By Chandra Vikash*
“We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be, and how we fit into it…sustained us for a long period of time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purposes, and energized our actions. It consecrated our suffering and integrated our knowledge. We woke up in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children.”
– Thomas Berry, cultural historian.
“I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.”
– James A. Garfield
“Especially as I have always found Chandra an intelligent and thoughtful poster. I am not saying the forum should become a Gates foundation discussion area but if Degrowth is to become anything it should be open to listening to people’s lived experiences. Degrowth will not succeed without holistic systems thinking. I highly recommend you listen to Vandana Shiva if you get time as she is esp good on how the Gates foundations and others are destroying local communities in India.”
– Di Forsyth Member JTDR
Transcript of conversation in a “closed group” – Join The Degrowth Revolution (JTDR) – a global think-tank of sorts to which I was invited last year by the Asia coordinator of #FridaysForFuture climate emergency movement started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. This connects the “dots” on Degrowth that challenges the dominant Limitless Growth agenda powered by greater technological advancements; CoronaVirus Pandemic and the ensuing Lockdown; Herd Immunity via socialized infection of a critical mass or through another vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused in people with a prior illness or in high viral load conditions like in most allopathic hospitals that are claustrophobic, air-conditioned and aerosol-heavy due to various disinfectant vapors used.
This started with this post on 25th April 2020, which the moderator deleted the next day due to heavy traffic and though till the time I participated in the interaction, the comments were sincere albeit some were very sharp and strong. My assessment is that the moderator, in his wisdom, deleted it unwittingly, bcoz he might actually support my position deep in the inner recesses of our minds. Daniel Goleman’s delves deep into this subject in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths, in which he calls out the Third Kind of Lies – that we overtly tell ourselves. But the Truth however unpopular it may be at some times, prevails over Ms. Popular Error, as I share in the end as a parable: How Truth Always Wins. There are some things, that I accept in all my humility, we may never know. We only know that we don’t know. Amen!
Kirk Hall (Admin/Moderator): “I have removed a post about drug testing in developing countries. It is an important issue but I removed the post because of the conspiratorial style of the post and the tone of the debate that followed.
The post accused Bill Gates of killing people in India and Africa.
Yes, we need to question why some drug trials are carried out in developing countries. I presume one reason is that safeguards are lower. That is despicable.
Here in the west, we were alerted to this by media including the 2005 movie, “The Constant Gardener” loosely based on a real-life case in Kano, Nigeria involving antibacterial testing on small children.””
Referring to Kirk ‘s post (that was by now muted bcoz of high traffic of comments raising the heat with strong arguments for and against), I wrote:
Dear Kirk,
I respect your decision to delete my post on a humanitarian crisis caused by Mr. Bill Gates fanatic and unscientific pushing and peddling of all kinds of toxic and injurious vaccination and to assert that his position is just a mirror image of Mr. Donald Trump’s disinfectant-injecting therapy to treat Covid-19 disease.
Yet, I am dismayed that you may not be trusting the group’s judgment to comment or ignore a particular post. The exchange with Rebekka Power was a useful one, sincere and sharp despite the strong difference of opinion. I am certain that there was no spamming involved. Next, I find your post informing on the deletion too has been muted for further comments.
In the larger interest at a time when the human race has to take a key decision on herd immunity via socialized infections of a critical mass as many leading epidemiologists have vouchsafed for or to wait for the Covid-19 vaccine that Mr. Gates is pushing for and which must go through scientific and humanitarian trials, may I request for a review of your decision?
Best Regards,
Chandra Vikash
Joy-Mari Cloete: ” Promising his share of $450 million of $1.2 billion to eradicate polio, Gates took control of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI), which mandated up to 50 doses (Table 1) of polio vaccines through overlapping immunization programs to children before the age of five. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) epidemic that paralyzed 490,000 children beyond expected rates between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and asked Gates and his vaccine policies to leave India. NPAFP rates dropped precipitously.
The most frightening [polio] epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines are all linked to vaccines.
In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) reluctantly admitted that the global explosion in polio is predominantly vaccine strain. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines. In fact, by 2018, 70% of global polio cases were vaccine strain.
In 2009, the Gates Foundation-funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
South African newspapers complained, ‘We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.”
Ref: Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination • Children’s Health Defense
Chandra Vikash: “Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of steering WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases: clean water, hygiene, nutrition, and economic development. The Gates Foundation spends only about $650 million of its $5 billion dollar budget on these areas. They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.”
This is a damning indictment. Thanks for the valuable information. Can we join hands to stop his agenda with the Covid-19 vaccine?
Joy-Mari Cloete: Chandra Vikash I feel powerless to do anything. Jess Lawson Debunk the article rather than focusing on its source. (Jess Lawson later deleted his comment saying that the article was not from a credible source.)
Mark Allen: It is really important that groups such as this do not stray from their terms of reference. There are many other avenues on Facebook to have this discussion. Groups such as this are a window to focus on common ground and in this case it is the need to transition to a degrowth society. It is the role of moderators to ensure that groups stay on course. Otherwise what’s the point of having separate groups on Facebook if it just becomes a place to discuss all kinds of issues? Perhaps you could post the link in the comments to show people where they can take this conversation up elsewhere in FB but please understand that people who run groups such as this have to keep it relevant to the topic.
Chandra Vikash: Coronavirus Pandemic and the political response of Lockdown and Swedish exceptionalism of evidence-based decisions to build Herd Immunity is a watershed development for the Degrowth Revolution.
There are 2 routes to achieving Herd Immunity.
One, is through socialised infection of a critical mass in an intelligent way.
This has 3-fold objectives. a, to minimise fatalities of the vulnerable sections with risk factors; b, to minimise its economic impact of a complete lockdown or customised checks and balances and c, to leverage the opportunity to usher into a green revival looking at the larger picture of toxic growth, climate emergency and growing inequality and injustice, what de facto Degrowthers have been calling out for. This emphasises localisation and circular economy which also builds greater immunity to all kinds of virus and other pathogens.
The other route is to wait for a Covid-19 vaccine which must come through a due process of trials. There is also a suspicion that vaccines are being used as a tool of genocide and/or enslavement, even as much of this is undercover. The other big issue is that with new far stranger and dangerous Permafrost viruses on the way, developing vaccines every time a paandemic hits human race, is not a good idea, anyways.
It would be a travesty to miss out on this opportunity that is knocking at our doors.
Mark Allen: Agreed but I don’t see the connection surrounding narratives around Bill Gates and the vaccination issue. I am not saying that this isn’t an important topic but it does not relate to the degrowth movement. The fact that this pandemic is a window of opportunity to show the world that degrowth is possible, is definitely true.
Chandra Vikash: Mark Allen Notably, the other group moderated by Kirk is called Degrowth -It’s Urgent.
As a systems thinker, my duty is to bring out non-obvious linkages or to connect the “dots”. I stand my ground. Bill Gates’ vaxxy agenda is not only relevant to Degrowth Revolution, but it is also far too critical to be left unattended.
Mark Allen: Fair enough but we will have to agree to disagree on that one.
Chandra Vikash: I respect your viewpoint even if I may not agree to it.
(An admin turned off commenting for this post.)
Kirk Hall (Admin): Environmental and social justice advocates must choose their battles. For me, that does not include drug testing in developing countries (unless I come across reputable, mainstream media reports).
If a significant number of countries don’t adopt Degrowth then our children face a grim future. One country must lead the way. That will only happen if enough citizens understand Degrowth. Spreading the Degrowth message is a massive task. That is the battle I have chosen and I thank members for joining me.
Corporations have committed many crimes against the planet and it’s inhabitants. Bill Gate’s vaccine program might be criminally flawed or it might be a conspiracy theory – I don’t know. Sadly, I don’t have time for that battle. I have decided there are enough other, clearer, battles to discuss in this group.
Any future posts about vaccines will be removed and that member might also be removed.
Les Kuzyk: Awesome strategy Kirk Hall, I have data today of 1.36 million vehicles, that burn 3.1 billion litres of fuel, that will be the basis of an improved way of calculating planets consumed … does Australia have a national census done by a Statistics Department ? Picking battles, yes, and at times multiple battles at once
Kirk Hall: “Australian Bureau of Statistics”. Not sure if the collect that type of data. Might be the EPA. Tagging people who have been involved in this discussion recently:
Chandra Vikash, Joy-Mari Cloete, Mark Allen, Jess Lawson, Rebekka Power, Sonya Burey, Jill Kellow, Rosanna Odell, An Pl.
Rebekka Power: Agree completely with your decision Kirk
Rosanna Odell: I didn’t realise that previous post I was commenting on was about testing vaccines in India. I thought it was more about the ridiculous conspiracy theory that gates is trying to depopulate the world by killing them off with well produced vaccines like the polio vaccine.
Di Forsyth: Kirk I understand where you’re coming from with this and as it’s your group you absolutely have the right to set the rules. But given that Chandra actually lives in a region that has a very troubled history with the Gates foundation and given that much of this history is intimately connected with the growth agenda I think it’s worth giving him the benefit of the doubt. There are very few people from “developing” nations on this forum and surely to God we should not be coming down heavy-handed when we finally do get the opportunity to hear global voices, not just those from the richer countries.
Based on the comment above, I am starting to see the link between the critique of gates and degrowth (I was blinding thinking gates is doing only good rather than looking at individual programs). Gates focus on technological solutions rather than localism may be leading him to make the wrong choices with some of his programs. This interview is very interesting about the patenting of seeds is not the best way forward. What do you think
5. As an alternative, I would like to propose a new framework for localisation and minimalist global governance called LACE/GAIA model. In the spirit of Bloom Where You are Planted, I offer to host the global pilot of Localised Abundance and Circular Economy i.e. LACE as well as global hub for Global Assembly of Autonomous and Indigenous community-states as outlined in the presentation on this link below. This is around the area where I have been living for past 7 years in Delhi National Capital Region.
Global Pilot and Hub for GAIA Earth Parliament: Indirapuram Community-State & Alkapuri World Capital
(Added further: LACE model originates out of a key insight from Ivan Illich and Andre Gorz on the impact of the automobile on human society. This dubious invention has created large tracts of monstrous-sized brownfields that go against the grain of human-scale and ecologically responsive habitats that were predominantly greenfields even in cities. See a research paper here. This dovetails with the finely detailed Permaculture that is now available as an excellent handbook titled Retrosuburbia by David Holmgren. : Sustainable Development Goals, Cultural Diversity and Smart Cities)
DISCLAIMER: Well-aware that “Join the Degrowth Revolution” is a closed group, I am sharing these transcripts in the larger interest of humanity, the common chord that connects us all irrespective of our geographies, ideologies of right and left, capitalist and communist, nomenclatures such as west and east; global north vis-a-vis global south; indigenous and non-indigenous and the most ludicrous one of “developed” vs. “developing” when we all agree that the extant Development model is flawed in its assumptions of Limitless growth (of the material economy) that JTDR members so strongly believe in.
Annexure:
Primer on Systems thinking – Bushfires in Australia caused by Globl Man-Made Climate Change
“This summer’s bushfires were not just devastating events in themselves. More broadly, they highlighted the immense vulnerability of the systems which make our contemporary lives possible.
The fires cut road access, which meant towns ran out of fuel and fell low on food. Power to towns was cut and mobile phone services stopped working. So too did the ATMs and EFTPOS services the economy needs to keep running.
In a modern, wealthy nation such as Australia, how could this happen?
In answering this question, it’s helpful to adopt “systems thinking”. This approach views problems as part of an overall system, where each part relates to each other.
In other words, we need to look at the big picture.
Through a systems lens
Systems are everywhere, from the coral ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef to the vast technology networks of global financial markets. In a human sense, social systems range from the small, such as a family, to large organisations or the national or global population.
The systems I mentioned just now are “complex” systems. This means they are connected to other systems in many ways. It also means a change in one part of the system, such as a bushfire in a landscape, can set off unpredicted changes in connected systems – be they political, technological, economic or social.”
Reference: No food, no fuel, no phones: bushfires showed we’re only ever one step from system collapse
Did you know how Truth Always Wins?
* Chandra Vikash is a systems thinker and activist. He is Convener of GAIA – Global Academy for Indigenous Activism and Chief Mentor/Innovation Coach for GAIA Innovation Labs.
GAIA - Global Academy of Indigenous Activism 