Cartoon from 2007....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

 

The World Economic Forum and the world’s “elite”Is the WEF really a combination of capitalist consultancy firm and gigantic lobby?

 

by Wolfgang Bittner*

 

From 15 to 19 January, another meeting of the highly influential World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos, with more than 2,800 participants, including over 60 heads of state and government. This time, the motto was: Rebuilding Trust. The author Wolfgang Bittner takes a dissecting look at this construct and its efforts to create a globalised, under private-law, undemocratic world order.

The disturbing plans of this forum for a fundamental reorganisation of society are barely known to the population. They are overshadowed by the confusing chaos of information, the climate panic and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The WEF, a foundation and globally networked lobby organisation, has its headquarters in Switzerland near Geneva and organises annual meetings, mostly in Davos, which are attended by the world’s “elite”. It has offices in New York, Tokyo and Beijing. The power of this organisation – just like that of the Bilderberg Group1 – is often underestimated. After all, it is not a harmless society of dignitaries that meets in the Swiss mountains to have an amiable chat.

 

The “elites” and the “Spirit of Davos”: steering and controlling the world

The aim of the Open Forum, which takes place parallel to the annual meeting, is, according to the organisation, “to allow the public to participate in discussions between decision-makers from politics, business, science and civil society”. It continues: “Our panellists regularly include high-ranking government representatives, business leaders, scientists, artists and activists who share their stories and perspectives with the audience. In the spirit of Davos, the Open Forum aims to promote dialogue between decision-makers from different sectors and life situations in order to find solutions to the most pressing global challenges of our time.”2
  That doesn’t sound like a conspiracy at all. But the aim becomes somewhat clearer, and therefore problematic, when the WEF demands in its “Global Redesign” report from 2010 “that a globalised world is best managed by a coalition of multinational companies, governments and also through the United Nations (UN) system and selected civil society organisations (CSOs)”. Governments are no longer “the overwhelmingly dominant actors on the world stage”, so that “the time has come for a new stakeholder paradigm of international governance”.3

 

A plutocratic dictatorship?

In other words, the WEF plans to replace democratic forms of organisation, in which power in the state is supposed to emanate from the people through elected representatives, with a system of rule in which a group of “stakeholders”, i.e., “leading personalities”, form a global decision-making body. Seen positively, this would be the rule of the wise, whoever that may be. Viewed critically, it would mean a plutocratic dictatorship in a border-free, supranational world. A self-appointed “elite” would therefore take power and form a kind of world government. In this respect, the WEF presents itself as an extraordinarily influential quasi-Mafia organisation that is preparing a global takeover by “leaders” who are not democratically legitimised. Phases of global instability, such as the coronavirus pandemic, famine or the effects of the war in Ukraine, can then be used to implement the programme. Communications researcher and author Nick Buxton, who has analysed the WEF’s intentions in detail, concludes that “we are increasingly entering a world where gatherings such as Davos are not laughable billionaire playgrounds, but rather the future of global governance. It is nothing less than a silent global coup d’etat.”4

 

The “strategic partners” …

The objectives and power of the WEF become particularly clear when you look at who participates in what way in the WEF. There are around 1,000 member companies, each with annual revenues of over five billion US dollars each5, including the most important companies in their sector, which also play a political role. The basic membership fee is 42,000 Swiss francs plus a fee of 18,000 Swiss francs for the participation of the respective president at the annual meeting. Members from industry and strategic partners pay 250,000 Swiss francs and 500,000 Swiss francs respectively to be able to play a significant role in the Forum’s initiatives.6 Strategic partners include BlackRock, the Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs, Google, The Coca Cola Company, Allianz, Bank of America, BP Amoco, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post DHL, Facebook, the pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Mitsubishi Corporation, Paypal, SAP, Saudi Aramco, Siemens and the media group Thomson Reuters.7

 

… and the “Young Global Leaders”

