“THE SOUTH AFRICAN VOTE: THE VOTING; Was the Election Fair? Voting Chief Is Satisfied” – Dated May 3, 1994

[The ANC has ruled SA ever since!]

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/03/world/south-african-vote-voting-was-election-fair-voting-chief-satisfied.html

Judge Johann Kriegler [was a board member of Oppenheimer’s Urban Foundation] casually uses the word "breakdown" to describe the election he is running.

He concedes that many ballots never left the warehouse, that polling places failed to open, that ballot boxes were stuffed "to a significant degree," that voting places often had no impartial monitors and that some election officials were partisan, if not crooked.

But there is no doubt in South Africa that within a few days he will baptize the new democracy by pronouncing the required four-word benediction "substantially free and fair" over the results.

"From the outset the commission had no illusions that it could mount a really efficient election," the judge said today during an intermission from the crises that still beset the counting of votes. "It is an Africa-style election. It is not to be measured by European or North American standards. What we're trying to do is put together a credible test of the will of the people."

"If it is manifest in a given situation that the rules ought to be stretched because that would do justice, yes, that's my approach," he said today in his office at the electoral commission. "And I've applied it here."

The huge and insatiable press corps is annoyed at his testy reaction to questioning and his peremptory decision to ban reporters from polling places (a rule that few local poll officials enforced).

Dennis Davis [Jew], a law professor who helped draft the new Constitution under which the election is taking place, said he was worried that the commission's failure to prevent rampant abuses in the embattled Zulu province, KwaZulu/Natal, could encourage the losers there to reject the result and resume their 10-year violent partisan conflict.

"We estimated that we had an electorate of about 22 1/2 million," he said. "Nobody knew. Nobody still knows."

Then a week from the end, after 80 million ballots had been printed [in England and the total population of SA was about 40 million at the time], the Inkatha Freedom Party decided to participate, requiring that gummed stickers be added by hand at the end of each ballot.

The voting became a giant improvisation. When ballot boxes got full because of unexpected turnout, poll officials ripped off the seals, poured the ballots into plastic bags, and reused the boxes.

When Inkatha stickers failed to arrive, officials let voters write in the name. Rather than risk an Inkatha walkout, Mr. Kriegler authorized the write-ins, and extended voting a day in the Zulu province.

When counting bogged down, Mr. Kriegler discarded the elaborate procedures designed to account for all ballots.

Cheating, he says, was widespread but probably not enough to distort the outcome seriously.

"To affect a national seat in Parliament, you need an error of 50,000 votes," he said, now an expert in the arithmetic of political larceny. "And if a ballot box was stuffed, what have you got? At the most 3,000 papers. If it wasn't very skillfully done 2,500, even a little less." [The South African election was held between 26 and 29 April 1994. Will that not be sufficient time to stuff the ballot boxes?]

“Strengthening Global Systems to Prevent and Respond to High-Consequence Biological Threats” – 2021 Monkeypox Simulation (Like Event 201 for the Coronavirus)

https://www.nti.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NTI_Paper_BIO-TTX_Final.pdf

Below is an excerpt.

In March 2021, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) partnered with the Munich Security Conference (MSC) to conduct a tabletop exercise on reducing high-consequence biological threats. Conducted virtually, the exercise examined gaps in national and international biosecurity and pandemic preparedness architectures and explored opportunities to improve capabilities to prevent and respond to high-consequence biological events. Participants included 19 senior leaders and experts from across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe with decades of combined experience in public health, biotechnology industry, international security, and philanthropy.

The exercise scenario portrayed a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months. Ultimately, the exercise scenario revealed that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight. By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide.

>>16346727

>>16350209 - Then they push for urban planning

“Sound urban planning now a need in Africa”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africa/urban-planning-in-africa/

27-05-2022

Rapid urban growth and an increasing number of climate change related disasters, such as the recent floods in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, have put the importance of sound urban planning in Africa in the spotlight.

There are good reasons for arguing for this shift. Master plans are often viewed as colonial legacies, modelled on modernist visions of utopian urban futures. Strategic planning on the other hand responds more directly to local needs and realities, especially in the context of cities in the global South.

By tracing Africa’s planning trajectory over time we show that master planning has served the entwining interests and ambitions of international as well as local actors in Africa. The dominant Western narrative fails to take account of this. This narrative successfully explains why master planning, which once dominated in the West, has been supplanted by strategic planning approaches. But it does not engage with the diversity of practices globally.

In particular, it fails to observe the persistence of master planning traditions in East Asia (China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and elsewhere) and the Middle East. It also says nothing about the influence of these regions on other parts of the world. This includes urban Africa.

We conclude that these practices are not simply a throwback to a previous era. Rather, they serve the real interests, political or functional, of national and local elites.

Nevertheless, in post-colonial years master planning, with its focus on shaping the future, became an important instrument for asserting national identity and development.

A range of master plans were prepared for existing and new cities. They involved a diverse range of international expertise, actors and partnerships. Among them were Greek, Croatian, Hungarian and Japanese planners and architects.

The 1980s were a relatively quiet period for master planning as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Programmes dominated. Then in the 1990s, international development agencies such as UN Habitat worked to introduce more strategic and participatory approaches to planning.

RESURGENCE OF MASTER PLANNING

During the first two decades of the 2000s, there has been a resurgence of master planning in Africa. This has happened for both new and existing cities. In our article, we identify over 20 new city developments across the continent. Here master planning is about design on an empty canvas and has been undertaken mainly by large international architecture and design firms.

These new cities reflect the ambitions of individual politicians, an expanding middle class with new lifestyle demands, as well as increased foreign investor interest in urban Africa. For example, a major developer of Africa’s new cities has been the Moscow based firm, Renaissance Capital, through its property developer Rendeavour.

Much more complex is master planning for existing cities where there is no empty canvas but rather a complex set of local and international actors and interests. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is a big player, having prepared master plans for cities from Lilongwe to Cairo.

Singapore’s Surbana Jurong is another actor. It has secured contracts or prepared urban master plans for the Rwandan capital, Kigali and Burundi’s Bujumbura among others. The Chinese are not directly involved but have a powerful demonstration effect in the many study tours to their master-planned cities. Large firms based in London, New York, Tokyo, Beirut, Dubai, Cairo, and Johannesburg, are also involved in master plan preparation.

International interests in master planning may be geopolitical as well as economic. For example, they may be pursued in the hope that by preparing a master plan for an African city there will be downstream opportunities for infrastructure investment.

National and local actors have different interests, although sometimes there are synergies with international players. They support master planning in the hope of, for example, securing foreign investment, to mediate difficult local conflicts, to manage growth or impose urban order.

“Glencore 'linked to Colombian terrorist group'”

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2014-07-13-glencore-linked-to-colombian-terrorist-group/

13 July 2014

Glencore, the largest mining company listed on the JSE and headed by South African Ivan Glasenberg, has been accused in a new 245-page report of mining and exporting "blood coal" from Colombia.

The report, "The Dark Side of Coal", published by Dutch nongovernmental organisation PAX in Germany last week, says that Glencore's Colombian arm, Prodeco, secretly supported the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC) during that country's bloody civil war.

The AUC was listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation in 2005 and demobilised in 2006 after peace negotiations with the Colombian government. Colombia has not resolved its problems yet and the government is still negotiating with left-wing FARC guerrillas in Cuba.

Although the accusations against Glencore date back more than a decade, the report is likely to heighten scrutiny of the way it operates in some of its coal markets.

It has faced claims of tax dodging in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and of selling materials to Iran for its nuclear programme.

In South Africa, communities who live on its coal mines in Belfast, Mpumalanga, accused Glencore of trampling their rights to blast for new mines in March. Glencore, which is South Africa's largest exporter of coal, has denied all these claims

In the Colombian case, Glencore is said to have supported the AUC to counter kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure conducted by left-wing guerrilla groups FARC and the ELN.

The new Colombian accusations are based largely on the testimony of José del Carmen Gelvez Alvarracín, known as "El Canoso", who was first hired as an intelligence agent by the Colombian army and then became a defence contractor for Glencore's security department in 1996, before joining the AUC in 2003.

Gelvez described meetings that took place since 1996 between the AUC and Glencore's security department head, Manuel Gutiérrez.

He testified that he and Glencore's managers, Manuel Gutiérrez and Luis Ochoa, "drove in a pick-up truck to a farm named La Ucrania …

"On entering, we saw approximately 30 people dressed in camouflage, who introduced us to the commander who went by the alias Lucho," says the PAX report.

"Manuel Gutiérrez, as head of the security department, spoke on behalf of the company, Prodeco, about providing this group of the AUC with whatever support it might need.

"It was clear that there was a direct link between the company and the AUC."

Colombia's 50-year civil war between the state and left-wing guerrillas groups reached a climax between 1994 and 2006 with the introduction of the AUC, which was created, financed and supported by drug cartels, members of the Colombian elite, the army, local businesses and multinational companies.

The AUC was created to counter the ever-increasing size and power of FARC and the ELN, but it was also used to consolidate drug trafficking routes, murder labour union leaders and displace farmers to allow for illegal land grabs from local elites and foreign companies. Glencore-Prodeco has denied owning land that belonged to farmers displaced by the AUC. It has also denied ever having any kind of link with the right-wing forces.

Glencore has criticised the report for being one-sided and uncritical in terms of evaluating the testimonies of former paramilitaries.

The company said it had contacted the human rights organisations involved in March, when the report was being written, but PAX did not include its objections in the final draft.

Last month, Glencore's head of sustainability, Dr Michael Fahrbach, sent a letter to PAX saying: "The report is distorted and unbalanced, and blindly follows accusations made by a condemned criminal, which came up years ago, in a judicial hearing to which we had no access and didn't have the right to be heard."

Glencore – “Funding violence against anti-mining activists”, “Poisoning vital water supplies”, “Bribery and corruption”

https://londonminingnetwork.org/companies-in-focus-glencore/

April 2021

Funding violence against anti-mining activists

In the Philippines and Colombia, there are credible allegations that Glencore and its subsidiaries have funded the violent repression of social movements who oppose its mining projects. In the Philippines for example, Sagittarius Mines Inc – which at the time was majority owned by Xsrata – bought the rights to develop a copper-gold mine within the land of the B’laan, one of the indigenous community of Southern Mindanao. The B’laan organised against the occupation of their land and in response, Xstrata are alleged to have created and bankrolled a secret paramilitary unit that terrorised the community, murdering tribal leaders and their families for opposing the mine. Similar allegations have been levelled against the Colombian mining group Prodeco, which is wholly owned by Glencore. Former Prodeco staff and paramilitary commanders have attested that Prodeco funded and collaborated with paramilitary death squads that assassinated those who lay in the path of the mine’s expansion.

In Peru, in response to a strike called by mineworkers, an Xstrata director asked the police to take “direct, proactive and strong approach” against striking workers, who he described as “sons of whores.” The police brutally attacked the miners, and have been accused of killing two and torturing many more. Xstrata allegedly equipped riot police with rubber bullets and tear gas, and stationed them in barracks in their mine.

Poisoning vital water supplies

Glencore’s mines have had devastating impacts on their surrounding environments, with deadly consequences for those who live nearby. Entire rivers have been diverted to fuel Glencore’s mines, even in areas where water is scarce, and the remaining water supply is often so contaminated with lead and other heavy metals that it is unfit to support life.

In Cerro de Pasco, Peru, for example, waste from Glencore’s Volcan mine has left rivers contaminated with 160 times the maximum permissible level of lead. 78% of children in the city show symptoms of heavy metal poisoning. At Glencore’s Mopani mine, in Zambia, a malfunctioning pump discharged so much sulfuric acid into the water supply of neighbouring villages that over 1,000 residents were treated with severe vomiting, diarrhoea, and abdominal pains. Communities surrounding the Cerrejón mine, in northern Colombia, are currently fighting against a similar fate, and are campaigning for the reinstatement of the vital Arroyo Bruno river that has been diverted to supply the mine.

Glencore holds the dubious honour of being the first mining company to be charged with environmental contamination by a Latin American court. Xstrata vice-president Julian Rooney was charged in 2008 for environmental crimes relating to water contamination at the Alumbrera mine, Peru, and has had his assets seized whilst he awaits trial.

Bribery and corruption

The Paradise Papers leak, in 2017, shone a light onto some of the darkest secrets of mining giants, bringing to public attention the very things they had tried their hardest to keep hidden. Glencore was deeply implicated in this; the leaked documents confirmed Global Witness’s allegations that Glencore was involved in bribery and corruption in the DRC.

In 2008, Glencore subsidiary Katanga Mining was worried about the growing desire of the DRC state to retain some of the wealth from its mineral resources. Talks between Katanga and state-owned mining company Gécamines had stalled. So, Glencore co-directors and the chief officers of Katanga met with the disgraced diamond magnate Dan Gertler, and paid him $45m to shut down Gécamines’ demands and secure a favourable contract for Glencore. Gertler delivered, and Glencore’s payment reduced by three quarters, ending up at well below market rate. Gertler was extremely close to powerful members of the administration at the time, and had been criticised by the UN for an arms deal he made with the Congolese army during the brutal civil war.

The legal ramifications from these deals is still ongoing. The Ontario Securities Commission – the regulator for the Toronto Stock Exchange – fined Katanga CAD$30m in 2018, and forced board members to step down, including the head of Glencore’s copper operations, Aristotelis Mistakidis. The U.S Department of Justice has since launched its own corruption probe, the UK Serious Fraud Office is currently carrying out a bribery investigation, and the Swiss Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation.

For more detail on those events and the ruinous history of Glencore’s operations, see the timeline below.

https://londonminingnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Glencore-company-timeline.pdf

“Glencore traded with Iranian supplier to nuclear programme”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/21/glencore-trade-iran-supplier-nuclear

21 April 2013

One of Britain's biggest companies has made millions of pounds selling goods to Iran, including to a state-owned firm that supplies the regime's nuclear programme.

Glencore, a commodity trading house run by the billionaire Ivan Glasenberg, traded $659m (£430m) of goods, including aluminium oxide, to Iran last year, the Guardian has established.

The company, which is one of the biggest businesses in the FTSE 100 and has a market value more than three times that of Marks & Spencer, has admitted that some of its aluminium oxide ended up in the hands of Iranian Aluminium Company (Iralco).

Trafigura, another commodity trading house, has also admitted to trading an unspecified aluminium oxide (also known as alumina) with Iralco in the past.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has named Iralco as supplying aluminium to Iran Centrifuge Technology Company (Tesa), which is part of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI). Aluminium oxide is an important material in gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

At the time of the Glencore and Trafigura trades with Iralco, it was not illegal or a breach of sanctions to supply Iran with alumina. It is unknown whether Glencore or Trafigura's alumina passed from Iralco to Tesa, or whether it was used in centrifuge construction.

Since 2006, AEOI has been subject to UN sanctions designed to prevent a drive by Iran toward nuclear armament. Trading with Tesa has been specifically banned under US, EU and UK sanctions since July 2010. Iralco was added to the EU sanctions list in December 2012.

Glencore said it "ceased transactions" with Iralco immediately when it learned of its links with Tesa, and the last trade was in October 2012. "Prior to EU sanctions in December 2012, we were not aware of a link/contract between Iralco and Tesa," the company said in a statement.

Glencore said it is "reliant on the relevant regulatory bodies/governments to advise us on developments in who we can/can't do business with".

Tehran, which some experts say already has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear weapons, is in the middle of upgrading its stock of more than 10,000 centrifuges. The IAEA said Iran is replacing outdated centrifuges with thousands of more powerful IR-2m models.

Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN, said Glencore's dealings with Iran were "completely unacceptable", adding: "We might expect this from a Russian or Chinese company, but the truth is that even those companies usually stay away from this sort of exposure."

The Guardian has learned that Glencore traded $659m worth of metals, wheat and coal with Iranian entities during 2012. Buried deep in its annual report, one of Glencore's US affiliates, Century Aluminium, 46% owned by Glencore, states: "During 2012 non-US affiliates of the largest stockholder of the company [Glencore] entered into sales contracts for wheat and coal as well as sale and purchase contracts for metal oxides and metals with Iranian entities, which are either fully or majority owned by the GOI [government of Iran]."

Glencore declined to state how much of the $659m it dealt with Iran in 2012 was related to alumina/aluminium. The trades were not illegal or against sanctions at the time. It is not the first time Glencore's activities have attracted controversy. Last year the head of its food trading business said the worst drought to hit the US since the 1930s would be "good for Glencore" because it would lead to opportunities to exploit soaring prices. It has also attracted attention by selling more than £50m worth of wheat to the World Food Programme.

Trafigura, which came to global political attention when it was revealed that a licensed independent contractor of a ship it had chartered dumped tonnes of toxic oil slops in Ivory Coast, said: "We can confirm that Trafigura has traded with Iralco in the past. In October 2011, a physical swap agreement was reached whereby Trafigura provided alumina to Iralco in return for aluminium for Trafigura to export worldwide. No deliveries have been made or exports received since new EU sanctions were published in December 2012. Trafigura Group companies are compliant with national and international law where applicable."

““Glencore Paid Judges To Make Cases Disappear” Tony Yengeni Spills Beans” – South Africa

https://www.ghanamma.com/za/2022/05/31/glencore-paid-judges-to-make-cases-disappear-tony-yengeni-spills-beans/

May 31, 2022

Tony Yengeni, a veteran of the African National Congress, has now revealed that the corporation Glencore used to pay judges to make cases disappear before the court.

Supposedly, Glencore paid bribes to judges to have lawsuits dismissed, bribes to gain oil contracts, and bribery to evade government audits.

When Tony Yengeni asked people to determine who is currently at the top of South African politics and is closest to Glencore, he raised many concerns.

“Glencore paid judges to dispose of cases! Who is currently the closest political entity to Glencore?” Yengeni said.

In South Africa, according to social critics, they will await Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s response to this exposé before forming an opinion.

“As far as Eskom was concerned, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo stated that their hands and motives were clean. Zondo cannot be incorrect; these individuals are obviously captured “others said.

“In South Africa, they are exonerated and given an escape route from accountability by a factional political project known as the state capture commission, despite all the evidence presented against them.” It appears that the dots are slowly connecting, and it is only a matter of time before the entire truth is revealed.

State capture resembled a complex web, which explains why it took so long to be discovered despite the fact that a great deal was occurring.

“Everything Is A Weapon: The US Government Is Waging Psychological Warfare On The Nation” – Part 1

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-weapon-us-government-waging-psychological-warfare-nation

June 9, 2022

“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings? … Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”

• U.S. Army Psychological Operations recruitment video

The U.S. government is waging psychological warfare on the American people.

No, this is not a conspiracy theory.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, “involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups.”

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the police state’s various efforts abroad and domestically.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it’s taken to bragging about them. Just recently, for example, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.

As the military journal Task and Purpose explains, “Psychological warfare is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens… PSYOP soldiers’ key missions are to influence ‘emotions, notices, reasoning, and behavior of foreign governments and citizens,’ ‘deliberately deceive’ enemy forces, advise governments, and provide communications for disaster relief and rescue efforts.”

Yet don’t be fooled into thinking these psyops (psychological operations) campaigns are only aimed at foreign enemies. The government has made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded.

Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.

• Weaponizing violence. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

“Everything Is A Weapon: The US Government Is Waging Psychological Warfare On The Nation” – Part 2

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-weapon-us-government-waging-psychological-warfare-nation

June 9, 2022

• Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies. Add pre-crime programs into the mix with government agencies and corporations working in tandem to determine who is a potential danger and spin a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies, and you having the makings for a perfect dystopian nightmare. The government’s war on crime has now veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects.

• Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). In China, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

• Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

• Weaponizing entertainment. For the past century, the Department of Defense’s Entertainment Media Office has provided Hollywood with equipment, personnel and technical expertise at taxpayer expense. In exchange, the military industrial complex has gotten a starring role in such blockbusters as Top Gun and its rebooted sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which translates to free advertising for the war hawks, recruitment of foot soldiers for the military empire, patriotic fervor by the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the nation’s endless wars, and Hollywood visionaries working to churn out dystopian thrillers that make the war machine appear relevant, heroic and necessary. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

“Everything Is A Weapon: The US Government Is Waging Psychological Warfare On The Nation” – Part 3

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-weapon-us-government-waging-psychological-warfare-nation

June 9, 2022

• Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace. In fact, it was President Obama who issued an executive order directing federal agencies to use “behavioral science” methods to minimize bureaucracy and influence the way people respond to government programs. It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from a behavioral program that tries to influence how people respond to paperwork to a government program that tries to shape the public’s views about other, more consequential matters. Thus, increasingly, governments around the world—including in the United States—are relying on “nudge units” to steer citizens in the direction the powers-that-be want them to go, while preserving the appearance of free will.

• Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

• Weaponizing fear and paranoia. The language of fear is spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology and endless wars, hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes. All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

• Weaponizing genetics. Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring. It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences. For example, neuroscientists observed that fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

• Weaponizing the future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

“Everything Is A Weapon: The US Government Is Waging Psychological Warfare On The Nation” – Part 4

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-weapon-us-government-waging-psychological-warfare-nation

June 9, 2022

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

The facts speak for themselves.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

When the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution, then you no longer have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

What we have is a government of wolves.

Our backs are against the proverbial wall.

“We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that views people as expendable once they have outgrown their usefulness to the State.

Brace yourselves.

>>16367553

>Amandla is a left wing media project built around a magazine that publishes six editions per year. It was initiated in 2006/7 by activists coming from different political traditions on the left. Driving the project were independent left activists working together with militants from the South African Communist Party that were searching for a break with the social liberal policies of the ruling ANC and the bureaucratic politics of the SACP. Linking up with radicalising social movement activists coming out of the anti-globalisation movement it was felt that an important moment had opened up for encouraging a dialogue amongst activists on questions of perspective and strategy. The South African transition had been stalled and many of the democratic and social gains flowing from the ending of Apartheid were under threat.

>That this was quickly followed by the farm worker rebellion, only helped to reinforce the depth of the rupture that was taking place with the social liberal framework provided by the ‘94 settlement. The student uprisings of 2015 and the alliances forged between students and workers in the symbiotic and mutually reinforcing struggles for free education and insourcing pointed to the power of worker-student-community alliances. The potential for all of this to come together in a new movement inspired by an anti-capitalist emancipatory vision was provided by the ‘NUMSA moment’ – movement led by Africa’s biggest trade union for a political break with the ANC and the emergence of the Economic Freedom Fighters – a split from the ANC’s youth movement.

>Amandla has redefined itself as a project integrally linked to these new processes seeking to build a new, open, non-dogmatic left politics which creates space to reflect on the crisis of the transition in South Africa while locating and identifying itself with similar initiatives in the Southern African region, across the African continent and globally.

“Malema release shocking video evidence & Sends warning to Ramaphosa to Step aside” - Also holds the Namibian President accountable

https://youtu.be/Jt24bapcdg4

“WATCH: EFF releases slideshow of Ramaphosa farm robbery suspects”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/watch-eff-releases-slideshow-of-ramaphosa-farm-robbery-suspects-phala-phala-step-aside-julius-malema-breaking-7-june-2022/

The party said if Ramaphosa refuses to step aside to allow an open and transparent investigation it will mobilise many sectors of society to stop recognising him as the President of South Africa and will not permit him to perform any presidential functions.

>>16452412

>But its use in the Restis case marked a rare expansion by Attorney General Eric Holder into private civil litigation in which the government was not a party.

