Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Why Did the Left Fail So Utterly to Resist the Global Biosecurity State?

BY SIMON ELMER | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 11, 2022

The question that continues to confuse socialists almost to the same degree that it delights their political opponents is why the Left today – not only in the U.K. but across the West – continues to collaborate so willingly and unquestioningly with the authoritarian programmes and regulations of the emerging Global Biosecurity State. As the imminent implementation of Digital ID, Central Bank Digital Currency, Universal Basic Income, Environmental and Social Corporate Governance criteria (ESG), Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, Social Credit, Smart Cities, and all the other programmes of Agenda 2030 are demonstrating, the New World Order being forced upon us outside of any democratic process is capitalist in its economic infrastructure, fascist in its governmental, juridical and ideological superstructure and totalitarian in its aims. So why do those who, however mistakenly, self-identify as of the political Left continue to be its noisiest and blindest cheerleaders?

If, by the Left, we mean in the U.K. the Labour Party and those trades unions, political organisations and pressure groups that advocate voting Labour every time there’s an election, then the U.K. Left has little or nothing socialist in its principles, politics or practices. For those of us who read its policies and oppose its actions in town halls and local authorities, Labour is irrefutably and even openly a party whose political philosophy is founded in the principles of neoliberalism. This is, perhaps, most demonstrably evident in its collusion in the marketisation of human needs such as housing and the financialisation of those markets by global capital. Moreover, anyone who has knocked around the Left as I have also knows that, whatever its so-called ‘Left-wing’ elements and organisations argue between elections, when it comes to supporting or opposing the policies and practices of Labour in government at municipal or local authority level, they all toe the party line, keep silent and vote Labour.

It has come as no surprise to me, therefore, that the U.K. Left, including not only Labourites but the wide diaspora of people who call themselves ‘Leftists’ and even ‘socialists’, have become fervent ideologues of the biosecurity state. But it’s not, as the followers of Friedrich Hayek argue, because of the inherent authoritarianism of socialism that leads it to impose a totalitarian social model at the first opportunity. There is (it can’t be repeated too often) little or nothing socialist – in the Labour Party nothing, in its affiliates and fellow travellers little – about the policies or practices of the U.K. Left. Even those small groups and independent organisations that are openly critical of Labour have adopted the U.K. Left’s almost universal support for biosecurity restrictions, remain indifferent to the immiseration and suffering of the U.K. working class they are causing, and steadfastly refused to join the millions of U.K. workers who protested against their imposition in the spring and summer of 2021. They instead uncritically accepted and adopted the Government and corporate media’s dismissal of those workers as ‘far-Right conspiracy theorists’.

Undoubtedly, the political naivety of the Left disposed it to welcome the imposition of the regulations and programmes of the biosecurity state in March 2020 as the triumph of the common good over government incompetence and ‘Right-wing’ greed. But that was nearly three years ago, and naivety has become bad-faith and denial in the face of the vast apparatus of global biosecurity that’s been constructed around, between and within us. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Left now regrets its collaboration, which of course continues today, or that it hasn’t obstinately confined its protests to the erasure of our rights and freedoms being enacted by the wave of new legislation introduced in 2022 on the back of 582 coronavirus-justified Statutory Instruments, without admitting any relationship between them. The betrayals and duplicities of the Left are legion, but many socialists are still asking how it came to this.

What all the Left shares – and the origin of its otherwise inexplicable collusion with the implementation of the U.K. biosecurity state – is a decades-long infiltration by the neoliberal ideologies of multiculturalism, political correctness, identity politics and, most recently, the orthodoxies of woke. In some organisations, the infiltration is marginal and exists, under the umbrella of ‘intersectionality’, in an uneasy and usually unexamined co-existence with the slogans – if not the practices – of socialism. In others, such as the Labour Party and its affiliates, what socialist principles they may once have had have been entirely replaced by the values and orthodoxies of these relatively new ideologies, which have manifested themselves in such youthful, energetic and well-funded movements as Momentum, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and now the masked-up, jacked-up advocates of the Global Biosecurity State. These are all (whatever they may say themselves) pro-capitalist movements, hostile to the working class – which they consistently and casually denounce as ‘racist’ – and directly if not openly opposed to socialism. It’s by their principles that the Left has operated for some time in the U.K. as in all the former neoliberal democracies of the West.

It can’t be long before we see a similar movement, funded by the same or even more powerful billionaires, formed to support the next stage in the U.K. biosecurity state. This includes the adoption of a Universal Basic Income for those impoverished by lockdown, spiralling inflation, rising energy prices and the mass digitalisation of white-collar jobs by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And like its predecessors, this movement of the Covid-faithful will claim a position on the U.K. Left by criticising the Conservative Government’s response to this or the next ‘crisis’. In doing so, it will help create an even greater consensus among U.K. youth and ‘liberals’ in the middle-classes for increased online surveillance, stricter laws, harsher sentences, more intrusive technologies of public control and greater police powers to enforce them. As we saw most publicly in the counter demonstrations organised across Canada during the blockade against vaccine mandates in February 2022, the Left didn’t hesitate to align itself with the Government of Justin Trudeau and the riot police he deployed, denounced truckers as ‘white supremacists’ and every other insult in the woke handbook, while waving placards telling working men and women facing unemployment and destitution at the hands of the biosecurity state to ‘check their privilege’.

This largely middle-class, neoliberal Left, which today constitutes a homogeneous force of compliance across the biosecurity states of the West, did not suddenly become devotees of the restrictions and programmes imposed due to a justification of a major threat to public health that never existed. On the contrary, the Left is the Church in which these Covid-faithful have been raised, their guiding religion and cultic practices formed by the same radically conservative beliefs. To state again what should be obvious to all: no-platforming, cancel culture, misogyny disguised as trans-rights, policing of speech and opinion, and all the other symptoms of this woke ideology did not emerge from a politics of emancipation, class struggle or wealth distribution. They emerged from, and are advocates for, authoritarian practices of censorship, suppression of debate and punishment of non-compliance that are culturally inseparable from the technologies of surveillance and control developed by finance capitalism to police and protect its borders. These are not the borders between the nation states that finance capitalism straddles like a colossus and across which the Global Biosecurity State now controls our movements to a degree hitherto unimaginable to the children of multiculturalism. They are rather the borders between, on the one hand, the international corporations and offshore jurisdictions through which global capital flows, and on the other, scrutiny by and accountability to what remains of the public sector in those nation states.

Far from the Left being, as some have claimed, under some form of collective hypnosis or programming – presumably from the propaganda of the Right – it is from the Left that we hear the most Puritanical demands for displays of public virtue, for the harshest punishments to be imposed on unbelievers in the new faith of biosecurity. There is a direct line of ideological influence between the Black Lives Matter slogan that ‘silence is violence’, the ‘rebels’ groomed by Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil offering themselves for arrest, and the ideologues of ‘Zero-Covid’ denying human rights to those who refuse to comply with the dictates of the Global Biosecurity State.

Just as, for the past century and more, trades unions under Labour’s duplicitous leadership have repeatedly sacrificed U.K. workers to the interests of U.K. capital, so the Left has handed over U.K. youth to the U.K. biosecurity state. To claim that this corporate, technocratic, authoritarian, repressive, violent and totalitarian ideology has anything in common with the emancipatory aims of socialism shows just how little the ideologues of the Left know or care about socialist politics, socialist principles or socialist practices, except insofar as it exists to suppress any organisation that attempts to enact them.

Indeed, with such willing compliance from the Left, is there any need anymore for the ideologues of capitalism to extol its supposedly unique ability to defend our freedoms? The declarations of a New World Order made at the concurrent meetings of the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation this May strongly suggest not. As an ideological principle, ‘freedom’ is well and truly off the political agenda today. Fascism – although, as Orwell predicted, imposed under another name (‘biosecurity’, ‘Net Zero’, ‘stakeholder capitalism’ etc.), no longer under the authority of a sovereign leader but of new international technocracies like the World Economic Forum and World Health Organisation, and in this country appearing in a slimy Anglicised form — is the new common good to which all of us are being compelled to sacrifice our human rights, our privacy, our bodily autonomy, our freedoms. And the truth the Left continues to refuse to face up to is that none of this could have been achieved with such speed and ease without its collaboration.

But is that all? Can so momentous a historical failure, which may one day equal that of the failure of the Left to defeat the rise of fascism a century ago, be attributed entirely to the ideological erasure of socialism not only from the parliamentary parties and political organisations of the Left but also from the ideology of its membership and fellow travellers? If the psychological structure of fascism is the pull between an almost childlike obedience to the imperious forms of authority that operate above the law, and a visceral hatred of the impoverished, the diseased, the ostracised and the criminalised, what can we say about the psychological structure of the Left in the West in 2022? Is the Left now, in effect, fascist? And if it is, was Hayek right, after all, about socialism being a stepping stone to fascism?

The answer to both these questions must be ‘no’: not only because the past 40 years of neoliberalism in the West have witnessed the outsourcing of public services to the private sector and deferral of economic policy to central banks and international financial institutions; but also because the division of the political spectrum on which Hayek’s argument rested into Left and Right – with social democrats and socialists, respectively, one and two steps to the Left, and liberals and conservatives one and two steps to the Right – no longer has any descriptive purchase on the political paradigm of the Global Biosecurity State.

The orthodoxies of woke ideology have been employed by self-styled ‘liberal democracies’ under some of the most authoritarian and anti-working-class governments in recent history – including those of Boris Johnson in the U.K., Emmanuel Macron in France, Mario Draghi in Italy and Karl Nehammer in Austria – in order to subordinate the Left to the Global Biosecurity State. ‘Subordinate’ is perhaps the wrong word, because, at the same time, notionally Left-wing governments – including those of Pedro Sánchez in Spain, António Costa in Portugal and Magdalena Andersson in Sweden – as well as Left political parties in opposition such as U.K. Labour, have been just as ready to embrace the Global Biosecurity State on the woke principles of safety, censorship and a paternal state. And, of course, liberal and conservative governments – including those of Olaf Scholz in Germany, Mateusz Morawiecki in Poland, Alexander de Croo in Belgium, Mark Rutte in the Netherlands, Sanna Marin in Finland and Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Greece – have long since made woke orthodoxies the foundation of their political platforms, and rapidly deployed them in their opportunist response to the coronavirus ‘crisis’.

This unity of response by the notionally politically differentiated governments of European nation states, together with their willing subordination to the new technocracies of global governance, has demonstrated – hopefully once and for all – that Left and Right no longer exist as positions within the new biopolitical paradigm of the West.

One could argue that they haven’t for some time. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the U.K. and one of the West’s most influential ideologues of neoliberalism, whose New Labour party did so much to close the Overton Window, replaced Left and Right with what he called ‘Open and Closed’, with the former in favour of neoliberalism, multiculturalism and globalisation, and the latter with protectionism, cultural conservatism and anti-immigration. In this new political spectrum, in which so-called ‘openness’ more accurately describes the ideology of the Left, the socialist values of political emancipation, economic equality and wealth redistribution have been removed altogether, with the middle-classes enjoined to openness and the working class dismissed as closed. Of course, with the current revolution of Western capitalism into the Global Biosecurity State, ‘open and closed’ have taken on very different meanings, with the ‘open’ advocates of neoliberalism now demanding lockdown, the imposition of ‘vaccine’ passports as a condition of travel and mandatory medical intervention as a condition of employment, and the ‘closed’ workers defending their rights and freedoms.

Indeed, insofar as the residual polarity between Left and Right has served to divide opposition to the biosecurity state, with compliance depoliticised as obedience to medical ‘measures’ issued by supposedly non-political technocratic advisory boards (whether SAGE or the WHO), the collaboration of Left and Right has facilitated the imposition of the biopolitical paradigm of the state. Just as Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom allowed neoliberals to reduce politics to economics – most famously expressed in Thatcher’s slogan that “There Is No Alternative” (TINA) – the sanctimoniously repeated mantra of the Covid-faithful that the coronavirus crisis is ‘above politics’ is the dream of a post-political totalitarian world in which, whatever party is elected to administer its dictates, the state and its powers remain at the disposal of the same international organisations of global governance.

The Left of today, therefore, is not fascist, but neither is it socialist in any recognisable sense of the term. As the more than two-and-a-half years since March 2020 have demonstrated more clearly than any other recent event in the history of the West, the Left is a residual but still functioning political form of the power of the nation state to assimilate, through the spectacles of parliamentary democracy and street protest, the potentially subversive elements of society into the homogeneous political order, in order to protect the productive forces of the economy from the increasingly frequent crises of finance capitalism. The coronavirus ‘crisis’, and the collaboration of the Left in constructing the Global Biosecurity State, is the demonstration of this function.

Simon Elmer is the author of The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State, from which this article is an excerpt.

November 11, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Saskatchewan premier slams Trudeau’s radical climate agenda

By Anthony Murdoch | Life Site News | November 8, 2022

REGINA, Saskatchewan — Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has bluntly announced that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s extreme environmental policies can go to “hell,” and that his province will assert full autonomy over its natural resources.

“To hell with that!” Moe told the Saskatchewan legislature’s speaker of the house during a debate about the Trudeau government’s environmental policies on November 3.

Reading sections of a recent report by Pipeline News verbatim, Moe quoted the outlet saying, “‘Thou shalt not use coal for power generation post-2030,’ the federal government hath said. ‘And it’s moving to do the same with natural gas by 2035.’”

“‘On November 1, the Province of Saskatchewan said, ‘To hell with that,’ but in a more sophisticated, legal manner,’” Moe added, further quoting the article’s humorous, mocking tone. 

While Moe employed a joking tone while quoting the report, he continued in a serious manner to blast Trudeau’s environmental policy goals, stating that “a fossil fuel phase–out by 2035″ is “going to make for an awfully cold house in Saskatoon on Jan. 1, 2036,” adding that “One needs to look no further than the European Union” to see the impacts of such policies. 

“I would say for the rest of the world to observe and it’s on full display for the world to observe. The energy costs in the European Union over the last number of years due to enacting these solely environmental focus policies have been skyrocketing,” stressed the politician. 

As mentioned by Moe, the Trudeau government’s current environmental goals – which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” – include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil-fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – of which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved. 

Pushing back against federal interference in the energy sector, the government of Saskatchewan introduced the Saskatchewan First Act on November 1 to “confirm Saskatchewan’s autonomy and exclusive jurisdiction over its natural resources.” 

In specific, the new piece of legislation will amend the province’s constitution to make it so that the province has “sovereign autonomy and asserts Saskatchewan’s exclusive legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada over a number of areas,” such as the “exploration for non-renewable natural resources.”  

Alberta also pushes back

Last week in neighboring province of Alberta, newly-selected Premier Danielle Smith also accused the Trudeau government of pushing “hostile policies” towards the province that have “been led by the most extreme left on environmental, social and governance ratings.” 

She noted that such policies “focus so narrowly just on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions and the demonization campaign that has happened against our energy industry, which sadly, the federal government with [Minister of Environment and Climate Change] Steven Guilbeault is aligned with.” 

Smith applauded Moe’s Saskatchewan First Act, and said that in Alberta her soon-to-be-released Sovereignty Act will likewise help assert the province’s autonomy over its abundant natural resources, and prevent federal government overreach.  

“This is the reason we have to stand up to Ottawa. They have no right to regulate our industry.”

While Trudeau’s plan has been pushed under the guise of “sustainability,” his intention to decrease nitrous oxide emissions by limiting the use of fertilizer is something farmers have warned will reduce profits and could lead to food shortages.  

Moreover, experts are warning that the Trudeau government’s new “clean fuel” regulations, which come into effect next year, will cost Canadian workers  – many of whom are already struggling under decades-high inflation rates – an extra $1,277 annually on average.

November 10, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | 1 Comment

French glass maker halts production as energy costs bite

RT | November 4, 2022

France’s largest glass manufacturer, Duralex, has suspended operations for five months due to soaring electricity prices, the company’s CEO Jose Luis LLacuna told the BFM TV channel on Wednesday.

“Our gas and electricity bills have risen from €3 to €13 million a year… The price of energy usually represents 5% to 7% of our turnover. Today, it is around 46%. It is not tenable,” Llacuna explained, adding that the company’s operation had become “nonviable” as it is unable to make a profit after such staggering outlays for energy, in addition to paying salaries and procuring raw materials.

He added that during the five-month closure, Duralex employees would continue to receive 95% of their salaries, 70% of which will be covered by the state.

The head of the company noted, however, that its warehouses are currently sufficiently stocked to survive the winter and not cause a shortage of its goods on the market.

Earlier, France’s largest aluminum smelter, Aluminium Dunkerque, said it would cut production by about 20% due to rising energy prices. Another glass manufacturer, Arc, also said it would lower output and move a number of employees to part-time work.

November 4, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Fossil Fuel Investment Has Dropped By A Third Since 2015

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | October 30, 2022

There was one chart I forgot to show from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook yesterday:

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022

As we can see, investment in fossil fuels has fallen by a third since 2015 in terms of GDP. Part of this was due to the collapse in oil and gas prices in 2014, but undoubtedly the anti-fossil fuel agenda pursued across the West for climate reasons has had a major impact as well.

Either way, this is the real reason why prices have rocketed, not the invasion of Ukraine.

Further evidence can be found in Fig 1.3, which shows that investment has remained steady in countries without a Net Zero pledge:

The real concern is that we are only seeing the early signs of much worse to come. When the cuts in fossil fuel investment really start to bite and existing oil fields begin to dry up, there will be a catastrophic energy crisis. Shortages will be very real and prices will rise well above today’s levels, as demand stays high and we find that renewable energy simply cannot keep up with demand.

The IEA’s naively oversimplistic projections simply assume that building wind and solar farms will do the trick. But the world is a complex place and does not work like that.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given us a warning. We had better not ignore it.

October 30, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Leave a comment

Oxford, England proposes dystopian surveillance system that limits driving

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | October 27, 2022

If the city goes through with plans, motorists might need special permits and open themselves up to more surveillance to drive through Oxford, England. The Oxfordshire County Council is considering giving permits to households that only allow them to drive through the city for 100 days per year per vehicle.

To implement the plan, ANPR (automatic number plate readers) cameras will be installed at “traffic filter” locations across the city.

Private cars will not be allowed across the filters without a permit. All other vehicles, including coaches, buses, vans, taxis, mopeds, HGVs, and motorbikes will be allowed through traffic filters at all times.

Consultation for the plan ended October 13 and the council is expected to make a decision in November. If they approve the plan, it will cost £3 million ($3.48 million) to implement.

Oxfordshire County Council’s minister for highways management Andrew Grant said that the traffic filter scheme is part of a “vision for a vastly improved Oxford.”

“We want to improve lives, transport and health for the people that live and work here. We have done a lot of modeling to reach these locations and we want to encourage people to choose to use their cars less,” he added.

“This is not about being anti-car, it’s about managing the way we use our roads so that they are safe for everyone. It’s about designing Oxford for the next decades and we want to hear from everyone. I would encourage people to comment and take part in the consultation, especially people who would not normally think about going online and commenting on it.”

Some that are against the plan have voiced their opinion.

Over 3,400 people have signed a petition opposing the installation of traffic filters on Hollow Way and Marston Ferry Road.

October 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

EU approves gasoline car ban

Samizdat | October 28, 2022

The EU has reached an agreement that would oblige carmakers to achieve a 100% cut in CO2 emissions by 2035. The measure would effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel-fueled cars in the bloc starting from that year. The deal was struck on Thursday between negotiators from EU member states, the European Parliament, and the European Commission, which all must agree when a new law is to be adopted within the EU.

“The European Commission welcomes the agreement reached last night by the European Parliament and Council ensuring all new cars and vans registered in Europe will be zero-emission by 2035,” the Commission said in a press release following the deal’s announcement.

The agreement also included a 55% cut in CO2 emissions for new cars sold from 2030 against 2021 levels, which exceeds the existing target of a 37.5% reduction.

EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said the agreement is a signal to all that “Europe is embracing the shift to zero-emission mobility.”

According to the press release, the new regulation aims “to make the EU’s transport system more sustainable, provide cleaner air for Europeans, and marks an important step in delivering the European Green Deal.”

The agreement is provisionary and now requires formal adoption by both the European Parliament and the EU Council. The timeframe for this is so far unclear.

October 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

German Energy Apocalypse Update VII

eugyppius – October 25, 2022

The only published footage of the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines, featured on my Nord Stream Conspiracy Thread, turns out to come from Expressen, a Swedish newspaper. Their reporters hired undersea drone operators and took a boat out to the site of the explosions off the island of Bornholm. There, they found a sizeable crater and 50 metres of missing pipeline. That this is how the images should have made their way to us, rather than through any official path, speaks volumes about the eagerness of Swedish authorities to suppress this story.

Protests against the insane energy policy of the German government are gathering momentum, particularly in the East; sporadic reports are even appearing in major media outlets now. This is surely one reason that the Minister President of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, continues to stray from official CDU talking points, calling for negotiated peace in Ukraine and likening EU sanctions to a “tsunami” threatening the German economy.

Feared gas shortages are causing chaos as customers rush to change suppliers in search of better prices, or because their current contracts have been cancelled. Several municipal utilities have flatly stopped accepting new customers, but this option is not available to the so-called Grundversorger or “basic suppliers”—the utilities that supply the majority of gas in their region. These are legally bound to take all comers, and many of them are already having difficulty meeting sudden surges in demand.

Their day-to-day solvency may also soon be a problem:

[I]t is not only the procurement prices that have risen sharply, but also the interim financing costs—that is, the sum with which the municipal utilities must bridge the time from the purchase of gas to the onward sale to the customer, and to the increase in customers’ instalment payments, [an Association of Municipal Enterprises] spokesman explained. “Both together increase the liquidity needs of the municipal utilities, and this in turn affects their ability to supply customers with electricity and gas.”

Who knows how all this will play out, and what effect (if any) proposed price limits on electricity and gas will have on the markets, but I have a crazy vision of a near-future dystopia, where a minority of wealthy customers who have maintained wildly expensive contracts with alternate providers can still heat their homes, while everyone else deals with constant outages and ad-hoc rationing schemes.

Zelensky’s economic advisor has announced that he expects the Federal Republic to contribute 500 million dollars every month to Ukraine’s defence. That sounds like a lot, but we must remember that Germany’s antigen testing program, at its height, cost around a billion Euros a month. The government has pissing away money on crazy things for a long time now.

A survey of German companies, the majority of them small businesses, shows that 25% (up from 14% four months ago) are considering whether to lay off employees, and that 90% are planning to raise prices further than they already have. Almost six in ten are delaying planned investments.

