By Lucas Leiroz | June 25, 2021
Since March, the situation between the US and North Korea has been gradually worsening. That month, American Chancellor Antony Blinken took his first international trip, whose destinations were Japan and South Korea, where conversations with local leaders about North Korea were carried out. On the occasion, Blinken highlighted alleged human rights violations in the country and the “threat” posed by the North Korean nuclear program to international security in that Asian region.
He stated that Washington, Tokyo and Seoul will work together to achieve the denuclearization of Pyongyang, which was taken as a threat by the North Korean government, leading to immediate responses such as the launch of two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan and a warning issued by the sister of the supreme leader, Kim Yo Jong, who said that “if it [the US ] wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step”.
Reports issued by US military and intelligence agents in April stated that North Korea has more nuclear weapons than ever and is unwilling to give up its arsenal, prompting the US government to make constant pronouncements on the need of denuclearization, claiming that this is the only condition for dialogue between the two countries. In early June, Kim appeared in public commenting that the Biden government has a “hostile policy” towards North Korea. On June 12, during a meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Worker’s Party of Korea, Kim called for measures to boost military combat effectiveness, warning of new challenges on the Korean peninsula.
Despite continuing to respond to Biden’s impositions with severe displays of force, resuming military tests and claiming to be prepared for an eventual conflict, one factor has harmed Korea considerably: the food crisis. Kim Jong Un recently made remarks about the country’s current supply crisis, warning of a serious food insecurity situation – the worst in decades. The effects of the pandemic hit the country at the same time that several natural disasters damaged agriculture and generated serious instability in grain production. At the end of May, China announced that it would economically help Korea by increasing trade with the country, but the crisis is still far from being resolved.
In his most recent speech, last week, Kim said that Korea is prepared for both confrontation and dialogue, showing signs that, while not giving up on its interests, it is willing to talk with Biden and reach an agreement to ease tensions – which would help Korea at this time of crisis. But the US government was not sensitive to the situation in the Asian country. Blinken responded to the Korean leader’s speech by saying Washington is waiting for “a clearer signal from Pyongyang.” What would be a clearer signal than the country’s president saying he is prepared for dialogue? It would be precisely Kim claiming that he is willing to give up on his nuclear program.
North Korea reduced the bellicose speech it had been maintaining since March and received nothing in return from Washington. The most curious point is that Kim sought a more neutral stance precisely at a time of intensified tensions between the US and China. At the last NATO summit, China was considered a “global security challenge”, being treated in an anti-diplomatic way. Beijing is the biggest ally of the Korean government and all measures against China affect Pyongyang in some way.
Pyongyang will react to the American stance by canceling any willingness to dialogue and tightening military policies, at least as long as the country is able to maintain such measures. Still, it is possible that Biden will take advantage of Korea’s moment of vulnerability to act even more militarily. An open confrontation is unlikely to happen as no conflict between two nuclear-armed states is viable, but demonstrations of force such as tests, missile launches, and symbolic naval warfare are possible scenarios for the near future. Also, such measures would be a proxy confrontation with China, which is allied with North Korea.
In short, Biden is reversing a great positive legacy of the Trump era, which was the achievement of partial stability in US-North Korea relations. The former government has shown that coercion and force are not the most effective methods of pursuing the denuclearization of a country. But Biden’s policy seems to follow an old bellicose mentality that is absolutely unproductive today.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
June 25, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Korea, United States |
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Emails that have now surfaced show that Joe Biden campaign officials pressured Facebook to censor his opponent, Donald Trump – specifically the Team Trump account – ahead of the 2020 US presidential election.
CNN writes about this, framing this revelation as proof that misinformation and what it calls “violent rhetoric” was rampant on Facebook and not properly addressed by the giant – rather than what others will see as proof of concerning levels of undue influence politicians tried to exert on the world’s biggest social media platform.
The report said that the emails show Democrats had become very worried about “misinformation” – and apparently very unhappy with an uncooperative Facebook, what a former Biden campaign staffer said “essentially did nothing” when faced with a barrage of public and private complaints and letters coming from the party.
Not only the election but also the January 6 breach in Washington DC are thrown in as yet more evidence that Facebook was not diligent enough in suppressing and censoring information, because it allowed protesters to use it to plan their activities (at the time, though, legacy media like CNN accused independent alternative platforms as hubs for this, leading the charge in what resulted in wiping some of them off the social media map).
Some might wonder what makes CNN play the risky game of effectively unmasking the Biden campaign as privately putting pressure on Facebook to act in a certain way, and the answer may be – in order to put on yet more pressure, this time with the 2022 midterm elections in mind.
One of the emails that have now been made public concerns a video posted by Team Trump showing Donald Trump Jr. accusing Democrats of planning to rig the election, and calling on Trump supporters to rally around their candidate to oppose this. Facebook slapped a label on the video, but that was not enough for Democrats.
In order to get the video banned, a senior Biden campaign figure wrote to Facebook on September 22, cautioning the giant that it was not implementing its own policies around “voter suppression” – that Democrats were apparently previously privately assured would be enforced. At one point the email “implores” Facebook to approach the issue with “a sense of mission.”
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | Facebook, Joe Biden, United States |
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“The Trump–Deep State clash is a showdown between a presidency that is far too powerful versus federal agencies that have become fiefdoms with immunity for almost any and all abuses,” I wrote in an FFF article a year ago. Since then, Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by fewer than 50,000 votes in a handful of swing states that determined the Electoral College result. There were numerous issues that could drive that relatively small number of votes. But machinations by the Deep State probably cost Trump far more votes than it took to seal his loss.
