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In defence of Poland: A reply to Daniel Johnson

Ryszard Legutko
The Article
Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:59 UTC
Polish National Flag Day
© Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto
Polish National Flag Day Main Square in Krakow, Poland on May 2, 2021.
To the question recently posed by Daniel Johnson, whether Poland has once again become a battleground for freedom and democracy, I answer in the affirmative. Yes, Poland is one of few countries in the West where freedom is still more or less secure, mostly because a lot of Poles continue to resist that mono-ideology that has taken hold of the entire Western world and that is being enforced on us and, in no small part, because we are lucky to have the conservative government led by the Law and Justice party (PiS) that has managed to steer a sane course in the world of growing insanity.

Obviously, this is not what Daniel Johnson had in mind. His view is the opposite of mine. He claims that the conservative government is an enemy of freedom and all those who oppose it are freedom fighters. If one could imagine a text that could be constructed solely of anti-Polish and anti-PiS stereotypes and falsehoods, Daniel Johnson's is a perfect illustration. We learn that Poland is ruled by one man who after the death of his brother even increased his despotic power. He and his government ignore and dismiss the criticism and warnings from all over the world, and in particular from the EU, the US, and Donald Tusk. The government conducts socialist economic policies and is far-Right, anti-western in culture. The government betrayed the ideas and principles of the Solidarity Union; freedom and the rule of law are "embattled". The Poles collaborated with the Germans (who are now called the Nazis) in the Holocaust and now the conservative government wants to whitewash Polish history. They also refuse to compensate the Jewish heirs of the victims of the Holocaust for the property lost or destroyed on the Polish territory.

All this, to say mildly, is not true. It would require a long text to dispel falsehoods, half-truths, and caricatures. Let me say that the spectrum of opinion in Poland is larger than in any other EU country, that in Poland you can say and write things for which you would be punished in France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, etc. As elsewhere in Europe, the dominant orientation in the media, corporations, and universities is Left and liberal, critical of and even hostile to the government. What makes Poland exceptional in Europe is the existence of conservative media, about 30 per cent of the entire market: an unheard-of phenomenon in the world in which the Left practically has the monopoly. Poland did not collaborate with the Germans in the Holocaust. The Polish government in exile and its representatives in German-occupied Poland ruled that the denouncing of the Jews to the Germans was punishable by death. The percentage of anti-Semites was certainly not higher than in France or elsewhere in Europe. The Polish government in exile did more to help the Jews during the war than other governments, certainly more than the French, British or American governments. Today's Poland is one of the few countries in Europe that has been consistently pro-Israeli, particularly on the conservative side of Polish politics.
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Attention

Absolute Zero: The Global Agenda Revealed

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 15:05 UTC
Absolute Zero
© Corbett Report
As anyone who's been paying attention will know, Imperial College London played a key role in providing the justification for the scamdemic hysteria and Oxford University played a key role in providing the "solution" to that problem.

Specifically, as you'll recall from Who Is Bill Gates?, it was the Imperial College COVID-19 Research Team that issued a report on March 16th, 2020, predicting the deaths of up to 500,000 Britons and 2.2 million Americans unless strict government measures were put in place, and it was this (completely erroneous) report — along with a similarly alarmist model from the Gates-funded Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — that was used to justify the first round of lockdowns in the US and the UK. And, as you'll recall from my report with Whitney Webb on the Oxford-AstraZeneca Eugenics Links, it was the Oxford Vaccine Group's partnership with AstraZeneca that gave rise to one of the injections currently making its way into the veins of hundreds of millions around the globe in the name of "fighting COVID."

So it should be no surprise that Imperial College and Oxford University researchers also played a key role in a pre-scamdemic report that was recently dug up by The Daily Expose and that lays out the gameplan for the implementation of an even bigger globalist agenda: the shutdown of the global economy.

The report, entitled "Absolute Zero: Delivering the UK's climate change commitment with incremental changes to today's technologies" was produced in 2019 by UK FIRES, "a collaboration between the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Nottingham, Bath and Imperial College London" that is "aiming to reveal and stimulate industrial growth in the UK compatible with a rapid transition to zero emissions." It slipped largely under the radar

"Absolute Zero" is supposedly a reference to the UK's commitment to reach "zero emissions" — or a state in which there is no net emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — by the year 2050. But "absolute zero" also serves as a reference to the bone-chilling vision for the future of humanity that the globalists and their academic minions are busily constructing for humanity under cover of the scamdemic.

Strap in, folks. This is going to be a wild ride.
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Wolf

Indonesia ex-minister sentenced for 12 years over Covid aid fraud


WION
Mon, 23 Aug 2021 06:12 UTC
Batubara
© Reuters
Indonesia's Social Affairs Minister Juliari Batubara walks as he arrives at Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 6, 2020
Former social affairs minister of Indonesia was sentenced to 12 years on Monday after he was convicted of taking USD 1.2 million in bribes. The money was linked to food aid for poor families affected by coronavirus pandemic.

The sentence was handed to Juliari Batubara, the minister by a court in Jakarta. Batubara was arrested in December. A sting operation had turned up suitcases, backpacks and envelopes stuffed with cash.

Comment: Ponerized politicians everywhere are taking advantage of the manufactured crisis to line their own pockets; if only all of them were subject to the same justice: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Pirates

Zelensky's media crackdown gathers pace: Kiev blocks twelve Russian websites, including popular news outlets 'Vedomosti' & 'MK'

Jonny Tickle
RT
Mon, 23 Aug 2021 09:33 UTC
Zelensky
© Sputnik
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a news conference at the Antonov aircraft plant, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree ordering the country's internet providers to block access to the websites of 12 different Russian companies, including newspapers Vedomosti and Moskovskiy Komsomolets.

The document, signed on Friday, also targets Rostelecom, Russia's leading telecoms company.

Restrictions have also been imposed on TRK-3, the Foundation for the Study of Historical Perspectives, the Mutual Aid Association, Novinfo, Nashe Zavtra, Light Print, Narodnye Novosti, and Anna-News.

Comment: With a number of high profile and rather suspect murders in Ukraine recently, along with Kiev's repeated violations of the ceasefire in Donbass, it would appear that the situation in the country is worsening, which does not bode well for its citizens. Perhaps foreseeing this, Russia has recently upped its game in attempting to hold Ukraine to account:

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Chess

Lebanon is under maximum pressure, and the target is Hezbollah: Iran sends its support

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Lebanon ship
Lebanon is under unprecedented economic and social pressure, paying the price for Hezbollah's military capability that causes a threat to Israel. The options offered by those (US, EU and Israel) effectively participating in cornering Lebanon -notwithstanding decades of domestic corruption and mismanagement - are limited to two: either disarm Hezbollah or push Lebanon toward a failed state and civil war. However, the "Axis of the Resistance" has other options: Iran has responded to the request of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah by regularly sending to Lebanon food supplies and medicine. It is now sending oil tankers, which are expected to reach the country in the coming weeks via the Syrian port of Tartous.

Iran is rushing to support one of its strongest allies in the "Axis of the Resistance", Hezbollah, which is suffering severe domestic pressure, as are the entire Resistance Axis members in their respective countries. Hezbollah's supporters of all persuasions are affected by the acute socio-economic crisis. But will Hezbollah succeed in overcoming the inevitable result of the current long-term crisis? How serious are the challenges?

In one of his private meetings, Sayyed Nasrallah said: "Israel considered that Hezbollah's military capability constituted a "vexing danger" at the first years of its existence. The level of danger moved up to "challenge" in 2000 when Israel withdrew from Lebanon, to the "serious menace" level after the 2006 war, and to "existential danger" after the wars in Syria and Iraq."
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Brick Wall

Australian PM Morrison defends lockdown strategy as daily cases hit record

Lidia Kelly
Reuters
Sun, 22 Aug 2021 11:15 UTC
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
© REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison looks on during a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in front of the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 15, 2021.
Australia will stick to its lockdown strategy against the coronavirus until at least 70% of its population is fully vaccinated, but after that it will have to start living with the virus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.

The country set a record with 914 infections, its highest daily figure, as the southern and eastern states of New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory remain under a strict lockdown.

"You can't live with lockdowns forever and at some point, you need to make that gear change, and that is done at 70%," Morrison said in a television interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corp's Insider program.

Comment: Australia has let the mask slip, going full fascist police state on the populace. Everyone should be paying attention, since there's little doubt this will be exported to other countries in the future.

See also:

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Bullseye

Re the 'experts': It's time for a purge in nearly every sector

Wesley J. Smith
The Epoch Times
Fri, 20 Aug 2021 08:48 UTC
fauci hearing
© J. Scott Applewhite/Pool/AP Photo
Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci responds to accusations by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as he testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 20, 2021.
The United States' military mission in Afghanistan has collapsed in chaos and ignominy. The catastrophe has many parents. But surely "the experts" upon which our leader relied bear much blame.

They were the ones who often failed to comprehend the power of religious belief and the role pride in Islam played in the Taliban's unyielding commitment to victory. They were the ones who thought we could remake Afghanistan into a western liberal image. They were the ones who failed to comprehend the intractable tribal nature of Afghan society.

To say the least, Afghanistan has vividly exposed the utter stupidity of our vaunted foreign policy and national security experts. Our hapless Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for example, assured us that Kabul would not fall from "Friday to Monday." He was right. It fell from Friday to Sunday.
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Eye 2

Emmanuel Macron's Covid 'health pass' tyranny reveals the true extremism of globalist faux-centrism

Neil Clark
RT
Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:15 UTC
macron
Macron was billed as the 'moderate candidate' in the 2017 French presidential election but there's nothing moderate about this authoritarian who has transformed France into a police state under the guise of countering a virus.

A few weeks ago, I was in the picturesque Suffolk coastal resort of Southwold. There is a large mural of the novelist George Orwell - who once lived there - at the entrance of the renovated pier. It couldn't have been a more appropriate moment to be reminded of the author of '1984' for, in 2021, we are truly living in Orwellian times. Almost everything we are being told is an inversion of the truth. Extreme policies are being enacted across much of the Western world by those claiming to be 'moderates', while those who oppose the removal of basic, inalienable human freedoms and making them conditional on taking a new-on-the-market vaccine, or proving one's 'health status', are the ones being labelled 'extremists' - and categorised by the elite's propagandists as either 'far-right' or 'hard-left'.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in France.

It is now obligatory to present a 'Pass sanitaire' - proving you have been vaccinated or tested negative for Covid-19 or have recovered from the virus, to gain access to cafes, restaurants, health centres, libraries, department stores, long-distance trains and a whole host of public places. France has gone from a relatively free society to a 1940s-style 'Where are your papers?' state in an incredibly short time and without any proper parliamentary scrutiny or public debate. Macron the 'moderate' has turned into Macron the dictator.
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Putin

Putin: Mandatory vaccination shouldn't be forced on anyone, people should just be encouraged to get jab instead


RT
Sun, 22 Aug 2021 17:42 UTC
Putin
© Sputnik / Mikhail Voskresenskiy
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with members of the United Russia party to discuss its election platform in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for September 17-19, in Moscow, Russia.
Those who are reluctant or anxious about signing up for a Covid-19 vaccine should be encouraged and incentivized to roll up their sleeves, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, while railing against coercion and intimidation.

Speaking on Sunday as part of a meeting with members of the governing United Russia party, ahead of parliamentary elections next month, Putin paid tribute to those behind the immunization drive. "We need to do everything we can to overcome this pandemic," he said, "and the best tool we have in this fight is vaccination."

However, at the same time, the president insisted that there must be "no imposition" of jabs on the public, and that the rationale for signing up for doses to protect against Covid-19 "needs to be explained." According to Putin, "it is possible, and necessary, to create different kinds of incentives" in order to increase the number of people eager to be immunized, and these are preferable to tough rules and undue pressure.

Comment: As with the majority of leaders on the planet, it's difficult to know Putin's real thoughts on the manufactured Covid hysteria, because they're all clearly being leaned on by some incredible (if fallible) force, but, as of now, it would appear that he's at least taking the least draconian stance he can possibly take, particularly when compared with his Western counterparts:

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Bullseye

'Situation in Kabul calm for eight days, no alternative to the Taliban' - Russian ambassador


TASS
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 21:33 UTC
Afghanistan kabul airport
© Shekib Rahmani/AP Photo
Hundreds of people gather near a US Air Force C-17 transport plane at a perimeter at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021
Russia's Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov has said that he does not believe in the expansion of the radical Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) to other countries.

"I do not believe in it (the expansion - TASS). I do not believe that they will go [to other countries]. They have too much to do at home. The country is destroyed," he said on the YouTube channel Solovyev Live on Saturday when asked if expansion was part of the Taliban's plans.

The situation has been calm in Kabul for eight days, Russia's Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov said on the YouTube channel Solovyev Live on Saturday.

Comment: Al Jazeera provides more commentary from Ambassador Zhirnov:
Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov says the Taliban has made encouraging pledges and dismisses resistance efforts as doomed.

Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan has praised the conduct of the Taliban in the days since its takeover, saying there was no alternative to the hardline group and resistance to it would fail.

The comments on Friday by Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov reflect efforts by Russia to deepen already well-established ties with the Taliban while stopping short, for now, of recognising them as the legitimate rulers of a country Moscow tried and failed to control before the Soviet Union withdrew its last forces in 1989.

Russia wants to ensure that the instability in Afghanistan does not spill over into Central Asia, part of the former Soviet Union it regards as its own back yard, and that the region does not become a launchpad for other armed groups.

Speaking to Reuters news agency from Kabul by Zoom, Zhirnov said the security situation in the capital was much better than it was before the Taliban took control of it and spoke optimistically about the future.

"The mood in Kabul can be described as one of cautious hope," said Zhirnov.

"There was a bad regime which disappeared and people are hopeful. They say it can't be worse so it should be better. But this is another test for the Taliban to pass. After they restore order, they should start improving the socioeconomic situation," he said.

Zhirnov's comments contrast sharply with those of some Western politicians and rights activists who are deeply sceptical that the Taliban has moderated its violence towards those they see as incompatible with their nascent emirate governed by strict Islamic law.


Western politicians may be sceptical but they also had 18 months to prepare for their withdrawal knowing that the Kabul administration would fall and yet the only real chaos we see in Afghanistan is that caused by, and surrounding areas held by, the West: UK's Afghanistan evacuation plane empty amidst Kabul airport chaos, despite having '18 months to prepare'


Zhirnov said the facts on the ground had changed and the Taliban had made a set of encouraging pledges.


A list of which you can see here: Pepe Escobar: How Russia-China are stage-managing the Taliban


"We can't wave reality aside. They [the Taliban] are the de facto authorities. There is no alternative to the Taliban in Afghanistan," said Zhirnov.

The son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of the main leaders of Afghanistan's anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s, has pledged to hold out against the Taliban from his stronghold in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh has also said he is in Afghanistan and the "legitimate caretaker president" after President Ashraf Ghani fled.


Ousted president Ghani did a runner with 1 helicopter and 4 cars stuffed with cash.


Zhirnov said Saleh's declaration violated the constitution and that Panjshir-based attempts to resist the Taliban were doomed.

"They have no military prospects. There are not many people there. As far as we know they have 7,000 armed people. And they already have problems with fuel. They tried to fly a helicopter but they have no petrol and no supplies," he said.

Zhirnov also questioned the idea that all of the Afghans trying to flee the country were doing so because of the Taliban.

"Many people now see this situation ... as a possible ticket to a new life [in the West] and this may not be related to the Taliban," he said of the chaotic exodus.
For more on the situation in Afghanistan, check out SOTT radio's:


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