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Vitamin D Update

Dr. John Campbell | June 10, 2020

Vitamin D and Covid-19 Press release from the French National Academy of Medicine 22 May 2020 http://www.academie-medecine.fr/wp-co…

Vitamin D is a prohormone

Synthesized in the dermis under the effect of ultraviolet light

Transported to the liver and kidneys, where it is transformed into an active hormone

Responsible for intestinal absorption of calcium and bone health.

Modulates the functioning of the immune system by stimulating macrophages and dendritic cells

Role in regulating and suppressing the cytokine inflammatory response

Acute respiratory distress syndrome

A significant correlation between low serum vitamin D levels and mortality from Covid- 19

This phenomenon follows a North-South gradient

Exceptions are Nordic countries, vitamin D supplementation

Not a preventive or a therapeutic

By mitigating the inflammatory storm and its consequences, considered as an adjunct to any form of therapy.

Simple and inexpensive measure

Confirms its recommendation to ensure vitamin D supplementation in the French population

Recommends the rapid serum vitamin D (i.e. 25 OHD) testing in people over 60 years of age with Covid-19 Loading dose of 50,000 to 100,000 IU in case of deficiency, which could help limit respiratory complications;

Recommends vitamin D supplementation of 800 to 1000 IU/day in people under 60, as soon as the diagnosis of Covid-19 is confirmed.

Vitamin D: A Low-Hanging Fruit in COVID-19? (Medscape) https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/…

Observational data from various countries suggest inverse links;

Severity of COVID-19 responses

Mortality

No randomized controlled trial

Having adequate vitamin D is important, especially for those at the highest risk of COVID-19

No role

Simply a marker

A causal factor Spain and northern Italy, high rates of vitamin D deficiency

Spain and Italy do not formally fortify foods or recommend supplementation

Norway, Finland, and Sweden had higher vitamin D levels

European countries, P = .046, 95.4% confidence, (4.6% chance this result arose by chance)

Correlation is not causality

Optimizing vitamin D status to recommendations by national and international public health agencies will certainly have, potential benefits for COVID-19 (Irish Medical Journal ), http://imj.ie/vitamin-d-and-inflammat…

Immune Modulation https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.11…

Data from China, France, Germany, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Risk of severe COVID-19 Vitamin D deficiency was 17.3%

Normal Vitamin D level was 14.6% (a reduction of 15.6%).

Ethnic Minorities Disproportionately Affected British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) to get their vitamin D levels tested.

LARGE, SINGLE-DOSE, ORAL VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTATION IN ADULT POPULATIONS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…

They suggest a booster dose of 100,000 IU as a one-off Single vitamin D3 doses ≥300,000 IU are most effective at improving vitamin D status… for up to 3 months Daily doses of 1000 IU seem reasonable

Testing and Governmental Recommendations

During COVID-19 US National Institute of Health

400 IU to 800 IU per day, will result in blood levels that are sufficient to maintain bone health and normal calcium metabolism in healthy people Public Health England (PHE) https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamin…

There is not sufficient evidence to support recommending Vitamin D for reducing the risk of COVID-19 (PHE) https://derbynews.org.uk/2020/06/09/c…

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

What Went Wrong in Massachusetts?

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | June 10, 2020

Last week the Boston Globe published an impressive, 12,000-word account of COVID-19’s rampage through Massachusetts. Titled The Virus’s Tale, it asks how a state “famous for health care excellence” could have experienced “such a vast loss of human life?”

That isn’t media exaggeration. 7 million people reside there. So far, 7,408 have died of the virus.

California, with 5.5 times the population, has lost only 4,775 people. Canada, with five times the population, has lost 7,897.

So what went wrong in Massachusetts? The full answer won’t be known for some time. But the news article describes how a doctor in a town near the New York state border had to make three telephone calls, three days in a row, to a hotline operated by the Department of Public Health before she was allowed to test a highly symptomatic patient for the virus.

By January, everyone knew an infectious disease characterized by particular symptoms was wreaking havoc in China. Yet during the first week of March, this doctor was told she must be mistaken. It wasn’t possible for her patient, who hadn’t traveled outside the country, to have caught it. She was told this by a government hotline whose purpose is to monitor precisely these kinds of health threats. Twice.

In fact, the patient did test positive. Which meant the coronavirus was on the loose – spreading from person to person, even in small communities of 1,700 people. It also meant that hospital staff had been caring for this patient without proper safety equipment. In the words of the Boston Globe:

the hospital rushed to determine how many of its staff had been exposed as they had waited for permission to test patients. Within a few days, as more patients tested positive, almost 70 workers would be quarantined.

This failure to take the virus seriously, on the part of those who should have known better, is echoed by the events connected to a corporate leadership conference held in a Boston hotel on February 26 and 27.

Biogen, whose headquarters are in nearby Cambridge, describes itself as “one of the world’s first global biotechnology companies.” Its personnel, it says, are “pioneers in neuroscience.”

Yet the Boston Globe reports that these medically sophisticated individuals, who had flown in from other countries (including from Italy) as well as from elsewhere in the US, apparently behaved as if the virus was nothing more than a fairy tale:

The conference spanned two days. Attendees packed into the hotel elevators and onto its escalators, handed tongs and serving spoons back and forth at every buffet meal, gripped the levers of the self-serve coffee dispensers that got a workout during every break.

On Wednesday night, the action moved to a [restaurant] dinner…Afterward, a group of eight Biogen colleagues took the long way back to [their hotel], stopping at a bar that boasted an extensive collection of fine whiskeys.

“You have to try this one,” one executive told another, holding his glass aloft to offer a sip.

Attendees began running fevers soon afterward. One went to an emergency department on March 1st, but was told they didn’t meet testing criteria. On March 3rd, Biogen reportedly advised government public health officials that approximately 50 attendees were now suffering symptoms. But no testing occurred then, either.

The newspaper says that, after learning that two European conference attendees had received positive test results in their own countries, many Boston-area Biogen employees became alarmed. It was at that point a company official instructed them to stay away from Massachusetts General Hospital:

“You will not be tested,” the e-mail read, adding that such demands by Biogen employees “are overwhelming the emergency room.” Ominously, the company’s warning concluded with this sentence: “Hospital leaders have warned Biogen that they may need to have the Hospital Police Department intervene to prevent Biogen employees from entering the emergency room.”

This solid piece of journalism makes it clear numerous officials, from the governor on down, repeatedly assured everyone there was no cause for alarm.

They said the public health system was reliable. They said it was prepared for this virus.

They were wrong.

Read The Virus’s Tale here.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

UK military killing THOUSANDS of farm animals in Cyprus and threatening PROTECTED wildlife zones

RT | June 10, 2020

The British military is “knowingly” causing the deaths of farm animals in Cyprus on an “almost daily basis” and has paid millions of pounds in compensation to farmers since 1995, an investigation has revealed.

Activity at a British base on the Mediterranean island has resulted in 1,764 claims for “animal loss” over the last five years from “live-firing and low-flying,” the Declassified UK website revealed on Wednesday. The animal deaths are happening near the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Akrotiri on the southern peninsula of Cyprus, the investigative website said.

Paying compensation to farmers is now commonplace, and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) paid out almost £750,000 during the 2018-19 financial year – most of which was to settle 334 animal loss claims. One of the payouts last year covered costs for “abortions and associated vet fees” after pregnant goats were killed by low-flying aircraft.

Declassified UK said internal documents show that the MOD is “knowingly” causing the deaths by permitting planes to fly as low as 100 feet above the ground. A report in 2009 explained that the goats “abort their unborn kids/lambs if panicked” by low-flying planes and the “dry firing/pyrotechnics.”

The MOD has also paid compensation to UK farmers for animal deaths, but the numbers of incidents are “far higher” in Cyprus, Declassified said, suggesting the military may make more of an effort to avoid such deaths on British soil.

For instance, only 22 claims were settled across the UK between 2014 and 2018 for animal deaths due to aircraft noise, while 1,034 were made in Cyprus over the same period.

The investigative website found that more than half of the deaths are close to the Paramali river, which is a protected wildlife zone described by the MOD as being home to Europe’s “most valuable and threatened species” including falcons, harriers and kestrels. It’s not known, however, if the British military activity has killed any wild animals.

The UK has two bases at Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which it retained following the granting of independence to Cyprus in 1960. It uses the land for training soldiers for combat in the Middle East, even creating a “mock Afghan village” for an “authentic” experience.

Local farmers are not permitted to water or harvest their crops in the areas during live-firing exercises, a situation which results in “crop loss” claims for “poor yield or overripe items unable to be sold.” Between animal and crop loss claims, the MOD has paid out £8 million to claimants over the past 25 years.

The internal documents also showed the military was aware that expanded training exercises in areas with large farms would “inevitably see more expensive claims being presented” — but proceeded with the plans anyway. They do, however, conduct some reconnaissance before exercises in an effort to maintain “good relations” with the community.

The presence of the British military in the area has long been controversial for Cypriots, with a 2001 proposal to build a large radio mast at a site on the edge of Limassol Salt Lake sparking riots outside the RAF base.

The lake is recognized as a “wetland of international importance” and hosts 15,000 greater flamingos during the winter months. The presence of an RAF runway less than one kilometer away means disturbance to the wildlife there is a “major issue,” BirdLife Cyprus director Martin Hellicar told Declassified. An MOD spokesperson said all training and activity takes place under “strict conditions” and with precautions to minimize risk.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Okinawa’s Governor Promises ‘Fierce Opposition’ to Plan for New US Missile Bases

Sputnik – 10.06.2020

A US plan to build new missile sites on the Japanese island of Okinawa has encountered stiff resistance by locals, including the governor, who was elected on a position of getting US forces out of the prefecture.

‘Absolutely Unacceptable’

In the event of a war with China, land-based missiles placed on Okinawa would provide a major leverage point for US forces. However, with the island already a major target due to several large US military installations, Okinawans are fed up with the idea of bringing in even more targets for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“I firmly oppose the idea,” Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki told the Los Angeles Times for a Wednesday story. “If there is such a plan, I can easily imagine fierce opposition from Okinawa residents.”

“Intermediate-range ballistic missiles can be used to attack other countries, so deploying them would conflict with the Constitution and lead to a further build-up of the US bases,” Tamaki told Bloomberg News last November. “To have new military facilities would be absolutely unacceptable.”

The Straits-Times noted last November that similar opposition is just as likely from other US allies, such as Australia and South Korea, which would then become targets in the event of a shooting war between Washington and Beijing. Similar fears quelled early Cold War enthusiasm in Canberra for a nuclear weapons program, too.

Last October, the Okinawan daily Ryukyu Shimpo reportedly uncovered evidence the US government had informed the Russian government in August 2019 of its intent to base missiles violating the shredded Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in Okinawa within two years. The US formally withdrew from the treaty, which governed the ranges of land-based missiles used by Russia and the US, just days earlier.

Battle Plans Hinge on Okinawa

Never having been bound by the INF Treaty, the PLA has spent decades building up its Rocket Force into a formidably armed corps, wielding a variety of long-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles and even hypersonic weapons, which the US has yet to field.

Sitting just 500 miles from Shanghai and 400 miles from the Zhejiang coast, Okinawa-based missiles would find much of mainland China within striking distance. However, the Ryukyu Islands would almost certainly fall under heavy attack by the PLA during a prospective war with US allies, as the archipelago falls within the “First Island Chain,” or the first string of islands sitting just off the east Asian coast. Beijing’s long-term strategic plans call for forcing its adversaries increasingly away from the Asian mainland, beginning with the First Island Chain, which stretches from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula south to Borneo, in Indonesia.

Likewise, the US Marine Corps is busy reenvisioning the way it wages war, including a pivot from the heavy land-based forces of the last several decades toward a more maritime role.

Commandant of the US Marine Corps Gen. David Berger told Congressional lawmakers in March that the Corps would be expanding its missile capabilities twentyfold in the next five years, as well as introducing the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), which is based on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) but mounted atop a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle chassis. The weapons system will be able to fire a variety of anti-air and anti-ship missiles.

The purpose of these weapons can be found in Expeditionary Advance Base Ops (EABO), in which Marines will rush forward to set up small outposts on scattered islands that would house batteries of long-range anti-ship and anti-air missiles, creating a “no-go zone” for Chinese air and sea forces. A graphic illustrating the concept by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank happens to show EABOs deployed across the Ryukyuan chain.

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Land-based missiles deployed at “Expeditionary Advance Bases” could form a virtual wall against Chinese aggression

Widespread Japanese Opposition to US Missiles

US plans for deploying weapons previously banned by the INF Treaty elsewhere in Japan have met strong resistance as well. An Aegis Ashore system that was to have been built in the western city of Akita was canceled last month amid heavy opposition from locals. Another site, on the western coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture, also met opposition, but so far plans for its construction remain unchanged.

Tokyo approved their construction to provide anti-missile defense against potential attack from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), but with the US out of the INF Treaty, the Aegis Ashore systems can easily be converted to fire offensive weapons, as the site in Deveselu, Romania, has already demonstrated.

Sonata
Marine Corps Station Futenma, in Ginowan, Okinawa

Okinawans have also fought the continued presence of several US military bases on the island, which was stormed by US forces in the closing months of World War II in a furious battle that killed nearly half the island’s population of 300,000 at the time. US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma sits in the middle of Ginowan City, and Tamaki was elected to the governorship on a campaign to get the base removed from the prefecture. Just four miles north of Futenma is another air base, the US Air Force’s colossal Kadena Air Force Base; between the two installations are half of the 50,000 US service members deployed in all of Japan.

In a February 2019 referendum, 70% of Okinawans voted against a US-Japanese plan to relocate Futenma on the island, but Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted Tokyo “cannot avoid the necessity of moving Futenma,” and land reclamation for the new site, on the coast of rural Henoko to the north, has continued.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | 3 Comments

PA to Stop Palestinian Resistance Efforts despite Ending ‘Security Coordination’ with Israel

Palestine Chronicle – June 10, 2020

The Palestinian Authority (PA) will continue fighting the Palestinian resistance movements and protecting Israelis despite halting ‘security coordination’ with Tel Aviv, a senior official has said.

Hussein Al-Sheikh, the Palestinian official in charge of relations with Israel and one of the two closest advisers to President Mahmoud Abbas, told the New York Times :

“We will prevent violence and chaos. We will not allow bloodshed. That is a strategic decision.”

Al-Sheikh added that the PA would arrest any Palestinian who intends to carry out an attack on the occupation from the occupied West Bank, the New York Times reported.

“We are not nihilists or fools, and we don’t want chaos. We are pragmatic. We don’t want things to reach a point of no return,” he explained.

Meanwhile, he said that the PA’s declaration of halting security coordination with Israel aimed to remind Tel Aviv of the burdens it would assume if the PA disbanded and to demonstrate that the PA could collapse if annexation goes ahead, the newspaper reported.

“If Abbas was, indeed, serious in his announcement, he would have included in his speech a clear articulation of a new Palestinian political agenda that is predicated on unity, but a true Palestinian strategy was never the PA leader’s ultimate goal,” Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud wrote in a recent article.

“What Mahmoud Abbas is hoping to achieve, with his latest theatrics, is the establishment of a new political game, one that is based on political ambiguity, so that he is not entirely abandoned by his Western backers, or finally shunned as a collaborator by his own people,” Baroud added.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

The US and Israel Hope to Scare the Hague War Crimes Court off from Helping Palestine

By Jonathan Cook | The National | June 9, 2020

In the near-two decades since the International Criminal Court was set up to try the worst violations of international human rights law, it has faced harsh criticism for its highly selective approach to the question of who should be put on trial.

Created in 2002, the court, it was imagined, would act as a deterrent against the erosion of an international order designed to prevent a repetition of the atrocities of the Second World War.

Such hopes did not survive long.

The court, which sits in The Hague in the Netherlands, almost immediately faced a difficult test: whether it dared to confront the world’s leading superpower, the United States, as it launched a “war on terror”.

The ICC’s prosecutors refused to grasp the nettle posed by the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, they chose the easiest targets: for too long, it looked as though war crimes were only ever committed by Africans.

Now, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, looks poised finally to give the court some teeth. She is threatening to investigate two states – the US and Israel – whose actions have been particularly damaging to international law in the modern era.

The court is considering examining widespread human rights abuses perpetrated by US soldiers in Afghanistan, and crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Gaza, as well as the officials responsible for Israel’s illegal settlement programme.

An investigation of both is critically important: the US has crafted for itself a role as global policeman, while Israel’s flagrant violations of international law have been ongoing for more than half a century.

The US is the most powerful offender, and Israel the most persistent.

Both states have long dreaded this moment – the reason they refused to ratify the Rome Statute that established the ICC.

Last week Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, stepped up US attacks on the court, saying its administration was “determined to prevent having Americans and our friends and allies in Israel and elsewhere hauled in by this corrupt ICC”.

A large, bipartisan majority of US Senators sent a letter to Pompeo last month urging him to ensure “vigorous support” for Israel against the Hague court.

Israel and the US have each tried to claim an exemption from international law on the grounds that they did not sign up to the court.

But this only underscores the problem. International law is there to protect the weak from abuses committed by the strong. The victim from the bully.

A criminal suspect does not get to decide whether their victim can make a complaint, or whether the legal system should investigate. The same must apply in international law if it is to have any meaningful application.

Even under Bensouda, the process has dragged out interminably. It has taken years for her office to conduct a preliminary investigation and to determine, as she did in late April, that Palestine falls under the ICC’s jurisdiction because it qualifies as a state.

The delay made little sense, given that the State of Palestine is recognised by the United Nations, and it was able to ratify the Rome Statute five years ago.

The Israeli argument is that Palestine lacks the normal features of a sovereign state. However, as the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem recently noted, this is precisely because Israel has occupied the Palestinians’ territory and illegally transferred settlers onto their land.

Israel is claiming an exemption by citing the very crimes that need investigating.

Bensouda has asked the court’s judges to rule on her view that the ICC’s jurisdiction extends to Palestine. It is not clear how soon they will issue a verdict.

Pompeo’s threats last week – he said the US will soon make clear how it will retaliate – are intended to intimidate the court.

Bensouda has warned that her office is being subjected to “misinformation and smear campaigns”. In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the court of being “antisemitic”.

In the past, Washington has denied Bensouda a travel visa, and threatened to confiscate her and the ICC judges’ assets and put them on trial. The US has also vowed to use force to liberate any Americans put in the dock.

There are indications the judges may now be searching for a bolt hole. They have asked Israel and the Palestinian Authority to respond urgently to questions about whether the temporary Oslo accords, signed more than 25 years ago, are still legally binding.

Israel has argued that the lack of resolution to the Oslo process precludes the Palestinians from claiming statehood. That would leave Israel, not the ICC, with jurisdiction over the territories.

Bensouda has suggested the issue is a red herring.

Last Thursday Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told the ICC that in any case the PA considers itself exempt from its Oslo obligations, given that Israel has announced imminent plans to annex swaths of Palestinian territory in the West Bank.

Annexation was given a green light under President Trump’s “peace plan” unveiled earlier in the year.

Bensouda’s term as prosecutor finishes next year. Israel may hope to continue stonewalling until she is gone. Elyakim Rubinstein, a former Israeli Supreme Court judge, called last month for a campaign to ensure that her successor is more sympathetic to Israel.

But if Bensouda does get the go-ahead, Netanyahu and an array of former generals, including his Defence Minister Benny Gantz, would likely be summoned for questioning. If they refuse, an international arrest warrant could be issued, theoretically enforceable in the 123 countries that ratified the court.

Neither Israel nor the US is willing to let things reach that point.

They have recruited major allies to the fight, including Australia, Canada, Brazil and several European states. Germany, the court’s second largest donor, has threatened to revoke its contributions if the ICC proceeds.

Maurice Hirsch, a former legal adviser to the Israeli army, wrote a column last month in Israel Hayom, a newspaper widely seen as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, accusing Bensouda of being a “hapless pawn of Palestinian terrorists”.

He suggested that other states threaten to pull their contributions, deny ICC staff the travel visas necessary for their investigations and even quit the court.

That would destroy any possibility of enforcing international law – an outcome that would delight both Israel and the US.

It would render ICC little more than a dead letter, just as Israel, backed by the US, prepares to press ahead with the West Bank’s annexation.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

‘It’s their war, not ours’: Russian space agency boss says not upset by manned SpaceX launch, but BOEING should be

RT | June 10, 2020

The US finally getting a crewed spaceship in no way means the end of Russia’s space program, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said, insisting that the Soyuz still remains the most cost-efficient way to get people to the ISS.

After SpaceX’s Crew Dragon delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station – the first US spaceship to do so for nine years – at the end of May, US media not only praised Elon Musk’s company, but also piled scorn on the Russian space program.

It was “strange” when some in the US, including NASA officials, “started making wreaths for the ‘funeral’ of Russian Soyuz,” Rogozin wrote in an opinion piece for Forbes magazine, published on Monday. While the Russian space chief’s social media rivalry with Musk and his past quotes played a role in the reaction, he made a stand for the iconic Russian spacecraft that has ferried US astronauts to orbit for all those years since the Space Shuttle program shut down.

Rogozin rejected the claim that the manned launches by SpaceX – which said it would charge anything from $55 million per seat for transporting the astronauts – would be so cheap that Russia would start reserving Crew Dragon seats for its cosmonauts.

The US officials who repeated that claim “just got bedeviled in a mass of figures,” he said. While Russia did charge the US $90 million a seat for Soyuz launches, Rogozin maintains that the Russian-crewed rocket launches still remain more cost-efficient than those of SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

While SpaceX has made the partial reusability of the Falcon a key marketing point, both Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner – which is only expected to carry out its first mission next year – are launched to orbit by heavy rockets, while Soyuz requires a cheaper, medium-class booster, he said.

“Therefore, our space launches cost much less than the American ones,” making Soyuz “unparalleled” when it comes to delivering people to the ISS, Rogozin wrote.

He even compared the spaceship to the AK-47 rifle, saying that both Soviet designs were not only extremely reliable, but also continuously improved all the time. Soyuz is such a workhorse that it will continue to fly even after Russia’s next-generation ‘Orel’ (Eagle) spaceship is introduced.

It’s not our mood that Elon Musk spoiled on May 30, but that of his countrymen from Boeing, by starting flight tests ahead of them. It’s their war, not ours. Our space transport system has been operational for a long time and without interruptions.

He did point out that SpaceX could hardly argue to be the “first private company” to launch humans into space, given that NASA had subsidized both SpaceX and Boeing to the tune of $8 billion to develop rival spaceships. Musk’s company was the first to complete testing and perform its launch.

Roscosmos decided to maintain cooperation with NASA even in the face of sanctions introduced by Washington against Moscow – including Rogozin personally – and continued delivering Americans to the ISS for years at the expense of Russia’s own crews, Rogozin reminded.

It’s only because of Russia that NASA “didn’t have to use a trampoline” to launch astronauts to space, Rogozin wrote, referencing his notorious joke from six years ago.

June 10, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Worst Literal Hitler Ever

Democrats honor George Floyd with eight minutes of silence in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center June 8, 2020 in Washington, DC © Getty Images / Chip Somodevilla
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory | June 10, 2020

So, the GloboCap-Resistance Minneapolis Putsch appears to have not gone exactly to plan. Once again, Trump failed to go full-Hitler, despite their best efforts to goad him into doing so. They gave it quite a good shot, however. It was more or less a textbook regime-change op, or “color revolution,” or whatever you call it. All the essential pieces were in place. All they needed Trump to do was declare himself dictator and impose martial law, so the generals could step in and remove him from office.

Unfortunately for the Resistance, Trump didn’t do that. Instead, he did what he usually does, which is make a total ass of himself on international television. Which … OK, was cringeworthy, but didn’t quite provide the GloboCap gang with the pretext they needed to perp-walk him out of the Oval Office. Which, needless to say, was incredibly frustrating. After four long years of propaganda foreplay, there we were, finally at the moment of truth, and Adolf goes and loses his erection.

This guy is the worst literal Hitler ever.

Still, as far as regime-change ops go, and given that this one was a domestic operation, so trickier than the usual foreign version, I’d give the Resistance a B+ for effort.

Now, before my “conspiracy theorist” readers get too excited about where I’m going with this column … no, this was not a “fake” uprising. There was an authentic uprising at the center of it. There’s always an authentic uprising at the center of every regime-change op, or at least the type that GloboCap has been carrying out and attempting recently. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, the Ukraine, Bolivia, Venezuela; these things go pretty much by the numbers.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how that works.

First, you need your civil unrest, large-scale protests, rioting, looting, indiscriminate violence, and so on. Any number of “trigger events” will be sufficient to get this going. Once it is, you can grow it and focus it. A lot of this unrest needs to be authentic, so it’s best to conduct an overwhelming multi-year propaganda campaign to delegitimize and demonize your target as some sort of treasonous Hitlerian monster who’s responsible for every major problem in the country. That way, no matter which trigger event gets things going, it will be his fault.

You will want your local government officials to allow this civil unrest to go on until it reaches the point where rioters and looters are rampaging through the hearts of cities, raiding both high-end corporate chain stores and local mom-and-pop-type businesses, and brutally assaulting their defenseless proprietors. This does not mean that these local officials have to restrain or stand down their cops. On the contrary, you want them to unleash their cops, on the protesters, rioters, and TV reporters (during their “live” reports, if possible), and just generally beat the living crap out of everyone. The goal is to generate as much hatred as possible against the regime you are trying to change, and to pressure your designated Hitler-target into losing his patience and overreacting, so you want things to get extremely ugly.

Then, you unleash the power of the media to whip folks up into a mindless frenzy of rage against your designated Hitler. You have your “respectable” pundits publish articles calling for his removal from office. You get the military (and former military) to start making noise about how your Hitler is out of control and on the brink of fascism. Then you wait for your Hitler to overreact and attempt to call in the military and impose some form of martial law, at which point you can safely depose him, and pretend that democracy has won the day.

The media is essential here, because you need to convince the majority of the public (i.e., not just the people protesting and rioting) that things have gotten so out of control, and your imaginary Hitler has gotten so dangerous, that a military coup is the best solution.

What you’re looking for are headlines like these:

“We are teetering on a dictatorship” — CNN

“‘Words of a dictator’: Trump’s threat to deploy military raises spectre of fascism” — The Guardian

“Donald Trump is Trying to Start a Race War” — Rolling Stone

“Remove Trump Now” — Slate

“The Trump Presidency is Over.” — The Guardian

“Trump Must Be Removed” — The Washington Post

Also, while the media are doing their thing, you want to get any former members of the intelligence community (or the secret police) to issue public statements like this:

“There should be no place in American society, much less in our government, for the depravity being demonstrated daily by Donald Trump. Members of his Cabinet who enable such behavior are betraying their oath of office by supporting an increasingly desperate despot.” — John Brennan, former CIA director

Then you bring the politicians and the military in. This kind of language will usually do it:

“The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens. I fear for our country tonight and will not stop defending America against Trump’s assault.” — Senator Ron Wyden

