SOTT Focus:


USA

SOTT Focus: Florida School Shooting: A Culture of Narcissistic Entitlement and Resentment

Nikolas Cruz
One more school shooting in the USA, one more round of inane squabbling, finger pointing and calls to 'ban guns' from one side and 'deal with the mental health problem' from the other. As is true for most polemic issues hotly debated by ignorant human beings, the truth probably lies somewhere in between, or somewhere else.

If there were no (or very few) guns in US society, there would be fewer shootings, and therefore fewer deaths, but not fewer attacks by 'mentally ill' people. It seems reasonable to assume that if the number of school or mass casualty shootings in America were replaced by school or mass casualty knife attacks, it would still be a serious social problem. So it seems more rational and productive to focus on solving (or at least better understanding) the problem of mental illness in order to reduce the number of mass casualty attacks.

SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Florida School Mass Shooting: Gun Control, Mental Illness and the Criminal Mind

students florida shooting
Finer and finer orders of control
Another mass shooting took place in the US last week, this time at a high school in south Florida. The gunman was apparently 19-year-old dropout Nikolas Cruz, who waltzed into the school with an AR-15 rifle and some spare clips of ammo, then slaughtered 17 students and teachers in cold blood. He escaped the shooting scene by hiding among the fleeing students, but was later picked up by law enforcement.

Cruz was associated with a White Nationalist group in Florida, suggesting that his motive was revenge at society. He also said he heard voices telling him to do it. The important thing is that he has plead guilty to committing the crime, the NRA and Putin are being accused of somehow conspiring to make him do it, gun control is back on the agenda, and the US can now move on and mourn as One (Nation Under God).

This week on Behind the Headlines, we examined the criminal mind that can do such crazy things.

Join us this Sunday 18 February, from 12-1:30pm EST / 5-6:30pm UTC / 6-7:30pm CET.

Running Time: 01:50:28

Download: MP3


Quenelle - Golden

SOTT Focus: Disastrous Winter Olympics For the USA, May Lose South Korea to Peace

mike pence winter olympics
'You have good time, Mike?'... 'I'd rather be in Israel.'
I must confess some measure of schadenfreude at the sight of beady-eyed US Vice-president Mike Pence squirming through his 'protocol headache' at the opening ceremony of the winter Olympics in South Korea last week. There he was, the distinguished emissary of South Korea's 'protector', a representative of the Exceptional Nation, eclipsed by the surprise inclusion of a representative of 'the enemy'. And at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, no less! Who politicizes sporting and cultural events like that? It's outrageous!

The irony, no doubt, was completely lost on the Americans. After provoking Russia into responding to a military attack launched by that nutcase Saakashvili during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, then trying their level best to scare people away from participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, then pressuring international sporting bodies to ban Russian athletes from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, then doing likewise to cast Russians as untermensch at the current winter games, there's some poetic justice in seeing the US deep state's manipulation of the cultural sphere bite it in the rear.

2 + 2 = 4

SOTT Focus: Syrian War for Dummies - Three Versions

flow terrorists graphic syria
© Washington Post
Although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don't understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies. Three versions of the conflict are presented here and the reader can choose the one that makes the most sense to them.

Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Mackinder's Geopolitics vs. Xi Jinping's New Silk Road: Reality is Not a Closed System

"China will continue to hold high the banner of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit, and uphold its fundamental foreign policy goal of preserving world peace and promoting common development. China remains firm in its commitment to strengthening friendship and cooperation with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and to forging a new form of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation."

- Xi Jinping, address to 19th National Congress of the CPC
belt road china world map
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has created a new paradigm of cooperation, inter-connectivity and growth across Eurasia and Africa, and increasingly the Arctic region.
In his recently translated address to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping laid out a grand design and philosophy for short, medium and long-term strategy, for both his country and the world.1 President Xi not only directly challenged the underlying morality of post-modernism and neo-liberalism which has rendered the Western population incapable of planning the future or even maintaining the institutions handed down to us from past generations, but most importantly threw down the gauntlet, challenging the Western powers to release themselves from the ideological crutch of 'geopolitics' and work with China under a new paradigm of 'win-win cooperation'.

Xi Jinping's 'Belt and Road Initiative' and its global manifestations across Africa, Europe and the Americas have been complemented on January 25, 2018 by an extension into the Arctic, dubbed the Polar Silk Road. This Arctic extension gave new life to a project which Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed as early as April 2007, known as the Bering Strait Rail Tunnel, connecting the Americas with Eurasia.2

Up until recently, Western geopoliticians have attempted to dismiss such initiatives as 'fringe concepts' promoted by Lyndon and Helga LaRouche of the Schiller Institute, but today a very different picture has come to light which reveals that this battle between two opposing paradigms goes much further back in history than most people realize and, as such, a need to revisit some forgotten history is in order. It is, after all, due to this potent conception of history as a struggle between two opposing paradigms that the LaRouches and their allies have been able advance such policies mentioned above for over four decades.

SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: The Health & Wellness Show: Hands off my lady bits! The medical mismanagement of female health

flower
© Tara Jacoby
Did you get your yearly pelvic exam? How about a mammogram? Did you have a natural birth or a c-section? Have you ever woken up from a minor surgery to find your ovaries missing? The world of allopathic medicine is fraught with malpractice and the field of women's health comes with its own set if dangers.

Join us on this episode of The Health and Wellness Show where we'll discuss medically overmanaged childbirths, labiaplasties, hysterectomy and female castration (otherwise known oophorectomy), breast cancer, the mammogram scam and more.

Stay tuned at the end of the show for Zoya's Pet Health Segment where the topic will be pseudo-pregnancy in dogs.

Running Time: 01:09:36

Download: MP3


USA

SOTT Focus: Georgian snipers testify to being ordered by Maidan leaders to shoot at police and protesters, provoke attacks during Ukraine coup

maidan square
© Sputnik, Andrey SteninMaidan square in Kiev, Ukraine, February 19, 2014
On February 20, 2014, unknown snipers shot at people gathered on Kiev's central Maidan square, killing 49 protesters and four police officers. Local opposition leaders, as well as US and EU representatives, were quick to point a finger at the "regime of Viktor Yanukovych." Still, an official investigation failed to produce any results with the culprits still at large.

A Sputnik correspondent has met with the purported snipers, all of them from Georgia. They insist that they were taking orders from Maidan leaders. Moreover, they had direct orders to fire at police officers AND protesters in order to enrage the crowd and provoke a political crisis.
georgian snipers maidan
© SputnikGeneral Tristan Tsitelashvili, Alexander Revazishvili and Koba Nergadze.
General Tristan Tsitelashvili, the former commander of the Georgian Army's elite Avaza unit, was the first to say that certain Georgian snipers were involved in the Maidan shooting. Tsitelashvili fought in Abkhazia and took part in the "five-day war" of August 2008, but later became a personal enemy of Mikheil Saakashvili, who tried to blame the military for his fiasco.

Tsitelashvili's house was raided by police who arrested the general and seriously injured his little son. They tried to force him to admit to having played a role in an alleged "plot by generals", which purportedly resulted in Georgia's defeat in the 2008 war. The general did not testify and has since been a sworn enemy of Saakashvili.

2 + 2 = 4

SOTT Focus: The Young Labour Equalities Conference - "But Some Animals are More Equal than Others"

Labour Party
© Labour Party
War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

George Orwell - "1984"
You can add to that, 'Inequality is Equality'.

In the weeks preceding Nov. 9th 2016, polls showed that the US presidential race was a done deal: Trump was just a clown, Hillary was a dead cert.

And then, KABOOM! American Liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media had a rude awakening as Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.

How the hell did that happen?

Well, there's a little secret that many politicians in Western nations today seem to have forgotten. The way democracy works is that, to win an election, you have to actually win a majority of votes. And in order to win a majority of votes, you have to win over a majority of voters.

It's simple math. It's simple economics, too: Know your market. Ingroup self-referencing and hubris-fueled echo chambers don't cut it.

Arrow Up

SOTT Focus: Korea! Opening Ceremony of Pyeong Chang 2018 - Hope For Peaceful Reunification Despite American Subterfuge

reunited korea olympic flag
A single blue-and-white flag of Korea is meant to signify the symbolic unity of a country divided since 1945.
I saw a scene the other day on the evening news that made me smile with joy. It was a unified Korea marching in the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeong Chang under the same flag. Starting at minute 1:27 in the next video, you see the delegation of Korea with the French narrative of the event, which was the only version I noticed which specified that North Korea and South Korea were parading together as One Korea. The English translation is cut out from the opening ceremony. Why am I not surprised. The Western elite thrive on war and rumors of war.


It was not actually the first time that both Koreas have united for the Olympic games. Both have marched together at various events under the same flag, the last time being in Torino 2006. After a long hiatus, they reunited again in 2018. The single blue-and-white flag is meant to signify the symbolic unity of one country artificially divided since 1945.

Pistol

SOTT Focus: The Unfortunate Death of Colten Boushie: Was Justice Served?

colten-boushie-gerald-stanley-side-by-side
© Facebook/Liam Richards/Canadian PressColten Boushie, left, was fatally shot in August 2016. Gerald Stanley, right, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
On the afternoon of August 9, 2016, 22-year-old Colten Boushie died as a result of being shot in the back of the head.

The man who pulled the trigger was 56-year-old Gerald Stanley, a cattle farmer in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada. Stanley was charged by the RCMP with second degree murder.

When his trial came to an end 3 days ago, Gerald Stanley was acquitted of all charges by a 12-person jury.

What events led to the altercation between the two men and what exactly transpired between them, resulting in Boushie's tragic demise, is a matter of speculation, as there was some conflicting witness testimony throughout the trial.

Some of the facts that have been established so far: