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Austria: FPÖ demands speedy referendum on sanctions

Free West Media | August 21, 2022

VIENNA – Current surveys suggest that the majority of Austrians are fed up with the ineffective sanctions and would rather overturn them today than tomorrow. But the people’s call for help is ignored by the aloof political elite. “Great Reset” Minister Karoline Edtstadler declared that there was “no alternative” to sanctions, while the ruling ÖVP negates reality and considers sanctions to be “effective”.

The leaders of the Greens and NEOS denounce critics as uncritical of president Putin or “traitors” or “useful idiots” of the Kremlin. Some even consider the majority of citizens to be “Russian collaborators”.

FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl said that in terms of ending sanctions,  time was of the essence: “We have no time to lose. The heating season is fast approaching.” A referendum on anti-Russian sanctions, which the Austrian leaders are currently supporting to the country’s detriment, was needed as soon as possible, he added.

Instead of lifting sanctions, the government has so far relied on absurd energy saving tips for people.

According to Kickl: “These sanctions have no effect on the war, but they fuel inflation and hurt the local economy.” The situation reminded him of the Corona crisis: “Here, too, the government talked people into things that weren’t right for two years before they finally switched to the FPÖ line of reasoning.” Recently, not least because of the resistance of people on the streets, the government has had to recognize reality and stop the harassing compulsory jabbing and the absurd quarantine rules.”

But “in the case of sanctions, we no longer have two years, but a maximum of two months,” Kickl said. “If sanctions, which amount to a gunshot in the knee, are not ended, then the coming winter threatens to be very uncomfortable for many people.” The proposed referendum is also intended to give the “reasonable forces within the ÖVP” the chance to show their colours and act for the benefit of the people.

August 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

FREE SPEECH MAY BENEFIT MENTAL HEALTH: THE IMPORTANCE OF OPEN DIALOGUE

By PhD Dr. Chloe Carmichael, PhD | August 19, 2022

Free speech debates often focus on the mental health risks of bullying and hate speech- but they rarely consider the mental health benefits of freedom of expression. As a clinical psychologist, I believe that open dialogue is ultimately better than top-down censorship for those seeking wellness, authenticity, and individual as well as relational growth.

Caveat: Free speech does not prevent us from “censoring” certain voices in our own personal life: Whether it’s the proverbial toxic mother-in-law or a news website that seems rife with bias, none of us has an obligation to lend our ears to anyone or anywhere– but we also don’t need to stifle the ability of those voices to continue to exist. In fact, we may even benefit from talking with members of the communities where we live and work… even if (sometimes especially if) their viewpoints differ from our own.

If you’re curious about the potential mental health benefits of free speech, I invite you to consider three main points:

1. Free speech helps people learn and grow:

Humans develop (and sometimes discard) ideas based on social feedback. Our incredible gift of language is so powerful that evolutionary psychologists have speculated that language was an essential factor for humans to evolve into such a sophisticated species.

In addition to facilitating the exchange of information and development of ideas, free speech allows a healthy separation between a person’s ideas or beliefs and that person’s core self: Language lets us externalize our thoughts and feelings, recognizing them as separate from ourselves. Of course, our thoughts and beliefs are part of who we are–but a healthy person can retain a stable sense of self despite changes in their thoughts and beliefs over time.

When we can separate our thoughts from our core identity, we set the stage for growth– but when we experience them as a permanent part of our core identity, we become rigid and inflexible about noticing and discarding them– even if they are what psychologists call “maladaptive beliefs”. Learning to discard these inaccurate or distorted beliefs is key to mental health.

Ironically, being able to say “stupid things” actually helps us to realize how stupid they are; and potentially choose to change our minds. Have you ever noticed that there are certain things we need to “learn by experience”? Sometimes, that comes in the form of hearing ourselves say something aloud and realizing how foolish it sounds, and/or having our community provide feedback that generates a new perspective. Without free speech, we are less likely to examine our thoughts and get feedback on them, which actually leaves us more vulnerable to harboring inaccurate or distorted views.

