World News
2021: The Geopolitics of Vaccination
The potentially most interesting systemic change brought on by the virus would be the start of some sort of mandatory vaccination for travel.
The biggest overall issue of 2020 by far was the global reaction to Covid-19 and there is a prevailing belief that somehow 2021 will be automatically different because one digit in the year has changed. The world is waiting for this to all be “over”. But, perhaps the big question shouldn’t be when the Coronavirus issue ends but how it ends. This health crisis, just like any other, provides the catalyst for political change and has already left a bureaucratic mark on history. The potentially most interesting (or terrifying depending on your worldview) systemic change brought on by the virus would be the start of some sort of mandatory vaccination for travel. This concept, which was unthought of just a year ago, is being discussed in the Mainstream Media both positively and negatively with some governments already greenlighting the concept verbally. The Overton Window seems to be moving very quickly on this issue. But what will this new form of bureaucracy mean on a grander scale and since numerous different sources are creating a vaccine could a form of “geopolitics” of vaccination arise depending one which is taken?
As of now the key form of bureaucracy for international travel is a passport based on citizenship. The proposed idea to only allow vaccinated individuals to travel will essentially create a second passport (regardless of what terminology is ascribed to it) based on an individual’s vaccination record. So, because this new vaccination proof documentation will essentially function as a passport we should first take a look at the geopolitical aspects of passports before we can take a look at the geopolitical aspects of vaccination.
The Passport Space We Know
Passports and visa regimes throughout the 20th century became a reflection of national power and created bureaucratic geopolitical spaces of their own. If we look at the “Global Passport Power Rank 2021” then we see that the top nations are not surprisingly in the West. The choice of using the word “power” when describing passports is very relevant. For example, U.S. Citizens can visit Bulgaria and Serbia visa free, while Serbs and Bulgarians must go through the bureaucracy, fees and interviews necessary for the privilege to step on American soil. Although many Bulgarians may feel the U.S. is an ally who saved them from floundering Communism, there are plenty of Serbs alive today who consider Washington to be the murderers of their people and yet they still give Americans 90 days to stay in their nation with zero questions asked. Funny how that works out.
In contrast, and unlike many European nations, the Serbs give eternal ally Russia 30 days for business and/or vacation. Very often traditional allies of a given nation are granted visa free entrance. Speaking of Russia, it is no surprise that many tiny nations that Russia recognizes but America does not (South Ossetia, Abkhazia etc.) allow Russian citizens to enter visa free. Furthermore, as Russia’s influence has grown since its utter defeat in the Cold War its passport has steadily increased in “power”.
Visas and passports can reflect the strength of a nation or its proximity to power (high level vassal status) when its citizens can go almost everywhere while at the same time blocking lessers from entering their nation.
In some ways when smaller nations demand visas from more powerful actors this show of bureaucratic force definitely makes a statement and is a form of proof of independence. It is unknown how many people actually want to go to North Korea for a summer holiday but the fact they can and do enforce/deny visas provides some level of protection from carpet baggers, foreign agents and other questionable figures, but most importantly it sends a message to other nations that they have “no right to be here”.
So we can see that Western passport geopolitical spaces are very broad reaching covering almost the whole globe except for certain uppity hermit nations while in turn rejecting free entry to many poorer/weaker nations. The West’s businessmen and influencers can go out, but no one is coming back so easily in turn. International travel is a symbol of at least middle class status, but what is really key is where those 8 men in the business class seats can and cannot go.
When it comes to the poor of the world we can see that there is a reason why every London bartender is Polish, and every street sweeper in Moscow is Tajik – they have visa free entry to these respective countries to work as migrant labour. The Tajiks in Moscow would surely prefer to do the same job for U.S. dollars or British pounds, but that is simply not an option as their passports do not allow it. There are simply different migrant worker exploitation spaces available to those with Polish and Tajik citizenship.
The Vaccination Space That Could Be Coming
If we are going to live in a world where vaccines are mandatory for travel, who is to say that every nation on Earth is going to acknowledge the validity of every other vaccine. The Mainstream Media makes it seem as though just getting any vaccine with some sort of paperwork to back it up should be good enough, but this is unlikely to be true.
The BBC has already written about Russia’s Sputnik V Coronavirus vaccine with some skepticism. When we consider the fact that this news giant basically writes the entire cultural narrative of the UK, then it is safe to believe that many of their politicians may choose to not recognize the validity of the Russian vaccine out of fear, spite and/or ignorance.
In contrast, like it or not, Russian citizens are going to have access to only the Russian made vaccine. You have the option to take it or not, but getting the American type from Pfizer will require effort, patience and a much bigger personal expense. Thus, it is not forbidden per say, but will be very rare for Russian citizens to get a competing foreign vaccine, putting them all into the Sputnik V camp from a bureaucratic perspective. In fact there seems to be almost a vaccination race as nations race to develop and export their vaccine first. Perhaps this is out of national pride or humanitarian interests, but their rush may also be connected with the desire to get as many nations as possible onto your national vaccine. In the same sense that all Russian citizens with a Russian passport are in one big group, then if there will be a vaccination passport then all people who took Sputnik V or Pfizer’s shot would be placed into one similar category for travel. If this is actually happening, then surely the race is on to take as much of this new intangible geopolitical space as possible.
If we follow bureaucratic logic, that “if the Russian vaccine is bad, then no travel to England”, this would also extend to individuals/countries that have predominantly taken the Post Soviet edition of the antivirus injection. What is important to understand is that many of the countries getting Sputnik V are not just small ignorable former Communist nations bordering Russia. These are major economic players like China, India, South Korea, and America’s neighbor to the south Mexico, all of which are all placing orders in the tens of millions.
If push comes to shove and this concept of travel papers based on vaccination (immunization passports) comes to pass then it is very likely that non-Western versions will “not count” at border crossings. Although with enough time and money one can probably get any type of vaccine anywhere, for the overwhelming majority this could create a new invisible Iron Curtain – the Western Vaccines on one side with the Russian one (with other possible outlier versions) on the other.
This may sound like a stretch of the imagination but the madness of Russophobic conspiracy theories seems to have no bounds. And most importantly governmental reactions to the Covid-19 Pandemic have been harsh, dubious in effect, and very short sighted. There is a real chance that in 2021 we will see the rise of the geopolitics of vaccination.
World News
The CEO Of Blackstone Is Warning That “A Real Shortage Of Energy” Will Cause Social Unrest All Over The Planet
And as energy prices escalate, that will push all prices throughout our economic system higher and higher and higher.
We are facing an unprecedented global energy crunch. Demand for energy is continually rising, and the production of energy is not keeping pace. One of the biggest reasons for this is that large financial institutions have become extremely hesitant to fund any new energy projects that will add more carbon emissions to the environment. Instead, they want to fund projects that will help us transition to the new “green economy”, but meanwhile we are getting to a point where we will soon see widespread shortages of traditional forms of energy. So now we all get to suffer. A lack of oil is pushing the price of gasoline to alarming heights, shortages of natural gas are already causing tremendous disruptions in Asia and Europe, we are being told that we are facing a propane “armageddon” this winter, and supplies of coal have dropped to dangerously low levels around the world.
In other words, we are potentially heading into the most painful global energy crisis in modern history.
When CNN asked Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman about this, he openly admitted that we are “going to end up with a real shortage of energy”…
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman warned Tuesday that high energy prices will likely set off social unrest around the world.
“We’re going to end up with a real shortage of energy. And when you have a shortage, it’s going to cost more. And it’s probably going to cost a lot more,” the private-equity billionaire told CNN International’s Richard Quest at a conference in Saudi Arabia.
When the power goes out, people are not going to be happy.
And people are really not going to be happy if it goes out for an extended period of time.
According to Schwarzman, we will soon see “very unhappy people” all over the globe…
“You’re going to get very unhappy people around the world in the emerging markets in particular but in the developed world,” Schwarzman said at the Future Investment Initiative. “What happens then, Richard, is you’ve got real unrest. This challenges the political system and it’s all utterly unnecessary.”
Sadly, he is right that this global energy crisis did not have to happen.
If the global elite had continued to fund traditional energy projects at the pace that was needed, we could have avoided this nightmare to a very large degree.
But traditional forms of energy are now being shunned, and billions of people will suffer as a result.
Meanwhile, prices throughout our economic system continue to rise at a very alarming pace. Just check out what has been happening to the price of turkey…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, released data recently showing the average wholesale price of Grade A frozen 8- to 16-pound turkey has spiked by 21.91% since last year. That means what cost $1.15 per pound a year ago will now ring at at $1.41. And just for context, the same would have cost 96 cents in 2019 and 84 cents in 2018.
If math isn’t your thing, that’s a 68% wholesale price increase in just two years.
Overall, we are being told that this upcoming Thanksgiving will be the most expensive Thanksgiving that any of us have ever experienced…
Matthew McClure paid 20% more this month than he did last year for the 25 pasture-raised turkeys he plans to roast at the Hive, the Bentonville, Arkansas, restaurant where he is the executive chef. And Norman Brown, director of sweet-potato sales for Wada Farms in Raleigh, North Carolina, is paying truckers nearly twice as much as usual to haul the crop to other parts of the country.
“I never seen anything like it, and I’ve been running sweet potatoes for 38 or 39 years,” Brown said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but in the end it’s all going to get passed on to the consumer.”
Unfortunately, more price hikes are on the horizon.
In fact, Kimberly-Clark is opening warning that they are going to be boosting prices even higher…
Prices of toilet paper, diapers, facial tissues and paper towels will likely rise in coming weeks as Irving-based consumer giant Kimberly-Clark warned Monday that inflation and supply chain concerns aren’t “likely to be resolved quickly.”
So I would stock up on paper products while you still can.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, inflation is eventually going to get far worse than what we witnessed during the 1970s.
At this point, even many top Democrats are warning that high inflation is with us to stay. Here is one recent example…
Former President Barack Obama’s chief of global development on Tuesday predicted inflation was here to stay, despite the Biden administration’s protestations to the contrary.
Prices “will go higher, and the Fed has misread the inflation dynamics in a big way,” former Global Development Council Chairman Mohamed El Erian said in an afternoon interview with Fox News’ Sandra Smith, adding that the Federal Reserve was “still hostage to this notion that it’s transitory.”
And the shortages that we are currently experiencing are ultimately going to get worse too.
Right now, we are already facing the worst shortage of alcoholic beverages since the 1930s. When asked about his empty shelves by a reporter, one gas station owner said that he has “never seen anything like this”…
Supply chain issues are impacting the alcohol supply in the U.S., and it’s making alcohol more expensive and difficult for bars and liquor stores to get.
“I have so many empty shelves. In the two years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything like this,” gas station chain owner Ali Ali said.
As I discussed yesterday, now Biden wants to take countless more truck drivers off the road, and that will make our supply chain headaches a whole lot worse.
And as energy prices escalate, that will push all prices throughout our economic system higher and higher and higher.
Yes, all of this is really happening.
This is not a drill.
We are in the early chapters of a full-blown economic meltdown of epic proportions, and nothing will ever be the same after this.
If you want to keep waiting for conditions to “return to normal”, you are going to be waiting for a really, really long time.
We have entered a truly horrible nightmare, and there will be no waking up from this.
World News
Georgian Protesters Storm LGBT Office, Tear Down Pride Flags And Replace Them With National Flag
Will Biden target them with drone strikes in order to spread “our values?”
Georgian protesters on Monday forced the cancellation of an LGBT pride march after storming the office of an LGBT lobby group, tearing down their pride flags and replacing them with Georgia’s national flag.
This is what anti-imperialism looks like:
#Georgia 🇬🇪: a man on a scooter reportedly tried to drive into a group of journalists as they were reporting on the anti-pride violence in #Tbilisi.
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) July 5, 2021
Source: https://t.co/SpUIIzAzRa pic.twitter.com/HSffPvAoVL
From Reuters, “LGBT+ campaigners in Georgia call off pride match after office attack”:
LGBT+ campaigners in Georgia called off plans to stage a pride march on Monday after violent groups opposed to the event stormed and ransacked their office in the capital Tbilisi and targeted activists and journalists.
Activists launched five days of LGBT+ Pride celebrations last Thursday and had planned a “March for Dignity” on Monday in central Tbilisi, shrugging off criticism from the church and conservatives who said the event had no place in Georgia.
[…] Video footage posted by LGBT+ activists showed their opponents scaling their building to reach their balcony where they tore down rainbow flags and were seen entering the office of Tbilisi Pride.
[…] Campaigners said some of their equipment had been broken in the attack and that they had been forced to cancel.
Will Biden target them with drone strikes in order to spread “our values?”
World News
Pfizer vaccine losing effectiveness amid Delta variant surge, Israeli Health Ministry says as it mulls 3rd shot & new restrictions
In addition to booster shots, health officials are also mulling whether to revive some pandemic restrictions.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine has dropped to 64% effectiveness in preventing infection amid the spread of the Delta variant in Israel, the Health Ministry said, as officials consider the need for booster shots and new restrictions.
The vaccine fell to 64% effectiveness in preventing symptomatic infection over the last month, the Health Ministry reported on Monday, noting that the decrease coincided with the rapid spread of the more contagious Delta variant across Israel. However, health officials said the Pfizer shot still offers strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization, reporting 93% efficacy.
While the ministry did not give the previous figures in its statement, a report published in May said the Pfizer vaccine was 97% effective against severe illness after two doses. In March, private Israeli researchers also found the immunization to be 91.2% effective against any level of symptomatic infection.
The new data comes amid a small surge across Israel, where the number of active cases hit 2,766 on Monday after 369 new infections, with the Delta variant believed to make up more than 90% of the overall total. As of July 4, around 70 patients were hospitalized, half of them in serious condition, compared to 21 with severe illness on June 19.
The fast spread of the Delta variant, which was first observed in India, has prompted Health Minister Nitzan Horowtiz to order two medical studies looking at the need for a third vaccine dose, saying they would provide “vital information” to policymakers. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office added that the studies will “evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine and the rate at which it wears off over time.”
While nearly 60% of Israel’s population of 9.3 million have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine – helping to bring daily infections down from their peak of around 10,000 in January – cases are still cropping up among the immunized. Last Friday, more than half of the new infections reported were in patients that had been vaccinated, according to Ynet, underscoring the need for further study.
In addition to booster shots, health officials are also mulling whether to revive some pandemic restrictions, most of which were lifted in March, as well as bringing back some version of its coronavirus ‘passport’ system, the Jerusalem Post reported. An indoor mask mandate had previously been dropped, but was brought back in late June as daily cases began to accelerate.
Foreign travelers could also face additional testing and quarantine protocols in the coming weeks, though the Health Ministry has yet to make a decision.
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