo is a martyr in the war on reality even though his trial ended with an abjuration which allowed him to avoid execution and remain under house arrest for life. But I personally like the raw testicularity of Bruno Giordano (PC police be damned). He defended his astronomical beliefs to the end and refused to recant his rejection of certain dogmas of the Catholic Church. Knowing he would be burned at the stake (he was first hung naked upside down in a public square in Rome) he made a disdainful gesture to the judges and said:

“You pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.”

The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup to Destroy Humanity that is also Fast-Tracking Four Paths to Human Extinction

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Robert J. Burrowes

The global elite is conducting a coup that is designed to destroy all of the key elements of human society. It is doing this by destroying the essence of what it means to be human, by destroying the nature of existing human relationships, and by destroying the political, economic and social institutions of nation states.

Intentionally or otherwise, the elite coup is also fast-tracking four paths to human extinction.

If this coup succeeds, the human individual will have been reduced to a digitized identity who lives in a ‘techno tyranny’ serving the global elite or Homo Sapiens will be extinct. There is no third option unless we can defeat the coup and stop key structures and processes being put into place.

Do we have long? According to some scholars, as explained below, Homo Sapiens is already ‘functionally extinct’. If this is the case, only a monumental global effort can give us even a remote chance of surviving.

Sound implausible? Preposterous even? Let me offer you the evidence to support the scenario presented above with some brief reiteration to begin followed by more elaborate explanation of the paths to extinction.

And, if you are up for the fight to try to avert this outcome, I have outlined a range of options, designed to have strategic impact, for your involvement.

Destroying the Human Individual

Many authors have explained how vital rights and freedoms that our predecessors fought for decades or even centuries to win have been wiped away in one fell swoop by government responses to COVID-19 – for a summary, see ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup Against a Terrified Humanity: Resisting Powerfully’ – and how, if it comes to pass, the compulsory vaccination along with the digital certificate that will go with it will leave us as nothing more than robotized organisms monitored and controlled by the elite’s agents.

For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr has explained in ‘Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination’:

Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.

Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.

Former World Bank economist Peter Koenig in ‘The Farce and Diabolical Agenda of A “Universal Lockdown”’ identifies some parts of the program:

A massive vaccination program, probably through compulsory vaccination – Bill Gates’ dream and brainchild is vaccinating 7 billion people.

Massive population reduction, a eugenics plan – in part through vaccination and other means:… Bill Gates, ‘if we are doing a real good job vaccinating, we may reduce the world population by 10% to 15%’. See ‘Innovating to Zero!’….

An electronic ID for every person on the planet – in the form of a nano chip, possibly injected along with the mandatory vaccination. This nano-chip could be remotely uploaded with all personal data.

But even more importantly, in a recent article Professor Vandana Shiva evocatively explains why the world patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to Microsoft on 26 March 2020 titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, gives Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives and is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’. In essence:

‘The patent is dramatically changing the meaning of being human…. It is redefining us as ‘mines’ for data – robbing us of our autonomy, our sovereignty, and control over our bodies and minds…. It is erasing our humanity – as sovereign, living beings, spiritual, conscious, intelligent beings, making our decisions and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are a part; and to which we are inextricably related. We are being reduced to being ‘users’ of tasks assigned to us by the extractive digital mega machine. A ‘user’ is a consumer without choice in the digital empire. Human creativity and consciousness disappear in the world imagined in #patent060606.’ See ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’.

Destroying Human Society

Simultaneously with the destruction of the human individual, however, many authors have described how the nature of human relationships is being transformed and the political, economic and social structures and processes previously characteristic of national societies are being removed in favor of versions that enable a vastly greater degree of elite control.

Here is a sample of how astute authors describe what is happening politically, economically and/or socially based on the compelling evidence they provide.

Chris Hedges in ‘The Treason of the Ruling Class’:

The ruling elites no longer have legitimacy. They have destroyed our capitalist democracy and replaced it with a mafia state. What the Roman philosopher Cicero called a commonwealth, a res publica, a ‘public thing’ or the ‘property of a people,’ has been transformed into an instrument of naked pillage and repression on behalf of a global corporate oligarchy. We are serfs ruled by obscenely rich, omnipotent masters who loot the U.S. Treasury, pay little or no taxes and have perverted the judiciary, the media and the legislative branches of government to strip us of civil liberties and give them the freedom to commit financial fraud and theft.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky in ‘Global Capitalism, “World Government” and the Corona Crisis’:

The World is being misled concerning the causes and consequences of the corona crisis. The COVID-19 crisis… is being used as a pretext and a justification to triggering a Worldwide process of economic, social and political restructuring. Social engineering is being applied…. What is happening is unprecedented in World history.

A new stage in the evolution of global capitalism is unfolding…. National governments become subordinate to “Global Governance”. The Global Governance scenario imposes a totalitarian agenda of social engineering and economic compliance… It consists in scrapping ‘national autodetermination’ and constructing a Worldwide nexus of pro-US proxy regimes controlled by a ‘supranational sovereignty’ (World Government) composed of leading financial institutions, billionaires and their philanthropic foundations.

The crisis redefines the structure of the global economic landscape. Let’s be clear. This is an imperial agenda. What do the global financial elites want? To privatize the State? To own and privatize the entire planet?

Whitney Webb in ‘Techno-Tyranny: How The US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision ’ examines a great deal of evidence to draw her conclusion:

Like major crises of the past, the national security state appears to be using the chaos and fear to promote and implement initiatives that would be normally rejected by [citizens] and, if history is any indicator, these new changes will remain long after the coronavirus crisis fades from the news cycle. It is essential that these so-called “solutions” be recognized for what they are and that we consider what type of world they will end up creating – an authoritarian technocracy.

And, since the brutal police killing of George Floyd in the United States on 25 May, US constitutional attorney and author of Battlefield America: The War On the American People, John W. Whitehead has warned in ‘This Is Not a Revolution. It’s a Blueprint for Locking Down the Nation’:

The looting, the burning, the rioting, the violence: this is an anti-revolution. The protesters are playing right into the government’s hands, because the powers-that-be want this. They want an excuse to lockdown the nation and throw the switch to all-out martial law. They want a reason to make the police state stronger. It’s happening faster than we can keep up.

Kurt Nimmo in his article ‘George Floyd Endgame: Martial Law and a Police State: COVID was the first act’ notes that:

Rampaging ‘anarchists’ – many undoubtedly agent provocateurs – are not interested in justice, fairness, nonviolence, and peaceful dialogue. They are providing a pretext to usher in a fascist police state.

