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The End of The Mask

By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | May 15, 2021

If there was ever a surer example of the perversion of the  Power of Experts than the Covid Mask Mania, I am unaware of it. I doubt that there is a single self-aware person in the world that does not know what the Covid Mask Mania means, even most of those who have been stanch supporters and promoters of The Mask are aware that it is, in fact, a product of a world-wide Mass Hysteria that grew out of the unknowns surrounding the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China in late 2019.

Those of you who still have the ability to remember the recent past, despite endless propaganda aimed at making you forget, the original CDC Guidance on Face Masks for Covid-19 was this:

Wear a facemask if you are sick

If you are sick: You should wear a facemask when you are around other people (e.g., sharing a room or vehicle) and before you enter a healthcare provider’s office. If you are not able to wear a facemask (for example, because it causes trouble breathing), then you should do your best to cover your coughs and sneezes, and people who are caring for you should wear a facemask if they enter your room. Learn what to do if you are sick.
If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask). Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers.

[ source CDC website dated 28 March 2020 via WayBack Machine ]

The Famous Fauci, back when he was just Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and not yet a global media star – let me be clear, we are talking about when Dr. Anthony Fauci was the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases of all kinds – he said the following in a televised interview on March 8, 2020:

[ Quoting the opinion checking website, FactCheck.org which found that history requires a revision in order to comply with “latest guidelines” in its current coverage here. ]

Here’s what Fauci told Dr. Jon LaPook, chief medical correspondent for CBS News, in the clip circulating on social media:

LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?

Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.

LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.

Fauci: … There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?

Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.

LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?

Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.”

Other than adding a link to the definition of schmutz – I have not highlighted any of Faucci’s statement. I don’t need to catch Fauci out in anything because Fauci was absolutely scientifically correct in everything he said.  In this, he totally depended on the existing science on the prevention of the transmission of coronavirus illnesses. And the science on the topic has not changed – if anything, it has been reinforced over and over throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yet, FactOpinionCheck.org decided that Fauci, the USA’s leading expert on Infectious Diseases and their transmission, was not expert enough – so they check his knowledge against the opinion of the Director of the CDC? No…. against the opinion of Dr. Dean Winslow, a well-known  infectious disease physician at Stanford (University) Health Care who told FactOpinionCheck.org:

“In early March, so few patients had been tested that public health officials didn’t yet know that people could spread the virus without showing symptoms, said Winslow.

“That was just not known at that point.”

There was no new science that suddenly made masks effective for the general public but something maybe about Covid-19.

And what does that science really say? “… there’s little scientific evidence that the various face coverings we call ‘masks’ do much if anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus.”  [ source ] There are just too many peer-reviewed, high-powered, definitive studies and meta-analyses to list here. The Big List of such studies is in the book: “The Price of Panic. . . .” by Jay W. Richards, Douglas Axe, and William Briggs.

It is, of course, as in all things that deal with the political interference in things that should depend on strict empirical science, worse than that.

In April 2020, the Famous Fauci said

“So, we want to make sure that this issue of having a broader community approach towards putting on a facial covering doesn’t, in fact, get in the way of the primary purpose of masks.

[ which was, he had just explained: “masks that are most appropriately used and necessary for the front-line health care workers, who do need it for the clear and present danger that they find themselves in when they are taking care of people who are actually sick with coronavirus disease.” ]

And in that regard, that’s why what we’re talking about are things that may not necessarily need to be a classical mask, but could be some sort of facial covering.

You know, we’re pretty good in making things in a way that spontaneously becomes effective just because of your own creativity.”

[ source – PBS interview here. ]

Once the CDC changed it’s tune on masks, demanding that The Mask be worn at all times under almost all circumstances, the rhetoric ramped up not only demanding that everyone everywhere wear masks, but accusing those who fail or refuse to wear masks of “killing their grandmothers” (Andrew Cuomo – Governor of New York – a charge he repeats in the present about those who don’t get vaccinated).

In a mass-hysteria-type reaction, everyone who could find a public megaphone jumped on the bandwagon, making wilder and wilder public statements about the deadly-serious importance of wearing masks:

“Everyone should wear a mask,” Blumberg said. “People who say ‘I don’t believe masks work’ are ignoring scientific evidence. It’s not a belief system. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in gravity.’

“People who don’t wear a mask increase the risk of transmission to everyone, not just the people they come into contact with,” he said. “It’s all the people those people will have contact with. You’re being an irresponsible member of the community if you’re not wearing a mask.” [ source ]

Wearing a mask became a virtue signaling bellweather:  “I’m a good person, a patriot, a saint….” Because I wear a mask, even in my own home or when alone in my car.

And now?

In an unexpected change of heart (must have been as there has been no new science or breakthrough understanding), the CDC has said:

Vaccinated Americans May Go Without Masks in Most Places, Federal Officials Say

Fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks or maintain social distance indoors or outdoors, with some exceptions, the C.D.C. advised. [ source ]

Directly from the CDC:

“Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance

Update that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter”

[ source: CDC here 13 May 2021 ]

End BQ

What does this mean for the real world? 

Up to 13 May 2021, US News and World Report list the following U.S. states as having NO Mask Mandate previous-to-CDC-announcement:

Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | Florida | Georgia | Idaho | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Louisiana | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | New Hampshire | North Dakota | Oklahoma | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Wisconsin | Wyoming | Northern Mariana Islands (an unincorporated territory and commonwealth of the U.S.)

That’s 26 out of 50 states with no mandate before the new CDC guidelines.

So far today:

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear says the state’s mask mandate will end June 11, 2021. On that date, the Bluegrass State will also return to 100% capacity at venues and events. [ source ]

Minnesota  — Following New CDC Guidance, Governor Walz Announces End to Statewide Face Covering Requirement — Minnesota will align with CDC guidance and recommend unvaccinated Minnesotans continue to wear face coverings indoors [ source ]

North Carolina has removed its indoor mask mandate for most settings and lifted all mass gathering and social distancing limits. This step forward is effective immediately and follows yesterday’s guidance from the CDC. [ source ]

Rhode Island  — paraphrasing “fully vaccinated people, as of this coming Tuesday, will no longer need to wear masks or social distance”. [ source ]

Michigan – paraphrasing “everyone who is two weeks out from their second vaccine dose can go without a mask”. [ source ]

Oregon – “Starting today, Oregon will be following this guidance, which only applies to fully-vaccinated individuals. That means Oregonians who are fully-vaccinated no longer need to wear masks or social distance in most public spaces.”  [ source ]

Florida — “Floridians should not be penalized for rejecting the overreach of local authorities through unnecessary mask mandates,” [Governor] DeSantis wrote on Twitter Thursday about his decision to pardon the Carnevales. [ who had been arrested for failing to require masks and social distancing at their business, a gym.]” “The governor confirmed his intentions to pardon people at a press conference Thursday in Ormond Beach, Florida, saying he would “remit” the remaining outstanding fines that have been issued against people at the state’s next clemency meeting.” [ source ]

Connecticut — Masks Not Required Indoors For Fully Vaccinated People in Connecticut Starting May 19: Governor  [ source ]

Illinois – “Gov. J.B. Pritzker says that he will revise executive orders to sync up with new CDC guidelines on mask wearing by vaccinated individuals in indoor and outdoor spaces.” [ source ]

Nevada – “On May 3, Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency directive updating mask and face covering requirements for the state to align with the CDC’s recommendations, including any subsequent guidance. As a result, the new guidance from the federal agency became effective immediately, according to a news release from the state.” [ source ]

Pennsylvania – “In short, the Health Department says it is following the CDC’s lead.  That means Pennsylvanians who are fully vaccinated no longer have to wear masks outdoors or indoors except in certain situations.“  [ source ]

Washington – “Masks off: Fully vaccinated people can shed masks in Washington, [Washington Governor] Inslee announces following new CDC rules”  [ source ]

New York – “Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State will adopt the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new guidance on mask use for fully vaccinated people. The guidelines state that fully vaccinated people, defined as two or more weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, no longer need to wear masks outdoors, except in certain crowded settings and venues.” [ source ]

Virginia – “Governor Ralph Northam today lifted Virginia’s universal indoor mask mandate to align with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Governor Northam also announced that Virginia will ease all distancing and capacity restrictions on Friday, May 28, two weeks earlier than planned. The updates to Virginia’s mask policy …. will become effective at midnight tonight along with previously announced changes to mitigation measures.” [ source ]

Colorado – “Coloradans who are fully vaccinated are no longer required to wear masks, and people who aren’t vaccinated are only required to wear them in limited settings, Gov. Jared Polis said Friday.” [ source ]

Delaware – “Governor John Carney on Friday announced that – effective May 21 – the State of Delaware will lift its requirement that Delawareans and visitors must wear face coverings anytime they are indoors with others outside their household.  Delawareans should instead follow masking guidance issued on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for all indoor and outdoor activities.”  [ source ]

West Virginia – “West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that he is signing an executive order to modify the face covering requirement during a press conference on Friday. The governor says West Virginia will immediately begin following the updated CDC guidance for those who are fully vaccinated.  The facial covering requirement will still apply to those who have not been vaccinated until June 20.” [ source ]

The Governors of the states (in the United States) are announcing allegiance to the CDC so quickly that I literally cannot keep up with adding them in above as I write this column.

How long do you think the other governors, who have not yet fallen into line with the new (and very welcome) diktat from the CDC, can delay?  Does anyone think that citizens of one state seeing freedom restored in the neighboring state will not demand the same freedom?

I think that reasonable people will realize that the mask mandate was unnecessary from the beginning — especially as The Science from The Epidemiologists  has been telling them all to expect to have to wear masks for at least another six months, a year longer, two years, or maybe forever. In a poll conducted by the NY Timesthat was completed just 4 days ago, 81% of professional epidemiologists expected mask mandates to continue for at least 1 more year.  52% expected masking to last for more than a year. The minimum expected was “a few more months”. Up until yesterday, Epidemiologists represented The Science…. no longer, they have been kicked to the curb.

In my opinion, this new CDC Guideline breaks the back of the oppressive Covid-19 Panic Power Grab by presidents, governors, city councils and mayors who have reveled in their free pass to rule by executive order under emergency powers without oversight by elected law makers.

There will be no going back, I don’t think the people will stand for it, at least not in the United States.

May 15, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

How did this cause us to ransack our society? Here is the reality

TheFatEmperor | May 10, 2021

Visualise the reality. And SHARE like hell.

Big thanks to Geoffrey Kell who sent me this to share – four OUR CHILDREN.

NOTE: My extensive research and interviewing / video/sound editing and much more does require support – please consider helping if you can with monthly donation to support me directly, or one-off payment: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=69ZSTYXBMCN3W

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May 15, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Oregon Governor Using New CDC Mask Guidelines to Impose Vaccine Passports and a Caste System

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | May 14, 2021

Some people have celebrated as a signal of the collapse of coronavirus crackdowns the Thursday announcement of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it is changing its guidance to indicate that people ”fully vaccinated” with experimental coronavirus vaccines need not wear masks indoors or outdoors or engage in so-called social distancing in many circumstances. Hopefully, the celebrating people are right. But, there are politicians out there, including Oregon Governor Kate Brown, who look at the new guidance differently — as a means to exert new types of control over people, including through mandating vaccine passports and a vaccine caste system.

Notably, United States President Joe Biden, who posted Thursday at Twitter that “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do,” seems to have a similar take as does Brown.

In a Thursday statement, Brown noted that the Oregon state government will continue requiring all people, whether they have taken experimental coronavirus vaccines or not, to wear masks in public transportation situations and places including hospitals, health care clinics, correctional facilities, long-term care facilities, and schools, before describing the vaccine passport mandate and vaccine caste system the state will be imposing in light of the new CDC guidance.

Brown makes clear her determination that in Oregon only “fully-vaccinated” people may now legally be “in most public places” without wearing a mask and engaging in so-called social distancing. If you do not fit in that special category, Brown condemns you to a lower caste in Oregon where you must continue complying with such mandates.

Brown’s plan includes requiring “businesses, employers, and others” to either implement vaccine passports and a vaccine caste system or continue requiring mask wearing and social distancing compliance from everyone. Whether a business or other entity chooses Option A or Option B, it will be acting as an enforcer of the state’s abusive dictates. Brown explains in her Thursday statement:

In the coming days, the Oregon Health Authority will be providing updated guidance for businesses, employers, and others to allow the option of lifting mask and physical distancing requirements after verifying vaccination status. Some businesses may prefer to simply continue operating under the current guidance for now, rather than worrying about verifying vaccination status, and that’s fine.

Brown is doing her best to ensure freedom advocates have nothing to celebrate in her state. She likes her coronavirus crackdown, and she is working to keep the crackdown going as long as she can.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute

May 14, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

And How are the Children?

By Christine E. Black | OffGuardian | May 14, 2021

Casserian Engeri?”  translated from the Swahili means, “And how are the children?” This is a traditional greeting among a Masai tribe in Africa.

One hoped to hear, “Sepati Ingera!” which means, “The children are well.”

A good indicator of the health of a society is the health of its children.

Sadly, in the US now, with the former Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Robert Redfield saying publicly in July 2020 that deaths from suicides and drug overdoses among high school students far outweighed their deaths from Covid and failures among school children, especially high school students, is at epidemic levels, the answer to this question would have to be, “No. The children are not well. Not well at all.”

And I am astounded by the lack of outcry among most of our public officials.

For more than a year now, children and teens have been robbed of most of what gives their lives value and meaning – seeing their friends at school, club meetings, church groups, camps, family gatherings, singing groups, playing with school bands and orchestras.

Some schools have continued sports programs, but many have not, sometimes with heartbreaking consequences, such as the death by suicide of Dylan Buckner, age 18, as reported in the April 21 edition of The Epoch Times. Dylan’s father, Chris, said he is certain that his state, Illinois’, school closures and extended stay-at-home orders worsened his son’s mental health and contributed to his death.

Dylan had a 4.7 grade point average, loved playing football, which his father said helped him keep a structured routine, according to the article, “The Cost of Lockdowns.” He was on his way to college with football scholarships. And yet this year, the school system cancelled the football program because of fears of Covid.

Dylan attempted suicide in September 2020 and succeeded in ending his life in January 2021.

For more than a year, fearful adults and misguided politicians have discouraged children and teens from getting together with friends and from living their lives normally. Child development experts agree that peer relationships are among the most important to teens’ mental and emotional health.

How could we have done this to a nation of children? For a virus that even former CDC Director James Redfield said poses almost no risk to them. He has said that the flu is 5 to 10 times more dangerous to children and that they have a 1 in a million chance of dying from Covid.

Early death projections from the virus have been shown to be overstated and terribly wrong. Yet, most politicians have not publicly issued retractions and corrections to calm fears and help people, especially children, resume normal lives. Instead, they let the fear-mongering and harm remain.

In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, politicians and bureaucrats stated publicly that children could infect their parents or grandparents with Covid, even if the child had no symptoms. Members of the Coronavirus Task Force, said that children, teens, and young people, just by living their normal lives – socializing with friends, playing sports, attending school events and parties – could unknowingly catch and then carry the virus to older family members and possibly cause death — even if the young person was not sick, even if they did not have so much as a sniffle.

This was called “asymptomatic spread,” one of the many bizarre terms we have been forced to learn and think about for more than a year now.

Politicians and bureaucrats stood at the US White House podium at the start of this crisis and said that after infecting an older family member and perhaps causing sickness leading to death, a child would “have to live with that.” What a devastating, harmful, and irresponsible thing to say within hearing of children, teens, and young adults – that they could be a danger to others merely by breathing, by being, by living their normal lives.

What an especially horrible and harmful thing to say when we were not even sure it was true.

It sounded unbelievable from the start. And it turns out that it was not true. Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a June 7, 2020 press conference that from the known research, “asymptomatic spread was very rare”.

A more recent Chinese study of 10 million people, published in Nature magazine found that asymptomatic spread was not only rare but almost non-existent.

On November 22, 2020, Jeffrey A. Tucker published a comprehensive article on the American Institute for Economic Research website, tracing information on asymptomatic spread over the past year.

When I read Tucker’s article and then the study published in Nature magazine, I wondered: where are our elected officials now?

Where are those same high-paid politicians, bureaucrats, and public health authorities who had touted these terrible and alarming messages that had so comprehensively devastated the lives of young people for more than a year? Why were they not retracting these statements about asymptomatic spread, reassuring children, teens, and young adults that it is simply is not a worry? That they, just by living their lives and being themselves, are not and never were “super spreaders,” are not automatic disease carriers.

Why were officials not issuing calming and strengthening messages to young people – after more and different information on this virus has emerged? Where was the outcry to protect the mental and emotional health and academic lives of young people, especially teenagers?

Another article by Micha Gartz for the American Institute for Economic Research reminds us that the median age for death from this virus is 80 years old. Most people who contract the virus never get symptoms at all. Most people who get symptoms become only mildly ill, and even the majority of those who become severely ill recover.

Harm to communities from widespread lockdowns has been very real, however.

The Crisis Text Line, a non-profit organization that provides free mental health texting to people in crisis, received 180,00 texts in November 2020, their largest number ever, Gartz notes in her article More “Covid Suicides” than Covid Deaths in Kids.

Even strong students, who have historically earned good grades, have been failing classes at alarming levels during school this past year’s school shutdowns and predominantly online classes, according to published studies, including one from Fairfax County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the US.

Parents, who had previously heeded advice from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics’ to limit children and teen’s screen time, for their health, to a maximum of two hours of quality content per day, have now succumbed to allowing their children to spend several hours per day on computers while missing friends, failing classes, and losing hope.

Too much computer time can be a health hazard to young people, especially those who may be vulnerable to addiction. In 2019, the WHO listed computer gaming addiction as a disease, one that harms children, teens and young adults mostly. How are the children? Not well at all.

Lockdowns, massive fear, and school shutdowns have had a devastating effect on children and teens’ health. A national independent non-profit organization called Fair Health that studies health care costs, reported in March 2021 a 333% increase in intentional self-harm claims among young people ages 12–18 from the period August 2019 to August 2020.

The study, The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health: A Study of Private Healthcare Claims, analyzed 32 billion private health care claims. Claims have also increased dramatically for overdoses, obsessive-compulsive disorders, depression, and anxiety among children 12–18, according to the study. The CDC reported over the summer of 2020 that 25 percent of young adults, ages 18–25 had seriously considered suicide.

Many experts have said publicly that lockdowns, including school closures, have been a disastrous and unnecessary mitigation strategy, causing immeasurable harms and countless deaths.

Dr Jay Battacharya, Professor at Stanford University Medical School, called the lockdowns, “the biggest public health mistake we’ve ever made” in a March 2021 Newsweek article.

Battacharya is one of the authors of a petition called The Great Barrington Declaration, published in October of 2020, which calls for safety strategies for older people while calling for an end to lockdowns of whole societies, stating that lockdowns cause far more harm than benefit.

“Keeping children out of school is a grave injustice,” states the declaration, which has been signed by 14,000 medical and public health scientists, 43,000 medical practitioners, and almost 800,000 citizens. Dr Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and Dr Sunetra Gupta, Professor at Oxford University are also authors of the petition.

Many studies now published show that states that remained open for the past year fared no worse, and some better, than states that had the most restrictive closures and shutdowns. Further, there have been treatments for this virus, all along, such as Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin that, if given early, could have saved tens of thousands of lives, according to many sources.

Dr Peter McCollough spoke before Congress on early treatment and on the criminal silencing of doctors, including preventing doctors from treating Covid patients with drugs that work. These drugs were instead politicized with doctors barred from prescribing them. With more courage and independent thinking, fear and harm could have been contained; instead many simply stood by and watched the light go out in children’s eyes, month after month for more than a year.

Children in sports have been made to wear masks though masks deplete oxygen and may impede focus and cause more accidents, some parents have complained, while professional athletes on TV do not have to wear them. While many schools have reopened to in-person classes, government-created school re-opening documents, with the repressive six-feet apart, sanitizing, and mask mandates, read almost like manuals for operating a concentration camp.

I have taught in a prison, and these public school re-opening plans read and feel more repressive than conditions inside a prison. I have seen children in school this past year eating, spaced six feet from one another, only allowed to remove the mask to eat and not being permitted to eat with their friends. I can hardly keep from crying seeing them this way.

School rooms and cafeterias these days look more like rooms where children are sent to serve detention. Students look like they are being punished when they have done nothing wrong. How can this be? How can we remain silent?

Some students may feel so depressed with these conditions that they do not even want to attend school.  It can be almost overwhelmingly sad to not see human faces and smiles for extended periods. For years, teachers have studied and promoted the importance of children’s social and emotional learning, and now we expect children to attend schools that look and feel like prison camps. Or worse. How can we treat our children this way?

We want to believe that the information we receive about this virus is unbiased and nonpartisan — especially if government mandates have affected children and young adults so severely. Surely the measures must have been neutral and necessary. But sadly, information we receive is not unbiased; we have to keep questioning, reading, listening and thinking.

Writer and researcher Dr. Namoi Wolf notes that the CDC created a foundation to receive money from big pharmaceutical companies, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and from technology companies that profit from online education.

While some politicians and high-paid bureaucrats still promote fear, panic, and paranoia,  others have begun speaking up on failed lockdown policies.

In an April 21 Epoch Times article, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that elected officials, establishment media, and Big Tech have been to blame for perpetuating fears and selectively censoring one side of the mitigation debate. Why? Because they have made money off the fear, panic, and paranoia.

“Media and big tech giants benefitted from lockdowns as people stayed home and consumed their products,” DeSantis said. Google removed videos of DeSantis talking to doctors who criticized failed lockdown policies. “Google and YouTube have been throughout this crisis censors in service of the ruling elite,” he said.

While millions of people lost their businesses or jobs – and school children, teens, and young people struggled with despair, loneliness, and school failures – 614 US billionaires increased their wealth by 931 billion dollars, according to a December 1, 2020 USA Today article.

For the health of our communities and our children, we have to keep rising above fear, confusion, paranoia, and even shame and guilt for getting the virus response so wrong. We have to keep returning to the question, “And how are the children?” And if the children are not well, we must change course to stop harming them while working diligently to mitigate the harms that have already been done.

Christine E. Black‘s poetry has been published in Antietam Review, 13th Moon, American Journal of Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International, Red Rock Review, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal, The Veteran, Sojourners Magazine, Iris Magazine, English Journal, Amethyst Review, St. Katherine Review, and other publications.

May 14, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

No COVID Vax, No College?

By Jane M. Orient, M.D. | Association of American Physicians and Surgeons | May 12, 2021

Students looking forward to getting back to college are getting letters from 100 to 200 colleges notifying them of a new prerequisite: getting fully vaccinated against COVID-19. As one letter states, this is because of our “our continued desire to protect the health and safety of our community.” This includes high-risk individuals in the surrounding community or wherever the students go in the “mass migration” at the end of the semester, according to the American College Health Association (ACHA).

The main purpose of the requirement is not to protect the students themselves. Of all COVID deaths, only about 0.1% have been in 15-to-24-year-olds. Yet young people can suffer death or serious disability after getting the jab. (Authorities point out that it is not necessarily because of the jab.) According to a controversial independent analysis, the aggressive Israeli vaccination campaign killed more than 200 times as many young persons as the coronavirus itself could have killed during the same 35-week period.

One of the commenters on the ACHA’s recommendation wrote: “It is perfectly reasonable for a society to expect its members, *all* of its members, to take up such risks on behalf of everyone. Unless you plan on putting a bullet in your own head on your thirty ninth birthday, one day *you* will be that elderly person who benefits disproportionately from universal vaccination. To not accept that risk now, yet expect that protection later, would make you a hypocrite.”

So much for the parental instinct to protect children—instead of using or sacrificing them!

We do not know the precise number of post-vaccine “adverse events,” because of incomplete reporting, or the percentage that were caused by the jab and not coincidental. But one can see the number and types of events reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) or the more user-friendly British Yellow Card system. These include death, clotting or bleeding problems, paralysis, blindness, and miscarriages (213 in VAERS as of today).

The long-term adverse events cannot yet be known. The prospect of most concern to the young women calling our office is infertility. There is no evidence that the products currently available cause infertility. And also no evidence that they don’t. There are plausible reasons to worry. Viral spike protein has been found in placentas from mothers who gave birth after having COVID. And the spike protein itself, without any virus, can attach to the lining of blood vessels and many tissues, and even cross the blood-brain barrier, and wreak havoc.

Getting your own body to make spike protein is what these genetically engineered products do.

Concerning fertility, the one relevant animal experiment, in 1,273 Sprague-Dawley rats, showed a numerically lower pregnancy rate, but within the facility’s historical range. The rats were not injected in early pregnancy when organs are forming, to check for birth defects.

There are thousands of reports of menstrual irregularities, though these are not officially recognized as side effects, and many things including anxiety can affect the menstrual cycle. There are worries disseminated in social media but debunked by fact-checkers that menstrual problems and other effects can result from contacts with vaccinated persons.

The vaccine-induced spike proteins are supposed to stay attached to your cells and cause your body to make antibodies that will recognize the virus. Can they be shed into the environment and picked up by others by contact or inhalation? I don’t know of a mechanism. But it seems odd to me that the Pfizer experimental trials not only excluded women who were or might soon become pregnant, but also required men to abstain or use a condom for 28 days post injection. Just FDA bureaucracy and “abundance of caution”?

There is no abundance of caution in forcing this product onto students entering their prime reproductive years. No concern about “reproductive rights.”

It is unlawful to use coercion to gain acceptance of products available only through an Emergency Use Authorization, but colleges are confident of quick FDA approval, even though trials won’t be complete until 2022 or 2023.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has written to college administrators urging them to withdraw the mandate but has received no reply. Grants from ACHA, which receives grants from Pfizer and CDC, probably talk louder.

So, what can students do? Be cheerful or reluctant participants in a massive uncontrolled experiment and hope for the best? Seek an exemption? Or pause their education plans—and outrageous tuition?

There are “help wanted” signs everywhere. For learning, there are libraries, and more on-line opportunities will spring up. A college degree may be unnecessary or can wait. The biological window for having a family will close. How much risk of infertility should young people take?

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Florida governor to pardon everyone in state charged with breaking Covid restrictions

RT | May 13, 2021

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced he will pardon all Floridians who have been legally charged for breaking coronavirus restrictions on mask wearing and social distancing, arguing guidelines should be advisory.

Appearing Wednesday on Fox News with Florida gym owners Mike and Jillian Carnevale, who were arrested on several occasions and threatened with months in prison for allowing people to enter their business without a face mask, DeSantis said he would overrule the “total overreach” against them.

“This is exactly what we ordered against last summer, many months ago,” the governor declared, before announcing that “effective tomorrow morning” he would “sign a reprieve under my constitutional authority” that would “delay the case for sixty days.”

DeSantis then also revealed that in the coming weeks he would “issue pardons, not only for Mike and Jillian, but for any Floridian that may have outstanding infractions for things like masks and social distancing.”

“The fact is, it’s not even right to be wearing masks when you’re exercising,” he argued, noting that the World Health Organization “advises against it” and that coronavirus restrictions “should be advisory.”

DeSantis – a close ally to former President Donald Trump – has been a staunch opponent of authoritarian practices during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unlike many other governors, DeSantis has called coronavirus lockdowns a “mistake,” rejected mandatory face masks, and overruled local authorities’ restrictions.

Earlier this month, DeSantis also banned all businesses and government buildings from requiring Floridians to disclose their vaccination status in order to enter – a more complete ban than other governors, who merely prohibited government buildings, but not private companies, from requiring vaccine passports.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook deletes Ohio group that supports legal exemptions to COVID vaccine mandates

By Tom Parker | Reclaim the Net | May 13, 2021

The Facebook group for Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom (OAMF), a non-profit that supports legislation that would give people exemptions to vaccine mandates, has been banned from Facebook.

The group had 40,000 members and its President, Stephanie Stock said that Facebook banned the group for sharing mainstream news articles.

OAMF describes itself as an advocate for “your right to choose or refuse any medical treatment or procedure.”

Recently, OAMF has been supporting House Bill 248, the Vaccine Choice & Anti-Discrimination Act. The bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Jennifer Gross, describes it as “legislation that protects individuals who choose not to be vaccinated from discrimination due to vaccine status.”

The removal of this group follows Facebook deleting a 120,000-member group where people shared stories of alleged adverse vaccine reactions last month.

Facebook’s current rules prohibit a wide range of vaccine-related posts including posts claiming vaccines are ineffective, posts claiming vaccines cause blood clots, and posts claiming vaccines change people’s DNA (something Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his staff during an internal July 2020 meeting).

Facebook also labels any posts discussing the vaccine with “credible information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines from the World Health Organization.”

The tech giant’s increased censorship and editorialization of posts about vaccines follows pressure from Democratic Party Senators and State Attorneys General who have pushed the company to “address” prominent vaccine skeptics and kill vaccine skepticism.

Before this Facebook censorship, OAMF had its video of legislative testimony before the Ohio senate removed by YouTube in February. The video featured testimony in support of a bill that would allow state lawmakers to vote against the governor’s coronavirus lockdowns but was removed by YouTube for violating its “coronavirus misinformation” policies.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Canadian Doctors Are Being Censored

By Ethan Yang | AIER | May 13, 2021

On April 30th, 2021 the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario put out a highly controversial statement regarding what it considers to be Covid misinformation. The CPSO is a regional regulatory body empowered by statutory law to exercise licensing and disciplinary authority over the practice of medicine in Ontario. Think of it as the equivalent of a State Bar Association for American lawyers except for Canadian doctors. The statement from the CPSO goes as follows,

The College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.

The CPSO justifies its statement with the following rationale,

“There have been isolated incidents of physicians using social media to spread blatant misinformation and undermine public health measures meant to protect all of us.”

This development is nothing short of horrifying. Although there are certainly concerns about the spread of falsehoods and conspiracy theories in the age of Covid-19, this sort of broad censorship of speech from practicing medical professionals is not only an ethical sham but anti-science. The practice of science is premised on the rigorous application of the scientific method which among other things requires falsifiability and debate. The move to silence doctors also flies in the face of liberal democracy – something that has been deteriorating around the world as both the public and private sector move to silence dissent.

The fact that the CPSO, a licensing body wielding the power of the state, has taken such an aggressive move to silence dissent even on lockdown policies is especially disturbing given that they are preventing doctors from voicing their expertise on such important matters. The Toronto Sun comments on the incident by writing,

“Right now, restrictions are severe in Canada. The public health orders concerning, for example, the closure of basketball courts and golf courses in Ontario have been widely condemned by many physicians.

Why should physicians not speak out against restrictions that they feel are harmful to the health of their patients?

“Despite undeniable suffering due to lockdowns, the CPSO wants Ontario doctors to stay quiet,” wrote Dr. Shawn Whatley, a former president of the Ontario Medical Association, in a guest column in the Sun.”

It Doesn’t Stop In Ontario

One may think that the policy adopted by the CPSO may be an extreme aberration unique to Ontario. According to the Toronto Star this practice is seeing more adoption, not less. It writes,

“Doctors in British Columbia are being warned they could face investigation or penalties from their regulatory body if they contradict public health orders or guidance about COVID-19.

The warning is contained in a joint statement from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. and the First Nations Health Authority.”

One doesn’t even need to have a strong opinion on this matter to understand that censoring doctors and mandating conformity to state policy is not only immoral but a direct attack on scientific freedom.

The Declaration of Canadian Physicians for Science and Truth

In response to the CPSO’s order, there has rightly been pushback from the Canadian medical community in the form of the Declaration of Canadian Physicians for Science and Truth. The Declaration’s website features a petition that has been signed by over 4,700 physicians and concerned citizens at the time of this writing.

The declaration lays out three basic complaints with the CPSO’s order.

  1. Denial of the Scientific Method itself:
  2. Violation of our Pledge to use Evidence-Based Medicine for our patients:
  3. Violation of Duty of Informed Consent

More elaboration and information can be found on the Declaration’s website.

Closing Thoughts

To paraphrase the great human rights activist and Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, what it meant to be a loyal Soviet citizen was to say what you’re supposed to say, to read what you’re permitted to read, and to vote the way you’re supposed to vote, and to know it was all a lie.

It doesn’t take a background in medicine to know that the censorship of medical professionals during a pandemic is the last thing that should be happening. There is no better time for rigorous debate on the efficacy of public health measures than now with unprecedented and unproven lockdown policies being forced on populations worldwide.

Some may say that we can trust that freedom of speech will be restored and that censorship is necessary to expedite the end of the pandemic. This is abundantly flawed for two reasons. The first being the idea that Canadian doctors must conform to the vision of the state and not question it. This is not only a violation of their duty as medical practitioners and scientists but deeply crippling to a sound public health response. Finally, this move is fundamentally opposed to the values of liberal democracy which have now been jeopardized on a global scale. With the lights of an enlightened and modern civilization going out across the world, it would be fair to ask, will they ever be turned back on in our lifetime?

Ethan Yang joined AIER in 2020 as an Editorial Assistant and is a graduate of Trinity College. He received a BA in Political Science alongside a minor in Legal Studies and Formal Organizations.

He currently serves as Local Coordinator at Students for Liberty and the Director of the Mark Twain Center for the Study of Human Freedom at Trinity College.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Palestine Has the Right to Defend Itself

By Taxi | Plato’s Guns | May 13, 2021

We have entered a new era in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The old days of Israel committing war crimes against the downtrodden, captive Palestinians are over. The world has done zero to address Israel’s fundamental crime of nation-stealing: a megalith crime that can only be described as the longest and most vicious war crime in our modern history. A crime that millions of people around the world consider to be even worse than the holocaust. After some 73 years of enduring relentless Israeli terrorism, land-theft, cultural appropriation AND the silence of the world, the Palestinian Resistance has finally taken charge and has, literally overnight, turned the tables against Israel. From here on, there will be accountability for Israel for any crime it commits against the Palestinians. From here on, all previous Israeli red lines will be crossed in favor of the Palestinians. From here on, the death of Israel is no longer a far-fetched fantasy. From here on, the Palestinian Resistance will take charge of Palestine’s destiny.  And its destiny is total liberation.

Whether this liberation takes place in a day, in a week, in a month or a year, the gates of liberation are now open, and nobody on earth can close them.

The situation in the holy land is currently fluid – rocket and missile strikes continue by both sides with no end in sight as I write this. There is no point in talking casualties and targets in this article as this is not a journalistic report but a brief look at America’s strategy in the Middle East.

The pertinent question here is: with Israel’s hegemony being in an evident state of profound decline, will the US drop Israel in order to preserve its remaining influence in the Middle East? Or, will it stick to a weak and dying Israel and thus be evicted from the region with it? We know that both China and Russia are waiting on the sidelines for an opportunity to snatch America’s influence in the Mideast region. There will not be a vacuum left once Israel falls and takes the US down with it.  China and Russia will collect the prize and immediately fill in the vacuum. Begs the question here therefore: is America prepared to lose to China and Russia just to appease a limping Israel?

Simply: what is more important for America: maintaining its own superpowerdom, or supporting Israel indefinitely and unconditionally?

This is a serious strategic conundrum for the current US State Department, for the Pentagon and the Deep State, not to mention the White House as well, and mindful here that all these high offices in DC are infiltrated and already controlled by AIPACers and by Jewish power. With the Palestinian cause now being globally more popular than ever, and with the Palestinian Resistance now being an offensive-and-defensive power to reckon with, the oft repeated undemocratic and nauseating American phrase of ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ is now transforming into ‘Palestine has the right to defend itself’.

Indeed, any fair-minded person would support an occupied people’s right to self-defense. Apropos, any justice-loving person would support the slogan of ‘Palestine has the right to defend itself’.

The history of America’s total and unconditional support for the state of Israel goes back to the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. There was support for Israel before then, but not unconditionally and not fanatically so. For some 58 years now, American administration after American administration has favored Israel above any other nation in the world, especially above all other nations in the Mideast. It justified this blind support by using warmongering Israel as both a showroom to exhibit and sell its arms from, as well as an attack dog that fights against Arab nationalism that back in the day was aligned with the Soviet Union. Not forgetting here that American Jews of Hollywood also manufactured a ‘moral’ reason for America’s support of the Jewish state by pitting America as the absolute hero and savior of Jews from the holocaust, even though US forces entered WW2 belatedly, and did so under dubious circumstance, I may add.

But the above three main reasons are no longer valid this side of the 21st century. Let us inspect them one by one.

FIRST, Israel as the American MIC showroom is no longer effective and profitable, and this is because, despite Israel having the most advanced American weapons in the region, it has not actually won a single war since 1973 – and even that war was won by a hairline when the West came to rescue Israel at the 11th hour. We can say here that the supermodel has aged and her chin is too cracked to sell beauty products. Sales of American weapons in the Middle East are no longer dependent on Israel’s so-called war heroism and victories, but on inter-Arab fighting that’s instigated and incited by a treacherous, jingoistic Israel. Experts on Arab history will tell you that Arab tribes are stuck in a make-war-then-make-peace cycle, and not in a permanent make-eternal-war posture, as indeed Israel’s State motto appears to be. We see evidence of this historians’ view today with the current rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia. After a decade of hostility and head-chopping warfare between them, these two Arab enemies are now making a concrete effort towards genuine peace. So if Saudi Arabia is no longer needing to buy billions of dollar’s worth of US weapons per year to defend itself with, and when Riyadh is also simultaneously offering peace concessions to Iran as well, can the MIC rely on Saudi Arabian patronage like it used to? There are simply no more big Arab-on-Arab and Arab-on-Iranian wars to be had in the foreseeable future. These projects have already been tried and attempted and dropped, and so all possible lucrative weapons contracts no longer exist. For the MIC, as well as for any other mega corporation, it’s the ‘bottom line’ that decides all at the end of the day. Clearly, the MIC can no longer rely on either Israel’s war victories, or on its insidious war-brokerage for its lucrative annual profits. The MIC is presently looking eastwards to make its future profits. The Middle East has been milked dry right to the last drop. The MIC reason for supporting the Jewish state therefore is no longer valid.

SECONDLY, as we all already know, the Soviet Union has long gone and a Russian Republic has assumed its place. Arab nationalism too has also transformed into something more fluent and nifty, otherwise now known as ‘The Resistance’. Resistance against Israel and its Apartheid practices, that is. Resistance against Jewish supremacy and racist Zionism. The Arab Resistance today is enjoying more popularity than ever, despite the spinelessness of some Arab leaders, and despite the fake ‘Deal of the Century’ that 4 Arab nations have signed up for – two of them reluctantly so, I may add. Really, the Deal of the Century is seen by Arab citizens as a Jewish-Chabadist scam that collapsed in its infancy with Trump’s failure to secure a second White House term. There are currently several hundred million Arab citizens from all over the Arab world who remain fully committed to the Resistance.  Nay, a considerable chunk of them are even ready for martyrdom if it helps aid the Resistance in its war against all occupational forces in the Middle East, starting and ending with the eviction of Zionism and Zionists from the region.

Here, Palestine, actually, more precisely the city of Jerusalem is the ultimate symbol and very location where the enemy must first be confronted. Arab passion for liberating Palestine, and especially the city of Jerusalem is not only a moral, ethical and patriotic issue for them, but first and foremost, it is a collective profundity: a religious duty for the majority of both Christian and Muslim Arabs. No Israeli propaganda or Jewish bribe can dilute or alter this passion for Jerusalem that rattles and keeps growing in the breast of Arab citizenry. The Israelis who first established the state of Israel by force of arms used to confidently say of the Palestinians: “the old will die and the young will soon forget,” meaning: the 1948 Arab generation resisting the initial Jewish invasion will soon die and the next generation will forget their parent’s cause. Evidently, the Jews here gravely miscalculated: no such thing ever transpired. New generations of Palestinians born from 1948 and onward only got more resistant, more resilient, more motivated and more attached to their land that was usurped by the invading Jews of Europe. No Palestinian ‘forgot’ their parental trauma – how on earth could they when daily Israeli brutality was heaped upon them, thus reminding them daily of their parent’s agony and catastrophe? Nobody forgot the ethnic cleansing, the numerous massacres and the injustice committed against their parents by racist European Jews. The current eruption of violence between Israel and the Gaza Resistors, who only two nights ago bombarded Tel Aviv with endless streams of rockets like never before, while simultaneously, literally all Palestinians living inside of Israel proper or under Israeli occupation took to the streets in raging protest: all this is notable and loaded with electric shocks. Here we see a new optic and we understand from it a new reality: the whole of Palestinian society, though divided by Apartheid walls and territorial fragmentation imposed by Israel, are currently united in simultaneous rage and cries for freedom, cries for resistance, despite Israel having for decades created political divisions between them. This current and united military and civic Palestinian resistance is a testament to the facts stated above. Palestine lives! It has not ‘forgotten’, or been forgotten. Yes, the Palestinian individual and collective memory is irrepressible and indelible. Only true justice will dull down this impossibly painful memory: this 73 year old nightmare that the Jews have inflicted on the native Palestinians. The Palestinians being mostly capitalist traders have not aligned with any old-school Soviet nation or leaders for material protection or for economics: the Palestinian Authority under Abbas has been nothing but 100% compliant with Western wishes and instruction. For decades now Palestine has been aligned with and reliant on Western material charity and aid, despite the West’s blatant support for their Jewish occupiers. This excuse of support for Israel being due to Arab alignment with Soviet Russia is now completely and absolutely moot. Anyone, be they a politician or a propagandist citing the ‘Soviets’ as reason for supporting Israel should be laughed right off the stage.

This leaves the THIRD justification of ‘America the good guy saved the victim Jews from Nazi Germany’ to dissect. Without getting into the finer, historic details of WW2, suffice it to say here that the Arabs are a completely different people than the Germans, and their struggle with the Jewish state is based on Israel’s occupation of Arab land and not on belief in the Nazi manifesto. Furthermore, Israel is a wealthy nation who is in possession of actual nuclear weapons, therefore it cannot possibly be categorized as a ‘victim’ in the context of the Arab-Israeli struggle. In America, it is basically Hollywood and the Christian-Zionist community who carry the majority of genuine support for Israel. Most of the Senate and Congress are corrupt and support Israel because of bribes, blackmail, or coercion, therefore their support cannot be considered as genuine. Currently, Hollywood is hemorrhaging influence and power, just like Israel is, and can presently exert but little influence over the American psyche. And the Christian-Zionists remain an enclaved minority with influence only within their own communities: outside of their communities, they are disrespected and referred to as ‘Jesus freaks’ by the rest of the American populace.  Everyone is allowed to believe what they want, but issues of belief do not the decision-making for Empire make. Empire, in order to survive must make decisions that are steeped in cold pragmatism and based on security and prosperity interests, not on ethereal ideology or group superstition, especially minority group superstition. Empire has no permanent friends or permanent enemies. Its powers are drawn, above all, from its ability to make stable, long-term decisions that propagate its longevity. Whether American troops saved the Jews or not is now beside the point. The crux of the matter is that Empire now finds itself supporting a dying horse in the guise of Israel and there is no more medicine to be found for the horse. As any sound rancher would tell you: stop the hugging and start digging a grave for your four-legged pal. If Americans really believe that they are ‘the good guy’, then they should start acting like it and start making funeral arrangements for Israel before its dead belly bloats and festers in the sun.

