MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

An open letter: why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness by Africa Brooke

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

If there’s one thing I’m NOT afraid of, it’s being ‘cancelled’.

​

If being cancelled means me living in integrity as a human being who thinks for themselves, CANCEL ME TODAY!

​

I repeat; I am not afraid.

​

What I’m truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to submit to an ideology without question, otherwise I’m to be shamed (or pressured to shame myself) and cast out of the community.

​

A world that tells me that because I inhabit a black body; I will forever be oppressed and at the mercy of some omnipresent monster called ‘whiteness’.

​

That because of the colour of my skin; I am a victim of an inherently racist system by default – and me rejecting the narrative of oppression means that I am in fact, in denial.

​

How empowering!

​

*You know, as someone that comes from Zimbabwe, a country where the general population is truly oppressed, it perplexes me that oppression is now being worn as an identity piece in most parts of the West, especially by those who claim to be ‘progressive’*

​

What I’m truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to consider the colour of my skin and my gender (and that of others) at every fucking turn, instead of living by Martin Luther King’s teachings and prioritising the content of mine and other people’s character.

​

I dread the prospect of a world where context, nuance, critical thinking, meritocracy, mathematics, science, and rationality are considered tools of ‘white supremacy’, and the rule is that you’re not allowed to question or argue this senseless statement – especially if you’re white.

​

A world that is conditioning you and I to believe that we will always be trapped in some weird hierarchy because of our race, our genitals, our physical abilities, our neurodiversity, our sexuality, and our politics.

​

And that if we do not agree on every single thing, it’s a sign that we are interacting with an enemy – or at the very least, someone to be wildly suspicious and judgmental of…instead of another complex human being worthy of being seen and heard.

​

I wish this world I’m speaking of was just a figment of my imagination, but we are already inside it. Our suitcases have been unpacked here for quite some time.

​

This absolutist, authoritarian world is being fiercely crafted under the guise of ‘social justice’, and I want no parts in this. I AM OUT.

​

As someone that, politically speaking, leans left on most things (although I’m neither left or right) – the current state of affairs and this push for obedience at all costs is NOT what I signed up for.

​

I never signed up to be hit over the head with disempowering narratives that tell me that I need to refer to myself as a ‘person of colour’ (how is this different being called a ‘coloured’ person?), a minority, a marginalised person, and BAME (UK version of BIPOC).

​

I cannot stand any of these terms.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

In Indonesia Visit, Blinken Vows US Will Expand Military Power in Region to Counter China – News From Antiwar.com

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

…including the extension until 2026 of a maritime cooperation pact that calls for more naval drills between the US and Indonesia.

Indonesia? Likely to counter those naval drills China has with Panama.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/12/14/in-indonesia-visit-blinken-vows-us-will-expand-military-power-in-region-to-counter-china/

by Dave DeCamp

During a visit to Indonesia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would expand military and economic partnerships in Asia to counter China.

In a speech titled “a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” Blinken outlined the Biden administration’s strategy to counter China, emphasizing strengthening cooperation with regional countries.

“Threats are evolving, our security approach has to evolve with them. To do that, we will lean on our greatest strength: our alliances and partnerships,” Blinken said. “We’ll adopt a strategy that more closely weaves together all our instruments of national power — diplomacy, military, intelligence — with those of our allies and partners.”

Even though an increased US military presence in the region makes a conflict with China more likely, Blinken claimed the strategy was meant to preserve peace and to defend the so-called “rules-based order,” which essentially means the US-led global order. He also claimed the US does not want countries to choose between Washington and Beijing but slammed China for what he called “aggressive actions.”

During the visit, Blinken signed three memorandums of understanding with Indonesia’s foreign minister, including the extension until 2026 of a maritime cooperation pact that calls for more naval drills between the US and Indonesia.

China denounced Blinken’s comments and said the US was intentionally stoking conflict in the region. “[The US] should be a promoter of dialogue and cooperation in the region instead of a saboteur that drives wedges between regional countries and undermines regional solidarity and cooperation,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Biden’s efforts to appease Israel on Iran have failed on all fronts – Responsible Statecraft

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

It’s not the nuclear deal that’s the problem for Tel Aviv, but the very idea that Washington and Tehran would reach any detente at all.

What Israel doesn’t want they won’t get.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/12/bidens-efforts-to-appease-israel-on-iran-have-failed-on-all-fronts/

Written by
Trita Parsi

The New York Times Friday published an important analysis of ongoing U.S.-Israeli tensions over Washington’s efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which had succeeded in curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. As helpful as it is in understanding where things stand between Washington and Tel Aviv, however, the article misses a more fundamental takeaway from recent developments: Biden’s immense efforts to appease Israel in hopes of tempering the latter’s opposition to the JCPOA have not only failed but were likely based on faulty assumptions and were thus a mistake from the outset. 

Diverging Israeli and American views on the JCPOA is nothing new. But senior officials on the Biden team thought President Obama could have handled the Israelis better by coordinating more closely with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and actually heeding some of his hawkish advice. This belief, however, is unfounded.

The fundamental question is this: Are Israel and America’s views on a negotiated settlement with Iran ultimately reconcilable or not? Was there— and is there now — a way to clinch a lasting deal with Iran on its nuclear program that also satisfies Israel? 

The answer lies in understanding that the details of the deal are not the real problem. It’s rather the very idea of Washington and Tehran reaching any agreement that not only prevents Iran from developing a bomb, but also reduces U.S.-Iran tensions and lifts sanctions that have prevented Iran from enhancing its regional power. 

Many of Washington’s partners in the Middle East worry more about a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement and its geopolitical implications — a likely tilt in the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor, especially given the widespread perception the United States is eager to extricate itself from the neighborhood — than Iran’s nuclear advances. “So long as the United States works to contain Iran’s political influence and undermine its economy,” I wrote in Foreign Affairs in February, “the balance of the region will artificially tilt in favor of these states — a tilt that their own power cannot sustain.” 

Indeed, Obama’s fruitless efforts to persuade Washington’s regional partners and their allies in Washington to go along with the JCPOA had demonstrated that no amount of deference or consultation could change their categorical opposition to a deal with Iran. To the great frustration of some former Obama officials who had gone through this experience, the Biden team thought they could square this circle.

In December 2020, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes publicly implored Biden not to repeat this mistake: “I plead with [Biden],” he said on the PodSaveAmerica podcast. “Do not think there is any ounce of good faith that will be coming your way from Bibi Netanyahu, from MBS, and from the Tom Cottons of this world. These people have no interest in a deal. They’ve never had an interest in a deal,” he declared. “How many times do we have to go through this play? This is in the hands of the Biden people to say: ‘We don’t need to listen to these people.’”

But Biden chose to listen to them. Instead of returning to the JCPOA in the first days and weeks of his administration, critical time and effort were spent trying to persuade Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to get onboard with diplomacy. 

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

What a 40-Year Inflationary Peak Is Doing to Your Wages | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/what-a-40-year-inflationary-peak-is-doing-to-your-wages/

by Ryan McMaken

According to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, price inflation in November rose to the highest level recorded in nearly forty years. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for November, year-over-year price inflation rose to 6.8 percent. It hasn’t been that high since June 1982, when the growth rate was at 7.2 percent.

November’s increase was up from October’s year-over-year increase of 6.2 percent. And it was well up from November 2020’s year-over-year increase of 1.13 percent.

infla

This surge in price inflation comes only a week after Fed chairman Jerome Powell backtracked on earlier comments dismissing the threat of price inflation and suggested previous attempts to define recent inflation as “transitory” weren’t quite accurate. Declaring last week that it was “a good time to retire the word,” Powell continued his pivot to addressing the danger of inflation “becoming entrenched.”

It’s unclear to what degree inflation might already be entrenched, but year-over-year growth in the CPI has been over 5 percent for the past six months—and on a clear upward trajectory.

At the same time, inflation is taking a bite out of workers’ purchasing power. November’s numbers on average hourly earnings suggest that inflation is erasing the gains made in workers’ earnings. During November 2021, average hourly earnings increased 4.8 percent year over year. But with inflation at 6.9 percent, earnings clearly aren’t keeping up:

earnings
Source: BLS: Table B-3. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls; Consumer Price Index.

Looking at this gap, we find that real earnings growth has been negative for the past eight months, coming in at –2.1 percent year-over-year growth for November 2021. November was the eighth month in a row for negative growth in earnings.

earn
Source: BLS: Table B-3. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls; Consumer Price Index.

Moreover, according to the Conference Board, U.S. salaries are growing at a rate of approximately 3 percent this year.

Combined with November’s unemployment rate of 4.2 percent, November’s inflation growth puts the US misery index at 10.82. That’s the highest level since June of this year, and similar to the misery index levels experienced when the unemployment rate surged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

misery

In addition to CPI inflation, asset-price inflation will likely continue to be troublesome for consumers as well. For example, according to the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, home price growth has surged in recent months, with year-over-year growth now coming in at 16.4 percent.

Don’t Expect Much from the Fed

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

You will NEVER be “fully vaccinated” – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

It’s time everyone realised they are chasing an intentionally impossible goal that will be pushed back over the horizon, forever.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/12/14/you-will-never-be-fully-vaccinated/

Kit Knightly

Yesterday, in a statement to Parliament on the UK’s planned “vaccine passport”, Health Secretary Sajid Javid admitted the NHS Pass would require three shots for you to be considered “fully vaccinated”.

“Once all adults have had a reasonable chance to get their booster jab, we intend to change this exemption to require a booster dose,”

While many of us predicted this would be the case, it is the first time any British politician has actually said it out loud, and in front of parliament too.

This incredibly cynical “evolving definition” of “fully vaccinated” is not a new phenomenon, and is not isolated to the UK either.

Israel changed their definition of “fully vaccinated” to include the booster months ago. New Zealand’s ministry of health is “considering” doing the same, as is Australia.

The EU isn’t far behind either, with proposals in place to make travel dependent on having a third dose.

The US hasn’t formally adopted a new definition yet, but you’d have to be blind not to see the signs. Just yesterday the LA Times headlined:

Should the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ be changed to include a booster shot?

An article on Kaiser Health News asks the same thing.

Tony Fauci is quoted in the Independent as saying it’s only a matter of time before the definition is updated:

“It’s going to be a matter of when, not if” getting a booster shot will be considered being “fully vaccinated,” Dr Fauci said.

Opinion pieces are already appearing asking “is it safe to hangout with the unboosted”?

(This headline was so unpopular, the Atlantic changed it only a couple of hours after it was published, and even the archived version appears to have been scrubbed).

All in all it seems pretty clear that, by the time 2022 rolls around, most of the Western world will require three shots in order to qualify as “fully vaccinated”.

It’s also clear that this won’t stop at three. Already, just last week, Pfizer were claiming they may need to “move up the timeline” for a fourth vaccine dose.

This change is being blamed on Omicron, with articles warning the “new variant” can “hit” the vaccinated. Fortune reports:

Omicron is making scientists redefine what it means to be ‘fully vaccinated’ against COVID

So, the third (and maybe fourth) doses are (allegedly) for Omicron…but that model can extend to perpetuity. In order to go to five, six or seven they’ll only need to “discover” more “new variants”.

It will just keep going and going.

But there is good news in all this, every time the powers-that-shouldn’t-be change the rules in the middle of the game, it’s a chance to knock people out of their media-induced hypnosis.

There are promising signs that millions of already-vaccinated will reject the booster. We can build on that.

So tell your single and double jabbed friends, try to open their eyes to the path they are starting down.

They may consider themselves “fully vaccinated”, but the government doesn’t, and never will.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

So What? – LewRockwell LewRockwell.com

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

Until a cure for the true ‘pandemic’ of Aggressive Ignorance and its ‘variants’: Contagious Apathy, Instant Gratification, and Technologically Induced Narcissism, the continued erosion of the remainder of Freedom and Liberty will continue, leaving “So What?” unanswered.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/12/brian-wilson/so-what/

By Brian Wilson

According to the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989:7

“Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both. There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section committed by or against a national of the United States.”

So what?

“Acts”, Laws, regulations, restrictions all come with penalties. But without enforcement mechanisms and the will/power/authority to use them, any “Act” is just an arrangement of words on paper to make politicians look righteous.

Consider: If the Government – and the Public – knew for undeniable, irrefutable Fact the dreaded ‘COVID virus’ was developed and released in Wu Han with the explicit intention of devastating the United States and the rest of the ‘Free World’, what precisely would any entity effectively *do* about it? Bomb Bejing? Impose Severe Financial Sanctions? Condemn China On The World Stage With A Sternly Worded State Dept. Press Release? Demand Reparations? Express “Outrage!”? The political status of America indicates the answer is None of the Above.

Consider: According to the Act “Whoever knowingly develops…or knowingly assists…shall be fined or imprisoned for life…”.

So what?

Does any sentient being capable of walking upright believe China’s Chairman Xi Jinping would willingly surrender to such an indictment? That China would pay a fine of any amount? Or be forced to admit its guilt on the World stage for violating the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, being responsible for the death of millions’? Only the recently lobotomized would check the “Yes” box.

In my last LRC scribbling, I posed two challenges:

Name the 2 things you come in contact with every day that are not taxed, regulated, embargoed, licensed, restricted, or prohibited by the Government;

Name the 2 issues impacting your life on a daily basis that have not originated from Government.

 Answers: None and All

With such an unambiguous universal indictment of Government, how are we to understand – and accept – its continued existence? What “Government Service” could not be more economically, more effectively performed by Private Citizens working in voluntary cooperation to their mutual benefit and, subsequently, the benefit of others? Aside from ‘National Defense”, what human endeavors would be hobbled by the elimination of Government taxation, confiscation, regulation, economic restrictions, personal as well as commercial prohibitions, and the agencies that enforce them?

The 535 ‘elected officials” – and thousands of unelected bureaucrats – in Washington, in addition to the several thousand who comprise the elected, appointed, and assumed State ‘leaders’ total a tiny fraction of the 330 million people whose lives they presume to run without authority or mutual agreement; the ‘social contract’ is a dirty joke. Which begs the question: Why? With such an overwhelming number of acts, laws, orders, regulations negatively impacting the lives of literally every person, why is Government even permitted to exist? Anyone can write a Declaration, a Constitution, an Act or Law, and with enough guns, command compliance. That’s not Freedom; that’s not Liberty. By any logic, reason, or objective analysis, Government is a criminal operation of intimidation, the immoral imposition of Force yielding Tyranny camouflaged by the fiction of Tradition, the designed ineptitude of ‘public education’ and the principled failure of the Press acting as the citizen’s “Watchdog at the Gate”, guarding against the overreach of Government intrusion. 

Consider: what was the last act of Government that advanced Freedom, protected Liberty; that ‘secured’ your unalienable rights? When did you give your ‘consent’ to be governed by sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, pedophiles, liars, thieves, and incompetents? Where is your signed copy of the “social contract”?

So what?

Until a cure for the true ‘pandemic’ of Aggressive Ignorance and its ‘variants’: Contagious Apathy, Instant Gratification, and Technologically Induced Narcissism, the continued erosion of the remainder of Freedom and Liberty will continue, leaving “So What?” unanswered.

Brian Wilson [send him mail], nationally ignored talk show host and occasional LRC un-indicted co-contributor having recently released his fourth book, is now busily scribbling an unlikely screenplay for #3. With his spare hour, he is focused on splitting the atom and pursuing the elusive Whirled Peas, all from his technically challenged studios on the formerly pristine shores of the Great Unnamed Lake, allegedly in the Southeast

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Led by Jeremy Corbyn, the British Left Opposes Vaccine Mandates as Anti-Worker and Repressive

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2021

Liberals against repression. You don’t see that every day.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/led-by-jeremy-corbyn-the-british?r=zre7q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Glenn Greenwald

The shorthand label “anti-vax” once had a clear and concise meaning: namely, those who reject the prevailing western scientific orthodoxy that vaccines are a safe and effective means of protecting humans against infectious diseases by training the immune system to combat a pathogen in advance. As vaccines become more prevalent against an increasingly wide range of diseases — measles, mumps, polio, chickenpox — a dissenting political and scientific movement has emerged which rejects the scientific premises of vaccines and attempts to persuade others not to vaccinate themselves or their children on the ground that they are ineffective, dangerous and/or motivated by corporate profit rather than legitimate concerns about public health.

But exactly as we have seen with so many other political labels — terrorist, racist, fascist, white nationalist, anti-Semite — this once-descriptive, precise and useful phrase has metamorphized far beyond its original meaning into something barely recognizable or cogent. That transformation has been deliberate, with a clear motive: to weaponize the term into a potent political insult designed to compel submission to decrees from institutions of authority and stigmatize dissenters, threatening them with reputation destruction. The rapid expansion of the term “anti-vax” into a coercive political weapon has been years in the making, but the COVID pandemic was the steroid it needed to blossom into one of the most reputation-crippling labels one can affix to a political target.

Just as is true of accusing people of being terrorists, white nationalists, fascists or anti-Semites not because one espouses views traditionally designated by those terms but as punishment for any sort of dissent, the destructive power of the COVID iteration of “anti-vax” resides precisely in its vagueness, its lack of precise contours, its emptiness and meaninglessness. A term that means nothing can, by definition and by design, encompass anyone and everyone depending solely on the needs of the moment.

The utter obliteration of any coherent definition is evidenced by the fact that one can now be labelled “anti-vax” even though one a) believes in the foundational science of vaccines, b) is themselves vaccinated for COVID and makes the decision that one’s children will be as well, and c) states publicly that they have chosen to be vaccinated.

How is it possible to pull off such a seemingly inane and internally contradictory attack: namely, malign people who have taken the vaccine and publicized their choice to do so as “anti-vax”? This is accomplished by twisting and distorting the term “anti-vax” away from its scientific meaning (“one who rejects the efficacy of vaccines”) into a term of political disobedience. Thus, the operational definition of the term has become: one who questions any of the decrees of public health authorities on any matters or who believes that adult citizens should retain the choice to decide for themselves whether to be vaccinated. In other words, the term “anti-vax” now means nothing other than: one who questions any policies adopted by state officials in the name of fighting COVID.

Unfortunately for the liberal-left which has constructed this manipulative and coercive framework, this now requires that the term “anti-vax” be applied to one of the international left’s most beloved political figures: former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. They must also now apply this term of shame to the most admired left-wing members of the British Parliament along with leading trade unions in the UK. That is because the British Left — not just Corbyn and leftist MPs but also leading labor unions — have united to emphatically oppose vaccine mandates and vaccines passports on the ground that 1) it is immoral and profoundly anti-worker to fire health care front-line workers and other workers for refusing a vaccine they have not been convinced is safe and effective, and 2) persuasion is a far more effective and ethical means of administering public health policy than coercion, dictate and punishment.

On Tuesday night, the UK Parliament approved a proposal by conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson to require proof of COVID vaccines — a COVID passport — to enter any venues with large crowds such as nightclubs and stadiums. The vote was 369 to 126. But the opposition was composed of a mix of populist right-wing Tories and the anti-establishment left-wing members of Labour and other leftist parties. Close to one hundred conservatives, and more than 20 leftist Labour members (along with Corbyn, now technically an “independent” after being expelled by his successor, Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer), voted against Johnson’s vaccine passport law.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Talking About Stoicism 152 Don’t be Miserable Before it is Time

