Amazon Gets Fresh, Bayer Loves Basmati: Toxic Influences in Indian Agriculture

by CST Research / July 22nd, 2024

The citizens of India have a problem. In what the media like to call ‘the world’s biggest democracy’, there is a serious, proven conflict of interest among officials in the areas of science, agriculture and agricultural research that results in privileging the needs of powerful private interests ahead of farmers and ordinary people.

This has been a longstanding concern. In 2013, for instance, prominent campaigner and environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues said:

The Ministry of Agriculture has handed Monsanto and the industry access to our agri-research public institutions, placing them in a position to seriously influence agri-policy in India. You cannot have a conflict of interest larger or more alarming than this one.

In 2020, Kavitha Kuruganti (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) stated that the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee had acted more like a servant for Monsanto — there is an ongoing revolving door between crop developers (even patent holders) and regulators, with developers-cum-lobbyists sitting on regulatory bodies.

However, the capture of public policymaking space by the private sector is set to accelerate due to a recent spate of memorandums of understanding between state institutions and influential private corporations involved in agriculture and agricultural services, including Bayer and Amazon.

Corporate capture

As part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Amazon (June 2023), farmers will produce for Amazon Fresh stores in India as part of a ‘farm to fork’ supply chain. It will see “critical inputs” in agriculture and “season-based crop plans” in collaboration with Amazon based on “technologies, capacity building and transfer of new knowledge.”

This corporate jargon ties in with the much-publicised notion of ‘data-driven agriculture’ centred on cloud-based data information services (which Amazon also offers). In this model, data is to be accessed and controlled by corporates and the farmer will be told how much production is expected, how much rain is anticipated, what type of soil quality there is, what must be produced and what type of genetically engineered seeds and inputs they must purchase and from whom.

This has been described as the recolonisation of Indian agriculture, which will eventually involve a handful of data owners (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet etc.), input suppliers (Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, Cargill etc.) and retail concerns (Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart — both firms already control 60% of India’s e-commerce market) at the commanding heights of the agrifood economy, determining the nature of agriculture and peddling industrial food. Farmers who remain in this AI-driven system (a stated aim is farmerless farms) will be reduced to exploitable labour at the mercy of global conglomerates.

This is part of a broader strategy to shift hundreds of millions out of agriculture, ensure India’s food dependence on global finance and foreign corporations and eradicate any semblance of food democracy (or national sovereignty). [1]

In addition to the MoU with Amazon, an MoU was signed between the ICAR and Bayer in September 2023. Bayer (it bought Monsanto in 2018), which profits from various environmentally harmful and disease-causing chemicals like glyphosate, signed the MoU to help “develop resource-efficient, climate-resilient solutions for crops, varieties, crop protection, weed and mechanization”, according to the ICAR website.

The ICAR is responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India, and Bayer seems likely to exploit the ICAR’s vast infrastructure and networks to pursue its own commercial plans, including boosting sales of toxic proprietary products.

But that’s not all. According to the non-profit GRAIN in its article ‘The corporate agenda behind carbon farming’, Bayer is gaining increasing control over farmers in various countries, dictating exactly how they farm and what inputs they use through its ‘Carbon Program’.

GRAIN says:

You can see in the evolution of Bayer’s programmes that, for corporations, carbon farming is all about increasing their control within the food system. It’s certainly not about sequestering carbon.

Given the seriousness of what is laid out by GRAIN in its article, India’s citizens and farmers should take heed, especially as the ICAR website states that a focus of the MoU with Bayer will be on developing carbon credit markets.

In a letter (14 July 2024) to Rabindra Padaria, principal scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and Himanshu Pathak, director-general of the ICAR, Aruna Rodrigues says: [2]

Inking in ICAR’s formal partnership with Bayer (Monsanto) quite simply confirms straightforwardly that the ICAR protects its interest, which is the same as those of Bayer-Monsanto, large chemical/herbicide corporates… the ICAR has ditched its mandate to Indian farmers and farming, which is to promote farmer interests as a priority in an unbiased and objective assessment of what is right and good for Indian farming and food…

A separate ‘citizen letter’ (20 July 2024) has also been sent to Pathak on the various MoUs that the Indian government has signed with influential private corporations. [3]  Hundreds of scientists, farmer leaders, farmers and ordinary citizens have signed the letter.

It states:

Bayer is a company notorious for its anti-people, anti-nature business products and operations in itself and, furthermore, after its takeover of Monsanto. Its deadly poisons have violated basic human rights of peoples across the world, and it is a company that has always prioritised profits over people and planet.

It goes on to say that it is not clear what the ICAR will learn from Bayer that the well-paid public sector scientists of the institution cannot develop themselves. The letter says entities that have been responsible for causing an economic and environmental crisis in Indian agriculture are being partnered by ICAR for so-called solutions when these entities are only interested in their profits and not sustainability (or any other nomenclature they use).

The letter poses some key questions such as: Where was the democratic debate on carbon credit markets? How is the ICAR ensuring that the farmers get the best rather than biased advice that boosts the further rollout of proprietary products? Is there a system in place for the ICAR to develop research and education agendas from the farmers it is supposed to serve as opposed to being led by the whims and business ideas of corporations?

These are fundamental questions given that agriculture is a state subject as per India’s constitution. It is all the more concerning given that the authors of the citizen letter note that copies of the MoUs are not being shared proactively in the public domain by the ICAR.

The letter asks that the ICAR suspends the signed MoUs, shares all details in the public domain and desists from signing any more such MoUs without necessary public debate.

However, on 19 July, there were reports that the ICAR had signed another MoU, this time with Syngenta for promoting climate resilient agriculture and training programmes. In response, the authors of the letter state that the ICAR has (again) partnered with a corporation that has a track record of anti-nature and anti-people activities, selling toxic products like paraquat, class action suits against its corn seeds and anti-competitive behaviour.

Mutagenic HT rice

It is becoming clear who the ICAR actually serves. Let us return to Aruna Rodrigues and her letter to Rabindra Padaria (IARI) and Himanshu Pathak (ICAR) for additional insight.

Rodrigues’ letter focuses on the commercial cultivation of basmati rice varieties tolerant to imazethapyr-based, non-selective herbicides. These chemicals can be liberally sprayed on herbicide tolerant (HT) crops because the crops have been manipulated to withstand the toxic impacts of spraying.

The HT varieties of rice have undergone some form of mutagenesis rather than genetic engineering. Mutagenesis has traditionally involved subjecting plant cells to chemical or physical agents (e.g. radiation) that cause mutations to the DNA in the hope that a resulting mutation may produce a desirable effect in the plant. This kind of mutation breeding has been used for decades but only affects a minority of the plants on the market. Industry watchdog GMWatch says this risky technology (mutagenesis breeding) in the past managed to escape regulation.

So, this HT crop by the mutagenesis route is not defined as ‘genetic engineering’ (the method usually used to create HT crops) and therefore falls outside the purview of current GM regulations.

Although the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) bars HT crops (a) for being a HT crop and (b) on account of contamination of crops in a centre of genetic diversity, it has been a long-standing aim of biotech companies like Bayer (Monsanto) to get HT crops cultivated in India.

Rodrigues asks:

Is it a deliberate decision of the ICAR to use the mutagenesis route to produce HT rice varieties (tolerant to imazethapyr) with the explicit objective to bypass the formal regulation of GE crops/GMOs?

Rodrigues accuses the ICAR of effectively ditching its mandate to Indian farmers, many of whom regard organic farming as their competitive advantage. This step is also a potential threat to India’s export markets, which are based on organic standards, along with the necessary co-surety that India’s foods and farms are not contaminated by herbicides, a consequence of using HT crops.

By adding a trait for herbicide tolerance, the ICAR is informed:

ICAR’s action directly impacts this vital issue of contaminating our germ plasm in rice and contravenes a Supreme Court Order of “No Contamination”. Furthermore, our export markets for basmati are in excess of US $5 billion in 2023-24. Your action will also directly impact India’s exports and thereby, impact farmer export potential, incomes and income opportunities that premium prices provide.

Moreover, Rodrigues asserts that the entire mutagenesis process for HT rice must be elaborated, especially when the mutant variety is for the purpose of human consumption. The ICAR is duty-bound to provide, for example, whether a physical or a chemical mutagen was used, the range of doses used and the toxicity for the said material, the herbicide(s) used to test the HT of the basmati rice being used, the concentrations of the herbicides used and the genetic mechanism by which HT rice through mutagenesis has a resistant gene to imazethapyr.

While the issue of intellectual property rights for the HT rice varieties using mutagenesis is unclear, the ICAR and IARI have executed a technology transfer agreement of the HT trait for commercial cultivation.

A failed technology

In her letter, Rodrigues states that, based on empirical evidence of 35 years of HT crops in the US and Argentina, HT crops are a failed technology: it spawns super weeds, increased herbicide use and no added performance yield. Moreover, for India, HT crops are a perverse use of technology, whether genetic engineering or through mutagenesis, that risks small and marginal farmers’ crops and herbs and plants used in many Ayurvedic medicines because of herbicide drift.  It will also uniquely impact the employment of women in weeding.

She goes on to state that in the US overall herbicide use has increased more than tenfold since the introduction of HT Crops (1992-2012 figure). In addition, HT crops are designed for monocultures and completely unsuited to Indian small-holder, multi-crop farming: anything not HT will be destroyed, the resistant crop stands, but everything else dies, including non-target organisms.

The herbicides used with HT crops are also a major human health issue. There is a strong link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In relation to this, there are more than 100,000 lawsuits winding their way through US Courts. Glyphosate (used in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide) is also an endocrine disruptor and is linked to birth defects. Rodrigues notes that Monsanto and the US Environmental Protection Agency had both known for over 40 years that glyphosate and its formulations cause cancer.

Other herbicides used by Bayer include glufosinate (used in its Liberty herbicide), which is acknowledged as more toxic than glyphosate and, like it, is a systemic, broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide. It is a neurotoxin that can cause nerve damage and birth defects and is damaging to most plants that come into contact with it.

Glufinosate is banned in Europe and not permitted in India. It has been implicated in brain developmental abnormalities in animal studies and is very persistent in the environment, so it will certainly contaminate water supplies in addition to food where it will be absorbed.

Imazethapyr (contained in Bayer’s Adue herbicide) is also a systemic broad-spectrum herbicide and is banned in some countries and not approved for use in the EU.

Prof. Jack Heinemann (University of Canterbury in New Zealand) adds that the likes of imazethapyr must be tested for their ability to cause bacterial antibiotic resistance. An important concern given that India’s population has some of the highest levels of antibiotic resistance in the world. Any spread of HT crops would put people at severe risk of resistance and disease.

Despite these environmental and health concerns, the herbicide market in India is projected to grow by around 54% in the next five years, from USD 361.85 million in 2024 to USD 558.17 million by 2029.

In her letter, Rodrigues concludes:

In view of the above evidence of serious irreversible harm to health, food and agriculture across several dimensions and contravention of the PP (Precautionary Principle), it is a required scientific response for the ICAR to immediately withdraw HT rice varieties and desist from introducing any HT crop through mutagenesis.

Notes

1. For further insight into this, see Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order by C Todhunter on Globalresearch.ca or Academia.edu.

2. ICAR Introduces HT Rice Varieties by the Mutagenesis Process Tolerant to Imazethapyr, letter to the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, A Rodrigues, 14 July 2024.

3. Citizens’ letter (incl. farmer leaders and agri scientists) to ICAR against multiple recent MoUs with agri-corporations – ASHA Kisan Swaraj, 20 July 2024.Facebook

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CST Research carries out research into food, agriculture and development issues. Read other articles by CST Research.

