offguardian--2020-09-25--The False Flag Poisoning of Alexei Navalny

On August 20th , Russian opposition figure and self-styled “ anti-corruption ” activist Alexei Navalny fell seriously ill while in mid-flight from Tomsk , Siberia to the Russian capital .
The Moscow-bound plane was abruptly re-routed to make an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk where the anti-Kremlin politician was subsequently hospitalized for suspected poisoning and placed in a medically-induced coma .
Two days later , Navalny was airlifted to Germany in an evacuation arranged by a Berlin-based “ human rights ” NGO at the request of Pussy Riot spokesman Pyotr Verzilov .
His transport on a medically-equipped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Russian authorities who now stand accused of culpability in the alleged attack , all in the midst of the ongoing pandemic .
While the Russian doctors in Omsk ( who saved Navalny ’ s life ) maintain they did not find any evidence of chemical weapons substances in his system , upon examination the German government quickly announced that its military lab had discovered “ unequivocal evidence ” Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin — without providing any of said evidence to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Despite being the supposed victim of an extremely deadly military-grade nerve agent , three weeks later Navalny came out his comatose state and off ventilation , defiantly vowing a return to Russia .
Was he ever tested for COVID-19 ?
At this point it seems more likely than this propaganda stunt we are expected to believe .
It is unconvincing precisely because it follows a pattern of improbable events questionably attributed to the Kremlin .
As many have noted , the incident strikingly resembles the alleged March 2018 poisoning in Salisbury , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sergei Skripal and his daughter , Yulia , visiting from Moscow which caused a similar diplomatic row .
Skripal , who had been a double agent for MI6 and served ten years imprisonment for high treason , was exiled to the UK after his sentence in a spy-swap between Russia and Britain in 2010 .
While residing in southern England , Skripal was reportedly in close contact with a security consultant who worked for the author of the salacious but fabricated dossier on US President Donald Trump ’ s alleged ties to Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and may have even been the source of its unverified contents .
Skripal and his daughter were discovered unconscious on a park bench , but were said to have been initially contaminated hours earlier by the extremely fast-acting substance applied to the door handle of his residence .
Similarly , Alexei Navalny is said to have been contaminated by a water bottle in his hotel room , not in the tea he drank at the Tomsk Bogashevo airport cafe before boarding his flight as originally believed .
How is the elapsed time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The toxin , in Navalny ’ s case , was also not discovered until examination in Germany , meaning a bottle laced with a chemical warfare agent was transported all the way to Berlin ?
None of those who came to Navalny ’ s aid or treated him suffered any noxious effects , unlike the Skripals where multiple police officers at least showed minor symptoms .
Still , both Navalny and the Skripals fully recovered from their supposed exposure to an extremely lethal toxin considered even more deadly than sarin or VX gas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Skripals immediately went into hiding which has left the enormous questions surrounding the incident still unresolved two years later .
However , the damage was already done as the UK government immediately blamed Moscow and more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled by Britain and its Western allies .
Months later in June 2018 , two British nationals were the victims of an accidental poisoning ( one fatally ) after they discovered a discarded but unopened perfume bottle containing the same poisonous agent .
Then that September , Scotland Yard released @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be GRU military intelligence agents in Salisbury at the time of the attack .
However , no verifiable evidence was ever provided by the British government showing that the two were responsible , though it was conveniently claimed that the would-be culprits clumsily left vestiges of the fatal chemical agent in their hotel room .
So , not only is Russian intelligence incapable of carrying out successful assassinations , but carelessly unable to cover their tracks ?
The premise was already absurd enough but made even more fanciful by Britain ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Convention in providing Moscow with requested samples of the toxin which purportedly poisoned the treasonous ex-spook and his daughter .
Thus far in the Navalny case , Germany is following the same script .
What a coincidence that the attack comes just as Nord Stream 2 , the second line of the massive natural gas pipeline under construction from Russia to Germany opposed by the US and several NATO allies , is near completion .
Suddenly , the diplomatic fall-out has put the controversial project in limbo , with Chancellor Angela Merkel and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to withdraw from the project which would increase Russian influence on Europe ’ s energy infrastructure and rival the US ’ s costlier exports .
As pointed out by Die Linke ’ s Dietmar Bartsch , where were the calls to halt the purchase of Saudi oil imports after the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi ?
It is clear that the Anglo-Americans are simply desperate to halt the resurgence of Moscow on the international stage , threatening their German counterparts with sanctions as the final sections of the pipeline conveying Russian gas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The attack on Navalny could not occur at a more auspicious time for the Atlanticists and a worse time for Moscow .
The notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to assassinate an opposition figure who holds a minuscule 2 % support amongst the population , far behind other opponents nonexistent to Western media , but the one who just so happens to be favored by Washington , is contrary to any reason or common sense .
Not to mention , at the exact moment it would jeopardize a project essential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frugality , as the pipeline would link Moscow with Western Europe bypassing neighboring transit countries such as the Ukraine ( also opposed to Nord Stream 2 ) which have costly transit fees .
Is it really the Russian government who stands to massively benefit from this fiasco ?
The answer to “ cui bono ?
” could not be more clear : US , Saudi and Emirati oil and gas interests , not the Kremlin .
Russia was also recently the first nation to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate with its Sputnik V @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has been heavily politicized by Washington which is eager to cast aspersions on Moscow ’ s accomplishment .
Meanwhile , Germany is also the one Western European country where Washington ’ s anti-Russian propaganda is falling flat , as recent polls consistently show that the vast majority of Germans don ’ t see Russia as a threat , likely a result of their high rate of media literacy .
Despite Navalny ’ s recovery , there are already calls to legislate a ‘ Navalny Act ’ as a follow-up to the Magnitsky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the US House of Representatives in 2012 under the Obama Administration .
The Magnitsky act sanctioned Russian officials accused of being responsible for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky , an unscrupulous Russian tax lawyer who helped dodgy international financiers like the US-born British tycoon William Browder commit massive tax evasion in Russia .
Magnitsky died under mysterious circumstances while in custody awaiting trial for facilitating Browder ’ s skullduggery and suffering from poor health , with the Russian prison officials first accused of depriving him of medical treatment and then allegedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The fascinating 2016 documentary The Magnitsky Act : Behind the Scenes explores the case from the perspective of Westernized Putin critic and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov , who through the course of his investigation unexpectedly discovers that the mainstream media narrative of Magnitsky ’ s death was a fiction concocted by Browder .
Suddenly , Nekrasov ’ s entire perspective on Russia comes into question and the film takes on a metanarrative of the nature of propaganda itself .
What we are being told about Navalny is likely another fairy tale like the implausible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death of the auditor he hired to enrich himself exploiting Russia ’ s tax loopholes .
Incredibly , the American-born investor is the grandson of Earl Browder , the leader of the Communist Party USA during its heyday until his expulsion at the end of World War II .
When the wartime US-Soviet alliance fell apart and the Cold War began , the elder Browder proved more loyal to American imperialism than the communist movement and presided over the liquidation of the CPUSA until it was reestablished with his dismissal as General Secretary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family , decades later his grandson decided to cash in on the collapse of the former Soviet Union through various investment ventures as manager of the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management .
When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin and numerous oligarchs went into exile or landed themselves in prison , Bill Browder was forced to flee the country after defrauding the Russian government of millions with the help of the late Mr Magnitsky .
One of those banished oligarchs , billionaire media tycoon Boris Berezovsky , also died under dubious circumstances in the UK @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apartment bathroom in Berkshire , England in 2013 .
Like Magnitsky , Putin and the Russian government were suspected of involvement in Berezovsky ’ s death by the media without a shred of evidence , even though his suspicious purported “ suicide ” actually came shortly after expressing a written willingness to return to Russia and reconcile with Putin — which almost certainly would have been a stroke of good luck for Russian counter-intelligence and a threat to the West , not the Kremlin .
Berezovsky had been close with a former agent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the KGB ’ s successor ) , Alexander Litvinenko , a defector renowned for claiming he had been ordered by Putin to assassinate Berezovsky and subsequently lived in the UK as a consultant for British intelligence until his own polonium poisoning in 2006 , the first of a series of episodes framing Moscow .
Consistently , however , in every one of these cases it is never the Kremlin which stands to gain .
There is a reason Putin consistently polls over 70 % in favorability with the Russian people and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Western domination under the ruinous neoliberal economic policies of his corrupt and inebriated predecessor Boris Yeltsin .
Yeltsin ’ s administration auctioned off the former state-owned assets to foreign investors such as Browder and oligarchs like Berezovsky .
Meanwhile , Navalny has a level of support well under 5 % , with recent polls placing him behind the Communist Party ’ s Pavel Grudinin and the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky .
While Navalny ’ s own rhetoric has shifted over the years , he has controversially maintained his own cozy relationship with ethnic nationalists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his right-wing populist base , even co-organizing annual marches dominated by racist skinheads .
Navalny infamously coined the slogan “ Stop Feeding the Caucasus !
” advocated by xenophobic nationalists calling for the defunding and secession of the Muslim-majority North Caucasus from Russia , while making frequent Islamophobic statements and stoking anti-immigrant sentiments against Central Asians .
You would never know this reading Western media who have completely sanitized Navalny ’ s politics ( if they ever address them at all ) , while they remain obsessed with the perceived ingratiation between Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former ’ s politics have far more in common with Navalny than the Russian President .
Given the US support for far right nationalists in the 2014 anti-Russian coup d ’ etat in Ukraine , Washington has no qualms about backing fascists to undermine Moscow .
In 1831 , Russia ’ s most famous and revered poet , Alexander Pushkin , composed To the Slanderers of Russia , a patriotic ode in response to members of the French parliament who were advocating for a military intervention to assist the Polish uprising against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Polish uprising was an inter-slavic “ ancient , domestic dispute ” , while the Poles considered it an issue of national independence which their European allies were eager to exploit against Moscow .
For the great Russian writer , the Polish alliance with the tyrant and invader Napoleon was unforgivable .
He also reportedly communicated to General Alexander von Benckendorff , the chief of the Tsarist secret police assigned to censor and surveil him , that the Europeans were still bitter over the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812 and had not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so with “ daily mad slander.
” Fast forward nearly 200 years later and little has changed in Russia-West relations .
The only thing that has arguably transformed is Russia ’ s standing on the world stage following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Soviet Union almost 75 years later , the latter of which was masterminded by a Polish-born National Security Advisor , Zbigniew Brzezinski , whose Russophobic worldview was a product of the deep-seated “ ancient , domestic dispute ” Pushkin wrote of a century earlier .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ resurgence of Moscow in the new millennia under Vladimir Putin as neo-tsarist expansionism , post-Soviet Russia is actually a relatively weak capitalist state that has found itself a target of regime change by the West which seeks the colonization and balkanization of Eastern Europe .
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a spike in oil prices that generated huge profits for Chevron and ExxonMobil , but also had the unintended consequence of benefiting Russia ’ s state-run oil industry just as Putin was re-nationalizing its energy assets and banishing financial criminals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strength and influence has certainly been restored , its foreign investments remain low even in the Ukraine where Moscow has been accused of territorial expansion with the so-called “ annexation ” of Crimea , where the mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian population actually voted to join its neighbor in a referendum .
Russia may no longer be an empire ( or communist ) , but yet it remains in the crosshairs of Western imperialism , whose political leaders and subservient corporate media are still conducting the “ mad slander ” that Pushkin opined .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ geopolitical analyst .
His writing has appeared widely in alternative media .
Max may be reached at [ email protected ]

Max Parry
On August 20th, Russian opposition figure and self-styled “anti-corruption” activist Alexei Navalny fell seriously ill while in mid-flight from Tomsk, Siberia to the Russian capital. The Moscow-bound plane was abruptly re-routed to make an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk where the anti-Kremlin politician was subsequently hospitalized for suspected poisoning and placed in a medically-induced coma.
Two days later, Navalny was airlifted to Germany in an evacuation arranged by a Berlin-based “human rights” NGO at the request of Pussy Riot spokesman Pyotr Verzilov. His transport on a medically-equipped plane with German specialists was permitted by the Russian authorities who now stand accused of culpability in the alleged attack, all in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.
While the Russian doctors in Omsk (who saved Navalny’s life) maintain they did not find any evidence of chemical weapons substances in his system, upon examination the German government quickly announced that its military lab had discovered “unequivocal evidence” Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin — without providing any of said evidence to Moscow or the public, of course.
Despite being the supposed victim of an extremely deadly military-grade nerve agent, three weeks later Navalny came out his comatose state and off ventilation, defiantly vowing a return to Russia. Was he ever tested for COVID-19? At this point it seems more likely than this propaganda stunt we are expected to believe.
It is unconvincing precisely because it follows a pattern of improbable events questionably attributed to the Kremlin. As many have noted, the incident strikingly resembles the alleged March 2018 poisoning in Salisbury, England of disgraced former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting from Moscow which caused a similar diplomatic row.
Skripal, who had been a double agent for MI6 and served ten years imprisonment for high treason, was exiled to the UK after his sentence in a spy-swap between Russia and Britain in 2010. While residing in southern England, Skripal was reportedly in close contact with a security consultant who worked for the author of the salacious but fabricated dossier on US President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele — and may have even been the source of its unverified contents.
Skripal and his daughter were discovered unconscious on a park bench, but were said to have been initially contaminated hours earlier by the extremely fast-acting substance applied to the door handle of his residence. Similarly, Alexei Navalny is said to have been contaminated by a water bottle in his hotel room, not in the tea he drank at the Tomsk Bogashevo airport cafe before boarding his flight as originally believed.
How is the elapsed time in both of these cases possible?
The toxin, in Navalny’s case, was also not discovered until examination in Germany, meaning a bottle laced with a chemical warfare agent was transported all the way to Berlin?
None of those who came to Navalny’s aid or treated him suffered any noxious effects, unlike the Skripals where multiple police officers at least showed minor symptoms. Still, both Navalny and the Skripals fully recovered from their supposed exposure to an extremely lethal toxin considered even more deadly than sarin or VX gas.
After their release from the hospital, the Skripals immediately went into hiding which has left the enormous questions surrounding the incident still unresolved two years later. However, the damage was already done as the UK government immediately blamed Moscow and more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled by Britain and its Western allies.
Months later in June 2018, two British nationals were the victims of an accidental poisoning (one fatally) after they discovered a discarded but unopened perfume bottle containing the same poisonous agent. Then that September, Scotland Yard released CCTV footage of two Russian men alleged to be GRU military intelligence agents in Salisbury at the time of the attack.
However, no verifiable evidence was ever provided by the British government showing that the two were responsible, though it was conveniently claimed that the would-be culprits clumsily left vestiges of the fatal chemical agent in their hotel room.
So, not only is Russian intelligence incapable of carrying out successful assassinations, but carelessly unable to cover their tracks? The premise was already absurd enough but made even more fanciful by Britain’s refusal to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention in providing Moscow with requested samples of the toxin which purportedly poisoned the treasonous ex-spook and his daughter. Thus far in the Navalny case, Germany is following the same script.
What a coincidence that the attack comes just as Nord Stream 2, the second line of the massive natural gas pipeline under construction from Russia to Germany opposed by the US and several NATO allies, is near completion.
Suddenly, the diplomatic fall-out has put the controversial project in limbo, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government under pressure from Washington to withdraw from the project which would increase Russian influence on Europe’s energy infrastructure and rival the US’s costlier exports.
As pointed out by Die Linke’s Dietmar Bartsch, where were the calls to halt the purchase of Saudi oil imports after the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? It is clear that the Anglo-Americans are simply desperate to halt the resurgence of Moscow on the international stage, threatening their German counterparts with sanctions as the final sections of the pipeline conveying Russian gas across the Baltic Sea is being constructed.
The attack on Navalny could not occur at a more auspicious time for the Atlanticists and a worse time for Moscow.
The notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to assassinate an opposition figure who holds a minuscule 2% support amongst the population, far behind other opponents nonexistent to Western media, but the one who just so happens to be favored by Washington, is contrary to any reason or common sense.
Not to mention, at the exact moment it would jeopardize a project essential to Russia’s economic growth and frugality, as the pipeline would link Moscow with Western Europe bypassing neighboring transit countries such as the Ukraine (also opposed to Nord Stream 2) which have costly transit fees.
Is it really the Russian government who stands to massively benefit from this fiasco?
The answer to “cui bono?” could not be more clear: US, Saudi and Emirati oil and gas interests, not the Kremlin. Russia was also recently the first nation to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate with its Sputnik V registered in August, an international competition that has been heavily politicized by Washington which is eager to cast aspersions on Moscow’s accomplishment.
Meanwhile, Germany is also the one Western European country where Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda is falling flat, as recent polls consistently show that the vast majority of Germans don’t see Russia as a threat, likely a result of their high rate of media literacy.
Despite Navalny’s recovery, there are already calls to legislate a ‘Navalny Act’ as a follow-up to the Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill previously passed by the US House of Representatives in 2012 under the Obama Administration. The Magnitsky act sanctioned Russian officials accused of being responsible for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, an unscrupulous Russian tax lawyer who helped dodgy international financiers like the US-born British tycoon William Browder commit massive tax evasion in Russia.
Magnitsky died under mysterious circumstances while in custody awaiting trial for facilitating Browder’s skullduggery and suffering from poor health, with the Russian prison officials first accused of depriving him of medical treatment and then allegedly beating and torturing him to death.
The fascinating 2016 documentary The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes explores the case from the perspective of Westernized Putin critic and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who through the course of his investigation unexpectedly discovers that the mainstream media narrative of Magnitsky’s death was a fiction concocted by Browder. Suddenly, Nekrasov’s entire perspective on Russia comes into question and the film takes on a metanarrative of the nature of propaganda itself.
What we are being told about Navalny is likely another fairy tale like the implausible story forged by Mr. Browder about the death of the auditor he hired to enrich himself exploiting Russia’s tax loopholes. Incredibly, the American-born investor is the grandson of Earl Browder, the leader of the Communist Party USA during its heyday until his expulsion at the end of World War II.
When the wartime US-Soviet alliance fell apart and the Cold War began, the elder Browder proved more loyal to American imperialism than the communist movement and presided over the liquidation of the CPUSA until it was reestablished with his dismissal as General Secretary. Having grown up in a Russian-speaking family, decades later his grandson decided to cash in on the collapse of the former Soviet Union through various investment ventures as manager of the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management.
When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin and numerous oligarchs went into exile or landed themselves in prison, Bill Browder was forced to flee the country after defrauding the Russian government of millions with the help of the late Mr Magnitsky.
One of those banished oligarchs, billionaire media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, also died under dubious circumstances in the UK when he was found hanging in his apartment bathroom in Berkshire, England in 2013. Like Magnitsky, Putin and the Russian government were suspected of involvement in Berezovsky’s death by the media without a shred of evidence, even though his suspicious purported “suicide” actually came shortly after expressing a written willingness to return to Russia and reconcile with Putin — which almost certainly would have been a stroke of good luck for Russian counter-intelligence and a threat to the West, not the Kremlin.
Berezovsky had been close with a former agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the KGB’s successor), Alexander Litvinenko, a defector renowned for claiming he had been ordered by Putin to assassinate Berezovsky and subsequently lived in the UK as a consultant for British intelligence until his own polonium poisoning in 2006, the first of a series of episodes framing Moscow. Consistently, however, in every one of these cases it is never the Kremlin which stands to gain.
There is a reason Putin consistently polls over 70% in favorability with the Russian people and that is his directing the country away from Western domination under the ruinous neoliberal economic policies of his corrupt and inebriated predecessor Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin’s administration auctioned off the former state-owned assets to foreign investors such as Browder and oligarchs like Berezovsky.
Meanwhile, Navalny has a level of support well under 5%, with recent polls placing him behind the Communist Party’s Pavel Grudinin and the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. While Navalny’s own rhetoric has shifted over the years, he has controversially maintained his own cozy relationship with ethnic nationalists who make up a significant amount of his right-wing populist base, even co-organizing annual marches dominated by racist skinheads.
Navalny infamously coined the slogan “Stop Feeding the Caucasus!” advocated by xenophobic nationalists calling for the defunding and secession of the Muslim-majority North Caucasus from Russia, while making frequent Islamophobic statements and stoking anti-immigrant sentiments against Central Asians.
You would never know this reading Western media who have completely sanitized Navalny’s politics (if they ever address them at all), while they remain obsessed with the perceived ingratiation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin even though the former’s politics have far more in common with Navalny than the Russian President. Given the US support for far right nationalists in the 2014 anti-Russian coup d’etat in Ukraine, Washington has no qualms about backing fascists to undermine Moscow.
In 1831, Russia’s most famous and revered poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed To the Slanderers of Russia, a patriotic ode in response to members of the French parliament who were advocating for a military intervention to assist the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire. Pushkin asserted that the Polish uprising was an inter-slavic “ancient, domestic dispute”, while the Poles considered it an issue of national independence which their European allies were eager to exploit against Moscow.
For the great Russian writer, the Polish alliance with the tyrant and invader Napoleon was unforgivable. He also reportedly communicated to General Alexander von Benckendorff, the chief of the Tsarist secret police assigned to censor and surveil him, that the Europeans were still bitter over the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812 and had not yet attacked with weapons but were doing so with “daily mad slander.”
Fast forward nearly 200 years later and little has changed in Russia-West relations.
The only thing that has arguably transformed is Russia’s standing on the world stage following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Soviet Union almost 75 years later, the latter of which was masterminded by a Polish-born National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose Russophobic worldview was a product of the deep-seated “ancient, domestic dispute” Pushkin wrote of a century earlier.
Contrary to the Western portrayal of the resurgence of Moscow in the new millennia under Vladimir Putin as neo-tsarist expansionism, post-Soviet Russia is actually a relatively weak capitalist state that has found itself a target of regime change by the West which seeks the colonization and balkanization of Eastern Europe.
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a spike in oil prices that generated huge profits for Chevron and ExxonMobil, but also had the unintended consequence of benefiting Russia’s state-run oil industry just as Putin was re-nationalizing its energy assets and banishing financial criminals like Browder and Berezovsky.
While its strength and influence has certainly been restored, its foreign investments remain low even in the Ukraine where Moscow has been accused of territorial expansion with the so-called “annexation” of Crimea, where the mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian population actually voted to join its neighbor in a referendum.
Russia may no longer be an empire (or communist), but yet it remains in the crosshairs of Western imperialism, whose political leaders and subservient corporate media are still conducting the “mad slander” that Pushkin opined.


offguardian--2020-09-25--The Silent Solution: Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate Knuckles Under to Lockdowns

The exchange of recriminations between ultra-Orthodox ( or “ haredi ” ) leadership and its critics over the former ’ s coronavirus policy has focused so obsessively on exceptions to the rule , Tweedledum/Tweedledee fashion , that the really astonishing fact about the rabbinate ’ s stance has gone virtually unnoticed .
That stance – never more glaringly evident than now , as New York-area Jews attend religious services muzzled , and the entire Jewish population of Israel prepares to observe the High Holidays under house arrest – is its unprecedented submissiveness to arbitrary state power .
True , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arm-waving of the usual haredi-haters , like Naftuli Moster , who as early as April 7 was accusing “ ultra-Orthodox leaders ” of augmenting the spread of the virus .
Nor would you guess the rabbinate ’ s true position from New York Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein , an Orthodox Jew who out-Mostered Moster by calling such criticism a “ blood libel.
” But what the verbal shadow-boxing obscures is the most important point of all : that the Orthodox rabbinate – in defiance of its own stated principles – is abandoning its congregants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aimed at curbing the basic freedoms that we as Jews should be doing all we can to defend .
That is the rabbinate ’ s true failing in the current crisis ; and ominously enough , few Orthodox Jews seem to have realized it .
Yes , among my coreligionists there have been “ outliers , ” as Rabbi Avi Shafran , Agudath Israel of America ’ s director of public affairs , contemptuously called them : a few stubborn haredim who still think the Bill of Rights applies in Brooklyn , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to hold a harmless religious celebration in his own back yard without being assaulted by police .
But as Rabbi Shafran correctly emphasized , the occasional act of recalcitrance has only thrown the leadership ’ s docility into sharper relief .
The American Orthodox rabbinate uttered not a peep of protest when the governors of New York and New Jersey closed down every single Jewish school , study hall and synagogue for months at a time by executive diktat .
Even Israel ’ s notoriously unruly haredi leadership , after a few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the prospect of spending an entire holiday season under guard .
To grasp how astonishing this is , you need only think back to 2012 , when New York City ’ s Department of Health was considering very modest regulation of m ’ tzitzah b ’ peh [ oral suction during circumcision ] .
The optional practice of using oral suction ( as opposed to a sterile glass tube ) on a circumcision wound can cause newborns to be infected with the herpes simplex virus , with results that have included brain damage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Orthodox rabbis promptly declared “ battle ” against health authorities who dared to worry about the safety of Jewish infants .
In August 2012 , a single issue of the Orthodox-run Ami Magazine contained no fewer than three separate articles denouncing the “ evil decrees ” of New York City ’ s government .
Rabbis affiliated with Agudath Israel even scurried into federal court in an attempt to block any rules that might limit m ’ tzitzah b ’ peh , claiming that such regulations would violate their religious rights .
Yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderately serious flu virus – the rabbinate has turned its position upside down .
Orthodox Jews who dared to arrange private prayer groups at their homes were “ murderers , ” screamed a mass email I received from a rabbi on March 27 .
Making it clear his position was shared by the most prominent US Orthodox authorities , the writer even praised a “ holy person ” who confessed that “ I feel like going into one of the house minyanim [ prayer groups ] with a baseball bat.
” From “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tzitzah b ’ peh to threatening violence against Jews for praying : can anyone believe the same rabbis who were ready to sacrifice babies in 2012 were sincerely moved by the “ health risk ” associated with COVID19 ?
Nor is the rabbinate ’ s invocation of the principle of dina d ’ malkhutha dina [ the law of the secular government is the law ] any more credible than its concern over communal health .
Has anyone forgotten the hue and cry the rabbis raised over New York ’ s baby steps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yeshivoth ?
That was only two years ago ; and in case you thought the haredi rabbinate changed its mind about the value of secular education in the interim , the cover story of this year ’ s May 13 number of Ami Magazine quoted the “ renowned mechanech [ educator ] , ” Rabbi Dovid Levy , to the effect that the notion that “ people evolved from the same common denominator as monkeys ” is a fantasy “ of the non-Jewish world.
” So why did the same rabbis who rejected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ executive fiats that closed those schools altogether ?
It certainly wasn ’ t because the government had a strong legal case .
Not one of the decrees closing American religious institutions was issued by a legislature or approved by a court order .
Like the mass house arrest of tens of millions of citizens , these edicts were unilateral executive orders issued by governors who had assumed quasi-dictatorial powers on the strength of each state ’ s version of the Emergency Health Powers Act ( EHPA ) – a controversial statute drafted at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the possibility of a massive bioterrorism attack that ( it was feared at the time ) might put tens or even hundreds of millions of American lives in immediate jeopardy .
COVID19 never posed anything like such a threat , but more than forty state governors seized the opportunity to bypass their state legislatures and to suspend the Fourteenth Amendment ’ s requirement of “ due process of law ” by declaring what was supposed to be a “ temporary ” state of emergency .
( I challenged the constitutional basis of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; on September 15 , a federal judge concluded that Pennsylvania ’ s lockdown orders did indeed violate the Constitution . )
Those quasi-dictatorial powers have not been relinquished to this day , though the governors ’ excuses for maintaining them grow more absurd with every passing month .
Never in modern American history has so much personal liberty been so drastically compromised on such flimsy grounds .
Nor does COVID19 involve an unprecedented medical threat .
Anyone still seeking proof of that need only look to Israel – whose government has just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to coincide with what is normally a holiday season .
Israeli officials attribute just over 1,100 deaths to COVID19 this year , nearly all of them among people of very advanced age and fragile health .
To put that in some perspective , in 2016 – the latest year for which I could find comprehensive data on line – 28,780 total deaths were recorded for Israelis aged 75 or older .
Even if we assume that no one whose death was attributed to COVID-19 would have died from some other cause during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is unlikely – that means that COVID19 accounted for barely a 7 percent increase , at most , in the death toll for the hardest-hit age bracket , while other groups were barely affected at all .
It ’ s hard to see to how the devastating effects of a nationwide lockdown can be justified when less invasive measures , aimed at protecting the most vulnerable demographic , could have tackled a medical problem of that relatively modest stature .
Why , then , has the Orthodox rabbinate acquiesced in sweeping attacks on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible reasons come to mind .
The first is that coronavirus hysteria has enhanced the rabbinate ’ s power .
For six months , Orthodox rabbis have been micromanaging Jewish life like an old Soviet bureaucracy run amok : who may pray , when , where , for how long , with what sort of mask ; how one may behave while shopping , how long one should “ talk to a neighbor , ” etc .
Even as I write this , complicated penalties for attending weddings are being circulated among the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Orthodox rabbinate has adopted the role of commissar-cum-Mrs. Grundy speaks for itself .
The second possibility is that the rabbis , having concluded that lockdowns were inevitable , decided that they had less to gain from defending religious rights than from playing toady to the powers that be .
In fact , it is hard to imagine another explanation for the way they ’ ve not only accepted the lockdown regime but have actually boasted of intensifying it .
On May 8 , the “ COVID-19 Task Force ” of my own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the total closure of synagogues , religious schools and study halls would continue as long as the rabbis wanted it to , regardless of the position of the secular authorities .
Brushing aside the fact that serious cases of the virus were already in sharp decline , the local rabbis and lay associates denied that “ the considerations and decisions of local , State , and Federal officials ” would persuade them to allow people to pray in synagogues or to study in yeshivoth .
That position can not be squared with past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it makes perfect sense on the assumption that the rabbis wanted to impress their new masters with a display of their power over a politically useful voting bloc .
All in all , though , I am less concerned with the reasons for the rabbis ’ betrayal of their fellow Jews to Big Brother than with the fact of the betrayal itself .
The rapid expansion of police-state tactics under the cover of “ health regulation ” represents a serious threat to freedom everywhere – and Jews , of all people , ought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dissent merges into the demonization of all differentness .
Naomi Wolf , who warned in her 2007 book The End of America that the United States was already veering dangerously towards fascism , has recently stressed that “ coronavirus is the perfect , terrifying internal and external enemy for a power grab.
” A clergy that is complicit in such a process has lost all moral authority .
And what about Judaism itself ?
The Talmud states ( Rosh ha-Shanah 11a ) that the enslavement of the Children of Israel in Egypt ceased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rabbinate understood the meaning of its religion ’ s teachings , it might well have chosen this season to fight for our rights – as Americans , as Jews , as human beings – instead of shrugging its collective shoulders while the Bill of Rights goes up in smoke .
But the Orthodox leadership has shown its true priorities – and now it ’ s our turn to act .
The same rabbinate that for years has encouraged the crimes of Israel and coddled child abusers is now turning its back on an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the freedom to worship .
It ’ s high time we reclaimed our religion from such “ leadership.
” Michael Lesher is an author , poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse .
His previous nonfiction book was Sexual Abuse , Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities ( McFarland & Co. , 2014 ) ; his first collection of poetry , Surfaces , was published by The High Window in 2019 .
A memoir of his discovery of Orthodox Judaism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Personal Journey of a “ Born-Again ” Jew – has just been published by Lincoln Square Books .

Michael Lesher
The exchange of recriminations between ultra-Orthodox (or “haredi”) leadership and its critics over the former’s coronavirus policy has focused so obsessively on exceptions to the rule, Tweedledum/Tweedledee fashion, that the really astonishing fact about the rabbinate’s stance has gone virtually unnoticed.
That stance – never more glaringly evident than now, as New York-area Jews attend religious services muzzled, and the entire Jewish population of Israel prepares to observe the High Holidays under house arrest – is its unprecedented submissiveness to arbitrary state power.
True, you’d hardly know that from the arm-waving of the usual haredi-haters, like Naftuli Moster, who as early as April 7 was accusing “ultra-Orthodox leaders” of augmenting the spread of the virus. Nor would you guess the rabbinate’s true position from New York Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, an Orthodox Jew who out-Mostered Moster by calling such criticism a “blood libel.”
But what the verbal shadow-boxing obscures is the most important point of all: that the Orthodox rabbinate – in defiance of its own stated principles – is abandoning its congregants to an increasingly hysterical, anti-democratic campaign aimed at curbing the basic freedoms that we as Jews should be doing all we can to defend.
That is the rabbinate’s true failing in the current crisis; and ominously enough, few Orthodox Jews seem to have realized it.
Yes, among my coreligionists there have been “outliers,” as Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudath Israel of America’s director of public affairs, contemptuously called them: a few stubborn haredim who still think the Bill of Rights applies in Brooklyn, or that a New Jersey rabbi should be able to hold a harmless religious celebration in his own back yard without being assaulted by police.
But as Rabbi Shafran correctly emphasized, the occasional act of recalcitrance has only thrown the leadership’s docility into sharper relief. The American Orthodox rabbinate uttered not a peep of protest when the governors of New York and New Jersey closed down every single Jewish school, study hall and synagogue for months at a time by executive diktat.
Even Israel’s notoriously unruly haredi leadership, after a few perfunctory grumbles, is now submitting to the prospect of spending an entire holiday season under guard.
To grasp how astonishing this is, you need only think back to 2012, when New York City’s Department of Health was considering very modest regulation of m’tzitzah b’peh [oral suction during circumcision]. The optional practice of using oral suction (as opposed to a sterile glass tube) on a circumcision wound can cause newborns to be infected with the herpes simplex virus, with results that have included brain damage and even death. But America’s Orthodox rabbis promptly declared “battle” against health authorities who dared to worry about the safety of Jewish infants. In August 2012, a single issue of the Orthodox-run Ami Magazine contained no fewer than three separate articles denouncing the “evil decrees” of New York City’s government.
Rabbis affiliated with Agudath Israel even scurried into federal court in an attempt to block any rules that might limit m’tzitzah b’peh, claiming that such regulations would violate their religious rights.
Yet now – in the face of a moderately serious flu virus – the rabbinate has turned its position upside down. Orthodox Jews who dared to arrange private prayer groups at their homes were “murderers,” screamed a mass email I received from a rabbi on March 27. Making it clear his position was shared by the most prominent US Orthodox authorities, the writer even praised a “holy person” who confessed that “I feel like going into one of the house minyanim [prayer groups] with a baseball bat.”
From “battle” in support of m’tzitzah b’peh to threatening violence against Jews for praying: can anyone believe the same rabbis who were ready to sacrifice babies in 2012 were sincerely moved by the “health risk” associated with COVID19?
Nor is the rabbinate’s invocation of the principle of dina d’malkhutha dina [the law of the secular government is the law] any more credible than its concern over communal health. Has anyone forgotten the hue and cry the rabbis raised over New York’s baby steps toward enforcing minimal educational standards at state-accredited yeshivoth?
That was only two years ago; and in case you thought the haredi rabbinate changed its mind about the value of secular education in the interim, the cover story of this year’s May 13 number of Ami Magazine quoted the “renowned mechanech [educator],” Rabbi Dovid Levy, to the effect that the notion that “people evolved from the same common denominator as monkeys” is a fantasy “of the non-Jewish world.”
So why did the same rabbis who rejected innocuous regulation of religious schools actually embrace executive fiats that closed those schools altogether?
It certainly wasn’t because the government had a strong legal case. Not one of the decrees closing American religious institutions was issued by a legislature or approved by a court order.
Like the mass house arrest of tens of millions of citizens, these edicts were unilateral executive orders issued by governors who had assumed quasi-dictatorial powers on the strength of each state’s version of the Emergency Health Powers Act (EHPA) – a controversial statute drafted at the end of 2001 to deal with the possibility of a massive bioterrorism attack that (it was feared at the time) might put tens or even hundreds of millions of American lives in immediate jeopardy.
COVID19 never posed anything like such a threat, but more than forty state governors seized the opportunity to bypass their state legislatures and to suspend the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement of “due process of law” by declaring what was supposed to be a “temporary” state of emergency. (I challenged the constitutional basis of these actions, in print, months ago; on September 15, a federal judge concluded that Pennsylvania’s lockdown orders did indeed violate the Constitution.) Those quasi-dictatorial powers have not been relinquished to this day, though the governors’ excuses for maintaining them grow more absurd with every passing month.
Never in modern American history has so much personal liberty been so drastically compromised on such flimsy grounds.
Nor does COVID19 involve an unprecedented medical threat. Anyone still seeking proof of that need only look to Israel – whose government has just announced a drastic second “lockdown” to coincide with what is normally a holiday season.
Israeli officials attribute just over 1,100 deaths to COVID19 this year, nearly all of them among people of very advanced age and fragile health. To put that in some perspective, in 2016 – the latest year for which I could find comprehensive data on line – 28,780 total deaths were recorded for Israelis aged 75 or older. Even if we assume that no one whose death was attributed to COVID-19 would have died from some other cause during the relevant six months of 2020 – which is unlikely – that means that COVID19 accounted for barely a 7 percent increase, at most, in the death toll for the hardest-hit age bracket, while other groups were barely affected at all.
It’s hard to see to how the devastating effects of a nationwide lockdown can be justified when less invasive measures, aimed at protecting the most vulnerable demographic, could have tackled a medical problem of that relatively modest stature.
Why, then, has the Orthodox rabbinate acquiesced in sweeping attacks on its congregations’ religious freedom? Two possible reasons come to mind.
The first is that coronavirus hysteria has enhanced the rabbinate’s power. For six months, Orthodox rabbis have been micromanaging Jewish life like an old Soviet bureaucracy run amok: who may pray, when, where, for how long, with what sort of mask; how one may behave while shopping, how long one should “talk to a neighbor,” etc. Even as I write this, complicated penalties for attending weddings are being circulated among the faithful.
(A few samples from a source here in Passaic, New Jersey: you must quarantine yourself for 8 days if you dance; if you don’t dance, you’re exempt, but if someone else who attended the wedding gets a cough, your quarantine goes up to 10 days, or to 12 days if you “were in close proximity to that person.” And, of course, you must wear a mask while saying “mazel tov.”)
The obvious gusto with which the Orthodox rabbinate has adopted the role of commissar-cum-Mrs. Grundy speaks for itself.
The second possibility is that the rabbis, having concluded that lockdowns were inevitable, decided that they had less to gain from defending religious rights than from playing toady to the powers that be. In fact, it is hard to imagine another explanation for the way they’ve not only accepted the lockdown regime but have actually boasted of intensifying it.
On May 8, the “COVID-19 Task Force” of my own community issued a public statement insisting that the total closure of synagogues, religious schools and study halls would continue as long as the rabbis wanted it to, regardless of the position of the secular authorities.
Brushing aside the fact that serious cases of the virus were already in sharp decline, the local rabbis and lay associates denied that “the considerations and decisions of local, State, and Federal officials” would persuade them to allow people to pray in synagogues or to study in yeshivoth.
That position cannot be squared with past rabbinic resistance to state regulation. But it makes perfect sense on the assumption that the rabbis wanted to impress their new masters with a display of their power over a politically useful voting bloc.
All in all, though, I am less concerned with the reasons for the rabbis’ betrayal of their fellow Jews to Big Brother than with the fact of the betrayal itself. The rapid expansion of police-state tactics under the cover of “health regulation” represents a serious threat to freedom everywhere – and Jews, of all people, ought to know how easily the criminalization of dissent merges into the demonization of all differentness.
Naomi Wolf, who warned in her 2007 book The End of America that the United States was already veering dangerously towards fascism, has recently stressed that “coronavirus is the perfect, terrifying internal and external enemy for a power grab.”
A clergy that is complicit in such a process has lost all moral authority.
And what about Judaism itself? The Talmud states (Rosh ha-Shanah 11a) that the enslavement of the Children of Israel in Egypt ceased on Rosh ha-Shanah. If the Orthodox rabbinate understood the meaning of its religion’s teachings, it might well have chosen this season to fight for our rights – as Americans, as Jews, as human beings – instead of shrugging its collective shoulders while the Bill of Rights goes up in smoke.
But the Orthodox leadership has shown its true priorities – and now it’s our turn to act. The same rabbinate that for years has encouraged the crimes of Israel and coddled child abusers is now turning its back on an unprecedented assault on personal liberties, including the freedom to worship. It’s high time we reclaimed our religion from such “leadership.”
Michael Lesher is an author, poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. His previous nonfiction book was Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities (McFarland & Co., 2014); his first collection of poetry, Surfaces, was published by The High Window in 2019. A memoir of his discovery of Orthodox Judaism as an adult – Turning Back: The Personal Journey of a “Born-Again” Jew – has just been published by Lincoln Square Books.


The Covidean Creed

We believe in one Virus , the SARS-COV-2 , the Almighty , destroyer of heaven and earth , that is all there is , seen and unseen .
We believe in one Malady , Covid-19 , the only son of SARS-COV-2 , eternally begotten of the Virus , God from God , Darkness from Darkness , true God from true God , begotten , not made ( probably ) of one Being with the Virus .
For diseases are they none but the One True Virus and Death comes not without Its presence .
Thou shalt have no diseases before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die outside the Virus shall not have their passing told unto the people on a quotidian basis in hushed tones , but shall be quietly recorded in obscure tables when the time comes .
Through the Virus all things were unmade .
For us men ( and women and all points in between ) and for our damnation It came down from heaven ( or maybe from China or Maryland ) : By the power of the Holy WHO It became incarnate from the swirling microbes ( or maybe bat soup through immaculate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For Its sake we were crucified under ongoing Lockdown ; It suffered not death , like unto most it afflicteth , and is never buried in the news .
Though by the evidence that appeareth on those who do pass away or wax sick , it hath waned to almost nought .
On the second wave It rose again And though few did perish many were tested and lo !
Many were deemed infected ( probably ) and ‘ cases ’ were they named , though sickness showed they none , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ascended into the collective consciousness and is seated on the right and left hand of all ( lest with sanitiser they do anoint themselves five score times hourly ) It will come again in glory , as many times as necessary to convince the living and the dead , and his mask ’ d kingdom will have no end , it seemeth .
We believe in the Unholy pathogen , the Lord Rona , the taker of life ( for they that are vulnerable ) , though he passeth the children by , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ test .
With the quest for a Vaccine , the donning of the Holy Mask and with sequestration of the faithful he is worshipped and glorified and Its name kept alive in the minds of all .
It hath spoken through ‘ The Science ’ and thereafter through the Media , through Potentates and Rulers and through the scriptures of the WEF and of the foundations and think-tanks that do proclaim Its Gospel .
Woe to they who do speak out against the words of the Powers of Covid or their servants , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ names removed from the Book of Face and platform shall they have none .
One shall they be made with they that aver the Earth to be flat and Conspiracy Theorists shall they be named .
We believe in one unholy Catastrophic and Technocratic Global Church .
We acknowledge one Great Reset for the salvation of all .
We look in vain for the resurrection of Reason , Proportionality and Democracy , and towards the life of the New World to come .

Ian Jenkins
We believe in one Virus, the SARS-COV-2, the Almighty, destroyer of heaven and earth, that is all there is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Malady, Covid-19, the only son of SARS-COV-2, eternally begotten of the Virus, God from God, Darkness from Darkness, true God from true God, begotten, not made (probably) of one Being with the Virus.
For diseases are they none but the One True Virus and Death comes not without Its presence. Thou shalt have no diseases before the One True Virus. They that die outside the Virus shall not have their passing told unto the people on a quotidian basis in hushed tones, but shall be quietly recorded in obscure tables when the time comes.
Through the Virus all things were unmade.
For us men (and women and all points in between) and for our damnation
It came down from heaven (or maybe from China or Maryland):
By the power of the Holy WHO
It became incarnate from the swirling microbes (or maybe bat soup through immaculate Zoonosis), and was made Pandemic.
For Its sake we were crucified under ongoing Lockdown;
It suffered not death, like unto most it afflicteth, and is never buried in the news.
Though by the evidence that appeareth on those who do pass away or wax sick, it hath waned to almost nought.
On the second wave It rose again
And though few did perish many were tested and lo! Many were deemed infected (probably) and ‘cases’ were they named, though sickness showed they none,
in accordance with the Great Plan;
It ascended into the collective consciousness
and is seated on the right and left hand of all (lest with sanitiser they do anoint themselves five score times hourly)
It will come again in glory, as many times as necessary to convince the living and the dead,
and his mask’d kingdom will have no end, it seemeth.
We believe in the Unholy pathogen, the Lord Rona, the taker of life (for they that are vulnerable), though he passeth the children by,
who proceeds from the laboratory and the test.
With the quest for a Vaccine, the donning of the Holy Mask and with sequestration of the faithful he is worshipped and glorified and Its name kept alive in the minds of all.
It hath spoken through ‘The Science’ and thereafter through the Media, through Potentates and Rulers and through the scriptures of the WEF and of the foundations and think-tanks that do proclaim Its Gospel.
Woe to they who do speak out against the words of the Powers of Covid or their servants, for they shall be anathema and their names removed from the Book of Face and platform shall they have none. One shall they be made with they that aver the Earth to be flat and Conspiracy Theorists shall they be named.
We believe in one unholy Catastrophic and Technocratic Global Church.
We acknowledge one Great Reset for the salvation of all.
We look in vain for the resurrection of Reason, Proportionality and Democracy,
and towards the life of the New World to come.
Amen.


offguardian--2020-09-26--Save Our Rights Protest, Trafalgar Square 26 Sept

Regretfully we can ’ t have a man on the ground during this rally , but here is a facebook live feed which gives you a chance to hear what ’ s going on .
The rally was organised by the Save Our Rights campaign group , you can join their facebook page here .
We invite you all to comment , share your stories , if you have video links please share them here , and we ’ ll be updating this post as more info comes in .
UPDATE 1 : The police have moved in and broken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on how many arrests have been made .
UPDATE 2 : Certain members of the protest are reassembling in Hyde Park .
We will follow up on this and link to the stream when it begins again .
UPDATE 3 : Hyde park has a strong police presence and Dr. Heiko Schöning has reportedly been arrested .
Here is a link to a current live feed from Hyde park .
UPDATE 4 : Footage of Dr. Heiko Schöning , handcuffed , being escorted into the back of a police van .
How long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if any , will be brought against him is unknown at this time .
Please comment with updates as you hear them .

Regretfully we can’t have a man on the ground during this rally, but here is a facebook live feed which gives you a chance to hear what’s going on.
The rally was organised by the Save Our Rights campaign group, you can join their facebook page here.
We invite you all to comment, share your stories, if you have video links please share them here, and we’ll be updating this post as more info comes in.
UPDATE 1: The police have moved in and broken up the protest. No word yet on how many arrests have been made.
UPDATE 2: Certain members of the protest are reassembling in Hyde Park. We will follow up on this and link to the stream when it begins again.
UPDATE 3: Hyde park has a strong police presence and Dr. Heiko Schöning has reportedly been arrested. Here is a link to a current live feed from Hyde park.
UPDATE 4: Footage of Dr. Heiko Schöning, handcuffed, being escorted into the back of a police van. How long he will be held and what charges, if any, will be brought against him is unknown at this time. Please comment with updates as you hear them.
More footage what a proud moment to be British as we arrest a German doctor who came here to help us… pic.twitter.com/Qx0LQbBqee — Anna Brees (@BreesAnna) September 26, 2020


offguardian--2020-09-27--WATCH: A Message to New “Conspiracy Theorists”

James Corbett ’ s latest video is an important and timely message – “ Welcome !
” So , it @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve fallen down the rabbit hole .
Disorienting , isn ’ t it ?
@ @ @ @ @ worry : you are not alone .
On this special edition of The Corbett Report @ @ @ @ @ the newcomers to the reality-based community and gives them some tips and advice that he @ @ @ @ @ way about navigating this world of lies and cover-ups .

James Corbett’s latest video is an important and timely message – “Welcome!”
So, it’s 2020 and you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. Disorienting, isn’t it? Well, don’t worry: you are not alone. On this special edition of The Corbett Report, James Corbett welcomes all the newcomers to the reality-based community and gives them some tips and advice that he’s learned along the way about navigating this world of lies and cover-ups.


offguardian--2020-09-27--The Death of Andre Vltchek, a Passionate Warrior for Truth

For decades , Andre Vltchek , an old-school journalist and artist ( but a young man ) who travelled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight , tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice .
In this age of arm-chair reporters , he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage .
He told it straight .
This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications , who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them , so they stopped publishing his writing .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tread , and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence .
He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense .
Now he is dead .
He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul , Turkey .
He was sleeping , and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel , she couldn ’ t .
He was 57-years-old .
Let him sleep in peace , but let his words ring out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peace in a world of violent predators .
Those who knew him and his work feel a great , great loss .
His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye .
As Koenig says , Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people , the Others , the non- whites , victims of Western wars , both military and economic , in places such as West Papua , Iraq , Syria , Africa , etc .
He had a chip on his shoulder , a well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities .
He was recently in the United States , and here is what he wrote : But notice one thing : it is them , telling us , again , telling the world what it is and what it is not !
You would never hear such statements in Africa , the Middle East , or Asia .
There , people know perfectly well what it really is all about , whether it is about race or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks in the United States , analyzing the profound crises of US society .
I visited Washington , DC , Minneapolis , New York , and Boston .
I spoke to many people in all those places .
What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world .
The United States , a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades , is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world .
People , including those from the media , are outrageously ignorant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ Do black lives matter all over the world ?
Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo , and do they matter in West Papua ?
” I swear , I received no coherent answer .
Somebody has to tell them…Somebody has to force them to open their eyes .
A few years ago , I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa ( my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit , about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are dying , in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence .
But before I was allowed to present , I was warned : ‘ Remember , people here are sensitive ” Do not show too much of brutal reality , as it could disturb them.
’ Hearing that , I almost left the event .
Only my respect for the organizer made me stay .
Now I am convinced : it is time to force them to watch ; to see rivers of blood , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greed have triggered .
It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others .
But as everyone knows , it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so .
Andre tried so hard to do that , and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears .
He was a relentless fighter , but he was a lover , too .
His love for the people and cultures of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Camus , he tried to serve both beauty and suffering , the noblest of vocations .
A lover of literature and culture , the best art and beauty ever produced , he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance , illiteracy , and the grip of propaganda so tight that “ what is missing is life .
Euphoria , warmth , poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.
” He sensed , and said it , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world .
It was selfishness run amok .
Me me me .
It was , he felt , soul death , the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair .
He wrote : I urge you to read his article , Love , Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism .
He was a rare and courageous man .
Let us ring bells in his honor .
Here ’ s a Kenneth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the poet ’ s heart :

Edward Curtin
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?”
Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down (1998)
For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who travelled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice.
In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight.
This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications, who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them, so they stopped publishing his writing. He went where so many others feared to tread, and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence. He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense.
Now he is dead. He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul, Turkey. He was sleeping, and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel, she couldn’t. He was 57-years-old.
Let him sleep in peace, but let his words ring out, his passionate cries for justice and peace in a world of violent predators.
Those who knew him and his work feel a great, great loss. His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye.
As Koenig says, Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people, the Others, the non- whites, victims of Western wars, both military and economic, in places such as West Papua, Iraq, Syria, Africa, etc. He had a chip on his shoulder, a well justified chip, against the one-sided Western media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities.
He was recently in the United States, and here is what he wrote:
But notice one thing: it is them, telling us, again, telling the world what it is and what it is not! You would never hear such statements in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. There, people know perfectly well what it really is all about, whether it is about race or not! I have just spent two weeks in the United States, analyzing the profound crises of US society. I visited Washington, DC, Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. I spoke to many people in all those places. What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world. The United States, a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades, is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world. People, including those from the media, are outrageously ignorant and provincial. And they are selfish. I asked many times: “Do black lives matter all over the world? Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and do they matter in West Papua?” I swear, I received no coherent answer. Somebody has to tell them…Somebody has to force them to open their eyes. A few years ago, I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa (my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit, about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo), where millions of black people are dying, in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence. But before I was allowed to present, I was warned: ‘Remember, people here are sensitive” Do not show too much of brutal reality, as it could disturb them.’ Hearing that, I almost left the event. Only my respect for the organizer made me stay. Now I am convinced: it is time to force them to watch; to see rivers of blood, which their laziness, selfishness, and greed have triggered. It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others.
But as everyone knows, it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so. Andre tried so hard to do that, and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears.
He was a relentless fighter, but he was a lover, too.
His love for the people and cultures of the world was profound. Like Albert Camus, he tried to serve both beauty and suffering, the noblest of vocations. A lover of literature and culture, the best art and beauty ever produced, he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance, illiteracy, and the grip of propaganda so tight that “what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”
He sensed, and said it, that nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world. It was selfishness run amok. Me me me. It was, he felt, soul death, the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair. He wrote:
It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; I’m intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it. Poetry, music, great literature, these he loved as he fought on the barricades for peace.
I urge you to read his article, Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism.
He was a rare and courageous man. Let us ring bells in his honor.
Here’s a Kenneth Rexroth poem for Andre, the fighter with the poet’s heart:
No Word
The trees hang silent
In the heat… Undo your heart
Tell me your thoughts
What you were
And what you are… Like the bells no one
Has ever rung


offguardian--2020-09-28--Three New Reads – September

Three New Reads – September

Some folks – I ’ m tempted to call them psychological sectarians , more interested in ‘ othering ’ those outside their cosy club than effecting change in this Vale of Tears – will slam me for this , but all three of my picks this month are in CounterPunch .
Worse , one is by the infamous Louis Proyect .
I ’ ve been slated before for citing , “ approvingly ” , verboten sources – variously : Caitlin Johnston , Noam Chomsky , Stephen Gowans , Grayzone .
In no case was specific argument raised against the content @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relevance to wider points I was making .
Which omissions – trust me on this small point : I did time in that most acrimonious of jailhouses ; the trotskyist left of the eighties – are textbook signs of the sectarian outlook .
In some radical circles , CounterPunch is equally off limits .
And to be sure , I often find pieces there that would sit comfortably in the Guardian , but what of it ?
If I see something of merit in the Guardian on a political issue of core significance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ) I ’ ll acknowledge the fact .
Ditto the Economist , Al-Monitor , CIA Factbook or any number of media best approached with circumspection , if not a g-clamp tightly attached to both nostrils .
Not that I place CounterPunch in such company .
For all its frequent vapid pieces , it also – even more frequently – houses fine analyses .
These three reads , I submit , merit that descriptor .
In February of this year , below the line of an OffGuardian version of my post , The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this my current pick made a comment which sparked heated exchanges .
I got my own two penn ’ oth in : I get this weird sense of disconnect with Louis Proyect .
On the one hand this is the man who sees that vile comment on Vanessa Beeley – and photoshopping the face of an interlocutor he took exception to onto an image of a cockroach – as valid debating method .
The man who so often ‘ argues ’ by means of links to specious sources that don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relevance grounds – withstand a moment ’ s careful scrutiny .
As is the case here .
On the other hand I was only last night reading a really good CounterPunch piece by him on Malcolm X.
It ’ s well reasoned , lucid and with a good balance of personal experience and objectivity .
Had I not known that other Louis , I ’ d have wanted to meet the author and buy him a drink .
A few chipped in , Louis included .
Follow the discussion here .
In a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another of my pieces , a commenter using a pseudonym but identified by the Administrator as the one and only Mr Proyect called me a cunt .
[ 1 ] All the same , the Mr Hyde aspect to this strange man ’ s character does not in my view negate the value of his Dr Jekyll offerings .
This thoughtful piece ( actually a book review ) on race , class and ‘ bourgeoisified ’ blue-collar workers in an imperialist state is a case in point .
[ 2 ] The weird @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that in this piece a man who calls me a cunt and describes Vanessa Beeley – a reporter who defends Damascus and rightly condemns the dirty war on Syria – as “ too ugly to fuck ” actually uses the female universal pronoun .
I could go on , really I could… The US is Using the Guardian to Justify Jailing Assange for Life .
Why is the Paper So Silent ?
( 5061 words ) I ’ m a long term admirer of Jonathan Cook .
This former Guardian journalist is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devilry – without ever using such terms – and media collusion with said devilry .
His language is always calm , simple and on the nail .
Journalism is an activity , and anyone who regularly engages in that activity qualifies as a journalist .
It is not the same as being a doctor or a lawyer , where you need a specific professional qualification to practice .
You are a journalist if you do journalism – and you are an investigative journalist if , like Assange , you publish information the powerful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalists claim to do every day in a democracy : monitor power for the public good .
Which is why ultimately the Obama administration abandoned the idea of issuing an indictment against Assange .
There was simply no way to charge him without also putting journalists at the New York Times , the Washington Post and the Guardian on trial too .
And doing that would have made explicit that the press is not free but works on licence from those in power .
In this Cook is saying what others have ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But roughly a third of the way in we get to what makes this piece so worthy of attention : On the one hand , Assange needed the manpower and expertise provided by big-hitting newspapers like the New York Times , the Guardian and Der Spiegel to help Wikileaks sift through vast trove to find important , hidden disclosures .
He also needed the mass audiences those papers could secure for the revelations , as well as those outlets ’ ability to set the news agenda in other media .
Liberal media , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court Assange and Wikileaks to avoid being left behind in the media war for big , Pulitzer Prize-winning stories , for audience share and for revenues .
Each worried that , were it not to do a deal with Wikileaks , a rival would publish those world-shattering exclusives instead and erode its market share .
For a brief while , this mutual dependency just about worked .
But only for a short time .
In truth , the liberal corporate media is far from committed to a model of unmediated , whole-truth journalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media ’ s relationship to the power establishment and threatened its access .
It introduced a tension and division between the functions of the political elite and the media elite .
Over the remainder of the piece , Cook elaborates on these three paragraphs .
That lucid and simple prose he so excels at is seen here alive and kicking .
As good journalists do – and good essayists , good poets ; indeed , good communicators of whatever stripe , field or genre also do – he moves seamlessly between the universal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advertising ) and the particular ( the nature of such media as it plays out in the case of Julian Assange ) .
The Plot Against Libya : an Obama-Biden-Clinton Criminal Conspiracy ( 3506 words ) The quality of writing here speaks for itself , as does its overall thrust , in these its opening paragraphs : The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window .
A mouse scurries across the cracked concrete floor , the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of distant voices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a western Libyan dialect distinctive from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi .
Somewhere off in the distance , beyond the shimmering desert horizon , is Tripoli , the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war .
But here , in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid , there are no smugglers , no rapists , no thieves or murderers .
There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they made their way from Nigeria , Cameroon , Chad , Eritrea , or other disparate parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war and poverty , the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European colonialism .
The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced by Hollywood .
These are slaves : human beings bought and sold for their labor .
Some are bound for construction sites while others for the fields .
All face the certainty of forced servitude , a waking nightmare that has become their daily reality .
This is Libya , the real Libya .
The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the US-NATO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya .
The Libya now fractured into warring factions , each backed by a variety of international actors whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian .
But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls .
No , it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama , along with Hillary Clinton , Joe Biden , Susan Rice , Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this devastation .
With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with his NATO comrades in France and Britain , unleashed the dogs of war on an African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development .
But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes carried out in the name of the American people .
No , this is us , the antiwar left in the United States , peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from internal rot and political decay – to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump and directly into the heart of darkness .
There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the desert sand .
[ 1 ] Ordinarily OffGuardian , for historic reasons averse to censoring comments , would nevertheless have removed such a crude ad hominem .
It didn ’ t in this case , precisely to make a point I endorse .
[ 2 ] Not all the marx-leninists I ’ ve crossed swords with over Syria are as debased in their debate methods as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true gent and author of the invaluable Imperialism in the twenty-first century , a book frequently cited in my own posts .
Despite having broadly similar perspectives on a good many matters political , we differ strongly on Syria .
Why ?
Not , I think , because of any fundamental difference over the nature and limitations of ba ’ athism – aka ‘ Arab socialism ’ , aka ‘ state capitalism ’ .
Rather because John is more sanguine than I am over the prospect of an international workers ’ revolution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ over Syria – defend its lawful government from imperialist attack , or side with the imperialists – other marx-leninists cry a plague on both houses and demand an “ international solidarity with the Syrian working class ” that strikes me as rooted in cloud cuckoo land .
In Louis Proyect ’ s piece you ’ ll find that he too refers to the possibility of workers ’ revolution .
Whether or not this is scheduled to arrive in time to save millions of mainly dark skinned people , now and for the foreseeable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is not entirely clear .
While we ’ re on the subject of Julian Assange , yesterday WSWS ran this very good piece on the kangaroo hearing at the Old Bailey .
WSWS is the platform of the Socialist Equality Party , exception to the rule – see footnote 2 – of marx-leninist groups refusing to defend Damascus .
[ 4 ] NB the Libya piece features in CounterPunch+ – normally paywalled .
It first appeared on September 8 as publicly available “ for a limited period ” .
At time of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is still accessible to non subscribers but the rest of us may with all due speed copy and paste to a Word document on our own devices .

Philip Roddis
Some folks – I’m tempted to call them psychological sectarians, more interested in ‘othering’ those outside their cosy club than effecting change in this Vale of Tears – will slam me for this, but all three of my picks this month are in CounterPunch. Worse, one is by the infamous Louis Proyect.
I’ve been slated before for citing, “approvingly”, verboten sources – variously: Caitlin Johnston, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Gowans, Grayzone. In no case was specific argument raised against the content of my citings, nor of their relevance to wider points I was making. Which omissions – trust me on this small point: I did time in that most acrimonious of jailhouses; the trotskyist left of the eighties – are textbook signs of the sectarian outlook.
In some radical circles, CounterPunch is equally off limits. And to be sure, I often find pieces there that would sit comfortably in the Guardian, but what of it? If I see something of merit in the Guardian on a political issue of core significance (rare, I’ll grant you) I’ll acknowledge the fact. Ditto the Economist, Al-Monitor, CIA Factbook or any number of media best approached with circumspection, if not a g-clamp tightly attached to both nostrils.
Not that I place CounterPunch in such company. For all its frequent vapid pieces, it also – even more frequently – houses fine analyses. These three reads, I submit, merit that descriptor.
*
In February of this year, below the line of an OffGuardian version of my post, The Syrian Army in Idlib, the author of this my current pick made a comment which sparked heated exchanges. I got my own two penn’oth in:
I get this weird sense of disconnect with Louis Proyect. On the one hand this is the man who sees that vile comment on Vanessa Beeley – and photoshopping the face of an interlocutor he took exception to onto an image of a cockroach – as valid debating method. The man who so often ‘argues’ by means of links to specious sources that don’t – on factual accuracy, logic and/or relevance grounds – withstand a moment’s careful scrutiny. As is the case here. On the other hand I was only last night reading a really good CounterPunch piece by him on Malcolm X. It’s well reasoned, lucid and with a good balance of personal experience and objectivity. Had I not known that other Louis, I’d have wanted to meet the author and buy him a drink. Weird.
A few chipped in, Louis included. Follow the discussion here. In a subsequent BTL comment at OffGuardian, below another of my pieces, a commenter using a pseudonym but identified by the Administrator as the one and only Mr Proyect called me a cunt.[1]
All the same, the Mr Hyde aspect to this strange man’s character does not in my view negate the value of his Dr Jekyll offerings. This thoughtful piece (actually a book review) on race, class and ‘bourgeoisified’ blue-collar workers in an imperialist state is a case in point.[2]
The weird sense of disconnect is heightened by the fact that in this piece a man who calls me a cunt and describes Vanessa Beeley – a reporter who defends Damascus and rightly condemns the dirty war on Syria – as “too ugly to fuck” actually uses the female universal pronoun.
I could go on, really I could…
*
I’m a long term admirer of Jonathan Cook. This former Guardian journalist is remarkably skilled at dissecting both ruling class devilry – without ever using such terms – and media collusion with said devilry. His language is always calm, simple and on the nail.
Journalism is an activity, and anyone who regularly engages in that activity qualifies as a journalist. It is not the same as being a doctor or a lawyer, where you need a specific professional qualification to practice. You are a journalist if you do journalism – and you are an investigative journalist if, like Assange, you publish information the powerful want concealed… …Assange was doing exactly what journalists claim to do every day in a democracy: monitor power for the public good. Which is why ultimately the Obama administration abandoned the idea of issuing an indictment against Assange. There was simply no way to charge him without also putting journalists at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian on trial too. And doing that would have made explicit that the press is not free but works on licence from those in power.
In this Cook is saying what others have; Craig Murray and me for starters. But roughly a third of the way in we get to what makes this piece so worthy of attention:
On the one hand, Assange needed the manpower and expertise provided by big-hitting newspapers like the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel to help Wikileaks sift through vast trove to find important, hidden disclosures. He also needed the mass audiences those papers could secure for the revelations, as well as those outlets’ ability to set the news agenda in other media. Liberal media, on the other hand, needed to court Assange and Wikileaks to avoid being left behind in the media war for big, Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, for audience share and for revenues. Each worried that, were it not to do a deal with Wikileaks, a rival would publish those world-shattering exclusives instead and erode its market share. For a brief while, this mutual dependency just about worked. But only for a short time. In truth, the liberal corporate media is far from committed to a model of unmediated, whole-truth journalism. The Wikileaks model undermined the corporate media’s relationship to the power establishment and threatened its access. It introduced a tension and division between the functions of the political elite and the media elite.
Over the remainder of the piece, Cook elaborates on these three paragraphs. That lucid and simple prose he so excels at is seen here alive and kicking. As good journalists do – and good essayists, good poets; indeed, good communicators of whatever stripe, field or genre also do – he moves seamlessly between the universal (the nature of media funded by advertising) and the particular (the nature of such media as it plays out in the case of Julian Assange).
An absorbing if painful read.[3]
*
The quality of writing here speaks for itself, as does its overall thrust, in these its opening paragraphs:
The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war. But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European colonialism. The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced by Hollywood. These are slaves: human beings bought and sold for their labor. Some are bound for construction sites while others for the fields. All face the certainty of forced servitude, a waking nightmare that has become their daily reality. This is Libya, the real Libya. The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the US-NATO war that deposed Muammar Gaddafi and the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The Libya now fractured into warring factions, each backed by a variety of international actors whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian. But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls. No, it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this devastation. With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination, the First Black President, along with his NATO comrades in France and Britain, unleashed the dogs of war on an African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development. But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes carried out in the name of the American people. No, this is us, the antiwar left in the United States, peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from internal rot and political decay – to shine a light through the gloom named Trump and directly into the heart of darkness. There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the desert sand.
I rest my case.[4]
* * *
NOTES:- [1] Ordinarily OffGuardian, for historic reasons averse to censoring comments, would nevertheless have removed such a crude ad hominem. It didn’t in this case, precisely to make a point I endorse. [2] Not all the marx-leninists I’ve crossed swords with over Syria are as debased in their debate methods as Louis. Take John Smith, a true gent and author of the invaluable Imperialism in the twenty-first century, a book frequently cited in my own posts. Despite having broadly similar perspectives on a good many matters political, we differ strongly on Syria. Why? Not, I think, because of any fundamental difference over the nature and limitations of ba’athism – aka ‘Arab socialism’, aka ‘state capitalism’. Rather because John is more sanguine than I am over the prospect of an international workers’ revolution. Where I see only two possible stances over Syria – defend its lawful government from imperialist attack, or side with the imperialists – other marx-leninists cry a plague on both houses and demand an “international solidarity with the Syrian working class” that strikes me as rooted in cloud cuckoo land. (And for all the real differences between ‘revolutionary’ and ‘democratic’ socialists like universalists Owen Jones and George Monbiot, in respect of Syria those differences, to my mind and for all practical purposes, might as well not exist.) In Louis Proyect’s piece you’ll find that he too refers to the possibility of workers’ revolution. Whether or not this is scheduled to arrive in time to save millions of mainly dark skinned people, now and for the foreseeable future in imperialism’s firing line, is not entirely clear. While we’re on the subject of Julian Assange, yesterday WSWS ran this very good piece on the kangaroo hearing at the Old Bailey. WSWS is the platform of the Socialist Equality Party, exception to the rule – see footnote 2 – of marx-leninist groups refusing to defend Damascus. [4] NB the Libya piece features in CounterPunch+ – normally paywalled. It first appeared on September 8 as publicly available “for a limited period”. At time of writing – 06:15 on September 27 – it is still accessible to non subscribers but the rest of us may with all due speed copy and paste to a Word document on our own devices.