To those who still believe that Israel is almighty powerful and doubt that Israel’s end is approaching, I say the following: you are reading Jewish and Jewish-centric media where nothing is real.

Considering the intractable, negative military position that Israel finds itself in today: surrounded by an armed and capable, eclectic Axis of Resistance without, and infiltrated by an armed and capable Palestinian resistance within, no US weapon can now provide it with a certain measure of security. Politically speaking, Israel is in its worst domestic crisis ever: with four failed elections and a fifth one on the way inside of two years, incendiary and divisive rhetoric between all Jewish parties is the current zeitgeist and order of the day.

The West can believe it or not, but in the Levant, the latest rocket and strike exchanges between Israel and the Palestinian Resistance – a combat that finds the Palestinian Resistance crossing all previous Israeli-imposed red lines; a combat that the Palestinian Resistance is utilizing to establish a deterrence against ongoing Israeli crimes of ethnic cleaning and home-evictions – the view is crisp and clear: Israel is at its weakest ever, and the Axis of Resistance is stronger than ever, therefore Israel’s grim reaper is in sight.

Israel’s death is now a fait accompli, a forgone conclusion.

But even if readers are still unconvinced by this Levantian reality and facts on the ground, for the sake of wisdom and the future stability of Empire, it still behooves all Americans to now openly discuss the pros and cons of supporting the dying Israel project. This open soul-searching should be solely focused on this question: do all humans have the right to defend themselves, or only some of us have this inalienable right?

My personal answer to this question is obvious. Everyone has the right to defend themselves against harm. Impossible therefore to deny the occupied Palestinians their right to self-defense.

Yes.  Palestine has the right to defend itself.

Either that, or enjoy living in your Animal Farm.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sheikh Jarrah: Zionism Distilled to Its Purest Expression

Dispossessing Palestinians is Zionism’s primary function

By Steve Salaita | May 12, 2021

Western journalists, always mindful of the limits imposed by the ruling class, have a million ways of minimizing or mystifying Israeli brutality in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian families are set to be expelled to make way for Jewish settlers.

It’s not so simple as straight-up ethnic cleansing, they declare. There’s a convoluted history to consider, involving Israelis, Palestinians, Ottomans, Englishmen, and Jordanians. The Israeli courts, after all, examined the evidence and determined that the properties in question were Jewish. The Israelis aren’t seizing Palestinian homes at random; they’re engaged in a legal project of urban planning.

The apologists aren’t wrong. The seizures in Sheikh Jarrah, which have been ongoing for two decades, are ratified by the Israeli state. That’s exactly the problem. The Israeli state isn’t a neutral party proffering legal decisions according to impartial, humanistic criteria. The main purpose of the Zionist entity is to dispossess Palestinians. Certainly it has other reasons for being, but its primary function since being dreamed up by European fantasists at the end of the 19th century has been to maraud and plunder. The violence in Sheikh Jarrah isn’t exceptional. It is Zionism distilled to its purest expression.

Palestinians don’t need to respect the institutions of the Zionist state precisely because those institutions negate the Palestinians’ simplest political imperative: existence. Those institutions represent the machinery of colonization. All settler colonies come equipped with a legal apparatus to validate their cruelty. We cannot expect Western pundits and politicians to question the institutional logic so harmful to Palestinians, for their own legitimacy is contingent on the reproduction of state power.

Palestinians will never concede rights of habitation to Israeli courts. Those courts confer to themselves jurisdiction over Palestinian life, but Palestinian claims to life have a much stronger basis:  an age-old history in the towns and neighborhoods they inhabit, a culture indivisible from their surroundings, a language of freedom concordant to the beauty of the land. Palestinians know full-well that they belong. Israeli courts produce delusional soliloquies.

The logic underlying land seizure in Sheikh Jarrah is nonsensical to the point of insanity. First of all, the logic tries to deplete observers of empathy. Families live in those homes, actual human beings with complex needs and aspirations. They will be made homeless. We’re asked not to care because those human beings are incidental to the more important project of colonial statecraft. The fate of those families is a nonstory; the settler colony’s wish fulfillment is the natural order of things.

More nonsensically, we’re asked to assign ethnic characteristics to abstractions and inanimate objects.  The basis for Israel’s aggression in Sheikh Jarrah (as throughout all of historic Palestine) is repossession of so-called Jewish property. The property, in other words, doesn’t belong to people who happen to be Jewish. The property itself is Jewish—nobody can specify which denomination—and is therefore fit only for a certain kind of inhabitant. The property has some kind of innate disposition. It is apparently capable of worship. It becomes a crass approximation of humanity. Endowing housing units with confessional qualities exemplifies the problem of prioritizing property over sentient life:  a dwelling has no utility beyond the project of demographic engineering. Under the Zionist regime, even brick and mortar are sectarian.

The land suffers a similar fate. Zionists conceptualize it as “Jewish,” rendering the natural world a topography of exclusion. In their ruthless schema, land is neither pleasure nor sustenance. It is a commodity. Like all resources in the colonial economy, access is granted (or limited) according to discriminatory criteria, in this case religious identity, as defined by the government. There is no real notion of the commons in Zionism. Public space is deeply personal, demarcated and apportioned based on a crude obsession with genetics.  Biology isn’t an impetus to kinship, but a pretext for segregation, rigid and permanent.

Having been anointed Jewish, the land ceases to be dynamic. It is an ideological fabrication with fixed characteristics. It doesn’t seem to bother the chattering classes in the United States that Israel’s sanctified self-image requires an aggressive military apparatus, that it comes to fruition only by tossing innocent people out of their homes and destroying the possibility of a functional civil society. Their own country, after all, was built on the same kind of racialized violence.

Palestinians do not adhere to the correct religion and so they become surplus. Displacement is their natural destiny. The soldiers arrive with batons and sound bombs, with tear gas and live ammunition. They wave court orders explaining that the neighborhood must host a different class of resident. The settlers accompanying the soldiers create a bloody ruckus. Together, soldier and settler unleash hell on people whose primary motivation is to exist. This is what colonizers like to call “democracy.”

The land is Jewish. The houses are Jewish, too. The Palestinians are merely human. There is no place for such creatures in an inhumane society.

This article was originally published in Arabic at Awan.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Irish MP speaks truth to an Israeli ambassador

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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