The Most Revolutionary Act

Uncensored updates on world events, economics, the environment and medicine

The Most Revolutionary Act
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About stuartbramhall

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.

Marxism After Marx

Episode 5 Marxism After Marx

The Rise of Communism from Marx to Lenin

Dr Vejas Gabriel Liulevius (2019)

Film Review

The years between Marx’s death in 1883 and  World War I saw the founding of numerous socialist parties seeking legislative reform (with Germany’s Social Democratic Party the largest), the creation of the Second International* in 1889 and fierce factional debates between those who wished to bring about revolution through gradual reform and those who favored violent revolution

In 1888 Eugene Pottier’s poem The Internationale was put to music and translated into all major languages.

The 1870 Franco-Prussian War was a major catalyst in the unification of Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. This, in turn, facilitated a second industrial revolution. Europe experienced a 260% increase in industrial production, led by major German technological innovations improving the mass production of steel.

This massive economic growth led to clear changes in class structure, but not the ones Marx predicted in Das Kapital. Whereas Marx predicted a shrinking middle class and an expanding proletariat, the Second Industrial Revolution produced an expanding middle class with more office workers and white color technocrats, and, according to Liulevius   a greater capacity for reform.

This failure of history to live up to Marx’s predictions led to so-called Revisionism, a 150-year debate whether the Second Industrial Revolution necessitated a revision of Marxist theory (especially as his predictions about capitalism’s collapse didn’t come true). It was a pejorative label: activists attacked as Revisionists generally favored reform over violent revolution.

Britain had already seen similar reforms, eg the 1847 Factories Act, which limited working hours for women and children to 10 hours a day and the 1867 Reform Act, which eliminated the property requirement and extended the vote to all adult males.

Germany

Under Bismarck, Germany would become the first welfare state. In 1871 (in response to agitation by socialists) he introduced laws establishing sickness and accident insurance and old age pensions.

The German Social Democratic Party (the fusion of two older parties) was launched in 1875. It continued to gain seats in parliament at every election and had doubled in size by 1878, when Bismarck outlawed it (after two assassination attempts).

Its membership quintupled, as it went underground and stood candidates as independents. It also fostered a big increase in trade union membership, multiple strikes and an entire socialist subculture (with socialist reading groups, singing and hiking clubs, sports associations, kindergartens, schools and newspapers).

By 1920, it held the largest block of seats (30%) in the German parliament and German trade union membership was the highest in the world. Nevertheless it remained committed to revolution.

Poland

The splitting of large areas of Poland between Russia, Germany and Austria after Word War I led to frequent fragmentation of Poland’s socialists.

France

France was mainly dominated by anarchists and utopian socialists.

Italy

Italy’s socialist party was led by Benito Mussolini.

Britain

In Britain the Fabians (founded in 1888),* who also advocated gradual reform, dominated British socialism. Prominent Fabians included George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, and Sydney and Beatrice Webb.

US

In the US, the socialist movement organized the infamous 1886 Haymarket protest, where a bomb was detonated after the police began shooting peaceful protestors. The death of seven police resulted in America’s first Red Scare and the mass arrest of socialists, anarchists and foreigners.

This possibly explains why the US was one of the few Western countries that failed to develop a mass socialist movement. Everywhere but the US, May 1 is celebrated as Labor Day, in remembrance of the Haymarket martyrs. In the US, Labor Day is celebrated the first Monday in September.


*Marx and Engels founded the International Working Men’s Association (aka the First International in 1864. It dissolved in 1876. See The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital

**According to Matt Ehret, the Fabian Society had close ties with the Roundtable Movement and British intelligence. See https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-fabian-society-eugenics-and-the

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/11239598/11239609

Iran-Russia Set A Western Trap in Palestine

Pepe Escobar

Covert Geopolitics

The only country that could possibly distract the west from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one.

The Russia-Iran strategic partnership – with China in the wings – is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia.

Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the west’s spectacular debacle in Ukraine.

The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a – ethnic cleansing – cakewalk.

A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia – and the new “axis of evil” Russia-China-Iran – have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It’s all about using the enemy’s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.

The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion.

That does not prevent cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran – via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical psychopathy.

Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv – including Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France’s Emmanuel Macron.

Avenging the Arab “century of humiliation”

So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole – and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions.

The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”

Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table.

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping?

Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year.

That by itself won’t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would – accurately – target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case.

Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.

Moreover, there are at least 1,000 US troops in northern Syria stealing the country’s oil – which would also become an instant target.

Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”

Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles – cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 – traveling at Mach 15, and able to reach any target in Israel in 400 seconds.

And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, “whatever you need, just ask.” The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.

It’s all about the Strait of Hormuz

The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world’s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.

Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar natural gas discovered offshore Gaza: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders.

So when push comes to shove – and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War – not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 – such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE – do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.

As an old school Deep State higher up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses:

“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”

[…]

Via https://geopolitics.co/2023/10/28/iran-russia-set-a-western-trap-in-palestine/

10 Signs You Have a Vaccine Injury and What You Can Do About It

The Vigilant Fox

More than 1 in 4 Americans think they know someone who has been killed by the COVID-19 vaccines. And more people than not believe there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the safety of these injections.

According to OpenVAERS, more than 1.59 million people have reported an injury following COVID-19 vaccination. Many experts with a credible track record on COVID attest that this figure is severely underreported. So, there are millions upon millions of people walking around with vaccine injuries.

Recognizing the Signs

Amidst the rapid global vaccination campaigns, the whispers of vaccine injuries, largely linked to spike proteins, have now become echoing concerns. Dr. William Makis, an esteemed oncologist and cancer researcher, has shed light on these pressing issues and presented a list of ten symptoms that could be indicative of a body grappling with an overload of spike proteins:

1.) Recurrent infections.

2.) Decreased capacity for exercise or physical activity, often accompanied by fatigue.

3.) Chest pains.

4.) Persistent headaches.

5.) Noticeable skin rashes.

6.) Exacerbation of existing conditions, including autoimmune, cardiac, and neurological disorders.

7.) New onset of conditions like diabetes.

8.) Seizures

9.) Blood clots

10.) Brain fog

It’s worth noting that brain fog and fatigue are also symptoms often associated with “long COVID.”

The Four Major Domains of Concern

Dr. McCullough, a world-renowned cardiologist, has indicated four critical areas where COVID vaccines cause harm:

  • Cardiovascular Disease: The aftermath of the vaccines can range from myocarditis (heart inflammation) to cardiac arrests without myocarditis. Instances of aortic dissection, atrial fibrillation, and acceleration of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease have also been reported.
  • Neurologic Disease: From both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes to Guillain–Barré syndrome, which might lead to ascending paralysis, the implications are severe.
  • Blood Clots: Described as “the most thrombogenic protein we’ve ever seen in human medicine,” the spike protein has been associated with unusual and resistant blood clots. These clots sometimes resist conventional treatments.
  • Immunologic Abnormalities: Vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia and multisystem inflammatory disorder feature prominently here.

Pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson has also expressed concern that the COVID shots are contributing to deaths of “unknown” causes.

“Sudden adult death syndrome … is now the [most common] cause of death, at least in Alberta, where I live. That means more people are dying unexpectedly with no cause than are dying from strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes, for example. It’s never, ever happened before.”

Mitigating the Effects

Various substances can potentially alleviate these symptoms. These include NAC, bromelain, curcumin, quercetin, and ivermectin. But the spotlight is on nattokinase, a key ingredient in The Wellness Company’s Spike Support Formula.

Benefits of Nattokinase: According to Makis MD’s research, nattokinase showcases promise in counteracting the adverse effects of vaccine injuries. It has also shown the ability to degrade the deadly spike protein.

Spike Support also boasts other potent ingredients. For instance, black sativa extract has demonstrated potential benefits, such as anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties, as highlighted here.

Other ingredients in Spike Support, such as dandelion root and selenium, may bolster cellular defense, reduce stress, and promote tissue and muscle repair. Furthermore, the addition of green tea extract and Irish sea moss provides additional layers of protection and healing

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Vaccine Injuries

1.) What exactly is a vaccine injury? A vaccine injury refers to an adverse reaction or harm resulting from the administration of a vaccine. There haven’t been long-term studies to test the safety of mRNA vaccines, and some individuals may experience side effects ranging from mild to severe or even death.

2.) Are vaccine injuries common? Vaccine injuries are thought to be relatively rare. However, a proper double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial has never evaluated vaccinated vs. unvaccinated health outcomes. The rate and severity of adverse events of mRNA vaccines have shown to be more common and deadly.

3.) Is the spike protein harmful? The spike protein is the most deadly component of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has taken the lives of about 7 million people worldwide. mRNA COVID-19 vaccines instruct the cells to produce this damaging protein for an undetermined amount of time. The World Council for Health has concluded that the COVID-19 vaccines are not safe for human use.

4.) How does Spike Support from The Wellness Company help with vaccine injuries? Spike Support features ingredients like nattokinase, which has shown the ability to degrade the spike protein and act as a natural thrombolytic. However, it’s crucial to note that no supplement can guarantee prevention or treatment. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new supplement.

5.) Are there any known interactions between Spike Support and medications? “The main safety caveats are bleeding and allergic reactions, both of which are manageable. It is our experience that both nattokinase and bromelain can be used in addition to antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs with physician monitoring,” wrote Dr. McCullough on his Substack page.

6.) How long after getting a vaccine can symptoms of an injury appear? While most side effects appear soon after vaccination and are temporary, some might manifest days or even weeks later. It’s crucial to monitor any unusual symptoms and consult with a healthcare provider. Dr. McCullough has mentioned instances of cardiac arrests linked to the COVID-19 vaccines two years after the latest shot.

7.) Can long COVID and vaccine injuries have overlapping symptoms? Yes, some symptoms like fatigue and brain fog can be seen in both long COVID and vaccine injuries. Both are believed to be caused by excess spike, and The Wellness Company’s Spike Support Formula aims to address both issues.

8.) Is there a safe way to detox from vaccines? Dr. Peter McCullough has recently published the first-ever spike protein detoxification protocol in a US medical journal. His protocol includes nattokinase, bromelain, and curcumin, as summarized here.

Click Here to Read

[…]

Via https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/10-signs-you-have-a-vaccine-injury

How Pfizer Hid Nearly 80% of COVID Vaccine Trial Deaths From Regulators

According to an analysis published this month in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, the vaccine makers hid fatality data from regulators in order to qualify for Emergency Use Authorization.

Pfizer-BioNTech delayed reporting vaccine-associated deaths among BNT162b2 clinical trial participants until after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the product.

The vaccine makers also failed to account for a large number of subjects who dropped out of the trial.

Together, these strategies kept regulators and the public ignorant of a 3.7-fold increase in cardiac deaths among subjects who received the vaccine, according to analysis in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research.

The authors of the paper described it as a “forensic analysis,” defined by the U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology as “the use of scientific methods or expertise to investigate crimes or examine evidence that might be presented in a court of law.”

What the analysis shows

Corinne Michels, Ph.D., retired distinguished professor of biology at Queens College, New York, led the DailyClout Pfizer/BioNTech Documents Investigations Team on what the authors claim was the first independent examination of original data from the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) clinical trial.

Investigators looked at each of the 38 deaths occurring between July 27, 2020, the start of phase 2/3 of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine trial, and March 13, 2020, the end date culminating in Pfizer-BioNTech’s 6-month interim report.

This trial phase involved 44,060 subjects. Half received a dose of BNT162b2, half got a placebo consisting of an inactive sterile salt solution.

The trial was unusual because at week 20 after the FDA issued the EUA for the vaccine, trial subjects in the placebo group were allowed to switch to the vaccinated group and receive their first BNT162b2 shot.

Switching from the placebo to the vaccinated group — or “unblinding” — normally occurs when the benefit of the drug is so great that not treating subjects becomes unethical. For example, investigators might consider unblinding a cancer trial if at some point all untreated patients deteriorated or died but all treated patients improved.

Unblinding conditions may be specified in the study design, but they usually involve input or review from medical ethicists.

Of 20,794 unblinded placebo subjects in the Pfizer trial, 19,685 received at least one dose of BNT162b2.

Normally the decision to unblind a vaccine trial would be based on the product’s safety and effectiveness in reaching certain endpoints or objectives. Endpoints for a drug to prevent viral infections might be a positive test or self-reported COVID-19 illness (the “case” numbers that drove much of COVID-19 policy), illness requiring hospitalization or death.

But, perhaps unexpectedly, after 33 weeks the data revealed no significant difference between deaths in the vaccinated and placebo groups for the initial 20-week placebo-controlled portion of the trial.

After week 20, after most former placebo subjects had received the vaccine, deaths among those in the vaccine group continued unabated.

The authors revealed “inconsistencies” between data presented in Pfizer-BioNTech’s 6-month interim report and subsequent publications by Pfizer-BioNTech trial site administrators:

“Most importantly, we found evidence of an over 3.7-fold increase in the number of deaths due to cardiac events in the BNT162b2 vaccinated individuals compared to those who received only the placebo.”

This means that 79% of relevant deaths were not recorded in time to be included in Pfizer’s regulatory paperwork.

By not including relevant subject deaths in the case report, Pfizer obscured cardiac adverse event signals, allowing the EUA to proceed unchallenged.

How did Pfizer get around legal, ethical obligations?

The Pfizer-BioNTech data, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, uncovered four additional deaths in the vaccine group and one more in the placebo group — but Pfizer failed to include these data in their FDA submission despite an explicit study design requirement to do so.

These data, and how they differ from what Pfizer-BioNTech reported in their applications, are summarized in Table 3 of Michels’ study.

One case involved a 63-year-old woman who died 41 days after receiving the shot, but whose death only entered the data pool 37 days later. Another was a 58-year-old woman whose death 72 days after vaccination went unreported for 26 days.

Had Pfizer-BioNTech met their legal and ethical obligation to report all serious adverse events their data would have shown equal deaths in placebo and vaccine groups — which would have shown no clear benefit for the vaccine.

How were they able to skirt those obligations?

For one, they were able to hide behind the the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which provided an almost impenetrable liability shield for vaccine manufacturers for “medical countermeasures” in response to any “public health emergency.”

Second, because COVID-19 was viewed as a national health emergency, regulators abandoned the established, patient-centered, safety-based approval process requiring years of preclinical animal testing — and Pfizer-BioNTech unsurprisingly went along.

Timing of death reports raises questions

Michels also raised issues regarding total death reports and their timing.

Since the death total from both study groups, 38, appeared “surprisingly low” to study authors — particularly during a pandemic — they undertook their own analysis based on population mortality expectations at the time.

Assuming that age-adjusted death rates for the study subjects were similar to those of the general population, they estimated that 222 subjects should have died from July 27, 2020, to March 13, 2021. The reported number, 38, is just 18% of the expected number.

Michels explained this by the large number, 4.2% of “discontinued subjects.” The most concerning of these were subjects “lost to follow-up,” which means missing scheduled visits or other required activities.

Pfizer-BioNTech tried to reach these subjects via phone, certified mail or through their emergency contact but despite their efforts could not account for 395 subjects who had dropped out.

[…]

Michels was also concerned over how certain trial centers had many dropped-out subjects while others had none or just a few.

Ninety-six of 153 trial sites (63%) reported 0 or 1 subjects lost to follow-up and 34 (22%) reported 2-5 dropouts. But four sites reported more than 20 subjects lost to follow-up, amounting to about 5% of all trial subjects.

Since the vaccine makers were responsible for trial site oversight, the authors wrote, “Sites with excessive numbers of lost to follow-up should have been evaluated for performance.”

Finally, based on the data, it appears Pfizer-BioNTech was in no hurry to enter death reports before the EUA submission deadline, particularly for the BNT162b2 group.

Of the 38 reported deaths only one case was added on the day the subject died. Delays of 20+ and 30+ days were common.

One death took 72 days to find its way into the database, and all were entered as occurring on the reporting day, not on the actual date of death.

Of the eight subjects in the vaccine group that should have been reported by Dec. 10, 2020, the EUA application cutoff, the average reporting delay was 17.5 days for subjects in the vaccine group, but just 5.9 days for deaths among subjects in the placebo group.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-hid-data-covid-vaccine-trial-deaths/

Targeted ads: millions spent on Israel’s bid for Western influence

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on houses / Photo: Reuters

Reuters

The Israeli government has spent an estimated $7.1 million on influencing campaigns, in a strong bid to shape public discourse amid Israel’s continued aggression against Palestinians living in besieged Gaza.

In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, journalist Sophia Smith said the Israeli government has spent an estimated $7.1 million on Youtube ads, after having drawn data from an online analytics tool.

“If you’ve been targeted (by) ads from Israel’s foreign ministry on YouTube this past fortnight, you’re not alone,” announced Smith. “They’ve spent nearly $7.1 million on YouTube ads, including some horrifying videos.”

According to Politico, there are also campaign strategies directed at other platforms including X, relying on emotional and graphic ads that have been paid for by the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry. It added the foreign ministry has reportedly run 30 advertisements that have been viewed 4 million times on X.

Reportedly Israeli authorities have also brought numerous advertisements on Facebook, Instagram and mobile games and apps including Duolingo.

Israel has also financed videos and photos that began to appear on October 12, targeting adults over 25 in top European cities including Brussels, Paris and Munich.

Smith explained she had used the analytics tool, Semrush during her research which estimates the cost of advertising campaigns.

Semrush is similar to Google’s ad transparency centre. In her video she acknowledged that Google “does not publicly share how much an advertiser has spent on an ad campaign” although the ad transparency centre “gives some information”.

Smith’s research suggests that the West, in particular France, Germany and the UK are the most targeted with 88 pro-Israeli ads peddled between October 7-19.

In terms of costs, France was top with the ministry spending $3.8 million in a country where pro-Palestinian demonstrations are also banned.

Germany ranked second with $ 1.9 while third place UK spent $1.1 million, according to Smith.

Close to 50 video ads in English language sought to target European Union nations.

Israel has continued to bomb Gaza, following a surprise attack by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on October 7. It has also enforced a total siege of food, fuel and medical supplies on the enclave. Close to 7,200 people have been killed in the conflict, including at least 5,791 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.

Smith, who has also worked for Vice News and the BBC, described seeing a trend whereby “some videos have been appearing and disappearing from the ad centre.”

She added that some of them possibly violate the specific Youtube ad guidelines.

Google removed 30 of the Israeli government’s advertisements, as they did not appear to meet their guidelines. Typically they focus on “violent language, gruesome or disgusting imagery, or graphic images or accounts of physical trauma,” according to Politico.

Smith said she had taken a screenshot of one advertisement that has kept appearing and disappearing and allegedly “claims to show the autopsy of a child burned alive.”

“All of the videos can be viewed as organic videos on their YT page, where only some of them have been monetised to become ads,” said Smith.

“What you can see on the channel is some videos with strangely inflated view counts – those are the ones that have been ‘ad-ified’,” she added.

The campaigns also pushed the narrative of Hamas being a “vicious terrorist group,” while making comparisons to Daesh.

Smith explained that she had not seen Youtube ads like this before while working as a journalist.

She went on to explain that the purpose of her research and subsequent thread was to investigate and clarify how the ads had reached her.

[…]

Via https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/targeted-ads-millions-spent-on-israels-bid-for-western-influence-15557233

China completes first ever digital YUAN purchase for cross-border oil transaction as global DE-DOLLARIZATION accelerates

Ethan Huff

The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) just completed its first ever cross-border transaction for oil in digital yuan rather than the petrodollar.

Chinese financial news outlet Yicai was the first to report that PetroChina International purchased one million barrels of crude oil using digital yuan, this being the first time an overseas oil settlement on the SHPGX was completed using the currency. The name of the seller of the oil has not been disclosed.

Earlier this year, the SHPGX made several transactions in regular yuan, including the yuan-denominated PetroChina and TotalEnergies liquefied natural gas (LNG) transaction that occurred back in March. According to the exchange, there have been four such LNG transactions so far this year.

China’s digital yuan project has been in the works since 2014 when the world’s second-largest economy first piloted the electronic currency in numerous regions throughout the country.

China has long been planning to use the regular yuan and the digital yuan as replacement currencies for the dollar in international trade and finance. And other countries who are members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bloc are in favor of ditching the dollar for some other alternative as well.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva back in August called for the creation of a common BRICS currency to completely circumvent the dollar-based financial system that keeps United States and Western hegemony over world affairs intact.

Lula da Silva stated that a common BRICS currency “increases our payment options and reduces our vulnerabilities,” suggesting that BRICS members are tired of the U.S. being in control of everything in global finance and trade.

The U.S. only accelerated this de-dollarization process when it forced Russia out of the SWIFT messaging system at the start of the war in Ukraine. Since most global payments are made through SWIFT, Russia’s banning from it by the U.S. has only “supercharged,” to quote one media source, the global shift away from the dollar.

We do not yet know, but could soon learn, to whom PetroChina paid digital yuan for the purchase of crude oil. It is not entirely out of the question that it was Russia, considering the country’s exclusion from SWIFT. Not only that, but oil exports to China recently hit a record high, which further suggests Russia as the recipient.

“Kudos to their efforts to shift away from the corrupted dollar banking system,” one commenter on a news story about all this wrote.

“The amount of non-dollar cross-border transactions has increased steadily since sometime in the 1970s,” suggested another about how this has been an ongoing project long in the making.

“An overwhelming amount, roughly 90 percent of all trade, was in dollars at that time. Now, it stands at around 55 percent or so. This has been slowly ratcheting up ever since nations began to realize that the dollar was fiat and what that actually means. It will only accelerate from here.”

 

“Not so easy to sanction countries or confiscate their assets when a different payment system gets introduced,” wrote another about the stupidity of the U.S. in shutting Russia out of SWIFT. “Eventually you could get sidelined altogether.”

“This is intentional self-destruction by bought-off politicos following the central bank model,” responded someone else. “Bad for us Americans, worse though that they intend to clamp down much further into communism.”

The world is ditching the dollar, which is heading towards a cliff. Learn more at Collapse.news.

[…]

Via https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-26-china-digital-yuan-cross-border-oil-transaction.html

The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital

Episode 4 The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital

The Rise of Communism from Marx to Lenin

Dr Vejas Gabriel Liulevius (2019)

Film Review

The Communist Manifesto

Marx and Engels were both in living exile in Belgium when they published The Communist Manifesto in February 1948. Originally aimed at a small group (20) of radical London tailors and shoemakers, several hundred copies were printed before civil war broke out in France in 1848. This pamphlet attempts to explain the goals of communism (enabling workers to own and control the means of production) as well as explaining class struggle (the exploitation of one class by another) as the driving force behind all history.

The 1848 Revolutions

It was merely coincidence that revolutions occurred throughout Europe that year, all instigated by liberals and nationalists, seeking to replace the European monarchies with with democracies and constitutions. All ultimately failed.

The first began when the French government banned banquets being held by reformers as an indirect form of protest. The Second Republic was declared after King Louis Philippe was forced to flee to Britain.

Popular unrest in Vienna also forced Prince Metternich, the chancellor to flee, and the government promised to create a written constitution. Budapest was next, followed by Prague (capitol of Bohemia) and the Italian city-states of Milan, Rome, Naples and Sicily.

Rioting in Berlin led Germany’s kings to commit to written constitutions and create the Frankfurt assembly to plan for the unification of all Germany.

The provisional socialist government in Paris called for the government to create national workshops to guarantee full employment for al workers. After the conservative National Assembly voted to shut them down. After protests resumed, the French army to killed 4,000 workers and arrested thousands more, exiling them to South Pacific colonies.

The French National Assembly ultimately appoint Napoleon’s nephew Louis Napoleon president. When his term ended in 1851, he declared himself emperor.

Italy’s revolutions were crushed by the Austrian army. When Hungarian Hungarian revolutionaries successfully rebuffed Austrian troops, Russia sent 100,000 troops to help the Habsburgs retake Hungary.

When these revolutions broke out, Marx relocated to Cologne, where he edited a radical newspaper. When the German revolution was crushed, he was ordered to leave the country and moved to London. He only applied for one job in London and was turned down due to abysmal handwriting. He occasionally wrote articles, but most articles appearing under his name were written by Engels.

Marx in London

Engels also supported Marx and his family for 30 years, even though this necessitated his return to work in the Engels family factory (which he hated).* Marx’s wife was frequently ill and had several nervous breakdowns. Of Marx’s seven children by his wife, only three survived to adulthood.

Despite his condemnation of the exploitation of women by the middle class, Marx also fathered an illegitimate child by the maid his mother-in-law hired to help his wife. To protect Marx’s reputation, Engels claimed the child (which was placed in foster care) as his own.

Supported by Engels, Marx spent a total of 34 years in the reading room of the British Museum, writing and rewriting Das Kapital. Engels finally persuaded him to publish the first volume in 1867. Engels would publish volumes two and three from Marx’s notes after his death.

Das Kapital

In Das Kapital, Marx asserted that industrial capitalism was a stage in human evolution that was close to collapse. He believed the collapse of capitalism was inevitable because it was destroying the middle class and increasing the working class (proletariat), while systematically impoverishing it.

Das Kapital describes no exact mechanism for establishing a communist society other than abolishing private property, imposing an income tax and setting up a central bank.

Marx and Engels blamed the lumpen proletariat (who approved numerous plebiscites initiated by Louis Napoleon) for his election as president. They also condemned Slavic peoples as unsophisticated and reactionary and called for them to be wiped out.**

The First International

In 1864, Marx and Engels founded the International Working Men’s Association, which ultimately claimed 800,000 members from most European countries and the US.  Holding international conferences in Geneva, Brussels and Lausanne, it was characterized by intense factionalism.

The Russian anarchist Bakunin was Marx’s main opponent in what became known as the First International. He warned against over centralization in general, as well a the excessive personal control Marx exercised over the organization. He and Engels succeed in getting Bakunin expelled in 1872.


*According to late US economist Lyndon Larouche, much of this financial support may have originated from David Urquhart, protege of founder of British intelligence Jeremy Bentham, rather than Engels. See https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1996-97/2316/09-eir23n16-19960412.pdf

**Views that were identical to Urguhart’s (and Hitler’s).

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/11239598/11239605

Senate passes amendment to ban federal mask mandates on commercial flights and public transit

 

The Senate passed an amendment banning federal mask mandates on commercial airlines and public transportation in an appropriations bill Wednesday. 

In a 59-38 vote, senators — including several Democrats — voted in favor of the amendment brought forth by Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, which restricts any federal funds from being used to enforce mask mandates on passenger flights, trains, transit buses, and other publicly funded transportation through the next fiscal year.

Vance called the passage “a massive victory for personal freedom” in a statement Wednesday. 

“We saw countless abuses of authority throughout the COVID pandemic, and the American people were justifiably enraged by unscientific mask mandates,” he said.

Democrat Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Mark Kelly of Arizona voted in favor of the amendment. 

Senator JD Vance, a Republican from Ohio, during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, June 22, 2023. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last month, Vance introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act, legislation that would prevent the government from reinstating mask mandates in response to COVID-19. It would prevent the enforcement of mask wearing on public transit, airplanes, elementary schools and other institutions. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order in January 2021 mandating travelers on public transportation hubs to wear a mask in tandem with President Joe Biden’s executive action mandating masks for any interstate travel. The order applied to airplanes, boats and ferries, buses and other public transit. 

On April 18, a federal judge from Florida ended the mask mandate in her ruling opinion in the Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden case. 

[…]

Via https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-passes-amendment-ban-federal-mask-mandates-commercial-flights-public-transit

WHO pandemic treaty: Negotiations falter as pharma companies warn that intellectual property rules will harm profits

British Medical Journal 2023;383:p2475

Pharmaceutical representatives and Germany’s health ministry have publicly opposed the latest draft of the World Health Organization’s pandemic treaty as a disagreement over waiving intellectual property (IP) rights becomes a sticking point in negotiations.

WHO’s pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response accord is intended to prevent future health threats from becoming as catastrophic as covid-19 by legally obligating countries to cooperate, share knowledge, and reduce health inequities.

Since WHO’s 194 member states officially began negotiating on the treaty’s content in March this year disagreements have centred on the scope of the accord and how strongly countries should be obligated to fulfil its stipulations. The disagreements, which often follow the dividing lines of lower and higher income countries, seem to be hardening as the thorny issue of IP comes into focus.

“For countries like Germany and most European countries, it is clear that such an agreement will not fly if there is a major limitation on intellectual property rights,” said Germany’s …

[…]

Via https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2475.full