“The Deep State” commonly refers to officials who secretly wield power permanently in Washington, often in federal agencies with vast sway and little accountability. During Trump’s first impeachment, the establishment media exalted the Deep State. New York Times columnist James Stewart assured readers that the secretive agencies “work for the American people,” New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle hailed the Deep State as “a collection of patriotic public servants,” and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson captured the Beltway’s verdict: “God bless the Deep State!”
The first three years of Trump’s presidency were haunted by constant accusations that he had colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. The FBI launched its investigation on the basis of ludicrous allegations from a dossier financed by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. FBI officials deceived the FISA Court to authorize surveilling the Trump campaign. A FISA warrant is the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI “to conduct simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target’s home, workplace and vehicles,” as well as “physical searches of the target’s residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails,” as a FISA court decision noted. The FISA court is extremely deferential, approving 99 percent of all search warrant requests.
Leaks from federal officials spurred media hysteria that put Trump on the defensive even before he took his oath of office in January 2017. A 2018 Inspector General (IG) report revealed that one FBI agent labeled Trump supporters as “retarded” and declared, “I’m with her” (Clinton). Another FBI employee texted that “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer texted that he was “devastated” by Trump’s election and declared, “Viva la Resistance!” and “I never really liked the Republic anyway.” The same person became the “primary FBI attorney assigned to [the Russian election-interference] investigation beginning in early 2017,” the IG noted.
FBI chief James Comey leaked official memos to friendly reporters, thereby spurring the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump. A 2019 Inspector General report noted that top FBI officials told the IG that they were “shocked,” “stunned,” and “surprised’ that Comey would leak the contents of one of the memos to a reporter. The IG concluded, “The unauthorized disclosure of this information — information that Comey knew only by virtue of his position as FBI Director — violated the terms of his FBI Employment Agreement and the FBI’s Prepublication Review Policy.” The IG concluded that by using sensitive information “to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.” The IG report warned that “the civil liberties of every individual who may fall within the scope of the FBI’s investigative authorities depend on FBI’s ability to protect sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure.” But the only penalty that Comey suffered was to collect multimillion-dollar advances for his book deals.
The Steele dossier
In December 2019, another Inspector General report confirmed that the FBI made “fundamental errors” to justify surveilling the Trump campaign. The FBI refrained from launching a FISA warrant request until it came into possession of a dossier from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent. The Steele dossier played “a central and essential role in the decision by FBI [Office of General Counsel] to support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter Page, as well as the FBI’s ultimate decision to seek the FISA order,” the IG report concluded. The FBI “drew almost entirely” from the Steele dossier to prove a “well-developed conspiracy” between Russians and the Trump campaign. The IG found that FBI agents were “unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page” in the Steele dossier but the FBI relied on Steele’s allegations regardless.
The FBI withheld from the FISA court key details that obliterated the dossier’s credibility, including a warning from a top Justice Department official that “Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC [Democratic National Committee].” The CIA disdained the Steele dossier as “an internet rumor,” one FBI official told IG investigators.
Many if not most of the damning details involving Russiagate have still not been disclosed. But the occasional disclosures are doing nothing to burnish the credibility of the key players. On January 12, 2017, Comey attested to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court that the Steele dossier used to hound the Trump campaign had been “verified.” But on the same day, he emailed the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, “We are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting.” That email was revealed this past February, thanks to a multi-year fight for disclosure by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
If the FBI’s deceit and political biases had been exposed in real time, there would have been far less national outrage when Trump fired Comey. Instead, that firing was quickly followed by the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Russian charges. In April 2019, Mueller admitted there was no evidence of collusion. Conniving by FBI officials and the veil of secrecy that hid their abuses had roiled national politics for years.
Not one FBI official has spent a single day in jail for the abuses. In January, former FBI assistant general counsel Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced after he admitted falsifying key evidence used to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. A federal prosecutor declared that the “resulting harm is immeasurable” from Clinesmith’s action. But a federal judge believed that a wrist slap was sufficient punishment — 400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The Deep State defeated Trump in part because the president appointed agency chiefs who were more devoted to secrecy than to truth. Bureaucratic barricades were reinforced by judges who repeatedly defied common sense to perpetuate iron curtains around federal agencies.
Syria
Trump’s failure to extract the United States from the Syrian civil war was one of his biggest foreign policy pratfalls. Each time he sought to exit that quagmire, the Washington establishment and Deep State agencies pushed back.
When Trump tried to end CIA assistance to Syrian terrorist groups in July 2017, a Washington Post article portrayed his reversal in apocalyptic terms. Trump responded with an angry tweet: “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.” That disclosure spurred a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the New York Times for CIA records on payments to Syrian rebel groups. The CIA denied the request and the case ended up in court.
CIA officer Antoinette Shiner warned the court that forcing the CIA to admit that it possessed any records of aiding Syrian rebels would “confirm the existence and the focus of sensitive Agency activity that is by definition kept hidden to protect U.S. government policy objectives.” Of course, “kept hidden” doesn’t apply to the CIA when it was engaged in “not for attribution” bragging to reporters. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius proudly cited an estimate from a “knowledgeable official” that “CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”
Federal judges, unlike Syrian civilians slaughtered by U.S.-funded terrorist groups, had the luxury of pretending the program didn’t exist. In a decision last July, the federal appeals court of the Second Circuit stressed that affidavits from CIA officials are “accorded a presumption of good faith” and stressed “the appropriate deference owed” to the CIA. The judges omitted quoting former CIA chief Mike Pompeo’s description of his agency’s modus operandi: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s like we had entire training courses.”
Since Trump’s tweet did not specifically state that the program he was seeking to terminate actually existed, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend it was still top secret. The judges concluded with another kowtow, stressing that they were “mindful of the requisite deference courts traditionally owe to the executive in the area of classification.” Judge Robert Katzmann dissented, declaring that the court’s decision put its “imprimatur to a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible.”
On February 9, another federal appeals court shot down a FOIA request from BuzzFeed journalist Jason Leopold who had sought the same records on the basis of Trump’s tweet. But the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia unanimously blocked Leopold’s request: “Did President Trump’s tweet officially acknowledge the existence of a program? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. And therein lies a problem.” The judges proffered no evidence that Trump had tweeted about a program that didn’t exist. The judges reached into an “Alice in Wonderland” bag of legal tricks and plucked out this pretext: “Even if the President’s tweet revealed some program, it did not reveal the existence of Agency records about that alleged program.” Since Trump failed to specify the exact room number where the records were located at CIA headquarters, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend the records didn’t exist.
Only a federal judge could shovel that kind of hokum. Well, also members of Congress and editorial writers, but that’s a story for another month.
In his final months in office, Trump repeatedly promised massive declassification which never came. Was the president stymied by persons he had unwisely appointed, such as CIA chief Gina Haspel and FBI chief Christopher Wray? Or was that simply another series of empty Twitter eruptions that Trump failed to follow up? Instead, his legacy is another grim reminder of how government secrecy can determine political history.
Have Deep State federal agencies become a Godzilla with the prerogative to undermine elections? Unfortunately, there’s no chance that federal judges would permit disclosure of the answer to that question. Former CIA and NSA boss Michael Hayden proudly proclaimed, “Espionage is not just compatible with democracy; it’s essential for democracy.” And how can we know if the Deep State’s espionage is actually pro-democracy or subversive of democracy? Again, don’t expect judges to permit any truths to escape on that score.
Secrecy is the ultimate entitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year. The more documents bureaucrats classify, the more lies politicians and government officials can tell. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson warned in 2019, “If people don’t have the facts, democracy doesn’t work.” Actually, it is working very well for the FBI, CIA, and other Deep State agencies.
This article was originally published in the May 2021 edition of Future of Freedom.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | CIA, FBI, United States |
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A leading Palestinian human rights activist, who was an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s leadership, has died after being arrested by security forces in the occupied West Bank.
Nizar Banat, a resident of the flashpoint West Bank city of al-Khalil, was arrested in a dawn raid by PA’s security forces on his home on Thursday.
The 43-year-old activist, as his family said, was in bed when some two dozen PA officers broke into his home in the town of Dura, located some 11 kilometers southwest of al-Khalil, and started to severely beat him.
His family described what happened with Nezar as a “premeditated assassination” since he had been beaten hard with iron and wooden batons and as a result, he had lost consciousness.
“When he woke up, they arrested him naked and transferred him into an unknown place by 25 members of the security forces,” the family said, calling for the full disclosure of facts surrounding Banat’s death and those responsible.
Al-Khalil Governor Jamil al-Bakri, declining to comment on allegations by Banat’s family, said in a statement that the public prosecution had issued a summons for Banat and that “during the arrest his health deteriorated.”
“Following issuing a summons from the Public Prosecution to arrest the citizen Nizar Khalil Muhammad Banat, a force from the security services arrested him at dawn today, and during the arrest his health deteriorated. He was immediately transferred to the Hebron Government Hospital,” the statement said.
“After he was examined by doctors, he was pronounced dead,” it added. “The Public Prosecution office started procedures in accordance with the law immediately after it was informed of the incident.”
Banat was well known for his strong criticism of the PA leadership and had been arrested several times in the past by Palestinian security forces.
The rights activist, who intended to run in parliamentary elections before they were canceled earlier this year, had for months been posting videos on Facebook, in which he lambasted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials.
Banat’s death was met with anger on the streets of the West Bank, as well as criticism from human rights organizations and Palestinian factions, which have called for an independent investigation as specific circumstances of his death remain unclear.
Palestine’s Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh was said to have ordered the immediate formation of an impartial investigation committee to look into the death of Banat after his arrest by the security forces in his house.
Major General Talal Dweikat, the General Political Commissioner and spokesman for the security services, was cited by the Palestinian Wafa news agency as saying that there is no objection to the participation of human rights institutions in the investigation committee, stressing that the government is ready to take any measures that result from the findings of the committee.
The committee will be headed by Minister of Justice Mohammad Shalaldeh, with the participation of a human rights official, a physician appointed by the Banat family, and a security official.
Hamas, Palestinian factions blast Banat’s death in custody
The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement condemned the death in custody of Banat, and said in a statement that this orchestrated crime reflects the intentions of the Palestinian Authority against the Palestinians and politicians.
Hamas held Abbas and his government accountable for the activist’s death.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a member of the Hamas movement’s political bureau, said, “We consider that [PA] Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh bears the primary responsibility for the murder of activist and parliamentary candidate Nizar Banat, and we call for the killers to be prosecuted.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said in a statement that the left-wing faction held the PA responsible for Banat’s death.
“The arrest and then the assassination of Nizar again raises questions on the nature of the role and function of the PA and its security services, and its violation of the democratic rights of citizens through the policy of silence, prosecution, arrest and murder,” the PFLP said.
Ayed Yaghi, an official of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) movement in the besieged Gaza Strip, said in a statement that the party condemned Banat’s “arrest and subsequent death.”
Yaghi called for the formation of an independent investigation committee to conduct a comprehensive investigation into what happened and to ensure that those responsible for Banat’s death were punished.
The veteran Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi said in a tweet that, “The violent arrest & death in detention of Nizar Banat by the Palestinian security forces is a serious crime & a dangerous development.”
“The deterioration of conditions has gone unchecked for some time which led to this escalation. Accountability is imperative.”
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also expressed its deep shock at the circumstances of Banat’s death.
The organization demanded an urgent and independent investigation into the case, saying all the circumstances pointed to a deliberate “process of liquidation” to suppress a voice strongly opposed to the policies of the PA.
The United Nations Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland also said he was “alarmed and saddened” by Banat’s death.
“My deepest condolences to his family & loved ones,” he added. “I call for a swift, independent & transparent investigation. Perpetrators must be brought to justice.”
Moreover, hundreds of angry Palestinians marched towards Abbas’ presidential compound in the West Bank on Thursday to demand his resignation over the death of the well-known activist.
As they were repelled by tear gas fire on the way to Abbas’s palace, they screamed “traitors, traitors” towards the forces.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Palestine, West Bank |
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When the so-called war on domestic terrorism was declared quite early on in the Joe Biden Administration it provoked a wave of dissent from those who recognized that it would inevitably be used to stifle free speech and target constituencies that do not agree with the White House’s plans for sweeping changes in how the country is governed. Some rightly pointed out that every time the Federal government declares war on anyone or anything, to include drugs, poverty, or even Afghanistan, the results are generally counter-productive. But others noted that once fundamental liberties are taken away they will likely never return.
At first there were reports that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were increasing their investigations, many centered on the so-called U.S. Capitol “insurrection” of January 6th, which it now appears might have been in part incited by the FBI itself. The scope of the inquiries into how perfectly legal opposition groups operate and proliferate in the U.S. soon broadened to include opponents of much of the social engineering that the Democrats have brought with them to change the face of America. “Hate” or “extremist” groups and individuals became the targets with “hate” and “extremism” liberally defined as anyone whose identity or agenda did not coincide with that of the Democratic Party.
This effort to root out “domestic terrorism” needed a focus and that came with what was claimed to be an intelligence community joint assessment in March which labeled “white supremacists” and “anti-government extremists” as “the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat.” The White House echoed that judgement, claiming that the report’s conclusions had identified “the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today.”
The report’s conclusions were somewhat odd and it would be interesting to know who wrote it and whether there was any dissent over what it included. Presumably, no one was empowered to suggest that surging black violence over the past year is a major “domestic terror” issue. The conclusion therefore was skewed – while no one would deny that there have been violent incidents involving white racist group and individuals, they are far outnumbered by the deaths that have taken place due to the black lives matter movement, which both government and corporate America have embraced. Given that, the targeting of “white” groups must be considered to be essentially political, particularly insofar as the White House and Attorney General Merrick Garland have made every effort to link the “racist-extremists” to the Republican Party and more particularly to Donald Trump.
All of this came together last Tuesday when Garland released the first-ever “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” which had been a work in progress ordered by President Biden on his very first day in office. The plan is a curious mixture of enhancement of traditional law enforcement measures, to include calls for increased information-sharing between governments and technology sectors, as well as an infusion of over $100 million to hire more focused prosecutors, investigators, and intelligence specialists. Ominously, it also supports setting up mechanisms for screening government employees for ties to “extremist” and hate groups, meaning that anyone belonging to a group that praises the virtues of European nations or the white race will quickly become unemployed. Such screening is already taking place in the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department. The overall strategic objective is to attempt to prevent recruitment by extremist groups by, inter alia, increasing the law enforcement penetration and investigation of such entities while also marginalizing and punishing those individuals who do become members.
Biden’s war on domestic terrorism is so far lacking new legislation that will enable the authorities “to successfully hunt down, prosecute, and imprison homegrown extremists” just because they have been generically labeled extreme, but presumably that is coming. Interestingly, one would expect a Justice Department document to be race and gender neutral, but it is anything but that, again reenforcing that it is a political statement. It sees as a major objective for the government to directly confront “racism and bigotry as drivers of domestic terrorism.”
Merrick Garland spoke briefly to the media when he was releasing the document. He claimed that the robust government approach would not infringe on First and Fourth Amendment Constitutional rights, the rights of free speech and assembly and freedom from searches without due process. But then he oddly enough added that “The only way to find sustainable solutions is not only to disrupt and deter, but also to address the root causes of violence.” If one follows that line of reasoning and accepts that white supremacists are the major problem, then the assumption is that available resources will go to where the problem is: white people who oppose government policies, which might presumably include anyone who voted for Donald Trump.
Garland then added that the new strategy would be “focused on violence, not on ideology,” as “We do not prosecute people for their beliefs.” One might argue with that assertion as the policy clearly targets individuals for their beliefs, including that they have a constitutional right to be left alone by a meddling federal government. Ironically, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded to the document by complaining that its tactics employ “abusive counterterrorism tools that result in unfair and unjustified surveillance and targeting of Black and Brown people, particularly Muslims.” ACLU has it wrong and should have read the document more carefully: it actually targets white people.
Inevitably such a report that is seeking to pursue and transform most of the U.S. population produced a reaction. One of the most ridiculous came from Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who heads the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University, writing for The Atlantic, who believes it is a “public health problem, not a security issue.” She wrote “The extremism we’re now seeing in the U.S. is ‘post-organizational,’ characterized by fluid online boundaries and a breakdown of formal groups and movements …. To fight this amorphous kind of radicalization, the federal government needs to see the problem as a whole-of-society, public-health issue.”
So if it is a public health issue the government will no doubt order development of a vaccine at great expense that will be mandatory for all Americans above the age of twelve. As Biden has identified the threat in racial terms, even though it is being claimed that no one’s rights will be violated, how will a law enforcement let off the leash to pursue the target of choice respond? What to do about the numerous white ethnic societies that exist in the United States to celebrate their heritage? Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and German-Americans watch out! And wait a minute, aren’t organizations like black lives matter already supporting a certain level of violence to bring about change? But presumably only “whites” will be surveilled because the government has identified them as the problem. Looking at the issues being raised and the solutions being suggested one might conclude that the real problem in America is not necessarily extremism among the people but rather extremism in the government. We have been taught undesired and quite frankly hypocritical lessons by four presidents in a row and perhaps it is now time that we be left alone!
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Human rights, United States |
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A dark future looms
If this isn’t happening already – current and former MPs, legal experts and free speech activists are warning that UK’s upcoming Online Safety Bill getting approved in parliament might usher in the era of “algorithm-driven censorship.”
The concern is strong enough to have seen a group formed around the cause of preventing the bill’s adoption, with Index on Censorship and MP David Davis among its members.
UK’s Ofcom regulator would be enforcing the law that threatens massive fines going up to 10 percent of total global revenues of those companies found in violation of the future rules.
If the name of the proposed legislation sounds familiar, that’s because it is: this is what was previously known as 🛡 Online Harms Bill. Although renamed, the purpose remains the same: to make internet service providers like social media platforms and search engines used by UK residents liable for third-party content.
And the bill would exempt content posted by journalists, lawyers and politicians. Some suspect this provision is meant to ensure there is not much outcry from these influential public figures. But critics say it is also essentially discriminatory, dividing society into two two tiers, where freedom of expression is guaranteed to a privileged class, while other citizens face censorship – the kind “outsourced” to Silicon Valley and its algorithms.
The worry here is two-fold: that tech companies behind these services will opt to protect themselves at the expense of the right of their users to express themselves freely. To be able to achieve this at scale, they would employ algorithms to censor users whose content might end up harming their business.
The other concern is that private US companies will be deciding what UK citizens can and cannot say and access online, effectively assuming the role that supersedes the government’s powers in this area.
One of the group’s members, well-known media barrister Gavin Millar is cited as saying that the content tech companies would be tasked with removing is vague and sets “a very low threshold.”
“It’s fundamental, it’s important to remember that what’s at stake here is somebody exercising a fundamental human right,” Millar added.
But those behind the bill see it as a way to hold tech companies accountable – and “protect the British people from harm” – as Home Secretary Priti Patel put it.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK |
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The US and some other Western nations held up as “models of liberal democracy” are rapidly turning into totalitarian regimes reminiscent of the Soviet Union, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has claimed.
Speaking on Thursday at the Moscow Conference on International Security, Sergey Naryshkin claimed that there are “almost all signs of a totalitarian dictatorship” in some Western countries, including a “monopoly on the media,” the “police nature of the state,” and the “irremovability of oligarchic elites.”
“It is astonishing to see how the West is trying to divide our diverse world into two completely artificial camps – a supposedly democratic one and a supposedly authoritarian one,” Naryshkin said, noting Russia, China, and Iran have been placed into the second camp, along with NATO ally Turkey and, on some issues, EU member state Poland.
“The US and other so-called models of liberal democracy seem not to notice that they themselves are rapidly turning into a liberal-totalitarian regime,” the chief spook said.
According to Naryshkin, the West’s imposition of ideological attitudes is somewhat reminiscent of the history of the late Soviet Union, in that it doesn’t even believe the values it tries to project abroad.
However, the head spy pointed to the US-Russia summit in Switzerland earlier this month as a potential turning point, noting that he hopes the West will be able to use “the spirit of Geneva to try to build a safer and fairer world.”
Naryshkin’s belief that the West is attempting to split the world into ‘democratic’ and ‘authoritarian’ echoes a statement made by Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu at the same conference on Wednesday.
“Today, a new trend is coming to the fore,” Shoygu said. “The formation of global coalitions, the division of the world into ‘friends’ and ‘strangers.’”
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, Human rights, UK, United States |
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Genetic determinism: the belief that an individual’s character, thoughts, and actions are the result of his genes.
Freedom means: being free from, and outside of, ironclad cause and effect.
Which side of the argument will win? Nothing is riding on this…except the future of the human race.
For the past 150 years, genetics has been emerging and taking center stage as the pre-eminent philosophy of life on planet Earth.
For most people, philosophy is of zero concern. They refuse to believe it can influence their lives in any way.
However, we currently have the RNA COVID genetic treatments called vaccines, targeting billions of people. According to the bought-off experts, these destructive treatments are working, in machine-like fashion, to protect us from a phantom virus.
The genetics on which the vaccines are based occupy a distinct philosophic position: our thoughts and actions are the effects of our genes; scientists can interfere with that structure and replace it with another genetic framework, which in turn will impose new all-consuming actions, thoughts, and biological alterations upon us.
One new machine taking over from an older machine.
But there has never been a genetic cure for any disease. All attempts to prove that a disease stems from genes have failed. In this sense, genetics is a long con, both scientifically and philosophically.
Of course, the scientists will never admit this. They’re dedicated to tinkering and experimenting, “until they get it right.”
Veteran journalist Celia Farber describes one such experiment: “Jesse Gelsinger was 18 years old when he volunteered for a clinical trial at Penn State to test the effect on GT [gene therapy] on a rare metabolic disorder called OTC Deficiency. Within hours of being infused with ‘corrective genes’ encased in weakened adeno-virus, Jesse suffered multiple organ failure, and days later, his blood almost totally coagulated, swollen beyond recognition, and brain dead—he was taken off life support.” [1]
Just another day at the office for the funders and researchers. They’re working with billions of dollars and a vision of the future. Nothing must stand in their way.
Here is one of those visions, expressed by Gregory Stock [2], former director of the program in Medicine, Technology, and Society at the UCLA School of Medicine:
“Even if half the world’s species were lost [during genetic experiments], enormous diversity would still remain. When those in the distant future look back on this period of history, they will likely see it not as the era when the natural environment was impoverished, but as the age when a plethora of new forms—some biological, some technological, some a combination of the two—burst onto the scene…” [2a]
You need to understand that behind all this “envisioning” and experimenting, there is the solid conviction that freedom and free will are illusions that don’t exist. Therefore, all experiments are permitted, since they simply substitute one determinism for another, one machine for another. Life itself is viewed as nothing more than a pattern, a structure.
Huxley’s Brave New World wasn’t really a radical departure from the emerging genetic science of his time. It was a description of “better genetic programming,” carried to a logical conclusion. Humans would be fully outfitted with a biology that made them content and satisfied with their designated positions in life.
There was the thunder AND the lightning. Humans genetically conditioned for specific roles; and also conditioned to accept those roles beyond the possibility of rebellion.
What about the centuries of struggle and war and blood to establish political freedom? What about the Magna Carta and the Declaration of independence and the Constitution and its Amendments?
For the genetic philosophers, all that history is waste and meaningless garbage, since freedom does not exist.
I’m not talking about a small bunch of crazy philosophers closeted in a cellar and spinning fantasies. These people are carrying banners of the new world among the most elite Globalists.
The entire fake pandemic narrative, starting with the lie that researchers discovered a new virus, was launched in order to open a door for RNA genetic technology.
Yes, there were other reasons, but gene tech was central. Coming up, we will see new genetic treatments called vaccines. And drugs based on that tech.
Behind that—programs to make deeper and deeper genetic changes in humans.
The cover story for genetic research and experimentation is: we’re trying to cure disease.
The truth: machine minds are trying to convert other minds into machines.
What do contemporary philosophers have in their arsenal to combat this assault? Here is an example from Thomas Nagel [3], a professor at New York University:
“Even if determinism [the inevitable chain of cause and effect] isn’t true for everything that happens — even if some things just happen without being determined by causes that were there in advance — it would still be very significant if everything we did were determined before we did it. However free you might feel when choosing between fruit and cake, or between two candidates in an election, you would really be able to make only one choice in those circumstances—though if the circumstances or your desires had been different, you would have chosen differently.” [3a]
Really? That’s it?
Professor Nagel somehow KNOWS there is no such thing as free will?
Well, if that’s the case, he wrote those words because he had to, because of the very determinism he describes; he had no choice; and people reading those words of his think about them in a way that is also predetermined. The whole business is a puppet show and means absolutely nothing.
The “philosophy” of determinism is, when you scratch the surface, a philosophy of nihilism. Nothing means anything.
And its perpetrators aren’t bothered in the least. They’re quite content to stand on their absurd pretensions, while hard scientists inject populations with genes.
So much for academia as “the guardians of civilization.”
Most of them are weak sisters. I wouldn’t give a nickel for a gaggle of them.
Each one of us makes free choices every day of his life. Taking freedom into your mind implies working on a canvas as big and grand as you want to make it.
I’ll take the flaming poetry of Thomas Paine; December 23, 1776:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Finally, for now—in America, a country founded on the idea of freedom, a country that fought a devastating Civil War over slavery, can you find one college or university that, between the ratification of the Constitution and now…
Has taught a year-long course, year after year…
Called INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM?
This would be a course in which the history of the struggle for freedom is covered; philosophic and scientific writings about freedom are covered; and, most importantly, the students actively participate, in order to shape their own concepts of freedom that will endure for the rest of their lives.
Can you point to one such course—INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM—regularly taught, at one college?
I can’t.
What does this tell you?
Since the beginning of America, powerful forces have been at work to deny, refute, reject, and collapse the very premise on which the nation was based.
Has any student in America ever been awarded a PhD in Individual Freedom? I can’t find one.
“I see you’ve just founded a Space Travel Group. I’d be very interested in joining. I assume you cover all aspects of space travel. Rockets, ships, navigation, elements of survival during long voyages, colonization on distant planets, the fantastic marvels of these adventures…”
“Actually, no. We study the habits and tasks of ants. Their nests, hierarchy, division of labor, the biology of communal sharing, the ant genome, the virtues of overall genetic programming in achieving day-to-day goals of the colony…”
“I see. So you’re quite insane.”
“No. We know exactly what we’re doing and why.”
SOURCES:
[1] https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/the-machine-model-of-biology-denial
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Stock
[2a] https://thetattyjournal.org/2021/01/25/gene-editing-and-genetically-modified-humans-chinas-golem-babies-there-is-another-agenda/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel
[3a] https://laurenralpert.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/nagel-free-will.pdf
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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A group of concert and theatre bosses led by Andrew Lloyd Webber has launched legal action against the British government in a bid to force it to publish data from a trial assessing the safety of indoor events during the pandemic.
The concert managers and theatre producers are demanding that the government provide data from its Events Research Programme – a trial assessing the safety of indoor events – so that they can plan to finally reopen their institutions.
In a statement on Thursday, they said the government had “refused to publish the results from the first phase of the Events Research Programme, despite saying that it would do so on numerous occasions.”
The statement adds that, in addition to not publishing the data from the trial, the government has not provided any form of insurance scheme to safeguard the industry against any further delays following 15 months of closures due to Covid curbs.
The entertainment bosses claim that, according to the government, the trial has been a huge success, which in turn has contributed to the increasing frustration within the entertainment sector concerning the industry’s continuing dormant state.
Pilot events under the programme, which the industry participated in, included the BRIT Awards at the O2 Arena, an outdoor festival event in Liverpool for 5,000 people, a snooker tournament at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, and the Download festival for 10,000 people last weekend.
The reopening of the theatre industry in England has been pushed back from its anticipated late June date until July 19, following the spread of the more infectious Delta variant.
Speaking later on Thursday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government had made £2 billion available via a major arts funding package. He added that the government understands “the necessary delay to step four is challenging for live events.”
The impresarios note in their statement that live entertainment and theatre generate £11.25 billion for the UK economy each year, supporting just under one million jobs.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, UK |
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The hoarding of DNA samples and Intense interest in virology research recently expressed by private corporations, including Google, and even politicians has prompted concerns as to how this sensitive information could be used and whether the parties involved are on a power trip, notes Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.
On 19 June, The National Pulse dropped a bombshell about Google’s involvement in the funding of virus experiments and research by EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit. Its founder, British zoologist Peter Daszak, lately made the headlines due to his collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Wuhan, China is believed to be the epicentre of the first massive COVID-19 outbreak.
Google Investing in Virology
Over the past decade Google.org, the tech giant’s charitable arm, has funded EcoHealth’s studies on bat flaviviruses, henipavirus spillover, herpes as well the threat of transmission of zoonotic pathogens from animals to humans. Some of those studies were also supported by USAID and the US Department of Defence.
While there’s obviously nothing criminal about funding scientific research, Google’s involvement has raised two questions. The first one was asked by “The Next Revolution” host Steve Hilton, who wondered whether Google’s censorship of COVID-related news and theories stemmed from its involvement in EcoHealth’s virology research.
The second question is posed by Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel, who wonders why Google.org overlooked the fact that Daszak’s non-profit was not properly organised: the entity’s IRS filings are replete with apparent errors, while EcoHealth have apparently strayed far from its original authorised tax-exempt purpose, which was protecting wildlife facing extinction.
“EcoHealth Alliance – the ‘tax-exempt organisation’ through which government money was channelled – was formed to protect wild species threatened by extinction, and certainly not authorised, legitimately, to manipulate natural viruses so as to make them more dangerous for humans or other living creatures”, Ortel notes, pointing to instances of “gain-of-function” research publicly discussed by Peter Daszak.
The Wall Street analyst, who specialises in charity fraud issues, warns that improper documentation sometimes indicates potential mismanaging of funds and murky activities.
“Certainly since 2001, when Lois Lerner moved into a key position at the IRS, politically connected insiders have known that false-front ‘charities’ are excellent vehicles to hide criminal activities, especially when they operate abroad,” presumes Ortel.
It appears that some elements in governments and multinational corporations are not confused at all when they discover fake charities like EcoHealth, as they “can be used to pay off corrupt politicians and/or to enrich bureaucrats and insiders,” according to him.
Google Funded Hoarding of Genetic Data
In addition to virology studies, Google appears to be interested in other biotech research as well. In May 2007, the tech giant took a stake in California-based biotech company 23andMe, investing $3.9 million in it. Earlier in the month Sergey Brin, then-president of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. married Anne Wojcicki, a 23andMe co-founder.
23andMe is known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service whose declared aim is to help people to understand their genetic make-up and inherited traits. However, in 2013 Scientific American, one of the US oldest scientific magazines, presumed that 23andMe was nothing short of “a front end for a massive information-gathering operation against an unwitting public.”
SA quoted Patrick Chung, a 23andMe board member, who openly stated that the biotech company’s long game was not to make money selling kits, but to collect personal data: “Once you have the data, [the company] does actually become the Google of personalised health care,” Chung told FastCompany in October 2013.
The Google-backed biotech company not only provided information about ancestry and inherited traits but also analysed data regarding genetic predispositions to various diseases, something which prompted friction between 23andMe and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013.
While the DNA testing market was undergoing its boom with millions of consumers sharing their sensitive genetic data with private companies, FastCompany revealed in 2018 that the Federal Trade Commission had launched an investigation into 23andMe handling personal info and sharing it with third parties. There were also growing concerns about the security of personal DNA data. In response to FastCompany’s request, 23andMe’s spokesperson declined to comment on any probe, insisting that it only shares DNA data “with researchers if the customer has consented.”
“23andme held great appeal to those studying family history,” says Ortel. “But failure to secure results of the many DNA tests they performed on willing subjects, or harvesting of these results for financial gain are dangers one hopes government authorities are investigating.”
Meanwhile, in 2019, the Pentagon leadership warned military personnel against taking direct-to-consumer DNA tests over “negative professional consequences” and “unintended security consequences” and “increased risk to the joint force and mission”.
In January 2020, CNBC reported that 23andMe had seen an unexpected DNA test sales decline. CEO Anne Wojcicki cited a number of reasons behind this including recession and privacy concerns.
Biomedical Research & Bioweapon Concerns
One might wonder as to why Google is demonstrating keen interest in virology and DNA gathering not being a biotech or pharma company from inception.
“An original goal of Google was to organise Earth’s information,” the Wall Street analyst says. “There are, and will always be many viruses, so one imagines that Google researchers might be curious to catalogue these and ultimately track their course through the world population. If Google were on a power trip, and as new viruses hit, the company might be able to shape allocation of resources fighting viruses towards perceived allies and away from foes, theoretically speaking.”
There could also be a political dimension to using such data: in 2009 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton specifically requested that American diplomats collect “biometric information”, such as DNA, from foreign heads of state and senior United Nation officials, according to secret cables released by WikiLeaks.
Meanwhile, a private multi-national corporation with a vast amount of sensitive bio-information and little if any supervision from government and public regulators prompt concerns about how this data could be handled and what would happen should it end up in the “wrong hands.”
Most fears are triggered about the possibility of “developing completely novel weapons on the basis of knowledge provided by biomedical research”, as German biologist Jan van Aken and American biosafety activist Edward Hammond wrote in 2003.
“Such weapons, designed for new types of conflicts and warfare scenarios, secret operations or sabotage activities, are not mere science fiction, but are increasingly becoming a reality that we have to face,” the researchers warned.
Yet another concern of international scientists is a “genetic biological weapon” which theoretically could target particular ethnic groups by homing in on molecular differences in their DNAs. In 2004 the British Medical Association (BMA) suggested in its report Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity II that construction of genetic weapons “is now approaching reality.” The bioweapon topic has been repeatedly touched upon by the media and scientific community over the past decade with various scenarios being presented.
Recently, experiments with viruses, DNAs and so-called “gain-of-function” studies which makes pathogens more deadly or more transmissible have triggered a renewed debate and calls for greater transparency in the aftermath of the COVID outbreak.
“In theory, use of bioweapons has been prohibited in the civilised world,” Ortel says. “In practice, though, the regulatory regimes are not tough enough or swift enough to bring criminals engaged in bioweaponry to the tough justice they deserve. Life is precious and should not be curtailed by bioweapons, especially if these are funded with taxpayer money.”
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, Google, Hillary Clinton, United States, USAID |
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The Council of Europe’s human rights body has stated that it is “extremely concerned” about the treatment of prisoners in French jails and police stations, warning that people in custody have been “deliberately beaten.”
In a report released on Thursday, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) stated that it is “extremely concerned about the material conditions of detention” in France after conducting periodic visits to the country in December 2019.
While the fact-finding mission did not expressly accuse France of mistreating prisoners, it highlighted reports of people in custody being “deliberately beaten,” as well as racism and homophobia and threats of violence with weapons.
The CPT’s investigation raised alarm at overcrowding in French cells, highlighting how occupancy rates in some prisons exceed 200%, with the visit finding 1,500 prisoners sleeping on mattresses on the floor. The situation led authorities to call for “urgent measures” to be implemented, including providing a bed and at least 4 m² of living space for each prisoner.
The human rights body reported additional concerns about the effect confinement has on the mental health of those placed in solitary confinement, as well as the treatment of those suffering from psychiatric disorders. The CPT described the process of transferring individuals with mental health issues to hospital as “unacceptable,” forcing them to be escorted in “shackles.”
Indictment of French execs for supporting African dictatorships exposes Paris’ hypocrisy & double-dealingThe French government responded to the report by claiming that the conditions have been improved following the 2019 inspection, stating that the prison population has been reduced since March 2020 due to the Covid outbreak.
A second report is expected to be released following a visit to detention facilities in Strasbourg in July 2020, addressing the state of the health measures that were put in place by authorities to protect prisoners during the global pandemic.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | France, Human rights |
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Hundreds of unmarked graves, many believed to be of children, have been found at the site of another former Church-run residential school in Canada.
The graves are located near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, said the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations (FSIN), which represents 74 nations in the province, in a press release on Wednesday.
The federation did not give a specific number but said, “The number of unmarked graves will be the most significantly substantial to date in Canada.”
Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme is expected to reveal details of the “horrific and shocking discovery” during a press conference on Thursday morning, as well as the latest count of newly-identified remains.
The development comes a month after a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children was discovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, which reopened old wounds among the indigenous population in Canada.
At the time, experts warned that the discovery was likely only the beginning.
According to a source with knowledge of the discovery, the total number of graves found near Marieval is expected to be over three times higher than the 215 discovered recently in Kamloops.
The latest findings came after a First Nation teamed up with an underground radar detection team from Saskatchewan Polytechnic to begin the search just over three weeks ago.
Delorme told the Leader-Post in an interview in late May that he did not know how many people’s remains might be discovered. It is estimated that only one third of the graves are marked.
“The pain is real, the pain is there, and the pain hasn’t gone away. As we heal, every Cowessess citizen has a family member in that gravesite. To know there’s some unmarked, it continues the pain,” Delorme said, adding that the goal was to “identify, to mark and to build a monument in honoring and recognizing the bodies that lay (there).”
The Marieval Indian Residential School was founded and operated by the Roman Catholic Church from 1899 to 1997 and was located about 165 kilometers east of Regina. The administration of the school was handed over to the federal government in 1969 and then to the Cowessess First Nation in 1987 before it was closed in 1997.
According to Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation records, everything but the church, rectory, and cemetery was demolished shortly after.
James Daschuk, a University of Regina health and Indigenous history researcher, applauded Delorme’s decision to pursue these searches despite the “horrific” findings likely to emerge.
“As terrible, and I mean absolutely freaking terrible, as this is, what we’re seeing is the community taking their story back,” Daschuk said in an interview on Wednesday.
“I think this is going to be a pretty important time for healing for the affected communities. But this should also be a serious time for reflection and then action on that reflection for all Canadians,” he added.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)’s report in 2015 determined that at least 3,200 Indigenous children died while attending residential schools, and that the general practice was “not to send the bodies of students who died at schools to their home communities.”
Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated more than 150,000 First Nations children from their families between 1831 and 1996. Many of the children separated from their homes by the church’s school system were subjected to abuse, rape, and malnutrition. In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized.
June 24, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Canada, Human rights |
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