2. Free speech helps Safe Spaces:

When speech is prohibited, the viewpoints underlying hateful speech do not disappear– instead, they become subverted. This makes it harder to trust we are accessing the true views of others. In fact, the “forbidden speech” model means that we can wisely assume that others are hiding certain “verboten” views. This undermines social trust, thereby ironically undermining the concept of a “safe space”. Conversely, when “haters” can make their views openly known, it’s much easier to avoid, challenge, or take steps to bolster ourselves with support whenever we encounter them. Personally, as a woman, I would rather know if a man automatically views me as less intelligent simply because of my sex. Rather than silencing his voice, I’d much rather know about him so that I could choose to challenge, avoid, or persuade him.

Free speech also helps “safe spaces” because security and stability increase when people understand that they are actually safe even if others voice abhorrent viewpoints that evoke a “mental earthquake” (compared, to say, an actual earthquake). Words are not violence–I say this as a clinical psychologist and as a woman who suffered extreme, life-threatening domestic violence before meeting my wonderful husband. Teaching people that “words are violence” is actually disempowering because it suggests that we should cower in fear or risk physical blows over words rather than reserving that type of retreat or attack for situations of actual physical danger. Instead, we should teach people to rise up, “answer back” vociferously, and not to be afraid in the least over words (unless of course those words are an actual credible threat of physical danger).

When clinical psychologists assess a patient, one of the areas we probe is whether the person has a history of violence, and we don’t mean verbal– we mean physical. This is because a physically violent person is a danger to others in a way that a nonviolent person is not. Yes, verbally abusive people are “flagged” by psychologists too– but not in the same way as a person who poses a physical danger to self or others.

3. Free Speech may reduce Anxiety and Depression:

Anxiety and depression can arise for many reasons, and there are multiple ways to be resilient against them. Here are some ways that free speech can help:

  • Verbalizing our thoughts and feelings increases our sense of control: The ability to put our thoughts and feelings into language has been proven to increase a sense of control, which likely increases our sense of self-efficacy and encourages what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”. Both increased self-efficacy and having an internal locus of control are protective factors against anxiety and depression. Moreover, research shows that labeling feelings helps prevent the amygdala from “hijacking” our thought process; this is partially why learning to label our thoughts sets the stage for more rational, clear-headed thinking.
  • Authenticity facilitates social support: Social support is a known protective factor for mental health. It helps to bolster us against anxiety and depression. When we feel forced to keep significant parts of ourselves secret, we are less authentic and more vulnerable to feelings of isolation. We are less able to fully experience social support because of fears that people might “cancel” us if they knew that perhaps some small component of our authentic self didn’t fit neatly into the bounds of whatever is considered to be “acceptable” speech. Social isolation can develop when social support is degraded by fears of being “canceled” over free expression and open dialogue.
  • Free Speech may increase self-awareness: The key to mental health often begins with self-awareness. When we habitually hide our thoughts from others, we tend to become less aware of them internally as well. We go into denial. When we aren’t addressing our thoughts in a straightforward, healthy manner, we may “let them out” in ways that make us vulnerable to anxiety or depression. For example, a person who felt afraid to voice any questions or concerns about political disagreements to the point where they stopped even mentally acknowledging their concerns to themselves might display a generalized sense of anxiety and say truthfully that they “really don’t know why” they’re so anxious. When we aren’t aware of important parts of our feelings and/or we can’t handle them directly, we’re more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

Conclusion

As a clinical psychologist, I believe that suppressing freedom of expression deprives us of healthy discussions where people can persuade each other through intellectual exploration and develop ideas that help society. Social support that includes free speech allows people to put their thoughts and feelings on the table to examine them, reflect on them, and even change them in a gradual, authentic manner over time (rather than feeling compelled to pantomime a dramatic “change” immediately or risk being ostracized or deplatformed).

Mental wellness requires healthy boundaries. As a psychologist, if I were working with a client who generally expected it was the role of others to either stop having ideas that the client doesn’t like, or that it was always the role of the public square to eliminate voices that the client disliked, I would likely have a discussion with the client about building a sense of personal agency, boundaries, and resilience for his or her own benefit. In my book, Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety, I actually explore techniques to help empower people to use their anxiety or discomfort constructively, rather than becoming overly eager to destroy or deny whatever makes them nervous– it’s often a process that leaves them stronger and more empowered.

