Lew Rockwell Institute

Some days it seems as if the dark forces have won.

A friend sent me a document from the Department of Defense website that reveals a full-spectrum propaganda/information management program, aimed at…us. I don’t understand how our little boats of truth can survive the resources and personnel directed against us.

A loved one has kidney damage. A loved one has heart damage. A loved one is going for surgery. An elder’s heart simply burst. An elder fell. An elder now walks with two sticks.

I pray for everyone continually and I remember the days when we rolled around in health, heedlessly, barely noticing, as if we were pressing grapes without measure into an endless vat of wine.

Now that past is past.

Loved ones who are young look pallid, with a yellowish glaze across their cheekbones. I look, hoping they will not notice, for evidence of living capillaries, for the blush of life.

They have grey-blue shadows, under their eyes, that that never go away. Their cheeks are hollow.

I pray all the time. Now that I believe a great harvesting of human life is underway, a great shaking-out of the human project, I have no more excuses. I feel that our current conditions have been brought about so that we are in an X-ray moment spiritually, in which we cannot be lukewarm or equivocal.

We must choose this day whom to serve.

Joshua 24:14: 14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

I have to write what I have longed not to write; what both good Christians and good Jews have advised me never to write.

I have to write it now because what happened to me, that I do not discuss, has comforted me and instructed me and guided me in this terrible time.

Who knows; this story may comfort you as well.

####

Some years ago, I was writing a book about female sexual and reproductive health. I was scared to complete and publish it, since that would mean that I would have to speak publicly about female sexual biology and physical desire, which were at that time still somewhat taboo subjects. The theme of my book was that the sexuality of women, and their gift of fertility, were sacred treasures, and that these should be treated by society (and by women themselves) with great respect, and not degraded or debased.

I was afraid I would be attacked for bringing these issues into daylight and speaking about them frankly (I know that my former fears about this in today’s much more brazen time now sound quaint). But I was so very fearful that for the first time in my life, I suffered a writer’s block.

I was immobilized.

I happened to be in Portland, Oregon. I was wandering along a charming shopping area, 23rd Street, downtown. It was a cool, wet day. That vibrant Northwestern drizzle, green and misty, was a fragrant veil against my face.

Victorian houses lined both sidewalks. Stores offered handmade chocolates and tie-dyed cotton skirts. Cafes with fresh-ground coffee, gift shops with scented soaps, all beckoned.

On the basement level of one of the Victorians, a wooden sign read: “Counseling”.

Having nothing better to do, and thinking that a random chat with a stranger might ease my inability to write, or at least that it could not hurt, I walked down the steps.

I was in an unmemorable hallway: standard-issue chairs and beige carpeting. I sat in a chair and waited. The door opened; an unremarkable woman gestured me into her office. I found myself in a space as bland as the waiting area had been.

The counselor was about forty. She looked like a mom who had gone back to work. She wore an Oregon-standard suburban-lady outfit: leather clogs, khaki slacks, a bright cotton sweater. Her shoulder-length light-brown hair showed a feathering of grey at the temples. Her pleasant, open face was bare of makeup.

She gestured me to sit on a little grey couch. I glanced at the credentials framed on her wall: an MSW license. There were cozy pillows, the splash of color in a Mexican rug, and — that was it. There was nothing else suggestive or unusual there. I don’t even remember her name.

I explained to her my writer’s block, and she responded that her method used hypnotherapy. I was comfortable with this, as my mother is a sought-after past-life regression therapist. While I am agnostic (as is my mother) about whether what her clients experience are actual “past lives” or simply the immense narrative power of the subconscious mind, I knew that various people had used that methodology to get to the heart of their concerns quickly.

Certainly, as a writer, I recognize that the subconscious mind is nothing to belittle. It holds both terrors and riches. I also knew enough about phobias (writer’s block is a phobia) to know that my subconscious mind could indeed hold the key to why I was unable to face the blank page, and that it could possibly show me what I needed to do to move past that immobilization.

The counselor explained that she would put me into a light meditative state. I was comfortable with that as well.

I closed my eyes.

“Ten, nine, eight…” She counted, in a quiet, soothing voice. She had explained that I was to walk down a staircase and count with her, silently, with each step. “Seven, six, five…” I was to count with her until I reached the bottom of the staircase.

I did so.

I was surprised to find myself descending rough golden-white stone steps, hewn as if by coarse chipping. The flat risers of the stairs blended in curves, not in squared edges, into the stone walls that flanked them, as do the Herodian and other ancient steps unearthed by archaeologists. The steps were exactly like the ones I had walked down in the Old City in Jerusalem, where I had lived for a couple of years as a child, and then as a teenager.

“…Four, three, two, one.”

I was at the bottom of the stairs. Her voice, now distant, explained that I would see a door in front of me.

I faced a rough-hewn wooden door, held together not with nails but with leather cords.

“Now open the door and tell me what you see.”

I opened the door.

#####

Before me a man in his early thirties, sitting on a rough wooden bench.

I was now in the room with him.

The two of us were in a crude, stone-walled workshop, like the simple, ancient workshops in the Old City that are still in use, half hewn out of the hillsides’ golden rock. Deep shadows pooled in the corners.

The man was seated at a worktable. I saw that it was held together by wooden dowels, not by metal nails. The man wore a simple robe, made of light brown fabric closer in texture to hemp cloth or to burlap than to modern woven cloth. The edges were uneven, unhemmed. He was barefoot; the floor was made of packed dirt — the golden sandstone dirt of Jerusalem; and I saw that his feet were dusty. The soles of his feet rested on the golden dirt of the floor. The frayed edging of his robe, his feet, the table’s surface, were all dusty. It was the dust of premodern poverty. He was obviously poor.

I understood glancingly that I now was in a meditative, or hypnotically relaxed, state. It was as if I had left my conscious awareness far above, and had dropped to a much deeper level, below normal cognition; it was as if I had reached a deep well of awareness inside my being, full of still water.

I gazed at this being in astonishment. I knew exactly who this being was.

I knew that he was Jesus.

What I saw was incredible.

But it was also terrifying and upsetting.

My reactions were completely split. My awareness was torn in two.

My subliminal mind, where I was mostly present, was overjoyed. I had never been happier in my life. I was in the presence of my best friend, whom I did not consciously know, but whom, subconsciously, I thought I had lost forever.

Hot tears welled from under my closed lids, and spilled down my cheeks. I was crying as if I had waited my whole life to cry like this; as if these tears had been in me, dormant, forever.

But even as my subconscious mind was rejoicing, I could far above me feel my conscious mind — my personality, my biographical self, my ego — freaking out; appalled; twisting about like a hooked fish, in a desperate effort to escape.

My conscious mind was horrified.

I am a Jewish lady.

This was the wrong person.

This was not whom I had wanted to see.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Thing I Feared Most to Write, Part Two appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Donald Trump is looking increasingly likely to be the winner of the presidential race. I have long held that the globalists will wrap up an economic collapse or a world war and throw it in Trump’s lap.” — Brandon Smith

This time, the shooter lives to do some ‘splainin’. Do you wonder if he might get around to ‘splainin’ his role with the shady non-governmental orgs (NGOs) supported by the CIA who enabled his travels to Ukraine and his efforts there recruiting global mutts to fight for the Nazi-ish Azov Battalion? Perhaps he might rat-out actual government officials who assisted him in his colorful misadventures? As Ed Snowden remarked on “X”, wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh has “something of an Oswald vibe” — meaning, well-groomed by the intel boys, to be used as required.

Perhaps we’ll find out — if nothing fatal happens to befall Mr. Routh while in custody — how exactly he learned Mr. Trump would be on the links that afternoon? The candidate’s round of golf that day was supposedly a snap decision known only amongst his innermost circle. Or how did Mr. Routh figure out the most advantageous fairway to lay at for a clear shot? The FBI is on the case, you may be reassured to know.

Things political are speeding up with the autumnal quickening. The blob is truly and deeply a’fright. So many blobsters will be liable to pay for their multitudinous crimes against the people of this country if Mr. Trump squeaks back into power that such a future is unthinkable to them. And yet, nothing has worked to deactivate this. . . this golden golem stalking the land. Nothing to show for the immense catalog of lawfare cases concocted to drain his wealth and stuff him into a prison cell — and astounding how amateurish they all were! Engoron and Merchan, two boobies hatched out of Judicial Error Central. Fani Willis, a walking-talking banana peel! Merrick Garland, saving democracy one abuse of power at a time!

The Butler, PA, head-shot op came awfully close to eliminating their, uh, problem, but no cigar. The Palm Beach golf course ambush had a Peter Sellers vibe, wouldn’t you agree? With the rifle muzzle poking through the shrubbery behind a fence. What next? A pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and cyanide? Maybe try to drop an anvil on Mr. Trump’s head from a passing airplane? (Beep-beep. . . woosh!)

Somebody do something!!! The blob is shrieking to its minions from the sub-basement bunkers at Langley to the salons of Georgetown, to the US Embassy in Ukraine. Well, there’s always World War Three! And it looks like just such a romp is about to be instigated. You may have seen the photo last week of “Joe Biden” meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a big conference table, talking-up a plan to give Ukraine the green light to rain long-range missiles deep into Russia. Meaning, let NATO technicians work the targeting console to send US or British made rockets any old place over there? Like, Red Square? Or the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg? Find an actual Ukrainian to push the launch button.

How is that not a direct attack on Russia by NATO? Well, of course it is exactly that. Russia’s chief executive, Mr. Putin, clarified it for the Globalist Neocon cohort infesting NATO that such an action would bring. . . “consequences.” That is a word the Neocons are no longer acquainted with; it has been such a long time since they’ve crossed its path, like its boon companion, “truth,” also missing-in-action these days. And, to be fair, Mr. Putin did not specify what the consequences might be, not even a simple metaphor like a mushroom cloud, or an ashtray.

How did they even get “Joe Biden” off the beach for that photo op? It is understood by everyone over ten-years-old in America that “JB” is not available for duty anymore. The “out-to-lunch” sign hangs permanently on the doorknob of the Oval Office now. The USA does not have a functioning chief-of-state for the first time in 235 years. After 2021, some sort of unelected, informal Politburu that self-assembled in the White House, like a clot from a Covid Vaccine shot, is running our affairs. Maybe Kamala Harris has a clue who is in that outfit. Or somebody in the news median could ask her (if she ever gets around to holding an actual news conference, where the questions are not previewed or scripted.) Anyone dare ask?

Kamala Harris is strangely missing from the front page of The New York Times this morning. Is that a little ominous? The debate is behind her. There will not be another, apparently. There is nothing about her schedule on the official campaign website. Has she entered fade-away mode? Is it all over now except for the ballot harvesting and the, uh, little adjustments to the Dominion vote-counting machines? Has the drinking started again?

Reprinted with permission from JamesHowardKunstler.com.

The post Beep Beep! appeared first on LewRockwell.

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My America no longer exists. What has taken its place?

Judges, prosecutors, and law professors who define justice in terms of ideological agendas and who are hostile to the US Constitution because it gets in the way of their agendas.

Jurors so brainwashed, indoctrinated, and compliant with authorities that only 3% of defendants will risk a jury trial. It is safer to self-incriminate. No one trusts a trial by their peers, who in fact are operatives for the authorities.

A population so insouciant that it has no idea that nuclear war could break out at any moment and no idea that “their government” is pushing for such an outcome.

Public schools, financed by parents, that are determined to take away the parents’ children. In effect the parents are financing their own causes of grief, such as their kids being taught transgenderism and critical race theory.

Public officials, House, Senate, President, Governors, regulators, state legislators, city councils that are so compromised by campaign contributions that they cannot represent the people and the public interest, only the interests of the political campaign contributors. A US Supreme Court legalized the purchase of the US government by private interests.

An establishment attack with universities, media, and Hollywood involved on American heroes, such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Robert E. Lee as “racists.”

A country in which students must be protected from the literature and art of their civilization because it is “racist.” Today in America it is possible to have a handful of Ph.D. degrees and to know nothing of your country’s past except that it is racist, evil, and exploitative. Shakespeare is demonized as racist and anti-semitic. No one dare read him and learn from his use of the English language, another racist creation.

A formerly merit-based society is being reconstructed because it prevents “equity.” Kurt Vonnegut predicted that it would be 2081 before we were all made equal by imposed implements to suppress above average capabilities, but this result has already been achieved by law. All whites are weighted down by their skin color in competition for university admission, employment, and promotion including the military, where they have been sidelined while “equity” is pursued. https://genius.com/Kurt-vonnegut-harrison-bergeron-annotated

Christian evangelicals who reject Christ, worship Israel, and support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.

The feminist destruction of the relations between men and women. Husbands can no longer trust wives who have been trained by feminists to see men as questionable.

The chastity of women has given way to women boasting of their 150 sexual partners and confessing that their 12 year old daughters are on birth control pills.

The inability to express truth because truth is “offensive.”

The inability to see Satan’s grasp because they are too sophisticated to believe in good and evil.

Readers can add to this list on their own.

The obvious conclusion is that there is nothing left of America. As Western civilization has been exterminated, I wonder why I continue to defend what no longer exists.

It only takes one more dumbshit decision from Washington, and none of us will exist.

And in Superpower America there is no awareness of this danger.

The post America Today, Compared to the America I Grew Up in appeared first on LewRockwell.

Colonization … is the best affair of business in which the capital of an old and wealthy country can engage … the same rules of international morality do not apply … between civilized nations and barbarians.

– John Stuart Mill, quoted by Eileen Sullivan in “Liberalism and Imperialism: JS Mill’s Defense of the British Empire,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 44, 1983.

The events of 11 September 2001 were intended to impose and enshrine a new Exceptionalist paradigm on the young 21st century. History, though, ruled otherwise.

Cast as an attack on the US Homeland, 11 September 2001, immediately generated the Global War on Terror (GWOT), launched at 11 pm on the same day. Initially christened “The Long War” by the Pentagon, the term was later sanitized by the administration of Barack Obama as “Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).”

The US-manufactured War on Terror spent a notoriously un-trackable eight trillion dollars defeating a phantom enemy, killed over half a million people – overwhelmingly Muslims – and branched out into illegal wars against seven Muslim-majority states. All of this was relentlessly justified on “humanitarian grounds” and allegedly supported by the “international community” – before that term, too, was renamed as the “rules-based international order.”

Cui Bono? (who stands to gain) remains the paramount question related to all matters related to 11 September 2001. A tight network of fervently Israel-first neocons strategically positioned across the defense and national security establishments by Vice President Dick Cheney – who had served as secretary of defense in the administration of George W Bush’s father – sprang into action to impose the long-planned agenda of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). That far-reaching agenda had waited in the wings for the right trigger – a “new Pearl Harbor” – to justify a slew of regime-change operations and wars across much of West Asia and other Muslim states, reshaping global geopolitics for the benefit of Israel.

US General Wesley Clark’s notorious revelation of a secret Cheney regime plot to destroy seven major Islamic countries over five years, from Iraq, Syria, and Libya all the way to Iran, showed us that the planning had already been done in advance. These targeted nations had one thing in common: they were resolute enemies of the occupation state and firm supporters of Palestinian rights.

The sweet deal, from Tel Aviv’s perspective, was that the War on Terror would have the US and its western allies fighting all these serial Israeli-profiting wars on behalf of “civilization” and against the “barbarians.” The Israelis couldn’t have been more happy or smug about the direction this was going.

It’s no wonder that 7 October 2023 is a mirror image of 11 September 2001. The occupation state itself advertised this as Israel’s own “11 September.” Parallels abound in more ways than one, but certainly not in the way Israel-firsters and the cabal of extremists leading Tel Aviv expected.

Syria: the turning point

The western Hegemon excels in constructing narratives and is currently wallowing in the Russophobia, Iranophobia, and Sinophobia swamps of its own creation. Discrediting official, immutable narratives, such as the one about 11 September, remains the ultimate taboo.

But a false narrative construct cannot hold out forever. Three years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers collapsing and the onset of the War on Terror, we witnessed a great unraveling in the intersection of Central and South Asia: the Taliban were back in power, celebrating their victory over the Hegemon in a discombobulated Forever War.

By then, the “seven countries in five years” obsession – aiming to forge a “New Middle East” – was being derailed across the spectrum. Syria was the turning point, though some would argue that the tea leaves were already cast when the Lebanese resistance defeated Israel in 2000, then again in 2006.

But smashing independent Syria would have paved the way for the Hegemon – and Israel’s – Holy Grail: regime change in Iran.

US occupation forces entered Syria in late 2014 under the pretext of fighting “terror.” That was Obama’s OCO in action. In reality, though, Washington was using two key terror outfits – Daesh, aka ISIL, aka ISIS, and Al Qaeda, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, aka Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – to try to destroy Damascus.

That was conclusively proved by a declassified 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document, later confirmed by General Michael Flynn, the DIA’s chief when the assessment was written: “I think it was a willful decision [by the Obama administration]” when it comes to helping, not fighting, terror.

ISIS was conceived to fight both the Iraqi and Syrian armies. The terror group was an offspring of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), then renamed Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), then rebranded as ISIL, and finally ISIS, after it crossed the Syrian border in 2012.

The crucial point is that both ISIS and Nusra Front (later Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) were hardcore Salafi-jihadi Al-Qaeda offshoots.

Russia entering the Syrian theater at Damascus’ invitation in September 2015 was the real game-changer. Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to actually engage in a real war on terror in Syrian territory before that terror reached the Russian Federation’s borders. This was captured by the standard formulation in Moscow at the time: the distance from Aleppo to Grozny is only 900 kilometers.

The Russians, after all, had already been subjected to the same brand and modus operandi of terror in Chechnya in the 1990s. Afterward, many Chechen jihadis escaped, only to end up joining dodgy outfits in Syria financed by the Saudis.

The late, great Lebanese analyst Anis Naqqash later confirmed that it was the legendary Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani who convinced Putin, in person, to enter the Syrian theater of war and help defeat the terrorism. This strategic masterplan, it transpires, was to fatally debilitate the US in West Asia.

The US security establishment, of course, would never forgive Putin, and especially Soleimani, for defeating their handy jihadist foot soldiers. On the orders of President Donald Trump, the anti-ISIS Iranian general was assassinated in Baghdad in January 2020, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, deputy leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), a broad spectrum of Iraqi fighters who had coalesced to defeat ISIS in Iraq.

Burying the legacy of 11 September

Soleimani’s strategic tour de force of setting up and coordinating the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the US was years in the making. In Iraq, for instance, the PMUs were propelled to the forefront of the resistance because the Iraqi military – US-trained and US-controlled – simply could not fight ISIS.

The PMUs were created after a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Sistani in June 2014 – when ISIS began its Iraqi rampage – by imploring “all Iraqi citizens” to “defend the country, its people, the honor of its citizens and its sacred sites.”

Several PMUs were backed by Soleimani’s Quds Force – who, ironically, for the rest of the decade would be invariably branded by Washington as a master “terrorist.” In parallel, crucially, the Iraqi government hosted an anti-ISIS intel center in Baghdad, led by Russia.

The credit for defeating ISIS in Iraq went mostly to the PMUs, complemented by its help to Damascus via the integration of PMU units into the Syrian Arab Army. That was what a real war on terror was all about, not that misnomered American construct called the “War on Terror.”

Best yet, the indigenously West Asian response to terror was and remains non-sectarian. Tehran supports secular, pluralist Syria and Sunni Palestine; Lebanon features a Hezbollah–Christian alliance; Iraq’s PMUs feature a Sunni–Shia–Christian alliance. Divide and Rule simply do not apply in a homegrown anti-terror strategy.

Then, what happened on 7 October 2023 propelled the regional resistance forces’ ethos to a whole new level.

In one swift move, it destroyed the myth of Israeli military invincibility and its much-lauded surveillance and intelligence primacy. Even as the horrifying genocide across Gaza proceeds unabated (with possibly as many as 200,000 civilian deaths, according to The Lancet), the Israeli economy is being eviscerated.

Yemen’s strategic blockade of the Bab al-Mandeb and the Red Sea to any Israel-linked or destined shipping vessel is a masterstroke of efficiency and simplicity. Not only has it already bankrupted Israel’s strategic Eilat Port, but also, as a bonus, has offered a spectacular humiliation of the thalassocratic Hegemon, with the Yemenis de facto defeating the US Navy.

In less than a year, the concerted strategies of the Axis of Resistance have essentially buried six feet under the fake War on Terror and its multi-trillion-dollar gravy train.

As much as Israel profited from events after 11 September, Tel Aviv’s actions after 7 October rapidly accelerated its unraveling. Today, amidst massive Global Majority condemnation of Israel’s Gaza genocide, the occupation state stands as a pariah – tainting its allies and exposing the Hegemon’s hypocrisy with each passing day.

For the Hegemon, it gets even more alarming. Recall the 1997 warning of Dr Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski: “It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.”

In the end, all the combined sound and fury of 11 September, the War on Terror, Long War, Operation This-And-That over two decades, metastasized into exactly what “Zbig” feared. Not only has a mere “challenger” emerged, but a full-fledged Russia–China strategic partnership that is setting a new tone for Eurasia.

Suddenly, Washington has forgotten all about terrorism. This is the real “enemy” – now considered the top two US “strategic threats.” Not Al-Qaeda and its many incarnations, a flimsy figment of the CIA’s imagination, rehabilitated and sanitized in the previous decade as those mythical “moderate rebels” in Syria.

What’s even more eerie is that the conceptually nonsensical War on Terror forged by the neocons immediately after 11 September is now morphing into a war of terror (italics mine), embodying the desperate Hail Mary pass by the CIA and MI6 to “confront Russian aggression” in Ukraine.

And that’s bound to be metastasized into the Sinophobia swamp because those same western intelligence agencies consider the rise of China to be “the greatest geopolitical and intelligence challenge” of the 21st century.

The War on Terror has been debunked; it is now dead. But get ready for serial wars of terror by a Hegemon unaccustomed to not owning the narrative, the seas, and the ground.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

The post From 11 September to 7 October: The Fake ‘War on Terror’ Collapses appeared first on LewRockwell.

While we often hear that middle-aged southern white men pose a grave threat to American democracy and public safety, Ryan Wesley Routh—a former roofer from North Carolina who looks and sounds like a dumb cracker —has, in recent years, been a model of anti-Trump and anti-Putin sentiment. Also notable is the fact that in 2002, he was charged with the felony possession of a fully automatic firearm.

The following is a collection of statements he has made to various MSM outlets over the last couple of years.

FT News: 

“It’s a pretty big yard, but the front bank is completely full,” Ryan Routh, an American volunteer who started the memorial last year, said. “There may be 10,000 at this point. ‘Flags of the fallen’ is what I’ve been calling it.” 

Routh, a former construction worker who lives in Hawaii, is one of the thousands of foreigners who, after seeing news reports about the invasion, travelled into Ukraine in early 2022 to volunteer as fighters or medics.

Semafor:

“Most of the Ukrainian authorities do not want these soldiers,” said Ryan Routh, head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine, a private organization which helps foreigners seeking to assist the war effort connect with military units and aid groups. “I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa.”

Azerbaycan24

The New York Times article backs up the Russian Defense Ministry’s information regarding the countries which are actively trying to recruit mercenaries to join the fight in Ukraine. It wrote about Ryan Routh, a former construction worker from North Carolina who spent several months in Ukraine last year and is now seeking recruits among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. He plans to move them to Ukraine from Pakistan and Iran – in some cases, illegally. Nevertheless, dozens of people have apparently expressed an interest.

NYTimes

With Legion growth stalling, Ryan Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, N.C., is seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. Mr. Routh, who spent several months in Ukraine last year, said he planned to move them, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest. “We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” he said in an interview from Washington.

Taiwan News 

The man behind the wall of banners, Ryan Routh, told CNA that he posted the flags to pay tribute to the nations that have citizens fighting in Ukraine’s foreign legion, the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine. Routh said there have been no protests about the presence of the Taiwan flag so far, but even if China is dissatisfied, “I can order another 1,000, they can’t touch my flags.”

Routh, 56, originally hails from Hawaii, but most recently worked in the construction industry in North Carolina and has no military background. He came to Kyiv more than two months ago to show his support for Ukraine and wanted to join the foreign legion.

However, due to his age, he was unable to do so, and he is instead currently assisting the legion in recruiting volunteers for the Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie units in Kharkiv. Thus far, Routh has assisted in recruiting 70 volunteers to join the fight against Russia.

Routh began posting flags on the wall of a sandbagged monument in Kyiv’s Independence Square. He told the news agency that he included Taiwan’s flag because he had met at least five Taiwanese volunteers serving in the legion over the past two months and learned about Taiwan’s contribution to Ukraine’s war effort.

According to Routh, he has yet to receive any protests from China about the presence of the Taiwan flag. He said that any pressure that would come from China would be “nothing” compared to the daily assault by Russian forces on every soldier who supports Ukraine.

He said that he will continue to stay in Kyiv and encourage more people to fight against Russia. European countries deliver truckloads of food, medical supplies, and military equipment, but Ukraine may need three to four times more support, estimated Routh.

The volunteer pointed out that there are only 50 national flags on the stone wall, meaning that there are over 100 countries that do not have a single soldier that has volunteered to fight for Ukraine, “This is unacceptable.” He emphasized the war between Russia and Ukraine is a battle of good versus evil.

Routh asserted that at this critical moment, all countries should give their soldiers unpaid leave and provide air tickets to fly to Ukraine to participate in the war to prevent Russia from starting another war. “We should be united and share success and failure, which is what these flags stand for,” said Routh.

Suspected shootər Ryan Routh talking about the war in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/1cUvDF4BRb

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) September 15, 2024

Thus, Routh has become a seemingly improbable face and voice of prevailing Democrat Party sentiment and foreign policy orthodoxy.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

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At the start of the Special Military Operation in February 2022 I warned of the blowback that, I asserted, would likely come if the West continued to pamper Nazi groups in Ukraine:

The U.S. aim is to create an insurgency in the Ukraine.

The Coming Ukrainian Insurgency – Foreign Affairs
Russia’s Invasion Could Unleash Forces the Kremlin Can’t Control

Since 2015 the CIA has trained Ukrainian groups for exactly that purpose.

CIA-trained Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades – Yahoo

CIA support for Ukrainian Nazis has a long history.

Op-Ed: The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before. Let’s learn from those mistakes – LA Times

A new Nazi insurgency in eastern Europe is an exceptionally bad idea. Fascist groups from everywhere would join in. A few years from now it may well lead to Nazi terror in many European countries. Have we learned really nothing from the war on Syria and the ISIS campaign?

Me and Ivan Katchanovski were probably the only ones who had warned of this:

Katchanovski adds that, “This is also going to have a dangerous effect on Ukraine and potentially other countries because now, basically, Nazis in Ukraine are made into national heroes.” He also noted that Azov (as well as Western governments) has consistently pressured Zelensky — including with threats, and even before Russia invaded — not to seek a peace deal with Russia or withdraw forces from the Donbas region. In February, Azov branded Zelensky a “servant of the Russian people” after he suggested that he might negotiate with Moscow.

Katchanovski said that the valorization of the Azov Regiment is comparable to how the West initially supported the predecessors of the Taliban in their fight against the Soviet Union’s intervention in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and also risks inspiring yet more far-right activists from other countries to join the conflict in Ukraine in order to gain military experience, potentially causing a blowback effect if they make it home.

Yesterday one avid U.S. supporter of the fascists in Ukraine tried to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump:

Jack Poso @JackPosobiec – 1:39 UTC · Sep 16, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: Attempted Trump assassin Ryan Routh appeared in a propaganda video for the AZOV BATTALLION in May 2022
Embedded video

Routh, himself being too old to fight, had tried to hire foreign mercenaries to fight on the fascist side in Ukraine. He obviously targeted Trump because he had promised to dictate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Was Routh more than a lone wolf in this?

Edward Snowden @Snowden – 23:27 UTC · Sep 15, 2024

We know little so far, but w alleged Trump shooter’s personal and public participation in military activity in Ukraine, it is hard to imagine this White House’s agencies can claim zero contact—”clean hands.” Something of an Oswald vibe, here. Congress should get answers.
Images

As more people start to think about potential ways to end the war in Ukraine the far-right in Ukraine is threatening to use violence to prevent that:

SIMPLICIUS Ѱ @simpatico771 – 18:13 UTC · Sep 15, 2024

Ukraine’s most feared drone warlord threatens Zelensky:

A serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the call sign “Madyar” openly and “without drama” threatens the Ukrainian government.

According to him, if someone negotiates with the Russian Federation “not in the interests of the Ukrainian people”, then a million fighters will return from the front and overthrow such a government.
Embedded video

The Washington Post tries to explain the issue:

‘Sprinkled with our blood’: Why so many Ukrainians resist land for peace
Ukraine is under pressure to cut a deal to end the war, especially if Trump wins, but there is likely to be fierce opposition from some soldiers and their families in the east.

It turns out that the ‘so many’ Ukrainians are not so many but a small radical minority that is willing to use force against politicians who want to take the necessary steps to make peace:

Polling, however, shows that Ukrainians are not ready to give up their land, especially among those soldiers in Donbas who have been fighting for it for the past 10 years.
…
[W]hile only 7 percent said they would join an armed protest in case of territorial concessions, that number more than doubled among soldiers and veterans — including those who have been fighting for the past decade, who have seen Russian forces raze the Ukrainian cities they capture to the ground, and who are now grappling with the prospect of losing their long-contested homeland.

The Post cites only few named sources in support of its thesis:

Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka’s military administration, has been fighting Russia since 2014. The city was finally captured by Russia this winter after a decade of fighting.
…
He does not believe that Zelensky would sign a peace deal that would “abandon” Donbas — and said that it would be a “stupid mistake” to reason with Moscow. “Most people are hopefully that we will return to Avdiivka. They are ready to live in tents and rebuild this city.”

The report does not mention that Vitaliy Barabash, who is Jewish, was one of those who fought, and lost, with the fascist Azov battalion in Mariupol:

A Jewish Ukrainian soldier in the besieged Azovstal plant in Mariupol called on Israel on Wednesday night to intervene to save the garrison.

In a Facebook video posted by Jewish Kyiv-based entrepreneur and activist Ilgam Gasanov, Vitaliy Barabash said in Ukrainian, “It’s hard for me to speak, so my speech for me will be said by my brother, on behalf of all Ukrainian Jews who are together with me here.”

Barabash, also known as Benya, held a Ukrainian flag up to the camera as his friend read his statement, a Star of David tattoo clearly visible on Barabash’s hand.

Members of Azov and other ‘nationalist’ groupings in Ukraine are now experienced fighters. The have the means to fight as there are lots of Ukrainian weapons in unaccountable hands (machine translation):

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine, more than 270,945 weapons have disappeared or been stolen.
…
In less than 2024, more weapons were stolen or lost than in the whole of last year – 78,217 units. At the same time, it is 4 times more than before the start of a full-scale war.

These weapons can be easily smuggled into Europe to target any politician who dares to pressure Ukraine into accepting an end of the war.

The attempted assassination of Trump is only one of the first of such incidents. (The motives for the assassination attempt against the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico are still unknown.)

Many such incidents, predominantly in Europe, are likely to follow.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post West Experiences Blowback From Fostering Fascists In Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Another Trump assassination attempt has been foiled by the Secret Service, this time with the would-be assassin alive and in police custody. His name is Ryan Routh.

Unlike the last aspiring assassin, this one didn’t get off a shot, and has a much more public profile. The Grayzone has a report out documenting Routh’s extensive involvement in efforts to recruit volunteers to fight in the war in Ukraine, a cause he has been highly ideologically dedicated to.

Just like last time Trump’s political opponents who’ve been melodramatically claiming Trump is going to end American democracy and install himself as a dictator for life are condemning political violence and expressing relief that he’s okay. Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Bernie Sanders have all tweeted statements to this effect.

I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 15, 2024

As soon as shit gets even a tiny bit real all the performers set aside their vitriolic rhetoric about Trump and start talking about how relieved they are that their fellow performer is okay, the same as you would see if someone took a shot at one of the performers in a pro wrestling match. It’s all a kayfabe performance.

Trump supporters are again touting this foiled assassination plot as evidence that the Deep State is after their man, but right now I’m not buying it. I kinda think if the real power players wanted him dead he’d be dead. According to Trump supporters the Deep State is simultaneously (A) a supremely powerful entity capable of enslaving the world in a neo-Marxist bug-eating vaccine mandate woke dystopia and (B) somehow incapable of successfully assassinating one 78 year-old man despite multiple attempts.

I wouldn’t care if Trump got assassinated, but for the record nothing would be accomplished by eliminating him because he’ll only be replaced by an ideological clone of himself just like Biden was. The powers that be benefit too much from having a Trump; if it’s not him it’ll be another.

Trump supporters say Trump is anti-establishment, when in reality he’s done more to advance the interests of the establishment than any individual Democrat ever has. In addition to all the longstanding agendas of the US war machine he advanced while president, he also moves US politics in the exact direction the powerful want it to move.

Because of Trump, conversations about universal healthcare and a living wage have been completely killed off and replaced with conversations about the threat of fascism and the death of American democracy.

Because of Trump, Democrats moved from mocking the cold warrior Russiabaiting of Mitt Romney and saying “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” to now demanding more and more nuclear brinkmanship against Russia.

Because of Trump, the Democratic Party has been able to completely ignore all the demands of their progressive base, trusting that they will still be scaremongered into voting Democrat in November despite the fact that this is the same as voting Republican in 2008.

None of this would have been possible without Donald Trump or someone just like him. No other living person has done more to benefit the imperial status quo more than this man who has successfully transformed US politics into a fight between two Republican Parties with no voice left for ordinary Americans and their basic human needs.

I will of course be reassessing my position as more information comes in, but for right now I just think Trump is far too useful to the powerful for me to bother putting my conspiratorial thinking cap on for this one.

_____________

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The post Musings on the Second Trump Assassination Attempt appeared first on LewRockwell.

Republicans in the US Senate have been urging the White House to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles that can strike deep into Russia.  Such is the madness of pro-war sentiment.   

America’s lackluster Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has apparently confirmed that Washington plans to shortly deliver such strategic weapons to Ukraine. This week, Britain’s new prime minister arrived in Washington to discuss more strategic arms for Ukraine.

One is vividly reminded of the mobs of idiots who thronged Paris train stations in August 1914, screaming ‘on to Berlin.’  As a British historian aptly noted, `if patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, then war is the first platform of fools.’

US-supplied long-range missiles are the last step between what was a border conflict and all-out war that will very likely go nuclear.  

Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that he reduced conventional forces to divert funds to Russia’s stunted civilian economy.  Nuclear weapons, said President Putin, will be used to replace conventional forces if Russia is attacked. We must take him at his word.

The border war with Ukraine, which began in 2014, has shown just how much Russia reduced its former conventional might. The once mighty Red Army has proven a shadow of its former self.  Under Putin, armies of tanks have been replaced by new apartments across the sprawling nation.

The idea of sending more long-range missiles to Ukraine is sheer madness.  Ukraine is slowly being ground down in this long war of attrition.  Ukraine’s current strategy is to provoke a direct clash between Russia and the United States. Interestingly, Israel used the same strategy to provoke direct US military intervention against Syria and various Arab militias.  

The United States, dominated by pro-war Republicans and wealthy pro-Israel special interests, appears eager to promote war with Russia.  Most important, neoconservatives are urging intensified war against Russia to advance their goal of breaking up the Russian Federation into small, weak pieces dominated by Washington. 

Such was the case under former Russian president Boris Yeltsin who allowed US financial interests to dominate Russia while he made merry.  Former KGB officer Vladimir Putin put an end to Washington’s attempted to turn Russia into an American satrapy. 

I interviewed the leaders of KGB at Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison in 1991.  They expressed disgust with Russia’s then communist leadership and told me there would be a housecleaning.  The result was, of course, KGB officer Vladimir Putin’s surprising rise to power.  Putin quickly became the target of US media hate. He committed terrible brutalities in Chechnya but without him Russia might have ended up today’s supine, graveling Germany.

The US overthrew Ukraine’s last pro-Russian government. Ukraine had been part of the Russian state for hundreds of years and the center of its heavy industries. This coup cost the US $5 billion, according to its author, leading State Department neocon Victoria Nuland.  An actor, the amiable Volodymyr Zelensky, was put in charge by Nuland.  US funds and arms poured into Ukraine.  Efforts by Washington to shatter the old Soviet Union were a brilliant success.  

Except that Washington had to foot the bill, so far an astounding $44 billion, and deprive the US military of many important weapons systems.  One also wonders why Donald Trump did not raise the issue of Ukraine’s payments to President Biden and his son.

As a veteran war correspondent and old friend of Ukraine, I see the US and Russia heading to a major war.  The western powers have been relentlessly provoking Russia. The idea of supplying Ukraine with a new class of long-range missiles will likely ignite a horribly dangerous war that may very likely go nuclear.  Now is the time for the great powers to impose peace, not supply arms.  Time to end the unnecessary suffering of Ukrainians and Russians.  Genuine diplomacy, not more weapons, is the answer. 

The post Playing With Nuclear Power appeared first on LewRockwell.

Col. Douglas MacGregor, chief executive officer of the grass roots American patriot organization, Our Country-Our Choice (OC/OC) has recently announced it has launched its own free speech internet platform called http://www.republic.us.  Re:Public.us” can be accessed either free or by paid subscription ($15/month) and is location-based for each state (e.g., Arizona, California, Texas, etc.). This is in keeping with OC/OC’s goal of building a bottom’s up local movements in each state focused on:

• Protecting children
• Stopping globalism
• Defending the right to bear arms
• Defending religious freedom
• Defending the US border
• Defending elections
• Defending from endless wars

Macgregor is a retired US Army officer who served as former Pres. Trump’s senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense.  He served as a tank squadron operations officer in the Gulf War, senior military planner for NATO’s Yugoslavian operation, and is currently a media commentor on military and foreign affairs, notably on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s YouTube podcasts “Judging Freedom”.  MacGregor has his own consulting firm Burke-Macgregor. The entire OC/OC and Re:Public website is reportedly being self-funded and staffed by volunteers and didn’t need to go to Wall Street to raise capital as a startup.

Context of Launch of “Re:Public” Free Speech Platform

In 2020, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai ran as a Republican in the primary election for US Senator in Massachusetts and purportedly lost. Shiva sued the state in court contending that one million ballot images of the actual votes were destroyed to thwart him from challenging the vote. Shiva contended Massachusetts violated federal elections law. While investigating the elections process Shiva discovered that Twitter had a secret back-door portal that allowed government to censor or criticize any political candidate on Twitter, in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.  Shiva also discovered a secret playbook or operations manual developed by media, high tech corporations, government and Harvard University titled The Elections Influence Operations Playbook: Disinformation Response Plan (Part 1 and Part 2). This secret manual outlined how to suppress free speech. In response, Shiva shifted and ran as a write-in candidate for Senator.  Shiva had to file his own lawsuit as no lawyer would represent him and he sought $1.2 billion in damages alleging election fraud and denial of free speech. The Shiva campaign could no longer use Twitter for fund raising. Shiva requested an injunction against Twitter from throwing him off the internet. He won a favorable ruling from the judge who, nevertheless, arranged a settlement and sealed the proceedings from discovery by the public. But Shiva still had a copy of the free speech suppression manual and assembled an organizational network chart showing all the actors.

American mainstream media did not cover this story, including Tucker Carlson (son of a CIA operative) nor James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, nor liberal free speech advocate Glenn Greenwald, intimating they may be controlled opposition. Shiva is now running for US president in 2024 election in 25 states and is a qualified right-in candidate in several other states. He is running on a more libertarian platform of “Truth-Freedom-Health”.

In 2022, Twitter was sold to Elon Musk who supposedly brought in to reform its disinformation response policies. Twitter was renamed “X” in 2023. Musk moved Twitter headquarters from San Francisco to Texas allegedly in response to a California law (AB1955) allowing school districts to not notify parents of a child’s request to change their gender. All of Dr. Shiva’s requests to Musk to show he had eliminated the back-door portal have never been responded to even though Dr. Shiva has been restored to Twitter.

The internet disinformation policies and back-door connection of all social media platforms with government are still prevalent in all 50 states enabling government to shut down and steer users away from free speech candidates and issues.

In the interim, Presidential candidate Donald Trump has selected JD Vance, a former Silicon Valley high tech insider as his vice-presidential candidate.  This VP selection was partly influenced by donations to his presidential campaign from the Silicon Valley Pay Pal Mafia, as they are called. Vance is a former member of the Pay-Pal Mafia. Silicon Valley high tech corporations want to roll-out an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that would be the precursor to a totalitarian surveillance system that would integrate banking, medical records, commercial transactions, school records, cell phones, and government records including voting records. Silicon Valley elites have thus far been denied the capability to install Artificial Intelligence in government by the courts and Congress. However, Trump’s election might be an inroad to adoption of AI and JD Vance would be its likely implementation manager.

It is in this context of the above-described Twitter scandal that OC/OC has launched its own membership free speech platform uncontrolled by governments disinformation policies and without funding from super rich oligarchs or government. So, OC/OC’s launch of its own free speech platform is a minor miracle.

The post Free Speech Website Launched w/out Elon Musk or Back Door Government Portal appeared first on LewRockwell.

Note: I have spent the last 3 months working on a DMSO series which I will begin releasing over the weekend. In the meantime, I’ve released a few abridged versions of the articles I received the most requests to summarize here (today’s one is a condensed version of an article that takes a deeper look into the remarkable effects of light on living organisms).

I’ve gradually become convinced that sunlight is one of the most vital nutrients for our bodies. For instance, as humans migrated north from Africa and experienced less sun exposure, their skin lightened, suggesting this adaptation likely ensured enough sunlight still entered the body.

Industries with vested interests lobby to hide true causes while diverting attention to easy scapegoats. Since sunlight isn’t profitable, the narrative we hear only focuses on its dangers.

For example, dermatologists transformed themselves from an unwanted career to a coveted (and incredibly lucrative) specialty by branding themselves as cancer fighters, emphasizing the need for regular, often costly, skin cancer exams and expensive skin cancer removals. They portrayed benign cancers as deadly and blamed sunlight for skin cancer, concealing that lack of sunlight leads to fatal skin cancers.

This fear mongering hasn’t reduced skin cancer death rates but has increased harmful diagnoses and treatments even as effective and affordable treatments are hidden from the public. Many in turn have fallen victim to the Great Dermatology Scam (detailed further here).

Sunlight is free and profoundly beneficial, yet industries profiting from illness directly oppose it. In this article, I’ll explore forgotten knowledge of light’s importance and the remarkable things it does within the body.

The Overlooked Power of Sunlight

Prior to dermatology’s disastrous war on the sun, the value of sunlight was widely recognized in medicine. For example, in the early 1900s, heliotherapy (sunbathing) was used with great success for treating many (otherwise incurable) conditions, such as the 1918 influenza, tuberculosis, and many other diseases. Sunlight offers immense benefits, yet it’s often undervalued. Consider these points:

•Cancer Prevention: Sunlight exposure dramatically reduces cancer risk. A large study found that high UVB exposure halved the risk of breast and prostate cancer.

•Longevity: A meticulous 20-year study of 29,518 women showed that avoiding the sun increased the likelihood of dying by 60%. Regular sun exposure significantly reduced heart disease deaths and other common illnesses.

Note: that study also found a variety of other common diseases were much less likely to affect those with adequate sun exposure.

•Mental Health: Sunlight is crucial for mental well-being, especially in preventing depression like seasonal affective disorder. Many workers, particularly night shift employees, suffer from a lack of sunlight. For instance, a study of Chinese operating room nurses revealed worse mental health correlated with low sun exposure.

Note: During my medical internship, long night shifts under fluorescent lights led to clinical depression. After a month, I bathed in a full-spectrum light bulb and felt better almost instantly.

•Circadian Rhythm: Sunlight helps regulate circadian rhythms, which are crucial for rest and repair. Modern insomnia is often linked to artificial light exposure, and one effective treatment is starting the day with a walk in the sunlight.

What is Light?

Light is a wave of energy (termed electromagnetic radiation or EMR) that travels through space at the speed of light. Depending on the length or frequency of that wave, its properties change significantly. For instance, when its length is between 380nm-700nm, it is visible to the naked eye and spans a wide range of colors, while outside this range other types of light emerge (e.g., infrared or ultraviolet [UV] light).

As light (and other types of EMR) saturate our environment, they have many significant biological effects. Classically, those effects are seen as a product of how much energy they contain and if that energy is sufficient to ionize (break apart) the bonds that hold biological molecules apart, something seen with increasing frequency as one goes towards the gamma ray end of the spectrum.

However, this ignores that waves with much lower energy can also affect biological systems if their wavelength matches a biological structure and through resonance stores within it.

Note: a significant number of individuals are hypersensitive to microwaves and thus radar, cell phones or Wi-Fi.

Likewise, the body requires many of the unique wavelengths found in natural light, which unfortunately are absent in artificial lighting. For example, different types of UV light exist (e.g., UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C), each with unique vital functions.

Biophotons and Mitogenic Radiation

Biophysics reveals that cells emit faint ultraviolet photons to control growth and communicate. Disruptions in these biophoton transmissions can lead to disease, with abnormal emissions seen in conditions like cancer. For example, carcinogens significantly disrupt these biophotons, while non-carcinogens do not.

In 1923, Alexander Gurwitsch discovered that cells emit faint ultraviolet light, called mitogenic radiation (MGR), which induces neighboring cells to divide. This light is so faint that it wasn’t detectable until decades later with advanced photomultiplier devices.

Key insights from Gurwitsch’s research include:

• Secondary Emission: Cells exposed to MGR re-emit it, precisely matching the frequencies needed for optimal biological responses.
• Injury Response: Injured or dying cells release a brief MGR flash.
• High Emission Areas: Brain tissue, corneas, the optic nerve, active muscles, and blood emit more MGR.
• Blood Conductance: Blood vessels and energized tissues, influenced by the heart’s charge, conduct MGR efficiently.
• Aging and Healing: MGR emissions decrease with age, potentially affecting healing. Restoring MGR in older blood improved senility in early studies.

Despite its potential, MGR research has faded into obscurity. Interestingly, advanced meditators often report perceiving light within their bodies, which biophoton researchers have confirmed using sensitive instruments. This field hints at an unseen world of cellular communication and health diagnostics waiting to be explored. For example, I showed how MGR underlies many of the therapies now used in regenerative medicine here.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Unappreciated Benefits of Natural Light appeared first on LewRockwell.

Over a relatively short span of time, Robert E. Lee went from being one of the most admired figures in American history to being one of the most despised. Hatred for Lee heated up with the Charlottesville riots in 2017, then reached a boiling point in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in 2020 when angry mobs condemned Lee as a racist defender of slavery and a traitor.

Lee’s name became synonymous with white supremacy and has now been removed from military bases, schools, streets, and even Lee Chapel where he is entombed on the campus of Washington and Lee University.

But as an alumnus of W&L who has studied Lee my whole life, I know the truth about Lee, and I wanted to share his story because I think it will surprise the average reader.

Southerners should never be embarrassed for admiring Lee. We need not apologize. But given the gross misunderstandings about Lee, we do need to work harder to tell his story.

The truth is that Lee was opposed to slavery. He called it a “moral and political evil.” After the war he said that he “rejoiced” that slavery had been abolished, and that he would gladly have suffered all that he suffered and lost all that he lost in the war to see slavery abolished.

Lee was opposed to secession before the war. He held out hope to the very end that the Union could be preserved. But things changed when Lincoln announced plans to raise an army of 75,000 soldiers to invade the South and to put down the rebellion. Lincoln offered Lee command of that army, and Lee politely declined because he could not take part in an invasion of his home state of Virginia. At the time, Lee said that, if he owned all the slaves in the South, he would willingly give them up to save the Union.

Lee believed that it was his duty to defend Virginia, even though he was opposed to Virginia’s seceding. He was not motivated to defend slavery.

After the war, Lee was a leading voice for reconciliation. He worked tirelessly to restore peace and harmony between the North and South. Even though he lost everything in the war, he was not embittered.

Those are the basic facts—the truth—about Lee. But modern academics are rewriting and erasing our past. They too often weaponize history for political purposes, dividing America along the Marxist lines of oppressed and oppressor.

George Orwell understood the importance of history when he said, “Who controls the past controls the future.” And America’s past is incomplete—and greatly diminished—without Robert E. Lee.

Lee was the perfect balance of the softer character traits of humility, kindness, and piety and the more manly virtues of courage, strength, honor, and integrity. He was the man that every Southern male aspired to be, and the son that every Southern mother hoped to raise. He was the very embodiment of virtue.

America needs character, honor, and virtue now more than ever. Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

By erasing Robert E. Lee, cancel culture has erased perhaps America’s greatest example of virtue. We need heroes of noble character like Lee for our children and grandchildren to emulate. But cancel culture is systematically targeting and eliminating our heroes.

Cancel culture is all about tearing things down. It is inherently destructive. It builds nothing. It creates nothing. It only destroys. Like the Vandals who destroyed Rome, it is destroying American culture. It’s fueled by anger, bitterness, envy, and vindictiveness. It rejects the Western and Christian notions of grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. In its place, it promotes violence, terror, intimidation, intolerance, and retribution.

In the end, though, cancel culture only creates a void. Who does cancel culture propose to fill that void?

Popular culture today tends to demonize all Confederates. But not all Confederates were bad. Nor were all Union soldiers saints. Neither side had a monopoly on virtue.

The prevailing and over-simplified narrative among historians today is that the war was fought solely to end slavery. This narrative condemns Lee as a defender of slavery. But in his inaugural address, Lincoln claimed that he had no intention to end slavery. In fact, he admitted that he did not have the constitutional authority to end slavery even if he wanted to. His priority was to save the Union. And Lee’s priority was to defend Virginia.

Was Lee a traitor? If so, why was he never prosecuted for treason? Why were no Confederates—not even Jefferson Davis—ever tried for treason? Did states have the right to secede? The Constitution is silent on the subject. Southerners like Lee believed that their first loyalty was to their states, regardless of their individual views on slavery and secession.

Lee is often attacked as a symbol of the so-called Lost Cause movement that sought to glorify the Confederacy and, many claim, was used to perpetuate racial apartheid in the Jim Crow South. The lynchings, segregation, and racism of the old South occurred decades after Lee had died, and Lee had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. As someone who has studied Lee exhaustively, I can say with absolute certainty that Lee would have rejected white supremacy and cannot be blamed for things that happened so many years after his death.

Lee’s final years at Washington College were arguably his finest. Although he had lost everything and suffered immeasurably, he was not embittered. He carried on with dignity and grace. He often quoted Marcus Aurelius’ meditation, “Misfortune nobly borne is good fortune.” He bore his misfortune with remarkable nobility, and his good fortune today is that we continue to celebrate his enduring legacy.

My hope is that Lee’s example of honor and character can and will be resurrected to inspire future generations of Americans the same way it inspired me.

The post The Truth About Robert E. Lee appeared first on LewRockwell.

“To think that we grasp the fullness of life is to say that by holding a mere drop of water in our hands we are able to understand the immensity of the ocean.”

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Please excuse today’s change of pace, my drifting away from the excrement called ‘news, and ‘reporting’ that consumes our lives every day, and stepping into the philosophical realm in order to hopefully mellow the mood for just a few minutes in an attempt to expand horizons. I know it is useful for me, and hope some may learn to fly into the unknown instead of crawling into a future dystopia.

After so many years of wonder, travel, research, study, and constant observation, I have come to the conclusion that humanity in general, lives and breathes in a state of isolated perception so acute, as to go through life in near blindness to reality. They have eyes but they do not see. This is akin to a myopic state of being so intense as to block out everything other than the most infinitesimal minutia necessary in order to survive without the use of critical thought; especially thinking that would encompass the seeking of true wisdom that could result in a prolonged or far-reaching awareness. This could be described as a lack of individual consciousness. This mindset is not just dependent on ignorance or stupidity, even though it is most definitely enhanced by it, but since this attitude is so prevalent among the many, it must be an inherent trait, or at least has been planted in the psyche of the masses since birth.

This perspective held by the great unwashed, as well as many others who might attempt (unsuccessfully) to identify as ‘elites,’ is not only dependent upon a complete lack of curiosity, but no desire to reach a higher state of being. If ever any ‘attention deficit’ was evident, it is in this world today. This is obviously being enhanced by rule, limited ability to find answers, indoctrination, censorship, propaganda, things like the ‘covid’ scam, medical poisoning, and mass division, all manipulated by politicians, government, religion, and the media. The result has been collective insanity, instead of individual awakening. As should be known by all, individuals constantly search for truth, while the herd (groups, political parties, religious affiliations, etc.) search for nothing other than crowd acceptance. The former brings enlightenment, while the latter brings dark emptiness.

The survival of man, his quest for knowledge, and his desire for freedom, are dependent on coming to his own conclusions, making up his own mind, reaching for the stars, and never bowing to authority. We live in a world with infinite possibilities, but most act in such a manner as if they were trapped in a bubble, never venturing into the unknown. The normal attitude today is one of total indifference and collective ignorance, just as the universal and voluntary masking of societies these past few years exposed the willing mental and physical imprisonment that now consumes the minds of men. This was the pathetic realization that mankind had sunk to the lowest level of existence necessary in order to be guided into a myopic prison.

It is as if all are handcuffed and caged, and locked into a world they did not choose, but are afraid to leave in order to explore the limitless universe before them in order to find themselves. This could be due to cultural norms, religion, ethnicity, family pressure, nationalistic insanity, or simply due to fear of the truth and the responsibility required to accept it. Concerning religion, as David Icke so eloquently articulated recently, if one was born in the deep South, he would likely be Christian, if born in Italy, he would probably be Roman Catholic, if born in the Middle East, Muslim, or if born in India, likely Hindu. But if you were born into any of these societies, or vice versa, you would likely have been something completely different. In other words, you were impacted by outside influence, you did not choose where you were born, and into which belief system, if any, you were bound by your environment. It likely was simply chance and pressure, not that you got there due to your own unbiased searching and determination.

Why not escape the chains of culture, nationalistic status, religion, State oppression, and collective pressure, and decide all things in life as an individual with a free and open mind? What doors could be opened if we all were able to experience the lives of others, their trials and tribulations, their cultures, their love, their hate, and their fears, and they ours? What if you had been born in their world and they in yours? How much would we and the world change if we all understood each other from a much broader perspective, and therefore were not prejudiced just from our tiny world experiences?

Why not accept the challenge of expanding your world, of searching for real truth, of making up your own mind instead of being influenced from outside, of seeking knowledge, of becoming free, not by asking permission, but by taking your freedom? Why not step out of the dark of enslavement and into the light of self-ownership and intellectual growth?

Myopia is like living your life as if you were never able to see anything outside the view of a microscope. That makes for a very small world, and one in which you miss all the wonder and knowledge of life, while you are trapped in a cavern of ignorance.

There is so much to learn, so much to see, so much to experience, and so much beauty, if one simply steps out of this matrix of madness and into a world without restriction of the mind and body; causing an awakening of consciousness not dulled or impeded by any outside domineering or authoritative entity. In order to break the chains of tyranny and ignorance, one must first escape the prison built around them since birth. Open your mind, question everything, Improve and believe in self, and good things will come.

The post It Seems Certain That the Bulk of Humanity Lives in a Myopic State of Being appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s now been nearly 35 years since E.L. Jones first published his watershed book The European Miracle. Jones’s history of Europe’s economic development examined the reasons why Europe—a comparatively poor and backward part of the world in the Middle Ages—somehow became the wealthiest and most productive place on earth in the nineteenth century. The fundamental question remains: why did Europe surpass other civilizations1such as Islam and China—which had once been much richer than the west?

According to Jones, a major factor in Europe’s drive to economic prominence was the high degree of economic freedom. As Jones puts it: “Economic development in its European form required above all freedom from arbitrary political acts concerning private property.” Or, as historian Ralph Raico concluded, Europe’s industrialization was closely connected to the fact that “the economy achieved a degree of autonomy unknown elsewhere in the world except for brief periods.”

This, of course, raises the question of why Europeans enjoyed higher levels of economic freedom. As Raico shows in his work on late antiquity and the Middle Ages, Europe’s political institutions were different from anywhere else, thanks largely to the unique position of the Western Church as a rival and competitor against the civil power. Consequently, no single state or polity was able to consolidate power across the region. Ongoing rivalries between the Church, various kings, and countless private “corporate” organizations further solidified a decentralized political structure in which various groups jealously guarded their property and economic interests from the grasping hands of princes and legislators.

But there’s even more to it than that. Another institution at the core of the story of the European miracle is the family, and specifically the European nuclear family. We find that specific European factors led to growing numbers of nuclear families which, in turn, supported the rise of Europe’s private “corporate” organizations that fueled Europe’s ecosystem of decentralized, diverse, and private organizations.

The Historical Origins of the Nuclear Family

One notable characteristic of Western Europe after the Early Middle Ages is an unusually high proportion of nuclear families. Outside Western Europe, so-called “stem families” and “joint families” were more common. In these two family types, grown children and elderly adults more commonly lived together, and the creation of new households was less common than in areas with nuclear families. In joint families, large extended families could be found living together in close proximity or even on a single estate.(One variation of this model is the Roman ideal of the “pater familias.”)

In the case of stem families, most of the grown children leave to start new households while one of the children—often the oldest son—remained living with the elderly parents in anticipation of inheriting the parent’s land or business.

The historical extended families, and the clan structures that accompanied them, went into relative decline during the Middle Ages in Europe. The resulting rise in prevalence of nuclear families appears to have been encouraged by economic factors and also by religious factors tied to the Catholic Church.

According to economic historian Avner Greif, the Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages “instituted marriage laws and practices that undermined kinship groups.” Polygamy, concubinage, divorce and remarriage we all discouraged, and this worked to limit the overall size of families. Moreover, the Church restricted “consanguineous” marriages—generally marriages among first cousins or other close relatives. The Church also required that women explicitly consent to their marriages. These latter two factors did much to curtail the power of patriarchs and patriarchs of large families who might seek to consolidate their power through arranged marriages and marriages among cousins.

Over time, this all encouraged a proliferation of nuclear families, and Greif notes

By the late medieval period … the nuclear family was dominant. Even among the Germanic tribes, by the eighth century the term “family” denoted one’s immediate family and, shortly afterwards, tribes were no longer institutionally relevant.

The Rise of the Corporations

This created a need for new organizations to replace the old services offered by extended families. That is, individual nuclear families are generally unable to provide their own means of settling disputes and fostering economic exchange beyond the immediate family.1 Clans and tribes often provide these resources. So, in order to replace what had once been offered by family networks, groups of families participated in the creation of “corporations.”

These were not the corporations we today associate with joint-stock companies. These organizations were “voluntary, interest-based, self-governed, and intentionally created permanent associations. In many cases, they were self-organized and not established by the state.” These included the Church itself, but also monastic orders, universities, the Italian city-states, urban communes, militias, and merchant guilds. All actively sought to protect their own commercial interests in Europe’s various legal institutions.

Moreover, whatever their provenance, these corporations tended to think of their own interests as distinct from the interests of the prince or civil power. The corporations thus acted as yet another institutional brake on state power. As Raico shows, Europe’s decentralized political power—and the accompanying protections for private property—grew out of complex legal environment of contracts, rights, and other legal considerations forced upon princes and civil authorities by the demands of these corporate groups. Thus, Europe came to be home to political and legal philosophies respecting the idea of “mine and thine” rather than the idea that all belongs to the prince or the collective.

Other Factors

Of course, the rise of nuclear families was not only the result of Church reforms. Economic and ideological factors were significant as well. Greif notes that Europeans were more accepting of relatively high levels of individualism—which he claims stemmed from earlier Greek, Roman, and Germanic ideals.

Economic realities also affected the shift in family types.

The Black Death was one factor. As one pair of historians put it in 2013, “By killing between a third and half of the European population, it [the Black Plague] raised land-labor ratios.” Moreover, Christopher Dyer notes “Unskilled workers’ wages rose more rapidly than those of the skilled after 1349, a sure indication of a labour shortage…” It thus became easier to create new, economically viable household under these conditions.

By the sixteenth century, wages were also rising due to increases in urbanization, new forms of wage work, and new economic opportunities that came with proto-industrialization.

Rising economic opportunities did not, however, erase the desire among nuclear family groups to further pursue economic and social opportunities through corporations that provided critical services to member families. Over the long term, as Greif concludes, these corporations contributed to the economic growth of Europe by streamlining greater economic exchange, developing a reliable legal framework, and by fostering trust among non-kin groups. These benefits accrued to Europeans also in how the corporations limited state power—a key factor in the European miracle, according to Jones.

The Decline of the Corporations

Unfortunately, the rise of new political ideologies and movements in Europe eventually destroyed many independent, non-state corporations while bringing many others under the control of states. Mercantilism, absolutism, and nationalism, for instance, all weakened or destroyed the non-state corporations by promoting the consolidation of state power. As Murray Rothbard notes about the rise of the French absolutist state:

The sixteenth century French legalists also systematically tore down the legal rights of all corporations or organizations which, in the Middle Ages, had stood between the individual and the state. There were no longer any intermediary or feudal authorities. The king is absolute over these intermediaries, and makes or breaks them at will. Thus, as one historian sums up Chasseneux’s view: “All jurisdiction, said Chasseneux, pertains to the supreme authority of the prince; no man may have jurisdiction except through the ruler’s concession and permission. The authority to create magistrates thus belongs to the prince alone; all offices and dignities flow and are derived from him as from a fountain.”

By the late nineteenth century, the free corporations—once tools of the rising tide of nuclear families in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period—had become essentially adjuncts of states.

Nonetheless, by then, Europeans for centuries had benefited from the economic growth and political decentralization fostered by these organizations. Even today, we continue to benefit from their important contributions to the European miracle.

—-

1

Some historians who subscribe to the “nuclear hardship hypothesis”—such as Peter Laslett—have suggested that the rise of nuclear families created more economic hardship, and that nuclear families were forced to turn to some form of outside assistance. Laslett contended that nuclear families were forced to turn to early states to provide this assistance, although it can be argued that in some cases, the corporations provided these safety nets.  Other historians, such as Jan Luiten, believe the data shows no increase in hardship from the rise of nuclear families. See more: https://academic.oup.com/book/27038/chapter-abstract/196324046?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post The Rise of the Western Nuclear Family and the “European Miracle” appeared first on LewRockwell.

Recently, our beloved migrants- of untold numbers from all over the world, have been in the forefront of the news. Well, when I say all over the world, I should emphasize it’s the nonwhite world. That’s an integral feature of this ugly phenomenon. And it’s more essential to the Great Replacement than Affirmative Action ever was.

First, we heard about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment buildings in Chicago. The police were said to be oddly disinterested, as were the local authorities. A mayor called it “fake news.” In response to yet another apartment building takeover in Aurora, Colorado, there were rumors that the Hell’s Angels, of all people, were going to ride to the rescue and do the job American police wouldn’t. But as must see TV as that would have been, a battle between outlaw bikers and U.S. government sponsored migrants never transpired. The fact checkers told us that there was “no evidence” that the Hell’s Angels were going to be involved. And no one stepped forth from the Hell’s Angels to address the issue. I guess the Hell’s Angels don’t do PR. Are the Hell’s Angels the White Hats QAnon keeps hyping, instead of thugs who rev their engines unnecessarily in an attempt to intimidate people?

The “Woke” establishment, not surprisingly, insisted that Venezuelan gangs weren’t taking over apartment buildings anywhere. That was a “racist” slur on the good name of Venezuelan gangsters, who are known the world over for their civility and charitable works. We saw videos of men in masks, wielding assault weapons, in the halls of some building. Were they actually from Venezuela? Were they recent arrivals, or immigrants who’ve been illegally enjoying their stay here for years? Were they gang members, or merely violent criminals unaffiliated with a gang? They could have been crisis actors, hired to further terrify a public that has demonstrated it will unquestioningly obey any authorities if subjected to enough fear porn. At any rate, whatever it was, the Venezuelan problem has receded into the background. There proved to be bigger migrant fish to fry. Or more accurately, bigger dogs and cats.

For typically unfathomable reasons, our illustrious leaders have permitted some 20,000 Haitian refugees to flood the town of Springfield, Ohio in the last four years alone. One Haitian who was driving illegally caused the death of a child in a crash with a school bus. City residents were understandably outraged. City officials, and our impotent immigration authorities, weren’t. Haitian flags have popped up all over Springfield, including one raised at a flag day celebration at city hill. Incredibly, the American flag wasn’t raised in the same celebration. The Haitian flag, the LGBTQ+ flag, the Israeli flag, the Ukrainian flag- any flag will do as long as it can’t be associated with dead White Betsy Ross. Raising a foreign flag over your city hall? Isn’t that a sign of occupied territory? Have city officials literally surrendered? Why are they referred to as “refugees?” What exactly are they refugees from?

And apparently, the family of the eleven year old Ohio boy, killed by one of these indispensable Haitian migrants, was upset enough to speak before the City Commission. Not at the Haitian who killed their precious child. Not at the government condoning and promoting such a suicidal immigration policy. No, they were upset at Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, for using their son as a “political tool.” “This needs to stop now. I will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies,” the father declared during the Commission’s public comment period. He sounded like a state controlled “journalist” when he belittled the accounts of Haitians eating pets. So the child’s parents support this insane agenda? Which cost their son his life? As a parent myself, their attitude is incomprehensible. He even said “I wish a 60 year old White man had killed my son.” Is it any wonder why some people talk about hoaxes?

But while the death of a child was as tragic as it gets, things didn’t reach a critical mass until there were widespread reports of Haitians eating dogs and cats. Cutting the heads off ducks and eating them in public parks. You know, simple homespun American traditions. And we thought Hispanics weren’t assimilating by refusing to learn English, throwing their trash in the streets, and urinating in public. The Haitians aren’t about to learn English, either, by the way. So from the legendary land of voodoo and zombies, we are now being culturally enriched even further, by having our pets abducted and eaten. Yes, I know the city manager denied this. Would you expect someone who allowed a foreign flag to fly over his city hall to admit that pets were being eaten by these lovable migrants? And the fact checkers all assure us that there is “no evidence” Haitians eat dogs and cats, especially American dogs and cats.

You’d think that, with all the dog and cat lovers in America 2.0, there would be considerable anger over these reports. Particularly from the rapidly growing Cat Lady community. But all we got was a picture of Taylor Swift on social media, lovingly holding a cat. This was supposed to “debunk” all those crazy “racist” stories about Haitians eating pets. See- Taylor Swift’s cat looks happy! So it’s all just Russian propaganda! Promulgated by Vladimir Putin, who oddly has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. It’s a Russia, Russia, Russia thing, you wouldn’t understand. And now Taylor Swift has joined comrade Putin in endorsing Harris. Americans were absolutely shocked to hear this. Who could have predicted that a vapid Hollywood celebrity would be endorsing a Democrat? Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has verified the Haitian pet eating allegations. He’s probably a Russian asset.

But it’s not just Taylor Swift’s cat- Linda Ronstadt’s cat is safe and well, too! Ronstadt ranted against Trump’s “hate show” on Instagram. Representing all dog owners, Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac fame posted a photo of her and her pet, signed “Childless Dog Lady.” It’s disillusioning to know just how airheaded the musical acts I enjoyed as a youth really are. Bruce Springsteen has toured with Barack Obama. Imagine if The Beach Boys had toured with LBJ. It just wouldn’t have been the same. J.D. Vance created a monster with his “childless cat lady” comment. Now all the many childless celebrities are coming out of the closet, and celebrating their childlessness. It’s like another #MeToo movement. Whatever happened to the #MeToo movement, by the way? I guess if you’re an aging entertainer, you try to stay relevant. But they’re going to have to commit me if Elvis Costello comes out and says Oswald did it.

Both Black and White residents of Springfield, Ohio, have angrily testified to seeing Haitians decapitating cats in public. Somebody tell ABC News. Maybe this whole “Cat Lady” thing has been severely exaggerated. What about the kittens! This is really just an extension of Santeria, which is a Latino bastardization of Catholicism. It involves animal sacrifice. The “racist” authorities permit it because migrants have freedom of religion, too. The recently passed Antisemitism Awareness Act suggests that freedom of religion ends when certain passages in the New Testament are quoted. Maybe the “anti-Semites” ought to start sacrificing animals, too. We’ve all heard that dogs taste like chicken. For some of us, there are laws against abusing, let alone killing and eating, household pets. But not for illegal nonwhite migrants? Some animal abuse is more equal than others.

I haven’t heard any concerns expressed by the ASCPA, or any other group advocating on behalf of animals. We know that while women’s groups have never once been upset over the endless allegations of sexual assault on females by professional athletes, they did become apoplectic when former player Michael Vick was revealed to have conducted an illegal dog fighting ring. So they don’t really care about current player Tyreek Hill, who has a criminal record Al Capone would be envious of, including punching his pregnant baby mama in the stomach, and breaking his little boy’s arm. Instead, they believe the cops used excessive force on him last Sunday, when they pulled him out of a car after he was clocked going over 100 mph. They could have hindered his ability to ever assault any pregnant woman or small boy again. Tyreek Hill is a victim of systemic racism. Say his name!

Maybe if the Haitians are proven to have organized dog fighting matches, and recruited Michael Vick as special consultant, then a bunch of angry animal lovers might be motivated to protest. But while Vick was just another Black football player, easily replaced by the continuous Affirmative Action products masquerading as “students” at our institutions of higher learning, 20,000 or more Haitians is another problem altogether. How do you address the issues caused by just these 20,000 illegals, if there was widespread cases of dog and cat napping, and even instances of barbequing them in front of their terrified owners? Lots of dead and living “White Supremacists” laid the groundwork for this untenable situation. This is what they expected, and what they wanted. And obviously, the current leaders in Springfield, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and everywhere else in this collapsing country, want it too.

Read the Whole Article

The post Night of the Living Refugees appeared first on LewRockwell.

No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision. They are turning on their own people in order to prevent protest at a genocide they actively support.

Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on opponents of Zionist genocide on Thursday with the arrest of journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

The UK MSM has of course ignored these, but is universally carrying outrage at the conviction of two Hong Kong activists for sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of … 2 years.

But they tell us it is China and not the UK which is the authoritarian dictatorship.

(To be plain, I do view the Hong Kong convictions as also an unwarranted interference with free speech. I merely point out the incredible hypocrisy of the British Establishment and far worse laws here).

Richard Barnard has been charged and will face trial, apparently related to public speeches supporting the Palestinian right to armed resistance.

Sarah Wilkinson was released on bail after about 14 hours. Like the recent arrest and bailing of Richard Medhurst, the arrest and bailing is a device to chill her reporting and activism.

The harassment of dissident journalists at ports, using the extensive powers of the Terrorism Act for questioning and confiscation of communications equipment, has become routine. I myself suffered detention, interrogation and confiscation of equipment for “terrorism” last October.

But the Sarah Wilkinson case is an escalation, in that this is a raid on a journalist whose home was invaded by 16 policemen at 7.30am, while she was arrested and taken to the police station as her home was comprehensively turned over, presumably looking for gunmen under the bed.

More details of the raid have come out which are scarcely believable. Armed counter-terrorism police wearing balaclavas were used against a peaceful, female journalist. She was manhandled and physically hurt. The ashes in her mother’s funerary urn were desecrated in a “search”. And Sarah’s bail conditions include that she may not use a computer or mobile telephone.

It is a fascist government that sends 16 police to bust a peaceful journalist at home at 7.30am.

Like the stopping of Richard Medhurst’s plane on the tarmac by police vehicles and his being dragged from the plane (which had just landed and was en route to the gate anyway) this is an authoritarian theatre of intimidation, a Nazi stamping of the violence of the state.

Richard Barnard is a co-founder of the brilliant Palestine Action, which has done so much to disrupt the Israeli arms industry in the UK as it continues to send vital equipment to carry out the mass destruction of civilians in Gaza.

BREAKING: After a targeted campaign by the zionist lobby, Palestine Action’s co-founder Richard Barnard is facing three charges for two speeches.

He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and encouraging ‘criminal activity’. pic.twitter.com/cWq0qwk15v

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 29, 2024

Richard has been charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act over two speeches he made supporting the Palestinian resistance.

I have of course said this before, but it bears repeating:

Palestine has the legitimate right of self-defence against the illegal occupation.
The occupying power Israel has no right of self-defence. That is the plain position in international law.

Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full-throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated.

IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences.

Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance.

The state’s actions against activists have been ramped up – as I predicted – since Starmer came to power.

Five young activists in Glasgow were ten days ago given sentences ranging from 12 months to 24 months in prison for direct action against Thales weapons plant in Govan, which makes parts for Israel’s Watchkeeper drones, widely used against civilians in Gaza.

The sentences from Sheriff Judge McCormick were savage – far higher than would normally be given on the specified charges, which were of breach of the peace, vandalism, disorderly conduct and acting in an abusive manner.

These normally would attract at most a suspended sentence on a first offence. McCormick also ignored the Scottish government guidelines not to give custodial sentences of 24 months or less but to seek alternatives.

More tellingly, McCormick completely ignored the elephant in the room: the genocide in Gaza, which Thales are supplying.

(The fact the action occurred before the genocide should be properly viewed as a commendable act of prescience.)

The Zionist Starmerite Establishment were quick to crow over the jailing – notably Luke Akehurst and John Woodcock (who is laughably called Lord Walney nowadays and is the Government Adviser on political violence) who said “Activists considering breaking the law to get their way need to see there will be consequences”.

This follows similarly harsh sentencing of climate change activists, including those who merely took part in Zoom calls discussing direct action.

The authoritarian reaction of the threatened Zionist ruling class is a worldwide phenomenon. Redoubtable Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has been ludicrously charged under hate speech laws for retweeting mainstream pro-Palestinian tweets.

American activist Professor Danny Shaw was turned over by the FBI on return to the USA following a trip which included speaking on a panel alongside me at the Palestine International Film Festival.

Also in the United States my friend Scott Ritter has been raided by the FBI and all his electronics and other materials confiscated.

Read the Whole Article

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UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the man who as the UK’s Chief Prosecutor made the decisions to prosecute and imprison and keep in prison Julian Assange, is now on September 13th visiting the White House in order to persuade U.S. President Joe Biden to enable Ukraine to use NATO missiles to strike deep inside Russia, including The Kremlin, which is less than 317 miles from Ukraine’s border.

On September 12th, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had issued the following warning about this potential decision:

(see here the video of him saying it with subscripts in English, but below is the English transcript)

http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75092

Answer to a question from a media representative

After his speech at the plenary session of the United Cultures Forum, Vladimir Putin answered a question from a media representative.

September 12, 2024 18:55 Saint Petersburg

Question: Over the last few days, we have seen and heard how at a very high level in Great Britain and the United States, the topic has been discussed that the Kiev regime will be able to strike deep into Russian territory with long-range Western weapons. And, apparently, this decision is either about to be made, or, apparently, has already been made. This is, of course, an extraordinary thing. I wanted to ask you to comment on what is happening.

V. Putin: There is an attempt to substitute concepts. Because we are not talking about allowing or prohibiting the Kiev regime from striking Russian territory. It is already striking with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But when we are talking about using high-precision long-range weapons of Western manufacture, it is a completely different story.

The thing is – I have already spoken about this, and any experts will confirm this both here and in the West – the Ukrainian army is not capable of delivering strikes with modern high-precision long-range systems of Western manufacture. It cannot do this. This is only possible using intelligence data from satellites, which Ukraine does not have, this data is only from satellites of either the European Union or the United States – in general, from NATO satellites. This is the first thing.

The second and very important, perhaps the key, is that flight assignments for these missile systems can, in fact, only be entered by NATO military personnel. Ukrainian military personnel cannot do this.

So it’s not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It’s a question of deciding whether NATO countries are directly involved in a military conflict or not.

If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation, and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.

This will mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries are fighting with Russia. And if this is so, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us.

Reprinted with permission from Eric’s Substack.

The post Biden Might Decide Today Whether To Initiate WW3 Against Russia. appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gilbert Doctorow, a cautious commentator, has arrived at a position similar to my own. On September 10, Doctorow wrote in his article, “The insane recklessness of Collective Biden,” that “I cannot say how close we are to midnight on the nuclear war watch. But a Third World War fought at least initially with conventional weapons is now just days, at most weeks away.”

What has pushed the cautious Dr. Doctorow to my position “is the near certainty that the United States and Britain have just agreed to give the Zelensky regime permission to use the long-range missiles which have been delivered to Ukraine, certainly including Storm Shadow and likely also the 1500 km range stealth missile known as JASSM to strike deep into the Russian heartland, and so ‘to bring the war to Russia’ as the Zelensky gang put it.”

Doctorow reasons that Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s army has prompted the neoconned Biden regime into one last desperate and reckless act of trying to deprive Russia of its victory “by escalating the conflict to a world war.”

Simultaneously with this US idiocy of underwriting missile attacks deep into Russia, Doctorow believes that “the United States has given Israel the go-ahead to launch a full-blown war on Lebanon.” This despite the fact that Lebanon has Iran’s protection, and Iran has Russia’s protection.

So, we have at hand two prospects for the outbreak of major wars that will go nuclear.

Extraordinary, isn’t it, that there is no discussion whatsoever of this duel crisis in the Western media or in the “debate” between Trump and Kamala. It is as if the US has no foreign policy experts and no Russian experts, but only supporters of the official narrative. The controlled narrative world in which we live makes us blind to reality.

Indeed, it does seem that we do live in The Matrix in which there are no explanations other than the fraudulent ones protected by “fact checkers” in the official narratives.

Doctorow concludes that “a presently localized conflict in the Middle East can in a flash become a regional war that in a further flash becomes a second front to the war between the United States and Russia which I foretold above when speaking about Ukraine.”

Doctorow is a person with whom I can agree.

But I have a doubt. Just as for eight years Putin was lost in his delusion about the Minsk Agreement and failed to prepare for the coming conflict, and just as Putin seems yet to realize that he is at war with NATO, not conducting a “limited military operation in Donbas,” and just as Putin has refused to realize that by conducting a never-ending war he has permitted the West to become totally involved, thus changing the character of the conflict and vastly expanding it, can it be that Putin is still in denial of reality and does not see the war that is unfolding, partly because of his own inaction?

With the Russian media itself reporting that the Chinese are cooperating with Washington’s sanctions against Russia and refusing to handle Russian/Chinese financial transactions, thus accepting Washington’s wedge into the purported Chinese-Russian alliance, perhaps Washington will prevail over those who challenged the American hegemonic order but were unwilling to move forward with their challenge.

Putin’s problem is that he is a mid-20th century American liberal who believes in good will. His Western opponent is operating on the Marxist principle that violence is the only effective force in history.

The post War Is Upon Us or Will Putin Blink Again appeared first on LewRockwell.

Britain’s Labour government is vulnerable to a public backlash because of its blatant duplicity.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a landslide election in July with the slogan “a new deal for working people”.

Already the electioneering can be seen as a sham. This week, the Labour government won a majority vote in the House of Commons to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners. Around 10 million senior citizens will no longer receive a financial grant to help them pay soaring energy bills and keep their houses warm this winter.

The energy crisis for households in Britain and across Europe is a result of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the cutting off of Russia’s abundant gas and oil supplies to the continent. The Biden administration ordered the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. That was in September 2022. The best way to end the energy crisis for European households would be to stop the war, make peace, and return to normal relations. But the new Labour government is having none of that common sense. It is eagerly fueling the proxy war as much as the Conservatives before it, and what’s more now making the poor of Britain pay for the warmongering.

Prime Minister Starmer told angry unions and workers that he would make no apology for the winter fuel payment cut. His ministers are claiming they have “no choice” but to repair a “£22 billion blackhole” in public finances gutted by the predecessor Conservatives.

Starmer’s Labour is warning that more “tough choices” are coming in the coming weeks, meaning that working people and low-income families are going to face more economic austerity. So much for a democratic change from the hated Tories and the supposed “new deal for workers”.

The warped priorities of this government (as with the previous one) can seen from the promises to boost spending on Britain’s military. Starmer has vowed to uphold a commitment to increase Britain’s “defense” budget from £54.2 bn (€64 bn, $74.7 bn) a year to £57.1 bn. That represents a 4.5 percent increase.

Under Starmer, Britain will continue to donate billions of public money to the Kiev regime.

This week, while the Labour government was voting to cut winter welfare for pensioners, the British foreign minister David Lammy traveled to Kiev alongside the U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, where they assured the Ukrainian regime that they would deliver more weapons, hinting at ending restrictions on long-range missiles to hit deep inside Russia.

Meanwhile, Britain’s defense minister John Healey will be in Ramstein, Germany, this week to meet with other military chiefs of the so-called Ukraine Contact Group. Healey, who calls himself “Mr Ukraine”, is to unveil another British military aid package of multi-role missiles worth £162 million. Healey is very much a deep-state figure inside the Labour government. This means a continuity in foreign policy despite the name change in Downing Street.

To date, since the eruption of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, Britain has doled out £12.5 bn (€14.7 bn) in military aid to the Kiev regime, including the training of up to 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

Britain is the third-biggest military aid donor to Ukraine after the United States and Germany.

Starmer’s new Labour government is showing itself every bit as committed to funding the proxy war against Russia as its Conservative predecessor was.

Just three days after the general election on July 4, the new defense minister, John Healey, made his first overseas visit to Ukraine on July 7. Healey vowed to continue Britain’s support.

So while the Labour government claims that it has “no choice” but to slash public spending at home, it unquestioningly keeps spending on militarism at home and abroad.

This is a matter of political choice. If a Labour government were to genuinely prioritize the needs of working people, it could find the finances easily by cutting Britain’s excessive military budget and the largesse it bestows on a NeoNazi regime and the reckless proxy war against Russia that could escalate into a nuclear conflagration.

The insulting deception of Labour’s “new deal” means that Starmer’s government will require close shepherding, just in case it wobbles from the inevitable public backlash.

The vote this week to axe winter fuel payments to elderly citizens has sparked fury among the wider population. The anger will grow as more austerity measures against citizens kick in and while the proxy war in Ukraine continues to receive endless support with British public money.

It seems no coincidence that this week Britain’s Starmer is to visit the White House. The visit by Blinken to London and thence to Kiev alongside his British counterpart, as well as the Ramstein meeting for UK defense chief Healey, all suggest that a close eye is being kept on Downing Street to ensure that it does not get any notions about “serving the people”.

To that end too, it seems significant that the former Conservative defense minister Ben Wallace has taken to whipping up public fears of Russia.

Wallace wrote a recent oped in the Daily Telegraph in which he claimed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin “will soon turn his war machine on Britain”.

The article was reported in several other British media outlets. The same fear-mongering has been echoed by the new head of Britain’s armed forces, General Sir Roly Walker, who warned that the United Kingdom could be in an all-out war with Russia in the next three years.

Wallace, who is a cipher for Britain’s deep state, claimed that “Britain is in Putin’s cross-hairs”. He added: “Make no mistake, Putin is coming for us… we must be prepared for the inevitable.”

The hysteria from Britain’s ruling class is of course cringe-making. These claims about Russia’s malign intent and comparing Putin with Hitler are completely bereft of any historical facts, such as NATO expansionism and the weaponizing of a Nazi-adulating regime in Ukraine to provoke Russia.

Russian leaders have repeatedly said they have no intention of attacking any NATO nations. They say their involvement in Ukraine is a special operation to neutralize NATO threats to Russia’s national security.

Sooner or later, the British and Western public are going to demand accountability from their governments on why such huge finances are being ladled into promoting a highly dangerous conflict with Russia.

Britain’s Labour government is vulnerable to a public backlash because of its blatant duplicity.

That would explain the close attention from Washington to London’s policy, ensuring Starmer keeps toeing the line of NATO’s hostility to Moscow. British deep state assets like Ben Wallace also need to keep writing scare stories to frighten the public away from common sense criticism of London’s deranged warmongering and betrayal of working people.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post British Labour’s Raw Deal for Working People appeared first on LewRockwell.

Pope Francis today told young people of different faiths that “every religion is a way to arrive at God.”

Addressing an inter-religious meeting of young people in Singapore just before departing for his return flight to Rome, Pope Francis turned to one of the central themes of his pontificate – inter-religious dialogue.

“One of the things that struck me about all of you here is your ability to engage in inter-religious dialogue, and this is very important,” he told the crowd, assembled in Singapore’s Catholic Junior College.

Notwithstanding any comments to the contrary, the Catholic Church has consistently and clearly taught that it is the only true Church, the Body of Christ (Eph 1:22), and it exercises the charge given by Christ to spread the Gospel to all nations and to bring souls into the Church (Mark 16).

‘Every religion’ reaches God

Leaving aside his prepared speech and speaking without a script {transcript subsequently published here}, Francis instead spoke chiefly on dialogue between religions, having just taken questions from a Catholic, a Sikh, and a Hindu.

NEW: #PopeFrancis on inter-religious dialogue:
“Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God but God is God for all.
But my God is more important than your god, is that true?
There is only 1 God & each of has a language to arrive at… pic.twitter.com/TMHRDjEuJ9

— Michael Haynes (@MLJHaynes) September 13, 2024

The meeting’s widely varied mix of creeds represents Singapore’s status as one of the most diverse religious nations in the world. Focusing on this, Francis urged that no religion be given priority but that individuals instead focus on parity between beliefs:

If we start to fight amongst ourselves and say “my religion is more important than yours, my religion is true, yours is not,” where will that lead us? Where?

It’s okay to discuss [between religions].

Continuing, the Pope declared that each religion is a means to attain God, stating:

Every religion is a way to arrive at God. There are different languages to arrive at God, but God is God for all. And how is God God for all? We are all sons and daughters of God. But my god is more important than your god, is that true?

There is only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, they are different paths.

The Pope’s words were warmly welcomed by those present in the hall, which included leaders and representatives of Singapore’s many religious bodies and the large papal retinue.

Courage to pursue religious harmony

Francis also dedicated time warning of the dangers of “bullying” and urging young people to have “courage” to move forward in inter-religious dialogue.

In order to have inter-religious dialogue between youth it takes courage, because youth is really the time when there is courage in our lives. But you can also have this courage and use it for things that really don’t help you, or you can use that courage to move forward and engage in dialogue.

Engaging in a discussion with the selected young people on the stage about the evils of bullying, Francis urged that to “move past” differences “helps with inter-religious dialogue.”

“You can build and move forward with inter-religious dialogue when you respect each other, and this is very important.”

He encouraged them to build a “safe space” where they could discuss their differences without fear of bullying. “Because dialogue is something that creates a path, a way,” Francis said.

He closed the meeting by calling on all present to “pray for each other” in silence. The Pope did not give a formal blessing – echoing his actions in Indonesia – but instead vocally called for God’s blessings on those present:

Let’s pray for each other … May God bless all of us. And as time passes and you become older, especially as you become grandparents, pass this on to the children and grandchildren.

God bless you and pray for me, but pray in favor, not against [me].

Following the conclusion of Francis’ comments, the young people assembled made an inter-religious pledge, committing to promote religious dialogue and harmony:

We the future generation pledge to be a beacon of unity and hope by promoting cooperation and friendships that nurture the harmonious co-existence between people of diverse beliefs.

Speaking to a similar inter-religious gathering of youth in Indonesia only last week, Francis said “Here, you are from diverse religions, but we have only one God, He is only one.”

Read the Whole Article

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