A Hezbollah drone flew over the occupied territories’ Galilee and returned safely to Lebanon despite high alert among the ranks of the Israeli occupation army last October, a report said on Thursday.
Lebanese Daily Al-Akhbar reported that a Hezbollah drone managed to enter the airspace of occupied Palestine on October 26 as the Israeli occupation army was on high alert and waging the so-called “Lethal Arrow” maneuver.
“The maneuver was accompanied with high activity by the Israeli air force,” the Lebanese daily said.
“One of the maneuver’s goals was to prevent drones from getting into the Palestinian airspace,” Al-Akhbar said, highlighting the paradox.
The drone managed to capture photos and footage of the occupied region of Galilee and then returned to its base in Lebanon safely, the daily revealed.
Al-Manar will broadcast the photos and scenes captured by the drone in the last episode of “The Second Liberation” documentary series.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine |
3 Comments
A Federal Court judge last week set a chilling and far-reaching precedent for the further overturning of basic democratic rights and academic freedom, especially to express political or other dissenting views.
The ruling backed the University of Sydney’s February 2019 dismissal of Dr. Tim Anderson, an economics department senior lecturer, primarily on the basis of allegations that his criticisms of US militarism and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people were “offensive.”
Dr. Tim Anderson (Photo source: Facebook)
The court decision is another warning of the poisonous and repressive atmosphere being whipped up to silence opposition to the preparations for Australian involvement in potentially catastrophic US-led wars against China or other perceived threats to the global hegemony asserted by Washington since World War II.
Significantly, the University of Sydney hosts the US Studies Centre, which was established in 2006, with US and Australian government funding, for the express purpose of overcoming popular hostility to US militarism after the massive protests against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The court’s judgment also exposed the fraud of claims by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) that its enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) with universities protect the essential principle of academic freedom.
Justice Thomas Thawley ruled that the university’s EBA with the union, which is similar to those at most universities, “does not recognise the existence of, or give rise to, a legally enforceable right to intellectual freedom.”
In particular, Thawley declared that EBA “academic freedom” clauses do not protect university workers from being sacked for making comments—even on their private social media accounts—that managements deem in breach of their employee codes of conduct. Instead, EBA commitments to academic freedom were “purely aspirational.”
University of Sydney Institute Building, where United States Studies Centre is located (Photo source: Wikipedia)
This thoroughly anti-democratic decision comes on the back of a similar result in another case taken to the courts by the NTEU. In July, the Full Federal Court upheld the dismissal of James Cook University academic Dr. Peter Ridd, for expressing his views, as a climate-change sceptic, that cut across the university’s reputation.
Anderson’s case demonstrates how far university managements, working in league with governments and the corporate media, can victimise academics, especially those who oppose the wars of US imperialism and its allies, including the Zionist regime in Israel.
Among the charges the University of Sydney made against Anderson was that he tweeted, on his own Twitter account, criticism of the university hosting an address by US Senator John McCain. Anderson described McCain, a backer of every US military intervention for the past three decades, including the brutal neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as “a key US war criminal.”
Other allegations included Anderson posting on his personal Facebook account a photograph of a group of friends eating lunch, one of whom wore an anti-Israel badge. Anderson was accused of “promoting racial hatred and/or racism” and charged with violating the university’s Code of Conduct even though he was on leave from the university at the time.
Anderson was further charged with posting to his Facebook and Twitter accounts a denunciation of a video news report by Channel 7 reporter Bryan Seymour that insinuated that Anderson supported racism and the North Korean regime. Anderson’s comment that “Colonial media promotes ignorance, apartheid and war” was declared “derogatory” toward Seymour.
Anderson was also cited for giving a lecture that allegedly featured an Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it, examined media coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014, and encouraged students to seek independent evidence of claims of “moral equivalence” between Israel’s deadly aerial bombardments and primitive Palestinian rocket attacks.
This was judged to be “derogatory and/or offensive” and as “reasonably seen as racist towards or seeking to target and/or offend Israelis and/or Jewish people and/or Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.” Yet, critics of the Israeli government, including anti-Zionist Jews, have often compared its persecution of the Palestinian people to the actions of the fascist German regime.
Finally, Anderson was accused of breaching confidentiality orders barring him from even telling anyone that he was facing dismissal, and of failing to comply with “a lawful and reasonable direction” to delete his social media posts.
The judge agreed with the university management’s determination that Anderson’s posts and efforts to fight his dismissal amounted to “serious misconduct” under both the NTEU’s EBA and the university’s Code of Conduct, thus justifying his sacking.
Anderson’s dismissal followed a protracted campaign by senior figures in the federal Liberal-National Coalition government, the corporate media and university management, to demonise Anderson because of his denunciations of wars and military interventions by the US, Israel and other major powers.
In April 2018, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who was in charge of university funding, demanded an investigation into Anderson for comments he made questioning US claims that the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Telegraph hysterically denounced Anderson as a “sarin gasbag” and the Sydney Morning Herald later reported that the university was taking disciplinary action against Anderson—a media disclosure that violated its own confidentiality regime.
Justice Thawley found Anderson’s dismissal as justified by the university’s Code of Conduct, which imposes requirements such as “the exercise of the best professional and ethical judgment,” “integrity and objectivity,” being “fair and reasonable” and treating “members of the public with respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity.” The university’s employees must also “uphold the outstanding reputation of the University in the community.”
These formulations are so vague and value-laden that they could provide a pretext for sacking academics or other university workers for condemning government policies, denouncing corporate greed or accusing the US and Australian governments of military aggression or war crimes. Employees could be dismissed for criticising university policies, such as hosting pro-military think tanks.
Virtually every university campus across the country now participates in government-funded programs to tie academic research to the development of new military technologies. Australian universities are being integrated into a vast US-led military build-up, aimed at preparing for war with China and other powers.
The NTEU’s response to the court ruling, as it was to Anderson’s sacking itself, and the massive job cuts ravaging universities, is to oppose any mobilisation of university workers and instead appeal to the employers for a deal.
In a union media statement, NTEU New South Wales division secretary Michael Thomson said: “We call on all Vice Chancellors to come to the table to talk about how we can formulate a legally enforceable right, to provide the appropriate protections for university staff and to avoid these circumstances occurring in the future.”
The Federal Court’s support for Anderson’s victimisation is part of a deeper attack on fundamental democratic rights. It widens the impact of a High Court 2019 ruling that essentially abolished freedom of speech for workers, whether in government or corporate employment. With no dissent, the judges endorsed the sacking of a federal public servant for criticising—even anonymously—the country’s brutal refugee detention regime.
A warning must be sounded. The ruling class and its agencies, including university managements, are seeking to suppress dissent amid mounting social inequality, war preparations and deepening political discontent.
Hence the federal police raids on journalists for publishing leaks exposing government and military crimes, the prosecution of the whistleblowers involved and the bipartisan backing for the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | Australia, University of Sydney |
3 Comments
Just weeks after finishing a two and a half year prison sentence for “Holocaust denial,” 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been convicted again by German courts, this time for an interview she gave in 2018 that affirmed her view that Jews were not systematically killed during World War II and that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are a politically motivated lie.
If the federal court’s sentence of one year in Haverbeck’s newest case holds up, Germany will have the dubious distinction of imprisoning the oldest female inmate in the world, a title previously held by American Lucille Keppen, who was incarcerated for shooting her neighbor and was released at age 93.
The German government has been dragging Haverbeck to court for decades for disputing Jewish claims of gas chambers and systematic murder. Haverbeck has famously protested the kangaroo courts that humiliate and defame elderly war veterans using bogus testimony from “survivors.”
Numerous high-ranking Third Reich officials, soldiers and concentration camp workers have disputed the Holocaust narrative since 1945, including Wehrmacht officer Otto Ernst Remer, Auschwitz employee Thies Christophersen, Erich Priebke, Leon Degrelle, and SS soldier Karl Muenter, the latter who died before his “Holocaust denial” trial began at the age of 96.
Haverbeck’s late husband, Werner Georg Haverbeck, was an influential NSDAP member who himself objected to the blood libel against the German people known as die Auschwitz luge (the Auschwitz lie).
The BRD’s legal system has been ruthless with Haverbeck. The nonagenarian, who is a prisoner of conscience, was denied release after serving 2/3 of her prison sentence as is customary in Germany. While the state freed 1,000 offenders early due to COVID last March, Haverbeck was only let out in mid-November.
There is no sign of shame or human rights concerns in the country, with the judge in the latest case stressing that Haverbeck will continue to be punished until she learns to keep her mouth shut. One can only imagine the outcry from liberal NGOs if Iran, China or Russia imprisoned an elderly woman just for questioning the government’s line.
Haverbeck’s powerful spirit has become an inspiration for patriots in Germany and around the world. In 2019, she ran as a European parliamentary candidate from behind bars and received 25,000 votes, which was highly upsetting to the European media establishment. Every year on her birthday, hundreds of Germans rallied outside her detention center demanding her release.
Intellectuals and activists across Europe, the Americas and Japan have expressed dismay over her mistreatment and the lack of freedom in the land that claims to be a “democracy.” At JVA Bielefeld, where Haverbeck was housed, prison officials struggled to process the avalanche of letters and flowers their famous prisoner received throughout her sentence.
For Germany’s oldest prisoner, it’s clear that she will not cower before the wrath of the Jewish groups directing careerist bureaucrats. It’s in the German state’s reputational interest to stop tormenting Haverbeck, yet the West’s religious fear of debate over what occurred during the Second World War continues to take precedent over all other concerns.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Germany, Human rights |
7 Comments
Something has gone seriously wrong in this country, when the police take it upon themselves to intimidate a 14 year-old schoolgirl by making an official record of her innocuous statement in class.
The girl, known only as Miss B, became a target of police interest because she, along with millions of other people, took the view that sex is distinct from gender identity. At a time when it is increasingly verboten to question trans ideology’s claims on the subjectivity of both sex and gender identity, Miss B’s views are too often condemned as hatred.
Miss B, who has indicated that she is ‘frightened about speaking openly on transgender issues’ is – along with her parents – seeking legal recourse and challenging the decision of the police to classify her comment as a non-crime hate incident. Her lawyers’ letter to the College of Policing states that Miss B is ‘concerned about the possibility of having a police record potentially including details of conversations that she has had at school’ and fears ‘this record would impact on her future career prospects.’
What is totally absurd about the predicament Miss B finds herself in, is that she neither demonstrated nor had any intention of demonstrating hostility towards any person. In fact, even the police have not claimed that Miss B hurt the feelings of anyone. She has not done nor said anything hurtful to a single individual. In fact, there is no victim of her action whatsoever, yet still the police involved themselves.
Under existing policing guidelines on hate, you do not need to have done anything remotely hurtful to be made to feel like a criminal. According to these guidelines, officers should make a record of a non-crime hate incident ‘if the victim or any other person perceives that the incident was motivated wholly or partially by hostility, even if it is referred to a partner to respond.’ In this case it is evident that it was the police, or some other busy-body official, who thought Miss B’s comment might be motivated by hostility
What is truly bizarre about these guidelines is that they empower the police to record not only criminal acts but non-criminal acts as well. The Orwellian concept of a non-crime hate incident is an invention of a legal system gone woke.
A non-crime hate incident can be any event that is perceived by someone to be motivated by hostility towards a so-called protected characteristic. ‘Perceived’ means that it is in the eyes of the beholder. As the Operational Guidance points out: “The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incidents.’
This is dangerous territory: there need not be any evidence of hatred for an incident to be registered in the police-recorded hate-crime data. This is an evidence free crime!
All that is required for a statement to be cast into the realm of a non-crime hate incident is for somebody to report it to the police! The force will then automatically record it as a non-crime hate incident. The main motive of recording a statement made by someone like Miss B is to teach her a lesson and to crack down on individuals that hold views that diverge from the official line on gender.
In the current era, the register of recorded non-crime hate incidents plays an important role in the censor’s toolkit. It is a register of dissent designed to shut down free speech.
The main reason why the concept of hate crime is wrong in principle is because by focusing on the emotion of hate it deprives the legal system of objectivity. The meaning of the expression of the emotion, in this case hate, is in the eye of the beholder. That is why police guidelines claim that what makes a crime one of hate is how it is perceived.
Under the existing law, it doesn’t matter what you intended to communicate, what matters is how anyone else interpreted your intentions. It is enough for a policeman to imagine that a 14 year-old child’s statement might have been motivated by hostility for it to be branded a non-crime hate incident. Even though the incident is an essentially imaginary one, the child is punished.
In this case there is only one victim – and it is Miss B.
In our censorious world recording non-crime hate incidents has become a growth industry. During the past five years the police have recorded 120,000 hate incidents. Evidently the policing of speech takes precedence over tackling genuine threats to law and order.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Furedibyte
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
Google News is hyping a story published by Agrinews, which promotes a month-old World Bank report claiming water scarcity in the Middle East – caused by climate change – threatens crop production. The World Bank report, “Water in the Balance,” is old news, made up of model-driven speculation, instead of data. Real-world crop data, by contrast, tell a story of stunning crop success in the Middle East and throughout the world.
Climate Realism discredited the World Bank report in early November. Data show that despite considerable political turmoil and ongoing conflicts in the region, the naturally arid Middle East has seen its crop production grow as the earth has modestly warmed.
Since media outlets are still reporting the World Bank’s fiction as fact, Climate Realism’s refutation bears repeating.
The World Bank’s study says, “[w]hile information about water scarcity at present and in the future is available there is little knowledge of what this increasing scarcity means for Middle Eastern … food security. Agriculture will suffer because of climate change and water scarcity….”
In particular, in Summary for Policy Makers, the World Bank asserts water scarcity caused by climate change will reduce farm production in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. The available evidence strongly suggests that will not happen.
Real-world data concerning crop production across the Middle East shows crop yields and overall production have increased dramatically. More food is being produced even as thousands of acres of agricultural lands have been abandoned during regional conflicts.
Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show during the period of modest warming since 1989:
That Middle Eastern countries have increased crop production even as many of them have been embroiled in internal political strife, outright civil warfare, and external conflicts, is clearly good news—not a climate crisis.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production. Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. In addition, crops use water more efficiently under conditions of higher carbon dioxide, losing less water through transpiration. The latter fact should have allayed the World Bank’s concern about climate change-induced water shortages leading to crop failure.
The benefits of more atmospheric carbon dioxide and a modestly warming world have resulted in 17 percent more food being available per person today than was the case 30 years ago, even as the number of people has grown by billions. Indeed, United Nations data show the last 20 years have seen the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Rather than regurgitating the World Bank’s flawed report as fact, Agrinews should have done some honest, independent research. Had the paper done so, it would have found crop production in the Middle East, as is true for most of the rest of the world, is booming during the period of purported catastrophic warming. Sorry, Google, Agrinews, and the World Bank, increased crop production and yields are the very opposite of a climate crisis.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Middle East |
Leave a comment
A Los Angeles bar owner barely held in her tears of outrage after discovering tents meant for feeding a movie crew erected right next to her restaurant, which was shut down and banned from serving outdoors due to Covid-19 rules.
“Tell me that this is dangerous, but right next to me as a slap in my face – that’s safe?” Angela Marsden says in a video pointing to two outdoor spaces, hers and that serving a movie company. The short clip, which highlights how small businesses in California are left behind and going under while large companies apparently get the green light to march on, has gone viral and won a massive outpouring of support.
Marsden owns Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, a restaurant in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. Like many other establishments, it was forced to shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite Marsden investing a reported $80,000 into making her facility safer.
As such, she was furious when she discovered that a movie company had been allowed to set up tents to feed employees right in front of her bar, which has an outdoor dining area of its own. The film industry is considered essential by Los Angeles County and was allowed to operate despite coronavirus risks.
“I am losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me. And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio!” Marsden said. “They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive! My staff cannot survive!”
Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill has been running in the neighborhood for over four decades, but unless it opens by February, Marsden may have to shut it down for good, she told local media. She and several other small business owners are organizing a protest against what they see as unfair treatment by Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The situation however is hardly unique for California. Throughout the US authorities have been deciding which forms of entertainment are essentials and which are not.
For example, the comedy show Saturday Night Live brought back a live audience in October in a move not in line with health guidelines. They got round the rules by compensating people for watching the show, which technically made them paid employees.
But some larger productions are still suffering. In New York, Broadway remains closed and isn’t currently slated to reopen until at least 2021. The Metropolitan Opera on Wednesday announced the cancellation of its entire 2020-21 season due to the pandemic, an ominous sign for the performing arts.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics | Covid-19, United States |
Leave a comment
2020 staggers on, each month becoming more bleak, tiresome and increasingly onerous.
In the early winter months we paid scant attention to the Coronavirus story developing in China. And why should we have? After SARS, almost twenty years ago, then minor scares such as Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika Virus, Flesh Eating disease, along with past potential terrors like Avian Flu and Foot and Mouth Disease, there was no reason to think this was anything but another sensationalized false alarm. Indeed, an honest investigation, not even one all that rigorous, could easily have demonstrated that this was the case.
However, the last nine months have been nothing but an absolutely dedicated, well organized and diligent global effort to re-brand the common flu as a devasting pandemic just barely under control.
We have been asked to turn to some of the most trusted people in our civil society, Doctors and Professors, the types of professionals whom we would least expect to lie to us or to deliberately mislead us. They have sworn an oath to heal, to do no harm; they are dedicated to the search for the truth, borne out of diligent research and a rigorous scrutiny of the data. If they gravely and repeatedly tell us that we are at great risk and that things can and will get much, much worse very quickly then who are we to question their wisdom and their warnings?
The suddenness and unrelenting persistence of this great Covid lie wears us all down.
We were caught off guard by this deception here in Ontario, Canada. Just before the annual, week-long March break holiday we were told by our Premier Doug Ford (just think of one of the Pigs from “Animal Farm”) to continue with our travel plans, all will be fine. Just days later the closures started and the sloganeering began: “Flatten the curve”, “We’re all in this together”, “The New Normal”. All empty, hollow utterances that allowed people to avoid really thinking about what was really happening.
In Ontario, those of us who still dare to question this narrative are becoming increasingly isolated and marginalized. It is amazing to see how quickly people have chosen their side on this matter and how unwavering their devotion to their cause can be. Whether it is a shut down for two weeks, 4 weeks, 3 months, masks all the time, everything closed or even an experimental vaccine, it does not matter. “We’re all in this together”. Anyone who disagrees is either reckless, selfish, stupid or all of the above.
This other ‘reckless’ point of view is much smaller and very marginalized. Prominent Scientists and Virologists are ignored in the media for voicing a dissenting opinion, even the most moderate voices of dissent are ridiculed. The Great Barrington Declaration, with an extremely reasonable and balanced plea for reason in dealing with CV-19, has been savaged in the press because some journalists were able to add some absurdly fake names to an online form that anyone could sign.
I was impressed enough by the open letter published in September from almost 2,000 Belgian Medical Doctors & Health Professionals that I sent it to my Belgian friends, very smart and well-educated people, who did not doubt the Covid narrative. The response, when I enquired of one of them, was that “it was too long, [he] did not read it”. His underlying message was clear, he was not going to consider anything beyond the boundaries established by the press. If the Economist or The Atlantic magazine supported the Covid narrative then it must be so. If you chose to consider anything outside these boundaries you were either misled or grossly misinformed.
Unfortunately for me, I was branded a conspiracy theorist a long time ago amongst family and friends because I passionately argue against the official narrative for 9/11. These obvious controlled demolitions, along with all of the other evidence of this carefully coordinated operation – the subterfuge, the impossible coincidences, the great effort to cover it up – was irrefutable proof in my mind, if you would just consider it.
The parallels of CV-19 to 9/11 are both terrifying and, I am ashamed to say it, reassuring.
The aftermath of the shocking, astonishing events of 9/11 became even more difficult to comprehend with the addition of the Anthrax attacks and the Belt-Way sniper that followed.
Covid-19 has been overshadowed in some of the same ways, with the Black Lives Matter riots and the extended, ridiculous spectacle that is the Presidential Illusion of Choice, held sacred by so many Americans. As a result, it is hard to remain focused on anything; the world seems to be coming apart at its seams, yet the deliberate rips, the shoddy stitching and the forces pulling things apart are obvious enough, if you bother to look.
Much like the Project for a New American Century, a policy document that detailed the need for an event like 9/11 and the sweeping, imperialist opportunities that would result, we now have ‘The Great Reset’. A chance to ‘Build Back Better’ an equitable and improved society for all, governed by a few.
Trying to connect these plans to CV-19 instantly makes one a conspiracy theorist, even though these strategic plans do exist. They are well-documented, easy to find and easy enough to read.
When you point out the obvious benefits that overreaching control and an obscene global theft of power and money will impart to a select few, it doesn’t matter. You are merely someone who sees a conspiracy in everything.
With 9/11 the world had changed for ever, they said, and in many ways it certainly has. For most of us – complacent, docile Europeans and North Americans – well, we just generally went back to life as it was before. Either knowingly or through sheer ignorance (usually a bit of both), we supported new wars of occupation in the middle east, the massive increases in military spending and huge new encumbrances on our personal freedoms.
The worst outcome of 9/11 was that several countries were illegally invaded and brutally occupied with millions upon millions dying and suffering as a result. For most of “us” this did not matter, as daily life was still the same. We still had our jobs, our holidays and leisure, our new gadgets, our homes and certainly our futures. After a few years, when I finally made sense of this great 9/11 lie, I still did not do much differently. I would argue with friends and family about what had really happened on that day, and I lost faith in much of the media and government I had formerly trusted. But, in the end, I still supported the system and benefited from it.
I feel ashamed of wishing for these same types of selfish outcomes with CV-19. Even though the world economies have haemorrhaged trillions of dollars to fight this re-branded flu, perhaps it will still be ok in the end? Money is just a modern faith-based system these days anyways. If we can believe in Bit-Coin, the vast labyrinth of Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps, then why can’t we just add a lot more cash to the mix if we need it? Most of us are too young to have ever experienced inflation. Isn’t that economic reality just for mismanaged countries like Zimbabwe and Argentina anyways? Perhaps the track and trace apps won’t be that intrusive and, after all, our phones violate our privacy every minute they are switched on as it is. Could this ‘new normal’ be any worse?
Perhaps the covid vaccine is just a cash grab for big Pharma, like the flu vaccine or the HPV vaccine? Products we never wanted nor needed, that required a campaign of coercion and fear mongering to produce any real demand. With the CV-19 disinformation campaign waging on a global stage, they seem to be positioned to distribute 3 billion servings of a double-dose vaccine at $39.00 USD per serf. That is close to 120 Billion dollars… Surely, that might be enough to tide over the pharmaceutical industry for a few years, until Covid-20? Perhaps they will achieve a balance: enough people willing or compliant enough to be vaccinated yearly, and a media/medical establishment willing to proclaim that the covid scourge is over for now?
I really don’t believe this will happen, yet I still selfishly hope that this covid era will end, that my kids can return to school without masks, that they will be able to take part in after-school activities and that their future still holds many exciting possibilities and paths.
I hate fearing that the world will suddenly be redefined as a global, technocratic state where diversity becomes equality, families become individuals and the truth, or even just a difference of opinion, becomes a violation of ‘community guidelines’.
It has now been nine months. The fear, uncertainty and self doubt I have about this situation and my future are constant and growing. I have grown extremely weary of sharing relevant articles and interviews that I am certain will alarm and enrage, only to find out they have fallen on deaf ears – unwatched, unread or simply dismissed.
It makes me wonder, who am I to think I am smarter than the majority, more aware and more of a critical thinker than my friends and peers? Perhaps I just suffer from a prolonged and acute confirmation bias and I am incapable of separating truth from conjecture, fear from reason and goodwill from ill intent? Is there some type of persistent pessimism or self-loathing that gives me this particular lens?
To assuage these doubts, which I encounter almost daily, I remind myself to revisit the tired cliché of cui bono. Who stands to benefit?
9/11 was an easy one, they actually published their goals beforehand in the Project for New American Century document and betrayed their nature in many instances of sheer greed, such as obscenely lucrative, barely-months-old insurance policies on the buildings they collapsed.
A casual examination shows us that CV-19 has already substantially enriched the Billionaire class, strengthened the stranglehold that the mainstream media and big tech have on creating facts and defining truth, allowed governments to spend without restriction and to restrict their citizens without restraint.
No matter how absurd the response becomes to what an honest virologist would call an inconsequential virus, most citizens are demanding a greater response. More unscrutinised spending, more closures, more doses of vaccines to be made available as soon as possible, and more public shaming (and worse) for those who do not comply with the ‘new normal’.
In the end, pharmaceutical giants will be the big winners, earning untold billions for their rushed vaccine, and will be spared any liability for all adverse consequences. Small businesses and personal autonomy will have disappeared and we will all be that much easier to track, control, monitor, punish and isolate.
Does it have to be this way? Last week I went to a local protest in Toronto. It felt really good to finally step forward and add my voice and my presence amongst those willing to call bullshit on this assault on science, reason and the fabric of our local and national communities. The protest itself was calm and measured but you could easily sense the frustration and fear of those in attendance.
To be sure, some protesters looked and behaved quite oddly and this made me wonder if I really did belong with this group. However, I feel much more at odds with “the new normal” types: the masked families in parks or the middle-aged women that now walk in the streets to avoid the dangers of human proximity on sidewalks, while glaring at the speeding cars that rush by.
I tend, therefore, to turn to a select few people and publications online instead. People like my younger sister, Eva, who has been a tireless advocate for truth in Syria, Palestine and Venezuela. I know her well enough to know she does what she does solely because she knows it is right, certainly not for money or prestige. As a thanks for her work and sacrifice, she has to live with constant attacks and the ignominy of a horrendous Wikipedia Page – nothing short of a smear, solely to discredit her in the eyes of anyone vetting her or new to her reporting.
It is people like this that I trust.
Throughout the last nine months, the conflicts of interest and the obvious biases of the media, lobbyists, most levels of government, big Tech, big “Charitable” foundations and benevolent trusts make it obvious that this scheme will only work if their propaganda is unwavering and unrelenting.
Why aren’t my friends and family as concerned as I am? Why does my wife, who has been able to see through much of the fear mongering and distortion, draw the line at protesting or voicing her opinion amongst friends? What do I do when I encounter her growing resentment towards me for behaving this way? I love her, I understand why she is afraid and what she wants to protect us from, but perhaps it is this sense of self-preservation which ‘the powers that be’ are counting on? Will this self-preservation lead to our undoing?
The temptation to try to wait this out is still strong, even though the few weeks they initially asked of us has gotten closer to a full year. The temptation to think we are too far gone to warrant launching resistance is also consistently there.
To combat this, I ignore mainstream media and I have stopped trying to reach others that I know cannot be reached.
There still remains, of course, many persistent and unresolved fears and issues.
How far can this possibly go? Will we be forced to vaccinate ourselves, our children and even our fragile elderly? How will our economy reconcile the gross expenditures of 2020? What businesses will remain once, IF, this finally grinds to an end? How likely is this crisis to be exploited as an opportunity by multi-national capitalism, in the ways leftist gate-keepers like Naomi Klein have written about in the past, yet seem unwilling to recognize in the present?
I hope for our sakes and for my own that more people grow weary of this non-existent pandemic and realize that they can demand a return to reason and individual liberties.
The most hopeful thing I have seen in months has been a compilation video of recent protests around Europe and North America.
When this all started, we were encouraged to stand on our porches and bang pots and pans at a set hour to celebrate our front-line heroes in manufactured displays of solidarity. It is so encouraging now to see people choosing, on their own, to protest together and banging pots and pans in front of their government buildings instead. Showing true solidarity against this covid nonsense.
This is the opposite of big-tech and their non-stop, ever-present propaganda. It is simple, non-violent and to-the-point. The message is clear: we are entitled to assemble together and to protect what is most dear to us. Families together, meals together, forging our livelihoods together, simply being together.
I won’t forget this message and I won’t miss another protest. The cost is too great. I am tired of seeing everything fall apart when we still have the ability to fight to live, work and simply be together as normal people.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
3 Comments
Only full transparency and rigorous scrutiny of the data will allow for informed decision making
In the United States, all eyes are on Pfizer and Moderna. The topline efficacy results from their experimental covid-19 vaccine trials are astounding at first glance. Pfizer says it recorded 170 covid-19 cases (in 44,000 volunteers), with a remarkable split: 162 in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group. Meanwhile Moderna says 95 of 30,000 volunteers in its ongoing trial got covid-19: 90 on placebo versus 5 receiving the vaccine, leading both companies to claim around 95% efficacy.
Let’s put this in perspective. First, a relative risk reduction is being reported, not absolute risk reduction, which appears to be less than 1%. Second, these results refer to the trials’ primary endpoint of covid-19 of essentially any severity, and importantly not the vaccine’s ability to save lives, nor the ability to prevent infection, nor the efficacy in important subgroups (e.g. frail elderly). Those still remain unknown. Third, these results reflect a time point relatively soon after vaccination, and we know nothing about vaccine performance at 3, 6, or 12 months, so cannot compare these efficacy numbers against other vaccines like influenza vaccines (which are judged over a season). Fourth, children, adolescents, and immunocompromised individuals were largely excluded from the trials, so we still lack any data on these important populations.
I previously argued that the trials are studying the wrong endpoint, and for an urgent need to correct course and study more important endpoints like prevention of severe disease and transmission in high risk people. Yet, despite the existence of regulatory mechanisms for ensuring vaccine access while keeping the authorization bar high (which would allow placebo-controlled trials to continue long enough to answer the important question), it’s hard to avoid the impression that sponsors are claiming victory and wrapping up their trials (Pfizer has already sent trial participants a letter discussing “crossing over” from placebo to vaccine), and the FDA will now be under enormous pressure to rapidly authorize the vaccines.
But as conversation shifts to vaccine distribution, let’s not lose sight of the evidence. Independent scrutiny of the underlying trial data will increase trust and credibility of the results. There also might be important limitations to the trial findings we need to be aware of.
Most crucially, we need data-driven assurances that the studies were not inadvertently unblinded, by which I mean investigators or volunteers could make reasonable guesses as to which group they were in. Blinding is most important when measuring subjective endpoints like symptomatic covid-19, and differences in post-injection side-effects between vaccine and placebo might have allowed for educated guessing. Past placebo-controlled trials of influenza vaccine were not able to fully maintain blinding of vaccine status, and the recent “half dose” mishap in the Oxford covid-19 vaccine trial was apparently only noticed because of milder-than-expected side-effects. (And that is just one of many concerns with the Oxford trial.)
In contrast to a normal saline placebo, early phase trials suggested that systemic and local adverse events are common in those receiving vaccine. In one Pfizer trial, for example, more than half of the vaccinated participants experienced headache, muscle pain and chills—but the early phase trials were small, with large margins of error around the data. Few details from the large phase 3 studies have been released thus far. Moderna’s press release states that 9% experienced grade 3 myalgia and 10% grade 3 fatigue; Pfizer’s statement reported 3.8% experienced grade 3 fatigue and 2% grade 3 headache. Grade 3 adverse events are considered severe, defined as preventing daily activity. Mild and moderate severity reactions are bound to be far more common.
One way the trial’s raw data could facilitate an informed judgment as to whether any potential unblinding might have affected the results is by analyzing how often people with symptoms of covid-19 were referred for confirmatory SARS-CoV-2 testing. Without a referral for testing, a suspected covid-19 case could not become a confirmed covid-19 case, and thus is a crucial step in order to be counted as a primary event: lab-confirmed, symptomatic covid-19. Because some of the adverse reactions to the vaccine are themselves also symptoms of covid-19 (e.g. fever, muscle pain), one might expect a far larger proportion of people receiving vaccine to have been swabbed and tested for SARS-CoV-2 than those receiving placebo.
This assumes all people with symptoms would be tested, as one might expect would be the case. However the trial protocols for Moderna and Pfizer’s studies contain explicit language instructing investigators to use their clinical judgment to decide whether to refer people for testing. Moderna puts it this way:
“It is important to note that some of the symptoms of COVID-19 overlap with solicited systemic ARs that are expected after vaccination with mRNA-1273 (eg, myalgia, headache, fever, and chills). During the first 7 days after vaccination, when these solicited ARs are common, Investigators should use their clinical judgement to decide if an NP swab should be collected.”
This amounts to asking investigators to make guesses as to which intervention group patients were in. But when the disease and the vaccine side-effects overlap, how is a clinician to judge the cause without a test? And why were they asked, anyway?
Importantly, the instructions only refer to the first seven days following vaccination, leaving unclear what role clinician judgment could play in the key days afterward, when cases of covid-19 could begin counting towards the primary endpoint. (For Pfizer, 7 days after the 2nd dose. For Moderna, 14 days.)
In a proper trial, all cases of covid-19 should have been recorded, no matter which arm of the trial the case occurred in. (In epidemiology terms, there should be no ascertainment bias, or differential measurement error). It’s even become common sense in the Covid era: “test, test, test.” But if referrals for testing were not provided to all individuals with symptoms of covid-19—for example because an assumption was made that the symptoms were due to side-effects of the vaccine—cases could go uncounted.
Data on pain and fever reducing medicines also deserve scrutiny. Symptoms resulting from a SARS-CoV-2 infection (e.g. fever or body aches) can be suppressed by pain and fever reducing medicines. If people in the vaccine arm took such medicines prophylactically, more often, or for a longer duration of time than those in the placebo arm, this could have led to greater suppression of covid-19 symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection in the vaccine arm, translating into a reduced likelihood of being suspected for covid-19, reduced likelihood of testing, and therefore reduced likelihood of meeting the primary endpoint. But in such a scenario, the effect was driven by the medicines, not the vaccine.
Neither Moderna nor Pfizer have released any samples of written materials provided to patients, so it is unclear what, if any, instructions patients were given regarding the use of medicines to treat side effects following vaccination, but the informed consent form for Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine trial provides such a recommendation:
“Following administration of Ad26.COV2.S, fever, muscle aches and headache appear to be more common in younger adults and can be severe. For this reason, we recommend you take a fever reducer or pain reliever if symptoms appear after receiving the vaccination, or upon your study doctor’s recommendation.”
There may be much more complexity to the “95% effective” announcement than meets the eye—or perhaps not. Only full transparency and rigorous scrutiny of the data will allow for informed decision making. The data must be made public.
Peter Doshi is associate editor, The BMJ.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19 |
1 Comment
Aletho News 