Revisionist history: Fauci and Weingarten distance themselves from the School Closure policy they enacted & encouraged
Media does not hold them accountable because they are political allies
BY VINAY PRASAD | OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS | APRIL 29, 2023
I always say that the most common way people change their mind is that they rewrite their memories and imagine they always agreed with you. Years ago, we published a provocative paper that qualified the percent of cancer patients eligible for genomic drugs. (it was ~8%), and the same doctors who had until recently claimed that these drugs have changed care for most people, were quick to say, “I always said only a fraction are eligible.” Sure you did, buddy. Sure you did.
To some degree, it is forgivable. The human ego is strong, and it is hard for many to admit they were wrong. When it comes to everyday Americans, I support their right to mis-remember their historical views on COVID19 policy. In fact, I predicted a great swing on this issue specifically — schools.
But, my concession does not extend to the architects of school closure. The experts who went on TV and repeatedly scared the public out of sending their kids to schools, and scared Governors, districts and teachers out of their duty to kids. These people should be remember as being on the wrong side of history, and receive the punishment they deserve: being precluded from shaping policy every again.
That includes Anthony Fauci and Randi Weingarten— two people who are doing an aggressive media campaign to distance themselves from the policies they set in motion.
One of Fauci’s defenses is that he just gave advice, and did not shut anything down. This is contradicted by the fact that he previously took credit for lockdowns, and specifically noted that in early march 2020, Trump faithfully followed his advice.
Of course the NIAID director and WH Covid counsel member has a special responsibility to give good advice, and should know the probability his advice shapes policy is high.
Additionally, he controls a multibillion dollar research budget. Why did he run zero RCTs of masking? School reopening? Distancing? Cohorting? Busing? Ventilation? That was entirely in his power, and there is no excuse for giving advice while not studying your advice, when you control the entire research budget!
Fauci’s next claim is that he always wanted schools reopened. This is contradicted by a detailed timeline of his position on schools, which was consistently to fearmonger about kids and keep them closed.
In the summer of 2020, Fauci was still opposed to schools.
In spring 2020, when DeSantis reopened Fauci went on multiple news outlets to sabotage those efforts
As for Randi, the most accurate comment was in this clip from a distressed parent:
Randi claims she just wanted to open schools safety, but the problem is you didn’t need 750 billion dollars and hepa filtration to open safely. Even masks were unnecessary. Ultimately, schools reopened and ~100% of kids got COVID anyway, the vast majority did fine, most did not have the vaccine beforehand, and there is no reliable evidence the vax lowered the risk of severe disease for kids. All you needed to reopen were teachers with courage, sadly Randi and Tony sapped that away from them with constant inaccurate rhetoric.
The truth is Randi asked for things she knew she would not get, so she could justify her position that teachers be paid, get first dips on vaccine (over the elderly), and continue to not work in person.
School closure has already destroyed a generation of kids. The full damage is not yet appreciated, but the first signs are showing.
The virus was comparable to other viruses in healthy children, and no one should have disrupted their lives. It was not only wrong in retrospect, it was wrong at the time, and many of us saw it instantly and clearly. It was a human rights violation to close schools for kids.
Fauci and Weingarten are the tip of the spear of school closure. History should remember that, and no one should ever entertain their opinion on a policy matter again. The media coverage of them has been meek and toothless.
Line up children, the COVID sniffing dog is here to judge you
Who thought this was a good idea?
BY VINAY PRASAD | OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS | APRIL 24, 2023
A recent paper in JAMA Pediatrics shows how badly adults dehumanized children. Before I explain, as background, I work as a health care provider in California. During the pandemic, I never had to asymptomatically test even during hospital work. No dog ever smelled me. Keep that in mind as I tell you about this. Because these Ca kids have more restrictions than doctors working in the hospital w the sickest patients!
Here is what researchers did. They trained the dog to sniff out COVID-19. Then, they lined up kids in school. Kids had to stand 6 feet apart. (Apparently they also had to mask — see pic). They had to face away from the dogs who smelled their ankle. If the kid had covid, the dog would sit down. Then all kids got tested with Binax, and researchers could see how the dog did.
