The “brain-drain” that is occurring by wholesale importing migrants from regions of low HDI, or human development indexes, (in the Middle East and Africa) to regions of high human development indexes (in Europe) will likely spell disaster for maintaining the integrity and composition of the archetypal Western nation state.
A nation state, its qualities and identity, whether good or bad, is simply a direct result of the collection of individuals that compose it.
Because of this, the development of the individuals that make up the state is crucial in defining the quality of the collective state as a whole, and a crucial factor that should be heeded.
Different groups of individuals take on various group characteristics, genetic and environmental, so when dealing with migrants from different demographic groups, we must consider this as a factor.
Questions that need to be asked: are these individuals morally sound? Are they intellectually adept? What are their general qualities and flaws? What is the provenance of a demographic, how compatible is a group of people with the values, systems, politics, and culture of another group?
Social demographics and its impact on a nation state.
Is the homogeneity of the essence of a state at every level of its definition upheld when a given group is introduced into the demographic equation?
What biology and inherent predispositions underpins the differential between populations, how much can environmental factors be attributed to these differences or similarities?
At the root of what I’m trying to say is that our excessive liberal attitudes and open-doored pathological altruism needs to be re-thought and addressed accordingly.
If we go by the evidence, a brain-drain will occur that will affect the West negatively.
Science proves this brain-drain trend to be grounded in empirical, demographic reality; as the more educated, genetically adept native Europeans’ birth rate is declining and migrant birth rate increasing, a large brain-drain will occur within a few decades as the two populations intersperse, with one rapidly replacing the other in its prominence — the devastating affects of this brain-drain has yet to be felt this early on in the process, but it will come in the end.
If seeing the rampant spike in migrant-caused crime hadn’t already convinced you that there is a demographic problem brewing — the strong, empirical correlation between national average IQ and national success will:
As you can see, the Western nations tend to be placed in higher levels of national success.The migrant crisis is importing chaos into an equation of order.The correlation, and very likely causation, is indisputable – and needs to be considered with regards to the engineered European migrant crisis.
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
— John Swinton, preeminent New York journalist, at a press banquet, 1880.
Journalism is, for the most part, a dead, bastardized profession — no longer is it about holding power to account and keeping the public duly informed.
The line between journalism — traditionally, the dispassionate reporting of facts — and outright partisanship, whether knowingly or not, seems blurrier than ever.
As it has been for over a century since the dawn of Yellow Journalism — Journalists are answerable to a preset story selection process, funneled into news material that staunchly avoids controversy, instead exalting vague, generalized, and often trivial topics as “newsworthy”, over ones that could be “defamatory” or be deemed “too risky” to report on.
Today, Journalists espouse prepackaged, fence-sitting, irresolute propaganda that shuns the devil hiding in the details — with production mostly marketed towards the lowest common denominator; opting for simplified language, generalized explanations, and an inability to come to conclusions and actually analyze and inform rather than simply describe and commentate.
Journalism is branded as a “risky business” to deter maverick Journalism.
A high-stakes, red tape laden “minefield” mentality is hammered into every Journalist hopeful in an attempt to extinguish the curious spark that fuels the real investigative and analytical Journalism that we all need more of.
They would rather you play it safe and not “lose your job by getting it wrong”.
The result is tame media content that is vague, tiptoes, and is fearful of causing grief or insult, this is a known form of information suppression.
Today’s Journalism is a Journalism of mouthpieces, built on the ugly clutches of fear and dependency, today’s Journalism is intellectual prostitution.
The best Journalism has always come from dissidents, this is because the very basis of Journalism is dissent itself. The stranglehold of ‘professionalism’ has made journalists oblivious to the compromises with authority they are constantly making.
It has also ensured that many readers remain oblivious to the same compromises.
“The New York Times is the house organ of the Establishment. It is committed, both editorially and in its presentation of the news, to the interests of an Establishment: continuity, security and legitimacy. Therefore they generally support business and finance, the American version of empire, the government and the president, until, and unless, some excess is so egregious that it poses a threat to continuity, security or legitimacy.”
— Larry Beinhart, American author.
And just like ‘terrorism’, it turns out that ‘advocacy journalism’ is a sin committed only by opponents of established power, as the income dependency blind spot of mainstream Journalists taints the media pool for everyone:
This is especially so with the recent ‘fake news’ outcry slanting solely alternative “conspiracy” media outlets, while hypocritically ignoring the overwhelming globalist advocacy of the mainstream press.
“The major Western news outlets now conflate the discrete difficulties from made-up ‘fake news’ and baseless ‘conspiracy theories’ with responsible dissenting analysis,” he wrote. “All get thrown into the same pot and subjected to disdain and ridicule.”
— Robert Parry, American investigative journalist.
Mainstream Journalism education produces willing and committed establishment mouthpieces that don’t know the Emperor has no clothes.
The backgrounds of journalists who repeatedly and suspiciously repeat talking-points usually reveals a similar and extensive “resume” of mainstream indoctrination, it’s a common observable pattern, not to mention media outlets hiring left-leaning individuals over right-leaning ones; those with the liberal suitability that makes them easier to adopt, and get behind the agenda of the outlet.
