Thomas Fazi

Western media have covered the recent anti-lockdown protests in China extensively, unanimous in their condemnation of the government’s extreme measures and their praise of the protesters’ “collective bravery” and “remarkable expression of defiance”; many Western leaders have reacted similarly. This is a jaw-dropping reversal. Those same outlets, along with the entire Western scientific and political establishment, spent 2020 and 2021 praising China’s Covid response, promoting lockdown measures in their own nations, and ignoring, disparaging, and harshly retaliating against those who protested lockdowns and vaccine passports in the West. As the very people who imposed or enabled these policies try to make us forget all of that, it’s crucial to revisit their complicity—and their contempt for those who objected at the time.

You can read the rest of my article on the Great Reversal in Compact.

As new authentication and surveillance technologies, such as vaccine passports and track-and-trace apps, were rolled out during the pandemic, civil rights organisations and activists raised the question of mission creep — that is, the likelihood of governments clinging on to these technologies and using them for unanticipated ends, heralding a new era of normalised state surveillance. Even the United Nations warned that the potential for abuse was high and that “what is justified during an emergency now may become normalised once the crisis has passed”. At the time, such concerns were dismissed as groundless conspiracy theories. And yet, like so many other claims that were initially ridiculed and censored only to be proven correct over time, events are corroborating many of these fears.

You can find the rest of my article on the rise of the biostate over at UnHerd.

In my latest column for UnHerd, I look at how Biden is escalating tensions with China — not only by taking a hard-line approach to Taiwan but also, and perhaps even more importantly, by launching an all-out economic war on the Asian giant, by introducing a vast array of restrictions on the sale of semiconductor chips to Chinese firms, as well as on the equipment needed to make them. Some see this as a prelude to what many in the US establishment consider an inevitable outcome: a US-China military conflict. But there’s nothing inevitable about a US-China war. If China represented a security threat to America’s survival, this might be the case. But it does not. The problem with China, as the recently released US National Security Strategy emphasised, is that it is the only competitor of the US with “the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favour of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit”. In other words, China is not a threat because it undermines US security interests, but because it will want to shape — and indeed is already shaping — the global political and economic order in a manner that serves its own interests, rather than just those of the US and other Western nations, as has been the case since the Second World War. The real threat, then, is not to America but to America’s hegemonic unipolarist ambitions and those who benefit from it. The good news is that, when it comes to the prospect of engaging in a Cold War 2.0 with China, which would jeopardise both global peace and prosperity, the US appears very isolated — even vis-à-vis its closest allies.

I’ve written an article about the Bank of England’s recent interest rate hike — which follows similar hikes by other major central banks, most notably the Federal Reserve. In it, I argue that the hikes have nothing to do with bringing down inflation, for the simple fact that the latter has nothing do with excess demand or excessive wage increases, but is driven by supply-side factors that are entirely beyond the control of central banks. What global technocrats are really worried about is that, as a result of the de-globalisation and reshoring that will inevitably see countries bring production lines and supply chains closer to home in the coming years, Western countries will be facing structurally tighter labour markets — which means greater labour bargaining power. They fear this not because it might lead to a wage-price spiral, which is unlikely, but because it would signal a shift in the labour-capital balance for the first time in half a century. In this context, raising interest rates and pursuing austerity should be seen as means to engineer a recession and artificially raising unemployment in order to pre-empt this potential rise in labour bargaining power.

I’ve got a new piece up at Compact about the shocking facts that recent lawsuits and FOIAs are bringing to light about the extent of the collaboration between the US government and Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in an attempt to police so-called disinformation. What’s apparent is that the aim of this strategy wasn’t to protect the public from inaccurate and potentially dangerous information (which was certainly widespread), but simply to censor any voice or opinion that didn’t confirm the official narrative, even at the cost of exposing the public to officially sanctioned misinformation and disinformation. The relationship between free speech and social media is an important issue — so the debate that’s been reignited by Musk’s takeover of Twitter should be welcomed. Progressives may have a point about the dangers of “free speech absolutism” in the age of social media, yet this debate must necessarily start from acknowledging the destructive effects that government-sponsored censorship has had on democracy and public health over the past three years.

I’ve also written for UnHerd about the impossible mission facing Rishi Sunak, the new British prime minister. On the one hand, he is expected to address the numerous economic problems afflicting Britain — the highest inflation rate in 40 years, an energy and cost-of-living crisis, a slow-motion housing market crash, strained public services, and growing industrial and civil unrest — while simultaneously boosting investment and economic growth. On the other, he’s expected to do all this while “restoring the confidence of the markets” by “fixing the country’s finances” — that is, reducing the government deficit and debt through higher taxes and/or spending. These two objectives can’t be reconciled. The problem for Sunak is that by feeding the myths that ultimately brought down his predecessor, Liz Truss, he’s boxed himself in.

Some days ago I also wrote about the cracks opening up in the pro-war front in the US. Not only is public support for the war waning, but rifts are emerging within the American establishment as well. The list of high-profile media and policy figures who are starting to question the wisdom of the US strategy in the conflict grows longer every day. More and more people are asking: why is the US administration continuing to pour tens of billions into a war that is ravaging Ukraine and causing thousands of deaths (and triggering massive collateral damage globally) when, according to the Washington Post, “privately, US officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright”? If so, why is the US prolonging the bloodshed and destruction, pledging to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, rather than working towards a diplomatic solution that, barring nuclear war, is the only possible outcome anyway?

In my latest article I look at the growing evidence that the US strategy in Ukraine may be aimed not only at weakening Russia — but Germany as well.

While last week I looked at the UK’s mini-budget hysteria, and why the the government’s plan wasn’t attacked because of the tax cuts (which were bad) but because it challenged the macroeconomic orthodoxy — and that should be welcomed.

As expected, right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni triumphed in the recent Italian elections and is poised to become the next PM. Fears of an Italian slide into Hungarian-style “illiberal democracy” – or outright fascism –, however, are wildly overblow, as I explain in this article. Meloni has gone out of her way to express wholehearted support for the European Union, the Euro-Atlantic partnership and NATO, including voting for sending weapons to Ukraine. On all the major issues of the day, there’s every reason to believe that she will toe the establishment’s line. Indeed, the real threat to democracy doesn’t come from Meloni, but from the way in which the EU has constrained Italian policymaking to the point that it no longer matters who wins the elections – a conclusion cleary shared by the record number of Italians who sat out the elections (1 in 3).

Last week I also had a piece out about the devastating consequences the energy crisis is already having on Europe. With the continent looking at years of economic contraction, inflation, deindustrialisation, declining living standards, mass impoverishment, and shortages – and this without taking into account the terrifying prospect of an outright military confrontation with Russia – the question needs to be asked: how can anyone think Europe can survive this without plunging into anarchy?

Finally, in this short article, I look at who could be behing the recent attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline: was the US? Was it Russia? Or some third country? Either way, the event marks a terrifying escalation in the West’s proxy war with Russia.

Toby Green and I have written a piece on the weird theory going round in libertarian Covid-critical circles that the pandemic management disaster was some kind of socialist conspiracy. We explain that the opposite is true: the lockdown catastrophe and subsequent mass-vaccination-by-all-means programmes, and associated pharma and tech profiteering, are the clear outcome of decades of deregulation and marketisation advocated by pro-market conservatives, which have led to the corporate capture of state institutions.

While last week I had a piece out on the great Net Zero lie – that is, on the way in which elites are manipulating the climate and environmental crisis in order to further entrench their power and control, and how we need to retain the capacity to separate the reality of a problem from the establishment’s political use of the latter.

Hi, I’ve got a new piece up the economic agenda of Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss. There’s not much to be hopeful about: her radical free-market ideology is the last thing the UK needs, as the country tackles precisely the disastrous consequences of decades of Thatcherite policies of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation.

On a completely different topic, last week I wrote about the many questions around the Covid lab-leak hypothesis that still remain unanswered, and why Jeffrey D. Sachs, chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, is calling for an independent inquiry into the virus’s origins. He believes there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary US public health agency, and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in order to cover up evidence that US-funded research in Wuhan may have played a role in the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Thanks for reading.

Dear all, I had a piece out last week in UnHerd on why the European elites’ disastrous management of the Russia/gas supplies issue is likely to spark civil unrest on a level unseen in a very long time. I’ll return on the matter soon, in particular to explain why the only way forward at this point is nationalising the energy companies – which is the point that sparked the greatest controversy (see the “comments” section at the bottom of the article).

I’ve also just got a piece out on why Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s likely next prime minister, is not Mussolini 2.0 – but rather another representative of the Single Party of Neoliberalism, the EU and NATO. Those who will vote for her in the hope that she will deliver change will be disappointed.

Finally, an article on the growing monkeypox hysteria, and how we are repeating the same flawed approach we saw with Covid – spreading misinformation about the nature of the disease, and sowing unnecessary panic and fear among those who risk little or nothing from it, while denying those who actually are at risk the kind of targeted messaging and protection they deserve.