“These are not the words of a president. They are the words of a dictator.” — Senator Kamala Harris

“‘There is a thin line between the military’s tolerance for questionable partisan moves over the past three years and the point where these become intolerable,” a retired general said.” — The New York Times

“We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution … We can unite without [Trump], drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.” — General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, former Secretary of Defense

Once the generals have started in growling, you get the media to hype that, hard. Headlines like these will get people’s attention:

“Revolt of the Generals” — The Washington Post

“The Officers’ Revolt” — Slate

“President Donald Trump is facing an unprecedented revolt from the elite corps of ex-military leaders and presidents …” — CNN

“The US president’s desire to act the strongman poses urgent questions that America’s generals, voters and allies must all answer” — The Guardian Editorial Board

If you can, it is always a really nice touch if you can drum up … oh, let’s say 280 former national security officials who are really concerned about the state of democracy and “the misuse of the military for political purposes,” and get them to spontaneously call each other up and decide to write a letter together accusing your Hitler of “dividing Americans,” which the media can then disseminate, widely.

And, of course, what you need for the “educated classes” is an official propagandist like Franklin Foer (who broke the big story about the non-existent “Trump-Russia server” back in 2016 and was rewarded for his service to GloboCap with a lucrative staff writer position at The Atlantic) to come right out and explain that what’s happening is a textbook regime-change operation (because you don’t have to dupe the “educated classes,” most of whom will already be on your side). Something more or less like this:

“Twitter’s decision to label Trump’s posts as misleading was a hinge moment … once Twitter applied its rules to Trump — and received accolades for its decision — it inadvertently set a precedent … a cycle of noncooperation was set in motion. Local governments were the next layer of the elite to buck Trump’s commands. After the president insisted that governors ‘dominate’ the streets on his behalf, they roundly refused to escalate their response. Indeed, New York and Virginia rebuffed a federal request to send National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. Even the suburb of Arlington, Virginia, pulled its police that had been loaned to control the crowd in Lafayette Square. As each group of elites refused Trump, it became harder for the next to comply in good conscience. In Sharp’s taxonomy, the autocrat’s grasp on power depends entirely on the allegiance of the armed forces. When the armed forces withhold cooperation, the dictator is finished.”

As I said, it went pretty much right by the book.

After four long years of official propaganda designed to convince the Western masses that Donald Trump is literally Hitler, GloboCap, the liberal Resistance, and the corporate media all did their best to harness the authentic protests and rioting that routinely follow the murder of an unarmed Black person by the cops, and use it to remove him from office. It would have been a spectacular catharsis, a fitting climax to the War on Populism, but Trump refused to play his part … so, OK, maybe he’s not as dumb as I thought, or at least not totally suicidal.

No matter, it’s still a big win for GloboCap. Forcibly removing Trump from office is, and has always been, gravy. The main goal of the War on Populism is to delegitimize and demonize him, and everyone who voted for him (and Jeremy Corbyn, and even Bernie Sanders, and everyone who voted for them). Trump is just a symbol, after all. It’s the dissatisfaction with global capitalism (and its smiley, happy, valueless values, and its post-ideological ideology) that GloboCap is determined to crush, so they can get back to the unfinished business of restructuring the entire Middle East, and anywhere else that’s not playing ball, and dissolving what is left of national sovereignty, and transforming the world into one big marketplace, where there will be no fascists, no evil Russians, no religious extremists, no racist statues, no offensive movies, or books, or artworks, no more unauthorized ass-clown presidents, and everyone will be “contact-traced” with their digital health-certificate implants, and the children will stand inside their little “social-distancing” boxes and circles and sing the Coca-Cola theme song through their anti-virus masks at school …

Sorry … I got a little off-track there. I forgot that this was strictly about racism, and police brutality, and nothing else. I’ll try to stick to the script from now on, but it might be difficult, given my “privilege.” Maybe, if I wrapped myself in kente cloth and got down on my knees in public, that might help me get my mind right. Or, I don’t know. What do you think?

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June 10, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment