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The CDC Planned Quarantine Camps Nationwide

By Jeffrey A Tucker | Brownstone Institute | November 7, 2024

No matter how bad you think Covid policies were, they were intended to be worse.

Consider the vaccine passports alone. Six cities were locked down to include only the vaccinated in public indoor places. They were New York City, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. The plan was to enforce this with a vaccine passport. It broke. Once the news leaked that the shot didn’t stop infection or transmission, the planners lost public support and the scheme collapsed.

It was undoubtedly planned to be permanent and nationwide if not worldwide. Instead, the scheme had to be dialed back.

Features of the CDC’s edicts did incredible damage. It imposed the rent moratorium. It decreed the ridiculous “six feet of distance” and mask mandates. It forced Plexiglas as the interface for commercial transactions. It implied that mail-in balloting must be the norm, which probably flipped the election. It delayed the reopening as long as possible. It was sadistic.

Even with all that, worse was planned. On July 26, 2020, with the George Floyd riots having finally settled down, the CDC issued a plan for establishing nationwide quarantine camps. People were to be isolated, given only food and some cleaning supplies. They would be banned from participating in any religious services. The plan included contingencies for preventing suicide. There were no provisions made for any legal appeals or even the right to legal counsel.

The plan’s authors were unnamed but included 26 footnotes. It was completely official. The document was only removed on about March 26, 2023. During the entire intervening time, the plan survived on the CDC’s public site with little to no public notice or controversy.

It was called “Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings.”

“This document presents considerations from the perspective of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for implementing the shielding approach in humanitarian settings as outlined in guidance documents focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings. This approach has never been documented and has raised questions and concerns among humanitarian partners who support response activities in these settings. The purpose of this document is to highlight potential implementation challenges of the shielding approach from CDC’s perspective and guide thinking around implementation in the absence of empirical data. Considerations are based on current evidence known about the transmission and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may need to be revised as more information becomes available.”

By absence of empirical data, the meaning is: nothing like this has ever been tried. The point of the document was to map out how it could be possible and alert authorities to possible pitfalls to be avoided.

The meaning of “shielding” is “to reduce the number of severe Covid-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (‘high-risk’) and the general population (‘low-risk’). High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or ‘green zones’ established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector, or community level depending on the context and setting. They would have minimal contact with family members and other low-risk residents.”

In other words, this is what used to be concentration camps.

Who are these people who would be rounded up? They are “older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions.” Who determines this? Public health authorities. The purpose? The CDC explains: “physically separating high-risk individuals from the general population” allows authorities “to prioritize the use of the limited available resources.”

This sounds a lot like condemning people to death in the name of protecting them.

The model establishes three levels. First is the household level. Here high-risk people are“physically isolated from other household members.” That alone is objectionable. Elders need people to take care of them. They need love and to be surrounded by family. The CDC should never imagine that it would intervene in households to force old people into separate places.

The model jumps from households to the “neighborhood level.” Here we have the same approach: forced separation of those deemed vulnerable.

From there, the model jumps again to the “camp/sector level.” Here it is different. “A group of shelters such as schools, community buildings within a camp/sector (max 50 high-risk individuals per single green zone) where high-risk individuals are physically isolated together. One entry point is used for exchange of food, supplies, etc. A meeting area is used for residents and visitors to interact while practicing physical distancing (2 meters). No movement into or outside the green zone.”

Yes, you read that correctly. The CDC is here proposing concentration camps for the sick or anyone they deem to be in danger of medically significant consequences of infection.

Further: “to minimize external contact, each green zone should include able-bodied high-risk individuals capable of caring for residents who have disabilities or are less mobile. Otherwise, designate low-risk individuals for these tasks, preferably who have recovered from confirmed COVID-19 and are assumed to be immune.”

The plan says in passing, contradicting thousands of years of experience, “Currently, we do not know if prior infection confers immunity.” Therefore the only solution is to minimize all exposure throughout the whole population. Getting sick is criminalized.

These camps require a “dedicated staff” to “monitor each green zone. Monitoring includes both adherence to protocols and potential adverse effects or outcomes due to isolation and stigma. It may be necessary to assign someone within the green zone, if feasible, to minimize movement in/out of green zones.”

The people housed in these camps need to have good explanations of why they are denied even basic religious freedom. The report explains:

“Proactive planning ahead of time, including strong community engagement and risk communication is needed to better understand the issues and concerns of restricting individuals from participating in communal practices because they are being shielded. Failure to do so could lead to both interpersonal and communal violence.”

Further, there must be some mechanisms to prohibit suicide:

Additional stress and worry are common during any epidemic and may be more pronounced with COVID-19 due to the novelty of the disease and increased fear of infection, increased childcare responsibilities due to school closures, and loss of livelihoods. Thus, in addition to the risk of stigmatization and feeling of isolation, this shielding approach may have an important psychological impact and may lead to significant emotional distress, exacerbate existing mental illness or contribute to anxiety, depression, helplessness, grief, substance abuse, or thoughts of suicide among those who are separated or have been left behind. Shielded individuals with concurrent severe mental health conditions should not be left alone. There must be a caregiver allocated to them to prevent further protection risks such as neglect and abuse.

The biggest risk, the document explains, is as follows:

“While the shielding approach is not meant to be coercive, it may appear forced or be misunderstood in humanitarian settings.”

(It should go without saying but this “shielding” approach suggested here has nothing to do with focused protection of the Great Barrington Declaration. Focused protection specifically says: “schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.”)

In four years of research, and encountering truly shocking documents and evidence of what happened in the Covid years, this one certainly ranks up at the top of the list of totalitarian schemes for pathogenic control prior to vaccination. It is quite simply mind-blowing that such a scheme could ever be contemplated.

