Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The guarantee of being picked up by NGO boats is being promoted by people smugglers on social media and is allowing criminal gangs to use less seaworthy vessels and charge more money, Italian intelligence services claim

Pro-refugee rescue boats operating off the Italian coast are only exacerbating Europe’s migration crisis and are being used by people smugglers to guarantee success, a report by the Italian intelligence services has claimed.

In its annual report to the Italian parliament on Tuesday, Italy’s intelligence services warned the Ionian Sea may well become the new route of choice for people smugglers, indicating an increase in the number of boats leaving Turkey’s east coast destined for Italy.

“There is an increase in migratory flows from the eastern Mediterranean, leaving mainly from Turkey towards the coasts of Calabria, Puglia and Sicily by mainly Kurdish and Pakistani migrants, marking a rise in trafficking as well as the use, which has become practice, of the web and social networks by the same groups to advertise their trips and related services,” the report said.

Italian intelligence told lawmakers how the presence of NGO ships operating off Italy’s coast is “often publicized on social networks by facilitators of irregular migration as a guarantee of a safer journey to Europe.”

They accused NGOs of providing “a logistical advantage for the criminal organizations that manage migrant trafficking, allowing them to adapt their modus operandi according to the possibility of reducing the quality of the vessels used, correspondingly increasing the illicit profits, but exposing the people on board to a more concrete risk of shipwreck.”

At least 64 people have been confirmed dead following the shipwreck of an overcrowded wooden boat being used to smuggle migrants into Europe. The boat was found off Italy’s Calabrian coast on Sunday. It had set sail from the Turkish city of Izmir and was heading for Crotone on Italy’s east coast.

The perilous journey saw the boat navigate its way through the Aegean Sea and around Greece before attempting to cross the Ionian Sea to reach Italy.

The 80 survivors told Italian authorities the boat had been carrying approximately 170 people, suggesting the death toll could increase further. Others claim the number on board could have been closer to 250.

Many of the passengers originated from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq, according to aid groups attending the scene.

Italian authorities have revealed the people smugglers responsible for organizing a trip from Turkey to Italy resulting in the deaths of dozens of migrants on Sunday charged each migrant €8,000 for what they described as the “voyage of death.”

NGO groups were quick to criticize the Italian government for the deaths, referencing recent government decrees that aimed to frustrate humanitarian vessels led by pro-refugee charities attempting to pick up migrants and escort them to Italy.

The Italian government hit back at accusations, highlighting the fact that NGO vessels were rarely operating in the area where the incident had occurred, as they usually concentrated their search and rescue efforts in the Mediterranean to Italy’s southwest rather than the Ionian Sea, which is far less used by people smugglers.

On Tuesday, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi refuted claims made by aid groups that the Italian authorities were slow to react to reports of distress in the area.

He explained how Italy had sent out two patrol vessels after authorities had been alerted to the boat off the coast of Crotone late on Saturday evening, but these had been required to suspend their efforts due to adverse weather conditions.

“There was no delay,” Piantedosi said.

“Everything possible was done in absolutely prohibitive sea conditions.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has requested action by the European Union to respond to the migration crisis her country is experiencing, telling European leaders in a letter sent on Monday that more must be done to stop migrants from embarking on perilous sea crossings.

“The point is, the more people who set off, the more people risk dying,” she told RAI state television on Monday.

Via The Libertarian Institute, 

A series of antiwar protests over the weekend saw Western European citizens in mass demanding their governments pursue diplomacy with Russia and halt arms shipments to Kiev. As the current conflict in Ukraine turned one year old, major demonstrations – which saw people united across the political spectrum – were seen in Germany, France, and Italy.

10,000 people gathered in Paris to protest against France’s membership in both NATO as well as the EU. Attendees also demanded an end to the French government’s military aid to Kiev. The demonstration, dubbed the “National March for Peace” was organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party. According to the group’s leader Florian Philippot – who joined the Paris rally himself – similar but smaller protests were held at 30 other locations throughout the country on Sunday.

