The UN’s Green Agenda Will Spark Famine
“We The Peoples of the United Nations determined…to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,”
United Nations Charter Preamble (1945)
This is the second part in a series looking at the plans of the United Nations (UN) and its agencies designing and implementing the agenda of the Summit of the Future in New York on 22-23 September 2024, and its implications for global health, economic development, and human rights. Previously the impact on health policy of the climate agenda was analyzed.
The right to food once drove UN policy towards reducing hunger with a clear focus on low- and middle-income countries. Like the right to health, food has increasingly become a tool of cultural colonialism – the imposition of a narrow ideology of a certain Western mindset over the customs and rights of the ‘peoples’ that the UN represents. This article discusses how it happened and the dogmas on which it relies.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the farming equivalent of the World Health Organization (WHO), was founded in 1945 as a specialized United Nations (UN) agency with a mission to “achieve food security for all.” Its motto “Fiat panis” (Let there be bread) reflects that mission. Headquartered in Rome, Italy, it counts 195 Member States, including the European Union. The FAO relies on more than 11,000 staff, with 30% being based in Rome.
Of its US$3.25 billion biennial 2022-23 budget, 31% comes from assessed contributions paid by Members, with the remainder being voluntary. A large share of voluntary contributions come from Western governments (US, EU, Germany, Norway), development banks (e.g. World Bank Group), and other lesser-known publicly- and privately-funded entities set up for assisting environmental conventions and projects (including the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). Thus, like the WHO, most of its work now consists of implementing the dictates of its donors.
The FAO was instrumental in implementing the 1960s and 1970s Green Revolution, associated with a doubling in world food production that lifted many Asian and Latin American populations out of food insecurity. The use of fertilizers, pesticides, controlled irrigation, and hybridized seeds was considered a major achievement for hunger eradication, despite resulting pollution to soil, air, and water systems and facilitation of the emergence of new resistant strains of pests. The FAO was supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) founded in 1971 – a publicly funded group with the mission to conserve and improve seed varieties and their genetic pools. Private philanthropies, including the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, also played supportive roles.
Successive World Food Summits held in 1971, 1996, 2002, 2009, and 2021 have punctuated the FAO’s history. At the second summit, world leaders committed themselves to “achieving food security for all and to an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries” and declared “the right of everyone to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger” (Rome Declaration on World Food Security).
Promoting the Right to Food
The human “right to food” was central to FAO policy. This right has two components: the right to sufficient food for the poorest and most vulnerable, and the right to adequate food for those more fortunate. The first component is to combat hunger and chronic food insecurity, the second provides for balanced and appropriate nutrient intake.
The right to food was consecrated as a basic human right under international law by the non-binding 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR, Article 25) and the binding 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, Article 11) with 171 States Parties and 4 Signatories. It is closely related to the right to work and the right to water, also proclaimed in the same texts. Their States Parties are expected to recognize fundamental rights focusing on preserving human dignity, and work toward their progressive achievement for their citizens (Article 21 UDHR, Article 2 ICESCR).
Article 25 (UDHR)
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services…
Article 11 (ICESCR)
1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.
2. The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed:
(a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources;
(b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.
The FAO assesses the progressive implementation of the right to food through the annual flagship State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) reports, jointly with four other UN entities – the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), World Food Program (WFP), and the WHO. In addition, since 2000, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has established a “Special Rapporteur on the Right To Food,” mandated to (i) present an annual report to the Human Rights Council and to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and (ii) monitor trends related to the right to food in specific countries (Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2000/10 and Resolution A/HCR/RES/6/2).
Despite an increasing population, remarkable improvement in access to food at the global level continued until 2020. At the 2000 Millennium Development Summit, world leaders had set an ambitious goal to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,” among the 8 goals altogether aimed at developing the economy and improving acute health problems affecting low-income countries.
Millennium Development Goals (2000)
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target 1A: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day
Target 1B: Achieve Decent Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
Target 1C: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
The UN reported that Target 1A of halving the proportion of people who suffered from extreme hunger, compared to the 1990 statistics, was successfully achieved. Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015, with most progress having occurred since 2000.
On this basis, in 2015, the UN system launched a new set of 18 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to economic growth, social equity and well-being, environmental preservation, and international cooperation, to be achieved by 2030. In particular, Goal 2 on ending hunger in the world (“Zero Hunger”) is coupled with Goal 1 on “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere.”
These goals appeared highly utopian, not taking into account factors like wars, population growth, and the complexities of human societies and their organizations. However, they reflected the global mindset at the time that the world was progressing toward unprecedented, steady economic growth and agricultural production to improve the living conditions of the poorest.
Sustainable Development Goals (2015)
2.1By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.
In 2019, FAO reported that 820 million people suffered from hunger (only 16 million less than in 2015) and almost 2 billion experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, and predicted that the SDG2 would not be achievable at current progress. The most affected areas were sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Western Asia.
Complicit Suppression of the Right to Food through Covid-19 Emergency Measures
Come March 2020, repeated waves of restrictions and interruption of income (lockdowns) were imposed on “the peoples of the UN” for two years. While UN staff, as part of the laptop class, continued to work from home, hundreds of millions of the poorest and most vulnerable lost their meagre incomes and were pushed to extreme poverty and hunger. The lockdowns were decided by their governments based on poor advice from throughout the UN system. On 26 March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres set out his 3-step plan: suppressing the virus until a vaccine became available, minimizing social and economic impact, and collaborating to implement the SDGs.
