• Carmen Leitch - A Mysterious Plasmid is Found at High Levels in the Human Gut:

    https://www.labroots.com/trending/genetics-and-genomics/27029/mysterious-plasmid-found-levels-human-gut

    #Plasmid #PBI143 #Metagenome #Gastrointestinal #Gut #Microbiology #Biology
    Carmen Leitch - A Mysterious Plasmid is Found at High Levels in the Human Gut: https://www.labroots.com/trending/genetics-and-genomics/27029/mysterious-plasmid-found-levels-human-gut #Plasmid #PBI143 #Metagenome #Gastrointestinal #Gut #Microbiology #Biology
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    A Mysterious Plasmid is Found at High Levels in the Human Gut | Genetics And Genomics
    There are trillions of microorganisms in the human gastrointestinal tract, and this gut microbiome includes bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi. | Genetics And Genomics
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  • More Proof mRNA Shots Edit Human Genome
    New Study Again Shows LINE-1 "Junk DNA" Does The Dirty Work

    Dr. Syed Haider
    Could the mRNA shots edit germline DNA?
    Honest scientists have always been worried about retrointegration of foreign mRNA from “vaccine” shots into our own cellular DNA.

    This fear should have been allayed by rigorous genotoxicity safety studies before the mRNA shots where rolled out, but those studies were waived by the Big Pharma controlled FDA (with the DoD behind the scenes pulling all the strings).

    Previous research showed that this could theoretically occur in a human liver cancer cell line inside a controlled laboratory setting utilizing our own bodies reverse transcriptase enzymes that are upregulated in cancer cells.

    Naysayers still argued that this situation was impossible or at least extremely unlikely to occur in our bodies.

    Unfortunately there is now further proof that this really does occur, either right away after vaccination, or if not, then it’s even more likely to occur once a vaccinated individual catches COVID-19, as long as vaccinal mRNA remains present in the body (so far we know it remains in circulation for weeks and in the lymph nodes for months - likely far longer, since all the studies had to be stopped, presumably due to lack of funding, or out of fear of creating unpublishable papers since the news wasn’t looking good).

    Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it.

    Share

    A new paper by Zhang et al, just released on Feb 13, 2023 proves that at artificially high concentrations in a lab setting, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can retrointegrate into our genome.

    Thankfully during natural infection such high levels of viral RNA do not typically occur, but … (you knew there had to be a “but”)

    … such high levels are induced by mRNA vaccination.

    So what the paper may actually prove in the roundabout way of most modern research (required for publication to ever happen in todays politically charged Big Pharma controlled publishing environment) is that the mRNA in the shots is in fact likely to retrointegrate into our cellular DNA.

    To dig into the details we need to start with a quick basic bio refresher:

    Understanding Genetics
    Nearly every cell in our bodies carries a full copy of our genetic code, or genome (the exceptions are red blood cells that have no genome, and sperm and egg cells that have half a genome since they are meant to combine with half of someone else's genome).

    Our genome is made up of individual genes encoded by DNA and bundled together into 46 chromosomes that are stored in a central compartment of our cells called the nucleus.

    In order to “read" the DNA code and convert it into the structure that makes up our bodies, it is first translated by a “reader” protein that writes it out into a new free floating molecule called mRNA for messenger RNA (the mRNA shots carry this messenger RNA, not modified RNA as some people think).

    The mRNA, unlike the DNA is not stuck inside the chromosome and it can exit the nucleus, going into the larger compartment called the cytoplasm of the cell, where its message is “read” and translated into an amino acid sequence that folds itself into a protein (either a body protein, or in the case of the shots the spike protein, or in the case of an RNA virus infection like SARS-CoV-2, all the proteins of the virus).

    Now going back to the nucleus: some of the individual DNA encoded genes can move around within their chromosomes and have therefore been described as "jumping genes" or technically speaking: transposable elements (TEs).

    Jumping genes!
    Some of these jumping genes (Class 1 TEs) use a copy and paste mechanism and others (Class 2 TEs), like the one in the cartoon depiction above, use a cut and paste mechanism.

    The Class 1 TEs (AKA retrotransposons) that use the copy and paste mechanism do so by translating their DNA into RNA and then converting the RNA back into DNA and inserting it somewhere else in the genome.

    The Class 1 TEs or retrotransposons, include within themselves the genetic code necessary to create their own protein enzyme to convert the DNA back into RNA, which is termed reverse transcriptase.

    Fun fact: retroviruses like HIV can be considered a special subtype of retrotransposon that can not only reinsert inside the same cell, but also travel to other cells “infecting” them and reverse transcribing into their genomes.

    In humans the only active jumping genes are from CLASS 1 TEs/retrotransposons and are called LINE-1 retrotransposons (LINE stands for Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements).

    LINE-1 retrotransposons were once considered to be junk DNA, they are usually inactivated, but can be turned on in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells and in general in any cell subjected to significant stress.

    Junk DNA, which makes up 98.5% of our genome, is still little understood. It may help regulate the activity of the other 1.5% of the genome that does code for proteins, is likely involved in genome evolution, and has been implicated in disease states like cancer, autism and dozens of genetic diseases.

    So, what’s been shown in this new paper by Zhang et al, is that a lab clone of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, when present in very high levels, does turn on LINE-1, which means it also turns on the LINE-1 reverse transcriptase enzyme, which it then makes use of to reverse transcribe itself into our DNA.

    But even worse: genome sequencing found the viral genetic code transcribed into our DNA not only in cells where LINE-1 was actively turned on, or overexpressed above baseline, but even in cells where it was not.

    Is Sangamo's Gene-Editing Approach a Bust? | The Motley Fool
    Then, instead of studying the LNPs and spike protein RNA used in the shots, the researchers (who valued their careers) used a different mechanism of delivering low levels of nucleocapsid RNA into the cells in the lab to see if they also up regulated LINE-1 expression and were integrated into the cellular DNA.

    Turns out this handicapped experiment did not up regulate LINE-1, or get taken up in detectable quantities by healthy cells, though it did lead to genomic uptake in cells that already had LINE-1 upregulated - which again happens in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells or simply in cells under stress (perhaps from LNP and spike protein induced inflammation?).

    The study authors addressed the discrepancy in retrointegration between the viral clone and their handicapped version of an mRNA shot by theorizing there were:

    "...several possible explanations for the differences in the levels of retrotransposition in infected and transfected cells: (i) The relative abundance of viral RNA is almost 2 orders of magnitude higher in infected than in transfected cells which would increase the probability of association with LINE1 proteins; (ii) virus infection, but not viral mRNA transfection, can induce endogenous LINE1 expression; (iii) multiple factors during SARS-CoV-2 infection can inhibit the antiviral/anti-retrotransposition function of stress granules (48–53), which could increase retrotransposition.”

    The first theory is the most concerning.

    Based on what we know from a 2020 study by Xie et al that showed the very high levels of intracellular viral RNA achieved by infectious clones, we can extrapolate that in the current study by Zhang et al the concentration of mRNA achieved by the SARS-CoV-2 viral clone was likely about 1000X greater than the low levels typically found during a natural infection.

    In fact the levels of mRNA in each cell achieved by the viral clone in the current study are actually far more likely to be achieved by transfection into cells of LNPs in the shots carrying spike protein mRNA than they are during a natural infection.

    Life finds a way. - Reaction GIFs
    So if the authors first theory is correct, that the difference in retrointegration rates simply depends on the intracellular concentration of foreign RNA, then retrointegration is very likely to occur due to exposure to mRNA in the shots, and it is likely to dramatically increase in case someone who has received the shot later becomes infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus - since we know it upregulates LINE-1 expression, or if they are put under other stressors including the development of cancer, or by the stress of long COVID, chronic vaccine injury, autoimmune disease, autonomic dysfunction, POTS, MCAS, etc - all of which are also sadly enough triggered by the shot.

    This is less likely to happen in germ cell DNA - our sperm and egg cells - and lets hope it doesn’t happen, since we already know that the shots likely do transmit altered immunity from mother to child, if they also pass on the mRNA coding the spike protein itself then huge swaths of humanity may be forever genetically altered.

    Heres hoping the label “junk DNA” actually applies in this case…

    But, if you’ve been vaccinated: don’t worry!

    At mygotodoc we routinely reverse vaccine injuries and sincerely believe every disease has a cure.

    Fear is more likely to kill you than the shot (but do stop getting the boosters), and I mean that literally: fear destroys the immune system.

    A healthy immune system can keep any illness in check even if from a retrointegrated virus or viral mRNA fragment.

    There are a lot of unknowns, but don’t let that scare you. Take your health into your own hands and start making positive changes today.

    https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/more-proof-mrna-shots-edit-human


    https://telegra.ph/More-Proof-mRNA-Shots-Edit-Human-Genome-09-17-2
    More Proof mRNA Shots Edit Human Genome New Study Again Shows LINE-1 "Junk DNA" Does The Dirty Work Dr. Syed Haider Could the mRNA shots edit germline DNA? Honest scientists have always been worried about retrointegration of foreign mRNA from “vaccine” shots into our own cellular DNA. This fear should have been allayed by rigorous genotoxicity safety studies before the mRNA shots where rolled out, but those studies were waived by the Big Pharma controlled FDA (with the DoD behind the scenes pulling all the strings). Previous research showed that this could theoretically occur in a human liver cancer cell line inside a controlled laboratory setting utilizing our own bodies reverse transcriptase enzymes that are upregulated in cancer cells. Naysayers still argued that this situation was impossible or at least extremely unlikely to occur in our bodies. Unfortunately there is now further proof that this really does occur, either right away after vaccination, or if not, then it’s even more likely to occur once a vaccinated individual catches COVID-19, as long as vaccinal mRNA remains present in the body (so far we know it remains in circulation for weeks and in the lymph nodes for months - likely far longer, since all the studies had to be stopped, presumably due to lack of funding, or out of fear of creating unpublishable papers since the news wasn’t looking good). Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share A new paper by Zhang et al, just released on Feb 13, 2023 proves that at artificially high concentrations in a lab setting, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can retrointegrate into our genome. Thankfully during natural infection such high levels of viral RNA do not typically occur, but … (you knew there had to be a “but”) … such high levels are induced by mRNA vaccination. So what the paper may actually prove in the roundabout way of most modern research (required for publication to ever happen in todays politically charged Big Pharma controlled publishing environment) is that the mRNA in the shots is in fact likely to retrointegrate into our cellular DNA. To dig into the details we need to start with a quick basic bio refresher: Understanding Genetics Nearly every cell in our bodies carries a full copy of our genetic code, or genome (the exceptions are red blood cells that have no genome, and sperm and egg cells that have half a genome since they are meant to combine with half of someone else's genome). Our genome is made up of individual genes encoded by DNA and bundled together into 46 chromosomes that are stored in a central compartment of our cells called the nucleus. In order to “read" the DNA code and convert it into the structure that makes up our bodies, it is first translated by a “reader” protein that writes it out into a new free floating molecule called mRNA for messenger RNA (the mRNA shots carry this messenger RNA, not modified RNA as some people think). The mRNA, unlike the DNA is not stuck inside the chromosome and it can exit the nucleus, going into the larger compartment called the cytoplasm of the cell, where its message is “read” and translated into an amino acid sequence that folds itself into a protein (either a body protein, or in the case of the shots the spike protein, or in the case of an RNA virus infection like SARS-CoV-2, all the proteins of the virus). Now going back to the nucleus: some of the individual DNA encoded genes can move around within their chromosomes and have therefore been described as "jumping genes" or technically speaking: transposable elements (TEs). Jumping genes! Some of these jumping genes (Class 1 TEs) use a copy and paste mechanism and others (Class 2 TEs), like the one in the cartoon depiction above, use a cut and paste mechanism. The Class 1 TEs (AKA retrotransposons) that use the copy and paste mechanism do so by translating their DNA into RNA and then converting the RNA back into DNA and inserting it somewhere else in the genome. The Class 1 TEs or retrotransposons, include within themselves the genetic code necessary to create their own protein enzyme to convert the DNA back into RNA, which is termed reverse transcriptase. Fun fact: retroviruses like HIV can be considered a special subtype of retrotransposon that can not only reinsert inside the same cell, but also travel to other cells “infecting” them and reverse transcribing into their genomes. In humans the only active jumping genes are from CLASS 1 TEs/retrotransposons and are called LINE-1 retrotransposons (LINE stands for Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements). LINE-1 retrotransposons were once considered to be junk DNA, they are usually inactivated, but can be turned on in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells and in general in any cell subjected to significant stress. Junk DNA, which makes up 98.5% of our genome, is still little understood. It may help regulate the activity of the other 1.5% of the genome that does code for proteins, is likely involved in genome evolution, and has been implicated in disease states like cancer, autism and dozens of genetic diseases. So, what’s been shown in this new paper by Zhang et al, is that a lab clone of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, when present in very high levels, does turn on LINE-1, which means it also turns on the LINE-1 reverse transcriptase enzyme, which it then makes use of to reverse transcribe itself into our DNA. But even worse: genome sequencing found the viral genetic code transcribed into our DNA not only in cells where LINE-1 was actively turned on, or overexpressed above baseline, but even in cells where it was not. Is Sangamo's Gene-Editing Approach a Bust? | The Motley Fool Then, instead of studying the LNPs and spike protein RNA used in the shots, the researchers (who valued their careers) used a different mechanism of delivering low levels of nucleocapsid RNA into the cells in the lab to see if they also up regulated LINE-1 expression and were integrated into the cellular DNA. Turns out this handicapped experiment did not up regulate LINE-1, or get taken up in detectable quantities by healthy cells, though it did lead to genomic uptake in cells that already had LINE-1 upregulated - which again happens in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells or simply in cells under stress (perhaps from LNP and spike protein induced inflammation?). The study authors addressed the discrepancy in retrointegration between the viral clone and their handicapped version of an mRNA shot by theorizing there were: "...several possible explanations for the differences in the levels of retrotransposition in infected and transfected cells: (i) The relative abundance of viral RNA is almost 2 orders of magnitude higher in infected than in transfected cells which would increase the probability of association with LINE1 proteins; (ii) virus infection, but not viral mRNA transfection, can induce endogenous LINE1 expression; (iii) multiple factors during SARS-CoV-2 infection can inhibit the antiviral/anti-retrotransposition function of stress granules (48–53), which could increase retrotransposition.” The first theory is the most concerning. Based on what we know from a 2020 study by Xie et al that showed the very high levels of intracellular viral RNA achieved by infectious clones, we can extrapolate that in the current study by Zhang et al the concentration of mRNA achieved by the SARS-CoV-2 viral clone was likely about 1000X greater than the low levels typically found during a natural infection. In fact the levels of mRNA in each cell achieved by the viral clone in the current study are actually far more likely to be achieved by transfection into cells of LNPs in the shots carrying spike protein mRNA than they are during a natural infection. Life finds a way. - Reaction GIFs So if the authors first theory is correct, that the difference in retrointegration rates simply depends on the intracellular concentration of foreign RNA, then retrointegration is very likely to occur due to exposure to mRNA in the shots, and it is likely to dramatically increase in case someone who has received the shot later becomes infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus - since we know it upregulates LINE-1 expression, or if they are put under other stressors including the development of cancer, or by the stress of long COVID, chronic vaccine injury, autoimmune disease, autonomic dysfunction, POTS, MCAS, etc - all of which are also sadly enough triggered by the shot. This is less likely to happen in germ cell DNA - our sperm and egg cells - and lets hope it doesn’t happen, since we already know that the shots likely do transmit altered immunity from mother to child, if they also pass on the mRNA coding the spike protein itself then huge swaths of humanity may be forever genetically altered. Heres hoping the label “junk DNA” actually applies in this case… But, if you’ve been vaccinated: don’t worry! At mygotodoc we routinely reverse vaccine injuries and sincerely believe every disease has a cure. Fear is more likely to kill you than the shot (but do stop getting the boosters), and I mean that literally: fear destroys the immune system. A healthy immune system can keep any illness in check even if from a retrointegrated virus or viral mRNA fragment. There are a lot of unknowns, but don’t let that scare you. Take your health into your own hands and start making positive changes today. https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/more-proof-mrna-shots-edit-human https://telegra.ph/More-Proof-mRNA-Shots-Edit-Human-Genome-09-17-2
    BLOG.MYGOTODOC.COM
    More Proof mRNA Shots Edit Human Genome
    New Study Again Shows LINE-1 "Junk DNA" Does The Dirty Work
    0 Comments 0 Shares 9852 Views
  • US congressman Walberg says Gaza should be destroyed 'like Nagasaki and Hiroshima', also suggests nuking Russia
    walberg
    The coments were made during a town hall meeting in Dundee, Michigan on March 25
    A Michigan Congressman has suggested a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza to 'support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas.'

    Speaking during a town hall earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Lenawee County, appeared entirely comfortable advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against the Palestinians.

    'It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick,' Walberg could be heard stating in a video posted to X in which he mentioned the Japanese cities in which America detonated atomic bombs at the end of World War II.


    Walberg, an eight-term Republican congressman from Lenawee County, can also be heard speaking against providing humanitarian aid for those in the Palestinian territory.


    'We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,' Walberg stated in response to a question about American troops being deployed into Gaza to build a port that would help aid be delivered to the Palestinians.

    Walberg had been responding to a question about an initiative put forward by President Joe Biden to use American tax dollars to construct a port off the Gaza coast that would allow humanitarian aid to be delivered more quickly.

    Walberg's office has now attempted to explain the GOP congressman's seemingly straightforward answer as a metaphor.

    'During his community gathering, he clearly uses a metaphor to support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas, which is the best chance to save lives long-term and the only hope at achieving a permanent peace in the region,' Walberg spokesman Mike Rorke said on Saturday.

    'Congressman Walberg vehemently disagrees with putting our troops in harm's way. He has great empathy for the innocent people in Gaza who have been thrust into this situation due to the attack carried out by Hamas leaving 1,163 innocent civilians dead,' Rorke continued.


    'To this day, Hamas still is holding hostages, including Americans. Hamas should surrender and return the hostages.'

    Walberg's comments have been described as 'clear call to genocide by a member of Congress'.

    The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said his remarks should be 'condemned by all Americans who value human life and international law.'

    'To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value,' CAIR Executive Director Dawud Walid said to Detroit News.

    'It is this dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the ongoing slaughter and suffering we see every day in Gaza and the West Bank.'

    The U.N. food agency has said famine is 'imminent' in northern Gaza, with two-thirds of population experiencing catastrophic hunger.

    Later in the town hall, held on March 25 in Dundee, Michigan, Walberg went on to suggest that a nuclear bomb should also be used in Russia's war with Ukraine in order to 'defeat Putin quick.'


    He said instead of American money being used to provide aid to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes, it should instead be used 'to wipe out Russia, if that's what we want to do.'

    Walberg has been taken to task over his comments by his Democratic colleagues with some calling for his immediate resignation.

    Michigan state Democratic Senator Darrin Camilleri tweeted how Walberg had been caught on video 'endorsing and calling for a complete genocide in Gaza.'

    'He's an absolute disgrace and needs to resign,' Camilleri stated.

    'Threatening to use, suggesting the use of, or, God forbid actually using nuclear weapons, are unacceptable tactics of war in the 21st Century,' wrote Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens.

    'As W.J. Hennigan recently & accurately described for the NYT, the use of nuclear weapons creates hell on earth.'

    Fellow Michiagn Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin also condemned his remarks.

    'This is a reprehensible thing for anyone to suggest, especially an elected official and someone who considers himself a man of faith. Rep. Walberg should take back his comments, and try to put himself in the shoes of the many Michiganders who see themselves in the casualties in Gaza,' Slotkin said in a statement.

    Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee said Walberg's comments were horrific and shocking.

    'It is an indefensible position to argue against humanitarian relief for the people of Gaza while also calling for the wholesale massacre of the Palestinian people. I could not disagree more with these extreme and dangerous comments,' Kildee said in a statement.


    https://www.sott.net/article/490259-US-congressman-Walberg-says-Gaza-should-be-destroyed-like-Nagasaki-and-Hiroshima-also-suggests-nuking-Russia
    US congressman Walberg says Gaza should be destroyed 'like Nagasaki and Hiroshima', also suggests nuking Russia walberg The coments were made during a town hall meeting in Dundee, Michigan on March 25 A Michigan Congressman has suggested a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza to 'support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas.' Speaking during a town hall earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Lenawee County, appeared entirely comfortable advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against the Palestinians. 'It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick,' Walberg could be heard stating in a video posted to X in which he mentioned the Japanese cities in which America detonated atomic bombs at the end of World War II. Walberg, an eight-term Republican congressman from Lenawee County, can also be heard speaking against providing humanitarian aid for those in the Palestinian territory. 'We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,' Walberg stated in response to a question about American troops being deployed into Gaza to build a port that would help aid be delivered to the Palestinians. Walberg had been responding to a question about an initiative put forward by President Joe Biden to use American tax dollars to construct a port off the Gaza coast that would allow humanitarian aid to be delivered more quickly. Walberg's office has now attempted to explain the GOP congressman's seemingly straightforward answer as a metaphor. 'During his community gathering, he clearly uses a metaphor to support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas, which is the best chance to save lives long-term and the only hope at achieving a permanent peace in the region,' Walberg spokesman Mike Rorke said on Saturday. 'Congressman Walberg vehemently disagrees with putting our troops in harm's way. He has great empathy for the innocent people in Gaza who have been thrust into this situation due to the attack carried out by Hamas leaving 1,163 innocent civilians dead,' Rorke continued. 'To this day, Hamas still is holding hostages, including Americans. Hamas should surrender and return the hostages.' Walberg's comments have been described as 'clear call to genocide by a member of Congress'. The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said his remarks should be 'condemned by all Americans who value human life and international law.' 'To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value,' CAIR Executive Director Dawud Walid said to Detroit News. 'It is this dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the ongoing slaughter and suffering we see every day in Gaza and the West Bank.' The U.N. food agency has said famine is 'imminent' in northern Gaza, with two-thirds of population experiencing catastrophic hunger. Later in the town hall, held on March 25 in Dundee, Michigan, Walberg went on to suggest that a nuclear bomb should also be used in Russia's war with Ukraine in order to 'defeat Putin quick.' He said instead of American money being used to provide aid to Ukraine for humanitarian purposes, it should instead be used 'to wipe out Russia, if that's what we want to do.' Walberg has been taken to task over his comments by his Democratic colleagues with some calling for his immediate resignation. Michigan state Democratic Senator Darrin Camilleri tweeted how Walberg had been caught on video 'endorsing and calling for a complete genocide in Gaza.' 'He's an absolute disgrace and needs to resign,' Camilleri stated. 'Threatening to use, suggesting the use of, or, God forbid actually using nuclear weapons, are unacceptable tactics of war in the 21st Century,' wrote Democratic Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens. 'As W.J. Hennigan recently & accurately described for the NYT, the use of nuclear weapons creates hell on earth.' Fellow Michiagn Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin also condemned his remarks. 'This is a reprehensible thing for anyone to suggest, especially an elected official and someone who considers himself a man of faith. Rep. Walberg should take back his comments, and try to put himself in the shoes of the many Michiganders who see themselves in the casualties in Gaza,' Slotkin said in a statement. Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee said Walberg's comments were horrific and shocking. 'It is an indefensible position to argue against humanitarian relief for the people of Gaza while also calling for the wholesale massacre of the Palestinian people. I could not disagree more with these extreme and dangerous comments,' Kildee said in a statement. https://www.sott.net/article/490259-US-congressman-Walberg-says-Gaza-should-be-destroyed-like-Nagasaki-and-Hiroshima-also-suggests-nuking-Russia
    0 Comments 0 Shares 6916 Views
  • The IDF’s war crimes are a perfect reflection of Israeli society
    Miko Peled, author and former member of IDF Special Forces, explains how Israel indoctrinates its citizens in anti-Palestinian racism from the cradle to the grave.


    Three months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the atrocities the IDF has committed against Palestinians are too numerous to name. Israel is staging a prolonged assault on the Palestinian people’s very means of existence—destroying homes, hospitals, sanitation infrastructure, food and water sources, schools, and more. To understand the genocidal campaign unfolding before our eyes, we must examine the roots of Israeli society. Israel is a settler colonial state whose existence depends on the elimination of Palestinians. Accordingly, Israel is a deeply militarized society whose citizens are raised in an environment of historical revisionism and indoctrination that whitewashes Israel’s crimes while cultivating a deep-seated racism against Palestinians. Miko Peled, former IDF Special Forces and author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a frank conversation on the distortions of history and reality at the foundations of Israeli identity.

    Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino
    Post-Production: Adam Coley

    Transcript

    Chris Hedges: The Israeli army, known as the Israel Defense Force or IDF, is integral to understanding Israeli society. Nearly all Israelis do three years of military service, most continue to serve in the reserves until middle age. Its generals often retire to occupy senior positions in government and industry. The dominance of the military in Israeli society helps explain why war, militaristic nationalism, and violence are so deeply embedded in Zionist ideology.

    Israel is the outgrowth of a militarized settler colonial movement that seeks its legitimacy in biblical myth. It has always sought to solve nearly every conflict; The ethnic cleansing and massacres against Palestinians known as the Nakba or catastrophe in the years between 1947 and 1949, the Suez War of 1956, the 1967 and 1973 wars with Arab neighbors, the two invasions of Lebanon, the Palestinian intifadas, and the series of military strikes on Gaza, including the most recent, with violence. The long campaign to occupy Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse Palestinians is rooted in the Zionist paramilitaries that formed the Israeli state and continue within the IDF.

    The overriding goal of settler colonialism is the total conquest of Palestinian land. The few Israeli leaders who have sought to reign in the military, such as Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, have been pushed aside by the generals. The military setbacks suffered by Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, and during Israel’s invasions of Lebanon only fuel the extreme nationalists who have abandoned all pretense of a liberal democracy. They speak in the open language of apartheid and genocide. These extremists were behind the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israel’s failure to live up to the Oslo Accords.

    This extremism has now been exacerbated by the attack of October 7, which killed about 1,200 Israelis. The few Israelis who oppose this militaristic nationalism, especially after October 7, have been silenced and persecuted in Israel. Genocidal violence is almost exclusively the language Israeli leaders, and now Israeli citizens, use to speak to the Palestinians and the Arab world.

    Joining me to discuss the role of the military in Israeli society is Miko Peled. Miko’s father was a general in the Israeli army. Miko was a member of Israel’s special forces and, although disillusioned with the military, moved from his role as a combatant to that of a medic. After the 1982 war in Lebanon, he buried his service pin. He is the author of, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.

    You grew up, you were a child when your father was a general in the IDF. This inculcation of that military ethos has begun very young and begun in the schools. Can you talk about that?

    Miko Peled: Sure, thanks for having me, Chris. It’s good to be with you again and talk to you. So it begins before the military. It begins in preschool. It begins as soon as kids are able to talk and walk. I always say I knew the order of the ranks in the military before I knew my alphabet and this is true for many Israeli kids. The Israeli education system is such that it leads young Israelis to become soldiers, to serve the apartheid state, and to serve in this genocidal state, which is the state of Israel. It’s an enormous part of that. And with me, it came with mega-doses of that because when your father’s a general, and particularly of that generation of the 1967 generals, they were like gods of Olympus. Everybody knew their names.

    On Independence Day, I remember in the schools you would have little flags, not just flags of Israel, but flags of the IDF with pictures of IDF generals, pictures of the military, all kinds of military symbols, and so on. It’s everywhere. When I was a kid they still had a military parade. It’s everywhere and it’s inescapable. And you hear it when you walk down the street, you hear it in the news, you hear it in conversations, you hear it in schools, you read it in the textbooks, and there’s no place to develop dissent. There’s no place to develop a sense that dissent is okay, that dissent is possible. And the few cases where people do become dissenters, it’s either because their families have a tradition of being communist or more progressive and somehow it’s part of their tradition but this is a minority of a minority. By and large, Israel stands with the army, and Israel is the army. You can’t separate Israel from its army, from its military.

    Chris Hedges: Let’s juxtapose the myth that you were taught in school about the IDF with the reality.

    Miko Peled: The myth that I was… Again, this was given to me in larger doses at home because my father and his comrades were all part of the 1948 mythology. We were small and we were resourceful, and we were clever, and therefore, in 1948, we were able to defeat these Arab armies and these Arab killers who came to try to kill us and so on and destroy our fledgling little Jewish state. And because of our heroism – And you talked about the biblical connection – Because we are the descendants of King David, and we are the descendants of the Maccabees, and we have this resourcefulness and strength in our genes, we were able to create a state and then every time they attacked, we were there. We were able to defend ourselves and prevail and so on. It’s everywhere. Then again, in my case, it’s every time the larger, more extended family got together or my parents got together with their friends. And in many cases, the fathers were also comrades in arms.

    The stories of the battles, the stories of the conquests; Every city in Israel has an IDF plaza. Street names after different units of different generals are all over the country, street names of battles, so it’s everywhere. It wasn’t until I was probably 40 or a little less than 40, that it was the first time that I encountered the other narrative, the Palestinian story, and it was unbelievable. Somebody was telling me the day is night and night is day, or the world is flat, or whatever the comparison you want to make, it was incredible. They are telling me that what I know to be true – ‘Cause I heard it in school and I read it in books and I heard it from my father and my mother and friends – That all of this is not true. And what you find out if you go along the path that I chose to take, this journey of an Israeli to Palestine, is that it was one horrifying crime against humanity.

    That’s what this so-called heroism was, it was no heroism at all. It was a well-trained, highly motivated, well-indoctrinated, well-armed militia that then became the IDF. But when it started, it was still a militia or today they would be called a terrorist organization, that went up against the people who had never had a military force, who never had a tank, who never had a warplane, who never prepared, even remotely, for battle or an assault. Then you have to make a choice: How do you bridge this? The differences are not nuanced, the differences are enormous. The choice that I made is to investigate for myself and find out who’s telling the truth and who isn’t. And my side was not telling the truth.

    Chris Hedges: How did they explain incidents such as the Nakba, the massacres that took place in ’48 and ’56, and the massive ethnic cleansing that took place in ’67? How was that explained to you within that mythic narrative? Many of the activities that the IDF has had to carry out are quite brutal, quite savage. The indiscriminate killing of civilians – We can talk about Gaza in a minute – What did that do to society? The people who carried out those killings, and eventually huge prisons, torture, and everything else? But let’s begin with how the myth coped with those incidents and then talk about the trauma that is carried within Israeli society for carrying out those war crimes.

    Miko Peled: My generation, we knew that there were several instances of bad apples that committed terrible crimes. And we admitted, so there was Deir Yassin, which was a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a peaceful village where a horrible massacre took place. Then we knew that Ariel Sharon was a bit of a lunatic and he took the commandos that he commanded in the ’50s and went to the West Bank and went into Gaza and committed acts of terrible massacres. He was still a hero, held in high regard by everyone, but we knew that there were certain instances… And every military, every nation makes its mistakes and then these things happen But there was never any sense that this somehow discounted or hurt the image of us being a moral army.

    There are lots of stories of how soldiers went and they decided to, out of the kindness of their hearts, they didn’t harm civilians. And those same civilians went and then warned the enemy that they were coming. And these same good Israeli soldiers would then pay the price and were killed. So it’s presented as limited cases. Nakba was not something that was ever discussed. I’m sure it’s not discussed today, certainly not in schools. In Israeli schools today, you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba. There’s a directive by the Ministry of Education that even Palestinians are not allowed to mention the Nakba. But nobody ever talked about that. And the Arabs left, what are you going to do? There was a war and all these people left and this is the way it is.

    So none of that ever hurt, in any way, the image of us being this glorious heroic army, descendants of King David, and other great traditions of Jewish heroism. None of that ever hurt itself. So there’s no trauma because we did nothing wrong. If somebody did something wrong, well, it was a case of bad apples, it was limited to a particular circumstance, a particular person, a particular unit, and you get crazy people everywhere. What are you going to do? It’s never been presented as systemic. Today, we have a history so we can look back and if we do pay attention, and if we do read the literature, and if we do listen to Palestinians – And today there’s this great NGO called Zochrot, whose mission is to maintain the memory of the towns and cities that were destroyed in 1948 and to revive the stories of what took place in 1948 – They are uncovering new massacres all the time. Because as that generation is dying off, both the Israelis who committed the crimes and the Palestinians who were still alive at the time and survived, are opening up and telling more and more stories.

    So we know of churches that were filled with civilians and were burned down. We know of a mosque in Lydd that was filled with people and a young man went and shot a Fiat missile into it. All of these horrific stories are still coming out but Israelis are not paying attention, Israelis are not listening. Whenever there’s an attack on Gaza – And as you know very well, these attacks began in the fifties with Ariel Sharon, by the way – There is always a reason. Because at first they were infiltrators, and then they were terrorists, and now they’re called Hamas, and whatever the devil’s name may be there’s always a very good reason to go in there because these are people who are raised to hate and kill and so on. So it’s a tightly-knit and tightly-orchestrated narrative that is being perpetuated and Israelis don’t seem to have a problem with that.

    Chris Hedges: And yet carrying out acts of brutality. The occupation – Huge numbers, a million Israelis are in the states. Large numbers of Israelis have left the country. I’m wondering how many of those are people who have a conscience and are repulsed by what they have seen in the West Bank and Gaza. Perhaps I’m incorrect about that.

    Miko Peled: I don’t know. In the few encounters that I’ve had with Israelis in the US over the years, the vast majority support Israel, support Israel’s actions. It’s interesting that you mentioned that because I got an email from someone representing a group of alumni of Jewish Day Schools. These are Zionist schools all over countries where they indoctrinate the worst Zionism: secular Zionism. And they are now appalled by the indoctrination to serve in the IDF. A very high percentage of these students grew up, went to Israel, joined the IDF, took part in APEC events, and so on. And now they’re looking back and they’re reflecting and they’re feeling a sense of anger that they were put through this and lied through their entire lives about this.

    So that’s an interesting development. And if that grows, then that might be a game changer because these are the most loyal American Jews. The most loyal to Israel. But by and large, Israelis that I meet, with few exceptions, support Israel and they’re here for whatever reasons people come to America: They’re not unique, they’re not necessarily here because they were fed up or they were angry, or they were dissenters in any way, shape, or form. Around DC and Maryland, there are many Israelis. Sometimes you’ll sit in a coffee shop or go somewhere, you hear the conversations, and there’s no lack of support for Israel among these Israelis as far as I can see.

    Chris Hedges: Let’s talk about the armies. You were in the Special Forces elite unit. Talk about that indoctrination. I remember visiting Auschwitz a few years ago, and there were Israeli groups and people flying Israeli flags. But speak about that form of indoctrination and its link, in particular, to the Holocaust.

    Miko Peled: The myth is that Israel is a response to the Holocaust. And that the IDF is a response to the Holocaust; We must be strong, we must be willing to fight, and we must always have a gun in one hand or a weapon in one hand so that this will never happen again. And what’s interesting is, when you talk to Holocaust survivors who are not indoctrinated, who did not get pulled into Zionism – Which there are very, very many – They’ll say the notion that a militarized state is somehow the answer to the Holocaust is absurd because the answer to the Holocaust is tolerance and education and humanity, not violence and racism. But nobody wants to ruin a good myth with the facts. So that’s the story.

    The story is because of Auschwitz, we represent all those that were killed, perished by the Nazis, and so on, and therefore we need to be strong. And the Israeli flag represents them, and the Israeli military represents them. It’s absurd, it’s absolute madness. I went to serve in the army willingly, as most young Israelis do. In my environment, refusing or not going was not heard of, although there were some voices in the wilderness that were refusing and questioning morality. But I never did. Nobody around me ever did until I began the training and you began patrolling. I remember – You and I may have talked about this once – We were an infantry unit, a commando infantry unit. And suddenly we were given batons and these plastic handcuffs and were told to patrol in Ramallah.

    And I’m going, what the hell’s going on? What are we doing here? And then we’re told if anybody looks at you funny, you break every bone in their body. And I thought, everybody’s going to look at us, we’re commandos while marching through a city. Who’s not going to look at us? I was behind. I didn’t realize that everybody already understood that this is how it is, this is how it’s supposed to be. I thought, wait, this is wrong. Why are we doing this? We’re supposed to be the good guys here.

    And then there was the Lebanon invasion of ’82 and so on. So that broke that in my mind, that was a serious crack in the wall of belief and the wall of patriotism that was in me. But this whole notion that somehow being violent and militaristic and racist and being conquerors is somehow a response to the horrors of the Holocaust is absolute madness. But when you’re in it nobody around you is asking questions. You don’t ask questions either unless you’re willing to stand out and be smacked on the head.

    Chris Hedges: Within the military, within the IDF, how did they speak about Palestinians and Arabs?

    Miko Peled: The discourse, the hatred, the racism, is horrifying. First of all, they’re the animals. They’re nothing. It’s a joke, you see, it’s horrifying. They think it’s funny to stop people and ask them for their ID and to chase them and to chase kids and to shoot. It all seems like entertainment, you know? I never heard that discourse until I was in it. Then afterward, when I would meet Israelis who served, even here in the US, the way they joked around about what they did in the West Bank, the way they joked around about killing or stopping people or making them take their clothes off and dance naked, it’s entertainment.

    They think it’s funny. They don’t see that there’s a problem here because racism is so ingrained from such a young age that it’s almost organic. And I don’t think it’s surprising. When you have a racist society, and you have a racist education system that is so methodical, that’s what you get. And the racism doesn’t stop with Palestinians or with Arabs; It goes on to the Black people, it goes on to people of color, it goes to Jews or Israelis who come from other countries who are dark-skinned, for some reason. The racism crosses all these boundaries and it’s completely part of the culture.

    Chris Hedges: You have very little criticism of the IDF, almost none within the Israeli press, although there is quite a bit of criticism right now, of Netanyahu and his mismanagement and his corruption. Talk a little bit about the deification of the IDF within the public discourse and mainstream media and what that means for what’s happening in Gaza.

    Miko Peled: Well, the military is above the law. It’s above reproach, except from time to time. So after the ’73 war, there was an investigation. Earlier this week, there was, in the cabinet meeting… The cabinet meets every Sunday. And the army chief of staff was there and he was… This was leaked from the cabinet meeting. It was leaked that some of the more right-wing partners – It’s funny to say right-wing partners because they’re all this right-wing lunacy in the Israeli cabinet – But the more right-wing settlers that are in the cabinet were attacking the army, were attacking the chief of staff because he decided to start an inquiry because it was catastrophic when the Palestinian fighters came in from Gaza, there was nobody home. They took over half of their country back. They took 22 Israeli settlements and cities.

    They took over the army base of the Gaza brigade, which is supposed to defend the country from exactly this happening. And there was nobody in the… They took over the base. So he initiated an internal inquiry within the army, and they’re criticizing him and what you see in the Israeli press is two very interesting things: One is something went horribly wrong and we need to find out why, but we should wait because we shouldn’t do it during wartime. We shouldn’t criticize the army during wartime. We shouldn’t make the soldiers feel like they have to hold back because if they need to shoot, they should be allowed to shoot. And the other thing we see is that politically, everybody is eating each other up. They’re killing each other politically in the press. So everybody that’s against Netanyahu and wants to see it is attacking him.

    His people are attacking the others for attacking the government. It seems like there’s this paralysis as a result of this infighting that is affecting the functionality of the state as a state. Israelis are not living in the country, Israel is not the state that it was prior to October 7, it was paralyzed for several weeks, and now it’s still paralyzed in many ways. You’ve got missiles coming from the north, you’ve got missiles coming from the south. You’ve got very large numbers of Israeli soldiers being killed and thousands being injured and the war’s not ending. They’re not able to defeat the Palestinians in Gaza, the armed resistance, and so on.

    So all of this is taking place and you read the Israeli press and it’s like this cesspool that’s bubbling and bubbling and bubbling, and everybody’s attacking everybody else. And the army, it’s true, they are above reproach mostly, but this particular time the settlers are very angry. Another reason is because the the military decided to pull back some of the ground troops, understandably, since they’re being hit so hard. And I remember that happening before when the army pulled back out of Gaza, they were being attacked for stopping the killing, for not continuing these mass killings of Palestinians.

    Chris Hedges: Well, you had what? 70 fatalities in the Golani Brigade? And they were pulled back. This is a very elite unit.

    Miko Peled: Yeah, it’s very interesting because many of the casualties are high-ranking officers. You have colonels, lieutenant colonels, and very high-ranking commanders within Israeli special forces who are being killed. And they’re usually killed in big bunches because they’ll be in an armored personnel carrier or they’ll be marching together. And in Jenin a few days ago, they blew up a military vehicle and killed a bunch of soldiers. So Israelis are scratching their heads, not knowing what the hell is going on and what to do, because number one, they were not protected as they thought they were.

    And I’m sure you know this, the Israeli settlements, the kibbutzim, the cities in the south that border Gaza, [inaudible 00:25:59], they enjoy some of the highest standards of living among Israelis. It’s a beautiful lifestyle. It’s warm, it’s lovely. Agriculture is… And I don’t think it ever occurred to them that Palestinians would dare to come out of Gaza fighting and succeeding the way they did. The army was bankrupt. It was gone, the intelligence apparatus was bankrupt, and nothing worked. And it is reminiscent of what happened in 1973. This is far worse but it is reminiscent. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the October 7 attacks were exactly 50 years and one day after the 1973 October war began and the whole system collapsed. So that’s what we’re seeing right now.

    Chris Hedges: How do you read what’s happening in Gaza, militarily?

    Miko Peled: The Palestinians are able to hold on and kill many Israelis. And even though the Israelis have the firepower and they’ve got the logistics, supply chains are not a problem. Whereas Palestinians, I don’t know where they’re getting supplies. I don’t know where they’re getting food to continue fighting. They’re putting up a fierce resistance. I don’t think that militarily there’s a strategy here. This is revenge; Israel was humiliated, the army was humiliated, and they needed to take it out on somebody.

    So they found the weakest victims they could lay their hands on, and these are the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And so they’re killing them by the tens of thousands. I don’t think anybody believes in such a thing as getting rid of Hamas. I don’t think anybody believes that that’s possible. I don’t believe anybody takes seriously or believes that you can take too many people out of Gaza and spread them around the world and into other places, even though that’s what they’re saying. But as long as Israel is allowed to kill, and as long as the supply chain isn’t interrupted, they’re going to continue to kill.

    Chris Hedges: And they’re also creating a humanitarian crisis. So it’s not just the bombs and the shells, but it’s now starvation. Diarrhea is an epidemic, sanitation is broken. I’m wondering at what point this humanitarian crisis becomes so pronounced that the choice is you leave or you die.

    Miko Peled: That’s always the big question for Palestinians. And the sad thing is that Palestinians are always being placed in these situations where they have to make that choice. It’s the worst form of injustice. And you know this, you’ve been in war zones. We don’t know how many bodies are buried under the rubble and what that’s going to bring up. And there are hundreds of thousands now who are suffering from all kinds of diseases as a result of this environmental catastrophe. And you remember, what was it? 2016 or something, 2017? The UN came out with a report that by 2020, Gaza would be uninhabitable. I don’t think the Gaza Strip has ever been inhabitable. It’s been a humanitarian disaster since it was created in the late forties and early fifties because they suddenly threw all these refugees there with no infrastructure and that was it, and then began killing them.

    I was talking to some people the other day, as Americans, as taxpayers, wouldn’t we want the Sixth Fleet, which is in the Mediterranean, the US Navy Sixth Fleet, to aid the Palestinians? To provide them support? To create a no-fly zone over these innocent people that are being massacred? As Americans, shouldn’t that be the natural ask, the natural desire to demand our politicians to use? Because American naval vessels have been used for humanitarian causes before. Why aren’t they supporting the Palestinians? Why aren’t they providing them aid? Why aren’t they helping them rebuild? Why are American tax dollars going to continue this genocide rather than stop it and aid the victims?

    These are questions Americans need to ask themselves because it makes absolutely no sense. It is absolute madness that people are allowing their government to support a genocide that’s not even done in secret. It’s not even done in hiding it. It’s on prime time. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows what’s going on. And again, for some strange reason, Americans are allowing their military and their government to aid the genocide. And there’s no question that it’s genocide. The definition of the crime of genocide is so absolutely clear, that anybody can look it up and compare it to what’s been going on in Palestine. So that to me is the greatest question: Why aren’t Americans demanding that the US support the Palestinians?

    Chris Hedges: Well, according to opinion polls, most Americans want a ceasefire. But the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Biden is one of the largest recipients of aid or campaign financing from the Israel lobby. This is true for both parties. Chuck Schumer was at the rally saying no ceasefire.

    Miko Peled: Which is odd. A ceasefire is a very small ask and I don’t know why we always ask for the bare minimum for Palestinians. But let’s talk about ceasefire. Israeli soldiers are being killed as well in very large numbers. How has ceasefire suddenly become an anti-Israeli demand? But it’s a very small ask. I don’t know how it was or where it was that this idea of demanding a ceasefire came up because that is not a serious demand. Ceasefire gets violated by Israel anyway, within 24-48 hours. You know that historically Israel always violated ceasefires. What is required here are severe sanctions, a no-fly zone, immediate aid to the Palestinians, and stopping this and providing guarantees for the safety and security of Palestinians forever moving forward so this can never happen again.

    That’s what needs to be asked. At this point, after having sacrificed so much, after having shown much of what I believe is immense courage, Palestinians deserve everything. We as people of conscience need to demand not to ceasefire, we need to demand a dismantling of the apartheid state and a full stop and absolute end to the genocide and guarantees put in place that Palestinian kids will be safe. I was talking to Issa Amro earlier in Hebron. It’s ridiculous when nobody even talks about what happens in the West Bank. Friends of mine who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, nobody dares to leave the house, nobody dares to text. They’re afraid to walk down the streets. Their safety is not guaranteed by anyone.

    Palestinian safety and security are left to the whims of any Israeli, and that should be the conversation right now, after such horrendous violence. That needs to be the demand. That needs to be the ask when we go to protests when we make these demands like a ceasefire. And even that, Israel is not willing. And these bouts of political supporters of Israel here in America are not willing to entertain a ceasefire. I believe it’s a crazy part of history that we’re experiencing right now and it’s a watershed moment. October 7 created an opportunity to end this for good, to end the suffering of Palestinians, the oppression, and the genocide for good. And if we being people of conscience don’t take advantage of this now and bring it to an end, we will regret this for generations.

    Chris Hedges: The Netanyahu government is talking about this assault on Gaza, this genocide continuing for months. There are strikes, and have been strikes against, now Hezbollah leaders. What concerns you? How could this all go terribly wrong?

    Miko Peled: It’s already gone terribly wrong because of the death and destruction of so many innocent lives is… I don’t even know that there’s a word for it. It’s beyond horrifying. Netanyahu is relying on the restraint of Hezbollah and the restraint of Iran and the restraint of the Arab governments has all been neutralized either through destruct, being destroyed, or through normalization. So he’s relying on that and he knows that he can keep triggering, he can keep bombing Lebanon, bombing Syria, instigating all of these things and it won’t turn into an all-out war. Because at the end of the day, even though Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Palestinian fighters have shown that they’re superior as fighters, they don’t have the supply chains, they don’t have the warplanes, they don’t have the tanks. So more and more civilians are going to be hurt.

    So I don’t think it’s going to turn into a regional war by any stretch of the imagination. And so Netanyahu is betting on that, and that’s why he’s allowing this to go on. And for him, this is a win-win. There’s no way that he can be unseated by anybody that’s around him. There’s no opposition. And as long as this goes on, as long as everybody’s in a state of crisis, he can continue to sit in the Prime Minister’s seat, which for him is the end all and be all of everything. And the world is supporting. The world, as governments of the world, I should say.

    I do interviews with African TV stations, Indian TV stations, and Europeans; Everybody is supporting Israel. Everybody listens to what I have to say, and they think I am a lunatic for supporting terrorism or whatever it is they, however, it is that they frame it. But I don’t see this ending unless there is massive pressure by people of conscience on their governments to force change, to force sanctions, to force the end of the genocide, and the end of the apartheid state.

    Chris Hedges: I want to talk about the shift within Zionism itself from the dominance of a secular leadership to – We see it in the government of Netanyahu – The rise of a religious Zionism, which is also true now within the IDF. And I wondered if you could talk about the consequences of that.

    Miko Peled: Sure. So originally, traditionally, and historically, Zionism and Judaism were at odds. And even to this day ultra-orthodox Jews reject Zionism and reject Israel by and large. But after 1967, there was this new creation of the Zionist religious movement. And these are the settlers who went to the West Bank and they became the new pioneers. And they are today, they make up a large portion of the officers and those who joined the special forces and so on. In the past, in the army, the unofficial policy was that these guys, should not be allowed to advance. The current chief of staff comes from that world, which is a huge change. There are several generals and high-ranking commanders and so on who come from that world. The reason that it was the unofficial policy that these guys should not be promoted was that it’s an incredibly toxic combination, this messianic form of Judaism, which is an aberration.

    It’s not Judaism at all, with this nationalist fanaticism. This combination is toxic and look what it created. It created some of the worst racists, some of the most violent thugs that we’ve seen, certainly in the short history of the state of Israel, although I don’t know that they’re any less violent than the generation of Zionists of my father who are secular. This was a big concern in the past but now they’re everywhere and look at its current government. They hold the finance ministry, they hold the national security ministry, certainly in the military they’re everywhere, they hold many sub-cabinets, and they’re heads of committees in the Knesset, and so on. And they’ve done their work. They worked very hard to get to where they are today, which is where they call the shots. And Netanyahu’s guaranteed to remain in power.

    They’re his support group. That’s why you could have had, as we had earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting in the streets and it didn’t affect him because he has his block in the Knesset that will never leave him as long as he allows them to play their game. And this is what’s happening. So in terms of violence and the facts on the ground, I don’t think these guys are any worse again than my parents’ generation who were young Zionists and zealots at the time and committed the 1948 Nakba and ran the country and operated the apartheid state for the first few decades. But it’s a new form of fanaticism being that it is religious as well as fascist. So it’s very toxic. And they have more of a stomach for killing civilians than we’ve ever seen before, even for Israelis. These numbers are beyond belief, even for Israel.

    Chris Hedges: I’m wondering if this religious Zionism probably has its profoundest effect within Israel, in terms of shutting down dissidents, civil liberties, this kind of stuff.

    Miko Peled: Well, Israelis love them. Israelis love these guys because they’re religious but they dress like us. They don’t look like the old Jews with the big beards and everything; They’re cool. They wear jeans. And the reason I say this is because one of their objectives is to take over Al-Aqsa and build a Jewish temple. They’re destroying Al-Aqsa and they conduct these tours. In the old city of Jerusalem, there’s a particular path that you take from where the western wall is up to Al-Aqsa, which is open for non-Muslims. And so they hold tours and there’s several odd times throughout the day. I’ve taken some of these tours to see what it’s about, what these guys do, you know?

    These are prayer tours and hundreds of thousands of Israelis go on these tours. And these are Israelis who are not religious at all, these are secular people. I see the people that go on the tours. To give you an idea of what this is about, you go up on that bridge and then you wait until the tour starts because you have to go in a group. And there’s a massive model of the new temple, of the Jewish temple that is going to be built there. And then you have a huge group of armed police –They’re not soldiers, they’re police but dressed completely militarized. And Muslim Palestinians are not allowed – That accompany the tour all around and they stop and they pray and they stop and they pray and they stop and pray at various places. The whole thing takes maybe an hour. But the interesting thing is that the people who go on these tours are secular Israelis. And then as I was doing this, I was remembering, even as a kid growing up completely secular, we would sing songs about the day that we build a temple.

    Why did we sing songs about building a temple? Because it went beyond our religious significance and became a national significance. And there’s no question in my mind that Netanyahu and secular Israelis would love to see this idea of destroying Al-Aqsa and having a Jewish temple there. It’s a sign that we’re back, King David is back. Even though it has nothing to do with history and there’s no truth in it, the connection that we are descendants of King David is something Israelis love. That’s what this is about, the relationship between the so-called settlers. That’s what they’re called in Israeli jargon. They’re called the settlers. Regular secular Israelis are an interesting one because on the one hand, they’re looked down upon because they’re religious, but on the other hand, they’re a cool religious. So there is an affinity.

    Chris Hedges: Great. That was Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. I want to thank the Real News Network and its production team: Cameron Granandino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.

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    https://therealnews.com/the-idfs-war-crimes-are-a-perfect-reflection-of-israeli-society

    https://telegra.ph/The-IDFs-war-crimes-are-a-perfect-reflection-of-Israeli-society-04-02
    The IDF’s war crimes are a perfect reflection of Israeli society Miko Peled, author and former member of IDF Special Forces, explains how Israel indoctrinates its citizens in anti-Palestinian racism from the cradle to the grave. Three months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the atrocities the IDF has committed against Palestinians are too numerous to name. Israel is staging a prolonged assault on the Palestinian people’s very means of existence—destroying homes, hospitals, sanitation infrastructure, food and water sources, schools, and more. To understand the genocidal campaign unfolding before our eyes, we must examine the roots of Israeli society. Israel is a settler colonial state whose existence depends on the elimination of Palestinians. Accordingly, Israel is a deeply militarized society whose citizens are raised in an environment of historical revisionism and indoctrination that whitewashes Israel’s crimes while cultivating a deep-seated racism against Palestinians. Miko Peled, former IDF Special Forces and author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a frank conversation on the distortions of history and reality at the foundations of Israeli identity. Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Adam Coley Transcript Chris Hedges: The Israeli army, known as the Israel Defense Force or IDF, is integral to understanding Israeli society. Nearly all Israelis do three years of military service, most continue to serve in the reserves until middle age. Its generals often retire to occupy senior positions in government and industry. The dominance of the military in Israeli society helps explain why war, militaristic nationalism, and violence are so deeply embedded in Zionist ideology. Israel is the outgrowth of a militarized settler colonial movement that seeks its legitimacy in biblical myth. It has always sought to solve nearly every conflict; The ethnic cleansing and massacres against Palestinians known as the Nakba or catastrophe in the years between 1947 and 1949, the Suez War of 1956, the 1967 and 1973 wars with Arab neighbors, the two invasions of Lebanon, the Palestinian intifadas, and the series of military strikes on Gaza, including the most recent, with violence. The long campaign to occupy Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse Palestinians is rooted in the Zionist paramilitaries that formed the Israeli state and continue within the IDF. The overriding goal of settler colonialism is the total conquest of Palestinian land. The few Israeli leaders who have sought to reign in the military, such as Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, have been pushed aside by the generals. The military setbacks suffered by Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, and during Israel’s invasions of Lebanon only fuel the extreme nationalists who have abandoned all pretense of a liberal democracy. They speak in the open language of apartheid and genocide. These extremists were behind the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israel’s failure to live up to the Oslo Accords. This extremism has now been exacerbated by the attack of October 7, which killed about 1,200 Israelis. The few Israelis who oppose this militaristic nationalism, especially after October 7, have been silenced and persecuted in Israel. Genocidal violence is almost exclusively the language Israeli leaders, and now Israeli citizens, use to speak to the Palestinians and the Arab world. Joining me to discuss the role of the military in Israeli society is Miko Peled. Miko’s father was a general in the Israeli army. Miko was a member of Israel’s special forces and, although disillusioned with the military, moved from his role as a combatant to that of a medic. After the 1982 war in Lebanon, he buried his service pin. He is the author of, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. You grew up, you were a child when your father was a general in the IDF. This inculcation of that military ethos has begun very young and begun in the schools. Can you talk about that? Miko Peled: Sure, thanks for having me, Chris. It’s good to be with you again and talk to you. So it begins before the military. It begins in preschool. It begins as soon as kids are able to talk and walk. I always say I knew the order of the ranks in the military before I knew my alphabet and this is true for many Israeli kids. The Israeli education system is such that it leads young Israelis to become soldiers, to serve the apartheid state, and to serve in this genocidal state, which is the state of Israel. It’s an enormous part of that. And with me, it came with mega-doses of that because when your father’s a general, and particularly of that generation of the 1967 generals, they were like gods of Olympus. Everybody knew their names. On Independence Day, I remember in the schools you would have little flags, not just flags of Israel, but flags of the IDF with pictures of IDF generals, pictures of the military, all kinds of military symbols, and so on. It’s everywhere. When I was a kid they still had a military parade. It’s everywhere and it’s inescapable. And you hear it when you walk down the street, you hear it in the news, you hear it in conversations, you hear it in schools, you read it in the textbooks, and there’s no place to develop dissent. There’s no place to develop a sense that dissent is okay, that dissent is possible. And the few cases where people do become dissenters, it’s either because their families have a tradition of being communist or more progressive and somehow it’s part of their tradition but this is a minority of a minority. By and large, Israel stands with the army, and Israel is the army. You can’t separate Israel from its army, from its military. Chris Hedges: Let’s juxtapose the myth that you were taught in school about the IDF with the reality. Miko Peled: The myth that I was… Again, this was given to me in larger doses at home because my father and his comrades were all part of the 1948 mythology. We were small and we were resourceful, and we were clever, and therefore, in 1948, we were able to defeat these Arab armies and these Arab killers who came to try to kill us and so on and destroy our fledgling little Jewish state. And because of our heroism – And you talked about the biblical connection – Because we are the descendants of King David, and we are the descendants of the Maccabees, and we have this resourcefulness and strength in our genes, we were able to create a state and then every time they attacked, we were there. We were able to defend ourselves and prevail and so on. It’s everywhere. Then again, in my case, it’s every time the larger, more extended family got together or my parents got together with their friends. And in many cases, the fathers were also comrades in arms. The stories of the battles, the stories of the conquests; Every city in Israel has an IDF plaza. Street names after different units of different generals are all over the country, street names of battles, so it’s everywhere. It wasn’t until I was probably 40 or a little less than 40, that it was the first time that I encountered the other narrative, the Palestinian story, and it was unbelievable. Somebody was telling me the day is night and night is day, or the world is flat, or whatever the comparison you want to make, it was incredible. They are telling me that what I know to be true – ‘Cause I heard it in school and I read it in books and I heard it from my father and my mother and friends – That all of this is not true. And what you find out if you go along the path that I chose to take, this journey of an Israeli to Palestine, is that it was one horrifying crime against humanity. That’s what this so-called heroism was, it was no heroism at all. It was a well-trained, highly motivated, well-indoctrinated, well-armed militia that then became the IDF. But when it started, it was still a militia or today they would be called a terrorist organization, that went up against the people who had never had a military force, who never had a tank, who never had a warplane, who never prepared, even remotely, for battle or an assault. Then you have to make a choice: How do you bridge this? The differences are not nuanced, the differences are enormous. The choice that I made is to investigate for myself and find out who’s telling the truth and who isn’t. And my side was not telling the truth. Chris Hedges: How did they explain incidents such as the Nakba, the massacres that took place in ’48 and ’56, and the massive ethnic cleansing that took place in ’67? How was that explained to you within that mythic narrative? Many of the activities that the IDF has had to carry out are quite brutal, quite savage. The indiscriminate killing of civilians – We can talk about Gaza in a minute – What did that do to society? The people who carried out those killings, and eventually huge prisons, torture, and everything else? But let’s begin with how the myth coped with those incidents and then talk about the trauma that is carried within Israeli society for carrying out those war crimes. Miko Peled: My generation, we knew that there were several instances of bad apples that committed terrible crimes. And we admitted, so there was Deir Yassin, which was a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a peaceful village where a horrible massacre took place. Then we knew that Ariel Sharon was a bit of a lunatic and he took the commandos that he commanded in the ’50s and went to the West Bank and went into Gaza and committed acts of terrible massacres. He was still a hero, held in high regard by everyone, but we knew that there were certain instances… And every military, every nation makes its mistakes and then these things happen But there was never any sense that this somehow discounted or hurt the image of us being a moral army. There are lots of stories of how soldiers went and they decided to, out of the kindness of their hearts, they didn’t harm civilians. And those same civilians went and then warned the enemy that they were coming. And these same good Israeli soldiers would then pay the price and were killed. So it’s presented as limited cases. Nakba was not something that was ever discussed. I’m sure it’s not discussed today, certainly not in schools. In Israeli schools today, you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba. There’s a directive by the Ministry of Education that even Palestinians are not allowed to mention the Nakba. But nobody ever talked about that. And the Arabs left, what are you going to do? There was a war and all these people left and this is the way it is. So none of that ever hurt, in any way, the image of us being this glorious heroic army, descendants of King David, and other great traditions of Jewish heroism. None of that ever hurt itself. So there’s no trauma because we did nothing wrong. If somebody did something wrong, well, it was a case of bad apples, it was limited to a particular circumstance, a particular person, a particular unit, and you get crazy people everywhere. What are you going to do? It’s never been presented as systemic. Today, we have a history so we can look back and if we do pay attention, and if we do read the literature, and if we do listen to Palestinians – And today there’s this great NGO called Zochrot, whose mission is to maintain the memory of the towns and cities that were destroyed in 1948 and to revive the stories of what took place in 1948 – They are uncovering new massacres all the time. Because as that generation is dying off, both the Israelis who committed the crimes and the Palestinians who were still alive at the time and survived, are opening up and telling more and more stories. So we know of churches that were filled with civilians and were burned down. We know of a mosque in Lydd that was filled with people and a young man went and shot a Fiat missile into it. All of these horrific stories are still coming out but Israelis are not paying attention, Israelis are not listening. Whenever there’s an attack on Gaza – And as you know very well, these attacks began in the fifties with Ariel Sharon, by the way – There is always a reason. Because at first they were infiltrators, and then they were terrorists, and now they’re called Hamas, and whatever the devil’s name may be there’s always a very good reason to go in there because these are people who are raised to hate and kill and so on. So it’s a tightly-knit and tightly-orchestrated narrative that is being perpetuated and Israelis don’t seem to have a problem with that. Chris Hedges: And yet carrying out acts of brutality. The occupation – Huge numbers, a million Israelis are in the states. Large numbers of Israelis have left the country. I’m wondering how many of those are people who have a conscience and are repulsed by what they have seen in the West Bank and Gaza. Perhaps I’m incorrect about that. Miko Peled: I don’t know. In the few encounters that I’ve had with Israelis in the US over the years, the vast majority support Israel, support Israel’s actions. It’s interesting that you mentioned that because I got an email from someone representing a group of alumni of Jewish Day Schools. These are Zionist schools all over countries where they indoctrinate the worst Zionism: secular Zionism. And they are now appalled by the indoctrination to serve in the IDF. A very high percentage of these students grew up, went to Israel, joined the IDF, took part in APEC events, and so on. And now they’re looking back and they’re reflecting and they’re feeling a sense of anger that they were put through this and lied through their entire lives about this. So that’s an interesting development. And if that grows, then that might be a game changer because these are the most loyal American Jews. The most loyal to Israel. But by and large, Israelis that I meet, with few exceptions, support Israel and they’re here for whatever reasons people come to America: They’re not unique, they’re not necessarily here because they were fed up or they were angry, or they were dissenters in any way, shape, or form. Around DC and Maryland, there are many Israelis. Sometimes you’ll sit in a coffee shop or go somewhere, you hear the conversations, and there’s no lack of support for Israel among these Israelis as far as I can see. Chris Hedges: Let’s talk about the armies. You were in the Special Forces elite unit. Talk about that indoctrination. I remember visiting Auschwitz a few years ago, and there were Israeli groups and people flying Israeli flags. But speak about that form of indoctrination and its link, in particular, to the Holocaust. Miko Peled: The myth is that Israel is a response to the Holocaust. And that the IDF is a response to the Holocaust; We must be strong, we must be willing to fight, and we must always have a gun in one hand or a weapon in one hand so that this will never happen again. And what’s interesting is, when you talk to Holocaust survivors who are not indoctrinated, who did not get pulled into Zionism – Which there are very, very many – They’ll say the notion that a militarized state is somehow the answer to the Holocaust is absurd because the answer to the Holocaust is tolerance and education and humanity, not violence and racism. But nobody wants to ruin a good myth with the facts. So that’s the story. The story is because of Auschwitz, we represent all those that were killed, perished by the Nazis, and so on, and therefore we need to be strong. And the Israeli flag represents them, and the Israeli military represents them. It’s absurd, it’s absolute madness. I went to serve in the army willingly, as most young Israelis do. In my environment, refusing or not going was not heard of, although there were some voices in the wilderness that were refusing and questioning morality. But I never did. Nobody around me ever did until I began the training and you began patrolling. I remember – You and I may have talked about this once – We were an infantry unit, a commando infantry unit. And suddenly we were given batons and these plastic handcuffs and were told to patrol in Ramallah. And I’m going, what the hell’s going on? What are we doing here? And then we’re told if anybody looks at you funny, you break every bone in their body. And I thought, everybody’s going to look at us, we’re commandos while marching through a city. Who’s not going to look at us? I was behind. I didn’t realize that everybody already understood that this is how it is, this is how it’s supposed to be. I thought, wait, this is wrong. Why are we doing this? We’re supposed to be the good guys here. And then there was the Lebanon invasion of ’82 and so on. So that broke that in my mind, that was a serious crack in the wall of belief and the wall of patriotism that was in me. But this whole notion that somehow being violent and militaristic and racist and being conquerors is somehow a response to the horrors of the Holocaust is absolute madness. But when you’re in it nobody around you is asking questions. You don’t ask questions either unless you’re willing to stand out and be smacked on the head. Chris Hedges: Within the military, within the IDF, how did they speak about Palestinians and Arabs? Miko Peled: The discourse, the hatred, the racism, is horrifying. First of all, they’re the animals. They’re nothing. It’s a joke, you see, it’s horrifying. They think it’s funny to stop people and ask them for their ID and to chase them and to chase kids and to shoot. It all seems like entertainment, you know? I never heard that discourse until I was in it. Then afterward, when I would meet Israelis who served, even here in the US, the way they joked around about what they did in the West Bank, the way they joked around about killing or stopping people or making them take their clothes off and dance naked, it’s entertainment. They think it’s funny. They don’t see that there’s a problem here because racism is so ingrained from such a young age that it’s almost organic. And I don’t think it’s surprising. When you have a racist society, and you have a racist education system that is so methodical, that’s what you get. And the racism doesn’t stop with Palestinians or with Arabs; It goes on to the Black people, it goes on to people of color, it goes to Jews or Israelis who come from other countries who are dark-skinned, for some reason. The racism crosses all these boundaries and it’s completely part of the culture. Chris Hedges: You have very little criticism of the IDF, almost none within the Israeli press, although there is quite a bit of criticism right now, of Netanyahu and his mismanagement and his corruption. Talk a little bit about the deification of the IDF within the public discourse and mainstream media and what that means for what’s happening in Gaza. Miko Peled: Well, the military is above the law. It’s above reproach, except from time to time. So after the ’73 war, there was an investigation. Earlier this week, there was, in the cabinet meeting… The cabinet meets every Sunday. And the army chief of staff was there and he was… This was leaked from the cabinet meeting. It was leaked that some of the more right-wing partners – It’s funny to say right-wing partners because they’re all this right-wing lunacy in the Israeli cabinet – But the more right-wing settlers that are in the cabinet were attacking the army, were attacking the chief of staff because he decided to start an inquiry because it was catastrophic when the Palestinian fighters came in from Gaza, there was nobody home. They took over half of their country back. They took 22 Israeli settlements and cities. They took over the army base of the Gaza brigade, which is supposed to defend the country from exactly this happening. And there was nobody in the… They took over the base. So he initiated an internal inquiry within the army, and they’re criticizing him and what you see in the Israeli press is two very interesting things: One is something went horribly wrong and we need to find out why, but we should wait because we shouldn’t do it during wartime. We shouldn’t criticize the army during wartime. We shouldn’t make the soldiers feel like they have to hold back because if they need to shoot, they should be allowed to shoot. And the other thing we see is that politically, everybody is eating each other up. They’re killing each other politically in the press. So everybody that’s against Netanyahu and wants to see it is attacking him. His people are attacking the others for attacking the government. It seems like there’s this paralysis as a result of this infighting that is affecting the functionality of the state as a state. Israelis are not living in the country, Israel is not the state that it was prior to October 7, it was paralyzed for several weeks, and now it’s still paralyzed in many ways. You’ve got missiles coming from the north, you’ve got missiles coming from the south. You’ve got very large numbers of Israeli soldiers being killed and thousands being injured and the war’s not ending. They’re not able to defeat the Palestinians in Gaza, the armed resistance, and so on. So all of this is taking place and you read the Israeli press and it’s like this cesspool that’s bubbling and bubbling and bubbling, and everybody’s attacking everybody else. And the army, it’s true, they are above reproach mostly, but this particular time the settlers are very angry. Another reason is because the the military decided to pull back some of the ground troops, understandably, since they’re being hit so hard. And I remember that happening before when the army pulled back out of Gaza, they were being attacked for stopping the killing, for not continuing these mass killings of Palestinians. Chris Hedges: Well, you had what? 70 fatalities in the Golani Brigade? And they were pulled back. This is a very elite unit. Miko Peled: Yeah, it’s very interesting because many of the casualties are high-ranking officers. You have colonels, lieutenant colonels, and very high-ranking commanders within Israeli special forces who are being killed. And they’re usually killed in big bunches because they’ll be in an armored personnel carrier or they’ll be marching together. And in Jenin a few days ago, they blew up a military vehicle and killed a bunch of soldiers. So Israelis are scratching their heads, not knowing what the hell is going on and what to do, because number one, they were not protected as they thought they were. And I’m sure you know this, the Israeli settlements, the kibbutzim, the cities in the south that border Gaza, [inaudible 00:25:59], they enjoy some of the highest standards of living among Israelis. It’s a beautiful lifestyle. It’s warm, it’s lovely. Agriculture is… And I don’t think it ever occurred to them that Palestinians would dare to come out of Gaza fighting and succeeding the way they did. The army was bankrupt. It was gone, the intelligence apparatus was bankrupt, and nothing worked. And it is reminiscent of what happened in 1973. This is far worse but it is reminiscent. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the October 7 attacks were exactly 50 years and one day after the 1973 October war began and the whole system collapsed. So that’s what we’re seeing right now. Chris Hedges: How do you read what’s happening in Gaza, militarily? Miko Peled: The Palestinians are able to hold on and kill many Israelis. And even though the Israelis have the firepower and they’ve got the logistics, supply chains are not a problem. Whereas Palestinians, I don’t know where they’re getting supplies. I don’t know where they’re getting food to continue fighting. They’re putting up a fierce resistance. I don’t think that militarily there’s a strategy here. This is revenge; Israel was humiliated, the army was humiliated, and they needed to take it out on somebody. So they found the weakest victims they could lay their hands on, and these are the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And so they’re killing them by the tens of thousands. I don’t think anybody believes in such a thing as getting rid of Hamas. I don’t think anybody believes that that’s possible. I don’t believe anybody takes seriously or believes that you can take too many people out of Gaza and spread them around the world and into other places, even though that’s what they’re saying. But as long as Israel is allowed to kill, and as long as the supply chain isn’t interrupted, they’re going to continue to kill. Chris Hedges: And they’re also creating a humanitarian crisis. So it’s not just the bombs and the shells, but it’s now starvation. Diarrhea is an epidemic, sanitation is broken. I’m wondering at what point this humanitarian crisis becomes so pronounced that the choice is you leave or you die. Miko Peled: That’s always the big question for Palestinians. And the sad thing is that Palestinians are always being placed in these situations where they have to make that choice. It’s the worst form of injustice. And you know this, you’ve been in war zones. We don’t know how many bodies are buried under the rubble and what that’s going to bring up. And there are hundreds of thousands now who are suffering from all kinds of diseases as a result of this environmental catastrophe. And you remember, what was it? 2016 or something, 2017? The UN came out with a report that by 2020, Gaza would be uninhabitable. I don’t think the Gaza Strip has ever been inhabitable. It’s been a humanitarian disaster since it was created in the late forties and early fifties because they suddenly threw all these refugees there with no infrastructure and that was it, and then began killing them. I was talking to some people the other day, as Americans, as taxpayers, wouldn’t we want the Sixth Fleet, which is in the Mediterranean, the US Navy Sixth Fleet, to aid the Palestinians? To provide them support? To create a no-fly zone over these innocent people that are being massacred? As Americans, shouldn’t that be the natural ask, the natural desire to demand our politicians to use? Because American naval vessels have been used for humanitarian causes before. Why aren’t they supporting the Palestinians? Why aren’t they providing them aid? Why aren’t they helping them rebuild? Why are American tax dollars going to continue this genocide rather than stop it and aid the victims? These are questions Americans need to ask themselves because it makes absolutely no sense. It is absolute madness that people are allowing their government to support a genocide that’s not even done in secret. It’s not even done in hiding it. It’s on prime time. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows what’s going on. And again, for some strange reason, Americans are allowing their military and their government to aid the genocide. And there’s no question that it’s genocide. The definition of the crime of genocide is so absolutely clear, that anybody can look it up and compare it to what’s been going on in Palestine. So that to me is the greatest question: Why aren’t Americans demanding that the US support the Palestinians? Chris Hedges: Well, according to opinion polls, most Americans want a ceasefire. But the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Biden is one of the largest recipients of aid or campaign financing from the Israel lobby. This is true for both parties. Chuck Schumer was at the rally saying no ceasefire. Miko Peled: Which is odd. A ceasefire is a very small ask and I don’t know why we always ask for the bare minimum for Palestinians. But let’s talk about ceasefire. Israeli soldiers are being killed as well in very large numbers. How has ceasefire suddenly become an anti-Israeli demand? But it’s a very small ask. I don’t know how it was or where it was that this idea of demanding a ceasefire came up because that is not a serious demand. Ceasefire gets violated by Israel anyway, within 24-48 hours. You know that historically Israel always violated ceasefires. What is required here are severe sanctions, a no-fly zone, immediate aid to the Palestinians, and stopping this and providing guarantees for the safety and security of Palestinians forever moving forward so this can never happen again. That’s what needs to be asked. At this point, after having sacrificed so much, after having shown much of what I believe is immense courage, Palestinians deserve everything. We as people of conscience need to demand not to ceasefire, we need to demand a dismantling of the apartheid state and a full stop and absolute end to the genocide and guarantees put in place that Palestinian kids will be safe. I was talking to Issa Amro earlier in Hebron. It’s ridiculous when nobody even talks about what happens in the West Bank. Friends of mine who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, nobody dares to leave the house, nobody dares to text. They’re afraid to walk down the streets. Their safety is not guaranteed by anyone. Palestinian safety and security are left to the whims of any Israeli, and that should be the conversation right now, after such horrendous violence. That needs to be the demand. That needs to be the ask when we go to protests when we make these demands like a ceasefire. And even that, Israel is not willing. And these bouts of political supporters of Israel here in America are not willing to entertain a ceasefire. I believe it’s a crazy part of history that we’re experiencing right now and it’s a watershed moment. October 7 created an opportunity to end this for good, to end the suffering of Palestinians, the oppression, and the genocide for good. And if we being people of conscience don’t take advantage of this now and bring it to an end, we will regret this for generations. Chris Hedges: The Netanyahu government is talking about this assault on Gaza, this genocide continuing for months. There are strikes, and have been strikes against, now Hezbollah leaders. What concerns you? How could this all go terribly wrong? Miko Peled: It’s already gone terribly wrong because of the death and destruction of so many innocent lives is… I don’t even know that there’s a word for it. It’s beyond horrifying. Netanyahu is relying on the restraint of Hezbollah and the restraint of Iran and the restraint of the Arab governments has all been neutralized either through destruct, being destroyed, or through normalization. So he’s relying on that and he knows that he can keep triggering, he can keep bombing Lebanon, bombing Syria, instigating all of these things and it won’t turn into an all-out war. Because at the end of the day, even though Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Palestinian fighters have shown that they’re superior as fighters, they don’t have the supply chains, they don’t have the warplanes, they don’t have the tanks. So more and more civilians are going to be hurt. So I don’t think it’s going to turn into a regional war by any stretch of the imagination. And so Netanyahu is betting on that, and that’s why he’s allowing this to go on. And for him, this is a win-win. There’s no way that he can be unseated by anybody that’s around him. There’s no opposition. And as long as this goes on, as long as everybody’s in a state of crisis, he can continue to sit in the Prime Minister’s seat, which for him is the end all and be all of everything. And the world is supporting. The world, as governments of the world, I should say. I do interviews with African TV stations, Indian TV stations, and Europeans; Everybody is supporting Israel. Everybody listens to what I have to say, and they think I am a lunatic for supporting terrorism or whatever it is they, however, it is that they frame it. But I don’t see this ending unless there is massive pressure by people of conscience on their governments to force change, to force sanctions, to force the end of the genocide, and the end of the apartheid state. Chris Hedges: I want to talk about the shift within Zionism itself from the dominance of a secular leadership to – We see it in the government of Netanyahu – The rise of a religious Zionism, which is also true now within the IDF. And I wondered if you could talk about the consequences of that. Miko Peled: Sure. So originally, traditionally, and historically, Zionism and Judaism were at odds. And even to this day ultra-orthodox Jews reject Zionism and reject Israel by and large. But after 1967, there was this new creation of the Zionist religious movement. And these are the settlers who went to the West Bank and they became the new pioneers. And they are today, they make up a large portion of the officers and those who joined the special forces and so on. In the past, in the army, the unofficial policy was that these guys, should not be allowed to advance. The current chief of staff comes from that world, which is a huge change. There are several generals and high-ranking commanders and so on who come from that world. The reason that it was the unofficial policy that these guys should not be promoted was that it’s an incredibly toxic combination, this messianic form of Judaism, which is an aberration. It’s not Judaism at all, with this nationalist fanaticism. This combination is toxic and look what it created. It created some of the worst racists, some of the most violent thugs that we’ve seen, certainly in the short history of the state of Israel, although I don’t know that they’re any less violent than the generation of Zionists of my father who are secular. This was a big concern in the past but now they’re everywhere and look at its current government. They hold the finance ministry, they hold the national security ministry, certainly in the military they’re everywhere, they hold many sub-cabinets, and they’re heads of committees in the Knesset, and so on. And they’ve done their work. They worked very hard to get to where they are today, which is where they call the shots. And Netanyahu’s guaranteed to remain in power. They’re his support group. That’s why you could have had, as we had earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting in the streets and it didn’t affect him because he has his block in the Knesset that will never leave him as long as he allows them to play their game. And this is what’s happening. So in terms of violence and the facts on the ground, I don’t think these guys are any worse again than my parents’ generation who were young Zionists and zealots at the time and committed the 1948 Nakba and ran the country and operated the apartheid state for the first few decades. But it’s a new form of fanaticism being that it is religious as well as fascist. So it’s very toxic. And they have more of a stomach for killing civilians than we’ve ever seen before, even for Israelis. These numbers are beyond belief, even for Israel. Chris Hedges: I’m wondering if this religious Zionism probably has its profoundest effect within Israel, in terms of shutting down dissidents, civil liberties, this kind of stuff. Miko Peled: Well, Israelis love them. Israelis love these guys because they’re religious but they dress like us. They don’t look like the old Jews with the big beards and everything; They’re cool. They wear jeans. And the reason I say this is because one of their objectives is to take over Al-Aqsa and build a Jewish temple. They’re destroying Al-Aqsa and they conduct these tours. In the old city of Jerusalem, there’s a particular path that you take from where the western wall is up to Al-Aqsa, which is open for non-Muslims. And so they hold tours and there’s several odd times throughout the day. I’ve taken some of these tours to see what it’s about, what these guys do, you know? These are prayer tours and hundreds of thousands of Israelis go on these tours. And these are Israelis who are not religious at all, these are secular people. I see the people that go on the tours. To give you an idea of what this is about, you go up on that bridge and then you wait until the tour starts because you have to go in a group. And there’s a massive model of the new temple, of the Jewish temple that is going to be built there. And then you have a huge group of armed police –They’re not soldiers, they’re police but dressed completely militarized. And Muslim Palestinians are not allowed – That accompany the tour all around and they stop and they pray and they stop and they pray and they stop and pray at various places. The whole thing takes maybe an hour. But the interesting thing is that the people who go on these tours are secular Israelis. And then as I was doing this, I was remembering, even as a kid growing up completely secular, we would sing songs about the day that we build a temple. Why did we sing songs about building a temple? Because it went beyond our religious significance and became a national significance. And there’s no question in my mind that Netanyahu and secular Israelis would love to see this idea of destroying Al-Aqsa and having a Jewish temple there. It’s a sign that we’re back, King David is back. Even though it has nothing to do with history and there’s no truth in it, the connection that we are descendants of King David is something Israelis love. That’s what this is about, the relationship between the so-called settlers. That’s what they’re called in Israeli jargon. They’re called the settlers. Regular secular Israelis are an interesting one because on the one hand, they’re looked down upon because they’re religious, but on the other hand, they’re a cool religious. So there is an affinity. Chris Hedges: Great. That was Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. I want to thank the Real News Network and its production team: Cameron Granandino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com. Creative Commons License Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. https://therealnews.com/the-idfs-war-crimes-are-a-perfect-reflection-of-israeli-society https://telegra.ph/The-IDFs-war-crimes-are-a-perfect-reflection-of-Israeli-society-04-02
    THEREALNEWS.COM
    The IDF's war crimes are a perfect reflection of Israeli society
    Miko Peled, author and former member of IDF Special Forces, explains how Israel indoctrinates its citizens in anti-Palestinian racism from the cradle to the grave.
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  • The Silent Shame of Health Institutions
    J.R. Bruning
    For how much longer will health policy ignore multimorbidity, that looming, giant elephant in the room, that propagates and amplifies suffering? For how much longer will the ‘trend’ of increasing diagnoses of multiple health conditions, at younger and younger ages be rendered down by government agencies to better and more efficient services, screening modalities, and drug choices?

    Multimorbidity, the presence of many chronic conditions, is the silent shame of health policy.

    All too often chronic conditions overlap and accumulate. From cancer, to diabetes, to digestive system diseases, to high blood pressure, to skin conditions in cascades of suffering. Heartbreakingly, these conditions commonly overlap with mental illnesses or disorders. It’s increasingly common for people to be diagnosed with multiple mental conditions, such as having anxiety and depression, or anxiety and schizophrenia.

    Calls for equity tend to revolve around medical treatment, even as absurdities and injustices accrue.

    Multimorbidity occurs a decade earlier in socioeconomically deprived communities. Doctors are diagnosing multimorbidity at younger and younger ages.

    Treatment regimens for people with multiple conditions necessarily entail a polypharmacy approach – the prescribing of multiple medications. One condition may require multiple medications. Thus, with multimorbidity comes increased risk of adverse outcomes and polyiatrogenesis – ‘medical harm caused by medical treatments on multiple fronts simultaneously and in conjunction with one another.’

    Side effects, whether short-term or patients’ concerns about long-term harm, are the main reason for non-adherence to prescribed medications.

    So ‘equity’ which only implies drug treatment doesn’t involve equity at all.

    Poor diets may be foundational to the Western world’s health crisis. But are governments considering this?

    The antinomies are piling up.

    We are amid a global epidemic of metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance, obesity, elevated triglyceride levels and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure haunt the people queuing up to see doctors.

    Research, from individual cases to clinical trials, consistently show that diets containing high levels of ultra-processed foods and carbohydrates amplify inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. What researchers and scientists are also identifying, at the cellular level, in clinical and medical practice, and at the global level – is that insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from poor diets not only drive metabolic illness, but mental illnesses, compounding suffering.

    There is also ample evidence that the metabolic and mental health epidemic that is driving years lost due to disease, reducing productivity, and creating mayhem in personal lives – may be preventable and reversible.

    Doctors generally recognise that poor diets are a problem. Ultra-processed foods are strongly associated with adult and childhood ill health. Ultra-processed foods are

    ‘formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, typically created by series of industrial techniques and processes (hence ‘ultra-processed’).’

    In the USA young people under age 19 consume on average 67% of their diet, while adults consume around 60% of their diet in ultra-processed food. Ultra-processed food contributes 60% of UK children’s calories; 42% of Australian children’s calories and over half the dietary calories for children and adolescents in Canada. In New Zealand in 2009-2010, ultra-processed foods contributed to the 45% (12 months), 42% (24 months), and 51% (60 months) of energy intake to the diets of children.

    All too frequently, doctors are diagnosing both metabolic and mental illnesses.

    What may be predictable is that a person is likely to develop insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from chronic exposure to ultra-processed food. How this will manifest in a disease or syndrome condition is reflective of a human equivalent of quantum entanglement.

    Cascades, feedback loops, and other interdependencies often leave doctors and patients bouncing from one condition to another, and managing medicine side effects and drug-drug relationships as they go.

    In New Zealand it is more common to have multiple conditions than a single condition. The costs of having two NCDs simultaneously is typically superadditive and ‘more so for younger adults.’

    This information is outside the ‘work programme’ of the top echelons in the Ministry of Health:

    Official Information Act (OIA) requests confirm that the Ministries’ Directors General who are responsible for setting policy and long-term strategy aren’t considering these issues. The problem of multimorbidity and the overlapping, entangled relationship with ultra-processed food is outside of the scope of the work programme of the top directorates in our health agency.

    New Zealand’s Ministry of Health’s top deputy directors general might be earning a quarter of a million dollars each, but they are ignorant of the relationship of dietary nutrition and mental health. Nor are they seemingly aware of the extent of multimorbidity and the overlap between metabolic and mental illnesses.

    Neither the Public Health Agency Deputy Director-General – Dr Andrew Old, nor the Deputy Director-General Evidence, Research and Innovation, Dean Rutherford, nor the Deputy Director-General of Strategy Policy and Legislation, Maree Roberts, nor the Clinical, Community and Mental Health Deputy Director-General Robyn Shearer have been briefed on these relationships.

    If they’re not being briefed, policy won’t be developed to address dietary nutrition. Diet will be lower-order.

    The OIA request revealed that New Zealand’s Ministry of Health ‘does not widely use the metabolic syndrome classification.’ When I asked ‘How do you classify, or what term do you use to classify the cluster of symptoms characterised by central obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance?’, they responded:

    ‘The conditions referred to are considered either on their own or as part of a broader cardiovascular disease risk calculation.’

    This is interesting. What if governments should be calculating insulin resistance first, in order to then calculate a broader cardiovascular risk? What if insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress are appearing at younger and younger ages, and ultra-processed food is the major driver?

    Pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes are driven by too much blood glucose. Type 1 diabetics can’t make insulin, while Type 2 diabetics can’t make enough to compensate for their dietary intake of carbohydrates. One of insulin’s (many) jobs is to tuck away that blood glucose into cells (as fat) but when there are too many dietary carbohydrates pumping up blood glucose, the body can’t keep up. New Zealand practitioners use the HbA1c blood test, which measures the average blood glucose level over the past 2-3 months. In New Zealand, doctors diagnose pre-diabetes if HbA1c levels are 41-49 nmol/mol, and diabetes at levels of 50 nmol/mol and above.

    Type 2 diabetes management guidelines recommend that sugar intake should be reduced, while people should aim for consistent carbohydrates across the day. The New Zealand government does not recommend paleo or low-carbohydrate diets.

    If you have diabetes you are twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke, and at a younger age. Prediabetes, which apparently 20% of Kiwis have, is also high-risk due to, as the Ministry of Health states: ‘increased risk of macrovascular complications and early death.’

    The question might become – should we be looking at insulin levels, to more sensitively gauge risk at an early stage?

    Without more sensitive screens at younger ages these opportunities to repivot to avoid chronic disease are likely to be missed. Currently, Ministry of Health policies are unlikely to justify the funding of tests for insulin resistance by using three simple blood tests: fasting insulin, fasting lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), and fasting glucose – to estimate where children, young people, and adults stand on the insulin resistance spectrum when other diagnoses pop up.

    Yet insulin plays a powerful role in brain health.

    Insulin supports neurotransmitter function and brain energy, directly impacting mood and behaviours. Insulin resistance might arrive before mental illness. Harvard-based psychiatrist Chris Palmer recounts in the book Brain Energy, a large 15,000-participant study of young people from age 0-24:

    ‘Children who had persistently high insulin levels (a sign of insulin resistance) beginning at age nine were five times more likely to be at risk for psychosis, meaning they were showing at least some worrisome signs, and they were three times for likely to already be diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia by the time they turned twenty-four. This study clearly demonstrated that insulin resistance comes first, then psychosis.’

    Psychiatrist Georgia Ede suggests that high blood glucose and high insulin levels act like a ‘deadly one-two punch’ for the brain, triggering waves of inflammation and oxidative stress. The blood-brain barrier becomes increasingly resistant to chronic high insulin levels. Even though the body might have higher blood insulin, the same may not be true for the brain. As Ede maintains, ‘cells deprived of adequate insulin ‘sputter and struggle to maintain normal operations.’

    Looking at the relationship between brain health and high blood glucose and high insulin simply might not be on the programme for strategists looking at long-term planning.

    Nor are Directors General in a position to assess the role of food addiction. Ultra-processed food has addictive qualities designed into the product formulations. Food addiction is increasingly recognised as pervasive and difficult to manage as any substance addiction.

    But how many children and young people have insulin resistance and are showing markers for inflammation and oxidative stress – in the body and in the brain? To what extent do young people have both insulin resistance and depression resistance or ADHD or bipolar disorder?

    This kind of thinking is completely outside the work programme. But insulin levels, inflammation, and oxidative stress may not only be driving chronic illness – but driving the global mental health tsunami.

    Metabolic disorders are involved in complex pathways and feedback loops across body systems, and doctors learn this at medical school. Patterns and relationships between hormones, the brain, the gastrointestinal system, kidneys, and liver; as well as problems with joints and bone health, autoimmunity, nerves, and sensory conditions evolve from and revolve around metabolic health.

    Nutrition and diet are downplayed in medical school. What doctors don’t learn so much – the cognitive dissonance that they must accept throughout their training – is that metabolic health is commonly (except for some instances) shaped by the quality of dietary nutrition. The aetiology of a given condition can be very different, while the evidence that common chronic and mental illnesses are accompanied by oxidative stress, inflammation, and insulin resistance are primarily driven by diet – is growing stronger and stronger.

    But without recognising the overlapping relationships, policy to support healthy diets will remain limp.

    What we witness are notions of equity that support pharmaceutical delivery – not health delivery.

    What also inevitably happens is that ‘equity’ focuses on medical treatment. When the Ministry of Health prefers to atomise the different conditions or associate them with heart disease – they become single conditions to treat with single drugs. They’re lots of small problems, not one big problem, and insulin resistance is downplayed.

    But just as insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress send cascading impacts across body systems, systemic ignorance sends cascading effects across government departments tasked with ‘improving, promoting, and protecting health.’

    It’s an injustice. The literature solidly points to lower socio-economic status driving much poorer diets and increased exposures to ultra-processed food, but the treatments exclusively involve drugs and therapy.

    Briefings to Incoming Ministers with the election of new Governments show how ignorance cascades across responsible authorities.

    Health New Zealand, Te Whatu Ora’s November 2023 Briefing to the new government outlined the agency’s obligations. However, the ‘health’ targets are medical, and the agency’s focus is on infrastructure, staff, and servicing. The promotion of health, and health equity, which can only be addressed by addressing the determinants of health, is not addressed.

    The Māori Health Authority and Health New Zealand Joint Briefing to the Incoming Minister for Mental Health does not address the role of diet and nutrition as a driver of mental illness and disorder in New Zealand. The issue of multimorbidity, the related problem of commensurate metabolic illness, and diet as a driver is outside scope. When the Briefing states that it is important to address the ‘social, cultural, environmental and economic determinants of mental health,’ without any sound policy footing, real movement to address diet will not happen, or will only happen ad hoc.

    The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, Te Hiringa Mahara’s November 2023 Briefing to Incoming Ministers that went to the Ministers for Health and Mental Health might use the term ‘well-being’ over 120 times – but was silent on the related and overlapping drivers of mental illness which include metabolic or multimorbidity, nutrition, or diet.

    Five years earlier, He Ara Ora, New Zealand’s 2018 Mental Health and Addiction enquiry had recognised that tāngata whaiora, people seeking wellness, or service users, also tend to have multiple health conditions. The enquiry recommended that a whole of government approach to well-being, prevention, and social determinants was required. Vague nods were made to diet and nutrition, but this was not sufficiently emphasised as to be a priority.

    He Ara Ora was followed by 2020 Long-term pathway to mental well-being viewed nutrition as being one of a range of factors. No policy framework strategically prioritised diet, nutrition, and healthy food. No governmental obligation or commitment was built into policy to improve access to healthy food or nutrition education.

    Understanding the science, the relationships, and the drivers of the global epidemic, is ‘outside the work programmes’ of New Zealand’s Ministry of Health and outside the scope of all the related authorities. There is an extraordinary amount of data in the scientific literature, so many case studies, cohort studies, and clinical trials. Popular books are being written, however government agencies remain ignorant.

    In the meantime, doctors must deal with the suffering in front of them without an adequate toolkit.

    Doctors and pharmacists are faced with a Hobson’s choice of managing multiple chronic conditions and complex drug cocktails, in patients at younger and younger ages. Ultimately, they are treating a patient whom they recognise will only become sicker, cost the health system more, and suffer more.

    Currently there is little support for New Zealand medical doctors (known as general practitioners, or GPs) in changing practices and recommendations to support non-pharmaceutical drug treatment approaches. Their medical education does not equip them to recognise the extent to which multiple co-existing conditions may be alleviated or reversed. Doctors are paid to prescribe, to inject, and to screen, not to ameliorate or reverse disease and lessen prescribing. The prescribing of nutrients is discouraged and as doctors do not have nutritional training, they hesitate to prescribe nutrients.

    Many do not want to risk going outside treatment guidelines. Recent surges in protocols and guidelines for medical doctors reduce flexibility and narrow treatment choices for doctors. If they were to be reported to the Medical Council of New Zealand, they would risk losing their medical license. They would then be unable to practice.

    Inevitably, without Ministry of Health leadership, medical doctors in New Zealand are unlikely to voluntarily prescribe non-drug modalities such as nutritional options to any meaningful extent, for fear of being reported.

    Yet some doctors are proactive, such as Dr Glen Davies in Taupo, New Zealand. Some doctors are in a better ‘place’ to work to alleviate and reverse long-term conditions. They may be later in their career, with 10-20 years of research into metabolism, dietary nutrition, and patient care, and motivated to guide a patient through a personal care regime which might alleviate or reverse a patient’s suffering.