Obviously, there are times and places where certain dialogue is not appropriate– but the parameters of what speech is “permissible” even in college classrooms or neighborhood barbecues seems to be ever-shrinking to the point of speech phobia” that results in unhealthy levels of suppression and repression. As a clinical psychologist, I think we would be a richer, healthier, more intelligent society if we welcomed more diversity of thought… even if some words feel like a figurative “slap in the face” (figurative being the key word). If you disagree, I would love to have an open discussion and learn or consider some new viewpoints – I’m truly open minded. I have even been known to change my mind now and then.

August 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

WOEFUL WEEK FOR THE CDC & WALENSKY

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | August 18, 2022

After 3 years of confusion, contradiction, and bad policy-making, CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy M.D., has announced ‘sweeping reorganization.’ This, coming on the heels of an announcement that the beleaguered agency’s Covid guidance no longer differentiates between the Vaccinated, and the Unvaccinated. What is really going on?

August 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

The media are (finally) admitting lockdown is worse than “Covid”… but why?

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | August 19, 2022

The latest figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the knock-on effects of lockdown may be harming more people than “Covid” ever did, or so the press are saying anyway.

The ONS’s weekly data apparently shows over 10,000 more reported deaths than expected.

Since none of these excess deaths has been “linked with Covid”, the press is calling them the “true cost of lockdown”, with some papers suggesting lockdown is “killing more people than Covid”.

To which the only proper response is: “No shit.”

Even for those who still cling to the orthodoxy that “Covid” actually exists, the fact lockdown was going to do more damage than it prevented was obvious from the moment early mortality studies showed “Covid” had a 99.5% survival rate, back in the spring of 2020.

Many experts in economics, statistics, epidemiology and virology voiced this opinion, and were vilified and abused for their trouble.

And, really, anyone with the smallest shred of common sense could figure it out for themselves. Shutting down the health service and crashing the economy is never going to end well (unless you want to kill people, then it’s a great plan).

Even Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy for Covid-19, described lockdowns as a “global catastrophe” in October 2020:

We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of the virus[…] it seems we may have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition […] This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe.”

So the question is not “Is lockdown worse than Covid?” The answer to that is “yes”, and we’ve known that for over two years.

The real question is: why are they finally admitting it?

It’s not just this week’s excess deaths either. Elsewhere the media is concerned about the mental health impacts of lockdowns, delays in cancer treatments, the “lockdown drinking”, the impact on children missing school, teenagers self-harming and so and so on.

Professor Karol Sikora – one of those vilified experts I mentioned earlier – has even been given space in the Telegraph to write a 2000 word “I told you so”.

Why?

Perhaps the answer to that lies not in what they’re talking about, but in what they are most pointedly not talking about.

The excess deaths are being very definitely laid at the feet of lockdowns, not the experimental “vaccines”.

Now, were the deaths really caused by the lockdown? Or by the “vaccines”? Or a mix of both? We don’t know, and can likely never know.

At this point our collective trust in institutions and official figures should be low enough to question if there were any excess deaths. Maybe they just made them up. They do that.

Regardless of the truth of it, the narrative is certainly shifting to highlight “the true cost of lockdowns”.

This could be about disguising the harm done by untested vaccines, admitting to potentially deleterious effects of lockdown to spare Pfizer’s blushes.

There’s a lot more invested in the vaccines than the lockdown – in every sense of the word – and if something has to be blamed it makes sense they would much rather it be lockdowns than jabs.

That’s a decent explanation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to it.

This narrative could be about setting up the public for the next “covid” wave or some new “pandemic”.

Consider how quickly the “true cost of lockdown” story could be parlayed into a new mainstream consensus that “Lockdown was so damaging, we must do whatever it takes to avoid another“.

Then consider how “Whatever it takes” could take the form of quarantine camps for the unvaccinated, vaccines mandates, enforced testing and surveillance…or whatever the hell else they want.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Crisis Government

eugyppius |  August 20, 2022

To reduce energy consumption in the face of the looming German gas crisis, Economics Minister Robert Habeck has proposed a bizarre set of indoor temperature ordinances that continue the pattern of direct state interventions in the everyday life first established by mass containment.

