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Cult

Best of the Web: Democrats are profoundly committed to criminal justice reform — for everyone but their enemies

rittenhouse court room trial
© Sean Krajacic-Pool/Getty ImagesKyle Rittenhouse makes his way back to the stand to testify during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 10, 2021 in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The 2020 protest movement that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha became one of the most sustained and consequential in modern U.S. history. Though there seems to be a somewhat bizarre effort underway by its advocates to insist that this movement accomplished nothing — why are some claiming that radical cultural and political changes are happening? — it is demonstrably true that, as intended, the movement transformed discourse and policy around multiple issues from race, to policing, to gender identity, to the teaching of history, and fostered an ongoing effort for still-greater changes.

The issues raised by that movement were varied and often shifting: though it was catalyzed by the claim that the U.S. is swamped with racist police brutality as illustrated by the Floyd and Blake cases, it quickly metastasized into other areas far removed from those two cases. White Antifa members clashed with Black protesters over the attempt to steer or broaden the movement away from a narrow focus on racist police brutality into one devoted to generalized insurrectionary anarchy. One of the largest and most densely packed gatherings was a spontaneous march, at the height of the COVID pandemic, in Brooklyn, where ten thousand people paid homage to the importance of "black trans lives," a cause whose relationship to the Floyd and Blake cases was tenuous at best. Institutional changes regarding gender identity were quickly adopted by the corporations and security state institutions that lent their support, however cynically, to this growing movement.

Bullseye

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: Afghanistan: between pipelines and ISIS-K, the Americans are still in play

america ISIS
© The CreditAmerican-trained Afghan forces are defecting to join ISIS-K, in what increasingly looks like a US plan to subvert the war-torn country's recovery.
Something quite extraordinary happened in early November in Kabul.

Taliban interim-Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov got together to discuss a range of political and economic issues. Most importantly, they resurrected the legendary soap opera which in the early 2000s I dubbed Pipelineistan: the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.

Call it yet another remarkable, historical twist in the post-jihad Afghan saga, going back as far as the mid-1990s when the Taliban first took power in Kabul.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Kabul Airport Atrocity - What Actually Happened?




Yoda

Best of the Web: Jordan Peterson slams COVID tyranny: 'F***ing leave me alone'

Jordan Peterson
© Hollie Adams / Newspix / Getty ImagesDr. Jordan Peterson
Speaking with Dave Rubin, famed Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson railed against government encroachment on personal rights in the COVID era, snapping, "Look, I got vaccinated, and people took me to task for that, and I thought, all right, I'll get the damn vaccine. Here's the deal, guys. I'll get the vaccine; you f***ing leave me alone!"

Prior to that, Peterson discussed how the West had moved toward becoming a totalitarian state after the COVID-19 pandemic started. He stated:

Comment: Twitter had sympathy, but also admonitions:






Cardboard Box

Best of the Web: Seizing Everything: The Theft of the Global Commons - Part 2

World Economic Forum
In Part 1 we explored the ongoing process of defining of the global commons and the claim of the stakeholder capitalists they they should be the "trustees" both of the commons and society. We are now going to look at how systems have been established to enable those stakeholders to seize them.

We should be mindful of what "global commons" means for the Global Public Private Partnership (GPPP). For them it means possession of everything: every resource on the planet, all land, all water, the air we breath and the natural world in its entirety, including all of us.

Principles of the Global Commons

The notion of the "global commons" sprang from an amalgam of two principles in International Law. The Tragedy of The Commons (ToC) and the Common Heritage of Mankind (CHM).

In his 1968 paper on the ToC, the U.S. ecologist and eugenicist Garrett Hardin, building upon the earlier work of the 19th century economist William Forster Lloyd, outlined the population and resource problems as he saw them. He said "a finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero."

Ambulance

Best of the Web: 'I'm a doctor and I fear we will never regain the public's trust after Covid'

vaccine jab
© AFP / Nhac NGUYEN
One undeniable outcome of the pandemic is that the public's faith in scientific and medical authorities is perhaps at its lowest point in living memory - and no objective observer can truly be surprised.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US President's Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and US Surgeon General Dr Jerome Adams told us not to wear masks, until they instructed us to wear one everywhere we went.

The Covid vaccines were declared to be effective at preventing the spread of disease, until breakthrough cases around the globe proved that wasn't so, and that effectiveness was downgraded to "against hospitalization and death."

Both The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, two of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, have issued embarrassing retractions to widely publicized papers eventually found to have too little validity to be published.

Comment: The Covid pandemic has probably surpassed any and all lines of authoritative messaging in all of history. It has demanded an amount of trust and acceptance from the public that is incredibly far reaching. It is bigger than 'global warming', the war on terror, and any world war. It is even bigger than the world's religions. It has a monumental force behind it that easily crushes those who dare question it, and for that reason there are few who do or who can. It not only crushes dissent, it has a line of casualties ranging from the results of failed economies and social structures as well as from the implementation of its own 'scientific' interventions. Its destructive force has gained immense magnitude, yet we see so many whistling into the wind. The problem is the wind is coming from a Category 10 hurricane that has barely made landfall. If the masses ever realize their trust has been misplaced and abused, it may actually be too late to avoid many more horrific consequences.


Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Parts of northeast China hit by record snowfall as cold wave passes

Men clear snow from a roof following heavy snowfall in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China November 9, 2021. Picture taken November 9, 2021.
© China DailyMen clear snow from a roof following heavy snowfall in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China November 9, 2021.
Snowstorms have wreaked havoc in northeast China in recent days, with record snowfall in some parts snarling traffic, disrupting train services and raising concerns about power supply as temperatures plunged, state media reported on Wednesday.

Traffic in Liaoning province has been severely disrupted, with the majority of expressway toll stations shut as of Tuesday. Passenger stations were also closed, except those in the cities of Dalian and Dandong.

Since the arrival of a cold wave on Sunday, temperatures in northeastern China had plunged by as much as 14 degrees Celsius in certain areas by Tuesday.

Meteorological departments in Liaoning and the province of Jilin have issued red alerts for snowstorms, the most severe in a four-tier colour-coded weather warning system.


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The Truth Behind Eastern Europe's Migrant Crisis

migrants border poland belarus
© Ministry of Defense PolandMigrants swarm the Polish border with Belarus
These deeper strategic dimensions show just how complicated the Eastern European Migrant Crisis is.

Eastern Europe's Migrant Crisis has taken the continent by storm and unexpectedly become its top security concern. Poland accuses Belarus of waging "hybrid warfare" through "Weapons of Mass Migration" as an asymmetrical response to the West's regime change campaign against President Lukashenko since last year's elections. The Belarusian leader denies the accusations, as does Russia, which Warsaw also accused of supposedly being involved in its neighbor's "hybrid warfare" plot.

Tensions dramatically escalated on Monday after an unprecedentedly massive migrant caravan attempted to violently storm the Polish border, leading to claims from each country of the other violating those people's human rights and engaging in dangerous military provocations. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov laid the blame squarely at the West's feet for destroying Muslim countries and thus being the ultimate cause behind the migrant waves that periodically emanate from there.

He's right, but there's more to it than just that. RT reminded its audience that Lukashenko threatened over the summer to stop protecting the EU from smuggling (implied to also mean illegal immigration). This is a sensible stance from his perspective since there's no reason for this sanctioned country to continue investing its increasingly limited financial resources in ensuring its neighbor's security from such transnational non-state threats while they're literally trying to overthrow its government.

Passport

Best of the Web: Capitol 'rioter' Evan Neumann applies for asylum in Belarus, local media says

Evan Neumann capitol hill protest Jan 6 belarus asylum interview
© TV Belarus-1A videograb from Evan Neumann's interview with Belarusian state TV, which was broadcast on November 7.
An alleged Capitol rioter on the FBI's Most Wanted List has fled to the ex-Soviet republic of Belarus - known as Europe's last dictatorship - where he is being portrayed on state-run media as a 'simple American' fleeing 'political persecution.'

Evan Neumann, 48, was charged in July on six separate criminal charges, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, as well as for assaulting, resisting and obstructing law enforcement at the Capitol insurrection on January 6.

Shortly after the charges were filed, Neumann sold his house in California's Bay Area for $1.3 million and fled. He is listed by the FBI as a 'defendant at large'.

Comment: Previously "attended" the Ukie Orange Revolution??!

Hmmm...


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: England's govt estimates it may lose 123,000 health and social care staff over Covid vaccine mandate

nhs covid vaccine
© (PA) / PA ArchiveA nurse administers a coronavirus vaccine to a health and social care worker
More than 120,000 frontline health and social care staff in England could lose their jobs next spring after refusing to have Covid-19 vaccinations, according to Government estimates.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced that frontline NHS workers and social care staff in England will need to be jabbed to continue in their jobs from April 1 next year, unless they are exempt.


Comment: The government was going to sack workers this winter but it appears that on realising the coercion hasn't worked and losing up to 10% of staff would likely cause so much preventable harm and death that they've had to reconsider postponing it till April. Considering how pathological those pushing these mandates are, it's a surprise that, at least in this instance, the establishment have been so realistic. That said, in some hospitals they'd lose - or, more correctly, fire - as much as 20% of the staff; interestingly, lower uptake is seen more often in communities with more minorities.

Taking the above into account, the delay reveals just how unnecessary the vaccine is.


But the Government has conceded that the policy could have a "significant impact" on the health and care workforce, with estimates suggesting that as many as 123,000 could leave their jobs as a result.

Comment: Since we know the experimental jabs don't prevent transmission, nor do they prevent infection - and tens of thousands of doctors and nurses seem to agree - these mandates clearly aren't about health, and whatever is motivating the establishment to enforce them clearly takes precedence over human life: RNA Vaccines, Obedience and Eugenics

And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Vaccination of Children and Young Adults Correlates With Increase in Deaths




Bad Guys

Best of the Web: FBI Raids Project Veritas Writers... Over a Missing Biden Diary?

ashley biden diary
Ashley Biden
There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as "Gonzo" or "guerilla" journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden's daughter Ashley. [Update: The FBI reportedly also raided O'Keefe's home]

The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the "stolen" diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O'Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid.


Comment: See also: