‘Journalism is Not a Crime’: Experts Lambast EU Media Freedom Act
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 26.06.2023
The European Media Freedom Act envisages installing spyware on journalists’ phones for the sake of “national security”. Sputnik sat down with some international observers to discuss how the provision correlates with the act’s name and basic European principles.
“There is no legitimate reason to spy on journalists,” Lucy Komisar, an investigative journalist based in New York, told Sputnik.
“Remember, this law targets people identified as journalists, not as spies or terrorists or criminals. Journalism is not a crime, unless Julian Assange does it. The real reason is to protect government officials from journalists reporting on officials’ misguided policies, abuses and corruption. It’s quite ironic in view of the EU’s self-congratulatory rules trumpeted as protecting peoples’ data from tech companies. Stealing data when a company does it is bad, stealing audio and written text when a government does it is just fine.”
Tightening Screws on Free Press
The bloc’s new media regulation was proposed by the European Commission (EC) in September 2022. The initial draft stipulated that European governments could deploy spyware on journalists’ devices “on a case-by-case basis” to ensure national security or to investigate “serious crimes,” such as terrorism, human or weapons trafficking, exploitation of children, murder or rape.
However, in May 2023, Politico obtained a document penned by French policy-makers who called to narrow journalists’ immunity under the new EU rules and strike what they called “a fair balance between the need to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and the need to protect citizens and the state against serious threats.”
According to the media, Paris’ argument was accepted by the EC. As a result, the draft legislation was amended to loosen safeguards for the journalists’ immunity. The EC’s original list of “serious crimes” allowing surveillance on reporters was replaced by a broader 2002’s Council Framework Decision of the European arrest warrant consisting of 32 offenses.
The development triggered a storm of criticism from European journalist organizations, NGOs and activist groups. In particular, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), representing over 300,000 members, denounced the EU’s move as a “blow to media freedom”. The EFJ warned that empowering EU governments to install spyware on journalists’ devices under the guise of “national security” would in particular have a “chilling effect on whistleblowers” and confidential sources.
“Since the eighteenth century when newspapers began to circulate, the secrecy of sources has been sacrosanct,” Professor Ellis Cashmore, the author of Screen Society and an independent media analyst, told Sputnik. “Journalists have, over generations, respected this and steadfastly refused to reveal sources. As recently as 2005, Judith Miller, a New York Times journalist, was sentenced to prison for not revealing sources. So, it is an extremely important principle in the media.”
For their part, the British media warned that despite the UK leaving the EU, the bloc’s legislation in its current form poses a surveillance risk to British journalists residing in the EU. European Digital Rights (EDRi), a network of digital rights advocates, urged the European Council to reconsider the legislation’s spyware provisions.
The proposed legislation will not only infringe the freedom of press but contribute to the further erosion of the public trust in the Western mainstream media which is increasingly merging with the government and elitist structures, according to Sputnik’s interlocutors.
“The two cataclysmic events of the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine conflict have changed the media’s relationships with governments,” explained Cashmore. “One important effect is what we might call a neutering of the media. I mean by this that news organizations are now so reliant on governments for intel that they have been deterred from being critical of administrations. In the West, the phrase is ‘do not bite the hand that feeds you’.”
One shouldn’t delude oneself into believing that those proposing the spyware provision are really concerned about “national interests,” echoed Lucy Komisar: “The security they are protecting is not that of European nations but of themselves,” she pointed out.
According to Komisar, much of the Western media “already walks in lock-step with their governments.” The newly proposed bill “aims at the few courageous ones left, to keep the public from finding out about officials’ abuses and lies” and “to intimidate the few Julian Assanges who are left in European media that reach the broad public.”
Once the legislation is passed “real journalists will have to do what other critics of repressive governments do: user burner phones, have computers not connected to the internet, have secret meetings with brave sources,” the investigative journalist projected.
“Democracy is distorted when citizens are prevented from getting the information they need for informed choices,” Komisar warned.
