Die Verhaftung von Pawel Durow – Warum gerade jetzt?

Ein Artikel von Maike Gosch

Am Freitag wurde der Gründer und Chef der Messenger-Plattform Telegram in Frankreich festgenommen. Ihm wird vorgeworfen, nicht ausreichend mit Strafverfolgungsbehörden kooperiert zu haben und durch seine liberale Haltung kriminelle Aktivitäten auf der Plattform zu ermöglichen. Was ist der Hintergrund dieses martialischen Vorgehens und warum geschieht es gerade jetzt? Von Maike Gosch.

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Gerade hatten sich die ersten Empörungswellen über die Verhaftung des britisch-syrischen Journalisten Richard Medhurst am Flughafen Heathrow aufgrund seiner Berichterstattung und Kommentare über den Gaza-Krieg etwas gelegt (hier ein kritischer Kommentar vom ehemaligen britischen Botschafter Craig Murray dazu, und eine solidarische Stellungnahme vom U.S.-amerikanischen Journalisten Chris Hedges), da folgte der nächste Einschlag mit der Verhaftung des Chefs der Messenger-App Telegram, Pawel Durow, am Freitag auf einem Flughafen in der Nähe von Paris, direkt beim Ausstieg aus seinem Privatjet. Die französische Justiz wirft Durow vor, zu wenig zu unternehmen, um gegen die Nutzung seines Messengerdienstes für kriminelle Aktivitäten vorzugehen und nicht mit den Ermittlungsbehörden zu kooperieren.

Die russische Botschaft in Paris beschwerte sich, dass sie keinen konsularischen Zugang zu dem Verhafteten (der sowohl die russische als auch die französische Staatsbürgerschaft besitzt) bekommen hat, wie es nach dem Wiener Übereinkommen über konsularische Beziehungen (WÜK) vorgeschrieben ist.

Das reiht sich ein in das Vorgehen bei der Festnahme von Richard Medhurst, der nach eigenen Aussagen informiert wurde, dass er das Recht habe, jemanden über seine Verhaftung zu informieren, und dann im zweiten Schritt hinzugefügt wurde, dass ausnahmsweise in diesem Fall wegen des besonderen Tatvorwurfs auf dieses Recht „verzichtet“ wird. Wenn diese beiden Schilderungen zutreffen, werden hier grundlegende Rechtsgrundsätze immer mehr zur Disposition gestellt.

Dieser Schritt der französischen Behörden wurde von vielen, auch prominenten, Stimmen scharf kritisiert. So meldeten sich (natürlich) Elon Musk, aber auch der Whistleblower Edward Snowden …

First they came for Tiktok, and I did not speak out—Because I was not twelve years old. Then they came for the Telegram, and I did not speak out—Because I was using some other app or sth idk. Then they came for literally every other platform for dissent, and I did not…

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 25, 2024

übersetzt:

„Zuerst wollten sie Tiktok, und ich habe mich nicht gewehrt – weil ich nicht zwölf Jahre alt war. Dann kamen sie wegen Telegram, und ich habe mich nicht geäußert – weil ich irgendeine andere App oder etwas anderes benutzte, ich weiß nicht. Dann kamen sie für buchstäblich jede andere Plattform für Dissens, und ich habe mich nicht geäußert, weil Bruder, wo zur Hölle kann ich das, verstehst du jetzt, aufwachen wachen wa..“

… und der U.S.-amerikanische konservative Journalist Tucker Carlson mit folgendem Kommentar und postete dazu ein langes Interview, dass er im April 2024 mit ihm geführt hatte:

Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member,… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024

also

„Pawel Durow verließ Russland, als die Regierung versuchte, sein Unternehmen für soziale Medien, Telegram, zu kontrollieren. Aber letztendlich war es nicht Putin, der ihn verhaftete, weil er der Öffentlichkeit die freie Meinungsäußerung ermöglichte. Es war ein westliches Land, ein Verbündeter der Regierung Biden und begeistertes NATO-Mitglied, das ihn einsperrte. Pavel Durov sitzt heute Abend in einem französischen Gefängnis, eine lebende Warnung an alle Plattformbetreiber, die sich weigern, die Wahrheit auf Geheiß von Regierungen und Geheimdiensten zu zensieren. Die ehemals freie Welt gerät immer mehr ins Zwielicht. Hier ist unser Interview mit Durov von vor einigen Monaten:“

Es gab allerdings auch Zustimmung zu dem Schritt. Besonders deutliche Worte fand der belgische Politiker und EP-Abgeordnete Guy Verhofstadt, bekannt für seine Pro-Ukraine-Position, der kommentierte:

Telegram sits at the centre of global cyber crime…

Free speech is not without responsibilities !https://t.co/UrCL3AQnGp

— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) August 25, 2024

„Telegram steht im Zentrum der weltweiten Internetkriminalität…
Freie Meinungsäußerung ist nicht ohne Verantwortung!“

Noch vor einigen Jahren war Durow bei westlichen Medien und Politikern beliebt und wurde insbesondere dafür gelobt, dass er sich dem russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin entgegenstellte und dem russischen Geheimdienst FSB keinen Zugang zur verschlüsselten Kommunikation auf seinen Plattformen gewährte, mit der zum Beispiel der russische Oppositionspolitiker Alexej Nawalny seine Korruptionsenthüllungen veröffentlichte oder mit der Proteste gegen die Regierung z.B. zum Thema Wahlfälschung organisiert werden konnten.

Die Sprecherin des russischen Außenministeriums, Maria Sacharowa, wies darauf hin, dass noch im Jahr 2018 eine Gruppe von 28 NGOs, darunter Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House und Reporter ohne Grenzen, eine russische Gerichtsentscheidung zur Sperrung von Telegram in Russland verurteilten. Diese NGOs forderten damals, dass Moskau „aufhört, Hindernisse für den Betrieb von Telegram zu schaffen“ und die Rechte der Nutzer zu garantieren, Informationen online zu veröffentlichen und anonym zu konsumieren.

Warum dieser Kurswechsel jetzt? Wie wurde Pawel Durow vom Liebling und oppositionellen Medienunternehmer, der sich gegen den Autokraten Putin und seine Zensur- und Ermittlungsversuche wehrte, zum Staatsfeind der EU?

Mike Benz, US-amerikanischer Jurist, Cyber-Experte und ehemaliger Mitarbeiter im US-Außenministerium unter Donald Trump, hat hierzu folgende Theorie: Zunächst einmal vermutet er, dass dieser Schritt nicht ursprünglich auf Initiative Frankreichs geschieht, sondern auf Initiative des Außenministeriums der USA. Er ist der Ansicht, und hat hierzu ausführliche Recherchearbeit geleistet, dass die Messenger-App Telegram (und die anderen Dienste wie die russische Facebook-Version VKontakte) eine wesentliche Rolle bei der ausländischen Einmischung in innere Angelegenheiten durch die Finanzierung, Organisation, Ausbildung und Beeinflussung von Regierungsgegnern in Russland, der Ukraine und Weißrussland durch US-amerikanische und westliche Geheimdienste und andere Akteure gespielt hat. Deswegen wurde gegen diesen Dienst bisher nicht massiver vorgegangen. Aber jetzt, da dieser Dienst immer mehr auch Dissidenten und Regierungskritikern im Westen als Plattform für Austausch dient, gerät er in die Schusslinie und ist ein Hindernis in der kompletten Kontrolle der Informationslandschaft, die das erklärte Ziel der politischen und juristischen Bestrebungen ist, wie durch den Digital Services Act auf EU-Ebene.

Seine These ist, dass das Ziel des Vorgehens gegen Durow nicht ist, Telegram zu schließen oder zu vernichten, sondern genug Druck auf Durow auszuüben, um ihn zu bewegen, den Ermittlungsbehörden und Geheimdiensten Zugang zu den verschlüsselten Daten zu gewähren, wie es ihnen es bei dem Messenger-Dienst WhatsApp durch Druck auf den in den USA ansässigen Konzern gelungen ist. Benz sieht den Grund dafür, warum dieser massive Schritt gegen Durow gerade jetzt erfolgt, in der aktuellen Situation im Ukrainekrieg. Da fast alle Russen Telegram benutzen, vermutet er, dass der Zugang zu den Inhalten und Daten des Messenger-Dienstes es den westlichen Regierungen und Geheimdiensten und natürlich auch dem Militär erlauben soll, die russische Kommunikation in Bezug auf Kriegshandlungen abzuhören und dadurch der Ukraine und ihren westlichen Partnern in dem aktuellen Konflikt einen taktischen Vorteil zu verschaffen. Es wird sich sicher nach und nach herausstellen, ob Mike Benz (und andere Kommentatoren, die seine Einschätzung teilen) hiermit recht haben oder nicht.

Offensichtlich ist auf jeden Fall, dass der Grund für seine Festnahme nicht nur in der Bekämpfung von Organisierter Kriminalität, Drogenhandel, Terrorismus, und was noch zu Begründung angeführt wurde, liegt. Denn dann hätte die Strafverfolgung auch schon Jahre früher erfolgen können.

Die Verhaftung von Pawel Durow – Warum gerade jetzt?

SPD: Gegen die Armen Stimmung machen – aus Hartz IV nichts gelernt

Ein Artikel von Marcus Klöckner

Hetze gegen die Armen: Die SPD macht im Geiste der Agenda 2010 weiter. Der Ministerpräsident von Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, hat den Spaltkeil ausgepackt. Seine aktuellen Äußerungen treiben den Keil zwischen die Ärmsten und die Armen. Das ist erbärmlich, aber auch aus politisch-taktischer Sicht dumm. Die AfD liegt in aktuellen Umfragen vor der SPD. Dass Woidke sich dennoch nicht zurückhält, lässt tief blicken. Die Methode, über einen Angriff auf die Armen Politik zu machen, scheint in der SPD offensichtlich längst tief verwurzelt. Ein Kommentar von Marcus Klöckner.

„Wenn hart arbeitende Menschen nur durch staatliche Leistungen wie Wohngeld und Kinderzuschlag im Monat mehr haben als diejenigen, die bewusst nicht arbeiten gehen und lieber Bürgergeld beziehen – dann wird das zu Recht als unfair empfunden“, sagte Dietmar Woidke gerade gegenüber dem Stern.

Da stehen sie, diese Aussagen. Sie könnten problemlos auch aus den Anfangsjahren der Agenda 2010 stammen. Aber diese Worte sind aktuell. Und sie bedienen den Geist jener „Reformen“, die die deutsche Gesellschaft tief gespalten haben – bis heute! Woidke bedient mit seinen Worten die Emotion Neid. Er schürt den Argwohn zwischen den Ärmsten, die Bürgergeld beziehen, und jenen, die am unteren Ende der Lohnskala stehen. „Unfair“ ist der Begriff, den der brandenburgische Ministerpräsident gebraucht. „Unfair“ ist es nach den Worten des SPD-Politikers, dass Empfänger staatlicher Leistungen mehr Geld beziehen würden als die, die arbeiten. Gewiss: Das leuchtet, nüchtern und eindimensional betrachtet, durchaus ein. Wenn ein Bürger, der arbeitet, weniger bekommt als Bezieher von staatlichen Leistungen, stimmt etwas Grundlegendes nicht.

Doch das Problem, das sichtbar wird, ist komplexer angelagert, als es die stimmungsschürenden Aussagen des Ministerpräsidenten andeuten. Wer sich die Worte Woidkes genauer anschaut, stellt fest: Woidke geht es nicht darum, ein real vorhandenes Problem analytisch zu erfassen – und dann, im Sinne aller Bürger, eine konstruktive Lösung zu finden. Er setzt auf Stimmungsmache und stimuliert dabei niedere Instinkte wie Neid und in der weiteren Konsequenz Wut auf die Armen. Und Neid und Wut wirken wie ein Spaltkeil, der die ohnehin auf vielen Ebenen weit fortgeschrittene Spaltung der Gesellschaft nur noch tiefer treibt.

Woidke gebraucht die Formulierung „lieber Bürgergeld beziehen“. Er fokussiert also auf „diejenigen, die bewusst nicht arbeiten gehen“. Der Ausdruck „lieber“ wirkt in den Aussagen wie eine Art Brandbeschleuniger. Vor den Augen des Lesers entsteht das Bild von Bürgergeldbeziehern, die mit Arglist Transferleistungen beziehen. Das Bild vom „faulen“, in der sozialen Hängematte liegenden „Schnorrer“ drängt sich geradezu auf. Woidke – hier kommt die Schläue eines Politikers zum Vorschein – spricht offen an, dass er hier die im Auge hat, die eben „bewusst nicht arbeiten gehen“. Auf diese Weise kann er seine Hände in Unschuld waschen. Er kann, würde man ihn mit dem „hetzerischen Moment“ seiner Aussagen konfrontieren, leicht sagen, dass er an der Stelle ja nicht pauschal allen Bürgergeldempfängern niedere Absichten unterstelle. Er wolle ja nur auf ein reales Problem aufmerksam machen.

Ja, die Politik der gespaltenen Zunge ist gerade auch in der SPD sehr präsent.

Richtig ist, dass es natürlich Personen und Bürger gibt, die aus offen praktizierter Faulheit Bürgergeld beziehen. Doch das ist – bei Lichte betrachtet – allenfalls ein Ärgernis. Ein echtes Problem, das zum Untergang des Sozialstaats führt, ist es nicht. Ein Problem ist allerdings, das mit diesem Ärgernis Politiker seit der Agenda 2010 auf schlimmste Weise Politik machen. Fokussieren die Parlamentarier nämlich auf die Gruppe derjenigen, die aus Bequemlichkeit nicht arbeiten gehen, erzeugen sie unweigerlich in der Breite der Gesellschaft den Eindruck, dass unterm Strich doch alle oder zumindest der größte Teil schlicht faul ist und deshalb Bürgergeld bezieht.

Woidke und andere Politiker sollten wissen: Wenn bei Menschen Emotionen stimuliert werden, tritt der Verstand oft in den Hintergrund. Doch, davon ist auszugehen, Woidke und andere Politiker wissen das selbstverständlich. Sie sind ja nicht dumm. Sie wissen um die Wirkung ihrer Aussagen. Gegenprobe: Im Hinblick auf Probleme, die im Zusammenhang mit Migranten auftreten, verhält sich die Politik weitestgehend maximal zurückhaltend. Schließlich soll gerade keine Stimmung geschürt werden – nicht, dass die deutsche Gesellschaft von einem ausländischen Straftäter auf alle Ausländer schließt.

Was den Umgang mit den Armen angeht, wird immer deutlicher: Teile der Politik haben regelrecht ein Feindbild entwickelt. Das ist billig und erbärmlich zugleich. Billig, weil die Gruppe der Armen nicht für die schweren Verwerfungen im Land verantwortlich ist. Erbärmlich, weil die Armen sich nicht wehren können. Was geht im Kopf von Woidke vor? Glaubt er wirklich, dass er mit der Fokussierung auf ein Scheinproblem mehr Stimmen für die bevorstehende Wahl einfangen kann? Das mag auf jene zutreffen, die ohnehin seiner Partei nahestehen und die katastrophale SPD-Politik nicht durchschauen können oder wollen. Den anderen Teil der Wähler wird er mit solchen Aussagen nicht erreichen. Im Gegenteil. Jüngste Wahlprognosen sehen die AfD in Brandenburg bei 24 Prozent – und damit um 4 Prozent vor der SPD. Das BSW kommt hinter der CDU (19 Prozent) auf 17 Prozent. Man muss kein Politikwissenschaftler sein, um zu erkennen: Es gärt! Es gibt einen gewaltigen Druck im Kessel.

SPD: Gegen die Armen Stimmung machen – aus Hartz IV nichts gelernt

Russia Is Not Our Enemy

By Jacob G. Hornberger

The Future of Freedom Foundation

August 26, 2024

Given the ongoing war between the United States and Russia in Ukraine, it’s natural for Americans to conclude that Russia is our enemy. Not so. Our enemy is instead the U.S. national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — the entity that is responsible for the war in Ukraine and that is destroying our lives, liberties, and well-being here at home.

Our American ancestors would have understood this phenomenon. If the Constitution had called into existence a national-security state form of government, our ancestors would never have accepted it. That would have meant that the United States would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation, a type of governmental structure without a standing army.The Pentagon’s B…Jacobsen, AnnieBest Price: $6.79Buy New $9.99(as of 03:15 UTC — Details)

Our American ancestors loathed standing armies, which was the term they used to describe what we call today a national-security state. They understood that big, permanent military establishments are always the enemies of the citizenry. They understood that standing armies or national-security states end up destroying the lives, liberties, and prosperity of the citizenry.

That’s why the Constitution called into existence a limited-government republic, one whose powers were few and limited and that had only a relatively small, basic army. That’s why America lived without a national-security state for more than 150 years.

Today, things are totally inverted. Americans love the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, which is, in actuality, one great big military-intelligence entity that is divided into three wings. Americans don’t see this enormous permanent entity as their enemy or as a grave threat to their lives, liberties, and well-being, as Americans did at the nation’s founding and for the next 150 years. Today’s Americans see the national-security state as their friend, ally, and protector that keeps them safe from all those scary creatures in the world.

But what today’s Americans don’t realize is that it is their very own national-security state that gins up those scary creatures in order to have Americans view their national-security state as their friend and protector.

Recall what the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA said after the 9/11 attacks — that the terrorists had attacked America out of hatred for our “freedom and values.” But it was lie, and they knew it was a lie. The truth was that the U.S. national-security establishment had ginned up the threat of anti-American terrorism by killing vast numbers of people in Iraq, especially children with the U.S. sanctions, knowing full well the depth of anger and rage the continuous death toll would produce among people in the Middle East.

Then came the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which produced a continuous stream of new official enemies —terrorism, Islam, Muslims, and Sharia law, which many Americans were certain was coming to America. Our nation acquired a new cause — the “war on terrorism,” which replaced the now-outdated “war on communism.” The continuous death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq brought into existence what I called the greatest terrorist-producing machine in history, one that kept the national-security state in high cotton because people were as afraid of the new official enemies as Americans had been of the old official enemies, communism and communists (and Cuba, North Vietnam, Red China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc.)

But the national-security establishment knew that there was a good possibility that its war on terrorism might fizzle out, especially if it was no longer killing vast numbers of people, including children, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thus, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA hedged their bets by slowly but surely reviving Russia as an official enemy. That’s why the national-security establishment used NATO to move eastward by absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact, with the ultimate aim of absorbing Ukraine, which would have enabled the national-security establishment to establish its troops, missiles, and tanks right on Russia’s border.

10-Minute Strength Tra…Deboo PT, EdBest Price: $17.51Buy New $9.29(as of 04:00 UTC — Details)The Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA knew that Russia would invade Ukraine to prevent that from happening. That would enable the U.S. national-security establishment to make Russia an official enemy once again. Equally important, it would enable the national-security establishment to wage war against Russia indirectly, by using U.S.-trained Ukrainian soldiers to fight the war using U.S.-supplied weapons. And with a continuous war against Russia, Americans could be kept agitated and afraid and motivated to continue heaping ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded largess onto the national-security establishment.

It’s worth pointing out that in the process of keeping us “safe” and “secure,” the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA have acquired omnipotent powers, such as assassination, torture, indefinite detention, and secret surveillance, which are exercised not only against foreigners but also against Americans. It’s also worth mentioning that the national-security establishment is one of the critical factors leading America toward national bankruptcy. The federal government’s $35 trillion in debt comes to mind, not to mention the decade-after-decade debasement of the currency.

Ever since the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state, Americans have lived their lives under what amounts to perpetual war for perpetual peace. In the process, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA have made life less safe for the American people while, at the same time, destroyed our liberty and our well-being. With “friends” like that, who needs enemies?

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Copyright © The Future of Freedom Foundation

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/08/jacob-hornberger/russia-is-not-our-enemy/

Crony Capitalism: Everything Has a Price

By Donald Jeffries
«I Protest»

August 26, 2024

When I was a boy, an obese boy when obesity wasn’t cool, I never dreamed that one day we would all know the glory of paying for water. I would bring a thermos with ice water to baseball games. For basketball games, I drank out of the gym’s water fountain. I had no idea what was in that non-purified water.

Fluoride was first added to our water supply in 1945. But that was only in Grand Rapids, Michigan. One of the initial proponents of putting this known poison into our drinking water was Harold Hodge, who was part of the human radiation experiments taking place around the same time. You know, where they injected vulnerable “test subjects” with plutonium and uranium. I guess they anticipated something wonderful happening as a result. The “science” behind putting a deadly toxin in our water was provided by some of the largest corporations in the country; Alcoa, the American Petroleum Institute, Dupont, US Steel, among others. And as we learned during the COVID psyop, it is imperative that we all “trust the science.” If we don’t, then we become a “threat to democracy.”Crony Capitalism in Am…Lewis, HunterBest Price: $2.31Buy New $12.75(as of 10:40 UTC — Details)

Right-wing “extremists” were understandably upset when fluoridated water went nationwide by the early 1960s. Watch the scene in Dr. Strangelove where these sensible folks were not very subtly skewered. But capitalism- our corrupt, noncompetitive form of capitalism- benefited from this poisoning of the water supply. Two supplemental industries were born; the bottled water industry and the individual water filtration industry. Now, to a simple community college dropout like me, who barely passed high school chemistry, it would seem to make more sense to just have giant water filtration systems in every area, to do what Brita pitchers and the like do. And as for paying for bottles of water, there probably wasn’t a citizen on earth in 1960 that would have believed such a thing could ever become a booming business. They might have had little confidence in the collective intelligence of the people, but paying for water?

We now have billionaire “water barons,” which included the late George H.W. Bush, T. Boone Pickens, and familiar capitalist villains like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and the Blackstone Group, buying up water rights all over the world. At the same time, government has implemented tyrannical measures like outlawing the collection of rainwater by individuals. I’m assuming it’s okay for someone like Goldman Sachs to collect rainwater. When he died in 2019, Pickens owned more water rights than anyone in the world. Now this seems decidedly odd; how can someone “own” water? Can they shoot a thirsty homeless person for trying to get a drink of “their” water? How about an animal? That would be more likely to raise the ire of today’s Americans. If they could “buy” the air we breathe, you know they’d do it.

There are other supplemental industries, which exist solely because the cost of almost everything is beyond the means of ordinary people. Look at insurance. All forms of insurance. As Ambrose Bierce noted well over a century ago, the only way to “win” at life insurance is to die as quickly as possible. You’ll score a double indemnity if you can get someone to murder you. At least you’ll leave your blushing bride with an exciting new partner to help her spend all that money. Car insurance? You need that, because any significant repair is going to cost more than the amount of savings that 70 plus percent of the people have to their name. Home insurance? Same thing, but on a larger scale. And if you need another reason not to desire nuclear war, that particular catastrophe isn’t covered under homeowner policies. You can get “fliers” for water damage and the like, but to my knowledge not damage from nuclear war.

And if you defy all the odds, and live to a ripe old age, and avoid hospitals and “healthcare,” then you’ve paid an astronomical amount of both life and health insurance for….nothing. It’s not like they give you a refund because you were such a great customer, permitting them to buy and reap great profits from all that real estate and everything. As for car insurance, if you go decades without an accident, and then one happens because another driver was at fault, you will be very lucky not to have your rates rise. Some might even be cancelled by their insurance provider. When I became a pathfinder in the DWI movement in 1978, I was unable to afford insurance for two years. I had to opt for the uninsured motorist’s fee. It I’d been in an accident, I would have been financially destroyed. Good thing I didn’t know enough to worry. There are some advantages to being a happy-go-lucky partyer.

The most disgusting insurance is healthcare coverage. Of course, needless to say, without it, no one could afford to have cancer or any other debilitating disease. Medicare recipients, on top of paying an increasing monthly fee to get their own money back, which they paid into the system over the course of a working lifetime, also have to buy supplemental health insurance. This is because the Medicare Bernie Sanders is so infatuated with only covers 80 percent of medical costs. 20 percent of any medical bill can be financially devastating. But the oldsters are frightened into purchasing it. Without it, how could they afford the dozen different deadly products of Big Pharma they take daily?Hidden History: An Exp…Donald JeffriesBest Price: $9.86Buy New $14.70(as of 04:30 UTC — Details)

When feminism and the leftist cultural push resulted in most women entering the workforce by the mid-1970s, a new problem arose, for a new supplemental industry to address. Most people were still interested in having kids in those twilight years of America 1.0. What would happen to them when they got off the school bus, and mom wasn’t waiting there for them with a smile as big as June Cleaver’s? She was too busy toiling away in a pointless job that somehow didn’t result in the family having a higher standard of living. How does two incomes not result in a net financial gain? And thus, daycare centers were born. Where the loving parents could entrust hours of daily care to complete strangers. But don’t worry; the “legitimate” ones were certified by the state. Trained and licensed. By the state. It’s not like the state is corrupt.

For those children not old enough to attend government run institutions of indoctrination, you had day long day care. So in some cases, the infant/toddler was spending more time with these well trained “care providers” than his/her own parents. I wonder if they ask the toddlers what their pronouns are in today’s day care centers? Just imagine the purple haired, multi-tattooed “Woke” monstrosities that “provide care” for the children of working parents today. Now anyone with enough money also entrusts the care of their children to strangers. They call them nannies. It’s an upward mobility thing, you wouldn’t understand. In almost every case, the nanny (as opposed to the daycare “provider”) doesn’t speak English. So this serves to ensure that the upper crust will become bilingual. After all, you need to speak Spanish fluently if you’re going to own your own company, and pay the day workers their pittance.

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Copyright © Donald Jeffries

Crony Capitalism: Everything Has a Price

Destroying Villages in Order To Save Them

Sacrificing health, lives, reason, and civilization on the altars of bizarre secular cults.

By John Leake
Courageous Discourse

August 26, 2024

A salient feature of the last decade or so has been the steady rise of bizarre cults with legions of fervent true believers, even though we have virtually zero rational grounds for believing in the central tenets of these secular religions. The weirdest thing about these cults is the way in which their true believers ardently sacrifice the very things they claim they wish to save. Consider the following:

1). COVID-19 illness presents close to ZERO risk to healthy children, but this hasn’t stopped the Vaccine Cult from demanding that children receive the dangerous, experimental shots that are neither effective nor safe. The most spectacular irrational outcome is the high incidence of vaccine-induced myocarditis among young athletes for whom COVID-19 posed zero risk.

2). Wind turbines are extremely inefficient producers of electricity that kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, wreak havoc in the marine environment when they are placed offshore, and ruin the physical beauty of the landscape. Nevertheless, the bizarre Climate Cult insists that wind turbines are a key weapon in our arsenal for reducing carbon emissions, which the Climate Cult fervently believes to be causing a rise in the earth’s temperature. Destroy nature in order to save it!

Economic Science and t…Hans-Hermann HoppeBest Price: $6.92Buy New $8.95(as of 07:00 UTC — Details)3). A human male will obviously have an unfair advantage over a female in almost all competitive sports. And yet, in their fervent proselytization of the bizarre Transgender Cult, votaries have largely succeeded in destroying women’s sports and the dreams of the girls and women who train for them.

4). Importing legions of young men from Arab countries into European countries in which these young men struggle to integrate and find gainful employment has resulted in a marked reduction of public safety in European cities, especially for young women. Yesterday here in Vienna, I had lunch with the former chief of police, who told me that stabbings are indeed much higher in certain districts of Vienna than they ever were in the past. The perpetrators are almost always young males who came to Vienna during the 2015 European migrant crisis.

And yet, the Diversity Cult persists in its bizarre, fetishistic belief that racial diversity per se is necessarily a good thing. Yesterday evening, while pondering the irrationality of the Diversity Cult, I saw the news that a young, foreign-born man stabbed 11 people and killed three at the “Festival of Diversity” that was underway in Solingen, Germany. Diversity will purportedly strengthen and revitalize Germany in the 21st century, even when it results in mass homicide.

5). Already in the year 2015, I began to perceive that the oligarchs who run Ukraine were making a huge mistake by getting into bed with the oligarchs who run the U.S. intelligence agencies, military-industrial complex, and Biden Crime Family. Cozying up with the U.S. military and intel establishment would certainly frighten the Russian Bear and make him aggressive. Far better for the poor people of Ukraine to tone down the nationalism and seek friendly and cooperative relations with Russia.

Note that the exact same reasoning has applied to every country in the Western Hemisphere in their relations with the United States government since President Monroe announced his Monroe Doctrine. As the former Mexican President, Porfirio Diaz once lamented: “Poor Mexico—so far from God, and so close to the United States.”

Imagine if the government of Mexico had, in the year 2014, starting welcoming Russian military and intel agency guys to set up shop in Mexico near the U.S. border. While anyone with a shred of common sense could immediately recognize the folly of this, the bizarre Sacred Territory of Ukraine Cult insists that the poor Ukrainian people fight till the last cartridge is fired instead of negotiating with Russia. Again, destroy Ukraine in order to save it!

I could go on with other examples of “Destroying Villages in Order to Save Them,” but I reckon my readers get the point. At root of these bizarre secular cults seems to be misplaced religious yearning, a desire to feel good about oneself by subscribing to what are marketed as altruistic causes, a paucity of good information, and a lack of critical thinking skill.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

Copyright © Courageous Discourse

Destroying Villages in Order To Save Them

The Problem Isn’t the US Having the Wrong President, the Problem Is the US Empire’s Existence

The reason I find myself fighting with both Harris supporters and Trump supporters is because they see the other party as the problem while I see the US empire itself as the problem.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

The reason I find myself fighting with both Harris supporters and Trump supporters is because they see the other party as the problem while I see the US empire itself as the problem. They seek to make things better by ensuring that the empire is under the correct management, while I seek the end of the empire.

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People say things like “Oh but Kamala Harris speaks so compassionately about the suffering of the Palestinians!”JOHNSTONE April 24: Bi…Foley, Timothy PBest Price: $30.41Buy New $18.00(as of 06:47 UTC — Details)

These dupes had eight years of Obama speaking eloquent, compassionate-sounding words while continuing and expanding all of Bush’s ugliest policies, and they still haven’t learned the lesson here.

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Call me naive but I am truly, legitimately shocked that the Democrats are running on such a warmongering platform instead of pretending to stand for peace this election season. Between the new party platform attacking Trump for not starting a war with Iran, Harris talking about having the “most lethal fighting force in the world” and pledging to protect US interests from “Iran and Iran-backed terrorists”, this is the kind of campaign you’d expect to see from an ultrahawk Republican like Tom Cotton or John Bolton. But those Republican warmongers are not popular enough within their own party to secure its nomination.

I really was not expecting the Democrats to be campaigning like this. Certainly I was expecting them to GOVERN as extreme warmongers like Biden has been, but to sell the American people on it on their actual election platform is really surprising. Usually they put a lot of effort into campaigning as the responsible adults in the room; instead they’re openly going all Dr Strangelove and yeehawing on the bomb. There’s normally a lot more distance between who Democrats are and who they pretend to be.

It’s so wild because they’re just handing Trump another easy “vote for me I’m the peace candidate” campaign like they did when they lost in 2016. All they need to do is lie and say they’ll bring about peace, and instead they’re practically campaigning on starting a war with Iran.

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What an insane, backwards headline. Like the normal expectation is that an American political party will not run a presidential candidate as it has every election since 1996, and the self-evident fact that it will run a candidate is the scandalous news story that needs reporting. https://t.co/H2ZYKp03nU

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 24, 2024

This “Jill Stein needs to drop out” nonsense is so tedious and stupid. Democrats literally JUST saw what happens when your party’s candidate drops out: they’re replaced with another candidate. That’s what would happen if Stein dropped out. If you don’t think third parties should be allowed to exist in America, just say that. Don’t invent some fictional alternate reality universe where Jill Stein emerges out of nowhere every few years to steal votes from Democrats like some villain in a video game and where getting rid of her would get you those votes back.

Stein shows up as a presidential candidate because she’s the most popular candidate in a political party Americans created because they wanted that party to exist. Your argument isn’t with Jill Stein, it’s with Americans who don’t like your shitty imperialist political party. Either convince them that war and injustice are awesome or stop being such murderous tyrants.

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The more you accuse me of supporting Trump for criticizing the sitting administration’s genocidal atrocities and warmongering, the more you demonstrate to me that you have no real values and that you support Democrats for the same reasons you support your favorite sports team.Woke: A Field Guide Fo…Johnstone, CaitlinBest Price: $20.37Buy New $23.02(as of 10:35 UTC — Details)

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When it comes to fomenting leftist revolutionary sentiment, Harris, not Trump, seems like the preferred accelerationist candidate. A lot of young people became politically aware during the Trump years, and therefore thought the Democrats were on their side. It wasn’t until Biden got in and started committing genocide that their eyes were opened to the evils of the Democratic Party. If Trump gets in the Democrats will get to go back to playing the good guys again, while if Harris gets in she appears poised to unleash some major nastiness on the world in front of a bunch of newly emerging leftists who recently had their eyes opened to the murderousness of the empire by what Biden has been doing in Gaza.

I’m not endorsing revolutionary accelerationism here. I’m just saying if you are an accelerationist on the left then that’s probably the direction you’d prefer to see things to go.

❖

I’ve been banned from TikTok for my “Vote For Six-Headed Zombie Hitler To Stop Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler” video about lesser-evil voting. Please follow my new account there.

_______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Copyright © Caitlin Johnstone

The Problem Isn’t the US Having the Wrong President, the Problem Is the US Empire’s Existence

Everyone Hates Fascism Except the Government

By J.B. Shurk
American Thinker

One of the few interesting things about America’s highly choreographed political conventions is the gathering of people outside these events. Supporters and protesters show up to yell at the top of their lungs for days. What kinds of taunts do these opposing groups scream at each other? Remarkably, they accuse each other of similar transgressions. Probably the most common insults being lobbed from each side of the political spectrum are accusations that the other side is full of “fascists,” “Nazis,” and “racists.”

It’s enough to make an observer wonder whether an awkward kumbaya truce could spontaneously break out, in which antagonistic foes raise a curious eyebrow and timidly ask, “You mean, you’re against fascism and racism, too?” before taking off their masks, throwing down their cardboard signs, and apprehensively shaking hands.  Of course, that never happens, so very angry Americans continue to denounce one another in nearly identical terms.War, Christianity, and…Laurence M. VanceBest Price: $8.95Buy New $9.95(as of 09:10 UTC — Details)

The whole thing would be funny if it were not so serious.  And it’s serious because the resulting confusion leaves Americans who might otherwise agree about an awful lot instead reaching for one another’s throats.  The more time they waste fighting, the easier it is for their real enemies to get away with all kinds of mischief without anyone noticing.  Who are their “real enemies”?  Well, regardless of any American’s particular ideological beliefs, those who most affect their lives (outside their families and friends) are almost certainly people with wealth and power — and not the vast majority of their working-class neighbors just trying to earn a living.  Because wealth and power remain in the hands of a small collection of political and financial “elites,” they benefit when citizens with neither wealth nor power choose to attack one another.

Another way to think of this is to ask a simple question: what is the greatest threat to any political system?  Is it the threat of foreign invasion?  Economic depression?  Disease?  Of course not.  It is the possibility that those controlled by the system will overthrow those doing the controlling.  Every government in the world — communist dictatorship, theocratic regime, or so-called constitutional republic — claims to be working for the people.  But when the “elites” of those governments speak behind closed doors, their efforts are directed toward subduing the people.  Governments invest in the illusion that their power is limitless and that the people have no other choice but to obey.  Whenever common people recognize that they are the ones with inherent power, the government’s illusion of control is shattered, the system is upended, and a new era with novel organizing principles arrives.

Seen through this lens, it is easy to understand why governments have a vested interest in stirring up domestic conflict.  A peaceful and well mannered society might engage in respectful debate and start asking serious questions, such as: why should private central banks be allowed to print money and devalue personal savings?  Why should America be financially squeezed by a bunch of multinational corporations that use cheap labor overseas and bully small businesses into bankruptcy here at home?  Why should foreign investment houses own so much land and property in America when fewer Americans than ever before can afford to own a home?  When government authorities use outside companies to censor Americans’ speech and spy on their private activities, do such workarounds really trump the Bill of Rights?  When corporations work hand in glove with government bureaucrats to track and police citizens, hasn’t our system of government transformed into something we would have once recognized as classically fascist?The Anti-Globalist Man…Corsi, Jerome R.Best Price: $26.58Buy New $23.74(as of 04:14 UTC — Details)

These important questions and others might lead common citizens to think more clearly about their government’s priorities before arriving at another uncomfortable question: does the government really represent the people’s interests, or does it represent the interests of its corporate partners?  Such discussions threaten to shatter any government’s well-guarded illusion of control.

The political system can’t have that, so the corporate news media blast out daily reminders that “racism” and “extremism” are the real threats to peace and prosperity.  On television and on social media sites, the message is clear: trust the government but distrust your neighbors.  If everybody is more worried about Donald Trump’s personality or Taylor Swift’s political endorsements, nobody has time to wonder how we’ve reached the point when the federal government’s fiscal burden consumes 93% of America’s total accumulated wealth since its founding or how global debt now exceeds $315 trillion.  The wealthiest and most powerful people in the West take from everyone else and then set society on fire with engineered division and hate.  They are civil arsonists committed to destroying the evidence of all the damage they’ve wrought.

Read the Whole Article

Copyright © American Thinker

Everyone Hates Fascism Except the Government

Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy – But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?

By Brandon Smith

Alt-Market.us

There is perhaps nothing more tiresome and embarrassing as the theatrical pearl clutching of leftist media propaganda. For three years the public had to deal with the incessant drone of media fear mongering over the covid pandemic, an event which turned out to be a nothing-burger that 99.8% of the population on average would easily survive. After the 2020 elections we have been inundated with narratives about how conservatives are a “threat to democracy” – A democracy which progressives don’t even believe in as the recent DNC coup against Joe Biden proves.

The latest evolution of the democracy narrative is that free speech (and probably Russia) is the root evil behind civil unrest in western countries. The notion of thought crime is making its way to the forefront of the establishment tool box and this suggests we are entering the next stage of authoritarianism – Open criminalization of speech.Democracy u2013 The Go…Hans-Hermann HoppeBest Price: $24.77Buy New $37.61(as of 09:25 UTC — Details)

The Guardian in the UK is fully onboard with this development. The media outlet is on the warpath against Elon Musk and X (formerly known as Twitter) after Musk defied European and UK officials and their demands for censorship. In an article titled ‘Inciting Rioters In Britain Was A Test Run For Elon Musk. Just See What He Plans For America’, the platform launches into a tirade of delusional progressive talking points, a word salad designed to distract from the reality that what they are actually calling for is the death of free speech.

The Guardian argues:

“…Back in the golden days of 2020, tech platforms, still reeling from a public backlash, had at least to look as if they gave a shit. Twitter employed 4,000-plus people in “trust and safety”, tasked with getting dangerous content off its platform and sniffing out foreign influence operations.”

“In Britain, the canary has sung. This summer we have witnessed something new and unprecedented. The billionaire owner of a tech platform publicly confronting an elected leader and using his platform to undermine his authority and incite violence. Britain’s 2024 summer riots were Elon Musk’s trial balloon…”

“The presidential election is three months away. What if the billionaire contests the result? What if he decides democracy is overrated…?”

“…What Musk – the new self-appointed Lord of Misrule – has done is to rip off the mask. He’s shown that you don’t even have to pretend to care. In Musk’s world, trust is mistrust and safety is censorship. His goal is chaos. And it’s coming.”

The most important question that The Guardian and their leftist ilk never address is this: If a democracy relies on mass censorship and thought crime policies in order to function, if it relies on “protecting” the public from unfortunate truths, then is it really worth saving?

I and millions of other would argue no – It’s not worth saving. That “democracy” is broken and corrupt and should be wiped from the face of the Earth before it destroys the very culture it claims to protect.

The political left continues to prove it is emotionally stunted and frantic, relying on lies and self-induced terror to drive its base of supporters forward on the path the gatekeepers (globalists) prefer. If you’ve ever tried to reason with a screaming toddler hellbent on getting what it wants, then you know what it’s like trying to reason with leftists.

The hyper-emotion of the left is an easy lever for the elites to manipulate, and it’s not relegated to the US. We’ve seen the same trend in Europe and the UK. There’s an accelerating panic in Britain as the working class public (most of them patriots) protested in large numbers across the nation against open borders. Almost 70% of the UK populace is against current policies on mass immigration, specifically from the third-world. The Brexit vote was based primarily on the UK public’s opposition to the forced mass immigration agenda of the EU.

Yet, the self-described “defenders” of democracy have no interest in the public voice. They only care about majority concerns if those concerns run parallel to their agenda.

This refusal to take public concerns on third-world migrants seriously, combined with the ongoing two-tier policing system which seeks to hide migrant crime statistics, has led directly to the protests and riots we have seen this past month. Let’s be clear: It’s government officials in the UK that are to blame for the violence. They are the culprits.

The same goes for the riots of January 6th, an event which started out peaceful and was then triggered to react violently after Capitol police began shooting the crowd with rubber bullets and throwing tear gas grenades into their midst. You can only poke the bear for so long before the bear wakes up and claws your face off.

Of course, when the bear does attack, play the victim and be sure not to tell anyone how you provoked it. It’s the kind of gaslighting conservatives and patriots have been dealing with for the duration and the latest events in the UK suggest it’s not going to end anytime soon.

The Guardian is, in a way, testing the waters of totalitarianism by moving away from the old-school rationale of the “greater good.” They touch on it briefly, but their core argument here is that the system is sacrosanct no matter how corrupt it might be. Those in power and their policies cannot be criticized or protested because, well, they are the elites and we just have to trust that they know what’s best for us.

If we interfere with them in any way, collapse will befall us and chaos will reign supreme. And we don’t want that, now, do we?

Maybe we do. Maybe it’s time for the system as it stands today to go down. Maybe we should stop allowing the beneficiaries of the two-tiers system to hide behind the thin veneer of democracy. After all, their version of democracy is simply incremental tyranny. They’ve proven this is the end game in the UK (in case anyone had previous doubts).Choosing Easy World: A…Rogers Hamrick, JuliaBest Price: $9.54Buy New $11.40(as of 07:10 UTC — Details)

At bottom, it’s not the job of Big Tech conglomerates or government officials to police public speech. Their positions are entirely predicated on their ability to serve the public interest and this includes ALL of the public, not just progressives. From what I have seen so far, Elon Musk’s defiance is a natural reaction to incompatible government. Musk is a symptom of a greater movement, not the cause.

The gatekeepers want to make it all about one man, or a handful of men. They want you to focus on Musk, or Trump, because they don’t want to admit the truth: That the real threat they want to neutralize is YOU, along with millions of other conservatives and independents. You are the great danger to their agenda.

If a specific political leadership is not able to offer a good argument as to why they should exist, then maybe they shouldn’t. If a system needs to be replaced, then it will be and there’s nothing that progressive hand-wringers and globalists from Davos can do about it. They are not necessary. They are not the future. They are only holding us back.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The Best of Brandon Smith

Brandon Smith [send him mail] is founder of the Alternative Market Project (www.alt-market.com) as well as the head writer and co-founder of Neithercorp Press. He specializes in macroeconomic analysis as well as studies in mainstream media disinformation, and is now focusing on the creation of a national network of barter markets designed to insulate and protect local economies from the inevitable collapse of the current unsustainable fiat system.

Copyright © Alt-Market.us

Media Claims Elon Musk Is A Threat To Democracy – But Is “Democracy” Even Worth Saving?

Kampfjets gegen Libanon. Israel führt mit 100 Bombern »Präventivangriff« aus. Hisbollah reagiert mit Hunderten Raketen auf Militäreinrichtungen – Von Karin Leukefeld (junge Welt)

hier weiterlesen:
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/482306.gazakrieg-kampfjets-gegen-libanon.html

Kampfjets gegen Libanon. Israel führt mit 100 Bombern »Präventivangriff« aus. Hisbollah reagiert mit Hunderten Raketen auf Militäreinrichtungen — Von Karin Leukefeld (junge Welt)

Zur Beteiligung des US-Außenministeriums an der Verhaftung des Telegram-Gründers Pavel Durov in Frankreich

Video ansehen

Der ehemalige Mitarbeiter des Außenministeriums Mike Benz wirft dem US-Außenministerium eine Beteiligung an der Verhaftung des Telegram-Gründers Pavel in Frankreich vor. Er forderte den Ausschuss für auswärtige Beziehungen des US-Repräsentantenhauses auf, die gesamte Korrespondenz zwischen der US-Botschaft in Paris und Staatsanwälten und Regierungsbeamten vor der Festnahme zu beschlagnahmen.

Er glaubt auch, dass wir nicht über die Zerstörung von Telegram sprechen, da es für das Außenministerium selbst sehr wichtig ist, das es im Jahr 2020 aktiv genutzt hat, um Unruhen in Weißrussland zu schüren.

https://matveychev-oleg.livejournal.com/17803012.html