Can ‘Big Brother’ Save You From a Virus?
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | August 17, 2021
In June 2021, the U.S. National Security Council released a new “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” document.1 While it’s being largely framed as a tool to fight White supremacy and political extremism, the definition of what constitutes a “domestic terrorist” is incredibly vague and based on ideologies rather than specific behaviors.
It’s not difficult to imagine this policy being used to silence political opposition simply by labeling anyone who disagrees with the government as a domestic terrorist and charging them with a hate crime.
We’re already seeing signs suggesting that this is the path we’re on. July 28, 2021, Dr. Peter Hotez published a paper2 in PLOS Biology titled “Mounting Antiscience Aggression in the United States,” in which he suggests criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists ought to be labeled a “hate crime.” Commenting on the paper, Paul Joseph Watson at Summit News writes:3
“This is yet another transparent effort to dehumanize anti-lockdown protesters and demonize people who merely want to exercise bodily autonomy while elevating Fauci and his ilk to Pope-like status. Science isn’t supposed to be a religious dogma that is set in stone, it’s an ever-evolving knowledge base that changes and improves thanks to dissent and skepticism.”
Science Depends on Questioning and Challenging Assumptions
Attorney Jonathan Turley also responded to Hotez’s paper in an August 4, 2021, blog post, saying:4
“’Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.’ Feynman’s statement captures how science depends upon constant questioning and challenging of assumptions …
[T]here remain important debates over not just the underlying science relation to Covid-19 but the implications for such science for public policies. Criminalizing aspects of that debate would ratchet up the threats against those with dissenting views, including some scientists. That would harm not just free speech but science in the long run.”
Should We Have Protected Classes That Cannot Be Questioned?
Turley also points out how making scientists a protected class (and one would assume only those with specific political leanings) is a slippery slope that will likely have unwieldy ramifications:5
“The federal hate crime laws focus on basis of a person’s characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We have seen calls for adding professions like police officers, which I also opposed.
As with police officers, the inclusion of such professions would have a direct and inimical impact on free speech in our society. Indeed, it would create a slippery slope as other professions demand inclusion from reporters to ministers to physicians. Hate crimes would quickly apply to a wide array of people due to their occupations.”
Will America Accept No-Fly List for Unvaccinated?
Writing for The Atlantic,6 former assistant secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem posits that people who do not want to be part of the COVID injection experiment “need to bear the burden” when it comes to preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
“The number of COVID-19 cases keeps growing, even though remarkably safe, effective vaccines are widely available,” Kayyem writes.7 “Many public agencies are responding by reimposing masking rules on everyone.
But at this stage of the pandemic, tougher universal restrictions are not the solution to continuing viral spread. While flying, vaccinated people should no longer carry the burden for unvaccinated people.
The White House has rejected a nationwide vaccine mandate … but a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take.
It will help limit the risk of transmission at destinations where unvaccinated people travel — and, by setting norms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people, will also help raise the stagnant vaccination rates that are keeping both the economy and society from fully recovering.”
Travel Ban Identified as Effective Coercion Strategy
According to Kayyem, traveling in general and flying in particular is not a human right, and putting unvaccinated individuals on a no-fly list is a matter of national security, in the sense that the country needs to protect itself from people capable of spreading this dangerous virus.
She makes no mention of the scientifically confirmed fact that none of the COVID shots actually prevent you from getting infected, and that “vaccinated” individuals carry the same viral load as the unvaccinated,8,9 which means they’re just as infectious. The main difference is that vaccinated individuals might not realize that they’re carriers, as the primary effect when the injections do work is lessening symptoms of infection.
Kayyem also cites a New York Times and Kaiser Family Foundation poll in which 41% of unvaccinated respondents had said prohibition on airline travel would sway their decision, including 11% of those “adamantly opposed” to vaccination. In other words, where free doughnuts and million-dollar lotteries have failed to coerce people to get the shot, an airline travel ban might do the trick.
Despite her former position within government, she makes no mention of laws forbidding coercion of medical volunteers, such as the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 45 CFR 46 (subpart A, the Belmont report),10 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty,11 the Declaration of Helsinki12 or the Nuremberg Code.13 Supreme court rulings have also clarified that Americans have the right to choose their own health care in general.14,15
Reframing to Confuse the Issue
Kayyem suggests circumventing such basic human rights by reframing the issue. She writes:16
“The public debate about making vaccination a precondition for travel, employment, and other activities has described this approach as vaccine mandates, a term that … suggests that unvaccinated people are being ordered around arbitrarily.
What is actually going on, mostly, is that institutions are shifting burdens to unvaccinated people … rather than imposing greater burdens on everyone.
Americans still have a choice to go unvaccinated, but that means giving up on certain societal benefits. Nobody has a constitutional right to attend The Lion King on Broadway or work at Disney or Walmart … People who still want to wait and see about the vaccines can continue doing so. They just can’t keep pushing all the costs on everyone else.”
As pointed out by Swift Headline,17 the owner of Atlantic magazine, Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Steve Jobs, owns two private jets herself, giving her the freedom to fly around the world at will, regardless what vaccine mandates might be in place. Many other ultra-rich individuals would also be able to ignore the rules due to wealth alone, essentially turning them into a protected class. Swift Headline points out this projection:18
“The Atlantic went on to say unvaccinated people who are exercising their individual rights as free Americans ‘do not deserve’ to be a ‘protected class’ …
Jobs’s wealth and class status is detailed in Breitbart News’ Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow’s book, ‘Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruptions,’ which ‘exposes the hidden connections between the establishment media and the activist left.’
As Marlow details, Jobs’s past is a privileged one … Jobs ‘married well and inherited a lot of money, and her wealth is tied up in some of world’s biggest companies,’ Marlow continues. ‘She is the establishment.’”
The Price of Admission to Society
August 2, 2021, the San Francisco Chronicle also published an opinion piece19 by the Chronicle editorial board, in which they suggested we ought to “Make vaccination the price of admission to society.” One way to evaluate the reasonableness of such a proposition is to replace COVID “vaccination” with anything else. How about: “Make proof of contraception use the price of admission to bars and nightclubs.”
“Make clear skin the price of admission to gyms and public swimming pools.” “Make being taller than 5’ 9” the price of admission to theme parks.” “Make having a BMI below 25 the price of admission to airline flights.” “Make proof of not having an illness the price of admission to in-hospital care.”
According to the Chronicle editorial board, “the unvaccinated account for over 95% of hospitalizations and deaths.”20 The board does not cite where it got that data from, so let’s review the source of that data.
In an August 5, 2021, video statement, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted that this statistic was obtained by looking at hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021 — a timeframe during which the vast majority of the United States population were unvaccinated.
When you look at more recent data, the trend is swinging in the opposite direction.
January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots,21 and as of June 15, 48.7% were fully “vaccinated.”22
The CDC has also pointed out that you are not considered “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after your second dose (in the case of Pfizer or Moderna), which is given six weeks after your first shot.23 This means that if you receive your first dose on June 1, you won’t be “fully vaccinated” until eight weeks later, around August 1.
So, the narrative that we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” was created by using statistics from a time period when the U.S. as a whole was largely unvaccinated. When you look at more recent data, the trend is swinging in the opposite direction.
Vaccinated Now Comprise the Bulk of Hospitalizations
For example, August 1, 2021, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, director of Israel’s Public Health Services, announced half of all COVID-19 infections were among the fully vaccinated.24
A few days later, August 5, Dr. Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, appeared on Channel 13 News, reporting that 95% of severely ill COVID-19 patients are fully vaccinated, and that they make up 85% to 90% of COVID related hospitalizations overall.25
In Scotland, official data on hospitalizations and deaths show 87% of those who have died from COVID-19 in the third wave that began in early July were vaccinated,26 and in Gibraltar, which has a 99% COVID jab compliance rate, COVID cases have risen by 2,500% since June 1, 2021.27
A CDC investigation of an outbreak in Barnstable County, Massachusetts between July 6 through July 25, 2021, found 74% of those who received a diagnosis of COVID19, and 80% of hospitalizations, were among the fully vaccinated.28,29 Most, but not all, had the Delta variant.
“What the breakthrough cases appear to show is that the delta variant of the coronavirus is more easily carried and transmitted by vaccinated people than its predecessors,” the Chronicle editorial board writes.30
“In any case, the greater apparent transmissibility of the variant makes it that much more important to protect as many people as possible from severe COVID by increasing inoculation rates.”
What the board appears to be saying is that unvaccinated people must be protected against severe infection, against their will, if need be, and the best way to do that is to discriminate against them and treat them like second-class citizens.
Again, a simple way to check the reasonableness of this argument is to swap out the COVID reference for something else. How about, “It’s important to protect as many people as possible from dying in car accidents by raising car prices so fewer people can get behind the wheel.”
Can ‘Big Brother’ Save You From a Virus?
As early as April 2020, The Times in the U.K. weighed in with similar suggestions, stating “We need Big Brother to beat this virus.”31 Clare Foges, the author of the piece in question, went on to say, “Don’t let the civil liberties lobby blind us to the fact that greater state surveillance, including ID cards, is required.”
The argument that Big Brother can protect us from infection is ludicrous on its face, because no amount of people surveillance can prevent microscopic viruses from circulating.
The No. 1 place of viral spread is in institutions, such as nursing homes and hospitals, yet the staff within them are among the most well-trained in pathogenic control. If trained hospital staff can’t prevent the spread of viruses, how can government officials do it?
Importantly, the argument that we need vaccine passports to prove we’re “clean” enough to participate in society immediately falls apart when you take into account the fact that the COVID shots do not provide immunity. You can still be infected, carry the virus and spread it to others.
We’ve already seen several examples of situations where 100% of people were fully “vaccinated” against COVID-19 yet an outbreak occurred. We’ve even seen over 100 fully COVID injected people die from COVID in one state alone, Massachusetts,32 so it is likely there are now many thousands of fully “vaccinated” who have died from COVID.
Even a 100% Vaccination Rate Cannot Eliminate COVID
Most recently, Carnival cruise lines experienced an outbreak despite every last person on that ship having proof of COVID “vaccination.”33 The cruise liner had even intentionally reduced capacity from 4,000 to 2,800 to provide ample social distancing capability. None of the measures worked. People got sick anyway, which makes perfect sense if you remember that the shot doesn’t provide immunity, only symptom reduction.
Cases such as these clearly reveal that even if everyone gets the shot, SARS-CoV-2 will mutate and continue to circulate, taking people out here and there. To think that giving up basic rights and freedoms is the answer simply isn’t logical. Taking responsibility for your own health is, and that includes deciding if and how you want to protect yourself from SARS-CoV-2.
Not everyone is deathly afraid of COVID-19. Many realize there are safe and effective treatments available, such as the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s I-MASS Prevention and At-Home Treatment protocol and I-MASK+ Early Outpatient Treatment protocol.
Nebulized hydrogen peroxide can also be used for prevention and treatment of COVID-19, as detailed in Dr. David Brownstein’s case paper34 and Dr. Thomas Levy’s free e-book, “Rapid Virus Recovery.” And if there’s effective treatment, there’s little need to risk permanent side effects from an experimental gene technology that can only provide a narrow range of protection in the first place.
The Lies Behind the ‘Pandemic of Unvaxxed’
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | August 16, 2021
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House and most mainstream media, what we have now is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”1
According to the official narrative, 99% of COVID-19 deaths and 95% of COVID-related hospitalizations are occurring among the unvaccinated. In a July 16, 2021, White House press briefing,2 CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky claimed “over 97% of people who are entering the hospital right now are unvaccinated.”
But as reported by Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” “that statistic is grossly misleading,”3 and in an August 5, 2021, video statement, Walensky inadvertently revealed how that 95% to 99% statistic was created.
Grossly Misleading Data Manipulation
As it turns out, to achieve those statistics, the CDC included hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021. It does not include more recent data or data related to the Delta variant, which is now the most prevalent strain in circulation. The problem is, the vast majority of the United States population was unvaccinated during that timeframe.
January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots,4 and as of June 15, 48.7% were fully “vaccinated.”5 Keep in mind that you’re not “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after your second dose (in the case of Pfizer or Moderna), which is given six weeks after your first shot. This is according to the CDC.6
So, those receiving an initial dose in June, for example, won’t be “fully vaccinated” until eight weeks later, sometime in July or August.
By using statistics from a time period when the U.S. as a whole was largely unvaccinated, the CDC is now claiming we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” in an effort to demonize those who still have not agreed to receive this experimental gene modification injection.
Selective Pressure Promotes Emergence of New Variants
Here’s what Canadian viral immunologist and vaccine researcher Dr. Byram Bridle told Ingraham about the claim that we’re in a pandemic of the unvaxxed, and that the unvaccinated are hotbeds for dangerous variants:
“Absolutely, it’s untrue to be calling this a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it’s certainly untrue … that the unvaccinated are somehow driving the emergence of the novel variants. This goes against every scientific principle that we understand.
The reality is, the nature of the vaccines we are using right now, and the way we’re rolling them out, are going to be applying selective pressure to this virus to promote the emergence of new variants. Again, this is based on sound principles.
We have to look no further than … the emergence of antibiotic resistance … The principle is this: If you have a biological entity that is prone to mutation — and the SARS-CoV-2, like all coronaviruses is prone to mutation — and you apply a narrowly focused selective pressure that is nonlethal, and you do this over a long period of time, this is the recipe for driving the emergence of novel variants.
This is exactly what we’re doing. Our vaccines are focused on a single protein of the virus, so the virus only has to alter one protein, and the vaccines don’t come close to providing sterilizing immunity.
People who are vaccinated still get infected, it only seems particularly good at blunting the disease, and what that tells you therefore is that these vaccines in the vast majority of people are applying a nonlethal pressure, narrowly focused on one protein, and the vaccine rollout is occurring over a long period of time. That’s the recipe for driving variants.”
Natural Immunity Offers Far Superior Protection
Bridle also explains why natural immunity offers robust protection against all variants, whereas vaccine-induced immunity can’t. When you acquire the infection naturally, your body develops antibodies against ALL of the viral proteins whereas the COVID shots only trigger antibodies against one, namely the spike protein.
As mentioned above, when you have antibodies against just one of the viral proteins, the virus only needs to mutate that one protein in order to evade your immune system. When you have natural immunity, on the other hand, your antibodies will recognize all parts of the virus, so even if the spike protein is mutated, your body will recognize other parts of the virus and mount an attack against those.
That SARS-CoV-2 works the same way other viruses do was shown in a Nature Reviews Immunology study7 by Alessandro Sette and Shane Crotty, published in October 2020. The study, “Cross-Reactive Memory T Cells and Herd Immunity to SARS-CoV-2” argued that naturally-acquired immunity against SARS-CoV-2 is potent, long-lasting and very broad in scope, as you develop both antibodies and T cells that target multiple components of the virus and not just one.
If we are to depend on vaccine-induced immunity, as public health officials are urging us to do, we’ll end up on a never-ending booster treadmill. Boosters will absolutely be necessary, as the shot offers such narrow protection against a single protein of the virus. Already, data around the world show vaccine-induced protection is waning rapidly in the face of new variants, and Moderna has publicly stated that the need for additional boosters is expected.8
How Dangerous Is the Delta Variant?
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Delta variant is both more transmissible and more dangerous than the original virus and previous variants. July 4, 2021, he told NBC News:9
“It is more effective and efficient in its ability to transmit from person to person. And studies that we’ve seen where they have been the variant that’s dominated in other countries, it’s clear that it appears to be more lethal in the sense of more serious — allow you to get more serious disease leading to hospitalization, and in some cases leading to deaths.”
In a June 29, 2021, interview,10 Fauci called the Delta variant “a game-changer” for unvaccinated people, warning it will devastate the unvaccinated population while vaccinated individuals are protected against it.
Remember, Fauci is not a clinician and has never treated someone infected with SARS-CoV-2. Other health experts and practicing physicians who treat COVID-19 patients disagree with Fauci’s claims, arguing that not only is the Delta variant not more dangerous, it’s certainly not more dangerous for the unvaccinated.
As reported by Ingraham in June 2021 (video above), there’s an evolutionary genetics theory called Muller’s Ratchet, which states that as an outbreak starts to peter out, the virus tends to mutate into a more transmissible form, but at the same time it grows weaker, causing far less serious infection. According to epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, this is exactly what we’re seeing. He told Ingraham:
“The good news is on the 18th of June, the United Kingdom presented their 16th report11 on the mutations — and they’re doing a great job, much better than our CDC — and what they demonstrated is that the Delta is more contagious but it’s far less deadly, far less worrisome. In fact, it’s a much weaker virus than both the U.K. [Alpha] and the South African [Beta] variants.”
Spike Mutations Render Vaccinated Vulnerable to Delta
Importantly, the Delta variant contains three different mutations, all in the spike protein. This, McCullough explains, allows this variant to evade the immune responses in those who have received the COVID jabs — but not those who have natural immunity which, again, is much broader. In a June 30, 2021, appearance on Fox News, McCullough stated:12
“It is very clear from the UK Technical Briefing13 that was published June 18th that the vaccine provides no protection against the Delta variant. It’s a very mild variant.
Whether you get the vaccine or not, patients will get some very mild symptoms like a cold and they can be easily managed … Patients who have severe symptoms or at high risk, we can use simple drug combinations at home and get them through the illness. So, there’s no reason now to push vaccinations.”
Children’s Health Defense chief scientific officer Brian Hooker, Ph.D., has echoed McCullough’s sentiments. The Defender quotes Hooker:14
“What we’re seeing is virus evolution 101. Viruses like to survive, so killing the host (i.e. the human who is infected) defeats the purpose because killing the host kills the virus, too. For this reason, new variants of viruses that circulate widely through the population tend to become more transmissive but less pathogenic. In other words, they will spread more easily from person to person, but they will cause less damage to the host.
The vaccine focuses on the spike protein, whereas natural immunity focuses on the entire virus.
Natural immunity — with a more diverse array of antibodies and T-cell receptors — will provide better protection overall as it has more targets in which to attack the virus, whereas vaccine-derived immunity only focuses on one portion of the virus, in this case, the spike protein. Once that portion of the virus has mutated sufficiently, the vaccine no longer is effective.”
Real-World Data Show Most of Infected are Fully ‘Vaccinated’
Real-world data from areas with high COVID jab rates show the complete converse of what media, the CDC and White House officials are telling us. In addition to the British Technical Briefing No. 16,15 cited above, we have additional data from Israel, Scotland, Massachusetts and Gibraltar:
•August 1, 2021, director of Israel’s Public Health Services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, announced half of all COVID-19 infections were among the fully vaccinated.16 Signs of more serious disease among fully vaccinated are also emerging, she said, particularly in those over the age of 60.
A few days later, August 5, Dr. Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, appeared on Channel 13 News, reporting that 95% of severely ill COVID-19 patients are fully vaccinated, and that they make up 85% to 90% of COVID-related hospitalizations overall.17 As of August 2, 2021, 66.9% of Israelis had received at least one dose of Pfizer’s injection, which is used exclusively in Israel; 62.2% had received two doses.18
•In Scotland, official data on hospitalizations and deaths show 87% of those who have died from COVID-19 in the third wave that began in early July were vaccinated.19
•A CDC investigation of an outbreak in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, between July 6 through July 25, 2021, found 74% of those who received a diagnosis of COVID19, and 80% of hospitalizations, were among the fully vaccinated.20,21 Most, but not all, had the Delta variant of the virus.
The CDC also found that fully vaccinated individuals who contract the infection have as high a viral load in their nasal passages as unvaccinated individuals who get infected.22 This means the vaccinated are just as infectious as the unvaccinated.
•In Gibraltar, which has a 99% COVID jab compliance rate, COVID cases have risen by 2,500% since June 1, 2021.23
While those who benefit from keeping the pandemic going would like you to cower in fear at the thought of the Delta variant, there’s really no evidence that it’s any worse than the original. It’s more transmissible, yes, but far less dangerous, as its primary symptoms are that of a regular cold.
According to Harvard and Stanford professors, the actual number of Americans dying from or with COVID-19 are actually at an all-time low, so alarmism is uncalled for.24
And, as for viral social media posts by doctors and nurses claiming hospitals are overflowing with unvaccinated COVID patients, don’t believe them. Most are bots. We’ve repeatedly seen evidence that fearmongering is being spread not by real people but by fake accounts run by artificial intelligence. This includes blue check accounts. Here’s a sampling of recent bot farm tweets trying to scare everyone:25
Don’t Fear It, Just Treat It
In closing, remember there are several different treatment protocols for COVID-19 that appear just as effective for variants as for the original virus, including the following:
- Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s I-MASS Prevention and At-Home Treatment protocol
- The FLCCC’s I-MASK+ Prevention and Early Outpatient Treatment protocol
- The FLCCC’s I-RECOVER management protocol for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome
- Nebulized hydrogen peroxide for prevention and treatment of COVID-19, as detailed in Dr. David Brownstein’s case paper26 and Dr. Thomas Levy’s free e-book, “Rapid Virus Recovery.” Levy believes nebulized hydrogen peroxide can also be an invaluable strategy for combating spike protein toxicity27 because, in addition to being a powerful antiviral, it will also augment and speed up cellular healing, in part by improving oxygenation
Sources and References
- 1 The New York Times July 16, 2021
- 2 WH.gov Press Briefing July 16, 2021
- 3 Fox News
- 4 Bloomberg COVID Vaccine Tracker, see US Vaccinations vs Cases graph, top portion
- 5 Mayo Clinic COVID Vaccine Tracker
- 6 CDC.gov When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated Updated July 27, 2021
- 7 Nature Reviews Immunology October 6, 2020; 20: 709-713
- 8 The Hill August 5, 2021
- 9 NBC News July 4, 2021
- 10 PBS June 29, 2021
- 11, 13, 15 Public Health England, SARS-CoV-2 Variants Technical Briefing 16, June 18, 2021 (PDF)
- 12 Covidcalltohumanity.org July 5, 2021
- 14 The Defender August 3, 2021
- 16 Bloomberg August 1, 2021 (Archived)
- 17 American Faith August 8, 2021
- 18 Our World in Data, Data for Israel
- 19 The Daily Expose July 29, 2021
- 20 CDC MMWR July 30, 2021; 70
- 21 CNBC July 30, 2021
- 22 NBC News August 7, 2021
- 23 Big League Politics August 4, 2021
- 24 FEE.org July 28, 2021
- 25 Padrak.com Vaccine Propaganda Bot Farms (PDF)
- 26 Science, Public Health Policy and The Law July 2020; 1: 4-22 (PDF)
- 27 Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, June 21, 2021
California Hospitals Require Proof of Visitors’ COVID Vaccine or Negative Test to Enter
21st Century Wire | August 16, 2021
Since the very beginning of the ‘global pandemic,’ the state of California has led the way as one of the most aggressive violators of its citizens Constitutional rights and freedoms. Like many governments, the state has sought to justify its authoritarian policies and coercive measures by claiming these are necessary in order to ‘stop the spread of virus’ – despite the fact that there exists no scientific basis for such broad claims on the efficacy of such interventions. Regardless, governments everywhere are pushing forward even harder in the race to implement Vaccine Passports as a mechanism to to force the entire population to accept an unending series of unlicensed, experimental corporate products – in this case, brand new COVID-19 vaccines. Once again, government is claiming these are absolutely necessary to ‘stop the spread of virus,’ and again, there exists no scientific basis for these broad claims either.
Regardless of these facts, American healthcare providers are now pushing ahead by banning visitors from their facilities who do no submit to either COVID-19 corporate PCR testing or experimental vaccine regimes.
Given the state’s already abysmal record in protecting its residents’ civil liberties, it should be no surprise that California is now leading the way in the United States in denying freedom of movement of the unvaccinated.
According to an email (see below) sent out this week to the members of Sutter Health Network, the state public health’ officials have issued a new decree that visitors to facilities will no longer be able to enter hospitals or retirement care homes – without a COVID-19 vaccine, or a negative COVID-19 test. The announcement began with the following text:
———————
- This policy includes partners or support persons for laboring patients. Please plan accordingly if you’re expecting a baby.
- While the order includes ICU and emergency departments, limited exceptions are allowed for visits related to end-of-life, guardians accompanying minors or those support persons determined to be essential to facilitating care.
- Please note that rapid testing for COVID-19 will not be available onsite at our facilities. Find acceptable proof of vaccination options and find out where you can get tested.
- Review our updated hospital visitor policy for more information
———————
Thank you to News From Underground for this tip.
The claims made by state health officers are simply breathtaking – in the sense that their statements do not correspond at all with the reality, even according to widely known official data.
In order to give the impression that the state is still in the grips of a ‘pandemic,’ it is relying on fabricated ‘case’ numbers gleaned from corrupted false positive test data from non-diagnostic PCR test. Even so, it’s still struggling to show significant ‘infection’ numbers:
California is currently experiencing the fastest increase in COVID-19 cases during the entire pandemic with 18.3 new cases per 100,000 people per day, with case rates increasing ninefold within two months.
By pursing completely arbitrary, non science-based policies, the state appears to following in the footsteps Australia’s failing “Zero COVID” policy.
State officials then go on to claim California is now under viral siege from an uncontrollable and “possibly” more deadly ‘Delta Variant’:
The Delta variant, which is very highly contagious and possibly more virulent, is currently the most common variant causing new infections in California.
The fabrications continue with the government making the now widely discredited false claim that “Unvaccinated persons are more likely to get infected and spread the virus” (official data from Israel, Iceland and numerous other regions clearly show that the vaccinated are actually driving the alleged outbreaks), a commonly repeated canard disseminated by the Biden Administration and mainstream media outlets:
Unvaccinated persons are more likely to get infected and spread the virus, which is transmitted through the air. Most current hospitalizations and deaths are among unvaccinated persons.
So at present, the only real epidemic appears to be an epidemic of medical misinformation’ being promulgated by government itself.
If Net Zero crashes and burns, the press will have only themselves to blame
Global Warming Policy Forum – 13/08/21
The passengers on the global warming bandwagon are worried. With the big climate conference in Glasgow at the end of the year getting ever closer, it now looks very much as if the big emitting nations are not going to sign up to a Net Zero agreement, and that the Prime Minister will be left with a humiliating failure on his hands.
It’s not just the conference that is in jeopardy. The government’s whole Net Zero agenda looks increasingly threatened, as Conservative MPs look nervously at the costs, and wonder what it might do to their chances of reelection.
If it goes all pear-shaped, the journalists and commentators who have been promoting the decarbonisation agenda for years have only themselves to blame. It has been clear to anyone who took the time to question the narrative that the aims were impractical, the figures presented were implausible, and that it was only a matter of time before there was a public backlash.
However, questioning things seems to nowadays be only a peripheral part of journalists’ job descriptions, particularly those on the climate and energy beat. Today’s Times’ leader, and James Kirkup’s recent article in the Spectator, both on the subject of net zero, are cases in point.
Both authors have clearly been briefed that the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has estimated the cost of decarbonising the economy at £1.4 trillion. Unfortunately, that is wrong. The OBR has not prepared any estimate of the cost – it simply relays the figure prepared by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). Similarly, the Treasury, currently engaged on its review of the Net Zero project, is not actually assessing the bill to be paid either; it too accepts the CCC’s figures on trust.
This is a problem, because the CCC – beset as it is with extraordinary conflicts of interest – is the last organisation you’d entrust with coming up with reliable figures. And if you had any doubt, you only need to consider the tens of thousands of pounds it has spent on lawyers in order to keep the calculations underlying its estimate secret to realise that there really is a problem.
Even simple arithmetic shows the CCC estimate is entirely implausible. Twenty million homes needing heat pumps at £12,000 a time adds up to a cost of hundreds of billions of pounds. Most of them will need major insulation works too, at a cost running to tens of thousands of pounds each. That’s half of your £1.4 trillion gone already.
More arithmetic reveals further problems. The Times claims that electric cars will be cheaper than petrol and diesel by 2025. Really? To deliver that, you’d need to deliver price reductions of £2500 per year. But in recent years, the EV cost premium has hardly come down at all, and indeed looks as if it may even start to grow, because of upward pressure on battery prices.
Still, the Times does rather better than James Kirkup, who makes some wild and entirely unsubstantiated claims about the cost of renewables. Onshore wind down 40%? Reviews of the financial accounts of onshore windfarms reveals no such decline, nor indeed any decline at all. Offshore wind down a third? Even if that were true (it isn’t), that would still leave it several times more expensive than traditional power sources, leaving consumers facing sustained electricity price rises, and ultimately being priced off the roads and left unable to afford to heat their homes.
To be fair, there is a wrinkle with offshore windfarms, in that several have signed agreements to supply the grid at very low prices. But as the International Renewable Energy Agency notes, these kinds of deals may merely be part of a long-term pricing strategy, and should not be taken as representative of the underlying costs; in other words, that we will just end up paying more later. That suggestion is borne out by the financial accounts of the UK’s offshore windfarms, which show that costs remain very high, and are at best falling only slightly.
These issues are of vital importance to the UK economy, because if costs are not coming down then the CCC’s estimate of the cost of delivering net zero is understated, possibly by several trillion pounds. It’s a pity then, that journalists opining on net zero have mostly ignored them.
Before I finish, it’s worth raising one final example of a failure to question, this time from the Spectator article. In closing his piece, James Kirkup relays some official estimates of the financial disaster that potentially besets us: the OBR, he notes, has said that national debt could rise to 289 percent (presumably of GDP) if we do nothing about climate change. But here we see again that the pronouncements of officialdom can get you into trouble, or at least if you fail to question them. That’s because the choice is not between doing nothing and trying to change the weather by installing windfarms. There is a third choice: adapt.
Consider this: the biggest cost of global warming is supposed to come about through sea level rise, and here the cost of doing nothing will undoubtedly be very high – one study said we could face a bill of 11% of GDP every year.
But as the seas, rising 2–3 mm per year, started to overtop the sea walls, would we really do nothing, and let our homes be swamped and our children drown? Or would we improve our sea defences? The cost in that case has also been estimated, and is a thousand times smaller than doing nothing. Moreover, such a bill will be readily affordable in the future because of the world’s growing wealth.
The environmentalists and the renewables industry have done well to obscure the painful truth about the decarbonisation agenda from the public. The media have managed to turn a collective blind eye. But times have changed, and the costs can no longer be hidden. If, as seems likely, Net Zero crashes and burns, and all that money is wasted, they will have nobody to blame but themselves.
Defending CO2: Astro-Climatology, Climategate And Common Sense
By Matthew Ehret | Principia Scientific | August 12, 2021
According to such modern climate experts as Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Carney, Al Gore, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Prince Charles and Klaus Schwab, carbon dioxide must be stopped at all cost. Images of submerged cities, drowning polar bears and burning deserts taking over civilization flash before our eyes repeatedly in schools, mainstream media and films.
The Paris Climate Accords demand that all nations reduce their emissions to pre-industrial levels and the upcoming COP27 Summit in the UK will certainly demand that these reductions be made legally binding and enforceable by new global governance mechanisms.
But is CO2 really the existential threat it is being made out to be?
I would like to take a few moments to entertain the hypothesis that we may be drinking some poisonous Kool-Aid in a modern-day Jonestown cult and we are just minutes away from a hearty “bottoms up”.
While some of the questions and facts you are about to read are considered heretical in certain quarters, I think that history has shown that it is only by permitting the mind to question sacred cows at the risk of being denounced as “heretical” that any creative progress can made. With this thought in mind, I will venture the risk and only ask that you accompany me for this thought experiment with an open mind.
A Preface On Climategate
Back in November 17, 2009, a major scandal erupted when the 61 Mb of emails internally circulated among the directors and researchers at East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) were made public. To this day, it has not been verified if the scandal occurred via an internal leak or a hack, but what was verified throughout the hundreds of emails between director Phil Jones and the teams of climatologists staffing the CRU, was that vast scales of fraud were occurring. Jones himself was caught red handed[1] demanding that data sets be ignored and massaged in order to justify the climate models that had all been used to sell the idea that CO2 was driving startling rates of warming.
East Anglia’s CRU is the world’s foremost center of data set centralization and climate model generation which feed directly into the UN’s Independent Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and which in turn feeds into every major NGO, school, corporation and government. The other central control point of data selection and model generation (for both climate change and covid-19 data sets) is an Oxford-based operation called “Our World In Data”, funded in large measure by the UK government and Bill Gates[2].
Climategate couldn’t have come at a worse time, as the COP15 Climate Summit was scheduled for December 2009 where the world’s first legally binding carbon reduction treaties were expected to finalize an end to sovereign nation states. The terrible publicity of climategate essentially caused the event to become a big goose egg, as Chinese and Indian delegates refused to play along, and ensured that all teeth were removed from any binding carbon caps[1].
In December 2009, former chief economic advisor to Putin, Dr. Andrei Illarionov stated that Russia had sent data to East Anglia’s CRU from 476 meteorological stations covering over 20% of the globe’s surface hosting a wide range of data from as far back as 1865 to 2005.
Dr. Illarionov explained[2] that he was dismayed to see that Phil Jones and the CRU entirely ignored the data from all but 121 stations, and from those stations they did use, they artificially cherry-picked data that gave off the false result that temperatures between 1860-1965 were 0.67 degrees colder than they truly were while temperatures from 1965-2005 were made artificially high.
After being suspended for a few months, a UK review panel absolved Jones from his transgressions and re-installed him into his old position of carbon data gatekeeper at the CRU.
Development Greens The Earth
Many people were taken aback by the findings published by a team of scientists analyzing the results of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. NASA’s website[3] described the findings (published on February 11, 2019[4]) in the following way: “The research team found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China.”
Up until this study’s publication, scientists were not certain what role human economic activity played in this anomalous greening of the earth.
The NASA study demonstrated that this dramatic rate of greening between 2000-2017 was being driven largely by China and India’s combined efforts at eradicating poverty which involves both reforestation, desert greening efforts (see China’s Move South Water North megaproject[1]), agricultural innovation and also, general industrial growth policies. The later policies represent genuine efforts by Asian nations to wipe out poverty by investments into large scale infrastructure… a practice once used in the west before the days of “post-industrialism” induced a collective insanity of consumerism in the early 1970s.
A perplexed reader might now be heard to ask: but how can industrial growth have anything to do with greening of the planet?
One simple answer is: carbon dioxide.
CO2: An Innocent Victim Framed For Genocide
As children, we are taught that CO2 is an integral part of our ecosystem and that plants love it.
The processes of photosynthesis which evolved over long spans of time with the advent of the chlorophyll molecule eons ago requires constant infusions of carbon dioxide that are broken down along with H2O, releasing oxygen back into the biosphere. Over time, free oxygen slowly formed the earth’s ozone layer and fueled the rise of ever higher life forms that relied on this “plant waste” for life.
Today, large amounts of carbon dioxide is regularly generated by biotic and abiotic activity from living animals, decaying biomass as well as volcanos which constantly emit CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A surprisingly small portion of that naturally occurring CO2 is caused by human economic activity.
Taking the entire composition of so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ together, water vapour makes up 95 percent of the bulk, carbon dioxide makes up 3.6 percent, nitrous oxide (0.9 percent), methane (0.3 percent), and aerosols about 0.07 percent.
Of the sum total of the 3.6 percent carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, approximately 0.9 percent is caused by human activity. To restate this statistic: Human CO2 makes up less than 1 percent of the 3.6 percent of the total ‘greenhouse gases’.
During the mid-20th century, a belief began to emerge among some fringe climate scientists that the 400 parts per million (PPM) average carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the “natural and ideal amount”, such that any upset of this mathematical average would supposedly result in destruction of biodiversity.
These same mathematicians also presumed that the biosphere could be defined as closed systems such that rules of entropy were the natural organizing principles- ignoring the obvious fact that ecosystems are OPEN, connected to oceans of active cosmic radiations from other stars, galaxies, supernova and more while being mediated by nested arrays of electromagnetic fields.
As film maker Adam Curtis demonstrated in his All Watched Over By Machines of Love and Grace (2011)[1], this belief slowly moved from the fringe into mainstream thinking despite the fact that it is simply wrong.
Beyond the facts already presented above, another persuasive piece of evidence can be found in carbon dioxide generators which are commonly purchased by anyone managing a greenhouse[2]. These widely-used generators increase CO2 to amounts as high as 1,500 PPM. What is the effect of such increases? Healthier, happier, greener plants and vegetables.
Temperature And CO2: Who Leads In This Dance?
Amidst the frantic alarms sounding daily over the impending climate emergency threatening the world, we often forget to ask if anyone ever actually proved the claim that CO2 drives the climate?
To begin to answer this question, let’s start with a graph showcasing the rise of human industrial CO2 from 1751-2015 broken down into various regions of the earth. What we can see is consistent increase from the mid 19th century until 1950, when a vast spike of emission rate increases can be viewed. This increase obviously accompanies world population growth and the correlated agro-industrial output.
Next, let us look at the global mean temperature changes from 1880-present.
Here several anomalies strike the thinking mind.
For starters, absolutely no warming accompanies the period of intensive industrial growth of 1940-1977. In fact during this period, many climate scientists were ringing the alarm over an impending ice age![1]
Another anomaly: Since carbon dioxide emissions have increased continuously over the past 20 years, one would expect to see a correlated spike in warming trends. However, this expected correlation is entirely absent between the year 1998 and 2012 when warming tappers off to a near standstill sometimes called “the global warming pause” of 1998-2012[2].
This has been an embarrassment for all modellers whose scare-mongering predictions have fallen to pieces to the point that they can only pretend this pause doesn’t exist. Again, the question must be asked: why would this anomaly appear if CO2 drove temperature?
Let’s take one more anomaly from our temperature records before digging into the hard proof that CO2 does not cause temperature changes: The medieval warming period [see graph].
While certain proven fraudsters like Michael Mann[1] have attempted to erase this warming period from existence with things like the famous “hockey stick” model crafted with the help of East Anglia’s Phil Jones, the fact remains that from 1000-1350 A.D. global mean temperatures were significantly warmer than anything we are currently living through. The Vikings in Greenland had no coal plants or SUVs, and yet mean temperatures were still warmer than today by a long shot. Why?
Perhaps taking a wider look at the CO2:climate correlation might give us a better idea of what is actually happening.
Below we can see a chart taking 600,000 years of data into account. It is certainly the case that CO2 and temperature have a connection on these scales… but correlation is not causation, and as the author of How to Lie with Statistics[1] famously stated “a well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler’s Big Lie; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you.”
When a 70,000 year sampling is inspected, we find the sleight of hand fully exposed by observing the peaks and troughs of temperature and CO2. If the later were truly the driving force as the Great Resetters of our day proclaim, then CO2 peaks and troughs would happen before temperature, but the evidence shows us the exact opposite. Let’s look at one more example of an 800 year CO2/temperature lag about 130,000 years ago…
Going back even further into the climate records, it has been revealed that during many of the past ice ages, carbon dioxide had risen up to 800% higher than our current levels, despite the fact that human activity played zero role[1].
A Brief Look At Space Weather
Technically, I could end right now and feel like any honest jury would conclude that CO2 has been falsely framed for murder. But I would like to introduce one more dramatic piece of evidence that gets us back on the path of a true science of climate change and ecosystems management: Astroclimatology.
The fact that the earth is but one of a multitude of spherical bodies in space speedily revolving around an incredibly active sun within the outskirts of a galaxy within a broader cluster of galaxies is often ignored by many computer modelling statisticians for a very simple reason. Anyone who has been conditioned to look at the universe through a filter of linear computer models is obsessed with control, and is incredibly uncomfortable with the unknown.
The amount of actual factors shaping the weather, ice ages, and volcanism are so complex, vast and mostly undiscovered that computer modellers would prefer to simply pretend they don’t exist… or if they do acknowledge such celestial phenomena to have any function in climate change, it is often dismissed as “negligible”.
Despite this culture of laziness and dishonesty, the question is worth asking: WHY does evidence of climate change occur across so many other planets and moons of our solar system? Ice caps on Mars melt periodically[2] and have been melting at faster rates in recent years. Why is this happening? Could the sun’s coronal mass ejections, solar wind, or electromagnetic field be affecting climate change within the solar system as one unifying process?
Often Venus with its atmosphere of 96.5 percent CO2 is used as a warning for people on the earth what sort of terrible oven we will create by producing more CO2. It is hot after all with temperatures averaging 467 degrees Celsius (872 degrees Fahrenheit). However, if CO2 were truly to blame for the heating, then why is Mars so cold with temperatures averaging minus 125 degrees Celsius (-195 degrees Fahrenheit) despite the fact that it’s atmosphere is 95 percent CO2?
Similarly, what role does cosmic radiation play in driving climate change? Based on the recent discoveries of Heinrich Svensmark and his team in Denmark, strong correlations were found linking cloud formation, climate and cosmic radiation flux over time.
Cosmic radiation flux into the earth is a continuous process mediated by the earth’s magnetic field as well as the oscillating magnetic field of the sun which shapes the entire solar system as we revolve around the galactic center of the Milky Way every 225-250 million years. Svensmark’s discovery was outlined beautifully in the 2011 documentary The Cloud Mystery.[1]
A Return To A True Science Of Climate
The point to re-emphasize is that the weather is, and always has been, a complex process shaped by galactic forces that have driven a miraculous system of life on the earth over hundreds of millions of years.
During this time amounting to approximately two revolutions around the galactic center, living matter has transformed from relatively boring (high entropy) single celled organisms, through a continuous process of increased complexity, and increased power of self-direction (low entropy). Up until now, there is no actual evidence that this process is a closed system and as such, that any fixed state of no change/heat death is controlling its behavior.
While some might deny this claim, citing the redshifts of galaxies as proof that the universe is in fact dying (or inversely had a starting point “in time” 13.6 billion years ago before there was nothing), I refer you to the work of Halton Arp[1].
This process has been characterized by non-linear discontinuities of living matter emerging where only nonliving matter previously existed, followed later by conscious life having appeared where only non-conscious life had been found and most recently self-conscious life endowed with creative reason appearing onto the scene. While this process has been punctuated by sometimes violent mass-extinction cycles, the overall direction of life has not been shaped by randomness, chance or chaos, but rather improvement, perfectibility and harmony.
When humanity appeared onto the scene, a new phenomenon began expressing itself in a form which the great Russian academician Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) described as the Noosphere (as opposed to the lithosphere and biosphere). Vernadsky understood this new geological force to be driven by human creative reason, and devoted his life to teaching the world that the law of humanity must accord with the law of nature stating:
“The noösphere is a new geological phenomenon on our planet. In it, for the first time, man becomes a large-scale geological force. He can, and must, rebuild the province of his life by his work and thought, rebuild it radically in comparison with the past. Wider and wider creative possibilities open before him. It may be that the generation of our grandchildren will approach their blossoming”.[1]
In Vernadsky’s mind, neither the noosphere, nor the biosphere obeyed a law of mathematical equilibrium or statis, but was rather governed by an asymmetrical harmony and progress from lower to higher states of organization. It was only by coming to understand the principles of nature that mankind became morally and intellectually fit to improve upon nature by turning deserts green, harnessing the power of the atom or applying scientific progress to health and agriculture.
Some of his most important insights were published in his Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomena (1938), Evolution of Species and Living Matter (1928) Some Words About the Noosphere (1943), and The Transition of the Biosphere to the Noosphere (1938).[2]
Despite the lasting contributions made by Vernadsky to human knowledge, here we sit, 76 years after the end of WW2 tolerating an unscientific policy of mass decarbonization which threatens to radically undermine civilization for countless generations.
Is this change being forced upon humanity? Unlike the forces of fascism and imperialism of the past, today’s terrible self-implosion of civilization is occurring via the consent of those intended to perish under a Great Reset via the collective guilt for the crime of simply being human. It has become the norm for the majority of today’s children to think of themselves as belonging not to a beautiful species made in the image of a Creator, but rather to a parasitic race guilty for the crime of sinning against nature.
So let’s take this opportunity to re-introduce truth back into climate science, and let the social engineers drooling over a Great Reset scream and whine as nations choose a new open system paradigm of life and anti-entropy rather than a closed system world of decay and heat death.
This positive new paradigm of cooperation, scientific and technological progress, and cultural optimism is getting stronger by the day led by Russia, China and other nations joining the international New Silk Road. Most importantly, let’s finally absolve CO2 of its accused sins, and celebrate this wonderful little molecule as our friend and ally.
About ther author: Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the‘Untold History of Canada’ book series, and Clash of the Two Americas. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation .
No lockdown Belarus reports COVID mortality rates similar to neighbors that imposed draconian lockdowns
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | August 13, 2021
The country of Belarus, which imposed no legal lockdown at all throughout the entire pandemic, has released COVID mortality figures which are broadly in line with other nearby countries which imposed draconian lockdowns.
After authorities in Belarus refused to put their citizens under lockdown, the global media had a collective hissy fit, with one headline declaring, “One leader looks hell-bent on turning COVID-19 into a catastrophe for his country.”
However, while managing to avoid all the negative impacts of lockdown, the outcome of Belarus’ no lockdown policy is far from a “catastrophe.”
Newly released overall death statistics from the start of the pandemic up to March 2021 show that the death rate is similar to neighboring countries such as Latvia, Russia and Ukraine which imposed full lockdowns.
Indeed, when compared to Poland, which imposed a particularly harsh lockdown, Belarus’ mortality rate in March 2021 was significantly lower.
Belarus is similar to Sweden, which has suffered fewer than 15,000 COVID deaths despite refusing to impose a lockdown. Figures show that cases and deaths tend to fall in waves whether a lockdown is imposed or not, proving that lockdowns are totally pointless.
“Alongside places like South Dakota, Florida, Sweden and Tanzania, Belarus is an important illustration of what can be expected from COVID-19 when restrictions aren’t imposed. Like those places, we see that the outcome is basically the same as similar places where restrictions are imposed,” writes Will Jones.
“It simply isn’t the case that a whole country becomes infected if the virus is given largely free reign, as Belarus, like other no-restriction jurisdictions, shows. Even without lockdowns and vaccines the epidemic is self-limiting and comes to an end at around the same point having infected a similar number of people. Until our leaders and their advisers grasp this crucial fact about COVID-19, they will keep pursuing pointless and ineffective but deeply harmful policies.”
Don’t expect any of this to be highlighted by the mainstream media, which has parroted the provable falsehood that repeated lockdowns were to thank for ending each “wave” of COVID.
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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