Tony Blair’s anti-freedom project continues, but ‘War on Terror’ is replaced by ‘War on Covid’
By Neil Clark | RT | February 25, 2021
The ‘War on Terror’ seems to have morphed into a ‘War on Covid’. And guess what? Serial warmonger Tony Blair is a key figure in both, seeking to curtail our civil liberties with the excuse that it’s all for the “greater good.”
The date: Monday November 6, 2006. The place: Downing Street news conference. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair dismisses the civil rights argument against ID cards, which his government is keen to introduce. He says it is an issue of “modernity” and “modern life.”
“We are building a new part of our infrastructure here. And like other such projects the gains to citizens will be much larger and more extensive than anyone could say at the time.”
Sound familiar?
Fast forward fourteen years, and the same Tony Blair is saying much the same thing about Covid vaccine passports. There’s been no more zealous British advocate of vaccine passports than the man the anti-lockdown journalist Peter Hitchens calls ‘The Blair Creature’.
“Prepare for a health passport now,” he said in December. “I know all the objections, but it will happen. It’s the only way the world will function and for lockdowns to no longer be the sole course of action.”
Last week it was reported that ´The Blair Creature’ had been lobbying hard for vaccine passports to be included in Boris Johnson’s so-called ‘road map’ out of lockdown. And they were. The government has announced a review. Michael Gove, a man who once wrote a piece entitled ‘I can’t fight my feelings any more; I love Tony (Blair)’, is heading it.
Tony must be delighted.
Back in 2006, ID cards were promoted as a way of tackling the ‘terrorism’ threat and keeping us all ‘safe’. Vaccine passports are presented today in the same reassuring manner. The War on Terror and the War on Covid have so much in common. They both have five level ‘alert’ systems. ´The Blair Creature’ is the key linking figure.
Both wars (Terror and Covid), have been used as smokescreens to pursue elite, globalist and extremely illiberal agendas. Under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism‘, the US, UK and their allies embarked on a series of regime change wars.
First up was Afghanistan, on the grounds that the Taliban-ruled country had been sheltering Bin Laden. But while you could make a case for linking this to a ’war on terror’ there could be no such excuses for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Ba’athist Iraq – whose long serving Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was a practising Christian – was actually a bulwark against extremist groups like Al-Qaeda. The assault on Iraq proved to us that the ‘war on terror’ was a sham. Far from making us safer, the invasion actually greatly boosted global terrorism by spawning ISIS.
In short ‘the war on terror’ made the global terrorism situation much worse, and that’s before we get on to the reduction in civil liberties at home. Air travel has never been the same. Restrictions that were imposed – such as prohibitions on bringing liquids on board flights – and which were billed as ’temporary measures’ are still with us. ‘Anti-terrorism’ legislation has been regularly strengthened while at the same time there’s been covert British action in Libya and Syria on the side of the terrorists, which has led to domestic blowback.
We know for instance that the Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi, responsible for the horrific attack in 2017 which killed 22 people, more than half of them children, and his father Ramadan, had links with the anti-Gaddafy Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, allegedly used by the UK authorities as part of their regime change operation. As I noted in a previous op-ed, Abedi Jnr was even rescued from Libya by the Royal Navy.
The ‘War on Terror’ was based on a fundamental deceit. It was a deep state/neocon con trick. Not only was it a war that could never be won, it was never meant to be won. It was meant to be permanent. But in 2020 it was superseded by a new war – the ‘War on Covid’.
Again, we see much the same Manichean rhetoric. George W. Bush famously stated “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.” And so it is today, with ‘virus control’ and not ‘terrorism control’ the focus.
If you oppose oppressive lockdowns, restrictions on free movement, and the introduction of vaccine passports, then you are on the side of the virus. You want to ‘let it rip’. You have ‘blood on your hands’ just like the millions who marched against the Iraq War. Support a more nuanced, proportionate approach with people allowed to make their own risk assessments? No, that’s not allowed. You’re either with the ‘War on Covid’ or against it.
The ‘War on Covid’ gives the Western elites the opportunity to strip away our freedoms and complete the building of the digital ‘infrastructure’ that began under the ‘War on Terror’ and which Blair referred to in 2006.
‘Health passports’ are a key part of that infrastructure, as I noted last summer. The WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ is heavily dependent on their introduction.
Of course, it won’t just be your ‘Covid’ status that’ll be on them; they will be extended into full, digitalised bio-ID cards. Vaccine passports are the gateway to a Chinese-style social credit restricted access control system being rolled out in the West.
Blair, the great authoritarian, hopes to get in 2021 or 2022 what he couldn’t get fifteen years ago. “I think you’re going to the stage where it’s going to be very hard for people to do a lot of normal life unless they can prove their vaccination status… Vaccination in the end is going to be your route to liberty,” he said in a recent interview. And of course he is working hard to make sure we do get to that stage.
Will he succeed? His plan for ID cards fifteen years ago failed because of the strength of opposition. When Labour lost power in 2010, the scheme was ditched. But the Tony Blair Institute (which has received considerable funding for its work from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) boasted on Twitter last May that its ‘teams’ were “embedded in governments around the world, helping them to keep their people safe”.
We know that Blair has been ‘advising’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock and that the secret talks reportedly covered vaccines and mass testing. What is scary today is that the parliamentary opposition – now led by the uber-Blairite Sir Keir Starmer – seems to be even more pro-health passports than the government.
But we shouldn’t give up hope just yet. A petition against Covid-19 vaccine passports has raised almost 200,000 signatures. The campaign against health passports needs the support of the anti-war, anti-imperialist left and hopefully the fact that it’s Tony Blair who is pushing them will cause people to wake up and see the bigger picture. War on Terror, War on Covid. ‘Only connect!’, as the great novelist E.M. Forster might say.
Amid ‘political repression,’ Ukraine becoming American ‘colony’ in Europe: sanctioned opposition leader Medvedchuk
By Gabriel Gavin | RT | February 25, 2021
Moscow – A few weeks ago, Viktor Medvedchuk was celebrating as his party, Ukraine’s largest opposition bloc, topped a nationwide opinion poll. Now, he’s facing charges of funding terrorism that could land him behind bars for over a decade.
In an exclusive interview with RT, the MP and chairman of Opposition Platform — For Life, which advocates better ties with Moscow, insisted that the allegations were a tool of political persecution.
According to him, they are part of a wider pattern of repression linked to Kiev’s recent moves to shut down Russian-language media that has been critical of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. The embattled administration has seen its approval ratings nosedive amid worsening economic woes and a chaotic response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Very serious accusations
Last week, the country’s National Security and Defense Council announced it would seize properties belonging to seven people, including multimillionaire Medvedchuk and his wife, TV presenter Oksana Marchenko, for allegedly financially supporting terrorist organizations. Details of the charges have not yet been made public, but they could carry a 10-12 year prison sentence if he is found guilty.
“These are very serious accusations,” the politician said. “Especially given they are without any foundation at present.” The sanctions, he argued, “are expressly prohibited” by Ukrainian law and in contravention of the Constitution.
“Unfortunately, [prosecution for] crimes like treason and espionage is commonplace. Just as at one time there was a charge of hooliganism, now we can be charged with treachery or spying,” he said. However, despite believing his political opponents are abusing the justice system, any suggestion that the man once described as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘favorite Ukrainian’ might flee abroad gets short shrift. “In spite of all of this, I feel like I’m ready to fight – to fight against arbitrariness, against repression, against falsification… I am prepared to stand up to these threats,” he said.
Just a few hours before Medvedchuk spoke to RT, the Kiev-based research group Rating published a poll which they claim shows more than half of all respondents across the country supported the action against the politician and his family. “They say 58 percent agree with the sanctions, but they have not seen any evidence or arguments,” he said incredulously. “So, what can you really say about this figure?”
Again though, he refuses to write off the prospects of healing political divisions in a country where more than half of the population would seemingly relish the prospect of putting him behind bars. “The split can be overcome,” Medvedchuk insisted, “because the East-West divide has existed for a long time. Since independence, even. Yes there are regions… that differ in mentality and attitudes, but that’s not such a terrible thing if there is a wise state policy with solid structures and good governance.”
“We can find shared ground when it comes to the development of the country’s economy, its social sphere, income growth and prosperity.”
External influence
As one of the flag bearers for a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 foreign policy, which pursued closer relations with Moscow until the bloody events of the Maidan uprisings, Medvedchuk is often characterized as being ready to give away the country’s independence to the Kremlin. However, he insists that it is Zelensky’s government, and its Western allies, that presents the real threat to Ukrainian nationhood.
“We live in an independent sovereign state,” he said. “Or, at least, we used to live in one. Now, both independence and sovereignty are being undermined by external influence and most importantly by external political systems imposed by Washington.”
The American embassy in Kiev raised eyebrows internationally earlier this month when it backed an order signed by Zelensky’s government to shut down a group of television channels and news sites owned by one of the country’s elected MPs, Taras Kozak, a member of Medvedchuk’s party. In a media landscape dominated by wealthy oligarchs, Kozak’s ‘Novosti’ media empire carved out a niche with Russian-language programming made and broadcast in Ukraine. Around one in three people in the country speak the language natively at home, and the vast majority of Ukrainians could be considered fluent. Despite this, under laws put in place in 2014, swathes of programming in Russian from Ukraine’s vast eastern neighbor are already banned.
“When you see that the US Embassy supported both the closure of the channels and the sanctions against me,” Medvedchuk said, “it causes real outrage.” He explained that Washington is “used to creating the image that they are the paragon of democracy, but it is their authorities who have imposed external governance and who are now running Ukraine as their colony,” adding, “They will of course target those who push back against external influence.”
The opposition leader reiterated that 2014 was the turning point, explaining that, since then, “the US has imposed its political power, and it has not benefitted my country or the Ukrainian people… nor will it ever be able to.”
Only a court of law can judge us
The shuttering of the Novosti Group’s media channels, Medvedchuk claims, was an extrajudicial act of repression. Having the backing of the country’s National Security and Defense Council, the same body that ordered the most recent sanctions against him, is not sufficient under Ukrainian law, he maintains.
“Did the Security Council have the right to sign a decree after applying restrictions and blocking channels? No!”
Three broadcasters were taken off air almost immediately and several news sites were banned, which Medvedchuk, who holds a doctorate in legal practice, says was unlawful. “There is nothing in the sanctions that enables them to stop broadcasting, or stop internet resources,” he said. “The law knows no such sanctions.”
At the time, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, explained the move, saying, “it’s clear that sanctions on Mr. Medvedchuk’s TV channels are not about the media and not about freedom of speech… it’s just about effectively countering fakes and foreign propaganda.” Without action, he argued, the opposition media would “kill our values.”
Medvedchuk, however, rejects this as arbitrary and political, when only a judicial decision should apply. “They should go legal,” he insisted. “If you think someone is wrong, go to court. The channels can be defended in court – those who think there are arguments can present them. It is the court that decides who is right and who is wrong, not you, not me, or a government representative who thinks it is bad for the interests of the country when I say it is good for the interests of the people.”
“Only a court of law can judge us,” he concluded. “This is the procedure in all legal systems, and this is real, effective democracy. Everything else is evil!”
The American Embassy in Kiev, however, insisted that the move was “in line with Ukrainian law,” and that it supported Zelensky’s efforts “to counter Russia’s malign influence.”
“We must all work together to prevent disinformation from being deployed as a weapon in an info war against sovereign states,” a tweet from the diplomats argued.
Violating the principles of democracy
When the sanctions against him were first announced, Medvedchuk issued a fiery statement in which he accused the president of taking the country “down the path of establishing a “dictatorship and usurping power.” The government was, he insisted, “seeking to crack down on the parliamentary opposition legally elected by the Ukrainian people.”
No matter how evocative that rhetoric might be, however, the reality is that few in the West can imagine Zelensky as a budding despot, at least at the moment. When elected with more than 73 percent of the vote in 2019 after an unlikely rise from television celebrity to politics, he declared that he would only ever serve one term in the top job.
When pushed on whether his political opponent would really go back on that pledge, Medvedchuk insisted that “it all still looks cloudy and foggy.” However, Zelensky’s plans would become clearer, he said, at the next elections. But, in either case, whether the incumbent would succeed in a re-election bid, he said, “I have my doubts.”
The president’s falling popularity, which has seen support for his party drop in a recent poll to around half the level of Medvedchuk’s, “is the result of unprofessional management of the economic and social spheres, as well as the fight against coronavirus,” he said. “It is because of the lack of peace that he promised in the elections, the lack of return of Donbass to Ukraine.”
“And I think that political repression, the establishment of a dictatorship, the closure of channels, the policy of discrimination against the Russian language, the policy of Russophobia and the policy of usurping power are the result of him struggling to maintain and increase his authority and his ratings,” the opposition leader continued. “This is exactly the kind of illegal and unconstitutional way that violates the current legislation of our country, going out of the legal framework and really violating all the principles of democracy.”
European values
For all Medvedchuk’s talk about Zelensky’s undermining of Ukrainian democracy, the country’s president would likely throw those accusations straight back at him. Advocates of a tough line against both Russia and those Kiev politicians who seek better ties with the country argue that the Kremlin will always pose an existential threat to Ukraine’s nationhood.
Unless it finds its own distinct identity, they argue, through elevating the Ukrainian language and advocating an interpretation of the country’s history as separate to Moscow’s, it will forever be sucked into the orbit of its far larger neighbor. The Russian-language broadcasters that Medvedchuk points to as an example of Kiev’s growing autocracy are, to Zelensky’s supporters, a leash that would lead the country back to control from the East. For them, Ukraine’s future lies only in turning to the West.
The opposition leader, however, shrugged off the suggestion that the country could strengthen the president’s ambitions to join Western institutions like the EU and NATO by simply blocking opposing voices. “When he says he is leading the way to European democracy and is trying to break down the barriers to that, it is just seen as utter absurdity,” the MP argued. “If this democracy is about closing down channels alone, then I don’t know what his idea of European democracy is. European democracy has a mechanism for stopping broadcasting – and we’ve already talked about it – through the courts.”
“But what Zelensky is doing – imposing sanctions on his citizens, restricting constitutional rights extrajudicially, shutting down broadcasters illegally – is not democracy, European or otherwise,” he added. “This is the establishment of dictatorship and a way to seize power.”
“Note that the resolution adopted by the European Parliament in matters related to the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, in several paragraphs it explicitly states that there can be no extrajudicial closure of television broadcasters. There can be no politically motivated action against the opposition – this is also explicitly stated.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice was approached for comment on whether the sanctions against politicians and broadcasters were within the law. No response has been received.
Though Medvedchuk and Zelensky might lead warring factions, they share the same country, divided as it is. The great irony would be if, by trying to break the deadlock between them with promises of a bright, liberal and democratic future, the president and his supporters delivered the kind of autocracy that they have always accused the other side of wanting to install.
Israel said to warn Hamas leader not to run in polls
MEMO | February 23, 2021
Hamas leader Nayef al-Rajoub said Tuesday he was warned by Israeli intelligence agents against running in the Palestinian elections later this year, Anadolu Agency reported.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, al-Rajoub, 63, said he was searched during an Israeli raid on his home in the town of Dura, west of Hebron.
“An intelligence officer then threatened me not to run in the upcoming polls,” al-Rajoub said, adding that he was only allowed to cast a ballot in the elections.
Al-Rujoub, a brother of prominent Fatah leader Jibril al-Rujoub, received the most votes during the 2006 parliamentary elections won by Hamas.
In the Hamas-led government that emerged from those elections, Al-Rujoub served as minister of religious endowments. He had previously been detained by Israeli forces and served more than eight years in prison.
Earlier Tuesday, Israeli forces arrested 13 Palestinians, including Hamas leader Faze’ Sawafta, in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, had earlier warned of Israeli plans to stage a mass arrest campaign against the resistance group ahead of Palestinian elections later this year.
Over the past month, several Hamas members were detained in Israeli raids, with the Palestinian group warning that the Israeli arrests aim to disrupt the Palestinian elections and affect its results.
Palestinians are scheduled to vote in legislative elections on May 22, presidential polls on July 31, and National Council polls on Aug. 31.
The last legislative elections, in which Hamas won a majority, were held in 2006.
African governments are crushing opposition using Israeli spyware
By Suraya Dadoo | MEMO | February 24, 2021
As internet penetration and smartphone usage increases across Africa, digital spaces have become increasingly important for organising political uprisings and opposition movements. In response, several of the continent’s regimes have shut down the internet or blocked social media apps. To sidestep the economic costs and global criticism that these online shutdowns incur, governments have turned to digital surveillance technology as a shrewder way to crush all opposition.
In a recently-released report titled “Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm, Circles”, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab — which investigates digital espionage against civil society — details how government agencies in Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe are using the surveillance technology developed by Israeli telecom company Circles to snoop on the personal communications of opposition politicians, human rights activists and journalists. These seven African countries are among 25 around the world using Circles, which is affiliated with the notorious NSO Group whose invasive Pegasus spyware has been used to target human rights defenders and journalists around the world.
How does it work?
Circles technology is sold to nation states only, and intercepts data from 3G networks, allowing the infiltrator to read messages and emails, and listen to phone calls in real time. Using only the telephone number, a Circles platform can identify the location of a phone anywhere in the world within seconds.
Circles exploits flaws in Signalling System No.7 (SS7), the set of protocols that allows networks to exchange calls and text messages between each other. This allows government agencies to track individuals across borders without a warrant, bypassing international conventions.
In 2019, 3G became the leading mobile technology in Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for over 45 per cent of all connections. With the faster — and possibly more secure — 4G networks being at least five years away from becoming the standard for mobile connectivity on the continent, Circles’ 3G-manipulating technology is ideal for power-hungry African leaders looking to cling to power by spying on critics.
The spying revelations came as African governments — including some named in the Citizen Lab report — are cracking down brutally on protestors and opposition groups.
Nigeria
Recent #EndSARS protests triggered a deadly response from Nigeria’s state security apparatus, with the government able to infiltrate the movement’s organisational structures successfully.
Citizen Lab identified two Circles systems in Nigeria that both began operating in June 2015. One of them was being used by the Nigerian Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). In 2016, the governors of Delta and Bayelsa states also purchased Circles systems to spy on political opponents and critics. The presence of Circles products in Nigeria goes back more than a decade, when former Rivers state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, became the first Nigerian politician to use the surveillance technology in 2010.
Circles’ government clients in Nigeria have a long history of abusing surveillance technologies to conduct mass surveillance of citizens’ telecommunications. Femi Adeyeye, a Lagos-based political activist who has been detained several times for criticising the Nigerian government, is not surprised that Muhammadu Buhari’s regime is using the invasive spying technology.
Adeyeye cited several cases where Nigerians were swiftly traced, arrested and detained after criticising the government. These include journalists Omoyele Sowore, Abubakar Idris Dadiyata and Stephen Kefas. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also reported numerous cases of the Nigerian authorities abusing phone surveillance by targeting journalists’ phones to reveal and track sources for stories investigating government corruption.
“We are already in the worst stage of dictatorship,” warns Adeyeye. “Freedom of expression, media, and political association have been further weakened by this spying technology.”
He says that Nigerian political analysts now self-censor when commenting on national political issues, after witnessing the government’s infiltration of #EndSARS. “They have seen how people have been traced, their passports seized and bank accounts frozen, and how they have been forced to go into exile.”
Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe — which has witnessed intense anti-government protests recently — Citizen Lab detected three Circles platforms, with one dating back to 2013. A second platform was activated in March 2018 and is still operating.
As in Nigeria, there has been a government crackdown on anyone exposing corruption. Investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, and Jacob Ngarivhume, the leader of the opposition group Transform Zimbabwe, were detained ahead of anti-government protests last year. Circles technology is facilitating this suppression.
Equatorial Guinea
A Circles surveillance system was also found in Equatorial Guinea, where dictator Tedoro Obiang has ruled for 40 years in a climate of torture, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests and the persecution of political activists and human rights defenders. Obiang has crushed protests violently and ignored demands for electoral reforms and limits on terms of office.
Morocco
Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior has been a Circles client since 2018. Rabat has a history of leveraging digital technology to unlawfully target Moroccan human rights activists.
Eroding democracy in Botswana
It’s not just countries such as these facing protests, or those with a dismal record of human rights abuses, that are spying on their citizens. Even supposed democracies are involved. Botswana is hailed widely as one of Africa’s most stable democracies. Yet, the country’s Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DISS) was linked to two Circles surveillance systems dating back to 2015. The targets were journalists investigating corruption by politicians.
According to Moeti Mohwasa, spokesperson for the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Israeli companies have been selling spyware to the Botswana government for years. Mohwasa says that some of this equipment has been used to eavesdrop on opposition politicians and union leaders in the country.
Enabling authoritarianism in Kenya
Citizen Lab also reported a Circles system in Kenya. While the East African nation is often lauded as a strong democracy, critics accuse the Uhuru Kenyatta administration of being an authoritarian regime.
“In Kenya, freedom of expression and media freedoms are under constant threat,” says Suhayl Omar, a policing, surveillance and militarism researcher from Nairobi. “The Kenyatta regime has waged a war against constitutionalism and any form of opposition in Kenya.”
Omar believes that the Kenyan government relies heavily on surveillance of its citizens to crack down on any form of opposition. “For this, they look to undemocratic and violent states — like Israel — to fund, equip and train their agents and armies for these unconstitutional missions.”
Zambia
Zambia is also a Circles client. In 2019, the Zambian authorities reportedly used a cyber-surveillance unit in the offices of Zambia’s telecommunications regulator to pinpoint the location of a group of bloggers who ran an opposition news site. They were duly arrested, with the authorities in constant contact with the police units on the ground throughout the operation. Given its capabilities, it is likely that a Circles system was used to do this.
Should the Israeli government be held accountable?
African governments will justify spying by claiming that it is a matter of national security. The Israeli government, meanwhile, has distanced itself from these anti-democracy purges. Israeli Minister Zeev Elkin denied any government involvement, telling Israeli radio, “Everyone understands that this is not about the state of Israel.” But it is.
The Israeli government, through its Ministry of Defence, implicitly sanctions such activities by providing tech firms with export licences. In January 2020, Amnesty International filed a lawsuit in Israel calling for the ministry to ban the export of invasive spying software, as it was being used to attack human rights activists by the governments purchasing them. Last July, an Israeli court denied Amnesty’s request.
“The Israeli regime has actively enabled the authoritarianism of Uhuru Kenyatta,” explains Suhayl Omar, commenting on the situation in Kenya. Moeti Mohwasa in Botswana agrees about official Israeli involvement. “In recent years, the Botswana government has increasingly been eroding civil rights, and becoming intolerant of political dissent. Israel is aiding these dangerous trends.”
Friends with benefits
Although developed by private companies, the spying equipment is also a key part of the Israeli government’s diplomatic charm offensive in Africa. By helping African governments cling to power through arming them with the weapons to wage cyber-warfare on their citizens, Tel Aviv is hoping to make more African friends. The aim is to dissolve African solidarity with Palestine, and capture African votes at the UN and so defeat resolutions that are critical of Israel’s brutal military occupation. Israel is also trying to find partners to lobby the African Union to grant the occupation state observer status.
In his book War Against the People, Jeff Halper writes that Israel is exporting its expertise in population control gained through its occupation of Palestine, and leading the “global pacification” industry, assisting state security agencies around the world. The danger, Halper warns, is that gradually we will all become like Palestinians, fearful of being tracked and detained for organising a protest, defending human rights or trying to hold the powerful to account.
As repressive African governments continue looking to Israel to help them shrink the safe space for human rights defenders even further, the danger is that Abuja, Nairobi, Gaborone and other capitals across the continent may end up under digital occupation just like Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Gaza City.
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Teacher: I Won’t Force Kids To Wear Masks & I Won’t Wear One Either
By Richie Allen | February 24, 2021
The Telegraph newspaper, to its credit, has published an opinion piece by a secondary school teacher who is based in Essex. The teacher believes that forcing kids to wear masks in the classroom is “Dystopian and abhorrent.”
The teacher has been reading “The Handmaid’s Tale with Year 11’s and described a class full of masked children as “like something out of Gilead.” Expressing concern that masks would make it seem to youngsters that schools are not safe when they desperately need some normality the teacher wrote:
They are already being flooded with messages in the media and the outside world which fill them with fear on a daily basis. The government’s whole campaign is built on fear and children have absorbed that. They have also faced a year of disruption to their learning and been kept apart from their friends. What sort of message does it send to them if we then make them wear a mask in the classroom too?
As well as being physically uncomfortable, it’s going to be almost impossible for them to communicate with me as their teacher. It will have a detrimental impact on their confidence, make them even more reluctant to put their hand up in class to ask questions and engage in the lesson. Many of them, especially those who were already struggling, have fallen massively behind during lockdown and will find it difficult or even impossible to catch up.
I’ve also seen very little evidence to suggest that masks are effective anyway. I am cynical about this idea of asymptomatic transmission. Schools aren’t necessarily the cleanest places in the world but children are meant to be exposed to a few germs to build up their immune systems.
The teacher is absolutely right. It’s dystopian and disturbing in the extreme. Of course it will unsettle children but it will also do them serious harm. Wearing masks for eight hours a day may have a seriously detrimental effect on their physical health. Dozens of studies have found that masks make breathing more difficult, especially for children.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that:
… inhaling high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be life-threatening. Hypercapnia (carbon dioxide toxicity) can also cause headache, vertigo, double vision, inability to concentrate, tinnitus (hearing a noise, like a ringing or buzzing, that’s not caused by an outside source), seizures, or suffocation due to displacement of air.
Parents wise up and wise up fast. You must not allow your children be forced to wear a face covering when they return to the classroom.
US Supreme Court Backs Grand Theft Election 2020
By Stephen Lendman | February 23, 2021
On Monday, the US Supreme Court refused to hear legitimate challenges to the 2020 presidential election outcome.
In January ahead of Biden’s inauguration, the court denied requests by Trump and GOP supporters to hear and rule on lawsuits claiming brazen fraud in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Some lawsuits justifiably claimed unconstitutional changes to state election procedures.
In Pennsylvania, the state’s Supreme Court allowed election officials to count mail ballots that arrived up to three days after Election Day 2020.
The US Supreme Court voted 4-4 on whether to issue a stay of its ruling, short of a majority needed to block it.
In December 2020, GOP Senator Ted Cruz argued the following:
“The Pennsylvania Constitution requires in-person voting, except in narrow and defined circumstances,” adding:
“Late last year, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law that purported to allow universal mail-in voting, notwithstanding the Pennsylvania Constitution’s express prohibition.”
“This appeal argues that Pennsylvania cannot change the rules in the middle of the game.”
Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch agreed, one vote shy of four votes needed to grant a writ of certiorari — an order by the Supreme Court for a lower court to send up the record of a case in question for review.
Reviewing cases doesn’t automatically mean they’ll be heard and ruled on.
Of around 7,000 cases it asks to review annually, the High Court accepts 100 – 150.
In dissenting from the majority on the Pennsylvania case, Justice Thomas said the following:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s “decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election.”
“But that may not be the case in the future. These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”
“One wonders what this Court waits for. We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules.”
“Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections.”
“The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling.”
“By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.”
“Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us.”
In his dissent, Alito (joined by Gorsuch) said the following:
“Now, the election is over, and there is no reason for refusing to decide the important question that these cases pose.”
“Some respondents contend that the completion of the 2020 election rendered these cases moot and that they do not fall within the mootness exception for cases that present questions that are ‘capable of repetition’ but would otherwise evade review.”
That argument fails (because the issue in the case) is surely capable of repetition in future elections.”
Long before election day 2020, US dark forces decided the outcome. Voters had no say.
Trump challenged the system so was denied a second term.
Orchestrated January 6 events on Capitol Hill settled things, an anti-Trump false flag.
Wrongfully blaming him for what happened smoothed the way for Biden/Harris to replace him — illegitimately by brazen election fraud in key swing states.
Things worked as planned. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear legitimate challenges to the election outcome closed the books on the issue.
As long as Biden/Harris remain in office, they’ll serve illegitimately, not the other way around.
Election 2020 bears testimony to US fantasy democracy.
It’s by no means the only example.
US dirty politics and election rigging date from at least the early 19th century — at the federal, state and local levels.
Election 2020 perhaps was the most brazen example.
Trump won. Biden lost. DJT returned to private life. Selected, nor elected, Biden replaced him.
By refusing to rule on this core issue, the Supreme Court effectively OK’d election fraud over a free, fair and open system according to the rule of law.
North Dakota House Votes To Make Mask Mandates Illegal
By Steve Watson | Summit News | February 23, 2021
The House of Representatives in North Dakota has voted to make mandates on wearing face masks illegal.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Hoverson who labelled the mask mandate instituted by the State governor last year as “diabolical silliness,” adding that “Our state is not a prison camp.”
The legislation outlines that “A state or local elected official, the state, or a political subdivision of the state may not mandate an individual in this state use a face mask, face shield, or other face covering.”
It also “prohibits making use of a face mask, shield, or covering a condition for entry, education, employment, or services.”
The bill also notes that “If a state or local elected official, the state, or a political subdivision of the state recommends an individual in this state use a face mask, shield, or covering, the official or entity shall provide notice the recommendation is not mandatory.”
Hoverson said that the mask mandates are being enforced by “unelected, wealthy bureaucrats who are robbing our freedoms and perpetuating lies.”
The bill was approved 50-44 and will now advance to the state Senate.
Several states, including Iowa, Montana, and Mississippi have begun lifting mask mandates, despite Joe Biden’s attempts to instigate a nation-wide mask mandate, which he recently said could extend ‘through the next year’.
Dr Anthony Fauci also said Sunday he sees it as entirely possible that everyone will have to keep wearing face coverings throughout the entirety of 2021 and into 2022, prompting backlash.
Signs of life: Are the masses awakening from COVID psychosis?
By Jordan Schachtel | February 23, 2021
Over the course of the past year, a coalition including the corporate media, international “health” institutions, a maniacal mega billionaire, Big Pharma oligarchs, and power drunk governments consumed massive amounts of power left and right, with little to no observed resistance in sight.
With COVID mania in full swing, they moved the goalposts as they pleased. Free of any science, data, or logical reasoning, the ruling class had the terrified masses completely under their thumb. Under the spell of a mass social psychosis, we willingly surrendered our liberties and even happily enforced draconian edicts on our own peers, despite the global trampling of our basic rights.
The ruling class moved seamlessly from “15 days to stop the spread” to “30 days to stop the spread” to “Zero COVID.”
From “everyone needs to wear a mask” to “everyone needs to wear two masks” to “maybe we should wear three masks.”
From “lockdown to preserve healthcare capacity” to “lockdown to slow/stop the spread” to “lockdown until we have a vaccine.”
All of these aforementioned restrictions and guidelines were abided by without resistance. Across the globe, citizens remained firmly trapped in perhaps the most self-destructive mass social psychosis in human history, convinced that a respiratory virus (that causes a disease with a 99.8% recovery rate) was responsible for their economic and societal devastation. The authoritarians did as they wished, without a hint of pushback.
However, it seems we have finally reached one particular narrative that has been met with firm resistance.
Once you’ve gotten any COVID-19 vaccine, you still need to wear a mask, get tested, and watch your distance. Isolate if you have tested positive/have symptoms, and quarantine if you are a close contact or have traveled to another state or country. Visit c19vaccineri.org.
People are rightfully outraged by another ongoing narrative shift attempt led by the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, countless government health bureaucracies, and other leaders of the corona hysteria movement. We’re now being told that the vaccine is not in fact a ticket to normalcy. Instead, we’ve been told that even with the vaccine, people still need to wear a mask, social distance, and act as if fellow human beings are nothing more than mere vectors of disease.
They initially told us lockdowns would solve our COVID problem. They then told us masks would end the pandemic. Soon after, the “experts” went all in on the vaccine narrative. It seems that the new narrative is one of “forever COVID,” or a permanent safety regime that stresses prioritizing avoidance of a virus over anything else in life. Fauci and the gang is now demoting the vaccine’s status as no longer a way out, but just another tool to help you mitigate the threat posed by the “deadly virus.”
WATCH: We spoke with @BillGates about the looming climate crisis and why research he funds suggests we may need a third vaccine dose to fight against new coronavirus variants More tonight on the @CBSEveningNews, watch at 6:30 p.m. ET 
And many finally seem to be pushing back against the ruling class plan for a permanent COVID state.
Excellent column by @karol deploring the rise of “forever pandemic” thinking, in which our lives will continue to be smothered in the name of overhyped public health threats. 
Will the vaccine rug pull attempt awaken the masses to the reality that they’ve been conned for an entire year? That is too soon to tell, but we are finally seeing signs of widespread pushback against the latest demands from the ruling class. Many of us wished this hopeful revival of rational thought had occurred a full year ago, but it’s more important right now to build a coalition around restoring our rights and quashing the power grab, even if that coalition includes the same individuals and groups that were once on the side of the totalitarians.
The Vaccine (Dis)Information War
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory Inc. | February 23, 2021
So, good news, folks! It appears that GloboCap’s Genetic Modification Division has come up with a miracle vaccine for Covid! It’s an absolutely safe, non-experimental, messenger-RNA vaccine that teaches your cells to produce a protein that triggers an immune response, just like your body’s immune-system response, only better, because it’s made by corporations!
OK, technically, it hasn’t been approved for use — that process normally takes several years — so I guess it’s slightly “experimental,” but the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have issued “Emergency Use Authorizations,” and it has been “tested extensively for safety and effectiveness,” according to Facebook’s anonymous “fact checkers,” so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.
This non-experimental experimental vaccine is truly a historic development, because apart from saving the world from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms (or, more commonly, no symptoms whatsoever) in roughly 95% of those infected, and that over 99% of those infected survive, the possibilities for future applications of messenger-RNA technology, and the genetic modification of humans, generally, is virtually unlimited at this point.
Imagine all the diseases we can cure, and all the genetic “mistakes” we can fix, now that we can reprogram people’s genes to do whatever we want … cancer, heart disease, dementia, blindness, not to mention the common cold! We could even cure psychiatric disorders, like “antisocial personality disorder,” “oppositional defiant disorder,” and other “conduct disorders” and “personality disorders.” Who knows? In another hundred years, we will probably be able to genetically cleanse the human species of age-old scourges, like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, etcetera, by reprogramming everyone’s defective alleles, or implanting some kind of nanotechnological neurosynaptic chips into our brains. The only thing standing in our way is people’s totally irrational resistance to letting corporations redesign the human organism, which, clearly, was rather poorly designed, and thus is vulnerable to all these horrible diseases, and emotional and behavioral disorders.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The important thing at the moment is to defeat this common-flu-like pestilence that has no significant effect on age-adjusted death rates, and the mortality profile of which is more or less identical to the normal mortality profile, but which has nonetheless left the global corporatocracy no choice but to “lock down” the entire planet, plunge millions into desperate poverty, order everyone to wear medical-looking masks, unleash armed goon squads to raid people’s homes, and otherwise transform society into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare. And, of course, the only way to do that (i.e., save humanity from a flu-like bug) is to coercively vaccinate every single human being on the planet Earth!
OK, you’re probably thinking that doesn’t make much sense, this crusade to vaccinate the entire species against a relatively standard respiratory virus, but that’s just because you are still thinking critically. You really need to stop thinking like that. As The New York Times just pointed out, “critical thinking isn’t helping.” In fact, it might be symptomatic of one of those “disorders” I just mentioned above. Critical thinking leads to “vaccine hesitancy,” which is why corporations are working with governments to immediately censor any and all content that deviates from the official Covid-19 narrative and deplatform the authors of such content, or discredit them as “anti-vax disinformationists.”
For example, Children’s Health Defense, which has been reporting on so-called “adverse events” and deaths in connection with the Covid vaccines, despite the fact that, according to the authorities, “there are no safety problems with the vaccines” and “there is no link between Covid-19 vaccines and those who die after receiving them.” In fact, according to the “fact-checkers” at Reuters, these purported “reports of adverse events” “may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable!”
Yes, you’re reading between the lines right. The corporate media can’t come right out and say it, but it appears the “anti-vax disinformationists” are fabricating “adverse events” out of whole cloth and hacking them into the VAERS database and other such systems around the world. Worse, they are somehow infiltrating these made-up stories into the mainstream media in order to lure people into “vaccine hesitancy” and stop us from vaccinating every man, woman, and child in the physical universe, repeatedly, on an ongoing basis, for as long as the “medical experts” deem necessary.
Here are just a few examples of their handiwork …
- In Norway, 23 elderly people died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. However, according to Reuters’ “fact-checkers,” it turns out, old people just die sometimes, especially in nursing homes, from a variety of causes … unless they haven’t been vaccinated, in which case they definitely died of Covid, regardless of what they actually died of. For example, a 99-year-old man suffering from dementia and emphysema, who tested negative for the virus three times, was added to the “Covid deaths” figures because a nursing home doctor “assumed” it was Covid (which GloboCap has expressly instructed him to do).
- In Germany, 13 of 40 residents of one nursing home died after being vaccinated, but this was just a “tragic coincidence,” which had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccine.
- In Spain, in another “tragic coincidence,” 46 nursing home residents who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine died within the course of one month. A further 28 of the 94 residents and 12 staff members subsequently tested positive.
- In Florida, a healthy middle-aged doctor died from an unusual blood disorder two weeks after receiving the vaccine, but, according to the experts, the sudden onset of this rare immunological blood disorder (i.e., immune thrombocytopenia) “should not be interpreted as linked to the vaccine,” and was probably just a total coincidence.
- In California, a 60-year-old X-ray technologist received a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. A few hours later he had trouble breathing. He was hospitalized and died four days later. His widow says she’s not ready at this point to link her husband’s death to the vaccine. “I’m not putting any blame on Pfizer,” she said, “or on any other pharmaceutical company.” So, probably just another coincidence.
- A 78-year-old woman in California died immediately after being vaccinated, but her death was not related to the vaccine, health officials assured the public. “(She) received an injection of the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer around noon. While seated in the observation area after the injection, [she] complained of feeling discomfort and while being evaluated by medical personnel she lost consciousness.” Despite the sudden death of his wife, her husband intends to receive a second dose.
- A former Detroit news anchor died just one day after receiving the vaccine, but it was probably just a coincidental stroke, which the “normal side effects of the vaccine may have masked.”
- Also in Michigan, a 90-year-old man died the day after receiving the vaccine, but, again, this was just a tragic coincidence. As Dr. David Gorski explained, “the baseline death rate of 90-year-olds is high because they’re 90 years old,” which makes perfect sense … unless, of course, they died of Covid, in which case their age and underlying conditions make absolutely no difference whatsoever.
- In Kentucky, two nuns at a monastery died, and more than two dozen others tested positive, in a sudden “Covid-19 outbreak” that began two days after the nuns were vaccinated. The monastery had been completely closed to visitors and Covid-free up to that point, but the nuns were old and had “health issues,” and so on.
- In Virginia, a 58-year-old grandmother died within hours after receiving the vaccine, but, as Facebook’s “fact checkers” prominently pointed out, it had to be just another coincidence, because the “vaccines have been tested for safety extensively.”
And then there are all the people on Facebook sharing their stories of loved ones who have died shortly after receiving the Covid vaccine, who the Facebook “fact checkers” are doing their utmost to discredit with their official-looking “fact-check notices.” For example …
OK, I realize it’s uncomfortable to have to face things like that (i.e., global corporations like Facebook implying that these people are lying or are using the sudden deaths of their loved ones to discourage others from getting vaccinated), especially if you’re just trying to follow orders and parrot official propaganda … even the most fanatical Covidian Cultists probably still have a shred of human empathy buried deep in their cold little hearts. But there’s an information war on, folks! You’re either with the Corporatocracy or against it! This is no time to get squeamish, or, you know, publicly exhibit an ounce of compassion. What would your friends and colleagues think of you?!
No, report these anti-vaxxers to the authorities, shout them down on social media, switch off your critical-thinking faculties, and get in line to get your vaccination! The fate of the human species depends on it! And, if you’re lucky, maybe GloboCap will even give you one of these nifty numerical Covid-vaccine tattoos for free!
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From the Archives
Is America behind the massive surge in Kiev regime’s child trafficking?
By Drago Bosnic | August 10, 2023
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Can a Spice Rival a Drug? 10 Head-to-Head Trials Put It to the Test.
- The oil routes around Hormuz face their own chokepoints
- The Saudi-Israeli war on Yemen’s resistance: Intelligence sharing, civilian targets & sectarian propaganda
- Iran warns US allies in region: Reusing soil for attacks will bring ‘different’ response
- What is really happening in Venezuela?
- Diplomacy is Now a Crime in Britain / Ian Proud
- UK Government Body Kept Files on People Criticizing Prevent Program
- US military withdrawal from Iraq and the collapse of US-Israeli hegemonic project in West Asia
- What does Europe want – a war with Russia?
- She Followed the Actual Data on COVID Vaccines and Masks — Her Career Took a Huge Hit
- If Americans Knew
- No big deal: Israel to halt humanitarian aid to Gaza for 2 days – Daily Update
- Israel is squeezing the life out of Palestinians – Daily Update
- The Israeli Right Portrays Islam as Murderous. It Serves a Political Purpose
- Jordan Has Had Enough: King Abdullah’s Scathing Warning to Israel
- Israeli Colonizers (i.e. Settlers) Kill Palestinian Man Near Salfit
- New Google Maps images reveal massive scale of devastation in Gaza
- Jewish supremacy, anti-Palestinian bigotry on display in Israel – Daily Update
- Israeli Soldiers Abduct At Least 22 Across Occupied West Bank
- Eight Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks on Gaza
- Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’
- No Tricks Zone
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
