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Follow the Data, They Said, and Then Hid It

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | Brownstone Institute | February 24, 2022

Never before has the public had access to so much data on a virus and its effects. For two years, data festooned the daily papers. Dozens of websites assembled it. We were all invited to follow the data, follow the science, and observe as scientists became our new overlords, instructing us how to feel, think, and behave in order to “flatten the curve,” “drive down cases,” “preserve capacity,” “stay safe,” and otherwise deploy all the powers of human will to respond to and manipulate disease outcomes.

We could watch it all in real time. How beautiful were the waves, the curves, the bar charts, the sheer power of the technology. We can look at all the variations and the trajectories, assemble them by country, click here and click there to compare, see new cases, total cases, unvaccinated and vaccinations, infections and hospitalizations, deaths in total or death per capita, and we could even make a game out of it: which country is doing better at the great task, which group is better at complying, which region has the best outcomes.

It was all quite dazzling, the power of the personal computer combined with data collection techniques, universal testing, instant transmission, and the democratization of science. We were all invited to participate from our laptops to bone up on statistics, download and look, assemble and draw, manipulate and observe, and be in awe of the masters of the numbers and their capacity for responding to every trend as it was captured and chronicled in real time.

Then one day, writing at the New York Times, reporter Apoorva Mandavilli revealed the following:

For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public…. Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.

Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.

At the appearance of this story, my data science friends who have been digging through the databases for nearly two years all let a collective: argh! They knew something was very wrong and had been complaining about it for more than a year. These are sophisticated people at Rational Ground who keep their own charts and host data programs of their own. They have been curious all along about the exaggerations, the poor communication regarding the gradients of risk, the lags and holes in the demographic data on hospitalization and death, to say nothing of the strange way in which the CDC has been manipulating presentations on everything from masking to vaccination status and much more.

It’s been a strange experience for them, especially since other countries in the world have been absolutely scrupulous about collecting and distributing data, even when the results do not comport with policy priorities. There can be little doubt, for example, that the missing data bears on the issue of vaccine effectiveness and very likely demonstrates that the claim that this was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is completely unsustainable, even from the time when it was first made.

In the New York Times story, many top epidemiologists were quoted expressing everything from frustration to outrage.

“We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021. A detailed analysis, she said, “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.”

Well, if public trust is the goal, it’s not going so well. In addition to the failings revealed here, there are many other questions concerning cases and whether and to what extent the PCR testing can really tell us what we need to know, to what degree did the misclassification problem affect death attribution, and so much more. It seems that with each month that has gone by, what seemed to be these beautiful pictures of reality have faded into a murky data quagmire in which we don’t know what is real and what is not. And ever more, the CDC itself has urged us to ignore what we do see (VAERS data, for example).

Dr. Robert Malone makes an interesting point. If a scientist at a university or a lab is found to have deliberately buried relevant data because they contradict a preset conclusion, the results are professional ruin. The CDC, however, has legal privileges that allows it to get away with actions that would otherwise be considered fraud in academia.

There are many analogies between economics and epidemiology, as many have noticed over the last two years. The attempt to plan the economy in the past has suffered from many of the same failures as the attempt to plan a pandemic. There are collection problems, unintended consequences, knowledge problems, issues of mission creep, uncertainties over causal inference, a presumption that all agents obey the plan when in fact they do not, and a wild pretense that planners have the necessary knowledge, skill, and coordination required to presume to replace the decentralized and dispersed knowledge base that makes society work.

Murray Rothbard called statistics the Achilles heel of economic planning. Without the data, economists and bureaucrats couldn’t even begin to believe they could achieve their far-flung dreams, much less put them into practice. For this reason, he favored leaving all economic data collection to the private sector so that it is actually useful for enterprise rather than abused by government. In addition, there is simply no way that data alone can provide a genuine full picture of reality. There will always be holes. It will always be late. There will always be mistakes. There will always be uncertainties over causality. Moreover, all data represents a snapshot in time and can prove extremely misleading with changes over time. And these can be fatal for decision making.

We are seeing this play itself out in epidemiological planning too. The endless streams of data over two years have created what Sunetra Gupta calls “the illusion of control” when in fact the world of pathogens and its interaction with the human experience is infinitely complex. That illusion also creates dangerous habits on the part of planners, which we’ve seen.

There was never a reason to close schools, lock people in their homes, block travel, shut businesses, mask kids, mandate vaccines, and so on. It’s almost as if they wanted human beings to behave in ways that better fit their own modeling techniques rather than allow their knowledge base to defer to the complexity of the human experience.

And now we know that we’ve been denied information that the CDC has kept in hiding for the better part of a year, undoubtedly to serve the purpose of forcing the appearance of reality to more closely conform to a political narrative. We only have a fraction of what has been accumulated. What we thought we knew was only a glimpse of what was actually known on the inside.

There is no shortage of scandals associated with pandemic policy over two years. For those who are interested in finding out precisely what caused the lights to be dimmed or even turned out on modern civilization, we can add another scandal to the list.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Warning to the BBC: You can’t gag TCW

By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | February 23, 2022

THE BBC gets very righteous and uppity when it’s dishing out the criticism – but doesn’t like it when it’s on the receiving end.

A classic example came my way on Monday with a message from TV Licensing about a TCW Defending Freedom blog. Basically, it was asking me to ‘censor’ a sentence they didn’t like.

I wrote back to BBC Director-General Tim Davie and here I’m publishing my reply to him as an open letter. The contents are self-explanatory …

Dear Mr Davie,

I am the editor and proprietor of the website TCW Defending Freedom, which registers between one and 1.4million page impressions a month.

On Monday of this week, we published a blog about Justin Trudeau’s use of emergency powers to end the protest in Ottawa by Canadian truckers.

It contained the following paragraph: ‘For example, violent Black Lives Matter protesters have been free to run riot in the US, while peaceful pro-Trump supporters have been arrested. In the UK, minimal, even helpful, action was taken against disruptive Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain protesters, while single mothers are jailed for not having paid their TV licence fee. Unvaccinated citizens are penalised and scapegoated everywhere, while illegal unvaccinated boat immigrants are rescued by coastguards and the RNLI and welcomed generously into society.’

To my surprise, I received an email later that day from Alex Skirvin alexander.skirvin@bbc.co.uk in which he stated: ‘I am getting in touch from TV Licensing regarding your recent piece, ‘Iron fist for the truckers, velvet glove for eco-terrorists.’

‘The piece states: “In the UK, minimal, even helpful, action was taken against disruptive Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain protesters, while single mothers are jailed for not having paid their TV licence fee.”

‘This is inaccurate. Nobody is imprisoned for non-payment of the licence fee – the maximum sentence is a fine which may be imposed by a court.

‘If a court fine isn’t paid this is a separate matter, a custodial sentence may be imposed, but that is entirely a matter for the courts.  In 2020, there were no admissions into prison associated with failing to pay a fine in respect of the non-payment of a TV licence in England and Wales. To ensure readers are correctly informed, please could you update the piece?’

I would like to ask you the two following questions:

Was this an authorised communication from BBC licensing? 

Is it now the BBC’s official view that no one is jailed in consequence of non-payment of the licence fee?  

Technically, of course, a custodial sentence is the consequence of non-payment of a fine imposed because of evasion of the licence fee. But the fact remains that the root cause of such a sentence – the sine qua non – is because offenders have not paid their licence fee.

In all the circumstances, I do not regard what our columnist wrote to be inaccurate, and I would also like an apology for being approached in this unprofessional and rather disrespectful way.

We are publishing this as an open letter on the TCW Defending Freedom website tomorrow.

Yours sincerely,

Kathy Gyngell

Editor, TCW Defending Freedom

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The Evil of Sanctions

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 23, 2022

After maneuvering Russia into choosing either (1) to permit the U.S. to install its missiles, bases, troops, tanks, and weaponry along Russia’s border in Ukraine or (2) to invade Ukraine to prevent that from happening, President Biden, the Pentagon, and the CIA are now responding to Russia’s choice of (2) by imposing brutal sanctions on the Russian people.

Oh sure, they are making out like the sanctions are targeting Russian President Putin and the Russian “elites” in the government that are supporting the invasion. But that’s just another lie. In fact, the sanctions are designed to do the same thing as the sanctions against Iran, Cuba (i.e., the embargo), North Korea, China, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They are designed to squeeze the Russian people with impoverishment and even death in the hope that they will protest and cause Russian President Vladimir Putin to change course or even violently revolt against Putin’s regime.

Of course, never mind that some protestors are likely to get killed or that a revolution would mean thousands of deaths. That never matters to U.S. officials. What matters is the political goal they are striving to achieve with their sanctions. Any number of foreigners who get killed in the process of trying to achieve that goal is entirely acceptable. That’s why, for example, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright exclaimed that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions on Iraq were “worth it.”

The first thing that must be recognized is the fundamental evil of targeting innocent people with death and impoverishment as a way to achieve a political goal. Isn’t that why we condemn terrorism? Where is the moral justification for targeting the Russian people with death and impoverishment simply because their government is doing something that is illegal or unjustifiable?

The problem is that the American people have become so accustomed to sanctions and embargoes as a foreign policy tool that they unable to recognize the evil on which they are based. But the fact is that sanctions and embargoes are no different in principle from terrorism, in that they both target innocent people with death and suffering as a way to achieve a political goal.

The second thing that must be recognized: Sanctions don’t achieve their political goal, which means that the death and suffering they inflict is useless.

Consider the 60-year embargo on Cuba. It was intended to oust Fidel Castro from power and, after he died, to oust Cuba’s communist regime from power and replace it with another pro-U.S. dictatorship. It still hasn’t achieved its goal, notwithstanding the death and suffering it has inflicted on the Cuban people for six decades.

Consider the brutal system of sanctions on Iraq. It contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children — yes, children! — and it still did not succeed in ousting the Pentagon’s longtime partner and ally, Saddam Hussein, from power.

Consider the brutal sanctions against Iran. U.S. officials have targeted the Iranian people with death and suffering in the hope that they will rise up and oust Iran’s anti-U.S. regime and replace it with with another pro-U.S. dictatorship, similar to that of the Shah of Iran, who the CIA installed into power with a coup in 1953. Despite the death and suffering among the Iranian people, Iran’s theoretic ‘dictatorship’ remains in power.

Third is a point that Biden’s, the Pentagon’s, and the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird assets in the mainstream press just don’t get or don’t care about: U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries constitute a direct infringement on the liberty of the American people.

Under principles of liberty, people have the right to trade with whomever they want and to travel wherever they want. Those are fundamental, natural, God-given rights that no government, not even the U.S. government, can legitimately infringe.

Yet, that is precisely what U.S. sanctions do. They contribute to the destruction of our own rights and liberties at the hands of our own government.

Thus, we have the spectacle of the U.S. national-security establishment, through its NATO machinations, making Russia one of its official enemies, then cornering Russia into invading Ukraine (versus permitting U.S. missiles, bases, tanks, and troops to be established on Russia’s border), and then using this manufactured crisis to further destroy the rights and liberties of the American citizenry.

Our ancestors warned us about this type of thing. That’s why they called into existence a limited-government republic and rejected the national-security state form of governmental structure under which we now live. That’s why there was no Pentagon, military-industrial complex, CIA, or NSA for the first 150 years of American history. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned us against “entangling alliances,” such as NATO. John Quincy Adams, in his 1821 speech “In Search of Monsters to Destroy,” explained the reasons for America’s founding foreign policy of non-interventionism into the affairs and crises of foreign nations.

An updated warning came in President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address where he pointed out that the “military-industrial complex” posed a grave threat to the freedom and democratic processes of the American people. His warning was followed by that of President Kennedy, the last president who was wiling to stand up against the overwhelming power of the national-security establishment. Kennedy’s warning was followed by that of former President Truman, who, thirty days after JFK was killed, pointed out that the CIA had become a sinister force in American life.

It’s time for Americans to do some serious soul-searching. The question should not be what to do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The big question to be discussed and debated shoud instead be: Should America restore its founding systems of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy and get America back on the road toward liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world?

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

HOSPITAL COVID GUIDE 1.0 

By Jeff Childers | Coffee and Covid | January 31, 2022

Today I’m publishing the first draft of a guide I’ve prepared to help with all the Covid hospitalization problems, based on my legal and practice experience dealing with clients and help-seekers from all over the country. The guide is meant to be studied BEFORE you get to the hospital, and provides suggestions for folks who are already hospitalized.

I hope this helps save someone’s life.

This is a first draft. I will be refining and expanding this guide, and will post subsequent versions when they are available. If you have any suggestions for improvements to the guide, post them in the comments.

The single most common call we are getting in our office these days is the scenario where a loved-one has been admitted to the hospital, diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, often attached to a ventilator, and has become concerned about their course of treatment. In many cases the hospitals have refused to release the patient, citing their unstable condition, meaning that at some point, it can become impossible to get off the Covid express.

The most common complaints we get include that patients are being pressured to accept Remdesivir, have been given Remdesivir even though they objected to it, or the hospital will not administer alternative widely-used treatments even though the patient is in critical condition where side effects are less risky than imminent death. I have personally seen hospitals spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep patients in their facility.

Here are some suggestions, starting with the time before admission. You should read this now and you might want to bookmark it for later. It could save your life.

## Common Suggestions

[1] Document everything when working with a hospital. Keep or make all paperwork. Take pictures and video of everything. Be organized.

[2] Determine whether you are in a one-party consent or two-party consent state for recordings, and then record meetings with hospital staff. If in a two-party state, you must notify the other party they are being recorded or it may be a felony. Record everything. One option for notice is to just put up a handwritten sign near the patient’s bed notifying folks that recordings are being made for quality assurance. Obviously document the existence of the sign.

[3] Keep a log of the names of all hospital staff involved in the patient’s care.

[4] Before getting anywhere near the hospital, or as soon as you read this if in the hospital, you MUST complete a medical health surrogacy form. This will legally designate the person who can direct your care if you become unable to do so.

Here’s the example form for the State of Florida: http://www.myfloridalegal.com/desigsurrogfaq.pdf

Do some googling for your area.

[5] If you’re in the hospital, or are considering admission, request a copy of the hospital’s current Covid protocol IN WRITING.

[6] Allied doctors have suggested that if you are in the hospital for Covid treatment, the things to focus on are the optimal use of anticoagulants, steroids, and the inpatient setting, meaning the overall day-to-day care (hydration, bedsore prevention, nutrition, etc.).

[7] Consider researching whether you want to receive glucose (sugar water) at all, since some studies suggest this can worsen Covid outcomes. This may be particularly important for diabetics and pre-diabetics. If not, make your wishes known in writing as described above.

[8] If any treating staff — nurses or doctors — make disparaging comments about your vaccination status, directly or indirectly, consider immediately instructing the hospital in writing that person may NOT be involved in your care.

[9] Always remember the old saw about catching more flies with honey. Hospital staff are stressed and unhappy about Covid; I know of many who feel they cannot speak or act freely out of fear of professional reprisal. So the nurse or doctor that you think is an opponent may in fact be an ally willing to help wherever possible, but having to parrot the party line in the meantime. Never show anger or frustration. Keep it together. This is important.

## Emergency Room

The most common scenario that we are hearing is that folks go to the ER for Covid infection and are sent home without treatment if the symptoms aren’t serious enough, and then later are admitted after the patient’s condition has worsened to the point they require hospitalization. An increasing number of reports include folks who go to the ER for a separate reason and wind up testing positive in the ER, or become positive after admission — then get bunged right into the Covid ward and — boom! — they’re on the Covid express.

[1] If you test positive in the ER, whether you were there FOR Covid or for a different reason, and are told you will be admitted, ask about at-home care alternatives. Most corporate hospitals do NOT have home-care protocols. I’ve listed websites below that provide information about alternatives for home treatment. With a little effort, you can find a local doctor or community hospital who will arrange and oversee at-home oxygen if needed.

Ask about the hospital’s Covid protocol BEFORE you agree to be admitted. Is it based on remdesivir and the ventilator? If so, you may want to review the literature on those two treatments before you agree.

[2] If you’re in the ER for a non-Covid critical condition but test positive, you’ll be admitted to the Covid ward. See the notes below, and consider discharging yourself for at-home Covid care the instant your primary issue has been stabilized.

## Pre-Surgery

If you are going in for a non-Covid-related surgery, be aware that nosocomial (hospital-acquired) Covid infections appear to be very common. In other words, even though you are there to have your appendix out, the hospital is going to start testing you for Covid about every ten seconds from the time you arrive until discharge. If you test positive, you’ll be on the Covid express before you know what happened.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been vaccinated. You can still test positive and will be treated for Covid infection.

You need to consider this risk in planning your surgery. If you test positive but don’t want remdesivir or ventilation, you need to make that clear in WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS provided to the hospital IN ADVANCE of your surgery. They need to be part of your medical record. Otherwise you could be on remdesivir even before you come out of anesthesia.

Some people may not have options because of insurance constraints and so forth. Explore your options. And if you DO have options, consider whether your surgery would be better handled in a facility where they don’t also provide Covid treatment, in order to reduce the risk of Covid hospitalization.

Finally, can your surgery be safely deferred? Don’t defer necessary surgery unnecessarily. But if you can wait, that might be a good idea.

## Early Interventions (post-admission)

This section applies to folks or their loved ones who are in the hospital with a Covid diagnosis but remain conscious.

[1] If you haven’t yet received Remdesivir, and DO NOT want it, state that in writing and give it to your doctors. Post a copy by your hospital bed.

[2] If you DO NOT want to be placed on a ventilator, state that in writing and give it to your doctors. Post a copy by your hospital bed.

Be prepared for the hospital to try, hard, to change your mind about those two treatments. This pressure may come when you are weakest. Be ready.

[3] Many people believe that Covid is best treated at home. Your circumstances may vary. Get an opinion from a telemedicine specialist in at-home Covid care like www.jamesclinic.com, or consult www.myfreedoctor.com.

Other online places to check include: aapsonline.org, AFLDS.com, https://covid19criticalcare.com (FLCCC), and GlobalCovidSummit.org.

[4] If you decide that you prefer to treat your Covid at home, or can find a non-corporate independent clinic somewhere that will accept you, discharge yourself. If the hospital pushes back on discharge, you may need to discharge yourself “Against Medical Advice,” or AMA. Ask if your hospital has its own form, otherwise google one.

## Late Interventions

In this section, the patient is no longer conscious or capable of directing their own care. Many times these patients are, unfortunately, already on the ventilator. Therefore relatives or a surrogate are making decisions for the patient. Many patients in this condition are essentially just waiting to die.

[1] If you are concerned about the quality of care, immediately get the hospital’s “Patient Advocate” involved. Most hospitals have one.

[2] Get a second opinion. You’ll need to find a local independent doctor to provide a second treatment opinion. Obviously you will need a doctor who specializes in Covid treatment. You should request the doctor be allowed to evaluate the patient even if they lack admitting privileges for purposes of a second opinion. Request that the doctor be permitted to participate in patient conferences even if by phone.

[3] If at all possible, arrange for someone to be in the room with the patient at all times to ensure consistent high quality of care. At ALL times. Do it in shifts. Even in the middle of the night. Things can happen over the night shift. This person should be checking hydration levels and conferring when possible with nurses and doctors assigned to the patient.

[4] Advocate continually for alternative treatments (iv.mectin, fluvoxamine, and/or monoclonal antibody treatments), if approved by the outside physician.

[5] Some people have successfully arranged to have alternative treatment providers see the patient; or have managed transfers to other hospitals with more flexible Covid treatment, specialized clinics, or even at-home treatment. You may have to insist on the patient being discharged AMA.

[6] Right-To-Try. Consider drug treatments still in clinical trials with right-to-try programs. You MUST use the magic words “I am requesting this against medical advice,” or the hospital will usually reject or ignore your request. Note that iv.mectin and fluvoxamine are APPROVED drugs and are excluded from right-to-try.

For example, one drug in this category that has been frequently mentioned is Zysemi. See (https://tinyurl.com/2p84528z).

[7] You might want to familiarize yourself with successful hospital protocols from 2020, like placing ventilated patients on their stomach.

[8] Your primary goal is to wean the patient off the ventilator. The longer they are on the ventilator, the more likely it is that their condition will continue to deteriorate. Once off the ventilator, you can transition to at-home care.

## Legal Options

[1] Court Options. Court options are limited, and expensive, but have worked in some places. Laws vary widely state-by-state. In Florida, the applicable law is Probate Rule 5.900, which provides for an emergency hearing about patient treatment within 72 hours. My suggestion is that the Court be asked ONLY that the patient (a) be allowed to be treated by the outside physician, or (b) that the patient be released AMA.

As an example, here is a link to Florida Rule 5.900: (https://tinyurl.com/2p8hm8kx).

Your lawyer should carefully consider that asking a Court to order administration of iv.mectin is a risky ask. There have been some successes with this approach, but also many, many failures. Courts have wide latitude in what they can do (or not do) in these situations. Adding a controversial drug into the equation makes the case significantly harder, and since judges are people too, the judge’s preconceived notions about iv.mectin will be a factor. You do NOT want to get into a giant evidentiary battle over the efficacy of iv.mectin.

In other words, simpler and less intrusive requests are more likely to be granted by the Court.

[2] Police Reports. If the patient was given Remdesivir against instructions, that may be a battery, and you might want to consider filing a police report against the hospital and involved staff. If the patient passed away, the stakes are even higher. Although it is hard to say whether the police report will amount to anything, it may be very helpful documentation later. Obviously, provide the police with all paperwork and evidence that you have and keep a file copy of the police report.

I hope this helps. These cases are the worst, most heart-breaking cases I have ever handled in my career. The stakes are literally life-and-death. I don’t mean this guide to be critical of well-meaning doctors and nurses in corporate hospitals — many, if not most are heroic professionals who want the best for patients. Unfortunately, the incentives (e.g. government payments to hospitals) are totally perverse.

Finally, remember that you are not alone! There are more and more advocacy groups forming to help people trapped in hospitals receiving ineffective or harmful treatment. But time is short. The best defense is a good offense; be prepared BEFORE you reach the emergency room.

DISCLAIMER: This is not medical advice. I’m a lawyer, not a doctor. You should always follow the advice of a trusted physician and make your own independent decisions about your healthcare, especially when it is critical. This guide is presented only as an outline to help inform you about options that may be available.

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

AUSTRALIANS PUT CANBERRA ON NOTICE

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | February 22, 2022

Bonus video:

Senior Australian Military Doctor Visited by Police After Contacting MP About COVID Policies

https://www.bitchute.com/video/Sgw6JfOocfAg/

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Skepticism as a New Way of Life

BY JOAKIM BOOK | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | FEBRUARY 22, 2022

The 2020-2022 pandemic split parties and ideologues, separated friend from friend and family members from family members. Neighbors were dangerous, and strangers even more so: the invisible enemy stalking our lands overturned every other concern in life: The conflicts it spurred replaced bonds of affection with fear and hatred.

More than ever, we need calm and level-headed thinkers, honest and willing to admit past errors, with eyes wide open for the corruption of industry or government itself. In other words, we need as little politics as humanly possible. As I wrote in a previous piece: we need “people without a clear ideological position, and who can thus appeal to audiences across the political spectrum.”

Two sane figures recently attempted the impossible: to speak calmly to the other side, trying earnestly to explain what happened – Konstantin Kisin, of the popular show Triggernometry, and Columbia sociology professor Musa al-Gharbi.

Kisin begins his monologue with “You’re struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant. Let me help you.”

He uses no study result, no appeal to the biological effect of the drug that has become the main symbol of the Covid conflict; no death rates or R0; no projection of spread or what number of lives lockdowns may or may not have saved. Instead Kisin, for 13 spellbinding minutes, walks us through the many good reasons that people had – before and during Covid – to distrust the elites in politics, business, and media. If this is a question of (dis)trusting the establishment (including “the” Science), you must ask what the establishment did to no longer deserve that trust.

The tale begins years ago, with the Brexit vote and with the election of Donald Trump. Those events shocked the pompous leaders of the universities, the pollsters who confidently said it wouldn’t happen, the media pundits who so convincingly described to us the madness of such prospects.

For a brief moment after the unthinkable had happened, if you recall, there was an earnest desire for inclusivity – for inviting in the views that had gone overlooked in the other half of these countries. Outlets like the New York Times made an effort to portray conservative views and show the kinds of people who had long felt alienated and ostracized from civilized society. As despicable and difficult it was for their core audience to see, revealing perspectives and objections is better than silencing and hiding them.

The efforts didn’t last long and in 2019 and 2020, the monolithic thoughts that dominate these institutions willingly put their blinders on – tighter and more aggressively than before.

Kisin’s final minute is the most powerful thing in these disease-ridden past two years:

“The same people who told you Brexit would never happen; Trump would never win, and that when he did win, it was because of Russian collusion, then because of racism; that you must follow lockdown rules while they don’t; that masks don’t work and then that they do; that protests during lockdowns are a health intervention; that ransacking Black communities in the name of fighting racism is mostly peaceful justice; that Jussie Smollett was the victim of a hate crime; that men are toxic; that there’s an infinite number of genders; that Covid didn’t come from a lab, and then that it probably did; that closing borders is racist, and then that it’s the most important thing to do; that the Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation, and then that it’s not; that they would not take Trump’s vaccine, and then that you must take the vaccine; that Governor Cuomo is a great Covid leader, and then that he’s a granny killer and a sex pest; that the number of Covid deaths is one thing and then another; that hospitals are filled with Covid patients, and then that many of them caught Covid in hospital.

These are the same people now telling you that the vaccines are safe, you must take it, and if you don’t you will be a second-class citizen.

Understand vaccine hesitancy now?”

Like Steve Carell’s character says in that glorious scene from The Big Short, “Short everything that guy has touched.” These guys have fooled us once too many times: we will not comply.

The long-read for the British newspaper The Guardian by Musa al-Gharbi is even more important, partly because he speaks to his own side and partly because the piece runs in an outlet that has been heavily on the vaccine-cherishing train. Building bridges begins by showing those on your own side of the river what the land looks like on its far side.

And al-Gharbi perfectly captured the mind of the current skeptic. He lists, bullet-point by bullet-point, the clear and sensible reasons why anyone would refuse to follow along. To most of his audience, these vaccines are fantastic miracles, life-saving devices, their impact ending the pandemic in one fell swoop: “failure to comply with the directives of public health officials,” writes al-Gharbi, has thus seemed insane to the audience he addresses – probably “driven by some pathology or deficit.”

“debates turn around identifying the primary malfunction of ‘those people’: Are they ignorant? Brainwashed? Stupid? Selfish and apathetic? All of the above? Left off the menu is the possibility that hesitancy and non-compliance may actually be reasonable responses to how experts and other elites have conducted themselves, both before and during the pandemic.”

The vaccines were developed too fast, without the long and rigorous testing regimes we usually apply to pharmaceuticals to ensure efficacy, correct dosage, the target demographics, safety, and observation of long-term harm (if those safeguards are optional and superfluous, why do we have them in normal times…?). Both Biden and Harris vocally pushed against “Trump’s vaccine,” but when the power of government passed into their hands, the tune was suddenly very different. Many people smelled a political rat.

Dr. Fauci himself has engaged in noble lie after noble lie to get people to do what he says is crucial for them: if he lied about the masks and then the Wuhan lab financing and then herd-immunity targets, why should anyone believe that he hasn’t lied about more things? That the advice his agency gives out is sound? That the science he says he represents is as all-encompassing and definitive as he and others deferring to him let on?

Step by step, month by month, and variant by variant, writes al-Gharbi, the figures of vaccine efficacy kept dropping:

“the main benefit of vaccination has been revised down dramatically – from outright preventing infections to reducing severe infections – even as people are encouraged to get more and more shots in order to achieve that benefit.”

But the official advice remained, intensified even, as did the public’s discourse. Somehow, the anger against the unvaccinated strengthened.

This is not what we were promised when, in early 2020, we stoically and proudly began sacrificing aspects of our personal lives for the public good. On top of that al-Gharbi points to the billions that Big Pharma makes out of vaccines – a point that should weigh heavily on The Guardian’s readership. And harms stemming from vaccines cannot be pursued in court, as the US government shielded the companies from liabilities in order to speed up the vaccine-creation process.

Add misleading statistics, former MSNBC hosts losing their minds, modeling predictions gone haywire and it isn’t hard to see why many people want to opt out. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and the only tangible act of dissent that most people have is refusing a needle in their arm.

In genuine scientific efforts, admits al-Gharbi, people are routinely wrong – that’s how the process works and how the sum knowledge of humanity improves. Instead, in the plague years we received

“spokespeople (and “Trust the Science” stans) [who] regularly concealed uncertainties, suppressed inconvenient information and squashed internal dissent in an ill-conceived effort to seem maximally authoritative. Rather than enhancing confidence among skeptics, these moves often made authorities seem incompetent or dishonest when they were forced to change their positions.”

There are few public officials who haven’t shunned the rules they themselves made, but of course we all shun the rules – they’re impossible to live under. The hypocrisy just looks so much worse when it’s the rulemaker himself or herself doing it. al-Gharbi’s summarizing paragraph is almost as powerful as Kisin’s:

“In a world where the experts are regularly wrong but continue to project high levels of confidence even as they change their minds and update their policies, where elite narratives about the crisis often seem to be inappropriately colored by political and financial considerations, where those who share one’s own background, values and interests do not seem to have a seat at the table in making the rules – and especially among populations that have a long history of neglect and mistreatment by the elite class (leading to high levels of pre-existing and well-founded mistrust even before the pandemic) – it would actually be bizarre to unquestioningly believe and unwaveringly conform to elite guidance.”

This is the story that those skeptical of vaccines see: a dissonance between official words and reality that no amount of social ostracism or edicts from on high can eliminate. This is the story of a tribe of navel-gazing authoritarians imposing rules on the rest of us, rules that don’t make sense, that are routinely flaunted by their proponents, and in aggregate don’t achieve the goals they’re said to achieve.

There is no reason to puzzle about the loss of trust and the rise of grave skepticism about elite plans for our lives.

February 22, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

World Economic Forum pushes digital ID system that will determine access to services

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | February 22, 2022

The World Economic Forum (WEF), an international organization that works to “shape global, regional and industry agendas,” recently published its latest dystopian proposal – a far-reaching digital ID system that will collect as much data as possible on individuals and then use this data to determine their level of access to various services.

This digital ID proposal is outlined in a report titled “Advancing Digital Agency: The Power of Data Intermediaries” and builds upon a digital ID framework that the WEF has published previously.

Under this framework, the WEF proposes collecting data from many aspects of people’s “everyday lives” through their devices, telecommunications networks, and third-party service providers.

The WEF suggests that this data collection dragnet would allow a digital ID to scoop up data on people’s online behavior, purchase history, network usage, credit history, biometrics, names, national identity numbers, medical history, travel history, social accounts, e-government accounts, bank accounts, energy usage, health stats, education, and more.

Once the digital ID has access to this huge, highly personal data set, the WEF proposes using it to decide whether users are allowed to “own and use devices,” “open bank accounts,” “carry out online financial transactions,” “conduct business transactions,” “access insurance, treatment,” “book trips,” “go through border control between countries or regions,” “access third-party services that rely on social media logins,” “file taxes, vote, collect benefits,” and more.

In this Advancing Digital Agency: The Power of Data Intermediaries report, the WEF positions this digital ID framework as the part of the solution to a “trust gap in data sharing” and notes that vaccine passports, which were mandated across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, do “by nature serve as a form of digital identity.”

