Multipolar World, One Belt One Road

‘The country that bombed you is your friend. The one that built your new railway is your enemy’

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This is the Western media’s bizarre messaging to the people of Laos, a nation that was carpet bombed by America, and which is now being vilified for accepting a new $9 billion railway line paid for by China.

Thursday was National Day in Laos, a celebration marking 46 years since the landlocked Southeast Asian nation deposed its monarchy and became a revolutionary communist state, an effort which was supported by Vietnam.

This year, the anniversary had added significance, as it saw the opening of a major new project, an electrified high-speed and freight railway system connecting the capital city, Vientiane with its northern neighbour, China. 

The $9 billion project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and has been hailed as one of its flagship achievements. It is the first commercial and industrial railway in Laos, which, given its geography and the fact it is surrounded by mountainous terrain, has not previously had many options to expand its exports and generate economic growth.

Now, though, it has a direct rapid link into the world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest consumer market by population, and a connection to the booming ports of Guangdong. In terms of what it will bring to Laos, it is a game changer. So, what’s not to like about it?

To nobody’s surprise, the mainstream media have responded to the railway with the usual anti-China negativity. A plethora of articles sought to paint the project as a ‘debt trap’, promoting the accusation that Beijing loans countries money for projects they cannot afford and then exerts political leverage over it. 

The Financial Times, for one, ran with a cynical article headlined ‘Laos to open Chinese-built railway amid fears of Beijing’s influence’. It implied that somehow Laos feels threatened or fears the construction of this very pioneering railway project (which the country’s own leader made sure he was the first to travel on). This suggestion of ‘fears of Chinese influence’ has become a common feature on such stories, which seek to cast doubt over anything positive China may be achieving or doing. 

A common Twitter meme among pro-China users which has followed from stories like this asks: “but at what cost?” highlighting the frequency of such negative coverage.

And if you Google “China, but at what cost?” you can find a great many examples of articles published in major outlets. In producing such pieces, the broader intention is to depict Beijing’s actions as unwanted, threatening and constantly facing opposition. In the case of the Laos railway project, the ‘problem’ is it was financed by debt, and therefore it is not a positive step.

Yet this argument is as insulting as it is outright insensitive to Laos’ contemporary history. Anyone who knows anything about Laos’ relatively recent past will be well aware that China is not the country to fear, but the United States – the nation that dropped over 260 million cluster bombs on Laos and completely devastated the country as an extension of the Vietnam War, making it the most single bombed nation in history and claiming over 50,000 lives. 

Many of these bombs remain unexploded and litter the countryside of Laos, continuing to kill civilians. In constructing the new railway, workers first had to clear the unexploded ordnance. How is it that the world and the mainstream media remain indifferent to this atrocity? And how, by any stretch of the imagination, can they claim that China is the true threat to Laos, and that the US and its allies act in the true interests of the country?

Herein lies the problem. Such a mindset symbolizes the elitism, chauvinism and self-righteousness of the countries of the West, which are ideologically inclined to believe that they stand for the ‘true interests’ of the ordinary people in the countries they profess to liberate. 

Western politics peddles the assumption that through countries’ adherence to liberal democracy, they exclusively hold a single, universal, impartial and moralistic truth, derived from the ontological legacy of Christianity, and they have an obligation to introduce it to others. The West always acts truthfully and in good faith, while its enemies do not. And therefore, so the logic goes, any policy the US or its allies direct towards Laos is motivated by sincere intent and goodwill for its interests, and in turn, anything that China does is bad-faith, expansionist and power-hungry behaviour motivated by a desire to influence or control the country. 

This creates the bizarre scenario whereby Beijing is depicted as evil and sinister for building a railway to connect to its neighbour – but we should forget America dropping millions of bombs on the country because it was done in the name of ‘freedom’. I’m sure you can imagine how the media would react if China did the latter.

Those who push this narrative predictably omit any insight into how Laos itself thinks about the situation. Another piece which took a similar stance, published in The Diplomat, was titled ‘Laos-China Railway inaugurated amid mounting debt concerns’. 

But like the ‘fears of Beijing influence’ expressed in the FT, who are these ‘concerns’ from? The report cites the “Washington-based Center for Global Development” and what it merely describes as a “US based analyst” as sources who push the ‘debt trap’ narrative. But nowhere in any of these articles is there an actual voice direct from Laos who raises any fear of China, or objects to the railway’s existence. 

