Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

In Ecuador (this thread), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread). People have had enough.

One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*

* For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.

In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

But it won't happen in China (this thread), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)

World in Flames: Why Are Protests Raging Around The Globe?

RT
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 20:42 UTC

Protests and demonstrations have rocked every corner of the world in recent days, with tax hikes, corruption and supposed environmental injustice all raising public anger. But why have they spread?

Watching the news over the last week, one would be convinced that the world has devolved into a series of flashpoints, with corrupt governments across the political spectrum facing the wrath of their enraged citizens. To be fair, that's not far from the truth.

Four continents have seen anti-government demonstrations over the last week, many of them sparked by seemingly innocuous taxes or changes to the law. In Lebanon, protesters have set Beirut ablaze in response to a proposed fee of 20 cents per day on internet voice calls, dubbed the "WhatsApp tax." Chileans set metro stations on fire following a $1.17 increase in public transport fares, and the streets of Ecuador are filled with rubble after a planned removal of fuel subsidies triggered mass unrest.

Elsewhere, perennial corruption has the West African nation of Liberia in a state of near-constant protest; a change to presidential term limits in Guinea caused deadly riots; Mexicans are demonstrating against corruption and drug cartel violence; and masked rioters in Hong Kong are still rallying against their government, months after the withdrawal of the Chinese extradition bill that sparked their anger.

Europe, meanwhile, has seen a general strike and mass marches in Barcelona following the jailing of Catalonian independence leaders on Monday. Dutch farmers have also shut down the country's motorways after the government introduced new emissions regulations; and in France, already rocked by almost a year of 'Yellow Vests' demonstrations, thousands of firefighters have marched for more funding and better working conditions.

Protests can break out over a relatively minor issue, before spiralling into national crises. French President Emmanuel Macron learned this the hard way last November, when demonstrations over a fuel tax hike turned into a nationwide rejection of his corporate-friendly policies. Likewise, Lebanon's "WhatsApp tax" was simply the final straw for protesters, who have now called for "the downfall of the regime," following years of perceived government ineptitude.

And, while Chilean students kicked off the fare-hike protests earlier this month, violent anti-government riots have since broken out, with at least eight people killed in arson and looting attacks, and the military were called out to enforce a curfew.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nPTOmvChNYI

It's contagious
So why has unrest seemingly erupted all over the world at once? According to a University of Arizona study, protest is contagious. The study's authors found that "violent domestic conflicts spread between countries via spillover effects and the desire to emulate events abroad." Non-violent movements too spread across borders in a similar fashion, with the researchers noting that "observation of collective action abroad" inspires would-be protesters at home.

The Chinese government has pointed the finger squarely at Hong Kong for inspiring similar protests elsewhere. An editorial in the state-run Global Times on Sunday accused the Hong Kong demonstrators of "exporting revolution to the world," while former Chinese diplomat Wang Zhen wrote in the Beijing News that "the disastrous impact of a 'chaotic Hong Kong' has begun to influence the Western world."

Though the Chinese government has its own political reasons to publish articles condemning the Hong Kong movement, the accusation that the protesters there are "exporting revolution" is spot-on, at least if the University of Arizona study is to be believed.

Quote:

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SOTT Comment:

It's one factor to consider, certainly, but even though we live in a world where, thanks to the availability of mass communication, everyone can 'see' what everyone else is up to, most people really only choose to see what goes on in their own neighborhood. In cases where protesters were triggered by the latest tax their govt wished to introduce, these were 'straws that broke the camel's back' because they are just the latest in a sequence of onerous taxation/austerity measures.

The question remains; why did so many countries reach breaking point at roughly the same time?

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A minefield
Dealing with mass unrest is a minefield for governments. Though the respective governments of Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador and Hong Kong have all canceled the measures that angered the public in the first place, protests have only intensified. This presents decision-makers with a dilemma: signal weakness by doing nothing, or inflame tensions further with a police crackdown.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AjgFSUSdFio

Former Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief David Couper literally wrote the book on handling protests. In 'Arrested Development,' Couper wrote that he would instruct his officers to "get in close, talk, stay in contact" with demonstrators, as he found that "the further the police positioned themselves from people in the crowd, the greater the chance the crowd would depersonalize them."

Similarly, former Washington DC Police Chief Jerry Wilson told author Radley Balko that he would hide his riot-control teams away on buses until needed, as the mere presence of heavily-armed cops "didn't prevent confrontation, it invited it."

This cautious approach has not been taken by Chile, whose president Sebastian Pinera declared "We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits," and summoned up thousands of troops to patrol the streets. Nor has it been taken by Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, who announced the "militarization" of the capital, Quito, and authorized "the use of public force" to clear the streets of protesters.

While the state cannot allow destruction and looting, a heavy-handed crackdown can backfire, as happened in France when images of wounded and maimed protesters gave the Yellow Vests a new issue to rally around, and mired the government and police forces in legal action.

Moreover, giving in to the protesters' demands is one thing, but it's another when rival groups of demonstrators demand clashing measures. While Dutch farmers are fuming at being labeled a climate change threat and punished with new nitrogen emissions regulations, Extinction Rebellion eco-activists took to the streets of more than 70 cities worldwide - including Amsterdam - to demand more of precisely the same kind of regulations, up to a complete abolition of livestock farming.

Contagious, difficult to control, and often contradictory, the season of unrest gripping much of the world presents governments - even those that acquiesce to their citizens' demands - with few easy solutions.

==================================

... it apparently all started with a simmering that got the "Gilets jaunes" out on the streets... same pattern: increases in taxes got the frogs out of the pot at boiling point.

Now, one wonders who could intimidate governments into implementing such dumb moves... couldn't be the IMF and their "Austerity measures", could it?

This was published in Business Insider:

• World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
  https://businessinsider.com/all-the-...orld-right-now

And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.

Quote:

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Posted by Bill Ryan

There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

In Ecuador (this thread), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread). People have had enough.

One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*

* For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.

In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

But it won't happen in China (this thread), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)

---

Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...

This poem by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and written in 1919 seems apt here:

Quote:

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THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

---

Shared by Catherine Austin Fitts on her twitter feed:

Quote:

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Posted by Ernie Nemeth

Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...

---

I would have said the same here in Catalonia. I have always been amazed by their pacific stance. Millions have protested every year. Not one problem, not one smashed window in Mcdonalds or Starbucks. Zero incidents of aggression reported to the police. However, things can turn quickly. The same people who have been sitting on their hands are now fighting back!

In regards to Canadians...look what happens when they lose a game of Ice hockey. Imagine if something important happened, that really affected their lives.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

It wasn't much fun in Ecuador during the 11 days of protests there. (Only 11 days! In France, see this thread, the Yellow Vests have been active for a whole year now.) And I acknowledge that there was probably opportunist infiltration from militant groups from Colombia and Venezuela.

But although there was chaos and some violence, in a way I was VERY pleased to see People Power actually working. The best recent example has been in Puerto Rico, where the protests that ousted Governor Rosselló were more like a huge street carnival, with the young people setting the example.

In the 60s and 70s, there were massive protests in the US against the Vietnam war. People Power made a big difference there, too. The Deep State resorted to mind-controlling the protest groups with drugs and music to quell it all. (And that absolutely worked, form their point of view.)

That brief era in the US was the second major attempt to take back the planet from evil control. The first attempt was 2000 years ago, and the third and likely last chance is right now. Just maybe, something's currently working as it should.

I'd LOVE to see extended, non-violent, popular protests in the US. And in the UK, too, and also Sweden. God knows that's needed. Re the US, apart from relatively minor (but sadly violent) incidents, the populace is apathetic.

All you Americans, that means you. Posting your invective on social media (whatever you believe in!) just doesn't cut it. That's just a way, highly convenient for the establishment and very possibly engineered by them, of venting relatively harmlessly, like talking to the wall (or preaching to the converted).

Retweeting rhetoric from Qanon (or even Alex Jones) makes no difference. It's just hot air. The Deep State doesn't care about that at all. It's no threat. With Alex Jones, they simply turned the switch and silenced him. Job done.

Tweet or post on Facebook all you like, and it makes almost no difference to anything. But in Ecuador, even the indigenous people have social media now. They didn't forward angry videos to each other. They swung into action and blocked all the highways, and they did it from nothing in 12 hours flat.

Blockading supply chains really makes a government pay attention. And this, in Holland, just brings the country to a total standstill. Will this ever happen in the US and Canada? Answers, please. :)

https://assets.infowars.com/2019/10/161019dutch.jpg

Quote:

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Posted by Bill Ryan

This was published in Business Insider:

• World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
  https://businessinsider.com/all-the-...orld-right-now

And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.

---

Here's the whole article, which is quite an education.

World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
Oct 3, 2019

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Riot police stand guard during a demonstration on China's National Day, in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, China, on October 1, 2019.

• Protests can be a powerful political tool for enacting change.
• Currently, protests are happening in places like Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, and Moscow, to name a few.
• Despite each demonstration stemming from vastly different issues, many have common threads: citizens want to express their discontent with their current governments, from the "yellow vest" protests in Paris to Indonesian protests against a draconian criminal code.

Protests have long been a powerful political tool for enacting change and expressing discontent.

From the Civil Rights Movement's the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to Indian independence, protests have left powerful marks upon the world. Historically, protests have served as an outlet for marginalized groups to articulate their frustrations — and make their demands known. One such example is New York's Stonewall riots, which kicked off the modern Pride movement and mainstream LGBTQ visibility.

Today, protests like last month's Global Climate Strike and Hong Kong's ongoing mass protests are calls for politicians to change their policies. The climate strike, for example, drew over 6 million protesters around the world, making it the biggest demonstration against climate change in history.

While protests have changed significantly with the rise of technology and social media, they're still powerful agents for change.

In an interview with WNYC's On The Media, technological sociologist Zeynep Tufekci said that modern protest has the "capacity for changing the narrative."
"The thing is, though in the past, you can think of the protest as an exclamation mark at the end of a long sentence, whereas right now it's just the first word in a potential sentence," Tufekci told WNYC.

Protests are happening right now, all over the world, from the "yellow vest" protests in Paris to Indonesian protests against a draconian criminal code.
Here are the protests currently happening around the world.

In Hong Kong, a new extradition law sparked protests back in June, but the conflict is escalating.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A protester makes a gesture during a protest on June 12, 2019, in Hong Kong.

Tens of thousands of protesters have been demonstrating in the streets of Hong Kong since June, against a new law that would extradite people accused of crimes to China to stand trial.

Protesters have thrown petrol bombs, rocks, and acid at police, who in turn have sprayed tear gas. The protests reached a new level of violence on Tuesday when one protester was shot in the chest by police, the first use of live rounds during the conflict. The protester, an 18-year-old man, is thought to be in critical condition.

Tuesday also marked the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which protesters commemorated by wearing all black, calling it a "national day of mourning."

A criminal code in Indonesia has led to protests against its draconian laws.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A student throws a rock during a rally in front of the People's Representative Council building on September 30, 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Last week, thousands of protesters in Jakarta clashed with police after a new criminal code was announced. The code would outlaw sex outside of marriage and set a jail sentence of six months for unmarried couples living together, among other laws.
Indonesian police fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters, most of whom were students. As a result of the protests, the Indonesian parliament has delayed a vote on approving the code.

The protests are the largest since 1998, which led to the toppling of Indonesian president Suharto.

In the Netherlands, thousands of Dutch farmers clogged highways with their tractors.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Farmers block the A28 Highway with their tractors between Hoogeveen and Meppel on October 1, 2019 during a national protest of farmers.

Dutch highways were jammed with thousands of farmers driving their tractors to The Hague on October 1.

They came to protest claims from members of Dutch parliament that agriculture was responsible for high emissions, and that some cattle farms should be shut down. The farmers, in turn, said that the aviation industry was responsible for high emissions, but wasn't getting the same share of blame.

According to Dutch automobile association ANWB, over 700 miles of traffic plagued Dutch roads at the peak of rush hour as the tractors descended on The Hague.

Several protests are ongoing in France, including demonstrations by Paris police officers.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A newly-wed couple take selfies pictures next to "yellow vest" protesters during an anti-government protest in Paris on September 28, 2019.

In addition to Dutch farmers, French farmers are also angry with their country's agricultural policy. Farmers are planning to demonstrate on October 8 with roadblocks on major French highways, according to Reuters.

Farmers are just one of several groups protesting the French government's policies. After 45 consecutive weeks of protests by the "yellow vest" (gilets jaunes) demonstrators, the protests show no signs of slowing down. During the Global Climate Strike last month, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators in Paris, "yellow vest" protesters, and their anarchist counterparts, the "black bloc" protesters, turned violent, and were met with around 7,500 police to control them.

The protests, which were sparked by rising fuel taxes, have since spread to smaller cities, like the southwestern city of Toulouse.

Meanwhile, thousands of Paris police officers are holding demonstrations of their own, in the wake of the rising suicide rate among French officers, which many attribute to the strain of containing the "yellow vest" protests for weeks on end. In 2018, 35 officers committed suicide in France. In 2019 so far, that number grew to 49.

In Russia, thousands gathered to demand the release of protesters who were arrested on charges of rioting.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Protester holds a banner saying "Putin!, opinion is not a crime!" in a demonstration for the release of the arrested activists during the summer riots in Moscow, on September 29, 2019.

In Moscow on Sunday, protesters gathered to call for the end of prosecutions against those who were arrested during last summer's mass protests. Russian police estimated the number of demonstrators to be 20,000, but organizers claim the number is much higher.

The summer's protests drew even larger crowds, with an estimated 60,000 protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies. The crowds were the largest since Putin's reelection in 2012.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny spoke to the crowd on Sunday, saying that those who were arrested on charges of violence against police officers and rioting will be released in the wake of the new demonstration.

(continued below...)

(... continued)


Peruvians protested the confusion surrounding President Vizcarra’s government in the streets of Lima.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A police barricade at Avenida Abancay is set to prevent the passage of protesters and protect public institutions on October 1, 2019 in Lima, Peru.

Peru's president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved the country's congress on Monday after months of efforts to eliminate corruption proved fruitless due to right-wing lawmakers stonewalling new policies. In response, the lawmakers attempted to have Vizcarra removed, naming Vice President Mercedes Araoz to take over as president. It's unclear whether Vizcarra will remain in office, and the uncertainty has led to mass protests.
On Tuesday, Peruvians took to the streets of Lima to protest the crumbling government, meeting Lima's police force, which expressed loyalty to Vizcarra.

Protesters in Haiti called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A man uses burning tires to cut off a street to protest against fuel shortages and to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 20, 2019.

An already tumultuous Haiti erupted into more violent protests on September 25, Azam Ahmed reported for The New York Times. Protesters had called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse. They took to the streets again after he gave a 2 am speech calling for unity and saying he would not step down.

Moïse has not been seen publicly since. The country is contending with food, oil, and power shortages.

The current round of protests originated in July 2018, according to the Times, when Moïse attempted to end fuel subsidies. He has since been dogged by corruption allegations over management of a Venezuelan oil subsidy program.

Moïse, according to the Times, has unsuccessfully attempted to appoint a new prime minister several times, with opposition leaders blocking all of his picks since the allegations broke. His most recent attempt — and fourth nominee since 2017 — was last Monday.

Egypt saw another wave of protests calling for the resignation of authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Protesters shout slogans during a rare anti-government protest in Cairo on September 21, 2019.

A second wave of protests calling for authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to step down broke out last Friday, The New York Times reported. Protests first began on September 20, defying the country's ban on demonstrations. According to the Times, one cited cause for protest has been economic grievances, with a third of Egyptians living in poverty.

During el-Sisi's tenure as president, the Egyptian government has jailed opposition figures, and blocked independent media. The Times reported that over 2,000 protesting Egyptians have been arrested by authorities. Some news services and websites have also been blocked, with Twitter cutting in and out.

Lebanon is experiencing protests due to its slowing economy.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A masked Lebanese protester flashes the V-sign for victory as another carries a burning tire during a demonstration in Lebanon's capital Beirut on September 29, 2019.

Protests over worsening economic conditions broke out across Lebanon on September 29, Bassem Mroue reported for the Associated Press.

According to the Associated Press, the exchange rate for Lebanese pounds to dollars has been stable since 1997 — but last week, people had difficulty getting currency at this rate. The country is contending with a hard currency shortage.

Protesters pointed to political leaders as the cause of economic problems. Reuters reported that hundreds of protesters chanted "Down with capitalism" and "Leave!" as they marched near parliament.

Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world, and, despite heavy investment, a myriad of infrastructure issues, according to the Associated Press.

Syria's Kurdish population is protesting their exclusion from a UN committee.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
A member of the Kurdish Internal Security Police Force stands guard during a demonstration in front of the United Nations headquarters in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria on October 2, 2019, over the Kurds exclusion from the UN-backed constitutional committee.

Members of Syria's Kurdish population protested their exclusion from a United Nations committee meant to redraft the Syrian constitution, French news channel France24 reported.

According to the United Nations, the committee — announced on September 23 — will be comprised of 150 members, divided evenly between government, civil society, and opposition members.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the committee "a step along the difficult path out of this conflict."

While individual Kurd representatives will be on the committee, the Kurdish administration overseeing almost one-third of the country will not be presented, according to France24.

The US has supported Kurds in fighting against the Islamic State, Karen DeYoung,
Souad Mekhennet, and Louisa Loveluck reported in The Washington Post. However, The Post reports that Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters a "terrorist threat."

Protests erupted in Iraq against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's government.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against corruption and lack of basic services in the central Iraqi shrine city of Najaf on October 1, 2019.

Protests that broke out on October 1 in Iraq have already left two dead, according to The New York Times.

The protests signal the most recent discontent with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's year-old government. The Times reported that protesters were displeased with the government's inability to improve public services and unemployment, as well as with Abdul Mahdi's recent removal of popular counterterrorism chief Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi.

Mustafa Salim and Louisa Loveluck at The Washington Post reported that police first fired tear gas, and then live ammunition, into crowds of protesters in Baghdad. In addition to the two deaths, 286 people were injured nationwide, according to the Post; 40 were on the security force.

In Jerusalem, Palestinians protested the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
Palestinians demonstrate with signs in support of, and with the pictures of Samer al-Arbeed, a Palestinian arrested by Israeli on suspicion of leading a cell allegedly behind an attack near Dolev settlement, near the Hadassah Medical Center Mount Scopus in Jerusalem on October 1, 2019.

On October 1, Palestinians protested in Jerusalem and the West Bank over the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager, Ali Sawafta reported for Reuters.

Samer al-Arbid was hospitalized during his interrogation by Israeli forces. al-Arbid was arrested and detained for being a suspect in the bombing near an Israeli settlement that killed a 17-year-old Israeli hiking with her family, according to Reuters.

Shin Bet, Israel's security service, said that al-Arbid felt ill during their interrogation, while Palestinian officials — and al-Arbid's lawyer — accused them of torturing him, Reuters reported.

Simultaneously, Arab-Israeli students in the north walked out of school to protest violence against Arab communities, The Times of Israel reported. More than 60 members of the Arab community have been killed in 2019, with four killed on September 20, according to The Times of Israel.

UAW workers have been on strike for two weeks in the United States.

https://image.businessinsider.com/5d...jpeg&auto=webp
UAW General Motors workers on strike.

General Motors members of the United Auto Workers have been on strike for over two weeks — marking the longest labor action of its type since 1982, Business Insider reported.

On October 1, the union rejected a GM proposal that would end the walkout of almost 50,000 workers. However, the union did progress by offering up a counterproposal, according to Business Insider.

"We continue to negotiate and exchange proposals, and remain committed to reaching an agreement that builds a stronger future for our employees and our company," a GM spokesperson told Business Insider.

Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!;)

Bolivia election: Anger mounts over result confusion

Violent protests have erupted in at least nine cities in Bolivia amid ongoing confusion about the result of Sunday's presidential election.

Suspicion arose among opponents of the incumbent, Evo Morales, after the quick count was surprisingly halted.

His main rival, Carlos Mesa, said the quick count's results were fraudulent.

Counting is still under way with Mr Morales in first place but currently with not enough of a lead to stave off a second round.

Quote:

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Posted by sunwings

Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!;)

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And Malta.

• How did riots at Hal Far detention centre start?
  https://tvm.com.mt/en/news/listen-how-did-riots-at-hal-far-detention-centre-start

• UPDATED: Immigrants take control of Hal Far centre
  https://tvm.com.mt/en/news/updated-i...hal-far-centre

...

... adding a pinch of German grumbling:

Over 200 Tractors Block Traffic in Berlin as Farmers Protest Gov't Agricultural Policies - Video

Sputnik Europe
15:57 22.10.2019

https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/ima...1077117418.jpg
© REUTERS / ANNEGRET HILSE

BERLIN (Sputnik) - More than 200 tractors arrived on Tuesday in Berlin and blocked traffic in the centre of the city as part of a rally, organised by the non-profit farmers' movement known as Land Schafft Verbindung (Countryside Creates Connection), against the government's agricultural and climate policies.

The demonstration started on Monday morning in the state of Brandenburg. The participants then headed to the Tiergarten park near the government quarter in Berlin. Some farmers who are currently joining the rally are also moving toward the park.

Additional police forces are trying to prevent the passage of tractor columns into the city centre, while as of noon on Tuesday, traffic on the streets around the park is partially blocked.

The protesters turned off their car engines and said that they intended to stay in Tiergarten until more demonstrators arrived.

Those opposing government policies, in particular, the so-called environmental package, which imposes higher taxes on carbon emissions, were seen on the hoods of some vehicles.

The German government presented its climate change plan for the period until 2030 in September. Planned measures include higher taxes on CO2 emissions; increased prices for petrol, diesel, gas and mazut; as well as preferences for buyers of more environmentally-friendly heating systems. The programme costs some €50 billion (some $55 billion).

For Canada, I will say this: if minority-rich Toronto and area continues to win elections it will cause a great deal of trouble. The cities of Toronto do not reflect the mood of the country at all. But the rural vote, and the vote of the small towns, where the sentiment is far different, matters not a whit. And the western vote has never had a chance. Most elections, the victory is won before the west even heads to the voting booths.

The only good that came out of our vote yesterday is that the Liberals lost their majority and will now have to bend to the will of the Conservatives or form a block with the NDP.

The take away is that minorities of all types decide the vote here now...sorry, I meant new Canadians and anyone who for any reason feels like they have been marginalized because of a lifestyle choice.

From what I have seen, the situation in Lebanon appears to be pretty directly against a sitting Oligarchy.

In Iraq, whatever is happening is said to be "inflamed by social media", whereas about 80% of the traffic comes from Saudi funded news sources in the UK and so forth. It is said that around 6% of the actual complaints or plans to protest were internal to Iraq.

In my view, there is always an element of rebellion which may be justified, but in practice, there is a purely violent element that is typically foreign interference. It's a bind because some form of government is necessary, or things would be even more brutal, but I am not impressed with most of them.

Someone told me a long time ago that the European tractor blockades were a tradition. And Cairo seems to be some kind of magnet for demonstrations. The Irish more or less settled one of the longest running conflicts in the world with two bombs in the City of London.

I would tend to agree that examples are legitimate in the case when the worm turns and the government is brought to heel. Jefferson said this should happen approximately every generation, which seems reasonable. But if so then your motive is not to destroy things or kill people. Nevertheless, any violent act can easily have a chain reaction.

Also that "if they keep you talking about it, nothing happens". However I am not a single-issue type of person to be motivated by some new tax, it is something more fundamental and complete, which as far as I know is the removal of citizenship.

One is no longer eligible for any benefits, which are part of the way to keep you talking and complaining about it.

So for someone like me, having paid into social security, then if I sever the relationship, they will have stolen it from me outright. That is why there should be a freaking huge warning label on that card "may be hazardous to your health" so that someone can understand what it means before you take it.

"U. S. Citizen" does not mean "were you born here", it is a surrender to an authority, where you act as an unpaid employee and a status criminal. Without consent, there is no authority. One has to say, I was not born in the United States, I was born in a State. They will leave you alone and you will be unable to use any of the system such as banks or real estate.

A big march is built into that. As far as I can tell, it is a legally correct way to change one's relationship. At that point, one is only affected by Code. But unless you are domiciled on private property, then you have no land.

In other words the American revolution did establish the situation where a person is not a subject of any government; but none of the other ones have. There is no option but to revolt over some issue.

Just came across this 30 minute segment where it talks about these uprisings.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qy8JcyGLsUQ

The New World is Emerging Before Us

by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network
Damascus (Syria) 22 October 2019

Thierry Meyssan underlines the extreme gravity, not of the US withdrawal from Syria, but of the collapse of the world’s current landmarks. According to him, we are entering a short transition period, during which the current masters of the game, the "financial capitalists" - and those he refers to here have nothing to do with either original capitalism or the original bank - will be rejected in favour of the rules of law laid down by Russia in 1899.

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King Salman receives President Vladimir Putin, the Peacekeeper.

It’s a time that only happens once or twice a century. A new world order is emerging. All previous references disappear. Those who were doomed to grieve triumph, while those who ruled are thrown into hell. The official statements and interpretations made by journalists clearly no longer correspond to the events that follow one another. Commentators must change their discourse as quickly as possible, overturn it in its entirety or be caught up in the whirlwind of history.

In February 1943, the Soviet victory over the Nazi Reich marked the turnaround of the Second World War. The next steps were inevitable. It was not until the Anglo-American landing in Normandy (June 1944), the Yalta conference (February 1945), the suicide of Chancellor Hitler (February 1945) and finally the surrender of the Reich (8 May 1945) that this new world emerged. In one year (June 44-May 45), the Great Reich had been replaced by the Soviet-US duopoly. The United Kingdom and France, which were still the world’s two leading powers twelve years earlier, were to witness the decolonization of their empires.

It is a moment like this that we are experiencing today.

Each historical period has its own economic system and builds a political super-structure to protect it. At the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the USSR, President Bush Sr. demobilized one million US soldiers and entrusted the search for prosperity to the bosses of his multinationals. They formed an alliance with Deng Xiaoping, relocated US jobs to China, which became the world’s workshop. Far from offering prosperity to US citizens, they monopolized their profits, gradually causing the slow disappearance of the Western middle classes. In 2001, they financed the September 11 attacks to impose on the Pentagon the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy of destroying state structures. President Bush Jr. then transformed the "Broader Middle East" into a theatre of "endless war".

The liberation in one week of a quarter of Syrian territory is not only the victory of President Bashar al-Assad, "the man who had to leave eight years ago", it marks the failure of the military strategy aimed at establishing the supremacy of financial capitalism. What seemed unimaginable has happened. The world order has changed. Further events are inevitable.

President Vladimir Putin’s very grand reception in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates testifies to the spectacular turnaround of the Gulf powers, which are now shifting to the Russian side.

The equally spectacular redistribution of cards in Lebanon sanctions the same political failure of financial capitalism. In a dollarized country where there have been no dollars left for a month, where banks are closing their counters and bank withdrawals are limited, anti-corruption demonstrations will not stop the overthrow of the old order.

The convulsions of the old order are spreading. Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno attributes the popular revolt against the measures imposed by financial capitalism to his predecessor, Rafael Correa, who lives in exile in Belgium, and to a symbol of resistance to this form of human exploitation, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, although they have no influence in his country.

The United Kingdom has already withdrawn its special forces from Syria and is attempting to leave the supranational state of Brussels (European Union). After thinking about preserving the Common Market (Theresa May’s project), it decided to break with the whole of European construction (Boris Johnson’s project). After the mistakes of Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, France suddenly lost all credibility and influence. Donald Trump’s United States ceased to be the "indispensable nation", the "policeman of the world" in the service of financial capitalism, to once again become a great economic power itself. They are withdrawing their nuclear arsenal from Turkey and are preparing to close the CentCom in Qatar. Russia is recognized by all as the "peacemaker" by assuring the triumph of the international law it had created by convening the "International Peace Conference" in The Hague in 1899, the principles of which have since been trampled underfoot by NATO members.

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The International Peace Conference of 1899. It took more than a century to understand its implications.

As the Second World War ended the League of Nations to create the United Nations, this new world is likely to give birth to a new international organization based on the principles of the 1899 Conference of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the French Nobel Peace Prize winner, Léon Bourgeois. This will require first dissolving NATO, which will try to survive by enlarging to the Pacific, and the European Union, a refuge state for financial capitalism.

We have to understand what is going on. We are entering a period of transition. Lenin said in 1916 that imperialism was the supreme stage of the form of capitalism that disappeared with the two World Wars and the stock market crisis of 1929. Today’s world is that of financial capitalism, which is devastating economies one by one for the sole benefit of a few super-rich people. Its supreme stage implied the division of the world into two parts: on the one hand, stable and globalised countries, and on the other hand, regions of the world without states, reduced to being mere reserves of raw materials. This model, contested by President Trump in the United States, the yellow vests in Western Europe or Syria in the Levant, is dying before our eyes.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation Roger Lagassé

Pepe Escobar: Watch neoliberalism burn

Pepe Escobar Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC

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Neoliberalism is - literally - burning. And from Ecuador to Chile, South America, once again, is showing the way. Against the vicious, one-size-fits-all IMF austerity prescription, which deploys weapons of mass economic destruction to smash national sovereignty and foster social inequality, South America finally seems poised to reclaim the power to forge its own history.

Three presidential elections are in play. Bolivia's seem to have been settled this past Sunday - even as the usual suspects are yelling "Fraud!" Argentina and Uruguay are on next Sunday.

Blowback against what David Harvey has splendidly conceptualized as accumulation by dispossession is, and will continue to be, a bitch. It will eventually reach Brazil - which as it stands continues to be torn to pieces by Pinochetist ghosts. Brazil, eventually, after immense pain, will rise up again. After all, the excluded and humiliated all across South America are finally discovering they carry a Joker inside themselves.

Chile privatizes everything
The question posed by the Chilean street is stark: "What's worse, to evade taxes or to invade the subway?" It's all a matter of doing the class struggle math. Chile's GDP grew 1,1% last year while the profits of the largest corporations grew ten times more. It's not hard to find from where the huge gap was extracted. The Chilean street stresses how water, electricity, gas, health, medicine, transportation, education, the salar (salt flats) in Atacama, even the glaciers were privatized.

That's classic accumulation by dispossession, as the cost of living has become unbearable for the overwhelming majority of 19 million Chileans, whose average monthly income does not exceed $500.

Paul Walder, director of the Politika portal and an analyst for the Latin-American Center of Strategic Analysis (CLAE) notes how less than a week after the end of protests in Ecuador - which forced neoliberal vulture Lenin Moreno to ditch a gas price hike - Chile entered a very similar cycle of protests.

Walder correctly defines Chile's President Sebastian Pinera as the turkey in a long-running banquet that involves the whole Chilean political class. No wonder the mad as hell Chilean street now makes no difference between the government, the political parties and the police. Pinera, predictably, criminalized all social movements; sent the army to the streets for unmitigated repression; and installed a curfew.

Pinera is Chile's 7th wealthiest billionaire, with assets valued at $2.7 billion, spread out in airlines, supermarkets, TV, credit cards and football. He's a sort of turbo-charged Moreno, a neoliberal Pinochetist. Pinera's brother, Jose, was actually a minister under Pinochet, and the man who implemented Chile's privatized welfare system - a key source of social disintegration and despair. And it's all interlinked: current Brazilian Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy, lived and worked in Chile at the time, and now wants to repeat the absolutely disastrous experiment in Brazil.

The bottom line is that the economic "model" that Guedes wants to impose in Brazil has totally collapsed in Chile.

Chile's top resource is copper. Copper mines, historically, were owned by the US, but then were nationalized by President Salvador Allende in 1971; thus war criminal Henry Kissinger's plan to eliminate Allende, which culminated in the original 9/11, in 1973.

Pinochet's dictatorship later re-privatized the mines. The largest of them all, Escondida, in the Atacama desert - which accounts for 9% of the world's copper - belongs to Anglo-Australian giant Bhp Billiton. The biggest copper buyer in world markets is China. At least two-thirds of income generated by Chilean copper goes not to the Chilean people, but to foreign multinationals.

The Argentine debacle
Before Chile, Ecuador was semi-paralyzed: inactive schools, no urban transport, food shortages, rampant speculation, serious disturbances on oil exports. Under fire by the mobilization of 25,000 indigenous peoples in the streets, President Lenin Moreno cowardly left a power void in Quito, transferring the seat of government to Guayaquil. Indigenous peoples took over the governance in many important cities and towns. The National Assembly was AWOL for almost two weeks, without the will to even try to solve the political crisis.

By announcing a state of emergency and a curfew, Moreno laid out a red carpet for the Armed Forces - and Pinera duly repeated the procedure in Chile. The difference is that in Ecuador Moreno bet on Divide and Rule between the indigenous peoples' movements and the rest of the population. Pinera resorts to outright brute force.

Apart from applying the same old tactics of raising prices to obtain further IMF funds, Ecuador also displayed a classic articulation between a neoliberal government, big business and the proverbial US ambassador, in this case Michael Fitzpatrick, a former Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere matters in charge of the Andean region, Brazil and the Southern Cone up to 2018.

The clearest case of total neoliberal failure in South America is Argentina. Less than two months ago in Buenos Aires, I saw the vicious social effects of the peso in free fall, inflation at 54%, a de facto food emergency and the impoverishment of even solid sectors of the middle class. Mauricio Macri's government literally burned most of the $58 billion IMF loan - there's still $5 billion to arrive. Macri is set to lose the presidential elections: Argentines will have to foot his humongous bill.

Macri's economic model could not but be Pinera's - actually Pinochet's, where public services are run as a business. A key connection between Macri and Pinera is the ultra-neoliberal Freedom Foundation sponsored by Mario Vargas Llosa, who at least boasts the redeeming quality of having been a decent novelist a long time ago.

Macri, a millionaire, disciple of Ayn Rand and incapable of displaying empathy towards anyone, is essentially a cipher, pre-fabricated by his Ecuadorian guru Jaime Duran Barba as a robotic product of data mining, social networks and focus groups. A hilarious take on his insecurities may be found in La Cabeza de Macri: Como Piensa, Vive y Manda el Primer Presidente de la No Politica, by Franco Lindner.

Among myriad shenanigans, Macri is indirectly linked to fabulous money laundering machine HSBC. The president of HSBC in Argentina was Gabriel Martino. In 2015, four thousand Argentine accounts worth $3.5 billion were discovered at HSBC in Switzerland. This spectacular capital flight was engineered by the bank. Yet Martino was essentially saved by Macri, and became one of his top advisers.

Beware the IMF vulture ventures
All eyes now should be on Bolivia. As of this writing, President Evo Morales won Sunday's presidential elections in the first round - obtaining, by a slim margin, the necessary 10% spread for a candidate to win if he does not obtain the 50% plus one of the votes. Morales essentially got it right at the end, when votes from rural zones and from abroad were fully counted, and the opposition had already started to hit the streets to apply pressure. Not surprisingly, the OAS - servile to US interests - has proclaimed a "lack of trust in the electoral process".

Evo Morales represents a project of sustainable, inclusive development, and crucially, autonomous from international finance. No wonder the whole Washington Consensus apparatus hates his guts. Economy Minister Luis Arce Catacora cut to the chase: "When Evo Morales won his first election in 2005, 65% of the population was low income, now 62% of the population has access to a medium income."

The opposition, without any project except wild privatizations, and no concern whatsoever for social policies, is left to yell "Fraud!", but this could take a very nasty turn in the next few days. In the tony suburbs of southern La Paz, class hate against Evo Morales is the favorite sport: the President is referred to as "indio", a "tyrant" and "ignorant". Cholos of the Altiplano are routinely defined by white landowning elites in the plains as an "evil race".

None of that changes the fact that Bolivia is now the most dynamic economy in Latin America, as stressed by top Argentine analyst Atilio Boron.

The campaign to discredit Morales, which is bound to become even more vicious, is part of imperial 5G war, which, Boron writes, totally obliterates "the chronic poverty that the absolute majority of the population suffered for centuries", a state that always "maintained the population under total lack of institutional protection" and the "pillaging of natural wealth and the common good".

Of course the specter of IMF vulture ventures won't vanish in South America like a charm. Even as the usual suspects, via World Bank reports, now seem "concerned" about poverty; Scandinavians offer the Nobel Prize on Economics to three academics studying poverty; and Thomas Piketty, in Capital and Ideology, tries to disassemble the hegemonic justification for accumulation of wealth.

What still remains absolutely off limits for the guardians of the current world-system is to really investigate hardcore neoliberalism as the root cause of wealth hyper-concentration and social inequality. It's not enough to offer Band-Aids anymore. The streets of South America are alight. Blowback is now in full effect.

Related:

• Moreno & his neoliberalism are behind Ecuador's turmoil, ex-president Correa tells RT - UPDATE: Protestors storm parliament

• Neoliberalism: The 'progressive' nicer version of neoconservativism

• Mexican president 'ends neoliberalism', introduces post-neoliberal plan

• The EU must ditch neoliberalism - or Europe's people will ditch the EU

• James Petras: Rightwing interlude and the death rattle of neoliberalism in Latin America

• Amazon's fusion with the State shows Neoliberalism's drift to Neo-Fascism

• Neoliberalism on steroids: Punishing the victims and rewarding the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis

• What is the role of neoliberalism in Spain's constitutional crisis?

• Fruits of Neoliberalism: Northern England youth 50% more likely to die prematurely than Southern counterparts

• Neoliberalism, a species of fascism

• Is Neoliberalism creating an epidemic of mental illness? Wrenching society apart

• Neoliberalism: The killer plague of the 21st century

• Neoliberalism is creating loneliness - that's what's wrenching society apart

• The white working class rebelled because neoliberalism was literally killing them

interestingly, the electoral agenda for follow-up at the last meeting of Foro de Sao Paulo, in Caracas (Venezuela) jul-2019, did not foresee a runoff in Bolivia presidential elections, where Evo Morales was surprised that didn't win in the first round, and even announced that there is a coup (with foreign powers).

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note: Foro de São Paulo is an International Entity, created by Fidel Castro, Lula and Hugo Chaves (1990), which aims to unify all governments of the South and Central Americas.

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We are seeing a Democratic crisis around the world. The British Prime Minister will soon call an election which will result in another government without a majority. The Spanish government is in the same predicament.

Politics has become polarised probably because human beings have to take part. The whole Brexit farce was best summed up when after 2.5 years of negotiating the Prime minister decided to start a conversation with the opposition parties to get their point of view.

For me, democracy must change. I have the power, I will do what we want not what you want is not acceptable anymore. Not in any business around the world do you have two separate boards of directors trying to achieve opposite results.

Bill, you called out for Americans to get into the streets and protest as our South American brothers and sisters are currently doing.

If you recall, in 2011 there were lots of people doing that as part of the Occupy movement, in several cities here. Now, that was at a time when we had horrible unemployment and evictions and the great mess that followed 2008/2009. Those involved with Occupy didn't receive much support from the general populace--and they didn't even block streets and burn tires. They occupied public spaces and held teach ins and fed people.

Now, when the employment is much higher (so they say), what are the odds of even getting an Occupy movement going again, let alone a fully-fledged protest movment? Pretty low. Here, it's Trump all the time and the Russians and the Ukraineans. And this little Antifa thing going that is more like a little pest than any kind of serious protest movement, largely regarded by the populace as misguided, stupidly violent, spoiled children in cowardly masks.

Very high cost of living, no real health care plans, diminishing REAL wages, homeless population out of control on West coast, Amazon and Apple paying no corporate taxes for years, so yes, lots of problems. Maybe we're too diffused geographically, maybe we're too divided (superficially) politically, maybe we're too placated by the Kardashians and the Bachelor, but I don't see any great movements happening here.

But, you never know.

Protests in Germany:

It's going to get much worse before it gets better once and for all. We haven't been to the eye of the storm yet, but we are seeing signs of it.

If people can keep their heads cool in times of chaos then the transition might be less painful and chaotic. That's up to each individual.

delete it all.

Once I had a theory that x class emissions could affect planetary populaces. I went to spaceweather.com and found no significant increase at all for sunspots for October or sept but there was this:
Cosmic Rays Increasing for the 4th Year in a Row
February 21, 2019 / Dr.Tony Phillips

Feb. 21, 2019: Cosmic rays in the stratosphere are intensifying for the 4th year in a row. This finding comes from a campaign of almost weekly high-altitude balloon launches conducted by the students of Earth to Sky Calculus. Since March 2015, there has been a ~13% increase in X-rays and gamma-rays over central California, where the students have launched hundreds of balloons.

neutronsandxrays2

The grey points in the graph are Earth to Sky balloon data. Overlaid on that time series is a record of neutron monitor data from the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in Oulu, Finland. The correlation between the two data sets is impressive, especially considering their wide geographic separation and differing methodologies. Neutron monitors have long been considered a “gold standard” for monitoring cosmic rays on Earth. This shows that our student-built balloons are gathering data of similar quality.

Why are cosmic rays increasing? The short answer is “Solar Minimum.” Right now, the 11-year solar cycle is plunging into one of the deepest minima of the Space Age. The sun’s weakening magnetic field and flagging solar wind are not protecting us as usual from deep-space radiation. Earth to Sky balloon launches in multiple countries and US states show that this is a widespread phenomenon.

solarcycle

Cosmic rays are of interest to anyone who flies on airplanes. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has classified pilots as occupational radiation workers because of cosmic ray doses they receive while flying. A recent study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health shows that flight attendants face an elevated risk of cancer compared to members of the general population. They listed cosmic rays as one of several risk factors. There are also controversial studies that suggest cosmic rays promote the formation of clouds in the atmosphere; if so, increasing cosmic rays could affect weather and climate.
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The url for the story posted by James Newell above is: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019...year-in-a-row/

Related to this and from spaceweather.com, here’s a graph showing cosmic radiation increase measured by weather balloons released in California for the last five years.

https://spaceweather.com/images2019/...alloonplot.png
From: https://spaceweather.com/images2019/...alloonplot.png

A statement today from the United Nations:

• https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1050031

Protests around the world: Politicians must address ‘growing deficit of trust’, urges Guterres

Protests in cities across the world in recent days show that “people are hurting and want to be heard” by political leaders who must now address a “growing deficit of trust”, said the UN chief on Friday.

Speaking to correspondents at UN Headquarters in New York, António Guterres said that although “every situation is unique” there are common underlying factors which constitute “rising threats to the social contract” between citizens and the political class.

“People want a level playing field, including social, economic and financial systems that work for all”, together with respect for their human rights and a real say in decisions that affect them, Mr. Guterres added.

Current or recent demonstrations and protests have raged in the streets of Bolivia, Chile, Hong Kong, Ecuador, Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq and Lebanon, said the UN human rights office (OHCHR), briefing reporters in Geneva earlier in the day.

Major protests earlier in the year were also seen in Algeria, Honduras, Nicaragua, Malawi, Russia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Protests, rights violations

OHCHR Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the UN had received reports of police using force against protesters in Bolivia following disputed election results this week, including tear gas, and she called on all actors, “including political leaders and their followers, to exercise restraint in order to reduce tensions”.

There was a similar message for politicians in Baghdad, where at least 157 have been killed and nearly 5,500 injured across Iraq. There are “credible reports” of serious rights violations including killing of unarmed protesters, and excessive use of force, combined with Government repression of information.

In Chile, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet – twice elected president there – said on Thursday her office would send a team of three officers to the country to establish the facts behind allegations of rights abuses, following days of protests over inequality, the rising cost of living, and a declared state of emergency.

And in Lebanon, the “biggest spontaneous protests in over a decade” have continued, despite a package of anti-corruption reforms announced by the Prime Minister, said Ms. Shamdasani: “Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters from all walks of life and confessions, continue to unleash anger across the country, against what they perceive to be decades of corruption and government mismanagement.”

‘No excuse for violence’ - UN chief

Mr. Guterres said he was “deeply concerned that some protests have led violence and loss of life”. Governments have an obligation to uphold free expression and peaceful assembly, and to “safeguard civic space”.

But while security forces needed to use maximum restraint, it is also incumbent on protesters “to follow the examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other champions of non-violent change”, added the UN chief.

“There can be no excuse for violence – from any quarter. Above all I urge leaders everywhere to listen to the real problems of real people. Our world needs action and ambition, to build fair globalization, strengthen social cohesion and tackle the climate crisis.”

He concluded with a final note of advice to those in power, from Algeria, to Zimbabwe: “With solidarity and smart policies, leaders can show they ‘get it’ - and point the way to a more just world.”

Quote:

---

Posted by Bill Ryan

Blockading supply chains really makes a government pay attention. And this, in Holland, just brings the country to a total standstill. Will this ever happen in the US and Canada? Answers, please. :)

---

It won't happen in the US & Canada until there is a MUCH higher unemployment rate. It's at all-time lows now. Even idiots are getting hired. Which means the workers don't have time to do anything else but plop down on a couch with a beer and rest up for the next day of overwork.

I'd also like to point out that, historically, these mass protests are organized by intelligence agencies: color revolutions, Arab spring, coordinated college student protests from the 60s and onward. These 3rd world protests are understandable but also follow on the heels of the organized illegal immigration movements in Europe and the US.

Indonesia’s Activists Are Ready to Fight Together
Coalitions are forming in the face of threats to democracy and pluralism
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16...acy-pluralism/

https://i.imgur.com/nm03IFD.jpg

Since the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto in 1998, civil society has flourished under the country’s burgeoning democracy. Observers even began calling Indonesia the most democratic nation in Southeast Asia.

Yet at the same time, movements have been fragmented and divided into thematic silos that make it hard to get across a coherent message. Women’s rights activists tend to work solely on women’s issues, for example, and environmentalists on agrarian reform and climate change, with little crossover and cooperation. But September saw a change, with tens of thousands of students, activists, and other citizens across the archipelago coming together to protest draconian new civil laws that also weaken anti-corruption efforts. Now, a broad coalition has emerged—at exactly the time that Indonesian democracy has come most under threat in 20 years.

The biggest protests have been in the capital, Jakarta, and the cultural center of Yogyakarta, but significant demonstrations have taken place in almost all major cities. Two students died during clashes with security forces in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, and another three died in Jakarta following injuries sustained after tear gas and water cannons were used liberally despite the rallies’ largely peaceful nature.

While university students led the initial demonstration on Sept. 23, the following day saw a diverse array of people gather in the streets, with activists, workers, farmers, fishermen and women, and high school students united in concern over the direction in which their country was heading. This was unusual in Indonesia, where protests often see the same dedicated individuals turning out again and again.

So why now? How did these protests get so big so fast, and is the coalition-building movement they have fostered sustainable?

Indonesia in mid-2019 is facing a perfect storm of problems. Crucially, the last national election was just a few months ago. President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has not even been inaugurated for his second term yet—it begins on Oct. 20. Consequently, tensions between Jokowi supporters and those of his opponent Prabowo Subianto remain high, with “buzzers”—social media users who are allegedly paid to promote their candidate and cause doubt about the other—from both sides extremely active, especially on Twitter.

The first major issue the country faced after the April presidential and parliamentary elections was the massive forest and peatland fires that ravaged Sumatra and Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo) and blanketed a significant part of Southeast Asia under a deadly cloud of smoke. The country’s National Disaster Management Authority believes 90 percent of these fires were deliberately lit, mainly for clearing land to establish new oil palm plantations. This led to widespread disbelief and anger among citizens that authorities weren’t doing more to stop the fires and prosecute those responsible. With increased concern about climate change, personal health, and environmental degradation, young people in particular began demanding action on social media with the hashtag #IndonesiaDibakarBukanTerbakar (“Indonesia is not burning, it is being burnt”).

Next came protests in Papua following a police crackdown on Papuan university students in Surabaya, East Java, after students alleged that police called them “monkeys”—a racial slur. Papua, the easternmost part of Indonesia, became part of the nation in 1969 following a flawed referendum many allege was rigged. An independence insurgency has simmered ever since, with the Free Papua Movement at its forefront. Indonesia’s military has a powerful presence across Papua, and allegations of human rights abuses on the part of security forces and private mining interests are frequent but often difficult to document or prove. The government refuses to allow foreign journalists and diplomats into the region.

The racist incident unleashed a cascade of pent-up tensions, prompting widespread protests in Papua and an overdue reckoning with endemic racism across the archipelago. Demonstrations broke out in dozens of towns across the island’s two provinces. The government deployed tens of thousands of troops to restore order. Hundreds of people have been injured and more than 30 killed in the unrest, with the internet shut down across the region and thousands of non-Papuans evacuated from highland areas. But this time, young people across Indonesia began speaking up, demanding respect for human rights. This is a notable shift worth further examination—previously, even many progressive Indonesians were not aware of the situation in Papua or avoided taking a stance for fear of being labelled as supporting separatism in a country with a fiercely nationalist streak.

Amid all this, the Indonesian parliament ratified a bill that dramatically restricts the capability of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). One of the country’s few widely trusted and respected organizations, the KPK was originally set up in 2002 during the post-Suharto reform era to investigate and prosecute rampant corruption. It has been incredibly successful at prosecuting corruption cases: It has an almost 100 percent success rate in convictions and even sent a former speaker of parliament, Setya Novanto, to prison for 15 years for his role in stealing $170 million in public funds. But now, under the new law, the KPK will become a government agency rather than an independent body. The law was passed in a record five days despite calls for public debate.

The final straw was the proposed ratification of a new criminal code and changes to laws on labor, agrarian reform, mining, and the correctional system. For many Indonesians who took to the streets, this was the greatest concern. If ratified, it would forbid criticism of the president, introduce the death penalty for treason, restrict abortion and sharing information on family planning, outlaw all sexual relations outside marriage, further weaken anti-corruption efforts, and make it illegal for unmarried couples to live together—the culmination of a movement toward social conservatism and Islamism that has gained traction in recent years, threatening the country’s legally enshrined pluralism.

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

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Posted by Ernie Nemeth

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

---

There are several opt-out options: live on the street and beg, live in the forest and scrounge, suicide, etc. But obviously most, but not all, people prefer their current life to these alternatives. As to financial difficulty, a lot of that comes from appetite. Man wants wife. Wife wants kids. Dad wants truck. Bigger house with better schools... Instead of getting married, just program your computer to scream "I want" repeatedly and you'll have 50% of the experience with none of the cost :-)

The changes acoming are probably a diverse set of data points, which includes off world factors as in heating or cooling cycles of the sun.

Btw if the sun goes into a grand solar minumum for several years it will be much cooler. That means much less food grown for crop production. And possible mini ice ages.

Also economies come and go which we are in the process of seeing. The BIS and IMF, Fed and world bank time is about to run out.

There also seems to be large cycles of action that occur on this planet. Some cycles are quite repetitive and fairly short, options traders often use those.

Some are longer and when an 80 year cycle coincides with a 500 year cycle there seems to be larger changes than normal. War cycles are fairly well mapped out also.

Then there is these recent tech developments we have had for a few generations which I guess have assisted communications amongst people, but the downside
to it is we have raised a decadent society to new heights of immorality. AI is of course included here as a factor to mankind's lowered survival standards.

That mankind will kill and riot because their gas price is suddenly raised $1.00 more a gallon is not a good indicator for that group.

Anyways not to bum you all out, I would say it is better to know this stuff and prepare self and family and group and be ready to do something about it.

Getting your own scene in order, physical, mental and spiritual is a very good start. If you read up on successful methods of organizing and living self sufficiently that is a responsible view and a useful way to spend your time.

Socialism is NOT the way to go, this planet has pretty well bought that load of crap and that is another reason things are not going to fare well.

One definition of government I always liked is :" The aggregate irresponsibility of the people." That pretty well sums up that we get what we deserve.

Elections and Uprisings: Latin America Is Once Again Liberating Itself From The U.S.

FRN
By Paul Antonopoulos
On Oct 29, 2019

https://www.fort-russ.com/wp-content...19/10/1-15.png

Washington’s influence in Latin America, it’s so-called “backyard”, has reached a new crisis as neoliberal and reactionary governments that have been backed by the U.S. and President Donald Trump, are threatened either by popular mobilization and uprisings or by electoral defeats.

The so-called “pink tide” is a period in Latin America that peaked in 2011 as it saw Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela all ruled by left-wing governments. However, the tide began to turn back as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and others returned to the neoliberal order in recent years. However, the political pendulum, which has been moving to the right is seemingly going back to the left.

The chaotic events in the Chilean capital of Santiago, along with the brutal reaction of security forces that has seen 19 people dead, is state-backed violence not seen since the years of the Pinochet dictatorship. The mobilization of the Chilean armed forces is not a sign of strength, but evidence of a political panic that permeates all across Latin America. In the face of President Sebastián Piñera, the whole neoliberal model of the IMF that Washington has consistently exported to the region since the installation of Pinochet, is once against being challenged by the people of Latin America.

Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno was initially elected to follow the socialist program of his predecessor, Rafael Correa, the ardent defender of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. Moreno has not only offered Julian Assange, an Australian-born but Ecuadorean citizen whistle blower, to the U.S., but has offered land and water as well. This is in conjunction to his initial agreement to implement IMF demands that would completely destroy the Ecuadorean Middle Class and reverse efforts in poverty reduction. It is little wonder why Ecuador exploded weeks ago, forcing Moreno to backdown on implementing the IMF demands. He not only withdrew fuel price liberalization, but was forced, for a time, to abandon his country’s capital of Quito, a highly embarrassing move.

At the same time, Evo Morales’ new election victory in Bolivia , as well as Washington’s failure to overthrow the Venezuelan government, despite repeated coup attempts, provide some proof that the so-called “pink tide” could make a comeback – even without some of the radical features of its first incarnation.

Importantly, on Sunday’s Uruguayan elections, Leftist Daniel Martínez received 39.9% of the vote while neoliberal Luis Lacalle Pou of the National Party received 29%. Both will now compete in the second round of the elections on November 24. Although there are still many weeks until the next round, it does appear for now that Martínez will be the next leader of Uruguay.

We must not forget, of course, that Washington has already lost a valuable ally in Mexico, a country that in the past elected its presidents among executives of American companies, such as Coca Cola, as well as reactionaries who asserted their power with state violence. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not shied away from building stronger ties with both China and Russia, even as both are competing with Mexico’s powerful neighbour to the north, the U.S.

The political earthquake in Argentina has been epic as Peronist Alberto Fernandez won the election against neoliberal Mauricio Macri had a better yield of votes than previous research indicated, reaching 40.61% of the preference. However, that was not enough to take the election to the second round, as Fernández won 47.88% of the vote, enough to take the title of president- elect on Sunday. The removal of Macri from the presidency does not only signify his personal failure, but also the complete rejection of the IMF’s financial program, which in the country is seen as identical to U.S. dependence and has seen poverty sharply rise in Argentina.

In Brazil, the large rallies of protest over the devastating fires in the Amazon, as well as cutbacks in education, caused the first cracks in the absolute power Far Right-loving President Jair Bolsonaro. But even Brazil’s right-wing economic elite having expressed its frustration and anger over Washington in recent days, as Donald Trump initially backed tracked on his vow to support Brazil’s membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For Bolsonaro and the elite businessmen who supported him, the OECD was the center piece of their economic policy. Indeed, in order to gain the favor of the U.S. they had to make a series of concessions, such as the transfer of Alcantara’s strategic air and space base.

Finally, in Colombia, which is a hotbed for U.S. aggression across Latin America and has become a center for the CIA and USAID to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the government survives a state of constant terror. Paramilitary raids, which usually operate with the backing of the Colombian army and police, continually execute trade unionists, members of left-wing organizations and leaders of indigenous groups, who question President Iván Duque Márquez authority. There is little suggestion that the situation in Colombia will soon change.

Therefore, the recovery of center-left and left-wing governments in Latin America that challenge Washington’s empire is beginning to return to the continent. The whole region, however, has always been the most sensitive barometer of the global financial crisis – such as the one expected by almost all major economists and international organizations. As the crisis deepens, Washington’s allies in the region will be confronted with movements and uprisings that will challenge the neoliberal order of the superpower.

Maintaining this model will require more coups, martial law and blood on the streets. But this is unlikely to work as the people of Latin America have demonstrated that they are no longer tolerant of the neoliberal world order and continue to push for their sovereignty and choices to guide their own destinies. No matter what happens now, Latin America is beginning to change once again, and it is not in the direction of Washington’s vision and demands.


Source: InfoBRICS

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Posted by TomKat

Quote:

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Posted by Ernie Nemeth

My biggest beef with the current system has always been that there is no op-out option. I don't care about long life or success as the world interprets it. I care about my freedom and I care about not being exploited. In times past it was always possible to escape the world in one form or another. Now people want to escape by coming to the west. But what happens to those already here? Where do they go?

We are captured and we are controlled.

I make a lousy slave - no matter what you may call it. The working man's plight is worse than slavery because at least as a slave you have no disillusion about your status. The working man believes he is free...and does not realize that his capitulation forces my capitulation. But I will not capitulate! So I struggle against the whole of humanity...

---

There are several opt-out options: live on the street and beg, live in the forest and scrounge, suicide, etc. But obviously most, but not all, people prefer their current life to these alternatives. As to financial difficulty, a lot of that comes from appetite. Man wants wife. Wife wants kids. Dad wants truck. Bigger house with better schools... Instead of getting married, just program your computer to scream "I want" repeatedly and you'll have 50% of the experience with none of the cost :-)

---

I tried this when I went through my awakening. I wanted nothing more than to be homeless and was quite happy about it.

The problem is those who "love" you. They, with the best intentions, are going to do everything they can to "save" you. However, I look at it as I had more work to do, within the system, to help liberate the slaves. I really didn't have a choice. They were going to lock me up until I agreed, one way or the other. Such is life on planet Earth right now.

