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Akkadia: The World’s First Empire

Episode 8: Lugalgagesi of Umma and Sargon of Kish

Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization

Dr Amanda H Podany

Film Review

This lecture concerns Mesopotamia’s most famous kings, Lugalgagesi of Umma and Sargon of Kish. Umma continued to have border wars with the city-state of Lagash (see
Mesopotamia’s First Kings/) for several centuries. Around 2350 BC, Lugalgagesi totally sacked Lagash, burning its temples, destroying its treasury and barley fields belonging to one of the temples.

After sacking Lagash, Lugalgagesi declared himself ruler of all the land between the Upper Sea (Mediterranean) and the Lower Sea (Persian Gulf). However in reality, he only controlled a confederation of six southern Mesopotamian city-states: Lagash, Umma, Uruk, Larson, Ur and Zabalam.

King Sargon of Kish* ended Lugalgagesi’s reign in 2334 BC after conquering the cities Lugalgagesi controlled and establishing the Akkadian empire (the world’s first).

The exploits of both kings were recorded in cuneiform script on clay tablets (in both Sumerian and Akkadian**). It was during this period that scribes began using cuneiform to record historical narratives (especially those of kings) as well as for keeping records of transactions.

Sargon is best known for establishing a well-functioning bureaucracy to govern the captured city-states, standardizing the writing system and establishing direct trade links with Dilman (modern day Bahrain) and the Indus Valley.

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

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/lugalzagesi-umma-and-sargon-akkad

*Like Moses, Sargon was the secret son of a princess who floated him down the river in a reed basket. He was rescued by a different queen who raised him as her own child.

**The wealthy elite of the Akkadian empire spoke both languages.

Fauci Flashback: “The Most Potent Vaccination Is Getting Infected Yourself”

Zero Hedge

Throughout the pandemic, a large contingency of doctors, researchers, and non-mainstream media outlets have been pounding the table over natural immunity as an alternative to vaccination to protect against Covid-19, with the obvious conclusion that vaccine passports are moot if a large percentage of the population has a higher degree of protection than even the vaccinated because they’ve already had the disease.

And as time has gone on, ‘the science’ has validated this theory – with even Bill Gates admitting recently that “the virus itself, particularly the variant called Omicron, is a type of vaccine.”

Natural Immunity Lasts For At Least 18 Months: StudyGrowing Number Of Experts Call On US Govt To Recognize Natural ImmunityPandemic Lessons Learned: CDC Versus Natural ImmunityNCAA Recognizes Natural Immunity In Definition Of ‘Fully Vaccinated’Another Study Finds That Natural Immunity Protects Better Against Infection Than Pfizer Vaccine

As the Epoch Times notes, On March 1, the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published a peer-reviewed article titled “Risk of reinfection after seroconversion to SARS-CoV-2: A population-based propensity-score matched cohort study.” This Swiss study “observed a 94% reduction in the hazard of being infected among SARS-CoV-2 seropositive participants, when compared to seronegative controls, >8 months after serology assessment.”

This level of protection (natural immunity) from SARS-CoV-2 infection (94 percent) is comparable to that of the Pfizer vaccine but lasts longer (eight months and counting).

Yet, the official US government response – led by Dr. Anthony Fauci and echoed worldwide – has excluded virtually all mention of natural immunity as a relevant mitigation against Covid-19, which would of course render vaccination, booster shots, and vaccine passports moot for tens of millions of Americans.

And so, with Fauci pretending like he’s never heard of natural immunity for the past two years, here’s a flashback to the ‘good doctor’ discussing explaining that “The most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself.”

“The most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself” – Dr. Fauci (pre C19) pic.twitter.com/a6qiDa0Ubt

— ELIJAH (@ElijahSchaffer) March 31, 2022

Fast forward years later, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says that when he directly asked Fauci about natural immunity, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert did not “have a real firm answer.”

Almost 20 months into the pandemic, it is shocking that the chief medical advisor to the president does not have a firm grasp on the effectiveness of natural immunity, but still promotes freedom-robbing vaccine mandates.  This administration clearly does not want the public to question whether natural immunity is more effective than vaccines. As President Biden revealingly declared, the vaccine mandate ‘is not about freedom or personal choice.’ This administration’s decision to disregard the effectiveness of natural immunity and demand vaccination ignores current data and is an assault on all Americans’ civil liberties.” -Sen. Ron Johnson

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fauci-flashback-most-potent-vaccination-getting-infected-yourself

United Kingdom’s NHS launches FIFTH COVID jab

Dr Eddy Betterman

Just as many said would happen, the number of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccines” that governments want to be injected into people’s bodies is becoming endless.

In the United Kingdom, the government’s National Health Service (NHS) has unveiled a fifth covid injection, which is now available to 400,000 people who have already received four doses.

The spring “booster” program is offering shots to at least five million people who received just three injections so far, with appointments opening up to 600,000 of them in the latter half of March for those folks to get their fourth injection.

“We’re getting ready for a fourth jab because we’re going to need it,” announced Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a recent Tory conference in Blackpool.

Those who have already taken four shots will now be lined up for a fifth shot. After that, we expect that there will be a sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth shot, followed by an infinite number of shots after that.

“We have protected millions of people thanks to the efforts of our staff and volunteers,” explained NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard. “They will once again rise to the next challenge.”

Health Secretary Sajid Javid further added that Great Britain’s “phenomenal vaccination program has saved countless lives and built a wall of defense which has allowed us to learn to live with COVID.”

This is the same Sajid Javid, by the way, who promised late last year that Brits will be taking COVID injections four times a year for the rest of their lives.

The more people get boosted, the sicker they become

The U.K. Health Security Agency (HSA) claims that since mid-December, some 157,000 hospitalizations have been prevented because of booster injections. The proof to back this, however, is nonexistent.

Some of the most recent data from the HSA suggest the opposite to be true, in fact.

The vast majority of people who are getting sick and having to be hospitalized for “COVID,” it turns out, are people who took their injections, including the boosters, as prodded by the government.

Many of these “fully vaccinated” and “fully boosted” individuals also now suffer from vaccine-induced AIDS (VAIDS), which is likely to become much more of a problem in the coming months and years as immune destruction progresses.

The Daily Exposé has reported extensively on VAIDS, dissecting the HSA data to uncover the truth. More often than not, the HSA reports the exact opposite of what its own data actually reveal when looking at it closely.

The real-world effectiveness of the jabs is actually negative, meaning the shots degradeimmune function, not promote it. And yet the HSA continues to lie to the world about who is really getting sick and occupying hospital beds.

“England is very much experiencing a pandemic of the fully vaccinated, with the vaccinated over 18 population as a whole recording a shocking 1.67 million cases in January 2022, compared to just 228,750 cases among unvaccinated people over the age of 18,” the Exposé reported.

If it is true that the double-, triple-, quadruple-, and quintuple-jabbed are losing their immune function due to VAIDS, and that the more jabs a person gets, the faster this immune degradation occurs, then the world is in for a serious public health crisis in the very near future.

“One neighbor suddenly broke out in shingles, and another is on trip 3 of diagnostic tests to try and figure out what is wrong with him (heart issues, breathing issues and others). Both fully jabbed and boosted,” wrote someone in Natural News.

“Too far gone to bring up the obvious mRNA elephant in the room, but hard to ignore that it is a likely root cause or contributor.”

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2022/04/02/united-kingdoms-nhs-launches-fifth-covid-jab/

German Chemical Giant Warns Of “Total Collapse” If Russian Gas Supply Cut

CEO of BASF Martin Brudermüller, file image

Company CEO Martin Brudermuller issued the words in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper just ahead of German officials by midweek giving an “early warning” to industries and the population of possible natural gas shortages, as Russia appears ready to firmly hold to Putin’s recent declaration that “unfriendly countries” must settle energy payments in rubles, related to the Ukraine crisis and resultant Western sanctions.

According to Bloomberg he mused that while “Germany could be independent from Russia gas in four to five years” it remains that “LNG imports cannot be increased quickly enough to replace all Russian gas flows in the short term.”

But in the meantime, Brudermuller described that “It’s not enough that we all turn down the heating by 2 degrees now” given that “Russia covers 55 percent of German natural gas consumption.” He emphasized that if Russian gas disappeared overnight, “many things would collapse here” – given that “we would have high levels of unemployment, and many companies would go bankrupt. This would lead to irreversible damage.” He continued:

“To put it bluntly: This could bring the German economy into its worst crisis since the end of the Second World War and destroy our prosperity. For many small and medium-sized companies in particular, it could mean the end. We can’t risk that!”

The dire warning of coming disaster in the event Russian gas is shut off came in response being questioned over whether it’s at all possible to abandon Russian energy.

Asserting that this issue is not “black and white” – and that the German economy stands on the brink of catastrophe, the BASF CEO said that if this standoff continues to escalate it will “open the eyes of many on both sides”…

Below is the question posed by the newspaper, and Brudermuller’s response:

And what if, for example, Putin’s demand for payment in rubles leads to an immediate stop in gas supplies?

“A delivery stop for a short time would perhaps open the eyes of many – on both sides. It would make clear the magnitude of the consequences. But if we don’t get any more Russian gas for a long time, then we really have a problem here in Germany. At BASF, we would have to scale back or completely shut down production at our largest site in Ludwigshafen if the supply fell significantly and permanently below 50 percent of our maximum natural gas requirement. Minister Habeck has already activated the early warning level of the gas emergency plan.”

Separate sources estimate that at Ludwigshafen alone this scenario would immediately lead to some 40,000 employees being possibly laid off, or at least put on short-time working hours.

The chemical group BASF is one of the largest energy consumers in Germany, its CEO Brudermüller considers an import boycott of Russian natural gas to be irresponsible. He explains the consequences with many bankruptcies, destruction of corporate Germany.https://t.co/sPcWiJFnyg

— Alper Üçok (@AlperUcok) March 31, 2022

He warned further in the interview that many Germans are currently greatly underestimating the consequences of what Russia shutting off the taps would mean… nothing less than a historic crisis:

“Many have misconceptions. I notice that in many of the conversations I have. People often make no connection at all between a boycott and their own job. As if our economy and our prosperity were set in stone.”

He explained that higher prices are already having a huge impact on the food supply given at this point BASF has been forced to reduce the production of ammonia for fertilizer production.

Brudermuller called this “a catastrophe and we will feel it even more clearly next year than this one. Because most of the fertilizers that the farmers need this year have already been bought. In 2023 there will be a shortage, and then the poor countries in particular, for example in Africa, will no longer be able to afford to buy basic foodstuffs.” In a very alarming statement and forewarning, he added: “There is a risk of famine.”

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/basf-ceo-warns-germany-total-collapse-if-russian-gas-supply-cut

Dumbphone Sales Surging as Masses Ditch Their Smartphones

The Corbett Report

Listen in podcast app

Watch this video on Archive / BitChute / Minds / Odysee or Download the mp4

This week on the New World Next Week: the digital ID grid rolls out in country after country; the dumbphone revolution sees people ditching their smartphones in growing numbers; and performers are dropping like flies as the Foo Pfizers drummer becomes the latest in the string of celebrity deaths.

CLICK HERE for show notes and comments

Via https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/dumbphone-sales-surging-as-masses

Gas supply: What will happen if Russia turns off taps to Germany?

Al Jazerra

Europe’s largest economy declares ‘early warning’ of a possible emergency, a measure aimed at preparing for the risk of natural gas flows from Russia being cut off.

The German government has triggered the first stage of an emergency plan for natural gas supplies and urged consumers to save energy in the face of growing concerns that sanctions-hit Russia could stop deliveries unless it is paid in roubles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week his country would only accept payments in roubles for natural gas deliveries to “unfriendly countries” – those that have imposed sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including all European Union members.

The announcement was seen as an effort to shore up the rouble, which had collapsed against other currencies after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and Western countries responded with debilitating sanctions against Moscow.

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of gas in terms of volume, accounting for nearly half of the EU’s imports in 2021. For Germany, Europe’s largest economy, that figure stood at 55 percent last year. And although Germany’s gas imports from Russia dropped to 40 percent in the first quarter of 2022, economy minister Robert Habeck has said his country will not achieve full independence from Russian supplies before mid-2024.

Here’s what to know about Germany’s decision to sound the first official alarm about gas supplies.

What is the issue?

Russia said last week it would draw up a mechanism by March 31 under which the “unfriendly countries” would pay for gas in roubles. Most now pay in euros or United States dollars. Moscow is expected to unveil new rules for gas payments on Thursday.

Habeck has rejected Russia’s gas-for-roubles demand, saying contracts would be honoured under current terms.

“Payment in roubles is not acceptable and … we call on the companies concerned not to comply with Putin’s demand,” he said on Monday.

Russia’s biggest German customers are Uniper, RWE and EnBW’s VNG, which all have long-term gas supply contracts. They have not commented on questions about individual preparations for any disruption.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also rejected Russia’s demand, saying it “is not in line with what was signed, and I do not see why we would apply it”.

Habeck said on Wednesday Germany’s gas storage is currently filled to about 25 percent capacity.

“The question how long the gas will last basically depends on several factors [such as] consumption and weather,” he said. “If there’s a lot of heating, then the storage facilities will be emptied.”

(Al Jazeera)What is Berlin’s emergency plan?

Germany’s “Emergency Plan Gas” has three crisis levels detailing ways to conserve gas, secure supplies and make sure households have adequate amounts of fuel.

The first level, which the government has triggered, is the “early warning” when there are signs a supply emergency could develop.

“We are in a situation where, I have to say this clearly, every kilowatt-hour of energy saved helps,” said Habeck, who is also Germany’s energy minister and vice-chancellor. “And that’s why I would like to combine the triggering of the warning level with an appeal to companies and private consumers to help Germany, help Ukraine, by saving gas or energy as a whole.”

The second warning level is “alarm”, when a disruption to supply or extraordinarily high demand upsets the usual balance but can still be corrected without full-state intervention, requiring companies in the gas industry to take necessary measures to direct supply.

The third level is “emergency”, when market-based measures have failed to remedy shortages. At this stage, Germany’s network regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, must decide on how to distribute remaining gas supplies across the country to ensure that those who need it most – such as hospitals and private households – receive it.

“We’re not there and we don’t want to go there,” he added.

What will be the effect?

If the government does not secure enough gas, industry, which accounts for a quarter of German gas demand, will be hit first.

“This means that industrial production gets lost, that supply chains get lost,” Leonhard Birnbaum, chief executive of German energy group E.ON, told public broadcaster ARD.

“We are certainly talking about very heavy damages.”

Private households will have priority over industry, while hospitals, care facilities and other public sector institutions with special needs would be last to be affected by a disruption.

[…]

Via https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/30/gas-supply-what-will-happen-if-russia-turns-off-taps-for-germany

NY Times Latest to Mislead Public on New Ivermectin Study

By 

Madhava Setty, M.D.

The New York Times on Wednesday sent an email to subscribers titled: “Breaking News: Ivermectin failed as a Covid treatment . . .” The Times was referring to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, covered March 18 by The Wall Street Journal. In both cases, the newspapers failed to provide an accurate critical analysis of the study.

The New York Times on Wednesday sent an email blast to subscribers with the subject line: “Breaking News: Ivermectin failed as a Covid treatment, a large clinical trial found.”

The Times was referring to a study I wrote about, that same day, for The Defender.

My article called out the Wall Street Journal for its March 18 reporting on the same study — before the study was even published — for its failure to provide an accurate, critical assessment of the study.

The study in question — “Effect of Early Treatment with Ivermectin among Patients with Covid-19” — was officially published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

In it the authors concluded:

“Treatment with ivermectin did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of Covid-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis of Covid-19”

The Times did not critique the study itself, but quoted the opinion of Dr. David Boulware, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota:

“There’s really no sign of any benefit. Now that people can dive into the details and the data, hopefully that will steer the majority of doctors away from ivermectin towards other therapies.”

Yes. Let us dive into the details and the data and see where it “steers” us, shall we?

A closer look at the details

The NEJM study took place in Brazil between March 23 and Aug. 6, 2021.

The study examined 1,358 people who expressed symptoms of COVID-19 at an outpatient care facility (within seven days of symptom onset), had a positive rapid test for the disease and had at least one of these risk factors for severe disease:

Age over 50Hypertension requiring medical therapyDiabetes mellitusCardiovascular diseaseLung diseaseSmokingObesityOrgan transplantationChronic kidney disease (stage IV) or receipt of dialysis Immunosuppressive therapy (receipt of ≥10 mg of prednisone or equivalent daily)Diagnosis of cancer within the previous 6 monthsReceipt of chemotherapy for cancer.

Young and healthy individuals were not part of this study.

Both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals were included in the study. The percentage of vaccinated participants in each group was not specified. Note that by choosing not to identify vaccination status as a confounding variable the authors are implying that vaccines are playing no role in preventing hospitalization.

The 1,358 subjects were divided into two equally sized groups that were relatively well-matched and randomized to receive either a three-day dose of placebo or a three-day course of ivermectin at 400 mcg/kg.

The primary outcome was hospitalization due to COVID-19 within 28 days after randomization or an emergency department visit due to clinical worsening of COVID-19 (defined as the participant remaining under observation for >6 hours) within 28 days after randomization.

How researchers were able to conclude ‘no benefit’ despite signs to the contrary

The study’s authors wrote:

“100 patients (14.7%) in the ivermectin group had a primary-outcome event (composite of hospitalization due to the progression of COVID-19 or an emergency department visit of >6 hours that was due to clinical worsening of COVID-19), as compared with 111 (16.3%) in the placebo group (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16).”

In other words, a greater percentage of placebo recipients required hospitalization or observation in an emergency department than those who received Ivermectin.

The authors of the study broke it down by subgroups here:

As is demonstrated in nearly every subgroup, the Ivermectin recipients fared better than those who received the placebo.

However, these data were not statistically significant given the size of the study.

This is how the authors were able to conclude there was no benefit to ivermectin use in preventing hospitalization in high-risk patients in their study.

Patients were under-dosed, some didn’t follow instructions

As it stands, the study The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal declared as proof of the uselessness of ivermectin in treating COVID-19 is actually quite promising —  contrary to what their headlines told readers.

The dosing protocol advised by the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) includes a five-day course of ivermectin at 600 micrograms per kilogram of body weight for people with risk factors such as those possessed by participants in the study.

Instead, the investigators behind the NEJM study chose a much lower dose, 400mcg per day for only three days. This represents less than half of the total dose that has been shown to be effective in practice.

Furthermore, despite acknowledging that studies have shown some indication that the bioavailability of ivermectin increases when taken with food, especially a fatty meal, participants in the trial were instructed to take the medicine on an empty stomach.

In other words, the patients were significantly under-dosed — and yet a positive effect of the drug was emerging, though not statistically significant given the size of the study.

Also of note, the investigators chose to include emergency room visits with hospitalizations for COVID. Clearly, six hours of observation in an ER is a significantly different outcome than a hospitalization that may last a night or much longer.

When excluding the ER visits from the primary outcome and examining only hospitalizations, the ivermectin cohort had even less risk of an outcome, i.e. the relative risk was 0.84 vs 0.9 when ER visits and hospitalization were grouped together.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/ny-times-mislead-public-ivermectin-study/

Lockdowns Cost More Lives Than They Saved and Must Not Happen Again, Scientists Tell MPs

Will Jones

The Daily Scenptic

The U.K. lockdowns cost more lives than they saved and must not happen again, scientists have told MPs.

The comments came at the latest meeting of the Pandemic Recovery APPG, a group of MPs and Peers from across the political spectrum united by their aim to find new pandemic solutions which prevent avoidable suffering and loss. Chaired by Labour MP Graham Stringer, the group listened to evidence on whether lockdowns were an effective or ethical public health measure.

All the experts voiced serious concerns about the catastrophic damage lockdowns have done to society and the untested departure they represented from previous public health policy.

Dr. Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh and author of The Year The World Went Mad, opened the expert testimony:

I never imagined that in early 2020 we would come up with a public health intervention that risked causing even more damage than the disease. Were lives saved during the lockdowns? Yes, but it is not widely known that most of the people who died in the first wave got infected during lockdown. We should have put far more effort into protecting those people and those around them – lockdown didn’t save them. At the same time, we should have dropped the least effective measures much more quickly than we did and avoided the second and third lockdowns entirely.

There are lessons to be learnt here: if your pandemic response plan involves anything as damaging as lockdown you need to plan in advance to deal with the collateral harms too. It was difficult to have a proper debate about the pros and cons of lockdown in the frenzied atmosphere of March 2020 but we must have that debate now if we are to avoid such a harmful policy in future pandemics. If we’d taken a more balanced approach in 2020 we could have saved many lives and largely kept out of lockdown too. That is why I wrote my book, to elucidate the damage to people’s lives, to education, to the economy, and to health thanks to people being told to stay away from the NHS. Lockdowns were not a proportionate or sustainable intervention and the forthcoming inquiry needs to take a critical view of their role.

Speaking about the ethics of lockdown, Dr. Philip Thomas, Professor of Risk Management at Bristol University, said:

My field is risk management and, when I look at the use of lockdown,  it strikes me that the Government didn’t give enough consideration to the collateral damage such a wide-ranging measure would cause to the economy, perhaps not realising the likely size of the knock-on, adverse effects on people’s health and life expectancy. Vast sums of money were spent to reduce the risk of Covid using lockdowns but, in its efforts to save one group of people from harm, the Government may have exposed others to even greater damage. We have to realise that the trade-off is not between lives and money, but lives versus lives.

The Government and its advisers do not seem to have recognised the extent of the downside risks before implementing a public health intervention that had never before been used on such a scale. In addition, the modelling upon which the lockdowns were decided could not be relied on, when models could, in fact, have given very good insights, something I have demonstrated with judging risk using the J-value. The pandemic could have been managed differently.

Chairing the meeting, MP Graham Stringer said:

I have made no secret of my concerns about the Government’s handling of the pandemic from the outset but hearing what our speakers have said, I fear that these repeated lockdowns will go down as one of the worst public health measures ever undertaken. Hindsight is a great thing, but it is clear that the decision making process that led to repeated lockdowns was seriously flawed. There was inadequate consideration of the policies and all the available evidence, let alone any risk assessment to protect against doing more harm than good.

We have heard compelling evidence from Professor Philip Thomas, whose comprehensive analysis suggests that the net effect of U.K. COVID-19 restrictions has actually increased the loss of life. I hope the use of lockdowns and all their ramifications is something that the U.K. COVID-19 Inquiry will not shy away from very closely and critically scrutinising. It cannot be allowed to happen again.

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Luke Johnson, talking about the economic devastation, said:

Lockdown was a disproportionate, discriminatory and imprecise intervention which has caused immense harm to society and the economy, in particular the hospitality industry. There were no studies or papers to demonstrate that such measures were effective. Instead, it is now clearer than ever that lockdowns were counterproductive. Why did we not focus protection on those we knew were at highest risk? The Government and its advisers simply decided to unilaterally shut down the whole of society on the basis of no scientific evidence and no understanding of the consequences.

Many businesses suffered. Jobs have been lost, lives have been destroyed. These things do not happen in a vacuum. The advisers and ministers who championed repeated lockdowns have not had to put their careers on the line. No cost benefit analysis has ever been done and not one of those affected has been included in the decision making. The victims of lockdown did not seem to matter, whether economic or health. All that mattered was the public appearance of SAGE’s and the Government’s response to Covid. I hope what I said here will hit home and these mistakes will never be repeated.

[…]

Via https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/30/lockdowns-cost-more-lives-than-they-saved-and-must-not-happen-again-scientists-tell-mps/

Is Russia the REAL Target of Economic Sanctions?

Kit Knightly

Off Guardian

Soaring oil prices, energy and food crises on the horizon…is it possible the REAL target of this economic war is us?

he first tweet I saw when I checked my timeline this morning was from foreign policy analyst Clint Ehlirch, pointing out that the Russian ruble has already started recovering from the dip created by Western sanctions, and is almost at pre-war levels:

The Russian Ruble is nearing its pre-invasion value.

Sanctions were designed to collapse its value. They failed. pic.twitter.com/OLmVIsS34E

— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) March 29, 2022

Ehrlich states, “sanctions were designed to collapse the value of the Ruble, they have failed”.

…to which I can only respond, well “were they?”

…and perhaps more importantly, “have they?”

Because it doesn’t really look like it, does it?

If anything, the sanctions seem to be at best rather impotent, and at worst amazingly counterproductive.

It’s not like the US/EU/NATO don’t know how to cripple economies. They have had years of practice starving the people of Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela and too many others to list.

Now, you could argue that Russia is a larger, more developed economy than those countries, and that’s true, but the US and its allies have previously managed to hurt the Russian economy quite drastically.

As recently as 2014, following the “annexation” of Crimea, Western sanctions were tame compared to the recent unprecedented measures, but crucially the US massively increased its own oil production, then later that year (following a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry) Saudi Arabia did the same.

Despite objections from other members of OPEC – Venezuela and Iran chiefly – the Saudis flooded the market with oil.

The result of these moves was the biggest fall in oil prices for decades – collapsing from $109 a barrel, in June 2014, to $44 by January 2015.

This kicked Russia into a full recession and saw Russia’s GDP shrink for the first time under Putin’s leadership.

Again, just two years ago, allegedly as part of competing with Russia for a share of the oil market, Saudi Arabia once more flooded the market with cheap oil.

So, the West does know how to hurt Russia if it really wants to – by increasing oil production, flooding the market and tanking the price.

But has the US increased its oil production this time round? Have they leant on their Gulf allies to do the same?

Not at all.

In fact, in a point of beautiful narrative synchronicity, the US claims it’s “unable” to increase its oil production due to “staff shortages” caused by that gift that keeps on giving – Covid.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia is not tanking the oil market, but deliberately increasing prices.

Yes, right now, with the Western allies locked in an alleged economic war with Russia the price of oil is soaring, and may continue to do so.

This is good news for the Russian economy, to the point it may even make up for the damage done by the brutal sanctions.

The high price of oil and need “not to rely on Putin’s gas” or “de-Russify” our energy supply will doubtless result in millions being poured into “green” technology.

Those Western sanctions are targeting other Russian exports too, including grains and food in general.

Russia is a net exporter of food, meaning they export more food than they import. Conversely, many countries in Western Europe rely on imported food, including the UK which imports over 48% of its food supply.

If Europe refuses to buy Russian food, the net effect is that Russia has food…and the West doesn’t.

And, just as with oil, increasing food prices will help rather than hinder the Russian economy.

Take wheat for example, of which Russia is the biggest exporter in the world. The vast majority of this wheat is not even sold to Western countries – but instead to China, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan – and so is not even subject to sanctions.

Nevertheless, the sanctions, and the war, have actually driven the price of wheat up almost 30%.

This is good for the Russian economy.

Meanwhile, according to CNN, the US is likely to enter a full-blown recession by 2023, France is considering food vouchers and countries all over the world are expected to begin rationing fuel.

So, the sweeping sanctions imposed against Russia by the West, allegedly in response to the invasion of Ukraine, are not having their stated aim – tanking the Russian economy – but they are driving up the price of oil, creating potential energy and food shortages in the West and exacerbating the “cost of living” crisis created by the “pandemic”.

You should always be wary of anybody – individual or institution – whose actions accidentally achieve the exact opposite of their stated aim. That’s a simple rule to live by.

[…]

Via https://off-guardian.org/2022/03/30/is-russia-the-real-target-of-western-sanctions/

How Scared of November Are the Democrats? They Fear Populist Tulsi Gabbard

Tom Luango

Gold Goats ‘N Guns

Since the day she announced she wouldn’t be running for re-election in 2020 I knew Tulsi Gabbard was distancing herself from the Democratic Party for a potential Presidential run in 2024.

Gabbard is supposed to be everything the Democrats want.  A strong, ‘progressive’ female of ‘color’ who backed Bernie Sanders’ runs for the nomination, implying she’s a useful Commie.  She was groomed early on as a WEF Future Leader and put on important House Committees which landed her default invitations to CFR meetings, while also being a member of the Democratic National Committee.

It was clear she was being schmoozed by the DNC and Davos to become a major player from the moment she was first elected to Congress in 2012.

But something happened on the way to Gabbard’s ascension to the top of the U.S. political scene, her conscience got the better of her.  I’ve followed Gabbard for years and watched her carefully, knowing full well about her past associations with Davos.

Now, for the New Statesman to run a schlocky piece about her as a GOP Dark Horse last week at a pivotal moment in the shifts in Congress against the Democrats’ domestic policy is telling of just how scared the Democrats and Davos are of the 2024 vote getting split along populist lines.

She’s fostered a cult of personality among her supporters, who either refuse to acknowledge that Gabbard holds right-wing positions or, more often, go on to adopt those positions themselves. Lately, Gabbard’s pivot to cancel-culture pundit, complete with undertones of worries about anti-white “racism”, has inspired her followers to take on the same pet issues. They’ve gone from iconoclastic left-leaning upstarts to “American patriots” without a blink.

And here I thought she was a Davos stalking horse to lead stupid libertarians away from the GOP because she’s hawt and anti-war?

It gets so confusing to keep the narrative straight anymore, but, asking for consistency from the loony left is like asking Joe Biden to remember what he had for breakfast yesterday,

The rest of the article is nothing more than a hit piece to smear Gabbard through guilt-by-association to keep control over the soccer mom set from jumping from the sinking ship that is the Democratic Party. It’s that same ship Gabbard was two years ahead of everyone else in leaving I remind you.

The Populism Problem is that it’s Popular

Remember, folks, populists are the new Nazis in the New Normal and everyone not ‘down with the Commintern’ has to be painted with that brush as often as possible.

The Department of Justice just told us this is the case. They’ve created a new specialized unit to combat ‘Domestic Terrorism’ which amounts to spending non-existent tax money on investigating and intimidating pretty much anyone reading this blog post.

This response from the DoJ is just part of the fallout from the false flag operation that was January 6th, 2021.  Even a milquetoast like Jonathan Turley can see what’s happening here and is now concerned about it.

The Democrats know they have zero chance of retaining the House or the Senate in the fall and what they are doing now is using 1/6 as the means by which to limit who can and cannot run for office this fall and beyond.

[…]

Via https://tomluongo.me/2022/01/19/how-scared-november-democrats-tulsi-gabbard/