Changing Political Regimes? - By Thierry Meyssan

In 48 countries simultaneously, there are very large demonstrations challenging the political regime of the state. The supremacy of the democratic model, accepted by almost everyone at the end of the 20th century, is now being called into question. For Thierry Meyssan, no constitutional system will solve today’s problems, which are primarily the consequence of values and behaviour.

On several continents, 48 peoples are currently rising up against their governments. A movement of such magnitude has never been observed on a planetary scale. After the period of financial globalization, we are witnessing a contestation of political systems and are imagining the emergence of new forms of government.

The “supremacy” of democracy

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw both the triumph of the use of elections and the enlargement of the electoral bodies (free men, the poor, women, ethnic minorities, etc.).

The development of the middle classes gave more people time to take an interest in politics. It has encouraged debate and helped to soften social mores.

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The nascent means of communication gave the opportunity to participate in public life to those who wanted to do so. Presidents are not elected in response to social struggles, but because they can be elected today. In the past, automatic successions were favoured, usually hereditary, but not always. It was in fact impossible for everyone to be informed of public affairs and to give their opinion quickly.

Stupidly we have assimilated the sociological transformation of societies and this technical progress to a choice of regime: democracy. Now, democracy is not a law, but a state of mind, an ideal: “the government of the People, by the People and for the People,” as Abraham Lincoln put it.

We soon realized that democratic institutions are no better than others. They enlarge the number of the privileged, but in the end, they allow a majority to exploit a minority. So we designed all kinds of laws to improve that system. We equated the separation of powers with the protection of minorities.

However, the democratic model no longer works. Many citizens find that their opinions are no longer taken into account. This is not due to the institutions, which have changed little in terms of substance, but to the way they are used.

Furthermore, after we have convinced ourselves, with Winston Churchill, that “Democracy is a bad system, but it is the least bad of all systems”, we realize that each political regime must respond to the concerns of people who are different according to their history, their culture; that what is good here will not be good there or at another time.

We must be wary of vocabulary in politics. The meaning of words changes over time. They are often introduced with good intentions and misused with bad ones. We confuse our ideas with the words we use to express them, but which others use to betray them. I will therefore clarify in this text what I mean by the most important ones.

We need to re-examine the question of our governance. Not in the fashion of Emmanuel Macron, who contrasts “democracy” and “dictatorship” in order to end the debate before it has begun. These two words cover realities of a different order. Democracy refers to a regime in which the greatest number of people participate. It is opposed to oligarchy, where power is exercised by a few. On the contrary, if we no longer talk about the number of people involved in the decision, but about how the decision is made, dictatorship refers to a regime where the leader, a military commander, may have to make his decision without being able to debate it. It is opposed to parliamentarianism.

The legitimacy of the Republic

First and foremost, we must ask the question of legitimacy, that is, why do we recognize the government, and then the state, as being so useful that we accept their authority?

We are obeying a government that we believe is serving our interests. This is the idea of a “republic” in the Roman sense. Thus, the kings of France patiently constructed the idea of “general interest” to which the Anglo-Saxons were opposed from the 17th century onwards and from the experience of Oliver Cromwell. Today, the United Kingdom and the United States are the only countries where it is claimed that there is no general interest, but only a sum – as high as possible – of disparate and contradictory interests.

The British suspect a priori that anyone who speaks of the general interest wants to restore Oliver Cromwell’s bloody Republican regime. The United States wants every federal state to be republican (i.e. serving the interests of the local population), but they do not want the federal state – which they distrust – to be republican (because, they believe, it cannot serve the interests of all the components of this immigrant nation). This is why a candidate in the USA does not present a programme setting out his vision of society as in the rest of the world, but a list of interest groups that support him.

The Anglo-Saxon thinking seems strange to me, but it is theirs. I will continue my reflections with those peoples who accept the idea of the general interest. For them, all political regimes are acceptable, as long as they serve the general interest, which unfortunately is no longer generally the case in our democracies. The problem is that no constitution can guarantee this service. It is a practice, nothing more.

Republican virtue

The question then arises as to the qualities necessary for the proper functioning of a political regime, whether democratic or not. As early as the 16th century, Machiavelli had answered this question by stating the principle of “virtue”. By virtue, one should not in any way understand a moral of any kind, but a form of disinterestedness that allows one to take care of the general interest without seeking personal profit; a quality that almost all Western political personnel seem to lack today.

Machiavelli is often cited as the thinker of trickery in politics and described as a manipulator. Certainly, he was not a naive man, but a man who taught both the prince how to use his power to triumph over his enemies and how not to abuse his power.

We do not know how to develop virtue, but we know what made it disappear: we no longer have any respect for those who have money, we no longer have any respect for those who devote themselves to the general interest. Worse still, when we find someone who devotes himself to the general interest, we think a priori that he is rich. However, if we remember virtuous politicians, we know that they were only rich if they had inherited a fortune or earned money before entering politics, so they were generally not.

Gene Sharp’s work and the experience of colourful revolutions show us that, whatever political regime governs us, we always have the leaders we deserve. No regime can last without the support of its people.

Therefore, we are collectively responsible for the lack of virtue of our leaders. Even more than changing our institutions, we must therefore change ourselves and no longer consider others according to the thickness of their wallets, but first and foremost according to their virtue.

Revolutionary Brotherhood

To virtue, the French Revolution added brotherhood. Again, this was not a moral or religious matter, nor was it a matter of any social welfare, but the brotherhood of arms of the soldiers of the second year. They had volunteered to save the country from the Prussian invasion, in the face of a professional army. Among themselves, they no longer differentiated between the aristocracy and the Third State, realizing their ideal of equality. And they were victorious.

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Their anthem, La Marseillaise, became the anthem of the French Republic as well as that of the Soviet Revolution in its early days (before the Gulag). Its refrain is misunderstood today:
To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let’s march, let’s march!
That impure blood
Water our furrows!

It is wrongly interpreted as if we were going to water our furrows with the blood of our enemies. But the blood of the tyrant’s soldiers can only poison our land. In the imagination of the time, the “impure blood” of the People is opposed to the “blue blood” of the officers of the Prussian Empire. It is the exaltation of the supreme sacrifice that founds the brotherhood of arms of the Revolutionaries.

The brotherhood of arms of the People corresponds to the virtue of the rulers. The two answer each other.

What’s next?

Today we are living in a period not unlike that of the French Revolution: society is once again divided into orders. On the one hand, there are leaders chosen from birth, then clerics dispensing their social morality through the media, and finally a third state that is being pushed back with tear gas and rubber bullets. But there is no reason at the moment to die for the fatherland in the face of the interests represented by the thousand business leaders meeting in Davos.

In any case, people everywhere are looking for new forms of governance, in line with their history and aspirations.

The Best of Thierry Meyssan

French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/thierry-meyssan/changing-political-regimes/ 

The Primary Mechanism of Your Oppression Is Not Hidden At All - By Caitlin Johnstone

I write a lot about government secrecy and the importance of whistleblowers, leakers and leak publishers, and for good reason: governments which can hide their wicked deeds from public accountability will do so whenever possible. It’s impossible for the public to use democracy for ensuring their government behaves in the way they desire if they aren’t allowed to be informed about what that behavior even is.

These things get lots of attention in conspiracy circles and dissident political factions. Quite a few eyes are fixed on the veil of government opacity and the persecution of those brave souls who try to shed light on what’s going on behind it. Not enough eyes, but quite a few.

What gets less attention, much to our detriment, is the fact that the primary mechanism of our oppression and exploitation is happening right out in front of our faces.

The nonstop campaign by bought politicians, owned news outlets, and manipulated social media platforms to control the dominant narratives about what’s going on in the world contribute vastly more to the sickness of our society than government secrecy does. We know this from experience: any time a whistleblower exposes secret information about the malfeasance of powerful governments like NSA surveillance or Collateral Murder, we see not public accountability, nor demands for sweeping systemic changes to prevent such malfeasance from reoccurring, but a bunch of narrative management from the political/media class.

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This narrative management is used to shift attention away from the information that was revealed and onto the fact that the person who revealed it broke the law or misbehaved in some way. It’s used to convince people that the revelations aren’t actually a big deal, or that it was already basically public knowledge anyway. And it’s used to manipulate public attention on to the next hot story of the day and memory hole it underneath the white noise of the media news churn. And nothing changes.

We’ve seen it happening over and over and over again. The narrative management machine has gotten so effective and efficient that it’s been able to completely ignore the recent revelation that the US, UK and France almost certainly bombed Syria in 2018 for a completely false reason. A few half-assed Bellingcat spin jobs and an otherwise total media blackout, and it’s like the whole thing never happened.

What this tells us is that our first and foremost problem is not the fact that conspiracies are happening behind a curtain of government secrecy, but that the way people think, act and vote is being actively manipulated right out in the open. Government secrecy is indeed one aspect of establishment narrative control, but controlling the public’s access to information is only one aspect. The bigger part of it is controlling how the public thinks about information.

The reason people never use the power of their superior numbers to force real change, even though they’re being exploited and oppressed in myriad ways by the ruling class, is because they’ve been propagandized into accepting the status quo as desirable (or at least normal). The propaganda of the political/media class is therefore the establishment’s front line of defense. Its most powerful, and essential, weapon.

This is important for dissidents of all stripes to understand, because it means we’re not just passively waiting around for another Manning or Snowden or an Ian Henderson to give us information which we can use to fight the oppression machine. Those individuals have done a great public service, but the battle to awaken human consciousness to what’s really going on in our world is in no way limited to leakers and whistleblowers. It is not at the mercy of government secrecy.

If you are engaged in any type of media, you are engaging the narrative matrix which keeps the public asleep and complacent. It doesn’t matter if you have a Twitter account, a Youtube account, some flyers or a can of spray paint: if you are capable of getting any kind of message out there, you are able to directly influence the mechanism of your oppression. You are able to inform people that they are being lied to, you are able to explain why, and you are able to point them to where they can find more information.

This is extremely empowering. You do not need to wait around hoping that some bombshell piece of information makes it past all the various security checks and spinmeisters and triggers a real social awakening. You can be that information. You can become a catalyst for that awakening.

The key to turning this ship around does not lie hidden somewhere behind a veil of government opacity. It lies in you. It lies in all of us. We can begin awakening our fellow humans right now by attacking the narrative management of the propaganda machine that sits right in front of us, unarmored and unhidden.

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/no_author/the-primary-mechanism-of-your-oppression-is-not-hidden-at-all/ 

How Government and Media Are Prepping America for a Failed 2020 Election - By Whitney Webb

Russia, China and Iran are already being blamed for using tech to undermine the 2020 election. Yet, the very technologies they are allegedly using were created by a web of companies with deep ties to Israeli intelligence.

As World War II drew to a close in Europe, British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that “neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”

Though numerous examples in the post-World War II era have proven Russell’s point, perhaps one of the best examples was the U.S. public’s willingness to swallow lie after lie about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq due to the climate of fear that followed the September 11 attacks. Those lies, propagated by dubious intelligence, government officials and a compliant media, resulted in catastrophes – large and small, both abroad and at home.

Today, an analogous narrative is being crafted by many of the same players – both in media and government – yet it has avoided scrutiny, even from independent media.

Over the past several months and with a renewed zeal in just the last few weeks, anonymous intelligence officials, dubious “experts” and establishment media outlets have crafted a narrative about the coming “chaos” of the 2020 election, months before it takes place. Per that narrative, certain state actors will use specific technologies to target the “American mind” in order to undermine the coming presidential election. The narrative holds that those efforts will be so successful that the U.S. will never recover as a democracy.

