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Why did the Left Fail the Covid Test So Badly?

BY THOMAS HARRINGTON | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

Like every other important social phenomenon, propaganda regimes have historical genealogies. For example, a very strong case could be made that the ongoing, and sad to admit, largely successful Covid propaganda onslaught under which we now live can trace its roots back to the two so-called demonstration wars (the Panama Invasion and the First Gulf Conflict) waged by George Bush Sr.

The American elites were badly stung by the country’s defeat in Vietnam. In it, they rightly saw a considerable curtailment of what they had come to see as their divine right since the end of WWII: the ability to intervene as they so fit in any country not explicitly covered by the Soviet nuclear umbrella.

And in their analysis of that failure, they correctly alighted to the role that the media—by simply bringing the tawdry and ignoble reality of the war into our living rooms—had played in undermining citizen willingness to engage in such fruitless, costly and savage adventures in the future.

With his massive military build-up and heavy support of proxies in Latin America in the eighties, Ronald Reagan took the first steps toward recovering this lost elite prerogative.

But it was not until the administration of George Bush Sr. and the two conflicts mentioned above that, as he himself exultantly put it in the wake of his pitiless slaughter of some 100,000 poorly equipped Iraqis, “We’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.”

Bush knew what he was talking about, and it wasn’t necessarily, or even primarily, military force or prowess.

What had largely limited Reagan to proxy wars during eight years in office were two things. The first was a citizenry that still had fresh memories of the debacle in Southeast Asia. The second, and arguably more important one was a press corps with on-the-ground familiarity with the reality of these conflicts that continued to challenge him on both their morality and strategic efficacy.

Bush and his team, which as you’ll remember included one Richard Cheney at Defense, made remedying this “problem” of war-hesitancy one of the central aims of his presidency. As Barbara Trent suggests in her remarkable The Panama Deception, experimenting with new media management techniques was not a strategic sideshow of the conflict, but rather its prime goal.

The Panama invasion was followed in quick succession by the Gulf War, where press coverage put heavy emphasis on the opinions of US military figures and their explanations of the technical genius of American-made military technology. In this way, the war was presented to Americans as a sort of exciting video game characterized by flashes of light in the night and precision attacks devoid of any bloodshed and death.

This process of desensitizing of the media, and from there, the American people to the horrendous human effects of war-making culminated in the revolting spectacle, on January 30th, 1991 of reporters chuckling along with General Norman Schwartzkopf as he joked while showing them videos of supposed “smart bombs” killing people like ants from the safety of 30,000 feet.

Having received no coordinated pushback from anyone with power about this degrading treatment of human life and the American people, they tripled down and went full Manichaean after September 11th.

Why not?

With Reagan’s repeal of the fairness Doctrine in 1987 and Bill Clinton’s Telecommunications Act of 1996 never had the media been a) concentrated in so few hands b) so beholden to the government regulation for the continuance of the super-profitability generated through this consolidation c) debilitated by the internet-induced collapse of the newspaper business model and thus d) less obligated to the reflect take into account the concerns and interests of a broad spectrum of the American people.

It was now truly, as George Bush Jr said, a matter of “You’re either with us or against us,” us of course being the war-making government (including the Deep State) along with its slavishly loyal media mouthpieces. If like Susan Sontag—who whether you like her or not, was a very bright and highly accomplished thinker—you believed the maniacal presumptions of the US response to September 11th were flawed, and said so, you could in this new environment, expect to be the object of well-coordinated attacks on your character.

Never once did the administration call for restraint in such attacks, nor did any administration figures remind people of the importance of the supposedly American value of everyone’s right to be respectfully heard.

Seeing the exhaustion of the Bush brand after the Iraq debacle, the Deep State switched party allegiances in the run-up to the 2008 election. And it has stayed firmly on the side of the so-called “left” ever since, encouraging the use of Bush-Cheney-style government-media mobbing against those who might dare to question the motives of the sainted warmonger Obama, or, say, the “logic” of trying to reduce the problems of racism by promoting it through identity politics.

The efficiency of such mob-style takedown tactics was greatly enhanced by the dramatic expansion of social media platforms in the Obama and Trump years.

It is no exaggeration to say that a person born in 1990 or later has little if any understanding of what it means to disagree in detail and in good faith with someone whose political and/or social ideals are different than their own. Nor what it means to feel obligated to respond to the claims of others with careful factual refutations.

What they do know, because it’s mostly all that they have seen from their “betters,” is that to argue is to seek the destruction of one’s interlocutor, and failing that, to make sure his or her arguments are impeded from circulating freely in our shared civic spaces. The ever-increasing dialectical poverty of those who have been socialized and educated in this environment is evident to anyone who has served as a classroom instructor during the last quarter century.

A sanctuary for the weary 

While most people seemed to want to pretend that nothing new was happening, that the collaboration between media and government had always been this extreme, many of us did not. We had memories. And we knew the “field of thinkable thought” was dramatically smaller in 2005 than in 1978. And we knew it had become much, much smaller in 2018 than it was in 2005. In our search for answers we turned to media critics and scholars of media history. We also turned to the writings of journalist-activists with both interest and insight into these matters.

When it came to this last group, I found myself drawn principally to what might be termed leftist anti-imperialists. Reading them, I widened my understanding of how elites and their chosen “experts” manage information flows, and constantly seek to shrink the parameters of acceptable opinion on foreign policy issues.

Two years ago last March, however, my sense of intellectual kinship with this subset of thinkers suddenly became very strained. We were facing what I immediately recognized as the largest and most aggressive “perception management” campaign in recent times, and perhaps in the history of the world. One, moreover, that was utilizing all the techniques employed during the previous two to three decades to insure citizen allegiance to US war-making.

And yet in the face of it, almost all my go-to people on propaganda analysis had little or nothing to say. And when I sent contributions outlining my doubts about the congruity of the emergent Covid discourse to places that had generally welcomed my analyses of pro-war propaganda, suddenly there was hesitation on the other end.

And the passage of time cured nothing. Indeed, the only things these people said down the road; that is, if they addressed Covid at all, was to underscore the unprecedented severity of the situation (a very questionable assertion) and harp on Trump’s supposedly disastrous handling of it.

There was virtually no daylight between the opinions of these people and the feckless liberals they, as true-blue leftists, always claimed to disdain. And on it went, for the entire two years of the Covid panic.

A week or so ago, John Pilger, arguably one of the brightest and more persistent leftist analysts of establishment propaganda, published “Silencing the lambs: How propaganda works” on his website and then a number of progressive news outlets.

In it, he repeats all sorts of well-known ideas and concepts. There’s a reference to Leni Riefenstahl and how she believed the bourgeoisie are those most amenable to influence campaigns, a reminder of Julian Assange’s horrendous and undeserved fate, much deserved praise for Harold Pinter’s absolutely extraordinary if largely ignored Nobel acceptance speech, an intelligent discussion about how our media studiously refuses to tell us about anything that went on between Russia and the West, and Russia and Ukraine between 1990 and February of this year.

The underlying thesis of the piece is that while emitting and constantly pushing elite-approved messages are key elements of propaganda, so too is the strategic disappearance of essential historical realities and truths.

All good stuff. Indeed, all themes that I have written about with frequency and conviction over the years.

Toward the end piece Pilger asks the following rhetorical question:

When will real journalists stand up?

And a few lines later, after providing us with a list of where to find the few outlets and journalists that do know what they are doing when it comes to the elite’s informational misdirection plays, he adds:

And when will writers stand up, as they did against the rise of fascism in the 1930s? When will film-makers stand up, as they did against the Cold War in the 1940s? When will satirists stand up, as they did a generation ago?

Having soaked for 82 years in a deep bath of righteousness that is the official version of the last world war, isn’t it time those who are meant to keep the record straight declared their independence and decoded the propaganda? The urgency is greater than ever.

Reading this final flourish while remembering the lamb-like silence of John Pilger in the face of the sustained Covidian onslaught of institutionalized lies and Soviet-grade censorship, one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

And when considering that virtually all those he endorses as exemplars of propaganda-savvy journalism—people such as Chris Hedges, Patrick Lawrence, Jonathan Cook, Diana Johnstone, Caitlin Johnstone all of whose work I have frequently and enthusiastically championed over the years—took the same cud-chewing path, the sense of farce only grows.

The same can be said of most all of the outlets (Grayzone, Mint Press News, Media Lens, Declassified UK, Alborada, Electronic Intifada, WSWS, ZNet, ICH, CounterPunch, Independent Australia, Globetrotter ) who portray themselves as being wise to the wiles of elite-sponsored influence operations.

Who, the question thus occurs to me, is actually living in a “a deep bath of righteousness” that impedes the ability to access the truths that lie beyond the “official version” of our past and present?

Who is failing to respond to the presence of fascistic tendencies in our midst?

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was John and his merry band of crack propaganda dissectors.

Is it that hard for them to see the shadow of fascism in the now heavily documented collaboration between the US government and Big Tech in censoring opinions that go counter to the government’s and Big Pharma’s desired discourse on Covid?

Is it really difficult for them to see the presence of the same dark forces in the US government’s insouciant abrogation of the Nuremberg principle relating to informed consent and medical experimentation?

Are they not troubled by the fact that the experimental vaccines that were sold to the population on the basis of their ability to stop infection do not do that? Or that this was known to anyone who read the FDA briefing papers published when these injections were unleashed on the public?

Does this count as a major “propaganda problem” worth looking into?

Do they care about the millions of people who lost their jobs over these lies, and of course the government’s abject disdain for the longstanding statutory right to object to medical treatment on religious grounds?

As long-time mavens of foreign policy, have they looked into the mafia-like nature of the vaccine contracts forced upon sovereign countries around the world?

Being the great sleuths of information-hiding that they are, did it raise any suspicions in them when Pfizer sought to keep all clinical information relating to the vaccines under wraps for 75 years?

And being the good progressives they are, did the enormous upward transfer of wealth that took place during the years of the Covid state of exception trouble them?

Did it light any suspicions that all this hullabaloo might not just be about health?

Have they organized support groups and action plans for the billions of children around the world whose lives were thrown into chaos by the useless quarantine and masking that was foisted upon them, and who, in all likelihood will never recover the years of developmental progress lost to this program of senseless cruelty?

I could go on.

As far as I can tell, the answer to all these questions is a resounding “NO!”

I am truly grateful for all that John Pilger and his companions in the leftist propaganda dissection cadres have taught me over the years. But as Ortega y Gasset said, a public intellectual is only as good as his ability to remain at the “height of his times.”

Sadly, this group of otherwise talented individuals has failed this test, badly, over the last two-plus years. As much as it may pain them to hear this, they have shown themselves to be much more like the “clerics” that Julien Benda rightly castigated in 1927 after they lost their moral bearings and their critical acuity before the massive propaganda onslaught used to promote the senseless slaughters of World War I.

Why these professional uncoverers of camouflaged realities of our times suddenly decided to unsee what was happening before their eyes is a job for future historians.

But if I had to hazard a guess today, I’d say that it had a lot to do with all the usual human things like fear of losing friends and prestige or being seen by ideological enforcers on their side as going over to the enemy. All of which is fine and understandable.

But if that is the case, isn’t it too much to publicly admit now that you missed the boat on this important story?

And if you can’t manage that, could you at least have the sense to stop issuing sermons on topics like “how propaganda works” for a good long while?

Thomas Harrington, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, where he taught for 24 years. His research is on Iberian movements of national identity and contemporary Catalan culture. His essays are published at Words in The Pursuit of Light.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

EU parliamentarian calls to sanction Vanessa Beeley and all observers of Donbass referendums

BY MAX BLUMENTHAL AND ANYA PARAMPIL · THE GRAYZONE · SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

MEP Nathalie Loiseau of France is lobbying for individual sanctions on all observers of the Russian-organized referendums in the Donbass region. She has singled out journalist Vanessa Beeley not only for her coverage of the vote, but for her reporting on the foreign-back war against Syria’s government.

A French Member of European Parliament (MEP), Natalie Loiseau, has delivered a letter to EU High Representative of Foreign Affairs, Joseph Borrell, demanding the European Union place personal sanctions on all international observers of the recent votes in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and certain Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine.

Obtained by The Grayzone from an EU source, the letter is currently being circulated among European parliamentarians in hopes of securing a docket of supportive signatures.

“We, as elected members of the European Parliament, demand that all those who voluntarily assisted in any way the organization of these illegitimate referendums be individually targeted and sanctioned,” Loiseau declared.

The French MEP’s letter came after a group of formally Ukrainian territories held a vote on whether or not to officially incorporate themselves into the Russian Federation in late September. Through the popular referendum, the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which announced their respective successions from Ukraine in 2014 following a foreign-backed coup against the government Kiev, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Russian Federation.

Loiseau singled out Vanessa Beeley, a British journalist who traveled to the region to monitor the vote. Extending her complaint well beyond the referendum, the French MEP accused Beeley of “continuously spreading fake news about Syria and acting as a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin and Bashar el [sic] Assad for years.”

Loiseau, a close ally of French President Emanuel Macron, specifically demanded Beeley be “included in the list of those sanctioned.”

Beeley responded to Loiseau’s letter in a statement to The Grayzone :

“Imposing sanctions on global citizens for bearing witness to a legal process that reflects the self-determination of the people of Donbass is fascism. Should the EU proceed with this campaign, I believe there will be serious consequences because the essence of freedom of speech and thought is under attack.”

Russia’s referendums: drawing a line with NATO

In mid-September 2022, Beeley and around 100 other international delegates traveled to eastern Europe in order to observe a vote to join the Russian Federation in the regions of Kherson, Zaporozhia, and the independent republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Why did their presence trigger such an outraged response from Western governments? The answer lies in the recent history of these heavily contested areas.

The formally Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia fell under Russian control earlier this year as a result of the military campaign launched by Moscow in February, while the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared their independence from the government in Kiev in 2014.

Russia began its special military campaign in Ukrainian territory on February 24. The operation followed Moscow’s decision that same week to formally recognize the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (the Donbass Republics) in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass have been embroiled in a bloody trench battle with the US-backed government in Kiev since 2014.

Ukraine’s civil conflict broke out in March 2014, after US and European forces sponsored a coup in the country that installed a decidedly pro-NATO nationalist regime in Kiev which proceeded to declare war on its minority, ethnically Russian population.

Following the 2014 putsch, Ukraine’s government officially marginalized the Russian language while extremist thugs backed by Kiev massacred and intimidated ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine. In response, separatist protests swept Ukraine’s majority-Russian eastern regions.

The territory of Crimea formally voted to join Russia in March of that year, while the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region declared their unofficial independence from Kiev that same month. With support from the US military and NATO, Ukraine’s coup government officially declared war on the Donbass in April 2014, launching what it characterized as an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” in the region.

Russia trained and equipped separatist militias in Donetsk and Lugansk throughout the territories’ civil campaigns against Kiev, though Moscow did not officially recognize the independence of the Donbass republics until February 2022. By then, United Nations estimates placed the casualty count for Ukraine’s civil war at roughly 13,000 dead. While Moscow offered support to Donbass separatists throughout the 2014-2022 period, US and European governments invested billions to prop up a Ukrainian military that was heavily reliant on army and intelligence factions with direct links to the country’s historic anti-Soviet, pro-Nazi deep state born as a result of World War II.

Russia’s military formally entered the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, following Moscow’s recognition of the Donbass republics. While Russian President Vladimir Putin defined the liberation of the Donbass republics as the primary objective of the military operation, he also listed the “de-nazification” and “de-militarization” of Ukraine as a goals of the campaign. As such, Russian troops have since secured control of Ukrainian territories beyond the Donbass region, including the territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia.

Facing increased Western investment in the Kiev-aligned bloc of Ukraine’s civil war, authorities in the Donbass republics announced a referendum on membership in the Russian Federation in late September 2022, with Moscow-aligned officials in Kherson and Zaporozhia announcing similar ballot initiatives. Citizens in each territory proceeded to approve Russian membership by overwhelming majorities.

The results of the referendum not only threatened the government in Kiev, but its European and US backers. Western-aligned media leapt to characterize the votes as a sham, claiming Moscow’s troops had coerced citizens into joining the Russian Federation at the barrel of a gun. Their narrative would have reigned supreme if not for the hundred or so international observers who physically traveled to the regions in question to observe the referendum process.

Observers like Vanessa Beeley now face the threat of returning home to the West as wanted outlaws. But as Loiseau’s letter made clear, the British journalist was in the crosshairs long before the escalation in Ukraine.

Beeley among European journalists targeted and prosecuted for reporting from Donetsk

Vanessa Beeley was among the first independent journalists to expose the US and UK governments’ sponsorship of the Syrian White Helmets, a so-called “volunteer organization” that played frontline role in promoting the foreign-backed dirty war against Syria’s government through its coordination with Western and Gulf-sponsored media. Beeley also played an instrumental role in revealing the White Helmets’ strong ties to Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, as well as its members’ involvement in atrocities committed by Western-backed insurgents.

Beeley’s work on Syria drew harsh attacks from an array of NATO and arms industry-funded think tanks. In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which receives funding from a variety of NATO states, corporations and billionaires, labeled Beeley “the most prolific spreader of disinformation” on Syria prior to 2020. (According to ISD, Beeley was somehow “overtaken” by The Grayzone’s Aaron Mate that year). The group did not provide a single piece of evidence to support its assertions.

Though Beeley has endured waves of smears, French MEP Natalie Loiseau’s call for the EU to sanction the journalist represents the first time a Western official has moved to formally criminalize her work. Indeed, Loiseau made no secret that she is targeting Beeley not only for her role as an observer of the referendum votes, but also on the basis of her opinions and reporting on Sy on the heels of the German government’s prosecution of independent journalist Alina Lipp. In March 2020, Berlin launched a formal case against Lipp, who is a German citizen, claiming her reporting from the Donetsk People’s Republic violated newly authorized state speech codes.

Prior to Lipp’s prosecution, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue launched a media campaign portraying her as a disseminator of “disinformation” and “pro-Kremlin content.”

In London, meanwhile, the UK government has imposed individual sanctions on Graham Philips, a British citizen and independent journalist, for his reporting from Donetsk.

And in Brussels, Loiseau’s campaign against Beeley appears to have emerged from a deeply personal vendetta.

Nathalie Loiseau and French Pres. Macron

Who is Natalie Loiseau?

In April 2021, Beeley published a detailed profile of Loiseau at her personal blog, The Wall Will Fall, painting the French MEP as a regime change ideologue committed to “defending global insecurity and perpetual war.” Beeley noted that Loiseau served as a minister in the government of French President Emanuel Macron when it authorized airstrikes in response to dubious allegations of a Syrian government chemical attack in Douma in April 2018.

Beeley also reported that Loiseau has enjoyed a close relationship with the Syria Campaign, the public relations arm of the White Helmets operation. This same organization, which is backed by British-Syrian billionaire Ayman Asfari, was the sponsor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue report which branded Beeley a “top propagator of disinformation” on Syria.

Loiseau has taken her activism into the heart of the European parliament, using her position as chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defense to silence colleagues who ask to many questions about the Western campaign for regime change in Syria.

During an April 2021 hearing, MEP Mick Wallace attempted to question Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Director General Fernando Arias about allegations he personally aided the censorship of an OPCW investigation which concluded no chemical attack took place in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

Loiseau immediately descended into a fit of rage, interrupting Wallace and preventing him from speaking.

“I cannot accept that you can call into question the work of an international organization, and that you would call into question the word of the victims in the way you have just done,” Loiseau fulminated.

Wallace responded with indignation, asking, “Is there no freedom of speech being allowed in the European Parliament any more? Today you are denying me my opinion!”

A year later, Wallace and fellow Irish MEP Clare Daly sued the Irish network RTE for defamation after it broadcast an interview with Loiseau during which she baselessly branded them as liars who spread disinformation about Syria in parliament.

Now, Loiseau appears to be seeking revenge against Beeley, demanding that she be criminally prosecuted not just for serving as a referendum observer, but for her journalistic output.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Our Op-Ed Rebuttal to California’s Legislative War on Doctors

Ron Johnson, the only Federal politician that has publicly called out the deep corruption behind the failed U.S COVID response, is helping protect doctors.

By Pierre Kory, MD, MPA | September 28, 2022

Senator Ron Johnson and I just published an Op-Ed Monday on the Fox News site, the 3rd most visited news site on the internet, with almost one billion visits per month.

As some are probably aware, California’s Legislature just passed an obscenity of a bill titled “AB 2098” which calls for the state’s medical board to revoke the license of any physician who expresses an opinion “contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to the standard of care.” I am not even sure what that means but holy cow, they just literally started to outlaw opinions.

Not sure which genius came up with that bill but to pretend there is a “scientific consensus” on a novel disease and a novel gene therapy is absurd. That is not how science works. Medicine is (was?) constantly trying to increase its knowledge base throughout history. In fact, one of the core responsibilities of a physician is not just to care for a patient as their “primary consideration” but also to add knowledge to the discipline and to teach it to others. Here is another responsibility articulated in the Hippocratic Oath written around the 4th century BC: Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Whoa. Hippocrates was warning us 24 centuries ago about the situation of being asked to administer poisons. Wow.

Anyway, what is medical consensus – is it state-wide, national or international? I am sure there are more than a couple of California doctors (or maybe not) whose opinions conflict with the captured Federal health agencies but are instead supported by academies of scientists and health agencies in other countries. Or even states like Tennessee that made ivermectin legally available over the counter to its citizens!

Denmark long ago restricted any person under 30 from getting the Moderna “vaccine.” In the US we now give it to toddlers. I repeat, in the U.S, we now give it to toddlers. If I object to injecting toddlers with Moderna, using the same “science” that Denmarks authorities are using, am I then a misinformationist that should not be allowed to practice medicine? What would happen to me if I go even further and espouse Denmark’s latest guidance which is to not recommend COVID mRNA vaccination to any low risk individual under 50? I guess the California State Department of Health guidance would trump that of Denmark’s. Watch out Denmark, here I come!

The scariest part of that legislation to me is that it reflects a complete ignorance of decades of evidence demonstrating that our Federal Health Agencies are under regulatory capture by the Pharmaceutical Industry. Just look at all the shenanigans the PFDA (the P is not a typo) pulled to sell the most vaccines. The below policies were all written by the Pharmaceutical Industry and issued by the PFDA, yet California doctors who know this and try to warn their patients in order to protect them from the evils of that industry could lose their license. Remember these two brilliant scientific standards?

(I paraphrase from memory)

  1. Testing is no longer indicated for those who have received COVID mRNA vaccination (luckily this one didn’t last very long).
  2. Testing for antibodies to assess prior exposure to COVID is not recommended prior to administering COVID mRNA vaccination.

They literally tried to avoid gathering data that would prove the vaccines were ineffective. Then they literally established that natural immunity should be ignored. With no data to support those “standards.” One of the greatest absurdities in the history of medicine was the fact that the entire health system started vaccinating people right after they recovered from COVID. They didn’t even wait for the variant to change first. But, if you publicly express a difference of opinion with this expert approach to managing an infectious disease, your livelihood could be taken away from you. Seriously? What is happening in America? This is absolutely terrifying stuff. Fantods ripple up and down my spine as I contemplate the very high possibility that such an absurd bill could start spreading across the country, trampling on the very Constitution it is supposedly supported by.

Further, in order to establish a “true” consensus and/or standard of care guideline it has been estimated to require numerous studies over an average of 17 years. So, am I not allowed to voice an opinion until 17 years of studies pass? In a novel pandemic in which insights and data accumulate rapidly? What if I am an expert way ahead of the curve based on research I am doing and/or the ever evolving data and insights I gain from treating patients with this novel disease. Should I be quiet for 17 years until such a time when my insights and expertise are more widely established and accepted?

How will our silence ever get us to that consensus? How will my patients fare during that time? Stay home, wait until your lips turn blue because I am not allowed to have an opinion or practice in treating you if it differs from either non-treatment or giving pathetic Paxlovid, a drug which has one mechanism of action identical to that of just one of ivermectin’s many mechanisms. This is exhausting.

And should I ignore the decades of examples of corruption of the medical sciences via its journals and research funding? The vehicles that have propagated guidelines on any number of fraudulent medications (SSRI’s, statins, Xygris, Oxycontin, Vioxx, Bextra, Avandia and many more). Should I be silent until those frauds are more widely exposed?

Think about all the doctors who saved their patients from those frauds despite being propagated as “medical consensus” at the time? A free and open scientific debate, championing those voices without conflicts of interest is what is needed. Instead this bill will silence those without conflicts while further amplifying the media megaphone of vaccine manufacturer CEO’s. These are dark dark times.

And why are we suddenly displacing the time honored protections of medical malpractice – where the consequences of harming a patient was borne by the physician if they adopted an idea or practice which hurt a patient. That has kept doctors in line for decades. But now, prior to any idea or practice I espouse actually resulting in harm, my opinion would be silenced or else I lose my license to practice. This is an obscenity. This would disappear care practices that would help patients far more frequently than it would care practices that harm patients.

This bill will lead to even more morbidity and mortality, not only in COVID, but in other diseases as well. Pharma already controls the medical journals and Federal Health agencies. But they don’t control independent physician’s opinions and voices. Well, at least they didn’t until now.

Good luck California, I fear for you. No-one from the medical field will be able to warn you of the continued rampages of a documented criminal industry.

Our Op-Ed is here, but I think I already covered most of it. Enjoy, although it ain’t fun.

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Gates Foundation boosts funding for Digital ID projects

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | September 28, 2022

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has increased its investment in digital ID projects through part of a $1.27 billion package to support “global health and development projects.” Part of the funding, $200 million, will go to digital public infrastructure, including civil registry databases and digital ID.

The announcement followed the annual “Goalkeepers Report,” an annual assessment report on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SGD). The UN set a goal (goal 16.9) for a global legal identity by 2030, and the report said that the world will not make that deadline. A podcast is available on the plans here.

To achieve that goal, digital identity programs are supposedly needed.

The 2019 Goalkeepers Report touted biometrics as one of the technologies needed for the equitable redistribution of resources in developing nations.

The $200 million will also support data sharing systems and interoperable payments systems.

The Gates Foundation supports several digital ID-related programs, including the MOSIP, an open-source digital ID platform.

Related: 

The EU is running a digital ID pilot

Denmark’s new digital ID system risks locking some people out of society

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Like Alberta, Saskatchewan tells RCMP to ignore Ottawa’s request to confiscate firearms

By Rachel Emmanuel | The Counter Signal | September 28, 2022

The Government of Saskatchewan has followed Alberta’s lead in telling the RCMP to ignore orders from the Trudeau Liberals to confiscate citizen’s legally-purchased firearms.

Saskatchewan Chief Firearms Officer Bob Freberg revealed that the province wrote to the RCMP saying “no provincially funded resources of any type,” including the RCMP, will be used for federal Public Safety Minister Marco Medicino’s gun bans and buybacks.

Freberg made the comments on the radio program, the John Gormley Show.

As first reported by The Counter Signal, the Government of Alberta sent instructions to the RCMP K-Division, the arm of the federal police force with authority in Alberta, to ignore orders from the Trudeau Liberals to confiscate firearms.

The orders came after Medicino requested Premier Jason Kenney’s government help in implementing the so-called buyback program.

“I am writing to seek your support in implementing the buyback program,” Mendicino wrote in a letter to the Alberta government. He said his office would be working directly with policing authorities to successfully implement the program.

In May 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was banning more than 1,500 models of firearms, including AR-15s. Owners of these guns would have a two-year amnesty period to come into compliance with the prohibition, he said at the time.

The Liberals said they plan on spending up to $250 million buying back the guns.

Alberta Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro said Monday he would obstruct the gun grab by any means necessary.

“Alberta is not legally obligated and will not offer any provincial resources to the Federal Government as it seeks to confiscate lawfully acquired firearms,” Shandro responded.

“The decision to ban over 1,500 models of different firearms, simply because the ‘style’ of the firearm was deemed to be aesthetically displeasing, is offensive and suggests to us that you are uninterested in meaningfully addressing gun crime.”

Shandro wrote to the RCMP to say the confiscation wasn’t a priority for the Alberta government, and as such, it’s not an appropriate use of Alberta RCMP resources.

The Government of Alberta has also announced that it will intervene in six lawsuits against Trudeau’s proposed gun grab.

Trudeau issued a deadline of October 30 for any gun his government now deems illegal to be turned into the closest RCMP detachment.

Over 2.2 million Canadians are legally licensed to own and trade firearms in the country.

September 28, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

What’s the Best Way to Rein in Companies Like PayPal?

Dr. David McGrogan – The Daily Sceptic – September 27, 2022

It is encouraging that Tory MPs are taking seriously the threat to an open society posed by PayPal’s demonetisation of UsForThem, Toby Young, the Free Speech Union and the Daily Sceptic. And it is more encouraging still that they are likely to respond to the threat through legislation – possibly through an amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill. It is vital, however, that they get this response right, and understanding the purported legal basis for a company like PayPal excluding a user from its services is crucial in this regard.

To get some preliminary matters out of the way, it is important first to distinguish a financial services provider like PayPal from a social media outfit like Twitter or Facebook/Meta. There is a case to be made (although it is ultimately not one I would concur with) that it is legitimate for a social media operator to exclude people who express opinions deemed undesirable by its owners. I agree, for example, with the position that the Supreme Court adopted with respect to the baker in the famous ‘gay cake’ case; it is unconscionable for the law to force the owner of a private company to propagate a message that would conflict with said owner’s sincerely held beliefs. I think large social media providers are fundamentally different from the baker in that case, but I can at least understand the basis on which somebody would argue that Twitter booting, say, Andrew Tate, is essentially the same as a Christian baker refusing to bake a cake bearing a message supporting gay marriage (or, let’s say, a hypothetical Muslim printer refusing to print a satirical magazine bearing an image of the prophet). But there is no sense in which PayPal can be construed to be said to be in this position. PayPal does not serve to propagate messages of any kind; nor are its users even publicly known or identifiable for the large part; whether or not the Daily Sceptic is a customer of PayPal places no requirement on the latter to associate itself with the expression of any view whatsoever. It is a different kettle of fish.

It is also important to acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons for a business like PayPal seeking to exclude users who express certain kinds of views that might be connected with criminal offences, even indirectly. To use an obvious and extreme example, there would be nothing wrong with PayPal closing an account it discovered to be connected to an organisation dedicated to sharing positive perspectives on paedophilia; while a group of paedophiles getting together to talk about how wonderful their predilection is would not (I think) in itself constitute a criminal offence, it is easy to see why PayPal would wish to avoid coming within a barge-pole’s distance of any suggestion it was knowingly assisting such a group. However, this kind of concern clearly would not apply with respect to the FSU, UsForThem, the Daily Sceptic or Toby personally.

A company like PayPal cannot therefore fall back on these kinds of excuses in behaving as it has done. And in any case, we can all what is really going on here – it’s nothing to do with matters of conscience or a legitimate attempt to ‘de-risk’ with respect to potentially criminal behaviour. (It is notable, for example, that PayPal appears to be ‘intensely relaxed’ about the risks of being seen to be associated with precisely the kind of paedophile support group I mentioned earlier.) This is simply a case of somebody at PayPal wishing to send a statement: “We’re on the side of the good guys, and if you’re not on our side, mind your P’s and Q’s.” The fact that a very important set of elections is due to take place in the US in November undoubtedly has something to do with this.

It is therefore entirely legitimate for Parliament to legislate to prevent this kind of behaviour, and the question thus becomes: what form should such legislation take?

Looking at the underlying purported legal justification for PayPal’s conduct will give us an answer. The recent closure of the accounts of the Daily Sceptic et al seems to have been done on the basis that these respective parties have violated their respective User Agreements with PayPal. The User Agreement, it must be said, has not been particularly clearly drafted, but this much at least is clear: PayPal may close a user’s account if the user is in breach of its terms. The specific breaches themselves in this case were not, however, made particularly clear. Initially, it seemed that PayPal was accusing the Daily Sceptic et al of breaching its Acceptable Use Policy – namely item 2 (f) of that document, which prohibits the user engaging in ‘the promotion of hate, violence or other forms of intolerance’. This obviously wouldn’t stick, though, and subsequent statements by PayPal have suggested that the accounts were closed on the basis that the Daily Sceptic et al were ‘providing false, inaccurate or misleading information’, which is on the list of ‘restricted activities’ in the User Agreement proper.

The haphazard way in which PayPal appears to have conducted itself is suggestive that the decision was made to close the accounts first, with the justification being worked out afterwards. But we do now know what its legal representatives would trot out as the purported contractual basis for closing the accounts in question: being in breach of the User Agreement by engaging in the restricted activity of providing false, inaccurate or misleading information.

And this in turn would allow us to identify the remedy in the creation of a relatively short Act (or amendment to the Online Safety Bill). I am not a Parliamentary drafter, but my suggestion would be something along the lines of:

A provider of financial services may not by reference to any contract term terminate or suspend the provision of services to a user on the basis of that user spreading false, inaccurate or misleading information, or similar, unless it is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the spreading of said information would in itself constitute a criminal offence in the laws of England and Wales.

This would quite neatly prevent PayPal or any other such provider from doing this kind of thing in future, while allowing such operators to ‘de-risk’ for the legitimate reason of avoiding any connection to the commission of crime. The consequence would simply be to make a term of a contract between a financial services provider and a customer purporting to allow termination on the grounds of the spreading of false information, etc., unenforceable, and the legislation could be worded to give this immediate effect.

Dr. David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School.

Stop Press: Allysia Finley has written a good comment piece for the Wall St Journal about why the Supreme Court may well uphold the law in Texas prohibiting large social media companies from blocking speech based on viewpoint.

September 27, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Bill Gates pushes for “trusted sources,” has a group that tracks what people say about him online

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 27, 2022

During an appearance at the “Goalkeepers 2022” event, investor and philanthropist Bill Gates lamented “misinformation” that was shared about him amid the coronavirus pandemic and complained that so-called misinformation about masks and vaccines reduced compliance with mandates.

“I’d say the biggest tragedy is that it [misinformation] fragmented society where certain sources, if they told you to wear a mask, that was the last thing you were going to do,” Gates said. “Or if they told you, you know, get the vaccine, particularly to protect, reduce transmission to elderly people, they didn’t comply. It is a phenomena that held us back and hurt us in a pretty dramatic way.”

Gates also dismissed “conspiracy theories” about him wanting to track people.

“This whole tracking thing, why would I want to track you?” Gates said. “I don’t know, you know. Do I have time to track all these people?”

While Gates was seemingly referring to vaccines, just one day later, at the “Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit,” Gates admitted that he has a group dedicated to tracking what people say about him online.

“I have a group that tracks what’s on the web that’s talking about things that connect to me,” Gates said. “Overwhelmingly during the pandemic, 95% was all the conspiracy theory stuff. It is calming down now.”

At the Goalkeepers 2022 event, Gates also complained that conspiracy theories are “cynical” and look for “one bad person who’s doing all this stuff” and welcomed “trusted sources” and “fact-checkers” partnering with social media companies to slow down the spread of content that he deems to be misinformation.

Gates’ nonprofit, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to some of the Facebook fact-checkers whose content is used in warning labels that are appended to Facebook posts. When these warning labels are added to Facebook posts, their click-through rates decline by around 95%.

While Gates framed the debate around so-called misinformation and conspiracy theories as a tragedy that reduced compliance with the advice being pushed by trusted sources, he failed to mention that these so-called trusted sources have issued false or conflicting advice throughout the pandemic.

In the early stages of the pandemic, mainstream media outlets downplayed the severity of Covid and health officials in the US urged people to stop wearing masks, then later reversed their stance.

The theory that the coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab was initially dismissed as a conspiracy before so-called trusted sources finally admitted the lab leak theory was a possibility.

And health experts initially suggested that COVID-19 vaccines were up to 90% effective at preventing Covid before ultimately admitting that the vaccines don’t prevent infection.

Those who challenged or questioned the “trusted sources” were accused of spreading misinformation and censored by Big Tech platforms, even though many of their challenges and questions later turned out to be true.

September 27, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

THE BIG TECH BATTLE FOR FREE SPEECH IS HEATING UP

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 21, 2022

The battle with Big Tech for free speech is heating up! States are passing bills to stop the social media censorship, and legislators are holding investigative hearings, while a recent lawsuit including several State Attorneys General is making headway.

BIDEN DECLARES AN END TO THE PANDEMIC

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 21, 2022

Suddenly, Biden announces the pandemic is over as the narrative is now collapsing from all sides. From boosters to kids shots, the vaccine push is faltering as lawsuits pile up to remove the last covid restrictions.

WHO HANDED THE KEYS TO FAUCI?!

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 21, 2022

September 27, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

YouTube CEO is questioned over censorship of US Senator

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 24, 2022

In a letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Senator Ron Johnson demanded answers on the platform’s COVID-19 moderation policies because of repeated censorship of a sitting senator.

“YouTube has displayed a troubling track record of censoring a sitting United States Senator, the proceedings of the United States Senate, journalists that interview me, and the display of data that is entirely generated from U.S. government health agencies,” Johnson wrote.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The Wisconsin Republican and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asked YouTube to provide the committee with documents “concerning the development and implementation” of its COVID-19 content moderation policies.

The letter highlights several cases, starting in October 2021, where YouTube censored content or suspended the senator.

Johnson also noted that YouTube is not fair in applying its moderation policies, something that was highlighted when the platform’s chief product officer Neal Mohan testified before the Senate on September 14.

“I read the following two quotes that President Biden said on July 21, 2021. The first was, ‘You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.’ The second was, ‘If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in an ICU unit, and you’re not going to die,’” the senator recounts in his letter.

“There is no doubt that these two statements are false. I asked Mr. Mohan and the witnesses from the other social media companies whether your companies ever flagged President Biden as a spreader of misinformation. No one even attempted to answer my question.”

The letter demands external and internal communications related to each incident where he was censored.

September 26, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

PayPal Could Be Legally Prevented From Banning People For Their Political Views

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | September 26, 2022

Although PayPal has been banning conservatives and right-wingers for years, its recent move to terminate accounts operated by the Free Speech Union and other groups in the UK that opposed lockdowns and vaccine mandates has apparently been a step too far.

Following the controversy, dozens of Conservative Party MPs, including Michael Gove, David Davis and Sir Iain Duncan Smith, signed an open letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Business Department demanding that PayPal be legally barred from imposing discriminatory practices.

The letter asserts that it is “hard to avoid construing PayPal’s actions as an orchestrated, politically motivated move to silence critical or dissenting views on these topics within the U.K.”

This morning, the London Times also published a powerful piece by Jawad Iqbal which highlighted the dangers of allowing PayPal to abuse such powers.

“This is censorship by corporate diktat: the company sets its own rules and interprets them as it sees fit. It appears oblivious to the notion that it is wrong in principle to withdraw vital services from people because of their political views. Would it be acceptable for a supermarket to refuse to serve a customer because of their politics or for a high street bank to refuse to make a payment to a company it deemed politically objectionable?” asked Iqbal.

After questions were asked in Parliament about the issue, a new law could be on the cards that would put an end to PayPal’s crusade against dissident viewpoints.

“Conservative backbenchers are considering launching an amendment to upcoming financial legislation in the House of Commons that would ban companies from freezing campaigners’ accounts,” reports the Telegraph.

“One source said ministers are likely to accept the amendment to the law because Conservative backbenchers will support it.”

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has also demanded answers from PayPal.

The familiar old argument from leftists, who apparently now vehemently support monopolistic transnational corporations using their might and vast resources to impose censorship, is that “PayPal is a private company and can ban who it wants.”

However, at least in the UK, that isn’t strictly true.

PayPal is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which mandates “All firms must be able to show consistently that fair treatment of customers is at the heart of their business model.”

Fair treatment of customers clearly isn’t at the heart of PayPal’s business model, it’s literally the exact opposite.

September 26, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Ottawa cop charged with donating to civil liberties protests

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | September 21, 2022

An officer of the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) is facing discreditable conduct charges because she donated to the Freedom Convoy protest in February. If found guilty, Constable Kristina Neilson could be demoted or fired.

According to a report by the CBC, the OPS claims that on February 5 Neilson donated to the Freedom Convoy, a protest against Covid mandates in February. According to the OPS, the donation was an act of “disorderly manner,” and that she did it knowing that the OPS was against the “illegal occupation.”

In March, the OPS announced that it would investigate any member of the force who contributed to the protest.

Last week, Neilson was summoned to a disciplinary hearing and was charged with one count of disorderly conduct.  She did not make a plea and she awaits another hearing later this month.

The Freedom Convoy protest was brought to an end after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act. The act gave the government the authority to target anyone who contributed to the protest. Ottawa sued to shut down the protest’s donation pages on GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, and Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister, froze the accounts of all those linked with the protest.

September 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Fact-checkers complain they’re constantly hit with lawsuits

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 20, 2022

Online fact checkers have great authority over what speech gets suppressed on mainstream social media platforms and a fact-check of a post on Facebook can result in that post being suppressed by as much as 95%.

Yet, despite their great power over what people can say, fact checkers are also increasingly frustrated at calls for more transparency about the way they operate and say they are being bombarded with freedom of information act (FOIA) requests and lawsuits.

The fact checkers say these requests and lawsuits are meant to drain the resources of climate change researchers and to discourage them from doing their work which is, in turn, an attempt to shut down their own speech.

“They make a point of going after the fact-checkers because, in addition to stopping regulation, they also want to prevent or discourage climate scientists from doing things that might educate the public,” said Lauren Kurtz, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund’s executive director to Bloomberg.

Kurtz’s organization provides climate researchers with legal assistance. They assist about 40 researchers annually. But this year has been busier, as they have already assisted 35 people.

One of the beneficiaries of the fund is Doug MacMartin, who was sued by Dane Wigington after he fact-checked his documentary “The Dimming,” which, according to MacMartin, is filled with conspiracy theories.

On the science fact-checking website Climate Feedback, used by social media companies to flag what it sees as science misinformation, MacMartin described Wigington’s documentary as “pure fantasy.” The plaintiff sought $75,000 in damages from MacMartin, arguing that the fact-check reduced the visibility of his documentary on Facebook, hurting its revenue.

“I mostly felt disbelief,” MacMartin recalled to Bloomberg. “A bit of shock combined with, ‘I just don’t have time for this.’”

Earlier this month, a federal court dismissed Wigngton’s lawsuit, but he plans to appeal.

Daniel Swain, a climate researcher at University of California, Los Angeles, had to deal with a FOIA request filed by a group called Energy Policy Advocates. Swain is vocal about droughts and fires in Western US. The requests sought text messages, encrypted messages, and emails related to a fact-check written by Swain and others about the book “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” by Steven Koonin, who worked in the Department of Energy during Obama’s era.

Swain challenged the requests using a university lawyer, arguing that it had the “presumptive intent of disrupting primary research and outreach activities by inundating climate scientists.” The records department said that the motivations of the requester were irrelevant, but was bound by law to provide the information requested.

“I spend nights and weekends compiling and going through thousands and thousands of emails because these requests are extremely broad,” he said. “In some cases they’re essentially open ended: they’re asking about multiple years, multiple keywords and multiple platforms.”

The group filing most of the requests are Government Accountability and Oversight, and Energy Policy Advocates. The two groups go by the acronyms GAO and EPA, the same acronyms used by federal agencies Government Accountability Office and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Climate Feedback and Meta are facing a $2 million lawsuit filed by Libertarian commentator John Stossel who was censored on Facebook as a direct result of a post by the fact-checker.

Climate Feedback flagged Stossel’s video “Government Fueled Fires” about the wildfires in California in 2020. The fact-check resulted in Facebook limiting the visibility of the video and we have more information on that case here.

September 25, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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