Yearly Archives: 2021

The Facebook Team that Tried to Swing Nicaragua’s Election is Full of U.S. Spies

Posted on by
1

A tacit agreement between the government and Facebook appears to have been made: you can keep the profits, but we control the message. As such, a cynic might wonder what functional difference there is between Facebook and the national security state.

By Alan Macleod

Source: Mint Press News

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — Less than a week before Nicaragua’s presidential election, social media giant Facebook deleted the accounts of hundreds of the country’s top news outlets, journalists and activists, all of whom supported the ruling left-wing Sandinista government, a top Washington target for regime change.

Facebook claims that these accounts were bots engaged in “inauthentic behavior.” Considering that around half of the country uses the platform for news and entertainment, the decision could barely have been more heavy-handed and intrusive. However, early reports show that if their goal was to swing the result, it has failed badly and the Sandinistas have achieved an overwhelming victory.

“This is appalling interference by Facebook in particular (which is the most popular social media outlet in Nicaragua). They allege that they’ve stopped a government-deployed troll farm but what they have actually done is to close accounts of ordinary Sandinista activists, particularly young people, often with many followers,” John Perry, a journalist living in the city of Masaya, told MintPress.

Worse still, after dozens of Sandinistas took to Twitter to record video messages proving they were real people being censored, their accounts were systematically deleted as well, in what Managua-based journalist Ben Norton described as a Silicon Valley “double-tap strike.”

“These are accounts that average Nicaraguans have come to count on for news and communicating with each other about current events and, in this case, about the election. So it is very troubling that it was obviously targeted against one political group: the Sandinistas,” said Daniel Kovalik, a human-rights lawyer and an observer of this weekend’s elections.

Both Perry and Kovalik were of the opinion that it was no coincidence that Facebook had taken action against precisely the group the U.S. government is trying to overthrow.

Facebook as security-state beard

Perhaps even more worrying from a freedom-of-speech viewpoint is who made the decision at Facebook. The 11-page report detailing the company’s supposed evidence of inauthentic behavior has just two contributors: Luis Fernando Alonso and Ben Nimmo, individuals with deep and long-lasting ties to Western military intelligence. According to his biography on LinkedIn, Alonso was, until last year, working for Booz Allen Hamilton, a shadowy corporation situated in the area around Washington, D.C. colloquially known as “Raytheon Acres.” The national security state farms out much of its most controversial work to the firm, which is technically a private company (and therefore not subject to the same oversight and scrutiny as public agencies). Edward Snowden, for instance, actually worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, not the NSA. Before that, Alonso directly worked for the government at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, a Department of Defense-controlled institution that trains top military and intelligence leaders.

Nimmo’s background is equally spooky. Between 2011 and 2014, he served as NATO’s press officer, moving the next year to the Institute for Statecraft, a U.K. government-funded propaganda operation aimed at spreading misleading information about enemies of the British state. The Institute for Statecraft established a secret network of journalists across Europe who were used to push anti-Russia and pro-establishment talking points, all in coordination.

In 2019, Nimmo played a key role in downplaying the bombshell news that the Conservative government was quietly negotiating to sell off key parts of Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) to foreign plutocrats. When the Labour Party publicized this information just days before the election, Nimmo jumped into action, immediately announcing, without evidence, that the documents in question “closely resemble … a known Russian operation.” His supposedly expert conjecture — together with help from allied journalists in the Integrity Initiative — allowed the story to become “Labour’s links to Russia” rather than “Tories privatizing the NHS in secret,” helping the Conservatives make huge electoral gains.

Nimmo also became a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, NATO’s semi-official think tank.

Facebook — now officially called “Meta” — is extremely secretive about who actually works at their intelligence department. Nowhere can one find a list of names of key figures. However, going back through months of reports and blog posts for names reveals a veritable revolving door between big tech and big government. In short, Facebook is strewn with spies.

For example, a document published in May, entitled “The State of Influence Operations, 2017-2020,” lists five author names in addition to Nimmo’s, at least four of whom have long histories as senior agents in the national security state.

In order, they are:

  • Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy: Gleicher spent two and a half years at the White House as the National Security Council’s Director of Cyber Security Policy. Before that he also spent five years at the Department of Justice.
  • David Agranovich, Head of Security Communications: Agranovich worked for more than six years in a senior role at the Department of Defense, before, in 2017, moving on to become the Director for Intelligence for the National Security Council at the White House.
  • Olga Belogolova, Influence Operations Product Policy Manager: The most academic of the authors, Belogolova teaches cybersecurity and influence operations to students at Georgetown University, an institution notorious as America’s spy school. Before that, she worked at the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and on Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian policy at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She has also served on several working groups at government- and military-funded think tanks like The Center for New American Security, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, and The Atlantic Council.
  • Mike Torrey, Threat Intelligence Analyst: From 2010 until 2018, Torrey was a high-level CIA agent, specializing in cyberwarfare against China. Before that, he worked as a global network intelligence analyst for the NSA.

Of the six authors listed, only one, Margarita Franklin, comes from a non-governmental background.

Looking further into Facebook’s official blog, Mike Dvilyanski is described as the company’s Head of Cyber Espionage Investigations. From 2005 until 2018, Dvilyanski was an FBI agent in Washington and New York City, rising to the rank of Supervisory Special Agent, leading teams investigating cyberwafare.

Another official Facebook report from April was authored by the company’s Technical Threat Investigator, Michael Flossman, who spent nearly six years in the Australian Department of Defense.

In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership with The Atlantic Council, whereby it gave an undisclosed amount of control over users’ news feeds to the group, allowing it to help them decide what posts users saw and which ones were suppressed. Given that the council’s board features a plethora of military generals, former cabinet members, and no fewer than seven former CIA directors, this is tantamount to state censorship on a global level. A tacit agreement between the government and Facebook appears to have been made: you can keep the profits, but we control the message. As such, a cynic might wonder what functional difference there is between Facebook and the national security state.

Silicon Valley: tip of US imperial spear

It might be unfair, however, to single Facebook out. Other large platforms are similarly stocked with government plants. Reddit’s Director of Policy, for instance, was formerly a Deputy Director of The Atlantic Council’s Middle East Task Force. Meanwhile, a senior Twitter executive is also an active duty officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare and online propaganda brigade.

Silicon Valley has not only made their peace with this relationship; they actively court it. “What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century, technology and cyber-security companies will be to the twenty-first,” wrote Google executives Eric Schmidt and Larry Cohen in their book, “The New Digital Age,” laying out how they saw Silicon Valley becoming the tip of the American empire’s spear.

Washington has already used social media as a weapon aimed at its enemies. In July, Americans in Miami used Facebook to organize an attempted color revolution in Cuba, while Twitter ignored blatantly obvious bots boosting the anti-government message, even choosing to put it at the top of its “what’s happening” sidebar for 36 hours, meaning every user in the world was alerted to the news. Individuals inside Cuba complained to MintPress that the endless supply of fake news citizens receive from the U.S. via Facebook and WhatsApp is spreading disinformation and rotting Cubans’ brains.

Meanwhile, in 2009, the U.S. government persuaded Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance of its app because of widespread protests it was fomenting in Iran, knowing the platform was being used to coordinate anti-government forces. Last year, Facebook banned all positive references to Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in the wake of his assassination by the Trump administration. “We operate under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leadership,” the company said in a statement. Despite the fact that over 80% of the country held positive views towards the general (even before his killing), this meant that even Iranians speaking Farsi with other Iranians online in Iran could not share an overwhelmingly held view. This is but one example of the extraordinary power the U.S. national security state now holds over the means of communication worldwide.

Ineffective interference

The United States has a long history of interfering in Nicaragua, from invasions to propping up the 40-year Somoza family dictatorship. When Sandinista rebels ran them out of town in 1979, Washington began a long campaign of terror against the Sandinistas, including funding, training and arming the infamous Contra death squads. After more than a decade of interference, U.S.-backed candidate Violeta Chamorro won the 1990 election. However, after Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas returned to power in 2006, the U.S. once again began trying to undermine their rule through sanctions and by supporting a 2018 coup attempt. Washington has also unleashed an army of NGOs into the country, each attempting to foment discontent with the ruling government.

In September, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met in New York with the foreign ministers of Mexico and every other Central American country in an attempt to organize a united front against Nicaragua. Last week, the U.S. also announced new sanctions on the country. Kovalik told MintPress:

This is clearly punishment for the fact that they’re going to vote [the wrong way]. And meanwhile, of course the U.S. is putting millions into the country in terms of supporting opposition groups and different propaganda sources. So that continues. Again, what passes for alleged foreign interference in the U.S. …. is nothing compared to what the U.S. is doing here.

Western journalists and election observers whose opinions the U.S. government would rather not be shared have also been targeted. British journalist Steve Sweeney was detained in Mexico en route to Nicaragua. “It is no coincidence that it came just weeks after my ban from the U.S. I fully believe my detention is political and an attack on press freedom,” he wrote, after being released. Meanwhile, Canadian observer Dr. Timothy Bood was barred from sharing his experiences on Facebook, the platform blocking him immediately after he made a comment about U.S. interference in the election.

Perry suggested, however, that if Washington thinks that sanctions sanctions or other new measures will dislodge the government and break the people’s will, they are mistaken, and that the plan could backfire:

We had the approval in the U.S. Congress of the RENACER Act a few days ago, which is another threat of U.S. interference during and after the election process. I think opinion polls show that most people reject U.S. interference very strongly. I think in most cases it will strengthen people’s desire to vote and probably to vote for the Sandinista government. So it could have the opposite effect to the one that the U.S. wants to achieve.

Judging by the jubilant Sandinista parades in Managua and other cities today, coupled with the announcement that Ortega won an estimated three-quarters of the vote on a 65% turnout rate, Perry might have been proved right.

‘It’s absolutely appalling’: Unvaccinated Canadians become social outcasts and the new persecuted minority

Posted on by
1

By Eva K Bartlett

Source: In Gaza

In Canada, the supposedly benevolent country that prides itself on inclusivity, Covid totalitarianism has become unavoidably apparent, with its decision that soon only the fully vaccinated can travel.

Vaccine mandates have also been imposed on healthcare workers, municipal employees and federal public servants. Basically, as part of what PM Justin Trudeau called one of the world’s strictest vaccine-mandate policies, unjabbed Canadians are being increasingly restricted/excluded not only from work, but from social life as well. Supposedly, this is done for their well-being and health. I argue, though, that it’s nothing but “medical fascism.” 

Some months ago, much ado was made in media around the world when the government of Canada shed crocodile tears for the country’s imprisonment, torture, starvation and murder of indigenous children in the horrific ‘residential school’ system. The government, we were meant to believe, suddenly cared for the people it had sought to erase.

But, aside from many examples of that being mere lip service, it has become clear, over the past year and a half plus, that the government doesn’t care for Canadians, period.

Under some of the world’s longest lockdowns, Canadians had their businesses shuttered, were deprived of contact with their elderly, were prevented from worshipping and holding holiday gatherings (while Canadian leadership steadfastly ignored the rules) and, more seriously, were deprived of critical medical care—all in the name of public health.

Already, Canadians with natural immunity say they have been told that’s not enough to enter the country.

Starting from October 30, only the Covid-jabbed can travel by plane or train in Canada. While huge numbers of Canadians have got the shots, many others have legitimate concerns about the safety of vaccines, with good reason.

When Dr. Byram Bridle, associate professor of viral immunology—a well-recognized expert in vaccinology—refused vaccination due to his natural immunity, he was derided by media and banned from his University of Guelph campus. He made clear that he is, “a vaccine lover and an innovator in this field,” but has concerns about the, “possible link between this heart inflammation that is occurring and these COVID-19 vaccines.” 

And although I already realized it is unlikely that I’ll see my family in Canada in person again, the newest ‘no jab, no travel’ dictates seal the deal for me.

But, for people within Canada, it is more than just the matter of being able to see loved ones again. For some, these new dictates might mean a matter of life or death: whether they can get vital medical care and whether they can earn a living.

One such person is an Italian researcher living in Canada since 2001, who was in that year diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I recently spoke with Valentina Capurri about how the vaccine mandates will affect her.

She explained that, following her MS diagnosis, she was offered to participate in a trial program for a new medication. Although a risky decision, she accepted for different reasons, including the health care and medication it would ensure her as a then-lone international student.

She described the importance of the trial, which lasted twelve years.

“Lots of people who had severe effects of MS would have benefitted from the medication. And yet they were not able to access the medication for a reason: because you cannot give a medication whose effect–if everything goes wrong–can be worse than the cure.”

Trials like this, she emphasized, are something every new medication, or vaccine, endure.

“And none of this has been done in this particular case. So that’s what made me a little suspicious about the Covid vaccines.”

Over the past year and a half, she says, she has not been allowed to see her neurologist, all medical appointments at her Toronto hospital were suspended and replaced with  phone consultations. No physical visits, no MRIs, just phone calls.

“In 2003, when we had SARS, I used to go once a month to the hospital. Despite the fact that SARS in 2003 had a much higher mortality rate than Covid, we still were allowed to enter the hospital on a regular basis. None of our visits were cancelled back then as they are now.”

Since neither she nor her Canadian husband will take the jab, they will lose their jobs, and thus won’t be able to pay for her expensive MS medication.

“You are forcing me to lose my job, to lose my ability to support myself, just because I am exerting my right not to have an experimental medical procedure done on me. This is worse than fascism, this is absolutely appalling.”

On top of this, now, those needing organ transplants face being denied care if they do not consent to mandatory jabs.

Among other Canadians suspended without pay for their refusal to be jabbed are hundreds of hospital workers, including nurses. The sort of people who might know a thing or two about health…

And, in August, emergency room and family practice physician, Dr. Rochagné Kilian resigned over the unethical and coercive pressuring of Canadians to be jabbed.

While medical workers and average Canadians are being forced out of work, denied medical care, ostracized from society, the government has made clear the rules for thee but not for me adage still applies.

PM Trudeau said all federal workers would be compelled to get fully vaccinated but, as it turns out, that’s not the case. According to an article in the Toronto Sun, roughly 70% of the federal workforce will be exempt from getting vaccines, including: federal judges, meat inspectors, park wardens, postal workers, tax auditors, Commons and Senate staff, soldiers, sailors and air force personnel, and Canada Post employees, among others.

Canada doesn’t even pretend to follow logic any longer. Just full-on medical fascism for the majority of Canadians.

With the introduction of vaccine mandates, it is only a matter of time before Canada reaches Lithuanian-level totalitarianism where the non-jabbed are almost fully excluded from all aspects of society.

Please ask yourselves if you really believe this is about public health.

America’s Bottom 50% Have Nowhere To Go But Down

Posted on by
1

By Charles Hugh Smith

Source: Of Two Minds

One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no.

America’s economy has changed in ways few of the winners seem to notice, as they’re too busy cheerleading their own brilliance and success. In the view of the winners, who just so happen to occupy all the seats at the media-punditry-Federal Reserve, etc. table–the rising tide of stock, bond and real estate bubbles are raising all boats. What’s left unsaid is except for the 50% of boats with gaping holes below the waterline, i.e. stagnant wages and a fast-rising cost of living.

The truth the self-satisfied winners don’t include in their self-congratulatory rah-rah is there’s no place for the bottom 50% of American households to go but down. All the winnings flow to those who already owned assets back when they were affordable– the already-wealthy–whose wealth has soared as assets have shot to the moon while the the burdens of inflation and debt service hit the bottom 50% the hardest.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is whining that inflation isn’t high enough yet for their refined tastes. Boo-hoo, how sad for the Fed–inflation isn’t yet high enough. Oh wait–didn’t they each mint millions by front-running their own policies? No wonder they’re not worried about inflation.

The reality few acknowledge is that globalization and financialization have stripped the American economy of low-skilled jobs that don’t demand much of the employee. The reality is that a great many people don’t have what it takes to learn high-level skills and work at a demanding pace under constant pressure–the description of the average job in America.

There were once millions of low-skill, low-pay jobs for people who for whatever mix of reasons were unable to muster the wherewithal to fulfill the fantasy of working extra hard, going to night school, soaking up high-level skills, moving quickly up the ladder to higher pay, buying the starter home and then moving up the food chain to middle class security from there.

The cost of living was low enough that those working these low-skill, low-pay jobs could still have an independent life. There were still low-cost rentals, often derided by the wealthy, in nooks and crannies of even the costliest cities. (I once lived in a room stuffed with old tax records in a poolside shack in an upscale neighborhood. The room had been cleared for a single bed and a path to the decrepit bathroom. Its most important attribute was that I could afford it on my low earnings.)

Affordable housing has vanished, eliminated by the financialization of America’s economy. Once landlords pay double the price for the property, rents have to double to pay their higher expenses. The apartment didn’t double in size or amenities–the rent doubled without any increase in utility to the renter. You get nothing more for double the price–nice.

Yes, people could make better choices, and some do. The point here is the game is rigged against those in the lower tier of the economy who can no longer afford a house or other stake in the only winning game in town–speculative asset bubbles. Go ahead and work a second job and go to night school–you’ll still be left behind the already-rich.

Globalization opened every job in America to global competition via offshoring or the influx of undocumented workers so desperate to support their families back home that no pay was too low and no working condition too wretched to refuse.

Many overindulged pundits who never worked an honest day in their lives sneer about burger flippers without realizing how hard those burger flippers have to work. I doubt the well-dressed pundits, snobbish about their university degrees and general brilliance, could manage to work a single day in a demanding fast-food job.

As the price of housing and other assets have soared, enriching the already rich, they’re out of reach for the bottom 50% who struggle to pay their bills as wages have stagnated and the costs of essentials have skyrocketed.

The rising cost of parking tickets, junk fees, user fees, utilities and food don’t impact the well-paid top 5% technocrat class, whose stake in the Everything Bubble keeps expanding by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But for the bottom 50%, those incremental increases are, when added to higher rents, absolutely crushing.

As for getting high-quality healthcare that includes mental health support–those are reserved for the rich. But no worries, self-medication is always a “choice.”

Getting a boost in pay from $12 an hour to $15 an hour is welcome, but that doesn’t put the worker any closer to affording a house or equivalent stake in the Everything Bubble.

The new feudalism is masked by the glossy SillyCon Valley PR of a gig economy where (per the PR fantasy) bright, shiny and totally independent workers freely choose to serve the winners in the rigged sweepstakes for low pay and zero benefits.

In the SillyCon Valley PR, serfs freely choose to serve their noble masters for nothing but survival because they love the “freedom” and “choice” of kissing the nobility’s plump derrieres. (After all, there were “choices” even back in the good old days of feudalism–one could join the brigands in the forest, or enlist in a poorly paid mercenary army where the odds of dying were high–you know, “choices” of “gigs.”)

One might anticipate that the bottom 50%’s meager share of the nation’s exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no–the bottom 50%’s share of stocks (equities) actually plummeted in the the glorious decades of Federal Reserve free money for financiers, stock buy-backs and asset bubbles.

All this suits the billionaires and those collecting the crumbs of the Everything Bubble just fine. So what if the bottom 50% have nowhere to go but down? There’s plenty of room in the homeless encampment for another broken down station wagon or an old camper. There’s lots of “choices.”

And no consequences for the winners, of course, because The Fed has our backs.

Covid Authoritarians Are The Cause Of America’s Problems, Not The Unvaccinated

Posted on by
1
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Brandon Smith

Source: Alt-Market.us

It’s an odd dynamic – One would think that if the covid vaccines were a generally benevolent program that actually “followed the science” then there would be no need to pile drive the public with an endless barrage of vax propaganda. After all, if science and morality are on the side of the covid cult then the rest would naturally take care of itself and the overwhelming majority of Americans would have already voluntarily taken the experimental mRNA cocktail without any threats required. And, if some people still refused, then the science would dictate that it doesn’t matter, because if the vax actually works then those people present no threat whatsoever to the rest of society.

It is highly revealing that this is not the case, and the more resistance the establishment encounters on mandates the more aggressive they become and the more they lie about the facts and evidence.

Remember when Fauci and company said they only needed 70% of the population vaccinated to hit herd immunity? That concept was thrown down the memory hole and now they want 96% (really 100%) of the population vaccinated.

They claimed that the vaccination programs were a success with between 70% to almost 80% of the public taking the double jab, and that was a lie as state numbers continue to contradict federal and CDC numbers.

They claimed that the only pandemic still ongoing was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, and this was of course a lie as we have seen studies from multiple states and mostly vaccinated countries showing that the vaccinated now make up the bulk of infections and hospitalizations.

They said the vaccines offered more reliable protection when compared to natural immunity, yet medical studies from around the world show that this was a lie and that natural immunity offers up to 27 times more protection than the vaccines do. And, they said that the vaccines were “safe and effective”, yet there is no long term data to prove they are safe, and multiple studies show that vaccine effectiveness is questionable to say the least.

Lie after lie after lie. If the vaccines actually worked, there would be no need for so much deceit, and if their true intention was to “protect public health” then the establishment would be promoting treatment programs and natural immunity, not untested vaccines that continue to disappoint.

Numerous fully vaccinated people including political figures like Colin Powell have died from covid but the mainstream media STILL claims this doesn’t disprove the efficacy of the jab. At the same time, unvaccinated alternative media figures like Joe Rogan beat covid in 3 days using treatments like Ivermectin, and the MSM attacks him relentlessly as some kind of charlatan merely because he dared to not die. The elitists think that the public doesn’t notice massive contradictions like this, but we do. We are not dumb, we see everything.

In Washington State, for example, studies show that there have been at least 51,000 “breakthrough cases” of covid in the past 10 months. Breakthrough cases are people who are fully vaccinated but were still infected with covid. Of those 51,000 people, 493 people died. When calculating the percentage of dead vs infected, we get around 0.96%. The median death rate of covid among unvaccinated people is only 0.27% according to dozens of peer reviewed medical studies. This means that the death rate of fully vaccinated people in Washington is actually HIGHER than that of unvaxxed people.

We have seen similar results in states like Massachusetts, where there were 5100 breakthrough cases in a single month and 80 deaths of fully vaccinated people, which is a 1.5% death rate for the vaxxed as opposed to 0.27% for the unvaxxed. Studies on death rates are going to have to take into account vaccinated deaths vs unvaccinated deaths from now on.

And what about studies from highly vaccinated countries like Israel, which show that the majority of infections and hospitalizations are among vaccinated people, with infections spiking well after the vaccines were introduced. Right after Israel became one of the most vaccinated nations on the planet, it also had one of the highest infection rates on the planet.

It should also be noted that the peak of US infections in 2020 ended well before the vaccine rollout even started in early 2021. Meaning, the vaccines did NOTHING to reduce infection rates. They dropped off on their own. This is a scientific fact that the mainstream avoids, just as they avoid admitting that the median death rate of covid is a mere 0.27%.

The solution that the establishment offers is not surprising – They claim we need MORE vaccines through booster requirements. As the old saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And so the demented propaganda machine continues into infinity.

The public is growing tired of the games as is evident in mass walkouts, sick-outs and other protests against Biden’s vaccine mandates for companies with more than 100 employees as well as most government institutions. We are seeing up to 50% of employees and government workers in many cases refusing to take the experimental jab despite the fact that they are being threatened with losing their jobs. This dynamic seems to have bewildered the covid cult and the globalists; they can’t wrap their heads around this level of resistance to their agenda.

It’s not a new thing, but I have noticed an increasing number of vax propaganda commercials and articles featuring Donald Trump in the past month. All of them herald Trump’s pro-vaccination stance, which is odd because leftists spent most of 2020 saying they would not take any vaccine that Trump was responsible for producing.

I was recently doing some research on YouTube and was annoyed to have to watch yet another vax ad, but this one had an odd tone. It showed clips of Trump making favorable statements on the mRNA vaccines, he and his wife taking the vaccines with dramatic music, and then a message at the end which said “There’s A Covid Vaccine Waiting For You, Too.”

The bizarre commercial was clearly aimed at conservatives, but it displays an obvious disconnect that the covid cult and the media have when it comes to conservative thinking and principles.

Leftists, collectivists and globalists function according to majority rule and herd mentality. They have gatekeepers, and the gatekeepers set the agenda and dictate decision making responsibilities for the group. Leftist herds wait patiently for top-down orders from their designated gatekeepers and most of them obey without question. This is how they operate.

Liberty minded people operate in the opposite fashion. Our “leaders” are always under scrutiny, and this includes political mascots like Donald Trump. This is why, during a recent speech in Alabama, Trump was booed by a crowd of supporters after he called for them to get the covid vaccine. Conservatives generally don’t care about the person promoting the message, they only care if the message passes the smell test.

Leftists and globalists are incapable of grasping conservative principles or the conservative mindset. This fact is hilariously evident in the style of propaganda they have consistently used to try to intimidate or pressure the conservative public into compliance with the mandates. We don’t view Trump as a philosophical leader; in fact, there were so many underlying issues with his cabinet and his policies that his leadership became suspect. At most, conservatives enjoyed Trump’s administration simply because his presence in the White House drove leftist authoritarians to greater madness.

We definitely don’t care what Trump has to say on the vaccines.

There is further evidence of the disconnect I describe in the actions of leftists and the establishment when it comes to vax mandates in the workplace. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the argument from covid cultists that conservatives “Might say we will refuse to comply, but when our livelihoods are threatened we will submit.” They believe this because that’s how THEY would respond. They are cowardly weaklings with no heart, no principles and no morals. They think that since they would cave in to the pressure, the rest of us would cave in as well.

The past month has proven them oh so wrong as millions of people stage protests and walk outs across the country. There is even refusal among around 25% of the armed forced averaged across all branches, as well as up to 50% of city police forces. Most employers and government offices can barely function as is; there is zero chance they will be able to cope with a 10% loss of workforce, let alone a 25% to 50% loss. They would crumble.

This was obviously not the plan; the globalists were not prepared for this level of resistance in the US and this is evident in their pathetic propaganda scramble. That does not mean they don’t have contingencies in place. I am already seeing a fledgling narrative in the media which is implanting the idea that any breakdown of the system in the US will actually be the fault of the unvaccinated.

Biden has been a fervent culprit behind the narrative that everything from economic instability and supply chain problems to social divisions should be blamed on unvaccinated Americans. That’s right, the majority of these disasters started on Biden’s watch and because of his policies, but somehow WE are the real danger. Yes, the draconian mandates are illegal and unconstitutional and yes, mandates are not laws in any form, and yes, Biden and his handlers are acting like dictators and there is no reason to do anything they say. But, we are the bad guys. This is classic communist gaslighting.

Here’s an idea: Stop trying to enforce covid mandates and vaccine passports. Stop paying people to stay home from work with covid welfare bribes. Stop generating trillions of dollars in fiat stimulus from thin air to pay for even more useless programs we don’t need. Then watch how quickly stagflation, economic instability, the workforce shortages and most other problems in the US suddenly disappear. The unvaccinated are not the source of American distress, the globalists and errand boys like Biden and blue state governors are the cause. Remove them from the equation and America’s future looks much brighter.

It All Makes Sense Once You Realize They Want to Kill Us

Posted on by
6

By Mike Whitney

Source: The Unz Review

“It is now apparent that these products in the blood stream are toxic to humans. An immediate halt to the vaccination programme is required while an independent safety analysis is undertaken to investigate the full extent of the harms, which the UK Yellow Card data suggest includes thromboembolism, multi-system inflammatory disease, immune suppression, autoimmunity and anaphylaxis, as well as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE).” Tess Lawrie, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

Question– Have the mRNA vaccines been tested on animals?

Answer– Yes, they have.

Question– Were the animal trials successful?

Answer– Yes and no.

Yes, the experiments on mice showed that a low dose of the vaccine induces a robust antibody response to the infection.

But, no, the antibodies were not able to attack the spike protein from a different strain of the virus.

Question– I’m not sure what that means? Do you mean that the vaccine DOES provide some limited protection from the original (Wuhan) virus, but does not necessarily provide protection from the variants?

Answer– That’s right, but it’s a bit more complicated than that because– as the virus changes — the antibodies that helped to fight the original virus can actually enhance the “infectivity” of the variant. In other words, vaccine-generated antibodies can switch-sides and increase the severity of the illness. Simply put, they can make you sicker or kill you. Scientists have known this for a long time. Check out this clip from a 2005 research paper:

“A jab against one strain might worsen infection with others….

In the.. study, Gary Nabel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.. injected mice with spike protein from a SARS virus taken from a human patient infected in early 2003. They then collected the antibodies the animals produced.

In lab experiments, they showed that these antibodies were unable to attack spike protein from a different strain of SARS, isolated from a patient infected in late 2003….The team next tested whether the antibodies would attack spike proteins from two SARS strains isolated from civets, from which the virus is thought to have originally jumped into humans. In this case, they found hints that the antibodies actually boosted the ability of the virus to infect cells.…

The results show that the virus changes over time, so that a strain that crops up in one outbreak might be quite different from that in a later outbreak. “This virus is not standing still and we need to take this into account,” Nabel says.

This raises the prospect that a vaccine against one strain of SARS virus could prove ineffective against others. Worse, a jab against one strain might even aggravate an infection with SARS virus from civets or another species. “It’s obviously a concern,” Nabel says..
This would not be the first case where exposure to one strain of a virus can worsen infection with another.” (“Caution raised over SARS vaccine”, Nature)

Question– I’m still confused. Can you summarize what they’re saying?

Answer– Sure. They’re saying that scientists have known for nearly two decades that vaccines narrowly aimed at just one protein are bound to fail. They’re saying that the spike protein is highly-adaptable and capable of changing its shape to survive. They’re saying that vaccines aimed at the spike protein will inevitably produce variants that evade vaccine-generated antibodies. They’re saying that by narrowing the vaccine’s focus to the spike protein alone, the drug companies have ensured that previously helpful antibodies will do an about-face, allow the virus to enter healthy cells, replicate at will, and cause sickness or death. They are saying that the current crop of vaccines is in fact perpetuating the pandemic. And–since the science has been clear for the last 16 years– we can add one more observation to the list, that is, that the current approach to mass vaccination is neither haphazard, slapdash or random. It is intentional. The vaccination campaign managers are deliberately ignoring the science in order to sustain a permanent state of crisis. Science is being manipulated to achieve a political objective.

Question– I think you’re exaggerating, but I’d like to get back to the animal trials instead of arguing politics. As you probably know, the reports in the media do not square with your analysis, in fact, all of the articles in the MSM say the animal trials were a rousing success. Here’s a short blurb that I found today that confirms what I’ve been saying:

“…vaccination of nonhuman primates with the mRNA vaccine induced robust SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing activity and notably, rapid protection in the upper and lower airways….” (Covid-19, NIH.gov)

Question– Are you suggesting the authors are lying?

Answer– No, they are not lying. They’re just not telling you the whole truth, and you need to know the whole truth so you can make an informed decision. The vaccines DO provide some (temporary) protection. We don’t dispute that. They also trigger a strong immune response. We don’t dispute that either. But what difference does it make? Let me explain: Let’s say, you have a really bad head cold so you take a new medication that you think will relieve the pain. And–sure enough– an hour after taking the pills– Presto — your congestion and headache are completely gone. That’s fantastic, right? Wrong, because what you fail to realize is that the medication is laced with slow-acting strychnine that kills you three days later. Do you still think it was a good idea to take the medication?

Of course, not. And the same rule applies to these vaccines which do, in fact, boost your antibodies and provide some fleeting “immunity”. But they can also kill you. Don’t you think that should be factored in to your decision? Keep in mind, people have died 3, 4, 5 weeks after inoculation without any prior warning. Many of them might have even been bursting with antibodies, but they’re still dead. Can you see the problem?

Question– Okay, but there’s still this matter about the animal trials. The media says that the drug companies performed the animal trials and they were successful. Do you disagree with that?

Answer– They were not successful and the “fact checkers” that were hired to discredit vaccine critics like me, have deliberately mischaracterized what happened in the trials. For example, here’s a typical “fact checker” article titled “COVID-19 vaccines did not skip animal trials because of animal deaths” by Reuters. Here’s an excerpt:

“Posts claiming that COVID-19 vaccine producers skipped animal trials due to the animals in those trials dying are false. Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, which have been granted emergency authorization use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, all conducted animal trials and had no significant safety concerns to report.”

Sounds reassuring, right? But then they say:

“Due to time constraints and the urgency to find a vaccine for COVID-19, Moderna and Pfizer did receive approval to run animal testing and early trials on humans at the same time, as opposed to fully completing animal trials before moving on to human trials. This, however, does not mean animal trials were skipped or that the safety of the vaccines were compromised.”

Let me see if I got this straight: The drug companies were in such a hurry that they conducted their minimalist animal trials at the same time as their human trials (which is unprecedented) and then rushed the results to the FDA so they could be rubber stamped and waved through under the Emergency Use Authority?

Is that how it went down?

Yes, it is.

But if they were rushed through in a couple months, then the “fact checkers” are tacitly admitting that there is no long-term safety data. And there IS no long-term safety data, nor is there any attempt to disprove the research from the earlier trials where the ferrets, mice and other animals died following injection of mRNA vaccines. They don’t deny it, they just ignore it as if sweeping it under the rug will make it all go away. Here’s a clip from the research paper that Reuters refers to in its article:

“We demonstrate that the candidate vaccines… respectively—induce strong antigen-specific immune responses in mice and macaques….Both (vaccines) protected 2–4-year-old macaques from challenge with infectious SARS-CoV-2, and there was reduced detection of viral RNA in immunized macaques as compared to those that received saline.” (Note–We’ve already acknowledged that the vaccines do produce a strong immune response. Here’s more:)

“Neutralizing GMTs declined by day 56 (35 days after dose 2), consistent with the contraction phase; however, they remained well above the GMT of the human sera panel. The duration of the study was not long enough to assess the rate of decline during the plateau phase of the antibody response.” (“BNT162b vaccines protect rhesus macaques from SARS-CoV-2”, Nature)

Can you see what’s going on? The trial was only 56 days-long, in fact, none of the animal trials exceeded 56 days. Think about that for a minute. The reason the animals died in prior trials is because they were exposed to a mutated version of the (wild) virus that eventually killed them. That’s how ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) works. It doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen in 56 days. It takes much longer than that for a mutated version of the virus to emerge and reinfect the host. The drug companies know that. They’re not stupid. So the fact that the animals mounted a strong immune response is completely irrelevant. We KNOW they mounted a strong immune response. We also know they died some months later when a different strain of the virus emerged. Bottom line: The production of antibodies does not mean a drug is safe.

The obvious purpose of the trials was to get the vaccines over the finish-line before anyone figured out what was going on. It’s the same reason why the drug companies “unblinded” their human trials after the vaccines got the green light from the FDA. Shortly after the trials were concluded, the people in the placebo arm were allowed to get vaccinated.

Why would they do that? Why would they vaccinate the people who willingly allowed themselves to be guinea pigs for the sake of public health, only to vaccinate them shortly after, thus, eliminating any chance of finding out what the long-term safety issues might be? It makes no sense, does it?

Take a look at this short clip from the British Medical Journal whose scientists are equally bewildered:

“The (drug) companies say they have an ethical obligation to unblind volunteers so they can receive the vaccine. But some experts are concerned about a “disastrous” loss of critical information if volunteers on a trial’s placebo arm are unblinded…

Although the FDA has granted the vaccines emergency use authorization, to get full license approval two years of follow-up data are needed. The data are now likely to be scanty and less reliable given that the trials are effectively being unblinded.

Consumer representative Sheldon Toubman, a lawyer and FDA advisory panel member, said that Pfizer and BioNTech had not proved that their vaccine prevents severe covid-19. “The FDA says all we can do is suggest protection from severe covid disease; we need to know that it does that,” he said.

He countered claims, based on experience with other vaccines, six weeks of follow-up was long enough to detect safety signals. Six weeks may not be long enough for this entirely new type of “untested” [mRNA] vaccine, Toubman said.

Goodman wants all companies to be held to the same standard and says they should not be allowed to make up their own rules about unblinding. He told The BMJ that, while he was “very optimistic” about the vaccines, “blowing up the trials” by allowing unblinding “will set a de facto standard for all vaccine trials to come.” And that, he said, “is dangerous.”

(“Covid-19: Should vaccine trials be unblinded?” The British Medical Journal)

Do you like his choice of words: “blowing up the trials”? Do you think it is a fair description of what the drug companies did?

Yes, it is.

And what possible motive would the drug companies have to blow up the trials? I can see only two possibilities:

  1. They think their vaccine is so terrific, it will save the lives of many of the people in the placebo group.
  2. They expect a high percentage of the people in the vaccine group to get either severely sick or die, so they want to hide the evidence of vaccine-linked injury.

Which is it?

You know the answer. Everyone watching this farce knows the answer.

Question– Okay, so let’s cut to the chase: Are the vaccines are safe or not?

No, they are not safe. The way we decide whether a drug is safe or not is by putting it through a rigorous process of testing and clinical trials. After the testing, the data is passed on to physicians, statisticians, chemists, pharmacologists, and other scientists who review the data and make their recommendations or criticisms. That didn’t happen with the Covid vaccines, in fact, all the normal standards and protocols were suspended in the name of “urgency”. But many believe that the “urgency” was manufactured to push through vaccines that would never have been approved on their own merits. All you have to do is look through the vaccine injury data (VAERS) and you’ll see this is the most lethal medical intervention of all time and, yet, the public health experts, the media and the government keep crowing that they’re “safe and effective”. It’s nonsense and the drug companies know it’s nonsense which is why they reject all liability for the people that are going to be killed by these “poison-death shots.”

Do you know what goes on inside your body after you are injected with one of these “gene based” vaccines?

Once the vaccine enters the bloodstream it penetrates the cells that line the blood vessels forcing them to produce spike proteins that protrude into the bloodstream like millions of microscopic thorns. These thorns activate blood platelets which trigger blood clotting followed shortly after by an immune response that destroys the infected cells thus weakening the vascular system while draining the supply of killer lymphocytes. In this way, the vaccine launches a dual attack on the body’s critical infrastructure causing widespread tissue damage throughout the circulatory system while leaving the immune system less able to fend off future infection.

Now if you think you can have a long-and-happy without a functioning circulatory system, then none of this matters. But if you’re bright enough to realize that wreaking havoc on your vascular system is the fast-track to the graveyard, then you’ll probably understand that injecting these “poison-death shots” is a particularly bad idea.

By the way, it’s a real stretch to call these hybrid injections, “vaccines”. They have about as much in common with a traditional vaccine as a python does with a coffee table. Nothing. The “vaccine” moniker was chosen in order to shore-up public confidence, that’s all. It’s part of a marketing strategy. There is no real similarity. The majority of people trust vaccines and see them as a shining example of medical achievement. The drug companies wanted to tap into that trust and use it for their own purposes. That’s why they called it a “vaccine” instead of “gene therapy” which more accurately describes ‘what it does.’ But–like we said– it’s just a marketing strategy.

Have you ever wondered how the drug companies were able to roll out their own-individual vaccines just weeks apart from each other? That’s a pretty good trick, don’t you think; especially since vaccine development typically takes from 10 to 15 years. How do you think they managed that? Here’s an excerpt from an article which provides a little background on the topic:

“The virus behind the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, was identified on Jan. 7. Less than a week later — on Jan. 13 — researchers at Moderna and the NIH had a proposed sequence for an mRNA vaccine against it, and, as the company wrote in government documents, “we mobilized toward clinical manufacture.” By Feb. 24, the team was shipping vials from a plant in Norwood, Mass., to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in Bethesda, Md., for a planned clinical trial to test its safety.” (“Researchers rush to test coronavirus vaccine in people without knowing how well it works in animals”, Stat)

Got that? “The virus broke out in Wuhan…on Jan. 7, and less than a week later Moderna had a proposed sequence for an mRNA vaccine against it???

Really? Is that the same Moderna that had been playing-around with mRNA for over a decade but was never able to successfully bring a vaccine to market?

Yep, the very same company. Here’s more:

“And by Feb. 24, the team was shipping vials from a plant in Norwood, Mass??”

Wow! Another Covid miracle! You almost get whiplash watching these companies crank out their “wonder drugs” at record-breaking speed.

Keep in mind, there’s a very high probability that the virus was man-made, (In other words, it’s a bioweapon.) and the people who have been implicated in the funding and creation of that bioweapon are also closely aligned with the big drug companies that have produced the antidote in record time that has already netted tens of billions of dollars in profits for a drug for which there was no reliable animal testing, no long-term safety data, and no formal regulatory approval.

So I’ll ask you again: Doesn’t that all sound a bit suspicious?

Is it really that hard to see the outline of a political agenda here? After all, aren’t the drug companies working with the regulatory agencies that are working with the public health officials that are working with the media that are working with the corrupted politicians that are working with the Intel agencies that are working with the meddling globalist billionaires that are working with the giant private equity firms that oversee the entire operation pulling the appropriate strings whenever needed?

It sure looks like it.

And, don’t the tectonic social changes we’ve seen in the last year have more to do with a broader scorched-earth campaign launched by the “parasite class” against the rest of humanity than they do with a fairly-mild virus that kills mainly old and frail people with multiple underlying health conditions?

Right, again. In fact, many have noticed the cracks in the pandemic artifice from the very beginning, just as many have pointed out that the virus-meme is just the mask behind which parasites continue to conduct their global restructuring project. In short, it’s all about politics; bare-knuckle, take-no-prisoners NWO politics.

Answer– You’ve asked a number of questions about the animal trials, but none about the biodistribution and the pharmacokinetics studies that were done at the same time. Why is that? (Note--Pharmacokinetics; “the branch of pharmacology concerned with the movement of drugs within the body.”)

Question– I didn’t know there were any. Did the media report on them?

Answer– No, they didn’t. They completely ignored them, even though they were produced by Pfizer and provide essential information about where the substance in the vaccine goes in the body, in what amounts, and for how long. By knowing how the drug is distributed, it is possible to make educated assumptions about its effect on the organs and other tissue. In other words, these studies are invaluable. The Doctors for Covid Ethics have done extensive research on the studies and written a report titled “The Pfizer mRNA vaccine: pharmacokinetics and toxicity”. Here’s a few excerpts that help to illustrate the dangers of the vaccines:

“As with any drug, a key consideration for the toxicity of the COVID mRNA vaccines is where exactly in the body they end up, and for how long they will stay there. Such questions, which are the subject of pharmacokinetics, are usually thoroughly investigated during drug development. Initial studies on pharmacokinetics and also on toxicity are carried out in animals… this document has rather far-reaching implications: it shows that Pfizer—as well as the authorities that were apprised of these data— must have recognized the grave risks of adverse events after vaccination even before the onset of clinical trials. Nevertheless, Pfizer’s own clinical trials failed to monitor any of the clinical risks that were clearly evident from these data, and the regulatory authorities failed to enforce proper standards of oversight. This dual failure has caused the most grievous harm to the public….

What do Pfizer’s animal data presage for biological effects in humans?

  • Rapid appearance of spike protein in the circulation.
  • Toxicity to organs with expected high rates of uptake, in particular placenta and
    lactating breast glands
  • Penetration of some organs might be higher with the real vaccine than with this
    luciferase model…The rapid entry of the model vaccine into the circulation means that we must expect the spike protein to be expressed within the circulation, particularly by endothelial cells. ( Endothelial- The thin layer of cells lining the blood vessels) We have seen before that this will lead to activation of blood clotting through direct activation of platelets and also, probably more importantly, through immune attack on the endothelial cells….

Summary

Pfizer’s animal data clearly presaged the following risks and dangers:

  • blood clotting shortly after vaccination, potentially leading to heart attacks, stroke, and venous thrombosis
  • grave harm to female fertility
  • grave harm to breastfed infants
  • cumulative toxicity after multiple injections

With the exception of female fertility, which can simply not be evaluated within the short period of time for which the vaccines have been in use, all of the above risks have been substantiated since the vaccines have been rolled out—all are manifest in the reports to the various adverse event registries. Those registries also contain a very considerable number of reports on abortions and stillbirths shortly after vaccination, which should have prompted urgent investigation.
….
Of particularly grave concern is the very slow elimination of the toxic cationic lipids. In persons repeatedly injected with mRNA vaccines containing these lipids… this would result in cumulative toxicity. There is a real possibility that cationic lipids will accumulate in the ovaries. The implied grave risk to female fertility demands the most urgent attention of the public and of the health authorities.

Since the so-called clinical trials were carried out with such negligence, the real trials are occurring only now—on a massive scale, and with devastating results. … Calling off this failed experiment is long overdue. Continuing or even mandating the use of this poisonous vaccine, and the apparently imminent issuance of full approval for it are crimes against humanity.” (“The Pfizer mRNA vaccine: pharmacokinetics and toxicity”, The Doctors for Covid Ethics)

Don’t you think people are entitled to know what the government wants to inject into their bodies? Don’t you think they have a right to know how it will effect their immune systems, their vital organs and their overall health? Don’t you think they have the right to decide for themselves which drugs they will take and which they will refuse to take?

Forcing someone to take a drug he does not want, is not just wrong. It’s unAmerican. Which is why people should reject vaccine mandates as a matter of principle. They are an attack on personal liberty, the foundation of our constitutional system. It’s a principle worth dying for.

As for the mass vaccination campaign, it is the most maniacally-genocidal project ever concocted by man. There’s simply no way to calculate the amount of suffering and death we are about to face for trusting people whose policies were obviously shaped by their undiluted hatred of humanity. As German microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi said:

“In the end, we’re going to see mass illness and deaths among people who normally would have had wonderful lives ahead of them.”

It is a great tragedy.

WHO WILL BE ‘BRAVE’ IN HUXLEY’S NEW WORLD?

Posted on by
1

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: Waking Times

“ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it’s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history…But we can’t allow science to undo its own good work. That’s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researchers…We don’t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged…Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness…[but] People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years’ War. That made them change their tune all right. What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled – after the Nine Years’ War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. It hasn’t been very good for truth, of course. But it’s been very good for happiness. One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You’re paying for it, Mr. Watson – paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.’ “ ~Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Where does one start in discussing the famed fiction novel of Huxley? Although most agree that there is a definite brilliance to the piece, most are also confused as to what was Huxley’s intention in writing the extremely influential dystopic vision. Was it meant to be taken as an exhortation? An inevitable prophecy? Or rather…was it meant as an Open Conspiracy?

What do I mean by an Open Conspiracy?

If we are going to talk about such things our story starts with H.G. Wells, whom Aldous acknowledged he was most certainly influenced by, particularly by Wells’ novels “A Modern Utopia,” “The Sleeper Awakes,” and “Men Like Gods,” when writing his “Brave New World.”

Although Aldous is quoted as referring to Wells as a “horrid, vulgar little man,” (Wells was indeed not a very likeable individual) it was not for reasons one might first assume. Aldous did share a Wellsian perspective in that society should be organised based on a caste system. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Aldous was so fascinated with learning about India’s Hindu religious beliefs and practices, which had coexisted for centuries with a deeply ingrained caste system to which India is still struggling to remove itself from to this day. This is not to say that one caused the other, or that Hinduism has not offered a plethora of great works and insights, but that it had become corrupted and thoroughly intertwined with upholding India’s caste system at some point one cannot deny; that it was used to justify a system of hierarchy from slave to the god-like state of a Brahmin and that British imperialists had always been greatly fascinated by this form of social organization one cannot deny.

Aldous was always interested in the subject of religion, but more so for its uses in behaviourism and mental conditioning achieved through such techniques as entering states of trance where an individual’s suggestibility could be manipulated. Hypnopædia was not just some quirky sci-fi concoction. It is also why Aldous was so interested in the work of Dr. William Sargant, whom Aldous repeatedly refers to in his writings and lectures and who was involved with the Tavistock Institute and MKUltra. More on this in Part two.

These spiritual/religious studies are what shaped the core thesis of Aldous’ book “Doors of Perception” which is considered the instruction manual for what started the counterculture movement. The title is influenced by the poet William Blake who wrote in 1790 in his book “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,”:

“if the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern“

Another major influence for “Doors of Perception” was again H.G. Wells, from his book “The Door in the Wall,” which examines the contrast between aesthetics and science and the difficulty in choosing between them. The protagonist Lionel Wallace is unable to bridge the gap between his imagination and his rational, scientific side which leads to his death.

Aldous writes in his “Doors of Perception,”:

“That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely…Art and religion, carnivals and saturnalia [ancient Roman pagan festival], dancing and listening to oratory – all these have served, in H.G. Wells’s phrase, as Doors in the Wall…Under a more realistic, a less exclusively verbal system of education than ours, every Angel (in Blake’s sense of that word) would be permitted as a sabbatical treat, would be urged and even, if necessary, compelled to take an occasional trip through some chemical Door in the Wall into the world of transcendental experience. If it terrified him, it would be unfortunate but probably salutary. If it brought him a brief but timeless illumination, so much the better. In either case the Angel might lose a little of the confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning and the consciousness of having read all the books…But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out…”

Aldous was always chasing the perfect drug that would be minimal in its physically destructive effects but would allow an individual to tap into an almost consumer state of a religious/spiritual out-of-body experience, a transcendence that promised a connection with the Infinite, inner peace and enlightenment.

Enlightenment and inner peace in a pill, ready for whenever one needed a short holiday from the “illusion” of reality.

The name Soma, which Aldous used to name his fantasy ideal drug in “Brave New World,” was based off a plant whose juices were used to create the spiritual drink which was described in both the ancient religious practices of the Vedic tradition and Zoroastrianism, which called the plant and spiritual drink by the same name, Soma. Today, it is a mystery as to what plant they were referring to in these texts. Huxley no doubt chased after this dragon the entire latter half of his life, and indeed, psilocybin mushrooms are theorised as one of the potential candidates for what could have been named Soma centuries ago.

It is perhaps here that people are the most confused about the character of Huxley. After all, he was obviously walking the walk so to speak, thus didn’t he truly believe that psychedelics were the path to freedom through enlightenment?

Well, the argument has been made that Huxley’s approach to LSD [and other psychedelics] was essentially oligarchic, that it was to be regarded as a dangerous substance to be sampled only by such fine and visionary minds as his own. That is, those who had the mental strength, the mental stamina to reach enlightenment; those who were too weak to sustain such mental rigours would become the very opposite, and risked falling into the dark pit of complete madness, although this in of itself was perceived by many to be a form of clairvoyance. After all, what is it to be mad in a world that is sickeningly and inhumanely “normal”? This is most certainly how Ken Kesey thought when writing his “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” that madness itself was a form of liberation from the shackles of capitalist societal constraints.

Perhaps madness was the goal, it was after all, much more attainable that the promised enlightenment…

As William Sargant noted in his book “Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing” J.F.C. Hecker was studying the dancing mania phenomenon that occurred during the Black Death, which was a social phenomenon that arose in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people who would begin to dance erratically during the Plague, sometimes thousands at a time until they would fall from exhaustion or from injuries. It was thought to have arisen in Aachen, Germany in 1374 and quickly spread throughout Europe with one of the last observations of it occurring in 1518 in Alsace, France.

Hecker observed in his research on the dancing mania that heightened suggestibility had the capability to cause a person to “embrace with equal force, reason and folly, good and evil, diminish the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.”

Such a state of mind was likened to the first efforts of the infant mind, Sargant writes “this instinct of imitation when it exists in its highest degree, is also united a loss of all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent.”

I wonder if Sargant imagined himself the serpent…

It is no wonder that the Tavistock Institute and the CIA became involved in looking at the effects of LSD and how to influence and control the mind. And perhaps it is no coincidence that Aldous Huxley was in close correspondence with William Sargant to which Sargant even refers to Aldous’ “insights” multiple times in his book “Battle for the Mind.”

Aldous is also quoted in a lecture he delivered to the Tavistock Group, California Medical School in 1961:

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

Aldous goes on to state a year later in a lecture titled “The Ultimate Revolution” at UC Berkeley Language Center 1962:

“Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows…we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system.”

Yes, yes we get it. This is all to be taken as “warnings” to the public, a terrible necessity that will come about if over-population is not addressed (as he makes clear in his Brave New World Revisited). With over-population comes over-organization which in turn leads to the scientific advances in technology which we are told by Aldous can only lead to totalitarianism. Thus, population growth and advances in the sciences are the greatest threat to humankind. Wait, that sounds oddly very much like the reasonings of Mustapha Mond, have we come around full circle, what exactly does Aldous agree and disagree with here? Are we to have a scientific dictatorship in order to avoid a totalitarian system in the form of a scientific dictatorship?

In H.G. Wells’ “Open Conspiracy: Blueprints for a World Revolution,” he describes his vision for a Modern Religion:

‘…if religion is to develop unifying and directive power in the present confusion of human affairs it must adapt itself to this forward-looking, individuality-analyzing turn of mind; it must divest itself of its sacred histories…The desire for service, for subordination, for permanent effect, for an escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, is the undying element in every religious system.

The time has come to strip religion right down to that [service and subordination is all Wells wants to keep of the old relic of religion]…The explanation of why things are is an unnecessary effort…The essential fact…is the desire for religion and not how it came about…The first sentence in the modern creed must be, not “I believe,” but “I give myself.” ‘

Hmm, is this the same Revolution as Aldous is speaking about? After all, there is a lot of similarity between H.G. Wells’ description of his “Modern Religion” and what Aldous is preaching in his “Doors of Perception,” to which Wells is undoubtedly a large influence. The desire to escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, that the explanation for why one does something is not important, only to be motivated by the desire for release, for a complete catharsis that only the fervour of a “religious,” a “spiritual” experience can bring about.

It is the desire for, not the care for why. To believe is not even acceptable, because to believe pertains to thought, it is merely a matter of surrender, that you give yourself. It is not to act with reason but to be possessed by its very opposite; to be in a state of existence where there are no words, and thus there are no thoughts, just direct sensory feeling.

The ultimate achievement is to completely surrender oneself to the external world, perhaps to a dictatorship without tears…

The reader should be aware that Wells wrote a book titled “The New World Order” in 1940, and is the first that I am aware of to pioneer this now-infamous term. The reader should also be aware that Julian Huxley (Aldous Huxley’s brother) was a co-author of “The Science of Life,” a part of Wells’ trilogy “The Outline of History” (1919), “The Science of Life” (1929), and “The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind” (1932) to which Wells made no qualms should be regarded as the new Bible. Julian was also a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, serving as its Vice-President from 1937-1944 and its President from 1959-1962. Interesting life choices from the authors of the “new Bible.”

In addition, Aldous’ grandfather Thomas Huxley (“Charles Darwin’s bulldog”) was the biology teacher of H.G. Wells and was one of the largest influences in Wells’ life, promoting the works of Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus, for more on this refer to my paper. Although Thomas Huxley lived before the time of the “science” of Eugenics, he was a stout Malthusian and thus one can rather safely say would have been a eugenicist if offered the chance.

Thus, we should regard Aldous’ mention of the stylish ‘Malthusian belt’ in his “Brave New World,” under a more somber light perhaps…

And now we are ready to walk through the doors of perception on Aldous himself, the true Huxley behind the projected illusion. We may not find Infinity at the end of this excursion, but we will most certainly be better equipped to tell the difference between Huxley’s self and non-self, between what is real and what is false.

Saturday Matinee: Punk: Attitude

Posted on by
Reply

“Punk: Attitude” (2005) is a documentary tracing the roots, meaning and enduring influence of the punk movement of the late 70s and early 80s. Directed by Don Letts, the film offers an insider’s perspective because Letts was a catalyzing agent for the developing London punk scene, having run a clothing store called Acme Attractions and hosted parties as a reggae DJ, both often frequented by band members of groups such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Pretenders. Letts later managed The Slits and began his film career as a director of Clash music videos.

Punk: Attitude also features interviews with artists directly and indirectly involved with the early punk scene including Wayne Kramer (The MC5), Mick Jones (The Clash), Jello Biafra (The Dead Kennedys), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), and David Johansen (The New York Dolls) among many others. Though some punk fans may dispute the relevance of certain featured musicians or feel others were overlooked, the film provide a candid, fairly comprehensive and at times contradictory overview of punk rock as iconoclastic, raw and diverse as the music itself.