By Jeffrey Tucker

Fascism became a swear word in the US and UK during the Second World War. It has been ever since, to the point that the content of the term has been drained away completely. It is not a system of political economy but an insult.

If we go back a decade before the war, you find a completely different situation. Read any writings from polite society from 1932 to 1940 or so, and you find a consensus that freedom and democracy, along with Enlightenment-style liberalism of the 18th century, were completely doomed. They should be replaced by some version of what was called the planned society, of which fascism was one option.

A book by that name appeared in 1937 as published by the prestigious Prentice-Hall, and it included contributions by top academics and high-profile influencers. It was highly praised by all respectable outlets at the time.

Everyone in the book was explaining how the future would be constructed by the finest minds who would manage whole economies and societies, the best and the brightest with full power. All housing should be provided by government, for example, and food too, but with the cooperation of private corporations. That seems to be the consensus in the book. Fascism was treated as a legitimate path. Even the word totalitarianism was invoked without opprobrium but rather with respect.

The book has been memory-holed of course.

You will notice that the section on economics includes contributions by Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. Yes, their ideas and political rule were part of the prevailing conversation. It is in this essay, likely ghostwritten by Professor Giovanni Gentile, Minister of Public Education, in which Mussolini offered this concise statement: “Fascism is more appropriately called corporatism, for it is the perfect merge of State and corporate power.”

All of this became rather embarrassing after the war so it was largely forgotten. But the affection on the part of many sectors of the US ruling class had for fascism was still in place. It merely took on new names.

As a result, the lesson of the war, that the US should stand for freedom above all else while wholly rejecting fascism as a system, was largely buried. And generations have been taught to regard fascism as nothing but a quirky and failed system of the past, leaving the word as an insult to fling at in any way deemed reactionary or old-fashioned, which makes no sense.

There is valuable literature on the topic and it bears reading. One book that is particularly insightful is The Vampire Economy by Günter Reimann, a financier in Germany who chronicled the dramatic changes to industrial structures under the Nazis. In a few short years, from 1933 to 1939, a nation of enterprise and small shopkeepers was converted to a corporate-dominated machine that gutted the middle class and cartelized industry in preparation for war.

The book was published in 1939 before the invasion of Poland and the onset of Europe-wide war, and manages to convey the grim reality just before hell broke loose. On a personal note, I spoke to the author (real name: Hans Steinicke) briefly before he died, in order to gain permission to post the book, and he was astonished that anyone cared about it.

“The corruption in fascist countries arises inevitably from the reversal of the roles of the capitalist and the State as wielders of economic power,” wrote Reimann.

The Nazis were not hostile to business as a whole but only opposed traditional, independent, family-owned, small businesses that offered nothing for purposes of nation-building and war planning. The crucial tool to make this happen was establishing the Nazi Party as the central regulator of all enterprises. The large businesses had the resources to comply and the wherewithal to develop good relations with political masters whereas the undercapitalized small businesses were squeezed to the point of extinction. You could make bank under Nazi rules provided you put first things first: regime before customers.

“Most businessmen in a totalitarian economy feel safer if they have a protector in the State or Party bureaucracy,” Reimann writes. “They pay for their protection as did the helpless peasants of feudal days. It is inherent in the present lineup of forces, however, that the official is often sufficiently independent to take the money but fails to provide the protection.”

He wrote of

“the decline and ruin of the genuinely independent businessman, who was the master of his enterprise, and exercised his property rights. This type of capitalist is disappearing but another type is prospering. He enriches himself through his Party ties; he himself is a Party member devoted to the Fuehrer, favored by the bureaucracy, entrenched because of family connections and political affiliations. In a number of cases, the wealth of these Party capitalists has been created through the Party’s exercise of naked power. It is to the advantage of these capitalists to strengthen the Party which has strengthened them. Incidentally, it sometimes happens that they become so strong that they constitute a danger to the system, upon which they are liquidated or purged.”

This was particularly true for independent publishers and distributors. Their gradual bankruptcy served to effectively nationalize all surviving media outlets who knew that it was in their interests to echo Nazi Party priorities.

Reimann wrote:

“The logical outcome of a fascist system is that all newspapers, news services, and magazines become more or less direct organs of the fascist party and State. They are governmental institutions over which individual capitalists have no control and very little influence except as they are loyal supporters or members of the all-powerful party.”

“Under fascism or any totalitarian regime an editor no longer can act independently,” wrote Reimann. “Opinions are dangerous. He must be willing to print any ‘news’ issued by State propaganda agencies, even when he knows it to be completely at variance with the facts, and he must suppress real news which reflects upon the wisdom of the leader. His editorials can differ from another newspaper’s only in so far as he expresses the same idea in different language. He has no choice between truth and falsehood, for he is merely a State official for whom ‘truth’ and ‘honesty’ do not exist as a moral problem but are identical with the interests of the Party.”

A feature of the policy included aggressive price controls. They did not work to suppress inflation but they were politically useful in other ways. “Under such circumstances nearly every businessman necessarily becomes a potential criminal in the eyes of the Government,” wrote Reimann. “There is scarcely a manufacturer or shopkeeper who, intentionally or unintentionally, has not violated one of the price decrees. This has the effect of lowering the authority of the State; on the other hand, it also makes the State authorities more feared, for no businessman knows when he may be severely penalized.”

From there, Reimann tells many wonderful if chilling stories about, for example, the pig farmer who faced price ceilings on his product and got around them by selling a high-priced dog alongside a low-priced pig, after which the dog was returned. This kind of maneuvering became common.

I can only highly recommend this book as a brilliant inside look at how enterprise functions under a fascist-style regime. The German case was fascism with a racialist and anti-Jewish twist for purposes of political purges. In 1939, it was not entirely obvious how this would end in mass and targeted extermination on a gargantuan scale. The German system in those days bore much resemblance to the Italian case, which was fascism without the ambition of full ethnic cleansing. In that case, it bears examination as a model for how fascism can reveal itself in other contexts.

The best book I’ve seen on the Italian case is John T. Flynn’s 1944 classic As We Go Marching. Flynn was a widely respected journalist, historian, and scholar in the 1930s who was largely forgotten after the war due to his political activities. But his outstanding scholarship stands the test of time. His book deconstructs the history of fascist ideology in Italy from a half-century prior and explains the centralizing ethos of the system, both in politics and economics.

Following an erudite examination of the main theorists, along with Flynn provides a beautiful summary.

Fascism, Flynn writes, is a form of social organization:

1. In which the government acknowledges no restraint upon its powers—totalitarianism.

2. In which this unrestrained government is managed by a dictator—the leadership principle.

3. In which the government is organized to operate the capitalist system and enable it to function under an immense bureaucracy.

4. In which the economic society is organized on the syndicalist model; that is, by producing groups formed into craft and professional categories under supervision of the state.

5. In which the government and the syndicalist organizations operate the capitalist society on the planned, autarchical principle.

6. In which the government holds itself responsible for providing the nation with adequate purchasing power by public spending and borrowing.

7. In which militarism is used as a conscious mechanism of government spending.

8. In which imperialism is included as a policy inevitably flowing from militarism as well as other elements of fascism.

Each point bears longer commentary but let’s focus on number 5 in particular, with its focus on syndicalist organizations. In those days, they were large corporations run with an emphasis on union organization of the workforce. In our own times, these have been replaced by a managerial overclass in tech and pharma that have the ear of government and have developed close ties with the public sector, each depending on the other. Here is where we get the essential bones and meat of why this system is called corporatist.

In today’s polarized political environment, the left continues to worry about unbridled capitalism while the right is forever on the lookout for the enemy of full-blown socialism. Each side has reduced fascistic corporatism to a historical problem on the level of witch burning, fully conquered but useful as a historical reference to form a contemporary insult against the other side.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/the-machinery-of-fascism-revisited/

By Daniel Borgström – CovertAction Magazine – May 1, 2024

Status As a Police Informant Raises Suspicion That He Was an FBI and CIA Asset Out to Discredit the 1960s Counterculture

The Sharon Tate murders were as bizarre as they were bloody, and the story behind the story is even stranger.

Journalist Tom O’Neill spent 20 years researching, interviewing and digging in his effort to get to the bottom of it. His book, CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties, co-authored by Dan Piepenbring, is an account of O’Neill’s personal odyssey as well as a presentation of his findings which unfold, page after page, in tragedy, weirdness and irony.

Charles Manson’s hit-team killed ten people, perhaps more. That was in California, back in the summer of 1969, while the U.S. Armed Forces were busily slaughtering millions of Asians in Vietnam. And in opposition to that war, hundreds of thousands of Americans marched in mass protests—the anti-war movement.

[…]

War, anti-war, and counterculture—it was all going on when Charles Manson and his “family” suddenly stole the show and took center stage with that series of infamous killings. First there was the Gary Hinman murder, then the Sharon Tate killings, followed by the LaBianca murders. Two more victims about whom we do not often hear were Donald Shea, a caretaker at the Spahn Ranch, and Filippo Tenerelli, who was found dead in a Bishop, California, motel.