Who wrote it? What kind of deep institutional pathology exists that enabled this to be contemplated? The CDC has 10,600 full-time employees and contractors and a budget of $11.5 billion. In light of this report, and everything else that has gone on there for four years, both numbers should be zero.

Jeffrey Tucker is Founder, Author, and President at Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Life After Lockdown, and many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press.

November 8, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Will Trump Buckle Again on the JFK Records?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | November 7, 2024

A fascinating situation has now developed between President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment with respect to the long-secret JKF-assassination-related records that the CIA has succeeded in keeping secret for more than 60 years. Despite Trump’s campaign vow to release those records, it’s not at all clear how this matter is going to be resolved. I will give my prediction at the end of this article.

There are three major factors at play:

1. During his 2024 campaign, Trump vowed that this time around he is definitely going to order the National Archives to release those 60-year-old secret CIA records. Moreover, as he told Joe Rogan, he is going to do it “immediately.” See “Trump to Rogan: If Elected, I’ll Open Remaining JFK Files ‘Immediately’” by Jefferson Morley.

Let’s place this first factor in a historical context.

The JFK Records Act, which was enacted in 1992, ordered the national-security establishment and all other federal agencies to disclose their JFK-assassination-related records to the public.

However, the law gave federal officials an out. If they claimed that the release of certain records might jeopardize “national security” in various ways, they could keep them secret for another 25 years. Yes, 25 additional years of secrecy, on top of the secrecy from 1963 to the 1990s! Taking advantage of that out, the national-security establishment, especially the CIA, continued keeping thousands of its assassination-related records secret.

That 25-year-period ran out during Trump’s first term as president. At first, Trump declared valiantly that he was going to comply with the law and permit the National Archives to release and disclose the records.

But then just before the deadline arrived, Trump was visited by the CIA, who insisted on continued secrecy of its assassination-related records.

Trump immediately buckled. While allowing some records to be released, he did what the CIA wanted him to do and ordered that thousands of other records continue to be kept secret for another few years.

When the new deadline occurred under President Biden, the CIA convinced Biden to continue the secrecy of the records into perpetuity. Thus, the CIA felt it could now sleep easy, knowing that its long-secret assassination-related records would never see the light of day.

2. There is no doubt that the CIA does not want people to see its assassination-related records that it has succeeded in keeping secret for more than 60 years. That’s undoubtedly because the records contain incriminating material — that is, evidence that points further in the direction of a national-security-state regime-change operation against President Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas in November 1963.

No, I’m not suggesting that there is some sort of “smoking gun” in those records, like a confession that states “We orchestrated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.” That would be a ridiculous notion especially because the CIA’s policy was to never put any reference to a state-sponsored assassination into writing. Moreover, the CIA would never have turned over such a “smoking-gun” record to the National Archives in the first place, even if it wouldn’t be released for another 25 years.

Instead, it is a virtual certainty that the secret records contain bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that further fill out the mosaic of a regime-change operation. The CIA knows that assassination researchers are an extremely sharp and competent group of individuals and that they will scour those remaining records with a fine-tooth analytical comb. They know that if there is incriminating evidence, the researchers will find it.

When the CIA prevailed on Trump and Biden to maintain the secrecy of its assassination-related records, it knew that it was a virtual certainty that people would accuse it of a continued cover-up of its state-sponsored assassination of Kennedy. The CIA was obviously willing to pay that price, which indicates how important it is to the CIA that those those records never ever be released.

3. Longtime readers of my blog know that I steadfastly maintain that it is not the president, the Congress, and the Supreme Court that run the federal government. Instead, it is the national-security branch of the federal government — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. This is a notion that I would say most Americans simply do not want to confront because it is so discomforting.

In other words, the quaint notion is that the United States is a civilian-run government in which the military is subordinate to the civilian control. The truth is that once the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state in the late 1940s, the national-security establishment became in charge of the federal government, just like it is in countries like Egypt and Pakistan.

But here is the kicker: to ensure that the American people never come to the realization of what that conversion did to their federal governmental structure, the national-security branch has always permitted the other three branches to maintain the veneer or the appearance of being in charge. The national-security branch doesn’t care about appearances or veneers. It just cares about being in charge.

For a great book on this subject, one that convinced me of the validity of this thesis, I have long highly recommended National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon, professor of law at Tufts University and former counsel to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

That’s how the CIA got Trump to change his mind about releasing the JFK records when he was president. The CIA is in charge. Trump, as president, answers to the CIA, not the other way around.

So, now what? You have these three factors at play: (1) Trump’s vow to immediately order a release of the records as soon as he is sworn in as president; (2) The CIA’s obvious desire that those records never see the light of day; and (3) If the CIA pulls rank and orders Trump to cease and desist and to violate his vow, it will be confirming my thesis (and Glennon’s thesis) that it is the national-security branch that is running the federal government, something that they do not want the American people to realize.

Therefore, to ensure that Trump retains the veneer of being in charge, the CIA might simply permit him to release the records, something it was not willing to do the last time that Trump was president. But that obviously means releasing assassination-related records that the CIA clearly does not want to be released.

My prediction: The CIA is going to order Trump not to release the records and Trump is going to comply with the order by engaging in another buckle, just like the last time he was president. Like the first time around, I predict that he will declare that “national security” is still at stake and order a partial release of some irrelevant records and make a big deal of it, while continuing to keep the rest of the records — i.e., the incriminating ones — secret. Of course, this option would continue to keep the CIA’s records secret and therefore advance the cover-up of the national-security establishment’s assassination of President Kennedy, but, at the same, time would confirm my thesis (and Glennon’s thesis) that the national-security branch runs the federal government and the other three branches, including the executive branch, defer to its rule.

November 8, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Operation Red Rock in Cambodia

Tales of the American Empire | November 7, 2024

American President Richard Nixon was desperate to win the Vietnam war. A huge problem was that Vietnamese forces took advantage of neutral Cambodia and set up camps along the border from where they executed attacks. The Americans placed great pressure on the Cambodia government to send forces to expel the Vietnamese and promised massive aid and air support, but Cambodians didn’t want to join the bloody war. A top-secret plan called “Operation Red Rock” was devised in the White House to send 13 American commandos dressed as Vietnamese sappers along with some Vietnamese mercenaries to attack Cambodia’s main airbase. The American team parachuted in and conducted a successful yet messy raid on the night January 21,1971 that destroyed a few dozen older military aircraft, an ammo dump, and killed some guards. The US military quickly released details of a dastardly raid by Vietnamese communists that convinced the Cambodian government to enter the war on the American side. The Cambodian army sent units east to attack the battle hardened Vietnamese army, and were decimated. This led to a wider war and political turmoil that eventually destroyed Cambodia.

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“Chip Tatum – Black Ops Interview with Ted Gunderson”; YouTube; May 13, 2018;    • Chip Tatum – Black Ops Interview with…  

“Family Jewels”; CIA; NSA; May 16, 1973; https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NS…

“William Colby – Suspicious Death”; Chip Tatum; April 18, 2023; https://chiptatum.com/2023/04/18/will…

Related Tales: “The Vietnam War”:    • The Vietnam War  

November 8, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The repercussions of the colonization of Europe by the United States

By Eduardo Vasco | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 7, 2024

Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi recently presented a comprehensive report to the European Union that demonstrates how Europeans are falling behind Americans – and even Asians – on key issues of economic development.

While in 1990, GDP per capita in the United States was 16% higher than in the eurozone, by 2023 that gap had already grown to more than 30%. This means that Americans are increasingly richer than Europeans.

But the gap between the richest men in the United States and Europe is also widening. Only 10% of high-tech entrepreneurs in the top 30 and top 500 of the market capitalization rankings are European. By comparison, 73% in the first and 56% in the second are American.

These new figures once again reveal the economic devastation of Europe. And its origins are directly linked to American power.

By the 1930s, the United States had lost all the advantage it had gained over its European competitors at the end of World War I. Europe was devastated and Washington had emerged as the world’s great economic superpower. However, the 1929 crisis brought this strength to an end. The Great Depression seemed to have put an end to the American dream.

Just as World War I was a dispute between imperialist powers over the world market, the future World War II needed to be unleashed so that the Americans could regain control – partially lost to Germany and Japan in the wake of the 1930s crisis. Franklin D. Roosevelt led the reorganization of the American economy, vastly expanding federal spending and making large public investments thanks to a dictatorial centralization of economic power in the hands of a small corporate monopoly.

The result was an unimaginable increase in industrial production – focused almost exclusively on the war. Pearl Harbor came in very handy: it was the excuse the regime needed to eliminate opposition to its entry into the conflict. Between 1941 and 1944, U.S. war production more than tripled, and by 1944 its factories were producing twice as much as Germany, Italy and Japan.

American industrial production served two intertwined strategic objectives: to destroy Europe and to rebuild it in its image and likeness. The U.S. equipped Britain with the weapons needed to confront Germany, and both carried out an intense bombing campaign with the explicit intention of destroying the German economy, the industrial engine of Europe. Almost 2.7 million tons of bombs were dropped on Germany and the Nazi-occupied regions of other countries, particularly France and Belgium (completing the industrial heartland of Europe). American and British aerial bombings killed 305,000 Germans, injured almost 800,000, totally or partially destroyed 5.5 million homes, and left 20 million without essential public services.

It was genocide. Added to the immediate slaughter of 330,000 civilians in Japan by the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. bombings took the lives of 635,000 people.

The U.S. destruction of Europe was a big deal that benefited the United States decisively in securing its total supremacy in the new postwar world order. The deficit of foreign countries in 1946-47 was more than $19 billion. The U.S., which was intact, offered loans to begin the reconstruction of Europe as a soft form of colonization, while at the same time punishing those countries severely. In the words of the unsuspecting establishment historian Arthur S. Link, “the American government, even during the bitter days of Reconstruction, had never taken such terrible revenge on former enemies.” The German people and institutions were reformed “in the image of the United States.”

The Truman Doctrine and, mainly, the Marshall Plan, were the pillars of the U.S.’s post-World War II policy of colonizing Europe: the first transformed all of Western Europe and part of its southeast into a huge American military base, through NATO, policing the politics of these countries. The second began as a clientelist policy, granting handouts to starving Europeans (11 billion dollars) that were later returned with interest, beginning the process of economic, political and social dependence on Europe. Between 1948 and 1951, another 12 billion dollars had been spent in this regard.

Combating the false threat of the Soviet Union was the excuse found by the American government to capture Europe. “The greatest nation on earth,” declared the Republican Arthur Vandenberg before the Senate, “will have to justify or abandon its leadership.” This was how the United States managed to overcome a crisis of overproduction and sell its goods and weapons, while at the same time leaving the Europeans hostage to their accumulated debts. American products invaded Europe and NATO began to control the national armies.

On the one hand, the post-World War II subjugation of Europe resulted in relative well-being for the population, which resulted in social stability. However, following the second major American colonization strategy – deindustrialization with the imposition of neoliberal policies in the 1980s and 1990s – this welfare state was dismantled, leaving Europeans completely hostage to the United States.

In all countries around the world, the main body responsible for scientific research and development is the armed forces. However, Europe’s armies have become vassals of the United States through NATO and their capacity has been reduced to increase that of the American forces on the continent. The report commissioned by the EU from Draghi highlights the harmful consequences of this subjugation for Europe.

According to the report, Europeans spend half as much as Americans on research and development in relation to GDP, and many European businesspeople prefer to migrate to the United States to develop these activities. R&D spending relative to GDP in the European Union is also lower than that of China, the United Kingdom, Taiwan and South Korea. The EU has already been overtaken by China in the number of articles published in leading scientific journals, and Japan and India are hot on its heels – while the U.S. remains ahead. Europe’s economic capacity for innovation also remains below that of the U.S. and Japan. It has already fallen behind in the development of digital technology.

Draghi suggests a series of “drastic measures” to combat the growing gap between the U.S. and Europe, according to Politico. However, these measures are unlikely to have any effect, since the EU’s policy remains absolutely aligned (i.e. dependent) on that of the United States and no significant measures have been adopted recently that indicate a different path from that taken in recent decades.

This is why there is growing discontent, not only among ordinary people in the bloc’s countries, but also among influential sectors of the European political and economic elites. The growth of the far right in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, as well as the quest by the governments of Hungary and Slovakia for greater sovereignty, are clear reflections of this trend.

November 7, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Forces Film Themselves Ransacking Women’s Clothes and Children’s Toys

Richard Medhurst | February 28, 2024

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November 7, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How Israel invented the Gaza ‘Strip’ during its founding war of ethnic cleansing

If Americans Knew | November 4, 2024

Ilan Pappé, a renowned Israeli historian, challenges common perceptions of the Gaza Strip’s history. He asserts that prior to 1948, Gaza was not known as a “strip” but was a cosmopolitan town with a rich, diverse culture. In a video circulating online from January 2024, Pappe emphasises that the term “Gaza Strip” emerged post-1948, following the Israeli invasion, reshaping Gaza’s identity and geography.

SOURCE: Middle East Eye Apr 10, 2024    • How an Israeli war criminal turned Ga…  

RELATED: “Israeli communities near Gaza are on stolen land, former owners consigned to the Gaza ghetto” – https://israelpalestinenews.org/israe…

November 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli reservist killed in Lebanon ‘happily’ slaughtered women and children in Gaza

Shuva’el Ben Natan, an Israeli reservist, who was killed in southern Lebanon last week.
By Alireza Akbari | Press TV | November 2, 2024

Shuva’el Ben Natan, an Israeli reservist involved in the killings of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank for years, was neutralized during combat in southern Lebanon last week.

He had been dispatched to southern Lebanon from Gaza after the Israeli regime announced the “ground invasion” of southern Lebanon recently, which has proved a complete disaster for the regime.

After failing to achieve its key military objectives in the Gaza Strip after one year of genocidal war that has claimed nearly 43,300 lives so far, the Israeli regime ordered a “ground invasion” of southern Lebanon early last month despite warnings from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

Despite its attempts, the Tel Aviv regime has not succeeded in breaching the Lebanese border, facing strong resilience from the Lebanese-based resistance Hezbollah.

According to Israeli media, including Yedioth Ahronoth, around 50,000 Israeli troops as part of five military divisions and reserve brigades have failed to occupy even one Lebanese village or town in more than a month while losing hundreds of soldiers to Lebanese resistance operations in the process.

One of them is Ben Natan, who had the blood of many Palestinian children on his hands.

Just after the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October last year, a hate-spewing military reservist killed 40-year-old Bilal Salah, a Palestinian olive harvester in the village of Sawiya, located south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

He also participated in the burning of several Palestinian villages, destroying homes and vehicles in the occupied region, according to eyewitness reports.

After that, he was deployed to the besieged coastal Palestinian territory at a time when hospitals and schools were being indiscriminately bombarded and civilians killed in cold blood in broad daylight.

He engaged in horrendous war crimes in Gaza, where he was involved in setting fire to homes and killing Palestinians, including women and children, without regard for human life.

The extent of his brutality became alarmingly evident during his funeral, where his brother Uriyah and friends openly recounted his war crimes and expressed a desire for “revenge.”

Their speeches were subsequently interpreted as explicit admissions of the slain reservist’s heinous atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians, emphasizing his direct involvement in war crimes.

This disturbing portrayal garnered widespread attention as the video of the funeral circulated online, igniting outrage and condemnation among netizens.

During Ben Natan’s funeral, his brother Uriyah delivered a eulogy that shocked many in attendance.

“You entered Gaza to revenge as much as possible, women, children, everyone you saw, as many people as possible, that’s what you wanted,” he exclaimed, referring to his brother’s main motive.

“And on this day, a year after Simchat Torah, when we thought we would massacre the enemy, massacre them all, drive them out of the land, we are here at your funeral… the entire nation of Israel will have the opportunity to avenge your revenge, blood revenge, not the revenge of burning houses, not the revenge of burning trees, not the revenge of burning cars, but the revenge of blood you spilt.”

https://twitter.com/GozukaraFurkan/status/1850487651242999952

Uriyah’s words laid bare the chilling extent to which the concept of “massacre” has taken root in the mindset of Israeli settlers, reflecting a deeply ingrained ideology that glorifies violence and vengeance.

Ben Natan’s father also mourned his son by reminiscing about their shared experiences, recalling how they would patrol together while shooting at Palestinians who threw stones, describing their aim to “control and blow them up from a distance.”

During the eulogy that further exposed Ben Natan’s war crimes, an Israeli soldier referenced Ben Natan, saying, “You were the happiest and most optimistic and frivolous person in the platoon. We saw it for the first time in Gaza when you unauthorizedly burnt a house just to lift the atmosphere.”

The statement not only highlighted Ben Natan’s barbaric behavior but also underscored the normalization of violence within Israeli military circles as well as the settler population.

Ben Natan’s barbaric mindset, exposed during his funeral, sheds light on his affiliations with the Hilltop Youth which is a far-right Jewish settler movement in the occupied West Bank led by Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

This group is recognized as one of the most radical factions associated with Israeli settler extremism.

Emerging in the early 2000s, the Hilltop Youth is a loosely organized collective primarily composed of young, extremist Israeli settlers who are driven by the belief that establishing illegal outposts on the forcibly seized Palestinian land is a religious obligation.

The group’s ideology revolves around expanding Jewish presence in the occupied West Bank, an initiative aimed at fulfilling their aspiration for a “Greater Israel.”

Their activities are marked by violent attacks against Palestinian civilians, destruction of property, and instances of verbal harassment, contributing to the ongoing cycle of tension and conflict in the region.

In a poignant reflection on Ben Natan’s funeral, Lebanese Islamic scholar Sayyid Hussain Makke took to X (formerly Twitter) to express a powerful sentiment.

He emphasized that, despite the immense suffering endured by him and many others in Lebanon amid the ongoing massacres, there is no desire for “revenge” against Israeli women and children.

“Despite having lost so many loved ones, and despite my father being abducted by Israel as a teenager, and despite all the suffering inflicted upon us personally since I was born, and despite being displaced with my family right now and after having our whole village destroyed – neither I nor anyone I know has ever wished ‘revenge’ on Israeli women and children,” he wrote.

His remarks highlighted a stark contrast to the narratives perpetuated by settlers’ extremist ideology.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

How a Secluded 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Unprecedented Influence Over US Media

By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | October 31, 2024

As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.

In the first week of October, Israeli forces fired 355 bullets at a car containing a five-year-old, then shot at rescue workers who rushed to save her life. A horrific crime – yet, per many Western media headlines, she was simply a “girl killed in Gaza.” The circumstances and perpetrators of her death, if mentioned at all, were invariably buried at the bottom of reports, well hidden from the 80% of the news-consuming public who only read headlines, not accompanying articles.

By contrast, on October 15, Sky News was very keen that its viewers know the names and faces of four “teenage” IDF soldiers “killed” in a “Hezbollah drone attack,” humanizing and infantilizing individuals who, by mere token of their service in Israel’s military, are by definition, guilty of genocide. In passing, the same report briskly noted: “‘23 die’ in Gaza school strike.” Their identities, ages, and photos, let alone clarity on who or what murdered them, weren’t provided.

Moreover, the inverted commas incongruously hovering around the number of Palestinians killed subtly undermined that claim’s credibility while reducing the child victims to an afterthought compared to the considerably more important quartet of deceased IDF genocidaires. MintPress News senior staff writer Alan MacLeod put it succinctly when he Tweeted, “In years to come, students in university departments around the world will be studying the propaganda embedded in this headline. It’s truly incredible how much propaganda has been packed into 16 words.”

The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

‘Neighborhood Bully’

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting.

Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry. As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers:

What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.”

Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. In September 1982, an Israel-backed armed Christian militia, Phalange, entered Sabra, a Beirut neighborhood home to many Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Over a two-day span, they slaughtered up to 3,500 people while mutilating and raping countless others. Again, unfortunately for Tel Aviv, mainstream journalists were on hand to document these heinous crimes first-hand.

To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands. The risk that further exposure of its genocidal nature might decisively and permanently shift global opinion in favor of the Palestinians and the Arab world more generally was significant. The attack on Lebanon had already spurred Western news outlets to critically reassess other illegal annexations and occupations in which Israel was and remains engaged. As ABC News reporter Richard Threlkeld commented at the time:

Israel was always that gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds. Now, the Israelis have annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, settled down more or less permanently on the West Bank, and occupied close to half of Lebanon. In the interests of self-defense, that gallant little underdog, Israel, has suddenly started behaving like the neighborhood bully.”

So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress (AJC) – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled:

It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”

The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”

‘Big Scoop’

The AJC subsequently published records of the conference. They offer extraordinarily candid insight into how multiple Hasbara strategies, which have been in perpetual operation ever since were birthed. For example, basic propaganda messages were agreed upon. This included messages that are echoed by Israel’s supporters to this day, emphasizing Israel’s regional importance to the U.S. and Europe, Western cultural and political values, geographic vulnerability, and supposed striving for peace in the face of implacable Palestinian belligerence and intransigence.

As Judith Elizur, an expert in “communications” from Tel Aviv’s Hebrew University, explained:

Because the ‘power dimension’ of Israel’s image is so problematic, it seems to me that Hasbara must concentrate on reinforcing other aspects of Israel that have a positive appeal – medicine, agriculture, science, archaeology… We have been too preoccupied with extinguishing political brush fires. We need to devote more of our resources to long-range image-making. We must recreate a multi-dimensional image of Israel which will assure us the basic support we require in times of crisis.”

There was extensive discussion of how to present “unpalatable policies” to Western populations, and counter the perception of Israel as “Goliath steamrolling” across West Asia, against adversaries “outgunned, outclassed and outmanned” with “no capacity to resist.” The necessity of training the Jewish diaspora in countering criticism of Israel was considered paramount.

AJC’s president lamented that “many American Jews” had condemned the invasion of Lebanon and “did us a terrible disservice.” Any such future “disagreement” would make it “very difficult for us to conduct Hasbara effectively.”

Joseph Block, Pepsi’s former vice president of public relations, stressed the need for a dedicated, 24/7 Israel press operation “equipped to offer foreign journalists an occasional exclusive or scoop” and engage in other media outreach to balance critical coverage and get reporters and newsrooms ‘on side.’ Block lamented that had Israeli officials not “briefed NBC and other networks appropriately” and given them “a big scoop” during Lebanon’s invasion, “a different story would have reached America’s 90 million TV households”:

News doesn’t just jump into a camera. It’s directed. It’s managed. It’s made accessible. Public relations is a process that makes news available in a particular form. In the US, PR is as important as accounting, the law and the military… As a corporate spokesman for two of America’s top 50 corporations, I wish I had a shekel for every time I said, ‘no comment’ to a reporter. I was always careful, however, not to antagonize or intimidate the reporter. I knew I had to live with him or her.”

Yoram Ettinger, media analysis chief at the Israel Information Center, concurred, declaring that media framing on Israel’s actions needed to be determined in advance. “Actions” such as “blowing up houses,” which were “difficult to explain,” could be preemptively justified or at least relativized by placing them “in context” while “[drawing] analogies that others will understand.” This would “help others to interpret their meaning,” per Tel Aviv’s perspectives.

The Conference hoped such efforts would mean “our American friends will be able to take a more activist posture as amplifiers of our policy” and assist them in “tucking away the house problems in a back room.” It was also suggested that on an individual and organizational level, Zionist activists serve as a rapid reaction force, deluging news outlets with complaints en masse should their coverage of Israel be at all critical. One attendee boasted of their personal success in this regard:

One day CBS News Radio reported that an American soldier had been hurt by stepping on an Israeli cluster bomb at the Beirut airport. I called CBS to point out that no one had established the bomb was an Israeli one. One hour later CBS reported that an American soldier had stepped on a bomb; this time the report omitted any reference to Israel.”

‘Frequent Violations’

Another significant recommendation came from Carl Spielgovel: creating a “training program” to bring carefully selected Israeli information specialists into U.S. advertising, PR agencies, and major news outlets. The initiative aimed to equip them with industry insights, ensure Hasbara efforts were maximized, and establish close relationships between Israeli officials and the organizations to which they were assigned.

These “specialists” would operate under the guidance of a U.S.-Israeli council described as “wise persons who can project different scenarios and how to cope with them” on complex issues like “annexation and Jerusalem.” Spielgovel was careful to clarify that he was “not suggesting that we make policy” but rather that “we should make the best minds available to help elucidate the consequences of certain policies.” The goal, he suggested, was to reinforce to the American public that Tel Aviv remains Washington’s “staunch political and military ally.”

Spielgovel further proposed that future AJC conferences should incorporate input from “young people” and people of color to better promote Tel Aviv’s image among diverse “constituencies.” He argued that “Hasbara needs to implant in the consciousness of the world the day-to-day existence” of Israeli citizens, requiring a steady stream of “stories in the arts, business, and cooking sections of U.S. newspapers.” Since then, a dedicated Hasbara program aimed at cultivating skilled Zionist advocates in the U.S. has operated continuously.

Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.

To a significant degree, the portrayal of Tel Aviv as “the gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds” has been firmly reestablished. Despite the ongoing crisis in Gaza, mainstream outlets seldom provide context for Palestinian resistance to Israel’s policies of annexation, occupation, and military actions. Coverage nearly always frames Israel’s actions as “self-defense” against “terrorist” threats, with Western journalists keenly aware of potential repercussions for diverging from this narrative.

The rapid reaction force proposed at the 1984 AJC conference remains highly active. An extensive network of Hasbara-trained individuals and Israel lobby organizations is always on standby, ready to pressure and intimidate news outlets if coverage diverges from favorable framing or casts Israel in a critical light. As a senior BBC producer once confided to veteran media critic Greg Philo:

We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis. The only issue we face then is how high up it’s come from them. Has it come from a monitoring group? Has it come from the Israeli embassy? And how high has it gone up our organization? Has it reached the editor or director general? I have had journalists on the phone to me before a major news report, asking which words can I use – ‘is it alright I say this’?”

An October exposé by Al Jazeera, citing testimony from BBC and CNN whistleblowers, detailed “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles” at both networks. According to insiders, much of this was driven by concerns over how Israeli officials might perceive and react to certain coverage. Independent activists and journalists, however, are not bound by such institutional pressures—and since October 7, 2023, they have mounted a formidable challenge to Hasbara narratives.

Were it not for the persistent investigations by outlets like MintPress News, The Grayzone, and Electronic Intifada, unfounded allegations promoted by Israel since the outset of the Gaza conflict—such as claims of Hamas committing mass rape or beheading infants—might never have been thoroughly debunked and might still shape the “context” for Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Meanwhile, countless concerned citizens have actively challenged Western narratives on the conflict in real-time across social media, a groundswell of critique that may be fueling pushback within some mainstream newsrooms.

It is a poetic irony that the same information warfare techniques once honed under Hasbara are now being directed at Israel and its defenders. For decades, these methods allowed Israel to proceed with its gradual displacement of the Palestinian people, often with tacit approval from Western audiences. But those times seem to be fading. Today, critics and former targets of Israeli policy are effectively using these strategies, wielding what they see as their most potent tools—truth and justice.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO trying to push Russia out of Black Sea – Putin aide

RT | November 2, 2024

Russia must work to strengthen its Navy to counteract NATO’s continued efforts to establish dominance in the Black Sea, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Nikolay Patrushev has said.

During a meeting with the command of the Russian Navy and the Black Sea Fleet, Patrushev, who serves as the chairman of the Maritime Collegium, pointed out that pushing Russia out of the Black Sea has long been one of the primary goals of Washington and its allies.

“Historical facts show that pushing Russia away from the Black Sea shores has traditionally been considered one of the key tasks in Anglo-Saxon politics. And today, the collective West, led by the United States, is hatching plans to establish its own long-term presence in the Black Sea and along its perimeter to the detriment of the legitimate interests of our country,” Patrushev said.

He added that the US and its NATO allies are currently “hatching plans” to expand their naval presence in the Black Sea through the use of Europe’s internal waterways for military purposes; in this case, to access it through the Danube.

“Reducing Russia’s role as a maritime power in the Black Sea region is one of the areas of action of unfriendly Western states in the context of their policy aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on our country,” he said, noting that the increase of NATO’s presence is also a violation of the Montreux Convention, which limits the presence of military vessels in the straits between the Black and Mediterranean seas.

Patrushev also pointed out that according to Russia’s maritime doctrine, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea are regarded as key regions for the protection of the country’s national interests in the global ocean space.

He stressed that it was necessary to ensure “a balance of power” in the region and increase the universality of the Russian Navy and expand its range of its tasks to help protect national interests.

In July, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky had signed a decree outlining the country’s maritime security strategy, which included the establishment of a permanent NATO presence in the Black Sea and the organization of maritime patrols in the Azov-Black Sea basin in coordination with Kiev’s partner countries.

Moscow responded to the move by pointing out that a “concentrated presence” of NATO ships in the Black Sea represented a threat to Russia’s national security and that it would respond by taking measures to protect its interests in the region.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

TV host slams ‘climate alarmism’ among Western media

Sky News Australia | October 31, 2024

Sky News host Chris Kenny slams the overwhelming “climate alarmism” among Western media which is catastrophising and scaring children.

“When it comes to climate change and climate alarmism, it is almost pointless fighting back,” Mr Kenny said.

“But I’m going to keep pointing it out because, you know, facts matter. Now people hate to challenge this stuff because then they’re called climate deniers and they’re mocked, shunned or even abused. So, for the record, yes, the climate is changing.”

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

House Panel Refers Andrew Cuomo for Prosecution

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 1, 2024

NBC News just reported the following:

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland accusing the former governor of providing false statements to the panel when he testified on June 11.

In the Republican-led committee’s referral, it says Cuomo “knowingly and willfully made materially false statements” to the panel during its investigation into the New York’s Covid-19 response. The statements in question stem from exchanges about a New York state Department of Health report on nursing home infections and deaths that was released on July 6, 2020.

The report caught my eye because I have long followed the New York nursing home scandal, which I thoroughly investigated for our book The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.

This particular chapter about the mindbogglingly stupid and criminal pandemic response is so noteworthy that I believe it is worth republishing.

CHAPTER 11: “Cuomosexuals”

On the same day (March 23) that Dr. Bright initiated his scheme to restrict hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the following executive order:

No pharmacist shall dispense hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine except when written as prescribed as an FDA-approved indication; or as part of a state approved clinical trial related to COVID-19 for a patient who has tested positive for COVID-19 with such test result documented as part of the prescription. No other experimental or prophylactic use shall be permitted …

This order prohibited New York pharmacies from filling off-label prescriptions for Covid patients. The exceptionally determined Dr. Zelenko found a way to get around it, but it made his practice much more difficult.

Two days later, on March 25, the New York Department of Health issued the following directive to nursing home administrators:

No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.

As anyone who has ever worked in a nursing home knows, respiratory viruses can rip through the facility and cause severe illness. Virulent common cold rhinovirus outbreaks have resulted in multiple deaths in this setting. By March 25, it was crystal clear that the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 is by far the highest for patients over the age of seventy-five. Thus, ordering “confirmed or suspected” Covid patients to be readmitted to nursing homes was the equivalent of forcing foxes into henhouses. What was the New York State Health Department thinking?

On March 27, the United States set the world record of COVID-19 cases, and New York City was the nation’s epicenter—a five-alarm fire of serious infections. On April 10, New York State recorded more Covid cases than any country on earth except the United States in total and its nursing homes were devastated by the contagion. The legacy media was slow to notice this, perhaps because it was blinded by Governor Cuomo’s stardom. He gave daily press conferences in which he spoke about the measures he and his team were taking to keep New Yorkers safe. Millions across the country watched these performances for which he later received an Emmy.

As the spring wore on, reports of mass casualty events in nursing homes emerged, and these drew scrutiny to the Health Department’s March 25 directive. On May 21, the Associated Press reported that over 4,500 Covid patients had been sent back into New York nursing homes. This number would later be revised upward to over 9,000. The AP report coincided with growing suspicion the Health Department wasn’t being transparent about mortality data in these facilities. Suspicion was confirmed on January 28, 2021, when New York Attorney General Latitia James reported that the Department of Health had undercounted nursing home deaths by 50%.

On February 11, 2021, the New York Post published a leaked audio recording of Governor Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, speaking confidentially with the New York State Democratic Committee. On this tape she can be heard apologizing for concealing nursing home data. Though mealy-mouthed, her apology revealed that Cuomo’s team had acted out of fear of getting into trouble with the DOJ.

Basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.

After making this confession, she changed the subject to “the context” of their decision—namely, they were concerned that President Trump would try to politicize the incident in the upcoming election.

“Right around the same time, he [Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” she told the Committee.

For many who followed the New York nursing home story, it seemed emblematic of many pathologies afflicting the U.S. political and media class. First was the nepotism of the Cuomo family, with CNN Anchor Chris and Governor Andrew regularly putting on shows for their fawning, sentimental fans, many of whom called themselves “Cuomosexuals.” T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and even a popular music video appeared bearing the term’s definition: In love with competent, reassuring governance by a leader who uses complete sentences and displays common sense during a pandemic.

The Governor’s cult of personality yielded a $5.2 million book deal with Penguin Random House, initiated by an acquiring editor on March 19, 2020, three days before the state went into lockdown. The deal for American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic stipulated the book be ready for publication before the November elections. Governor Cuomo purportedly wrote a 70,000-word typescript in three months while at the same time executing his duties as full-time “Leader” in handling New York’s Covid crisis. The state ethics board approved the deal on the condition that no state resources were used in the book’s production, but that didn’t stop Cuomo from using his staff and a ghostwriter.

Complementing the governor’s book deal was his Emmy Award. As Bruce Paisner, CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, explained in his announcement of November 20, 2020:

The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure. People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.

All these awards and extravagant expressions of adulation for the Governor’s leadership overlooked his executive order impeding access to hydroxychloroquine and his Health Department’s catastrophic directive to nursing homes. Protecting nursing homes was the only contagion control policy for which there was a crystal clear rationale. While general lockdowns did little to stop the spread, extraordinary measures to secure nursing homes probably would have given some protection to society’s most vulnerable. Instead, the New York Health Department sent thousands of Covid patients back into these facilities and then concealed the ensuing death toll. On June 2, 2020, USA Today reported that “Over the last three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have died of COVID-19—about 40% of the nation’s death toll attributed to the coronavirus …”

After flying high in 2020, the Cuomo brothers fell back to earth in 2021, when multiple women accused the Governor of sexual harassment. He was then further accused of using his executive power to suppress these allegations. Chris Cuomo was likewise accused of using his powerful media connections to aid and abet his brother in the concealment.

A cynic might be tempted to wonder about the timing of the sexual misconduct allegations—right as reports emerged that New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney Seth Ducharme of the Eastern District of New York, and the FBI were opening investigations into allegations of malfeasance resulting in nursing home deaths. Especially disturbing was the allegation that Governor Cuomo provided legal immunity to nursing home executives from whom he received campaign contributions, possibly giving them carte blanche to cut costs at the expense of the care and safety of their residents. As the Attorney General stated in her preliminary findings:

On March 23, Governor Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA) provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is reasonable to provide some protections for health care workers making impossible health care decisions in good faith during an unprecedented public health crisis, it would not be appropriate or just for nursing homes owners to interpret this action as providing blanket immunity for causing harm to residents.

With multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made in March 2021, the subject in mainstream media reporting was largely changed from New York State’s possible liability for the preventable deaths of thousands to Governor Cuomo’s inappropriate behavior with women.

On August 7, 2021, the New Yorker published a coda to Governor Cuomo’s rise to superstardom and his crashing fall from grace. In an essay titled, Diving Into the Subconscious of the “Cuomosexual,” reporter Lizzie Widdicombe posed the question:

How could we have witnessed the Governor’s narcissism, bullying, and hackneyed paternalism and found these qualities attractive?

To answer it, she interviewed psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner, who explained that Governor Cuomo “was radiating an eroticized masculinity that has within it hostility and a little tenderness. That combination of soft and hard—mostly hard, but also soft—is what so many women crave in some way.”

Dr. Goldner’s remarks pointed to a key feature of how the public responded to official Covid policy. Approval of policies had little to do with their substance. Mostly it derived from impressions of the personal qualities, political affiliation, and perceived authority of the officials who presented the policies. Governor Cuomo exuded masculine confidence and gave the impression of taking bold action against a foreign invader. His performances were fascinating to watch, but they had little to do with reality.

By late March of 2020, the virus had spread far beyond the possibility of being contained. The Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, pointed this out in a March 28, 2020 New York Times interview, but no major public health official in the United States acknowledged this reality. Because the virus was far beyond containment, it was unlikely that any of Governor Cuomo’s contagion control orders such as his statewide lockdown or shutdown of “nonessential businesses” made any positive difference. He was awarded an Emmy for embodying “the determination to fight back” against the virus. In fact, he disarmed New Yorkers by impeding their access to the only weapon (hydroxychloroquine) known at the time for fighting it. Covid patients, including thousands of sitting ducks in nursing homes, were consequently left defenseless.

From: The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, by John Leake and Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, SKYHORSE, New York, 2022.

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The US Secretary of Defense is Ready to Fight a Nuclear War over Korea

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | October 31, 2024

Few Americans today would try to justify the United States government taking part in the Korean War in the 1950s. Even most of those who would make such an attempt would ground their argument in asserting there was a special need back then, as part of the Cold War, to prevent the expansion of communism.

The Cold War is long over. So, why are still today tens of thousands of US soldiers in South Korea, and many more nearby, ready to resume fighting in the long paused Korean War at a moment’s notice? Inertia? Bloodlust? Reluctance of the military bureaucracy to give up any of its size and scope? The desire of the military-industrial complex to wring every possible dollar it can from the American people?

None of these reasons seems very persuasive. Instead of preparing to restart the war that wrought enormous death and destruction the first time around, US officials should be preparing for the US military to finally exit Korea.

Yet, there was US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday not just saying he has declared to the South Korea defense minister “that the United States remains fully committed to the defense” of South Korea. Further, Austin pledged that the US government’s “extended deterrence commitment” to South Korea “remains ironclad” and that that commitment “is backed by the full range of America’s conventional, missile defense, nuclear and advanced non-nuclear capabilities.”

There you go, the US secretary of defense is threatening going nuclear in a war for which the now generally rejected reason for the US becoming involved in it disappeared decades ago. The defense secretary is mad for war. In this condition he reflects US government policy.

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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