Posted by M. C. on December 15, 2021

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Vatican court judge slams Gates & Soros for using Covid to impose ‘total control’ — RT World News

Posted by M. C. on December 15, 2021

https://www.rt.com/news/543138-gates-soros-covid-control-bishop/

A German cardinal has sparked controversy by claiming that the coronavirus pandemic has been used by the likes of George Soros and Bill Gates to create a global “surveillance state.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked “chaos” and “turmoil” stemming not only from the “lacking knowledge” about the transmissibility and danger of the virus itself, but from the will of the super-rich to “snatch an opportunity to bring people in line,” Gerhard Ludwig Mueller said in an interview with Austria’s St. Boniface Institute last week. He is a high-ranking judge at the Vatican court.

The world’s financial elites are now using the pandemic and the measures governments take to fight the spread of the virus to subject people to “total control” and establish a global “surveillance state,” he added. The St. Boniface published a video showing a small part of the interview and the cardinal has since confirmed to the German dpa news agency that the footage is genuine.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

How Bill Gates bankrolls the media outlet that claims it’s not backed by billionaires — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on December 15, 2021

Even worse is the fact the UK’s most right-on newspaper when it comes to climate change has survived thanks to the buying and selling of cars. The enormous losses of the Guardian Media Group have been sustained by flogging its stake in used-car website Auto Trader back in 2014, making “between £600 million and £700 million” on the deal. 

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/540780-guardian-funding-billionaires/

Rob Lyons

Rob Lyons

Rob Lyons is a UK journalist specialising in science, environmental and health issues. He is the author of ‘Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder’.

It likes to tap its readers for donations by claiming it’s funded by them, not the mega-wealthy. But, in reality, billionaires have forked out millions to support the UK’s premier right-on, left-of-centre newspaper.

If you want to know what the ‘woke’ set are thinking – on issues from climate change to trans rights – The Guardian’s the newspaper to read. While its print sales have been in decline, falling over the past decade from 248,775 a day to 105,134 in July this year, The Guardian is one of the most visited news websites in the world. 

The trouble is it keeps losing money. Four months ago, it was reported that the Guardian Media Group, which also owns The Observer, a closely related Sunday broadsheet, had lost over £10 million in the previous financial year, although that was still an improvement on the £17 million loss the year before. The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall in the same way as other newspapers, but does employ what computer types used to call ‘nagware’, constantly prompting users to sign up or to make donations. 

However, it has made one rather spurious claim on social media in support of this strategy: “We’re not funded by billionaires. Our readers’ backing gives us the independence to hold the powerful to account – and we’re just getting started.”

We’re not funded by billionaires. Our readers’ backing gives us the independence to hold the powerful to account – and we’re just getting started. #Guardian200— The Guardian (@guardian) May 4, 2021

Readers have certainly been generous. According to a Guardian story last year: “The Guardian now has more than one million subscribers and regular contributors, after support from online readers grew by 43% in a year. … When one-off contributions are factored in, more than 1.5 million people have supported the Guardian in the past year.” A million subscribers at £5.99 per month would bring in about £6 million. That’s handy, but doesn’t even cover the paper’s losses, never mind its overall running costs.

However, as climate commentator Ben Pile has noted, billionaires love The Guardian and are very happy to put their hand in their pocket to support its projects. For example, according to US outlet MintPress News, a thorough sift through donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows The Guardian has received a cool $12,951,391 in support. In fact, Gates and his now ex-wife have sprayed hundreds of millions of dollars across the media landscape to support the kind of journalism they approve of.

But the Gateses aren’t the only billionaires supporting The Guardian. A quick look at its website’s philanthropy section shows that Aussie billionaire Judith Neilson’s institute funds The Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project. The Open Society Foundations, created by Hungarian billionaire George Soros, have backed Guardian projects on America’s environmental inequalities and on transforming care using AI. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, set up by the late co-founder of Hewlett-Packard in the 1960s, supported its work on the state of the oceans. 

So the claim that The Guardian isn’t funded by billionaires seems rather dubious.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »