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Alongside the powers that be everywhere, Google’s still anonymous AI is also a pious believer in the virtues of free expression. It proclaims boldly and for all the right reasons that free speech is vital to democracy, in which it also claims to believe. It reminds us also, which is good to know, that freedom of expression promotes an informed citizenry and self-governance and ensures government accountability. Furthermore, that open dialogue and debate facilitate the “marketplace of ideas,” which is a vital condition for social progress and provides society with a much-needed “safety valve.” And finally, that the unhindered right to express one’s thoughts, beliefs, and values without fear is a fundamental aspect of human dignity and self-fulfilment. Amen, amen, amen.

In theory, all would heartily salute those noble sentiments. And that includes even some of their most ruthless violators, such as the German government.

For over a year after kidnapping him abroad, the German government kept prominent German lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich in prison on contrived charges and under extraordinarily harsh and inhuman conditions, which were seemingly designed just to torment him. In Germany, for Dr. Fuellmich at least, the right to express one’s thoughts with dignity (never mind self-fulfilment) in the manner so movingly preached by Google’s AI avatar went out the window many moons ago.

How many are there who still remember who Dr. Fuellmich is and what he stands for, let alone are aware of his current plight?

For those who do not, a brief note is in order. Shortly after the sudden appearance of the Covid affair in 2019, Dr. Fuellmich, a prominent trial attorney from Gottingen, gained public attention by raising sensible questions about the nature and origin of the commotion which was becoming global in scope. Identical questions were on the minds of many, but few were capable of articulating them in legal terms as effectively as he was. Initially, his questions were formulated rather timidly, barely overstepping the unspoken bounds of permissible inquiry. There was nigh a suggestion of any “conspiracy theory” or frontal challenge to the integrity of the system that in a matter of weeks had improvised, for purposes then still unknown, a global health emergency which was the pretext for unprecedentedly comprehensive social disruptions and the imposition of hitherto inconceivable restrictions on elementary human liberties.

As prominent professionals in the medical and other fields began also to sound the alarm and to raise questions from their respective areas of expertise, it became obvious to those who followed Reiner Fuellmich’s public pronouncements that both the direction and tone of the Covid inquiry he and his associates were pursuing were beginning to change. The issues he was now beginning to raise were no longer merely technical. Increasingly, as he dug deeper he was calling into question the bona fides of the political, media, and pharmaceutical intimidation machine that was invoking a supposed pandemic to implement a global lock-down regime, with compulsory mass injection of untested “therapeutic” substances.

Dr. Fuellmich’s basic questions about the “pandemic” are well worth recapitulating:

• “One: is there a corona pandemic, or is there only a PCR test pandemic, specifically, does a positive PCR test result mean that the person tested is infected with COVID-19, or does it mean absolutely nothing, in connection with the COVID-19 infection;
• “Two, do the so-called anti-corona measures, such as the lockdowns, facemasks, social distancing, and quarantine regulations serve to protect the world’s population from corona, or do they serve only to make people panic, so they believe, without asking any questions, that their lives are in danger, so that in the end, the pharmaceutical and technology companies can generate huge profits from the sale of PCR tests, antigen and antibody tests and vaccines, as well as the harvesting of our genetic fingerprints; and
• “Three, is it true that the German government was extensively lobbied, more so than any other government, by the chief protagonists of the so-called corona pandemic? Germany is known as a particularly disciplined country and was therefore to become a role model for the rest of the world, for its strict, and therefore, successful adherence to the corona measures.”

When, compelling as they evidently were, those interrogatories remained ignored in the public arena (whilst Dr. Fuellmich himself was being ridiculed and vilified just for asking) there began a perceptible shift in the scope and focus of his inquiry. His razor sharp legal mind was activated in the highest degree. The Establishment’s stonewalling on mostly softball issues gradually led him to undertake an unsparing in-depth scrutiny of the systemic background of the global Covid affair, fully intending to go to the root of it and leaving no stone unturned. Dr. Fuellmich threw the gauntlet when he announced that he was assembling evidence of crimes against humanity on a massive scale and of sufficient weight to convene a Medical Nuremberg II, with parallel criminal and class action proceedings that he intended to initiate in the judicial system of the United States and also before the European Court of Human Rights.

Dr. Fuellmich had stepped on some very sensitive and hostile toes. Clearly no such lunacy as he was contemplating could possibly be allowed. Plans were laid immediately to derail him by means of one of those shabby, low life operations in which secret services excel. Informants were planted in the target’s immediate circle to snitch on him and under false witness to furnish compromising evidence. A secret indictment (lettre de cachet, as this practice was known under the ancien regime in France and which recently was revived by the Hague Tribunal) for a purported money laundering scheme was duly prepared and German authorities waited for the convenient opportunity to catch their unsuspecting prey. That opportunity presented itself two years ago when Dr. Fuellmich, as a German citizen, appeared on the premises of the German consulate in Mexico (technically German territory, of course) to solicit a routine consular service. There, he was apprehended and promptly packed off to Germany to be disposed of as the German authorities saw fit. The only saving grace is that he was not snuffed and chopped up like the dissident journalist at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Following an unprecedented, almost two-year, pre-trial incarceration under medieval conditions that was seemingly devised especially for him (the old “flight risk” ruse was cited as the official rationale for this harsh measure) in April 2025 Dr. Fuellmich was finally sentenced to three years and nine months in prison on the bogus charges filed against him. On the surface, everything appears neat and proper. Technically, he was condemned for a crime of moral turpitude. His real “offence” against the vindictive globalist Establishment, the irrefutable public exposure of its totalitarian and population-reduction agenda and its corrupt liaison with the nefarious pharmacological mafia and compulsory promotion of its lethal products, was not even alluded to in the course of those proceedings. Yet, while Dr. Fuellmich is rotting in prison, every one of the principal claims for which he actually was imprisoned is now being scientifically corroborated.

The so-called “covid vaccines” are now known to be associated with heart damage, exactly as Dr. Fuellmich and numerous other researchers insistently warned during the “pandemic” (also here). As predicted by Dr. Fuellmich and his research team, a surge of life threatening blood clots has been correlated with the mass injection of untested “vaccines.” There has also been a marked acceleration of deadly cancer conditions. As further evidence of the fraudulence of the “pandemic emergency,” a peer reviewed study has demonstrated that 86% of allegedly PCR-positive “Covid  cases” were not even real infections. That had originally been stated by Dr. Fuellmich, to widespread derision at the time. It is a fact that dismantles the scientific foundation used to justify lockdowns, social distancing, and vaccine mandates. And perhaps the most damning fact of all, Japanese scientists have demonstrated that contrary to disinformation about infected bats and unsanitary Chinese markets when the pandemic broke out, all known Covid variants are in fact of laboratory origin. That raises obvious and legitimate questions about criminal intent both on the level of the proposed “cures” and of the fabricated health emergency itself that those cures presumably were developed to resolve.

The vicious treatment allotted to the distinguished German lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is comparable to the persecution of figures like Giordano Bruno. It gives the lie to the collective West’s pharisaical pretence of freedom of expression. The dark stain it leaves will be indelibly recorded as a shameful episode in the history of German jurisprudence.

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The harsh truth is narcissists don’t love you. They don’t care about your hopes, your dreams, or even your well-being. What they crave is control. They don’t want devotion; they want domination. The hallmark of narcissism is a calculated cycle of idealisation, devaluation, discard, and hoovering, where charm and manipulation lull you into dependency before the mask slips and the emotional abuse begins. Victims are left dizzy, drained, and desperate to recapture an affection that was never real. Sound familiar? Because the Empire, the so-called West, the liberal democracies parading as paragons of freedom, is the granddaddy of narcissists, grooming its citizens in a toxic, trauma-bonded dance since birth.

Remember when you were told you live in the “free world”? That if you pull your socks up, pay your taxes, and toe the line, you’ll prosper? That was the love-bombing phase—the glossy, gleaming charm offensive of Empire narcissism. But as soon as you step out of line, you’re the enemy. Ask a simple question about Pfizer’s cosy revolving door with the FDA, and suddenly you’re a dangerous conspiracy theorist. Question election results, and you’re branded a threat to democracy. Criticise Israel’s genocide, and you’re antisemitic. Dissent isn’t debate—it’s extremism. This is classic devaluation: tearing down your self-worth so thoroughly that you second-guess your own sanity. The discard is just around the corner—when economic crises hit, the Empire bails out its cronies, while you’re expected to queue up at food banks. Opposition parties make promises to the people, yet merely serve their donors and lobbyists once in power, a spectacle of gaslighting designed to shield the powerful from accountability. The false promises hurt you, but the Empire is shameless; it has no integrity, and it does not care.

This behaviour is textbook narcissism. The Empire gaslights with the precision of a master illusionist, denying obvious truths to destabilise your grasp on reality. Take the Epstein files: despite ample evidence pointing to an elite blackmail ring involving intelligence operatives, you’re told it’s all “baseless conspiracy.” The official line isn’t just false; it’s a deliberate effort to erode your trust in your own eyes and instincts. Or consider the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident, a manufactured crisis that dragged the U.S. into a protracted Vietnam War under false pretences. When Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—WMDs—failed to materialise, the U.S. pivoted to endless justifications, or stonewalling at the other extreme, proving that lies can be manufactured and deployed on a global scale with impunity. The chemical weapons in Syria blamed on Assad? Dubious evidence was served on a platter, despite the original OPCW engineers refusing to sign off on the falsified report, to justify interventions while obscuring inconvenient truths.

Projection is the narcissist’s favourite sleight of hand: accusing others of what they themselves are guilty of. The U.S. snarls about “election interference” while orchestrating regime change in over 80 countries worldwide since 1946 via coups, propaganda, and manipulating foreign governments behind the scenes. The UK pontificates about press freedom yet imprisons whistleblowers like Julian Assange and, more disturbingly recently, ordinary people with controversial social media posts who dare to reveal uncomfortable truths or share unpalatable opinions. The Empire claims to champion tolerance but suppresses dissent with an iron fist, accusing citizens of intolerance or extremism when they challenge blatantly false official narratives.

Blame shifting is another tool in the Empire’s kit. When the NHS crumbles under the weight of years of neglect, it blames a “pandemic surge” rather than decades of intentional underfunding and mismanagement to destroy it for cruel, idealistic reasons. Housing shortages are pinned on immigrants, not on exploitative landlords and developers cashing in on a rigged system. Even the inquiry into the 2017 Manchester bombing was heavily critical of the arena security on the ground, completely whitewashing that Adebi was an MI5 asset that British intelligence was monitoring as he became more radicalised during his trips to Syria at the behest of the British government. This is narcissistic scapegoating: never taking responsibility, always passing the buck. They could be spying on their exes, watching porn, and getting into drug-fuelled states, and yet somehow they’ll try to convince you that you need to regain their trust. You are always the problem, never their victim, in their eyes.

Control is the Empire’s endgame. The COVID vaccine mandates, tied to employment and freedom of movement, were a stark reminder that your bodily autonomy is conditional on compliance. Central Bank Digital Currency trials threaten to surveil and regulate every transaction you make. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act in the UK curtails your right to protest, tightening the noose on free expression. These are not benign safety measures—they are calculated power plays designed to keep you in line.

Manipulation and fear are deployed relentlessly. “If you don’t mask up, you’re killing grandma,” they warn, weaponising guilt to enforce obedience. The Patriot Act uses terrorism as a pretext to erode civil liberties. Climate campaigns drum up guilt whilst those that conceived them brazenly buzz around the world in their private jets. The Empire doesn’t just seek control—it manufactures consent through shame, anxiety, and constant threat.

Disrespect is the silent dagger in the narcissist’s repertoire. Mass protests—against wars, systemic racism, or environmental destruction—are ignored or vilified. Popular petitions and referenda are swept aside by unaccountable parliaments. Whistleblowers who expose corruption are criminalised, while war criminals are lionised as heroes; just ask. Your voice, your values, your autonomy—irrelevant in the Empire’s grand theatre.

Power hoarding is the narcissist’s fortress. Digital ID schemes, corporate monopolies in bed with government (sounds scarily like the true definition of fascism), and media consolidation mean that a handful of actors control what you see, hear, and believe. In the West, five companies dominate nearly all mainstream news outlets, shaping narratives to suit their interests and quash dissent.

When scrutiny arises, deflection kicks in. The Empire distracts with culture wars, royal family feuds, or high-profile celebrity scandals while homelessness skyrockets and rights quietly erode. Ukraine flags plaster every profile picture, yet most folks have no awareness of the Maiden coup nor the actual history and context of the conflict, content to be bastions of tokenism seduced by newspeak and their own insecure desires to ignorantly virtue signal. These theatrics are designed to keep your gaze fixed elsewhere, lest you notice the slow strangulation of your freedoms.

All this grooming, this relentless conditioning, starts early. From childhood, you are fed a diet of sanitised history, where the government is here to serve and represent you and cares about its citizens. Critical thought is replaced with exam checklists; conformity is rewarded, and creativity is discouraged. By adulthood, you’ve internalised fear of speaking out, for the cost is too high: your job, your reputation, your liberty. The media only reinforces this cage, spotlighting outrage-of-the-week stories to scatter your attention and keep you dependent on their controlled narrative.

But here’s the even worse problem with narcissists: when charm and manipulation, in this case media smoke-and-mirrors, start to lose their grip, they don’t suddenly develop empathy or remorse. No, they escalate. When the velvet glove slips, the iron fist emerges. The endless parade of bad news—COVID variants, looming World War III, and climate apocalypse—once potent tools of fear and obedience, has begun to wear thin. The public has grown wary, exhausted, and sometimes even defiant. So what does the narcissistic state do? It’s doubled down on violence and coercion. It will proverbially strangle you unconscious and then show no remorse, truly believing that you forced its hand by your lack of willingness to continue to believe its bullshit.

Look no further than the militarisation of police forces and the brutal crackdowns on protests. In the UK, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act criminalises peaceful assembly with Orwellian fervour, while riot-equipped cops arrest peace activists in their 80s for protesting the mass murder of women and children. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. government’s response to dissent is a masterclass in escalating violence: militarised federal agents deployed to intimidate (and arguably incite) peaceful protesters, relentless arrests and surveillance of activists, and local police forces swollen with military-grade hardware. Like a narcissist lashing out when their carefully curated image is threatened, the Empire lashes out violently when its control via manipulation falters. Desperation and entitlement fuel this brutality; when persuasion fails, intimidation and physical force step in to remind you who’s boss.

This toxic dance of control can leave you feeling trapped, exhausted, confused, and powerless. That’s the narcissist’s ultimate trick: creating a trauma bond so strong you’re convinced you can’t live without their approval, even as they chip away at your autonomy. But here’s the truth: the Empire doesn’t love you. It never did. It only loves your admiration and its perception of its own power. And the sooner you see that, the sooner you can start to untangle yourself from this suffocating relationship.

Breaking free isn’t about retreating into isolation or donning conspiracy hats. It’s about reclaiming autonomy in a system designed to strip it away. It means building parallel infrastructures: local food co-ops, independent media, and alternative education that nourish independence and community. It means stepping off the 9–5 hamster wheel, learning to live with less, owning your time, and trading skills with your neighbours. It means dismantling the internalised narratives that kept you obedient and rediscovering critical thinking. And above all, it means reconnecting with others to rebuild bonds the Empire wants atomised.

Because the alternative is clear: more surveillance, more war, more dependency, and less dignity. The Empire’s narcissism demands your compliance, but your liberation depends on your courage to say no.

You won’t get an apology. You won’t get a redemptive arc from the Empire. It will smear you, punish you, and tell you you’re crazy. But that’s the last gasp of a narcissist losing control. Freedom isn’t given; it’s taken. So untangle the toxic bond, reclaim your power, and start building something real. Because the Empire isn’t your soulmate, your best friend, nor your protector. It’s your narcissist.

Despite the public waking up to the moral bankruptcy of Western leaders, they’re still woefully unaware of the depth of the depravity of the agendas of the powerful.

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“Knowledgeable people know that Frankenstein is not the monster, but only wise people see that Frankenstein is the monster.” This quote has been resonating recently when considering the monstrous atrocities occurring on the world stage. Knowledgeable people know now, thanks to eyewitness accounts and global communications, that what is happening in Gaza to civilians is monstrous, in spite of the media spin, but only critical thinkers are willing to go deeper and see that the governments purporting to fight “the monster,” that is, Hamas, are at least partially culpable for creating it and, at worst, the monster themselves.

It’s still absolutely wild how quickly the West went from arming Nazis in Ukraine to supporting actual genocide, all the while domestically making issues about the dangers of the far right, inclusion, kindness, and right think. Words are violence after all, according to AOC, just perhaps a tad less violent than air strikes, but who’s measuring? Western support should be of no surprise considering the death toll in the Middle East over the past several decades in the name of freeing the people from evil tyrants. Of course, it’s easy to overlook that 90% of US drone strikes killed civilians, but we’ve been indoctrinated to have a short memory and rewrite history. Luckily, we get a “masterclass” in painting from old favourite George W. Bush as a gift for our collective amnesia and ability to allow a relentless PR machine to dictate and reformulate our opinions. Of course history would remind us of Agent Orange, the Tuskegee experiments, and other immoral atrocities waged against humans, but there’s something even more flamboyant and bombastic about the West’s current posturing, like they’re no longer hiding the psychopathy from their citizens, with the mainstream media becoming more desperate and less impactful in maintaining these nonsense narratives.

Has the West always been narcissistically playing the good guy, or has it become more depraved over time? While we can look back over history to the banking cartels and war profiteers to see that evil has always lurked within, it must be acknowledged that during the earlier stages of empire, there was a stronger commitment from institutions, some members of government, and active citizens to uphold the values of the ideology. As Glubb asserts, empires pass through seven stages, and right now the West is in the stage of decline and collapse in which “the heroes are always the same—the athlete, the singer, or the actor.” Sound familiar? It’s therefore fair to assume, based on empirical evidence even amassed within our lifetimes, that the Western leadership and its institutions themselves have become even more overtly and intensely morally corrupt over time. It could be argued that there was moral justification for fighting the Nazis in World War II as well as economic and geopolitical aims. It could also be argued to a lesser extent that the proxy wars fought against the backdrop of the Cold War had legitimacy considering the Western paranoia of the USSR and communist ideals of permanent revolution. It begins to get much harder to justify the more recent wars in the Middle East, but a US public shellshocked by 911 was willingly compliant, with antiwar voices ignored and drowned out by its European allies. However, the military industrial complex is increasingly clutching at straws despite the most intense propaganda scheme deployed since COVID, evoking ignorant but well-meaning support to arm Ukraine and prolong the death toll. The struggling public of the collapsing West has grown weary of taxes used to fund the war machine, and now, with Gaza, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the stories fed to us about freedom and democracy are nothing more than comforting fairytales to justify state sanctioned mass murder.

The weak rationalisations for the current genocide occurring are becoming more and more pitiful as the death toll of innocents surpasses the 10,000s and World War III looms on the horizon, promising many millions more. Yet the tired legacy media still attempts to twist the narrative, making traumatised Palestinians pulled from the rubble condemn Hamas before they are allowed a voice. Are Israeli citizens expected to condemn their government, which, to date, has been far more murderous before being platformed? The whitewashing of history, just as occurred with Ukraine, to downplay the neo-Nazi threat and murder of 14,000 civilians in the Donbass since the US-backed coup in 2014 is in full swing again. Hamas are the personification of evil and attacked Israel completely unprovoked, purely because they are evil. This smear is from the Putin playbook, Hussein before him, and frankly any leader that’s impending the savagery and theft of Western colonialism. It’s so infantile that it’s embarrassing.

The same old playbook is rolled out to churn out the same old nonsense. In World War I, the Germans murdered babies; in the 2000s, Islamic extremists murdered babies (they probably stopped around 2014, when the US joined forces with them against Syria). In Ukraine, Russians murder babies. In Israel, Hamas murder babies. The tactics to dehumanise “the other” to garner support for revenge atrocities should be more obvious to people than the fact that Epstein did not kill himself. The problem for the Western elites is that a critical mass of their citizens are no longer buying it. The ramp-up of censorship is testament to the fears of western institutions that they can no longer convince their public that the wars they fight are for humanitarian reasons. The closing down of dissenting voices like Jackson Hinkel’s on YouTube demonstrates their fear of losing the narrative. The unanimous passing of the emergency resolution condemning pro-Palestine student protestors as anti-Semitic Hamas supporters and calling for complete solidarity with Israel, from Bernie Sanders to Rand Paul, shows who really governs the US and the world. For all its nonsense about freedoms and democracy, the rest of the West has followed suit, with even France trying to ban pro-Palestinian marches. However, a special shout-out must go to the UK, which, on top of discussing the absurd notion of banning the Palestinian flag, is the only other country in the world to side with the Israel-US alliance and vote no to an immediate ceasefire. How utterly civilised and humane this new, or perhaps old, axis of evil is.

As the empire collapses, the justifications for desperate zero-sum foreign policies have become even more absurd and less believable. The huge outpouring of public support for the Palestinian people proves that the propaganda, though more intense, is far less effective at hypnotising the masses than in previous decades. Citizens are waking up to just how morally corrupt their leaders are. If we had a free and fair media that held power to account, they’d realise the Western establishment wasn’t just corrupt but culpable for so many atrocities carried out on its citizens by the generational bloodlust they themselves created through their own barbarity in the name of greed and power. Horrified, though they might be, in front of their armchairs by scenes in Gaza, the majority aren’t aware that the Israeli government helped to create and has funded Hamas for decades. Articles from the Wall Street Journal in 2009 and the Washington Post in 2014 discuss this in great detail; surprisingly enough, they never mention such things in the current climate, deliberately forgotten like the rise of Nazism in Ukraine. The idea was to diminish the secular, less violent PLO, believing dividing Palestine freedom fighters/terrorists (they’re the same thing) into two groups would weaken the cause and ability to create a free Palestinian state. It was their strategy—hence reaping what you sow, almost literally, unfortunately. As late as March 2019, Netanyahu addressed the Knesset members of his Likud party, stating, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the bolstering of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.”

Furthermore, where is the discussion surrounding the bizarre events leading up to October 7th? The failings of the most complex state intelligence apparatus in the modern world, including the fact that Egypt and the US warned the Israeli government of an imminent attack, yet security was decreased, not increased and permit’s permitted at surprisingly late notice for the October 7th rave against the pleadings of the local IDF commander on the ground. Surely the Israeli government wouldn’t have allowed this to happen to justify a brutal genocidal response, unleashing a plan that’s been decades in the making? Only a conspiracy theorist who thinks that the Gulf of Tonkin, 911, WMDs, and Assad’s chemical weapons attacks were false flags would entertain such a barbaric, yet logical, thought to psychopaths.

Despite the public waking up to the moral bankruptcy of Western leaders, they’re still woefully unaware of the depth of the depravity of the agendas of the powerful and how, like COVID, World War III and its impending oil crisis, refugee crisis, and (pre-manufactured) food shortage crisis are intended to usher in the 4th industrial revolution under the pantomime of the multipolar world. Let’s hope a critical mass awakens to who the real monsters are instead of scapegoating the menacing creations of the West without ever holding the Dr. Frankensteins of geopolitics to account. Only then can we have serious and genuine talks about humanity, democracy, and freedom.

Fragrance company punished for deleted messages while EU Commission chief’s private texts on vaccine procurement remain undisclosed.

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The European Commission seems set to fine fragrance companies €15.9 million, after a senior employee was found to have intentionally deleted WhatsApp messages during an antitrust investigation, prompting claims of hypocrisy this week.

The American-based International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. and its French wing received the fine after a year-long investigation by EU antitrust officials, who claimed that a corporate cartel existed within the fragrance industry.

The story first gained media prominence in March 2023, when the company and three others had their premises raided. Officials found one company employee exchanging “business-related information” in deleted WhatsApp messages discovered during phone inspections.

European antitrust laws are notoriously strict, restricting abnormal cooperation between market operators. As part of a joint investigation with Swiss and American officials, the EU alleges that companies in the fragrance industry have conspired to rig prices over the past decade.

Despite its resolute stance against corporate abuse, the European Commission has itself been plagued by a top-level scandal for over a year, centred upon the opaque manner in which vaccine contracts were awarded to vaccine giant Pfizer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Controversy surrounds the direct role played by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in personally negotiating a deal with Pfizer as part of the heavily criticised vaccine rollout. Serious questions about transparency have been directed at von der Leyen for refusing to disclose direct messages between her and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.

The alleged ethical violation has provoked calls for von der Leyen’s resignation. Belgian prosecutors have commenced hearings into the Commission’s handling of the vaccine debacle, backed by Poland and Hungary.

While von der Leyen campaigns for a second term as senior EU executive, Belgian courts will postpone hearings until December 2024—in order to examine further evidence.

Original article: The European Conservative

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Jorge Alberto estaba sudando frío. Estaba angustiado. Nunca pensó que algún día tendría que decirle a un paciente que solo le quedaba media hora de vida. Tampoco sería uno solo, sino decenas de pacientes cuyas vidas iban desapareciendo ante sus ojos. El Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico 10 de Octubre fue uno de los hospitales con más contagios de Covid-19 en todo el país. No había lugar para nadie más. El director del hospital insistió desesperadamente en que las agencias gubernamentales enviaran oxígeno suplementario durante una hora más hasta que llegaran nuevos cilindros.

Cada tictac del reloj era una herida en el corazón. El abatimiento y el cansancio físico eran visibles en los rostros de cada médico y enfermera, todos ellos tristes y deprimidos. A Jorge Alberto le vinieron a la mente los recuerdos de tantos compañeros y amigos que, a diferencia de él, no lograron superar esa enfermedad. Pensó en las personas a las que él mismo había diagnosticado Covid-19 y que no podían sobrevivir. Hasta el día de hoy, todavía lo conmueven los fuertes recuerdos. En el futuro continuaría visitando y atendiendo a las familias de estos pacientes, porque se sentiría comprometido con su dolor.

Faltando apenas unos minutos para la tragedia, finalmente llegó un camión con unas bombonas de oxígeno. Limpiadores, guardias de seguridad, médicos y enfermeras se apresuraron a transportarlos de inmediato y conectarlos con los moribundos.

Este tipo de sufrimiento estaba a punto de terminar (o al menos mitigarse) cuando Jack Ma, el multimillonario chino propietario de la empresa comercial Alibaba, anunció, en marzo de 2020, el envío de 2 millones de mascarillas, 400.000 kits de diagnóstico de entrega rápida y 104 ventiladores para 24 países de América Latina, incluida Cuba. Todos los cubanos que conocieron la noticia celebraron y agradecieron la donación. Al fin y al cabo, si no se puede comprar regularmente un tipo de producto, ni siquiera habrá repuestos cuando esté obsoleto, e incluso faltaron repuestos para los ventiladores en Cuba. El país estaba experimentando dificultades para producir oxígeno que afectaban a todos los hospitales y necesitaba esos ventiladores.

Sin embargo, a última hora, la empresa que transportaría los materiales a Cuba se negó a aceptar el pedido. Argumentó que sufriría graves sanciones por hacerlo, basándose en la ley de Estados Unidos: la ley de bloqueo. Se trataba de la aerolínea colombiana Avianca, cuyo accionista mayoritario (Synergy Aerospace Corp.) es norteamericano. Al mes siguiente, Cuba volvió a ser impedida de recibir ventiladores pulmonares porque las empresas suizas IMT Medical AG y Acutronic Medical Systems AG (adquirida por la norteamericana Vyaire Medical Inc) se negaron a venderlos por el mismo motivo, suspendiendo inmediatamente las relaciones comerciales con La Habana. También en Suiza, los bancos ABS, Crédit Suisse, Migros Bank, UBS y ZKB bloquearon la transferencia de donaciones para enviar ayuda médica al pueblo cubano. Y Cuba se quedó sin los materiales básicos para salvar las vidas de sus ciudadanos que sufrían en las camas de los hospitales. Fue el retrato más claro de la asfixia que sufre el país caribeño. A lo largo de la pandemia, 8.500 personas murieron por Covid-19 en Cuba, una tasa de letalidad del 0,77% (inferior a las tasas del 1% en el mundo y del 1,53% en las Américas, gracias a la reconocida calidad del sistema de salud cubano, que produjo cinco vacunas diferentes contra el coronavirus).

“Condenamos el bloqueo estadounidense debido a que es una política de medidas unilaterales que limitan el desarrollo de la economía de Cuba y el sustento del pueblo cubano”, declaró Jerome Fauré, director de Oxfam en Cuba, tras estos hechos. “Estas políticas profundizarán los graves efectos de la pandemia”, advirtió. La ONG internacional también afirmó que el bloqueo “dificulta el acceso a recursos básicos, tecnologías y materias primas para fortalecer los servicios públicos y salvar más vidas en medio de la crisis sanitaria”. La Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Michelle Bachelet, también pidió que las sanciones impuestas a varios países, incluida Cuba, sean “mitigadas o suspendidas” para “proteger los derechos y las vidas de millones de personas en estos países”. Y añadió: “Los obstáculos a la importación de suministros médicos vitales, incluido el cumplimiento excesivo de las sanciones bancarias, crearán daños duraderos a las comunidades vulnerables.” El Secretario General de la ONU, António Guterres, se dirigió a la comunidad internacional en la misma dirección, sugiriendo a los miembros del G-20 “el abandono de las sanciones impuestas contra los países para garantizar el acceso a los alimentos, la prestación de servicios de salud esenciales y el apoyo médico contra el COVID-19”. Coincidiendo con el jefe de las Naciones Unidas, el alto representante de la Unión Europea, Josep Borrell, emitió un comunicado advirtiendo que “las sanciones no deben impedir el envío de equipos y suministros esenciales necesarios para luchar contra el coronavirus y limitar su propagación en todo el mundo”.

Aún preocupados por los efectos de las medidas unilaterales en medio de la pandemia de Covid-19, un equipo de expertos de las Naciones Unidas denunció sus efectos y pidió el fin de las sanciones. “Las sanciones están trayendo sufrimiento y muerte a países como Cuba, Irán, Sudán, Siria, Venezuela y Yemen (…) Las sanciones deberían levantarse -o al – para que la gente pueda recibir artículos básicos como jabón y desinfectantes para cuidarse de la higiene, y para que los hospitales puedan recibir ventiladores y otros equipos para mantener con vida a las personas”, declararon. “Las sanciones que se han impuesto en nombre de la protección de los derechos humanos están, de hecho, matando a personas y privándolas de sus derechos fundamentales, incluidos el derecho a la salud, a la alimentación y a la vida misma”, continuaron los expertos. Agregaron: “Renovamos nuestro llamado a los países sancionadores para que levanten, suspendan o minimicen urgentemente sus sanciones para que se puedan enviar medicamentos, equipos médicos, alimentos y combustible.”

El gobierno de Estados Unidos, sin embargo, ignoró todos estos llamados. Gracias a donaciones de países como Venezuela, México y Rusia, Cuba pudo tratar mínimamente a los pacientes. También logró producir algunos ventiladores propios y cinco de ellos fueron destinados a la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos del Hospital 10 de Octubre.

Pero el drama del hospital y del Doctor Jorge Alberto Miranda Quintana, su director, no terminó con el fin de la pandemia.

─ Imagínense el nivel de deterioro de un hospital que trabaja intensamente con un volumen mayor que el número de camas que tiene ─ desafía.

Las tres salas de endoscopia no pueden funcionar. Carecen de equipos para videocistoscopia (contra el cáncer de vejiga y próstata), videobroncoscopia (contra el cáncer de pulmón), videogastroscopia (contra el cáncer de esófago y estómago) y videocolonoscopia (contra el cáncer de colon). Este equipo permitiría realizar diagnósticos en los sitios oncológicos más frecuentes, pero la mayoría de las empresas que suministran materiales para endoscopia se han retirado de Cuba. Otros se han asociado con empresas estadounidenses y ya no pueden vender equipos a la isla, que también necesita comprar medicamentos de quimioterapia del sector oncológico.

─ Tenemos muchas limitaciones para adquirir las tecnologías para realizar endoscopia.

En el área de oftalmología también faltan equipos láser, tomografía de coherencia óptica, retinografía, paquimetría y angiografía ocular, mientras que los equipos biométricos ya están desactualizados. Los equipos utilizados en mamografía, como máquinas de anestesia y cirugía, también están obsoletos y la tecnología para detectar el cáncer de mama sigue siendo analógica y no digital.

─ Si pudiéramos adquirir al menos este equipo, mejoraríamos mucho el sistema de atención médica, con más oportunidades de atender a los pacientes.

La falta de medicamentos en Cuba también hace que el hospital no haya recibido antibióticos, anestésicos, relajantes y medicamentos psiquiátricos. Así como se prioriza la leche para los niños, el racionamiento gubernamental prioriza los medicamentos para la zona de emergencia, donde van a parar los pocos materiales disponibles por el momento.

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Marco luchaba por ir al baño y corrió hacia la casa de su abuela, que estaba vacía. Sus amigos lo esperaban en la calle. Subió los tres tramos de escaleras y llegó a la cabina para orinar. Cuando terminó, cerró la puerta sin darse cuenta de que había dejado la luz encendida. Su madre estaba en el balcón buscándolo. Olió a gas. Se extendió por toda la casa. Una tubería que pasaba por la puerta tenía una fuga. Marco finalmente se dio cuenta de que la luz estaba encendida y la apagó. Pero en ese momento, el gas metano ya estaba subiendo por el inodoro.

─ ¡Buuuum!

La explosión fue tan fuerte que dio la impresión de que había caído una bomba sobre el edificio de tres pisos, ubicado justo detrás del Capitolio de La Habana. Los muros fueron destruidos. Los muebles se hicieron añicos. Los aparatos de aire acondicionado instalados en las habitaciones salieron volando y terminaron en mitad de la calle. El adolescente salió corriendo de la casa, atónito, sin ver nada, ya que sus cejas y cabello se incendiaron, lo que también atrapó sus brazos, que ayudaron a proteger a su madre de las llamas mientras la escoltaba. Hubo que ser trasladada al policlínico y estuvo 20 días en cuidados intensivos. Todo quedó reducido a cenizas: la cocina, el baño, los dormitorios, la sala, el balcón. Las banderas cubanas que Isabel había colgado en el balcón, a la espera de que el presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, pasara por el barrio, en aquella histórica visita a la isla en marzo de 2016, se convirtieron en polvo.

Las tuberías de todo el centro de La Habana, por no hablar de toda la ciudad o incluso de todo el país, están corroídas, deterioradas, viejas y en mal estado.

La Empresa Conformadora de Metales (Conformat), en Matanzas, fabrica y repara cilindros de gas en todo el país. Estos son exactamente los cilindros que utiliza la población para cocinar los alimentos. Ni siquiera ella puede con sus tareas. Opera al 40% de su capacidad de producción por falta de recursos económicos y materiales, sufriendo inseguridad en la recepción de materias primas. Hasta mayo de 2023, la empresa había producido 17 mil contenedores conocidos popularmente como “balitas”. El objetivo es llegar a 70.000 a finales de año, apenas ¼ de la capacidad de la fábrica, que en condiciones normales puede producir 250.000 unidades por turno de trabajo.

Pero no funciona en condiciones normales. La empresa prácticamente ya no puede adquirir los insumos necesarios debido a los impactos del bloqueo económico norteamericano, según Amaury Doblado Lauzurique, especialista en comercio exterior de Conformat. Necesita importar no menos del 96% de los componentes de cada unidad y Cuba no puede comprar esos componentes.

Isabel no estaba en casa. Pasó unos días en un balneario en las afueras de La Habana, para descansar y tratar de recuperarse de los problemas óseos que ya la afectaban. Llora de dolor casi todos los días. La señora de 74 años ya no tiene fuerzas en las piernas para caminar. Además de la osteoporosis, una hernia de disco que se produjo hace menos de cinco años la dejó incapaz de caminar. No pudo ser operada porque ya padecía otras enfermedades que pondrían en riesgo la operación. Y porque los hospitales ya no cuentan con todos los recursos necesarios para realizar operaciones. En este momento están intentando operar lo menos posible, centrándose en las emergencias. Ni siquiera hay suturas.

Su casa fue reconstruida después del incendio gracias al apoyo del gobierno, brigadas de voluntarios y amigos brasileños. La anciana pasa la mayor parte del día sentada en el sillón de la sala, donde habla con sus invitados, usa su celular y, por las noches, ve la telenovela. Tres días a la semana ve la telenovela de Rede Globo. En primera fila del público, con los ojos pegados a la pantalla del televisor, siempre está Luis, su marido. Desde hace más de 30 años, Cuba deja de funcionar cuando comienza un episodio de una telenovela brasileña. Es una atracción para todas las edades, ya sean niños, jóvenes o personas mayores. Hombres y mujeres. Después de la telenovela, Luis estira a Isabel del sillón y la coloca en una silla de ruedas hacia el dormitorio de la pareja. Durante la noche se puede oírla llorar de tanto dolor. Cuando amanece, Isabel se somete a tratamientos en la cama, donde recibe masajes y medicamentos. Luego la llevan nuevamente, en silla de ruedas, a la sala de estar.

Tiene dos sillas de ruedas. Ambos fueron enviados por familiares que viven en Estados Unidos. Ya no hay sillas de ruedas en Cuba. El que ella usa habitualmente lo trajeron en barco, con mucho retraso en el camino. Era una silla usada que le envió su cuñada. El otro, que tiene las ruedas podridas y necesita ser reparado para que Isabel pueda usarlo fuera de casa, también estaba usado cuando salió de EE.UU. en barco y tardó seis meses en llegar a Cuba. Tiene también una tercera silla, que es geriátrica para bañarse, y también vino de EE.UU.: su hermana la consiguió a través de una iglesia, la envió a Cuba y, después de meses, finalmente llegó a su destino.

Prácticamente todo lo que necesita falta en Cuba. Las vitaminas que toma para fortalecer sus piernas se las trajeron sus amigos brasileños. También enviaron dipironas, que Isabel recogió para ella misma y también distribuyó a familiares, amigos y vecinos que, como ella, necesitan el medicamento y no lo encuentran en las farmacias.

─ No hay nada en las farmacias. Es increíble que tengamos que vivir de nuestros amigos. Gracias a mis amigos brasileños tengo medicinas.

Sin embargo, la ayuda solidaria de amigos y familiares que viven fuera del país no puede satisfacer todas sus necesidades. Necesita tomar medicamentos para su diabetes, hipertensión, tiroides y tratamiento post-infarto. Isabel también necesita antibióticos, que no están disponibles ni siquiera para quien los presente con receta. Ha venido recibiendo cada mes menos medicamentos, porque (a pesar de que el sistema de salud es gratuito y de calidad reconocida mundialmente) Cuba no tiene la materia prima para producirlos y no puede importar ni los medicamentos ni las materias primas, porque el bloqueo norteamericano la detiene.

─ Aquí en Cuba priorizamos a las personas que tienen muchas enfermedades y tratamos de garantizar sus medicamentos. Pero todo depende del ingreso de materias primas al país para que se puedan producir estos medicamentos.

En el último mes, Isabel sólo recibió insulina lenta, y no insulina rápida, que es más importante para ella. Hace tres meses que no recibe enalapril, que toma para controlar la presión arterial. De todos los medicamentos que necesita, solo recibió dos en el último mes, incluida la insulina, que estaba incompleta. Guillermo, de unos 50 años, también sufre de falta de medicación: es deprimido, bipolar y ansioso, necesita tomar cinco psicofármacos al día, va a la farmacia una vez a la semana a buscar sus medicamentos, se enfrenta a una cola enorme y no puede encontrarlos. Tampoco existen medicamentos que acompañen la acupuntura que recibe. Al menos todavía se le administra la inyección que debe aplicarse cada 21 días en el Hospital Psiquiátrico de La Habana. Vive en una casa sumamente humilde y mal iluminada en el Barrio Chino, con su madre Mirian, su hermano Osmani y su sobrina Sofía.