Workspaces where hard physical labour is performed are not to be heated above 12 C, under the new rules. Those involving moderate labour while standing will have their temperatures capped at 16 C, and moderate labour while sitting at 17 C. Places where light labour is performed standing, will be permitted temperatures as high as 18 C, while white-collar office spaces where everybody sits and types will be permitted nothing warmer than 19 C. The heating of hallways and other common spaces will be outlawed, as will certain kinds of restroom water heaters. There will be a general ban on using electricity or gas to heat private pools, and shops will be ordered to keep external doors closed at all times. Political pressure is growing for similar ordinances limiting gas consumption in residences.

While some doubt that these rules can be enforced, German police have already proven effective at enforcing pandemic-era contact limits in private homes. And even if indoor temperatures are never systematically checked by authorities, I’m pretty sure that the simple prospect of unannounced inspections and fines will be enough for most employers to declare a third season of home office, with the added prospect of offloading higher gas prices onto their employees.

It is most curious, how this totally new catastrophe should call forth some of very same measures demanded by the Corona pandemic. Not only will home office return, but municipal pools will close again and cities will be kept dark at night, a de facto limitation on evening mobility that might well encourage some places to reimpose the curfews last seen in the winter of 2020/21. Meanwhile, some of the very same spaces recently commandeered for excess hospital capacity and mass vaccination will be repurposed as heated shelters for the old, the sick and the poor.

Not any unified plan, but rather a long series of contingencies, have caused the German gas crisis. Yet the steadfast refusal of the Scholz government to consider any course of action that might ameliorate the shortage, always with a new excuse, grows every day more unsettling.

There’s the obvious explanation, that the Greens in government are merely taking advantage of this opportunity to achieve their higher goal of restricting fossil fuel consumption, as they’ve always wished. But I think there might be another, deeper way to understand this too. I suggest that we’re seeing here the emergence of a new political style, which you might call Crisis Governance—or, as a friend put it, “the continuation of Corona policy by other means.” One of my core themes here has been the deepening demobilisation of western states, as power is diffused downwards from the political apex into the bureaucratic institutions, the press and major corporate enterprises. The great advantage of this power-sharing is a near-total uniformity of political views that it has inspired across the socio-cultural elite, but it comes at the cost of initiative, coordination and strategy. Crises seem to be one of the only ways our new, demobilised states can overcome their paralysis and act to further any kind of positive political programme.

More at A Plague Chronicle.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

German Electricity Prices Spiraling Out Of Control… Tripling Since 2000… Blackouts, Unrest Loom

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | August 19, 2022

Sun and wind don’t send any electric bills, the green energy swindlers used to tell us.

Changing over to sun and wind energy would cost only one euro a month more, Germany’s former Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin once promised. All we had to do was accept their master plan.

Today the swindle is uncovering, and it may be too late to avert the massive damage that’s coming our way.

At Facebook, Helmut Bauer posted the most recent chart depicting Germany’s electricity rates for end-consumers. It’s a blood bath:

Electricity prices for German end-consumers, in eurocents per kilowatt-hour. Source: BDEW, Verivox.

What a mess; they’ve reached 41 cents a kilowatt-hour and it’s about to get much worse – especially for the people who can least afford it. Expect social unrest to boil over the months ahead as prices and shortages inflict pain on the poor. We’re in uncharted territory.

Hey, not to worry: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised that police will not open fire on demonstrators.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers raid, occupy Episcopal Church in West Bank

By Francis Martin – Church Times – August 19, 2022

The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East has condemned a “flagrant” raid on the premises of its church in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

In a statement released by the diocese of Jerusalem later on Thursday, the actions of the Israeli forces involved in the incident are described as “a violation of international law and a terroristic act against the entire community”.

It was revealed later that the focus of the raid was the offices of Palestinian NGOs that rent space in the church compound, including the human-rights organisation Al-Haq. [NOTE: read more about the raids here.] In October last year, Al-Haq was classified as a terrorist organisation by the Israeli government, a move that was criticised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

A spokesperson for the US State Department has also expressed “concern” about the raid on the NGOs.

