In the 1960s Dr. Martin Luther King fought for equal civil rights on behalf of African-Americans while President John F. Kennedy was trying to shift US foreign policy towards a peace race instead of an arms race. In their actions, these two men represented the qualities of the archetypal hero - their shared desire to unite society, and ultimately all of mankind.

Back then if you were a 'Liberal', you probably supported both of these men. Kennedy described himself in the following way:

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal."

That sounds reasonable to me. The trouble, however, with identifying one's politics, is that, as time goes by, the meanings of words change. For example, during the 1930s, 'fascist' applied to someone who supported the nationalistic ideology of that era. Today the term can mean a far-right or far left supporter, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The meaning of terms today also vary from person to person, so one word can have multiple meanings, even if they tend to aggregate around one 'common sense' meaning. A psychopath, you can imagine, has a totally different conception of the word 'freedom' than you have.

When Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, it soon became clear that we had moved into an era of culture wars, and that the 'left' or 'liberal' ideology had undergone a very strange metamorphosis:


How the heck did we end up here?

Are you perturbed by what's happening in America? Are you shocked by inequality, disappearing middle class, declining quality of health, police brutality, gun violence, ever-growing national debt, government's Orwellian monitoring etc.? You are not alone, but all these are confusing only if you think in terms of an "American government" or "American corporations" or "American banks" that have, or should have, unique loyalty or consideration towards the American people.

But that's the wrong way to think about American today. Everything becomes clear if you think of it as a "System".

President Putin's 'state of the union' address to Russian legislators this week included an unusually blunt message to the self-styled 'masters of the universe' in Washington, DC: "You never listen to us. Now, you listen!"

Taking the opportunity to announce the completion of an overhaul of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, including some new hi-tech weaponry that he claims is unstoppable by any other military systems, Putin put the smack down on American pretensions to single-handedly ruling the world.

This week on Behind the Headlines, we'll discuss the significance of this development for world affairs, along with our regular round-up of recent events on the Big Blue Marble.

We're live from 12 noon - 1:30pm US Eastern, 5pm - 6:30pm UTC, 6 - 7:30pm Central European, this Sunday March 4th, 2018. If you can't tune in then, download the show from the Sott Radio Network archive!

Running Time: 01:44:27

Download: MP3

We're living in dangerous times folks. The postmodern feminist worldview has been officially adopted in UK courts.

In making their rulings, British judges use a guidance manual named the 'Equal Treatment Bench Book', which is published by the Judicial College, a body responsible for training all UK judges. The manual was just updated with a very pro-feminist, anti-male worldview taking hold. Judges are now being advised to avoid offending any of the snowflakes that might appear in their courtroom:

"Judges are now being urged to refrain from using certain words, including 'ethnic minorities,' 'afro-Caribbean' and 'transsexual,' while 'postman' should be replaced by 'postal operative'."

But the politically correct language doesn't stop there. It gets much worse:

"The guidelines also call for judges to be "slow" when it comes to jailing women, as imprisonment is believed to be more damaging to females than males. Going against the long-standing social norm whereby all are treated equally before the law, the guidelines suggest the opposite. "True equal treatment may not always mean treating everyone in the same way," the new version reads."

It's hard to imagine a more ludicrous statement. Equal treatment absolutely means treating everyone equally. Anything else is unequal treatment, plain and simple. This cannot be denied, yet the wizards at the Judicial College somehow have convinced themselves of something that is completely at odds with both the function of the English language and observable reality. Welcome to the liberal feminist ideology, where black is white and unequal treatment is fair if it benefits those poor victims of the patriarchy.

When the democratically-elected President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in the bloody US-backed coup of February 2014, turning Ukraine against Russia, one of the beneficiaries was Ukraine's 'anti-Russian church': the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP).

This church was established in 1992 by a former Metropolitan of the Moscow Patriarchate, Filaret (Denisenko), after he failed to be elected Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). This caused him to break entirely from the church and create a new one in Ukraine. Later in 1995, when the elected head of this new church died, Filaret declared himself Patriarch of the UOC-KP.

Today, the intensely anti-Russian post-coup Ukrainian Government is allowing Filaret's clergy to lead their congregations in raids to take control of the churches and other facilities of the original Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate, UOC-MP).

Furthermore, Filaret's speeches are openly hostile toward residents of the far-eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, where over 90% of the local population had voted for the overthrown President, and then refused to accept the coup-regime and thus declared the breakaway republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Mainstream news is full of health advice. The fact that most of it is bad doesn't seem to stop the endless stream of awful recommendations based on faulty science and questionable motives. A quick review of the news can reveal the following: Saturated fat is bad and should be limited to 13 grams a day; Take statins to reduce cholesterol and prevent heart disease; Have no more than a half teaspoon of salt per day; Whole grains are the foundation of a healthy diet; Mobile phones and other sources of ionizing radiation can't cause cancer; Increase your intake of polyunsaturated fats; Only plants make proteins; Glyphosate poses no risk to human health and is safe for consumption; Red meat kills. If this egregious advice wasn't enough, mainstream health writers go out of their way to lambast herbs and natural remedies with thousands of years of safe and beneficial use for humans. What's a person to do?

Join us for this episode of The Health and Wellness Show where we separate the lies from the truth and tried to figure out why mainstream health authors seem to have it in for us. And stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health Segment, where she spoke about the rabies virus.

Running Time: 01:25:32

Download: MP3

Russian president Vladimir Putin today delivered a landmark address to the Russian Federal Assembly - a joint session of the two chambers of the Russian Parliament - in what is the Russian equivalent of an annual 'State of the Union' speech.

Despite its name, the audience of the address is not limited to Russian legislators. Members of the cabinet, senior civil servants and important public figures are also invited. There were so many people invited this year that the event was moved from its traditional venue at the Georgievsky reception hall in the Grand Palace of the Kremlin to the larger venue at Moscow's Manege.

Taking advantage of the new venue's better multimedia capabilities, Putin announced that Russia has developed a number of advanced weapons systems, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile which render all US capabilities aimed at undermining the Russian nuclear deterrent - including its anti-missile systems - obsolete.

Days after Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi was imprisoned for slapping an Israeli soldier in her hometown of Nabi Saleh, members of her extended family living in Deir Nitham were threatened by an Israeli captain during a raid: "The day will come when you wish you are not a Tamimi." In early January, the Tamimis from Deir Nitham buried 16 year old Musaab al-Tamimi after he was shot on the neck during clashes with Israeli soldiers. Musaab was the first Palestinian killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2018.

The long-term resistance of Tamimi family to the Israeli occupation is becoming something of an obsession for Israeli authorities. In some cases, they are losing their grip on reality. Two years ago, Knesset member and former ambassador to the US Michael Oren initiated a parliamentary committee investigation to find out if the Tamimis were "not a real family... not genuine, and was specially put together for propaganda" purposes by the Palestinians, in which case this would represent "exploitation of children". Unsurprisingly, this conspiracy theory "didn't reach unequivocal conclusions."

Contrary to Oren's show of concern for the Tamimi children, the IDF has targeted members of the family irrespective of their age or innocence. On the 26th of February at 3 a.m., the Israeli military raided Nabi Saleh and arrested ten members of the Tamimi family for no apparent reason. Half of them are minors, including Ahed's cousin Mohammed. The arrests were carried out after collectively punishing the neighbourhood by spraying it with 'skunk water', a putrid substance normally used to disperse crowds:

"When one sees him, a ruler must be a paragon of mercy, loyalty, humanness, integrity and scrupulousness. Indeed, there's nothing more important than appearing to have this last quality, for the common people are impressed by appearances and results."

Niccolò Machiavelli

Remember when rival political parties would dig up dirt on each other? Anything would do: this guy once took a train journey and never paid for it; this one threw a candy bar wrapper on the street; this one once said women love it when he grabs them by the pussy; you know, silly stuff.

For the longest time, the public have always needed those involved with running their countries to be squeaky clean. People need that ideal to project onto, because they know they themselves are not perfect. Yet regardless of how great the leader in question might have seemed, 'ordinary' people really knew deep down that the leader wasn't perfect, but so long as their sins were kept under the rug, it didn't matter.

If his latest PR disaster of a trip to India is anything to go by, Justin Trudeau is working overtime to put the "tard" in Libtard.

Yesterday, the Canadian PM, along with Finance Minister Bill Morneau, unveiled Canada's 2018 federal spending plan whose sole purpose seems to be to pander to women voters and their delicate male feminist counterparts with a bunch of costly ineffective progressive policies.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau's third budget released Tuesday is very much a left-wing document and they're not even trying to hide the fact. For a supposedly financial document, it's rife with identity politics - touching upon multiple issues of gender and race.

Prior to the release they were teasing this as the first budget seen through a gender lens. Oh boy, do they deliver on that front.

The word gender appears 358 times. Choose another big issue, say, terrorism - that word doesn't appear once. It tells you something about priorities.

That our soy swilling, empty headed Prime Minister would table this type of superficial, female-focused budget comes as no surprise considering that a majority of Canadian men do not support Trudeau's Liberal party and in order to secure a second term after the 2019 election, he must prostate himself upon the altar of political correctness.

If not for women, Justin Trudeau's government would be in serious trouble. And not only because they comprise half the cabinet: the support of women is carrying this government through the difficult midterm portion of its mandate.

According to the last opinion tracking by Nanos Research, the Liberals actually trail the Conservatives in support among men: 38 per cent to 33 per cent. But among women, the Liberals lead 42 per cent to 25 per cent. And the latter gap is enough to give the governing party an overall lead.

The more cynical (and perhaps astute) reader might think that our youthfully handsome world leader cares only about his own future political career, and is merely using the cause celebre of 'minority rights' as a tool to get himself reelected.

The budget might go some way toward ensuring the political gender gap continues to pay dividends for the Liberals. If the party can hold its support among women through to the 2019 election, it can still emerge with a majority government - even if it loses the male vote