Bans and Censorship Do More Harm Than Good
Meanwhile, the latest developments don’t seem surprising against the backdrop of the West’s steady attack on freedom of speech over the last several years. One glaring example is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been persecuted for exposing the US-NATO criminal conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq and the CIA’s cyber-spying techniques. Assange is indicted on 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act in the US. The WikiLeaks founder has been held in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison for more than four years and is now facing extradition to the US.
Likewise, Washington charged former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden under the Espionage Act for shedding light on the US global surveillance program and spying on American civilians in a clear contradiction with the nation’s constitution. Snowden evaded Assange’s fate by finding asylum in Russia. In September 2022, Vladimir Putin signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to the whistleblower.
Most recently, the collective West has ramped up pressure against Russian media outlets by resorting to censorship and outright bans after the beginning of Moscow’s special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.
In particular, in March 2022, the EU slapped sanctions and suspended the broadcasting activities of Sputnik and RT thus stripping Europeans of any alternative news about the Ukraine conflict and imposing a one-sided vision of what’s going on in the Eastern European military theater. Concurrently, the UK passed legislation ordering social media, internet services and app store companies to block content from RT and Sputnik.
Remarkably, some Western human rights advocates warned at the time that banning Russian media “does more harm than good”: “History offers numerous examples of emergency speech restrictions threatening the very democracies they were supposed to protect,” wrote Danish lawyer and free speech activist Jacob Mchangama in August 2022.
“I am not a conspiracy theorist, but any sentient person can see a systematic removal of the media’s ability to operate without fear or favor – that is, impartially,” said Cashmore. “A dependency has been cultivated: the media have been encouraged to rely on political powers for information and, if they don’t, they face expulsion. The ejection of Sputnik and RT from the UK illustrates the measures governments are prepared to take to eliminate not just critical but alternative commentary. So, I believe the EU is seeking a closer compliance with mainstream or dominant narratives and the minimization of perspectives that challenge or criticize.”
The value of the concept of the freedom of speech is fading given that just a handful of European parliamentarians have shown any independence or courage to uphold this basic principle of the EU, according to Komisar. She expects that the draconian legislation may be passed, apparently with a meaningless disclaimer “this should not be used to attack a free press.”
“Calling this ‘Orwellian’ becomes a cliché,” Komisar concluded.
House Committee Passes Rule Banning Pentagon From Funding Pro-Censorship Organizations
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 27, 2023
In a move to limit the influence of organizations involved in rating or indirectly causing online censorship, the House Armed Services Committee has greenlighted a regulation that forbids the Pentagon from allocating funds to such entities. This development took place during the early hours of Thursday when the committee approved the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
The amendment was introduced by Republican Representative Rich McCormick of Georgia. The amendment specifically names the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), Graphika, NewsGuard, and their kin as prohibited from accessing Pentagon funds. These organizations, with the stated goal of flagging and assessing online content for “disinformation,” have been on the receiving end of criticism that argues that their rating systems are tainted by bias.
Rep. McCormick made his position clear when he expressed satisfaction with the passage of his amendment, stating, “Proud to pass my amendment that prohibits the Department of Defense from contracting with any one of a number of ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ monitors that rate news and information sources. While these media monitors claim to be nonpartisan, the reality is they are not.”
In practical terms, the amendment prohibits the Department of Defense from engaging with or financing any entity that actively partakes in advising censorship or blacklisting of news sources on grounds that may be subjective or politically biased. Furthermore, advertising and marketing agencies, which the Department of Defense relies upon for recruitment campaigns, must affirm that they do not avail the services of these types of organizations.
Robert F Kennedy Jr. Calls CBDCs “Instruments of Control and Oppression”
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
In an interview with The New York Post, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party presidential candidate, took a deep dive into the topic of currency. He unfolded his candid views on Bitcoin, expressed trepidations over central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and rang the bell of caution around artificial intelligence (AI).
Kennedy plans to “support Bitcoin and the freedom to transact,” and enable individuals to wield command over “Bitcoin wallets, nodes, and passwords.” In his world, regulatory fetters would be whittled down to the bare essentials to curb money laundering.
Kennedy also locked horns with Biden’s proposed crypto tax, a formidable 30%, and sounded the alarm against CBDCs.
His argument on CBDCs was clear-cut – CBDCs, in his estimation, are “instruments of control and oppression, and are certain to be abused.” He’s not alone in this battle-cry; his rival from the Republican stables, Ron DeSantis, shares a kindred spirit.
His disquiet was not merely consigned to the domain of cryptocurrency; artificial intelligence was equally ensnared in his critical lens. Kennedy called for the global harnessing of AI, citing figures like Elon Musk, whose advocacy for free speech he commended. The omens, as he foresees, are grave – where AI’s formidable might could “control narratives, create illusions, surveil our activities to dictate our behaviors and enforce compliance, and ultimately enslave humanity.”
Facebook Trusts Former CIA Analyst To Manage Election Policies
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
Meta recently appointed Aaron Berman, an ex-CIA agent, to take charge of its Elections Policies. Berman, who previously led the misinformation team at the company during the 2020 elections, now occupies a prominent position with extensive oversight over elections-related content across the globe.
The move is part of the revolving door between the intelligence community and social media platforms.
Aaron Berman boasts a career that spans nearly two decades with the CIA, from March 2002 to July 2019, Breitbart reported. During his tenure, he wielded significant influence, assuming various roles including editing and writing for the President’s Daily Brief – a high-profile classified document prepared every morning for the President of the United States by the intelligence community. Besides this, he supervised numerous analysts and managed multimillion-dollar budgets. His wide-ranging duties also encompassed providing briefings to members of Congress and the National Security Council.
After his extensive tenure with the CIA, Berman joined Facebook in 2019. Here, he took on the role of Senior Product Policy Manager for “misinformation.” He was instrumental in constructing the misinformation policy team’s workforce in the US and implementing policies during what he refers to as “critical events.” Although Berman has not specified the nature of these events, his stint at Facebook’s misinformation department coincided with the period leading up to the 2020 election, which was marred by controversies such as suppression of voices and news outlets.
Now as the Head of Elections Policies, Berman has wide-ranging responsibilities, as described on his LinkedIn profile: “Leads a team responsible for elections-related content policies worldwide. Oversees policy development, advises senior executives, coordinates with teams on implementation via technical and human workflows, and represents Meta with external stakeholders. Puts policies into practice on key elections.”
Australia mulls ‘fake news’ fines for Big Tech
RT | June 26, 2023
Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook could be hit with substantial fines under new draft legislation from the Australian government to crack down on the spread of “misinformation” and fake news on their platforms, The Age reported.
Under the proposal put forth by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), social media companies will be required to keep records showing their efforts to curb the spread of such information online. Repeated failures to do so could see them facing fixed fines numbering in the millions of dollars.
“Mis- and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public safety,” Canberra’s communications minister Michelle Rowland said on Sunday. She added that “the Albanese government is committed to keeping Australians safe online.”
Under the government proposal, the ACMA would be entitled to impose a new “code” of practice on social media platforms that repeatedly demonstrate an inability to monitor the spread of fake news on their services. It would also establish an industry-wide ‘standard’ to force the removal of certain content, requiring more robust methods to identify misinformation and an increased use of fact-checkers.
Systemic breaches of the code would see a company liable to a maximum fine of AUS $2.75 million (US $1.83 million) or 2% of global turnover – whichever is higher. The maximum penalty for breaking an industry ‘standard’ would be AUS $6.88 million (US $4.6 million) or 5% of global turnover.
A hypothetical fine under the latter terms for Facebook’s parent company Meta would amount to around AUS $8 billion (US $5.35 million), The Age daily noted.
The EU imposed similar rules governing social-media content last year which also saw social media companies liable for fines linked to annual global turnover.
Under the proposed legislation the government in Canberra would not have a role in determining which content online constitutes “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Rowland stressed that the law is designed to “strike the right balance” between curbing fake news and protecting freedom of speech online.
The powers will also not apply to standalone pieces of content, official electoral information and professional news services. Google had previously removed around 3,000 videos uploaded to YouTube from Australia which spread what it referred to as dangerous or misleading information related to Covid-19.
The proposed legislation was published on Saturday and is currently out for public consultation, which Rowland said was an opportunity for Australians and social media companies to air any objections to it.
Democrats Call on YouTube To Bring Back Its Election Censorship Rules
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2023
A ripple of indignation surged through the Capitol this Thursday as some lawmakers pushed against YouTube and its parent colossus, Alphabet Inc. At the heart of the issue is the tech behemoth’s about-face on its election misinformation policy, a move that emerges as a tinderbox in the countdown to the presidential race next year.
The fury emanated from the news that YouTube has decided to slacken its policy reins, no longer acting as the all-mighty censor against videos questioning the the sanctity of the 2020 presidential elections. The revelation, made through an announcement from YouTube, was met with the usual complaints from four high-profile Democrats of the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Among the voices was that of Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D.-NJ) who, along with his cohorts, denounced YouTube’s maneuver and demanded the tech giant retract this new stance.
In a letter, the lawmakers articulated their dissent, stating, “While you claim that taking such action is ‘core to a functioning democratic society,’ we emphatically disagree.”
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
They lambasted the policy relaxation as perilous and branded it a dagger pointed at the heart of American democracy, pressing YouTube to review this “harmful policy decision.”
YouTube’s silent watch was palpable as a spokesperson offered no rejoinder to the avalanche of criticism.
Dissecting the June 2nd announcement, YouTube’s reversal appears to be rooted in an introspective contemplation of its policy’s past efficacy and consequences. After purging of tens of thousands of videos, and a whole election cycle within its purview, the platform seems to have had an awakening. Perhaps censoring stuff isn’t good after all, they suggest, hopefully realizing that they were the baddies all along.
They believe the policy, initially started as a bulwark against election denialism, might inadvertently muzzle political speech without significantly stymieing the risk of violence.
However, the democratic lawmakers rebuked YouTube’s newfound stance as perilous, asserting that content discrediting the legitimacy of recent elections has already wreaked havoc upon democracy.
Since when has free speech been antithetical to democracy?
Zelensky Ratchets Up Culture War with Ban on Russian Books
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 25, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill last week banning the import of books produced in Russia or printed in the Russian language. The new law is Kiev’s latest escalation in its extensive effort to eliminate Russian culture in Ukraine.
Since taking office, Zelensky has led a campaign of “derussification” within Ukraine. Last year, Kiev’s legislature passed a bill that will heavily restrict books manufactured in Russia or printed in the Russian language. Zelensky announced he signed the bill on Thursday, saying, “I believe the law is right.”
Kiev’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko praised Zelensky for approving the ban. “The adoption of this draft law will protect the Ukrainian book publishing and distribution sector from the destructive influence of the ‘Russian world,’” he said.
The bill signed into law last week will ban all imports of books from Russia and Belarus. Additionally, the state will require a permit to import a Russian book from any third country. Zelenskiy’s office said the law would “strengthen the protection of the Ukrainian cultural and information space from anti-Ukrainian Russian propaganda.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Zelensky enacted a series of escalating steps with the goal of erasing, from Ukraine, any and all Russian culture. Kiev has worked to destroy all Russian monuments, rename public spaces that are in the Russian language, erase Russian historical figures, and target a branch of the Christian Orthodox church Kiev believes is too closely tied with Moscow.
Tkachenko has long been an advocate of the culture war in Ukraine. In a 2015 interview, he supported a ban on TV series and movies that are produced in Russia or glorify Russian people. One of Tkachenko’s goals at the time was to replace Russian content on Ukrainian televisions with Western programming.
While Kiev presents Moscow as the target of the culture war, the substantial minority of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers living in Ukraine are subjected to the laws. Zelensky has used the pretext of “derussification” process to consolidate control over Ukraine’s politics and media.
Peter Hotez: Why He Won’t Debate
Another Sign that We’re Winning
By Fed Up Texas Chick | Dr. Tenpenny’s Eye on the Evidence | June 24, 2023
“Peter, if you claim what RFK Jr. is saying is misinformation, I am offering you $100,000 to the charity of your choice to debate him on my show with no time limit.”
And the little worm squirmed.
The worm I am referring to is Dr. Peter Hotez, and the quote above is from Joe Rogan. At the writing of this article, Joe Rogan’s challenge to Hotez has been viewed over 25 million times on Twitter. The money is being crowdsourced and has grown to $2.6 million thus far. Apparently, a lot of folks want to see this debate.
It all started with a long three-hour podcast interview between Joe Rogan and his guest, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has done incredible work with the Children’s Health Defense and is an outspoken opponent of vaccines. If you missed it podcast, here is an unedited version.
RFK Jr. expressed all sorts of opinions, which is any American’s right, about autism, the COVID vaccines, and the CIA’s involvement in the murder of his father and uncle President JFK. In particular, he touted the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID in lieu of the vaccines.
Apparently, Hotez took issue with this, which is very interesting, given that he is the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston’s Texas Medical Center. His personal website says he leads a team that is “developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus diseases.” Naturally, he promotes global access to vaccines, because he directly benefits financially. If anyone should know about antiparasitic and antimalarial drugs, it’s Hotez, right? Why wouldn’t he be able to hold his own in a debate on tropical medicine?
Hotez knows about the value of ivermectin, because he wrote a paper on it in 2007 that was published in New England Journal of Medicine that discussed the history of the drug’s effectiveness. But rather than engaging in the challenge to debate RFK and “bury him once and for all,” Hotez took to Twitter. He promptly asked for a $50 million endowment because Rogan and Kennedy are so stinkin’ rich. He tried to get money from them to continue his work “making low-cost patent-free vaccines for the world’s poor.”
Hotez also asked for a public apology from RFK Jr.
Mostly, Hotez is pissed about RFK Jr’s anti-vax status, challenging his work and making him non-essential. Hotez has too good of a gig, actually, and doesn’t want anyone interfering with his gravy train. Let’s explore that gravy train…
Pfizer
Hotez has been in lock step with Pfizer for decades. Redacted News reporter Dan Cohen did a two part deep dive into Hotez and his past; I highly recommend watching it. Cohen reveals that Hotez started receiving money from Pfizer straight out of college, and he hasn’t stopped. And Hotez seems to only appear on Pfizer-backed channels, such as MSNBC.
This explains why Hotez praised Pfizer’s Covid-19 clinical trial results for children aged 12 to 15 as “pretty impressive”. The trial showed 100% efficacy, but we now know that Pfizer lied.
Lofty Colleagues: Gates and Fauci
Hotez also has an international status to protect. In 2022, he and colleague Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to develop and distribute a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine “to people of the world without patent limitation.”
According to his personal bio, Hotez has been developing recombinant protein coronavirus vaccines for SARS and MERS for more than a decade at Texas Children’s Hospital.
In 2020, he developed the first recombinant protein COVID-19 through microbial fermentation in yeast. Hotez has a connection to researcher Zhengli Shi, more commonly known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology “bat lady.” They worked together to develop a lab-generated (i.e. man-made) chimeric SARS-related coronavirus. Their work was was funded through an NIH grant, a grant that also provided funding for two of Shi’s staff.
Hmmm. Is this gain of function research? How about this hot new revelation from Kanekoa News :
In a groundbreaking revelation, it has come to light that Dr. Peter Hotez has been entangled in a web of funding, collaboration, and research with Chinese military scientists potentially involved in the development of COVID-19. The intricate tale weaves together key Chinese military virologists and culminates in the smoking gun evidence surrounding COVID-19’s notorious furin cleavage site.
So far, Hotez’s jab technology has been sent to four countries:
- India (Biological E, CORBEVAX),
- Indonesia (BioFarma, CORONAVAC),
- Bangladesh (Incepta) and
- Botswana (ImmunityBio).
More than 100 million doses have been administered in India and Indonesia. Gosh, he sounds like Bill Gates, doesn’t he? Maybe that’s because they also work together.
Here is an article from 2021 that starts,
“The Bill Gates-funded doctor is very displeased that you aren’t blindly genuflecting before his unassailable brilliance.” This is another article that is definitely worth reading.
There are many videos on the internet where Bill Gates is singing Hotez’s praises. This is blatant propaganda: Hotez is a salesman, not a scientist.
Lately, Hotez’s messaging has turned militant. What is he militant about? Anti-vaxxers. And anti-science promoted by anti-vaxxers, people like RFK Jr. You would think he would be chomping at the bit at the chance to debate him. He sticks to Twitter.
For example, his December 2022 Tweet where the WHO prominently features his militant attitude: Hotez says that anti-vaxxers have become a global killing force, and that anti-science kills more people than “gun violence, global terrorism, nuclear proliferation and cyberattacks.”
Wow, just wow.
He is particularly militant about, and protective of, Dr. Anthony Fauci. After Fauci stepped down from NIH late last year, Hotez was on the short list as a likely successor. In fact, Children’s Health Defense re-published an article, originally written by Dr. Joseph Mercola, wondering if he would assume Fauci’s role. Mercola’s article is a deep dive into Hotez’s world, and highly recommended reading.
In 2021, Hotez actually said it should be a federal hate crime to criticize Fauci and other government-funded scientists. Yes, he really said that. But we know that name-calling is the last resort for those who have no grounds for an argument.
The Clintons and Obama
It is actually perplexing that Hotez didn’t take Rogan up on a chance at a large charity donation, particularly since Hotez has such a penchant for nonprofit work. After all, he worked for the Clinton Global Health Initiative and, in 2006, that helped him found the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to “provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people.” This is not anti-science; it comes from his own bio, linked above.
Take a gander at the rest of Hotez’s resume. From 2014 to 2016, he served in the Obama Administration as a US envoy to focus on vaccine diplomacy between the US government and North Africa and countries in the Middle East.
I literally could go on and on and write an 8,000-word expose on Hotez, but I won’t.
Hotez is a self-proclaimed saint who ‘toils tirelessly’ to develop vaccines for the world’s poor. At the same time, he wants to criminalize the questioning of vaccine safety and use cyberwarfare against anti-vaxxers to literally snuff them out. Journalist Paul Thacker wrote a great piece (2022) entitled, “Peter Hotez Sees Aggression Everywhere But in the Mirror.”
Hotez is a paradox, but many see his true colors. Is Hotez a scientist or a salesman? Is he a prominent physician or a political operative peddling propaganda? Is he a Mother-Theresa-like figure helping the world’s poor, or is he one of the most hateful and dangerous people in medicine today?
You be the judge.
Fed Up Texas Chick is a contributing writer for The Tenpenny Report (at http://www.Vaxxter.com) She’s a rocket scientist turned writer, having worked in the space program for many years. She is a seasoned medical writer and researcher who is fighting for medical freedom for all of us through her work.
“NEW EASTERN OUTLOOK” THANKS EU FOR SANCTIONS COMENDATION
New Eastern Outlook – June 23, 2023
In connection with the inclusion of New Eastern Outlook in the EU’s 11th sanctions package, we sincerely appreciate the free and effective promotion of our journal.
For many years, New Eastern Outlook has been an open forum for experts from different countries to express their views on a wide range of political, economic and social issues. We have honestly and consistently reported on the neocolonial policies of the EU and the United States in various regions of the world, and we consider the sanctions policy against us to be our highest commendation.
We note that since the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on us, the geography of our readers has expanded considerably and the number of our readers has grown steadily.
Thank you, European dictators! Have a safe journey into your troubled future!
We appreciate your sincere interest in our publications.
The Administrative Man
On the view of humanity adopted by the state and its agents
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | June 23, 2023
There is a pattern, a recurring blindness, in the approach of the administrative state to everyday human life.
Let’s consider a few examples of recent political idiocy and the common thread that unites them:
1. The Scholz government hopes to convince more Germans to opt for public transit by tinkering with fares and introducing a universal 49-Euro ticket. The offering, which collapses regional ticket schemes into one simple, relatively cheap monthly subscription, is now more than 50 days old, and preliminary data show it’s changed hardly anybody’s habits. The vast majority of the 11 million subscriptions sold so far have gone to longstanding public transit users; less than a tenth have been purchased by new customers. Surveys show that interest is concentrated in the urban centres, while rural populations have no use for the ticket because everybody drives cars there. Calls for improving transit offerings in the countryside are half-hearted and bizarre; the whole concept of public transit requires dense, concentrated populations.
2. For some years now, the German state has deployed extravagant subsidies to convince consumers to buy electric vehicles. While adoption has been substantial, the dream of 15 million EVs by 2030 remains very far off. Subsidies aren’t enough to counterbalance the substantial cost of the batteries, leaving conventional automobiles with an enormous competitive advantage at the cheaper end. Also too, it seems that the core market for EVs – relatively well-off Germans who take mostly short trips and primarily charge their vehicles at home – will soon be saturated. For those who have longer commutes or must frequently travel long distances, the limited range and insufficient charging network are disqualifying.
3. I’ve already written about proposed government legislation to compel all Germans to transition to heat pumps beginning in 2024. Massive controversy compelled substantial changes in the law, which has been blunted in many respects, but remains worrying. Because not everybody lives in buildings that are suitable for heat pumps, the law in its original form would’ve required massive renovations across broad sectors of the housing market, effectively wiping out billions of Euros in personal wealth. If enacted in its original form, it might well have rendered many prewar buildings basically uninhabitable.
4. Bizarre proposals to mitigate the dangers of warm summer weather, accompanied by strange state media hysteria about recent warm summer temperatures, are similarly oblivious. The proposals are based on French plans, which foresee imposing bans on school trips and large gatherings in the event of extended heat waves. While rules like these have the potential to destroy ordinary summer activities for millions of people, they won’t save any lives. Summer mortality spikes are confined almost entirely to the old and the sick, not schoolchildren or sports fans.
5. Lockdowns and mass vaccination also belong in this list. These policies arose from the myopia of public health mandarins, who regarded everyone in their jurisdiction as equally likely to spread SARS-2, equally likely to die from it and equally able to endure months of rolling house arrests and an indefinite marathon of mRNA injections. They were wrong in every respect: The virus was only ever dangerous to a very small segment of the population, there was never any purpose in vaccinating the millions of people who had recovered from SARS-2 infection, and even according to officially accepted, heavily massaged statistics, the vaccines have no measurable upside for any healthy person under 50.
Underlying these policy initiatives and many others is a highly abstract bureaucratic conception of the individual, what I’ll call the Administrative Man. This is how state bureaucrats everywhere approach their subject populations, and it is an unavoidable artefact of routine bureaucratic processes like regulation and taxation. In this conception, everybody is more or less the same, subject to nudging via the same incentives, requiring the same protections from the same risks, and likely to benefit from the same one-size-fits-all solutions. The highly differentiated lives that people actually lead – their vast differences in personal circumstances, wealth, individual preferences, religious beliefs and political opinions – are at best ignored, at worst considered a massive inconvenience. There is an unstated, unconsciously harboured bureaucratic vision of a country made up entirely of Administrative Men as the ideal receptacles of bureaucratic solutions, which are of course always correct, except when the people fail them.
The image of the Administrative Man, while heavily abstracted, is not without some intriguing specific characteristics. These will vary from country to country, but we can derive some of the features of the German Administrative Man from our five examples. He appears to live in cities or at least in towns, not in the countryside. He’s certainly an apartment dweller, and he’s more likely than not to rent. He’s actually somewhat well-off, but not wealthy; he’s older and probably not in the best of health. He leads a fairly withdrawn, local life, with limited interest in public events. All in all, it seems fair to call him a composite figure, combining features of the civil servants most responsible for this vision and of the aging voters who support the major political parties.
Our states are some of the most powerful and overextended in history; no system has been so well positioned to impose its vision of politics and culture on its subjects ever before. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the political mechanics of the rainbow revolution, but the all-consuming interesting of Western politicians in ethnic and sexual diversity surely admits of other interpretations as well. You could say that there is an eagerness to confine human variation to those areas of least concern to the institutional apparatus, and thus to “celebrate,” or actively promote, all those diversities which are of least consequence to the administrative ideal. Modern states actually want highly uniform, undifferentiated populations, and they hope to confine personal expression to sexual, ethnic and consumerist spheres. The Administrative Man may be straight or gay, he may be from any continent; these details hardly matter for the regulators.
The Administrative Man is not real, and no amount of bureaucratic intervention can ever bring him into being. What’s more, the state itself seems only intermittently conscious of and profoundly uninterested in the distance between its abstract administrative model of humanity and the reality of human variation. Ours aren’t the hard authoritarian regimes of the Warsaw Pact countries, which sought to beat their subjects into a uniform mass via economic deprivation and overt repression. They’re rather soft authoritarian systems, which operate via sophisticated messaging campaigns and realigning incentives – approaches which are always limited from the beginning by the deep inaccuracies of the administrative vision.
YouTube Censors Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
By Jonathan Turley | June 20, 2023
YouTube has continued its censorship of those with opposing positions on Covid 19 and vaccines. This week it prevented users from hearing the views of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Despite Kennedy running on the failures of the pandemic response, YouTube will not allow users to hear what it considers harmful thoughts.
On Sunday, both Kennedy and podcast host Jordan Peterson tweeted that they were the latest to be censored by the company. Kennedy tweeted: “What do you think… Should social media platforms censor presidential candidates? My conversation with [Peterson] was deleted by [YouTube].”
He added: “Luckily you can watch it here on [Twitter] (thank you [Elon Musk]).”
The incident shows why many on the left continue an unrelenting attack on Musk and Twitter. Musk eliminated most of the company’s censorship system and, despite a few censorship controversies, the site is now the most open social media site among the major companies.
A Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital YouTube “removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel for violating YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities.”
Rather than allow experts and others to debate that question, Google and YouTube will not allow the debate to occur. It is consistent with calls from Democratic leaders for dissenting voices to be removed on subjects ranging from Covid to gender identity to climate control.
We have been discussing efforts by figures like Hillary Clinton to enlist European countries to force Twitter to restore censorship rules. Unable to rely on corporate censorship or convince users to embrace censorship, Clinton and others are resorting to good old-fashioned state censorship, even asking other countries to censor the speech of American citizens.
President Joe Biden has at times acted as a virtual censor-in-chief, denouncing social-media companies for “killing people” by not censoring enough. Recently, he expressed doubt that the public can “know the truth” without such censorship by “editors” in Big Tech. There is growing evidence of long-suspected back channels between government and Democratic political figures and Big Tech. Some of those contacts were recently confirmed but Congress again refused to investigate.
For years, scientists faced censorship for even raising the lab theory as a possible explanation for the virus. Their reputations and careers were shredded by a media flash mob. The Washington Post declared this a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory “racist.”
When a Chinese researcher told Fox News that this was man-made, the network was attacked and the left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her with a “pants on fire rating.”
The mask mandate and other pandemic measures like the closing of schools are now cited as fueling emotional and developmental problems in children. The closing of schools and businesses was challenged by some critics as unnecessary. Many of those critics were also censored. It now appears that they may have been right. Many countries did not close schools and did not experience increases in Covid. However, we are now facing alarming drops in testing scores and alarming rises in medical illness among the young.
The point is only that there were countervailing indicators on mask efficacy and a basis to question the mandates. Yet, there was no real debate because of the censorship supported by many Democratic leaders in social media. To question such mandates was declared a public health threat and what the WHO called our “infodemic.”
A lawsuit was filed by Missouri and Louisiana and joined by leading experts, including Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya (Stanford University) and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard University). Bhattacharya previously objected to the suspension of Dr. Clare Craig after she raised concerns about Pfizer trial documents. Those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks and the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others.
The media has quietly acknowledged the science questioning mask efficacy and school closures without addressing its own role in attacking those who raised these objections.
Yet, the censorship continues to the point that even a presidential candidate is now being silenced on social media.
The censorship of Kennedy is a national disgrace. Despite the proven legitimacy of prior censorship of viewpoints like the lab theory and natural immunities, Google continues to silence those with opposing views.
YouTube is signaling that this election will be another exercise in corporate approved messaging and ideas.
If you want to use YouTube, you will now have to engage in self-censorship, eliminating views that Google disagrees with. You may be able to “Broadcast Yourself” but you must first “Censor Yourself” . . . or YouTube will do it for you.
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From the Archives
The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.
A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.
The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue
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