Newsletter, 10/9/24
Biomedical. Dr Sam Bailey interviews a UK doctor, Sam White, who like her began publicly dissenting from state/Pharma mandates around the “COVID” PsyOp soon after the Op began, and like her he was targeted by the medical powers-that-be for doing so.
Dr Sam Bailey, 10/7/24. One hour.
Dr Sam White had been a General Practitioner in the United Kingdom for over a decade when the COVID-19 show was launched in 2020. His refusal to participate in rituals such as face masking soon attracted the attention of unquestioning colleagues and then the medical “authorities”. Not deterred, in early 2021 he recorded a video that went “viral” with millions of views as he exposed the vaccine rollout scam.
Like me, Sam renounced his medical licence and in parallel with my experience, the General Medical Council kept him on the medical register in order to stage a kangaroo court. Again like me, Sam had no interest in participating in such a ridiculous spectacle. A few weeks ago he was ‘struck off’ so I caught up with him to find out what happened and why we are both a major problem for the controlled and dangerous medical establishment.
Dr Sam (UK version) also explained how a personal health crisis led him to move away from allopathic medicine and into a more holistic approach through functional medicine. This included waking up to the widespread perversions of the pharmaceutical industry and becoming an evidence-based “anti-vaxxer”. Despite the gravity of the current situation, he retains a sharp sense of humour. Additionally, this unshakeable and authentic physician continues to show what must be done to end systemic corruption.
References: Dr Sam White’s Social Media -[Links]
My comments at the page.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 10/8/24
Thanks so much this great interview, Dr Sam Bailey and Dr Sam White. Perfect description of what he felt he was being turned into, "medical SS." Indeed, the core problem is the compliance of both doctors and patients with the medical system, and change will start with mass non-compliance.
4IR. Electronic Intifada’s weekly news show, a year to the date since its first weekly news shows, initiated to respond to the situation in Gaza, already dire just 2 days in.
The Electronic Intifada Podcast, 10/9/24. Three hours and 4 minutes.
00:00 Introduction
01:47 Nora Barrows-Friedman delivers news report
24:21 Professor Joseph Massad analyzes the historical context for the events of 7 October 2023
01:52:22 Jon Elmer covers the latest from the battle in Gaza, including a complex ambush in Khan Younis and the defense of the Jabaliya Camp, as well as an update on the fronts in Lebanon and Iraq
02:45:13 Group discussion
My comments. The best segment is the interview with Massad. He had excellent comments about the notion that the Zionist Lobby/Jews are making the US carry out or support policies which are not in the US’s interest, shredding the notion. He brought up the origin of Zionism in European antisemites in the 19th and 19th Centuries. Good comments about the growing move in academia toward censoring criticisms of Israeli policies. Put forth some important realities, such as how East Jerusalem is part of the West Bank, and if you add Israeli settlers living in it to the rest of the ones in the West Bark, you get a million settlers in the WB. He briefly touched on Multipolarity but didn’t pursue it, after Ali Abunimah asked him about it.
From Wilki:"Joseph Andoni Massadis is a Jordanian academic specializing in Middle Eastern studies, who serves as Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism.
Massad was born in Jordan in 1963 and is of Palestinian Christian descent. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1998.He is known for his book Desiring Arabs, about representations of sexual desire in the Arab world.On 17 April 2024, Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, testifying before the United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce said that if it was up to her Massad would never have gotten tenure.
Massad believes that Israel is a racist Jewish state. He believes that Zionism is not only racist but antisemitic, and antisemitic not only towards Arab Palestinians, but also towards Jews. Massad writes that after Europeans invented the racialist conception of the "Semite," the Zionist movement "adopted wholesale anti-Semitic ideologies", and describes Zionism as an "anti-Semitic project of destroying Jewish cultures and languages in the diaspora", which has ultimately led to "the transformation of the Jew into the anti-Semite, and the Palestinian into the Jew."Massad further accuses Zionists of unjustly "appropriating the fruit of the land that Palestinian peasants produced," and specifies the renaming of "Palestinian rural salad (now known in New York delis as Israeli salad)" as an example of Israeli racism.
Massad has spoken of genetic links being established between 19th-century European Jews and the ancient Israelite kingdom and the creation of a "semitic" identity for Jews at that time as actually a European, racist construction designed to portray European Jews as foreigners.[25] Massad considers claims to Israel made by the Zionist movement based on that connection to be problematic. In a debate with Israeli historian Benny Morris, Massad said:
The claim made by the Zionists, and by Professor Morris, that late nineteenth-century European Jews are direct descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews is what is preposterous here. This kind of anti-Semitic claim that European Jews were not European that was propagated by the racist and biological discourses on the nineteenth century, that they somehow descend from first-century Hebrews, despite the fact that they look like other Europeans, that they speak European languages, is what is absurd.
Massad was especially critical of "rabidly pro-Israeli American President Obama.” Massad views US culture as deeply infected with racism and misogyny, tying the Abner Louima case to torture in Abu Ghraib, and arguing that in Iraq, "American male sexual prowess, usually reserved for American women, [was] put to military use in imperial conquests", with "Iraqis ... posited.. as women and feminised men to be penetrated by the missiles and bombs ejected from American warplanes." Massad concludes that "the content of the word 'freedom' that American politicians and propagandists want to impose on the rest of the world is nothing more and nothing less than America's violent domination, racism, torture, sexual humiliation, and the rest of it."
Massad has also criticized Arab intellectuals who "defend the racist and barbaric policies" of the United States, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the Arab world.[29] Massad refers to the Palestinian Authority as the "Palestinian Collaborationist Authority," calls Mahmoud Abbas the "chief Palestinian collaborator," and accuses the PA of collaborating with Israel and the United States to crush Palestinian resistance.[30] In October 2023, Massad wrote an essay in Electronic Intifada on the Hamas attacks on Israel in which he praised these attacks as "awesome", "astounding" and "incredible" and that they were a "stunning victory". This essay was characterized by the Jerusalem Post, Business Insider, the ADL, and The New Arab as supporting the attacks, and led to a petition to Columbia to remove him from his post was signed by over 50,000 people. He was defended by the Middle East Studies Association.[31][32][33][34] In a hearing before the House Committee on Education in April 2024 the president of Columbia said that Massad was "spoken to" regarding this essay. But he claimed he wasn't disciplined.
And, an interesting and varied blog entry reporting about a bunch of matters.
Campaign and Project Updates. Max Wilbert, 10/9/24.
In this issue:
• Gratitude
• Federal Government postpones Oregon offshore wind energy lease auction after Tribe sues
• Call for Solidarity with Indigenous Communities in the Philippines
• New Interview from Thacker Pass
• U.S. Secretary of State Approved Israeli Bombing of Humanitarian Aid Convoys
• A List of U.S. Facilities Which Are Producing Weapons for the Israeli Military
• Mining Resistance
• Green Jobs or Greenwashing? (early drafts)
• I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It
• Update on Organizing Projects
• What I’ve Been Reading
• The Election and The Environment
• Photos….
4. New Interview from Thacker Pass
Back in 2021, a mother-daughter duo, Denise and Anna Monaghan, visited our land defense camp at Thacker Pass. They’re both talented artists, and are currently hosting an show in Astoria, Oregon, which is partially based on Thacker Pass. Here’s an interview Anna conducted with me on the mountain, which is part of the show:[Link]……
5. U.S. Secretary of State Approved Israeli Bombing of Humanitarian Aid Convoys
The following comes from Veterans for Peace. This story has also been covered on Drop Site News.
"A national veterans’ organization today called for a grand jury to indict Department of State (DOS) Secretary Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel for lying to Congress, violating the Export Control Act, the Genocide Prevention Act and the U.S. War Crimes Act. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, Veterans For Peace (VFP) cited published reports showing that internal DOS emails and the statements of two senior State Department officials showed Blinken lied when he issued his “Report to Congress” stating, “…we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.” (p. 32)
ProPublica revealed a series of State Department emails, internal memos and meeting notes in which officials agreed Israel was blocking humanitarian aid which should trigger Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act which prohibits weapons shipments to any country the President has been told is blocking humanitarian aid. In addition to the internal documents ProPublica included, from previous reports, that Samantha Power, Director of USAID and Stacy Gilbert, a former USAID bureau head had both voiced objections to Blinken’s findings as the report was being prepared.
Power stated that the looming famine in Gaza was the result of Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance” and called it “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.” Gilbert, former senior civil military adviser in USAID’s refugees bureau, resigned in May after the DOS “Report to Congress” was released. She said then, “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful. That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us.””
6. A List of U.S. Facilities Which Are Producing Weapons for the Israeli Military
Via RAM INC (Resist and Abolish the Military Industrial Complex):
• Map showing factories and other facilities belonging to weapons manufacturing companies with active contracts for the Israeli military.
• Spreadsheet with the same information as a searchable and sortable list.
7. Global Mining Resistance [Interesting list]…
8. Green Jobs or Greenwashing? (early drafts)
My latest piece went through multiple revisions before publication. Paid subscribers who are interested in my writing and editorial process can access some earlier drafts and unpublished tidbits from this piece below. In case you missed it: Green Jobs or Greenwashing?[Link]…
9. I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It
I recently watched a presentation that I wanted to share with you. It’s called “I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It,” and features Norman Finkelstein, best known for his relentless and incisive criticism of the Israeli occupation of the land traditionally known as Palestine, critiquing modern neoliberal identity politics.
“The big difference between the identity politics now and the identity politics of the old left is, the identity politics now has lopped off the class question… and just kept the identity aspect.” — Norman Finkelstein
“I’ll Burn That Bridge” is also the title of Finkelstein’s 2023 book. He the author of many books, including the Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. He graduated from Binghamton University School for advanced studies in the social sciences and received his PhD from Princeton University’s Department of Politics. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and the Paul University.[Embedded video]
This presentation was hosted by a group called the Platypus Affiliated Society, which previously invited me to participate in a panel called “The Politics of Environmentalism as Utopia" back in 2020. Interesting discussions.
10. Update on Organizing Projects……
12. The Election and The Environment
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume’s piece on the upcoming U.S. presidential election is worth reading, and reflects at least some of my thoughts.[Posted below!]
13. Photos, [Good ones]
Ending this segment and this edition. my friend Kollibri looks at the US presidential election, lots of agreement on my part.
Is there a lesser evil? Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, 10/7/24. [A few comments by me in brackets within the text]
When I started this Substack, I said “I will be staying away from politics except as how it relates to plants and nature.” Well, it’s an election year, so here’s my take. Important autobiographical note: I’ve never voted for a Republican for any office, but I haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1992. Which is to say, I’ve been an outside observer for three decades, and that’s the perspective I’m drawing from for this piece.
[Jeff I voted for Nixon in 1068, voted and even worked for McGovern in 1972, a refusenik since then]
No matter whether Trump or Harris wins the White House, those of us who oppose ecocide will face daunting challenges during the next presidential administration. There’s no “lesser evil” between these two; just different evils. Okay, some folks just clicked away and that’s fine. For those who stayed, I’ll spell it out.
Since the Reagan years, every Republican president has openly striven to ignore, eliminate or water down environmental regulations, or have otherwise committed ecocide, and they’ve all succeeded to some degree. But because they’re Republicans, they’ve faced vocal opposition from environmentalists, many of whom consider themselves Democrats. (Though not so much with Trump, and more on that later.) Some battles were won, some were lost, but the overall state of the environment has gone from bad to worse.
Since the Clinton years, every Democratic president has paid lip service to environmental issues, but when pressured by corporate donors have also ignored, eliminated or watered down environmental regulations, or have otherwise committed ecocide. But because they’re Democrats, they’ve faced far less vocal opposition from environmentalists, many of whom consider themselves Democrats too. “We don’t want to give our person a hard time.” Some battles were won, some were lost, but the overall state of the environment has gone from bad to worse.
The Republicans drive a bulldozer right at nature without apology. Environmentalists fight them (mostly). The Democrats might let the bulldozer sit there idling from time to time—or just claim they are—but they never turn off the ignition, and the machine ends up moving forward under their direction too. Too many environmentalists don’t pressure them.
When Clinton entered office in 1992, efforts by environmentalists had led to a judge declaring a moratorium on commercial logging on public lands. This was a holy grail. But Clinton assembled a committee made up of logging interests with a few mainstream enviros thrown in, and they ended up producing the Northwest Forest Plan. In the following years of Clinton’s two terms, more old growth trees were logged than under the Reagan and Bush-the-First administrations put together. It was a disaster. (For more on this tragic narrative, check out my interview with Tim Hermach, founder of the Native Forest Council in Oregon, whose forest defense activities go back to the ‘80s.) Even Clinton’s Roadless Rule was designed to allow logging; see “How the Clinton-Era Roadless Rules Aid and Abet Logging” by Katie Bilodeau.
In this case of Reagan/Bush vs. Clinton, Clinton was the greater evil for old growth forests. Old growth forests—you know, the things that when you clear-cut them, they’re just gone forever. That’s a crime against nature for which there’s no excuse. But some environmentalists had gotten a “seat at the table.” This was loudly celebrated by some and sharply critiqued by others. I’ll call it what it is: appropriation. Appropriation by the establishment of effective organizations, dedicated individuals, powerful rhetoric, public goodwill and activist energy. All of which we need when opposing the establishment. Our ranks have been thinned by what Jeffrey St. Clair calls “Gang Green,” which, he says, “functions politically as little more than a green front for the Democratic Party.”
Of course there are still real grassroots environmentalists out there. I’ve had the honor and pleasure of meeting and working with many of them. But the mainstream narrative on environmental issues is shaped mostly by Gang Green, not the tree-sitters, pipeline wrenchers, and road blockaders. In fact, Gang Green will throw such direct action activists under the bus if it suits them. And as St. Clair suggests, their allegiance is to partisan politics and power over actual environmental protection. They prioritize profit over the planet, ultimately. This was Clinton’s much ballyhooed “third way”: dressing up Republican economic policies in Democratic garb, with a few crumbs thrown out on some social issues. In a word: Neoliberalism.
Some people say we’re in Reagan’s 11th term. Bush-the-Second faced pushback on his environmental policies. Obama not so much. Obama “bragged about overseeing the largest expansion of fossil fuel production in US history.” Gang Green didn’t have much to say about that, though some grassroots activists did.
Trump, as promised, employed “drill baby drill” policies. When he was installed, I was hoping for a surge in action from Dem-leaning enviros, but I was disappointed. Unfortunately, Dem-leaning establishment media obsessed over the Russiagate conspiracy theory to the exclusion of nearly anything else including environmental issues. The endless accusations, always put forward on page 1 but then quietly walked back on page 17, manufactured an obsessive atmosphere of alternative facts that never ended up amounting to anything significant, certainly not enough for all the attention they received. (For an exhaustive look at the generally baseless claims of the media re. Russiagate, see this amazing series by Jeff Gerth, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative journalist from the New York Times.)
So when I look at the Trump vs. Harris contest, I honestly don’t know which will be worse for the environment. Project 2025 seeks to dismantle the “administrative state” which would mean gutting environmental regulations. It could be horrific. I sure don’t want to lose NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). I hope Gang Green will step up to the plate if things get that bad, but given their dedication to tepid DNC-approved ideas and tactics, and their less than stellar record during the first Trump occupancy, I dare not set my expectations too high. And I fear that all the oxygen get sucked out of the media space by conspiracy theories again.
Some Team Blue people will say: “But Trump and the Republicans don’t even believe in climate change!”
Yeah, but under Biden, U.S. crude oil production hit an all time high. I don’t care what he and his party believe in. What do they do? Not enough of the right stuff. Industrial-scaled “green energy” dominates the conversation, but that’s a dead end, both practically (it can’t be done) and environmentally (it expands our consumption footprint).
The current environmental narrative is far too narrow, due in part to Gang Green and their international counterparts. Environmentalism has been reduced to Climate, and Climate has been reduced to Carbon (leaving out the equal or greater factor of Land Use). This benefits the Establishment because they can make schemes to profit from Carbon.
The Dems want to build out a “green energy” infrastructure with solar, wind, battery storage and miles and miles of transmission lines, built by union labor, but I oppose that. I am for reducing our energy use rather than building new energy infrastructure. See my essay: “No” to a “Green Energy Transition”—“Yes” to an “Energy Reduction Transition.”
Reducing energy use is not as glamorous as huge expanses of solar panels and windmills, but it’s the logical place to start. A partial list of methods: insulating homes and businesses, setting up free-of-charge public transportation, rezoning cities to decrease car-dependence, building bicycle infrastructure, planting trees to diminish urban heat island effects, subsidizing the localization of agriculture to lessen transportation costs, managing traffic flow better, limiting uneccessary lighting at night. Most of this could be accomplished at a local level with federal grant money. Most of it is barely discussed outside wonky circles. The Dems, like the Reps, take their cues from their donors, not from regular citizens or even from their own voting base. They won’t do anything good unless it is demanded of them by enough people.
[Jeff: Real reduction would require the elimination of capitalism. These steps even if they were to be implemented in full would not do away with the growth imperative, THE core cause of ecocide.]
Now it’s time for the Howard Zinn quotation:“What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in—and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.” What Zinn means is that change comes not from politicians but from mass movements. For example, in US history, which president has so far done the most for the environment, legislatively speaking? Nixon.
That’s right. Tricky Dick, the war criminal and crook. But he’s the one who signed NEPA into law. We have Nixon to thank for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which engages in important climate and environmental research.
Why did he do it? Because a mass movement successfully elevated environmental concerns to a level where they could not be ignored. Was Nixon cynically trying to gain votes this way? Sure, because he was a politician, and no party “owned” the issue yet. But whatever his reason, his actions were and are meaningful, granting to us many of the tools we use to prevent pollution and limit industrial development.
[Jeff: We have had little success in either aim.]
Will either Trump or Harris be the next Nixon for the environment? Highly highly doubtful. Can either of them be pushed hard enough by a mass movement that we at least don’t go from bad to worse? That’s in the realm of possibility. But we’re in a conundrum. Having a Republican in the White House might mean there’s too much bad to push against. Having a Democrat there might mean there’s not enough good people pushing. Which is worse? I honestly don’t know, and am expecting heartbreak either way. Every freaking presidential election, liberal advocates of Team Blue say, “We just gotta get them in, and then we can hold their feet to the fire,” and every single time it doesn’t happen. I just don’t trust those people.
On an important related note, there’s one issue where there’s barely any daylight between Trump and Harris, and that’s US militarism.
At her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, Harris declared: “I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”[Leaving out a Bernie diversion]…..At the Vice Presidential Debate, Tim Walz said something alarming that doesn’t seem to have gotten the attention it deserves. In answer to a question about supporting Israel, he said: “The expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there.” Excuse me, the “expansion” of Israel? Hopefully that was just a slip of the tongue and not what it sounded like, which was a reference to the goal of Greater Israel [explainer video], the pursuit of which would lead to a much wider war and unfathomable suffering.
Trump likes to brag that the US didn’t start any new wars during his term, but that’s disingenuous, because it’s not like he didn’t try, what with his arming of Ukraine against Russian wishes, his assassination of a popular Iranian general, his kow-towing to Israel, his bellicosity towards China, etc. Trump is anything but an anti-war candidate.
[Jeff: He also escalated the war on Yemen and its people which Obama initiated]
Crucially, it can’t be plausibly argued that Harris is less pro-war than Trump is, with her support of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine, the military encirclement of China (Obama’s “pivot to Asia”), and the genocide in Gaza. The genocide in Gaza is a big deal. US support of it is both morally abhorrent and literally criminal. Between Trump and Harris there is no way to vote against it, only for it.
The Military Industrial Complex owns both these people. Waging war and preparing for war are very, very bad for the environment. Among the effects are decimated landscapes, slaughtered wildlife, toxic pollution from battle and from weapons production, carbon emissions, and the threat of the ultimate environmental disaster: nuclear winter. (See my essay from earlier this year, “Ecological impacts of the war machine.”)…..
[Jeff: leaving out his endorsement of Jill Stein. I feel voting for president legitimates this illegitimate process no matter who you vote for, no matter whom you wish to see be the top enforcer for the power-that-be, the chief flunky for the ruling elite]