Who really runs the world?
That is what Derrick Broze aims to uncover in his series called The Pyramids of Power.
He says that the Deep State is an over used term and is also over simplified, leaving out the deepest powers that operate.
Showing posts with label CORPORATE CORRUPTION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CORPORATE CORRUPTION. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
When Truth Divides: Discernment, Sovereignty, and the Man Behind the Curtain
Have you ever believed in something so strongly that it became part of how you defined truth, only to discover that others, even close friends or family, saw it completely differently? Did you debate them, laying out your reasoning point by point? Did you meet resistance so loud it drowned out your voice? Or perhaps you stayed quiet, knowing the conversation would only fracture the relationship further.
Now imagine this: the evidence you had been pointing toward finally emerges for the public to see. Would you feel tempted to say, “I told you so”? Or would you take the higher path, the one that honors both your truth and their journey of awakening, no matter how late it arrives.
Beliefs Built on Shifting Sand
Most of us grew up trusting the information that came to us through television, newspapers, and magazines. But over the years, ownership of those outlets condensed into what was once called “the Big Six” — a handful of corporations controlling most of what we see, hear, and read. Today, it’s even fewer. This influence reaches far beyond news — into entertainment, cultural values, and even the way history is told.
Wizard of Oz (1939)
Recent years have pulled back part of the curtain. High-profile outlets have been caught presenting information they knew was false. Trust has eroded. Some in government have stepped into media roles to try to keep certain narratives alive, yet the public’s confidence isn’t what it once was.
And you were never meant to notice the man behind the curtain…
The Gentle Art of Truth-Tending
Not everyone has been able to track the shifts. Work, school, and daily life can keep people focused elsewhere. Meanwhile, some seem meant to be “kept in the loop” — nudged by an article, a video suggestion, or an email at just the right time. For some of us, this steady drip of insight feels like divine intervention, knowing a few would carry these truths forward.
If the day comes when your view is confirmed publicly, remember: discernment and sovereignty don’t require a victory lap. The higher path is to extend a bridge, not a dividing line. Truth doesn’t need an “I told you so.” It needs room to breathe — and forgiveness is the key that keeps that bridge open.
And if you’ve found that you didn’t catch the deception and went along with the crowd, it’s okay. We still love you, and we’re glad you can see the cracks in the veneer of legacy media.
No shadow can hide from the light. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. – John 8:32
The Bigger Picture of Change
We’re living in a time when every level of reality seems to be shifting. Earth changes, weather extremes, financial instability, political upheaval, and even wars — or the constant rumors of wars — have peaked in recent years, yet many of these tensions are beginning to settle. All of this is unfolding alongside rare planetary alignments — the kind that help release old systems and expose hidden shadows long kept from public view.
Solar activity, surges in the Schumann Resonance, earthquakes, volcanoes, and even tsunamis are all signs of pressure being released, both in the planet and in ourselves. For many, this release is showing up as physical symptoms, illness, fatigue, heightened emotions, part of a natural purging of toxins and outdated beliefs.
If you’re feeling it, you’re right on schedule. Trust that these waves are temporary and that they’re clearing the way for something new. Things may not return to “the way they were” — and that’s a good thing. Make space for something better, because it’s already unfolding.
Thursday, August 14, 2025
A Century of Lost Inventions and Medical Tyranny
Preface
For some of you, this will seem a bit repetitive. You’ve seen it before but not quite written in this way. But there’s an old saying: “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” By connecting historical patterns and recent events, my hope is that we, as a collective, will see the connections, recognize the warning signs, and refuse to relive the same mistakes.
Patent Suppression and lost Inventions
For nearly a hundred years, major and transformative discoveries and
innovations have been buried under layers of “national security.”
Gatekeeper agencies were created not to protect the public, but to
protect the secrecy and patents that corporations would hoard or hide.
Secrecy orders allow U.S. defense agencies to control patents, including
those that are privately developed. When governments and corporations
deem a new development a threat to the statis quo, they have it
suppressed through the 1951 Invention Secrecy act. A few examples of technology that would have helped the world, or that was likely funneled into black ops programs are:
Nikoli
Tesla (July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943) wanted to gift the world with
wireless communication (cell phones) and free energy provided from the
ionosphere. His funding was removed by JP Morgan and Wardenclyffe Tower Project stalled…. Or did it?
Stanely Meyer’s water fuel cell
would have replaced gasoline and not create toxic exhaust fumes. Meyer
died suddenly on March 20, 1998, while dining at a Cracker Barrel
restaurant with his brother and two Belgian investors. According to his
brother, Stephen Meyer, Stanley suddenly grabbed his throat, ran
outside, and declared, “They poisoned me,” before collapsing and dying.
His death was ruled “natural” from an aneurism, but many remain
skeptical.
T Townsend Brown
(March 18, 1905 – October 27, 1985) discovered the Biefeld-Brown
effect, a way to counteract gravity. On January 3, 2003, less than 24
hours before the Columbia space shuttle broke up, Nasa announced that it
would no longer be funding its Breakthrough Physics Propulsion Program –
the world’s largest visible antigravity project.
Per the Guardian, a working antigravity technology is still decades away at least, but the origins of one of the most promising branches of research can be found in an Ohio garage, almost 100 years ago. No doubt his innovations were shunted into black ops, military programs.
There are literally thousands of patents that the public is not being allowed to review or implement that could help change the world. Corporate greed and even government paranoia has them locked away, hopefully to come out under a stronger administration willing to tackle the problem. Here is a video that talks about some of those inventions lost to history.
6,000 Patents Hidden By The Government | U.S. Invention Secrecy Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNR_6aBQyDk
Covid 19 Predictive Programming, Vaccinations and Aftershocks
Years before COVID-19 was officially named, patents for testing kits and
related technologies had already been filed and approved. Given that
such approvals typically take three to five years to obtain, this
strongly suggests that researchers and the entities funding them, were
working on pandemic-related tools long before the first official
outbreak was reported. The name Covid-19 was not even assigned until
2020, yet the test kits already had the name, and perhaps submitted
approximately 2011/2012 time frame.
Another striking pre-pandemic moment came in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Viewers witnessed a sequence of unsettling imagery: children in hospital beds surrounded by zombie like nurses all dancing in lock-step, a tall black cloaked figure wielding what appeared to be an oversized syringe, and lighting designs that eerily resembled the now-familiar spike protein structure. Whether these were purely theatrical choices or deliberate symbolic messaging, the visuals gained new relevance in in hindsight of later events. Those dancing doctors and nurses would show up in viral videos at real hospitals during the pandemic, as if to mock humanity. Here is a video short you can watch. There were quite a few of these dancing videos. Odd for a busy pandemic, don’t you think?
In 2015, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk warning that the world was unprepared for a major pandemic. The talk was widely circulated and raised questions for some about whether the coming crisis might involve more than natural viral evolution.
When COVID-19 emerged in 2020, the playbook felt oddly familiar. A similar pattern had played out during the 2009–2010 H1N1 “swine flu” scare: a novel virus, a rushed vaccination program, economic disruption, and widespread fear. In both cases, the timing coincided with major financial instability, raising the question of whether pandemics serve as convenient cover for wealth transfers and economic restructuring.
Financial incentives also shaped how the crisis was managed. In the U.S., hospitals received increased payments for diagnosing COVID and even more for placing patients on ventilators — interventions that often with devastating outcomes. The estimated average Medicare payments were around $13,300 for COVID hospitalizations and $40,200 for ventilator use.
Other concerns were spread across the internet when Malaria reappeared in the U.S. after the Gates Foundation was releasing allegedly treated mosquitos that would prevent them from breeding and spreading the disease. But that too sounds oddly familiar to treating people for Covid, before they had any symptoms. Even mandating it. I’m not claiming the Gates Foundation actually attempted to unleash a malaria pandemic, but it’s worth pondering.
Are genetically modified mosquitos from a Gates Foundation program causing a US Malaria outbreak?
According to Business Insider, field trials for the second-generation Friendly Mosquito was to begin in 2020. A smaller trial was planned for the Florida Keys this summer, but the plan was met by opposition from local residents. Excuse my pessimism for noticing the year it was to be released!
When Covid hit in 2020, some had an idea of what to expect because the same style pandemic had occurred in 2009/2010 with the H1N1 (Swine Flu) scare and subsequent vaccination program. And if you recall, it was occurring at the time of a banking collapse. I don’t believe in coincidence, and I can see the bait and switch tactic for the rich to get richer. Back then many lost their jobs, business, homes, savings and investments. It seemed to be a trial run for what was to come in 2020.
Those who went to the doctor with any kind of respiratory ailment, cough, sniffles, temperature, etc., were almost unanimously labeled as having Covid, as the doctors and hospitals were paid for that diagnosis. They were paid even more when they put a patient on a ventilator, often with devastating results. The estimated average Medicare payments were around $13,300 for covid hospitalizations and $40,200 for ventilator use.
The first shock was learning that the disease was manufactured in a lab through gain of function experiments, making influenza more deadly and more easily transmitted. Whether it was being tested in Wuhan or shared between American Universities for financial gain doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it was a weaponized bioweapon. Some of us may never trust modern medicine or their governments again.
Bill Gates was predicting this epidemic…
Population Reduction
As of May 2023, nearly 6.9 million people had died from COVID-19 globally, according to data cited by Statista. However, these official numbers come with a major caveat: hospitals were financially incentivized to list COVID as the cause of death. In the U.S., Medicare payments averaged around $13,300 for a COVID hospitalization and roughly $40,200 for cases involving a ventilator. This led to documented cases where individuals who died of unrelated injuries or long-standing illnesses were still coded as “COVID deaths.”
The exact number who died from the virus — versus those who died with it — may never be known.
The
same goes for deaths potentially linked to the vaccines, which remain
contested in mainstream reporting but are the focus of multiple ongoing
investigations worldwide.
One data point that has received far less attention is the reduction in global birth rates during the pandemic years. In the United States, over 3.5 million babies were born in 2020 — a 4% drop from 2019 — and the decline continued into the first half of 2021 before a modest rebound. Ontario, Canada, saw a 3.8% drop in annual births during 2020–2021. Similar declines occurred across Europe and parts of Asia.
What remains in the realm of informed speculation:
Framing these observations as coincidence requires ignoring the cumulative pattern. Framing them as deliberate requires accepting that global crises can be, and often are, shaped by those in positions of power long before they reach the public eye. And if reducing the global population was a deliberate goal, a theory shared by some researchers and whistleblowers, these patterns could be interpreted as partial success.
It may be years before the full extent of the damage, both to public health and public trust, is revealed.
A High-Production Film Arrives Amid Fierce Debate Over This Novel Technology – Premieres this week, and you can watch it here!
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDo5-fONeLg
Long Covid and Restoring Health
5% to 10% of those who contracted Covid suffer from a variety of symptoms which have been lumped together and called Long Covid. This is an estimate as there are likely many who live with the symptoms but never report them or seek medical help. Covid and the vaccination mandates eroded public trust in the medical industry. Symptoms for long covid are listed in the above link.
If you feel you may still be suffering from the long-term effects of Covid or the vaccination, there are natural remedies you can try. They may remove the spiked proteins from your body and boost your immune system. This is highly recommended to prepare your body’s defenses for the upcoming cold and flu season.
Download the Guide: https://wchweb.b-cdn.net/web/downloads/Guides/Dextox-Guide/SpikeDetoxSummary_ENGLISH2.pdf
A Collective Dark Night of the Soul and Return to Light
History may one day look back on the last century — and especially the last four years — as humanity’s global initiation. A deliberate dark night that forced us to confront complacency, misplaced trust, and the cost of secrecy.
Yet even during fear and isolation, light broke through. Parents spent more time with their children, even having more control of what they learned. Communities found new ways to connect through Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, and Zoom, bypassing the mainstream media that had long shaped the narrative. People began questioning what they were told, seeking truth from sources they could trust, and refusing to accept the status quo.
While much of what we discovered was disturbing, it awakened a resilience and clarity in many. Voices rose, truth spread and attempts to divide and conquer backfired. Instead of submission, there was a surge toward higher consciousness, sovereignty, and a more spiritual way of living.
The challenge now is to seize this moment and make it our new normal. It’s time to end the cycles of control and suppression that have marked the last hundred years. Humanity is not standing still. There is no stopping what has begun. And where we go one, we go all, into a brighter future.
Sources for more detail:
Link between fertility and COVID-19 vaccination investigated (Swiss Medic)
Covid Diagnosis Payments to Hospitals
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25111-long-covid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker
6,000 Patents Hidden By The Government | U.S. Invention Secrecy Act Video by Forgotten History
Bill Gates TED Talk Transcript from 2015: Warns of Pandemics, Epidemics
Origins of Medical Harm
The level of compensation doctors receive from Medicare is currently under renewed scrutiny; these standards are mirrored by health insurers. The quantity of reimbursement weighted to specialists is likely to shift towards primary care physicians. Reconfiguration of doctors’ fees is overdue, although they are determined by a secretive American Medical Association committee.