Principles held by mainstream Journalists are often features of indoctrinated enslavement that have become too doctrinally familiarized to eschew.
Western media is directly and indirectly promoting Western imperialism.
Like the sons of chiefs in Britannia, foreign journalists serving Western media branches, i.e. Al Jazeera, probably have honestly convinced themselves that these features of control and manipulation are instead the “novelties of civilization.”
International Journalism acts as cultural imperialism for Western corporate interests.
Today, a “softer” version of imperialism is disseminated under the guise of journalism and academia.
This kind of imperialism was present in the elite-owned British Empire, when education and missionary programs were created to replace independent and unique local perspectives and culture with the uniform perspective and culture of Britain, serving British aspirations of global hegemony.
It sought to transform indigenous communities into imperial archetypes of civility and modernity by re-modelling the individual, the community, and the state through western, Christian philosophies that encouraged uniformity to the Empire and smoothed the aggravations of cultural and ideological acclimatization.
“We have few princes and earls today, but we surely have their modern-day equivalents in the very wealthy who seek to manage the news, make unsavoury facts disappear and elect representatives who are in service to their own economic and social agenda… The “free press” is no longer a check on power. It has instead become part of the power apparatus itself. And this is dangerous.”
— Dan Rather, American Journalist.
Today’s globalization takes these “soft” imperialist social engineering strategies to a new and unprecedented level, to push a cultural-Marxist deconstruction of foreign and domestic systems and entities that threaten globalism:
Today we have a large variety of truths: truths for feminists, truths for blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, homosexuals, trans-gendered, truths for the foreign policy community that serves the military/security complex, truths for the neocons, truths for the One Percent that control the economy and the economists who serve them, truths for “white supremacists,” itself a truth term for their opponents. You can add to the list. The “truth” in these “truths” is that they are self-serving of the group that expresses them. Their actual relation to truth is of no consequence to those espousing the “truths.”
Weaponized academia: A Journalist’s mainstream education focuses on these toxic tenets:
Be risk averse, play it safe, do what you are told: The profession of Journalism is risky, you should always have somebody’s reputation and the legal ramifications of any given story in the forefront of your mind (rather than advocacy of the truth); it is far easier to report on less controversial stories, and we encourage you to do so by providing you with safe, easy stories. Be very scared of the government being instrumental in locking up journalists for the crime of exposing the establishment, but hopefully you will be too loyal to the establishment to figure out that it is worth exposing.
Become an ideologue: Conspiracy and alternative media is “fake news”, and should be shunned and rallied against without question, do otherwise and you are a dunce that isn’t worthy of being a Journalist. Accept other traditionally held mainstream media ideas such as the Russia bogeyman scare.
Be unquestioningly loyal to us: You should unquestionably trust our establishment-owned Associated Press and other mainstream outlets as the best sources, we encourage you to work for them and use them as reference points in your research because they are “unbiased”.
Cultural indoctrination: Hatred of the West and its “privileged”, colonial native population must be at the forefront of your Journalistic philosophy and ethical advocacy, else you are an immoral Journalist.
Get used to doing it our way: Your stories and original content will be screened before its publication by a left-leaning, agenda-driven editor who will likely reject anything they and their masters disapprove of, so just save yourself the effort and produce propaganda for us otherwise you will not make it in this field. Accept the limits and compromises of corporate media that will inhibit you as a Journalist and become another “Repeater” Journalist.
Normalization of media tyranny: Everything we have taught you is how the industry has always been and always will be, it’s automatically the “best formula” because you’ve been taught by “professionals” who “know everything” about the industry — so yield, accept our compartmentalization and take up the standard of sell-out doctrinaire.
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion describes the elite’s intentions for weaponized education:
“We must introduce into their education all those principles which have so brilliantly broken up their order.”
We shall turn them into “unthinking submissive brutes waiting for things to be presented before their eyes in order to form an idea of them…”
“We shall erase from the memory of men all facts of previous centuries which are undesirable to us…”
“Do not suppose for a moment that these statements are empty words: think carefully of the successes we arranged for Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzsche-ism…. it should be plain to see what a disintegrating importance these directives have had upon the minds of the goyim. ” (Protocol 2)
Let me remind you of a passage from a 1930’s Communist manual on brainwashing. “In the United States, we have been able to alter the works of William James, and others, …and to place the tenets of Karl Marx, Pavlov, Lamarck, and the data of Dialectic Materialism into the textbooks of psychology, to such a degree that anyone thoroughly studying psychology becomes at once a candidate to accept the reasonableness of Communism.”
We can look at the Reuters fellowship program and see news organisations like Thompson Reuters, the BBC, The Economist and The Guardian are held up as “examples” of journalism.
This is despite their active manipulation of information toward particular political objectives rather than accurately informing the public.
In particular, these news services played crucial roles in promoting wars like the US-UK led invasion of Iraq in 2003, intentionally obfuscating critical information the public and policymakers required to make an honest assessment of the decision to go to war.
The BBC in particular has been embroiled in impropriety ranging from deceptive news coverage to paid-for documentaries and even criminal conduct committed by individuals, and covered up institutionally.
What isn’t taught in mainstream Journalistic education is corporate partisanship and the dangerously ever-centralizing state of major media organisations:
The elites are buying out the competition at an alarming rate, you may see many faces of the media, but behind it all there are only a few owners.
“The American media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government. The function of the “mainstream media” is to sell products and to brainwash the audience for the government and interest groups.”
— Paul Craig Roberts, American economist, journalist, blogger, and former civil servant.
On February 18 the leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,declared that Iran “is trying to establish this continuous empire surrounding the Middle East from the south in Yemen but also trying to create a land bridge from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. This is a very dangerous development for our region.” Netanyahu’s presentation was dismissed by the Iranian foreign minister as “a cartoonish circus,” but it was nonetheless a reflection of the policy of the United States, which is Israel’s mentor and unconditional ally.
Last November Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested to President Vladimir Putin that Tehran and Moscow should cooperate more fully to try to dissuade the US from further disruptive dabbling throughout the Middle East. His opinion was that “Our cooperation can isolate America. The failure of US-backed terrorists in Syria cannot be denied but Americans continue their plots,” which is certainly the case, because although the so-called “moderate rebels” who were recruited to overthrow President Assad, with massive amounts of assistance from the Pentagon and the CIA, collapsed in ignominious failure, the US fandangos continue. Washington is not going to give up, and the Trump administration seems to relish being isolated by almost everyone.
During his time in the White House, President Obama tried to get US-Iran relations on an even keel, and managed to temporarily overcome the Washington warmongers to some extent and push forward the tension-reducing, trade-improving, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) concerning Iran’s nuclear programme, which the BBC described as “the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency.” It was settled two years ago by China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US in a most welcome example of international solidarity and downright common sense, and removed sanctions on Iran in exchange for Teheran’s agreement to limit its nuclear research and development.
Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign affairs representative wrote last year that the arrangement was achieving its main purpose of “ensuring the purely peaceful, civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog – has issued four reports on the matter and has regularly verified that Iran is complying with its nuclear-related obligations. This means that the Iranian nuclear programme has been significantly reformatted and downsized and is now subject to intense monitoring by the IAEA. The joint commission – which I coordinate – oversees constantly the implementation of the agreement, meeting regularly, which allows us to detect even minor possible deviations and to take necessary corrective measures if the need arises.
The deal is also working for Iran. Major companies are investing in the country: the oil sector, the automotive industry, commercial aircraft, just to give a few examples, are areas where significant contracts have been concluded.”
The JCPOA was indeed a marked diplomatic success on the part of Obama as well as being a victory for pragmatic common sense. So naturally the egregious Donald Trump has been trying to destroy it. On February 3 Trump enforced and it’s been downhill all the way since then. The sanctions that had been imposed and then withdrawn had been aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear programme and the EU quite rightly wanted to confine them to nuclear-related agencies — the individuals and organisations directly associated with nuclear matters — but the United States, even in the Obama-guided era, wouldn’t confine itself to the main aspect of the agreement. It introduced sanctions of its own, intended to make it difficult for other nations to trade with Iran, which is consistent with its longtime spiteful attitude to Tehran’s government.
The United States is determined to destroy Iran. For almost forty years, since the overthrow of the corrupt CIA-backed monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Washington has been on the warpath against the mullahs in Tehran. There wasn’t much to choose, comfort-wise between the Shah and his successor, the intensely religious Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but morally there was a chasm.
The Shah was deeply unpopular and in the late 1970s there were mass demonstrations against him and the country dissolved into chaos. He had to go, and the only possible replacement was the Ayatollah who was living in exile in France, having escaped from the persecution of the Shah’s dreaded secret police, the Savak, in the 1960s. Two weeks after the Shah fled from Iran, the Ayatollah returned to Iran on 1 February 1979 in triumph and to a level of acclaim not shared by all its citizens.
During the Shah’s dictatorship Iran was a good place to live for many people. There was no freedom of speech, but there was a lot of freedom to make money, especially in the US. There was sixty per cent illiteracy, but women were allowed to wear what clothes they wished and to move freely in society — except in the countryside, of course, where they were kept in their place as second-class citizens exactly as they are in present-day Muslim states such as US allies Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
What really vexes the extremists in Washington is the memory of humiliation when the US embassy in Tehran was attacked by mobs of students in November 1979, only ten months after Khomeini took over. There is little doubt that the attackers were students, but there is equally little doubt that they had the Ayatollah’s blessing (as it were) to storm the embassy and take the staff hostage. They demanded the return of the Shah to stand trial in Tehran — a ridiculous condition for cessation of their demented antics — but 52 US citizens were held hostage in Iran from November 1979 to January 1981, which was not just an awkwardness for Washington: it was an ineradicable embarrassment, an international degradation of colossal proportions that could never be forgiven.
It was convenient to forget the hideous savagery of the Shah’s regime when, for example,
“American-trained counterinsurgency troops of the Iranian Army and Savak [the Iranian CIA] killed more than 6,000 people on June 5, 1963.”