    Barriers include resourcing. Doctors aren’t paid for reversing disease and taking patients off medications.

    Doctors witness daily the hopelessness felt by their patients in dealing with chronic conditions in their short 15-minute consultations, and the vigilance required for dealing with adverse drug effects. Drug non-compliance is associated with adverse effects suffered by patients. Yet without wrap-around support changing treatments, even if it has potential to alleviate multiple conditions, to reduce symptoms, lower prescribing and therefore lessen side effects, is just too uncertain.

    They saw what happened to disobedient doctors during Covid-19.

    Given such context, what are we to do?

    Have open public discussions about doctor-patient relationships and trust. Inform and overlay such conversations by drawing attention to the foundational Hippocratic Oath made by doctors, to first do no harm.

    Questions can be asked. If patients were to understand that diet may be an underlying driver of multiple conditions, and a change in diet and improvement in micronutrient status might alleviate suffering – would patients be more likely to change?

    Economically, if wrap-around services were provided in clinics to support dietary change, would less harm occur to patients from worsening conditions that accompany many diseases (such as Type 2 diabetes) and the ever-present problem of drug side-effects? Would education and wrap-around services in early childhood and youth delay or prevent the onset of multimorbid diagnoses?

    Is it more ethical to give young people a choice of treatment? Could doctors prescribe dietary changes and multinutrients and support change with wrap-around support when children and young people are first diagnosed with a mental health condition – from the clinic, to school, to after school? If that doesn’t work, then prescribe pharmaceutical drugs.

    Should children and young people be educated to appreciate the extent to which their consumption of ultra-processed food likely drives their metabolic and mental health conditions? Not just in a blithe ‘eat healthy’ fashion that patently avoids discussing addiction. Through deeper policy mechanisms, including cooking classes and nutritional biology by the implementation of nourishing, low-carbohydrate cooked school lunches.

    With officials uninformed, it’s easy to see why funding for Green Prescriptions that would support dietary changes have sputtered out. It’s easy to understand why neither the Ministry of Health nor Pharmac have proactively sourced multi-nutrient treatments that improve resilience to stress and trauma for low-income young people. Why there’s no discussion on a lower side-effect risk for multinutrient treatments. Why are there no policies in the education curriculum diving into the relationship between ultra-processed food and mental and physical health? It’s not in the work programme.

    There’s another surfacing dilemma.

    Currently, if doctors tell their patients that there is very good evidence that their disease or syndrome could be reversed, and this information is not held as factual information by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health – do doctors risk being accused of spreading misinformation?

    Government agencies have pivoted in the past 5 years to focus intensively on the problem of dis- and misinformation. New Zealand’s disinformation project states that

    Disinformation is false or modified information knowingly and deliberately shared to cause harm or achieve a broader aim.
    Misinformation is information that is false or misleading, though not created or shared with the direct intention of causing harm.
    Unfortunately, as we see, there is no division inside the Ministry of Health that reviews the latest evidence in the scientific literature, to ensure that policy decisions correctly reflect the latest evidence.

    There is no scientific agency outside the Ministry of Health that has flexibility and the capacity to undertake autonomous, long-term monitoring and research in nutrition, diet, and health. There is no independent, autonomous, public health research facility with sufficient long-term funding to translate dietary and nutritional evidence into policy, particularly if it contradicted current policy positions.

    Despite excellent research being undertaken, it is highly controlled, ad hoc, and frequently short-term. Problematically, there is no resourcing for those scientists to meaningfully feedback that information to either the Ministry of Health or to Members of Parliament and government Ministers.

    Dietary guidelines can become locked in, and contradictions can fail to be chewed over. Without the capacity to address errors, information can become outdated and misleading. Government agencies and elected members – from local councils all the way up to government Ministers, are dependent on being informed by the Ministry of Health, when it comes to government policy.

    When it comes to complex health conditions, and alleviating and reversing metabolic or mental illness, based on different patient capacity – from socio-economic, to cultural, to social, and taking into account capacity for change, what is sound, evidence-based information and what is misinformation?

    In the impasse, who can we trust?

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Author

    J.R. Bruning is a consultant sociologist (B.Bus.Agribusiness; MA Sociology) based in New Zealand. Her work explores governance cultures, policy and the production of scientific and technical knowledge. Her Master’s thesis explored the ways science policy creates barriers to funding, stymying scientists’ efforts to explore upstream drivers of harm. Bruning is a trustee of Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility (PSGR.org.nz). Papers and writing can be found at TalkingRisk.NZ and at JRBruning.Substack.com and at Talking Risk on Rumble.

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    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-silent-shame-of-health-institutions/
    The Silent Shame of Health Institutions J.R. Bruning For how much longer will health policy ignore multimorbidity, that looming, giant elephant in the room, that propagates and amplifies suffering? For how much longer will the ‘trend’ of increasing diagnoses of multiple health conditions, at younger and younger ages be rendered down by government agencies to better and more efficient services, screening modalities, and drug choices? Multimorbidity, the presence of many chronic conditions, is the silent shame of health policy. All too often chronic conditions overlap and accumulate. From cancer, to diabetes, to digestive system diseases, to high blood pressure, to skin conditions in cascades of suffering. Heartbreakingly, these conditions commonly overlap with mental illnesses or disorders. It’s increasingly common for people to be diagnosed with multiple mental conditions, such as having anxiety and depression, or anxiety and schizophrenia. Calls for equity tend to revolve around medical treatment, even as absurdities and injustices accrue. Multimorbidity occurs a decade earlier in socioeconomically deprived communities. Doctors are diagnosing multimorbidity at younger and younger ages. Treatment regimens for people with multiple conditions necessarily entail a polypharmacy approach – the prescribing of multiple medications. One condition may require multiple medications. Thus, with multimorbidity comes increased risk of adverse outcomes and polyiatrogenesis – ‘medical harm caused by medical treatments on multiple fronts simultaneously and in conjunction with one another.’ Side effects, whether short-term or patients’ concerns about long-term harm, are the main reason for non-adherence to prescribed medications. So ‘equity’ which only implies drug treatment doesn’t involve equity at all. Poor diets may be foundational to the Western world’s health crisis. But are governments considering this? The antinomies are piling up. We are amid a global epidemic of metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance, obesity, elevated triglyceride levels and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure haunt the people queuing up to see doctors. Research, from individual cases to clinical trials, consistently show that diets containing high levels of ultra-processed foods and carbohydrates amplify inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. What researchers and scientists are also identifying, at the cellular level, in clinical and medical practice, and at the global level – is that insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from poor diets not only drive metabolic illness, but mental illnesses, compounding suffering. There is also ample evidence that the metabolic and mental health epidemic that is driving years lost due to disease, reducing productivity, and creating mayhem in personal lives – may be preventable and reversible. Doctors generally recognise that poor diets are a problem. Ultra-processed foods are strongly associated with adult and childhood ill health. Ultra-processed foods are ‘formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, typically created by series of industrial techniques and processes (hence ‘ultra-processed’).’ In the USA young people under age 19 consume on average 67% of their diet, while adults consume around 60% of their diet in ultra-processed food. Ultra-processed food contributes 60% of UK children’s calories; 42% of Australian children’s calories and over half the dietary calories for children and adolescents in Canada. In New Zealand in 2009-2010, ultra-processed foods contributed to the 45% (12 months), 42% (24 months), and 51% (60 months) of energy intake to the diets of children. All too frequently, doctors are diagnosing both metabolic and mental illnesses. What may be predictable is that a person is likely to develop insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and nutrient deficiencies from chronic exposure to ultra-processed food. How this will manifest in a disease or syndrome condition is reflective of a human equivalent of quantum entanglement. Cascades, feedback loops, and other interdependencies often leave doctors and patients bouncing from one condition to another, and managing medicine side effects and drug-drug relationships as they go. In New Zealand it is more common to have multiple conditions than a single condition. The costs of having two NCDs simultaneously is typically superadditive and ‘more so for younger adults.’ This information is outside the ‘work programme’ of the top echelons in the Ministry of Health: Official Information Act (OIA) requests confirm that the Ministries’ Directors General who are responsible for setting policy and long-term strategy aren’t considering these issues. The problem of multimorbidity and the overlapping, entangled relationship with ultra-processed food is outside of the scope of the work programme of the top directorates in our health agency. New Zealand’s Ministry of Health’s top deputy directors general might be earning a quarter of a million dollars each, but they are ignorant of the relationship of dietary nutrition and mental health. Nor are they seemingly aware of the extent of multimorbidity and the overlap between metabolic and mental illnesses. Neither the Public Health Agency Deputy Director-General – Dr Andrew Old, nor the Deputy Director-General Evidence, Research and Innovation, Dean Rutherford, nor the Deputy Director-General of Strategy Policy and Legislation, Maree Roberts, nor the Clinical, Community and Mental Health Deputy Director-General Robyn Shearer have been briefed on these relationships. If they’re not being briefed, policy won’t be developed to address dietary nutrition. Diet will be lower-order. The OIA request revealed that New Zealand’s Ministry of Health ‘does not widely use the metabolic syndrome classification.’ When I asked ‘How do you classify, or what term do you use to classify the cluster of symptoms characterised by central obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance?’, they responded: ‘The conditions referred to are considered either on their own or as part of a broader cardiovascular disease risk calculation.’ This is interesting. What if governments should be calculating insulin resistance first, in order to then calculate a broader cardiovascular risk? What if insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress are appearing at younger and younger ages, and ultra-processed food is the major driver? Pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes are driven by too much blood glucose. Type 1 diabetics can’t make insulin, while Type 2 diabetics can’t make enough to compensate for their dietary intake of carbohydrates. One of insulin’s (many) jobs is to tuck away that blood glucose into cells (as fat) but when there are too many dietary carbohydrates pumping up blood glucose, the body can’t keep up. New Zealand practitioners use the HbA1c blood test, which measures the average blood glucose level over the past 2-3 months. In New Zealand, doctors diagnose pre-diabetes if HbA1c levels are 41-49 nmol/mol, and diabetes at levels of 50 nmol/mol and above. Type 2 diabetes management guidelines recommend that sugar intake should be reduced, while people should aim for consistent carbohydrates across the day. The New Zealand government does not recommend paleo or low-carbohydrate diets. If you have diabetes you are twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke, and at a younger age. Prediabetes, which apparently 20% of Kiwis have, is also high-risk due to, as the Ministry of Health states: ‘increased risk of macrovascular complications and early death.’ The question might become – should we be looking at insulin levels, to more sensitively gauge risk at an early stage? Without more sensitive screens at younger ages these opportunities to repivot to avoid chronic disease are likely to be missed. Currently, Ministry of Health policies are unlikely to justify the funding of tests for insulin resistance by using three simple blood tests: fasting insulin, fasting lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), and fasting glucose – to estimate where children, young people, and adults stand on the insulin resistance spectrum when other diagnoses pop up. Yet insulin plays a powerful role in brain health. Insulin supports neurotransmitter function and brain energy, directly impacting mood and behaviours. Insulin resistance might arrive before mental illness. Harvard-based psychiatrist Chris Palmer recounts in the book Brain Energy, a large 15,000-participant study of young people from age 0-24: ‘Children who had persistently high insulin levels (a sign of insulin resistance) beginning at age nine were five times more likely to be at risk for psychosis, meaning they were showing at least some worrisome signs, and they were three times for likely to already be diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia by the time they turned twenty-four. This study clearly demonstrated that insulin resistance comes first, then psychosis.’ Psychiatrist Georgia Ede suggests that high blood glucose and high insulin levels act like a ‘deadly one-two punch’ for the brain, triggering waves of inflammation and oxidative stress. The blood-brain barrier becomes increasingly resistant to chronic high insulin levels. Even though the body might have higher blood insulin, the same may not be true for the brain. As Ede maintains, ‘cells deprived of adequate insulin ‘sputter and struggle to maintain normal operations.’ Looking at the relationship between brain health and high blood glucose and high insulin simply might not be on the programme for strategists looking at long-term planning. Nor are Directors General in a position to assess the role of food addiction. Ultra-processed food has addictive qualities designed into the product formulations. Food addiction is increasingly recognised as pervasive and difficult to manage as any substance addiction. But how many children and young people have insulin resistance and are showing markers for inflammation and oxidative stress – in the body and in the brain? To what extent do young people have both insulin resistance and depression resistance or ADHD or bipolar disorder? This kind of thinking is completely outside the work programme. But insulin levels, inflammation, and oxidative stress may not only be driving chronic illness – but driving the global mental health tsunami. Metabolic disorders are involved in complex pathways and feedback loops across body systems, and doctors learn this at medical school. Patterns and relationships between hormones, the brain, the gastrointestinal system, kidneys, and liver; as well as problems with joints and bone health, autoimmunity, nerves, and sensory conditions evolve from and revolve around metabolic health. Nutrition and diet are downplayed in medical school. What doctors don’t learn so much – the cognitive dissonance that they must accept throughout their training – is that metabolic health is commonly (except for some instances) shaped by the quality of dietary nutrition. The aetiology of a given condition can be very different, while the evidence that common chronic and mental illnesses are accompanied by oxidative stress, inflammation, and insulin resistance are primarily driven by diet – is growing stronger and stronger. But without recognising the overlapping relationships, policy to support healthy diets will remain limp. What we witness are notions of equity that support pharmaceutical delivery – not health delivery. What also inevitably happens is that ‘equity’ focuses on medical treatment. When the Ministry of Health prefers to atomise the different conditions or associate them with heart disease – they become single conditions to treat with single drugs. They’re lots of small problems, not one big problem, and insulin resistance is downplayed. But just as insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress send cascading impacts across body systems, systemic ignorance sends cascading effects across government departments tasked with ‘improving, promoting, and protecting health.’ It’s an injustice. The literature solidly points to lower socio-economic status driving much poorer diets and increased exposures to ultra-processed food, but the treatments exclusively involve drugs and therapy. Briefings to Incoming Ministers with the election of new Governments show how ignorance cascades across responsible authorities. Health New Zealand, Te Whatu Ora’s November 2023 Briefing to the new government outlined the agency’s obligations. However, the ‘health’ targets are medical, and the agency’s focus is on infrastructure, staff, and servicing. The promotion of health, and health equity, which can only be addressed by addressing the determinants of health, is not addressed. The Māori Health Authority and Health New Zealand Joint Briefing to the Incoming Minister for Mental Health does not address the role of diet and nutrition as a driver of mental illness and disorder in New Zealand. The issue of multimorbidity, the related problem of commensurate metabolic illness, and diet as a driver is outside scope. When the Briefing states that it is important to address the ‘social, cultural, environmental and economic determinants of mental health,’ without any sound policy footing, real movement to address diet will not happen, or will only happen ad hoc. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, Te Hiringa Mahara’s November 2023 Briefing to Incoming Ministers that went to the Ministers for Health and Mental Health might use the term ‘well-being’ over 120 times – but was silent on the related and overlapping drivers of mental illness which include metabolic or multimorbidity, nutrition, or diet. Five years earlier, He Ara Ora, New Zealand’s 2018 Mental Health and Addiction enquiry had recognised that tāngata whaiora, people seeking wellness, or service users, also tend to have multiple health conditions. The enquiry recommended that a whole of government approach to well-being, prevention, and social determinants was required. Vague nods were made to diet and nutrition, but this was not sufficiently emphasised as to be a priority. He Ara Ora was followed by 2020 Long-term pathway to mental well-being viewed nutrition as being one of a range of factors. No policy framework strategically prioritised diet, nutrition, and healthy food. No governmental obligation or commitment was built into policy to improve access to healthy food or nutrition education. Understanding the science, the relationships, and the drivers of the global epidemic, is ‘outside the work programmes’ of New Zealand’s Ministry of Health and outside the scope of all the related authorities. There is an extraordinary amount of data in the scientific literature, so many case studies, cohort studies, and clinical trials. Popular books are being written, however government agencies remain ignorant. In the meantime, doctors must deal with the suffering in front of them without an adequate toolkit. Doctors and pharmacists are faced with a Hobson’s choice of managing multiple chronic conditions and complex drug cocktails, in patients at younger and younger ages. Ultimately, they are treating a patient whom they recognise will only become sicker, cost the health system more, and suffer more. Currently there is little support for New Zealand medical doctors (known as general practitioners, or GPs) in changing practices and recommendations to support non-pharmaceutical drug treatment approaches. Their medical education does not equip them to recognise the extent to which multiple co-existing conditions may be alleviated or reversed. Doctors are paid to prescribe, to inject, and to screen, not to ameliorate or reverse disease and lessen prescribing. The prescribing of nutrients is discouraged and as doctors do not have nutritional training, they hesitate to prescribe nutrients. Many do not want to risk going outside treatment guidelines. Recent surges in protocols and guidelines for medical doctors reduce flexibility and narrow treatment choices for doctors. If they were to be reported to the Medical Council of New Zealand, they would risk losing their medical license. They would then be unable to practice. Inevitably, without Ministry of Health leadership, medical doctors in New Zealand are unlikely to voluntarily prescribe non-drug modalities such as nutritional options to any meaningful extent, for fear of being reported. Yet some doctors are proactive, such as Dr Glen Davies in Taupo, New Zealand. Some doctors are in a better ‘place’ to work to alleviate and reverse long-term conditions. They may be later in their career, with 10-20 years of research into metabolism, dietary nutrition, and patient care, and motivated to guide a patient through a personal care regime which might alleviate or reverse a patient’s suffering. Barriers include resourcing. Doctors aren’t paid for reversing disease and taking patients off medications. Doctors witness daily the hopelessness felt by their patients in dealing with chronic conditions in their short 15-minute consultations, and the vigilance required for dealing with adverse drug effects. Drug non-compliance is associated with adverse effects suffered by patients. Yet without wrap-around support changing treatments, even if it has potential to alleviate multiple conditions, to reduce symptoms, lower prescribing and therefore lessen side effects, is just too uncertain. They saw what happened to disobedient doctors during Covid-19. Given such context, what are we to do? Have open public discussions about doctor-patient relationships and trust. Inform and overlay such conversations by drawing attention to the foundational Hippocratic Oath made by doctors, to first do no harm. Questions can be asked. If patients were to understand that diet may be an underlying driver of multiple conditions, and a change in diet and improvement in micronutrient status might alleviate suffering – would patients be more likely to change? Economically, if wrap-around services were provided in clinics to support dietary change, would less harm occur to patients from worsening conditions that accompany many diseases (such as Type 2 diabetes) and the ever-present problem of drug side-effects? Would education and wrap-around services in early childhood and youth delay or prevent the onset of multimorbid diagnoses? Is it more ethical to give young people a choice of treatment? Could doctors prescribe dietary changes and multinutrients and support change with wrap-around support when children and young people are first diagnosed with a mental health condition – from the clinic, to school, to after school? If that doesn’t work, then prescribe pharmaceutical drugs. Should children and young people be educated to appreciate the extent to which their consumption of ultra-processed food likely drives their metabolic and mental health conditions? Not just in a blithe ‘eat healthy’ fashion that patently avoids discussing addiction. Through deeper policy mechanisms, including cooking classes and nutritional biology by the implementation of nourishing, low-carbohydrate cooked school lunches. With officials uninformed, it’s easy to see why funding for Green Prescriptions that would support dietary changes have sputtered out. It’s easy to understand why neither the Ministry of Health nor Pharmac have proactively sourced multi-nutrient treatments that improve resilience to stress and trauma for low-income young people. Why there’s no discussion on a lower side-effect risk for multinutrient treatments. Why are there no policies in the education curriculum diving into the relationship between ultra-processed food and mental and physical health? It’s not in the work programme. There’s another surfacing dilemma. Currently, if doctors tell their patients that there is very good evidence that their disease or syndrome could be reversed, and this information is not held as factual information by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health – do doctors risk being accused of spreading misinformation? Government agencies have pivoted in the past 5 years to focus intensively on the problem of dis- and misinformation. New Zealand’s disinformation project states that Disinformation is false or modified information knowingly and deliberately shared to cause harm or achieve a broader aim. Misinformation is information that is false or misleading, though not created or shared with the direct intention of causing harm. Unfortunately, as we see, there is no division inside the Ministry of Health that reviews the latest evidence in the scientific literature, to ensure that policy decisions correctly reflect the latest evidence. There is no scientific agency outside the Ministry of Health that has flexibility and the capacity to undertake autonomous, long-term monitoring and research in nutrition, diet, and health. There is no independent, autonomous, public health research facility with sufficient long-term funding to translate dietary and nutritional evidence into policy, particularly if it contradicted current policy positions. Despite excellent research being undertaken, it is highly controlled, ad hoc, and frequently short-term. Problematically, there is no resourcing for those scientists to meaningfully feedback that information to either the Ministry of Health or to Members of Parliament and government Ministers. Dietary guidelines can become locked in, and contradictions can fail to be chewed over. Without the capacity to address errors, information can become outdated and misleading. Government agencies and elected members – from local councils all the way up to government Ministers, are dependent on being informed by the Ministry of Health, when it comes to government policy. When it comes to complex health conditions, and alleviating and reversing metabolic or mental illness, based on different patient capacity – from socio-economic, to cultural, to social, and taking into account capacity for change, what is sound, evidence-based information and what is misinformation? In the impasse, who can we trust? Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Author J.R. Bruning is a consultant sociologist (B.Bus.Agribusiness; MA Sociology) based in New Zealand. Her work explores governance cultures, policy and the production of scientific and technical knowledge. Her Master’s thesis explored the ways science policy creates barriers to funding, stymying scientists’ efforts to explore upstream drivers of harm. Bruning is a trustee of Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility (PSGR.org.nz). Papers and writing can be found at TalkingRisk.NZ and at JRBruning.Substack.com and at Talking Risk on Rumble. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-silent-shame-of-health-institutions/
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  • The WHO Wants to Rule the World
    Ramesh Thakur
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June. The new pandemic treaty needs a two-thirds majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect after 40 ratifications.

    The amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of last year. Because they will be changes to an existing agreement that states have already signed, the amendments do not require any follow-up ratification. The WHO describes the IHR as ‘an instrument of international law that is legally-binding’ on its 196 states parties, including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it. Therein lies its promise and its threat.

    The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices.

    From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it across all contentious issues.

    The changes to global health governance architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the transformation of the national security, administrative, and surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state. But they are encountering pushback in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently Ireland. We can but hope that the resistance will spread to rejecting the WHO power grab.

    Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked ‘the litany of lies and conspiracy theories’ about the agreement that ‘are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual, for that matter.’ He insisted that critics are ‘either uninformed or lying.’ Could it be instead that, relying on aides, he himself has either not read or not understood the draft? The alternative explanation for his spray at the critics is that he is gaslighting us all.

    The Gostin, Klock, and Finch Paper

    In the Hastings Center Report “Making the World Safer and Fairer in Pandemics,” published on 23 December, Lawrence Gostin, Kevin Klock, and Alexandra Finch attempt to provide the justification to underpin the proposed new IHR and treaty instruments as ‘transformative normative and financial reforms that could reimagine pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.’

    The three authors decry the voluntary compliance under the existing ‘amorphous and unenforceable’ IHR regulations as ‘a critical shortcoming.’ And they concede that ‘While advocates have pressed for health-related human rights to be included in the pandemic agreement, the current draft does not do so.’ Directly contradicting the DG’s denial as quoted above, they describe the new treaty as ‘legally binding’. This is repeated several pages later:

    …the best way to contain transnational outbreaks is through international cooperation, led multilaterally through the WHO. That may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty in exchange for enhanced safety and fairness.

    What gives their analysis significance is that, as explained in the paper itself, Gostin is ‘actively involved in WHO processes for a pandemic agreement and IHR reform’ as the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and a member of the WHO Review Committee on IHR amendments.

    The WHO as the World’s Guidance and Coordinating Authority

    The IHR amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health emergency, grant the WHO additional emergency powers, and extend state duties to build ‘core capacities’ of surveillance to detect, assess, notify, and report events that could constitute an emergency.

    Under the new accords, the WHO would function as the guidance and coordinating authority for the world. The DG will become more powerful than the UN Secretary-General. The existing language of ‘should’ is replaced in many places by the imperative ‘shall,’ of non-binding recommendations with countries will ‘undertake to follow’ the guidance. And ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’ will be changed to principles of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusivity’ with different requirements for rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries.

    The WHO is first of all an international bureaucracy and only secondly a collective body of medical and health experts. Its Covid performance was not among its finest. Its credibility was badly damaged by tardiness in raising the alarm; by its acceptance and then rejection of China’s claim that there was no risk of human-human transmission; by the failure to hold China accountable for destroying evidence of the pandemic’s origins; by the initial investigation that whitewashed the origins of the virus; by flip-flops on masks and lockdowns; by ignoring the counterexample of Sweden that rejected lockdowns with no worse health outcomes and far better economic, social, and educational outcomes; and by the failure to stand up for children’s developmental, educational, social, and mental health rights and welfare.

    With a funding model where 87 percent of the budget comes from voluntary contributions from the rich countries and private donors like the Gates Foundation, and 77 percent is for activities specified by them, the WHO has effectively ‘become a system of global public health patronage’, write Ben and Molly Kingsley of the UK children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. Human Rights Watch says the process has been ‘disproportionately guided by corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the pharmaceutical industry.’ The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world.

    Much of the new surveillance network in a model divided into pre-, in, and post-pandemic periods will be provided by private and corporate interests that will profit from the mass testing and pharmaceutical interventions. According to Forbes, the net worth of Bill Gates jumped by one-third from $96.5 billion in 2019 to $129 billion in 2022: philanthropy can be profitable. Article 15.2 of the draft pandemic treaty requires states to set up ‘no fault vaccine-injury compensation schemes,’ conferring immunity on Big Pharma against liability, thereby codifying the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of risks.

    The changes would confer extraordinary new powers on the WHO’s DG and regional directors and mandate governments to implement their recommendations. This will result in a major expansion of the international health bureaucracy under the WHO, for example new implementation and compliance committees; shift the centre of gravity from the common deadliest diseases (discussed below) to relatively rare pandemic outbreaks (five including Covid in the last 120 years); and give the WHO authority to direct resources (money, pharmaceutical products, intellectual property rights) to itself and to other governments in breach of sovereign and copyright rights.

    Considering the impact of the amendments on national decision-making and mortgaging future generations to internationally determined spending obligations, this calls for an indefinite pause in the process until parliaments have done due diligence and debated the potentially far-reaching obligations.

    Yet disappointingly, relatively few countries have expressed reservations and few parliamentarians seem at all interested. We may pay a high price for the rise of careerist politicians whose primary interest is self-advancement, ministers who ask bureaucrats to draft replies to constituents expressing concern that they often sign without reading either the original letter or the reply in their name, and officials who disdain the constraints of democratic decision-making and accountability. Ministers relying on technical advice from staffers when officials are engaged in a silent coup against elected representatives give power without responsibility to bureaucrats while relegating ministers to being in office but not in power, with political accountability sans authority.

    US President Donald Trump and Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson were representative of national leaders who had lacked the science literacy, intellectual heft, moral clarity, and courage of conviction to stand up to their technocrats. It was a period of Yes, Prime Minister on steroids, with Sir Humphrey Appleby winning most of the guerrilla campaign waged by the permanent civil service against the transient and clueless Prime Minister Jim Hacker.

    At least some Australian, American, British, and European politicians have recently expressed concern at the WHO-centred ‘command and control’ model of a public health system, and the public spending and redistributive implications of the two proposed international instruments. US Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) warned on 5 February that ‘far too little scrutiny has been given, far too few questions asked as to what this legally binding agreement or treaty means to health policy in the United States and elsewhere.’

    Like Smith and Wenstrup, the most common criticism levelled has been that this represents a power grab at the cost of national sovereignty. Speaking in parliament in November, Australia’s Liberal Senator Alex Antic dubbed the effort a ‘WHO d’etat’.

    A more accurate reading may be that it represents collusion between the WHO and the richest countries, home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to dilute accountability for decisions, taken in the name of public health, that profit a narrow elite. The changes will lock in the seamless rule of the technocratic-managerial elite at both the national and the international levels. Yet the WHO edicts, although legally binding in theory, will be unenforceable against the most powerful countries in practice.

    Moreover, the new regime aims to eliminate transparency and critical scrutiny by criminalising any opinion that questions the official narrative from the WHO and governments, thereby elevating them to the status of dogma. The pandemic treaty calls for governments to tackle the ‘infodemics’ of false information, misinformation, disinformation, and even ‘too much information’ (Article 1c). This is censorship. Authorities have no right to be shielded from critical questioning of official information. Freedom of information is a cornerstone of an open and resilient society and a key means to hold authorities to public scrutiny and accountability.

    The changes are an effort to entrench and institutionalise the model of political, social, and messaging control trialled with great success during Covid. The foundational document of the international human rights regime is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pandemic management during Covid and in future emergencies threaten some of its core provisions regarding privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, and rights to work, education, peaceful assembly, and association.

    Worst of all, they will create a perverse incentive: the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers, and budgets will depend on more frequent declarations of actual or anticipated pandemic outbreaks.

    It is a basic axiom of politics that power that can be abused, will be abused – some day, somewhere, by someone. The corollary holds that power once seized is seldom surrendered back voluntarily to the people. Lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and all the other shenanigans and theatre of the Covid era will likely be repeated on whim. Professor Angus Dalgliesh of London’s St George’s Medical School warns that the WHO ‘wants to inflict this incompetence on us all over again but this time be in total control.’

    Covid in the Context of Africa’s Disease Burden

    In the Hastings Center report referred to earlier, Gostin, Klock, and Finch claim that ‘lower-income countries experienced larger losses and longer-lasting economic setbacks.’ This is a casual elision that shifts the blame for harmful downstream effects away from lockdowns in the futile quest to eradicate the virus, to the virus itself. The chief damage to developing countries was caused by the worldwide shutdown of social life and economic activities and the drastic reduction in international trade.

    The discreet elision aroused my curiosity on the authors’ affiliations. It came as no surprise to read that they lead the O’Neill Institute–Foundation for the National Institutes of Health project on an international instrument for pandemic prevention and preparedness.

    Gostin et al. grounded the urgency for the new accords in the claim that ‘Zoonotic pathogens…are occurring with increasing frequency, enhancing the risk of new pandemics’ and cite research to suggest a threefold increase in ‘extreme pandemics’ over the next decade. In a report entitled “Rational Policy Over Panic,” published by Leeds University in February, a team that included our own David Bell subjected claims of increasing pandemic frequency and disease burden behind the drive to adopt the new treaty and amend the existing IHR to critical scrutiny.

    Specifically, they examined and found wanting a number of assumptions and several references in eight G20, World Bank, and WHO policy documents. On the one hand, the reported increase in natural outbreaks is best explained by technologically more sophisticated diagnostic testing equipment, while the disease burden has been effectively reduced with improved surveillance, response mechanisms, and other public health interventions. Consequently there is no real urgency to rush into the new accords. Instead, governments should take all the time they need to situate pandemic risk in the wider healthcare context and formulate policy tailored to the more accurate risk and interventions matrix.


    The lockdowns were responsible for reversals of decades worth of gains in critical childhood immunisations. UNICEF and WHO estimate that 7.6 million African children under 5 missed out on vaccination in 2021 and another 11 million were under-immunised, ‘making up over 40 percent of the under-immunised and missed children globally.’ How many quality adjusted life years does that add up to, I wonder? But don’t hold your breath that anyone will be held accountable for crimes against African children.

    Earlier this month the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued that lockdowns were a ‘class-based and unscientific instrument.’ It accused the WHO of trying to reintroduce ‘classical Western colonialism through the backdoor’ in the form of the new pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. Medical knowledge and innovations do not come solely from Western capitals and Geneva, but from people and groups who have captured the WHO agenda.

    Lockdowns had caused significant harm to low-income countries, the group said, yet the WHO wanted legal authority to compel member states to comply with its advice in future pandemics, including with respect to vaccine passports and border closures. Instead of bowing to ‘health imperialism,’ it would be preferable for African countries to set their own priorities in alleviating the disease burden of their major killer diseases like cholera, malaria, and yellow fever.

    Europe and the US, comprising a little under ten and over four percent of world population, account for nearly 18 and 17 percent, respectively, of all Covid-related deaths in the world. By contrast Asia, with nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, accounts for 23 percent of all Covid-related deaths. Meantime Africa, with more than 17 percent of global population, has recorded less than four percent of global Covid deaths (Table 1).

    According to a report on the continent’s disease burden published last year by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Africa’s leading causes of death in 2021 were malaria (593,000 deaths), tuberculosis (501,000), and HIV/AIDS (420,000). The report does not provide the numbers for diarrhoeal deaths for Africa. There are 1.6 million such deaths globally per year, including 440,000 children under 5. And we know that most diarrhoeal deaths occur in Africa and South Asia.

    If we perform a linear extrapolation of 2021 deaths to estimate ballpark figures for the three years 2020–22 inclusive for numbers of Africans killed by these big three, approximately 1.78 million died from malaria, 1.5 million from TB, and 1.26 million from HIV/AIDS. (I exclude 2023 as Covid had faded by then, as can be seen in Table 1). By comparison, the total number of Covid-related deaths across Africa in the three years was 259,000.

    Whether or not the WHO is pursuing a policy of health colonialism, therefore, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group has a point regarding the grossly exaggerated threat of Covid in the total picture of Africa’s disease burden.

    A shorter version of this was published in The Australian on 11 March

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Author

    Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

    View all posts
    Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-wants-to-rule-the-world/
    The WHO Wants to Rule the World Ramesh Thakur The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June. The new pandemic treaty needs a two-thirds majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect after 40 ratifications. The amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of last year. Because they will be changes to an existing agreement that states have already signed, the amendments do not require any follow-up ratification. The WHO describes the IHR as ‘an instrument of international law that is legally-binding’ on its 196 states parties, including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it. Therein lies its promise and its threat. The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices. From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it across all contentious issues. The changes to global health governance architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the transformation of the national security, administrative, and surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state. But they are encountering pushback in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently Ireland. We can but hope that the resistance will spread to rejecting the WHO power grab. Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked ‘the litany of lies and conspiracy theories’ about the agreement that ‘are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual, for that matter.’ He insisted that critics are ‘either uninformed or lying.’ Could it be instead that, relying on aides, he himself has either not read or not understood the draft? The alternative explanation for his spray at the critics is that he is gaslighting us all. The Gostin, Klock, and Finch Paper In the Hastings Center Report “Making the World Safer and Fairer in Pandemics,” published on 23 December, Lawrence Gostin, Kevin Klock, and Alexandra Finch attempt to provide the justification to underpin the proposed new IHR and treaty instruments as ‘transformative normative and financial reforms that could reimagine pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.’ The three authors decry the voluntary compliance under the existing ‘amorphous and unenforceable’ IHR regulations as ‘a critical shortcoming.’ And they concede that ‘While advocates have pressed for health-related human rights to be included in the pandemic agreement, the current draft does not do so.’ Directly contradicting the DG’s denial as quoted above, they describe the new treaty as ‘legally binding’. This is repeated several pages later: …the best way to contain transnational outbreaks is through international cooperation, led multilaterally through the WHO. That may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty in exchange for enhanced safety and fairness. What gives their analysis significance is that, as explained in the paper itself, Gostin is ‘actively involved in WHO processes for a pandemic agreement and IHR reform’ as the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and a member of the WHO Review Committee on IHR amendments. The WHO as the World’s Guidance and Coordinating Authority The IHR amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health emergency, grant the WHO additional emergency powers, and extend state duties to build ‘core capacities’ of surveillance to detect, assess, notify, and report events that could constitute an emergency. Under the new accords, the WHO would function as the guidance and coordinating authority for the world. The DG will become more powerful than the UN Secretary-General. The existing language of ‘should’ is replaced in many places by the imperative ‘shall,’ of non-binding recommendations with countries will ‘undertake to follow’ the guidance. And ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’ will be changed to principles of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusivity’ with different requirements for rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries. The WHO is first of all an international bureaucracy and only secondly a collective body of medical and health experts. Its Covid performance was not among its finest. Its credibility was badly damaged by tardiness in raising the alarm; by its acceptance and then rejection of China’s claim that there was no risk of human-human transmission; by the failure to hold China accountable for destroying evidence of the pandemic’s origins; by the initial investigation that whitewashed the origins of the virus; by flip-flops on masks and lockdowns; by ignoring the counterexample of Sweden that rejected lockdowns with no worse health outcomes and far better economic, social, and educational outcomes; and by the failure to stand up for children’s developmental, educational, social, and mental health rights and welfare. With a funding model where 87 percent of the budget comes from voluntary contributions from the rich countries and private donors like the Gates Foundation, and 77 percent is for activities specified by them, the WHO has effectively ‘become a system of global public health patronage’, write Ben and Molly Kingsley of the UK children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. Human Rights Watch says the process has been ‘disproportionately guided by corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the pharmaceutical industry.’ The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world. Much of the new surveillance network in a model divided into pre-, in, and post-pandemic periods will be provided by private and corporate interests that will profit from the mass testing and pharmaceutical interventions. According to Forbes, the net worth of Bill Gates jumped by one-third from $96.5 billion in 2019 to $129 billion in 2022: philanthropy can be profitable. Article 15.2 of the draft pandemic treaty requires states to set up ‘no fault vaccine-injury compensation schemes,’ conferring immunity on Big Pharma against liability, thereby codifying the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of risks. The changes would confer extraordinary new powers on the WHO’s DG and regional directors and mandate governments to implement their recommendations. This will result in a major expansion of the international health bureaucracy under the WHO, for example new implementation and compliance committees; shift the centre of gravity from the common deadliest diseases (discussed below) to relatively rare pandemic outbreaks (five including Covid in the last 120 years); and give the WHO authority to direct resources (money, pharmaceutical products, intellectual property rights) to itself and to other governments in breach of sovereign and copyright rights. Considering the impact of the amendments on national decision-making and mortgaging future generations to internationally determined spending obligations, this calls for an indefinite pause in the process until parliaments have done due diligence and debated the potentially far-reaching obligations. Yet disappointingly, relatively few countries have expressed reservations and few parliamentarians seem at all interested. We may pay a high price for the rise of careerist politicians whose primary interest is self-advancement, ministers who ask bureaucrats to draft replies to constituents expressing concern that they often sign without reading either the original letter or the reply in their name, and officials who disdain the constraints of democratic decision-making and accountability. Ministers relying on technical advice from staffers when officials are engaged in a silent coup against elected representatives give power without responsibility to bureaucrats while relegating ministers to being in office but not in power, with political accountability sans authority. US President Donald Trump and Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson were representative of national leaders who had lacked the science literacy, intellectual heft, moral clarity, and courage of conviction to stand up to their technocrats. It was a period of Yes, Prime Minister on steroids, with Sir Humphrey Appleby winning most of the guerrilla campaign waged by the permanent civil service against the transient and clueless Prime Minister Jim Hacker. At least some Australian, American, British, and European politicians have recently expressed concern at the WHO-centred ‘command and control’ model of a public health system, and the public spending and redistributive implications of the two proposed international instruments. US Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) warned on 5 February that ‘far too little scrutiny has been given, far too few questions asked as to what this legally binding agreement or treaty means to health policy in the United States and elsewhere.’ Like Smith and Wenstrup, the most common criticism levelled has been that this represents a power grab at the cost of national sovereignty. Speaking in parliament in November, Australia’s Liberal Senator Alex Antic dubbed the effort a ‘WHO d’etat’. A more accurate reading may be that it represents collusion between the WHO and the richest countries, home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to dilute accountability for decisions, taken in the name of public health, that profit a narrow elite. The changes will lock in the seamless rule of the technocratic-managerial elite at both the national and the international levels. Yet the WHO edicts, although legally binding in theory, will be unenforceable against the most powerful countries in practice. Moreover, the new regime aims to eliminate transparency and critical scrutiny by criminalising any opinion that questions the official narrative from the WHO and governments, thereby elevating them to the status of dogma. The pandemic treaty calls for governments to tackle the ‘infodemics’ of false information, misinformation, disinformation, and even ‘too much information’ (Article 1c). This is censorship. Authorities have no right to be shielded from critical questioning of official information. Freedom of information is a cornerstone of an open and resilient society and a key means to hold authorities to public scrutiny and accountability. The changes are an effort to entrench and institutionalise the model of political, social, and messaging control trialled with great success during Covid. The foundational document of the international human rights regime is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pandemic management during Covid and in future emergencies threaten some of its core provisions regarding privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, and rights to work, education, peaceful assembly, and association. Worst of all, they will create a perverse incentive: the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers, and budgets will depend on more frequent declarations of actual or anticipated pandemic outbreaks. It is a basic axiom of politics that power that can be abused, will be abused – some day, somewhere, by someone. The corollary holds that power once seized is seldom surrendered back voluntarily to the people. Lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and all the other shenanigans and theatre of the Covid era will likely be repeated on whim. Professor Angus Dalgliesh of London’s St George’s Medical School warns that the WHO ‘wants to inflict this incompetence on us all over again but this time be in total control.’ Covid in the Context of Africa’s Disease Burden In the Hastings Center report referred to earlier, Gostin, Klock, and Finch claim that ‘lower-income countries experienced larger losses and longer-lasting economic setbacks.’ This is a casual elision that shifts the blame for harmful downstream effects away from lockdowns in the futile quest to eradicate the virus, to the virus itself. The chief damage to developing countries was caused by the worldwide shutdown of social life and economic activities and the drastic reduction in international trade. The discreet elision aroused my curiosity on the authors’ affiliations. It came as no surprise to read that they lead the O’Neill Institute–Foundation for the National Institutes of Health project on an international instrument for pandemic prevention and preparedness. Gostin et al. grounded the urgency for the new accords in the claim that ‘Zoonotic pathogens…are occurring with increasing frequency, enhancing the risk of new pandemics’ and cite research to suggest a threefold increase in ‘extreme pandemics’ over the next decade. In a report entitled “Rational Policy Over Panic,” published by Leeds University in February, a team that included our own David Bell subjected claims of increasing pandemic frequency and disease burden behind the drive to adopt the new treaty and amend the existing IHR to critical scrutiny. Specifically, they examined and found wanting a number of assumptions and several references in eight G20, World Bank, and WHO policy documents. On the one hand, the reported increase in natural outbreaks is best explained by technologically more sophisticated diagnostic testing equipment, while the disease burden has been effectively reduced with improved surveillance, response mechanisms, and other public health interventions. Consequently there is no real urgency to rush into the new accords. Instead, governments should take all the time they need to situate pandemic risk in the wider healthcare context and formulate policy tailored to the more accurate risk and interventions matrix. The lockdowns were responsible for reversals of decades worth of gains in critical childhood immunisations. UNICEF and WHO estimate that 7.6 million African children under 5 missed out on vaccination in 2021 and another 11 million were under-immunised, ‘making up over 40 percent of the under-immunised and missed children globally.’ How many quality adjusted life years does that add up to, I wonder? But don’t hold your breath that anyone will be held accountable for crimes against African children. Earlier this month the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued that lockdowns were a ‘class-based and unscientific instrument.’ It accused the WHO of trying to reintroduce ‘classical Western colonialism through the backdoor’ in the form of the new pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. Medical knowledge and innovations do not come solely from Western capitals and Geneva, but from people and groups who have captured the WHO agenda. Lockdowns had caused significant harm to low-income countries, the group said, yet the WHO wanted legal authority to compel member states to comply with its advice in future pandemics, including with respect to vaccine passports and border closures. Instead of bowing to ‘health imperialism,’ it would be preferable for African countries to set their own priorities in alleviating the disease burden of their major killer diseases like cholera, malaria, and yellow fever. Europe and the US, comprising a little under ten and over four percent of world population, account for nearly 18 and 17 percent, respectively, of all Covid-related deaths in the world. By contrast Asia, with nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, accounts for 23 percent of all Covid-related deaths. Meantime Africa, with more than 17 percent of global population, has recorded less than four percent of global Covid deaths (Table 1). According to a report on the continent’s disease burden published last year by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Africa’s leading causes of death in 2021 were malaria (593,000 deaths), tuberculosis (501,000), and HIV/AIDS (420,000). The report does not provide the numbers for diarrhoeal deaths for Africa. There are 1.6 million such deaths globally per year, including 440,000 children under 5. And we know that most diarrhoeal deaths occur in Africa and South Asia. If we perform a linear extrapolation of 2021 deaths to estimate ballpark figures for the three years 2020–22 inclusive for numbers of Africans killed by these big three, approximately 1.78 million died from malaria, 1.5 million from TB, and 1.26 million from HIV/AIDS. (I exclude 2023 as Covid had faded by then, as can be seen in Table 1). By comparison, the total number of Covid-related deaths across Africa in the three years was 259,000. Whether or not the WHO is pursuing a policy of health colonialism, therefore, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group has a point regarding the grossly exaggerated threat of Covid in the total picture of Africa’s disease burden. A shorter version of this was published in The Australian on 11 March Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Author Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-wants-to-rule-the-world/
    BROWNSTONE.ORG
    The WHO Wants to Rule the World ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June.
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  • Hi mate, I have been part of Green Chain community and I have earned GREEN coin & I want to share this great opportunity to you.

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    Hi mate, I have been part of Green Chain community and I have earned GREEN coin & I want to share this great opportunity to you. All Telegram users can now mine Green directly from their devices on Android or iOS! Please join my GREEN Chain network now and start earning! https://www.greenchain.app/invite/coprochain
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  • NEW ARTICLE: The Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton has been diagnosed with Cancer - there is a high probability she has Turbo Cancer, caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines she took in 2021.

    What are the most likely mRNA Induced Turbo Cancers that would require major abdominal surgery and "preventative chemotherapy"?

    1. Turbo Colon Cancer - one of most common
    2. Turbo Ovarian Cancer - on the rise, poor prognosis
    3. Turbo Uterine Cancer - endometrial or sarcoma
    4. Rare Turbo Cancers - appendix, gallbladder, pancreas, gastric

    I go through each of these Turbo Cancer scenarios in detail in my article.

    Turbo Colon Cancer would be the most common scenario, it is the top 5 cancer that occurs following vaccination with Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines.

    Turbo Colon Cancer is skyrocketing and presents now in younger and younger men and women. It grows rapidly and often doesn't respond to standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens. Immunotherapy also doesn't work, which tends to shock Oncologists.

    Turbo Ovarian Cancer is on the rise in younger women. These often present as ovarian cysts and in many cases are initially assumed to be benign.

    Many cases of Turbo Ovarian Cancer have been ignored by doctors until they were so large that they had to be surgically removed - and only then is cancer discovered. These have a poor prognosis.

    Turbo Uterine cancer is also skyrocketing and this could present with abdominal pain or bleeding, and thought initially to be benign tumors like fibroids. These are either endometrial cancers or sarcomas.

    Rare Turbo Cancers in the abdomen would include appendix, gallbladder, pancreas, gastric, liver.

    Appendix can present as appendicitis, gallbladder as acute cholecystitis - upon removal, cancer can be discovered, hidden and unexpected. These are not "major abdominal surgeries", however, so they are less likely.

    My hypothesis and concern is that the major abdominal surgery The Princess of Wales had was a total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and the cancer is either an Ovarian cancer or a Uterine cancer that was discovered unexpectedly after pathological examination of the surgical specimen.

    The need for "preventative chemotherapy" suggests a Turbo Ovarian Cancer, or a more advanced stage Turbo Uterine Cancer (or more aggressive subtypes such as Uterine carcinosarcomas, clear cell cancers, or serous cancers) which would also require chemotherapy.

    If The Princess of Wales is suffering from Turbo Ovarian Cancer or an advanced or aggressive Turbo Uterine Cancer, she will need a much more comprehensive Cancer Treatment plan than her UK Oncologists will offer her.

    Turbo Cancers in general don't respond to standard chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy regimens.

    This is especially true for Turbo Ovarian Cancers.

    The Princess will need a Treatment plan that addresses some of the unique characteristics of mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer.

    This will include a spike protein “detoxification” protocol (that involves spike protein breakdown agents such as Nattokinase and spike protein binding agents with anti-cancer properties such as Quercetin, Olive Leaf, Nigella Sativa or Curcumin)

    as well as an “Alternative treatment plan” that includes high dose Ivermectin and high dose Fenbendazole/Mebendazole/Albendazole.

    She must also eliminate sugar from her diet, as cancer thrives on sugar, and consider certain foods with powerful anti-cancer properties (Soursop, Turkey Tail mushroom, etc are great examples)

    I hope The Princess of Wales can surround herself with doctors who didn’t abandon their Hippocratic Oath during the COVID-19 pandemic (unfortunately vast majority did, including virtually all Oncologists).

    She also needs doctors who understand the very real and dangerous phenomenon of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer.

    William Makis MD

    ROBINMG
    NEW ARTICLE: The Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton has been diagnosed with Cancer - there is a high probability she has Turbo Cancer, caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines she took in 2021. What are the most likely mRNA Induced Turbo Cancers that would require major abdominal surgery and "preventative chemotherapy"? 1. Turbo Colon Cancer - one of most common 2. Turbo Ovarian Cancer - on the rise, poor prognosis 3. Turbo Uterine Cancer - endometrial or sarcoma 4. Rare Turbo Cancers - appendix, gallbladder, pancreas, gastric I go through each of these Turbo Cancer scenarios in detail in my article. Turbo Colon Cancer would be the most common scenario, it is the top 5 cancer that occurs following vaccination with Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. Turbo Colon Cancer is skyrocketing and presents now in younger and younger men and women. It grows rapidly and often doesn't respond to standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens. Immunotherapy also doesn't work, which tends to shock Oncologists. Turbo Ovarian Cancer is on the rise in younger women. These often present as ovarian cysts and in many cases are initially assumed to be benign. Many cases of Turbo Ovarian Cancer have been ignored by doctors until they were so large that they had to be surgically removed - and only then is cancer discovered. These have a poor prognosis. Turbo Uterine cancer is also skyrocketing and this could present with abdominal pain or bleeding, and thought initially to be benign tumors like fibroids. These are either endometrial cancers or sarcomas. Rare Turbo Cancers in the abdomen would include appendix, gallbladder, pancreas, gastric, liver. Appendix can present as appendicitis, gallbladder as acute cholecystitis - upon removal, cancer can be discovered, hidden and unexpected. These are not "major abdominal surgeries", however, so they are less likely. My hypothesis and concern is that the major abdominal surgery The Princess of Wales had was a total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and the cancer is either an Ovarian cancer or a Uterine cancer that was discovered unexpectedly after pathological examination of the surgical specimen. The need for "preventative chemotherapy" suggests a Turbo Ovarian Cancer, or a more advanced stage Turbo Uterine Cancer (or more aggressive subtypes such as Uterine carcinosarcomas, clear cell cancers, or serous cancers) which would also require chemotherapy. If The Princess of Wales is suffering from Turbo Ovarian Cancer or an advanced or aggressive Turbo Uterine Cancer, she will need a much more comprehensive Cancer Treatment plan than her UK Oncologists will offer her. Turbo Cancers in general don't respond to standard chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy regimens. This is especially true for Turbo Ovarian Cancers. The Princess will need a Treatment plan that addresses some of the unique characteristics of mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer. This will include a spike protein “detoxification” protocol (that involves spike protein breakdown agents such as Nattokinase and spike protein binding agents with anti-cancer properties such as Quercetin, Olive Leaf, Nigella Sativa or Curcumin) as well as an “Alternative treatment plan” that includes high dose Ivermectin and high dose Fenbendazole/Mebendazole/Albendazole. She must also eliminate sugar from her diet, as cancer thrives on sugar, and consider certain foods with powerful anti-cancer properties (Soursop, Turkey Tail mushroom, etc are great examples) I hope The Princess of Wales can surround herself with doctors who didn’t abandon their Hippocratic Oath during the COVID-19 pandemic (unfortunately vast majority did, including virtually all Oncologists). She also needs doctors who understand the very real and dangerous phenomenon of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer. William Makis MD ROBINMG 🚀
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  • ISIS claims responsibility for attack at Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 60 dead
    CNN — normal
    ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145.

    The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim.

    Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said.

    State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed.

    The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.

    The deadliest terror attack on Moscow in decades, Friday’s assault came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin won a stage-managed election by an overwhelming majority to secure another term in office, tightening his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century.

    With attention focused on the country’s war with neighboring Ukraine, Putin had trumpeted a message of national security before Russians went to the polls.

    The carnage broke out before a concert by the band Picnic, according to Russia 24.

    “Unidentified people in camouflage broke into Crocus City Hall and started shooting before the start of the concert,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said, cited by TASS.

    This screen grab from video shows armed men inside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow region, Russia. CNN can not verify whether these are the armed attackers or Russian authorities moving in.
    Video footage showed panic as the attack unfolded, with crowds of people huddling together, screaming and ducking behind cushioned seats as gunshots started echoing in the vast hall. One group sheltering next to a large wall of windows outside the concert venue were forced to break them to escape the gunfire, video obtained by CNN shows.

    Footage geolocated by CNN shows an armed individual starting at least one fire inside the venue. The individual is seen carrying something in their hand and, as they walk off-screen, a bright flash of light from a large flame is seen in the video.

    A SWAT team was called to the area and more than 70 ambulance teams and doctors assisted victims.

    One hundred and forty-five people have been hospitalized, TASS reported. Sixty people are in a “serious condition.”

    According to the Kremlin, Putin was informed about the attack and is being kept updated on measures on the ground.

    The president on Saturday wished those injured in the attack a speedy recovery, the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency said. He also “conveyed his gratitude to the doctors,” RIA added.

    Around 100 people were evacuated from the building by firefighters, TASS reported.

    Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack a “terrible tragedy.”

    “My condolences to the loved ones of the victims. I gave orders to provide all necessary assistance to everyone who suffered during the incident,” Sobyanin said in a statement.

    Sobyanin said on Telegram that he was canceling all sports, cultural and other public events in Moscow this weekend.

    Picnic’s manager told state media that the performers were unharmed.

    Shaman, the band’s singer, said he would pay for the funerals of the victims and treatment for those injured.

    “We are all one big family. And in a family there is no such thing as somebody else’s grief,” the singer, known for his nationalistic views, said in a video posted on the Russian social media network Vkontakte to his more than 600,000 followers.

    “My people, any troubles and misfortunes have always united our country. They have made Russia tougher and stronger. It will not be possible to frighten and break us this time either.”

    ISIS claims responsibility for Moscow attack that killed 40

    02:51 - Source: CNN
    US had warned of potential attack

    Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia said it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” including concerts. The embassy warned US citizens to avoid large gatherings. On Friday, following reports of the Crocus City Hall attack, it advised US citizens not to travel to Russia.

    Starting in November, there has been a steady stream of intelligence that ISIS-K was determined to attack in Russia, according to two sources familiar with the information.

    ISIS-K stands for ISIS-Khorasan, the terror organization’s affiliate that is active in Afghanistan and the surrounding region.

    US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US government had had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts – and that this is what prompted the State Department to issue the public advisory.

    “The US government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.

    In a speech Tuesday, Putin had blasted the American warnings as “provocative,” saying “these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

    In March alone, Russian authorities had thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to RIA. On March 3, RIA reported that six ISIS members were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in the Ingush Karabulak; on March 7, it said security services had uncovered and “neutralized” a cell of the banned organization Vilayat Khorasan in the Kaluga region, whose members were planning an attack on a synagogue in Moscow; and on March 20, it said the commander of an ISIS combat group had been detained.

    A US official said Friday that Washington had no reason to doubt ISIS’ claim that it was responsible for the latest attack.

    International response

    Ukraine, which has been embroiled in a war with Russia for more than two years, denied any involvement in the attack.

    “Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote, in part, in a post on X. He said he believed Russia would use the attack to justify the ongoing conflict and scale up operations as part of “military propaganda” in Ukraine.

    United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday condemned “in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack” according to a statement released by his deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq.

    “The secretary-general conveys his deep condolences to the bereaved families and the people and the government of the Russian Federation. He wishes those injured a speedy recovery,” the statement said.

    In a separate statement, the UN Security Council called the attack “heinous and cowardly.”

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping offered his condolences to Putin on Saturday “over the serious terrorist attack that caused heavy casualties,” according to a report from Chinese state media.

    French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned the attack. “France expresses its solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people,” the Elysee Palace said, AFP and Reuters reported.

    India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman both also denounced the attack.

    CNN’s Eva Rothenberg, Paul Murphy and Hannah Strange contributed to this reporting.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html
    ISIS claims responsibility for attack at Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 60 dead CNN — normal ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145. The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim. Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said. State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed. The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram. The deadliest terror attack on Moscow in decades, Friday’s assault came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin won a stage-managed election by an overwhelming majority to secure another term in office, tightening his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century. With attention focused on the country’s war with neighboring Ukraine, Putin had trumpeted a message of national security before Russians went to the polls. The carnage broke out before a concert by the band Picnic, according to Russia 24. “Unidentified people in camouflage broke into Crocus City Hall and started shooting before the start of the concert,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said, cited by TASS. This screen grab from video shows armed men inside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow region, Russia. CNN can not verify whether these are the armed attackers or Russian authorities moving in. Video footage showed panic as the attack unfolded, with crowds of people huddling together, screaming and ducking behind cushioned seats as gunshots started echoing in the vast hall. One group sheltering next to a large wall of windows outside the concert venue were forced to break them to escape the gunfire, video obtained by CNN shows. Footage geolocated by CNN shows an armed individual starting at least one fire inside the venue. The individual is seen carrying something in their hand and, as they walk off-screen, a bright flash of light from a large flame is seen in the video. A SWAT team was called to the area and more than 70 ambulance teams and doctors assisted victims. One hundred and forty-five people have been hospitalized, TASS reported. Sixty people are in a “serious condition.” According to the Kremlin, Putin was informed about the attack and is being kept updated on measures on the ground. The president on Saturday wished those injured in the attack a speedy recovery, the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency said. He also “conveyed his gratitude to the doctors,” RIA added. Around 100 people were evacuated from the building by firefighters, TASS reported. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack a “terrible tragedy.” “My condolences to the loved ones of the victims. I gave orders to provide all necessary assistance to everyone who suffered during the incident,” Sobyanin said in a statement. Sobyanin said on Telegram that he was canceling all sports, cultural and other public events in Moscow this weekend. Picnic’s manager told state media that the performers were unharmed. Shaman, the band’s singer, said he would pay for the funerals of the victims and treatment for those injured. “We are all one big family. And in a family there is no such thing as somebody else’s grief,” the singer, known for his nationalistic views, said in a video posted on the Russian social media network Vkontakte to his more than 600,000 followers. “My people, any troubles and misfortunes have always united our country. They have made Russia tougher and stronger. It will not be possible to frighten and break us this time either.” ISIS claims responsibility for Moscow attack that killed 40 02:51 - Source: CNN US had warned of potential attack Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia said it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” including concerts. The embassy warned US citizens to avoid large gatherings. On Friday, following reports of the Crocus City Hall attack, it advised US citizens not to travel to Russia. Starting in November, there has been a steady stream of intelligence that ISIS-K was determined to attack in Russia, according to two sources familiar with the information. ISIS-K stands for ISIS-Khorasan, the terror organization’s affiliate that is active in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US government had had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts – and that this is what prompted the State Department to issue the public advisory. “The US government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said. In a speech Tuesday, Putin had blasted the American warnings as “provocative,” saying “these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.” In March alone, Russian authorities had thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to RIA. On March 3, RIA reported that six ISIS members were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in the Ingush Karabulak; on March 7, it said security services had uncovered and “neutralized” a cell of the banned organization Vilayat Khorasan in the Kaluga region, whose members were planning an attack on a synagogue in Moscow; and on March 20, it said the commander of an ISIS combat group had been detained. A US official said Friday that Washington had no reason to doubt ISIS’ claim that it was responsible for the latest attack. International response Ukraine, which has been embroiled in a war with Russia for more than two years, denied any involvement in the attack. “Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote, in part, in a post on X. He said he believed Russia would use the attack to justify the ongoing conflict and scale up operations as part of “military propaganda” in Ukraine. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday condemned “in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack” according to a statement released by his deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq. “The secretary-general conveys his deep condolences to the bereaved families and the people and the government of the Russian Federation. He wishes those injured a speedy recovery,” the statement said. In a separate statement, the UN Security Council called the attack “heinous and cowardly.” Chinese leader Xi Jinping offered his condolences to Putin on Saturday “over the serious terrorist attack that caused heavy casualties,” according to a report from Chinese state media. French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned the attack. “France expresses its solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people,” the Elysee Palace said, AFP and Reuters reported. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman both also denounced the attack. CNN’s Eva Rothenberg, Paul Murphy and Hannah Strange contributed to this reporting. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html
    WWW.CNN.COM
    ISIS claims responsibility for attack in busy Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 40 dead | CNN
    At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 were injured after armed attackers stormed a popular concert venue complex near Moscow and opened fire, according to preliminary information from the Federal Security Service in Russia, state media TASS reported.
    2 Comments 0 Shares 7940 Views
  • Mistakes Were Made
    CJ Hopkins


    Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that a bit during these past few years, but, if there’s one thing they’re exceptionally good at, it’s taking responsibility for their mistakes.

    Seriously, when it comes to acknowledging one’s mistakes, and not rationalizing, or minimizing, or attempting to deny them, and any discomfort they may have allegedly caused, no one does it quite like the Germans.

    Take this Covid mess, for example. Just last week, the German authorities confessed that they made a few minor mistakes during their management of the “Covid pandemic.” According to Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Health, “we were sometimes too strict with the children and probably started easing the restrictions a little too late.”

    Horst Seehofer, the former Interior Minister, admitted that he would no longer agree to some of the Covid restrictions today, for example, nationwide nighttime curfews. “One must be very careful with calls for compulsory vaccination,” he added. Helge Braun, Head of the Chancellery and Minister for Special Affairs under Merkel, agreed that there had been “misjudgments,” for example, “overestimating the effectiveness of the vaccines.”

    This display of the German authorities’ unwavering commitment to transparency and honesty, and the principle of personal honor that guides the German authorities in all their affairs, and that is deeply ingrained in the German character, was published in a piece called “The Divisive Virus” in Der Spiegel, and immediately widely disseminated by the rest of the German state and corporate media in a totally organic manner which did not in any way resemble one enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument pumping out official propaganda in perfect synchronization, or anything creepy and fascistic like that.

    Germany, after all, is “an extremely democratic state,” with freedom of speech and the press and all that, not some kind of totalitarian country where the masses are inundated with official propaganda and critics of the government are dragged into criminal court and prosecuted on trumped-up “hate crime” charges.

    OK, sure, in a non-democratic totalitarian system, such public “admissions of mistakes” — and the synchronized dissemination thereof by the media — would just be a part of the process of whitewashing the authorities’ fascistic behavior during some particularly totalitarian phase of transforming society into whatever totalitarian dystopia they were trying to transform it into (for example, a three-year-long “state of emergency,” which they declared to keep the masses terrorized and cooperative while they stripped them of their democratic rights, i.e., the ones they hadn’t already stripped them of, and conditioned them to mindlessly follow orders, and robotically repeat nonsensical official slogans, and vent their impotent hatred and fear at the new “Untermenschen” or “counter-revolutionaries”), but that is obviously not the case here.

    No, this is definitely not the German authorities staging a public “accountability” spectacle in order to memory-hole what happened during 2020-2023 and enshrine the official narrative in history. There’s going to be a formal “Inquiry Commission” — conducted by the same German authorities that managed the “crisis” — which will get to the bottom of all the regrettable but completely understandable “mistakes” that were made in the heat of the heroic battle against The Divisive Virus!

    OK, calm down, all you “conspiracy theorists,” “Covid deniers,” and “anti-vaxxers.” This isn’t going to be like the Nuremberg Trials. No one is going to get taken out and hanged. It’s about identifying and acknowledging mistakes, and learning from them, so that the authorities can manage everything better during the next “pandemic,” or “climate emergency,” or “terrorist attack,” or “insurrection,” or whatever.

    For example, the Inquiry Commission will want to look into how the government accidentally declared a Nationwide State of Pandemic Emergency and revised the Infection Protection Act, suspending the German constitution and granting the government the power to rule by decree, on account of a respiratory virus that clearly posed no threat to society at large, and then unleashed police goon squads on the thousands of people who gathered outside the Reichstag to protest the revocation of their constitutional rights.


    Once they do, I’m sure they’ll find that that “mistake” bears absolutely no resemblance to the Enabling Act of 1933, which suspended the German constitution and granted the government the power to rule by decree, after the Nazis declared a nationwide “state of emergency.”

    Another thing the Commission will probably want to look into is how the German authorities accidentally banned any further demonstrations against their arbitrary decrees, and ordered the police to brutalize anyone participating in such “illegal demonstrations.”


    And, while the Commission is inquiring into the possibly slightly inappropriate behavior of their law enforcement officials, they might want to also take a look at the behavior of their unofficial goon squads, like Antifa, which they accidentally encouraged to attack the “anti-vaxxers,” the “Covid deniers,” and anyone brandishing a copy of the German constitution.


    Come to think of it, the Inquiry Commission might also want to look into how the German authorities, and the overwhelming majority of the state and corporate media, accidentally systematically fomented mass hatred of anyone who dared to question the government’s arbitrary and nonsensical decrees or who refused to submit to “vaccination,” and publicly demonized us as “Corona deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “far-right anti-Semites,” etc., to the point where mainstream German celebrities like Sarah Bosetti were literally describing us as the inessential “appendix” in the body of the nation, quoting an infamous Nazi almost verbatim.


    And then there’s the whole “vaccination” business. The Commission will certainly want to inquire into that. They will probably want to start their inquiry with Karl Lauterbach, and determine exactly how he accidentally lied to the public, over and over, and over again…



    And whipped people up into a mass hysteria over “KILLER VARIANTS”…


    And “LONG COVID BRAIN ATTACKS” …


    And how “THE UNVACCINATED ARE HOLDING THE WHOLE COUNTRY HOSTAGE, SO WE NEED TO FORCIBLY VACCINATE EVERYONE!”


    And so on. I could go on with this all day, but it will be much easier to just refer you, and the Commission, to this documentary film by Aya Velázquez. Non-German readers may want to skip to the second half, unless they’re interested in the German “Corona Expert Council”…



    Look, the point is, everybody makes “mistakes,” especially during a “state of emergency,” or a war, or some other type of global “crisis.” At least we can always count on the Germans to step up and take responsibility for theirs, and not claim that they didn’t know what was happening, or that they were “just following orders,” or that “the science changed.”

    Plus, all this Covid stuff is ancient history, and, as Olaf, an editor at Der Spiegel, reminds us, it’s time to put the “The Divisive Pandemic” behind us…


    …and click heels, and heil the New Normal Democracy!

    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.

    SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

    If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

    For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.


    https://off-guardian.org/2024/03/19/mistakes-were-made/

    https://telegra.ph/Mistakes-Were-Made-03-20
    Mistakes Were Made CJ Hopkins Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that a bit during these past few years, but, if there’s one thing they’re exceptionally good at, it’s taking responsibility for their mistakes. Seriously, when it comes to acknowledging one’s mistakes, and not rationalizing, or minimizing, or attempting to deny them, and any discomfort they may have allegedly caused, no one does it quite like the Germans. Take this Covid mess, for example. Just last week, the German authorities confessed that they made a few minor mistakes during their management of the “Covid pandemic.” According to Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Health, “we were sometimes too strict with the children and probably started easing the restrictions a little too late.” Horst Seehofer, the former Interior Minister, admitted that he would no longer agree to some of the Covid restrictions today, for example, nationwide nighttime curfews. “One must be very careful with calls for compulsory vaccination,” he added. Helge Braun, Head of the Chancellery and Minister for Special Affairs under Merkel, agreed that there had been “misjudgments,” for example, “overestimating the effectiveness of the vaccines.” This display of the German authorities’ unwavering commitment to transparency and honesty, and the principle of personal honor that guides the German authorities in all their affairs, and that is deeply ingrained in the German character, was published in a piece called “The Divisive Virus” in Der Spiegel, and immediately widely disseminated by the rest of the German state and corporate media in a totally organic manner which did not in any way resemble one enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument pumping out official propaganda in perfect synchronization, or anything creepy and fascistic like that. Germany, after all, is “an extremely democratic state,” with freedom of speech and the press and all that, not some kind of totalitarian country where the masses are inundated with official propaganda and critics of the government are dragged into criminal court and prosecuted on trumped-up “hate crime” charges. OK, sure, in a non-democratic totalitarian system, such public “admissions of mistakes” — and the synchronized dissemination thereof by the media — would just be a part of the process of whitewashing the authorities’ fascistic behavior during some particularly totalitarian phase of transforming society into whatever totalitarian dystopia they were trying to transform it into (for example, a three-year-long “state of emergency,” which they declared to keep the masses terrorized and cooperative while they stripped them of their democratic rights, i.e., the ones they hadn’t already stripped them of, and conditioned them to mindlessly follow orders, and robotically repeat nonsensical official slogans, and vent their impotent hatred and fear at the new “Untermenschen” or “counter-revolutionaries”), but that is obviously not the case here. No, this is definitely not the German authorities staging a public “accountability” spectacle in order to memory-hole what happened during 2020-2023 and enshrine the official narrative in history. There’s going to be a formal “Inquiry Commission” — conducted by the same German authorities that managed the “crisis” — which will get to the bottom of all the regrettable but completely understandable “mistakes” that were made in the heat of the heroic battle against The Divisive Virus! OK, calm down, all you “conspiracy theorists,” “Covid deniers,” and “anti-vaxxers.” This isn’t going to be like the Nuremberg Trials. No one is going to get taken out and hanged. It’s about identifying and acknowledging mistakes, and learning from them, so that the authorities can manage everything better during the next “pandemic,” or “climate emergency,” or “terrorist attack,” or “insurrection,” or whatever. For example, the Inquiry Commission will want to look into how the government accidentally declared a Nationwide State of Pandemic Emergency and revised the Infection Protection Act, suspending the German constitution and granting the government the power to rule by decree, on account of a respiratory virus that clearly posed no threat to society at large, and then unleashed police goon squads on the thousands of people who gathered outside the Reichstag to protest the revocation of their constitutional rights. Once they do, I’m sure they’ll find that that “mistake” bears absolutely no resemblance to the Enabling Act of 1933, which suspended the German constitution and granted the government the power to rule by decree, after the Nazis declared a nationwide “state of emergency.” Another thing the Commission will probably want to look into is how the German authorities accidentally banned any further demonstrations against their arbitrary decrees, and ordered the police to brutalize anyone participating in such “illegal demonstrations.” And, while the Commission is inquiring into the possibly slightly inappropriate behavior of their law enforcement officials, they might want to also take a look at the behavior of their unofficial goon squads, like Antifa, which they accidentally encouraged to attack the “anti-vaxxers,” the “Covid deniers,” and anyone brandishing a copy of the German constitution. Come to think of it, the Inquiry Commission might also want to look into how the German authorities, and the overwhelming majority of the state and corporate media, accidentally systematically fomented mass hatred of anyone who dared to question the government’s arbitrary and nonsensical decrees or who refused to submit to “vaccination,” and publicly demonized us as “Corona deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “far-right anti-Semites,” etc., to the point where mainstream German celebrities like Sarah Bosetti were literally describing us as the inessential “appendix” in the body of the nation, quoting an infamous Nazi almost verbatim. And then there’s the whole “vaccination” business. The Commission will certainly want to inquire into that. They will probably want to start their inquiry with Karl Lauterbach, and determine exactly how he accidentally lied to the public, over and over, and over again… And whipped people up into a mass hysteria over “KILLER VARIANTS”… And “LONG COVID BRAIN ATTACKS” … And how “THE UNVACCINATED ARE HOLDING THE WHOLE COUNTRY HOSTAGE, SO WE NEED TO FORCIBLY VACCINATE EVERYONE!” And so on. I could go on with this all day, but it will be much easier to just refer you, and the Commission, to this documentary film by Aya Velázquez. Non-German readers may want to skip to the second half, unless they’re interested in the German “Corona Expert Council”… Look, the point is, everybody makes “mistakes,” especially during a “state of emergency,” or a war, or some other type of global “crisis.” At least we can always count on the Germans to step up and take responsibility for theirs, and not claim that they didn’t know what was happening, or that they were “just following orders,” or that “the science changed.” Plus, all this Covid stuff is ancient history, and, as Olaf, an editor at Der Spiegel, reminds us, it’s time to put the “The Divisive Pandemic” behind us… …and click heels, and heil the New Normal Democracy! 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. SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive. For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE. https://off-guardian.org/2024/03/19/mistakes-were-made/ https://telegra.ph/Mistakes-Were-Made-03-20
    OFF-GUARDIAN.ORG
    Mistakes Were Made
    CJ Hopkins Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that a bit during these past few years, but, if there’s one thing they’re exceptionally good at, it’s taking responsibility …
    1 Comments 0 Shares 6905 Views
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  • Destroying Super Immunity & Getting Rid of That Annoying Cough
    Dr. Syed Haider

    I made it through multiple upper respiratory illnesses affecting my wife and kids over the last year without getting sick myself.

    The biggest difference maker seemed to be spending a lot of time outdoors in sunny Puerto Rico.

    It’s not just about the vitamin D that you get in the afternoons, it’s also about the lack of blue light toxicity you get the rest of the day from glass filtered indoor sunlight (or artificial lights).

    Blue light in the visible spectrum needs to be balanced by the naturally present infrared and UV spectrum in natural sunlight. Unfortunately both are blocked by typical window glass.


    Anyway, my long run of seemingly bulletproof immunity came to an inglorious end when I finally succumbed to what had been plaguing my nuclear family for a couple weeks: it began with a tickle in my throat, then progressed to a mild sore throat, stuffy and runny nose, bad a cough, and fatigue. It was rough going for a day or two. Hard to sleep with all the coughing.

    My post mortem analysis of what went wrong: I visited family overseas, where they live in an apartment full of artificial light and not much direct sun. I did my best to get outside, but couldnt do it anywhere near as much as I used to at home. Then (perhaps more or less important?) I started including once a week “stress test days” (nee cheat days) on my carnivore diet. That turned into a general laxity during my regular carnivore diet days, including eating out and being exposed to ubiquitous seed oils.

    Then one day I was enjoying my meat dish at a local restaurant and decided spur of the moment (always a mistake) to try the side dish I would have normally skipped. Unfortunately it was probably the worst possible side I could have indulged in: a nightshade veggie bomb comprising tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and various kinds of peppers.

    Nightshade vegetables are notoriously toxic (despite mainstream claims that the toxins are neutralized by cooking), especially for those with a history of autoimmune disease, or leaky gut. They are also problematic for anyone with a history of allergic disorders or MCAS. It doesn’t help that traditional methods of picking and preparation that minimized the toxicity for otherwise healthy people are no longer followed.

    Pin on Hold the tomato
    Almost immediately after consuming this side dish I started to feel that first tickle in my throat and it was a slow downhill roll from there. Took 2-3 days, during which I had enough of a chance to head it off with some high dose vitamin C, but I’m one of those people who usually prefers to let nature take its course (maybe don’t do this in our current environment of repeated COVID infections, with all the problems they can bring).

    Once the illness got started I began to notice very clearly that what I ate had an almost immediate impact on how I felt. I think it probably required the sensitization of having been strictly carnivore for weeks beforehand.

    Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it.

    Share

    I could tell when I ate high histamine fruits or vegetables that my symptoms would worsen significantly, I might get an instant headache, stuffy nose, worsening cough, fatigue, dizziness, and even occasional anger outbursts that had plagued me before the carnivore experiment.

    All these can be due to histamine intolerance. When you’re sick or already exposed to something that lowers your histamine tolerance, adding histamine-containing foods or those that tend to liberate histamine is just added fuel for the fire.

    Histamine Intolerance Doctor Gilbert AZ
    Anyway this has been going around (not surprising since it is winter). Some people get bad diarrhea, for others it’s the cough that’s the worst.

    If you treat this early in the first day or two you can usually cut it short within the first week. If not then many people end up being somewhat under the weather for a couple weeks and the unlucky ones have lingering symptoms for many weeks. It’s not necessarily anything new, it happened before COVID too. Now people are hyperaware of it, and for good reason, because the current iterations are often due to the COVID bioweapon which damages every organ system.

    Whether or not COVID was diagnosed you can usually treat a cough heavy post viral syndrome with key lifestyle changes like avoiding airway irritants (eg use an air filter) low or even no carb (but first try a good quality medicinal honey 1-3 teaspoons dissolved in warm water 1-3 times a day), avoiding trigger foods, plenty of direct sunlight, good sleep; supplements from mygotostack.com like vitamin C, D, zinc, quercetin, turmeric, nigella sativa; and prescription meds from mygotodoc.com like: ivermectin and LDN (we can’t prescribe codeine for cough online since its a controlled substance).

    Other effective treatments include IV vitamin C, IV ozone, HBOT, or what’s easier and nearly as effective: a home oxygen concentrator a couple hours a day,

    However one of the best and most underappreciated ways to get rid of a lingering non productive (dry) cough is simple breathwork.

    That’s because it’s not always just a persistent infection or inflammation that leads to a persistent cough, it may be that, but it is also often a disordered breathing pattern that can develop after just a couple days of illness. This pattern becomes imprinted on the nervous system and can be hard to shake. The longer you leave it unaddressed the longer it may continue. The more you cough the more likely you are to keep coughing, and the less you cough the more likely you are to stop coughing.

    Now, when most people think of breathwork they think of deep breathing exercises. But deep breathing is usually a trigger for a coughing fit rather than any kind of solution (during my long COVID illness I also found it can also worsen anxiety).

    The real fix for a persistent cough (and anxiety) due to a disordered nervous system is often in breathing less, while becoming aware of the impending urge to cough and trying to head it off and suppress it.

    Practitioners of the Buteyko breathing method have a great exercise for stopping a persistent dry cough.

    Share

    When you feel the urge to cough you press your hand over your mouth, swallow and hold your breath for 5 seconds while telling yourself you don’t need to cough. Then start breathing slow and shallow through the nose, keeping your hand over your mouth. Imagine the air going in one nostril and out the other in a circle (obviously this is not actually happening it just helps keep the breathing light and not irritating to the throat, partly a psychological phenomenon).

    Do this whenever you feel the urge to cough during the day, and you’ll see that it often works rather well and makes you more aware of what triggers the coughing. Unless there is something more serious going on (don’t nocebo yourself, just assume there is not) it usually only takes 1-3 days of this to retrain your nervous system and end the cough for good.

    You can also check out other Buteyko and pranayama yoga breathing methods (like alternate nostril breathing) for stopping a cough on YouTube:


    If there is residual inflammation, often manifested by a post nasal drip irritating the throat leading to coughing fits (easy to test if you have this, just lie down flat and see if you start coughing, or get worse, within a minute or so), it’s also important to avoid trigger foods that raise histamine or lead your own body to release histamine.

    Some common ones include: the nightshades I mentioned (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, all peppers), bananas, strawberries, mangoes, citrus fruits, avocado, chocolate, dairy, preserved or canned meats and fish, leftover meat and fish, lentils, beans, alcohol, tea, coffee and there may be some that are individual specific (think of any foods that in small or large quantities have caused you problems in the past).

    If you don’t go low or no carb, then also avoid grains until better as they tend to be pro inflammatory.

    Fish oil supplements have a short term anti-inflammatory effect that may lead to a longer term proinflammatory outcome. I’m not clear on all the science and implications here, but you can check out Chris Masterjohn’s work on the topic. Generally speaking it seems to be fine to eat fatty fish for the Omega 3s, but most people should probably avoid the high dose supplementation currently recommended by some groups.

    Another key lifestyle measure that works great for the post nasal drip is lifting your head at night using 2-3 pillows (or a wedge pillow - also helps with chronic reflux), and even propping yourself up against the headboard or wall behind your bed. Might be uncomfortable at first, but it’s better than a night of hacking up your lungs.

    Manage Acid Reflux & more: EZsleep Wedge| EQUANIMO
    I’ve also used pieces of chewed and softened licorice root to help cover up the irritating sensation of a post nasal drip while sleeping.

    Using a neti pot a few times a day may also help with this, and you can add things like turmeric, hydrogen peroxide, iodine, or just go with the usual salt water flush.

    If there is a persistent infection then more drastic measures will be needed including the IV methods mentioned above, and you can consider nebulization of peroxide.

    Promising studies have been done on more exotic methods of relieving a cough such as nebulizing honey, drinking a mixture of honey and coffee syrup dissolved in water, and inhaling a very dilute mixture of capsaicin (from cayenne peppers - which can help with both cough and post nasal drop, and other than snorting or otherwise breathing it in, you can also mix it with honey or water and take it orally as an antihistamine).

    Finally, the most powerful herb I know of for insomnia and anxiety is the sedative-hypnotic mulungu bark, and it is also effective in treating various kinds of coughs.

    Let me know below if you’ve gotten sick this winter, and what you swear by to get better, especially what works for a prolonged dry nagging cough.

    https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/destroying-super-immunity-and-getting

    https://telegra.ph/Destroying-Super-Immunity--Getting-Rid-of-That-Annoying-Cough-03-20
    Destroying Super Immunity & Getting Rid of That Annoying Cough Dr. Syed Haider I made it through multiple upper respiratory illnesses affecting my wife and kids over the last year without getting sick myself. The biggest difference maker seemed to be spending a lot of time outdoors in sunny Puerto Rico. It’s not just about the vitamin D that you get in the afternoons, it’s also about the lack of blue light toxicity you get the rest of the day from glass filtered indoor sunlight (or artificial lights). Blue light in the visible spectrum needs to be balanced by the naturally present infrared and UV spectrum in natural sunlight. Unfortunately both are blocked by typical window glass. Anyway, my long run of seemingly bulletproof immunity came to an inglorious end when I finally succumbed to what had been plaguing my nuclear family for a couple weeks: it began with a tickle in my throat, then progressed to a mild sore throat, stuffy and runny nose, bad a cough, and fatigue. It was rough going for a day or two. Hard to sleep with all the coughing. My post mortem analysis of what went wrong: I visited family overseas, where they live in an apartment full of artificial light and not much direct sun. I did my best to get outside, but couldnt do it anywhere near as much as I used to at home. Then (perhaps more or less important?) I started including once a week “stress test days” (nee cheat days) on my carnivore diet. That turned into a general laxity during my regular carnivore diet days, including eating out and being exposed to ubiquitous seed oils. Then one day I was enjoying my meat dish at a local restaurant and decided spur of the moment (always a mistake) to try the side dish I would have normally skipped. Unfortunately it was probably the worst possible side I could have indulged in: a nightshade veggie bomb comprising tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and various kinds of peppers. Nightshade vegetables are notoriously toxic (despite mainstream claims that the toxins are neutralized by cooking), especially for those with a history of autoimmune disease, or leaky gut. They are also problematic for anyone with a history of allergic disorders or MCAS. It doesn’t help that traditional methods of picking and preparation that minimized the toxicity for otherwise healthy people are no longer followed. Pin on Hold the tomato Almost immediately after consuming this side dish I started to feel that first tickle in my throat and it was a slow downhill roll from there. Took 2-3 days, during which I had enough of a chance to head it off with some high dose vitamin C, but I’m one of those people who usually prefers to let nature take its course (maybe don’t do this in our current environment of repeated COVID infections, with all the problems they can bring). Once the illness got started I began to notice very clearly that what I ate had an almost immediate impact on how I felt. I think it probably required the sensitization of having been strictly carnivore for weeks beforehand. Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share I could tell when I ate high histamine fruits or vegetables that my symptoms would worsen significantly, I might get an instant headache, stuffy nose, worsening cough, fatigue, dizziness, and even occasional anger outbursts that had plagued me before the carnivore experiment. All these can be due to histamine intolerance. When you’re sick or already exposed to something that lowers your histamine tolerance, adding histamine-containing foods or those that tend to liberate histamine is just added fuel for the fire. Histamine Intolerance Doctor Gilbert AZ Anyway this has been going around (not surprising since it is winter). Some people get bad diarrhea, for others it’s the cough that’s the worst. If you treat this early in the first day or two you can usually cut it short within the first week. If not then many people end up being somewhat under the weather for a couple weeks and the unlucky ones have lingering symptoms for many weeks. It’s not necessarily anything new, it happened before COVID too. Now people are hyperaware of it, and for good reason, because the current iterations are often due to the COVID bioweapon which damages every organ system. Whether or not COVID was diagnosed you can usually treat a cough heavy post viral syndrome with key lifestyle changes like avoiding airway irritants (eg use an air filter) low or even no carb (but first try a good quality medicinal honey 1-3 teaspoons dissolved in warm water 1-3 times a day), avoiding trigger foods, plenty of direct sunlight, good sleep; supplements from mygotostack.com like vitamin C, D, zinc, quercetin, turmeric, nigella sativa; and prescription meds from mygotodoc.com like: ivermectin and LDN (we can’t prescribe codeine for cough online since its a controlled substance). Other effective treatments include IV vitamin C, IV ozone, HBOT, or what’s easier and nearly as effective: a home oxygen concentrator a couple hours a day, However one of the best and most underappreciated ways to get rid of a lingering non productive (dry) cough is simple breathwork. That’s because it’s not always just a persistent infection or inflammation that leads to a persistent cough, it may be that, but it is also often a disordered breathing pattern that can develop after just a couple days of illness. This pattern becomes imprinted on the nervous system and can be hard to shake. The longer you leave it unaddressed the longer it may continue. The more you cough the more likely you are to keep coughing, and the less you cough the more likely you are to stop coughing. Now, when most people think of breathwork they think of deep breathing exercises. But deep breathing is usually a trigger for a coughing fit rather than any kind of solution (during my long COVID illness I also found it can also worsen anxiety). The real fix for a persistent cough (and anxiety) due to a disordered nervous system is often in breathing less, while becoming aware of the impending urge to cough and trying to head it off and suppress it. Practitioners of the Buteyko breathing method have a great exercise for stopping a persistent dry cough. Share When you feel the urge to cough you press your hand over your mouth, swallow and hold your breath for 5 seconds while telling yourself you don’t need to cough. Then start breathing slow and shallow through the nose, keeping your hand over your mouth. Imagine the air going in one nostril and out the other in a circle (obviously this is not actually happening it just helps keep the breathing light and not irritating to the throat, partly a psychological phenomenon). Do this whenever you feel the urge to cough during the day, and you’ll see that it often works rather well and makes you more aware of what triggers the coughing. Unless there is something more serious going on (don’t nocebo yourself, just assume there is not) it usually only takes 1-3 days of this to retrain your nervous system and end the cough for good. You can also check out other Buteyko and pranayama yoga breathing methods (like alternate nostril breathing) for stopping a cough on YouTube: If there is residual inflammation, often manifested by a post nasal drip irritating the throat leading to coughing fits (easy to test if you have this, just lie down flat and see if you start coughing, or get worse, within a minute or so), it’s also important to avoid trigger foods that raise histamine or lead your own body to release histamine. Some common ones include: the nightshades I mentioned (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, all peppers), bananas, strawberries, mangoes, citrus fruits, avocado, chocolate, dairy, preserved or canned meats and fish, leftover meat and fish, lentils, beans, alcohol, tea, coffee and there may be some that are individual specific (think of any foods that in small or large quantities have caused you problems in the past). If you don’t go low or no carb, then also avoid grains until better as they tend to be pro inflammatory. Fish oil supplements have a short term anti-inflammatory effect that may lead to a longer term proinflammatory outcome. I’m not clear on all the science and implications here, but you can check out Chris Masterjohn’s work on the topic. Generally speaking it seems to be fine to eat fatty fish for the Omega 3s, but most people should probably avoid the high dose supplementation currently recommended by some groups. Another key lifestyle measure that works great for the post nasal drip is lifting your head at night using 2-3 pillows (or a wedge pillow - also helps with chronic reflux), and even propping yourself up against the headboard or wall behind your bed. Might be uncomfortable at first, but it’s better than a night of hacking up your lungs. Manage Acid Reflux & more: EZsleep Wedge| EQUANIMO I’ve also used pieces of chewed and softened licorice root to help cover up the irritating sensation of a post nasal drip while sleeping. Using a neti pot a few times a day may also help with this, and you can add things like turmeric, hydrogen peroxide, iodine, or just go with the usual salt water flush. If there is a persistent infection then more drastic measures will be needed including the IV methods mentioned above, and you can consider nebulization of peroxide. Promising studies have been done on more exotic methods of relieving a cough such as nebulizing honey, drinking a mixture of honey and coffee syrup dissolved in water, and inhaling a very dilute mixture of capsaicin (from cayenne peppers - which can help with both cough and post nasal drop, and other than snorting or otherwise breathing it in, you can also mix it with honey or water and take it orally as an antihistamine). Finally, the most powerful herb I know of for insomnia and anxiety is the sedative-hypnotic mulungu bark, and it is also effective in treating various kinds of coughs. Let me know below if you’ve gotten sick this winter, and what you swear by to get better, especially what works for a prolonged dry nagging cough. https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/destroying-super-immunity-and-getting 👉https://telegra.ph/Destroying-Super-Immunity--Getting-Rid-of-That-Annoying-Cough-03-20
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    Destroying Super Immunity & Getting Rid of That Annoying Cough
    I made it through multiple upper respiratory illnesses affecting my wife and kids over the last year without getting sick myself. The biggest difference maker seemed to be spending a lot of time outdoors in sunny Puerto Rico. It’s not just about the vitamin D that you get in the afternoons, it’s also about the lack of blue light toxicity you get the rest of the day from glass filtered indoor sunlight (or artificial lights).
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    ASDI Project ▶ The mined tokens can be transferred to the metamask. ▶ It is a token that is likely to be listed by ASDI Group, and please preempt it. ▶ Click every hour (it's a good idea to set an alarm)  ※ Subscription link  Android : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asdi.nft IOS : https://apps.apple.com/kr/app/asdi/id6471332498 Invitation code: 0xccd36c074ab864bd8946ecae223c06d69b60c970 ▶ Mining Method 1.Click on the top of the first screen (guest). Link your account to your MetaMask BNB chain address. Click "AGREE AND SIGN" to switch to the ASDI screen. Click "Signature" in Metamask, switch to ASDI screen. Click "Menu" on the bottom right of the first screen, and check your reference. (The BNB wallet address is your invitation code.) Invitation code: 0xccd36c074ab864bd8946ecae223c06d69b60c970 Enter the invitation code in My inviter and click Done. After clicking Confirm, (Go to the first screen after checking the recommendation) Press and hold the mark between Overall and Daily mission to start mining. Enjoy your preoccupation.
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  • ‘A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that using 0.9 milliliters of castor oil capsules three times a day had similar effects for knee arthritis as 50 milligrams of diclofenac sodium (5).’

    Castor Oil: Key Health Benefits and How to Use It
    by Dr. Jockers
    FDA Disclaimer
    Affliliate Disclosure
    Privacy Policy
    castor oilCastor Oil: Key Health Benefits and How to Use It

    Castor oil is a fatty oil that is made from the castor seeds of the castor bean plant. Castor oil has many potential health benefits, including relieving constipation, supporting liver health, improving skin health, reducing inflammation, and more.

    In this article, you will learn what castor oil is. You will learn about the health benefits, and I will discuss how to use castor oil. You will learn about the potential risks and how to pick and purchase castor oil. Finally, I will explain how to make a castor oil pack to help improve your health.

    castor oil

    What Is Castor Oil

    Castor seed oil, also known as castor oil or Ricinus Communis, is made by pressing the seeds of the plant to be used for a variety of conventional purposes. It is part of the Eurphorbiaceae plant family, which is a flowering spurge family, mostly cultivated in India, South America, and Africa. Out of these places, India is responsible for about 90 percent of the castor oil global exports.

    It is also among the oldest cultivated crops in the world, making up about 0.15 percent of the world’s vegetable oils. Castor oil has an amber to green color. It has a mild scent and taste. It may be used both topically and orally as a natural remedy for various ailments. It is also used in many cosmetic products sold.




    Castor oil is made up of phytochemicals, including:

    Undecylenic acid
    Ricinoleic acid
    Rincinoleic acid is responsible for about 90 percent of the chemical structure of castor oil. It is a fatty acid that may be responsible for the numerous health properties castor oil is used for in natural and alternative medicine. When ricinoleic acid is released in the intestines, it may bind with receptors that line the intestinal tract and the smooth-muscle cells in the uterus, which may help to promote natural healing abilities (1).

    According to a 2017 review published in the Pakistani Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, castor oil may have many phytochemistry, biological and pharmacological activities, offering natural medicinal benefits (2). It may offer anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, liver-protective, free radical-scavenging, and wound-healing benefits.



    Health Benefits of Castor Oil

    Castor oil has many potential health benefits. Let’s look at each of these one by one.

    Promotes Lymphatic Drainage

    Castor oil may help to support lymphatic drainage and may help to remove the build-up of toxins and debris in the body. If your body is overloaded with environmental toxins, microbes, and debris, they may accumulate within the lymphatic system, which is responsible for filtering bacteria. This may cause lymphatic stagnation.

    2007 research published in the International Journal of Toxicology has found that injecting rats with castor oil helped to suppress tumors that developed as the result of liver damage. (3). As castor oil gets absorbed through the skin, it may increase blood circulation, lymphatic drainage, and lymphocyte production, which may boost immune health and benefit those with a compromised immune system.

    lymphatic

    Anti-Microbial and Anti-Inflammatory

    Castor oil may also offer anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory benefits. It may be a great massage oil for sore muscles, joints, and tissues. According to a 2000 study published in Mediators of Inflammation, ricinoleic acid in castor oil may offer anti-inflammatory and analgesic benefits (4).

    A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that using 0.9 milliliters of castor oil capsules three times a day had similar effects for knee arthritis as 50 milligrams of diclofenac sodium (5).

    Moreover, castor oil may have immune health-boosting effects by fighting microbes. According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6). When used internally, it may help to relieve constipation, thus elimination, and as a result, the removal of microbes and toxins in the gut.



    Thins Bile and Dilates the Bile Ducts

    Bile is a greenish-brown liquid or digestive juice that emulsifies fats for your small intestine to absorb. It moves from your liver to the gallbladder, and then your body stores it until it needs it for the digestion of food. Bile is essential for digestion and the absorption of nutrients. Problems with bile production, bile flow, and bile acid malabsorption may lead to abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and other digestive issues.

    Using castor oil packs over the abdomen and liver area may not only help liver detoxification but may also help to thin the bile, dilate bile ducts, and improve bile flow. It may also help to relieve painful spasms and cramps of the bile ducts and gallbladder.

    With that said, though anecdotal and personal evidence seems to support that castor oil may benefit bile health, we need more research evidence to back this up.

    castor oil

    Supports Liver Detoxification

    Your liver serves vital functions in the body and is critical for the process of detoxification. The liver helps circulate fluid in the body and transforms toxins into a substance which then can be dissolved, flushed down the bile ducts, relocated into the small intestine, or eliminated through stool.

    Using castor oil packs over the liver area may help to support liver detoxification and liver health and reduce related health symptoms. According to a 2012 systematic review published in the International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, using castor oil topically may help to support liver function and cholesterol levels (7).

    weaken immunity

    Improves Bowel Motility

    Supporting digestion may be one of the main potential health benefits of castor oil. Castor oil packs may help to improve bowel motility, which means a decreased risk of constipation and fewer digestive issues. According to a 2012 systematic review published in the International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, using castor oil topically may help to reduce constipation (7).

    According to a 2011 clinical trial published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, castor oil packs may help to reduce constipation, straining during bowel movements, and the risk of incomplete bowel movements (8). According to a 2021 pilot study published in the World Journal of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology and Therapeutics, it may help to cleanse the colon before a colonoscopy (9).

    poop, 16 Ways to Achieve Healthy Poop

    Reduces Pain, Swelling and Edema

    Castor oil may also help to reduce pain, swelling, and edema. According to a 2018 study published in Polymers in Advanced Technology, castor oil may help to reduce inflammation pain and support wound healing (10). According to a 2000 study published in Mediators of Inflammation, ricinoleic acid in castor oil may offer anti-inflammatory effects, which may help to decrease pain and swelling (4).

    A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that castor oil may help to reduce symptoms of knee arthritis (5). Thus, it may help to lower pain and swelling linked to this condition.

    Moreover, poor circulation and poor lymphatic flow may increase swelling and edema. Because castor oil may help to support the lymphatic system and circulation, it may also reduce the risk of edema.

    edema

    Improves Circulation and Tissue Oxygenation

    Using castor oil may also help to improve circulation and tissue oxygenation. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the lymphatic system may influence the heart, lung, brain, and other organs health (11). By supporting lymphatic circulation, castor oil may help to support the cardiovascular circulatory system and tissue oxygenation too and reduce fluid retention and edema (3).

    Castor oil is also commonly used in wound healing (10). Its wound-healing effects may partly lie in supporting circulation, tissue oxygenation, and blood flow. However, we still need more research on the potential circulatory and tissue-oxygenating benefits of castor oil.

    castor oil

    Supports Healthy Immune Function

    Castor oil may support healthy immune function in a variety of ways. As we already discussed, it may help lymphatic function, which spreads across your entire body and helps to remove excess fluid, protein, and waste (11).

    Castor oil may support lymphatic drainage and blood flow. It may support the production of the lymphocyte white blood cells that fight bacteria, which may assist the health of the thymus gland, which is responsible for creating T cells for the immune system.

    It may also also help to fight and remove microbes from your body. According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6).

    weaken immunity

    Moisturizes Skin

    Castor oil also offers skin-protecting benefits. 100 percent pure castor oil is natural and free of synthetic chemicals. It is rich in healthy fatty acids that may boost skin health. Using it topically may help moisturize your skin, prevent water loss from the skin, reduce dry skin, and improve irritated skin.

    According to 2005 research published in the Journal of Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing, it may help the recovery of pressure ulcers and wound healing thanks to its moisturizing and antimicrobial benefits (12). Castor oil may also mix well with coconut oil, almond oil, and olive oil, which are also beneficial for your skin health.



    Supports Wound Healing

    Moisturizing the skin is not the only skin-related potential benefit of castor oil. It has been used to improve wound healing as a natural remedy for a long time. A 2018 study published in Polymers in Advanced Technology has found that it may help to reduce inflammation pain and support wound healing (10). According to a 2005 research published in the Journal of Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing, it may help wound and pressure ulcer recovery (12).

    According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6). This may help to reduce infections of the skin, reduce the risk of a staph infection, and support wound healing.

    castor oil

    How to Use Castor Oil

    If you are interested in the potential benefits of castor oil, you may wonder how to use castor oil. Here are some potential options for using castor oil, both topically and orally.

    As a Laxative for Constipation Relief

    You may try castor oil as a laxative for constipation relief, taken orally. The common oral dose to treat constipation is between 15 to 60 mL, as a single dose. This is between one and four tablespoons, taken once a day. For children between 2 and 12, the dose is generally 5 to 15 mL once a day, and for babies under age 2, it’s 5 mL once a day.

    You may mix it in water before drinking it. Always read the directions carefully. Ideally, start on the low end of the dosage and see how your body handles it. Don’t take castor oil internally for more than seven days. And always consult your healthcare practitioner before using it orally. Stop using it if you experience any side effects.

    castor oil

    Support Hair and Eyebrow Growth

    Castor oil may support hair growth and eyebrow growth. For hair growth, you may massage a few tablespoons of castor oil into your scalp and hair, then spread it all over your hair. You may leave it on overnight and wash it out in the morning.

    For your eyebrows, use a cotton swab or a clean mascara and apply a small amount of castor oil over your clean brows for about 20 minutes or longer. You may even apply it before sleep and sleep in it. Clean it with the help of a cotton swab and be careful it doesn’t get into your eyes.



    Reduce Bags Under Eyes

    Castor oil may help to reduce under-eye bags, dark circles, and hyperpigmentation. First, wash your face. Then massage 3 to 4 drops of the oil under your eyes. You may try a carrier oil, such as jojoba, almond, or coconut oil, to dilute it.

    Using your fingertips for massaging works just fine, but you may also use a jade roller. You may leave it on overnight and clean it in the morning gently. Be careful that it doesn’t get into your eyes.



    Improve Skin Health and Dandruff

    Castor oil may offer numerous skin health benefits. For acne, you may apply the oil with a clean cotton swab. You may also mix it with apple cider vinegar, frankincense essential oil, or other essential oils to reduce swelling, inflammation, pain, and scarring. To reduce breakout, you can massage some of the oil into your skin and leave it on for the night, then cleanse it off in the morning.

    For hydration, mix ¼ cup of castor oil and ¾ cup of virgin coconut or olive oil, and apply it on your face or elsewhere on your body. For moisturizing, mix ¼ cup of castor oil with olive oil, coconut oil or jojoba oil. Massage it on your skin, leave it on overnight, then rinse. You may mix one teaspoon of castor oil with one egg yolk for a 10 to 20-minute face mask.

    For sunburns, mix coconut oil and castor oil at a 1 to 1 ratio and apply it on the affected area to reduce inflammation, redness, and pain. For dandruff and scalp issues, massage castor oil into your scalp and leave it on overnight.



    Reduce Joint or Menstrual Pain

    To reduce joint pain, you may massage castor oil into your skin on the affected area as you would with any other pain-relieving cream. About a dime-sized amount, every 3 hours or so may be helpful. Try it for three days for symptom relief.

    For menstrual cramps, you may either massage it on your lower abdomen area or use a castor oil pack. At the end of this article, you will learn about how to make and use a castor oil pack.

    castor oil packs

    Improve Bile Flow and Liver Detoxification

    We know that healthy bile flow is key for eliminating toxins from the liver, digesting and absorbing fats and fat-soluble nutrients and improving the microbial balance in the gut microbiome.

    Castor oil is great for improving bile flow, liver detoxification, and liver function. For this, I recommend using a castor oil pack, which I will explain in more detail at the end of this article.

    castor oil packs

    Contraindications to Using Castor Oil

    Castrol oil is generally recognized as safe. It can also be found in high concentrations in some cosmetics, including lipstick. However, according to 2007 research published in the International Journal of Toxicology, there may be some toxic effects when consumed orally, thus using it orally may not be recommended (3).

    There are currently not enough studies and clinical trials on the benefits and safety of castor oil, thus many doctors are unaware of the potential health benefits and physiological effects. Limited studies and tales of midwifery, including a 2012 report published in PNAS, have reported symptoms of nausea, cramps, and loss of fluid and electrolytes when ingesting the oil (13).

    If you ingest castor oil, it gets broken down by your small intestine into ricinoleic acid. Ricinoleic acid acts as an irritant, which may help to relieve constipation. While this may be good news if you have constipation, this same effect may cause digestive discomfort, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal side effects in others.

    However, if you have constipation, it may be beneficial, generally by starting with 1 teaspoon in the morning and seeing if you get the relief you need. If not, you can try 2 teaspoons the following morning. This is generally safe. If you notice any pain, discomfort, or side effects, back off.

    Sometimes castor oil is also used by some midwives to help induce labor. However, it is important that you don’t try this at home by yourself, only by the recommendation and with the support of your midwife or healthcare professional.

    However, castor oil is not for everyone. People who should avoid it may include:

    Women who are Pregnant: As I mentioned, sometimes castor oil is actually used to induce labor, and limited research evidence backs this up. This may happen because ricinoleic acid contained in the oil may signal a response from the lining of the uterus. Therefore, castor oil is not recommended for women who are pregnant unless recommended by a doctor to stimulate labor (13).
    Women Experiencing Heavy Menstrual Flow: Women experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding should also avoid the use of castor oil packs during menstruation. Otherwise, these packs may possibly help to ease cramping and regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle.
    Individuals with Gastrointestinal Problems: The ricinoleic acid has been found to interact with the lining of the gastrointestinal tract and can worsen gastrointestinal conditions and increase symptoms or the risk of complications. Individuals experiencing ulcers, diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, and colitis should avoid castor oil packs unless otherwise recommended by a doctor. Other more minor and general gastrointestinal issues such as gas, bloating, cramping, and constipation, generally respond very well to the use of castor oil packs and may be beneficial.
    Individuals with Extreme Skin Sensitivities: Castor oil packs should also not be used by anyone who has any chronic skin conditions with increased skin sensitivities. Individuals with these issues may be at an increased risk of developing a reaction from the topical application of castor oil packs (3).
    castor oil packs

    How to Purchase Castor Oil

    Whether you are looking to buy only castor oil itself or an entire kit for a castor oil pack, you need to look for a high-quality product. I highly recommend and personally use Queen of Thrones castor oil. Dr. Marisol is an expert in castor oil therapy, and she has made it much easier to use this oil with her high-quality products.

    Queen of Thrones offers quality castor oil products, including organic castor oil in a glass jar, which is what I personally use at home. Getting organic castor oil in a glass jar is important because if there is any pesticide residue contained in the oil or plastic residue (phthalates) from the bottle, it can be absorbed through the skin.

    Using high-quality products, like Queen of Thrones may help to prevent this. Use the coupon code DRJOCKERS10 at checkout with Queen of Thrones to save 10%.

    castor oil packs

    How to Make a Castor Oil Pack

    So, how do you make your own castor oil pack? Start by getting some Queen of Thrones, then follow these instructions:

    Before applying a castor oil pack to the skin’s surface, test for skin sensitivity. Rub a small amount of the oil directly onto a limited area of skin to determine if a reaction develops.
    Avoid using electric heat pads without an automatic shut-off following a period of time. According to testimonials, some people had issues falling asleep with ease during castor oil pack treatments. If you choose to get the pieces separately (as opposed to the Queen of Thrones castor oil pack), then here are instructions on how to do them correctly:
    Choose a place where you can lie down comfortably. Cover it with an old towel to avoid damage from dripping oil.
    Use a large enough flannel that’s enough to cover the area you use it on.
    Saturate the flannel with enough oil to make it wet but not dripping.
    Lie down and cover your entire abdomen area with flannel or the specific area, for example, your liver area, you are using it on.
    Cover the flannel with some plastic.
    Put some heating source on top, such as a heating pad, hot water bottle, or hot towel.
    Relax for 45 minutes to 2 hours with the castor oil pack there. Using this time for meditation or breathwork is a great idea, but you may listen to music, read, or watch your favorite show.
    When finished, wash it off with soapy water or a solution of 2 tablespoons of baking soda in a quart of water.
    You can store your pack in the fridge and reuse it later. It’s safe to use until you see a visible change in color.
    Repeat this process at least three times per week for a month for optimal results or as recommended by your health practitioner.
    You will see that it can be a lot of work, and that is why I believe the Queen of Thrones pack makes it much easier to do as it provides the flannel with ties on it, so you don’t need to wrap yourself in plastic! Use the coupon code DRJOCKERS10 at checkout with Queen of Thrones to save 10%.



    Final Thoughts

    Castor oil is a fatty oil that is made from the castor seeds of the castor bean plant. It has many potential health benefits, including relieving constipation, supporting live health, improving skin health, reducing inflammation, and more. I recommend that you follow my tips in this article on how to use this great natural product for your health.

    If you want to work with a functional health coach, I recommend this article with tips on how to find a great coach. Our website offers long-distance functional health coaching programs. For further support with your health goals, just reach out and our fantastic coaches are here to support your journey.



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    Sources In This Article Include:

    1. Tunaru S, et al. Castor_oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. PNAS 2012;109(23):9179-9184. DOI: 1073/pnas.1201627109

    2. Marwat SK, Rehman F, Khan EA, Baloch MS, Sadiq M, Ullah I, Javaria S, Shaheen S. Review – Ricinus cmmunis – Ethnomedicinal uses and pharmacological activities. Pak J Pharm Sci. 2017 Sep;30(5):1815-1827. PMID: 29084706

    3. Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Glyceryl Ricinoleate, Glyceryl Ricinoleate SE, Ricinoleic Acid, Potassium Ricinoleate, Sodium Ricinoleate, Zinc Ricinoleate, Cetyl Ricinoleate, Ethyl Ricinoleate, Glycol Ricinoleate, Isopropyl Ricinoleate, Methyl Ricinoleate, and Octyldodecyl Ricinoleate. International Journal of Toxiciology. May 2007;26:31-77. DOI: 1080/10915810701663150

    4. Vieira C, Evangelista S, Cirillo R, Lippi A, Maggi CA, Manzini S. Effect of ricinoleic acid in acute and subchronic experimental models of inflammation. Mediators Inflamm. 2000;9(5):223-8. doi: 10.1080/09629350020025737. PMID: 11200362

    5. Medhi B, Kishore K, Singh U, Seth SD. Comparative clinical trial of castor_oil and diclofenac sodium in patients with osteoarthritis. Phytother Res. 2009 Oct;23(10):1469-73. doi: 10.1002/ptr.2804. PMID: 1928853

    6. Al-Mamun MA, Akter Z, Uddin MJ, Ferdaus KM, Hoque KM, Ferdousi Z, Reza MA. Characterization and evaluation of antibacterial and antiproliferative activities of crude protein extracts isolated from the seed of Ricinus communis in Bangladesh. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2016 Jul 12;16:211. doi: 10.1186/s12906-016-1185-y. PMID: 27405609

    7. Evidence for the Topical Application of Castor_Oil.International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine 2012. Link Here

    8. Arslan GG, Eşer I. An examination of the effect of castor_oil packs on constipation in the elderly. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2011 Feb;17(1):58-62. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.04.004. Epub 2010 May 18. PMID: 21168117

    9. Takashima K, Komeda Y, Sakurai T, Masaki S, Nagai T, Matsui S, Hagiwara S, Takenaka M, Nishida N, Kashida H, Nakaji K, Watanabe T, Kudo M. Castor_oil as booster for colon capsule endoscopy preparation reduction: A prospective pilot study and patient questionnaire. World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. 2021 Jul 5;12(4):79-89. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v12.i4.79. PMID: 34316385

    10. Nada AA, Arul MR, Ramos DM, Kroneková Z, Mosnáček J, Rudraiah S, Kumbar SG. Bioactive polymeric formulations for wound healing. Polym Adv Technol. 2018 Jun;29(6):1815-1825. doi: 10.1002/pat.4288. Epub 2018 Mar 27. PMID: 30923437

    11. Scientists Seek to Understand Lymphatic System’s Impact on Other Organ SystemsLink Here

    12. Narayanan S, Van Vleet J, Strunk B, Ross RN, Gray M. Comparison of pressure ulcer treatments in long-term care facilities: clinical outcomes and impact on cost. J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2005 May-Jun;32(3):163-70. doi: 10.1097/00152192-200505000-00004. PMID: 15931146

    13. Tunaru S, et al. Castor oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. PNAS 2012;109(23):9179-9184. DOI: 1073/pnas.120162710

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    https://drjockers.com/castor-oil-key-health-benefits/
    ‘A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that using 0.9 milliliters of castor oil capsules three times a day had similar effects for knee arthritis as 50 milligrams of diclofenac sodium (5).’ Castor Oil: Key Health Benefits and How to Use It by Dr. Jockers FDA Disclaimer Affliliate Disclosure Privacy Policy castor oilCastor Oil: Key Health Benefits and How to Use It Castor oil is a fatty oil that is made from the castor seeds of the castor bean plant. Castor oil has many potential health benefits, including relieving constipation, supporting liver health, improving skin health, reducing inflammation, and more. In this article, you will learn what castor oil is. You will learn about the health benefits, and I will discuss how to use castor oil. You will learn about the potential risks and how to pick and purchase castor oil. Finally, I will explain how to make a castor oil pack to help improve your health. castor oil What Is Castor Oil Castor seed oil, also known as castor oil or Ricinus Communis, is made by pressing the seeds of the plant to be used for a variety of conventional purposes. It is part of the Eurphorbiaceae plant family, which is a flowering spurge family, mostly cultivated in India, South America, and Africa. Out of these places, India is responsible for about 90 percent of the castor oil global exports. It is also among the oldest cultivated crops in the world, making up about 0.15 percent of the world’s vegetable oils. Castor oil has an amber to green color. It has a mild scent and taste. It may be used both topically and orally as a natural remedy for various ailments. It is also used in many cosmetic products sold. Castor oil is made up of phytochemicals, including: Undecylenic acid Ricinoleic acid Rincinoleic acid is responsible for about 90 percent of the chemical structure of castor oil. It is a fatty acid that may be responsible for the numerous health properties castor oil is used for in natural and alternative medicine. When ricinoleic acid is released in the intestines, it may bind with receptors that line the intestinal tract and the smooth-muscle cells in the uterus, which may help to promote natural healing abilities (1). According to a 2017 review published in the Pakistani Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, castor oil may have many phytochemistry, biological and pharmacological activities, offering natural medicinal benefits (2). It may offer anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, liver-protective, free radical-scavenging, and wound-healing benefits. Health Benefits of Castor Oil Castor oil has many potential health benefits. Let’s look at each of these one by one. Promotes Lymphatic Drainage Castor oil may help to support lymphatic drainage and may help to remove the build-up of toxins and debris in the body. If your body is overloaded with environmental toxins, microbes, and debris, they may accumulate within the lymphatic system, which is responsible for filtering bacteria. This may cause lymphatic stagnation. 2007 research published in the International Journal of Toxicology has found that injecting rats with castor oil helped to suppress tumors that developed as the result of liver damage. (3). As castor oil gets absorbed through the skin, it may increase blood circulation, lymphatic drainage, and lymphocyte production, which may boost immune health and benefit those with a compromised immune system. lymphatic Anti-Microbial and Anti-Inflammatory Castor oil may also offer anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory benefits. It may be a great massage oil for sore muscles, joints, and tissues. According to a 2000 study published in Mediators of Inflammation, ricinoleic acid in castor oil may offer anti-inflammatory and analgesic benefits (4). A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that using 0.9 milliliters of castor oil capsules three times a day had similar effects for knee arthritis as 50 milligrams of diclofenac sodium (5). Moreover, castor oil may have immune health-boosting effects by fighting microbes. According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6). When used internally, it may help to relieve constipation, thus elimination, and as a result, the removal of microbes and toxins in the gut. Thins Bile and Dilates the Bile Ducts Bile is a greenish-brown liquid or digestive juice that emulsifies fats for your small intestine to absorb. It moves from your liver to the gallbladder, and then your body stores it until it needs it for the digestion of food. Bile is essential for digestion and the absorption of nutrients. Problems with bile production, bile flow, and bile acid malabsorption may lead to abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and other digestive issues. Using castor oil packs over the abdomen and liver area may not only help liver detoxification but may also help to thin the bile, dilate bile ducts, and improve bile flow. It may also help to relieve painful spasms and cramps of the bile ducts and gallbladder. With that said, though anecdotal and personal evidence seems to support that castor oil may benefit bile health, we need more research evidence to back this up. castor oil Supports Liver Detoxification Your liver serves vital functions in the body and is critical for the process of detoxification. The liver helps circulate fluid in the body and transforms toxins into a substance which then can be dissolved, flushed down the bile ducts, relocated into the small intestine, or eliminated through stool. Using castor oil packs over the liver area may help to support liver detoxification and liver health and reduce related health symptoms. According to a 2012 systematic review published in the International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, using castor oil topically may help to support liver function and cholesterol levels (7). weaken immunity Improves Bowel Motility Supporting digestion may be one of the main potential health benefits of castor oil. Castor oil packs may help to improve bowel motility, which means a decreased risk of constipation and fewer digestive issues. According to a 2012 systematic review published in the International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, using castor oil topically may help to reduce constipation (7). According to a 2011 clinical trial published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, castor oil packs may help to reduce constipation, straining during bowel movements, and the risk of incomplete bowel movements (8). According to a 2021 pilot study published in the World Journal of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology and Therapeutics, it may help to cleanse the colon before a colonoscopy (9). poop, 16 Ways to Achieve Healthy Poop Reduces Pain, Swelling and Edema Castor oil may also help to reduce pain, swelling, and edema. According to a 2018 study published in Polymers in Advanced Technology, castor oil may help to reduce inflammation pain and support wound healing (10). According to a 2000 study published in Mediators of Inflammation, ricinoleic acid in castor oil may offer anti-inflammatory effects, which may help to decrease pain and swelling (4). A 2009 randomized controlled trial published in Phytotherapy Research has found that castor oil may help to reduce symptoms of knee arthritis (5). Thus, it may help to lower pain and swelling linked to this condition. Moreover, poor circulation and poor lymphatic flow may increase swelling and edema. Because castor oil may help to support the lymphatic system and circulation, it may also reduce the risk of edema. edema Improves Circulation and Tissue Oxygenation Using castor oil may also help to improve circulation and tissue oxygenation. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the lymphatic system may influence the heart, lung, brain, and other organs health (11). By supporting lymphatic circulation, castor oil may help to support the cardiovascular circulatory system and tissue oxygenation too and reduce fluid retention and edema (3). Castor oil is also commonly used in wound healing (10). Its wound-healing effects may partly lie in supporting circulation, tissue oxygenation, and blood flow. However, we still need more research on the potential circulatory and tissue-oxygenating benefits of castor oil. castor oil Supports Healthy Immune Function Castor oil may support healthy immune function in a variety of ways. As we already discussed, it may help lymphatic function, which spreads across your entire body and helps to remove excess fluid, protein, and waste (11). Castor oil may support lymphatic drainage and blood flow. It may support the production of the lymphocyte white blood cells that fight bacteria, which may assist the health of the thymus gland, which is responsible for creating T cells for the immune system. It may also also help to fight and remove microbes from your body. According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6). weaken immunity Moisturizes Skin Castor oil also offers skin-protecting benefits. 100 percent pure castor oil is natural and free of synthetic chemicals. It is rich in healthy fatty acids that may boost skin health. Using it topically may help moisturize your skin, prevent water loss from the skin, reduce dry skin, and improve irritated skin. According to 2005 research published in the Journal of Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing, it may help the recovery of pressure ulcers and wound healing thanks to its moisturizing and antimicrobial benefits (12). Castor oil may also mix well with coconut oil, almond oil, and olive oil, which are also beneficial for your skin health. Supports Wound Healing Moisturizing the skin is not the only skin-related potential benefit of castor oil. It has been used to improve wound healing as a natural remedy for a long time. A 2018 study published in Polymers in Advanced Technology has found that it may help to reduce inflammation pain and support wound healing (10). According to a 2005 research published in the Journal of Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing, it may help wound and pressure ulcer recovery (12). According to a 2016 study published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, it may help to fight a variety of different types of bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6). This may help to reduce infections of the skin, reduce the risk of a staph infection, and support wound healing. castor oil How to Use Castor Oil If you are interested in the potential benefits of castor oil, you may wonder how to use castor oil. Here are some potential options for using castor oil, both topically and orally. As a Laxative for Constipation Relief You may try castor oil as a laxative for constipation relief, taken orally. The common oral dose to treat constipation is between 15 to 60 mL, as a single dose. This is between one and four tablespoons, taken once a day. For children between 2 and 12, the dose is generally 5 to 15 mL once a day, and for babies under age 2, it’s 5 mL once a day. You may mix it in water before drinking it. Always read the directions carefully. Ideally, start on the low end of the dosage and see how your body handles it. Don’t take castor oil internally for more than seven days. And always consult your healthcare practitioner before using it orally. Stop using it if you experience any side effects. castor oil Support Hair and Eyebrow Growth Castor oil may support hair growth and eyebrow growth. For hair growth, you may massage a few tablespoons of castor oil into your scalp and hair, then spread it all over your hair. You may leave it on overnight and wash it out in the morning. For your eyebrows, use a cotton swab or a clean mascara and apply a small amount of castor oil over your clean brows for about 20 minutes or longer. You may even apply it before sleep and sleep in it. Clean it with the help of a cotton swab and be careful it doesn’t get into your eyes. Reduce Bags Under Eyes Castor oil may help to reduce under-eye bags, dark circles, and hyperpigmentation. First, wash your face. Then massage 3 to 4 drops of the oil under your eyes. You may try a carrier oil, such as jojoba, almond, or coconut oil, to dilute it. Using your fingertips for massaging works just fine, but you may also use a jade roller. You may leave it on overnight and clean it in the morning gently. Be careful that it doesn’t get into your eyes. Improve Skin Health and Dandruff Castor oil may offer numerous skin health benefits. For acne, you may apply the oil with a clean cotton swab. You may also mix it with apple cider vinegar, frankincense essential oil, or other essential oils to reduce swelling, inflammation, pain, and scarring. To reduce breakout, you can massage some of the oil into your skin and leave it on for the night, then cleanse it off in the morning. For hydration, mix ¼ cup of castor oil and ¾ cup of virgin coconut or olive oil, and apply it on your face or elsewhere on your body. For moisturizing, mix ¼ cup of castor oil with olive oil, coconut oil or jojoba oil. Massage it on your skin, leave it on overnight, then rinse. You may mix one teaspoon of castor oil with one egg yolk for a 10 to 20-minute face mask. For sunburns, mix coconut oil and castor oil at a 1 to 1 ratio and apply it on the affected area to reduce inflammation, redness, and pain. For dandruff and scalp issues, massage castor oil into your scalp and leave it on overnight. Reduce Joint or Menstrual Pain To reduce joint pain, you may massage castor oil into your skin on the affected area as you would with any other pain-relieving cream. About a dime-sized amount, every 3 hours or so may be helpful. Try it for three days for symptom relief. For menstrual cramps, you may either massage it on your lower abdomen area or use a castor oil pack. At the end of this article, you will learn about how to make and use a castor oil pack. castor oil packs Improve Bile Flow and Liver Detoxification We know that healthy bile flow is key for eliminating toxins from the liver, digesting and absorbing fats and fat-soluble nutrients and improving the microbial balance in the gut microbiome. Castor oil is great for improving bile flow, liver detoxification, and liver function. For this, I recommend using a castor oil pack, which I will explain in more detail at the end of this article. castor oil packs Contraindications to Using Castor Oil Castrol oil is generally recognized as safe. It can also be found in high concentrations in some cosmetics, including lipstick. However, according to 2007 research published in the International Journal of Toxicology, there may be some toxic effects when consumed orally, thus using it orally may not be recommended (3). There are currently not enough studies and clinical trials on the benefits and safety of castor oil, thus many doctors are unaware of the potential health benefits and physiological effects. Limited studies and tales of midwifery, including a 2012 report published in PNAS, have reported symptoms of nausea, cramps, and loss of fluid and electrolytes when ingesting the oil (13). If you ingest castor oil, it gets broken down by your small intestine into ricinoleic acid. Ricinoleic acid acts as an irritant, which may help to relieve constipation. While this may be good news if you have constipation, this same effect may cause digestive discomfort, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal side effects in others. However, if you have constipation, it may be beneficial, generally by starting with 1 teaspoon in the morning and seeing if you get the relief you need. If not, you can try 2 teaspoons the following morning. This is generally safe. If you notice any pain, discomfort, or side effects, back off. Sometimes castor oil is also used by some midwives to help induce labor. However, it is important that you don’t try this at home by yourself, only by the recommendation and with the support of your midwife or healthcare professional. However, castor oil is not for everyone. People who should avoid it may include: Women who are Pregnant: As I mentioned, sometimes castor oil is actually used to induce labor, and limited research evidence backs this up. This may happen because ricinoleic acid contained in the oil may signal a response from the lining of the uterus. Therefore, castor oil is not recommended for women who are pregnant unless recommended by a doctor to stimulate labor (13). Women Experiencing Heavy Menstrual Flow: Women experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding should also avoid the use of castor oil packs during menstruation. Otherwise, these packs may possibly help to ease cramping and regulate a woman’s menstrual cycle. Individuals with Gastrointestinal Problems: The ricinoleic acid has been found to interact with the lining of the gastrointestinal tract and can worsen gastrointestinal conditions and increase symptoms or the risk of complications. Individuals experiencing ulcers, diverticulitis, hemorrhoids, and colitis should avoid castor oil packs unless otherwise recommended by a doctor. Other more minor and general gastrointestinal issues such as gas, bloating, cramping, and constipation, generally respond very well to the use of castor oil packs and may be beneficial. Individuals with Extreme Skin Sensitivities: Castor oil packs should also not be used by anyone who has any chronic skin conditions with increased skin sensitivities. Individuals with these issues may be at an increased risk of developing a reaction from the topical application of castor oil packs (3). castor oil packs How to Purchase Castor Oil Whether you are looking to buy only castor oil itself or an entire kit for a castor oil pack, you need to look for a high-quality product. I highly recommend and personally use Queen of Thrones castor oil. Dr. Marisol is an expert in castor oil therapy, and she has made it much easier to use this oil with her high-quality products. Queen of Thrones offers quality castor oil products, including organic castor oil in a glass jar, which is what I personally use at home. Getting organic castor oil in a glass jar is important because if there is any pesticide residue contained in the oil or plastic residue (phthalates) from the bottle, it can be absorbed through the skin. Using high-quality products, like Queen of Thrones may help to prevent this. Use the coupon code DRJOCKERS10 at checkout with Queen of Thrones to save 10%. castor oil packs How to Make a Castor Oil Pack So, how do you make your own castor oil pack? Start by getting some Queen of Thrones, then follow these instructions: Before applying a castor oil pack to the skin’s surface, test for skin sensitivity. Rub a small amount of the oil directly onto a limited area of skin to determine if a reaction develops. Avoid using electric heat pads without an automatic shut-off following a period of time. According to testimonials, some people had issues falling asleep with ease during castor oil pack treatments. If you choose to get the pieces separately (as opposed to the Queen of Thrones castor oil pack), then here are instructions on how to do them correctly: Choose a place where you can lie down comfortably. Cover it with an old towel to avoid damage from dripping oil. Use a large enough flannel that’s enough to cover the area you use it on. Saturate the flannel with enough oil to make it wet but not dripping. Lie down and cover your entire abdomen area with flannel or the specific area, for example, your liver area, you are using it on. Cover the flannel with some plastic. Put some heating source on top, such as a heating pad, hot water bottle, or hot towel. Relax for 45 minutes to 2 hours with the castor oil pack there. Using this time for meditation or breathwork is a great idea, but you may listen to music, read, or watch your favorite show. When finished, wash it off with soapy water or a solution of 2 tablespoons of baking soda in a quart of water. You can store your pack in the fridge and reuse it later. It’s safe to use until you see a visible change in color. Repeat this process at least three times per week for a month for optimal results or as recommended by your health practitioner. You will see that it can be a lot of work, and that is why I believe the Queen of Thrones pack makes it much easier to do as it provides the flannel with ties on it, so you don’t need to wrap yourself in plastic! Use the coupon code DRJOCKERS10 at checkout with Queen of Thrones to save 10%. Final Thoughts Castor oil is a fatty oil that is made from the castor seeds of the castor bean plant. It has many potential health benefits, including relieving constipation, supporting live health, improving skin health, reducing inflammation, and more. I recommend that you follow my tips in this article on how to use this great natural product for your health. If you want to work with a functional health coach, I recommend this article with tips on how to find a great coach. Our website offers long-distance functional health coaching programs. For further support with your health goals, just reach out and our fantastic coaches are here to support your journey. Inflammation Crushing Ebundle The Inflammation Crushing Ebundle is designed to help you improve your brain, liver, immune system and discover the healing strategies, foods and recipes to burn fat, reduce inflammation and Thrive in Life! As a doctor of natural medicine, I have spent the past 20 years studying the best healing strategies and worked with hundreds of coaching clients, helping them overcome chronic health conditions and optimize their overall health. In our Inflammation Crushing Ebundle, I have put together my very best strategies to reduce inflammation and optimize your healing potential. Take a look at what you will get inside these valuable guides below! autoimmune conditions Sources In This Article Include: 1. Tunaru S, et al. Castor_oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. PNAS 2012;109(23):9179-9184. DOI: 1073/pnas.1201627109 2. Marwat SK, Rehman F, Khan EA, Baloch MS, Sadiq M, Ullah I, Javaria S, Shaheen S. Review – Ricinus cmmunis – Ethnomedicinal uses and pharmacological activities. Pak J Pharm Sci. 2017 Sep;30(5):1815-1827. PMID: 29084706 3. Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Glyceryl Ricinoleate, Glyceryl Ricinoleate SE, Ricinoleic Acid, Potassium Ricinoleate, Sodium Ricinoleate, Zinc Ricinoleate, Cetyl Ricinoleate, Ethyl Ricinoleate, Glycol Ricinoleate, Isopropyl Ricinoleate, Methyl Ricinoleate, and Octyldodecyl Ricinoleate. International Journal of Toxiciology. May 2007;26:31-77. DOI: 1080/10915810701663150 4. Vieira C, Evangelista S, Cirillo R, Lippi A, Maggi CA, Manzini S. Effect of ricinoleic acid in acute and subchronic experimental models of inflammation. Mediators Inflamm. 2000;9(5):223-8. doi: 10.1080/09629350020025737. PMID: 11200362 5. Medhi B, Kishore K, Singh U, Seth SD. Comparative clinical trial of castor_oil and diclofenac sodium in patients with osteoarthritis. Phytother Res. 2009 Oct;23(10):1469-73. doi: 10.1002/ptr.2804. PMID: 1928853 6. Al-Mamun MA, Akter Z, Uddin MJ, Ferdaus KM, Hoque KM, Ferdousi Z, Reza MA. Characterization and evaluation of antibacterial and antiproliferative activities of crude protein extracts isolated from the seed of Ricinus communis in Bangladesh. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2016 Jul 12;16:211. doi: 10.1186/s12906-016-1185-y. PMID: 27405609 7. Evidence for the Topical Application of Castor_Oil.International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine 2012. Link Here 8. Arslan GG, Eşer I. An examination of the effect of castor_oil packs on constipation in the elderly. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2011 Feb;17(1):58-62. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2010.04.004. Epub 2010 May 18. PMID: 21168117 9. Takashima K, Komeda Y, Sakurai T, Masaki S, Nagai T, Matsui S, Hagiwara S, Takenaka M, Nishida N, Kashida H, Nakaji K, Watanabe T, Kudo M. Castor_oil as booster for colon capsule endoscopy preparation reduction: A prospective pilot study and patient questionnaire. World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. 2021 Jul 5;12(4):79-89. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v12.i4.79. PMID: 34316385 10. Nada AA, Arul MR, Ramos DM, Kroneková Z, Mosnáček J, Rudraiah S, Kumbar SG. Bioactive polymeric formulations for wound healing. Polym Adv Technol. 2018 Jun;29(6):1815-1825. doi: 10.1002/pat.4288. Epub 2018 Mar 27. PMID: 30923437 11. Scientists Seek to Understand Lymphatic System’s Impact on Other Organ SystemsLink Here 12. Narayanan S, Van Vleet J, Strunk B, Ross RN, Gray M. Comparison of pressure ulcer treatments in long-term care facilities: clinical outcomes and impact on cost. J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2005 May-Jun;32(3):163-70. doi: 10.1097/00152192-200505000-00004. PMID: 15931146 13. Tunaru S, et al. Castor oil induces laxation and uterus contraction via ricinoleic acid activating prostaglandin EP3 receptors. PNAS 2012;109(23):9179-9184. DOI: 1073/pnas.120162710 colon cancer, Colon Cancer: Symptoms, Causes, and Support Strategies Was this article helpful? YesNo https://drjockers.com/castor-oil-key-health-benefits/
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  • Judaism: Satanism, Sorcery and Black Magic | VT Foreign Policy
    February 23, 2024
    VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

    $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
    Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.



    …by Jonas E. Alexis, Eric Gajewski, and Michael Hoffman

    Jonas E. Alexis: You have just published an article by Michael Hoffman, author of Judaism Discovered, and it almost certainly will ruffle people’s feathers because it goes into the dark world of Judaism, Cabbala and Freemasonry. E. Michael Jones has an entire chapter of this topic in his study The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History.[1]

    According to Jones, Jewish revolutionaries were using secret societies such as Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian to bring down Western Civilization during the French Revolution. Voltaire himself was a Freemason and was indirectly aiding Judaism when he said: “Let the real Philosophers unite in a brotherhood like the Freemasons; let them assemble together and support each other, and let them be faithful to the association.”[2] Jones writes,

    “The theological foundation of the French Revolution becomes clear when Barruel’s exposition of Masonic ritual. The philosophes began their assault on the ancient regime by subverting morals, but the goal was always theological. Freemasonry’s attack on Christ was inspired by the Talmudic literature in the Cabala…Freemasonry is ultimately Judaizing.”[3]

    Is there a lot of Judaizing going on today?

    Eric Gajewski: This article and analysis by Mr Hoffman is timely. We must understand that from a Catholic’s perspective “Israel” or Zion was always a reference to the Catholic Church not some sort of “puppet state of Israel” created by those who truly hate Our Lord. Their “messiah” to come is not ours.

    Yet how many supposed Christians do you know are following this heresy? Certainly, the majority of “Christians” in America are. Now, we see in the news talk of a rebuilt third temple. You see many “Christians” getting excited because they think the second coming of Christ is coming. Ehh…wrong!

    Who is behind the New World Order? The answer becomes obvious after some basic study. We are moving out of a truly Catholic society right into the arms of the Antichrist himself. Let us recall the words of Rabbi Waton:

    “Judaism is communism, internationalism, the universal brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working class and the human society. It is with these spiritual weapons that the Jews will conquer the world and the human race. The races and the nations will cheerfully submit to the spiritual power of Judaism, and all will become Jews….”

    Everybody should be able to see the evil principles in place and it should no longer surprise anyone at this point to see the further persecution of Catholicism/Christianity. It is time to draw a line in the sand.

    Michael Hoffman: The Kabbalah (“reception”), is a series of books of magic and mysticism. The canon has not been strictly defined although the rabbinic consensus names the Zohar as the most important volume. Another book, Sefer Yetzirah is a guide to black magic in Judaism.

    Zoharic studies in English have been advanced exponentially by the recent publication of Daniel Matt’s uncensored translation of all of the volumes traditionally associated with the Zohar.

    The descriptive term “Satanic” is overworked in this age of the Internet and “desktop” publishing. We do not propose to employ it casually or imprecisely. The Kabbalah is fundamentally Satanic in its theological orientation…

    The Kabbalah is attributed to the Rabbi Shimon ben Yoahi who wrote, “Even the best of the gentiles should all be killed.”

    Like the Talmud of Babylon, it is reputed to be derived form an Oral Law which God gave to Moses on Sinai in addition to the Written Law. In a cryptic passage from a book of the Kabbalah (Tikkunei Zohar 1:27b), buried within a double-entendre, is a reference to the Mishnah (first book of the Talmud) actually being “the burial place of Moses.” Furthermore, the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah admit to each other that their teachings and laws have “scant scriptural basis.”

    Judaics under Kabbalistic auspices are said to be under the dominion of the sitra ahra (“evil inclination”).

    SECRET MEANINGS, SEX CULT

    Kabbalistic exegesis of the Old Testament predicates a secret meaning that can be discerned by assigning each word of the Hebrew Bible a number through a process known as gematria, and then combining these numbers corresponding to letters, creating a new Bible unknown to the masses.

    The Kabbalah makes reference to the evil forces that will control Israel “in the secrecy of the steep,” when the spirits of the former zealots reincarnate on earth, forsaking their post-Second Temple exile to take up residence in Jerusalem yet again.[4]

    In Kabbalistic terms, “Evil forces attach themselves to holiness.”

    Patently, what is being called “holy” is not in accord with any Christian understanding of holiness, but rather in the pagan (Tantric) understanding that “defilement is a source of holiness.” That Jerusalem is the gateway to hell is celebrated in this mystical Kabbalistic sense, since it was known to and admitted by the rabbinate for centuries, that the evil forces are “most powerful in the Land of Israel, particularly in Jerusalem,” with the land’s “awesome powers” facilitating the process of demon worship and the resulting acquisition of material power on earth.[5]

    The Babylonian Talmud claims that the forbidden tree in the Garden from which Adam ate was a fig: “Rabbi Nehemiah holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the fig tree” (BT Berakoth 40a). The Kabbalah teaches that the leaves of this fig tree conveyed powers of sorcery and magic (Zohar 1:56b Bereshit).

    Consequently, in the rabbinic mind, the aprons worn by Adam and Eve, being made from the leaves of the fig tree, were garments that gave the wearers magical powers. These aprons made from fig leaves had the power to give the bearer the ability to enjoy “the fruits of the world-to-come” in the here-and-now. (BT Bava Metzia 114b). It is with this rabbinic understanding that Freemasons and Mormons wear these aprons in their own rituals.[6]

    The Zohar states that by black magic, Adam cut in half the divine unity of the god and goddess. Adam was formerly a giant, but after his sin his physical proportions were shrunk by God and “his erect stature diminished by one hundred cubits.” (Zohar 1:53b). In the fertile rabbinic imagination, most of the Book of Genesis, when taken literally, is misleading.

    In Zohar 1:36a Bereshit, an account is given of the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: 4-6: “Eat from it and you will really be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.” After quoting this text, the Zohar reports that “Rabbi Yehudah said, This is not what the serpent said. For if he had said, ‘With this tree the Blessed Holy One created the world,’ it would have been a correct statement.

    What the serpent said was actually this: ‘The Blessed Holy One ate from this tree and then created the world…Eat from it and you will be creating worlds.””Zoharic Kabbalah…is centered on a blatantly erotic interpretation of the Godhead, dividing the functions of the sefirot into male and female sides. The Zohar includes multiple interpretations built around a concept of God’s ‘genitals.’

    Using a phrase in Isaiah, ‘behold the King in his beauty,’ (33:17) as its springboard, the Zohar interprets the word for yofi, ‘beauty’ as a euphemism for a divine member. Tikkuni Zohar explicitly claims the ‘divine image’ that God bestowed upon man (but not upon woman) was the penis (I: 62b, 94b). The Zohar also interprets a passage from Job, ‘In my flesh I see God,’ as a reference to the human penis being in ‘the image of God’…this supernal phallus is manifest in one or the other of two other sefirot, Tifferet…and Yesod…”[7]

    REDEMPTION THROUGH EVIL

    Judaism secretly teaches, as have the occult secret societies throughout the ages (in our time, Hindu Tantrism and the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO), that the mystic can find redemption through a heroic willingness to do evil for the sake of a subsequent redemptive ascent to the highest spiritual good; immersion in the lowest of the low thus becomes a path to redemption: “…the concept of the descent of the Zaddiq, which is better known by the Hebrew phrase, Yeridah zorekh Aliyah, namely the descent for the sake of the ascent, the transgression for the sake of repentance…Much attention has been paid to this model because of its essential affinities with Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah…this model was a very important one in Hasidic thought…”[8]

    In other words, the rabbinic doctrine that evil can be redeemed by embracing it, was in circulation in early Hasidism until it threatened to expose the whole truth about the rabbinic religion, after which damage control was instituted through the familiar deception system of permissible dissimulation through dispensational revelation.

    In Hasidic Judaism’s first dispensation, the founding era of the Baal Shem Tov (early to mid-eighteenth century) and the disciples who came immediately in his wake, the grossest superstitions and the darkest dimensions of Babylonian Judaism were popularized among the Judaic masses, including the teaching that the “Jew” was to redeem the 288 “holy sparks” that exist in wicked thoughts (mahashavot zarot) and actions, by meditating upon them and implementing them, with the ostensible goal of “elevating” them.

    There was a sustained outcry, however, against this teaching from the rabbis of the non-Hasidic, “Mithnagdim” school, who complained bitterly that the Hasidim were “…popularizing mystical concepts that hitherto had zealously been kept concealed by the rabbis.” The complaint by the Mithnagdim has been represented to the outside world as a principled protest against excessive mysticism which “distorts” the austere Mosaic purity of rabbinic Judaism.

    Various forms of black magic (what Moshe Idel is pleased to call “the ancient Jewish mystical ascent as performed by the ‘descenders to the Merkavah”), superstition, goddess-worship, reincarnation and idolatry incontrovertibly comprise the under-publicized, formative core of Judaism’s oral traditions, and have exerted a profound influence on the rabbis since their sojourn in Babylon eighteen hundred years ago.[9]

    One of the oldest repositories of Babylonian magic in Judaism are the texts, Sifrei ha-Iyyun, the Sefer ha-Bahir and the Hilkoth Yesirah (also known as the Sefer Yetzirah), circa 200 A.D.; the earliest extant copy of the latter is the Genizah ms., tenth century. “…the practice associated with this school of thought is magical/theurgic, even including the attempt to make a golem.”[10]

    The “strand of earlier tradition is that of Merkavah mysticism. Merkavah designates a form of visionary mystical praxis that reaches back into the Hellenistic era but was still alive as late as tenth-century Babylonia…the old Merkavah and magical literature was preserved among the earliest Ashkenazic Jews…”[11]

    The best way for readers to acquaint themselves with the Kabbalah is to read the Zohar in the Matt translation. Two representative quotes from that volume are:

    “The evil impulse is good, and without the evil impulse, Israel cannot prevail in the world” (Zohar 161a); and: “Israel must make sacrifices to Satan so that he will leave Jerusalem unmolested.”

    Jonas E. Alexis: This “evil impulse” has never died out, and over the centuries has jumped around from place to place and movement to movement and has taken different forms and variations.

    It manifested itself briefly in fourteenth-century Spain when usury was used at an exorbitant rate, which ended up suppressing the peasants and provoking anti-Jewish reactions in the region. It sent shockwaves across much of Europe during the Hussite rebellion in the fifteenth century. It reached its pinnacle during the Peasant Revolt in the sixteenth century when judaizing Christians ended up smearing excrement on crucifixes and vandalizing and destroying churches and monasteries.

    In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the revolutionary spirit produced false Jewish messiahs such as Shabbatai Zevi (1626-1676), who spearheaded the Sabbatean movement, and later produced staunch disciples and lesser known messiahs such as Barukhia Russo, Miguel Cardoso, Mordecai Mokia, Lobele Prossnitz, and Jacob Joseph Frank, compounding disaster on disaster.

    The revolutionary spirit swept Europe in the nineteenth century with the rise of Marxism, which was the ideological brainchild of Karl Marx and Moses Hess. In the nineteenth century, it showed itself in much of Europe and sections in America in the sex industry, which was largely a Jewish enterprise—an enterprise which gave rise to Hitler’s negative conception of the Jews.



    As we have seen earlier, this same “evil impulse” almost destroyed Berlin in the 1920s and 30s through moral corruption and degradation, but…

    [1] E. Michael Jones, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2008), chapter twelve, particularly pages 539-550.

    [2] Quoted in ibid., 546.

    [3] Ibid.

    [4] Zohar 184b.

    [5] Yehezkel Rabinowitz, Knesset Yehezkel (Bunden, 1913), p. 52. Moshe Halamish, “The Land of Israel innKabbalah” in A. Ravitsky (ed.), Eretz Yisrael, pp. 215-232. H.E. Shapira, Divrei Torah, 5:24; 6:25. Mendel Piekarz, Hasidut Polin. Jeremiah 32:31-32: “For this city (Jerusalem) hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face. Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

    [6] Cf. John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Lance S. Owens, “Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Fall 1994. Smith enraged his brother Freemasons by incorporating secret Kabbalistic rituals in Mormon ceremonies. His occult church was seen as a growing rival to masonic power. In Carthage, Illinois in 1844, he was surrounded by a masonic mob (almost always described by establishment historians generically, as simply “a mob”), and out of awareness of its masonic personnel, Smith made the gesture of the masonic signal of distress, and shouted the code words, “Will no one help the widow’s son?” Faithful to their orders however, his erstwhile masonic-assassin brethren killed him on the spot. Cf. E. Cecil McGavin, Mormonism and Masonry (Bookcraft Publishers, 1956).

    [7] Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism (2007), p. 199.

    [8] Idel, Hasidism Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 103.

    [9] Ithamar Gruenwald, Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): pp. 132-177 and Temerin, vol. 7 (Jerusalem, 1972) pp.101-139. Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965.

    [10] Daniel Matt, Zohar [Stanford, University 2004], v. 1. xxxvii].

    [11] Ibid., D. Matt, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.


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    https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/judaism-satanism-sorcery-and-black-magic/
    Judaism: Satanism, Sorcery and Black Magic | VT Foreign Policy February 23, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. …by Jonas E. Alexis, Eric Gajewski, and Michael Hoffman Jonas E. Alexis: You have just published an article by Michael Hoffman, author of Judaism Discovered, and it almost certainly will ruffle people’s feathers because it goes into the dark world of Judaism, Cabbala and Freemasonry. E. Michael Jones has an entire chapter of this topic in his study The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History.[1] According to Jones, Jewish revolutionaries were using secret societies such as Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian to bring down Western Civilization during the French Revolution. Voltaire himself was a Freemason and was indirectly aiding Judaism when he said: “Let the real Philosophers unite in a brotherhood like the Freemasons; let them assemble together and support each other, and let them be faithful to the association.”[2] Jones writes, “The theological foundation of the French Revolution becomes clear when Barruel’s exposition of Masonic ritual. The philosophes began their assault on the ancient regime by subverting morals, but the goal was always theological. Freemasonry’s attack on Christ was inspired by the Talmudic literature in the Cabala…Freemasonry is ultimately Judaizing.”[3] Is there a lot of Judaizing going on today? Eric Gajewski: This article and analysis by Mr Hoffman is timely. We must understand that from a Catholic’s perspective “Israel” or Zion was always a reference to the Catholic Church not some sort of “puppet state of Israel” created by those who truly hate Our Lord. Their “messiah” to come is not ours. Yet how many supposed Christians do you know are following this heresy? Certainly, the majority of “Christians” in America are. Now, we see in the news talk of a rebuilt third temple. You see many “Christians” getting excited because they think the second coming of Christ is coming. Ehh…wrong! Who is behind the New World Order? The answer becomes obvious after some basic study. We are moving out of a truly Catholic society right into the arms of the Antichrist himself. Let us recall the words of Rabbi Waton: “Judaism is communism, internationalism, the universal brotherhood of man, the emancipation of the working class and the human society. It is with these spiritual weapons that the Jews will conquer the world and the human race. The races and the nations will cheerfully submit to the spiritual power of Judaism, and all will become Jews….” Everybody should be able to see the evil principles in place and it should no longer surprise anyone at this point to see the further persecution of Catholicism/Christianity. It is time to draw a line in the sand. Michael Hoffman: The Kabbalah (“reception”), is a series of books of magic and mysticism. The canon has not been strictly defined although the rabbinic consensus names the Zohar as the most important volume. Another book, Sefer Yetzirah is a guide to black magic in Judaism. Zoharic studies in English have been advanced exponentially by the recent publication of Daniel Matt’s uncensored translation of all of the volumes traditionally associated with the Zohar. The descriptive term “Satanic” is overworked in this age of the Internet and “desktop” publishing. We do not propose to employ it casually or imprecisely. The Kabbalah is fundamentally Satanic in its theological orientation… The Kabbalah is attributed to the Rabbi Shimon ben Yoahi who wrote, “Even the best of the gentiles should all be killed.” Like the Talmud of Babylon, it is reputed to be derived form an Oral Law which God gave to Moses on Sinai in addition to the Written Law. In a cryptic passage from a book of the Kabbalah (Tikkunei Zohar 1:27b), buried within a double-entendre, is a reference to the Mishnah (first book of the Talmud) actually being “the burial place of Moses.” Furthermore, the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah admit to each other that their teachings and laws have “scant scriptural basis.” Judaics under Kabbalistic auspices are said to be under the dominion of the sitra ahra (“evil inclination”). SECRET MEANINGS, SEX CULT Kabbalistic exegesis of the Old Testament predicates a secret meaning that can be discerned by assigning each word of the Hebrew Bible a number through a process known as gematria, and then combining these numbers corresponding to letters, creating a new Bible unknown to the masses. The Kabbalah makes reference to the evil forces that will control Israel “in the secrecy of the steep,” when the spirits of the former zealots reincarnate on earth, forsaking their post-Second Temple exile to take up residence in Jerusalem yet again.[4] In Kabbalistic terms, “Evil forces attach themselves to holiness.” Patently, what is being called “holy” is not in accord with any Christian understanding of holiness, but rather in the pagan (Tantric) understanding that “defilement is a source of holiness.” That Jerusalem is the gateway to hell is celebrated in this mystical Kabbalistic sense, since it was known to and admitted by the rabbinate for centuries, that the evil forces are “most powerful in the Land of Israel, particularly in Jerusalem,” with the land’s “awesome powers” facilitating the process of demon worship and the resulting acquisition of material power on earth.[5] The Babylonian Talmud claims that the forbidden tree in the Garden from which Adam ate was a fig: “Rabbi Nehemiah holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the fig tree” (BT Berakoth 40a). The Kabbalah teaches that the leaves of this fig tree conveyed powers of sorcery and magic (Zohar 1:56b Bereshit). Consequently, in the rabbinic mind, the aprons worn by Adam and Eve, being made from the leaves of the fig tree, were garments that gave the wearers magical powers. These aprons made from fig leaves had the power to give the bearer the ability to enjoy “the fruits of the world-to-come” in the here-and-now. (BT Bava Metzia 114b). It is with this rabbinic understanding that Freemasons and Mormons wear these aprons in their own rituals.[6] The Zohar states that by black magic, Adam cut in half the divine unity of the god and goddess. Adam was formerly a giant, but after his sin his physical proportions were shrunk by God and “his erect stature diminished by one hundred cubits.” (Zohar 1:53b). In the fertile rabbinic imagination, most of the Book of Genesis, when taken literally, is misleading. In Zohar 1:36a Bereshit, an account is given of the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: 4-6: “Eat from it and you will really be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.” After quoting this text, the Zohar reports that “Rabbi Yehudah said, This is not what the serpent said. For if he had said, ‘With this tree the Blessed Holy One created the world,’ it would have been a correct statement. What the serpent said was actually this: ‘The Blessed Holy One ate from this tree and then created the world…Eat from it and you will be creating worlds.””Zoharic Kabbalah…is centered on a blatantly erotic interpretation of the Godhead, dividing the functions of the sefirot into male and female sides. The Zohar includes multiple interpretations built around a concept of God’s ‘genitals.’ Using a phrase in Isaiah, ‘behold the King in his beauty,’ (33:17) as its springboard, the Zohar interprets the word for yofi, ‘beauty’ as a euphemism for a divine member. Tikkuni Zohar explicitly claims the ‘divine image’ that God bestowed upon man (but not upon woman) was the penis (I: 62b, 94b). The Zohar also interprets a passage from Job, ‘In my flesh I see God,’ as a reference to the human penis being in ‘the image of God’…this supernal phallus is manifest in one or the other of two other sefirot, Tifferet…and Yesod…”[7] REDEMPTION THROUGH EVIL Judaism secretly teaches, as have the occult secret societies throughout the ages (in our time, Hindu Tantrism and the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO), that the mystic can find redemption through a heroic willingness to do evil for the sake of a subsequent redemptive ascent to the highest spiritual good; immersion in the lowest of the low thus becomes a path to redemption: “…the concept of the descent of the Zaddiq, which is better known by the Hebrew phrase, Yeridah zorekh Aliyah, namely the descent for the sake of the ascent, the transgression for the sake of repentance…Much attention has been paid to this model because of its essential affinities with Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah…this model was a very important one in Hasidic thought…”[8] In other words, the rabbinic doctrine that evil can be redeemed by embracing it, was in circulation in early Hasidism until it threatened to expose the whole truth about the rabbinic religion, after which damage control was instituted through the familiar deception system of permissible dissimulation through dispensational revelation. In Hasidic Judaism’s first dispensation, the founding era of the Baal Shem Tov (early to mid-eighteenth century) and the disciples who came immediately in his wake, the grossest superstitions and the darkest dimensions of Babylonian Judaism were popularized among the Judaic masses, including the teaching that the “Jew” was to redeem the 288 “holy sparks” that exist in wicked thoughts (mahashavot zarot) and actions, by meditating upon them and implementing them, with the ostensible goal of “elevating” them. There was a sustained outcry, however, against this teaching from the rabbis of the non-Hasidic, “Mithnagdim” school, who complained bitterly that the Hasidim were “…popularizing mystical concepts that hitherto had zealously been kept concealed by the rabbis.” The complaint by the Mithnagdim has been represented to the outside world as a principled protest against excessive mysticism which “distorts” the austere Mosaic purity of rabbinic Judaism. Various forms of black magic (what Moshe Idel is pleased to call “the ancient Jewish mystical ascent as performed by the ‘descenders to the Merkavah”), superstition, goddess-worship, reincarnation and idolatry incontrovertibly comprise the under-publicized, formative core of Judaism’s oral traditions, and have exerted a profound influence on the rabbis since their sojourn in Babylon eighteen hundred years ago.[9] One of the oldest repositories of Babylonian magic in Judaism are the texts, Sifrei ha-Iyyun, the Sefer ha-Bahir and the Hilkoth Yesirah (also known as the Sefer Yetzirah), circa 200 A.D.; the earliest extant copy of the latter is the Genizah ms., tenth century. “…the practice associated with this school of thought is magical/theurgic, even including the attempt to make a golem.”[10] The “strand of earlier tradition is that of Merkavah mysticism. Merkavah designates a form of visionary mystical praxis that reaches back into the Hellenistic era but was still alive as late as tenth-century Babylonia…the old Merkavah and magical literature was preserved among the earliest Ashkenazic Jews…”[11] The best way for readers to acquaint themselves with the Kabbalah is to read the Zohar in the Matt translation. Two representative quotes from that volume are: “The evil impulse is good, and without the evil impulse, Israel cannot prevail in the world” (Zohar 161a); and: “Israel must make sacrifices to Satan so that he will leave Jerusalem unmolested.” Jonas E. Alexis: This “evil impulse” has never died out, and over the centuries has jumped around from place to place and movement to movement and has taken different forms and variations. It manifested itself briefly in fourteenth-century Spain when usury was used at an exorbitant rate, which ended up suppressing the peasants and provoking anti-Jewish reactions in the region. It sent shockwaves across much of Europe during the Hussite rebellion in the fifteenth century. It reached its pinnacle during the Peasant Revolt in the sixteenth century when judaizing Christians ended up smearing excrement on crucifixes and vandalizing and destroying churches and monasteries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the revolutionary spirit produced false Jewish messiahs such as Shabbatai Zevi (1626-1676), who spearheaded the Sabbatean movement, and later produced staunch disciples and lesser known messiahs such as Barukhia Russo, Miguel Cardoso, Mordecai Mokia, Lobele Prossnitz, and Jacob Joseph Frank, compounding disaster on disaster. The revolutionary spirit swept Europe in the nineteenth century with the rise of Marxism, which was the ideological brainchild of Karl Marx and Moses Hess. In the nineteenth century, it showed itself in much of Europe and sections in America in the sex industry, which was largely a Jewish enterprise—an enterprise which gave rise to Hitler’s negative conception of the Jews. As we have seen earlier, this same “evil impulse” almost destroyed Berlin in the 1920s and 30s through moral corruption and degradation, but… [1] E. Michael Jones, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2008), chapter twelve, particularly pages 539-550. [2] Quoted in ibid., 546. [3] Ibid. [4] Zohar 184b. [5] Yehezkel Rabinowitz, Knesset Yehezkel (Bunden, 1913), p. 52. Moshe Halamish, “The Land of Israel innKabbalah” in A. Ravitsky (ed.), Eretz Yisrael, pp. 215-232. H.E. Shapira, Divrei Torah, 5:24; 6:25. Mendel Piekarz, Hasidut Polin. Jeremiah 32:31-32: “For this city (Jerusalem) hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face. Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” [6] Cf. John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Lance S. Owens, “Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Fall 1994. Smith enraged his brother Freemasons by incorporating secret Kabbalistic rituals in Mormon ceremonies. His occult church was seen as a growing rival to masonic power. In Carthage, Illinois in 1844, he was surrounded by a masonic mob (almost always described by establishment historians generically, as simply “a mob”), and out of awareness of its masonic personnel, Smith made the gesture of the masonic signal of distress, and shouted the code words, “Will no one help the widow’s son?” Faithful to their orders however, his erstwhile masonic-assassin brethren killed him on the spot. Cf. E. Cecil McGavin, Mormonism and Masonry (Bookcraft Publishers, 1956). [7] Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism (2007), p. 199. [8] Idel, Hasidism Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 103. [9] Ithamar Gruenwald, Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): pp. 132-177 and Temerin, vol. 7 (Jerusalem, 1972) pp.101-139. Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965. [10] Daniel Matt, Zohar [Stanford, University 2004], v. 1. xxxvii]. [11] Ibid., D. Matt, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii. ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/judaism-satanism-sorcery-and-black-magic/
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    Judaism: Satanism, Sorcery and Black Magic
    …by Jonas E. Alexis, Eric Gajewski, and Michael Hoffman Jonas E. Alexis: You have just published an article by Michael Hoffman, author of Judaism Discovered, and it almost certainly will ruffle people’s feathers because it goes into the dark world of Judaism, Cabbala and Freemasonry. E. Michael Jones has an entire chapter of...
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