Eric Holder’s Connection to Marc Rich – Part 1

https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-eric-holder-and-marc-rich?page=2

Eric Holder is Barack Obama's choice to serve as Attorney General in the new administration. Holder was an adviser in the Obama campaign who oversaw the vetting process for potential running mates. He has a long history of government service, first as a Ronald Reagan appointed federal judge, and then as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in Bill Clinton's administration. Clinton later appointed Holder to the office of Deputy Attorney General.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/07/eric_holder_and_the_fugitives_marc_rich_and_edward_snowden.html

July 2, 2013

After becoming a fugitive, Rich continued globe-trotting, while still avoiding setting foot in the U.S. Over the years, his arrest became a personal obsession for a number of government agents. Ken Hill, a U.S. Marshall who had chased Rich for over a decade, told Reuters that "the smoking gun is greed," and that was what Marc Rich had thrived on. Rich had narrowly avoided capture in Finland, Germany, Britain and Jamaica. Besides Iran, he had also openly traded with other rogue regimes while under American sanction, including North Korea, Gaddafi's Libya, apartheid South Africa, Castro's Cuba, Pinochet's Chile and Milosevic's Yugoslavia.

At the same time, Rich became obsessed with obtaining a pardon so he could return to his adopted New York City. Over the years, he went through a number of high-priced lawyers, only to have his plans rejected by a series of U.S. Attorneys. In 1999, Rich hired the ultimate insider: Jack Quinn. He had been Vice President Al Gore's Chief of Staff and then had served as Bill Clinton's legal counsel before going into private practice.

By the time Quinn approached his friend Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of his client in October of 1999, Rich was listed on the Interagency International Fugitive List as WANTED by the U.S. Marshal Service, the U.S. Customs Service and the FBI.

Rich was also listed on the Justice Department's website as an international fugitive. The posting further noted that the U.S. "will pay a reward for information that leads to the arrest of Marc David Rich," and even the IRS had offered a half-million dollar reward for his capture. Interpol had also posted Rich on its "Red Alert" list.

Holder was more than eager to help Rich's cause, and was later forced to admit that he and Quinn had discussed Holder becoming Attorney General in a potential Gore administration. Holder acted as a go-between for Quinn and then U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, but she flatly rejected the idea in February of 2000.

Quinn and the rest of Rich's legal team changed strategy, and moved towards getting Rich a pardon from President Clinton, and Eric Holder would eventually be called on again. Meanwhile, Rich's ex-wife Denise, who had received a generous divorce settlement from her former husband (and had also happened to be close to the Clintons and had contributed to Hillary's New York Senate campaign) had dramatically stepped up her campaign contributions to the Democratic Party and added another large donation to the Clinton Presidential Library (which would bring the final total to $450,000).

According to reports in the Israeli press, Rich himself funneled $120,000 to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's reelection campaign (and Rich would eventually press Barak for his assistance) and had also donated 200 million dollars to Jewish and Israeli foundations over the coming months.

In November, as Clinton's presidency was winding down, Quinn approached Holder again. The plan they came up with was to go around the normal procedure and avoid contacting the U.S. Pardon Attorney (Roger Adams) until the last minute. Adams would have to do a background check on Rich and Pincus Green (whom Quinn was also now representing) and then contact government attorneys and prosecutors involved with their criminal case.

Eric Holder’s Connection to Marc Rich – Part 2

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/07/eric_holder_and_the_fugitives_marc_rich_and_edward_snowden.html

July 2, 2013

Holder told Quinn to contact White House counsel Beth Nolan, and have her to call him. On January 19th, 2001, on the eve of Clinton's final day in office, Quinn did just that, and Holder then told a stunned Nolan that he was "neutral, leaning favorable" toward a pardon for Rich and Green. He also added that Ehud Barak was supportive.

Nolan passed on this new info to Clinton, but she expressed her opposition to the pardons (Clinton would later use Holder's recommendation as an excuse for his controversial action). But even at that late hour, there was still a chance to stop the pardons.