In 1992, the WEF launched a programme for “Global Leaders of Tomorrow”, which has been called “Young Global Leaders” since 2004, to promote suitable future leaders. This created a global network of important leaders from politics, business, media, art and culture, the aristocracy and so on, who are committed to the WEF’s plans. In an interview, its founder Klaus Schwab said: “What we are very proud of […] is that we are penetrating the cabinets with our Young Global Leaders.”8 In this way, the WEF influences public life worldwide.
  The very first programme in 1992 was attended by well-known personalities as Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Manuel Barroso and Bill Gates. In the years that followed, hundreds more joined the programme and gradually took on important positions: Emmanuel Macron, David Cameron, Sebastian Kurz, Annalena Baerbock, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), Jacinda Ardern (Prime Minister of New Zealand), Sanna Marin (Prime Minister of Finland), Ida Auken (ex-Minister of the Environment of Denmark), Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Larry Page (co-founder of Google), Leonardo DiCaprio (actor), Niklas Zennström (co-developer of Skype) and Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia).
  In 2019, more than 400 civil society organisations and 40 international networks opposed a partnership agreement between the WEF and the United Nations. The UN Secretary-General was called upon to end the agreement as it was a “disturbing corporate capture” of the UN that “moves the world dangerously towards a privatised and undemocratic global governance”.9
  US journalist considers the WEF to be a “combination of capitalist consultancy and gigantic lobby”, focussed on “digital innovation, massive automation through ‘artificial intelligence’ and ultimately even the ‘improvement’ of humans by artificially endowing them with some of the characteristics of robots: e.g. problem solving without ethical distractions.” She warns against the “voice of would-be Global Governance.  From on high, experts decide what the masses ought to want, and twist the alleged popular wishes to fit the profit-making schemes they are peddling.”10

 

“Great Reset” and transhumanism

In 2021, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, spoke out and criticised the fact that people like Klaus Schwab were sitting “on the throne of their wealth” and were not affected by the everyday difficulties and suffering of people caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, they see such crises as an opportunity to push through their programme of a meritocratic global “Great Reset” with increasing control over society.11 Müller criticised support from areas such as transhumanism12. He was countered with accusations of antisemitism.
  Klaus Schwab and the French economist and “global strategist” Thierry Malleret wrote about the intentions of the WEF in their bestseller “The Great Reset”, published jointly in 2020: “It is about making the world less divided, less polluting, less destructive, more inclusive, more just and fairer than we left it in the pre-pandemic era.” There could be changes “that seemed unimaginable before the outbreak of the pandemic”, there would be a “new normality”.13
  Asked in an interview on 19 November 2020 about his ideas for the intended “global new beginning”, Schwab replied: “I think the word ‘reset’ is appropriate […]. Because one thing is clear: we cannot return to the old normality.” With regard to combating the coronavirus pandemic, he took the following view: “So what we need in our world is a more systemic approach, […] a reform of the international system.”14

Comprehensive digitalisation,
centralisation and surveillance

The coronavirus pandemic phase is therefore seen as an epochal change that will fundamentally alter conditions in the world in line with the WEF agenda outlined above. It remains to be seen how this will happen once the war in Ukraine is over. In the meantime, countries are completely in debt, the economy and finances are in tatters and many people are completely at a loss, so that the ideas of the World Economic Forum’s trustees are increasingly gaining weight, regardless of whether there will be a “great war” or not.
  The optimally networked WEF aims for a globalised world order under private-law that is not democratically controlled. According to informed circles, the ideas are moving in the direction of comprehensive digitalisation, centralisation and surveillance.15 These plans must be prevented and the focus directed towards humane, more adequate forms of human coexistence.  •

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2024/nr-3-6-februar-2024/das-weltwirtschaftsforum-und-die-elite-der-welt

 

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

 

Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.

The extraction of wealth is a pathology of late capitalism and is defined by the cultural and political processes by which the rich establish themselves as the dominant class. Social theorist and organizer Marjorie Kelly labels this phenomenon “wealth supremacy” which is also the title of her latest book. But as she points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout, wealth supremacy, which has institutionalized greed, defines a system that is not only biased but rigged against the great bulk of the population and thus detrimental to the economy, the citizens and the planet. She argues, in turn, that a movement to build a democratic economy is our only way out. Kelly is Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Democracy Collaborative. In addition to Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises (2023), she is the author of The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not Just the Few (coauthored with Ted Howard; 2019). The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity.

C. J. Polychroniou: One of the most pronounced developments over the past 40 years within the global economy, and particularly within developed countries, is financialization — which means finance has come to dominate our economy, our culture, the natural world, even our ostensibly democratic politics. Some say financialization represents a new phase of capitalism, while others see it as a consequence of neoliberalism. Your recent book, Wealth Supremacy, analyzes the current form of capitalism and shines a light on what you perceive as its core problem, while also offering a vision of an alternative system, a democratic economy — along with pathways to get there. Let’s start with what you mean by “wealth supremacy,” and how, in your own view, financialization came to dominate over all other forms of economic activity.

Marjorie Kelly: We can’t fix a problem that we can’t name. We point to “corporate power,” “inequality” and “greed” as the problem. But these don’t get to the root of the system’s dysfunction. I call it wealth supremacy — the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth for the wealthy, even as it means stagnation or losses for the rest of us. Personal greed is certainly operating. But the system problem is how greed is mandated, rewarded, normalized and institutionalized in the practices and institutions of the system.

It’s mandated in how investments are managed, how corporations are governed; the aim of both is maximum income to capital. In operation, wealth supremacy takes the form of capital bias — the way only capital votes in corporations, how a rising stock market is equated with a successful economy.

Neoliberal government policies let this capital-centric machine loose. The result was financialization — the churning out of more and more financial wealth.

Behind it all is the aim of keeping the wealthy on top, protected, comfortable. Wealth supremacy is a manifestation of class bias. It’s about the countless ways our culture favors the wealthy, the upper class. Class is many things — exquisite taste in art and wine, speaking and dressing well, having children attend the right schools — but it stands on a foundation of wealth, which makes possible all the rites of class.

Building wealth is certainly a goal that many people aspire to; yet, in your book, you argue that the ongoing processes of piling up wealth are actually detrimental to the economy, to citizens and to the planet. How is wealth detrimental? And who’s the culprit here — the culture of “wealth supremacy” or capitalism itself? 

The real problem is excess wealth — like the eight billionaires who own half the world’s wealth. But the culture of our economy in general supports, in fact mandates, maximum wealth extraction. When investors look at their/our portfolio returns, we step into the dreamworld of wealth, the fiction that financial gains somehow fall from the sky, pristine and unblemished. The system is so focused on benefit to wealth that it ignores the impact on others. Wealth has an underside we rarely talk about.

At the Democracy Collaborative where I work, we commissioned work by three international economists who demonstrated how wealth grows by extraction. Every asset held by one person represents a claim on someone or something else. Credit card debt is a claim against your checkbook. Shares of stock are a claim on the value of a corporation and growing that value for wealthy shareholders often means laying off workers, or turning full-time jobs into part-time and Uberized jobs, in order to shift income from labor to capital. The problem isn’t just that wealth is unequal. As these international economists demonstrated, the financial sector has become the locus where inequality is created.

As our society watches the wealth of multimillionaires and billionaires magically expand as though out of thin air, much of that wealth is being extracted from the pockets of ordinary people and our taxpayer-financed governments. We’re told we’re in a “trickle-down” economy. The truth is the reverse: What’s happening is a vacuuming upward. Financial assets have become a giant sucking action squeezing consumer pocketbooks, creating unemployment, pushing housing prices to unreachable heights, creating monopolies that hampers family businesses, blocking our ability to tackle climate change, destabilizing the economy with stock market booms and busts. And enabling billionaires to capture democracy.

Capitalism is this system of extraction. Its aim is keeping the wealthy rolling in clover. Our culture helps to hold it all in place — to legitimize it — when we revere the wealthy as the possessors of godlike powers, and when we accept the operations and institutions of the economy as normal, necessary and benign. Calling it out as a system of bias is a step toward delegitimizing it, turning its cultural foundation to sand.

You write about the myths of wealth supremacy that normalize the system’s bias. What are some of those myths and how do they impact politics and democratic governance in particular?

I identify seven myths that form the operating system of our economy. The core myth is the myth of maximizing — the idea that no amount of wealth is ever enough. That’s the basic principle of investing. In the book, I distinguish “profit making” from “profit maximizing.” Businesses need to make a profit to survive, but maximizing unleashes damage to society and destruction of the Earth.

There’s the myth of corporate governance, which says workers are not members of the corporation. Workers can go to a company every day for 40 years, keeping the place running, but they’re outsiders. Hedge fund investors holding shares for 15 minutes are the insiders, because only capital has a vote for the board. Workers are dispossessed and disenfranchised.

There’s the myth of materiality in corporate and financial accounting, which says that gains to capital alone are real. Impacts on the environment or society aren’t real, aren’t “material,” unless they affect capital. ExxonMobil increased shareholder value by nearly 80 percentin 2022. That’s considered a success. No matter that these products are fueling catastrophic wildfires and flooding cities.

Important for our politics is the myth of the free market, which says government is to be subdued, for it’s the enemy of the independence and power of wealth. There shall be no limits on the field of action of corporations and capital.

This myth is about letting the machine of wealth extraction run unimpeded. Yet as that machine revs into overdrive — financial assets are now five times GDP in the U.S., and even more in the U.K. — ongoing extraction becomes more difficult. Regulations need to be knocked down, monopolies built up, good jobs eliminated, taxes evaded. But regular folks in a democracy don’t support such an agenda. Thus, the party of wealth gets white working-class resentment on its side by blaming immigrants, inflaming racial bias. And it seeks to destroy democracy itself — vilifying the very concept of government, deploying dark money to change how ballots are cast and counted. Or pitching the Big Lie, as Donald Trump is doing. Yet beyond Trump, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has said, the broader assault on democracy is run by a small billionaire elite.

What helped remake U.S. politics was financialization. This led to runaway inequality — creating the expanding pool of the disaffected working class — while also creating the wealth that shifted policy toward corporations and the rich. The post-1980 neoliberal era marked the rise of the plutocracy — what Whitehouse calls “the unseen ruling class.” Destroying democracy is part of its game plan to keep the wealth extraction machine going.

In what I understood to be an attempt on your part to interfuse class and race, you wrote that white supremacy and wealth supremacy are closely related. Are you saying that capitalism has color?

These two forms of bias are deeply intertwined. In the initial phase of what Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney called the “capitalist/imperialist system,” much wealth came from extracting from persons and nations of color, through slavery and imperial possession. Racial extraction by finance continued in modern times through redlining, predatory mortgages, and more.

But if systems of wealth supremacy and white supremacy work together, they also function by separate logics. White supremacy persists, inflicting harm across generations. Yet wealth supremacy accelerates. Because the larger the sphere of swollen wealth becomes, the greater extraction it requires in order to grow larger still. If people of color have long been and remain primary targets for this extraction, today the planet itself is caught in its iron grip. And the suffering that people of color have long known is hitting white people.

State socialism is pretty much dead, and social democracy is on its knees. First, how do we go about changing the current system and, second, what would a democratic economy look like? 

So now we’re talking about system change. Not regulating capitalism, but shifting to a next system, where capital is no longer at the center. It starts by recognizing that ownership and control of our political economy by a wealthy elite is the core problem. Then the solution becomes clear. We need to preserve political democracy and bring its spirit into the economy itself — creating a democratic economy, where wealth and power are held broadly, where economic institutions and practices are designed to allow all of us to prosper on a flourishing Earth.

How do we get there? We need a great ownership transition, including public ownership of key sectors like water and health care, worker ownership of enterprise, protection of the commons through trusts and preserves, just ownership and control of land, forests and housing. And we need corporations redesigned to have a legal obligation to serve the public good. The profit-maximizing corporation that exists to make the rich richer can no longer be allowed to exist.

We also need a next system of capital — including debt forgiveness when necessary, a new ecosystem of banking in the public interest, authentic impact and local investing, and wealth and inheritance taxes that prohibit the formation of dynasties. Also needed are regulations reining in the super-predators, the uber-extractors like private equity and hedge funds.

I’m often asked if all this is possible. And I like to break that question into two parts. Are these new models of a democratic economy — like public banks and worker-owned firms — are these models feasible?The answer is yes. They’re proven. They’re practical. They’re superior in their outcomes, if success means human well-being rather than just a rising share price.

The second question then is: Is system change possible? But if we had started there with climate change — asking if it’s possible to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent — we would have given up. As Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

System change doesn’t start by asking if transformation is possible. Instead, we ask: Is it necessary? It’s here we begin.

One thing we can know with some certainty. A world half plutocratic and half democratic cannot endure long. One half will eventually supersede the other. Either the plutocratic economy will destroy democracy, or we’ll suffuse democracy into our economy, building the democratic economy now necessary to our survival.

 

------

We don’t have much time left to raise the $15,000 needed to meet Truthout‘s basic publishing costs this month. Will you take a few seconds to donate and give us a much-needed boost?

 

https://truthout.org/articles/the-only-solution-to-wealth-supremacy-is-a-democratic-economy/

 

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

 

Environment: The wealthy cause climate change; the poor suffer its consequences    By Peter Sainsbury

 

Richest 1% produce as many greenhouse gases as the poorest 66%. Climate denialists have a new lyric: ‘sure, it’s happening – so what?’ but Australians are concerned about climate change and want action. No, it’s not OK to shoot a hippo.

 

Climate Equality: A planet for the 99%

… is the title of a report from Oxfam that examines the ‘twin crises of climate breakdown and runaway inequality’.

In 2019, the richest 10% of people were responsible for 50% of CO2 emissions – five times their fair share, so to speak. The poorest 50% were responsible for 8% of emissions – a sixth of their fair share (although it’s clearly ludicrous to talk about a ‘fair share’ of something that needs to be eliminated).

The super-super-rich (the 7.7 million people who constitute the wealthiest 0.1% globally) were responsible for 4% of emissions (40 times their fair share), each of them producing on average 214 tons of CO2 per year. This is almost three hundred times the per capita emissions of the poorest 50%.

The tiny but incredibly privileged 0.1% really are a breed apart, even from their not-quite-so-rich neighbours. Each of them produces almost four times as many emissions as the next 0.9%, and twelve times as many as the next 9%. We’re comparing subgroups of the world’s richest 10% here, a group that, let’s face it, includes me and, I suspect, many of you.

The singular-super-rich 1% produce 16% of total emissions – staggeringly in my view, the same as the 5 billion poorest two-thirds of people in the world. However, in addition to the enormous emissions produced by their lavish lifestyles, the wealthiest 1% are important (read disastrous) for the climate in at least two other ways:

1. Their massive financial investments in heavily polluting industries help to maintain the energy status quo, and
2. Their incredible influence over the media, the economy, politicians and policy making helps to maintain the economic and political status quo.

And on top of that, they are best able, at least in the short term, to insulate themselves from the effects of climate change.

Oxfam proposes three big steps for a transition to a fair and sustainable world:

1. A radical increase in equality, including a legislated living wage for all, partly funded by a 60% income tax on the richest 1% and 50-90% windfall taxes on 700 megacorporations.
2. A rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
3. An over-riding social purpose of wellbeing for all and planetary flourishing.

The report includes much more data and many case studies but if you have just five minutes I strongly recommend reading the two short forewords by Greta Thunberg and Njoki Njehu, Pan-African Regional Coordinator for Fight Inequality Alliance. Two extracts:

‘Climate breakdown and inequality are linked together and fuel each other. If we are to overcome one, we must overcome both.’ Greta Thunberg

‘I believe, now more than ever, that the rich and the powerful in our world fear the end of capitalism – their power and privilege – more than they fear the end of our beautiful, precious planet. I also believe, now more than ever, that we can, and we must, stop them. To do this we must build peoples’ movements bigger than we have ever known. Climate warriors and inequality fighters; rural farmers and feminists; trade unionists and youth activists must join arms across the planet to scream ‘Enough! No More!’ Njoki Njehu

There are two interesting additional aspects of this inequality story:

1. In 1990 almost two-thirds of inequalities in global emissions was due to inequalities between countries rather than inequalities within countries but by 2019 the reverse was true.

This change is largely attributable to many of the rich, industrialised nations controlling and sometimes modestly reducing their total emissions, while many developing countries have been necessarily increasing theirs. It is certainly not due to inequalities between individuals decreasing, as demonstrated by the second point.

2. Over a similar period (1995-2021), the richest 1% globally captured 38% of the growth in global wealth, while the poorest 50% captured 2.3%. The box in the graph below tells us that in 2021 the richest 0.001% owned over three times as much wealth as the poorest 50%.

So, if you imagine 100,000 people, one of them owns over three times as much as 50,000 of them.

To quote John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review, July-August 2019): ‘The poor shall inherit the earth or there will be no earth to inherit’.

Climate denialists still singing loudly but with different lyrics

Analysis of 12,000 climate denial videos on 96 YouTube channels with a penchant for posting such trash has shown a change of the dominant messaging over the last five years. Less important now are the messages that ‘global warming is not happening’ and ‘human-generated greenhouse gases are not causing global warming’. Presumably the denialists have realised that the public is not as likely to be taken in by this stupidity as they were – the results of global warming are now too obvious to deny.

Denialists these days are more likely to push ‘climate solutions don’t work’ and ‘climate science and the climate movement are unreliable’, and to a lesser extent ‘the impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless’.

In 2018 the ‘Old Denial’ message (basically ‘it isn’t happening’) made up about 70% of climate denialists’ claims but in 2023 the ‘New Denial’ message (‘it’s happening but so what?’) constituted about 70%.

That all said, each of the videos was viewed on average only 27,000 times. Or to put it another way, each day one of them was watched by 150,000 people (assuming no one watched more than one a day). YouTube has around 2.5 billion regular users. Climate denialists may still be singing their songs but no one much is listening.

Nonetheless, it’s important to know which climate denial messages need to be countered these days and to encourage Google to expand their ban on sites containing ‘Old Denial’ garbage to include the ‘New Denial’ trash.

If you’re still game to waste your time talking with climate denialists (life’s too short, in my view), Skeptical Science has updated its summaries of what the science really says about fifty commonly promoted global warming and climate change myths.

 

Australians want ‘health trigger’ for new fossil fuel projects

Thankfully, more and more Australians are now convinced by the evidence before them and 80% are concerned about the impact of fossil fuels on human health – 31% are ‘Very concerned’. No surprise that the rates of concern are highest among Greens and ALP voters but even 71% of Coalition voters can see the writing on the wall. No wonder the Teals did so well in 2022.

Australians also know what needs to be done, with two-thirds supporting a requirement that governments consider the impacts of climate change on human health when making decisions about fossil fuel projects. I hope Minister Plibersek is aware of this as she works on the new Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

 

Trophy hunting myths debunked

I’m sure that you’ve faced the same difficult choice as I from time to time: elephant tusks for the main entrance or tiger skin (with head, of course) for the lounge room floor – which shall I bag on safari this year? Oh, bugger the expense, I’ll get both. Maybe I’ll shoot a hippo too. You only live once.

What those greeny animal-lovers don’t appreciate is that trophy hunting targets only surplus and old animals and actually supports healthy animal populations and species conservation. They don’t realise the benefits it brings to local populations and they have no idea of the legal hoops and hurdles I must jump through to shoot just one measly old lion.

‘Every year, tens of thousands of wild animals worldwide are killed by trophy hunters with the aim of acquiring body parts of target animals as trophies – for example, full body mounts, tusks, horns, or skins. Rarer species are typically more expensive to shoot. Trophy hunters even target endangered and strictly protected species, such as elephants or rhinos. To justify this gruesome hobby, the hunting lobby puts forward arguments that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.’

Fourteen of the more common phoney arguments to support trophy hunting have been blasted to smithereens by a coalition of animal welfare and conservation organisations. I imagine the duck shooters of Victoria use similar myths to justify their annual slaughter-fest.

Climate change: whose problem is it?

That depends on what you mean by ‘problem’: who has caused the problem? for whom is it causing most problems? who has the greatest responsibility to tackle the problem?

The stylised graph compares the three dimensions of emissions, impact and responsibility to act. This figure and the [other one] are from the Oxfam report.

Second, more detail about the outrageous disparity between income and emissions. Note that the ultra-rich in the bottom line are an even smaller cabal than the super-super-rich group I described above, with emissions per person about 30% higher than the super-super-rich.

 

https://johnmenadue.com/environment-the-wealthy-cause-climate-change-the-poor-suffer-its-consequences/

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpMQSVp7NTg

“The Treason of the Intellectuals,” with Niall Ferguson | Uncommon Knowledge

 

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. In this interview, Ferguson discusses his stunning essay “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” published in December 2023 in the Free Press. The essay delves deeply into the changes Ferguson has observed in his 30-year career as an academic, especially over the past 10 years. He describes in the opening of his essay: “I have . . . witnessed the willingness of trustees, donors, and alumni to tolerate the politicization of American universities by an illiberal coalition of ‘woke’ progressives, adherents of ‘critical race theory,’ and apologists for Islamist extremism.” Ferguson also discusses the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay and what it means for all institutions of higher learning, as well as putting forth some solutions for addressing these issues.

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

 

ANTI-SEMITISM IS IRRELEVANT HERE... THE CONFLICT IS LINKED TO THE MAP BELOW AND TO THE GENOCIDAL RESPONSE BY ISRAEL TO A "SURPRISE" ATTACK BY HAMAS IN SEARCH OF HOSTAGES. MOST OF THE PEOPLE (1200) KILLED ON OCTOBER 7 WERE MURDERED BY THE ISRAELI ARMY... NOW ABOUT 35,000 PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE ISRAELI, THIS WITHOUT COUNTING THE PEOPLE BURIED IN COLLAPSED BUILDINGS. SO, WHAT'S TO BE LIKED ABOUT ISRAEL?

 

 

THE GAZA STRIP IS BEING LOOKED AT BY ISRAELI SETTLERS AND THE OIL FIELDS OFFSHORE GAZA WILL BE TAKEN BY THE ISRAELIS.

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClitqYW8HVk&t=20s

The death of ideology | John Mearsheimer [Full Interview]

 

SEE ALSO: 

the heartland explained...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34MRz2GvLNw

Israel’s Options, Plus Navalny’s Legacy and Ranking the US Presidents, with Dan Senor | GoodFellows

 

Why did Vladimir Putin call for an “inter-Palestinian meeting” in Moscow? And has Israel drawn a red line regarding a hostage release and an assault on the Gazan city of Rafah? Dan Senor, host of the Call Me Back podcast and author of two books on Israel, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson (live from Jerusalem) and John Cochrane to discuss the moving parts and global ramifications of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Following that: remembering the late Alexei Navalny and what the future holds for Russian political opposition amid Putin-brand fascism; America’s “trust” credit rating as it reneges on promises to friends and allies; plus George Washington’s recent demotion to third-greatest of all US presidents.

ABOUT THE SERIES

GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast, features senior fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, and H.R. McMaster discussing the social, economic, and geostrategic ramifications of this changed world. They can’t banter over lunch these days, but they continue their spirited conversation online about what comes next, as we look forward to an end to the crisis.

 

THIS IS A FULLBORE SUPPORT FOR GENOCIDE FROM THE PROFESSORATS. INTERESTINGLY, NIALL FERGUSON IN HIS "The Treason of the Intellectuals" ARTICLE, CLAIMS THAT ACADEMICS SHOULD NOT BE POLITICALLY ENGAGED, BUT THESE BADFELLOWS DO IT AT FULL BORE....

IN UKRAINE, THE MAP (SEE ISRAEL MAP ABOVE) IS DIFFERENT. THE DONBASS IS RUSSIAN POPULATED

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClitqYW8HVk&t=20s

The death of ideology | John Mearsheimer [Full Interview]

 

SEE ALSO: 

the heartland explained...

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW. SEE: please, stella.....

 

SEE REAL GOODFELLOWS: 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6H6tvVuGgo

Capitalism is dead and so are we | Yanis Varoufakis interview

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr5fAFlYBqE

New Study: THIS Is Why The West Is Really Doomed.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab told delegates at a conference in China this week that humanity needs to be “forced into a collaboration” with globalist entities.

Speaking at the WEF’s ‘Annual Meeting of the New Champions’, often dubbed the “Summer Davos,” in China, Schwab stated that in order to drive the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” forward, elites must aggressively drive their agenda home.

“To drive future economic growth we must embrace innovation and force the collaboration across sectors, regions, nations, and cultures to create a more peaceful, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future,” Schwab proclaimed.

He added, “At this critical juncture the active participation of all stakeholders is essential to ensure a sustainable development path.”

In another clip, Schwab touted AI and other technologies becoming ubiquitous as a reason why humanity must “work together” with the global elite.

He also spoke of “limits to growth,” which many have interpreted as an endorsement of depopulation.

 

Schwab, the architect of the so called ‘Great Reset,’ has in recent years said that he envisages humankind transitioning into a new age where there will be a “fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological dimensions” in a “new world.”

Schwab has previously declared that this new era of integration with “digital technologies” will mean that “you do not even have to have elections anymore.”

He has also fantasised about humanity embracing brain implants and leaders having the capability to read everyone’s brain waves.

As we highlighted last week, Schwab is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and creating a hostile work environment from female former employees at the WEF.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Sourced from ZeroHedge

 

https://www.activistpost.com/2024/07/watch-klaus-schwab-says-humanity-must-be-forced-into-collaboration-with-globalist-elites.html

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY91pFWRAeM

 

 

‘THE VISITING EMPERORS’: HOW CORPORATIONS CONQUERED THE WORLD
The former Labour Party leader’s new foreword to Claire Provost and Matt Kennard’s book Silent Coup outlines his thoughts on the growing power of the private sector over society.

 

BY JEREMY CORBYN

 

This book is about corporate power. The authors report back on their fearless investigations into the realities of the unstoppable rise of global corporations, which occupy the power vacuum left by the collapse of European empires and sabotage the growth of democracy. Vividly revealing the workings of these corporations, they do so in a way that demonstrates the corporations’ vulnerability when their activities are exposed. 

Far too often, political activists see their whole being in terms of the framework of the nation state in which they live and work. This book helps us go beyond these limited horizons and develop a strong sense of global thinking and internationalism. After all, whatever country we happen to be living in, global corporations are not particularly bothered about national frontiers. What transnational corporations are interested in is their power, markets and supply chains.

The first time I heard Tony Benn speak was in 1970, at a fringe meeting at the Labour conference. He was reflecting on his years in the British government. Labour had just lost the 1970 election after five-and-a-half years in office under Harold Wilson. Benn had been technology minister. 

He described how he tried to have meetings with the largest businesses of the time, how they arrived at his office like visiting emperors, to tell him what to do rather than engage with an elected minister who was trying to democratically administer policies – policies such as widening public ownership and increasing workers participation; policies contained in a manifesto that had an electoral mandate.

Tony Benn’s exposure of corporate power stimulated thought on the left of the Labour Party about how to challenge it on a global level. We realised that traditional policies of public ownership were necessary but not sufficient. Since then, corporate power over our governments has grown significantly. 

Take, for example, recent news about how the water companies pollute British rivers and seas by letting raw sewage flow into them. Our rivers were polluted on 300,000 occasions in 2022 alone. The government promised to reduce the number of discharges by 25% over the next three years. This means that even if the companies meet this target, there will still be 225,000 discharges a year – and this doesn’t say anything about the volume of those discharges. 

 

Co-opting the state

So what is the solution? To let these thieves get away with continuing to destroy our rivers, our streams, our seas? Or to do the obvious thing, tell them to bog off and take our water utilities into public ownership. As a natural resource and source of life, this is where they belong. 

Silent Coup explains how corporate power affects people all around the world. It shows how agricultural systems, far from being developed in a sustainable way, become unsustainable. Monoculture takes over from diversity in agriculture. The idea of a mixed farm is seen as out-of-date, old fashioned and inefficient.

In a mixed farm, one crop feeds another. The result is a symmetry that protects the environment. I remember my dad explaining to me as a child as we were looking at such farmland near where we lived in Shropshire. 

He explained how this land had been fertile for over a thousand years because it had been managed in a sustainable way. He then explained how the ranching mentality had now taken over whereby the hedgerows are destroyed, the trees are cut down, the diversity of production on the farm is reduced to monoculture. 

Moreover, instead of being fertilised by manure, the new industrial agriculture is using herbicides and pesticides and chemical fertilisers, which have a long-term effect on the food chain for all of us. Why is this happening? Because chemical fertilisers are being pushed by big businesses that make a great deal of money out of them. 

Partly in response to the growing criticism of all this pollution of our water and of our food, along with the threats of climate change, we face the phenomenon of the greenwash. 

BP would have us believe that it only exists to protect the planet. It tells us this every single day and spends a great deal of money doing so. It never says anything about the grotesque levels of oil spills and damage to the environment. 

ExxonMobil doesn’t tell us about the horror story of what has happened in Ecuador. Shell doesn’t tell us what has happened in the Delta regions of Nigeria.

 

Silent takeover

This book demonstrates, with many examples, how a silent yet steady takeover of government and the economy by corporate power means we are faced with a combination of corporate greed, consumerism and a media that is not prepared to investigate the reality of what is happening in front of them. 

I was in Colombia for the presidential election in 2022, where we met a group of land rights campaigners. They described their work and the bravery with which they stood up against corporate interests, including those that have assassinated many of the campaigners. 

I asked them what would happen if the left candidate Gustavo Petro didn’t win the election. One of their leaders said, “We’ll continue campaigning for land rights. We’ll continue campaigning for education in rural communities. And we’ll continue campaigning for sustainability.” 

And what if Petro won the election (which he did)? “We’ll continue campaigning for land rights, we’ll continue campaigning for workers’ rights, we’ll continue campaigning for sustainable energy. Because political power comes from the power of communities to influence and pressure those in government. You can’t just hand it all to somebody high and mighty above you, to do it for you. It is about empowering people.”

Silent Coup does many things. Above all, it educates people. To educate people is to inform people. And to inform people is to empower and activate them. Claire Provost and Matt Kennard have empowered and activated their readers.

Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy is published in paperback by Bloomsbury this month. 

 

 

https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-visiting-emperors-how-corporations-conquered-the-world/

 

 

READ FROM TOP

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.