The crisis of 2020 has created the greatest wealth gap in history. The middle class, capitalism and democracy are all under threat. What went wrong and what can be done?

By Ellen Brown

Source: ScheerPost

In a matter of decades, the United States has gone from a somewhat benign form of capitalism to a neo-feudal form that has created an ever-widening gap in wealth and power. In his 2013 bestseller Capital in the 21^st Century, French economist Thomas Piketty declared that “the level of inequality in the US is probably higher than in any other society at any time in the past anywhere in the world.” In a 2014 podcast about the book, Bill Moyers commented:

Here’s one of its extraordinary insights: We are now really all headed into a future dominated by inherited wealth, as capital is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, giving the very rich ever greater power over politics, government and society. Patrimonial capitalism is the name for it, and it has potentially terrifying consequences for democracy. 

Paul Krugman maintained in the same podcast that the United States is becoming an oligarchy, a society of inherited wealth, “the very system our founders revolted against.” While things have only gotten worse since then thanks to the economic crisis of 2020, it’s worth retracing the history that brought us to this volatile moment.

Not the Vision of Our Founders

The sort of capitalism on which the United States was originally built has been called mom-and-pop capitalism. Families owned their own farms and small shops and competed with each other on a more or less level playing field. It was a form of capitalism that broke free of the feudalistic model and reflected the groundbreaking values set forth in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the rights to free speech, a free press, to worship and assemble; and the right not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. 

It was good in theory, but there were glaring, inhumane exceptions to this idealized template, including the confiscation of the lands of indigenous populations and the slavery that then prevailed. The slaves were emancipated by the US Civil War; but while they were freed in their persons, they were not economically free. They remained entrapped in economic serfdom. Although Black and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately oppressed, poor people were all trapped in “indentured servitude” of sorts — the obligation to serve in order to pay off debts, e.g. the debts of Irish workers to pay for passage to the United States, and the debts of “sharecroppers” (two-thirds of whom were white), who had to borrow from landlords at interest for land and equipment. Today’s U.S. prison system has also been called a form of slavery, in which free or cheap labor is extracted from poor people of color.

To the creditors, economic captivity actually had certain advantages over “chattel” slavery (ownership of humans as a property right). According to an infamous document called the Hazard Circular, circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts during the American Civil War:

Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages.

Slaves had to be housed, fed and cared for. “Free” men housed and fed themselves.  Free men could be kept enslaved by debt by paying them wages that were insufficient to meet their costs of living. 

From “Industrial Capitalism” to “Finance Capitalism”

The economy crashed in the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government revived it and rebuilt the country through a public financial institution called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. After World War II, the US middle class thrived. Small businesses competed on a relatively level playing field similar to the mom-and-pop capitalism of the early pioneers. MMeanwhile, larger corporations engaged in “industrial capitalism,” in which the goal was to produce real goods and services. 

But the middle class, considered the backbone of the economy, has been progressively eroded since the 1970s. The one-two punch of the Great Recession and what the IMF has called the “Great Lockdown” has again reduced much of the population to indentured servitude; while industrial capitalism has largely been displaced by “finance capitalism,” in which money makes money for those who have it, “in their sleep.” As economist Michael Hudson explains, unearned income, not productivity, is the goal. Corporations take out cheap 1% loans, not to invest in machinery and production, but to buy their own stock earning 8% or 9%; or to buy out smaller corporations, eliminating competition and creating monopolies. Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis explains that “capital” has been decoupled from productivity: businesses can make money without making profits on their products.  As Kevin Cahill described the plight of people today in a book titled Who Owns the World?:

These latter day pharaohs, the planet owners, the richest 5% – allow the rest of us to pay day after day for the right to live on their planet. And as we make them richer, they buy yet more of the planet for themselves, and use their wealth and power to fight amongst themselves over what each possesses – though of course it’s actually us who have to fight and die in their wars. 

The 2020 Knockout Punch 

The final blow to the middle class came in 2020. Nick Hudson, co-founder of a data analytics firm called PANDA (Pandemics, Data and Analysis),  argued in an interview following his keynote address at a March 2021 investment conference:

Lockdowns are the most regressive strategy that has ever been invented. The wealthy have become much wealthier. Trillions of dollars of wealth have been transferred to wealthy people. … Not a single country did a cost/benefit analysis before imposing these measures. 

Policymakers followed the recommendations of the World Health Organization based on predictive modeling by the Imperial College London that subsequently proved to be wildly inaccurate. Later studies have now been done, at least some of which have concluded that lockdowns have no significant effects on case numbers and that the costs of lockdowns substantially outweigh the benefits, in terms not just of economic costs but of lives. 

On the economic front,  global lockdowns eliminated competition from small and medium-sized businesses, allowing monopolies and oligopolies to grow. “The biggest loser from all this is the middle class,” wrote Logan Kane on Seeking Alpha. By May 2020, about one in four Americans had filed for unemployment, with over 40 million Americans filing jobless claims; and 200,000 more businesses closed in 2020 than the historical annual average. Meanwhile, US billionaires collectively increased their total net worth by $1.1 trillion during the last 10 months of 2020; and 46 people joined the billionaire class. 

The number of “centi-billionaires”– individuals with a net worth of $100 billion or more – also grew. In the US they included:

• Jeff Bezos, soon-to-be former CEO of Amazon, whose net worth increased from $113 billion in March 2020 to $182 billion in March 2021, up by $70 billion for the year; 
• Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, whose net worth increased from $25 billion in March 2020 to $164 billion in March 2021, up by $139 billion for the year; and 
• Bill Gates, formerly CEO of Microsoft and currently considered the “global vaccine czar,” whose net worth increased to $124 billion in March 2021, up by $26 billion for the year.

