US aid is tied to Palestinian acquiescence to the two-state illusion
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 30, 2021
The US has reversed one aspect of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in Palestine; humanitarian aid will be resumed with a $15 million grant for vulnerable Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “Our engagements all have the same aim: to build support for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the US Representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, declared. Given that Washington used to give $350 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) before Trump stopped the support in 2018, this is a very limited “engagement”.
And it’s very selective support. Moreover, it comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is opposing the Palestinian Authority’s recourse to the International Criminal Court for justice over Israel’s war crimes. Such crimes, and the context of occupation in which they are carried out, contribute to humanitarian aid for the Palestinian being a necessity.
More importantly, humanitarian aid remains tied to the two-state compromise. Now that the US has returned to international consensus over the defunct paradigm, restoring humanitarian aid may be considered the next, logical step, only there is nothing logical about pursuing a strand of diplomacy that spells loss unless it results in a gain for Israel.
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh welcomed the resumption of humanitarian aid as “an important step in the right direction.” However, Palestinians still have no political direction and the PA is merely speaking about its standing in the diplomatic arena. Following restored humanitarian aid, the next step will most likely be renewed diplomatic relations. The PA will then feed upon the illusion that it is an important negotiating partner. Perhaps it is, in terms of “negotiating” the sell-out of what remains of Palestine to the Zionist colonial project.
For ordinary Palestinians, of course, it is a different story. The resumption of humanitarian aid within the context of the two-state compromise only sustains Israeli colonialism, while allowing the Palestinian people the necessary means for daily survival. Resuming the two-state cycle of humanitarian aid in return for acquiescence to the two-state illusion is not a better option than the so-called “deal of the century”. Both have generated loss, and the PA is merely favouring one form of loss over another.
To what extent can such a move be welcomed? Humanitarian aid to promote peace is a recipe for failure, given its reinforcement of the power dynamic bolstered by the billions of dollars that Israel gets each year from the US. It would be understandable if the PA spoke of humanitarian aid in terms of alleviation, but not as an “important step in the right direction” when Israel is not facing any punitive measures for advancing its illegal settlement expansion, for example.
It is to be expected that the US selectively lauds its meager support for Palestine, especially when, in contrast to the Trump administration, US President Joe Biden is yet to face significant scrutiny. For the PA to emulate the US rhetoric, however, is a different story. It seems as if the Ramallah authority is far more interested in asserting its earlier and premature, overtures to Biden even before the new foreign policy was revealed, despite the fact that the politics of humanitarian aid are a mere convenience for the international community in its process of aiding Israel to colonise what is left of Palestine.
Western Bullying of China No Longer Tolerated
By Stephen Lendman | March 29, 2021
The era of US-dominated Western hegemony over China is over, said Xinjiang government spokesman Xu Guixiang, stressing the following:
“China is no longer the China of 1840, and the era when Chinese people suffered from great power hegemony, and bullying will never return again,” adding:
A “century of humiliation” is over. Exploitation of China and its people by the West will no longer be tolerated.
Nor will the “big stick of sanctions” — the favored US, UK, EU weapon against nations unwilling to sacrifice their sovereign rights to higher powers in their capitals.
Xu’s remarks came in response to false US-led Western accusations of human rights abuses against Xinjiang Uyghur Muslims — phony claims about forced labor, re-education centers and other fabrications.
Last December — as part of its war on China by other means — the US banned imports of cotton and cotton products from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps — based on phony claims about human rights abuses by the world’s leading abuser of people worldwide USA.
It notoriously blames others for its own high crimes of war, against humanity, and other wrongdoing.
Its megalomaniacal drive for hegemony risks global war 3.0.
In response to Swedish clothing company Hennes & Mauritz’s (H & M) boycott of Xinjiang cotton, company stores were closed by Chinese mall operators.
The company was removed from major Chinese e-commerce apps.
On Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry slammed “manufactured lies and unreasonable accusations (by) the West.”
Over the weekend, the Ministry accused the US and its Western imperial partners of inventing a Xinjiang Uyghur issue to try “disrupt(ing) (and) contain(ing) China.”
The US doesn’t give a damn about Uyghurs or ordinary people anywhere.
US war on Islam is longstanding.
Jack Shaheen’s book “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” documented how US filmmakers vilify them.
So do both right wings of the US war party.
For decades, Muslims have been disparaged and otherwise abused by the US.
They’ve been falsely portrayed as dangerous gun-toting terrorists.
Hate-mongering persists against independent, predominantly Muslim countries and their leadership.
Notably post-9/11, US-led imperial wars of aggression smashed Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Somalia.
US wars by other means target numerous other countries, including predominantly Muslim Iran and Lebanon.
For years post-9/11, targeted Muslims in the US were hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus charges, and given long sentences — for political reasons, not for any crimes committed.
Torture and other human rights abuses continue in Washington’s global gulag at home and abroad — Guantanamo the tip of the iceberg.
On all things related to US targeted individuals for politicized reasons, their habeas rights, due process, and equal protection under law is denied — guilt by accusation automatic.
Muslims imprisoned domestically for their faith, ethnicity, and nationality are segregated in Communication Management Units (CMUs).
The practice flagrantly violates US Prison Bureau regulations.
They prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or political beliefs.
So-called American exceptionalism, the indispensable state, and illusory moral superiority are belied by its viciousness on the world stage — against invented enemies, operating extrajudicially by its own rules, the rule of law long ago abandoned.
Notably from the Clintons to Bush/Cheney to Obama/Biden to Trump to Biden/Harris, the US is an unparalleled global menace.
It’s war on humanity at home and abroad risks destruction of planet earth by futilely trying to own it.
Beijing no longer tolerates its bullying and other lawless practices, its Foreign Ministry saying:
“We solemnly inform the US side that today’s China is neither Iraq nor Syria, still less the late Qing Dynasty downtrodden by the Eight-Power Allied Forces.”
“China is open and aboveboard.”
“All malicious lies and rumors against China will fall apart before facts and truths.”
“We have full resolution, determination and capability to firmly defend national sovereignty, security, dignity and honor.”
If Biden regime hardliners intend confrontation with China, they’ll get a bellyful more than they can handle in return.
It’s long past time for tepid Russia to match China’s unwillingness to tolerate US bullying and criminality.
Diplomatic outreach to its ruling regimes is a waste of time — toughness the only language they understand.
The same goes for the decadent West overall.
Following China’s playbook in dealings with their regimes is the only effective strategy. Softness assures failure.
24 World Leaders Openly Call For The Great Reset
By Richie Allen | March 30, 2021
World leaders are calling for an end to nationalism and isolationism in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. 24 countries have come together to call for a global settlement like the one reached after the second world war to “protect countries” and build cross border co-operation.
The call by the 24 world leaders is made in today’s Daily Telegraph and other newspapers around the world including, Le Monde in France and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany.
The leaders claim that a new international settlement is necessary ahead of the next international health crisis. They described Covid as the biggest threat to the global community since the 1940’s.
“A treaty on pandemics “should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system and with its rules and norms”, the leaders said.
According to The Telegraph today;
The 24 world leaders warned that regardless of the origins of the outbreak, a future global pandemic was an inevitability.
The group, also including Charles Michel, the European Council president, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, and the presidents of South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Tunisia and Senegal, said the key question was not “if but when” the next health crisis would strike.
They warned that “no single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone”, arguing: “Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly co-ordinated fashion.”
Other central aims of a pandemic agreement would be to enhance international co-operation around alert systems, data-sharing and research, as well as the local, regional and global production and distribution of vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.
The new treaty would be rooted in the constitution of The World Health Organization. “At a time when Covid-19 has exploited our weaknesses and divisions, we must seize this opportunity and come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis,” the leaders said.
This is terrifying. For many years, I have been featuring writers, researchers and academics who warned us that this would happen. This is the end game.
International treaties are about one thing and one thing only, that is, concentrating power in the hands of a tiny elite. It’s what globalists have been working towards for decades.
It’s much more convenient for corporations and banks to do business with 24 countries who agree to regulatory alignment, than if those corporations have to deal with 24 individual countries whose rules and regulations are different.
This is what the EU was always about. I’ve been banging that drum for years.
