It’s now in the peer-reviewed literature that the shots should be stopped.
Too many unanswered questions.
Plus, the people who should be answering these questions simply don’t want to talk about it. That’s the biggest red flag in my mind.
From the paper:
Given the well-documented SAEs and unacceptable harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse and enforce a global moratorium on these modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.
I am proud to be one of the authors of this paper along with my friends. Your paid subscription helps support research papers such as this one. Please consider subscribing to help us continue this work.
Das deutsche Volk ist gespalten. Während ein großer Teil der Westdeutschen immer noch den antikommunistischen Vorurteilen einer jahrzehntelangen Indoktrination durch die herrschende Klasse der Monopolbourgeoisie anhängt, sind sich noch nicht einmal diejenigen einig, denen das unmenschliche, kapitalistische System mehr als nur ungerecht und daher überdrüssig erscheint. Doch liebedienerisches Verhalten gegenüber dem bürgerlichen Staat war schon immer das Credo der bürgerlichen Parteien und ihrer Anhänger. Davon vermögen auch diverse Streitereien im Bundestag nicht abzulenken. Und die opportunistischen Stimmen im Volk werden immer aufdringlicher.
Der Opportunismus – ein Feind des Fortschritts
Schon zur Zeit von Marx und Engels war in Deutschland die größte soziale Basis des Opportunismus die in die Arbeiterklasse eingedrungene Kleinbourgeoisie. Schon damals hatten Marx und Engels vor den Symptomen einer wachsenden Rechtsorientierung gewarnt, deren Quellen sie in folgendem sahen:
„Der Zutritt der Kleinbürger und Bauern“, schrieb Engels im Jahre 1879 an Bebel, „ist zwar ein Kennzeichen des reißenden Fortschritts der Bewegung, aber auch eine Gefahr für sie, sobald man vergißt, daß diese Leute kommen müssen… Ihr Zutritt ist der Beweis, daß das Proletariat in Wirklichkeit die leitende Klasse geworden ist. Da sie aber mit kleinbürgerlichen und bäuerlichen Vorstellungen und Wünschen kommen, darf man nicht vergessen, daß das Proletariat seine führende Rolle verscherzen würde, wenn es diesen Vorstellungen und Wünschen Konzessionen machte.“ [1]
Warum gibt es keine Einigung um jeden Preis?
Schon immer hatten die Klassiker ein undialektisches Herangehen an die Wirklichkeit als eine der philosophischen Wurzeln des Opportunismus entlarvt. Marx und Engels wußten nur zu gut, daß sich die Entwicklung des Proletariats überall in inneren Kämpfen vollziehen wird, daß Opportunismus unausbleiblich und die Auseinandersetzung mit opportunistischen Führern in der Arbeiterbewegung eine historische Notwendigkeit sei. „Einigung“, schrieb Engels, „ist ganz gut, solange sie geht, aber es gibt Dinge, die höher stehen als die Einigung.“ [2] Noch wichtiger war für ihn und Marx die Erhaltung des revolutionären, proletarischen Charakters der Partei, ihre revolutionären Theorie und Taktik. Oder wie Kurt Gossweiler kurz und bündig sagen würde: „Klarheit geht vor Einheit!“
Die Entartung der Sozialdemokratie
Lenin machte in seiner Arbeit „Was tun?“ (1902) ganz besonders auf den Kampf aufmerksam, der innerhalb der II. Internationale zwischen dem revolutionären Flügel und den Opportunisten tobte. „..In der heutigen internationalen Sozialdemokratie“, so schrieb er, sind „zwei Richtungen entstanden…, zwischen denen der Kampf bald entbrennt und in hellen Flammen auflodert, bald erlischt und unter der Asche eindrucksvoller ,Waffenstillstands-Resolutionen‘ weiterglimmt.“ Wie Lenin und Stalin betont haben, ist die Gewähr für den Sieg des Proletariats der schonungslose Kampf gegen den Opportunismus in seinen verschiedenen Formen. Die ideologische und politische Entartung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie wurde immer offensichtlicher.
Die Angst der Bourgeoisie vor der Revolution
Wohl standen an der Spitze „Orthodoxe“, wie Bebel und Kautsky, jedoch wird die Entwicklung der deutschen Sozialdemokratie in Wirklichkeit hauptsächlich von dem ständig zunehmenden Opportunismus bestimmt. Der Reformismus gewann allmählich die Oberhand über die „Orthodoxie“, mochte er auch zuweilen zurückweichen. Und warum sollte ihm das auch nicht gelingen! Die offizielle „Orthodoxie“ wurde immer mehr das „Zentrum“ in der Partei. Der Zentrismus [3] paßte sich unentwegt dem Reformismus an, wobei er gegen die Linken und ihr revolutionäres Aktionsprogramm auftrat. Die Äußerungen Bebels und Kautskys in der Presse und auf den Parteitagen stellten eine Kette von Konzessionen an den rechten Flügel der Partei dar.
Der Zentrismus – außen rot und innen weiß…
Zentrismus bedeutet Bruch mit dem revolutionären Marxismus in allen entscheidenden Fragen der Politik sowie der Strategie und Taktik des Klassenkampfes. Auf philosophischem Gebiet bedeutet der Zentrismus Verzerrung und Verflachung des dialektischen und historischen Materialismus. Der politische und ideologische Führer des Zentrismus war Kautsky.
„Der Zentrismus“, schrieb Stalin, „ist eine für die II. Internationale der Vorkriegszeit natürliche Erscheinung. Da gab es Rechte (die Mehrheit), da gab es Linke (ohne Anführungszeichen), und da gab es Zentristen, deren ganze Politik darin bestand, den Opportunismus der Rechten mit linken Phrasen zu verbrämen und die Linken den Rechten unterzuordnen.“ [4]
Der Marxismus – eine wissenschaftliche Theorie
Marx und Engels maßen der naturwissenschaftlichen Untermauerung der dialektisch-materialistischen Weltanschauung größte Bedeutung bei. Der dialektische Materialismus, die höchste Errungenschaft des wissenschaftlichen Denkens der Menschheit, verwertet alle Ergebnisse der Wissenschaft, und zwar insbesondere der Naturwissenschaft. Die marxistische Philosophie betrachtet die Welt in ihrer Gesamtheit und stellt die allgemeinsten Entwicklungsgesetze der Natur, der Gesellschaft und des Denkens fest. Die Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaft bestätigt die Richtigkeit der materialistischen Theorie und der dialektischen Methode.
„Man kann ohne Übertreibung sagen, daß nach Engels‘ Tod Lenin als der gewaltigste Theoretiker und nach Lenin Stalin sowie andere Schüler Lenins die einzigen Marxisten waren, die die marxistische Theorie weiterführten und sie unter den neuen Bedingungen des Klassenkampfes des Proletariats durch neue Erfahrungen bereicherten.“ [5]
Das Ziel ist eine von kapitalistischer Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung freie Gesellschaft
Engels forderte das konkrete Studium der historischen Tatsachen. Historischer Materialismus ohne Kenntnis der Geschichte wird zum Schema. Wiederholt hatte sich Engels gegen die versöhnlerische Rolle der Parteiführung unter W. Liebknecht u.a. gewandt. Solange eine Partei auf „das Endziel“ verzichtet, die Diktatur des Proletariats und die gewaltsame Revolution gegen die bürgerliche Gesellschaft mit keinem Wort erwähnt und ihre Forderungen der modernen kapitalistische Gesellschaft anpaßt, wird es keine Änderung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse geben. Über den Entwurf des Erfurter Programms von 1891 schrieb Friedrich Engels:
„Dies Vergessen der großen Hauptgesichtspunkte über den augenblicklichen Interessen des Tages, die Ringen und Trachten nach dem Augenblickserfolg ohne Rücksicht auf die späteren Folgen, dies Preisgeben der Zukunft der Bewegung um der Gegenwart der Bewegung willen mag ehrlich gemeint sein, aber Opportunismus ist und bleibt es, und der ,ehrliche‘ Opportunismus ist vielleicht der gefährlichste von allen.“ [6]
Das Klassenbewußtsein
Jede Klasse entwickelt und gestaltet aus ihren materiellen gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen heraus ihr eigenes Klassenbewußtsein. Zwischen dem Klassenbewußtsein der Arbeiterklasse und aller anderen Klassen, besonders der Bourgeoisie, besteht ein grundlegender Unterschied. Letzteres ist in hohem Grade von Illusionen und Anschauungen durchdrungen, welche die reale Lage und historische Rolle der betreffenden Klassen und die ganze soziale Wirklichkeit verzerrt widerspiegeln. Bei der Arbeiterklasse ist es ambivalent.
Eine wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung
Das Klassenbewußtsein der Arbeiterklasse muß jedoch eine neue Qualität besitzen. Sein wissenschaftlicher Ausdruck ist der Marxismus-Leninismus. Wie schon F. Engels schrieb, machen die Menschen „mit vollem Bewußtsein“ ihre Geschichte selbst. [7] Das geschieht aber nicht im Selbstlauf, sondern muß durch die marxistische-leninistische Partei geschehen. Fehlt sie oder ist sie revisionistisch, haben bürgerliche und kleinbürgerliche Anschauungen es leicht, sich in den Gehirnen der Menschen, insb. der werktätigen Klasse einzunisten…
Der Weg zum Sozialismus
Die Hauptaufgabe des deutschen Volkes zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt ist der Aufbau eines einheitlichen und friedliebenden Deutschlands auf demokratischer Grundlage. Das jedoch setzt voraus, daß das Finanzkapital und die Monopole entmachtet und entschädigungslos enteignet, der kapitalistische Staat in all seinen Gliederungen abgeschafft werden, und das Volk die Macht in die eigenen Hände nimmt. Was hier in drei Sätzen beschrieben ist, kann – wie wir gesehen haben – nicht im Zuge von Reformen verwirklicht werden. Es ist ein revolutionärer Prozeß, bei dem die Arbeiterklasse die führende Rolle übernehmen muß. Doch dazu bedarf es einer einheitlichen Führung durch eine marxistisch-leninistische Partei – so wie das 1917 in der Sowjetunion und 1945 in der DDR der Fall war. Einen anderen, einen zweiten oder dritten Weg zum Sozialismus gibt es nicht!
[1] Friedrich Engels. Brief an August Bebel in Leipzig am 24. November 1879, In: Marx/Engels, Werke, Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1966, Bd. 34, S. 425f. [2] ebd. S. 277. [3] Zentrismus ist verdeckter Opportunismus, der sich in Worten zum Marxismus bekennt, in der Praxis aber die revolutionäre Bewegung bekämpft (und spaltet). [4] J.W. Stalin: „Über die Industrialisierung des Landes und über die rechte Abweichung in der KPdSU(B) – 19. November 1928“. In: Werke, Bd. 11, Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1954, S. 250. [5] Geschichte der KPdSU (B), Kurzer Lehrgang, Dietz Verlag Berlin 1952, S. 445. [6] Friedrich Engels: „Zur Kritik des sozialdemokratischen Programmentwurfs 1891“. In: Marx/Engels Werke, Bd. 22. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1977, S. 234f. [7] Friedrich Engels: „Anti-Dührung“. In: Marx/Engels: Werke, Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1962, Bd. 20, S. 264
The problem for Germany is the same problem we have in the Netherlands, in Canada and in countless other countries that have become American vassals.
Thank God the great Franz Beckenbauer will not live to see the depths to which his native Germany is falling in football, as well in everything else. Beckenbauer, followers of the beautiful game will recall, marked England’s Bobby Charlton, then regarded as the world’s greatest player, out of the 1966 World Cup Final, which England controversially won and where the great Beckenbauer chivalrously accepted his nation’s defeat.
Beckenbauer was only a child when Germany first won the World Cup in 1954, having to contend with the vilest racism against them by the sore losers of England’s gutter press on the way. However, as the German team put the great and much fancied Hungarian team to the sword in 1954, other Germans were putting the building blocks of Germany’s post-War resurrection into place.
Those building blocks included such things as channelling national fervour into such relatively harmless pursuits as football and keeping both interest rates and inflation low, as discontent from Weimar’s hyperinflation was the ladder Herr Hitler and his many friends used to ascend to power.
Internally, there would be a corporate consensus where differences between employer and employee, consumer and producer, farmer and city dweller would be made by negotiation and bargaining, not by the type of violent fireworks one often associates with France.
Externally, both France and Germany had to embrace defeat and, especially in Germany’s case, the carrot of the Marshall Plan as well as the ongoing stick of the American military occupation, which continues to this day. Compared to freezing your nuts off at Stalingrad or being sunk whilst manning a U Boat, it wasn’t a bad deal and Germany made the best of it and of the European Economic Community, which it founded with France and some others, including the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which had the biggest per capita fatality rate of World War Two.
The basic division of managerial labour in the EEC was that France, with the likes of De Gaulle at the helm, would be its political voice and Germany would be its economic engine. All of that worked well when the Yanks needed both satrapies to act as bulwarks against the Soviet Union and its Red Army. Fast forward to today and Germany is one big farce.
First off, let’s take Germany’s promise to intervene as a third party at the International Court of Justice to protect Israel against South Africa’s slam dunk charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Although, given certain events Germans were implicated in from 1939 to 1945, the wags have had a great time scoffing at Germany over that, Germany’s bumbling intervention presumes the top notch barristers Israel has retained are not quite up to the task and that they need a troupe of tutu clad dancing German elephants to help them out. As that is not the case, Germany should just sit down and shut up.
Before leaving both South Africa and South West Africa behind us, we should note that their own intervention in The Hague on behalf of the Palestinians is a very important step in sub-Saharan Africa’s long march to being a world player as, in the Palestinian case at least, both South Africa and South West Africa are each standing on two legs, not the four that lately seems to be Germany’s preferred position.
Moving on to Israel and Palestine, we need only note that Germany has armed and financed the former and thrown crumbs and crass insults at the latter. Which is probably a tad better than what they have in store for the Houthi who, whatever their other faults, vehemently disagree with slaughtering Palestinian children.
The Germans are sending the F-124 Hessen frigate to the Red Sea to help the Americans and their British lackeys kill the impoverished Yemeni. Although the German Chancellor’s Office has stated that “the international community” must keep the Red Sea open, the Americans and the British are not only not “the international community” but their attacks on Yemen are illegal, according to the laws and norms of “the international community” on whose behalf Germany professes to wage war.
The Sachsen class F-124 Hessen frigate is equipped with a reconnaissance radar capable of simultaneously detecting up to 1,000 targets, air defence missiles, and attack helicopters. It also carries anti-ship Harpoon missiles and torpedoes. As an aside, one wonders what Zelensky would have got for it on the black market, had Germany gifted it to him and his fellow shysters.
And then we have Germany’s ongoing funding of Zelensky’s failed Reich which has seen up to a million fatalities for no other reason than to enrich American arms’ suppliers and their local Ukrainian and other collaborators. And, though Zelensky and his cronies could rationally argue that they enriched themselves by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians for a threadbare pipe dream, Germany can make no similar boast.
Germany has not only destroyed the foundations on which her post-War prosperity was built but has gone so far as to allow the United States and its Norwegian Quislings to blow up its pipelines, and thereby end the era of cheap energy Germany’s economic miracle was built on. In Ukraine, it has thrown its equivalent of the kitchen sink at Russia’s rings of steel, only to see that kitchen sink boomerang backwards and cut it off at its knees.
America’s Trojan horses of Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic joke countries now make the political running in the European Union and Germany is told to shut up and pay up. God knows what Beckenbauer and Bismarck would make of this farce.
However, the spirit of Beckenbauer and Bismarck is not yet dead as not all Germans are buying into this bullshit. German farmers and truckers, for one, are protesting, helped by gallant allies from Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Holland. Like Germany’s own mittelstand, those small companies that helped form the spine of German industry, these truckers and farmers are both independent-minded and resourceful and, as with the Canadian truckers, they do not want not be under the jackboot of a Trudeau, a von der Leyen or a no less contemptible Scholz.
Twin tracked to these independent minded Germans is the rise of the “far right” Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are currently polling at almost 24%. And, though NATO’s media scream that their rise will mean the return of Hitler, rather than Beckenbauer or Bismarck, that is not quite the case. Most Germans are more interested in beer and Beckenbauer, in hiking and baking, than they are in goose stepping into Yemen or in helping Israel weave its lies.
The problem for Germany is the same problem we have in the Netherlands, in Canada and in countless other countries that have become American vassals. The problem is, as Donald Trump put it, how to drain the swamp and keep it drained without any of NATO’s invasive species, such as Germany’s war-mongering Green Party, further fucking it up. Though Germany’s halcyon days of beer and Beckenbauer are gone, alas, like our youth too soon, we owe it to ourselves and to others to build back better, to craft some sensible way forward out of NATO’s morass that does not entail collaborating with or yielding power to those who murder children in Gaza, Donbass or Yemen.
Germany will have elections to the European Union’s talking shop on June 9th, and to its own equally emasculated Bundestag in 2025. Whoever wins, let’s hope the Greens and Sсholz’s Social Democratic psychopaths are amongst the biggest losers so that Germany, and all of Europe, might start to write a newer, brighter and more civilised chapter than the obituary NATO and its European Union front group are currently drafting for them.
The longer this horror goes on, the worse it will get for Washington and its Israeli client state.
The United States and Israel have only one reasonable option left, and that is to end the genocide in Gaza by calling an immediate ceasefire, according to Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi.
The longer this horror goes on, the worse it will get for Washington and its Israeli client state.
But here’s their self-defeating dilemma. The U.S. and Israel seem incapable of making that rational decision because they are desperate to conceal the utter defeat that the U.S. and Western-backed Israeli regime have already incurred in Gaza.
The mounting military losses for Israeli troops in Gaza are correlated with the increasing missile strikes on Yemen by the United States (and Britain).
This deranged dynamic is leading to a wider all-out war in the Middle East region, one where the U.S. and Iran become direct antagonists.
If the United States and Israel go down that path, and it looks increasingly inevitable, then they are facing a definitive defeat, contends Prof Marandi.
Iran and its formidable allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere have the military capability to deliver a crushing blow.
The “Axis of Resistance” cannot be defeated militarily. Marandi points out that Israel has failed to eliminate the Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza after more than three months of non-stop bombardment with unlimited military and political support from the United States.
The horrendous slaughter of civilians – women and children torn apart day after day – is only exposing the abysmal criminality of the Israeli state and its Western patrons. It is an irredeemable loss of political and moral credibility in the eyes of the world, including among the majority of Western citizens.
The exposure of rank hypocrisy, duplicity, and barbarous criminality is fatal for the Western powers and their Israeli client.
If the U.S. and Israel escalate to a wider war in the coming weeks they will be up against much stronger opponents who will undoubtedly destroy them. Marandi implies that the firepower seen so far from various resistance groups is only a fraction of what lies in store by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel.
In addition to military firepower, there is the catastrophic consequence of global economic ruination for the United States and its Western allies, who are already riven with political and economic crises.
An important distinction, Marandi argues, is that the U.S. is not haplessly being manipulated by Israel and its Machiavellian leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
He contends that the U.S. ultimately holds “the leash on its Israeli attack dog”. The bombing of Yemen and assassinations by the United States across the region all indicate a deliberate policy of war escalation by Washington.
There are contradictions, of course, such as the Biden administration reportedly expressing concern about the risk of a wider war with Iran if U.S. troops get killed in Iraq or Syria.
But the U.S. as an imperial power is irrational. It is trying to assert imperial power by ramping up war, even though war is leading to its historic collapse.
Nevertheless, Professor Marandi confidently asserts that Iranians are not afraid of a nuclear-armed U.S. or Israel. “In my lifetime, apartheid South Africa collapsed and nuclear weapons didn’t save it,” he notes. The same fate is awaiting Israel, he adds.
He predicts the Israeli state is facing terminal collapse from its own internal corruption and incorrigible lawlessness perpetrated over eight decades with full-on Western complicity. Israel is not a viable independent state, he points out. It would fall apart without continuous U.S. and European support.
The United States and Western powers who have tied themselves to the criminality of the Zionist regime are also doomed by the latest phase of genocide in Gaza.
The world has watched this genocide live on TV. Israel, the United States, and its Western partners are pariahs in the eyes of the world. That is the basis for their ultimate and irreparable defeat.
Die amerikanischen Behörden sehen Feinde unter den Anhängern traditioneller Werte
Im vergangenen Februar äußerten der Generalstaatsanwalt von Virginia, Jason Miyares, und 19 weitere von den Republikanern kontrollierte Generalstaatsanwälte „Empörung und Bestürzung“, nachdem ein internes Memo des Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) an die Presse durchgesickert war, in dem Katholiken als „anfällig für Gewalt in rassistischen oder rassistischen Situationen“ bezeichnet wurden ethnisch motivierte Extremisten.“
Miyares und seine Kollegen schickten einen Brief an US-Generalstaatsanwalt Merrick Garland und FBI-Direktor Christopher Wray und forderten sie dringend auf, sich mit dieser übelriechenden Geschichte zu befassen. In ihrer Botschaft wurde das FBI-Memo als „unamerikanisch und verfassungswidrig“ bezeichnet.
Die analytische Notiz, die wahllos katholische Radikale anprangerte, wurde von Mitarbeitern der FBI-Abteilung in der Stadt Richmond (Richmond Field Office) erstellt . In der internen Regierungsakte wurden einige Katholiken als radikale Gruppe beschrieben, die „häufig antisemitischen, einwanderungsfeindlichen, anti-LGBTQ- und weißen supremacistischen Ansichten“ anhängt.
Aus dem internen Memorandum ging hervor, dass das FBI es für notwendig erachtete, eine Überwachung und Überwachung der Kontakte zwischen „rassistisch oder ethnisch motivierten gewalttätigen Extremisten“ (RMVEs) und solchen, die der Ideologie des „radikalen Traditionalisten-Katholizismus“ anhängen ( „Radical or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists “), einzurichten „). radikal-traditionalistische katholische“ Ideologie, RTC) . Zusätzlich zur Überwachung wurde vorgeschlagen, ihre Agenten in katholischen Gemeinden einzuführen.
Diktiert von genderbewussten Neoliberalen
Ausgangspunkt für die Formulierung einer Empfehlung, katholische Pfarreien und Gotteshäuser „unter die Haube“ zu nehmen, war die Aussage eines einzelnen (!) Amerikaners, der sich selbst als „radikal-traditionalistischen Katholiken“ bezeichnete.
Um zu verstehen, aus welchen Quellen die „Analysten“ des FBI anderes Quellenmaterial für ihre Schlussfolgerungen herangezogen haben. Dabei handelte es sich um „offene Quellen“. Salon ist eine Nachrichtenseite, die 1995 im Internet gegründet wurde und mit den Meinungen derjenigen gefüllt ist, die sich selbst „Progressive“, also Liberale, nennen. The Atlantic ist die älteste Monatszeitschrift, die 1857 von einer Gruppe von Schriftstellern und Intellektuellen gegründet wurde und nicht ohne Grund als „Leuchtturm des liberalen Denkens“ gilt.
Im Gegenzug betrachtete die erste Quelle wertvoller „Insider“-Informationen, das Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) , aus dem FBI-Agenten Informationen bezogen, jeden, der sich als „christliche Identität “ identifiziert, als Mitglieder einer „Hassgruppe “ . SPLC-Führer gaben an, neun ähnliche Gemeinden in den gesamten Vereinigten Staaten identifiziert zu haben.
Beamte aus Richmond mit ideologisch geschärften Gendarmerie-Ambitionen zählten Amerikaner mit traditionellen Ansichten zu den potenziellen „Volksfeinden“. Jene Bürger, so heißt es in dem Dokument des US-Kongresses, die „für das Leben und die Familie sind und auch die Biologie als Grundlage für Geschlecht und Geschlechterunterschiede betrachten“. Das örtliche FBI beschloss, sie als „potenzielle inländische Terroristen“ zu betrachten.
Als am 8. Februar 2023 ein gewissenhafter FBI-Mitarbeiter und Wahrheitssucher namens Kyle Seraphin ein aufrührerisches Memorandum veröffentlichte , in dem er dessen voreingenommenen Inhalt verurteilte, dachte die Führung der Behörde darüber nach, es von einem Dokument für den internen Gebrauch in eine Richtlinie für alle umzuwandeln seine Einheiten, die auch weithin bekannt gemacht werden würden.
Zurück in der Zeit
Die FBI-Führung erkannte die Schwere des möglichen Vorwurfs: ein Verstoß gegen den ersten Zusatzartikel zur US-Verfassung, der Teil der Bill of Rights ist. Erinnern wir uns an seinen Inhalt. „Der Kongress darf kein Gesetz erlassen, das die Gründung einer Religion respektiert oder deren freie Ausübung verbietet oder die Meinungs- oder Pressefreiheit oder das Recht des Volkes, sich friedlich zu versammeln, einschränkt und bei der Regierung eine Wiedergutmachung beantragt Beschwerden.“ Das bedeutet, dass das FBI gegen den verfassungsmäßigen Grundsatz der „freien Ausübung“ verstoßen hat.
Während einer internen Untersuchung kam das FBI zu dem Schluss und informierte den US-Kongress, dass der im Memorandum festgestellte Zusammenhang zwischen „rassistisch oder ethnisch gewalttätigen Extremisten“ und „katholischen Radikal-Traditionalisten“ nicht durch Fakten gestützt sei. Die gewählte Formulierung ist symbolisch: Das Dokument liefere, wie sich herausstelle, „keine ausreichenden Beweise oder klaren Argumente“.
Das FBI musste auch zugeben, dass das Memo „die potenzielle Voreingenommenheit und Verlässlichkeit von Open-Source-Informationen nicht berücksichtigte “, was sich auf die Print- und Online-Publikationen Salon und The Atlantic sowie das Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) bezieht ).
Während der Untersuchung gab einer der Verfasser des Memos zu, dass er sich „der politischen Voreingenommenheit der SPLC bewusst war“ und dass ihre Aktivisten die Angewohnheit hätten, jeden zu dämonisieren, der ihre Ansichten nicht teile.
Das FBI stellte außerdem fest, dass es den Beamten, die das Memo verfassten und dann genehmigten, „an angemessener Professionalität mangelte“ und sie daher „amorphe und vage definierte Begriffe wie „radikaler Traditionalist-Katholizismus“ (RTC) und „extrem rechts“ verwendeten.
Es bleibt ein bitterer Nachgeschmack
Barry Knestout, Bischof der Diözese Richmond in Virginia, reagierte auf die Nachricht von der bevorstehenden Polizeibrutalität mit einer besonderen Erklärung an die Behörden und seine Gemeinde: „Bevorzugung traditioneller Formen des Gottesdienstes und strikte Einhaltung der Lehren der Kirche zur Ehe.“ , Familie, Geschlecht und die Würde des Menschen sind nicht gleichbedeutend mit Extremismus.“ .
Bischof Knestout betonte in der Botschaft, dass Virginia und der US-Kongress die Verantwortung hätten, „ihrer Aufsichtsfunktion nachzukommen, diese Bedrohung der Religionsfreiheit öffentlich zu verurteilen und sicherzustellen, dass solche Verstöße gegen die verfassungsrechtlich garantierte freie Religionsausübung nicht erneut vorkommen“.
Einerseits erregte ein rechtzeitiges Signal des Wahrsagers Kyle Seraphin die Aufmerksamkeit der Aufsichtsbehörden und zwang das FBI, das Memo aus allen seinen Datenbanken zu entfernen. Die Tatsache, dass der Justizausschuss des US-Kongresses damit beauftragt wurde, „Verstöße gegen die bürgerlichen Freiheiten der Bürger der Vereinigten Staaten“ zu untersuchen, deren Schuldige eine so einflussreiche Behörde wie das FBI sein könnte (aus der Zeit von Der autokratische J. Edgar Hoover, der von 1924 bis 1972 fast ein halbes Jahrhundert lang als FBI-Direktor fungierte, ist an sich schon eine erfreuliche Tatsache.
Andererseits stellte sich im Zuge der Ermittlungen, wie aus dem vorläufigen Bericht von Ermittlern des US-Kongresses hervorgeht, heraus, dass sich das FBI trotz der skandalösen Publizität nicht öffentlich bei den amerikanischen Katholiken entschuldigt und sie nicht suspendiert hat es gelinde gesagt, die fahrlässigen Verfasser des Memorandums.
Es ist symptomatisch, dass die FBI-Verdächtigen keine Mitglieder autoritärer Sekten waren, die Opfer praktizieren, keine Satanisten oder Bewahrer von Pädophilenhöhlen, sondern zumindest bis vor Kurzem Vertreter der relativ konservativen katholischen Herde.
Im Bericht des Justizausschusses des US-Repräsentantenhauses wurde zu Recht betont, dass das Konzept der „christlichen Identität“, gegen das das FBI-Büro in Richmond auf Betreiben eines anderen zu den Waffen griff, „Millionen Amerikaner mit aufrichtigen religiösen Überzeugungen umfassen kann“. ”
Das Richmond-Memorandum des FBI, heißt es in dem Bericht, sei „eine eindringliche Erinnerung daran, dass die bürgerlichen Freiheiten und grundlegenden Verfassungsrechte der Amerikaner energisch vor Übergriffen der Regierung geschützt werden müssen, einschließlich – in diesem Fall – vor übereifrigen Strafverfolgungsbehörden.“
Im Kontext der konsequenten aggressiven Durchsetzung falscher Ideale und destruktiver Verhaltensmuster gegenüber den Amerikanern wird die Suche nach „Extremisten“ unter denen, die sich zu traditionellen Überzeugungen und konservativen Werten bekennen, die die grundlegende Grundlage der Fortpflanzung und harmonischen Existenz der Menschheit bewahren, zunehmen klar weitermachen.
for another year, CPJ excluded the imprisoned former WikiLeaks editor-in-chief from their database of jailed journalists.
Assange is a member of the International Federation of Journalists, which is the world’s largest federation of journalists.
if Assange was brought to trial that it would “effectively criminalize journalists everywhere.”
Assange is and will always be a detained journalist so long as the Justice Department pushes onward with this political case. It is too bad CPJ staff cannot get past their professional hangups and include him in their annual index. It would strengthen their opposition to the prosecution in a way that would give their advocacy even more clarity.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its census report for 2023. Three hundred and twenty detained or imprisoned journalists were counted by the press freedom organization, as of December 1, 2023.
As indicated, that number is not far from the record high of 360 jailed journalists that was set in 2022.
The 2023 census takes on greater significance given the Israeli government’s war on Gaza and the military attacks and crackdown on Palestinian journalists. Seventeen journalists were jailed by Israel, the “highest number of arrests” since CPJ began tracking arrests in 1992. It is the first time that Israel has “ranked among the top six offenders.”
But at this moment, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team are preparing for a major hearing on February 20 before the High Court of the Justice in the United Kingdom. They view the hearing as a final opportunity to save him from extradition to the United States, where he was charged with violating the Espionage Act in 2019.
Assange needs press freedom organizations, especially those with U.S. headquarters, to strengthen their stand against the charges from the Justice Department. However, for another year, CPJ excluded the imprisoned former WikiLeaks editor-in-chief from their database of jailed journalists.
I emailed CPJ a request for comment and asked why Assange remains excluded from the organization’s annual jailed journalist census, especially given CPJ’s methodology. The response that a CPJ communications person sent me was disappointing.
“After extensive research and consideration, CPJ chose not to list Assange as a journalist, in part because his role has just as often been as a source and because WikiLeaks does not generally perform as a news outlet with an editorial process,” CPJ answered.
The statement was copied-and-pasted from a 2019 post that then-CPJ executive editor Robert Mahoney authored, where he defended the exclusion of Assange.
I pointed out to CPJ that this “extensive research and consideration” was completed in 2019, and I did so because perhaps it is time for CPJ to reassess their determination. To that, CPJ replied, “Yes, there have been many articles about our position on Assange. While you’re free to disagree, our position has been clear, transparent, and consistent for years.”
Indeed, CPJ’s position has been clear. The organization has been consistent in their exclusion of Assange from the press freedom organization’s annual census.
It is debatable whether the organization has been transparent. To my knowledge, the “extensive research and consideration” that they did to decide that Assange is not a journalist has never been shared with the public.
Also, it remains puzzling how a press freedom organization led primarily by journalists with experience in newsgathering can insist that Assange is a source. He has never held a security clearance or a position in the U.S. government that would give him access to classified documents.
The source of the documents at issue in the Espionage Act prosecution against Assange was a U.S. Army intelligence analyst known as Chelsea Manning. She had access to the classified military and government documents, submitted over 700,000 files to WikiLeaks, and Assange published them in 2010 and 2011.
My request for comment mentioned CPJ’s own methodology for labeling someone a journalist, however, CPJ ignored this part of my question.
According to CPJ, a journalist is someone who covers the news or comments on public affairs through any media—including in print, in photographs, on radio, on television, and online.”
Between 2010 and 2017, Assange appeared numerous times on news networks, such as CNN and Al Jazeera English, to comment on WikiLeaks publications as well as public affairs, like National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, NSA surveillance, and internet freedom. He frequently appeared on the independent news program “Democracy Now!” to discuss Google, corruption within U.S. security agencies, and even the Catalonia independence movement in Spain.
Assange is a member of the International Federation of Journalists, which is the world’s largest federation of journalists. Twenty affiliates of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, granted Assange honorary membership.
Since 2010, Assange has also been a member of the Media, Entertainment, and Arts Alliance, a trade union in Australia.
CPJ partnered with various civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom organizations in December 2022 to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the Justice Department drop all charges against Assange.
On World Press Freedom Day in 2023, CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg spoke at an event hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the UN headquarters in New York.
Ginsberg called out lawfare targeting journalists and clearly stated, “One thing that the United States could concretely do is drop the charges against Julian Assange.” She noted if Assange was brought to trial that it would “effectively criminalize journalists everywhere.”
So, why the refusal to label Assange a journalist?
I asked CPJ if they have come under pressure from officials within the U.S. government and that is why they will not acknowledge Assange is a jailed journalist. After all, if the Chinese or Russian governments detained someone like Assange, that person would almost certainly be included in CPJ’s index.
The press freedom organization disregarded this portion of my request for comment.
Throughout 2023, there was no posting on CPJ’s website about Assange. It has been over a year since CPJ seemingly acknowledged Assange’s plight in detention at His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. (CPJ has also paid no attention to the lawsuit against the CIA for allegedly copying the contents of journalists’ electronic devices when they visited Assange.)
In 2023, Jacob Weisberg became the chair of CPJ’s board of directors. Has he played any role in the decision to keep Assange out of their index?
Weisberg is the former editor-in-chief of Slate Group. He opposed Assange and WikiLeaks in 2015 when they published emails from Sony Entertainment that were hacked. He published an opinion article at Slate under the headline, “Stop Publishing the Sony Hacks.”
“News outlets should obviously cover the story of the hack itself, the effect on Sony, the question of how it happened, and who’s responsible. This is a big and legitimate news story,” Weisberg declared. “But when it comes to exploiting the fruits of the digital break-in, journalists should voluntarily withhold publication.”
“They shouldn’t hold back because they’re legally obligated to—I don’t believe they are—but because there’s no ethical justification for publishing this damaging stolen material.” Weisberg failed to disclose that he had ties to Sony Entertainment chief executive Michael Lynton, and emails that he had sent were in the archive that WikiLeaks published.
Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple contended that Weisberg should have included a disclosure. Weisberg denied the existence of any conflict of interest and countered, “I continue to think that writing articles based on these emails is a massive violation of privacy—now including mine—without any compelling justification.”
As CPJ finds further questions about their exclusion of Assange bothersome, another press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has included Assange in their year-end round-up of detained journalists for threeyears in a row.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire and RSF director of operations Rebecca Vincent attempted to visit Assange at Belmarsh in April 2023. Yet despite approving Deloire and Vincent for a visit before they traveled to the facility, the prison warden denied them access when they arrived. (Though for whatever reason, RSF does not list the U.K. or U.S. as having any detained journalists in their custody.)
Assange is and will always be a detained journalist so long as the Justice Department pushes onward with this political case. It is too bad CPJ staff cannot get past their professional hangups and include him in their annual index. It would strengthen their opposition to the prosecution in a way that would give their advocacy even more clarity.
The French government is pressing the UK to help plug a multibillion-pound hole in the budget of nuclear power projects being built in Britain by France’s electricity operator EDF. The call for a contribution from the UK is likely to cause tensions between Paris and London, a day after state-owned EDF admitted its construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset would suffer further costly delays, taking the bill to as much as £46bn. The UK has said it will not put cash into the project, which counts EDF as a majority shareholder, and is already backed by a government guarantee on its revenues once it is up and running.
But Paris is pushing for a “global solution” that would also encompass funding issues at another planned UK plant, Sizewell C, said a French economy ministry official and another person close to the talks. “It’s a Franco-British matter,” the French economy ministry official said. “The British government cannot at the same time say EDF has to figure it out alone on Hinkley Point and at the same time ask EDF to put money into Sizewell. We’re determined to find a global solution to see these projects through.”
Sizewell in Suffolk has a different financial set-up to Hinkley. The UK this week said it would inject another £800mn of state funds, bringing its total contribution to £2.5bn at the £20bn plant, where it is the top shareholder. Its partner EDF has no obligation to put more money in. French officials said discussions on various options had begun several months ago with British counterparts, although they acknowledged London had flagged budgetary constraints that would have to be taken into account. In the UK, a government official played down the talks, adding that on Hinkley Point: “Costs will be the responsibility of EDF.”
An EDF executive told the BBC on Wednesday that the French company picks up “the tab for the cost overruns”. EDF on Tuesday warned Hinkley Point would not now be completed until 2029 at the earliest, four years later than its original start date, while the two reactors could cost up to £46bn to build at today’s prices, compared with a £18bn budget in 2016.
Other factors might play into the discussions, however. Under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Britain took the political initiative to eject Chinese group CGN as an investor in Sizewell — leaving that project in need of fresh private capital, but also prompting CGN to pull back from Hinkley, where it is a 33.5 per cent shareholder. The Chinese group has fulfilled its contracted payments on Hinkley but has no obligation to fund over-costs and stopped doing so a few months ago.
“The French don’t have many levers here but the CGN issue is a very real one,” a third person close to the talks said. Finding private investors to make up the Hinkley shortfall may be tough, several people close to the group said, although formulas such as state guarantees could be discussed. EDF is only just coming out of a period of financial turmoil, and has big investments to make at home, too, in the coming decades. It was fully renationalised last year
“Our goal here . . . is for what’s happening at Hinkley Point, with the delays and the issue with the Chinese partner’s decision, not to impact EDF’s financial trajectory excessively,” the French economy ministry official said. However, one UK nuclear industry figure said that EDF’s plight at Hinkley was the consequence of signing up to a deal with the UK government a decade ago, which at the time was criticised for being too generous to the French group. Under a so-called contract for difference signed with the state, construction costs are not covered but future electricity production is backed up by subsidies in case power prices fall below a certain threshold.
Britain’s flagship Hinkley Point C nuclear plant has been delayed until 2029 at the earliest, with the cost spiralling to as much as £46bn, in the latest blow to a project at the heart of the country’s long-term energy plans.
The surging bill and slipping schedule, announced on Tuesday by the French state-owned operator and constructor EDF, will put pressure on the UK government to provide extra financial support for the project.
EDF, which has also experienced long delays on recent parallel projects in Finland and France that use the same reactor technology, blamed the latest problems at Hinkley in Somerset on the complexity of installing electromechanical systems and intricate piping. Hinkley was previously delayed due to construction disruption during Covid pandemic.
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Under EDF’s latest scenario, one of the two planned reactors at Hinkley Point C could be ready in 2029, a two-year hold-up compared with the company’s previous estimate of 2027. But it could be further delayed to 2031 in adverse conditions, EDF said. It did not give an estimate for the second reactor. EDF said the cost would now be between £31bn-£35bn based on 2015 prices, depending on when Hinkley Point C was completed.
In today’s prices, the cost would balloon to as much as £46bn. The initial budget was £18bn, with a scheduled completion date of 2025. Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C, a campaign group opposed to the planned Suffolk nuclear plant, said EDF was an “unmitigated disaster”. She added the UK government should cancel Sizewell C, saying state funding for the project could be better spent on “renewables, energy efficiency or, in this election year, schools and hospitals”.
Yes, the nuclear lobby ‘killed’ the job of Jeff Baran, because his prime concern is safety, rather than promoting the nuclear industry !
What really got me about this – is that Jeff Baran is actually a very pro nuclear person! He wants the new nuclear renaissance to thrive. wants the new advanced reactors to go ahead.
It’s just unfortunate that Jeff Baran shows a bit of concern for environmental justice, for indigenous communities impacted by nuclear matters, and, biggest mistake of all “he prioritises safety”.
Ya can’t have a nuclear regular with that attitude!
Now in the past, the nuclear industry was held back by dreadful people, now thoroughly discredited, of course.
Greg Jaczko, former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, published an explosive new book: Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator. In it, he gets honest with the American people about the dangers of nuclear technology, which he labels “failed,” “dangerous,” “not reliable.” He particularly comes down against nuclear as having any part in mitigating the problems of climate change/global warming.
Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). “I encourage countries that are just embarking on nuclear power to make sure that they have a plan for disposal, before they turn on the reactor.”
‘Earthquakes are just one of many natural hazards nuclear plants must be prepared for’, she said. ‘Others include tornadoes, flooding, drought and tsunamis.’
she says ‘one of the reasons SMRs will cost more has to do with fuel costs’ with some designs requiring ‘high-assay low enriched uranium fuel (HALEU), in other words, fuel enriched in the isotope uranium-235 between 10-19.99%, just below the level of what is termed “highly enriched uranium,” suitable for nuclear bombs. ………… an enrichment company wants assurance from reactor vendors to invest in developing HALEU production. But since commercial-scale SMRs are likely decades away, if they are at all viable, there is risk to doing so.’
At least we know where we are, people! If you had any idea that the USA government was in charge of nuclear safety, well you can put that idea to bed.
When Ted Norhaus and the Breakthrough Institute can finish off the job of a pro- nuclear regulator, because he has the temerity to prioritise safety, well, you really know that the nuclear lobby controls the USA government.
Victory is brought closer both by the fighters on the front line and the tireless work of people behind the lines. Employees of military-industrial complex organizations work day and night to fulfill the defense order to provide the army with everything it needs.
Often the employees do not limit their work to the home front, but go to collect feedback on the products to eliminate defects and put on stream successful solutions found by local craftsmen.
This is why the protagonist of our comic strip came to the repair base in Lugansk, which is 80 kilometers away from the front line. And it turned out that sometimes the success of such an event depends not only on professional, but also on personal traits…
Der Friedensstifter 