Analysis and debate about the ongoing healthcare crisis emphasize misdirected funding rather than considering how to revitalize the ethics of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath clarifies the priorities essential for the mindset of a physician. Despite its primary warning, first, do no harm, damage done to patients is rampant. Resolution of this tragic dynamic appears insoluble.
When decisions are made by any medical organization with financial interests, the primary impetus of the Oath is lost; the AMA’s control over payment schedules reinforces and exemplifies a corrupt institutional flaw. The harm done by the business of medicine needs to be evaluated and controlled.
The seemingly intractable conflict of interest undermining medical care is directly tied to a profit-oriented model in mitigating human suffering. Dispensing treatments with earnings in mind is a form of profitable planned obsolescence and ultimately a methodology that degrades patient autonomy and vitality.
Although there is often consensus among critics of the healthcare system about its numerous faults, approaching the central issue of profiting from illness is virtually avoided.
In an attempt to broach the topic of money and medicine, the AMA’s Journal of Ethics presents a self-justifying analysis. The following excerpt exposes how this inherently conflicted view of healthcare depends on the illness of the nation.
Stripped to its core, medicine is a service industry, the product of which is health care. As such, the practice of medicine, not unlike the provision of any other service, is deserving of professional remuneration. Viewed in this light, medicine and money are sensibly interrelated and by extension indivisible. Less clarity exists, however, about the question of whether medicine should be a conduit to wealth accumulation. (emphasis added)
The industry couldn’t be clearer about its relationship to money. The giant leap from fair compensation to wealth accumulation is easily appraised and confirmed; a swelling of profits is directly tied to the surge in chronic illness.
The degradation of individual and societal health spirals downward while the most powerful controllers of the medical and pharmaceutical industries thrive. The healthcare system is fatally compromised by its financial standards and practices. As long as poor health is monetized, the crisis will remain unresolved.
The largest and most important economic sector of the United States ignores the admonition, do no harm. Reversal of this travesty is dependent on challenging an infrastructure that denies the importance of caring without injury. Procedures and treatments are rewarded while preventative and curative methodologies remain undervalued.
Ongoing disasters in healthcare are uncontrolled, including iatrogenic disorders, unnecessary surgeries, prescription drug abuse, and vaccine failures and injuries. This exploitation is virtually ignored. Merciless mayhem is tolerated and marginalized, obscured by the deeply flawed, unethical profitability of medicine. Ultimately, there is a single disastrous outcome: disease is treated rather than cured.
Price fixing, violating antitrust statutes, financing promotional bonuses, and suppressing competitive views about how to mitigate illness and dysfunction are inherently repressive strategies of the medical industry. This dynamic is enhanced and supported by the modus operandi of the pharmaceutical giants. To retain control of an enterprise whose boundless assets are provided by the sick and dying, the profession does not tolerate internal dissent and humiliates alternative methodologies.
It is no secret that the mainstream healthcare system and its proxies have disparaged, degraded, and shunned traditional healers, dismissed folk remedies, and minimized the importance of dietary nutrition. The claim that superior, contemporary, science-based symptomatic remedies are vastly more powerful than lifestyle choices or natural medicines is a morally despicable ruse, justifying the continued use of deadly concoctions and procedures.
The medical industry has proven that it is incapable of self-regulation by its amoral promotion of tainted drugs and through its unprincipled leveraging of oversight agencies. When confronting the failures of corporate medicine, reversing the disastrous course of the mercenary business model built on the suffering of Americans requires a revolutionary approach.
Although advances in biomedicine have strengthened the ability of physicians to combat some diseases and effectively face emergencies, the guiding compassionate principles of medical care have, for the most part, been lost. Despite the noble intentions of many practitioners, the disastrous prognosis for this corrupt and inverted system is apparent. There can be no cure for this abject failure without a full, head-on attack on the medical establishment and a renewal of ethical priorities.
Practicing medicine is most effective as a selfless endeavor; the healing arts thrive when extricated from material preoccupations. Organizational dynamics that diminish the empowerment of physicians must be eliminated.
From brownstone.org
The Smithsonian Museums have an infamous underground tunnel system
The White House just sent a letter to the Smithsonian, notifying them that there will be a “comprehensive internal review” of their entire operation, to include inspection of their collections.
This comes the day after Trump just took federal control of DC, took control of Metropolitan police for 30 days, and deployed the National Guard to DC…
The Smithsonian Museums have an infamous underground tunnel system connecting a vast network of museums underneath the National Mall…
Trump just deployed the National Guard to DC, and the next day, he says he is going to search the Smithsonian tunnels?
'Election Commission of India should take Rahul Gandhi’s analysis seriously and restore public trust'
Aug 13, 2025
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ allegations have triggered a huge political row with many questioning the integrity of the Election Commission of India. Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa says that the commission was wrong in asking Gandhi to file an affidavit.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of manipulating the electoral process by adding fake voters to the rolls during the April–June 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which were held in seven phases. The poll body had last week asked Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, to either sign a formal declaration supporting his “vote chori” (vote theft) allegations or apologise to the country, describing his claims as “false” and “absurd”.
In the 2024 national election, the BJP won 240 seats – 63 fewer than its 2019 tally – while the Congress nearly doubled its seat counts – from 52 to 99.
The BJP too strongly denied all allegations and challenged Gandhi to prove his claims.
In an interview with TOI+, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa said Gandhi’s analysis deserves a detailed, point-by-point response from the poll body. He also emphasised that the ECI must take action against those found responsible for any irregularities.
Edited excerpts:
Q: Rahul Gandhi alleged at a press conference on August 7 that 1,00,250 ‘fake votes’ were created in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency under the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat. How do you view this allegation?
The analysis presented by Rahul Gandhi needs a point-by-point response from the CEO/DEO/ERO [chief electoral officer/district election officer/electoral registration officer] as nobody can rule out the possibility of discrepancies in electoral rolls.
The ECI has been conscious about such oddities in the rolls and has reaffirmed its commitment to clean up the rolls from time to time. As electoral rolls are prepared under the supervision of the ECI, the detailed response in the matter should carry the endorsement of the ECI.
ECI is a constitutional body entrusted with the preparation of electoral rolls under Article 324. Isn’t it duty-bound to probe the allegations levelled by Gandhi?
ECI should take the analysis seriously and immediately investigate the allegations to ascertain the veracity of the contention made by Rahul Gandhi. It should act against those responsible for the discrepancies/aberrations/irregularities in the instances specifically pointed out in the allegations.
Further, ECI should take systemic steps to ensure that such things do not get repeated. In fact, errors on account of deficiencies or drawbacks in the system, if any, found by the ECI should be identified for drawing lessons for the future and other rolls, when revised, should be screened for such possible errors.
Do you think the ECI was right in taking a confrontational position with the Karnataka chief electoral officer asking Gandhi to submit the evidence and file an affidavit under oath?
There is no need for an affidavit as the rules cited in the CEO’s communication do not strictly apply in the present circumstances. ECI is a monitor under whose supervision the state machinery performs the function of electoral registration, and the analysis presented by Rahul Gandhi should be taken as a complaint that merits a probe without him tendering any further evidence.
All public authorities are obliged to take notice of such grave complaints, especially when they contain verifiable details. Such details in the public domain should be enough to stir any public authority into action. Only a thorough inquiry can determine the correctness of the analysis and enable ECI to either rectify the rolls or debunk the allegations.
How do you view the ECI’s refusal to share digital data of voters?
ECI has considered such requests in the past and is of the view that providing the data in digital format is prone to manipulation. It could again examine the request whether newer technologies enable it to make its data tamper-proof.
The opposition parties for long have demanded the release of video footage from polling booths. ECI believes this will put voters in danger? Do you agree with the ECI’s stand?
The video footage is meant for internal monitoring by ECI and could be made available in cases where any election is challenged as per law in the competent court. No material in a disputed case should be deleted.
Could a special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls — similar to the one conducted in Bihar — be an effective solution to the problem of duplicate or fraudulent voters?
Such comprehensive exercises are warranted in cases where there are specific apprehensions or inputs regarding contamination of electoral rolls. However, they ought to be undertaken with full preparation of the machinery involved and proper dissemination of information to the affected electors by guiding them fully and providing them adequate time with full scope of redressal of grievances, if any.
The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and the Congress had made similar allegations in the past regarding voter rolls. How can ECI resolve all doubts in a transparent manner? Or will there always be doubt?
Nobody can avoid complaints, nor should complaints be summarily dismissed. There should be a provision for red-flagging separately all polling stations wherever there is increase/reduction beyond a preset parameter. These polling stations [should] be identified at the draft stage for a higher level of scrutiny and [for the] attention of the political parties at an appropriate stage.
ECI refused to share the list of names deleted from Bihar’s latest electoral rolls as part of the special intensive revision. How do you view this deletion of names without giving an opportunity for potential voters to respond?
This is unfair even if this is legally or technically justified in the court. ECI wouldn’t lose anything by being more accommodating.
The poll body has said it will share the data only with political parties. Do you agree with the Election Commission’s stand?
Along with political parties, this data should be in the public domain.
The Opposition is painting a larger picture of “vote chori” by linking the alleged vote fraud in Bengaluru to the Bihar SIR issue. Does this cast doubts on the integrity and reputation of ECI?
A credible electoral roll is the heart of the electoral process and it is the ECI’s bounden duty to ensure the integrity of the electoral rolls.
Is it common to find discrepancies in electoral rolls and how does ECI address this issue?
Some discrepancies in one form or the other do creep into electoral rolls and adequate mechanism is available in the extant rules. However, electors, political parties and their agents, the machinery involved in the exercise must exercise due caution and vigil at the right time and ECI must make the exercise more and more transparent.
Following the recent controversy, many are questioning the idea of free and fair elections in India. What steps does ECI need to take to restore faith in the election process?
ECI should be more transparent and communicative. It should regularly meet the stakeholders, including civil society organisations, to listen to their feedback and concerns and share its own thinking to build an environment of trust.
Alka Dhupkar
TIMESOFINDIA.COM
Alka DhupkarTIMESOFINDIA.COM
Marijuana: The Best Medicine In Town or a Dangerous Drug
President Donald Trump confirmed he and his administration are considering reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. “We’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll decide over the next — I would say over the next few weeks, and that determination hopefully will be the right one. It’s a very complicated subject.”
There is a lot to say and learn about marijuana as a medicine and for recreational purposes. Classified as a Schedule 1 drug, marijuana is listed alongside heroin and LSD as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” This is pathetic beyond all reason, starting with the fact that Tylenol is at least 1000 times more dangerous and much more likely to send a person to the emergency room.
mRNA shots should be classified as a Schedule 1 drug, way ahead of marijuana in terms of safety. That said, marijuana is a drug and has some side effects, some of which are pleasurable and a helpful aid in navigating through life, but on the other side, medical marijuana is a beneficial medicine, even for cancer.
Is it safe? It’s a thousand times safer than most drugs. Still, it cannot be denied that there are some downsides, including addiction with chronic use, inflammation, and harm done to overall physiology. A case can be made that some heavy users do compromise themselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. But people can do this with or without drugs.
“Marijuana has remarkably low toxicity, and lethal doses in humans have not been described. This is in stark contrast to a number of commonly prescribed medications used for similar purposes, including opiates, anti-emetics, anti-depressants, and muscle relaxants, not to mention legal substances used recreationally, including tobacco and alcohol,” writes Dr. Gregory T. Carter, Clinical Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. Notice Dr. Carter said low toxicity, not no toxicity.
It is probably half the States that have legalized marijuana for medical purposes because it is an excellent multipurpose medicine, and the list grows of States approving its recreational use, so the federal government must get on board with a humane approval of a popular and in many cases necessary natural substance that can save lives.
“I was diagnosed with prostate cancer on October 18, 2014. My doctor advised me that my only options were to get a prostatectomy, have radiation seeds implanted in my prostate, or receive regular external beam radiation. I declined; I knew there had to be other options. I scoured the Internet and discovered a wealth of information about cannabis oil curing cancer. I was able to obtain some medical marijuana oil (Rick Simpson Oil) and consumed the recommended dosage by mid-January. On January 26, I had a cancer reassessment, which consisted of an MRI with a state-of-the-art Tesla 3 MRI machine. Results – NO SIGN OF CANCER! CANCER FREE! One of the things that helped me while going through all this was reading the testimonials and the success stories of those who have used the oil and were cured, also with a good diet. Now that this wonderful oil has cured me, I feel I need to let others know as well.”
Real Medicine, You Can Grow Yourself
Marijuana was the best medicine for 3-year-old Cash Hyde of Missoula, Montana. The boy’s parents defied doctors’ orders—and Montana law—to get their hands on the medicinal treatment their son needed after he was diagnosed with recurring brain tumors at 22 months old. “I’ve had law enforcement threatening to kick my door down, but I would have done anything to keep Cashy alive,” Mike Hyde, the boy’s father, said to ABCNews.com.
Dr. Donald Abrams, a cancer specialist at San Francisco General Hospital, says, “Every day I see people with nausea secondary to chemotherapy, depression, trouble sleeping, pain,” he says. “I can recommend one drug [marijuana] for all those things, as opposed to writing five different prescriptions.”
At 16, Kristen Peskuski was suffering from joint inflammation and an array of autoimmune conditions, which made her organs and other tissues swell, including interstitial cystitis and lupus. She was prescribed over 40 different anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, and painkilling medications to combat the symptoms. Still struggling to bring the symptoms under control, Kristen developed steroid toxicity. She was told that the most she could hope for was reduced discomfort, and with luck, she might make it to her 30th birthday. Seeking alternative treatments, she began juicing raw cannabis leaves every day, and within two months, Kristen’s back pain had been eliminated, and she had stopped using any other painkillers.
At two years old, Amber was diagnosed with terminal brain tumors. Her mother was told that with treatment, Amber had a 10% chance of survival. After surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, the tumors were still spreading. Her parents were advised to take their child home, make her comfortable, and prepare for the inevitable. A month later, her parents reported a startling change. The tumors had decreased in size and number. The family had been juicing cannabis leaves and feeding their baby a few ounces of the juice each day.
My Medical Marijuana books are revolutionary in a medical sense. They reveal and champion the use of marijuana in clinical practice for adults and children for a wide range of diseases, including cancer and diabetes. Cannabinoid medicine holds tremendous power to alleviate human suffering, whereas the law and government are hell bent on creating suffering in men, women, and children with their genetic vaccines.
Marijuana is Natural Chemotherapy
Researchers at the University of Milan in Naples, Italy, reported in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics that non-psychoactive compounds in marijuana inhibited the growth of glioma cells in a dose-dependent manner, and selectively targeted and killed malignant cells through apoptosis. “Non-psychoactive CBD (cannabidiol) produces a significant anti-tumor activity both in vitro and in vivo, thus suggesting a possible application of CBD as an antineoplastic agent.”
Cannabinoids offer cancer patients a therapeutic option in the treatment of highly invasive cancers. The medical science is strongly in favor of hemp oil as a primary cancer therapy, not just in a supportive role to control the side effects of chemotherapy. Researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute (CPMCRI) combined the non-psychoactive cannabis compound, Cannabidiol (CBD), with Δ9-tetrahyrdocannabinol (Δ9-THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. They found the combination boosts the inhibitory effects of Δ9-THC on glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor, and the cancer that claimed the life of Senator Ted Kennedy.
Knocking on death’s door, 10-year-old Joey Perez was slowly dying. The potpourri of prescription medications he’d consumed since the age of five had damaged his body beyond repair – the side effects were killing him. Joey was diagnosed with autism at 18 months old. At one point, he was taking six different medications – up to three times a day. As a result of the side effects, Joey became malnourished and was diagnosed with anorexia. Every day, his condition got worse. His eyes were sunken in, and you could easily see all the bones in his chest. He was refusing to eat.
At the end of his allopathic treatments, his medical prognosis was a high probability of death within six months. Today, Joey is thriving, and his mother has been on The Good Morning Show to share that the Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana saved her son’s life. “Although medical marijuana is not known to be a cure for autism, it has been proven to facilitate ‘life’ for my son and has ushered him into his most progressive developmental period ever.
12 Months After Marijuana Treatments
Before we began to give him treatments of oral marijuana, he was a danger to himself and others. He had suffered from anxiety, OCD, and aggression since an early age. At the age of five, Joey was prescribed the first of many ineffective, harmful medications. The medications he was prescribed at that time worked for about a year, but Joey refused to eat, and that was the beginning of their story. As a result of the serious side effects, Joey became malnourished and was diagnosed with anorexia. It was the famous marijuana brownies that saved my son’s life, and it was the doctors and their pharmaceutical medicines that almost killed him.
“It seems to me if one is going to need to use drugs, one ought to consider a relatively safe drug, like marijuana,” said Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., of the Autism Research Institute. Marijuana, the forbidden medicine, seems to be helpful for some people with adult attention deficit disorder, impulse disorders, and bipolar disorder. Some families have found marijuana to be nothing short of miraculous. Some of the symptoms marijuana has ameliorated include anxiety, even severe anxiety–aggression, panic disorder, generalized rage, tantrums, property destruction, and self-injurious behavior. One mother commenting on using marijuana for her autistic child said, “I know it’s not the end-all answer, but it’s been the best answer for the longest time for us in regards to ALL the other medications. I cannot tell you how many months we would go on a medication, wondering if it was doing anything, anything at all. Here we can see the difference in 30-60 minutes guaranteed.”
Conclusion
Ron Paul called the war on drugs “un-American,” believing we should all be able to think for ourselves or alter our consciousness if we want. Though marijuana is associated with alternative lifestyles, many of the straightest people in the country smoke marijuana, including scientists, writers, politicians, and even police officers. School teachers do it too, and everyone else you can think of, because when used as medicine to alleviate pain and suffering, no one is counted out.
Yet the government has nothing better to do than destroy people’s lives. Back in 2017, on any given day in the United States, at least 137,000 people sit behind bars on simple drug-possession charges, according to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.
Total People Incarcerated for Drug Offenses (All Drugs)
According to the Prison Policy Initiative’s 2025 “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie” report, approximately 366,000 people are incarcerated across state prisons, local jails, federal prisons, youth prisons, and military prisons for drug offenses. Of that figure:
- 137,000 are in state prisons
- 149,000 are in local jails
- 88,000 are in federal prisons
In terms of share, about 1 in 5 incarcerated individuals in the U.S. are serving time for drug-related crimes.
People Incarcerated Specifically for Marijuana
- The Last Prisoner Project estimates that the number of individuals incarcerated at any given time for cannabis-related offenses exceeds 40,000 people.
- In short, drug offenses account for a significant slice of overall U.S. incarceration, and marijuana-related convictions alone represent a substantial portion—over 40,000 individuals are still behind bars for cannabis crimes, even as legalization spreads across many states.
Aug 13, 2025
The real Ronald McDonald
The real Ronald McDonald is not who you think he is….
This may come as a shock to some of you.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Bill Gates Exposed Pumping Human Remains Into Food Supply
While we were locked down, masked up, and distracted by fear, the elite were already moving to the next phase of their masterplan. Take Bill Gates—who quietly became the largest private owner of farmland in America. Millions of acres. And now? He’s using it against us.
It’s called alkaline hydrolysis—a process that dissolves human remains and raw sewage into a toxic industrial sludge. Thanks to shady backdoor deals with local councils, Gates is already pumping it into municipal water supplies.
They say it’s about sustainability. But this isn’t about saving the planet. It’s about controlling the population. Because when they control the food and the water… they control you.
This is a war on humanity. And the battlefield is your body.
Welcome to the next phase of the masterplan. It starts with what’s on your plate… and what’s in your tap.
First they smuggled horse meat into the food supply. Then came the mysterious “pink slime.” Now, we have evidence of human remains and excrement in the water supply.
The elite are determined to strip us of nourishing, traditional meat sources and instead force-feed us bugs, crickets, and even more disturbing alternatives like feces and human meat.
Their agenda is becoming clearer by the day—a system where nothing is natural, everything is engineered, and human beings are reduced to obedient consumers of mysterious sludge and state-approved lies.
As always, we were warned in advance—through predictive programming buried in Hollywood films and TV shows.
These aren’t coincidences—they’re rituals. Carefully staged, deliberately revealed, and rooted in the elite’s occult belief system.
They follow ancient doctrines of alchemical transmutation. To them, showing their hand is a ritual. A form of implied consent. They reveal it through fiction… before unleashing it in reality.
The short answer to that question? The global elite—with Gates at the helm—and their foot soldiers in the mainstream media and entertainment industry.
They’re working overtime to normalize this practice before they finally admit the truth:
They’ve been pumping the food supply with human flesh for years…
If you think that is disturbing, wait until you learn about the scandal that just won’t go away.
According to credible estimates, McDonalds Corporation has spent upwards of $100 million and counting on legal fees attempting to brush this scandal under the carpet and yet the controversy continues to rumble under the surface.
It gets even worse when you understand the FBI uncovered a shocking scandal allegedly involving “human remains” found at a Detroit business linked to McDonald’s supply of supposedly “100 percent beef” patties.
It gets even worse still when you understand the “human remains” were allegedly the remains of young children.
Most people have no idea that every time they eat at McDonald’s, they’re unknowingly consuming Bill Gates’ Frankenfoods.
Why was Gates, the man who has vowed to depopulate the world, so laser-focused on partnering with McDonalds on their popular French Fries?
For the record, we’e talking about the same French Fries that contain 19 dangerous ingredients and more cancer causing chemicals than a packet of cigarettes.
With Gates, nothing is natural—everything is carcinogenic, synthetic, and spiritually corrosive. From lab-grown meat to genetically modified crops, chemical-laced water to engineered “vaccines,” every product he touches is part of a larger design: to degrade the human body, dull the mind, and dismantle life as we know it.
A slow, deliberate march toward a world where nature is outlawed, health is manufactured, and control is absolute.
Never underestimate the elite’s obsession with degrading the human experience. For decades, they’ve made it clear—they see us as livestock, as units, not souls. And now, we’re beginning to understand what that truly means.
The push to turn us into involuntary cannibals—fed human remains without consent—isn’t just grotesque.
A calculated descent into barbarism, designed to strip us of dignity, morality, and civilization—one meal at a time.
This isn’t just an American issue—it’s global. Since 2015, children’s teeth have been discovered in McDonald’s sausages, hash browns, and pancakes across multiple Japanese cities.
(There are images you can use in this section that were used in this video (https://rumble.com/v5gpsr5-investigators-mcdonalds-food-tainted-with-remains-of-dead-children.html)
And in 2018, yet another disturbing case: a child’s tooth found inside a sausage muffin.
At the time, McDonald’s Japan held emergency press conferences—but conspicuously avoided explaining how human remains ended up in their food. But they did admit the meat was sourced from their U.S. headquarters.
Who were these children? Where did they come from? And more importantly—why isn’t anyone asking the right questions? Why the silence from the media, the authorities, the so-called watchdogs?
And why are the global elite so obsessed with feeding us human remains? This isn’t about accidents or supply chain errors. It’s a system designed to break the human spirit—by making us complicit in something unspeakable.
Watch
https://rumble.com/v6wxwpk-bill-gates-exposed-pumping-human-remains-into-u.s.-food-supply.html
Ethnographies of electoral processes and the neglect of fraud
Special issue: electoral fraud and manipulation in India and Pakistan
ABSTRACT
Despite official reports and widespread popular accounts of electoral fraud, manipulation, and violence in India and Pakistan, this topic has not been systematically addressed by the scholarly literature. This special issue explores how electoral malpractices are performed across a variety of settings (villages, small towns and cities) in criminalised political contexts. Our in-depth ethnographic studies of the electoral seasons show how fraud and manipulation of electoral processes are a diffuse and pervasive assemblage of practices, discourses and representations which shape and are shaped by local modes of governance and by the idea of free and fair elections.
Introduction
According to the report of the Electoral Commission of India on the 2014 national elections (ECI, Citation2015), over seventy-five thousand First Instance Reports were lodged with the police in connection with different kinds of poll-related violations; over three billion rupees in cash, six and a half million litres of alcohol, and almost five hundred thousand kilos of drugs were seized.Footnote1 Vernacular and national media outlets reported on a wide variety of fraudulent electoral practices. In Mumbai for example, two hundred thousand names mysteriously disappeared from the polling lists.Footnote2 What was true in 2014 continued in the 2019 Indian national elections. In the neighbouring country, Pakistan, the 2018 national elections were also marred by widespread accusations of fraud and irregularity. Ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif alleged that the security forces had forcibly expelled his party workers from polling stations, and that votes were being counted in secret without their supervision. He alleged that the military and the powerful secret services had pressured his candidates into defecting, and that they had initiated court cases against media outlets that were supportive towards his party. The elections were further marred by a terrorist attack that killed 151 people during an election rally, and by a subsequent attack on polling day in which 31 people were killed.
Despite official reports and widespread popular and media accounts of electoral fraud, manipulation and violence in India and Pakistan, much of the existing scholarly literature on elections fail to systematically address them.Footnote3 In Pakistan, with its history of military rule, its powerful landed clans in Punjab (see Martin, Citation2015) and Sindh, and its gang wars in Karachi (Gayer Citation2014), the literature on elections acknowledges frequent electoral fraud, but for the most part does not systematically analyse how it unfolds on the ground. Military regimes have frequently manipulated elections (see Martin, Citation2015; Waseem, Citation2006), and it is only in recent years since the end of military rule in 2008 that steps have been taken to empower the Pakistan Electoral Commission for the sake of free and fair elections. Nevertheless, there were widespread allegations of military interference in the electoral process in 2018. Overall, beyond media reports, there have been no in-depth studies of electoral fraud in the period of civilian rule subsequent to General Musharraf's ten years of military rule.Footnote4
In India, there exists a long-established tradition of ethnographic research on politics, and more recently on electoral processes, but here too the issue of electoral fraud has not received systematic attention. The literature on elections in India has tended to emphasise the enthusiasm surrounding elections, attested by high voter turnouts, the proliferation of political parties and candidates and by the frequently festive nature of elections (Banerjee, Citation2014; Jaffrelot, Citation2002). It has also been argued that even though Indian politics are often characterised as ‘dirty’ (Ruud, Citation2001), elections have nevertheless been broadly free and fair thanks to the efforts of the Indian Electoral Commission (see Banerjee, Citation2014). At the same time, however, research illustrates a tightening link between criminals, business and politicians (Jaffrelot, Citation2002; Michelutti et al., Citation2018; Vaishnav, Citation2017). However, we know little about how electoral processes in India are affected by the corruption, criminality and violence that pervade the political sphere.
Our aim is not to single out India and Pakistan as countries where electoral fraud is particularly widespread. While the scale and visibility of fraud may vary across contexts, we emphasise the fact that fraud, manipulation and even violence are central to electoral processes, and that India and Pakistan are no exception to this rule. As Lehoucq (Citation2003) has shown, the history of elections and of democracy across much of the globe has been a history of fraud, manipulation and violence. From Mexico in the 19th century (Combes, Citation2012) to the contemporary United States (Minnite, Citation2010) or Jamaica (Jaffe, Citation2015), electoral processes have invariably been marked by attempts to manipulate and ‘steer’ elections, using both legal and illegal means to do so. By describing the ‘types, magnitude, and determinants of electoral fraud’ (Lehoucq, Citation2003), scholars (notably political scientists) have provided historical evidence to the effect that fraud is intrinsically linked to elections (Alvarez, Hall, & Hyde, Citation2008; Birch, Citation2012; Campbell, Citation2006; Lehoucq & Molina, Citation2002 ; Schaffer, Citation2007; Schedler, Citation2002; Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno, & Brusco, Citation2013). The techniques used to steer electoral outcomes have included vote buying and clientelism, extortion, bogus voting, intimidation, the manipulation of voting lists, booth capture, and fraudulent attempts to invalidate election results. Other techniques include the deliberate spread of rumours and misinformation. All of the above forms of fraud and manipulation are deployed at different times during electoral seasons (See Michelutti, this issue; Govindarajan Citation2018). Whereas, for example, voting lists may be tampered with several months before elections, booth capture takes place on polling day, and punishing – sometimes through violence – and rewarding voters takes place once elections are over. Fraud may sometimes be overt and blatant, such as when party workers capture voting booths and prevent opponents from voting. But it may involve more subtle forms of pressure, such as through clientelistic bargains, overt displays of force and wealth by politicians, or even through planted rumours.
This special issue aims to provide a novel anthropological investigation of electoral fraud, violence and manipulation based on in-depth ethnographies of electoral seasons beyond polling day, and beyond the official electoral period when national electoral commissions begin to enforce their electoral codes of conduct. We define electoral seasons loosely as the period between any two elections during which politicians at various levels – national, state, and local – seek to consolidate their electoral chances for the upcoming elections(see Michelutti, this issue). It explores fraud, violence and manipulation as a vernacular assemblage of practices, discourses and representations that shape and are shaped by local political histories, and by violent modes of economic and political governance. Moving beyond the dominant normative perspective, we investigate the various meanings, tactics and politics of the electoral manipulation and the ways in which they are embedded within broader power structures. We examine how coercion, vote buying, and rumours shape electoral processes. We also examine how allegations of fraud are fabricated and instrumentalised. We look not only at how people use allegations of fraud to discredit rivals, but also at how leaders sometimes claim to manipulate elections in order to demonstrate their influence and political acumen.
This special issue provides nuanced and varied accounts of how and why people commit fraud – or claim to do so – by looking at different settings (villages, small towns and cities) and at a variety of agents active within them (politicians, political parties, henchmen, party workers, voters, etc.). Contributors have spent months and/or years in particular field sites and build on their ethnographic work to reveal the ways in which fraud is orchestrated, contested or legitimated, and silenced or displayed over periods of time that stretch far beyond Election Day. Contributors have either directly witnessed fraud, or at the very least heard and participated in conversations about it. Some have seen politicians and party workers distributing cash, alcohol and drugs. Other have seen voters and party workers being openly intimidated prior to elections, and then roughed up after elections if they did not vote the ‘right way’. All of them have had open discussions about the techniques of fraud with politicians, their henchmen, and with voters themselves. Some contributors were even invited to vote even though they were not legally entitled to do so.
Ethnographies of electoral processes and the neglect of fraud
Electoral manipulation and fraud have generally been conceptualised in relation to the ideal norms of liberal democracy. The notion of popular franchises through ‘free and fair elections’, has spread all around the world, and is today even invoked by populist regimes with authoritarian tendencies, like Turkey, Russia, Hungary or Brazil. From the perspective of liberal democracy – also espoused by electoral commissions and international observer agencies – elections can be qualified as free and fair only when voters can cast their votes as individual rational agents free from monetary or other inducements, or from pressures and threats. As such vote buying, clientelism, threats, and even diffuse social pressures all violate the individual autonomy of voters. To ensure individual voter autonomy, a number of institutions and procedures have emerged in order to control and evaluate the electoral process.
Today, countries are ranked according to their compliance with metrics that attempt to measure fraud quantitatively in terms of the presence or absence of certain predetermined criteria, and to indicate whether they are on the path to becoming mature democracies (Combes, Citation2012). Such quantification, however, relies on abstracting fraud from the social and political contexts within which it takes place, and risks overlooking the ways in which social pressures and power structures might affect electoral processes and undermine voter autonomy.
In recent years, however, scholarship has sought instead to explore local electoral practices within their social contexts. Following Schaffer's work on Senegal (Citation1997), and Paley's influential review of the anthropological literature on democracy (Citation2002), ethnographic studies of electoral processes have flourished over the last ten years and fostered the dialogue between political science and anthropology (Tawa Lama-Rewal, Citation2009 ). Auyero and Joseph (Citation2007) promote ethnography as the best tool to investigate politics, and to reveal an often hidden or ‘gray zone’ of politics (Auyero, Citation2007, pp. 31–53; Auyero, Citation2010; see also Brink-Danan, Citation2009, p. 6). This approach fostered a shift away from an exclusive focus on spectacular events such as riots and communal violence (Brass, Citation1997; Hansen Citation2001), political rallies and demonstrations (Auyero, Citation2000a), official parliamentary politics (Abélès, Citation2006; Crewe, Citation2015), and the analysis of election results, towards the study of everyday politics. How elections are implemented (Bierschenk, Citation2006; Obeid, Citation2011; Olivier de Sardan, Citation2015), what they mean to the people participating in them (Jaffe, Citation2015; Wouters, Citation2015) and why – particularly in the Indian context – people vote (Ahuja & Chhibber, Citation2012; Banerjee, Citation2014; Carswell & De Neve, Citation2014; Chandra, Citation2004; Ruud, Citation2011) are some of the issues investigated to approach the ‘vernacular’ meanings of democracy (Michelutti, Citation2008) and of electoral processes (Bubandt, Citation2006).
These detailed ethnographies of elections have certainly helped nuance the ‘universalist assumptions of Western democratic practices’ (Paley, Citation2002). However, despite a close attention to electoral processes, fraud, coercion and violence have only received scant or only indirect attention. The review of the anthropological literature on democracy proposed by Paley has, for example, only one occurrence for ‘fraud’ (Citation2002).
Firstly, the anthropological literature tends to analyse elections in terms of their ritual, sacred, and carnavalesque dimensions (Banerjee, Citation2007; Brink-Danan, Citation2009; Coles, Citation2004; Lazar, Citation2004), but tends not to pay detailed attention to conflict and violence. Secondly, scholars have focused on the role of clientelistic inducements during elections. The key issue in this research relates to the interpretation of material inducements and favours (alcohol, cash, access to schemes, etc.), as a form of manipulation or alternatively as part of ‘the abiding ties, in the enduring webs of relationships’ between party workers/brokers and political party workers (Auyero, Citation2000b). Some have denounced inducements as perverting democratic processes (Chandra, Citation2004, p. 4), others celebrated them as expressions of collective agency and citizenship (Lazar, Citation2004; Montoya, Citation2015).
Anthropologists have, largely, been critical of the purportedly central role of material inducements – see below for debates on vote-buying. Auyero's influential study of clientelism in Argentina (Citation2000a), insists that it is wrong – and stigmatising – to claim that ‘clients’ support particular politicians merely because these provide them with favours, gifts and even cash. In the Indian context, Banerjee (Citation2014) argues that Indians vote because they regard it as a sacred civic duty, and not necessarily because they want to get material benefits. Carswell and De Neve likewise argue that in Tamil Nadu high voter turnouts reflect people's political awareness and rights' consciousness: people do not merely vote to obtain material benefits, they vote along programmatic lines (Citation2014, p. 1040). In his work on the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) in Bihar, Witsoe (Citation2013) argues that members of the Other Backward Castes in Bihar voted the RJD into power in order to undermine upper caste power and to assert their dignity.
The move away from instrumentalist analyses of clientelism towards analyses that emphasise morality and rights awareness is an important one, not least because it nuances an overly stark emphasis on the role of material inducements as a determinant of voter behaviour. However, this literature tells us little about the threats and violence that can accompany clientelistic inducements. Piliavsky (Citation2014) for example, by emphasising the moral aspects of patronage, tends to ignore clientelism’s coercive aspects. This is problematic because, as Kitschelt argues, clientelism ‘involves reciprocity and voluntarism but also exploitation and domination' (2000, p. 849). Stokes (Citation2005) has argued that the distinctive characteristic of clientelistic exchanges is that they are conditional on how people vote, and that they involve ‘perverse accountability’. This means that clientelistic bargains often contain a threat in the form ‘If you don’t vote for me, you won’t obtain benefits’.
Various reports based on long and in-depth fieldwork by Chandra (Citation2004), Berenschot (Citation2011) and Martin (Citation2015) show how politicians and political parties frequently grant favours to specific categories of voters who voted for them and deny them and withdraw state protection from those who voted against them. For example, parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party might provide caste Hindus with hospital beds but deny these to Muslims.Footnote5 As Chandra (Citation2004) and Martin (Citation2018) illustrate, voting ‘the wrong way’ could also mean being deprived of police protection and therefore of physical safety and property rights. In landlord-dominated areas of the rural Pakistani Punjab, Martin (Citation2015) describes how tenants often vote according to the dictates of local landlords because they fear being deprived of support in their dealings with state institutions.
In this special issue, we seek to explore the role of such threats, as well as of intimidation and violence more broadly in elections in India and Pakistan. Based on the research presented in the various contributions, we emphasise the various ways in which violence, and the mere threat and rumour of it, shape elections in South Asia. This is particularly relevant given the reported rise of criminal politicians in the region (Michelutti et al., Citation2018 ; Vaishnav, Citation2017). Recent works have detailed the importance of bosses and their henchmen in extracting economic resources and in establishing political careers. In the Pakistani context, Laurent Gayer (Citation2014) illustrates how, after the partition, Karachi grew to become a city of multiple and heavily armed competing sovereigns who run parallel states and who extort money from their subjects. In the Indian context, scholars have emphasised how competitive elections due to an increasingly demanding electorate (in large part due to the growing assertiveness of the lower and intermediate castes), and sometimes also due to a proliferation of political parties, means that politicians have scrambled to obtain funds to finance costly elections. Politicians need funds in order to buy votes with cash, liquor, drugs, and sometimes even with small infrastructure projects. To obtain these funds, they approach powerful businessmen, sell party tickets to the highest bidders, extort money from citizens through the police and gangsters, and tap into black markets in drugs and liquor (Vaishnav, Citation2017). In many cases, industrialists have become politicians and politicians have become wealthy businessmen, illustrating how politics and capital accumulation tend to go together (Harriss-White & Michelutti, Citation2019; Michelutti et al., Citation2018; Vaishnav, Citation2017). In recent years, scholars have also begun gathering information that is more detailed on how politicians access different moneyed networks to fund their campaigns (Kapur & Vaishnav, Citation2018).
The growing role of money and muscle power inevitably affect not only democracy, but elections themselves. The way we look at fraud and manipulation – based on extensive fieldwork – emphasises the ways in which clientelism, coercion and money are all interwoven in the electoral processes. The large amounts of cash, liquor and drugs circulating, and the violence and fraud that frequently mars elections, need to be understood within a context where politics, muscle power, money and crime are increasingly intertwined. While electoral commissions dictate the norms about how elections should be conducted, theirs are not the only set of norms at play during elections. Moving away from a normative perspective allows us to analyse the variety of other norms and practices that come into play during elections in India and Pakistan.
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Special issue: electoral fraud and manipulation in India and Pakistan
Nicolas Martin & David Picheri
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