Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 356
October 13, 2023
Putin leads World majority away from Schwab’s global elite’s plans to hijack power in worldwide Coup
By James Tweedie and Ekaterina Blinova
The Freeonline
The moment of truth has come, according to Putin, and the global elite’s plans for a New World Order are receding in front of our eyes while a new multipolar world, in which traditional cultures retain their heritage within their own borders, is rising like a phoenix.
Translations of Putin’s speeches at the Valdai debates in Sochi show he is no longer supports The WEF ‘World Coup d’Etat for the Rich ‘led by geriatric dictator Klaus Schwab.
Western “fact checkers” deny that Putin said in so many words that World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab is a “globalist terrorist” who is “holding humanity to ransom” but in any case the meaning of his arguments are crystal clear.
Schwab, author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution and COVID-19: The Great Reset, has controlled the WEF since its founding in 1971. Putin’s move against his ‘Great Reset’ conspiracy is clearly supported by Russian diplomatic and media sources, and feeds into worldwide concerns at western sanctions, monetary blackmail and the Covid scandal.
“82 year 0ld Klaus has been at the helm of the WEF for 52 years but like Biden he suffers lapses and confusion”.
“Klaus has surrounded himself with such a group of nobodies at the top that it’s hard to see how any of them could be taken seriously,he will die without his boots on and the WEF may fall apart” according to insider whistleblowers (Sputnik)..
“He is completely unaccountable to anyone inside and outside the organisation.”
Indeed, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is one of the names reportedly tipped as Schwab’s eventual replacement.
But lets get back to what Putin said in his revolutionary speech.
Putin Outlines Six Civilizational Principles For the Post-NWO World
During his Valdai speech, Putin outlined six principles Russia wants to adhere to and offers other nations to join it. Via Sputnik:
“First, we want to live in an open, interconnected world, in which no one will ever try to erect artificial barriers to people’s communication, their creative realization, and prosperity. There must be a barrier-free environment,” Putin said.
The second principle is the diversity of the world, which should not only be preserved, but should also be the foundation of universal development.
The third principle, according to the Russian head of state, is maximum representativeness: “No one has the right or can rule the world for others or on behalf of others. The world of the future is a world of collective decisions,” the president emphasized.
Putin Warns 'Globalist Terrorist' #KlausSchwab His 'Days Are Numbered' As people all over the world wake up to the strange cult leader who has groomed young people using guile and corruption and inveigled them into power. World Economic Forum is losing https://t.co/EaGO7XGeSV
— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) October 6, 2023
Fourth is universal security and lasting peace that takes into account the interests of great states and small countries equally. To achieve this, it is important to free international relations from the bloc mentality and the dark legacy of the colonial era and Cold War, according to Putin.
The fifth principle is justice for all: “The era of exploitation of anyone – I have already said this twice – is a thing of the past. Countries and peoples are clearly aware of their interests and capabilities and are ready to rely on themselves, and this multiplies their strength. Everyone must be provided with access to the benefits of modern development,” Putin emphasized.
The sixth principle is equality: no one should be forced to obey those who are richer or more powerful at the cost of their own development and national interests, according to the Russian president.
“The ‘civilizational model’ referred to in Putin’s speech seems anchored on ‘principles’ – such as non-colonial relations; non-patronizing attitudes; respectful of diversity rooted in the diverse traditions – that will require a huge work to generate new shared international norms,” according to Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels.
“The Western ‘rules-based liberal international order’ is unilateral, and it could be imposed in a specific time in history leveraging on the power and prominence of a small group of colonial powers that after the liberal model crisis and civil war (1914-1945) has been inherited by a distant but super-powerful country (US).
“In a nutshell, I can say that the ‘civilizational model’ approach probably aims at structuring a shared world ‘software,’ while the ‘liberal rules-based order’ has been aiming at building an imposed ‘hardware’ defended by ‘rules’ serving the financial and military hegemony.”
[…]
13th Century European Literature
Episode 21 Literary Trends in the 13th Century
1215: Years That Changed History
Dr Dorsey Armstrong (2019)
Film Review
I approached this lecture very curious to learn who, exactly, was reading European literature 300 years before the printing press, when all manuscripts had to be copied repeatedly by hand (by monks?). My question on exactly how Snorri Sturluson and Geoffrey of Monmouth managed to copy and widely distribute enough manuscripts to become “popular” was never answered.
Armstrong divides 13th century literature into three trends:
religious writingsScandinavian epicsArthurian romancesReligious writings
The specific religious writing she describes in this lecture is the Ancrene Wisse, the rules laid down by church authorities governing the behavior of Anchorites, the religious women who voluntarily self-incarcerated themselves in tiny cells attached to cathedrals. Many had no doors and were barely big enough to lie down in.
Specific rules set down for Anchorites were
No meat or fat unless the woman was illNo fasting on bread and water without permissionMinimal use of windows – no talking or conducting business through themNo holding possessions for other peopleA cat was allowed for companionship, provided the Anchorite didn’t fixate on it or let it bother other people.Scandinavian Epics
Armstrong describes how Norse raiders known as Vikings sailed away from Scandinavia targeting French and English monasteries (for their gold and jewels) and sailing up inland rivers as far east as Russia. In the 9th century a group of Vikings kidnapped brides from Ireland and settled Iceland, where they spent the long winters nights retelling early Norse sagas. By the 10th century, Iceland had a body of laws that would be repeated every year in what became the world’s first Parliament.
The advent of Christianity to Scandinavia in the 9th century introduced written language to the region.
Snorri Sturluson, historian, poet and politician, was the first popular Icelandic writer. He specialized in recording oral sagas about historical and mythological Norse kings.
Arthurian Romances
Although the Welsh king who became known as King Arthur lived in the 5th century, he only became popularly known in the 12th century, when a Catholic cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed to have discovered a (likely fictitious) ancient Welsh manuscript which he translated into Anglo-Norman.
The first tales of King Arthur appeared in English in the 13th century.
The French writer Chretien de Troyes was even more important in popularizing the Arthurian legend (1215-1235), when tales of King Arthur appeared in prose (rather than verse) for the first time. It was de Troyes who introduced Lancelot, the Grail, Guinevere, Camelot and Arthur’s illegitimate son Mordred to the legend.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/12392969/12393013
October 12, 2023
EU leads more than 1 billion-euro commitment to eradicate vaccine-derived polio
REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
BRUSSELS/LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – The European Union together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the European Investment Bank have announced a new financing package of more than 1 billion euros ($1.06 billion) to eradicate polio, the EU and the foundation said on Wednesday.
Cases of polio have declined by 99% since the 1990s thanks chiefly to mass vaccination campaigns worldwide.\However, eradicating the disease completely has proven more challenging. The wild form of polio is now only endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the vaccine-derived strain is more widespread.
Vaccine-derived polio can occur when children are immunized with a vaccine containing a weakened version of the live virus. They are protected, but the weakened virus excreted by these immunized children can spread and mutate among an unvaccinated population, ultimately becoming harmful.
Both forms of the disease are often asymptomatic, but in rare cases can paralyse and kill children.
Humanity has only eradicated a single disease: small pox. And that was over 50 years ago. Today, we are on the verge of ending another: wild polio virus. The virus that once paralysed 7,000 children every week, has only paralysed 9 people this year,” Bill Gates told reporters at a press conference.
“But while Polio is nearly gone, there are also another 280 children who have been struck by a different polio variant.”
The financing package is expected to reach 1.1 billion euro ($1.17 billion), as part of Europe’s Global Gateway investment strategy. UNICEF and the World Health Organisation will be the implementing partners.
($1 = 0.9435 euros)
($1 = 0.9433 euros)
[…]
A $3.1 Billion Industry, Surveilling Kids at School Is Making Them ‘Anxious’ and Scared
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. Technology surveillance companies that sell their products to school administrators are creating a “digital dystopia” for U.S. schoolchildren, a new American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report concluded.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased school shootings, a $3.1 billion educational technology (EdTech) surveillance industry has scored huge profits based on the claim that its digital tools — including video cameras, facial recognition software, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven behavior detection technology, online and social media monitoring software and more — prevent bullying, self-harm and school violence.
However, the industry failed to back up that claim with evidence and instead used fear as a primary marketing tactic, the ACLU report said.
The ACLU — after conducting its own research and reviewing additional research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice — found a “lack of clear evidence” that the products advertised by EdTech firms keep students safe.
Chad Marlow, the report’s principal author, said as a parent of two K-12 students, he understands how parents and school officials worry about keeping kids safe.
Marlow told The Defender he “regretfully” watched school administrators and state legislatures opted to use funds on surveillance technologies “to keep our children safe.”
“These decisions haunt me,” he said, “because, as an ACLU senior policy counsel focused on privacy, surveillance and technology issues, I know full well that surveillance does not deter bad conduct, and it certainly does not protect our students.”
Marlow said the 61-page report reveals a “living surveillance nightmare” that is “inadvertently hurting our kids” by denying them access to important information, undermining their trust of adults and making it “too risky” to communicate certain thoughts they have.
“It’s the exact opposite lesson we should be teaching our students,” he said.
Greg Glaser, a digital privacy expert and attorney with Children’s Health Defense (CHD), praised the ACLU for rolling back the curtain on the EdTech industry’s tactics of marketing “constant” video surveillance as a supposed attempt to “dissuade criminality” among students.
“If parents could not only see but experience what their children experience in these hellish environments, there would be an exodus [from U.S. public schools],” Glaser told The Defender.
14% of students say surveillance makes them feel ‘anxious’
The ACLU’s report does more than debunk the EdTech surveillance industry’s claims of efficacy and draw attention to its “deceptive marketing practices” that use fear to persuade officials to purchase its products.
