"This storm, this savaging disaster..."
JAMES ELLROY (American crime fiction author)
YES, it’s that annual confab of our betters, when high-flying billionaires (116 will attend) and the lesser-monied, along with CEOs, muckety-mucks of all sorts, politicians from around the world, representatives from civil (and not-so-civil!) society, along with assorted disrupters and influencers, pundits and prophets, sports and entertainment icons, hangers-on in all shapes and sizes and, of course, cadres of fawning, carefully-vetted media.
“Despite the shrinking number of political leaders*, this year’s attendance list is rich in top managers. Among 2,700 participants in the official WEF sessions, “we’re likely to surpass the old record from 2020 with 600 global CEOs – including 1,500 C-suite level overall,” according to WEF head of digital and marketing, George Schmitt.” (RT)
AND DON'T FORGET all those jet-setting billionaires! The conference, hosted again this year by the ever tone-deaf Klaus Schwab, has as its 2023 agenda for world domination a meaty menu of speeches and seminars with such compelling titles as: “The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation”, “In the Face of Fragility: Central Bank Digital Currencies”, “Philanthropy:A Catalyst for the Protection of Our Planet”, and one that’s sure to catch everyone’s eye—“One Hundred Days to Outrace the Next Pandemic.” +
IN HERR SCHWAB’S SPEECH to begin the festivities, he called upon world leaders and “stakeholders” to look for ways to coordinate their activities more fully, and to "work together on the interconnected issues of energy, climate, and nature" with a "[s]pecial emphasis" on "gender and geographical diversity", during the coming year, in line with the WEF's new theme: “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.” (thepostmillennial) He stressed the need for leaders to tackle difficult social and economic challenges now and to lay the groundwork for ecologically sustainably societies by the end of the decade. A worthy enough set of goals, it seems:
SOUNDS GOOD! Where do I sign up? Except...do we really think these
wealthy schmos are there for our benefit? Why do the rich and
famous, along with politicians, business leaders, NGOs, etc., mingle
together at this secluded mountain retreat like horny cousins at a barn dance? Well,
one reason is to promote their latest pet project: how to maximize profits as
they skim and scam their way through the “green energy treasure troves
initiatives being put together by many of the world’s governments. Throughout the collective West, truckloads
of money are being hoovered up from taxpayers or just printed (why not?), and the denizens of Davos are keen to get their
hands on as much of the moolah as they can.
IN HIS OPENING ADDRESS, Schwab tripped over his tongue, as he so often does, when calling on the forum's attendees to “master the future”, an unfortunate phrase replete, as it is, with imagery of jackboots and armies on the march, and not the best look, these days. But, with Green New Deals coming online everywhere (regardless of whether they’ll actually work), their implementation and mediation plans are promoted at Davos during its week-long series of lectures, as well as in workshops and ongoing “training” programs that I’ve discussed in an earlier post, here. Thus, the hope is for a cadre of well-trained, “globalist”1 politicians, CEOs and others, all influenced by ideas picked up from their time at Davos, who will return home and set common legislative agendas, allocating billions of dollars in their budgets for giant wind and solar farms or, as in another example, passing punative legislation limiting farmers’ use of artificial fertilizers (to reduce nitrous oxide emissions), all in a bid to achieve wildly unrealistic “zero carbon” targets. And their 'to-do' list for other green tasks is a long one, indeed.
…the importance of “technology and digital infrastructure” and data collection for surveilling the status of the vaccinated and unvaccinated. “You need the data,” Blair said. “You need to know who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t been. Some of the vaccines that will come on down the line will be multiple. There’ll be multiple shots. So, you’ve got to have, the reasons to do with the healthcare more generally, but certainly, for a pandemic or for…vaccines, you’ve got to have a proper digital infrastructure, and many countries don’t have that. In fact, most countries don’t have that.” (reclaimthenet.org)
TONY’S NGO, The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (no delusions of grandeur here!), has called for digital IDs and mandatory vaccine passports, and during his Davos talk he assured everyone that the increased surveillance we would have to live with in the coming digital age he envisions (well...except for everyone at Davos, of course) "is a price worth paying.” HOWEVER, reclaimthenet.org's Tom Parker expresses concerns about Sir Tony's jizz dreams, namely that such systems will “reduce individual privacy [and] vaccine passports discriminate against citizens and restrict their access to businesses and services.” But, just like they did during the pandemic, the Davos lords and ladies use fear, not of viruses this time but of climate change, to push forward their agenda of top-down government control and mass surveillance systems, obstensively so that we can be super-ready to deal with the next crisis de jour coming our way. But, in reality, it's to introduce and maintain digital control over the Great Unwashed.
IN COMPLACENT CANADA, we've had our share of 'authoritarianism-with-a-smile', with our herd-like compliance around pandemic restrictions and vaccine passports, and during the "trucker" protests of last year when citizens, protesting peacefully in our nation's capital and elsewhere over said restrictions, had their bank accounts digitally frozen to end their activities. The feds cracked down on the protestors haaard, imposing the Emergencies Act and tossing them in jail, rapidement! Like father, like son! Well done, Mr. T! And welcome to your digital future, folks. Put up and shut up!
IN ANOTHER ARTICLE from reclaimthenet.org, reporter Didi Rankovic notes that the annual WEF gathering:
“…has always been a testing ground for some bizarre ideas, which nonetheless serve a purpose: to introduce, and if possible normalize2 all kinds of mass surveillance and sometimes extremely privacy-invasive technologies." (reclaimthenet.org)
ONE TECHNOLOGY THAT'S A REAL DOOZER is the so-called "brain monitor" machine being peddled by their designers during one Davos seminar called "Ready for Brain Transparency?" [Italics mine. I went and checked my well-worn copy of 1984 to see if this doublespeak was "doubleplusgood" or "doubleplusungood". I think it's the second one. Ed.] The device these mad scientists have devised will allow our brains to take over some of the jobs currently done by wearable/portable technologies. For example, just by thinking, we will be able to type or perform functions on our computers. Shazam! Magic! Now we can throw away our remote controls and channel surf just by blinking! (Though I'd rather do it by twitching my nose; it would keep me from picking it.)
WHILE I DO THINK THAT DAVOS as a place where the world’s movers and shakers go to be seen and heard has had its day and that it will fade into irrelevancy in the coming years, nevertheless the kinds of systems, programs, policies, etc. that are beneficial to wealthy elites will continue to be developed and ginned up, if not amid the Swiss Alps, then someplace else.
I WISH I could be as nonplussed as is billionaire Elon Musk about Davos and similar covens of the all-too-wealthy. But, I do like his tweet about why he didn’t attend this year's gathering:
"My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because
Cheers, Jake
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[Davos was held January 16-20. I’m behind in my blog writing schedule. Sorry about that! Ed.]
* It must be said that FEWER POLITICIANS than in previous years are attending. Perhaps it’s because elections are looming in their respective countries and more of this generation’s crop of world leaders have been caught with their flies down and slips showing, so they’ve decided to keep a lower profile this year and pass on the confab. Some commentators have even suggested that Davos is losing it’s shine, that it’s becoming less relevant. Perhaps the hoi poloi are starting to notice all the contrails from private jets in the skies above the snowy resort. And such scrutiny might prove unwelcome to the one-percenters gathered there. Maybe? Dunno. WHILE the high-altitude conference is less peopled with politicos than in the past, Canadians will be happy to know that our intrepid Finance Minister, Christina Freeland (an alum of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders’ programme and a member of the forum’s Board of Trustees) will attend. My goodness! Our live-wire FM and NATO chief wannabe schmoozes with the best of them. You GO, Girl!
THERE were some ne’er-do-well politicians attending. There was a
HEART-STOPPING plenary-session speech, albeit virtual, from the éminence
grise of geo-politics, Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and founding member of the WEF who’s kept
his cold, dead hand in the game all this time (he’s ninety-nine!), while
the effervescent Klaus Schwab got things started
with his usual opening address that's always meant to tickle the tender bits of the attending
billionaires and sundry hangers-on.
Of course, no conglomeration of the
world’s movers and shakers is complete without an appearance from Time
magazine’s Man Person of the Year and Ukraine’s favourite autocrat,
Volodymir (“Yak-Yak”) Zelensky, who seems to make his forgettable speeches,
virtual and otherwise, at the drop of a hat. Mrs. Z was there, in person, cap in hand,
like her hubby.
Luxembourg’s PM also attended but no one cared.
+ Note that one of the panellists for the seminar: “One Hundred Days to Outrace the Next Pandemic” is Albert (“Trust me”) Bourla, CEO of Pfizer! You can’t make this shit up!
1. THE TORONTO SUN'S Lorrie Goldstein defines “globalist”, and what to expect from them, here. Both Justin Trudeau and Christina Freeland participated in the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program in the past, as did NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and other members from Canadian political and financial elites. How much of the Davos Kool-Aid have they drunk and how much will we be forced to drink?
2. CONSIDER, IN ANOTHER SETTING, a similar tactic: Weaponry to Ukraine. It starts with small armaments, kit for soldiers, small bore artillery, etc. Then newspapers and media outlets begin to yak about the need for bigger weapons. After a while, lo and behold those are sent. Then more discussions, etc., this time about missiles and drones, with more debates in government legislatures and in the media. Eventually, they're sent to Ukraine, as well. Most recently, it’s debates around tanks and who will send them, how many and so on. Now Germany will send a dozen or so "Leopard 2s ". (Baaaad optics by-the-way, what with that WWII invasion thingie not soon forgotten by the Russians.) Thus, support for the Kiev regime grows out of all proportion. Now, there's yak-yak in the newspapers and among talking heads in the MSM calling for NATO countries to send jet fighters!
POINT IS: All the debates, articles and constant pandering for
war coming from Western media outlets and from think tanks, and hard-liners in government—on
and on—all this noise and babble serves to “normalize”, to ratchet up, what earlier had seemed absolutely nutso and downright dangerous. What’s next, “tactical” nukes? All
this fear mongering around Ukraine losing the war and this is somehow an “existential” threat to us is a mug's game. We keep screeching that something needs to be done right away to defeat the evil Russians! AND JUST LIKE the overweening cries of Armageddon heard during the pandemic years, today's cries for an ever-escalating war may well rob us of our reason
(if they haven't already) and make us act in ways that are truly dangerous. Common sense, honesty, and cooler heads must prevail.
WEBSITES OF INTEREST:
https://reclaimthenet.org/tony-blair-wef-wto-digital-infrastructure-vaccination-status/
https://www.rt.com/business/569930-world-economic-forum-davos/
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