UNSG’s Remarks at G-20 Virtual Summit on the Covid-19 Pandemic
We are at war with a virus – and not winning it…
This war needs a war-time plan to fight it…
Allow me to highlight three critical areas for concerted G-20 action...
First, to suppress the transmission of COVID-19 as quickly as possible.
That must be our common strategy.
It requires a coordinated G-20 response mechanism guided by WHO.
All countries must be able to combine systematic testing, tracing, quarantining and treatment with restrictions on movement and contact – aiming to suppress transmission of the virus.
And they have to coordinate the exit strategy to keep it suppressed until a vaccine becomes available…
Second, we must work together to minimize the social and economic impact…
Third, we must work together now to set the stage for a recovery that builds a more sustainable, inclusive and equitable economy, guided by our shared promise — the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It was remarkably naive or callous to claim that human, social, and economic impacts caused by the Covid response on hundreds of millions of the poorest and the most vulnerable were minimizable. Naturally, its promoters were not among those who suffered. A decision was made to impoverish populations and drag them down, yet claim publicly that development targets could still be achieved. Lockdowns were contrary to the WHO’s recommendations in 2019 for pandemic influenza (non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza; 2019).
Only a few months prior to March 2020, the WHO had stated that in case of a pandemic, measures such as contact tracing, quarantine of exposed individuals, entry and exit screening, and border closures were “not recommended in any circumstances”:
However, social distancing measures e.g. contact tracing, isolation, quarantine, school and workplace measures and closures, and avoiding crowding) can be highly disruptive, and the cost of these measures must be weighed against their potential impact…
Border closures may be considered only by small island nations in severe pandemics and epidemics, but must be weighed against potentially serious economic consequences.
One can wonder if the UN had ever seriously weighed the social, economic, and human rights costs of the measures pushed by Guterres against expected benefits. Countries were encouraged to institute measures such as workplace and school closures that would entrench future poverty for the next generation.
As was predictable, the 2020 SOFI report on Food Security and Nutrition estimated at least 10% more hungry people:
The COVID-19 pandemic was spreading across the globe, clearly posing a serious threat to food security. Preliminary assessments based on the latest available global economic outlooks suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic may add between 83 and 132 million people to the total number of undernourished in the world…
These are the individuals, families, and communities with no or little cushion who suddenly lost jobs and incomes, particularly in informal or seasonal economies, because of the panic caused by a virus predominantly threatening elderly people in Western countries.
During 2020, the WHO, ILO, and FAO regularly published joint press releases, but they disingenuously attributed the economic devastation to the pandemic, failing to question the response. This narrative was systematically deployed across the UN system, with the rare exception of the ILO, probably the bravest entity of all, which once pointed directly at the lockdown measures as the cause of massive job losses:
As a result of the economic crisis created by the pandemic, almost 1.6 billion informal economy workers (representing the most vulnerable in the labour market), out of a worldwide total of two billion and a global workforce of 3.3 billion, have suffered massive damage to their capacity to earn a living. This is due to lockdown measures and/or because they work in the hardest-hit sectors.”
Given the ILO’s estimation, it is reasonable to assume that the number of people pushed into hunger may well be higher than officially estimated. Adding to this is the number of those who also lost access to education, medical care, and improved shelter.
The strangest thing about this entire episode is the lack of interest of the media, the UN, and major donors. While previous famines had generated wide and specific sympathy and responses, the Covid famine, perhaps because it was essentially directed by Western-based and global institutions and was more diffuse, has been mostly swept under the carpet. This could be a question of financial return on investment. Funding has been massively directed to initiatives to buy, donate, and dump Covid vaccines and supporting institutions driving the “pandemic express.”
Recommended Approved Food Based on the Climate Agenda
The FAO and WHO have been collaborating on developing dietary guidelines in order to “improve current dietary practices and prevailing diet-related public health problems.” They once recognized that links between constituents of food, disease, and health were poorly understood, and they agreed to conduct joint research. The cultural element of diets was also highlighted. After all, human societies had been founded on a hunter-gatherer model heavily reliant on wild meat (fat, protein, and vitamins), then introduced dairy and cereals step-by-step according to favorable climates and geography.
Their partnership led to the joint promotion of “sustainably healthy diets,” which constitutes the consensus of individual approaches of the WHO’s “healthy diet” and the FAO’s “sustainable diets.” As the wording indicates, these guidelines are motivated by sustainability, defined as reducing CO2 emissions resulting from food production. Meat, fat, dairy, and fish are now the declared enemies and should be limited in daily consumption, with protein intake predominantly from plants and nuts, thereby promoting a quite unnatural diet compared to that for which our bodies evolved.
The WHO claims that its healthy diet “helps to protect against malnutrition in all its forms, as well as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.” However, it is then somewhat incongruously promoting carbohydrates over meat-based protein.
The following diet was recommended to both adults and young children by the FAO-WHO 2019 “Sustainable Healthy Diets: Guiding Principles” report:
- Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains (e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat and brown rice);
- At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day, excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.
- Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars.
- Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats. Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) and trans-fats of all kinds, including both industrially-produced trans-fats (found in baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods, such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, biscuits, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels).
- Less than 5g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day. Salt should be iodized.
