Bulletin N° 945
“A Christmas Carol”
https://archive.org/details/christmascarol_librivox
by Charles Dickens
(a public domaine audio book at Internet Archives: 3:11:26)
read by Glen Hallstorm
Subject: Monopoly Capitalism and the “Banality of Evil”.
December 21, 2020
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
To return this Christmas Season to the past and to 20th-century psychoanalysis, and more specifically to child psychoanalysis in Dr. Selma Fraiberg’s book, “The Magic Years, Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood" (1959), we find instructive the epistemological errors commonly made by children when they attempt to place new facts within the framework of old theories, as they become experts of their own bodies. The universal curiosity in the realm of sex education is instructive of how the human mind works.
Somewhere around the age of three or four, when the sense of ‘I’ has achieved some degree of organization, when the child knows “who” he is, his intelligence is strained by a new set of problems. He has begun to learn that everything has a cause and he wants to know the “because” of everything. He wants to know how things are made. And the most fascinating problem of all is how he was made and where he came from.
Of all the explanations Sally had been given regarding her origins, this one was the most fantastic. How could she have been a nothing? She cannot imagine that once she had not existed, just as she cannot imagine an end to this existence. The imagination of the grown man and woman fails before this problem, too. When the poet wants to summon the idea of personal death in its most tragic and awesome sense he finds it is the idea of “not being.” ‘When I have fears that I may cease to be. . . ,’ says Keats. ‘To be or not to be. . . ,’ says Shakespeare. The extinction of one’s own personality is the essence of the horror of death. When the child acquires the full sense of himself as a person, the idea of “not being” enters his thoughts in two ways, from the side of Beginnings (‘Where was I before I was born?’) and from the side to Endings (‘What happens when you die?’). He asks numerous questions. We give him answers. He repeats his questions over and over, we observe, as if the explanations we have given him are not satisfactory. If we go into the matter with him we will find that his ideas of how he came to be are a curious blend of the facts we have given him and the theories he has arrived at on his own. The truth of the matter is that he doesn’t quite believe us!
- ‘A tiny, tiny egg. . . ,’ we tell him.
- ‘How tiny?’
- ‘Oh, so tiny you can hardly see it.’ (Maybe we make a pencil dot on a sheet of blank paper to illustrate it.)
He is skeptical. Even the stork story makes more sense than this to a four or five year old. Maybe an ant could come from such a tiny, tiny egg, but not he. He revises this fact in his own theory and you will usually find that the egg has grown to the size of a hen’s egg or an ostrich egg, which certainly makes a lot more sense than the ant egg you’ve described to him.
‘The daddy plants a seed. . . .’ At least two generations of parents have been grateful for this circumlocution introduced by books on sex education. In this way, it appears, we have introduced the agricultural fallacy into the large collection of fallacies which the child brings to sexual knowledge without any help from us. I recall a certain literal-minded fellow of six who was led into minor delinquency by the hopes engendered in him by this piece of information. He stole a package of cucumber seeds from a dime store and planted them (package and all) under a telephone pole ‘so’s me and Polly can have a baby next summer.’
Things are really not much better if the parents offer the additional piece of information that “the daddy plants a seed in the mommy.” The agricultural analogy has given rise to some surprising stories among the best-educated children on just how that seed gets planted. Children reared on the agricultural explanation have offered to me various remote-control theories on how the seed gets into the mama. One boy of six figured out that it flew into the mother, a perfectly sensible theory when you follow his thinking. He argued strongly and effectively for the air-born theory, citing pollination as the analogy in the plant world. Other children attributed the feat of planting the seed to advancements in modern medical science. The doctor is frequently cited as the mediator in this process. Obviously, such a complicated and delicate process as getting the seed out of the father and planting it in the mother demands the highest medical skill and should not be left to amateurs.
Since I am always interested in these theories of children, I ask them to explain it to me and they are usually glad to do so. Billy, who is six, is not quite sure what the doctor does, but he thinks the doctor does a little operation on the father to get the seed out and then he plants it in the mother ‘in the right place,’ ‘And where is that?’ ‘That’s the $64,000 question!’ says Billy, and bows out gracefully. Marcia’s theory is not so complicated. ‘First the doctor gets the seed out of the father.’ ‘How does he do that?’ ‘How should I know?’ Then he makes it into a kind of pill and the mother swallows it. ‘Marcia owns a father cat and a mother cat and has had three or four litters of kittens in her home. “How did Mike and Betsy get their kittens?’ ‘Oh, they mated!’ ‘You aughta know that!’ ‘And they didn’t need a doctor?’ ‘No, of course not. Cats and dogs don’t go to doctors. They just mate. But people can’t do that!’
Very well, then, the agricultural analogies have their pitfalls. What happens if you just give the human facts to children at the appropriate age, without disguising papa as the sower of seeds and mama as the good earth or an apple blossom? Well, that can be done, too. There are simple explanations that can be given the average five or six year old when he asks. But the trouble with the straight story is that it is more fantastic to the mind of the small child than his own theories. Over a period of several weeks I helped a small patient of six figure out just how this see got into the mother. When we were all through and he drew the correct conclusion he was incredulous. ‘Well,’ he said loyally, ‘maybe some parents do that but not mine!’
But is that reaction explained by the fact that my patient had a neurosis? Did someone give him a sense of shame about sexual matters? No, it turns out to be not so simple. Perfectly normal children react in the same way when they are first confronted with these facts. They may not deny it outright as my patient did, but they tend to deny it in other ways, most commonly by forgetting these facts soon after learning them.
