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The Bulletin: June 5-11, 2025

The Bulletin: June 5-11, 2025

This past week’s articles of interest…

CLICK HERE

 

If you’re new to my writing, check out this overview.


In the Sightlines of Empire: The Gift and Curse of Thermal Optics

The Superfood That Replaces Every Toxic Oil in Your Kitchen

Why Analysts Misjudge Oil’s Future | Art Berman

CO2 is Good For You – by Ugo Bardi – Living Earth

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects

India-Pakistan conflict over water reflects a region increasingly vulnerable to climate change

The Untold Story Of How Water and Plants Already Cool Our Climate

U.S. and Global Money Supply Surges to Record Highs

Trust, Dirt, and Firelight: Shared Answers for a Collapsing World

The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies. Chris Hedges & Joseph Tainter. | Kevin Hester

A GPS Blackout Would Shut Down the World | WIRED

Dark Irony: 75th Anniversary Edition Of Orwell’s 1984 Comes With Trigger Warnings – modernity

The Ratchet Effect: Easy To Spend More, Spending Less Triggers Collapse

Short Bursts Of Movement Ignite Calorie Burn

WHERE TO DIG: Forging a Collapse-Aware Grower Community in the City, Suburb, or Country.

India Central Bank Shocks With Biggest Rate Cut Since Covid As Growth, Inflation Stall | ZeroHedge

Rich Countries’ Energy Transitions Threaten Indigenous Peoples and the Environment – Inside Climate News

Empire Of Extraction: AI, Capitalism, And The Unraveling Of The Biosphere | Collapse of Industrial Civilization

Our Atmosphere’s Growing Thirst Is a Hidden Cause of Worsening Droughts : ScienceAlert

The Cultural Consequences of Inflation | Mises Institute

Five Things to Know if Martial Law is Declared and How to Prepare

Small Modular Hallucinations – The Honest Sorcerer

The Real Energy Crisis No One’s Talking About

The Carbon Capture Mirage: Why We’re Betting on a Fantasy

The End of the Fiat Currency Experiment, in Seven Charts

Collapse Revisited: How do we Stand in Terms of Existential Risks?

War Is Peace, Gas Is Now “Clean Energy”

Get To Work – by Rachel Donald – Planet: Critical

UK: Mainstream Beliefs Meet the Terror Watchlist

Democracy Is the Ideal Distraction – Doug Casey’s International Man

Capitalism Doesn’t Want You To Survive What’s Coming – George Tsakraklides

Energy and debt – by Gunnar Rundgren

New study shows huge groundwater losses along Colorado River | Grist

What Should / Can / Could / Will We Do?

How Did We Get Here?

Take the Fast Eddy Challenge

The New World Order’s Endgame – OffGuardian

Secret Document: Is Germany’s Bundeswehr Preparing to Wage War on Russia? – Global Research

Test Case for Martial Law? What Trump Might Really Be Doing In Los Angeles.

AMOC decline linked to increased dry season rainfall in parts of the Amazon rainforest

Scientific Publishing: Enough is Enough – by Seemay Chou

Could AI Decide to Kill All Humans to Save the Planet?

WE ARE BEING AMUSED AND ABUSED TO DEATH – The Burning Platform

How Power Turns Chaos Into Currency

European Union Unveils International Strategy Pushing Digital ID Systems and Online Censorship


If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running). 

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing. 

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps… 

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US 

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.

 

The Bulletin: May 22-28, 2025

The Bulletin: May 22-28, 2025

This past week’s articles of interest…

If you’re new to my writing, check out this overview.


Witness to Collapse

Climate Change: The Crisis Management Model – Ecosophia

Restoring Global Ecology: The Great Green Wall and Large-Scale Permaculture in Action

Building a Mycelial Network of Resistance and Resilience

Gazprom CEO Sounds Alarm on Looming Russian Energy Crisis

New Evidence Links Microplastics with Chronic Disease – Global Research

Homesteading: Gardening, Cognition, and Longevity

The Emergency We Cannot Feel: On the Psychological Unreadiness for American Collapse

Heavy Metal – by Roger Pielke Jr. – The Honest Broker

Why 2025 Is Becoming the Year of Living With Less | Atmos

Iraq Seals Major Oil Deal with Chinese Company | OilPrice.com

The End of Prepping: When Does Collapse Become Impossible to Survive?

‘It’s a critical time’: European farmers struggle through driest spring in a century | Environment | The Guardian

Canada’s PM Mark Carney Revives Online Censorship Agenda

Power Hungry Race: Aluminium Smelters Versus AI Data Centers | ZeroHedge

Living with Uncertainty: Rethinking Truth in a Quantum World | Art Berman

Microplastics are ‘silently spreading from soil to salad to humans’ – Scimex

Climate Illusionists. Addressing Climate Change, will not “Save the Planet.”

Now Comes the Hard Part – Charles Hugh Smith’s Substack 

The Two Achilles Heels of Complex Systems

Shifting Baseline Syndrome – by Matt Orsagh

Food Crisis—The Greatest Threat to Social Stability – Doug Casey’s International Man

Propaganda and Power

“This Is War”: Catherine Austin Fitts On Land Grabs, The Evils Of CBDC, And Fighting ‘The Most Invasive Form Of Tyranny That’s Ever Existed’ | ZeroHedge

Research suggests creating renewable energy might not lower production of fossil fuels

Next Stage of WWIII

Iraq’s water reserves fall to 80-year low, official warns

Fed Quietly Buys $43,600,000,000 in US Treasuries in Alleged ‘Stealth QE’ Operation After China Abruptly Dumps Billions in Bonds – The Daily Hodl

Physics Will Cause the Economy to Shrink; a Look at the Next Ten YearsOur Finite World

WWIII Watch: For the first time, Germany’s Merz authorizes Ukraine to use German weapons against targets on Russia territory

How Much Money Is There In the World? – by Jared A. Brock


If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running). 

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing. 

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps… 

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US 

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.

 

The Bulletin: February 6-12, 2025

The Bulletin: February 6-12, 2025

CLICK HERE

 

The Crises Yet To Come

When efficiency becomes a problem: Jevons Paradox in the Age of AI – Conhecimento Hoje

Supercharging the Predicaments We Face

Please, be a NIMBY – by Elisabeth Robson

Nuclear Fusion Is Just More Bullshit

Break the Consumption Cycle

Why pervasive media propaganda is ultimately self-defeating and destructive to the political class that wields it

Solar Panels for Collapse, Are They Worth It? Here’s an Honest Answer.

Fiji Water Lawsuit Raises Concerns About Microplastics – Newsweek

The Empire Self-Destructs

Overshoot Deficit Disorder – George Tsakraklides

“Recycling” Makes Plastic Pollution Worse

The overshoot myth: you can’t keep burning fossil fuels and expect scientists of the future to get us back to 1.5°C

The end of the dollar has already begun – Collapse Life

The Biggest, Most Corrupt News Organization You Have Never Heard of

Report: Apple Ordered to Provide Gov’t Access to ALL User Data on the Cloud | Headline USA

The Grocery Store Hack That Helps You Avoid Ultra-Processed Foods

The Collapse of the US Elite – by Ugo Bardi

The world isn’t close to breaking free from coal — in some countries, demand for it is surging

Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025 – Ed Dowd | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog

World War In the 2030s

299-The Arc Of Inevitability

Dr  William Rees   Our obsolescent brains The climate, economics and overshoot

The Daily: 10 February 2025 – By My Solitary Hearth

12 Simple Things That You Can Start Doing Right Now To Become More Independent Of The System

Not More But Better, Part 1

Earth’s water cycle is off balance for the first time in human history | Climate & Capitalism

Trump Says Talk Of Wanting Canada to Be A Part of US Is Serious | ZeroHedge

In Soviet Germany, the government protests YOU

 

If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running). 

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing. 

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps… 

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US 

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.

After months of masturbatory freaking out about “the right,” the German government inches towards collapse, as the social democrats realise they’re wildly unpopular and have neither money nor answers

After months of masturbatory freaking out about “the right,” the German government inches towards collapse, as the social democrats realise they’re wildly unpopular and have neither money nor answers

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports on growing discontent with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the ranks of his own party.

Since January, German political elites have waged an unceasing “fight against the right.” For weeks at a time, the establishment press would report on little else. We have had freakouts about secret right-wing immigrant deportation plans, we have had freakouts right-wing political violence, we have had freakouts about right-wing fifth-columnists, we have had freakouts about televised political debates and we have had freakouts about right-wing song lyrics. We have had every last kind of freakout you could imagine about the right, all of it promoted by an absolutely deranged media establishment eager to revive pandemic-era hysteria. Then, after all of that screeching and scratching and crying and caterwauling, we had the EU parliamentary elections, and just like that – as if someone had simply flipped a switch – we have stopped freaking out about the right.

As campaign tactics go, the “fight against the right” didn’t work as intended. The point of it, I guess, was to blackmail voters into supporting the social democrats, the Greens and the liberals, by warning them that the alternative was fascism. Nobody bought that, and all three government parties got hammered in the European elections. The latest poll pegs their combined support at 32%.

Now the politicians of these parties are awakening with a pounding post-election hangover, and realising they’ve made a huge mistake. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, “it is dawning on the SPD that they have underestimated the importance of migration and domestic security as political issues.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

German Minister admits ruinous home heating ordinances were merely a “test” to determine “how far society is prepared to go in terms of climate protection”

German Minister admits ruinous home heating ordinances were merely a “test” to determine “how far society is prepared to go in terms of climate protection”

We are governed by crazy lunatics, Part 2436502345.

The Greens really are every inch as crazy as they seem to be.

Climate policies have long been a source of annoyance and exasperation, but they really began to terrify me for the first time with last year’s proposed changes to the Gebäudeenergiegesetz, or the Building Energy Act (GEG). The technocratic wing of the Greens, under Economics Minister Robert Habeck, proposed to mandate that all new heating systems installed after 2024 in Germany use no less than 65% renewable energy. In its original form, the law amounted to a de facto mandate to install heat pumps, and it would’ve entailed catastrophic renovation costs for the owners of many older buildings. The law proved so controversial that even some of the establishment press broke ranks to criticise it; in the end, Habeck had to sacrifice his powerful state secretary Patrick Graichen, and the legislation passed in modified but still pretty terrible form, laden with a wealth of complex subsidies and exceptions.

Yesterday, at a town hall event, somebody asked Habeck about the GEG, and he responded by saying that the first and most ruinous draft of the law was a test, to see how much the people would put up with:

Many of you will remember that we went as far as we could go in the buildings sector – at least that’s what I would say for myself – without risking the complete collapse of climate policies. The debate about the Building Energy Act, that is how we will heat in the future, was honestly a test of how far society is prepared to go in terms of climate protection when it becomes a reality

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Conscription is coming back to Europe, but which EU countries have re-introduced compulsory military service?

Conscription is coming back to Europe, but which EU countries have re-introduced compulsory military service?

With Germany considering to re-introduce conscription, Hungarian news outlet Divány reviewed which countries across Europe enforce mandatory military service

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a joint media conference with Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda during the Lithuanian-German military exercise “Grand Quadriga” at a training range in Pabrade, north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, on Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

While several countries are reintroducing compulsory military service, some EU politicians would welcome a uniform reintroduction across the EU. Hungarian news portal Divány has rounded up the countries that have reintroduced conscription.

Professional armies are understaffed across the continent, as more and more European countries are recognizing. In recent weeks, not only EU leaders but also the leadership of the German Christian Democratic Party has brought up the idea of reintroducing compulsory military service.

At its party congress at the beginning of May, the CDU adopted a proposal that young people should be obliged to serve for a certain period either in the army or the social sector. Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, made a similar statement recently, saying he would extend conscription to the whole continent.

Germany abolished conscription in 2011, and this is what would be gradually rebuilt. The former compulsory military service would be reintroduced as a year of community service, either in the Bundeswehr or a social institution. The initiative would also open up the possibility for women to enter the military. The German government would reintroduce conscription based on several scenarios, making it compulsory for all 18-year-olds.

The Swedish model is seen by many as an example, with all citizens in the Nordic country, both men and women, having to register and, at the same time, indicate their willingness to serve in the military…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Confiscates €800 Million From Deutsche Bank, Unicredit And Commerzbank

Russia Confiscates €800 Million From Deutsche Bank, Unicredit And Commerzbank

After two years of being on the receiving end of a weaponized global reserve currency, getting booted from SWIFT, countless (toothless) sanctions and watching some $350 billion of its assets be frozen and soon confiscated, Moscow has had enough, and over the weekend the FT reported that a St Petersburg court seized around €800 million worth of assets belonging to three western banks – Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and UniCredit.

The seizure marks one of the largest moves against western lenders since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prompted most international lenders to withdraw or wind down their businesses in Russia. It comes after the ECB told Eurozone lenders with operations in the country to speed up their exit plans.

According to court documents, the court seized €463 million-worth of assets belonging to Italy’s UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5% of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank’s main Russian subsidiary.

Frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.

According to another decision on the same date, the court seized €238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank’s assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia. The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia; it would already require the approval of Vladimir Putin to do so. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was “taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Germany’s Dark Future

Germany’s Dark Future

The Pot is calling the kettle black.

Many in Germany are now afraid to fly the German flag, for fear they will be labelled a “nationalist”.

By weaponizing the fear of being labeled a Nazi, the currently governing German government is going further down the dark path of censorship and, even worse, is moving towards an outright banning of political leaders of the AFD (Alliance for Deutschland) party as well as the AFD party itself. To provide context, the center-right populist AFD party is leading in current German polling ahead of the upcoming election of delegates to the European Union. The elites don’t want people to actually have a democratically elected representative European Union or German government. The German elites want to choose the available leaders people are allowed to vote for. That is not democracy. That is a form of totalitarian oligarchy, one which is dependent on a variety of “public-private partnerships” involving very large and often transnational corporations. One version of modern corporatism.

One recent example:

The debate about a possible ban on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) never really went away, but it is once again getting louder. That’s because the Münster Higher Administrative Court (OVG) has on Monday rejected a complaint by the party against its classification by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is the domestic intelligence service.

On Tuesday, a court ruled against Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke for allegedly using a slogan from the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, the Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung). The graduate historian and former history teacher denies knowing the origin of the banned slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything for Germany).

Höcke was fined €13,000 ($14,060) which is to go to a grassroots anti-extremism program.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The sad farce of German “democracy”

The sad farce of German “democracy”

To live in Germany in 2024 is to be lectured constantly about democracy. An endless parade of doubtful personalities – pundits, experts and a lot of very shrill women – appear on the television every night to tell you which parties are democratic, which people are democratic and therefore who enjoys democratic legitimacy. As we have seen, however, the whole concept of democracy is very confusing. Those people and organisations who want to mute free expression and ban political parties are all held to be extremely democratic, while those parties that demand more direct democracy and talk constantly about respecting the popular will are the direct modern equivalent of illiberal antidemocratic fascists.

To make all of this even harder, we are told that the upcoming September elections in Thüringen, Brandenburg and Saxony present a grave threat to democracy. To counteract this threat we have things like the Thüringen Project, where our greatest legal minds are at this very moment brainstorming ways to defend Thuringian democracy from the political preferences of actual voters. Crucially, the very existence of the Thüringen Project means that democracy must still reign supreme in Thüringen. Otherwise, there would be nothing for the democratic police of the Thüringen Project to defend. We therefore need only study Thuringian politics in their present state to gain a better idea of what this mysterious, shape-shifting, elusive phenomenon we call German democracy might be.

We will start at the top. The current Minister President (i.e., governor) of Thüringen is a highly democratic man named Bodo Ramelow:

Ramelow is a member of Die Linke, or the Left Party, which is the direct successor of the Socialist Unity Party (or SED) that used to govern the DDR. That might seem baffling, as the SED and the DDR were anything but democratic…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shocking Headline of the Day: Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

Young Germans will have to choose between the Bundeswehr (military service) and unpaid social service work. Libertarians to a person, will call this slavery, because that is what it is.

Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

Please consider the Eurointelligence headline story Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

The headline might be bordering on the hysterical, but the big idea in German politics right now is to re-introduce the general draft. This is not happening because Germany expects to be at war. It is not about the military at all. Under the plans, young people, male and female, can choose between the Bundeswehr or a year of forced labour in the social services, essentially uncompensated.

The main reason we see is that their fiscal rules have depleted them with the resources to fund the Bundeswehr and critical social services like old-age care. For example, there is a big row going on right now within the coalition currently between Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, and Christian Lindner, over Pistorius’ demands for another €6bn for the Bundeswehr. The discussions on the reintroduction of the draft are at an early stage. They won’t affect the current budget dispute. But it could go some way to fix the Bundeswehr’s budget issues.

The SPD leader Lars Klingbeil sugar-coated the idea as giving young people an opportunity to serve the state at one point in their lives. Another underlying assumption is that young people are infinitely stupid. German high school goes until the age of 19. This is higher than elsewhere because German children do not start school until they are 6. With a year of enforced military or social services, they won’t start their studies or apprenticeship until they are 20…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Free Speech Platform Gab Rejects German Request for Data on User’s Posts Insulting Politician Ricarda Lang

Gab is standing up to citizens facing Germany’s oppressive speech policies.

Tired of censorship and surveillance?

Defend free speech and individual liberty online. Push back against Big Tech and media gatekeepers. Subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

The German authorities have attempted to get Gab, a free speech software company, to release personal data identifying a user of its platform, for making comments about a politician’s weight that are considered offensive.

Gab founder and CEO Andrew Torba revealed this in a blog post, reassuring the user community that the request will not be complied with – the response was “a firm rejection,” he wrote. He also provided details of this fairly, even by today’s standards of government speech control and repression, an extraordinary case.

Namely, the user targeted by Berlin made a comment in 2022 that described the Greens politician, Ricarda Lang, as “fat.”

In addition, the user is accused of making two posts that “sexualize” Lang, the sum total of all this, according to the German government (the request came from the German Federal Criminal Police Office), being an attack “on the honor of the politician,” as well as a show of disrespect.

Greens Politician Ricarda Lang.
And that, the notice received by Gab continued, violates the section of the German criminal code that deals with the offense of “insult” (and envisions imprisonment – up to five years according to Torba – or a fine).

From here, things start to spiral: the posts, the federal police said in the request, were in German, so they suspect the user is located in Germany.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leading German politician calls for the state to issue “revocable social media licenses” for the privilege of commenting online

Leading German politician calls for the state to issue “revocable social media licenses” for the privilege of commenting online

If only speech were not a right but a privilege granted selectively by the state, our democratic freedoms would be that much more secure.

You may remember this man. His name is Mario Voigt, and he is the head of the centre-right CDU in Thüringen. He made national headlines a few weeks ago for grievously threatening German democracy by agreeing to debate his AfD counterpart Björn Höcke on national television. Because the AfD in general and Höcke in particular are antidemocratic fascists, allowing them anywhere near a microphone is very likely to destroy our entire system of government, that is what a weak and failed state we have here in Germany.

The duel between our leading Thuringian politicians was all but unwatchable, as indeed almost all political debates turn out to be. While Höcke could’ve acquitted himself better, Voigt’s performance was flat, uninspired and profoundly banal. Among other things, the man suffers from a peculiar rodentine aspect; he bites his way stiffly through bland preformulated arguments like a squirrel chewing a stale nut or a beaver gnawing through saplings. After the event, the CDU took to the press to declare victory, but polls showed that viewers found Höcke on balance more persuasive, which is of course the real reason that everybody told Voigt to avoid the confrontation. Voigt is intensely democratic and therefore extremely right about everything, but somehow – and this is very awkward to discuss – his being eminently righteous and correct in all things does not manifest in an ability to defeat the very wrong and evil arguments of his opponents. It’s very weird how that works, perhaps somebody should look into it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, we speak with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany’s Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. “This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It’s all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice,” says Varoufakis.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: As the official death toll in Gaza nears 34,000, we begin today’s show looking at Germany’s intensifying crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices. On Friday, police in Berlin shut down a three-day Palestinian conference just moments after it began. In addition, Germany’s Interior Ministry banned several speakers from even entering Germany or addressing the Palestine Congress conference remotely. The Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta opened the conference, but his remarks over a live stream were cut short when Berlin police raided the conference site.

SALMAN ABU SITTA: We have never seen before these daily scenes, one massacre after another, homes demolished over the heads of the occupants, bodies pulled from under the rubble, surviving child with all his family killed. We have never seen before people deliberately denied food and water, children starved to death and killed when rushing to get food. We have never seen before all means of life systematically destroyed — hospitals, clinics, schools, universities, libraries, ancient monuments, mosques, churches, universities, cemeteries, bakeries, apartment build—

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Palestine Congress

The Palestine Congress

Thank God for the German Hate Police! Or heil … or whatever the appropriate salutation is for these unsung heroes. They just saved us all from “hate” again!

Yes, that’s right, once again, democracy-loving people here in New Normal Berlin and all across the New Normal world were right on the brink of being exposed to “hate,” and would have been exposed to “hate,” had the Hate Police not sprang into action.

You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

OK, what happened was, some pro-Palestinian activists organized a “Palestine Congress,” and attempted to discuss the situation in Gaza, and call for solidarity with the Palestinians, and so on, right here in the middle of Berlin, the epicenter of European democracy, as if they thought they had a right to do that. The German authorities were clearly intent on disabusing them of that notion.

Early Friday morning, hundreds of black-clad Hate Police descended on the congress location. Reinforcements were called in from throughout the nation. Metal barricades were erected on the sidewalks. Hate Police stood guard at the entrance. The German media warned the public that a potential “Hate-Speech” attack was now imminent. Berliners were advised to shelter in place, switch off their phones and any other audio-receptive communication devices, and wad up little pieces of toilet paper and ram them deep into their ear canals to prevent any possible exposure to the “hate.”

Sure enough, minutes into the congress, the anticipated “Hate-Speech” attack was launched! A Palestinian activist — Salman Abu Sitta — who had written an article that allegedly “expressed understanding of Hamas,” and thus had already been placed on the official German “No-Speak” list, started speaking to the congress on Zoom or whatever. Or … it isn’t quite clear whether he actually started speaking…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

German domestic intelligence chief defends his efforts to police the “thought & speech patterns” of citizens, outlines the novel offence of “systematic delegitimisation of state conduct”

German domestic intelligence chief defends his efforts to police the “thought & speech patterns” of citizens, outlines the novel offence of “systematic delegitimisation of state conduct”

Thomas Haldenwang: Verfassungsschutzchef begrüßt Demos gegen rechts

The German Interior Ministry continues to defend its controversial and widely criticised plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), our domestic intelligence service and political police, have sacrificed substantial popular regard in the face of this campaign. According to a poll published last month, a plurality of Germans believe that the BfV are being misused for political purposes. The sentiment is prominent across all parties, except of course for the Greens, who believe that all is well with the Federal Republic.

The creepy, dissolute and rodent-looking BfV chief, Thomas Haldenwang, has taken to the pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine to defend the conduct of his office and his plans to shape the “thought and speech patterns” of ordinary people through official repression.

The thing about “Freedom of expression,” Haldenwang explains, is that it “is not carte blanche for enemies of the constitution.”

Recently, public discourse has repeatedly featured headlines and articles calling the work of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV)into question. There is talk of an “opinion police,” a “language police” and even a “government security service.” They say the BfV discredits political opinions “on command” as extremist as soon as they depart from the social and political mainstream, or when they embark upon criticism of government action or the work of the democratic parties.

One thing should be unmistakably clear: Freedom of opinion prevails in Germany – and that is a good thing! Freedom of opinion is a fundamental element of our constitution and one of the greatest assets of our liberal democratic order. As such, it is also protected by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

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