The FBI’s COINTELPRO and the CIA’s CHAOS programs were also in play—part of intelligence’s covert war on dissent. Several shadowy characters, apparently CIA operatives, turn up in this story and appear to have crossed paths with Charles Manson. Among them was Dr. Louis Jolyon West of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA mind-control project. Another was Reeve Whitson who somehow knew of the Tate killings 90 minutes before anyone else did, and reported it in a phone call to Tate’s photographer. O’Neill devotes a chapter to each of them.

Thirty years had passed since the killings when O’Neill began work on his project in 1999. Several of the key players had already died, but Charles Manson was still in prison, and memories of the killings remained painfully alive. The topic was initially assigned to O’Neill as a magazine article, and the editor gave him three months to complete it.

However, as he launched into it, interviewing dozens—eventually hundreds—of cops, DA lawyers, clerks, Hollywood personalities, drug dealers and others, he found there was far more to the story than he had ever imagined.

[…]

Among the strange pieces in this picture puzzle is something O’Neill calls “Charlie Manson’s get-out-of-jail-free card.”

After having spent much of his life in various prisons, in 1967 Charles Manson was finally out on “federal parole for grand theft auto.” Being on probation is almost like living on the doorstep of a jailhouse.

A parolee can get thrown back in prison for the slightest mis-step. However, Charles Manson went around committing one offense after another—stealing cars, credit cards and firearms, sex with underage women, drugs, etc. Whatever a parolee was not allowed to do, Charles Manson did. He even flouted it. He was caught repeatedly, but none of his numerous violations landed him in jail for more than a few days at a time.

[…]

Normally, a probation officer would supervise 20 to 100 parolees; but Roger Smith was supervising only one person—Charles Manson. It was with the encouragement of Probation Officer Roger Smith that Manson spent a year in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, at the time a Mecca of the hippie counterculture.

There Charlie acquired his “family” of followers, and morphed into the Charles Manson known to history and legend—the charismatic guru and apocalyptic cult leader, acid-dropping mystic, guitarist and songwriter, con artist, car thief and general predator, manipulator and abuser, and evangelist who expatiated on the Book of Revelation.

Manson was well-connected with Hollywood celebrities and music personalities: Doris Day’s son, music producer Terry Melcher, the Beach Boys, and many more, though most did not wish to have it known that they had been associated with him. Even after 30 years had passed, many refused to be interviewed by Tom O’Neill. The refusers’ list reads like a who’s who of Hollywood stardom. Cops and prosecutors were more inclined to talk, and some of them opened the author’s way to troves of documents and records.

[…]

Bugliosi was the attorney who had prosecuted Manson and afterwards wrote the best-selling Helter Skelter. In the courtroom and later in his book, Bugliosi presented Manson’s murder rampage as a scheme to blame the Black Panthers and thus spark a race war between blacks and whites. That became the official narrative, though it was doubted by people who had researched the case. Tom O’Neill devoted a chapter to reviewing “Holes in Helter Skelter”; he exposes Bugliosi’s handling of the case and does the coup de grâce on that theory.

[…]

Throughout the drama, Charles Manson was being closely monitored by law enforcement agencies and intel. And yet, even while they were watching him, he sent his acolytes out on those brutal killing sprees of August 1969. Incredibly enough, despite the surveillance, it took law enforcement four long months to eventually arrest him and his hit team. During those extra months of free rein, Manson killed Shea and Tenerelli and perhaps more.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detectives had almost immediately found clues leading to Charles Manson; many Hollywood people also suspected him. So why did it take law enforcement so long to catch him? It appears that the “hands off Manson policy” was still in effect.

Actually, Manson was not the only person in this story who seemed to be immune to prosecution; similar immunity appears to have been granted to two or three Hollywood drug dealers who turn up in the story. That seems to be a fairly common practice in law enforcement.

“A lot of times we arrest people and the DA would say, ‘We can’t keep this person in custody, he’s too valuable, we want him on the streets,’” former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Guillory told O’Neill. “My suspicion is that Manson was left alone for a while for some reason.”

Former head deputy DA of Van Nuys, Lewis Watnick, gave a similar opinion. “Sometimes this is explained by just pure incompetence,” he said. “But this is not that. It dovetails right in. Manson was an informant.” Of course, that was just his guess, Watnick conceded, but it was an educated one, based on his 30 years of experience. “They’d been watching this guy for something large.”

Looking at the tolerance that authorities had for Manson’s lawbreaking, his relationship with probation officer Roger Smith, and more, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that somebody up there had a major investment in Mr. Charles Manson. They must have wanted him to do something. But what?

Along with his findings, O’Neill shares his uncertainties. “My work had left me, at various points, broke, depressed, and terrified that I was becoming one of ‘those people’: an obsessive, a conspiracy theorist… I don’t consider myself credulous, but I’d discovered things I thought impossible about the Manson murders and California in the sixties.” Further on, he tells us, “I thought most of all about the possibility that Manson, of all people, had some type of protection from law enforcement… It boggled the mind even to speculate that someone like Manson could be plugged into something bigger, and presumably even darker, than he was.”

Something darker than Charles Manson? Our leaders, and the establishment they work for, have a lot of closely guarded secrets—secrets that occasionally make their way out by way of researchers, whistleblowers, hackers, and even congressional hearings.

For background on the political environment of the late 1960s, O’Neill reviews the establishment’s war against the anti-war movement. That includes cases of people who were murdered as a result of FBI and CIA activities and manipulations here in the U.S. He ties this brutality to U.S. actions overseas.

O’Neill looks at the CIA’s Phoenix Program in Vietnam, a kill-capture campaign, which resulted in the death of thousands of Vietnamese civilians. He quotes from a Special Forces soldier, Anthony Herbert, about his time in the Phoenix Program: “They wanted me to take charge of execution teams that wiped out entire families and tried to make it appear as though the Viet Cong had done it themselves. The rationale was that the Viet Cong would see that other Viet Cong had killed their own and… make allegiance with us. The good guys.”

A mission shared by the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the CIA’s CHAOS was to disrupt and discredit the anti-war movement, and that, O’Neill points out, was one effect of the Manson murders. Of course, Charles Manson was not an anti-war activist; it is doubtful that he ever attended an anti-war rally. He was a product of the prison system who somehow found his way into the fringes of the counterculture movement, and there was a lot of overlap between the anti-war and counterculture movements. Many hippies were anti-war, and many activists smoked grass and grew their hair long.

The corporate media, then as now, was the voice of the establishment elite, and dutifully presented the murderous Manson and his “family” to the world as poster children of the “hippie movement.” A lot of people bought that framing. Even people who self-identified as countercultural were saying, “Manson ended the Summer of Love!”—a message the corporate media pushed.

Although the killings were billed as the “crime of the century” and have received massive newspaper coverage ever since, few articles went beyond the sensational aspects and asked truly penetrating questions. When (in 1971) whistleblower LA Sheriff’s Detective Guillory went public with what he knew about Manson’s get-out-of-jail-free card, the media showed little interest. Nor did many journalists work out a related source and connection between these killings and a society waging a brutal and unjust war.

We assume that our leaders in Washington care about the lives of ordinary people. Our experience with them shows otherwise.

We remember Vietnam. There have been several murderous wars since then, and now Gaza. As I write this, our president and our Congress are in the sixth month of funding, arming and giving diplomatic support to apartheid Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

Our leaders are not averse to promoting mass murder. We have the immortal words of former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright: When asked in 1996 about U.S. sanctions causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, she replied, “We think the price is worth it.”

The powers that be are a bloodthirsty lot when it serves their interests, every bit as murderous as Charles Manson himself. But who might have been the local- or regional-level functionaries authorizing immunity for such criminals?

O’Neill tells us about several high-placed California officials. One was Evelle Younger, then Los Angeles DA. Younger was a former FBI agent who, during World War II, was with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, and also oversaw the prosecution of Sirhan Sirhan; he went on to be California Attorney General from 1971 to 1979.

Another was California Governor Ronald Reagan’s chairman of the “Task Force on Riots and Disorders,” William W. Herrmann. Herrmann was a veteran of the CIA’s Phoenix Program; he had also been a lieutenant with the LAPD. However, O’Neill was not able to establish a definite connection between them and the on-the-ground operatives. We do get an idea of who they seem to have been.

In this book of strange dark characters, one of the stranger ones was Dr. Louis Jolyon West, known to his friends as “Jolly” West. He was a pioneering scientist of the CIA’s mind-control project—MK-ULTRA. In 1966 he came to San Francisco, shortly before Manson arrived, and his project was to study and manipulate hippies.

[…]

Via https://alethonews.com/2024/05/05/u-s-intelligence-operatives-appear-to-have-intentionally-groomed-mass-murderer-charles-manson/

By John Miles – Sputnik – 05.05.2024

The leader of the country of Georgia has criticized US efforts to interfere in the country dating back several years.

A major scandal emerged in 2016 over the disproven conspiracy theory of Russian interference in the United States presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Americans were told, had spent vast sums of money to influence the outcome of the vote via social media. According to the conspiracy’s most dedicated adherents, US democracy had been near-fatally wounded by the pernicious meddling of a hostile foreign power.

What adherents of the unfounded Russiagate narrative failed to acknowledge is that the United States is guilty of precisely the same type of political interference it accuses others of, and on a far larger scale.

Claims of such foreign meddling came to a head Friday when Georgia’s head of state slammed US support for “violence” and “revolution attempts” amidst anti-government protests in the country’s capital of Tbilisi.

“Spoke to [US ambassador Derek Chollet] and expressed my sincere disappointment with the two revolution attempts of 2020-2023 supported by the former US Ambassador and those carried out through NGOs financed from external sources,” wrote Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgia’s prime minister and head of the social democratic Georgian Dream party, on social media.

The prime minister also criticized “false statements” from the US and European Union concerning draft “Transparency of Foreign Influence” legislation currently working through the country’s parliament.

The proposed law, which is currently the subject of protests in the country’s capital, is aimed at disclosing foreign influence over organizations and media outlets operating in Georgia. Kobakhidze claims the legislation is necessary to promote “transparency and accountability of relevant organizations vis-à-vis Georgian society.” Western critics have portrayed it as a clampdown on civil society, likening it to Russia’s “foreign agents law” – protesters have even taken to deriding the bill “the Russian law.”

But such legislation is common throughout the world, with similar regulation taking place in Canada, Australia, the European Union, and elsewhere. The US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires foreign-affiliated news outlets, such as the one you’re reading now, to register with the US Department of Justice and send copies of all “informational materials” to US authorities.

The United States has frequently opposed such legislation in countries it deems to be foreign adversaries because it threatens the influence of US “soft power.” The United States frequently funds foreign activists, media outlets, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to spread US influence in foreign countries. The US has specifically focused on former Soviet-aligned nations after the end of the Cold War, seeking to ensure leaders are elected who will orient such countries towards the West and away from Russia.

When necessary, the United States has even sought to foment regime change in foreign countries through such methods, paving the way for unrest that generates a change in leadership. Such events are commonly known as “color revolutions,” after a series of such incidents such as Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a primary tool of such “revolutions.”

Investigation by Sputnik has uncovered the historical influence of the United States and allied groups in influencing Georgian politics. USAID’s website boasts that the organization has poured a staggering $1.9 billion into the country since 1992. The agency reports funding 39 ongoing projects in Georgia “with a total value of approximately $373 million, and an annual budget of more than $70 million.”

Additionally, USAID’s Georgian Media Partnership Program backs a range of opposition media outlets in the country, including TV Pirveli, Radio Marneuli, Formula TV, and Mtavari Arkhi. The US agency allocated $10 million in 2021 alone. Samira Bayramova, an administrator of the program, has been noted as a prominent leader of the current protests in Tbilisi.

The Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) has also strongly backed the ongoing demonstrations. The organization partners with USAID under the pretense of promoting “fair electoral processes in Georgia.”

Additionally, the US allies with partnered “philanthropic” foundations to further strengthen opposition forces. The Georgian branch of George Soros’ Civil Society Foundation openly promotes the current protests, backing a petition initiative to promote hostility toward the current government. The Civil Society Foundation has operated in the country for 30 years, claiming to have poured $100 million into political interference.

Political opposition leader Nika Gvaramia, whose party has helped organize the ongoing protests, is promoted on the foundation’s website.

The US, naturally, has attempted to coerce Georgia’s government to shelve the current draft law, with Chollet expressing “concern for Georgia’s current trajectory.” Senators from both major US political parties have warned the country could face sanctions for attempts to move forward with the transparency legislation.

The United States’ foreign subterfuge has increasingly come to light in recent years, with former President Donald Trump offering a rare acknowledgment of US efforts in Iran, Belarus, and Hong Kong.

Still, millions of others remain uninformed about the destructive influence of the United States and billionaire oligarchs like George Soros.

[…]

Via https://alethonews.com/2024/05/05/hand-of-soros-georgian-prime-minister-denounces-us-color-revolution-tactics/

Zero Hedge

England may be the third country to withdraw from a “gender-affirming” treatment pathway due to recommendations from a long-awaited report.

In April, the country published the Cass Review, “most comprehensive summary on transgender-youth medicine,” psychologist Erica Anderson, who identifies as transgender and has a doctorate in clinical psychology, told The Epoch Times.

The review, chaired by Dr. Hilary Cass, British honorary physician, consultant in pediatric disability, and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, stated that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate the long-term benefits of medicalizing children who want to identify as a different gender. Instead, the review recommends focusing on psychotherapy.

For some clinicians and researchers, this recommendation was a long time coming. Others are concerned that it potentially threatens medicalization—currently the primary treatment—for gender-incongruent youths.

The National Health Service (NHS) England, which commissioned the report in 2020, stated it would be committed to following through on the recommendations.

“[The Cass Review] final report will not just shape the future of healthcare in this country for children and young people experiencing gender distress but will be of major international importance and significance,” the statement read.

Eight days after the Cass Review’s release, Scotland’s health boards announced a pause on new prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as they gather evidence to support the safety and clinical effectiveness of these medications.

‘End of the Era’

The Cass Review is based on the work of 237 papers, including 214 studies, 21 guidelines, and two position statements, which covered data of over 113,000 children and young people. The authors also analyzed anonymized data from over 3,700 children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, survey responses from professionals, and numerous interviews and testimonies from stakeholders of the issue.

The review team commissioned researchers at the University of York to conduct systematic reviews of these papers and get feedback by interviewing young gender-incongruent children, their parents, and clinicians.

The University of York disclosed that it interviewed 12 young people who were part of voluntary organizations or the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), along with 12 parents. The university researchers also interviewed clinicians at the UK’s gender identity clinics.

Additionally, Dr. Cass also interviewed numerous transgender youths, adults, parents of these children, advocacy groups, psychologists, pediatricians, and related clinicians, both British and international, though the number of interviewees was undisclosed. She also wanted to do a follow-up with 9,000 patients referred to England’s Tavistock Centre, but that could not be done due to the lack of cooperation from all but one adult clinic.

The review found insufficient and inconclusive evidence demonstrating the effectiveness and benefits of gender reassignment treatments for children. Additionally, many of these children are on the autism spectrum and share mental comorbidities often overshadowed by the medicalization model.

Dr. Cass hence advised cautionary psychological interventions while also leaving room for children to explore their identities.

The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a medical group that advocates for evidence-driven research on transgender care, stated that for England, the review marked “the end of the era of a highly medicalized approach to the treatment of young people with gender-related distress,” which has come to be known as “gender-affirming” care.

The report also mentioned that while medicalization comprising puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery, known as the “Dutch Protocol,” was invented in the Netherlands in the 1990s, the concept of “gender affirmation”—accepting children’s gender identity at face value—actually originated in the United States and then spread internationally.

As a result of the review, children under 18 in England will not be treated using such protocol but with the same level of care as other youths with mental health struggles. Finland and Sweden made similar changes in 2023.

Puberty blockers and hormones will only be made available to 16-year-olds and older under the context of research-controlled conditions. Therefore, experimentation of such treatment on minors will be hindered.

“So as the Cass report made clear, they can design a study, but the study has to be approved by a larger body that passes on its ethics,” said Dr. Stephen Levine, clinical professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University.

Top Findings and Suggestions

The report found that, unexpectedly, most current influential guidelines have been determined based on board consensus instead of science.

Most of the current guidelines were influenced by two American standards of care: the 2012 World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society 2009.

Both relied on a consensus process among professionals to decide on the best treatment for gender dysphoria and were built upon one another. WPATH members were co-sponsors of the Endocrine Society guidelines. WPATH’s 2012 standards of care adopted the Endocrine Society’s consensus-based recommendations but did not refer to WPATH’s own systematic review data, which found inconclusive evidence of the benefits of hormone therapy.

The recommendations from these guidelines were then referred to by subsequent guidelines, snowballing into what we now see.

The Cass Review is not about “rolling back on people’s rights to healthcare,” Dr. Cass wrote in the review’s foreword. “It is about what the healthcare approach should be.”

The review presented the following findings and recommendations.

1. Psychotherapy Is Recommended

Effectiveness and risks: Due to low quality and poor reporting of interventions in transgender children, the review couldn’t form a proper conclusion about the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

However, there is evidence that psychotherapy can help address mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, common among transgender youths, and hormone interventions often overshadow these therapies. The review highlighted that psychotherapy is not the same as conversion therapy, as it is not about changing a child’s perception of who they are but exploring the cause of their concerns and experiences and helping alleviate distress.

2. Partial Social Transitioning Is Preferred

Effectiveness and risks: The systematic reviews did not show clear evidence of the positive or negative effects social transitioning has on mental health. Social transition generally refers to a person making only social changes, including altering hair and clothing and changing names and pronouns, instead of medical changes to live as a different gender.

The review noted that many children grow out of gender dysphoria by adulthood but that those who socially transition often medically transition, meaning that they continue to have gender dysphoria.

While it is unknown whether social transitioning contributes to gender dysphoria, the review authors speculated that a partial transition may be more advantageous and offer greater flexibility to help children explore and express their gender identities.

3. Hormonal Treatments Not Recommended Except Under Research Conditions

Effectiveness and risks: The review showed no significant improvements in gender dysphoria symptoms or body satisfaction from medicalization. While some reports showed short-term improvement in mood when patients began hormonal treatment, the magnitude of such improvement was small.

Hormonal treatment, which refers to the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, is not recommended for minors due to the permanence of its effects. Children 16 or older may instead be enrolled in high-quality research studies on experimental treatments.

Evidence about the effects of puberty suppression on psychological well-being, cognitive and bone development, and cardio-metabolic risk or fertility was found to be inconsistent and insufficient.

Evidence also did not support the claim that hormonal treatment reduced the risk of suicide.

The report did not discuss recommendations and changes to guidelines on gender-reassignment surgeries since, unlike children in the United States, minors in the United Kingdom typically cannot undergo these.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/214-studies-21-guidelines-largest-review-transgender-youth-medicine-finds-insufficient

• Col. Earl Matthews says Army leaders stripped Trump of authority on January 6
• Claims they plotted to balk orders to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol
• READ: Ex-Acting Defense Sec. Chris Miller says Jan. 6 panel threatened him

By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com In Washington, Dc

Donald Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief was ignored by senior military leadership on January 6, 2021, claims the chief legal advisor for D.C. National Guard on that day.

Colonel Earl Matthews came forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee reviewing the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation.

He sat down with DailyMail.com two weeks after the public hearing to explain what he saw happen that day.

He claims that Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, were plotting to disobey any orders handed down by Trump because they ‘unreasonably’ assumed the then-president was going to break the law and try to use the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

A lot has been made about the breakdown in military and administration communication when it came to the timeline of deploying DCNG to the Capitol.

<But Matthews claims senior military leadership was solely focused on getting the heat off of them and putting it back onto Trump.

Matthews told DailyMail.com that Army leadership essentially stripped then-President Donald Trump of his authority as Commander-in-Chief on January 6, 2021 because they plotted to go against any orders from him to deploy the National Guard to the Capitol that day

The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Matthews claims, was more than happy to lean into this narrative and blame the entire ordeal on the then-president.

But Matthews says that senior military leadership essentially stripped the president of his authority as commander-in-chief by preemptively planning to go against orders because they didn’t like the optics of uniformed soldiers at the Capitol.

‘I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump’s command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021,’ Matthews told DailyMail.com.

He continued: ‘Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘unlawful order’ from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order.’

Matthews, who was the Staff Judge Advocate of the DCNG during the riot, was on the consequential and highly discussed phone call the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021 with McCarthy, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other senior leadership.

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund pleaded during the call for the DCNG to help law enforcement in responding to the Capitol riot. And DCNG Commander Maj. Gen. William Walker had prepared his troops to deploy.

Sund said at a congressional hearing, and Matthews reiterated in his interview with DailyMail.com, that Army Staff Director Walter Piatt and Chief of Staff for Operations Charles Flynn were part of that discussion, despite the latter claiming under oath he was not on the call.

Matthews said on the call Flynn and Piatt seemed ‘almost disinterested’ in Sund’s concerns and displayed no urgency toward getting the National Guard to the U.S. Capitol to respond to rioters.

‘Flynn and Piatt displayed what I would characterize as a nonchalant attitude during the roughly 25 minute call,’ the Colonel claimed.

Additionally, he said the two Army leaders ‘didn’t like the optics of the Guard coming to the Capitol,’ even though Piatt said under oath to Congress that he never mentioned ‘optics.’

‘Both Piatt and Flynn were obsessively focused on what they considered the bad optics of military personnel at the Capitol during the certification of the election,’ Matthews told DailyMail.com.

‘They both stated that they believed that what was transpiring at the Capitol was most appropriately handled by civilian law enforcement personnel,’ he continued, ‘despite the fact the capabilities and resources of the U.S. Capitol Police and MPD were quickly being overwhelmed and the National Guard typically assists civilian police authorities in such circumstances.’

Matthews detailed: ‘Piatt and Flynn wanted the D.C. National Guard to find locations around the city where it could relieve MPD officers performing traffic or other duties in order to allow those civilian police officers to deploy to the Capitol.’

The January 6 Committee was led by seven Democrats and two Republicans now no longer in Congress, former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

The final report from the select committee acknowledges that Trump did approve deployment of the National Guard despite claims that he did not give the proper authorizations, which resulted in the more than three-hour delay.

‘Former President Trump’s eagerness to engage the U.S. military to play a visible role in addressing domestic unrest during the late spring and summer of 2020 does appear to have prompted senior military leadership to take precautions, in preparing for the joint session against the possibility that the DC Guard might be ordered to deploy for an improper use,’ the final report reads.

But Matthews confirms the President’s authority was ignored or completely balked by Piatt and Flynn, as well as other military leaders.

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13372839/DC-National-Guard-whistleblower-claims-Trump-stripped-commander-chief-powers-January-6.html

Zero Hedge

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team admitted on Friday that key evidence in Trump’s classified documents case was altered or manipulated – leaving two different chronologies; one that was digitally scanned vs. what’s in the actual boxes.

Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained “in their original, intact form as seized,” when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an “inconsistent” record – in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022.

“The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court,” the footnote reads, according to Just the News.

The finding comes after Cannon ordered a review into whether the FBI may have seized legally privileged records in response to a request from Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.

“Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants’ review of the boxes,” wrote Smith’s team in the Friday filing.

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the filing continues.

The organization of the documents in storage boxes at Mar-a-Lago is likely to be an important part of Trump‘s defense. His team is expected to argue the documents were stored in the White House in chronological order on the days that Trump received them, and that staff simply boxed them up and sent them to his home without him accessing them or knowing they contained classified information.

Smith’s team tried to downplay the problem and argued it’s not a reason for a delay in Trump’s case.

But several legal experts told Just the News the court filing essentially is an admission of evidence tampering, and could be problematic. -Just the News

“Prosecutors and investigators should never tamper with or alter evidence in their possession, including the order of documents in a box because one never knows what may become relevant or crucial to a court or jury later in a case,” Alan Dershowitz told Just the News

Smith’s Excuses

The prosecution offered several explanations for the manipulated evidence.

“There are several possible explanations, including the above-described instances in which the boxes were accessed, as well as the size and shape of certain items in the boxes possibly leading to movement of items,” reads the filing. “For example, the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full.”

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stunning-multiple-levels-doj-admits-evidence-tampering-trump-classified-docs-case

Episode 15 The Beginning of the New Kingdom

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

Egypt’s New Kingdom began with Dynasty XVIII. Ahmose (1570-1546 BC) became the first king of Dynasty XVIII after finally expelling the Hyksos (see Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period and Foreign Rule by the Hyksos) from northern Egypt. After introducing the use of standing armies to obtain tribute and booty, he established two capitols (an administrative capitol in Memphis and a religious capitol in Thebes) and becomes fantastically prosperous.

Women were more important in Egypt’s New Kingdom than any other ancient civilization. Ahmose granted his wife the title Queen Ahmose Nefetrari (meaning “married to Amun”). Her role was to run Egypt’s temples. A number of New Kingdom pharaohs were commoners who ascended to the throne by marrying a woman of royal blood.

Ahmose and his son (Amenhotep I) embark on a military campaign against Nubian bowmen on southern Egypt’s border.* As with most New Kingdom military expeditions they took scribes with them to keep track of food and other supplies, spoils of victory and the number of dead (by counting the right hands fellow warriors cut off when comrades died in battle). Ahmose and Amenhotep I returned from Nubia with captive bowmen, gold and slaves.

Amenhotep I had no sons. His successor Tuthmosis I (1524-1418 BC) was a military commoner who became pharaoh by marrying the daughter of Ahmose. He  was the first pharaoh to lead his troops past the dangerous fourth Nile cataract. He did so by posting soldiers on both banks controlling the boat with ropes attached to its bow.

His tomb inscriptions indicate Tuthmosis conquered two separate Nubian tribes and “those who lived on sand (Bedouins).” He erected two large monolith: in Nubia marking Egypt’s southern border and at the Euphrates (after leading his troops into Mesopotamia) marking its northern border.

He erected Egypt’s tallest ever Obelisk at Karnak and was the first king to be buried in Wadi Ameluk (the Valley of the Kings). The soft limestone bedrock there was easy to chisel into 100-200 foot tunnel with Egyptian copper and bronze tools. It was alo easy to paint and polish.

*Numbian bowmen were often hired a mercenaries by various African and Mediterranean nations.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492826

Peckford 42

Shiraz University head says students who who are expelled over their actions during recent protests are welcome to continue their studies at his institution.

The head of an Iranian university offered students expelled from American colleges while participating in the recent anti-Israel protests that have rocked campuses across the US in recent weeks free tuition to come to Iran and enroll at his school.

Mohammad Moazzeni, the head of Shiraz University in the Fars region, made the offer in an interview with the state-owned Press TV.

“Students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies at Shiraz University and I think that other universities in Shiraz, as well as Fars Province, are also prepared,” Moazzeni said.

Earlier this week, the NYPD arrested more than 280 people at anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and City College of New York.

Protesters at Columbia broke into and occupied a hall on campus early Tuesday morning.

The recent waves of protests began a little over two weeks ago when anti-Israel protesters set up a tent encampment on the Columbia campus. Similar protest encampments spread to campuses across the country over the next two weeks.

These anti-Israel protests have become hotbeds of antisemitism and support for Hamas terrorists.

Several universities, including Columbia, have threatened to suspend students who violate campus policy in the course of the protests.

[…]

Via https://peckford42.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/iranian-university-head-offers-free-tuition-to-us-protesters-who-get-expelled/