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The Approaching Storm – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on July 16, 2021

As I noted in my previous column, our societies have been torn apart. We’re living in two mutually hostile “realities,” a state which cannot continue indefinitely. The problem for us (i.e., the Unvaccinated) is, we probably constitute somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of the population, so we are massively outnumbered by New Normals. The problem for the New Normals is, we probably constitute somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of the population, which is way too many people to imprison or otherwise remove from society.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/15/the-approaching-storm/

CJ Hopkins

So, it looks like GloboCap isn’t going to be happy until they have fomented the widespread social unrest — or de facto global civil war — that they need as a pretext to lock in the new pathologized totalitarianism and remake whatever remains of society into a global pseudo-medicalized police state, or that appears to where we’re headed currently. We appear to be heading there at breakneck speed.

I don’t have a crystal ball or anything, but I’m expecting things to get rather ugly this Autumn, and probably even uglier in the foreseeable future.

Yes, friends, a storm is coming. It has been coming for the last 16 months. And GloboCap is steering right into it.

I, and many others like me, have been tracking its relentless advance like a self-appointed International Pathologized-Totalitarian Hurricane Center (you know, like the one in Miami, except all the meteorologists are “conspiracy theorists”). We have documented all the propaganda, the lies, the manipulation of statistics, the abrogation of constitutional rights, the New Normal goon squads, the corporate censorship, and all the rest of the roll-out of the new official ideology and the totalitarian measures deployed to enforce it.

Our efforts have not been in vain, but they have not been successful enough to change the course events are now taking … a course of events that has always been clear, a course that every totalitarian movement needs to take to get where it’s going. You can’t remake entire societies into quasi-totalitarian systems without civil unrest, chaos, rioting, war, or some other form of cataclysm.

Brainwashing the masses is all fine and good, but, at some point, you need to goad the people who are resisting your new totalitarian “reality” into getting unruly, so you can crack down on them, and transform them into official enemies, which appears to be what is happening currently.

GloboCap is dialing up the totalitarianism, and they are rubbing it in our faces.

Here in New Normal Germany, prominent health officials are openly barking out Goebbelsian slogans like “NO FREEDOM FOR THE UNVACCINATED!” and “THE UNVACCINATED ARE A DANGER TO SOCIETY!”

All over Europe, including the UK, where “Freedom Day” is fast approaching, pseudo-medical social-segregation systems are being implemented.

In France, Greece, and many other countries, people who refuse to be “vaccinated” are being stripped of their jobs and otherwise punished.

In the USA, where the Unvaccinated are also being segregated, New Normal goon squads are going door-to-door, bullying “vaccine hesitant” families into conforming to the new official ideology.

And so on … I’m tired of citing the facts. They do not make the slightest difference to the vast majority of New Normals, anyway. As I’ve noted in several previous columns, these people have surrendered their rationality, and have been subsumed into a totalitarian movement, which has become their perceptual and social “reality,” which their “sanity” now depends upon defending, so the facts mean absolutely nothing to them.

And you already know the facts.

Yes, you. Us. The others. The Unvaccinated. The “Covid deniers.” You don’t really think any hardcore New Normals have made it this far into this column, do you? They haven’t. If they stumbled into it on the Internet and accidentally started to read it, their brains switched off in the opening paragraph…literally, neurologically, switched off.

They recognized it as a threat to their “reality” and instantly erased it from their consciousness, or they reported it to the proper authorities, perhaps the FBI, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Facebook, or some other global corporation.

This is what it has come to, folks … people are reporting other people’s “thoughtcrimes” to global corporations and the law enforcement agencies of “democratic” governments in the hopes of destroying or damaging their lives, or, at the very least, getting them censored, or otherwise erased from public view.

As I noted in my previous column, our societies have been torn apart. We’re living in two mutually hostile “realities,” a state which cannot continue indefinitely. The problem for us (i.e., the Unvaccinated) is, we probably constitute somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of the population, so we are massively outnumbered by New Normals. The problem for the New Normals is, we probably constitute somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of the population, which is way too many people to imprison or otherwise remove from society.

Thus, their plan is to make our lives as miserable as possible, to segregate us, stigmatize us, demonize us, bully, and harrass us, and pressure us to conform at every turn.

They are not going to put us on the trains to the camps. GloboCap is not the Nazis. They need to maintain the simulation of democracy.

So, they need to transform us into an underclass of “anti-social conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxer disinformationists,” “white-supremacist election-result deniers,” “potentially violent domestic extremists,” and whatever other epithets they come up with, so that we can be painted as dangerously unhinged freaks and cast out of society in a way that makes it appear that we have cast out ourselves.

This process is already well underway, and it’s only going to get more intense, which will inevitably lead to social unrest. The hardcore “Unvaccinated” are not going to go quietly. Again, this isn’t Nazi Germany. There are too many of us who are already resisting. They can segregate us, ban us from travelling, blackout our protests, censor us, deplatform us, cancel our bank accounts, and otherwise harass us, but they cannot forcibly disappear us.

So, they are going to keep goading us until we lose it. We have demonstrated incredible discipline so far, but eventually, we’re going to run out patience. It’s going to get messy. People will get hurt.

Which, of course, is exactly what GloboCap wants. Nothing will make them happier than if we turn ourselves into the “violent extremists” they have been conjuring into existence for the last five years. They desperately need us to become those “extremists” before we “embolden” too many others with our “disinformation,” “vaccine hesitancy,” “election result denial,” and general distaste for the whole global-capitalist ideological program.

Unfortunately, they are probably going to get their wish.

What we need is an organized, global campaign of classic, non-violent civil disobedience, but they are not going to give us time to organize that. They are going to keep the pressure on, and crank up the pace, and the official propaganda, and the absurdity, and the confusion, and the ever-changing rules, and the mass hysteria, and the blatant lies, until we start flipping out in restaurants, and in pubs, and schools, and on public transportation, and segregated New Normal establishments start getting nocturnally vandalized, or worse, and other forms of “direct action” are taken.

At which point, game over, because they will have won. We will be the “extremists” they warned themselves about, and they’ll be able to do whatever they want with us, and our former (now New Normal) friends will applaud, or just look away in silence.

Or…I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe some New Normals are still reading this essay, and can still, at this late stage, regain their senses. Maybe we can still avoid the storm, and the full implementation of “New Normal Reality.” I know, I’m probably a hopeless idealist, but let me tell you a quick anecdote before I let you go.

I’ve been kind of nudging, or politely badgering, Glenn Greenwald, who I respect, and have always respected, to grow a pair and at least speak out against the totalitarian features of the New Normal movement. Glenn is totally on board with the official Covid narrative, and has made it clear that he has no interest in using his investigative-journalism skills to investigate that official narrative.

Despite that, I have continued to nudge him, and politely prod him, and otherwise urge him, to maybe post a few critical words, or raise a few investigative-journalist questions, about the most flagrant official propaganda campaign in the history of official propaganda campaigns and the blatantly totalitarian actions of governments all over the world.

For example, I posted this on Twitter recently.

15 months into the New Normal, as government officials openly bark out spittle-flecked, Goebbelsian slogans like “THERE IS NO FREEDOM FOR THE UNVACCINATED!” and “THE UNVACCINATED ARE A DANGER TO SOCIETY!”, the silence from certain quarters is deafening. pic.twitter.com/bNuZ5np1Ny

— Consent Factory (@consent_factory) July 12, 2021

Shortly thereafter — and I’m sure this was just a coincidence, because Glenn doesn’t follow the Consent Factory — he tweeted this bit of New Normal blasphemy:

The UK is one of the most vaccinated countries on earth. 70% have at least one dose. More than half have both. The CDC says vaccinated people need not wear masks.

Why do experts who keep insisting the vaccine works demand people act as if it doesn’t? Why ignore CDC advice? https://t.co/aBjeXpWZjh

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 12, 2021

So, apparently, it is, in fact, still possible for people who believe the official Covid narrative as if it were the Word of God to speak out against some aspect of it, or just politely question the logic of it, or otherwise stop behaving like a bunch of mindlessly obedient “Good Germans” as a new iteration of totalitarianism is rolled out right in front of their eyes.

Yes, I know. I’m clutching at straws, but I have this crazy faith in people. On top of which, I’m getting old, so I am not looking forward to the street-fighting part of this as much as I would have 30 or 40 years ago.

Oh, and, I almost forgot, to all my friends in the New Normal UK … have a lovely Freedom Day!

CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

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“No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, No Unvaxxed” – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on May 22, 2021

When they said ‘there were no plans for ‘discriminatory’ Covid vaccine passports’, they were quietly funding at least eight different vaccine passport schemes since last year.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-unvaxxed/

Dustin Broadbery

The government is pressing ahead with its Vaccine Passport and plans for a two-tier society are afoot. The effrontery of those leading the charge beggar’s belief.

When they said ‘there were no plans for ‘discriminatory’ Covid vaccine passports’, they were quietly funding at least eight different vaccine passport schemes since last year.

And that’s just the half of it. We are midway through a Europe-wide feasibility study for the development of a common vaccine passport, launched by the European Commission in 2018.

They would have you believe – they were caught with their trousers down, their policies are proportionate to the emergency as it unfolds, and at all times they operate according to a system of informed consent.

But hang on a minute. Since the onset of SARS-CoV-2, they have played the most astonishing game of deception and manipulation. Cooking the books, fiddling the tills and distorted their official numbers.

They have deliberately plunged society into two camps – skeptics and adherents, compliant and non-conformists.

Last year established the mood for pettifogging anyone questioning the narrative, while those refusing to comply were branded narcissists and psychopaths or denounced as ‘Covid deniers’ – the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier.

This government has polarised the nation on a scale never before attempted, legitimising a particular brand of prejudice and enmity not seen in Europe since the days of the Third Reich. And once the NHS App becomes your ticket to freedom on Monday, they will finally have means to weed out and punish dissidence while rewarding blind faith in authority. No matter how injurious their compliance is to society at large, the silent majority have lost their moral compass.

But it must be understood – this principle of divide and rule is as old as the hills. It was not so long ago that signs hung in the windows of establishments in Britain that read: ‘No dogs, No Irish, No blacks’. The difference today is that it won’t be the colour of your skin, your class, gender or sexual orientation that will condemn you, it will be something far more virulent – your ideology.

That this crucial point has been entirely missed by the chattering classes is astonishing. And despite the most flagrant attempts to marginalise large segments of society, identitarians, the woke brigade and other erstwhile defenders of the most marginalised remain largely unphased. Unless it is to flap their arms in the air over higher rates of vaccine hesitancy amongst ethnic minorities. But the rest of us can go to hell.

Who cares about anyone not from a protected social group, right?

In this bizarre parochial moral imperative, discrimination is only frowned upon if you’re discriminating against someone’s authorised and rubber-stamped marks of distinction, whereas discrimination, of and by itself, is entirely permissible.

These crowd-pleasers would defend their moral high ground by telling you “the unvaccinated are selfishly putting others’ lives at risk”, or that “mask refuseniks are superspreaders”. But hold on a minute. All of this is pure conjecture which, like everything else under the post-COVID sun, has been founded on speculative science and policies pulled straight from the magician’s hat.

Other than taking the government on its word, where is the actual evidence of asymptomatic transmission? Where is the evidence of mask efficacy?

In fact, can someone point me to a single risk assessment for any of these high-risk interventions? But to deny someone entry into an establishment, to prevent them from travelling, shopping, or worse, stepping foot outside of their own bolthole is no moot point. These are very real and tangible forms of discrimination, for no other reason than you personally disagree with their choices.

