Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.
Washington National Guard personnel walk on the Washington State Capitol campus on January 20, 2021 in Olympia, United States. David Ryder/Getty Images
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As of today, November 2, 2024, several states are preparing to call upon the National Guard in anticipation of potential unrest during the election. Here are the key details:
Total States Involved: Currently, 16 states have activated or are planning to activate National Guard troops for Election Day. This includes more than 3,600 troops being mobilized across these states.
Specific State Actions:
Washington State: Governor Jay Inslee has activated some members of the National Guard to be on standby due to concerns about potential violence related to the election.
Wisconsin: Governor Tony Evers announced the deployment of 400 National Guard members to assist with poll worker shortages.
These measures reflect a proactive approach by state governments to ensure public safety and maintain order during the election period, especially in light of recent incidents and concerns about civil unrest.
As of now, 23 states and the District of Columbia have activated their National Guard in response to potential civil unrest related to the upcoming elections. Here’s the list of those states:
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Washington
These activations are part of a broader effort to ensure safety and security during the election period, with National Guard members prepared for various missions, including assisting local law enforcement and providing cybersecurity support.
And yet, to “add insult to injury”, even Western data showed that the initial estimates of Moscow’s economic performance were wrong and that it was actually even better in both 2023 and 2024. Updated IMF’s forecast of 2.6% GDP growth doubled its previous assessment. According to the Financial Times, this increase of 1.5% was the largest for any economy featured in an update to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, released on January 30 this year.
Top-ranking Russian officials, including the current Defense Minister Andrei Belousov (previously tasked with economic development), expected the growth to be stable enough for the Eurasian giant to overtake Japan by 2030. However, what was supposed to happen in no less than six years, actually happened in less than six months. According to this year’s data, President Putin’s forecast of increased economic growth (over 3.5-4%) not only turned out to be true, but even conservative, although the mainstream propaganda machine attempted to portray it as “too overoptimistic”. However, the only thing that was actually too overoptimistic was the political West’s expectation that the sanctions would work. Namely, according to earlier World Bank data updates for this year, Russia indeed managed to overtake Japan as the fourth largest economy in the world (in terms of GDP PPP).
It should be noted that GDP PPP (purchasing power parity) is a very reliable metric and far more suitable to measure true economic might than the overblown nominal GDP figures that serve only to feed the oversized ego of the US-led political West. Less than 10 months after overtaking Germany, Russia also zoomed past Japan, leaving Western observers dumbfounded as to how a country they were told would “collapse under the weight of sanctions” and outright theft of its forex reserves managed to accomplish such a feat. What’s more, some sources estimated that the Eurasian giant was among the fastest-growing major economies in the world. In addition, even Moscow’s updated projection of overtaking Tokyo (explicitly set for March 2025 by President Putin) turned out to be “too cautious”, as this unprecedented feat was accomplished nearly a year earlier.
However, the latest estimates of Russian economic performance suggest that things are only getting better for the Kremlin. Namely, in an interview with CBS News, Richard Connolly, a junior research fellow at the Royal Institute of Shared Services in London and an expert on the Russian economy, said that “the number of small and medium-sized enterprises registered in Russia has reached an unprecedented level”. In the aftermath of the exodus of major Western companies who were forced to leave or suspend their activities due to sanctions imposed by their own countries, they left a massive market gap that was filled by domestic businesses. Thus, Russian companies replaced major Western brands, so instead of Starbucks, there’s now Stars Coffee, instead of Zara, there’s MAAG, instead of Coca-Cola, the Russians drink Dobry Cola, etc. Other segments of the economy went through a similar shift.
What’s more, the Russians are still getting virtually all the goods and services they had before, including through imports via third countries (Georgia, Kazakhstan, China, Turkey, etc). And while some prices are higher, local brands that took over the Western market share are actually more affordable while offering similar or even better quality.
The recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia should mark the end of the Neocon delusions encapsulated in the subtitle of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Global Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Since the 1990s, the goal of American foreign policy has been “primacy,” aka global hegemony. The U.S. methods of choice have been wars, regime change operations, and unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions). Kazan brought together 35 countries with more than half the world population that reject the U.S. bullying and that are not cowed by U.S. claims of hegemony.
In the Kazan Declaration, the countries underscored “the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order.” They emphasized “the need to adapt the current architecture of international relations to better reflect the contemporary realities,” while declaring their “commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law, including the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone.” They took particular aim at the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, holding that “Such measures undermine the UN Charter, the multilateral trading system, the sustainable development and environmental agreements.”
Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice.
The neocon quest for global hegemony has deep historical roots in America’s belief in its exceptionalism. In 1630, John Winthrop invoked the Gospels in describing the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “City on the Hill,” declaring grandiosely that “The eyes of all people are upon us.” In the 19th century, America was guided by Manifest Destiny, to conquer North America by displacing or exterminating the native peoples. In the course of World War II, Americans embraced the idea of the “American Century,” that after the war the U.S. would lead the world.
The U.S. delusions of grandeur were supercharged with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. With America’s Cold War nemesis gone, the ascendant American neoconservatives conceived of a new world order in which the U.S. was the sole superpower and the policeman of the world. Their foreign policy instruments of choice were wars and regime-change operations to overthrow governments they disliked.
Following 9/11, the neocons planned to overthrow seven governments in the Islamic world, starting with Iraq, and then moving on to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. According to Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, the neocons expected the U.S. to prevail in these wars in 5 years. Yet now, more than 20 years on, the neocon-instigated wars continue while the U.S. has achieved absolutely none of its hegemonic objectives.
The neocons reasoned back in the 1990s that no country or group of countries would ever dare to stand up to U.S. power. Brzezinski, for example, argued in The Grand Chessboard that Russia would have no choice but to submit to the U.S.-led expansion of NATO and the geopolitical dictates of the U.S. and Europe, since there was no realistic prospect of Russia successfully forming an anti-hegemonic coalition with China, Iran and others. As Brzezinski put it:
“Russia’s only real geostrategic option—the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself—is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO.” (emphasis added, Kindle edition, p. 118)
Brzezinski was decisively wrong, and his misjudgment helped to lead to the disaster of the war in Ukraine. Russia did not simply succumb to the U.S. plan to expand NATO to Ukraine, as Brzezinski assumed it would. Russia said a firm no, and was prepared to wage war to stop the U.S. plans. As a result of the neocon miscalculations vis-à-vis Ukraine, Russia is now prevailing on the battlefield, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dead.
Nor—and this is the plain message from Kazan—did U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressures isolate Russian in the least. In response to pervasive U.S. bullying, an anti-hegemonic counterweight has emerged. Simply put, the majority of the world does not want or accept U.S. hegemony, and is prepared to face it down rather than submit to its dictates. Nor does the U.S. anymore possess the economic, financial, or military power to enforce its will, if it ever did.
The countries that assembled in Kazan represent a clear majority of the world’s population. The nine BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as the original five, plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), in addition to the delegations of 27 aspiring members, constitute 57 percent of the world’s population and 47 percent of the world’s output (measured at purchasing-power adjusted prices). The U.S., by contrast, constitutes 4.1 percent of the world population and 15 percent of world output. Add in the U.S. allies, and the population share of the U.S.-led alliance is around 15 percent of the global population.
The BRICS will gain in relative economic weight, technological prowess, and military strength in the years ahead. The combined GDP of the BRICS countries is growing at around 5 percent per annum, while the combined GDP of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific is growing at around 2 percent per annum.
Even with their growing clout, however, the BRICS can’t replace the U.S. as a new global hegemon. They simply lack the military, financial, and technological power to defeat the U.S. or even to threaten its vital interests. The BRICS are in practice calling for a new and realistic multipolarity, not an alternative hegemony in which they are in charge.
American strategists should heed the ultimately positive message coming from Kazan. Not only has the neocon quest for global hegemony failed, it has been a costly disaster for the US and the world, leading to bloody and pointless wars, economic shocks, mass displacements of populations, and rising threats of nuclear confrontation. A more inclusive and equitable multipolar world order offers a promising path out of the current morass, one that can benefit the U.S. and its allies as well as the nations that met in Kazan.
The rise of the BRICS is therefore not merely a rebuke to the U.S., but also a potential opening for a far more peaceful and secure world order. The multipolar world order envisioned by the BRICS can be a boon for all countries, including the United States. Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice. The moment has arrived for a renewed diplomacy to end the conflicts raging around the world.
Under the new status, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its employees are exempt from legal action for acts performed in Kenya as part of their official foundation duties. Will the move set a precedent for other billionaire philanthropists?
Kenya last week granted diplomatic immunity to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its employees, or “servants,” Tim Schwab reported on Substack.
Under the new status, the foundation and its employees are exempt from legal action for acts performed as part of their official foundation duties. They also are exempt from paying taxes on their salaries, and they now have the right to own property in Kenya.
“While nations around the world have long treated Bill Gates as a head of state, it’s now been practically codified into law in Kenya,” wrote Schwab, author of “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire.”
Schwab said the decision has raised “alarm bells” within the country and across the world. One public advocate, through a Freedom of Information Act request, has already petitioned the government for documents related to the decision
Others worry the decision to grant immunity may set a precedent for other billionaire philanthropists.
Concerns also have arisen that other nations will be pressured to follow Kenya’s lead and offer immunity to the Gates Foundation in exchange for continued access to the massive resources the foundation pours into other African countries.
The Government of Kenya’s announcement, Schwab wrote, comes just a week after farmer organizations and religious leaders across the continent called for reparations for the damage the foundation has inflicted on African agriculture through its so-called “green revolution” program.
They say the foundation promotes corporate, industrial agriculture at the expense of local practices and African ecosystems.
Much of the Gates Foundation’s investment in African agriculture happens through the Nairobi-based AGRA, previously known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. The foundation is AGRA’s co-founder and biggest donor. It has given at least $872 million to the organization, Schwab reported.
AGRA says it “exists to fulfil a vision where Africa can feed itself,” yet it directs its funding to support input-intensive and resource-intensive agriculture.
The alliance promotes the use of synthetic fertilizers and commercial seeds controlled by Big Ag, the restructuring of seed laws to criminalize trading of seeds not certified by Big Ag, and supports seed dealers who promote corporate products.
Daniel Maingi, coordinator for the Kenya Food Rights Alliance, told Schwab that with Gates’ diplomatic immunity, “Kenya becomes the testing ground … That is a big, big concern. It’s a big red flag.”
“In terms of food sovereignty, as we give Gates these privileges and immunities, Africa is going to be — not food sovereign, not seed sovereign — we’re going to be slaves and masters of the big corporations,” he added.
“Our agreement to operate in Kenya was made in alignment with the Kenyan government’s Privileges and Immunities Act. We operate according to the typical agreements Kenya makes with other foundations and nonprofits,” Buhle Makamanzi, deputy director of Global Communications for the Gates Foundation in Africa, said in the statement.
Schwab said the move by the Kenyan government and the concerns raised by critics, “get to the heart of Gates’s anti-democratic influence and power, which, at least in Kenya, appears to be reaching new levels.”
“No one ever elected or appointed Gates to lead the world — on any topic,” Schwab said. “Yet through his great wealth and his money-in-politics brand of philanthropy, he is able to buy a seat at the democratic decision-making table — and, apparently, also buy diplomatic immunity.”
Not just Big Ag — Gates investments include vaccines, digital IDs, GMO mosquitoes
Gates’ massive investment in Africa extends beyond agriculture into public health, and more recently, digital IDs in Kenya.
It also includes the “Target Malaria” project, which proposed to end malaria by introducing genetically modified or GMO mosquitoes. Critics say the program is based on “flawed ecological thinking” and “backed by the same agri-business interests that have devastated agroecological farming systems.”
For example, the Gates Foundation is the topmost funder of polio initiatives worldwide. In April 2013, Gates said that eradicating polio was his “top priority,” — even though there had only been 19 cases worldwide that entire year.
Since then, there has been a global explosion in polio cases, which in 2017 the World Health Organization (WHO) admitted were caused predominantly by a strain that comes from the vaccine itself.
Critics, including many scientists working in low-income settings, have noted that as money is lavished on polio, millions of children are left vulnerable to a slew of often deadly, preventable diseases.
Gates also promoted the use of a dangerous version of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, or DPT, vaccine in Africa after it was banned in the U.S. In a video shared widely on X, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained Gates’ work in Africa on the DPT vaccines, other vaccines and in agriculture.
Bill Gates is behind moves to reduce Africa's population 💔.
In 2009, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines on 23,000 girls in rural India. At least 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders and seven died.
Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms and refusing medical care to the injured girls.
The Gates Foundation is also one of the biggest donors to the WHO, UNICEF, PATH, and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which work in lock-step to distribute vaccines as the primary public health intervention across the global south.
Despite Gates’ troubled history with the HPV vaccine in India, Gavi, with Gates funding, announced it is investing more than $600 million to reach its goal of vaccinating 86 million girls against HPV in low- and middle-income countries — including India — by 2025.
Gates also funded GSK’s trials for its experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects, including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions, in 1,048 of the 5,949 children. And it supported a MenAfriVac campaign to forcibly vaccinate thousands of African children against meningitis, causing paralysis in many of the children.
COVAX, an effort to scale up the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across the global south —- which ultimately failed — was co-led by the WHO, Gavi, CEPI and UNICEF, which are all backed by Gates.
And these are just a few examples.
Earlier this year, Gavi unveiled an ambitious $11.9 billion plan — including $9 billion in new funding — to vaccinate 500 million children by 2030, with existing and new vaccines.
To date, Gavi has allocated roughly $23 billion to increasing global immunizations, with funding from Gates and major governments, including the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Plans to assign every newborn a digital ID
Earlier this month, Business Daily Africa reported that the Gates Foundation will advise Kenya on the rollout of a new digital ID system called Maisha Namba.
According to Reclaim the Net, “The plan envisages every newborn being assigned a Maisha Namba, which stays with them throughout their life.”
Nyandarua County Deputy Commissioner Rukia Chitechi said, “The system shall be run through schools by ensuring every child born is assigned a maisha namba.”
Given the long history of controversial, and often failed, interventions in agriculture, public health and vaccination — and now digital IDs — and also given that Gates is facing at least one lawsuit over his involvement with the COVID-19 vaccine, critics said the immunity granted to Gates raises serious questions.
Dr. Mumbi Seraki, host of a popular YouTube show, asked on X, “If they meant us well, would they need immunity? It looks like we are being sold to the highest bidder,” she added.
While the Netherlands, Japan and Germany are getting ready to sue bill gates, Kenya is busy giving the gates foundation immunity to finish us off! Moving forward Moses kuria pic.twitter.com/PVNvu5R6AD
In a report covered in the corporate news this week, but not in the alternative media that I have seen so far, Elon Musk has predicted that there will be a stock market crash with “hardship” and “economic turmoil” after the elections, even if Trump wins.
Elon Musk predicts ‘hardship,’ economic turmoil and a stock-market crash if Trump wins
Musk’s shocking austerity message is an unusual one to send voters a week before what is likely to be a close election
The word “bombshell” has been so grossly overused for so long that it is guaranteed to make anyone’s eyes roll. But what other word fits?
With just a week until the presidential election, Donald Trump’s close ally and major economic adviser Elon Musk is warning supporters to expect economic chaos, a crashing stock market and financial “hardship” — albeit “temporary” — if Trump wins.
It sounds so extreme that Trump fans must either wonder why he had been so foolish as to say the silent part out loud, or maybe hope that the whole story is made up — “fake news.”
But it’s very real.
Billionaire Musk, Trump’s would-be budget-cutting and government-efficiency czar, also says there will be “no special cases” and “no exceptions” when he starts slashing federal spending after Trump takes office.
And he predicts he will need “a lot of security” personally because of the likely reaction to his policy moves.
Speaking Tuesday on a “telephone town hall” with supporters, Musk promised deep federal budget cuts, austerity and economic pain ahead in a new Trump administration.
“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “That necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
Describing government spending as “a room full of targets,” Musk said: “Like, you can’t miss. Fire in any direction, and you’re going to hit a target.”
He said, “I think once the election takes place we’ll immediately begin looking at where to take the most immediate action.”
And, he added, “obviously a lot of people who are taking advantage of the government are going to be upset about that. I’ll probably need a lot of security.”
“Everyone,” he said, will be taking a “haircut.”
Yikes.
Trump has already said he wants Musk to head up a commission on government efficiency. Trump says the billionaire tech entrepreneur would be his “Secretary of Budget-Cutting,” implying a possible cabinet position.
Musk himself has described his prospective role as running a “Department of Government Efficiency,” though he admits the title is an inside joke — the acronym spells DOGE, the name of a cryptocurrency he has referenced often over the years.
[…]
Musk has invested heavily in the Bitcoin rival, Dogecoin, recently, even suggesting that Tesla could start taking payments in Dogecoin earlier this year.
Dogecoin started out as a joke when it was created, but it is no joke today with Musk’s backing.
Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has long been a proponent of Dogecoin (DOGE), first posting about the project in 2019, saying, “Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It’s pretty cool.”
At the time, the project was still relatively unknown, so it took a handful of other posts and a larger crypto bull market for DOGE to truly take off.
The token went viral, creating millionaires and making waves in the press. In 2021, the token reached an all-time high of $0.7376. While it sold off after that, it is starting to see a resurgence in 2024.
This resurgence was fueled by comments Musk made earlier this week. The Tesla CEO was visiting the Berlin gigafactory, which recently reopened after an arson attack. During a Q&A, someone in the audience asked Musk when they could buy a Tesla with Dogecoin.
“At some point I think we should enable that,” Musk said. Musk then repeated the DOGE catchphrase “Dogecoin to the moon,” which raised a cheer from the crowd.
Musk also went into detail about why he began supporting and endorsing DOGE in the first place.
“The reason I ended up sort of endorsing Dogecoin is that when I was walking around the factory at Tesla, some people asked me to support Doge,” he said. “Then, at SpaceX, some regular guys said, ‘Can you support Doge?’ and I was like, ‘Doge is the people’s crypto, so I will support it.’” (Source.)
When Elon Musk mentioned Dogecoin at the Trump Madison Square Garden rally last week, and linked it to the acronym of his alleged new position in a Trump administration (Department Of Government Efficiency), the value of Dogecoin soared.
Dogecoin enjoys bump after Elon Musk boosts the crypto at Trump rally
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s campaign rallies endorsing Donald Trump appear to be boosting several meme coins, including Dogecoin, the world’s eighth-largest cryptocurrency.
For example, Musk’s decision to speak about D.O.G.E. – the Department of Government Efficiency, which does not yet exist – at a rally for Trump in New York City’s Madison Square Garden sent the price of the popular meme coin Dogecoin soaring.
In the past 24 hours, Dogecoin has emerged as one of the globe’s best-performing digital assets, enjoying a nearly 15% boost, according to CoinGecko.
Dogecoin has also seen nearly $4 billion in trades in the last 24 hours, representing an almost 40% growth in daily trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap.
If Trump wins reelection, Musk is likely to be appointed to a cabinet role at the proposed efficiency department, which has been humorously shortened to D.O.G.E. by the billionaire, in an allusion to Musk’s apparent favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin. (Source.)
Is the Upcoming Civil War Going to be a War Between Wall Street Bankers and Silicon Valley Billionaires?
When the richest man in the world, who is giving away a million dollars a day to purchase votes for Donald Trump, states publicly that the stock market is going to crash and that chaos is going to follow, even if his guy wins, this is no longer a “conspiracy theory”, but a very real possibility for the immediate future.
And when Musk talks about cutting government regulations, he is most likely talking about traditional banks, and his desire to have Fintech take over the financial system.
Pam Marten of Wall Street on Parade exposed this apparent conflict between Big Tech and Wall Street bankers recently.
Could Big Tech Own Federally-Insured Banks? Here Are the Dangers
The risk of Big Tech firms like Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft getting an entrée into the federally-insured banking system by being allowed to buy or create a federally-insured industrial bank has raised alarm bells among three nonprofit watchdogs and the law professor who, literally, wrote the book on the mushrooming systemic risks in the U.S. banking system.
Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Law at George Washington University Law School, joined with the Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, and the Center for Responsible Lending, to file an 18-page letter last Friday with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Friday’s letter was in response to the FDIC’s proposal to improve oversight of so-called “industrial banks,” which are allowed to skirt the Congressional mandate that prohibits the mixing of banking and commerce. From 2006 to 2020, the FDIC had imposed a moratorium on new approvals of industrial banks. That moratorium was lifted in 2020 (under Trump).
The letter reminds the FDIC of the recent history of emergency bailouts to the corporate parents of industrial banks, writing:
“Several large corporate owners of industrial banks failed or were rescued by the federal government during the global financial crisis of 2007-09, and the total number of industrial banks fell from 58 in 2007 to 23 today.
Four very large corporate owners of industrial banks—General Motors Acceptance Corp. (GMAC), Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—received huge bailouts from the federal government to prevent their failures.
A fifth major industrial bank owner—GE Capital—encountered very serious liquidity problems during the crisis and received extensive financial assistance from federal agencies.
A sixth corporate industrial bank owner—CIT Group—failed in 2009, thereby wiping out $2.3 billion of taxpayer-funded assistance that CIT received from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)….”
Big Tech already possesses vast, Orwellian profiles of consumers. The letter captures the threat of combining that with banking as follows:
“Acquisitions of industrial banks by Big Tech firms would present a wide array of public policy issues, including concerns about unfair competition, exploitation of customer financial data, violations of customer privacy, and systemic risks resulting from ownership of FDIC-insured banks by giant technology firms.
The combination of Big Tech companies’ massive datasets of consumer preferences and purchases with the extensive consumer financial information compiled by FDIC-insured industrial banks would greatly expand the reach of Big Tech firms into consumers’ finances by giving them greater insight into household income and spending patterns and would allow the combined firms to more fully exploit such data for commercial purposes while undermining consumer privacy.
[…]
Also published this week was the fourth and final piece of a series of articles written by Mark Goodwin and Whitney Webb called “The Chain series“.
This is the description of the first three articles in this series that they published:
The first, The Chain of Custody, examined the construction of novel custodial infrastructure to enable the secure holding of billions of dollars worth of digital assets after the proliferation of Bitcoin as a new financial class.
The second, The Chain of Issuance, investigated the primordial roots of digital payments fortifying data brokers and information bankers within the global surveillance network.
It also noted how stablecoin issuers are the modern day analogue to the influence that the major infrastructural titans of the Industrial Age had on the formation of The Federal Reserve in the first half of the 20th century.
The third, The Chain of Consensus, focused on the currency speculators and intelligence-connected developers behind the monetary policy and consensus infrastructure of privately-issued money and the blockchain revolution during the infancy of the Deflationary Age brought about by Bitcoin and the subsequent, dollarized iterations of its underlying database technology.
The article they just published this week is titled:
This is a fascinating and must-read article about the history of Big Tech’s efforts to use cryptocurrency to create a “New World Currency”, which they conclude will most likely be PayPal, led by Peter Thiel.
Two companies closely tied to Peter Thiel – PayPal and Facebook – have embarked on apparently unsuccessful efforts to create a “new world currency.”
[…]
Their coverage of the banking crisis last year with the take down of some of Silicon Valley’s largest banks, is especially enlightening, showing how large Wall Street hedge funds played a roll, such as George Soros’ Soros Fund Management.
Conclusion: Be Prepared and RESIST!
None of these predictions about the future, including the near-term future next week with the elections, is for certain, and we are most certainly NOT helpless.
As I have previously written, there is one thing that is needed for any financial system to work, and it is the largest component, which is YOU, the consumer, who spends the money.
Even Musk’s prediction is not certain, because Trump has become rich as a Wall Street Billionaire and probably knows next to nothing about Cryptocurrency, and could easily just be playing around with Musk to gain more votes, and be just as likely to side with the Wall Street bankers and Fund Managers than he is to side with the Silicon Valley billionaires and Fintech, should he actually get back into the White House.
As I have recently written, cold, hard cash on hand might be your best option for the immediate future, where we could easily see some kind of “cyber pandemic” that has been predicted for about 3 years now, where ATMs won’t work, and neither will credit cards.
Governments in Latin America have been at the forefront of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and several of those which have done so suddenly face new threats, even including attempted coups. Adrienne Pine, a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, said during a recent webinar hosted by the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition that “anybody who stands with Palestine is going to be attacked in Latin America by the U.S. and by Zionists.”
Recent events appear to show the truth of her remarks.
Of the 165 countries that recognize Israel, only four have officially cut diplomatic ties with the country since it began its Gaza offensive, and all of them are Latin American: Bolivia, Belize, Colombia and Nicaragua (Venezuela severed its ties with Israel in 2009 while Cuba broke off relations during the Yom Kippur War of 1973).
A further eight countries have withdrawn their diplomats from Tel Aviv since October 7, 2023, of which Chile, Brazil, and Honduras are from Latin America.
This article looks at the experience of three governments in the region which have strongly opposed Israel’s genocidal war—Nicaragua, Honduras, and Colombia. All are suffering attacks that appear to be either in direct retaliation for their actions or which suspiciously coincide with them. All three have progressive governments which have historic reasons for challenging Israel, adding to their condemnation of its recent actions.
Israel’s ties with Latin America are longstanding. As well as extensive trading relationships, Israel has often backed repressive regimes or undermined progressive governments. In “Israel’s Latin American trail of terror”Aljazeera summarises its grisly history in the region, from training death squads in El Salvador to supplying the arms used to massacre Guatemalan campesinos.
Israel has often acted as a surrogate for Washington when the U.S. doesn’t want to “get its hands dirty”. In Nicaragua, it supplied arms to the “Contra” forces that attempted to overthrow the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s. In Honduras, it helped prevent President Mel Zelaya from returning to power after he was ousted in the 2009 coup.
When the country then became a “narcostate”, its President Juan Orlando Hernández (now serving a lengthy prison term in the U.S. for drug-trafficking), became Israel’s closest ally in the region. In Colombia, it sold massive quantities of arms to paramilitary groups which destabilized the country during decades of widespread violence.
Nicaragua is a “platform for terrorism”
Israel’s history means it is well placed to retaliate when Latin American governments attack it as genocidal. The example of Nicaragua is the clearest. The country was the first to join the action taken by South Africa in bringing Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the beginning of this year.
It followed this by taking its own ICJ case against Germany, for supplying arms to Israel. The ICJ’s provisional ruling had the initial effect of reducing the flow of German weapons until Israel later signed a “commitment” that they would not be used in violation of the genocide convention.
The attempted retribution was swift. Four days after Ortega’s speech, the Israeli consul in neighboring Costa Rica, Amir Rockman, gave an interview in which he claimed that “Iranian interests and, in particular, those of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, are installed in Nicaragua.”
He further claimed that “radical Iranian forces and terror groups operate freely” in Nicaragua, although he was not asked for, nor did he provide, any evidence.
Given that some 3,000 kilometers separate Nicaragua from the U.S. border, the usefulness to a “terror group” of being able to operate in a small Central American country is far from clear.
Right-wing outlets opposed to the Sandinista government gleefully elaborated on what Rockman said. Mijal Gur-Aryeh, Israel’s ambassador in Costa Rica, told La Prensa that “Nicaragua had been converted into a platform for terrorism in the region.” A few days later she added that Hezbollah had “bases” in Venezuela and Bolivia as well as Nicaragua.
This enabled one of the best-known opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, Felix Maradiaga, to call for the Sandinista party to be declared a terrorist organization. “In the short term, this could aggravate the delicate economic situation in Nicaragua,” he said. “But I firmly believe that any temporary sacrifice will be smaller than the bigger benefit of weakening a regime which has used the country as a platform for extreme and illegal activities.”
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government rejected Israel’s allegations on October 21. While there is, as of yet, no evidence that Israel’s claims have resonance in Washington, if Nicaragua were to be designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” (SSoT) the effects could be very serious.
It could potentially do even more harm to its economy than the current raft of US. sanctions, affecting its rapidly growing tourism industry and perhaps much more. A warning is provided by the severe damage done to Cuba’s economy after it was added to the SSoT list, which added to the already considerable damage caused by the longstanding U.S. blockade.
An SSoT designation also gives license to U.S. and other Western law enforcement agencies to persecute those working in solidarity with a listed country, as has already happened to those supporting Palestine (with solidarity groups often falsely accused of supporting Hamas).
Nicaragua survived an attempted coup in 2018, and Ortega has made no suggestion that a second coup is on the cards. However, both Honduras and Colombia have made such recent claims. We consider Honduras next.
A new “coup attempt” in Honduras?
Adrienne Pine’s comments about attacks on countries supporting Palestine followed on from her description of Israel’s role in supporting the neoliberal regime that ran Honduras from 2009 until the Libre party finally ousted it in the 2021 election.
This included spending $342 million on importing Israeli military equipment. In a reversal of her predecessor’s policy, progressive President, Xiomara Castro, has expressed strong support for Palestine. She has recalled her ambassador from Israel and in September, at the meeting of the UN General Assembly, condemned the genocide in Gaza. In what was seen by Washington as a further provocation, Honduras was one of the first countries in Latin America to recognize Nicolas Maduro’s victory in Venezuela’s July 28 election.
Following both these moves, Castro has come under intense pressure on different fronts which, she says, amounts to an attempted coup. In response, she has ended the extradition treaty between her country and the United States (the same treaty that allowed her predecessor, Hernández, to be sent for trial in New York). Castro herself has direct experience of a coup, since it was her husband, Mel Zelaya, who was deposed as president in 2009 by the U.S.-backed military and forced out of the country. It is hardly surprising that she is alert to the possibility of a second one.
Who orchestrated the coup attempt? Suspicion falls on Washington’s ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, who has a track record in this respect. She was the ambassador in Nicaragua prior to the 2018 coup attempt, and since coming to Honduras in 2022, has made strong links with capitalist-class opponents of Castro’s Libre party, just as she did in Managua with business leaders hostile to the Sandinista revolution.
As Pine explained in the webinar, Dogu tried to paint Honduras’s links with Venezuela as related to drug trafficking, and a few days later fuel was added to this fire by the publication of a video showing a drug baron in discussion with Castro’s brother-in-law, allegedly about providing election campaign funding. The video was released by Insight Crime, a thinktank funded by USAID, the Open Society Foundation and similar bodies allied with Washington.
While Xiomara Castro’s victory in the 2021 election was decisive, and she still enjoys strong working-class support, there are abundant risks to her presidency. She faces a tumultuous congress, her vice-president resigned and is now her opponent, and both the military and the police forces are still contaminated by the corruption and impunity they enjoyed under previous neoliberal governments.
Murders of community leaders who stand in the way of big business continue. The most recent was September’s killing of esteemed community leader Juan López. As James Phillips writes in CovertAction, the crime “highlights the inability (weakness) of the Castro government in the face of the powerful corruption that still poisons much of the political economy and daily life of the country.” Castro specifically mentioned the case and her determination to solve it in her speech to the UN.
Castro has not yet been able to break the strong links between the Honduran military and Israel (much less its links with the U.S.). Indeed, it was revealed in April that Honduras was still buying Israeli military equipment of the kind used in Gaza, and that Honduran police officers have been receiving training in Israel. The news came from the Israeli ambassador, presumably intended to embarrass Castro.
Colombia: “The coup has begun”
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro is probably Israel’s strongest critic in Latin America. He not only denounces the Israeli regime as “genocidal,” but has described its actions in Gaza as comparable to Auschwitz. He broke diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv in May this year, provoking an immediate call from Washington urging him to change his mind, accompanied by warnings that this put at risk Colombia’s development and security.
Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S. recently spoke to Jacobin about the significance of his country’s severance of ties with Israel. He noted that previous governments would have made sure to “…brief the United States before it made any public announcement on any policy issue. But this time, when we severed ties with Israel, we didn’t tell the US.”
Yet Petro’s increasingly strident denunciations of Israel, including (in September) likening its military offensive in Gaza to “the horrors of the Holocaust,” and then saying that Netanyahu and his government “embody Nazism,” brought a major backlash. Washington responded by saying that “We cannot accept this. We cannot tolerate this” and the U.S. ambassador in Bogota labelled Petro as anti–Semitic. Nevertheless, like Xiomara Castro, Petro doubled down on his denunciations of Israel when he spoke at the UN General Assembly, saying “When Gaza dies, all of humanity will die.”
Like Honduras, Colombia had close ties with Israel under its previous governments. Petro’s predecessor, Ivan Duque, signed a free trade agreement with Israel in 2020. Colombia’s trade with Israel became second only to Brazil’s in the continent, with the principal export being coal. Petro halted coal exports in August this year, noting that the fuel was being used to make bombs to kill Palestinian children.
On October 1, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro warned of a planned coup in Colombia, accusing its former president Ivan Duque of working with Washington to carry it out. Then on October 9, President Petro claimed that “the coup had begun”, citing the attempt by the National Electoral Council to bring his presidency to an end via an investigation into alleged illegalities in his election campaign finances, allegations which he strongly contests.
It then emerged that, not long before the last election, Ivan Duque purchased Israeli “Pegasus” software and used it to spy on political opponents. While this leak (like the similar one in Honduras) may have been intended to remind Petro of his military’s continuing connections with Israel, it appears to have backfired. Petro has accused Duque of using state money illegally and of money laundering, citing as evidence that half of the $11 billion dollar payment was unaccountably sent to Israel by plane, in cash. Nevertheless, the news strengthened the impression that Petro, like previous presidents, is surrounded by corruption.
This is one of several similarities between Petro’s situation and that of Xiomara Castro in Honduras. First, there are questionable attempts to link Petro with drug cartels via accusations against his relatives.
Second, like his Honduran counterpart, he faces constant right-wing resistance to his attempts at radical transformation of his country, up to and including “lawfare” against his presidency itself.
Intelsat 33e suffered two propulsion issues shortly after launch in 2016.
Jason Rainbow
TAMPA, Fla. — U.S.-based space-tracking company ExoAnalytic Solutions has identified about 500 pieces of debris from Intelsat 33e’s recent breakup in geostationary orbit (GEO).
“The size of the debris we are tracking ranges from small fragments roughly the size of a softball to larger pieces up to the size of a car door,” ExoAnalytic chief technology officer Bill Therien told SpaceNews in an Oct. 28 email.
“The majority of the tracked objects are on the smaller end of that spectrum, which contributes to the difficulty of consistently observing all the debris pieces.”
ExoAnalytic has observed 108 of these pieces in the last 24 hours, Therien said, adding that the company does not expect to observe every piece of debris each night because size, velocity, and position relative to ground sensors can influence whether the debris is visible during a particular observation window.
In addition, it is possible some of them are no longer present, such as solid fuel fragments that are evaporating.
“The debris field from an incident like this can be complex, and new pieces can be more reliably tracked over time,” Therien said.
He said ExoAnalytic is continuing to work closely with the U.S. Space Force and satellite operators to provide safety of flight services.
It is too early to say whether parts of Intelsat 33e could hit another object in orbit after the satellite broke up Oct. 19, which could create more potentially hazardous debris.
Environmentalists have waged a campaign against natural gas, but users of this efficient, low-emission fuel are fighting back. A wide range of industry groups are backing Washington state’s Initiative 2066 to protect the right to choose natural gas.
By 2030, Washington is supposed to reduce carbon emissions to 45% below 1990 levels—one of its many overlapping climate goals. The state’s most recent energy plan declares that the cheapest route to meeting Olympia’s climate targets is to switch many uses of oil and gas to electric sources. Last year the Building Code Council amended the state energy code to make it prohibitively costly to install gas appliances in new buildings. In March the Legislaturepassed a law allowing the state’s largest natural-gas and electricity utility, Puget Sound Energy, to pass the costs of going green onto consumers and mandating the utility files a plan “to achieve all cost-effective electrification of end uses currently served by natural gas.”
To the Washington Hospitality Association and the Building
Industry Association of Washington, Initiative 2066’s cosponsors,
this sounded like an economic wrecking ball.
Anthony Anton, CEO of the hospitality association, says 84% of the restaurateurs he represents rely on natural gas. Remodeling to go electric is a “massive cost at a time where operators just can’t afford it,” he says. Some say the quality of their product would suffer, as some cooking methods, such as stir-frying, are difficult to perform on lower-heat electrical stoves. Most of the association’s members are very small businesses with substantial debt from Covid lockdowns.
The building association worries the new energy code will raise the state’s already high housing costs, locking out potential buyers. The code requires that new buildings meet a certain environmental “score.” Without the points from an electric heat pump, a builder will have to make up the difference with other green measures that run between $15,000 and $20,000 in a single-family home. “Every time they raise the price $1,000, it prices out another 500 Washington families,” says Greg Lane, the association’s executive vice president.
Dozens of varied industry groups support Initiative 2066. Each has its own reasons. The Washington Denturist Association worries about the expense of switching from propane- or gas-based equipment and a lack of reliable power. Most members are small businesses and it’s a good path for immigrant dentists whose credentials don’t carry over to the U.S.
The Washington State Tree Fruit Association (of which my paternal grandfather’s company, Apple King, is a member) is concerned about rising costs of refrigeration to keep produce fresh. A sudden power outage could be catastrophic for the state’s apple industry. Trade regulations for its top two export markets require that fruit be constantly refrigerated at a specific temperature for as long as 90 days.
The state’s cheapest energy plan would almost double electricity demand in Washington by 2050, putting an unprecedented strain on the grid. The only real option is to increase wind and solar generation, since the state’s plentiful hydroelectric capacity can’t do more without potentially threatening salmon. Wind and solar tend to falter in Washington in the winter, when energy demand peaks.
Consumers would also suffer in Washington’s green utopia. Everything from a haircut to a ballgame would become more expensive as the price of electricity rises. Climate advocates argue that Washingtonians will recoup their costs over time thanks to efficiency gains. But a 2021 report from Home Innovation Labs estimates that recovering the cost of a heat-pump installation could take 47 to 49 years. It’s worse for existing gas customers. The Building Industry Association of Washington estimates that switching from natural gas to electricity in a single-family home would cost as much as $70,000. Heat pumps also tend to fail in the sort of frigid weather that hits rural Washington in winter.
Proponents of electrification insist that technology will improve over time. But if they’re really confident that green energy will be the best option for consumers and businesses, then Initiative 2066 is no threat. Washington voters should ask why climate advocates still see it as one.
Modern farming practices and seed hybridization have significantly reduced the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables over the past 60 years, with average declines of 16% for calcium, 27% for vitamin C and 50% for iron
The focus on higher yields, longer shelf life and visual appeal in crop development has led to a trade-off in nutrient density, particularly evident in hybrid tomatoes compared to heirloom varieties
Four multinational corporations control two-thirds of the global seed market, leading to loss of biodiversity, farmer dependence on hybrid seeds and exploitative labor practices in seed production
The nutrient decline in produce contributes to increased risk of deficiencies, reduced antioxidant intake and rising chronic diseases, leading to greater reliance on dietary supplements
Solutions include supporting seed banks, practicing regenerative agriculture, increasing consumer awareness and implementing policies that prioritize soil health, protect farmers’ rights and enforce fair labor practices in seed production
The documentary “Industry Scandal: The Loss of Nutrients” exposes how modern farming practices and seed hybridization have dramatically reduced the nutritional content of our fruits and vegetables over the past 60 years.
The evidence is clear: the food on our plates today is a shadow of what our grandparents ate. Not only has flavor been sacrificed on the altar of productivity and shelf-life, but critical vitamins and minerals have plummeted as well. This nutrient collapse has profound implications for public health that we’re only beginning to understand.
The Ghost of Vegetables Past
The filmmakers begin their investigation at an unlikely location — the French Academy of Agriculture. Hidden away in this venerable institution, they discover a food composition table from 60 years ago detailing the exact nutrient content of fruits and vegetables at that time. Armed with this historical data, they set out to compare it to modern nutrient levels. The results are striking:1
“We discovered a little-known fact: fruit and vegetables have lost some of their vitamins and minerals. Take green beans for example: in 1960 they contained 65 milligrams (mg) of calcium for every 100 grams. In 2017 they contain no more than 48.5 milligrams. That’s a quarter less calcium. The same thing for vitamin C — 19 mg at the time versus 13.6 mg.”
This wasn’t an isolated case. Examining data for the 70 most consumed fruits and vegetables revealed an alarming trend. According to the film, which is also known as “Seeds of Profit”:2
“The results show a dramatic deterioration in the space of 60 years. All 70 fruit and vegetables have lost an average of 16% of their calcium, 27% of their vitamin C, and almost less than half of their iron levels.”
These findings align with research conducted in the U.S. and U.K. American biochemist Donald Davis analyzed nutrient changes in 43 vegetables between 1950 and 1999, reaching similar conclusions.3 Davis’ study found statistically significant declines in six nutrients: protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C.
The median declines ranged from 6% for protein to 38% for riboflavin (vitamin B2), and the researchers suggest that these declines are most likely explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999. Specifically, they said there may be “trade-offs between crop yield and nutrient content” in the newer varieties.
The Culprit: Agricultural ‘Progress’
What’s behind this nutrient collapse? The documentary points to several factors, all stemming from the industrialization of agriculture:
• Hybridization for higher yields — Over the past 50 years, seed companies have focused on developing hybrid varieties that maximize yield and visual appeal. As Davis explains, “I think that most of these declines are caused by increases in yield. When yields go up, there’s less nutrients per weight of the food. A lot of agricultural scientists may not know about how big these effects are. This is kind of embarrassing. They’re always wanting to increase yield.”4
This focus on quantity over quality has come at a steep nutritional cost. The tomato, for instance, has seen some of the largest nutrient declines — losing a quarter of its calcium and more than half of its vitamins.
• The quest for eternal shelf life — Perhaps the most egregious example of sacrificing nutrition for commercial gain is the development of the “long shelf life” tomato. In the 1970s and 1980s, Israeli researchers created a hybrid tomato that decays much more slowly after being picked.
While this innovation reduced waste and revolutionized the global tomato market, it came with serious downsides. As Haim Rabinowitch, professor emeritus at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, one of the developers, admits:5
“The genes for ripening inhibition carry with them some negative traits. For instance, flavor deteriorates and we [have] less nutrients. But I didn’t know because we never measured it. Only later in the ’90s and the early 2000s, we started looking into the quality traits. I offered a project like that to many seed companies. I even gave it a name. I called it ‘ACE’ tomato.
Why ACE? Vitamins A, C and E, and I said it will be much healthier tomato. We don’t have it in supermarkets, this variety. The industries, they don’t care.”
The Nutrient Gap: Heirloom vs Hybrid
In a revealing experiment, the filmmakers compared a modern hybrid tomato to an heirloom variety. The results were stark:
After one week, the heirloom tomato showed signs of decay and was no longer fit for sale. The hybrid looked unchanged.
After two weeks, the heirloom was moldy. The hybrid still appeared fresh.
It took 25 days for the hybrid to become unsellable — extending shelf life from three days to over three weeks.
But this longevity comes at a steep price. When tasted, the hybrid was described as “tasteless” compared to the flavorful heirloom. To quantify the nutrient differences, the documentary team had both tomatoes analyzed in an accredited laboratory. The results were eye-opening:6
“The hybrid tomato contains a significantly lower level of the five nutrients analyzed. It contains 63% less calcium, 29% less magnesium, and 72% less vitamin C. The levels of lycopene and polyphenols, two antioxidants that help fight cardiovascular diseases, are two times lower in the hybrid than in the farmer’s variety tomato.”
This data provides clear evidence that the push for longer shelf life and higher yields has dramatically reduced the nutritional value of our produce.
The Global Seed Oligopoly
As the documentary reveals, the push for hybrid seeds is being driven by a handful of multinational corporations that dominate the global seed market. Just four companies — Bayer (formerly Monsanto), Corteva (formerly DuPont), Syngenta and Limagrain — control two-thirds of all seeds sold worldwide.7,8 This concentration of power has serious implications:
1. Loss of biodiversity — As uniform hybrid varieties replace traditional seeds, we’re losing genetic diversity at an alarming rate. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reports that 75% of global agrobiodiversity has been lost due to the adoption of “improved” varieties.9
2. Farmer dependence — Hybrid seeds don’t reproduce true-to-type, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each year. This creates a cycle of dependence on seed companies.
3. Skyrocketing seed prices — The documentary reveals that some tomato seed varieties now sell for up to $450,000 per kilogram — more than double the price of gold.10
4. Exploitative labor practices — To keep costs down, seed production is often outsourced to developing countries where child labor and below-minimum wage payments are common.
[…]
The Health Implications
The health implications of this nutrient collapse in our food supply are immense. While the full impact is still being studied, we can draw some alarming conclusions:
1. Increased risk of nutrient deficiencies — As fruits and vegetables contain fewer vitamins and minerals, it becomes harder to meet your nutritional needs through diet alone. This may contribute to the rise in deficiencies we’re seeing, particularly in minerals like magnesium and trace elements.
2. Reduced antioxidant intake — The dramatic drop in vitamin C, lycopene and polyphenols means we’re getting far fewer protective antioxidants from our produce. This could increase vulnerability to oxidative stress and related chronic diseases.
3. Link to rising chronic disease — While many factors contribute to the increase in chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, the depletion of protective nutrients in our food supply plays a role.
4. Hidden hunger — Even people eating what appears to be a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables are getting far fewer nutrients than they realize. This “hidden hunger” has wide-ranging health effects.
5. Increased reliance on supplements — As food becomes less nutritious, more people will turn to dietary supplements to meet their nutritional needs. While supplements have their place, they’re not a perfect replacement for nutrients obtained from whole foods.
The Path Forward: Reclaiming Our Food
The situation seems dire, but there are rays of hope. Around the world, farmers, researchers and citizens are working to preserve agricultural biodiversity and promote more nutritious food production. Here are some key initiatives:
• Seed banks and exchanges — Organizations like Kokopelli in France are working to preserve heirloom and traditional seed varieties. Their “Seeds Without Borders” program distributes these seeds to farmers and gardeners worldwide, helping to maintain genetic diversity.
As noted in the documentary, “By conserving these endangered seeds, we are taking back the choice to plant or eat non-standardized fruit and vegetables which are the best produce for both our planet and our health.”13 Supporting these seed preservation efforts is crucial for maintaining biodiversity and giving farmers alternatives to hybrid seeds.
• Regenerative agriculture — Farming practices that focus on building healthy soils increase the nutrient content of crops. By moving away from chemical-intensive methods and embracing techniques like cover cropping, composting and diverse crop rotations, we can produce more nutritious food while improving environmental health.
• Consumer awareness and demand — As consumers become more aware of the nutrient issue, they can drive change through their purchasing decisions. Choosing heirloom varieties, supporting local farmers using diverse seed stocks and demanding more transparent labeling all make a difference.
• Policy changes — At a broader level, we need policies that incentivize farming practices that enhance soil health and nutrient uptake, protect farmers’ rights to save and exchange seeds, and enforce fair labor practices in seed production globally.
How to Protect Your Nutrient Intake and Support a More Nutritious Food System
The loss of nutrients in our food supply is a silent crisis that demands urgent attention. By understanding the problem and taking action — both in our personal choices and by advocating for systemic change — we can work toward a future where our food nourishes us as nature intended.
The path to truly healthy food isn’t through further industrialization or genetic modification. Instead, we must look to the wisdom of traditional farming methods, embrace biodiversity and prioritize nutrient density. Our health, and the health of future generations, depends on it. To protect your health and support a more nutritious food system, consider:
Choosing heirloom and open-pollinated varieties when possible — These often have higher nutrient levels and better flavor than hybrid varieties.
Supporting local farmers and farmers markets — Small-scale producers are more likely to grow diverse, nutrient-dense crops.
Grow your own — Even a small garden or a few containers provide incredibly nutritious produce.
Opt for organic — While not a guarantee of higher nutrients, organic produce is less likely to contain harmful pesticide residues.
Eat a diverse diet — Don’t rely on just a few fruits and vegetables — incorporate a wide variety to ensure you’re getting a broad spectrum of nutrients.
Consider targeted supplementation — While whole foods should be the foundation of your diet, high-quality supplements can help fill nutrient gaps.
Support organizations working to preserve seed diversity and promote sustainable agriculture.
Stay informed and spread awareness — Share this information with friends and family to help drive change.
This is my favorite lecture so far because I’ve always been fascinated by click languages. All evidence suggests language most likely originated in Africa. Click languages are mainly spoken by the Kohisan (pastoralists) and the Sun (bushmen). There are a few dozen other languages (including the Bauntu languages Zulu and Xhosa) in southern Africa that use clicks. McWhorter believes the clicks may be a relatively recent innovation, although one indigenous Australian language also uses clicks. This would suggest they developed before indigenous Australians left Africa 70,000 years ago. There are two click languages outside of southern Africa (in Tanzania). This suggests they were once more widely distributed than they are at present.
There are five different kinds clicks and they have different meaning depending on whether they’re made on inhalation or exhalation. Click languages have the most sounds of any language on earth: on average 43 clicks and 44 consonants, in addition to roughly 16 vowel sounds. In contrast English has 43 sounds in total. People who speak a click language develop a scar in their throat, even if they learn it as a second language.
The main click languages belong to three families: northern (which, like Chinese, has no noun or verb suffixes), central (has genders like Indo-European languages) and southern.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act 