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A Case of Graphical Correlations: Making Sense of India’s COVID-19 Surge
By Mathew Maavak
Source: Activist Post
India is currently witnessing a COVID-19 surge of unprecedented proportions, with an allegedly triple-mutant strain stretching the nation’s healthcare infrastructure to the limits. The uncertainty hanging over the nation is compounded by viral despatches of dead bodies piling up in morgues; of people dropping dead in the streets; of despondent souls jumping off their balconies; and of funeral pyres all over the country. There will be no public service-minded Big Tech censorship in this instance.
This is supposedly Wuhan 2.0. Any social media addict would be forgiven for thinking that India’s population of 1.3 billion might suffer a dip before the year is out.
Amidst the toxic miasma of fear-mongering, coherent explanations over this surge are hard to come by. Therefore, one needs to resort to correlations and proxies in order to gauge causations and effects. For starters, one should compare the yearly death tolls (from all causes) before and after the advent of COVID-19 in India, particularly for the year 2021. But relevant data will only be available a year from now. Many will die as a result of continued lockdowns which generally weaken the immune system. Essential medical procedures will be deferred as hospitals are compelled to focus on COVID-19. Rising socioeconomic despair will naturally lead to a surge in suicides. In the end, not all coronavirus deaths can be directly attributed to the virus no matter how “experts” add them up.
Other correlations must also be explored in the Indian context. India was rather late in joining the mass vaccination bandwagon. Throughout 2020, its COVID-19 mortality figures were moderate by global standards due to the efficacy of low-cost treatment protocols. Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was sanctioned for early stage treatment from March 2020 onwards; while a few months later, India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (population 231 million) replaced HCQ with ivermectin (an anti-parasitic drug).
The results were highly encouraging. As the TrialSiteNews (TSN) reported on Jan 9 2021:
By the end of 2020, Uttar Pradesh — which distributed free ivermectin for home care — had the second-lowest fatality rate in India at 0.26 per 100,000 residents in December. Only the state of Bihar, with 128 million residents, was lower, and it, too, recommends ivermectin.
Despite having the coronavirus situation under control, New Delhi was under immense pressure from various international lobbies and their local proxies to roll out a mass vaccination campaign. It can be argued that India’s ongoing oxygen shortages are the direct result of prioritizing foreign-curated experimental vaccines over local necessities.
While the initial mass vaccination launch was pencilled for Jan 16, the campaign effectively took off only in late February. With uncanny timing, the New York Times hailed India as an “unmatched vaccine manufacturing power” that could counter China in the area of vaccine diplomacy.
As the goal of vaccinating 300 million people by August 2021 neared the midway mark, however, the number of COVID-19 cases surged accordingly. The graph below broadly charts this anomaly.
Not only has India’s COVID-19 cases surged in tandem with increased vaccination, the trajectory of infections and inoculations can be neatly superimposed as the following graph suggests.
Can one infer that there may be a correlation between increased vaccinations and infections? This is not the first time that gene-based therapies ended up creating new viral chimeras. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently admitted that a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-backed vaccine program was responsible for a new polio outbreak in Africa. The usual suspects were also behind a vaccination-linked polio surge in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Vaccines causing deadly outbreaks of the very diseases they are supposed to eradicate happen to be a 21st century phenomenon – brought to you by an unholy alliance of Big Tech and Big Pharma. In the process, new mutant strains or “vaccine-derived viruses” emerge, necessitating even more potent vaccines which deliver greater profits and levers of global control to Big Tech. This is how the Davos cabal tries to stay relevant in a century that should otherwise be dominated by Asia. India may end up being the first Asian victim of Big Tech’s Great Reset against the East.
A recent study by Tel Aviv University may shed further light on India’s bizarre surge. It seems those who have been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are 8 times more likely to contract the new South African variant of COVID-19 than the unvaccinated.
The Covishield (Oxford University-AstraZeneca) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech) vaccines used in India may have produced a similar effect. Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University, has estimated that over 60 percent of all new COVID-19 cases seem to occur among the “vaccinated.” Dr Michael Yeadon, former vice president and chief science officer for Pfizer, fears a more alarming outcome which includes the possibility of “massive-scale depopulation”. These are not your average basement-dwelling conspiratorial kooks!
“The vaccine,” to paraphrase Francis Bacon, “is now appearing to be the worse than the disease itself.” Gene-based vaccines open up a Pandora’s Box of what systems theorists call “emergence”. The human body is a complex system that may react unpredictably to interferences at its most substrate (or genetic) levels. As a result, mutant virus strains may emerge alongside unforeseen side effects. This is what we are witnessing worldwide.
But as the virus mutates, so does the official narrative. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) now claims that mass vaccinations in densely-packed stadiums and halls are “superspreader” events. Is the IMA suggesting that new vaccine delivery systems, as lobbied by Big Tech, will solve this problem? Let us wait and see. Furthermore, is close proximity the prime culprit behind the super-surge in India? India is a nation where trains, buses and all forms of public spaces teem with human bodies. Yet, it did not lead to mass casualties in 2020 as many had feared.
In the absence of a watertight scientific explanation from mainstream gatekeepers, a more plausible narrative may be sought from peripheral sources. The Daily Expose offers one such graphic-laden narrative to explain the correlation between mass vaccinations and the rising death toll in India.
While the Daily Expose concedes that correlation does not always equal causation, a similar pattern was noticed in other nations. The vaccination-mortality graph for Mongolia, for example, is particularly eye-popping.
Did Mongolia witness a near-zero to mutant COVID-19 surge just when mass vaccinations rolled out? How coincidental can that be?
The Case of America: Red vs Blue States
One may scientifically argue that India’s surge had nothing to do with ramped-up vaccinations. A new mutant virus may also somehow explain the vaccination-mortality correlations in Mongolia.
Therefore one should resort to another layman-friendly proxy to see whether similar correlations exist elsewhere. How about a comparison within the most coronavirus-affected nation on earth – the United States of America?
Reports thus far suggest that US states which have been resisting mass vaccinations and/or mandatory masking, at least in relative terms, are generally faring better than those adhering to draconian COVID-19 guidelines. Just weeks after Texas lifted its public mask mandate – featuring full crowds at bars, restaurants and concerts no less – COVID-19 cases as well as hospitalizations dropped to its lowest levels since October 2020. The current White House occupant, who continues to make a buzz over his mental acuity, nonetheless panned the move as a symptom of “Neanderthal thinking”. In the meantime, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a prominent opponent of mandatory masking, is using COVID-19 restrictions elsewhere to lure businesses to her state. Other red states such as Florida and Arizona have moved to ban the so-called vaccine passports.
Rather coincidentally, the annual flu has virtually disappeared in the United States since the onset of the pandemic. It must be a modern medical miracle!
How will India fare?
With the surge affecting the nation badly, the CEOs of Google, Microsoft and Apple, among others, have pledged heartfelt aid to India. With friends like these, one wonders why Indians cannot question the global COVID-19 narrative on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube without being summarily banned or censored. If India can concede the digital rights of its own citizens and the digital sovereignty of the nation to Big Tech, then how is it going to crowdsource solutions for COVID-19? Or deal with any other future crisis for that matter? An Indian scientific paper which tentatively explored a laboratory origin for COVID-19 can be summarily removed after concerted condemnation from Western academics but a similar claim made by the former head of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) appears relatively palatable. Isn’t this a textbook example of neoliberal racism?
Indians should also question why Africa has not been badly affected thus far, despite a South African variant hovering in the region. This is a continent mired in conflicts, poverty, serious healthcare deficits and other Third World-related woes. It lacks world-class scientists and institutions which India admittedly has. Is it because Africa does not pose an economic threat to the Western oligarchy the way Asia does? Or maybe, mass vaccinations haven’t yet taken off in Africa?
For the time being, India cannot reverse course on its vaccination drive and adopt measures similar to the one employed by the Eisenhower administration during the 1957-58 Asian Flu pandemic. The fear genie is already out of the bottle. Big Tech controls the digital narrative in India as it does elsewhere. Even if New Delhi manages to tame the COVID-19 crisis within the next few weeks or months, Big Tech will still be around to stifle India’s destiny.
Ultimately, this game is much bigger than COVID-19; it is about global domination through perennial mass-manufactured crises until a Great Reset is achieved.
The “Russian Threat”
By Paul Craig Roberts
Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org
During 2016 CIA director John Brennan and FBI director James Comey, together with the corrupt Democrat party, began orchestrating Russiagate in order to prevent Trump from reducing the risk of nuclear war by normalizing relations with Russia. President Trump tried to nip a New Cold War in the bud, but that was not in the interest of the power and profit of the military/security complex which desperately needs the “Russian threat” as its raison d’etre.
Stephen Cohen, myself and a few others expressed concern that the tensions between the two nuclear powers were being driven to more dangerous highs than ever existed during the 20th century Cold War. Many websites joined in debunking the orchestrated Russiagate fabrication.
To discredit these voices, a new website, PropOrNot, suddenly appeared with a list of 200 “Russian agents/dupes.” Those of us who had raised red flags about Russiagate and the worsening of tensions were on the list. The Washington Post gave the accusation credibility by reporting the PropOrNot accusation that those who dissented from a hostile policy toward Russia were “Putin agents.”
A number of the falsely accused websites were intimidated and abandoned the truth. CounterPunch went even further. It dropped its best and most incisive writers—people such as Mike Whitney and Diana Johnstone. CounterPunch, which had once collected, published, and marketed a collection of my essays as a book, suddenly discovered that it preferred fiction over fact. Other websites that had religiously reproduced all of my columns now became selective about which parts of the official narrative they would permit to be examined on their sites. This was, perhaps, the beginning of the movement to de-platform all who challenge the narrative.
The threat to truth-tellers has now been elevated by election thief Joe Biden’s latest Executive Order declaring a “national emergency” to “deal with the Russian threat.” Pepe Escobar reports that Biden’s order opens every American to being accused of being a Russian agent engaged in undermining US security. “A sub-paragraph (C), detailing ‘actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the United States or abroad,’ is vague enough to be used to eliminate any journalism that supports Russia’s positions in international affairs.”
“Supports Russia’s position” includes an objective description and non-partisan analysis of Russian policy. The crucial point is that, in effect, Biden’s executive order places everyone reporting objectively on Russia’s political positions as a potential threat to the United States. https://www.unz.com/pescobar/putin-rewrites-the-law-of-the-geopolitical-jungle/
If we are honest, we will acknowledge that we have undergone the complete collapse of the United States. Truth is prohibited in the media, school systems, and universities if it conflicts with the elite agendas served by the official narratives. The First Amendment is dead and buried. Free speech is reserved for the official narratives, such as “systemic racism” and “Russian threat.” Those who exercise their Constitutional right find themselves de-platformed or fired.
To understand how the victory of propaganda over truth elevates the likelihood of nuclear Armageddon, consider the difference between the 20th century and 21st century cold wars.
In the original Cold War both Soviet and American leaders worked to defuse tensions. Agreements were made on arms control and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. There were regular meetings or summits between American and Soviet leaders. Diplomatic decorum was maintained. There were agreements that permitted each side to inspect the other’s compliance.
This process began with President John F. Kennedy and Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev. It continued through President Reagan and, more or less, President George H. W. Bush. It ended with the Clinton regime and has been downhill ever since. President Trump intended to reduce the dangerous tensions, but was not permitted. Indeed, his intent was sufficient cause for the Establishment to drive him from office. 2020 was a coup, not an election.
In the 20th century Cold War Russian experts differed in their assessments of the threat, and their differences were publicly aired. Differing assessments were debated. Dissenters were not demonized as Russian agents. Today American Russian experts find that being Russophobic is a career boost. In the 20th century the New York Times and Washington Post were aligned with peace efforts. Today they are part of the neoconservative warmongers’ propaganda ministry.
The alarming conclusion is that since the Clinton regime, the US government has worked consistently to worsen relations with Russia even to the extent of publicly demonizing the Russian president and strangling objective debate in the US. This is the perfect foundation for war.
All the while insouciant Americans elected governments that successively raised the likelihood of nuclear annihiliation while shutting down dissident concerns. As I reported on March 17, “In the United States Russian Studies has degenerated into propaganda. Recently, two members of the Atlantic Council think tank, Emma Ashford and Matthew Burrows, suggested that American foreign policy could benefit from a less hostile approach to Russia. Instantly, 22 members of the think tank denounced the article by Ashford and Burrows.”
Today even in Republican and conservative circles to question Putin’s demonization raises disapproving eyebrows (the same for China and Iran). The US Establishment has succeeded in labeling objective analysis as “pro-Russian” (or pro-Chinese or pro-Iranian). This means that an objective view of US/Russian relations is off-limits to US policymakers.
The “Russian threat” is another hoax, one that will destroy the world.
Zen In The Trenches
By Gary Z Mcee
Source: Waking Times
“You ask, ‘what is Zen?’ I answer, ‘Zen is that which makes you ask the question.’ Because the answer is where the question arises. The answer is the questioner himself.” ~Daisetz Suzuki
Zen is ultimately undefinable. It’s paradoxical. It’s a feeling; a meditation on opposites and interconnectedness intermittently. It’s a bridge between the unanswerable question and the unknowable answer. Even more cryptic: it’s No-mind meditating the mind into mindfulness.
No matter what Zen really is, the meditator attempting Zen is Zen. Or perhaps they are Zenning and Zen is actually a verb disguised as a noun—like God.
Either way, Zen practice is never more important than when we are in the trenches, down and out, at the bottom of the rollercoaster ride, experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul. In such a state, Zen is the great equalizer, an individuating leveling mechanism. An excuse to climb out of Hell and into Heaven. Or at least back to level ground.
Transforming shadows into sharpness:
“By accepting the inevitability of our shadow, we recognize that we are also what we are not. This humbling recognition restrains us from the madness of trying to eliminate those we hate or fear in the world. Self-mastery, maturity, and wisdom, are defined by our ability to hold the tension between opposites.” ~Louis G. Herman
Zen is the essence of holding the tension between opposites. It’s a proactive meditation on the paradoxical state of the human condition. It acts like a bridge between the unconscious shadow and the darkness made conscious.
When our shadow is hidden from us or repressed—either subconsciously or through willful ignorance—we feel dull, insecure, fragmented, confused, unaware, and less than whole. But when our darkness is made conscious, we fell whole, aware, open, and sharper in mind, body, and soul.
Zen teaches us how to reconcile our dark side. Deep in the trenches of our shadow, Zen plants a question mark seed made of light. Through daily cultivation and practice (attention, awareness, focus), the light brightens the darkness, and the shadow becomes a vital self-aware aspect of the overall condition. Light magnifies shadow out of repression and into self-actualization.
Transforming certainty into curiosity:
“I ask you: what are you? You don’t know; there is only ‘I don’t know.’ Always keep this don’t-know mind. When this don’t-know mind becomes clear, then you will understand. Keep don’t-know mind always and everywhere. This is the true practice of Zen.” ~Seung Sahn Sunim
The most deceptive of all “trenches” is being stuck in the box of certainty. Believing that one certainly knows is the ultimate delusion. Whereas thinking that one possibly knows, but probably doesn’t, is the ultimate escape from delusion. Flexibility and open-mindedness are key. Zen can help us with both.
Zen helps us get in touch with the primordial coordinates of the interconnected cosmos. It helps us recognize the probability spectrum. When Socrates said, “The only thing I know is that I know nothing,” he was speaking in probabilities. He recognized that his was a single perception dwarfed by an unfathomably large universe. He realized that what he thought he knew was incomparably less to what he didn’t know and wisely swallowed his pride.
Better to use Zen to keep us in flow. When we are fluid and dynamic in our thinking, we are less likely to be seduced by dogmatic belief. Zen keeps us questioning to the nth degree. It keeps is open to the vital transformations the universe goes through. Zen is the art of adapting to the ebbs and flows of constant change. Being aware of this deep flow is being curious. Curiosity is the wave of change crashing over the fragile structure of our certainty. We would be wise to ride that wave straight over and learn from the destruction. The debris of which holds gold tantamount to transformative ambrosia.
Transforming anxiety into artistry:
“Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted? He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all the tragedies, real or imagined.” ~Nietzsche
Anxiety is like an open wound of the psyche. And when you are down in the tranches, it can be a crippling experience. When we transform anxiety into art, we are using the stress as fuel for the fire of our imagination. The anxiety becomes a kind of eu-stress, which can be quite cathartic. Tension becomes a bridge between ‘stress’ and ‘creative outlet,’ where anxious state meets flow state.
Whether it’s transforming wounds into wisdom, demons into diamonds, or setbacks into steppingstones, the cathartic release of worry and pain can become the active components of a beautiful work of art. Pain is transformed into paint, misery into music, psychosis into poetry. And with enough practice, a kind of existential masochism can arise from the spiritual and psychological plasticity—robustness becomes antifragility.
Insofar as this existential masochism can be applied to a life well-lived, a Zen-full humor arises where all tragedies are laughable aspects of the overall cosmic joke. Life itself becomes a work of art.
Transforming hypocrisy into humor:
“No one ever grows up. They may look grown up, but it’s a disguise. It’s just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. They still would like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won’t let them.” ~Robert McCammon
Governing the precept that life is a cosmic joke, it stands to reason that we get better at laughing at the joke rather than crying over the spilled milk of being the butt-end of it. The humbling effect of Beginner’s Mind can help with this. It reminds us that we are all merely fallible creatures at the mercy of the cosmic joke. Anything else is mere hypocrisy. Especially the title of “grown up.”
The Zen of Beginner’s Mind is the art of tapping into that playful innocence which refuses to be serious but is always sincere. It counters the hypocrisy of the human condition with a sense of playfulness. From which a creative adaptation and improvisation arises. We are fallible creatures? So be it. We are hypocritical naked apes? Might as well have a sense of humor about it. It’s all laughable in the grand scheme of things? We might as well have a laugh.
Adopting a good sense of humor is the best tool we can utilize while in the tranches. It can get us through just about anything. And even if it doesn’t, at least we’re laughing. Our inner child teaches us how to laugh and play through the misery, rather than just be miserable.
Transforming Hell into Heaven:
“Morality doesn’t mean ‘follow divine commandments.’ It means ‘reduce suffering.’” ~Yuval Noah Harari
Even in the trenches, we have a choice to be healthy or not. Even in the gutter, we can either drown in our own tears or flip over, take a deep breath, and regard the stars their aesthetic splendor. Yes. Even beauty itself can be healing. And beauty combined with a good sense of humor can be transcendent… Skipping through Hell with bells on. Laughing into the abyss. Mocking all devils, demons, angels, and gods. Using it all as a sharpening stone.
That’s Zen in the trenches.
We either play the victim and wallow in self-pity, or we rise up with a ‘humor of the most high’ and dare to become healthier. In the alchemical transformation of the human condition, Hell is the forge folding the blade of the soul into a sharper instrument.
Our comfort zone just isn’t hot enough. Heaven is too soft. Purgatory is too comfortable. Hell is just right, as long as we don’t make the mistake of losing ourselves there and burning ourselves out. We must remember to kill the devil first, and then make our way back to the “tribe” to inform them that there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.
Zen in the trenches is no walk in the park. It takes daring and flexibility. It takes moxie and mettle. It takes a good sense of humor despite a meaningless universe. It takes emotional alchemy and existential masochism to deal with the pain and suffering.
Practicing Zen in the trenches is whistling, “Always look on the bright side of life” while nailed to a cross (The Life of Brian). It’s creating meaning out of nothingness, building bridges out of bandages, birthing a Phoenix out of ashes. It’s laughing and playing and dancing despite the slings and arrows and in spite of the ever-tightening mortal coil. Indeed.
As Rabelais said, “For all your ills, I give you laughter.”
Saturday Matinee: Zerograd (aka Zero City, City of Zero)
Review by Movies Unchained
Absurdity can take many different forms, particularly when it comes to artistic expression, with many individuals over the past century making their living from subverting the central tenets of reality. One such artist was Karen Shakhnazarov, whose ambition film Zerograd (Russian: Gorod Zero) holds the distinction of being one of the most bizarre works of cinema produced in the last few decades. A strange, hypnotic voyage into a darker version of the world, this film feels like the perverted offspring of David Lynch and Andrei Tarkovsky (especially if they collaborated on a twisted version of Alice in Wonderland), and I don’t think there is a single moment in this film that I was in complete awe of. Cinema is supposed to be challenging, and it doesn’t get more impenetrable than this, where Shakhnazarov takes us on a voyage that is somehow both hilarious and utterly terrifying, showing us a side of society that isn’t familiar to anything the best of us have experienced ourselves, but still manages to be as captivating as anything else. A deliriously work of experimental dark comedy, Zerograd is quite an achievement – and kudos has to go to Shakhnazarov for managing to construct something so bewildering, yet so deeply brilliant in both how it provokes certain ideas while remaining quite stable and consistent in its message (at least after we actually figure out what this film is attempting to convey), which creates a sensational piece of filmmaking that tests the boundaries of reality and presents the viewer with something so singularly unique, one would be forgiven for believing that Zerograd isn’t actually a film, but a fever-induced bout of delusions – and for all these reasons and more, we can easily proclaim this film as something of a hidden masterpiece, an outrageous, disconcerting surrealist odyssey that is as entertaining as it is wholly disruptive, both to the art form in which it was made and in terms of the broader socio-cultural implications embedded within it.
The film centres on Alexey Varakin (Leonid Filatov), a regular civil engineer who is sent to a small town in the middle of nowhere to meet with the owner of a factory to discuss some of the products they have been supplying. What was supposed to be a brief day-trip turns into what appears to be an eternity, especially when it becomes clear that everything isn’t what it seems in this mysterious countryside hamlet. His visit takes a horrifying turn when Alexey witnesses the suicide of a chef, which not only traumatizes him, but also places him at the centre of a conspiracy that points to him as the chief suspect, especially when the perspective of the event changes from suicide to a murder. What Alexey doesn’t realize is that he is stuck here – it is physically impossible for him to move beyond the borders of the town, since there are certain metaphysical forces keeping him there. This is made clear when he visits a museum, where the crotchety curator (Yevgeny Yevstigneyev) gives him a tour, taking him to subterranean levels and relaying the history of the town, which stretches all the way back to the formative years of the USSR and the rise of communism across the Soviet Union. Despite being a mild-mannered working-class man, Alexey is seen as something of an anomaly in this town, a stranger sent there by some celestial being to disrupt the lives of the residents – but it soon becomes clear that he’s not the one to fear, since a looming sense of foreboding lingers over the town, and causes the protagonist to reevaluate not only his own life, but the entire concept of reality in general, as everything around him is starting to point to the fact that everything Alexey knew to be true is quite possibly false information, and he himself is at risk of losing his identity as a whole if he doesn’t solve the problem before its too late.
Zerograd is a very different kind of film in every conceivable way. It positions itself as something of a mystery film, but one that dares to ask what happens when someone is investigating something and searching for the truth when every clue not only distances him further from the answer, but proves the incredulity of reality as a whole. This is a mystery film that struggles to even ask a coherent question – if anything, the answers are there, if only we knew where to start looking for them. Shakhnazarov masterfully constructs one of the most fascinating films of its era, a hauntingly dark comedy that eviscerates the very idea of plausibility, going beyond the confines of surrealism and becoming something else entirely, a kind of cold-blooded psychological horror that is more terrifying the more we realize how the sense of danger isn’t just constructed for dramatic purposes, but rather a fundamental aspect of the story. Modern audiences tend to equate the concept of surrealism with the idea of weird works that are artistically transgressive and show a lack of logic – and while this is often very true, its a baseline assessment that can’t apply particularly well to a work like Zerograd, which thrives on its ability to deconstruct nearly every sacrosanct truth while still retaining a coherent, concise narrative that goes to some bizarre narrative territory, but only for the sake of supporting its own ambitious ideas. There are many aspects of Zerograd that positively yearn to be discussed – and I’d expect some background knowledge of Soviet-era politics, while not essential in any way, would only enrich the experience, and help add context to a work of unhinged socio-cultural satire that masters the fine art of amusing the audience while gradually dismantling their deep-seated beliefs, to the point where we too get lost in this world, and begin to question our own individual realities.
We never quite know where this film is heading, and like any work of great surrealism, a clear sense of direction is entirely inconsequential. A brief roadmap of ideas is presented at the outset of Zerograd, but for the most part, it functions as a stream-of-consciousness odyssey that launches us into an uncanny world that feels familiar, but where the smallest inconsistencies prevent us from ever being at ease. The character of Alexey is our surrogate, an ordinary man thrown into these strange circumstances, and forced to navigate a side of the world he isn’t only unfamiliar with, but struggles to understand in any meaningful way. There is certainly some strange occurrences that take place throughout this film, with these events ranging from mildly amusing in how offbeat they are, to fully terrifying, especially when they hint at something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface. There’s quite a bit to digest when it comes to this film, where each individual idea can be unpacked – but as should be familiar to any devotee to the school of surrealism, the more you provoke a theme, the less effective it is. Zerograd works most effectively when each individual concept is taken as part of some larger whole, and while the details make for a fascinating film, the brilliance comes in the cumulative power, the gradually-compounding unearthliness that indicates that the eccentricities embedded within this story are not there merely for the sake of perplexing the audience, but rather to manipulate the entire concept of reality and everything it stands for, which is precisely what makes this such a remarkable film. It only makes the actual filmmaking more effective – Shakhnazarov constructs such a magnificent odyssey, where each frame is stunningly detailed, detached from reality in a way that doesn’t confuse us, but still points towards a more haunting alternative. There are some unforgettable images in this film, such as when the main character is served a cake that is modelled after his own head, or the striking final shot where he is finally able to makes his escape – and when taken alongside the brilliant story, we have a truly memorable work of speculative fiction.
Zerograd is a film in which the plot doesn’t revolve around the fact that nothing seems real – this is a film where we know for a fact that absolutely nothing we are seeing makes sense, but yet it is so grounded in some fundamentally realistic ideas, it never feels too far-fetched. There is an eerie sense of foreboding that intermingles with the darkly comic underpinnings to create quite a memorable piece that delves deeply into looking at the themes of identity and freedom, two concepts that are often explored in Soviet-era literature, albeit not in quite as bizarre a way as here. Shakhnazarov is a masterful filmmaker who produced something truly incredible with Zerograd, crafting a surreal odyssey that feels so compelling, even when it is clear that it is not afraid to venture beyond the confines of all known logic. This is the kind of film that people should be referring to when they’re describing the concept of a Kafka-esque story, since everything about Zerograd feels like something the esteemed but troubled author would write – a mysterious setting, a protagonist thrown into a world he doesn’t understand, eccentric characters that are so familiar yet so deeply unsettling, and a general sense of danger that never quite abates, constantly following the protagonist (and by extension, the audience) the further we journey through this strange world. This is a film that should be seen and discussed, even if the most insightful academics would have trouble coming to terms with the ideas Shakhnazarov uses throughout the film. In short, Zerograd is an astounding achievement, a bewildering but truly worthwhile absurdist masterpiece of Russian cinema that traverses reality and comes out of it stranger and more profoundly fascinating than ever before.
This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship”
A “new” proposal by the Biden administration to create a health-focused federal agency modeled after DARPA is not what it appears to be. Promoted as a way to “end cancer,” this resuscitated “health DARPA” conceals a dangerous agenda.
By Whitney Webb
Source: Unlimited Hangout
Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care–focused media for his call to create a “new biomedical research agency” modeled after the US military’s “high-risk, high-reward” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop “innovative” and “breakthrough” treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes, with a call to “end cancer as we know it.”
Far from “ending cancer” in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge “national security” with “health security” in such as way as to use both physical and mental health “warning signs” to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur. Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic “pre-crime” organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as “wrongthink.”
The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden’s recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley–dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new “health DARPA.”
This new agency, set to be called ARPA-H or HARPA, would be housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and would raise the NIH budget to over $51 billion. Unlike other agencies at NIH, ARPA-H would differ in that the projects it funds would not be peer reviewed prior to approval; instead hand-picked program managers would make all funding decisions. Funding would also take the form of milestone-driven payments instead of the more traditional multiyear grants.
ARPA-H will likely heavily fund and promote mRNA vaccines as one of the “breakthroughs” that will cure cancer. Some of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers that have produced some of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, stated just last month that “cancer is the next problem to tackle with mRNA tech” post-COVID. BioNTech has been developing mRNA gene therapies for cancer for years and is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create mRNA-based treatments for tuberculosis and HIV.
Other “innovative” technologies that will be a focus of this agency are less well known to the public and arguably more concerning.
The Long Road to ARPA-H
ARPA-H is not a new and exclusive Biden administration idea; there was a previous attempt to create a “health DARPA” during the Trump administration in late 2019. Biden began to promote the idea during his presidential campaign as early as June 2019, albeit using a very different justification for the agency than what had been pitched by its advocates to Trump. In 2019, the same foundation and individuals currently backing Biden’s ARPA-H had urged then president Trump to create “HARPA,” not for the main purpose of researching treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s, but to stop mass shootings before they happen through the monitoring of Americans for “neuropsychiatric” warning signs.
For the last few years, one man has been the driving force behind HARPA—former vice chair of General Electric and former president of NBCUniversal, Robert Wright. Through the Suzanne Wright Foundation (named for his late wife), Wright has spent years lobbying for an agency that “would develop biomedical capabilities—detection tools, treatments, medical devices, cures, etc.—for the millions of Americans who are not benefitting from the current system.” While he, like Biden, has cloaked the agency’s actual purpose by claiming it will be mainly focused on treating cancer, Wright’s 2019 proposal to his personal friend Donald Trump revealed its underlying ambitions.
As first proposed by Wright in 2019, the flagship program of HARPA would be SAFE HOME, short for Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes. SAFE HOME would suck up masses of private data from “Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo, and Google Home” and other consumer electronic devices, as well as information from health-care providers to determine if an individual might be likely to commit a crime. The data would be analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms “for early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric violence.”
The Department of Justice’s pre-crime approach known as DEEP was activated just months before Trump left office; it was also justified as a way to “stop mass shootings before they happen.” Soon after Biden’s inauguration, the new administration began using information from social media to make pre-crime arrests as part of its approach toward combatting “domestic terror.” Given the history of Silicon Valley companies collaborating with the government on matters of warrantless surveillance, it appears that aspects of SAFE HOME may already be covertly active under Biden, only waiting for the formalization of ARPA-H/HARPA to be legitimized as public policy.
The national-security applications of Robert Wright’s HARPA are also illustrated by the man who was its lead scientific adviser—former head of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office Geoffrey Ling. Not only is Ling the main scientific adviser of HARPA, but the original proposal by Wright would have Ling both personally design HARPA and lead it once it was established. Ling’s work at DARPA can be summarized by BTO’s stated mission, which is to work toward merging “biology, engineering, and computer science to harness the power of natural systems for national security.” BTO-favored technologies are also poised to be the mainstays of HARPA, which plans to specifically use “advancements in biotechnology, supercomputing, big data, and artificial intelligence” to accomplish its goals.
The direct DARPA connection to HARPA underscores that the agenda behind this coming agency dates back to the failed Bio-Surveillance project of DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program, which was launched after the events of September 11, 2001. TIA’s Bio-Surveillance project sought to develop the “necessary information technologies and resulting prototype capable of detecting the covert release of a biological pathogen automatically, and significantly earlier than traditional approaches,” accomplishing this “by monitoring non-traditional data sources” including “pre-diagnostic medical data” and “behavioral indicators.”
While nominally focused on “bioterrorist attacks,” TIA’s Bio-Surveillance project also sought to acquire early detection capabilities for “normal” disease outbreaks. Bio-Surveillance and related DARPA projects at the time, such as LifeLog, sought to harvest data through the mass use of some sort of wearable or handheld technology. These DARPA programs were ultimately shut down due to the controversy over claims they would be used to profile domestic dissidents and eliminate privacy for all Americans in the US.
That DARPA’s past total surveillance dragnet is coming back to life under a supposedly separate health-focused agency, and one that emulates its organizational model no less, confirms that many TIA-related programs were merely distanced from the Department of Defense when officially shut down. By separating the military from the public image of such technologies and programs, it made them more palatable to the masses, despite the military remaining heavily involved behind the scenes. As Unlimited Hangout has recently reported, major aspects of TIA were merely privatized, giving rise to companies such as Facebook and Palantir, which resulted in such DARPA projects being widely used and accepted. Now, under the guise of the proposed ARPA-H, DARPA’s original TIA would essentially be making a comeback for all intents and purposes as its own spin-off.
Silicon Valley, the Military and the Wearable “Revolution”
This most recent effort to create ARPA-H/HARPA combines well with the coordinated push of Silicon Valley companies into the field of health care, specifically Silicon Valley companies that double as contractors to US intelligence and/or the military (e.g., Microsoft, Google, and Amazon). During the COVID-19 crisis, this trend toward Silicon Valley dominance of the health-care sector has accelerated considerably due to a top-down push toward digitalization with telemedicine, remote monitoring, and the like.
One interesting example is Amazon, which launched a wearable last year that purports to not only use biometrics to monitor people’s physical health and fitness but to track their emotional state as well. The previous year, Amazon acquired the online pharmacy PillPack, and it is not hard to imagine a scenario in which data from Amazon’s Halo wellness band is used to offer treatment recommendations that are then supplied by Amazon-owned PillPack.
Companies such as Amazon, Palantir, and Google are set to be intimately involved in ARPA-H’s activities. In particular, Google, which launched numerous health-tech initiatives in 2020, is set to have a major role in this new agency due to its long-standing ties to the Obama administration when Biden was vice president and to President Biden’s top science adviser, Eric Lander.
As mentioned, Lander is poised to play a major role in ARPA-H/HARPA if and when it materializes. Before becoming the top scientist in the country, Lander was president and founding director of the Broad Institute. While advertised as a partnership between MIT and Harvard, the Broad Institute is heavily influenced by Silicon Valley, with two former Google executives on its board, a partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners, and the former CEO of IBM, as well as some of its top endowments coming from prominent tech executives.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was intimately involved with Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and who is close to the Democratic Party in general, chairs the Broad Institute as of this April. In March, Schmidt gave the institute $150 million to “connect biology and machine learning for understanding programs of life.” During his time on the Broad Institute board, Schmidt also chaired the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a group of mostly Silicon Valley, intelligence, and military operatives who have now charted the direction of the US government’s policies on emerging tech and AI. Schmidt was also pitched as potential head of a tech-industry task force by the Biden administration.
Earlier, in January, the Broad Institute announced that its health-research platform, Terra, which was built with Google subsidiary Verily, would partner with Microsoft. As a result, Terra now allows Google and Microsoft to access a vast trove of genomic data that is poured into the platform by academics and research institutions from around the world.
In addition, last September, Google teamed up with the Department of Defense as part of a new AI-driven “predictive health” program that also has links to the US intelligence community. While initially focused on predicting cancer cases, this initiative clearly plans to expand to predicting the onset of other diseases before symptoms appear, including COVID-19. As noted by Unlimited Hangout at the time, one of the ulterior motives for the program, from Google’s perspective, was for Google to gain access to “the largest repository of disease- and cancer-related medical data in the world,” which is held by the Defense Health Agency. Having exclusive access to this data is a huge boon for Google in its effort to develop and expand its growing suite of AI health-care products.
The military is currently being used to pilot COVID-19–related biometric wearables for “returning to work safely.” Last December, it was announced that Hill Air Force Base in Utah would make biometric wearables a mandatory part of the uniform for some squadrons. For example, the airmen of the Air Force’s 649th Munitions Squadron must now wear a smart watch made by Garmin and a smart ring made by Oura as part of their uniform.
According to the Air Force, these devices detect biometric indicators that are then analyzed for 165 different biomarkers by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency/Philips Healthcare AI algorithm that “attempts to recognize an infection or virus around 48 hours before the onset of symptoms.” The development of that algorithm began well before the COVID-19 crisis and is a recent iteration of a series of military research projects that appear to have begun under the 2007 DARPA Predicting Health and Disease (PHD) project.
While of interest to the military, these wearables are primarily intended for mass use—a big step toward the infrastructure needed for the resurrection of a bio-surveillance program to be run by the national-security state. Starting first with the military makes sense from the national-security apparatus’s perspective, as the ability to monitor biometric data, including emotions, has obvious appeal for those managing the recently expanded “insider threat” programs in the military and the Department of Homeland Security.
One indicator of the push for mass use is that the same Oura smart ring being used by the Air Force was also recently utilized by the NBA to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks among basketball players. Prior to COVID-19, it was promoted for consumer use by members of the British Royal family and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for improving sleep. As recently as last Monday, Oura’s CEO, Harpeet Rai, said that the entire future of wearable health tech will soon be “proactive rather than reactive” because it will focus on predicting disease based on biometric data obtained from wearables in real time.
Another wearable tied to the military that is creeping into mass use is the BioButton and its predecessor the BioSticker. Produced by the company BioIntelliSense, the sleek new BioButton is advertised as a wearable system that is “a scalable and cost-effective solution for COVID-19 symptom monitoring at school, home and work.” BioIntelliSense received $2.8 million from the Pentagon last December to develop the BioButton and BioSticker wearables for COVID-19.
BioIntelliSense, cofounded and led by former Microsoft HealthVault developer James Mault, now has its wearable sensors being rolled out for widespread use on some college campuses and at some US hospitals. In some of those instances, the company’s wearables are being used to specifically monitor the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine as opposed to symptoms of COVID-19 itself. BioIntelliSense is currently running a study, partnered with Philips Healthcare and the University of Colorado, on the use of its wearables for early COVID-19 detection, which is entirely funded by the US military.
While the use of these wearables is currently “encouraged but optional” at these pilot locations, could there come a time when they are mandated in a workplace or by a government? It would not be unheard of, as several countries have already required foreign arrivals to be monitored through use of a wearable during a mandatory quarantine period. Saint Lucia is currently using BioButton for this purpose. Singapore, which seeks to be among the first “smart nations” in the world, has given every single one of its residents a wearable called a “TraceTogether token” for its contact-tracing program. Either the wearable token or the TraceTogether smartphone app is mandatory for all workplaces, shopping malls, hotels, schools, health-care facilities, grocery stores, and hair salons. Those without access to a smartphone are expected to use the “free” government-issued wearable token.
The Era of Digital Dictatorships Is Nearly Here
Making mandatory wearables the new normal not just for COVID-19 prevention but for monitoring health in general would institutionalize quarantining people who have no symptoms of an illness but only an opaque algorithm’s determination that vital signs indicate “abnormal” activity.
Given that no AI is 100 percent accurate and that AI is only as good as the data it is trained on, such a system would be guaranteed to make regular errors: the question is how many. One AI algorithm being used to “predict COVID-19 outbreaks” in Israel and some US states is marketed by Diagnostic Robotics; the (likely inflated) accuracy rate the company provides for its product is only 73 percent. That means, by the company’s own admission, their AI is wrong 27 percent of the time. Probably, it is even less accurate, as the 73 percent figure has never been independently verified.
Adoption of these technologies has benefitted from the COVID-19 crisis, as supporters are seizing the opportunity to accelerate their introduction. As a result, their use will soon become ubiquitous if this advancing agenda continues unimpeded.
Though this push for wearables is obvious now, signs of this agenda were visible several years ago. In 2018, for instance, insurer John Hancock announced that it would replace its life insurance offerings with “interactive policies” that involve individuals having their health monitored by commercial health wearables. Prior to that announcement, John Hancock and other insurers such as Aetna, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare offered various rewards for policyholders who wore a fitness wearable and shared that data with their insurance company.
In another pre-COVID example, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article in August 2019 that claimed that wearables “encourage healthy behaviors and empower individuals to participate in their health.” The authors of the article, who are affiliated with Harvard, further claimed that “incentivizing use of these devices [wearables] by integrating them in insurance policies” may be an “attractive” policy approach. The use of wearables for policyholders has since been heavily promoted by the insurance industry, both prior to and after COVID-19, and some speculate that health insurers could soon mandate their use in certain cases or as a broader policy.
These biometric “fitness” devices—such as Amazon’s Halo—can monitor more than your physical vital signs, however, as they can also monitor your emotional state. ARPA-H/HARPA’s flagship SAFE HOME program reveals that the ability to monitor thoughts and feelings is an already existing goal of those seeking to establish this new agency.
According to World Economic Forum luminary and historian Yuval Noah Harari, the transition to “digital dictatorships” will have a “big watershed” moment once governments “start monitoring and surveying what is happening inside your body and inside your brain.” He says that the mass adoption of such technology would make human beings “hackable animals,” while those who abstain from having this technology on or in their bodies would become part of a new “useless” class. Harari has also asserted that biometric wearables will someday be used by governments to target individuals who have the “wrong” emotional reactions to government leaders.
Unsurprisingly, one of Harari’s biggest fans, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, has recently led his company into the development of a comprehensive biometric and “neural” wearable based on technology from a “neural interface” start-up that Facebook acquired in 2019. Per Facebook, the wearable “will integrate with AR [augmented reality], VR [virtual reality], and human neural signals” and is set to become commercially available soon. Facebook also notably owns the VR company Oculus Rift, whose founder, Palmer Luckey, now runs the US military AI contractor Anduril.
As recently reported, Facebook was shaped in its early days to be a private-sector replacement for DARPA’s controversial LifeLog program, which sought to both “humanize” AI and build profiles on domestic dissidents and terror suspects. LifeLog was also promoted by DARPA as “supporting medical research and the early detection of an emerging pandemic.”
It appears that current trends and events show that DARPA’s decades-long effort to merge “health security” and “national security” have now advanced further than ever before. This may partially be because Bill Gates, who has wielded significant influence over health policy globally in the last year, is a long-time advocate of fusing health security and national security to thwart both pandemics and “bioterrorists” before they can strike, as can be heard in his 2017 speech delivered at that year’s Munich Security Conference. That same year, Gates also publicly urged the US military to “focus more training on preparing to fight a global pandemic or bioterror attack.”
In the merging of “national security” and “health security,” any decision or mandate promulgated as a public health measure could be justified as necessary for “national security,” much in the same way that the mass abuses and war crimes that occurred during the post-9/11 “war on terror” were similarly justified by “national security” with little to no oversight. Yet, in this case, instead of only losing our civil liberties and control over our external lives, we stand to lose sovereignty over our individual bodies.
The NIH, which would house this new ARPA-H/HARPA, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars experimenting with the use of wearables since 2015, not only for detecting disease symptoms but also for monitoring individuals’ diets and illegal drug consumption. Biden played a key part in that project, known as the Precision Medicine initiative, and separately highlighted the use of wearables in cancer patients as part of the Obama administration’s related Cancer Moonshot program. The third Obama-era health-research project was the NIH’s BRAIN initiative, which was launched, among other things, to “develop tools to record, mark, and manipulate precisely defined neurons in the living brain” that are determined to be linked to an “abnormal” function or a neurological disease. These initiatives took place at a time when Eric Lander was the cochair of Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology while still leading the Broad Institute. It is hardly a coincidence that Eric Lander is now Biden’s top science adviser, elevated to a new cabinet-level position and set to guide the course of ARPA-H/HARPA.
Thus, Biden’s newly announced agency, if approved by Congress, would integrate those past Obama-era initiatives with Orwellian applications under one roof, but with even less oversight than before. It would also seek to expand and mainstream the uses of these technologies and potentially move toward developing policies that would mandate their use.
If ARPA-H/HARPA is approved by Congress and ultimately established, it will be used to resurrect dangerous and long-standing agendas of the national-security state and its Silicon Valley contractors, creating a “digital dictatorship” that threatens human freedom, human society, and potentially the very definition of what it means to be human.
Killing Democracy Once and for All: The Global Elite’s Coup d’Etat that Is Destroying Life as We Know It
By Robert J. Burrowes
Politically savvy individuals know that democracy has rarely existed and probably never outside small groups of humans who deliberately organize themselves to share power or grant it temporarily to one or a small number of people for a particular purpose. In most contexts, ‘democracy’ is simply a label used to deceive the unwary into believing that ordinary people have a say in how we are governed. But this has never been the case in any political framework on a larger scale.
Whatever victories have apparently been achieved in the long struggle to achieve political representation, human rights, dignity, economic justice, cultural and gender identity, ecological sustainability and other causes dear to the hearts of those who have struggled, the elite (local, national or global) has always retained control and merely surrendered the minimum necessary to keep the bulk of the human population submissive.
Consequently, as outlined in ‘Why Activists Fail’, while elite control over human societies started to gather pace with the Neolithic revolution 12,000 years ago, it has simply been progressively consolidated since that time. Real power over anything that matters, including fundamental decision-making and the vast bulk of the world’s wealth, remains firmly in the hands of the elite.
More importantly, as one result of the elite’s long reign and the grotesquely distorted priorities it has advanced within the delusional versions of democracy we have experienced, human society is now characterized by staggering levels of psychological, social, economic, military and geopolitical dysfunctionality and Earth is on the brink of ecological collapse with Homo sapiens threatened by four distinct paths to extinction. See ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Report on the State of Planet Earth at Year’s End 2020’.
But what is interesting about the elite coup that is being implemented now, under cover of the non-existent virus SARS-CoV-2 – see, for example, ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’ and ‘Statement On Virus Isolation (SOVI)’ – and the supposed Covid-19 pandemic, is that the final facade of our ‘democracy’ is being dismantled in plain sight with most of the human population begging for it to be done provided that they are kept ‘safe’. It is pitiful to observe and brings to mind one of Benjamin Franklin’s most famous lines: ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’
How is this final destruction of even the delusion of democracy being executed? Well, the simple answer is this: ‘It is being done in a variety of ways, depending on the context.’ Here are some examples in each of three categories.
Destruction of Democratic Processes, Human Rights and the Rule of Law
While so-called democratic processes have long been a sham and the rule of law (as it is meant to mean in a conventional sense) does not exist – see ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’ – even the sham elements of democracies – rule by Parliament (rather than executive fiat or unelected bureaucrats), respect for human rights (including freedom of speech), obedience of laws and adherence to legal process – have been ignored by virtually all governments (national, provincial and local) around the world as measures decided by the elite and promulgated through its international organizations such as the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization have simply been implemented by governments without so much as a public (or even a parliamentary) debate. In fact, any attempt to present an alternative view in any mainstream forum leads to one of a range of outcomes such as dismissal from office, censorship – with corporate and major social media leading the way – or howls of accusation such as ‘conspiracy theorist’ to discredit the dissenting voice.
This has happened, of course, because politicians are not beholden to voters, which is why lobbying politicians is a waste of time, unless the issue is of little significance politically, militarily, economically and environmentally. As implied above, the elite controls the political fate of politicians who well know that their political survival has nothing to do with pleasing ordinary voters. Politicians are beholden to the elite that manipulates levers of power such as the corporate media and education systems, employs an army of lobbyists to ensure that elite preference is clearly understood (while using bribes where necessary), and has ready access to removal options such as, at its most benign, withdrawal of pre-selection endorsement.
Moreover, those supposedly basic human rights – such as freedom of speech, assembly and movement – have been eviscerated under the various lockdown, curfew and martial law measures with many people attempting to exercise these rights quickly discovering that they no longer exist except, perhaps, in the very narrowest of circles or in particular contexts (even if those with the courage to do so often find that these ‘rights’ do exist but only if one is courageous enough to exercise them).
As early as March 2020, governments around the world were introducing draconian laws supposedly in response to the ‘pandemic’. For example, Denmark’s parliament ‘unanimously passed an emergency coronavirus law which [gave] health authorities powers to force testing, treatment and quarantine with the backing of the police.’ As noted by Copenhagen University law professor Jens Elo Rytter, the measures were unlike anything passed in the last 75 years: ‘It is certainly the most extreme since the Second World War. There have been some powerful encroachments in various terror packages. But this goes further.’ See ‘Denmark rushes through emergency coronavirus law’.
But with the passing of a full year since the coup began, the progressive destruction of any semblance of democracy is now rapidly in train.
As noted about Switzerland by Peter Koenig, for example, the Swiss Federal Council is considering denying those who refuse vaccination access to restaurants, theatres, cinemas and other venues. See ‘Is Switzerland Sliding into Dictatorship? Social Coercion, Privileges to Those Who Accept the Covid Vaccine’.
Of course, Switzerland is far from alone in considering such measures and there is plenty of evidence that virtually all countries will deny airline travel to those not vaccinated. See, for example, ‘Guidance for global travel’.
And Dr. Rudolf Hänsel in Germany reports that on 13 April 2021, the government of Germany tightened the ‘Infection Protection Act’, with the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) confirming that this so-called ‘Emergency Brakes Act’ abrogates the fundamental rights of inviolability of home and body. As noted by the renowned legal scholar Volker Boehme-Neßler: The planned coercive measures such as the curfews are ‘unconstitutional, dictatorial and against human nature’. See ‘Germany: The “Dictatorship of Democracy” Secretly Transformed into an “Open Dictatorship”’.
For a wider look at the bigger picture, Dr. Joseph Mercola interviewed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The interview touched on elements of Mercola’s new book The Truth About Covid-19 explaining how ‘The technocrats’ plan, as laid out in various papers and reports, is to use bioterrorism to take control of the world’s resources, wealth and people’. See ‘The Truth About Covid-19’.
But perhaps constitutional lawyer John W. Whitehead, in collaboration with Nisha Whitehead, captures the true depth of what has transpired in these two paragraphs about the United States but equally applicable to other countries:
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. See ‘After a Year Under Lockdown, Will Our Freedoms Survive the Tyranny of COVID-19?’
And you can read more of the Whiteheads’ sobering analysis in this appropriately-titled article too: ‘The Global Deep State: A New World Order Brought to You by COVID-19’.
Of course, a common response of many people is to fearfully deny that this is actually happening or to deny that it is really as bad as it seems. But reality has a nasty habit of biting, sooner or later, although it won’t be either in this case. It is already happening.
The Great Reset: Rule by Elite Agents including International Organizations
By now many people have heard of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ – see ‘The Great Reset’ and Covid-19 – The Great Reset – which is designed to restructure human society through implementation of the measures of the fourth industrial revolution and the transhumanist agenda while substantially reducing the human population. See ‘Corrupt Science and Elite Power: Your Techno-Slavery is Now Imminent’.
And most people are probably aware of the World Health Organization (WHO) providing the endless ‘technical guidance’ for governments to follow in dealing with the supposed virus. See ‘Country & Technical Guidance – Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)’.
But I wonder if you remember voting for the WHO or the World Economic Forum to tell your government to tell you what you to do. In fact, I wonder if you remember having a say in the composition, and hence decision-making, of these international organizations. Do you even know their elite masters?
And yet ‘suddenly’, or so it seems, ‘our’ national, provincial and local governments are doing what these elite agents are telling them to do, which is to tell us what to do in response to this ‘virus’. How did that happen? Do you remember it happening, at least this obviously, previously?
So do you think that voting for some other party at the next election in your country is going to precipitate change?
Of course, it will suit the elite nicely to have you preoccupied over which party will govern your country in future. Because it won’t matter. Just as it never has.
So while you might pin your hopes on some political party (and perhaps, even, a new one) most of what has been familiar about your life in the past will vanish. The changes being wrought by the elite’s corporations as you read this article are profound. For example, vastly more satellites are being shot into Space – see ‘SpaceX launches 60 new Starlink internet satellites, nails latest rocket landing at sea’ – and a staggering array of new infrastructure is being installed on the ground so that 5G (and 6G) can be used to make elite control of our lives total.
This will enable comprehensive surveillance of our daily activities, digital ID (possibly implanted in your brain) linked to your bank account and health records, a social credit ID that will end up dictating every facet of your life, the digitization of money, the robotization of the workforce and military, and the biological and electronic connectivity (through embedded sensors, software and other technologies) of humans and machines through the Internet of Things. And that is just part of what the fourth industrial revolution and the transhumanist agenda will mean for you and me. For a little more, see ‘Beware the Transhumanists: How “Being Human” is being Re-engineered by the Elite’s Covid-19 Coup’.
The ‘good’ news is that the above will only apply to those humans still alive because the agenda of the eugenicists is a substantial depopulation – see Bill Gates talk about this in his 2010 TED Talk: ‘Innovating to zero!’ – but you will get a much fuller explanation, including about ‘Death Panels’ from Peter Koenig in ‘COVID – Bioethics, Eugenics and “Death Panels”: “A Warning”’ and James Corbett in ‘Bioethics and the New Eugenics’.
And if you want further evidence that the global elite is now exercising control over you in ways that were not done so explicitly previously, consider the following: ‘European Plans for “Vaccine Passports” Were in Place 20 Months Prior to the Pandemic. Coincidence?’
More fundamentally, this interview by Dr Reiner Füllmich of WHO insider Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger carefully explains why WHO is a corrupt dictatorship with signatory nations legally required to obey the Director General’s directives and Bill Gates given equivalent status to a member nation-state. See ‘WHO Insider Blows Whistle on Gates and GAVI’.
For more evidence of the ever-tightening centralization of power in elite hands to which this is all leading, see ‘Covid-19 shows why united action is needed for more robust international health architecture’ and ‘WHO Pushes International Pandemic Treaty – Another Stepping Stone to World Government’.
And for further insight into the role of Bill Gates in all this, watch Dr. Vandana Shiva’s thoughtful explanation: ‘Bill Gates and His Empires. “Ushering In the Great Reset”’.
Coups
But the most comprehensive demonstration that any semblance of democracy is being destroyed is perhaps the removal from political office of those presidents who dared to challenge the elite-driven narrative that our world is seriously threatened by a virus.
As recorded in progressive media, at least two presidents openly resisting the elite-driven narrative have been removed in coups, with both presidents killed outright.
President Pierre Nkurunzia of Burundi dismissed Covid-19 as ‘nonsense’. He was then vilified in the western media before expelling the World Health Organization from Burundi. Soon after he died of a ‘heart attack’ and his successor immediately reversed his Covid-19 policies. See ‘President Nkurunzia Says #COVID-19 Is A Hoax’ and ‘Coronavirus and Regime Change: Burundi’s Covid Coup’.
Similarly, President John Magufuli of Tanzania not only rejected the Covid-19 narrative but openly ridiculed it in a televised address, in which he exposed the fraudulent nature of the testing ‘when he covertly had non-human samples – from fruits, goats, sheep, and car oil – tested for Covid on the PCR test, returning positive results from a paw-paw, a quail, and a goat’ thus openly irritating the global elite. See ‘John Magufuli: Death of an African Freedom Fighter’ (which includes the video of President Magufuli exposing the Covid-19 lie).
As always, this led to his vilification by corporate media – see ‘Western Liberal Media Attacks Tanzania’s President John Magufuli for Exposing COVID-19 Tests and Population Control in Africa’ – and their failure to mention the fact that President Magufuli had a PhD in chemistry so was rather more qualified than most to question the elite-driven Covid-19 narrative. See ‘Tanzania – The second Covid coup?’ and ‘Tanzania’s Late President Magufuli: “Science Denier” or Threat to Empire?’
Where is this All Heading?
What is touched on above is, in many respects, just the tip of the iceberg. The profound transformations under way do not bode well for any semblance of a human future worth living.
Apart from the measures already mentioned, you will be fed laboratory-produced synthetic foods. See ‘The “Great Reset”: Will There be Food on the Table? “Who Controls the Food Supply Controls the People”’ and ‘Gates Unhinged: Dystopian Vision for Agrifood Must Not Succeed’.
You will have whatever financial security you think you had taken away. See ‘From “Event 201” to “Cyber Polygon”: The WEF’s Simulation of a Coming “Cyber Pandemic”’ and ‘WEF Warns of Cyber Attack Leading to Systemic Collapse of the Global Financial System’.
And you will watch as your children lose whatever remaining capacity they had for independent thought further broken down by the propaganda directed at them. See ‘Brainwashing our children’.
But this list could go on.
Resisting the Death of Democracy
If you want to strategically resist the elite coup currently in train – that is, to undermine the power of the global elite to take complete control of our lives – there is a comprehensive nonviolent strategy for doing so outlined in ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ with detailed supportive information available in Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.
And it will be invaluable if you make yourself increasingly self-reliant as the mechanisms that you have been seduced into becoming dependent upon are progressively and rapidly being taken away. See ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.
If you wish to campaign to avert one or more of the four most immediate paths to human extinction – deployment of 5G, nuclear war, the collapse of biodiversity and the climate catastrophe – you can see a list of strategic goals for doing so here: Campaign Strategic Aims.
More simply, if you like, you might consider committing to:
The Earth Pledge
Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:
- I will listen deeply to children. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.
- I will not travel by plane
- I will not travel by car
- I will not eat meat and fish
- I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
- I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
- I will not own or use a mobile (cell) phone
- I will not buy rainforest timber
- I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
- I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
- I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
- I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
- I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
- I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.
Conclusion
Human life as you experienced it until the beginning of 2020 has now ended. It will not return. The long-standing elite plan to take complete control of our lives is now being progressively implemented. Act 1 – the ‘Covid-19 pandemic’ – successfully distracted most people so comprehensively that the measures implemented by the global elite to depopulate humanity and take full control of those still living proceeded rapidly. Act 2 is but a short time away.
If you want any chance of restoring a semblance of the lives we have lost, you are invited to join those strategically resisting the elite coup. If your resistance is not strategic, it will have zero impact.
Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.
The Unraveling of the American Empire
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.
After the Crash 