This state of affairs will be exploited to call for a clampdown on political dissent. COVID ‘contact tracing’ is now being used to track down activists and those associated with them. Facial recognition is used to find targeted individuals in crowds. From the start, I said this supposed public safety gimmick would be used to isolate and destroy peaceful activism.

If the chaos continues, there will be citizen demands for law and order…. Officials will argue that the ongoing destruction and violence can only be contained by the military.

Moreover, as Shenali D. Waduge pointed out in her article ‘George Floyd Murder Enflames US. America Is a Failed State’:

The death has also brought to the focus and exposed the double standards of the UNHRC/international human rights organizations and other righteous mouthpieces who remain mum…. 5 days since the murder of George Floyd and not a single statement or condemnation by international entities.

Having noted the above however, it is worth pointing out that most of the people protesting the police murder of George Floyd have been nonviolent (about which I will write more below). But if you would like to better understand the psychology of racist violence, see ‘Why are all those Racists so Terrified?’ and for psychological insight into the pervasive police violence in the United States, see ‘Why are Police in the USA so Terrified?’

But while the global elite is intent on destroying us as individuals as well as destroying the societies in which we have lived, the coup has also accelerated each of the four primary paths to human extinction.

Fast-Tracking the Four Paths to Human Extinction

I have previously explained the four distinct paths to imminent human extinction (that is, within five years), making laughable the elite-driven narrative that we have until 2030 or even 2050 to avert it. I have also explained the three other possible paths to extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four primary threats, as well as the path to extinction that looms before us when we consider the impact of all seven of these paths in combination with the vast range of other threats to Earth’s biosphere. See ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’.

These interrelated threats have generated a shocking series of ‘points of no return’ (‘tipping points’) that we have already crossed, a mutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that we have already triggered (and which we will continue to trigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as well as the ongoing synergistic impact of the various ‘extinction drivers’ (such as ongoing extinctions because dependent species have lost their resource species) we have set in motion and which cannot be halted irrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence, taking into account all of the above factors, the prospects of averting human extinction are now remote, at best.

Given these ongoing threats, coupled with the latest threats to our essential humanity and political freedom posed by measures being taken during the elite coup, I have also explained the vital importance of defending our humanity and this political freedom from these latest threats if we are to have any prospect of even fighting for our own survival. See ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup: Fighting for Our Humanity, Our Liberty and Our Future’.

In essence then, the elite coup being conducted under ‘cover’ of the fake virus known as COVID-19 – see ‘Unmasking the Lies Around COVID-19: Facts vs Fiction of the Coronavirus Pandemic’ – has not only facilitated a dramatic acceleration in the process of destroying what remains of the human individual and society, it has also fast-tracked each of the four primary paths to imminent human extinction. Let me briefly elaborate this and explain why it is happening.

Nuclear War

In his 2017 book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, former US nuclear war planner Daniel Ellsberg described the architecture of the nuclear doomsday machine. It is not just the horrifically destructive fission and fusion weapons but the entire framework of the arsenal, from fallible and institutionalized human beings in ‘command’ to antiquated computer systems built in the 1970s and 1980s with thousands of these weapons on hair-trigger alert.

The formal reason, which doesn’t account for the informal reasons such as luck or clear thinking in a panicked situation – see ‘“I was just doing my job”: Soviet officer who averted nuclear war dies at age 77’ – that these weapons have not been used is the nuclear arms control regime that was laboriously built during the Cold War but from which the US has progressively retreated, successively withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘Iran nuclear deal’) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons) in 2018.

The US government has also unilaterally signaled its intention to further dismantle treaties that contain the threat of nuclear war by acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 by establishing its ‘Space Force’ as a new branch of the US military – see ‘US Making Outer Space the Next Battle Zone – Karl Grossman’ – and demonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: the sole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals that caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each. See ‘Global Zero Urges Trump to Accept Putin’s Offer on Nuclear Treaty’.

Not content with progressively increasing the risk of nuclear war in recent years, the US government has used the COVID-19 coup as an opportunity to ‘sabre (that is, nuclear weapons) rattle’ with Russia and China by considering detonating a nuclear weapon, which would be the first such ‘test’ by the US since 1992. See ‘Trump the Peace Candidate? This President Abhors International Treaties ’ and ‘Trump apparently wants a nuclear test. It could be bad for your health’.

In another provocation, the US government has also announced it will withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, signed in 1992. See ‘The Open Skies Treaty at a Glance’ and ‘Pompeo Announces Open Skies Withdrawal’.

And demonstrating it is not passive in response to these initiatives, the Russian government has declared it will now consider using nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack in particular circumstances including a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure. See ‘Russia OKs Use of Nukes in Response to Non-Nuclear Attacks’.

If you believe that nuclear war is ‘unthinkable’, earlier this year (and taking into account the climate catastrophe), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, closer to midnight than it was even during the height of the Cold War. See ‘Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight’.

So three developments that elevate the risk of nuclear war that each took place with less scrutiny than might have occurred otherwise – the discussed detonation of a US nuclear weapon, US withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty and the Russian decision to respond to a conventional attack on certain infrastructure with nuclear weapons – have all occurred under cover of the COVID-19 coup.

If you would like a reminder of the frequency with which we have already subjected Earth and its species to radioactive contamination by exploding nuclear weapons, watch Isao Hashimoto’s ‘A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945’.

Deployment of 5G

Also under cover of the COVID-19 coup, the extinction-threatening 5G is now being rapidly deployed in many parts of the world although there is considerable resistance to it by those who are aware of its dangers. This resistance ranges from nonviolent actions (starting with people giving up their mobile phones) to international appeals and legal challenges to its deployment.

If you are not familiar with the danger of microwave radiation to human and planetary health, you can read an explanation by Arthur Firstenberg in ‘Planetary Emergency’ or a more detailed explanation in his book The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life.

In brief, however: the global electrical circuit, which sustains all life, is now being seriously disturbed.

What is the global electrical circuit? How is it being disturbed? Here is a brief explanation:

The global electrical circuit flows through the earth, up to the sky in thunderstorms, through the ionosphere, and back down to earth through the atmosphere and through our bodies. See ‘Planetary Emergency’.

