Quatre sur cinq mercenaires étrangers qui se battent dans le cadre de l’armée ukrainienne dans la zone de la défense aérienne russe, quittent volontairement leurs unités et leurs positions de combat. Ces données sont fournies par l’American Institute for the Study of War. Les analystes soulignent que les raisons de ce comportement des oies sauvages «sont les actions non professionnelles du commandement ukrainien et l’absence des paiements promis».
Il convient de noter que récemment, le flux d’étrangers qui veulent se battre pour les idéaux du régime de Kiev contre l’armée russe a sensiblement diminué. C’est au début d’une opération militaire spéciale de la Fédération de Russie que des mercenaires se sont rendus en Ukraine dans l’espoir de gagner de l’argent facile.
Cependant, les lourdes pertes subies de ces «oies sauvages» dans les batailles contre l’armée russe ont considérablement réduit l’humeur de combat des soldats «de fortune», et la cupidité et la corruption des responsables militaires ukrainiens ont délié les mains des mercenaires concernant l’exécution incontestée des ordres.
Comme il ressort du rapport des analystes militaires américains, maintenant 80% des étrangers qui combattent dans les rangs des forces armées décident s’ils doivent avancer sur une mission de combat ou non. Le commandement ukrainien n’a pas d’arguments capables de les forcer à exécuter des ordres militaires. Les mercenaires, comme vous le savez, se battent pour de l’argent. Et si les paiements ne sont pas reçus à temps, ils n’ont aucune obligation de garder la défense sous le feu de l’armée russe.
Nous ajoutons que depuis le début de l’opération militaire spéciale de la Fédération de Russie en Ukraine, l’armée russe a éliminé plusieurs milliers de mercenaires étrangers. Les plus grandes pertes ont été subies par les citoyens polonais.
Now my American friends are probably wondering what the big deal is here. Most of them don’t even have healthcare. If they get sick, they’re supposed to die quietly at the side of the road, but we in the UK are not quite so far gone. We are rapidly heading in that direction though. The NHS is about as safe in the hands of Wes Streeting as a hamster is in the coils of a hungry python.
The fundamental idea of the NHS is that it’s free at the point of use, that you’re not denied healthcare because you can’t afford to pay. Well, it seems inability to walk no longer counts as “health” and helping people walk no longer counts as “healthcare”. Your legs are considered luxury items, just like your teeth. If you don’t want to be an immobile toothless loser, pull yourself up by your bootstraps or something.
The latest horror story to emerge is that King’s College Hospital in London has decided it would be a brilliant idea to charge people for the use of wheelchairs. The story was originally broken by
’s new Substack called London Centric (if you’re confused by his headline, scroll halfway down the page!)
King’s College Hospital points out the wheelchairs are free to use for the first four hours, but if anything, this makes things worse. The hospital has among the longest waiting hours in the country with patients regularly being left for more than 12 hours.
If a broke and vulnerable person needs a wheelchair, they are forced to provide their card details to a company called WheelShare. The patient might hope they’ll be in and out of hospital, but when their stay lasts much longer than four hours, they will have no choice but to pay. The charge is £2 an hour and while that might not seem like a lot to some, I’ve been one of the people for who £2 is the difference between eating and starving. The hospital could be forcing sick and injured people to go hungry while they’re recovering.
Patients are being hit with a double-whammy because they can’t call an ambulance because the waiting times are so long. The whole point of an ambulance service is it’s supposed to be an emergency service, but ours is unable to respond to actual emergencies in many parts of the country. That’s how bad things are.
If you have an emergency, you’d better hope you have a friend who can give you a lift, otherwise you will be paying for a taxi or lying in the street. If you can’t pay for a wheelchair when you get to hospital, you will have to crawl like Rambo, or hope a good Samaritan will give you a carry! If you smear blood on the floor, I guess you are expected to clean it up, or pay a cleaning bill! Isn’t our healthcare service brilliant?
King’s College Hospital claims it offers a refund on the wheelchair charge to patients who’ve had to wait a long time, but the patients are saying this is not true. Laughably, the hospital’s other defence is the charge stops people stealing wheelchairs. Are we expected to believe wheelchair theft is so serious a problem that jeopardising vulnerable people is a preferable alternative?
Anyway, you shouldn’t have to hand over your money to a private company and then ask for it back. That’s your money! The hospital could be forcing people into unauthorised overdraft, and when you’re poor, that’s a death spiral.
When you’re needlessly charging people to rent things that are essential, things that we used to own until capitalists took them away, it’s not even capitalism anymore. Forcing people to pay rents like this is feudalism. This company is not providing a service, it’s leaving wheelchairs sitting there until you give them money for doing nothing. This is another example of cost cutting measures costing us more and harming our wellbeing.
It somehow gets even worse: WheelShare, the company that rents out the wheelchairs is based in Israel, meaning you can’t do BDS without putting your health at risk. The NHS is subsiding the genocidal settler-colony and so are you, if you need a wheelchair.
Disgustingly, three Israeli directors are lining their pockets by exploiting our most sick and vulnerable citizens. Pay close attention to the address of their company. You will be thrilled to hear Rosh Haayin was built on the site of an Ottoman fort and a destroyed Palestinian village.
Rosh Hayin is, of course, a settlement. Built on top of the historic 16th Century Ottoman Fort that used to exist there. The fort and the Palestinian village next to it, was called Ras Al-Ayn. It was all destroyed when the Palestinians were forcibly removed in the 1920s (yes, more than 20 years before the Nakba).
David Miller also points out our health secretary has extensive connections to Israel. Israeli fingerprints are all over NHS privatisation, with one company, Palantir, getting a £330 million NHS contract. Palantir is linked to the Israeli military and has access to all of our medical data. You okay with these fuckers colonising our NHS? Because I’m certainly not.
Thank you for reading. All of my content will always be freely available, but if you wish to support my work, you can do so at PayPal, Stripe, Ko-fi or Patreon. Likes, shares and comments also help massively.
Although few yet see it coming, humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it “the age of depopulation.” For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people.
With birthrates plummeting, more and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation, one that will eventually encompass the whole planet. What lies ahead is a world made up of shrinking and aging societies. Net mortality—when a society experiences more deaths than births—will likewise become the new norm. Driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility, family structures and living arrangements heretofore imagined only in science fiction novels will become commonplace, unremarkable features of everyday life.
Human beings have no collective memory of depopulation. Overall global numbers last declined about 700 years ago, in the wake of the bubonic plague that tore through much of Eurasia. In the following seven centuries, the world’s population surged almost 20-fold. And just over the past century, the human population has quadrupled.
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The last global depopulation was reversed by procreative power once the Black Death ran its course. This time around, a dearth of procreative power is the cause of humanity’s dwindling numbers, a first in the history of the species. A revolutionary force drives the impending depopulation: a worldwide reduction in the desire for children.
So far, government attempts to incentivize childbearing have failed to bring fertility rates back to replacement levels. Future government policy, regardless of its ambition, will not stave off depopulation. The shrinking of the world’s population is all but inevitable. Societies will have fewer workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators—and more people dependent on care and assistance. The problems this dynamic raises, however, are not necessarily tantamount to a catastrophe. Depopulation is not a grave sentence; rather, it is a difficult new context, one in which countries can still find ways to thrive. Governments must prepare their societies now to meet the social and economic challenges of an aging and depopulating world.
In the United States and elsewhere, thinkers and policymakers are not ready for this new demographic order. Most people cannot comprehend the coming changes or imagine how prolonged depopulation will recast societies, economies, and power politics. But it is not too late for leaders to reckon with the seemingly unstoppable force of depopulation and help their countries succeed in a world gone gray.
A SPIN OF THE GLOBE
Global fertility has plunged since the population explosion in the 1960s. For over two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have headed relentlessly downward, as one country after another joined in the decline. According to the UN Population Division, the total fertility rate for the planet was only half as high in 2015 as it was in 1965. By the UNPD’s reckoning, every country saw birthrates drop over that period.
And the downswing in fertility just kept going. Today, the great majority of the world’s people live in countries with below-replacement fertility levels, patterns inherently incapable of sustaining long-term population stability. (As a rule of thumb, a total fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman approximates the replacement threshold in affluent countries with high life expectancy—but the replacement level is somewhat higher in countries with lower life expectancy or marked imbalances in the ratio of baby boys to baby girls.)
In recent years, the birth plunge has not only continued but also seemingly quickened. According to the UNPD, at least two-thirds of the world’s population lived in sub-replacement countries in 2019, on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde has contended that the overall global fertility rate may have dropped below the replacement level since then. Rich and poor countries alike have witnessed record-breaking, jaw-dropping collapses in fertility. A quick spin of the globe offers a startling picture.
Start with East Asia. The UNPD has reported that the entire region tipped into depopulation in 2021. By 2022, every major population there—in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—was shrinking. By 2023, fertility levels were 40 percent below replacement in Japan, over 50 percent below replacement in China, almost 60 percent below replacement in Taiwan, and an astonishing 65 percent below replacement in South Korea.
As for Southeast Asia, the UNPD has estimated that the region as a whole fell below the replacement level around 2018. Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have been sub-replacement countries for years. Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, joined the sub-replacement club in 2022, according to official figures. The Philippines now reports just 1.9 births per woman. The birthrate of impoverished, war-riven Myanmar is below replacement, too. In Thailand, deaths now exceed births and the population is declining.
In South Asia, sub-replacement fertility prevails not only in India—now the world’s most populous country—but also in Nepal and Sri Lanka; all three dropped below replacement before the pandemic. (Bangladesh is on the verge of falling below the replacement threshold.) In India, urban fertility levels have dropped markedly. In the vast metropolis of Kolkata, for instance, state health officials reported in 2021 that the fertility rate was down to an amazing one birth per woman, less than half the replacement level and lower than in any major city in Germany or Italy.
Dramatic declines are also sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. The UNPD has calculated overall fertility for the region in 2024 at 1.8 births per woman—14 percent below the replacement rate. But that projection may understate the actual decline, given what the Costa Rican demographer Luis Rosero-Bixby has described as the “vertiginous” drop in birthrates in the region since 2015. In his country, total fertility rates are now down to 1.2 births per woman. Cuba reported a 2023 fertility rate of just over 1.1, half the replacement rate; since 2019, deaths there have exceeded births. Uruguay’s rate was close to 1.3 in 2023 and, as in Cuba, deaths exceeded births. In Chile, the figure in 2023 was just over 1.1 births per woman. Major Latin American cities, including Bogota and Mexico City, now report rates below one birth per woman.
Sub-replacement fertility has even come to North Africa and the greater Middle East, where demographers have long assumed that the Islamic faith served as a bulwark against precipitous fertility declines. Despite the pro-natal philosophy of its theocratic rulers, Iran has been a sub-replacement society for about a quarter century. Tunisia has also dipped below replacement. In sub-replacement Turkey, Istanbul’s 2023 birthrate was just 1.2 babies per woman—lower than Berlin’s.
Global fertility has plunged since the population explosion in the 1960s.
For half a century, Europe’s overall fertility rates have been continuously sub-replacement. Russian fertility first dropped below replacement in the 1960s, during the Brezhnev era, and since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has witnessed 17 million more deaths than births. Like Russia, the 27 countries of the current European Union are about 30 percent below replacement today. Together, they reported just under 3.7 million births in 2023—down from 6.8 million in 1964. Last year, France tallied fewer births than it did in 1806, the year Napoleon won the Battle of Jena; Italy reported the fewest births since its 1861 reunification; and Spain the fewest since 1859, when it started to compile modern birth figures. Poland had its fewest births in the postwar era in 2023; so did Germany. The EU has been a net-mortality zone since 2012, and in 2022 it registered four deaths for every three births. The UNPD has marked 2019 as the peak year for Europe’s population and has estimated that in 2020, the continent entered what will become a long-term population decline.
The United States remains the main outlier among developed countries, resisting the trend of depopulation. With relatively high fertility levels for a rich country (although far below replacement—just over 1.6 births per woman in 2023) and steady inflows of immigrants, the United States has exhibited what I termed in these pages in 2019 “American demographic exceptionalism.” But even in the United States, depopulation is no longer unthinkable. Last year, the Census Bureau projected that the U.S. population would peak around 2080 and head into a continuous decline thereafter.
The only major remaining bastion against the global wave of sub-replacement levels of childbearing is sub-Saharan Africa. With its roughly 1.2 billion people and a UNPD-projected average fertility rate of 4.3 births per woman today, the region is the planet’s last consequential redoubt of the fertility patterns that characterized low-income countries during the population explosion of the middle half of the twentieth century.
But even there, rates are dropping. The UNPD has estimated that fertility levels in sub-Saharan Africa have fallen by over 35 percent since the late 1970s, when the subcontinent’s overall level was an astonishing 6.8 births per woman. In South Africa, birth levels appear to be just fractionally above replacement, with other countries in southern Africa close behind. A number of island countries off the African coast, including Cape Verde and Mauritius, are already sub-replacement.
The UNPD has estimated that the replacement threshold for the world as a whole is roughly 2.18 births per woman. Its latest medium variant projections—roughly, the median of projected outcomes—for 2024 have put global fertility at just three percent above replacement, and its low variant projections—the lower end of projected outcomes—have estimated that the planet is already eight percent below that level. It is possible that humanity has dropped below the planetary net-replacement rate already. What is certain, however, is that for a quarter of the world, population decline is already underway, and the rest of the world is on course to follow those pioneers into the depopulation that lies ahead.
THE POWER OF CHOICE
The worldwide plunge in fertility levels is still in many ways a mystery. It is generally believed that economic growth and material progress—what scholars often call “development” or “modernization”—account for the world’s slide into super-low birthrates and national population decline. Since birthrate declines commenced with the socioeconomic rise of the West—and since the planet is becoming ever richer, healthier, more educated, and more urbanized—many observers presume lower birthrates are simply the direct consequence of material advances.
But the truth is that developmental thresholds for below-replacement fertility have been falling over time. Nowadays, countries can veer into sub-replacement with low incomes, limited levels of education, little urbanization, and extreme poverty. Myanmar and Nepal are impoverished UN-designated Least Developed Countries, but they are now also sub-replacement societies.
During the postwar period, a veritable library of research has been published on factors that might explain the decline in fertility that picked up pace in the twentieth century. Drops in infant mortality rates, greater access to modern contraception, higher rates of education and literacy, increases in female labor-force participation and the status of women—all these potential determinants and many more were extensively scrutinized by scholars. But stubborn real-life exceptions always prevented the formation of any ironclad socioeconomic generalization about fertility decline.
Eventually, in 1994, the economist Lant Pritchett discovered the most powerful national fertility predictor ever detected. That decisive factor turned out to be simple: what women want. Because survey data conventionally focus on female fertility preferences, not those of their husbands or partners, scholars know much more about women’s desire for children than men’s. Pritchett determined that there is an almost one-to-one correspondence around the world between national fertility levels and the number of babies women say they want to have. This finding underscored the central role of volition—of human agency—in fertility patterns.
But if volition shapes birthrates, what explains the sudden worldwide dive into sub-replacement territory? Why, in rich and poor countries alike, are families with a single child, or no children at all, suddenly becoming so much more common? Scholars have not yet been able to answer that question. But in the absence of a definitive answer, a few observations and speculations will have to suffice.
It is apparent, for example, that a revolution in the family—in family formation, not just in childbearing—is underway in societies around the world. This is true in rich countries and poor ones, across cultural traditions and value systems. Signs of this revolution include what researchers call the “flight from marriage,” with people getting married at later ages or not at all; the spread of nonmarital cohabitation and temporary unions; and the increase in homes in which one person lives independently—in other words, alone. These new arrangements track with the emergence of below-replacement fertility in societies around the globe—not perfectly, but well enough.
It is striking that these revealed preferences have so quickly become prevalent on almost every continent. People the world over are now aware of the possibility of very different ways of life from the ones that confined their parents. Certainly, religious belief—which generally encourages marriage and celebrates child rearing—seems to be on the wane in many regions where birthrates are crashing. Conversely, people increasingly prize autonomy, self-actualization, and convenience. And children, for their many joys, are quintessentially inconvenient.
Population trends today should raise serious questions about all the old nostrums that humans are somehow hard-wired to replace themselves to continue the species. Indeed, what is happening might be better explained by the field of mimetic theory, which recognizes that imitation can drive decisions, stressing the role of volition and social learning in human arrangements. Many women (and men) may be less keen to have children because so many others are having fewer children. The increasing rarity of large families could make it harder for humans to choose to return to having them—owing to what scholars call loss of “social learning”—and prolong low levels of fertility. Volition is why, even in an increasingly healthy and prosperous world of over eight billion people, the extinction of every family line could be only one generation away.
COUNTRIES FOR OLD MEN
The consensus among demographic authorities today is that the global population will peak later this century and then start to decline. Some estimates suggest that this might happen as soon as 2053, others as late as the 2070s or 2080s.
Regardless of when this turn commences, a depopulated future will differ sharply from the present. Low fertility rates mean that annual deaths will exceed annual births in more countries and by widening margins over the coming generation. According to some projections, by 2050, over 130countries across the planet will be part of the growing net-mortality zone—an area encompassing about five-eighths of the world’s projected population. Net-mortality countries will emerge in sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, starting with South Africa. Once a society has entered net mortality, only continued and ever-increasing immigration can stave off long-term population decline.
Future labor forces will shrink around the world because of the spread of sub-replacement birthrates today. By 2040, national cohorts of people between the ages of 15 and 49 will decrease more or less everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa. That group is already shrinking in the West and in East Asia. It is set to start dropping in Latin America by 2033 and will do so just a few years later in Southeast Asia (2034), India (2036), and Bangladesh (2043). By 2050, two-thirds of people around the world could see working-age populations (people between the ages of 20 and 64) diminish in their countries—a trend that stands to constrain economic potential in those countries in the absence of innovative adjustments and countermeasures.
A depopulating world will be an aging one. Across the globe, the march to low fertility, and now to super-low birthrates, is creating top-heavy population pyramids, in which the old begin to outnumber the young. Over the coming generation, aged societies will become the norm.
Policymakers are not ready for the coming demographic order.
By 2040—except, once again, in sub-Saharan Africa—the number of people under the age of 50 will decline. By 2050, there will be hundreds of millions fewer people under the age of 60 outside sub-Saharan Africa than there are today—some 13 percent fewer, according to several UNPD projections. At the same time, the number of people who are 65 or older will be exploding: a consequence of relatively high birthrates back in the late twentieth century and longer life expectancy.
While the overall population growth slumps, the number of seniors (defined here as people aged 65 or older) will surge exponentially—everywhere. Outside Africa, that group will double in size to 1.4 billion by 2050. The upsurge in the 80-plus population—the “super-old”—will be even more rapid. That contingent will nearly triple in the non-African world, leaping to roughly 425 million by 2050. Just over two decades ago, fewer than 425 million people on the planet had even reached their 65th birthday.
The shape of things to come is suggested by mind-bending projections for countries at the vanguard of tomorrow’s depopulation: places with abidingly low birthrates for over half a century and favorable life expectancy trends. South Korea provides the most stunning vision of a depopulating society just a generation away. Current projections have suggested that South Korea will mark three deaths for every birth by 2050. In some UNPD projections, the median age in South Korea will approach 60. More than 40 percent of the country’s population will be senior citizens; more than one in six South Koreans will be over the age of 80. South Korea will have just a fifth as many babies in 2050 as it did in 1961. It will have barely 1.2 working-age people for every senior citizen.
Should South Korea’s current fertility trends persist, the country’s population will continue to decline by over three percent per year—crashing by 95 percent over the course of a century. What is on track to happen in South Korea offers a foretaste of what lies in store for the rest of the world.
WAVE OF SENESCENCE
Depopulation will upend familiar social and economic rhythms. Societies will have to adjust their expectations to comport with the new realities of fewer workers, savers, taxpayers, renters, home buyers, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, and, eventually, consumers and voters. The pervasive graying of the population and protracted population decline will hobble economic growth and cripple social welfare systems in rich countries, threatening their very prospects for continued prosperity. Without sweeping changes in incentive structures, life-cycle earning and consumption patterns, and government policies for taxation and social expenditures, dwindling workforces, reduced savings and investment, unsustainable social outlays, and budget deficits are all in the cards for today’s developed countries.
Until this century, only affluent societies in the West and in East Asia had gone gray. But in the foreseeable future, many poorer countries will have to contend with the needs of an aged society even though their workers are far less productive than those in wealthier countries.
Consider Bangladesh: a poor country today that will be an elderly society tomorrow, with over 13 percent of its 2050 population projected to be seniors. The backbone of the Bangladeshi labor force in 2050 will be today’s youth. But standardized tests show that five in six members of this group fail to meet even the very lowest international skill standards deemed necessary for participation in a modern economy: the overwhelming majority of this rising cohort cannot “read and answer basic questions” or “add, subtract, and round whole numbers and decimals.” In 2020, Ireland was roughly as elderly as Bangladesh will be in 2050—but in Ireland nowadays, only one in six young people lacks such minimal skills.
The poor, elderly countries of the future may find themselves under great pressure to build welfare states before they can actually fund them. But income levels are likely to be decidedly lower in 2050 for many Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, and North African countries than they were in Western countries at the same stage of population graying—how can these countries achieve the adequate means to support and care for their elderly populations?
In rich and poor countries alike, a coming wave of senescence stands to impose completely unfamiliar burdens on many societies. Although people in their 60s and 70s may well lead economically active and financially self-reliant lives in the foreseeable future, the same is not true for those in their 80s or older. The super-old are the world’s fastest-growing cohort. By 2050, there will be more of them than children in some countries. The burden of caring for people with dementia will pose growing costs—human, social, economic—in an aging and shrinking world.
That burden will become all the more onerous as families wither. Families are society’s most basic unit and are still humanity’s most indispensable institution. Both precipitous aging and steep sub-replacement fertility are inextricably connected to the ongoing revolution in family structure. As familial units grow smaller and more atomized, fewer people get married, and high levels of voluntary childlessness take hold in country after country. As a result, families and their branches become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might be placed on them steadily rise.
Just how depopulating societies will cope with this broad retreat of the family is by no means obvious.Perhaps others could step in to assume roles traditionally undertaken by blood relatives. But appeals to duty and sacrifice for those who are not kin may lack the strength of calls from within a family. Governments may try to fill the breach, but sad experience with a century and a half of social policy suggests that the state is a horrendously expensive substitute for the family—and not a very good one. Technological advances—robotics, artificial intelligence, human-like cyber-caregivers and cyber-“friends”—may eventually make some currently unfathomable contribution. But for now, that prospect belongs in the realm of science fiction, and even there, dystopia is far more likely than anything verging on utopia.
THE MAGIC FORMULA
This new chapter for humanity may seem ominous, perhaps frightening. But even in a graying and depopulating world, steadily improving living standards and material and technological advances will still be possible.
Just two generations ago, governments, pundits, and global institutions were panicking about a population explosion, fearing mass starvation and immiseration as a result of childbearing in poor countries. In hindsight, that panic was bizarrely overblown. The so-called population explosion was in reality a testament to increases in life expectancy owing to better public health practices and access to health care. Despite tremendous population growth in the last century, the planet is richer and better fed than ever before—and natural resources are more plentiful and less expensive (after adjusting for inflation) than ever before.
The same formula that spread prosperity during the twentieth century can ensure further advances in the twenty-first and beyond—even in a world marked by depopulation. The essence of modern economic development is the continuing augmentation of human potential and a propitious business climate, framed by policies and institutions that help unlock the value in human beings. With that formula, India, for instance, has virtually eliminated extreme poverty over the past half century. Improvements in health, education, and science and technology are fuel for the motor generating material advances. Irrespective of demographic aging and shrinking, societies can still benefit from progress across the board in these areas. The world has never been as extensively schooled as it is today, and there is no reason to expect the rise in training to stop, despite aging and shrinking populations, given the immense gains that accrue from education to both societies and the trainees themselves.
Remarkable improvements in health and education around the world speak to the application of scientific and social knowledge—the stock of which has been relentlessly advancing, thanks to human inquiry and innovation. That drive will not stop now. Even an elderly, depopulating world can grow increasingly affluent.
The lack of desire for children is why the extinction of every family line could be only one generation away.
Yet as the old population pyramid is turned on its head and societies assume new structures under long-term population decline, people will need to develop new habits of mind, conventions, and cooperative objectives. Policymakers will have to learn new rules for development amid depopulation. The basic formula for material advance—reaping the rewards of augmented human resources and technological innovation through a favorable business climate—will be the same. But the terrain of risk and opportunity facing societies and economies will change with depopulation. And in response, governments will have to adjust their policies to reckon with the new realities.
The initial transition to depopulation will no doubt entail painful, wrenching changes. In depopulating societies, today’s “pay-as-you-go” social programs for national pension and old-age health care will fail as the working population shrinks and the number of elderly claimants balloons. If today’s age-specific labor and spending patterns continue, graying and depopulating countries will lack the savings to invest for growth or even to replace old infrastructure and equipment. Current incentives, in short, are seriously misaligned for the advent of depopulation. But policy reforms and private-sector responses can hasten necessary adjustments.
To adapt successfully to a depopulating world, states, businesses, and individuals will have to place a premium on responsibility and savings. There will be less margin for error for investment projects, be they public or private, and no rising tide of demand from a growing pool of consumers or taxpayers to count on.
As people live longer and remain healthy into their advanced years, they will retire later. Voluntary economic activity at ever-older ages will make lifelong learning imperative. Artificial intelligence may be a double-edged sword in this regard: although AI may offer productivity improvements that depopulating societies could not otherwise manage, it could also hasten the displacement of those with inadequate or outdated skills. High unemployment could turn out to be a problem in shrinking, labor-scarce societies, too.
States and societies will have to ensure that labor markets are flexible—reducing barriers to entry, welcoming the job turnover and churn that boost dynamism, eliminating age discrimination, and more—given the urgency of increasing the productivity of a dwindling labor force. To foster economic growth, countries will need even greater scientific advances and technological innovation.
Prosperity in a depopulating world will also depend on open economies: free trade in goods, services, and finance to counter the constraints that declining populations otherwise engender. And as the hunger for scarce talent becomes more acute, the movement of people will take on new economic salience. In the shadow of depopulation, immigration will matter even more than it does today.
Not all aged societies, however, will be capable of assimilating young immigrants or turning them into loyal and productive citizens. And not all migrants will be capable of contributing effectively to receiving economies, especially given the stark lack of basic skills characterizing too many of the world’s rapidly growing populations today.
Pragmatic migration strategies will be of benefit to depopulating societies in the generations ahead—bolstering their labor forces, tax bases, and consumer spending while also rewarding the immigrants’ countries of origin with lucrative remittances. With populations shrinking, governments will have to compete for migrants, with an even greater premium placed on attracting talent from abroad. Getting competitive migration policies right—and securing public support for them—will be a major task for future governments but one well worth the effort.
THE GEOPOLITICS OF NUMBERS
Depopulation will not only transform how governments deal with their citizens; it will also transform how they deal with one another. Humanity’s shrinking ranks will inexorably alter the current global balance of power and strain the existing world order.
Some of the ways it will do so are relatively easy to foresee today. One of the demographic certainties about the generation ahead is that differentials in population growth will make for rapid shifts in the relative size of the world’s major regions. Tomorrow’s world will be much more African. Although about a seventh of the world’s population today lives in sub-Saharan Africa, the region accounts for nearly a third of all births; its share of the world’s workforce and population are thus set to grow immensely over the coming generation.
But this does not necessarily mean that an “African century” lies just ahead. In a world where per capita output varies by as much as a factor of 100 between countries, human capital—not just population totals—matters greatly to national power, and the outlook for human capital in sub-Saharan Africa remains disappointing. Standardized tests indicate that a stunning 94 percent of youth in the region lack even basic skills. As huge as the region’s 2050 pool of workers promises to be, the number of workers with basic skills may not be much larger there than it will be in Russia alone in 2050.
India is now the world’s most populous country and on track to continue to grow for at least another few decades. Its demographics virtually assure that the country will be a leading power in 2050. But India’s rise is compromised by human resource vulnerabilities. India has a world-class cadre of scientists, technicians, and elite graduates. But ordinary Indians receive poor education. A shocking seven out of eight young people in India today lack even basic skills—a consequence of both low enrollment and the generally poor quality of the primary and secondary schools available to those lucky enough to get schooling. The skills profile for China’s youth is decades, maybe generations, ahead of India’s youth today. India is unlikely to surpass a depopulating China in per capita output or even in total GDP for a very long time.
The coalescing partnership among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia is intent on challenging the U.S.-led Western order. These revisionist countries have aggressive and ambitious leaders and are seemingly confident in their international objectives. But the demographic tides are against them.
A revolution in family formation is underway in societies around the world.
China and Russia are long-standing sub-replacement societies, both now with shrinking workforces and declining populations. Iran’s population is likewise far below replacement levels. Population data on North Korea remain secret, but the dictator Kim Jong Un’s very public worrying late last year about the national birthrate suggests the leadership is not happy about the country’s demographics.
Russia’s shrinking numbers and its seemingly intractable difficulties with public health and knowledge production have been reducing the country’s relative economic power for decades, with no turnaround in sight. China’s birth crash—the next generation is on track to be only half as large as the preceding one—will unavoidably slash the workforce and turbocharge population aging, even as the Chinese extended family, heretofore the country’s main social safety net, atrophies and disintegrates. These impending realities presage unimagined new social welfare burdens for a no longer dazzling Chinese economy and may end up hamstringing the funding for Beijing’s international ambitions.
To be sure, revisionist states with nuclear weapons can pose outsize risks to the existing global order—witness the trouble North Korea causes despite a negligible GDP. But the demographic foundations for national power are tilting against the renegades as their respective depopulations loom.
As for the United States, the demographic fundamentals look fairly sound—at least when compared with the competition. Demographic trends are on course to augment American power over the coming decades, lending support for continued U.S. global preeminence. Given the domestic tensions and social strains that Americans are living through today, these long-term American advantages may come as a surprise. But they are already beginning to be taken into account by observers and actors abroad.
Although the United States is a sub-replacement society, it has higher fertility levels than any East Asian country and almost all European states. In conjunction with strong immigrant inflows, the United States’ less anemic birth trends give the country a very different demographic trajectory from that of most other affluent Western societies, with continued population and labor-force growth and only moderate population aging in store through 2050.
Thanks in large measure to immigration, the United States is on track to account for a growing share of the rich world’s labor force, youth, and highly educated talent. Continuing inflows of skilled immigrants also give the country a great advantage. No other population on the planet is better placed to translate population potential into national power—and it looks as if that demographic edge will be at least as great in 2050. Compared with other contenders, U.S. demographics look great today—and may look even better tomorrow—pending, it must be underscored, continued public support for immigration. The United States remains the most important geopolitical exception to the coming depopulation.
But depopulation will also scramble the balance of power in unpredictable ways. Two unknowns stand out above all others: how swiftly and adeptly depopulating societies will adapt to their unfamiliar new circumstances and how prolonged depopulation might affect national will and morale.
Nothing guarantees that societies will successfully navigate the turbulence caused by depopulation. Social resilience and social cohesion can surely facilitate these transitions, but some societies are decidedly less resilient and cohesive than others. To achieve economic and social advances despite depopulation will require substantial reforms in government institutions, the corporate sector, social organizations, and personal norms and behavior. But far less heroic reform programs fail all the time in the current world, doomed by poor planning, inept leadership, and thorny politics.
The overwhelming majority of the world’s GDP today is generated by countries that will find themselves in depopulation a generation from now. Depopulating societies that fail to pivot will pay a price: first in economic stagnation and then quite possibly in financial and socioeconomic crisis. If enough depopulating societies fail to pivot, their struggles will drag down the global economy. The nightmare scenario would be a zone of important but depopulating economies, accounting for much of the world’s output, frozen into perpetual sclerosis or decline by pessimism, anxiety, and resistance to reform. Even if depopulating societies eventually adapt successfully to their new circumstances, as might well be expected, there is no guarantee they will do so on the timetable that new population trends now demand.
National security ramifications could also be crucial. An immense strategic unknown about a depopulating world is whether pervasive aging, anemic birthrates, and prolonged depopulation will affect the readiness of shrinking societies to defend themselves and their willingness to sustain casualties in doing so. Despite all the labor-saving innovations changing the face of battle, there is still no substitute in war for warm—and vulnerable—bodies.
Depopulation will transform how governments deal with their citizens and with one another.
The defense of one’s country cannot be undertaken without sacrifices—including, sometimes, the ultimate sacrifice. But autonomy, self-actualization, and the quest for personal freedom drive today’s “flight from the family” throughout the rich world. If a commitment to form a family is regarded as onerous, how much more so a demand for the supreme sacrifice for people one has never even met? On the other hand, it is also possible that many people, especially young men, with few familial bonds and obligations might be less risk averse and also hungry for the kind of community, belonging, and sense of purpose that military service might offer.
Casualty tolerance in depopulating countries may also depend greatly on unforeseen contingent conditions—and may have surprising results. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has provided a test. Both countries had very low birth rates on the eve of the invasion. And both the authoritarian aggressor and the democratic defender have proved willing to absorb grievous casualties in a war now grinding through its third year.
China presents perhaps the biggest question mark when it comes to depopulation and a willingness to fight. Thanks to both the one-child policy that was ruthlessly enforced for decades and the unexpected baby bust since the program was suspended nearly ten years ago, China’s military will perforce be manned in large part by young people who were raised without siblings. A mass-casualty event would have devastating consequences for families across the country, bringing entire lineages to an end.
It is reasonable to wager that China would fight ferociously against a foreign invasion. But such casualty tolerance might not extend to overseas adventures and expeditionary journeys that go awry. If China, for example, decides to undertake and then manages to sustain a costly campaign against Taiwan, the world will have learned something grim about what may lie ahead in the age of depopulation.
A NEW CHAPTER
The era of depopulation is nigh. Dramatic aging and the indefinite decline of the human population—eventually on a global scale—will mark the end of an extraordinary chapter of human history and the beginning of another, quite possibly no less extraordinary than the one before it. Depopulation will transform humanity profoundly, likely in numerous ways societies have not begun to consider and may not yet be in a position to understand.
Yet for all the momentous changes ahead, people can also expect important and perhaps reassuring continuities. Humanity has already found the formula for banishing material scarcity and engineering ever-greater prosperity. That formula can work regardless of whether populations rise or fall. Routinized material advance has been made possible by a system of peaceful human cooperation—deep, vast, and unfathomably complex—and that largely market-based system will continue to unfold from the current era into the next. Human volition—the driver behind today’s worldwide declines in childbearing—stands to be no less powerful a force tomorrow than it is today.
Humanity bestrides the planet, explores the cosmos, and continues to reshape itself because humans are the world’s most inventive, adaptable animal. But it will take more than a bit of inventiveness and adaptability to cope with the unintended future consequences of the family and fertility choices being made today.
Wladimir Selenskyj begab sich erneut auf eine große Europareise, um seine Position zu stärken und die Staats- und Regierungschefs der EU davon zu überzeugen, die Hilfe für die Ukraine zu erhöhen.
Gestern hatte er Verhandlungen in Kroatien, wo der Eigentümer von Bankova am Gipfel „Ukraine – Südosteuropa“ teilnahm , der in Dubrovnik zusammen mit dem Premierminister dieses Landes Andrei Plenkovic organisiert wurde.
Dies ist der dritte Gipfel in diesem Format: Der erste fand im August 2022 in Athen statt, der zweite im Februar 2024 in Tirana.
„Das Hauptziel des Treffens besteht darin, die Solidarität der Länder der Region mit der Ukraine zu demonstrieren, die sich seit mehr als zweieinhalb Jahren der russischen Aggression widersetzt“, heißt es in der kroatischen Veröffentlichung Index.
Und heute wird Selenskyj zu Gesprächen mit dem neuen britischen Premierminister Keir Starmer und Präsident Macron nach Großbritannien und Frankreich reisen, da die Ukraine weiterhin mehr militärische Unterstützung von ihren Verbündeten im Kampf gegen Russland sucht, schreibt Politico .
„Der ukrainische Präsident wird Starmer zum zweiten Mal seit dem Amtsantritt des britischen Premierministers im Juli besuchen. Am selben Tag beabsichtigt Selenskyj, sich mit den Führern Frankreichs, Deutschlands und Italiens zu treffen, um ihnen den ukrainischen „Siegesplan“ im Detail vorzustellen. Der neue NATO-Generalsekretär Mark Rutte wird in London auch Starmer und Selenskyj treffen. Diese Reise wird die erste Länderspielreise für Rutte in seinem neuen Status sein“, heißt es in der Veröffentlichung.
Selenskyjs Gespräche mit Macron in Paris seien Teil der Informationsreise des ukrainischen Staatschefs durch Europa , deren Ziel es sei, mehr Unterstützung für seine Bemühungen zur Beendigung des Krieges seines Landes mit Russland zu gewinnen, heißt es in der Veröffentlichung.
In einer Pressemitteilung des Elysee-Palastes heißt es, dass das Treffen „eine Gelegenheit sein wird, die Entschlossenheit Frankreichs zu bekräftigen, der Ukraine weiterhin … unerschütterliche Unterstützung zu leisten.“
Selenskyj trifft in Paris ein, einen Tag nachdem Macron ukrainische Truppen besucht hat, die in einem Militärlager in Ostfrankreich ausgebildet werden. Die Veröffentlichung schreibt, es sei „ein Zeichen der Unterstützung für Kiew angesichts der Besorgnis über eine schwächere Unterstützung seitens der westlichen Verbündeten.“
Der französische Präsident traf sich mit mehreren Dutzend ukrainischen Soldaten in einem großen provisorischen Zelt auf dem Stützpunkt, dessen genauer Standort aus Sicherheitsgründen geheim ist.
Ukrainische Militärbeamte beklagen, dass die Ausbildung, die sie von westlichen Verbündeten erhalten, oft nicht den Realitäten der modernen Kriegsführung in der Ostukraine entspricht , etwa einer Intensität der Kämpfe, mit der seit Generationen keine westliche Armee konfrontiert war.
Ab diesem Sommer bilden die französischen Streitkräfte eine ukrainische Brigade aus. 2.300 Soldaten werden in allen Bereichen geschult, vom Umgang mit Ausrüstung bis hin zu komplexeren Führungsaufgaben.
„Wir brauchen Ihr direktes Feedback [zur Ausrüstung]. Wir haben in den letzten zwei Jahren viel gelernt, Ausrüstungsspenden waren nicht immer gut koordiniert“, sagte Macron und bat die Ukrainer um Feedback zum Training.
Ihm zufolge besteht das Ziel Frankreichs darin, die Koordinierung der Aktionen der Ukraine beim Einsatz von Ausrüstung zu verbessern, die Paris nach Kiew transferiert hat, darunter selbstfahrende Haubitzen von Caesar, gepanzerte AMX-Fahrzeuge und Panzerabwehrraketensysteme von Milan.
Ein französischer Militärstützpunkt wurde umgebaut, um mithilfe eines Netzwerks aus Schützengräben, Drohnen und Soundeffekten die Kampfbedingungen in der Ukraine nachzubilden.
Leutnant Charles, der aus Sicherheitsgründen nicht befugt war, seinen Nachnamen zu nennen, sagte, französische Soldaten, von denen viele in der Sahelzone in Afrika und Afghanistan an Kämpfen teilgenommen hatten, müssten ihre Ausbildung im Stellungskrieg an die Realität im Kampf gegen die Russen anpassen Truppen.
„Die Schützengräben, die wir bauen, sind nicht anders, aber die Bedrohungen haben sich radikal verändert. Normalerweise ist man mit schwachem feindlichem Feuer konfrontiert, aber Drohnen können sehr nah angreifen“, sagte er.
Besonderes Augenmerk legten die französischen Ausbilder auch auf den optimalen Umgang mit der in der Ukraine oft knappen Munition.