Though these anonymous government sources and their stenographers have already named the countries who will be responsible and the technologies they will use, they also admit that no evidence yet exists to back up these claims, meaning they are — at best — pure speculation.

Headlines such as “Hackers Are Coming for the 2020 Election — And We’re Not Ready,” “Basically Every US National Security Leader Is Warning About Foreign Interference In The 2020 Election,” and “U.S. intel agencies: Russia and China plotting to interfere in 2020 election” have become increasingly common, despite no available evidence, as have warnings that the American public is defenseless against the old scourge of “fake news” and the new scourge of “deep fakes.” Some media reports have gone so far to say that actual foreign meddling isn’t even necessary as merely the fear of foreign meddling could be enough to upend the American political system beyond repair.

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Historically, the goal of such fear-inducing narratives has been the trading of civil liberties for increased security, or rather, the appearance of increased security. Yet, when the need for security is felt due to a fear that is based on government-driven speculation and not on evidence, the goal of that narrative is not about protecting the public from a real, tangible threat but instead about the consolidation of power by the very groups responsible for crafting it — in this case, the intelligence community and other key players in the national security state.

However, what is particularly odd about this narrative surrounding imminent “chaos” and meddling in the upcoming 2020 election is the fact that, not only have the instruments of said meddling been named and described in detail, but their use in the election was recently simulated by a company with deep ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. That simulation, organized and run by the Israeli-American company Cybereason, ended with scores of Americans dead, the cancellation of the 2020 election, the imposition of martial law and a spike in fear among the American populace……………………

(Read full text at link below)

…………The keyword that has been used to describe the end result of both Cybereason’s simulation and the prevailing media narrative regarding the 2020 election is “chaos,” chaos so imminent, widespread and unruly that it will shake American democracy to its core.

What has been left unsaid, however, is that a government’s solution to “chaos” is always the imposition of “order.” This means that — whatever “chaos” ultimately ensues prior to or on election day — will result in a government response that will do much more to crush freedom and undermine democracy than any act of foreign meddling has, be it real or imagined.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. 

Full text at:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/no_author/how-government-and-media-are-prepping-america-for-a-failed-2020-election/ 

Can Bernie and Tulsi Survive Hillary’s ‘Urge’ a To Save the DNC? - By Thomas Luongo (Interesting speculation)

For months now I’ve been convinced that Hillary Clinton will be entering the fray that is the Democratic Party primary season. The affair to date has been a nothing short of high comedy.

Recent events have me more convinced than ever that she will be returning, like some zombie whose head we forgot to cut off, to haunt voters one more time this fall.

After the beginning of an obvious (and planned) PR campaign last week with the release of a big campaign ad documentary on Netflix and a big splash in the Hollywood Reporter Hillary finally stopped being coy. And she announced this week that she now ‘has the urge’ to run again against Donald Trump.

Save us, please, from Hillary’s urges…. Shudder.

And she did so making sure that everyone knew what she thought of the real front-runner for the nomination, Bernie Sanders.

As various anointed ones have dropped out of the race – Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Robert O’Rourke – others have faltered despite huge ad spends while the media and pollsters do their level best to convince us all that Joe Biden’s a serious candidate to take on Donald Trump this fall.

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In fact, the only reason Biden is still in the race is to make the impeachment theater going on right now seem relevant and cogent. But, like Biden himself, it is neither.

Then again neither is Hillary, but never underestimate this woman’s narcissistic solipsism.

If you look back on the race to date it’s clear that most of the people running are there to try and distract voters away from the two candidates that resonate most with voters, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

Yes, Gabbard is polling low but if you look at poll numbers versus money spent and/or raised to this point, she’s clearly got cache and the ability to build a real following. And as the field shrinks those distractions become irrelevant. Her poll numbers are rising the more the field winnows.

Neither of them is acceptable in any way to the DNC. They are outsiders within their party. I’m no fan of Bernie Sanders. In fact, I think he’s a terrible candidate — because, you know, commie! — but that’s not the point of this article.

Bernie is surging in the early states and panic is setting in with the DNC. And they must have a plan to stop him from running away with the nomination otherwise we could have two outsiders headlining this fall’s reality show.

And that plan starts with the impeachment and potential removal of Donald Trump.

The impeachment is a distraction for Trump but it is a real problem for the Senators running for the Democratic nomination. They have to spend all day listening to Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler lie while they could be out campaigning and raising money.

This hurts Bernie the most because Bernie is the one who will get zero help from the DNC’s big donors. None of them are behind him and with good reason. He’s hostile to most of them (and most of us as well, but that’s a different article).

Of the people running for President as Democrats the only person less acceptable to Wall St. than Elizabeth Warren is Bernie Sanders. Warren’s entire campaign has been designed to push Bernie farther left by out-lefting him at every turn. Bernie says 70% top marginal tax rate, Warren says 77%. Bernie wants debt restructuring? Warren says forgive all student loan debt.

Her job is to make Bernie as unacceptable to mainstream U.S. voters as possible. Unfortunately, that makes Bernie more and more acceptable to a lot of people voting in the Democratic primaries. And this Catch-22 is beginning to show up in the polls for Iowa and New Hampshire.

Then there’s the serious money behind Pete Buttigieg trying to create slightly gayer version of Barack Obama. Again, he’s just another distraction to suck support away from Sanders and keep the field relatively close and the odds of an uncommitted primary season high.

Because the goal is to get to a brokered convention this summer. So, the impeachment was slowed down to hurt Sanders, Warren and Amy Klobuchar and help give Biden the bump he needs to get some momentum coming into Iowa.

It’s not working.

But I also don’t think it’s going to matter. If you keep watching the headlines the attack dogs are out in full to discredit and hurt Sanders. They know he’s a real force to be reckoned with. And worse, his attack dog, Gabbard, has been muzzled by keeping her off the debate stage so she can’t take anyone else out, like she roasted that pig Kamala Harris last summer.

But I truly feel the DNC is looking to steal the nomination again from Sanders. And the impeachment of Trump continues to somehow, against all odds, get worse for him, even though his party is supposed to be in charge of the proceedings.

I told everyone back in September when Nancy Pelosi announced she was going through with the impeachment process that this was all about getting rid of Trump. But it was in October when Hillary went after Tulsi Gabbard that  Gabbard’s response was beyond epic and I wrote about it then.

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

… concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and …

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible.

This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the Democratic Party’s chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.

So, Hillary’s running, the DNC is trying to stop Bernie and Tulsi Gabbard is still an also-ran in New Hampshire and Iowa, polling between 5% and 7%. So what?

Well, I feel at this point it’s been game-planned by Gabbard and Sanders that they know what’s coming. I felt the endorsement from Joe Rogan of Sanders was timed to distract from Hillary’s attack on Bernie in that Hollywood Reporter piece.

Rogan is far more influential than the dead tree media Hillary’s publicist works with. And her attack dogs were out in full to attack Rogan and smear Sanders with their typical guilt-by-association nonsense.

I don’t tweet much folks, but this one gets to the truth of what’s going on in the murk and slime of Democratic Party politics.

If you ever wanted proof that hyper-sensitive identity politics was nothing more than a cheap political tool of the worst kind. I give you Joe Rogan is a Nazi.

Wake up, get unwoke … profithttps://t.co/la7bgSKS7f

— Tom Luongo (@TFL1728) January 24, 2020

Sanders and Gabbard know the DNC is out to destroy him. And the question then becomes what’s next?

What do they do to combat this? Gabbard is not running for re-election in Hawaii. She says she’s committed to running for President. I don’t think she’s getting the nomination and, frankly, I don’t think she is either.

She just filed a defamation of character lawsuit against Hillary for the smears Hillary threw around I linked to above. She puts financial pressure on Hillary knowing that the Clintons couldn’t drum up support and dollars last year during their expensive speaking tour no one went to.

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Gabbard denies any kind of third party run, getting the Ron Paul treatment from the media. But, she’s a very acceptable person to a lot of disaffected Trump voters like myself. She speaks to them and can help carry Bernie as his running mate if he somehow makes it through the convention to be the Democratic nominee.

So, yes, Gabbard isn’t running for re-election because she’s running as Sanders’ Vice-Presidential candidate.

And it may not be for the Democratic party in the end. That’s the part you have to factor in here.

Game-planning this out, these two are running a real insurgency within the DNC to either get the nomination or split off and run as Independents. This is Bernie’s last kick at the can. He’s already gotten the gold watch from the DNC in 2016, living the high life only a high member of the Politburo can.

Gabbard has burned all the bridges within the DNC she can, almost gleefully. That makes her a person of integrity, of authenticity, in a U.S. political wasteland of charlatans, reality show hucksters and outright thieves.

The quicker she climbs out of the basement in Pelosi’s House, the better off she’ll be.

I don’t put it past either of these people to think that preventing Hillary from regaining control of the Democrats and spoiling her return is the best outcome for America, even if it re-elects Donald Trump.

But, if Trump is removed to make way for Hillary, then the Race to 270 electoral votes becomes a non-binary affair.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The Best of Thomas Luongo

Publisher of the Gold Goats n Guns. Ruminations on Geopolitics, Markets and Goats.

Copyright © Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/thomas-luongo/can-bernie-and-tulsi-survive-hillarys-urge-to-save-the-dnc/ 

Coronavirus Update - PaulCraigRoberts.org (The news behind the news!)

Using more recent data from China of the coronavirus’ infection and death rates than the Indian scientists had, “Moon of Alabama” concludes that the “pandemic” has reached its peak and will be over within a month.  

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/coronaupdate.html 

If so, then Jon Rappoport was correct in the beginning that coronavirus was just another big scare hype.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/01/28/coronavirus-a-real-threat-or-another-scare/ 

Let’s hope that this is the case and that the coronavirus is a far less threat than ordinary flu. Nevertheless, such a happy outcome still leaves us with a lot of puzzling questions.  Here are a few of them:

1.    Why such an enormous effort by the Chinese government using draconian quarantine measures affecting millions of people and multi-country halts of travel to and from China over a threat far less serious than ordinary flu?  

2.    Why is there a rush to develop a vaccine?

3.    Why the expert predictions of a worldwide pandemic?

4.    Why did the virus originate in a Chinese city known to have labs for the study of dangerous viruses?

5.    Why do the scare viruses originate in China—SARS, swine flu, bird flue, coronavirus?

6.    Why did the team of scientists in India find elements of HIV in the coronavirus genome that is believed to raise the infectious potential, a finding, if correct, implies the engineering of a bioterror weapon?

The scientists might be wrong, but they are not presenting a conspiracy theory.  They published their paper provisionally in order to get input from other scientists.  I have no idea whether their findings will be validated, and whatever we are told, we might never know.  If the virus proves to be bioengineered, the Chinese government will know whether something they did escaped.  If they are not responsible for the virus, they will perceive an attack on them by the US.  This type of information would confirm Chinese suspicions:

“Research conducted by the Pentagon, and DARPA specifically, has continually raised concerns, not just in the field of bioweapons and biotechnology, but also in the fields of nanotechnology, robotics and several others. DARPA, for instance, has been developing a series of unsettling research projects that ranges from microchips that can create and delete memories from the human brain to voting machine software that is rife with problems.

“Now, as fear regarding the current coronavirus outbreak begins to peak, companies with direct ties to DARPA have been tasked with developing its vaccine, the long-term human and environmental impacts of which are unknown and will remain unknown by the time the vaccine is expected to go to market in a few weeks time.

“Furthermore, DARPA and the Pentagon’s past history with bioweapons and their more recent experiments on genetic alteration and extinction technologies as well as bats and coronaviruses in proximity to China have been largely left out of the narrative, despite the information being publicly available. Also left out of the media narrative have been the direct ties of both the USAMRIID and DARPA-partnered Duke University to the city of Wuhan, including its Institute of Medical Virology.

“Though much about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak remains unknown, the U.S. military’s ties to the aforementioned research studies and research institutions are worth detailing as such research — while justified in the name of “national security” — has the frightening potential to result in unintended, yet world-altering consequences. The lack of transparency about this research, such as DARPA’s decision to classify its controversial genetic extinction research and the technology’s use as a weapon of war, compounds these concerns. While it is important to avoid reckless speculation as much as possible, it is the opinion of this author that the information in this report is in the public interest and that readers should use this information to reach their own conclusions about the topics discussed herein.”

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/76139/bats-gene-editing-and-bioweapons-recent-darpa-experiments-raise-concerns-amid-coronavirus.html 

If the Indian scientists’ findings are correct, we should expect them to be shouted down by government supported scientists.  To save their careers, they would have to acknowledge a mistake in their research.  If the virus were a US manufactured one, China would have the same incentive to coverup the fact as Washington, because otherwise the consequence would be war, for which China is not ready.  

There are other concerns.  For example, concurrent with the announcement of the new virus there were accusations that the Chinese virus lab was responsible for the pandemic threat and might even have released it purposely on its own population. Moon of Alabama is correct to call this a conspiracy theory.  It is a conspiracy theory to discredit the Chinese government with the Chinese population and the rest of the world.  The Chinese government has no interest in harming the Chinese economy and discrediting itself with a population that it is trying to rule without a harsh hand, but Washington has an interest in ruining the Chinese.

I think it is a good thing that the question whether coronavirus is an engineered virus came up. There are a number of secret high security labs around the world doing scary things.  As Whitney Webb writes, “The lack of transparency about this research, such as DARPA’s decision to classify its controversial genetic extinction research and the technology’s use as a weapon of war, compounds these concerns.”  There is a treaty—or was as Washington might have pulled out of it like it has the arms control agreements with the Russians—that supposedly prevents countries from making bioweapons.  However, whether they are making the weapons or not, they are doing research that could quickly be weaponized.  

Perhaps it would be a good thing if there were a worldwide public discussion whether the benefit of the research is greater than the risk of a deadly pandemic.  The lack of transparency makes mischief possible.  Remember the anthrax letters in the wake of 9/11 that turned out to contain a version of anthrax available only in a US government lab.  To cover this up, the letters were blamed on a dead man who had no motive to send the letters and no access to the anthrax.  Something as dangerous as bioengineered pathogens require plenty of transparency. 

There is no reason scientists should be permitted to investigate whatever they want.  Think for a minute, what is the good of nuclear weapons?  Perhaps if Earth were invaded by hightech Aliens, thermonuclear weapons could be a defense.  Perhaps if an astroid is on collision course with Earth, nuclear missiles could shatter it into small pieces that would burn up in the atmosphere or into smaller pieces that would do less damage.  What else are nuclear weapons good for but to bring us Armageddon?

A lot of thought is needed also about robotics and artificial intelligence.  Robots such as those that can withstand deep underwater pressures and radiation are useful.  But robots that displace people can leave humans unemployed and without purpose.  And do we really want machines as smart or smarter than humans or weaponized?

The challenges of these technologies can be very interesting to scientists, but the unintended and ignored consequences can be horrific.

An obvious question is:  If people with white skin cannot use certain words or long-established expressions, cannot read, study, or teach certain subjects that some believe are offensive, and cannot organize or segregate themselves as others are permitted to do, why can scientists and governments study and manufacture things that could terminate life itself?  This makes no sense.  If we do not begin to make better sense soon, conspiracy theories are going to become very real.

We cannot rely on the ethics and morality of governments.  They have neither.  Consider the US and its European vassals.  For 20 years they have bombed, invaded, murdered, and ravaged seven countries, destroying them in whole or part, all on the basis of transparent lies.  And nothing is done about it. Indeed, the murderous process continues.

Based on these transparent lies, President George W. Bush violated the US Constitution and held indefinitely American citizens on suspicion alone, and President Obama violated due process by executing US citizens on suspicion alone.

Neither were impeached.  Congress, the judiciary, and the public accepted this shredding of the US Constitution and stepped into a police state.  When there is no honest media to protect the people, government transparency becomes even more critical.

Since 2009, the US government has overthrown governments in Honduras, Ukraine, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, reversed the reform process in Ecuador, temporarily overthrew Chevez in Venezuela and continues to try to overthrow his successor Maduro. Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia, and China remain on Washington’s list of countries to be overthrown.

This extraordinary arrogance is easily capable of using a false flag engineered pathogen to produce termoil within a country that collapses a government.  For this reason, the transparency of research is of the upmost importance.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/02/02/coronavirus-update/ 

Some Fundamental Questions on Christianity in America – and Further Questions to Ponder!

A couple of days ago I asked this Question: What Will It Take for Christians to Awaken from Our Apathetic Stupor?

Statistically speaking, Christians constitute anywhere from being the single largest majority or at least the largest plurality of any other definable group in America. We live in a country which has a democratic form of a republic as designed by our founders and as detailed in the US Constitution.

So – why are we being governed by a coalition of tiny – and infinitesimally so - minority interests which now require the majority (Christians) to not only tolerate, but to submit to involuntarily under threat of government force? In other words, our government FORCES Christians to abandon the practice of our faith and beliefs as originally guaranteed by the US Constitution!

How did we get to this place? And if you are a Christian, are you prepared to face the truth?

It is not pretty! I suggest you start here. It will be a long and arduous journey!

Here are some places I visited in my initial research – you can do much more:

Theologically we know that the pastor’s Prime Mandate (along with four other types of church leaders) is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). But our structures are set up to give them the expectation that the pastor will do the work of ministry for them.

https://reachrightstudios.com/church-statistics-2019/

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=us+total+Christian+church+attendance+&t=ddg_android_hs&ia=about

By 2020, it is estimated that there will be 2.55 billion Christians, representing 33% of the world’s population. This is according to a report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. The largest Christian populations will be found in the United States (263 million), Brazil (190), China (148), Mexico (120), Russia (118), Philippines (100), Nigeria (96), DR Congo (81), India (67), and Ethiopia (61). The map above shows Christian population (millions) by country as represented by proportional circles. Countries with less than 1 million Christians are marked with a gray dot. Of particular interest is the growth of Christianity in the largest country of the world by population: China. The percentage of the population adhering to Christianity has risen “from 0.1% in 1970 to 7.9% in 2010 and 10.6% in 2020.” China’s estimated Christian population of 148 million in 2020 would make it the third-largest in the world.

https://cartomission.com/2015/06/08/christian-population-by-country-2020/

What Is Church Attendance Like During Christmastime? New Data From LifeWay Research

Most Americans attend church during the Christmas season, and many would come if invited.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/december/what-is-church-attendance-like-during-christmastime-new-dat.html

Folks, is it time for Christians to get REAL? Are we Gummy Christians – looking for comfort and DaEasy Life – with Jesus as our Divine Butler?  Who has bewitched us?

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7  Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8  But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9  As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

10  For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. – Galatians 1

The Great Commission – Matt. 28:18-20 – is still in effect. In fact, they are our marching orders!