offguardian--2020-07-26--This Week in the Guardian #10

This Week in the Guardian #10

This week The Graun takes aim at rabid anti-vax death cults , “ free speech without consequences ” , and ( surprise surprise ) Russia .
Thank God Sir Keir Starmer is here to save us all .
Every week ( or , rather , most weeks , since the coronavirus torpedoed our schedule ) , we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian , but don ’ t require an entire article of refutation .
We encourage reader-participation here , so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us an e-mail .
A coronavirus vaccine would be a triumph , but the worst human impulses threaten its success Polly Toynbee ’ s minders have let her loose at the gin again , and she ’ s rattled off an incoherent mess of an article which is essentially an effort in curling all the people she doesn ’ t like into one ball and flushing it down the toilet .
She ’ s overjoyed that the government has already committed to buying 90 MILLION doses of a vaccine that might not work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but is afraid some people won ’ t want to use the rushed vaccine to defend themselves against a virus they probably won ’ t get , and will likely do them almost zero harm should they get it .
No , in Polly ’ s ( presumably unfocused and wobbly ) world , these incredibly stupid right-wing , anti-vax , non-masking leave voters are suffering “ brain failure ” and will ruin it for everyone if we let them .
For one thing , it ’ s known that vaccines only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somehow these people who don ’ t vaccinate themselves are putting everyone else in danger .
Meanwhile the mask-wearing , safety-first Remain voters are going to save us all .
If only everyone will listen to the Scientists ( the right scientists obviously , not the wrong scientists ) .
What is the future of the UN in the age of impunity ?
Patrick Wintour is asking the questions we ’ re all too afraid to ask .
Like , “ what if the UN changed so that China and Russia couldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He doesn ’ t phrase it that way , of course , but when he rails against “ the age of impunity ” and the “ debilitating veto ” , he ’ s very much talking about everybody else , not lovely NATO .
This is made more than apparent by the countries he singles out for criticism .
He has cross words for Assad and Putin predictably .
Somehow Venezuela comes in for some flak too , despite not being at war with anyone for decades .
Israel , though , goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yemen , for which neither the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia nor their backers in the Pentagon receive any rebuke .
Afghanistan is not mentioned , nor is the NATO bombing of Libya .
At one point he quotes David Miliband saying : “ [ We ’ re ] living through the age of impunity ” He doesn ’ t mention that David could easily be talking about himself , having voted to invade Iraq , and then voted against any inquiry into that war .
and never suffered any kind consequences for those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article about impunity for war crimes , he doesn ’ t use the word “ Iraq ” once .
Really , nothing more need be said .
Moscow-on-Thames : Soviet-born billionaires and their ties to UK ’ s political elite In this article , Luke Harding lists rich Russians – or rich people who were born in ex-Soviet states – and rattles off how they are connected to the British government and/or the Russian government .
To be clear – he is not accusing any of these people of doing anything illegal whatsoever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his way to say so .
Most of them have done nothing more than attend an event , or give money to a Tory fundraiser , or be photographed with a politician or something equally asinine .
Luke doesn ’ t even critique their politics – both sides are represented , anti-Putin and pro-Putin ( or “ Putin apologists ” to use Luke ’ s totally non-partisan wording ) .
No , they did nothing except be Russian .
Now , did a bunch of Russian billionaires make their money in unethical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days of the 1990s ?
Absolutely yes .
Is this true of most billionaires ?
Most assuredly .
Is it nauseating to watch the global 1 % support each other in keeping a boot on the neck of the working class ?
Incredibly so .
Does their ethnicity have any bearing on this ?
Of course not .
They aren ’ t RUSSIAN billionaires , they are Russian BILLIONAIRES .
That ’ s the problem with this article , it focuses on the wrong word in the name of spreading Russophobic hysteria .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Russians second .
For heaven ’ s sake , many of them have been “ exiled ” from Russia thanks to Putin ’ s radical political ideas , like insisting people pay tax and stop stealing their worker ’ s pensions .
Several now have British citizenship .
If Luke were a journalist he might ask why billionaires prefer to keep their money in the notionally democratic law-abiding UK , and not the allegedly corrupt free-for-all that is Putin ’ s Russia .
But Luke is NOT a journalist , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an increasingly xenophobic one at that ; because this article is straight-up racism .
Listing a bunch of men and women as somehow being potentially dangerous , whilst admitting they have committed no crimes and have nothing in common but their nationality , is the definition of racism .
If you don ’ t see it , it ’ s because in the West we ’ ve been inoculated against anti-Russian racism through constant exposure .
To see just how seedy this article is , simply re-write it in your head replacing each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or “ Soviet-born ” , with the word “ Jewish ” or “ Israeli ” .
Following a week in which Israel and its links to the UK have been in the news , the Guardian has looked into the impact of Jewish-born men and women on recent UK public life .
Super-wealthy businessmen from Israel also control a dizzying array of UK assets spanning football clubs , oil and gas and multimillion-pound mansions .
Their financial clout affords members of this select group considerable influence and access to Britain ’ s professional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is it ?
BONUS – The Magificent Rebrand of One Keir Starmer This isn ’ t about this week , so much as a general shift in tone over the last few months .
Media coverage of Labour has totally changed since Sir Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn .
Nowhere is this clearer than the pages of the Guardian , most especially in their coverage of the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey .
Now , a cynic might see RLB ’ s removal as a contrived mess designed to further dilute the meaning of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even slightly left-leaning frontbencher .
The Guardian , however , saw it as sign of how tough and assertive Starmer is and that Labour are finally moving in the right direction .
We ’ re also told Starmer is beating Johnson in the polls , that the Tories are “ struggling to make Starmer look bad ” , he ’ s the “ grown up in the room ” leading a “ quiet revolution ” .
Most improbably of all , we ’ re told Starmer is Competent , likeable and decisive .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , would not need to be said .
Just as , if a virus is deadly , you don ’ t need to keep telling everyone how deadly it is ; if someone is likeable…you don ’ t need headlines pointing it out .
Sir Keir Starmer is not now , and never has been previously , anybody ’ s idea of likeable or decisive .
He has the voice of a bank manager , the face of a substitute teacher and the charisma of a not especially interesting cucumber .
He is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bugger all .
And it ’ s not a nice suit .
Assuming we ’ re still allowed to vote come the next scheduled election , I would expect Starmer to walk it – heralding a wave of nostalgia for Blair and regret for the “ wasted Corbyn years ” , but I don ’ t expect anything to change , not for the better at least .
All told , a busy week for The Guardian .
And we didn ’ t even cover the totally organic feminist revolution looking to topple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Facebook is going to control the world through “ algorithmically amplified “ free speech ” with no consequences ” .
Did we miss anything ?
Tell us about it in the comments below , and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue .

This week The Graun takes aim at rabid anti-vax death cults, “free speech without consequences”, and (surprise surprise) Russia. Thank God Sir Keir Starmer is here to save us all.
Every week (or, rather, most weeks, since the coronavirus torpedoed our schedule), we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian, but don’t require an entire article of refutation.
We encourage reader-participation here, so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below, or send us an e-mail.
Polly Toynbee’s minders have let her loose at the gin again, and she’s rattled off an incoherent mess of an article which is essentially an effort in curling all the people she doesn’t like into one ball and flushing it down the toilet.
She’s overjoyed that the government has already committed to buying 90 MILLION doses of a vaccine that might not work and hasn’t been safety tested, but is afraid some people won’t want to use the rushed vaccine to defend themselves against a virus they probably won’t get, and will likely do them almost zero harm should they get it.
No, in Polly’s (presumably unfocused and wobbly) world, these incredibly stupid right-wing, anti-vax, non-masking leave voters are suffering “brain failure” and will ruin it for everyone if we let them. For one thing, it’s known that vaccines only work if everyone takes them, so somehow these people who don’t vaccinate themselves are putting everyone else in danger.
Meanwhile the mask-wearing, safety-first Remain voters are going to save us all. If only everyone will listen to the Scientists (the right scientists obviously, not the wrong scientists).
Patrick Wintour is asking the questions we’re all too afraid to ask. Like, “what if the UN changed so that China and Russia couldn’t hold back Western Imperialism?”
He doesn’t phrase it that way, of course, but when he rails against “the age of impunity” and the “debilitating veto”, he’s very much talking about everybody else, not lovely NATO. This is made more than apparent by the countries he singles out for criticism.
He has cross words for Assad and Putin predictably. Somehow Venezuela comes in for some flak too, despite not being at war with anyone for decades.
Israel, though, goes un-named. As does the war in Yemen, for which neither the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia nor their backers in the Pentagon receive any rebuke. Afghanistan is not mentioned, nor is the NATO bombing of Libya.
At one point he quotes David Miliband saying: “[We’re] living through the age of impunity”
He doesn’t mention that David could easily be talking about himself, having voted to invade Iraq, and then voted against any inquiry into that war. and never suffered any kind consequences for those crimes.
In fact, in an article about impunity for war crimes, he doesn’t use the word “Iraq” once.
Really, nothing more need be said.
In this article, Luke Harding lists rich Russians – or rich people who were born in ex-Soviet states – and rattles off how they are connected to the British government and/or the Russian government.
To be clear – he is not accusing any of these people of doing anything illegal whatsoever, at one point he goes out of his way to say so. Most of them have done nothing more than attend an event, or give money to a Tory fundraiser, or be photographed with a politician or something equally asinine.
Luke doesn’t even critique their politics – both sides are represented, anti-Putin and pro-Putin (or “Putin apologists” to use Luke’s totally non-partisan wording). No, they did nothing except be Russian.
Now, did a bunch of Russian billionaires make their money in unethical and borderline evil ways during the dark days of the 1990s? Absolutely yes. Is this true of most billionaires? Most assuredly. Is it nauseating to watch the global 1% support each other in keeping a boot on the neck of the working class? Incredibly so.
Does their ethnicity have any bearing on this? Of course not.
They aren’t RUSSIAN billionaires, they are Russian BILLIONAIRES. That’s the problem with this article, it focuses on the wrong word in the name of spreading Russophobic hysteria.
These people are very much billionaires first, and Russians second. For heaven’s sake, many of them have been “exiled” from Russia thanks to Putin’s radical political ideas, like insisting people pay tax and stop stealing their worker’s pensions. Several now have British citizenship.
If Luke were a journalist he might ask why billionaires prefer to keep their money in the notionally democratic law-abiding UK, and not the allegedly corrupt free-for-all that is Putin’s Russia.
But Luke is NOT a journalist, he’s an MI5-backed paranoid personality and an increasingly xenophobic one at that; because this article is straight-up racism.
Listing a bunch of men and women as somehow being potentially dangerous, whilst admitting they have committed no crimes and have nothing in common but their nationality, is the definition of racism.
If you don’t see it, it’s because in the West we’ve been inoculated against anti-Russian racism through constant exposure.
To see just how seedy this article is, simply re-write it in your head replacing each use of the word “Russian” or “Soviet-born”, with the word “Jewish” or “Israeli”.
Such as:
Following a week in which Israel and its links to the UK have been in the news, the Guardian has looked into the impact of Jewish-born men and women on recent UK public life.
Or:
Super-wealthy businessmen from Israel also control a dizzying array of UK assets spanning football clubs, oil and gas and multimillion-pound mansions. Their financial clout affords members of this select group considerable influence and access to Britain’s professional and ruling classes.
Yeah.
Not pretty, is it?
BONUS – The Magificent Rebrand of One Keir Starmer
This isn’t about this week, so much as a general shift in tone over the last few months. Media coverage of Labour has totally changed since Sir Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn. Nowhere is this clearer than the pages of the Guardian, most especially in their coverage of the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Now, a cynic might see RLB’s removal as a contrived mess designed to further dilute the meaning of “antisemitism” and cast-out the last even slightly left-leaning frontbencher.
The Guardian, however, saw it as sign of how tough and assertive Starmer is and that Labour are finally moving in the right direction.
We’re also told Starmer is beating Johnson in the polls, that the Tories are “struggling to make Starmer look bad”, he’s the “grown up in the room” leading a “quiet revolution”.
Most improbably of all, we’re told Starmer is Competent, likeable and decisive. All of which, were it true, would not need to be said. Just as, if a virus is deadly, you don’t need to keep telling everyone how deadly it is; if someone is likeable…you don’t need headlines pointing it out.
Sir Keir Starmer is not now, and never has been previously, anybody’s idea of likeable or decisive. He has the voice of a bank manager, the face of a substitute teacher and the charisma of a not especially interesting cucumber. He is a nonentity. A suit full of bugger all. And it’s not a nice suit.
Assuming we’re still allowed to vote come the next scheduled election, I would expect Starmer to walk it – heralding a wave of nostalgia for Blair and regret for the “wasted Corbyn years”, but I don’t expect anything to change, not for the better at least.
* * *
All told, a busy week for The Guardian. And we didn’t even cover the totally organic feminist revolution looking to topple the President of Belarus, or how Facebook is going to control the world through “algorithmically amplified “free speech” with no consequences”.
Did we miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments below, and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue.


offguardian--2020-07-26--Three New Reads – July

Three New Reads – July

I won ’ t beat about the bush .
The West is inhabited by two groups : those who know that we are ruled by sociopaths , by the criminally insane [ 1 ] ; and that much larger group which , taking at face value the surface forms of democracy informed by independent media , either can not or will not accept this admittedly frightening truth .
This second group , seemingly unaware of how extreme our assiduously normalised world order is , deems the first a melting pot of extremism .
Such a view has advantages for those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to listen to , far less engage with , a word that first group says .
Not even when a dozen men own half the world while scores of millions die in directly related destitution .
Not even when profits and ‘ growth ’ demand an unsustainable consumerism which pushes planet earth to the limits of its capacity to support advanced life .
Not even when – just this January , to the backdrop of a barrage of demonisation by all mainstream Western media of China and Russia – the Doomsday Clock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Within each group we find endless internecine hostility .
Those who know the world to be run by gangsters with a monopoly on both state violence and , beneath a chimera of media pluralism , the manufacture of opinion may be marxists , anarchists , or on the far right .
[ 2 ] Not that my list is exhaustive , or of sufficient granularity .
Each division is host to a plethora of further divisions , the bitterness of their feuds rising in inverse ratio to the ideological distance between them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule , the common thread binding my July reads .
All document their cynicism : in this case a Venezuela ‘ opposition ’ made in America .
Or the cynicism of those who do their bidding : in this case the US presence in Afghanistan , and a British Labour Party “ under new management ” as Keith Starmer , beneficiary of the dirtiest war ever waged on an incumbent leader , loftily informed his Punch & Judy opposite number , Boris Johnson , this week .
And this concludes my preamble to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With the shortest of them close to 6,000 words , you ’ ll need to set aside a little more time than I usually ask .
This Grayzone piece by Ben Norton also featured in CounterPunch .
Taking a detailed look at the ‘ career ’ of heiress Vanessa Neumann , it begins as it means to go on : Since the United States initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela ’ s elected , internationally recognized government in January 2019 , the gang of far-right opposition activists the Donald Trump administration recognized as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racked up a series of embarrassing scandals .
Top aides of the US-appointed “ interim president , ” Juan Guaidó , blew hundreds of thousands of dollars of humanitarian aid money on luxury hotels , swanky clothes , and wild parties in Colombia .
Violent pro-Guaidó coup-mongers then burnt USAID trucks in a failed putsch on the Venezuelan border , while falsely blaming the fire on the actual president in Caracas , Nicolás Maduro .
Guaidó ’ s coup gang subsequently set the stage for North American corporations to liquidate Venezuela ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And in another bizarre PR stunt , Guaidó even tried to scale the fence outside of Venezuela ’ s National Assembly , after refusing to pass through the main entrance .
Nearly 18 months into the failed coup attempt , the scandals keep coming .
This July , the representative that the Venezuelan coup regime appointed to the United Kingdom , Vanessa Neumann , threatened several American and British journalists who criticized her on social media .
Neumann ’ s corporate consulting firm claimed to have reported these journalists to the FBI , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scintilla of evidence of being “ part of an indicted transnational criminal network with a price on your head.
” These threats came just after Neumann ’ s official Twitter account declared , “ Death to Nicolás Maduro.
” Neumann subsequently claimed her profile was hacked , while intimidating the journalists who reported on her incendiary tweet .
How a deranged right-wing fanatic ended up as the person the British Government recognizes as Venezuela ’ s official representative deserves some investigation .
Indeed it does and , while I stripped this excerpt of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precisely what Norton delivers .
Keep a sick bag close at hand .
“ I Could Live with That ” … CIA Made Afghanistan Safe for the Opium Trade ( 7,165 words ) The first image of war in Afghanistan for many Americans was of CBS anchorman Dan Rather , wrapped in the voluminous drapery of a mujahedin fighter , looking like a healthy relative of Lawrence of Arabia .
From his secret mountainside “ somewhere in the Hindu Kush , ” Rather unloaded on his audience a barrowload of nonsense .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put a bounty on his head “ of many thousands of dollars … the best compliment they could have given me .
And a small price to pay for the truths we told about Afghanistan.
” Every one of these observations turned out to be false .
Rather described the government of Hafizullah Amin as a “ Moscow-installed puppet regime in Kabul.
” But Amin had closer ties to the CIA than the KGB .
Rather called the mujahedin “ Afghan freedom fighters … in a patriotic fight for home and hearth.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in any sense Rather would have been comfortable with , but to impose one of the most repressive brands of Islamic fundamentalism known to the world , barbarous , ignorant and notably cruel to women .
It was a “ fact , ” Rather announced , that the Soviets had used chemical weapons against Afghan villagers … [ and ] that the mujahedin were severely underequipped , doing their best with Kalashnikov rifles taken from dead Soviet soldiers .
In fact the mujahedin were well-equipped recipients of CIA-furnished weapons in the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mounted .
They did carry Soviet weapons , but they came courtesy of the CIA .
Rather also showed news footage he claimed was of Soviet bombers strafing defenseless Afghan villages .
This was staged , with the “ Soviet bomber ” actually a Pakistani air force plane on a training mission over northwest Pakistan .
CBS claimed to have discovered in Soviet-bombed areas stuffed animals filled with Soviet explosives , designed to blow Afghan children to bits .
[ 3 ] These booby-trapped toys had in fact been manufactured by the mujahedin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News , as an entertaining article in the New York Post later made clear .
Rather made his heroically filmed way to Yunas Khalis , described as the leader of the Afghan warriors .
In tones of awe he normally reserves for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico , Rather recalls in his book , The Camera Never Blinks Twice , “ Belief in ‘ right ’ makes ‘ might ’ may have been fading in other parts of the world .
In Afghanistan it was alive and well , and beating the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with his troops fondly boasting of their slaughter of 700 prisoners of war .
He spent most of his time fighting , but the wars were not primarily with the Soviets .
Instead , Khalis battled other Afghan rebel groups , the object of the conflicts being control of poppy fields and the roads and trails from them to his seven heroin labs near his headquarters in the town of Ribat al Ali .
Sixty percent of Afghanistan ’ s opium crop was cultivated in the Helmand Valley , with an irrigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St Clair is long , but every word more than carries its weight .
With forensic eloquence it punctures the self serving myths not only of the US as a force for good in Afghanistan , but of the brazen hypocrisy of two other highly fan-fared wars : the so-called War on Terror , and the so-called War on Drugs .
Corbyn ’ s Opponents Burned the House Down … Starmer Is King of the Ashes ( 6,640 words ) Two news items came to my attention this week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has authorised a £370k ( Telegraph ) or £500k ( Daily Mail ) pay-out to the party ’ s “ antisemitism whistle-blowers ” , the other that Jeremy Corbyn faces legal action after criticising those pay-outs .
With regard to the first , this piece from the Jacobin notes that : With regard to the second news item , the British establishment – in tandem with right wing and liberal media , an alarmingly powerful Israel lobby , and a Labour Right which again and again has shown a preference for electoral defeat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] – is not content with having crushed the hopes that Corbyn briefly but gloriously inspired… .
…no , that unholy alliance is bent on humiliating a man by several orders of magnitude – and I say this as one with serious criticisms of Left reformism – their moral superior .
The message to anyone minded to launch any attempt at reviving “ Corbynism ” rings loud and clear .
We will not only defeat you , but grind you into the dust beneath our feet .
Let ’ s not forget though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s defeat were those who sat beside him on the benches of Her Majesty ’ s Opposition .
Which is what this Jacobin piece from Daniel Finn is about .
I don ’ t agree with all he says .
In my view he ’ s too soft on any number of actors – Long-Bailey , Lansman , Becket ( Andy not Margaret ) and Thornberry for starters .
And too addicted to laboured ( ! )
metaphors he doesn ’ t quite pull off .
But such carps aside , this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have thought the Labour Right – and we did get glimpses through the foul mouthed slanders of John Mann and Margaret Hodge – Finn shows it to be worse .
And he has the smoking guns to prove it .
[ 1 ] I don ’ t mean to imply our rulers are all twenty-four carat , frothing at the mouth loony tunes .
Indeed , they may be charming , passionate about improving the lot of the poor , devoted parents and all round good eggs .
It ’ s just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who act on their behalf – make are driven by an insane and life negating imperative .
I speak of the pursuit of profits which , however vehemently this class may protest to the contrary , trumps all other considerations ; all those things that sane people hold dear .
I don ’ t say our rulers don ’ t care about the environment , peace , the eradication of dire poverty etc etc .
I say that actions speak louder than words and the choices our rulers make are overridingly driven by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remorseless logic of capital accumulation : a logic of which they – and the theoretically bereft economists ultimately in their pay – are and always have been in deepest denial .
[ 2 ] I ’ ve just finished watching for the third time the BBC drama series , Peaky Blinders .
Its plotting is preposterous , its messages amoral and ultimately reactionary .
But it ’ s also stylish , sumptuously shot , convincingly acted and houses both splendid dialogue and magnificent villains .
And it locates itself in an explosive period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Series 5 is Sir Oswald Mosley , in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929 , and I was struck by how similar Mosley ’ s message of a global takeover by “ Jews and financiers ” is to that now put out by those who locate a world rocked by crises not in the logic of capital but in the shady doings of rentiers and gamblers – as if these were some disconnected aberration from ‘ good ’ , ‘ normal ’ , ‘ healthy ’ capitalism .
[ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soviet explosives , designed to blow Afghan children to bits … ” As with Assad gassing kids , the week a UN inspection team is set to visit the area , no rationale is needed .
As I say in a footnote to a recent post , such allegations “ bypass rationality to tap into our orientalist receptivity to tales of evil-for-evil ’ s-sake barbarity , be the alleged perp an Assad or a Putin.
” Jeffrey St Clair ’ s piece reminds us that such crude but – since they draw on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only dimly aware of them – effective lies have a long history .
On the Labour Right ’ s historic preference for electoral defeat over Left led victory , two examples suffice ( a third is given in the Jacobin piece ) .
One is from the 1987 general election when Labour ’ s Frank Field , in Birkenhead , urged neighbouring Wallasey to vote Tory against left Labour candidate Lol Duffy .
( Tory Lynda Chalker scraped back in by 279 votes . )
The other is from election night 2019 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delight as the disastrous exit polls came in .
Belatedly realising she ’ d been caught on camera , she adopted a suitably sorrowful look .
For the full archive of Three New Reads , click here .

Philip Roddis
I won’t beat about the bush. The West is inhabited by two groups: those who know that we are ruled by sociopaths, by the criminally insane[1]; and that much larger group which, taking at face value the surface forms of democracy informed by independent media, either cannot or will not accept this admittedly frightening truth.
This second group, seemingly unaware of how extreme our assiduously normalised world order is, deems the first a melting pot of extremism. Such a view has advantages for those who value a quiet life. No need to listen to, far less engage with, a word that first group says.
Not even when a dozen men own half the world while scores of millions die in directly related destitution. Not even when profits and ‘growth’ demand an unsustainable consumerism which pushes planet earth to the limits of its capacity to support advanced life. Not even when – just this January, to the backdrop of a barrage of demonisation by all mainstream Western media of China and Russia – the Doomsday Clock advanced to one hundred seconds to midnight.
Within each group we find endless internecine hostility. Those who know the world to be run by gangsters with a monopoly on both state violence and, beneath a chimera of media pluralism, the manufacture of opinion may be marxists, anarchists, or on the far right.[2] Not that my list is exhaustive, or of sufficient granularity. Each division is host to a plethora of further divisions, the bitterness of their feuds rising in inverse ratio to the ideological distance between them.
(This is what Freud meant by “the narcissism of tiny differences”. And what Life of Brian was getting at in that Judean People’s Front scene. Our pull toward schism reflects in part the ego’s drive to locate itself in difference. In part it reflects capital’s tendency – insightfully observed, I’m told, by the late psychologist, David Smail – to strip us of our collective nature and leave us atomised and alienated, individuated and impotent.)
But back to the gangsters who rule, the common thread binding my July reads. All document their cynicism: in this case a Venezuela ‘opposition’ made in America. Or the cynicism of those who do their bidding: in this case the US presence in Afghanistan, and a British Labour Party “under new management” as Keith Starmer, beneficiary of the dirtiest war ever waged on an incumbent leader, loftily informed his Punch & Judy opposite number, Boris Johnson, this week.
(Starmer’s point being that Johnson needn’t delude himself into thinking this Newest of New Labour will be “soft on Russia” – nor for that matter a sanctuary for critics of the lawless and apartheid state which is Israel.)
And this concludes my preamble to this month’s three reads. With the shortest of them close to 6,000 words, you’ll need to set aside a little more time than I usually ask.
*
This Grayzone piece by Ben Norton also featured in CounterPunch. Taking a detailed look at the ‘career’ of heiress Vanessa Neumann, it begins as it means to go on:
Since the United States initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela’s elected, internationally recognized government in January 2019, the gang of far-right opposition activists the Donald Trump administration recognized as the country’s unelected representatives have racked up a series of embarrassing scandals. Top aides of the US-appointed “interim president,” Juan Guaidó, blew hundreds of thousands of dollars of humanitarian aid money on luxury hotels, swanky clothes, and wild parties in Colombia. Violent pro-Guaidó coup-mongers then burnt USAID trucks in a failed putsch on the Venezuelan border, while falsely blaming the fire on the actual president in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó’s coup gang subsequently set the stage for North American corporations to liquidate Venezuela’s most valuable foreign asset, Citgo. And in another bizarre PR stunt, Guaidó even tried to scale the fence outside of Venezuela’s National Assembly, after refusing to pass through the main entrance. Nearly 18 months into the failed coup attempt, the scandals keep coming. This July, the representative that the Venezuelan coup regime appointed to the United Kingdom, Vanessa Neumann, threatened several American and British journalists who criticized her on social media. Neumann’s corporate consulting firm claimed to have reported these journalists to the FBI, and even baselessly accused them without a scintilla of evidence of being “part of an indicted transnational criminal network with a price on your head.” These threats came just after Neumann’s official Twitter account declared, “Death to Nicolás Maduro.” Neumann subsequently claimed her profile was hacked, while intimidating the journalists who reported on her incendiary tweet. How a deranged right-wing fanatic ended up as the person the British Government recognizes as Venezuela’s official representative deserves some investigation.
Indeed it does and, while I stripped this excerpt of its many substantiating links, investigation is precisely what Norton delivers. Keep a sick bag close at hand.
*
The first image of war in Afghanistan for many Americans was of CBS anchorman Dan Rather, wrapped in the voluminous drapery of a mujahedin fighter, looking like a healthy relative of Lawrence of Arabia. From his secret mountainside “somewhere in the Hindu Kush,” Rather unloaded on his audience a barrowload of nonsense. The Soviets, he confided portentously, had put a bounty on his head “of many thousands of dollars … the best compliment they could have given me. And a small price to pay for the truths we told about Afghanistan.” Every one of these observations turned out to be false. Rather described the government of Hafizullah Amin as a “Moscow-installed puppet regime in Kabul.” But Amin had closer ties to the CIA than the KGB. Rather called the mujahedin “Afghan freedom fighters … in a patriotic fight for home and hearth.” The mujahedin were scarcely fighting for freedom, in any sense Rather would have been comfortable with, but to impose one of the most repressive brands of Islamic fundamentalism known to the world, barbarous, ignorant and notably cruel to women. It was a “fact,” Rather announced, that the Soviets had used chemical weapons against Afghan villagers … [and] that the mujahedin were severely underequipped, doing their best with Kalashnikov rifles taken from dead Soviet soldiers. In fact the mujahedin were well-equipped recipients of CIA-furnished weapons in the most expensive covert war the Agency had ever mounted. They did carry Soviet weapons, but they came courtesy of the CIA. Rather also showed news footage he claimed was of Soviet bombers strafing defenseless Afghan villages. This was staged, with the “Soviet bomber” actually a Pakistani air force plane on a training mission over northwest Pakistan. CBS claimed to have discovered in Soviet-bombed areas stuffed animals filled with Soviet explosives, designed to blow Afghan children to bits.[3] These booby-trapped toys had in fact been manufactured by the mujahedin for the exclusive purpose of gulling CBS News, as an entertaining article in the New York Post later made clear. Rather made his heroically filmed way to Yunas Khalis, described as the leader of the Afghan warriors. In tones of awe he normally reserves for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, Rather recalls in his book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice, “Belief in ‘right’ makes ‘might’ may have been fading in other parts of the world. In Afghanistan it was alive and well, and beating the Soviets.” Khalis was a ruthless butcher, with his troops fondly boasting of their slaughter of 700 prisoners of war. He spent most of his time fighting, but the wars were not primarily with the Soviets. Instead, Khalis battled other Afghan rebel groups, the object of the conflicts being control of poppy fields and the roads and trails from them to his seven heroin labs near his headquarters in the town of Ribat al Ali. Sixty percent of Afghanistan’s opium crop was cultivated in the Helmand Valley, with an irrigation infrastructure underwritten by USAID.
This piece from CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St Clair is long, but every word more than carries its weight. With forensic eloquence it punctures the self serving myths not only of the US as a force for good in Afghanistan, but of the brazen hypocrisy of two other highly fan-fared wars: the so-called War on Terror, and the so-called War on Drugs.
*
Two news items came to my attention this week. One is that Sir Keith Starmer has authorised a £370k (Telegraph) or £500k (Daily Mail) pay-out to the party’s “antisemitism whistle-blowers”, the other that Jeremy Corbyn faces legal action after criticising those pay-outs.
With regard to the first, this piece from the Jacobin notes that:
It is objectively impossible for anyone to believe that the Labour Party merits investigation for racism, yet the Tories do not. Instead of defending the rights of ethnic minorities, the EHRC is functioning as a protective shield for racism in high places. Disgraceful as this may be, it’s not difficult to understand why it should be the case. The EHRC does not exist in a vacuum. Most of Britain’s media outlets support the Conservative Party, and even the ones that don’t were bitterly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. If the EHRC announced an investigation into the Tories, it would be setting itself up for relentless flak from the Tory press. It faced no such backlash when it put Labour in the spotlight.
With regard to the second news item, the British establishment – in tandem with right wing and liberal media, an alarmingly powerful Israel lobby, and a Labour Right which again and again has shown a preference for electoral defeat over a Left Labour Government[4] – is not content with having crushed the hopes that Corbyn briefly but gloriously inspired….
(The unprecedented surge in Labour membership speaks eloquently to those hopes but I don’t suppose Team Starmer will be unduly put out by a now inevitable dwindling party membership. “You can’t make an omelette”, I hear them say, “without cracking eggs”.)
…no, that unholy alliance is bent on humiliating a man by several orders of magnitude – and I say this as one with serious criticisms of Left reformism – their moral superior. The message to anyone minded to launch any attempt at reviving “Corbynism” rings loud and clear. We will not only defeat you, but grind you into the dust beneath our feet.
Let’s not forget though that the prime agents of Corbyn’s defeat were those who sat beside him on the benches of Her Majesty’s Opposition. Which is what this Jacobin piece from Daniel Finn is about. I don’t agree with all he says. In my view he’s too soft on any number of actors – Long-Bailey, Lansman, Becket (Andy not Margaret) and Thornberry for starters. And too addicted to laboured (!) metaphors he doesn’t quite pull off. But such carps aside, this is an edge-of-seat read. However nasty you may have thought the Labour Right – and we did get glimpses through the foul mouthed slanders of John Mann and Margaret Hodge – Finn shows it to be worse.
And he has the smoking guns to prove it.
* * *
[1] I don’t mean to imply our rulers are all twenty-four carat, frothing at the mouth loony tunes. Indeed, they may be charming, passionate about improving the lot of the poor, devoted parents and all round good eggs. It’s just that the decisions they – or those who act on their behalf – make are driven by an insane and life negating imperative. I speak of the pursuit of profits which, however vehemently this class may protest to the contrary, trumps all other considerations; all those things that sane people hold dear. I don’t say our rulers don’t care about the environment, peace, the eradication of dire poverty etc etc. I say that actions speak louder than words and the choices our rulers make are overridingly driven by none of these things but by the remorseless logic of capital accumulation: a logic of which they – and the theoretically bereft economists ultimately in their pay – are and always have been in deepest denial. [2] I’ve just finished watching for the third time the BBC drama series, Peaky Blinders. Its plotting is preposterous, its messages amoral and ultimately reactionary. But it’s also stylish, sumptuously shot, convincingly acted and houses both splendid dialogue and magnificent villains. And it locates itself in an explosive period of British history. The arch cad of Series 5 is Sir Oswald Mosley, in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929, and I was struck by how similar Mosley’s message of a global takeover by “Jews and financiers” is to that now put out by those who locate a world rocked by crises not in the logic of capital but in the shady doings of rentiers and gamblers – as if these were some disconnected aberration from ‘good’, ‘normal’, ‘healthy’ capitalism. [3] “Stuffed animals filled with Soviet explosives, designed to blow Afghan children to bits …” As with Assad gassing kids, the week a UN inspection team is set to visit the area, no rationale is needed. As I say in a footnote to a recent post, such allegations “bypass rationality to tap into our orientalist receptivity to tales of evil-for-evil’s-sake barbarity, be the alleged perp an Assad or a Putin.” Jeffrey St Clair’s piece reminds us that such crude but – since they draw on wells of prejudice so deep we are only dimly aware of them – effective lies have a long history. On the Labour Right’s historic preference for electoral defeat over Left led victory, two examples suffice (a third is given in the Jacobin piece). One is from the 1987 general election when Labour’s Frank Field, in Birkenhead, urged neighbouring Wallasey to vote Tory against left Labour candidate Lol Duffy. (Tory Lynda Chalker scraped back in by 279 votes.) The other is from election night 2019, when Jess Phillips was caught smirking with delight as the disastrous exit polls came in. Belatedly realising she’d been caught on camera, she adopted a suitably sorrowful look. (NB I wrote a post on this, with a link to the damning video. It’s been taken down. Do I suspect YouTube censorship? Damn right I do – and it’s getting worse. The same thing happened with leading epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski, who’d been critical of what he saw as an overstatement of Covid-19’s threat, and the lockdown response. Whatever our views on the specifics of Wittkowski’s message, we should all be worried. As our rulers’ grip on opinion manufacture through mainstream media loosens, the battle to rein in social media is intensifying.)
For the full archive of Three New Reads, click here.


offguardian--2020-07-25--“Honey, I Shrunk the People’s Constitutional Rights!”

Chris Weisdorf was penalized for parking improperly in December 2017 and he decided to fight the fine .
But he slammed up against legal structures that give virtually unchecked power to untold numbers of administrators around the world who oversee and enforce everything from parking regulations to public-health edicts .
The parking-ticket system in Toronto , Ontario — where Weisdorf had committed his offense – had been replaced with an Administrative Penalty System ( APS ) .
The bylaw creating APS was billed as streamlining the court system .
After very little public consultation and notice it was approved overwhelmingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( there appears to no longer be a record online of the council vote ) .
The bylaw contains Orwellian redefinitions designed to wriggle traffic- and parking-law violations out of the category of what the Supreme Court of Canada views as criminal offenses and into the administrative category — and along with that , defendants out of the purview of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms , which is the core of the Canadian constitution .
The bylaw ’ s redefinitions include calling offenses ‘ infractions , ’ defendants ‘ customers ’ and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And in what Weisdorf calls “ a legal oxymoron for the ages , ” monetary penalties are deemed to be ‘ not punitive.
’ Another aspect of Toronto ’ s APS is that court hearings have been eliminated .
In their place are Administrative Penalty Tribunal hearings .
There , defendants essentially are seen as guilty unless they can prove themselves to be innocent .
Moreover , tribunal officials aren ’ t required to have legal training .
And the city staff who issue parking penalties aren ’ t obligated to attend hearings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , none have ever shown up .
This yields the double whammy of the waiving of defendants ’ constitutional rights to fully air their side of events in hearings and to cross-examine the people who accused them of the offenses .
Aghast at all this , Weisdorf undertook a constitutional challenge of Toronto ’ s APS .
He isn ’ t a lawyer ( he works in the financial industry ) and couldn ’ t find one to represent him .
So he argued his case himself , first at a Superior Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appealed the decision and had a virtual hearing on June 16 , 2020 , before the highest court in Ontario , the Court of Appeal .
The three-judge panel unanimously ruled against Weisdorf on June 22 , 2020 , deeming Toronto ’ s APS and the accompanying waiving of defendants ’ constitutional rights to be perfectly legal .
( All the materials for the case are here .
Most of Weisdorf ’ s documents are on the main page ; click the ‘ Case Law ’ and ‘ City ’ tabs to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Toronto ’ s materials . )
Kirkor Apel , a criminal , civil and family lawyer in the Toronto area who has read Weisdorf ’ s legal arguments , said his case is solid .
“ He fought well and he argued well .
It ’ s just that sometimes Goliath wins , ” Apel said in a telephone interview with this journalist .
“ And the problem is it ’ s a slippery slope , because five years from now , or fifty years from now , the next step is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say , ‘ Why don ’ t we waive the right to a trial [ for other offenses ] ?
Or [ even waive ] the right to a hearing ?
’ ” Toronto first attempted to put the APS in place in 2015 , but a group of paralegals stopped it .
John Papadakis , who was a member of that group , explained in an April 2015 interview with the Toronto Star the profound changes inherent in the APS .
He used as an illustrative example someone driving through an amber @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer and fined for running a red .
“ Currently , you have the right to challenge the officer ’ s evidence , to obtain that evidence , to go before an impartial judge in a court , ” the Toronto Star article quoted Papadakis as saying .
“ [ But if the APS is implemented then y ] ou are no longer innocent until proven guilty as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms… .
You will go before a municipal employee [ at a tribunal hearing ] , who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city receives revenue from fines levied under the APS ] .
[ And ] you will make your argument not on your innocence or guilt ; you will make your argument on how much penalty you will pay , because [ under the APS ] you are already guilty.
” But in July 2017 the city of Toronto was able to push forward with the implementation of its APS .
Weisdorf challenged it and lost .
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of people , administrative penalty systems are commonplace in North America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are civil-asset-forfeiture regimes .
And they ’ re all overseen by the executive branch of power , which now has more muscle than the legislative and judicial branches .
As the coup de grace , under the cover of COVID-19 this administrative creep has reached warp speed , with the legislative and judicial branches bowing before it .
And shredding billions of peoples ’ constitutional and civil rights in the process .
Today , public-health officials ’ edicts ranging from social distancing to self-isolation are virtually unassailable , no matter the economy- and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not forget the vast numbers of contact tracers and quarantine-enforcers , another cadre of administrators who appear legally untouchable .
Just one example of their new power is the legal challenge by a San Diego church of California governor Gavin Newsom ’ s order temporarily stopping in-person church services .
The US Supreme Court ’ s chilling six-page decision in this case , which hinged on asymptomatic transmission , is a must-read .
Weisdorf observed in an interview with the author : Another chilling read is the UK Supreme Court ’ s 2012 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ UK officials to arrest and extradite Julian Assange .
The court determined that the Swedish prosecutor who issued the European Arrest Warrant for Assange fit the European Union ’ s interpretation of a ‘ judicial authority ’ who is allowed to issue such a warrant .
Thus it consented to a single individual from another country being not merely a prosecutor , but also essentially a judge over a UK resident ( Assange ) .
“ This type of thinking pervades the legal realm even more today .
And many people in government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of expanding administrative tribunals and closing the courts .
That ’ s why I went to the lengths that I did to fight Toronto ’ s APS and challenge the bylaw that enacted it , ” said Weisdorf , who welcomes the use of his legal arguments by others to challenge the system and hopefully win .
One clue as to why this is occurring is that traffic and parking fines and civil forfeiture are cash cows .
And the draconian COVID-19-containment measures have left tens of thousands of municipalities , states and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and therefore eager to exploit all possible revenue streams .
Another clue is in the city of Toronto ’ s rebuttal to Weisdorf ’ s constitutional challenge of the APS .
The city ’ s legal representatives repeatedly called residents ’ constitutional rights “ loopholes.
” “ The administrators see our rights as inconvenient , a hindrance to efficiency and easily removable .
And I ’ m sure various medical ‘ authorities ’ see them exactly the same way , ” concluded Weisdorf .
As if to hammer this home , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Doug Ford enacted legislation that allows it to extend the province ’ s COVID-19 state of emergency every month for up to one year without a vote of the legislature .
Under Bill 195 , ‘ The Reopening Ontario Act , ’ they also can then continue the state of emergency for an indefinite number of years one year at a time by a vote of the legislature , in which Ford ’ s Progressive Conservative Party has a majority .
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association described this as allowing Ford ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powers while freeing the executive branch of effective democratic oversight.
” Ontario is the only province or state in North America with such a law .
Rosemary Frei has an MSc in molecular biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary , was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years and now is an independent investigative journalist .
You can watch her June 15 interview on The Corbett Report , read her other Off-Guardian articles and follow her on Twitter .

Rosemary Frei
Chris Weisdorf was penalized for parking improperly in December 2017 and he decided to fight the fine. But he slammed up against legal structures that give virtually unchecked power to untold numbers of administrators around the world who oversee and enforce everything from parking regulations to public-health edicts.
The parking-ticket system in Toronto, Ontario — where Weisdorf had committed his offense – had been replaced with an Administrative Penalty System (APS). The bylaw creating APS was billed as streamlining the court system. After very little public consultation and notice it was approved overwhelmingly by Toronto city council in July 2017 (there appears to no longer be a record online of the council vote).
The bylaw contains Orwellian redefinitions designed to wriggle traffic- and parking-law violations out of the category of what the Supreme Court of Canada views as criminal offenses and into the administrative category — and along with that, defendants out of the purview of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the core of the Canadian constitution.
The bylaw’s redefinitions include calling offenses ‘infractions,’ defendants ‘customers’ and parking tickets ‘parking violation notices.’ And in what Weisdorf calls “a legal oxymoron for the ages,” monetary penalties are deemed to be ‘not punitive.’
Another aspect of Toronto’s APS is that court hearings have been eliminated. In their place are Administrative Penalty Tribunal hearings. There, defendants essentially are seen as guilty unless they can prove themselves to be innocent. Moreover, tribunal officials aren’t required to have legal training. And the city staff who issue parking penalties aren’t obligated to attend hearings; as a result, it seems, none have ever shown up.
(Also, parking violation notices are issued via email or snail mail, eliminating the requirement for them to be affixed to vehicles’ windshields. That alone makes it much more difficult for the vehicles’ drivers to prove that, for example, they weren’t parked illegally at a particular place and time.)
This yields the double whammy of the waiving of defendants’ constitutional rights to fully air their side of events in hearings and to cross-examine the people who accused them of the offenses.
Aghast at all this, Weisdorf undertook a constitutional challenge of Toronto’s APS. He isn’t a lawyer (he works in the financial industry) and couldn’t find one to represent him. So he argued his case himself, first at a Superior Court in 2018.
He lost, but appealed the decision and had a virtual hearing on June 16, 2020, before the highest court in Ontario, the Court of Appeal. The three-judge panel unanimously ruled against Weisdorf on June 22, 2020, deeming Toronto’s APS and the accompanying waiving of defendants’ constitutional rights to be perfectly legal. (All the materials for the case are here. Most of Weisdorf’s documents are on the main page; click the ‘Case Law’ and ‘City’ tabs to see the rest of his and the City of Toronto’s materials.)
Kirkor Apel, a criminal, civil and family lawyer in the Toronto area who has read Weisdorf’s legal arguments, said his case is solid.
“He fought well and he argued well. It’s just that sometimes Goliath wins,” Apel said in a telephone interview with this journalist. “And the problem is it’s a slippery slope, because five years from now, or fifty years from now, the next step is going to happen and they’ll say, ‘Why don’t we waive the right to a trial [for other offenses]? Or [even waive] the right to a hearing?’”
Toronto first attempted to put the APS in place in 2015, but a group of paralegals stopped it. John Papadakis, who was a member of that group, explained in an April 2015 interview with the Toronto Star the profound changes inherent in the APS. He used as an illustrative example someone driving through an amber light but being stopped by a police officer and fined for running a red.
“Currently, you have the right to challenge the officer’s evidence, to obtain that evidence, to go before an impartial judge in a court,” the Toronto Star article quoted Papadakis as saying. “[But if the APS is implemented then y]ou are no longer innocent until proven guilty as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms…. You will go before a municipal employee [at a tribunal hearing], who is clearly going to be biased [because the city receives revenue from fines levied under the APS]. [And] you will make your argument not on your innocence or guilt; you will make your argument on how much penalty you will pay, because [under the APS] you are already guilty.”
But in July 2017 the city of Toronto was able to push forward with the implementation of its APS. Weisdorf challenged it and lost.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of people, administrative penalty systems are commonplace in North America, the UK and elsewhere. So are civil-asset-forfeiture regimes. And they’re all overseen by the executive branch of power, which now has more muscle than the legislative and judicial branches.
As the coup de grace, under the cover of COVID-19 this administrative creep has reached warp speed, with the legislative and judicial branches bowing before it. And shredding billions of peoples’ constitutional and civil rights in the process.
Today, public-health officials’ edicts ranging from social distancing to self-isolation are virtually unassailable, no matter the economy- and life-crushing consequences. And let’s not forget the vast numbers of contact tracers and quarantine-enforcers, another cadre of administrators who appear legally untouchable.
Just one example of their new power is the legal challenge by a San Diego church of California governor Gavin Newsom’s order temporarily stopping in-person church services. The US Supreme Court’s chilling six-page decision in this case, which hinged on asymptomatic transmission, is a must-read.
Weisdorf observed in an interview with the author:
One hundred percent medical opinion — not fact, not peer review — was enough for the US’s highest court to rule against the church and cancel the First Amendment indefinitely,”
Another chilling read is the UK Supreme Court’s 2012 decision granting Sweden’s request to UK officials to arrest and extradite Julian Assange. The court determined that the Swedish prosecutor who issued the European Arrest Warrant for Assange fit the European Union’s interpretation of a ‘judicial authority’ who is allowed to issue such a warrant. Thus it consented to a single individual from another country being not merely a prosecutor, but also essentially a judge over a UK resident (Assange).
“This type of thinking pervades the legal realm even more today. And many people in government are licking their chops at the prospect of expanding administrative tribunals and closing the courts. That’s why I went to the lengths that I did to fight Toronto’s APS and challenge the bylaw that enacted it,” said Weisdorf, who welcomes the use of his legal arguments by others to challenge the system and hopefully win.
One clue as to why this is occurring is that traffic and parking fines and civil forfeiture are cash cows. And the draconian COVID-19-containment measures have left tens of thousands of municipalities, states and provinces teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and therefore eager to exploit all possible revenue streams.
Another clue is in the city of Toronto’s rebuttal to Weisdorf’s constitutional challenge of the APS. The city’s legal representatives repeatedly called residents’ constitutional rights “loopholes.”
“The administrators see our rights as inconvenient, a hindrance to efficiency and easily removable. And I’m sure various medical ‘authorities’ see them exactly the same way,” concluded Weisdorf.
As if to hammer this home, on July 21 the Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford enacted legislation that allows it to extend the province’s COVID-19 state of emergency every month for up to one year without a vote of the legislature.
Under Bill 195,‘The Reopening Ontario Act,’ they also can then continue the state of emergency for an indefinite number of years one year at a time by a vote of the legislature, in which Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party has a majority.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association described this as allowing Ford’s administration to “maintain the existing emergency powers while freeing the executive branch of effective democratic oversight.” Ontario is the only province or state in North America with such a law.
Rosemary Frei has an MSc in molecular biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary, was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years and now is an independent investigative journalist. You can watch her June 15 interview on The Corbett Report, read her other Off-Guardian articles and follow her on Twitter.


offguardian--2020-07-25--Twitter & Facebook are censoring us – but our subscribe feature is back!

1 .
A LOT of you have been contacting us with concerns about our subscribe feature not working .
We ’ re pleased to announce we have that function back and you can find it on the front page HERE .
It ’ s not a perfect system , but it will allow you to keep in touch with us and our output during these difficult times !
2 .
As you may know we are currently under sustained attack from various ironically-named ‘ fact-check ’ websites and their social media allies .
PolitiFact have launched an incoherent and error-filled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PCR tests are scientifically meaningless .
Leadstories.com and Healthfeedback.org have both published critiques of “ No one has died of the coronavirus ” , and Newsguard are currently planning an ‘ investigation ’ into our editors and our coverage both of Covid19 and 9/11 .
We will be publishing our correspondence with Newsguard in the next week or so as well as a response to PolitiFact .
We also understand Rosemary Frei and Patrick Corbett are planning a response , which , of course , we will give space to here .
Coincidentally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in unison as if they were one entity .
Facebook now gives a warning about some of our content and links to the very poor PolitiFact piece .
Twitter offers up their standard warning that our site “ may be unsafe ” .
Neither site actually blocks access , but the warning is designed to make it appear to be doing so , and most people fail to see the link in small text that allows you to proceed to our site .
Inevitably this is impacting in our social media reach .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ our articles through email and direct messaging , but please continue to do so on social media also – adding a comment to the effect the link is NOT blocked and can still be accessed .
We don ’ t want to make their job as self-appointed censors any easier than it has to be .
More on this issue coming soon…

Hey all – A couple of updates.
1. A LOT of you have been contacting us with concerns about our subscribe feature not working. We’re pleased to announce we have that function back and you can find it on the front page HERE. It’s not a perfect system, but it will allow you to keep in touch with us and our output during these difficult times!
2. As you may know we are currently under sustained attack from various ironically-named ‘fact-check’ websites and their social media allies.
PolitiFact have launched an incoherent and error-filled ‘rebuttal’ on our article Covid19 PCR tests are scientifically meaningless. Leadstories.com and Healthfeedback.org have both published critiques of “No one has died of the coronavirus”, and Newsguard are currently planning an ‘investigation’ into our editors and our coverage both of Covid19 and 9/11.
We will be publishing our correspondence with Newsguard in the next week or so as well as a response to PolitiFact. We also understand Rosemary Frei and Patrick Corbett are planning a response, which, of course, we will give space to here.
Coincidentally Facebook and Twitter have moved against us in unison as if they were one entity. Facebook now gives a warning about some of our content and links to the very poor PolitiFact piece. Twitter offers up their standard warning that our site “may be unsafe”.
Neither site actually blocks access, but the warning is designed to make it appear to be doing so, and most people fail to see the link in small text that allows you to proceed to our site. Inevitably this is impacting in our social media reach.
To help counter this you can share our articles through email and direct messaging, but please continue to do so on social media also – adding a comment to the effect the link is NOT blocked and can still be accessed. We don’t want to make their job as self-appointed censors any easier than it has to be.
More on this issue coming soon…


offguardian--2020-07-25--Free Intelligence: notes for a manifesto

Faced today with so much disinformation as we are today , how can citizens be mutually supportive in developing intelligence – intelligence being understood in all its senses , including as a capacity of individual inquirers , as a quality of publicly available understandings of the world , and as a source of insight into potentially disruptive aspects of social life ?
Is there any reason not to be committed to : • the development and exercise of inquiring minds as an essential aspect of human life ; • recognition of the value of social cooperation in developing intelligence ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowledge and understanding ; • respect for the principles of freedom of thought and expression ; • defence of those whose lawful rights of free expression are curtailed by government ; • promotion of education that supports the development of intellectual autonomy and social understanding at all ages ; • defence of a political order that respects constitutional principles for the governance of intelligence gathering and sharing , including provision for democratic oversight of intelligence agencies , state and corporate ?
Are there other related commitments that should be regarded as similarly important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in society today that tend to undermine the possibility of fulfilling those commitments .
Of particular concern is the spread of disinformation in public communications arising not merely from negligence or incompetence .
Agencies with resources to pursue particular agendas can engage in various strategic communications aimed at influencing the public into accepting beliefs that would , with the exercise of free intelligence , be more critically scrutinised .
A further concern is that the education system is being adversely influenced , with a particular risk being that universities , whose social role @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standards of research and instruction , are drawn into ventures that dilute and even undermine those standards .
In fulfilling a commitment to raising the level of public debate about significant matters of political or scientific controversy , universities have a vital role to play , on behalf of – and answerably to – the whole of society .
What do you think ?
Please feel free to comment below…

Faced today with so much disinformation as we are today, how can citizens be mutually supportive in developing intelligence – intelligence being understood in all its senses, including as a capacity of individual inquirers, as a quality of publicly available understandings of the world, and as a source of insight into potentially disruptive aspects of social life?
Is there any reason not to be committed to:
the development and exercise of inquiring minds as an essential aspect of human life;
recognition of the value of social cooperation in developing intelligence;
maximal openness in the sharing of knowledge and understanding;
respect for the principles of freedom of thought and expression;
defence of those whose lawful rights of free expression are curtailed by government;
promotion of education that supports the development of intellectual autonomy and social understanding at all ages;
defence of a political order that respects constitutional principles for the governance of intelligence gathering and sharing, including provision for democratic oversight of intelligence agencies, state and corporate?
Are there other related commitments that should be regarded as similarly important?
Personally, I perceive disturbing trends in society today that tend to undermine the possibility of fulfilling those commitments. Of particular concern is the spread of disinformation in public communications arising not merely from negligence or incompetence.
Agencies with resources to pursue particular agendas can engage in various strategic communications aimed at influencing the public into accepting beliefs that would, with the exercise of free intelligence, be more critically scrutinised.
A further concern is that the education system is being adversely influenced, with a particular risk being that universities, whose social role is to be custodians of the highest standards of research and instruction, are drawn into ventures that dilute and even undermine those standards.
In fulfilling a commitment to raising the level of public debate about significant matters of political or scientific controversy, universities have a vital role to play, on behalf of – and answerably to – the whole of society.
What do you think? Please feel free to comment below…


offguardian--2020-07-28--Post-Brexit Agrochemical Apocalypse for the UK?

The British government , regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour .
That ’ s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency .
It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann , CEO of Bayer CropScience , where she made it clear to him that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto criminal corporations .
Her letter to Baumann outlined a cocktail of corporate duplicity , cover-ups and criminality which the public and the environment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least in terms of the effects of glyphosate .
Later in 2019 , Mason wrote to Bayer Crop Science shareholders , appealing to them to put human health and nature ahead of profit and to stop funding Bayer .
Mason outlined with supporting evidence how the gradual onset of the global extinction of many species is largely the result of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture .
She argued that Monsanto ’ s ( now Bayer ) glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide and Bayer ’ s clothianidin are largely responsible for the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neonicotinoid insecticides are wiping out wildlife species across the globe .
In February 2020 , Mason wrote the report ‘ Bayer Crop Science rules Britain after Brexit – the public and the press are being poisoned by pesticides ’ .
She noted that PM Boris Johnson plans to do a trade deal with the US that could see the gutting of food and environment standards .
In a speech setting out his goals for trade after Brexit , Johnson talked up the prospect of an agreement with Washington and downplayed the need for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insists the UK must stick to its regulatory regime .
In other words , he wants to ditch EU regulations .
Mason pondered just who could be pulling Johnson ’ s strings .
A big clue came in February 2019 at a Brexit meeting on the UK chemicals sector where UK regulators and senior officials from government departments listened to the priorities of Bayer Crop Science .
During the meeting ( Westminster Energy , Environment & Transport Forum Keynote Seminar : Priorities for UK chemicals sector – challenges , opportunities and the future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , head of regulatory science at Bayer Crop Science Division , made the priorities for agricultural chemical manufacturers known .
Dave Bench was also a speaker .
Bench is a senior scientist at the UK Chemicals , Health and Safety Executive and director of the agency ’ s EU exit plan and has previously stated that the regulatory system for pesticides is robust and balances the risks of pesticides against the benefits to society .
In an open letter to Bench , Mason responded : It seems that post-Brexit the UK could authorise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course , with a US trade deal in the pipeline , there are major concerns about glyphosate-resistant GMOs and the lowering of food standards across the board .
Mason says that glyphosate causes epigenetic changes in humans and animals : diseases skip a generation .
Washington State University researchers found a variety of diseases and other health problems in the second- and third-generation offspring of rats exposed to glyphosate .
In the first study of its kind , the researchers saw descendants of exposed rats developing prostate , kidney and ovarian diseases , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been the subject of numerous studies about its health effects .
Robert F Kennedy Jr , one of the attorney ’ s fighting Bayer ( which has bought Monsanto ) in the US courts , has explained that for four decades Monsanto manoeuvred to conceal Roundup ’ s carcinogenicity by capturing regulatory agencies , corrupting public officials , bribing scientists and engaging in scientific fraud to delay its day of reckoning .
Kennedy says there is also cascading scientific evidence linking glyphosate to a constellation of other injuries that have become prevalent since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Alzheimer ’ s , ADHD , autism , multiple sclerosis , Parkinson ’ s , kidney disease , inflammatory bowel disease , brain , breast and prostate cancer , miscarriage , birth defects and declining sperm counts .
In her new document sent to the UK Environment Agency , Mason argues there is criminal collusion between the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs ( Defra ) , the Chemicals Regulation Division and Bayer over Brexit .
She also claims the National Farmers Union has been lying about how much pesticides farmers use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chlorpyrifos , chlorothalonil , glyphosate and neonicotinoids .
The NFU says farmers couldn ’ t do without these inputs , even though they destroy human health and the environment .
Of course , farmers can and do go without using these chemicals .
And the shift away from chemical-intensive agriculture is perfectly feasible .
In a recent article on the AgWeb site , for instance , US farmer Adam Chappell describes how he made the shift on his 8,000-acre farm .
Chappell was not some dyed-in-the-wool organic evangelist .
He made the shift @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glad he did .
The article states : Surely there is a lesson there for UK farmers who in 2016 used glyphosate on 2,634,573 ha of cropland .
It is not just their bottom line that could improve but the health of the nation .
Mason says that five peer-reviewed animal studies from the US and Argentina released in July 2020 have focused minds on the infertility crisis being caused by glyphosate-based herbicides .
Researchers at The National University of Litoral in Sante Fe , Argentina , have published three concerning peer-reviewed papers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and one review .
In one study , researchers concluded that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides are endocrine disruptors .
They also stated that glyphosate-based herbicides alter reproductive outcomes in females .
But such is the British government ’ s willingness to protect pesticide companies that it is handing agrochemical giants BASF and Bayer enormous pay-outs of Covid-19 support cash .
The announcement came just weeks after Bayer shareholders voted to pay £2.75 billion in dividends .
The fact that Bayer then went on to receive £600 million from the government speaks volumes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
According to Mason , the new Agriculture Bill provides a real opportunity for the UK to adopt a paradigm shift which embraces non-chemical farming policy .
However , Defra has stated that after Brexit Roundup Ready GA21 glyphosate tolerant crops could be introduced .
It is also concerning that a post-Brexit funding gap could further undermine the impartiality of university research .
Mason refers to Greenpeace , which notes that Bayer and Syngenta , both sell neonicotinoid insecticides linked to harmful effects on bees , gave a combined total of £16.1m to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fund a range of research .
Such private funding could create a conflict of interest for academics and after Brexit a potential shortage of public money for science could force universities to seek more finance from the private sector .
Neonicotinoids were once thought to have little or no negative effects on the environment because they are used in low doses and as a seed coating , rather than being sprayed .
But evidence has been mounting that the chemicals harm bees – important pollinators of food crops .
As a result , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , although they can still be used under license .
According to Bayer ’ s website , academics who reviewed 15 years of research found “ no adverse effects to bee colonies were ever observed in field studies ” .
Between 2011 and 2016 , the figures obtained from the 70 universities – about half the total in the UK – show Bayer gave £9m to fund research , including more than £345,000 on plant sciences .
Syngenta spent nearly £7.1m , including just under £2.3m on plant sciences and stated that many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used properly neonicotinoids do not damage the health of bee populations .
However , in 2016 , Ben Stewart of Greenpeace UK ’ s Brexit response team said that the decline in bee populations is a major environmental and food security concern – it ’ s causes need to be properly investigated .
But Mason notes that the government long ago showed its true colours by refusing to legislate on the EU Directive ( 2009/128/EC ) on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides .
The government merely stated that current statutory and voluntary controls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ water , if followed , afford a high degree of protection and it would primarily seek to work with the pesticides industry to enhance voluntary measures .
Mason first questioned the government on this in January 2011 .
In an open letter to the Chemical Regulation Directorate .
The government claimed that no compelling evidence was provided to justify further extending existing regulations and voluntary controls .
Lord Henley , the Under-Secretary of State for Defra , expanded further : “ By making a small number of changes to our existing approach we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global population with high-quality food that ’ s affordable – while minimising the risks of using pesticides.
” In her numerous reports and open letters to officials , Mason has shown that far from having ‘ high-quality food ’ , there is an ongoing public health crisis due to the pesticides being used .
She responded to Henley by stating : Mason says that , recently , the day that Monsanto lost its appeal against Dewayne Lee Johnson the sprayers came around the Marina in Cardiff breaking all the rules that the EU @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only wonder what could lie in store for the British public if a trade deal is done with the US .
Despite the Conservative government pledging that it would not compromise on the UK ’ s food and environment standards , it now proposes that chlorine-washed chicken , beef treated with growth hormones , pork from animals treated with ractopamine and many other toxic foods produced in the US will be allowed into the UK .
All for the bottom line of US agribusiness corporations .
It is also worth mentioning at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chemicals in packaged foods in the US .
Ultimately , the situation comes down to a concentration of power played out within an interlocking directorate of state-corporate interests – in this case , global agrochemical conglomerates and the British government – and above the heads of ordinary people .
It is clear , that these institutions value the health of powerful corporations at the expense of the health of the population and the state of the environment .
Readers can access Mason ’ s new paper ‘ Criminal collusion between Defra , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Agenda ’ via academia.edu website ( which cites relevant sources ) , where all her other documents can also be found .

Colin Todhunter
The British government, regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour. That’s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency. It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer CropScience, where she made it clear to him that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto criminal corporations.
Her letter to Baumann outlined a cocktail of corporate duplicity, cover-ups and criminality which the public and the environment are paying the price for, not least in terms of the effects of glyphosate. Later in 2019, Mason wrote to Bayer Crop Science shareholders, appealing to them to put human health and nature ahead of profit and to stop funding Bayer.
Mason outlined with supporting evidence how the gradual onset of the global extinction of many species is largely the result of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture. She argued that Monsanto’s (now Bayer) glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide and Bayer’s clothianidin are largely responsible for the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and that the use of glyphosate and neonicotinoid insecticides are wiping out wildlife species across the globe.
In February 2020, Mason wrote the report ‘Bayer Crop Science rules Britain after Brexit – the public and the press are being poisoned by pesticides’. She noted that PM Boris Johnson plans to do a trade deal with the US that could see the gutting of food and environment standards. In a speech setting out his goals for trade after Brexit, Johnson talked up the prospect of an agreement with Washington and downplayed the need for one with Brussels – if the EU insists the UK must stick to its regulatory regime. In other words, he wants to ditch EU regulations.
Mason pondered just who could be pulling Johnson’s strings. A big clue came in February 2019 at a Brexit meeting on the UK chemicals sector where UK regulators and senior officials from government departments listened to the priorities of Bayer Crop Science. During the meeting (Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum Keynote Seminar: Priorities for UK chemicals sector – challenges, opportunities and the future for regulation post-Brexit), Janet Williams, head of regulatory science at Bayer Crop Science Division, made the priorities for agricultural chemical manufacturers known.
Dave Bench was also a speaker. Bench is a senior scientist at the UK Chemicals, Health and Safety Executive and director of the agency’s EU exit plan and has previously stated that the regulatory system for pesticides is robust and balances the risks of pesticides against the benefits to society.
In an open letter to Bench, Mason responded:
That statement is rubbish. It is for the benefit of the agrochemical industry. The industry (for it is the industry that does the testing, on behalf of regulators) only tests one pesticide at a time, whereas farmers spray a cocktail of pesticides, including over children and babies, without warning.”
It seems that post-Brexit the UK could authorise the continued use of glyphosate. Of course, with a US trade deal in the pipeline, there are major concerns about glyphosate-resistant GMOs and the lowering of food standards across the board.
Mason says that glyphosate causes epigenetic changes in humans and animals: diseases skip a generation. Washington State University researchers found a variety of diseases and other health problems in the second- and third-generation offspring of rats exposed to glyphosate. In the first study of its kind, the researchers saw descendants of exposed rats developing prostate, kidney and ovarian diseases, obesity and birth abnormalities.
Glyphosate has been the subject of numerous studies about its health effects. Robert F Kennedy Jr, one of the attorney’s fighting Bayer (which has bought Monsanto) in the US courts, has explained that for four decades Monsanto manoeuvred to conceal Roundup’s carcinogenicity by capturing regulatory agencies, corrupting public officials, bribing scientists and engaging in scientific fraud to delay its day of reckoning.
Kennedy says there is also cascading scientific evidence linking glyphosate to a constellation of other injuries that have become prevalent since its introduction, including obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease, brain, breast and prostate cancer, miscarriage, birth defects and declining sperm counts.
In her new document sent to the UK Environment Agency, Mason argues there is criminal collusion between the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Chemicals Regulation Division and Bayer over Brexit.
She also claims the National Farmers Union has been lying about how much pesticides farmers use and have ignored the side effects of chlorpyrifos, chlorothalonil, glyphosate and neonicotinoids. The NFU says farmers couldn’t do without these inputs, even though they destroy human health and the environment.
Of course, farmers can and do go without using these chemicals. And the shift away from chemical-intensive agriculture is perfectly feasible. In a recent article on the AgWeb site, for instance, US farmer Adam Chappell describes how he made the shift on his 8,000-acre farm. Chappell was not some dyed-in-the-wool organic evangelist. He made the shift for financial and practical reasons and is glad he did. The article states:
He was on the brink of bankruptcy and facing a go broke or go green proposition. Drowning in a whirlpool of input costs, Chappell cut bait from conventional agriculture and dove headfirst into a bootstrap version of innovative farming. Roughly 10 years later, his operation is transformed, and the 41-year-old grower doesn’t mince words: It was all about the money.”
Surely there is a lesson there for UK farmers who in 2016 used glyphosate on 2,634,573 ha of cropland. It is not just their bottom line that could improve but the health of the nation. Mason says that five peer-reviewed animal studies from the US and Argentina released in July 2020 have focused minds on the infertility crisis being caused by glyphosate-based herbicides.
Researchers at The National University of Litoral in Sante Fe, Argentina, have published three concerning peer-reviewed papers including two studies on ewes and rats and one review. In one study, researchers concluded that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides are endocrine disruptors. They also stated that glyphosate-based herbicides alter reproductive outcomes in females.
But such is the British government’s willingness to protect pesticide companies that it is handing agrochemical giants BASF and Bayer enormous pay-outs of Covid-19 support cash. The announcement came just weeks after Bayer shareholders voted to pay £2.75 billion in dividends. The fact that Bayer then went on to receive £600 million from the government speaks volumes of where the government’s priorities lie.
According to Mason, the new Agriculture Bill provides a real opportunity for the UK to adopt a paradigm shift which embraces non-chemical farming policy. However, Defra has stated that after Brexit Roundup Ready GA21 glyphosate tolerant crops could be introduced.
It is also concerning that a post-Brexit funding gap could further undermine the impartiality of university research. Mason refers to Greenpeace, which notes that Bayer and Syngenta, both sell neonicotinoid insecticides linked to harmful effects on bees, gave a combined total of £16.1m to 70 British universities over five years to fund a range of research. Such private funding could create a conflict of interest for academics and after Brexit a potential shortage of public money for science could force universities to seek more finance from the private sector.
Neonicotinoids were once thought to have little or no negative effects on the environment because they are used in low doses and as a seed coating, rather than being sprayed. But evidence has been mounting that the chemicals harm bees – important pollinators of food crops. As a result, neonicotinoids have been banned by the EU, although they can still be used under license.
According to Bayer’s website, academics who reviewed 15 years of research found “no adverse effects to bee colonies were ever observed in field studies”. Between 2011 and 2016, the figures obtained from the 70 universities – about half the total in the UK – show Bayer gave £9m to fund research, including more than £345,000 on plant sciences. Syngenta spent nearly £7.1m, including just under £2.3m on plant sciences and stated that many years of independent monitoring prove that when used properly neonicotinoids do not damage the health of bee populations.
However, in 2016, Ben Stewart of Greenpeace UK’s Brexit response team said that the decline in bee populations is a major environmental and food security concern – it’s causes need to be properly investigated.
He added:
But for this research to command public confidence, it needs to be independent and impartial, which is why public funding is so crucial. You wouldn’t want lung cancer studies to be heavily reliant on funds from tobacco firms, nor research on pesticides to be dependent on the companies making them.”
Stewart concluded:
As Brexit threatens to cut off vital public funds for this scientific field, our universities need a cast-iron guarantee from our government that EU money will not be replaced by corporate cash.”
But Mason notes that the government long ago showed its true colours by refusing to legislate on the EU Directive (2009/128/EC) on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides. The government merely stated that current statutory and voluntary controls related to pesticides and the protection of water, if followed, afford a high degree of protection and it would primarily seek to work with the pesticides industry to enhance voluntary measures.
Mason first questioned the government on this in January 2011. In an open letter to the Chemical Regulation Directorate. The government claimed that no compelling evidence was provided to justify further extending existing regulations and voluntary controls.
Lord Henley, the Under-Secretary of State for Defra, expanded further:
“By making a small number of changes to our existing approach we can continue to help feed a growing global population with high-quality food that’s affordable – while minimising the risks of using pesticides.”
In her numerous reports and open letters to officials, Mason has shown that far from having ‘high-quality food’, there is an ongoing public health crisis due to the pesticides being used.
She responded to Henley by stating:
…instead of strengthening the legislation, the responses of the UK government and the CRD have considerably weakened it. In the case of aerial spraying, you have opted for derogation.”
Mason says that, recently, the day that Monsanto lost its appeal against Dewayne Lee Johnson the sprayers came around the Marina in Cardiff breaking all the rules that the EU had set for Roundup.
We can only wonder what could lie in store for the British public if a trade deal is done with the US. Despite the Conservative government pledging that it would not compromise on the UK’s food and environment standards, it now proposes that chlorine-washed chicken, beef treated with growth hormones, pork from animals treated with ractopamine and many other toxic foods produced in the US will be allowed into the UK. All for the bottom line of US agribusiness corporations.
It is also worth mentioning at this point that there are around 2,000 untested chemicals in packaged foods in the US.
Ultimately, the situation comes down to a concentration of power played out within an interlocking directorate of state-corporate interests – in this case, global agrochemical conglomerates and the British government – and above the heads of ordinary people. It is clear, that these institutions value the health of powerful corporations at the expense of the health of the population and the state of the environment.
Readers can access Mason’s new paper ‘Criminal collusion between Defra, the Chemicals Regulation Division and Bayer over Brexit Agenda’ via academia.edu website (which cites relevant sources), where all her other documents can also be found.


offguardian--2020-07-29--YouTube outlaws “contradicting” the World Health Organization

YouTube ’ s censorship of alternative Covid19 narratives has become increasingly overt .
Back on May 20th it released its still current ‘ policy ’ which unashamedly tells potential creators : The list of unacceptable topics and views is fairly extensive • Claims that people have not died from COVID-19 • Claims that a specific treatment or medicine is a guaranteed cure for COVID-19 • Claims that certain people have immunity to COVID-19 due to their race or nationality • Encouraging taking home remedies instead of getting medical treatment when sick • Content that claims that holding your breath can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 • Videos alleging that if you avoid Asian food , you won ’ t get the coronavirus • Videos alleging that setting off fireworks can clean the air of the virus • Claims that COVID-19 is caused by radiation from 5G networks • Videos alleging that the COVID-19 test is the cause of the virus • Claims that countries with hot climates will not experience the spread of the virus • Videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus Now we may all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ odd , even ridiculous .
But that ’ s not the point .
Free speech includes the freedom to be odd , ridiculous and plain wrong .
Once that right is gone – free speech no longer exists .
We also need to be sure we don ’ t let the more risible elements obscure the fact that some very rational and mainstream avenues of thought are being banned from expression here .
Including incredibly sweeping statements such as [ our emphasis ] : But the prohibition that might be most significant is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t go on YouTube and simply say covid19 doesn ’ t exist .
You can say bubonic plague doesn ’ t exist .
You can say malaria doesn ’ t exist .
You can question the reality of cancer , diabetes , rubella , chicken pox , hantavirus , African Green Monkey disease , the common cold and any other pathology you can think of .
The real question is – why ?

Catte Black
YouTube’s censorship of alternative Covid19 narratives has become increasingly overt. Back on May 20th it released its still current ‘policy’ which unashamedly tells potential creators:
Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes any of the following:
The list of unacceptable topics and views is fairly extensive
Denial that COVID-19 exists
Claims that people have not died from COVID-19
Claims that there’s a guaranteed vaccine for COVID-19
Claims that a specific treatment or medicine is a guaranteed cure for COVID-19
Claims that certain people have immunity to COVID-19 due to their race or nationality
Encouraging taking home remedies instead of getting medical treatment when sick
Discouraging people from consulting a medical professional if they’re sick
Content that claims that holding your breath can be used as a diagnostic test for COVID-19
Videos alleging that if you avoid Asian food, you won’t get the coronavirus
Videos alleging that setting off fireworks can clean the air of the virus
Claims that COVID-19 is caused by radiation from 5G networks
Videos alleging that the COVID-19 test is the cause of the virus
Claims that countries with hot climates will not experience the spread of the virus
Videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus
Now we may all agree some of these banned opinions sound odd, even ridiculous. But that’s not the point. Free speech includes the freedom to be odd, ridiculous and plain wrong. Once that right is gone – free speech no longer exists.
We also need to be sure we don’t let the more risible elements obscure the fact that some very rational and mainstream avenues of thought are being banned from expression here. Including incredibly sweeping statements such as [our emphasis]:
YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health authorities
But the prohibition that might be most significant is the first.
Apparently you can’t go on YouTube and simply say covid19 doesn’t exist.
You can say bubonic plague doesn’t exist. You can say malaria doesn’t exist. You can question the reality of cancer, diabetes, rubella, chicken pox, hantavirus, African Green Monkey disease, the common cold and any other pathology you can think of.
Except covid19.
The real question is – why?