It strikes me as a bit dehumanizing to treat children like this. Especially since ~100% would later go on to develop COVID. The vast majority would get COVID without getting a vaccine. Seems that lining them up in the schoolyard, and having a dog sniff them— something I have only been subject to in airports, where I assume they are sniffing for bomb residue or drugs— is a bit extreme.
I worry how a child might feel if they go to school feeling fine, and the dog sits down besides them. Their classmates— even thought they are told to face away— will still know. The dog will stop moving. And let’s be honest, kids will look around. Did they pull the kid from school then? Did any kids start crying? Seems messed up to me. Why did they have to do this with children?
Why do I note this: isn’t it something that not a single person flagged this idea and said: if we are going to do this, let’s do it for doctors or nurses, or at least adults. It is kinda fucked up to treat children like this, and future generations may look at us like we are out of minds. When they look back at the IFR in kids, they may think we are actually insane.
State Covid Propaganda Destroyed Public’s Ability to Consent to Vaccines – Chairman of UK Council for Psychotherapy
BY DR CHRISTIAN BUCKLAND | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 28, 2023
There follows an open letter from Dr. Christian Buckland, Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemning the “use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural science on the unknowing and non-consenting U.K. public”. Among numerous harms are that the use of techniques to increase fear, shame and guilt “materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine”.
April 28th 2023
Dear Prime Minister,
I am the Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), one of the UK’s foremost psychological governing bodies. However, I write this open letter in my own capacity. I believe I have a professional obligation to write to you in an attempt to protect the public from any further harm caused by the unethical application of psychological research and practice.
I unreservedly condemn the U.K. Government’s use of unethical psychological techniques intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt, under the guise of behavioural science and insights which were designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge and conscious participation. It is now clear that in 2020 the U.K. Government deliberately chose to artificially inflate the level of fear within the U.K. population by exaggerating the risk factors of COVID-19, and concomitantly downplaying the protective factors. We also witnessed the Government’s promotion of social disapproval and guilt messaging. These techniques were embedded into a multi-channel, co-ordinated public health campaign designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge. Moreover, in tandem with the mainstream media, the Government also proactively suppressed, censored and ostracised any healthcare professional or scientist who suggested alternative responses to COIVD-19, or who simply questioned the messaging and measures being implemented by the Government.
Evidence of the recommendation of using unethical psychological techniques to gain behavioural change
The Government document titled ‘Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures’ was written for the Government by the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which is a subgroup of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
The premise of the document was to provide options for changing the behaviour of the U.K. public without their knowledge. A passage within this document states: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”. It makes certain recommendations including:
- “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard hitting emotional messaging”
- “Coercion”
- “Social disapproval”
The recommendations made by SPI-B included ones intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt. Psychological practitioners know that deliberately trying to frighten someone into change with erroneous or exaggerated information can easily cause long-term psychological damage. We also know that using social disapproval can create splits and divisions within society, and that inducing feelings of guilt can elevate the risk of suicide.
SPI-B also included a simple risk assessment matrix which acknowledges that the “spill over effects” of using media to increase the sense of personal threat and of using social disapproval “could be negative”. There is also a statement demonstrating there was a conversation regarding the spill over effects, although this does not appear to be fully documented. The risk factors and ethics of using fear, shame, guilt and coercion would almost certainly have been known to the members of SPI-B because several members were British Psychological Society (BPS) registered chartered psychologists. In an interview with one of the members of SPI-B, BPS registered educational psychologist Dr. Gavin Morgan, he refers to the use of fear by his SPI-B colleagues and says (as relayed by Laura Dodsworth, in A State of Fear pp. 262,263):
“Clearly using fear as a means of control is not ethical. What you do as a psychologist is co-construction. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.” … Was it unethical to use fear, I asked? “Well I didn’t suggest we use fear.” But your colleagues did. What do you think of that? He paused. “Oh God.” Another reluctant pause. “It’s not ethical,” he said.
Like Dr. Morgan, any BPS registered psychologists within SPI-B would or should have recognised that recommending the Government uses fear as a means of controlling the public breached their professional code of ethics and conduct. An urgent investigation is required both by the U.K. Government and the BPS. Two specific points of the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021) that may have been broken are (with my emphasis):
3.3 Responsibility. Because of their acknowledged expertise, members of the Society often enjoy professional autonomy; responsibility is an essential element of autonomy. Members must accept appropriate responsibility for what is within their power, control or management. Awareness of responsibility ensures that the trust of others is not abused, the power of influence is properly managed and that duty towards others is always paramount. Statement of values: Members value their responsibilities to persons and peoples, to the general public, and to the profession and science of psychology, including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society. In applying these values, psychologists should consider:
- Professional accountability;
- Responsible use of their knowledge and skills;
- Respect for the welfare of humans, non-humans and the living world;
- Potentially competing duties.
3.4 Integrity. Acting with integrity includes being honest, truthful, accurate and consistent in one’s actions, words, decisions, methods and outcomes. It requires setting self-interest to one side and being objective and open to challenge in one’s behaviour in a professional context. Statement of values: Members value honesty, probity, accuracy, clarity and fairness in their interactions with all persons and peoples, and seek to promote integrity in all facets of their scientific and professional endeavours”.
Evidence that psychological techniques to induce fear, shame, guilt and coercion were used on the U.K. public
The SPI-B document in question demonstrates that the options of eliciting feelings of fear, shame, guilt and the use of coercion was recommended to the U.K. Government. There is evidence that those options were indeed subsequently deployed on the U.K. population.
In August 2022, you stated:
In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the ‘fear narrative’. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong… It was wrong to scare people like that.
Additionally, leaked WhatsApp messages from the former Health Minister at the time, Matt Hancock, published in the Daily Telegraph in March 2023, confirm that fear and guilt were used:
Hancock: We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain. But the complications with that Brexit is taking the top line
Poole: Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour (sic) change
Hancock: When do we deploy the new variant …
Case: Ramping up messaging – the fear/guilt factor vital
The above are just two examples where senior Government Ministers recognised that fear and guilt was used as drivers for behavioural change of the UK population without their knowledge.
The existing literature
It is important to acknowledge that the above-mentioned psychological techniques were used on the U.K. population without their knowledge or consent, and that this in direct contradiction of long-established and carefully considered behavioural science advice which made clear that, in theory and practice, the consent of the public is paramount. According to a 2010 Institute for Government report:
The use of MINDSPACE (or other ‘nudge’ type policy tools) may require careful handling – in essence, the public need to give permission and help shape how such tools are used. (p10)
Continuing, the report states:
Policy-makers wishing to use these tools summarised in MINDSPACE need the approval of the public to do so. (p74)
Further literature supports that permission from the public is essential. David Halpern wrote in 2015:
If there is one great risk to the application of behavioural insights in policy, it is that the thread of public permission wears too thin. If governments, or indeed communities or companies, wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public to do so. (p365)
As there was no approval obtained, the options recommended and deployed were not in alignment with the principles of behavioural science.
It is important to highlight that the same kinds of techniques were used on children in relation to mask wearing, social distancing and vaccine uptake, with many techniques continuing into 2022. These techniques violated UNICEF’s recommendations from its ethical toolkit for behavioural science projects directed at children. The tool-kit states:
A core idea underlying the applied behavioural science approach is that interventions should not restrict choice and should transparently communicate project goals. When designing an intervention, practitioners should determine how transparent it will be to those affected by it. They should ensure that children and parents can easily opt out, and should design feedback mechanisms so that children and their parents can voice concerns, see the outcomes of their objections, and hold decision-makers to account.
The behavioural science literature also indicates a potential link between the misuse of behavioural psychology and an increased risk of suicide, stemming from an All Party Parliamentary Group Report on the Morse Review into the Loan Charge in 2020. One of the recommendations within the report demands:
An independent assessment and a suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology / behavioural insights, in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge.
