Reading The Great Reset, it would seem that Blackrock is behind, and funding, a heck of a lot of what is going on now such as the WEF, the Green scam, critical race theory, etc.
The Sherman Act outlaws "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize." Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are "per se" violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.
The Clayton Act addresses specific practices that the Sherman Act does not clearly prohibit, such as mergers and interlocking directorates (that is, the same person making business decisions for competing companies). Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions where the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly." As amended by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, the Clayton Act also bans certain discriminatory prices, services, and allowances in dealings between merchants. The Clayton Act was amended again in 1976 by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act to require companies planning large mergers or acquisitions to notify the government of their plans in advance. The Clayton Act also authorizes private parties to sue for triple damages when they have been harmed by conduct that violates either the Sherman or Clayton Act and to obtain a court order prohibiting the anticompetitive practice in the future.
Behind the Headlines I.g. Farben’s Grim History
What oil is to Saudi Arabia, technological genius was to I. G. Farben, Borkin explained. “All the great metallurgical and chemical companies in the world had to take a junior position to the I.G. Farben cartels. Can you imagine–Alcoa, Dow, Standard Oil had to be junior partners. I.G. Farben sat at the head of the table.” {yet this is precisely what many companies now look like, junior partners to Blackrock - Blackrock took over majority shares}
The oil companies “take dictation from the Saudis and not from the Pentagon,” he added. “It is a disgraceful act in history. We are now in a state of war and we should set up a Manhattan project to get synthetic oil like we did to get the atomic bomb. That’s the big lesson. And we ought to enforce the Sherman act. Don’t let the conglomerates get so big and powerful that they can conduct our foreign policy.”
The mayor of Keighley has resigned after being criticised for describing his attendance at a Pride event as a "lapse in judgement".
In a Facebook post, Mohammed Nazam said his participation had contradicted his "personal religious beliefs".
He was suspended by the Conservative group on Bradford Council once his comments came to light and later announced he would quit as mayor.
In a statement he said he "did not mean any harm to the LGBTQ community".
He said he intended to carry on as an independent councillor, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
In his post, on a page called Keighley Pakistanis, Mr Nazam said: "I wholeheartedly apologise for my participation in the flag-raising ceremony, as it contradicts my personal religious beliefs, as many of you are aware."
He said he had since "personally repented for this error," adding: "Looking back, I realise that I should have respectfully declined the request at the time."
"By my apology I did not mean any harm to the LGBTQ community," he said.
"My religion teaches respect and tolerance for all and the law of the land. People should have the freedom to express their beliefs and live their lives as they wish to.
"This should apply to all communities and religious beliefs," he added.
David Shaw, chair of Keighley Pride, said Mr Nazam had agreed to a request to be involved in the flag-raising ceremony, as other mayors had done in the past.
"That was very brave of him, but he has to stand by that," he said.
"To retract it in the way that he did is really quite unacceptable. As mayor you need to represent everybody and be inclusive," he added.
ESG scoring is a financial racket, and we’re starting to learn how it works. The unfolding saga with huge American corporations like Anheuser-Busch (Bud Light) and Target are showing us a glimpse of what’s going on behind the curtain with this cartel scam that’s trapping our corporations. One tool of this cartel is the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index,” which is concerned with “LGBTQ+” issues and is used as a scoring mechanism for the S, Social (Justice), part of ESG scoring. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay walks through how the ESG racket works, including using CEI scoring, and makes the suggestion that we need a perspective shift so we can end this problem once and for all. Join him to hear how it works!
how sensitive can these people get? the best thing now appears to do nothing and say nothing out of a fear to offend anyone. even polite speech is now being attacked. where has tolerance gone??Keighley's town mayor quits after backlash over Pride remarks
Mohammed Nazam described his attendance at a Pride event as a "lapse of judgement".www.bbc.co.uk
The town in this story has a large South Asian community, like many in this part of the country where I grew up. A much larger community than the LGBT one, I'm certain. There have been decades of segregation from the white population, some issues with violence but mostly just a parallel community with its own cultures, languages and religions. This kind of nonsense just further reinforces that separation.
The lesson here is; it's better to take your chances and not attend a pride event, facing possible backlash, than say you regret attending one and make it inevitable. It won't win you much favour with many of the people you are supposed to represent, or people from your own background, but that's politics, right? They even put a brown stripe on the flag now, just for you, so ungrateful!
Here's an article from April on this, which lays out the absurdity in greater detailThere were some things in here I wasn't aware of regarding ESG. Corporations have to comply with something called CEI (corporate equality index). Bud Light's parent company actually LOST points on its score because they apologized for the whole Dylan Mulvaney episode. It's basically a mafia:
Woke, three-letter alphabet soup policies like ESG and CEI — which are supposedly based on “ethical investing” and are why major American corporations are handing out lucrative endorsements to fringe celebrities like transgender performer Dylan Mulvaney — sound wonky.
But one corporate analyst gave a succinct summation: “You can think about ESG as an attempt to sort of bring critical race theory to the private sector,” said Alison Taylor, executive director of ethical systems at New York University.
And like some universities and high schools where parents and administrators have fought back against critical race theory being embedded in the curriculum, America’s big corporations aren’t necessarily as eager to sign on to LGBTQ+, climate or anti-racist policies as you might think — despite the recent rash of endorsements by Nike, Bud Light and Kate Spade of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The most controversial of those, by Bud Light, has wiped $5 billion off parent company Anheuser-Busch’s value since March 31, as it deals with the fallout from conservatives over its brand endorsement of the 26-year-old transgender TikTok and Instagram star.
The Post revealed Saturday how companies strive to receive a perfect “Corporate Equality Index” (CEI) score from the pro-LGBTQ+ lobbying group the Human Rights Campaign to comply with progressive policies espoused by the world’s biggest asset funds — pushing them into branding deals like the one with Mulvaney.
But American corporations are being strong-armed into policies that they don’t always agree with by influential nonprofit activist groups acting in concert with powerful fund managers, according to Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and other opponents.
They name BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Corp., which each own up to 5 percent of most major US companies, as the ones doing the strong-arming, which Ramaswamy called “a protection racket.”
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, among others, has been mentioned by ESG opponents as instrumental in the pressure campaigns, which they say are not in the interests of companies — or the pension fund members whose savings Fink and others invest.
The big asset companies like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Bank are shareholders of almost every Fortune 500 company and if they vote for a policy, CEOs who do not comply open themselves up to potential legal issues because it could look as if they are not acting in the best interest of shareholders, several anti-ESG analysts told The Post.
“It’s a protection racket,” Ramaswamy told The Post Wednesday. “If company executives don’t go along with it, they could see their compensation cut or their bonuses disappear and the chance of further investment from the big three funds could go away.”
When Ramaswamy was executive chairman of his “anti-woke” asset management firm Strive, he wrote letters to the boards of Apple and Chevron recommending that they decline to adopt ESG agendas which involved racial equity and climate policies. He called the agendas a “farce” and said they would not benefit shareholders.
Each company appeared to agree with Ramaswamy’s advice, he said — but then walked their plans back and ended up voting in favor of the ESG proposals under pressure from the activists who pushed them.
“The sequence of events about their boards agreeing but then reversing course was not in relation to my letters,” explained Ramaswamy, whose new book on the topic, “Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn’t Vote For,” comes out April 25.
“It was in relation to the shareholder proposals put up by the nonprofit organizations. The boards initially opposed them, until BlackRock and State Street supported them and voted in favor of them, after which Apple and Chevron each shifted course.”
Disney too first balked at getting involved in the Gov. Ron DeSantis “Don’t Say Gay” controversy in Florida, but then went ahead and got on board to fight it.
Even worse, say Ramaswamy and other who oppose ESG, the fund managers who can influence how a corporate board votes are only proxy shareholders. They are using money from the pension funds of average Americans to jam through policy that the actual pension-holders might not even agree with — and which opponents say have been shown to lose money.
Sometimes, Ramaswamy said, Fink and others have to kowtow to the ultra-liberals who run pension funds in blue states like California and New York if they want to manage that money. CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has more than $467 billion.
ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance,” which has been billed in recent years as a way to screen investments based on corporate policies and to encourage companies to act “responsibly.”
Opponents say ESG policies are alarmingly reminiscent of the Chinese social credit score system and are paving the way for more government control and oligarchical monopolies.
“We may be veering in the same direction as China,” Vince Dao, a conservative commentator, told The Post. “The danger is that ESG and CEI scores could be leading us into a type of state-run capitalism where companies are only beholden to entities tied to the government or doing the bidding of big government.”
The CEI score, overseen by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), is a key tool in determining whether companies are adhering to the “social” portion of ESG, which includes LGBTQ+ policies.
Companies like Anheuser-Busch or Jack Daniel’s — whose “small town, big pride” 2021 ad campaign featuring drag queens from “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” is drawing fresh backlash — brag about their high scores on their websites. Both have received scores of 100 in recent years.
But the pressure can be so intense from lobbying groups ranging from the HRC to Color of Change to the powerful Service Employees International Union that companies ultimately can’t say no.
A company that rebels against playing ball with the CEI rating system will immediately feel the blowback, according to James Lindsay, a political podcaster who runs New Discourses.
“Sometimes it’s little things like if a company doesn’t get a 100 CEI score, they won’t be allowed at a jobs fair at a university,” Lindsay told The Post. “Universities are suppressing companies that don’t have a 100 score by telling prospective graduates, saying they’re bigoted places to work.”
Companies pay attention when they have to fill out their ESG paperwork, Lindsay said.
“They are chasing these scores because if you are not found to be compliant, you could be de-listed from the portfolios of index funds and pension funds and that’s a whole chunk of money.”
In recent years, America’s top corporations have begun to give lucrative deals to what were once considered fringe celebrities because they have to — or risk failing an all-important social credit score that could make or break their businesses.
At stake are the points that make up their CEI score. HRC awards or subtracts points for how well companies adhere to what HRC calls its “rating criteria.”
Businesses that attain the maximum 100 total points earn the coveted title “Best Place To Work For LGBTQ Equality.” Fifteen of the top 20 Fortune-ranked companies received 100% ratings last year, according to HRC data.
The giant food services company Sodexo, which was founded in France, is one of many top corporations that includes a page on its website proudly extolling its top CEI score. The company said that as of 2022, it had received a 100 score on the CEI.
“Our adoption of the pro-human approach ensures that we honor the distinct cultural and social identities of our team members,” said Tony Tenicela, the company’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion and PRIDE USA executive sponsor.
“As an out leader and executive sponsor of our LGBTQ+ & Ally community, PRIDE, I am proud the HRC recognized Sodexo as one of the Best Places to Work. It demonstrates that our teams are safe, valued, and encouraged to bring their authentic selves to work.”
In this special edition of Disaffected, we're joined by author Helen Dale for a conversation on the original cancel culture.
1h 13m....The following was first mentioned by @Jones here back in April, and is more in line with cancel culture (so cross posting, yet ultimately it is free speech.
The interview is a couple of years old and I'm just catching up with the words between Josh Slocum (show is Disaffected) and guest, Helen Dale.
The title is:
'Proto' Cancel Culture: Special Edition with Helen Dale
Helen recounts her life, education and writings, for which she had won a prestigious award (Miles Franklin Literary Award) for her book The Hand that Signed the Paper. Thereafter, the cancel culture knives came out for her back. When listening, one can quickly get a sense of what this meant and how difficult it was to counter (the early days of cancel culture). Of course, these days this madness is on steroids - which happened fast using social, political, identity and institutional and corporate mechanisms.
In the talk, Helen looks back at history and how incredibly hash it was. The short breakout from those time and what looks to be a hard turn back.