Today's protests indicate the scale of troubles in our paradise (by Slavoj Zizek)

By Slavoj Zizek RT
28 Oct, 2019 09:52
Updated 2 days ago
Get short URL

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.10/ar...3c3577d350.jpg
© Reuters / (L) BENOIT TESSIER; (M) KIM KYUNG-HOON ; (R) ALBERT GEA.

Anti-establishment protests are popping up all over the world, in countries with different political systems, and various levels of wealth. We may be entering an era of widespread civil unrest.

A couple of weeks ago, Chinese media started promoting the claim that “demonstrations in Europe and South America are the direct result of Western tolerance of Hong Kong unrest.” In a commentary published in Beijing News, former Chinese diplomat Wang Zhen wrote"the disastrous impact of a 'chaotic Hong Kong' has begun to influence the Western world," i.e., that demonstrators in Chile and Spain were taking their cues from Hong Kong.

An editorial in Global Times accused Hong Kong demonstrators of "exporting revolution to the world".

"The West is paying the price for supporting riots in Hong Kong, which has quickly kindled violence in other parts of the world and foreboded the political risks that the West can't manage," it warned.

"There are many problems in the West and all kinds of undercurrents of dissatisfaction. Many of them will eventually manifest in the way the Hong Kong protests did," the Global Times’ editor Hu Xijin said in a video commentary. "Catalonia is probably just the beginning," was the ominous conclusion.

Although the idea that demonstrations in Barcelona and Chile have taken cues from Hong Kong is far-fetched, it is all too easy to claim that these outbursts - Hong Kong, Catalonia, Chile, Ecuador, Lebanon, not to mention the Yellow Vests - cannot be reduced to a common denominator. In each of the cases, the protest against a particular law or measure (higher prices for gasoline in France, an extradition-to-China law in Hong Kong, an increase in public transport fares in Chile, long prison terms for pro-independence Catalan politicians in Barcelona, etc.) ignited a general discontent which was obviously already there, lurking and waiting for a contingent trigger to explode. Thus, even when the particular law or measure, which triggered the discontent, was repealed, protests persisted.

New Realities
Two weird facts cannot but strike the eye here. First, “Communist” China discreetly plays on the solidarity of those in power all over the world against a rebellious populace by warning Western leaders not to underestimate the dissatisfaction in their own countries. It assumes, beneath all ideological and geo-political tensions, they all share the same basic interest in holding onto power.

Secondly, the “trouble in paradise” aspect: protests are not only taking place in poor, and desolate, countries but in nations of (relative, at least) prosperity. States which were, until now, presented as success stories. At least financially.

Although these protests betray the growing inequalities which belie official success stories, they cannot be reduced to economic issues. The dissatisfaction they express indicates the growing (normative) expectations of how our societies should function, expectations which also concern factors not directly related to the economy, such as collective or individual freedoms, dignity, even meaningful life. Something that was, until recently, accepted as normal (a certain degree of poverty, full state sovereignty, etc.) is now perceived as a wrong to be combatted.

This is why, when evaluating these protests, we should consider also the new explosion of ecological movements and the feminist struggle. Meaning the real one, which involves thousands of ordinary women, not its sanitized American "MeToo" version.

Mexican Movement
Let’s just focus on one case. In Mexico, massive feminist mobilization involves “the conversation about life, dignified life and rage."

Allow me to quote Alejandra Santillana Ortiz, a member of Ruda Colectiva Feminista, “What does life mean for us? What are we referring to when we speak of putting life at the center? For us, life is not a declarative abstract," she believes.

"It necessarily involves talking about dignity and everything that makes it possible to enable dignity.”

So, we are not debating here abstract philosophical speculations on the meaning of life, but reflections rooted in concrete experiences which prove how the most ordinary daily life - things like taking a subway – are impregnated by dangers of brutal violence and humiliation.

“How can a person have peace of mind knowing that on the metro in Mexico City, an integral part of the commute in the city, thousands of women have been kidnapped in a matter of months and that this all took place in public and in broad daylight? And if you aren’t kidnapped, you must consider the very high probability that you will be assaulted, or that you will encounter violent aggression of some kind," Santillana Ortiz observes. "This is the reason why there are there separate women-only cars on trains, but even then there are men who get on these cars.”

Mexico may be an extreme case here, but it is just an extrapolation of tendencies found everywhere. We live in societies in which brutal male violence boils just beneath the surface, and one thing is clear: Political Correctness is not the way to beat it.

What also makes Mexico an obvious example is a secret solidarity between this persisting male brutality and the state apparatuses that we expect to protect us from it.

“There is a kind of formation of a violent society without punishment in which the state is part of that violence. A great many of the crimes that have been committed in recent years in Mexico have the state and its functionaries or the police directly involved," Santillana Ortiz continues.

"Or, through judges or those in the justice system, the state guarantees generalized impunity in this country.”

The terrifying vision of “generalized impunity” is the truth of the new wave of populism, and only vast popular mobilization is strong enough to confront this obscene complicity of state and civil society.

This is why the ongoing protests express a growing dissatisfaction that cannot be channeled into established modes of political representation.

However, we should avoid, at any cost, celebrating these protests for their distance towards established politics. Here, a difficult “Leninist” task lies ahead: how to organize the growing dissatisfaction in all its forms, including the ecological and feminist elements, into a large-scale coordinated movement? If we fail in this, what awaits us is a society with a permanent state of exception and civil unrest.


Related:

• Anti-independence protesters march in Barcelona

• Catalonia ‘separatists’ bad, HK ‘pro-democracy protesters’ good: Orwell’s 1984 becomes user’s manual for Western ‘free media’

• The Russians are meddling again, this time in Chile, warns US diplomat

delete it all.

"brutal male violence" is what I would address

What makes a male brutal? What does the equivalent in a female look like? Can a female be brutal?

It is quite obvious what has happened, to me at least. Men are the traditional bread-winner of the household. This has been stripped from them. As men's paychecks dwindle due to the waning buying power of our currencies and lagging pay raises, as the attack on the household escalated, women have had to enter the workforce to augment the paltry pay of their men. There is no more work today than a generation or two ago but the pay has halved and the workforce doubled (within reasonable estimates, give or take). The power elite have managed to fake us into working more for far less pay.

Add to this reality the two-tiered job categories and the rage hidden under the surface is easier to understand. In order to justify the money and the higher pay, society has instituted the university level education for everyone who can pay the entry fee. These new jobs add no wealth to society. Instead, due to the nature of these new jobs, the old guard has to support these citizens with the real wealth that they produce the only way wealth can be produced - by hard physical and dirty work. This is the real reason the pay of the first tier jobs has been attacked so radically, leaving wealth building jobs paying not half what they should. The other half of their pay pays for the unproductive second tier job workers.

Since the trend is to increase the second tier work force numbers, the first tier has to be attacked more vigorously to support these workers. You can't have a bunch of beaurocrats receiving minimum wage because of the status they have in the eyes of the public but their output suggests they should. It is far easier and far more desirable to create a system where the dirty folks, the folks who get their hands dirty building wealth, should get inadequate pay leaving the high paying jobs to those who wield the power.

This is all old news. We are now at the stage where the western world wants to institute and force this disproportionate system down the throats of the third world by the use of the idea of "free trade". In this manner they can augment our tired, broken, and underpaid wealth builders with foreign workers they can import through the purposely porous borders of the west. So instead of pay raises for the wealth builders they get attrition and replacement by other, hungrier workers willing to work for peanuts.

And the second tier class continues to expand, requiring more cuts to the workers and less wealth across the board.

This is an untenable situation that has reality knocking on the door of the human family. If the poor do not rise up and stop this nonsense, mankind will destroy themselves. For the wealthy will continue to draw the lions share of the wealth they had nothing to do with creating and those that did are tired of feeding them while they go hungry.

It is quickly becoming time for Canadians to get fired up and make some noise. All of north America should - why sit here and watch the rest of the world do the protesting when most likely a lot of the problems are rooted from here.

More protests in the Netherlands, this time it’s construction workers:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...primed-explode

In this article that appeared in the magazine of the American Council on Foreign Relations you can read how president Piñera of Chile announced a 20 percent increase in the minimum pension, a higher minimum wage, and price cuts for medicines for the poor. Why did he not announce that along with the price increase for the public transport that sparked the revolt? Why did the writers of the article not question the idiocy of the FMI advisers of the country? Same as the idiocy of the advisors of French President Macron that did not foresee the impact of a taxincrease on petrol in the rural areas that sparked the Yellow Vest revolt. The harm is done now and their foolishness learned the populations not only how they operate like nasty scammers but much worse.