News Articles | February 20, 2022

February 20, 2022February 20, 2022 Robert Heston Afghanistan, Africa, Assange, Bernie Sanders, Biden, Climate Change, julian assange, methane, military, military industrial complex, Oil, police, pollution, Putin, Russia, student debt, the Amazon, The Environment, tyranny, unions, War, Yemen

Biden is crushing the Afghan economy by seizing $3.5 billion of its people’s money and diverting the other $3.5 billion for a trust fund “to benefit the Afghan people.”

AFTER MAKING THE initially brave decision last summer to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the Biden administration announced on Friday that it intends to split the Afghan central bank’s assets — which are held in the possession of the New York Federal Reserve Bank — between the families of 9/11 victims and unspecified efforts “for the benefit of the Afghan people.” The decision puts Biden on track to cause more death and destruction in Afghanistan than was caused by the 20 years of war that he ended.

For months, the administration has been debating how the future of economic relations with a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will look. The assets, which were initially frozen when the Taliban seized control of the country in August, are essential for the liquidity and basic functionality of the economy. With the administration’s lack of firm commitment to return the assets to the central bank — which American economists who helped design, and still help to run, say is still independent from the Taliban — the Afghan people will be reliant on humanitarian aid for the foreseeable future. Already, reports say that aid is not enough to prevent the precipitous decline in living conditions the Afghan people are facing. READ MORE

A million children could die of starvation.

Gay rights, women's rights—in reality, these are a nuisance to many U.S. conservatives, but purporting to protect these rights on the other side of the world is a great excuse to play war.

And you don't need bombs to play. All you need is the will to dominate and the ability to dehumanize "the enemy," so that their lives can be trashed if (and when) necessary.

I have to confess a stunned speechlessness as I learn about the looming fate of Afghanistan, if President Biden refuses to release $9.4 billion of its assets to the country's central bank, which it had deposited abroad, primarily at the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the 20-year war. With the Taliban reclaiming power after the U.S. withdrawal last August, the president seized control of these assets, potentially plunging Afghanistan into economic freefall, and . . . oh God . . .

"United Nations officials are warning that millions of Afghans could run out of food before winter, with 1 million children at risk of starvation. . . . READ MORE

Global outrage has continued to grow since the Biden administration stole Afghanistan's foreign reserves with nearly 23 million Afghans facing acute hunger.

Following the Biden administration's unilateral decision last week to seize $7 billion worth of assets from Afghanistan amid a mounting humanitarian crisis that threatens to kill more civilians than two decades of war, foreign leaders and critics worldwide continue to express disgust, with China on Tuesday condemning the U.S. for dispossessing Afghans of their own money.

"Without the consent of the Afghan people, the U.S. willfully disposes of assets that belong to the Afghan people, even keeping them as its own. This is no different from the conduct of bandits," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday during a press conference in Beijing.

China's response came after U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order to confiscate more than $7 billion that the Afghan Central Bank has on deposit in the Federal Reserve. Biden froze those funds last August when the Taliban regained control of Kabul as U.S. military and NATO forces withdrew, and now he plans to divide them between the families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and humanitarian aid for Afghanistan. READ MORE

An uncontacted Amazon tribe whose existence has only just been confirmed is already at imminent risk of being wiped out, while the Brazilian authorities turn a blind eye.

The tribe’s presence was recently verified by an official expedition, but their territory is unprotected, and close to an area along the Purus river in the western Amazon region of Brazil where many non-Indigenous settlers live, collect forest produce, fish and hunt.

Other uncontacted groups in the neighboring Amazon state have been massacred in recent years, reportedly by loggers operating illegally, and drug traffickers.

Besides the risk of a violent attack, any encounter with outsiders would expose the tribe to diseases such as malaria and Covid-19 to which it has no immunity. Both are rife in the area.

A team of FUNAI field workers visited the area between August and October 2021 and found conclusive evidence of the tribe’s presence: hunting shelters, woven baskets, pots and bows. They also heard members of the tribe talking nearby.

Very little is known about them; they are hunter gatherers and may number several dozen people.

FUNAI’s protection team in the region sent a report to their headquarters in Brasilia requesting urgent action, including a Land Protection Order to cover the region where the tribe lives; the creation of a base for the team to monitor and protect the forest; the imposition of a “health cordon” to prevent the spread of disease; and the continued presence of a team to gather more information for the purposes of recognizing the tribe and its land.

However, FUNAI’s head office did not respond to their request, and has ignored two subsequent urgent demands for protection measures to be enacted. READ MORE

"I am not sure that members of Congress have the willingness or the courage to stand up to the powerful special interests who control the economic and political life of this country," he said on the Senate floor.

Less than 24 hours before his Senate Budget Committee hearing about Wall Street greed and oligarchy in the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday delivered a sweeping and impassioned speech—reminiscent of his two presidential runs—railing against Congress for serving corporate interests and failing actually address the needs of the American people.

Speaking on the Senate floor for nearly half an hour, the Vermont Independent highlighted that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic "has had a devastating and horrific impact," from "severely" disrupting the education of younger generations to killing over 900,000 people in the United States alone, including essential employees forced to work in dangerous conditions.

"While the vast majority of people in our country are hurting emotionally, they're hurting economically, these are not difficult times for everybody," he explained. "If you are a billionaire in this country or a CEO of a large corporation… these times have not been bad; they have, in fact, have been very, very good." READ MORE

"Devoting this enormous sum to the Pentagon at a time when the greatest challenges to our security—from pandemics to climate change—are not military in nature is both misguided and counterproductive," said one critic.

With legislation to reduce childhood poverty and advance renewable energy stalled in Congress, the Biden administration is expected to request more than $770 billion in Pentagon and related spending for the fiscal year beginning in October.

"This is absurd," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in response to the news.

The expected budget request, first reported by Reuters Wednesday, is tens of billions of dollars more than former Republican President Donald Trump ever requested and contrasts with widespread public demand for increased investment in middle- and lower-class Americans and an end to bloated military budgets.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) pointed to recent polling by the organization which showed that 54% of adults in the U.S. want "the exact opposite" of increased military spending.

"In the midst of a pandemic, the growing climate crisis, and ongoing issues nationwide, we need to invest in solutions instead of enriching defense contractors," said the AFSC. READ MORE

During visits to Kabul, Afghanistan, over the past decade, I particularly relished lingering over breakfasts on chilly winter mornings with my young hosts who were on their winter break from school. Seated on the floor, wearing coats and hats and draped with blankets, we’d sip piping hot green tea as we shared fresh, warm wheels of bread purchased from the nearest baker.

But this winter, for desperate millions of Afghans, the bread isn’t there. The decades-long U.S. assault on Afghanistan’s people has now taken the vengeful form of freezing their shattered, starving country’s assets.

When I was in Afghanistan, our rented spaces, like most homes in the working class area where we lived, lacked central heating, refrigerators, flush toilets, and clean tap water. My Afghan friends lived quite simply, yet they energetically tried to share resources with people who were even less well-off. READ MORE

Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain

On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now.

But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.

The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave.” He was referring to independent journalists and whistle blowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organizations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished. READ MORE

With current German best seller “Gekaufte Journalisten” (“Bought Journalism”) telling the true story of Udo Olfkotte being paid by the CIA for twenty-five years in order to spin the news in favor of US/NATO interests,1 the plummeting public confidence in corporate mainstream news is more than warranted.2 Of course Operation Mockingbird,3 a CIA scheme to influence and pay US journalists in the same manner,4 has long been exposed and yet is seldom discussed on public airwaves. A German TV sketch comedy troupe, Die Anstalt, satirized the glaring journalistic malfeasance in the media’s interpretation of the 2014 Ukraine conflict, to raucous applause.5 Closer to home, CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed the white house’s manipulation of and collusion with domestic mass media, when she was screamed at by an Obama spokesman, “The Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, The New York Times is reasonable. You’re the only one who’s not reasonable! READ MORE

The other day I asked, “What is Washington up to?” It is already time to ask that question again.

While writing my article suggesting that only a judicious use of Russian force would sober up the West, Washington doubled down on its anti-Russian position, predicting in two news venues–the Secretary of State’s UN speech and the State Department spokesman’s press briefing–that Russia was about to launch a false flag attack that Russia would use as the excuse to invade Ukraine.

The State Department claims are pure fantasy. Why after just rejecting the Russian’s proposal for a mutual security agreement does the Biden regime keep fanning the flames of war?

It makes no sense for the State Department to predict something that is not going to happen. As there is no aerial or satellite evidence or evidence of any kind except assertions that “US intelligence has concluded” of a constellation of attack forces on Ukraine’s border, the only way the State Department could know of a false flag event would be if it is a US false flag attack for which Russia is being set up for blame. READ MORE

As the Biden administration continues to warn of a "looming" attack, anti-war advocates urge diplomacy and dedication to playing "a cooperative and constructive role in this new multipolar world."

Amid global demands for urgent diplomacy to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday rebuffed allegations by the Biden administration—along with other Western governments and corporate media—that Russia intends to imminently invade its neighbor.

"There is no 'Russian invasion' of Ukraine, which the U.S. and its allies have been announcing officially since last fall, and it is not planned, therefore, statements about 'Russia's responsibility for escalation' can be regarded as an attempt to exert pressure and devalue Russia's proposals for security guarantees," said the ministry in its official response to a U.S. statement issued last month on Moscow's security demands, including Ukraine's exclusion from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). READ MORE

Joe Biden told the American people, on 15 February 2022, “The United States and NATO are not a threat to Russia. … To the citizens of Russia: You are not our enemy.”

He expected Americans and Russians to believe that America’s anti-Russian military alliance (NATO) wasn’t hostile to Russia, wasn’t against it, didn’t consider it to be even an enemy (much less U.S/NATO’s main enemy, which is the case in their own actual policies).

How stupid are the public (both Americans and Russians) — that stupid?

Or was he (the U.S. President), instead, so stupid, himself, as to believe what he said?

If he wasn’t that stupid, then was he a liar? Could he have been both (stupid and a liar)? Could he have been actually a stupid liar? Is that the reality? READ MORE

In the Gulf of Mexico, still recovering from an estimated 134 million gallons of oil spilled by BP in 2010, the Biden administration has leased record-breaking off-shore drilling rights to 33 gas and oil companies including Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron.

Biden came to the presidency promising swift action on climate change. A year in office, it is critical to see what he has accomplished beyond rejoining the Paris Agreement.

Despite campaign promises to halt gas and oil drilling on public lands, Biden has issued more drilling permits on federal lands than Donald Trump did in his first year. In the Gulf of Mexico, still recovering from an estimated 134 million gallons of oil spilled by BP in 2010, the Biden administration has leased record-breaking off-shore drilling rights to 33 gas and oil companies including Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron. The 308 leased tracts in the Gulf cover 1.7 million of more than 80 million acres that the administration opened to auction in November 2021, the largest lease sale in the history of the country. READ MORE

World governments are spending $1.8 trillion annually to support fossil fuel emissions, deforestation, water pollution, and other harms to biodiversity and the planet.

Releasing a new study showing that world governments spend at least $1.8 trillion annually to subsidize activities which worsen the climate crisis, global subsidies experts on Thursday said leaders must eliminate or redirect the financial supports as part of an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework at an upcoming summit in China.

The B Team and Business for Nature, two organizations that push businesses around the globe to adopt sustainable practices, supported the study, titled Financing Our Survival: Building a Nature-Positive Economy Through Subsidy Reform.

According to the authors—Doug Koplow of subsidy research firm Earth Track and Ronald Steenblik of the International Institute for Sustainable Development—a lack of transparency regarding the use of subsidies means that the amount of government money being spent on the destruction of nature could be much higher than the research shows. READ MORE

"While this event is particularly severe, Louisiana is already forced to live through an exorbitant amount of pollution daily from fossil fuel and petrochemical plants."

Environmental justice advocates on Wednesday pointed to a methane plume so large it was seen last month from space via satellite as the latest evidence that emissions of the potent fossil fuel must be reined in.

As Bloomberg reported Monday, the geoanalytics firm Kayrros SAS detected the plume of the invisible greenhouse gas, which spanned 56 miles and covered several parishes across Louisiana, on January 21.

The methane plume is the largest concentration of the gas seen via satellite in the U.S. since last October.

The firm said a plume of such size suggested an emissions rate of 105 tons of methane per hour. A release that lasted more than an hour at that rate would have had the same short-term environmental impact as yearly emissions from nearly 2,000 cars, Bloomberg reported.

Methane has 80 times the potency of carbon emissions in terms of heating the planet over a 20-year period, and has accounted for nearly 30% of global heating since pre-industrial times. As Common Dreams reported last week, atmospheric concentrations of methane surpassed 1,900 parts per billion in 2021. READ MORE

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) was 421.59 parts per million (ppm) at Mauna Lao, Hawaii, on February 14, 2022, a level unprecedented in millions of years.

Carbon dioxide levels typically reach their annual maximum in May, so even higher levels can be expected over the next few months.

Carbon dioxide levels are even higher at high latitudes north. The image below shows that carbon dioxide levels are approaching 430 ppm at Barrow, Alaska.

Methane

NOAA's monthly global mean reading for October 2021 for methane (CH₄) is 1907.2 parts per billion (ppb), which is 17.1 ppb higher than the reading for October 2020. By comparison, NOAA's annual global mean methane increase of 15.74 ppb for 2020 was the highest on record at the time and the increase for 2021 looks to be even higher.

Keep in mind that NOAA's data are for marine surface measurements; more methane tends to accumulate at higher altitudes.

Furthermore, keep in mind that the above 1907.2 ppb reading is for October 2021; it now is February 2022. The image below shows that recent methane levels are approaching 1940 ppb at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. READ MORE

Ocean heat is reducing the sea ice around Antarctica and is getting underneath floating sea ice.

The Thwaites Glacier, which is on a retrograde slope, is especially vulnerable to collapse.

The Thwaites Glacier contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65 cm (25.59 inches) if it were to completely collapse.

The animation on the right, created with images from Climate Reanalyzer, shows the retreat of the Antarctic snow and ice cover from January 5 to February 18, 2021.

The animation underneath, by navy.mil, shows sea ice thickness over 30 days up to February 17, 2022 (with 8 days of forecasts added).

Another danger of a rapid loss of the snow and ice cover on Antarctica is release of methane. Jemma Wadham warned about this in a 2012 study, as discussed at the post methane hydrates. More recently, Jemma Wadham said: “We are sleepwalking into a catastrophe for humanity.” READ MORE

NOAA's October 2021 global mean methane reading is 1907.2 parts per billion (ppb), which is 17.1 ppb higher than the reading for October 2020. By comparison, NOAA's annual global mean methane increase of 15.74 ppb for 2020 was at the time the highest on record.

Keep in mind that this 1907.2 ppb reading is for October 2021; it now is February 2022. Furthermore, NOAA's data are for marine surface measurements; more methane tends to accumulate at higher altitudes.

The image below shows that the MetOp-B satellite recorded a peak methane level of 2904 ppb at 469 mb on February 4, 2022 am. Methane levels are very high over the Arctic. The image below shows high recent monthly average methane levels at Barrow, Alaska. READ MORE

Methane concentrations in the atmosphere have risen at a “dangerously fast” rate and now exceed 1,900 parts per billion, prompting some researchers to warn that climate change itself may be driving the increase.

Atmospheric methane levels are now nearly triple pre-industrial levels, a news article in the journal Nature states, citing data released last month by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Scientists says the grim milestone underscores the importance of a pledge made at last year’s COP 26 climate summit to curb emissions of methane,” a climate pollutant that Nature cites as at least 28 times more potent than CO2, but is actually 80 to 85 times more damaging over the 20-year span when humanity will be scrambling to get the climate emergency under control.

While the research focused to some degree on methane released through microbial action, Nature says nearly two-thirds of the methane releases between 2007 and 2016 were caused by human activity. READ MORE

Climate change is increasingly seen as the cause of natural catastrophes, from floods to famines. But a growing number of scientists are cautioning that blaming disasters solely on climate overlooks the poor policy and planning decisions that make these events much worse.

One balmy summer evening in mid-July last year, the tiny river Kyll flowing out of the Eifel Mountains in Germany turned from its normal placid flow into a raging torrent that engulfed several riverside towns in its path. By the morning, more than 220 people had died here and along several other German and Belgian mountain rivers. It was the worst flood disaster in Western Europe in several decades.

Politicians rushed to blame climate change for the intense rains that flooded the rivers that night. The world had to be “faster in the battle against climate change,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she toured devastated communities. Climate scientists later concluded that a warmer atmosphere had made such downpours up to nine times more likely.

But there was another factor behind the floods that few politicians or media have mentioned, then or since. Hydrologists monitoring the river flows say that the spread of farms in the once-boggy hills where the rainfall was most intense had destroyed the sponge-like ability of the land to absorb heavy rains. Field drains, roadways, and the removal of natural vegetation channeled the water into the rivers within seconds, rather than days. READ MORE

Wildfire—which for most of this century has each year scorched, seared, or incinerated an average of 4.23 million square kilometres of woodland or savannah — is likely to become even more of a hazard, new research concludes.

Wildfires will become more frequent, more intense, and more enduring as global temperatures continue to rise in response to human combustion of fossil fuels, says the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The toll of unwelcome fire during the years 2002 to 2016 added up to 423 million smoking hectares each year on average. This is an area that matches the land mass of all 27 nations of the European Union, and is twice the size of Saudi Arabia or Greenland.

And although catastrophic fires in Australia, Europe, and the North American west have commanded the global headlines, 67% of area of this annual global toll, from all causes, has been in Africa. READ MORE

Sea levels are rising, and that will bring profound flood risks to large parts of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts over the next three decades.

A new report led by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the U.S. should prepare for 10-12 inches of relative sea level rise on average in the next 30 years. The rise is due to both sinking land and global warming. And given the greenhouse emissions released so far, the country is unlikely to be able to avoid it.

That much sea level rise means cities like Miami that see nuisance flooding during high tides today will experience more damaging floods by midcentury. Nationally, the report expects moderate coastal flooding will occur 10 times as often by 2050. Without significant adaptations, high tides will more frequently pour into streets and disrupt coastal infrastructure, including ports that are essential for supply chains and the economy.

The higher ocean will also bring seawater farther inland. By the end of the century, an average of 2 feet of sea level rise or more is likely, depending on how much the world its cuts greenhouse gas emissions. READ MORE

One hundred years ago last week, Sylvia Beach, who ran the bookstore Shakespeare and Company on 12 rue de l’Odéon in Paris and nurtured a community of expatriate writers that included Richard Wright, T.S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Thornton Wilder, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, placed in the bookstore’s front window a 732-page novel she had published, Ulysses by James Joyce.

Ulysses had been rejected by numerous publishers in English speaking countries. The book, which was banned in the United States and Great Britain because of its “obscenity” until the 1930s, takes place during a single day in Dublin, June 16, 1904. It would swiftly become one of the most important novels of the 20^thcentury, drawing its inspiration from Homer’s The Odyssey. READ MORE

“Truckistan’s” Historic Fight For Freedom Goes Global! shows that the massive Canadian truckers’ Freedom Convoy which began on January 29 is prepared to stay in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, until the COVID “vaccine” mandates are reversed — even if that takes months or years! At 40 miles long with tens of thousands of trucks, the convoy broke world record as the longest convoy in history. It has been met all along the route by supportive Canadians and in Ottawa by enthusiastic residents.

The Canadian Freedom Convoy has sparked similar convoys in other countries including the Convoy to DC 2022 (video) which will begin with a big rally in California on March 5. The video below shows that because the US has many more truckers than Canada, this convoy could be much larger than the Canadian one! READ MORE

Employees at at least eight Apple Stores in the U.S. are in various stages of unionizing efforts, according to new reporting by The Washington Post.

According to anonymous sources, including at least one organizer, two stores are prepared to file a petition for unionization with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and have contacted major unions, while six other stores are in more nascent stages of organizing, The Washington Post found.

The organizing efforts are inspired by Starbucks Workers United’s extraordinary campaign in which nearly 100 stores across the country have filed for unionization over just the past few months. Apple Store workers say that their wages aren’t rising with the rate of inflation and that the company hasn’t been giving them an equal share of the record-breaking profits that the employees have helped create with sales and repairs. READ MORE

"Even Americans who don't carry student debt themselves are sympathetic and are supportive of loan forgiveness."

Polling out Thursday reveals overwhelming support from President Joe Biden's party for canceling student loan debt.

Among Democrats, according to the survey from Navigator Research, 83% expressed support for the federal government wiping out at least a portion of such debt.

Looking at respondents overall, 63% back debt cancellation, including 59% of Independents and 41% of Republicans. The strongest support came from Black Americans at 87%, followed by Hispanic (72%), Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (68%), and white (57%) respondents.

Strong support for debt cancellation came whether or not respondents hold debt themselves. Eighty-nine percent of those currently saddled with student loan debt support cancellation compared to 75% among those who've ever had such debt at any time. Even among those who've never had student debt at all, support for cancellation stood at 55%. READ MORE

Man-made chemicals have exceeded the limits of safety for the planet. This statement comes from the first-ever major scientific warning based upon a study of the dangers posed by the flood of chemicals across the globe as three hundred fifty thousand (350,000) chemicals slosh throughout the planet.

“We have overwhelming evidence of negative impacts on Earth systems, including biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles,” according to Bethanie Carney Almroth, University of Gothenburg. (Source: Marc Préel, Plastic, Chemical Pollution beyond Planet’s Safe Limit: Study, Phys.org, February 15, 2022, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University)

According to Bethanie Carney Almroth: “The impacts that we’re starting to see today are large enough to be impacting crucial functions of planet Earth and its systems,” Ibid. READ MORE

People fishing along the banks of the White River as it winds through Indianapolis sometimes pass by ominous signs warning about eating the fish they catch.

One of the risks they could face is mercury poisoning.

Mercury is a neurotoxic metal that can cause irreparable harm to human health – especially the brain development of young children. It is tied to lower IQ and results in decreased earning potential, as well as higher health costs. Lost productivity from mercury alone was calculated in 2005 to reach almost $9 billion per year.

One way mercury gets into river fish is with the gases that rise up the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants. READ MORE

Below the surface of the ocean, the waters are anything but silent.

The sounds uttered by fish, whales and crustaceans are vibrant and informative—they tell us something about each animal, like where they are, what they’re up to and how they communicate.

Monitoring the sounds of marine life is one of the most comprehensive and least invasive ways for scientists to study these creatures. A simple hydrophone on the seafloor can pick up noises in the pitch black night without the use of boats, lights or divers.

A group of researchers from around the world have set a goal to create a library of these noises, called the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds. They outlined their proposal in a new paper out this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. READ MORE

On every continent, humans have left their mark in the form of massive environmental destruction: deforestation in Brazil; strip mining in Canada’s Tar Sands; the devastation of West Africa’s fisheries; the obliterations of landscapes and ecosystems by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pollution warms the planet, melting polar ice, bringing drought and wildfire to the land, intensifying hurricanes and raising sea levels. Scientists say there is worse to come.

The idea of ecocide is a cri de coeur for repair and reparation, against all odds. Inside Climate News, in partnership with NBC and Undark, report on the moral and legal case for accountability. READ MORE

To rule the world, make it rely on a single dominant financial system you control so anyone who disobeys you can be cut off from the economy you’ve made them dependent on for survival—whether they’re a nation, a protest movement, or an individual—without having to fire a shot.

I don’t “support dictators”, as one will inevitably be accused of doing whenever scrutinizing imperial propaganda narratives. I do however always hope the US fails to accomplish its objectives against every government that it targets, because the US is far and away the single most tyrannical regime on this planet.

I don’t support tyranny, I oppose it. It just happens that the major force of tyranny in this world isn’t where the TV tells you it is.

No other regime has spent the 21st century slaughtering people by the millions in wars of aggression. No other regime is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases. No other regime works to destroy any nation which disobeys it using starvation sanctions, war and terror. Only the US-centralized empire does this. While supporting most of the world’s dictators. READ MORE or LISTEN

Post-Iraq the US has zero moral authority. The narrative managers aim to suck you in to arguing about the minutiae of the inner workings of the latest target of the empire, when in fact a simple “Shut the fuck up, it’s none of your business” is all they deserve.

What the US and its proxies are doing with Yemen is universes more horrific and universes more urgent than what Russia is doing with Ukraine.

The Ukraine invasion that never arrives is showing us once again that when it comes to Russia you really can just completely ignore all the so-called “experts” in the mainstream media. Just dismiss 100 percent of everything they say. Any random schmuck’s best guess is better than theirs.

The US has spent years accusing Russia of inflaming far right extremism in America and that whole time they were fixing to ship weapons to Nazis in Ukraine. READ MORE or LISTEN

On January 21, 2022, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach attended a talk in New Delhi, India, organized by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. Schönbach was speaking as the chief of Germany’s navy during his visit to the institute. “What he really wants is respect,” Schönbach said, referring to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. “And my god, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost.” Furthermore, Schönbach said that in his opinion, “It is easy to even give him the respect he really demands and probably also deserves.”

The next day, on January 22, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba summoned Germany’s ambassador to Ukraine, Anka Feldhusen, to Kyiv and “expressed deep disappointment” regarding the lack of German weapons provided to Ukraine and also about Schönbach’s comments in New Delhi. Vice Admiral Schönbach released a statement soon after, saying, “I have just asked the Federal Minister of Defense [Christine Lambrecht] to release me from my duties and responsibilities as inspector of the navy with immediate effect.” Lambrecht did not wait long to accept the resignation. READ MORE

360 Iowa Machinists Strike in Iowa

In Davenport, Iowa, 360 aerospace workers, members of the Machinists Union, went on strike today at Eaton, an aerospace parts supplier.

After the company proposed that workers cut their pension plans as well as their health care plans, Machinists union members voted to strike with 98% of voters in favor.

The strike in Davenport comes after workers at a nearby John Deere factory went on a strike that received national attention.

“When you take a look at all the PR behind the John Deere strike, the Kellogg’s strike, KONE strike, I think that that plays an awful lot and it has kinda changed the mindset of the normal worker. They’re tired, they’re fed up with not getting a fair share,” John Herrig, directing business representative for Machinists District 6, told WQAD.

READ MORE

Hickory, NC — In 2019, the taxpayers of Hickory, North Carolina found out that they will be shelling out $400,000 after one of their police officers lost his cool and smashed a tiny handcuffed woman into the concrete driveway outside of the jail. Chelsea Doolittle suffered a broken nose and multiple broken teeth as a result of the attack — over a parking ticket violation.

The incident happened in 2013, but the case is only just now coming to a close after then-Hickory Officer Robert George felt the need to savagely abuse a defenseless woman. Luckily for Doolittle, the entire incident was captured on the jail’s surveillance video as she was viciously attacked while handcuffed. Finally, after nearly a decade, George is going to prison.

On Thursday, George was sentenced to three years in prison with a year of supervised probation after his release. READ MORE

Amassive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes.

Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn) held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions.

The leak points to widespread failures of due diligence by Credit Suisse, despite repeated pledges over decades to weed out dubious clients and illicit funds. The Guardian is part of a consortium of media outlets given exclusive access to the data.

We can reveal how Credit Suisse repeatedly either opened or maintained bank accounts for a panoramic array of high-risk clients across the world.

They include a human trafficker in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery, a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend and executives who looted Venezuela’s state oil company, as well as corrupt politicians from Egypt to Ukraine. READ MORE

Turns out the lasting image of the Freedom Convoy protest at Parliament Hill will not be bouncy castles but that of a woman with a walker being trampled by a police horse.

The violence the Prime Minister has expressed concern about during the three-week protest in Ottawa didn’t unfold until Justin Trudeau’s Emergencies Act police army was sent in to disperse the crowd.

The three major incidents Friday, under a form of martial law, were grotesque.

Video of Toronto Police Mounted Unit officers charging into the crowd and at least one horse trampling multiple people — including an elderly woman with a walker — was disturbing. READ MORE

Commentary

The Unmasking

We’re in the midst of a tremendous shift of public opinion. Winter is not over but the truth is budding now in a thousand places.

Clusterfuck Nation
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O Canada, the Great White North, hovering ominously above Niagara Falls somewhere, is a winter wonderland, and one of the great pleasures of the season there, apparently, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is skating on thin ice. Why is that? Perhaps in all the hollering you have forgotten how Mr. T has kicked off a civil war: by forcing government-mandated shots on his country’s working class of an alleged “vaccine” that doesn’t work and harms people, at the dwindling end of a worldwide disease scare that scientists in Canadian labs may have helped to create.

The great truckers’ convoy that converged on Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, has exposed the ugly truth at the heart of this historic moment for Western Civ: that governments have declared war on their own citizens. It happens that PM Trudeau represents his country’s Liberal Party, which is suddenly the party of unchecked government power to interfere in the lives of citizens, the party of speech suppression, news management, forced unsafe vaccinations, and the seizure of citizens’ property outside due process of law.

Under the Emergencies Act, Mr. Trudeau’s police have now arrested the leaders of the trucker’s revolt, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, on charges of “counseling to commit mischief” (O, dear…!), and seized their bank accounts, while also freezing the bank accounts of anyone who donated money to the truckers’ cause. That action led, naturally, to runs on Canada’s major banks, leading to bank shut-downs on Wednesday — d’uh… what do you expect when the authorities send the message: your money is not safe in Canada’s banks, and might not even be your money if we say it’s not?

And now everybody — including alert citizens watching from many other countries — waits to see what the next moves are. Let’s also note that it’s not just the truckers in revolt against insane government mandates; it’s also at least half the population of Canada who stand behind the truckers and against the new fashion for tyranny in what used to be called the Free West. I’d venture to guess that the next move will be a general strike that paralyzes Canada and forces its parliament to overrule the Emergency Act and get rid of PM Trudeau.

Meanwhile, like a coronavirus itself, the trucker protest movement has infected America. A “People’s Convoy” is assembling around Barstow, California (the capital of the Mojave Desert, where there’s plenty of room to assemble), with a launch date of February 23, next Wednesday, destination: Washington DC. Won’t that be… interesting? What will the government of “Joe Biden” do? Likewise invoke some sort of emergency powers? Declare yet another “insurrection” as with January 6, 2021? Mess with the truckers’ bank accounts, and those of the people who support them? Do they want to inspire a run on US banks at a juncture where the extreme fragility of the global banking system threatens to blow up financial markets? Standing by on that.

The US government, like Canada’s, has likewise been at war with its citizens. At least half the country has awakened to this unappetizing reality — even while somewhat less than half the country still catatonically follows whatever idiotic diktat the despotic bureaucracy spews out. Why, for instance, do so many still go about in face masks even where local regulations are lifted? (And especially in light of the overwhelming evidence that masks don’t work?) Answer: to signify that they are still against Trump, the evil leviathan said to be responsible for all the woes and injustices in the world and who threatens their ”safety”— meaning, their status as oppressed victims of “white supremacy,” including the guilty-and-penitent self-oppressed white people of the Left themselves. Yeah, it’s just that simple because we are in an epic episode of human social hysteria.

Except that the hysteria is dissipating for all except the most psychotic or the most politically cornered due to their record of perfidy and bad faith — the David Frums, Max Boots, and Rachel Maddows of our world, the cable news outfits, the Democratic Party hierarchy, the criminally psychopathic swine running the US public health agencies, and the craven doctors who have fecklessly murdered patients at the behest of Dr. Anthony Fauci & Company. Despite the sedulous efforts to suppress the data (O, the sacred data!) about the failure of their “vaccines,” the real news is getting out: the “vaccines” don’t prevent transmission or infection of Covid-19, and they pose lethal side-effects for the vaxxed. There it is, in plain English. And yet, “Joe Biden,” putative president of the US, is still telling the country to “go out and get vaccinated, get boosted” — ???

The companies who produced the “vaccines’ are even on the run. Pfizer withdrew its application for an emergency use authorization in India, where the public health agency insisted on seeing the safety records Pfizer was obliged to furnish — and refused to. India is a big market for pharmaceuticals, some 1.39 billion. Pfizer’s stock has crashed nearly 10 percent the past two weeks. By the way, some of the states of India are notable for having battled Covid-19 with the mass distribution of early treatment kits containing cheap anti-virals such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, Vitamin D, etc. The program was famously successful in reducing deaths there.

The CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, has sold off $400-million of his own stock in the company and deleted his Twitter account on rumors that all-causes deaths reported by US life insurance companies show a shocking and mysterious rise in mortality that just may be attributed to the “vaccines” causing strokes, heart attacks, cancer cases, and immune system failures. (Moderna’s stock is also sinking.) Neither the mainstream news media nor the US public health agencies are making any effort to investigate this now well-documented occurrence.

We’re in the midst of a tremendous shift of public opinion. Winter is not over but the truth is budding now in a thousand places. The people are done kneeling docilly to be silenced and killed. They will not let this country, and many other nations in the Western Civ club, be destroyed without a fight. The unmasked are unmasking their masked antagonists. Stand by, now, to find out who has been behind all this deadly mischief. We will rip off their masks and the rule of law will be restored.

James Howard Kunstler | kunstler.com/writings/clusterfuck-nation/