For the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy, happy days are here again. Even though we have just been through one of the most difficult 12 months in our history, the number of billionaires has increased dramatically during this pandemic. That seems rather odd, but there is no denying that the rich have gotten even richer during this crisis. In fact, Forbes revealed this week that the number of billionaires has risen by about 30 percent over the past year…
The number of newly minted and reissued billionaires soared last year, Forbes reported Tuesday in its annual ranking, a staggering accumulation of personal wealth that stands in sharp contrast with the widespread economic struggles unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of billionaires on Forbes’ 35th annual ranking swelled by 660 to 2,755 — a roughly 30 percent jump from a year ago — and 493 of them are first-timers. Seven of eight are richer than they were before the pandemic. Forbes calculates net worth by using stock prices and exchange rates from March 5.
Of course thanks to the reckless policies of our leaders, a billion dollars does not go nearly as far as it once did.
But still, a billion dollars is a whole lot of money.
Needless to say, the biggest reason why the number of billionaires has exploded is because we have been witnessing one of the greatest stock market rallies in history.
A year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was sitting at about 23,000.
Today, it is above 33,000, and some analysts expect it to shoot quite a bit higher throughout the rest of 2021.
Stock prices have never been more detached from economic reality as they have been over the past 12 months, and they have only risen so high because of unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve and because of extremely wild spending by the federal government.
Many have warned that the party will inevitably come to a crashing end at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet.
So for now, the market optimists look like champions.
And now that Joe Biden is in the White House, the corporate media is telling us that we are on the verge of a grand new era of American prosperity. The corporate media insists that the pandemic will soon be behind us thanks to the vaccines, and the talking heads on television envision a return to the good old days very quickly.
In fact, Barron’s is already declaring that the “U.S. economy might be stronger than it’s ever been”.
And CNN is trying to convince us that “America’s economy could be heading for a golden era of growth”.
Really?
If the U.S. economy is actually improving, then why are new claims for unemployment benefits going up?…
The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, according to the Labor Department.
Data released Thursday showed 744,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended April 3. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting 680,000 filings. The previous week’s total was revised higher by 9,000 to 728,000.
If economic conditions were getting better, that number should be going the other way.
Even I didn’t expect a number this bad.
Prior to 2020, the all-time record high for new unemployment claims in a single week was 695,000. That record was established in October 1982, and it stood all the way until the COVID pandemic hit the U.S. early last year.
Sadly, we have been above 695,000 almost every single week since then.
The numbers compiled by the states tell us that nearly three-quarters of a million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week. That is an absolutely catastrophic number. Nobody should be talking about a “golden era of growth” or claiming that the “economy might be stronger than it’s ever been” until we get that number back down to pre-pandemic levels.
And right now, we are at a level that is about three times as high as pre-pandemic levels.
Look, the truth is that anyone that tells you that unemployment is low in the United States is lying to you.
According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the unemployment rate in the United States would be 25.7 percent right now.
That is the sort of number that we would expect to see during an economic depression, and the truth is that we are in an economic depression.
Over the past year, more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed, and approximately 4 million U.S. businesses have gone out of existence permanently.
But don’t worry, the stock market is hovering near all-time record highs and the corporate media is telling you that everything is going to be wonderful now that Joe Biden is in control.
Come on man!
You can’t really believe that stuff that they are shoveling.
With each passing day, more Americans are losing their jobs, more Americans are falling out of the middle class, and the cost of living just keeps going up even higher.
In fact, we just learned that global food prices have now gone up for 10 months in a row…
The global food-price rally that’s stoking inflation worries and hitting consumers around the world shows little sign of slowing.
Even with grain prices taking a breather on good crop prospects, a United Nations gauge of global food costs rose for a 10th month in March to the highest since 2014. Last month’s advance was driven by a surge in vegetable oils amid stronger demand and tight inventories, according to Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
I am going to continue to watch global food prices very carefully, because I believe that it will be a very important trend in the months and years ahead.
But for now, the good news is that at least economic conditions are relatively stable.
Yes, things are not nearly as good as they were before the pandemic, but at least they are not getting a whole lot worse.
So even though things are not great, we should enjoy this period of relative stability while we still can, because it definitely will not last.
“Is Jeff Bezos a horrible boss and is that good?” That was the question posed by Forbes magazine in 2013, a sentiment that helps explain why Amazon’s founder and CEO is detested by the Left for his oligarchic ambitions, while simultaneously admired by America’s capitalist class for his business success. Ironically, Bezos is also loathed by former President Donald Trump, while celebrated by many liberals for so-called resistance.
But with Bezos and his $115 billion fortune laying claim to the title of richest man on Earth, and with Amazon playing an increasingly influential role in public life, it is worth asking: What does Jeff Bezos stand for?
A gifted child born to a teen mom, Bezos grew up not knowing his biological father, who was once one of the top-rated unicyclists in Albuquerque, N.M. Instead, Bezos was raised by the man his mother soon married: Miguel Bezos, who had fled Cuba and the Communist revolution, which had shuttered the elite private Jesuit school he attended, as well as his family’s lumberyard.
Journalists have speculated whether Bezos’ near-pathological competitiveness is a product of his early abandonment, similar to that of fellow tech overlord Steve Jobs. No doubt equally formative was Bezos’ adoptive father, who told Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, that their home life was “permeated” by complaints about totalitarian governments of both the Right and the Left.
Bezos envisioned the concept of an “everything store” while working for a Wall Street hedge fund in the 1990s. He opened Amazon in 1994 as an online bookshop, a pragmatic starting point. Bezos gave the company his own $10,000 cash injection, took out interest-free loans, and received $245,000 from his parents and family trust.
Many of Amazon’s controversial labor practices can be traced to these early years as a plucky start-up. Amazon’s small team ran on tireless ambition to live up to the company’s customer-focused promise — key to its eventual market domination. Stone reports that, to meet Bezos’ “get big fast” directive, employees devoted themselves completely, working long, unusual, frenzied hours. One early warehouse worker who biked to work simply forgot about his improperly parked car, eventually discovering it had been ticketed, towed and sold at auction.
Such a relentless pace is one thing for a small group of true believers but is quite another when applied to low-wage workers just making ends meet. By 2011, Amazon’s workplace culture became known through a series of headline-grabbing reports that have come to define its public image: badly paid, ceaselessly surveilled, overworked workers, struggling to maintain a breakneck pace.