On Saturday, thousands of people participated in peace demonstrations in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan. In Genoa, the rally focused on ending weapons shipments to Ukraine and was organized by union members and left-wing activists, whose slogan was “Lower weapons, raise wages.” 4,000 people from across Italy joined the Genoa protest, along with people from France and Switzerland as well, according to local media reports.

The Collective Autonomous Port Workers (CALP) helped organize the rally with the Italian communist party. They demanded the port of Genoa’s facilities no longer be used to facilitate arms shipments to Ukraine.

CALP’s Riccardo Rudino pointed out that “the conflict in Ukraine did not begin last year” but rather “in 2014, with the massacre of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass.”

Following the U.S. backed 2014 coup in Kiev – which overthrew the government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, while over 14,000 people were killed, including thousands of civilians, in Kiev’s war on the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In London, a large group carried out a similar demonstration calling for peace in Ukraine and an end to the British government’s weapons transfers to Kiev. The event was held by Stop the War Coalition at Portland Place in Central London and was attended by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Many thousands of people participated in a massive protest in central Berlin, where attendees railed against German military aid to Kiev. The protesters, who were massed at the Brandenburg Gate, demanded additionally that their government engage Russia in peace talks and bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

The organizers say as many as 50,000 people joined the “Uprising for Peace” demonstrations. However, the police offered a lower-end estimate of 13,000 people in attendance. The event was organized by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of the Links Party (the Left Party) in Germany, as well as a feminist author and campaigner Alice Schwarzer.

Wagenknecht declared neo-Nazis were not welcome at the protest, but anyone else who desired peace “with an honest heart” was welcome to attend. During her speech at the event, Wagenknecht declared the creation of a “new, strong peace movement in Germany.”

Nouvelle manifestation contre la subvention de la guerre en Ukraine 🇺🇦 et la sortie de la France 🇫🇷de l’OTAN.
Les médias continuent de nous ignorer, mais la résistance monte en France👊

👉Des milliers de personnes à Paris ce 26/02/23 @_LesPatriotes @f_philippot ! #1an pic.twitter.com/3XKhijHoRc

— Tamila Tapayeva (@tamilatapayeva) February 26, 2023

She also observed that the myriad protestors were united by the fact that they do not feel represented by the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in their decision to supply Kiev with weaponry, including main battle tanks.In a reference to the drastic escalation of Berlin’s involvement in the war since last year, some banners read “Helmets today, tanks tomorrow, the day after tomorrow your sons.”

Other banners carried by the protesters bore such anti war slogans as “Stop the Killing,” “Not My War, Not My Government,” and “Diplomats instead of grenades.”

Two weeks prior to the protest, Wagenknecht and Schwarzer published a “Manifest for Peace” which demanded that Scholz “stop the escalation in weapons deliveries.” The petition has reportedly garnered more than 650,000 signatures, including some prominent intellectuals and political figures.

This weekend’s massive protests in Berlin followed a smaller demonstration at the end of January in Nuremberg, where participants rallied against Scholz’s decision to provide Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kiev. This month, around 10,000 people also protested in Munich during the Munich Security Conference, where Western leaders discussed funding, arming and training Ukrainian forces “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.

Also on Sunday, in southwestern Germany, protesters gathered at the Ramstein air base – where the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s meetings on arming Kiev are held – calling for an end to the weapons deliveries while demanding the U.S. Air Force to “go home.”

In Nuremberg, protestors expressed their dire concerns that the German people were being dragged into another war with Russia. As one demonstrator commented “If we Germans get involved in a war, and I personally do not have a war with Russia, then for us Germans, based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” The demonstrator continued, “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.” He believes this is just what “America wants.”

Italy with protests too. Specifically anti-NATO involving thousands. All over where the Ukraine war is heading because these people believe there will be another World War raging across Europe if Russia is backed into a corner. pic.twitter.com/g65tblc7Ft

— GraphicW (@GraphicW5) February 26, 2023

The latest protests in Germany took place against the backdrop of veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”

Before the war began, Russia provided roughly a third of Europe’s gas, while Germany depended on Moscow for more than half of its gas supplies. After the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to ship gas to Europe via an undamaged line in Nord Stream 2. This offer was quickly rejected by Berlin.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken celebrated the blasts in the Baltic Sea – which, according to Hersh, were caused by explosives planted by U.S. Navy divers and detonated with a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian spy plane. Blinken described the attack as a “tremendous strategic opportunity” to wean Europe off its dependency on cheap Russian energy “for the years to come.” Since the attack, which led to possibly the largest ever leak of methane gas, the U.S. and Norway have taken Russia’s place as Europe’s top natural gas suppliers.

Activists picket near the Ramstein airbase in Germany, headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa and also for NATO Allied Air Command. They protest against further arms supplies to Ukraine and demand peace talks. pic.twitter.com/bgC0UTWVwx

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) February 26, 2023

As a result of the economic war on Russia led by the U.S., people across Europe have suffered skyrocketing gas prices and inflation, leaving some struggling to heat their homes during the frigid winter months. The strain is beginning to show, likely playing some role in motivating the spate of protest actions in recent days. Last year, tens of thousands attended similar demonstrations in Italy, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, with many voicing outrage over pricey foreign aid to Ukraine as their living standards continue to plummet.

In recent years, video streaming has become an integral part of global entertainment. From Netflix and Amazon Prime to HBO Max and Apple TV, consumers today have many choices when it comes to streaming services.

While some prefer services with their favorite shows and movies, others opt for the most affordable or content-packed options. Often, users band together friends and family and subscribe to multiple streaming services, though some services like Netflix have started to clamp down on the practice.

As Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes reports, this graphic by theWORLDMAPS uses data from FlixPatrol to highlight the streaming services with the most subscriptions by country in February 2023.

Most Subscribed Streaming Services in 2023

With the highest number of subscribers in 78 countries and over 220 million customers globally, Netflix was the most popular video streaming service in the most countries.

In many countries including the UK, Brazil, Germany, France, and Mexico, Netflix had the most subscribers of any service. That’s more than delivery subscription and streaming service Amazon Prime and its 200 million global subscribers.

Because of its large userbase, however, Prime can claim more subscribers than Netflix in five countries: Afghanistan, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S..

Other streaming services found success catering to specific regions. The French premium television channel Canal Plus had the highest subscriber count in 17 francophone countries across Central and West Africa. Likewise, the Arabic free video streaming service Shahid topped the list of 16 countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen.

And despite having over 160 million global subscribers, Disney+ only made it to the top of India‘s subscriber base. Likewise, Tencent Video was the most-subscribed platform in China with 124 million customers.

Honorable Mentions and Turning Tides

Only 11 video streaming channels made it to the top of the 134 countries tracked by this data.

And while many others did not make the cut, they continue to attract millions of subscribers worldwide.

They include the Chinese platform iQIYI with 106 million subscribers, as well as four American streaming services: HBO Max (79.9M), Hulu (48M), Paramount+ (46M), and Apple TV (40M).

But with both Netflix and Disney+ wrestling with slowing (and declining) subscriber growth, how will the map evolve over the next few years?

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

A retired American Marine fighting in Ukraine told ABC News the frontlines are a “meat grinder” where soldiers survive an average of “four hours.” 

Troy Offenbecker is fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Moscow and Kiev have been battling around Bakhmut for several months as Russia’s forces have slowly made gains around the city. 

In January, Germany estimated Kiev was losing a “three-digit number” of soldiers daily fighting for Bakhmut. At that time, the White House believed President Volodymyr Zelensky was committing too many lives and resources to defend the city. 

Offenbecker’s commentary suggests that the situation may be getting worse for Ukrainian soldiers. “It’s been pretty bad on the ground. A lot of casualties.” He assessed, “the life expectancy is around four hours on the frontline.”

He said the Russian attack on the city is not letting up and had turned into a “meat grinder.” “[The artillery] is nonstop.” Offenbecker explained the Russian forces are fighting around the clock. “[The Russians] have maybe run into a shortage of shells lately, but the past couple of weeks, it’s been nonstop. All day and night,” he told ABC.

Meanwhile, Kiev’s Western backers have expressed to Zelensky in recent weeks that NATO countries are struggling to find artillery shells to send to Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US will train Ukrainian forces on fighting methods that use fewer munitions. 

The Kremlin ordered a mobilization of 300,000 troops last year. Western leaders have anticipated Moscow will order an offensive this winter. Ukrainian officials say that the Russian offensive is now underway, and Offenbecker agrees. “With the amount of shelling, the amount of armor that they’ve brought in, I think it’s started,” he explained to ABC. 

Due to Moscow’s and Kiev’s tight control over their countries’ presses, it is unclear how substantial the death toll is for each country. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has nationalized Ukraine’s media, outlawed his political opposition and jailed citizens who opposed his administration. 

Commenting on the state of journalism in Ukraine, press-union leader Serhiy Guz explained, “We never know what’s the basis of these accusations, what’s the pro-Russian link…It starts to look like a political accusation rather than a genuine crime.” 

“A lot of journalists self-censor now,” he added. 

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia.

That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world.

A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing.

It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West. No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space.

Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.”

For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.

Metaphorically, it also speaks volumes that Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow as, to quote Dylan, darkness dawns at the break of noon across the West.

As it stands, with the wobblin’, ragin’ Hegemon lost in its own pre-fabricated daze, the real runners of the show feeding burning flesh to irredeemably mediocre political “elites”, China may have a little more latitude than Russia, as the Middle Kingdom is not – yet – under the same existential pressure Russia has been put under.

Whatever happens next geopolitically, Russia is at heart a – giant – obstacle on the warmongering path of the Hegemon: the ultimate target is top “threat” China.

Putin’s ability to size up our extremely delicate geopolitical moment – via a dose of highly concentrated, undiluted realism – is something to behold. And then Foreign Minister Lavrov provided the sweet cherry on top, calling the hapless US ambassador for a hardcore dress down: oh yeah, this is war, hybrid and otherwise, and your NATO mercenaries as well as your junk hardware are legitimate targets.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, now more than ever relishing his “unplugged” status, made it all very clear: “Russia risks being torn apart if it stops a special military operation (SMO) before victory is achieved.”

And the message is even more acute because it represents the – public – cue to the Chinese leadership at the Zhongnahhai to understand: whatever happens next, this is the Kremlin’s unmovable official position.

The Chinese restore the Mandate of Heaven

All these vectors are evolving as ramifications of the bombing of the Nord Streams, the only military attack – cum industrial terrorism – ever perpetrated against the EU, leave the Collective West paralyzed, dazed and confused.

Perfectly in tandem with Putin’s address, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose the geopolitical/existential moment to finally take the gloves off, with a flourish: enter the US Hegemony and its Perils essay cum report, which became an instant massive hit across Chinese media, examined with relish all across East Asia.

This blistering enumeration of all the Hegemon’s lethal follies, for decades, constitutes a point of no return for trademark Chinese diplomacy, so far characterized by passivity, ambivalence, actual restraint and extreme politeness. So such turnaround is yet another proud “achievement” of the outright Sinophobia and mendacious hostility exhibited by American neocons and neoliberal-cons.

Scholar Quan Le notes that this document may be regarded as the traditional form – but now filled with contemporary wording – the Chinese Sovereigns used in their millenary past before going to war.

It is in fact an axio-epistemo-political proclamation justifying a serious war, which in the Chinese universe means a war ordained by a Higher Power capable of restoring Justice & Harmony in a troubled Universe.

After the proclamation the warriors are equipped to strike mercilessly at the entity judged to be troubling the Harmony of the Universe: in our case, the psycho Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons commanded as rabid dogs by the real American elites.

Of course in the Chinese universe there’s no place for “God” – much less a Christian version; “God” for the Chinese means the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity, Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. The closest concept for a non-Chinese to understand is Dao: the Way. So the Way to the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity represents symbolically Beauty-Goodness-Truth.

So what Beijing did – and the Collective West is completely clueless about it – was to issue an axio-epistemo-political proclamation explaining the legitimacy of their quest to restore Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. They will be fulfilling the Mandate of Heaven – nothing less. The West won’t know what it hit them until it’s too late.

It was predictable that sooner or later the heirs of Chinese civilization would have had enough – and formally identify, mirroring Putin’s analysis, the upstart Hegemon as the premier source of chaos, inequality and war across the planet. Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, in a nutshell.

To put it bluntly, in streetwise language, the hell with this Americana crap of hegemony being justified by “manifest destiny”.

So here we are. You want Hybrid War? We will return the favor.

Back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine

A former CIA advisor has issued a quite sobering report on a pebble along the rocky way: a possible endgame in Ukraine, now that even some elite-run parrots are contemplating a “way out” with minimal loss of face.

It’s never idle to remember that way back in 2000, the year Vladimir Putin was first elected as President, in the pre-9/11 world, rabid neocon Paul Wolfowitz was side by side with Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski in a huge Ukraine-US symposium in Washington, where he unabashedly raved about provoking Russia to go to war with Ukraine, and committed to finance the destruction of Russia.

Everyone remembers the Wolfowitz doctrine – which was essentially a tawdry, pedestrian rehash of Brzezinski: to keep permanent US hegemony it was primordial to pre-empt the emergence of any potential competitor.

Now we have two nuclear-powered, tech savvy peer competitors united by a comprehensive strategic partnership.

As I finished my long walk paying due respect by the Kremlin to the heroes of 1941-1945, the feeling was inescapable that as much as Russia is a master of riddles and China is a master of paradox, their strategists are now working full time on how to return all strands of Hybrid War against the Hegemon. One thing is certain: unlike boastful Americans, they won’t outline any breakthroughs until they are already in effect.

Last month Chinese officials announced that 2022 marked the first drop in total population in six decades, after 9.56 million people were born vs. 10.41 million who died.

Now, the country faces a population decline combined with a long-running rise in life expectancy, which could result in a wide-ranging demographic crisis for the world’s second-largest economy.

In order to counter the plummeting fertility rate, Chinese officials have loosened the country’s one-child policy, and offered incentives for families to reproduce – but nothing has worked.

Some provinces are trying to go further – including one which now encourages people to have as many babies as they want, even if they are unmarried. In most parts of the country, single mothers are denied government benefits often offered to married couples.

In the tech hub city of Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, the government is now giving parents of a third child 20,000 yuan, or $2,900 as a one-off subsidy. A second child will net parents around $720.

In South China, the city of Wenzhou is planning to offer new parents around $400 in subsidies per child, while the northeastern city of Shenyang is offering up to $72 per month until a child is three years old.

In Shanghai and Shanxi, officials have increased the number of paid marriage leave days – time off granted to couples if they get married – from three days to up to 30 days, according to the People’s Daily Health.

The problem, however, is that many young Chinese adults don’t want large families, and are pushing back on all sorts of incentives to reproduce in one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, the NY Times reports, noting that “such incentives do little to address anxieties about supporting their aging parents and managing the rising costs of education, housing and health care.”

“The fundamental problem is not that people cannot have children, but that they cannot afford it,” said 26-year-old Sichuan nurse, Lu Yi, adding that she would need to earn at least double her currently monthly salary of around $1,200 (8,000 yuan) to even consider children.

Many countries around the world — from Japan to Russia to Sweden — have confronted the same demographic challenge, and their attempts to incentivize new babies with subsidies and other tactics have had a limited impact. But China has aged faster than other countries. The often harshly enforced one-child policy, which was aimed at slowing population growth, precipitated the steep decline in births and led to a generational shift in attitudes around family sizes.

Efforts by the ruling Communist Party to raise fertility rates — by permitting all couples to have two children in 2016, then three in 2021 — have struggled to gain traction. The new policy in Sichuan drew widespread attention because it essentially disregards birth limits altogether, showing how the demographic crisis is nudging the party to slowly relinquish its iron grip over the reproductive rights of its citizens. –NY Times

“The two-child policy failed. The three-child policy failed,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, Yi Fuxian, who studies Chinese population trends. “This is the natural next step.”

Beijing, we have a problem…

In a 2022 survey of around 20,000 younger Chinese people between the ages of 18 to 25, two-thirds said they don’t want children – with demographers suggesting that the pressures and costs associated with the Chinese education system is a major factor. They have suggested things such as shortening schooling by two years, and getting rid of the competitive exam to enter high school.

Meanwhile, with women pressured to step into careers instead of marriage, getting Chinese millennials to overcome issues such as costs might only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the current challenge.

“You need to go back to the things that have made marriage rates so low,” Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten, who specializes in population policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Insider last year.

“If women are feeling: ‘This is such a bad move for my career or my life that I’m going to push it back as long as possible,’ then maybe that’s a symptom of other challenges, blockages, or malfunctions in society

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The deep animosity against Russia and China that the U.S. national-security establishment has inculcated in the American people brings to mind the remarkable speech that President Kennedy delivered on June 10, 1963, at American University that sealed his fate.

Just imagine what would happen to any American who today dares to say good things about Russia and China. The Russia haters and the China haters will heap condemnation and calumny on them. The haters will accuse them of being “Putin lovers” who support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the case of China, they will accuse them of being communist sympathizers who support China’s military expansionism. 

No, there is no room in America for positive sentiments toward Russia and China. Through the power of indoctrination, the Pentagon and the CIA have succeeded in inculcating a mindset of deep hostility all across America toward both Russia and China.

Of course, they did the same thing back in the Cold War era, perhaps even more so given that, during that time, both Russia and China were communist regimes. Throughout the Cold War decades, Americans were indoctrinated in the same way that Americans today are indoctrinated. They were taught to hate and fear the Russian Reds and the Chinese Reds and, for that matter, the North Korean Reds, the Cuban Reds, the Vietnamese Reds, the Chilean Reds, the Guatemalan Reds, and, well, all the Reds in the world, including those who were inside the United States. 

Among the people Americans were expected to hate was Martin Luther King, not only because he was believed to be a Red but also because he had the audacity to point out that the U.S. government had become the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. They hated him for that, just as they hated Mohammad Ali, who dared to question their war against the Reds in Vietnam. That’s why they targeted both men for destruction. 

In the midst of all this anti-Russia and anti-China hostility stepped President John F. Kennedy. He had had enough of all this hostility.

He recognized it as a destructive and highly dangerous mindset that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people. 

Kennedy realized that it was that mindset that had brought the world to the brink of all-out, life-destroying nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also came to the realization that if the Pentagon and the CIA had not been hell-bent on illegally invading Cuba, there would never have been a Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Keep some important things in mind.

At the time that Kennedy was delivering his Peace Speech, the Soviet Union (of which Russia was the principal member) was still occupying and controlling Eastern Europe. It was also still occupying and controlling West Germany. It was still maintaining and enforcing the Berlin Wall. China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba were still communist regimes. 

Kennedy delivering his Peace Speech. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Kennedy shows up at American University and initiates a surprise attack on the Pentagon and the CIA.

He declared an end to the deep anti-Soviet hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA had inculcated in the American people.

He called for peaceful and friendly coexistence with the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist world. With a slap across the faces of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he declared, “What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.”

Kennedy’s entire speech is worth reading, but here are some more excerpts:

First, examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again.

***

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

***

And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago.

***

So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

The very next evening — June 11, 1963 — Kennedy went on national television to express support for the supposed communist Martin Luther King and the American civil-rights movement, which the national-security establishment, especially the FBI, was convinced was a  communist front for a Red takeover of the United States.

The president had just thrown down a doubly dangerous gauntlet before the U.S. national-security establishment.

As I point out in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, Kennedy’s Peace Speech, combined with his resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which enraged the Pentagon and the CIA, combined with his support of what was believed to be a domestic communist front, sealed his fate.

Several months later, they took him out, on the grounds of protecting “national security,” just as they targeted foreign leaders on the same basis. 

No one in America — and especially not a U.S. president — is permitted to embrace what are considered to be heretical thoughts and policies regarding Russia and China.

The deep anti-Russia and anti-China hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA inculcate in the American people has become a permanent part of American life.

A new wealth report by consultancy firm “Henley & Partners” found more than a third of US centi-millionaires graduated from eight universities. 

The report found 9,630 centi-millionaires living in the US as of December. Of that, 35% of them graduated from just eight schools:

• Harvard

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Stanford

• University of Pennsylvania

• Columbia,

• Yale,

• Cornell, and

• Princeton.

“Nonetheless, a premium education undeniably improves the chances of achieving success, influence, and wealth,” Henley & Partners said. 

The report noted an exception: 

“Education is not the only route to phenomenal financial success though, with two notable examples being Bill Gates, who left Harvard to start Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg, a fellow Harvard drop-out and the poster boy of Facebook, now Meta, both of whom went on to become billionaires.” 

And for those aspiring to become a centi-millionaire one day, choosing the right industry is important. The report found the top industries in which centi-millionaires have acquired their wealth:  

• Financial and professional services

• Technology 

• Real Estate

• Media and entertainment 

• Energy and basic materials 

• Retail

• Healthcare 

• Hotel and leisure 

• Manufacturing

• Transport 

Unsurprisingly, a handful of Ivy League universities have a monopoly on churning out centi-millionaires. 

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”

– Simone Weil, French philosopher

It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy. 

For instance, an animal welfare bill introduced in the Florida state legislature would ban the sale of rabbits in March and April, prohibit cat owners from declawing their pets, make it illegal for dogs to stick their heads out of car windows, force owners to place dogs in a harness or in a pet seatbelt when traveling in a car, and require police to create a public list of convicted animal abusers.

A Massachusetts law prohibits drivers from letting their cars idle for more than five minutes on penalty of a $100 fine ($500 for repeat offenders), even in the winter. You can also be fined $20 or a month in jail for scaring pigeons.

This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

Consider, for example, that businesses in California were ordered to designate an area of the children’s toy aisle “gender-neutral” or face a fine, whether or not the toys sold are traditionally marketed to girls or boys such as Barbies and Hot Wheels. California schools are prohibited from allowing students to access websites, novels or religious works that reflect negatively on gays. And while Californians are free to have sex with whomever they choose (because that’s none of the government’s business), removing a condom during sex without consent could make you liable for general, special and punitive damages.

It’s getting worse.

Almost every aspect of American life today—especially if it is work-related—is subject to this kind of heightened scrutiny and ham-fisted control, whether you’re talking about aspiring “bakers, braiders, casket makers, florists, veterinary masseuses, tour guides, taxi drivers, eyebrow threaders, teeth whiteners, and more.”

For instance, whereas 70 years ago, one out of every 20 U.S. jobs required a state license, today, almost 1 in 3 American occupations requires a license.

The problem of overregulation has become so bad that, as one analyst notes, “getting a license to style hair in Washington takes more instructional time than becoming an emergency medical technician or a firefighter.”

This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.

“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”

This is the police state’s superpower: it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.

That explains how a fisherman can be saddled with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water. Or why police arrested a 90-year-old man for violating an ordinance that prohibits feeding the homeless in public unless portable toilets are also made available.

The laws can get downright silly. For instance, you could also find yourself passing time in a Florida slammer for such inane activities as singing in a public place while wearing a swimsuit, breaking more than three dishes per day, farting in a public place after 6 pm on a Thursday, and skateboarding without a license.

However, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill. A few years back, police raided barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants. All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.

In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation. And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

We increasingly find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes. 

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.

In the end, such bargains always turn sour.

We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.

We asked our lawmakers to be tough on crime, and we’ve been saddled with an abundance of laws that criminalize almost every aspect of our lives. So far, we’re up to 4500 criminal laws and 300,000 criminal regulations that result in average Americans unknowingly engaging in criminal acts at least three times a day. For instance, the family of an 11-year-old girl was issued a $535 fine for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act after the young girl rescued a baby woodpecker from predatory cats.

We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration. What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.

A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:

One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.

We wanted law enforcement agencies to have the necessary resources to fight the nation’s wars on terror, crime and drugs. What we got instead were militarized police decked out with M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers, battle tanks and hollow point bullets—gear designed for the battlefield, more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year (many for routine police tasks, resulting in losses of life and property), and profit-driven schemes that add to the government’s largesse such as asset forfeiture, where police seize property from “suspected criminals.”

According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.” Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.

In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture, Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars. Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.

We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.

One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.

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 what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.

The problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.

We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”

Real estate developers in Orange County, California are about to make some dreams come true, after the City Council adopted a plan to build thousands of apartments, lawns, walking trails and other amenities at the Westminster Mall.

The new mall would contain at least 600,000 square feet of retail space, up to 3,000 residential units, and up to 425 hotel rooms – all surrounded by a 17-acre park.

“It was the hip place to be, and it’s really faded out, but it’s just sad to see it go,” said KL DeHart, who grew up in Orange County in the late 1970s, and often wandered the mall with her mother, the LA Times reports.

Hart, a 55-year-old massage therapist who lives near the mall in the house she grew up in is one of the locals who are worried that the new apartments will increase traffic while doing nothing to solve the area’s housing affordability issues.

In Orange County, the San Fernando Valley and suburbs throughout America, the mall was a gathering spot where there were few other places to hang out. It was where kids stocked up on the latest fashions and roamed in packs after school, spawning the term “mall rat.”

The 1980s cult classic “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” began and ended at the mall where the teens worked. In the 1995 film “Clueless,” a Beverly Hills teen retreated to the mall, which she described as a “sanctuary,” after failing to persuade a teacher to boost her grade.

Now, teenagers text with their friends and make TikTok videos. Their parents are more likely to shop online than at a brick-and-mortar store. -LA Times

Orange County, meanwhile, is desperate for new housing as rents and prices skyrocket in an area where there is little to no underdeveloped land.

According to City Manager Christine Cordon, the Westminster Mall is “probably one of the largest areas of developable space that still exists in our time in this area.”

“This is really our opportunity to create something that we can be absolutely proud of for the next generation to create those same fond memories that I have and that others have in a fashion that is consistent with what the times are now,” said Cordon.

According to Shopoff Realty Investments CEO, Bill Shopoff, upscale malls thrive because “they have entertainment, food, there’s a reason to go there,” adding “I think we need to do that in Westminster to create a sense of something.”

And who might be interested in living at the mall? Shopoff – who purchased the Macy’s store and the former Sears store in the Westminster Mall last year – is counting on ‘a modern type of suburban dweller,’ who would rather walk to restaurants and other things than live in a single-family home suburban house with a yard.

Experts say that new laws, along with increased pressure from the state to build more homes, have convinced some local officials who might have been resistant to rezoning commercial properties in the past.

Roughly every eight years, California cities are assigned a certain number of new housing units they’re required to zone for. As part of the 2020 assessment, Orange County needs to make space for about 183,000 new units, shared among all its cities.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two pieces of legislation aimed at spurring housing development in corridors otherwise zoned for large retail and office buildings. -LA Times

“Whether you want to call Orange County urban suburbia or suburban urbanism, it’s definitely shifting,” said Elizabeth Hansburg, People for Housing Orange County co-founder and executive director. “We have an interesting mix of historic districts and tract housing of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and even the ’70s, but I don’t see us building like that again. It’s going to be interesting to see how families evolve in denser spaces.”

Meanwhile, Simon Property Group is reportedly opening additional residential zoning in its Mission Viejo mall, and has proposed redeveloping 15.5 acres of the Brea mall to include apartments, a resort-style fitness center, shops and a large green space.

That said, some of the locals, such as DeHart are furious, and insist they aren’t just NIMBYs.

“That’s not what this is,” she said. “We’re asking legitimate questions, and we’re not getting answers.”

Residents have also voiced concerns about ‘tall residential buildings looming above single-family homes.’

Despite their concerns, city officials such as Laguna Hills Mayor Janine Heft say change is needed.

“There’s a lot of nostalgia for what the mall used to be,” she said. “What we didn’t want was a blight, and that’s really what we had. We had this mall that hadn’t been kept up in years.”