The Rector of St Andrew’s, Ramallah, the Revd Fadi Diab, told Agence France-Press : “The soldiers came into the premises around 3 a.m. and we started hearing shots and banging on the doors.”

The diocesan statement details how the door to the church complex was smashed, and the entire building — including the sanctuary and rectory — occupied for two hours. “The sound of gunshots, stun grenades, and the smashing of doors caused terror among the families living inside the compound,” the statement says.

The Guardian reports that the Israeli forces took equipment from the offices and sealed the doors, leaving a notice saying that they had been closed for “security reasons”. But later on Thursday, staff from Al-Haq removed the barriers and vowed to continue its work.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Al-Haq urged the international community to “take concrete measures, such as trade restrictions and arms embargoes, to ensure that Israel is held internationally responsible for its ongoing systematic inhumane acts of apartheid, including the persecution of Palestinian human rights defenders.”

Also on Thursday, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship Palestine/Israel Network condemned the attack as “illegal”. Under international law, Israeli forces require the permission of the Palestinian Authority to operate in Ramallah.

The diocese of Jerusalem asserts: “Places of worship and church compounds should be sanctuaries for communities to feel safe to practice their faith and ministry.” It is calling for a “speedy and impartial investigation into this incident, followed by serious disciplinary action against the offenders”.

August 20, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The CDC Failed, So Spin It Off and Make It More Powerful?

BY JEFFREY A. TUCKER | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | AUGUST 17, 2022

The failure of the CDC to manage Covid-19 was baked in from the first moments of its response. A government agency was never going to mitigate much less get rid of this sort of pathogen. This is because the virus never cared a whit about prestige degrees, job descriptions, big budgets, high-end connections, media agitprop, or polls. It went on its merry way, hit everyone, and immune systems adapted as they always have done.

The great experiment was an enormous flop.

The costs of the experiment we know: it is the catastrophe that Donald Henderson predicted it would be in 2006.

Thus does it make sense that the present overlords of the agency have admitted at least partially to have made some errors. The question is what were these errors. From the latest news concerning some impending shakeup, I see no evidence of any serious rethinking of the crazed and cockamamie lockdown orders it issued from March 2020 onward. Not even preposterous mandates like plexiglass at retail counters, two years of school closures, “six feet of distance,” one-way grocery aisles, band members in bubbles, mask mandates, and limits on how many people you can have in your home have prompted remorse.

Instead, every indication is that the CDC believes the real problem was that it did not have a high-enough budget and enough power. Plenty of lawmakers are willing to go along – not that anyone is asking them. Therefore, its tremendous pandemic powers need to be tweaked and invested mainly in a division known as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR.

Says The Washington Post :

The Biden administration is reorganizing the federal health department [HHS] to create an independent division that would lead the nation’s pandemic response, amid frustrations with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Joy!

The new head of this high-level division (same level as FDA/CDC) is Dawn O’Connell who has a background in literature (Vanderbilt) and law (Tulane), not science or medicine. She is a political appointee who took the reins as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response, as confirmed by the Senate in 2021. She is now elated to report that her division will be elevated to become just as important as the CDC and the FDA.

Here is her memo to the staff:

ASPR Team:

As you know firsthand, ASPR is at the forefront of many of HHS’s and the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priorities. Whether your work involves strengthening our core preparedness and response capabilities, tackling new and emerging challenges, or providing essential support services to the team, please know that the work that you do matters and that it is making a big difference.

In recognition of the tremendous value this team brings to the Department and the American people – and due to the increasing size and scope of what we do – I asked Secretary Becerra to consider making us an Operating Division and I am pleased to report that Secretary Becerra has made the critically important decision to elevate our team from a Staff Division to an Operating Division (OpDiv)!

This change allows ASPR to mobilize a coordinated national response more quickly and stably during future disasters and emergencies while equipping us with greater hiring and contracting capabilities. As an OpDiv, we are now in the same category as other large HHS teams with core operational responsibilities such as CDC, NIH, FDA, CMS, and ACF. This change is an important next step for our organization which has continued to grow and evolve since its creation in 2006 – the pace of which has quickened over the past year. This change is also a recognition of the good work you all have been and continue to do on behalf of the American People

Along with this reclassification, moving forward we will be known as the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The adjustment to our name signals our elevation to an OpDiv, while maintaining the equity and brand recognition we have built with key internal and external stakeholders, particularly over the course of the pandemic.

Thus must we ask: what the heck is going on here? The Biden administration has no idea. Indeed the Washington Post reports that “some senior Biden administration officials said they were unaware of the plan to reorganize the department, which was approved by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and has been held close by his deputies.”

This point is crucial. This is how the administrative state works. It cares nothing for the elected officials who come and go. It moves on its own, fueled by money baked into the budgets and with power hardly anyone dares to challenge. There is never any accountability. There is only one path forward: more power. Elections be damned.

The most important part of the memo here is the idea of mobilizing a “coordinated national response.” It drove these people utterly bonkers that during the pandemic, several states went their own way. South Dakota never shut down. Georgia opened a month after the shutdowns. Florida and Texas were next. Finally all the states with Republican governors opened while most states with Democratic governors remained closed to some degree.

The empirical results are incredibly obvious. The open states performed as well and often better on disease demographics. Meanwhile their economies did not suffer nearly as much. The kids stayed in school. The churches functioned. There were live musical performances. The museums, libraries, and playgrounds opened. People are less traumatized.

The migration of people from blue to red tells the whole story. Masses of people fled the lockdown states for the open states.

A “coordinated national response” would make such federalist solutions impossible. Forget the 9th and 10th Amendments. These agencies and these people care nothing for them, nor actual science which would encourage a plethora of experiments in the management of a pathogen. These bureaucrats in Washington think they have all the answers, and they demand complete compliance.

Meanwhile, the CDC itself is being reorganized. But don’t be fooled by any appearance of contrition. They still have a legal appeal in process that would put a mask back on your face when traveling. The new agency to which some of its pandemic responsibilities will be transferred will have a 1,000-person staff to start, people paid the big bucks to sit around coming up with new ways to whip up disease panic and start another crackdown.

A better solution would be to abolish the CDC. States can handle all its responsibilities. It did not even exist until 1947. Its purpose was mosquito control, spraying a now-banned chemical (DDT) everywhere. These days we handle that by going to Home Depot.

The CDC as an agency grew out of the 1944 Public Health Services Act that permitted nationally ordered quarantines for the first time. The legislative history of that thing remains a mystery to me. Regardless, it is nowhere justified in the US Constitution. This act needs to go too. So too all the federal agencies to which it gave rise. This is the only real solution.

Certainly creating a new agency is not the answer. And note that ASPR has its roots in 2006 as an outgrowth of the Bush administration’s obsessive panic over bioterrorism. It was also the first year that anyone imagined that lockdowns could be an appropriate path for any free society. It was the year that “social distancing” was invented by a cabal of computer scientists with zero experience in infectious disease.

These fanatics need to be out of power completely, and the regulations, laws, and agencies that enabled them to ruin the country and its freedoms must be ended. This is what any responsive government in a modern society would do. It would see failure and call it and then do something about it. It certainly would not go in this new direction and reward the disease planners with more power and money!

We must learn real lessons and act on them.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Forces Storm, Seal Offices of Seven Palestinian Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations in Ramallah

Al-Manar – August 18, 2022

The United Nations Human Rights Office today expressed alarm at Israel’s arbitrary closure of seven Palestinian human rights and humanitarian organizations and called on Israel to immediately reverse these decisions, reiterating the High Commissioner’s call to revoke the designations of the organizations as “terrorist” and “unlawful.”

At dawn today, Israeli occupation forces broke into, searched and sealed the offices of seven Palestinian human rights and humanitarian organizations in Ramallah. Their property was confiscated and destroyed. Israeli forces left copies of military orders to close the offices of the organizations.

“The closure orders are a step to enforce previous Israeli declarations of these organizations as “unlawful” and as “terror organizations” in 2021,” said the Human Rights Office in a statement. “Despite offers to do so, Israeli authorities have not presented to the United Nations any credible evidence to justify these declarations. Several Member States have also stated that the evidence shared with them does not justify the designations. As such, the closures appear totally arbitrary.”