“We have been seeing a creeping shift in industrial production for some time now,” says Rainer Kirchdörfer, Chairman of the Family Business Foundation [which conducted the survey]. “We will only recognise the deindustrialisation and loss of prosperity years from now, and by then it will be irreversible.”

The economic chaos has hit the chemical industry especially hard, and among the early shortages are iron and aluminium salts, crucial precipitating agents used in wastewater treatment. Four federal states have already relaxed their rules on water purification. Chemicals necessary for the treatment of drinking water are also increasingly scarce.

Can’t we just increase our production of biogas to end our dependence on Russia and save the climate at the same time, asks the drooling knuckle-dragging morons at Westdeutscher Rundfunk ?

Overall, the share of biomethane in the German gas market could triple, according to a study by the German Biomass Research Centre in Leipzig. The Capital Bioenergy Office says in a statement that biogas plants could offset about 4 percent of Russian natural gas imports in the short term. It also says it is possible for biogas to provide 46% of the electricity from gas-fired power plants.

So, if we put all of our grain into power production, we have the prospect not only of freezing to death, but of starving to death too. I’m glad state media are investigating this promising angle.

Finally, Business Insider has discovered that the real victims of the gas crisis won’t be young children in fragile health or elderly pensioners on fixed incomes, but female professionals. Ordinances requiring offices to set thermostats at 19C, according to some garbage study, will cognitively disadvantage women, while (even worse) advantaging men, who bizarrely are alleged to perform their best at this precise temperature. Happily, though, Tagesschau has consulted Dr. Georg Ertl from University Hospital at Würzburg, who believes this unfortunate sexism, brought upon us by the furtherance of liberal democracy, can be countered by … caps and stockings.

October 25, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

The EU’s energy security now rests in Turkey’s hands

Europe has sought to bypass Russian gas with disastrous results. Turkey is set to reap the benefits.

By Karin Kneissl | The Cradle | October 24 2022

“Geography is the constant of history,” is a quote attributed to the German statesman Otto von Bismarck. Today, those words ring true as we witness geography altering global politics, finance, and alliances.

The geostrategic importance of Turkey has rarely been as clear to European politicians as it has been in recent months, as the continent grapples with a burgeoning energy crisis this coming winter.

Whether it is grain exports from the Black Sea region or the flow of energy supplies from the eastern producing countries, the Bosphorus and the links to Eurasia are once again playing a decisive geopolitical role, as they so often have throughout history. The fact is, Turkey is now crucial for the security of Europe.

Pipeline politics

On the occasion of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi at the beginning of August 2022, the focus was mainly on bilateral cooperation in energy matters.

Putin told journalists after the tete-a-tete that Europeans should be grateful to Ankara for its gas supplies due to the reliability of the TurkStream pipeline.

Last year, Russian natural gas accounted for around 45 percent of European gas imports. But that share has fallen to less than 10 percent after supplies were halted via the eastbound Yamal-Europe pipeline and suspected US-backed operatives blew up Nord Stream, which also curtailed exports via Ukraine.

The Russian-Turkish TurkStream gas pipeline project was announced in December 2014 after Moscow realized that the long-planned SouthStream project – meant to deliver Russian natural gas via the Black Sea directly to European Union (EU) member state Bulgaria – was not feasible.

Russian energy giant Gazprom and the Italian energy company ENI were the main partners in the consortium. However, following the Crimean crisis in March 2014, the EU Commission blocked this major infrastructure project, citing competition rules.

As far as Moscow was concerned, this arrangement had already been completed in the form of terminals and pipeline routes. Thousands of work contracts had been issued between Bulgaria and Hungary at the time.

Construction was scheduled to begin in June 2014, but Brussels alluded to apparent violations of competition rules in the awarding of contracts by the Bulgarian authorities and brought everything to a halt.

Turkey as a Russian energy hub

Nine months later, during a joint press conference with Erdogan in Ankara, Putin remarked that “If Europe does not want to carry it out, then it will not be carried out.” Putin then announced the TurkStream project, which was formally launched in early 2020.

One pandemic and a war later, the world has experienced and continues to experience rising natural gas prices, while Russian-Turkish energy cooperation is intensifying. On 19 October, Erdogan said he had agreed with Putin to set up a comprehensive hub for Russian natural gas built in Turkey from where Europe could meet its energy needs.

“If Turkey and our potential buyers are interested, we could consider building another gas pipeline and creating a gas hub in Turkey for sale to third countries, especially in Europe,” Putin proposed. In addition, a gas exchange could also be created in Turkey to determine prices, he added.

Neither the EU nor the US have welcomed these developments or, in some cases, faits accomplis. Turkey makes no secret of the fact that it wants to expand its status in the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and will probably soon become the tenth member of this important regional organization.

It should be noted that the SCO’s statutes stipulate energy and security – especially the fight against terrorism – as its essential agenda. The EU, it must be said, is only just discovering the importance of these issues.

Attempts to bypass Russian gas

In the recent past, governments and energy companies have looked to Turkey as an alternative to the existing transit routes for oil and gas between the east and west. In 2005, the 1750 km long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was opened, transporting Caspian oil across the Caucasus to the Turkish Mediterranean port.

Crucially, this route had the backing of Washington, reinforcing the close connection between politics and the oil business. As per an apt saying from the early 20th century US oil industry: “The oil business is too important to leave it to the oil people.”

The Nabucco pipeline project, intended to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia’s gas, consisted of a consortium of six corporations based on the initiative of the Austrian partly state-owned OMV. The project was supported politically and financially by the European Commission, with the premise being that natural gas would be supplied from the Caspian region via Turkey to Central Europe to the Baumgarten hub in Austria.

Billions were spent on marketing this project between 2002 and 2014. However contractual agreements surrounding the deal never materialized. Though inconceivable now, Iran was also initially planned as an alternative supplier, yet these efforts failed from 2005 onwards due to UN Security Council sanctions on Iran from 2008 until the present.

Additionally, supply contracts with Iraq and Turkmenistan were targeted in vain, although these arguably had a lot to do with complete mismanagement. In the case of Turkmenistan, countless advisory opinions were commissioned on the status of the Caspian Sea under international law, sea, or lake, and the possible transit pipelines for landlocked Turkmenistan.

A failed strategy

After many years of mere marketing and a lot of hot air between Brussels and Vienna around the Nabucco project, OMV’s partners finally backed out in 2014. It was clear that there was no natural gas available.

In my book “Der Energiepoker” (The Energy Poker) I wrote in 2006: “If the managers had not gone to the State Opera to see Verdi’s Nabucco, but had seen the operetta by Johann Strauss “Wiener Blut” (Viennese Blood), then this natural gas pipeline would have been given a more appropriate name.

Now, in view of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline boycotted by the EU, OMV is facing further setbacks, as the contracts with take-or-pay clauses were drafted in such a way that payment would have to be made for the Russian natural gas, even if there was no physical delivery. These conditions apparently apply until 2040.

EU will buy Russian energy indirectly

While the EU wants to bypass Russian energy sources for political reasons, Turkey, India, and China, among others, will gladly fill in the consumer void. As described, Turkey already benefited in 2014 from the SouthStream project, which became TurkStream. The EU ultimately lost out, while Ankara stood to gain, with the EU presently buying Russian natural gas via Turkey.

This energy route is set to expand even further once the Russian natural gas hub in Turkey is established. Turkey thus becomes the safeguard of the EU’s energy security. While this was the case a few years ago with non-Russian natural gas and oil, it now looks as if Russia is merely adapting its role for the European market on a regional basis.

For some years, Ankara aligned its prospective role as a hub for BTC and the Nabucco project with its EU accession ambitions. Now it seems that Turkey will become a member of the SCO much faster, and despite its NATO membership, part of the security cooperation with Russia and China.

The EU is more dependent than ever on the goodwill of those it once created obstacles for, and Turkey and Russia are no exception. The coming months will show with all their force just how irresponsibly the EU governments handled the continent’s energy security needs.

October 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Von der Leyen presented with Great Reset award

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has singled out Ursula von der Leyen for her “extraordinary commitment” to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Free West Media | October 23, 2022

The Gates Foundation named Von der Leyen as one of the four winners of the so-called Goalkeepers Global Goals Awards. The other winners are Radhika Batra, co-founder of Every Infant Matters; Zahra Joya, a journalist from Afghanistan; and Vanessa Nakate, a climate activist from Uganda.

Until recently, the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset was called a conspiracy theory. This week, the EU Commission president received an award for her commitment to the same Great Reset.

The award ceremony, presented by Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, was not supposed to be satire: Von der Leyen was praised for her role in the purchase and distribution of Corona vaccines. Her husband Heiko, is the director of Orgenesis, which is owned by Pfizer – the same company that Ursula signed a secret 71 billion euro contract with.

“It is a great honour to receive this award,” the EU boss said. She dedicated the award to the millions of Europeans who “helped us all get through the pandemic”. “From the scientists, who developed the life-saving vaccines, to the healthcare workers on the frontline. This award is also for them.”

Meanwhile the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the EU’s procurement of Corona vaccines. There has long been criticism of the secrecy surrounding the European Commission’s billion-dollar contracts with vaccine maker Pfizer.

And Von der Leyen has refused to clarify her negotiations with Pfizer boss Albert Bourla.

October 23, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, War Crimes | | 2 Comments

Russia’s homage to Nord Stream pipelines

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 22, 2022

David Brinkley, the legendary American newscaster with a career that spanned an amazing fifty-four years from World War II once said that a successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. How many American statesmen ever practised this noble thought inherited from Jesus Christ remains doubtful. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stunning proposal to Turkish President Recep Erdogan to build a gas pipeline to Turkiye to create an international hub from which Russian gas can be supplied to Europe breathes fresh life into this very “Gandhian” thought.  

Putin discussed the idea with Erdogan at their meeting in Astana on October 13 and since spoke about it at the Russian Energy Week forum last week where he proposed creating the largest gas hub in Europe in Turkey and redirecting the volume of gas, the transit of which is no longer possible through the Nord Stream, to this hub.

Putin said it may imply building another gas pipeline system to feed the hub in Turkiye, through which gas will be supplied to third countries, primarily European ones, “if they are interested.” 

Prima facie, Putin does not expect any positive response from Berlin to his standing proposal to use the string of the Nord Stream 2, which remained undamaged, to supply 27.5 billion cu. metres of gas through the winter months. Germany’s deafening silence is understandable. Chancellor Off Scholz is terrified about President Biden’s wrath. 

Berlin says it knows who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines but won’t reveal it as it affects Germany’s national security! Sweden too pleads that the matter is far too sensitive for it to share the evidence it has collected with any country, including Germany! Biden has put the fear of God into the minds of these timid European “allies” who have been left in no doubt what is good for them! The western media too is ordered to play down Nord Steam saga so that with the passage of time, public memory will fade away. 

However, Russia has done its homework that Europe cannot do without Russia gas, the present bravado of self-denial notwithstanding. Simply put, the European industries depend on cheap, reliable supplies of Russian gas for their products to remain competitive in the world market. 

Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi said last week that he cannot envisage a future where “zero Russian gas” flows to Europe. He noted acerbically, “ If that’s the case, then I think the problem is going to be huge and for a very long time. You just don’t have enough volume to bring (in) to replace that (Russian) gas for the long term, unless you’re saying ‘I’m going to be building huge nuclear (plants), I’m going to allow coal, I’m going to burn fuel oils.’” 