The WEF also praises the way vaccine passports have allowed governments to harvest data from their populations without “notice and consent”:

“At a collective level, vaccine data is an incredible public health asset. The United Kingdom Government in particular has acknowledged this and has suggested that anonymization, pseudonymization and data shielding techniques could be harnessed in a controlled environment to allow for the reuse of that highly sensitive data. In such cases, notice and consent is not required per se for the reuse of the data but the intermediary processes the data undergoes must be done in a controlled environment so that the findings of the data set are made available rather than the data itself.”

Additionally, the WEF provides a specific example of how digital IDs could be used to authenticate a user (by using fingerprints, a password, or identity verification technology) and decide whether they should be granted access to a bank loan by judging their profile (which may include their biometrics, name, and national identity number) and history (which may include their credit, medical, and online purchasing history).

The WEF goes on to suggest that digital IDs will “allow for the selection of preferences and the making of certain choices in advance” and ultimately pave the way for “automated decision-making” where a “trusted digital assistant” “automates permissions for people and effectively manages their data across different services” to “overcome the limitations of notice and consent.”

This push for an invasive digital ID system from the WEF follows it proposing other similar surveillance systems such as turning your heartbeat into a digital ID. Throughout the pandemic, the WEF has consistently advocated for vaccine passports and digital ID.

Beyond these specific proposals, the WEF is infamous for its globalist and transhumanist agendas such as the “Great Reset” (which proposes that people will “own nothing” and “be happy”) and the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (which, according to WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab, will lead to “a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities”).

Governments and private corporations are increasingly embracing digital IDs. Some governments are also pushing a similar notion – social credit-style apps that monitor citizens’ behavior and reward them for engaging in state-approved actions.

February 22, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Details of Russia-Donbass cooperation treaty emerge

RT | February 21, 2022

While the treaties of friendship and cooperation between Russia and the newly recognized republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are still in the draft stage, the Russian State Duma has released the proposed documents on Monday, showing that they will include common defense against external aggression and the right to use each other’s military infrastructure, among other things.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has recognized the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk – two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine – as independent states on Monday.

The State Duma overwhelmingly voted in favor of recognizing the rebel regions last week. The draft treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with both newly recognized states – due to last at least 10 years – have now been published on the legislature’s website.

Of particular interest is Article 5, which gives both contracting parties the right to “build, use and improve military infrastructure, bases and other objects on their territory.” The Kremlin has already ordered Russian troops to deploy into the two areas as peacekeepers, pending a formal treaty on military cooperation.

Article 6 bars both parties from “entering any blocs or alliances directed against either of them” and will not allow their territory to be used for launching attacks against one another.

Article 11 envisions free movement of citizens between the contracting parties, and obligates both Russia and the republics to “develop and implement an agreed set of measures to regulate the regime of entry into and exit from their territory of citizens of third countries.”

Article 13 also obligates the contracting parties to protect the “ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious identity of national minorities in their territories and create conditions to preserve and develop” these identities while guaranteeing individual and collective minority rights “without being subjected to any attempts of assimilation against their will.”

Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence from Ukraine in 2014, after US-backed nationalists overthrew the democratically elected government in Kiev. They sought recognition from Russia at the time, but Moscow declined, insisting their conflict was an internal Ukrainian matter.

Russia had joined France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format to mediate an armistice between Kiev and the rebels in Minsk in 2014-2015. The process envisioned Ukraine giving the two regions broad autonomy, but Kiev repeatedly declined to live up to its obligations – instead changing Ukraine’s constitution to make that impossible.

Putin cited this development and accused Ukraine of wanting to conquer the two regions by force, in his speech on Monday announcing the recognition of the Donbass republics as a move “long overdue.”

February 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

The Ugly Face of Trudeau Regime Tyranny in Canada’s Capital

By Stephen Lendman | February 21, 2022

According to local media reports, Trudeau regime storm troopers arrested 191 nonviolent freedom-fighting truckers and supporters through Sunday.

Towing removed 57 vehicles.

The Ottawa police tweeted that operations continue “to remove all vehicles parked” near parliament Hill.

According to interim police chief Steve Bell:

“We will continue to work through the night, through the coming day and/or days until” streets are cleared.

As of Sunday, 103 peaceful protesters, threatening no one, face phony charges, including mischief and obstructing police.

According to Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, (illegally) seized vehicles may be sold instead of returning them to their rightful owners.

Defying the rule of law, Watson falsely claimed the right to “confiscate…vehicles and sell them (sic),” adding:

“I want to see them sold. I don’t want (them) return(ed).”

So-called investigations of police state violence against peaceful protesters assure coverup and denial whitewashing ahead.

Bell signaled what’s coming by claiming that police on horseback didn’t trample anyone.

Two protesters “collided” with horses, he said, falsely blaming the injured for police state violence.

Saying “no one (was) seriously injured (by) police actions. Safety is our priority” ignored trampling, beating, pepper-spraying and other violence against peaceful protesters by Trudeau regime goon squads.

Draconian actions flagrantly breached Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedom.

Trudeau regime tyranny abolished it.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) also tweeted:

“If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges.”

A Freedom Convoy 2022 statement said:

“The use of more force will only be used to punish people, and not preserve or establish order.”

Commenting on Trudeau regime police state tactics, GOP Senator Rand Paul said the following:

“The Emergency edict that Trudeau has done in Canada allows him to do some horrendous things.”

“It allows him to stop travel, allows him to detain people without trial.”

Separately, Paul tweeted:

“Canada became Egypt…ruled by emergency edict that allows prohibition of public assembly, travel, and the commandeering of private companies without your day in court.”

Last week, Canadian Law Professor Ryan Alford condemned Trudeau’s “power grab.”

At a time when no national emergency exists, an invented one alone, Alford stressed that “not a single violent incident” justified Trudeau’s abuse of power.

He “failed to meet the requirements for invoking the Emergencies Act.”

“His doing so is clearly unconstitutional.”

Over the weekend, US Rep. Yvette Herrell said she’ll “introduc(e) legislation (to) temporarily grant asylum to innocent Canadian protesters who are being persecuted by their own government.”

“We cannot be silent as our neighbors to the north are treated so badly.”

At this time, constitutional law in Canada is null and void.

Trudeau regime tyranny replaced it.

A Final Comment

On February 23, US truckers comprising the People’s Convoy will depart from Adelanto Stadium in southern California for Washington, DC.

They’ll be joined by “frontline doctors, lawyers, first-responders, former military servicemen and women, students, retirees, mothers, fathers and children – on this peaceful and law-abiding transcontinental journey toward the east coast.”

Their mission is all about “freedom and unity…restor(ing) accountability…lifting (draconian) mandates and ending a state of emergency when none exists.

Organizations involved in the freedom-fighting mission include:

The Unity Project

The America Project

Advocates for Citizens’ Rights

US Freedom Flyers

The American Foundation for Civil Liberties & Freedom

Faith groups from every spectrum

Independent journalists are accompanying the truckers to report accurately on their peaceful, law-abiding mission.

It’s being assisted by retired military personnel and security experts.

At this time, arrival in Washington is expected on March 5.

ThePeople’sConvoy.org is the official website of the mission for accurate information.

The Truckers’ Declaration states the following:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to restore our once perfect Union, re-establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense of all, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, do ordain and establish the restoration movement of The People’s Convoy for the United States of America.”

“WE DEMAND THE DECLARATION OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CONCERNING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BE LIFTED IMMEDIATELY AND OUR CHERISHED CONSTITUTION REIGN SUPREME.”

“WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND WE STAND TOGETHER UNDER THE BANNER OF FREEDOM – FREEDOM IS THE ONE THING THAT UNITES US ALL.”

“LIBERTY FLOWS THROUGH ALL OF OUR VEINS.”

Trudeau regime tyranny suggests what likely awaits the People’s Convoy in Washington on arrival or in the days that follow.

The choice of freedom-loving people everywhere is unambiguous.

Eliminate draconian health and freedom-destroying mandates or they’ll eliminate us.

February 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

American Truckers are launching The People’s Convoy, a peaceful and unified transcontinental movement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For media inquiries contact:
Email: thepeoplesconvoy@protonmail.com

American Truckers are launching The People’s Convoy, a peaceful and unified transcontinental movement, on February 23 from Adelanto Stadium in Southern California

ADELANTO, Calif., (Feb. 20, 2022) American truckers are launching The People’s Convoy, a peaceful and unified transcontinental movement, on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, from the Adelanto Stadium in Southern California. Starting at 10:00 a.m., hundreds of truckers will hear words of encouragement and blessings from a group of speakers including FLCCC President Dr. Pierre Kory and Godspeak Church Pastor Rob McCoy. The truckers and blue-collar workers of the United States will be joined by freedom-loving supporters from all walks of life – frontline doctors, lawyers, first- responders, former military servicemen and women, students, retirees, mothers, fathers and children – on this peaceful and law-abiding transcontinental journey toward the east coast. The truckers encourage one and all to come out to the stadium in the heart of Adelanto, California to wish them well, see them off and join in the journey.

This convoy is about freedom and unity: the truckers are riding unified across party and state lines and with people of all colors and creeds – Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Mormons, Agnostics, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Republican, Democrats. All individuals are welcome to participate by either attending the launch gathering – at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday February 23, at Adelanto Stadium – or by getting in their own vehicles and following the big rigs from Adelanto toward the east coast!

The message of The People’s Convoy is simple. The last 23 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a rough road for all Americans to travel: spiritually, emotionally, physically, and – not least – financially. With the advent of the vaccine and workable therapeutic agents, along with the hard work of so many sectors that contributed to declining COVID-19 cases and severity of illness, it is now time to re-open the country. The average American worker needs to be able to end-run the economic hardships of the last two years, and get back to the business of making bread – so they can pay their rents and mortgages and help jumpstart this economy. To that end, it’s time for elected officials to work with the blue collar and white-collar workers of America and restore accountability and liberty – by lifting all mandates and ending the state of emergency – as COVID is well-in-hand now, and Americans need to get back to work in a free and unrestricted manner.

The People’s Convoy is a non-partisan, trucker-led effort supported by a cross-cultural and multi-faith contingent of supporters including

  • Dr. Pierre Kory and the doctors of the Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC)
  • Liberty-minded lawyers such as Tom Renz and Joey Gilbert (Gubernatorial candidate – Nevada)
  • Pastors like Rob McCoy and Rick Brown of Godspeak Church
  • Transportation workers including rail workers and pilotsA broad consortium of organizations including
  • The Unity Project
  • The America Project
  • Advocates for Citizens’ Rights
  • U.S. Freedom Flyers
  • The American Foundation for Civil Liberties & Freedom
  • Faith groups from every spectrum

Newsmax and Eric Bolling have indicated they will do a ride along and live daily updates from the convoy with Maureen Steele. The Epoch Times and a variety of other journalists, media outlets and podcasters will also be embedding. Children’s Health Defense’s CHD.TV will be covering the convoy – and the activists on the ground and across the country – with live updates every day at 10 am EST at https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/.

The convoy is being assisted by retired military personnel and security experts, who are spearheading logistics in order to ensure a 100% safe, lawful, and peaceful journey.

The People’s Convoy Route*

*Route subject to change

Day 1: Wednesday, February 23

Morning – Depart Adelanto Stadium, CA
Evening – Arrive in Kingman, AZ for overnight stay

Day 2: Thursday, February 24

Morning – Depart Kingman, AZ head east on I-40, toward Lupton, AZ Evening – Arrive in Lupton, AZ for overnight stay

Day 3: Friday, February 25

Morning – Depart Lupton, AZ on I-40 eastbound thru New Mexico Evening – Arrive in Glenrio, TX for overnight stay

Day 4: Saturday, February 26

Morning – Depart Glenrio, TX
Evening – Arrive in Elk City, OK area for overnight stay

Day 5: Sunday, February 27

Morning – Depart Elk City, OK area
Evening – Arrive in Vinita, OK area for overnight stay

Day 6: Monday, February 28

Morning – Depart Vinita, OK area
Evening – Arrive in Sullivan, MO area for overnight stay

Day 7: Tuesday, March 1

Morning – Depart Sullivan, MO area
Evening – Arrive in Indianapolis, IN area for overnight stay

Day 8: Wednesday, March 2

Morning – Depart Indianapolis, IN area
Evening – Pause for rest in Indianapolis, IN area for overnight stay

Day 9: Thursday, March 3

Morning – Depart Indianapolis, IN area
Evening – Arrive in Cambridge, OH area for overnight stay

Day 10: Friday, March 4

Morning – Depart Cambridge, OH area
Evening – Arrive in Hagerstown, MD area for overnight stay

Day 11: Saturday, March 5

Morning – Depart Hagerstown, MD area Evening – Arrive in the DC Beltway area

The People’s Convoy will abide by agreements with local authorities, and terminate in the vicinity of the DC area, but will NOT be going into DC proper.

Stay tuned for opportunities for elected officials and regular folks to go “Ridin’ Shotgun” with an actual trucker for a day – as well as an opportunity to bid on one seat that will be sold on our Operations Vehicle – for a similar ride-along opportunity. Details will be posted to the website soon.

To support the truckers, see the routes, or find out more, please visit: http://www.ThePeoplesConvoy.org This website and the official social media handles are the ONLY source of accurate data about this

peaceful, law-abiding convoy – we hope to see America there!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepeoplesconvoyusa/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/peoplesconvoyus

February 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to the Professional Bodies of Counsellors and Psychological Therapists in the UK

Therapists for Medical Freedom | February 17, 2022

We write as a group of registered counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists in clinical practice in the United Kingdom.

We are contacting you to express our grave concerns around Vaccines as a Condition of Deployment (VCOD) mandates for health and social care professionals, and the implications that these could have for our profession.

Whilst we welcome the recent suspension of the NHS vaccine mandate [1] to allow space for further public consultation, we are also aware that Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has made it clear that the debate on mandatory vaccination is far from over. He was quoted in The Times on 7th February as demanding that medical regulators send the “clear message” that healthcare workers must be vaccinated against coronavirus. [2]

The implication here is that the onus of enforcing and policing the vaccination status of healthcare workers could be shifted from employers to professional/regulatory bodies. We are concerned about the silence of our professional bodies on this matter and now seek urgent clarification on their positions.

We call upon our professional bodies to publicly reject any policy of mandating COVID-19 vaccines as a condition of registration and/or deployment amongst their membership – either now or at a future point. Furthermore, we urge them to commit to protecting the right to informed consent and bodily autonomy, both for their professional membership and the clients we serve.

In particular, we would like the professional bodies to consider and respond to our professional concerns on the following points:

1. Mandatory vaccination policies conflict with our professional ethics as counsellors and psychological therapists.

One of the core principles common to the Ethical Frameworks of all our professional bodies is that of upholding client autonomy and their right to informed consent to treatment.

As health practitioners, we rightly understand that no medical or clinical intervention can be considered universally safe. We know from our own practice that even authorised, regulated and ethically sound medical treatments can still pose significant risks and have the potential to cause harm at an individual level.

As such, suitability for any medical treatment needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis and can only be authorised with informed consent from the client (so long as they have the capacity to do so), after they have been given full and accurate information around any potential risks.

This principle of informed consent is not only vital to our ethical practice, it is upheld as a central principle within wider medical ethics and international human rights law. For example, in the UK all medical interventions in the NHS must be fully voluntary and in line with this principle of informed consent:

The decision to either consent or not to consent to treatment must be made by the person, and must not be influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family… If an adult has the capacity to make a voluntary and informed decision to consent to or refuse a particular treatment, their decision must be respected. [3]

In March 2015, a significant judgement about the nature of informed medical consent was made in the UK Supreme Court. [4] The court clarified that doctors must: “take reasonable care to ensure that the patient is aware of any material risks involved in any treatment,” in which, “a reasonable person in the patient’s position would be likely to attach significance to the risk, or the doctor is aware that the particular patient would be likely to attach significance to it”. 

The court ruled that UK doctors can no longer rely on simply sharing the consensus of a body of medical opinion (‘the Bolam test’) as a basis for a patient’s informed consent, but a personalised risk assessment must be given. In the case of COVID-19 mandates, this means that generic claims that ‘the science is settled’ or ‘vaccines are safe and effective’ – cannot be used to justify their safety for an individual. [5]

The public and professional discourse on COVID-19 vaccination mandates are an example of how social pressure can be exerted on individuals to have a particular health intervention, even without a full individual risk assessment or any long-term safety data. As such, mandates can be considered medically coercive and in direct violation of the legal principle of informed consent.

We call on our professional bodies to recognise that coercion does not equal informed consent.

2. COVID-19 vaccines are far from universally ‘safe and effective’.

COVID-19 vaccinations use novel technologies which have been in widespread use for little more than a year, are still in clinical trials and for which by definition no long-term safety data is available.

Since the start of the vaccine rollout, we have already seen a significant shift from the COVID-19 jabs being promoted as being ‘safe and 100% effective’ [6][7][8][9] – to a recognition that there can be serious, even fatal side effects for a small minority of people. Their overall efficacy, especially in reducing transmission and preventing the spread of Coronavirus, is also far from what was originally hoped for.

Furthermore, since their general release, some COVID-19 injections have now been discontinued for use within certain demographics due to safety concerns. For example, the AZ and Moderna vaccines have been discontinued for young people in several countries after safety concerns arose around the risks of blood clots, following several high-profile deaths. In more recent months there have been emerging scientific studies showing the risks, particularly to younger males, of serious side effects such as myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination, as well as ongoing concerns about the impact of vaccines on the female menstrual cycle. Both concerns have led to the commissioning of major safety investigations through additional clinical trials.

Whatever the outcome of these investigations, the fact remains that our understanding of these novel COVID-19 vaccines and the risks they pose to human health is far from comprehensive or complete.

Whenever there is risk of significant harm from a medical intervention, especially when the treatment is newly developed and those harms could be life-threatening, it is imperative that there is free choice for the individual to refuse that treatment without fear of negative consequences.

For professional bodies to require mandatory vaccination as a condition of professional registration, for acceptance on professional training courses, or as a condition of employment, would amount to unethical coercion of its professional members. To do so would place the professional bodies in direct violation of the principle of informed consent.

We ask that the professional bodies join us in speaking out against the unethical nature of mandatory vaccination policies, and publicly affirm their commitment to the ethical principle of informed medical consent.

As counsellors and therapists, we recognise that assessing the safety profile of a specific intervention is only one aspect of the complex decision-making process that informs our consent to medical treatment.

An individual’s moral, spiritual and political beliefs, as well as their cultural practices, life experiences and approach to managing their health, will also have an impact on their willingness to give, or withhold, informed medical consent.

Many of us take a holistic, person-centred approach to working with our clients. As such, we believe in the validity, authority and importance of these broader factors that can be drawn upon to inform medical consent. We see these wider factors as valuable, essential and equal; individuals have a right to refuse a medical treatment on wider grounds than its official safety profile or potential side effects. We are particularly concerned about the impact of mandates on those who have complex health conditions, those who have prior experiences of being harmed by medical treatments, those who favour their natural immunity, and those with religious or ethical concerns about the development process of the vaccines.

Current government guidelines for vaccine mandates only grant ‘medical exemption’ to staff with a tiny number of officially permitted medical conditions [10], with no allowance for many broader concerns that could be central to someone deciding not to consent to a COVID-19 injection. We believe that the government has no lawful right or moral authority to draw up a set of very limited medical criteria and then insist that these are the only permitted circumstances in which someone can be officially ‘exempted’ from vaccine mandates without facing redeployment or job loss.

As counsellors and psychological therapists, we uphold the right of every individual to make an informed choice about whether to take a COVID-19 vaccination, or indeed any other medical intervention, based on their own personal circumstances and medical history. We call on our professional bodies to uphold that right for practitioners and the clients we serve.

4. Professional bodies are failing in their duty of care to members who are affected by NHS vaccination mandates.

It would be incongruent for professional bodies to enshrine the principle of informed consent within their ethical codes of conduct for working with clients, whilst their professional members are not permitted to make autonomous decisions about their own medical treatment.

Mandatory vaccination policies, and the loss of the right to informed medical consent, is causing significant psychological distress to many UK counsellors and therapists, especially those working in the NHS. Many of these affected practitioners have been loyal, paying members of their respective professional bodies for decades. The silence and seeming lack of engagement from our professional bodies around this issue is both disturbing and disappointing given how severe the consequences are for members who face job loss.

The exact number of counsellors and psychological therapists who stand to be affected by NHS vaccine mandates is uncertain, as to our knowledge, there has been no formal consultation process around this issue by any of the professional bodies.

However, Therapists for Medical Freedom have now facilitated numerous free, volunteer-run support workshops for affected therapists, which have often been full to capacity. We have also had hundreds of communications from distressed members who are under significant stress from the vaccine mandate process. Many have complained to us about experiencing an utter lack of clarity, guidance or support from their professional body.

Professional bodies have a duty to represent the interests of their paying members, especially at times where their human and employment rights are under threat in a professional context.

Therapists affected by vaccine mandates deserve better treatment and representation than they are currently getting from professional bodies. This situation must change, and we appeal to professional bodies to address this with the utmost urgency.

5. Vaccine mandates will have negative consequences for clients accessing therapeutic services.

NHS England estimated that had the vaccine mandate policy been implemented in April as planned, this would have left the NHS down by at least 80,000 staff, as many planned to leave the profession rather than comply with the policy. [11]. This number would increase exponentially if vaccines were mandated as part of the professional registration process, thereby affecting health professionals working outside of NHS services, which applies to most therapists and counsellors in the UK.

To lose a significant number of counsellors and therapists at a time of national crisis could pose significant harm to clients. COVID-19 and the wide-ranging impact of restrictions on the population has left a legacy of new and worsening existing mental health problems. The Centre for Mental Health estimates that 8 million adults and 1.5 million children will need mental health support in the years following the pandemic. [12]

Those of us who have worked to provide psychological therapies throughout this challenging time are now seeing an unprecedented rise in demand for NHS and voluntary sector counselling and therapy services, to the point where people in need now face dangerously long waiting times. [13] Across the UK, even private therapy services and individual practitioners are in short supply, with many having to make difficult decisions to turn away people in need because they simply do not have the resources to treat them. At a time of increased mental health need, vaccine mandates would therefore be detrimental for current and future clients.

We call upon the professional bodies to provide reassurance that clients’ access to therapeutic support will not be restricted based on vaccination status, either now or in the future. We also call on them to reject policies that will risk the loss of experienced practitioners, put further strain on existing services and staff, and potentially dissuade others from training to enter the field.

6. It is essential to consider the wider context to mandatory vaccination policies and to remember the lessons of history.

As counsellors and psychological therapists, when faced with an ethical dilemma, we are encouraged to look beyond the issue itself and consider the wider field and context – including any relevant historical, sociological and political factors. Therefore, when considering the ethics of vaccine mandates, we must consider more than just the risk posed by COVID-19 vs the benefits and risks of vaccination.

When we step back and consider the wider socio-political context, we can clearly see that:

  • Governments do not always act in the best interests of the public they are appointed to serve, whatever their political rhetoric might be. We are seeing numerous examples of this emerging now, for example the conflicts of interests in the awarding of PPE contracts and the flouting of COVID-19 rules by senior government figures. [14]
  • There have been numerous instances in human history, especially at times of ‘national emergency’, where government bodies have actively lied to the population, exploited the situation to further their own aims, or have sought to conceal important information, especially when it could harm their wider political agenda. [15][16][17]
  • The health care system has a long history of being vulnerable to exploitation by political lobbyists, corporate donors or becoming compromised by internal pressures from within government or from regulatory bodies. Consider examples from our recent history – public health advice given to reassure the public of the safety of tobacco, pesticides, GMOs – which have later been proven to be manifestly unsafe, despite the proclamations of the government-sanctioned public health experts of the time. [18][19][20]
  • Many authorised medical treatments have later been discovered to be causing significant harm to human health and have been withdrawn from public use, despite having passed required safety checks and being widely embraced by the medical orthodoxy of the time. [21][22][23]
  • We are being exhorted to “trust the science” when there is no such thing as ‘the’ science. Rather, science has always comprised a breadth of opinions, conclusions, methods and ethical standpoints. History has shown us that public trust has not always been as safe as we would hope for in the hands of scientists and medical professionals, especially when there are financial interests at stake. [24][25]
  • Politicians, pharmaceutical companies, peer-reviewed medical research, clinical trials, regulatory bodies and individual expert opinion – all of these are vulnerable to human error, corruption and conflicts of interest which are not always declared or formalised. [26][27][28]

In the context of our collective history, as ethical health practitioners, we have a responsibility to ask difficult questions if we see draconian policies such as vaccination mandates being introduced in our society. We must continue to think critically about who would profit and benefit most from such policies. Might there also be vested interests, whether in government, science and medicine or the pharmaceutical industry, that could stand in the way of open and transparent discussion? [29][30]

It is not the terrain of ‘conspiracy theory’ for therapists and other health professionals to demand that government and medical experts are scrutinised and held to account for the policies they impose upon the public. As a profession, we must make room for alternative perspectives and difficult questions without these legitimate concerns being dismissed or slandered as ‘anti vax’, ‘dangerous disinformation’ or even more alarmingly, as ‘far-right extremism’.

It is not acceptable for our Professional Bodies to simply dismiss or silence any dissenting voices within their membership, or to ignore these difficult questions. Nor is it acceptable for heavy-handed policies such as COVID-19 vaccine mandates to be supported and justified by our professional bodies on the sole basis that they are acting in line with ‘official legislation or government guidance’ without any independent analysis of the actual effectiveness, ethics, or impact of the guidelines – or any acknowledgement that governments do not always act solely in the public interest.

Our professional bodies have a duty to carefully scrutinise any mandated public health measures that compromise our medical autonomy. They must not be accepted on face value as being in the public interest simply based on the assurances of government and its approved health advisors, or pharmaceutical companies with vested interests.

It is time for the professional bodies who represent counsellors and psychological therapists in the UK to show courage and break their collective silence on the issue of mandatory vaccination in our profession.

In light of all the above, we call on our professional bodies to:

  1. Uphold the values that are written and protected within their own ethical codes by publicly affirming their commitment to protecting the right of therapists and clients to freely give or withhold their consent to medical treatment without fear of coercion or punishment.
  2. Affirm that their commitment to upholding the right to informed consent will stand regardless of the emergence of new future variants, waves of disease or novel medical treatments.
  3. Engage with Therapists for Medical Freedom and other groups of concerned professionals in a process of dialogue around the ethics and legality of vaccine mandates in our profession.
  4. Pledge to protect the rights of therapists and clients who have exercised their lawful right to informed consent to refuse COVID-19 vaccinations.
  5. Use their authority as professional membership bodies to prohibit the implementation of discriminatory policies around COVID-19 vaccinations within their organisational membership and associated training institutes – and to publicly speak out against such discriminatory practices in the wider field.
  6. Remind their members that we each have an ethical responsibility to think critically for ourselves when assessing any government health advice, especially when it is mandated. Professional bodies should help facilitate this broader risk assessment process within their membership, especially the potentially negative impact that any existing or future public health advice might have on practitioners and clients.
  7. Take into account the broader historical, social and political context when assessing the ethics of mandatory health interventions. We cannot forget the harm that has been caused to human health and civil liberties when the right to refuse medical treatment has been denied to populations at other times in history.

We await to hear your considered responses on these important matters of professional ethics, legislation and human rights, and look forward to beginning a process of dialogue with you.

Yours sincerely,

Therapists for Medical Freedom

Principal Signatories:

Jennifer Ayling, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, UKCP

Clare Beatson, Counsellor, BACP

Elizabeth Bentley, Psychotherapist, BACP

Johann Burton, Counsellor, NCS

Paula Charnley, Counsellor, BACP

Ben Harris, Psychotherapist, MBACP

Julie Horsley, Counsellor, NCS

Frances Kandler-Singer, Psychotherapist, BACP

Naintara Land, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Rachel Maisey, Counsellor, BACP

Kate Morrissey, Psychotherapist, BACP

Melanie Pickles, Counsellor, BACP

Dr. Bruce Scott, Psychoanalyst, UKCP & CP-UK

Dr. Gary Sidley, Clinical Psychologist (Retired)

Deborah Short, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Elizabeth Smith, Psychotherapist, Pre-Accred

Leanne Ward, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Sarah Waters, Psychotherapist, MBACP

Supporting Signatories:

Marc Allen, Trainee Therapist, Pre-Accred

John Bates, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Antoine Bowes, Counsellor, BACP

Dr. Faye Bellanca, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Caroline Brett, Psychotherapist, BACP

Jacqueline O’Brien, Psychotherapist, (retired)

Sheila Burchell, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Dr. Erika Filova, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Dr. June Golding, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Andrew Harry, Counsellor, UKPTA

Susan Hayes, Psychotherapist

Jessica Horton, Counsellor, BACP & BPS

Isla Hunter, Psychotherapist, BABCP

Gabrielle Lake Mitchell, Trainee Therapist, BACP

Maggie Leathley, Psychotherapist, BACP

Jane Margerison, Psychotherapist, BACP

Jonathan Martin, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Gary McKeever, Counsellor, BACP

Caroline Montanaro, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Dr. Naomi Murphy, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC & A-CP

Dr. Rachel Newton, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC & BPS

Sue Parker Hall, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Kay Parkinson, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Dr. Helen Payne, Psychotherapist, UKCP & ADMP UK

Carolyn Polunin, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Dr. Kate Porter, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Tracy Rees, Trainee Therapist, Pre-Accred

Dr. Helen Ross, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

David Scott, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Patricia Taddei, Psychotherapist, UKCP

Dr. Lucie Turner, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Dr. Alice Welham, Clinical Psychologist, HCPC

Tracy Williams, Counsellor, BACP

Dominique Wynn, Psychotherapist, (Retired)

Sign the Open Letter

Are you a Counsellor, Psychotherapist or Clinical Psychologist based in the UK who is concerned about the impact of vaccine mandates on the profession? (whether you are personally vaccinated or not).

If so, please sign the letter.

February 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Canadian MP CENSORED For Pointing Out WEF’s Corrupt Influence Over Trudeau Regime

By Jamie White | Infowars | February 19, 2022

A Canadian MP was shut down in Parliament Saturday after bringing up the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) influence over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

Conservative MP Colin Carrie pointed out how WEF founder Klaus Schwab once bragged that his Young Global Leaders group had “penetrated” Trudeau’s government before he was abruptly cut off by the speaker of the House of Commons.

“I had a constituent who wanted me to ask a qustion about outside interference to our democracy. Klaus Schwab is the head of the World economic Forum and he bragged how his subservice WEF has ‘infiltrated governments around the world’, he said that his organization had penetrated more than half of Canada’s cabinet,” Carrie stated.

“In the interest of transparency, could the member please name which Cabinet ministers are on board with the WEF’s agenda? My concern is -” Carrie continued before the Speaker abruptly cut him off, calling the “audio” of his remarks “really, really bad.”

At that point, New Democratic Party (NDP) MP Charlie Angus accused Carrie of spreading “disinformation” for simply asking about this disturbing relationship between Trudeau and the WEF.

The fact is, Carrie’s remarks are 100% accurate.

WEF founder Klaus Schwab is on video bragging that his organization “penetrated” Prime Minister Trudeau’s government:

Trudeau himself has met with the WEF founder numerous times over the years as Prime Minister, with Schwab even once bragging that Trudeau was more loyal to the WEF than to Canada.

https://twitter.com/TheNo1Waffler/status/1493702862471323661

Additionally, several members of Trudeau’s Cabinet are openly associated with the WEF, such as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who serves as a governing member of the globalist body’s board.

Rather than openly discuss the clear conflicts of interest related to Trudeau’s relationship with the World Economic Forum, the liberal wing of Parliament instead resorted to their typical authoritarian method of censorship and gaslighting.

Remember, the WEF is the organization that claimed “you will own nothing, and you’ll be happy” as part of its Great Reset “Fourth Industrial Revolution” initiative.

February 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

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