For children, even the children of the most enlightened parents, have difficulty in grasping the idea that their parents have a sexual life. And even when they have the facts of procreation better straightened out – in the school years – they do not grasp the fact that parents may have a sexual life for any other purpose than making a baby. The idea that this act may be an act of love and of pleasure is alien to his child’s viewpoint. No matter how expertly we have presented the material, he may still look upon coitus as an aggressive act, even a painful act, having nothing in his own experience or imagination to correct this idea. Indeed the most common analogy that a child can find in his own experience for’ the penetration of a human body is the experience of “getting a shot” in the doctor’s office. Since the child cannot conceive of this act as “making love,” he looks upon it only as a means of getting a baby and does not understand that his parents may perform such an act for pleasure. Here again I am reminded of a story. The mother of a six year old was answering some of her daughter’s questions about the new baby (the third child) that was expected in two months. Katie said, ‘Mother, can some mothers and daddies try to have a baby and not get one?’ ‘That’s right,’ said mother. ‘Gee, aren’t we lucky in our family,’ Katie said. ‘Every time you and daddy tired we got a baby!’ Her mother decided not to go into the matter.
In our conscientious effort to help the child understand the process of making a baby, we have resorted to anatomical drawings, photographs of sperm and ova under high power magnification, all the graphic devices that might conceivably clarify this difficult process to the child. The educational method is valid, but we soon discovered that these illustrations create their own variety of confusion.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Billy. You remember it was he who offered the theory that the doctor does a little operation on the father to get the seed out and then plants it in the mother ‘in the right place.’ ‘But why an operation, Billy?’ “’Cause there’s not other way of getting it out,” he said sadly. ‘Why is that?’ “’Cause the seed is so big.” ‘So big? How big?’ ‘Oh, about as big as a marble.’ ‘As big as a marble? How do you know that?’ ‘I saw the picture. It was in my book.’ Now he was getting very indignant because I seemed not to agree with his theory and was apparently disputing the facts of A Book. (Children are very pious about the facts they learn from books even at this stage.) ‘Please draw me a picture of what you saw in your book, Billy.’ And Billy obliged. He drew ‘a seed’ about the size of a marble with a little tail on it and I recognized it as the drawing of a sperm under high-power magnification. But now this was equally baffling because Billy was a smart little fellow who understood the principle of magnification and knew, after I questioned him, that the sperm itself could not be seen except under the microscope and that the picture in the book was the enlargement. Well, then, how had he gotten the notion? I think because the picture of the sperm under high-power magnification had more reality to him than a sperm that was so tiny that it couldn’t be seen. He could believe in the sperm as big as a marble, but he could not believe in the invisible one.
When you’ve just come up from magic and have learned not to believe without evidence, when you have discredited witches because you never saw one, sneered at fairies because you never saw one, the process of procreation as described by the adults in the child’s world strains the child’s new-found reality sense to its utmost. Here is the sperm that can’t be seen. The egg that can’t be seen. The special opening in girls and women that can’t be seen. The mysterious process of sexual union that cannot, of course, be seen or even imagined well by the child. Se we must not be surprised that the child who ‘knows everything,’ according to his parents, understands very little of it.
If we are able to test the child’s understanding of the facts we have given him, we will find, just as we did in some of the examples used here, that the child has superimposed the new information we have given him upon his old, personal theories and the result is a curious mixture of fact and fantasy that is uniquely the child’s own. Here is Mike, for example, who at four “knew everything” according to his parents. When Mike first asked questions of his mother she read him a book (one actually more suitable for older children) and Mike listened attentively, asked to have some portions of the book reread to him occasionally and showed the same quick grasp of new material that he would have revealed after his parents read him children’s books on astronomy or the life of primitive man. When I know him he could recite the story of a baby by rote from ‘sperm meets egg’ to ‘the baby comes out of special passageway.’ But when I had occasion to ask him a few questions, I found that ‘the sperm meets the egg in the mother’s stomach’ having found its way through the mother’s mouth in some mysterious fashion, and that ‘the special passageway’ wasn’t so special after all. He wasn’t sure if it were the place where the wee-wee comes out or where the b.m. comes out, but it was one or the other! He also offered me a novel theory that I have never encountered before. ‘Did you now,’ he said solemnly, ‘that some of the mother’s eggs never get to the babies because the daddy eats them up?’ I asked him to explain this to me. ‘It says so in my book!’ he insisted. I could get nothing more from him on this subject and later consulted the book myself to see what Mike had heard and what was distorted. In his book I found this sentence: ‘Although fish lay millions of eggs, few of these will become baby fish because the father or other animals eat them up!’
In later discussions with Mike I found out that he had not actually misheard this passage, he simply attributed the fate of fish eggs to the fate of human eggs. He had not been able to account for the fact that a mother has more eggs than she has babies and this detail from this book fitted nicely into his macabre theory. To Mike the notion of a farther eating up the eggs seemed no more fantastic than some of the other things he heard about in this book. But notice something else. He had taken all the important facts of procreation, memorized them, and still came out with a theory based upon eating and elimination. His private theories, before parental enlightenment, were typical theories of a small child derived from observations on his own body functioning. How would something get into “a stomach”? By eating, of course. How would it get out? By elimination, of course. All of this makes more sense to a little boy of Mike’s age than the facts presented by the book or by his parents. But he has a proper respect for the book and for any information given him by respected authorities like his parents, so he works out a compromise in his mind which nicely accommodates his private theories and the newly learned facts.All this strikes us as a disappointing appraisal of the results of sex instruction. Does this mean that we should abandon sex instruction or return to stork and cabbage stories? We need not be discouraged. We do not give up other forms of education because the child has difficulty in grasping facts and principles. But it is necessary to understand the sexual theories of a small child in order to give sex instruction. If we fully appreciate the difficulties of little children in grasping sex information, out techniques of sex instruction will be modified accordingly. Problems of timing information, methods of presentation, can all be derived from an understanding of the child’s mental processes at a particular stage of development. (pp.195-202)
The 23 + items below include articles and essays which demonstrate the limitations of human intelligence and possibly why so often we collaborate with our oppressors, preferring absolutely anything to our own death: “No risk, no gain!”; for surely, as Dickens wrote, “we are all fellow travelers on the road to the grave . . . .”
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
___
Professeur honoraire de l'Université Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur de Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
http://www.ceimsa.org
a.
New World Next Year 2021; “On Masks and More. . .”
Dans la prison Izalco au nord-ouest de San Salvador. HANDOUT / AFP
Le président du Salvador, Nayib Bukele, a autorisé dimanche 26 avril la police et l’armée à utiliser la «force meurtrière» contre les membres de gangs afin de réprimer la violence accrue qui règne dans ce pays d’Amérique centrale en pleine pandémie de Covid-19.
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1610-new-world-next-year-2021/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report%29
with James Evans Pilato and James Corbett
(33:59)
+
Jimmy Trending Because AOC Against Fighting for Medicare For All.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiQM9YI1ZYg&feature=youtu.be
(11:38)
+
BREAKING: “AOC's Gas Lighting Gets Called Out On Twitter!”
https://youtu.be/jbZFO-pmJMo
with Jimmy Dore
(22:42)
+
AOC Schooled By NFL’s Justin Jackson On Forcing Medicare4All Vote Now!
https://youtu.be/Mh6YOApFsRo
with Jimmy Dore
(28:08)
+
“The AOC VS Jimmy Dore M4A Debate”
https://youtu.be/64A7A8QWDNc
with Krystal Ball
(13:28)
+
Support Grows For Leveraging Pelosi Vote for Medicare For All
https://youtu.be/wHcMUYSi-Vs
with Jimmy Dore
(18:38)
+
Dan Crenshaw TORCHES Pelosi in blistering House floor speech
https://youtu.be/CFYL5Ksix4A
(4:32)
+
"DEBUNKED Distraction Tactics Against Forcing Medicare 4 All Vote!"
https://youtu.be/z0iKmxGBNqQ
(20:24)
+
“Leaked Audio Of JOE BIDEN Exposes Disregard for his Base”
https://youtu.be/BCzxR-vo9nA
(24:36)
+
Economic Update: “Working Class Power”
https://youtu.be/q4AiTSXjxio
with Richard Wolff
(29:55)
+
$1 trillion wealth gain by 651 U.S. billionaires since mid-March
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56015.htm
by Americans for Tax Fairness
+
DR. CORNEL WEST Interview:
“Force The Vote!"
https://youtu.be/VHLX2kH9_7k
with Jimmy Dore
(34:34)
+
“Evictions Are Violence”: Millions Could Lose Homes Amid COVID Pandemic If Federal Moratorium Expires
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/18/pandemic_housing_evictions_moratorium
with Tara Raghuveer and Kathryn Leifheit
(14:35)
+
The Petition: “Force The Vote”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kossacks_for_Sanders/comments/kffcbh/force_the_vote_the_case_for_forcing_a_vote_on/
b.
Big Brother in Disguise: The Rise of a New, Technological World Order
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56044.htm
by John W. Whitehead
+
Project Censored's Mickey Huff on Efforts to Purge Dissent on Social Media
https://www.mintpressnews.com/project-censored-mickey-huff-efforts-purge-dissent-social-media/272875/
by Raul Diego
It Not About Right or Left, Its About Neoliberalism. Mickey Huff on Big Tech’s Efforts To Purge Dissent
+
“Important Shifts
in US Mainstream Media”
https://youtu.be/xqI1rkVsZG8
with Richard Wolff
(7:18)
+
Solutions: Physical Media
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-391-solutions-physical-media/
with James Corbett
(57:49)
==========
c.
Unemployment Skyrocketing? An Evolved Society Would Celebrate
https://www.mintpressnews.com/unemployment-skyrocketing-an-evolved-society-would-celebrate/273643/
by Lee Camp
Why do we still pretend crap jobs give our lives meaning ?
+
From: DAL38 [mailto:droitaulogement@gresille.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Subject: [Logement-infos] Revue de presse réquisition Abbaye
Revue de presse concernant la réquisition du 7 place Laurent Bonnevay:
Vidéo de Place Grenet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adFVga-DZXg&ab_channel=PlaceGre
Le Dauphiné Libéré (article + vidéo):
https://www.ledauphine.com/social/2020/12/12/isere-grenoble-une-manifestation-pour-le-droit-au-logement-se-termine-en-occupation-d-immeuble
_______________________________________________
Liste de diffusion d'informations autour de la lutte pour l'hébergement et le logement dans l'agglomération grenobloise.
Pour s'inscrire/se désinscrire/modifier son inscription :
http://listes.rezo.net/mailman/listinfo/logement-diffusion
+
From: dal38@droitaulogement.org [mailto:dal38@droitaulogement.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020 12:13 PM
Subject: [Logement-infos] Coupure d'electricité place laurent Bonnevay
Bonjour à tous-tes,
Alerte coupure, scandale : Ce matin, les services de GEG sont
intervenus pour couper l’Électricité sur l’ensemble de la place
Laurent Bonnevay à Grenoble. Aucune négociations ni discussions n'ont
pourtant été engagées.
Les occupant-tes vont devoir passer les fêtes de noël dans le noir?
Soyons nombreux-ses devant la mairie de Grenoble à 13H30 pour dénoncer
cette intervention scandaleuse en plein hiver et exiger :
Le rétablissement et le maintien des fluides,
Des relogements d'urgence pour les personnes mal-logés et à la rue
Le DAL38
06 41 30 55 18
+
Grenoble : des sans-abris demandent à rester dans un immeuble du quartier de l'Abbaye
https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/isere/grenoble/abris-demandent-rester-immeuble-du-quartier-abbaye-grenoble-1905606.html
par Daniel Despin
Ils sont là depuis six jours. Des familles avec enfants et des célibataires ont trouvé refuge dans un immeuble inhabité quartier de l'Abbaye à Grenoble. Les associations qui les soutiennent demandent à la mairie et à la Préfecture de réquisitionner les lieux pour qu'ils restent sur place.
+
From: Basta ! [mailto:dons@bastamag.net]
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2020 5:50 PM
Subject: Du côté des travailleurs plutôt que des actionnaires, refonder l’économie sur la solidarité
|
==========
d.
|
===========
e.
Palestine and Britain's Colonial Past
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56046.htm
by Akram Salhab
+
When the People Rose: How the Intifada Changed the Political Discourse around Palestine
https://www.mintpressnews.com/when-the-people-rose-how-the-intifada-changed-the-political-discourse-around-palestine/273658/
by Ramzy Baroud
Very few popular movements around the world, and throughout modern history, can be compared to the First Intifada, which remains as relevant today as it was when it began thirty-three years ago.
+
From: Ariel Gold, CODEPINK [mailto:info@codepink.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Subject: Free Palestine—and the Sahrawi people too!
Dear francis, |
+
How Israel deployed an intelligence deception to justify killing scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/02/israel-intelligence-deception-killing-mohsen-fakhrizadeh/
by Gareth Porter
Israel’s Mossad has spent years on a propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the world Iran possessed a nuclear weapons program – and legitimizing its assassinations of Iranian academics.
+
Corporate Media Shills For Assassination Of Iranian Scientist
https://www.mintpressnews.com/corporate-media-shills-for-assassination-of-iranian-scientist/273575/
by Dan Cohen
Corporate media features serial liars and pundits paid by the weapons industry to discuss the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist and Defense Minister Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Dan Cohen examines the propaganda campaign to drum up support for a war against Iran.
+
“The Plot to Attack Iran” - Myths, Oil & Revolution
https://youtu.be/k8Zb8615ib0
with Abby Martin and Dan Kovalik
(51:38)
+
Britain and France hop into bed with Israel's military
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/britain-and-france-hop-bed-israels-military
+
After Trump leaves, US and Israeli aggression against Iran remains
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/04/after-trump-leaves-us-and-israeli-aggression-against-iran-remains/
by Aaron Maté
+
From: Ariel Gold and Leila Zand, CODEPINK [mailto:info@codepink.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020
Subject: Does Chuck Schumer want war?
The anti-Iran forces are pulling out all the stops to prevent Joe Biden from re-engaging diplomatically with Iran after he takes office. Trump is using his last days in the White House to impose sanctions so severe that they are hindering Iran’s ability to cope with COVID; Israel has been carrying out illegal executions and setting off explosions inside Iran; and groups like AIPAC and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy are lobbying as hard as it can to stop the U.S. from re-entering the Iran nuclear deal.
As minority leader in the Senate (possibly majority leader after the Georgia runoff elections), Schumer should not only support the deal himself but use his influence to pressure his colleagues. Such encouragement from Schumer will likely be needed. Senators like Coons, Sinema, Manchin, and Cardin aren’t currently opposing Biden re-entering the deal, but they could easily be lobbied to flip in the wrong direction. |
+
“It is time for the one state solution
to go mainstream”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/it-time-one-state-solution-go-mainstream/31946
by Awad Abdelfattah and Jeff Halper
+
A Gaza midwife tells her stories
https://electronicintifada.net/content/video-gaza-midwife-tells-her-stories/31221
with Houriya Muslih, an iconic figure in Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip
(4:41)
+
The Military-Industrial Complex, Israeli-Style. New Docuseries Touts Virtues of "Iron Dome"
https://www.mintpressnews.com/military-industrial-complex-israel-style-new-docuseries-touts-virtues-iron-dome/272895/
by Katryne Shihadah
+
Predictive Programming? Israeli Publishers Have Been Writing About a COVID-Like Pandemic for Years
https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-keter-publishing-predictive-programming-covid-19/273208/
by Raul Diego
The general public’s willing acceptance of the draconian restrictions placed on mobility and freedom of assembly due to the coronavirus was “predicted” in fictional novels and other artistic creations over the last few decades. Is it a matter of life imitating art or something more sinister?
===========
f.
Vaccines: Did Big Pharma Purchase California’s Legislative Machinery?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-big-pharma-purchase-california-legislative-machinery/5732482
by Dr. Meryl Nass, December 17 2020
While everyone is familiar with Big Pharma’s lobby and campaign contributions to politicians in Washington, few understood that Pharma gave more than twice as much money to politicians and party committees at the state level as they gave at the federal level.
+
“Bats, Gene Editing and Bioweapons”: Recent DARPA Experiments Raise Concerns Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/03/reports/bats-gene-editing-and-bioweapons-recent-darpa-experiments-raise-concerns-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/
by Whitney Webb
DARPA recently spent millions on research involving bats and coronaviruses, as well as gene editing “bioweapons” prior to the recent coronavirus outbreak. Now, “strategic allies” of the agency have been chosen to develop a genetic material-based vaccine to halt the potential epidemic.
+
News from Underground
From: nfu@simplelists.com [mailto:nfu@simplelists.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: [MCM] More good news not reported: Asymptomatic COVID cases NOT infectious, finds (huge) post-lockdown study in Wuhan (published in NATURE)
Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7679396/
Shiyi Cao 1, Yong Gan 1, Chao Wang 1, Max Bachmann 2, Shanbo Wei 3, Jie Gong 4, Yuchai Huang 1, Tiantian Wang 1, Liqing Li 5, Kai Lu 6, Heng Jiang 7 8, Yanhong Gong 1, Hongbin Xu 1, Xin Shen 1, Qingfeng Tian 9, Chuanzhu Lv 10, Fujian Song 11, Xiaoxv Yin 12, Zuxun Lu 13
Free PMC article
Abstract
Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270-0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423-0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.
+
COVID’s Covert Reengineering of Humanity. “Genetically Modified” Vaccines?
(Untested GMO Vaccination in ‘Human Laboratory’ Trial)
https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-covert-reengineering-humanity/5732288
by Julian Rose
+
“Unhealthy Americans". Best Healthcare For the Rich. Highest Child Poverty Among Developed Nations
https://www.globalresearch.ca/unhealthy-americans-best-healthcare-for-the-rich-highest-child-poverty-among-developed-nations/5732561
by Stephen Lendman
+
From: PCCC Elections Team [mailto:info@BoldProgressives.org]
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2020
Subject: US poverty rate soars under COVID. McConnell doesn’t care.
The Washington Post reports: “The U.S. poverty rate has surged over the past five months, with 7.8 million Americans falling into poverty, the latest indication of how deeply many are struggling after government aid dwindled.”
While Democrats want to give families $1,200 COVID-relief checks and help small businesses, Mitch McConnell has blocked relief for months, going to the mat to give you hardly anything while giving your employer the legal right to kill you.
The best way to help struggling Americans as soon as possible is for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to win their runoff elections in Georgia, flip the U.S. Senate blue, and boot McConnell from power.
The New York Times reports, "The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has already raised $386,000 for the two Democratic candidates." That is now over $500,000!"
===========
g.
Jack Dorsey, the CIA and Twitter Censorship in the Age of Covid-19
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/12/investigative-reports/jack-dorsey-the-cia-and-twitter-censorship-in-the-age-of-covid-19/
by Vanessa Beeley
DARPA recently spent millions on research involving bats and coronaviruses, as well as gene editing “bioweapons” prior to the recent coronavirus outbreak. Now, “strategic allies” of the agency have been chosen to develop a genetic material-based vaccine to halt the potential epidemic.
+
OPCW executives praised whistleblower and criticized Syria cover-up, leaks reveal
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/07/opcw-executives-whistleblower-syria-leaks/
by Aaron Maté
+
Congress Again Proves that the Business of Washington is War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56043.htm
by Ron Paul
+
From: World BEYOND War [mailto:info@worldbeyondwar.org]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: End war on Yemen, Prevent war on Iran
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Scary ‘R’ Us: The Exaggerated Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction
https://www.globalresearch.ca/exaggerated-threat-weapons-mass-destruction/5732572
by Rod Driver
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h.
Recording Proves Assange Warned State Department Ahead of Cable Dump
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/12/16/recording-proves-assange-warned-state-department-ahead-of-cable-dump/
by David DeCamp
(audio, 1:14:16)
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Pardon Julian Assange, under Article II, Section 2 of US Constitution
https://www.globalresearch.ca/pardon-julian-assange-under-article-ii-section-2-of-us-constitution/5732430
by Stephen Lendman
+
Rafael Correa on Venezuela, Assange, and "preventing the total destruction of our homeland"
https://youtu.be/j6L0l-e8fjY
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Julian Assange Has Formally Requested a Pardon from President Donald Trump
https://www.globalresearch.ca/julian-assange-formally-requested-pardon-president-donald-trump/5732593
by Cassandra Fairbanks
+
From: Team Assange Defense info@assangedefense.org [mailto:team@AssangeDefense.org]
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2020 :26 PM
Subject: Write to Julian
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i.
From: ACLU [mailto:aclu@aclu.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Subject: 100 Years of Racism in Policing
Watch today and learn how to take action.
Francis – |
===========
j.
Meet the Filthy Rich War Hawks That Make up the Joe Biden Foreign Policy Team
https://www.mintpressnews.com/filthy-rich-war-hawks-make-joe-biden-foreign-policy-team/273039/
by Alan MacLeod
“I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of “limited engagement,” – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic
+
“Biden's Scary Foreign Policy Picks: A Blast From War Crimes Past”
https://youtu.be/c6wfnB1UMAc
with Abby Martin
(10:08)
+
“What to Expect from Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary”
https://youtu.be/jVgKt3TSGnE
with Richard Wolff
(9:18)
+
John Kerry’s Think Tank Calls for War With Russia Over Climate Change
https://www.mintpressnews.com/john-kerry-think-tank-calls-for-war-with-russia-over-climate-change/273480/
by Alan MacLeod
“America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is.” — John Kerry
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When Deplorables Become Ungovernables
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56047.htm
by Pepe Escobar
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k.
Keiser Report:
“The Central Bank Nappy”
https://youtu.be/-65UEDvjT74
with Max Kaiser
(25:48)
+
“Quantitative Easing”
Is the Biggest Sham Ever
https://youtu.be/rDtVABEzcy4
with John Titus
(26:21)
In this video, the official version of QE is taken apart at the joint. And while we need a few more minutes alone with the champ than did America’s indoor grilling pioneer back in 1973, the outcome is the same: down goes Frazier. The difference of course is that while Joe Frazier was a courageous competitor who took all comers, the Federal Reserve and its cronies… well, what kind of “competitors” need a continent-sized cheat like QE to prop themselves up when they’ve already misappropriated their country’s constitutional money-printing power?
+
Banks aren't ready for another crisis
https://youtu.be/OT_fw1kFcOo
by Richard Wolff
(2:11)
===========
l.
How BlackRock exploited the COVID-19 pandemic
https://youtu.be/96sAffLWy_8
with Ellen Brown
(7:24)
+
Giants: Who Really Rules The World?
https://youtu.be/ZUGh1Su7-ok
with Abby Martin and Peter Phillips, former director of Project Censored
(22:21)
+
BlackRock - The company that owns the world?
https://youtu.be/A4foal20UTA
graphics by Alexia Barakou
(2:03)
===========
m.
New Labour, Old Racism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56038.htm
by JS Titus
+
Jeremy Corbyn: “Why I’m Launching a Project for Peace and Justice”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56039.htm
an interview with Jeremy Corbyn By David Broder
===========
n.
The Most Lethal Virus
Is Not COVID. It Is War.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/most-lethal-virus-not-covid-war/5732310
by John Pilger
===========
o.
Amid Fears of Overwhelmed Medical Systems, Ample U.S. Hospital Capacity Nationwide
https://www.globalresearch.ca/amid-fears-overwhelmed-medical-systems-data-shows-ample-hospital-capacity-nationwide/5732315
by Daniel Payne
===========
p.
“Is Capitalism
Devouring Democracy?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGeevtdp1WQ
with Yanis Varoufakis
(1:48:07)
===========
q.
Watch today and learn how to take action.
Los Angeles, 1992. Detroit, 1967. Harlem, 1935. Chicago, 1919. In this series of four short films, I'll take you on a critical journey across the last century of commissions convened to examine why police brutality sparks unrest – from Rodney King to the Harlem Riots. And by looking deeper into this history, we will better understand why it's not just reform, but a full re-allocation of resources that will be necessary for us to end police violence and injustice in our communities. So please, start today: Watch "100 Years of Racism in Policing" and learn how we can all begin to push for real change in this country now. Thanks for watching, |
===========
r.
The Controversial Covid RT-PCR Test: What Do We Know? - Global Research
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-controversial-covid-rt-pcr-test-what-do-we-know/5732560
by Mark Taliano
+
COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Santé Évolution de l'épidémie de Covid-19 dans le monde : la vérité des chiffres
Envolée incontrôlée en Suisse et en Allemagne, l'Argentine rattrapée par le Covid, la Suède très meurtrie, une épidémie hors de contrôle aux Etats-Unis... Le point sur la dynamique de l'épidémie à travers le monde.
Par J. C. - 15:15 | mis à jour à 15:41 - Temps de lecture : 5 min
| | Vu 14281 fois
La pandémie a bientôt tué 1,7 million de personnes à travers le monde... et vaccin ou non, elle est loin d'être terminée. Photo d'illustration AFP
Lors de la première vague du "nouveau coronavirus", la quasi totalité des pays du monde avaient strictement confiné, avec des résultats proches: après trois semaines, la mortalité commençait à redescendre, rapidement.
Rares exceptions notables, les Etats-Unis, le Brésil et la Suède, qui n'avaient pas confiné. Et l'épidémie y avait tué beaucoup plus que chez leurs voisins respectifs. La Suède déplorait alors dix fois plus de morts par million d'habitants que ses voisins, le Brésil nettement plus que le reste de l'Amérique du Sud, les Etats-Unis que son voisin canadien, par exemple.
Europe et continent américain très meurtris
Pour la seconde vague, rien n'est si simple. D'abord parce que les pays avancent plutôt en ordre dispersé: certains ont reconfiné, d'autres pas, d'autres encore ont tenté des solutions intermédiaires.
A ce jour, la carte du monde du taux de mortalité du covid-19 montre que l'essentiel de l'Europe et du continent américain restent les plus touchés.
A Flourish map
La plupart des pays de ces deux continents affichent entre 500 et 1000 morts par million d'habitants.
Les pays plus "jeunes" largement épargnés
Le continent africain, où la population est en moyenne beaucoup plus jeune, subit une mortalité faible, la maladie affectant surtout les plus âgés dans sa forme grave. Le Maghreb, plus "vieux" en moyenne, est d'ailleurs un peu plus touché, tout comme l'Afrique du Sud.
En Asie, l'épidémie reste sous contrôle, sauf en Inde et autour du golfe persique. Là encore, le faible âge moyen des populations de nombreux pays permet d'éviter une forte surmortalité.
Au-delà du seul taux moyen de mortalité par million d'habitants, il faut regarder l'évolution de l'épidémie pour y déceler sa gravité.
Europe : des évolutions similaires au printemps
Les graphiques suivants montrent, pour trois ensembles de pays, le nombre de morts du covid par million d'habitants sur la durée, depuis février.
A Flourish chart
Sur ce premier graphique, on voit que ces huit pays ont connu une première vague à peu près simultanée. On se souvient que l'Italie avait été touchée peu avant la France, puis l'Allemagne. Le sud de l'Europe avait globalement affiché une mortalité plus élevée, ainsi que le Royaume-Uni, qui avait tardé à confiner.
Allemagne et Suisse très meurtris à l'automne
L'Allemagne, justement, s'était comme la Suisse distinguée par une bien meilleure gestion, enregistrant beaucoup moins de morts que ses voisins.
Excès d'optimisme? La situation est très différente cet automne: l'Allemagne a déjà enregistré nettement plus de décès que lors de la première vague: près de 15000 contre moins de 10000. Cela ne place pas encore le pays parmi les plus touchés, loin de là. Mais la dynamique est mauvaise, et Angela Merkel a confiné l'Allemagne pour trois semaines.
En Suisse, c'est pire: la deuxième vague a déjà fait presque trois fois plus de morts que la première (6500 au total, dont 1800 au printemps), et la courbe monte toujours en flèche.
De "hauts plateaux" de mortalité
A contrario, Royaume-Uni, Espagne, Italie, France et Belgique "contrôlent" une deuxième vague - néanmoins presque aussi meurtrière que la première. Et loin d'être terminée.
En France, la mortalité reste, depuis une dizaine de jours, autour de 300 à 400 décès quotidiens, ce qui est beaucoup. Mais elle n'augmente plus. Après avoir enregistré 30245 morts entre mars et juillet, elle dépasse aujourd'hui les 60000 décès.
A Flourish chart
En Suisse, par exemple (huit fois moins peuplée), le plateau est très haut, autour de 90-100 morts par jour, voire plus ces derniers jours, comme on le voit sur ce graphique. Soit en proportion de la population, le double des chiffres français...
A Flourish chart
Ces "hauts plateaux" de mortalité, en baisse par rapport au pic mais à un niveau toujours élevé, se retrouvent aussi en Espagne, en Italie ou encore au Royaume-Uni. L'approche des fêtes de fin d'année fait craindre le pire dans ces pays, au cœur de l'hiver.
La stratégie suédoise toujours perdante
Plus au nord, en Scandinavie, cet autre graphique montre quatre pays dont une exception: la Suède, qui affiche une mortalité comparable à celle enregistrée en Europe du Sud.
A Flourish chart
L'absence de confinement en Suède, comparable en tous points avec ses voisins, semble s'être payé cash. Au point que le roi a reconnu jeudi - contrairement au gouvernement - une dramatique erreur dans la gestion de la crise sanitaire.
La Suède a même fini par recommander le port du masque ce vendredi. Une première dans le royaume, face à l'inexorable explosion de l'épidémie.
Et pour la deuxième vague, même causes, mêmes effets: Finlande, Norvège et Danemark parviennent à contenir les contaminations et la mortalité, quand la Suède voit s'envoler le nombre de décès. Pour le moment, encore, dans des proportions inférieures à celles du printemps.
Économiquement, la Suède a (un peu) mieux résisté que ses voisins. Mais au prix de milliers de morts prématurées...
Amériques : des courbes qui montent en flèche
Sur le continent américain, enfin, trois pays aux destinées différentes: deux assez proches, Etats-Unis et Brésil, qui se sont distingués au niveau mondial par leur refus de tout confinement généralisé, voire par un certain scepticisme, assumé, vis-à-vis de la pandémie.
A Flourish chart
Chez ces deux géants, on distingue surtout une seule vague, quasiment sans répit, et qui continue sa course. Même si le niveau actuel de mortalité les place un peu au-dessus des niveaux européens, on voit surtout que la courbe ne fléchit pas, bien au contraire: les Etats-Unis, notamment, battent jour après jour un nouveau record de mortalité - plus de 3000 par jour actuellement. Soit plus d'un "World Trade Center" (2977 morts le 11 septembre 2001)... chaque jour.
L'arrivée à la Maison Blanche de Joe Biden et le déploiement du vaccin vont-ils ralentir la maladie? Réponse dans les prochaines semaines.
L'épidémie finalement hors de contrôle en Argentine
Même scénario au Brésil, où le président Bolsonaro, sceptique parmi les sceptique, a annoncé qu'il se ferait vacciner. En attendant, le deuxième pays le plus meurtri au monde affiche toujours une mortalité galopante.
Quant à l'Argentine... longtemps "bon élève" de l'Amérique du Sud, elle n'a quasiment pas connu la première vague au printemps: elle a pourtant confiné dès le 20 mars et jusqu'au... 29 novembre.
Oui mais voilà: ce confinement de sept mois a surtout concerné une seule région - celle de la capitale Buenos Aires -, les autres déconfinant et reconfinant au fil de l'été. Or c'est en juillet-août, à la faveur de températures plus basses dans l'hémisphère sud, que l'épidémie s'est finalement envolée, sans se calmer depuis.
Reste le Paraguay et l'Uruguay qui, depuis le début, sont restés particulièrement à l'abri. Il faut dire que ces deux Etats voisins immédiats du Brésil ont immédiatement confiné, avant même la France, quand l'épidémie n'y était qu'embryonnaire. Et en particulier du côté de la frontière avec le Brésil...
On y décèle toutefois une forte hausse des contaminations et des décès depuis quelques semaines. Loin, encore, de la situation de leurs voisins sud-américains.
Newsletter de la région
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Votre adresse e-mail
Tests rapides antigéniques : comment ça marche ?
+
From: Dave Ratcliffe [mailto:dave@ratical.org]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: The Covid Vaccine and Medical Informed Consent
Dear All,
Covid-19 vaccines are beginning to be administered in the U.S. as well as other countries. With something as unprecedented and potentially mandatory as this medical intervention, our responsibility to ourselves and loved ones to inform our decisions with a wide range of critical analysis and information is of supreme importance and value.
The following excerpt is from:
Medical Informed Consent, Nuremberg, and the Covid Vaccine
https://journal.ratical.earth/2020/12/16/medical-informed-consent-nuremberg-and-the-covid-vaccine/
Medical informed consent—“the primary paradigm for protecting the legal rights of patients and guiding the ethical practice of medicine”—is meaningless if an individual does not have the option of “determin[ing] what shall be done with his body” and declining a given medical intervention.
—An Untenable Status Quo—Conflicts of Interest Must Go, Children’s Heath Defense, 8 Aug 2019
The Covid Vaccine—officially involving the combined efforts of HHS and the military through Operation Warp Speed to deliver over 300 million doses to people in the U.S. by January—raises profound concerns including medical informed and voluntary consent.
The possibility this vaccine may likely become mandatory by state and federal law makes understanding this situation critical to every person. A summary of issues with sources has been compiled by Millions Against Medical Mandates and is available at The Covid Vaccine and Medical Informed Consent.
Peter Doshi, associate editor of the British Medical Journal published an analysis on 21 October concerning Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us:
As phase III trials of covid-19 vaccines reach their target enrollments, officials have been trying to project calm. The US coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci and the Food and Drug Administration leadership have offered public assurances that established procedures will be followed.1,2,3,4 Only a “safe and effective” vaccine will be approved, they say, and nine vaccine manufacturers issued a rare joint statement pledging not to prematurely seek regulatory review.5
But what will it mean exactly when a vaccine is declared “effective”? To the public this seems fairly obvious. “The primary goal of a covid-19 vaccine is to keep people from getting very sick and dying,” a National Public Radio broadcast said bluntly.6
Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said, “Ideally, you want an antiviral vaccine to do two things . . . first, reduce the likelihood you will get severely ill and go to the hospital, and two, prevent infection and therefore interrupt disease transmission.”7
Yet the current phase III trials are not actually set up to prove either (table 1). None of the trials currently under way are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.
… the truth is that the science remains far from clear cut, even for influenza vaccines that have been used for decades. Although randomised trials have shown an effect in reducing the risk of symptomatic influenza, such trials have never been conducted in elderly people living in the community to see whether they save lives.
A foundation of democratic law is based on the tenet that people are free to choose what medical interventions to submit to. Forced vaccination in order to continue exercising such liberties as freedom of association and freedom of movement will subjugate people in the United States to the status of people in Germany in the 1930s and people in Stalin’s Soviet Russia.
--
Dave Ratcliffe
editor and publisher
rat haus reality press
https://ratical.org/rhrPress.html
Roslindale, MA 02131
h: 617-323-2363
c: 617-869-6198
Pandemic Parallax View
https://ratical.org/PandemicParallaxView/
Collapsologie Immersion
https://ratical.org/Collapsologie
Assistant Director
Museum of Hidden History
https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/MoHH
Archivist, Board member
Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
https://ratical.org/radiation/CNR/
==========
s.
From: The Kairos Center [mailto:info@kairoscenter.org]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: Scarcity is a lie
|
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Vaccine Passports and Health Passes: Is Showing Your “Papers” the “New Normal?”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/vaccine-passports-health-passes-showing-papers-new-normal/5732494
by Robert Wheeler
“Public discussion” has centered around the idea of a “vaccine passport” or “immunity passport” or the general blockade and sanctioning of anyone not willing to take the jab.
+
Misinformation turning care staff away from Covid vaccine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYjrbVIxlY&feature=youtu.be
with nursing home clinical lead Simon Walls
(2:52)
===========
t.
Archives | Socialist Register
https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/issue/archive?fbclid=IwAR3GxYFsdiU1yTI7Qys7dzK30desOKaYVPBzCsGMvs10u82J8_2iu-eP3UU
by the late Leo Panitch, co-editor of the journal 'Socialist Register,' from 1985 onwards
===========
u.
News from Underground
From: nfu@simplelists.com [mailto:nfu@simplelists.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Biggest protest in the history of humanity—250 million Indian farmers & workers!—ignored by "our free press"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NxgkkY2G8s&feature=emb_title
http://www.industriall-union.org/over-250-million-workers-join-national-strike-in-india
MCM
+
News from Underground
From: nfu@simplelists.com [mailto:nfu@simplelists.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Huge protest in Paris on 12/12
As we all badly need good news right now, I take this moment, though NFU is on hiatus, to provide some.
Those French protests—exploding weekly—have (of course) gone unreported by "our free press."
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1369212480095504&id=100010202945467
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v.
Toute ressemblance avec des événements déjà arrivés ne serait que pure coïncidence....
Prison d'Izalco au Salvador le 25 avril 2020
Photos transmises par le service de presse de la présidence salvadorienne
Bonjour, la distanciation sociale !
Le contexte :
Le président du Salvador, Nayib Bukele, a autorisé dimanche 26 avril la police et l’armée à utiliser la «force meurtrière» contre les membres de gangs afin de réprimer la violence accrue qui règne dans ce pays d’Amérique centrale en pleine pandémie de Covid-19
(…)
Quelque 12.862 membres de gangs sont incarcérés au Salvador, selon les autorités pénitentiaires.
(...)
Le Salvador a imposé certaines des mesures les plus strictes des Amériques pour lutter contre la propagation du coronavirus.
Extraits de l'article :
Le Salvador autorise le recours à la «force meurtrière» contre les gangs
https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/le-salvador-autorise-le-recours-a-la-force-meurtriere-contre-les-gangs-20200427
par Le Figaro avec Reuters
Publié le 27/04/2020 à 15:08, Mis à jour le 27/04/2020 à 15:56
9 Photos from the police action in San Salvador, April 2020 :
Ce sont peut-être des salopards
Mais personne n'a le droit de traiter
un homme comme ça !
Ni hier !
Ni aujourd'hui !
Ni demain !
+
This is how far cops will go to stop you from recording them
https://youtu.be/dWhWgerA8Vo
with Taya Graham
(19:13)
+
News from Underground
From: nfu@simplelists.com [mailto:nfu@simplelists.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Mexico's president slams lockdowns as a form of "dictatorship"
Obrador, a tough survivor of election theft, is a leftist who bears no resemblance to "the left" now clamoring for lockdowns, and the rest of the totalitarian program now darkening the world.
For some reason Summit News (or someone) won't allow me to copy the headline, which is in my subject line. The piece, by Paul Joseph Watson, came out on 12/16.
Mexico’s President Slams Lockdowns as a Form of “Dictatorship”
https://summit.news/2020/12/16/mexicos-president-slams-lockdowns-as-a-form-of-dictatorship/
by Joseph Watsonon
===========
|
w.
From: Global Research Newsletter [mailto:newsletter@globalresearch.ca]
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2020
Subject: This Week's Most Popular Articles On GlobalResearch.ca