Quintessentially, Russia plans to replace its gas hub in Haidach in Austria (which Austrians seized in July.) Conceivably, the hub in Turkiye has a ready market in Southern Europe, including Greece and Italy. But there is more to it than meets the eye. 

Succinctly put, Putin has made a strategic move in the geopolitics of gas. His initiative rubbishes the hare-brained idea of the Russophobic European Commission bureaucrats in Brussels, headed by Ursula von der Leyen, to impose a price cap on gas purchases. It makes nonsense of the US’ and EU’s plans to put down Russia’s profile as a gas superpower. 

Logically, the next step for Russia should be to align with Qatar, the world’s second biggest gas exporter. Qatar is a close ally of Turkey, too. At Astana recently, on the sidelines of the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Putin held a closed-door meeting with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. They agreed to follow up with another meeting soon in Russia. 

Russia already has a framework of  cooperation with Iran in a number of joint projects in the oil and gas industry. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak recently disclosed plans to conclude an oil and gas swap deal with Iran by the end of the year. He said that “technical details are being worked out – issues of transport, logistics, price, and tariff formation.” 

Now, Russia, Qatar and Iran together account for more than half of the world’s entire proven gas reserves. Time is approaching for them to intensify cooperation and coordination on the pattern of the OPEC Plus. All three countries are represented in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). 

Putin’s proposal appeals to Turkiye’s longstanding dream to become an energy hub at the doorstep of Europe. Unsurprisingly, Erdogan instinctively warmed up to Putin’s proposal. Addressing the ruling party members in the Turkish parliament this week, Erdogan said, “In Europe they are now dealing with the question of how to stay warm in the coming winter. We don’t have such a problem. We have agreed with Vladimir Putin to create a gas hub in our country, through which natural gas, as he says, can be delivered to Europe. Thus, Europe will order gas from Turkey.” 

Apart from strengthening its own energy security, Turkiye also can contribute to Europe’s. No doubt, Turkiye’s importance will take a quantum leap in the EU foreign policy calculus, while also strengthening its strategic autonomy in regional politics. This is a huge step forward in Erdogan’s geo-strategy — the geographic direction of Turkish foreign policy under his watch.  

From the Russian viewpoint, of course, Turkiye’s strategic autonomy and its grit to pursue independent foreign policies works splendidly for Moscow in the present conditions of western sanctions. Conceivably, Russian companies will start viewing Turkiye as a production base where western technologies become accessible. Turkiye has a customs union agreement with the EU, which completely removes customs duties on all industrial goods of Turkish origin. (See my blog Russia-Turkey reset eases regional tensions, Aug 9, 2022)

In geopolitical terms, Moscow is comfortable with Turkiye’s NATO membership. Clearly, the proposed gas hub brings much additional income to Turkiye and will impart greater stability and predictability to the Russia-Turkey relations. Indeed, the strategic links that tie the two countries together are steadily lengthening — the S-400 ABM deal, cooperation in Syria, the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Turk-stream gas pipeline, to name a few. 

The two countries candidly admit that they have differences of opinion, but the way Putin and Erdogan through constructive diplomacy keep turning adverse circumstances into windows of opportunity for “win-win” cooperation is simply amazing. 

It does need ingenuity to get the US’ European allies to source Russian gas without any coercion or boorishness even after Washington buried the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the depths of the Baltic Sea. There is dramatic irony that a NATO power is partnering Russia in this direction. 

The US foreign policy elite drawn from East European stock are rendered speechless by the sheer sophistication of the Russian ingenuity to bypass without any trace of rancour the shabby way the US and its allies — Germany and Sweden, in particular — slammed the door shut on Moscow to even take a look at the damaged multi-billion dollar pipelines that it had built in good faith in the depths of the Baltic Sea at the insistance of two German chancellors, Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel. 

The current German leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks very foolish and cowardly – and provincial. The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen gets a huge rebuff in all this which will ultimately define her tragic legacy in Brussels as a flag carrier for American interests. This becomes probably the first case study for historians on how multipolarity will work in the world order.  

October 22, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , , | 6 Comments

Scientists Discover Massive Recent Slowdown in Melting of Antarctica ‘Doomsday’ Glacier

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | October 16, 2022

Forget coral reefs and polar bears – they are so yesterday’s climate scare stories. The real big one, the tipping point du jour, is the collapse of the West Antarctica ice shelf and the prospect of global flooding on a biblical scale last reported in the times of Noah. It’s in rapid retreat says every scaremonger from Sir David Attenborough to the BBC’s resident green activist Justin Rowlatt. It is in retreat – a natural process as the Earth slowly moves out of an ice age. But now, new scientific work has found the process at the huge Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica – nicknamed the ‘Doomsday Glacier‘ for the supposed approaching catastrophe of its swift demise – is much slower than in the recent past.

The Thwaites Glacier has long been of interest. It is the second largest ice stream in West Antarctica and occupies an area the size of Florida. A group of oceanographers, led by Dr. Alastair Graham of the University of South Florida, has mapped part of the floor once occupied by the glacier, and discovered it was retreating at twice the rate in the past than that now indicated by the satellite measurements made between 2011-2019. The earlier rate of retreat was said to be “exceptionally fast”. Work is in progress to establish when that fast retreat occurred, but it is almost certain it pre-dates the 1950s, could be about 180 years old, and possibly dates back several centuries. What is completely clear, however, given the timing, is that human-caused climate change was not a factor in the faster retreat.

The results were obtained by using autonomous submersibles to map an area of the sea floor where markings were discovered representing the retreating glacier. Mapping 13 square kilometres, the researchers found a series of ridges caused by the moving glacier hitting the sea floor as it rose and fell with the tides. It was found that during the daily tidal cycle, the glacier retreated around 6-7 metres a day, although sometimes reaching 10m. Over about five months of data, the glacier retreated 2.1 kms a year, twice the current rate measured by the satellites.

