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Nancy Pelosi says there needs to be a “balance” to free speech

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 17, 2022

In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on ABC to advocate for “balance between free speech and safety.” She did not specify how this balance might be achieved, or who would have the last word in defining it.

Seemingly suggesting that suppressing free speech to some (unspecified) extent would be the way to go in dealing with cases of extreme violence, this US official made it clear that it was once again social media that politicians would like to see moderate and censor even more than they do now.

Speaking on Sunday, the Democrat also complained that it is impossible for her party to carry out its gun control proposals in the Senate, and urged “vigilance” among the population, encouraging people to report others to the authorities in case somebody is suspected of being “on a path” to committing acts of violence.

Social media companies, meantime, should “address” and also track down whatever gets classified as extremism, Pelosi’s comments suggest.

The Buffalo shooter, an 18-year-old, is presumed to have adopted the ideology of white supremacy, and Pelosi’s mention of social platforms needing to step up their speech policing game appears to stem from investigators at this time thinking that some online postings praising previous mass shootings “may be associated” with the gunman. There have also been reports of a “manifesto” being posted online before the deadly incident occurred.

Pelosi’s sentiment focusing on the role of social media was echoed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who said tech companies must be “held accountable” and be made to provide assurances that they are “taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information.”

Pelosi has long been “at war” with social media, notably while pressuring Facebook to remove an edited video of her, that her supporters at the time referred to as a “deep fake.”

Also in 2020, she egged on advertisers to use their “tremendous leverage” to force social media companies to increase the level of censorship of what she considers to be misinformation. At the time, speech that Pelosi believed needed to be more strictly controlled had to do with topics such as elections and Covid.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

The imminent global food crisis is being blamed on Russia, but the truth is rather more complex

Just-in-time supply chains and globalism may lead to global hunger

By Dr. Mathew Maavak | Samizdat | May 18, 2022

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is undoubtedly impacting global grain supplies, as well as the means of growing crops around the world. But is the looming global food crisis solely Russia’s fault – as spun by the Western media machine?

Only a few months ago, Covid-19, government-imposed lockdowns and climate change were repeatedly blamed for this scenario.

A recent White House Joint Statement by US President Joe Biden and EU leader Ursula von der Leyen clearly singled out the supposed new culprit: “We are deeply concerned by how Putin’s war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to international food and agriculture supply chains, and the threat it poses to global food security. We recognize that many countries around the world have relied on imported food staples and fertilizer inputs from Ukraine and Russia, with Putin’s aggression disrupting that trade.”

The concept of global food security these days appear as fleeting as Biden’s mnemonic prowess. It has been 12 years since the world was shaken by the Arab Spring, a series of events in which hunger played a significant role, and which, in turn, led to violent uprisings and yet-unresolved civil wars in Libya, Yemen and Syria. Big Tech, Western officials and influencers fuelled this mayhem in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’ but never proffered any concrete solutions. Instead, global hunger grew unabated, while its root causes were explicated through the lens of ‘climate change’ and ‘global governance’.

In the meantime, right at the doorsteps of the Tech giants, the streets of San Francisco were increasingly populated by the homeless and strewn with human faeces and discarded needles from drug abuse. Even a new urban art genre emerged in the form of poop graffiti! Nothing better represents the disconnect between the lofty promises and septic realities of Silicon Valley.

Here is something else for the reader to ponder: Contact-tracing technologies that were used to lock down societies were never trialled to connect the poor to nearby farmers markets, food banks and soup kitchens. A rational person cannot be blamed for suspecting that the intention all along was to eviscerate small-scale farmers, grocers and traders during lockdowns and thereby render citizens prostrate before governments and Big Business. As for technocrats who lap up the smarmy fantasies of the World Economic Forum (WEF), what lessons have they learnt since the fateful Arab Spring?

Here we look at two inexcusable failings of the purveyors of global governance. These are linked to the very issues which Biden and von der Leyen are using to scapegoat Russia.

National granaries

The Arab Spring and its bloody aftermath should have taught governments a lesson about the imperative of establishing new national granaries. Well-maintained facilities can store wheat and corn, amongst other goods, for more than 10 years. Individuals can extend this shelf-life to a whopping 31 years under proper conditions.

Grain stats worldwide also raise questions over government commitments to food security. Global wheat production, for instance, has steadily increased during the last decade. According to a Statista.com brief on Jan 27: “The global production volume of wheat came to about over 772 million metric tons in the marketing year of 2020/21. This was an increase of about ten million tons compared to the previous year. Wheat stocks is [sic] also estimated to increase to about 294 million metric tons worldwide by 2021.”

Dr. Mathew Maavak is a Malaysian expert on risk foresight and governance.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

EU unveils rationing plan

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday that the EU would raise its renewable energy targets and invest billions of euros in clean energy in a bid to break away from Russian oil and gas imports. Consumers will pay a price, however, with the EU’s plan including energy rationing and compulsory solar panels on homes.

Von der Leyen’s ‘REPowerEU’ plan would cut the EU’s reliance on Russian gas by 66% this year and eliminate it entirely by 2027, the bloc’s policy chief told reporters in Brussels.

Under the plan, the EU will increase its Energy Efficiency Target from 9% to 13%, and raise from 40% to 45% the amount of its power generated by renewables by 2030. At present, the EU sources 22% of its energy from renewables.

To achieve this, von der Leyen said that the EU would speed up the permitting procedure for renewable projects such as wind farms and would make €300 billion ($315 billion) available in grants and loans. Of this funding, 95% would be set aside for green energy, while 5% would be used to upgrade Europe’s gas and oil infrastructure to receive imports from sources other than Russia.

However, some of the immediate costs will be borne by consumers. According to the European Commission’s website, households and industry will be required to make “behavioral changes” – such as turning down air conditioning and switching off lights – to reduce demand for oil and gas by 5%. Furthermore, commercial and public buildings will be required to install rooftop solar panels by 2025, with these panels to be made mandatory on residential buildings by 2029.

Some individual member states have already asked their citizens to curtail their energy use. Germany, which depends on Russia for more than half of its gas and was already facing the world’s highest energy costs due to its flawed transition to wind power, has asked its population to shower less and swap their cars for bicycles in order to save costs.

With consumers across the EU already grappling with skyrocketing inflation and record fuel prices, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that European countries are committing economic “suicide” by trying to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas, accusing them of caving to pressure “from their American overlord” without “paying any attention to the damage that they have already caused their own economy.”

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

EU to pay Ukraine’s budget

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed an aid package of 9 billion euros ($9.5 billion) to keep Ukraine’s government running, and said that the EU would lead reconstruction efforts in Ukraine after hostilities cease. Her announcement came a day after the US called on Europe to open its coffers for Kiev.

Money for the aid package would be borrowed by the Commission on global financial markets and would be repayable by Kiev. As per the EU’s rules on macro-financial assistance, the Ukrainian government would be free to use the cash as it sees fit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine needs around $7 billion per month to pay its soldiers, civilians and pensioners, and to keep essential services running. The proposed EU package will therefore keep Ukraine functioning for just over a month.

Hours before von der Leyen’s announcement, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Brussels Economic Forum that “the bilateral and multilateral support announced so far will not be sufficient to address Ukraine’s needs, even in the short term.”

“I sincerely ask all our partners to join us in increasing their financial support to Ukraine,” she continued, adding that aside from keeping the country afloat in the short term, “massive support” would be needed to rebuild Ukraine once the fighting ends.

Von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the EU will lead this reconstruction effort, but would not be the sole contributor.

“That is why we propose a reconstruction platform as part of this plan jointly led by Ukraine and the Commission and bringing together EU Member States, other bilateral or international donors, international financial institutions, and other like-minded partners,” she said.

While von der Leyen’s aid package is in line with what Yellen requested, it must still be approved by both the European Parliament and European Council. However, none of the Commission’s aid packages to Ukraine thus far – which include four consecutive €500 million ($520 million) packages of military aid and €1.2 billion ($1.26 billion) worth of emergency loans – have faced any resistance from either body.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused EU leaders of acting on behalf of their “American overlord” with regard to Ukraine, and committing economic “suicide” by cutting themselves off from Russian energy resources amid inflation and record high fuel costs.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Google Initiates Its Own Bankruptcy In Russia

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

MOSCOW – The Russian branch of IT giant Google has initiated its own bankruptcy in connection with non-fulfillment of financial obligations, according to the data on the Fedresurs federal registry of subjects of economic activity on Wednesday.

“[Google] applies with a notice of intent to file for insolvency (bankruptcy) … since from March 22, 2022, it foresees its own bankruptcy and the impossibility of fulfilling monetary obligations,” the registry read.

As of now, Google need to pay a turnover fine of more than 7.2 billion rubles ($113.3 million), according to claims filed by Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor.

The company was supposed to pay the specified amount by March 19, but it failed to comply with the requirement, prompting another case in early May for the forced recovery of funds.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Western military strategy for Ukraine changes for conciliatory tone

By Uriel Araujo | May 18, 2022

According to Western authorities and media reports Ukraine has been winning the war, but, notwithstanding all the weapon’s shipments from the West, this narrative can only be described as propaganda, for a number of reasons. Amid this triumphalist rhetoric, the US-led West seems to have chosen the path of full-spectrum conflict with Moscow, as one can see in the recent G7 joint statement.

And yet, strangely, French President Emmanuel Macron’s own remarks during Europe Day contained a conciliatory tone about not “humiliating” Moscow should Kiev win. The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in turn has asked May13 for a conversation with his counterpart, Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, to talk about “an immediate ceasefire”. This was the very first talk the two officials had since the beginning of the Russian military operations in February. Thus, we are seeing contradictory signs.

Moreover, Austin also showed he is interested in keeping lines of communication open with the Kremlin. The one-hour long phone call was requested by Washington. This is the same Lloyd Austin who, in April 26, stated he believed Kiev would win the war, with American help.

Echoing Austin’s change of tone, Macron reportedly has asked Ukraine to make some “concessions”, to which President Volodymir Zelensky replied in a May 13 interview with Italian TV channel RAI that “we won’t help Putin save face by paying with our territory”. This has generated some embarrassment and has prompted a reply from the French presidency, stating that Macron in fact has never “asked President Zelenskyy for any concession.” The same day the G7 announced its intentions to further contain and isolate Moscow, Macron stated, during his address to the European Parliament, on May 9, that “we are not at war with Russia”, adding that Europe’s duty is to “stand with Ukraine to achieve a ceasefire, then build peace.”

Macron and Austin are not alone. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a long talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 13 over the telephone, according to a recent Twitter publication of his, stated that there must be a “ceasefire” in Ukraine “as quickly as possible”. Interestingly there was no talk of Russia immediately retreating, which would be a strange thing if it were true that Kiev is “winning” the war.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in turn has also echoed the same theme about a ceasefire. The fact that the speeches of leaders from the three EU largest countries are thus aligned is a clear sign that something is changing. This reflects popular opinion also: according to a recent survey across 27 Western countries (conducted by polling company Ipsos), support for diplomatic talks with Russia has increased precisely in France, Germany and Italy.

These are certainly not the only problems that should worry the US. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, has threatened to block Sweden and Finland NATO bids. With Turkey being such a relevant NATO member, this is yet another sign of the contradictions within the alliance.

In spite of the aforementioned Austin statements, the American take on this is still somewhat more complicated, though. According to the Politico website, a high-ranking Washington official has admitted the US worries about a “fracture”, considering these recent European developments. Within American society itself, however, concerned voices, even in the conservative camp, are increasingly more skeptical about the current US policy regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war. As inflation rises, the 40 billion-dollar package to help Kiev, which is being discussed in Congress, is under a lot of criticism.

While Western officials are starting to change their tone and are apparently willing to start some dialogue with Moscow, the Ukrainian President in turn is maintaining his triumphalist uncompromising tone. Kiev, however, is largely dependent on the West, and in the long run would have no choice, but to play along.

The problem is that any “appeasement” endeavors will face a harsh internal reaction from the very extremist forces the West has been supporting. One should recall Dmytro Yarosh’s 2019 threatening remarks about Zelensky “losing his life” and ending up “hanging on a tree on Khreshchatyk (in the Kiev’s center)” if he “betrayed” Ukrainian nationalists. Yarosh, a far-right activist, is nowadays an adviser to Valerii Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This also explains why countries such as Germany are increasingly reluctant to further arm Kiev – the risk of weapons ending up in the hands of unpredictable extremist groups is too high.

By now, it has become abundantly clear that today’s conflict in Ukraine is a proxy Western war against Russia. The attitude of the United States and EU leaders regarding the crisis has been one of open confrontation without compromise – and of fueling tensions. However, as we can see, there are signs that this approach could be starting to decline.

In early May, referring to the former US President, Noam Chomsky, stated, in an interview, that only one “Western statesman” is advocating “a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, instead of looking for ways to encourage and prolong it”, namely “Donald Trump”. Chomsky’s remark seemed accurate back then, but this might be changing now.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Bill Gates wants to build a dystopia

By Toby Green | UnHerd | May 9, 2022

It’s not easy being a regular multi-billionaire. Bill Gates used to be the simple guy-in-the-mansion next door, worried about virus outbreaks and global warming. Then, during the pandemic he became the point at which all conspiracy theories met.

Ever since March 2020, the memes have spread. Was Gates a mass murderer with a global depopulation agenda? Was he a “biofascist” seeking control over the world’s population through vaccine passports and microchips?

It didn’t stop there. Was the Covid-19 pandemic actually “plandemic”? Did the Microsoft founder and his acolytes create it through funding “gain of function” research in a biosecurity lab in Wuhan? Was it all war-gamed at Event 201 in October 2019?

Bill Gates has not much enjoyed being the focus of these stories for the past 18 months. He just wants to help out. He wants to solve problems so badly, he tells us early on in How To Prevent the Next Pandemic, that in February 2020, he flew from Seattle to South Africa to participate in a charity tennis match, no doubt on one of his four personal jets.

It was in South Africa that he first began to join the Covid-19 dots. The tech entrepreneur delivers the story with characteristic flair: “A couple of days after returning from South Africa, I sent an email about scheduling something for the coming Friday night: ‘We could try and do a dinner with the people involved with coronavirus work to touch base.’” Gates is happy, “everyone was nice enough to say yes — despite the timing and their busy schedules”. His work on the pandemic begins.

Now Gates is tired of all the conspiracies. He asks his critics to judge him by his actions. And the best way to do so is by reading the book: does Gates have anything sensible to say about the best way to combat future pathogenic outbreaks?

His model for the future is built on what he feels has worked over the past two years: isolate contacts, close borders, lockdown as quickly as possible, then remove restrictions slowly and cautiously. He cites Dr Anthony Fauci, who Gates says he spoke to once a month during the pandemic: “Not only should you appear to overreact at first, as Tony Fauci said, but you also have to be careful about relaxing all NPIs [non-pharmaceutical interventions] too soon.” Meanwhile, you should invest enormous sums in boosting global public health systems, vaccine production in poor and rich countries, and fund a Global Pandemic Emergency Response Unit to monitor potential outbreaks. The aim, says Gates, is to vaccinate the entire world — twice if necessary — within six months while lockdown measures restrict the spread of the new pathogen.

It all sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? Or it might do to those who haven’t seen the footage of Shanghai’s lockdown circulating on social media, to those who can work online in relative comfort, or indeed to billionaires with comfortable gardens and libraries in which to while away those six months. With the Gates model, a little translation is in order.

The massive investment required to make this vision happen is a good starting point. Where will it come from? Gates is a well-known philanthropist, and makes much of the more than US$2 billion which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have ploughed into fighting Covid-19. Yet this is a small amount compared to the US$6 billion that the US government has invested in the Moderna vaccine alone. As Gates points out, “Most of the world’s greatest talent for translating research into commercial products is in the private sector… It’s the government’s role to invest in the basic research that leads to major innovations, adopt policies that let new ideas flourish.”

Translation: taxpayers invest in developing products through government agencies, and private companies and their shareholders reap the profits. How does this work in practice? Gates does not give what we might call full disclosure. He offers the example of the antiviral Molnupiravir which “Merck and its partners developed”. It was authorised to great fanfare as a Covid treatment in November 2021.

Yet Merck did not develop this drug. It was initially developed as a veterinary drug for horses at Emory University, with a US$19 million grant from Fauci’s NIAID and funding from other sectors of the US government. Molnupiravir costs US$17.74 per dose to manufacture, according to an estimate from researchers at Harvard and King’s College London, but is being retailed to the US government for US$712 per course — a profit of 4,000%.

Another example of Gates’s eye for detail is his discussion of Remdesivir, which was approved as “Standard of Care” for Covid in the US by the Federal Drug Agency. Again, like Molnupiravir, much of the funding and institutional support for the drug originally came from the US government. Remdesivir was the baby of the drug company Gilead.

Gates describes how one study showed that “it may have a major impact in patients who aren’t yet sick enough to be in the hospital”. But other details are ignored. He doesn’t tell us that in an earlier, peer-reviewed study from China, published in the Lancet in May 2020, “Remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits”, and that the trial was “stopped early because of adverse events in 18 (12%) patients versus four (5%) patients who stopped placebo early”. All the same, the profits were good: while the drug cost Gilead just US$10 per dose to manufacture, it was being retailed to US taxpayers at US$3,120.

Maybe Gates knows nothing about the Lancet study. Perhaps he doesn’t know that in both of these cases, public investment has funded enormous private profits — and that in the case of one of the drugs, there’s little evidence that this was to any benefit. He’s just a software engineer after all.

For Gates, technology really does provide all the answers, as it certainly has in his own life. He believes humanity belongs online: “once people learn the digital approach, they generally stick to it”. Post-Covid, he envisages a world of flexible working, in which regular guys like him with large mansions and decent living space can languidly choose between going into the office on Wednesdays or Thursdays. The problem with Gates’s digital utopia — full of virtual  spaces where 3D avatars attend business meetings — is that I suspect many of us will not want to live in it.

Gates tries to show in this book that he gets it, while at the same time demonstrating on every page that he just doesn’t. As he draws up his elaborate plans for global governance, Gates writes that he does so knowing that he hasn’t been elected. He tells us he wouldn’t want to be anyway (after all, we can surmise, if he were elected, he might be accountable).

Gracefully, Gates understands that people are angry at the huge increases in wealth disparities during the pandemic, and pledges to return his profits to “make the world a fairer place”. He recognises that poor people across the world have suffered, and are far less able to deal with lockdowns, and even acknowledges that harsh measures might not be a good idea for some of them… And yet he recently went on record as saying that “if every country does what Australia did, then you wouldn’t be calling it a pandemic”. We can, in fact, judge him by his actions, and his words: he says one thing, and funds and promotes others.

Looking forward, the outlook is bleak. Preventing pandemics in Gates-World means shutting down immediately at the “next major outbreak” — a favourite, and alarming turn of phrase. Future semi-permanent global lockdowns are baked-in as the new normal, something I warned of in the conclusion to my book The Covid Consensus. As Gates notes, the WHO have identified 1,500 new pathogens in the past 50 years, and thus the “next major outbreak” surely cannot be far off. In the past 20 years, pre-Covid, there were already three of note (SARS — 2003; Avian Flu — 2005; Swine Flu — 2009). In each case enormous fatalities were falsely predicted, and would surely have led to six month shutdowns in the Gates model.

Gates-World is one where citizens make sacrifices for his model to work. And it’s also one where class is totally ignored. Does Gates know what it was like for Angolan children to be forced to stay at home for seven months in 2020? He admits that internet connections need to be improved to make digital schooling possible — but does he understand that no IT in the world can help children of sex workers in Mumbai slums with their homework? Can he comprehend what it is like to be incarcerated in a flat with small children for months on end in New York, Shanghai or London?

Gates wants to be respected, and understood. His world is one of innovative scientists having dinner with one another. They solve the world’s problems by the pool, or near the barbecue. It’s what he likes doing best, because “I’ve had some of the best conversations of my working life with a fork in my hand and a napkin in my lap” (p4). He wants to fund more and more work leading to experiences like this, and meanwhile turn the rest of human society into a digital avatar of itself.

No doubt he means well. But you don’t need to indulge the conspiracy theories to realise that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Toby Green is a Professor of History at King’s College, London.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

American Airlines Captain Robert Snow speaks out about his vaccine injury

Steve Kirsch | May 14, 2022

Ever wonder why so many flights are delayed or canceled? A lot of it is due to injuries caused by the vaccine mandates.

Today, there are many pilots who are vaccine injured and not saying anything, endangering the public.

Here’s what happened to one vaccine injured pilot who now has to retire because he’s unable to fly anymore.

He speaks freely, right after being released from the hospital.

And no, the CEO of American Airlines, working just 10 minutes away didn’t call or come visit him. That’s the way they treat “family” at American Airlines.

Other articles about the vaccine and pilots

I wonder if the vaccine is causing all these incidents. I’m told they are safe and effective. But that’s not what the data says.

THREE KILLED, AS PLANE CRASHES INTO MEXICAN SUPERMARKET

PLANE CRASHES ONTO A STREET IN SAN DIEGO

PILOT SUFFERS MID-AIR HEART ATTACK

CO-PILOT LANDS PLANE AFTER PILOT HAS HEART ATTACK:

TRAFFIC CONTROL HELPS PASSENGER LAND PLANE, AFTER PILOT HAS HEART ATTACK

CHINESE PASSENGER JET NOSE DIVER, KILLING ALL ON BOARD

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

We’re fighting a ruinous proxy war – but for which ‘sort’ of Ukrainians?

By Frank Wright | TCW Defending Freedom | May 18, 2022

SINCE the invasion of Ukraine, we have seen how effective our free world is in marketing. The art of attaching emotions to symbols is the basic method of propaganda, be that to sell products or policies, which was created by people such as American political commentator Walter Lippmann and public relations guru Edward Bernays in the 1920s.

A frenzy of outrage has been conjured over a country and on behalf of its people. Yet this is how the Ukrainian government sees its own people …

The poster reads: Ukraine – open your eyes! Yes – they look like Ukrainians. Sort I, II, III. 

In case you were not aware, according to the Ukrainian regime, there are three sorts of Ukrainian. When we speak of ‘the people of Ukraine’ and their rights, bear that in mind.

The red ‘Sort 1’ on the poster are in Galicia, which may be about to be occupied by the Polish army. There is a statue of Ukrainian nationalist and wartime Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera in Lvov, the regional capital and the base for most Western journalists.

Sort 1 Ukrainians are not native Russian speakers. In Sort 2, there is a minority (less than 25 per cent) who speak native Russian. Sort 3 is the worst offender, because every area here is populated by a majority of native Russian speakers.

In 2010, Sorts 1 and 2 voted for Yulia Tymoshenko. Sort 3 voted for Viktor Yanukovich, who was president until the 2014 coup.

Interestingly, the sorts are also careful to indicate in the second order some of the minority ethnic groups on the Western border. Ethnic Hungarians, Romanians and Moldovans are not Sort 1 either.

One emotional basis for the proxy war the US and NATO are fighting is the right of the Ukrainian people to decide their own fate. Which people – which Sort?

This right was not relevant in 2014 when the US, through its then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, deposed the Yanukovich government and replaced it with one of its choosing.

You can now see why they did this. Yanukovich was not overly friendly with Russia, yet the fact that his base was concentrated in the Russian-speaking population was enough to convince the neoconservative faction that he had to go.

The proxy war is being promoted by this neoconservative faction, which dominates US foreign policy. The founder of their main pressure group, Robert Kagan, is the husband of Victoria Nuland. Kagan admits that US actions provoked Russia. His wife is the architect of many of these provocations, so he would know.

The view of the faction which controls US foreign policy is that Russia and its interests must be broken by any means. This is the reason for the cancellation of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline, for the overturning of the election in Ukraine in 2014, for the concentration of arms and military training in Ukraine’s disputes Donbass region for the past eight years.

US policy – as directed by a faction that destroys nations with no regard for the costs, nor consequences for the populations concerned – is to break Russia. Yet there is a problem with this plan. The strategy is failing.

Russia is not collapsing at home. Its economy is resilient and looks to be capable of surviving. The wider world is not sanctioning Russia. Ukraine is not winning the war. A global food crisis looms. This makes escalation likely and the situation ever more perilous. It explains the insane Plan B – destroying Europe.

The sanctions – applied by the Anglosphere, the EU and Japan – are not weakening Russia. The EU seems determined to halt all gas and oil supply from Russia. Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia have indicated this would mean a severe economic collapse. The multinational chemical company BASF warned of the same regarding German industry, saying production will cease with no Russian hydrocarbons.

Many German firms are preparing to litigate the German government owing to the ‘dramatic repercussions’ of cutting off Russian gas and oil. This means whole industries will halt and Germany will deindustrialise. Europe will face food shortages and stagflation – a toxic mixture of economic stagnation and inflation.

You may have missed the fact that Ukraine shut down one (of two) gas transit nodes last week, instantly reducing gas supply. This obviously cannot happen without US direction and approval, as it endangers the ability of German industry to continue to operate. One explanation of US policy is to bleed Europe in order to blame Russia, which in turn builds support for war.

The difficulty here is in finding a rational explanation for the removal of the fuel, grain, fertiliser and raw materials without which European industry and food production cannot continue to function. Gas stores are 37 per cent full across Europe. We have no food mountains any more, and Britain is poised to be the worst hit with stagflation.

It looks as though the collapse of the EU economies might be the plan for the US administration, as there is no other rational explanation for the removal of gas, oil, grain, copper and fertiliser from that market.

There are no replacements. There is no agreement with Qatar to replace pipeline gas with liquefied natural gas (LNG). There is no other source of commercial fertiliser.  Added to this, Russian sweet crude oil isn’t the same as every other type of oil, which matters when your refinery is geared to process a specific type of oil.

That is the argument of Hungary, whose intransigence is explained by the simple fact that even if a replacement could be found for Russian oil, and even if it weren’t more expensive (it will be) – it can’t be processed in its country’s plants.

It is noteworthy that the Hungarian government will speak for the national interests of Hungary rather than cheerlead its own economic ruin.

Yet ruin is what we all face, after two years’ money-printing combined with a sanctions policy that will push the European economies off a cliff. This is a strange way to save Sort 1 – and some of Sort 2 – of the Ukrainian people.

This, however, is the price of a failed US initiative to weaken Russia, whose rouble is higher now than it was when the war began, and whose gas and oil is more valuable than ever. Is it a price we are willing to pay? Perhaps it is time to ask who is selling us this future, and for what purpose.

May 17, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

US recruits ISIS terrorists to fight in Ukraine: Russian Intelligence

Samizdat | May 17, 2022

The US has been “actively recruiting” terrorists to fight in Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Tuesday, saying that it illustrates Washington’s readiness “to use any means to achieve its geopolitical goals.”

The SVR revealed in a statement that, according to the intelligence it is receiving, “the United States is actively recruiting even members of international terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State (ISIS) group banned in the Russian Federation, as mercenaries to participate in hostilities in Ukraine.”

The Russian intelligence service points to the American military base in Syria called al-Tanf, which is located close to the borders with Jordan and Iraq. According to its sources, this base and the surrounding area have turned into a kind of terrorist “hub,” where up to 500 ISIS and other jihadists can be “retrained” simultaneously. SVR claimed that last month 60 ISIS militants, who had been released from prisons controlled by the Syrian Kurds, were transferred to al-Tanf “with a view to subsequent transfer to Ukrainian territory.”

The SVR specified that during a training course at al-Tanf the militants are instructed on how to use anti-tank missile systems, reconnaissance and strike drones, advanced communications and surveillance equipment.

In the SVR’s opinion, this data confirms that “the United States is ready to use any means to achieve its geopolitical goals, not excluding sponsoring international terrorist groups.”

The intelligence service concluded by saying that the American administration does not consider the consequences of such actions, “even when it comes to threats to the security of European allies and even to the lives of the Americans.”

Washington has insisted that “there are no US soldiers in Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, the presence of American troops on Syrian territory at al-Tanf base, which the SVR mentions in its statement, has long been considered by both Moscow and Damascus as illegal. The previous US administration pledged that American forces would leave northeastern Syria but only after ISIS militants are defeated and the Kurds protected.

Then-National Security Advisor John Bolton made it clear that another task of the US forces at al-Tanf was to counter Iranian influence in the region.

In October 2021, there were reports that, according to Israeli defense sources, about 350 military members and civilians were still using al-Tanf, including some British and French forces that were described as “intelligence experts.”

May 17, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia moves to withdraw from WTO, WHO

Samizdat | May 17, 2022

Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, is planning to discuss the potential withdrawal of the country from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), according to Pyotr Tolstoy, the vice speaker of the parliament.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a list of such agreements to the State Duma, and together with the Federation Council [upper house of parliament] we are planning to evaluate them and then propose to withdraw from them,” Tolstoy said on Tuesday.

The vice speaker said that Russia had already canceled its membership in the Council of Europe, and that leaving the WTO and WHO is next.

“Russia withdrew from the Council of Europe, now the next step is to withdraw from the WTO and the WHO, which have neglected all obligations in relation to our country,” he said.

Tolstoy added that the government is expected to revise Russia’s international obligations and treaties that do not currently bring any benefit but directly damage the country.

In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the “illegal” restrictions placed on Russian companies by Western states run counter to WTO rules, and told the government to update Russia’s strategy in the organization by June 1.

The decision came amid the sweeping Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine launched in late February. Since then, Russia has been subjected to around 10,000 targeted restrictions, making it the world’s most sanctioned country.

May 17, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

EU Introducing ‘Suicidal’ Sanctions on Russian Oil and Gas Under Pressure From US Overlords: Putin

By Ilya Tsukanov | Samizdat | May 17, 2022

The European Union is introducing sanctions against the Russian oil and gas sector for “absolutely political reasons” and under pressure from the bloc’s American overlords, notwithstanding the impact on its collective economic competitiveness, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

“Rejection of Russian energy resources means that Europe will systemically become the region with the highest energy costs in the world. Yes, of course prices will rise and resources will go to this region, but it will not be possible to radically alter the situation. This will seriously – and according to some experts irrevocably – undermine the competitiveness of a significant part of European industry, which is already losing the competition to companies in other regions of the world,” Putin said, speaking at a meeting with officials devoted to energy issues on Tuesday.

Putin suggested that the Western political class had speculated “on the absolutely natural concerns of many people on the planet with climate issues,” downplaying the importance of traditional, hydrocarbon sources of energy, while simultaneously overestimating the effectiveness of alternative energy in filling the gap.

This, he said, helped to spark the current energy crunch that Western officials are now trying to blame on Russia.

“Today we see that for absolutely political reasons, due to their own ambitions and under pressure from their American overlords, European countries are imposing more and more sanctions on the oil and gas market. All of this causes inflation, and instead of admitting their mistakes, they are looking for the guilty party in another place,” Putin said.

“One gets the impression that our Western colleagues, politicians and economists have simply forgotten the foundations of the elementary laws of economics, or, to their detriment, prefer to deliberately ignore them,” Putin suggested.

“Obviously, together with Russian energy resources, economic activity will also be leaving Europe for other regions of the world. Such an economic auto-da-fe, or suicide, is of course the internal affair of European countries. We must proceed pragmatically and proceed primarily from our own economic interests,” he added.

Putin called on authorities to “act proactively” in light of the “ill-conceived and chaotic” decisions being taken by some of Russia’s Western “partners,” and to use them to Moscow’s advantage. He also warned that Russia should not expect the West to make such mistakes “endlessly.”

Putin promised that the Russian state would do “everything that depends on us” to create the proper conditions for the work of domestic energy companies, ranging from improving logistical capabilities to providing a system of payment in national currencies and improving the availability of credit and insurance services, to stimulating the processing of raw materials and the creation of new domestic technologies.

He urged Russian oil companies not to sit on their assets – including revenues gained from rising energy prices, and said that the changes currently being experienced by the global oil market have a “tectonic nature,” and that “doing business as before, according to the old model, of course, seems unlikely. In the new conditions, it is important not only to extract oil, but to build the entire vertical chain up to the end consumer.”

Countries worldwide have experienced economic shocks associated with rising energy costs over the past year, with the United States and the the European Union bearing the brunt of the burden, particularly after regional leaders began slapping sanctions and other restrictions on Russian oil and gas amid the crisis in Ukraine starting in February. Many EU countries depend on Russian gas for more 40 percent or more of their natural gas needs and a similar amount of oil. In the wake of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the bloc has promised to replace supplies from Russia with fuel sourced from the US, Africa and the Middle East, and to ramp up investments in alternative energy. However, economists, businesses and opposition leaders have warned that these measures won’t save the region from a recession, a depression, or worse – its deindustrialization amid the intensifying global economic competition between China and the United States.

May 17, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

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