Bill Gates, through his subsidiaries the WHO, CEPI and GAVI, and pharma giants like AstraZeneca, GSK and Pfizer, wants to vaccinate the world’s population against every illness you can name. AZ, GSK and Pfizer have received billions of dollars in grants from Gates.
June Raine, head of the UK’s medicine regulator MHRA, is on the record as saying that countries would be moving away from the traditional approach of treating illnesses when they arise, to a new era where the focus will be on prevention.
It’s claimed that new mRNA technology has opened up a world of possibilities for preventing illness. Vaccines are in development for obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancers and allergies. Imagine what the vaccination schedule for children could look like in ten years?
Bill Gates wants these vaccines to be approved and rolled-out quickly. The proposed pandemic treaty, which promises “mutual accountability shared responsibility and co-operation” between 24 countries, will make it easy for him.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been criticised for his government’s failure to approve coronavirus vaccines as quickly as the UK. France is being locked down again. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced similar criticism.
A global pandemic treaty would solve that problem. A new vaccine wouldn’t need to be assessed for safety and efficacy by regulators in 24 countries. It would only need to pass one inspection.
There will be alignment on travel and vaccine passports too. The world leaders, in today’s article said;
It (the treaty) would also include recognition of a “One Health” approach that connects the health of humans, animals and our planet. And such a treaty should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system and with its rules and norms.
Over time, the treaty will inevitably be amended to deal with Climate Change. It will be repeated more frequently, that global warming has an impact on health, and therefore, regulatory alignment to deal with it will be necessary.
The article, published in today’s Daily Telegraph and newspapers around the world, is signed by;
. V. Bainimarama, prime minister of Fiji; António Luís Santos da Costa, prime minister of Portugal; Klaus Iohannis, president of Romania; Boris Johnson, prime minister of the United Kingdom; Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda; Uhuru Kenyatta, president of Kenya; Emmanuel Macron, president of France; Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany; Charles Michel, president of the European Council; Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Greece; Moon Jae-in, president of the Republic of Korea; Sebastián Piñera, president of Chile; Carlos Alvarado Quesada, president of Costa Rica; Edi Rama, prime minister of Albania; Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa; Keith Rowley, prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago; Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands; Kais Saied, president of Tunisia; Macky Sall, president of Senegal; Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain; Erna Solberg, prime minister of Norway; Aleksandar Vučić, president of Serbia; Joko Widodo, president of Indonesia; Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine; Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation
Dr. Paul Marik Discusses Ivermectin And Vitamin D
Drbeen Medical Lectures | February 17, 2021
Dr. Paul Marik Discusses Ivermectin and Vitamin D. Wikipedia tells us Dr Marik is “a professor of medicine and serves as Chief, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. He is known for the vitamin C sepsis cocktail, which is under active multicenter clinical trial.”
Marik was lead author of a journal article on the efficacy of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, which had been provisionally accepted for publication by a Frontiers Media journal in early 2021, but which was subsequently rejected on account of what the publisher said were “a series of strong, unsupported claims based on studies with insufficient statistical significance” meaning that the article did “not offer an objective [or] balanced scientific contribution to the evaluation of ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19”.
More from Drbeen Medical Lectures at youtube
The “Unvaccinated” Question
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory | March 29, 2021
So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us? No, not those who haven’t been “vaccinated” yet. Us. The “Covidiots.” The “Covid deniers.” The “science deniers.” The “reality deniers.” Those who refuse to get “vaccinated,” ever.
There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do so. We traffic in arcane “conspiracy theories,” like “pre-March-2020 science,” “natural herd immunity,” “population-adjusted death rates,” “Sweden,” “Florida,” and other heresies.
They do not trust us. We are strangers among them. They suspect we feel superior to them. They believe we are conspiring against them, that we want to deceive them, confuse them, cheat them, pervert their culture, abuse their children, contaminate their precious bodily fluids, and perpetrate God knows what other horrors.
So they are discussing the need to segregate us, how to segregate us, when to segregate us, in order to protect society from us. In their eyes, we are no more than criminals, or, worse, a plague, an infestation. In the words of someone (I can’t quite recall who), “getting rid of the Unvaccinated is not a question of ideology. It is a question of cleanliness,” or something like that. (I’ll have to hunt down and fact-check that quote. I might have taken it out of context.)
In Israel, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, the USA, and other New Normal countries, they have already begun the segregation process. In the UK, it’s just a matter of time. The WEF, WHO, EU, and other transnational entities are helping to streamline the new segregation system, which, according to the WEF, “will need to be harmonized by a normative body, such as the WHO, to ensure that is ethical.”
Here in Germany, the government is considering banning us from working outside our homes. We are already banned from flying on commercial airlines. (We can still use the trains, if we dress up like New Normals.) In the village of Potsdam, just down the road from Wannsee (which name you might recall from your 20th-Century history lessons), we are banned from entering shops and restaurants. (I’m not sure whether we can still use the sidewalks, or whether we have to walk in the gutters.) In Saxony, we are forbidden from attending schools. At the Berliner Ensemble (the theater founded by Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, lifelong opponents of totalitarianism and fascism), we are banned from attending New Normal performances.
In the USA, we are being banned by universities. Our children are being banned from public schools. In New York, the new “Excelsior Pass” will allow New Normals to attend cultural and sports events (and patronize bars and restaurants, eventually) secure in the knowledge that the Unvaccinated have been prevented from entering or segregated in an “Unvaccinated Only” section. The pass system, designed by IBM, which, if history is any guide, is pretty good at designing such systems (OK, technically, it was Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, IBM’s Nazi-Germany subsidiary), was launched this past weekend to considerable fanfare.
And this is only the very beginning.
Israel’s “Green Pass” is the model for the future, which makes sense, in a sick, fascistic kind of way. When you’re already an apartheid state, what’s a little more apartheid? Here’s a peek at what that looks like …
OK, I know what the New Normals are thinking. They’re thinking I’m “misleading” people again. That I’m exaggerating. That this isn’t really segregation, and certainly nothing like “medical apartheid.”
After all (as the New Normals will sternly remind me), no one is forcing us to get “vaccinated.” If we choose not to, or can’t for medical reasons, all we have to do is submit to a “test” — you know, the one where they ram that 9-inch swab up into your sinus cavities — within 24 hours before we want to go out to dinner, or attend the theater or a sports event, or visit a museum, or attend a university, or take our children to school or a playground, and our test results will serve as our “vaccine passports!” We just present them to the appropriate Covid Compliance Officer, and (assuming the results are negative, of course) we will be allowed to take part in New Normal society just as if we’d been “vaccinated.”
Either way, “vaccine” or “test,” the New Normal officials will be satisfied, because the tests and passes are really just stage props. The point is the display of mindless obedience. Even if you take the New Normals at their word, if you are under 65 and in relatively good health, getting “vaccinated” is more or less pointless, except as a public display of compliance and belief in the official Covid-19 narrative (the foundation stone of the New Normal ideology). Even the high priests of their “Science” confess that it doesn’t prevent you spreading the “plague.” And the PCR tests are virtually meaningless, as even the WHO finally admitted. (You can positive-PCR-test a pawpaw fruit … but you might want to be careful who you tell if you do that.)
In contrast to the “vaccine” and the “test” themselves, the forced choice between them is not at all meaningless. It is no accident that both alternatives involve the violation of our bodies, literally the penetration of our bodies. It doesn’t really matter what is in the “vaccines” or what “results” the “tests” produce. The ritual is a demonstration of power, the power of the New Normals (i.e., global capitalism’s new face) to control our bodies, to dominate them, to violate them, psychologically and physically.
Now, don’t get all excited, my “conspiracy theorist” friends. I haven’t gone full QAnon just yet. Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab are not sitting around together, sipping adrenochrome on George Soros’ yacht, dreaming up ways to rape people’s noses. This stuff is built into the structure of the system. It is a standard feature of totalitarian societies, cults, churches, self-help groups, and … well, human society, generally.
Being forced to repeat a physical action which only makes sense within a specific ideology reifies that ideology within us. There is nothing inherently diabolical about this. It is a basic socialization technology. It is how we socialize our children. It is why we conduct weddings, baptisms, and bar mitzvahs. It is how we turn young men and women into soldiers. It is how actors learn their blocking and their lines. It is why the Nazis held all those rallies. It is why our “democracies” hold elections. It is also basic ceremonial magic … but that’s a topic for a different column.
The issue, at the moment, is the Unvaccinated Question, and the public rituals that are being performed to make the New Normal ideology “reality,” and what to do about those of us who refuse to participate in those rituals, who refuse to forswear “old normal” reality and convert to New Normalism so that we can function in society without being segregated, criminalized, or “diagnosed” as “sociopathic” or otherwise psychiatrically disordered.
For us “conspiracy-theorizing reality deniers,” there is no getting around this dilemma. This isn’t Europe in the 1930s. There isn’t anywhere to emigrate to … OK, there is, temporarily, in some of the US states that have been staging rebellions, and other such “old normal” oases, but how long do you think that will last? They’re already rolling out the “mutant variants,” and God only knows what will happen when the long-term effects of the “vaccines” kick in.
No, for most of us denizens of the global capitalist empire, it looks like the New Normal is here to stay. So, unless we are prepared to become New Normals, we are going to have to stand and fight. It is going to get rather ugly, and personal, but there isn’t any way to avoid that. Given that many New Normals are our friends and colleagues, or even members of our families, it is tempting to believe that they will “come to their senses,” that “this is all just a hysterical overreaction,” and that “everything will go back to normal soon.”
This would be a monumental error on our parts … very possibly a fatal error.
Totalitarian movements, when they reach this stage, do not simply stop on their own. They continue to advance toward their full expressions, ultimately transforming entire societies into monstrous mirror-images of themselves, unless they are opposed by serious resistance. There is a window at the beginning when such resistance has a chance. That window is still open, but it is closing, fast. I can’t tell you how best to resist, but I can tell you it starts with seeing things clearly, and calling things, and people, exactly what they are.
Let’s not make the same mistake that other minorities have made throughout history when confronted with a new totalitarian ideology. See the New Normals for what they are, maybe not deep down in their hearts, but what they have collectively become a part of, because it is the movement that is in control now, not the rational individuals they used to be. Above all, recognize where this is headed, where totalitarian movements are always headed. (See. e.g., Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45.)
No, the Unvaccinated are not the Jews and the New Normals are not flying big Swastika flags, but totalitarianism is totalitarianism, regardless of which Goebbelsian Big Lies, and ideology, and official enemies it is selling. The historical context and costumes change, but its ruthless trajectory remains the same.
Today, the New Normals are presenting us with a “choice,” (a) conform to their New Normal ideology or (b) social segregation. What do you imagine they have planned for us tomorrow?
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MILITARY INDUSTRIAL BOONDOGGLE
By Paul Robinson | IRRUSSIANALITY | March 29, 2021
Today in my defence policy course my students and I shall be spending some time discussing defence procurement. As luck would have it, as I was munching on my morning bread and marmalade, a highly relevant article swam into view in the op-ed page of my local rag, The Ottawa Citizen, after which I then discovered a new US report on a similar topic.
The Citizen article concerns Canada’s shockingly badly managed naval shipbuilding program. Written by a former Assistant Deputy Minister of Defence, Alan Williams, the article declares that ‘Canada’s Warship Program is Sinking Fast.’ In this Williams reports that Canada’s plan to build 15 new surface combatants originally had
an estimated cost of $26 billion, with deliveries to begin in the early 2020s. Today, the forecasted costs to build these ships is far beyond that. Deliveries are to start in the early 2030s, a decade later than scheduled … [The Parliamentary Budget Office] estimates that it will cost $77.3 billion … to maintain these ships over their expected total life-cycle would amount to an additional $208 billion, for a total life-cycle cost of $286 billion. In comparison, the funds available in DND’s [Department of National Defence] budget over the next 30 years to acquire and maintain its capital goods for the army, navy and air force combined is only $240 billion. This program alone would bankrupt the department’s capital and maintenance accounts for the next 30 years.
Despite this, DND insists that, ‘It will neither entertain a new design nor undertake a new procurement process.’ Williams adds that the United States is building very similar ships for about one-third of the price of the Canadian ones, and also that DND rejected an offer by the Italian company Fincantieri to build the ships in Canada ‘at a fixed cost of $30 billion’, less than half what DND is now paying. ‘As currently planned, these ships will likely never be built. They are simply unaffordable,’ concludes Williams.
But could the government cancel such a project after throwing so much money at it? That’s where the US report comes in. Published by the American Enterprise Institute, and entitled The 2020s Tri-Service Modernization Crunch, the report mentions how the shift in priorities during the War on Terror led the USA to cancel a whole series of projects originally designed for fighting wars of a different type. You can see the details in this chart, showing cancelled projects from 2002 to 2012 alone.
The ‘Sunk Cost’ column shows how much the US government had already spent on the project by the time it was cancelled. For instance, the Future Combat System, designed to revolutionize the US army by equipping it with networked vehicles, cost a staggering $22 billion before it was scrubbed. In total, in just one decade 2002-2012, projects were cancelled that had cost $81 billion. That’s $81 billion of taxpayers’ money that produced absolutely nothing! Nadda. Think about that for a second.
Waste on this scale is quite staggering. You’d think people would be outraged. But for whatever reason, it seems like nobody cares very much. It’s as if it’s just assumed that this is the cost of doing business.
Meanwhile, some people are doing very well out of it, namely defence industries. They, no doubt, would tell us all that the money isn’t wasted, because it all helps to stimulate the economy. ‘Money spent on defence boosts growth’ they tell us. But does it? I decide to check, and discovered this little table that summarizes economists’ research into the multiplier effect of defence spending.
For those of you without economics training, the multiplier effect is a measurement of how much the economy grows as a result of expenditure. The idea is that if the state spends some money on x, then that produces spending on y, which in turn produces spending on z, so that for every buck you spend, you stimulate the economy as a whole by several bucks. So what’s the multiplier of defence spending? The table tells us.
As you can see, research on the matter suggests strongly that for every dollar spend on defence, you get less than a dollar’s growth in the economy, with most studies showing a multiplier of around 0.6.
So, defence spending isn’t so great for the economy after all. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Yet somehow, we allow huge sums of money to be squandered on unnecessary and grotesquely overpriced military projects. I don’t know about you, but it suggests to me that there’s something seriously wrong with our democracy.
PS. An article published yesterday in Sputnik News tells us that the Russian Navy is planning to test its new Zircon hypersonic missile at the start of the summer. Coming on top of the deployment of Russia’s Avangard intercontinental hypersonic glide missile, this puts Russia well ahead of the rest of the world in the realm of hypersonic technology. Russia’s defence spending is about three times that of Canada in raw dollar terms (about $65 v. $22 billion). Yet, it’s in a completely different league. We can’t build a few ships. They can develop hypersonic missiles. All of which makes me think that raw numbers of defence spending don’t tell us everything. Just as important is how effectively the money is spent. From that perspective, we don’t seem to be doing so well.
UK Now Considering Digital Face Scanning to Enter Pubs
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | March 29, 2021
The UK government is funding companies that are producing technology which will utilize digital face scans to check people’s vaccination status and allow or block them from entering pubs, stadiums and other venues.
“Britons could have their faces scanned to allow them to access pubs, gigs and sports events under one government-funded plan being drawn up for vaccine passports,” reports the London Times.
Two companies – Mvine and iProov – are working together on the system after being given a £75,000 grant by the government having already worked with the NHS on facial recognition technology in the form of the contact tracing app.
The technology is being proposed as a solution to concerns that presenting vaccination status via an app on a phone will be too slow when multiple people are entering a busy venue.
“Whoever is standing on the door of the pub is going to have to scan the certificate, read the name and date of birth, then ask the person for an ID document, check that the name and date of birth on the ID document are the same, squint at the photograph on the ID document and then make sure that the person in front of them is that person,” iProov CEO Andrew Bud said. “To which the answer is, that’s not going to happen.”
Bud said that the facial recognition system would reduce this process to a matter of seconds, streamlining the system.
“It speeds the process up and it absolves people of what would otherwise be a very heavy responsibility,” he added.
After months of promising that there would be no domestic vaccine passport, every indication is now that the government is going ahead with it.
Millions of Brits will refuse to submit to digital face scans to go about their everyday business, but the vast majority are likely to accept it without question, creating a two tier society where those who resist the biosecurity surveillance state will remain in a de facto permanent state of lockdown.
This again underscores the fact that the ‘vaccine passport’ is a digital identity card that citizens will be expected to carry at all times and use whenever they want to engage in basic commerce or other normal leisure activity.
The Covid-19 pandemic has taken thought policing and wokeness to a whole new level
By Rachel Marsden | RT | March 28, 2021
What’s the link between vaccine militancy, Covid jab passports, and a woke Church of Sweden theologian suggesting Christians should accept Prophet Mohammed out of “respect” for Muslims? Let me tell you.
For years now, Western society has been on a slippery slope towards total rejection of the old philosophy of ‘live and let live’. And that slope is a slip’n’slide with a brick wall at the end of it. It was only a matter of time before society slammed into it. There were many exit ramps and flashing warning signs en route, but, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It all seemed to start innocently enough when social justice warriors advocated in favor of tolerance of diversity. Fair enough. What reasonable person would have a problem with people being able to live their own life as they see fit, as long as it didn’t impede on anyone else’s?
The only real confusion was that by focusing on the kind that’s based on appearance or traits that individuals can’t control, these activists limited their mission to increasing only the most superficial kinds of diversity, which is in itself a form of discrimination against the very people for whom they purport to advocate. These militants effectively reduce people to one-dimensional figures by underscoring the kind of traits that are only visible on the most cringeworthy dating hook-up apps while negating the kind of diversity that is unseen and far more deep. But society ultimately conceded to their worldview, which served only to embolden them.
The next step was to advocate beyond simple tolerance in favor of the policing and rejection of any thoughts that diverged from theirs. It was the view of social justice warriors that everyone should be able to call themselves what they wish – he/him, she/her, ve/ver, xe/xem, ze/hir, (f)ae/(f)aer, etc – and have the right to dictate how others view them. Those lacking the bandwidth to wrap their minds around this new language system have been able to sidestep it by simply referring to people by their name, for example. But it was the beginning of the emergence of two parallel languages and cultures, and, ultimately, social segregation, with one for the “woke” and their sympathizers, and the other for the traditionalists.
More recently, the push for diversity has even reached realms that are by definition traditional in the strictest sense. Literally nothing is sacred anymore, not even religion. Earlier this month, a theologian of the Church of Sweden, who may or may not be a woke millennial, suggested that Christians could accept Prophet Mohammed in the interests of greater respect for Muslims, apparently seeking to treat centuries-old institutions like they’re a Marvel/DC crossover akin to having Spider-Man and Superman team up.
So, where is all this leading now? It’s pretty obvious. The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the militant policing of others’ thoughts and behaviour to a whole new level. Anyone making their own decisions about their life amid this global fiasco has been shamed for wrong-think, in a page taken straight from George Orwell’s ‘1984’, written in 1949, in which a character is executed for thoughtcrime. It’s not uncommon for workers nowadays to be fired from their jobs if the company feels the individual has violated what it considers to be proper conduct in the Covid-19 era. It’s not quite the same as Orwell’s imagined punishment by ‘vaporization’, but we seem to be getting there. Woke citizens who are completely intolerant of anyone whose views and behaviour diverges from theirs amid the pandemic are already in hysterics over people choosing not to wear face masks or electing where to wear them, or opting to go about their daily life as normally as possible.
Now we’re starting to see these same militant sanitary authoritarians wanting to dictate to others whether they should be forced to be vaccinated. And governments are playing along, with several nations evoking the notion of vaccine passports for travel or simply to enter certain indoor venues. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for example, has raised the possibility of British pub owners having the option of reserving the right of access to their establishment to those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Similarly, it appears that even higher education may soon be something reserved for the vaccinated class, with Rutgers University in New Jersey setting the tone for the next school year by requiring that students be vaccinated in order to attend.
Will others follow suit? How about mass transit, gyms, libraries, restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls, swimming pools? Are we currently witnessing the beginning of the segregation of society based on vaccination? If so, it’ll be to the detriment of anyone skeptical about turning their body over to Big Pharma lest they find themselves barred from what most would consider normal life.
Yet there are people cheering for exactly that. The mere thought of people who think and behave differently to them is intolerable. The authoritarian policing of other people’s lives – the sort of extremism that used to be relegated to science fiction – is now nearly a fait accompli. And authoritarian wokeness disguised as benevolence is exactly how we ended up here.
Rachel Marsden, columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com
New York’s Covid Vaccine Passport Makes No Sense
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute For Political Economy | March 29, 2021
NY Governor Cuomo is establishing a Covid passport that will show vaccination or a recent negative test. It will serve as permission to enter events or venues.
Will this passport be efficacious, or is its purpose to get us accustomed to a “your papers please” way of life?
Allegedly, the combination of people with vaccinations and those recovered from infection have, or are, bringing about “herd immunity.” If so, what is the point of a passport?
There are credible reports that some who have been vaccinated have nevertheless come down with Covid, which raises doubt about the efficacy of the vaccine. There are other reports that antibodies produced by the vaccines are not long lasting.
How recent must the Covid test be to make the passport valid. A person could have a negative test and catch Covid on the way home. If the passport relies on a negative test, the passport will have to expire after some designated period unless the passport is renewed with a new test.
There is also the problem that the widely used PCR test produces false negatives and false positives. In other words, is the information on which the passport is issued valid information?
We can laugh at the passport as a silly over-reaction to a virus that in most cases is hardly more dangerous than flu, or we can understand it as a control measure over our freedom of movement and association. We are the safer if we view it as the latter.
Police already have too much power to invade homes without warrants and to stop and search people on the streets without warrants. “Probable cause” has been used to curtail civil liberty.
I am convinced that no health purpose will be served by Covid passports, and that the public should protest the introduction of a Soviet-style internal passport.
Once established, the Covid passport will be a boon for Big Pharma. A yearly booster shot will be decreed, and without it your passport will expire.
Keep in mind that Florida avoided lockdowns and mask mandates and has no worse infection and death rate than lockdown states.
Notice also that many highly qualified experts have criticized the lockdowns, mask mandates, use of untested vaccines, and the prohibition on using safe effective treatments such as HCQ and Ivermectin. Why were their voices censored and the information kept from the public? The only explanation I can think of is that Covid is being used for an unstated agenda. We should not be deceived into cooperating with this unstated agenda.
A democracy that censors expert testimony and prohibits public debate is well on its way to a police state.
A public that can be stampeeded by orchestrated fear into being jabbed with vaccines that could be more dangerous than Covid is not a public that can expect to remain in freedom.
BBC Presenter “Won’t Hug Parents” As It’s “Not Permitted”
By Richie Allen | March 29, 2021
“I’m really looking forward to seeing my parents later”, Rick Edwards told Rachel Burden this morning. The BBC Radio 5 Live presenters were discussing the gradual easing of lockdown, which begins today. “I won’t hug them though”, Edwards hastily added. “Hugging is still not permitted.”
Edwards hasn’t seen his parents in a long time. He’s been avoiding them for fear of killing them with covid. The planet is an open-air lunatic asylum now. Madness reigns supreme. Who’d have believed that such conversations would ever be possible let alone normal?
“How long is it since you saw yer mum?”
“Six months.”
“Shielding?”
“Yep, the government told them to shield cos they’re vulnerable. I’m seeing them later though.”
“Looking forward to it?”
“Yes, but I can’t hug them. Hugging isn’t permitted.”
I met a man in my local park this morning. Lovely bloke. Our dogs were playing and we had a natter. He told me he hasn’t seen his grandchildren in a year.
His daughter is a real stickler for the rules. They get on fine and pre-covid he watched them three times a week. They’re in Liverpool. He’d usually make the short drive.
Now he chats with them on Skype. His daughter won’t hear of them meeting up. She took the “don’t kill granny/grandad” nonsense to heart. The little ones are terrified they’ll make him sick. He has no say in it. He’s concerned that the fear-porn is damaging the kids.
It’s a madhouse. As I write this, Stephen Dixon on SKY News is telling viewers that he’s thrilled to bits that outdoor swimming is “allowed” and that he can now meet with up to six people, because the government said it’s permitted.
A new ad campaign, fronted by ITV resident doctor Hilary Jones, tells us all to “be firm” with friends and relatives if they try to hug us and give them “gentle reminders” about distancing.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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