Instead, they simply talk on the country’s behalf, obscuring the reality that a communist state which suffered from extreme levels of aggression from the US probably does not see its northern neighbour – and its most important economic partner – as a threat to its regime. With many more articles running variations of the same theme, there is minimal effort given to the consideration that the railway will help the country rapidly expand its exports, sustain greater growth and help Laos pay for the project. 

The Laos-China railway has provided a textbook example of how the media can distort a story in order to fortify an incriminating narrative, while brushing aside brutal realities. We are shown a lopsided world, where the travesty of a country being bombed into oblivion with consequences lasting decades is ignored, and the preference is to try to convince us how that same country’s first commercial railway line is, in fact, what it should really be scared of. 

It is a demonstration of how the power of the English-language, pro-US media distorts reality itself and how they can blow up an issue, yet hide the truth, by professing to care dearly about the well-being and interests of a country which the West poured death, destruction and carnage upon in the name of freedom.

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

Geopolitics, Nazism & Zionism

Latest Resolution Illustrates UNGA’s Complicity With Israel’s Colonial Expansion

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Yet another non-binding UN General Assembly has passed, granting Palestinians permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, even as Israel has absolute dominion over their territory.

Continue reading Latest Resolution Illustrates UNGA’s Complicity With Israel’s Colonial Expansion →
Corporatocracy / Fascism, Technocracy

Klaus’ Great Narrative: Locking the Plebs Into Plato’s Cave for the 21st Century

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Unfortunately for the Davos Guardians, the reality of the New Great Narrative is a world devoid of those very principles that humanity requires to survive and thrive within our creative, reasonable universe.

Continue reading Klaus’ Great Narrative: Locking the Plebs Into Plato’s Cave for the 21st Century →
Geopolitics, Latin America

Venezuela Recovering from Sanctions in New Post-Petro Economic Plan

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“I think our oil industry is going to grow and be maybe even more important than it was before, because now we know how to do many things by ourselves that we thought that we couldn’t. And the sanctions helped us in that sense.” — Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan Minister of Basic Industries

Continue reading Venezuela Recovering from Sanctions in New Post-Petro Economic Plan →
Enlightenment

‘I wish my tribal ancestors had not helped the Pilgrims survive their first year’

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It’s unlikely the Pilgrims would have survived without the help of the Wampanoag in 1621. Now one ancestor of the Indigenous tribe tells RT of her regret at the assistance given, and of the problems her people continue to face.

Continue reading ‘I wish my tribal ancestors had not helped the Pilgrims survive their first year’ →
Propaganda / Misinformation

How Bill Gates Bankrolls The Guardian that Claims Not Backed by Billionaires

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It likes to tap its readers for donations by claiming it’s funded by them, not the mega-wealthy. But, in reality, billionaires have forked out millions to support the UK’s premier right-on, left-of-centre newspaper.

Continue reading How Bill Gates Bankrolls The Guardian that Claims Not Backed by Billionaires →
Geopolitics

Revolutionary Front Seizes Haiti’s Largest Fuel Terminal as US Weighs Military Intervention

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Jimmy Cherizier and the FRG9 have taken control of Haiti’s most important shipping terminal, demanding the resignation and trial of Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry. While the Biden administration is reluctant to intervene, the Beltway establishment is ramping up the pressure.

Continue reading Revolutionary Front Seizes Haiti’s Largest Fuel Terminal as US Weighs Military Intervention →
Banking & Finance, Corporatocracy / Fascism

UN-Backed Banker Alliance Announces “Green” Plan to Transform the Global Financial System

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The most powerful private financial interests in the world, under the cover of COP26, have developed a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing with institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.

Continue reading UN-Backed Banker Alliance Announces “Green” Plan to Transform the Global Financial System →
Geopolitics, New World Disorder

EU Weaponizes Belarus Border, Blaming Minsk and Moscow

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Brussels is shirking its legal obligations in order to avoid internal tensions with populist opposition to capitalist corporate-controlled Europe.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made a stark accusation against Belarus and Russia, claiming they are weaponizing the migration problem on the border with Poland. This is a cowardly move to divert blame. It is also recklessly escalating confrontation.

Speaking to media after a White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, the top European Union official said the task at hand was about “protecting our democracies” from “cynical hybrid warfare”. She explicitly accused Belarus of weaponizing migration and destabilizing the EU.

Von der Leyen did not mention Russia by name but her comments implied Moscow was colluding with its neighbor and ally to create geopolitical tensions by facilitating an influx of migrants into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. She also cited unproven previous allegations of election interference and cyberattacks attributed to Russia as precedents for the current “hybrid warfare” with migration.

