Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 528
August 11, 2022
Thailand to Lower Covid-19 to Same Disease Category as Influenza
By Patpicha TanakasempipatBloombergThailand will downgrade Covid-19 from a “dangerous” communicable disease to one that “needs monitoring” starting from October, as the country’s virus situation has started to stabilize, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
The move, which will remove Covid-19 from the same category as plague and smallpox to the same level as influenza and dengue, is to reflect the reality of the situation in Thailand, said Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
The move reflects Thailand’s health-system readiness, availability of treatments and “appropriate self-protection behavior” of people around the country, Anutin said in a statement. Thailand will also adjust the country’s post-pandemic management plan to allow private hospitals to start directly procuring antiviral drugs “soon,” rather than going through government channels, he said.
Authorities said last week that Thailand should start seeing a decline in severe Covid-19 cases and deaths by mid-August. Thailand on July 1 lifted virtually all travel restrictions and an outdoor mask mandate.
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100,000 BC: Early Human Migration and Settlement in China
Episode 3 Early China and the Mysterious Xia
Foundations of Chinese Civilization
Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)
Film Review
Benjamin begins this lecture by discussing the remains of 40 Homo erectus skeletons discovered in China over the last century. This is the first evidence that pre-human hominids migrated from Africa to Asia long before the first human beings emerged. Archeological evidence suggests they had discovered fire.
The oldest human remains from China date from 100,000 BC. Like early human migrants elsewhere, these were hunter gatherers living in small groups and using infanticide and senicide to limit group size. Like hunter gatherers elsewhere, they worshiped spirits associated with nature and their ancestors.
Over time, however, like early humans elsewhere, they began growing food and living in larger communities.
China’s Neolithic (late Stone Age) Era dates from roughly 8,000 – 3,000 BC and there is evidence of agriculture along it’s major rivers by 7,000 BC. The main crop along the northern Yellow River was millet and along the southern Yangtze River was rice. There is also evidence of domestication of chickens, pigs, silkworms and horses (originally domesticated on the Eurasian Steppes – see https://archive.org/details/horsewheelandlanguage).
By 4,000 BC, there’s evidence of different neolithic cultures trading with one another. By 3,000 BC, there’s evidence they’re waging war against war with one another.
In 2100 BC, the first (Xia) hereditary dynasty formed after “great King Yu” bequeathed his throne to his son Xi. The territory ruled by the Xia Dynasty consisted mainly of farmland with a number of substantial villages and a few urban centers. Xia artisans mastered the use of bronze and jade carving, as well as creating a calendar noting lunar and solar movement. Owing to their ability to communicate with the spirit world, Xia kings also served as shamans.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
August 10, 2022
Whistleblowers Accuse Military of Using Pfizer ‘Comirnaty’ Vaccine Produced at Facility Not Approved by FDA
Two whistleblowers — a member of the U.S. Coast Guard and the wife of a 19-year veteran at the Fort Detrick, Maryland, military base — allege the military is using fully licensed Pfizer “Comirnaty” vaccines manufactured at a facility in France that is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
A U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) service member alleges the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is administering COVID-19 vaccines from vials of Pfizer’s Comirnaty-labeled vaccines that are not produced at U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved manufacturing facility.Lt. Chad R. Coppin, in a July 30 declaration submitted with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) under penalty of perjury, detailed his personal investigation into the availability and origin of Comirnaty-labeled COVID-19 vaccine vials at U.S. military facilities.
Coppin also relayed his concerns in an interview with The Defender, as did Holly Freincle, the wife of a U.S. military service member stationed at Fort Detrick, Maryland, who corroborated Coppin’s claims that Comirnaty-labeled vaccine vials are appearing at military service facilities.
Freincle told The Defender Comirnaty-labeled vaccines are being administered at Fort Detrick and that her husband’s retirement is currently in jeopardy if he does not accept vaccination with this “FDA-approved” vaccine.
Until now, the DOD has claimed the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, administered under an FDA-issued Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), is “interchangeable” with the fully licensed Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine — which until recently, was said to be unavailable at military facilities.
The controversy surrounding Pfizer’s EUA vaccine versus the FDA-approved Comirnaty vaccine has figured prominently in several lawsuits involving the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates for military service members.
That’s partly because FDA regulations prohibit the mandatory administration of EUA products, despite the DOD’s claim that Pfizer’s EUA vaccine can be mandated because it’s “interchangeable” with Comirnaty.
In November 2021, a federal judge determined, as part of a broader order involving a military vaccine mandate lawsuit, that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Pfizer Comirnaty vaccines are not “interchangeable.”
Comirnaty-labeled vials at military facilities not produced at FDA-licensed facility
In his July 30 declaration, Coppin, who has served with the USCG since March 2002, reported that after a long period of unavailability, the “Comirnaty” vaccine began to appear at U.S. military facilities in June.
This included the Juneau, Alaska, USCG medical clinic where Coppin is stationed and where “a shipment of 60 Comirnaty vials packaged in six boxes of ten vials” was delivered on June 10.
According to Coppin, “prior to this date, only emergency use authorization shots have been available” at the Juneau facility and other military installations.
Coppin said the sudden availability of Comirnaty-labeled vaccine vials raised suspicions.
“I found [the delivery of Comirnaty-labeled vials] interesting as they arrived unannounced to any service members and to date, FDA approved Comirnaty labeled vials had never been seen in the USA,” he wrote in his declaration.
This, along with a sense of duty, led Coppin to investigate the matter further and eventually come out as a whistleblower.
Coppin stated:
“As a commissioned officer in the United States Coast Guard, it is my responsibility to uphold the Coast Guard’s core values of Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty.
“It is for this reason that I present … information that brings into question the ability of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to continue to push the lawful order of making service members partake in the injection of the ‘Comirnaty labeled’ COVID-19 shots that recently appeared at select military installations across the country.”
Medical staff at the Juneau facility told Coppin the Comirnaty-labeled vials were shipped there from the U.S. Army installation at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
In a subsequent phone call to the Maryland facility, Coppin alleged a U.S. Army civilian contractor told him the Comirnaty “grey cap” vials were “sent to Ft. Detrick from the Kalamazoo, MI Pfizer plant.”
Upon inquiring for information about where the Comirnaty-labeled vials were manufactured, he was told that he “would have to call Pfizer at Kalamazoo, MI for any additional information.”
In a July 7 phone call with a Pfizer customer service representative, Coppin said he was informed the Comirnaty-labeled vaccines with lot number FW 1331 that were shipped to the Juneau facility were “manufactured in France” on Jan. 28, 2022, and had an expiration date of Dec. 31, 2022.
However, he was provided “no other specific information regarding what Pfizer location, city or address in France” the vaccine was produced in.
The phone call between Coppin and Pfizer’s customer service representative was recorded and made publicly available as part of a podcast hosted by Dr. Samuel Sigoloff, a doctor who granted medical exemptions to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and who subsequently was ordered not to discuss COVID-19 or see patients.
According to Coppin, “The significance of the France manufacturing location is that it is not an authorized manufacturing location as per the FDA’s Comirnaty BLA Supplement Approval letter dated December 16, 2021,” which granted approval for the vaccine to be “manufactured at the Pfizer Manufacturing Belgium NV, Puurs, Belgium … facility.”
This is significant, Coppin said, because “we are being told that our military medical clinics at select locations across the country have the FDA approved Comirnaty” and that “Pfizer has stated on this recorded phone call that Lot number FW 1331 was manufactured in France which makes this not an FDA approved version for distribution in the United States of America according to the approved manufacturing locations declared in its BLA license.”
“Commanding Officers are using this shipment of Comirnaty from Ft. Detrick to try and convince and coerce the remaining unvaccinated service members into compliance with their order to receive a fully FDA approved Covid-19 vaccine,” Coppin alleged.
Refusal to receive ‘Comirnaty’ vaccine jeopardizing husband’s military retirement
Freincle corroborated Coppin’s claims that Comirnaty-labeled vaccine vials are appearing at military service facilities and that unvaccinated service members are being pressured to get vaccinated with it.
She said her husband’s retirement, after 19 years of service, is now in jeopardy unless he receives the “Comirnaty” vaccine.
[…]
Denmark Bans Covid Vaccine for Youth Under 18
By Mike Campbell
The Countersignal
Denmark has announced that people under the age of 18 are no longer allowed to get the COVID vaccine.
Those wanting their first shot were cut off after July 1, and no one in the age group — aside from those who are considered “high risk” and have a doctor’s note — will be allowed to get a second shot after September 1.
“Children and adolescents only very rarely become seriously ill from COVID-19 with the omicron variant. Therefore, from July 1, 2022, it will no longer be possible for children and adolescents under the age of 18 to get the 1st [shot], and from September 1, 2022, it will no longer be possible to get the 2nd [shot],” reads a government statement. [translated from Danish]
While many are likely relieved because it means that vaccine mandates won’t be coming back to school, few have followed Denmark’s lead, and if the science is universal, it’s a wonder why they haven’t.
For example, despite this decision from Denmark, babies are now eligible to receive three rounds of Moderna’s Covid vaccine in Canada, even though COVID poses no greater threat to babies than the flu does, and Health Canada admits they lack long-term safety data.
Moreover, various health authorities have recently highlighted the risks of adverse effects that exist from the COVID vaccines.
Germany’s ministry of health recently tweeted there’s a 1 in 5000 chance people receive a “serious adverse effect” from the vaccines.
This came just days after Ontario’s CMHO refused to say healthy people “should” get boosted with what he referred to as a “therapeutic” due to the risk of myocarditis being 1 in 5000.
While it seems that more and more authorities are warning of the risks of vaccines — which, according to Denmark, are greater than the risk of COVID for the young and healthy — few countries are willing to say outright that the risks outweigh the benefits.
[…]
Via https://thecountersignal.com/denmark-bans-covid-vaccine-for-youth-under-18/
Independent German Journalist Faces 3 Years Prison for Reporting Truth From Ukraine
By Baxter Dmitry
News Punch
German independent journalist Alina Lipp has been defying mainstream media by bravely reporting from Ukraine’s Donbass region. Now the reporter, who has been based in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region for six months, is facing three years in prison in her home country for her “crimes.”
So much for freedom of speech in the liberal Western world.
The charges against Ms Lipp relate to her coverage of the war in Ukraine from her News from Russia Telegram channel. While mainstream media coverage of the war is concocted in offices in major world cities, Lipp has been sharing real information from the front lines of the war with 175,000 subscribers in both German and Russian.
It seems breaking real news from the front is not in the interests of the global elite that run the Western world. Truth has become a crime.
In an interview with the Readonka World website, Ms Lipp explained that she is subject to criminal proceedings by the German federal government after receiving a letter from the prosecutor’s office.
Ms Lipp is accused by the German authorities of supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and faces three years in prison under article 140 of the constitution and a monetary fine.
“The letter says that, for example, I say in my Telegram channel that the population of Donbass supports the fact that Russia has launched a special operation.
“I also said that for several years Ukrainians have been killing civilians in the Donbass, and that this is genocide.
“And it turns out to be a crime for Germany, so they took 1,600 euro from my bank account and didn’t even tell me about it,” Ms Lipp said.
German authorities also closed down her father’s bank account without warning, she claimed.
It’s called “financial asphyxiation” and the elites also used this technique against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for years.
Ms Lipp says she just films what she sees and doesn’t spread “fake information.”
MSOnline report: Despite the charges against her, she plans to continue reporting from Donetsk, which she said is being shelled daily by the Ukrainian armed forces.
[…]
Judge Who Signed Mar-A-Lago Search Warrant Exposed As Associate of Jeffrey Epstein
Federal Magistrate Bruce E Reinhart
By BlueApples via Zero Hedge
If there were any question as to whether or not the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence was rife with corruption, details from the search warrant authorizing it should clear any doubt. Although information is sparse given that the warrant remains under seal, one piece of information that couldn’t be kept confidential sheds new light on the motives behind the raid.
The judge who signed off on the search warrant was Bruce E. Reinhart, United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Before assuming his office as a federal judge, Reinhart was an attorney who represented associates of Jeffrey Epstein implicated in his human trafficking conspiracy, namely; Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova.
Kellen worked for Epstein as his scheduler for years and was referenced in deposition testimony given during the defamation case between Virginia Guiffre and Ghislaine Maxwell. Marcinkova was a more prominent member of Epstein’s entourage as she served as one of the pilots of his infamous aircraft dubbed “The Lolita Express.”
Reinhart assumed his role as Kellen and Marcinkova’s attorney once he set up a criminal defense firm after resigning from his post as a senior prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida as it was negotiating a non-prosecution agreement for Epstein. Reinhart would officially begin his legal representation of Epstein’s accomplices within days of leaving his position as a senior prosecutor within the district.
While Reinhart’s association with Epstein hadn’t resurfaced until his was thrust back into the spotlight as the Federal Magistrate who authorized the search warrant for the Mar-A-Lago raid, it was a matter of considerable controversy in the wake of his resignation in 2007. In 2013, the US Attorneys states that “while Bruce E. Reinhart was an assistant U.S. attorney, he learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter.’’ in response to his claims against any impropriety. Reinhart’s rejection of any wrongdoing on his part was made in a 2011 affidavit as part of a civil court case filed by two of Epstein’s victims in 2008 which named Former Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta along with two other federal prosecutors, one of whom was Reinhart.
Reinhart’s representation of Marcinkova best conveys his ties to the human trafficking enterprise that Epstein and his network assembled. Marcinkova is presently the Founder and CEO of Aviloop. The company’s website states that it harnesses Marcinkova’s experience as a pilot for the consulting firm’s focus on companies based in the aviation industry. Marketing, social media services, and event management are listed among the services which are offered. As is an explicit mission to “help employers diversify their crews.”
While the Aviloop website is rather innocuous, other than the fact that it is operated by an associate of Jeffrey Epstein’s, its YouTube Channel portrays a different image. The YouTube channel is sparse, containing only 4 videos, each of which were posted 8 years ago from the date of this article and only has 34 subscribers. Yet, the content of the videos is suspicious even with the low volume made available. Each video is a brief, 40 second or so monologue from a young woman dressed in a suggestive, pilot-themed outfit. Their sultry voices attempt to entice potential customers into a membership with Aviloop whether they are looking for deals on pilot training courses, aviation services or simply want to “see more girls like me.” Oddly enough, memberships with Aviloop are completely free according to the promotional video.
The automated voicemail for Aviatri states that callers have reached actually reached Aviloop. Delineating between the 2 businesses is difficult as Aviatri does not appear to be incorporated with the New York Department of State’s Division of Corporations like Aviloop is. Aviatri extends the mission of Aviloop to aspiring female pilots directly by acting as a recruiting agency for them. The agency’s website states that it offers online courses, flight training, and financing to aspiring female pilots.
[…]
What is known about Marcinkova is how deeply enmeshed she was with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the crimes they committed. Consequently, Reinhart was likely well-aware of those crimes given his representation of Marcinkova and Kellen on top of his position as a federal prosecutor in the district which tendered Epstein with a non-prosecution agreement.
[…]
August 9, 2022
Regulators, Congress Should Investigate Proposed Amazon-One Medical Merger
Amazon’s proposed acquisition of healthcare provider One Medical should be rejected unless Amazon commits to robust, legally binding safeguards that protect consumers, competition and the integrity of the healthcare system.
Amazon’s proposed acquisition of healthcare provider One Medical should be rejected unless Amazon commits to robust, legally binding safeguards that protect consumers, competition and the integrity of the healthcare system, Public Citizen said last week in a letter sent to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and leaders in Congress.The letter reads:
“The risks to competition, patient privacy and the delivery of quality health are evident. This merger should not be permitted to proceed unless and until strong public interest protections are imposed that will demonstrably address all of those grave dangers.”
Public Citizen raised the following concerns:
Amazon may gain an unfair competitive advantage in the healthcare market. There is good reason to fear that Amazon will leverage its dominant role in the online retail market to gain unfair advantage in healthcare delivery, for example, through bundling Amazon Prime and One Medical memberships.Amazon may misuse patients’ health data. The personal medical data that One Medical routinely accumulates would be of enormous value to a marketing company such as Amazon, which will have an undeniable and inherent interest in trying to gain access to that most personal of data. Moreover, there are good reasons to worry that Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections will be inadequate to prevent Amazon from vacuuming up One Medical patients’ data.The merger may exacerbate healthcare inequalities. Amazon-One Medical is likely to disproportionately serve healthier and wealthier patients. This will leave other healthcare providers with sicker and less profitable patients — raising overall costs, and worsening healthcare disparities already experienced by vulnerable populations.The merger could worsen Medicare overbilling. Amazon, through its acquisition of One Medical, would likely build out a primary care network across the country that inflates Medicare payments as part of its business model.The merger may undermine the quality of healthcare. Amazon’s online business model could deeply erode the quality of primary healthcare — including preventative, acute and chronic disease management care. While some virtual visits can enhance consumer access, the overly aggressive substitution of in-person medical encounters with virtual visits can work directly against the proper provision for needed in-person care. Relatedly, Amazon’s demand for robot-like efficiency among its employees may well conflict with the imperatives of providing quality healthcare. And finally…The merger may undermine worker rights at One Medical. Amazon has a well-documented history of hostility to workers exercising their right to form unions. Similarly, One Medical workers have reported being rushed, pressured, stretched out and unable to deliver the quality of care they believe patients require. Amazon seems likely to worsen these issues.“The American healthcare system is broken, but Amazon’s entry as a major healthcare provider only threatens to make it worse,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “We may get marketing instead of medicine, data harvesting instead of privacy protections, robotic care instead of bedside manner, and more healthcare disparity instead of more quality. The problem of American healthcare can be summed up as too much greed and not enough patient care. The Amazon acquisition of One Medical will only deepen that problem.”
[…]
Pentagon-hired contractors ‘everywhere on battlefield’ in Ukraine
Samizdat | August 8, 2022 Ukrainian forces have “had the American military at their side” from the start of the conflict with Russia, the magazine Causeur cited a “well-placed analyst” in French intelligence as saying. Pentagon-hired contractors are allegedly “everywhere on the battlefield.”
Tap News
The claim was published by the right-leaning outlet last week in an analysis of the five-month-long Russia-Ukraine conflict, which, it stated, “is not the fight of David against Goliath,” contrary to what many people believe.
“In Ukraine, the Pentagon for the first time subcontracted large-scale warfare,” the magazine cited its source as saying. These “mercenaries” come in addition to the “gigantic” military aid provided to Kiev by Washington, and are not necessarily frontline fighters, according to Causeur.
As an example of ‘subcontracted’ warfare, it cited the widely-publicized supply of SpaceX satellite internet access for Ukrainian military officials. CEO Elon Musk initially framed this as an act of charitable support, but media reports later revealed that it was paid for with US taxpayer money.
The US decided not to involve its troops in Ukraine, claiming it did not want a direct confrontation with Russia. However, the French magazine said Washington is apparently ignoring the threat of escalation as it pours weapons and private manpower into Ukraine for the sake of “bleeding” Russia, which, the US government hopes, will result in a strategic defeat for Moscow.
The magazine also said that Russia appears to be slowly gaining the upper hand over Ukraine as its superior firepower is prevailing over Kiev’s eight-year preparations for a fight for Donbass. The heavy damage caused by Russian artillery and aerial forces have led to dissertations and insubordination among the Ukrainian troops, it said. If the Russian forces progress beyond the heavily urbanized Donbass with its unfavorable terrain, the balance of power could quickly shift in Moscow’s favor, the report said.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
[…]
Via https://tapnewswire.com/2022/08/pentagon-hired-contractors-everywhere-on-battlefield-in-ukraine/
There is No Food Crisis – If Only We Stopped Burning It As Biofuel
David CraigDaily ScepticWe’ve all been bombarded daily with horror stories about how food prices are being forced up and hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest risk starvation because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prevented exports of grain and sunflower oil.
Well, let me give you some figures our politicians and the mainstream media don’t want to mention. They don’t mention these figures because these figures undermine the disastrous global-warming, climate-catastrophist, Net-Zero policies being forced on us by our rulers.
The U.S. produces abut 384 million metric tonnes of corn each year and around 50 million tonnes of wheat. Ukraine produces about 38 million tonnes of corn each year and around 33 million tonnes of wheat. Around 20 million tonnes of Ukraine’s wheat is exported each year.
Conclusion 1: The U.S. produces an awful lot more food than Ukraine.
But let’s look at how all the USA’s corn and wheat is actually used. Over a third of the USA’s corn – that’s more than 128 million tonnes of the USA’s corn production – is used to make biofuels rather than being used for human consumption.
It’s more difficult to find out how much of the U.S.’s 38 million tonnes of wheat is used for biofuels, but it may be as much as a quarter. However, we do know that in the European Union, 12 million tonnes of grain, including wheat and maize, is turned into ethanol – around 7% of the bloc’s production. It’s estimated that this is enough food to feed around 150 million people if it wasn’t being used for transport fuel.
Also just in the EU, 3.5 million tonnes of palm oil is used to make biodiesel. That’s almost the amount of sunflower oil coming out of Ukraine and Russia combined.
Conclusion 2: We’re burning food rather than using it to feed people.
You may have noticed that last year the petrol you buy changed from something called ‘E5’ to ‘E10’. E5 petrol is petrol containing 5% biofuel and E10 is, of course, petrol containing 10% biofuel.
According to calculations done by scientists at Princeton University, if the U.S. and Europe were to decrease their use of ethanol made from grain by 50% – that would mean just moving back from E10 petrol to E5 petrol – they would effectively have sufficient extra crops to replace all of Ukraine’s exports of grain.
If our rulers were to completely scrap the biofuel mandates they have imposed on us, the world would be awash with food and food prices would fall significantly. Then the only reason for hungry people would be distribution problems caused by mismanagement, corruption and conflict.
When the EU first mandated that 2.5% of all fuel sold in the EU should be made from biofuels, worldwide food prices shot up – wheat, for example, doubled in price – and the UN’s Rapporteur for Food said: “It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel.”
He further argued that biofuels would only lead to further hunger in a world where an estimated 854 million people – one out of six in 2007 – already suffered from the scourge; 100,000 people died from hunger or its immediate consequences every day; and every five seconds, a child died from hunger
We’re now at 10% biofuels and, if I have understood correctly, following new climate change legislation passed in the U.S. last week, the biofuel content of petrol may be increased even further. This will mean diverting more potential food to fuel production at a time of world food shortages and rocketing food prices.
This is madness. But it get worse. Biofuels are less efficient than fossil fuels – you get fewer miles or kilometres per litre or gallon and they damage car engines more than fossil fuels. Moreover, the huge amounts of energy required to produce biofuels mean that they are probably more environmentally-damaging than fossil fuels.
Scrapping the biofuels mandates in the U.S. and EU isn’t something that would take years or months to implement. It could be done this week and the results – more food availability and falling food prices – would happen immediately.
So, why won’t our rulers do this? Moreover, why do they seem to be moving in the opposite direction – by pushing ever more food into fuel production?
It could just be utter incompetence. Or it could be fear of a storm of criticism by the ever more vociferous climate-catastrophist lobby. It could be that they are trapped by their own save-the-planet virtue-signalling. Or it could be the classic reaction of politicians and bureaucracies – the more evidence emerges that their policies are misguided, the more they double down on those policies as they can never admit that they got it wrong.
However, for the conspiracy theorists, there’s a fifth possibility – that our rulers are acting together to deliberately restrict food production, push up food prices and impoverish us all as a means of increasing their control over us.
[…]
The Intertwined Role of Steppes Nomads and Early Chinese Civilization
Episode 2: Journey to the East
The Foundations of Eurasian Civilization
Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)
Film Review
This lecture is an introduction to the Benjamin’s 48 episode course The Foundations of Eurasian Civilization.
About half the course is devoted to China, considered the cradle of Eastern civilization. However it will also cover China’s immense influence on the West, beginning with the Confucian about efficient bureaucracy,* and the essential role of numerous Chinese inventions in the industrialization of western society.
By the fall of the Tang dynasty in 740 AD, China had created the wealthiest and most powerful state (population two million) the world had ever seen, thanks to Chinese peasants creating the world’s most successful commercial farming system.
At the same time, the steppes nomads to the north of the first Chinese cities (and their ferocious horse archers – see Barbarian Empires of the Steppes) also had a massive influence on early Chinese civilization. Their repeated booty raids on China would lead the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (founder of the Qin/Ch’in Dynasty) to build the first border length wall in 221 BC.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers were conscripted to build the wall, with tens of thousands losing their lives. The wall failed to stop the raids.
It would be the steppes nomads, and their domestication of the Bactrian camel, that made possible the Silk Roads, the first overland network of international trade.
*American founding father Benjamin Franklin was a big fan of Confucius and adopted many of his ideas in developing his approach to democratic government.
Film can be viewed free with a library card at Kanopy.
The Most Revolutionary Act
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