All animals and plants are polarized positive to negative from head to feet, or from leaves to roots. An electric current of picowatt per square meter amplitude flows from the positively charged sky to the negatively charged earth in fair weather, courses through the earth beneath our feet, and returns to the sky via lightning bolts during thunderstorms. Every living thing is part of this circuit. The current enters our heads from the sky, circulates through our meridians, and enters the earth through the soles of our feet. This current provides the energy for growth, healing, and life itself. We do not live by bread alone, but by the energy provided to us by the biosphere. Oriental medicine calls it qi or ki, Ayurvedic medicine calls it prana, and atmospheric physicists call it electricity. It provides us energy for life, and information that organizes our bodies. If you pollute this circuit with billions of digital pulsations, you will destroy all life. See ‘Putting the Earth Inside a High-Speed Computer’.

The strength of the atmospheric electrical current is between 1 and 10 picoamperes (trillionths of an ampere) per square meter. Dr. Robert Becker found that 1 picoampere is all the current that is necessary to stimulate healing in frogs…. It is these tiny currents that keep us alive and healthy. See ‘Planetary Emergency’.

Despite its enormous health hazards and implications for intrusive surveillance, which are extensively documented – for recent articles which also cite some of the wider evidence, see ‘5G: “The End of All Things”. The Health Impacts of Electromagnetic Radiation ’ and ‘How Big Wireless Lobbied Governments to Build 5G for Citizen Data Collection and Surveillance ’ – the deployment of 5G has now started. For example, the Elon Musk corporation SpaceX has already launched 600 ‘first generation’ (‘Gen1’) satellites into Space and is planning to launch another 60 every two weeks into the ionosphere. Again: ‘The ionosphere is a source of high voltage that controls the global electric circuit, which in turn provides the energy for life.’ However, on 26 May 2020, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission in the United States for 30,000 ‘next-generation’ (‘Gen2’) satellites.

‘If and when Starlink signs up millions of paying customers, it is possible that nothing will survive – no humans, no animals, and no insects. It is likely that it will be blamed on COVID-19, unless this world wakes up in time.’

On 23 March 2020, the ‘Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020’ became law in the United States. See ‘Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020 ’. It’s purpose?

To require the President [within 180 days] to develop a strategy to ensure the security of next generation mobile telecommunications systems and infrastructure in the United States and to assist allies and strategic partners in maximizing the security of next generation mobile telecommunications systems, infrastructure, and software, and for other purposes.

Given the military and surveillance implications of 5G, if you think that governments are particularly concerned to investigate and consider the extensive evidence of the enormous hazards of 5G, you might find it sobering to read the dismissive three paragraphs given to the subject in the European Parliament’s official report on 5G. See ‘5G Deployment: State of Play in Europe, USA and Asia’.

Nevertheless, the resistance to 5G is rapidly gaining pace. For example, you can see a ‘List of Cities, T owns, Councils and Countries that have Banned 5G’.

And if you wish to join those resisting the deployment of 5G, options include signing the ‘International Appeal: Stop 5G on Earth and in Space ’, supporting legal challenges such as this one in Denmark – see ‘State of Play and Danish Suing FiveG Network’ – and simply getting rid of your mobile (cell) phone. See ‘Cancel Your Cellphone Account Day, 20-21 June 2020’.

Biodiversity Collapse

In 2010, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, noted that ‘What we are seeing today is a total disaster…. No country has met its targets to protect nature. We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate.’ In the same year, the UN Environment Programme observed that ‘the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life. Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate.’ Moreover, according to many biologists, the extinction rate ‘is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.’ See ‘Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity chief’.

By 2017, Professor Gerardo Ceballos and his colleagues had extensively documented the ‘biological annihilation’ that humans were precipitating on Earth:

‘Earth’s sixth mass extinction is more severe than perceived when looking exclusively at species extinctions…. That conclusion is based on analyses of the numbers and degrees of range contraction … using a sample of 27,600 vertebrate species, and on a more detailed analysis documenting the population extinctions between 1900 and 2015 in 177 mammal species.

Their data revealed that ‘beyond global species extinctions Earth is experiencing a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’.

However, in their latest paper Professor Ceballos and his colleagues provide further evidence of the ongoing biological annihilation and what it means for ecosystem functioning while documenting the complicating factors that have arisen during the COVID-19 crisis.

‘Even though only an estimated 2% of all of the species that ever lived are alive today, the absolute number of species is greater now than ever before. It was into such a biologically diverse world that we humans evolved, and such a world that we are destroying…. Millions of populations have vanished in the last 100 years…. The reason so many species are being pushed to extinction by anthropogenic causes is indicated by humans and their domesticated animals being some 30 times the living mass of all of the wild mammals that must compete with them for space and resources’. But, Dr Ceballos adds: ‘Many of the species endangered or at the brink of extinction are being decimated by the legal and illegal wildlife trade.’ See ‘Vertebrates on the brink’.

Of course, as has been extensively documented, while people in countries such as China, the United States and various European nations drive the demand for wildlife, it is filled by poverty-stricken people in Africa, Asia and Central/South America who capture wildlife to trade, eat or sell as bushmeat. And for those people for whom the COVID-19 crisis eliminated other economic survival options, capturing wildlife for trade or food was one backup survival option which simply accelerated the rush to extinction for some species.

You can watch a video of Professor Ceballos and read more about the extinction crisis at Stop Extinctions.

But, in essence, the only way to slow, and halt, the collapsing biodiversity on Earth is to substantially reduce our consumption so that the insects, animals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and plants of planet Earth have the habitat they need to survive.

Climate Catastrophe

Given that Earth passed 2°C above the 1750 (preindustrial) baseline in February 2020 – see ‘Crossing the Paris Agreement thresholds’ and ‘2°C crossed’ – and that carbon dioxide emissions generate ‘maximum warming’ about one decade after the emission actually occurred – see ‘Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission’ – ‘the full warming wrath of the carbon dioxide emissions over the past ten years is still to come’. See ‘2°C crossed’.

Moreover, given that the CO2 level in the atmosphere is already ‘higher than it has been for millions of years’ and temperatures are ‘rising at ever faster speed as the rise in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere is accelerating’ it is arguably the case that human beings are already ‘functionally extinct’, that is, they are ‘threatened to be wiped out by a catastrophe that appears to be both imminent and inescapable’. See ‘Arctic Ocean February 2020’.

However, while the global industrial shutdown has temporarily reduced emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, it has also significantly reduced the aerosol masking effect generated by burning fossil fuels as explained by Professor Guy McPherson in his recently-published paper ‘Will COVID-19 Trigger Extinction of All Life on Earth?’