The UN office said the shutting down of the organizations represents the latest in a series of attacks that are further drastically shrinking space for human rights and humanitarian work in the occupied Palestinian territory, affecting all institutions working on human rights, including the UN Human Rights Office. “Human rights defenders must be immediately protected from these unjustified attacks,” it said.

The organizations affected are Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Al Haq; Bisan Center for Research and Development; Defense for Children International – Palestine; Health Work Committees (HWC); Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC); the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

German Official Trashes Cost of Living Protesters as “Enemies of the State”

Says they’re extremists who want to overthrow the government

Getty Images
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | August 17, 2022

A top German official has trashed people who may be planning to protest against energy blackouts as “enemies of the state” and “extremists” who want to overthrow the government.

The interior minister of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Herbert Reul (CDU), says that anti-mandatory vaxx and anti-lockdown demonstrators have found a new cause – the energy crisis.

In an interview with German news outlet NT, Reul revealed that German security services were keeping an eye on “extremists” who plan to infiltrate the protests and stage violence, with the unrest being planned via the Telegram messenger app, which German authorities have previously tried to ban.

“You can already tell from those who are out there,” said Reul. “The protesters no longer talk about coronavirus or vaccination. But they are now misusing people’s worries and fears in other fields. (…) It’s almost something like new enemies of the state that are establishing themselves.”

Despite the very real threat of potential blackouts, power grid failures and gas shortages, Reul claimed such issues were feeding “conspiracy theory narratives.”

However, it’s no “conspiracy theory” that Germans across the country have been panic buying stoves, firewood and electric heaters as the government tells them thermostats will be limited to 19C in public buildings and that sports arenas and exhibition halls will be used as ‘warm up spaces’ this winter to help freezing citizens who are unable to afford skyrocketing energy bills.

As Remix News reports, blaming right-wing conspiracy theorists for a crisis caused by Germany’s sanctions on Russia and its suicidal dependence on green energy is pretty rich.

“Reul, like the country’s federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, is attempting to tie right-wing ideology and protests against Covid-19 policies to any potential protests in the winter.”

“While some on the right, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), have stressed that the government’s sanctions against Russia are the primary factor driving the current energy crisis, they have not advocated an “overthrow” of the government. Instead, they have stressed the need to restart the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, end energy sanctions against Russia, and push for a peaceful solution to end the war.”

Indeed, energy shortages and the cost of living crisis are issues that are of major concern to everyone, no matter where they are on the political spectrum.

To claim that people worried about heating their homes and putting food on the table this winter are all “enemies of the state” is an utter outrage.

As we highlighted last week, the president of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Stephan Kramer, said energy crisis riots would make anti-lockdown unrest look like a “children’s birthday party.”

“Mass protests and riots are just as conceivable as concrete acts of violence against things and people, as well as classic terrorism to overthrow it,” Kramer told ZDF.

August 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Memo to Globalist Central: Agent Covid mission accomplished

By Niall McCrae | TCW Defending Freedom | August 16, 2022

Political power advances like a car with a manual gearbox. Normal motion is forward, going through the gears, but occasionally reverse gear is engaged. Sometimes the electorate react against policies going too far, or being taken on a ride not of their choosing. Such was the impetus for Brexit and Donald Trump, both portrayed by the establishment as populist regression that risked undoing social and economic progress. Fearing further democratic shocks, progressive leaders got back into the driving seat and put their foot down in the direction of one-world government.

As rather too confidently anticipated by US medical administrator Anthony Fauci on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, there was ‘no doubt’ the incoming president would be confronted with a ‘surprise’ infectious disease outbreak.

Looking back, there are strong indications that certain people knew what was coming, whatever the plausible deniability. A pandemic would enable a giant stride towards a highly regulated society, with the traditional social structures of faith, flag and family obliterated, and citizens neutered. A ‘new normal’ would be instilled, disingenuously justified by a public health emergency. Mortal fear would have more immediate impact than the other contrived crisis of climate change.

And so it came to pass. With remarkable speed World Economic Forum leader Klaus Schwab wrote a book on how to ‘build back better’ from the contagion. In The Great Reset, published in June 2020, he enthused that ‘the pandemic represents a rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world’.

Anybody undecided about the masterplan of the WEF, which our politicians and mainstream media either ignore or deride as conspiracy theory, should read its blueprint Future Focuspublished in June 2022. The Executive Summary asserts that ‘societies, the global economy and the planet face unprecedented challenges and disruptions that remain urgent and require an unprecedented transformation of the world’s economic, environmental and social systems’. The future is encapsulated in a terrifying hub-and-spoke diagram, in which every aspect of our lives revolves around digital identity: education, health, banking, food and travel. The tentacles of the WEF monster are spreading all over us.

The three missions of Future Focus are a fairer society, sustainability and harnessing technology for the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, all themes of Schwab’s The Great Reset. Almost three years after Covid-19 was unleashed on an unsuspecting world, we can assess how far the globalist project has advanced.

By ‘fairer society’, the WEF means collectivisation, removing people’s rights, property and privacy, as depicted by the slogan ‘you will own nothing, and you will be happy’. A basic universal income will ensure dependence on the state. Despite globalists’ concerns about overpopulation, the WEF is keen on mass migration from poorer regions to the West, thus abandoning border controls when it suits (contrast the strict Covid regime for citizens with the unimpeded crossings of the English Channel and the Mexican border). So-called refugees are not only cheap labour, they are less likely to resist radical policies.

The UK population rose significantly in the ‘plague’ year of 2020, when police stopped Nigel Farage from reporting the dinghies arriving in Dover. The relentless influx may seem contradictory to the second theme of sustainability, until it is understood that the globalists are most interested in sustaining not the harmony of nature but their own power. They want to reduce the masses to neo-feudalist subsistence, under total control of resources. Food or fuel shortages are used for sequential power grabs, through a problem-reaction-solution mechanism. As seen in Sri Lanka, depriving the people of petrol (problem) caused riots (reaction), leading to acceptance of rationing by digital identity system (solution). Arguably, the war in Ukraine is causing economic strife in Europe for a similar purpose. Meanwhile the elite continue to fly around the world in private jets.

Thirdly, technological progress is accelerating the application of constant surveillance systems. Central digital currency will require every citizen to hold a virtual wallet linked to their national (or international, at least in the EU) identification. Total control of the population will ensue. Citizens will be monitored via checking in and out of buildings, face recognition cameras in public places, and all purchases. It goes much further than that. Potentially, through mandatory vaccination the authorities could exert control over hormones and fertility. Transmittable microchips embedded in hands are already in use in Sweden. Homo sapiens is being led along the path of transhumanism. 

The erection of a digital cage shows that Covid-19 has worked wonders for the globalists. Yuval Noah Harari, historian and philosopher turned globalist ideologue, recently admitted that the virus was unremarkable, while lauding the unprecedented progress enabled by lockdown. Imagine how much could be done with a really serious crisis, he mused, such as climate change.

The Covid regime has not yet been relinquished, but millions have realised that the primary motive was not saving lives but control through fear.

Even the most gullible ‘normies’ must be asking themselves, belatedly, whether public health is really the priority. Farcically, Australian female cricketer Tahlia McGrath played in the Commonwealth Games despite testing positive for Covid-19, while the world’s top tennis player Novak Djokovic cannot go to Australia because he is unvaccinated. 

Court cases are swinging in favour of freedom. An Ohio federal judge blocked the vaccine mandate for US Army, Air Force and Navy personnel with religious exemption.

A US healthcare company was ordered to pay $10.3million compensation to doctors and nurses whose claimed exemption was denied by hospital management. Pastor Artur Pawlowski, persecuted by the authorities in the Canadian province of Alberta for opening his church during lockdown, spending months in jail for his sins, won reimbursement of unlawful fines.

Is this all too late? Covid-19 has done its job, dramatically changing our lives on the road to a global technocracy. ‘If you want a picture of the future,’ George Orwell wrote in 1984, ‘imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’ Yet the viral coup has not been overwhelmingly successful. Some of us are more awake than ever; once we see we can’t un-see.

August 16, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment