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The shaky science behind the “deadly new strains” of Sars-Cov-2

By Rosemary Frei | OffGuardian | February 8, 2021

According to what we hear from officials and the mainstream media, the new variants are the most dangerous and unpredictable beings since Osama bin Laden.

Everyone needs to stay safe from these invisible but murderously mighty microbes by shunning contact with the unwashed, unmasked and unvaccinated.

But is that drastic approach — which is accompanied by severe curtailment of civil liberties and constitutional rights — warranted?

It turns out that the case for the variants’ contagiousness and dangerousness centres largely on the theoretical effects of just one change said to stem from a mutation in the virus’s genes. And, as I’ll show in this article, that case is very shaky.

I also have an accompanying nine-minute ‘explainer’ video, below:

Is it True that the New Variants are Very Dangerous? from Rosemary Frei on Vimeo.

That one change is known as N501Y — scientific shorthand for the substitution of one protein building block (amino acid) for another at position 501 in the part of the virus called the spike protein.

Specifically, position 501 lies in the portion of the spike protein that’s responsible for the intimate coupling between the virus and cells that lets the virus slip inside and multiply.

[Note that any such amino-acid switcheroo is correctly called a change, not a mutation. Mutations occur only in genes. For some reason many scientists and scribes who ought to know better are mistakenly calling N501Y and other amino-acid changes ‘mutations.’ ]

A very preliminary study published Dec. 22, 2020, suggested that N501Y also is present in the South African variant named 501Y.V2. And another very preliminary study, published January 12, 2021, asserted it was also present in the new strain emerging from the Brazilian jungle, dubbed P.1.

On top of that, the South African variant is being reported as evading immunity and B.1.1.7 sharing this escape route. And scientists are depicting new variants with N501Y on board as spreading very fast. Some say they make herd immunity impossible, so every single person on earth has to be vaccinated. The models also suggest B.1.1.7 is up to 91% deadlier than the regular novel coronavirus.

(Yet so far it seems the main basis for officials saying it’s more deadly is shown in the minutes of the Jan. 21, 2021 meeting of an influential UK committee called New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group [NERVTAG ]. There, they cite modeling papers which haven’t yet been published – which means that until they’re published there’s no way to check their work.)

THREE NON-PEER-REVIEWED THEORETICAL-MODELING PAPERS WHICH CATAPULTED VARIANTS INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

Public-health officials, politicians and the mainstream media around the world turned their collective headlights on the variants right after the publication of three theoretical-modeling papers on B.1.1.7, a variant originating in the U.K. The first was a Technical Briefing by Public Health England published Dec. 21 (it’s the first of an ongoing series of reports on the variant authored by people working at the agency and at other institutions), the second a paper published Dec. 23 by a mathematical-modeling group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the third a theoretical-modeling manuscript posted Dec. 31 by a large group of UK scientists.

None of the three papers was checked over for accuracy by objective observers – a process called ‘peer review.’ Nonetheless, all three were portrayed as solid science by many scientists, politicians, public-health officials and the press.

(I reached out for comment to Public Health England, as well as to the first author of the second paper Nicholas Davies, and to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The only reply I received was from a media-relations person at Public Health England; she told me no one was available for an interview.)

(Neil Ferguson was a co-author of the first and third papers. The UK government has relied on Ferguson’s mathematical modeling for many years. This is despite his work turning out to be highly inaccurate time after time. He  also supposedly stepped down from his government-advisory role last May after being caught secretly meeting with his married lover during a time when it was illegal to make contact with anyone outside of one’s household, thanks in large part to his modelling. But he was quickly restored to positions of influence. In an article and accompanying video coming out next week, I describe the connections and conflicts of interest surrounding Ferguson and the modeling papers’ other authors.)

WHAT EFFECT IS N501Y SAID TO HAVE?

In N501Y, the amino acid that’s swapped out at position 501 in the spike protein is asparagine; by scientific convention it’s represented by the letter ‘N.’ The amino acid that’s swapped in in its place is tyrosine, and it’s represented by the letter ‘Y.’ Hence ‘N501Y.’

Position 501 in the amino-acid sequence sits in the part of the spike protein that protrudes from the surface of the virus. Specifically, it’s said to lie in the region of the spike protein that latches or ‘binds’ to the mechanism that is the gatekeeper for whether the virus can enter the cell. That gate-keeping mechanism is known as the ‘ACE2 receptor.’

This region of the spike protein – known as the ‘receptor binding domain’ (RBD) — binds to the gate keeping mechanism, the ACE2 receptor. When the RBD and the ACE2 receptor bind, the cell membrane, which is the circular barrier between the area outside the cell and the cell contents, opens up and allows the virus to enter.

N501Y is posited to make the spike protein bind tighter to the ACE2 receptor. Influential theoreticians have performed mathematical modeling based on this hypothesis. This modeling suggests that this tighter binding allows the virus to enter more easily, and that therefore this makes the virus more transmissible.

Yet as far as I’ve been able to find, there is still no concrete, direct proof of this. And note that epidemiological data cannot be used to definitively detect the effect of an amino-acid in a virus. Only experiments involving direct observation of the virus’s interaction with the body can determine that.

The main evidence that the top three theoretical-models cite as proof of stronger bonding between the N501Y form of the novel coronavirus and the RBD is from just three scientific manuscripts, and these describe experiments with the virus in mice or petri dishes, not observation of whether in fact the variants are truly more contagious or more deadly.

DETAILS OF THE THREE PAPERS THAT UNDERPIN THE ASSERTION THAT N501Y BOLSTERS CONTAGIOUSNESS

One of those three papers was published Sept. 25, 2020, in Science. It describe experiments involving involving six rounds of division of the virus in mice.

The researchers found a large amount of the virus in the mice lungs right from the first round of division. Based on this, they pronounced the virus to have “enhanced infectivity.” However, they didn’t actually test whether the virus is  more transmissible/contagious – that is, whether it moves from mouse to mouse more easily.

They performed ‘deep sequencing’ and reported that they found the N501Y change in the ‘mouse-adapted’ virus. Next they did ‘structural remodeling’ on it and wrote that this analysis…

suggested that the N501Y substitution in the RBD of SARS-CoV[-2] S protein increased the binding affinity of the protein to mouse ACE2.

All of this is very different than direct observations of the variant virus’s behaviour in mice or humans.

The second paper was posted on bioRχiv on Dec. 21, 2020. It describes an “engineered decoy receptor for SARS-CoV-2.” The complicated series of molecular-biological manoeuvers in vitro were performed that is hard to follow and understand – there is no ‘Methods’ section laying out the details and sequence of what they did; rather, the researchers’ approach to their experiments is scattered across all sections of the paper including in the accompanying Supplementary Material. This is many steps removed from real-life situations. The authors conclude from their manoeuvers that laboratory-mutated novel coronavirus with the N501Y mutation seems to bind more tightly to their ‘engineered decoy’ form of the RBD receptor than the RBD receptor that normally occurs in nature.  (The idea, it seems, is that this ‘engineered decoy’ could be injected into people with the goal of getting the new variant to bind to it rather than to cells, thereby stopping it from gaining entry into cells and reproducing.)

bioRχiv is an online-only journal. (It’s pronounced ‘bioarchive’; that’s because the Greek letter χ is pronounced ‘kai.’ I presume the letter χ is used in the journal’s title because the χ2 [‘chi-square’] test is a widely used form of statistical analysis in scientific papers.) The journal has the tagline ‘The Preprint Server for Biology.’ ‘Preprint’ means non-peer-reviewed. bioRχiv focuses entirely on Covid-19-papers and is sponsored by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It has a sister publication medRχiv that also focuses on Covid-19,

The Initiative is the creation of Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Facebook has been among the very active censors of information including scientific papers that diverge from the official narrative about Covid.

The third paper  was posted on the website of the online journal bioRχiv on June 17, 2020, and then in Cell on Sept. 3, 2020.

Like the other two papers, it is extremely removed from direct observation of the virus’s behaviour in live animals or humans. In fact, the third paper doesn’t even use human or animal cells. It involves a ‘yeast-surface-display platform’ as a basis for performing ‘deep mutational scanning’ of the novel coronavirus’s RBD. That ‘platform’ is an artificial structure the paper’s authors constructed for measuring binding between antibodies and various RBD regions containing an array of mutations.

According to this paper, the N501Y amino-acid change results in stronger binding of the virus to the RBD.

However, the papers’ authors state in the last section of their paper that:

It is important to remember that our maps define biochemical phenotypes of the RBD, not how these phenotypes relate to viral fitness. There are many complexities in the relationship between biochemical phenotypes of yeast-displayed RBD and viral fitness.

Translation: “Just because our biochemistry experiments showed that the presence of N501Y or other changes in the RBD seems to make the RBD bind tighter to the ACE2 receptor, we don’t know whether any of these changes make the virus more ‘fit’/transmissible.”

And note also that one of the authors of the third paper, Allison Greaney, is quoted as saying in an August 2020 article from the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center where she and several of the other authors work, that:

The virus already has a ‘good enough’ ability to bind to ACE2. There’s no reason to believe that going beyond that level will make it more pathogenic or transmissible…[b]ut the RBD may be able to tolerate a number of mutations.

As another note, the third paper was first published in bioRχiv and then published three months later in the peer-reviewed journal Cell. In Cell  the paper is labelled ‘Elsevier-Sponsored Documents’ (see image below) (Elsevier is the publishing empire that owns Cell, among hundreds of other journals). I couldn’t find anything online about what ‘Sponsored’ means, nor about what or who sponsored this particular paper; and I couldn’t find any other papers with this designation. So I emailed Cell’s PR manager John Caputo on the evening of Jan. 18 and followed up by leaving him a voicemail message on Jan. 19. I haven’t heard back from him.

‘Deep Mutational Scanning of SARS-CoV-2 Receptor Binding Domain Reveals Constraints on Folding and ACE2 Binding’ (Tyler N. Starr et al.)

A BRIEF WORD ABOUT ANOTHER AMINO-ACID CHANGE IN B.1.1.7

I’ll quickly turn to another of the key changes said to be present in B.1.1.7. This change, the deletion of three amino acids was described in a paper published on the website of medRχiv on November 13, 2020. (Earlier in this article I mention that medRχiv is a creation of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.)

The mutation purportedly makes B.1.1.7 invisible to one of the three key functions of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. That function is detection of the gene that has the genetic code for one of the two main spike proteins on the outer surface of the novel coronavirus.

However, that conclusion is based on only sequencing of the virus in a mere six people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. On top of that, the paper was not subjected to scrutiny by other scientists (a process known as ‘peer review’) before it was published.

In addition, the Covid diagnoses of those six people were themselves determined by PCR. And PCR has been shown to have a very high rate of false positives — that is, to very frequently give a positive result in people who in fact do not harbour the novel coronavirus at all.

The authors of that paper themselves conclude that:

this result should be interpreted with caution. As a limited number of samples with the S-negative profile [i.e., tests that were positive for two of the three portions of the PCR test but not for the third, S-gene, portion] were sequenced, we could not exclude the presence of other S mutations associated with this profile…. Moreover we could not determine whether the deletion affected the primer or other probe-binding region as their coordinates were not available.

It’s a good bet that similar sleights of hand are behind the new wave of papers and headlines focusing on the amino-acid change dubbed E484K.

WHAT’S THE LESSON FROM ALL THIS?

That the pronouncements about the dire danger posed by the new variants aren’t based on solid science.

They appear to be aimed more at scaring the public into submitting to harsher and longer restrictions than helping to create truly evidence-based policies.

So follow the golden rules. Read the primary scientific-paper sources. Analyze them and think for yourself. Don’t let your reasoning be swept away by the 24-7, fear-filled news cycle.

Rosemary Frei has an MSc in molecular biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary, was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years and now is an independent investigative journalist. You can watch her June 15 interview on The Corbett Report, read her other Off-Guardian articles and follow her on Twitter.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

Facebook to BAN claims about ‘man-made’ Covid-19 & ‘unsafe’ vaccines as it launches campaign promoting vaccination

RT | February 9, 2021

Facebook is expanding the list of ‘false’ and ‘debunked’ claims about the coronavirus and vaccines that will be grounds for ban from the platform, while launching the largest ‘authoritative’ vaccination campaign worldwide.

Under the ‘Community Standards’ policy, posts with “debunked claims” that Covid-19 is “man-made or manufactured,” or that vaccines are ineffective, unsafe, dangerous or cause autism will be removed starting Monday, VP of Integrity Guy Rosen announced on the Facebook blog.

The new policy was implemented following consultations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and others, and will help Facebook “continue to take aggressive action against misinformation” about Covid-19 and vaccines, Rosen added.

Even if they don’t violate any of the listed policies, posts about Covid-19 or vaccines will still be subject to review by “third-party fact-checkers” and labeled and “demoted” if rated false.

Meanwhile, the company’s Head of Health Kang-Xing Jin announced that Facebook – along with Instagram and WhatsApp, which it owns – will be “running the largest worldwide campaign to promote authoritative information about [Covid-19] vaccines.”

In addition to “expanding our efforts to remove false claims,” Facebook is giving $120 million in ad credits to health ministries, NGOs and UN agencies to send out vaccine and health information to “billions of people around the world,” and providing data “to inform effective vaccine delivery and educational efforts to build trust” about the vaccines.

The social media behemoth will also help people “find where and when they can get vaccinated — similar to how we helped people find information about how to vote during elections.”

Boasting about removing “more than 12 million pieces of content” that contained “misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm,” and successfully influencing millions of people around the world to wear masks, Jin said the company’s focus in 20201 is to build trust and confidence in the vaccines using the same “insights and best practices.”

In the US, Facebook will partner with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to reach “Native American communities, Black communities and Latinx communities” and use “science and evidence-based content that addresses the questions and concerns” they might have about the vaccines.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

The Trump Political Show Trial

By Ron Paul | February 8, 2021

The Senate trial for now twice-impeached former President Donald Trump is set to begin this week, with little doubt over the outcome. A procedural vote in the Senate on the constitutionality of “removing from office” someone who is not in office revealed that nowhere near enough Republicans were willing to join their Democrat counterparts in voting to convict.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is required by the Constitution to preside, has by refusing to participate made it clear that he does not consider the upcoming action in the Senate to be a legitimate impeachment trial.

So if it is not a legitimate trial, what is it, then? Judging from the House impeachment resolution, it looks more like a banana republic “show trial” than a careful case detailing Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Trump was impeached by the Democrat-controlled US House for “incitement of insurrection” over the January 6th melee at the US Capitol. Telling his supporters they must fight or they’re “not going to have a country any more” was cited in the impeachment resolution as evidence that Trump “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government” and has “demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”

Trump also told them to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” to encourage Congress to consider his claims of election fraud, but Democrats in the House say that he didn’t really mean it.

Why the snap impeachment? Why not, as Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley has written, hold hearings and call witnesses to explore whether the former president actually had insurrection on his mind? Did he call off or delay the National Guard troops from protecting the Capitol, for example?

Or was he simply using heated political rhetoric that his accusers in Congress have also used plenty of times?

Weeks of hearings in the House with dozens of witnesses could have helped make the case for the Senate that Trump was guilty of inciting insurrection. Such hearings could have turned the tide against Trump in the Senate, where he is certainly not universally supported within his own party.

But the House had no interest in such hearings. They wanted a snap impeachment. They wanted no witnesses. They wanted to benefit from the universal mainstream media narrative that the mob who entered the Capitol building was not just unruly Americans angry over what they believed was a rigged election, but was actually trying to overthrow the government to keep Trump in power.

The House Democrats knew that the “insurrection” narrative would not stand the test of time – anyone familiar with “color revolutions” or coups overseas would easily recognize that this was not one. So they rushed through the impeachment not because they wanted to remove him from an office he no longer occupied, but because they wanted to bar him from ever running for office again.

It does raise the question: what are they afraid of? They called their impeachment a victory for democracy, but isn’t preventing Trump from running again a subversion of democracy?

Trump would do well to ignore the Senate proceedings. There is no reason to participate in a show trial. The media has reported that he intends to focus on the “stolen” election in his defense before the Senate. That would be counterproductive. The right question to ask is, “what if they held a show trial and nobody came”?

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | | 2 Comments

Don’t Impeach Trump. Impeach the Deep State for Its Conspiracy to Kill the Constitution

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute| February 8, 2021

Let’s be clear about one thing: the impeachment of Donald Trump is a waste of time and money.

Impeaching Trump will accomplish very little, and it will not in any way improve the plight of the average American. It will only reinforce the spectacle and farce that have come to be synonymous with politics today.

While the nation allows itself to be distracted by yet more bread-and-circus politics, the American kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians and corporate thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of the people) continues to suck the American people into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry are powerless to defend themselves against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

So here’s what I propose: let’s impeach the Deep State and its cabal of government operatives from every point along the political spectrum (right, left and center) for conspiring to expand the federal government’s powers at the expense of the citizenry.

We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).

These are dangerous times.

These are indeed dangerous times but not because of violent crime, which remains at an all-time low, or because of terrorism, which is statistically rare, or because the borders are being invaded by foreign armies, which data reports from the Department of Homeland Security refute, or because a pandemic is spreading like a contagion, or even because raging mobs of so-called domestic terrorists are trying to overthrow elections.

No, the real danger that we face comes from none other than the U.S. government and the powers it has granted to its standing armies to rob, steal, cheat, harass, detain, brutalize, terrorize, torture and kill American citizens with immunity.

The danger “we the people” face comes from masked invaders on the government payroll who crash through our doors in the dark of night, shoot our dogs, and terrorize our families.

This danger comes from militarized henchmen on the government payroll who demand absolute obedience, instill abject fear, and shoot first and ask questions later.

This danger comes from greedy, power-hungry bureaucrats on the government payroll who have little to no understanding of their constitutional limits.

This danger comes from greedy politicians and corporations for whom profit trumps principle.

This danger comes from a surveillance state that grows more and more ominous.

Consider, if you will, all of the dastardly, devious, diabolical, dangerous, debilitating, deceitful, dehumanizing, demonic, depraved, dishonorable, disillusioning, discriminatory, dictatorial schemes inflicted on “we the people” by a bureaucratic, totalitarian regime that has long since ceased to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Americans have no protection against police abuse.

Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state.

Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty.

Americans no longer have a right to self-defense.

Americans no longer have a right to private property.

Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police.

Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity.

Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy.

Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

Americans no longer have a representative government.

We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism. In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

It is not overstating matters to say that Congress, which has done its best to keep their unhappy constituents at a distance, may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America.

In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism: a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

Sound familiar?

History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a totalitarian state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

From Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump, and now Biden, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the powers-that-be want us to remain distracted, divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems.

Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | 1 Comment

Lights, Camera, Cancelled! 10 Movies that were never made because the US government didn’t like them

By Tom Secker | RT | February 8, 2021

Hundreds of movies are never made but not all of them are nixed by the US government because it disapproves of their message. Here are 10 films that the ‘land of the free’ never let see the light of day.

J. Edgar Hoover wasn’t partial to Federal Dick

The FBI was the first agency to lay the smack down on movies. In the 1930s, J. Edgar Hoover insisted on total control of the FBI’s public image and monitored the development of all movie projects about the Bureau. In February 1935, Hoover wrote a memo decrying Hollywood’s attempts to “make a cheap movie and capitalize on it” and demanded, “We should put a stop to this if it is started in any way.” One project that bit the dust was titled ‘The Federal Dick’, which Hoover considered “a most humiliating and repugnant title.” At his request, the attorney general issued a press statement condemning the proposed movie, and the project died.

The Brain and Birdman of Alcatraz

In the 1930s, Alcatraz developed a reputation as a Gangster Hall of Fame – the one prison where all the most glamorous criminals were housed. Inmates like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly granted the island jailhouse an intriguing lustre which captured the attention of the American public.

This upset the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, James V. Bennett, who wanted to avoid the impression of a celebrity super-prison, so he spent over 20 years either removing references to Alcatraz from movie scripts or killing movies about Alcatraz altogether.

Research by historian David Eldridge found that Bennett enlisted Joseph Breen, the head of the Production Code Administration, to help keep Alcatraz off the cinema screens. They removed dialogue about it from ‘The Last Gangster’, while ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ was rewritten and the main setting changed to a state prison, rather than the infamous federal penitentiary, and the film was renamed ‘Behind Prison Gates’.

In 1948, Cecil Wright, the so-called ‘Brain of Alcatraz’, won an appeal against his conviction for burglary after 18 years in prison. His case was touted by the press as a miscarriage of justice, so when Bennett found out that a biopic of Wright was in development, he agitated against it.

He wrote to the film’s producer insisting that the script was inaccurate and did not meet the Production Code’s requirements for a ‘fair representation’ of federal institutions. He copied in Breen who responded by refusing to approve the movie for release, and the Wright biopic was never made.

Similarly, Bennett prevented multiple attempts to make a film about Robert Stroud, a convicted murderer and respected ornithologist known as the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’. While a biopic of Stroud was eventually made in 1962, Bennett had successfully kept him off the screen for over a decade.

Giveaway Hill

For decades John Wayne acted as a Hollywood poster boy for the US military, but he didn’t always get its approval. In August 1954, Wayne wrote to the Pentagon asking for help on ‘Giveaway Hill’ – a film he was developing about the Marine Corps during the Korean War.

The Marine Corps reviewed the script and had major objections. Documents record how it felt the story “points up the futility of the fighting” and “would cause an unfavorable public relations reaction.” It had major problems with the racist treatment of a Marine named Jesus Perez, which it predicted, “would provide Communist propaganda with reams of new material.” The documents go on to say that “The bloody carnage … is objectionable from both a recruitment and a public relations standpoint … The complete loss of units can be expected to cause recruiting stations long periods of inactivity.”

The Marine Corps wrote back to Wayne, denying his request for support, and ‘Giveaway Hill’ was never made.

Recovery

A database of Pentagon-Hollywood interactions contains dozens of entries for films that were rejected for military support and are marked “no record that film was ever made”. One such film was 1985’s ‘Recovery’. The database entry comments: “Denied because of violence, strong language, and DOD did not want to cooperate on any story dealing with the USMLM as the primary plot.”

The USMLM was the Cold War Military Liaison Mission, where a small number of military intelligence officials on both sides were allowed access to each other’s territory in Germany. It was a rare case of the two warring blocs putting aside their hostility and finding areas of mutual interest, an image that was unacceptable to the Pentagon’s propaganda offices. Recovery was never made, so this decades-long operation remained outside of public knowledge.

Marlon Brando’s Iran-Contra film

In early 1987, Marlon Brando was attached to a film about Eugene Hasenfus, a cargo handler on a plane supplying the Nicaraguan contras that was shot down by the Sandinista government, leading to Hasenfus being held and interrogated for weeks. A bidding war for the script broke out between two factions – one led by former CIA officer Frank Snepp which included Brando, while the other was headed by former Navy counterinsurgency specialist Larry Spivey.

Brando’s group lost the bidding war, but then the project died. Decades later, an investigation by journalist Nick Schou found that the CIA itself was backing the winning faction and that “It was really [Colonel] Oliver North, who was trying to orchestrate a bidding operation to try to prevent this movie from being made.”

Countermeasures

Iran-Contra reared its ugly head a few years later in ‘Countermeasures’, a thriller set on board an aircraft carrier where a Navy psychiatrist – to be played by Sigourney Weaver – discovers a secret arms smuggling ring.

The US Navy hated the script, objecting to “racist stereotypes” and to almost all the Navy characters being “unapologetically sexist if not guilty of outright sexual harassment or sexual assault”. The smuggling plot was also a showstopper, especially since the script portrayed the White House as “complicit in the intrigue”. The Navy’s 1993 memo states, “There‘s no reason for us to denigrate the White House or remind the public of the Iran-Contra affair.”

The Department of Defense (DOD) didn’t simply reject ‘Countermeasures’, it sabotaged it. After informing the producers that they wouldn’t approve support, Pentagon officials reached out to the Spanish navy to warn them off the project, and so ‘Countermeasures’ was never produced.

Top Gun 2

The original ‘Top Gun’ was one of the US military’s greatest PR wins, with the DOD’s entertainment liaison office saying it “Completed rehabilitation of the military’s image, which had been savaged by the Vietnam war.” It was a huge commercial success, so why did it take so long to get a sequel?

The answer is the Tailhook scandal, where Navy and Marine aviators groped and sexually assaulted dozens of hotel guests at the annual Tailhook conference at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1991. The inspector general’s investigation into the assaults repeatedly cited the effect of ‘Top Gun’ in encouraging and normalising this behaviour.

So when Paramount went to the Navy with plans for ‘Top Gun 2’ they were rejected. As David Georgi, then head of the Army’s Hollywood office, explained, “In Top Gun, Tom Cruise bedded his instructor and drank heavily. The Navy did not need that image portrayed again after Tailhook.”

As a result, that version of ‘Top Gun 2’ was never made, and it would be another 20 years before Jerry Bruckheimer got the project going again, and documents detail how he approached the military before the script for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ was even written.

Women at War

The Pentagon is still at it. In 2011, Robert Redford’s production company Sundance Productions approached the Marine Corps about interviewing female marines for their film ‘Women at War’.

Reports from the Corps’ Hollywood office show that the official reason given for rejecting the movie was the lack of a distribution deal in place, but in private it was because, “the angle of the production deals with sexual harassment & PTSD.”

‘Women at War’ joined the long list of films that were never made because the US military disapproved of their content.

Dancin’ In Iraq

Another recent film that suffered the same fate was ‘Dancin’ in Iraq’, about a crew of Navy nurses in Iraq who start a dance troupe to stay sane.

The Marine Corps hated the script. Its assessment said, “Script is abysmal. The dance troupe is actually a small, virtually insignificant subplot. The central plot focuses on a romance between a Marine commanding officer of a ‘combat hospital’ in Baghdad and his XO, a Navy Lt. Cmdr. LA PAO advised writer we will not be supporting due to various plot lines.”

Marine Corps documents also detail how the film’s writer-director Mike Rossi was not happy with this rejection, stating, “Mr. Rossi contacted LA PAO by email after the request was declined. His verbal threats were considered unfounded and all other branches were notified accordingly.”

Despite his fiery response there was nothing Rossi could do, and ‘Dancin’ in Iraq’ was consigned to the cutting room floor, courtesy of the US military.

Tom Secker is a British-based investigative journalist, author and podcaster. You can follow his work via his Spy Culture site and his podcast ClandesTime.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Iran to withdraw from NPT if US does not lift sanctions: FM spokesman

By Yusef Jalali – Press TV – February 8, 2021

Tehran – You first, me next.

Since Joe Biden became the [proclaimed] new US president, Tehran and Washington have each been asking the other side to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

On Sunday, Joe Biden said the US will not lift the sanctions until Iran stops enriching Uranium.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, however, made it clear, saying his country will live up to its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal IF the US removes the sanctions it illegally re-imposed against Tehran.

Once hailed as a victory for diplomacy, the nuclear deal has been hanging in the balance since Donald Trump pulled his country out of the international accord unilaterally and reinstated sanctions against Iran in 2018.

In return, Tehran began a gradual suspension of its nuclear commitments, the last of which was the resumption of Uranium enrichment at the 20-percent purity level.

In December last year, the Iranian parliament also passed a bill requiring the government to limit the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspection of the country’s nuclear sites. The law also tasks the government to pull Iran out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty as of February the 20th.

I asked Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman if Tehran is determined to do so; he said it was up to the US.

Since the US left the deal, the remaining signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have been trying to save the deal, which promised Iran the lifting of sanctions in return for the country’s curb on its nuclear program.

Iran says the three European parties to the pact have done nothing to offset the impact of the US’s withdrawal from the accord.

The Islamic Republic says its steps toward suspending its JCPOA commitments are within the framework of the nuclear deal and seek to keep the balance between its obligations and rights under the agreement.

Now as Iran and the US are stuck in a standoff, Tehran says the ball is in Joe Biden’s court. The Islamic Republic has made it clear that there’s only one way ahead to save the 2015 nuclear deal; the US should lift all sanctions; or else, Tehran will continue to scale back its obligations to the JCPOA.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

Biden’s Iran policy is just Trump’s Iran policy with a rainbow flag emoji

By Caitlin Johnstone | February 8, 2021

The new administration in Washington is pursuing exactly the same approach towards Tehran as its predecessor, only now with added media cover because it’s their guy enforcing civilian-killing sanctions, not the Bad Orange Man.

In a new interview with CBS Evening News, President Biden confirmed that his administration will not be lifting sanctions imposed upon Iran in order to bring Tehran to the negotiating table for the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.

“Will the US lift sanctions first in order to get Iran back to the negotiating table?” Biden was asked by CBS’s Norah O’Donnell.

“No,” the president replied.

“They have to stop enriching uranium first,” asked O’Donnell.

Biden nodded in response.

There are a few things that are ridiculous about this, the first being that the JCPOA does not require that Iran “stop enriching uranium” at all. As explained by Al-Monitor‘s Arash Karami, the deal only calls for Iran to “keep its level of uranium enrichment at up to 3.67 percent”, a level it only began exceeding when the Trump administration backed out of the deal and imposed sanctions. The administration later clarified that Biden meant Iran would have to return to its JCPOA levels before negotiations could begin, but the fact that neither the United States president nor the high-profile reporter interviewing him appear to have been clear on this says a lot about the vapid nature of America’s political/media class.

The Iranian government has repeatedly made it abundantly clear that it will not be rejoining the JCPOA until the United States comes back into compliance, since it was the US who first abandoned it. It claims, correctly, that it was in full compliance with the agreement when the Trump administration unilaterally backed out in May 2018. The argument that it is therefore Washington’s responsibility to come back into compliance first is indisputable. Why would it re-enter a deal with a government that is clearly acting in bad faith and could just back out and impose civilian-killing sanctions on the nation again?More importantly, this is confirmation from the horse’s mouth that Biden is in effect continuing Trump’s Iran policy. Trump began strangling Iran with crushing sanctions in an effort to force it to obey US dictates, and Biden is continuing that exact same strangulation while continuing to demand compliance with its dictates. The demands might be a little different, but the effect is identical since Tehran would never bow to either of them.

And that’s just getting back to the negotiating table for reentering the deal as it is written. Gareth Porter reported last month that the Biden administration may plan on using the sanctions regime it inherited from the previous presidency as a ‘Trump card’ to try and coerce Tehran into agreeing to a modified version of the deal.

Neither of these things are going to happen. Iran will not modify the deal, and it will not come back into compliance before the government which first abandoned the deal comes back into compliance. And the Biden administration appears to be perfectly fine with this, reportedly toying with the idea of waiting all the way until after Iran’s presidential elections in June to even begin approaching the deal.

The end result being that we still have a US presidency waging economic warfare upon Iran in exactly the same way it was before the 20th of January. Civilians are still having the life squeezed out of them by a far more powerful nation which does not view them as human beings, and it’s only a matter of time before this administration or a subsequent one causes another flare-up which pushes things to the brink of hot war like we saw a year ago.

Biden’s Iran policy is in effect just a continuation of Trump’s Iran policy that liberals can feel good about. It’s Trump’s Iran policy with gender pronouns in its bio.

Choosing to continue an immoral course of action is just as immoral as choosing to initiate an immoral course of action. If you’re beating someone up and you leave when I get there, and then I choose to continue assaulting that person, I am just as culpable in that assault as you are. Presidents who choose to perpetuate one another’s depraved policies are just as guilty of that depravity as their predecessors.

The mainstream media are fixated on the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration, just as they were fixated on the differences between the Trump administration and the Obama administration four years ago. If you can mentally mute that vapid soundtrack and look at the similarities between administrations instead, regardless of party affiliation and campaign platforms, you’ll learn a lot more about what’s really going on in the world.Starvation sanctions are the only type of warfare in which it is considered normal and acceptable to deliberately target a civilian population with deadly force. But it is not normal, and it is not acceptable. Biden and his team of ventriloquists fully own the effects of their warmongering. They don’t get to just scribble ‘TRUMP’S FAULT’ across them in crayon and act like they’re innocent.

Caitlin Johnstone is an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , | 3 Comments

Coronavirus Skepticism: Pandemic Or Staged Pandemic?

Principia Scientific | February 8, 2021

A real COVID-19 pandemic is not taking place, if you adhere to the table of points below, which illustrate the key differences between a real pandemic and a fake one.

Any reasonable person performing a point-by-point appraisal of the list provided herein will likely conclude our governments and media are producers of fake news.

Introduced first under the sneaky pretext of ‘administrative assistance’ to accustom the population to the presence. The medicine dictatorship brings its infrastructure by means of deception step by step into position.

The mask requirement seems to serve solely to maintain the false belief in a real pandemic. It is perfidious psychological warfare against the population. It is escalated and expanded in stages (Overton window).

Test stations, mandatory tests, vaccination centers, internment camps for “quarantine offenders”, mandatory vaccination for everyone! The army is deployed domestically in violation of the Law.

It is not about health it is a national as well as global power grab by means of a large-scale constructed medical pretext. Theoretical computer models, manipulative testing (PCR testing), downgraded pandemic definition (WHO), artificial ICU bed shortages, financial incentives (IMF) for CovID diagnosis, and false reporting in the controlled media.

It doesn’t take a virus it just takes fear of a virus! The swine flu vaccine (2009) resulted in severe neurological damage and millions of dollars in lawsuits. Under no circumstances get vaccinated because of “CovID”!

Especially please not children. That would be a grave mistake. The new mRNA vaccines cause autoimmune diseases and literally mutate people into GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms), which has far-reaching negative consequences.

The media is purposefully using fear and scare tactics, there is no fact-based reason to be afraid. We are being lied to and manipulated into an artificial hysteria to accept laws that violate human rights.

  • Do your own research
  • Discover truth
  • Overcome Stockholm syndrome
  • Put down muzzles
  • Ignore lockdowns
  • Open for business

Practice civil disobedience and collectively reject criminal government orders. Adapt and emerge stronger from crisis. Hold those responsible accountable. For a normality worth living for. NO to the pandemic hoax! NO to medical dictatorship! RESIST!

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Pharma War on Public Health

By Stephen Lendman | February 8, 2021

Big Pharma prioritizes maximum profits no matter the cost to human health they’re indifferent toward.

They spend billions of dollars advertising their products annually — heavily on television, influencing naive consumers, unaware of risks to human health powerful drugs pose.

Pharma does what it pleases because lobbyists representing their interests control congressional lawmakers and others abroad.

In the last decade, mergers and acquisitions consolidated the industry from 60 international firms to 10.

Greater consolidation increased Pharma power to raise prices exponentially to gouge consumers unchallenged because governments in Washington and elsewhere in the West do nothing to constrain them.

Greater consolidation also kills innovation. It’s mostly done by smaller firms, international drug companies buying them at favorable prices.

Like other corporate predators, maximum profitmaking is the be all and end all of Pharma’s operating strategy.

According to a report by Rep. Katie Porter, “(i)t’s time that we reevaluate the standards for approving (Pharma) mergers.”

“It’s time we pass legislation to lower drug prices.”

“And it’s time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies.”

“In 2018, the year (of) Trump’s tax giveaway to” corporate predators and America’s super-rich, “12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development.”

Pharma executives defy reality by falsely claiming that consolidation increases operational efficiency (sic).”

It increases profitability through greater market share and other anti-consumer practices.

Mergers and acquisitions boost stock prices by reducing marketplace competition and acquiring “blockbuster” drugs with enormous “revenue stream” potential.

“Instead of spending on innovation, Big Pharma is hoarding its money for salaries and dividends, all while swallowing smaller companies, thus making the marketplace far less competitive,” Porter explained.

Separately, she tweeted the following:

“For years, Big Pharma has gobbled up small biotech firms that might otherwise force them to compete.”

“As soon as these companies are acquired, innovation stops.”

“The culture of creativity is killed. The small firm’s vision is lost, and the big firm’s profits become priority.”

Longtime biotech/Pharma official Peter O’Brien said that “gobbling up early phase biotechs (enables Pharma to) quash creativity in the discovery space…”

Porter’s report called mergers and acquisitions “the tip of the iceberg of pharmaceutical companies’ anti-competitive, profit-driven” practices.

Big Pharma prioritizes executive pay and bonuses, enriching shareholders, and consolidating to greater size to “eliminate competition.”

These firms “are not responsible for most major breakthroughs in new drugs.”

“Rather, innovation is driven in small firms, which are often spun off of taxpayer-funded academic research.”

“These small labs are then purchased by giant firms after they’ve assumed the risk needed to develop a blockbuster drug.”

Instead of R&D in search of breakthrough drugs for disease fighting, Pharma focuses on “incremental changes to existing drugs in order to kill off generic threats to their government-granted monopoly patents.”

Mergers and acquisitions stifle innovation.

Porter’s report recommended the following:

Remove incentives that benefit investors and Wall Street over patients’ health, lives, and well-being.

Reevaluate and alter Federal Trade Commission standards for approving healthcare mergers.

Halt exponential increases in drug prices. Act to make them more affordable by lowering prices.

Enact consumer-friendly legislation to halt Pharma abuses.

It’s time to rein in predatory practices by which Pharma consolidates market power that enables greater price-gouging of consumers.

A Final Comment

According to Gallup research, Pharma “is now the most poorly regarded industry in Americans’ eyes, ranking last on a list of 25 industries that Gallup tests annually.”

“Americans are more than twice as likely to rate the pharmaceutical industry negatively (58%) as positively (27%), giving it a net-positive score of -31.”

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Pens Encyclopedic Account Of Bill Gates’ ‘Neo-Feudalism’

By Steve Watson | Summit News | February 8, 2021

Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, has penned a comprehensive account of Bill Gates’ attempt to monopolise and dominate global food production, labelling it “a dark form of philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy and corporate biopiracy.”

Kennedy warns that “To cloak his dystopian plans for humanity in benign intentions, Gates has expropriated the rhetoric of “sustainability,” “biodiversity,” “good stewardship” and “climate.””

Kennedy continues, “These causes are all grim realities that pose existential threats to our children and require urgent attention. However, Gates’ record exposes his benevolent intentions as masquerades for his agenda to maximize personal profit and control.”

Writing for his Childrens Health Defense group, Kennedy notes that “It’s baffling to me how so many of my friends in the environmental movement have swallowed Gates’ chicanery.”

The article contains a raft of links documenting Gates’ “long-term strategy of mastery over agriculture and food production globally”.

Throughout the essay, Kennedy notes how Gates has:

Kennedy notes that just as with Gates’ vaccination programs in Africa, “there was neither internal evaluation nor public accountability.”

Kennedy also notes that Gates’ power grab doesn’t end with food production. He has sought to dominate in the areas of public health, privatizing prisons, online education and global communications while promoting digital currencies, high tech surveillance, data harvesting systems and artificial intelligence.

The piece is an extraordinary takedown of Gates, who Kennedy charges has “learned to fatten himself on global crises, whether it’s pandemics, climate, famine or mass extinction.”

In partnering with companies like Monsanto and pushing GMOs, Kennedy charges that Gates is engaging in “Chemical warfare on human health.”

The piece also notes how Gates has pushed ‘faux’ global governmental agencies that he himself created “to push his diabolical chemical, medical and food concoctions,” including insect protein.

“Following Gates’ lead, GAVI is optimistic that bugs will soon be an important food supplement for impoverished and undernourished children,” Kennedy writes.

Kennedy also covers the elite push for a ‘great reset’  “to impose authoritarian controls, pervasive surveillance, oppressive new economic models and one-world government on a beleaguered, terrified and compliant humanity.”

The article is a must read to understand how deeply embedded Bill Gates’ tentacles are in the control structures of the globe, and how every policy and program he is pushing is fundamentally anti-human.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been exposing this anti-human, anti-Earth agenda for some time, which is why he is relentlessly attacked and smeared by elite ‘think tanks’ and globalist organisations.

Calls for Kennedy to be cancelled and erased are sure to increase after this latest important salvo against Gates and his minions.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror

Photo credit: Bryan Myhr/US Army National Guard
CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory | February 8, 2021

If you enjoyed the Global War on Terror, you’re going to love the new War on Domestic Terror! It’s just like the original Global War on Terror, except that this time the “Terrorists” are all “Domestic Violent Extremists” (“DVEs”), “Homegrown Violent Extremists” (“HVEs”), “Violent Conspiracy-Theorist Extremists” (“VCTEs”), “Violent Reality Denialist Extremists” (VRDEs”), “Insurrectionary Micro-Aggressionist Extremists” (“IMAEs”), “People Who Make Liberals Feel Uncomfortable” (“PWMLFUs”), and anyone else the Department of Homeland Security wants to label an “extremist” and slap a ridiculous acronym on.

According to a “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” issued by the DHS on January 27, these DCEs, HVEs, VCTEs, VRDEs, IMAEs, and PWMLFUs are “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority” and other “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.” They are believed to be “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, police use of force,” and other dangerous “false narratives” (e.g., the existence of the “deep state,” “herd immunity,” “biological sex,” “God,” and so on).

“Inspired by foreign terrorist groups” and “emboldened by the breach of the US Capitol Building,” this diabolical network of “domestic terrorists” is “plotting attacks against government facilities,” “threatening violence against critical infrastructure” and actively “citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19.” For all we know, they might be huddled in the “Wolf’s Lair” at Mar-a-Lago right now, plotting a devastating terrorist attack with those WMDs we never found in Iraq, or generating population-adjusted death-rate charts going back 20 years, or posting pictures of “extremist frogs” on the Internet.

The Department of Homeland Security is “concerned,” as are its counterparts throughout the global capitalist empire. The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror isn’t just a war on American “domestic terror.” The “domestic terror” threat is international. France has just passed a “Global Security Law” banning citizens from filming the police beating the living snot out of people (among other “anti-terrorist” provisions). In Germany, the government is preparing to install an anti-terror moat around the Reichstag. In the Netherlands, the police are cracking down on the VCTEs, VRDEs, and other “angry citizens who hate the system,” who have been protesting over nightly curfews. Suddenly, everywhere you look (or at least if you are looking in the corporate media), “global extremism networks are growing.” It’s time for Globocap to take the gloves off again, root the “terrorists” out of their hidey holes, and roll out a new official narrative.

Actually, there’s not much new about it. When you strip away all the silly new acronyms, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror is basically just a combination of the “War on Terror” narrative and the “New Normal” narrative, i.e., a militarization of the so-called “New Normal” and a pathologization of the “War on Terror.” Why would GloboCap want to do that, you ask?

I think you know, but I’ll go ahead and tell you.

See, the problem with the original “Global War on Terror” was that it wasn’t actually all that global. It was basically just a war on Islamic “terrorism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), which was fine as long as GloboCap was just destabilizing and restructuring the Greater Middle East. It was put on hold in 2016, so that GloboCap could focus on defeating “populism” (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), make an example of Donald Trump, and demonize everyone who voted for him (or just refused to take part in their free and fair elections), which they have just finished doing, in spectacular fashion. So, now it’s back to “War on Terror” business, except with a whole new cast of “terrorists,” or, technically, an expanded cast of “terrorists.” (I rattled off a list in my previous column.)

In short, GloboCap has simply expanded, recontextualized, and pathologized the “War on Terror” (i.e., the war on resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology). This was always inevitable, of course. A globally-hegemonic system (e.g., global capitalism) has no external enemies, as there is no territory “outside” the system. Its only enemies are within the system, and thus, by definition, are insurgents, also known as “terrorists” and “extremists.” These terms are utterly meaningless, obviously. They are purely strategic, deployed against anyone who deviates from GloboCap’s official ideology … which, in case you were wondering, is called “normality” (or, in our case, currently, “New Normality”).

In earlier times, these “terrorists” and “extremists” were known as “heretics,” “apostates,” and “blasphemers.” Today, they are also known as “deniers,” e.g., “science deniers,” “Covid deniers,” and recently, more disturbingly, “reality deniers.” This is an essential part of the pathologization of the “War on Terror” narrative. The new breed of “terrorists” do not just hate us for our freedom … they hate us because they hate “reality.” They are no longer our political or ideological opponents … they are suffering from a psychiatric disorder. They no longer need to be argued with or listened to … they need to be “treated,” “reeducated,” and “deprogrammed,” until they accept “Reality.” If you think I’m exaggerating the totalitarian nature of the “New Normal/War on Terror” narrative, read this op-ed in The New York Times exploring the concept of a “Reality Czar” to deal with our “Reality Crisis.”

And this is just the beginning, of course. The consensus (at least in GloboCap circles) is, the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror will probably continue for the next 10 to 20 years, which should provide the global capitalist ruling classes with more than enough time to carry out the “Great Reset,” destroy what’s left of human society, and condition the public to get used to living like cringing, neo-feudal peasants who have to ask permission to leave their houses. We’re still in the initial “shock and awe” phase (which they will have to scale back a bit eventually), but just look at how much they’ve already accomplished.

The economic damage is literally incalculable … millions have been plunged into desperate poverty, countless independent businesses crushed, whole industries crippled, developing countries rendered economically dependent (i.e., compliant) for the foreseeable future, as billionaires amassed over $1 trillion in wealth and supranational corporate behemoths consolidated their dominance across the planet.

And that’s just the economic damage. The attack on society has been even more dramatic. GloboCap, in the space of a year, has transformed the majority of the global masses into an enormous, paranoid totalitarian cult that is no longer capable of even rudimentary reasoning. (I’m not going to go on about it here … at this point, you either recognize it or you’re in it.) They’re actually lining up in parking lots, the double-masked members of this Covidian cult, to be injected with an experimental “vaccine” that they believe will save the human species from a virus that causes mild to moderate symptoms in roughly 95% of those “infected,” and that over 99% of the “infected” survive.

So, it is no big surprise that these same mindless cultists are gung-ho for the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror, and the upcoming globally-televised show trial of Donald Trump for “inciting insurrection,” and the ongoing corporate censorship of the Internet, and can’t wait to be issued their “Freedom Passports,” which will allow them to take part in “New Normal” life — double-masked and socially-distanced, naturally — while having their every movement and transaction, and every word they write on Facebook, or in an email, or say to someone on their smartphones, or in the vicinity of their 5G toasters, recorded by GloboCap’s Intelligence Services and their corporate partners, subsidiaries, and assigns. These people have nothing at all to worry about, as they would never dream of disobeying orders, and could not produce an original thought, much less one displeasing to GloboCap, if you held a fake apocalyptic plague to their heads.

As for the rest of us “extremists,” “domestic terrorists,” “heretics,” and “reality deniers,” (i.e., anyone criticizing global capitalism, or challenging its official narratives, and its increasingly totalitarian ideology, regardless of our specific DHS acronyms), I wish I had something hopeful to tell you, but, the truth is, things aren’t looking so good. I guess I’ll see you in a quarantine camp, or in the psych ward, or an offshore detention facility … or, I don’t know, maybe I’ll see you in the streets.

#

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Firms CAN Insist That Staff Are Vaccinated Say Ministers

By Richie Allen | February 8, 2021

No jab no job is moving ever closer. Last night UK health ministers said that companies should be able to amend their existing health and safety policies to demand that employees are vaccinated against Covid-19. It has been suggested however, that it may be easier to enforce the policy when hiring staff. Firing existing employees who refuse to comply, may prove more difficult.

The government has been discussing the introduction of vaccine passports, which would allow employers to ask for proof of vaccination.

Yesterday, Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi was dismissive of any such scheme calling it “discriminatory” and “not how we do things in the UK.” However, The Telegraph newspaper says that it understands that health ministers are arguing in favour of the scheme:

One government source said: “If someone is working in an environment where people haven’t been vaccinated, it becomes a public health risk. “Health and safety laws say you have to protect other people at work, and when it becomes about protecting other people the argument gets stronger. “If there is clear evidence that vaccines prevent transmission, the next stage is to make sure more and more people are taking up the vaccine. “If people have allergies or other reasons for not getting jabbed, then of course they should be exempt, but where it’s an unjustified fear, we have got to help people get into the right place.”

Other ministers argued that allowing firms to insist that staff be vaccinated is discriminatory and sets a dangerous precedent. Those voices are being drowned out though. Vaccine passports are here to stay. Back in November Nadhim Zahawi said that health passports would be driven by the private sector. Speaking to SKY News at the time, he acknowledged that businesses would want to know that customers had proof of a negative test or had been vaccinated. Soon, you will be unable to do anything or go anywhere without your health passport.

Lost in all of this of course, is the fact that none of the jabs prevent the recipient from contracting the virus. Equally, there’s no evidence that suggests they prevent against transmission. By definition, these medicines are not vaccines at all. All they have going for them is the claim that if you have been vaccinated and then you come down with Covid, your symptoms MIGHT be milder than if you hadn’t had the jab at all. I know that this is ridiculous, you know that this is ridiculous, but we are in a tiny minority.

February 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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