Global Warming for Deeply Dumb Dummies

This latest conceptual aid from the Church of Climatology is simply hilarious. The motivation for its creation is described as follows:

For the average person, climate change is an abstract concept, an intangible truth, based on complex scientific data that is notoriously difficult to visualise.

Note the religious phraseology of "intangible truth". Like God, climate change is impossible for "the average person" to comprehend and really comprehension is not even necessary. Belief is sufficient. Something simple to meditate upon will strengthen this belief and so:

Climate scientist Ed Hawkins is trying to change this. He's been developing unique ways to make climate change easier for the general public to imagine. And his newest project has got to be one of the most beautiful and powerful climate change visuals we've ever seen.

Note that Ed Hawkins has the moniker "climate scientist" to remind us that he is a member of the clergy in the Church of Climatology. Here is Ed's creation:

As I said in a comment to one of Ed's tweets (https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins):

Ed, I used to think man-made global warming was a politically motivated myth until I saw this graphic. Now I realise how wrong I was. Even children in kindergarten can understand this. Sometimes a cynical, skeptical, adult brain can blind one to the truth. Now I see.

As the effusive article reporting on Ed's creation says: This Has Got to Be One of The Most Beautiful And Powerful Climate Change Visuals We've Ever Seen. Chillingly, the observation is added that We are headed into the red. I'm not arguing with the data that was used to produce the graphic, I assume it's accurate. What is annoying is the evangelical tone employed by the zealots of the Church of Climatology. There's no objective science at work here. Those who disagree with the central tenet of the Church, namely that humans are responsible for a warming planet, are branded "climate deniers". They are on a par with "Holocaust deniers". The only ones qualified to make comment on matters of climatology are the climate scientists, the high priests of the Church.

Climate scientists who hesitate to commit to the Church or who question it's basic tenet are quickly ostracised by their peers. Professional obscurity is assured and even job loss is a possibility. There are no funds for research that does not affirm the truth of man-made global warming. Ed Hawkins, with his pretty pictures, is carving out a name for himself amongst his peers, as well as attracting widespread coverage in the mainstream media. Who can blame him. More of his silly little graphs can be found at http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2018/warming-stripes/.

The Grand Solar Minimum

According to USA Today, "Earth just had its 400th straight warmer-than-average month thanks to global warming". The May 17, 2018 article goes on to state that:

It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts. It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month. Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels. "We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt.

Despite a constant stream of such articles in the MSM, there are those to beg to differ with the prediction that our world will continue to warm. Some say that the Earth is entering a cooling phase and their claims are based on the behaviour of the Sun. They say that the Sun in entering what is termed a Grand Solar Minimum and that this will have a profound and chilling effect on global temperatures.

Who will be proved right? This 16 July 2015 article on Skeptical Science maintains that "no, the sun isn't going to save us from global warming" and goes on to say that:

Recently there’s been a flood of media stories claiming that the sun may be headed towards a quiet phase (a possibility), which could send the Earth into a “deep freeze” (a virtual impossibility). These stories appear to have originated in the biased conservative media (like the Daily Mail and Telegraph) and seeped into other media outlets (like CNN). Some media outlets, like the Washington Post, did a good job researching the story and discovering its flaws before publishing. 

The stories stemmed from a presentation at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Wales by mathematician Valentina Zharkova. Her research (not yet published) suggests the sun could be headed for a quiet phase like the one that coincided with a period known as the “Little Ice Age,” but doesn’t say anything about how this solar minimum would impact the Earth’s climate 

Some of the fault for raising this zombie myth from the dead lies with the Royal Astronomical Society’s press release, which mentioned the previous mini ice age without making it clear that it was solar activity but not the Earth’s climate that was the subject of the study. Some of the fault lies with Zharkova, who made comments ‘skeptical’ of human-caused global warming that were not supported by her research. 

And much of the fault lies with media outlets like the Daily Mail and Telegraph, which ran rather sensationalist stories about an impending mini ice age apparently without consulting a single climate scientist. It’s not a coincidence that the media outlets that didn’t contact climate scientists spread this myth, while the media outlets that did contact climate scientists debunked it.

Clearly, the MSM has not presented a united front in blocking the dissemination of these alternative views and the guilty parties are identified. The notion that the Sun could affect global temperatures is dismissed as a "zombie myth" and instead the claim in made that "research has clearly shown, it’s carbon dioxide that’s the temperature’s main control knob". This is an article of faith amongst "climate scientists" and is not open to rational debate.

I've just downloaded a book by John L. Casey called "Dark Winter" described as follows:

Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. In Dark Winter, author John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, NASA headquarters consultant, and space shuttle engineer tells the truth about ominous changes taking place in the climate and the Sun. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in the discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.

I'll try to ignore his White House and NASA connections and set about reading the book. I've watched an interview he gave on YouTube about his views and he was certainly presented a good argument in support of his claims. The video appears on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, uploaded 1 Jan 2018:

Valentina Zharkova is mentioned in this interview. According to Casey, we are now entering this cooling period but he doesn't believe we are entering a mini-ice-age of the sort that is associated with the so-called Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. Rather, he is of the opinion that we are entering a so-called Dalton Minimum of the sort that is associated with the late 18th and early 19th century cooling phase. He has published a more recent book called Upheaval in which he focuses on the increased volcanic activity associated with these cooling phases.

In the following 15 Jan 2018 interview with Zharkova on The Grand Solar Minimum Channel, she states the cold period should only last 30 years and will not be as severe or as long as the Maunder Minimum (that lasted for about 60 years):

She is confident in her predications about the coming cold snap and urges governments to prepare for what is about to happen, rather than clinging to the myth that man-made CO2 emissions will continue to warm the planet.

ECT

I read an interesting article on the BBC website about ECT today, proving that there is occasionally a worthwhile story to be found. The article gives a good account of the early history of the treatment and then looks at reasons for the decline in its popularity. The observation is made that:

ECT was indiscriminately used on people it would never help. In 1946, two psychiatrists from Siena, Italy wrote, “Today there is no mental illness where [ECT] has not been tried.” This included homosexuality, which the first three volumes Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (published between the 1950s and 1980s) categorised as a form of mental illness. Such widespread use – often without the patient’s consent – was a way to control uncontrollable patients. After a session, patients were in a dazed, sleepy, and therefore more manageable, state. It was custodial, not curative.

Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest helped reinforce the image of ECT as a brutal and primitive therapeutic tool. The the use of ECT declined after the 1960's:

This was partly due to the rise in prescription drugs – though these were often less effective in severe depression – and partly due to the bad press ECT received in books, films, and the mass media. In the 1970s, historians David Healy and Edward Shorter write in their book Shock Therapy, a growing anti-psychiatry movement spearheaded by the Church of Scientology claimed that ECT ‘destroys minds’.

Clearly there is far more money to be made from a person on antidepressant or antipsychotic medication than from that same person receiving intermittent electric shocks, often at intervals of several months. The former needs to:

• purchase the medication on a regular basis
  (often for the remainder of the person's life)
• visit a doctor or psychiatrist to obtain the script for the medication
• be tested regularly by pathologists to monitor drug levels in the person's bloodstream
• sometimes take additional medication to counter the side-effects of the medication

This is tremendously lucrative to the medical industry (doctors, psychiatrists, pathologists) and the pharmaceutical industry (lifetime dependance) and any person presenting at the local medical centre with symptoms of depression is perceived as having a flashing neon dollar sign above their head. Compare this to the returns to be made from ECT and it's clear why the treatment was targeted and disparaged.

However, as the article observes:

Interest in ECT is returning. According to a recent report, a growing number of people are deciding to undergo the treatment. Between 2015 and 2016 in the UK, 22,600 sessions of ECT were performed, an 11% increase over the previous year. And ECT has been joined by more selective forms of electric therapy such as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), both of which are growing in support and popularity in the treatment of depression, Parkinson’s disease, and other mental disorders.

The medical and pharmaceutical industries are not interested in a cure for depression and psychosis, just as they are not interested in a cure for cancer. There is too much money to be made in the treatment and absolutely no money to be made in the wake of a cure.

The Russian Diaspora

Israel is leading the march from a US dominated unipolar world order to a Russia-China dominated multipolar world order. Over the past thirty years we’ve seen a shift in the nature of Jewish power that drives London (the global finance capital), the United States (the dominant global military superpower), and Israel (the top global cyber and technology superpower) by Russian Jews, and even Russian gentiles as is the case with Israel.

This quote from the beginning of an article titled Talpiot and the Multipolar Word Order alerted me to how influential expatriate Russian Jews have become since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The gentile reference alludes to the fact that the proper criteria for being classified as Jewish has not been met by many of the immigrants. The article goes on to quote from a 2011 story in The Guardian:

Jews in the former Soviet Union were largely banned from making aliya – migrating to Israel – before the collapse of the empire. But from 1990 onwards they came in their thousands, and they now constitute around 15% of Israel’s 7.7 million population.  

Actually, The Guardian ran a story on March 17th 2018 about the high life that Russian oligarchs are leading in Britain but it has since been taken down. Clearly, pressure was brought to bear. However, the story has been retrieved from the Internet archive and makes for interesting reading: link.

Israel's virtual control of the United States is well-established but its close connections with Russia and China have been less clear. A 2017 article from the Jerusalem Post reminds us that this little country's influence now extends far beyond the United States:

Israel is positioned to guard the world’s Internet. Everything today is traded, controlled and administered online. And Israel is emerging as the world’s number one guardian of the worldwide web. That means, regardless of being a few miles offtrack from China’s Land and Maritime Roads, it is positioned to be the centre of both belts.

Some would say that it's gained this influence in large degree because of its special relationship with the United States. This has provided Israel with access to advanced technology that it has often been sold on to Russia and China.

A Vaccine for Alzheimer's?

An article appeared in the science section of The Telegraph (21st March 2018) claiming that drugs to vaccinate over-50s against Alzheimer’s could be here in a decade. 

New analysis commissioned by Alzheimer’s Research UK found that drugs to halt, slow or reverse the disease could be available in as little as three years with major vaccine and screening programmes possible within a decade.

This would be a huge money-spinner for Big Pharma so my suspicions are immediately aroused and so I sought to find out a little more about Alzheimer's Research UK. Is it just another facade to mask the machinations of the pharmaceutical industry? On it's website it claims:

We believe in the power of research to change the future and we’re funding a unique Research Network of over 700 dementia researchers across 15 Centres in the UK – bringing together the best minds to defeat dementia.

Some funding comes from donations but it would be interesting to see how much comes from Big Pharma. In its 2018 Annual Review it states that:

It’s been a record year. In 2016/17 our income rose to £30.5 million, fuelled by a 44% increase in donations, allowing us to power more dementia research than ever before.

 

Of course, this still doesn't give us any idea of the relative contributions by individuals and pharmaceutical companies. In the Annual Report for 2017, it states that:

Total income rose strongly to £30.5m, up 38% on 2016 (£22m). This growth was underpinned by donations and legacies delivering £29.1m, an increase of 44% from 2016 (£20.2m). Legacy income delivered an extra £1.7m whilst donations increased by £7.2m from 2016. Investment income performed well, with an increase of 12% to £731,035 (2016: £655,520), and the portfolio remains strong, generating net gains of £787,448 (2016: £1,470,033) in the year. Alzheimer’s Research UK receives no income from government sources for our research. 

An increase in funding of 44% is quite a lot and most of it has come from donations. I'm doubtful whether donations from individuals would have increased significantly from 2016 to 2017. The organisation makes it clear that no income is derived from government sources so it would seem that corporate sponsors have been largely responsible for the increase in donations. However, how do we find out who these corporate sponsors are? There's much mention made of the organisation's corporate partners and this is made up of organisations that have made Alzheimer's Research UK their favourite charity and things of this sort. These organisations carry out fund-raising activities and support various initiatives but don't apparently make direct donations.

There is no indication of any support from the pharmaceutical industry. I'm not criticising such support but if there are significant financial contributions from the industry then why is it not transparent? Of relevance here is this news (posted on 8th January 2018) from Alzheimer's Research UK's website that it is:

calling for a recommitment from pharmaceutical companies to continue efforts to fund research into dementia, the leading cause of death in the UK. Recent news that Pfizer will refocus efforts away from dementia research is a reminder of one of the barriers that stands in the way of bringing about the first life-changing treatment for dementia. 

Clearly then Pfizer has been helping out financially but is now reducing its investment. However, donations are up 44%. So what's going on? Well, the 2017 corporate donations would been determined late in 2016 and Pfizer's announcement that it is abandoning research to find new drugs aimed at treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease was fairly recent (Saturday 6th January 2018). So while the company may have spent money in 2017, it clearly won't be doing so in 2018.  Perhaps other big pharmaceutical companies are of a similar mind and so donations may plummet for 2018.

It is important to establish the extent of the financial support from the pharmaceutical industry because then it possible to gauge the degree of control they have over the direction of research. It turns out that Alzheimer's Research UK recently acquired a new director of research. Her career path is described in an article taken from this site (24th May 2017):

My original interest in neuroscience was purely due to a brilliant neuroscience lecturer who taught me during my degree, and so when a PhD advert in neuroscience popped up on a board, I applied.  The technology I developed during my PhD then enabled me to take a role in a Pharmaceutical company out in California setting up this technology and supporting the expansion of neuroscience within the company.

After five years in California, I began to miss England and so took a role back in the UK again working in preclinical neuroscience. This led to a role in SmithKline Beecham and it was here that I really took a keen interest in the more translational side of neuroscience, progressing potential new medicines from the lab bench towards patients. After several industry and Biotech positions within translational medicine, I took a slight change in career to join the new Dementia Discovery Fund, a fund focussed around the development of new treatments for dementia, before finally joining Alzheimer’s Research UK. Whilst I remain a strong supporter of the Dementia Discovery Fund, the philanthropic approach of Alzheimer’s research UK, and the focus on basic research and translational medicine are more strongly aligned to my aspirations.

Her allegiance is clearly to the pharmaceutical industry and this is not necessarily a criticism but it does suggest that the direction of any research she approves will be drug-oriented. It's unlikely that she would incline toward research of the following type:

New research from Lund University in Sweden has shown that intestinal bacteria can accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease. According to the researchers behind the study, the results open up the door to new opportunities for preventing and treating the disease. Source

The reason is there's probably not much money to be made in regulating intestinal bacteria. It might even be possible to do it for free! This leads back to the article cited at the start of this post that goes on to say that the new drugs being trialled could come with a £9 billion price tag. The article continues:

Already 12 Alzheimer’s drugs are in late Phase III trials, the final hurdle before licensing ... the 12 drugs coming through the pharma pipeline could provide a lifeline for patients. Most of the clinical trials involve drugs which target sticky clumps of beta-amyloid, which accumulate in the brain and stop neurones from communicating. Several vaccine-like treatments - which work more like a ‘statin for the brain’ than a traditional jab - are currently at an earlier stage of development, undergoing Phase I and II trials, said the experts. The report estimates that a vaccine could prevent around 70 per cent of Alzheimer’s cases. Speaking at a news briefing in London, report co-author Professor Jonathan Schott, from University College London's Dementia Research Centre, said: "The availability of new treatments for Alzheimer's disease is a when and not an if. "Our patients are desperate for new treatments. When the media reports any hint of a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease our clinics are inundated. “When we have a successful trial, and I say when, this will be headline news around the world and the demand will be instant and huge."

Statins for the brain sounds scary and statins of course are scary drugs (visit this site). It's not clear how the new treatments work but they promise to make a lot of money for the pharmaceutical companies with successful marketing. That's why it's surprising that Pfizer is reducing its involvement, given the tone of the Telegraph article. However, it seems that some of the new drugs that are being trialled are not living up to the hype and are proving disappointing. For example, this article from The Guardian (10th January 2018) reveals:

The quest to develop drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease has experienced a new setback, with a promising medication failing to show benefits in the latest series of clinical trials. Earlier trials had suggested that the drug idalopirdine, from the Danish international pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, might improve cognition in those with Alzheimer’s disease when taken alongside existing drugs – known as cholinesterase inhibitors – acting to improve symptoms rather than stopping the disease from developing. But the latest trials have dashed such hopes.

The Telegraph article seems like an attempt on the part of Alzheimer's Research UK to maintain the marketing hype surrounding these "promising" new drugs in the face of declining interest from Big Pharma. The prospects of Big Pharma defeating Alzheimer's Disease anytime soon seem unlikely and this makes the Telegraph article simply a ploy to stem a likely drying of corporate donations.

GIVE LOVE NOT HPV

An article in today's Brisbane Times trumpets the following headline: Queensland researcher sets Australia up to be first country to eliminate cervical cancer. The article then begins with:

Experts predict Australia is likely to become the first country to effectively eliminate cervical cancer, with the eradication expected in the next 40 years.

Professor Ian Frazer, who is attached to the University of Queensland, created Gardasil, the vaccine for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) which causes about 99.9 per cent of cervical cancers.

The mention of the word "experts" arouses suspicion. Who are these experts? Are 99.9% of cervical cancers really caused by HPV? Mention is made of some recent research:

According to research recently published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, there's been a dramatic decline in the rates of HPV, which has been attributed to the effectiveness of Gardasil. 

The research paper is not identified in the news article that then goes on to mention that the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) had issued a statement saying that it believed cervical cancer could soon be eliminated as a public health problem. The IPVS is described as being made up of the world's leading cervical cancer and HPV researchers, including Professor Suzanne Garland from Victoria's Royal Women's Hospital and the University of Melbourne, who advises the WHO and global policymakers on cervical cancer prevention and screening. It is Garland who makes the claim that:

Australia would likely be the first country to achieve the milestone of cervical cancer eradication. "We are forecasting that over the next 30-40 years, rates of cervical cancer will drop from around the current 1000 cases a year in Australia to just a few".

So what exactly are the facts? An unnamed research article claims that somewhere in the world a study had indicated that there's been a dramatic decline in the rates of HPV. It's a bit of a stretch to forecast on the basis of that research that cervical cancer rates will drop dramatically in the next 30 to 40 years. Of course, Garland hastens to add that this will only happen if vaccinations continue.

The statistic is quoted that among Australian women aged 18 to 24, the HPV rate dropped from 22.7 per cent to just 1.1 per cent during the past 10 years. Before the vaccinations, almost all sexually active people had contracted HPV.

This of course means that only a little more than 22.7% of Australian women aged 18 to 24 were sexually active ten years ago because almost all sexually active people had contracted HIV. This is an absurd statistic but it's quoted by an expert so you'd better believe it. Of course, the old line is trotted out that the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh any dangers.

The statistic that struck me was that there only 1000 cases of cervical cancer a year in Australia. Considering that there are about 12.2 million females, that's a ratio of 1:12,200. Of course females younger than 15 are not likely to be at risk of this type of cancer. In 2017, the under-15s comprised 18.8% of the population and so that leaves a little under 10 million females aged 15 and above. That's still only a ratio of 1:10,000 and yet there's a determined effort to get every adolescent girl in Australia vaccinated. That's over 2 million girls based on 2017 figures. Of course, adolescent boys are encouraged to get vaccinated as well and together this cohort would total around 4 million.

That's requires a lot of Gardasil and a lot of money for Big Pharma. Let's forget screening. Garland wants increasing screening rates as well as increased vaccination rates for millions of females in Australia alone, regardless of the rest of the world. HPV is a cash cow for the medical and pharmaceutical industry and looks set to remain so as the fear-mongering about HPV shows no sign of abating.

So what are the facts about HPV? This 2005 article from The Body sheds some light on the matter:

There may be more than 100 kinds of HPV variants, with a few strongly linked to the development of cervical and anal cancer. Because the transmission of these worrisome kinds of HPV are associated with sex, the fight against the virus is becoming increasingly fraught with all of the fears, myths and misinformation that now accompanies any public health response to sexual issues in the United States. With two new vaccines against HPV on the horizon, there are emerging concerns that these weapons may not be effectively deployed due to moral and political objections. HPV infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. Over 5 million cases are thought to occur each year, with half of all women between the ages 18 to 22 having vaginal infections at some point. The anal infection rate in young gay men is higher still. Infection occurs through skin-to-skin contact -- including areas not covered by condoms -- and warts need not be present for transmission to occur. Most infections are transient and are cleared by the immune system. Of the 40 or so types of HPV that infect the genital and anal regions, those that cause genital warts are deemed "low-risk" whereas those linked to cancer of the cervix or anus are termed "high risk." Types 16 and 18 are the most common high-risk varieties. Most HIV-negative people -- and 90 percent of women -- clear HPV infections within two years, but infections with types 16 and 18 seem to last longer. Studies have consistently found that persistent infection with varieties such as 16 and 18 are a necessary precondition for the development of precancerous lesions. Those who clear the virus are out of danger.

The same article explains that there are two vaccines available: Gardasil from Merck and Cervarix from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). However, as of 2016 GSK seems to have ceded the market to Merck and its 9-valent human papillomavirus vaccine (Gardasil 9), which protects against infection from HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58. It is recommended that children and adolescents between 9 and 14 years receive two doses of this vaccine and in 2015, about 63% of US girls and about 50% of boys received at least one dose. Not surprisingly, Merck initiated a direct-to-consumer ad campaign to encourage parents to have their children vaccinated (article). Current price of a dose is US $116.22 (link). Merck has no competitors in the HPV vaccine marketplace, it has both a monopoly and the endorsement of all the officially sanctioned oncological organisations in the world. In Australia, if all the two million females on their way to adulthood have two doses, that would represent over US $450 billion dollars in sales. If the boys could be signed on as well, that's getting close to a trillion dollars. Some governments will offset the cost of the vaccinations for children and adolescents (at taxpayers expense) but Merck will still reap the rewards.

If potential sales in a small country like Australia can total close to a trillion dollars then the potential sales worldwide are nothing short of staggering. The resulting influence that Merck can exert on the medical establishment and governments around the world is terrifying and explains why Gardasil will not be disappearing from the marketplace anytime soon. In the United States at least, lawmakers have granted the pharmaceutical industry immunity from prosecution for any ill-effects of vaccines so in the case of Gardasil Merck does not even have to worry about litigation from those harmed by it. The government quietly takes care of that side of things (at taxpayers expense) and often does make payment to the victims of vaccinations (on condition that they keep their mouths shut).

Merck as a company is not concerned with the future health of adolescents. However, the parents of these adolescents are concerned with the future health of their children and preying on this concern is the key to a successful marketing campaign. Firstly, identify a virus such as HPV that has been implicated in the development of a life threatening illness (in this case, the adult onset of cervical cancer, possibly acquired in late adolescence via sexual activity). Secondly, exaggerate the threat that this virus poses to the health of adolescents who become infected. The formula HPV = CERVICAL CANCER works just fine in the same way that HIV = AIDS once used to. Thirdly, develop a vaccine and then get the Medical Mafia and Big Government to endorse it (usually a formality). Lastly, aggressively promote the benefits of the vaccine to brain-washed medical professionals and, via advertising, to brain-dead sheeple. If some parents are reluctant to subject their children to the vaccine, then a stick must be used in place of the carrot. Some countries now are punishing parents financially by withdrawing child support benefits and excluding the children from school if they don't vaccinate their children. This hasn't happened yet with Gardasil but it might.

Here is a link to the Australian Standard Vaccination Schedule with an excerpt shown below:

Other Losses

This film is narrated by the author of the book of the same name and to quote from Wikipedia: 

In Other Losses (1989), Bacque claimed that Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower's policies caused the death of 790,000 German captives in internment camps through disease, starvation and cold from 1944 to 1949. In similar French camps some 250,000 more are said to have perished. The International Committee of the Red Cross was refused entry to the camps, Switzerland was deprived of its status as "protecting power" and POWs were reclassified as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" in order to avoid recognition under the Geneva Convention. Bacque argued that this alleged mass murder was a direct result of the policies of the western Allies, who, with the Soviets, ruled as the Military Occupation Government over partitioned Germany from May 1945 until 1949. He laid the blame on Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, saying Germans were kept on starvation rations even though there was enough food in the world to avert the lethal shortage in Germany in 1945–1946.

It's a disturbing but absorbing film and illustrates yet again how history is written by the victors. I was somewhat aware that there was a dark side to the allied occupation of Germany because of a book I'd downloaded but not yet read.

I'm motivated to read this book now after having seen this film. I also managed to download a PDF copy of Bacque's "Other Losses" at this location and have added it to my library. Subsequently, I was able to download a Kindle version from The Internet Archive where it's available in PDF, ePub, Plain Text, DAISY and Kindle formats. Even though the software program Calibre, that I use to organise my e-library, will convert from PDF to Kindle, I've encountered problems in the past with the conversion so it's always better to have a firsthand Kindle version.

It's been a long time since I accessed The Internet Archive which is accessible without signing up but I signed up which allows me to upload content if I want to. As is described on the site:

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.

We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 20+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 450+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages. 

As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains:

• 279 billion web pages
• 11 million books and texts
• 4 million audio recordings (including 160,000 live concerts)
• 3 million videos (including 1 million Television News programs)
• 1 million images
• 100,000 software programs

Anyone with a free account can upload media to the Internet Archive. We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into special collections.

The site also goes on to mention that books published prior to 1923 are available for download, and hundreds of thousands of modern books can be borrowed through our Open Library site. I not sure why "Other Losses" is downloadable, having been written in 1989. The Open Library site is accessible using the Internet Archive credentials and to test it out I searched for Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" but to my surprise a book by Marianne Faithfull popped up called "memories, dreams and reflections". It looked interesting so I've borrowed it and have two weeks in which to read it. An encrypted copy in PDF or ePub format can be downloaded but I'll just read it online I think.

Anyway, getting off topic, but it's interesting where Internet investigations can lead. Returning to the theme of history being written by the victors, I must say that I'd heard nothing about any of this unlike a year or so ago. I'd basically thought that, during the closing stages of the war and in its aftermath, the Allies were basically well-behaved in the areas that it took oversaw. I'd formed the impression that the things were definitely worse in the Russian-occupied areas.

Like most people my age, I've endured a lifetime of Hollywood propaganda about the evil Nazis, the psychopathic Adolf Hitler and the horrors of the Holocaust. Now I'm realising that the history of the second world war that I'd once accepted is largely fictional.