Last week’s publication of the European Commission’s plan for a green “great leap” in the holy struggle to save the climate has definitively confirmed that the gulf of opinion, ideas, and interests between the EU’s West and its post-communist East has reached an insurmountable dimension.
The EU West, which controls Brussels and all European structures, has completely succumbed to the phantasmagorical progressivist ideology and is not willing to discuss it at all, but on the contrary wants to impose it by force on everyone, regardless of their views. We are in danger of something strongly reminiscent of the [fatal 1620 Battle of] White Mountain and the subsequent 1627-1628 Verneuerte Landesordnung [Restored Land Order, a new constitutional document] which was octroied [by Ferdinand II i.e. circumventing the legislative assembly of the estates], i.e. intolerant foreign domination, ideological monopoly enforced from the position of strength, persecution of those who disagree, de-nationalisation, and disenfranchisement.
This is not an exaggeration. Progressivist anti-humanist pseudo-salvation of the planet cannot do without such actions and suppression of dissent by force.
Hypothetically, the following possible responses are offered:
Submission and relying on somehow surviving again. That may no longer work in today’s world.
Fight within the EU. An unrealistic scenario, because there is no chance of convincing Brussels and the West of the need to change the current policy.
To respect the balance of power and agree with the other dissatisfied parties to divide the whole, whose direction is not to our liking, while preserving the maximum of the positive from the common past.
To come forward individually, which in the current constellation is not a realistic project for which we have the strength.
We have to respect that our Western European partners, disgusted by their current excess of wealth, see a meaningful future only in poverty, sacrifice, and renunciation for the sake of the planet. Let us respect that they want to renounce consumerism, flying, and personal transport, meat-eating, child-bearing, and other pleasures of life. Let us accept that polyamory and marriage for all will take the place of family for them. Let us give our Western friends the pleasures of doing good deeds in opening their borders and caring for all who head to them from the world for an easier life. Let us allow them to live in a multicultural, Islamized society with free choice of gender and total equality for every conceivable minority, protected by the surveillance of inquisitorial political correctness. Let us allow them to have their own experience of the restriction of civil rights and liberties and the only ideology allowed.
However, let us firmly demand that they respect that we – Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, and other Central and Eastern Europeans – do not want to live in such a society, that we did not enter the EU with such goals and they were not outlined to us at the time. We have our own experiences of totalitarianism and social utopias and we do not want to repeat them. We want to live in our own way and not under someone else’s dictates.
Let us try to avoid the imminent conflict and destruction of European cooperation rationally – let us divide today’s EU with respect for one another and preserve the maximum of the good that unites us. Only in this way will we be able to overcome today’s tensions that threaten to destroy the entire current shaky European construct. We Czechs and Slovaks may have something important to say about this. By taking a similar step, we avoided the serious threats after the fall of communism.
As we know, it was not beneficial for anyone to stay on the Titanic after the collision with the iceberg. The European Commission itself put such an iceberg in the EU’s path. Let us try to get off a ship that we cannot stop at any cost if we care about the future of our children. The planet will survive.
August 8, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics | European Union, Human rights |
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Almost half of the US population is fully inoculated against COVID-19, but vaccination rates have slowed due to widespread scepticism. However, the US federal government has left it up to state and local institutions, companies and other establishments to decide whether or not to make the shots compulsory.
The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association (SFSO) has warned that the city’s vaccination mandate may force law enforcement agents to retire amid an insufficient number of deputy sheriffs and other first responders, according to an official statement posted on Facebook on Friday.
“The problem we are faced with now is the strict San Francisco Mandate, which is: vaccinate or be terminated. If deputy sheriffs are forced to vaccinate, a percentage of them will retire early or seek employment elsewhere,” the organisation says.
The union stressed that a significant number of employees, 160 out 700, have already been vaccinated, while the rest of the deputy sheriffs “prefer to mask and test weekly instead of being vaccinated due to religious and other beliefs”.
“Currently, the staffing at the SFSO is at the lowest it has ever been due to the past 9-month applicant testing restriction placed on the Sheriff’s Office by the Mayor,” the post continues. “San Francisco cannot afford to lose any more deputy sheriffs or any first responders. If they retire early or quit this will affect public safety even more.”
SFSO asked city authorities to allow the personnel to comply with California’s rules, that provide the option of getting weekly tests as an alternative to inoculation. Last month San Francisco authorities imposed mandatory inoculation for all of the city’s public employees: around 35,000 people.
Amid the latest surge of COVID-19 delta variant in many countries, the US President Joe Biden, speaking last week on further measures against the coronavirus pandemic, didn’t rule out the possibility of compulsory vaccination nationwide, stressing that local authorities and employers have already the authority to require vaccination certificates.
Many institutions, including public bodies and some of the biggest companies such as Facebook, Google and Netflix, have introduced compulsory vaccination. The US military is also expected to implement mandatory inoculation, according to recent reports.
To date, nearly 194 million people (58 percent of the population) in the US have been vaccinated; almost 166 million have received two vaccine doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
August 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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It’s just two weeks. It’s just staying three feet apart. It’s just staying six feet apart. It’s just not going outside. It’s just not giving handshakes. It’s just working from home. It is just non-essential businesses that are closed.
It’s just bars. It’s just restaurants. It’s just theaters. It’s just concerts. It’s just dancing. It’s just intramural sports. It’s just choir.
It’s just non-essential medical services that you have to give up. It is just non-essential items that you are not allowed to buy. It’s just not being able to exercise. It’s just gyms. It is just the closure of your business for a while. It is just not making money for a while. It is just not being able to pay your bills for a little while.
It’s just a minor inconvenience. It’s just not being allowed to carpool. It’s just not socializing for a while. It’s just a mask. It’s just not traveling for a while. It’s just not hugging people for a while. It’s just missionary sex that is risky.
It is just not seeing your family and friends for a while. It’s just not visiting your grandparents temporarily. It’s just your grandparents not having visitors for their safety. It’s just one birthday you have to sacrifice. It’s just one Thanksgiving alone. It’s just one Christmas without your family. It’s just two birthdays you had to sacrifice. It is just not celebrating any milestones for a year and a half.
It’s just temporary. It’s just a safety measure. It is just your ability to pay cash. It is just contact tracing. It is just a health screening. It is just a temperature check. It is just a scan of your face. It’s just a minor loss of privacy.
It is just one semester. It is just two semesters. It is just one year out of your child’s life. It is just one more semester. It is just a high school graduation.
It’s just the birth of your grandchild that you missed. It is just not being able to be there for your relatives when they are ill or dying. It is just not having a funeral. It is just in person that you cannot grieve with your loved ones. It is just not getting to attend religious service. It is just not getting to practice some parts of your religion.
It is just misinformation that is being censored. It is just conservatives that are being censored. It is just some of the science that is being censored. It is just the people who have the opposing opinions that are banned online. It is just the opposition that the White House is targeting for censorship. It is just bad opinions that are being censored.
It’s just the economy. It is just small business owners who are suffering financially. It is just poor people who are suffering financially. It is just people of color who are suffering financially. It is just financial suffering. It is just a few small businesses that had to close permanently. It is just a few big businesses that closed.
It is just not going farther than a few kilometers from your house. It is just a curfew. It is just a permission slip. It is just being alone for two weeks. It is just being socially isolated for one year.
It is just one vaccine. It is just one set of booster shots. It is just regular booster shots every six months. It is just another two weeks. It is just one more lock-down. It is just once a week—twice tops—that you will have to prove that you are fit to participate in society. It is just the unvaccinated that will be segregated from society. It is just a medical test.
Pretty simple, no?
Just fucking do it.
But when you add up all the “justs,” it amounts to our entire lives.
For over a year and a half and counting, we have been robbed of the ability to live our lives fully, to make meaningful choices for ourselves, and to express our values the way we see fit.
It is “just” the inability to express our humanity and the total negation of our very selves. All of these measures have served as a prohibition of expressing outwardly one’s valid and complex internal reality. This kind of suppression of self does violence to one’s very soul.
All of these supposedly little and supposedly short-lived “justs” have transformed us into totalitarian states from which there appears to be no endpoint.
In New York City, California, Australia, etc., the people have permitted government such control over our daily lives that we have to ask it for permission to control our bodies, to move freely, to practice religion, to educate our children ourselves, to protest, etc.
Soon Biden, Trudeau, and other world leaders are going to clamp down on our ability to express ourselves and to associate with each other online so that we can no longer question, object to, or organize against government action. It is the destruction of democracy.
It astounds me that my Progressive friends — the same ones who claim to support “social justice” — are welcoming a fascist society in which government crushes any opposition and individuals cannot make choices about their own lives.
I will not comply because I do not want to live in the society that is being created by extraordinary submissiveness to government. I do not want to be complicit in this era’s atrocities.
What is the point of living if one merely exists to obey the elite to one’s own detriment? Is it even living if one lacks the agency to direct one’s life? I’ve already submitted in contradiction of my values to a shameful extent. One might say, “Well, what’s one more compromise,” but it won’t be just one more compromise. It will be just the next cut in a slow death by a thousand cuts.
Submitting only validates tyrannical displays of power and ensures that there will be more such displays in the future.
And what does one get for compromising? Merely your continued membership in a society that will only have you if you immolate yourself and become nothing more than a reflection of the desires of the ruling class.
If you cannot be truly yourself in a society, is that society worth clinging to? I think not. As much as leaving the stability of my comfort zone terrifies me, staying in it means continuing to silence and shrink myself for a disingenuous feeling of acceptance. In that way, it is more of a discomfort zone.
Each time I expressed my fears about the future direction of society, my friends said “it won’t happen.” Each time it did happen, they shrugged their shoulders and reminded me that compliance was an option.
At this point, if the government were to cart me away to an internment camp (which is not a completely far-fetched notion and which has happened in the past) for being a dangerous dissident I am certain that my friends and family would watch it happen and say it was my fault for not complying.
They are no longer capable of recognizing the humanity of the opposition or of questioning government.
I will not submit because I don’t want to live in a world in which my supposed allies would happily see me persecuted by the government.
I will not comply because the political climate has become so censorial, authoritarian, and generally toxic that my viewpoints will never be represented in the political process here. Without representation, my values and beliefs will be violated again and again by a polity that sees any deviation from itself as invalid. Thus, my compliance will provide zero assurance of any better treatment in the future.
I will not bend because I am not a conformist.
I will not give in because I do not want to reward government manipulation and coercion.
I will not surrender because I could die at any moment, and I do not want my final memories to be ones of craven submission to tyranny and the resultant misery and self-loathing.
I will not comply because it is not the government’s first intrusion on my body, mind, and spirit; and if we comply, it will definitely not be the last. All I will accomplish by my compliance is validating the government’s claim on my body and life.
I am not submitting because this is war, and I am not handing the enemy its victories.
I will not comply because the reward for compliance will still be being treated as a second class-citizen by society.
I won’t acquiesce because I am a conscientious objector.
I will not cede because the measures are unnecessary and the only practical effect will be to increase government power.
I don’t comply because I do not want to be a mere slave in the future version of the world they are creating, doing only what I am told to do and having to beg for access to the necessities of life that I am entitled to as a living being on this earth.
I will not yield because their religion is not my religion, and I refuse to worship a false idol.
I will not capitulate because I do not want to betray my ancestors and predecessors who fought for me to be free.
I will not surrender because freedom is more important than convenience and ease.
I will not comply because if I did I would be filled with rage against society, resentment towards my friends and family, and self-loathing that would eat me alive. I would become bitter and closed-hearted, and I don’t want that for myself.
All of this is why I won’t “just fucking do it.”.
Addison Reeves is a lawyer, political scientist, philosopher, and civil rights and civil liberties advocate based in New York. Addison critiques modern culture from a radical, leftist perspective at ModernHeretic.com or you can follow him on Telegram
August 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights |
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The US Department of Homeland Security has again alleged growing threats of violence from online conspiracy theorists who expect ex-president Trump to return to power, even as it said it had no details on “planned actions.”
The agency warned of “an increasing but modest level of activity” by those advocating violence online, saying they may resort to more drastic measures if Donald Trump does not regain the presidency sometime this month, as they purportedly believe will happen.
“Some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former president Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized,” the DHS said on Friday in an internal intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News.
“Over the last few days… there’s been much more public visibility, meaning the discussions and these theories have migrated away from being contained within the conspiracy and extremist online communities.”
However, despite the alarming tone of the document, the DHS went on to say that “we lack information on specific plots or planned actions,” instead citing generic “reporting” which suggests “these activities may occur during August 2021.”
Still, the agency said it does not have the “luxury” to wait around for evidence and must take a more proactive approach, adding that “lone offenders and small groups of individuals could mobilize to violence with little-to-no warning.” It did not elaborate on how it planned to prevent such unspecific threats.
Friday’s bulletin is far from Homeland’s first on the subject, as it has issued a flurry of similar warnings about so-called “domestic extremists” since the riot at the US Capitol on January 6. The agency churned out two separate documents on the growing extremism threat in June, one also pointing to ‘QAnon’ conspiracy theories about Trump’s imminent return to office. Nonetheless, that bulletin also acknowledged that DHS had “no evidence” of any particular plans for violence at the time, but merely noted that some extremists have been influenced by conspiracy theories in the past.
The FBI has also joined the growing crusade against homegrown extremism, putting out its own series of breathless warnings about QAnon, Trump supporters and conspiracy theories since the unrest at the Capitol. One joint report with the DHS in June predicted that many believers in such theories would soon “disengage from the movement,” though that apparently did not come to pass given the steady stream of warnings since.
Last month, the bureau even went as far as to urge friends and family members of suspected violent extremists to report their loved ones to the feds. The request drew heated criticism online, with some blasting the FBI as the ‘American Stasi.’
August 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | DHS, United States |
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Here is a 15 second clip of Rochelle Walensky talking to Wolf Blitzer.
She lies in the same sentence, claiming the vaccines still work “exceptionally well.”
If they don’t prevent transmission, you CANNOT USE PUBLIC HEALTH AND HERD IMMUNITY AS THE JUSTIFICATION FOR A MANDATE. At best, the vaccines might provide the recipient with some protection for a few months. But the downside is they might increase susceptibility or severity of disease later.
And when you add on the known and unknown short and long-term side effects, vaccination with an experimental product that went through minimal testing and poorly designed clinical trials just doesn’t make sense.
All the bluster about mandates was designed to trick the public into getting vaccinated before the truth came out. Now it’s out. Help your friends and family avoid these shots.
Remember: Your vaccine does NOT protect me, and it might not protect you either. Not for long. Then it might make things worse for you.
August 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | CDC, COVID-19 Vaccine |
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French President, Emmanuel Macron, provoked a huge uprising on Bastille Day after announcing his new #Covid19 vaccine passport mandate. Founder of Children’s Health Defense Europe, Senta Duypudt, gives Del an insider’s view on how the people of France are standing up to their tyrannical government.
Watch as a new Dutch civil servant & politician, Gideon Van Meijeren, skillfully outs his Prime Minister regarding his connection to WEF’s Klaus Schwab, and his approval of the ‘Great Reset.’ Grab some popcorn and enjoy this gem!
August 6, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, France, Human rights |
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By Matt Bettag, MD | August 6, 2021
When did the world become insane? What is the reason for it? Big Brother? Depopulation? Or people in love with control?
I don’t know and it’s driving me nuts. But I’ve decided I’m tired of complaining about it to my friends and family and I’m willing to put my name on the line. If the woke culture wants to ruin me for speaking the truth, I guess I might as well just get it over with now.
I have been a physician for 24 years, a practicing ENT for 19 years. I have never before seen the medical establishment just stop thinking. Insanity is the new rule, and common sense cannot even be discussed.
From the beginning, 15 days to “flatten the curve,” I was shocked. We had never done this before, but perhaps this virus was really bad, so I gave the government the benefit of the doubt.
Then came Fauci.
He initially said social distancing didn’t work, and masks were largely ineffective.
But by late March, he pronounced both masking and social distancing necessary. Weird… red flag.
What? So now I am alarmed.
I started researching the utility of masks. There were very good articles I found — one out of a respiratory center in Chicago, and another a good dental review. I bookmarked both of them. Less than a month later, the dental website was down, replaced by a text saying basically that their information is now irrelevant because of COVID. The Chicago article also had a disclaimer that previously wasn’t there saying people shouldn’t use their article politically. What? Don’t use a scientifically derived article to make a scientifically based decision on the utility of masks? What the hell is going on?
Next comes PCR testing. Let’s conveniently jack up the PCR Magnification cycles to 40+, resulting in a 90–97% false positive rate.
Then, let’s start testing all elective surgery, asymptomatic exposures, and hospitalized patients with this fake test to artificially increase the Covid numbers.
In addition we will reimburse hospitals greatly for any diagnosed COVID admissions and ICU visits.
Oxygen doesn’t work; go home until you get worse. Oh, and bring your family and friends with you; they’ll need testing.
Steroids were advised against early on, which made no sense, because they do decrease inflammation and in ENT have been used widely for viral illness.
Next we find a few weeks later the secret drug to treat COVID: steroids. What?
Hydroxychloroquine HCQ—suddenly not safe, even though it has been used for decades worldwide with a great safety profile, but not anymore. Mention it, and you are a lunatic.
The same went for all other proven therapeutics, such as ivermectin and vitamin D.
Vaccines? “I wouldn’t trust anything president Trump made.” That was Kamala Harris back in the fall.
Now if you don’t get vaccinated, you don’t care about other people, and you wanna watch people die.
Oh, and by the way, we should vaccinate everyone, including those who previously had COVID, pregnant women, and small children.
What about VAERS? That’s the open record report system that the CDC has made almost unnavigable. It’s slowly crept up and showed up to 12,000 deaths coincident with the vaccine. Then dropped to 6,000, only to come back up to 10,000 and now back to 12,000–Just a little glitch from our trustworthy government.
There are reports that the numbers could be ten times or more as high, and perhaps the CDC is misclassifying deaths to hide them. But let’s trust the government; they’ve been so good thus far.
Now the latest lie: “the delta variant, is surging because of the unvaccinated.”
Ignore the data from other countries that have very high vaccine rates but high spiking cases, and ignore the data from other countries that have low vaccine rates and almost no COVID.
As a matter fact, let’s not even look at Sweden, who essentially didn’t do lockdowns or masking, has a low vaccination rate, and has almost zero COVID.
I have never lived in the world like this, where open medical dialogue is completely suppressed and there is only one party line.
I thought the left was always talking about how we shouldn’t bully people, and we need to have “dialogue.” Well… let’s start.
The media and the government need to do their job and start opening dialogue to the other side. If we are crazy, it will come out.
If we are right, and the data show that to be the fact, then a large apology is warranted.
August 6, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, HCQ, Human rights, Ivermectin |
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Since the Government of Quebec under Premier François Legault decided to jump the gun today and announced the coming of “vaccine” certification on September 1st, possibly in response to the opposition’s demand for always harsher measures, I decided to post these extracts from my larger work earlier than planned. As always, the imitation of Americans is instant in Canada—this comes in the same week that New York City imposed its own “vaccine” certification system. In fact the Liberal Party in opposition added a cruel and perverse twist to the naming of the vaccine passport, calling it a “Freedom Passport”. Without the passport, no freedom, hence the indefinite suspension of the constitutional rights of a select group of Canadians, discriminated against on the basis of their health status. This must also mean that workers in “non-essential services” (does that include political parties?) will be mandated to get injected, or else be fired. A “vaccine passport” is thus also mandatory “vaccination” at the same time. Bruised by many months of lockdowns, private businesses are required to not only collaborate with the state, and agree to reduce their revenue by refusing customers, they also agree to be effectively deputized as the state’s auxiliary police service. Where under Canadian law it is stated that citizens are required to involuntarily divulge their private health information to strangers, it is not known, nor did Legault at any point cite any legal support (let alone scientific support) for this measure. We need to further analyze this obvious slide into full-fledged dictatorship, which uses a “pandemic” as a convenient cover and as a gold mine for imposing always more authoritarian measures.
Health Discrimination in Quebec
The Government of Quebec began planning to penalize the “vaccine hesitant,” by removing from them the freedom to access “non-essential services,” as defined by the government (Manitoba is also following). This is clearly a case of shaming and stigmatizing, and the invention of a threat from those who are officially libelled as a dangerous Other. Having invented a vaccine passport (in the works for several months), for which at first the government claimed there was no use, now the government reveals its intended use: to segregate the public and pressure people to allow themselves to be injected, preemptively blaming them for any rise in “cases” given spreading variants (to which the vaccinated are also clearly vulnerable, and which they can spread). The passports, using QR codes, were easily hacked in a trial, thus the system would further breach person’s private data. The federal government of Canada has not gone so far—since vaccine passports are discriminatory, divisive, and force people to reveal their personal health data—but is reportedly considering mandatory vaccination for all federal employees. Quebec Premier Legault, citing the flimsiest of evidence of increased infections (blamed on the unvaccinated, without any evidence) announced on August 5, 2021, that “vaccine passports” would indeed go into effect on September 1st. The “science” behind this, needless to say, is more akin to magic.
There has also been resistance to vaccine passports internationally, not just on the streets of Europe in massive weekly protests that the media refuse to cover, but also from the WHO. In the UK a parliamentary committee concluded that the scientific case for certification has not been made, that passports are discriminatory on prohibited grounds for discrimination, that there are valid concerns for privacy and data protection, and that such passports have “the potential to cause great damage socially and economically”. However, as noted by the Security and Policing Subgroup that advises the UK government, “Once the majority of the population is vaccinated, the exclusion of individuals who refuse vaccination may have public support” (SPI-B, “Lifting Restrictions: Security and Policing Implications,” February 10, 2021, p. 7)—thus one ostensible aim of mass vaccination is precisely to facilitate discrimination against the resistant. One report from France painted a complete picture of devastation wrought by the introduction of this certification regime, where citizens now have to qualify to enjoy inalienable human rights.
Vaccine certification is coercive, placing people under duress and violating free and informed consent; it is also entirely redundant and unnecessary if public health is really the issue. To be clear: vaccine certification is not a health or medical issue, it is political. Anything concerning inclusion/exclusion, controlling population mobility, borders, and passports, is by definition part of the political domain of the state. Highlighting the politics of vaccine passports, even the acute partisanship of the politics involved, witness Democrats in the US who applaud the entry of unvaccinated migrants from Central America, and yet simultaneously call for the exclusion of unvaccinated Americans from universities, schools, workplaces, and entertainment venues.
What is usually overlooked is that such a system of vaccine certification means the removal of basic rights for everyone in Quebec who is required to furnish proof of official approval to enter whichever establishment (a minor change in the app can change the range of access immediately): the right to participate in civic life is thus abrogated, rendering citizenship provisional and tentative. At a very minimum, this expands the already vastly expansive range of regulations that exist at all levels of government in Quebec, a multiplication of powers of oversight and surveillance that render personal autonomy fictitious. When people comply with this, they agree that all aspects of their everyday behaviour are now subject to licensing.
Testing the Logic of the Passport
Examine the logic of the Quebec government’s decision. For this purpose I will use a semi-fictionalized example based on elements of my own routine, and for this purpose the reader will need to assume that the person in question has not been vaccinated. Let’s begin: schools are declared essential services, so there will be no vaccine discrimination when accessing them. Professor X teaches at a university in Montreal, but does not live in the city. To get to that university, Professor X spends 1.5 hours on a heavily packed train. In the train station itself in Montreal, there is a sandwich and coffee bar, in the middle of masses of people swirling around it—there is no feasible way of barring entry, since it has no walls and no door. After the train station, Professor X switches to a crowded Metro system. He arrives at his campus’ Metro stop, and shuffles in a massive throng of people to go up escalators. Then he squeezes into a packed elevator. He arrives at a packed classroom with no windows and poor ventilation. Class lasts three hours. That is just part of the work for that day. After all is done, on his way out of Montreal, he decides to stop at a restaurant near the campus, to have a bite alone—and it is there where he is barred entry.
(Not only that: within the very same building where Professor X teaches and has his office, there are two cafes and a pub—one of the cafes has only two walls—presumably, he will be denied access to services within the same building and among the same people to which he delivers his service.)
Everywhere else, he has been inside of crowds, for many hours, but suddenly when it comes to having a burger off campus, no, that is just too much. Why? Because the “vaccinated,” benefiting from a “vaccine” that keeps them “safe,” still need to be protected from the unvaccinated. Never has such a low bar of immunity been set for a “vaccine”. The vaccinated ought to be wondering exactly what was squirted into their veins that fails to make them immune to the unvaccinated. As for the unvaccinated, they will be protected from dangerous restaurants, but somehow they will also be safe among thousands of people in buildings that are like stacks of cruise ships. The vaccinated will be protected both inside the restaurant, and inside the train station, yet Professor X cannot have a burger in the restaurant, but he can have a sandwich in the train station. The virus understands these nuanced differences and respects the government’s finicky little dividing lines.
What is to be done to people working in “non-essential services,” who are themselves unvaccinated? Are they to be laid off? How is access regulated to establishments that offer a mix of both “essential” and “non-essential”? Will guards with QR code scanners be posted in each aisle? Meanwhile, all “non-essential services” will presumably need to dedicate personnel to stand guard at entrances and scan the QR code of each single person seeking entry to the establishment. There will be lines of people—people lining up like compliant little toddlers, shifting from foot to foot, and repeating this for each store they visit. The security theatre we found in airports all these years, will now be everywhere: every “non-essential” store will have to become a security clearance point, like in an airport.
If the Quebec government’s aim was to increase exasperation, add to confusion, multiply divisions among people, expand bureaucracy, violate the right to privacy, securitize daily life, openly signal politicians’ lust for total power, effectively suspend civil rights and nullify the defining rights of citizenship, and to maximize distrust of the authorities, then this strategy is refined beyond measure. Success is assured, unquestionably.
Medical Apartheid
It’s an “exotic” word, so of course “educated” Canadians working in the media will struggle with it. Some in the Canadian media take umbrage at anyone calling such a pass-based system of discrimination, “apartheid”. They think that “apartheid” is a holy word, that is racially exclusive property belonging to a specific people. To call one act of discrimination by the same word used for another act of discrimination, somehow “cheapens” and “diminishes” that other discrimination. In other words, there is “good discrimination” which is to be applauded (“vaccine passports”) and then “bad discrimination” (which only became bad in Canada when it was politically convenient). Yet, what is the essence of apartheid? Two of the three definitions listed by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language state: “A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups” and “The condition of being separated from others; segregation”. Separation, segregation, discrimination—linking “vaccine passports” with apartheid is all the more warranted when we recognize the fact that targeted Others are forced to contain their movements within what is allowed by a pass. In both cases, the pass is associated with a certain biological property, whether it is skin colour or one’s health status.
Canada, at an official level, likes to celebrate itself as place where diversity and inclusivity reign, and where we face the injustices of the colonial past. This is very convenient, as a distraction. It is a stance that distracts from the new injustices being perpetrated in the immediate present, right under everyone’s nose.
Medical apartheid is precisely the kind of regime we would expect in a Health Security State as discussed extensively by Giorgio Agamben. Writing specifically about “vaccine passports” (or the Green Pass in the case of Italy) in a recent article which, translated from Italian, is titled “Second-Class Citizens,” he explains:
As happens every time a despotic emergency regime is established and constitutional guarantees are suspended, the result is, as happened with the Jews under fascism, the discrimination of a category of humans, who automatically become second-class citizens. This is the aim of the creation of the so-called green pass. That it is a discrimination based on personal beliefs and not an objective scientific certainty is proved by the fact that in the scientific field the debate is still ongoing on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, which, according to the opinion of doctors and scientists who there is no reason to ignore, they were produced quickly and without adequate testing.
Despite this, those who stick to their free and well-founded belief and refuse to be vaccinated will be excluded from social life. That the vaccine is thus transformed into a sort of political-religious symbol aimed at creating discrimination among citizens is evident in the irresponsible declaration of a politician, who, referring to those who do not get vaccinated, he said, without realizing that he was using a fascist jargon: “we will purge them with the green pass”. The “green card” constitutes those who do not have it in bearers of a virtual yellow star.
This is a fact whose political gravity cannot be overstated. What does a country become in which a discriminated class is created? How can one accept living with second-class citizens? The need to discriminate is as old as society and certainly forms of discrimination were also present in our so-called democratic societies; but that these factual discriminations are sanctioned by law is a barbarism that we cannot accept.
(Thanks to Robin Monotti for the translated text.) For more, see Agamben’s “Bare Life and the Vaccine”.
Such a certification regime—let us be absolutely clear about this—is authoritarian for everyone. It is not authoritarian just for the “unvaccinated” alone. Everyone who abides by such a system, agrees to furnish documentary proof to gain access to what was previously free and open to them. They thus agree to concede access, on grounds arbitrarily decided by the state. What was previously taken for granted, is now the focus of heightened securitization. This is effectively the abolition of the very concept of everyday life, for everyone.
To end on a personal note, this is an exceptionally depressing time in which I find myself. From the start, I suspected that our summer here of lessened restrictions was just a brief interim period, the carrot dangled in front of the mule before the stick struck our hindquarters again. Never have I personally witnessed such a dark curtain of fascism pulled across a society, and with such insignificant protest, and to the cheers of fake opposition parties and even faker media. Nobody will see this, thanks to ever widening censorship. I knew this was just the beginning of much worse to come, and this newest measure is itself an open door to a permanent “pandemic” of authoritarianism, fear, and the abolition of anything that can meaningfully be called society. It has come to pass, things have finally fallen apart.
August 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Canada, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Physicist Richard P. Feynman once said “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” Feynman’s statement captures how science depends upon constant questioning and challenging of assumptions. Yet, what is healthy debate to some is criminal dissent to others. Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor College of Medicine is calling for federal hate-crime protections to be extended to cover criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists. The frequent MSNBC and CNN guest wants Congress to expand hate crimes to “scientists currently targeted by far-right extremism in the United States.”
In a July 28 paper in Plos Biology titled “Mounting Antiscience Aggression in the United States,” Hotez encourages Congress to focus on the “band of ultraconservative members of the US Congress and other public officials with far-right leanings are waging organized and seemingly well-coordinated attacks against prominent US biological scientists.”
Hotez insists that it is not enough to support such science but to criminalize attacks on their research. This suggestion is just one of a number of ideas briefly put forward to support scientists but it is the most chilling. Referring Nazi and fascist movements in history, Hotez argues that good science requires cracking down on the right. He concludes:
“As Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once pointed out, neutrality or silence favors the oppressor. We must take steps to protect our scientists and take swift and positive action to counter the growing wave of far-right antiscience aggression. Not taking action is a tacit endorsement, and a guarantee that the integrity and productivity of science in the United States will be eroded or lose ground.”
The federal hate crime laws focus on basis of a person’s characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We have seen calls for adding professions like police officers, which I also opposed. As with police officers, the inclusion of such professions would have a direct and inimical impact on free speech in our society. Indeed, it would create a slippery slope as other professions demand inclusion from reporters to ministers to physicians. Hate crimes would quickly apply to a wide array of people due to their occupations.
What is most striking about the Hotez article is its lack of analytical balance. He rages against the right without even acknowledging how social media companies have already enforced a massive censorship program that bars even reporting the results of public clinical trials or repeating CDC positions on vaccinations. For a year, Big Tech has been censoring those who wanted to discuss the origins of pandemic and those who suggested the lab theory were attacked as right-wing conspiracy theorists. It was not until Biden admitted that the virus may have originated in the Wuhan lab that social media suddenly changed its position. Facebook only recently announced that people on its platform will be able to discuss the origins of Covid-19 after censoring any such discussion.
Many of us have criticized the hateful rhetoric on both sides of our politics. However, there remain important debates over not just the underlying science relating to Covid-19 but the implications of such science for public policies. Criminalizing aspects of that debate would ratchet up the threats against those with dissenting views, including some scientists. That would harm not just free speech but science in the long run.
August 4, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | United States |
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LAST week I had a house call by a Covid officer to check compliance with post-holiday quarantine following my return from the Balearics. After a lovely holiday in a destination on the green list which later turned amber, my punishment consisted of ten days’ forced isolation in three rooms (including lavatory) covering 500 square feet and no outside space.
As an unvaccinated Untouchable, I looked on in envy at my double-poked friends who returned to London being able to move about freely and my travel companion who’d be showing off her tan. I wistfully imagined the glamorous parties they’d be attending whilst I’d be limited to surfing murder mystery reruns on ITV with a slightly acidic bottle of rose.
But be careful what you envy, ladies . . .
Two such double-jabbed friends, both travelling back to the UK from amber list countries, Spain and Denmark, on different budget airlines, were pinged and ordered to self-isolate on their return. It turned out someone on both of their flights had tested positive for the virus.
Now, neither of them is dumb enough to have the NHS track and trace app but their details were taken from the forms they were required to complete to board the planes bound for home.
So it turns out that getting the poke is no guarantee of regaining your freedom at all, and definitely not any kind of insurance policy for risk-free travel abroad. This was in spite of the fact that both of them, having taken tests within 48 hours of boarding and on day 2 after landing in UK arrivals, tested negative for the virus. The one returning from Denmark was fortuitously pinged after day 2, which she interpreted to mean that her isolation could be shortened to 7 days. Both friends were also required to take a test on day 8 of isolation (so in her case after it was over), and unlike myself, their Untouchable counterpart, could not do a day 5 test to get out early for good behaviour.
Everyone keeps telling me that as of August 16 the double-vaccinated will be able to move around freely regardless of whether they have been pinged. But as in this context ‘pinged’ refers to the app presumably the new freedom pass will not apply to the situation both of my friends found themselves in. Such is the absurdity that will prevail in the approaching mid-month holiday peak that there will be no way to ascertain whether it is worth travelling to a green-list rock in the Atlantic or going the whole hog and risking a turn from amber to red, with consequent pay-to-play prison sentence on return.
I wonder whether the government (which I no longer spell with a capital ‘G’ as I do not recognise its legitimacy) justifies all of this on the premise that people who dare to go on holiday must be treated as putrid receptacles of contagion and thereby do penance for their hubris.
Just like me, my vaccinated friends are sitting at home this week, watching the tan fade and bingeing on Thai food delivered in a box whilst staring at some dystopian feminist melodrama on Channel 4 for human company. My Danish friend lives in a 350 square foot studio flat in Notting Hill but at least she has a balcony on which to smoke and sunbathe; otherwise I don’t know what she would do as in such a small space confinement is unbearable.
Not for her dressing up to visit Tesco Express or setting a playlist to walk in the park; no stolen glances at the hot barista on the morning coffee run. The Covid gods have spoken, and her sentence is to wake up every day in the fiery furnace of quarantine to be purified until such time as she may be released by her gracious overlords.
Lots of articles have been written recently about the pingdemic and I daresay most employees who can’t work from home are delighted to get a ping. These serfs will doubtless not be looking forward to August 16 (another ‘freedom day’), and were I one of them I would consider coming up with a strategy to deal with the impending fall-out. An efficient tactic could be the collection of bulk quantities of LF tests to multiply potentially positive results and, via photographic replication, establish a vault of templates for passing around when needed.
I digress. Back to being stalked by the Covid marshal. He knocked at the door twice, politely, and when I opened it he met me with sheepish eyes over a medical mask to request proof of ID. You can never be too careful in verifying the identity of someone who answers their own door during a spell of quarantine.
Neither of my vaccinated friends who were told to self-isolate received a visit from the NHS. I have now started quite feeling special that someone actually cared enough to check up on me.
Come to think of it, I should have invited the Covid marshal in for a drink . . .
August 4, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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Two French unions have called for strikes against the compulsory vaccination of firefighters, healthcare workers, and caregivers. They say the measure violates fundamental rights.
One of the leading French firefighters’ unions, FA/SPP-PATS, which boasts 7,000 members, said it will go on strike starting Monday unless changes are made to the recent law on compulsory vaccination of certain employees.
“The obligatory vaccination of firefighters under [the threat] of penalty violates the constitution,” the union said in a statement.
“Our union does not oppose vaccination,” the organization’s spokesperson, Andre Goretti, told BFM TV. “But the conditions, under which it is being imposed on the professional level, with [the threat of] financial and other sanctions – that’s where we disagree.”
The hospital and caregivers’ union, SUD Sante Sociaux, also called for a strike and protests against the measure which it labelled “a new attack on labor law.”
According to the legislation, which was approved by parliament late last month, firefighters, medical workers, caregivers, and certain soldiers have until September 15 to get vaccinated or face sanctions. The controversial provision containing the vaccination mandate will be examined by the country’s Constitutional Council on Thursday.
The government has been pushing the population to get vaccinated in greater numbers amid the spread of the more contagious Delta variant of the virus.
Starting from August 9, people will be barred from restaurants, cafes, and long-distance transportation unless they have a health pass. The pass is already required for museums, cinemas, and other cultural venues with a capacity of more than 50 people.
These restrictions, along with the vaccination mandate, sparked protests across the country. More than 200,000 people participated in demonstrations across France on Saturday.
A group of uniformed firefighters was seen marching in a protest column in the southern city of Nice on Saturday, where around 6,500 people rallied against the government’s restrictive Covid-19 response.
Charles-Ange Ginesy, the head of the Alpes-Maritimes region and president of the regional firefighters’ board of directors, told BFM TV that he was “very disappointed” after seeing uniformed firefighters participating in a protest.
“The right to protest is a right that belongs to each of us. On the other hand, they wore their uniforms, which surprised me a lot,” the official said, expressing hope that “the controller-general will be able to make them understand that such attitude should not be repeated.”
The procedure is underway, during which we look at how these firefighters, who had probably acted out of clumsiness, will be able to return to reason.
Only a group of 20 to 30 marched with the protesters, compared to the 3,800 firefighters in the region, Ginesy said.
French civil servants are typically bound by the ‘duty of reserve’, meaning they must show restraint and moderation when expressing personal opinions.
The firefighters’ union spokesperson, Andre Goretti, meanwhile, defended his colleagues. “There are individual choices that are not put to question by our union,” he said. “It is an expression of a citizen. A firefighter – before being a professional firefighter – is a citizen.”
Authorities have made several concessions following the outrage, such as lowering the fines for businesses that do not check for health passes.
August 4, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | COVID-19 Vaccine, France, Human rights |
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Public Health Agency of Canada staff stand at their positions at Vancouver International Airport © Reuters
I went home to visit my mother. Canada tried to force me into a Covid detention facility threatening fines and police action as they don’t recognize my natural immunity. I had no choice but to immediately fly back to Europe.
At the time of writing, I’m at an altitude of exactly 11,277m, 5,230km away from Vancouver, Canada, and 3,159km from my stopover in Munich, Germany, en route back to Paris, France. Where I really should be is relaxing on the backyard patio or in the jacuzzi at my home near Vancouver with a cold drink on a hot summer day. Instead, I’m on a Lufthansa flight heading back to Paris – just a few hours after arriving across the ocean on a 10-hour flight – because my own country’s officials kicked me out. All because I committed the apparent violation of trying to re-enter my own country with proof of naturally acquired Covid-19 antibodies made by my own immune system post-recovery rather than those generated by the manmade Covid-19 vaccine about which much is still to be learned.
Daily life for a Covid-19 survivor with natural immunity from the disease is not for the faint of heart. As someone with a high level of laboratory tested antibodies whose levels have yet to drop even after several months post-illness, my doctor has advised against vaccination. Much is obviously still to be learned about the Covid jabs, still in stage 3 of clinical trials and considered experimental by health authorities – particularly with reports abounding of breakthrough cases of vaccinated people catching and spreading Covid.
To protect and preserve my acquired immunity by opting out of vaccination that risks interfering with it or causing a risk to my health, France now requires me to succumb to nasal swab antigen tests every 48 hours if I wish to continue accessing everyday venues like public transit, gyms, restaurants, some shopping malls, and bars. But it’s a price that I’m willing to pay for my health.
And now I’m paying another price for choosing to protect my own health. I’ve found myself threatened with internment by the Canadian government – something that not even terror suspects or illegal immigrants are subjected to without at least a hearing.
When I attempted to return home from Paris to Vancouver to visit my elderly mother for the first time in a year, I was treated worse than a criminal. I arrived at the airport with a negative PCR test, two positive Covid antibody tests from March and July proving that I still had significant Covid antibodies post-recovery, and a ‘covid immunity certificate’ written and signed by my French doctor to confirm this fact.
The Canadian border officer refused to accept the antibody laboratory test results as proof that I had recovered and was immune from Covid. He wanted a PCR test less than three months ago, after which everyone is expected to take the vaccine. (I didn’t even know that I had Covid until I took a serology antibody test weeks later.) Nor did the officer show any consideration for the negative PCR test taken hours at departure, or for the various other antigen tests – all negative – taken every 48 hours for the prior 10 days. Instead, he ordered me to sign up for a 3-day stay at a government internment facility (to then be followed by a mandatory and monitored 14-day home isolation).
I was then referred to a federal health officer who asked if I had signed up and paid (up to $2,000) for the 3-day government internment. I said no. She said that I had no choice except with respect to which government-contracted facility I’d like to be detained in at my own expense. I asked, “What if I just walk out?” She gestured to the RCMP officer behind her and said that leaving would result in a fine of nearly $6,000. I asked, “Then what if I just stay here in the airport and book a flight back to Paris and cancel my entire visit back home to Canada?” She replied that it would be fine. So, I booked a flight back on my phone at a cost of just over $1,500 – still cheaper than the government internment. She took down my return flight number, wrote me up a federal ‘health order’ that I had to sign, acknowledging that I was to leave Canada on that flight or face criminal penalties up to and including imprisonment. She helpfully added that I could still be fined for my ignorance, but they’d graciously let me off with a warning this time. What a benevolent budding authoritarian regime.
Let’s be clear: The Canadian government, by behaving in this manner, is routinely criminalizing those with Covid antibodies that are not derived from a manufactured experimental vaccine.
Just a few hours later, I am now on that flight back to Paris. My mother broke down in tears waiting for me on the other side of the arrivals hall as her daughter was expelled from her own country – something that Canada doesn’t even do with terror suspects without some kind of due process.
The next step for myself and others subjected to this discrimination should be a court challenge to the federal government’s actions. Government-ordered internment facilities for immune Covid survivors under threat of incarceration have no place in any democracy.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com
August 3, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | Canada, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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