The Dan Bongino Show

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Why Has The World Economic Forum Published At Least 3 Whitepapers On Facial Recognition Since March 2020 ? Big Brother Is Watching.

 

If you thought that travelling abroad or getting access to pubs and cafes via a vaccine passport was an assault on your body and your rights then I'm afraid that was only the tip of the ice berg. Here’s why…

In February 2020 just before Covid was beginning to shut down the world, the World Economic Forum published a paper called

A Framework for Responsible Limits on Facial Recognition Use Case: Flow Management

The purpose of the paper was to implement the use of facial technology through a project based in France. The opening paragraph is quite telling

“Over the past decade, facial recognition has emerged as one of the most powerful biometric technologies, capable of identifying and verifying a person by comparing and analysing patterns based on that individual’s facial contours”

There you have it “identifying and verifying a person”. That could never be abused, could it ? The WEF continue

“The goal of this initiative is to establish a governance framework for facial recognition technology that has been tested on site”

A governance framework. I think we can all see where this is heading. The WEF naturally throw in their disclaimer in the same introduction when they say

“As this is an issue that concerns questions related to individual and collective rights and freedoms, citizens and their democratic representatives are the only legitimate decision-makers with respect to the uses they wish to promote or restrict and the conditions under which the technology should be used. Our ambition is to empower citizens and representatives as they navigate the different trade-offs they will face along the way”

Have you ever heard such nonsense. All democracy, rights and freedoms have been taken away for the last 2.5 years. There are no trade-offs as far as the WEF are concerned. You will do as you are told.

Within the document they break down the use of how facial recognition can be used such as face access, safety and security of public spaces, marketing and customer services and healthcare services. No stone has been left unturned.

Now you could just claim that it is another coincidence that the paper was published at the same time that Covid was deemed a global health emergency. However, we have seen a lot of coincidences with the WEF these last 2.5 years.

https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/a-framework-for-responsible-limits-on-facial-recognition-use-case-flow-management

Just 4 months later in July 2020 another Whitepaper appeared called Critical Frontier: Leveraging Technology to Combat COVID-19

This paper was in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group who are in WEF

https://www.weforum.org/organizations/the-boston-consulting-group

They make no bones about how they were planning to use facial recognition when they say

“In cooperation with local governments, technology is being deployed to prevent sick individuals from traveling in public. Technologies include cameras, drones and robots, and are adapted to work during pandemic: e.g. using thermal camera identification, facial recognition of people wearing masks and smart helmet technology, among others”

Remember this was the very early months of Covid. The plan was surveillance from the outset. It is interesting to note that they say “technology is being deployed to prevent sick individuals from traveling in public”. The undoubted long term plan is to use technology to prevent individuals from travelling.

You would think by this stage that 2 white papers on Facial recognition technology would be more than enough. You would however be very wrong. Probably most interesting of all was the paper published 18 months into the “pandemic” in October 2021 called

A Policy Framework for Responsible Limits on Facial Recognition Use Case: Law Enforcement Investigations

What was particularly striking about this paper was the parties involved in writing it. Interpol, UNICRI, Politie and WEF.

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_Policy_Framework_for_Responsible_Limits_on_Facial_Recognition_2021.pdf

Just so we are clear, Interpol on their web site describe themselves as “enabling police in our 194 member countries to work together to fight international crime”

That figure of 194 seems remarkably similar (there or thereabouts) to the number of countries that have signed up to UN Agenda 2030

https://www.weforum.org/organizations/international-criminal-police-organization-interpol

But what do INTERPOL do, what is their role? According to their own web site

“We manage 19 police databases with information on crimes and criminals (from names and fingerprints to stolen passports), accessible in real-time to countries. We offer investigative support such as forensics, analysis, and assistance in locating fugitives around the world”

https://www.interpol.int/en/Who-we-are/What-is-INTERPOL

The President of Interpol is Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi of United Arab Emirates who got the job despite concerns of torture. Human rights groups and MEPs were rightly concerned about his appointment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/25/interpol-appoints-emirati-general-accused-torture-president-ahmed-nasser-al-raisi

This seems to be a common theme in positions of power. The WHOs Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is also facing genocide charges in his home country of Ethiopia.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-chief-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-may-face-genocide-charges-2fbfz7sff

You have to wonder what blackmail is being used on the like of Nasser al-Raisi and Ghebreyesus. They are merely puppets doing the bidding of their masters. Anyway, I digress.

The 2nd contributor to the Whitepaper is UNICRI which stands for The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. Yet again the UN are never far from the action.

UNICRI works in specialized niches and selected areas within the fields of crime prevention, justice, security governance and the risks and benefits of technological advances. UNICRI provides a vital foundation for United Nations policy and operations through its specialized training and capacity-building programmes”

On their Wikipedia entry it says

“Its work currently focuses on Goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, that is centred on promoting peaceful, just and inclusive societies, free from crime and violence”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interregional_Crime_and_Justice_Research_Institute

Irakli Beridze is the Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at UNICRI and is also one one of the whitepapers contributors. Back in April 2020 in an article on the WEF site called

How to create a trustworthy COVID-19 tracking technology

he said

“There may be no turning back if Pandora’s box is opened,” noted Irakli Beridze, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI),

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-coronavirus-tracking-technology/

The third group involved in the Whitepaper was Politie who are the Dutch National Police Corps, colloquially in English as the Dutch National Police or National Police Force. Law enforcement in the Netherlands operates primarily through governmental police agencies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Police_Corps_(Netherlands)

Naturally the WEF are doing what they do best. You could say they are being economical with the truth or you could just say they are lying. They are trying to dress up facial recognition as being used to fight crime. Interpol are also WEF members and the world's largest international police organization who facilitate cross-border police cooperation.

https://www.weforum.org/organizations/international-criminal-police-organization-interpol

Would it not be within the realms of possibility to suggest that facial technology could be abused by Interpol or other bodies for law abiding citizens. That would never happen or would it ? In actual fact, it already has. Let me introduce you to Clearview AI.

One of Clearview AI’s main investors is Peter Thiel. Thiel was one of the founder members of Paypal and also happens to be one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders as well as being a WEF member.

https://www.weforum.org/people/peter-a-thiel

In January 2020 the New York Times ran an article on Clearview AI where they called Clearview

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It

They referred to them as “A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.

It would certainly lead to a dystopian future, a future we are already living in.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html

Who and What are Clearview ?

According to Wikipedia “Clearview AI is an American facial recognition company, providing software to companies, law enforcement, universities, and individuals”

On the Clearview AI web site they say

“Clearview AI’s unbiased facial recognition platform is protecting our families and making our communities more secure. We help law enforcement disrupt and solve crime, and we enable financial institutions, transportation, and other commercial enterprises to verify identities, prevent financial fraud, and identity theft”

Yet again the concept is being sold under the guise of public protection. Remember that only the state can protect you.

In a Buzzfeed article from Feb 2020, Clearview AI, a facial recognition company was revealed to be working with more than 2,200 law enforcement agencies, companies, and individuals around the world.

“The United States’ main immigration enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, retailers including Best Buy and Macy’s, and a sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates are among the thousands of government entities and private businesses around the world listed as clients of the controversial facial recognition startup with a database of billions of photos scraped from social media and the web”

Naturally the CEO said new facial recognition tech was 'loved' by law enforcement

https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6133890195001#sp=show-clips

The article really hits the nail on the head when it says

“Clearview’s software, which claims to match photos of persons of interest to online images culled from millions of sites, has been used by people in more than 2,200 law enforcement departments, government agencies, and companies across 27 countries, according to the documents. This data provides the most complete picture to date of who has used the controversial technology and reveals what some observers have previously feared: Clearview AI’s facial recognition has been deployed at every level of American society and is making its way around the world”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-fbi-ice-global-law-enforcement

And yet the WEF claim it would only be used for law enforcement. Think of Clearview AI as being in the area of Predictive policing and Pre Crime. Now where have we come across that before ? That’s right, it was in Tom Cruise’s Minority Report. Just another coincidence of course.

Of course it would just be used for law enforcement.

How would this play out in the real world. You never have to look further than China.

Students are now paying with facial recognition in a school cafeteria in China. Not only facial recognition but food recognition. No identification or payment is required. Simply place your tray and stand in front of the camera. The cost of the meal is automatically deducted from your account.

Just think for a second how this all plays into the matrix of a Digital ID, CBDC, Carbon Credits and Social Credit Score. It’s hardly a conspiracy theory any more.

threadsirish
Have You Any Idea How Your Carbon Footprint 👣 And Your Carbon Wallet Are Really Going To Work In This Dystopian World The WEF Have Planned ?
Let me introduce you to Barbara Baarsma. Barbara is the CEO of Rabo Carbon Bank. Yes, you read that right. Not Rabo Bank but Rabo Carbon Bank. In this 53 second video interview below she is advocating for a "Personal Carbon Wallet". That may not seem like a big deal but when you hear what she has to say you should be concerned, very concerned in fact…
Read more

Chinese companies are way further down the path than the West in the area of facial recognition. Tencent, a huge Chinese company deployed something called ‘Midnight Patrol’ to identify underage gamers via facial recognition in China.

https://thenews123.com/technology/gaming/tencent-deploys-midnight-patrol-to-identify-underage-gamers-via-facial-recognition-in-china/

WeChat is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users.

In a fascinating tweet from 2019 it was revealed cyclists were fined via facial recognition and the fine was deducted through WeChat automatically.

For anyone who thinks this isn’t coming to the west, they need to wake up quickly. The other minor point is that Tencent is also a WEF member.

https://www.weforum.org/organizations/tencent-holdings

The World Economic Forum and China are also encouraging an AI facial recognition assistant in the classroom to read body language, attention span, and mood of the student. Not remotely dystopian at all.

Big brother in China is watching you through video surveillance cameras. China already had more than 20 million cameras installed in public spaces in 2017 and about 450 million new cameras by 2020. The West isn’t far behind. During lockdowns multiple cameras were installed globally. All you have to do is to look up when outside to see them.

Whenever you are out and about in China you are being watched 24/7. Your privacy and freedom is effectively over.

However not all Chinese are taking it lying down. Protestors have cleverly found a way to avoid police facial recognition software by pointing an array of lasers at the police.

This is fast coming to the west. The World Economic Forum and Air Canada collaborated for a new, official digital ID program coming October 2022. A new digital ID tracking system is being implemented this October with Digital ID and facial recognition booths being put in Toronto International Airport.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-05-31-canada-intensifies-airport-surveillance-through-digital-identity.html

In actual fact facial recognition technology has been trialled covertly in Toronto International Airport since 2016. Now they are ramping it up to a different level entirely.

https://thepostmillennial.com/trudeau-government-quietly-tested-facial-recognition-on-millions-at-toronto-pearson-airport

We have all seen what has happened to Canada for the last 2.5 years and it hasn’t been pretty. It’s time to wake up and push back or else before you know it facial recognition technology will be monitoring you 24/7 from the moment you get up to the time you switch the lights off.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your days living in a Digital gulag…

Sunday Talks, Out From the Shadows, The Primary Architect of The Trump Targeting Operation Surfaces on ABC News


Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows.  This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for.  For the past five years Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.

Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’.  McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.

Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort.  Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.

It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.

It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.

Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.

As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed.  

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’).  That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important.  It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.

When the Carter Page title-1 search warrant application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin.  Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016).

John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.

♦ When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents.  The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.

♦ At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson.  In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ.  Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.

♦ When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission.  Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint.  It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.  Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

♦  During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’) which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith.  Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission.

When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.

♦ In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith.  In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome.  Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.

As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.

Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus?  Mary McCord.

♦ SUMMARY:  Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier.  Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn.  Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee.  Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.

You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.  Then, as if on cue to keep the entire corrupt system protected, this happened:

November 4, 2021 – In Washington DC – “Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the House Jan. 6 Select Committee has tapped Mary McCord, who once ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division, for representation in its fight to obtain former President Donald Trump’s White House records. (read more)

Mary McCord is the epitome of a person using a position to abuse the power within it.

Former Obama White House Counsel Lisa Monaco is now the Deputy Attorney General.  John Carlin is back inside the DOJ-NSD as the Biden administration continued the Obama administration targeting of President Trump.   Mary McCord returns back inside the House J-6 investigative committee put together to purposefully target Donald J Trump…

Now does the timing of Mary McCord surfacing publicly, immediately after the underlying search warrant used in the raid against Donald Trump, make sense?

McCord is the architect, the actual person putting lawfare strategy into lawfare ink and action, for the Trump targeting operations.


Monday, August 29, 2022

An Engineered Food and Poverty Crisis to Secure Continued U.S. Dominance


 


In March 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a “hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system” in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine. 

Guterres said food, fuel and fertiliser prices were skyrocketing with supply chains being disrupted and added this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.

According to the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, there is currently sufficient food and no risk of global food supply shortages.

We see an abundance of food but skyrocketing prices. The issue is not food shortage but speculation on food commodities and the manipulation of an inherently flawed global food system that serves the interests of corporate agribusiness traders and suppliers of inputs at the expense of people’s needs and genuine food security.

The war in Ukraine is a geopolitical trade and energy conflict. It is largely about the US engaging in a proxy war against Russia and Europe by attempting to separate Europe from Russia and imposing sanctions on Russia to harm Europe and make it further dependent on the US.

Economist Professor Michael Hudson recently stated that ultimately the war is against Europe and Germany. The purpose of the sanctions is to prevent Europe and other allies from increasing their trade and investment with Russia and China.

Neoliberal policies since the 1980s have hollowed out the US economy. With its productive base severely weakened, the only way for the US to maintain hegemony is to undermine China and Russia and weaken Europe.

Hudson says that, beginning a year ago, Biden and the US neocons attempted to block Nord Stream 2 and all (energy) trade with Russia so that the US could monopolise it itself.

Despite the ‘green agenda’ currently being pushed, the US still relies on fossil fuel-based energy to project its power abroad. Even as Russia and China move away from the dollar, the control and pricing of oil and gas (and resulting debt) in dollars remains key to US attempts to retain hegemony.

The US knew beforehand how sanctions on Russia would play out. They would serve to divide the world into two blocks and fuel a new cold war with the US and Europe on one side with China and Russia being the two main countries on the other.

US policy makers knew Europe would be devastated by higher energy and food prices and food importing countries in the Global South would suffer due to rising costs.

It is not the first time the US has engineered a major crisis to maintain global hegemony and a spike in key commodity prices that effectively trap countries into dependency and debt.

In 2009, Andrew Gavin Marshall described how in 1973 – not long after coming off the gold standard – Henry Kissinger was integral to manipulating events in the Middle East (the Arab-Israeli war and the ‘energy crisis’). This served to continue global hegemony for the US, which had virtually bankrupted itself due to its war in Vietnam and had been threatened by the economic rise of Germany and Japan.

Kissinger helped secure huge OPEC oil price rises and thus sufficient profits for Anglo-American oil companies that had over-leveraged themselves in North Sea oil. He also cemented the petrodollar system with the Saudis and subsequently placed African nations, which had embarked on a path of (oil-based) industrialisation, on a treadmill of dependency and debt due to the spike in oil prices.

It is widely believed that the high-priced oil policy was aimed at hurting Europe, Japan and the developing world.

Today, the US is again waging a war on vast swathes of humanity, whose impoverishment is intended to ensure they remain dependent on the US and the financial institutions it uses to create dependency and indebtedness – the World Bank and IMF.

Hundreds of millions will experience (are experiencing) poverty and hunger due to US policy. These people (the ones that the US and Pfizer et al supposedly cared so much about and wanted to get a jab into each of their arms) are regarded with contempt and collateral damage in the great geopolitical game.

Contrary to what many believe, the US has not miscalculated the outcome of the sanctions placed on Russia. Michael Hudson notes energy prices are increasing, benefiting US oil companies and US balance of payments as an energy exporter. Moreover, by sanctioning Russia, the aim is to curtail Russian exports (of wheat and gas used for fertiliser production) and for agricultural commodity prices to therefore increase. This too will also benefit the US as an agricultural exporter.

This is how the US seeks to maintain dominance over other countries.

Current policies are designed to create a food and debt crisis for poorer nations especially. The US can use this debt crisis to force countries to continue privatising and selling off their public assets in order to service the debts to pay for the higher oil and food imports.

This imperialist strategy comes on the back of ‘COVID relief’ loans which have served a similar purpose. In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports.

Oxfam and Development Finance International have also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next five years.

The closure of the world economy in March 2020 (‘lockdown’) served to trigger an unprecedented process of global indebtedness. Conditionalities mean national governments will have to capitulate to the demands of Western financial institutions. These debts are largely dollar-denominated, helping to strengthen the US dollar and US leverage over countries.

The US is creating a new world order and needs to ensure much of the Global South remains in its orbit of influence rather than ending up in the Russian and especially Chinese camp and its belt road initiative for economic prosperity.

Post-COVID, this is what the war in Ukraine, sanctions on Russia and the engineered food and energy crisis are really about.

Back in 2014, Michael Hudson stated that the US has been able to dominate most of the Global South through agriculture and control of the food supply. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has transformed countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.

The oil sector and agribusiness have been joined at the hip as part of US geopolitical strategy.

The dominant notion of ‘food security’ promoted by global agribusiness players like Cargill, Archer Daniel Midland, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus and supported by the World Bank is based on the ability of people and nations to purchase food. It has nothing to do with self-sufficiency and everything to do with global markets and supply chains controlled by giant agribusiness players.

Along with oil, the control of global agriculture has been a linchpin of US geopolitical strategy for many decades. The Green Revolution was exported courtesy of oil-rich interests and poorer nations adopted agri-capital’s chemical- and oil-dependent model of agriculture that required loans for inputs and related infrastructure development.

It entailed trapping nations into a globalised food system that relies on export commodity mono-cropping to earn foreign exchange linked to sovereign dollar-denominated debt repayment and World Bank/IMF ‘structural adjustment’ directives. What we have seen has been the transformation of many countries from food self-sufficiency into food deficit areas.

And what we have also seen is countries being placed on commodity crop production treadmills. The need for foreign currency (US dollars) to buy oil and food entrenches the need to increase cash crop production for exports.

The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) set out the trade regime necessary for this type of corporate dependency that masquerades as ‘global food security’.

This is explained in a July 2022 report by Navdanya International – Sowing Hunger, Reaping Profits – A Food Crisis by Design – which notes international trade laws and trade liberalisation has benefited large agribusiness and continue to piggyback off the implementation of the Green Revolution.

The report states that US lobby and trade negotiations were headed by former Cargill Investors Service CEO and Goldman Sachs executive – Dan Amstutz – who in 1988 was appointed chief negotiator for the Uruguay round of GATT by Ronald Reagan. This helped to enshrine the interests of US agribusiness into the new rules that would govern the global trade of commodities and subsequent waves of industrial agriculture expansion.

The AoA removed protection of farmers from global market prices and fluctuations. At the same time, exceptions were made for the US and the EU to continue subsidising their agriculture to the advantage of large agribusiness.

Navdanya notes:

“With the removal of state tariff protections and subsidies, small farmers were left destitute. The result has been a disparity in what farmers earn for what they produce, versus what consumers pay, with farmers earning less and consumers paying more as agribusiness middlemen take the biggest cut.”

‘Food security’ has led to the dismantling of food sovereignty and food self-sufficiency for the sake of global market integration and corporate power.

We need look no further than India to see this in action. The now repealed recent farm legislation in India was aimed at giving the country the ‘shock therapy’ of neoliberalism that other countries have experienced.

The ‘liberalising’ legislation was in part aimed at benefiting US agribusiness interests and trapping India into food insecurity by compelling the country to eradicate its food buffer stocks – so vital to the nation’s food security – and then bid for food on a volatile global market from agribusiness traders with its foreign reserves.

The Indian government was only prevented from following this route by the massive, year-long farmer protest that occurred.

The current crisis is also being fuelled by speculation. Navdanya cites an investigation by Lighthouse Reports and The Wire to show how speculation by investment firms, banks and hedge funds on agricultural commodities are profiting off rising food prices. Commodity future prices are no longer linked to actual supply and demand in the market but are based purely on speculation.

Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus and investment funds like Black Rock and Vanguard continue to make huge financial killings, resulting in the price of bread almost doubling in some poorer countries.

The cynical ‘solution’ promoted by global agribusiness to the current food crisis is to urge farmers to produce more and seek better yields as if the crisis is that of underproduction. It means more chemical inputs, more genetic engineering techniques and suchlike, placing more farmers in debt and trapped in dependency.

It is the same old industry lie that the world will starve without its products and requires more of them. The reality is that the world is facing hunger and rising food prices because of the system big agribusiness has instituted.

And it is the same old story – pushing out new technologies in search of a problem and then using crises as justification for their rollout while ignoring the underlying reasons for such crises.

Navdanya sets out possible solutions to the current situation based on principles of agroecology, short supply lines, food sovereignty and economic democracy – policies that have been described at length in many articles and official reports over the years.

As for fighting back against the onslaught on ordinary people’s living standards, support is gathering among the labour movement in places like the UK. Rail union leader Mick Lynch is calling for a working class movement based on solidarity and class consciousness to fight back against a billionaire class that is acutely aware of its own class interests.

For too long, ‘class’ has been absent from mainstream political discourse. It is only through organised, united protest that ordinary people will have any chance of meaningful impact against the new world order of tyrannical authoritarianism and the devastating attacks on ordinary people’s rights, livelihoods and standards of living that we are witnessing.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

PEOPLE ARE GOING OUT MORE AND SPENDING CASH. NOT SO GOOD FOR VIDEO GAMES.

Game Over

Recent figures from video game makers tell the story: fewer people are buying games and the hardware used to play them. Industry analysts explain there are a number of reasons why, including the easing of pandemic-related lockdowns. People are going out more often to bars, restaurants, and concerts. During the summer months they’re also taking more vacations. That means less cash spent on discretionary items like video games.

Rising prices are of course another factor in the sales slowdown. Generally speaking, inflation has put pressure on retail spending, which includes video games and consoles. Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported lower sales and profit in the quarter ended June 30. Both Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) and Electronic Arts (EA) have reported slower sales growth this year in comparison to 2021.

Chips and Hardware

It’s not just game sales that are slipping. Americans are also buying video game hardware at a reduced rate. Nintendo (NTDOY) reported lower net sales and operating profit in the second quarter. Xbox maker Microsoft (MSFT) and Playstation maker Sony (SONY) reported lower video game revenue over the same period.

Of course chips are an important component of video game consoles, and the downstream effect has some manufacturers losing business. For the second quarter, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported lower sales of its gaming graphics cards. This week NVIDIA (NVDA) noted gaming revenue has dipped in recent weeks, adding it now expects to miss its sales forecast.

Play the Hits

Analysts note while inflation and a preference for experience-based spending has taken a bite out of video game sales, a lack of blockbuster releases has also contributed to malaise in the space. Last holiday season, Activision released a new Call of Duty game, and Electronic Arts put out a new edition of its Battlefield franchise. Neither were overly popular, limiting sales.

Still, analysts say compared to a year ago more people are traveling and engaging in activities that were put on pause during the pandemic. Various market-research firms have predicted video game sales will decline 8.7% for 2022 as a whole on an annualized basis. That would mark the first such decline since 2016. It seems the constant imploring from parents to shut that TV off and get outside to play have taken root — much to video game companies’ chagrin.

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