These people have clearly made peace with the fact that membership to society is now the exception rather than the rule. They labour under some neotribal sense of entitlement – if you’re not with us, you’re against us. Like their neolithic ancestors they take refuge in the herd from an unseen predator threatening their hand to mouth existences. Positioning themselves in the upper echelons of this looming two-tier system, with others equally desperate to get their lives back and ready to submit to whatever ephemeral demands are made of them in return for one coveted free pass to re-enter polite society.

While the rest of us – who will not be spoken for, bribed or coerced – will risk excommunication from the social-balm in defence of our principles.

This loose association of the poorest and most marginalised, conscientious objectors, lockdown skeptics, and anyone with a shred of faith in their god-given sovereignty of being or bodily autonomy will wage a personal crusade of civil disobedience against the tyranny de jour, as Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King did before them. For them, braver men have endured far worse for much less.

But what the first group fails to realise is that they are doing the unofficial bidding of another group – the well-healed members of our political establishment to whom the rules do not apply. Who are protected by more exemptions than the rest of us are governed by regulations. And who, at the onset of the pandemic, were not caught with their pants down, as the general population was.

As this group spoke of herd immunity, they quietly struck a £119 million COVID advertising and propaganda deal with one of the world’s biggest marketing companies. Going on to become the UK’s biggest advertiser in 2020.

Just a day before the first lockdown, their Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) began work on the most criminal propaganda campaign in British history:

Extract from UK gov’t report “Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures”, read the whole thing here.

See the rest here

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“Significant Proportion Of Brits” Say They Have Enjoyed Lockdown, New Poll Finds | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2021

However, pro-lockdown sentiment is also undeniably driven by the fact that the government has covered 80% of people’s wages via a furlough scheme that has given many endless hours of free leisure time.

Aldous Huxley’s quote on how people would be trained to love their servitude seems particularly apt.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude,” wrote Huxley.

“The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be a system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitudes,” he also warned.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/significant-proportion-brits-say-they-have-enjoyed-lockdown-new-poll-finds

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler Durden

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A new poll by the Sunday Times finds that a “significant proportion of Brits” say they have enjoyed lockdown, with younger people more likely to say they liked COVID-19 restrictions.

They survey gave respondents a range of answers to measure their like or dislike for lockdown. Over 16 per cent in total said they liked or strongly liked lockdown.

The figures are even more alarming when it comes to young people. 20 per cent of 18-24 year olds said they liked or strongly liked the lockdown, while 22 per cent of 25-34 year olds said the same.

A small but significant proportion of the population have enjoyed lockdown, according to a survey. Over 16% said on balance they’ve liked lockdown pic.twitter.com/ZKruzPVl62 — The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) April 11, 2021

An online poll even found that a majority of respondents say they enjoyed lockdown.

pic.twitter.com/Egap4a3xnU — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 11, 2021

A separate opinion poll conducted last month by YouGov found that over half of Brits said they would miss “many” or “some” aspects of the lockdown.

Public opinion surveys also routinely find vehement support for the lockdown in general, with large numbers believing that it hasn’t been strict enough.

The figures are obviously deeply concerning in that they illustrate how compliant people have become in the face of the most authoritarian restrictions on freedom since World War 2.

However, pro-lockdown sentiment is also undeniably driven by the fact that the government has covered 80% of people’s wages via a furlough scheme that has given many endless hours of free leisure time.

Aldous Huxley’s quote on how people would be trained to love their servitude seems particularly apt.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude,” wrote Huxley.

“The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be a system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitudes,” he also warned.

The UK is only destined to exit lockdown on June 21, when all restrictions are supposed to be lifted, although given that the government has shifted the goalposts so many times, there is widespread skepticism about whether or not this target will be met.

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Majority Of Brits Say They Will “Miss” Some Or Many Aspects Of Lockdown | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on March 5, 2021

Previous polls have routinely showed majority or plurality support for lockdown, with little concern for what innumerable observers have called the biggest imposition on civil liberties in British history.

One aspect that many will “miss” about lockdown is undoubtedly getting paid for doing nothing.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/majority-brits-say-they-will-miss-some-or-many-aspects-lockdown

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler DurdenFriday, Mar 05, 2021 – 3:30

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A new opinion poll in the UK finds that over half of Brits say they will miss either “some” or “many” aspects of lockdown despite the country now having been under some form of restrictions for nearly a year.

Yes, really.

The YouGov survey asked participants, “Do you think you will or will not miss any aspects of lockdown when it is over?”

9 per cent of respondents said they would miss “many” aspects of lockdown while 46 per cent said they would miss “some” aspects of lockdown – a combined total of 55 per cent.

Over half of Britons (55%) say they will miss aspects of lockdown when it is over https://t.co/bRZRzvANHf pic.twitter.com/cD1xP39MQs — YouGov (@YouGov) March 2, 2021

Just 39 per cent of respondents said they won’t miss any aspects of lockdown.

Previous polls have routinely showed majority or plurality support for lockdown, with little concern for what innumerable observers have called the biggest imposition on civil liberties in British history.

One aspect that many will “miss” about lockdown is undoubtedly getting paid for doing nothing.

Under the government’s furlough scheme, those who can’t work from home have had 80 per cent of their wages covered by the state for almost a year, with that program to be extended until September despite the government saying all restrictions will be lifted by the end of June.

The prospect of having to work for their money will become a reality for some once again soon, although not for all given that the UK’s economy contracted the most in 300 years as a result of the lockdown, leading to 726,000 job losses.

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Twitter’s discrediting of leaked docs that show UK’s covert activities against Russia is a shocking case of media manipulation — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on February 25, 2021

Therefore, what might be described as ‘public interest journalism’, which involves the leaking of confidential documents, is only valid if it compliments one side of the argument as opposed to the other. Deception, censorship and state-led misinformation campaigns are never to be queried if the UK or the US or behind them, while the distinction between ‘criminal’ and ‘whistleblower’ is upheld completely according to preference.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/516459-twitter-discrediting-leaked-docs/

Tom Fowdy

Tom Fowdy

is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

On some platforms, whistleblowing is only considered an acceptable form of journalism when it exposes enemies of the West. Twitter’s labelling of a Grayzone story that reflected badly on Britain shows the double standards at play.

Earlier this week, journalist Max Blumenthal published a series of leaked documents from the British Foreign Office on his news website the Grayzone, revealing that the BBC and the Reuters Foundation had participated in a covert programme targeting Russia and its neighbours, seeking to push political change within the country. 

Former Labour MP Chris Williamson commented on the findings, noting, “These revelations show that when MPs were railing about Russia, British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy precisely the same tactics that politicians and media commentators were accusing Russia of using.”

For those familiar with the BBC and its history as an extension for British foreign policy goals, the leaks are not a surprise. However, that does not mean the news was met with a warm welcome. 

Shunned by the mainstream media, the Grayzone report was subsequently targeted by Twitter, with each link being tagged with a warning stating: “These materials may have been obtained through hacking.” 

RT

The warning led to an information page stating: “The use of hacks and hacking to exfiltrate information from private computer systems can be used to manipulate the public conversation.”

Although the warning was not carried on some subsequent retweets, at the time of publication it was still present on Grayzone’s original tweet.

Twitter’s accusation is a classic case of it jumping to conclusions, as there is nothing at all to suggest the leaks were a product of hacking. However, this attitude is a direct manifestation of the enormous double standards at play in response to this kind of journalism. 

Whistleblowing and leaks which reveal secrets from enemy states constitute a form of journalism and reporting which deserves to be praised. But to many governments in the West, especially those in the United States and the United Kingdom, leaking is considered out of bounds when they are on the receiving end. It is as if the standards they preach to other countries – in particular, transparency and freedom of information – suddenly don’t count.

In exploring this phenomenon, the cases of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are good places to start. If these men were Chinese, Russian or Iranian, they would be widely celebrated and lauded by the mainstream media as heroes and martyrs who have been subjected to state oppression for simply daring to reveal the truth, as was the case with doctor Li Wenliang and ‘citizen journalist’ Zhang Zhan in Wuhan. 

Yet because Assange and Snowden are Western, and in turn directly challenged the US-led security establishment with their leaks on surveillance and various atrocities, they are treated differently, as criminals and fugitives. The mainstream media minimize the coverage accordingly, and make sure their cause or work cannot gain public sympathy. State action against them is not given scrutiny.

In the simplest terms, we see a scenario where whistleblowing against the US and its allies is bad, but whistleblowing against designated enemies is good. And so, Twitter is following suit with this logic in its decision to now target articles by the Grayzone as apparent ‘hacking’. 

It perfectly illustrates this very binary mode of thought that those who leak documents against the British government are not fuelled by a desire to advocate truth or transparency, but malicious motivations to spread misinformation and influence public opinion. 

Is Twitter saying that it is best the public don’t know how the BBC is essentially being weaponized as a front for British foreign policy? That the notion of public interest essentially does not matter if a given revelation has political ramifications that might be considered undesirable for the West? Or that other journalism is not designed to influence views on a particular subject? So, some secrets are better kept? 

Twitter itself is becoming an increasingly unreliable platform on this front. Donald Trump’s presidency has changed the game, from beginning to end. The enormous controversy of the so-called ‘Russiagate scandal’ and then the Capitol riot in January proved to be two enormous turning points which have tipped the platform towards growing regulation and outright censorship. 

This would be understandable, if it were not so one-sided. The site’s proliferation of ‘state affiliated media’ labels – which unfairly target certain countries, and not others – as well as its warning labels, are all directly consolidating a status quo advocated by Western powers that only they possess a ‘valid’ notion of truth. In turn, everyone who seeks to criticize their narratives is simply promoting falsehoods and is fuelled by bad intent. 

Therefore, what might be described as ‘public interest journalism’, which involves the leaking of confidential documents, is only valid if it compliments one side of the argument as opposed to the other. Deception, censorship and state-led misinformation campaigns are never to be queried if the UK or the US or behind them, while the distinction between ‘criminal’ and ‘whistleblower’ is upheld completely according to preference. 

These documents were a massive discovery. If China had been caught doing the same thing it would be front-page news, but instead we have Twitter trying to bury the truth. The Grayzone findings deserve to be shared as widely as possible.

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Let’s Be Absolutely Clear What’s At Stake In The Assange Case – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on January 4, 2021

Are we going to allow the most powerful government on the planet to set a legal precedent which allows it to obstruct truth around the entire world? Or are we going to oppose this tooth and claw?

Are we going to allow power to remain corrupt and unaccountable? Or are we going to insist on our right to know what’s going on?

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/01/02/lets-be-absolutely-clear-whats-at-stake-in-the-assange-case/

author: Caitlin Johnstone

When it comes to human behavior, things only change for the better when there is a lucid and unobstructed perception of what’s going on.

Self-destructive behavior patterns only go away when there’s a lucid and unobstructed perception of the previously unconscious psychological dynamics which were driving them.

Victims of abuse only end their abusive relationships when they obtain a lucid and unobstructed perception of the abusive dynamics as they truly are.

Toxic social dynamics like racism, sexism and homophobia only begin moving toward health when society collectively begins gaining a lucid and unobstructed understanding of how disordered and damaging those dynamics really are.

It only becomes unacceptable to have a totalitarian monarch who tortures and executes people without trial, murders anyone who speaks ill of him, and rules by divine right when society begins collectively gaining a lucid and unobstructed awareness of how ridiculous, unjust and unacceptable such models of government are.

Whether you’re talking about individuals or humanity in its entirety, the story of human progress has always been a story of moving from blindness to seeing. From unawareness to awareness. From the lights in the room being off to the lights being switched on.

There is no progress without clear seeing. We cannot move in the direction of health and harmony if we cannot lucidly perceive the ways in which we are still sick and dysfunctional. We can’t move forward if we’re unaware of the specific ways in which we are stuck in place.

Most of us, on some level, want things in our world to change for the better. Some few others want things to stay the same, because the status quo happens to be treating them quite well thank you very much. The struggle between the deep desire of the many for healthy change and the corrupt desire of the few to maintain the status quo is the struggle between turning the lights on and keeping them off. Between wanting to become aware of the various ways we are stuck so that we can move forward, and wanting the light of awareness as far away from our stuck points as possible.

The struggle for our species, which is really the struggle for our very survival, is therefore between the many who desire truth and the few who desire confusion. We’ve got numbers and truth on our side, but they have power, wealth, and a remarkable knack for psychological manipulation.

We see this struggle playing out in many ways in our world right now. Between propaganda and those trying to learn and share the truth. Between the push for internet censorship and the fight against it. Between government secrecy and freedom of information. Between the campaign to imprison WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, and the campaign to free him.

On Monday January 4th a UK judge will be ruling on whether or not to allow the process of Assange’s extradition to the United States to move forward. It’s important for opponents of this extradition to be aware that the fight will not end at this time; there’s still a gruelling appeals process to go through which could take 18 to 24 months or longer in the likely event that the incredibly biased judge overseeing the case rules against Assange.

So as we prepare for the next stage in this fight, it’s important for us to be perfectly clear what’s at stake here.

It is absolutely true that this case will have far-reaching implications for press freedoms around the world. The imperial narrative managers have been toiling for years to frame the persecution of Julian Assange as something other than what it is, but in reality this case is about whether the most powerful government in the world is allowed to extradite journalists anywhere on earth who expose its malfeasance. Whether or not the United States should be allowed to imprison journalists for exposing its war crimes.

If the US succeeds in normalizing the legality of extraditing any journalist anywhere in the world who exposes its wrongdoing, there will be a worldwide cooling effect on national security journalism which will greatly impede humanity’s ability to form a lucid and unobstructed understanding of what’s going on in the world. The largest power structure on earth will have succeeded in not just turning the lights off in the room, but in uninstalling the light switch.

There is no legal case in the world right now where the struggle for lucid and unobstructed seeing has so much on the line. For this reason, this isn’t just about journalism: we really are collectively deciding the fate of our species with our response to the prospect of Assange’s extradition.

Are we going to allow the most powerful government on the planet to set a legal precedent which allows it to obstruct truth around the entire world? Or are we going to oppose this tooth and claw?

Are we going to allow power to remain corrupt and unaccountable? Or are we going to insist on our right to know what’s going on?

Are we going to let them keep the lights off? Or are we going to turn them on?

Are we going to let the bastards lock us into an omnicidal, ecocidal status quo while they drive us at a rapidly accelerating pace toward extinction and dystopia? Or are we going to move toward the kind of lucid and unobstructed perception of our situation which will allow us to progress into a healthy world?

These are the questions that we are in the process of answering together. I hope we can get everyone to very seriously consider what they want their own answer to be.

______________________

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels or my old bookWoke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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WATCH: Is the UK heading toward medical martial law? – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on October 5, 2020

He specifically mentions “managing the narrative”, which is no surprise considering his role as a former Army officer, a current reserves officer, and his known affiliation with the 77th Brigade. For those who don’t know: The 77th is the British army’s team of “facebook warriors”. An information warfare unit whose job is to “counter misinformation”, “manage the narrative” and generally corral and control the internet conversation.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/02/watch-is-the-uk-heading-toward-medical-martial-law/

WATCH: Is the UK heading toward medical martial law? We are hearing frequent calls for the UK’s coronavirus “pandemic” response to become a military operation

On the 28th September Tobias Ellwood, Tory MP for Bournemouth East, stood up in Parliament and suggested that the British Army and the Ministry of Defense be in charge of distributing and administering “millions of doses” of the Sars-Cov-2 vaccines, as well as issuing “vaccination certificates” which will “allow travel”.

And that’s just the highlights, there’s a lot more vaguely sinister language, camouflaged in his rather drab monotone voice. (You can watch the whole speech here, go to 20:24).

This is a concerning development, one very much worth keeping an eye on. The BBC don’t think so, of course, because the call for what would easily amount to medical martial law didn’t even make it into their “Today in Parliament” programme.

This is not new behaviour for Ellwood. He has always been a consistent voice for use of the military in response to the “pandemic”. On the 18th of September he requested the Prime Minister make “greater use of our fine armed forces”.

He specifically mentions “managing the narrative”, which is no surprise considering his role as a former Army officer, a current reserves officer, and his known affiliation with the 77th Brigade. For those who don’t know: The 77th is the British army’s team of “facebook warriors”. An information warfare unit whose job is to “counter misinformation”, “manage the narrative” and generally corral and control the internet conversation.

That’s not a “conspiracy theory”, their existence is readily acknowledged by both the government and the mainstream media. Considering they’re currently employed “countering covid misinformation“, they will likely be in the comments of this post (Hi guys!).

Other countries around the world have already moved on to this “war footing”, and the UK is likely not far behind.

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Crossing the Rubicon: The UK Slips into a Repressive State – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2020

I’m forced now to doubt that we, the British people value our freedom as much as we profess to. We take to the streets in droves to embrace new forms of repression, such as an anarchistic movement that seeks to rewrite history and dismantle our police forces, or an anti-human death cult that seeks to suppress all human activity by frightening us all into believing we are destroying the Earth by existing.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/31/crossing-the-rubicon-the-uk-slips-into-a-repressive-state/

Mark Chapman

Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon River in 49 BC in defiance of Roman law placed him and his army on a direct collision course with Rome, leading to the Civil War which established him as Roman dictator. It is a well-established metaphor for a point at which there is no going back and at which things will never be the same.

I predicted a few weeks ago that the UK Government would in the near future try to force everyone to wear facemasks in public. Leave aside the plethora of information that makes it clear face masks are of practically zero benefit in everyday circumstances, and may in fact be dangerous, the forced wearing of facemasks is a transgression so fundamental and of such significance that it is difficult to adequately express.

It implicitly hands your body over to state control, and renders one of your most basic existential freedoms subject to state interference. For the first time, the right to exercise a choice of whether you should inhibit your respiratory faculties and hide your face in public is taken out of your hands. If you doubt the significance of this, try to remember the public outcry that followed a debate regarding banning the wearing of burkhas and hijabs in the face of Islamic terrorism, and the connotations this had for civil liberties at the time.

Facemask wearing is the visible hallmark of Asian states perceived in the West as repressive and authoritarian. It is a badge of serfdom, akin to the yellow star that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. There is no greater invasion of your person possible short of tattooing you with a number.

This astonishing about-turn in policy has not happened overnight or without preparation. It has been preceded by a cleverly-orchestrated media campaign which seeks to bizarrely turn established professional and scientific research on its head, making virologists, infection-control bodies and academics who have published papers for the medical profession into liars and charlatans.

This campaign has included editorials and blogs which talk in disapproving and accusatory tones of “mask-shirkers” and “mask-deniers” allegedly “refusing” to wear face masks. Leave aside the obvious fact that refusal cannot take place without a demand: in other words someone has to give you an instruction to which you reply, “No, thanks.”

Absent such a demand, you are not refusing anything, merely making a choice. And until now there has been no such demand. But those making this choice are now psychopaths and enemies of humanity without a shred of integrity, respect or regard for their fellow human beings. When I returned from Asia early this year the advice was clear: face masks do not protect you from infection and it is not advised that you wear them.

What is more, face mask wearing was actively discouraged because of limited supplies required for hospital environments, where infection control is king and every precaution makes sense. Above all the only situation in which it is appropriate to wear a facemask in public is if you are unwell and have a cough, in which case why not stay at home?

But this piece of simple logic has been covered by the mask-advocates whose logic runs like this: “You may have coronavirus without knowing it, and may infect others with your breath even at unlimited distances so you need to wear a mask.” This covers all bases despite the evidence for this being at best negligible and at worst manipulated and dishonest.

It is part of the greater logic that renders every societal value worthless unless it contributes to the impossible task of making sure that not one single individual anywhere, ever, is infected with Covid-19. None of this means I think we should do nothing about this pandemic. But there is now a growing awareness that the cure proposed is not indefinitely sustainable and may in fact be worse than the disease.

The virtue-signalling of face-mask advocates is easily refuted. Facemasks have been available for decades for use in industry and ideas generally considered good are taken up by the public. Nobody needed the government to tell them to go out and buy a car or a television set.

So if you’re so convinced face masks are a good idea why has it taken the State to tell you before you came to this Eureka moment?

And for how many years or decades have you been going around disrespectfully infecting your fellow human beings by going out without a mask when you had a cold or the flu?

However, apparently all the established research is now wrong and face mask wearing is essential. It is a vast game of “Simon Says,” in which we only do anything when Simon says. And it won’t stop there. Expect newspapers like the Guardian to run sanctimonious editorials demanding that face-mask wearing be extended to pubs and restaurants, and eventually to every departure from your home.

Following this such a move will become policy: indeed, the British public will do what they are already doing, gleefully embracing this perverse doctrine, boasting of buying colourful face masks for their children, and showering anyone who has a different point of view with disapproval.

I’m forced now to doubt that we, the British people value our freedom as much as we profess to. We take to the streets in droves to embrace new forms of repression, such as an anarchistic movement that seeks to rewrite history and dismantle our police forces, or an anti-human death cult that seeks to suppress all human activity by frightening us all into believing we are destroying the Earth by existing.

But in the face of mounting attacks on our liberty and our freedom, we are silent. We have had our liberty taken away from us. Our movements are monitored. Our discussions are censored via social media. We are no longer free even to make fundamental choices about our bodies. A public that will silently accept these things has learned nothing from history, will accept anything and deserves its fate if that is a dystopian world-state.

We are no longer entitled to lecture other nations about being repressive states. Their representatives, quite rightly in my view would laugh in our faces. There is a growing fear in the minds of many of us that Western lockdowns may be permanent. The spectres of identity cards, martial law and forced vaccination now hover over us.

Dismissing this as “conspiracy theory” and accusing those who feel this way of an inhuman disregard for life is the rhetoric of fascism, a force that always thrives in the face of a perceived threat. I believe forced face-mask wearing in British streets is a brutal act that crosses the Rubicon, and finally signifies our descent into a de facto repressive state.

Mark Chapman is an artist and educator based in the UK. His work is often concerned with questioning established narratives where evidence is contrary to these. You can read more of his work at his blog Humanism

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State Dept-funded Transparency International goes silent on jailed transparency activist Julian Assange | The Grayzone

Posted by M. C. on July 27, 2020

Transparency International has been vocal in defending jailed opposition activists in states like Zimbabwe, Russia, and Venezuela. But when it comes to Assange – far-and-away the world’s most prominent imprisoned transparency activist – the NGO has not said a word since a week after his arrest in April 2019. 

Transparency International happens to be funded by the UK government which is currently jailing Assange, and by the US State Department, which is headed by Mike Pompeo – the former CIA director who presided over a black operations campaign to destroy Wikileaks.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/21/state-dept-transparency-international-silent-jailed-julian-assange/

By Patrick Maynard

BERLIN, GERMANY – On a cool July day, the Berlin neighborhood where Transparency International’s global headquarters is situated feels a thousand miles away from London’s Belmarsh Prison. But it is not just the pleasant setting a few blocks from the Spree River that makes the influential NGO seem so detached from the maximum security penitentiary’s most famous inmate, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Transparency International has been vocal in defending jailed opposition activists in states like Zimbabwe, Russia, and Venezuela. But when it comes to Assange – far-and-away the world’s most prominent imprisoned transparency activist – the NGO has not said a word since a week after his arrest in April 2019.

When Transparency International did mention Assange’s arrest, it came in the form of a mealy-mouthed blog post that referred to the Wikileaks founder as “polarizing” and failed to condemn his persecution.

Transparency International happens to be funded by the UK government which is currently jailing Assange, and by the US State Department, which is headed by Mike Pompeo – the former CIA director who presided over a black operations campaign to destroy Wikileaks.

Much has changed since Transparency International last issued a statement about Assange. A UN special rapporteur found evidence that Assange may have been tortured. The judge on the case was switched after significant conflicts of interest were discovered.

Assange’s bail-jumping penalty of 50 weeks was also exhausted in April, meaning that for many weeks, the British have been holding him purely as a favor for their American allies, without Assange being formally charged with a British crime. And, perhaps most relevant to the case, 36 members of the European Parliament have recently called for Assange to be released from Belmarsh on press freedom and humanitarian grounds.

Unlike Transparency International, several other large NGOs have been vocal about the case within the last year. Those groups include Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Courage Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation. A total of 40 rights groups recently signed an open letter urging Assange’s release.

Ignoring the world’s most prominent jailed transparency activist

Julian Assange first became well-known when Wikileaks published a series of document troves that embarrassed the United States and its allies. Several stashes of military information exposed possible war crimes on the part of U.S. soldiers, while a collection of State Department cables from 1966 through 2010 showed American diplomatic officials being manipulated to act on behalf of U.S. companies abroad.

Shortly after those releases, Assange was investigated over a possible sexual assault in Sweden. Assange and his team worried that the investigation might be a pretext to detain and extradite him into U.S. hands, so they offered to have him testify via video link from Britain. Swedish authorities refused. Assange jumped his British bail and took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he lived for nearly seven years. The sexual assault investigation was later dropped.

Following Assange’s arrest in April 2019, a federal grand jury in the U.S. returned an 18-count superseding indictment charging the publisher with computer intrusion and with breaking the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917.

A key part of the U.S. government’s case is the idea that, by publishing leaked information, Wikileaks damaged the safety abroad of people friendly to the American cause. Asked by The Grayzone by email if the Justice Department would be willing to name a single person who had been killed or injured as a result of Wikileaks material, the DOJ declined to comment.

US State Department, UK government support – and corporate influence peddling

There was an initial groundswell of solidarity from abroad after Assange’s arrest, with publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post commenting on how the Espionage Act charges threatened press freedom. A few major international human rights NGOs spoke out as well.

That support has been uneven over the last 15 months or so, however. After the initial burst of coverage, the hearings faded into the background, with few mainstream American or British media organizations reporting on Judge Emma Arbuthnot’s ties to UK intelligence and defense interests while she presided over pre-extradition hearings.

Asked whether Transparency International had commented on the judge’s seeming conflicts of interest, Transparency spokesman Paul Bell told The Grayzone that the international secretariat “hasn’t made any statements in relation to Lady Emma Arbuthnot.”

The group’s silence over the past year stands in contrast to earlier times when it had been vocal about freedom of speech, and had not been shy about bringing up Assange’s name as a hook for its blog posts on the topic.

Tracking outside influence on Transparency International can be difficult, as it is made up of more than 100 independent chapters around the globe.

But the organization’s USA chapter honored the notoriously war-profiteering oil services giant Bechtel with its  “Corporate Leadership Award” in 2016.

Two years earlier, Transparency USA honored the arms manufacturer Raytheon “for anti-corruption efforts.” Both Bechtel and Raytheon were major donors to the organization at the time.

In 2017, Transparency USA was finally disaccredited for fostering apparent pay-for-play relationships under the guise of anti-corruption efforts. However, Transparency’s Secretariat defended the USA chapter’s honoring of Hillary Clinton with its “Integrity Award” in the face of revelations of influence-peddling by the Clinton Global Initiative.

The Little Sis database, which tracks relationships of organizations by analyzing their donors, board members and leadership, indicates that Transparency has shared adjacencies with organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Infraguard – which the FBI describes as a “partnership between the FBI and the private sector” that is “dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the U.S.”

On its website, Transparency International lists funding from the US Department of State, which is currently headed by the former CIA director, Mike Pompeo, who apparently authorized the spying ring that targeted Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy.

It also receives support from the Department of International Development of the UK government, which is currently prosecuting Assange.

In fact, much of the NGO’s funding comes from EU governments.

Bell, the Transparency spokesman, stated in an email to The Grayzone that his organization’s international board has not received pressure regarding the Assange extradition hearings from U.S. or U.K. entities, including governments.

“There is a principle and a precedent at stake … no matter how you feel about Julian Assange”

Assange has made some powerful enemies over the years. He angered Republicans by exposing inconvenient truths behind the military interventions initiated by George W. Bush, and infuriated Democrats by dumping a cache of embarrassing emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server just before the 2016 election.

Parker Higgins, the advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, argues that individual feelings about Assange shouldn’t get in the way of a clear-eyed view of the gravity of the extradition case.

“The importance of this case goes far beyond the facts of who Julian Assange is and what he is alleged to have done,” Higgins said in an email to The Grayzone. “There is a principle and a precedent at stake that are important considerations for press freedom, no matter how you feel about Julian Assange himself.”

Higgins asserted that large countries are now attempting to extend their own jurisdiction globally – especially on what he calls “borderless issues” like censorship – and that an Assange extradition would be a deepening of that trend.

China, for example, has recently attempted to assert that non-citizens in foreign countries are subject to its new national security law regarding speech about Hong Kong. That has chilled activism as far away as Canada. In the case of Assange, the United States is attempting to apply its rarely used 1917 Espionage Act to an Australian journalist operating in Europe, activists argue. In doing so, they say, the U.S. government is extending its jurisdiction and setting up a potentially dangerous template for future generations to follow.

Spying, denial of legal access, “torture and neglect”

There are other aspects of the Julian Assange case that trouble many close observers. Assange‘s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald QC, said in April that there had been no “direct access” with his client for “more than a month.”

That situation has gotten worse as the COVID-19 outbreak has continued, with a recent hearing featuring Assange literally boxed in inside a glass container, through which it was difficult to hear.

Back when Assange did have regular access to legal counsel – during his time in the Ecuadorian embassy – his interactions with others were secretly recorded by a Spanish contractor with ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal has documented in detail.

In most American court cases, surveillance of attorney-client meetings would result immediately in a mistrial being declared.

Additionally, Assange’s health has been declining. In June, 216 doctors from 33 countries wrote to medical journal the Lancet, protesting what they called “torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange” and stating that, “under the Convention Against Torture, those acting in official capacities can be held complicit and accountable not only for perpetration of torture, but for their silent acquiescence and consent.”

While some reporters have argued that Assange’s extradition would not set a precedent for cases against other journalists, since Assange is accused of helping a source crack a password, Higgins argues that future judges are not necessarily likely to parse that difference.

“There’s no guarantee that the line a journalist draws now is going to be the one that future judges follow,” Higgins stated. “The threat of criminal charges for talking to sources is sure to have a chilling effect.”

Patrick Maynard is a journalist whose work has featured in the Baltimore Sun, Truthout, Vice and The Grayzone.

 

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The UK Is Greenlighting Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Again. That’s a Travesty. – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on July 18, 2020

By propagating the fiction that years of repeated Saudi violations of the laws
of war are “isolated” incidents, the UK is either denying the facts on the ground
or undermining mainstream understanding of the laws governing war. Most likely,
it’s doing both.

Neither the law nor the facts support a conclusion that Saudi war crimes in Yemen are “isolated.”

A jobs program for the connected contributors.

https://original.antiwar.com/Akshaya_Kumar/2020/07/17/the-uk-is-greenlighting-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-again-thats-a-travesty/

by

On July 7, the United Kingdom announced that it intends to resume approving weapons sales by British companies to Saudi Arabia. Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is choosing to move forward with these sales despite reams of evidence that once weapons are in the Saudi arsenal, there’s no way to be sure they won’t be used to commit war crimes in Yemen.

The government is moving forward despite eloquent pleas from Yemenis who say that continued sales greenlight continued abuses by the Saudi led coalition. It’s moving forward despite the UK’s own foreign secretary’s recent appeal on behalf of the people of Yemen for “international help to escape tragedy,” recognizing they are living through the world’s worst humanitarian crisis while trying to battle a global pandemic.

Moving forward at this moment ignores the realities on the ground in Yemen and also evidences a willingness to twist the facts and the law. In doing so, the UK is undermining the rules that govern the international order at a time when multilateralism is more important than ever.

After a landmark court ruling, the UK government was forced to pause sales until it could show that it had properly evaluated the risk that weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could be used in laws of war violations. Although UK suppliers have continued to fulfill existing contracts and the government “inadvertently” issued some new licenses, the court ruling undoubtedly had a chilling effect on transfers over the past year. That’s a good thing.

But now, the UK laughably claims it has “developed a revised methodology” that supports further sales based on the specious conclusion that the Saudis’ violations are “isolated” incidents.

Human Rights Watch made a 172-page submission to the UK last year that indicates the exact opposite. Despite their arsenal of top-of-the-line weapons with precision guidance, Saudi-led coalition aircraft keep hitting Yemeni civilians while they’re shopping for groceries, celebrating weddings, riding in school buses, mourning their dead at funerals, and seeking treatment for cholera.

Recently, the UN confirmed that the coalition hit four schools and hospitals in 2019. The International Rescue Committee estimates that more than half of the bombs dropped by the Saudi-led coalition in May of this year hit civilians or civilian infrastructure. These attacks have almost always been followed by self-investigations that excuse away the crimes.

Neither the law nor the facts support a conclusion that the problems with Saudi Arabia’s conduct are “isolated.”

Human Rights Watch has been campaigning to halt all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia since 2016. The UN has warned that those who continue to supply the coalition with weapons after seeing its abysmal track record risk complicity themselves. To be sure, this is not a problem that will be resolved by cutting off sales from the UK alone.

Saudi Arabia leads the world in arms imports and is responsible for 12 percent of global purchases since 2015. While the UK had paused licensing, French companies transferred $1.6 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia in 2019. Although the U.S. Congress has twice voted to ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia, President Trump vetoed those bills allowing arms sales to proceed.

Last year, Trump pressed forward with a massive $8 billion sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE. The US is now considering an additional $478 million transfer of precision guided munitions to the Saudis. Once again, some members of Congress are objecting, but the Trump administration appears poised to move forward anyway.

While Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland all announced that they will stop new weapons exports to the Saudis, they have continued to supply arms, spare parts, and components to the Saudis under existing contracts. In fact, in 2019, Canadian military exports to Saudi Arabia hit an all-time high despite their moratorium.

The Trump administration in particular has made naked economic and geopolitical calculations the basis of its foreign policy. Its continued arms exports to “allies” despite a track record of human rights abuses is not unique to Saudi Arabia. But it’s particularly chilling that Trump was not shy about making an economic argument for sales in the face of the Saudi killing and dismemberment of US resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The timing of the UK move, one day after it launched sanctions on 20 individual Saudis for their role in Khashoggi’s murder, underscores the incoherence of this approach. Governments like the UK shouldn’t need their courts to tie their hands — they should simply stop their sales to the Saudis. Instead of engaging in legal gymnastics to justify weapons sales, they should take a stance that definitively ends their role in fueling war crimes abroad.

By propagating the fiction that years of repeated Saudi violations of the laws of war are “isolated” incidents, the UK is either denying the facts on the ground or undermining mainstream understanding of the laws governing war. Most likely, it’s doing both.

Akshaya Kumar is the crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. Reprinted with permission from Foreign Policy In Focus.

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