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WHO Envoy: Life Won’t Return to Normal For at Least 2 Years

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | December 7, 2020

The WHO’s special envoy for the global COVID-19 response says that despite the arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine, normal life won’t resume for at least two years.

Dr David Nabarro suggested that social distancing and masks were something that would have to continue as a way of “treating this virus with respect.”

“This will mean face masks and physical distancing otherwise the virus does keep on surging. The reality is it will be some months before we can dispense with these precautions,” he said.

When asked when things would return to normal, Nabarro suggested that this wouldn’t occur until the end of 2022 at the earliest.

“I hate making predictions, but let’s just consider it in the big picture. None of us will be safe until the whole world is safe,” remarked Nabarro.

“Big patches of normality are coming up soon, but not everyone will be vaccinated for at least a couple of years. So normal life as we know it is a couple of years away for the world,” he added.

As we have previously highlighted, two years may seem a naive target for a return to normality given that some prominent figures have said the world will never get back to what it was pre-COVID.

“Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal,” wrote World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab.

“The short response is: never. Nothing will ever return to the ‘broken’ sense of normalcy that prevailed prior to the crisis because the coronavirus pandemic marks a fundamental inflection point in our global trajectory,” he added.

In addition to Schwab, a senior U.S. Army official said that mask wearing and social distancing will become permanent, while CNN’s international security editor Nick Paton Walsh asserted that the mandatory wearing of masks will become “permanent,” “just part of life,” and that the public would need to “come to terms with it.”

December 7, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Occupation By COVID: Palestine As a Viral Export, 2020

By Michael Lesher | OffGuardian | December 7, 2020

As the year 2020 expires in an embattled welter of politicized suffering, I feel I need to address my fellow advocates for Palestinian rights, too many of whom seem not to notice – or actively deny – that, under cover of coronavirus hysteria, the unhealed wounds of Palestine are steadily infecting us all.

Yes, I know all of you face calumny enough from the Israel lobby without being smeared by pro-lockdown propagandists – many of whom, alas, cling to the name “progressive” even as they abjectly submit to the most massive civil rights violations of our lifetimes.

And I know the task I am setting for you is a hard one. After all, few Americans have paid much attention to Palestine in the past; how likely is it that today, punch-drunk from the creeping despotism unleashed as COVID-19 “health” regulation, a large public will turn from its troubles long enough to realize that the blows our country is tasting for the first time – curfews, closures, mass confinements, official lying, economic warfare – have been the lot of occupied Palestine for decades?

But there is no escaping the obligation to tell the truth: and that means, first of all, that we have to acknowledge the truth. And while advocates for Palestine are well aware of what the American government has done to that land – with its money and military hardware, the systematic violence of its client [sic] state, Israel, and the cruel deceit that is called U.S. “diplomacy” – too many remain strangely blind to the poisoning of our own nation with the same evils that have blighted the lives of millions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Yes, the venue is shifting – from foreign training ground to domestic soil – but we are only deluding ourselves if we refuse to see the connection between the two. The historian Alfred McCoy warned as far back as 2009 that what the U.S. was developing in the Middle East would inevitably come home to haunt us:

the War on Terror has proven remarkably effective,” he wrote, “in building a technological template that could be just a few tweaks away from creating a domestic surveillance state – with omnipresent cameras, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identification, and drone aircraft patrolling ‘the homeland.’

By 2013, McCoy had concluded, sadly, that…

that prediction has become our present reality.

And it was only the start.

Israel’s example already figured in the militarization of American police forces: think Ferguson, think Chicago. But that was child’s play compared with this year’s reconstruction of West Bank-style administrative repression throughout much of the United States.

Israel rationalizes its imprisonment of Palestine as a “defense” against “terror”; here, state authorities prefer the pretext of combating an infectious disease. But the systems of control are ultimately the same.

Do I exaggerate? Who, then – before last March – ever heard U.S. politicians talk eagerly about “lockdowns”? Or bans on political demonstrations? Or the thought-policing of social media? And who would have thought that such instruments of mass repression could be introduced, not through legislation, but by means of “emergency” decrees from a handful of state executives whose edicts purport to be above the law?

These things are new to the United States; but none of them would have surprised Palestinians, whose entire lives – from where they can go to what they are allowed to post on Facebook – have been governed by arbitrary decrees for decades.

And more repression is on the way. Already there’s talk of U.S. citizens being “encouraged” to carry “contact-tracing” technology; even the first hints of travel restrictions, controlled through universal registration with a government-run monitoring agency, have begun to percolate in the “liberal” press. A year ago all of this would have been unthinkable. But Palestinians have lived under such a regime since the 1990s.

Nor should the Mideast-coronavirus connection really surprise anyone – least of all, those of us who have made it our business to follow the wrongs of Palestine. After all, we’ve been warned.

The exportation of Israel’s occupation to the West was predicted with uncanny accuracy by Jeff Halper in his book War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians, and Global Pacification. In 2016, Halper told In These Times that the success of capitalist states in controlling unruly populations would depend on what he called “globalizing Palestine.”

He said, back then:

“Israel-Pales­tine is the micro­cosm of the larg­er world. What Israel’s doing to the Pales­tini­ans… reflects the kind of war that cap­i­tal­ism is hav­ing to fight now…. The wars that are being fought in Syr­ia, or the wars being fought against poor peo­ple in the States aren’t wars that F-35s or nuclear sub­marines are any use for… [W]hen they’re actu­al­ly going to fight wars among the peo­ple, Israel becomes the go-to place. They [the Israelis] have the weapon­ry, the tac­tics, the sur­veil­lance sys­tems and the secu­ri­ty sys­tems that are more rel­e­vant for the types of cap­i­tal­ist wars of repres­sion that are being fought today than the big sys­tems that the Pen­ta­gon has.

It’s a shame that Halper’s insight hasn’t been given more attention in public discourse – even on the left – during the critical nine months since last March’s declaration of a global “pandemic.” But then, maybe it was inevitable that Palestine would be marginalized in exact proportion to its growing importance to the West as a blueprint for domestic oppression.

Certainly its plight was never more belittled than last spring, while more than forty U.S. governors were effectively Palestinianizing their populations with mass confinements, business closures, school shutdowns and restraints on public protest. If that was a rehearsal for something like Israel’s West Bank occupation on American soil – and it certainly looked like one – you’d never have known it from listening to the few politicians around the world who even bothered to talk about Palestinians.

Donald Trump – the outgoing President who wasn’t sure whether the Western Wall was in Palestine – first declared international law irrelevant to Israelis, then claimed to have a “solution” that would resolve the “conflict” once and for all.

What he proposed was predictably outrageous, of course. But was it really any worse than the apathy that greeted the “plan” throughout Western Europe? Was it more reprehensible than the behavior of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who – while still feeding at the Israeli trough – pretended for months to be leading a rebellion against an “annexation” of West Bank territory that, for all the noise the word’s novelty generated, was actually launched a long time ago and continues to this day?

At least it’s clear now (if it wasn’t all along) that the whole to-do over “annexation” was a conjuror’s trick. Israel and its allies use the word when it’s politically convenient and forget about it when it isn’t; the verbal fashion of the moment has no effect on the pace of Israeli land theft.

As for Abbas, he’s already making nice with President-elect [sic] Joe Biden despite the latter’s ostentatious Zionism – and why not? The actual measure of Israel’s purloining of West Bank territory is the amount of its illegal colonization by Israeli Jews. And that colonization, which began almost immediately after Israel seized the territories in June 1967, has never been more rampant than it is now.

This year alone, Israel approved a record-high 12,000 new “housing units” for its squatters in occupied Palestine, who already control nearly all of the most valuable land and whose pastimes include regular violent attacks against the rightful owners – not to mention the frequent destruction of their homes and olive groves. By early 2019 the number of illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, which by then had mushroomed to over 650,000, was growing even faster than the overall Israeli population.

And what was Mahmoud Abbas doing all that time? Nothing. What was the European Union doing to halt Israel’s land theft? Nothing. What did the Democratic Party “resistance” to Donald Trump, apart from some ritual harrumphing over “annexation” proposals, have to say about the monstrous expansion of illegal West Bank colonies? Nothing.

Against that background, was Trump’s insult to international law even worth mentioning?

To tell the truth, it’s hard to think of any Palestine-related mainstream headline over the last year that didn’t crackle with absurdity. A warmed-over reprise of Israel’s long-standing demand for Palestinian capitulation was unblushingly called “the Deal of the Century.” A cynical bargain between the crime family that runs the United Arab Emirates and a blood-stained, racist Israeli Prime Minister with one foot already in a prison cell was heralded as “the dawn of a new Middle East” – by Washington’s Con-Artist-in-Chief, a man who could make Becky Sharp look innocent by contrast.

And where was Palestine – the actual land and people – amid all the sputtering? Not one square inch of occupied territory has been reclaimed from Israel’s occupation in over fifty years of Palestinian suffering and international indifference. Not one prisoner has been freed from the concentration camp called Gaza since the heroic sacrifices of its people that began in March 2018. No wonder Israel is doing so well at exporting its occupation: its techniques represent an unqualified success story.

In fact, the most accurate pointer to where matters stand comes from a little-noticed news item about the one real consequence of the Palestinian Authority’s “refusal to cooperate” with Israel’s annexation threats. According to 972 Magazine, tens of thousands of Palestinian children born since May do not officially exist – as far as Israel is concerned – since the P.A. has not communicated their names to the Israelis. Nor can the P.A. confer legal status on its own. It follows that these children have no official identity and, therefore, no rights; they can never, for instance, leave the Occupied Territories even if their parents are permitted to. Whether they will be allowed to own their homes one day, or even to work, will apparently be at the whim of the Israelis.

Let that image sink in a moment: people who do not legally exist, in a country that is not a country, administered by a “government” that is not a government. If there’s a better summary of what “Palestine” means today, I can’t think of it.

And if you think Palestine’s fate has no relevance for what awaits the American public, think again.

Under President-elect Biden’s latest coronavirus plan, just for instance,…

the CDC will be in charge of announcing recommendations for when it is safe to open or close restaurants, schools and businesses.

This means that an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats – working in a political environment where the dominance of Big Pharma is a matter of record – will have unprecedented control over American education and economic life. And for how long? Biden is careful not to say.

As for Palestine, the incoming administration’s top foreign policy adviser, Tony Blinken, announced last June that a Biden government…

would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.

So the whims of Israel’s apartheid government will trump American law (no surprise there), and corporate plutocrats will have increasing power over whether and when Americans can go to school, work, or gather in public places. Nablus, here we come!

What can anti-occupation activists do about all this?

First

It seems to me, we can take seriously what we have said for years: Israel’s conduct in Palestine is not an isolated problem spurred by unique historical or religious circumstances; it is an international crime that threatens us all. In fact, Israel values its occupation of Palestine precisely because its methods and technology are so readily marketable. The longer we tolerate the repression of Palestinians, the sooner we will see that system replicated in countries around the world – including our own.

Second

We need to apply the same skepticism with which we have long viewed Israeli propaganda to the extravagant web of fear-mongering, distortions and dissent-shaming now being spun to aid the importation of Israeli-style repression onto American soil. Coronavirus hysteria is really no different from the emotional exploitation of “terrorism”: a genuine but limited danger is shamelessly manipulated to cow the public into accepting measures that are far worse than the evil they are supposed to cure. As far back as early May, I was warning in print that the unconstitutional “emergency” orders of more than forty state governors in response to COVID19 involved unprecedented attacks on civil liberties.

Now things are actually looking worse – and with still less justification. A makeshift political system intended to respond to a massive bioterror attack – and even then, only temporarily – has been implausibly stretched to rationalize the long-term suspension of representative government, in four-fifths of our states, to counter one moderately serious respiratory virus. Meanwhile, the press has bombarded us with “expert” assurances that we have too much freedom for our own good, and that wanting to “get back to normal” – that is, to democracy and constitutional rule – is a product of “bias,” if not of some psychological malady. There’s no mistaking the official message: either we surrender the Bill of Rights or we all die.

But the official tally of each week’s deaths, state by state, hardly supports these apocalyptic pronouncements. New Jersey (where I live) provides a convenient example. Since the beginning of July and right up through the first week of November – the last for which statistics are available as I write this – the number of deaths from all causes in New Jersey has been virtually identical to the figure for the same period in 2019; the totals vary by barely a third of one percent. In other words, since the midpoint of the year, COVID19 has had no significant effect on the mortality rate in New Jersey.

True, the massive application of an unreliable testing procedure has managed to generate what New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy called an “uptick in cases”; but if you’re still looking for the Emperor’s new clothes amid these tales of a “deadly pandemic,” you can save yourself the effort – even the “experts” admit that the new “cases” seem to have materialized out of thin air.

So, when Murphy once again (on October 24) unilaterally extended a “state of emergency” that, by law, was originally supposed to end on April 9 – insisting that the “dangers presented” by the coronavirus required him to hold onto quasi-dictatorial power in order “to save lives” – he was taking pretty much the same tack as Israeli propaganda that claimed the Jewish State had to poison children in Gaza to protect itself from exploding helium balloons.

(Meanwhile, across the Hudson, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is slated to receive an International Emmy Award for “his once-daily televised briefings on the coronavirus pandemic”; like Murphy, Cuomo excels at convincing jaded audiences that he has averted a catastrophe with edicts that more likely exacerbated it.

If there were an Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance by a Nation-State, Israel would win hands down every year,

… Norman Finkelstein has written. It looks as though Israel is finally getting some competition.)

So the question is not whether Israel’s occupation is being transported – in fact, it has already been transported – far beyond the borders of Palestine. That much should be obvious. For advocates for Palestinian rights, there are really only two issues:

First, are we prepared to recognize the repressive measures we have long identified with occupied Palestine wherever they appear and under whatever pretext? Second, are we determined to resist them once they arise?

My own experience indicates that, so far, most pro-Palestinian pundits have not passed either test. I’ve been condemned by some, and cold-shouldered by others, for even mentioning the connection between lockdown policies and Israel’s long-standing outrages in the Occupied Territories.

When I submitted a version of this column to a left-wing site that has run many of my pieces in the past, the publisher responded that it was…

simply not something I can present.

Since I know him to be a reasonable and thoughtful person, I conclude that the publisher’s “not something I can present” means that his donors – to say nothing of other contributors – aren’t ready to see coronavirus policy as the police-state pretext it really is.

Yes, they’ll complain about the imprisonment of Palestine – and they’re right to do that. But refusing to notice similar abuses in their own country puts them in the absurd position of trying to keep a finger in a dike while a whole city floods around them.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. If the wrongs of Palestine mean to us what we’ve always said they do, we can be – and should be – in the vanguard of resistance to what is surely the most alarming phase of the occupation to date: its spread across Europe and the United States, even as it intensifies in Palestine itself.

At the turn of the 20th century, Mark Twain noted bitterly how the oppression of other peoples led an empire’s citizens to submit to tyranny within their own borders:

trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her [the “Great Republic”], by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home.

Surely those who object to the trampling of Palestinians should be the first to raise our voices against the dissemination of similar crimes throughout the world – especially when those crimes reach our own doorsteps.

If not, what have we been campaigning for all these years?


Michael Lesher is an author, poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. His latest nonfiction book is Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities (McFarland & Co., 2014); his first collection of poetry, Surfaces, was published by The High Window in 2019. A memoir of his discovery of Orthodox Judaism as an adult – Turning Back: The Personal Journey of a “Born-Again” Jew – will be published in September 2020 by Lincoln Square Books.

December 7, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Yet Another California Sheriff Refuses To Enforce Lockdown Measures

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes has became the latest law enforcement head in California to declare that his officers will not be enforcing COVID restrictions.

By Steve Watson | Summit News | December 7, 2020

As the entire state was plunged into what is effectively a complete lockdown over the weekend, Barnes tweeted that he will not send deputies to any calls about “compliance with face coverings, social gatherings or stay-at-home orders.”

“Compliance with health orders is a matter of personal responsibility and not a matter of law enforcement,” Barnes asserted in a statement.

“To put the onus on law enforcement to enforce these orders against law-abiding citizens who are already struggling through difficult circumstances, while at the same time criticizing law enforcement and taking away tools to do our jobs, is both contradictory and disingenuous,” Barnes urged in a clear shot at Governor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom issued a quarantine order which will affect approximately 85% of the state’s population of 40 million people.

The lockdown will remain in place for at least three weeks over the holidays, seeing the closure of businesses including bars, hair salons and indoor restaurants. People will be prevented from meeting with anyone outside their household.

Thus far, Sheriffs at Riverside County, Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County have all announced that they will not be enforcing the restrictions.

On Friday, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco slammed Newsom’s “dictatorial attitude toward California residents while dining in luxury, traveling, keeping his business open and sending his kids to in-person private schools,” labelling Newsom “extremely hypocritical.”

“These closures and stay-at-home orders are flat-out ridiculous,” Bianco declared, adding “The metrics used for closure are unbelievably faulty and are not representative of true numbers and are disastrous for Riverside County.”

Bianco noted that “Newsom is expecting us to arrest anyone violating these orders, cite them and take their money, close their businesses, make them stay in their homes, and take away their civil liberties or he will punish all of us.”

“While the governor’s office and the state has threatened action against violators, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department will not be blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle against Riverside County residents in the enforcement of the governor’s orders,” Bianco continued.

Watch:

December 7, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Sheriff Bianco has a message for Gavin Newsom

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTRfqE64o1G0lmfWyiPrFnA

December 6, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Video | , , | Leave a comment

The ‘European Democracy Action Plan’ Risks Sanctioning EU Citizens For Exercising Free Speech

By Andrew Korybko | OneWorld | December 3, 2020

The long-waited “European Democracy Action Plan” has finally been unveiled, but its proposal to sanction alleged purveyors of so-called “disinformation” is extremely worrisome because people (including EU citizens) might have their fundamental rights and freedoms violated if they’re punished for publishing and/or sharing content that’s been arbitrarily flagged as such, and the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency’s ambiguity about whether this will be imposed against publicly financed Russian international media outlets like RT and Sputnik risks the possibility that their EU employees might be sanctioned for their professional affiliations too.

The EDAP’s Supposed Principles

The “European Democracy Action Plan” (EDAP) has just been unveiled, but instead of reassuring everyone about the bloc’s commitment to human rights in its fight against so-called “disinformation”, it dangerously risks violating them by proposing that alleged purveyors of such arbitrarily flagged information products be sanctioned. The document starts off innocuously enough by explaining the need to “promote free and fair elections and democratic participation; support free and independent media; and counter disinformation”, all of which it’s claimed will be done “in full respect of the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as in national and international human rights rules.” Regarding the aforementioned Charter, they note how “media freedom and media pluralism” are “enshrined” in it. The EDAP also condemns the fact that “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” when describing the threats to journalists’ safety, some of which they note are “even initiated by political actors, in Europe and beyond”, which “can lead to self-censorship and reduce the space for public debate on important issues.”

The Definition Of “Disinformation”

This makes it all the more surprising that the EDAP later goes on to propose sanctions against those who repeatedly spread “disinformation”, which they define as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. Although they promise that this will be done “in full respect of fundamental rights and freedoms”, no transparent mechanism is suggested for explaining how they determine the offending individual’s intent for sharing supposed “disinformation”, nor is there any mention of an appeals process for those who are unfairly targeted for the same political reasons that the EDAP’s authors earlier condemned. The document notes that the experiences of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) East Stratcom Task Force (which, while not mentioned in the text, is the combined foreign and defense ministry of the EU that also runs the defamatory “EU vs. Disinformation” portal which regards any non-mainstream “politically incorrect” viewpoint as Russian and/or Chinese “disinformation”) will play a role in this process, which is extremely disturbing because of how politically motivated that structure’s determinations are.

A Dystopian Task Force For Stifling Free Speech

The EEAS East Stratcom Task Force actually represents everything that the EDAP earlier said that it’s against. To channel the document’s own words, “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” as evidenced by their hit piece in December 2019 against me personally and occasional “debunking” of OneWorld’s factually sourced analyses (which are personal interpretations of the facts and not representative of a “chain of command from the Kremlin” like they libelously wrote without any evidence whatsoever other than circumstantial speculation). Their labeling of the site as “being a new edition to the pantheon of Moscow-based disinformation outlets” proves that they’ve arbitrarily concluded that the intent of its authors such as myself is to spread “disinformation”, which the EDAP defines as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. I never had any such intent since the purpose in sharing my analyses is solely to stimulate “debate on important public issues”, which is a personal mission statement that’s actually in accordance with what the EDAP purportedly says that it wants to protect.

EU vs. Disinformation” Or “EU + Disinformation”?

From my experience being defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom Task Force’s “EU vs. Disinformation” project, I have no confidence in its capabilities to make independent and accurate determinations but rather suspect that it’s a political instrument wielded by the EU’s foreign and defense ministries to intimidate those who share “politically incorrect” interpretations of “important public issues”. The EDAP says that its anti-disinformation proposals “do not seek to and cannot interfere with people’s right to express opinions or to restrict access to legal content or limit procedural safeguards including access to judicial remedy.” Nevertheless, my right to express my opinion is being infringed upon after my work was defamed as “disinformation” (importantly without anyone from that platform ever making an attempt to contact me beforehand even on Twitter despite them referring to my account there and thus being aware of it prior to the publication of their hit piece), and I have no access to “judicial remedy” after what they’ve done. Based on what the EDAP proposes pertaining to sanctions against alleged purveyors of “disinformation”, OneWorld, its media partners, myself, and/or the other contributors including those who are EU citizens might possibly have such costs unfairly imposed upon them.

Cracking Down On EU Citizens

Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova ominously told the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) “in an interview to coincide” with Thursday’s release of the EDAP that “sanctions will should [sic] follow the EU’s cybersanction regime, which was used for the first time this year to freeze assets and introduce visa bans on offenders — primarily Russian, Chinese, and North Korean citizens and companies — that have attacked the bloc.” Just as disturbing was that “she didn’t want to specify at the moment (whether Russian media companies such as RT and Sputnik can be targeted in the future), but added that ‘it can be governmental or nongovernmental actors, whoever will be identified, using very good evidence, that they are systematic producers or promoters of disinformation.’” This confirms what I feared when I read the EDAP, namely that individuals employed by those two companies (including EU citizens among them), as well as people such as myself dangerously defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom’s Task Force and others for allegedly being part of a Russian state “disinformation” conspiracy, might one day wake up to find themselves sanctioned by the EU.

EDAP’s Ambiguities Must Be Immediately Addressed

In order to sincerely abide by its stated principles to respect people’s freedoms, the EDAP must be amended to remove any ambiguities which could allow for the sanctioning of individual people, especially those who might even be EU citizens. After all, its “EU vs. Disinformation” “watchdog” functions more as a politically driven attack dog as proven by my personal experience of having been defamed by them (made all the more incriminating on their part because no attempt was made to contact me for comment on the same Twitter account that they wrote about in their hit piece before publishing it). Everyone has the right to freely express their views even if they’re “politically incorrect”, and it’s practically impossible for a nebulous structure representing the entire bloc’s foreign and defense ministry to confidently determine someone’s “intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm” whenever they publish, share, or tag someone under such arbitrarily flagged information products. Nobody can be confident in the EU’s ability to combat legitimate instances of “disinformation” when that defamatory label is casually thrown around with reckless abandon without considering the life-changing consequences that it could have for the victims like myself.

Media Literacy Is The Solution To “Disinformation”

The EDAP had it right near the end of the document when it proposed improving everyone’s media literacy like I earlier suggested over the summer after being victimized by a different defamation attack. Instead of violating people’s rights and especially those who might be EU citizens, the bloc should prioritize media literacy in order to cultivate a well-informed populace capable of arriving at their own conclusions about the various information products that they encounter. Falsely labeling something “disinformation” just because a government superbureaucracy like the EEAS can’t tolerate the fact that someone is peacefully sharing a dissident political opinion in line with their UN-enshrined human right to do so seriously discredits the bloc as a whole and raises questions about its stated intentions. Jourova herself said in a speech on the day that the EDAP was unveiled that “We do not want to create a ministry of truth. Freedom of speech is essential and I will not support any solution that undermines it”, yet that very same document that she was promoting does exactly that when it comes to my and others’ freedom of speech, especially those who are EU citizens whether casually involved in what’s wrongly described as “disinformation” or employees of foreign media companies.

Concluding Thoughts

Sanctions are never the solution to combating so-called “disinformation”, media literacy is, as the former is akin to the same state intimidation that the EDAP purports to be against while the latter is proof of confidence in people’s capabilities to independently arrive at their own conclusions. Only a “ministry of truth” would dare to sanction people, including its own citizens (however that would work out in practice despite potentially being illegal under the EU’s own laws since its people’s assets and freedom of movement can’t be seized/restricted without court order), for exercising their freedom of speech by sharing “politically incorrect” interpretations (analyses) of the facts. Quite hypocritically, some in the EU claim that Russia is a “dictatorship”, yet Moscow hasn’t threatened to sanction foreign media outlets, foreign commentators, and even its own citizens through asset seizures and/or travel restrictions for sharing views that contradict the Kremlin’s. In fact, judging by the EDAP itself and Jourova’s ominous hints in her interview with RFE/RL, it can be said that the EU will be much less democratic than Russia if it goes through with its “disinformation” sanctions proposal, thus turning the bloc into a modern-day Soviet Union when it comes suppressing freedom of speech and peaceful dissent.

December 6, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Election Day Information Blackout Shows U.S. Media Is No Friend of the People. Americans Must Demand Better

By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 6, 2020

While half of the United States is mesmerized by witness testimony describing the ‘irregularities’ that purportedly occurred in the 2020 presidential contest between the incumbent Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the other half has been left deliberately in the dark by an activist media.

It has become almost a cliché to say that the United States is now fiercely divided into parallel universes, alternative realities, otherwise known as the Republican and Democratic camps. One of the primary reasons for this great divide, aside from the obvious ideological differences, is that just one side, that is, the left, predominantly controls the flow of news and social media content.

Indeed, the ‘legacy media’ even feels itself bold enough to cast judgment on presidential messages via Twitter in real time. If ever there was a recipe for disaster, as the most consequential election in recent memory remains up for grabs, this is it.

On November 30, Bobby Piton, a mathematician and expert, testified at the Arizona voter fraud hearing where he provided compelling evidence that up to 300,000 “fake people” cast a vote in the contested election of Nov. 3. The data, if correct, was alarming in its implications since it meant the difference between Trump or Biden winning the fiercely contested swing state. Certainly the major media networks, in the interest of safeguarding the voting process and consequentially democracy itself, would be interested in providing its viewers with such news, right? Think again.

Not only was Piton’s riveting testimony sent to the memory hole by all of the ‘legacy’ media networks, but Twitter actually decided to block his account the very next day. Piton was treated as yet another ‘conspiracy theorist’ nutcase who will probably need to enter some sort of re-indoctrination internment camp before he can join polite society again. He certainly won’t be in need of company if the thought police get their way.

Just days earlier, the social media platform also suspended the account of Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano, who testified at that state’s election hearing. Twitter later said that Mastriano’s suspension was a “glitch,” which begs the question as to why these technological breakdowns almost always, without fail, target Republicans.

The very same media blackout has hit dozens of other poll watchers, regular citizens with no political ax to grind who had the courage to come forward and relay their stories in the hope of protecting America’s democratic process. Their reward has been crickets from the media industrial complex, which is essentially telling those witnesses that their stories do not matter; only the stories that are peddled to them from the corporate masters are all that count.

Such medieval rationale applies even to the President of the United States, who gave what he said was possibly “the most important speech I’ve ever made.”

“We used to have what was called ‘Election Day,’ but now we have Elections Days, Weeks and Months, and lots of bad things happened during this ridiculous long period of time,” Trump said in his 46-minute statement from the White House.

The American leader then proceeded to provide the various ways that the U.S. election system has come under “coordinated assault and siege,” as he described it. Naturally, Twitter tagged the presidential message by saying “This claim about election fraud is disputed.” Imagine, if you will, what the response would have been had the media titans dared to interrupt one of FDR’s famous fireside chats with a message disputing the veracity of the claims.

In any case, the media, acting, or not acting, in absolute lockstep (jackboot?) synchronicity, decided that the U.S. leader’s remarks were not important enough for the American people to hear. Chris Cuomo, CNN talking head, explained his network’s decision to blank the president’s “tirade.”

“Here’s the fact,” Cuomo began. “Trump is the least of our problems. He is a simple study at this point. Trump is toxic. Period. Sure, he’s going to go out with a bang as in trying to blow up as much as he can. He is absolutely trying to make nothing better, despite the fact that America is in a time of abject crisis.”

Was Cuomo talking about the election crisis that has left the United States without any idea who will be its next president, and especially more now that new evidence of foul play are emerging every single day? Of course not. CNN (which Project Veritas just demonstrated has a very big dog in the outcome of the ongoing race) has decided for their audiences, who apparently can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves, that what the U.S. leader has to say is not important because… yes, Covid, the disease that just keeps giving the Democrats excuses to kill any semblance of democratic principles left in the country.

Cue the hysteria.

“He’s not working on the pandemic that is worse than ever,” crazy Cuomo continued. “He’s not making a deal on relief when more people are struggling to put food on the damn table [cue the violins] than at any time in this country since my parents were babies during the Great Depression.”

In other words, Trump is acting like a monster for considering the integrity of the most consequential election in U.S. history when there is a virus on the loose that leaves 99.8 of its ‘victims’ alive and well.

Judging by CNN and the rest of the mainstream media’s breathtaking arrogance, it is not so hard to imagine a day when the president – whether he or she be Trump or some other nation-loving populist – is outright denied the ability to transmit information over social media, while being deprived of the necessary news coverage, as is already the case with the 45th POTUS. This is the pinnacle of corporate power, or rather the abuse of corporate power.

Such a turn of events in the ‘land of the free’ should be of massive concern for both Democrats and Republicans. Yet partisan politics is winning the day, as the Democrats and their lapdog liberal media believe they have sealed the White House. And perhaps they have. But such a victory will be short-lived as corporate power will not stop at Washington, D.C., but will go on to ravage every last remnant of freedom and democracy in the country. It goes without saying that fake elections supported by fake media will never nurture the conditions for a thriving democracy.

December 6, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Germany: Political Dissident Ursula Haverbeck Sent Back to Prison; May Become Oldest Female Inmate In the World

By Eric Striker – National Justice – December 5, 2020

Just weeks after finishing a two and a half year prison sentence for “Holocaust denial,” 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been convicted again by German courts, this time for an interview she gave in 2018 that affirmed her view that Jews were not systematically killed during World War II and that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are a politically motivated lie.

If the federal court’s sentence of one year in Haverbeck’s newest case holds up, Germany will have the dubious distinction of imprisoning the oldest female inmate in the world, a title previously held by American Lucille Keppen, who was incarcerated for shooting her neighbor and was released at age 93.

The German government has been dragging Haverbeck to court for decades for disputing Jewish claims of gas chambers and systematic murder. Haverbeck has famously protested the kangaroo courts that humiliate and defame elderly war veterans using bogus testimony from “survivors.”

Numerous high-ranking Third Reich officials, soldiers and concentration camp workers have disputed the Holocaust narrative since 1945, including Wehrmacht officer Otto Ernst Remer, Auschwitz employee Thies Christophersen, Erich Priebke, Leon Degrelle, and SS soldier Karl Muenter, the latter who died before his “Holocaust denial” trial began at the age of 96.

Haverbeck’s late husband, Werner Georg Haverbeck, was an influential NSDAP member who himself objected to the blood libel against the German people known as die Auschwitz luge (the Auschwitz lie).

The BRD’s legal system has been ruthless with Haverbeck. The nonagenarian, who is a prisoner of conscience, was denied release after serving 2/3 of her prison sentence as is customary in Germany. While the state freed 1,000 offenders early due to COVID last March, Haverbeck was only let out in mid-November.

There is no sign of shame or human rights concerns in the country, with the judge in the latest case stressing that Haverbeck will continue to be punished until she learns to keep her mouth shut. One can only imagine the outcry from liberal NGOs if Iran, China or Russia imprisoned an elderly woman just for questioning the government’s line.

Haverbeck’s powerful spirit has become an inspiration for patriots in Germany and around the world. In 2019, she ran as a European parliamentary candidate from behind bars and received 25,000 votes, which was highly upsetting to the European media establishment. Every year on her birthday, hundreds of Germans rallied outside her detention center demanding her release.

Intellectuals and activists across Europe, the Americas and Japan have expressed dismay over her mistreatment and the lack of freedom in the land that claims to be a “democracy.” At JVA Bielefeld, where Haverbeck was housed, prison officials struggled to process the avalanche of letters and flowers their famous prisoner received throughout her sentence.

For Germany’s oldest prisoner, it’s clear that she will not cower before the wrath of the Jewish groups directing careerist bureaucrats. It’s in the German state’s reputational interest to stop tormenting Haverbeck, yet the West’s religious fear of debate over what occurred during the Second World War continues to take precedent over all other concerns.

December 5, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Orwellian UK police practice of recording ‘non-crime hate incidents’ that blacklist children for thoughtcrime must end

By Frank Furedi | RT | December 5, 2020

Something has gone seriously wrong in this country, when the police take it upon themselves to intimidate a 14 year-old schoolgirl by making an official record of her innocuous statement in class.

The girl, known only as Miss B, became a target of police interest because she, along with millions of other people, took the view that sex is distinct from gender identity. At a time when it is increasingly verboten to question trans ideology’s claims on the subjectivity of both sex and gender identity, Miss B’s views are too often condemned as hatred.

Miss B, who has indicated that she is ‘frightened about speaking openly on transgender issues’ is – along with her parents – seeking legal recourse and challenging the decision of the police to classify her comment as a non-crime hate incident. Her lawyers’ letter to the College of Policing states that Miss B is ‘concerned about the possibility of having a police record potentially including details of conversations that she has had at school’ and fears ‘this record would impact on her future career prospects.’

What is totally absurd about the predicament Miss B finds herself in, is that she neither demonstrated nor had any intention of demonstrating hostility towards any person. In fact, even the police have not claimed that Miss B hurt the feelings of anyone. She has not done nor said anything hurtful to a single individual. In fact, there is no victim of her action whatsoever, yet still the police involved themselves.

Under existing policing guidelines on hate, you do not need to have done anything remotely hurtful to be made to feel like a criminal. According to these guidelines, officers should make a record of a non-crime hate incident ‘if the victim or any other person perceives that the incident was motivated wholly or partially by hostility, even if it is referred to a partner to respond.’ In this case it is evident that it was the police, or some other busy-body official, who thought Miss B’s comment might be motivated by hostility

What is truly bizarre about these guidelines is that they empower the police to record not only criminal acts but non-criminal acts as well. The Orwellian concept of a non-crime hate incident is an invention of a legal system gone woke.

A non-crime hate incident can be any event that is perceived by someone to be motivated by hostility towards a so-called protected characteristic. ‘Perceived’ means that it is in the eyes of the beholder. As the Operational Guidance points out: “The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incidents.’

This is dangerous territory: there need not be any evidence of hatred for an incident to be registered in the police-recorded hate-crime data. This is an evidence free crime!

All that is required for a statement to be cast into the realm of a non-crime hate incident is for somebody to report it to the police! The force will then automatically record it as a non-crime hate incident. The main motive of recording a statement made by someone like Miss B is to teach her a lesson and to crack down on individuals that hold views that diverge from the official line on gender.

In the current era, the register of recorded non-crime hate incidents plays an important role in the censor’s toolkit. It is a register of dissent designed to shut down free speech.

The main reason why the concept of hate crime is wrong in principle is because by focusing on the emotion of hate it deprives the legal system of objectivity. The meaning of the expression of the emotion, in this case hate, is in the eye of the beholder. That is why police guidelines claim that what makes a crime one of hate is how it is perceived.

Under the existing law, it doesn’t matter what you intended to communicate, what matters is how anyone else interpreted your intentions. It is enough for a policeman to imagine that a 14 year-old child’s statement might have been motivated by hostility for it to be branded a non-crime hate incident. Even though the incident is an essentially imaginary one, the child is punished.

In this case there is only one victim – and it is Miss B.

In our censorious world recording non-crime hate incidents has become a growth industry. During the past five years the police have recorded 120,000 hate incidents. Evidently the policing of speech takes precedence over tackling genuine threats to law and order.

Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Furedibyte

December 5, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Owner of LA bar closed by Covid-19 restrictions decries ‘slap in the face’ as film company allowed to set up dining nearby

RT | December 5, 2020

A Los Angeles bar owner barely held in her tears of outrage after discovering tents meant for feeding a movie crew erected right next to her restaurant, which was shut down and banned from serving outdoors due to Covid-19 rules.

“Tell me that this is dangerous, but right next to me as a slap in my face – that’s safe?” Angela Marsden says in a video pointing to two outdoor spaces, hers and that serving a movie company. The short clip, which highlights how small businesses in California are left behind and going under while large companies apparently get the green light to march on, has gone viral and won a massive outpouring of support.

Marsden owns Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, a restaurant in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. Like many other establishments, it was forced to shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite Marsden investing a reported $80,000 into making her facility safer.

As such, she was furious when she discovered that a movie company had been allowed to set up tents to feed employees right in front of her bar, which has an outdoor dining area of its own. The film industry is considered essential by Los Angeles County and was allowed to operate despite coronavirus risks.

“I am losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me. And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio!” Marsden said. “They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive! My staff cannot survive!”

Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill has been running in the neighborhood for over four decades, but unless it opens by February, Marsden may have to shut it down for good, she told local media. She and several other small business owners are organizing a protest against what they see as unfair treatment by Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The situation however is hardly unique for California. Throughout the US authorities have been deciding which forms of entertainment are essentials and which are not.

For example, the comedy show Saturday Night Live brought back a live audience in October in a move not in line with health guidelines. They got round the rules by compensating people for watching the show, which technically made them paid employees.

But some larger productions are still suffering. In New York, Broadway remains closed and isn’t currently slated to reopen until at least 2021. The Metropolitan Opera on Wednesday announced the cancellation of its entire 2020-21 season due to the pandemic, an ominous sign for the performing arts.

December 5, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , | Leave a comment

Together But Falling Apart

By Alex Bartlett | OffGuardian | December 5, 2020

2020 staggers on, each month becoming more bleak, tiresome and increasingly onerous.

In the early winter months we paid scant attention to the Coronavirus story developing in China. And why should we have? After SARS, almost twenty years ago, then minor scares such as Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika Virus, Flesh Eating disease, along with past potential terrors like Avian Flu and Foot and Mouth Disease, there was no reason to think this was anything but another sensationalized false alarm. Indeed, an honest investigation, not even one all that rigorous, could easily have demonstrated that this was the case.

However, the last nine months have been nothing but an absolutely dedicated, well organized and diligent global effort to re-brand the common flu as a devasting pandemic just barely under control.

We have been asked to turn to some of the most trusted people in our civil society, Doctors and Professors, the types of professionals whom we would least expect to lie to us or to deliberately mislead us. They have sworn an oath to heal, to do no harm; they are dedicated to the search for the truth, borne out of diligent research and a rigorous scrutiny of the data. If they gravely and repeatedly tell us that we are at great risk and that things can and will get much, much worse very quickly then who are we to question their wisdom and their warnings?

The suddenness and unrelenting persistence of this great Covid lie wears us all down.

We were caught off guard by this deception here in Ontario, Canada. Just before the annual, week-long March break holiday we were told by our Premier Doug Ford (just think of one of the Pigs from “Animal Farm”) to continue with our travel plans, all will be fine. Just days later the closures started and the sloganeering began: “Flatten the curve”, “We’re all in this together”, “The New Normal”. All empty, hollow utterances that allowed people to avoid really thinking about what was really happening.

In Ontario, those of us who still dare to question this narrative are becoming increasingly isolated and marginalized. It is amazing to see how quickly people have chosen their side on this matter and how unwavering their devotion to their cause can be. Whether it is a shut down for two weeks, 4 weeks, 3 months, masks all the time, everything closed or even an experimental vaccine, it does not matter. “We’re all in this together”. Anyone who disagrees is either reckless, selfish, stupid or all of the above.

This other ‘reckless’ point of view is much smaller and very marginalized. Prominent Scientists and Virologists are ignored in the media for voicing a dissenting opinion, even the most moderate voices of dissent are ridiculed. The Great Barrington Declaration, with an extremely reasonable and balanced plea for reason in dealing with CV-19, has been savaged in the press because some journalists were able to add some absurdly fake names to an online form that anyone could sign.

I was impressed enough by the open letter published in September from almost 2,000 Belgian Medical Doctors & Health Professionals that I sent it to my Belgian friends, very smart and well-educated people, who did not doubt the Covid narrative. The response, when I enquired of one of them, was that “it was too long, [he] did not read it”. His underlying message was clear, he was not going to consider anything beyond the boundaries established by the press. If the Economist or The Atlantic magazine supported the Covid narrative then it must be so. If you chose to consider anything outside these boundaries you were either misled or grossly misinformed.

Unfortunately for me, I was branded a conspiracy theorist a long time ago amongst family and friends because I passionately argue against the official narrative for 9/11. These obvious controlled demolitions, along with all of the other evidence of this carefully coordinated operation – the subterfuge, the impossible coincidences, the great effort to cover it up – was irrefutable proof in my mind, if you would just consider it.

The parallels of CV-19 to 9/11 are both terrifying and, I am ashamed to say it, reassuring.

The aftermath of the shocking, astonishing events of 9/11 became even more difficult to comprehend with the addition of the Anthrax attacks and the Belt-Way sniper that followed.

Covid-19 has been overshadowed in some of the same ways, with the Black Lives Matter riots and the extended, ridiculous spectacle that is the Presidential Illusion of Choice, held sacred by so many Americans. As a result, it is hard to remain focused on anything; the world seems to be coming apart at its seams, yet the deliberate rips, the shoddy stitching and the forces pulling things apart are obvious enough, if you bother to look.

Much like the Project for a New American Century, a policy document that detailed the need for an event like 9/11 and the sweeping, imperialist opportunities that would result, we now have ‘The Great Reset’. A chance to ‘Build Back Better’ an equitable and improved society for all, governed by a few.

Trying to connect these plans to CV-19 instantly makes one a conspiracy theorist, even though these strategic plans do exist. They are well-documented, easy to find and easy enough to read.

When you point out the obvious benefits that overreaching control and an obscene global theft of power and money will impart to a select few, it doesn’t matter. You are merely someone who sees a conspiracy in everything.

With 9/11 the world had changed for ever, they said, and in many ways it certainly has. For most of us – complacent, docile Europeans and North Americans – well, we just generally went back to life as it was before. Either knowingly or through sheer ignorance (usually a bit of both), we supported new wars of occupation in the middle east, the massive increases in military spending and huge new encumbrances on our personal freedoms.

The worst outcome of 9/11 was that several countries were illegally invaded and brutally occupied with millions upon millions dying and suffering as a result. For most of “us” this did not matter, as daily life was still the same. We still had our jobs, our holidays and leisure, our new gadgets, our homes and certainly our futures. After a few years, when I finally made sense of this great 9/11 lie, I still did not do much differently. I would argue with friends and family about what had really happened on that day, and I lost faith in much of the media and government I had formerly trusted. But, in the end, I still supported the system and benefited from it.

I feel ashamed of wishing for these same types of selfish outcomes with CV-19. Even though the world economies have haemorrhaged trillions of dollars to fight this re-branded flu, perhaps it will still be ok in the end? Money is just a modern faith-based system these days anyways. If we can believe in Bit-Coin, the vast labyrinth of Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps, then why can’t we just add a lot more cash to the mix if we need it? Most of us are too young to have ever experienced inflation. Isn’t that economic reality just for mismanaged countries like Zimbabwe and Argentina anyways? Perhaps the track and trace apps won’t be that intrusive and, after all, our phones violate our privacy every minute they are switched on as it is. Could this ‘new normal’ be any worse?

Perhaps the covid vaccine is just a cash grab for big Pharma, like the flu vaccine or the HPV vaccine? Products we never wanted nor needed, that required a campaign of coercion and fear mongering to produce any real demand. With the CV-19 disinformation campaign waging on a global stage, they seem to be positioned to distribute 3 billion servings of a double-dose vaccine at $39.00 USD per serf. That is close to 120 Billion dollars… Surely, that might be enough to tide over the pharmaceutical industry for a few years, until Covid-20? Perhaps they will achieve a balance: enough people willing or compliant enough to be vaccinated yearly, and a media/medical establishment willing to proclaim that the covid scourge is over for now?

I really don’t believe this will happen, yet I still selfishly hope that this covid era will end, that my kids can return to school without masks, that they will be able to take part in after-school activities and that their future still holds many exciting possibilities and paths.

I hate fearing that the world will suddenly be redefined as a global, technocratic state where diversity becomes equality, families become individuals and the truth, or even just a difference of opinion, becomes a violation of ‘community guidelines’.

It has now been nine months. The fear, uncertainty and self doubt I have about this situation and my future are constant and growing. I have grown extremely weary of sharing relevant articles and interviews that I am certain will alarm and enrage, only to find out they have fallen on deaf ears – unwatched, unread or simply dismissed.

It makes me wonder, who am I to think I am smarter than the majority, more aware and more of a critical thinker than my friends and peers? Perhaps I just suffer from a prolonged and acute confirmation bias and I am incapable of separating truth from conjecture, fear from reason and goodwill from ill intent? Is there some type of persistent pessimism or self-loathing that gives me this particular lens?

To assuage these doubts, which I encounter almost daily, I remind myself to revisit the tired cliché of cui bono. Who stands to benefit?

9/11 was an easy one, they actually published their goals beforehand in the Project for New American Century document and betrayed their nature in many instances of sheer greed, such as obscenely lucrative, barely-months-old insurance policies on the buildings they collapsed.

A casual examination shows us that CV-19 has already substantially enriched the Billionaire class, strengthened the stranglehold that the mainstream media and big tech have on creating facts and defining truth, allowed governments to spend without restriction and to restrict their citizens without restraint.

No matter how absurd the response becomes to what an honest virologist would call an inconsequential virus, most citizens are demanding a greater response. More unscrutinised spending, more closures, more doses of vaccines to be made available as soon as possible, and more public shaming (and worse) for those who do not comply with the ‘new normal’.

In the end, pharmaceutical giants will be the big winners, earning untold billions for their rushed vaccine, and will be spared any liability for all adverse consequences. Small businesses and personal autonomy will have disappeared and we will all be that much easier to track, control, monitor, punish and isolate.

Does it have to be this way? Last week I went to a local protest in Toronto. It felt really good to finally step forward and add my voice and my presence amongst those willing to call bullshit on this assault on science, reason and the fabric of our local and national communities. The protest itself was calm and measured but you could easily sense the frustration and fear of those in attendance.

To be sure, some protesters looked and behaved quite oddly and this made me wonder if I really did belong with this group. However, I feel much more at odds with “the new normal” types: the masked families in parks or the middle-aged women that now walk in the streets to avoid the dangers of human proximity on sidewalks, while glaring at the speeding cars that rush by.

I tend, therefore, to turn to a select few people and publications online instead. People like my younger sister, Eva, who has been a tireless advocate for truth in Syria, Palestine and Venezuela. I know her well enough to know she does what she does solely because she knows it is right, certainly not for money or prestige. As a thanks for her work and sacrifice, she has to live with constant attacks and the ignominy of a horrendous Wikipedia Page – nothing short of a smear, solely to discredit her in the eyes of anyone vetting her or new to her reporting.

It is people like this that I trust.

Throughout the last nine months, the conflicts of interest and the obvious biases of the media, lobbyists, most levels of government, big Tech, big “Charitable” foundations and benevolent trusts make it obvious that this scheme will only work if their propaganda is unwavering and unrelenting.

Why aren’t my friends and family as concerned as I am? Why does my wife, who has been able to see through much of the fear mongering and distortion, draw the line at protesting or voicing her opinion amongst friends? What do I do when I encounter her growing resentment towards me for behaving this way? I love her, I understand why she is afraid and what she wants to protect us from, but perhaps it is this sense of self-preservation which ‘the powers that be’ are counting on? Will this self-preservation lead to our undoing?

The temptation to try to wait this out is still strong, even though the few weeks they initially asked of us has gotten closer to a full year. The temptation to think we are too far gone to warrant launching resistance is also consistently there.

To combat this, I ignore mainstream media and I have stopped trying to reach others that I know cannot be reached.

There still remains, of course, many persistent and unresolved fears and issues.

How far can this possibly go? Will we be forced to vaccinate ourselves, our children and even our fragile elderly? How will our economy reconcile the gross expenditures of 2020? What businesses will remain once, IF, this finally grinds to an end? How likely is this crisis to be exploited as an opportunity by multi-national capitalism, in the ways leftist gate-keepers like Naomi Klein have written about in the past, yet seem unwilling to recognize in the present?

I hope for our sakes and for my own that more people grow weary of this non-existent pandemic and realize that they can demand a return to reason and individual liberties.

The most hopeful thing I have seen in months has been a compilation video of recent protests around Europe and North America.

When this all started, we were encouraged to stand on our porches and bang pots and pans at a set hour to celebrate our front-line heroes in manufactured displays of solidarity. It is so encouraging now to see people choosing, on their own, to protest together and banging pots and pans in front of their government buildings instead. Showing true solidarity against this covid nonsense.

This is the opposite of big-tech and their non-stop, ever-present propaganda. It is simple, non-violent and to-the-point. The message is clear: we are entitled to assemble together and to protect what is most dear to us. Families together, meals together, forging our livelihoods together, simply being together.

I won’t forget this message and I won’t miss another protest. The cost is too great. I am tired of seeing everything fall apart when we still have the ability to fight to live, work and simply be together as normal people.

December 5, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Canada: Government and Bankers Pay “Antifa” Members to Dox and Attack Right Wingers

By Eric Striker • National Justice • December 3, 2020

Last week, Kurt Phillips of Anti-Racist Canada (ARC) retired his blog after 13 years.

ARC was an early pioneer of the tactic of “doxing,” where leftists post the addresses, photos of homes, and other personal information of political dissidents in order to threaten and intimidate them into silence. Over the years, Phillips has targeted free speech activists, Canadian nationalists, Proud Boys, immigration skeptics and even the Canadian Yellow Vest movement, sometimes paired with thinly veiled calls to violence.

Even his farewell message encourages readers to follow explicitly violent anarchist groups and left-wing “skinheads” like SHARP.

Early this year, Phillips was himself exposed as a gay communist teacher at St. Anthony’s Catholic school in Drumheller, Alberta, where he continues to work despite revelations of his activities and litigation alleging unethical and potentially illegal behavior.

While Phillips is calling it quits at ARC, this is only because of a sinecure he has received at Bernie Farber’s antifa NGO, the “Canadian Anti-Hate Network,” (CAN) where Phillips is now a board member. Farber is a Zionist Jewish activist who was criticized for claiming to be a homosexual in 2009 in order to promote Israel and protest a pro-Palestine group at an gay parade.

CAN engages in similar activities as ARC, specializing in doxing and creating media narratives to demonize right-wingers in Canada. CAN’s position on violence appears to be purely legalistic, with its “About” page stating “We do not, however, engage in any on-the-ground organizing and encourage you to contact your local anti-racist groups if you want to get involved at that level.” The anti-racist groups they are referring to are mostly communist and anarchist “antifa” groups who use force to deny Canadians with different political opinions their civil liberties.

What is most shocking about CAN is who is paying Phillips to harass people: the Canadian government and banking establishment.

In October, the multinational investment bank Bank of Montreal (BMO) provided CAN with a $250,000 donation to expand its “antifa” operations. This was followed up with another big cash injection from the Canadian state itself through its “Anti-Racist Action” program, which allocated $270,000 to CAN’s activities of “monitoring” and “combating” right-wing groups.

The dynamic doesn’t seem to bother self-described anti-capitalists tripping over one another for the money of bankers and Canadian plutocrats.

Non-governmental organizations, often funded by billionaires and business interests, have always been a vital lifeline for the phony left. Now Canada appears to be one of the first nations to use taxpayer dollars to outright fund left-wing paramilitary activity and organized online harassment.

The fact that the “Anti-Racist Action” grant program shares its name with the “antifa” terrorist group is unlikely to be a coincidence. If you were to ask Kurt Phillips, he is likely to proudly agree.

December 4, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The U.S. Election Is Not Over

By Patrick Armstrong | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 4, 2020

President Putin is correct not to congratulate Joe Biden on being elected. There are two reasons. The first is that the complex U.S. election process has not finished; therefore, as Trump has not conceded, there is no “President-elect”. The second reason is that the results may be overthrown by reason of fraud. In which case, Putin will, at the end of the story, look smarter than those who rushed to congratulate Biden before the process was complete.

The hearing in the Pennsylvania Senate and the lawsuits filed in Georgia and Michigan in the last week of November were the first public appearance of the fraud arguments and their supporting evidence – although the alternate media had been on the case from the beginning. Contrary to the utterances of the news media, it was only then that the case was presented in its fullest – the previous legal actions having been only preliminary manoeuvring. The evidence for fraud falls under four heads: eyewitness accounts, improbabilities, statistical analysis and the matter of voting machines and their software. It’s difficult to make up numbers – there are relationships and patterns the fraudster may not know about: better to just make up a final percentage à la the USSR. This piece gives a summary of some of the difficulties with the published results; this piece describes some of the “statistical aberrations”.

Parenthetically, one might observe that the U.S. government declares foreign elections to be fraudulent on a mere fraction of this evidence. Or even, as in the case of Belarus, with no proffered evidence at all: no exit polls, no blurry films; nothing at all.

There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of eyewitness accounts of strange happenings – sudden arrivals of ballots, observers kept away, counting stopped but apparently continuing in secret, suspiciously pristine postal ballots, stacks of ballots with only Biden’s name filled out, Trump votes destroyed, suspicious ballot “curing”, signature problems, backdating postal ballots, wandering USB drives, dead people voting, computer “glitches” sending Trump votes to Biden. Many of these are incorporated into affidavits in the lawsuits and may be read and judged by the public. Many eyewitness accounts, of course, can be dismissed for one valid reason or another, but there are too many now, with more appearing, for casual dismissal.

There are improbabilities in the result. Biden received fewer votes than Clinton or Obama in most areas but many more in the “battleground states”. There were striking exceptions in “down-ballot” voting: in the key states there were large differences between the votes for Biden and for the Democratic Senate candidate. There are cases of historically high – almost Soviet-level – turnouts in key precincts in the “battleground states”. There were improbably high turnouts in nursing homes and in group homes. There are many cases where more votes were cast than voters registered. It was generally a bad day for Democratic candidates: seats were lost in the House and in state legislatures but we are expected to believe that Biden won a strong victory. Despite the spectacular difference in enthusiastic crowds, we’re told that more people turned out for Biden on the day. Perhaps any one of these can be explained but can all of them?

Statistical analysis comprises the next grouping of evidence. We see that votes for Biden, most of the time, and votes for Trump, all of the time, roughly accord with the curve of Benford’s Law. But in those areas where Biden needed the votes, they do not. Violations of Benford’s Law are commonly used by forensic accountants to indicate fraud. An analysis of moving averages over time shows a settled ratio of votes for Biden with a sudden jump in the hours when counting was “stopped”. In some cases votes seem to have been processed faster than physically possible. Other analyses point to suspicious spikes of votes for Biden. A number of statisticians have been attracted to the question and their analyses suggesting fraud are appearing. Again there are too many of these pointers – all of them in the same direction – to be easily dismissed.

Finally there is the whole collection of problems with some voting machines – especially Dominion – and their associated software. The argument is that the machines and software were specifically designed to produce fraudulent results: totals can be changed, votes switched from one candidate to another, incoming vote weighted in favour of one candidate and so on. There are affidavits to this effect. U.S. Embassy cables and previous investigations had shown problems with Dominion machines but, nonetheless, they and the associated software were widely used in 2020. There is possible foreign involvement in these important machines: many parts are made in China; affidavits claim that voting tallies were sent to other countries on the Internet and were massaged there and that passwords into the system were widely available. A computer security expert attests that “hundreds of thousands of votes” were transferred from Trump to Biden by the machines. These issues are attracting computer programmers and hackers and there are now a number of videos on the Internet showing how easily the machines can be hacked.

In summary, the argument is that the machines were programmed to rig the vote in the key states (and perhaps everywhere) by an amount that was thought to be sufficient. But the Trump vote was so much greater than anticipated that the counting had to be “halted” in the “battleground states”; in the “halted” time, ballots were manufactured to compensate. The image of a smooth red curve being overtaken by a blue stepped curve has become the logo of those who believe there were such injections.

This is now quite a large heap of accusations, witness statements and assertions: can these charges be proved in a court (leaving aside the question of whether U.S. courts can be trusted to rule on such a partisan issue – vide General Flynn’s experience)? Or, given the provisions of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution – “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…” – can sufficient state legislatures be convinced to select Trump-voting Electors? We will find out. But there are certainly too many things to be airily dismissed and there is nothing to suggest that either side will concede until the issue has been fought out to the end.

But, whatever is decided, half the population will be convinced that the election was stolen – indeed a Rasmussen poll in mid-November showed that nearly half the population – including 30% of Democrats! – already believes that “Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win”.

2020 has not been a good year for the United States: COVID-19 has wreaked havoc, the economic gains of the past few years have eroded, civil violence and rioting have been common. A disputed election leaving half the population thinking its candidate was cheated out of office will not make things more peaceful. Many are speaking of, if not outright civil war, severe civil strife.

And, in a condition of widespread civil strife and who knows what else, what is the future of the Imperium Americanum? Many pundits will quote Plehve’s alleged remark about the attractiveness of a “little, victorious war” to distract the population. But what little wars are there left? Afghanistan? Iraq? Hardly victorious. It is unlikely that overthrowing Maduro would be very short or, even if it were, that it would distract impassioned American rioters. A war with Iran would be neither little nor victorious. A really severe civil war would divide the U.S. military and bring it home. The consequences of the November 2020 election, whoever winds up in the White House in January, will be long-lasting; the Imperium will have important concerns at home.

What from Moscow’s perspective? The ingathering of American resources to deal with problems in the homeland will be welcomed but the dangers of a nuclear state imploding will not. 2021 may make 2020 look like a blessed haven of stability.

December 4, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | | Leave a comment