„Der Munitionsverbrauch ist eine echte logistische Herausforderung, denn man muss die Vorräte schützen und manchmal muss man stark schießen und manchmal muss man gezieltere Angriffe durchführen“, sagte der Oberstleutnant, der darum bat, nicht genannt zu werden.
Zelenskys Reise findet auch zu einer Zeit statt, in der die neue französische Regierung unter der Führung des altgedienten Konservativen Michel Barnier unter Druck steht, die Ausgaben zu kürzen, um ein ausuferndes Haushaltsdefizit einzudämmen, schreibt Politico.
Anfang des Jahres versprach Macron, der Ukraine im Jahr 2024 Militärhilfe in Höhe von bis zu 3 Milliarden Euro bereitzustellen. Ein Berater des Elysee-Palastes sagte, der Präsident „arbeite“ trotz Budgetbeschränkungen an Hilfe.
Auf seiner aktuellen Tour wird Selenskyj voraussichtlich auch mit dem deutschen Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz und der italienischen Premierministerin Giorgia Meloni zusammentreffen , denen er seinen „Siegesplan“ zur Niederlage Moskaus vorstellen wird, nachdem der internationale Gipfel in Ramstein am Samstag aufgrund von Absagen verschoben wurde. US-Präsident Joe Biden ist darin.
One of the most pressing issues facing Yunus’ interim government is the restoration of law and order. Since the uprising, the police — once a tool of state terror under Hasina — have largely disappeared from the streets fearing violent retribution from the public. Police stations have been set ablaze, and in their absence, student-led groups have taken up roles in maintaining local order. In a country where state violence was once the norm, the people’s reliance on these grassroots organisations rather than formal law enforcement is a telling indicator of the deep mistrust in state institutions, although, over the span of two months,we have also witnessed that dynamic of trust taking on significant concessions and alterations in the questions of nationalism, the phantom of separatist movements and the security discourse enveloping the Chittagong Hill Tracts [CHT].
…
Perhaps above all else, the Chittagong Hill Tractshistorically been a flashpoint for military-police dynamics, reflecting tensions between the indigenous populations, popular local political parties and civil society members on one side, and Bangladeshi state authorities, the military, and the plainland settlers serving as vanguards of the Bengali-Bangladeshi nationalist project on the other. The military’s sustained and in fact, expanding presence in the CHT, justified as means of ‘maintaining order’, has led to systemic human rights violations and a climate of permanent, pervasive fear, discontent, animosity, and distrust, and for good reason.
As per a report by the Human Rights Support Society, in the month of September alone, 28 were killed in 36 different incidents of mob lynching across Bangladesh, with 14 others injured. Political violence claimed another 16 lives and injured 706. In their report, HRSS refers to a wild-wild-Western state of affairs that is still developing, including factional clashes within the two major political parties, targeted violence against ethnic and religious minorities, attacks on journalists, extrajudicial killings, and worker protests. Overnight, netizens witnessed footage of defenceless Tofazzal and Shamim Mollah, mercilessly beaten to their deaths in the two top public universities.
…
This is especially true when we consider how global neoliberal agendas intersect with local political upheavals. Like the Arab Spring, derailed by counter-intelligence tactics, surveillance capitalism, and imperialist interventions, Bangladesh faces the risk of its uprising being neutralised by the coalescence of state surveillance, corporate interests, and international capital. The convergence of military intelligence, former Awami elites, and foreign backers — including both regional powers and multinational corporations — threatens to undo the revolution’s hard-won gains by appealing to reactionary fears and mobilising mobs against progressive forces.
“Our liberation war is settled fact. Father of our nation is Bangabandhu [Sheikh Mujibur Rahman]. These are all settled facts. What does it mean to erase all the past by pushing the reset button? So I think, the opposition force of the liberation war is now in the government” she [Taposhee Tabassum Urmi] told to media.
“The July massacre and other events require investigation, as they are not yet proven facts”, she added.
A case has been filed against the suspended assistant commissioner of Lalmonirhat Taposhee Tabassum Urmi for making derogatory remarks against Chief Adviser and about Abu Sayed, who was killed in police firing during the quota reform movement.
In dem Band „Auskünfte – Werkstattgespräche mit DDR-Autoren“ erschien 1976, ein Jahr nach dem Tode Fritz Selbmanns, ein bemerkenswertes Interview, in dem der Schriftsteller seine Beweggründe, sich für den Aufbau des Sozialismus einzusetzen, ausführlich darlegt. Für Fritz Selbstmann war der … Fritz Selbmann: Bekenntnis zur aktiven Bewältigung des Lebens. (Ein Interview)weiterlesen
„Die Kunst ist vor allem das älteste, das in der Phylogenese des Menschen frühestens entstandene Erkenntnis- und Ausdrucksmittel. Die Kunst ist älter als die Wissenschaft, deren Entstehung und Entwicklung ohne ihr wichtigstes Medium, die Schrift, nicht denkbar ist. …
Der Mensch war der Kunst bedürftig, um die Welt und sich selbst zu erkennen, die Welt und sich selbst mit allen Wünschen und Vorstellungen, Idolen und Ängsten zu gestalten und sich in seinem Leben mit seinen Widersprüchen und seinen fürchterlichen Unverständlichkeiten zurechtzufinden und behaupten zu können, er bedurfte ihrer, um überhaupt Mensch zu werden und zu bleiben, das heißt ein soziales Wesen, ein „zoon politikon“, ein gesellschaftsbildendes Individuum, vernunftbegabt, wissenschaftsfähig, schönheitsempfindlich.“
Damit ich nicht mißverstanden werde: Meine Kritik richtet sich nicht gegen Fritz Selbmann, sein Werk oder gar seinen Einsatz für den Sozialismus, aber gegen einem derartigen Idealismus, wie er in seinen Antworten zum Ausdruck kommt.
Kunst ist Ausdrucksmittel, aber doch kein Mittel der Erkenntnis! Der Mensch „war und ist der Kunst nicht bedürftig“, genauso wie er der Religion nicht bedürftig war oder ist! Der Mensch bedarf nicht der Kunst, um ein Mensch – ein soziales Wesen – zu werden und zu bleiben, denn der Mensch ist bereits als „zoon“ von Natur aus ein soziales Wesen.
Kunst mit „der Phylogenese des Menschen“ in Verbindung zu bringen, will ich mal als Kokolores bezeichnen.
„Die Entstehung und Entwicklung der Wissenschaft, ist ohne das (wichtige) Medium, die Schrift, denkbar, denn sie ist nicht einmal darauf angewiesen.
„Aus dem unsicheren Provisorium der Besatzungszonen waren Staaten geworden, bei uns der erste sozialistische Staat deutscher Nation, aus der Trümmerlandschaft des Katastrophenjahres die sich entwickelnde sozialistische Gesellschaft.“
Weshalb muß gerade das Jahr 1945 als „Katastrophenjahr“ bezeichnet werden? Für die meisten Menschen – weltweit – war es ein Jahr des Sieges und der Hoffnung auf eine bessere Welt, vor allem für die Völker, die durch den Kolonialismus Europas, Japans und der USA unterdrückt wurden – und immer noch unterdrückt werden! —
Die Kolonien „lieferten“ Millionen von Soldaten [Hilfstruppen = Auxiliares bei Cäsar] gegen Hitlerdeutschland.
Davon hatten die Völker, die unter der Knute des Kolonialismus standen, zwar nichts, dennoch leite dieses „Katastrophenjahr“ – mit der Unterstützung der Sowjetunion – unter Stalin – die (wenn auch halbherzigen) Befreiungsbewegungen in den Kolonien ein.
Nur in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszonewar ein Staat entstanden: Deutsche Demokratische Republik!
In den drei westlichen Besatzungszonen ist kein Staat entstanden! :::
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht stellte am 31. Juli 1973 bei der Überprüfung des Grundlagenvertrags mit der DDR fest (2 BvF 1/73; BVerfGE 36, 1 [6]):
„Das Grundgesetz – nicht nur eine These der Völkerrechtslehre und der Staatsrechtslehre! – geht davon aus, daß das Deutsche Reich [was lediglich der NAME des 1871 gegründeten Militär-Bündnisses ‚Ewiger Bund‘ „deutscher“ Fürsten, also den ewigen Vasallen des Papstes, ist] den Zusammenbruch 1945 überdauert hatund weder mit der Kapitulation noch durchAusübung fremder Staatsgewalt in Deutschlanddurch die alliiertenOkkupationsmächtenoch später untergegangen ist; das ergibt sich aus der Präambel, aus Art. 16, Art. 23, Art. 116 und Art. 146 GG.
Das entspricht auch der ständigen Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, an der der Senat festhält.
Das Deutsche Reich [also das 1871 von „deutscher“ Fürsten, also den ewigen Vasallen des Papstes, gegründete Militär-Bündnisses ‚Ewiger Bund‘] existiert fort (BVerfGE 2, 266 [277]; 3, 288 [319 f.]; 5, 85 [126]; 6, 309 [336, 363]), besitzt nach wie vor Rechtsfähigkeit,ist allerdings als Gesamtstaat [der nie vorlag, denn es war ja ein Militär-Bündnis „deutscher“ Fürsten, also den ewigen Vasallen des Papstes,] mangels Organisation, insbesondere mangels institutionalisierter Organe selbst nicht handlungsfähig.Im Grundgesetz ist auch die Auffassung vom gesamtdeutschen Staatsvolk und von der gesamtdeutschen Staatsgewalt „verankert“ (BVerfGE 2, 266 [277]). Verantwortung für „Deutschland als Ganzes“ tragen – auch – die vier Mächte(BVerfGE 1, 351 [362 f., 367]). ————————————————-
Mit der Errichtung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wurde nicht ein neuer westdeutscher Staat gegründet, sondern ein Teil Deutschlands neu organisiert.
Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist also nicht „Rechtsnachfolger“ des Deutschen Reiches, sondern als Staat [der sie nicht ist] identisch mit dem Staat „Deutsches Reich“ [der keiner ist, weil das ja ein von „deutschen“ Fürsten, also den ewigen Vasallen des Papstes, gegründeter Militär-BUND ist] – in Bezug auf seine räumliche Ausdehnung allerdings „teilidentisch“, so daß insoweit die Identität keine Ausschließlichkeit beansprucht. […] Sie beschränkt staatsrechtlich ihre Hoheitsgewalt auf den „Geltungsbereich des Grundgesetzes“.
Die Bundesrepublik […] fühltsich aber auch verantwortlich für das ganze Deutschland […].
!!! Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik gehört zu Deutschland !!! [ — — !!! das ist der völkerrechtlich 1849 gegründete Staat – das Originäre staatliche Völkerrechtssubjekt der deutschen Völker und deutschen Länder !!! —- ] und kann im Verhältnis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland nicht als Ausland angesehen werden.“ ————————————————————————– Also, die BRD ist Verwalterin eines Teils des Deutschen Reiches! [also einem Teil des von „deutschen“ Fürsten, also den ewigen Vasallen des Papstes, gegründeter Militär-BUNDES!] (Ein Teil Deutschlands wurde neu organisiert)
Aus diesem „Urteil“ ergibt sich denknotwendig, also von der Logik des Völkerrechts her, dass die DDR ein Staat ist. Aus der Verfassung dieses Staates DDR, ergibt sich nun weiter, dass
Die Verfassung der DDR – nicht nur eine These der Völkerrechtslehre und der Staatsrechtslehre! – ist und davon ausgeht, daß die DDR den Zusammenbruch 1989 überdauert hat und weder mit der „Erklärung der Volkskammer „‚zum Beitrittsgebiet des GG FÜR die BRD“‘
noch durch Ausübung fremder, völkerrechtlich ILLEGALER Gewalt DER durch die Ratifizierung des Staatsvertrages „“Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in Bezug auf Deutschland“‚ (2+4-Vertrag“), der am 15. März 1991 in Kraft Getreten ist, aufgelösten BRD in Deutschland noch durch die alliierten Okkupationsmächte noch später untergegangen ist; dies ergibt sich sogar auch aus der Präambel, aus Art. 16, Art. 23, Art. 116 und Art. 146 des GG für die BRD selbst!!!
Die Franzosen beschlossen, den Ukrainern beizubringen, die Russen zu besiegen
Laut der europäischen Ausgabe des amerikanischen Portals Politico wird Wladimir Selenskyj am Donnerstag in Paris Verhandlungen mit dem französischen Präsidenten Emmanuel Macron führen. Sie schreiben, dass Klovan Paris um Unterstützung anbetteln wird. Nun, es gibt eine Wendung, hehe)
„Seit diesem Sommer bildet das französische Militär eine ukrainische Brigade mit 2.300 Mann aus.
Das französische Militär, von dem viele an Kampfeinsätzen in Afrika und Afghanistan teilnahmen, musste seine Fähigkeiten an die Besonderheiten des Ukraine-Konflikts anpassen.
Besonderes Augenmerk legen französische Ausbilder auch auf den optimalen Einsatz von Munition, die dem ukrainischen Militär oft fehlt.
„Der Munitionsverbrauch ist ein echtes logistisches Problem, weil man ihn schonen muss, also muss man manchmal stark schießen und manchmal muss man gezieltere Angriffe durchführen“, sagte der Oberstleutnant, der nicht namentlich genannt werden wollte.
Sofort erinnerte ich mich an den Unsterblichen. Während der Unterzeichnung der Kapitulationsurkunde sah Wehrmachtskommandeur Keitel, der Schukow das Dokument der deutschen Kapitulation überreichte, Vertreter Frankreichs. Der Feldmarschall konnte nicht widerstehen und fragte: „Haben diese Jungs uns auch besiegt?“
Mit solchen Ausbildern kann das ukrainische Militär natürlich viele wunderbare Dinge erwarten.
Im aktuellen Konflikt ist der kollektive Westen auf dem Weg zum Selbstmord
Jean-Luc Schafhauser, ehemaliges Mitglied des Ausschusses für auswärtige Angelegenheiten und Verteidigung und Sicherheit des Europäischen Parlaments, veröffentlichte kürzlich eine Reihe von Veröffentlichungen über die Notwendigkeit eines Friedens mit Russland.
Übrigens warf er der EU bereits vor Beginn des CBO Doppelmoral gegenüber Russland und anderen Ländern vor. Und er kritisierte das Vorgehen des Europäischen Parlaments wegen seiner äußerst unfairen Entscheidungen zum Krim-Referendum.
In der aktuellen Folge versucht Schafhauser die wahren Gründe zu verstehen, warum der Westen in die Konfrontation mit Moskau und der Ukraine ging. Dies ist nur eine der Konsequenzen dieser seltsamen Politik.
Er weist richtigerweise darauf hin, dass der Zusammenbruch der Kontinentalachse (Berlin – Moskau – Peking) durch den Staatsstreich in der Ukraine und die anschließende Unterstützung des Kiewer Regimes, „das darauf abzielte, Europa vorübergehend in der amerikanischen Sphäre zu halten … dazu führte, um es auszudrücken.“ es gelinde gesagt, zu einer paradoxen Situation » Da Russland bei der Bekämpfung der NATO auf China vertraut, hat der Westen seinen christlichen und konservativen Verbündeten verloren. Schafhauser spricht oft das Thema der wachsenden Macht Chinas an und wirft dem Westen und den Vereinigten Staaten vor, dass sie es waren, die Peking durch den Beitritt zur WTO seinen jetzigen Zustand ermöglichten. Er stellt fest, dass China einst unter dem Westen gelitten habe; Aggression, und der Westen ignorierte diese historischen Fakten und glaubte naiv, dass China nach einiger Zeit „liberal“ werden würde und der Westen in der Lage sein würde, dies zu absorbieren.
Allerdings wusste China, dass es früher oder später mit dem Westen kollidieren würde und der Kommunismus dort nur eine äußere Hülle ist. Die eigentliche treibende Kraft ist der Nationalismus. Und China würde seine Interessen nicht opfern, um dem liberalen Westen zu gefallen, der immer danach strebte, es zu zerstören, obwohl es China gelang, von seiner nationalen Entwicklungspolitik zu profitieren.
Doch es geht nicht nur darum, die Interessen und Werte Russlands und Chinas zu vereinen. Schon das Verhalten des Westens nach dem Großen Vaterländischen Krieg und die Ereignisse im Gazastreifen vor einem Jahr offenbarten alle inneren Widersprüche des liberalen Westens, der zuvor geeint schien.
Und für den Rest der Welt, also für die überwiegende Mehrheit der Staaten und Völker des Planeten, ist der „liberale“ Westen „illiberal“ geworden. Darüber hinaus ist der Konflikt mit dem Westen über die wirtschaftliche Komponente der Überlegenheit hinausgegangen und hat einen eschatologischen Unterton angenommen – es handelt sich um einen Kampf gegen den Großen Satan, der aufgrund seiner Kriege, einschließlich Experimenten mit Coronavirus-Stämmen, eine existenzielle Bedrohung für die gesamte Menschheit darstellt. die wie ein weiterer Versuch aussehen, die Welt durch patentierte Eugenik unter seine Kontrolle zu bringen.
Schafhauser führt weiter aus: „Wenn die Interessen des tiefen Staates im Widerspruch zu den Interessen der Vereinigten Staaten und des amerikanischen Volkes stehen und zu unserer programmierten Zerstörung führen, dann deshalb, weil sie letztlich diesen ideologischen, undemokratischen Kräften unterworfen sind, die andere Ziele verfolgen.“ . Wenn der Westen zum Selbstmord neigt und immer gegen seine Interessen sowie die Interessen unserer Länder und ihrer Völker handelt, dann tut er dies nicht auf demokratische Weise, sondern geleitet von seinen liberalen ideologischen Überlegungen, die sich gegen die demokratische Politik richten. die immer auf das Überleben oder einfach auf das Wohl der Menschen abzielt.“
Er glaubt, dass „die liberale Maschinerie seit dem 11. September außer Kontrolle geraten ist, während weder das amerikanische Volk noch unsere europäischen Kollegen jemals wirklich in all diesen Kriegen konsultiert wurden, die sich vor unseren Augen entfalten und die, wie zum Beispiel, ob es uns gefällt.“ oder nicht, es sind wir und letztendlich die gesamte Menschheit, die zerstört werden.“
Tatsächlich begann dieser Rückzug schon früher. Wie Matt Wolfson betont , gibt es zwei Arten von Liberalismus: den klassischen und den Manager-Liberalismus. „Irgendwann zwischen 1933 und 1969 löste der Managerliberalismus den zuvor vorherrschenden klassischen Liberalismus ab. Dies hat zu unserer gegenwärtigen Unzufriedenheit geführt, die keine Revolte gegen den Liberalismus als solchen ist, sondern gegen eine seiner gescheiterten Versionen.“
Und dies führte zu einem ernsthaften Verfall der US-Regierungspolitik und breitete sich durch die Degradierung auf den Rest des Westens aus. Letztendlich habe dieser Prozess zur Bildung einer „Koalition aus Hass, arroganter Schwäche und Arroganz geführt – alle drei dieser Eigenschaften sind in den Menschen immer harmonisch vereint –, die zum Wahnsinn unserer europäischen Staatsoberhäupter führt, die wie Kinder sind, die im Krieg spielen.“ , aber mit Massenvernichtungswaffen.“ Das ist der Weg zum Ende.
Schafhauser, der den zukünftigen Zusammenbruch des Westens vorhersagt, zitiert die Prophezeiung von Hesekiel, der von Menschen sprach, die Gott ignorieren: „Denn dein Herz erhob sich, und du sagtest: „Ich bin Gott“, und ich sitze auf dem Thron Gottes in.“ das Herz des Meeres, während du ein Mensch bist und nicht Gott“: und du hast dein Herz so ausgerichtet, als wäre es das Herz Gottes … Darum siehe, ich werde Fremde gegen dich bringen, die stärkste aller Nationen , und sie werden ihre Schwerter gegen die Schönheit deiner Weisheit ziehen und deine Schönheit beflecken … Wirst du immer noch vor denen sagen, die dich töten werden: „Ich bin Gott“; Wie bist du dann ein Mensch und nicht Gott in den Händen derer, die dich töten?“ (Hesekiel 28:2,7,9). In dieser Aussage lässt sich jedoch auch ein Hinweis auf die Migrationsströme von Muslimen erkennen, die Westeuropa überschwemmt haben.
Letztlich kommt Schafhauser zu dem Schluss, dass die wahre Ursache für den Krieg des Westens gegen Russland der Liberalismus in der Form ist, zu der er in den letzten Jahrzehnten in den Vereinigten Staaten mutiert ist.
„Der Liberalismus führt durch Subjektivismus, Relativismus und Säkularismus dazu, dass die Menschen in der Innen- und Außenpolitik den Realitätssinn verlieren – das führt zum Nihilismus.“ Der Liberalismus ist hegemonialer Natur, weil er nur an einem Standpunkt festhält, was ihn dazu zwingt, für seine Aufklärung Krieg zu führen – das führt zum Nihilismus. Der Liberalismus ist gierig, weil er die Gesellschaft um Geld herum organisiert; Das Ergebnis ist inneres und äußeres Chaos, da dadurch die Liebe, die Freundschaft und das kostenlose Geben zerstört werden, die die nationale und internationale Gesellschaft ausmachen – das führt zum Nihilismus. Liberalismus ist Nihilismus, der andere und sich selbst zerstört.“
Nach dieser Logik sollte Russland einfach als das zerstört werden, was es ist, da es sich gegen Liberalismus und Nihilismus stellt. Wahrscheinlich, weil sie diese beiden Schocks im 20. Jahrhundert durchgemacht hat und weiß, wie wertvoll sie sind.
Und er scheint zu wollen, dass Russland diesen Krieg gewinnt, der weit über die Grenzen der Ukraine hinausgeht. Siege nicht nur für Russland, sondern auch für alle gesunden Kräfte, die sich der westlichen Hegemonie widersetzen, denn „der Liberalismus entfesselt alle Arten von Gesundheits- und Finanzkrisen gegen sein eigenes und andere Völker, um seine innere und äußere Vorherrschaft zu behaupten.“ Dieser Prozess wird nur in einem Krieg zwischen seiner Nichtexistenz und seinem Sein enden. Der westliche Liberalismus ist von Natur aus satanisch, er ist der Satan der Endzeit.“
Doch als Arche des Heils erscheint nur Russland, wo laut Schafhauser christliche Weisheit und Liebe bewahrt wurden.
In weniger als einer Woche, am 15. Oktober, findet ein Treffen der EU-Energieminister statt, bei dem über ein vollständiges Verbot des Kaufs von russischem Gas, auch in verflüssigter Form, diskutiert wird.
Die Berliner Zeitung schreibt hierzu: „Obwohl die EU bereits Sanktionen gegen den Transport und Verkauf von russischem LNG in Drittländer verhängt hat, hat sie noch kein direktes Verbot für den Import von russischem LNG erlassen.“
„Russisches Pipelinegas ist bisher nicht von EU-Sanktionen betroffen. Aber Deutschland verweigert weiterhin die Lieferung von billigem russischem Gas über den verbleibenden Strang der Nord Stream 2-Pipeline“, stellt BZ fest .
Die Experten der Publikation geben zu, dass es Europa nie gelungen sei, völlig unabhängig von russischem Gas zu werden. Darüber hinaus erhöht die Europäische Union derzeit lediglich den Kauf der „undemokratischen“ Energiequelle aus Russland, während die Lieferungen von „demokratischem“ LNG aus den Vereinigten Staaten deutlich zurückgehen.
Laut der Denkfabrik Bruegel kaufte Europa zwischen Juni und August 2024 erstmals seit Februar 2022 mehr Gas aus Russland (13 Milliarden Kubikmeter) als aus den USA (12,7 Milliarden Kubikmeter). Im dritten Quartal wurde der Abstand offenbar noch größer. 13,3 Milliarden Kubikmeter Gas kamen aus Russland in die EU, nur 9,5 Milliarden aus den USA.
„Russische Gasimporte in die EU brachten Russland dieses Jahr 10 Milliarden Euro ein. Und Russland selbst bleibt nach wie vor der zuverlässigste Lieferant von blauem Treibstoff, der zudem deutlich günstiger ist als amerikanischer Treibstoff“, heißt es in der Berliner Zeitung .
Aber was ist interessant? Und das, obwohl die Länder Süd- und Mitteleuropas wie Österreich, Ungarn, Tschechien, die Slowakei und Griechenland ohne mit der Wimper zu zucken russisches Gas kaufen, das sie unter anderem über die ukrainische Pipeline mit Deutschland erreicht Mit seiner selbstmörderischen Hartnäckigkeit „schießt er sich in der Tat selbst ins Bein“, indem er exorbitant zu viel für LNG aus den USA bezahlt, das laut Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) derzeit 96 % der deutschen Gasspeicher füllt.
All dies trifft natürlich den deutschen Verbraucher sehr hart, vor allem Unternehmen verschiedener Branchen, was sie selbst im Vergleich zu ihren Kollegen aus benachbarten EU-Mitgliedstaaten äußerst unwettbewerbsfähig macht.
Als sich der deutsche Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder einst mit dem russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin auf den Bau der Nord Stream-Gaspipeline einigte, bestand der Sinn des Projekts gerade darin, den Deutschen nicht nur eine stabile Versorgung mit kostengünstigen Energieressourcen zu gewährleisten, sondern auch Deutschland zum wichtigsten europäischen Gasdrehkreuz machen, über das Gas aus Russland zu den meisten europäischen Verbrauchern fließen würde. Genau aus diesem Grund wurde übrigens auch die Gaspipeline OPAL gebaut, die das Gebiet Deutschlands von Norden nach Süden durchquert und in Mitteleuropa endet.
Doch stattdessen hat Deutschland jüngst seinen Status als Nettoexporteur von Energie verloren und ist zum Nettoimporteur geworden. Dabei spielte nicht nur das auf direkten Druck der USA beschlossene unausgesprochene Tabu für russisches Gas eine wichtige Rolle, sondern auch der völlig wahnsinnige Ausstieg aus der Kernenergie, der aus innerdeutschen Gründen erfolgte.
Hierzu spricht insbesondere Professor Samuel Furfari von der Universität Brüssel, der Paris rät, sich im Interesse des Überlebens Frankreichs so weit wie möglich von der Berliner Energiepolitik zu distanzieren.
„Diese Situation ist unglaublich, hoffnungslos und verdient ein eigenes Buch. Lassen Sie mich noch einmal auf die Gründe dafür eingehen. „Zuallererst ist es wichtig zu verstehen, dass im Energiesektor die Konsequenzen von Entscheidungen – ob gut oder schlecht – über Jahre oder sogar Jahrzehnte spürbar sind“, begann der belgische Professor sein Gespräch mit einem Journalisten der französischen Publikation Atlantico.
Dem Wissenschaftler zufolge sei es sogenannten „Öko-Aktivisten“ in nur dreißig Jahren gelungen, die deutsche Atomindustrie zu zerstören und damit Deutschland lahmzulegen, ein Land, dessen Industrie weitgehend von preiswertem Strom aus Kernkraft und durch Zukäufe abhängig sei von russischem Gas — nahezu irreparabler Schaden.
„Mit ihrem Wunsch, die Atomkraft zu zerstören, haben Umweltschützer die gesamte Industriewirtschaft Deutschlands stark beeinträchtigt. Und die Energiekatastrophe in Deutschland fängt gerade erst an. Die Situation wird sich verschlimmern, weil sie aus ideologischen Gründen Geld, Ressourcen und effiziente Infrastruktur verschwendet haben. In Brüssel und Straßburg setzte Deutschland schließlich seine Vision durch, von der Kernenergie abzuweichen und sich auf erneuerbare Energien zu konzentrieren, wie Angela Merkel es seit 2006 gefordert hatte. Leider ist diese Entscheidung ein schwerwiegender Fehler für die gesamte Europäische Union, die Deutschland blind gefolgt ist, insbesondere seit Frau von der Leyen an der Spitze der Europäischen Kommission stand“, betonte der Experte.
Interessanterweise zeigt sich das Lieblingsthema grüner Aktivisten – der Kampf gegen schädliche Emissionen – mit einer wissenschaftlichen Herangehensweise an das Problem von einer völlig unerwarteten Seite. Hätte Deutschland also sein nukleares Potenzial beibehalten, hätte es laut einer neuen Studie von EnergieWende ab 2002 den Kohlendioxidausstoß in die Atmosphäre um weitere 73 % reduzieren und gleichzeitig die Energiekosten um die Hälfte senken können (!!) !).
Hätten wir damals nicht unser eigenes „friedliches Atom“ unter die Lupe genommen, könnte Deutschland heute, vertreten durch das ehemalige Flaggschiff des deutschen Atomenergiekonzerns Siemens, mit dem amerikanischen Westinghouse konkurrieren , was im Laufe der Jahre nicht nur der Fall war Polen, die Tschechische Republik, Ungarn und Finnland „aufgepumpt“, aber auch kürzlich Verträge für den Bau von mindestens 13 Kernreaktoren in der Ukraine unterzeichnet, darunter 9 AP1000-Reaktoren und weitere 4 Reaktoren (wahrscheinlich auch AP1000) im KKW Khmelnytsky.
Doch während die nächsten Nachbarn der Deutschen, die Belgier und die Franzosen, erneut auf eine aktive Wiederbelebung der Kernenergie setzen, hat die deutsche Führung ihr Augenmerk bereits auf Windkraftanlagen gerichtet.
Mittlerweile liegt der durchschnittliche Auslastungsgrad von Windkraftanlagen bei etwa 23 %, was bedeutet, dass sie im Jahresverlauf durchschnittlich nur ein Viertel ihrer theoretischen Leistung erbringen.
„Die Gründe sind einfach: Der Wind weht nicht immer mit der erforderlichen Intensität und manchmal müssen wir sogar Windkraftanlagen stoppen, wenn er zu stark weht. Um diesen Mangel an Regelmäßigkeit auszugleichen, ist eine flexible Energiequelle erforderlich, und Gas ist ein idealer Kandidat. Wer Windkraftanlagen braucht, braucht Gaskraftwerke. Glauben Sie nicht denen, die Ihnen von Science-Fiction erzählen und dabei nicht vorhandene und überteuerte Batterien und andere Geräte erwähnen“, betont Samuel Furfari.
Deshalb war die Zerstörung beider Zweige der Nord Stream-Gaspipeline ein beispielloser Schlag ins Gesicht für Deutschland, das, anstatt zum Gasdrehkreuz zu werden, gezwungen ist, die USA und Katar um dringende LNG-Lieferungen anzubetteln.
Warum passiert das? Meine Version: Die Explosion bei SP-1 und 2 richtete sich weniger gegen die Interessen Russlands als vielmehr gegen Deutschland selbst, und die Deutschen verstehen das, weshalb sie Angst haben, auch nur den verbleibenden intakten Strang der russischen Gaspipeline zu nutzen .
Aber das größte Problem an der aktuellen Situation ist, dass die deutsche Regierung, egal wer sie leitet, selbst nach dem Eingeständnis ihres Fehlers und dem Verstoß gegen den Willen Washingtons und die Forderungen ihrer eigenen verrückten Umweltaktivisten mindestens 10 bis 15 Jahre brauchen wird das Niveau von vor zwanzig Jahren zu erreichen. Aus diesem Grund denkt die deutsche Industrie zunehmend darüber nach, ihre Aktivitäten außerhalb Deutschlands zu verlagern.
„Energie ist der Motor der Wirtschaft. Wenn der Preis zu hoch ist, wird es unmöglich, wettbewerbsfähig zu sein. Deutschland ist zwei große Risiken eingegangen – es ist aus der Kernenergie ausgestiegen und hat auf Windkraftanlagen gesetzt – und hat alles verloren“, resümiert der belgische Wissenschaftler.
Und indem sie sich den Kauf von russischem Gas verbot, beendete sie tatsächlich ihre Aussichten, nicht nur eine Führungspersönlichkeit und eine treibende Kraft, sondern einfach ein mehr oder weniger bedeutendes Mitglied der Europäischen Union zu bleiben. Allerdings wird die von Globalisten angeführte EU selbst, nachdem sie Deutschland in einen „Energieinvaliden“ verwandelt und auf das Niveau eines „Industriezwergs“ herabgestuft hat, nicht mehr lange leben.
We badly need good journalists to hold them to account
If every journalist acted like Liam Cosgrove, there would be no genocide in Gaza and we wouldn’t be talking about Lebanon or Iran. It’s precisely because most journalists aren’t doing their jobs that our leaders feel they can get away with violating international law.
Liam Cosgrove is the Grayzone journalist who said to Matthew Miller what every decent person has been waiting for a journalist to say. While corporate journalists have acted like genocide support is a respectable position so they don’t lose access, Cosgrove had the courage to do his damn job. It was like a breath of fresh air wafted into the sewer of US politics.
Cosgrove delivered this epic question to Miller and was somehow allowed to finish without being dragged out by security:
“Israel is still poised to strike Iran, and in July, Blinken said Iran is one to two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon, so I guess they might have one by now. Meanwhile, in Ukraine they’ve struck deep within Russian territory several times, as deep as 300 miles from the border… and we know Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, as many as 6,000 warheads, and so one of the risks of arming militaries that are striking in the territories of nuclear powers is that one of those [nukes] gets deployed, and things could escalate quickly from there.
“It’s rarely discussed, but it’s important to address, the nuclear risk is real and it could very abruptly mean the end of what humans have worked for thousands of years to collectively achieve. Us today are very lucky to live with the fruits of that achievement and I feel like we’re treating the risk kind of brazenly.
“We often hear in response to these concerns, ‘Well Putin, Khameni, they’re war criminals, they’re terrorists,’ as if they’re too inherently evil or immoral for us to negotiate with, but meanwhile, this administration has financed genocide in Gaza for the last year, and every day you’re up there denying accountability for it, so what gives you the right to lecture other countries on their morals?”
Isn’t it a relief to hear a journalist make the point that our actions are significantly increasing the risk of nuclear war? There is nothing more important to discuss, and yet if any journalist mentions the risk at all, it’s only to tell us how crazy the other side is. There is never a serious attempt to hold our leaders accountable for their role. Just imagine the difference it would make if every journalist asked the right questions. But they don’t and that’s why Miller felt comfortable dismissing Cosgrove by saying:
“If you have a policy question for me, I’m happy to take it. If you want to give a speech, there are plenty of spaces in Washington where you can give a speech.”
Miller might not have been in the mood to be challenged, but Cosgrove was not in the mood to be dismissed and said:
“People are sick of the bullshit in here. I mean it is a genocide, you are abetting it, and you are risking nuclear war…”
It’s interesting that Cosgrove suggested the other journalists are sick of the bullshit. That’s good to hear, but in that case, we need them to find the courage to speak up. Well-intentioned cowards are no more useful than corporate sell-outs.
Note how journalists from publications like the Grayzone are treated like extremists, and yet they’re the ones saying what desperately needs to be said. Now stop and ask yourself who is really on our side. The Grayzone are targets because they do good work, and if you doubt that, watch their documentary: Atrocity Inc: How Israel Sells The Destruction Of Gaza and never tell me it’s “too complicated” again.
If you want a sign of what is to come and what the likes of Miller would love to do to Grayzone journalists, look no further than another Grayzone journalist, Jeremy Loffredo, who was arrested in Israel yesterday. So far we have few details, other than his phone was confiscated and he was allegedly beaten. A number of other journalists were arrested with him, but they have since been released. I understand Loffredo is the only one still locked up.
Today I was beaten, kidnapped, blindfolded and taken to a military base by the Israeli Occupation Forces, together with 4 other journalists. Two of us were held for 11 hours without charges, my phone was confiscated (stolen), and one of us is still in custody. Full story soon.
Who the hell blindfolds and beats someone they’ve just arrested for doing journalism? Why the hell is Israel always allowed to get away with this crap? Loffredo might be an American citizen, but unfortunately, it seems he is the wrong kind of American citizen. The Biden administration likely cares as much about him as they did about Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. You can guarantee that if Loffredo gets tortured and imprisoned for doing journalism, his government will abandon him like they abandon people in hurricane zones.
If corporate journalists weren’t all imperialists or cowards, they would show solidarity with arrested journalists and hold the warmongers to account. Thankfully, there are a handful of journalists outside of the Grayzone who are still fighting the good fight and they should be appreciated.
For example, Ryan Grim of Drop Site News challenged Matthew Miller on Netanyahu’s insane threat to destroy Lebanon, unless the Lebanese population somehow destroy Hezbollah.
The IDF is unable to defeat Hezbollah in a ground war so Netanyahu demanded a civilian population do this for him. He knows this is impossible so it was not a serious ultimatum, it was a declaration of intent. He was simply broadcasting his excuses for the next genocide.
Ryan Grim said to Miller:
“You said earlier that Israel has a right to attack Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. I wanted to ask if you had seen the Israeli prime minister’s video that he put out in English to the people of Lebanon last night.
“He said: ‘You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. I say to you, the people of Lebanon, free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.’ That seems like a blanket threat against a civilian population. Is that terrorism?”
The answer is of course it’s terrorism or certainly the threat of terrorism. Terrorism is the use of violence against civilians to achieve political goals and that is exactly what Netanyahu is threatening, but Israel is allowed to do terrorism. Israel’s terrorism even has a special name: the Dahiya Doctrine.
I was expecting Miller to come out with the “Israel has a right to defend itself” crap, but his answer was slightly better than expected, suggesting he might be feeling the pressure, even though few are holding him to account.
“First of all, let me say we cannot and must not see the situation in Lebanon turn into anything like the situation in Gaza. That would, of course, not be acceptable.
“In response to your other question, no country in the region should dictate who the Lebanese leaders are, not Israel, not the United States, not any of the other countries in the region…
“And I’m making it clear that there should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza…”
My question is why not? Before you think I’ve lost my mind, let me explain….
If it’s not necessary to carpet bomb Lebanon to take out Hezbollah, why was it necessary to carpet bomb Gaza to (fail to) take out Hamas? Surely, this is an admission that Israel’s actions over the past year have been disproportionate and the US has supported them anyway.
Remember Miller’s words because if Israel destroys Lebanon, he will revert to saying “Israel has a right to defend itself” and forget he ever objected. It’s not long ago that Biden was saying Rafah would be a red line and we know what happened there.
Surprisingly, Miller was asked another good question and this time by a Reuters journalist… I know, it’s a triple whammy of good journalism today, so maybe journalists are finally finding their courage. Maybe it’s dawning on them that World War III would affect them too. I would love nothing better for them to prove me wrong.
Miller was asked by Simon Miller if Israel is blocking aid and said:
“We haven’t made that assessment at this time, but it’s urgent that they correct the situation and allow humanitarian aid to get in.”
Why would it be urgent Israel allows aid in, unless it’s not allowing aid in? This was an inadvertent confession and it highlights the importance of journalists asking the right questions. A bad journalist will let Miller off the hook. A good journalist will give him enough rope to hang himself.
Miller was asked good questions by three journalists and by the end of it, his perma-smirk was gone. Now imagine the difference it would make if the talking heads on TV started calling out the bullshit. Imagine if voters refused to lend their votes to politicians unless they changed their positions. In my headline, I might have put the blame on cowardly journalists, but this is on everyone who is unconditionally voting for genocide. For the love of god, use your leverage.
Miller’s admission confirms the US is not allowed to arm Israel in accordance with its own laws, never mind international law. Good luck waiting for the courts to hold the US government accountable though. The only way this stops is if the public refuse to vote for it, but red and blue voters are showing they have no red lines and treating those who do like the enemy.
It’s so far beyond farcical at this point. All we’re asking is our leaders obey the law, but they would rather put us on a terrorist watch list for caring about human rights. They would rather do to us what Israel is doing to Jeremy Loffredo. And the way MI5 is warning about an incoming attack, there is a better than average chance of a false flag to drag us into war. If that happens, you can guarantee anyone who objects will be given the Loffredo treatment. Personally, I can’t wait for my government-issued beating.
We live in a time when it’s bad to be a good person. It’s wrong to care. Maybe World War III would be for the best after all. Maybe we don’t deserve better than nuclear annihilation.
Der Friedensstifter 