Bezos created a culture in which everyone from the lowest peon to the highest-ranking executive is expected to match his own devotion, an approach that resulted in spectacular levels of staff turnover by the early 2000s. A declared enemy of “social cohesion,” Bezos pushed his underlings to reject compromise and instead fiercely debate and criticize colleagues when they disagreed. One former employee described it as “purposeful Darwinism.” Known for withering put-downs — “Are you lazy or just incompetent?” “Did I take my stupid pills today?”—Bezos also isn’t above pulling out his phone or, in some cases, simply leaving the room when an employee fails to impress.
The flipside of Bezos’ intellect is a cold, clinical approach to human relations. Bezos described himself as a “professional dater” during his Wall Street days, trying to improve what he called his “women flow” — a riff on the Wall Street term “deal flow.”
“He was not warm,” one person who knew Bezos during his Wall Street days told the East Bay Express in 2014. “It was like he could be a Martian for all I knew.”
Bezos’ pitiless leadership style bled out beyond the Amazon boardroom as he used the company’s growing market share to bully book publishers into his terms. The company launched the “Gazelle Project”—as in, go after publishers “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle” — allowing Amazon to undercut its competition at the cost of little to no profit for smaller publishers.
As Amazon inched closer to Bezos’ original vision, it began lobbying efforts in 2000 and became more transparently political by 2011, spending millions to defeat an internet sales tax and playing hardball with state governments, threatening to shutter Amazon facilities if its wishes went unfulfilled. In 2013, Amazon began lobbying Congress to cut corporate taxes.
The same year, Bezos bought the Washington Post, invested in Business Insiderand donated to the publisher of the libertarian magazine Reason. Though Bezos argues his purchase of the Post was motivated by “a love affair [with] the printed word” and a desire to support American democracy, others suspect Bezos’ interest in media is related to bad press following a scathing Lehman Brothers report in 2000, which sent Amazon’s stock price tumbling.
Leading up to the Post purchase, Bezos was increasingly displaying what early Amazon investor Nick Hanauer called his “libertarian politics.” In addition to spending $100,000 in 2010 on a campaign to defeat a proposed Washington state tax on high-income earners, Bezos put hundreds of thousands of dollars toward boosting charter schools and other neoliberal education reforms.
Bezos’ political involvement reached a new apogee in 2019 during the re-election bid of Seattle’s socialist city councilwoman, Kshama Sawant, who called Bezos “our enemy” and tried to pass a head tax to fund housing for those displaced by Amazon’s Seattle footprint. Amazon spent $1.5 million against Sawant and other progressive candidates, a record at the local level, with more than a dozen of the company’s executives contributing to Sawant’s opponent. (Sawant won re-election anyway.)
As for Bezos’ endgame? A Trekkie since childhood, he has long dreamed of funding space exploration, a mission pursued by other superrich moguls (such as Elon Musk) in the face of the climate emergency. Opening the doors of his secretive Blue Origin aerospace company to journalists for the first time in 2016, Bezos told the New York Times he envisioned a future of “millions of people living and working in space,” exploiting the natural resources of surrounding planets and rezoning Earth “as light industrial and residential.”
Ironically, as Bezos pours the wealth he wrung out of exhausted, low-wage Amazon workers into space exploration, Amazon is busy hastening the very planetary collapse Bezos claims he’s trying to prevent — by silencing workers who speak out against Amazon’s assistance to oil and gas companies.
Let’s imagine, however, that Bezos, who accumulates $9 million an hour, lived in a world with Bernie Sanders’ 8% wealth tax (just on fortunes over $10 billion). A single year would see $9 billion flow from Bezos’ treasure trove into government coffers, more than enough to cover the 10-year cost of Elizabeth Warren’s universal child care plan ($1.7 billion) and maintain safe drinking water under Sanders’ plan ($6 billion).
Bezos’ career is a testament to the cruel autocracy and senseless misallocation of resources that our neoliberal capitalist system enables. But his opulence also reveals that the wealth exists to build a fairer and more equitable society — if redistributed. Bezos may loathe social cohesion, but in a world organized around democracy rather than the whims of space-billionaires, it’s something we may well be able to achieve.
Even when a high-ranking White Helmet admits that some of the ‘rescuers’ came from the ranks of Syrian militants, all he gets from Canada’s national broadcaster is unquestioning praise and concern about “Russian disinformation.”
On March 30, Carol Off, the host of As it Happens on Canada’s government-funded CBC, interviewed Montreal-based Farouq Habib, deputy general manager of the White Helmets, about the organization’s operatives and their family members evacuated to Jordan (via Israel, with Canada’s help) nearly three years ago.
At the time, Canada pledged to take in 50 White Helmets and 200 family members. Off’s focus was on 43 evacuees who still haven’t arrived in Canada.
So she asked Habib: “There are some suggestions that the Canadian security believes that these remaining White Helmet people have a connection to the insurgency, that they were militants in some way. Is there evidence of that?”
Habib replied to the positive, “Regarding this particular issue, we don’t deny it at all. It’s declared and we are proud that many of the former fighters who were involved in the beginning in the war…They lay down their arms and they joined the rescue teams to rescue others...”
Militant-linked propaganda operation
The Western-funded White Helmets describe themselves as volunteer rescuers, and claim to have “saved more than 100,000 lives.” To prove – or rather, propagandize – their heroism, the group uses professionally-produced videos and social media content about their operations.
Western corporate media has been unblinkingly regurgitating their claims and content, while at the same time smearing journalists who actually went to Syria and interviewed civilians on the White Helmets. From far outside of Syria, it has instead been whitewashing the controversial, militant-linked group.
The White Helmets are not just propaganda, though. I wrote previously about their ties to terrorist and extremist groups. They have been filmed holding weapons alongside terrorists. They were seen at scenes of executions, standing over dead Syrian soldiers, and reportedly cleaning up after an execution in Daraa Governorate.
Journalists have taken testimonies of civilians who had lived under the rule of terrorists, who spoke of how the White Helmets worked alongside terrorists, numbered among them, and denied medical treatment to the people they were supposedly saving.
The White Helmets purport neutrality, but evidence – summarily dismissed by mainstream media as Russian and Syrian “disinformation” – shows they are in fact very partial – partial to militant factions.
Canada backs the White Helmets, giving at least $7.5 million and unquestioning media support.
Hence, CBC has a vested interest in reading the “hero” script on the White Helmets, instead of actually doing journalism.
No questions asked
With the above in mind, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Carol Off never veered from her script to at least doubt Habib’s claims that all of the militant-linked White Helmets have really “laid down” their weapons. Not to mention the numerous other questions a responsible journalist could have asked, like:
-How many White Helmets members formerly (cough) fought in armed groups?
-Which factions were they members of?
-Do any have blood on their hands?
-Do any currently carry weapons?
-How can you ensure that they have dropped their extremist ways and now are truly impartial and dedicated to helping all Syrian civilians?
Off could have asked any of these questions, or all of them. Instead, she went on:
“Let’s remind people, the White Helmets are believed to have saved tens of thousands of lives. They were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. But at the same time, we know that Russian and and Syrian agents have conducted a disinformation smear campaign against the White Helmets. There’s been a lot of propaganda suggesting that they’re not real saviours, that they’re militants. Do you think that the Canadian officials might have been exposed to that propaganda?”
…as if she never heard the part where, just a moment earlier, Habib explicitly bragged that there are “former” militants among the White Helmets – a fact that, at the very least, should arouse suspicion with those responsible for letting them cross Canada’s border.
And just like that, no hard questions asked, the interviewer went on to trumpeting the White Helmets using their own propaganda about the “Russian/Syrian disinformation campaign.”
‘A few’ bad apples?
As for Off’s guest, just how neutral is Farouq al-Habib?
He was a leader of the Homs uprising against the Syrian government and a founder member of the ‘Homs Revolutionary Council.’ When jihadist commander and footballer Abdul Baset al-Sarout died in June 2019, Habib mourned his passing, lamenting his “heroism” and “honour.” Sarout not only held extremist and sectarian views, but was in a terrorist faction and pledged allegiance to ISIS.
It’s not surprising that Off chose not to probe into Habib’s history, just as she chose to ignore his admission of White Helmets’ supposedly-former militant affiliations.
As my own and other journalists’ research on the ground in Syria indicates, many White Helmets members are partial to militant or terrorist factions. They even cheered alongside and for al-Qaeda in Syria. In the rare cases of acknowledging that, media have played it down as just “a few bad apples.”
That’s not the case. Most of the apples are fully rotten. And so is the mainstream reporting.
Inequality is America’s Monster Id, and we’re continuing to fuel its future rampage daily.
What’s changed and what hasn’t in the past year? What hasn’t changed is easy:
1. Wealth / income inequality is still increasing. (see chart #1 below)
2. Wages / labor’s share of the economy is still plummeting as financial speculation’s share has soared. (see chart #2 below)
What’s changed is also obvious:
1. Money velocity has cratered. (see chart #3 below)
2. Federal borrowing / spending has skyrocketed, pushing federal debt to unprecedented levels. (see chart #4 below)
3. Speculation has reached the society-wide mania level. This is evidenced by record margin debt levels, record levels of financial assets compared to GDP and many other indicators. (see chart #5 below)
Interestingly, every one of historian Peter Turchin’s 3-point Political Stress Index is now checked. Recall that these are core drivers of consequential social disorder, the kind that leads to empires collapsing, the overthrow of ruling elites, social revolutions, etc.
1. Stagnating real wages (i.e. adjusted for real-world inflation): check
2. Overproduction of parasitic elites: double-triple check
3. Deterioration of central state finances: check
But what about social changes? This is an interesting topic because social changes are less easily tracked (few even ask relevant questions and compile the data). Social trends are often more difficult to discern, as surveys may not track actual changes in behavior: people may give answers they reckon are expected or acceptable.
Here are four long-term trends that may have been accelerated by the pandemic:
1. The residents of overcrowded tourist destinations are sick of tourists and are demanding limits that protect increasingly fragile environments and resident quality of life.
Here’s a typical observation of a resident in Hawaii now that tourists are coming back:
Sunday I saw a group of 30 spring break tourists littering the beach with red cups and bottles of alcohol and trash. They had a table full of booze on the beach and were happily leaving their trash everywhere. No masks and no cares for Hawaii. When they left, instead of using the beach access they all climbed over the fence into someone’s yard because it saved them a minute of walking.
No I don’t miss tourists.
This is a global phenomenon. The absence of tourists has awakened a powerful sense that the profits (which flow into elite hands, not local economies) have taken precedence over the protection of what makes the destination worth visiting.
2. Work from home is here to stay. The benefits are too personal and powerful. Corporations demanding a return to long commutes and central offices will find their most productive employees are giving them “take this job and shove it” notices as they find positions with companies that understand that you can’t turn back the clock or ignore the benefits of flexible schedules.
3. Consumer behaviors have changed and are continuing to change. This is not just an expansion of home delivery; it’s a re-appraisal of big-ticket spending on concerts, entertainment, sports events and many other sectors that depend solely on free-spending consumers who ignore the recent doubling or tripling of prices.
The average citizen of Earth is all tied up these days. Scarcely anyone has free time to take on one more task, to truly understand what goes on in the world, or glean any meaningful benefit from world affairs. Life goes on, albeit in a more chaotic sense, as it always has. The rich get richer, as they say, and the poor get poorer. There’s a simple reason to explain it all, but humanity is never allowed to come to terms with it. The solution to all our problems is patently simple. But the choice? Well, we’re conditioned to shun revolutions of thought and deed.
Now that I have opened a misty veil into the nebulous unknowing of world affairs, let me reveal once more, the dastardly cause of all our strife. The powers that be, whether, in the north, south, east, or west, want everything for themselves. You knew this since that first overheard conversation between old men, in Athens, Beirut, Charleston, or Dublin. And if you’ve dared to rear your head and lift your voice with the newfound freedom of digital means, beware, for they will soon smash you back down into the dark chamber of servitude, where you and I belong. Today’s case in point? The sister of billionaire Warren Buffett, Roberta Buffett Elliott, and an institution painted philanthropic, to cover a deceitful ghastliness. In this report, I have included Tweets from some of the panel that the Buffett Institute has assembled. The gist of these Tweets will further enlighten you.
In my email this morning there was a message from Annelise Riles, Executive Director of Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, a school I was not even familiar with before. The subject of the email was a Foreign Policy – Northwestern broadcast entitled “How to Stop Fake News” The tagline reads:
“Stopping fake news is the big problem we have to solve before we can more effectively address the global challenges facing humanity.”
The story of Roberta, Warren, and her fascinating husband David Elliott, is a subject worthy of a book, but for the sake of brevity, a $100 million dollar gift to create the Northwestern institute in 2015 was no charitable donation. The now-deceased husband David, was head of the largest Peace Corps operating in the world about the time J.F.K. was assassinated. Just to tweak the reader’s interest in how “agents” of liberal change are created.
Returning to the latest Buffett Institute initiative, it’s important to note that like every other supposed philanthropic gift by billionaires, there was a windfall beyond a tax writeoff. And now, with brother Warren and his elite colleagues pressing hard to dominate our world, the rebelliousness of independent thought must be squashed. The elite accomplishes our quietness via the same old methods. They not only own almost all the newspapers and TV stations, they also donate billions to cultivate journalists, scientists, politicians, bureaucrats, educators, and military leaders who will propagate their agendas.
Now, independent traditional and social media are a huge problem for those who want utter control. Now that the term “conspiracy theory” no longer has weight in light of exposed real conspiracies, the danger for the Warren Buffett or George Soros types of the world is acute. This “How to Stop Fake News” should be a wake-up call for every citizen of our world, a call to action to prevent the complete takeover of freedoms and elusive democracy. Make no mistake, the US President declaring war on Russia and Vladmir Putin in recent comments, the hardcore language aimed at Iran, China, and many other “perceived” threats to American hegemony, are the other warning signs.
This new initiative involves high-ranking members of the European Commission, Putin hater Olga Yurkova (Co-Founder, Stopfake.org), Marwan M. Kraidy (Dean and CEO, Northwestern University in Qatar), Justine Isola (Facebook), and others. One look into the backgrounds of these people will tell you the Roberta Buffett Institute is already presenting a narrative to students that is mightily skewed in favor of the liberal order. With Biden in charge now, and after Trump succeeding in destroying conservatism for good, Buffett and his fellows are ready for the push to subdue Russia or anything standing in the way. At least, this is my analysis.
Here in Greece, the Prime Minister just declared social media the “enemy of democracy” because the people are losing confidence in the government’s ability to immunize and protect citizens. This is not “fake news” Prime Minister Mitsotakis is on record saying this. For a few years now, institutions like Freedom House have been trumpeting the notion that social media is rotting democracy from within. The so-called “left’ has blamed this supposed decay on conservatives and the far-right. A Politico piece before the 2020 election suggested that Americans were becoming “superspreaders of misinformation.” At the other end of the spectrum, Annelise Riles, the lady in charge of the Buffett Institute, writes for Times Higher Education (THE); “Universities can help the US retake its seat at the global table.” Must I continue, or is the writing on the wall here? Riles was the recipient of a Marshall Scholarship herself, so what we are seeing is the most effects of replanting neo-colonialism, and the latest in the ongoing war for this world.
We must understand fully what former President Donald Trump’s role was in all this. Trump’s Tweets, the bombastic and often ridiculous content he spread, the sheer callousness and narcissism he foamed at us with, it set the stage for his colleagues to silence all moderators. Now, the liberal order Trump was supposed to expose, the Deep State and the Swamp he was sworn to unseat, has complete control (almost) of media, business, and even academia and medicine.
Currently, there is nothing whatsoever standing in the way of their turning us all into slaves. Putin and Russia represent a huge problem for them because the capitalistic systems they created will soon fail without new resources to leverage. Russia means growth for these people, and without the treasures of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and other nations, the Warren Buffetts and Rothschilds of Earth cannot go forward. Their empires of Wall Street hot air will collapse within a decade. They must, you see, either command all the world’s mineral and human wealth or control us utterly and completely. The inevitable is unarguable. There is no bottomless vessel, from which to pour milk or honey endlessly. This liberal order that reshaped its power, will transform every freedom into a task that serves them. Much of our life is already dedicated to them, they take a piece of every move we make. It will only get worse. But humanity must be left standing. End of story.
By the way, this is not fake news, it is my real opinion based on decades of study, research, and inside information.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
A year of lockdowns, mask-wearing, isolation and depriving youngsters from seeing friends and grandparents has caused a surge in kids committing suicide, self-harming and suffering other mental health issues. It needs to end.
Scrolling through Twitter the other day, I came across a tweet about a worrying increase in the numbers of children and youths having suicidal thoughts.
It mentioned that Boston Children’s Hospital had reported a 47% increase “in kids needing to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation or attempts,” between July and October 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
So I started to research, and in doing so tried to contact organizations concerned with the mental health of young people.
One UK suicide prevention organization that I emailed for information on the correlation between lockdown restrictions and the rise in child (and adult) suicides instead played down the effects of lockdowns and warned against writing about children being affected.
Its media spokesperson told me: “We’re really keen to avoid any media narratives that suggests that suicide is an inevitable consequence of the pandemic and its restrictions, as this can be harmful to vulnerable readers and induce a sense of hopelessness during these uncertain times.”
Although I am not saying suicide is an inevitable consequence of Covid-19 restrictions, clearly there are strong correlations between a year of lockdowns, isolation, depriving children from seeing friends, classmates and grandparents, making them wear masks and other measures, and a sharp rise in child suicides, self-harm and increased mental health issues in general.
The UK organization (whose name I will leave out because, while I am critical of their perspective on these issues, I don’t want to tarnish their reputation for the possibly life-saving work they otherwise do), deflected on the matter of the correlation, saying:
“Currently there is no evidence of a national rise in suicide rates, real-time data is not yet available to determine the true impact on particular population groups or geographic areas.”
But that simply is not true.
As was reported in January 2021, the UK Centre for Mental Health revealed, “500,000 children under 18 in England, with no previous problems, will need mental health care due to the devastating economic, health and family pressures caused by the ongoing coronavirus crisis. This has manifested itself in children as young as five reporting self-harm and suicidal thoughts to counsellors and a tripling in the number of eating disorders reported by adolescents.”
An article the following month, citing a UK doctor’s diary, revealed: “Children in mental health crisis used to be brought to A&E about twice a week. Since the summer it’s been more like once or twice a day. Some as young as 10 have cut themselves, taken overdoses, or tried to asphyxiate themselves.”
The rise in children committing suicide, having suicidal thoughts and self-harming is happening around the world. A December 2020 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found, “a significantly higher rate of suicide ideation in March and July 2020 and higher rates of suicide attempts in February, March, April, and July 2020, as compared with the same months in 2019.”
A January 20, 2021 article cited the executive director of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa as saying, “We’re seeing about a 30-40 percent increase in those who are contacting mental health crisis services. We’re seeing a doubling of the calls that are young people calling or their family is calling because they’re worried about suicide.”
A UNICEF Canada March 2021 press release noted: “The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that have disrupted every aspect of a child and young person’s childhood is a grim reminder of the sacrifices made by young people over the last year. For children experiencing violence, neglect or abuse at home, lockdowns have left many stranded without the support of teachers, extended families and communities.”
A March 15 article on the McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, began, “Pandemic safety measures have had a negative impact on some aspects of children’s and teens’ health.”
It cited a threefold increase of youths admitted for medical support after a suicide attempt, with youngsters reporting a “lack of social interaction, increased conflict at home, and the inability to rely on friends as main contributors” as factors contributing to their plight.
The article also noted an increase in substance abuse admissions (“doubled compared to last year”) and “unprecedented” rates of eating disorders, with referrals up “90% in a four month period, compared to last year.”
In France, doctors have reported children as young as 8 years old, “deliberately running into traffic, overdosing on pills and otherwise self-harming.”
The same article said that a doctor working in a northern England infirmary “used to treat one or two children per week for mental health emergencies, including suicide attempts. The average now is closer to one or two per day, sometimes involving children as young as 8.”
The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: there is a serious rise in child suicide, suicide attempts and thoughts, self-harm and mental health issues that can be attributed directly to the result of Covid-19 measures enforced on children, including many with no previous history of mental health issues.
Lifting lockdown measures would help children heal
The lockdowns are based both on the premise that they are necessary in order to “flatten the curve,” as was said one year ago, and to protect people.
Now (goalposts moved), they are apparently needed until everyone is vaccinated (with rushed vaccines that have raised concerns they may cause blood clots or deaths).
The different stages of lockdowns are largely based on the incessant reports of rising “cases” of Covid-19.
Cases are determined by Covid-19 tests, which have proved to be unreliable and inaccurate, giving false positives and creating a false picture of reality. This faulty testing is exacerbating the media hype over “rising cases.”
Even Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health in July 2020 admitted, “… if you’re testing in a population that doesn’t have very much Covid, you’ll get false positives almost half the time. That is, the person actually doesn’t have Covid, they have something else, they may have nothing.”
Or as noted in December 2020, even the World Health Organization, “released a guidance memo on December 14th, warning that high cycle thresholds on PCR tests will result in false positives.”
The 24/7, sensationalist media we have been subjected to for the past year is a major cause for anxiety, fear, depression and hopelessness.
Talking honestly about the negative impacts of lockdowns, isolation, masking and the resulting mental health issues is something we need to be doing.
A Canadian initiative, Save Our Youth, has produced a series of short videos of parents speaking about how lockdowns are affecting their children. The coalition encourages others to submit their own clips.
Journalist Robert Bridge recently wrote: “Children have been taught to look at each other warily, like walking chemical factories capable of infecting and even killing, as opposed to fellow human beings that can provide love, comfort and support.
“We did the most unconscionable thing imaginable, forcing young children – at the most momentous times of their lives – to adhere to social distancing rules while shutting down their schools and imprisoning them in their homes. That is simply cruel and unusual punishment. In a word, it is child abuse.”
The UK suicide prevention organization which deflected the correlation between lockdowns and rising child suicides and self-harm does children a disservice with its stance.
The lockdowns and related measures are, in my and many others’ opinions, the core reasons for childrens’ suffering. The sooner we return to normal and lift lockdowns and end the masking of children, the sooner our young will start to heal and live in ways beneficial to their physical and mental health.
I do, however, agree with the organization’s guidance to “remind people that suicide is preventable by encouraging help-seeking and including sources of help.” And for parents and loved ones to pay close attention to any changes in behaviour in children (or adults) who might be silently suffering.
Recently, the editor of the Toronto Sun said: “Keeping children under lockdown so much in quarantine, not letting them just interact with their natural environment as much as they would normally be doing is actually going to stand a risk of harming their immune system, develop allergies, asthma, and even autoimmune diseases later in life because they’re not having a natural exposure to to the microbial atmosphere out there.
“It’s unethical, it’s immoral, to ignore the harms that are being done to our children to the degree that we are ignoring them as a society.”
I wholeheartedly agree. We should be doing everything we can to protect children from lockdowns, potentially toxic masks, isolation and the spiralling mental health issues that result from them.
“The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon
One way or another, the majority of Americans will survive COVID-19.
It remains to be seen, however, whether our freedoms will survive the tyranny of the government’s heavy-handed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indeed, now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., we may all be long-haulers, suffering under the weight of long-term COVID-19 afflictions.
Instead of dealing with the headaches, fatigue and neurological aftereffects of the virus, however, “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.
Therein lies the danger of the government’s growing addiction to power.
What started out a year ago as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents.
Until recently, the police state had been more circumspect in its power grabs, but this latest state of emergency has brought the beast out of the shadows.
It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers.
The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.
It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.
This coronavirus pandemic has been no exception.
Not only have the federal and state governments unraveled the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that sent the economy into a tailspin and wrought havoc with our liberties, but they have almost persuaded the citizenry to depend on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.
This past year under lockdown was a lesson in many things, but most of all, it was a lesson in how to indoctrinate a populace to love and obey Big Brother.
What started off as an experiment in social distancing in order to flatten the curve of this virus, and not overwhelm the nation’s hospitals or expose the most vulnerable to unavoidable loss of life scenarios quickly became strongly worded suggestions for citizens to voluntarily stay at home and strong-armed house arrest orders with penalties in place for non-compliance.
Every day brought a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that were eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.
There was talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening checkpoints, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, immunity passports to allow those who have recovered from the virus to move around more freely, snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their businesses without the government’s say-so.
To some, these may seem like small, necessary steps in the war against the COVID-19 virus, but they’re only necessary to the Deep State in its efforts to further undermine the Constitution, extend its control over the populace, and feed its insatiable appetite for ever-greater powers.
After all, whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s borders or making America healthy again—rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.
The war on drugs turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with SWAT teams and militarized police. The war on terror turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention. The war on immigration turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with roving government agents demanding “papers, please.”
This war on COVID-19 could usher in yet another war on the American people, waged with all of the surveillance weaponry at the government’s disposal: thermal imaging cameras, drones, contact tracing, biometric databases, etc.
Unless we find some way to rein in the government’s power grabs, the fall-out will be epic.
Everything I have warned about for years—government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse of powers, militarized police, weaponized technology used to track and control the citizenry, and so on—has coalesced into this present moment.
The government’s shameless exploitation of past national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes pales in comparison to what is presently unfolding.
It’s downright Machiavellian.
Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state—a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State—has been anticipating this moment for years, quietly assembling a wish list of lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.
It should surprise no one, then, that the Trump Administration asked Congress to allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution whenever it deems it necessary during this coronavirus pandemic and “other” emergencies. It’s that “other” emergencies part that should particularly give you pause, if not spur you to immediate action (by action, I mean a loud and vocal, apolitical, nonpartisan outcry and sustained, apolitical, nonpartisan resistance).
In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) started to quietly trot out and test a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.
We’re talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level): the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.
These are powers the police state would desperately like to make permanent.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that anything will change for the better under the Biden administration. That’s not how totalitarian regimes operate.
Bear in mind, however, that the powers the government officially asked Congress to recognize and authorize barely scratch the surface of the far-reaching powers the government has already unilaterally claimed for itself.
Unofficially, the police state has been riding roughshod over the rule of law for years now without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.
As David C. Unger, observes in The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs:
“For seven decades we have been yielding our most basic liberties to a secretive, unaccountable emergency state – a vast but increasingly misdirected complex of national security institutions, reflexes, and beliefs that so define our present world that we forget that there was ever a different America. … Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”
This rise of an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security is all happening according to schedule.
The civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters,” the government’s reliance on the armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems, the implicit declaration of martial law packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security: the powers-that-be have been planning and preparing for such a crisis for years now, not just with active shooter drills and lockdowns and checkpoints and heightened danger alerts, but with a sensory overload of militarized, battlefield images—in video games, in movies, on the news—that acclimate us to life in a totalitarian regime.
Whether or not this particular crisis is of the government’s own making is not the point: to those for whom power and profit are everything, the end always justifies the means.
The seeds of this present madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.
Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives, which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”
Mind you, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose, and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.
Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the executive branch and its unelected minions.
The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.
The emergency state is now out in the open for all to see.
Unfortunately, “we the people” refuse to see what’s before us.
This is how freedom dies.
We erect our own prison walls, and as our rights dwindle away, we forge our own chains of servitude to the police state.
Be warned, however: once you surrender your freedoms to the government—no matter how compelling the reason might be for doing so—you can never get them back.
No government willingly relinquishes power. If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.
That said, we still have rights. Technically, at least.
We should not voluntarily relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe.
The government may act as if its police state powers trump individual liberties during this COVID-19 pandemic, but for all intents and purposes, the Constitution—especially the battered, besieged Bill of Rights—still stands in theory, if not in practice.
The decisions we make right now—about freedom, commerce, free will, how we care for the least of these in our communities, what it means to provide individuals and businesses with a safety net, how far we allow the government to go in “protecting” us against this virus, etc.—will haunt us for a long time to come.
At times like these, when emotions are heightened, fear dominates, common sense is in short supply, liberty takes a backseat to public safety, and democratic societies approach the tipping point towards mob rule, there is a tendency to cast those who exercise their individual freedoms (to freely speak, associate, assemble, protest, pursue a living, engage in commerce, etc.) as foolishly reckless, criminally selfish, outright villains or so-called “extremists.”
Sometimes that is true, but not always.
There is always a balancing test between individual freedoms and the communal good.
What we must figure out is how to strike a balance that allows us to protect those who need protecting without leaving us chained and in bondage to the police state.
Blindly following the path of least resistance—acquiescing without question to whatever the government dictates—can only lead to more misery, suffering and the erection of a totalitarian regime in which there is no balance.
Whatever we give up willingly now—whether it’s basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in how the government navigates this crisis, or the few rights still left to us that haven’t been disemboweled in recent years by a power-hungry police state—we won’t get back so easily once this crisis is past.
A year ago, I warned that this was a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—can survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.
Nothing has changed on that front.
James Madison, the “father” of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the fourth president of the United States, once advised that we should “take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”
These COVID-19 restrictions are far from the first experiment on our liberties. Yet if “we the people” continue to allow the government to trample our rights in the name of so-called national security, we can be assured that things will get worse, not better.
You’ve heard of them, no doubt, the U.S. rulers who can’t rule too well and are always getting surprised by events or fed bad advice by their underlings. Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence. They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the elites whom allegedly they oppose while ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail. They never see the storm coming, even as they create it. Their incompetence is the retort to all those nut cases who conjure up conspiracy theories to explain their actions or lack thereof. They are innocent. Always innocent.
They and their media mouthpieces offer Americans, who are most eager to accept, what Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed at age thirty-nine by Hitler, called cheap grace: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance…”
These incompetents are, in the immortal words of the New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
Except they could and can.
They’ve actually shot a lot of people, here and abroad. It’s one of their specialties. But they mean well. They screw up sometimes, but they mean well. They care, even while they kill millions with their guns and bombs. But they have their followers.
As another dissident thirty-nine-year-old pastor, executed by the American state, Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Mainstream Media Pseudo-Debates
The U.S. rulers have their defenders. Most are corporate mainstream journalists whose jobs are to defend the ruling elites of both political parties. They will criticize across the political divides depending on their organizations’ political leanings at the moment. But they will never attack the fundamentals of the oligarchic war system since they are part of it. Their jobs depend on it. So CNN and The New York Times will obsessively attack Trump while Fox News will do the same to Obama or Biden. This is a game.
These days such massive media conglomerates are seemingly starkly divided and basically serve as adjuncts of one political party or the other. They are essentially political propagandists for either the Democrats or the Republicans and have abandoned any pretense to be anything else. They speak to their respective audiences in self-enclosed vacuums. They promote the divide that runs down the middle of the USA, a divide they helped to create.
Some have argued that this radical division of the media turf is because of economic and business factors; that the media organizations and their “journalists” have seen this strategy as the path to greater profits. There is probably some truth in this. But it is a small part.
For all sides of the corporate media serve the same overarching political function: to divide and conquer the population; to set the so-called left against right; middle America against the east and west coasts; white against black; working class against middle-class; men against women; husbands against wives, etc. To keep people, who in reality should be allies, fighting with each other. It is a classic strategy of divide-and-conquer that is carried out by the mainstream media pursuant to their unstated mandate. It is not an accident and has been conducted with a vengeance in recent years.
And crucially, it is anchored in the false premise of the myth of left vs. right with a reasonable center somewhere between. Such a center has never existed. While left and right might once have been useful categories, they have long since outlived their usefulness. They now just serve to engender pseudo-debates.
Pseudo-debates are not new but they are highly effective. They are debates based on false premises. In this case, the premise is that the massive corporate media conglomerates are not part of the same system of control and containment of the population, but are genuine opponents in the battle for truth and democracy. Accept this premise and you have entered into endless debates leading nowhere. It is a classic method of intelligence agencies to sow uncertainty and confusion and to have people following Alice down the rabbit hole, tumbling and tumbling into an endless void as they argue continually about nothing.[1]
Dr. E. Martin Schotz has brilliantly explicated this trick in the case of the assassination of President Kennedy (“Certainly no honest person could ever accept the ‘single bullet theory’.”) where people are still debating a false mystery almost sixty years after the fact. He writes:
The lie is that there is a mystery to debate. And so we have pseudo-debates. Debates about meaningless disputes, based on assumptions which are obviously false….Perhaps many people think that engaging in pseudo-debate is a benign activity. That it simply means that people are debating something that is irrelevant. This is not the case. I say this because every debate rests on a premise to which the debaters must agree, or there is no debate. In the case of pseudo-debate the premise is a lie. So in the pseudo-debate we have the parties to the debate agreeing to purvey a lie to the public. And it is all the more malignant because it is subtle. The unsuspecting person who is witness to the pseudo-debate does not understand that he is being passed a lie. He is not even aware that he is being passed a premise. It is so subtle that the premise just passes into the person as if it were reality. This premise—that there is uncertainly to be resolved—seems so benign. It is as easy as drinking a glass of treated water. But the fact remains that there is no mystery except in the minds of those who are willing to drink this premise. The premise is a lie, and a society which agrees to drink such a lie ceases to perceive reality. This is what we mean by mass denial.[2]
The entire corporate media ideological spectrum operates under the umbrella of oligarchic control, something that is not new, just more egregious with every passing day. More in your face. The corporate media serve as the mouthpieces for those oligarchs, but they try to convince their separate audiences that this isn’t so. They give people enemies – false ones. Objects to hate.
But just like symptoms are not the disease, they give people a focus upon which to rivet their attention while the disease goes unattended. As with a drug addict, the taking of drugs is not the fundamental problem, although it becomes one and might kill you. The problem is why one takes drugs; what is it that is one feels needs to be tranquilized and silenced. Or, as the writer William Saroyan once flippantly said regarding the claim that smoking causes cancer: “You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke, not from the smoking itself.”
The corporate mainstream media are the drug that serves to hide the core truth of an oligarchic cancerous warfare state drunk on power and using propaganda to play both sides. Everyone has become pawns in their game.
A recent example serves to illustrate a method in their madness. There is a new, ongoing Spotify podcast – “Renegades: Born in the USA” – featuring Barack Obama and the singer Bruce Springsteen in conversation. Two rebels – it’s of course ridiculous – but there it is. Two super rich celebrities stroking each other’s egos in an upper class setting. One a singer, who rose to prominence out of nowhere as the voice of the small-town beleaguered working class; the other, a mixed-race politician who rose to prominence out of nowhere from a family background redolent of the CIA. Two icons of popular and political culture crossing over with a smooth patina of mixed-arts bullshit telling listeners they we need to return to the good old days when political centrism served the great American ideal that they both share. People are supposed to take this conversation between “buddies” seriously, as the two sit mask-less with their feet seemingly touching at a time when people are told to wear masks and avoid close contact with those outside their households. As Bruce strums his guitar, any half-way sentient person would realize he was being played, even while the meaning of the song was so twisted that he was enjoying it.
Left-wing Gatekeepers
Then, if we switch from the mainstream corporate media to alternative voices, especially prominent ones on the left, we notice something even stranger.
I think most readers would agree that the two seismic events of the last twenty years are the current COVID- 19 issue and the September 11, 2001 attacks. The latter, not only because of all the victims that died that day, but for how it led to so much death and destruction around the world, the endless war on terror, the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., the ensuing loss of basic liberties and privacy via the Patriot Act, etc. The former for obvious current reasons of death and further loss of basic liberties under the lockdowns as governments throughout the world institute unprecedented measures of control, etc. Clearly these two events stand out over the decades. They bookend twenty years of massive U.S. war crimes, the growth of the national security complex, an obscene increase in wealth for the wealthiest, and the loss of privacy and civil liberties for all.
And as everyone knows, September 11th and COVID-19 have resulted in great controversies and much debate because of their serious implications and the obvious questions about the official story lines raised by many respectable writers and researchers of varying political perspectives. At the very least, one would expect that leftist/liberal critics of the so-called Deep State and the machinations of the elite’s wars and propaganda would have engaged in these discussions about these two seminal events or written analytic articles about them.
But for a core group of prominent left/liberal critics, these two subjects have been avoided like they are of no importance. No debates, no discussions, no analyses – simply silence, as if they didn’t happen and there was nothing to discuss. Cases closed: the government has spoken. Let us move on to more important matters.
But that is wrong. For example, in about a dozen closely reasoned books of his own and with other international researchers, David Ray Griffin has raised innumerable questions that show that the official September 11 story is full of holes. Canadian writer Graeme MacQueen has written a devastating exposé of the linked anthrax attacks that followed September 11, showing clearly that they were a U.S. government operation. I myself have raised significant questions about what I call the linguistic mind-control associated with the attacks in “Why I Don’t Speak of 9/11 Anymore.” The dissident literature is enormous.
A few of Griffin’s points are illustrative of the many anomalies in the official account. There are so many, and not just from Griffin but from other researchers, that I will mention just a few about the building collapses, what Griffin calls “miracles of science.” The contradictions about the hijackers are also voluminous.
Here are a few such scientific miracles:
The Twin Towers and WTC 7 were the only steel-framed high-rise buildings ever to come down without explosives or incendiaries. The Twin Towers, each of which had 287 steel columns, were brought down solely by a combination of airplane strikes and jet-fuel fires. WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, so it was the first steel-framed high-rise to be brought down solely by ordinary building fires. These World Trade Center buildings also came down in free fall – the Twin Towers in virtual free fall, WTC 7 in absolute free fall – for over two seconds. Although the collapses of the of the WTC buildings were not aided by explosives, the collapses imitated the kinds of implosions that can be induced only by demolition companies. In the case of WTC 7, the structure came down symmetrically (straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline), which meant that all 82 of the steel support columns had to fall simultaneously, although the building’s fires had a very asymmetrical pattern. The South Tower’s upper 30-floor block changed its angular momentum in midair. This 30-floor block then disintegrated in midair.
I could go on and on with examples. The simple point is that there are so many absurdities in the official story that to ignore them is an act of intellectual and moral betrayal. Anyone who has closely studied the government’s 9/11 Commission Report knows it is highly fictional.
The same is true for dissenting voices on the COVID-19 issue. Three publications in particular have published an enormous amount of well-reasoned critiques of the official version of the COVID-19 narrative: Global Research, Off-Guardian, and Children’s Health Defense. All present many articles by serious writers who raise innumerable questions and make irrefutable points about this matter.
And again, the point is not simple agreement with the dissenters’ arguments, but the need to engage their critiques. Here too the silence is resounding, for it says “we buy the official account.”
Consider these few:
The man who invented the test used to determine the so-called COVID positive test results, the Nobel Prize winning chemist, Kary Mullis, has said that the test cannot do that, it is not a diagnostic test, and therefore all the test results are meaningless. Additionally, there is serious doubt that the virus called SARS-CoV-2 causes a disease called COVID 19 since there is no evidence that the virus has ever been isolated. Assuming for argument’s sake, however, that the PCR test can detect a specific virus, even Anthony Fauci himself, and the World Health Organization (one hour after Biden was sworn into office), have both said that the PCR test in order to have any accuracy must be performed at cycles below 35 thresholds while for a year those tests have been done at thresholds much higher, resulting in vast numbers of false positives. Cycle thresholds are the level at which the PCR test is said to detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus.
Furthermore, eminent voices such as Michel Chossudovsky and Peter Koenig at Global Research, Robert Kennedy, Jr. at Children’s Health Defense, and Catte Black and Kit Knightly at Off-Guardian have for a long time been vociferously objecting to the official narrative with a vast amount of additional analyses involving the consequences of the wide-spread lockdowns. Such dissidents have had to fight against an organized campaign of censorship that should raise the alarm for anyone who cares about truth.
For leftists who remain silent on these fundamental issues, I can assure them that these critiques of the official explanations of September 11, 2001 and COVID-19 are not right-wing conspiracies but are the work of leftists digging deep for truth.
It is therefore more than odd that certain left/liberal writers completely avoid these issues. One must assume, therefore, that they accept the official explanations for these events, just as this coterie of leftist/liberal critics dismiss the voluminous and detailed critiques of the Warren Commission and the assassination of President Kennedy. From their silence one can assume that these matters are of no importance because the authorities have given us the truth.
One such deceased left-wing writer, who can stand in for the group of living writers I allude to, was the well-known and often brilliant journalist Alexander Cockburn, the founder of Counterpunch Magazine. In Cockburn’s case, however, and to his credit even though he had no idea what he was talking about regarding September 11, 2001 and the JFK assassination, he did not remain silent but expressed his bile in ways he thought piercing but which made him appear quite ignorant. Cockburn had a sharp tongue and liked to ridicule anyone who disagreed with him. He excoriated all who questioned the JFK assassination or September 11 as “conspiracy nuts,” “lunatics” involved with “kookery.”
Echoing the CIA’s conspiracy meme, his name calling was offensive and his ignorance of these matters extraordinary. But he was a star leftist, an untouchable. Few wished to criticize him. He started with the assumption that government stupidity, incompetence, and screw-ups allow these terrible events to happen, and then without a shred of evidence, concluded that is why they happened. All evidence and logic to the contrary, he derisively dismissed as the work of fools. Only Cockburn and a government that admits mistakes were made were right. His arguments on these matters were pseudo-debates based on a premises he conjured out of thin air.
He was a master incompetent of the incompetence theory, one that many prominent leftists follow today, such as a recent passing comment by one of them on the COVID-19 matter as a mishandling by the ruling elite. The implicit assumption being that the basic government and mainstream media tale is correct and all would be far better if the Trump administration hadn’t screwed up. Nothing further is forthcoming or necessary. Let us proceed on the assumption that the official account is true and that the government’s inept response is the problem. Failure of leadership. Government negligence. Incompetence.
And anyone who even harbors a suspicion that there may be more to the story is engaging in conspiratorial thinking. Of course this is the same response given to those who for twenty years have researched and questioned the government’s account of September 11, 2001. The 9/11 omission story. The fictional account that will dominate the news as the twentieth anniversary approaches this September. Will any of those liberal/leftists who have remained silent all these years let it pass as truth? I suspect so but hope not.
The Need for Dialogue
So we have pseudo debates on one hand and silence on the other when what is required is not self-censorship but open critical dialogue on these fundamental matters. “There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” said Martin Luther King from the pulpit of Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 when he condemned the Vietnam War and broke his own silence in opposition to many of his advisers. A year later to the day, like JFK, he was murdered by the warfare state he condemned. Like Senator Robert Kennedy two months later. They were killed by very competent people.
Dr. Martin E. Schotz wrote twenty-six years ago in History Will Not Absolve US that those he had in mind for their defense of the Warren Commission were “such individuals as Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, the editors of The Nation magazine, and, if everyone remembers, I.F. Stone as well. I think the positions of these individuals are very important because in their surprising (to us) dishonesty and willingness to cooperate with the warfare state in covering up the crime, there is obviously something to be learned.”
Yes, there is. It is time for all people of good will to stop finding excuses for the ruling elites, whether through incompetence theories or the silent refusal to publicly engage the government and its critics on the most important issues of our time – September 11, 2001 and COVID-19. Those Schotz names above are heroes for many on the liberal/left today who follow in their stead. It’s as though they have found it necessary to mimic their teachers’ lessons. Better logic would have them analyzing the premises of September 11 and COVID-19. Start with the basics. Be explicit. Tell us why you are silent.
After the Crash 