It Was A ‘Vaccine Strategy’ From The Start
Ideological zealots wanted jabs in arms

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | March 11, 2023
Our recent “Null Hypothesis” article postulates and evidences a succinct summary of the happenings of the last three years: “The hypothesis that will likely stand the test of time goes like this: a nasty — if not particularly unusual — respiratory disease season was turned into a catastrophe by human misadventure, and this catastrophe was compounded by efforts to save face and justify the unjustifiable”.
In answering the question ‘what happened’, we did not attempt to tackle the obvious follow-up question (apart from a brief discussion about social contagion): ‘why did it happen’?
The sceptical community – living up to its decentralised worldview – is not short of opinions and theories, robustly debated. These are too numerous to cover in detail in this short piece: it suffices to say that they cover a wide spectrum ranging from calamitous ineptitude (and innumeracy) of politicians and civil servants, deceitful and underhand sales & marketing by nefarious global corporations, efforts by the elite to enrich themselves by impoverishing the middle classes and the digital enslavement of the masses, through to some more esoteric beliefs covering depopulation agendas, eugenics and long-in-the-planning Satanic plots… the list just goes on and on.
As many of the most ardent supporters of both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions (PIs and NPIs) begin to wake up to the collateral damage they helped bring about, it is instructive to stand back and observe tried-and-tested Biblical precedent being re-enacted. Few are not enjoying seeing the pantomime villain Matt Hancock being hoist by his own self-promoting petard via the Oakeshott WhatsApp trove. After all, who does not take some satisfaction from the fall of a petty tyrant? But much like the goat that gets bestowed with the sins of the community in Leviticus (“the goat will carry on itself all their iniquities” ) before being cast out into the wilderness (thus avoiding a full and frank ‘lessons learned’ exercise), the demonisation of this preening ’cock (or monkey) does not necessarily get us much further in terms of identifying whodunnit — who was the organ grinder? After all, a self-promoting chancer whose self-confessed epidemiological education is based on a studious viewing of the film ‘Contagion’ is demonstrably not an evil Blofeld mastermind. Indeed, some sceptics have attempted to use the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files to scotch any discussion of conspiracy and underscore their belief that the disastrous events of 2020-2022 were ‘merely’ a cock-up.
But that simplistic take assumes that the former Secretary of State for Health was more than just a bumbling low-grade chaos agent intent on filling his boots via fast-track procurement channels. Loathsome though he might be, Hancock and his cronies are a symptom – not a cause – of the pit we find ourselves in. Why did he – and the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson – get themselves into such a pickle such that they were not able to navigate a more rational – and less damaging – course through the crisis?
The answer is probably to be found somewhere within what one might term the ‘pandemic preparedness industry’ as outlined a few months ago in the Daily Sceptic :
“The response to the COVID-19 pandemic represented the triumph of a pseudo-scientific biosecurity agenda that emerged in 2005 and has been pushed ever since by a well-organised, well-funded and well-embedded network of ideologues. These fanatics promote and perpetuate the ideas underpinning the draconian new approach by publishing them in leading journals, planting them in public policy and law, pushing them in the media and smearing those who dissent, however eminent or well-qualified.
This avenue of investigation is, we believe, more likely to lead to the source of our misadventure than attempting to rationalise ‘scorched earth’ attempts at containment, suppression and eradication of a killer virus. There was only ever a warped logic to these actions, unless – one way or the other (perhaps for the ‘greater good’ or simply for old-fashioned crony capitalist ends) – you wanted to create a favourable backdrop for a new set of medical interventions that might otherwise have met with limited take-up or even downright opposition. CMO Chris Whitty advised government ministers in February 2020 (!) that covid was not deadly enough to justify fast-tracking vaccines. Put another way, earth could not have been scorched in this way if seasonal respiratory disease had not been given a name such that scariants could be ‘deployed’ to ‘frighten the pants off’ the general populace.
Whether the driving force behind these fanatics is saintly goodwill, pure greed, corruption – or even a Luciferian conspiracy for that matter – is beside the point: what is essential to understand is how a nasty seasonal respiratory disease season was weaponised to drive one of the greatest policy failures of all time. There does not necessarily need to be a single cartoon villain masterminding events to avoid multiple parties conspiring (“breathing together”) to create a great evil.
With this backdrop one does not even need to ferret around in the weeds to find out more. Last summer’s detailed POLITICO/WELT Special Report sheds plentiful quanta of light on the matter:
Four [supra-national] health organizations, working closely together, spent almost $10 billion on responding to Covid across the world. But they lacked the scrutiny of governments… While nations were still debating the seriousness of the pandemic, the groups identified potential vaccine makers and targeted investments in the development of tests, treatments and shots.
The four organizations had worked together in the past, and three of them shared a common history. The largest and most powerful was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropies in the world. Then there was Gavi, the global vaccine organization that Gates helped to found to inoculate people in low-income nations, and the Wellcome Trust, a British research foundation with a multibillion dollar endowment that had worked with the Gates Foundation in previous years. Finally, there was the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, the international vaccine research and development group that Gates and Wellcome both helped to create in 2017.
… The World Health Organisation (WHO) was crucial to the groups’ rise to power. All had longstanding ties to the global health body. The boards of both CEPI and Gavi have a specially designated WHO representative. There is also a revolving door between employment in the groups and work for the WHO: Former WHO employees now work at the Gates Foundation and CEPI; some, such as Chris Wolff, the deputy director of country partnerships at the Gates Foundation, occupy important positions. Much of the groups’ clout with the WHO stems simply from money.
… “They’re funded by their own capabilities and or endowments and trusts. But when they step into multilateral affairs, then who keeps watch over them?” a former senior U.S. official said. “I don’t know the answer to that. That’s quite provocative”.
Consider this small early 2020 cameo featuring senior executives from one of these four organisations:
“When it first became clear that this disease was appearing, Richard [Hatchett] and I sat down and said, we know what happened with the last swine flu pandemic, where wealthy countries bought up all the doses [of Pandemrix] that were … available for the developing world, we have to try to do something different about that…”.
Most normal people draw entirely different conclusions from the swine flu saga, not least the absolutely devastating tale of Pandemrix, a giant swindle involving misuse of taxpayer funds to purchase these doses in the first place, the substantial human damage that they then caused, a subsequent cover-up and then further cost to the taxpayer compensating those affected.
Contrast this with CEPI’s ‘mission’: “Vaccines are one of our most powerful tools in the fight to outsmart epidemics. The development of vaccines can help save lives, protect societies and restabilise economies”.
There you have it: the ‘saviour vaccine’, a sacred cow extolled with messianic zeal. It seems that one of the world’s greatest policy failures happens to neatly coincide with the stated aims of the Fantabulous Four. Food for thought given that there is no example of a vaccine ever defeating a sudden onset viral epidemic, let alone a ‘pandemic’ (there is also the question of whether viral pandemics are in any way even a hypothetical threat to modern societies — unless, of course, one incorrectly pins the blame for iatrogenic collateral damage on said virus).
Following the money, therefore, it is not that much of a surprise what came next: while — as pointed out above — “nations were still debating the seriousness of the pandemic” (i.e. correctly monitoring the possibility of a slightly-more-serious-than-usual respiratory disease season), the Fantabulous Four were busy setting the scene with targeted investments to create fertile ground to fulfil their aims. Consider then:
- Who might have benefitted from a social media campaign showing those faked ‘deaths in the street’ in China?
- Who might have considered funding a social media ‘bot army’ to promote lockdowns, interventions that as per Neil Ferguson’s ‘seminal’ fear-mongering 16 March 2020 paper could only conceivably make any sort of logical sense if they were followed in short order by a ‘saviour vaccine’, as explicitly stated by Ferguson and co-authors in that paper (“these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available” )?
- Who might have benefitted from squashing an early ‘lab leak’ theory that might have implicated some of the Fantabulous Four and the justification for a fast-track vaccine roll-out?
- Conversely, once said roll-out had been successfully funded and procured at eye-watering expense, who might have benefitted from re-floating the ‘lab leak’ theory to help justify future ‘pandemic preparedness’?
- Who might benefit from tightly controlling media output and censorship (after all, “true content … might promote vaccine hesitancy”)? Who was writing this script?
- WHO might wish to publish — in 2022 — detailed recommendations about how those in authority should respond to a ‘vaccine crisis’ (defined as any occurrence that ‘will most likely or has already eroded public trust in vaccines … and may create uncertainty’)?
- Why only the vaccine ‘pillar’ of the WHO’s wish list, the ACT-A (Access to Covid Tools Accelerator), received the funding that was sought? And why did all others on that ACT-A list — most notably cheap therapeutics that might have saved many lives (while of course competing with lucrative vaccines) — remain well short of their funding targets?
This congruency of the categorical trinity — means, motive and opportunity — is difficult to explain away. It is true that much that happened from March 2020 was anarchic, uncontrolled, panicked and unscripted. But there was method to the madness, an ultimate aim to the chaos, namely to make way for a ‘saviour vaccine’ that would only be accepted if the intended recipients had had ‘the pants frightened off them’, i.e. were sufficiently afraid of the alternatives to risk such an unproven medical intervention.
It may conceivably be that many people involved in the Fantabulous Four believe that this collective action was necessary. But collective action – however well meaning – that is dictated by a group and imposed on everyone else is tyranny, pure and simple. It gets worse if authorities are sufficiently captured by this tyranny such that they deploy subversive psychological weaponry on their citizens and suppress any dissent.
These are grave misdeeds that led to great harm, both in terms of bad outcomes and collateral damage from unnecessary non-pharmaceutical interventions, but also from the utterly unnecessary coercion used to foist pharmaceutical interventions on those that did not need them.
Even if we presuppose that there are no evil Blofeld-types standing behind all of this, it is beyond doubt that a fanatical ideology has inspired an evil tyranny. As per the Daily Sceptic :
“This ideology is the enemy, and seeing it for what it is is the first step to defeating it”.
This process has begun.
FTC faces ethics complaint after alleged retaliation against Twitter over censorship revelations
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | March 14, 2023
America First Legal (AFL) has filed federal ethics and Inspector General complaints and launched a probe into the Federal Trade Commission’s retaliation against Twitter owner Elon Musk and Twitter for exposing the Biden administration and federal agencies for pressuring Twitter to censor content.
Last week, the House’s Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report detailing how the FTC has been harassing Musk and Twitter over the past few months.
Read the FOIA request, IG investigative request, and Senate ethics request here, here, and here.
AFL filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics requesting an investigation into several Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal, for violating Senate Rule 43, which prohibits partisan communications in an unconcluded federal proceeding. AFL accuses these senators of encouraging the FTC to investigate Musk and Twitter, which further solidifies conservatives’ claims of the Biden administration weaponizing federal agencies.
AFL filed another complaint with the FTC’s Inspector General requesting an investigation into the agency’s chair Lina Khan and other officials for abusing power.
The organization also filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records that would reveal the reasons for the FTC’s abuse of power.
“The Biden Administration is steadfastly focused on weaponizing the federal government to advance its radical, left-wing political agenda,” said AFL’s general counsel Gene Hamilton. “Most Americans are now aware of politicization at the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security. And now, the Biden Administration has turned to the Federal Trade Commission to exact harm on those who oppose their radical agenda–particularly regarding free speech on social media platforms. Weaponizing the FTC to retaliate against Elon Musk and Twitter for exposing the truth about Deep State censorship is reprehensible, and we will not stand by idly.”
Indigenous Rebellion Continues as Post-Coup Peruvian Government Flounders
BY W. T. WHITNEY | COUNTERPUNCH | MARCH 10, 2023
Revived democratic struggle in Peru is well along into a second act. There was the parliamentary coup December 7 that removed democratically elected President Pedro Castillo and the “First Taking of Lima” in mid-January, embittered and excluded Peruvians occupied Lima and faced violent repression. Then on March 1 protests renewed as the indigenous inhabitants of Peru’s extreme southern regions prepared once more to demonstrate in Lima and would shortly be protesting in their own regions. The resistance’s make-up was fully on display.
Protesters throughout Peru were rejecting a replacement president and an elite-dominated congress and calling for early elections and a new constitution. They belonged for the most part belonged to Aymara communities in districts south of Lima extending from Lake Titicaca both west and northeast, into the Andes region.
Their complaints centered on wealth inequities, rule by a Lima-based elite, inadequate means for decent lives, and non-recognition of their cultural autonomy. Their support and that of other rural Peruvians had brought about the surprise election to Peru’s presidency in 2021 of the inexperienced Pedro Castillo. He had defeated Keiko Fujimori, daughter of a now imprisoned dictator and favorite of Peru’s neo-liberal enablers.
By March 1, residents of provinces close to the city of Puno were arriving in Lima to carry out the so-called “Second Wave of the Taking of Lima.” Demanding the de facto President Dina Boluarte resign, as of March 4 protesters had not been able to break through police lines surrounding key government buildings. The main action, however, was going on in the epicenter of police and military repression ever since Boluarte had taken office on December 7.
That would be the Puno area where most of the 60 deaths caused by violent repression have occurred, with 19 protesters having been killed on January 9 in Juliaca, a town 27 miles north of Puno city.
On March 5, violence was again playing out in Juli, a town 58 miles south of Puno, also on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Demonstrations along with roadblocks were in progress throughout the extended region, all in sympathy with the concurrent protests in Lima. Involved were indigenous groups, small farmer organizations, and social movements.
In Juli the demonstrators, confronted by military units and police in civilian dress, set fire to judicial office buildings and the police headquarters. The troops fired, shots came from open windows, and tear gas was released from a helicopter; 18 demonstrators were wounded.
Demonstrators blocking a bridge over a river prevented the entry of troops into the nearby town of Llave. Rains had caused flooding and in the process of swimming across the river, one of them drowned and five others disappeared.
Protesters captured 12 soldiers; community leader Nilo Colque indicated they were released after they admitted to trying to break the “strikes” but that they too opposed the military’s actions. Coolque predicted that soon 30,000 Aymaras would be descending on Juli and nearby population centers.
Aymara activists in Ilave announced a strike of indefinite duration. A “Committee of struggle” in Cusco announced the beginning as of March 7 of an indefinite strike in 10 provinces. The president of the national “Rondas Campesinas” (peasant patrols), said to represent two million Peruvians in all, announced a big march on Lima from all regions set for March 13.
Meanwhile Peru’s chief prosecutor has embarked upon an investigation of President Boluarte and other officials for crimes of “genocide, homicide resulting from circumstances, and causing serious injury,” that allegedly took place mostly in southern regions in the weeks immediately after her taking office.
There are these other developments:
* Peru’s Supreme Court on March 3 heard a proposal that the “preventive imprisonment of ex-President Castillo be extended from 18 to 36 months. Another court had previously denied his appeal for habeas corpus.
* The Congress as of March 6 looked to be on the verge of, for the fourth time, refusing to advance new presidential elections from April 2024 to sometime in 2013.
* The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a preliminary report accusing the new Peruvian government of excessive use of force against protesters.
* Polling results currently go one way: 77% of Peruvian reject the Dina Boluarte government, 70% say she should resign, 90% denounce Peru’s Congress. 69% favor moving general elections ahead to 2023, and 58% support the demonstrations. Most of those making up these majorities live in rural areas, according to the report.
The opposed sides in the Peruvian conflict are stalemated. Powerbrokers presently lack a government capable – willing though it may be – of providing structure and organization adequate for protecting their political and economic interests. Marginalized Peruvians are without an historical experience from which revolutionary leadership and strategies might have developed, such that now they might have direction and focus. The people’s movement there is not as lucky as counterparts were in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Now the U.S. government meddles with this state of precarious balance in Peru. And not surprisingly: it has long intervened militarily and is competing with China economically.
Speaking on March 1, State Department Ned Price did insist that in Peru, “our diplomats do not take sides in political disputes … They recognize that these are sovereign decisions.” He added that the United States backs “Peru’s constitution, and Peru’s constitutional processes.”
Even so, there is active interest hinting at more to come. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols on February 28 urged Peru’s Congress to expedite early elections and Peru’s president to promptly “end the crisis caused by ex-President Castillo’s self-coup.”
Pakistan’s Fascist Post-Modern Coup Regime Risks Replicating The East Pakistan Tragedy

By Andrew Korybko | March 15, 2023
The fascist authorities who were installed in Pakistan following last April’s US-orchestrated but superficially “democratic” post-modern coup against former Prime Minister Imran Khan risk replicating the East Pakistan tragedy if they don’t immediately stop shooting at their own people. The ousted leader’s supporters are rallying around his residence to prevent the local police from serving him an arrest warrant on a trumped-up graft charge that was concocted against him as “lawfare”.
Instead of reconsidering the wisdom of clashing with unarmed and purely peaceful civilians, the fascist authorities ordered their goons to assault them all with tear gas, rubber bullets, and reportedly even live ammunition that was shot into the air according to some accounts. This de facto declaration of war by the fascist post-modern coup regime on its own people could dangerously place the country’s political-security trajectory on the irreversible path towards civil war.
Former Prime Minister Khan warned as much in a tweet on Wednesday that he shared alongside a photo of himself sitting down in front of a pile of tear gas canisters that were shot at his home the other day. He wrote that “My house has been under heavy attack since yesterday afternoon. Latest attack by Rangers, pitting the largest pol party against the army. This is what PDM and the enemies of Pakistan want. No lessons learnt from the East Pakistan tragedy.”
The military-intelligence establishment must urgently rescind their de facto declaration of war on the Pakistani people, do whatever’s required behind the scenes to have the fascist post-modern coup’s leading figures resign as the first step towards national reconciliation, and then hold early elections. It’s only through this three-step process that the worst-case scenario of replicating the East Pakistan tragedy can potentially be avoided since anything less than that makes this more likely by the hour.
One of the most populous countries in the world is being pushed towards civil conflict by those conspirators who illegally usurped power with the US’ help last April and subsequently crashed the economy. This factual framing of Pakistan’s latest political-security dynamics proves that the increasingly violent clashes provoked by the fascist post-modern coup regime against its own people could lead to a global crisis in the event that they soon spiral even further out of control.
If the military-intelligence establishment continues waging war on the Pakistani people, then their victims should consider publicly calling on their iron brothers in China to urgently rein them in as a last resort to avert the worst-case scenario that former Prime Minister Khan just warned about. China’s diplomatic miracle in brokering the Iranian–Saudi rapprochement last week proves that it has the political capabilities to peacefully resolve the Pakistani Crisis if the people request for it to do so.
After all, the People’s Republic also stands to geostrategically lose if that neighboring nation descends into civil war. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship project of Beijing’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) that’s aimed at creating a Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, would practically become inoperable should that happen. Not only could that block off China’s shortcut to the Indian Ocean, but it would deal an immense blow to its soft power and BRI’s reputation as well.
Without intending to come off as “conspiratorial”, observers can’t preclude the possibility that the fascist post-modern coup regime’s US backers encouraged them to provoke a civil war partially for the purpose of advancing America’s anti-Chinese “containment” strategy via unconventional means. At the very least, its military-intelligence establishment wouldn’t so publicly violate its people’s human rights and possibly even countenance war crimes against them without the US’ advance approval.
This means that the latest escalation of the nearly year-long Pakistani Crisis is connected to the US just like its origin is, thus extending credence to the preceding concerns that the events which Washington set into motion last April are actually part of its larger Hybrid War on China. This South Asian state was knocked out of the geostrategic game at the most sensitive moment in the global systemic transition shortly after this process accelerated following the start of Russia’s special operation.
That outcome hasn’t just proven disastrous for the Pakistani people who’ve suffered as a result of the crippling economic crisis that followed, but it also unexpectedly offset a key pillar of China’s grand strategy related to its reliance on CPEC as a non-US-controlled shortcut to the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, both the political and especially economic dimensions of the US-provoked Pakistani Crisis also raised serious doubts about CPEC’s future as well as that of BRI more broadly.
Nobody can therefore deny that the US’ regime change in Pakistan last year had very serious consequences for China that are becoming worse by the hour as that country’s fascist post-modern regime risks pushing it into civil war after de facto declaring war on its own people. China might already be working behind the scenes to try and de-escalate the latest and thus far most dangerous phase of this nearly year-long crisis on its borders, but it would still help a lot if Pakistanis publicly requested this.
That’s because this could compel China into taking urgent action behind close doors if it hasn’t already done so, not to mention creating the optics of Pakistan’s US-backed fascist post-modern coup regime literally shooting at Chinese-friendly peaceful protesters, which would force China to get involved. No other party apart from the US has the influence to peacefully resolve this crisis, and seeing as how Washington’s interests are perversely advanced by exacerbating it, the onus thus falls on Beijing.
Practically speaking, China has a credible chance of brokering peace and thus averting another Pakistani Civil War, but this best-case scenario can only happen if the fascist post-modern coup regime has the political will to save their country from this US-engineered collapse. If they do, then China can simply propose the previously suggested three-step peace plan related to immediately ceasing fire against unarmed peaceful protesters, creating a caretake government, and holding early elections.
The coup regime might agree to this in exchange for a Chinese bailout that could replace the IMF’s continually delayed one that’s full of strings and has thus far been withheld by that body’s US leader for the purpose of keeping its proxies in check in case they consider “defecting”. That last-mentioned observation is precisely what China would be tempting them to do, basically “defect” from the US in exchange for much-needed aid and thus averting the seemingly impending civil war.
The latest and thus far most dangerous phase of the nearly year-long Pakistani Crisis is rife with unpredictability since everything is moving so rapidly right now so it’s difficult to predict what might come next. In any case, it would greatly help the cause of peace and preventing a replication of the East Pakistani tragedy that former Prime Minister Khan just warned about if his unarmed peaceful protesters publicly called on China to diplomatically intervene and prevent this from becoming a global crisis.
I Read Richard Haass’ New Book (So You Don’t Have To!)
Corbett • 03/13/2023
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Have you ever thought that the Bill of Rights was a bit lacking? Did you ever wish there was a list of obligations detailing those things we owe to the government for the privilege of being born into a certain political jurisdiction? Then, boy, do I have the perfect book for you! Join James for today’s dissection of The Bill of Obligations, the latest turgid tome of trash from Richard Haass, the outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Substack / Download the mp4
For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.
For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).
DOCUMENTATION
| Episode 188 – Listening to the Enemy | |
| Time Reference: | 00:30 |
| Episode 225 – Still Listening to the Enemy | |
| Time Reference: | 00:36 |
| Episode 412 – I Read The Great Narrative (So You Don’t Have To!) | |
| Time Reference: | 00:41 |
| Episode 418 – I Read Bill Gates’ New Book (So You Don’t Have To!) | |
| Time Reference: | 00:48 |
| The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens | |
| Time Reference: | 01:06 |
| Richard Haass: “No,” CFR members are not New World Order architects (Feb 11, 2021) | |
| Time Reference: | 01:21 |
| Richard Haass on ‘The Bill of Obligations’ | |
| Time Reference: | 04:23 |
| Wall Street and FDR by Antony Sutton | |
| Time Reference: | 07:48 |
| FLASHBACK: You Are Being Programmed to Accept Global ID | |
| Time Reference: | 08:15 |
| Corbett Report Radio 050 – Deconstructing Pearl Harbor with Robert Stinnett | |
| Time Reference: | 08:22 |
| What Is The Average Global Temperature? | |
| Time Reference: | 17:24 |
| Episode 430 – The Media Are the Terrorists | |
| Time Reference: | 27:30 |
| Episode 382 – Your Body, Their Choice | |
| Time Reference: | 32:06 |
| Jacobsen v. Massachussetts | |
| Time Reference: | 32:20 |
| Buck v. Bell | |
| Time Reference: | 32:26 |
| How & Why Big Oil Conquered the World | |
| Time Reference: | 32:30 |
US House Passes Bill Prohibiting Government Workers From Censoring Speech in Official Role
Sputnik – 10.03.2023
WASHINGTON – The US House of Representatives passed a bill to prevent federal government employees from censoring speech in their official capacity, amid hearings by congressional committees on the collusion between tech companies and the government to “moderate” content online.
House lawmakers passed the Protecting Speech From Government Interference Act along partisan lines on Thursday in a vote of 219-206.
The bill prohibits employees of executive agencies or those otherwise in the competitive service from using their official authority to influence or advocate for a third party, including private entities, to censor speech.
“Government agencies such as the FBI and the State Department have been working behind-the-scenes with Big Tech to silence American citizens expressing conservative views online,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement on the bill. “Americans have the right to express themselves lawfully online without the government controlling the narrative.”
Earlier on Thursday, a House select subcommittee held a hearing with authors of the so-called Twitter Files to hear testimony on the collusion between Big Tech, government agencies and private organizations – dubbed the Censorship-Industrial Complex – to moderate, suppress and censor online content.
The Twitter Files have revealed how the US government collaborated with Big Tech companies such as Twitter to suppress information related to COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story, among others.
Aspen Institute’s Censorship Commission
Katie Couric, Prince Harry, et al. recommended restrictions on free speech
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | March 10, 2023
Matt Taibbi continues his Twitter reporting on what he calls the CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. His report yesterday on the Aspen Institute’s activities caught my eye. As he put it:
14. The Woodstock of the Censorship-Industrial Complex came when the Aspen Institute – which receives millions a year from both the State Department and USAID – held a star-studded confab in Aspen in August 2021 to release its final report on “Information Disorder.”
15. The report was co-authored by Katie Couric and Chris Krebs, the founder of the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Yoel Roth of Twitter and Nathaniel Gleicher of Facebook were technical advisors. Prince Harry joined Couric as a Commissioner.
16. Their taxpayer-backed conclusions: the state should have total access to data to make searching speech easier, speech offenders should be put in a “holding area,” and government should probably restrict disinformation, “even if it means losing some freedom.”
In other words, a group of extremely wealthy, privileged, half-educated, self-important people assemble in North America’s swankiest mountain retreat, at an institution heavily financed by taxpayer money, to discuss censoring and correcting the plebs’ “information disorder.” A naive outsider might wonder if this sort of activity was conceived as an intentional insult of the middle class, taxpaying citizenry.
The mental habits of the participants are perhaps best expressed by their choice of Prince Harry—a descendent of King George III, who once publicly characterized the U.S. First Amendment protection of free speech as “bonkers”—as a Commissioner. How strange that a young man who seems unable to manage his personal and family affairs was commissioned with making recommendations to U.S. policymakers about governing the American people.
Matt Taibbi’s Twitter reporting on censorship is very interesting and illuminating.
‘An Injustice & A Disgrace’: Outrage Surges Over ‘Shameful’ Corsican Language Ban on French Island
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 11.03.2023
The French island of Corsica has for many years been trying to achieve autonomy, seeking legislative powers in economic and social fields, as well as recognition of the Corsican language as the official lingua franca.
Public outrage has been triggered by a “shameful” court decision in France’s Corsica to ban use of the Corsican language in its local parliament, according to reports from the capital, Ajaccio.
A verdict issued on 9 March in the Corsican city of Bastia ruled that French is the only language allowed to be used in official communications on the Mediterranean’s fourth-largest island which is a “territorial collectivity” of France. Furthermore, use of the Corsican language in debates – something that had been commonly practiced by the Assembly (unicameral legislative body of Corsica) – was pronounced as being against the French constitution.
Referred to as Corsu, or Lingua Corsa, the Corsican language is closely related to the type of Italian spoken in Tuscany. The language is spoken and written not only on the French island of Corsica, but also in northern Sardinia – an Italian island. The language has been classified as “definitely endangered” by UNESCO.
Also deemed a violation of the constitution by the court were local rules in support of “the existence of a Corsican people”.
The present ruling has come in the wake of a lawsuit introduced by Amaury de Saint-Quentin, the prefect of Corsica, according to reports. De Saint-Quentin is the highest-ranking official on the island and is appointed by the central French government.
The court ruling prompted an immediate backlash from pro-autonomy politicians on Corsica, with the pro-Corsican independence party Core in Fronte going on Twitter to lambaste the “shameful” verdict.
“This decision amounts to stripping Corsican parliament members of the right to speak their language during debates. Accepting this state of affairs is unthinkable for us,” a joint statement by the island’s executive council president Gilles Simeoni, and Corsican Assembly president Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis said.
Emphasizing that the Corsican language needed to be granted official status alongside French if it were to have any chance to “survive and develop”, they vowed to lodge an appeal against the verdict.
Jean-Christophe Angelini, leader of the Party of the Corsican Nation, tweeted to say the court ruling was “an injustice and a disgrace”, and “sounds to us like an insult”.
Corsica has for years been seeking autonomy from France, and – as well as a whole slew of issues – recognition of the Corsican language as official has always been top of the agenda.
In February 2018, during his first visit to the island, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out against granting Corsica special status or recognizing its language as official, insisting that Corsica was an integral part of the French Republic.
However, this February Macron reportedly told members of parliament that he had neither red lines nor a predetermined decision regarding Corsica when it comes to the draft constitutional reform, which he hopes to carry out after the summer and put up for debates in 2023-24. However, the option for Corsica to secede from France is off the table, according to the report.
Ukrainian Opposition Leader: Zelensky Regime Won’t Be Able to Destroy Orthodox Faith
By Viktor Medvedchuk – Sputnik – 11.03.2023
The Zelensky regime has once again demonstrated that it holds nothing sacred, this time in the literal sense. Today, the authorities have begun a gangster-style takeover of the main shrine of Orthodoxy – the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
On March 10, the leadership of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received an ultimatum, being informed that the National Preserve is breaking its lease agreement for the Lower Lavra of the Holy Assumption Monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and requiring monks to vacate the territory before March 29, 2023.
We remember from history that even during the Nazi occupation, the parishes of the canonical Orthodox Church were not closed by the Nazis. But today, their ideological heirs are taking away from the people of Ukraine that which gives them their spiritual core, strengthens them in trying times, consoles them in their grief and unites them in the joy of Easter.
The Ukrainian people have been robbed of their tongue, both Russian and Ukrainian. Russian, native to millions of Ukrainians, was declared the language of invaders and traitors. Ukrainian has been perverted to such an extent that it has lost its roots, musicality and meaning.
The Ukrainian people had their rights and freedoms taken from them, with deceitful, thieving and criminal authorities placed above all laws, with the people given over into the hands of demented Nazi bandits, spawning informers and extremists. Today, a Ukrainian not only has no right to have an opinion that differs from that of the authorities, but is obliged to support this government at any opportunity, since even silence is considered a crime.
The Ukrainian people have been robbed of peace and prosperity, since the Zelensky government does not want to admit its mistakes and its lies to voters. They preferred to lead their people to the slaughter, receiving unlimited finances and NATO weaponry. The current government does not hide that it is going to fight a long and bloody conflict. It is not interested in the lives of ordinary Ukrainians.
Today, the people are being robbed of the last thing they’ve got – their faith. Orthodoxy is the basis of the culture and spiritual life of the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has called the people to peace, unity and conscientiousness. But peaceful, God-fearing and conscientious people have been declared enemies by the Zelensky government.
Ukrainians are being robbed of their souls, their language, their hearts, their minds and their conscience. The Ukrainian state has turned into a man-made Frankenstein, a monster that hates everything living and natural, that wants to destroy peace in the world. But the authorities in Kiev will not succeed in turning Ukraine into a corpse, a dangerous zombie. Ukrainians are a living, spiritual, righteous people.
Ukrainians aren’t zombies. There is Another Ukraine – the genuine, true, Slavic, Orthodox one, which will not allow Satanism and lawlessness to be imposed upon it. And today the traitors of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian faith hear our voice, and understand that their sinister, black core is becoming more and more obvious each day. Everyone will receive their just deserts. The attempt to destroy the true Orthodox faith only strengthens the people. The Orthodox faith, like the people, cannot be destroyed!
Viktor Medvedchuk is a former Ukrainian opposition leader.
Now is the Time to Oppose the WHO’s Globalist Pandemic Treaty
BY ADAM CROSS | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MARCH 10, 2023
On February 1st this year, the World Health Organisation released the first draft of its much heralded pandemic response treaty. The draft treaty, snappily titled the ‘Convention or Agreement on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response’, is proposed as a solution to what the WHO calls the “catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity” during the “coronavirus pandemic”.
A supposed lack of solidarity amongst national governments will not be the “catastrophic failure” uppermost of many readers’ minds when thinking back on Government health policy over the last three years. Despite this, the WHO’s draft treaty proposes preventing a recurrence of this alleged failure by substantially enhancing the powers of the WHO relative to those of national health authorities.
It does this despite initially affirming “the principle of sovereignty of States Parties in addressing public health matters” in its opening recital, and despite recognising the principle of state sovereignty as one of the guiding principles of the treaty in article 4. Yet notwithstanding these reassuring nods to the notion of state sovereignty, the WHO’s real attitude towards state autonomy can be gauged by a quick glance at the rest of the recitals and provisions in the agreement.
In setting out the WHO’s interpretation of the factual background to this draft agreement, many of the other recitals focus on the purported practical inability of individual sovereign states to respond adequately to the unique health challenges of the modern world. Hence other recitals note that “a pandemic situation is extraordinary in nature, requiring States Parties to prioritise effective and enhanced cooperation”; that “the international spread of disease is a global threat with serious consequences… that calls for the widest possible international cooperation”; and that “the threat of pandemics is a reality and that pandemics have catastrophic health, social, economic and political consequences”. These recitals strongly imply that state sovereignty can be of limited importance in the face of such extraordinarily grave threats.
Similarly, while recognition of state sovereignty is given as one of the guiding principles of the agreement, it is somewhat overshadowed by the raft of other guiding principles, which include abstract things like “equity”, “solidarity” and the “right to health”. Indeed, article 4 goes on to ominously assert that “previous pandemics have demonstrated that no one is safe until everyone is safe”, strongly suggesting that adherence to the principle of national sovereignty during a pandemic is not just an outdated approach to take, but a positively selfish one.
The draft agreement therefore goes on to assign considerable power to the WHO to influence and shape the responses of national health authorities to any future pandemic. The breadth of ambition of the agreement is made clear in article 5, which applies the agreement in a far-reaching way to “pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery at national, regional and international levels”.
Subsequent articles go on to prescribe the policies to be followed by States Parties to the agreement in each of these areas. As examples of what is intended, articles 6 and 7 set out steps to be followed to improve logistics and the workings of the global supply chain for quicker dispersal of what are euphemistically termed “pandemic-related products” (read pharmaceuticals), after which article 8 of the agreement addresses “regulatory strengthening”. Sadly, the regulatory strengthening envisaged in this agreement is not the strengthening of the accountability of national health regulators to the public, but rather the strengthening of those regulators’ accountability to the inter-governmental blob. Article 8 therefore requires signatory states to “strengthen the capacity and performance of national regulatory authorities and increase the harmonisation of regulatory requirements at the international and regional level”. In layman’s terms, more funding and powers for the regulators, yet concurrently less independent decision-making from them as well.
Subsequent articles further limit the discretion of national health authorities in responding to future WHO designated pandemics. Article 11 requires signatory states to “adopt policies and strategies… consistent with… the International Health Regulations” (themselves the target of amendment by the WHO), while article 15 stresses “the need to coordinate, collaborate and cooperate, in the spirit of international solidarity” with the various bodies active in the international healthcare space in the formulation of policies and guidelines. There are references to “establishing appropriate governance arrangements”, presumably well away from potentially meddlesome interference by elected representatives. These governance arrangements are to be complete with “mechanisms that ensure global, regional and national policy decisions are science and evidence-based”. Think blanket mask and vaccine mandates.
Signatory states will also have to take part in “multi-country or regional tabletop exercises every two years” to prepare them for the next pandemic, presumably to ensure that all health authorities remain fully briefed on the acceptable line to take in the event of any such new pandemic being declared, and to deter any of the signatory states from being tempted to go off-script as Sweden did in 2020.
Last but not least, a plethora of comfortable sinecures will be created for the international administrative class, by way of the creation of a governing body for the agreement under article 20, a consultative body for input into decision making by amorphous inter-governmental stakeholders under article 21, and a secretariat under article 24.
Conspicuously lacking in the agreement is any reference to democracy, elected legislatures, or the necessity of regulators and health authorities being accountable to national electorates. Instead, the treaty represents a brazen attempt to further move health policy away from regional or national governments and into the hands of a rarefied class of globalist administrators.
It should be stressed that the current text is only a draft, and that it may be subject to amendments following discussion between the WHO and member states. Further, even if the U.K. does sign this agreement, it will likely require ratification by Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and will also require implementation via domestic legislation before it will have any domestic legal effect in the U.K. Sustained pressure now on ministers and MPs might just influence any U.K. Government proposals to amend the treaty at draft stage, or alternatively such pressure might conceivably prevent the U.K. Government from signing an unacceptably worded agreement in the first place. Either way, now is the time for action to prevent the crystallisation at international level of the very policies and approaches many of us have railed against at national level for the last three years.
Adam Cross (a pseudonym) is a U.K. qualified barrister specialising in international trade law, with both public and private sector experience.