Little evidence on the health impact of the guidelines was presented to back up the report’s allegations of: i) red meats being linked with increased cancer; ii) animal source foods (dairy, eggs, and meat) accounting for 35% of the burden of food-borne disease due to all foods, and iii) the health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet and the New Nordic Diet promoted by the report – both plant-based, with little to moderate amounts of animal-sourced foods. Although these diets are new, the FAO and WHO assert that “adherence to both diets has been associated with lower environmental pressures and impacts in comparison to other healthy diets containing meat.”
The sister organizations define sustainable healthy diets as “patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe and equitable; and are culturally acceptable.” The paradoxes of this definition are paramount.
Firstly, imposing a diet is forcing cultural acceptance and, when reflecting the ideology of an external group, can reasonably be considered cultural colonialism. Diet is the product of culture based on centuries or even millennia of experience and food availability, production, processing, and preservation. The right to adequate food not only implies the sufficient quantity of food for the individuals and their families but also their quality and appropriateness. Examples are not scarce. The French still enjoy their foie gras despite the importation restriction, ban, and an international campaign against it. They also eat horse meat, which shocks their British neighbors.
Dog meat, also a victim of negative campaigns, is appreciated across several Asian countries. Invoking moral judgment in these cases may be seen as a neo-colonial behavior, and battery farms of chickens and pigs do not fare better than force-fed geese or alleged cruel treatment to animals considered humans’ best friends in multiple contemporary societies. Western people, rich from fossil fuel use, demand that poorer people change their traditional diets in response is a similar but even more abusive theme. If the cultural aspect of diets is undeniable, then the right to self-determination of peoples, including cultural development, should be respected.
Article 1.1 (ICESR)
All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Secondly, at the time of their adoption in 1948 and 1966, the treaties’ provisions recognizing the right to food did not link food to its “environmental pressure and impact.” Article 11.2 of the binding ICESR (quoted above) refers to States’ obligation to implement agrarian reforms and technologies for the best use of natural resources (i.e. land, water, fertilizers) for optimal food production. Farming certainly uses land and water and causes some pollution and deforestation. Managing its impacts is complicated and requires local context, and national governments and local communities are better placed to make such decisions with scientifically founded advice and neutral (unpoliticized) support from external agencies, such should be expected from the UN.
The managerial job has become increasingly complicated with the UN’s emerging climate agenda. After the first UN Conference on Environment in 1972 in Stockholm, the green agenda slowly grew through and eclipsed the Green Revolution. The first World Climate Conference was held in 1979, leading to the 1992 adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (together with the non-binding Declaration on Environment). This Convention stated, without openness for further discussion, that human activities producing greenhouse gases were, unlike similar prior periods, the main cause of climate warming:
UNFCCC, Preamble
The Parties to this Convention…
Concerned that human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and that this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind…
With the UN’s goal to keep greenhouse gas emissions as low as pre-industrial levels, governments are now bound by obligations to maintain or reduce national emissions. Applied to agriculture in the context of constant population growth, it will inevitably lead to a reduction of food diversity, production, and accessibility, particularly affecting traditional food cultures emphasizing natural meats and dairy.
When the Climate Agenda Is More Important Than the Right to Food of “We The Peoples”
In the draft document of the Pact For the Future (revision 2) to be adopted by world leaders in September in New York, the UN still proclaims its intention to eradicate extreme poverty; however, this goal is conditioned to “mitigating global CO2 emissions in order to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius” (para. 9). The drafters seem not to understand that reducing the use of fossil fuels will undoubtedly reduce food production and prevent billions of people from improving their economic well-being.
As a result, the planned Actions 3 and 9 in the document appear to strongly push countries toward “sustainable agrifood systems,” and people toward adopting sustainable healthy diets as a component of “sustainable consumption and production patterns.”
Pact for The Future (revision 2)
Action 3. We will end hunger and eliminate food insecurity.
(c) Promote equitable, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems so that everyone has access to safe, affordable and nutritious food.
Action 9. We will enhance our ambition to address climate change.
(c) Promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, including sustainable lifestyles, and circular economy approaches as a pathway to achieving sustainable consumption and production patterns, and zero waste initiatives.
In the last decades, the right to food was sacrificed twice by the UN itself, first by the green agenda and second by lockdown measures supported by the UN for a virus predominantly affecting the wealthy countries where the climate agenda is based (and, ironically, where people consume the highest rates of energy). It now mostly means the right to certain types of approved foods, in the name of centralized and unquestionable determinations regarding people’s health and the earth’s climate. Veganism and vegetarianism are promoted while wealthy individuals and financial institutions close to the UN buy up farmland. An intent to make meat and dairyless affordable whilst investing in vegan meat and drink may be seen as a conspiracy theory (technically, it is). However such policies would make sense for climate agenda promoters.
In this quest, the FAO and WHO omit to highlight the high nutrition of animal fat, meat, and dairy. They also ignore and disrespect the fundamental rights and choices of individuals and communities. They appear on a mission to force people onto pre-approved foods of the UN’s choosing. The history of centralized control and interference in the food supply, as Soviet and Chinese experience taught us, is a very poor one. Fiat fames (let there be hunger) for “We the peoples?”
Venezuela Descends Into Anarchy / Civil War As Dictator Maduro Fights For Control
FBI Leadership Accused of Perjury After Telling Congress Trump Shooter Pushed ‘Anti-Immigration’ & ‘Anti-Semitic’ Views on Social Media
FBI leadership has been accused of perjury after testifying in a Senate hearing Tuesday that the Trump shooter espoused “anti-immigration” and “anti-semitic” views on social media.
Deputy Director Paul Abbate told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks shared many “extreme” posts on social media that reflected “anti-semitic and anti-immigration themes.”
“Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the 2019-2020 timeframe,” Abbate said.
— Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba) July 30, 2024
“There were over 700 comments posted from this account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-semitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature.”
“While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did, in fact, belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information that reflect on the shooter’s potential motive and mindset,” Abbate said.
Catch that? So when for weeks the FBI has been refusing to answer basic questions surrounding the events of the attempted assassination of Trump to lawmakers and the press, the bureau felt it necessary to share unverified information about the shooter’s alleged “anti-semitic and anti-immigration” views despite his account not yet being confirmed as authentic.
And contrary to Abbate’s remarks, Gab founder Andrew Torba revealed the FBI had issued an Emergency Disclosure Request (EDR) last week for a Gab account believed to have belonged to would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, known as account “EpicMicrowave”, that “UNEQUIVOCALLY” showed he was “pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden’s immigration policy.”
BREAKING: The FBI is now claiming that the Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks had an unspecified “social media account” in 2019/2020 (when he was 14/15 years old) that posted “anti-immigrant and anti-semitic” content.
— Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba) July 30, 2024
This is not consistent with Gab’s understanding of the… pic.twitter.com/UPPJSAkPqp
From Torba:
The FBI is now claiming that the Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks had an unspecified “social media account” in 2019/2020 (when he was 14/15 years old) that posted “anti-immigrant and anti-semitic” content.
This is not consistent with Gab’s understanding of the shooter’s motives based on an Emergency Disclosure Request (“EDR”) we received from the FBI last week for the Gab account “EpicMicrowave” which, based on the content of that EDR, the FBI appeared to think belonged to Thomas Crooks.
Many, particularly regime media reporters, have doubted Gab’s claims that this request existed. Normally we don’t confirm the existence or content of law enforcement communications. In this instance we had to make an exception due to the overwhelming public interest in disclosure and transparency.
As a courtesy to law enforcement, we are not going to post the entire request. This is the first page of that request.
The story is this: the account for which data was requested was, UNEQUIVOCALLY, pro-Biden and in particular pro-Biden’s immigration policy.
To the best of Gab’s knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter.
The discrepancy caught the attention of X owner Elon Musk, who posted, “It sure looks like the FBI leadership engaged in perjury….”
It sure looks like the FBI leadership engaged in perjury … https://t.co/tU1M7fs9lj
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2024
This notably comes days after FBI Director Christopher Wray sparked controversy for testifying that Trump may not even have been struck by a bullet from Crooks’ rifle during the Butler, PA MAGA rally, a statement that was quickly corrected by his own Bureau.
Is the FBI misrepresenting Crooks’ political views to cover for the Democrat Party ahead the 2024 election?
If so, this amounts to more election interference by the runaway Bureau that also raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and investigated him for “Russia collusion” in the run-up to the 2016 election.
RELATED: Watch: Acting Secret Service Director Admits NOBODY’S Been Fired After Attempted Trump Assassination
RELATED: Watch: Sen. Kennedy Savagely Mocks FBI After Director Claimed Unknown if Bullet Hit Trump
RELATED: Live: Senate Committees Grill Secret Service, FBI Officials On Trump Assassination Attempt
Are the Olympics a Trial Run for a 1984 Digital State?
This is a guest post from a friend who is on the ground in Paris reporting what the situation is like.
The best way to begin might be to say that there are three distinct categories of Olympic games sites that the City of Paris wants to make ultra-safe for visitors and athletes, each with its own unique security challenges.
First, there are the many official, already-existing sporting venues (stadiums, arenas, tennis courts, aquatic centers, etc.) located throughout Paris and France. These require the least amount of novel security measures, whether in the form of protective perimeters or the (unusual) methods used to maintain them.
Included among these is the historic Grand Palais, an architectural jewel from 1900 located at the foot of the Champs-Elysées. A monumentally massive building with a marvelously versatile interior space, it regularly plays host to museum exhibitions of all types, in addition to galas, elaborate fashion shows, concerts, conventions, and even an ice-skating rink. Turning it into an Olympic sporting event site wouldn’t have been very difficult.
Second, and complementing these dedicated sporting facilities, are several famous outdoor public monuments and historic landmarks that have been transformed into temporary games sites.
These comprise, most notably, the Trocadero and the area next to the Eiffel Tower, the Château de Versailles, the Place de la Concorde, the Alexandre III Bridge, and the expansive lawns in front of the Hôtel des Invalides.
Massive amounts of bleachers and facilities for ticketed spectators have been brought in and creatively set up to adapt to the often unusual contours and spatial constraints of these areas. Seeing the obelisk at la Place de la Concorde hidden behind a patchwork of crisscrossing bars and stands was strange indeed. From the outside, the expansive fenced-in area, with giant stands rising out from the emptied-out streets, looks like a curious sort of fairground.
Third, and arguably most importantly, there is the Seine River itself, which will be the location of the opening ceremony as well as several aquatic competitions.
From a security standpoint, the first category of venues is the most straightforward because entrances and exits are already part of the structures. All that is necessary to guarantee spectator and athlete safety is to set up slightly expanded perimeters around the buildings and flood the access points with staff and security guards so that no one – or anything – dangerous gets through.
Think of the Barclays Center on game night. Plenty of space to accommodate the crowds at the entrance waiting to go through security, with minimal disruptions to the immediate surroundings.
The second category of event sites, as mentioned above, significantly modify public spaces outdoors; they pose greater security and logistical challenges, as the physical enclosures separating “outside from inside” – separating the ticketed spectators from the unticketed – have to be brought in on trucks and set up.
These barriers are made up of hundreds of miles of what are essentially chain link fence units (about 10 feet long and 7 feet high) set into concrete slabs that can be moved around and connected as needed.
They wrap around the temporary outdoor sporting event sites in odd, unsightly ways and, notwithstanding the considerable effort to line them up neatly, look to many like human kennels. (Upset Parisians are referring to them as cages.)
The last site/category of Olympic events, and the location of the opening ceremony, the Seine River, is the most problematic in terms of security perimeters.
In fact, in order to meet the endless safety, commercial, and sanitary needs associated with the many uses to which the river is being put, an unprecedented thing has taken place: for 8 days leading up to the opening ceremony (tomorrow), the Seine and its immediate surroundings have undergone a form of privatization that has kept almost the entirety of the Parisian population off its riverbanks and away from its nearest surrounding streets and bridges.
Implementing this shutting down of the river has involved widespread use of the aforementioned chainlink-type moveable fences – thousands of them – along with a novel but not entirely unfamiliar technological device: the QR-coded pass.
To help explain what this is looking like on the ground, I’ll attempt to draw a hypothetical analogy with NYC.
It’s a highly flawed comparison due to the very different layout and features of the two cities, with the proportions off, but it’s the best I could come up with under pressure to illustrate the point.
Imagine that 42nd Street in NYC was the Seine River, and that all of the Avenues slicing through it were Paris’ many bridges connecting the North and South sides of the city.
Now picture the sidewalks of 42nd Street as Paris’ Right and Left banks, or riversides, and all the buildings on the North and South sides of 42nd Street, extending down its entire length, like the rows of charming old Parisian apartment buildings you see overlooking the Seine in postcards.
Okay, now think of what life would be like in Manhattan if, for 8 days, all of 42nd Street (street, sidewalks, avenues, entire blocks of buildings) was completely off limits to all motorized traffic and most foot and cycle traffic, with only two avenues – one on the East Side (say, 2nd Avenue), and one on the West Side (say, 8th Avenue) – left open to handle all of midtown Manhattan’s North-to-South movements: foot, bicycle, and motorized traffic.
On top of these restrictions on 42nd Street, imagine the entire area encompassing 41st and 43rd Streets – cross streets and all – every inch, being cut off to all motorized traffic for 8 days, except for emergency and police vehicles. Buses would be rerouted out of the area.
Random pedestrians and cyclists approaching from uptown or downtown could move freely within this outlying area immediately to the north and south of 42nd Street, but they could still not access 42nd Street itself, and as they entered into the outlying pedestrian areas through police checkpoints, they would be subject to random bag searches by a police presence resembling that of an occupying army.
Subway service would continue to run uninterrupted through the zone, but would not make any stops on 41st, 42nd and 43rd Streets. All major subway hubs in the area would be completely closed for those 8 days, including MetroNorth and LIRR trains running into and out of Grand Central.
Drivers wishing to travel from, say, the Upper East Side to Kip’s Bay might find it faster and easier at rush hour to take the Queensborough Bridge to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, swinging back again into Manhattan, rather than sitting in the bottleneck forming for blocks and blocks along the approach to the 2nd Avenue 42nd Street southbound crossing.
Imagine in addition that more than half of the width of 42nd Street sidewalks was completely taken up with metal stands and bleachers in preparation for an opening ceremony parade of slow-moving trucks that would traverse 42nd Street from east to west all the way across.
(In Paris, the opening ceremony will feature decked-out boats gliding down the river representing the participating nations, so in addition to the river banks, most of the bridges in the center of Paris are also filled with empty steep metal bleachers.
My fanciful comparison with NYC, unfortunately, doesn’t allow the avenues to behave like bridges, but if you can picture the Park Avenue Viaduct over 42nd Street filled with empty seats and benches stacked high and looking down over the street, you can get a sense of how this vitally important public space has been turned into one vast seating area, sitting idle for 8 days.)
Controlled access to the thousands of residences, businesses, and shops on 42nd Street via the many otherwise closed-off avenues would begin as far away as 41st and 43rd Streets (and sometimes one or two streets farther removed) behind hundreds of feet of the aforementioned chainlink barriers and through select access points guarded by police units 24/7.
Entry would be granted only to authorized individuals in possession of a special QR-coded “Games Pass.”
The “authorized” individuals allowed to enter this area, on foot or on bicycle only, would be: local residents, owners, or employees of shops and businesses on 42nd Street, and/or tourists and others with valid reasons for needing to be there.
The latter reasons would include and be essentially limited to medical appointments, lunch/dinner reservations in restaurants, and the need for guests staying at hotels or Airbnbs within this “secure” perimeter to return to their accommodations.
The QR-coded “Games Pass” itself would be issued to applicants only after the successful submission of detailed personal information and supporting documents to the NYPD well in advance of the shutdown period.
The NYPD would record all the personal information about who lived and worked within this soon-to-be shut-down perimeter, presumably verify the accuracy of the information provided, and then give, or withhold giving, the green light for issuance of the “Games Pass.”
For reasons unknown, many employees of small businesses would never get their QR-coded “Games Pass” after correctly providing all necessary personal information to the authorities.
(In Paris, this inexplicable failure to issue “Games Passes” to employees whose workplaces were inside the locked-down areas, whether due to human or machine error, initially created much tension between cops and workers at numerous access points, as the latter tried by many means (getting their bosses on the phone, showing proof of employment, providing friendly assurances, etc., often in vain, to justify their right and need to enter the area.)
On the afternoon of the opening ceremony, the bleachers lining the sidewalks of 42nd Street, along with the rows of stands looking down from the Park Avenue Viaduct, would slowly fill up with the more than 300,000 ticketed spectators allowed to watch the Olympic Parade.
No one else in NYC – unless they happened to be lucky enough to live in a building on 42nd Street with a window facing the street – would be allowed to get close enough to the event to see it with their own two eyes.
It’s hard to capture the universal exasperation caused by this 8-day near-total shutdown of the Seine River, its upper and lower riverbanks, the buildings all around it, and most of its bridges.
The rerouting of motorized traffic and resulting colossal bottlenecks around this central part of the city have been an absolute nightmare to taxis and commuters at rush hour – even after the significant reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads following the seasonal exodus of Parisians fleeing the city for summer homes and foreign vacation destinations.
But it’s the restrictions on pedestrian and cyclist movements around the water and riverside areas that have enraged Parisians the most.
Hemmed in and funneled through long narrow spaces between sidewalks and empty roads, local residents and visitors to Paris alike are bristling at the intrusive, intimidating metal fences, which are more in line with the types of structures you would see at a detention center or migrant camp than at an international sporting event.
It’s hard to overstate how violently these unsightly barriers clash with the otherwise beautiful surroundings they are keeping people out of.
All of these restrictions have, not surprisingly, led to a serious dropoff in tourist activities in the area. Restaurants within the cordoned-off “security perimeters” are making 30%-70% less than this time last year. This is the case even in the buffer zones leading up to the river where motorized traffic is prohibited but foot and bicycle access is allowed without restrictions. Terraces and restaurant interiors are empty here too.
(Fortunately, the many other stadium/arena/transformed venues around Paris that will be hosting events in the days following the opening ceremony will not cause similar disruptions to neighboring businesses, interrupting traffic flows in the immediate area only for a few hours preceding and following the events.
In such spots, the QR-Coded Games Pass will play a less important role, and won’t be needed by local residents or shopkeepers because no shops or businesses open to the public will be located on the same site as the sporting venue. Only visitors/spectators to these sites will have to worry about QR codes and QR-coded tickets.)
But to return to the river opening ceremony “security” preparations, in order to monitor the hundreds of access points along the North and South banks of the Seine (as well as to monitor the many other Olympic Games venues around the city), 45,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilized, with thousands pouring into Paris from all over France.
I spoke with about a dozen such officers stationed at checkpoints all along the river, and I asked them how things were going. Most – in carefully chosen words and professional tones — said it was a shitshow.
Interestingly, all the police I happened upon were from other parts of France and most were not at all familiar with Paris and its streets and bridges. So when asked by annoyed locals or confused/lost tourists about how to navigate around the off-limit zones, such officers were often of little to no help.
On the two occasions I witnessed local Parisians ask how to get around a closed-off area, the out-of-town police shrugged and apologetically explained how they weren’t from Paris and didn’t know.
Standing for hours on end at the hundreds of cordoned-off access points, they would repeat calmly and patiently that they were stationed there solely to check passes and make sure unauthorized persons did not get beyond them. It was unreasonable to expect anything more of them, they seemed to be saying.
This led me to ask how the actual process of checking the “Games Pass” – their primary responsibility – was unfolding.
It turns out that the way things were supposed to happen was that a person in possession of a “Games Pass” seeking access to the restricted area also needed to show police a separate ID, and sometimes further proof of what they claimed to be doing in the area (if they didn’t live or work there), at which the police could cross-check the name with the information called up by the QR-code scanner.
But it seems there are not (or at least weren’t as of Monday) enough scanners to go around, and, making matters worse, the scanner screens can’t be read properly on sunny days due to the glare.
So in such situations – which also include instances of people not receiving their “Games Pass,” or having lost their paper copy – the police have to “use their best judgment,” and let people through on the basis of simple ID checks and the believability of the person’s story for needing to be in the off-limits area.
The police officers I spoke with said a small number of people, like myself, objected to the use of QR-coded passes on principle, saying that it reminded them of the health and vaccine pass nightmares and that hosting an international event was no justification for denying freedom of movement in this way.
When I asked what they themselves thought of the kennel-like security restrictions, and if they agreed with any of the freedom of movement concerns raised by angry residents, most seemed to miss the point entirely. They would invariably utter something about the size and scope of the event requiring the extraordinary security measures, that terrorists would be plotting, etc. Almost like a pre-recorded message (though eloquently conveyed).
But one cop I spoke to at length raised another issue I hadn’t thought of keeping the entire city away from the Seine for 8 days and nights was also aimed at preventing the newly cleaned river from filling up with human garbage again.
The banks of the river in the warm summer months are thronged with revelers all through the evenings, and this leads to tons of junk and pollution ending up in the water.
It turns out that 1.4 billion euros went into a massive 6-year river cleanup project, beginning in 2018, to make the Seine safe enough to swim in for the handful of aquatic events set to take place in it this summer.
E coli and other bacteria seem to have disappeared (or at least no longer pose a threat to human health) and the number of fish species has made a huge comeback, jumping from 3 to 30 in the last few years due to the significant increase in oxygen in the water.
Understandably, the Olympic Games organizers and the City of Paris didn’t want flotsam in the form of empty wine bottles to be seen bobbing up and down between the parade boats on the opening night, so they decided not to take any chances and simply banned everyone from getting within spitting distance of the water.
This got me thinking.
This whole 8-day Seine shutdown – which in some ways amounts to privatizing the river, making access available to only a fraction of the tax-paying population – could not have been imaginable without the availability of digital passes such as this QR-coded “Games Pass,” which can store and instantly call up huge amounts of pre-vetted personal data.
Though there aren’t enough of the scanners to go around, there are enough to just about make it all work.
Without such on-the-spot digital data-storage technology, the thousands of local residents and other “authorized” persons needing to access the areas around the river on a daily basis would have to carry around with them at all times: IDs, proof of residence, and proof of employment papers. And they would need to show them all every day to every cop they came across at the checkpoints.
Police stationed at these checkpoints, in turn, would have to spend endless time cross-checking all these documents, and querying every non-resident about their purpose for being in the area – a mini-interrogation each time a local resident or worker sought to cross an access point.
It’s hard to imagine the proposal to shut down the Seine River for over a week being taken seriously even in an informal spitballing session of city counselors (let alone in a national-level ministerial meeting) if it involved local residents living by the river having to produce reams of documentation every time they came back from work or the supermarket.
One would hope that such an imaginary discussion, after eliciting groans at the idea of such intrusive on-the-spot background and ID checking by police, would have quickly led to other considerations being raised, such as freedom of movement and the unreasonable obligation to justify one’s presence in public areas.
So there had to be a way to streamline such an extensively coordinated, large-scale shutdown of a heavily populated urban area requiring such tight control of people and their movements, ideally, without people taking too much notice of the personal intrusions and infringements on certain rights and freedoms.
Cue the QR-coded “Games Pass.”
Had there been no sophisticated QR-coded tools to facilitate such an undertaking, it’s likely the hair-brained and outrageous idea of emptying out and privatizing the center of a major metropolis – with all its attendant civil rights questions – would have been immediately apparent.
One wonders if questions over the feasibility and legality/constitutionality of such a proposal were ever brought up in official discussions in 2016. Perhaps, instead, the fascination with the vast organizational and control/surveillance potential of the QR-coded “Games Passes” caused such concerns to be dismissed or downplayed – or eclipsed entirely – once again revealing the dangerous hidden biases of these digital technologies.
In my experience, asking proponents of surveillance/control tools like QR-coded “Games Passes” or Health/Vaccine Passports about the totalitarian nature of the use cases that such technologies inevitably give rise to typically elicits ironic eye-rolling and accusations of alarmism, followed by reassurances about the benefits of enhanced security on a limited time scale.
In the case of the Paris “Games Pass,” such enthusiasts are also quick to highlight the added bonus of having a cleaned-up river to enjoy going forward. The 100-year ban on swimming on the Seine is set to be lifted after the Summer Games, with the opening up of select swimming areas along the river next summer.
But those of us who lived for two-plus years under the totalitarian Corona regime, with its QR-coded health and vaccine passes, see this as a clear attempt to continue testing out these technologies in new contexts involving restrictions on basic rights and freedoms, slowly and steadily conditioning public acceptance of their use in preparation for the inevitable rollout of digital IDs in France and the EU (unless the Europeans start organizing to oppose these out-in-the-open Orwellian plans).
Indeed, it seems the French government misses no opportunity these days to insinuate QR codes into large-scale public celebrations and gatherings where they are not needed.
To wit, the annual Bal des Pompiers (Fireman’s Ball) this year (a uniquely French outdoor celebration held inside the courtyards of Fire Stations all over France on the 13th and 14th of July, which is free and open to the public and draws massive crowds of revelers, featuring the presence of French Foreign Legionnaires and other elite military personnel), for the first time ever, prohibited the use of cash and credit cards for purchases of food and drink and instead required partygoers to buy a QR-coded “credit card” at the entrance.
In order to consume food or alcohol within the firehouse, one had to line up at a special booth and exchange money for a special one-off QR-coded plastic card (the size and shape of a credit card) which then became the only accepted form of currency for purchases during the all-night outdoor celebration.
Unlike previous years, where the firemen serving food and alcohol also handled cash and credit cards, this year they were armed with little scanners, with which they beeped and deducted credit from these disposable digital money cards.
It introduced a wholly unnecessary, illogical, time-wasting step into the normal “money-food” transaction process on the grounds that it would streamline the handover of food and drink in an extremely busy and crowded space by freeing vendors from the need to handle money.
It of course did exactly the opposite, causing people to waste more time standing in the QR-coded card line each time they wanted to buy or top up their card. Worse still, drunk party-goers undoubtedly lost hundreds, if not thousands of euros, from putting more money on their QR-cards than they were able (or remembered) to spend on food and alcohol during the rollicking festivities.
To those of us still reeling from the use of the health passes, it was a terrifying, flagrant further example of the incremental social engineering that has been going on in Europe for the last 4 years, with its two-fold aim of phasing out cash while preparing the public for a sudden shift to a digital euro during the next manufactured emergency.
I can only hope the uproar caused by the Summer Games’ disruptions to people’s ability to live, work in, and enjoy their city will shine a light on these dangerous technologies of control and surveillance that I believe are irreconcilably incompatible with the values and principles of a free society.
Venezuela Descends Into Anarchy / Civil War As Dictator Maduro Fights For Control
Watch: Sen. Kennedy Savagely Mocks FBI After Director Claimed Unknown if Bullet Hit Trump
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) savaged FBI representatives during a congressional hearing Tuesday, brutally mocking the agency after Director Christopher Wray last week claimed he didn’t know if Donald Trump had been hit by a bullet.
Addressing FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, Sen. Kennedy asked whether the agency had any other theories behind what could have injured the former president at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, two weeks ago.
?SAVAGE SENATOR KENNEDY?
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 30, 2024
KENNEDY: “Is there any doubt in your mind or in the collective mind of the FBI that President Trump was shot in the ear by a bullet fired by the assassin?”
FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: “There is absolutely no doubt.”
KENNEDY: “It wasn’t a space laser?”
FBI:… pic.twitter.com/6hUPuGZaPQ
“Is there any doubt in your mind or in the collective mind of the FBI that President Trump was shot in the ear by a bullet fired by the assassin?” Sen. Kennedy asked.
Abbate responded, “Senator, there is absolutely no doubt in the FBI’s mind whether former President Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear.”
“No doubt. There never has been,” Abbate added, contrasting with testimony Wray gave to the House Judiciary Committee last week.
Sen. Kennedy pressed forward, asking, “You’re sure? It wasn’t a space laser.”
“No,” Abbate replied.
“It wasn’t a murder hornet?” Kennedy sarcastically inquired.
“Absolutely not,” responded Abbate.
“It wasn’t Sasquatch?” Kennedy continued, before establishing, “It was a bullet fired by [would-be assassin Thomas Matthew] Crooks.”
RELATED – Watch: Acting Secret Service Director Admits NOBODY’S Been Fired After Attempted Trump Assassination
The senator’s derisive line of questioning was intended to highlight questionable remarks last week by FBI Director Christopher Wray, in which he appeared to feed into leftist conspiracy theories that Trump may not have been shot by a would-be assassin.
“As I said, I think with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray claimed during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week.
“No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” Trump responded on Truth Social last Thursday. “The hospital called it a ‘bullet wound to the ear,’ and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”
OMG Undercover Footage Reveals DNC Higher-ups Don’t Think Kamala Can Win
New undercover video from O’Keefe Media Group shows a Democratic National Committee Manager admitting he has no hope that Kamala Harris can defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
In the footage, DNC fundraising accountant Joyce Decerce explained why Harris can’t win and how the left lies to its base in order to collect money.
BREAKING: DNC Manager: ‘I Don’t Think Kamala Harris Would Win;’ Admits to Making Empty Promises to Donors
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) July 30, 2024
“I don’t think Kamala Harris would win this year,” reveals Joyce DeCerce (@JoyceDecerce) (he/him), Compliance Manager for the Democratic National Committee (@DNC) and Kamala… pic.twitter.com/p2jCmwbEPu
“I like Kamala Harris, but I don’t think she’d win this year… She’s wildly unpopular and I think a lot of that is racism and misogyny,” he told the undercover reporter.
The DNC manager also explained how the party will tell rich donors whatever they want to hear in order to get their cash while completely ignoring their wishes once elected.
Decerce noted some donors refused to give money to the DNC this year because they didn’t believe Joe Biden was cognitively fit to serve another four years.
The video highlights how Democrats use and abuse their constituents.
Take A Tour Inside El Salvador’s CECOT Prison Where The World’s Most Dangerous Prisoners Rot
El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) houses some of the world’s most dangerous gang members, and journalist Nick Shirley was able to get a firsthand look inside the famous facility that helped fix the nation’s crime crisis.
President Nayib Bukele started cracking down on Salvadorian gangs in 2022 and has since cleaned the country so much it now boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the world.
INSIDE CECOT (full video):
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) July 27, 2024
I entered into El Salvadors mega prison know as The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), it is home to some of the most dangerous gangs and gangsters in the world. El Salvador was once controlled by these gangs and known as the most dangerous country… pic.twitter.com/0dK1HDDMHA
During his tour, Shirley experienced the strict security measures for visitors to the prison and was able to briefly ask a few questions to the violent criminals.
“When an inmate walks through these doors, he never leaves,” he told the camera.
The extremely hardcore jail framework is largely credited with helping El Salvador fix its crime problem and many people across the world are looking to the country as an example of how they could also cleanse their nations of criminal gangs.
Don’t miss the epic Tucker Carlson interview with President Bukele to further understand how the country has transformed under his anti-globalist leadership.
President Nayib Bukele saved El Salvador. He may have the blueprint for saving the world. pic.twitter.com/92etFh7sSI
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2024