Study: Mass Hysteria & Poor Public Policies Link During Lockdown
Principia Scientific | February 13, 2021
A new study shows that ‘lockdown’ mass hysteria over COVID19, generated via the media and politicians, has worsened the outcomes for policy decisions causing avoidable and unnecessary additional public health costs.
The new study, ‘COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria’, written by Philipp Bagus et al., was published February 3, 2021 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. [1]
The paper’s conclusion is reproduced below:
Conclusion: Mass hysteria can have enormous public health costs in terms of psychological stress, anxiety, and even physical symptoms. To these costs must be added indirect adverse health effects from alcoholism, suicides, or damage from deferred treatment and delayed recognition of illness. Policy failures in mass hysteria can lead to economic decline and poverty, which in turn negatively impacts public health and life expectancy.
Studies of mass hysteria have mostly focused on outbreaks in localized settings of schools or businesses. However, in the digital age of global mass and social media, the possibility of global mass hysteria exists, a phenomenon that has not yet been studied. Our study of the political economy of mass hysteria draws on the well-established psycho-logical phenomenon of mass hysteria and applies it to a new and innovative context of global mass hysteria for which no literature exists yet. More specifically, we analyzed how the political system can influence the likelihood and spread of mass hysteria in a digitized and globalized world based on economic principles. We discussed how the state and its size increase the likelihood of mass hysteria by comparing an idealized minimal state with an idealized welfare state, addressing a previously completely unexplored research question. Our findings are highly relevant and important because the policy failures induced by mass hysteria are potentially catastrophic for public health.
We found that the size and power of the state contributes positively to the likelihood and extensions of mass hysteria. The more centralized and the more power a state has, the higher the probability and extension of mass hysteria. In a minimal state, there exist self-correcting mechanisms that limit collective hysteria. The enforcement of private property rights limits the harm inflicted by those that succumb to the hysteria. The state (thanks to a fuzzy public sector and its soft power [123,124]), by contrast, amplifies and exacerbates mass panics, potentially causing important havoc. What are temporarily, locally limited, isolated outbreaks of mass hysteria, the state may convert into a global mass hysteria for an extended period of time. Recent development in information technology and, particularly, the use of social media, as well as a decline of religion, have made societies more prone to the development of mass hysteria [125,126,127]. Unfortunately, once a mass hysteria takes hold of the government, the amount of damage the hysteria can inflict to life and liberty surges as the state’s respect for private property and basic human rights is limited. The violation of basic human rights in the form of curfews, lockdowns, and coercive closure of business has been amply illustrated during the COVID-19 crisis. Naturally, the COVID-19 example is indicative rather than representative and its lessons cannot be generalized. During the COVID-19 crisis, several authors have argued that from a public health point of view, these invasive interventions such as lockdowns have been unnecessary [128,129,130,131] and, indeed, detrimental to overall public health [132,133]. In fact, prior scientific research on disease mitigation measures during a possible influenza pandemic had warned against such invasive interventions and recommended a more normal social functioning [134]. Moreover, in reaction to past pandemics such as the Asian flu of 1957–1958, there were no lockdowns [135], and research before 2020 had opposed lockdowns [136]. From this perspective, the lockdowns have been a policy error. We have shown that these policy errors may well have been produced by a collective hysteria. To which extent there has been a mass hysteria during the COVID-19 crisis is open for future research. In order to prevent the repetition of policy errors similar to those during the COVID-19 crisis, one should be aware of the political economy of mass hysteria developed in this article and the role of the state in fostering mass hysteria. Public health is likely to be affected negatively by state interventions during a mass hysteria due to policy errors.
[1] Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18 (4), 1376; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041376
Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms
By Edward Curtin | February 13, 2021
“The CIA and the media are part of the same criminal conspiracy,” wrote Douglas Valentine in his important book, The CIA As Organized Crime.
This is true. The corporate mainstream media are stenographers for the national security state’s ongoing psychological operations aimed at the American people, just as they have done the same for an international audience. We have long been subjected to this “information warfare,” whose purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the American people and pacify them into victims of their own complicity, just as it was practiced long ago by the CIA in Vietnam and by The New York Times, CBS, etc. on the American people then and over the years as the American warfare state waged endless wars, coups, false flag operations, and assassinations at home and abroad.
Another way of putting this is to say for all practical purposes when it comes to matters that bear on important foreign and domestic matters, the CIA and the corporate mainstream media cannot be distinguished.
For those who read and study history, it has long been known that the CIA has placed their operatives throughout every agency of the U.S. government, as explained by Fletcher Prouty in The Secret Team; that CIA officers Cord Myer and Frank Wisner operated secret programs to get some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom among intellectuals, journalists, and writers to be their voices for unfreedom and censorship, as explained by Frances Stonor Saunders in The Cultural Cold War and Joel Whitney in Finks, among others; that Cord Myer was especially focused on and successful in “courting the Compatible Left” since right wingers were already in the Agency’s pocket. All this is documented and not disputed. It is shocking only to those who don’t do their homework and see what is happening today outside a broad historical context.
With the rise of alternate media and a wide array of dissenting voices on the internet, the establishment felt threatened and went on the defensive. It therefore should come as no surprise that those same elite corporate media are now leading the charge for increased censorship and the denial of free speech to those they deem dangerous, whether that involves wars, rigged elections, foreign coups, COVID-19, vaccinations, or the lies of the corporate media themselves. Having already banned critics from writing in their pages and or talking on their screens, these media giants want to make the quieting of dissenting voices complete.
Just today The New York Times had this headline: Robert Kennedy Jr. Barred From Instagram Over False Virus Claims. Notice the lack of the word alleged before “false virus claims.” This is guilt by headline. It is a perfect piece of propaganda posing as reporting, since it accuses Kennedy, a brilliant and honorable man, of falsity and stupidity, thus justifying Instagram’s ban, and it is an inducement to further censorship of Mr. Kennedy by Facebook that owns Instagram. That ban should follow soon, as the Times’ reporter Jennifer Jett hopes, since she accusingly writes that RFK, Jr. “makes many of the same baseless claims to more than 300,000 followers” at Facebook. Jett made sure her report also went to msn.com and The Boston Globe.
This is one example of the censorship underway with much, much more to follow. What was once done under the cover of omission is now done openly and brazenly, cheered on by those who, in an act of bad faith, claim to be upholders of the First Amendment and the importance of free debate in a democracy. We are quickly slipping into an unreal totalitarian social order.
Which brings me to the recent work of Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, both of whom have strongly and rightly decried this censorship. As I understand their arguments, they go like this.
First, the corporate media have today divided up the territory and speak only to their own audiences in echo chambers: liberal to liberals (read: the “allegedly” liberal Democratic Party), such as The New York Times, NBC, etc., and conservative to conservatives (read” the “allegedly” conservative Donald Trump), such as Fox News, Breitbart, etc. They have abandoned old school journalism that, despite its shortcomings, involved objectivity and the reporting of disparate facts and perspectives, but within limits. Since the digitization of news, their new business models are geared to these separate audiences since they are highly lucrative choices. It’s business driven since electronic media have replaced paper as advertising revenues have shifted and people’s ability to focus on complicated issues has diminished drastically. Old school journalism is suffering as a result and thus writers such as Greenwald and Taibbi and Chris Hedges (who interviewed Taibbi and concurs: part one here) have taken their work to the internet to escape such restrictive categories and the accompanying censorship.
Secondly, the great call for censorship is not something the Silicon Valley companies want because they want more people using their media since it means more money for them, but they are being pressured to do it by the traditional old school media, such as The New York Times, who now employ “tattletales and censors,” people who are power hungry jerks, to sniff out dissenting voices that they can recommend should be banned. Greenwald says, ‘’They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous ‘disinformation.’” Thus, the old school print and television media are not on the same page as Facebook, Twitter, etc. but have opposing agendas.
In short, these shifts and the censorship are about money and power within the media world as the business has been transformed by the digital revolution.
I think this is a half-truth that conceals a larger issue. The censorship is not being driven by power hungry reporters at the Times or CNN or any media outlet. All these media and their employees are but the outer layer of the onion, the means by which messages are sent and people controlled. These companies and their employees do what they are told, whether explicitly or implicitly, for they know it is in their financial interest to do so. If they do not play their part in this twisted and intricate propaganda game, they will suffer. They will be eliminated, as are pesky individuals who dare peel the onion to its core. For each media company is one part of a large interconnected intelligence apparatus – a system, a complex – whose purpose is power, wealth, and domination for the very few at the expense of the many. The CIA and media as parts of the same criminal conspiracy.
To argue that the Silicon valley companies do not want to censor but are being pressured by the legacy corporate media does not make sense. These companies are deeply connected to U.S. intelligence agencies, as are the NY Times, CNN, NBC, etc. They too are part of what was once called Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s program to control, use, and infiltrate the media. Only the most naïve would think that such a program does not exist today.
In Surveillance Valley, investigative reporter Yasha Levine documents how Silicon valley tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are tied to the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex in surveillance and censorship; how the Internet was created by the Pentagon; and even how these shadowy players are deeply involved in the so-called privacy movement that developed after Edward Snowden’s revelations. Like Valentine, and in very detailed ways, Levine shows how the military-industrial-intelligence-digital-media complex is part of the same criminal conspiracy as is the traditional media with their CIA overlords. It is one club.
Many people, however, might find this hard to believe because it bursts so many bubbles, including the one that claims that these tech companies are pressured into censorship by the likes of The New York Times, etc. The truth is the Internet was a military and intelligence tool from the very beginning and it is not the traditional corporate media that gives it its marching orders.
That being so, it is not the owners of the corporate media or their employees who are the ultimate controllers behind the current vast crackdown on dissent, but the intelligence agencies who control the mainstream media and the Silicon valley monopolies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. All these media companies are but the outer layer of the onion, the means by which messages are sent and people controlled.
But for whom do these intelligence agencies work? Not for themselves.
They work for their overlords, the super wealthy people, the banks, financial institutions, and corporations that own the United States and always have. In a simple twist of fate, such super wealthy naturally own the media corporations that are essential to their control of the majority of the world’s wealth through the stories they tell. It is a symbiotic relationship. As FDR put it bluntly in 1933, this coterie of wealthy forces is the “financial element in the larger centers [that] has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” Their wealth and power has increased exponentially since then, and their connected tentacles have further spread to create what is an international deep state that involves such entities as the IMF, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, those who meet yearly at Davos, etc. They are the international overlords who are pushing hard to move the world toward a global dictatorship.
As is well known, or should be, the CIA was the creation of Wall St. and serves the interests of the wealthy owners. Peter Dale Scott, in “The State, the Deep State, and the Wall Street Overworld,” says of Allen Dulles, the nefarious longest running Director of the CIA and Wall St. lawyer for Sullivan and Cromwell, “There seems to be little difference in Allen Dulles’s influence whether he was a Wall Street lawyer or a CIA director.” It was Dulles, long connected to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, international corporations, and a friend of Nazi agents and scientists, who was tasked with drawing up proposals for the CIA. He was ably assisted by five Wall St. bankers or investors, including the aforementioned Frank Wisner who later, as a CIA officer, said his “Mighty Wurlitzer” was “capable of playing any propaganda tune he desired.” This he did by recruiting intellectuals, writers, reporters, labor organizations, and the mainstream corporate media, etc. to propagate the CIA’s messages.
Greenwald, Taibbi, and Hedges are correct up to a point, but they stop short. Their critique of old school journalism à la Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing of Consent model, while true as far as it goes, fails to pin the tail on the real donkey. Like old school journalists who knew implicitly how far they could go, these guys know it too, as if there is an invisible electronic gate that keeps them from wandering into dangerous territory.
The censorship of Robert Kennedy, Jr. is an exemplary case. His banishment from Instagram and the ridicule the mainstream media have heaped upon him for years is not simply because he raises deeply informed questions about vaccines, Bill Gates, the pharmaceutical companies, etc. His critiques suggest something far more dangerous is afoot: the demise of democracy and the rise of a totalitarian order that involves total surveillance, control, eugenics, etc. by the wealthy led by their intelligence propagandists.
To call him a super spreader of hoaxes and a conspiracy theorist is aimed at not only silencing him on specific medical issues, but to silence his powerful and articulate voice on all issues. To give thoughtful consideration to his deeply informed scientific thinking concerning vaccines, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc., is to open a can of worms that the powerful want shut tight.
This is because RFK, Jr. is also a severe critic of the enormous power of the CIA and its propaganda that goes back so many decades and was used to cover up the national security state’s assassinations of his father and uncle, JFK. It is why his wonderful recent book, American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family, that contains not one word about vaccines, was shunned by mainstream book reviewers; for the picture he paints fiercely indicts the CIA in multiple ways while also indicting the mass media that have been its mouthpieces. These worms must be kept in the can, just as the power of the international overlords represented by the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum with its Great Reset must be. They must be dismissed as crackpot conspiracy theories not worthy of debate or exposure.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., by name and dedication to truth seeking, conjures up his father’s ghost, the last politician who, because of his vast support across racial and class divides, could have united the country and tamed the power of the CIA to control the narrative that has allowed for the plundering of the world and the country for the wealthy overlords.
There is a reason Noam Chomsky is an exemplar for Hedges, Greenwald, and Taibbi. He controls the can opener for so many. He has set the parameters for what is considered acceptable to be considered a serious journalist or intellectual. The assassinations of the Kennedys, 9/11, or a questioning of the official Covid-19 story are not among them, and so they are eschewed.
To denounce censorship, as they have done, is admirable. But now they need go up to the forbidden gate with the sign that says – “This far and no further” – and jump over it. That’s where the true stories lie. That’s when they’ll see the worms squirm.
NATO’s Road To Perdition With Ukraine
Strategic Culture Foundation | February 12, 2021
Despite repeated and long-standing warnings by Russia, the US-led NATO military alliance has indicated it is moving ever closer to accepting Ukraine as a new member. This is an incredibly incendiary step towards war that could escalate into a nuclear conflagration. And, risibly, this reckless initiative is being driven by an alliance which proclaims to be about upholding peace and security.
This week NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg hosted Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shymhal at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels. At a joint press conference, both men were upbeat about Ukraine joining NATO. Stoltenberg admitted that the former Soviet Republic has been eyed for membership of the alliance since 2008, a timescale which puts more recent conflict over the past nearly seven years in perspective. He also confirmed that NATO forces have been building up their presence in the Black Sea in coordination with Ukrainian counterparts. In recent weeks, three US warships have been training with Ukrainian naval vessels in order to counter what Stoltenberg says is “Russian aggression”.
Officially, Ukraine is designated as an “Enhanced Opportunities Partner” by NATO. Which makes one wonder, ironically, what kind of “opportunities” are being contemplated?
For all intents and purposes, Ukraine is already virtually a member of NATO. It has participated in overseas joint military operations and, as noted, it receives military aid, training and logistical support.
But if Ukraine were to be formally admitted to the NATO alliance then that opens up a legalized and inevitable path to war. Under the organization’s rules, any individual member nation is entitled to invoke a general defense clause which obliges other NATO members to support militarily. Since the governing authorities in Kiev continually claim that Russia is an aggressor – a view shared by NATO – then the potential for a generalized war with Russia is a wide open danger if Ukraine were to officially join the alliance.
Undoubtedly, NATO leaders are aware of this potential catastrophe and are also well aware of Russia’s deep concerns. That would explain their cautious delay in admitting Ukraine to the alliance. Germany and France in particular are understood to be against adding the country to NATO’s membership out of fear that it would provoke Russia.
It is interesting to speculate why Stoltenberg – a former Norwegian premier and nominal civilian head of NATO – this week appeared to give new impetus to Ukraine’s ambitions. Could it be related to the change of administration in the United States? Senior members of the Biden administration have publicly stated during Senate hearings a willingness to increase military support for the Kiev government in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. American and European envoys at the UN Security Council this week reiterated strident accusations against Russia claiming that Moscow was responsible for prolonging the conflict in Ukraine. Russia’s envoy Vassily Nebenzia countered that it was the Kiev regime and its Western allies who have not implemented the previously agreed Minsk peace accord signed in 2015.
But surely even the most diehard NATO jingoists must realize that admitting Ukraine to the ranks would a be dangerous bridge too far. The same too for Georgia, another former Soviet Republic, which is also in the queue for joining the military alliance. Both countries are already in political conflict with Russia because of NATO expansionism, not as they or NATO would have it, because of “Russian aggression”. NATO pushed Georgia into a brief war with Russia in 2008 over the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Then in 2014, a NATO-backed coup d’état in Kiev against an elected president led to the ongoing low-intensity war in Eastern Ukraine. That coup also led to Crimea voting in a referendum to secede and join the Russian Federation which the West continually refers to disparagingly as “annexation”.
Professional, well-paid shills like Jens Stoltenberg like to spin the deluded yarn that NATO expansion is a “success” for democracy and the rule of law. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union, NATO did not pack up and dissolve. In the ensuing 30 years it has doubled its membership from 16 to the present 30 constituent nations. This was in spite of earlier vows by American leaders that they would not permit NATO enlargement beyond the old frontiers of the Cold War and Warsaw Pact. The most recent additions include Montenegro and North Macedonia. Bosnia and Herzegovina are being considered under Membership Action Plans, and Ukraine and Georgia presumably after that.
NATO’s relentless expansion towards Russia’s borders, including the stationing of missile systems, in conjunction with baseless provocative, rhetoric accusing Moscow of aggression are patently posing an existential threat to Russian security. Yet NATO apologists talk blithely and in Orwellian fashion about promoting security, defense and rule of law.
Lest we forget, Russia came close to annihilation – within living memory – from military aggression by Nazi Germany and its eastern European satellites when up to 27 million Soviet people were killed in the Second World War (1939-45).
NATO’s own purported rules forbid the organization from admitting countries which are involved in border disputes or internal conflicts. That clearly should forbid Ukraine and Georgia. Yet the US-led NATO is turning a blind eye to its own rules, distorting its interventions in these countries as actions of defense against “Russian aggression”.
It would be ludicrous if it were not so gravely serious. NATO “justifies” the expansion to Ukraine and Georgia “because” Russia has forces in the Black Sea and the Barents Sea. Those regions are integral to Russia’s sovereign territory. This is while the United States from a distance of over 6,000 kilometers away stations B-1 strategic bombers for the first time in the Barents and sends increasing numbers of warships to the Black Sea in violation of maritime treaties. What next? Russia is accused of occupying Moscow?
The precedents and historical pattern show that the American imperial catspaw known officially as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is incapable of intelligent reasoning and dialogue. It is a machine geared for confrontation. Russia may therefore have to consider using another form of language in conveying its wholly legitimate security concerns.
For the present trajectory is a road to perdition.
Twitter suspends account of Russian arms control delegation, head diplomat wonders about censorship
RT | February 13, 2021
The Twitter account of the Russian delegation that represents the country at OSCE-hosted arms control talks in Vienna has been suspended by the US platform. The head of the team suggested it was an act of Big Tech censorship.
The unexplained ban of the account was reported on Saturday by Russia’s chief negotiator, Konstantin Gavrilov. He pondered what the reason for the decision might have been, suggesting it could have been retaliation for voicing Russia’s “alternative position … on the trends of the current [political-military] situation in Europe”.
The frozen account carried the standard Twitter notice, stating that the platform “suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules” at the time of posting.
Various arms control talks in Vienna are hosted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). This week, the body hosted a key forum called the High-Level Military Doctrine Seminar, which is gathered once every five years. The Russian military, surprisingly, snubbed the event, citing “unfriendly” Western policies, but the Gavrilov-led delegation participated.
The Russian official said he would be asking OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid to join Russia’s demand for clarification from Twitter, which he otherwise expected to be unanswered. Meanwhile, his own account would be used to publish relevant content, he added.
The New Normal requires a NEW Response
By Catte Black | OffGuardian | February 12, 2021
Recently a prominent Covid-skeptic on Twitter announced their willingness to start a political party or “movement” to oppose lockdowns.
Several people expressed support.
I understand the good intention behind this idea, but we at OffGuardian consider it a major misdirection of energy – and we said so.
We got a flurry of replies from Marxists and socialists telling us people need to ‘organise’ if the New Normal is to be defeated.
Well, yes, I agree. But what does ‘organise’ mean in an age of fake ‘consensus’, rigged elections and pseudo-Left fascism?
Does it mean creating yet another ‘political party’ with rules, hierarchies and leaders?
Does it mean paying lip service to the senile, corrupt old system of representative ‘democracy’ that we KNOW is fixed and a fundamental lie?
I don’t think so.
I think the New Normal requires a New Response.
This isn’t 2003 and the anti-war protests. This isn’t 1984 and the miners’ strike. This struggle is actually potentially far more winnable. Because it isn’t about trying to force a change of action on remote beings who don’t give a damn and won’t listen. It’s about reaching ordinary people. Our friends, family, community.
What we are facing is not just a new level of tyranny, but a new kind of tyranny. One that requires more than passive obedience or inaction from people in order to preserve their status quo.
The New Normal demands people do things to positively reinforce that Normal, not simply passively consent. People are being asked to make fundamental changes to their daily lives and proactively DO things that inconvenience, impoverish or endanger them and their loved ones. They are being asked to wear masks, remain inside, refuse contact, close stores, all as individual acts of faith in the truth and reality of the narrative.
This means it’s not principally the PTB who are enforcing this narrative – it’s individual people. It’s everyone who is seen to be believing the story. It’s every man, woman and child wearing a mask or social distancing, or closing their business.
We are not merely bystanders to this event, we are required to be active participants. And that potentially gives us a lot more power. Because we can simply say no.
And if people really knew the truth they would say no – out of simple self preservation – the same instinct currently being exploited to get their co-operation.
This is why a bid to organise hierarchical resistance misses the point, and aims at the wrong target.
The fourth Industrial revolution is supposed to be in part about data – information. Those with the information will control the world.
Think about that.
If information is key to them maybe it should be to us. I think we need to see the war against the New Normal as an information war.
The Great Reset merchants are selling conformity through lies. We need to counter them with the truth. Which will, indeed, “set you free.”
We, all of us, everyone reading this, need to start sharing information as if it was ammunition.
Reblog it, print it out and distribute it. Leave it in leaflets, send it in letters or emails, tell people about it by word of mouth.
If only one person in a hundred listens to you, it’s still a step.
But the information needs to be simple and true. Here are the 4 basic facts-
- the ‘virus’ has a blurry definition and has a survival rate of over 99% – no more deadly than some recent flu strains
- the PCR tests DON’T work and are a fraud.
- The reported ‘deaths’ are often people dying of other things and having ‘covid’ added to their CoD based on the test that doesn’t work or on financial incentive.
- The vaccine is NOT a vaccine. It’s experimental gene manipulation which will need decades of testing over generations before it can really be pronounced safe.
Don’t let these basic truths be diluted with irrelevant chatter about bio weapons or ‘miracle cures’. Don’t think you can be more effective if you cut the truth with a few commonly believed lies.
Don’t be tempted to meet the lie halfway. Don’t say ‘sure the pandemic was real and the virus IS scary, but it’s all over now’.
No. Tell the truth. Tell it to at least one person you know every day, and help to set them free.
Tell people how powerful they are. That this sick farce of political/corporate narrative now more than ever needs their endorsement for it to mean anything, and if they simply decline to endorse and walk away eventually the farce will be playing to an empty theatre.
We need INFORMATIONAL organization laterally – getting info out about the ‘pandemic’, about legal rights, about how to get away from total dependence on the system.
Encourage people to form their own groups and spread this info. Organic, loose – hard to monitor and pin down, hard to infiltrate because there will be no hierarchy.
Tell people they don’t need to wait for self-appointed leaders to give them direction. They can be their own change. Starting now.
Take their slogans – ‘strength in unity’ and make it mean something in your own life.
Remember ‘they’ are weak in numbers but strong in cohesion, and they have taken our strength in numbers and used it against us – like a martial arts ninja.
They try to break us apart with internal divisions, setting black against white, male against female, “Right” against “Left”.
The old politics and its terminologies are meaningless in the face of this latest coup against humanity. It’s not a matter of Left v Right any more. It’s a simple division between those who believe in human freedom and those who want humanity enslaved.
The only way to fight this New Normal is to create another one. Where people rediscover independence of thought and genuine collectivism of action.
With thanks to Vanessa Beeley for her input and suggestions
“Swift and Meaningful Response” on Human Rights of LGBTQ, and Intersex Persons Around the World
An end to staged chemical attacks?
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
This memorandum reaffirms and supplements the principles established in the Presidential Memorandum of December 6, 2011 (International Initiatives to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Persons). That memorandum, for the first time, directed executive departments and agencies (agencies) engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons everywhere. This memorandum builds upon that historic legacy and updates the 2011 memorandum.
All human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are or whom they love. Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights. The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values. It shall be the policy of the United States to pursue an end to violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics, and to lead by the power of our example in the cause of advancing the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world.
Through this memorandum, I am directing all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that United States diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons. Specifically, I direct the following actions, consistent with applicable law:
Section 1. Combating Criminalization of LGBTQI+ Status or Conduct Abroad. Agencies engaged abroad are directed to strengthen existing efforts to combat the criminalization by foreign governments of LGBTQI+ status or conduct and expand efforts to combat discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and intolerance on the basis of LGBTQI+ status or conduct. The Department of State shall, on an annual basis and as part of the annual report submitted to the Congress pursuant to sections 116(d) and 502B(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151n(d) and 2304(b)), report on human rights abuses experienced by LGBTQI+ persons globally. This reporting shall include anti-LGBTQI+ laws as well as violence and discrimination committed by both state and nonstate actors against LGBTQI+ persons.
Sec. 2. Protecting Vulnerable LGBTQI+ Refugees and Asylum Seekers. LGBTQI+ persons who seek refuge from violence and persecution face daunting challenges. In order to improve protection for LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers at all stages of displacement, the Departments of State and Homeland Security shall enhance their ongoing efforts to ensure that LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers have equal access to protection and assistance, particularly in countries of first asylum. In addition, the Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security shall ensure appropriate training is in place so that relevant Federal Government personnel and key partners can effectively identify and respond to the particular needs of LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers, including by providing to them adequate assistance and ensuring that the Federal Government takes all appropriate steps, such as potential increased use of Embassy Priority-1 referrals, to identify and expedite resettlement of highly vulnerable persons with urgent protection needs.
Sec. 3. Foreign Assistance to Protect Human Rights and Advance Nondiscrimination. Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs shall expand their ongoing efforts to ensure regular Federal Government engagement with governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector to promote respect for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and combat discrimination. Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs should consider the impact of programs funded by the Federal Government on human rights, including the rights of LGBTQI+ persons, when making funding decisions, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
Sec. 4. Swift and Meaningful United States Responses to Human Rights Abuses of LGBTQI+ Persons Abroad. The Department of State shall lead a standing group, with appropriate interagency representation, to help ensure the Federal Government’s swift and meaningful response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons abroad. When foreign governments move to restrict the rights of LGBTQI+ persons or fail to enforce legal protections in place, thereby contributing to a climate of intolerance, agencies engaged abroad shall consider appropriate responses, including using the full range of diplomatic and assistance tools and, as appropriate, financial sanctions, visa restrictions, and other actions.
Sec. 5. Building Coalitions of Like-Minded Nations and Engaging International Organizations in the Fight Against LGBTQI+ Discrimination. Bilateral relationships with allies and partners, as well as multilateral fora and international organizations, are key vehicles to promote respect for and protection of the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and to bring global attention to these goals. Agencies engaged abroad should strengthen the work they have done and initiate additional efforts with other nations, bilaterally and within multilateral fora and international organizations, to: counter discrimination on the basis of LGBTQI+ status or conduct; broaden the number of countries willing to support and defend the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons; strengthen the role, including in multilateral fora, of civil society advocates on behalf of the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons; and strengthen the policies and programming of multilateral institutions, including with respect to protecting vulnerable LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers.
Sec. 6. Rescinding Inconsistent Policies and Reporting on Progress. Within 100 days of the date of this memorandum or as soon as possible thereafter, all agencies engaged abroad shall review and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, take steps to rescind any directives, orders, regulations, policies, or guidance inconsistent with this memorandum, including those issued from January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021, to the extent that they are inconsistent with this memorandum. The heads of such agencies shall also, within 100 days of the date of this memorandum, report to the President on their progress in implementing this memorandum and recommend additional opportunities and actions to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world. Agencies engaged abroad shall each prepare a report within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter, on their progress toward advancing these initiatives. All such agencies shall submit these reports to the Department of State, which will compile a report on the Federal Government’s progress in advancing these initiatives for transmittal to the President. The Department of State shall make a version of the compiled annual report available to the Congress and the public.
Sec. 7. Definitions. (a) For the purposes of this memorandum, agencies engaged abroad include the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and such other agencies as the President may designate.
(b) For the purposes of this memorandum, agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development programs include the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, USAID, DFC, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and such other agencies as the President may designate.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(d) The Secretary of State is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
Social Distancing To Last Until Autumn, Masks Forever – SAGE
By Richie Allen | February 12, 2021
The Times is reporting this morning that social distancing measures will be with us until at least Autumn to reduce the transmission of Covid-19. Government sources told the newspaper that some restrictions might remain in place for the whole of 2021. The paper reported:
“The thinking is that social distancing will need to be in place for a long time to come,” a Whitehall source said. “It has repercussions for the scale of any reopening. Restaurants, pubs and offices will all need to be Covid-secure.”
Ministers believe it will allow other controls to be relaxed. A government source said: “The more restrictions we have in place like social distancing rules the more we can do in terms of easing.”
SAGE member Jeremy Farrar said that it is believed that there are around 750,000 Covid cases in the country. SAGE (the scientists advising the government), is recommending that lockdown measures remain in place until there are significantly less than 10,000 cases in total. Farrar, speaking on BBC Radio 4 said:
“If transmission were still at this level and we were not in lockdown, we would be going into lockdown. We’ve got to get it lower, we’ve got to get it, in my view, into the single thousands before we can possibly think of lifting restrictions. I appreciate that businesses have to plan and everything else. But the data has to drive us, and in 2020 we lifted restrictions too quickly when the data would not really have allowed that and as a result the transmission went back up in this country.”
Farrar’s SAGE colleague Professor John Edmunds, appearing on ITV’s Peston show, said that most of the current restrictions on daily life are likely to be in force until the end of this year, while wearing masks on public transport and indoors could possibly be in place “forever.”
If Jeremy Farrar is right and it’s a big if, and there really are 750,000 coronavirus cases in the UK right now, the great majority of them are asymptomatic people, who tested positive after a PCR test. Leaving aside the redundant, completely unreliable PCR test for a minute, the point is, these people are not sick. This is something the public has struggled to comprehend. Cases do not equate to illness.
The entire hoax hinges on this. Every day, the media gives the latest score. It goes something like this. “Yesterday there were 13,400 new coronavirus cases in the UK and 670 people died within 28 days of a positive test.” It’s the same every day of the week. I call it rinse and repeat journalism. Joe public hears 13,000 plus cases and believes that we are living through a plague, despite the fact that there is nothing wrong with the vast majority of those who have tested positive via the debunked PCR test.
He hears 670 deaths and said like that it sounds terrifying. But it’s deaths for “any reason” within four weeks of a positive test. If you drop dead of a stroke in that time, they’ll add you to the Covid death stats. If you have a brain haemorrhage and fall down dead, you’re added to the Covid death list. It is a hoax. I cannot put it any other way.
The government’s scientific advisers know this. They have not made a mistake here. They’re not simply applying the precautionary principle. They KNOW the truth, which makes them unimaginably evil. This is not about a virus. It never has been. The mainstream media is your enemy. It knows the truth too and works day and night to keep you in the dark. There are thousands of doctors and scientists, from some of the worlds most prestigious universities, calling out this hoax. But the media has denounced them as Covid deniers and banned them from the airwaves. I never saw this coming.
Lockdowns are a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
“Non-pharmaceutical” interventions do not work, and are doing far more harm than good
By Daniel Jeanmonod MD | OffGuardian | February 12, 2021
I have chosen to write this text in addition to our two earlier contributions because of the development of the “second wave” which came afterward, and in reaction to the current relentless accumulation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs, also called corona, “social” or lockdown measures).
These are characterized by separation/isolation of human beings through the application of masks, distance maintenance between people, stay-at-home orders and business closures.
An important study in Frontiers in Public Health on the data delivered by 160 countries has found no correlation between death rate and stringency of lockdown measures[1].
Another study showed no significant benefits of stay-at-home order and business closure on epidemic case growth[2].
The following two examples confirm these results: a country with low lockdown stringency like Sweden has at the moment the same fatality rate per million inhabitants as France, but lower than Spain, Italy and UK, where severe lockdown measures were applied.
In addition, Sweden has had for the second wave a much smaller excess mortality than France, Italy or Spain, an observation which allows one to suspect that lockdown measures are delaying the establishment of herd immunity. This is not desirable, as the time during which the old, sick and frail can be exposed to the virus gets longer.
As NPIs are imposed in an overloaded ambiance of viral threat, they are additionally in position to activate destructive neuro-immunological mechanisms as well as to trigger secondary deleterious psycho-social, medical and economic developments5. Both have a direct effect on population mortality.
Analyses indicate that at least a third, and possibly more than half, of the observed excess mortality may be caused by the applied measures[3][4]. Measure-based mortality will proceed and may even accelerate if the fear-mongering stays and no end to the nightmare is presented to a now chronically overloaded population.
We are in the typical context of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, where, through neuro-immunological overresponses, physical immobilization, social isolation and socio-economic difficulties, the death toll gets maximized and the expected death prophecy confirmed.
This requires then the maintenance and even increase of measures, and explains why people questioning their necessity are swiftly qualified as fools, idiots, conspiracy theorists or even murderers (heartlessly risking lives).
For almost a year, cultivated virus hysteria has fuelled the belief in a necessity to suppress “Covid19”.
Epidemiological models, revealed regularly as strongly pessimistic, justify preemptive NPIs even if collected data show positive reassuring evolutions. These measures are presented as unavoidable parts of the fight to be held, and are applied relentlessly without questioning their efficiency (see reference [1]), and without considering, as mentioned above, their lethality.
PCR tests are enacted for the whole population, with their extreme sensitivity and false positives5, maintaining in the population the awareness of the dreadful presence of the virus. The fact that a large percentage (88% in Italy) of deaths happened in the presence of corona (but not due to corona) in the context of end-of-life situations is not considered.
Science moves on to find new threat markers, like the reproduction factor R and recently the rise of mutated virus variants. Thoughts and emotions remain focalized on covid-19 and its threat, taken out of the regular context of the normal human/virus interactions.
For example, tests of corona presence have never been performed before to establish what normality is along the year, and variants can be seen as the logical and usual answer of viruses to the development of human herd immunity.
In our county of Solothurn in Switzerland, 2,662 deaths have been reported for 2020[5], among which 219 were attributed to covid-19 and of these 211 were living in nursing homes[6]. Median age of covid-19 death in Switzerland is 86 years old[7], and the rate of significant premorbidities is very high (97% with at least one premorbidity).
Switzerland, in spite of a clear-cut “second wave”, has experienced no excess mortality for ages below 65, and even for 70 and above, a correction for the increasing size of this old age group shows no excess mortality for 2020[4], and a lower mortality in 2020 than in 2012, 2013 and 20156. Finally, for the whole swiss population, the total death rate per 100,000 inhabitants was the same in 2003 and even higher in 2000[8].
Where do we find, here and around the world, any motivation and necessity to limit the professional and social activities of a whole population for now almost a year?
Should we have locked populations in the past during former flu epidemics? Obviously no.
Shall we have to do that in the future? How long can our human environment resist such heavy, deleterious and questionable measures? And when shall the people of the world get their basic human rights and freedom back?
Of course, fear takes the best out of us, and nobody is to blame for damages produced unwillingly and under the pressure of fear.
There is, alas, no doubt about the following fact: modern, technological medicine often lacks the compassionate therapeutic dimension one expects from it, and presents the unpleasant tendency to promote huge profits through drugs and medical-technical products, with less than appropriate up to fraudulent practices[9][10]
Fraud resides in the highest levels, as exemplified by the recent withdrawal of a fraudulent article from the famous journal the Lancet[11]. This article claimed wrongly the inefficiency and dangers of a plant-based, well known, efficient and inexpensive medication.
A proper decision and information strategy in the corona crisis would have been to open the scientific, political and public debate to different views, with the goal to come up together to a balanced, consensual program, in which nobody is right or wrong and all agree to have worked together on the best possible solutions.
It is extremely counterproductive and dogmatic to promote the exclusive value of the dominant view, proposed by governments and their scientific task forces and widely distributed by the media. Other views are being seen as unacceptable, not-an-option, or even ethically wrong.
Why propagate the idea the whole world needs to be vaccinated against covid-19 in the context of the above-mentioned epidemic data? What of the recent confirmation, published by the WHO and authored by Dr. Ioannidis[12], of a general average case fatality ratio of 0.23% (analyzed from 61 studies), in the range of a flu epidemic?
In addition, to the contrary of what the WHO has proposed recently, we may strongly consider that the natural herd immunization process, established by life processes along millennia, and non-dangerous for the immense majority of the active population below 65, will be more efficient than any vaccination.
Finally, the essential role of physical and emotional health as protections against severe infectious developments has been dramatically ignored in favour of medical technical interventions, precipitating many human beings into severe disease evolutions by physical inactivity and social isolation.
Our governments should contribute to protect without coercion the old, sick and frail and free the rest of the population from all general NPIs. We have all learned what to do in winter with our old and frail parents, who particularly need our presence and can decide for themselves what they prefer: state-imposed protection, or an evening to their life surrounded by their beloved ones.
Numerous human beings have died these last months in appalling physical and emotional conditions, immobilized in their rooms and isolated from families and friends. This has lasted long enough and should be considered as inhumane and stopped. The Great Barrington Declaration enacts the reduction of measures to “focal” protection. It was proposed by 3 epidemiologists from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford and has collected more than 50,000 signatures from medical and public health scientists and medical practitioners as well as from more than 700,000 concerned citizens.
The people need to regain their democratic rights and freedom of decision without delay.
With courage and scientific data at hand, we should stop hiding away from the virus on the order of our governments. We should trust nature that things will balance back to normal, instead of tampering chaotically and arrogantly with the natural dynamics regulating the human/virus interactions.
The relentless, never-ending confinement measures have led to the appearance of a host of absurd, even pathetic measures and situations, with some citizens wearing masks alone in their own cars, or jogging masked and alone in the countryside… I have heard many people around me wonder if they were not in a nightmare or a bad movie.
We need to wake up and work to fix this.
Daniel Jeanmonod MD, Professor Emeritus of Neurosurgery at Zürich University and Physiology & Neuroscience at New York University.
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Casuistry
By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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