The literature highlights that approval from the public must be sought and maintained. Additionally, all behavioural science projects directed at children must have effective feedback mechanisms and methods of opting out, with decision makers able to be held accountable. There are also existing potential concerns that behavioural science may increase suicide levels. These important ethical aspects and safety signals appear to have been ignored. The lessons of history warn us that in times of existential crisis, whether real or only perceived, our ethics are at risk of being abandoned, and psychological knowledge can become misused by governments:
Under some historical conditions or circumstances and contexts, psychologists and psychological knowledge were in danger of being abused by political powers, largely for clandestine purposes, such as conducting torture or the persecution of political opponents. (Maercker A, Guski-Leinwand S, 2018)
It is of grave concern that the actions of the U.K. Government during the Covid era potentially fit into the category of abusing psychological knowledge and being absent of ethics, thus require serious investigation.
The impact of psychological pressure on informed consent
For the sake of brevity, I will not reiterate the multiple concerns already documented by others surrounding the consequences of the Government’s actions around lockdown, hospital discharges, school closures and mask mandates. I do, however, wish to highlight one extremely serious consequence that I believe has occurred as a direct result of the use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural insights on the unknowing public: by adopting the techniques used, the Government significantly and materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Public Health England:
Consent must be obtained before starting any treatment or physical investigation or before providing personal care for a patient. This includes the administration of all vaccines.
Also,
It is a legal and ethical principle that valid consent must be obtained before starting personal care, treatment or investigations.
Also,
For consent to immunisation to the (sic) valid, it must be given freely, voluntarily and without coercion by an appropriately informed person who has the mental capacity to consent to the administration of the vaccines in question.
From the above, it is clear that for medical consent to be valid it must be given without coercion. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines coercion as:
The threat or use of punitive measures against states, groups or individuals in order for them to undertake or desist from specified actions. In addition to the threat of or limited use of force (or both), coercion may entail economic sanctions, psychological pressures, and social ostracism.
The psychological techniques used by the U.K. Government fall under that definition of coercion. If follows that according to Public Health England’s statements and for the general public at least, consent to immunisation was invalidated by the behaviour of the U.K. Government. It is also important to highlight that there have been serious injuries and death directly linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. Many of those injured or who have died would not have taken a vaccine if they had not been psychologically pressured, feared being ostracised socially and were given accurate information.
The removal of the general population’s ability to give informed medical consent is of the gravest concern, and a severe and dangerous consequence of using behavioural insights and psychological techniques on an unknowing public.
Conclusion
The need to hold tightly to professional ethics, in particular to the ethical principle of informed consent, is not just an ‘academic’ issue. It is a matter of practical and fundamental importance to responsible government.
According to David Halpern, “Behavioural insights, like any other form of knowledge, can be used for good or bad” (p348). It is my opinion that the use of behavioural insights and psychological techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt utilised by the U.K. Government since March 2020 has been unethical. The consequences are still unravelling but they appear to include serious damage to trust in government and its agencies, the NHS and the medical and scientific professions.
I propose that there be an immediate cessation of the use of all behavioural science techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt used by the Government pending an urgent, open and independent inquiry. This inquiry should also have as an objective the re-establishment of ethical frameworks necessary to protect the public and to provide accountability. I would welcome a discussion on this most important of matters.
Most respectfully
Dr. Christian Buckland
Doctor of Psychology in Psychotherapy and Counselling
Israel lobby piles pressure on Twitter, Facebook to ban Press TV
Press TV – April 27, 2023
Social media groups Facebook and Twitter have come under pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups to remove accounts of Iran’s leading broadcaster Press TV from their platforms.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCHD) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have demanded that Press TV be blocked for publishing content in Britain, The Telegraph reported Thursday.
ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said it was “inexcusable” to offer Press TV a platform.
“We urge Meta [the owner of Facebook] and Twitter to immediately launch an investigation and to take action to prevent Press TV and the Iranian other media outlets from misusing these social platforms.”
“Facebook and Twitter profit by providing Iranian state propagandists with the reach and amplification they need to evade domestic broadcast bans, and influence millions of new viewers in the West,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCHD, said.
Their concern is particularly focused around Press TV’s “Palestine Declassified” program, formerly hosted by former UK MP Chris Williamson and former Bristol University professor David Miller.
Williamson was suspended from the Labour Party after dismissing concerns about anti-Semitism in the party as “smears” and “bulls—.” And Miller was dismissed from Bristol University after he revealed Jewish students critical of his views were “directed by Israel.”
The groups cite an episode of the Press TV program devoted to unpacking the “witch hunt” in Labour and the way the party was “captured by key Israel lobby groups.”
Another episode dealt with a network of “Zionist” individuals and organizations which exerted a disproportionate influence over global affairs, including the West’s intervention in the Ukraine war and a “campaign to improve King Charles III’s image in the UK Muslim community.”
The groups are rattled by videos on Press TV’s program that exposes Jewish influence over global affairs and the entertainment industry.
In July 2013, Press TV was forced off the air in the UK after the media regulator Ofcom revoked its license for allegedly breaching the Communications Act.
In the same year, it was taken off the air in North America after the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Press TV was dropped from the Galaxy 19 satellite platform that allowed it to broadcast in the United States and Canada, without saying when it was dropped.
The network has denounced the measures as “media terrorism.”
The broadcaster has a large number of viewers across Western countries and a considerable number of followers on social media.
In December 2022, Firas al-Najim, a Canadian human rights advocate, said Press TV is the voice of the oppressed, a news network working to expose the crimes and double standards of the West against free nations.
Weeks after the European Union imposed sanctions on the leading broadcaster, French satellite operator Eutelsat notified Press TV of its plan to take the network off the air. Najim said then that the move unmasked the conspiracy of the Western governments.
Canada passes its duplicitous online censorship bill
The bill affects independent voices while suggesting it doesn’t
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 28, 2023
Canada’s controversial Online Streaming Act, Bill C-11, will become law.
Bill C-11 reforms the Broadcasting Act to apply to online content. Streaming services like YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix will be forced to follow the same rules that apply to traditional broadcasters and will be regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Streaming services will be required to invest in and prioritize Canadian content. Critics of the bill have warned that it would negatively impact individual content creators and give the government control of the content Canadians see online.
“Liberal” politicians have said that it’s worth it.
Online platforms also criticized the bill, with YouTube running a campaign to warn content creators that the bill could affect their income.
The Senate proposed several amendments that were rejected by the lower chamber. However, the passed bill included “public assurance” that it “will not apply to user-generated digital content” because it doesn’t regulate the independent content uploaders themselves. However, it does apply to the platforms that these users upload their content to and so the independent creators are affected.
The government insisted that the bill contains adequate safeguards to protect individual content creators and rejected amendments with further protection because they would affect its ability to “publicly consult on, and issue, a policy direction to the CRTC to appropriately scope the regulation of social media services.”
The bill gives the CRTC discretion to determine how to enforce it.
Only moments after the passing of the bill, groups that say they’re representing Canadian culture demanded more action. The lobbyists called for the CRTC to establish social media rules.
The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE), said it “applauds the passage of Bill C-11,” but wants more.
“The CDCE celebrates a great day, but notes that the real work has just begun,” the lobbyists said, calling for more rules for social media.
“In the coming months, the government will issue a policy direction to the CRTC, and the latter will then have the important responsibility of developing the rules that will apply to each of the new services that are now clearly under its jurisdiction, i.e. audiovisual and audio streaming services and social media,” the group wrote in a press release.
The group then added that: “The CRTC will thus ensure that everyone makes a significant contribution to the creation, production and promotion of Canadian music, programs and films, while taking into account Canada’s unique diversity.”
In a statement, People’s Party of Canada leader, Maxime Bernier, said: “In the case of Bill C-11, it’s unfortunate that the majority of Senators caved in and voted for the bill even after the government had rejected a crucial amendment proposed by senators Julie Miville-Dechêne and Paula Simons to clarify that it would not be used to regulate independent creators on YouTube and other platforms, which would be a clear violation of free expression.”
Bernier added: “In the first place, there is absolutely no need for the government and the CRTC to tell platforms to modify their algorithms to promote Canadian content. Canadians can decide what they want for themselves without the government holding their hands. This is a first step in creating a wall around the Canadian internet like the Chinese government does in China.”
The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) said that it would repeal the bill if it forms a government.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said that, “the power-hungry Trudeau Liberals have rammed through their censorship bill into law. But this isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
Poilievre said that, if elected, his government would, “restore freedom of expression online & repeal Trudeau’s C-11 censorship law.”
ROBERT KENNEDY AND DONALD TRUMP – THE LEFT RIGHT PUNCH TO CORPORATIST FASCISM
By Rodney Atkinsonon | FreeNations | April 26, 2023
Corporatism, with its offspring Fascism and Nazism, is supported by totalitarians of the left and the right and its libertarian opponents also spring from the left and the right*. On “the left” both communists and welfare socialists oppose corporatism and on “the right” democratic enterprise capitalists and small businesses fight corporatism.
We now have in the USA two Presidential candidates who cut across the corrupted party system which – in all so called “democratic” western countries – have combined in a corporatist conspiracy against their peoples, giving them a vote but no choice.
The US Presidential system gives the people a better chance of voting for a complete philosophical change – or at least openly challenge the status quo. And at last we now have on both the traditional “left” (Democrat Party) and the traditional “right” (the Republican Party) individuals who threaten the corporatist Establishment – Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jnr.
In his recent presidential candidacy launch speech in Boston Kennedy lambasted
- the partnerships of corporations and governments to swindle and gaslight the public;
- the reckless military adventurism-for-profit campaign that has bankrupted the USA, now culminating in the Ukraine fiasco;
- the botched response to Covid-19 and the corporate chicanery that induced it;
- the financial corruption that is driving America into inflation and bankruptcy.
He recognises the State corporate axis which is increasingly unchallengeable democratically and the politicised media which silence dissent and alternatives in policy, science, intellectual life and medicine.
Like Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter, Kennedy was banned from Youtube and Instagram. Trump was a reluctant Covid “Lockdowner’ and Kennedy points to the terrible consequences for health – lockdowns were:
“a war on American children,” citing a Brown University study that found toddlers lost 22 IQ points. “Children all over the country have missed their milestones” because of the lockdowns. “What is the CDC’s response? The CDC five months ago revised its milestones so that now a child no longer is expected to walk at 1 year … they walk at 18 months. And a child now does not have to have 50 words in 24 months, it’s 30 months. So instead of fixing the problem, they are trying to cover it up.”
Just as Donald Trump has been the victim of provenly fallacious deep state and msm scams like the Steele dossier, the Russian interference lie and “the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation” lie (as Mike Morell a former CIA director has just admitted) so Kennedy is accused of being an “anti vaxxer” and peddler of “misinformation”.
Kennedy reminded his audience of his father’s and his uncle’s treatment by the Deep state which they both sought to oppose and bring under democratic control – and both paying with their lives. John F Kennedy had threatened “to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds”.
The hatred of some Establishment Republicans for Donald Trump, the disruptor on the “right”, mirrors Kennedy’s unpopularity among “the Left”.
Who said this?
“we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.”
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
“Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land”
Well those words could have been said by either Kennedy or Trump because they both identify the centralised, unchallengeable corporate State, run to the benefit of both left and right establishments as the enemy of the people in a country where democratic accountability has given way to corporatist fascism, both in domestic and international affairs. Both Trump and Kennedy oppose reckless foreign interventions and their enormous cost. Both would be peacemakers.
In fact the above words are from President Donald Trump’s Inauguration address.
* The almost total irrelevance of the notions of “left” and “right” I set out in my 1988 book The Emancipated Society, advocating in place of the “horizontal” left right paradigm the “vertical” authoritarian-libertarian axis.
Moscow responds to EU call for Serbia to ban Russian media
RT | April 27, 2023
The European Parliament’s insistence that Serbia censor RT Balkans and Sputnik in order to “harmonize” with the EU is absurd, evil, and a manifestation of imperialism and colonialism, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed.
On Wednesday, the parliament’s foreign affairs committee adopted the report by Slovakian MEP Vladimir Bilcik, criticizing Serbia for not joining the EU sanctions against Russia and demanding Belgrade shut down Russian “disinformation” outlets just as the bloc has done. The US State Department has also called for a ban on RT Balkans.
“It’s an absurd situation,” Zakharova told reporters at the daily briefing in Moscow on Thursday. “These statements speak for themselves. The West isn’t even hiding, but saying the quiet part out loud.”
The US and the EU are now openly saying that Russia, Russian culture and language, or Russian media and journalists, simply shouldn’t exist, Zakharova noted. She compared the European Parliament’s demands to calls by Ukrainian officials to “exterminate” the Russian population in Crimea and Donbass, saying they can only be described as “evil.”
“The only possible thing to say is that this is an imperialist point of view, a manifestation of neo-colonialism. Some countries, without any moral grounds, illegally arrogate to themselves the right to model the world and its development at their own discretion: who can live, speak, trade, produce, have children, and who cannot,” Zakharova told reporters. “This is a modern version of slavery, in which the colonial powers claim the right to be considered masters, and others – their slaves.”
“Those who like these rules of the game have the right to play by them. We don’t. This is what we rebelled against.”
The US and its allies, Zakharova argued, want Russia to have no opportunity to speak, because the very existence of Russian media threatens the Western plans for narrative manipulation.
“Our media, journalists and outlets report from the epicenters of world events, based on facts, encourage people to critically evaluate reality (as they should),” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. “Apparently, this goes against the plans that the American rulers have to ‘zombify’ their own population.”
American television, Zakharova noted, presents a “a one-sided, practically sterilized, filtered and adjusted picture of the world,” having reached an “ideological dead end.” Any airing of alternative viewpoints threatens to expose this media ecosystem as biased and contradictory.
RT Balkans began operations in November 2022. The EU reportedly plans to blacklist the outlet as part of its 11th package of sanctions against Russia. The bloc had banned all broadcasting activities by RT and Sputnik in March 2022, calling them “Russian propaganda” that endangered Ukraine. Major social media platforms have blocked RT accounts in the bloc, while YouTube extended the ban globally.
EU’s Věra Jourová says she’s “uncomfortable” on Twitter, wants more censorship
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 27, 2023
Vice President of the European Commission, Věra Jourová, said that she is “more and more uncomfortable on Twitter” because of what she said was the rise in Russian propaganda.
She added that Twitter was likely going to violate the upcoming censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), once enforcement begins later this year, because of the “unregulated Russian aggressive propaganda”
The DSA requires platforms to remove “harmful” content or risk heavy fines.
Jourová said that the employees who were fired when Elon Musk took over last October meant staff responsible for content moderation were fired.
“We were already disappointed by the data they delivered in January and of course, we are also watching what they are doing with the capacities left,” Jourová told reporters on Wednesday.
Earlier, she tweeted that she felt “Twitter is falling short of its commitments to the anti-disinformation code,” a currently voluntary rulebook for online platforms that will become a firm benchmark when the DSA comes into force.
“I would compare the situation with driving on the highway.
“You drive on the highway and overstepping that speed, you get a penalty, and one day you might be deprived of your driving license.”
She insisted that platforms should, “intensify their work against Russian propaganda.”
“There is still space for dialog. And I would really do wish to explain to Mr. Musk our philosophy that we are protectors of freedom of speech, protectors of freedom of expression… But freedom of speech in the EU is not unlimited.”
Meet the VLOPs! The EU Extends its Censorship Powers
By Robert Kogon | Brownstone Institute | April 28, 2023
On Tuesday this week, the European Commission announced its first list of designated Very Large Online Platforms – or VLOPs – that will be subject to “content moderation” requirements and obligations to combat “disinformation” under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). As VLOPs, the designated services will be required “to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide robust content moderation tools.”
Or as a subheading in the Commission announcement pithily puts it: “More diligent content moderation, less disinformation.”
As discussed in my previous articles on the DSA here and here, the legislation creates enforcement mechanisms – most notably, the threat of massive fines – for ensuring that online platforms comply with commitments to remove or otherwise suppress “disinformation” that they have undertaken in the EU’s hitherto ostensibly voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation.
Unsurprisingly, the list of designated VLOPs includes a variety of services offered by all the most high-profile signatories of the Code: Twitter, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok.
But, far more surprisingly, it also includes several platforms that are not signatories of the Code and to which the Commission appears now to be extending the Code/DSA requirements unilaterally. The latter include Amazon, Apple (in the form of the App Store), and even Wikipedia.
The Commission has even designated the favorite messaging service of every filter-crazy preteen, Snapchat! Curiously, however, WhatsApp is not named.
Since many of the newly designated platforms are not publishing platforms per se, it is unclear how exactly the “content moderation” requirements will apply to them.
What will “content moderation” mean for Amazon, for example? That user reviews containing alleged “disinformation” will have to be removed? Or will books or magazines that the European Commission deems to be vessels or purveyors of “disinformation” have to be purged from the catalogue?
The inclusion of the Apple App Store is perhaps even more ominous. Will its subjection to the Code/DSA requirements provide an indirect route for the EU to demand the removal of apps of non-designated platforms that the Commission, however, deems channels of disinformation? Telegram, for example?
And what about Wikipedia? The DSA invests the European Commission with the power to impose fines of up to 6 percent of global turnover on VLOPs. But Wikipedia is a non-profit that is funded by donations. It does not sell anything, so it does not have any turnover. But presumably the Commission plans to treat its fundraising income as such.
Furthermore, Wikipedia is not a publishing platform, but a user-edited collaborative encyclopedia. If it is to be subject to the EU’s “content moderation” requirements, what can this possibly mean other than that Wikipedia will have to remove user edits that the European Commission deems to be “mis-” or “disinformation?” The European Commission will thus become the very arbiter of encyclopedic knowledge and truth.
The European Commission’s list of designated entities, comprising 17 Very Large Online Platforms as well as 2 Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs), is reproduced below.
Very Large Online Platforms:
- Alibaba AliExpress
- Amazon Store
- Apple AppStore
- Booking.com
- Google Play
- Google Maps
- Google Shopping
- Snapchat
- TikTok
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
- Zalando
Very Large Online Search Engines:
- Bing
- Google Search
Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, a translator, and researcher working in Europe.Follow him at Twitter here. He writes at edv1694.substack.com.
RFK JR: “there is no time in history where the people censoring speech were the good guys”
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | April 26, 2023
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the censorship of speech arguing that, “there is no time in history where the people censoring speech were the good guys.”
In an interview with Breitbart News host Joel Pollak, Kennedy discussed censorship of alleged “misinformation.” Kennedy has experienced censorship first-hand for questioning measures taken during the pandemic.
“I’m wondering if you can make a pitch to our audience about a common cause that you, running as a Democrat, may have with many conservatives who feel that they’ve been canceled or otherwise censored or marginalized in public discourse,” Pollak asked.
“It’s more than a personal aggrievement. It’s really just a direct assault on our democracy,” Kennedy said.
According to Kennedy, when the founding fathers drafted the Bill of Rights, they “put the right to free expression in the First Amendment because all the other rights depended on it—because the government that has the power to silence its critics has license for any kind of atrocity.”
“They also understood just theoretically that the whole basis for democracy was the free flow of information,” he continued, adding that one great benefit of democracy over dictatorship is that “through the free flow of information, the best policies can triumph in the marketplace of ideas.”
“We’re now in this situation where without free speech, democracy just withers and dies. Free speech is the fertilizer; it’s the sunlight; it’s the water for democracy,” he added. “There is no time in history where the people who were censoring speech were the good guys. They’re always the bad guys because, of course, that is the first and last step of totalitarianism: silencing critics.”
Kennedy further noted that misinformation and falsehoods are protected speech.
“There are certain kinds of speech that are not protected. But, you know, those things are.
“What we really ought to be looking at is why? What is the cause of this blizzard and tsunami of misinformation that everybody is worried about? And if you look at why this is happening, it’s clear that it’s happening because people don’t trust the government anymore, and they don’t trust it because the government lies, and the media lies.
“Twenty-two percent of Americans now trust the government, and about 22 percent trust media. That’s the lowest level in our history. And the reason they don’t—there’s a very good reason—is that the government and the media, the mainstream media, the corporate-owned media, they are now lying just as a matter of course. And because of that, people are looking for other sources of information. And when those other sources challenge government orthodoxies, the government’s response is to censor them or to label them as misinformation and say that they’re dangerous.”
Listen to the full interview here.
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From the Archives
Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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