Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.
The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.
The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.
We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the worldтАЩs reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.
Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison dтАЩ├йtat of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of тАЬnational security.тАЭ The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.
There were three restraints to the avarice and bloodlust of the permanent war economy that no longer exist. The first was the old liberal wing of the Democratic Party, led by politicians such as Senator George McGovern, Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Senator J. William Fulbright, who wrote The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. The self-identified progressives, a pitiful minority, in Congress today, from Barbara Lee, who was the single vote in the House and the Senate opposing a broad, open-ended authorization allowing the president to wage war in Afghanistan or anywhere else, to Ilhan Omar now dutifully line up to fund the latest proxy war. The second restraint was an independent media and academia, including journalists such as I.F Stone and Neil Sheehan along with scholars such as Seymour Melman, author of The Permanent War Economy and Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War. Third, and perhaps most important, was an organized anti-war movement, led by religious leaders such as Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. and Phil and Dan Berrigan as well as groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They understood that unchecked militarism was a fatal disease.
None of these opposition forces, which did not reverse the permanent war economy but curbed its excesses, now exist. The two ruling parties have been bought by corporations, especially military contractors. The press is anemic and obsequious to the war industry. Propagandists for permanent war, largely from right-wing think tanks lavishly funded by the war industry, along with former military and intelligence officials, are exclusively quoted or interviewed as military experts. NBCтАЩs тАЬMeet the PressтАЭ aired a segment May 13 where officials from Center for a New American Security (CNAS) simulated what a war with China over Taiwan might look like. The co-founder of CNAS, Mich├иle Flournoy, who appeared in the тАЬMeet the PressтАЭ war games segment and was considered by Biden to run the Pentagon, wrote in 2020 in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. needs to develop тАЬthe capability to credibly threaten to sink all of ChinaтАЩs military vessels, submarines and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours.тАЭ
The handful of anti-militarists and critics of empire from the left, such as Noam Chomsky, and the right, such as Ron Paul, have been declared persona non grata by a compliant media. The liberal class has retreated into boutique activism where issues of class, capitalism and militarism are jettisoned for тАЬcancel culture,тАЭ multiculturalism and identity politics. Liberals are cheerleading the war in Ukraine. At least the inception of the war with Iraq saw them join significant street protests. Ukraine is embraced as the latest crusade for freedom and democracy against the new Hitler. There is little hope, I fear, of rolling back or restraining the disasters being orchestrated on a national and global level. The neoconservatives and liberal interventionists chant in unison for war. Biden has appointed these war mongers, whose attitude to nuclear war is terrifyingly cavalier, to run the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the State Department.
Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military. This military adventurism accelerates the decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the squandering of $8 trillion in the futile wars in the Middle East illustrate. War and sanctions, it is believed, will cripple Russia, rich in gas and natural resources. War, or the threat of war, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China.
These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality. No longer able to salvage their own society and economy, they seek to destroy those of their global competitors, especially Russia and China. Once the militarists cripple Russia, the plan goes, they will focus military aggression on the Indo-Pacific, dominating what Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, referring to the Pacific, called тАЬthe American Sea.тАЭ
You cannot talk about war without talking about markets. The U.S., whose growth rate has fallen to below 2 percent, while ChinaтАЩs growth rate is 8.1 percent, has turned to military aggression to bolster its sagging economy. If the U.S. can sever Russian gas supplies to Europe, it will force Europeans to buy from the United States. U.S. firms, at the same time, would be happy to replace the Chinese Communist Party, even if they must do it through the threat of war, to open unfettered access to Chinese markets. War, if it did break out with China, would devastate the Chinese, American, and global economies, destroying free trade between countries as in World War I. But that doesnтАЩt mean it wonтАЩt happen.
Washington is desperately trying to build military and economic alliances to ward off a rising China, whose economy is expected by 2028 to overtake that of the United States, according to the UKтАЩs Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The White House has said BidenтАЩs current visit to Asia is about sending a тАЬpowerful messageтАЭ to Beijing and others about what the world could look like if democracies тАЬstand together to shape the rules of the road.тАЭ The Biden administration has invited South Korea and Japan to attend the NATO summit in Madrid.
But fewer and fewer nations, even among European allies, are willing to be dominated by the United States. WashingtonтАЩs veneer of democracy and supposed respect for human rights and civil liberties is so badly tarnished as to be irrecoverable. Its economic decline, with ChinaтАЩs manufacturing 70 percent higher than that of the U.S., is irreversible. War is a desperate Hail Mary, one employed by dying empires throughout history with catastrophic consequences. тАЬIt was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,тАЭ Thucydides noted in the History of the Peloponnesian War.
A key component to the sustenance of the permanent war state was the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. Without conscripts, the burden of fighting wars falls to the poor, the working class, and military families. This All-Volunteer Force allows the children of the middle class, who led the Vietnam anti-war movement, to avoid service. It protects the military from internal revolts, carried out by troops during the Vietnam War, which jeopardized the cohesion of the armed forces.
The All-Volunteer Force, by limiting the pool of available troops, also makes the global ambitions of the militarists impossible. Desperate to maintain or increase troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military instituted the stop-loss policy that arbitrarily extended active-duty contracts. Its slang term was the backdoor draft. The effort to bolster the number of troops by hiring private military contractors, as well, had a negligible effect. Increased troop levels would not have won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the tiny percentage of those willing to serve in the military (only 7 percent of the U.S. population are veterans) is an unacknowledged Achilles heel for the militarists.
тАЬAs a consequence, the problem of too much war and too few soldiers eludes serious scrutiny,тАЭ writes historian and retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich in After the Apocalypse: AmericaтАЩs Role in a World Transformed. тАЬExpectations of technology bridging that gap provide an excuse to avoid asking the most fundamental questions: Does the United States possess the military wherewithal to oblige adversaries to endorse its claim of being historyтАЩs indispensable nation? And if the answer is no, as the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suggest, wouldnтАЩt it make sense for Washington to temper its ambitions accordingly?тАЭ
This question, as Bacevich points out, is тАЬanathema.тАЭ The military strategists work from the supposition that the coming wars wonтАЩt look anything like past wars. They invest in imaginary theories of future wars that ignore the lessons of the past, ensuring more fiascos.
The political class is as self-deluded as the generals. It refuses to accept the emergence of a multi-polar world and the palpable decline of American power. It speaks in the outdated language of American exceptionalism and triumphalism, believing it has the right to impose its will as the leader of the тАЬfree world.тАЭ In his 1992 Defense Planning Guidance memorandum, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. must ensure no rival superpower again arises. The U.S. should project its military strength to dominate a unipolar world in perpetuity. On February 19, 1998, on NBCтАЩs тАЬTodayShowтАЭ, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the Democratic version of this doctrine of unipolarity. тАЬIf we have to use force it is because we are Americans; we are the indispensable nation,тАЭ she said. тАЬWe stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.тАЭ
This demented vision of unrivaled U.S. global supremacy, not to mention unrivaled goodness and virtue, blinds the establishment Republicans and Democrats. The military strikes they casually used to assert the doctrine of unipolarity, especially in the Middle East, swiftly spawned jihadist terror and prolonged warfare. None of them saw it coming until the hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center twin towers. That they cling to this absurd hallucination is the triumph of hope over experience.
There is a deep loathing among the public for these elitist Ivy League architects of American imperialism. Imperialism was tolerated when it was able to project power abroad and produce rising living standards at home. It was tolerated when it restrained itself to covert interventions in countries such as Iran, Guatemala, and Indonesia. It went off the rails in Vietnam. The military defeats that followed accompanied a steady decline in living standards, wage stagnation, a crumbling infrastructure and eventually a series of economic policies and trade deals, orchestrated by the same ruling class, which deindustrialized and impoverished the country.
The establishment oligarchs, now united in the Democratic Party, distrust Donald Trump. He commits the heresy of questioning the sanctity of the American empire. Trump derided the invasion of Iraq as a тАЬbig, fat mistake.тАЭ He promised тАЬto keep us out of endless war.тАЭ Trump was repeatedly questioned about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. Putin was тАЬa killer,тАЭ one interviewer told him. тАЬThere are a lot of killers,тАЭ Trump retorted. тАЬYou think our countryтАЩs so innocent?тАЭ Trump dared to speak a truth that was to be forever unspoken, the militarists had sold out the American people.
Noam Chomsky took some heat for pointing out, correctly, that Trumpis the тАЬone statesmanтАЭ who has laid out a тАЬsensibleтАЭ proposition to resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The proposed solution included тАЬfacilitating negotiations instead of undermining them and moving toward establishing some kind of accommodation in EuropeтАжin which there are no military alliances but just mutual accommodation.тАЭ
Trump is too unfocused and mercurial to offer serious policy solutions. He did set a timetable to withdraw from Afghanistan, but he also ratcheted up the economic war against Venezuela and reinstituted crushing sanctions against Cuba and Iran, which the Obama administration had ended. He increased the military budget. He apparently flirted with carrying out a missile strike on Mexico to тАЬdestroy the drug labs.тАЭ But he acknowledges a distaste for imperial mismanagement that resonates with the public, one that has every right to loath the smug mandarins that plunge us into one war after another. Trump lies like he breathes. But so do they.
The 57 Republicans who refused to support the $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, along with many of the 19 bills that included an earlier $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, come out of the kooky conspiratorial world of Trump. They, like Trump, repeat this heresy. They too are attacked and censored. But the longer Biden and the ruling class continue to pour resources into war at our expense, the more these proto fascists, already set to wipe out Democratic gains in the House and the Senate this fall, will be ascendant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during the debate on the aid package to Ukraine, which most members were not given time to closely examine, said: тАЬ$40 billion dollars but thereтАЩs no baby formula for American mothers and babies.тАЭ
тАЬAn unknown amount of money to the CIA and Ukraine supplemental bill but thereтАЩs no formula for American babies,тАЭ she added. тАЬStop funding regime change and money laundering scams. A US politician covers up their crimes in countries like Ukraine.тАЭ
Democrat Jamie Raskin immediately attacked Greene for parroting the propaganda of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Greene, like Trump, spoke a truth that resonates with a beleaguered public. The opposition to permanent war should have come from the tiny progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which unfortunately sold out to the craven Democratic Party leadership to save their political careers. Greene is demented, but Raskin and the Democrats peddle their own brand of lunacy. We are going to pay a very steep price for this burlesque.
In the history of civilization, Politics has more often than not, been a matter reduceable to the question of тАЬwhose side are you on?тАЭ
Granted it is not an easy affair to discern what most-nearly approaches truth in the fog of тАЬthe present.тАЭ Hindsight is 20/20 they say, although that is also not entirely true, for the interpretation of history is just another battlefield, albeit in much slower motion.
In a world of increased division, where we are told there is only black or white, the best we mere тАЬciviliansтАЭ can hope for is to not get hit by the crossfire. However, that is becoming increasingly harder to do.
It is not a matter of holding тАЬopinionтАЭ any longer, it is about upholding a тАЬconviction,тАЭ not earned with your own personal scrutiny and research, but by your тАЬfaithтАЭ in such a conviction and the authorities who shape it.
Increasingly, it does not truly matter what the тАЬfactsтАЭ are, but the question of тАЬwhose side are you on?тАЭ
If that is what тАЬrealityтАЭ has been reduced to by those forces controlling the state, then any enemy to those forces controlling that state will be a villain, regardless of their actions, regardless of their ideology; and any ally to those forces controlling that state will be a hero, regardless of their actions, regardless of their ideology.
And thus, in our shaped reality of today, what makes a тАЬHeroтАЭ or a тАЬVillainтАЭ will be determined by the simple question тАЬwhose side are you on?тАЭ
If this is troubling to you, I suggest we do a little exercise together. Let us dare to discern the тАЬfactsтАЭ for ourselves. Only then, will we cease being mere cheerleaders for a team; only then, can we qualify ourselves to ask in all honest sincerity, тАЬwhose side are we truly on?тАЭ
Are Nazis Now the New тАЬGood GuysтАЭ?
There is a bit of mixed messaging that has been going on, especially in the last few weeks. Are there significant numbers of Nazis in Ukraine and are these тАЬbadтАЭ or тАЬgoodтАЭ Nazis in the context that they are fighting the Russian тАЬinvadersтАЭ?
In one breath we hear the counter, how can there be Nazis in Ukraine when there is a Jewish President calling the shots? In another breath we hear Facebook is now allowing users to praise the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion while they are fighting Russians. In yet another breath we hear, well its complicated, Ukrainian Nationalism should be considered at the forefront of any debate, even if it overlaps with Nazi ideology.
On Feb. 27, 2022, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland held a scarf bearing the slogan тАЬSlava Ukraini,тАЭ meaning тАЬGlory to Ukraine,тАЭ with the тАЬBlood and SoilтАЭ colors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and massacred thousands of Jews and Poles).
According to FreelandтАЩs press secretary, this was just another case of a тАЬclassic KGB disinformation smearтАж accusing Ukrainians and Ukrainian-Canadians of being far right extremists or fascists or Nazis,тАЭ which is a confusing statement on multiple levels.
It is not clear how this is a case of тАЬRussian disinformation,тАЭ since the picture is indeed authentic, Freeland does not deny this. And she is indeed holding a тАЬBlood and SoilтАЭ emblem, which originated with the Nazis, clear for everyone to see. Lastly, it is confusing as to why the Canadian government seems to be unaware that the KGB no longer exists. Are they also under the impression that the Soviet Union still exists?
Not irrelevant in all of this is the fact that FreelandтАЩs grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper during WWII in Galicia and that she is indeed aware of this and apparently unapologetic. Whenever she is questioned about this, she does not deny anything, but simply blames such a focus of inquiry on Russian disinformation with the intent to тАЬdestabilize Western democracies.тАЭ That is, it is not a question of what is oneтАЩs historical or ideological background, but a question of тАЬwhose side are you on?тАЭ
Interestingly, it was the Canadian newspaper тАЬThe Globe and MailтАЭ who reported this story, titled тАЬFreeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper,тАЭ thus, not a Russian publication last time I checked. And upon whom did they base such information? None other than FreelandтАЩs own uncle, John-Paul Himka, who is now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.
According to the Globe and Mail, Freeland was aware for more than two decades that her grandfather Michael Chomiak, was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper that vilified Jews and supported the Nazi cause.
тАЬKrakivski Visti [Krakow News] was set up in 1940 by the German army and supervised by German intelligence officer Emil Gassert. Its printing presses and offices were confiscated by the Germans from a Jewish publisher, who was later murdered at the Belzec concentration camp.
The article titled тАШKravivski Visti and the Jews, 1943: A contribution of Ukrainian Jewish Relations during the Second World WarтАЩ was written by Ms. FreelandтАЩs uncle, John-Paul Himka, now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.
In the foreword to the article, Prof. Himka credits Ms. Freeland for тАШpointing out problems and clarifications.тАЩ Ms. Freeland has never acknowledged that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator and suggested on Monday that the allegation was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
In 1996, Prof. Himka wrote about Mr. ChomiakтАЩs work for Kravivski Visti, a Ukrainian-language newspaper based in Krakow that often published anti-Jewish diatribes including тАШcertain passages in some of the articles that expressed approval of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.тАЩтАЭ [emphasis added]
Oddly, Freeland helped to edit and clarify Prof. HimkaтАЩs article discussing her grandfather as the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper, however, refused to acknowledge her grandfatherтАЩs role publicly and accused any reference to this as part of a тАЬRussian disinformation campaign.тАЭ According to this topsy-turvy logic, FreelandтАЩs uncle, Prof. Himka is part of this тАЬRussian disinformation campaign,тАЭ and she is guilty of providing assistance to this тАЬRussian disinformation campaign,тАЭ all to ruin her political career and тАЬdestabilize Western democracies.тАЭ
Freeland also told her uncle, Prof. Himka, which is included in his article, that according to her father, her grandfather Michael Chomiak was also working to some extent with the anti-Nazi resistance. However, Prof. Himka was unable to verify this information, which he described as тАЬfragmentary and one-sided.тАЭ
This past April, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova delivered an explosive response to Chrystia FreelandтАЩs recent obnoxious efforts to ban Russia from all international organizations and financial institutions, revealing the real sort of work FreelandтАЩs grandfather was in the business of. You can read the full speech here.
Then there is the strange case of NATO tweeting in celebration of international womenтАЩs day, this past March 8, a picture of a female Ukrainian soldier wearing the Black Sun symbol which is tied to Nazi occultism, and Satanism. NATO wrote in their post тАЬAll women and girls must live free and equal,тАЭ sending a very mixed message. NATO also ended up taking down their picture of the Black Sun symbol.
The timing of Freeland and NATOтАЩs twitter posts are most strange. It also begs the question, why post something at all if you are just going to delete it? Is this just a matter of not being aware of such things, or is it a matter of certain groupings getting increasingly bolder and unapologetic as to where their true allegiance lies? Has Chrystia Freeland or NATO undergone any real questioning or backlash for such public displays? Not really.
Fact Checking the тАЬFact-CheckersтАЭ on Ukraine
Before we go through the situation of Ukraine today, I wanted to share with you a very relevant story of how the CIA buys News.
Udo Ulfkotte was a well-known German journalist and author of numerous books. He worked for 25 years as a journalist, 17 of which were for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), including his role as editor. In his 2014 book тАЬJournalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys News,тАЭ Ulfkotte goes over how the CIA along with German Intelligence (BND) were guilty of bribing journalists to write articles that either spun the truth or were completely fictitious in order to promote a pro-western, pro-NATO bent, and that he was one of those bought journalists.
In an interview, Ulfkotte describes how he finally built up the nerve to publish the book, after years of it collecting dust, in response to the erupting 2014 crisis in Ukraine stating:
тАЬI felt that the right time had come to finish it and publish it, because I am deeply worried about the Ukrainian crisis and the possible devastating consequences for all of Europe and all of usтАжI am not at all pro-Russia, but it is clear that many journalists blindly follow and publish whatever the NATO press office provides. And this type of information and reports are completely one-sidedтАЭ. [emphasis added]
In another interview Ulfkotte stated:
тАЬit is clear as daylight that the agents of various Services were in the central offices of the FAZ, the place where I worked for 17 years. The articles appeared under my name several times, but they were not my intellectual product. I was once approached by someone from German Intelligence and the CIA, who told me that I should write about Gaddafi and report how he was trying to secretly build a chemical weapons factory in Libya. I had no information on any of this, but they showed me various documents, I just had to put my name on the article. Do you think this can be called journalism? I donтАЩt think so.тАЭ
Ulfkotte has publicly stated:
тАЬI am ashamed of it. The people I worked for knew from the get-go everything I did. And the truth must come out. ItтАЩs not just about FAZ, this is the whole system thatтАЩs corrupt all the way.тАЭ [emphasis added]
Udo Ulfkotte has since passed away. He died January 2017, found dead in his home, it is said by a heart attack. His body was quickly after cremated, thus preventing any possibility of an autopsy from occurring. His book has been made pretty much impossible to find available for purchase at this point.
TodayтАЩs situation concerning media reporting on Ukraine does not seem to be any different, if anything, it is much much worse.
To bolster support for the Ukrainian military, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.
UkraineтАЩs propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, тАЬThey are really excellent in stratcom тАФ media, info ops, and also psy-ops.тАЭ The Post ultimately conceded that тАЬWestern officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.тАЭ
тАЬKey to the propaganda effort is an international legion of public relations firms working directly with UkraineтАЩs Ministry of Foreign Affairs to wage information warfare. According to the industry news site PRWeek, the initiative was launched by an anonymous figure who allegedly founded a Ukraine-based public relations firmтАж
According to the anonymous figure, more than 150 public relations firms have joined the propaganda blitz.
The international effort is spearheaded by public relations firm PR Network co-founder Nicky Regazzoni and Francis Ingham, a top public relations consultant with close ties to the UKтАЩs government. Ingham previously worked for BritainтАЩs Conservative Party, sits on the UK Government Communication Service Strategy and Evaluation Council, is Chief Executive of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, and leads the membership body for UK local government communicators, LG Comms.тАЭ
Thus, Ingham who has been a member of the UK government and continues to have very high-level connections within the British government, is playing a leading role in shaping how the Ukraine war is being represented.
Dan Cohen provides a thorough explanation of how these тАЬPR firmsтАЭ have been responsible for reporting and spreading fabricated news and that even when such reports are found conclusively to be untrue, they continue to use them nonetheless. These PR tools include propaganda graphics, which are created in order to encourage radicalisation and promotion of ultra-nationalist identity; using xenophobic and racist language (not just to Russians), outright praise of Ukrainian neo-Nazis as heroes, the idolisation of Nazi affiliated Unit-B leader Stefan Bandera, and the encouragement of violent acts against other individuals (see CohenтАЩs article for examples).
If you have ever wondered who is behind the omnipotent тАЬfact-checkersтАЭ, in the case of StopFake who have self-described themselves as such, they are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) aka the fully-rogue department of the CIA, the Atlantic Council, the International Renaissance Foundation (funded by Open Society FoundationтАЩs billionaire George Soros), the British Embassy in Ukraine, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the German Marshall Fund, among others.
StopFake was hired by Facebook in March 2020 to тАЬcurb the flow of Russian propagandaтАЭ but was found to be employing multiple figures closely tied to violent neo-Nazis. This has, however, not deterred Facebook from continuing to work with StopFake.
At the end of the day, it does not seem to matter how many times these arbiters of truth are found to be wrong, for US officials have already admitted that they are literally just lying to the public about what is going on in Ukraine.
Josh Cohen for the Atlantic Council writes [links are from the original article]:
тАЬIt sounds like the stuff of Kremlin propaganda, but itтАЩs not. Last week Hromadske Radio revealed that UkraineтАЩs Ministry of Youth and Sports is funding the neo-Nazi group C14 to promote тАЬnational patriotic education projectsтАЭ in the countryтАжтАЭ
After the March 8 2018 attacks against International WomenтАЩs Day marchers, Amnesty International wrote тАЬUkraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions.тАЭ
Josh Cohen writes:
тАЬTo be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in UkraineтАЩs polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of тАЬred herring.тАЭ ItтАЩs not extremistsтАЩ electoral prospects that should concern UkraineтАЩs friends, but rather the stateтАЩs unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity.тАЭ [emphasis added]
However, we heard it, straight from Yevhen KarasтАЩs mouth, the leader of UkraineтАЩs neo-Nazi group C14, what determines who holds power in Ukraine has never really been about polls and elections.
Watch Yevhen Karas the leader of Ukraine's neo-Nazi terror gang C14's speech from Kiev earlier this month. Straight from the horses' mouth, he dispels the many narratives pushed by the left, the mainstream media and the State Department. pic.twitter.com/VWJqWPUGUp
As the famous тАЬf*ck the EUтАЭ tape revealed to the dumbfounded world, the Ukrainian people donтАЩt actually have a say in who runs their government. After the so-called тАЬRevolution of DignityтАЭ where Ukrainians literally died for тАЬdemocracy,тАЭ the US went on to тАЬinfluenceтАЭ the roster of the newly formed Ukrainian government, specifically around members of Svoboda and Pravyi Sector (Right Sector) who held five senior roles in the new government, including the post of deputy prime minister.
But neo-Nazis have not just been receiving western support in the political sphere.
Just this past October, as a reaction to her failed diplomatic visit to Russia, Victoria Nuland, according to French journalist Thierry Meyssan, went ahead and тАЬimposedтАЭ Dmytro Yarosh onto President Zelensky. On Nov. 2, 2021, President Zelensky appointed Dmytro Yarosh (leader of the neo-Nazi affiliated ultra-nationalist paramilitary group Right Sector 2013-2015) as Adviser to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
This is the very same Dmytro Yarosh who has been on InterpolтАЩs тАЬwanted listтАЭ since 2014.
Neo-Nazis have also received ongoing training by the CIA, British SAS (Special Air Service) as well as other NATO countries such as Canada since at least 2014. This training has continued despite RussiaтАЩs entry into Ukraine, which has been confirmed by The Times, Ottawa Citizen, CTV News, and Radio Canada.
The Canadian government has attempted to deny any knowledge of training neo-Nazi militants in Ukraine and have made the claim that they are not responsible for verifying who they are in fact training, but that this is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government. However, such claims of ignorance fell through when the very neo-Nazis they were training went ahead and posted pictures on their social media accounts, showcasing their neo-Nazis badges identifying them as such, plain for everyone to see.
US and Canadian military officers meet uniformed members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion during a November 2017 multinational training session in Ukraine.
On the same day as the untoward NATO tweet on International WomenтАЩs Day of a Ukrainian soldier with the Nazi Black Sun occult symbol, photographs appeared on NEXTAтАЩs twitter feed showing the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion receiving training by instructors from тАЬNATO countriesтАЭ on how to use NLAW grenade launchers.
A shipment of NLAW grenade launchers and instructors from #NATO countries arrived in #Kharkiv. The Azov regiment was the first to learn about new weaponry pic.twitter.com/CCzjN40rW7
UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the House of Commons on March 9 that тАЬas of today, we have delivered 3,615 NLAWs [to Ukrainian forces] and continue to deliver more. We will shortly be starting the delivery of a small consignment of anti-tank Javelin missiles as well.тАЭ
For a full list of all the weapons sent to Ukraine since 2014 by all involved countries, refer here.
For those especially adamant that neo-Nazis are not тАЬofficiallyтАЭ a part of the Ukrainian army, you should be informed that the Azov Battalion is part of UkraineтАЩs National Guard, and thus, yes it is officially part of UkraineтАЩs military.
Andriy Biletsky, the Azov BattalionтАЩs first commander and later a National Corps parliamentarian previously led the neo-Nazi paramilitary organisation тАЬPatriot of Ukraine,тАЭ and once stated in 2010 that it was the Ukrainian nationтАЩs mission to тАЬlead the white races of the world in a final crusadeтАж against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].тАЭ
тАЬThe Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist networkтАж [Its] aggressive approach to networking serves one of the Azov BattalionтАЩs overarching objectives, to transform areas under its control in Ukraine into the primary hub for transnational white supremacy.тАЭ
The Soufan Center described how the Azov BattalionтАЩs тАЬaggressive networkingтАЭ reaches around the world to recruit fighters and spread its white supremacist ideology. Foreign fighters who train and fight with the Azov Battalion then return to their own countries to apply what they have learned and recruit others.
NATO has recently gone so far as to make a short film honoring the Baltic Nazi collaborators the тАЬForest Brothers.тАЭ The NATO film lionises the тАЬForest Brothers,тАЭ former Waffen SS fighters who voluntarily collaborated with the Nazis, as anti-communist heroes.
This is the story of the Forest Brothers who fought the Soviet army for their homelands after WWII pic.twitter.com/4JcfuJPmeO
Dovid Katz, a leading historian and anti-Nazi investigator condemned the NATO film for rewriting history:
тАЬBy going beyond turning a blind eye to the worship of pro-Hitler forces in Eastern EuropeтАж[NATO] is crossing the line right into offering its moral legitimization of Nazi forces such as the Latvian Waffen SS.тАЭ [emphasis added]
David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist and reliable voice of the US intelligence apparatus, noted that even prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, тАЬthe United States and NATO allies [were] ready to provide weapons and training for a long battle of resistance.тАЭ
This is the very same David Ignatius who was once President of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (aka specialists in color revolutions), who arrogantly stated in a 1991 interview that тАЬa lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIAтАжThe biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protectionтАЭ.
I guess the NED has had a change of heart on тАЬopenness is its own protection.тАЭ
Jeremy Kuzmarov for Covert Action Magazine writes in an article titled тАЬNational Endowment for Democracy Deletes Records of Funding Projects in UkraineтАЭ [links from the original article]:
The archived webpage captured February 25, 2022 from 14:53 shows that NED granted $22,394,281 in the form of 334 awards to Ukraine between 2014 to the present. The capture at 23:10 the same day shows тАЬNo results foundтАЭ for Ukraine. As of right now, there are still тАЬNo results foundтАЭ for UkraineтАж
Who will suffer the most in this plan for a long battle of resistance? The Ukrainian people.
If PutinтАЩs top reason for going into Ukraine is to тАЬdenazifyтАЭ the country, and the CIA, NATO and co. are persistently тАЬnazifyingтАЭ the political and military components of Ukraine, you can see how this is making a situation for peace in Ukraine impossible, and that it is the CIA and NATO that are to blame for this.
You can also understand how UkraineтАЩs entry into NATO was unacceptable merely by its geographic location (the distance between UkraineтАЩs border and Moscow is 450 km), however, add in the fact that NATO is involved in the promotion of neo-Nazi militants in Ukraine and that now both Sweden and Finland have also expressed a desire to join NATO (with no referendum since democracy is officially dead in Cold War 2.0) and we have ourselves a real sh*t storm.
However, this is not just a threat to Russia. The reality of the situation is that Ukraine has been in a civil war these past 8 years, though the western media refuses to acknowledge this very important fact.
тАЬPeople who take at face value the Western media coverage would have a very distorted perception of the Ukraine conflict and its originтАж They omit or deny that there is a civil war in Donbas even though the majority of scholars who [have] published or presented concerning this conflict in Western academic venues classify it as a civil war with Russian military intervention. The Western media also omitted that recent тАШunity marchesтАЩ in Kharkiv and Kyiv and a staged training of civilians, including a grandmother, were organized and led by the far right, in particular, the Neo-Nazi Azov [Battalion].тАЭ
Robert Parry from Consortium News writes [link is from original article]:
тАЬOn Sunday, a Times article by Andrew E. Kramer mentioned the emerging neo-Nazi paramilitary role in the final three paragraphsтАжIn other words, the neo-Nazi militias that surged to the front of anti-Yanukovych protestsтАжhave now been organized as shock troops dispatched to kill ethnic Russians in the east [of Ukraine] тАУ and they are operating so openly that they hoist a Swastika-like neo-Nazi flag over one conquered village with a population of about 10,000.
Burying this information at the end of a long article is also typical of how the Times and other U.S. mainstream news outlets have dealt with the neo-Nazi problem in the past. When the reality gets mentioned, it usually requires a reader knowing much about UkraineтАЩs history and reading between the lines of a U.S. news account.тАЭ [emphasis added]
In the above image which outlines the population distribution of ethnic Ukrainians and Russians within Ukraine, you can understand how an ultra-nationalist view that identifies as solely ethnic Ukrainian would be a catalyst for a civil war.
The people of Donbass have understandably asked for independence from Ukraine, yet the Ukrainian government has refused to allow this nor intervene for a peaceful resolution. What does this mean? The war can only end when one side is fully dead.
Not only is it publicly known that the US and NATO have been funding and training neo-Nazis, but they have also been supplying a massive supply of arms (as previously mentioned). It got to such a point where in 2018, Congress had to ban the United States from sending further arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis, specifically mentioning the Azov Battalion. For some reason this ban was to only last for three years thus it is apparently fair game now?
But you may say, what about RussiaтАЩs crimes against the Ukrainian people, arenтАЩt they far worse than even vicious neo-Nazis? Namely the bombing of the Mariupol theater and the Bucha massacre. Thorough journalistic investigations have already been done on the former, which can be found here, that conclusively shows the bombing of the Mariupol theater was a false-flag.
As for the Bucha massacre, there has been no evidence presented as of yet that conclusively proves who committed this atrocity, there have only been assertions. Recall that the chemical attacks in Syria were also full of assertions, to which investigative journalist Seymour Hersch wrote a report titled тАЬWhose Sarin,тАЭ which conclusively proved that the popular assertions being pushed by the Obama government in their attempt to incriminate the Syrian government, were in fact false. Rather, it was pointing to the fact that the actual terrorists were the ones using sarin on the Syrian civilians, who were receiving American and co. funding and arms.
Unfortunately, time is of the essence in investigating crimes such as these, and despite the outcries of the inhumanity of such events, there is always heavy foot-dragging if not outright dismissal over an official and neutral investigation of such crime scenes. Why is this?
Instead, the response to this was for the UN to suspend Russia from its human rights body. Thus, not only denying an official investigation, but denying Russia a voice in responding to the matter.
The disturbing elephant in the room in all of this, is that the Azov Battalion has already been found guilty of similar atrocities against its own Ukrainian people, which has been thoroughly investigated by Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy and which can be found here (warning there is graphic content).
The Azov Battalion has also been found guilty of purposefully putting Ukrainian citizens in jeopardy by positioning their artillery and military in residential areas and buildings, including daycares and hospitals, to which even the Washington Post had to acknowledge in their misleadingly titled article тАЬRussia has killed civilians in Ukraine. KyivтАЩs defense tactics add to the danger.тАЭ
However, these are not simply тАЬdefense tactics,тАЭ they are blatant war crimes that are recognised as such by international law. These war crimes are publicly acknowledged to be going on, causing the deaths of a significant number of Ukrainians. Just to be clear here, during times of war, to which the Washington Post also acknowledges, Ukrainian soldiers and weaponry are legitimate targets for the Russian military. It is not Russia that is committing the war crime here, it is the Ukrainian government. They have literally been caught using their own people as human shields.
Does this still sound like a patriotic nationalist movement for the welfare and sovereignty of the Ukrainian people?
According to an interview with Scott Ritter, former US Marine Intelligence Officer, the Russian military have made it clear that they are using тАЬSyrian tacticsтАЭ in Ukraine.
Scott Ritter explains, the Russian militaryтАЩs tactic in Syria was:
тАЬтАжto surround urban areas where these jihadists had been gathered, terrorizing the population, surround them and give them the opportunity to evacuate on buses with their security guaranteed by Russian military police. A soft approach that protected civilians, that protected civilian areas.тАЭ
It was this tactic that allowed the Russians along with the Syrian army to defeat ISIS and other terrorist affiliates. Today they only occupy the Idlib province. These terrorists who remain would not have been possible without Turkish support. This initiative to rid Syria of ISIS was something that the United States has clearly never been interested in supporting.
In the image on the left the red and largely the blue represent the region controlled by terrorists, or as Obama liked to call them тАЬmoderate rebelsтАЭ in the year 2017, in the image to the right the purple and grey represent the region controlled by terrorists in the year 2021. The green is the United States and co.тАЩs illegal presence in the country.
Interestingly, when the Russians entered Syria to combat the terrorists at the behest of the Syrian government, this was also called a тАЬRussian invasionтАЭ by certain quarters of western media. However, it was not the Russians who bombed Syrian cities to the ground, that was the good olтАЩ US of A.
In the same interview, Scott Ritter stated that these very terrorists who have been stationed in Idlib are now being brought into Ukraine:
тАЬтАж[Zelensky] has opened the door for illegal warriors, the mercenaries from EuropeтАжthe exploiters of conflictтАж[and] they brought in the jihadistsтАжthey brought in the people..[who] ostensibly want to kill RussiansтАжItтАЩs a poison pillтАжnow we are going to have these jihadists, who are being armed by the way with javelin missiles and stinger missiles. Imagine what happens when a bunch of bloodthirsty jihadists take these weapons into Europe. Would you like to be the German Chancellor driving on a highway knowing that up in the hills could be a jihadist hit-team armed with javelins?тАжThis is literally the worst kind of decision-making ever to put that much weaponry into Ukraine in an uncontrolled fashion. Even before the jihadist came in you were giving it to neo-Nazis who canтАЩt surrender. They canтАЩt surrender because they will be killed, rightfully so. So what do desperate people do when they canтАЩt surrender and they donтАЩt die? They run away with the weaponry they have. TheyтАЩll be burying it, making caches, falling back on it, continuing the futile resistance and in their anger to the West theyтАЩll lash out at the WestтАжthat is how global terrorism is born.тАЭ
How is this in the best interest of anyoneтАЩs welfare in Europe, let alone Ukraine? It isnтАЩt.
Many have been especially confused as to how Ukraine can have such a serious neo-Nazi problem, when they have a Jewish President.
There is something you should know about the position of тАЬPresidentтАЭ of Ukraine since 2014, in a country where neo-Nazis have been made more confident than the mafia ever was, that they literally cannot be touched since they have the direct backing and protection of the United States and NATO.
When President Poroshenko (June 2014 тАУ May 2019) negotiated the Minsk agreements in September 2014, he agreed, with Germany and France, to the special autonomous status of Donetsk and Lugansk, and that under this special condition, they would stay part of Ukraine.
According to an interview[1] with Scott Ritter, this was unacceptable to the neo-Nazis who threatened PoroshenkoтАЩs life, if such a thing were to be implemented.
The Minsk agreements were never put into action. Instead, Ukraine entered a civil war that has gone on for 8 years and continues to this day. The Minsk agreements were officially expired on February 21st, 2022, the same day that the State Duma of Russia passed a bill officially recognizing Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. This ultimate rejection by the Ukrainian government was a clear indication that their war against Donbass would be escalated.
The situation with President Zelensky is no different.
In October 2019, President Zelensky (who assumed office in May 2019), had a recorded face-to-face confrontation with the militants from the Azov Battalion, who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called тАЬNo to Capitulation.тАЭ
тАЬтАЩListen, Denys [Yantar], IтАЩm the president of this country. IтАЩm 41 years old. IтАЩm not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons. DonтАЩt shift the conversation to some protests,тАЩ Zelensky said, videos of the exchange show. As he said this, Zelensky aggressively approached Yantar, who heads the National Corps, a political offshoot of the far-right Azov volunteer battalion, in Mykolaiv city.
тАШBut weтАЩve discussed that,тАЩ Yantar said.
тАШI wanted to see understanding in your eyes. But, instead, I saw a guy whoтАЩs decided that this is some loser standing in front of him,тАЩ Zelensky said.тАЭ
The Kyiv Post continues in their article, that this reaction by President Zelensky received a strong backlash from certain quarters of Ukraine:
тАЬAndriy Biletsky, head of National Corps and the Azov Battalion, threatened Zelensky on his YouTube channel that more veterans would head to Zolote if the president tried to evict them from the town. тАШThere will be thousands there instead of several dozen,тАЩ he saidтАж
Singer Sofia Fedyna, who is a lawmaker with the European Solidarity party of former President Petro Poroshenko, which has 27 seats in parliament, was particularly aggressive in her response. She issued physical threats against Zelensky.
тАШMr. President thinks he is immortal,тАЩ she said in a video shared on Facebook. тАШA grenade may explode there, by chance. And it would be the nicest if this happened during MoscowтАЩs shelling when someone comes to the front line wearing a white or blue shirt.тАЩ
Zelensky has previously visited the front line dressed in civilian clothing, rather than military fatigues.тАЭ
Thus, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion publicly threatened Zelensky if he were to intervene on attempting to negotiate peace and end UkraineтАЩs civil war.
However, this is not the full story.
President Zelensky is also backed by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who sponsored ZelenskyтАЩs rise to presidency, not just with his presidential campaign, but also in the tv show тАЬServant of the People,тАЭ that Zelensky literally тАЬplay-actedтАЭ as President for three seasons, which ran from November 16th, 2015 to March 28th, 2019. Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine less than two months after the last episode, on May 20th, 2019.
Former President Poroshenko even publicly called Zelensky тАЬKolomoiskyтАЩs puppetтАЭ during the presidential campaign.[2]
тАЬFor years, ZelenskyтАЩs company has produced shows for KolomoiskyтАЩs biggest TV channel, 1 + 1. In 2019, KolomoiskyтАЩs media channels gave a big boost to ZelenskyтАЩs presidential campaign. After, ZelenskyтАЩs victory, Kolomoisky kept up his relationship with the president, nominating over 30 lawmakers to ZelenskyтАЩs newly established party, and maintaining influence with many of them in parliament.тАЭ
Since ZelenskyтАЩs presidency, Kolomoisky has been able to secure control over a significant portion of UkraineтАЩs energy sector, including Ukrnafta and Centrenergo, as well as Burisma Holdings.
A 2012 study of Burisma Holdings done in Ukraine by the AntiCorruption Action Centre (ANTAC) found that the true owner of Burisma Holdings was none other than Kolomoisky.
Recall the Joe and Hunter Biden scandal over Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company. The Bidens ties with Kolomoisky and the situation of Ukraine today is not a coincidence.
In 2016, Ukraine nationalized PrivatBank from Kolomoisky and his business partner, Gennadiy Boholiubov. A U.S. Justice Department civil forfeiture complaint from December 2020, said the two men тАЬembezzled and defrauded the bank of billions of dollars.тАЭ [emphasis added]
There is also the matter of the Pandora Papers, which has confirmed that Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky was funneling millions of dollars in concealed assets offshore. Zelensky was also implicated in this. And what this of course also means, is that the City of London is tied into all of this.
Kolomoisky has a notorious history of being a literal тАЬraiderтАЭ of Ukrainian companies, as confirmed by HarperтАЩs Magazine, and Forbes.
тАЬBogolyubov and Kolomoisky fostered strong reputations as corporate raiders in the mid-2000s, becoming notorious for a series of hostile takeovers. Hostile takeovers Ukrainian style, that is, which often included the active involvement of PrivatтАЩs quasi-military teams.тАЭ
Kolomoisky, who is Jewish, is also a funder of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion since it was formed in 2014, which has been confirmed by Reuters, Newsweek, and Aljazeera.
He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions and has personally deployed them to protect his financial interests.
In other words, Kolomoisky is funding the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who have been fighting Eastern Ukrainians for these past 8 years, and thus has been directly fueling the civil war in Ukraine. One of the reasons for this, is that Donbass is a region with many natural resources, especially for the energy sector, to which Kolomoisky would very much like to be in possession of. This could only occur with the extermination or occupation of the people of Donbass.
Interestingly, this past Victory Day (May 8th), First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, Dmitry PolyanskyтАЩs interview was cut short on Sky News when he brought up that Zelen
After years of civil war, the city of Mariupol has now been liberated. Do you think the people in the West will ever hear about this?
Where do We go from Here?
Well, let me put it this way. The United States and NATO know they cannot defeat Russia or China in a direct war, hence all of these proxy wars these past several years under the guise of тАЬWar on Terror.тАЭ As David Ignatius honestly expressed, their desire is for a long-drawn war. This is because they believe that they can bankrupt Russia and/or set the stage for internal unrest and eventual coup. However, things are clearly not going as planned.
What has been greatly underestimated in this situation is 1) ChinaтАЩs solid alliance with Russia, 2) that Russia is the most resource abundant country in the world to which Europe is dependant on, and 3) the economic brilliance of Sergey Glazyev.
RussiaтАЩs rouble has also not tanked as expected. In fact, it has actually grown stronger than ever.
тАЬKeynesians in the West have misread this situation. They think that the Russian economy is weak and will be destabilised by sanctions. That is not true. Furthermore, they would argue that a currency strengthened by insisting that oil and natural gas are paid for in roubles will push the Russian economy into a depression. But that is only a statistical effect and does not capture true economic progress or the lack of it, which cannot be measured. The fact is that the shops in Russia are well stocked, and fuel is freely available, which is not necessarily the case in the West.
The advantages for Russia are that as the WestтАЩs currencies sink into crisis, the rouble will be protected. Russia will not suffer from the WestтАЩs currency crisis, she will still get inflation compensation in commodity prices, and her interest rates will decline while those in the West are soaring. Her balance of trade surplus is already hitting new records.тАЭ
It is the West who has miscalculated in all of this, and it is their economy that will utterly tank from this тАЬlong-drawnтАЭ war these oligarchs have been having wet dreams about for God knows how many years.
We have done this to ourselves. And if we truly want to correct the matter, we should first have the respect to admit the truth in our complicity to much of the worldтАЩs woes during this Cold War period. Those of us who have lived in abundance, in comfort, and security, should take the first step to speak out and say no more to the rest of the world living in starved war-torn agony.
We must stop caring for ourselves first at the expense of all else. We must start caring for others first and foremost and acknowledge the crimes that have been committed in our name. Only then can we truly have the humility to see that the solution has been in front of our face the whole time.
If we fail in this, the western world will not be able to sustain itself for much longer economically. And when it falls, what sort of people do you think you will be surrounded by after all these years of supporting fascism under your very nose?
The author can be reached at cynthiachung.substack.com
At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting for 2022, an event where powerful CEOs and world leaders meet to тАЬfind solutions to the worldтАЩs most urgent challenges,тАЭ YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki committed to persistent censorship of тАЬmisinformationтАЭ and praised YouTubeтАЩs existing censorship efforts.
Wojcicki made the comments after Alyson Shontell Lombardi, the Editor-in-Chief of Fortune Magazine, asked her whether YouTubeтАЩs efforts to censor misinformation will always be a тАЬwork in progress.тАЭ
тАЬI think thereтАЩll always be work that we have to do because there will always be incentives for people to be creating misinformation,тАЭ Wojcicki said. тАЬThe challenge will be to keep staying ahead of that and make sure that we are understanding what they are and the different ways that people may use to try to trick our systems and make sure that our systems are staying ahead of whatтАЩs necessary to make sure that we are managing that.тАЭ
Wojcicki continued by praising YouTubeтАЩs 5-6 year initiative of cracking down on content thatтАЩs deemed to be misinformation and said that users who look at YouTube search results or the homepage will see content from тАЬauthoritative sourcesтАЭ (mainstream media outlets that YouTube designates as authoritative) for тАЬsensitive topics.тАЭ
Earlier in the conversation, Wojcicki said YouTube is тАЬinvesting a huge amount to make sure that weтАЩre fighting misinformationтАЭ and discussed the various ways YouTube is cracking down on misinformation. She pointed to YouTube introducing 10 COVID censorship policies, YouTubeтАЩs policy of not recommending тАЬborderline contentтАЭ which doesnтАЩt break YouTubeтАЩs rules but is deemed to be тАЬlower quality,тАЭ and YouTubeтАЩs policy of demonetizing content thatтАЩs deemed to be тАЬpropagating something that is generally understood as not accurate information.тАЭ
Wojcicki also talked about YouTubeтАЩs violative view rate (VVR) тАУ a metric that shows how many views come from content that violates YouTubeтАЩs rules. The metric indicates how swiftly YouTube is censoring content. A low VVR signals that most of the content YouTube removes is being taken down before viewers have a chance to watch it.
Wojcicki noted that just 10-12 views of every 10,000 come from violative content and that this number has тАЬcome down significantlyтАЭ over time.
тАЬOur plan is to continue to work on it and make sure that we continue to reduce that,тАЭ Wojcicki added.
WojcickiтАЩs commitment to always crackdown on misinformation echoes her and the platformтАЩs previous vows to censor misinformation. Days ago, Wojcicki promised to tackle тАЬmisinformationтАЭ to win over corporate cash. And earlier this year, she said: тАЬTackling misinformation and other harmful content is a top priority.тАЭ
You may have noticed that every popular movie these days is a remake, reboot, sequel, spinoff, or cinematic universe expansion. In 2021, only one of the ten top-grossing filmsтАУтАУthe Ryan Reynolds vehicle Free GuyтАУтАУwas an original. There were only two originals in 2020тАЩs top 10, and none at all in 2019.
Some of these explanations are flat-out wrong; others may contain a nugget of truth. But all of them are incomplete, because this isnтАЩt just happening in movies. In every corner of pop cultureтАУтАУmovies, TV, music, books, and video gamesтАУтАУa smaller and smaller cartel of superstars is claiming a larger and larger share of the market. What used to be winners-take-some has grown into winners-take-most and is now verging on winners-take-all. The (very silly) word for this oligopoly, like a monopoly but with a few players instead of just one.
IтАЩm inherently skeptical of big claims about historical shifts. I recently published a paper showing that people overestimate how much public opinion has changed over the past 50 years, so naturally IтАЩm on the lookout for similar biases here. But this shift is not an illusion. ItтАЩs big, itтАЩs been going on for decades, and itтАЩs happening everywhere you look. So letтАЩs get to the bottom of it.
At the top of the box office charts, original films have gone extinct.
I looked at the 20 top-grossing movies going all the way back to 1977 (source), and I coded whether each was part of what film scholars call a тАЬmultiplicityтАЭтАФsequels, prequels, franchises, spin-offs, cinematic universe expansions, etc. This required some judgment calls. Lots of movies are based on books and TV shows, but I only counted them as multiplicities if they were related to a previous movie. So 1990тАЩs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesnтАЩt get coded as a multiplicity, but 1991тАЩs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze does, and so does the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake. I also probably missed a few multiplicities, especially in earlier decades, since sometimes itтАЩs not obvious that a movie has some connection to an earlier movie.
Regardless, the shift is gigantic. Until the year 2000, about 25% of top-grossing movies were prequels, sequels, spinoffs, remakes, reboots, or cinematic universe expansions. Since 2010, itтАЩs been over 50% ever year. In recent years, itтАЩs been close to 100%.
Original movies just arenтАЩt popular anymore, if they even get made in the first place.
Top movies have also recently started taking a larger chunk of the market. I extracted the revenue of the top 20 movies and divided it by the total revenue of the top 200 movies, going all the way back to 1986 (source). The top 20 movies captured about 40% of all revenue until 2015, when they started gobbling up even more.
Television
Thanks to cable and streaming, there’s way more stuff on TV today than there was 50 years ago. So it would make sense if a few shows ruled the early decades of TV, and now new shows constantly displace each other at the top of the viewership charts.
Instead, the opposite has happened. I pulled the top 30 most-viewed TV shows from 1950 to 2019 (source) and found that fewer and fewer franchises rule a larger and larger share of the airwaves. In fact, since 2000, about a third of the top 30 most-viewed shows are either spinoffs of other shows in the top 30 (e.g.,┬аCSI┬аand┬аCSI: Miami) or multiple broadcasts of the same show (e.g.,┬аAmerican Idol┬аon Monday and┬аAmerican Idol┬аon Wednesday).┬а
Two caveats to this data. First, IтАЩm probably slightly undercounting multiplicities from earlier decades, where the connections between shows might be harder for a modern viewer like me to understandтАУтАУmaybe one guy hosted multiple different shows, for example. And second, the Nielsen ratings IтАЩm using only recently started accurately measuring viewership on streaming platforms. But even in 2019, only 14% of viewing time was spent on streaming, so this data isnтАЩt missing much.
Music
It used to be that a few hitmakers ruled the chartsтАУтАУThe Beatles, The Eagles, Michael JacksonтАУтАУwhile today itтАЩs a free-for-all, right?
Nope. A data scientist named Azhad Syed has┬аdone the analysis, and he finds that the┬аnumber of artists on the Billboard Hot 100 has been decreasing for decades.
And since 2000, the number of hits per artist on the Hot 100 has been increasing.┬а
(Azhad says heтАЩs looking for a jobтАУтАУyou should hire him!)
A smaller group of artists tops the charts, and they produce more of the chart-toppers. Music, too, has become an oligopoly.
Books
Literature feels like a different world than movies, TV, and music, and yet the trend is the same.
Using┬аLiteraryHub’s list of the top 10 bestselling books for every year from 1919 to 2017, I found that the oligopoly has come to book publishing as well. There are a couple ways we can look at this. First, we can look at the percentage of repeat authors in the top 10тАУтАУthat is, the number of books in the top 10 that were written by an author with another book in the top 10.
It used to be pretty rare for one author to have multiple books in the top 10 in the same year. Since 1990, itтАЩs happened almost every year. No author ever had three top 10 books in one year until Danielle Steel did it 1998. In 2011, John Grisham, Kathryn Stockett, and Stieg Larsson all had two chart-topping books each.
We can also look at the percentage of authors in the top 10 were already famousтАУтАУsay, they had a top 10 book within the past 10 years. That has increased over time, too.┬а
In the 1950s, a little over half of the authors in the top 10 had been there before. These days, itтАЩs closer to 75%.
Video games
I tracked down the top 20 bestselling video games for each year from 1995 to 2021 (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and coded whether each belongs to a preexisting video game franchise. (Some games, like Harry Potter and the SorcererтАЩs Stone, belong to franchises outside of video games. For these, I coded the first installment as originals and any subsequent installments as franchise games.)
The oligopoly rules video games too:
In the late 1990s, 75% or less of bestselling video games were franchise installments. Since 2005, itтАЩs been above 75% every year, and sometimes itтАЩs 100%. At the top of the charts, itтАЩs all Mario, Zelda, Call of Duty,and Grand Theft Auto.
Why is this happening?
Any explanation for the rise of the pop oligopoly has to answer two questions: why have producers started producing more of the same thing, and why are consumers consuming it? I think the answers to the first question are invasion, consolidation, and innovation. I think the answer to the second question is proliferation.
Invasion
Software and the internet have made it easier than ever to create and publish content. Most of the stuff that random amateurs make is crap and nobody looks at it, but a tiny proportion gets really successful. This might make media giants choose to produce and promote stuff that independent weirdos never could, like an Avengers movie. This canтАЩt explain why oligopolization started decades agoтАУтАУYouTube only launched in 2005, for example, and most Americans didnтАЩt have broadband until 2007тАУтАУbut it might explain why itтАЩs accelerated and stuck around.
Consolidation
Big things like to eat, defeat, and outcompete smaller things. So over time, big things should get bigger and small things should die off. Indeed, movie studios, music labels, TV stations, and publishers of books and video games have all consolidated. Maybe itтАЩs inevitable that major producers of culture will suck up or destroy everybody else, leaving nothing but superstars and blockbusters. Indeed, maybe cultural oligopoly is merely a transition state before we reach cultural monopoly.
Innovation
You may think thereтАЩs nothing left to discover in art forms as old as literature and music, and that they simply iterate as fashions change. But it took humans thousands of years to figure out how to create the illusion of depth in paintings. Novelists used to think that sentences had to be long and complicated until Hemingway came along, wrote some snappy prose, and changed everything. Even very old art forms, then, may have secrets left to discover. Maybe the biggest players in culture discovered some innovations that won them a permanent, first-mover chunk of market share. I can think of a few:
In books: lightning-quick plots and chapter-ending cliffhangers. Nobody thinks The Da Vinci Code is high literature, but itтАЩs a book that really really wants you to read it. And a lot of people did!
In movies, TV, and video games: cinematic universes. Studios have finally figured out that once audiences fall in love with fictional worlds, they want to spend lots of time in them. Marvel, DC, and Star Wars are the most famous, but there are also smaller universe expansions like Better Call Saul and El Camino from Breaking Bad and The Many Saints of Newark from The Sopranos. Video game developers have understood this for even longer, which is why Mario does everything from playing tennis to driving go-karts to, you know, being a piece of paper.
Proliferation
Invasion, consolidation, and innovation can, I think, explain the pop oligopoly from the supply side. But all three require a willing audience. So why might people be more open to experiencing the same thing over and over again?
As options multiply, choosing gets harder. You canтАЩt possibly evaluate everything, so you start relying on cues like тАЬthis movie has Tom Hanks in itтАЭ or тАЬI liked Red Dead Redemption, so IтАЩll probably like Red Dead Redemption II,тАЭ which makes you less and less likely to pick something unfamiliar.
Another way to think about it: more opportunities means higher opportunity costs, which could lead to lower risk tolerance. When the only way to watch a movie is to go pick one of the seven playing at your local AMC, you might take a chance on something new. But when youтАЩve got a million movies to pick from, picking a safe, familiar option seems more sensible than gambling on an original.
This could be happening across all of culture at once. Movies donтАЩt just compete with other movies. They compete with every other way of spending your time, and those ways are both infinite and increasing. There are now 60,000 free books on Project Gutenberg, Spotify says it has 78 million songs and 4 million podcast episodes, and humanity uploads 500 hours of video to YouTube every minute. So uh, yeah, the Tom Hanks movie sounds good.
What do we do about it?
Some may think that the rise of the pop oligopoly means the decline of quality. But the oligopoly can still make art: Red Dead Redemption II is a terrific game, тАЬBlinding LightsтАЭ is a great song, and Toy Story 4 is a pretty good movie. And when you look back at popular stuff from a generation ago, there was plenty of dreck. WeтАЩve forgotten the pulpy Westerns and insipid romances that made the bestseller lists while books like The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, and Animal Farm did not. American Idol is not so different from the televised talent shows of the 1950s. Popular culture has always been a mix of the brilliant and the banal, and nothing IтАЩve shown you suggests that the ratio has changed.
The problem isnтАЩt that the mean has decreased. ItтАЩs that the variance has shrunk. Movies, TV, music, books, and video games should expand our consciousness, jumpstart our imaginations, and introduce us to new worlds and stories and feelings. They should alienate us sometimes, or make us mad, or make us think. But they canтАЩt do any of that if they only feed us sequels and spinoffs. ItтАЩs like eating macaroni and cheese every single night forever: it may be comfortable, but eventually youтАЩre going to get scurvy.
We havenтАЩt fully reckoned with what the cultural oligopoly might be doing to us. How much does it stunt our imaginations to play the same video games we were playing 30 years ago? What message does it send that one of the most popular songs in the 2010s was about how a 1970s rock star was really cool? How much does it dull our ambitions to watch 2021тАЩs The Matrix: Resurrections, where the most interesting scene is just Neo watching the original Matrix from 1999? How inspiring is it to watch tiny variations on the same police procedurals and reality shows year after year? My parents grew up with the first Star Wars movie, which had the audacity to create an entire universe. My niece and nephews are growing up with the ninth Star Wars movie, which aspires to move merchandise. Subsisting entirely on cultural comfort food cannot make us thoughtful, creative, or courageous.
Fortunately, thereтАЩs a cure for our cultural anemia. While the top of the charts has been oligopolized, the bottom remains a vibrant anarchy. There are weird books and funky movies and bangers from across the sea. Two of the most interesting video games of the past decade put you in the role of an immigration officer and an insurance claims adjuster. Every strange thing, wonderful and terrible, is available to you, but theyтАЩll die out if you donтАЩt nourish them with your attention. Finding them takes some foraging and digging, and then youтАЩll have to stomach some very odd, unfamiliar flavors. ThatтАЩs good. Learning to like unfamiliar things is one of the noblest human pursuits; it builds our empathy for unfamiliar people. And it kindles that delicate, precious fire inside usтАУтАУwithout it, we might as well be algorithms. Humankind does not live on bread alone, nor can our spirits long survive on a diet of reruns.
While elite control over human societies started to gather pace with the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago, it was rapidly accelerated with the dawn of human civilization 7,000 years later. Since that time, тАШordinaryтАЩ human beings like you and me have fought an unending sequence of battles to defend ourselves against these ongoing efforts by elites to kill or control us and capture the bulk of EarthтАЩs resources for their own use.
We have had to fight off elites in a vast range of contexts: Pharaohs and Emperors politically, the Popes and other Vatican officials religiously, the City of London Corporation and other financial elites economically, monarchs and political elites nationally, and now a Global Elite that exercises enormous control technologically, economically, politically, militarily and otherwise over the entire world. For a fuller explanation of this point, see┬атАШWhy Activists FailтАЩ.
But there is a profound difference between all of the battles in earlier eras and the one we are in now.
If we lose this battle, there will be no subsequent battle. The Long War against humanity will have been lost, once and for all.
Why? Because this battle is for everything that it means to be human тАУ human identity, human freedom, human rights, privacy, dignity, free will and anything else that makes life worth living тАУ and for control of the Earth and all its resources.
And while it is true that no human has any of these elements in anything like its entirety тАУ who would claim to be fully тАШfreeтАЩ in this world? тАУ and many humans still lack all of these elements in any meaningful form, it is nevertheless true that the totalitarian nature of the program being imposed on us will transform the very concept of тАШhumanтАЩ in a way that has only been conceived in the past 100 years or so and not previously attempted. Moreover, if successful, any тАШfree willтАЩ that humans might still possess will be utterly eliminated.
How is this Happening? The Deep Level
Despite the unending efforts of those people aware enough to perceive the true depth of this conflict, elites have been able to use a long series of techniques to ensure that the vast bulk of тАШordinaryтАЩ people either do not perceive the conflict or waste their dissent by expressing it within frameworks designed and controlled by elites for that precise purpose. By doing this, it appears that dissent is тАШallowedтАЩ and valued when, in fact, it is simply dissipated.
A second way in which elites have been able to distract us from where the real power in society lies is by convincing us that we have тАШlegal recourseтАЩ against injustice, including against elites who kill and exploit us. See тАШThe Rule of Law: Unjust and ViolentтАЩ.
A third way in which elites retain control over societies is by designing compulsory education systems that ensure that whatever unique emotional, intellectual, sensory and physical potential a child has at birth is either utterly eliminated within a few years of that birth or channeled to serve elite will. See тАШDo We Want School or Education?тАЩ
And, of course, elites control populations by using extensive propaganda тАУ marketed variously as тАШeducationтАЩ, тАШentertainmentтАЩ and тАШnewsтАЩ тАУ to ensure the passive submission of the bulk of the population to elite directives.
In short, an unending sequence of violence тАУ тАШvisibleтАЩ, тАШinvisibleтАЩ and тАШutterly invisibleтАЩ тАУ is used to terrorize the individual throughout childhood and adolescence into submissive obedience. This violence ensures that only a rare individual survives with any sense of тАШSelfтАЩ, with the capacity to critique society and resist violence and exploitation strategically. See тАШWhy Violence?тАЩ and тАШFearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and PracticeтАЩ.
So here we are in 2022, deeply engaged in the final battle to defend humanity, with most of the population unaware of what is happening and the bulk of those who are aware dissipating their dissent through elite-controlled channels.
Hence, as the World Economic Forum puts it so clearly in one of its promotional videos: By 2030, тАШYouтАЩll own nothing. And youтАЩll be happy.тАЩ See┬атАШ8 predictions for the world in 2030тАЩ.
And that could well become true for the simple reason that key measures of the transformation taking place are shifting wealth from those with less to those who will shortly own everything, including you, as Dr Joseph Mercola points out тАУ see тАШWho Will Eventually Own Everything, Including You?тАЩ тАУ and the technologies that will destroy your volition will also remove any concept of happiness.
In short, a transhuman slave needs nothing and experiences only those emotions that are programmed. A transhuman slave, whether as worker, soldier or consumer, will simply perform its programmed tasks until it is no longer functional and is тАШdecommissionedтАЩ.
A human being without free will cannot resist because they do not know that they are enslaved.
Every day, while most people content themselves with trying to get on with living some version of the life that they experienced prior to 2020, another detail is mapped out and another measure is taken by compliant politicians in one or more countries around the world to destroy everything we have ever known. And the noose is ever-tightening.
Let me offer you just a taste of what else is happening, beyond what is ordinarily discussed as part of the тАШGreat ResetтАЩ, as elements of the Global EliteтАЩs agenda, about which you are not being consulted or even given thoughtful critiques to consider in government and corporate media.
The World Health Organization: International Health Regulations & the Pandemic Treaty
The World Health Organization continues to promote its initiative to create a тАШPandemic TreatyтАЩ. Using wonderful-sounding words such as тАШto build a more robust global health architecture that will protect future generationsтАЩ, the Treaty sounds like something we have all been dreaming about. See тАШGlobal leaders unite in urgent call for international pandemic treatyтАЩ.
But like all elite initiatives of this nature, the devil is in the detail and, often enough, hidden in plain sight. Rather than offer a detailed critique here, you can consider several fine critiques by thoughtful scholars in the following articles or videos:
Kit Knightly: The тАШPandemic TreatyтАЩ would тАШhand supranational powers to an unelected bureaucrat or тАЬexpertтАЭ, who could exercise them entirely at his own discretion and on completely subjective criteria. This is the very definition of technocratic globalism.тАЩ See тАШтАЬPandemic TreatyтАЭ will hand WHO keys to global governmentтАЩ.
But it would be unwise to ascribe too much significance to these latest, ongoing encroachments on national sovereignty. As explained above, the Global Elite has long exercised control over national governments (as well as international organizations) and the ongoing formalization of this process through the various measures outlined immediately above are simply the latest (health) details in this long-standing process.
Consequently, rather than focusing our resistance on these latest details by, yet again, falling for the trap of lobbying elite agents, as suggested by organizations such as the World Council for Health тАУ see тАШ#StopTheWHO: How You Can Take a Stand Against International Health Regulation AmendmentsтАЩ тАУ it is superior strategy to focus our resistance on the entire elite agenda by undermining elite power at its source.
World Government Summit
The World Government Summit was held in Dubai on 29-30 March 2022. See тАШWorld Government Summit 2022тАЩ. The event was sponsored and hosted by the United Arab Emirates, that bastion of ruthless dictatorship and human rights abuses тАУ see тАШUnited Arab Emirates 2021тАЩ тАУ and brought together тАШthought leaders, global experts and decision makers from around the globe to share and contribute to the development of tools, policies, and models that are essential in shaping future governments.тАЩ See тАШWorld Government Summit 2022тАЩ.
тАШThe World Government Summit community is an opportunity for thought-leaders from the public and private sectors to join forces with world-renowned experts to design a better life for citizens across the world. Through Memberships and Partnerships, the Summit brings together change makers to shape a better future for humanity.тАЩ See┬атАШWorld Government Summit: CommunityтАЩ.
It is reassuring to know that the WGS felt that the views of constituencies of тАШordinaryтАЩ people тАУ women, indigenous peoples, working people, the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, farmers, non-white peoples, religious peopleтАж тАУ were not required and that the тАШworld renowned expertsтАЩ were quite capable of designing тАШa better life for citizens across the worldтАЩ without even consulting us. Surely, after all, these high profile people fully understand the daily struggles of those who battle to survive, have a different worldview or are just simply not white, wealthy and тАШwell-connectedтАЩ.
In any case, as the host countryтАЩs long record reminds us, human rights are to be eviscerated in the world that is now being introduced, which is why those attending the Summit were obviously very supportive of the UAEтАЩs ruthless approach to human rights.
As Derrick Broze noted in his thoughtful critique of this gathering: тАШAnyone with a functioning brain shouldтАж pay attention to this little known gathering of globalist TechnocratsтАж [who] imagine a world where the tyrannical technological systems are invisible and the average person has zero recourse for preventing exclusion or punishment based on their social credit score.тАЩ See тАШWhile You Were Distracted by Will Smith, the International Elitists Met at The World Government SummitтАЩ.
The Great Narrative
The Great Narrative was a forum sponsored by the World Economic Forum from 10-13 November 2021. According to the WEF: It was тАШa collaborative effort of the worldтАЩs leading thinkers to fashion longer-term perspectives and co-create a narrative that can help guide the creation of a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable vision for our collective future.тАЩ The gathering involved тАШTop thinkers from a variety of geographies and disciplines тАУ including futurists, scientists and philosophers тАУ [to] contribute fresh ideas for the future.тАЩ See тАШThe Great NarrativeтАЩ.
Again, perhaps like me, you find it difficult to identify with the people at this gathering. I wonder if they could see things from your perspective? Or mine?
The good news is that Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, authors of the original book on Covid-19: The Great Reset, also wrote a book about The Great Narrative: For a Better Future. So at least you can read what they are doing to you and plan to do to you. As long as you can read between the lines.
But, again, Derrick Broze has been kind enough to offer a thoughtful critique:
Authoritarians use great narratives to legitimize their own power, and they do this by claiming to have knowledge and understanding that speaks to a universal truthтАж. With this understanding, the WEFтАЩs call for a тАШGreat NarrativeтАЩ should be seen for what it truly is тАУ an attempt to displace all other visions of the future of humankind by placing the WEF and their partners at the heart of a narrative which paints them as the heroes of our time. This fits perfectly with the Technocratic philosophy employed by WEF founder Klaus Schwab. He envisions a future where тАШpublic-private partnershipsтАЩ of government and private business and so-called philanthropies use their wealth, influence, and power to design the future they believe is best for humanity. In actuality, the Technocrat philosophy merges with a Transhumanist mindset that sees humanity as limited, flawed, and in need of augmentation by technology in order to accelerate what Schwab calls the Fourth Industrial RevolutionтАж. Of course, for Schwab and other globalists, the 4IR also lends itself towards more central planning and top-down control. The goal is a track and trace society where all transactions are logged, every person has a digital ID that can be tracked, and social malcontents are locked out of society via social credit scores. See тАШThe Great Narrative and The Metaverse, Part 1: A Dystopian Vision of the FutureтАЩ.
Sound like the sort of world that will be good for you?
Defeating the Global EliteтАЩs Agenda
As you ponder the enormity of this elite project, I hope it will encourage you to deeply consider what meaningful resistance in this context will entail. We cannot succeed if we beg elite agents, including politicians, to fix it for us. In the last 18 months, five presidents who resisted the elite-driven narrative have been assassinated to remind us of that.
So resisting it effectively and, ultimately, defeating its agenda, will require focused, strategic action that undermines the power of the Elite to implement its plan.
If you are interested in being part of this strategy, you can read how to do so on the тАШWe Are Human, We Are FreeтАЩwebsite which offers further analysis, resources and a list of 29 strategic goals for doing so.
This includes campaigning to cause all sectors of society to refuse to develop and make available, or to purchase/use, technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution and transhumanism (including 5G and 6G, military weapons, artificial intelligence [AI], big data, nanotechnology and biotechnology, robotics, the Internet of Things [IoT], and quantum computing) because these technologies will subvert human identity, human freedom, human dignity, human volition and/or human privacy. See тАШStrategic Goals related to resisting the fourth industrial revolution and/or transhumanismтАЩ.
In addition and more simply, you can download a one-page flyer that identifies a short series of crucial nonviolent actions that anyone can take. This flyer, now available in 15 languages (Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish & Slovak) with more languages in the pipeline, can be downloaded from here: тАШThe 7 Days Campaign to Resist the Great ResetтАЩ.
Notably, these latter actions avoid certain problems. Because they involve actions by people dispersed throughout the population, rather than people concentrated in one location (as with rallies), they are extremely difficult to interrupt. Hence, they virtually eliminate the risk of violent repression.
If strategically resisting the тАШGreat ResetтАЩ (and related agendas) appeals to you, consider joining the тАШWe Are Human, We Are FreeтАЩ Telegram group (with a link available from the website).
Conclusion
The insane Global Elite has launched the final stage of a long-planned program to kill off a substantial proportion of the human population and enslave those left alive. They have agents (including international organizations such as the UN and WHO, politicians, medical personnel, government and corporate media) throughout society playing a part in implementing this program on their behalf.
If we are to defeat this program we must mobilize sufficient thoughtful and courageous people to act strategically to undermine the power of the Global Elite to inflict this program upon us. This can be done as described above.
As you ponder your involvement, remember this. If we do not fight successfully now to defend our humanity, no human being will have the opportunity to fight in future. It is тАШnow or neverтАЩ for us all.
In that sense, this is the final battle.
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 тАШWhy Violence?тАШ . His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
The best way to combat disinformation is with more and better information. Censorship isnтАЩt the answer.
The Biden administration has reached a different conclusion, creating a тАЬDisinformation Governance BoardтАЭ under the Department of Homeland Security. This тАЬboardтАЭ is headed by Nina Jankowicz, an unelected official and an apparent partisan hack. One example: she dismissed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story as a тАЬfairy taleтАЭ involving a тАЬlaptop repair shopтАЭ; itтАЩs now been confirmed that HunterтАЩs laptop was real, and so too was that repair shop.
Democrats, of course, donтАЩt have exclusive rights to censorship. Republicans always seem to be calling for books to be banned or education to be policed. But the real problem is much larger than partisan hackery and bickering. Efforts at censorship are all around us, couched as a way of protecting us from harmful lies and other forms of disinformation. Yet, as the comedian Jimmy Dore points out, the government isnтАЩt that concerned about protecting you from lies; it is, however, deeply concerned with denying you access to certain truths, truths that undermine governmental authority and the dominant narrative.
As a retired U.S. military officer and as a historian, the most insidious lies and disinformation IтАЩve encountered have come from the government. Consider the lies revealed by Daniel Ellsberg and his leak of the┬аPentagon Papers. Consider the war crimes revealed by Chelsea Manning, aided by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Consider the lies revealed in the recent┬аAfghan War Papers. Consider the lies about the presence of WMD in Iraq, lies that were used┬аto justify┬аthe disastrous Iraq War. The government, in short, is a┬аcenter of lies┬аand disinformation, which is precisely why we need an adversarial media, one that is willing to ferret out truth. Instead, weтАЩre being offered a governmental Ministry of Truth in the form of a тАЬDisinformation Governance Board.тАЭ
All things being equal, a democratic society thrives best when speech is as free as possible, trusting in the people to sort fact from fiction, and sound theories from blatant propaganda. And thereтАЩs the rub: trusting in the people. Because the government doesnтАЩt trust us (remember Hillary ClintonтАЩs comment about all those irredeemable deplorables), even as the government is often at pains to mislead and misinform us. As maverick journalist I.F. тАЬIzzyтАЭ Stone said, all governments lie. ItтАЩs truly nonsensical, then, to allow the government to police what is true and what is тАЬdisinformation.тАЭ
But donтАЩt we need some censorship in the name of safety or security or mental health or whatever? Sorry: censorship is rarely about safety, and it most certainly doesnтАЩt serve the needs of the vulnerable. Instead, it serves the needs of the powerful, those who already possess the loudest megaphones in the public square.
But doesnтАЩt someone like Donald Trump deserve to be censored because he spreads disinformation? Which is the bigger problem: Trump or censorship? I happen to think Trump is a divisive con man, but it was a bad precedent for Twitter to have banned him from tweeting. The bigger problem wasnтАЩt TrumpтАЩs tweets but the mediaтАЩs obsessive coverage of them in pursuit of ratings. The way to combat a blowhard like Trump is to ignore him, and to correct him when needed. To combat his lies with the truth. We donтАЩt need a governmental Ministry of Truth to police the tweets of a former president. Not when the government is often the biggest liar.
The solution isnтАЩt censorship but an active, engaged, and informed citizenry, assisted by a fourth estate, the press, that is truly independent and adversarial to power. But the weakening of education in America, combined with a fourth estate that is deeply compromised by the powerful and often in bed with the government, means that these democratic checks on power are less and less effective. Hence calls for quick yet dangerous тАЬsolutionsтАЭ like censorship, where the censors (governmental boards, private corporations) are opaque and almost completely unaccountable to the people.
Unless your goal is to give the already powerful a monopoly on speech, censorship is not the answer.
British and American state intelligence agencies are тАЬweaponizing truthтАЭ to quash vaccine hesitancy as both nations prepare for mass inoculations, in a recently announced тАЬcyber warтАЭ to be commanded by AI-powered arbiters of truth against information sources that challenge official narratives.
In just the past week, the national-security states of the United States and United Kingdom have discreetly let it be known that the cyber tools and online tactics previously designed for use in the post-9/11 тАЬwar on terrorтАЭ are now being repurposed for use against information sources promoting тАЬvaccine hesitancyтАЭ and information related to Covid-19 that runs counter to their state narratives.
A new cyber offensive was launched on Monday by the UKтАЩs signal intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which seeks to target websites that publish content deemed to be тАЬpropagandaтАЭ that raises concerns regarding state-sponsored Covid-19 vaccine development and the multi-national pharmaceutical corporations involved.
Similar efforts are underway in the United States, with the US military recently funding a CIA-backed firmтАФstuffed with former counterterrorism officials who were behind the occupation of Iraq and the rise of the so-called Islamic StateтАФto develop an AI algorithm aimed specifically at new websites promoting тАЬsuspectedтАЭ disinformation related to the Covid-19 crisis and the US militaryтАУled Covid-19 vaccination effort known as Operation Warp Speed.
Both countries are preparing to silence independent journalists who raise legitimate concerns over pharmaceutical industry corruption or the extreme secrecy surrounding state-sponsored Covid-19 vaccination efforts, now that PfizerтАЩs vaccine candidate is slated to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by monthтАЩs end.
PfizerтАЩs history of being┬аfined billions for illegal marketing┬аand for bribing government officials to help them cover up┬аan illegal drug trial that killed eleven children┬а(among other crimes) has gone unmentioned by most mass media outlets, which instead have celebrated the apparently imminent approval of the companyтАЩs Covid-19 vaccine without questioning the companyтАЩs history or that the mRNA technology used in the vaccine has sped through normal safety trial protocols and has never been approved for human use. Also unmentioned is that the head of the FDAтАЩs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Patrizia Cavazzoni, is┬аthe former Pfizer vice president for product safety┬аwho covered up┬аthe connection of one of its products to birth defects.
Essentially, the power of the state is being wielded like never before to police online speech and to deplatform news websites to protect the interests of powerful corporations like Pfizer and other scandal-ridden pharmaceutical giants as well as the interests of the US and UK national-security states, which themselves are intimately involved in the Covid-19 vaccination endeavor.
UK IntelligenceтАЩs New Cyberwar Targeting тАЬAnti-Vaccine PropagandaтАЭ
On Monday, the UK newspaper The Times reported that the UKтАЩs GCHQ тАЬhas begun an offensive cyber-operation to disrupt anti-vaccine propaganda being spread by hostile statesтАЭ and тАЬis using a toolkit developed to tackle disinformation and recruitment material peddled by Islamic StateтАЭ to do so. In addition, the UK government has ordered the British militaryтАЩs 77th Brigade, which specializes in тАЬinformation warfare,тАЭ to launch an online campaign to counter тАЬdeceptive narrativesтАЭ about Covid-19 vaccine candidates.
The newly announced GCHQ тАЬcyber warтАЭ will not only take down тАЬanti-vaccine propagandaтАЭ but will also seek to тАЬdisrupt the operations of the cyberactors responsible for it, including encrypting their data so they cannot access it and blocking their communications with each other.тАЭ The effort will also involve GCHQ reaching out to other countries in the тАЬFive EyesтАЭ alliance (US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) to alert their partner agencies in those countries to target such тАЬpropagandaтАЭ sites hosted within their borders.
The Times stated that тАЬthe government regards tackling false information about inoculation as a rising priority as the prospect of a reliable vaccine against the coronavirus draws closer,тАЭ suggesting that efforts will continue to ramp up as a vaccine candidate gets closer to approval.
It seems that, from the perspective of the UK national-security state, those who question corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and its possible impact on the leading experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidates (all of which use experimental vaccine technologies that have never before been approved for human use) should be targeted with tools originally designed to combat terrorist propaganda.
While The Times asserted that the effort would target content тАЬthat originated only from state adversariesтАЭ and would not target the sites of тАЬordinary citizens,тАЭ the newspaper suggested that the effort would rely on the US government for determining whether or not a site is part of a тАЬforeign disinformationтАЭ operation.
This is highly troubling given that the US recently seized the domains of many sites, including the American Herald Tribune, which it erroneously labeled as тАЬIranian propaganda,тАЭ despite its editor in chief, Anthony Hall, being based in Canada. The US government made this claim about the American Herald Tribune after the cybersecurity firm FireEye, a US government contractor, stated that it had тАЬmoderate confidenceтАЭ that the site had been тАЬfounded in Iran.тАЭ
In addition, the fact that GCHQ has alleged that most of the sites it plans to target are тАЬlinked to MoscowтАЭ gives further cause for concern given that the UK government was caught funding the Institute for StatecraftтАЩs Integrity Initiative, which falsely labeled critics of the UK governmentтАЩs actions as well as its narratives with respect to the Syria conflict as being related to тАЬRussian disinformationтАЭ campaigns.
Given this precedent, it is certainly plausible that GCHQ could take the word of either an allied government, a government contractor, or perhaps even an allied media organization such as Bellingcat or the Atlantic CouncilтАЩs DFRLab that a given site is тАЬforeign propagandaтАЭ in order to launch a cyber offensive against it. Such concerns are only amplified when one of the main government sources for The Times article bluntly stated that тАЬGCHQ has been told to take out antivaxers [sic] online and on social media. There are ways they have used to monitor and disrupt terrorist propaganda,тАЭ which suggests that the targets of GCHQтАЩs new cyber war will, in fact, be determined by the content itself rather than their suspected тАЬforeignтАЭ origin. The тАЬforeignтАЭ aspect instead appears to be a means of evading the prohibition in GCHQтАЩs operational mandate on targeting the speech or websites of ordinary citizens.
This larger pivot toward treating alleged тАЬanti-vaxxersтАЭ as тАЬnational security threatsтАЭ has been ongoing for much of this year, spearheaded in part by Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, a member of the UK governmentтАЩs Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force, which is part of the UK governmentтАЩs Commission for Countering Extremism.
Ahmed told the UK newspaper The Independent in July that тАЬI would go beyond calling anti-vaxxers conspiracy theorists to say they are an extremist group that pose a national security risk.тАЭ He then stated that тАЬonce someone has been exposed to one type of conspiracy itтАЩs easy to lead them down a path where they embrace more radical world views that can lead to violent extremism,тАЭ thereby implying that тАЬanti-vaxxersтАЭ might engage in acts of violent extremism. Among the websites cited by AhmedтАЩs organization as promoting such тАЬextremismтАЭ that poses a тАЬnational security riskтАЭ were ChildrenтАЩs Health Defense, the National Vaccine Information Center, Informed Consent Action Network, and Mercola.com, among others.
Similarly, a think tank tied to US intelligenceтАФwhose GCHQ equivalent, the National Security Agency, will take part in the newly announced тАЬcyber warтАЭтАФargued in a research paper published just months before the onset of the Covid-19 crisis that тАЬthe US тАШanti-vaxxerтАЩ movement would pose a threat to national security in the event of a тАШpandemic with a novel organism.тАЩтАЭ
InfraGard, тАЬa partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and members of the private sector,тАЭ warned in the paper published last June that тАЬthe US anti-vaccine movement would also be connected with тАШsocial media misinformation and propaganda campaignsтАЩ orchestrated by the Russian government,тАЭ as cited by The Guardian. The InfraGard paper further claimed that prominent тАЬanti-vaxxersтАЭ are aligned тАЬwith other conspiracy movements including the far right . . . and social media misinformation and propaganda campaigns by many foreign and domestic actors. Included among these actors is the Internet Research Agency, the Russian governmentтАУaligned organization.тАЭ
An article published just last month┬аby the┬аWashington Post┬аargued that тАЬvaccine┬аhesitancy is mixing with coronavirus denial and merging with far-right American conspiracy theories, including Qanon,тАЭ which the FBI┬аnamed a potential domestic terror threat┬аlast year. The article quoted Peter Hotez, dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, as saying тАЬThe US anti-vaccination movement is globalizing and itтАЩs going toward more-extremist tendencies.тАЭ
It is worth pointing out that many so-called тАЬanti-vaxxersтАЭ are actually critics of the pharmaceutical industry and are not necessarily opposed to vaccines in and of themselves, making the labels тАЬanti-vaxxerтАЭ and тАЬanti-vaccineтАЭ misleading. Given that many pharmaceutical giants involved in making Covid-19 vaccines donate heavily to politiciansin both countries and have been involved in numerous safety scandals, using state intelligence agencies to wage cyber war against sites that investigate such concerns is not only troubling for the future of journalism but it suggests that the UK is taking a dangerous leap toward becoming a country that uses its state powers to treat the enemies of corporations as enemies of the state.
The CIA-Backed Firm тАЬWeaponizing TruthтАЭ with AI
In early October, the US Air Force and US Special Operations Command announced that they had awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the US-based тАЬmachine intelligenceтАЭ company Primer. Per the press release, тАЬPrimer will develop the first-ever machine learning platform to automatically identify and assess suspected disinformation [emphasis added]. Primer will also enhance its natural language processing platform to automatically analyze tactical events to provide commanders with unprecedented insight as events unfold in near real-time.тАЭ
According to Primer, the company тАЬbuilds software machines that read and write in English, Russian, and Chinese to automatically unearth trends and patterns across large volumes of data,тАЭ and their work тАЬsupports the mission of the intelligence community and broader DOD by automating reading and research tasks to enhance the speed and quality of decision-making.тАЭ In other words, Primer is developing an algorithm that would allow the national-security state to outsource many military and intelligence analyst positions to AI. In fact, the company openly admits this, stating that their current effort тАЬwill automate the work typically done by dozens of analysts in a security operations center to ingest all of the data relevant to an event as it happens and funnel it into a unified user interface.тАЭ
PrimerтАЩs ultimate goal is to use their AI to entirely automate the shaping of public perceptions and become the arbiter of тАЬtruth,тАЭ as defined by the state. PrimerтАЩs founder, Sean Gourley, who previously created AI programs for the military to track тАЬinsurgencyтАЭ in post-invasion Iraq, asserted in an April blog post that тАЬcomputational warfare and disinformation campaigns will, in 2020, become a more serious threat than physical war, and we will have to rethink the weapons we deploy to fight them.тАЭ
In that same post, Gourley argued for the creation of a тАЬManhattan Project for truthтАЭ that would create a publicly available Wikipedia-style database built off of тАЬknowledge bases [that] already exist inside many countriesтАЩ intelligence agencies for national security purposes.тАЭ Gourley then wrote that тАЬthis effort would be ultimately about building and enhancing our collective intelligence and establishing a baseline for whatтАЩs true or notтАЭ as established by intelligence agencies. He concludes his blog post by stating that тАЬin 2020, we will begin to weaponize truth.тАЭ
Notably, on November 9, the same day that GCHQ announced its plans to target тАЬanti-vaccine propaganda,тАЭ the US website NextGov reported that PrimerтАЩs Pentagon-funded effort had turned its attention specifically to тАЬCovid-19 related disinformation.тАЭ According to PrimerтАЩs director of science, John Bohannon, тАЬPrimer will be integrating bot detection, synthetic text detection and unstructured textual claims analysis capabilities into our existing artificial intelligence platform currently in use with DOD. . . . This will create the first unified mission-ready platform to effectively counter Covid-19-related disinformation in near-real time.тАЭ
Bohannon, who previously worked as a mainstream journalist embedded with NATO forces in Afghanistan, also told NextGov that PrimerтАЩs new Covid-19тАУfocused effort тАЬautomatically classifies documents into one of 10 categories to enable the detection of the impact of COVIDтАЭ on areas such as тАЬbusiness, science and technology, employment, the global economy, and elections.тАЭ The final product is expected to be delivered to the Pentagon in the second quarter of next year.
Though a so-called private company, Primer is deeply linked to the national-security state it is designed to protect by тАЬweaponizing truth.тАЭ Primer proudly promotes itself as having more than 15 percent of its staff hailing from the US intelligence community or military. The director of the companyтАЩs National Security Group is Brian Raymond, a former CIA intelligence officer who served as the Director for Iraq on the US National Security Council after leaving the agency.
The company also recently added several prominent national-security officials to its board including:
Gen. Raymond Thomas (ret.), who led the command of all US and NATO Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and is the former commander of both US Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Lt. Gen. VeraLinn Jamieson (ret.), the former deputy chief of staff for Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance who led the Air ForceтАЩs intelligence and cyber forces. She also personally developed тАЬstrategic partnershipsтАЭ between the Air Force and Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and IBM in order тАЬto accelerate the Air ForceтАЩs digital transformation.тАЭ
Brett McGurk, one of the тАЬchief architectsтАЭ of the Iraq War тАЬsurge,тАЭ alongside the notorious Kagan family, as NSC Director for Iraq, and then as special assistant to the president and senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration. Under Obama and during part of the Trump administration, McGurk was the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the State Department, helping to manage the тАЬdirty warтАЭ waged by the US, the UK, and other allies against Syria.
In addition to those recent board hires, Primer brought on Sue Gordon, the former principal deputy director of National Intelligence, as a strategic adviser. Gordon previously тАЬdrove partnerships within the US Intelligence Community and provided advice to the National Security Council in her role as deputy director of national intelligenceтАЭ and had a twenty-seven-year career at the CIA. The deep links are unsurprising, given that Primer is financially backed by the CIAтАЩs venture-capital arm In-Q-Tel and the venture-capital arm of billionaire Mike Bloomberg, Bloomberg Beta.
The rapid increase in interest by the US and UK national-security states toward Covid-19 тАЬdisinformation,тАЭ particularly as it relates to upcoming Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, is intimately related to the media-engagement strategy of the US governmentтАЩs Operation Warp Speed.
Officially a тАЬpublic-private partnership,тАЭ Operation Warp Speed, which has the goal of vaccinating 300 million Americans by next January, is dominated by the US military and also involves several US intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as intelligence-linked tech giants Google, Oracle, and Palantir. Several reports published in The Last American Vagabondby this author and journalist Derrick Broze have revealed the extreme secrecy of the operation, its numerous conflicts of interest, and its deep ties to Silicon Valley and Orwellian technocratic initiatives.
Warp SpeedтАЩs official guidance discusses at length its phased plan for engaging the public and addressing issues of тАЬvaccine hesitancy.тАЭ According to the Warp Speed document entitled тАЬFrom the Factory to the Frontlines,тАЭ тАЬstrategic communications and public messaging are critical to ensure maximum acceptance of vaccines, requiring a saturation of messaging across the national media.тАЭ It also states that тАЬworking with established partnersтАФespecially those that are trusted sources for target audiencesтАФis critical to advancing public understanding of, access to, and acceptance of eventual vaccinesтАЭ and that тАЬidentifying the right messages to promote vaccine confidence, countering misinformation, and targeting outreach to vulnerable and at-risk populations will be necessary to achieve high coverage.тАЭ
The document also notes that Warp Speed will employ the CDCтАЩs three-pronged strategic framework for its communications effort. The third pillar of that strategy is entitled тАЬStop MythsтАЭ and has as a main focus тАЬestablish[ing] partnerships to contain the spread of misinformationтАЭ as well as тАЬwork[ing] with local partners and trusted messengers to improve confidence in vaccines.тАЭ
Though that particular Warp Speed document is short on specifics, the CDCтАЩs Covid-19 Vaccination Program Interim Playbook contains additional information. It states that Operation Warp Speed will тАЬengage and use a wide range of partners, collaborations, and communication and news media channels to achieve communication goals, understanding that channel preferences and credible sources vary among audiences and people at higher risk for severe illness and critical populations, and channels vary in their capacity to achieve different communication objectives.тАЭ It states that it will focus its efforts in this regard on тАЬtraditional media channelsтАЭ (print, radio, and TV) as well as тАЬdigital mediaтАЭ (internet, social media, and text messaging).
The CDC document further reveals that the тАЬpublic messagingтАЭ campaign to тАЬpromote vaccine uptakeтАЭ and address тАЬvaccine hesitancyтАЭ is divided into four phases and adds that the overall communication strategy of Warp Speed тАЬshould be timely and applicable for the current phase of the Covid-19 Vaccination program.тАЭ
Those phases are:
Before a vaccine is available
The vaccine is available in limited supply for certain populations of early focus
The vaccine is increasingly available for other critical populations and the general public
The vaccine is widely available
Given that the Covid-19 vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer is expected to be approved by the end of November, it appears that the US national-security state, which is essentially running Operation Warp Speed, along with тАЬtrusted messengersтАЭ in mass media, is preparing to enter the second phase of its communications strategy, one in which news organizations and journalists who raise legitimate concerns about Warp Speed will be de-platformed to make way for the тАЬrequiredтАЭ saturation of pro-vaccine messaging across the English-speaking media landscape.
Alice Walker was disinvited to the Bay Area Book Festival after Zionist groups threatened to carry out protests. The public and presenters are complicit in her blacklisting if they attend.
There is a steep price to pay for having a conscience and more importantly the courage to act on it. The hounds of hell pin you to the cross, hammering nails into your hands and feet as they grin like the Cheshire cat and mouth bromides about respect for human rights, freedom of expression and diversity. I have watched this happen for some time to Alice Walker, one of the most gifted and courageous writers in America. Walker, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel The Color Purple, has felt the bitter sting of racism. She refuses to be silent about the plight of the oppressed, including the Palestinians.
тАЬWhenever I come out with a book, or anything that will take me before the public, the world, I am assailed as this person I donтАЩt recognize,тАЭ she said when I reached her by phone. тАЬIf I tried to keep track of all the attacks over the decades, I wouldnтАЩt be able to keep working. I am happy people are standing up. It is all of us. Not just me. They are trying to shut us down, shut us up, erase us. That reality is what is important.тАЭ
The Bay Area Book festival delivered the latest salvo against Walker. The organizers disinvited her from the event because she praised the writings of the New Age author David Icke and called his book And the Truth Shall Set You Free тАЬbrave.тАЭ Icke has denied criticsтАЩ charges of anti-Semitism. The festival organizers twisted themselves into contortions to say they were not charging Walker with anti-Semitism. She was banned because she lauded a controversial writer, who I suspect few members of the committee have read. The poet and writer Honor├йe Fanonne Jeffers, who Walker was to interview, withdrew from the festival in protest.
Walker, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has been a very public advocate for Palestinian rights and a critic of Israel for many years. Her friendship with Icke has long been part of the public record. She hid nothing. It is not as if the festival organizers suddenly discovered a dark secret about Walker. They sought to capitalize on her celebrity and then, when they felt the heat from the Israel lobby, capitulated to the mob to humiliate her.
тАЬI donтАЩt know these people,тАЭ Walker said of the festival organizers who disinvited her. тАЬIt feels like the south. You know they are out there in the community, and they have their positions, but all you see are sheets. ThatтАЩs what this is. ItтАЩs like being back in the south.тАЭ
Banning writers because of books they like or find interesting nullifies the whole point of a book festival. Should I be banned because I admire Louis-Ferdinand C├йlineтАЩs masterpieces Journey to the End of the Night, Death on the Installment Plan, and Castle to Castle, despite his virulent anti-Semitism, which even after World War II he refused to relinquish? Should I be banned for liking Joseph HellerтАЩs Catch-22, which I recently reread, and which is rabidly misogynistic? Should I be banned for loving William Butler Yeats, who, like Ezra Pound, many of whose poems I have also committed to memory, was a fascist collaborator? Should I be banned because I revere Hannah Arendt, whose attitudes towards African-Americans were paternalistic, at best, and arguably racist? Should I be banned because I cherish books by C.S. Lewis, Norman Mailer and D.H. Lawrence, who were homophobic?
We might as well sweep clean library shelves if the attitudes of writers we read mean we are denied a right to speak.
And letтАЩs not even get started with the Bible, which I studied as a seminarian at Harvard Divinity School. God repeatedly demands righteous acts of genocide, transforming the Nile into blood so the Egyptians will suffer from thirst. God sends swarms of locusts and flies to torture the Egyptians, along with hail, fire and thunder to destroy all plants and trees. God orders the firstborn in every Egyptian household killed so all will know тАЬthat the Lord makes a distinction between Egyptians and Israel.тАЭ The killing goes on until тАЬthere was not a house where one was not dead.тАЭ
The Bible contains much of this divinely sanctioned slaughtering of non-believers. It endorses slavery and the beating of enslaved people. It condones the execution of homosexuals and women who commit adultery. It views women as property and approves the right of fathers to sell their daughters. But the Bible also remains, with all these contradictions and moral failings, a great religious, ethical and moral document. Even the most flawed books often have something to teach us.
Organizers of the festival attacked Walker for her poem тАЬIt is Our Frightful Duty.тАЭ They accuse Walker of channeling IckeтАЩs alleged anti-Semitism into her writing, as if Walker is unable to think for herself. The attack on the poem, which is a gross misreading of its intent, exposes the lie that WalkerтАЩs position on Israel and Palestine had nothing to do with her being disinvited.
тАЬUnfortunately, Ms. Walker has not only promoted IckeтАЩs ideas widely on her own blog and in interviews, but they may have influenced her own writing,тАЭ the festival wrote in a statement. тАЬMs. Walker’s 2017 poem “It is our (Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud” encourages people to use Google and Youtube to тАЬfollow the trail of тАЬThe / TalmudтАЭ as its poison belatedly winds its way / Into our collective consciousness. // Some of what you find will sound / Too crazy to be true. Unfortunately those bits are likely / To be true.тАЭ A New York Magazine essay by writer Nylah Burton (who identifies as Black and Jewish) describes her reaction to Walker’s support of Icke and this poem.тАЭ
The poem calls out these hate-filled religious texts. тАЬAll of it: The Christian, the Jewish, The Muslim; even the Buddhist. All of it, without exception, At the root.тАЭ Walker reminds us in the poem that these texts have been used throughout millennia to sanctify subjugation, dehumanization and murder. Slave holders defended the enslavement of Blacks by citing numerous passages in the Old and the New Testament, including PaulтАЩs Letter to the Ephesians where, equating slaveholders with God, Paul writes:┬атАЬSlaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ.тАЭ┬а┬а
Israel seeks, in the same way, to legitimize its colonial-settler project by citing the Old Testament and the Talmud, the primary source of Jewish law. Never mind that Palestine was a Muslim country from the 7th century until it was seized by military force in 1948. The Old Testament, in the hands of Zionists, is a deed to Palestinian land.
Walker excoriates this religious chauvinism and mythology. She warns that theocracies, which sacralize state power, are dangerous. In the poem, she highlights passages in the Talmud used to condemn those outside the faith. Jews must repudiate these sections in the Talmud and the Old Testament, as those of us who are Christians must repudiate the hateful passages in the Bible. When these religious screeds are weaponized by zealots тАФChristian, Muslim or Jewish тАФ they propagate evil.
Walker writes:
Is Jesus boiling eternally in hot excrement,
For his тАЬcrimeтАЭ of throwing the bankers
Out of the Temple? For loving, standing with,
And defending
The poor? Was his mother, Mary,
A whore?
Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
Must even the best of the Goyim (us, again) be killed?
Pause a moment and think what this could mean
Or already has meant
In our own lifetime.
Walker was invited to the festival to interview Honor├йe Fanonne Jeffers about her work, not to give a lecture on Icke or Palestine тАФ but no matter. She ran afoul of the thought police, who are always vigilant about catering to smear campaigns against Israeli critics but blithely ignore the virulent and overt racism of Israeli politicians, military commanders, writers and intellectuals.
Walker is not the first writer targeted by Israel. Israel banned the author Gunter Grass and demanded the rescindment of his Nobel prize after he wrote a poem denouncing GermanyтАЩs decision to provide Israel with nuclear submarines, warning that Israel “could wipe out the Iranian people” if it attacked Iran. Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to create a тАЬGreaterтАЭ Israel, described the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish as тАЬsomeone who has written texts against Zionism тАФ which are still used as fuel for terror attacks against Israel.тАЭ He said honoring Darwish was the equivalent to honoring Adolf Hitler for тАЬMein Kampf.тАЭ Israeli bookstores Steimatzky and Tzomet Sefarim purged Sally RooneyтАЩs novels from some 200 branches and online sites because of her support for BDS. Israeli writer Yehonatan Geffen was beaten outside his home for calling the Israeli prime minister a racist.
Bay Area Book Festival founder and director Cherilyn Parsons defended the boardтАЩs decision to disinvite Walker when I requested a comment:
Our decision to disinvite Ms. Walker had nothing to do with her position on Palestine, her voice as a Black woman writer, or her right to speak her mind freely. We honor all those things. We also do not hold that she is anti-Semitic. (To be pro-Palestinian does not mean a person is anti-Semitic, just as to be Jewish does not mean that one is anti-Palestine.) Our decision was based purely on Ms. WalkerтАЩs inexplicable, ongoing endorsement of David Icke, a conspiracy theorist who dangerously promulgates such beliefs as that Jewish people bankrolled Hitler, caused the 2008 global financial crisis, staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and more. (See his book тАЬAnd the Truth Shall Set You Free,” available full-text on the Internet Archive.) Icke also regularly promotes тАЬThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion,тАЭ a fabricated, uber-anti-Semitic text that was widely read during the time of social upheaval in pre-WWII Germany and turned public sentiment against JewsтАУa truly dangerous document for a populace to embrace. Finally, we note that Ms. Walker provided financial support for, and participation in, a documentary celebrating Icke and his work.
тАЬI do not believe he is anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish,тАЭ Walker posted on her website. тАЬI do believe he is brave enough to ask the questions others fear to ask, and to speak his own understanding of the truth wherever it might lead. Many attempts have been made to censor and silence him. As a woman, and a person of color, as a writer who has been criticized and banned myself, I support his right to share his own thoughts.тАЭ
тАЬI maintain that I can be friends with whoever I like,тАЭ Walker told me. тАЬThe attachment to this belief that this person is evil is strange. HeтАЩs not.тАЭ
I worked for two years as a reporter in Jerusalem. I listened to the daily filth spewed out by Israelis about Arabs and Palestinians, who used racist tropes to sanctify Israeli apartheid and gratuitous violence against Palestinians. Israel routinely orders air strikes, targeted assassinations, drone attacks, artillery strikes, tank assaults and naval bombardments on the largely defenseless population in Gaza. Israel blithely dismisses those it murders, including children, as unworthy of life, drawing on poisonous religious edicts. It is risible that Israel and its US supporters can posit themselves as anti-racists, abrogating the right to cancel Walker. It is the equivalent of allowing the Klan to vet speakers lists.
Torat HaтАЩMelech by Rabbi Yitzhak and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur is one of innumerable examples of the deep racism embedded in Israeli culture. The book provides rabbinical advice to Israeli soldiers and officers in the occupied Palestinian territories. It describes non-Jews as тАЬuncompassionate by natureтАЭ and justifiably exterminated to тАЬcurb their evil inclinations.тАЭ тАЬIf we kill a gentile who has violated one of the seven commandments of [Noah]тАжthere is nothing wrong with the murder.тАЭ It assures troops that it is morally legitimate to kill Palestinian children, writing, тАЬThere is justification for killing babies if it is clear they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.тАЭ The Biblical prohibition on murder, Yitzhak and Elitzur write, тАЬrefers only to a Jew who kills a Jew, and not to a Jew who kills a gentile, even if that gentile is one of the righteous among the nations.тАЭ They even say it is тАЬpermissibleтАЭ to kill Jewish dissidents. A Jewish dissident, the rabbis write, is a rodef. A rodef, according to traditional Jewish law, is someone who is “pursuing” another person to murder him or her. It is the duty of a Jew to kill a rodef if the rodef is told to cease the threatening behavior and does not. Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, argued that the din rodef, or “law of the pursuer,тАЭ justified RabinтАЩs murder.
Walker is the best among us. She is one of our most gifted and lyrical writers. She stands unequivocally with the crucified of the earth. She sees her own pain in the pain of others. She demands justice. She pays the price.
Boycott the Bay Area Book Festival.
That is the least we owe a literary and moral titan.
After the Crash 