Starting with Biomedical, but i need to let you know the second item in the second section is VERY important to me in terms of my political history, and the two items which follow deal with the Iran/Israel matter, which hit a new level of tension over the weekend.
Biomedical. In the weekly Planet Waves show, Eric Francis Coppolino deals with two distinct but very related items, The Biden Admin’s announcement that the EPA will clean a certain class of chemicals out of the water supply, and the 40th anniversary of the government press conference which initiated the HJIV/AIDS “pandemic.”
Notes from Mennonite country. Is the government really banning 'forever chemicals'? The gender dysphoria connection. 40th anniversary of the HIV theory of AIDS, part one. Eric Francis Coppolino, 4/14/24. Links in the text. Several photos.
Go to New Program [Link to the program’s Planet Waves dot FM page. First audio file is the full program, 3 hours and 40 minutes. Files for individual segments follow]
Tonight’s program includes discussion of two scientific matters of global proportion: the false announcement by the United States government of an “AIDS virus” on April 23, 1984, and “forever chemicals” or “GenX” chemicals, which the Biden administration promised to remove from drinking water.
My guest for the AIDS segment is Rebecca Culshaw Smith, and for the forever chemicals segment Carol van Strum. The segments are separated out if you want to listen separately. Here is the article I read from, Conspiracy of Silence, from 1994, covering the chlorinated versions of PFAS chemicals. [That’s his article in Sierra Magazine] It’s all the same stuff. Here is Chiron: Key to the Gemstone File about the IBT Labs fraudulent safety testing scandal and the EPA and FEA’s joining with polluters to cover it up. Reporter Peter von Stackelberg tells how be broke that story — an incredible interview.
Corrections to the Carol van Strum Discussion
Period 9, the Halogens, consists of the highly useful natural nonmetals Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine. I mistakenly included Sodium, a metal, in this group. It’s all the way at the other side of the table, way back in Period 1 — is far more reactive. Most Sodium on the planet is bound up with Chlorine and other Halogens as salt (the source of my momentary confusion). In this state, both Sodium and Chlorine (or other Halogens) are stable at normal temperature and pressure. That, and the Baileys live in New Zealand, not New England (at the other end of the planet, 9,000 miles away).
Dear Friend and Reader:
After watching this eclipse coming for many months, I had no idea where we were headed (except for north, into the path of totality) when we departed for our eclipse viewpoint location early Monday morning. It’s hard to believe this was nearly a week ago, though as you’ll hear, it was quite a lot of unexpected adventure packed into seven days. As for where we would go to see the Moon pass in front of the Sun, I left that part up to my traveling partner Jim Fealy, a retired 35mm film cinematographer I met after Celia Farber referred her readers to my work.
Jim had the local information. I had spent the previous two days on his small, off-grid Biodynamic farm near Penn Yan, NY. There was no running water, and electricity came from solar panels and a sophisticated electrical system. Our destination on Monday, eclipse day, turned out to be to Canandaigua, at the north end of the lake, for a gathering of Mennonites (and some Amish) from all over the eastern United States, including many from the local region. The location was on the grounds of the Steam Engine Museum, apparently a Mennonite institution.
Predictions for traffic in Western New York verged on apocalyptic; declaring an emergency in advance was considered. Our running joke during the hour-long drive was something about only seeing a person riding bicycle on the way there. I don’t think we passed one other car. Many at the event had seen the 2017 eclipse. Two farmers who I talked two were both out in their fields innocently bailing hay and did not know that it was coming. Suddenly the sky got dark and they figured out that it was a total eclipse of the Sun. Years on, they still thought this was funny; I thought so too.
What I found most impressive was the complete lack of apocalyptic discussion. They thought of the eclipse as a natural wonder in God’s beautiful world. They were ready with hot coffee, breakfast, lunch, bathrooms, and a packed revival tent where presenters gave lectures on the astronomical nature of eclipses, the cycles which track them throughout history, and discussions of the way predictions of eclipses have been used to manipulate unsuspecting people.[ NOT flat earthers]
I thought the presentations were accurate and interesting, particularly the discussion of Saros cycles (Monday’s eclipse was part of Cycle 139). They were better than anything I’ve ever seen at an astrology conference. It was clear that the Mennonites take a serious interest in understanding science even if their religion leads them to avoid most electrical technology.bThey differ from the Amish in that, depending on their church, they can have electricity, use the internet and use motorized vehicles. Some had good cameras. There were many telescopes and pinhole camera setups.
What I found most impressive was the complete lack of apocalyptic discussion. They thought of the eclipse as a natural wonder in God’s beautiful world.
At about 2 o’clock, the presentations ended and people started gathering in a field. As you can see, thick overcast obscured most of the sky…..
This was the sky a few moments before totality. At one point durin the eclipse, I caught a glimpse of the crescent Sun, but did not look for more than a second or two. Hundreds of Mylar-type eclipse viewer things were passed around; I don’t trust them and was not interested in anything but a quick look — no more than I might glance at the Sun before dropping my visor when driving.
I made no attempt to photograph the eclipse itself; my brother and sister astrophotographers had worked toward that their whole careers, preparing for this moment. What I was interested in were the people, the atmosphere and the environment on the ground. I was probably the only photographer anywhere using a 15mm lens that day; I also used a 24mm-70mm (the necessary evil in the Canon product line).
An official narrator calmly gave a description of the location of the shadow, said to be moving northeasterly at about 2,000 miles per hour. Finally, it arrived in Western New York. Even during totality, there was a streak of light on the horizon. After the eclipse, a television in the revival tent was tuned to news reports about it. The Mennonites are not fully divorced from technology. Even though we had all just seen it, things are not quite real until they are on television.
With love, — efc
My comments at the page. Leaving out comments about the very fine music selections chosen for the show.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 4/14/24.
I've now listened through the Carol van Strum segment, including the music break which followed
Excellent discussion, on both your parts. The entire Biden admin plan to clean Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) out of drinking water is not only inadequate but a complete waste of time given how many of these there are in other facets of our lives, particularly in food takeout containers, which we're doing nothing about. Great rundown on a bunch of these chemicals and what they're used for.
The EPA indeed, from the word go was intended to act as a layer between industry and the population, enable the former and fool the latter, while the chemicals which industry produced were taking over our bodies, becoming ubiquitous. The EPA does stuff like highly publicized useless "clean-up" programs, or, when people get sick from the chemicals, blame "viruses.”
Regarding the “correction” section about the Baileys: nowadays, a far larger percentage of the population of New Zealand is of English descent than New England. :-) The latter population is by ancestry heavily Irish, Italian, French Canadian, Polish and Portuguese.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 1:20PM, 4/15/24.
I've now listened to the Rebecca Culshaw-Smith interview and the segment which followed it, about chemicals and gender dysphoria. Excellent interview once again debunking the entire AIDS myth starting with the 4/23/84 news conference which gave it birth. Assertions were made without a shred of science backing them up. And it only got worse. The admissions made by Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier that he never actually isolated HIV are absolutely damning
I must confess there were a few instances during which i squirmed a bit, given statements she was making which seemed to convey a sense that she believed viruses had in general been shown to exist, that reverse transcriptase was unique to a certain class of such alleged viruses ("retro-viruses") and the like. But i was really glad to hear you two discussing both "HIV" and "COVID" in terms of the total lack of proof that either HIV or SARS-CoV-2 have ever been isolated, purified and shown to be the responsible pathogens.
In fact, i was glad to hear her draw a distinction between "______has never been proven to exist" vs " _____ does not exist." (Fill in a specific alleged virus). The first statement is proper science, the second is not, as a negative cannot be proven (great example with the light-bulb-bursting "phantom” being responsible for light bulbs going out:-) )
I became a participant in the social repercussions by being catapulted in the singles world in Sept '91 after over 13 years of being coupled. I found that world altered in an ugly way, nothing like what it was when i had previously been in it. HIV/AIDS fear was pervasive, with the very idea of sex with someone you hadn't been partnered with for years becoming taboo for many even "progressives" and "leftists." And at the same time, LOTS of guilt being thrown around about stuff like "the male gaze." Women in Berkeley cafes seemed to now resent the very idea that someone could even look at them and distinguish them from wall fixtures. It was a non-stop parade of "no, no, no"! I've never recovered from the induced mindset.
Toxic chemicals, particularly compounds created in labs and factories which have no natural analogs, like PFAS, have indeed been demonstrated to cause gender confusion (in a physical way) in life forms such as fish. That's in addition to all the other deleterious effects. I would be very surprised if that were NOT the case in humans as well. humans who are getting saturated with PFAS, via activity such as consuming food which has been placed in takeout containers (rich in PFAS). The younger among us have been saturated with these since they were embryos. Updating the early '60s lament, "What have they done to the world?" We'll be very lucky if this gross violation of the ecosystem won't render us extinct. Thanks for that segment, Eric!!
4IR. What’s Left with John Klyczek, part 2: What happens once Trump becomes president (due to ruling elite decisions), as now seems likely?
The Coming Trump Presidency/ What’s Left? 4/14/24, an hour and 21 minutes.
"John Klyczek and Andy discuss the likelihood of Trump winning the next US Presidential election and what his election would mean for US geopolitics.”
My comments.
Thanks, Andy and Jake. Very interesting discussion about the CNP (Council for a National Policy) and how that group is the "right wing" parallel of the CFR on the "left." I have to agree with Jake regarding 2016,. Trump provided the perfect president for that period of transition from post-9/11 into the next big false flag, "Operation Pandemic," including the lockdowns and the poisonous "countermeasures.”
The elite initially went with Hilary in 2016. But after realizing she was floundering and could not lead anything, they went with Plan B, most essentially with FBI director Comey's release of Hilary's emails a mere 10 days before the election. Nate Silver posted an article at Five Thirty Eight as to how this move dropped Hilary's lead in national polls from 8 percentage points to just 3, her final margin. With the original lead, no way she would have lost several key states, and thus she would have won the election. And what better way to head off any close scrutiny of this than to have Trump go after Comey just a few months after being inaugurated.
Trump is indeed the perfect person to escalate the war in Southwest Asia (come on, "Middle East" betrays a British perspective, with the Balkans being the near East, then the "Middle East," and then the Far East. Here in California, China and Japan are the near East). Definitely he would be the one to get the religious right on board, and his total sympathies with the likes of Bibi are quite obvious.
Given his supposed anti-war-with-Russia stance, he'd be perfect to escalate the Ukraine War too, should things come to that. Just like Obama was the perfect person to escalate in Afghanistan. But you largely left out China, aside from mentioning how Trump was really hard core "let's get China." This is all assuming that the competition dynamic of global capital dominates over the centralization/concentration one, which is leading towards a G20 collective management of 4IR.
Interesting discussion of "getting right" with everyone and everything. An ecological/resources collapse could beat out a nuclear war in the time race. One needs to live in the here and how, live each day like this could be it. Sure felt like it Saturday, with Iranian missiles headed toward Israel. This, it turned out, was just a warning shot.
And, in a matter of more fundamental political practice, Chris Hedges and another well-known former mainstream media reporter are acting to usurp the entire legacy of anarchist/libertarian (anti-statist) communist theory and practice, which i have been a part of for 50 years, seeking to incorporate it into an agenda of creating a new hierarchical social order.
'If We Burn': The limits of mass protest w/Vincent Bevins | The Chris Hedges Report, 4/12/24.
"The 2010s were a decade of revolt. From Athens to Atlanta, Santiago to Seoul, a global wave of protest brought masses of people into confrontation with the status quo, demanding an end to neoliberalism, racism, climate change, and more. Yet despite this upswell of grassroots political activity, little lasting, positive change followed. What sparked the past decade of mass protest? Why didn't it result in political transformation? Vincent Bevins, author of 'If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution', joins The Chris Hedges Report for a retrospective on the decade that set the world on fire, and how to adapt its lessons for the challenges ahead."
My comments. THIS WILL BE TRENCHANT!! Bevins is a former foreign affairs correspondent for the LA Times and Washington Post, also worked with the Financial Times, born in 1984. a graduate of UC Berkeley (where he was a member of the swimming team in the early ‘00s). This is downright nightmarish. Bevins and Hedges use the words of Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle, Peter Kropotkin, and (unnamed) the account of Maurice Brinton regarding how the Bolsheviks destroyed the organs of popular power in Russia right after the revolution (before which their rallying cry was “All power to the Soviets”), and other examples, in order to justify…. the need for hierarchy and a party leading revolutionary struggles. They contend that the only real democracy is a … representative democracy, never mind the excellent arguments made by Ellen Meiksins Wood 30 years ago in Democracy Against Capitalism. Direct democracy doesn’t work, say they, for more than 120 people, leaving out the ample history of federated assemblies and councils, coordination of local bodies via federations featuring mandated, rotating and revocable delegates and the like, advanced by Kropotkin, Debord and Brinton. Furthermore, they say the revolution needs charismatic leaders. Two people with lifetime careers in mainstream media have now deemed that the entire anti-hierarchy revolutionary project needs to get it together and …. turn hierarchical. The world has indeed been fully turned on its head. It may well be END TIMES.
And, an Electronic Intifada special edition about Iran/Israel.
Breaking news and analysis on day 191 of Gaza's Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast, 4/14/23. An hour and 30 minutes.
00:00 Introduction
00:23 Opening remarks and videos of Iran’s military action
14:15 Dr. Mohammad Marandi analyzes Iran’s retaliation and broader regional implications
55:26 Group discussion
My comments. The mainstream accounts, including Al Jazeera, that this attack was largely contained is being called into question. The Iranian regime was seeking a very limited response, more a warning shot. As i’ve mentioned previously, Marandi and EI both push the idea that the world needs to transition into a new “multi-polar world order."
Ending this segment and this edition, a clear anti-capitalist perspective on this matter. I was hoping to find a discussion of the threat posed by the likes of Hedges and Bivens, and i’ve had problems with this group and its refusal to call into question official 9/11 and “pandemic” narratives, but they get this one.
Together against capitalist wars and capitalist peace! Internationalist Perspective, 4/15/24.
From 20 to 26 May 2024, groups and individuals from different parts of the world will meet in Prague to coordinate anti-war activities, as part of a Week of Action which will include an anti-war congress from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 May. Internationalist Perspective supports and will participate in this pro-revolutionary event.
The organizers state:
"We consider it necessary, in the process of resistance to war, to develop an anti-capitalist practice which seeks to preserve political autonomy. In concrete terms, this means that we want to organize outside the political parties, outside the structures of the states, and against all states. We are particularly interested in the ways how we can oppose all the harsh conditions to which we have been exposed and subjected during interstate wars and capitalist peace. We are interested in ways to sabotage wars, how to deprive our enemies of resources, how to undermine the ability of states and their armies to continue wars.
Which way to go and what is to be done? How to join forces and get organized? We will look for answers based on class, not national differentiation; answers that take into account the sheer contradiction between rank-and-file soldiers and officers, between wage laborers and bosses, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. We will look for ways to make soldiers in uniform of any state army identify themselves with the social struggle of their brothers and sisters on the other side of the front line, and not in the murderous orders of their officers. We will also look for ways to oppose false friends, all those who seek to transform the class struggle into a national or religious struggle for a new state, a new capitalist space, better adapted to their needs.
We support the internationalist community affirming the struggle against the bourgeoisie of all warring sides, against the armies of all states, against the capitalists of each country. Current manifestations of resistance, however contradictory and fragmented they are, undoubtedly contain the seeds of a social polarization that can turn wars between states into class confrontation What is meant is the confrontation between the defenders of the nation, the states and capitalism on the one hand, and the social class on the other, which is beginning to realize that defending the nation to which it is bound in chains only serves the interests of those who exploit it.
Direct action against wars now takes various forms, more or less targeted, more or less organized. Let’s strive for a qualitative shift whereby individual acts of resistance break out of their isolation through interconnection and coordination. The common enemy in every epoch is, first of all, capitalism, and therefore every state that structures it, the army that defends it, the bourgeoisie that embodies it. The only way out of the nightmare of capitalist wars and capitalist peace is a collective awakening: we must see and sabotage the whole machinery of war, overthrow its representatives and reclaim our power as creators of the world.
We call on groups and individuals interested in participating in the anti-war congress in Prague to contact us well in advance with proposals for the program.
Together against capitalist wars and capitalist peace!
More on this :[Link]
List of participants: [Link] "