Coincident with industrial activity adding to greenhouse gases that warm the planet, industrial activity simultaneously cools the planet by adding aerosols to the atmosphere. These aerosols block incoming sunlight, thereby keeping cool our pale blue dot. Reducing industrial activity by as little as 35 percent is expected to cause a global-average temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius within a few weeks, according to research on the aerosol masking effect…. The ongoing reduction in industrial activity as a result of COVID-19 almost certainly leads to loss of habitat for human animals, hence putting us on the fast track to human extinction.

Even worse, as Professor McPherson notes in a subsequent paper, because there is ‘no known means to rapidly stabilize or cool the temperature of Earth… [and] temperatures lethal for humans already have been reported, despite climate-change models indicating that such an event would not occur until the middle of the current century’ – see ‘The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance’ – and because even the slow rate of temperature rise assumed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) outstrips the adaptive response of vertebrates by a factor of 10,000 times meaning that ‘mammals cannot evolve rapidly enough to escape the current extinction crisis’, the ‘reduction in industrial activity that resulted from the ongoing pandemic might have already reduced the aerosol masking effect sufficiently to trigger a 1 C spike in global-average temperature’ thus triggering ‘the rapid extinction of all life on Earth’. See ‘Earth is in the Midst of Abrupt, Irreversible Climate Change’.

In plain English, human extinction – and possibly the extinction of all life on Earth – might already be guaranteed.

How has this all happened?

‘How has this all happened?’ you might ask. And, unfortunately, the answer is ‘All too simply’. With an insane global elite and a human population that is, on the whole, fearfully and submissively obedient, there hasn’t even been a real fight. Hence, the global elite’s insane and longstanding conspiracy to take much greater control of our lives proceeds apace while driving us all to the brink of extinction in the process.

If you would like to read more about the origin of the fearful obedience of most humans, see ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup: Fighting for Our Humanity, Our Liberty and Our Future’.

And if you would like to better understand the origin, identity and insane behaviour of the global elite, see the section headed ‘How the World Works’ in ‘Why Activists Fail’ as well as the articles ‘Exposing the Giants: The Global Power Elite’ and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ along with the many references cited in these documents. For a deeper understanding of why elite and other human violence is so pervasive, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice ’.

So what can we do about all of this?

A Nonviolent Strategy to Fight for our Humanity, Liberty and Future

Many people, including authors cited above, have decried the violence by some that has broken out in response to the police murder of African-American George Floyd (by a white policeman who has killed and gone unpunished before: see ‘As Chief Prosecutor, Klobuchar Declined to Bring Charges Against Cop that Killed George Floyd’) and which has captured most corporate media attention.

Of course, a considerable amount of this violence (both against people and property) is initiated by police and their provocateurs to discredit those people peacefully protesting against Floyd’s murder. For a thorough and documented report, see ‘Agent Provocateurs: Police at Protests All Over the Country Caught Destroying Property’.

As another commentator noted in relation to the United States: ‘It came as no surprise that local and state officials across the US reacted to largely peaceful, spontaneous mass protests against police brutality and racism by unleashing a maelstrom of militarized police violence. For a generation, the Federal government has been quietly gifting huge stocks of surplus military equipment, including tanks, to local police forces and sheriff’s offices eager to play with lethal new toys designed for counter-insurgency.’ See ‘Ten Days that May Have Changed the World’.

But some of the violence is also being instigated by those associated with groups that have a very different agenda. These range from white racist groups – see ‘Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists’ – to antifascist groups like Antifa – see ‘What is Antifa?’ – who, as explained above and also pointed out by Timothy Alexander Guzman, ‘has given more ammunition for the establishment to enforce a total police state.’ See ‘US Police Forces Are Trained by Israel: The Knee-On-Neck Tactic That Was Used On George Floyd Is The Same Tactic That Has Been Used on the Palestinians’.

However, whatever the political motivation for their violence, none of these racist or antifascist groups has a coherent analysis or strategy for worthwhile fundamental change in society and can only provoke a response from authorities that would achieve the opposite of what they want, whether it be an authoritarian technocracy, police state or martial law. See ‘War on Antifa: As Trump vows to declare it a “Terrorist Group”, AG Barr equates rioting to domestic terrorism’.

Moreover, we would be unwise to attribute much credit to those former and serving US military leaders, including the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are speaking in defense of ‘the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly’. See ‘Message to the Joint Force [re George Floyd protests]’. When it really matters, however, it is highly likely that virtually all senior military personnel will be called into line and it will depend largely on those in lower ranks to find the conscience and courage to resist their superiors in trying to contain resistance to the coup.

So if we are going to use this crisis, in all of its dimensions, as an opportunity to fight for our individuality, our society and our future, then we are going to need to do some things very differently and do them in a way that makes a strategic difference. Otherwise, we have a very bleak future or none at all.

Depending on your interests and circumstances, here is a range of suggestions that will each make an important difference.

If you wish to address your own emotional health issues preceding or arising from the COVID-19 coup and to become more powerful in the process, consider ‘Putting Feelings First’. If you wish to support others, including children, to become more powerful, see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

Vitally importantly, you might also like to consider making ‘My Promise to Children’ which will include considering what an education for your children means to you, particularly if you want powerful individuals who can stand up to the violence being inflicted on us at the moment. See ‘Do We Want School or Education?’

In relation to the coup itself, I have identified the appropriate political purpose – obviously ‘To defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite’ – and set out a basic list of (now) 28 strategic goals for achieving this purpose (which will also play a vital role in tackling key threats to human survival). The first thirteen of these strategic goals are as follows (and you are welcome to consider those you will do yourself and how you, either as an individual or part of a group, might help to mobilize others to do so too):

(1) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by wearing a global symbol of human solidarity, such as an image of several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands.

(2) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting all corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Google, Facebook, Twitter…) and by seeking news from progressive news outlets committed to telling the truth.

(3) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by refusing to download the COVID-19 ‘contact tracing’ surveillance app.

(4) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by ending their ownership and use of a mobile (cell) phone. See ‘EchoEarth: End Cell Phones on Earth’ and ‘Cancel Your Cellphone Account Day, 20-21 June 2020’.

(5) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by withdrawing all funds from the corporate banks and depositing their money in local community banks or credit unions.

(6) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting the medical and pharmaceutical industries – including by conscientiously refusing to submit to vaccination – and by seeking health advice and treatment from natural therapists. (If you are unfamiliar with the different philosophies underpinning these approaches, and hence why many natural therapies are so much more effective, there is a straightforward explanation here: ‘Pasteur vs. Bechamp: An Alternative View of Infectious Disease’.)

(7) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting corporate supermarkets and by supporting small and family businesses, and local markets.

(8) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in other locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible nonviolent actions in the document ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(9) To cause the workers [in trade unions or labor organizations T1, T2, T…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include withdrawing labor from an elite-controlled bank, media, pharmaceutical or other corporation operating in your country.

(10) To cause the small farmers and farmworkers [in organizations F1, F2, F…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include distributing farm produce through (existing or created) grassroots networks to small and family businesses as well as local markets rather than through corporate supply chains.

(11) To cause the indigenous peoples [in organizations IP1,IP2, IP…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include utilizing indigenous knowledge to improve local self-reliance in food production and in other ways.

(12) To cause the soldiers and military police [in army units AU1, AU2, AU… and MP1, MP2, MP…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

(13) To cause the police [in police units P1, P2, P…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

You can read all 28 of the ‘Strategic goals for defeating a political/military coup conducted by the global elite against humanity’ by scrolling down the page at ‘Strategic A ims ’.

Remaining pages on the website fully explain the twelve components of the strategy, as illustrated by the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel, as well as articles and videos explaining all of the vital points of strategy and tactics, such as those to help you understand ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’.

Given the complexity of the configuration of this conflict, however, which involves the need to fight simultaneously to retain our ‘deep humanity’, defeat the elite coup and avert near-term human extinction, it is important that our tactical choices are strategically-oriented (as the examples I cite in the thirteen strategic goals above illustrate). Hence, three further considerations assume importance.

First, choose/design tactics that have strategic impact, that is, they fundamentally and permanently alter, in our favor, the power relationship between the elite and us.

Second, when tactical choices are made, focus them on undermining the elite coup, not just features of it, such as ‘social distancing’ or the lockdowns. At its most basic, this can be achieved by using tactical choices that mobilize people to act initially, as is happening, but then inviting them to consider taking further, more focused, action as well (such as those nominated in the 28 strategic goals listed or referenced above). This is important because existing actions will have little impact on key underlying measures, such as those being taken by the elite to advance the fourth industrial revolution, which includes reducing us to a ‘digital identity’.

Third, choose/design tactics that also have strategic impact on the greatest threats to human survival, including the collapsing biodiversity on Earth, the threat of nuclear war, the climate catastrophe and the deployment of 5G. Given the incredibly short timeframe in which we are now working to avert human extinction, while people are mobilizing it is important to use this opportunity to give them the chance to perceive the ‘big picture’ of what is taking place – beyond lockdowns and other measures supposedly being used to tackle COVID-19 – and to act powerfully in response.

Equally importantly, the Nonviolent Strategy website explains how to prepare, frame and conduct any nonviolent action to minimize the risk of violent repression and to contain any risk of damage to our cause by association with, or disruption by, those groups and provocateurs with a very different and possibly violent agenda. See ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Fortunately, as more people become aware of the deeper strands of what is taking place, the energy to break the lockdowns and resist the coup will gather pace. As I have previously outlined, using a locally relevant focus, or perhaps several, for which many people would traditionally be together – a cultural, religious or sporting event, a community activity such as working to establish a community garden to increase local self-reliance, a birthday celebration and/or a return to work – we can mobilize people to collectively resist.

In addition, as I mentioned above, given the pressing (and, possibly, now uncontainable) threat of human extinction but also because becoming more self-reliant is vital to our ongoing capacity to resist elite encroachments on our rights, freedom and economic security, consider accelerated participation in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth ’.

And for those nonviolent activists concerned about preventing nuclear war, stopping the deployment of 5G, halting the collapse of biodiversity or the climate catastrophe, and ending other threats to human survival – including those in relation to the environment and war – you can read about nonviolent strategy, including strategic goals to focus your campaigns, from here: Strategic Aims.

Or, for those who want something simpler, consider committing to:

The Earth Pledge

Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:

I will listen deeply to children. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.
I will not travel by plane
I will not travel by car
I will not eat meat and fish
I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
I will not own or use a mobile (cell) phone
I will not buy rainforest timber
I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.

Conclusion

Some people will no doubt shy away from the analysis above. To those unfamiliar with elite politics, it might indeed sound preposterous. Surely, some might think, this is a ‘conspiracy theory’.

And you are right. See ‘In defence of conspiracy theories (and why the term is a misnomer)’.

This is because the evidence that there is a great deal wrong with the world, and that a select group of people, some identifiable, some less easily so, have orchestrated these events over an extended period of time is overwhelming. Even if the emotional and behavioural dysfunctionalities of most people have made it easy for them.

So I encourage you to have a ponder. There is a great deal at stake at this time. A human future, no less.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Are we about to see a Colour Revolution in the United States?

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Reid Mukai

The familiar tropes are out in force, Trump may not weather this storm.

By Kit Knightly

Source: Off-Guardian

It started with peaceful protests. It always does. Oppressed, poor or otherwise desperate people take to the streets because they don’t know what else to do. Because their neighbours are doing it. Because the world is unfair to so many people. Because attention should be paid.

The reasons don’t matter. The peacefulness does.

Nobody who is marching for justice and change really wants to burn down a bakery or steal some trainers from a Nike store.

But then it starts happening.

Windows are broken. Bricks are thrown. Civilians are sprayed with mace. Bystanders are caught up in the throng. People get hurt.

It doesn’t need to happen, but it does.

Sometimes police panic in the face of intimidating crowds. Sometimes protesters let their anger boil over. A small minority of people just enjoy violence and chaos. Others stand to benefit from it, they stoke conflict and spread blame.

Then the molotov cocktails are flying and the snipers are shooting people on both sides. There’s blood in the streets and barricades are going up and the whole thing has its own momentum.

And, through all this, the media is churning out the noise. Partisan and dehumanising. “criminals” on one side “Fascists” on the other. Both sides are called thugs. Fox News and CNN tell the same stories with reversed points of view, slashing society down the centre.

And the chaos builds. The President has to do something, so he calls in the army.

Now the press are calling him a fascist and a dictator. They say he’s violated his office and he has to resign or be removed or be arrested.

I’m not talking about the United States.

I’m talking about Ukraine in 2014. Or Egypt and Syria in 2011. Or Libya in 2010. Or Bolivia just last winter. Or Venezuela every year for decades.

If the events currently unfolding in cities across the United States were happening in any other country in the world, a lot of us would already have said that the US Deep State was behind it. All the hallmarks are there.

The constructed narratives. The handy props. The agents provocateur. The hysterical media. The stench of agenda.

Consider, for a moment, that what is happening in Minneapolis and New York and Los Angeles has been happening in Paris and a host of other French cities for nearly two years.

The Guardian never called Macron a fascist. CNN never had a live stream about that.

Compare the coverage of the Gilets Jaunes to Black Lives Matter, and then to the Maidan protests.

The rubber bullets and tear gas are the same. The headlines are not.

CNN has one host calling Trump a “thug” who’s “hiding in his bunker”, and another saying “Trump declared war on Americans”. Robert Reich, writing in the Guardian, says:

[Trump] is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.

The Washington Post has an op-ed headlined:

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.

Slate magazine:

Remove Trump Now

The corporations are all on board. Every one of them releasing statements of solidarity and heartfelt Instagram posts and sending money to all the right places. Nike had their famous ad.

Because the same companies paying slave-wages to 10-year-old Indonesian kids in vast sweatshops just hate racism and inequality, honest.

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Doesn’t this look like a play for an exchange of power? A colour revolution in the offing?

I suppose we should ask “why now?” Trump is up for re-election in just five months after all. Biden doesn’t really stand a chance, but they could have him suffer “ill health” and pull out, replace him with a Harris or a Warren or Michelle Obama. Hell, they could just rig it. They’ve done it before.

But then maybe it’s not about Trump per se, maybe it’s about the process of elections and the office of President in general. Maybe it’s about getting martial law in place well before the Covid19 backlash kicks in. Maybe there’s something else coming down the pipe that will make it clearer.

Supposing the plan is to get rid of Trump, what happens next?

Well, maybe one of a few things.

Firstly, it’s possible it all just dies down. But if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that the Deep State doesn’t fold a bad hand, they just up the ante and hope to bluff it out.

Second, there’s the possibility Trump introduces full-on martial law and becomes a quasi-dictator. While I’m sure he has no moral compunctions about that, it’s hard to see he would have the (vital) support of the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies in that endeavour. They’ve shown their colours throughout the last four years. However useful Trump has been, he is not an insider and he is entirely disposable.

Third, and final, Trump goes. Whether there’s an impeachment or a trial or an early election or a civil war…I don’t know. But it’s hard to see Trump weathering this storm.

If I had to guess, I’d say the protests and pressures mount until Trump does something stupid. If he makes any Yanukovych-style attempts at appeasement (he probably won’t), they will be ignored or minimised or the goalposts will be moved (we already saw that, when the arrest of Derek Chauvin went almost totally unnoticed).

If soldiers fire on civilians – whether Trump orders it or not, or whether mercenaries frame the army (like in Ukraine) – that will be it. The military will resign en masse, turn on Trump and he will be ousted.

From there could emerge an appointed “temporary” President, a middle-of-the-road type with support from both parties, whose job is to “unify the country” and “heal the divides”.

The emergence of a totally unelected President will, of course, be called something like “a triumph of the democratic spirit” in The Guardian.

The riots will be blamed for a constructed “second wave” of Covid19. Just in time for one of the new POTUS’ first announcements to be that “America will start taking Covid19 seriously”. Stronger lockdown rules, mandatory track-and-trace…the full Monty.

This will naturally earn him/her good-boy points all across the mainstream media, with the (totally accidental) bonus that anyone who dares protest the coup will be breaking the law, being selfish and risking lives (and probably a racist).

This is all just my supposition. I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong. But I can see it heading in that direction. And the idea should worry everyone. Not out of any latent concern for Donald Trump, obviously. Just for the stability of the world. Coups or impeachments or other non-democratic power-changes are not good. They don’t end well.

They don’t end well for the leaders being removed, who almost universally end up exiled or hanged or poisoned or shot. Sometimes worse.

More importantly, they don’t end well for the ordinary people, who always suffer when the Deep State turns society on its head.

And, in this instance, it may not end well for the world, which suddenly has a nuclear-armed superpower in a severe state of flux to worry about.

We should all be concerned.

There’s an old joke:

Q: Why has there never been a military coup in the United States?

A: Because there’s no American Embassy there.

It looks like maybe that no longer applies.

Why America’s “Revolution” Won’t be Televised. No one is Aiming at the Empire

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Reid Mukai

Protesters jump on a street sign near a burning barricade near the White House during a demonstration against the death of George Floyd on May 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP

By Pepe Escobar

Source: Global Research

The Revolution Won’t Be Televised because this is not a revolution. At least not yet.

Burning and/or looting Target or Macy’s is a minor diversion. No one is aiming at the Pentagon (or even the shops at the Pentagon Mall). The FBI. The NY Federal Reserve. The Treasury Department. The CIA in Langley. Wall Street houses.

The real looters – the ruling class – are comfortably surveying the show on their massive 4K Bravias, sipping single malt.

This is a class war much more than a race war and should be approached as such. Yet it was hijacked from the start to unfold as a mere color revolution.

US corporate media dropped their breathless Planet Lockdown coverage like a ton of – pre-arranged? – bricks to breathlessly cover en masse the new American “revolution.” Social distancing is not exactly conducive to a revolutionary spirit.

There’s no question the US is mired in a convoluted civil war in progress, as serious as what happened after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King in Memphis in April 1968.

Yet massive cognitive dissonance is the norm across the full “strategy of tension” spectrum. Powerful factions pull no punches to control the narrative. No one is able to fully identify all the shadowplay intricacies and inconsistencies.

Hardcore agendas mingle: an attempt at color revolution/regime change (blowback is a bitch) interacts with the Boogaloo Bois – arguably tactical allies of Black Lives Matter – while white supremacist “accelerationists” attempt to provoke a race war.

To quote the Temptations: it’s a ball of confusion.

Antifa is criminalized but the Boogaloo Bois get a pass (here is how Antifa’s main conceptualizer defends his ideas). Yet another tribal war, yet another – now domestic – color revolution under the sign of divide and rule, pitting Antifa anti-fascists vs. fascist white supremacists.

Meanwhile, the policy infrastructure necessary for enacting martial law has evolved as a bipartisan project.

We are in the middle of the proverbial, total fog of war. Those defending the US Army crushing “insurrectionists” in the streets advocate at the same time a swift ending to the American empire.

Amidst so much sound and fury signifying perplexity and paralysis, we may be reaching a supreme moment of historical irony, where US homeland (in)security is being boomerang-hit not only by one of the key artifacts of its own Deep State making – a color revolution – but by combined elements of a perfect blowback trifecta: Operation Phoenix; Operation Jakarta; and Operation Gladio.

But the targets this time won’t be millions across the Global South. They will be American citizens.

Empire come home

Quite a few progressives contend this is a spontaneous mass uprising against police repression and system oppression – and that would necessarily lead to a revolution, like the February 1917 revolution in Russia sprouting out of the scarcity of bread in Petrograd.

So the protests against endemic police brutality would be a prelude to a Levitate the Pentagon remix – with the interregnum soon entailing a possible face-off with the US military in the streets.

But we got a problem. The insurrection, so far purely emotional, has yielded no political structure and no credible leader to articulate myriad, complex grievances. As it stands, it amounts to an inchoate insurrection, under the sign of impoverishment and perpetual debt.

Adding to the perplexity, Americans are now confronted with what it feels like to be in Vietnam, El Salvador, the Pakistani tribal areas or Sadr City in Baghdad.

Iraq came to Washington DC in full regalia, with Pentagon Blackhawks doing “show of force” passes over protestors, the tried and tested dispersal technique applied in countless counter-insurgency ops across the Global South.

And then, the Elvis moment: General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, patrolling the streets of DC. The Raytheon lobbyist now heading the Pentagon, Mark Esper, called it “dominating the battlespace.”

Well, after they got their butts kicked in Afghanistan and Iraq, and indirectly in Syria, full spectrum dominance must dominate somewhere. So why not back home?

Troops from the 82^nd Airborne Division, the 10^th Mountain Division and the 1^st Infantry Division – who lost wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and, yes, Somalia – have been deployed to Andrews Airbase near Washington.

Super-hawk Tom Cotton even called, in a tweet, for the 82^nd Airborne to do “whatever it takes to restore order. No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters and looters.” These are certainly more amenable targets than the Russian, Chinese and Iranian militaries.

Milley’s performance reminds me of John McCain walking around in Baghdad in 2007, macho man-style, no helmet, to prove everything was OK. Of course: he had a small army weaponized to the teeth watching his back.

And complementing the racism angle, it’s never enough to remember that both a white president and a black president signed off on drone attacks on wedding parties in the Pakistani tribal areas.

Esper spelled it out: an occupying army may soon be “dominating the battlespace” in the nation’s capital, and possibly elsewhere. What next? A Coalition Provisional Authority?

Compared to similar ops across the Global South, this will not only prevent regime change but also produce the desired effect for the ruling oligarchy: a neo-fascist turning of the screws. Proving once again that when you don’t have a Martin Luther King or a Malcolm X to fight the power, then power crushes you whatever you do.

The late, great political theorist Sheldon Wolin had already nailed it in a book first published in 2008: this is all about Inverted Totalitarianism.

Wolin showed how “the cruder forms of control – from militarized police to wholesale surveillance, as well as police serving as judge, jury and executioner, now a reality for the underclass – will become a reality for all of us should we begin to resist the continued funneling of power and wealth upward.

“We are tolerated as citizens only as long as we participate in the illusion of a participatory democracy. The moment we rebel and refuse to take part in the illusion, the face of inverted totalitarianism will look like the face of past systems of totalitarianism,” he wrote.

Sinclair Lewis (who did not say that, “when fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving the cross”) actually wrote, in It Can’t Happen Here (1935), that American fascists would be those “who disowned the word ‘fascism’ and preached enslavement to capitalism under the style of constitutional and traditional native American liberty.”

So American fascism, when it happens, will walk and talk American.

George Floyd was the spark. In a Freudian twist, the return of the repressed came out swinging, laying bare multiple wounds: how the US political economy shattered the working classes; failed miserably on Covid-19; failed to provide affordable healthcare; profits a plutocracy; and thrives on a racialized labor market, a militarized police, multi-trillion-dollar imperial wars and serial bailouts of the too big to fail.

Instinctively at least, although in an inchoate manner, millions of Americans clearly see how, since Reaganism, the whole game is about an oligarchy/plutocracy weaponizing white supremacism for political power goals, with the extra bonus of a steady, massive, upwards transfer of wealth.

Slightly before the first, peaceful Minneapolis protests, I argued that the realpolitik perspectives post-lockdown were grim, privileging both restored neoliberalism – already in effect – and hybrid neofascism.

President Trump’s by now iconic Bible photo op in front of St John’s church – including a citizen tear-gassing preview – took it to a whole new level. Trump wanted to send a carefully choreographed signal to his evangelical base. Mission accomplished.

But arguably the most important (invisible) signal was the fourth man in one of the photos.

Giorgio Agamben has already proved beyond reasonable doubt that the state of siege is now totally normalized in the West. Attorney General William Barr now is aiming to institutionalize it in the US: he’s the man with the leeway to go all out for a permanent state of emergency, a Patriot Act on steroids, complete with “show of force” Blackhawk support.

Four Reasons Civilization Won’t Decline: It Will Collapse

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Reid Mukai

By Craig Collins

Source: CounterPunch

As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies collapse and civilizations die. Meanwhile, a lucrative market has emerged for post-apocalyptic novels, movies, TV shows, and video games for those who enjoy the vicarious thrill of dark, futuristic disaster and mayhem from the comfort of their cozy couch. Of course, surviving the real thing will become a much different story.

The latent fear that civilization is living on borrowed time has also spawned a counter-market of “happily ever after” optimists who desperately cling to their belief in endless progress. Popular Pollyannas, like cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, provide this anxious crowd with soothing assurances that the titanic ship of progress is unsinkable. Pinker’s publications have made him the high priest of progress.[1] While civilization circles the drain, his ardent audiences find comfort in lectures and books brimming with cherry-picked evidence to prove that life is better than ever, and will surely keep improving. Yet, when questioned, Pinker himself admits, “It’s incorrect to extrapolate that the fact that we’ve made progress is a prediction that we’re guaranteed to make progress.”[2]

Pinker’s rosy statistics cleverly disguise the fatal flaw in his argument. The progress of the past was built by sacrificing the future—and the future is upon us. All the happy facts he cites about living standards, life expectancy, and economic growth are the product of an industrial civilization that has pillaged and polluted the planet to produce temporary progress for a growing middle class—and enormous profits and power for a tiny elite.

Not everyone who understands that progress has been purchased at the expense of the future thinks that civilization’s collapse will be abrupt and bitter. Scholars of ancient societies, like Jared Diamond and John Michael Greer, accurately point out that abrupt collapse is a rare historical phenomenon. In The Long Descent, Greer assures his readers that, “The same pattern repeats over and over again in history. Gradual disintegration, not sudden catastrophic collapse, is the way civilizations end.” Greer estimates that it takes, on average, about 250 years for civilizations to decline and fall, and he finds no reason why modern civilization shouldn’t follow this “usual timeline.”[3]

But Greer’s assumption is built on shaky ground because industrial civilization differs from all past civilizations in four crucial ways. And every one of them may accelerate and intensify the coming collapse while increasing the difficulty of recovery.

Difference #1: Unlike all previous civilizations, modern industrial civilization is powered by an exceptionally rich, NON-renewable, and irreplaceable energy source—fossil fuels. This unique energy base predisposes industrial civilization to a short, meteoric lifespan of unprecedented boom and drastic bust. Megacities, globalized production, industrial agriculture, and a human population approaching 8 billion are all historically exceptional—and unsustainable—without fossil fuels. Today, the rich easily exploited oilfields and coalmines of the past are mostly depleted. And, while there are energy alternatives, there are no realistic replacements that can deliver the abundant net energy fossil fuels once provided.[4] Our complex, expansive, high-speed civilization owes its brief lifespan to this one-time, rapidly dwindling energy bonanza.

Difference #2: Unlike past civilizations, the economy of industrial society is capitalist. Production for profit is its prime directive and driving force. The unprecedented surplus energy supplied by fossil fuels has generated exceptional growth and enormous profits over the past two centuries. But in the coming decades, these historic windfalls of abundant energy, constant growth, and rising profits will vanish.

However, unless it is abolished, capitalism will not disappear when boom turns to bust. Instead, energy-starved, growth-less capitalism will turn catabolic. Catabolismrefers to the condition whereby a living thing devours itself. As profitable sources of production dry up, capitalism will be compelled to turn a profit by consuming the social assets it once created. By cannibalizing itself, the profit motive will exacerbate industrial society’s dramatic decline.

Catabolic capitalism will profit from scarcity, crisis, disaster, and conflict. Warfare, resource hoarding, ecological disaster, and pandemic diseases will become the big profit makers. Capital will flow toward lucrative ventures like cybercrime, predatory lending, and financial fraud; bribery, corruption, and racketeering; weapons, drugs, and human trafficking. Once disintegration and destruction become the primary source of profit, catabolic capitalism will rampage down the road to ruin, gorging itself on one self-inflicted disaster after another.[5]

Difference #3: Unlike past societies, industrial civilization isn’t Roman, Chinese, Egyptian, Aztec, or Mayan. Modern civilization is HUMAN, PLANETARY, and ECOCIDAL. Pre-industrial civilizations depleted their topsoil, felled their forests, and polluted their rivers. But the harm was far more temporary and geographically limited. Once market incentives harnessed the colossal power of fossil fuels to exploit nature, the dire results were planetary. Two centuries of fossil fuel combustion have saturated the biosphere with climate-altering carbon that will continue wreaking havoc for generations to come. The damage to Earth’s living systems—the circulation and chemical composition of the atmosphere and the ocean; the stability of the hydrological and biogeochemical cycles; and the biodiversity of the entire planet—is essentially permanent.

Humans have become the most invasive species ever known. Although we are a mere .01 percent of the planet’s biomass, our domesticated crops and livestock dominate life on Earth. In terms of total biomass, 96 percent of all the mammals on Earth are livestock; only 4 percent are wild mammals. Seventy percent of all birds are domesticated poultry, only 30 percent are wild. About half the Earth’s wild animals are thought to have been lost in just the last 50 years.^[6] Scientists estimate that half of all remaining species will be extinct by the end of the century.^[7] There are no more unspoiled ecosystems or new frontiers where people can escape the damage they’ve caused and recover from collapse.

Difference #4: Human civilization’s collective capacity to confront its mounting crises is crippled by a fragmented political system of antagonistic nations ruled by corrupt elites who care more about power and wealth than people and the planet. Humanity faces a perfect storm of converging global calamities. Intersecting tribulations like climate chaos, rampant extinction, food and freshwater scarcity, poverty, extreme inequality, and the rise of global pandemics are rapidly eroding the foundations of modern life.

Yet, this fractious and fractured political system makes organizing and mounting a cooperative response nearly impossible. And, the more catabolic industrial capitalism becomes, the greater the danger that hostile rulers will fan the flames of nationalism and go to war over scarce resources. Of course, warfare is not new. But modern warfare is so devastating, destructive, and toxic that little would remain in its aftermath. This would be the final nail in civilization’s coffin.

Rising From the Ruins?

How people respond to the collapse of industrial civilization will determine how bad things get and what will replace it. The challenges are monumental. They will force us to question our identities, our values, and our loyalties like no other experience in our history. Who are we? Are we, first and foremost, human beings struggling to raise our families, strengthen our communities, and coexist with the other inhabitants of Earth? Or do our primary loyalties belong to our nation, our culture, our race, our ideology, or our religion? Can we put the survival of our species and our planet first, or will we allow ourselves to become hopelessly divided along national, cultural, racial, religious, or party lines?

The eventual outcome of this great implosion is up for grabs. Will we overcome denial and despair; kick our addiction to petroleum; and pull together to break the grip of corporate power over our lives? Can we foster genuine democracy, harness renewable energy, reweave our communities, re-learn forgotten skills, and heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on the Earth? Or will fear and prejudice drive us into hostile camps, fighting over the dwindling resources of a degraded planet? The stakes could not be higher.

Notes.

[1] His books include: The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

[2] King, Darryn. “Steven Pinker on the Past, Present, and Future of Optimism” (OneZero, Jan 10, 2019) https://onezero.medium.com/steven-pinker-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-optimism-f362398c604b

[3] Greer, John Michael. The Long Descent (New Society Publishers, 2008): 29.

[4] Heinberg, Richard. The End Of Growth. (New Society, 2011): 117.

[5] For more on catabolic capitalism see: Collins, Craig. “Catabolism: Capitalism’s Frightening Future,”CounterPunch (Nov. 1, 2018). https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/01/catabolism-capitalisms-frightening-future/

[6] Carrington, Damian. “New Study: Humans Just 0.01% Of All Life But Have Destroyed 83% Of Wild Mammals,” The Guardian (May 21, 2018). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

[7] Ceballos, Ehrlich, Barnosky, Garcia, Pringle & Palmer. “Accelerated Modern Human-Induced Species Losses: Entering The 6th Mass Extinction,” Science Advances. (June 19, 2015). http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253

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After the Crash

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Category Archives: Dystopia

Four Reasons Civilization Won’t Decline: It Will Collapse