The ridges were discovered on a ‘bump’ in the sea floor that had helped pin the glacier. It was found that over a 5.5 month period, the average spacing of the ridges increased upstream from 5.8m to 6.3m. This 8% increase accelerated the annual retreat rate from 2.13km to 2.3km. The results are said to indicate that the movement across the area to the present day position was “probably rapid”. The scientists note: “Our results indicate that the rate of retreat from the bump was double the average estimated for the period 1996-2009, and about three times faster than a location immediately inland of the bump between 2011 and 2017.”

Two years ago, another group led by glaciologist Professor Julian Dowdeswell of Cambridge University measured similar tidal wedges under the Larsen continental shelf in the western Weddell Sea. Grounding line retreat rates of 40-50m a day were discovered, equivalent to 10kms a year. The scientists concluded that this retreat occurred 14,000 years ago and was 100 times faster than the rate over the past 10,000 years.

This is all fascinating scientific work that gives us more information about the natural processes that shape the Earth. But it will be largely ignored in the mainstream if such findings are seen to cast doubt on the ‘settled’ science of human-caused global warming. In March 2020, the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt took a camera crew to the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, an area he called the “front line of climate change”. The equilibrium that had held our world in balance for tens of thousands of years was beginning to slip and crash, he claimed. The “epic forces” at work were like a “scream of anguish”, he continued. “The glacier is being torn and shattered.” The acceleration in melting that affected the entire West Antarctica ice sheet was, “needless to say”, the result of the global warming gases our lifestyles produced. The emotional tosh continued: “A colleague interviews me for a programme we are making and I burst into tears. It takes me days to process my emotions.”

Humans may have a part to play in a climate that has always changed. Considering the massive forces at work in the natural world, many only partly understood, it is probably minor or even insignificant. But the move to declare the science around the subject ‘settled’ is harming our efforts to better understand the natural forces that shape the planet. It is certainly harming our ability to have a reasoned conversation about it. Vast sums of money are being diverted into a command-and-control Net Zero political agenda designed to radically alter the lifestyles and economic prospects of every single human on the planet. Only science that supports this political narrative gets a hearing in the mainstream media, and when politics is involved, emotion is never far from the controlling message.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

October 16, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

EU parliament wants to give up both Nord Stream pipelines: “Nord Stream” to be abolished

Establishment parties vote for doom in Brussels

FRONT NIEUWS | October 15, 2022

It should now be official. Nord Stream 1 and 2 are not repaired. Last week the EU parliament already voted on the further procedure with the two pipelines. Without much ado they simply decided to abandon the project, with the CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, FDP and Free Voters voting in favour. This means: a further rise in gas prices and further deindustrialization of Germany and Europe, reports Wochenblick.at.

Europe on its way to the abyss

Germany, Austria and all of Europe are suffering from the suicidal sanctions against Russia. The industry goes bankrupt or migrates to the US, which lures German entrepreneurs with cheap energy and good conditions, traditional companies that have already survived economic crises and two world wars will not survive the impoverishment program of the system. The fate of Germany as one of the most important industrialized countries is thus sealed.

This vote shows very clearly that the old parties are simply not interested in promoting the interests of their own country, and even of Europe. They have opened the door to ever-increasing poverty and stabbed their own citizens in the back.

Bernhard Zimniok, MEP of the AfD, reported in a video about the vote and the attempted cover-up by Brussels:

Europe Reloaded – Heartfelt thanks to journalist and ER contributor Michel van der Kemp for producing a translation of the video:

Hello from Brussels. Last week, the EU Parliament voted on a motion to finally give up Nord Stream 1 and 2. In doing so, the EU Parliament made a mistake that was very helpful to us:it accidentally initiated a roll-call vote instead of an electronic vote, which nobody noticed at first and which the EU Assist website, which documents all voting results, has therefore recorded on its site. On the one hand, an electronic vote means that it is known exactly how many votes were cast for or against a motion or how many abstained. But it also means that the election takes place more or less anonymously, because no member of parliament has to raise their hand, they just press a button. A roll-call vote is practically the opposite: It is documented exactly which member of parliament voted and how. When the administration realized their mistake and changed it on their website, the child had already fallen into the well, because EU Assist documented exactly who voted and how. Of all the German MPs, only the three non-attached, one from the SPD, the left and of course we from the AfD voted against giving up Nord Stream 1 and 2. The Greens, FDP, Freier Wahler (Free Choice), CDU/CSU and all but one of the SPD MPs voted to finally abandon Nord Stream 1 and 2 and thus voted for the fact that gas prices will continue to rise and that we may soon run out of gas, so voting for potential blackouts and cold apartments. Anyone who supports these parties is calling for a loss of prosperity and the collapse of the German economy, indeed of the entire country. Only the AfD makes politics for Germany!

The “creative” destruction of Europe

The future impoverishment of Germany and all of Europe is probably entirely in the interest of those forces who have [in mind] something very different for the world. With the destruction of the European continent, the breeding ground for the Great Reset has been created. The peoples have been disintegrated and fragmented by mass migration, the economy is virtually non-existent, the population is impoverished and destitute.

“You will own nothing” is one of the dogmas of the future, which the WEF has put into circulation. No one will voluntarily surrender his property, and taking it is not possible without arousing the resentment of the people. This is different in the event of a major crisis, perhaps even a war, where in the end – except for a few – no one is left with anything. A dystopian “brave new world” can be built on such a foundation.

After the end of “Nord Stream” one no longer has to face the unpleasant question of who is responsible for the terrorist attack on the pipelines.

October 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »