A graphic representation of a story transcribed via parts of a revelatory interview, “How the Banker Run Foundations are Shaping the World,” with Norman Todd, chief investigator in 1953 for the Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations.
I feel fortunate to be reaching so many new people. Thank you. It inspires me to start revisiting articles I wrote before I started this Substack. For example, here are some edited excerpts from something I penned in April 2021.
On April 6, 2021, I got an email from the offices of AOC (she’s my congressperson) informing me that “those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 will be able to apply for retroactive reimbursements for burial costs.” A little further down in the email, something really caught my eye:
In his 2004 book on the 1914-18 European apocalypse, Cataclysm: the First World War as PoliticalTragedy, British historian David Stevenson states the war was “a cataclysm of a special kind, a man-made catastrophe produced by political acts” (from the “Introduction,” first paragraph). Indeed, that is Stevenson’s thesis, that the Great War was a political tragedy of the first order of magnitude. While Stevenson’s analysis perhaps over-emphasizes the role of the European political class, certainly terrible decision-making played a major part in both launching and then needlessly prolonging a war that wasted an estimated 10 million soldiering lives. In the …
Writing over a century-and-a-half ago, Karl Marx studied the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions that sought to drive a stake in the vitals of the European monarchies and consolidate the rule of the emerging bourgeois classes.
Contrary to his critics — especially the dismissive scholars — he applied his critical historical theories with great nuance and subtlety, surveying the class forces, their actions, and their influence on the outcomes. While Marx conceded that the revolutions were suppressed in the short run, he was able to show how they importantly shaped the future.
The clock is ticking for the greatest Australian in history. If PM Albo doesn’t do something soon, Assange will be sent away never to be seen again. We can only hope the PM is working behind the scenes to do what he knows in his heart is right.
They really do want to kill him. Perhaps it is high time that his detractors and sceptics, proven wrong essentially from the outset, admit that the US imperium, along with its client states, is willing to see Julian Assange perish in prison. The locality and venue, for the purposes of this exercise, are not relevant. Like the Inquisition, the Catholic Church was never keen on soiling its hands, preferring the employ of non-church figures to torture their victims.
In the context of Assange, Britain has been a willing jailor from the start, guided by the good offices of Washington and none …
Evangelical Monotheist, Pagan, Scientific and Political
by Bruce Lerro / July 30th, 2022
Orientation
When we think of fundamentalism, most of us think of extremely conservative monotheistic religions. But can there be fundamentalism in other fields as well? In his book The Fundamentalist Mind, Stephen Larsen claims that there is such a thing as “scientific fundamentalism”. How well do the characteristics of religious fundamentalism apply to how scientists practice science? At first this seems odd. After all, scientists are trained to be skeptical and do not advocate any promise of an afterlife. Where are the similarities and where are the differences between …
There are three basic freedoms: freedom to say NO; freedom to move away; and freedom to change what does not work.
Individual freedom requires social support. To say NO, you need others to respect your choice and not force you to obey. To move freely, you need others to support your movement and not erect walls and roadblocks. To change what does not work, you need others who are affected to accept the change.
Basically, freedom is a social relationship, where me having my freedom depends on you having yours. A system …
In an appeal to the European Union, more than 180 scientists and doctors from 36 countries warn about the danger of 5G, which will lead to a massive increase in involuntary exposure to electromagnetic radiation. The scientists urge the EU to follow Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe, asking for an independent task force to reassess the health effects. Link to the full-text PDF
For the first time, a significant loss at the base of the marine food web has been detected. The Scottish research vessel Capepod reported the findings in equatorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s a disturbing discovery, but first a look at the marine food web, starting with the lowest organisms: (1) phytoplankton – plant-like plankton: green algae, diatoms, and dinoflagellates eaten by (2) zooplankton – microorganisms: crustaceans, rotifers, insect larvae and mites eaten by (3) small fish: anchovies, sardines, shrimp, squid, krill eaten by (4) bigger fish: sturgeon, sunfish, sharks, manta rays eaten by (5) mammals: seals, dolphins, polar bears, …
The statistics of Australia’s longest running drama series about sickeningly idyllic suburbia will interest soap show boffins. It lasted 5,955 episodes over 37 seasons, starting in 1985. Its anaemically thin plotlines, subpar acting, and emphasis on ideals bound to cause indigestion, did not prevent Neighbours from being mandatory viewing. Neighbours was, especially for British audiences, fetish and cult, shrine and devotion.
It also provided the first airings for an assortment of performers and actors who, in time, bloomed on the global stage, which, according to most Australians, means the United Kingdom or the United States: Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia in pop; …
What do you call an “antiracist” group led by an open ethnic/religious supremacist?
Last year Israeli human rights group B’tselem published “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.” The landmark report provides mainstream Jewish Israeli endorsement of what’s long been clear to Palestinians and the internationalist minded: Zionism is a supremacist movement/ideology. As Osgoode Hall law Professor Faisal Bhabha put it in a 2020 debate with Bernie Farber, Zionism “is the suppression of Palestinian human rights for the purpose of ensuring Jewish supremacy.”
Chair of Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Farber is an …
117th Congress H.Res. XX
1st Session
Impeaching Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., President of the United States
For high crimes and misdemeanors
_____________________________________________________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 28, 2020
Mr./Ms. Y submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
Most of us play both roles of the Caller and Callee. Guess which role rules? The Callee. I’ve lost count of how many older adults tell me, week after week, how hard it is to get through to powerful Callees. Especially by telephone! The latter include your local electric, gas and telephone company, your bank and insurance company, your members (or their staff) of Congress, and your local, state and federal government agencies. It never used to be that way.
Imagine the days when you’d pick up your phone, dial and get through to a human being. You couldn’t be waylaid …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / July 29th, 2022
Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches… Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.
Fuyuko Matsui (Japan), Becoming Friends with All the Children of the World, 2004.
The fragility of Europe’s energy supply has once again been on display in recent months. Gas shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, were reduced to 40% of capacity in June, a cut that Moscow said was due to delays in the servicing of a turbine by the German firm Siemens. Shortly thereafter, on 11 July, the pipeline was taken offline for ten days for annual routine maintenance. Despite receiving assurances …
For much of the period since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US was politically, militarily and economically unchallenged. The US was now the world’s hegemon and, to remain dominant, it couldn’t allow powerful challengers to arise. This goal meant that the US viewed the relationship with nations such as Russia and China as a zero-sum game, thus reducing the space for cooperation.
If we examine the past 30 years, what might one conclude about the outcome of this period? Has the US been a benign hegemon or has it acted primarily to remain the hegemon and to advance its …
We live in a time when it’s become a boring cliché to say that democracy is under attack. Whether it’s an ultra-reactionary Supreme Court, a nationwide Republican assault on voting rights, a MAGA movement that hopes to put an amoral power addict back in the presidency in 2024, a gathering backlash against women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, or the very structure of an oligarchical, billionaire-dominated political economy, circumstances in the U.S.—and abroad—are hardly encouraging for people who value democracy and human rights. It seems that things get bleaker every year, so much so that it can be …
The language is far from reassuring. Despite being caught red handed using facial recognition technology unbeknownst to customers, a number of Australia’s large retail companies have given a meek assurance that they will “pause” their use. The naughty will only show contrition in the most qualified of ways.
It all began with an investigation by CHOICE which found that the department store chain Kmart, and household warehouse chain Bunnings, were using FRT to ostensibly protect customers and staff while reducing theft in select stores. The group also found a third retailer, The Good Guys, had not lived up to its …
Rather than making money harder to get, the U.S. government needs to focus on the other side of the demand vs. supply equation.
In prescribing cures for inflation, economists rely on the diagnosis of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon—too much money chasing too few goods. But that equation has three variables: too much money (“demand”) chasing (the “velocity” of spending) too few goods (“supply”). And “orthodox” economists, from Lawrence Summers to the Federal Reserve, seem to be focusing only on the “demand” variable.
The Fed’s prescription is to suppress demand (borrowing and spending) by raising …
In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, LBJ titled the speech “Peace without Conquest” as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam. He explained that:
We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon …
The government and monopoly media urged the people to “follow the science” without presenting the scientific evidence. Dissenting views were marginalized or shut down. The COVID “danger” seems to have abated for now, but where does that leave all of “us”?
Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most humans were engaged in agriculture. Our relationship with nature was immediate. Within just a few generations, however, for many people across the world, their link with the land has been severed.
Food now arrives pre-packaged (often precooked), preserved with chemicals and contains harmful pesticides, micro-plastics, hormones and/or various other contaminants. We are also being served a narrower menu of high-calorie food with lower nutrient content.
It is clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with how modern food is produced.
Although, there are various stages between farm and fork, not least modern food processing practices, which …
Why Mahmoud Abbas is Seeking New "Powerful" Sponsors
by Ramzy Baroud / July 27th, 2022
To judge US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a ‘failure’ in terms of activating the dormant ‘peace process’ is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership.
Political and diplomatic platitudes aside, the current American administration has done the exact opposite as indicated in Biden’s words and actions. Alleging that the US commitment to a two-state solution “has not changed”, Biden dismissed his Administration’s interest in trying to achieve such a goal …
