Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 448
March 9, 2023
9 Leading Experts: 5G Can Lead to Brain Damage and Possibly Alzheimer’s
Research on 5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation shows it can cause brain damage and possibly lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to nine independent experts in the RF radiation field who published a new peer-reviewed article.
Research on 5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation shows it can cause brain damage and possibly lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to nine independent experts in the RF radiation field.
In a peer-reviewed article published last week in the Annals of Clinical and Medical
Case Reports, the experts called on authorities to heed the voices of the RF scientific community by establishing a “more stringent regulatory framework” on RF radiation and by halting the rollout of 5G technologies — including smart meters and 5G cell towers — until a team of “qualified scientists independent of industry” review the risks of the technology.
“The situation is absurd,” said Mona Nilsson, managing director of the Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation and lead author of the article.
Although the first two studies ever published on 5G’s effects on humans and animals reported serious adverse health effects, government authorities and telecom companies continue to put 5G cell towers and smart meters on and around people’s homes, Nilsson told The Defender.
Dr. Lennart Hardell, a leading scientist on cancer risks from radiation and co-author of the article, told the Defender, “I think it is time to have an ethical discussion.”
“What kind of society should we have?” asked Hardell, an oncologist and epidemiologist with the Environment and Cancer Research Foundation who has authored more than 100 papers on non-ionizing radiation.
“Is it possible for the government to expose people to hazardous pollution in their own homes and you can’t escape?” he asked.
From an ethical point of view, that’s a very problematic societal situation, Hardell said.
So much research and ‘still nothing happens’
Hardell, Nilsson and their co-authors are leaders of independent organizations in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland that focus on RF radiation.
They said the first study on 5G’s effects showed people experienced a plethora of symptoms — including severe sleep disturbances, dizziness, skin complaints, concentration problems, tinnitus, impaired short-term memory, confusion, fatigue, tendency toward depression, heart and lung symptoms and heart palpitations — days after a 5G cell tower was installed above their apartments.
The second 5G study showed rats exposed to 5G had an increased incidence of damage to neurons and increased oxidative stress in the brain.
These effects could eventually lead to degenerative brain diseases, such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases, the authors said.
Nilsson said there are many earlier studies showing detrimental effects from RF radiation on the brain and nervous system.
According to a compilation by Henry Lai, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of bioengineering at the University of Washington, 244 studies between 2007 and 2022 showed negative neurological effects from RF radiation, Nilsson said.
“We have so much research and we have so many scientists that are raising their voices louder and louder — and still nothing happens because those institutions that have influenced the authorities … are captured by the industry,” Nilsson said.
Hardell and Rainer Nyberg, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of education and welfare studies at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and a co-author on the article, launched in 2017 the 5G Appeal, which asks policymakers to halt 5G deployment due to the risk of serious human health consequences until the risks have been investigated by scientists with no ties to industry.
As of Jan. 10, 430 medical doctors and scientists from around the world have signed the 5G Appeal.
Despite the accumulating scientific evidence of harmful effects, authorities “continue to ignore the increasing evidence of clear risks,” the authors said in their article.
Regulatory authorities claim current guidelines are sufficient to protect people from harm. But they rely on a “limited group of experts” — who are not representative of the scientific community at large — to support their position, according to the authors.
Moreover, the majority of these experts have “ties to the telecom companies,” the authors said.
What’s needed to fix the problem?
The authors said a new committee comprised of qualified scientists independent of the industry is urgently needed for a sound scientific evaluation of 5G.
Until then, “the 5G rollout must stop,” they said.
5G Rollout a ‘violation of human rights’
Given that 5G RF radiation levels are well above levels known to be harmful to human life and wildlife, the author considered it “a violation of human rights to impose this harmful radiation on people in their own homes without their informed consent.”
“This is a clear violation of human rights [that is] a consequence of the corruption of the science and the experts who have the role … of evaluating the science,” Nilsson said.
Hardell said he was pessimistic that regulatory authorities would heed the advice he and his co-authors offer in their latest article.
“The industry and the politicians … have decided, ‘No problem, so let’s go on,’” he said.
Nonetheless, Hardell said the article — and the 5G Appeal — are important historical documents showing that scientists warned about the health effects of 5G.
Plus, he said, it’s important that scientists continue writing on the topic — because how can they do otherwise, as ethical human beings?
The case reports published by Hardell and Nilsson on 5G’s effects showed that people had to leave their homes to get relief from their symptoms, Hardell emphasized.
“Do we really have an environmental pollutant that’s so strong or hazardous that people have to leave their own homes? I mean, how can we tolerate that?” he asked.
Hardell said he was especially concerned about those who are poor.
The individuals featured in the case reports had the means to relocate for the sake of their health, but most people don’t have the economic resources to do that, he said.
[…]
Former CDC Director: ‘No Doubt’ Fauci Funded Gain-of-Function Research That Likely Led to Pandemic
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Wednesday said he has “no doubt” the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research that likely resulted in the creation of COVID-19 and its subsequent leak.
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Wednesday said he has “no doubt” the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research that likely resulted in the creation of COVID-19 and its subsequent leak.Redfield made the statement during the first formal hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Former CDC Director Dr. Redfield: "There's no doubt that NIH funded gain-of-function research."
Malliotakis: "Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?"
Redfield: "I think it did — not only from NIH but from the State… https://t.co/gljqAdjMrM pic.twitter.com/KctyMd092K
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) March 9, 2023
The hearing included testimony related to the lab leak theory as a plausible explanation as the origin of COVID-19 and how the theory was shut down early in the pandemic in favor of narratives that COVID-19 had zoogenic — or natural — origins.
Committee members and witnesses also debated the future of gain-of-function research.
Other witnesses Wednesday included: Jamie Metzl, Ph.D., J.D., senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; Nicholas Wade, former New York Times science editor and former deputy editor of Nature; and Paul G. Auwaerter, M.D., MBA, clinical director in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The hearing followed the subcommittee’s release of a memo revealing that key NIH figures, including Fauci, helped persuade virologists to write an influential article squelching the theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab and asserting the virus evolved naturally.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last month determined SARS CoV-2 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China — a theory later endorsed by FBI Director Christopher Wray. These developments helped lead to a Senate vote to declassify U.S. intelligence documents on the origins of COVID-19.
BREAKING: Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield tells @RepMTG COVID-19 was likely created by gain-of-function research funded by Dr. Fauci and the NIAID.
— ALX
(@alx) March 8, 2023
Redfield also told the committee, “There’s no doubt that NIH was funding gain-of-function research,” and that the research also received funding from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-robert-redfield-covid-origins/
Secret Surveillance Video Dismantles January 6 Narrative
By Julie Kelly
American Greatness
Clips aired during Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday night demonstrate how the January 6 select committee doctored surveillance video.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired the first set of previously-unseen surveillance video captured by Capitol police security cameras on January 6, 2021 that undermines several aspects of the reigning narrative about what happened that day.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last month gave Carlson’s team “unfettered” access to 41,000 hours of footage the government kept hidden from the American public and individuals charged in the Justice Department’s unprecedented and ongoing investigation into the events of January 6. Capitol Police and the Justice Department designated the recordings as “highly sensitive” material in March 2021; the trove remains under tight protective orders and defendants must agree to strict rules before gaining access to clips entered as evidence against them.
Capitol Police turned over to the FBI roughly 14,000 hours of video covering the hours of noon and 8:00 p.m. on January 6 but the full 24-hour reel has been in the hands of House Democrats for two years—reportedly the footage that Carlson’s team was authorized to view.
Carlson exposed falsehoods that bolster key animating aspects of January 6 including the movements of Jacob Chansley; the activity of still-uncharged agitator Ray Epps; the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; alleged “reconnaissance tours” conducted by House Republicans the day before; the “escape” of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); and the overall deceptiveness of the January 6 Select Committee. “Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection,” Carlson explained. “In fact, it demolishes that claim. And that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.”
At least nine police officers escorted Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon shaman” throughout the building that afternoon. Some even opened doors so Chansley could access rooms inside the Capitol. Chansley was recorded inside the Senate chambers where he led a prayer and thanked law enforcement.
BREAKING: Never before seen video of January 6 shows Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman, being led through the Capitol by police the entire time that he was in the building. pic.twitter.com/rikoRMWezF
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
American Greatness first reported Chansley’s peaceful interaction with Capitol Police officers in May 2021. Chansely spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement conditions under court-ordered pretrial detention before finally accepting an offer to plead guilty to the nonviolent offense of obstruction of an official proceeding. In announcing his sentence in November 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth described Chansley, a Navy veteran with no criminal record and a history of mental disorders, as the “epitome” of January 6 and insisted his conduct was “horrific.” (Chansley was not charged with a violent crime.) He is currently serving a 41 month prison term.
American Greatness has also covered the lies about what happened to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, first raising doubts about the account of his death as early as February 2021. The media, Justice Department, leading Democrats, and the January 6 select committee claim Sicknick died as a result of scuffles with protesters that afternoon. But Carslon played a never-before-seen video of Sicknick walking around the inside of the building after the alleged attack where he appears to be healthy. A man from New Jersey, Julian Khater, pleaded guilty to spraying Sicknick with pepper spray after spending 18 months in the D.C. Gulag. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
The J6 Committee had access to this tape but refused to release it. pic.twitter.com/817TIQvV0Z
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
Infamous provocateur Ray Epps, contrary to his sworn testimony, remained on restricted grounds for at least 30 minutes past the time he told the committee that he had left the scene. “We do know he lied to investigators,” Carlson said. Epps accompanied the group of protestors who first breached the exterior boundary of the Capitol on the west side before 1:00 p.m. on January 6; the new surveillance video proves he stayed on what is considered a restricted area for nearly two hours.
BREAKING: January 6 footage shows that Ray Epps lied to the J6 Committee about when he left the Capitol on that day.
J6 Committee members likely knew this but defended him anyway. pic.twitter.com/tX4WUc28uX
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
During one televised hearing, the January 6 Select committee aired a very brief clip of Hawley leaving the Senate chambers, video designed to show Hawley was fearful of the alleged “insurrectionists” after raising his fist in support of the crowd prior to the start of the joint session. Journalists and those in attendance at the July 2022 hearing laughed in response. “That famous clip is a sham, edited deceptively by the January 6 committee,” Carlson said. “The clip was propaganda, not evidence.” Carlson explained the full recording shows numerous lawmakers being “ushered out” of the building by Capitol Police.
This is the TV producer guy that the J6 Committee hired to produce their hearings.
We learned from Tucker tonight that he doctored a video of several members of Congress being ushered out of the Capitol on January 6 to make it look like Josh Hawley was running away on his own. https://t.co/IdbnAR9siv
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
And as American Greatness reported in May 2022, accusations about “reconnaissance tours” by House Republicans on January 5, 2021 are also false. “The surveillance video we reviewed showed this story is a lie.”
Never-before-seen January 6 footage completely exonerates Congressman Barry Loudermilk of allowing J6 rioters to do a "reconnaissance mission" the day before.
The January 6 Committee also knew this but lied anyway. pic.twitter.com/B1biPpROSo
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 7, 2023
Additional video also showed protesters walking throughout the building and even picking up items on the floor. While acknowledging a “small percentage were hooligans,” Carlson aired unseen video of individuals respecting police and rope lines. “But the overall majority weren’t. They were peaceful and orderly and meek. They were not insurrectionists, they were sight-seers.”
— American Firebrand (@AmFirebrand) March 7, 2023
Via https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/07/secret-surveillance-video-dismantles-january-6-narrative/
The British-American coup that ended Australian independence
Antinuclear
The Guardian , John Pilger, Thu 23 Oct 2014
In 1975 prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died this week [Oct 2014], dared to try to assert his country’s autonomy. The CIA and MI6 made sure he paid the price.
Across the media and political establishment in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth.
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”
Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were decoded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the decoders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.
Kerr was not only the Queen’s man, he had longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.
When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state.”
[…]
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”
[…]
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.
John Pilger’s investigation into the coup against Whitlam is described in full in his book, A Secret Country (Vintage), and in his documentary film, Other People’s Wars, which can be viewed on www.johnpilger.com
Via https://antinuclear.net/2023/03/09/a-the-british-american-coup-that-ended-australian-independence/
Jan 6 Tapes: Why didn’t 9 armed policemen arrest the unarmed “QAnon Shaman”?
By John Leake
On January 9, 2021, Jacob Anthony Chansley was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona for allegedly committing the following offenses:
Civil Disorder; Obstruction of an Official Proceeding; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building; Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.
If the unarmed Chansley (known in the mainstream media as the “QAnon Shaman”) indeed committed these offenses, why was he escorted around the Capitol Building by armed police officers, at one point standing in the midst of NINE of them? If the strangely-clad young man bearing an American flag was trespassing and behaving in a “violent, disorderly, and disruptive” way, why didn’t the officers arrest him on the spot?
In reviewing the strange case of Jacob Anthony Chansley, the American people should consider that this country has a longstanding tradition of civil disobedience. In its relationship with the citizenry, the United States government has always had to contend with the somewhat awkward fact that the Republic was founded by men who, legally speaking, committed treason. Thomas Jefferson justified their conduct as follows:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Jefferson’s sentiments sound good and reasonable to a citizenry animated with classical liberal principles of government, but they are problematic for men in power who have little patience or tolerance for pesky dissenters like Jacob Anthony Chansley.
While the surveillance tape shows that many of the January 6, 2021 protestors did indeed commit acts of violence and vandalism, where is the evidence that Jacob Anthony Chansley was one of them?
As Tucker Carlson points out (starting at 2:50 on the tape) multiple cameras from multiple angles show that he is completely unarmed, calmly walking around carrying an American flag in his left hand and a bullhorn in his right.
Since November 17, 2021, Chansley has been serving his sentence of 41 months in prison. Does he really deserve this severe punishment?
Mainstream media pundits have made him—presumably because of his visually arresting and outlandish costume—the face of what it has characterized as an insurrection, but what kind of insurrectionist shows up with no weapons or incendiary devices?
[…]
Via https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/the-strange-case-of-jacob-anthony/
March 8, 2023
Lawsuits and Legislation Strip Public Health Authorities of Dictatorial Authority
Protesters descend on the Ohio Statehouse for an anti-mask rally in Columbus on July 18, 2020. (Jeff Dean/AFP/Getty Images)
By Lauren Weber Joel Achenbach
Washington Post
When the next pandemic sweeps the United States, health officials in Ohio won’t be able to shutter businesses or schools, even if they become epicenters of outbreaks. Nor will they be empowered to force Ohioans who have been exposed to go into quarantine. State officials in North Dakota are barred from directing people to wear masks to slow the spread. Not even the president can force federal agencies to issue vaccination or testing mandates to thwart its march.
Civil libertarians have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of covid.
At least 30 states, nearly all led by Republican legislatures, have passed laws since 2020 that limit public health authority, according to a Washington Post analysis of laws collected by Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press as well as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University.
Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now restricted from issuing mask mandates, ordering school closures and imposing other protective measures or must seek permission from their state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed.
The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots-backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country.
The Alabama legislature barred businesses from requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination. In Tennessee, officials cannot close churches during a state of emergency. Florida made it illegal for schools to require coronavirus vaccinations.
The result, public health experts warn, is a battered patchwork system that makes it harder for leaders to protect the country from infectious diseases that cross red and blue state borders.
“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us, but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “We’ll die with our rights on — we want liberty but we don’t want protection.”
Those seeking to dismantle public health powers say they’re fighting back against an intrusion on their rights by unelected bureaucrats who overstepped amid a national crisis.
“We don’t want to concentrate power in a single set of hands,” said Rick Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a libertarian law firm that won a state Supreme Court case barring health officials from closing schools. “It’s a usurpation of the legislative role.”
Many conservatives said they did not believe the public health orders were effective in saving lives, despite evidence to the contrary. One study, for example, found that coronavirus vaccines prevented 3.2 million additional deaths in the United States.
Leaders in the public health establishment readily admit that many of their problems have been self-inflicted. Among the mistakes: an early failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to roll out a diagnostic test for covid; an about-face on whether people should wear masks to limit the spread of the virus; and confusing messages on when to exit isolation after an infection. The duration of school closures remains a source of recriminations.
“We deserve to have that backlash to some extent,” said Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force under President Donald Trump, citing early CDC stumbles.
More than 1,000 legal decisions have been made at the local, state and federal level regarding public health protections since March 2020, according to research published in January in the American Journal of Public Health. While only a quarter succeeded in weakening public health powers, the rulings have substantially chipped away at the legal standing of health agencies and officials to protect the public, said Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Health Policy and Law, who co-wrote the paper. “The courts are leaving us vulnerable,” Parmet said.
The lawsuits found a conservative Supreme Court and federal judiciary transformed by Trump and ready to strip the federal government’s public health powers to issue mandates or other disease-control measures, said Jennifer Piatt, a deputy director with the Network for Public Health Law.
A single federal judge in Florida was able to defeat the CDC’s travel mask mandate. Republican attorneys general knocked out a federal vaccinate-or-test mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
These “big court wins” ensure that the next time there is a pandemic, the country will not be able to respond as it had in 2020 with government overreach, said Peter Bisbee, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
“People are going to push for more freedom in every aspect of their lives, but specifically when it comes to the ability to make decisions regarding health and medicine,” Bisbee said. “So many people lost faith with the government messaging on public health crises.”
The consequences are already playing out in Columbus, Ohio, where a child with measles was able to wander around a mall before showing symptoms in November, potentially spreading the highly contagious disease. The state legislature in 2021 had stripped the city health commissioner’s ability to order someone suspected of having an infectious disease to quarantine.
Columbus Health Commissioner Mysheika Roberts bemoans the basic public health functions she has lost control of — such as the ability to shut down a restaurant with a hepatitis A outbreak as she had done before covid. “All the other workers exposed preparing food for others to eat — they could continue to go to work and shed hepatitis A” under the new legislation, she said.
In Wisconsin, the constant threat of lawsuits by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has made officials wary of acting quickly to address any public health threat, said Kirsten Johnson, the former health commissioner of Milwaukee who is now the state’s health secretary.
Before the pandemic, Johnson said, she had threatened to shut down a prominent local golf tournament after E. coli was found in the well water, which forced the organizers to bring in bottled water. Now, she said, she’s afraid to issue such a threat, for fear of legal retribution.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, it didn’t even occur to me that public health authority was an issue,” Johnson said. “Fast forward a year later, I had great hesitation of what was appropriate.”
[…]
Via https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/03/08/covid-public-health-backlash/
How Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Make a Killing Off the Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Warren Buffett’s vertically integrated investments in the production of high fructose corn syrup — a key ingredient in highly processed foods and contributor to obesity in kids — generates massive profits for himself and Bill Gates.
Childhood obesity rates could double among boys and increase by 125% among girls by 2035, according to a new global report by the World Obesity Federation.In the U.S., childhood obesity rates tripled in the past three decades, increasing kids’ risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses.
A report last month by The Hill cited multiple contributors to the obesity epidemic, including too much screen time, lack of access to healthy food and socioeconomic factors. Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals is also known to play a big role in childhood obesity, studies show.
There’s one thing most experts agree on: Increased consumption of highly processed foods is a leading contributor to the childhood obesity epidemic.
But here’s a lesser-known fact: High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the lynchpin of the processed food industry — and the HFCS industry has generated massive profits for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, two of the world’s richest men.
AAP misses real culprits behind obesity epidemic. Buffet + Gates vertically integrated corn syrup by investing in food processing(ADM) fertilizers Oxy, Chevron) pesticides(Monsanto) silos(CTB) railroads(BNSF) processed+fast foods(Kraft,Mondelez,McDonald's)https://t.co/e3TxYSNVkm
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 7, 2023
‘Is the world’s richest man made primarily out of corn syrup?’
In 2015, New York Magazine ran an article — “Is the World’s Richest Man Made Primarily Out of Corn Syrup?” — in the Intelligencer’s “Diets” section.
The article told a light-hearted story about how Warren Buffett loves Coke, potato chips and other foods with high quantities of corn syrup so much — just like he did when he was a kid — that he bought up the companies that made them.
Buffett is the fifth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $108 billion. His wealth comes from investments in Berkshire Hathaway, the publicly traded multinational conglomerate company of which he has been CEO and chairman since 1970.
Berkshire Hathaway’s investment strategy is to identify valuable companies and acquire increasingly large portions of them.
A look into the history of Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings reveals the deeper truth behind the New York Magazine article showing that for more than two decades, Berkshire Hathaway acquired large stakes in all stages of production in the HFCS industry, from farmland to processed food companies.
This vertical integration investment strategy means that a substantial portion of Berkshire Hathaway’s profits is linked to the proliferation of corn syrup in the food system.
[…]
Berkshire Hathaway also owns major stakes in some of the largest processed food companies — like Coca-Cola and Kraft Heinz — that use HFCS and other obesogens in their products, which they directly market to kids.
These companies profit off of rising food prices, while consumers’ food bills soar. Kraft Heinz’s quarterly sales rose 10% to $7.38 billion in the last quarter of 2022, beating Wall Street’s expectations, the Wall Street Journal reported. The food conglomerate raised prices 15% last year.
They also benefit from close relationships with organizations meant to protect people’s health — and particularly children’s health — from the damage associated with commodities like HFCS.
For example, peer-reviewed research reveals Coca-Cola’s “close collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) … The Obesity Society (TOS), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).”
[…]
When Berkshire Hathaway profits, Gates profits
Warren Buffett isn’t the only one of the world’s richest people to make his fortune from Berkshire Hathaway. It is nearly impossible to separate Buffett’s wealth from that of his friend and business associate of 32 years, Bill Gates.
Gates, the fourth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $133 billion, holds much of his wealth in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Berkshire Hathaway is the foundation’s largest holding.
Gates served on the board of Berkshire Hathaway from 2004 to 2020. Since 2006, Buffett has given $45 billion to the Gates Foundation and he served as a member of the three-person board of directors of the foundation until Bill and Melinda Gates split up in 2021.
So Berkshire Hathaway’s profits have been Gates’ profits.
[…]
According to a 2020 investigation published in the Columbia Journalism Review, media coverage that tends to depict billionaires like Buffett and Gates as leaders, geniuses and benevolent stewards of society is linked to the fact that as funding for media collapsed over the last decade, the Gates Foundation stepped in to fill the gap.
In 2020 alone, for example, the foundation gave more than $250 million to news organizations including BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund.
The money comes with strings attached, limiting the reporting it funds to issues it wants to be covered.
So, while billionaire philanthropists like Buffett and Gates finance media coverage that celebrates them for bankrolling public health initiatives and paints their critics as conspiracy theorists, they continue to make massive profits off the destruction of the food system — and the corresponding destruction of public health.
Obesity makes kids sicker — pandemic lockdowns made kids more obese
Gates and Buffett profited massively from the COVID-19 pandemic because they “bet on Big Pharma” to yield major profits from vaccines.
But the pandemic they profited from was made worse by the obesity epidemic their investments in corn syrup helped drive, according to numerous studies.
Peer-reviewed studies published in major journals like The BMJ established early in the pandemic period that obesity was a major risk factor in poor COVID-19 outcomes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that obesity may triple the risk of hospitalization from a COVID-19 infection.
Obesity is a major COVID-19 risk factor even in young people who are much less susceptible to severe disease.
Systematic reviews and meta‐analyses found that children with obesity are at a higher risk of both severe respiratory disease and multisystem inflammatory syndrome due to COVID-19 relative to healthy children.
The CDC also reported numerous studies showing children diagnosed with obesity may suffer worse outcomes from COVID-19.
Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., and others advocated early in the pandemic in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine for dietary interventions to fight the negative effects of COVID-19.
But billionaires and politicians ignored these calls and instead promoted pandemic mitigation measures like lockdowns and school closures that increased rates of childhood obesity to unprecedented levels and made COVID-19 outcomes worse.
Research shows lockdowns and school closures increased childhood obesity because they reduced physical activity, worsened children’s mental health leading to over-eating and increased levels of food insecurity, which is linked to increased processed food consumption.
Coca-Cola, Mondelez and others ‘COVID-washed’ processed foods to grow profits
Peer-reviewed research shows that processed food corporations used the pandemic as a marketing opportunity to promote their unhealthy products to vulnerable populations during a time of increased stress and hardship — what researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand call “COVID-washing.”
The CEO of Coca-Cola told investors at the start of the pandemic in 2020 in “every previous crisis, military, economic or pandemic, in the last 134 years, the Coke Company has come out stronger.”
A report by researchers from the Global Health Policy Unit at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, working with the NCD Alliance, found that major processed food corporations like Coca-Cola were able to “adapt quickly and exploit new opportunities” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They wrote:
“This is illustrated via the pivoting of marketing and promotions to leverage both the pandemic and associated policy responses. For example, snack manufacturers Mondelez [a Berkshire Hathaway company] quickly recognised how lockdown led to increased in-house consumption whereby ‘more grazing, more continuous eating, and snacking takes up a much bigger role.’”
Processed food producers sought to “present themselves and their employees as heroes in the context of the pandemic,” they said.
The report linked to a Kraft Heinz video promoting “everyday heroes” in their processed food supply chain emoting “We Got You America” while visibly promoting core products such as Heinz Tomato Ketchup.
Heinz also partnered with food banks in its Kraft Heinz Project Pantry and Twitter campaign, invoking national solidarity to bring processed foods to low-income people.
According to Paula Johns, director general of ACT Health Promotion, Brazil, quoted in the report during the pandemic, “Unhealthy commodity industries have taken advantage of an adverse environment to sell their products and improve their image in the eyes of consumers.”
For example, Coca-Cola rebranded bottles and cans in Mexico to invoke COVID-19 solidarity, promoted the fact that it shifted advertising budgets to “fight COVID-19,” partnered with the United Nations Development Programme in several countries, funded Red Cross initiatives to link its brand with COVID-19 aid and partnered with the Gates Foundation to promote COVID-19 vaccination in Africa.
Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts gave away free donuts to people who showed their vaccination cards in 2021.
This branding was supported by the highest levels of government. In May 2021, McDonald’s and the Biden administration partnered to promote COVID-19 vaccines by advertising together on billboards and on McDonald’s cups and other items.
HFCS is as bad as you thought
Strong and consistent evidence links high sugar consumption and obesity in children and adolescents, with many studies pointing specifically to the role of sugary drinks like Coca-Cola.
Excess dietary sugar adds “empty calories” to the diet, affects hormone and blood sugar levels, stimulates appetite and overeating and replaces healthy foods in a child’s diet.
In the U.S., sugar in processed foods often takes the form of HFCS, a processed sweetener with high levels of fructose — which is harder for the body to break down than natural glucose.
HFCS is cheaper, sweeter and more quickly absorbed into the body than regular sugar. Eating too much can lead to insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
It can trigger processes that cause liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases, and it increases appetite and promotes obesity even more than regular sugar.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bill_gates_warren_buffett_obesity_corn_syrup/
Imagine a World Without Smartphones
By Emanuel Pastreich
When people think of the great attack on humanity, they often refer to 9.11, the start of the Iraq war, the COVID-19 operation, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But perhaps the deadliest attack on humanity is that of the “silent weapon” for a “quiet war” the smart phone. This weapon is aimed at the intellectual classes as a means of destroying their minds from within.
I have watched how the smart phone, combined with social media, has degraded the capacity of citizens to think for themselves over the last decade. This attack by the multinational corporations on our minds is far more dangerous than any bombing or shooting for it renders us passive, like GHB (gamma hydroxybutyric acid) (the date- rape drug) prone to exploitation and destruction.
The smart phone was launched in full force around 2009. I do not doubt that it had its positive aspects, and I was eventually forced to use one myself. Now you cannot travel without one in many parts of the world, and increasingly governments require them in order to be recognized as a citizen. There is a sinister plan behind all of this, the great dumbing down, we call it.
The passivity and openness to suggestion that exposure to the smart phone induces is best described as a “procedure of conditioning,” to use the term of the German philosopher Günther Anders.
Anders wrote about a previous bid for totalitarian rule that was remarkably successfully, and never completely ended,
“The stage-managing of masses that Hitler specialized in has become superfluous: if one wants to transform a man into a nobody (and even make him proud to be a nobody), it is no longer necessary to drown him in a mass, or to bury him in a cement construction mass-produced by masses. No depersonalization, no loss of the ability to be a man is more effective than the one that apparently preserves the freedom of the personality and the rights of the individual. If the procedure of conditioning takes place in a special way in the home of every person—in the individual home, in isolation, in millions of isolated units—the result will be perfect. The treatment is absolutely discreet, since it is presented as fun, the victim is not told that he must make any sacrifices and he is left with the illusion of his privacy or, at least, of his private space.”
Below is my article on the smart phone from the Korea Times published in 2018:
“Imagine Korea without smartphones”By Emanuel Pastreich, Korea Times, December 2, 2018
When I make this suggestion, the response I receive from Koreans is one of intense fascination. But the assumption they make is that I am going to describe a futuristic “smart city” in which we no longer will use smart phones because information will be projected on to our eyeglasses, or our retinas, or perhaps relayed directly to our brain via an implanted chip.
But I mean exactly what I say. The unrelenting takeover of our brains and of our society by the smartphone is taking an ominous turn.
Each day I watch almost every person on the subway lost in their smartphones, and increasingly lacking empathy for those around them as a result. They are mesmerized by video games; they flip quickly past photographs of chocolate cakes and cafe lattes, or fashionable dresses and shoes, or watch humorous short videos.
Few are reading careful investigative reporting, let alone books, that address the serious issues of our time. Nor are they debating with each other about how Korea will respond to the crisis of climate change, the risk of a nuclear arms race (or nuclear war) between the United States, Russia and China. Most media reporting is being dumbed down, treated as a form of entertainment, not a duty to inform the public.
Few people are sufficiently focused these days even to comprehend the complex geopolitical issues of the day, let alone the content of the bills pending in the National Assembly.
We are watching a precipitous decline in political awareness and of commitment to common goals in South Korea. And I fear that the smartphone, along with the spread of a social media that encourages impulsive and unfocused responses, is playing a significant role in this tragedy.
What do those smartphones do? We are told that smartphones make our lives more convenient and give us access to infinite amounts of information. IT experts are programming smartphones to be even more responsive to our needs and to offer even more features to make our lives more comfortable.
But Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” presents extensive scientific evidence that the internet as a whole, and smartphones in particular, are in fact reprogramming our brains, encouraging the neurons to develop lasting patterns for firing that encourage quick responses but that make contemplation and deep thought difficult.
Over time, we are creating a citizenship through that technology that is incapable of grasping an impending crisis and unable or unwilling to propose and implement solutions.
If smartphones are reprogramming our brains so that we are drawn to immediate gratification, but lose our capacity for deeper contemplation, for achieving an integrated understanding of the complexity of human society, and of nature, what will become of us?
But consumption, not understanding, let alone wisdom, is the name of the game for smartphones.
In the case of the worsening quality of the air in Korea, I observe a disturbing passivity, and also a painful failure of citizens to identity the complex factors involved. Even highly educated people seem not to have thought carefully about the exact factors behind the emissions of fine dust in Korea, and in China, and how that pollution is linked to the deregulation of industry, or to their behavior as consumers.
That is to say those phenomena in society have been broken down into discrete elements, like postings on Facebook, and that no overarching vision of complex trends is ever formed in the mind.
We float from one stimulating story to the next, like a butterfly flitting from one nectar-laden flower to another. We come away from our online readings with a vague sense that something is wrong, but with no deep understanding of what exactly the problem is, how it relates to our actions, and no game plan for how to solve it.
[…]
Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/imagine-world-without-smartphones/5811177
Big Tech Crash Accelerating in 2023 – Billions Lost on AI
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
The Big Tech Crash of 2022-2023 is accelerating here in 2023, and yet almost nobody is sounding the alarm as to just how significant the crash is going to affect everyone’s lives.
Instead, we are pummeled every day with reports in both the corporate and alternative media about how the technology is advancing, and that AI is poised to take over the world and replace humans.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While it is easy to collate the news and come to this very simple conclusion, that Big Tech is crashing, I have yet to see one other journalist refer to what we are now seeing as a “Big Tech Crash” which is very rapidly making the Dot.com technology crash of 2001 look like a walk in the park by comparison.
I started reporting on this at the beginning of the 4th quarter in 2022. Here are some of our previous articles on the Big Tech Crash.
The Technocrats Exposed: Almost 70,000 Layoffs in Big Tech so far in 2023 as Techno-Prophecies Fail
Big Tech Crash 2022: Amazon Fires 10,000 Employees, Largest Layoff In Company History
And as we complete just the 1st week of March, 2023, things are only getting worse, much worse.
Another Self-Driving AI Company Goes Bust
According to Layoffs.fyi, there have now been 125,977 layoffs in Big Tech for the first two months of 2023. There were 161,411 layoffs in Big Tech in all of 2022.
On October 28, 2022, I announced that the fantasy of fully autonomous self-driving vehicles was dead, and I have yet to read anyone else acknowledge this, at least not publicly. See:
The Fantasy of Autonomous Self-Driving Cars is Coming to an End as Tesla Faces DOJ Criminal Probe
Yesterday it was reported that autonomous trucking firm Embark Technology plunged 33% after they reported that they were exploring a range of options including potential dissolution of the company, and liquidation of their assets.
They have lost nearly $5 billion in valuation in under 2 years.
Shares of autonomous trucking firm Embark Technology plunged 33% Monday after it said it was exploring a range of options including potential dissolution of the company and liquidation of its assets.
Embark was valued at more than $5 billion two years ago when it went public on Nasdaq through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. But like many other autonomous vehicle firms, it struggled to develop and commercialize its technology while burning through cash. After Monday’s steep decline, Embark’s current market capitalization is about $60 million.
In a regulatory filing last Friday, Embark said it was laying off about 230 employees. (Source.)
This follows an announcement a few weeks ago that Google’s self-driving taxi company, Waymo, was also laying off employees.
Alphabet’s Waymo Robotaxi Subsidiary Cuts Staff, Including Trucking Engineers
Alphabet’s self-driving vehicle unit Waymo quietly laid off staff Monday, continuing a wave of job cuts at the parent company of Google, according to LinkedIn posts from affected employees and one person briefed about the move.
The posts indicated that Waymo cut recruiters, people who help train other employees to operate the vehicles, and technical staff focused on automating semitrailer trucks. The total number of laid off “Waymonauts” at the roughly 2,500-person company couldn’t immediately be learned.
Waymo is at least the fourth Alphabet subsidiary to cut staff this month. Google laid off roughly 12,000 workers on Friday, or 6% of staff, including people with high performance ratings, The Information reported. Robotics unit Intrinsic and life-sciences company Verily cut a total of more than 250 people two weeks ago, representing about 20% to 15% of staff in those units, respectively.
Alphabet has been under pressure to stem losses at Waymo, which has the largest headcount of any of its “other bets.” In November, activist investor TCI called on CEO Sundar Pichai to curb its spending, citing steps by Ford and Volkswagen to shut down their self-driving car projects. (Full article here. Subscription needed.)
[…]
Ancient Mississippian Civilization
Episode 12: Wider Mississippian Culture
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)
Film Review
This lecture concerns the spread of Mississippian culture following the fall of Cahokia (see Human Sacrifice in the Mississippian City of Cahokia). By 1000 AD, Mississippian civilization encompassed millions of people with shared religious beliefs and artistic expression. The introduction of corn (between 900-1000 AD) led to armed conflict between villages (apparent from skeletons revealing violent deaths and the appearance of palisades and other military fortifications around 1000 AD on).
David Graeber and David Wengrow comment on this in the The Dawn of Everything. As they point out, the absence of food surpluses in hunter gatherer societies gave neighboring villages no incentive to instigate violence to steal them.
Barnhart divides what he calls Southeast Ceremonial Complex art into five periods:
The Developmental Cult Period 900 – 1150 AD (characterized by crossed circles, long nosed gods and swastikas)The Southern Cult Period 1250 – 1350 AD (characterized by bilobed arrows, striped poles, chunkey players, piazzas and birds of prey)The Attenuated Cult Period 1350 – 1450 AD (in which trade networks beak down and artifacts are based on local materials and themes)The Post-Southern Cult Period 1450 – 1550 AD (characterized by a big increase in regional diversity.Historic Period 1550 – present (in which European colonization leads to breakdown of Mississippian civilization).Post-Cahokia Mississippian civilization saw the development of numerous thriving villages throughout eastern North America modeled on Cahokia and participating in wide trade networks, resulting in numerous religious artifacts made from imported materials, such as mica, copper, shell and ceramics.
Specific settlements Barnhart describes include
Aztalan (Wisconsin) 900-1250 AD – a mound building village covering 35 acres, with a central plaza that featured both circular houses (like Cahokia) and rectangular houses (similar to Hopewell culture). Archeological remains indicate residents grew corn, squash, gourds and sunflowers hunted dear, played chunkey* and engaged in extensive trade with other Mississippian communities.Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung (Ontario – aka Manitou Mounds) – name means “place of the long rapids.” This allowed for year round fishing because rapids don’t freeze. Contains Mississippian burial mounds dating from both the Laurel (300 BC – 1100 AD) and the Blackduck (800-1650 AD) cultures.Tabor Hill (Toronto) – believed to date from the 14th century AD.Moundville (Alabama) – 1100 – 1450 AD – second largest city north of Mexico, becoming the largest after Cahokia’s collapse. Had a clear three tiered social structure, consisting of a chief class (less than 10 people), an elite class and commoners.Spiro Mounds (Oklahoma) 850-1450 AD – only Mississippian village west of the Mississippi river. Very similar layout to Cahokia, with chunkey court and central plaza surrounded by mounds.Around 1375 AD, all Mississippian villages experienced a big drop in population as people migrated to more rural settings.
Graeber and Wengrow also comment on this population shift (page 491) after Cahokia:
“The overall direction in the wake of Cahokia was a broad movement away from overlords of any kind and constitutional structures carefully worked out to distribute power in such a way they could never return.”
*Chunkey was a Mississippian game in which players rolled flat disk-like stones and other players threw spears at them.
Film can be viewed free with library card on Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act
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