 

Tempting Armageddon as a national strategic policy

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

by Paul Larudee / July 22nd, 2024

If you want to get ahead in Washington, devise the most dangerous, reckless, merciless and destructive plan for US world domination. If it kills millions of people (especially if they are mostly women and children), you will be called a bold strategist. If tens of millions more become refugees, it will be even more impressive. If you find a way to use nuclear weapons that would otherwise be gathering dust, you will be hailed as brilliant. Such is the nature of proposals for dealing with Russia, China and Iran, not to mention smaller nations like Cuba, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. Can a plan to decimate humanity and scorch the earth be far behind?

How did we get here? This is not the world that was envisioned in the years following the greatest war in history.

If you consider yourself a hammer, you seek nails, and this seems to be the nature of US foreign policy today. Nevertheless, when WWII ended in 1945, the US had no need to prove that it was by far the most powerful nation on the planet. Its undamaged industrial capacity accounted for nearly half the economy of an otherwise war-torn and devastated world, and its military was largely beyond challenge, having demonstrated the most powerful weapons the world had ever known, for better or worse.

That was bound to change as the world recovered, but even as the rebuilding progressed, it did so with loans from the US and US-dominated institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which added international finance as another pillar of US supremacy. The loans built markets for US production, while creating allies for its policies in the postwar period.

It wasn’t all rosy, of course. But the war and its immediate aftermath introduced greater distribution of wealth, both in the US and much of the world, than had hitherto been the case. Highly graduated income taxes – with rates greater than 90% on the highest incomes – not only funded the war effort, but also assured relative social security and prosperity for much of the working class in the postwar period. In addition, the GI Bill provided funds for college education, unemployment insurance and housing for millions of returning war veterans. Although a main purpose of the legislation may have been to avoid the scenes of armed repression against unemployed and homeless war veterans, as occurred with a much smaller number of veterans after WWI, it had the effect of ushering many of them into middle class status. Another factor was the introduction of employee childcare and health insurance benefits during the war, in order to entice women into the work force and make it possible for them to devote more of their time to war production. These benefits (especially health insurance) remained widespread and even increased after the war, contributing to higher living standards compared to the prewar era.

Internationally, wider distribution of wealth was seen as a means of deterring the spread of Soviet-style socialism by incorporating some of the social safety net features of the socialist system into a market economy that nevertheless preserved most of the power base in capitalist and oligarchical hands.

Unfortunately, many of the wealthy and powerful may have seen these developments as temporary measures to avoid potential social disorder, and a means of fattening the cattle before milking, shearing and/or butchering. One of the earliest rollbacks was the income tax structure, which saw a decades-long decline in taxation of corporations and the wealthy, as well as features in the tax code that allowed many of the wealthy to dodge income taxes altogether.

Similarly, savings and loan institutions, designed to serve the financial needs of the middle class, became a means to exploit them, thanks to changes in chartering rules engineered by the lobbyists of the wealthy to profit from speculative trade in mortgage securities. The most egregious consequence of this was the crash of 2008, resulting in the greatest transfer of wealth in US history to the top 1% (or even 0.1%) in such a short time. By then the neighborhood savings and loan was a memory, having been devoured by investment bankers to satisfy (unsuccessfully) their insatiable appetites.

In the international dimension, another important development was the uncoupling of the US dollar from the gold standard in 1971. This ended the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, and made the untethered dollar the standard, rendering its value equivalent to whatever purchasing power it might possess at any given time, and placing the United States in unprecedented control of international exchange.

A further instrument of postwar power was NATO, an ostensibly voluntary defensive alliance of nonsocialist western European and North American nations, to which the socialist countries reacted with their own Warsaw Pact. Both were voluntary to roughly the same imaginary degree, and justified each other’s existence. But both were also a means for the great powers of the US and the USSR to dominate the other members of their respective alliances. The defensive function of these alliances became obsolete with the dissolution of both the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. NATO then became an offensive alliance, functioning to preserve, enhance and expand US hegemony and domination in the face of its descent into internal dysfunction and external predation.

These transfers of wealth and power, both domestically and internationally took place even as US industrial and manufacturing power waned. This was due not only to competition from the expected postwar recovery of powers destroyed during the war (as well as newly rising ones), but also to the unmanaged voracious appetites of US speculators and venture capitalists, who replaced vaunted US industrial capacity with cheap foreign (“offshore”) sources. This eventually converted the US from a major production economy to a largely consumer one. It also helped to transfer middle and lower class wealth from the American masses to its upper echelons, as well-paying union and other full-time jobs were replaced by menial minimum wage and part-time ones, or by unemployment, welfare and homelessness. The service industries, construction, entertainment, finance, military, government and agriculture usually remained relatively stronger than industry and export, but less so than during the 1950s, and were increasingly funded by expansion of the national debt, rather than a strong economic base.

Of course, concentration of wealth is commensurate with concentration of power, and although the wealthy always have greater political power than the less wealthy, the transition to an increasingly oligarchical US society got a major boost in 2010 with the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations and other associations unprecedented power to use their vast financial resources to control the outcome of elections. It was a bellwether: despite the fact that Supreme Court justices are unelected officials, it is hard to imagine such a decision taking place a half century earlier (during the Warren Court, for example), when popular power in the US (though never as great as proclaimed) was perhaps at its peak, and which was reflected in the composition of the court and its decisions in that era. Citizens United gave corporations and well financed interest groups virtually unlimited control over US domestic and international policy.

The coalescing of these trends has resulted in a power structure and decision-making procedure (or lack thereof) that accounts for the astonishing headlong rush toward Armageddon described in the introductory paragraph of this article. The US is currently considered the only remaining superpower, but what is the basis of that power? It is not industrial or economic power, which the US abandoned for the sake of short-term profits in “offshore” manufacturing, as previously stated.

It is not even military power, much of which has been invested in extremely expensive air and sea forces that are now becoming obsolete, as second and third tier powers like Russia and Iran develop cheaper mass drone architecture, untouchable hypersonic missiles and electronic systems that make traditional weaponry less relevant. An extreme example of such irrelevance can be seen in the strategies of Hamas and its Palestinian allies, armed largely with low-tech self-developed weapons designed to exploit the vulnerabilities of massively armed Israeli forces laying waste to the Palestinian population and infrastructure above ground, while the resistance forces remain relatively invulnerable below ground, and able to attack effectively and indefinitely from their hundreds of miles of deep reinforced tunnels.

Similarly, the irrelevance and obsolescence of US arms became evident in the Ukraine war, as the US, and indeed all of NATO, proved themselves incapable of manufacturing more than a fraction of the artillery, shells and armored vehicles that Russia produces, with a military budget hardly more than a tenth that of the US, much less the combined NATO budget.

The US aim in the Ukraine war was and is ostensibly to defeat Russia. But it will consider the war a success even if (as seems certain) this objective fails. This is because the more immediate US goal is to assure and reinforce the subjugation of the western NATO countries, as well to expand to the rest of Europe. In effect, the Ukraine war solves the problem perceived by US policymakers that the dissolution of the USSR removed much of the justification for a defensive alliance which was no longer facing a threat of the sort against which it was created to defend.

But that question was apparently raised mainly if at all by academics at the time, not diplomats. Perhaps a partial explanation was inertia: why change what seemed to be keeping both peace and prosperity (for its members)? The US also found missions for NATO from the Balkans to 9/11 response to West Asia to Afghanistan and North Africa. But all of these paled in comparison to its previous function of deterring the Soviet Union. In order to justify the continued existence of NATO, a new, similar threat was needed, not merely “police actions”. This was manufactured by the US, starting with expansion of NATO to eastern Europe, in violation of its promises in 1991 to the leadership of the dissolving Soviet Politburo not to expand “an inch beyond the eastern border of [East] Germany.” Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined in 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004. In 2009, Albania and Croatia also joined, followed by Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020. Finland joined in 2023 followed by Sweden in 2024.

The purpose of the expansion, while giving the appearance of relevance, was not so much to respond to a perceived threat as to manufacture one, and Russia was selected to be the threat, despite the fact that it had posed no apparent strategic threat to NATO for more than two decades after the end of the Soviet Union. It even discussed the possibility of joining the Alliance. But the US had other intentions. Without a credible common threat, NATO might cease to be a defensive military alliance, with the eventual possibility of defections by members that no longer saw a significant benefit to their otherwise exorbitant and oppressive membership. Furthermore, many western European nations were finding common interests with Russia, most notably the Nordstream pipelines providing cheap, plentiful and reliable Russian natural gas to the European economies.

Obviously, this was intolerable for the US and its plan to dominate all of western and eastern Europe combined. Russia soon understood that the expansion of NATO was intended as a strategic threat to Russia’s security. As successor of, and inheritor to, the Soviet nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems, Russia could not afford to have NATO nuclear strike systems sitting on its doorstep any more than the US could accept nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. The US therefore chose to threaten Russia’s existence through Ukraine.

Ukraine was the perfect weapon to prod the Bear. It was poor and corrupt, and it had a substantial racist and ultranationalist anti-Russian Nazi and Fascist minority, with origins dating to collaboration with Nazi Germany. These elements hated Ukraine’s large ethnically and linguistically Russian population, who had a strong traditional link with Russia and its history, including Ukrainian cities founded by Russia. With well-placed undercover money, arms and expert CIA covert manipulation, a small but violent uprising, a coup d’état and civil war might turn Ukraine into a security threat to Russia that could be used to seal NATO under US control.

Under the stewardship of Hillary Clinton’s handmaiden, Victoria Nuland, laden with $5 billion (actually, with unlimited funds), this is exactly what happened in 2013-14. The newly installed Ukrainian coup government promptly began the repression of its ethnically Russian population, which mounted a resistance movement to defend itself, as intended by the US/NATO covert operators. Over the next eight years, the US funded, armed and trained its Ukrainian puppet, all the while amplifying the repression against the ethnic Russians, whose resistance groups Russia supported with arms and training. Negotiated agreements in 2014 and 2015 (the Minsk accords) to end the fighting were only partially and temporarily effective, and as German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted in an interview with Die Zeit in 2022, they were only an attempt to gain time [to strengthen the Ukrainian military until they were ready to take on Russia].

That time was February, 2022, when – on cue from its US puppeteers – Ukraine escalated its attacks on its Russian minority in Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts (provinces), instantly raising the daily casualty toll from dozens to hundreds. As intended, this prompted Russia to intervene directly with a “Special Military Operation”, ostensibly limited mainly to ending the massacres and defending the population that was under attack, but also to driving Ukraine to the negotiating table.

It worked. At the end of March, the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement at negotiations in Istanbul, under the auspices of the Turkish government. But this was not what the US had in mind, so British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was promptly dispatched to Istanbul, to remind the Ukrainians that puppets are controlled by the hands of their masters. From then on, the war escalated until it engaged more than a million armed combatants and resulted in more than a half million casualties. And in case some NATO member might be tempted to explore reconciliation with Russia, the US destroyed the Nordstream pipelines, breaking a major foundation of Russia’s peaceful economic bonds with the rest of Europe, and with them much of Europe’s heretofore economic success, on the assumption that weaker partners are more dependable than strong ones (and constitute weaker economic competition, as well).

The US thus became the undisputed hegemon of Europe by means of a conventional proxy war with Russia. But their original plan included the defeat of Russia, as well, both militarily and economically, the latter by means of sanctions that would deny markets and world trade to the Russian economy. This part of the plan was a miserable failure, as Russia found prosperity in new markets, and invested in an astonishingly productive, innovative and efficient strategic defense industry, mainly at its robust defense complex in the Ural mountains. No matter. War, destruction and wanton slaughter had nevertheless proven to be effective strategies for European domination, even without defeating Russia. In addition, the US had shown that, despite its industrial limitations, it could impose its will through proxies bought, trained and supplied with its most powerful weapon, which it had in unlimited supply: the mighty US dollar.

I therefore return to the question of the basis of US power. What enables a country with a declining industrial base and stagnating military production, a shrinking working and middle class and an expanding homeless population to expend vast sums of money to hire and arm proxy fighting forces, purchase and develop foreign political parties, overthrow governments, maintain a military budget that is the equal of the next nine countries combined, and an intelligence budget that is larger than the entire defense budget of every other country except China and Russia?

Part of the answer is that the US increases its national debt by whatever amount it wishes, usually paying low but reliable rates of interest, depending on the market for US Treasury notes. Currently, the debt is roughly $35 trillion, more than the annual US GDP. The only other time in history that debt has exceeded GDP was in WWII, which hints at profligate borrowing. But the US is not worried about the size of the debt or about finding takers for its IOUs. As mentioned earlier, the dollar was uncoupled from the value of gold in 1971. The untethered dollar is therefore the basis for most currencies in the world. As a result, the  entire world is heavily invested in the dollar and in maintaining its value, and will buy US Treasury notes as needed to assure that it remains stable and valuable. This enables the US to outspend all other countries to maintain and augment its power throughout the globe. Some have accused the US of treating this system of funding as “the goose that lays the golden egg”.

Others have accused it of coercing or “shaking down” other countries to participate in this financing scheme or face unpleasant consequences. The same accusation has sometimes been leveled with respect to the purchase of US “protection services” and expensive military hardware as part of the NATO member “contributions” that bring US installations and personnel to those countries, and to other US satellite countries around the globe.

The other major basis of US power is the use of unlimited dollar resources to visit extreme violence, death, war and destruction upon countries and societies that do not accept subordinate status, or even those who do, but whose destruction may be seen as a necessary object lesson to those who might otherwise step out of line. This is a commitment to use totally disproportionate force with little or no effort at diplomatic efforts to reach strategic goals. The Israelis call this the “Dahiyeh Doctrine”, in reference to turning entire suburbs (“dahiyeh” in Arabic) or cities and their populations into smoldering ruins for the sake of intimidation. In the case of Ukraine, the US/NATO, has raised the stakes in the destructiveness of the weapons being used against Russia, as well as the choice of increasingly deeper targets inside Russia, while refusing negotiated diplomatic solutions. Threats to use low yield nuclear weapons have also been suggested.

This is, in effect, the insanity ploy, “We are unreasonable and capable of anything. Do what we say or accept terrible consequences.” It is the Armageddon strategy, “We are willing to go to any lengths.” It is the strategy of those who think they are invincible, and who demand complete obedience from, and dominance of, potential rivals. It is the strategy of those who think that they can do whatever they want without serious consequence to themselves. The direct origin of this strategy is the Wolfowitz Doctrine, first issued by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, and submitted to his superior, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. The basis of the doctrine is that any potential rival to US power must be destroyed or reduced to size.

Cheney and Wolfowitz are part of the neoconservative political movement that began during the Vietnam war. It is a movement of warmongers and autocrats who believe that the control of US foreign policy must be kept in the hands of “experts” (themselves) and out of the hands of elected officials who don’t support them. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was in their eyes a vindication of their influence in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and their “success” led to the founding of the short-lived Project for a New American Century think tank during the latter part of the Clinton presidency.

The Project for a New American Century in turn became a springboard for neocon saturation of the George W. Bush administration in the major foreign policy arms of the government – the cabinet, the National Security Agency, the State Department, the intelligence services, and eventually the military. Since then, neoconservative control has only broadened and deepened in the U.S. To a large extent they are the unelected cabal that run US foreign policy and related agencies, with support from the interests that profit from war and exploitation, including weapons manufacturers, petroleum and mineral companies, and, of course, the similarly-minded Israel Lobby.

It is in these circles that arrogance knows no bounds, that no risk is too great, and that no amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, because you are not invited to participate unless you consider yourself too intelligent and powerful to make a mistake, and because Armageddon can only happen if you will it so.Facebook

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Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. Read other articles by Paul.

 

Puppet Realisations: Biden Stands Aside

by Binoy Kampmark / July 23rd, 2024

Having been endorsed as the only viable candidate to battle Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential elections, Joe Biden was subsequently browbeaten and harried into leaving the way open for another candidate.  It involved some movement of political furniture, but nothing more.

The process resulting in Biden’s decision had increasingly bulked over the last two months.  With each day, another Democratic figure would come out to suggest he pass the torch to another appropriate appointee of the establishment.  Whispers became roars.  Former President Barack Obama, whose deputy Biden had been, also joined the camp of dissent.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likewise.

With the announcement made, tedious commentary claimed it was a “shock”.  What was shocking was the lengthy pondering from Democratic Party hacks and plotters that Biden had the reserves to carry off a campaign that would lead to another electoral victory. In doing so, the president was understandably gulled by the false assumption that he had the support that mattered.  For a moment, the puppet had forgotten his various masters, the strings loosened, the fantasy in reach.

Confidence in his own indomitability was seemingly shattered by the June 27 presidential debate with Trump.  But even then, he remained obstinate, his sense of delusion brimming.  On July 7, Biden declared that the only force that would convince him to stand aside was the “Lord Almighty”.  Subsequent interviews revised such a celestial standard by suggesting that matters of health or a sharp decline in the polls could also play a part.

A letter to Democrat lawmakers sent on July 8 had one purpose in mind: snuffing a movement that had begun gaining momentum.  “I can respond to all of this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump.”  In a heavily coloured account, he suggested that his position as a presumptive nominee had never been in doubt.  “Only three people chose to challenge me.  One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent.  Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated.”

To challenge his standing, imputed Biden, was to effectively ignore the rank-and-file of the party, suggesting a crude disenfranchisement.  This was a gloriously rich assertion, given that presidential nominations have far more to do with corporate, unelected donor interests and stratagems conducted out of public view than they do with the average voting citizen.

The view was also patently deceptive, given that rival contenders were not allowed onto the ballot in certain states (take Wisconsin and North Carolina as examples) or permitted to face a proper primary process.  Ironically enough, attitudes among the average voter Biden waxes lyrical over were already hardening in favour of an alternative candidate in polls conducted last year.  In April 2023, an Associated Press/NORC poll found from a sampling of 1,230 US adults that 73% would prefer he not run again, with age being a critical factor.

It has been left to the Democratic establishment to maintain the illusion of presumptive nomination right to the point the decision was made to scupper the whole effort.  Indeed, much of the Biden presidency has been stage managed, heavily padded and often choreographed to repel journalistic scrutiny of conduct and policy.  The New York Times even went so far as to find this hermetic capsuling “troubling”, given that the president had “so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”  By the end of June this year, the paper’s editorial board had openly endorsed the Joe Must Go viewpoint.

In a call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe after sending his letter of defiance, the president made no secret of his disdain for various party operatives who had begun to doubt his mettle.  The measure was theatrical, given that those same operatives have been his prop and stay.  Resorting to a tactic he has previously deployed, he scorned the unnamed elites who knew little about the true inclinations of the Democratic voter. Amidst his rambling answers to program hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, his agitation was clear enough: “I’m getting so frustrated by the elites – now I’m not talking about you guys – the elites in the party, ‘Oh they know so much more.’  Any of these guys that don’t think I should run, run against me.  Announce for president, challenge me at the convention.”

A few days later, Biden’s performance at the NATO Washington summit produced sharp intakes of breath when introducing the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  He also managed to mangle his Vice President, confusing Kamala Harris with Trump.  The elites proved increasingly disgruntled.  With the donor base now in open revolt, threatening withdrawal of support, the decision was a foregone one.  Pity they are not willing to step aside as well.
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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He letures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

Unless You Have Something to “Sell” …

by William Manson / July 21st, 2024

Let us first dispense with a misleading (and superannuated) word: “society.”  You and I, mere human beings scrambling to survive, inhabit a marketplace.  From the moment we step outside our door, figuratively speaking, contractual and civil laws circumscribe each and every interaction we have with our fellow citizens/consumers.  (I’m mindful that, with the absolute governance of private property, this “door” is likely to belong to the mortgage bank rather than us.)

Having left this sanctuary, what should we do?  Aside from public areas set aside for recreation, we are to–buy or to sell.  But what can we sell?  Our mere physical labor, aside from low-wage grunt work in warehouses and such, has little or no market–value.  Granted, one can become an apprentice to a carpenter or plumber or roofer, and, with minimal formal training, perhaps eventually make an adequate income.  Or perhaps, by walking dogs, mowing lawns, babysitting, working a cash-register–all low-wage jobs which rarely generate a living wage.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking: mortgage payments, taxes and insurance premiums, stomachs unrelenting in their daily demands, children who will need that roof and food and “education.”

We need marketable skills; i.e., technical expertise which, given the ever-accelerating changes in computer and related technologies, will require up-to-date training.  Young people, aware of this elemental fact, embark on degree programs (borrowing, say, $100K with accrued interest to pay for it), and may end up with business training in finance, marketing, information technology, accounting, and so forth.  They have bought such expensive training in the expectation that, finally, they will be able to sell their skill-set (if not themselves) to some anonymous corporation.

Such corporations, tens of thousands of them, are the true inhabitants of the milieux: legal entities which shield the major share-holders from civil (and often criminal) liability for harm, not only to the hapless human beings who sell them their skilled labor, but even more to those millions who buy their thousands of products.  Such products, only a small percentage of which are necessary and/or beneficial to “consumers,” are relentlessly marketed through algorithmic calculations 24 hours a day–so that the human person, already habituated to selling her labor (rather than living freely), has also become habituated to the constant stream of subtle “prompts” to buy, buy, buy (rather than enjoying free sensibility and creative thought).

Each and every day, the beleaguered individual, no matter how consciously in denial of her status as both pre-obsolescent technician and disposable commodity, marches on.  Her primary motivation?  Vague hopes about a financially secure future–to continue this treadmill of children’s college costs, retirement, medical bills, and so forth.  In fact, after 20 or more years of such steadfast effort, she may attain the ultimate: ownership of her dwelling, on a 40’ x 60’ plot of land (in what is still anachronistically called a “neighborhood”).  Of course, such “neighbors,” informing the newcomer for her own good, insist upon certain standards of appearance and upkeep of this box-with-a-roof, in order to ensure increasing property-values of their adjacent properties.  Finally, In “retirement,” the old person can withdraw into her castle, no longer forced to work alongside persons she detests or face the daily stress of the traffic-choked commute.

Each corporation, designed to increase share-value for its primary owners, externalizes as many costs as possible: exorbitant student loans for attainment of mandated skill-sets required for initial and continued “employability,” transport, office attire, and so on.  To survive (especially with low-cost housing rapidly disappearing), the individual is drilled to be ambitious for upward “success” in this aptly named “rat race.”

One option remains: although each person may be compelled to accept outrageously one-sided, demoralizing conditions for employment (i.e., the purchase of her labor-skills), she is not forced to buy.  What if one chooses to remain…a philosopher, composer, or radical intellectual?  One will find very few “buyers” indeed for what one has to offer.  Unfortunately, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, today’s media-addled populace seems to know “the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”

And so, the creative outsider chooses to remain outside, or on the fringes, of this all-encompassing marketplace.  If she offers real truth, beauty and wisdom, but finds exceedingly few “buyers,” she nonetheless attains the perspicacious insight that her inner freedom is, in fact, realized through non-participation in a commercialized, dehumanizing milieu which trains, conditions, and degrades the countless millions of persons who are pushed onto the “work/spend treadmill” from which there is no escape-switch.Facebook

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Intellectual historian and psychoanalytic anthropologist, William Manson (Ph.D., Columbia) has published numerous scholarly books and papers, and is a longtime contributor to Dissident Voice. Read other articles by William.

 

Engineering a Crisis: How Political Theater Helps the Deep State Stay in Power

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / July 22nd, 2024

A failed assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. An incumbent president withdrawing his re-election bid at the 11th hour. A politicized judiciary that fails to hold the powers-that-be accountable to the rule of law. A world at war. A nation in turmoil.

This is what controlled chaos looks like.

This year’s election-year referendum on which corporate puppet should occupy the White House has quickly become a lesson in how the Deep State engineers a crisis to keep itself in power.

Don’t get so caught up in the performance that you lose sight of what’s real.

This endless series of diversions, distractions and political drama is the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It works the same in every age.

This is how the police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House.

You know who will lose? Every last one of us.

Politics today is about one thing and one thing only: maintaining the status quo between the Controllers (the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the corporate elite) and the Controlled (the taxpayers).

In other words, no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.

Consider the following a much-needed reality check, an antidote if you will, against an overdose of overhyped campaign announcements, lofty electoral promises and meaningless patriotic sentiments that land us right back in the same prison cell.

FACT: According to a scientific study by Princeton researchers, the United States of America is not the democracy that it purports to be, but rather an oligarchy, in which “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy.”

FACT: Despite the fact that the number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially, the lowest rate in sixty years, the number of Americans being jailed for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license continues to skyrocket.

FACT: Thanks to an overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime. That is not an exaggeration.”

FACT: Despite the fact that we have 38 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 13 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and 1.2 million veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums of taxpayer money continue to be doled out on wasteful programs that do little to improve the plight of those in need.

FACT: Since 2001 Americans have spent $93 million every hour for the total cost of the nation’s so-called war on terror.

FACT: It is estimated that 5 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in prison, whether it be a local jail or a state or federal penitentiary, due to a wide range of factors ranging from overcriminalization and surprise raids at family homes to roadside traffic stops.

FACT: At least 400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers every year. Indeed, Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist. Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack. Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be made financially liable for their wrongdoing.

FACT: On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams. Most of those SWAT team raids are for a mere warrant service. There has been a notable buildup in recent years of heavily armed SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.

FACT: For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government: the surveillance state. This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

FACT: Everything we do will eventually be connected to the Internet. By 2030 it is estimated there will be 100 trillion sensor devices connecting human electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. Much, if not all, of our electronic devices will be connected to Google, which openly works with government intelligence agencies. Virtually everything we do now—no matter how innocent—is being collected by the spying American police state.

FACT: Americans know virtually nothing about their history or how their government works. In fact, according to a study by the National Constitution Center, 41 percent of Americans “are not aware that there are three branches of government, and 62 percent couldn’t name them; 33 percent couldn’t even name one.”

FACT: Only six out of every one hundred Americans know that they actually have a constitutional right to hold the government accountable for wrongdoing, as guaranteed by the right to petition clause of the First Amendment.

Perhaps the most troubling fact of all is this: we have handed over control of our government and our lives to faceless bureaucrats who view us as little more than cattle to be bred, branded, butchered and sold for profit.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves.

One thing is for sure: the reassurance ritual of voting is not going to advance freedom one iota.

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John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and author, is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

 

The People’s Court of New Normal Germany

by C.J. Hopkins / July 24th, 2024

Just when I thought things could not possibly get more shockingly totalitarian in New Normal Germany, where I’m being prosecuted in criminal court (for the second time) for tweeting, the German authorities have gone and surprised me again. No, they haven’t established an actual Nazi-style People’s Court (pictured above) yet, and, of course, there is absolutely no similarity between the current German justice system, which is totally fair and democratic and a paragon of impartial justice and the rule of law, and The People’s Court of Berlin during the Nazi era, nor is there any similarity between Nazi Germany and New Normal Germany (i.e., modern-day Germany), and I would never, ever, suggest that there was, as that would be intellectually lazy, and tasteless, and completely inaccurate, and illegal, and … well, let me fill you in on the latest.

The Berlin Superior Court has set a date for my next thoughtcrime trial. As regular readers will probably recall, my first thoughtcrime trial in January ended with my acquittal. So, the German authorities are putting me on trial again. Yes, they can do that in Germany. But, wait, that’s not the best part.

The best part is, at my new thoughtcrime trial — this time in Berlin Superior Court — full-scale Anti-Terrorism Security protocols will be effect in the courtroom. Everyone will be subjected to TSA-style scanning and screening, and will have to surrender all their personal possessions and hats and coats and head coverings to the Security Staff, and completely empty their pockets of all items, before entering the courtroom. No computers, phones, smart-watches, or any other potential recording devices will be allowed in the courtroom. Pencils and sheets of paper will purportedly be provided to members of the press by Security Staff. Members of the press and public will be limited to 35, and, after they have successfully passed their “security screening,” they will be cordoned off in the last five rows of the gallery in the very back of the courtroom, “for security reasons,” and monitored by the armed Security Staff.

For the benefit of any new readers unfamiliar with me and my case, I am not a terrorist. I’m an award-winning American playwright, novelist, and political satirist. I have lived here in Berlin for 20 years. The German authorities have been investigating and prosecuting me since August 2022. My case has been covered in The Atlantic, Racket News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Multipolar, and many other outlets, so I won’t reiterate every little detail again here. Basically, I am being prosecuted for “spreading pro-Nazi propaganda” because I criticized the Covid mask mandates and tweeted the cover artwork of one of my books, The Rise of The New Normal Reich.

Here’s the cover artwork of that book. The other two images are the recent covers of Der Spiegel and Stern, two well-known mainstream German magazines, which are not being prosecuted for “spreading pro-Nazi propaganda.”As anyone (even the German authorities) can see, the Spiegel cover artwork uses exactly the same concept as the cover artwork of my book. The only difference is, the Spiegel swastika is covered by the German flag, whereas the swastika on my book is covered by a medical mask.

Both artworks are obviously intended as warnings of the rise of a new form of totalitarianism. Der Spiegel was warning about the Alternativ für Deutschland party (AfD) — as was Stern with its swastika floating in a champagne glass. I was warning about what I dubbed “The New Normal Reich,” the new nascent form of totalitarianism that emerged during 2020-2023, which is still very much on the rise, and which is thoroughly documented and analyzed in my book (which book was banned by Amazon in Germany at the same time the German authorities launched a criminal investigation of me and instructed Twitter to censor my Tweets, which Twitter did).

The pretext the Court is citing for ordering these Anti-Terrorism Security protocols at my trial is ridiculous, and infuriating. The Court claims that the courtroom in which my trial is to take place is occasionally used for a certain “high-security” trial. Therefore, according to the Court, my trial must also be subjected to Anti-Terrorism Security protocols. Seriously, the Court sent my attorney a fax setting forth this “explanation,” which is, of course, a load of horseshit. The Berlin Superior Court is a huge building containing multiple courtrooms, one or two which are probably not subject to such Anti-Terrorism Security protocols when “high-security” trials are not taking place within them.

No, the imposition of these Anti-Terrorism Security protocols is clearly a cynical ploy intended (a) to suppress coverage of the trial, (b) to discourage the press and public from attending, and (c) to intimidate and harass me and my legal counsel, and any members of the press and public who nevertheless attend the trial in spite of the “security procedures” they will be subjected to.

This cynical tactic — which is not an official press blackout, because journalists can still attend and attempt to scribble notes on their knees with the pencils and sheets of paper provided by the Security Staff — comes as no real surprise. As I mentioned above, my case and my first trial got a fair amount of attention from the international press, enough to put the Court on notice that my prosecution was being watched. So, it’s no mystery why the German authorities would want to discourage any reporting on my “do-over” trial in Superior Court.

Also, the gallery was filled to capacity at my original trial in January, where I delivered a rather unusual closing Statement to the Court, which was then published and disseminated widely in Germany. So, again, it is no real mystery why the Superior Court wants to discourage members of the public from attending this new trial by threatening to subject them to these humiliating “security” protocols, and why it has limited the gallery size to only 35 seats.

I assume the German authorities — and by “authorities” I mean the Berlin District Prosecutor’s office, the Berlin Superior Court (Der Kammergericht), and whatever other authorities are intent on punishing me, and making an example of me, for daring to criticize the government’s edicts during 2020-2022, i.e., suspension of the constitutional rights, mask mandates, segregation, the banning of protests, etc. — I assume these authorities are particularly motivated to prevent the press from covering this second trial in Superior Court, because, from what I understand of the German legal system, they are going to “do” me (i.e., convict me) this time.

The way the German legal system works, if they want to do you, is (1) you are acquitted in the lower Criminal Court, (2) the District Prosecutor appeals the verdict to the Superior Court, (3) the Superior Court overturns your acquittal, and (4) the prosecution goes back to the original Criminal Court, which stages a new trial, at which you will be found guilty, because, once the Superior Court has overruled your acquittal, the Criminal Court will convict you based on the Superior Court’s ruling. At which point you will appeal. And on and on and on it will go, until you are broke, or until you give up fighting because you are just so fucking exhausted.

I’m not making this up. This is how The People’s Court of New Normal Germany (i.e., the post-Covid German justice system, which, again, bears no resemblance whatsoever to The People’s Court of Berlin in Nazi Germany, or to the courts in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, or any other totalitarian “justice” system) … this is how it works in New Normal Germany if you are a critic of the authorities and refuse to meekly accept whatever punishment they want to summarily dish out for whatever they deem to be your thoughtcrimes.

But, hey, at least they’re not going to take me out and put me up against a wall and shoot me, like they did with political criminals in Nazi Germany, and the USSR, so I suppose I should be grateful. I’ll have to work on that.

If you think my case is an aberration, it isn’t. There are many, many other people — critics of the government’s “Covid measures” during 2020-2023 — who are being persecuted and made examples of. Most of these people do not have the financial resources to pay lawyers to fight these prosecutions, so they plead guilty to the charges and pay the fines, which are typically much less than what they would face in attorney’s fees. Being somewhat of a public figure, I thought it was my responsibility not to do that. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has donated to my legal defense fund, which is how I have been able to cover my legal expenses. There’s enough left in that fund to cover this next trial in Superior Court, so I’m OK for now, financially. I mention that because people are already asking how they can send me money.

What people can do, if they want to do something helpful, is make as much noise as possible about what is happening, not just in Germany, but all throughout the West. Because what is happening is, well, what I tried to capture and analyze in my book. The Powers That Be are going totalitarian on us. They are gradually, and not so gradually, phasing out the so-called “liberal” or “democratic” rights and principles that it was necessary to placate the Western masses with during the Cold War era, which it is no longer necessary to do beyond a certain superficial point.

I have published three books of essays documenting this transition to a new global-capitalist form of totalitarianism, so I’m not going to go on and on about it here. But that’s what all the censorship is about. That’s what all the manufactured hysteria, fomented hatred, fanaticism, the permanent state of “emergency” and “crisis,” the “culture wars,” the cults of personality, the bombardment of our minds with absolutely meaningless nonsense, the naked displays of force, the blatant instrumentalization of the justice system to punish political dissidents, not just here in Germany, but throughout the “democratic” West … that is what all this is about.

I’ll keep my readers posted on the details of my upcoming trial in Berlin Superior Court. My attorney is objecting to these “security protocols,” of course. We’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, instead of sending me money this time, maybe try to step back from all the mass hysteria and hatred that we are being inundated with and see the big picture. It isn’t pretty.

Help spread the word about the new totalitarianism, about the phasing-out of our democratic rights. I don’t care which “side” of whatever you are on — Trump, Biden, Palestine, Israel, the culture wars, the cancel campaigns, Covid, Elon Musk, Russia, whatever — and neither do The Powers That Be. Take a step back and try to see the bigger picture … the forest, instead of just the trees. And then make as much noise about it as you can.

We are heading somewhere very ugly … somewhere most of us can’t imagine. Some of us will get there first, but all of us will be there, together, eventually. My story is just one example of what it will be like there, in that ugly place. It isn’t really a story about Germany. It is a story about the end of the myth of democracy, and the rule of law, and all that good stuff. As Frank Zappa once so eloquently explained …

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

It’s something to behold, that brick wall is, especially up close and personal. You’ll see when you get here. I’ll save you a seat.Facebook

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C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org. Read other articles by C.J..