The report also showcases the voices of more than 500 students ages 14-18 who participated in a nationally representative survey about how tech surveillance in their schools impacts them.
The report includes comments from more than three dozen students who shared their opinions in focus groups led by the ACLU.
Some students reported that being surveilled increased their fear and anxiety by making them feel “anxious” (14%), “exposed” (15%), “paranoid” (13%) and “violated (12%). Some even said the technology made them feel “unsafe” (7%) and “scared” (5%).
More than a quarter of the students surveyed said they were concerned about what their school — and companies their school contracts with — did with the personal data it collected.
Eighteen percent said the surveillance limited what they chose to say online, signaling indirect censorship.
According to Marlow, one of the report’s most compelling findings was that “the use of student surveillance technologies significantly harms students, especially those who are the most vulnerable, which includes students of color, LGBTQ+ and non-binary students, students with disabilities, low-income students, and undocumented students.”
For example, the report explained how school surveillance can “intensify” the well-documented racially discriminatory effects of the school-to-prison pipeline “particularly when students of color are accused of wrongdoing.”
Marlow said a chief aim of the project was to bring this information to school policymakers in the hope that “the money we spend on students safety goes towards interventions with the most proven benefits and least harm.”
“The ACLU cannot be physically present in every meeting to help educate decision-makers,” he said, “so we released our report to provide an unbiased, honest, and in-depth analysis of the EdTech surveillance industry and its products that we hope will aid school districts in their future decision-making.”
Surveillance in schools about getting students ‘to march in lockstep with a police state’
Commenting on the report, John Whitehead, a civil liberties attorney and author, said it shows how young people are groomed “to march in lockstep with a police state.”
Some schools are now using a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, RFID (radiofrequency identification) and GPS tracking devices, Whitehead said.
Whitehead told The Defender:
“Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.”
Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” said the object of EdTech surveillance in schools is “clearly” subjection to authority rather than deterrence of crime.
Rectenwald said the school system is the primary site of indoctrination, where children “are molded into the kinds of subjects that the system requires.” He said surveillance technologies in schools “habituate students to a life of being constantly surveilled and controlled.”
“Biometric surveillance is the elite’s tool for monitoring and controlling subjects to a degree thought unimaginable by the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao,” he said. “It is no wonder that a significant percentage of the school students under surveillance find themselves feeling ‘paranoid,’ anxious and trapped. They are trapped — in a giant panopticon.”
Whitehead agreed:
“Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, [and] threatened.”
Schools ‘a microcosm of the total surveillance state’
According to Whitehead, from the moment children enter a U.S. public school to the moment they graduate, they will be exposed to a “steady diet” of:
Draconian zero-tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior.Overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech.School resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students.Standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking.Politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them.Extensive biometric and surveillance systems that when coupled with everything else acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.“This is indeed a digital dystopia: our nation’s schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America,” Whitehead said.
W. Scott McCollough, CHD’s chief litigator for the organization’s electromagnetic radiation (EMR) cases, agreed.
McCollough said the ACLU report’s key findings reflected realities in society at large, telling The Defender:
“The surveillance state is sold through fear porn. The profits are great especially when subsidized by the government. The tools don’t actually work toward solving the stated concern but do accomplish other ends: everyone is abashed and the knowledge of constant monitoring does change their behavior.
“As usual, the children provide lessons for us all.”
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/ed-tech-surveillance-industry-kids-school/
US Lawmaker: Israel knew of Hamas attack in advance
RT
Representative Michael McCaul backed up earlier claims that Egypt tipped officials off to an impending assault
Three days before Hamas’ large-scale assault on Israel, the Egyptian authorities warned their counterparts in Tel Aviv that such an operation was imminent, US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told reporters on Wednesday.
“We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,” McCaul said following a closed-door intelligence briefing on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t want to get too much into classified, but a warning was given,” McCaul continued. “I think the question was at what level.”
The Associated Press reported on Monday that Israeli officials ignored repeated warnings from Cairo that Hamas was planning “something big.” Citing a source within Egyptian intelligence, the news agency claimed that the Israeli government felt that an attack was unlikely to come from Gaza, and would probably take place in the West Bank instead.
The AP report did not specify how recently these warnings were allegedly made.
Hamas militants began firing barrages of rockets into Israel from Gaza on Saturday, with fighters then pouring across the border and raiding Jewish settlements near the Palestinian enclave. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by declaring a state of war and launching airstrikes on Gaza.
Israel has since come under rocket fire from Lebanon and Syria, and as of Wednesday, more than 1,200 Israelis are dead and 3,200 injured, according to government figures. At least 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,300 wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Saturday’s surprise attack has been viewed as a catastrophic failure for Israel’s intelligence services, which were previously believed to have eyes and ears throughout Gaza.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that he was notified of Hamas’ plans before the onslaught.
Shortly after McCaul spoke to reporters in Washington, an anonymous Egyptian official told the Times of Israel that Cairo’s agents did warn their Israeli counterparts about a planned Hamas attack, but that this warning may not have made it to Netanyahu’s office.
[…]
Via https://www.rt.com/news/584687-israel-knew-attack-egypt/
New Interactive Federal Map Shows How States Rely On Marijuana Tax Revenue To Fund Public Services
By Ben Adlin
Schedule 6 Foundation
A new map published by the U.S. Census Bureau details the proportion of state revenue made up by marijuana tax money, and in some cases, the figures are eye-popping.
In Oregon, for example, roughly $1 in every $20 the state made during some recent time periods came from legal cannabis transactions. According to the federal data, marijuana taxes comprised 4.67 percent of Oregon’s total revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, 4.7 percent in the first quarter of 2022 and 5.21 percent in the third quarter of 2021.
While Oregon by far relied heaviest on marijuana tax dollars, other states—including Michigan, Illinois, Alaska and Colorado—consistently saw marijuana revenue make up at least 1 percent of state income over the past two years.
The data covers the third quarter of fiscal year 2021 through the second quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, although the bureau has said that the sales data it reports for a given quarter typically reflects revenue that states collected on sales made during the prior quarter.
During the most recent quarter for which data is available, which accounts for sales through the end of December 2022, more than 3 percent of Oregon revenue came from legal cannabis. In Michigan and Illinois, the marijuana sector made up more than 2 percent of total revenue, while Alaska and Colorado made just over 1 percent of revenue from cannabis. Arizona and Missouri, meanwhile, saw between 0.5 percent and 1 percent of tax money come from cannabis.
While the revenue is just a small fraction of overall state tax revenues, the billions of dollars flowing into state coffers represent an outsized contribution from the sale of a single crop. In Illinois, revenue from the state’s legal marijuana industry was $451.9 million during the fiscal year that ended June 30. That’s nearly one-and-a-half times the $316.3 million Illinois made in alcohol taxes during the same period.
In fiscal year 2022, both Colorado and Washington received more tax revenue from legal cannabis than from alcohol or cigarettes.
The interactive map also allows sorting by the amount of change in state marijuana tax revenue from quarter to quarter. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2023, states such as Mississippi, Connecticut and New York saw cannabis tax revenue double from the previous quarter, while California, Missouri and Maine saw between 60 percent and 90 percent revenue growth. Massachusetts, meanwhile, observed a 33.4 percent decrease in cannabis tax revenue.
While not every state with legal marijuana provided data for the new map, the project nevertheless represents the federal government’s growing effort to account for the size and scope of the legal cannabis industry. The Census Bureau describes the accounting as a “new data product,” and it includes the collection and publication of cannabis-related economic data from both public and private sectors.
Late last month the agency published a report showing that legal cannabis states had collected more than $5.7 billion in marijuana tax revenue over an 18-month period, a figure it intends to update quarterly going forward. Census also recently updated its survey of private businesses to better capture marijuana-related economic activity.
Together, the new tracking and reporting efforts—which come nearly a decade after the first state-legal sales of adult-use cannabis in the United States—indicate an increasing willingness by the federal government to acknowledge the billions of dollars in annually economic activity as the result of state-level marijuana legalization, even as the substance remains federally illegal.
The new state tax revenue data used to build the infographics “result from a complete canvass of all state government agencies,” the bureau said in a separate note about its survey methodology. While it refers to the revenue as “quarterly cannabis excise sales tax collections,” it also says that “taxes” are defined rather broadly.
“For this dataset, the concept of ‘taxes’ is comprised of all compulsory contributions exacted by a government for public purposes,” Census said. “Tax revenue is further defined to include related penalty and interest receipts of a government but to exclude protested amounts.”
The bureau has two separate tax codes for marijuana revenue that it asks states to report, one for taxes on cannabis transactions and another for business license fees. It’s not clear whether the totals in the new report include sales tax figures alone or revenue from both categories. A Census spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification this week.
The agency said its own figures might not align perfectly with state-reported data “because the Census Bureau may be using a different definition of which organizations are covered by the term, ‘state government.’” The bureau’s definition, it explains, “refers not only to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of a given state, but it also includes agencies, institutions, commissions, and public authorities.”
Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, told Marijuana Moment earlier this week that he welcomed Census’s acknowledgement of the sector’s economic contribution. “This data highlights the fact that legal cannabis markets are making positive contributions to their communities,” he said. “However, we still aren’t even close to reaching our full potential to replace criminal markets with tax-paying, regulated businesses.”
Notably, the current Census Bureau reporting period does not include the bulk of sales from this year, during which some states have broken monthly sales records multiple times.
In Illinois, for example, officials recently touted the industry’s “unprecedented growth” in fiscal year 2023, with regulated stores selling more than $1.5 billion in marijuana products. In September, stores in the state sold more individual cannabis products than during any prior month. Tax revenue, however, dropped in fiscal year 2023, falling to $420.9 million from a record $435.1 the previous year. As in past years, Illinois made significantly more revenue from cannabis than from alcohol, which brought in about $316.3 million during the same period.
Connecticut, meanwhile, tallied more than $25 million in total sales in September, besting a record set the previous month.
Licensed retailers in Maryland, sold a record amount of adult-use cannabis products in September although medical marijuana sales fell.
In New Mexico, monthly sales in September narrowly missed a monthly sales record set in August as the state crossed the half-billion-dollar mark in total adult-use sales.
August was also a record-setting month in Rhode Island, which sold its highest amount of cannabis for the fourth consecutive month, notching $9.7 in monthly receipts.
Purchases of adult-use cannabis in August also broke a record ($23.7 million) in Montana, state officials reported, although medical marijuana sales were at their lowest ($5.0 million) since recreational markets opened early last year.
In Maine, too, marijuana sales reached a record high in August, with nearly $22 million worth of purchases, according to recent data from the state Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP).
Early last month, Massachusetts officials reported that retailers have now sold more than $5 billion in adult-use marijuana since the state’s recreational market launched five years ago. Sales reached $139.3 million in August alone, with the year-to-date total at $1.05 billion within the first eight months of 2023.
Michigan marijuana sales also reached another record high in July, with nearly $277 million worth of cannabis sold.
In Missouri, meanwhile, retailers have been selling about $4 million worth of marijuana per day on average since the state’s adult-use market opened up in February—and the state saw a record $121.2 million in cannabis purchases in June.
Biden, US Politicians Greenlighting Potential Genocide of Palestinians
Political analysts have warned that US President Joe Biden’s unflinching backing of Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip could give the Tel Aviv regime the greenlight to commit mass atrocities and genocide against the people of Palestine.
And while the US has always supported Israel in previous incursions and attacks on Palestinians, a number of concerned experts say this time is completely different.
“What’s different now is that the president and Congress have provided the greenest of possible green lights to enable Israel to do anything that it wants to do up to and including genocide,” Josh Ruebner, a political analyst, told Middle East Eye on Thursday.
“Make no mistake about it, by providing 100 percent backing for any action that Israel takes in the Gaza Strip, President Biden is complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes, and potentially much, much worse,” said Ruebner, who is also the author of Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
“As of this point, I do not believe that President Biden will stop Israel at any point,” Ruebner added.
“It’s unclear how long this green light will last. It’s unclear to what extent mass murder would need to be committed by Israel before it’s reined in by the United States,” he said.
In his public address on Tuesday, Biden described the actions of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group against the Israeli regime, as “sheer evil,” and said that the US stands behind Israel and will provide it whatever it needs to attack Gaza.
“We will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack,” Biden said. “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have.”
No mention of concern for Palestinians
Yet none of Israel’s actions against the civilian population of Gaza received a mention in Biden’s speech on Tuesday.
“Biden’s address to the nation, was horrifying in that he didn’t express one iota of concern for the loss of Palestinian civilian life, the war crimes that are being committed currently by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, and the widescale incitement to genocide that we’ve heard in recent days from Israeli political and military leaders,” Ruebner said.
Instead, Biden said with confidence that “we uphold the law of war.”
However, experts said the US and Israel both have an extensive history of violating international humanitarian law and the laws of war.
“The United States has been the most fervent violator of the laws of war and international law in general on a global scale ever since it played a leading role in establishing the so-called ‘rules-based’ international order during the post-WWII years,” Kenney-Shawa said.
“I want to be clear with my words right now. It’s rich that the US would claim to abide by the laws of war. Anyone who still believes that the US would uphold the laws of war or respect the international laws it wrote is deluding themselves.”
“In the past, the US may have been counted on to go through the motions of parroting the usual de-escalatory talking points, like calling for ‘both sides’ to avoid civilian casualties or for Israel to exercise a modicum of restraint,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow for al-Shabaka think tank.
“But today, Biden and the rest of the American political establishment are fervently united in giving Israel carte blanche to completely devastate Gaza.”
Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said that rather than calling for a ceasefire and end to the hostilities, the US is “cheerleading” the latest Israeli assault.
“The Israeli forces are murdering entire families in Gaza while supplying arms to their violent settlers in the West Bank to carry out attacks. The situation in Gaza was already devastating and again the people of Gaza are facing attacks from the most powerful military force in the region, with no Iron Dome, no military, and no US government valuing their lives,” Abuznaid said.
Israel fighting religious war, hellbent on exterminating Palestinians
US Senator Lindsey Graham has said clearly and unequivocally in an interview aired on right-wing channel Fox News that “we are fighting a religious war, and I am on Israel’s side”.
Graham’s message to Israel was: “Do whatever it takes. Raze this place to the ground.”
And nearly 400 members of US Congress signed a measure introduced on Tuesday, in which it condemned the Hamas resistance group for its attack on Israel and gave complete support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
“Lawmakers on the left and on the right, from Lindsey Graham to Ritchie Torres, are using this opportunity to viciously demonize Palestinians in order to drum up anti-Palestinian hatred that will give Israel cover to commit unspeakable crimes right in front of our eyes,” said Kenney-Shawa.
“Israel is hellbent on exterminating Palestinians in Gaza, and it knows no one will get in between them and what they see as their divine objective.”
Deadly Israeli bombing campaign
Israeli air strikes have so far targeted hospitals, mosques, and residential buildings across Gaza. Entire families have been wiped out by the bombing campaign.
The Israeli violence has also once again made its way into the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have killed 28 Palestinians.
So far, in addition to about 1,500 Palestinians that have been killed, at least 6,268 have been injured. It is unclear how many buildings have been razed, as the number continues to rise by the hour.
Israel has imposed a full siege on the already blockaded enclave, cutting off electricity and water and also refusing requests to allow the entry of food and medical supplies. It also threatened to bomb aid trucks trying to enter from the Egyptian border with Gaza.
The UN Refugee Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that it has about 12 days of supplies of food and water for the nearly 200,000 people taking shelter in its school buildings. While a blockade is not necessarily a war crime, the intentional starvation of a civilian population as a war tactic is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
In previous Israeli incursions on Palestinians, the US had called for Israel to use restraint. However, in the past few days, there have been no such calls coming from Washington, at least in public.
The attack on Israel from Hamas and Palestinian resistance groups has been dubbed by Israelis as their own 9/11.
The rhetoric around it has caused even more concern about the fallout for Palestinian civilians, as well as Palestinians across the Western diaspora, as Western governments have begun using the rhetoric aimed at cracking down on pro-Palestinian sentiment by equating it with support for Hamas.
“The mass attack on Israeli civilians on Saturday was not only unprecedented in its scope, in terms of Israeli civilians being impacted by Palestinian attacks. That’s obvious. What hasn’t been discussed so much yet, is that what Hamas did on Saturday is the deepest, darkest fear of every settler colonial society,” Ruebner said.
He added that in looking throughout history, settler-colonial states have often responded in “an overwhelming perhaps eliminatory response.”
“And I gravely fear that Israel’s response will pale in comparison to anything that it has inflicted on innocent Palestinians up to this point, including 1948. That’s how dire I think the situation is.”
The Israeli regime launched its onslaught on Saturday after Gaza-based resistance groups carried out a multi-front operation in response to Israeli crimes.
According to media, the Hamas operation has left 1,200 Israelis dead and nearly 3,000 others injured.
UN Chief Antonio Guterres has already expressed concern over the situation in Gaza, saying the clashes will deteriorate the situation exponentially. He said he was “deeply distressed” by an announcement that Israel will initiate a complete siege of Gaza.
[…]
Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/10/12/712593/US-Biden-Gaza-Palestine-Israel-
How Israel Helped Create Hamas
Hamas wants to destroy Israel, right? But as Mehdi Hasan shows in a new video on blowback, Israeli officials admit they helped start the group.
What do you know about Hamas?
That it’s sworn to destroy Israel? That it’s a terrorist group, proscribed both by the United States and the European Union? That it rules Gaza with an iron fist? That it’s killed hundreds of innocent Israelis with rocket, mortar, and suicide attacks?
But did you also know that Hamas — which is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” — would probably not exist today were it not for the Jewish state? That the Israelis helped turn a bunch of fringe Palestinian Islamists in the late 1970s into one of the world’s most notorious militant groups? That Hamas is blowback?
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Listen to former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. Segev later told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a “counterweight” to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.”)
“The Israeli government gave me a budget,” the retired brigadier general confessed, “and the military government gives to the mosques.”
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote.
They didn’t listen to him. And Hamas, as I explain in the fifth installment of my short film series for The Intercept on blowback, was the result. To be clear: First, the Israelis helped build up a militant strain of Palestinian political Islam, in the form of Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood precursors; then, the Israelis switched tack and tried to bomb, besiege, and blockade it out of existence.
In the past decade alone, Israel has gone to war with Hamas three times — in 2009, 2012, and 2014 — killing around 2,500 Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the process. Meanwhile, Hamas has killed far more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian militant group. This is the human cost of blowback.
[…]
Via https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
October 11, 2023
Human Use Of Cannabis—For Food, Fiber And Psychoactive Effects—Stretches Back Millennia
Ben AdlinSchedule 6 Foundation
A new paper in the European Journal for Chemistry traces the history of cannabis through “thousands of years of contact with mankind,” noting the plant’s legacy as a source of fiber, nutrition, medicine, spirituality and pleasure.
At the same time, it notes that cannabis “is perhaps one of the greatest controversies in contemporary humanity” and a key driver of the modern war on drugs.
The paper, “From ancient Asian relics to contemporaneity: A review of historical and chemical aspects of Cannabis,” was written by Gabriel Vitor de Lima Marques and Renata Barbosa de Olivera, of the pharmacy department at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil.
The cannabis plant appears to have first been used for its fiber, as a material for ropes and other manufactured goods, the authors wrote. Use of hemp fiber dates back to approximately 10,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia and to roughly 6,000 and 5,000 years ago in China and Kazakhstan, respectively.
Ancient peoples considered cannabis one of the five main grains, along with rice, soy, barley and millet, the paper continues. And once stalks were processed into hemp fibers, they became durable materials for ropes, sails and boat rigging, clothing, paper, animal husbandry and more.
“Used as a stunner to facilitate the capture of fish,” it says, “Cannabis is possibly the first plant to be cultivated for non-food purposes.”
Consuming cannabis for its physiological effects, meanwhile, dates back to about 3,000 years ago, the study says:
“The first people to use Cannabis as both a therapeutic and a narcotic tool were from the Indian region, circa 1000 years BCE, mainly because of its religious connotations. The two purposes were often linked. Described in the Vedas as one of the five sacred plants, it was believed to have arisen from a drop of amrita (sacred nectar) that fell from heaven onto the earth and was able to bring joy and freedom to those who used it.”
Marijuana’s psychoactive effects were also recorded in the world’s oldest pharmacopoeia, the Pen Ts’ao Ching, the roots of which date back to 2,700 B.C.E.
In the Indian region, the paper continues, preparations were used at events ranging “from more casual occasions such as weddings and family gatherings, festivals celebrating the coming of the seasons such as the Holi festival, to ceremonies of important religious nature such as Durga Puja.”
“It is understood that marijuana is as significant and respected for these people as communion wine or sacred host is for Christians,” authors wrote. “For its other facets, ayurvedic medicine used Cannabis practically as a panacea: as an analgesic, anti-spasmodic, anticonvulsant, anti-inflammatory, aphrodisiac and anaphrodisiac, appetite stimulant, treatment of female tract diseases, abortifacient, inductor of childbirth, among several other applications.”
The paper’s findings challenge fundamental assertions by leading prohibitionists, such as Kevin Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), that outlawing cannabis while permitting alcohol is justified because alcohol has a longer history of use.
“The key difference between alcohol and drug prohibition,” Sabet wrote in a 2011 op-ed, “lies in the substance itself. Alcohol, unlike illegal drugs, has a long history of widespread, accepted use in society, dating back to before biblical times. Illegal drugs cannot claim such pervasive use by a large part of the planet’s population over such a long period of time.”
As the new paper explains, “Semitic people also knew about the psychoactive properties of Cannabis centuries before the Christian era,” using the plant formulations ranging “from ointments to external injuries to oral preparations for various ailments and ‘sicknesses of the spirit.’”
“It was common in the Mesopotamian/Persian region to use cannabis-based incense in certain social rituals, such as funerals,” it continues, “which is even mentioned in the Aramaic version of the Old Testament of the Bible for aromatic and narcotic purposes.”
While the paper does not take a political position on the legalization of cannabis, it notes that jurisdictions around the world in recent years have moved to legalize or decriminalize the plant, “such as South Africa, Canada, Georgia, and Uruguay, and some states in the United States,” while others—including Germany, the UK, Chile, New Zealand, and Brazil—have authorized marijuana products for medical use.
“Efforts to deconstruct the stigma, legalize the use of the plant, and explore potential therapeutics have been placed in focus over the last six decades, due to discoveries related to the active principles of Cannabis in the 1960s and its promising developments for contemporary medicine,” the authors wrote.
Humans are, of course, still unraveling the mysteries of the cannabis plant, as the recent explosion in CBD demonstrates. A recent study also shed light on the experience of cannabis when it found that consuming multiple cannabinoids produce a stronger, longer-lasting high than taking pure THC.
And while evolution and selective breeding have traditionally been responsible for changes in the cannabis plant over time, increasingly humans are charting its course. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently said that a genetically engineered hemp plant “may be safely grown and bred in the United States.”
[…]
The House Cagefight Continues for Speaker
Nel’s New Day
The U.S. media is consumed with reports from Israel, detailed interviews of suffering from those attacked by the Hamas. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is paralyzed by no Speaker in the House after eight far-right Republicans voted Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) out of the office a week ago. The proposed new leadership has one goal—burn down the government. While the media concentrates on the exciting visuals of Israelis dying, it ignores the people who the GOP House leadership may kill through its radical approach to ruling, not governing.
The disaster came to a head began last November when a majority of eight Republicans were elected for the House. The election for the 118th congressional House Speaker began on January 3 and lasted four days and 15 ballots. McCarthy got the job by making a deal with the devil, but he failed to pay the piper. Despite all the right-wing promises he made, he let Democrats vote to stop a government shutdown in October, a cardinal sin for the “Freedom” Caucus. On October 2, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), joined by seven other far-right House members, succeeded in their desire to remove McCarthy from leadership.
Three conservatives want to fill the void:
Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), who is not a member of the House, has offered to help the country by taking the position although the rules ban anyone indicted of a felony from being a member of the leadership.
Jim Jordan (R-OH), part of the January 6 insurrection, thinks his “weaponization” reputation will get him the Speaker position. Turning from what Republicans call a moderate to a radical rightist, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), is one of his strong supporters, accidentally brought back Jordan’s refusal to report the sexual assaults on his wrestling athletes while he coached at Ohio State University. Mace said she was unfamiliar with the allegations despite public testimony and on-the-record reports and called Jordan “a strong voice for women.” She also claimed ignorance about allegations of Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, and public corruption being investigated by the House after she voted to send them to the ethics committee. More about Margaret Brennan’s Face the Nation interview with Mace and statements with other journalists.
[…]
Jordan promises to cause a shutdown unless Democrats support his extreme, unworkable restrictions on asylum-seeking. The next deadline for the congressional budget agreement is November 17. His declaration of no funding for processing or releasing new migrants into the U.S. is “non-negotiable” although the law mandates the requests. Detaining all the migrants, too, would cost billions of dollars.
[Note: Mace also called Joe Biden “the most corrupt president in U.S. history” and accused him of bribery, money laundering, and orchestrating a prostitution ring. Last weekend, Fox’s Maria Bartiromo asked her for “specific policy decisions that Biden made that he was paid for.” Mace said she hadn’t had “the ability to research that.”]
Steve Scalise (R-LA), perhaps the most benign candidate after the others—including Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern—dropped out, is known for his ties to white supremacy. He spoke at one of their conferences and called himself “[ex-Ku Klux Klan grand wizard] David Duke without the baggage” but denied knowing anything about white supremacy. Duke said Scalise was “friendly” with Kenny Knight, Duke’s “longtime political adviser.” Like Jordan, Scalise voted against Biden’s legal electoral vote on January 6. Scalise may be the weakest candidate because of his recent diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer in the bone marrow.
McCarthy changed his mind today for the fifth time when he asked Republicans not to nominate him for Speaker after he said he was willing to run for Speaker again to show strength after Hamas attacked Israel. Earlier, McCarthy told Hugh Hewitt that he would do anything the conference wants him to do if he were elected. And that was after he promised he wouldn’t run again in his California seat after saying he would resign. All in the span of one week.
Therefore, the choice, as it stands, for the second in line to the presidency is among an insurrectionist, an insurrection supporter, and a white supremacist. (Probably between the insurrection supporter and white supremacist as the third one gos back to his presidential campaigning and legal issues.)
Jordan’s scandal regarding his refusal to report sexual assaults puts him in accord with former Speaker Dennis Hastert who served from 1999 to 2007. Indicted in 2015 and serving 13 months in prison, the evangelical Christian advancing “family values” committed financial offenses relating to the sexual molestation of five of his teenage wrestling athletes, 14 to 17 years old, in the 1960s and 70s. The statute of limitation had run out on the charge of sexual assault. Jordan’s Ohio congressional district is only a few hours’ drive from Hastert’s Illinois home.
Several House Republicans laid red lines in the sand to vote for a speaker. The current chaos came because the far-right insisted that one person could initiate a motion to remove a Speaker. A movement under foot is that this could not happen again without at least 50 percent of each party’s conference agreeing with Republicans that they won’t support a candidate without a pledge to change the rule. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tweeted that she would “ditch” the rule so long as Jordan is elected Speaker, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) won’t vote for a speaker without the promise of an anti-transgender bill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said she would only support a speaker willing to defund DDT’s prosecution.
GOP senators are split over the choice of Speaker; mainstays want Scalise with a fast transition. They also don’t want Jordan’s impeachment inquiry, calling it a “political loser,” and think they can count on him to avoid a government shutdown and provide more funding for Ukraine. Others who want DDT to shake up the party prefer his endorsement, Jordan. Mike Braun (R-IN) endorsed Jordan because he is a “fighter.” All the senators, however, are keeping their distance to avoid the impression of meddling in House business.
[…]
If Republicans elect Scalise, he would be the most conservative House speaker in history, and Jordan is far to his right. That gives Jordan a better chance to win the contest.
Speaker candidates quickly unplugged Fox’s idea to televise the debate among them. Bret Baier said on air that Jordan, Scalise, and Hern had all agreed to the event, but they were pressured to change their minds. Instead, the candidate forum will be a closed-door debate.
The “festivities” kicked off Monday night when the House GOP conference huddled and vented their anger and recriminations for the first of many closed-door meetings. At the lengthy Tuesday closed-door meeting, candidates outlined their vision, but the vote was split. Republicans want unanimity for one of the candidates before he is presented to the entire House for a public vote. After the Tuesday meeting, Rep Troy Nehls (R-TX) said, “I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” adding that “it could be a long week.” Some of those leaving the meeting said they want to get McCarthy back
On Wednesday, candidates return to give more pitches.
Via https://nelsnewday.wordpress.com/2023/10/10/the-house-cagefight-continues-for-speaker/
The Most Revolutionary Act
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