Kit Knightly

Offguardian

Global government is the endgame. We know that.

Total control of every aspect of life for every single person on the planet, that’s the goal.

That’s been apparent to anyone paying attention for years, if not decades, and any tiny portion of remaining doubt was removed when Covid was rolled-out and members of the establishment started outright saying it.

Covid marked an acceleration of the globalist agenda, a mad dash to the finish line that seems to have lost momentum short of victory, but the race is still going. The goal has not changed, even if the years since may have seen the agenda retreat slightly back into the shadows.

We know what they want conceptually, but what does that mean practically?

What does a potential “global government” actually look like?

First off, let’s talk about what we’re NOT going to see.

1 – They are not going to declare themselves. No, there will almost certainly never be an official “world government”, at least not for a long time yet. That’s a lesson they learned from Covid — putting a name and a face on globalism only foments collective resistance to it.

2 – They’re not going to abolish nationhood. You can be sure Klaus Schwab (or whoever) isn’t ever going to appear simulcast on every television in the world announcing that we’re all citizens of ze vurld now and that nation states no longer exist.

In part because that is likely to focus resistance (see point 1), but mainly because tribalism and nationalism are just too useful to all would-be manipulators of public opinion. And, of course the continuing existence of nation states in no way precludes the existence of a supra-national control system, any more than the existence of Rhode Island, Florida or Texas precludes the existence of the Federal government.

3 – There will never be an overt declaration of a change of system. We will not be told we are united under a new model, instead the illusion of regionality & superficial variance will camouflage a lack of real choice across the political landscape. A thin polysystemic skin stretched tight over a monosystemic skeleton.

Capitalism, communism, socialism, democracy, tyranny, monarchy…these words will steadily dilute in meaning, even more than they have already, but they will never be abandoned.

What globalism will bring us – I suggest – is a collection of nation-states largely in name only, operating superficially different systems of government all built on the same underpinning assumptions and all answering to an unelected and undeclared higher authority.

…and if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s essentially what we have already.

The only major aspects missing are the mechanisms by which this rough model can be transformed into a flowing network, where all corners are eroded and all genuine sovereign powers become entirely vestigial.

That’s where the three main pillars of global rule come in:

1. Digital Money
2. Digital ID
3. “Climate Action”

Let’s take a look at each one in turn.

1. Digital money

Over 90% of the nations of the world are currently in the process of introducing a new digital currency issued by their central bank. OffG – and others – have been covering the push for a Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for years now, to the point where we don’t need to rehash old talking points here.

Simply put, entirely digital money enables total surveillance of every transaction. If the currency is programmable, it would also allow control of every transaction.

You can read our extensive back-catalogue on CBDCs for more detail.

Clearly CBDCs are a potentially dystopian nightmare which will infringe the rights of anyone forced to use them….but how are they a building block of global government?

The answer to that is “interoperability”.

While the world’s national CBDCs will notionally be separate from one another, the majority are being coded to recognize and interact with each other. They are almost all being developed along guidelines produced by the Bank of International Settlements and other globalist financial institutions, and they are all being programed by the same handful of tech giants.

A June 2023 report for the World Economic Forum noted the importance of “Central Bank Digital Currency Global Interoperability Principles” and concluded:

It is crucial for central banks to prioritize interoperability considerations early in the design process by adhering to a set of guiding principles. To facilitate global coordination and ensure harmonious implementation of CBDCs, the development of a comprehensive set of principles and standards becomes imperative. Drawing upon previous research and collaborative efforts, this set of principles can serve as a robust foundation, guiding central banks to proactively consider interoperability from the outset of their CBDC initiatives. By adopting these principles, central banks can work towards creating a cohesive and interconnected CBDC ecosystem.

Commenting on the report, the World Economic Forum website noted [emphasis added]:

To ensure successful implementation and promote interoperability, global coordination becomes paramount […] adhering to interoperability principles, CBDCs can advance harmoniously, leading to efficient and interconnected digital payment systems.

It doesn’t take a genius to decode “global coordination”, “cohesive ecosystem”, “harmonious advancement” and “interconnected payment systems”.

There is no practical difference between 195 “interoperable” and interconnected digital currencies, and one single global currency.

In fact “interoperability” is the watchword for all globalist power structures moving forward. Which leads us neatly onto…

2. Digital Identity

The global push for mandatory digital identities is even older than the digital currency agenda, dating back to the turn of the century and Tony Blair’s “national identity cards”.

For decades it has been a “solution” posited to every “problem”.

Terrorism? Digital identity will keep you safe.

Illegal immigration? Digital identity will secure the border.

Pandemic? Digital identity will keep track of who is vaccinated and who is not.

AI? Digital identity will prove who’s human.

Poverty? Digital identity will “promote financial inclusion”

Clearly, just as with CBDCs, a far-reaching digital identity service is a threat to human rights. And, just as with CBDCs, if you interconnect national digital identity platforms you can build a global system.

Again, it’s all about “interoperability”. They use the exact same language.

The World Bank’s Identity4Development program claims:

Interoperability is crucial for developing efficient, sustainable, and useful identity ecosystems.

The Nordic and Baltic Ministers for Digitalization publicly called for “cross-border” operational digital IDs.

NGOs like Open Identity Exchange(OIX) are publishing reports on “the need for data standards to enable interoperability of Digital IDs both in federations within an ID ecosystem, and across ID ecosystems.”.

The list of national governments introducing digital IDs, “partnering” with corporate giants to do so and/or promoting “cross border interoperability” is long, and growing longer all the time.

In October 2023 the United Nations Development Program published their “guidelines” for the design and use of digital identities.

There is no practical difference between 195 networked digital identity platforms and one single global identity program.

OK, so they have global currency and identity programs in place. Now they can control and monitor everyone’s movements, financial transactions, health and more. That’s surveillance and control mechanism, all handled in a distributed model designed to obfuscate the very existence of a global government.

But what about policy?

How does this global government hand down policy and legislation without giving away its existence?

Climate change, that’s how.

3. “Climate Action”

Climate Change has been at the forefront of the globalist agenda for years. It is the Trojan horse of the antihuman technocrat.

As long ago as 2010, noted Climate Change “experts” were suggesting that “humans are not evolved enough” to combat climate change and that “It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

More recently, in 2019, Bloomberg was publishing articles with headlines like “Climate Change Will Kill National Sovereignty As We Know It”, and academics are telling us:

States will remain unable to solve global crises like climate change until they let go of their sovereignty

For years climate change has been sold as the reason we might be “forced” to abandon democracy or sovereignty.

Alongside this, there is a prolonged propaganda narrative dedicated to changing “climate change” from an environmental issue into an everything issue.

At this point all national governments agree “climate change” is an urgent problem requiring global cooperation to solve. They host massive summits at which they sign international agreements, binding nation states to certain policies, for the sake of the planet.

Having established that model, they are now widening the “climate change” purview. Changing “climate change” into the answer to every question:

Obviously, “climate change” was always going to impact energy and transport.

Following Covid, “climate change” has already been re-branded a “health crisis”.

Now we’re being told “climate change” is generating a food crisis.

We’re being told that international trade needs to be climate conscious.

We’re being told by the World Bank that education reform will help the fight against climate change.

We’re being told by the IMF that every country in the world should tax carbon and, in a recent cross-over episode, that CBDCs can be good for the environment.

See how it works?

Agriculture & food, public health, energy & transport, trade, fiscal & taxation policy, even education. Almost every area of government is now potentially covered by the “climate change” umbrella.

They no longer need a one-world government, they just need a single panel of “impartial international climate change experts” working to save the planet.

Through the lens of “climate change”, these experts would be empowered to dictate – sorry, recommend – government policy in almost every area of life to every nation on the planet.

[…]

Via https://off-guardian.org/2024/01/01/2024-the-year-global-government-takes-shape/

By Iain Davis

Offguardian

[…]

Questioning The Bias of the IPCC

When we consider who funds the scientific bodies that provide the IPCC and “climate scientists” with the raw data for the climate models favoured by the IPCC, a political bias is evident.

[…]

The IPCC is biased exclusively toward Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory. The IPCC was established with the following remit:

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change [AGW], its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC makes no attempt to “understand the scientific basis” for any other natural process that may impact climate change. As far as the IPCC is concerned, AGW theory is the consensus settled science. Assuming an AGW theory based analysis of climate change, the IPCC focuses upon how society should adapt to and mitigate the projected—or modelled—socio-economic impacts. The IPCC is focused upon advising political policy in other words.

The “intergovernmental” IPCC is an overt political, not a scientific body.

[…]

Questioning AGW Theory Related Climate Alarm

The AGW theory modelled predictions of catastrophe are, at best, guesses based upon a single questionable theory and speculative computer models, not scientific fact. As stated by the IPCC, long term climate predictions are impossible.

[…]

Virtually none of the historical, alarming prediction made by the IPCC and other AGW theorists have materialised. In 2005 the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)—IPCC co-founders alongside the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO)—claimed that environmental disasters would create 50 million ‘climate refugees‘ by 2010.

[…]

Moving into the 21st century, the best “climate disaster” data currently available comes from International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Belgium Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). When Professor Roger Pielke Jr. checked the EM-DAT data he found that between 2000 and 2021 the general trend in recorded global weather and climate disasters showed an approximate 10% decline.

[…]

IPCC predictive models stated that global warming would severely reduce snowfall. When Connolly et al. (2019) compared the IPCC models with real world data they found that there had been a slightly larger decline in spring snowfall than the IPCC projected but this was more than offset by a notable increase in winter snowfall.

[…]

The models may be uncertain but, in fact, there isn’t that much uncertainty about Antarctic ice sheet collapse. Assuming the current warming trend continues, research led by field scientists from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research—who physically inspected the ice sheets to assess their stability—was reasonably certain.

As we are in a warming interglacial period, the ice sheets are melting. The question is how fast and what the impact might be.

Professor Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute said:

While a number of glaciers in Antarctica are retreating at the moment, we find no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat yet, [. . .] our calculations also clearly indicate that an onset of an irreversible retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is possible if the current state of the climate is sustained.

[…]

As shown by Bell et al. (2011), the ice sheets are thickening in east Antarctica. This will potentially counteract any possible sea level rise caused by melting ice sheets in west Antarctica.

Glaciers are retreating just as they once advanced. As they move they tend to grind away whatever is beneath them. “Ice patches” are static and have a complicated relationship with glaciers. During extremely cold periods, such as the Little Ice Age, they can expand and become moving glaciers, or they can be compressed by glaciers moving above them. But virtually all glaciers start as ice patches and ice patches are the last thing that remains when glaciers melt.

The legacy media constantly cites the melting glaciers as evidence of the supposedly “catastrophic” and, crucially, “unprecedented” climate crisis. It uses alarming analogies, for example by comparing meltwater volume with the volume required to submerge a country. Ice archaeology casts significant doubt on the basis for these scary media stories.

[…]

Questioning the Legitimacy of AGW Theory Climate Science

[…]

The greenhouse effect was a largely forgotten scientific theory until 1988 when then director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) James Hansen told the US Senate Energy committee “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”

Speaking in 1999, the year the “adjustment” of GISS data started, James Hansen told his GISS colleagues:

Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years [following adjustment]. Yet in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.

[…]

Questioning the AGW Theory Sceptic’s Bias

Most well know AGW sceptical scientists, such as the astrophysicist Willie Soon, lead author of Soon et al. (2015)—referenced in Part 2—are regularly accused of funding bias by climate alarmists.

In Soon’s case he received some funding from interests linked to energy companies, such as the Charles G. Koch Foundation. Of course, it is reasonable to consider a potential conflict of interest with Dr Soon’s or anyone else’s work.

Yet these concerns about possible conflicts of interest seemingly only extend to AGW sceptics. Those who advocate AGW theory and climate alarm, such as the Sierra Club, and the American Geophysical Union, also receive funding from the fossil fuel and energy industries, but aren’t questioned.

Fossil Fuel companies are also funding “official” climate change research. Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company on Earth, is committed to “reach net zero emissions by 2060” and is “accelerating the country’s transition to a green economy.” To this end it has invested “more than $186 [billion]” in “collaboration and innovation” to help achieve “sustainable growth” in keeping with “global goals.” Saudi Aramco has made a massive capital investment commitment entirely contingent upon continued acceptance of AGW theory.

As we’ve already discussed, the “official” AGW climate science is often funded by groups like the BMGF. The BMGF Trust manages the BMGF endowment fund. As you might expect, the BMGF “Trust” is heavily invested in pharmaceutical and agri-chemical corporations, such as Moderna and Bayer. In turn, Bayer is pushing the production of biofuels through its effective subsidiary CoverCress.

Rodrigo Santos, Bayer’s Crop Science Division president, said:

CoverCress is exciting because it has the potential to become an important source for biofuel production.

Bayer is set to profit handsomely from the increasing use of biofuels, and so too its major investors, such as the BMGF Trust. This explains why Bill Gates has long been an investment partner with oil companies in bio fuel development. Yet when DeCicco et al. (2016) looked at the US production cycle of biofuels they found:

U.S. biofuel use to date is associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO2 emissions.

It seems the BMGF couldn’t care less about increased CO2 emissions, yet it is funding the consensus AGW climate science which informs sustainable development and net zero policies. The BMGF Trust are also set to profit from technological solutions to the “climate emergency.” This is not a potential conflict of interest for “the Climate Science™” that anyone seems particularly interested in.

Moreover, the “official” AGW climate science is overwhelmingly funded by tax payers via their governments. Funding projects like the EU’s Horizon Europe will only invest its €95.5 billion budget into research that “helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). The UN states that SDGs are entirely hung upon the assumption that AGW theory is an established, scientific fact:

Climate change is caused by human activities and threatens life on earth as we know it. With rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is occurring at rates much faster than anticipated. Its impacts can be devastating and include extreme and changing weather patterns and rising sea levels. [. . .] Saving lives and livelihoods requires urgent action to address the climate emergency.

Funding initiatives such as Horizon Europe raise the possibility of an enormous scientific conflict of interest for AGW theory science. Like the IPCC, Horizon Europe funding is exclusively biased toward just one scientific theory. But the finger is only pointed at the AGW theory sceptical science.

Influential climate change activist groups, such as Just Stop Oil, are funded by some of the richest oiligarchs on Earth. Extinction Rebellion is funded by, among others, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

CIFF invests more in “climate change organisations” than in any other lobby sector. The BMGF, the Rockefellers and the European Climate Foundation—the largest single donor—are among CIFF’s leading financial backers.

The European Climate Foundation is also backed by, among others, the Rockefellers Bothers Fund. Having amassed a staggering fortune from fossil fuels and banking, the Rockefellers are now supporting the “climate change activists” calling for a switch away from fossil fuels to “renewable energy.” The Rockefellers are heavily invested in renewable energy and the envisaged low carbon economy.

Climate activists, like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, are campaigning on behalf of oiligarchs. Again, all based upon the continued acceptance of AGW theory.

CIFF, the European Climate Foundation, Horizon Europe and formerly the Rockefellers—who actually still invest via CIFF and the European Climate Foundation—directly fund the global Climate Bond initiative. Climate bonds will enable investors to profit from a new global economic model based upon the mobilisation of “global capital for climate action.” All based upon AGW theory.

The Climate Bond initiative’s partners are multinational banks and investment management corporations including BlackRock, HSBC, State Street, Credit Suisse and Barclays, etc. They report their collective mission:

Climate Bonds aims to educate, inspire, convene, and steer a global collaboration of institutional investors, governments, development banks and industry to shift capital toward low-carbon and resilient investments. [. . .] We are at the forefront of advances in sustainable finance, collaborating with numerous global stakeholders, including governments, investors, banks, and large companies.

The ambition is to create an investment market worth $5 trillion (USD) annually:

Governments must signal clear support for net-zero by initiating a supportive policy environment for transition. [. . .] To reach 1.5°C society must undergo a transition. [. . .] The climate challenge offers a political opportunity to steer the real and financial economy towards a green future. [. . .] Investors have been supporting the transition since 2007, and appetite is growing as illustrated by the rapid expansion of the green bond market.

An entire new global economy is being constructed on the back of AGW theory. AGW theory is the “scientific basis” for the UN’s Agenda 2030 which aims to transform the world:

All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. [. . .] We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path.

Governments, intergovernmental organisations, global NGOs and philanthropic oligarchs, the biggest polluters on Earth, including global oil and energy corporations, global financial institutions and billionaire investors are exerting their financial might to support the AGW theory “climate scientists.” There is no comparison with the relatively minuscule levels of funding received by the scientists labelled “climate deniers.”

Frankly, it is absurd that climate alarmists accuse AGW sceptical scientists of funding bias while simultaneously ignoring the staggering conflicts of financial interest behind all AGW theory “climate science.”

Why?

At the 2022 WEF Sustainable Development Impact Meeting, Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the UN, told delegates that the UN had partnered with several big tech companies—TikTok , Facebook (Meta), Google, etc.—to censor and control what she called “climate change narratives.”

[…]

Via https://off-guardian.org/2024/01/02/climate-change-the-unsettled-science-part-3/

Matthew Ehret

Speaking on Israel’s future in 2012, Kissinger sent shockwaves of confusion through the world when he said, “in 10 years, there will be no more Israel.”

Why would Kissinger, a man who devoted such a major part of his life to the cause of Zionism, believe with certainty that Israel would no longer exist in 10 years? What was supposed to happen under a Hillary Clinton regime that would have resulted in Kissinger’s prediction unfolding in 2022?

Did Kissinger not want the Middle East stability he so often spoke so highly of?

His apparent dual support for Zionist empowerment on one hand and his belief in the impending destruction of Israel on the other is not a glitch in the matrix nor a contradiction in Sir Kissinger’s thinking. Rather, it represents two sides of one bloody program that ultimately involves purging the Holy Land of both Jews and Arabs.

Since Kissinger’s 2012 opinion provided such an important, ironic crack in the machinery of oligarchism, I’d like to take a moment to invite you to join me as we peek through this crack into a story that may take us as far back as Babylon…

‘Greater Israel’ as a British Imperial Project

In 1914, the man who later became Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizman, stated:

“Should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews there-perhaps more; they would. . . form a very effective guard for the Suez/Canal.”

These words indicated a deeply underappreciated value that leading Jewish Zionists had for the British empire’s plans for global control over a century ago; these Zionists believed the empire could further their own plans for a Jewish state.

Lord Shaftesbury’s Zionist project was launched in 1839, the British Empire created the Palestinian Exploration Fund in 1865, and the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, joined the cause of convincing the world’s Jews to live in the desert, but the role of British intelligence’s hidden hand in shaping the state of Israel, as well as international fascism more broadly, is often ignored. [1]

It wasn’t ignored by Sir Winston Churchill, then Lord of the British Admiralty during WWI. He wrote forcefully about the international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world on one hand, but he also spoke proudly of Zionism, saying in 1917:

“If, as it may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish state under the protection of the British crown … [it] would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire.”

While Churchill could not be said to be a supporter of Hitler’s National Socialism, up until 1935, he loudly proclaimed his admiration for Hitler and also spoke fondly of Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Churchill was also a rampant racist who presided over the mass extermination of ‘lower races’ as displayed in the controlled Bengal famine (killing three million Indians) in 1943. Like most other dominant Round Table leaders of Britain at this time, Churchill was an ‘imperial socialist,’ which has always been at the heart of 20th-century fascism.

Without the force of numerous antisemitic fascists throughout the last two centuries, Zionism would have never been possible.

Take as an example the case of Lord Arthur Balfour, a leading strategist of the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group. Balfour co-authored the Balfour Accords in 1917 alongside Leo Amery, Lord Milner, and Walter Rothschild. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that, like Churchill, Lord Balfour was also a devoted white supremacist, Zionist, and supporter of fascism.

Prime Minister Lloyd George, who oversaw the project at this time, was an ardent social imperialist (aka international fascist) who openly praised Nazism alongside another pro-Nazi royal named King Edward VIII.

While Leo Amery was not openly antisemitic, his son John was a devoted supporter of British Nazism and Adolph Hitler. His other son, Julian Amery, worked closely with unreconstructed Nazis after World War Two as part of Operation Gladio. It was under Julian Amery [2] that Nazis like Otto Skorzeny, Walter Rauft, and Alois Brunner were transplanted to the Middle East and even worked for the Mossad after the CIA played a direct role in establishing that organization in 1951.

Additionally, Leo Amery was a close collaborator of pro-fascist Zionist leader Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky during the former’s management of British Mandate Palestine (1925-1929) and co-founder of the Jewish Legion, which Jabotinsky went on to control. More than a Zionist, Amery was a believer in Cecil Rhodes’ vision for “a Church of the British Empire.”

Amery stated of his peculiar religion: “The Empire is not external to any of the British nation. It is something like the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves.” (Take note that the term “Kingdom of Heaven” was the name of the Templar Kingdom of Jerusalem, which will play a larger role in this story).

After leading the passage of anti-Jewish immigration laws in England in 1905 that prevented persecuted Russian Jews from coming to the UK, Balfour wrote in 1919 that Zionism would “mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb.”

Balfour saw the creation of Israel as one stone that could kill two birds by 1) providing an excuse to purge the Jews from Europe and 2) creating a perfect weapon for destabilization in the geopolitical pivot of Halford Mackinder’s Heartland and the cross-section of all major civilizational forces on the earth.

The Silk Road trade routes of the Han Dynasty were revived again under the Tang Dynasty and have historically played a major role in disrupting systems of global empire by encouraging trade, cooperation, and understanding around diverse cultures (in opposition to the Crusader agenda that has promoted ‘clash of civilizations’ ideologies).

In his book Der Judenstat, Theodor Herzl openly admitted this when he said:

“We should, there, form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should, as a neutral state, remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.”

Herzl was clear that like his British Imperial (and typically antisemitic pro-fascist sponsors), he envisioned Israel’s borders to extend “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”

In the 1890s, Herzl was not yet settled on the specific location of the Jewish national homeland. William Eugene Blackstone, a devotee of John Nelson Darby, leader of a British sect called “The Plymouth Brethren,” sent him a voluminous report justifying Jerusalem as the only location ordained by God. This earned him the title of “the father of Zionism” by American Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. In 1891, Blackstone drafted a memorandum dubbed “Palestine for the Jews,” which called for US leadership in establishing a homeland for the persecuted Jews of Russia. The memorandum was signed by 413 prominent Americans, including John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Supreme Court Justice Cyrus McCormick, the heads of dozens of major newspapers, the Speaker of the House, and many members of Congress.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/sir-henry-kissinger-midwife-new-babylon/5844581

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (IRNA)

During a meeting with members of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee on Sunday, Amir-Abdollahian characterized Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, initiated by Palestinian resistance groups against “Israel” on October 7, as a pivotal moment in regional developments.

Zohreh Elahian, a committee member, quoted Amir-Abdollahian as saying that the United States, acting as “Israel’s” primary backer, is in a state of desperation as public resentment continues to rise both domestically and internationally.

The legislator pointed out that Amir-Abdollahian also discussed Iran’s diplomatic endeavors to assist the Palestinian people, which involve engaging in negotiations with officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Jordan.

‘Israel’ would have fought with sticks, stones without US suppo

Israeli Channel 12‘s political analyst, Amnon Abramovich, said, on December 30, that had the United States not provided “Tel Aviv” with weapons and ammunition or sent messages to Iran and Hezbollah, “Israel” would have had to “fight with sticks and stones.”

Abramovich pointed out that this reflects “Israel’s” absolute reliance on the United States, recalling that US President Joe Biden stood by “Israel” at the beginning of the war, sending unprecedented support, including aircraft carriers, a nuclear submarine, and an airlift of ammunition.

He pointed out that, through this support, the US conveyed a message to Hezbollah and Iran that if they initiated a war against “Israel”, their fight would be with the US forces.

Israeli Maj. Gen. (Res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash emphasized that “Israel” cannot continue and achieve its goals in Gaza without the US military, political, and strategic support.

This comes as the United States last Friday announced the approval of a $147.5 million sale of 155mm high-explosive artillery munitions and related equipment from US Army stocks to the Israeli occupation under an “emergency” provision that waives the usual congressional review.

The same provision was used earlier this month to approve the sale of nearly 14,000 rounds of 120mm tank ammunition to “Israel”.

At the time, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had determined that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the government of Israel” of the weaponry, thereby waiving the normal requirement for review by Congress.

[…]

Via https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iranian-fm—israel-s–allies-planning-for–post-israel-era

Destruction in Gaza July 27, 2014. Photo by Oxfam / flicker.

Introduction and Old Regime Monarchy

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

In her introduction to this excellent series on the French revolution, Desan starts with a brief overview of what the revolution accomplished (prior to its overthrow by Napoleon’s dictatorship). The largest and most populous European country in 1789, France was also the first country in Europe to demand full equality for all its citizens – leading to rights for Jews and women and freeing of all slaves in French colonies.

The revolution would ultimately lead to 23 years of war. It would enlarge France’s borders and create eight sister republics in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands

The Last King of France

Louis XVI was the last king of the Capetian Dynasty founded in 987 AD. He loved fishing and locksmithing and believed he was chosen by god to rule France. Immediately following his coronation he dispensed  the “royal touch” to 2400 of his subjects who sought to be cured of scrofula.*

His father Louis XV had discontinued the royal touch in response to Europe’s 18th century Enlightenment, which raised thorny questions about royal power. Louis XV had wanted the monarchy to be a social contract, rather than a divine right, as had Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph II of Austria. The three monarchs, along with Catherine the Great of Russia, were known as “benevolent depots” and practiced “enlightened absolutism.”

Desan describes Louis XVI as “pathologically indecisive.” Revolutionary leaders initially sought to share power with the king, but his youth (he was 21 when he was coronated, only two years before the revolution) and his inexperience would make power sharing impossible.

At age 15, he entered into an arranged marriage with the 14-year-old daughter of the despotic Hapsburg empress Marie-Terese. The French hated the Hapsburgs and despised Marie Antoinette for her frivolity and extravagance.

* Scrofula, a swelling of the neck lymph nodes, was the most common form of tuberculosis found outside lungs. Throughout Europe, the ability to cure it was viewed as proof a king was the legitimate heir to the throne. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X22001250

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149325

[Source: vertassets.blob.core.windows.net]

Lauren Smith

Covert Action Magazine

U.S. school kids, hospital patients, and prison inmates share food poisoning, while food liquidators boast they turn “trash into treasure.”

Operating in the shadows is easy in the United States secondary food market, as few question what happens to food that exceeds its expiration date in leading supermarket chains across the nation. Well, truth be told, expired food gets reprocessed, repackaged, relabeled, and resold to institutions, discount retailers and restaurants.

With scant regulations in place for repurposed food, and institutional purchasing specifications silent, food liquidators underbid their competitors and win contracts nearly every time. In the secondary food market, you get what you pay for, and never has the saying “garbage in, garbage out” been more appropriate.

No matter how much hot sauce or gravy is added as camouflage, spoiled food products are unfit for human consumption and cause foodborne illness. Here, what you don’t know can kill you.

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Considering that food poisoning is an embarrassing indicator that reveals in its gory horror the systemic corruption of what turns out to be an unregulated food market, it is highly probable that there was undercounting back in 2011—especially in institutional settings. And it is more than likely that things are even worse in 2022.

When oversight agency reports are no longer published, it is clearly because industry statistics and agency performance metrics do not look good. Cover-ups at the federal level are routinely done by appointing incompetent or industry-compromised agency heads, and by defunding key reporting departments, and reducing analytic staff positions and field inspectors.

Despite oversight agency neglect, both schools and prisons have been independently studied for foodborne illness outbreaks. While these reports/articles are also outdated, their shallow analysis remains current. The accepted prevailing narrative blames foodborne illness outbreaks on food handlers that failed to follow U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) protocols for cleanliness and neglected to maintain the proper temperatures for food storage and service.

While not to detract from standards set by the USDA, there are no reports that expose the lethal dangers of the secondary food market. Moreover, unlike the primary food market, these repackaging facilities are not inspected, despite their erroneous claims of USDA or FDA certifications.

A media spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explained that “the FDA doesn’t oversee meat and poultry, only dairy products.” And that “expiration dates are not regulated, only food safety.”

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, food that is spoiled, contaminated, or toxic but within its expiration date is unquestionably unfit for human consumption. On the other hand, expiration dates are necessary as packaging, coloring and processing conceal food quality from consumers, as well as purchasing agents and food handlers.

When a food product’s expiration date is concealed by repackaging and relabeling, all food safety bets are off. The reselling of expired food is a black market in broad daylight.

Most individuals interviewed at the BOP for this article were not familiar with the existence of the secondary food market. Interviews included procurement personnel, a dietitian, an attorney, a policy analyst, and two media representatives. Only the National Food Service Administrator (NFSA) understood that, when bid specifications are silent on this fundamental go/no go criterion, food vendors selling fresh primary market products cannot compete fairly against secondary market expired food liquidators.

Undeniably, recycled food has a lower price point than fresh food. Thus, secondary food liquidators can dominate the market by selling inferior products.

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Value and Shelf Life

However, in procurement, value and shelf life need to be decision-making factors, as well as the acquisition cost. For example, if cafeteria meals make school children, hospitalized patients, and prison inmates sick and perishable food products are being thrown out prematurely—because their shelf life was already compromised prior to delivery—the initial cost savings is immaterial.

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Reporting “Problems with Food”

Presently, consumers can report “a problem with food” at “restaurants,” or they can report a rotten “egg,” etc., on the FoodSafety.gov website or on the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) webpage. However, evidence is required, such as the original container or packaging. This information is not readily available in institutional settings as most subsistence meals are devoid of their original packaging. It appears, by design, there is intentionally no place to report unsafe institutional food.

Recommendations are made on the FoodSafety.gov website to contact local health departments to report foodborne illnesses. However, in the case of federal prisons, no oversight authority inspects its kitchens.

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Secondary Food Market

Yes, there are many ways to contract food poisoning in any kitchen by unclean conditions and the food handlers’ failure to observe USDA/FDA protocols, but the probability of illness is increased exponentially when food products are delivered already expired.

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According to the USDA media representatives, the USDA’s FSIS does not inspect secondary food processing facilities. Therefore, repackaging facilities that advertise they have FDA and USDA certifications misrepresent themselves. However, most secondary food market liquidators do not have websites or list principals. This omission allows LLCs to form and dissolve easily when their contractual performance issues become so severe that their principals are debarred from bidding on government contracts.

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Consider that there is no limit to the secondary market’s reselling capabilities. Expired food products travel a conga line until the liquidator finds a buyer so desperate, inept, or corrupt that it will purchase anything. For example, food rejected by restaurants and discount stores can be sold to schools. Food rejected by schools can be sold to hospitals and prisons. Finally, when prisons reject the delivery, it is sold to the military. Consider that every delivery and site inspection affects temperature and deducts time from expired products’ shelf life. Unquestionably, both factors further reduce product safety.

A former sailor stationed aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf during Operation Enduring Freedom reported that a food delivery contained beef stamped with REJECTED DOC (Department of Corrections). Still, the kitchen staff was ordered to cook and serve it because there was “a ship full of sailors and not enough food to last them until the next delivery.”

In prisons, food handlers who complain about serving meals that are not fit for human consumption are disciplined, relocated or fired.

“They had about 100 bags of rotten potatoes,” Pine said. “You could smell them,” and “they had black and green mold all over them.”

“They told me I was trying to start a riot,” Pine said. “I said: ‘No, you’re serving rotten potatoes. That’s going to get to the yard.”

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Corruption in Prison Food Procurement

While most of the articles involving corruption in Miami FDC involve assault, rape and the smuggling of contraband, state-run and privately run facilities describe the mechanics of crime in food procurement. Bid specifications that eliminate primary market competition combined with manuals that allow expired and spoiled food items to be accepted by food handlers and that do not track rejected food create an environment ripe for kickbacks, bribes, and hush money.

However, prosecutions might be more embarrassing for BOP than simple staff dismissals. Moreover, keeping negative information from the public might have a higher value to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)—as its Attorney General is answerable to the president—than preventing and/or prosecuting white-collar criminals.

Consider that the following headline is not good publicity for the facility’s warden: Oregon DOC Food Manager Takes Over $1 Million in Bribes, Feeds Prisoners “Distressed” Food.

According to Prisonlegalnews.org, “between mid-2000 and December 2006, the Food Service Administrator (FSA) ‘supplemented’ his $79,000 annual salary with at least $1,132,000 in bribes and kickbacks from brokers who sold dubious quality food to the ODOC.

Under the FSA’s watch, daily food costs in Oregon’s prison system dropped from $3.95 per prisoner ($1.32 per meal) in 1997 to $2.38 ($0.79 per meal) in 2006—a 40 percent reduction.”

Wardens are evaluated on the cost to shelter inmates, and up-front savings are a more highly valued indicator than foodborne illnesses, which can mostly be swept under the rug or blamed on viruses.

According to the CDC, “Incarcerated people are more likely to have foodborne illness that is related to an outbreak than non-incarcerated people.”

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Via https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/12/06/black-market-in-broad-daylight/