Other EU leaders have been more openly provocative. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki this week claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “masterminding” a plot in cahoots with Belarus to flood the EU with migrants. This is a rehash of an old claim dating back to 2015 when more than one million refugees entered the EU. That mass movement was claimed then to be “hybrid warfare” orchestrated by Putin to wreak havoc in the bloc.

Such a claim is based on irrational Russophobia that does not stand up with facts, then or now.

Most of the refugees stranded at the Belarus borders with Poland and the Baltic states are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This was the same as in 2015. The common denominator is that these three source countries have been subjected to war and aggression by the United States and its European NATO allies over two decades. That is the root of the phenomenal migration to Europe. One can also factor in the NATO destruction of Libya in 2011 as another gateway for mass migration.

The EU is weaponizing the issue by distorting the cause: alleging that it is Russia and Belarus creating the human tide when in fact it has been illegal imperialist wars and regime-change operations conducted by the United States and the Europeans.

It is Poland and EU members that are deploying thousands of troops, tanks and barbed wire along the border with Belarus. This is an abomination of supposed “European values” and respect for international laws of asylum. The fiasco of Brussels financially supporting the construction of barbed wire fences is an international disgrace. Pointedly, this rush to ring-fence Europe comes exactly 32 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, this week condemned the EU’s xenophobic, militarized response to people seeking asylum.

The heavy-handed EU response is way out of proportion to the actual numbers involved. It is estimated that some 8,000 people have crossed over the Belarusian border into the European Union this year.

In 2015, the influx of an estimated one million refugees into Europe from U.S.-led wars in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia provoked an existential political crisis for the European Union. Eastern European member states like Poland and Hungary refused to share quotas for resettling asylum seekers. Germany took on a disproportionate share under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open door” policy. That policy had huge negative repercussions for the entire bloc.

It led to bitter tensions between member states and within states. The rise of populist anti-EU political parties was largely driven by a perception of foreign migrants inundating societies.

The EU desperately wants to avoid a repetition of that internal political crisis. Thus it is moving swiftly to make Poland and the Baltic states the “line of defense”. This explains the sudden militarization of border controls with Belarus.

The EU is drawing up another round of economic sanctions against Belarus next week, accusing its President Alexander Lukashenko of “gangsterism” and “human trafficking”. The possible imposition of sanctions on Russian airlines is also being mulled on the back of allegations that Moscow is colluding with Minsk in pushing migrants towards the EU. This is a reckless escalation of tensions.

Russia has flatly rejected any such allegations. Moscow says the EU needs to talk directly with Minsk to resolve the problem. One idea proposed by the Kremlin is for Brussels to provide financial aid to Belarus to implement a rational system of asylum application and resettlement. But the suspicion is that that is the last thing the EU wants to do. It simply wants to block any migration to avoid internal political strife. To do that, it needs to blockade Belarus. That blockade is having a deleterious impact on the economy of Belarus from normal border crossings for trade and haulage being stymied.

The underlying problem also goes back partly to the EU’s hostile policy towards Belarus. Brussels has controversially interfered in Belarus, along with the United States, in claiming that its presidential election last year was a sham. The EU refuses to recognize the re-election of Lukashenko and has slapped several rounds of sanctions on the country while claiming that an exiled opposition candidate is the real winner.

The Belarus government says it can’t afford to accommodate refugees coming through its territory en route to their desired destination of the European Union. Given the background hostility of the EU towards Belarus, it is understandable if Minsk is not exactly overseeing border controls. It’s a kind of “screw you” gesture to the European bloc for its interference in Belarus’ political affairs. Von der Leyen and other officials are going further by claiming that Minsk is deliberately organizing flights of refugees from various Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates.

Under international law, the EU is obliged to receive asylum seekers. The European governments have created millions of displaced people from their criminal wars and machinations along with the United States. But Brussels is shirking its legal obligations in order to avoid internal tensions with member states over immigration and populist opposition to capitalist corporate-controlled Europe. But by weaponizing the matter, the EU is recklessly winding up tensions with Belarus and Russia. The culprit is Europe’s moral and political cowardice to live up to its responsibilities by seeking to shift the blame on to others.

Finian Cunningham is a former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

Bioweapons / Germ Warfare

‘I’m a doctor and I fear we will never regain the public’s trust after Covid’

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One undeniable outcome of the pandemic is that the public’s faith in scientific and medical authorities is perhaps at its lowest point in living memory – and no objective observer can truly be surprised.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US President’s Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and US Surgeon General Dr Jerome Adams told us not to wear masks, until they instructed us to wear one everywhere we went.

The Covid vaccines were declared to be effective at preventing the spread of disease, until breakthrough cases around the globe proved that wasn’t so, and that effectiveness was downgraded to “against hospitalization and death.”

Both The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, two of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, have issued embarrassing retractions to widely publicized papers eventually found to have too little validity to be published.

Anyone who suggested that the pandemic originated in a Wuhan laboratory and not a Chinese wet market was labeled a conspiracy theorist by official sources who later had to admit they were possibly correct. The same proved true for everyone who accused Fauci and the National Institutes of Health of funding gain-of-function research at the lab: they were crazy, until they were right.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged all pregnant women to be vaccinated, asserting that the new injections were completely safe. Now, a new review of that same data suggests that one in eight women spontaneously aborted her pregnancy after getting the jab.

Even medical terms – such as ‘herd immunity’, and the word ‘vaccine’ itself – have literally been redefined over the past few months.

All this has shocked a great number of informed, educated people around the world. Should it, though? In fact, a brief glance through the history of science demonstrates that scientists being completely and utterly wrong – in retrospect, often comically so – is the norm, not an aberration. It’s long past time for modern scientific researchers to discover a proper sense of humility and to step down from the pedestal of secular priesthood they’ve ascended.

Stories about an advisory panel’s recommendation to the Food and Drug Administration to approve a Moderna booster shot contained a quote that most might find truly incredible. “It’s more a gut feeling rather than based on really truly serious data,” said biochemistry professor Dr Patrick Moore. “The data itself is not strong, but it is certainly going in the direction that is supportive of this vote.”

How can a scientific advisory panel make such a recommendation while admitting it’s based on feeling, not fact? In fact, it happens all the time. ‘Medical consensus’ is a term that carries an authoritative denotation, yet it simply means that a bunch of experts got together and decided amongst themselves what’s correct.

The problem is that, today and in the past, those experts – in virtually every field – are so often wrong. 

Climate data has been gathered and climate modeling performed for almost a century now, and dire predictions have proceeded accordingly for 50 years. Famines would hit the United States in the 1970s; a new ice age would freeze the globe, while energy demand would boil rivers dry; the depletion of the ozone layer would lay waste to life on Earth. Perhaps the most dramatic was the promise in 1969 that “everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in twenty years.” These doomsayers were highly trained scientists from major universities and national research centers, not street-corner cultists wearing cardboard signs. Nevertheless, the deadlines passed without apocalypse.

Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774 and nitrous oxide soon after, cementing his rightful place in the history of science. His great discovery was made in the course of his pursuit of phlogiston theory; in fact, he initially called oxygen “dephlogosticated air.” For about a century, from the 1660s to the 1770s, fire was thought by the scientific community to be the result of combustible materials emitting a substance or essence called phlogiston. Very few readers are likely to have heard of phlogiston theory, and even a schoolchild might chuckle at the idea, but Priestley would have vehemently argued for his position, delivering treatise after treatise defending the gospel of phlogistons.

A Greek physician (to gladiators Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, for those familiar with the film) named Galen developed a comprehensive understanding of human anatomy in the 2nd-century Roman Empire. His studies improved medical knowledge, certainly; for example, Galen showed that vessels carried blood, and not air, which overturned 400 years of physiological theory. His anatomical and physiological ideas were considered authoritative and went uncontested by students of medicine for 1,300 years. However, in the 1500s, Andreas Vesalius, a Flemish physician and anatomist, realized Galen had derived much of his ‘knowledge’ of human anatomy from apes and pigs. Abandoning Galen and redoing the work himself, this time on actual human cadavers, he wrote and illustrated the first modern anatomy textbook and erased Galen from medical training (though not history).

medical theories once broadly considered true and now seen as incomplete, inaccurate, or utterly fictional with no tether to reality whatsoever, is extraordinarily long. Naturally, modern researchers will argue that those past scientists were wrong, but we know better now, and scientists today are promoting and teaching accurate information. 

Are they?

Have the experts been right on Covid-19, or have they littered the past two years with unfulfilled predictions, bad advice, and misinformation? Are there any true ‘experts’ on a novel disease at all?

What else are we being told is ‘scientific fact’ that future generations will chuckle at while shaking their heads?

Anthropogenic climate change that will wreak untold havoc unless the jet-setting governments of the world can have more of your money and control over your lives?

Gender theory that relegates chromosomal and biological reality to an incidental genetic quirk that must be corrected by hormone therapy and surgery?

Uniformitarianism – Hutton’s and Lyell’s presupposition that Earth’s geologic features are a result of the same gradual processes seen today, and not singular catastrophes – which forms the bedrock foundation of modern geology?

The cursorial theory of bird evolution, at the moment dominant over arboreal theory, that leads to such eye-popping declarations as “the hummingbird is the smallest dinosaur”?

The popular understanding and perception of dinosaurs in general, largely created by artist renderings and pure paleontologist guesswork from fossilized partial skeletons? 

Darwinian evolution, dependent on trillions of mutations that both add de novo genetic information and impart a survival benefit, despite no such mutation, in any organism, ever being described?

In some circles, both academic and cultural, even questioning one of these ‘scientific facts’ will result in ostracism and derision. That’s always been the dominant attitude of any consensus of scientists, and one imagines it likely always will be. Considering the current and growing misgivings of the trustworthiness of scientific and medical authorities, perhaps two pieces of advice might be useful.

First, to the general public: science is a process of epistemology – that is, how things can be known – which is incredibly useful, but limited in scope. The scientific method depends on an experiment being repeatable and measurable. Hence, scientific inquiry is definitionally limited to the present and the material. Beware any ‘scientific expert’ making dispositive assertions about the past or the future and attempting to shout everyone else out of the room.

Second, to physicians, researchers, and the scientific and medical communities at large: approach your roles with some humility. Even children have immediate access to pocket computers, with libraries of information. Yes, that includes piles of misinformation that need to be corrected. That said, you do no one favors, yourselves most of all, when you overstep the bounds of experimental knowledge and adopt the roles of priests, prophets, and oracles. Your collective lack of humility, as we’ve seen over and over in the context of Covid-19, can result in real harm. 

For the public to regain its faith in science, scientists must cast off the arrogant authority that at this point is tattered and torn anyway.

R. M. Huffman is a physician, author, and observer of culture.

Global Warming / Climate Change, Technocracy

COP26: A Heady Mix of Climate Hysteria, Fear-Mongering, & Quasi-Religious Worshiping at The Altar of ‘The Science’

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From every corner of the planet, private jets – responsible for 50% of all aviation emissions – have flown into Glasgow for the annual ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP26).

Continue reading COP26: A Heady Mix of Climate Hysteria, Fear-Mongering, & Quasi-Religious Worshiping at The Altar of ‘The Science’ →
Great Reset, Technocracy

The Great Reset, A Fake Utopia Being Sold to Us By Charlatans

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As we exit the pandemic, expect to hear much more about The Great Reset and building back better. Far from resulting in a low-carbon dream life, though, it’s a cartoonish fantasy that will hand the global elite even more power.

‘The Great Reset’ is a term that has been bandied about quite readily by most Western neo-liberal politicians. So often, in fact, and without proper explanation, that it strikes the prudent observer as a kind of paid advertisement.

But what is it exactly? The term rose to prominence at the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in June 2020. It was initially launched by the Prince of Wales, before being absorbed into the philosophy of the sartorially dystopian sci-fi villain Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF.

The Great Reset refers to a plan to rebuild the world’s infrastructure ‘in a sustainable way’ following the economic ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic and to establish a global treaty to prevent future pandemics, or as it is described more formally, to “build a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations.” If you ever hear people talking about “building back better,” they are referring to The Great Reset.

Probably the most disturbing part of The Great Reset is how much it strongly resembles business-as-usual, only with EXTRA globalism. Most of the plan’s outlines include a further weakening of national boundaries and individual national autonomy, in favour of a more ‘universal governance.’ As usual, it is the rapidly vanishing Western middle class which must shoulder this burden, as their freedoms are further curtailed to meet the quotas of corporate-media-fuelled activism.

Regardless, many world leaders, no doubt charmed into acquiescence by Schwab’s commandingly sinister Blofeld-esque wardrobe, agreed to the Great Reset, including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Mark Rutte, Pedro Sánchez, Erna Solberg and Volodymyr Zelensky. According to John Kerry, Joe Biden’s administration is on board, too.

But the general agreement of the Western leaders is absolutely typical of any agenda which is espoused by NATO, the UN, or the WEF. If an emotionally charged, politically vague and ultimately ineffectual edict or bill is proposed by one of these entities – each resembling a shabby, globe-trotting team of insurance salesmen – our effete politicians line up to show the most fervent compliance.

As a rule, it seems their solutions to specific environmental or scientific problems mysteriously become entwined with LGBTQ+ rights, workplace equity, open borders initiatives and other unrelated social justice causes. It’s as though any goals they have are somehow unilaterally from the same source, or entail the same solution, regardless of causality or consequence. Therefore, a united response to a global pandemic mysteriously also equals trans rights activism.

In their own words, “No single government or multilateral agency can address this (pandemic) threat alone. Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly co-ordinated fashion.”

There are many other sweeping sentiments expressed by Schwab and his acolytes which can seem either trite or threatening. Consider “the gulf between what markets value and what people value will close” and “we want more attention paid to scientific experts. No one can “self-isolate” from climate change so we all need to “act in advance and in solidarity.” There is much talk of the pursuit of “fairer and equitable outcomes.”

International treaties always tend to be about concentrating power. It’s one of those rules of life, for realists, as there is no escaping power dynamics in human affairs. Real problems don’t often have feel-good solutions. Often, they require ‘solutions that sound mean’, that don’t sound good on a corporate goals bulletin. Initiatives like The Great Reset all entail the gradual loss of the autonomy of individual nations, as their decision-making power is transferred to an international, disembodied rule-maker.

It has been, without a doubt, a globalist fantasy for a long time, but the key question is: do they realise what they are doing or not?

As far as their amazing coordinated pandemic response goes, this appears to be nothing more than forced world-wide vaccinations for EVERYBODY. According to Klaus Schwab himself: “As long as not everybody is vaccinated, nobody will be safe.” To which the attendant neo-liberal world leaders nodded in re-affirming unison, repeating in unison their mantra: “Global public good.”

Schwab, despite appearing like an immortal brothel-keeper at Kublai Khan’s Xanadu, is really cut from the same cloth as your typical EU technocrat. His ideas are not creative, they are quite staid and pedestrian, and research of his career shows they have been unchanged since the 1970s. He has consistently been preaching the very same thing, like a broken record.

Schwab believes we can achieve environmental solutions without altering capitalism in the slightest, by creating treaties of “mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system.” His idea involves ‘ethical capitalism’ – where the excesses of capitalism will somehow be held at bay by ‘ethical stakeholders,’ to whom the corporations will be held accountable, while (conveniently) the elites and systems already in place will continue as they are. This is the master plan of the World Economic Forum, largely unchanged for 40 years.

The result? A green technocracy, one assumes, with a WEF-mandated ‘ethical stakeholder’ apparatus, a worldwide spiderweb organisation ruling by the threatened fears of pandemic and carbon doom. No section of society would be exempt from edicts of ‘the new treaty.’

The Great Reset website appears to be little more than an advertisement for modern pod-living. It seems to style itself as a low-carbon dream-life (without loss of modern convenience) to effeminate hipsters. One can see slovenly-looking neo-liberal youths, frequent references to LGBTQ+ values, and an overall urgency about carbon footprints.

There is a hint of Adbusters about the website, creator of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite the fact that the WEF and Davos and all associated entities are entirely elite institutions, the website styles itself on grassroots urban activism. There is much cringeworthy symbology in its white papers, such as a green and rainbow flag-combination with fey slogans like ‘we salute you, zoom queen!’

Schwab refers to the aim of The Great Reset as “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” with the first being powered by water and steam, the second introducing mass production, and the third electronic automation. The fourth will blur the lines between “physical, digital and biological spheres.”

In this grab-bag of magical advances, he lists, “fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing.”

This sounds like cartoonish optimism, as many of these technologies are anything but clean and don’t seem to de facto relate to side-stepping out of industrialism or anything else. On top of that, fewer than 9% of companies use the machine learning, robotics, touch screens and other advanced technologies listed as somehow ‘changing everything.’ Stakeholder capitalism, as a concept, does not explain itself as foolproof, and will no doubt be freely interpreted by the likes of Silicon Valley or supply chain conglomerates.

The jewel in the crown of Great Reset optimism has to be the belief that the advent of AI will alter everything positively, again without specifics, to somehow create a low-carbon new world.

It appears at best to be all be smoke and mirrors, a childish corporate fantasy manufactured by isolated bean counters. At worst, it is an intentional power-grab by unaccountable international agencies and hidden oligarchs.

Either way, it is a fake utopia at the price of privacy and autonomy, sold to us by used-car salesmen who think they are princes. 

Brendan Heard is an author, op-ed writer, painter, blogger, and designer who has worked in international media. Follow him on Twitter @Trad_West_Art

Beyond the Smoke & Mirrors