Uno de los principales focos de trabajo del sistema de salud cubano es a través de los médicos de familia, que son empleados estatales designados para atender una zona determinada, en cada calle, en cada barrio. El médico de cabecera de Isabel llega a su domicilio, le mide la presión arterial y envía un informe de análisis al policlínico. Desde allí se revisan los medicamentos que el paciente necesita y se envían a su domicilio. Pero hace tiempo que no la visitan, porque en el policlínico ya no hay medicamentos, como reactivos para azúcar en sangre y riñones, que Isabel tendría que utilizar. Además, anteriormente los pacientes acudían al policlínico para tratar casos de baja gravedad, como una fractura de brazo. Debido a la falta de equipamiento en las policlínicas (ya no hay forma de enyesar el brazo del paciente, porque no hay yeso), los pacientes han ido directamente al hospital. China envió una vez un barco con yeso a los policlínicos cubanos, pero el bloqueo de Estados Unidos le impidió abordar Cuba.

La leche y el pollo, esenciales en la dieta de Isabel, escasean. Ni siquiera recuerda la última vez que recibió leche subsidiada por la libreta del gobierno. Tras el triunfo de la Revolución, el gobierno cubano instituyó un sistema de libretas para que los ciudadanos pudieran comprar productos básicos a un precio simbólico. Esta es una necesidad en un país que necesita importar el 80% de los alimentos y el 40% de los medicamentos que consume. Con el endurecimiento del bloqueo en los últimos años, los artículos de la libreta han disminuido. Actualmente cuenta con productos como arroz, frijoles, huevos, pollo, leche, aceite de oliva, jabón y pasta de dientes. El café también está subsidiado y cuesta sólo ocho pesos, mientras que fuera de la libreta se compra por 150 pesos. El paquete, sin embargo, no dura ni un mes y ante la falta incluso del café que siempre ha producido el país, se mezcla con otros sucedáneos.

Ante la escasez, el gobierno tiene que racionarlo todo y la leche ahora sólo está disponible para niños menores de siete años. El pollo es una prioridad para los menores de 13 años, mientras que a los mayores les quedan otros tipos de carne, como la carne molida y la mortadela. La libreta se libera cada 15 días para que se puedan realizar nuevas compras en mercados específicos en los siguientes tres días. De ahí las enormes colas que se forman un día en las calles del país y las mismas aceras vacías al día siguiente. En La Habana también existe una segunda libreta, para productos como embutidos, hot dogs y detergentes, todavía subsidiados, pero con un precio ligeramente mayor. Pero cualquiera que pasee por las calles del centro de La Habana verá muchos pequeños comercios (no se les puede llamar pulperías, ni pequeños mercados) vacíos de productos. Tanto de propiedad estatal como privada. La escasez prevalece, incluso en los restaurantes más populares, con pocas opciones en el menú.

En julio de 2021, la ONG española Justicia Alimentaria emitió una “Alerta Alimentaria en Cuba” ante el “empeoramiento de la vulnerabilidad alimentaria de las familias cubanas”.

Cuba se encuentra sumida en una crisis económica sin precedentes derivada del bloqueo por parte de los Estados Unidos y agudizada por la pandemia COVID-19 asfixiando  el turismo —elemento central de la economía nacional— y cancelando, prácticamente,  el sector privado pequeño y mediano (fundamentalmente dedicado a los servicios), con consecuencias nefastas para la población. Debemos añadir, además, el deterioro de la producción, la escasez de alimentos, combustibles, etc. que han restringido fuertemente no solo la importación de alimentos sino de los propios insumos para la producción propia de alimentos, configurando un panorama muy difícil de gestionar doméstica, institucional y nacionalmente.

El artículo destaca que el cambio climático de las últimas décadas exige que el sector agrícola se adapte para mantener la producción y la ganadería. Sin embargo,

(…) A pesar de los esfuerzos de la sociedad y administración cubana por generar sistemas resilentes, el bloqueo impide seguir poniendo en práctica los cambios necesarios para contrarestar el avance imparable del cambio climático que está ya afectando gravemente a la región.

En este momento somos testigos como esta alta afectación medioambiental unida a este bloqueo norteamericano que obstaculiza el acceso a suministros, tecnología y servicios, afecta cada vez más de forma directa a la viabilidad de las explotaciones agrícolas y pecuarias y al sustento de miles de familias campesinas.

La ONG afirma también que el bloqueo económico “compromete el derecho a alimentación llevando al país al borde de una crisis alimentaria”. De hecho, entre agosto de 2021 y febrero de 2022 la agricultura se vio afectada por más de 270 millones de dólares, según denuncia de Cuba ante la ONU (entre enero y julio de 2021, los daños a la agricultura y la alimentación habían sido de 369,6 millones de dólares). Debido a que no puede comprar carne directamente del mercado norteamericano, la empresa hispanocubana BRAVO S.A. tuvo un gasto adicional de más de 525 mil dólares, viéndose obligada a pagar más por fletes y transporte de mercancías provenientes de otros países, más lejanos.

Como dato adicional, la falta de combustible en los procesos agrícolas y preindustriales, como resultado de las medidas contra las empresas, buques y navieras que transportan combustible a Cuba, ocasionó una afectación en el período de 5 millones 181 mil 480 dólares.

En marzo de 2020, la relatora especial de las Naciones Unidas sobre el derecho a la alimentación denunció los impactos de las sanciones que constituyen el bloqueo económico en la dieta de los cubanos, especialmente en situación de pandemia. “La continua imposición de sanciones económicas paralizantes contra Siria, Venezuela, Irán, Cuba y, en menor medida, Zimbabwe, por nombrar los casos más destacados, socava gravemente el derecho fundamental de los ciudadanos comunes a una alimentación suficiente y adecuada”, afirmó Hilal Elver. Concluyó que era “una cuestión de urgencia humanitaria y práctica levantar inmediatamente las sanciones económicas unilaterales”.

Lo que más necesita la gente (alimentos y medicinas) es exactamente lo que más le falta a Cuba. Algunos extrañan más la comida, otros extrañan más la medicina. Pero los artículos básicos de la libreta son precisamente aquellos que el gobierno no puede proporcionar, no pueden producirse y no pueden llegar a Cuba. A principios de 2023, incluso el suministro de harina de trigo para la producción de pan se vio comprometido. Si bien hubo financiamiento, ventana de carga y proveedores, en los meses de abril y mayo los tres buques de trigo que se esperaban no llegaron al país, precisamente por el bloqueo, según el director de logística de la empresa OSDE Alimentaria, Osmany Rodríguez. Un barco que desembarcó en Cienfuegos tardó más de 60 días en salir de su puerto de origen, lo que encareció los costos de la operación. “Hemos logrado contratar harina en países del área y en muchas ocasiones navieras que radican en esos países no aceptan venir a Cuba y tenemos que buscar barcos de otros orígenes y mandarlos a esos lugares y eso lógicamente tiene un costo”, declaró Emerio González Lorenzo, presidente del Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Alimentaria. Por ello, en Santiago de Cuba, por ejemplo, el pan debía elaborarse con un 15% de harina de maíz en su composición. Yunaithe López Cantero, presidenta de la Asamblea Municipal de Regla, informa que este municipio habanero produce toda la harina que se distribuye a nivel nacional, pero sus molinos están parados porque no pueden abastecerse ─ además, también falta equipamiento básico para el hospital de maternidad local.

Isabel se lamenta cuando dice que los enfermos, como ella, son los más afectados por el bloqueo.

─ Si no existiera el bloqueo, estaríamos en una situación mucho mejor. Tenemos las manos atadas y aún así seguimos luchando. Yo, que soy vieja, quería caminar, ayudar, hacer más.

By John & Nisha WHITEHEAD

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The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.

Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.

This year’s graduates are a prime example of this master class in compliance. Their time in college has been set against a backdrop of crackdowns, lockdowns and permacrises ranging from the government’s authoritarian COVID-19 tactics to its more recent militant response to campus protests.

Born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, these young people have been raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.

And now, when they should be empowered to take their rightful place in society as citizens who fully understand and exercise their right to speak truth to power, they are being censored, silenced and shut down.

Consider what happened recently in Charlottesville, Va., when riot police were called in to shut down campus protests at the University of Virginia staged by students and members of the community to express their opposition to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

As the local newspaper reported, “State police sporting tactical gear and riot shields moved in on the demonstrators, using pepper spray and sheer force to disperse the group and arrest the roughly 15 or so at the camp, where for days students, faculty and community members had sang songs, read poetry and painted signs in protest of Israel’s ongoing war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.”

What a sad turn-about for an institution which was founded as an experiment in cultivating an informed citizenry by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s third president.

Unfortunately, the University of Virginia is not unique in its heavy-handed response to what have been largely peaceful anti-war protests. According to the Washington Post, more than 2300 people have been arrested for taking part in similar campus protests across the country.

These lessons in compliance, while expected, are what comes of challenging the police state.

Free speech can certainly not be considered “free” when expressive activities across the nation are being increasingly limited, restricted to so-called free speech zones, or altogether blocked.

Remember, the First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.”

Along with the constitutional right to peacefully (and that means non-violently) assemble, the right to free speech allows us to challenge the government through protests and demonstrations and to attempt to change the world around us—for the better or the worse—through protests and counterprotests.

If citizens cannot stand out in the open and voice their disapproval of their government, its representatives and its policies without fearing prosecution, then the First Amendment with all its robust protections for free speech, assembly and the right to petition one’s government for a redress of grievances is little more than window-dressing on a store window—pretty to look at but serving little real purpose.

After all, living in a representative republic means that each person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right, whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign.

That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about: it assures the citizenry of the right to express their concerns about their government to their government, in a time, place and manner best suited to ensuring that those concerns are heard.

Unfortunately, through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials.

In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

Indeed, there is a long and growing list of the kinds of speech that the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation and prosecution: hate speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, extremist speech, etc.

Clearly, the government has no interest in hearing what “we the people” have to say.

Yet if Americans are not able to peacefully assemble for expressive activity outside of the halls of government or on public roads on which government officials must pass, or on college campuses, the First Amendment has lost all meaning.

If we cannot stand peacefully outside of the Supreme Court or the Capitol or the White House, our ability to hold the government accountable for its actions is threatened, and so are the rights and liberties that we cherish as Americans.

And if we cannot proclaim our feelings about the government, no matter how controversial, on our clothing, or to passersby, or to the users of the world wide web, then the First Amendment really has become an exercise in futility.

The source of the protest shouldn’t matter. The politics of the protesters are immaterial.

To play politics with the First Amendment encourages a double standard that will see us all muzzled in the end.

The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the final link in the police state chain.

If ever there were a time for us to stand up for the right to speak freely, even if it’s freedom for speech we hate, the time is now.

Original article: rutherford.org

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The Program for International Assessment (PSA) recently released its 2022 assessment of the math and reading skills of students from over 200 countries. This is the first assessment since 2018 and it provides more evidence that schoolchildren were damaged by the COVID hysteria. American students’ math scores were lower than 27 of the 38 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The other OECD countries do not have any reason to celebrate, as the average math scores of students in all OECD countries declined by 17 points.

American students’ reading scores “only” declined by one point since 2017 – as compared to an 18-point average decline amongst all OECD countries. However, the National Assessment of Education Progress national report card recently reported a historic decline in reading among 18 years old.

While the drastic reductions in reading and math across the globe can be attributed to the COVID panic, Americans’ scores have been declining for years. The lockdowns are a symptom of the problems with the American education system. The real problem is that progressives have seized control over government schools. These progressives are more concerned with indoctrinating children than providing them with a quality education.

Progressives seek to control education because they understand that those who are indoctrinated as children will likely support progressivism as adults. It is no coincidence that progressive control of education and the decline of quality of the nation’s schools coincide with increased federal control.

Progressive federal bureaucrats used the promise of funding to entice states and local governments to surrender control of schools to federal educators. Wokeness is just the latest iteration of the progressivism that has been undermining America’s free-market economy, constitutional government, and all sources of authority — including parents and churches — outside of the federal government for over a century.

Ironically, the lockdowns may have set back the woke progressives by giving parents an opportunity to see how wokeness had infiltrated their children’s education. Wokeness is also suffering a backlash because of the claim that the only reason anyone could object to allowing a biological male to compete in athletic events with biological females is bigotry.

The backlash against woke education has led to parents showing up at school board meetings and/or running for school boards themselves to fight the woke agenda. The combination of lockdowns and wokeness are also causing many parents to explore alternatives to government schools, including homeschooling.

Parents looking to provide their children with a quality home-based education that promotes real learning and does not push a political agenda – but does instruct in the history and philosophy of liberty – should look into my homeschooling curriculum. My curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education that includes rigorous programs in history, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences. The curriculum also provides instruction in personal finance. Students can develop superior communication skills via intensive writing and public speaking courses. Another feature of my curriculum is that it provides students the opportunity to create and run their own businesses.

The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize free-market economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of liberty. I encourage all parents looking at alternatives to government schools — alternatives that provide children with a well-rounded education that introduces them to the history and ideas of liberty without sacrificing education for indoctrination — to go to RonPaulCurriculum.com for more information about my homeschooling program.

ronpaulinstitute.org

Por John CLARKE

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Com Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health [Tradução literal: “Farmacoeconomia: como a Big Pharma destrói a saúde global”, 2023, sem tradução no Brasil], Nick Dearden oferece um relato fascinante da evolução da Grande Indústria Farmacêutica para um monstro ávido por lucro que destrói um componente importante dos sistemas de saúde do mundo. No entanto, quando se trata das conclusões políticas que ele tira, suas esperanças de que esse leopardo possa mudar suas manchas e servir de maneira mais racional às necessidades globais de saúde não convencem aqueles que adotam uma visão mais radical da transformação social.

Dito isso, as limitações da análise de Dearden não deveriam ser uma grande surpresa. Ele é, afinal, uma figura importante dentro da rede internacional de ONGs e, embora faça uma acusação poderosa das empresas farmacêuticas, se encaixa melhor no papel de conselheiro do capitalismo do que de coveiro do sistema.

Lucros versus necessidades humanas

Desde as primeiras páginas do livro, vemos como uma característica geral do capitalismo passou a ser aplicada à provisão de medicamentos. Nessa área vital das necessidades humanas, o sistema de lucros decide quem viverá e quem morrerá, garantindo que a pesquisa, desenvolvimento, distribuição e disponibilidade de produtos farmacêuticos tenham muito mais a ver com estratégias de marketing do que com a cura, contenção e prevenção de doenças.

No primeiro capítulo, Dearden considera o papel crucial da família Sackler nos EUA, a partir da década de 1950, na formação da indústria farmacêutica que se desenvolveria. “O verdadeiro talento de Arthur Sackler era vender drogas. A ele são atribuídas as formas modernas de marketing farmacêutico nos Estados Unidos. O empresário era especialista em buscar diretamente os médicos, compreendendo o papel que desempenhavam não no processo de prescrição, mas como símbolos de confiança na sociedade” (p.2).

A abordagem de Sackler baseava-se na ideia de que “praticamente todos devem tomar medicamentos muito fortes regularmente”. Isso incluía a promoção do uso de Valium por “pessoas sem sintomas psiquiátricos” (p.3).

Após a morte de Sackler, seus sucessores começaram a comercializar o OxyContin em 1996 e então “começou o maior escândalo farmacêutico moderno dos Estados Unidos”. Assim como o Valium, o OxyContin era um medicamento potencialmente útil, mas foi “agressivamente propagandeado como um medicamento sem potencial de viciar e apropriado para quase todos, mesmo aqueles com dor moderada. Infelizmente, isso estava longe de ser verdade” (p.4).

Cinco anos após o início das vendas, o OxyContin chegou a gerar mais de US$ 1 bilhão em vendas – ao custo de uma epidemia de vício e morte. Como Dearden destaca, um “medicamento assim deveria ser prescrito com muita parcimônia. [Mas] empresas ávidas por lucro, como a Purdue, operam de outra forma. Seu imperativo é maximizar as vendas e transferir quaisquer custos para a sociedade em geral” (p.5).

Dearden observa que o “poder que o lobby e doações políticas irrestritas conferem à indústria farmacêutica é difícil de ser mensurado” (p.12). Ele também explica que “há uma porta giratória entre a indústria e o governo, pela qual a Big Pharma atrai funcionários experientes oferecendo salários lucrativos” (p.13). Mecanismos como esses de influência e controle, no entanto, são insuficientes para explicar “a magnitude do poder da indústria”. É necessário compreender como a Big Pharma conseguiu “alinhar seus interesses com os do establishment político, acadêmico e da profissão de saúde, bem como dos cidadãos e pacientes” (p.14).

Nos anos do pós-guerra, houve “uma nova onda de medicamentos inovadores” (p.14) que ampliaram massivamente “o número de comprimidos de rotina que tomamos” (p.15). Foi nesse contexto que a indústria farmacêutica cresceu e consolidou suas operações. A divisão entre pesquisa e fabricação se desfez, e uma série de fusões criaram “um punhado de grandes players verticalmente integrados” (p.15).

Dearden mostra como “os problemas com o controle da indústria sobre a pesquisa se estendem também ao processo de aprovação regulatória” (p.30). O órgão regulador dos EUA, a FDA [similar à Anvisa no Brasil], “aprova cada vez mais medicamentos caros, apesar de efeitos colaterais perigosos ou pouco conhecidos e evidências inconclusivas de que eles controlam ou curam doenças” (p.31).

O segundo capítulo considera como o processo de financeirização associado à era neoliberal intensificou o papel destrutivo da Big Pharma. A busca implacável e imprudente por lucro se tornou ainda mais arraigada. Nesse contexto: “Ativos intangíveis, particularmente a propriedade intelectual, deslocam-se ao centro do modelo farmacêutico” (p.51).

Hoje, “a Big Pharma gasta cada vez mais de seus recursos tentando fortalecer o valor de seus ativos intangíveis, em vez de se envolver em atividades produtivas” (p.51). O grau em que a pesquisa e a fabricação de medicamentos são subordinadas a essa condição é impressionante. Vemos que “apenas 2% a 3% dos novos medicamentos representam verdadeiros avanços. Um estudo de 2017 na Alemanha mostrou que 57% dos novos medicamentos não ofereciam nenhum valor terapêutico” (p.59).

O que emergiu nessa situação é “uma crise na descoberta de medicamentos, com grandes empresas vivendo à custa de medicamentos patenteados e fazendo pouco para substituí-los quando essas patentes caducam” (p.62). Enquanto isso, doenças curáveis assolam o Sul Global sem esforços significativos para contê-las. “Nos últimos cinquenta anos, apenas dois novos tratamentos para tuberculose foram desenvolvidos, enquanto quatorze novos tratamentos foram desenvolvidos para uma condição que não mata ninguém, a rinite alérgica” (p.60).

Pandemia

Ao considerar o papel da Big Pharma durante a pandemia global, o terceiro capítulo desafia a alegação de Boris Johnson de que “foi o capitalismo que garantiu que tivéssemos uma vacina em menos de um ano e a resposta – portanto, não é atacar os criadores de riqueza, é incentivá-los” (p.80). Dearden retruca que “a ganância e o capitalismo criaram a pandemia. E eles estavam prestes a dificultar os esforços para lidar com seus efeitos” (p.83).

Embora a probabilidade de uma grande pandemia fosse plenamente compreendida há anos, a Big Pharma havia mostrado consistentemente “uma indiferença quase completa ao coronavírus, ou qualquer candidato provável a uma pandemia global, porque eram considerados pouco propensos a serem lucrativos” (p.87). Se uma abordagem diferente tivesse sido adotada, “poderíamos estar em uma situação muito melhor. O fato de não estarmos vai ao cerne dos problemas na indústria” (p.88).

Dearden mostra como a Big Pharma manteve a propriedade intelectual das vacinas que foram desenvolvidas e lucrou com elas, mesmo que iniciativas de pesquisa e distribuição financiadas publicamente fossem centrais para a resposta à pandemia. “Ao entregar as vacinas a um número seleto de empresas lucrativas, estávamos também entregando decisões fundamentais – como quem teria permissão para fabricar as vacinas, a que preço e em que ordem poderiam ser vendidas” (p.94-5).

Os vastos lucros obtidos pelas empresas farmacêuticas durante a pandemia resultaram em grande parte de aumentos de preços sem vergonha. “As vacinas da Moderna poderiam ser produzidas por apenas U$ 2.85 por dose. No entanto, são de fato as vacinas mais caras do mercado, com uma média entre $19 e $24 por dose” (p.98).

Dearden reflete sobre os impactos prejudiciais do uso dos direitos de propriedade intelectual da Big Pharma para bloquear a distribuição de vacinas a países pobres a preços acessíveis. Ele mostra como os esforços para superar esse estrangulamento foram prejudicados pela tolice de tentar “levar a vacina contra a covid para comunidades e povos no mundo em desenvolvimento sem perturbar o mercado farmacêutico global” (p.109).

Durante a pandemia, Dearden esteve envolvido na campanha por uma “Vacina para o Povo” [o movimento chama-se People’s Vaccine, em inglês] – e aborda isso durante o quarto capítulo. No contexto de uma emergência global de saúde, essa iniciativa buscou desafiar “as regras de propriedade intelectual que colocam os ‘direitos de propriedade’ acima dos direitos humanos”. Ela confrontou “um modelo de assistência médica baseado no mercado que está falhando para a maioria das pessoas no mundo” (p.117).

Em consonância com uma proposta da Índia e da África do Sul, a People’s Vaccine “apoiou fortemente a demanda por uma renúncia ao Acordo sobre Aspectos dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual Relacionados ao Comércio, ou TRIPS”, que “estendeu as proteções de patentes no estilo ocidental por todo o mundo” e assegurou que as empresas farmacêuticas “pudessem ditar quem poderia usar suas criações e a que preço deveriam ser cobradas” (p.118).

Enquanto a pandemia avançava, “a tecnologia de vacinas estava nas mãos de apenas três corporações, todas elas comprometidas em obter um substancial lucro”, com o resultado de que “mesmo em 2022, para cada dose de vacina de mRNA entregue a países de baixa renda, cinquenta e seis foram entregues a países ricos” (p.120-1). A taxa de vacinação das populações era, é claro, correspondentemente desigual.

Enquanto essa vasta injustiça global se desenrolava, os três maiores produtores de vacinas pagaram U$ 26 bilhões aos seus acionistas em abril de 2021 – uma quantia que poderia ter sido usada para “pagar a vacinação de pelo menos 1,3 bilhão de pessoas, equivalente à população da África” (p.126).

Regras de Propriedade

No quinto capítulo, Dearden explora as regras de propriedade intelectual que a Big Pharma tem usado com vantagem considerável. Ele observa que “é apropriado que o TRIPS tenha sido um dos primeiros acordos negociados pela recém-fundada Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC)” (p.161).

Esse órgão, estabelecido em 1995, é “um pilar do projeto de globalização” (p.161) que solidificou as relações comerciais internacionais que favoreciam os centros imperialistas. “Como o capitalismo iria se expandir para um mercado verdadeiramente global… as regras precisariam ser padronizadas. Se isso prejudicasse a capacidade de alguns países desenvolverem suas próprias tecnologias e, consequentemente, suas próprias economias, isso era um problema menor” (p.168).

As medidas que abriram caminho para a Big Pharma “nasceram como uma expressão bruta e profundamente antidemocrática do poder corporativo concentrado” (p.168). “Se não fosse pelas doze corporações transnacionais baseadas nos Estados Unidos do Comitê de Propriedade Intelectual… não haveria acordo sobre (TRIPS) hoje” (p.169). O TRIPS foi adotado porque “os Estados Unidos, trabalhando em estreita colaboração com os lobistas da Big Pharma… [se envolveram no] isolamento e intimidação de países, muitas vezes ameaçando-os abertamente com consequências econômicas se resistissem” (p.169).

As restrições sufocantes impostas pelo TRIPS, no entanto, levaram a “um jogo de gato e rato entre a Big Pharma… e ativistas e governos do Sul Global”. Interesses farmacêuticos pressionaram por medidas “além do TRIPS” que lhes concederiam ainda maiores vantagens. Dearden mostra que a Big Pharma, apesar de todo o seu enorme poder e influência, lida com uma oposição contínua que às vezes a obriga a recuar.

No sexto capítulo, Dearden estende sua análise para o sistema de saúde global mais amplo. Ele sugere que a aplicação das mesmas abordagens que facilitaram os negócios para as empresas farmacêuticas teve impactos catastróficos nos serviços de saúde de primeira linha (p.187).

Dearden critica a influência indevida do Banco Mundial em projetos de saúde. Sua abordagem foi baseada em “um mercado competitivo de seguros de saúde, a privatização da saúde pública e apenas uma rede mínima de segurança para os pobres”. O Banco trabalhou com “importantes filantropos, cuja intervenção no campo alteraria de maneiras profundas a saúde global. Ninguém simboliza melhor essa nova onda do que Bill Gates” (p.196).

O Banco Mundial e a Fundação Gates se uniram para “mobilizar U$ 1 bilhão em investimentos de capital e empréstimos para financiar o crescimento da participação do setor privado na saúde na África subsaariana”. Esses “investimentos até agora, na prática, foram predominantemente em hospitais caros e de alto nível, oferecendo cuidados terciários aos cidadãos mais ricos e a expatriados dos países africanos” (p.201).

Nos dois últimos capítulos, Dearden propõe alternativas ao papel dominante da Big Pharma. Ele vê o movimento da People’s Vaccine e seus esforços durante a pandemia como um desdobramento das lutas travadas durante a crise de HIV/aids dos anos 1990.

Não há dúvida de que, em ambas as situações, aqueles que se opuseram à busca desenfreada por lucro e exigiram respostas viáveis às necessidades de saúde conseguiram recuperar terreno da Big Pharma e salvaram vidas no processo. Ainda assim, apesar de todo o seu conhecimento prático e experiência consideráveis, as esperanças de Dearden por um sistema de saúde global mais justo e racional contêm um elemento marcante de otimismo. Ele claramente acredita que um lobby com a abordagem certa convencerá os governos a controlar a Big Pharma.

Dearden argumenta com veemência que as vastas desigualdades globais que ele apresentou exigem “a descolonização do modelo” (p.224). No entanto, sua sugestão de que as pessoas no Sul Global podem pressionar seus próprios governos e, “responsabilizando-os”, garantir que possam “dar passos transformadores à frente” (p.224), subestima as divisões de classe no Sul e os laços dos interesses da elite com a ordem mundial liderada pelos EUA.

Função do Estado

Dearden destaca corretamente o papel do Estado no desenvolvimento de tecnologias, mas sente que os governos têm ficado “envergonhados com seu papel na economia” (p.240). Ele argumenta que “deveriam encerrar a pretensão de que o mercado é a fonte de toda prosperidade e progresso e abraçar o papel que desempenham” (p.241). Esta é uma argumentação liberal muito familiar que supõe que o poder do Estado foi neutralizado pelo neoliberalismo, quando na verdade foi reenfocado e redirecionado para atender às necessidades de uma agenda de exploração intensificada.

À medida que o livro chega ao fim, Dearden procura raios de esperança em lugares sombrios. No “Accountable Capitalism Act” da senadora dos EUA, Elizabeth Warren, ele vê a possibilidade de “alterar os deveres legais dos diretores de empresas para que sejam obrigados a servir a um interesse mais amplo do que as preocupações estreitas dos acionistas” (p.243). Ele até deposita uma confiança muito inflada na postura de Joe Biden em limitar o poder da Big Pharma (p.254).

Dearden afirma que “sementes de mudança” estão evidentes e que “o Estado está de volta”. Em apoio a isso, ele aponta para “o nível de intervenção e planejamento estatal durante a crise financeira ou a pandemia de covid-19” (p.258). Certamente é verdade que, desde 2008, testemunhamos momentos em que o Estado interveio com grande vigor para estabilizar o capitalismo global, mas há poucas evidências de qualquer esforço sustentado para impor controles mais rigorosos sobre grandes corporações ou adotar níveis mais elevados de compromisso social.

O livro, talvez apropriadamente, considerando a perspectiva política do autor, conclui com um apelo final ao Estado para conter os piores instintos do capitalismo. Citando um colega de pensamento, Dearden nos deixa com a mensagem de que a “a grande questão realmente é: os governos têm a coragem de levar esse processo no caminho correto? Como podemos pressioná-los para garantir que o façam?” (p.268).Pharmanomics é um livro de enorme utilidade, que deve ser lido por todos aqueles que desejam entender os mecanismos da ganância irracional que minam e distorcem a produção e distribuição de medicamentos em escala global. Ele também mostra muito claramente as principais áreas de política em que a Big Pharma está sendo desafiada e onde precisa ser confrontada de forma mais decisiva. No entanto, quando se trata da análise política que isso exigirá, a perspectiva liberal de ONGs que Dearden defende fica seriamente aquém do necessário.

Como a Big Pharma destrói a Saúde Global – Outras Palavras

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Followers of my writing have I hope noticed me repeatedly arguing that capitalism produces four mutually reinforcing and multiplying apocalyptic horsemen: ecocide, pandemicide, potentially terminal nuclear war, and fascism.

Capitalism at the Dark Taproot

I want to dig into this formulation here, explaining how capitalism generates each of these apocalyptic menaces and how the “four horsemen” reinforce and indeed multiply each other.

Let’s start with the first dark rider, ecocide.  Here I am talking only about climate change, fully aware that capitalism produces numerous “ecological rifts” besides (and intimately related to) global warming.

Capitalism’s underlying economic base requires constant, cancer-like growth, thereby placing livable ecology at grave risk. In the era of fossil fuels, in which capitalism is deeply and indeed terminally invested, this requirement is turning the planet into a giant Greenhouse Gas Chamber. The combination of constant growth and fossil fuels has created an epic climate catastrophe that is pushing humanity and countess other species under thermal siege.

Capitalism is a disorderly and amoral global economic and state system devoid of any real capacity to sustainably re-orient and de-toxify human relations with the natural environment. An ever more poisoned world dominated by capitalist imperialists and broken up into dozens and dozens of competing nation states is not rational.  It is anarchic, competitive, and exterminist, so fundamentally socio-pathological that it sees the ecological destruction it generates as a source of new profit opportunities – new shipping lanes available in regions formerly covered by ice, for example. The long-term common good is perpetually trumped by the ruling investor class’s short-term bottom line under the reign of capital. And that class too invested in fossil fuels (both directly and indirectly) to permit governments under bourgeois control (whatever their democratic pretenses) to keep those resources in the ground before the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas pushes the planet past irreversible tipping points of runaway warming.

What’s capitalism got to do with  pandemicide?   Quite a bit. The system’s relentless expansion, without which the profits system cannot survive, destroys vast swaths of natural habitat, bringing humans into ever close contact with species that bear deadly zoonotic viruses from which humanity was previously insulated.  The capitalogenic climate catastrophe is causing species migrations that further break down previous epidemiological barriers. And contemporary globalized capitalism flies six million around the world in airplanes per day, guaranteeing the rapid and wide transmission of new diseases for which many lack immunity.

Potentially Terminal War? You betchya. Mao Zedong was right to call capitalism “capitalism-imperialism.” The world is teetering closer to terminal nuclear war, helping (along with global warming) push the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock closer to Midnight than it has ever been in ways that should be at all surprising. Capitalism is a system of competition, rivalry, and conflict not only between individual capitals but also between capitalist-imperialist states, for control of and access to markets, raw materials, labor supplies, technologies, and more – and with that for exploitation and oppression of the vast global periphery, the so-called developing world, formerly know (during the Cold War) as the “Third World.”  There’s no way under capitalism for one nation state to remain forever the one and only major power, the role to which the US aspired (and attained to some transient and partial degree) after World War II. The leading capitalist-imperialist states butting heads with each other in the increasingly “multipolar” world system today – the United States, Russia, and China – are armed to the teeth with (ever more lethal) nuclear weapons, first developed during the second of the last century’s two massive inter-imperialist global wars (and used twice by the US in 1945, largely as a warning to the first state that tried to break out of and challenge the world capitalist system – the Soviet Union). With the capitalist-imperialist US menacing the other two great nuclear powers in their immediate regional spheres of influence (Eastern Europe and the far eastern Pacific), chances of catastrophic war are higher now than they were during the Cold War. Trigger zones include Ukraine, Taiwan, and of course the Middle East, where Israel’s escalated crucifixion of Gaza (after the October 7 Hamas terror attack) and the ongoing US campaign against Iran have the potential of setting off much wider conflict.

And then there’s fascism,  usefully defined by the US-based group Refuse Fascism (RF) as “a qualitative change in how society is governed. Once in power,” RF says, “fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive ‘traditional values.’ Truth is obliterated and fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement and consolidate power.”

What’s it got to do with capitalism-imperialism? Everything. By virtue of its inherent tendency towards the upward concentration of wealth and power, capitalism regularly makes transparently inauthentic its “democratic”  and “equality before for the law” pretenses – this while the underlying anarchy of capital regularly generates crises and catastrophes that require big government intervention.  It’s a deadly combination that encourages authoritarian “solutions” advanced by charismatic strongmen who find significant mass support for their claim that they alone can fix things with the backing of a party and mass base ready to discard previously normative parliamentary, civil, and legal niceties and moral compunctions.

Capitalism simultaneously creates mass politics, delegitimizes (exposing as inauthentic) democracy and rule of law, demonizes socialist and communist movements, and sustains and exploits the longstanding divisive and oppressive forces of racism, sexism, nativism, fundamentalism, imperialism, and nationalism.  It soullessly cheapens human life, rendering billions of people disposable in ways that help fuel sadistic dehumanization.

At the same time, the democratic, humanistic, “tolerant,” and “rule of law” pretenses of capitalism are always considered expendable by considerable portions of the ruling capitalist class. Plenty of powerful capitalists are ready to work with and through a political superstructure that dispenses with bourgeois democracy and go instead with the Iron Heel: capitalism-imperialism with a boot on the neck of the masses.

It’s a toxic jumble that generates fascist potential and reality like white on rice.

Multiplication, Not Addition

Now let’s get into how these four horsemen – I’ll keep the gender intact to reflect capitalism’s deep connection to patriarchy – do more than merely stand next to each other and add up, as in addition, but rather reinforce and expand each other, as in multiplication. It’s not ecocide plus potentially nuclear war plus pandemicide plus fascism.  It’s ecocide times potentially nuclear war times pandemicide times fascism.

Ecocide and Pandemicide. Climate change is helping drive the risk of pandemics by forcing human and animal migrations away from overheated, thermally unsafe regions, thereby increasing prospects for cross-species zoonotic virus transmissions.  At the same time, climate change’s negative impact on agricultural productivity incentivizes the expansion of land enclosure and cultivation, further eroding barriers between humans and pathogens carried by other species (Here I suppose a clever critic could argue that potential mass death and economic depression resulting from pandemics could help reduce carbon emissions!)

Ecocide and (potentially nuclear) war: the capitalist climate crisis damages global capitalist profitability (by reducing agricultural productivity and thereby raising the cost of food, other materials and labor, for example) in ways that intensify inter-imperial competition for markets and materials, sharpening conflicts between capitalist states in ways that encourage drifts and lurches toward global war. Militaries and their wars are themselves huge fossil fuel users and carbon emitters.  (Of course a global thermonuclear war could solve the climate crisis with the Nuclear Winter. World War III would also end the threats of fascism and pandemicide).

Ecocide and Fascism: In their important book White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism, Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Group have drawn numerous connections between these two.  The mutually reinforcing synergies include:

+ the far right’s strong attachment to fossil fuels as a great national/racial heritage and “stock,” a source of national greatness.

+ the fueling of racist anti-immigrant nativism within rich white nations by mass nonwhite migrations from poor nations where climate change is making life more miserable than ever.

+ fascism’s anti-intellectual opposition to truth and science, which encourages climate denialism on the far right.

+ right-wing anti-socialism, which undermines positive government action for environmental sanity.

+ the right-wing narrative that climate concerns are a cloak for poor nonwhite nations’ effort to “steal” rich white nation’s wealth and power.

+  the “eco-fascist” claim that immigration is the real basis for environmental spoilation in rich nations

+ right-wing indifference to climate change on the cruel basis of the notion that it only hurts poor nations and people in the nonwhite periphery of the world system.

+ the negative impact of climate mitigation efforts on the economic status of significant sectors and regions, providing ground for right-wing parties to sell eco-cidal anti-climate policies as economic “populism.”

+ the role of climate change in producing mass social dislocations and crises that provide fertile ground for right wing recruitment.

Pandemicide and Fascism.  Fear of germ-carrying Others and outsiders fuels xenophobic nativism and nationalism, key parts of the fascist mix.  Government measures to control virus transmission feed paranoid right-wing “anti-government” sentiments. Economic decline and social dislocation resulting from pandemics create mass discontent and trauma the far-right exploits, depicting (for example) pandemics and related public health efforts to stem their spread as parts of a “globalist” conspiracy. Pandemics isolate masses of people from previously normal social contact, rendering them less prone to mutual concern and solidarity while making them more vulnerable to online hate. Pandemic origins stories are concocted by the far right to fuel mass paranoia and racism (e.g. “the China Virus,” “the China Hoax”). Fascism advances the potentially genocidal  dehumanization and demonization racial, political, cultural, sexual and additional Others, encouraging its adherents to welcome the real or imagined role of pandemics in eliminating portions of humanity they hate. At the same time, fascism is animated by a virulent Social Darwinian faith in the “survival of the fittest,” a mindset that welcomes the death of “the weak” and mitigates against positive government public health policy for the common good.

Pandemcide and War.  A pandemic’s negative impact on profitability can produce a global profits squeeze that encourages an increased likelihood of war between competing capitalist-imperialist states. Wars themselves create mass devastation that increase humans’ susceptibility to disease of all kinds including new zoonotic plagues.

Fascism and War: The militarized and violent nationalism that capitalist-imperial inter-state rivalry and war generate and intensify feed the fascist-authoritarian menace within nations. The fascist ethos and fascist movements past and present draw heavily on nationalist militarism and current and former military personnel. Like war and militarism, fascism upholds the rule of force and men over the rule of law and electoral and parliamentary politics.  Like fascism, war and militarism rely on the dehumanization and demonization of designated enemy Others, required to justify the elimination of rivals and foes. Fascism and militarism both advance the notion of the survival of the strongest, identifying strength with capacity for and readiness to employ mass violence. (Clausewitz said that “war is politics by other means.”  Fascism is among the other things the penetration of politics by the violent mindset and practices of war/militarism.) War in turn often produced massive social dislocations, hardships, and defeats (and triumphs) that fascist politicos and propagandists exploit.

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And, of course, the political pathology that is fascism is a brutal enforcer of  apocalyptic capitalism-imperialism – an enforcer that works among other things to crush open public support and movements for climate sanity, public health (including responsible pandemic prevention and response), peace, social justice, and intellectual freedom…. for reform, not to mention for the real requirement: revolutionary socialism. (The Amerikaner fascist leader Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he intends as 47^th US president to deploy the military to suppress “the radical Left,” a label under which he absurdly includes militantly capitalist-imperialist Democrats.  Any opposition to his “drill, baby drill agenda,” to his promised military invasion of Mexico, to his escalated militarization of the border, to his war on women’s reproductive freedoms, to his promised mass immigrant round up and so on will quite possibly be met with considerable state and extra-state violence and repression.)

It is of course true that capitalist-imperialism is clearly showing itself ready, willing, and able to poison and generally ruin life on Earth by generating the first three apocalyptic horsemen (ecocide, pandemicide, and potentially nuclear world war) without the full consolidation of the last one (fascism).  But once in power fascism threatens to smash all social-civil-political-ideological space for popular opposition to eco-cidal and imperialist pandemo-capitalism and its allied oppression and exploitation systems including of course racism and sexism. Fascism needs to be resisted, refused, and defeated in and of itself though as part of a deeper movement to rid ourselves of the toxic taproot system – the capitalist mode of production and its attendant political and  ideological superstructure – that gives rise to fascism in the first place.

The Four Horsemen of the Capitalist-Imperialist Apocalypse – CounterPunch.org