Roger Adams would be required to sign the pardons, and when he was informed by White House staff that night, a perfunctory check was done. Adams was stunned to learn that Rich and Green were both fugitives. He tracked down Holder and called him at his home at 1 a.m. that morning.

Adams informed Holder that Clinton was giving serious consideration to pardoning the two fugitives. Holder told Adams that he was aware of that fact, and the conversation abruptly ended.

Holder has given numerous versions of his actions that morning. The narratives included: that he was distracted that night; that he thought that the pardons would never be issued; and that he assumed that Clinton had already made up his mind.

On January 22nd, after Clinton had left office, Holder was now acting attorney general, and the Rich pardon was beginning to erupt in the press. Holder personally advised Quinn to get the "merits of the case out publicly" including Ehud Barak's support. Holder also advised Quinn to have travel restrictions and arrest warrants lifted for Rich and Green, to go to the Manhattan Federal Courthouse and have the indictment dismissed, and finally, to contact Interpol concerning Clinton's decision.

During testimony before Congress that February, Holder was forced to admit under questioning by Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia that he never contacted the FBI, CIA, NSA, State Department nor the federal prosecutors in New York in advance of the Rich pardon.

Holder would also insist during his testimony that he only had a "passing familiarity" with the Rich case even though he discussed it at least nine times with Jack Quinn between October 1999 and January 2001, and that he was unaware of who Marc Rich was until he was first approached by Quinn.

But, during Holder's confirmation to become President Obama's Attorney General in 2009, it was discovered that during the years that Holder was U.S. Attorney in Washington in the mid-1990's, his office had settled a multi-million dollar fraud suit against Rich, but Holder claimed that his staff had kept him in the dark.

So, considering Mr. Holder's record, which includes his efforts to successfully obtain clemency for members of the deadly FALN terrorist group during his tenure under Clinton, as well as the deadly Fast and Furious gunwalking program during his tenure as Obama's Attorney General (which has led to Holder being held in both civil and criminal contempt by Congress), and now which currently includes his recent suspect testimony regarding whether he was involved with "potential prosecution" of members of the press, the question arises whether he should be the person to oversee the potential prosecution of Edward Snowden.

>>16455295

“Obama forgot that Eric Holder dropped Stevens case” – Gifts from an oil company executive

https://mustreadalaska.com/obama-forgot-that-eric-holder-dropped-stevens-case/

May 11, 2020

President Obama this week lambasted the Justice Department’s abandonment of criminal charges against Michael Flynn as unprecedented, but his Justice Department did the same thing in another highly politicized criminal case.

In April 2009, then-Attorney General Eric Holder pulled the plug on the prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a liberal Republican who sided with Democrats on key issues including climate change and abortion.

The comparisons between Stevens and Flynn are striking. Both men faced the same criminal charges of making false statements, the same judge, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, handled both cases, and each had their criminal prosecution undone by a handwritten note that was buried by federal prosecutors.

Still, in a call Friday with thousands of supporters listening, Obama railed that Attorney General William Barr undermined the “rule of law” by dropping the charges against Flynn, who previously served as Trump’s national security advisor.

Although the Stevens prosecution began under President George W. Bush, conservatives at the time grumbled the case may have been initiated by left-leaning prosecutors looking to flip his Senate seat.

Holder dropped the criminal charges against Stevens nearly seven months after he was convicted by a federal jury. He cited allegations that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.

Federal prosecutors accused Stevens of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from an oil company executive, including home repairs and a deal in which Stevens swapped a 1964 Ford Mustang for a new 1999 Land Rover Discovery.

>>16321313

“Marikana massacre | Judgment reserved in civil case”

https://youtu.be/e4Xr6MfW4v0

Posted June 14, 2022

“Judgment has been reserved in the case against President Cyril Ramaphosa, Sibanye-Stillwater, and the government. 329 miners are blaming them for actively inciting violence and exerting pressure which led to the Marikana massacre in August 2012. They are demanding compensation of R1-billion. eNCA senior journalist Aviwe Mtila has the story.”