Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 590
March 17, 2022
Quantum Theory and the Expanding Boundaries of Natural Science
The Spirit of Science: From Experiment to Experience
Edited by David Lorimer
Floris Books (1998)
Book Review
This fascinating book is a collection of papers presented between 1978 and 1998 at England’s annual Mystics and Scientists conference. It’s divided into Cosmology and Physics, Biology and Gaia, Consciousness and Psychology and Mysticism and Spirituality. Overall it aims to challenge a dogmatic turn Western science took during the Enlightenment and the threat this narrow dogmatism (which views human beings as mere machines) poses to finding solutions to the environmental, health and humanitarian crises confronting humanity.
The Spirit of Science begins by laying out recent changes in physicists’ understanding of the origin and make up of the universe. Most striking, in my view, is the discovery that the universe couldn’t have arisen from random events. To the contrary, according to quantum field expert David Bohm, the universe arose via the same mathematically predictable self-organization found in all natural systems.
According Bohm, the explosion of light 15-20 million years ago known as The Big Bang led (within milliseconds) to the formation of elementary particles, which cooled and condensed out into atoms, which collected into stars, galaxies and planets. The entire process relied on an amazing sequence of just right coincidences, eg an exact rate of expansion (any slower and the matter would have collapsed back into a black hole, any faster and galaxies would have persisted as a matter-less energy field). Equally remarkable is the discovery of organic molecules dispersed throughout space, which, according to the rules of quantum mechanics, have virtually zero odds of forming from random collisions.
These and other discoveries have led many scientists to hypothesize “an invisible hand” directing this capacity for self-organization in all matter, both living and inanimate.
The book also contains fascinating essays about the role of this universal self-organizing principle in enabling plants to communicate with each other and with animals and in coordinating hive insects (and diverse human cells) in undertaking complex activities. One essay describes the unique receptivity of certain indigenous people and animals to plant signals that allow them to find healing herbs. Sadly this receptivity has been lost in the vast majority of modern humans.
There are also several excellent papers on the concept of morphic fields,* including one, “Evolutionary Habits of Mind, Behaviour and Form” by biochemist Rupert Sheldrake.
*A morphic field is defined as a force field that enables one event to lead to (via telepathic effect or sympathetic vibrations) to similar events in the future or ideas conceived in one mind to arise in another person’s mind without formal communication.
March 16, 2022
Biden Faces Backlash for Venezuela Talks as Caracas Demands Recognition
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia participates in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey. (@plasenciafelixr / Twitter)
By José Luis Granados Ceja – Venezuelanalysis – March 14, 2022
Aletho News
The Biden administration faced strong bipartisan criticism over recent direct talks with the Venezuelan government.
News outlets reported that in light of criticism from hardline sympathizers of the Venezuelan opposition, the Biden administration had suspended its direct talks with the Venezuelan government but that a deal to lift some US sanctions in exchange for restarting oil sales to the US was still on the table.
Washington recently ordered the suspension of Russian oil imports, leaving the US desperate to find other sources of crude as rising energy prices threaten to create a domestic crisis for the Democrats ahead of midterm elections in November.
Despite the lack of diplomatic relations stemming from the US’ refusal to recognize the results of the 2018 presidential election, Caracas and Washington have maintained back-channel communications. These talks led to the first direct exchange between the US and Venezuelan governments in years, which came at Washington’s request.
News of the encounter was met with a vehement condemnation from both Republican politicians such as Senator Marco Rubio and fellow Democrats such as Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a longtime supporter of the Venezuelan opposition.
Rubio, one the most vocal champions of Venezuela’s self-declared “interim president’ Juan Guaidó, has gone on the offensive to try to preemptively stop any deal and introduced legislation to ban the import of oil from Venezuela and Iran.
Various politicians from Florida sent a letter to Biden criticizing the administration’s decision to hold direct talks with Maduro. Florida’s large Cuban and Venezuelan population and status as a “swing state” in US elections has led politicians to cater their foreign policy toward Latin America in the interest of pleasing this comparatively small constituency.
However, skyrocketing energy costs inside the US as a result of global geopolitical situation in light of the Russian military operation in Ukraine and the subsequent ban of Russian oil imports have put the Maduro government in Venezuela, which counts on the world’s largest oil reserves, in a more favorable bargaining position.
Until recent developments, the Biden White House had largely maintained its predecessor’s “maximum pressure” policy aimed at ousting Maduro, though the Financial Times reported that the administration had already been considering a change in strategy.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tried to downplay the March 5 meeting that counted on the presence of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as well as Biden Latin America adviser Juan González.
The direct talks led to the release of US citizens Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Fernández on Tuesday, however US State Department spokesman Ned Price denied their release was tied to a deal regarding Venezuelan oil.
For his part, Maduro called the engagement “respectful, cordial and very diplomatic” and said that the US had committed to a follow-up meeting.
The direct talks with the Venezuelan leader have undermined the US’ strategy in Venezuela and its support for Juan Guaidó, who the Biden administration insists they still recognize as “interim president.”
With Guaidó’s position under increased scrutiny, the opposition has come to rely on the US almost exclusively for its legitimacy. Senator Rubio recently admitted that a deal would mean the opposition would be “finished”.
Guaidó was not part of the talks and reportedly only learned of the high-level meeting between the US and Venezuelan governments the day of the meeting.
Sources in Venezuela’s opposition told the Miami Herald that the potential deal would involve granting a special license to Chevron to ramp up activities in Venezuela. Chevron has previously lobbied the US State Department for a rollback of sanctions against Venezuela.
Caracas demands recognition, sanctions relief
Venezuelan officials have likewise commented on the possibility of restarting the oil trade with the US, with Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia stating that any deal to supply oil would be contingent on Washington and Brussels recognizing Nicolás Maduro as president.
“We have a 100-year oil business relationship with the United States. We have not taken them out of the business, they left in order to impose coercive measures. Now they want to return. Fine, if they accept that the only and legitimate government of Venezuela is the one led by President Nicolás Maduro, then US and European oil companies would be welcome,” said Plasencia at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum held this past weekend in Turkey.
Plasencia added that a “respectful relationship” would also require the lifting of coercive measures that deepened the country’s economic crisis.
EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell held a bilateral meeting with Plasencia on the margins of the forum that both described as “good,” with Borrell’s team indicating a willingness on the part of the European bloc to normalize relations and lift sanctions.
Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, had a steady crude production of around 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) and exported approximately 500,000 bpd to US markets until sanctions targeted the sector and crippled production.
The Venezuelan oil industry has lately shown signs of improvement with Plasencia stating that the country could produce up to 2 million barrels per day by the end of the year thanks to the assistance of “reliable partners, such as Russia, China and Iran.”
[…]
Russia Calls for Verification Mechanism On Ukrainian BioLabs
Photo: Twitter/ @Jerry_grey2002
Telesur
For the past 20 years, the U.S. has blocked a Russian proposal on the creation of a verification mechanism within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the importance of establishing a verification mechanism as U.S.-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine have caused concern.
“The issue of U.S.-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine must be addressed within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,” he said.
Moscow plans to redouble its efforts to ensure that the United States stops blocking Russia’s proposal made 20 years ago on the creation of a verification mechanism under the convention on biological agents that could be used to make bioweapons.
In addition to over 30 biolabs in Ukraine, the United States has created “hundreds of such laboratories” in other countries, Lavrov noted.
“I believe that the international community will soon be convinced that such inadmissible activities are fraught with deadly risks for a huge number of people,” the Russian Foreign Affairs Minister said.
On March 8, while testifying before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ukraine, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland admitted “Ukraine has biological research facilities.”
At a UN Security Council meeting called by Russia to discuss the United States’ alleged military biological research in Ukraine on Saturday, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, lied (see link Victoria Nuland: Ukraine Has Biological Research Facilities, Worried Russia May Seize Them, stating, “Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program. There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the U.S.”
[…]
CIA Brags It Has Trained Ukrainian Troops To Fight Russians Since 2015
Source: Kelen McBreen
NWO Report
Operation poking the bear that is Russia? The US attempted to take credit for the Ukrainian military’s strength.
A Yahoo News report published Wednesday detailed a secret Central Intelligence Agency training program used to get Ukrainian troops prepared for a war with Russia. Yahoo is one of the CIA’s Fake news outlets.
The clandestine operations started soon after Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych was overthrown in a US-backed coup.
According to the Yahoo article, a “select group of veteran CIA paramilitaries” were sent into the Donbas region of Ukraine to train troops in 2015.
"Since 2015, the CIA had been secretly training forces in Ukraine to serve as insurgent leaders in case Russia ends up invading the country." https://t.co/3diI04dDVF
— Jack Posobiec
(@JackPosobiec) March 16, 2022
The mainstream narrative being promoted by Yahoo is that because America helped, “the Ukrainian military has defied predictions of a rapid collapse, holding key cities against the Russian advance and inflicting punishing losses to Russian troops and materiel.”
Of course, there is no mention of how Russia might feel about American intelligence agencies helping the Ukrainian military with a hot war.
How would America react to Russian or Chinese intelligence training Mexican drug cartels just across the southern border?
Anonymous intel officials speaking with Yahoo said, “The CIA paramilitaries taught their Ukrainian counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the Russians used to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them vulnerable to attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and how to remain undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and insurgent forces from their positions, among other skills.”
At one point, the Yahoo journalist admitted the CIA previously lied about the training operations being offensive in nature.
“The purpose of the training, and the training that was delivered, was to assist in the collection of intelligence,” a senior intelligence official said in January.
If they were willing to lie just months ago, why should we trust them now and what else are they fibbing about?
The agency knew their presence could provoke Russia, one official saying, “Everything we did in Ukraine had a chance to be misinterpreted, and escalate the tensions.”
The CIA paramilitaries were allegedly told to “Advise and train, but do not take part in combat yourself, recalled former officials.”
However, this is coming from the same group who claimed their training wasn’t offensively oriented just two months ago.
During the Trump presidency, Yahoo reports his administration was worried about the ramifications of a CIA operative killing a Russian military member, and the consequences if the Russians captured one of the intelligence agents.
The agency claims nobody was ever killed in the long-running operation, but a former senior intelligence official admitted the US “wouldn’t want to say, ‘We just had a CIA officer killed by a Russian in Ukraine.’”
“That would put the president or the White House in a very bad position,” the former official explained.
[…]
Zelensky: Russia-Ukraine peace talks sounding more realistic
Residents stand beside a destroyed armoured vehicle during the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the separatist-controlled town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on March 15, 2022 [Alexander Ermochenko/ Reuters]
By Faith Barbara Namagembe
HICGI News Agency
Kyiv sees room for compromise as Russian and Ukrainian delegations prepare for a new round of talks on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said peace talks with Russia were beginning to sound “more realistic” but that more time was needed to ensure the outcome of the negotiations were in Kyiv’s interests.
Zelenskyy’s comments early on Wednesday came as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine neared the three-week mark and Russian forces continued their bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and the southern port city of Mariupol.
Negotiators from the two countries have been meeting via video link since Monday, with the Ukrainian delegation pressing for a ceasefire, troop withdrawals and security guarantees.
Russia is yet to capture any of Ukraine’s 10 biggest cities, and officials in Kyiv have raised hopes the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May. They say Moscow may be coming to terms with its failure to impose a new government by force and is running out of fresh troops.
“The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
“But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine.”
The two sides are expected to speak again on Wednesday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy and member of the Ukrainian delegation, has described the negotiations as “very difficult and viscous”.
In a Twitter post after Tuesday’s talks, Podolyak said there were “fundamental contradictions” between the two sides, but said “there is certainly room for compromise”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, however, said it was too early to predict progress in the talks.
“The work is difficult, and in the current situation the very fact that (the talks) are continuing is probably positive,” he said.
Russia launched its invasion on February 24, calling it a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
The conflict has killed and wounded thousands of people and sent three million Ukrainians fleeing into neighbouring countries.
Peskov has previously said Moscow – which is concerned over any enlargement of NATO eastwards – is demanding that Ukraine change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge the Crimean peninsula – seized in 2014 – as Russian territory and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.
In a hint of a possible compromise, Zelenskyy said earlier that Ukraine was prepared to accept security guarantees from the West that stop short of its long-term goal of joining NATO.
“Ukraine is not a member of NATO. We understand that, we are not crazy. For years we have been hearing about the alleged open door, but we have also heard now that we cannot enter,” the Ukrainian president told a meeting of the United Kingdom-led Joint Expeditionary Force on Tuesday.
“And this is true, and it must be acknowledged. I am glad that our people are beginning to understand this and rely on themselves and the partners who are helping us,” he said.
Still, Zelenskyy again renewed an appeal for a no-fly zone over Ukraine and said “new formats of cooperation” were needed.
“If we cannot enter the open door, we must cooperate with communities that will help us and protect us, such as yours. And have reliable guarantees,” he told the European military task force.
NATO does not admit nations with unsettled territorial conflicts and it has previously ruled out imposing a no-fly zone, saying such a move could trigger direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
But Western countries have beefed up Ukraine’s weapons supplies, and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, including on President Vladimir Putin, and moved to curb Russian energy imports.
The Western arms deliveries have been vital to enabling Ukrainians to fight the invading Russian forces far more effectively and fiercely than most Western intelligence agencies expected.
A senior United States defence official told reporters late on Tuesday that Russian ground troops have made little to no progress around the country, but that Russians were using long-range fire to hit civilian areas inside Kyiv.
The official said the US has seen indications that Russia believes it may need more troops or supplies than it has on hand in Ukraine, and is considering ways to get more resources into the country.
The official did not elaborate.
The British Ministry of Defence also said on Tuesday that Russia is “increasingly seeking to generate additional troops to bolster and replace its personnel losses in Ukraine”.
It added, “As a result of these losses, it is likely that Russia is struggling to conduct offensive operations in the face of sustained Ukrainian resistance.”
[…]
Via https://hicginewsagency.com/2022/03/16/russia-ukraine-peace-talks-sounding-more-realistic-zelenskyy/
March 15, 2022
Thailand Paid $45 Million in COVID Vaccine Injury Claims, While U.S. Has Paid $0
Thailand’s National Health Security Office as of March 8 paid the equivalent of $45.65 million to settle COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation claims under a system that is relatively easy to navigate, and quick to pay.
Thailand’s National Health Security Office (NHSO) as of March 8 has paid 1.509 billion baht (the equivalent of $45.65 million) to settle COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation claims.The payouts were made to 12,714 people, including family members of some people who died as a result of the vaccine.
An additional 891 claims are pending. A total of 15,933 claims have been filed since the start of the compensation program on May 19, 2021. Of the 2,328 complaints that were rejected, 875 are being appealed.
The figures released on March 9 represent a continued increase in claims approved by Thailand’s NHSO. As of Dec. 26, 2021, only 8,470 claims had been approved for compensation.
The vaccines being administered in Thailand are primarily the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, and the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine.
Thailand’s vaccine injury compensation program is an example of a “no-fault compensation program.”
As reported by The Defender in December 2021, “no-fault” refers to a measure put in place by public health authorities, private insurance companies, manufacturers and/or other stakeholders to compensate individuals harmed by vaccines.
Such programs allow a person who has sustained a vaccine injury to be compensated financially, without having to attribute fault or error to a specific manufacturer or individual.
No-fault compensation schemes are one of three options used by various countries to handle vaccine injury claims.
The other two options include allowing vaccine-injured people to sue private-sector actors, such as vaccine manufacturers or their insurers, or to place the full financial burden on the patient.
In the case of Thailand, the compensation scheme sets forth the following payout categories:
For cases of death or permanent disability, each family receives 400,000 baht ($11,928).Those who sustained a disability that affects their livelihood or who lost a limb receive 240,000 baht ($7,157).For other injuries or illnesses sustained as a result of COVID vaccination, a maximum of 100,000 baht ($2,982) is paid out.For the third category of claims, the specific amount awarded is contingent on the level of damages found to have been caused by the vaccine, as well as the financial state of the patient.
When the compensation fund was set up in 2021, Dr. Jadej Thammatacharee, the NHSO’s secretary-general, stated the available funds would total 100 million baht ($2.98 million), but that initial budget already has been exceeded many times over.
Thailand’s “no-fault” system makes it easy to secure compensation, at least when compared to similar schemes in the U.S. and other western countries.
Claims can be submitted by the individuals in question, or their families, at the hospital where they were vaccinated, at provincial health offices, or at NHSO regional offices. Moreover, claims can be entered up to two years after the adverse effects first occur.
Any individual claiming injury or side effects can file a claim for initial financial aid to provide an unspecified amount to claimants prior to confirmation that the injuries resulted from the vaccine.
If it is later determined the adverse effects were not a result of the vaccine, the claimants are entitled to keep this initial financial payout.
The turnaround time on claims also appears to be quick, when compared to the U.S. and several other countries.
The Bangkok Post reported that 13 panels across Thailand meet on a weekly basis to consider compensation claims. Those that are approved are paid within five days. Rejected claims can be appealed directly to the NHSO secretary-general within 30 days.
[…]
The plot thickens: Hunter Biden investment firm funded Ukraine biolabs
An investment firm founded by Hunter Biden was discovered to have provided funding to U.S. biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. The revelation came amid U.S. officials initially denying and eventually admitting the presence of such facilities in the besieged country.
According to the Gateway Pundit, investment company Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) funded San Francisco-based Metabiota as early as 2014. RSTP’s website also showed Metabiota as one of the companies it has invested in. Metabiota then partnered with Black & Veatch (B&V), a company with ties to the Department of Defense, to set up the labs in Ukraine.
Specializing in “detecting, tracking and analyzing potential disease outbreaks,” Metabiota became a subcontractor for B&V in 2014. The San Francisco firm’s contract with B&V worth $18.4 million involved running facilities in both Ukraine and Georgia. Both companies even shared an office in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, according to a job posting.
Representatives of Metabiota and B&V later met with their counterparts from U.S., Poland and Ukraine. The 2016 meeting held at the Ukrainian city of Lviv discussed biological security, safety and surveillance.
During a March 7 press conference, Russia alleged that the U.S. operated facilities in Ukraine for creating bioweapons against the Russian population. Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological defense division, named Black & Veatch as the firm “involved in the implementation of the projects.” (Related: Russia says Ukraine is littered with U.S.-financed bioweapons labs.)
The American and Ukrainian governments both dismissed Kirillov’s claim as a “conspiracy theory,” with Washington insisting that it does not fund biolabs in the eastern European country.
However, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland later acknowledged the existence of the Ukrainian biolabs. She said that the U.S. is working alongside Kyiv to ensure the facilities do not “fall into the hands of Russian forces.” Many took Nuland’s comments as a confirmation that the U.S. did operate bioweapons laboratories, despite prior claims of “conspiracy theories.”
Biden, Rosemont links to corruption go deeperRSTP and Biden’s links to purported corruption are not just limited to the biological weapons facilities funded by the investment firm. A September 2020 report by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) elaborated on this matter.
According to the report, RSTP received $3.5 million from Russian businesswoman Elena Baturina. She wired the amount to an RSTP bank account back in February 2014 as part of a “consultancy agreement.” Baturina, the wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov until his death, was accused of profiting from city contracts awarded by her husband during his tenure. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired Luzhkov in 2010 over these allegations.
Aside from this $3.5 million payment, Baturina sent 11 other wires amounting to $391,968 to a bank account belonging to technology company BAK USA between May and December 2015. Nine of the 11 wires, amounting to $241,797, were initially sent to an RSTP account before being transferred to the Buffalo, New York-based technology firm.
The report added that Biden co-founded RSTP with his associate Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz – the stepson of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry – in 2009.
Outside of RSTP, Biden was also linked to Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky during his tenure as a board member of the gas company Burisma. The presidential son “formed significant and consistent financial relationships” with the former Ukrainian minister of ecology and natural resources. Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, used his ministerial position to favor the younger Biden’s firm in awarding government contracts.
This relationship later paid off as Biden’s father, President Joe Biden, threatened to withhold a loan to Ukraine unless the top prosecutor investigating Burisma was terminated. The elder Biden issued the threat during his tenure as vice president in the Obama administration.
[…]
Via https://dreddymd.com/2022/03/16/hunter-biden-investment-firm-funded-ukraine-biolabs/
Russian Sanctions Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden
Image source, Getty ImagesBBC NewsRussia’s foreign ministry says it has imposed sanctions on US President Joe Biden and 12 other US officials.
The list includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, press secretary Jen Psaki and other members of the administration.
But it also includes two surprises: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Biden’s son Hunter.
The measures block their entry into Russia and freeze any assets held in the country.
However, the ministry has said the sanctions will not impede necessary high-level contacts for the affected individuals.
Other names on the list are:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark MilleyNational Security Adviser Jake SullivanDeputy National Security Adviser Daleep SinghUS Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha PowerDeputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally AdeyemoPresident of the Export-Import Bank of the US Reta Jo Lewis[…]
Where Underpants Come From
Where Underpants Come From: From Checkout to Cotton Field – Travels Through the New China
By Joe Bennett
Simon and Schulster (2008)
Book Review
Although Where Underpants Come From is primarily a travelogue, the format makes a unique statement about the relationship between Western countries and the country that makes the vast majority of their underwear – namely the Peoples Republic of China.
Bennett got the idea for the book after buying a five-pack of briefs at the Warehouse discount store (the New Zealand equivalent of Fred Meyer or K-Mart). Founded in 1982, the Warehouse’s massive commercial success relates directly to the success of China’s booming low wage economy. Only by paying the women who make our underwear a few pennies apiece, can a store charge 1.70 New Zealand dollars ($1.12 US) for a product they transport halfway around the world – and still make a profit.
According to Bennett, TWL (The Warehouse Limited) has a large, well organized Chinese operation that emphasizes both Corporate Social Responsibility* and Quality Control. TWL’s aim is to run an establishment that approaches Western standards of employment and manufacturing, largely because western-style corporate regulation is virtually non-existent in China.
In tracing the cotton fabric, elastic and thread used to make his underpants, Bennett starts at the factory where they were assembled in Quanzhou, a port city of 7 1/2 million (in 2008) on the Taiwan Strait in southern China. Noting that none of underwear manufactured there remains in China, Bennett also comments on the mass migration of young Chinese workers from rural Sichuan Province to work in Quanzhou, following similar patterns found in other Chinese manufacturing cities. He presciently predicts Western corporate brands will eventually move their factories to cheaper labor markets (as has occurred over the past five years).
Bennett next travels to Thailand to trace the elastic in his underwear to the trees that produced the rubber (to make elastic, polyester thread is wound around a thick strand of rubber, which is subsequently knitted).
By traveling to the Xianjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in western China, he sees where the cotton was grown, and, in Urumqi, the factory where it was spun into thread and knit into fabric. In 2008, the same factory produced 60 million cotton knit shirts a year for exclusive brands such as Polo, Nike, Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger. Two-thirds of the shirts produced there go to the US and the rest to Europe. China is forced to import foreign cotton to accommodate this quantity.
I found some of Bennett’s political commentary naive and irritating, for example his efforts to contrast Japan’s post-World War II economic boom with China’s struggling economy under Mao. Bennett is totally oblivious to the massive price (in terms of human rights) Japan paid for their so-called economic miracle under US and CIA occupation. The late Chalmers Johnson documents this quite eloquently in his 2000 book Blowback. I also disagree with Bennett’s blanket statement that “racism is evolutionarily instinctive.” This totally ignores the obvious impact of European colonization on modern racist ideology.
That being said, the book includes a valuable summary of China’s 3,000 year history as the world’s most advanced civilization, with the Chinese inventing the compass, the deep drill, lock gates, cast iron, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, block printing, the loom, water power a winnowing machine at least 1,000 years before the West. I totally agree with Bennett’s assessment (in describing the British opium wars that led to Western colonization of China) that most modern wealth derives from conquest and theft.
*TWL requires all workers at it Quanzhou factory be at least 16 and work no more than 60 hours a week.
**During US military occupation the CIA installed war criminals to run Japan’s government and secretly funded single party rule and suppression of human rights (by the Liberal Democratic Party) from 1949-63. See The Long US War Against the Third World
March 14, 2022
DuckDuckGo Updates Search Engine, Will Penalize Sites ‘Associated With Disinformation’
Gabriel Weinberg, CEO and founder of DuckDuckGo, in Washington for a congressional hearing in a file image. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
By Zachary Stieber
The Epoch Times
The search engine DuckDuckGo has begun penalizing sites linked to “Russian disinformation” amid the Russia–Ukraine war, according to the company’s CEO.
“Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create,” Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO, wrote on social media.
“At DuckDuckGo, we’ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation,” he added.
DuckDuckGo is also placing boxes with information at the top of the search results page “to highlight quality information for rapidly unfolding topics,” Weinberg added.
DuckDuckGo is an alternative to Google that has been growing in popularity in recent years in part because it doesn’t track users. Weinberg has in the past promised “unbiased results” as part of his pitch to people to switch from Google.
Some users quickly questioned the CEO’s update, including Tom Fitton, president of the Judicial Watch nonprofit.
DuckDuckGo, “contrary to its implicit promises to the contrary, is now in the censorship business,” he wrote on Twitter. “Are there any search engines that respect users?”
“Today, you are removing Russian disinformation Tomorrow you will be removing genuine protests,” another user wrote.
DuckDuckGo did not respond to a request for comment.
[…]
The Most Revolutionary Act
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