The Ayatollah had taken over and was forever to be condemned for his audacity. His successors in the political sphere could never right the wrongs that had been done to the global image of the United States. As put by Martin Ennals, secretary general of Amnesty International,
“The Shah of Iran retains his benevolent image despite the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.”
In 2002 the appalling President George W Bush, the man who took his country into its disastrous wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, conjured up the phrase the axis of evil, and put the world on notice that America would overcome any country that opposed it. His speech was dramatic and he declared that “North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens” which was true. And still is true, after 15 years in which the US has managed to do exactly nothing to discourage North Korea from arming itself against invasion. Then he said that “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade” and a few months later he invaded Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, which of course didn’t exist.
Then Bush announced that “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom” which was formal warning to Iran that it was definitely on the target list, because “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”
Since the era of the Bush wars, the world has certainly known no peace. Washington’s Military Industrial Complex has flourished while its soldiers died for nothing but profit.
The present US campaign against Iran is aimed at destroying the country economically and thus encouraging a violent revolution. And many western observers consider there’s a lot to be said for rising up against the ayatollahs, because they’re a bumptious arrogant unforgiving bunch of bigots who repress women and democracy. So why doesn’t the US have the same thoughts about Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, whose unelected princely rulers repress women and do not tolerate democracy? What a horde of humbugs.
Iran is fighting for its life and the Trump administration is following George W Bush in his determination to destroy it. In January Trump tweeted that “The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their “pockets.” The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!”
Washington is intent on destroying Iran, and the contents of that tweet could hardly be better reason for supporting Tehran in its struggle against the growing menace from the Trump-supported military-industrial complex. The world is watching.
*
Brian Cloughley is a British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan.
The US is considering the option of military action against Syria. The alleged use of chemical weapons (CW) by the Syrian government, which is not backed by any solid evidence, is to serve as the pretext. Syrian President Assad is going to be “punished.” On March 6, US President Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu discussed the threat posed by Iran’s presence in Syria and ways to counter it.
Chemical weapons? But why should Syria’s President Assad use them if he has had no trouble winning with conventional weapons wherever he goes? Couldn’t the rebels be using CW? Instances of that have been uncovered and confirmed. But no, US officials don’t even bother to give a passing thought to such “unimportant and irrelevant” considerations. They know better who to blame and who deserves to be made to pay for the wrongdoings they believe have taken place. In April, 2017, the US delivered a missile strike against a Syrian military facility, in flagrant violation of international law.
It’s worth noting that a group of US senators visited Israel in late February. According to them, a conflict between Israel and the pro-Iranian forces in southern Lebanon was imminent and that fighting would likely encompass Syria as well. Israel has been increasing its support of proxy groups in Syria recently.
Senator Lindsey Graham believes that Tehran is “testing” the US and Israel and that the administration is not doing enough to push back against Iran in Syria and throughout the Middle East.
On Feb. 28, just three days before Israeli PM Netanyahu arrived in the US on March 4, Fox News offered its audience an exclusive report on a military base being built by Iran in Syria. It claimed this information was evidence that Tehran was preparing for a permanent presence in the country. The story was presented as a real scoop and the timing was carefully chosen. The report plays into the hands of both the administration and as well as those in Congress who are calling for a more resolute stand on Syria.
Israel enjoys almost unlimited US backing, which forces America to become involved directly or indirectly in the hostilities. Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would order airstrikes against Syria if the use of CW were confirmed.
Israel is a privileged ally but it’s not only Israeli security that drives American policy. And it’s not so much Syria but Iran the US has in its crosshairs. If America allows Iran a land bridge linking it to the Mediterranean via Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, this will frustrate its main Middle East allies – the Persian Gulf monarchies. Lebanon will leave the sphere of Western influence. The tensions between Sunni Arab states and Iran boost US arms sales to rich Middle Eastern countries, which is hugely profitable. Thus a belligerent stand toward Tehran allows America to preserve its political clout in a region where its policy has been such a disaster in recent years.
It will be too hard to reach any agreement on the recently discovered offshore gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean, which are a bone of contention between Israel and Lebanon. And the gas exports from these fields could diminish or eliminate the need to import Russian gas to Southern Europe, which would kill the prospects for the Turkish Stream project. Without Iran, Lebanon could be pressured into an agreement on terms dictated by Israel and America’s European allies.
With access to the Mediterranean, Iran could build naval bases that would threaten the NATO naval forces there. The ability to ship exports by sea would boost Iran’s income, making the country richer and more powerful.
Attacking Syrian forces to force a retreat will reduce Moscow’s influence and hamper the diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Syria that have been so successful recently. So-called “rebel groups,” so recently and spectacularly defeated, will reemerge as a force to be reckoned with. From Washington’s perspective, a divided Syria with vast swaths under the control of pro-US and Israel-backed groups is better than a united country in which the West can take part in the peace talks but not as a party that controls territory or exerts significant influence on the balance of power.
Inventing a reason to use force against Syria is a way to fight Iran and roll Russia back. This is a very dangerous policy. As a result, Syria will become a battlefield where powerful actors clash in their pursuit of strategic goals. That will be much worse than fighting jihadists. This scenario can be avoided through diplomatic efforts headed by Russia with the input of all. That’s what Moscow is talking about but the US does not listen. There were times when the US ignored Moscow’s concerns about Russia’s security. On March 2, Russian President Putin unveiled information about the new super weapons Russia alone possesses in the world today. In this same manner Washington may find that participating in Moscow-sponsored peace initiatives is a much better way to settle the Syrian conflict than instigating tensions as it is now doing, but it may already be too late.
Why do we rely on GDP as a measurement of economic growth, when it continues to go up while communities continue to deteriorate?
“At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it Gross Domestic Product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.” — Paul Hawken, 2009 Commencement Address to the University of Portland
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the traditional method of measuring economic growth. It has consistently risen over the years, supposedly demonstrating healthy expansion, but an increase in output does not necessarily mean a more vibrant community. GDP fails to account for the distribution of wealth across communities or the impact of production on the environment. It includes weapons, war and complex financial instruments – none of which create real value to society. GDP is an inadequate indicator at best, and if it keeps going up the consequences will be disastrous.
US Real GDP (billions of 2000 dollars). Source: Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, “Graphing Various Historical Economic Series” MeasuringWorth.Com, January 2008.
Profitability as the sole bottom-line also can create huge detrimental impact. Businesses focus almost exclusively on profitability (which is especially true for corporations who are required by law to attempt to yield higher returns for their shareholders) which often results in damaging social and environmental practices. For instance, hiring cheap labor in another country becomes a much more attractive alternative than employing someone who costs more and lives down the street because it saves the business money.
The money leaving the community can end up undermining local schools, business, infrastructure, food production, and home values while also undermining the communities in other countries who earn inadequate wages from off shore corporations.
The impacts of production on the environment are also often unaccounted for. A cheap sofa, for example, may appear to be the best option available to the consumer but the price fails to reflect the pollution emitted in the transportation process, the use of finite resources that were not revitalized by the company, and the long-term health effects on the producers, consumers, and the environment from the flame retardants sprayed on the sofa.
There are better alternatives. Check them out below.
Opportunity for new inclusive indicators that give humanity more accurate feedback, to ward off statistical manipulations, and grant the clearest, most accurate picture of the economic climate possible.
In order to have a healthy, thriving civilization it requires feedback that accurately assesses the state of communities, countries, regions and the world at large. GDP certainly doesn’t do that, but a number of new measurement systems do, and they seem to be improving all the time. The Genuine Progress Indicator and Quality of Life Indicators are two compelling models to learn from – you can explore them below. More and more businesses are adopting triple bottom line practices, accounting for ecological and social performance in addition to economic performance.
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
The organization, Redefining Progress, has come up with an alternative to GDP, called the “Genuine Progress Indicator” that “takes inequality, environmental degradation, and debt into account as well as the benefits associated with housework, parenting, volunteering, and higher education.” [1] It periodically publishes this information, giving us a more accurate reflection of how we’re really doing. Redefining Progress also has guidelines and programs for creating community and regional indicators. Alberta, Canada has created a comprehensive indicator system for its own region, measuring up to 51 different factors including income distribution, crime rates, resource depletion, pollution, and much more.
Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators
The Quality of Life Indicators “are a contribution to the worldwide effort to develop comprehensive statistics of national well-being that go beyond traditional macroeconomic indicators. A systems approach is used to illustrate the dynamic state of our social, economic and environmental quality of life. The dimensions of life examined include: education, employment, energy, environment, health, human rights, income, infrastructure, national security, public safety, re-creation and shelter.” [2] This approach provides a much more comprehensive and accurate view of society which allows us to make more informed choices and adjust as needed.
What can you do?
Apply triple bottom line principles to your business and encourage those with whom you do business to do the same. Triple bottom line businesses account for the people, planet, and profit. To learn more about it, click here.
The US State Department has issued a fresh ultimatum on the Iran nuclear deal to Washington’s ostensible major allies in Europe, demanding that Germany, Britain and France commit themselves to altering the agreement along the lines demanded by President Donald Trump or face its unilateral abrogation by the US.
A secret State Department cable obtained by Reuters presents what are essentially the same demands made by Trump last January. At that time, he announced that he was prepared to relaunch all-out US economic warfare against Iran unless the European powers joined Washington in imposing a rewritten nuclear accord on Tehran, including provisions that the Iranian government cannot and will not accept.
The occasion for Trump’s threat was his reluctant announcement on January 12 that he had decided to waive the re-imposition of US sanctions that were lifted as part of the nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He vowed that this would be the last time he issued such a waiver, unless his conditions were met. The next deadline for waiving the sanctions is May 12.
The message from the State Department to the European powers asks for their “commitment that we should work together to seek a supplemental or follow-on agreement that addresses Iran’s development or testing long-range missiles, ensures strong IAEA inspections, and fixes the flaws of the ‘sunset clause.’”
Washington has demanded that Iran grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors immediate and unlimited access to any site in the country, including military bases; the elimination of “sunset clauses” in the JCPOA, making time-limited restrictions on aspects of Iran’s civil nuclear program permanent; and drastically limiting, if not outlawing, Iran’s ballistic missile program.
While presented by Reuters and other media as a softening of the position outlined by Trump in January, the cable makes it clear that the US is continuing to present its nominal allies in Europe with an ultimatum.
“In the absence of a clear commitment from your side to address these issues, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. If at any time the President judges that such commitment is not within reach, the President indicated he would end US participation in the deal.”
The cable’s “talking points” for US diplomats to advance Washington’s agenda in Europe stress “the Trump administration’s strategy to counter the Iranian regime’s reckless aggression,” which “addresses the full range of Iranian threats, of which Iran’s nuclear program is only one element.”
The clear implication is that Washington is embarked on a trajectory of war with Iran, either with or without the collaboration of its NATO allies in Berlin, London and Paris. Should they join with the US in ripping up the nuclear accord, it will set them on a collision course not only with Iran, but also with Russia and China, the two other signatories to the JCPOA.
The US has spelled out its own intentions in the Trump administration’s recent National Security Strategy, lumping Iran together with North Korea under the category of “rogue states” that represent a threat to US “national interests” and are to be confronted and defeated.
None of the European powers responded directly to the US cable, which the State Department itself refused to discuss. Asked about the US demands in an online media briefing, the French Foreign Ministry declared:
“The French position on the Iran nuclear deal is known. As the President of the Republic [Emmanuel Macron] has said, we reaffirm our full attachment to the global action plan and its strict implementation.” It added that Paris would “continue to talk about the Iran nuclear program with our European and American partners.”
The European powers are pursuing their own imperialist interests in the Middle East and are increasingly at odds with US interests and strategies. The lifting of sanctions against Iran was greeted by European corporations as an opportunity to generate a fresh stream of profits through billions of dollars in new investments and trade deals. Many of these plans remain unfulfilled because of concerns that the US will target companies with unilateral sanctions, and that their investments could go up in smoke in the event of a new and catastrophic US war in the Middle East.
While hostile to Iran’s growing influence in the region, the European powers are increasingly alarmed at the prospect that Washington’s strategy of forging a regional anti-Iranian alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia, together with the other Sunni Gulf oil sheikdoms, will produce a military confrontation that could cut off oil supplies upon which Europe depends and unleash a political and refugee crisis that will spill onto the continent.
Washington has issued its latest ultimatum in the midst of an explosive escalation of regional tensions, driven in the main by US and Israeli aggression. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spelled out Tel Aviv’s aggressive stance against Iran in a bellicose speech to the Munich Security Conference on Sunday. Holding up what he claimed was a piece of an Iranian drone shot down over Israeli-occupied Syrian territory in the Golan Heights, he denounced Iran as “the greatest threat to the world,” equating it with Nazi Germany.
“We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves, and we will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself,” said Netanyahu, in a clear threat to attack Iran, an action that his government would undertake only with US backing.
Israel responded to the alleged overflight of the drone, which Tehran insists was launched by independent Syrian militia elements in Syria, by targeting Iranian personnel in Syria with air strikes. Syrian air defense units succeeded in shooting down an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, the first such loss for the Israeli Air Force since the early 1980s.
Speaking in response to Netanyahu at the Munich conference, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, attributed the frenzied tone of Netanyahu’s speech to the downing of the warplane.
“The so-called invincibility of [Israel] has crumbled,” he said.
The US military and intelligence apparatus and its loyal stenographers in the US corporate media are churning out continuous war propaganda against Iran.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, US national security advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster declared it was necessary to “act against Iran,” which he accused of arming a “network of proxies” that is “becoming more and more capable as Iran seeds more and more…destructive weapons into these networks.”
The New York Times published a lengthy piece Monday based on interviews with Israeli military officers and government officials along with representatives of US, Israeli and Saudi-funded think tanks alleging that Iran is “creating an infrastructure [in Syria] to threaten Israel.” Needless to say, the article made no mention of Israel’s own funding and aid for Sunni Islamist militias attacking the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The same issue of the Times carried an opinion piece by US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley claiming, falsely, that a report issued by the United Nations proved that Iran has shipped missiles to the Houthi rebels in Yemen to fire at Saudi Arabia. The actual report found that “remnants” of the missiles were of Iranian origin, while providing no evidence as to how they got there.
Haley insists that the world must “act before a missile hits a school or a hospital and leads to a dangerous military escalation that provokes a Saudi military response.”
The column echoes the “big lie” methods pioneered by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. That Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemeni schools, hospitals, neighborhoods and infrastructure for nearly three years, killing some 13,000 Yemeni civilians and plunging the country’s population into the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, goes unmentioned.
Haley is also silent on the fact that the US has provided the vast majority of the bombs and missiles dropped on the Yemeni people, while mounting logistical and refueling operations that make the mass slaughter possible.
What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya living under his rule may disagree, but we want you to decide.
Muammar Gaddafi was certainly not killed for ‘humanitarian reasons’, as the western public have been led to believe.
Gaddafi talks about Reagan’s foreign policy being controlled by ‘hostile sources’.
Gaddafi’s autocratic populist leadership was hugely popular.
Muammar Gaddafi spearheaded an autocratic political, social, and economic revolution; transforming a desolate, third-world, poverty-stricken Libya into one of the most promising booming economies of Africa.
Gaddafi was not only the leader of Libya, he had ambitions to free Africa from the nefarious fangs of the west. Despite being called a dictator and despot by the west – they do that to anyone who doesn’t submit to Washington’s rules – he was very much liked by Libyans, by his people. He had a more than 80% approval rate by the Libyan people.
The Libyans never knew the meaning of poverty under Gaddafi.
For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans.
His enduring legacy proves that in the hands of a true ‘for-the-people’ populist, politics can work to make everyone prosperous and happy. It is a supreme model of government that we all must aspire to, and a model that is called ‘impossible’ by the tyrants in the shadows of Western governments.
Gaddafi set an example to counter globalism.
Unfortunately, Gaddafi was unpopular with international bankers because of this exceptional model for independent, nationalist prosperity. His planned gold-backed currency, the dinar, being the focal point of this. Gaddafi’s currency might have devastated the US dollar hegemony, as well as Europe’s control over the African economy. Gaddafi fought neo-colonization and the soft imperialism that still plagues the third world. Africa remains poor because powerful people behind western governments want to keep it that way.
Like Iran’s 2007 Tehran Oil Bourse to trade oil in any non-dollar currency, and Saddam Hussein’s promise to sell oil in euros, Gaddafi met the same fate of brutal suppression for his de-dollarization economic policies.
Gaddafi was struck down by the monopolistic globalist bullies.
He was demonized with a slew of fabrications and propaganda, a kangaroo court ruling permitted Western sanctions and military intervention, and a false Libyan ‘people’s revolution’ was funded. Gaddafi was finally captured and assassinated in October 2011 as a result.
When Gaddafi moved to harm the US petrodollar, the economic imperialists moved to kill Gaddafi.
Anybody, to this day, who threatens the dollar hegemony will have to die. That means anybody other than China and Russia (who have the influence to defend themselves), because they have already a few years ago largely detached their economy from the dollar, by implementing hydrocarbons as well as other international contracts in gold or the respective local currencies. That alone has already helped reducing dollar holdings in international reserve coffers from almost 90% some 20 years ago to a rate fluctuating between 50% and 60% today.
The Washington / CIA induced “Arab Spring” was to turn the entire Middle East into one huge chaos zone – which today of course, it is. And there are no plans to secure it and to return it to normalcy, to what it was before. To the contrary, chaos allows to divide and conquer – to ‘Balkanize’, as is the plan for Syria and Iraq.
One of the Washington led western goals of this chaos of constant conflict is to eventually install a system of private central banks in the Middle Eastern / North African countries controlled by Washington – privately owned central banks, à la Federal Reserve (FED), where the neocons, the Rothschilds and freemasonry would call the shots. That is expected to help stabilize the US dollar hegemony, as the hydrocarbons produced in this region generate trillions of dollars in trading per year.
Here’s some big factors that point to why Gaddafi was unpopular with the Globalist ‘hidden hand’ established powers-that-be:
Gaddafi wanted to detach his oil sales from the dollar, i.e. no longer trading hydrocarbons in US dollars, as was the US / OPEC imposed rule since the early 1970s.
Gaddafi wanted to introduce, or had already started introducing into Africa a wireless telephone system that would do away with the US / European monopolies, with the Alcatels and AT and T’s of this world, which dominate and usurp the African market without scruples.
Gaddafi promoted a successful independent autocratic political model. It was a viable way for a resource-rich nation to gain massive prosperity outside of the dollar, and was an example that threatened the globalist’s imperial ambitions.
Gaddafi’s plan for Africa meant a new banking system for Africa, away from the now western (mainly France and UK) central banks dominated African currencies. It could have meant the collapse of the US dollar – or at least an enormous blow to this fake dollar based monetary system.
Gaddafi banished all Western influences from Libya, he disallowed Western corporate influences from gaining a financial foothold in the nation.
Gaddafi’s progressive social policies eliminated radical ideologies. His modernization efforts would have brought Africa out of the dark ages, and into the global arena as the next superpower. This would not have benefited the Globalist imperialist agenda that actively exploits a weak, divided, and illiterate Africa. Western interventions have produced nothing but colossal failures in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. Lest we forget, prior to western military involvement in these three nations, they were the most modern and secular states in the Middle East and North Africa with the highest regional women’s rights and standards of living.
Deception: Western media demonized Gaddafi to gain public support for their military ‘intervention’.
Gaddafi’s policies were against the leading banking family’s best interests, he threatened to popularize an independent, anti-globalist, and anti-usury model of government, and get Africa off its knees.
“If Gaddafi had intent to try to re-price his oil or whatever else the country was selling on the global market and accepts something else as a currency or maybe launches a gold dinar currency. Any move such as that would certainly not be welcomed by the power elite today, who are responsible for controlling the world’s central banks,” says Anthony Wile, founder and chief editor of the Daily Bell.
Post-intervention Libya lies in smoldering ruins, and is festering with Islamic extremism and economic stagnation.
Ever since Gaddafi’s downfall, Libya has fallen back into destitution. Western-backed and trained ISIS and other warring Jihadist factions keep the region divided and ripe for economic exploitation. Today, Libya is a burning, hollow wasteland, a shadow of its former self.
1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right
In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.
2. Education and medical treatment were all free
Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.
3. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project
The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great manmade river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.
4. It was free to start a farming business
If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.
5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies
When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.
6. Electricity was free
Electricity was free in Libya meaning absolutely no electric bills!
7. Cheap petrol
During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.
8. Gaddafi raised the level of education
Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.
9. Libya had It’s own state bank
Libya had its own State bank, which provided loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.
10. The gold dinar
Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Following in the foot steps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa”. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.
The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society and who could blame them. African nations would have finally had the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation and charge whatever they felt suitable for precious resources. It has been said that the gold Dinar was the real reason for the NATO led rebellion, in a bid to oust the outspoken leader.
Early this morning, Catalonia’s President Carles Puigdemont stated that unless Spain makes a commitment to engage in further dialogue on de-escalating ongoing tensions stemming from the Catalan independence referendum from the 1st of October, he will enact a full and immediately effective declaration of independence.
“If the government continues to impede dialogue and continues with the repression, the Catalan parliament could proceed, if it is considered opportune, to vote on a formal declaration of independence”.
This comes as Spain issued an ultimatum, stating that Catalonia must clarify its position on independence by Thursday morning with a ‘yes or no’ answer. Last week, Carles Puigdemont and the Catalan parliament passed a declaration of independence, but delayed its ascension, making it effectively, a declaration of intent.
The next day, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish leader, stated that Spain will not engage in any dialogue regarding the independence issue. Spain later threatened to invoke the infamous Article 155 of the Spanish constitution and abolish Catalonia’s autonomous status.
While Carles Puigdemont’s has reaffirmed that for the moment, Catalonia’s independence declaration is still suspended, Spain has already made moves to being the process in sipping Catalonia of autonomy. This could have the effect of Puigdemont enacting measures to achieve independence in the near future.
Unless a literally last minute compromise can be reached, the crisis may deepen within the coming hours.
The Duran has published several pieces both in support of and opposition to Catalan independence.
A scientific study carried out by Natural News’ Mike Adams gives evidence for two shooters.
The ‘bombshell’ study takes into account gunshot audio taken from clips recorded at the scene.
Mr Adams claims that the ‘time lag’ between the last bullet hitting the pavement and the last audible report of the rifle muzzle can be used to accurately calculate the range of the shooter (relative to the position of the person recording the video).
The study reveals two shooters operating at the same time. Shooter #1 is operating at 425 – 475 yards, the distance of the Mandalay Bay hotel. Shooter #2 is operating at approximately 250 – 270 yards away.
Adams suggests the rooftop of the AMPM convenience store is a likely position for a second shooter. The northwest building of Oasis apartments and an elevated dirt mound also made the shortlist.
He made calls for authorities to search for the brass expended by firearms if they had not already done so, and to look for any evidence of gunfire in the 250-yard hot spot.
“The FBI could easily triangulate and pinpoint the second shooter” he stated,
“They have the resources to do it, so why are they not doing it?”
When President Trump won the election, there was hope that he would be able to finally help the US government make peace with the Russians, and stave off the possibility of another world war. He has undoubtedly made some progress in that regard, by ending the CIA’s program to arm the rebels in Syria. And it’s safe to assume that if Hillary had won the election, that there would be absolutely no chance for our nations could reconcile with each other.
The deep state controls Trump and his confidantes, against their will.
Overall however, the Trump administration hasn’t made much progress with the Russians. With every step taken towards peace we’ve fallen two steps back, as our government’s relationship with Russia continues to crumble. The deterioration of this relationship reached a new low recently when congress approved legislation that issues new sanctions against Russia, and prevents Trump from easing those sanctions. Trump signed the bill anyway, knowing that it passed with so many votes that if he had vetoed it, Congress could have immediately overridden his decision.
“The U.S. President’s signing of the package of new sanctions against Russia will have a few consequences,” Medvedev, Vladimir Putin’s onetime successor in the Kremlin wrote on his Facebook page in Russian and English. “First, it ends hopes for improving our relations with the new U.S. administration. Second, it is a declaration of a full-fledged economic war on Russia.”
But that’s not all Medvedev had to say on the matter. He added that the approval of the new sanctions essentially amounted to a kind of deep state coup.
“The Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way,” Medvedev wrote, lauding the “U.S. establishment” for having “fully outwitted” the White House. Both U.S. chambers passed the bill to take the power of lifting sanctions on Russia from Trump, with an overwhelming majority.
“The issue of new sanctions came about, primarily, as another way to knock Trump down a peg,” the Russian prime minister wrote. “New steps are to come, and they will ultimately aim to remove him from power.”
That makes Medvedev the latest in a long line of high profile individuals, to warn that there is plot within Washington to have Trump removed from office. As time goes on, it’s becoming harder to doubt the possibility that there are forces in our government who not only want to overthrow the Trump administration, but they want to derail any efforts to find peace with the Russian government.
The Spearhead Journal 