Two others are almost centi-billionaires: 

• The net worth of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, grew from $55 billion in March 2020 to $95 billion in March 2021, up by $40 billion for the year; and 
• The net worth of Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway grew from $68 billion in March 2020 to $95 billion in March 2021, up by $27.6 billion for the year. 

These five individuals collectively added $300 billion to their net worth just in 2020. For perspective, that’s enough to create 300,000 millionaires, or to give $100,000 to 3 million people. 

Philanthrocapitalism

The need to shield the multibillionaire class from taxes and to change their predatory corporate image has given rise to another form of capitalism, called philanthrocapitalism. Wealth is transferred to foundations or limited liability corporations that are designated as having charitable purposes but remain under the ownership and control of the donors, who can invest the funds in ways that serve their corporate interests. As noted in The Reporter Magazine of the Rochester Institute of Technology: 

Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth.

With $100 billion, nearly anything can be bought – not just land and resources but media and journalists, political influence and legislation, regulators, university research departments and laboratories. Jeff Bezos now owns The Washington Post. Bill Gates is not only the largest funder of the World Health Organization and the Imperial College London but the largest owner of agricultural land in the US. And Elon Musk’s aerospace manufacturer SpaceX has effectively privatized the sky. Astronomers and stargazers complain that the thousands of satellites it has already launched, with many more in the works, are blocking their ability to see the stars.The astronomy professor Samantha Lawler writes in a piece for The Conversation: 

SpaceX has already received approval for 12,000 Starlink satellites and is seeking approval for 30,000 more. Other companies are not far behind […] The point of the Starlink mega-constellation is to provide global internet access. It is often stated by Starlink supporters that this will provide internet access to places on the globe not currently served by other communication technologies. But currently available information shows the cost of access will be too high in nearly every location that needs internet access. Thus, Starlink will likely only provide an alternate for residents of wealthy countries who already have other ways of accessing the internet […] With tens of thousands of new satellites approved for launch, and no laws about orbit crowding, right-of-way or space cleanup, the stage is set for the disastrous possibility of Kessler Syndrome, a runaway cascade of debris that could destroy most satellites in orbit and prevent launches for decades…. Large corporations like SpaceX and Amazon will only respond to legislation — which is slow, especially for international legislation — and consumer pressure […] Our species has been stargazing for thousands of years, do we really want to lose access now for the profit of a few large corporations? 

Public advocacy groups, such as the Cellular Phone Task Force,  have also objected due to health concerns over increased electromagnetic radiation. But the people have little say over public policy these days. So concluded a study summarized in a January 2021 article in Foreign Affairs. Princeton professor and study co-author Martin Gilens wrote: 

[O]rdinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States. … Government policy-making over the last few decades reflects the preferences … of economic elites and of organized interests. 

Varoufakis calls our current economic scheme “postcapitalism” and “techno-feudalism.” As in the medieval feudal model, assets are owned by the few. He notes that the stock market and the businesses in it are essentially owned by three companies – the giant exchange-traded funds BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. Under the highly controversial “Great Reset” envisioned by the World Economic Forum, “you will own nothing and be happy.” By implication, everything will be owned by the techno-feudal lords.

Getting Back On Track

The capitalist model has clearly gone off the rails. How to get it back on track? One obvious option is to tax the uber-rich. As Chuck Collins, author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions (2021), writes in a March 2021 article: 

A wealth tax would reverse more than a half-​century of tax cuts for the wealthiest households. Billionaires have seen their taxes decline roughly 79 percent as a percentage of their wealth since 1980. The “effective rate” on the billionaire class—the actual percentage paid—was 23 percent in 2018, lower than for most middle-​income taxpayers.

He notes that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-​Mass.) and co-authors recently introduced legislation to levy a 2 percent annual tax on wealth starting at $50 million, rising to 3 percent on fortunes of more than $1 billion:

The tax, which would apply to fewer than 100,000 U.S. residents, would raise an estimated $3 trillion over the next decade. It would be paid entirely by multi-​millionaires and billionaires who have reaped the lion’s share of wealth gains over the last four decades, including during the pandemic. 

 Varoufakis contends, however, that taxing wealth won’t be enough. The corporate model itself needs an overhaul. To create a “humanist” capitalism, he says, democracy needs to be brought to the marketplace. 

Politically, one adult gets one vote. But in corporate elections, votes are weighted according to financial investment: the largest investors hold the largest number of voting shares. Varoufakis argues that the proper principle for reconfiguring the ownership of corporations for a market-based society would be one employee, one share (not tradeable), one vote. On that basis, he says, we can imagine as an alternative to our post-capitalist model a market-based democratic society without capitalism.   

Another proposed solution is a land value tax, restoring at least a portion of the land to the “commons.” As Michael Hudson has observed:

There is one Achilles heel in the globalists’ strategy, an option that remains open to governments. This option is a tax on the rental income – the “unearned income” – of land, natural resources and monopoly takings. 

Reforming the banking system is another critical tool. Banks operated as a public utility could allocate credit for productive purposes serving the public interest. Other possibilities include enforcement of anti-monopoly legislation and patent law reform.Perhaps, however, the flaw is in the competitive capitalist model itself. The winners will inevitably capture and exploit the losers, creating an ever-     growing gap in wealth and power. Studies of natural systems have shown that cooperative models are more efficient than competitive schemes. That does not mean the sort of “cooperation” coerced through iron-fisted totalitarian control at the top. We need a set of rules that actually levels the playing field, rewards productivity, and maximizes benefit to society as a whole, while preserving the individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. 

US leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another, a trajectory mirroring the sad finales of other historical imperial powers

By Chris Hedges

Source: Mint Press News

Princeton, New Jersey (Scheerpost) — America’s defeat in Afghanistan is one in a string of catastrophic military blunders that herald the death of the American empire. With the exception of the first Gulf War, fought largely by mechanized units in the open desert that did not – wisely – attempt to occupy Iraq, the United States political and military leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another. Korea. Vietnam. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The trajectory of military fiascos mirrors the sad finales of the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, Russian, French, British, Dutch, Portuguese and Soviet empires. While each of these empires decayed with their own peculiarities, they all exhibited patterns of dissolution that characterize the American experiment.

Imperial ineptitude is matched by domestic ineptitude. The collapse of good government at home, with legislative, executive and judicial systems all seized by corporate power, ensures that the incompetent and the corrupt, those dedicated not to the national interest but to swelling the profits of the oligarchic elite, lead the country into a cul-de-sac. Rulers and military leaders, driven by venal self-interest, are often buffoonish characters in a grand comic operetta. How else to think of Allen Dulles, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Trump or the hapless Joe Biden? While their intellectual and moral vacuity is often darkly amusing, it is murderous and savage when directed towards their victims.

There is not a single case since 1941 when the coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars or military interventions carried out by the United States resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. The two-decade-long wars in the Middle East, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, have only left in their wake one failed state after another. Yet, no one in the ruling class is held accountable.

War, when it is waged to serve utopian absurdities, such as implanting a client government in Baghdad that will flip the region, including Iran, into U.S. protectorates, or when, as in Afghanistan, there is no vision at all, descends into a quagmire. The massive allocation of money and resources to the U.S. military, which includes Biden’s request for $715 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal year 2022, a $11.3 billion, or 1.6 percent increase, over 2021, is not in the end about national defense. The bloated military budget is designed, as Seymour Melman explained in his book, “The Permanent War Economy,” primarily to keep the American economy from collapsing. All we really make anymore are weapons. Once this is understood, perpetual war makes sense, at least for those who profit from it.

The idea that America is a defender of democracy, liberty and human rights would come as a huge surprise to those who saw their democratically elected governments subverted and overthrown by the United States in Panama (1941), Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Honduras (2009) and Egypt (2013). And this list does not include a host of other governments that, however despotic, as was the case in South Vietnam, Indonesia or Iraq, were viewed as inimical to American interests and destroyed, in each case making life for the inhabitants of these countries even more miserable.

I spent two decades on the outer reaches of empire as a foreign correspondent. The flowery rhetoric used to justify the subjugation of other nations so corporations can plunder natural resources and exploit cheap labor is solely for domestic consumption. The generals, intelligence operatives, diplomats, bankers and corporate executives that manage empire find this idealistic talk risible. They despise, with good reason, naïve liberals who call for “humanitarian intervention” and believe the ideals used to justify empire are real, that empire can be a force for good. These liberal interventionists, the useful idiots of imperialism, attempt to civilize a process that was created and designed to repress, intimidate, plunder and dominate.

The liberal interventionists, because they wrap themselves in high ideals, are responsible for numerous military and foreign policy debacles. The call by liberal interventionists such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice and Samantha Power to fund jihadists in Syria and depose Muammar Gaddafi in Libya rent these countries — as in Afghanistan and Iraq — into warring fiefdoms. The liberal interventionists are also the tip of the spear in the campaign to rachet up tensions with China and Russia.

Russia is blamed for interfering in the last two presidential elections on behalf of Donald Trump. Russia, whose economy is roughly the size of Italy’s, is also attacked for destabilizing the Ukraine, supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, funding France’s National Front party and hacking into German computers. Biden has imposed sanctions on Russia – including limits on buying newly issued sovereign debt – in response to allegations that Moscow was behind a hack on SolarWinds Corp. and worked to thwart his candidacy.

At the same time, the liberal interventionists are orchestrating a new cold war with China, justifying this cold war because the Chinese government is carrying out genocide against its Uyghur minority, repressing the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and stealing U.S. patents. As with Russia, sanctions have been imposed targeting the country’s ruling elite. The U.S. is also carrying out provocative military maneuvers along the Russian border and in the South China Sea.

The core belief of imperialists, whether they come in the form of a Barack Obama or a George W. Bush, is racism and ethnic chauvinism, the notion that Americans are permitted, because of superior attributes, to impose their “values” on lesser races and peoples by force. This racism, carried out in the name of Western civilization and its corollary white supremacy, unites the rabid imperialists and liberal interventionists in the Republican and Democratic parties. It is the fatal disease of empire, captured in Graham Greene’s novel “The Quiet American” and Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.”

The crimes of empire always spawn counter-violence that is then used to justify harsher forms of imperial repression. For example, the United States routinely kidnapped Islamic jihadists fighting in the Balkans between 1995 and 1998. They were sent to Egypt — many were Egyptian — where they were savagely tortured and usually executed. In 1998, the International Islamic Front for Jihad said it would carry out a strike against the United States after jihadists were kidnapped and transferred to black sites from Albania. They made good on their threat igniting massive truck bombs at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left 224 dead. Of course, the “extraordinary renditions” by the CIA did not end and neither did the attacks by jihadists.

Our decades-long military fiascos, a feature of all late empires, are called “micro-militarism.” The Athenians engaged in micro-militarism during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) when they invaded Sicily, suffering the loss of 200 ships and thousands of soldiers. The defeat triggered successful revolts throughout the Athenian empire. The Roman empire, which at its height lasted for two centuries, created a military machine that, like the Pentagon, was a state within a state. Rome’s military rulers, led by Augustus, snuffed out the remnants of Rome’s anemic democracy and ushered in a period of despotism that saw the empire disintegrate under the weight of extravagant military expenditures and corruption. The British empire, after the suicidal military folly of World War I, was terminated in 1956 when it attacked Egypt in a dispute over the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Britain was forced to withdraw in humiliation, empowering Arab nationalist leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and dooming British rule over its few remaining colonies. None of these empires recovered.

“While rising empires are often judicious, even rational in their application of armed force for conquest and control of overseas dominions, fading empires are inclined to ill-considered displays of power, dreaming of bold military masterstrokes that would somehow recoup lost prestige and power,” the historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power”: “Often irrational even from an imperial point of view, these micromilitary operations can yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the process already under way.”

The worse it gets at home the more the empire needs to fabricate enemies within and without. This is the real reason for the increase in tensions with Russia and China. The poverty of half the nation and concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchic cabal, the wanton murder of unarmed civilians by militarized police, the rage at the ruling elites, expressed with nearly half the electorate voting for a con artist and demagogue and a mob of his supporters storming the capital, are the internal signs of disintegration. The inability of the for-profit national health services to cope with the pandemic, the passage of a Covid relief bill and the proposal of an infrastructure bill that would hand the bulk of some $5 trillion dollars to corporations while tossing crumbs — one-time checks of $1,400 to a citizenry in deep financial distress — will only fuel the decline.

Because of the loss of unionized jobs, the real decline of wages, de-industrialization, chronic underemployment and unemployment, and punishing austerity programs, the country is plagued by a plethora of diseases of despair including opioid addictions, alcoholism, suicides, gambling, depression, morbid obesity and mass shootings — since March 16 the United States has had at least 45 mass shootings, including eight people killed in an Indiana FedEx facility on Friday, three dead and three injured in a shooting in Wisconsin on Sunday, and another three dead in a shooting in Austin on Sunday. These are the consequences of a deeply troubled society.

The façade of empire is able to mask the rot within its foundations, often for decades, until, as we saw with the Soviet Union, the empire appears to suddenly disintegrate. The loss of the dollar as the global reserve currency will probably mark the final chapter of the American empire. In 2015, the dollar accounted for 90 percent of bilateral transactions between China and Russia, a percentage that has since fallen to about 50 percent. The use of sanctions as a weapon against China and Russia pushes these countries to replace the dollar with their own national currencies. Russia, as part of this move away from the dollar, has begun accumulating yuan reserves.

The loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will instantly raise the cost of imports. It will result in unemployment of Depression-era levels. It will force the empire to dramatically contract. It will, as the economy worsens, fuel a hyper-nationalism that will most likely be expressed through a Christianized fascism. The mechanisms, already in place, for total social control, militarized police, a suspension of civil liberties, wholesale government surveillance, enhanced “terrorism” laws that railroad people into the world’s largest prison system and censorship overseen by the digital media monopolies will seamlessly cement into place a police state. Nations that descend into crises these severe seek to deflect the rage of a betrayed population on foreign scapegoats. China and Russia will be used to fill these roles.

The defeat in Afghanistan is a familiar and sad story, one all those blinded by imperial hubris endure. The tragedy, however, is not the collapse of the American empire, but that, lacking the ability to engage in self-critique and self-correction, as it dies it will lash out in a blind, inchoate fury at innocents at home and abroad.

By Mike Whitney

Source: The Unz Review

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death and Hell followed with him.” Revelation 6:8

Here’s your Vaccine puzzler for the day:

What do Dr. Barton Williams, Hank Aaron, and 46 elderly residents in a Spanish nursing home all have in common?

Answer— They all died shortly after getting the Covid-19 vaccine.

But let’s not jump to conclusions, after all, in every case, the media has assured us that the vaccine had nothing to do with their deaths. Do you believe that?

Of course, not, but that will probably not undermine your trust in vaccines because–as you know– not trusting vaccines is tantamount to putting on a tinfoil hat and blabbering conspiracy theories about pedophile rings in the basement of pizza parlors. It’s absolute lunacy. One must never question the unshakable integrity of the big pharmaceutical companies who only produce these miracle drugs for purely philanthropic reasons. It’s inconceivable that these experimental concoctions –which have never been tested on animals or undergone long-term trials– might have been created for political purposes rather than medicinal. Is that even remotely possible?

Yes, it is possible, but it’s also another crackpot conspiracy theory, so shut up and take the jab, right?

Wrong, because everything about the Covid vaccine is wrong, just like everything about Covid-mania is wrong. It’s all unprecedented, suspicious and, frankly, weird. None of it passes the smell test, none of it. When have we ever locked down the entire country to slow the spread of a virus? When have we ever quarantined 300 million healthy people, ordered everyone to wear masks, shut down businesses, bars and schools, and pushed the economy off a cliff?

When?

Never.

When have public health experts and their Democrat allies usurped emergency powers and ruled by executive fiat essentially short-circuiting the constitutional powers of the state legislatures?

When have the media and the Tech Giants removed scientists, epidemiologists, virologists and statisticians from their platforms because their professional views conflicted with the nonsensical “official narrative” of white-coat phonies like Tony Fauci?

When have state agencies actively taken part in the purging of the accounts of individuals whose opinions do not support the mass vaccination of millions of people with a toxic cocktail that may-or-may-not impact long-term health, fertility and, yes, life itself?

When has a giant media organization, like AP, launched a full-page attack on “conspiracy theorists” whose views on the shadowy origins of the Covid infection do not match their own? (“The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories“, The Seattle Times) And why does it matter to them? Is the MSM so insecure that they feel they must viciously belittle those people with whom they disagree rather that provide objective in-depth reporting? And how does this spiteful behavior affect the public? Do people want to see their media act as enforcers of state doctrine by targeting and crushing anyone who doesn’t parrot the party doctrine? Do they like it when journalists become attack dogs for the political establishment and big pharma? Is that why we have a First Amendment?

But–media aside– the experience of the last year has been completely weird, hasn’t it? And, yet, if one simply speculates on what they think might be driving the weirdness, they are immediately smeared, censored and dragged through the mud by an army of trolls. So much for free speech, eh?

Is that normal or is someone very afraid that they are losing their control over the “spinning” of information? This is the reaction that one would expect from someone who is accustomed to monopolizing information and is determined not to share that power with anyone else. It’s also the behavior of someone who is not being completely straightforward about their objectives, someone who has something to hide.

So, what are they hiding? Who is pulling the media’s strings? Who gives Fauci and the Democrat Governors their marching orders? Who’s calling the shots in this pandemic fiasco or aren’t you the slightest bit curious?

Imagine for a minute that everything we are currently experiencing is not the random response of a government that is trying to muddle through a thorny and stressful crisis, but part of a broader plan to generate as much hysteria as possible in order to create a submissive public that clicks its heels and follows orders without question? Is that too far-fetched?

And let’s say, that at the very peak of the hysteria, a bolt of lightning appears in the night sky and suddenly there is a miracle drug, a vaccine, that promises to deliver the people from their collective misery and return them safely to normal life. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit coincidental? Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that this life-saving vaccine was invented just days after the presidential election. (Nothing to see here, move along.) It almost seems like it was part of a script, but that couldn’t be true, because that would mean that our leaders are scheming dishonest miscreants who can’t be trusted. Perish the thought.

But ask yourself this: Who is touting this new wonder drug and insisting that all 7 billion people on the planet get inoculated? Is it the scientists, virologists and epidemiologists who have no dog in the fight and who’s judgements are based on the science alone, or is it the conflicted state bureaucrats, the public health toadies and do-goodie billionaires who seek access to the personal biology of all humanity in order to effect the changes they believe will trim the world’s population and reverse the projected acceleration of climate change? Which is it?

And why– you may ask– have these do-goodie-billionaire climate activists settled on public health when their real passion is depopulation and global warming?

Good question.

Isn’t it because they have identified vaccines as the access-point they need to achieve their ambitions? Isn’t that why they have spent decades creating the critical infrastructure for the global public health organizations, not to improve the lives and health of impoverish mothers and children in Africa and India, but to expand and reinforce the tentacles of this new international vaccine-deployment hydra that can reach across the earth and draw every human being into its oily grip.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This infrastructure actually exists and it has been greatly expanded and strengthened in the last decade. But, why?

I would argue that this infrastructure was not painstakingly assembled to save humanity from the “killer virus”, but to implement a strategy for inserting needles in the arms of 7 billion people. This is not philanthropy. This is something else altogether. Something calculating, underhanded, and sinister. But that is just my opinion.

Of course, it’s all a crazy conspiracy theory and even if it is happening it’s not really happening because our real owners and our new Reality Czar have already decided that it’s not happening. In fact, they are reaching out across the Internet to “disappear” anyone who dares to mention what they think is actually going on. That said, we still must reconcile all the inconsistencies, half-truths and outright lies with the fact that people are dying after taking the jab. That’s the one fact that cannot be denied.

So, how do we resolve these inconsistencies? How do we explain the permanent state of emergency that only serves to strengthen the power of tyrants and their lackeys, how do we reconcile the lockdowns, the masks, the school closures, and the deliberate obliteration of our civilization for a virus that kills just 1 in every 400 infected people?

It’s impossible. It can’t be done. When the government goes crazy and loses the confidence of the people, skeptics will come up with theories that explain what’s going on. It’s only natural. And that’s what’s happening now.

As for the vaccines, well, we know that reputable professionals have warned us that these zombie injections could impact fertility health and mortality, but is that probable? After all, the experts, celebrities and media are promoting these mRNA vaccines with more exuberance than any Madison Avenue product-launch in history. Maybe we should set aside our concerns and just go with the flow. After all, what could go wrong?. Check out this except from an interview with Dr. Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology. Here’s what he said:

“The mRNA lipid-coated PEG-construct– by Moderna’s own study–does not stay localized but spreads throughout the body including the brain. Found in animal studies in bone marrow, brain, lymph nodes, heart, kidneys liver, lungs etc Doctors are saying that the vaccine does NOT cross the blood-brain barrier, but that is NOT true. …If it reaches the brain there will be an auto immune response that will cause inflammation What characterizes virtually all neuro-degenerative diseases is this misfolded protein that is characteristic to Lou Gerrigs disease, to Alzheimer’s, to Parkinsons to Huntington’s etc. They are different proteins, but they tend to form these sheets of misfolded proteins called Beta Sheets. Now you are asking cells in various parts of the body–including the brain– to make alot of these proteins and release them to the outside, and , are we sure that’s what’ it’s all doing? Are you getting clusters of misfolded proteins inside neurons? That would be a bad thing to do.. So you’d like to know where it is, how much of it there is, and which groups of neuronal groups its targeted. .and those are the kinds of questions you like the companies to have solved long before they got authorization and discovered some years later that they have a problem.”

“This is a vast experiment that should have been done in the lab on animals and now it is being done on people ..The potential is that you are going to harm alot of people while you do this experiment.” (“NEUROSCIENTIST’S CONCERNS ABOUT COVID VACCINES”, Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology)

Sound serious?

It does to me. Frankly, I’d rather not have synthetic toxins from an experimental vaccine floating around in my brain, but that’s just me.

Now check out this clip from an interview with Robert F Kennedy Jr for a bit of background on these mRNA vaccines:

“What we know about coronavirus from 30 years of experience is that a coronavirus vaccine has a unique peculiarity, which is any attempted making of the vaccine has resulted in the creation of a class of antibodies that actually make vaccinated people sicker when they ultimately suffer exposure to the wild virus. Following the SARS epidemic that began in 2002, China launched a concerted effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine. They succeeded in developing 30 promising models, and they chose the four “best in class” to fabricate and then test on ferrets, the animal most analogous to human beings when it comes to upper respiratory infections.

The ferrets all developed admirable, robust, and durable antibody responses, and the scientists believed they had hit the jackpot. But then, when the animals suffered exposure to the wild virus, something frightening happened. The vaccinated animals sickened and died with body-wide inflammation. The vaccine had created a condition known as paradoxical inherent immune response, which amplified the injury caused by the illness rather than preventing it.

The scientists at that time recalled a similar occurrence from the 1960s where the NIH had conducted studies on a vaccine for RSV, an upper respiratory illness very similar to coronavirus. The 35 children in that study had developed a strong antibody response but had become terribly ill upon exposure to wild RSV. Two of the children died. Remembering this incident, the scientists in 2012 abandoned their efforts to create that vaccine. And that is why today you are hearing dire warnings from unexpected quarters… who have all warned that a coronavirus vaccine may end up making people sicker from coronavirus rather than avoiding the disease.” (“Interview with Robert F Kennedy J”, Children’s Health Defense)

Repeat: “when the animals suffered exposure to the wild virus, something frightening happened. The vaccinated animals sickened and died with body-wide inflammation.”

This is recurrent theme when one reads alternate literature on the mRNA vaccine. It may also explain why the vaccine manufacturers skipped animal trials before seeking approval from the FDA. We should also note, that none of the current crop of vaccines have concluded their Phase 3 trials which will not be finished for two years from today. Readers should not find that reassuring.

Let’s take a minute and dig a little deeper into this idea that vaccines can actually make you sicker and perhaps die. Here’s a blurb from a research paper published in Nature in July 2020 on the condition called Antibody-dependent Enhancement:

“Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of disease is a general concern for the development of vaccines and antibody therapies because the mechanisms that underlie antibody protection against any virus have a theoretical potential to amplify the infection or trigger harmful immunopathology. This possibility requires careful consideration at this critical point in the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)…

The implications of our lack of knowledge are twofold. First, comprehensive studies are urgently needed to define clinical correlates of protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Second, because ADE of disease cannot be reliably predicted after either vaccination or treatment with antibodies—regardless of what virus is the causative agent—it will be essential to depend on careful analysis of safety in humans as immune interventions for COVID-19 move forward….

Conclusion

It is clear that after many years, and considerable attention, the understanding of ADE of disease after either vaccination or administration of antiviral antibodies is insufficient to confidently predict that a given immune intervention for a viral infection will have negative outcomes in humans…

Additional mechanism-focused studies are needed to determine whether small-animal and NHP models of virus infection, including for SARS-CoV-2, can predict the probable benefits or risks of vaccines or passive-antibody interventions in humans….

In the meantime, it will be necessary to directly test safety and define correlates of protection conferred by vaccines and antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and other viral pathogens in human clinical trials.” (“A perspective on potential antibody-dependent enhancement of SARS-CoV-2“, Nature)

Let’s summarize:

1. You could get sick and die. (Quote– “Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) creates the “potential to amplify the infection or trigger harmful immunopathology.”)
2. We don’t know what we don’t know. (Quote–“…ADE of disease cannot be reliably predicted after either vaccination or treatment with antibodies… it will be essential to depend on careful analysis of safety in humans as immune interventions for COVID-19 move forward….”)
3. We are flying blind and hoping for the best. (Quote– “Additional mechanism-focused studies are needed to determine whether small-animal and NHP models of virus infection, including for SARS-CoV-2, can predict the probable benefits or risks of vaccines or passive-antibody interventions in humans….”)
4. Let’s keep testing because we have no idea if what we are doing is safe. (Quote– “In the meantime, it will be necessary to directly test safety and define correlates of protection conferred by vaccines and antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and other viral pathogens in human clinical trials.”)

So, while Shaw sees one set of potential problems, Kennedy sees others altogether different. But these are just the tip of the iceberg because Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist, believes the mRNA vaccines could cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in ways not assessed in safety trials. In fact, he even wrote a detailed letter to the FDA in December warning them explicitly about these potential dangers. Here’s an excerpt from an article at Global Research that provides the details:

“I am concerned about the possibility that the new vaccines aimed at creating immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein have the potential to cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in a way that does not currently appear to be assessed in safety trials of these potential drugs.”

Whelan was referring to the fact that mRNA vaccines work by incorporating the genetic blueprint for the key spike protein on the virus surface into a formula that — when injected into humans — instructs our own cells to make the spike protein….

Based on the research conducted to date, it is very likely that some recipients of the spike protein mRNA vaccines will experience the same symptoms and injuries associated with the virus.

Again, according to Whelan, “the potential to cause microvascular injury (inflammation and small blood clots called microthrombi) to the brain, heart, liver and kidney … were not assessed in the safety trials.”..

Ignoring these valid and scientifically supported warnings may result in hundreds of millions of people suffering potentially deadly injuries or permanent damage following vaccination. It will also further erode the dwindling confidence that our country has in our federal regulatory agencies to protect the health of all Americans

Unfortunately, Whelan’s concerns were not acknowledged, and the agency instead relied on the limited clinical trial data. The VRBPAC endorsed the use of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 10. The following day, the FDA issued the first COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorization allowing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be widely distributed in individuals 16 and older without calling for the additional studies that Whelan felt were critical to assure safety of the vaccine, especially in children.” (“Could Spike Protein in Moderna, Pfizer Vaccines Cause Blood Clots, Brain Inflammation and Heart Attacks?” Global Research)

These are just a few of the many warnings that medical professionals have issued publicly. They reflect the growing concerns about this new regime of dodgy vaccines. Needless to say, their warnings have either fallen on deaf ears or been lost in the celebratory din surrounding the new wonder drug. As we speak, millions of people around the world are being injected with an experimental nanoparticle that may-or-may-not impact their health and well-being for the rest of their lives. They have based their decision not on sound science and long-term outcomes, but on relentless fearmongering followed by a garish and overpowering media blitz. This crass manipulation of public perceptions precludes what any reasonable person would call “informed consent”. We are being led like sheep to the slaughter.

So, here’s the million-dollar question: Are the Covid vaccines safe or not?

How could they be? They were not sufficiently tested, the technology is new and experimental, Phase 3 Trials have not been completed, thorough animal trials were never conducted, there is no data on long-term adverse side effects, and the final product was ramrodded through the “rubber stamp” FDA under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) provision. On top of that, medical professionals are now warning us that the vaccines could “cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys.”

The American people need to consider these things before they make their decision

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power.”― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

For good or bad, COVID-19 has changed the way we navigate the world.

It is also redrawing the boundaries of our world (and our freedoms) and altering the playing field faster than we can keep up.

Owing in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations, it has become increasingly obvious that we have entered into a new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations.

This powerful international cabal, let’s call it the Global Deep State, is just as real as the corporatized, militarized, industrialized American Deep State, and it poses just as great a threat to our rights as individuals under the U.S. Constitution, if not greater.

We’ve been inching closer to this global world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which has seen governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, has shifted this transformation into high gear.

Fascism has become a global menace.

It remains unclear whether the American Deep State (“a national-security apparatus that holds sway even over the elected leaders notionally in charge of it”) answers to the Global Deep State, or whether the Global Deep State merely empowers the American Deep State. However, there is no denying the extent to which they are intricately and symbiotically enmeshed and interlocked.

Consider the extent to which our lives and liberties are impacted by this international convergence of governmental and profit-driven corporate interests in the surveillance state, the military industrial complex, the private prison industry, the intelligence sector, the security sector, the technology sector, the telecommunications sector, the transportation sector, the pharmaceutical industry and, most recently, by the pharmaceutical-health sector.

All of these sectors are dominated by mega-corporations operating on a global scale and working through government channels to increase their profit margins. The profit-driven policies of these global corporate giants influence everything from legislative policies to economics to environmental issues to medical care

Global Disease

The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled us into a whole new global frontier. Those hoping to navigate this interconnected and highly technological world of contact tracing, vaccine passports and digital passes will find themselves grappling with issues that touch on deep-seated moral, political, religious and personal questions for which there may be no clear-cut answers.

We are about to find our ability to access, engage and move about in the world dependent on which camp we fall into: those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who have not.

“It is the latest status symbol. Flash it at the people, and you can get access to concerts, sports arenas or long-forbidden restaurant tables. Some day, it may even help you cross a border without having to quarantine,” writes Heather Murphy for the New York Times. “The new platinum card of the Covid age is the vaccine certificate.”

This is what M.I.T. professor Ramesh Raskar refers to as the new “currency for health,” an apt moniker given the potentially lucrative role that Big Business (Big Pharma and Big Tech, especially) will play in establishing this pay-to-play marketplace. The airline industry has been working on a Travel Pass. IBM is developing a Digital Health Pass. And the U.S. government has been all-too-happy to allow the corporate sector to take the lead.

Global Surveillance

Spearheaded by the National Security Agency (NSA), which has shown itself to care little for constitutional limits or privacy, the surveillance state has come to dominate our government and our lives.

Yet the government does not operate alone. It cannot. It requires an accomplice.

Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of our massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental bureaucracy.

Take AT&T, for instance. Through its vast telecommunications network that crisscrosses the globe, AT&T provides the U.S. government with the complex infrastructure it needs for its mass surveillance programs. According to The Intercept:

“The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s ‘extreme willingness to help.’ It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it ‘has access to information that transits the nation,’ but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.”

Now magnify what the U.S. government is doing through AT&T on a global scale, and you have the “14 Eyes Program,” also referred to as the “SIGINT Seniors.” This global spy agency is made up of members from around the world (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, India and all British Overseas Territories).

Surveillance is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these global alliances, however.

Global War Profiteering

War has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire and its incestuous relationship with a host of international defense contractors, is one of its biggest buyers and sellers.

The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth. For example, while erecting a security surveillance state in the U.S., the military-industrial complex has perpetuated a worldwide military empire with American troops stationed in 177 countries (over 70% of the countries worldwide).

Although the federal government obscures so much about its defense spending that accurate figures are difficult to procure, we do know that since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $1.8 trillion in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (that’s $8.3 million per hour). That doesn’t include wars and military exercises waged around the globe, which are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.

The illicit merger of the global armaments industry and the Pentagon that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe.

Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure,  spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. There’s a good reason why “bloated,” “corrupt” and “inefficient” are among the words most commonly applied to the government, especially the Department of Defense and its contractors. Price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire.

It’s not just the American economy that is being gouged, unfortunately.

Driven by a greedy defense sector, the American homeland has been transformed into a battlefield with militarized police and weapons better suited to a war zone. President Biden, marching in lockstep with his predecessors, has continued to expand America’s military empire abroad and domestically in a clear bid to pander to the powerful money interests (military, corporate and security) that run the Deep State and hold the government in its clutches.

Global Policing

Glance at pictures of international police forces and you will have a hard time distinguishing between American police and those belonging to other nations. There’s a reason they all look alike, garbed in the militarized, weaponized uniform of a standing army.

There’s a reason why they act alike, too, and speak a common language of force: they belong to a global police force.

For example, Israel—one of America’s closest international allies and one of the primary yearly recipients of more than $3 billion in U.S. foreign military aid—has been at the forefront of a little-publicized exchange program aimed at training American police to act as occupying forces in their communities. As The Intercept sums it up, American police are “essentially taking lessons from agencies that enforce military rule rather than civil law.”

This idea of global policing is reinforced by the Strong Cities Network program, which trains local police agencies across America in how to identify, fight and prevent extremism, as well as address intolerance within their communities, using all of the resources at their disposal. The cities included in the global network include New York City, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Paris, London, Montreal, Beirut and Oslo.

The objective is to prevent violent extremism by targeting its source: racism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance, etc. In other words, police—acting as extensions of the United Nations—will identify, monitor and deter individuals who exhibit, express or engage in anything that could be construed as extremist.

Of course, the concern with the government’s anti-extremism program is that it will, in many cases, be utilized to render otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.

Keep in mind that the government agencies involved in ferreting out American “extremists” will carry out their objectives—to identify and deter potential extremists—in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the private sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

Are you starting to get the picture now?

On almost every front, whether it’s the war on drugs, or the sale of weapons, or regulating immigration, or establishing prisons, or advancing technology, or fighting a pandemic, if there is a profit to be made and power to be amassed, you can bet that the government and its global partners have already struck a deal that puts the American people on the losing end of the bargain.

We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.

In its place is a shadow government—a corporatized, militarized, entrenched global bureaucracy—that is fully operational and running the country.

Given the trajectory and dramatic expansion, globalization and merger of governmental and corporate powers, we’re not going to recognize this country 20 years from now.

It’s taken less than a generation for our freedoms to be eroded and the Global Deep State’s structure to be erected, expanded and entrenched.

Mark my words: the U.S. government will not save us from the chains of the Global Deep State.

Now there are those who will tell you that any mention of a New World Order government—a power elite conspiring to rule the world—is the stuff of conspiracy theories.

I am not one of those skeptics.

I wholeheartedly believe that one should always mistrust those in power, take alarm at the first encroachment on one’s liberties, and establish powerful constitutional checks against government mischief and abuse.

I can also attest to the fact that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I have studied enough of this country’s history—and world history—to know that governments (the U.S. government being no exception) are at times indistinguishable from the evil they claim to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

And I have lived long enough to see many so-called conspiracy theories turn into cold, hard fact.

Remember, people used to scoff at the notion of a Deep State (a.k.a. Shadow Government). They used to doubt that fascism could ever take hold in America, and sneer at any suggestion that the United States was starting to resemble Nazi Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

As I detail in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re beginning to know better, aren’t we?

By Monica Castillo

Source: RogerEbert.com

It seems like movies about class and inequality are experiencing a moment. From “Knives Out” at home and “Parasite” abroad, these films force us to look at those who have it all and those who have everything to lose in stark contrasts. In “Knives Out,” its a question of privilege and nativist indifference to workers and immigrants. For “Parasite,” the tales of two families—one rich and one poor—become intertwined in a thrillingly suspenseful story. Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s latest film “Bacurau” fits right in with the trend and takes its social self-examination a step further, indicting the lasting harm of colonialism, corrupt politicians, and American imperialism in a fight-to-the-death bloodbath.

In the near future in a remote corner of Brazil lies the town of Bacurau, an arid but tree-lined place that Teresa (Bárbara Colen) calls home. She returns for her grandmother’s funeral but is disturbed by strange occurrences also unnerving her neighbors. Water has been stopped to the city for months, but the trucker who brings their supplies has his rig shot at. Suddenly, the town disappears off of maps and GPS. Cell phone service disappears. An odd couple of strangers bike through town. One villager spots a UFO. Are they under attack?

The answer is a bit of a spoiler, and I urge anyone who wants to go into “Bacurau” to enjoy its twists and turns to stop reading here. Otherwise, venture on.

Written and directed by Dornelles and Mendonça Filho, “Bacurau” brilliantly balances politics and story. It almost lulls the viewer into the sense that the movie will be about the town’s collection of eccentric characters, like a deep-voiced DJ who acts as the town crier from his mobile set of speakers and the stern-faced Domingas (Sônia Braga), who makes her first impression in the movie as a doctor in a drunken rage hurling insults at Teresa’s recently departed grandmother. There’s also Pacote (Thomas Aquino), an old flame of Teresa’s, her teacher father and the adorable children in his classroom. Later, we meet the mulleted fugitive fighter Lunga (Silvero Pereira), who will order the townsfolk into shape. There’s even a corrupt politician, Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima), who neglects to care for the town or its people.

The politician’s ineptitude and callousness is just a warm-up act for the real villains, a pack of blood-thirsty westerners led by a steely-eyed man named Michael (Udo Kier) who have picked on the poor town as their own shooting range. “Bacurau” does an incredible job of dissecting their open contempt for human life and racism without sacrificing an inch of the narrative. They are the allegorical stand-in for the ruthless businesses that have come to bleed Brazil dry and let its people starve. They are white invaders who do not consider the light-skinned Brazilians who try to ingratiate themselves into their cohort as their equals. The armed hunting party considers the mixed-race town of Bacurau as little more than a target. It’s a chilling metaphor that works on many levels.

 

Watch the full film on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/product/bacurau

By Brad Polumbo

Source: Activist Post

Elections are messy. As the day of any election gets closer, more stories are leaked as opponents and muck-raking journalists try to hurt the opposition’s campaign. This process can be ugly—just ask John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—but it plays an important role in informing voters. It was on display just a few weeks ago, when President Trump’s tax returns were leaked and published to call to light the fact that he had limited his federal income tax liability to just $750 in 2016 and 2017.

Similarly, a blockbuster report from the New York Post this week asserted that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, introduced business contacts to his father in an allegedly improper pay-for-influence set-up. The Post reported on “a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.” It also reported on salacious images of Hunter Biden using drugs and engaging in sexually explicit acts.

The report has been contested, declared false by the Biden campaign, and challenged by left-leaning media outlets. The Washington Post fact-checker, for example, has cast doubt on the authenticity of the emails and the claim that Biden ever met with Pozharskyi.

Does any of this matter? Are the allegations legitimate? It should be up to voters to weigh conflicting reports and decide for themselves.

But instead, Silicon Valley tech wizards decided to throttle and ban the Post story, which they presumptively and unilaterally declared “misinformation,” across their massive platforms. Facebook used its algorithm to try and limit the story’s reach, while Twitter took it several steps further.

Twitter actually locked the New York Post’s Twitter account and even banned the president’s press secretary for sharing the story. Journalists who shared the link awoke to find their accounts suspended. The company claimed the article violated its policy on spreading “hacked content,” even though it is not proven that it stems from hacking—and this policy is rarely applied to other big stories.