Category Archives: conditioning

Einstein and Freud’s ‘Why War?’ Revisited: Why Anti-War Efforts Go Nowhere

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By Robert J. Burrowes

In 1932, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein exchanged letters, later published under the title ‘Why War?’ See ‘Why War? An exchange of letters between Freud and Einstein’.

However, whatever insight these two giants of an earlier era brought to our understanding of war, the reality is that a great deal has been learned since they corresponded.

Nevertheless, since the emergence of an identifiable, organized anti-war movement during World War I which has grown to include a diverse range of activists and organizations from across the political spectrum, as well as peace and conflict resolution scholars from various disciplines, there is little evidence that this movement, or any of the many organizations within it, has been learning from its failures by systematically undertaking or commissioning further research to understand the phenomenon of war more completely and then devising a strategy to end it based on that learning.

Hence, during its existence for more than 100 years, the organized anti-war movement – and the subsequently developed peace movement with its broader agenda – has had minimal impact in preventing or halting particular military conflicts, including wars, and zero impact in ending war generally, as the record testifies.

And so, even today, war continues in several countries in West Asia (the Middle East), Africa, elsewhere and, more recently, in Ukraine with the antiwar movement again demonstrating its ineffectiveness and, in the case of Ukraine, failing to comprehend the deeper agenda behind what is taking place in that country. See ‘The War in Ukraine: Understanding and Resisting the Global Elite’s Deeper Agenda’.

Of course, while an utterly inadequate analysis of what, fundamentally, is driving war is the critical foundation of the anti-war movement’s problems, it is still just one of the substantial range of problems it faces, some of which derive from this flawed analysis but others which a better analysis would expose. These include, for example, an understanding of why the fear of most of those within the anti-war movement is preventing the movement from mustering the commitment and courage that will be necessary if we are to undertake the many actions necessary to end war. In essence, fear makes most participants in the movement happy to complain about war but not take action themselves (or take action that has zero or minimal impact).

As Daniel Berrigan noted in his 1969 book No Bars to Manhood: ‘the waging of war, by its nature, is total – but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.’

This cowardice means that a large proportion of the anti-war movement contents itself with a range of powerless measures – usually extending no further than signing petitions, issuing lameduck ideologically-oriented statements, writing articles, organizing conferences, issuing calls for negotiations or appeals to politicians – all invariably devoid of emotional and geopolitical reality as well as realistic measures to avert/halt the latest war.

This might include advocacy of measures, such as those developed under the guise of international humanitarian law, in relation to ‘outlawing war’ or outlawing particular weapons systems, despite the obvious observation that these legal constraints are routinely violated with impunity by any military power, starting with the United States, or non-state actor that is unconstrained by questions of legality.

Beyond this, ‘action’, when it is taken, is usually confined to conducting (notoriously ineffective) street protests or employing other tactics devoid of strategic impact in the context (of ending war). As former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig once noted about a massive anti-war demonstration: ‘Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’ See Alexander Haig. As a four-star general, Haig, not regarded as the most intelligent Secretary of State in US history, certainly understood that tactical choice is a question of strategy. Most activists have no idea.

So if we are to end war as a phenomenon in human affairs, or even meaningfully attempt to prevent or end a particular war, we need to do a number of things. Most fundamentally, we must start with a sound understanding of what causes violence to begin with because war does not emerge from a vacuum. War, when all is considered, is just another manifestation of violence, like everything from violence against women to economic exploitation to environmental destruction.

And if we are not able or willing to investigate and understand what is causing violence, and address this fundamental cause as part of our strategy, then our other efforts to end the manifestations of violence, including war, must all be in vain. Again, as the record readily testifies.

What Causes Violence?

So what is the cause of violence? Here is what 41 years (1966-2007) of concerted effort taught me.

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, they learn to inflict violence on others. The political leaders who decide to wage war, the military leaders who plan and conduct it, as well as the soldiers, sailors and aircraft personnel who fight war each suffered violence as a child. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The neo-Nazi suffered violence as a child. The individual who inflicts violence on his (or her) partner suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people and/or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The racist or religious bigot suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child. The individual who overconsumes, or even consumes certain products and/or otherwise destroys the biosphere, suffered violence as a child.

So let me illustrate this point, in a very simplified way, by briefly explaining the parenting experience of a neo-Nazi. This individual has been terrorized by their parents and/or other significant adults in their life into projecting their fear onto particular groups of human beings and into believing that violence is a morally correct and superior way of dealing with these ‘different’ people. But for a much fuller and more nuanced explanation of this point, see the sections headed ‘The Emotional Profile of Archetype Perpetrators of Violence’ and ‘The Spectrum of the Violent Personality’ in ‘Why Violence?’

If we want to end violence in all of its manifestations, structural and otherwise, locally and globally, then we must finally end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here is an additional incentive: if we do not tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand – by nuclear war or other means – is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to ‘socialize’ children to ‘fit into’ their society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviours in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for example, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is simply one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. See ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’ and ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.

If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? As mentioned above, we do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen (that is, one who pays their taxes, including those for war, and votes and/or lobbies politicians rather than acting powerfully themSelf).

The bottom line is simple: As parents, teachers, religious figures and adults generally, we want the child to be obedient to our commands, and not powerfully able to act in accord with their own Self-will. And we achieve this outcome by terrorizing the child into doing what we want rather than nurturing the child’s innate capacity to listen, deeply, to themSelf in order to follow their own will.

Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorize a child into accepting certain information about themSelf, other people and the state of the world – with the bulk of this information mediated by elite agents including education systems, the entertainment industry and the corporate media – the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information, no matter how truthful, out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new (or even important) information. This is one explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’, most people do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe and even those people who do take action usually do so ineffectively. See ‘The Global Climate Movement is Failing: Why?’

But the same can be said for those working to end war – see ‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’ – end the nuclear weapons race or engage in other struggles, including liberation struggles, that are vital parts of the global struggle to create a more peaceful, just and sustainable human culture. See ‘Why Activists Fail’.

And to briefly put this issue in the current global context, the vast bulk of the human population, including most of those individuals whom society would regard as ‘highly intelligent’, has been readily terrorized into believing that they are threatened by a pathogenic virus (labeled ‘SARS-CoV-2’) when there is no documented, scientific proof that such an entity as a pathogenic virus even exists – see ‘Dismantling the Virus Theory – The “measles virus” as an example’ and What Really Makes You Ill? Why everything you thought you knew about disease is wrong – and certainly no documented scientific proof that a virus labeled SARS-CoV-2 exists. See ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’ and ‘Statement On Virus Isolation (SOVI)’. And for an account of researcher Christine Massey’s fruitless search over the course of more than a year to find evidence of an isolated virus, via Freedom of Information requests to health/science institutions all over the world, see ‘177 health/science institutions globally all failed to cite even 1 record of “SARS-COV-2” purification, by anyone, anywhere, ever’.

Despite this, the vast bulk of the human population has been terrorized into accepting a series of medical intrusions (including lockdowns, PCR tests, mask-wearing and gene-altering injectables) when, in fact, there is no documented, scientific proof that (assuming there was a ‘pathogenic virus’) lockdowns, PCR tests, mask-wearing or ‘vaccines’ even ‘work’ and/or extensive documentation of their harm. See, for example, ‘And How Are the Children? Lockdowns, Massive Fear, Deaths from Suicides and Drug Abuse’, ‘The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis’, ‘Conclusion Regarding Masks: They Do Not Work’, ‘Masks “don’t work,” are damaging health and are being used to control population: Doctors panel’, ‘The Truth about the Covid-19 Vaccine’, ‘A Final Warning to Humanity’, ‘COVID Shots to “Decimate World Population,” Warns Dr. Bhakdi’ and ‘20 Facts about Vaccination Your Doctor Forgot To Tell You’.

And because the fear generated by the elite-driven ‘virus’/injectable narrative has been so debilitating and thus engendered a high level of obedience by the population at large, it is a rare individual who has investigated both the shortcomings in this narrative and the horrific agenda that this narrative is concealing, let alone identified a powerful strategy to resist it. See ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’.

So, to return to the focus of this article, let me briefly reiterate this vital point: The essence of what human beings call ‘socialization’ is the process by which each child is terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning or their learning capacity is seriously diminished. The multifaceted violence inflicted throughout childhood and adolescence ensures that the adult who emerges is suppressing awareness of an enormous amount of fear, pain, sadness and anger (among many other feelings) and must live in delusion to remain unaware of these suppressed feelings. This ensures that, as part of their delusion, the individual develops a strong sense that what they are doing already is functional and working (no matter how dysfunctional and ineffective it may actually be) while not investigating the existence of evidence that might contradict their delusion and/or unconsciously suppressing awareness of any evidence they come across that does contradict it. They do this because, unconsciously, people learn to identify obedience with ‘functional and working’ (because they do not get punished for being obedient). See ‘Why Violence?’, ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’, ‘Do We Want School or Education?’, ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’ and ‘Human Intelligence or Human Awareness?’

Just one critically important outcome of this terrorization process is that a significant proportion of the human population is effectively insane, and this certainly includes the Global Elite and those primary elite agents on which it relies to generate and maintain wars. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

Another critically important outcome of this terrorization process is that the international conflict resolution architecture – which is essentially a legal framework – does not take emotional factors into account. Hence it is not capable of resolving conflicts in any meaningful way. This is why negotiations often go nowhere, particularly in a timeframe that would avert adverse outcomes. And why ‘agreements’ that are reached are utterly superficial. The fundamental drivers of the conflict – invariably including suppressed terror, self-hatred and anger which are often unconsciously projected at the other party – are never addressed and will continue to manifest as violence in various forms, even if military violence is ended in a particular context. See ‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’.

So if we want a powerfully effective anti-war movement (or peace movement, environmental movement, social justice movement….) then we need Self-aware individuals who can think, plan and act powerfully as part of strategically-oriented organizations to achieve ambitious longer-term goals. Such as ending the institution of war.

Anything less will fail. Again, as the record demonstrates.

So What Can We Do?

Ending war is possible. But it will take a courageous, sophisticated, strategic effort, given how deeply violence is embedded into the human ‘socialization’ process which makes war just one of the many approved violent behaviours in which adults are expected and encouraged to participate, beginning with paying taxes to finance it.

So while it is possible to end war, this won’t be happening any time soon.

And it can’t happen until we commit ourselves to eliminating violence against children so that human society creates adults who are psychologically whole and powerfully able to participate in conflict without resorting to violence to ‘resolve’ it.

Nevertheless, in parallel with efforts to eliminate violence against children, those powerful enough can also participate in a comprehensive strategy to end war as explained on the ‘Nonviolent Strategy’ website, starting with this list of ‘Strategic Goals to End War’. This is extrapolated from a book which explained why a strategy of nonviolent defense, understood and implemented by sufficient committed and organized individuals, is strategically superior to any military strategy. See The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

Or, if you want to participate in a strategy to end a particular war, such as that in Ukraine, particularly given the possibility of it morphing into a longer term insurgency – see ‘Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda’ – you can read how to do so here: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

But, as explained above, precisely because of their socialization experience during childhood, most of those who would identify as ‘anti-war’ are simply too frightened to act powerfully in resisting it. Hence, war will continue until we address its root cause: violence against children.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ . His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy

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By Christian Parenti

Source: The Grayzone

It is hard to destroy your own cause and feel righteous while doing so, yet the American left has done it. After more than two centuries at the vanguard of the struggle for freedom, the American left, broadly defined, executed a volte face and embraced anti-working-class policies marketed as purely technical public health measures.

For two years the left has championed policies of surveillance and exclusion in the form of: punitive vaccine mandates, invasive vaccine passports, socially destructive lockdowns, and radically unaccountable censorship by large media and technology corporations. For the entire pandemic, leftists and liberals – call them the Lockdown Left – cheered on unprecedented levels of repression aimed primarily at the working class – those who could not afford private schools and could not comfortably telecommute from second homes. 

Almost the entire left intelligentsia has remained psychically stuck in March 2020. Its members have applauded the new biosecurity repression and calumniated as liars, grifters, and fascists any and all who dissented. Typically, they did so without even engaging evidence and while shirking public debate. Among the most visible in this has been Noam Chomsky, the self-described anarcho-syndicalist who called for the unvaccinated to “remove themselves from society,” and suggested that they should be allowed to go hungry if they refuse to submit. [1]

In Jacobin, a magazine claiming to support the working class in all its struggles, Branko Marcetic demanded the unvaccinated be barred from public transportation: “one obvious course of action is for Biden to make vaccines a requirement for mass transport.” [2] Journalist Doug Henwood has scolded the unvaccinated with: “Get over your own bloated sense of self-importance.” [3] But Henwood has championed shutting down all of society in the name of safety, while refusing to engage counter-arguments – a combination that suggests a bloated sense of self-importance of his own.

Other left intellectuals, like Benjamin Bratton, author of a Verso book on the pandemic called Return of the Real, are notable for hiding amidst academic blather: “the book’s argument is on behalf [of] a ‘positive biopolitics’ that may form the basis of viable social self-organization, but this is less a statement on behalf of ‘the political’ in some metaphysical sense than on behalf of a governmentality through which an inevitably planetary society can deliberately compose itself.” [4] This is, as the late Alex Cockburn once said, “what dumb people think smart people sound like.”

Even the American Civil Liberties Union – long a bastion of objective thinking and civil liberties absolutism – has supported the mandates, lockdowns, and censorship. David Cole, the group’s legal director, debased himself in the New York Times with a tortured op-ed explaining how everything the ACLU stood for over the last 100 years suddenly did not apply during the season of freakout and overreach. [5] 

When activist left influencers did stray from the official line, it was to occasionally harumph about how school closure would be ok if we just had “free childcare for all.” That argument is so flimsy one wants to respond with: “Yes, and let’s call these new socialist childcare centers: public schools!”  

All of this unmasks the Lockdown Left’s blue-city provincialism. Its adherents drink high-quality coffee and enjoy bike lanes, but have revealed themselves to be as narrow-minded, clannish, mean-spirited and faith-based as any group of small-town “deplorables” might be. If you don’t agree with the consensus in Cambridge, Brooklyn, Bethesda, or Berkeley, then you are very obviously insane. End of story.  For this set, Covid vaccines have become a fetish, a talisman to wave against the specter of “contagion”; while lockdowns and censorship are treated as purely technical, apolitical interventions. Prominent left intellectuals have embraced the weaponization of solidarity and made it into a lifestyle via their obsessive masking, scolding, and hiding. They pretend to care for society while actually applauding deeply anti-social and scientifically ungrounded policies like the indefinite shuttering of schools. 

All of this is contingent upon the status of Lockdown Leftists as relatively privileged laptop workers who can operate from the comfort of home, dependent on anonymous “frontline workers” ferrying food and Amazon packages to their doorstep. Prior to the pandemic quarantines, many left intellectuals already lived as if they were on lockdown. I know this because I am part of that class. 

Never mind that we are in the tightest labor market in 40 years and should be encouraging workers to unite and fight the bosses for better conditions. Instead, most of the left – including some trade unions – has supported measures that divide, distract, and intimidate the working class. It is a tragic and disturbing spectacle.

The socialist left, which wants to use state power to discipline capital has instead accepted the negative image of its goal: state power used to bully, harass, and discipline workers. The left’s embrace of Covid hysteria makes a mockery of the left’s goals of planning, industrial policy, economic redistribution, worker empowerment, and environmental sustainability. This leftwing self-harm will have deleterious consequences for years to come. Indeed, the situation is worse than a mere political fumble. The left is now actively helping its own enemies. In its unwavering support for mandates, passports, punitive lockdowns, and censorship, the organized left has sided with technocratic elites, the one percent, and the repressive state apparatus everywhere. 

Even as politicians climb down from two years of pandemic overreach, the left continues to demand more covid repression and does nothing to oppose punitive vaccine mandates that have driven many thousands of workers out of their jobs – almost 3,000 public workers in NYC alone. For example, my union – the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) representing faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) and run by a self-consciously “left” clique – continues to demand that all CUNY workers submit to vaccination even as the administration had long ago settled into a workable “vax or test” system.

Worse yet, the PSC seems not to realize that its crusade may invite lawsuits that could fatally undermine the ironclad protections of academic tenure. If the union were to prevail against dissident members in court, their victory would, in effect, reduce tenure to merely another form of routinely breakable contract.  University administrators across the country, eager to degrade and casualize academic labor, know this and will be watching with anticipation.  

At John Jay College, where I work, the PSC demands vaccination policies – take the jab or be fired – even as a staggering 44% of the non-teaching staff remained unvaccinated as of late February 2022. [6] And the union remains obtusely fixated on vaccines despite the fact that not even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that vaccines stop or reduce Covid transmission. Director Rochelle Walensky volunteered this fact during an August 5, 2021 interview with Wolf Blitzer. [7] These days, the Lockdown Left still clings to the vaccine myth.

Covid repression portrays itself as apolitical and purely “scientific.” Sadly, most leftists accept this canard. But class war from above is always masked as “merely technical.” Proponents of the War on Drugs never described their open-ended campaign of domestic repression and surveillance as a war on workers and the poor. Likewise, proponents of the War on Terror never described their campaign of forever wars as a permanent assault on the Global South and a war to maintain American hegemony. The left saw through those concoctions. We opposed drug testing not because we were in favor of sharing the road with stoned truck drivers, but rather because we saw the political utility and inherent value in workers having autonomy from coercion by bosses.  Alas, the War on Covid, has (at least temporarily) erased our side’s analytic capacities. For large parts of the left it is still March 2020. 

Arguing reason against Covid hysteria is like attempting to put out a magnesium fire using water. But I will try anyway. 

Theory of the crime

Here is my theory of the crime: a reckless smash and grab operation by Big Pharma, assisted by our totally captured public health agencies, has been allowed to run unchecked, like a cytokine storm of bad policy, because of the unique political dynamics of the 2020 presidential election in which mass Trump Derangement Syndrome short-circuited the critical faculties of almost the entire journalistic class and Democratic Party ecosystem, including the so-called movement left – that milieu of nonprofits, trade unions, pressure groups, and alternative media personalities.

Dating back to the Swine Flu fiasco of 1976, a corrupt symbiosis between industry and the regulators has fueled a dynamic of pandemic-hyping moral panic. [8] In the pre-Trump era these would-be moral panics had limited traction because the critical capacities of journalists and politicians were intact enough to thwart the worst excesses of the pharmaceutical-public health “pandemic industrial complex.” [9] But the fear created by Trump destroyed that capacity for correction. 

While it is the mainstream media and the Democratic Party that drive Covid hysteria and the ensuing biosecurity state of emergency, the activist left bears responsibility for not opposing the repression, and even for cheering it on. It is also worth noting that Republican opposition to the Covid lockdowns was relatively ineffective because a dysfunctional Trump administration was incapable of controlling its own Covid Taskforce, and thus enabled technocratic administrators like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx to hijack White House policy. [10]

Below, I address: agency capture, disease severity, vaccine efficacy, the damage of lockdowns in the Global North and South, freedom as a political goal, and finally how Trump Derangement Syndrome allowed the pandemic industrial complex to run out of control. 

Captured Agencies

Large segments of the left are afflicted with an astounding case of political amnesia. The central fact forgotten is that Big Pharma has thoroughly captured our public health agencies.  

All US Government public health agency budgets are heavily dependent on fee-for-service research work contracted directly by the pharmaceutical industry in exchange for “user fees.” The FDA website, as if mimicking the satirical film Idiocracy (in which the FDA is purchased by a sports drink “Brawndo – the thirst mutilator”) states that, “About 54 percent, or $3.3 billion, of FDA’s budget is provided by federal budget authorization. The remaining 46 percent, or $2.8 billion, is paid for by industry user fees.”11 Meanwhile, the FDA’s drug approval testing program has 75 percent of its budget paid for directly by pharmaceutical companies. [12]  

In addition, government scientists are allowed to own patents derived from the research they do for private corporations. Government scientists can receive royalties of up to $150,000 per patent on top of their salaries. [13] For example, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief Medical Advisor to the President, co-owns six HIV related patents. [14] This sort of direct financial entanglement constitutes a very dangerous conflict of interest. 

Before Covid, the left led the critique of captured agencies, but now even the likes of Chomsky take the official pronouncements at face value; even as those pronouncements change to the point of self-contradiction, as in: Do not wear masks, do wear masks. The vaccines stop the disease, no the vaccines merely blunt its lethal edge. Asked by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman why people should trust large pharmaceutical companies like Moderna and Pfizer, Chomsky waved away the issue with, “If the information came from Pfizer and Moderna, there would be no reason to trust it.” [15] But of course much of the most important information does come directly from these companies. More on that later on.

Severity of the disease

The basic error of mainstream media hype is to conflate the “case fatality rate” (CFR) with the “death rate.” The number of known Covid “cases” is a function of testing; more testing means more cases are found. Thus, the denominator in the CFR depends on political, scientific, and economic choices. Up to 40 percent of Covid cases are totally asymptomatic[16] and another 30 percent have only mild symptoms that can be confused with the common cold.17 Many of these asymptomatic and mild cases do not get recognized as Covid. 

Thus, the real measure of lethality is not the CFR but the “infection fatality rate” or IFR. That ratio must be estimated from large scale, statistically controlled, randomized testing. We now know that the IFR for Covid is basically low for anyone under 70, but it is rather high for those over 70. A total of 75 percent of Covid deaths have occurred among people over age 65; and 51 percent of the deaths occurred among people over age 75. [18] In early 2021, The Bulletin of the World Health Organization published a Stanford-based epidemiologist’s overview study of 64 studies that used randomized serology sampling for antibodies; it found an infection fatality rate ranging from 0.00% to 1.54%. This study, found that, “In people younger than 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31%…” 

Among those over age 85, (the average US life expectancy is about 78 years) the infection fatality rate was very high. [19] One study considered by the author found an IFR of 15% among over 85-year-olds, but most of the studies found much lower rates and thus the mean average was lower. [20] Translation: the young have very little to fear from this disease, while the very old face very real risks. Policy should have reflected these facts, but it has not.

The author of that study, John Ioannidis, MD, MPH, Physician and Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Stanford University, has been attacked and censored simply for doing antibody research that suggested an IFR lower than that assumed in most headlines.  As Politico explained: “YouTube has been especially aggressive about pulling down speech that questions various coronavirus prevention measures. For instance, the company took down a March 2020 interview with John Ioannidis — a Stanford physician long known for skewering bad science — in which he questioned the quality of the data about COVID-19 death rates and called for more targeted responses to the pandemic.” [21]

The real IFR demonstrated by Ioannidis suggest that the approach called “focused protection” put forward in the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – a statement drafted by several prominent epidemiologists that promoted an alternative strategy which sought to protect the most vulnerable, for example the elderly with pre-existing health problems, while minimizing the social harm of overly broad lockdowns – would have been the most effective public health strategy. But the left, like the liberal mainstream, immediately attacked “focused protection” not on the merits of the argument but with guilt by association – because the GBD was associated with a libertarian think tank. [22] 

The real IFR was becoming apparent by March of 2020 and it offered an opportunity for a policy course correction. [23] But the pandemic was already hostage to the party politics of an extraordinarily weird election struggle.

Inflated Death Count?

The Western left justifies its embrace of mandates, lockdowns, and censorship by invoking the dead. The US has the highest reported death rate per hundred thousand of any developed economy. [24] As a friend protested “but, the deaths are real!” Indeed, but how many are actually due to Covid? 

The CDC reports that less than 6 percent of Covid deaths had COVID-19 as “the only cause mentioned on the death certificate.” The other 94 percent of deaths occurred “with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19” and, on average, had “4.0 additional conditions or causes per death.”[25] The death of 84-year-old Colin Powell, who was afflicted with multiple myeloma and Parkinson’s, but whose death was reported as “from” Covid, comes to mind. 

It is worth noting that the Covid death count in the US is the highest in the developed world. As the New York Times put it, the “American death toll has set the country apart — and by wider margins than has been broadly recognized.” In fact, the US death toll from the coronavirus “is at least 63 percent higher than in any… other large, wealthy nations.” [26]

In other words, many of these US deaths were people who died with Covid, not of Covid. Any inflation of Covid severity helped stoke the public’s fear. Exactly what portion of the nominal Covid dead are misclassified? I would not venture to say. But during the Omicron wave of 2022 even Rochelle Walensky and a reluctant Anthony Fauci acknowledged that many people who were in hospital and Covid positive were not in the hospital for Covid but with Covid. [27]

Despite the definitive nature of death (you’re either dead or you’re not) its causes are not always so clear. The pathways to mortality from disease are often multiple, overlapping, vague, and open to interpretation. As one coroner told me: “In many deaths from diseases, where you have multiple comorbidities, ten different coroners or physicians could possibly give you 10 different versions of the ‘immediate’ and ‘due to’ causes of death.” [28]

There is a sizable academic literature on the difficulties of determining cause of mortality and the problem of death certificate accuracy. For over a century the problem has remained the same: physicians do not always agree on the cause of death. Papers exploring this topic often attempt to, you might say, “fact check” death certificates. Typically, the methodology involves a panel of physicians reviewing autopsy findings and sometimes the medical charts of deceased patients and from that determining a cause of death. The panel’s findings are then compared to the already existing death certificates. The rate of agreement between the two interpretations is viewed as a measure of accuracy or inaccuracy of the initial determination of cause of death. Very often agreement is as low as 50 percent.[29]  

One study from 2016 published in the Journal of Epidemiology found “the concordance rate was relatively high for cancer (81%) but low for heart disease (55%) and pneumonia (9%). The overall concordance rate was 48%.” [30] In other words, determining cause of death is as yet still an interpretive art as much as it is a cut-and-dry empirical science. [31]

A chaotic jumble of interacting but uncoordinated government policy and messaging – coming from the White House, federal agencies, Congress, and state governors – have driven an over-classification of deaths as being Covid caused. Directives from the public health establishment compelled state governors to halt elective medical procedures, this created a financial crisis for hospitals. [32] Then, Congress responding to that crisis offered an economic lifeline to healthcare providers in the form of generous economic subsidies and bonus payments for any case that could be classified as Covid.  

The timeline runs as follows: 

On March 1, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an “Interim Guidance for Healthcare Facilities: Preparing for Community Transmission of COVID-19 in the United States,” which recommended that “inpatient facilities reschedule elective surgeries as necessary and shift elective urgent inpatient diagnostic and surgical procedures to outpatient settings.” [33] With this guidance, governors using their state level emergency powers began ordering the suspension of elective procedures.

Then, on March 18, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced “that all elective surgeries, non-essential medical, surgical, and dental procedures be delayed during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.” Furthermore, CMS recommended that “healthcare providers should encourage patients to remain home, unless there is an emergency.” [34] During early March, almost every governor declared a state of emergency. This meant closing schools, daycares, parks and beaches; mandatory masking; restrictions on out of state travel; restrictions on private gatherings; mandatory 14-day quarantines; full or partial closure of restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues; stay at home or shelter in place orders, and suspension of all elective medical procedures. [35] Thus screening for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers dropped by 80 percent to 90 percent during March and April of 2020 compared to the same months in 2019.[ 36] According to one industry analyst, the average hospital lost 40 to 45 percent of their normal operating income. [37]  

By the end of April 2020, as a result of these policies, a staggering 1.4 million American healthcare workers had lost their jobs. [38]   

The economic crisis ravaging the healthcare system would have been much worse if not for passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on March 27, 2020. Among other things, CARES set aside $100 billion for the Provider Relief Fund (PRF), a program designed to support ailing healthcare providers. [39] Money from other bills brought the PRF’s total funding to $178 billion. [40] 

Very importantly, the PRF pays 120 percent of costs for any Medicare, Medicaid, or uninsured patients classified as COVID-19 cases. [41] Given the disproportionately older age of those most at risk from Covid, this top-up subsidy covered a large proportion of the cases treated. [42] 

At first, this federal Covid money was awarded only for cases confirmed by laboratory-analyzed tests.  But CDC guidelines published April 1, 2020, explained that “‘confirmation’ does not require documentation of the type of test performed; the provider’s documentation that the individual has COVID-19 is sufficient.” [43] 

The Provider Relief Fund’s FAQ page explains how the money is available “for individuals with possible or actual cases of COVID-19. HHS broadly views every patient as a possible case of COVID-19.” And 35 pages later the same document explains that: “A presumptive case of COVID-19 is a case where a patient’s medical record documentation supports a diagnosis of COVID-19, even if the patient does not have a positive in vitro diagnostic test result in his or her medical record.” [44] As then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar explained: “Our goal… is to get the money from the Provider Relief Fund out the door as quickly as possible… We will continue using every regulatory and payment flexibility we have to help providers continue doing their vital work.” [45]

On April 13, 2020, the CDC updated its website to say explicitly that “cases where the infection was not confirmed by a test may now be counted.” [46] The CDC page from April 14, 2020, explained that its death counts “include both confirmed and presumptive positive cases…” [47] As the Washington Post reported, “when New York City authorities began reporting the deaths of people who were suspected of having covid-19 but never tested…” the city’s “tally soared past 10,000 as the change added more than 3,700 fatalities.” [48]

Thus, by April CDC guidance and the Provider Relief Fund’s rules allowed financial coverage for cases that were not tested but were merely diagnosed or even “presumed” to be Covid.

FEMA even offers financial assistance for Covid-related funeral arrangements. To qualify the death certificate must “attribute the death directly or indirectly to COVID-19” or “be accompanied by a signed statement from the original certifier of the death certificate or the local medical examiner or coroner from the jurisdiction in which the death occurred listing COVID-19 as a cause or contributing cause of death.” For deaths occurring “on or after May 17, 2020, the death certificate must attribute the death directly or indirectly to COVID-19.” The FAQ section of the same webpage says “you may receive at a maximum of $9,000 per deceased individual.” [49]

In other words, the government forced an economic crisis upon the healthcare system with one hand, while simultaneously offering an economic lifeline, in the form of Covid specific reimbursement, with the other. [50] 

I am not charging conspiracy or mass fraud, although there have been a number of indictments. [51] Rather, I am suggesting that the policies described above – arrived at in an uncoordinated and ad hoc fashion by different branches of government during a confusing moment of emergency – created significant economic and bureaucratic incentives for medical examiners and coroners to be expansive in their interpretation of which deaths qualify as Covid deaths. 

Lockdowns Also Kill

Death, or “all-cause mortality” increased during the pandemic but not all of it was caused by Covid. This fact is often overlooked. A study out of the UK published in January 2022, found that non-Covid deaths due to delayed medical care quadrupled during the Covid pandemic. [52] This sort of dangerous unintended consequence from lockdown was predicted during the pandemic’s first year. A study published in late 2020 estimated that over-zealous Covid restrictions would lead to 18,000 extra cancer deaths in the UK that year. [53] 

Most left intellectuals however, following in lockstep with the Democrats, refused to acknowledge that lockdowns also kill. They could not do so for a very simple reason: Trump had done it first, when he called for the economy to reopen. “Permanent lockdown is not a viable path forward…Ultimately [it would] inflict more harm than it would prevent,” Trump said during an April 3, 2020 White House briefing. “Lockdowns do not prevent infection in the future. They just don’t. It comes back many times, it comes back,” Trump said. [54] 

Trump’s concerns about the risks of lockdown were immediately excoriated and mocked in the press. But we now know he was right – lockdowns also kill. The pandemic has seen record surges in fatal drug overdoses and homicide. The CDC found a 28 percent increase in drug overdose deaths from April 2020 to April 2021. [55] While the homicide rate increased by 30 percent. [56] Bizarrely, traffic deaths went up by 7 percent in 2020, even as the total number of miles driven declined by 13 percent. [57]

Early on, the New York Times briefly acknowledged the health risks from lockdowns. An op-ed by two physicians turned healthcare executives noted that: “The toll from deaths caused by lockdown related impacts may have killed as many as the disease.” As the authors explained: “Government orders to shelter in place and health care leaders’ decisions to defer nonessential care successfully prevented the spread of the virus. But these policies — complicated by the loss of employer-provided health insurance as people lost their jobs — have had the unintended effect of delaying care for some of our sickest patients.” [58] The authors reported, “sizable decreases in new cancer diagnoses (45 percent) and reports of heart attacks (38 percent) and strokes (30 percent). Visits to hospital emergency departments are down by as much as 40 percent, but measures of how sick emergency department patients are have risen by 20 percent, according to a Mayo Clinic study, suggesting how harmful the delay [in receiving healthcare] can be.

Meanwhile, non-Covid-19 out-of-hospital deaths have increased, while in-hospital mortality has declined…. In the case of cancer alone, our calculations show we can expect a quarter of a million additional preventable deaths annually if normal care does not resume. Outcomes will be similar for those who forgo treatment for heart attacks and strokes.” [59] Unfortunately, this argument seemed to have no impact on policymakers when it counted, nor on the organized left today, which still ignores copious evidence that lockdowns had wreaked massive destruction on the most vulnerable. [60]

Vaccine efficacy and adverse effects

The organized left still endorses a vaccine centric policy with religious fervor. Some of its members do so still assuming that vaccines prevent Covid transmission and can thus end the pandemic. They thus follow the discredited pronouncements of Anthony Fauci, who explained in the early months of the vaccine roll out, for those vaccinated “the risk is extremely low of getting infected, of getting sick, or of transmitting it to anybody else, full stop.” [61] This was about when progressives started purchasing votive candles bearing Fauci’s likeness.

In reality, these are very “leaky” “non-sterilizing” vaccines; they do not block transmission. [62] Furthermore, as CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted in an August 6th 2021 interview with Wolf Blitzer the vaccines do not stop or reduce transmission. [63] Thus, we cannot vaccinate our way out of this crisis. 

The vaccines do however lower the probability of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, but if overused, they might not even do that. And it should be noted that, as of this publication, the CDC still refuses to release – as a February 20th 2022 New York Times headline put it – “Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects” on hospitalization rate by vaccination status for fear the data could be misinterpreted. Leaving that aside, because the vaccines do not function perfectly and are not without risks, the logic of their use differs according to one’s demographic profile. Thus, when my mother who is in her mid-80s got the vaccine, I felt a sense of relief. But when younger women in my extended family did not want the vaccine because its effects on the menstrual cycle had not been studied, that also made perfect sense. [64] In the eyes of the panicked and stampeding herd that is the left-wing consensus, this would make me an anti-vaxxer. Amidst this pandemic it has become clear that the left is not only incapable of intellectual nuance, it is openly hostile to it and rallies vigilante-style to stamp it out.

After pitching the mRNA vaccine as capable of stopping the Covid-19 virus in its tracks, by November 2020 pundits had already started talking up the need for boosters.[65] Most studies indicate that vaccine efficacy against Covid, as measured by antibody levels in the blood, drops by about 50% within six months. The Lancet found “vaccine effectiveness against infections of the delta variant… declined to 53%… after 4 months.” [66] An Israeli study from July 2021 found that the Pfizer vaccine dropped to a mere 39% efficacy within six months. [67] Now Israel is demanding boosters at three months;[68] and exploring a fourth booster even as some government science advisors warn “that the plan could backfire, because too many shots might cause a sort of immune system fatigue, compromising the body’s ability to fight the coronavirus.” [69] European Union regulators have also warned that “frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response.” [70]

The left, however, has categorically dismissed skepticism about vaccine safety and in so doing alienated people who held valid concerns, or who experienced real and debilitating injuries as a result of the Covid shot. That includes large elements of the working class – that class the left purports to champion. Even if the vaccines do not cause injuries or adverse effects most cases, they – like almost any medical intervention, even aspirin [71] – can also involve some risk. Thus, four Scandinavian countries have prohibited use of the Moderna shot for men under the age of 25 because the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis is higher from the vaccine than from the disease. [72] The growing list of warnings about blood clots, menstrual disruption, heart problems, that accompany the vaccines show that even when helpful, the vaccines can involve risks. [73]

For most of the vaccination campaign these vaccines had not undergone the typical process of review before hitting the market. Instead, they have had “emergency use authorization” under authority of the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA). This law gives the manufacturers total legal protection against liability for any harm their vaccines might cause. [74] 

Though you would never learn it from most press outlets, one of the main stumbling blocks to providing the Global South with vaccines is that pharmaceutical companies have insisted on total protection from vaccine related lawsuits. As The Financial Times explained: “Before deals could be agreed, Pfizer demanded countries change national laws to protect vaccine makers from lawsuits, which many western jurisdictions already had. From Lebanon to the Philippines, national governments changed laws to guarantee their supply of vaccines.” In South Africa Pfizer insisted “on indemnity against civil claims and required the government to provide finance for an indemnity fund.” [75]  

Why have left-wing pundits not noted this? Because it suggests that there is a genuine cost-benefit analysis involved in the use of vaccines. It suggests that vaccines involve risks even as they provide benefits. Alas, that sort of intellectual nuance is beyond the capacity of progressive Pfizer fetishists. 

Until 2022, only Pfizer’s “legally distinct” and rarely available Comirnaty vaccine was not covered by PREPA invoked Emergency Use Authorization indemnification. In February Moderna’s Spikevax was also approved, and it is also “legally distinct” from Moderna’s more available, legally indemnified, EUA vaccine.   

Comirnaty went through a secrecy-shrouded, expedited approval process in which a test group of 22,000 people got the vaccine and 22,000 people in the control group received a placebo. Pfizer refuses to release the raw data from the study, though the company did publish a 90-page report on it, while the FDA published a few other tables and comments. 

Unable to access the approval data, a group of more than 30 professors and scientists “from universities including Yale, Harvard, UCLA and Brown” sued the federal government to force it to share its licensing data for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. In response, the FDA requested a delay of 55 years. [76] The Plaintiffs suggested 108-days to process the document release— the amount of time it took the FDA to review the same documents “for the far more intricate task of licensing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.” [77] When a Judge ordered the FDA to accelerate its release of the documents, Pfizer entered the lawsuit arguing that it wanted to help the FDA avoid releasing “confidential business and trade secret information of Pfizer, such as its proprietary manufacturing processes.” [78] 

Professor Peter Doshi, a senior editor at the BMJ (formally known as the British Medical Journal) and an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland, has analyzed all available data from the Pfizer approval study. Doshi concludes that “on preventing death from Covid-19, there are too few data to draw conclusions— a total of three Covid-19 related deaths (one on vaccine, two on placebo). There were 29 total deaths during blinded follow-up (15 in the vaccine arm; 14 in placebo).” [79] Note that the trial group had a slightly higher overall mortality rate than the placebo group.

These very small numbers become more concerning when we learn of, as Doshi put it, “an unexplained detail found in a table of FDA’s review of Pfizer’s vaccine: 371 individuals excluded from the efficacy analysis for ‘important protocol deviations on or prior to 7 days after Dose 2.’ What is concerning is the imbalance between randomized groups in the number of these excluded individuals: 311 from the vaccine group vs 60 on placebo.” [80]

Most outrageous of all, Doshi found that in gross violation of normal protocol after about two months, Pfizer unblinded its study. “Pfizer allowed all trial participants to be formally unblinded, and placebo recipients to get vaccinated.” [81] The trial started on July 27, 2020, and by November 13, 2020 the vast majority of the placebo arm of the study had received the experimental vaccine. [82] It would seem that the real blinded trial lasted at most about two months. 

Pfizer still refuses to release the raw data. In the meantime, the US government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) – a global surveillance system mandated by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, a law that also indemnifies pharmaceutical companies against all legal liability for the children’s vaccines they produce – captures only a tiny fraction of documented adverse events from vaccination, yet it has reported over 20,000 deaths from COVID-19 vaccinations. [83] Keep in mind, some 5 billion vaccine shots have been administered globally.

To be fair, these are just reports, only a fraction of them have been investigated, and the population with the highest rate of vaccine uptake skews towards older people. So discount the VAERS data as you see fit. But a 2010 government-commissioned study on the effectiveness of VAERS at capturing adverse events found the following: 

“Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.” [84] 

The point is that VAERS, despite its limits, sends signals that are deserving of further investigation rather than immediate and pejorative dismissal.

If the idea of a viral infection being hyped and exaggerated by profiteering pharmaceutical corporations and captured government agencies seems far-fetched, consider the story of the 1976 Swine Flu. Fully 20 percent of the US public including President Ford had been vaccinated before it became clear that the Swine Flu was actually not very dangerous. 

In fact, as Mike Wallace reported in a devastating 60 Minutes report, the Swine Flu virus (H1NI) might not have killed anyone at all. [85] Midway through the vaccination campaign it became clear that the vaccine was causing the paralyzing autoimmune disease Guillain-Barre Syndrome. An estimated 300 may have died from it, about 450 others were confirmed as having acquired Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and about 4,000 people sued the government for swine flu vaccine related injury. The vaccination campaign was stopped and the vaccine was pulled from the market. [86] Similarly, in 2015, the first dengue vaccine was deployed in the Philippines and pulled about two years later when it was found to be dangerous and ineffective.[87]

As for the common lefty concern about long term effects from Covid, it does seem to happen. The first time I had Covid, the fatigue and brain fog lasted for months. That said, any speculation about the long-term effects of the disease can also be leveled against the vaccines. The truth is: we know very little about the long-term effects of either the disease or the vaccines.

The Liberty Issue

The left has turned its back on liberty. Worse yet, the left now campaigns against freedom. ACLU luminaries editorialize for de facto forced vaccination and vaccine passports. This has devastating social, political, and economic consequences; and the left’s failure to acknowledge and understand this will haunt it for years after the pandemic.

The left invokes “the greater good” to justify support for vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, lockdowns, and censorship; in so doing the left supports undemocratic rule by unaccountable bureaucrats. During the Covid crisis, there have been no lockdown and mandate related periods of public comment, no environmental impact reports, thus there has been no public scientific debate about disease severity, vaccine efficacy, and the unintended consequences of mandates and lockdowns.

Left forces, broadly defined, have for our national history fought for personal liberties while elites have opposed such freedoms. The Bill of Rights itself is a concession to the people. The only way the framers could compel the states to ratify the new US Constitution was to agree that ten amendments protecting personal liberty and autonomy (the Bill of Rights) would be passed into law upon ratification. [89]  

Recall all the struggles: Abolitionists vs. slavery, the Slave Power, and the gag rule. The Industrial Workers of the World’s multi-year, nationwide campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience in defense of free speech. The now pathetically debased, pro-mandate and pro-lockdown ACLU was born of resistance to the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918. 

The left was always at the vanguard in the struggle for civil liberties. When First Amendment rights were finally affirmed as applying to the states in Gitlow v. People of New York, (1925) the hero was Benjamin Gitlow, convicted of “criminal anarchy” for distributing his “Leftwing Manifesto.” In 1931, when the Supreme Court finally extended speech rights to nonverbal symbols like flags, the hero of Stromberg v. California was a nineteen-year-old communist named Yetta Stromberg who had violated California’s “red flag law” which banned display of the red flag for being “an emblem of opposition to the United States Government.” [90]  

Roe v Wade is part of this history. Even if the woman at the heart of that case became a conservative, her right to bodily autonomy and privacy were championed by the left. Today the left mostly seeks to strip away those same rights as broadly applied to those who oppose vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, lockdowns, and censorship. 

During the coordinated attack on Joe Rogan, for example, Spotify announced that it had removed more than 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. [91] And the left mostly applauded or stayed silent. Its justification of this sort of top-down intellectual control involved all manner of ugly semantic backflips. Roxane Gay, the New York Times’ resident liberal culture warrior, described Spotify’s censorship of Covid content as mere “curation.” [92]  

Numerous radical friends of mine have sought to disabuse me of what they see as my excessive concern for free speech. They explain to me how censoring Joe Rogan is not really censorship. Rather, it is “an interesting case” because, as the typical dissembling goes, it was not the government doing the censoring.  

To such nonsense I protest, regardless what word or phrase you use to describe a major corporation undemocratically limiting the population’s access to information, the action itself is still wrong.  

You can call corporate censorship “content polishing” or “informational cleansing” or “message smoothing” or “ideological right-sizing” or “happiness making curation for social harmony,” but the PR-style language will not alter the reality. The action still constitutes oppressive, top-down, ideological control. When corporations limit people’s ability to communicate with each other about political issues – as is performed routinely by social media companies when they remove and prevent the sharing of content [93] – capital is repressing labor, capital is ruling undemocratically, capital is dominating the intellectual battleground, and you as a worker and citizen are getting shafted. 

As for the left’s embrace of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the 1905 case that upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination, they forget that ruling was precedent for other terrible laws that followed. Most notoriously the legalization of forced sterilization in Buck v Bell 1927 in which Justice Holmes wrote: “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  

As regards the specific vaccine-related punitive elements of Jacobson, that 1905 law is actually mild compared to current Covid mandates. Under it, those who declined the vaccine were fined $5 (about $150 in current prices). They were not forced out of their jobs, removed from school, or banned from public accommodations like baseball diamonds and museums. [94]

Consider what Covid hysteria has done to the left: The years 2018 and 2019 saw working-class protest reach recent heights. Across the globe workers, students, and the poor took to the streets in opposition to policies of austerity and repression that impacted both the realm of production and reproduction. With good reason, 2019 called “the year of the protest.” [95]

Even in the US, after decades of decline, we were seeing an uptick in class struggle. The wildcat teachers’ strikes of 2018 seemed to herald the return of grassroots labor radicalism. In 2019 there were “25 major work stoppages involving 425,500 workers, the highest number since 2001.” [96]

But Covid lockdowns stopped most of that. Now some unions – a minority of them it should be said – are even collaborating with bosses to force workers to get vaccines or be fired. [97] 

It is the same across most OECD states. [98] For the autumn of 2021 and early winter of 2022, Austria put the unvaccinated under a form of soft house arrest: they were allowed out of their homes only to work and shop. In Australia, by late 2021, about 3,000 people –many of whom tested negative for Covid – had been forced into quarantine camps for two weeks at a time if they were in contact with a person who tested positive. 

The largest of these detention centers, with a capacity of 2,000, is at Howard Springs outside Darwin. When three aboriginal teens, all Covid negative, jumped the fence in late November 2021, the police manhunt that followed involved checkpoints, traffic stops, vehicle searches, and aerial surveillance. [99]

For a sickening interview with a different, Covid negative, former prisoner of the Howard Springs Camp follow the link at this footnote: [100] 

Covid Repression in the Global South

In the Global South the biosecurity justified lockdowns were far more socially crippling than those imposed in Europe or the US. As Amnesty International’s Report 2020/21 explains, “many governments imposed blanket bans on demonstrations or used unlawful force, particularly in Africa and the Americas.” [101] 

The poorest of the poor were hurt the most. “Lockdowns and curfews led to particularly high numbers of workers in the informal economy losing their incomes without recourse to adequate social protection.” Women and girls, who are over represented in that sector, “were disproportionately affected.” [102]

The Report’s Africa regional overview explains that: “Governments used excessive force to enforce COVID-19 regulations and to break up protests…. Governments took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to intensify restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. In almost every country monitored, states of emergency were imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19. However, these measures were frequently used to violate human rights, including by security forces using excessive force.” [103]

One of the most draconian lockdowns in the Americas took place in the Dominican Republic, where police detained an estimated 85,000 people between March 20 and June 30 of 2020, “for alleged non-compliance with the evening curfew imposed in response to the pandemic.” Guatemala’s lockdown was also brutal, “more than 40,000 people” were jailed for lockdown and quarantine violations, “including people working in the informal economy.”[104]

Across Latin America authorities detained “tens of thousands of people in state-run quarantine centers,” which Amnesty notes “often fell well short of minimum sanitary and physical distancing standards.” In El Salvador, more than 2,000 people were detained in quarantine camps and “some were held for up to 40 days.” In Paraguay, 8,000 people were still in mandatory quarantine sites as of late June 2021.[105] 

Amnesty’s Asia roundup reveals more of the same. “To prevent the further spread of COVID-19, various degrees of lockdown and other limitations on movement were put in place by governments. Public assemblies were often not allowed, greatly restricting protests demanding political reforms… Many governments also further responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by adopting or weaponizing repressive national security or counter-terrorism laws.” [106]

In the Middle East it was similar: “Protest movements in Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon continued to organize in the first few months of the year until the spread of COVID-19 led to their suspension. Peaceful protesters faced arrest, beatings and, at times, prosecution for participating in demonstrations. In Iraq, federal security forces arrested thousands of protesters in the first few months of the year.”[107]

In Jordan, organized labor took the brunt of the Covid justified assault: “a protracted dispute between the government and the teachers’ union was exacerbated by the government’s decision to freeze public sector pay until the end of 2020 due to COVID-19.” When this was met by renewed protest, “Jordanian police raided 13 union branches, arrested dozens of union and board members and a court ordered the union’s dissolution.” [108] The Lockdown Left, busy decrying the unvaxxed, paid very little attention to the Covid overreaction in the Global South. 

Economic Whiplash in the Global South

More deadly than local Global South lockdowns have been the indirect economic impact of Global North lockdowns upon Global South economies. And this crime has also been ignored by most of the Western left. The long history of global capitalism with its history of imperialism means that the world economy is divided into a “core” of wealthy economies and a “periphery” of poor economies that are largely dependent on cheaply exported raw materials, and some low-value added manufactured goods. When the wealthy core economies imposed lockdowns and quarantine measures, international trade contracted and developing economies suffered economic whiplash as their earnings from exports and tourism suddenly collapsed. 

After a decade of a moderately improved debt situation during which developing economies received more in aid and loans then they paid to creditors, 2020 saw a sudden reversal; developing countries paid Northern creditors a net transfer of $194 billion in 2020. [109] In at least 62 countries, during 2020, external public debt servicing consumed a higher proportion of public spending than did healthcare. “Furthermore, external public debt service was larger than education expenditure in at least 36 countries in 2020.” [110]

In 2020, a study in the Lancet estimated that the economic contraction caused by Covid lockdowns would force an additional 140 million people into extreme poverty (less than $1·90 per day); and that “acute food insecurity” would “nearly double to 265 million by the end of 2020.” The Lancet study estimated that this economic suffering would kill, by way of hunger, an additional 128,605 children under the age of five just in the year 2020. [111]

And where was the Northern left, the purported champions of “the most vulnerable among us” during all this?  Usually found applauding unscientific and oppressive lockdowns, mandates, passports, and censorship, and every manner of pointless sanitation theater. When The Grayzone dared offer a bit of critical coverage on the economic crisis that the Global North overreaction to Covid-19 was causing in the Global South, many professional leftists among the online blabber-sphere melted down into an incandescent rage. 

Covid as Trump Derangement Syndrome

The pharmaceutical industry and its friends at the CDC, National Institute of Health (NIH), and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have, since the Swine Flu fiasco of 1976, tried to hype every potential pandemic. This one was sucked up into the political tornado of a very unusual presidential election of 2020, and quickly spun out of control. In the process, the US Left lost its mind.

The Democrats embraced Covid as a political strategy to beat Trump, and it worked. But then they could not let go. Towed along in this overreaction was the Lockdown Left, with each new wave of infection outdoing its own previous levels of vehemence and militancy against alleged anti-vaxxers and official “misinformation.” 

When in Spring of 2020 evidence emerged showing that Covid was not as severe as first assumed, the mainstream press was too united against Trump to allow a rethink based on new facts. New York City had erected five field hospitals, New York State had spent $1.1 billion on ventilators and other Covid gear [112] and the badgering Governor Cuomo had compelled the Trump administration to send the one-thousand-bed military hospital ship, Comfort, to New York Harbor. [113] But this was not the moment for a recalibration based on new evidence. Trump was finally on the ropes.  

The timeline is worth recounting: On January 31, 2020 – one day after the WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a month before New York City recorded its first case, a week before the US saw its earliest known death from the virus – President Donald Trump announced travel restrictions from China to the US and soon added several other countries to the list. 

The immediate reaction from the mainstream and liberal press was total hostility. The New York Times called the travel bans racist. [114] The Guardian, in an article that was actually full of qualified endorsements of the travel restrictions, framed the question of lockdown with worries that the move “could be an overreaction that causes unnecessary fear and weakens the global response” and “waste limited resources on potentially ineffective tactics, needlessly limit civil liberties and even cause more harm than good.” [115]

On March 1, 2020, New York City recorded its first Covid -19 case. Nine days later, Mayor Bill DeBlasio was still downplaying the risk, telling MSNBC: “If you’re under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu. And transmission is not that easy.” [116]  

But five days later, as Covid cases soared and governor Cuomo leaned into the fear, DeBlasio, scrambling to catch up, closed the city’s public schools. Soon thereafter the virus was rampaging out of control; so too was the damage of lockdown as the largest public school system in the country shut its doors. 

By late March 2020, the US was logging more than 20,000 new confirmed cases every day. New York was the epicenter due to its density, connections to Europe, and bad management by Cuomo who sent sick people back to nursing homes.  Newspapers were filled with heartbreaking stories of patients dying in medical isolation. 

Then on March 24, 2020, as infection rates of the first wave were peaking and lockdowns had shuttered much of the economy, Trump, who had started the lockdowns with his “China travel ban,” announced that he now wanted the economy to “open by Easter.” [117] 

As Trump put it: “I don’t want the cure to be worse than the problem itself — the problem being, obviously, the problem.  And you know, you can destroy a country this way, by closing it down…  And then we’re supposed to pay people not to go to work.  We never had that.” [118]

The media erupted in expectorations of total disbelief and outrage.

The White House Covid-19 Task Force headed by Anthony Fauci and Ambassador Debora Birx set the tone by stoking fear. According to Dr. Scott Atlas who was part of the task force during spring 2020, the team around Trump, particularly Jared Kushner, got spooked by the press coverage and could not bring themselves to disband or restructure the Covid Task Force. All Trump could manage was some of his own counter messaging about the need to end lockdowns. [119] But the lockdowns were all being imposed by state governors, and they were listening to Fauci, Brix, and the media.

Two weeks after Trump’s call to re-open the economy, protests echoing his message began. The first were on Thursday April 9, in Casper, Wyoming, and Columbus, Ohio. On April 14 anti-lockdown protesters gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina. On April 15, a much larger armed protest – organized by the Devos family financed Michigan Freedom Fund and the Michigan Conservative Coalition – mobbed the Michigan Capitol and targeted Governor Gretchen Whitmer in particularly disgusting and alarming ways.  Two days later, Trump urged his Twitter followers to “LIBERATE” three states led by Democratic governors, including Michigan. That afternoon, Washington Governor Jay Inslee tweeted back, accusing Trump of “fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies.” [120]  

At the exact same time, New York State was closing its five field hospitals because they had been almost totally unused. This rather remarkable fact was largely ignored by the media for fear that discussing the large-scale public policy miscalculation of a star Democratic Governor and potentially presidential candidate, would have played into Trump’s hands. [121]

On April 30, a smaller but more heavily armed protest, organized by Michigan United for Liberty, went to the Michigan Capitol building again.  This time, many protesters carried automatic rifles. Their chants and signs compared Governor Whitmer to Adolf Hitler. Rep Rashida Talib tweeted out shock and disgust. A day later Trump tweeted: “The governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire.” Adding that, “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.” [122] 

According to one overview, at least 32 states saw anti-lockdown rallies during the spring of 2020. [123]  

Thus, by late April, the Republicans and their right-wing base were aggressively “owning” the idea of re-opening while alarmed Democrats and the left were, without having publicly vetted the policy or even clearly decided on the political direction, defensively “owning” the lockdowns.  The story of the virus was now totally and hopelessly politicized – never mind that many Republican governors were running robust lockdowns. 

California, Virginia, and the political course correction

Indeed, as political medicine the Covid crisis worked: Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic helped get him out of office. But then the Democrats and liberal journalists got stuck in an ever more hysterical overreaction to Covid.  There seemed to be no off switch. Even when overly aggressive lockdowns in California triggered a recall election, Governor Gavin Newsom’s victory caused the politicians, pundits, and consultants to double down on Covid hysteria. Asked what his win meant for Democrats nationally, Newsom said, “We need to stiffen our spines and lean in to keeping people safe and healthy. That we shouldn’t be timid in trying to protect people’s lives and mitigate the spread and transmission of this disease. That it’s the right thing to do, but it’s also a motivating factor in this election.” [124]  

Then came the November 2021 debacle of the Virginia governor’s race, where a heavily-funded corporate Democrat was defeated by a Republican in a blue-trending state. The same almost happened in solid blue New Jersey. Mainstream press tended to describe the 20-point swing to Republicans in Virginia as the result of racist whites afraid of critical race theory in the schools. Indeed, education was a top issue, [125] but the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s closing argument, an opinion essay for Fox News, revealed one of the most salient education issues: “Virginia’s excessive and extended school closures ravaged student advancement and well-being.” [126]  

Across the country, the autumn of 2021 saw a rising, right-wing supported, grassroots movement against school boards; 215 school board members across the country faced recall elections – 400 percent more than in a typical year. In many, if not most, of these recall races Covid restrictions were the main issue. [127]

By New Year’s 2022 it seemed that the Biden administration had realized the political danger of the left-liberal Covid fixation. Rochelle Walensky of the CDC suggested cutting quarantine times in half and publicly noted that deaths and hospitalizations were low relative to the increase in case numbers. Biden also told the world that there was “no federal solution” to the Covid crisis. But some key teachers’ union locals were still pushing for school closures. [128] 

During his State of the Union address Biden signaled it was time to unmask. Yet repressive mandates that were responsible for firing of tens of thousands of people – almost 3,000 public workers in New York City alone – remain in place as does left support for these repressive measures. Covid will never end, the disease is endemic and the repressive reaction to it can be turned on again when needed. But the left needs to abandon its embrace of repression in the name of Covid.

The public health response to Covid and the left’s inability to offer a critique of it have been catastrophic. Left refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the populist critique of mandates, passports, lockdowns, and censorship is alienating large swathes of the working class. Vaccination rates are not the same as approval rates for mandates. Many people get the shots only because their jobs and thus physical wellbeing are threatened. 

The Lockdown Left, being mostly members of the Professional Managerial Class generally has no idea about such things. Its members enjoyed the lockdown – telecommuting from their second homes, spending more time with the kids, getting into homemade meals. One friend praised lockdown’s new “life-work balance” and described convivial socially-distanced outdoor cocktail hours with neighbors on their sundrenched side street in Berkeley. Lost in its own foggy war against the deplorables, Lockdown Leftists are confused. They think that because they trust Fauci, most everyone else does too.  

Many working-class people have taken vaccines under duress, carry their vaccine papers because they must, and deeply resent the lockdowns, mandates, and high-handed directives from unaccountable bureaucrats like Fauci. Many people feel that their society is being destroyed. One working-class former student at my university, described being forced to take the vaccine (thanks to the union’s bullying) as feeling akin to rape. And many people in similar situations see the Democrats and The Left as responsible.

Where I live in rural New England, I know many level headed people who voted for Bernie Sanders but are now so outraged by the Covid lockdowns that they are prepared to vote Republican just to send a message. This sort of trend is not studied by pollsters but it will contribute to massive defeats at the midterm election of 2022. Signs of the coming wipeout are seen in the many Democrat politicians who are resigning rather than face re-election struggles. Even previously safe seats are being given up.[129] 

The presidential election in 2024 also looks ominous for the Democrats.  There is a real risk that reaction to Covid hysteria will help usher in a long period of ironclad minority rule by the GOP.  It is now not entirely impossible that the GOP achieves trifectas in two-thirds of the states and passes constitutional amendments to abolish the income tax; privatize Social Security, the Post Office, and public schools; gut environmental regulations; make it almost illegal to organize a union, and so on. If this comes to pass, all the social democratic left’s desideratum – protecting the environment, reducing inequality, empowering workers, ending prejudice, and increasing access to healthcare and education – will drift even further from our reach. And Covid repression, overreach, and fanaticism will be partly to blame.

Just as disturbing is the fact that populations around the globe have been conditioned to accept new and unprecedented levels of repression if it comes wrapped in bio-medical justifications. From now on, political elites and pharmaceutical profiteers will be eager to re-engage rule by pandemic.

[1] “’How can we get food to them?’ asks Chomsky. ‘Well, that’s actually their problem’,” National Post October 27, 2021. Found (January 31, 2022) at:  https://nationalpost.com/news/world/noam-chomsky-says-the-unvaccinated-should-just-remove-themselves-from-society%5B2%5D Branko Marcetic, “We Need a Nationwide Vaccine Mandate,” Jacobin, August 11, 2021. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/08/nationwide-vaccine-mandate-covid-19-delta-variant-new-york-health%5B3%5D Doug Henwood on Twitter Apr 7, 2021. Found (February 22, 2022) at: https://twitter.com/doughenwood/status/1379858727222845456%5B4%5D  Benjamin Bratton, The Revenge of the Real:Politics for a Post-Pandemic World, (Verso, 2021), p,11, 77.[5] David Cole and Daniel Mach, “We Work at the A.C.L.U. Here’s What We Think About Vaccine Mandates,” New York Times, September 2, 2021. Found (February 22) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/covid-vaccine-mandates-civil-liberties.html%5B6%5D Official email correspondence “TO: John Jay College Faculty and Staff, FROM: Mark Flower, Interim Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, DATE: February 23, 2022, RE: COVID-19 Update”[7] Rochelle Walensky interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, August 6, 2021. Found (on February 23, 2022) at: https://rumble.com/vkte8s-cdc-director-admits-to-cnn-that-covid-vaccines-dont-prevent-transmission-of.html%5B8%5D Kat Eschner, “The Long Shadow of the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine ‘Fiasco’,” Smithsonian, February 6, 2017.Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-shadow-1976-swine-flu-vaccine-fiasco-180961994/Also worth watching this old 60 Minutes report on the fraudulent Swine Flu of 1976.Found (Jan 3 2022) at:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4bOHYZhL0WQ%5B9%5D For example, when Anthony Fauci sidelined ambulatory treatment for AIDS because of his quixotic quest for an HIV vaccine, activists wrote vitriolic, profanity laced, invectives and such letters were published in mainstream newspapers! Larry Kramer, “An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci,” The Village Voice, May 31, 1988. Found (January 18 2022) at: https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/05/28/an-open-letter-to-dr-anthony-fauci/%5B10%5D Dr. Scott Atlas was a member of that task force and his account of its workings is study of dysfunction. An ardent Trump supporter, Atlas will not to criticize the former president, yet he paints a picture of an administration in disarray and hostage to the fear-mongering headlines being created by the unscientific messaging of its own Coronavirus Task Force. Jared Kushner, in particular, seems to have been immobilized by the headlines. Scott Atlas, A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America, (New York: Bombardier Books, 2021). [11] See “program funding” at FDA Fact Sheet: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-basics/fact-sheet-fda-glance%5B12%5D “The FDA’s growing emphasis on speed has come at the urging of both patient advocacy groups and industry, which began in 1992 to contribute to the salaries of the agency’s drug reviewers in exchange for time limits on reviews. In 2017, pharma paid 75 percent — or $905 million — of the agency’s scientific review budgets for branded and generic drugs, compared to 27 percent in 1993.” Caroline Chen, “FDA Repays Industry by Rushing Risky Drugs to Market,” ProPublica, June 26, 2018. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-repays-industry-by-rushing-risky-drugs-to-market%5B13%5D Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute, 15 U.S. Code § 3710c— Distribution of royalties received by Federal agencies, Found (Jan, 3 2022) at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/3710c%5B14%5D Profile page “Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, NIAID” found (Jan 17, 2022) at: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/anthony-s-fauci-md%5B15%5D “Noam Chomsky: Corporate Patents & Rising Anti-Science Rhetoric Will Prolong Pandemic,” democracy now December 30, 2021. Found (February 22, 2022) at: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/30/noam_chomsky_corporate_patents_rising_anti%5B16%5D “…pooled percentage of asymptomatic infections was… 40.50% among the confirmed population Ma Q, Liu J, Liu Q, et al. Global Percentage of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections Among the Tested Population and Individuals With Confirmed COVID-19 Diagnosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(12):e2137257. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.37257                                                                  Found at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2787098%5B17%5D  Vivian Wang, “Most Coronavirus Cases Are Mild. That’s Good and Bad News,” New York Times, February, 27, 2020. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/coronavirus-treament-recovery.html%5B18%5D Numbers calculated from the CDC’s “Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics,” see Table 1.Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex%5B19%5D John Ioannidis, “Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data,” Bull World Health Organ. 2021 Jan 1; 99 (1):19-33F. doi: 10.2471/BLT.20.265892. Epub 2020 Oct 14. PMID: 33716331; PMCID: PMC7947934. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33716331/%5B20%5D Cathrine Axfors, John P A Ioannidis, “Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in community-dwelling populations with emphasis on the elderly: An overview,” MedriXiv, December 23, 2021. Found (January 27, 2022) at: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.08.21260210v2%5B21%5D Sarah Wheaton, “How the coronavirs split science in two: With so many lives on the line, some ideas have been too dangerous to discuss,”Politico, December 8, 2021.Found (Jan 3 2022) at: https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-split-science-in-two-pandemic/%5B22%5D For a stark example of left hysteria vs. reason cast as right-wing evil see, “Herd Immunity: Is It a More Compassionate Approach or Will It Lead to Death or Illness for Millions?” Democracy Now, October 15, 2020. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/10/15/herd_immunity_debate%5B23%5D Daniel F. Gudbjartsson, et al.,“Humoral Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Iceland,” New England Journal of Medicine, September 1, 2020. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2026116 ; “As for the more accurate Covid-19 PCR tests — which use real-time polymerase chain reaction technology and generally take hours to produce results — Walensky said they were not included in the new CDC guidance because they can show positive results up to 12 weeks after initial infection.” Quint Forgey, “This was the moment’: CDC defends altered guidance amid Omicron surge,” Politico, December 29, 2021. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at:https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/29/cdc-defends-new-covid-guidelines-526234 ; Melanie Mason, “Hundreds of thousands in L.A. County may have been infected with coronavirus, study finds,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2020. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-20/coronavirus-serology-testing-la-county ; Debbie Koenig, “Evidence Mounts for Greater COVID Prevalence,” (Medically Reviewed by Neha Pathak, MD) WebMed April 24, 20200. Found (Jan 15, 2022) at: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200424/more-data-bolsters-higher-covid-prevalenceBy early May 2020, four US states had tested their entire prison populations. These studies found high rates of infection but most of the cases – over 90 percent – were asymptomatic or mild. See, Linda So, Grant Smith, “In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus — 96% without symptoms,” Reuters, RSPECIAL REPORTS APRIL 25, 2020.[24] See “Reported cases, deaths and vaccinations by country” select for all time and organize by deaths per 100,000. “Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak,” New York Times (online) Updated Jan. 19, 2022. Found (Jan 19, 2022) athttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html[25] See subsection “Comorbidities and other conditions” at Centers for Control and Prevention, Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics, Found (Jan 15, 2022) at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities%5B26%5D Benjamin Mueller and Eleanor Lutz, “U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries,”New York Times, February 1, 2022. Found (February 2, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html?referringSource=articleShare%5B27%5D Jackie Salo, “CDC chief corrects Sotomayor’s pediatric COVID hospitalization claim,” The New York Post,January 9, 2022. Found (Jan 15, 2022) at: https://nypost.com/2022/01/09/cdcs-walensky-corrects-justice-sonia-sotomayors-covid-19-claim/Also see: Aaron Blake, “Rochelle Walensky is not good at this,” Washington Post, January 10, 2022. Found (January 17, 2022) at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/10/rochelle-walensky-is-not-good-this/%5B28%5D Telephone interview December 31, 2021 and email exchange January 15, 2022, with Carlos B. Coyle, Kentucky Deputy Coroner Madison County Kentucky.[29] Nielsen, G.P., Björnsson, J. & Jonasson, J.G. “The accuracy of death certificates.” Vichows Archiv A Pathol Anat 419, 143–146 (1991). Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/10.1007/BF01600228; Also see,  Jacqueline Messite, Steven D. Stellman, “Accuracy of death certificate completion: the need for formalized physician training,” JAMA, March 13, 1996; 275, 10; PA Research II Periodicals, p. 794. Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8250343_Death_certificate_completion_How_well_are_physicians_trained_and_are_cardiovascular_causes_overstated; Also see, Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, et. al., “Accuracy of Death Certificates for Coding Coronary Heart Disease as the Cause of Death,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 15 December 1998. Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/0003-4819-129-12-199812150-00005.%5B30%5D N. M. Makiko, et.al., “Accuracy of death certificates and assessment of factors for misclassification of underlying cause of death,” Journal of Epidemiology, (2016) 26(4), 191-198. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2188/jea.JE20150010%5B31%5D U. S. H. Gamage, et al. “The impact of errors in medical certification on the accuracy of the underlying cause of death,” PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no. 11, 8 Nov. 2021. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A681629218/AONE?u=columbiau&sid=summon&xid=c8b09751. Accessed 28 Jan. 2022.[32] For an overview of state level executive orders see, “State Governors’ ‘Stay-at-Home’ and Prohibition on Elective Procedures Orders,” website of law firm McGuire Woods, October 13, 2020. Found (December 17, 2021) at: https://www.mcguirewoods.com/client-resources/Alerts/2020/10/state-governors-stay-at-home-prohibition-elective-procedures-orders%5B33%5D Original CDC guidance has since been removed. However, a timeline of how that guidance was followed by other institutions is provided here: Karen S. Sealander, et. al, “How to handle elective surgeries and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic,” March 22, 2020, published on the website of the corporate law firm McDermott, Will, and Emery. Found at:https://www.mwe.com/insights/how-to-handle-elective-surgeries-and-procedures-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/%5B34%5D Press release, subject safety, “CMS Releases Recommendations on Adult Elective Surgeries, Non-Essential Medical, Surgical, and Dental Procedures During COVID-19 Response,” Mar 18, 2020.  Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-releases-recommendations-adult-elective-surgeries-non-essential-medical-surgical-and-dental%5B35%5D Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, “45 U.S. States Shut Down And Counting: State-By-State Travel Restrictions,” Forbes, Mar 28, 2020. Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2020/03/28/23-states-shut-down-and-counting-state-by-state-travel-restrictions/?sh=c365b3658f4cAlso see: Sarah Mervosh, Denise Lu and Vanessa Swales, “See Which States and Cities Have Told Residents to Stay at Home,” New York Times, April 20, 2020. Found (January 19, 2022) at:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-stay-at-home-order.html%5B36%5D Rebecca Robbins, “Routine cancer screenings have plummeted during the pandemic, medical records data show,” STAT, May 4, 2020.https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/04/cancer-screenings-drop-coronavirus-pandemic-epic/%5B37%5Dhttps://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-05-06/layoffs-and-losses-covid-19-leaves-us-hospitals-in-financial-crisis%5B38%5D Margot Sanger-Katz, “Why 1.4 Million Health Jobs Have Been Lost During a Huge Health Crisis,”New York Times, May 8, 2020.  Found (January 19, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/upshot/health-jobs-plummeting-virus.htmlalso see: Kelly Gooch, “1.4 Million Healthcare Jobs Lost in April,” Becker’s Hospital Review, May 8, 2020. Found (December 20, 2020) at: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/1-4-million-healthcare-jobs-lost-in-april.html;“As Hospitals Lose Revenue, More Than A Million Health Care Workers Lose Jobs,” NPR/Morning Edition, May 8, 2020. Found (December 20, 2020) at: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/08/852435761/as-hospitals-lose-revenue-thousands-of-health-care-workers-face-furloughs-layoff ; Alia Paavola, “266 hospitals furloughing workers in response to COVID-19,” Becker’s CFO Hospital Report, August 31, 2020.  Found (December 20, 2020) at: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/49-hospitals-furloughing-workers-in-response-to-covid-19.html“Michigan Medicine to furlough 1,400 employees, delay construction on new hospital,” M-Live.com, May 5, 2020. Found (December 20, 2020) at: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/05/michigan-medicine-to-furlough-1400-employees-delays-construction-on-new-hospital.htmlAyla Ellison, “University of Rochester Medical Center furloughs 3,400 workers,” Becker’s CFO Hospital ReportMay 11, 2020. Found (December 19, 2020) at: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/university-of-rochester-medical-center-furloughs-3-400-workers.html %5B39%5D “HHS Announces Additional Allocations of CARES Act Provider Relief Fund,” press release, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, April 22, 2020. Found at: https://public3.pagefreezer.com/browse/HHS%20–%C2%A0About%20News/20-01-2021T12:29/https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/04/22/hhs-announces-additional-allocations-of-cares-act-provider-relief-fund.html%5B40%5D Another $75 billion went to the Provider Relief Fund from the Paycheck Protection Program, Health Care Enhancement Act, and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act. In December 2020, Congress appropriated an additional $3 billion to the PRF through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (2021 Appropriations Act), for a total of $178 billion. https://public3.pagefreezer.com/browse/HHS%20–%C2%A0About%20News/20-01-2021T12:29/https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/04/22/hhs-announces-additional-allocations-of-cares-act-provider-relief-fund.html%5B41%5D “Special Bulletin: Senate Passes the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act,” American Hospital Association, March 26, 2020. See section labeled “DRG Add-on” where it is reported that, “During the emergency period, the legislation provides a 20% add-on to the DRG rate for patients with COVID-19. This add-on will apply to patients treated at rural and urban inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) hospitals.”Found (Jan 31, 2021) at:https://www.aha.org/special-bulletin/2020-03-26-senate-passes-coronavirus-aid-relief-and-economic-security-cares-actAlso see: Angelo Fichera, “Hospital Payments and the COVID-19 Death Count,” FACTCHECK.org, April 21, 2020.[42] Karyn Schwartz and Anthony Damico, “Distribution of CARES Act Funding Among Hospitals,”KFF, May 13, 2020. Found (Jan 4, 2022) at: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/distribution-of-cares-act-funding-among-hospitals/%5B43%5D ICD-10-CM Official Coding and Reporting Guidelines April 1, 2020 through September 30, 2020.https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/icd/COVID-19-guidelines-final.pdf%5B44%5D Provider Relief Programs: Provider Relief Fund and ARP Rural Payments Frequently Asked Questions, p., 14, 39.https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/provider-relief/provider-relief-fund-faq-complete.pdf%5B45%5D HHS Announces Additional Allocations of CARES Act Provider Relief Fund HHS Press Office, April 22, 2020.   [46] Emma Brown, Beth Reinhard and Reis Thebault, “Which deaths count toward the covid-19 death toll? It depends on the state,” Washington Post, April 16, 2020.[47] “Cases in U.S.” CDC, April 14, 2020.https://web.archive.org/web/20200414010816/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html%5B48%5D Emma Brown, Beth Reinhard and Reis Thebault, “Which deaths count toward the covid-19 death toll? It depends on the state.” Washington Post, April 16, 2020.https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/which-deaths-count-toward-the-covid-19-death-toll-it-depends-on-the-state/2020/04/16/bca84ae0-7991-11ea-a130-df573469f094_story.html%5B49%5D “COVID-19 Funeral Assistance,” FEMA.gov, last updated December 22, 2021. Found (Jan 4, 2022) at: https://www.fema.gov/disaster/coronavirus/economic/funeral-assistance%5B50%5D The list of who can get the money includes: Medicare fee-for-service providers, Medicaid providers, Medicaid managed care plans, dentists, assisted living facilities, behavioral health providers, rural providers, skilled nursing facilities, tribal hospitals and clinics, urban health centers, safety net hospitals, and hospitals that have a high number of confirmed COVID-19 inpatient admissions. Health Resources & Servs. Admin., CARES Act Provider Relief Fund, Frequently Asked Questions, updated 9/27/2021: Found (Jan 4, 2022) at: https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/provider-relief/provider-relief-fund-faq-complete.pdf, p. 27. [51] Covid-billing related fraud is common enough that the DOJ has set up a special unit to deal with it, the Health Care Fraud Unit’s COVID-19 Interagency Working Group. “National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action Results in Charges of Over $308 Million in Intended Loss Against 52 Defendants in the Southern District of Florida,” press release, Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida, September 17, 2021. Found (December 31, 2021) at: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/national-health-care-fraud-enforcement-action-results-charges-over-308-million-intended%5B52%5D Robert Pell, et al., “Coronial postmortem reports and indirect COVID-19 pandemic-related mortality,” (BMJ Journals) Journal of Clinical Pathology, 17 January 2022. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://jcp.bmj.com/content/early/2022/01/16/jclinpath-2021-208003%5B53%5D Lai AG, Pasea L, Banerjee A, et al., “Estimated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer services and excess 1-year mortality in people with cancer and multimorbidity: near real-time data on cancer care, cancer deaths and a population-based cohort study,” BMJ Open, November 17, 2020. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/11/e043828%5B54%5D Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Noah Higgins-Dunn, “Trump says nationwide lockdown would ‘ultimately inflict more harm than it would prevent’,”CNBC, August, 3 20206. Found (February 3, 2022) at:   https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/trump-says-nationwide-lockdown-would-ultimately-inflict-more-harm-than-it-would-prevent.html%5B55%5D “Drug Overdose Deaths in the U.S. Top 100,000 Annually,” CDC press release, November 17, 2021. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm%5B56%5D “The Record Increase in Homicide During 2020,” CDC National Center for Health Statistics, October 8, 2021. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/podcasts/2021/20211008/20211008.htm%5B57%5D “2020 Fatality Data Show Increased Traffic Fatalities During Pandemic,” The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, June 3, 2021: Found (Febuary 2, 2022) a: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show-increased-traffic-fatalities-during-pandemic%5B58%5D Tomislav Mihaljevic and Gianrico Farrugia, “How Many More Will Die From Fear of the Coronavirus?” New York Times, June 9, 2020. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/coronavirus-hospitals-deaths.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage%5B59%5D Ibid.[60] Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve H. Hanke, “A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality,” Studies in applied economics number 200, John Hopkins university January 2022. Found (February 2, 2022) at: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf%5B61%5D Masks off? Fauci confirms ‘extremely low’ risk of transmission, infection for vaccinatedMay 17, 202.1 Found (Feb 22, 2022) at: https://www.yahoo.com/now/masks-off-fauci-confirms-extremely-004504894.html?format=embed&region=US&lang=en-US&site=now&player_autoplay=1&expName=y20%5B62%5D Jennifer Frazer, “The Risk of Vaccinated COVID Transmission Is Not Low,” Scientific AmericaDecember 16, 2021. This article contains links to most of the relevant studies.[63] https://rumble.com/vkte8s-cdc-director-admits-to-cnn-that-covid-vaccines-dont-prevent-transmission-of.html%5B64%5D Marcie Smith Parenti, “Why won’t the US medical establishment “believe women”? Covid-19 vaccines do not warn about menstrual disruption,” The Grey Zone, August 13 2021. Found (February 20, 2022) at:https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/13/cdc-fda-women-covid-19-vaccines-menstrual-disruption/%5B65%5D Aylin Woodward, “We’re likely to need coronavirus booster shots after the initial vaccine,” Business Insider,November 22, 2020. Found (Jan 2, 2022) at: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-booster-shots-after-initial-vaccination-2020-11%5B66%5D Sara Y Tartof, et al., “Effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine up to 6 months in a large integrated health system in the USA: a retrospective cohort study,” Lancet, October 4, 2021. Found (January 15, 2022) at: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2821%2902183-8%5B67%5D Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Israel says Pfizer Covid vaccine is just 39% effective as delta spreads, but still prevents severe illness,” CNBC.com, July 23, 2021.Found (Jan, 1 2022) at: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-vaccine-39percent-effective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html%5B68%5D “Israel to offer COVID boosters 3 months after second vaccine dose,” Times of Israel, December 27, 2021. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-offer-covid-boosters-3-months-after-second-vaccine-dose/[69] Isabel Kershner, “Israel Considers 4th Vaccine Dose, but Some Experts Say It’s Premature,” New York Times, December 23, 2021. Found (January 22, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/world/middleeast/israel-vaccine-4th-dose.html%5B70%5D “Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response,” Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response” Bloomberg Law, Jan. 12, 2022. Found (January 31, 2022) at: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/coronavirus/repeat-booster-shots-spur-europe-warning-on-immune-system-risks%5B71%5D “Aspirin Use to Prevent Cardiovascular Disease Task Force Issues Draft Recommendation Statement onAspirin Use to Prevent Cardiovascular Disease,” US Preventive Services Task Force Bulletin October 12, 2021. Found (February 22, 2022) at: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/sites/default/files/file/supporting_documents/aspirin-cvd-prevention-final-rec-bulletin.pdf  %5B72%5D Essi Lehto, “Finland joins Sweden and Denmark in limiting Moderna COVID-19 vaccine,” Reuters,October 7, 2021. Found (January 22, 2022) at: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-pauses-use-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-young-men-2021-10-07/%5B73%5D Amir Abbas Shiravi, Ali Ardekani, Erfan Sheikhbahaei, and Kiyan Heshmat-Ghahdarijani, “Cardiovascular Complications of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines: An Overview,” Cardiology and Therapy, November 29, 2021, (advance publication online). Found (January 18, 2022) at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8629102/#CR25%5B74%5D “PREP Act Immunity from Liability for COVID-19 Vaccinators” Found (January 18, 2022) at:https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/COVIDvaccinators/Pages/PREP-Act-Immunity-from-Liability-for-COVID-19-Vaccinators.aspx%5B75%5D Hannah Kuchler, Donato Paolo Mancini and David Pilling “The inside story of the Pfizer vaccine: ‘a once-in-an-epoch windfall’ The American company now dominates the market for Covid jabs. But does that give it too much power?” The Financial Times, November 29 2021. Found (February 22, 2022) at:[76] Jenna Greene, “Wait what? FDA wants 55 years to process FOIA request over vaccine data,” Reuters, November 18, 2021. Found (Jan 3, 20220 at: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/wait-what-fda-wants-55-years-process-foia-request-over-vaccine-data-2021-11-18/%5B77%5D Ibid.[78] “Memorandum of points and authorities in support of Pfizer Inc.’s motion for leave to intervene for a limited purpose,” Case 4:21-cv-01058-P Document 41 Filed January 21, 2022. Found (February 3, 2022) at: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/akpezebkavr/PHMPT%20v%20FDA%20-%20Memo%20ISO%20Motion.pdf%5B79%5D Peter Doshi, “Does the FDA think these data justify the first full approval of a covid-19 vaccine?” BMJ Blog,August 23, 2021.Found (Jan, 1 2022) at:  https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/23/does-the-fda-think-these-data-justify-the-first-full-approval-of-a-covid-19-vaccine/%5B80%5D Peter Doshi, “Pfizer and Moderna’s ‘95% effective’ vaccines—we need more details and the raw data,”BMJ Blog, January 4, 2021. Found (Jan, 1 2022) at:  https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/04/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-we-need-more-details-and-the-raw-data/%5B81%5D Peter Doshi, “Does the FDA think these data justify the first full approval of a covid-19 vaccine?” BMJ, August 23, 2021Found (Jan 1, 2021) at: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/23/does-the-fda-think-these-data-justify-the-first-full-approval-of-a-covid-19-vaccine/%5B82%5D “Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate, Meeting All Primary Efficacy Endpoints,” Pfizer press release, Wednesday, November 18, 2020.Found (Jn 2, 20220 at: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-conclude-phase-3-study-covid-19-vaccine%5B83%5D “From the 12/24/2021 release of VAERS data: Found 21,002 cases where Vaccine is COVID19 and Patient Died,” Medalert.orgFound (Jan, 1 2022) at:https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&DIED=Yes%5B84%5D Ross Lazarus, “Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS)” Grant Final Report (Grant ID: R18 HS 017045) submitted to The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010.Found (Jan, 1 2022) at:  https://digital.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/publication/r18hs017045-lazarus-final-report-2011.pdf[85] Also worth watching this old 60 Minutes report on the fraudulent Swine Flu of 1976.Found (Jan 3 2022) at:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4bOHYZhL0WQ%5B86%5D Kat Eschner, “The Long Shadow of the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine ‘Fiasco’,” Smithsonian February 6, 2017.Found (Jan 3 2022) at:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-shadow-1976-swine-flu-vaccine-fiasco-180961994/%5B87%5D  Denise Grady and Katie Thomas, “Drug Company Under Fire After Revealing Dengue Vaccine May Harm Some,” New York Times, December 17, 2017. Found (Jan 4, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/health/sanofi-dengue-vaccine-philippines.html%5B88%5D David Cole and Daniel Mach, “We Work at the A.C.L.U. Here’s What We Think About Vaccine Mandates,” New York Times, September 2, 2021. Found (January 18, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/covid-vaccine-mandates-civil-liberties.html%5B89%5D And for a left rereading of the American Revolution, the US Constitution, and the early republic see my book Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder, (Verso, 2020).[90] Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch, “How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID,” The Daily Poster, December 22, 2021. Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.dailyposter.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-war-on-covid/%5B91%5D Sophie Reardon, “Spotify says it will add advisory to podcasts that discuss COVID-19 amid Joe Rogan controversy,” CBS News, January 31, 2022. Found (February, 3, 2022) at: / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spotify-joe-rogan-podcasts-covid-19-misinformation-advisory/%5B92%5D Roxane Gay, “Why I’ve Decided to Take My Podcast Off Spotify,” February 3, 2022. Found (February 3, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/opinion/culture/joe-rogan-spotify-roxane-gay.html%5B93%5D Conor Skelding, “New Twitter CEO has brought wave of high-profile bans in short tenure,” New York Post, January 8, 2022. Found (January 17, 2022) at: https://nypost.com/2022/01/08/twitter-ceo-parag-agrawal-has-brought-wave-of-high-profile-bans/%5B94%5D Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/274/200/ ; also see: Josh Blackman, “The Irrepressible Myth of Jacobson v. Massachusetts,” Buffalo Law Review, Vol 70 No., 1 Article 3, February 25, 2022. Found (January 9, 2022) at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4934&context=buffalolawreview .[95] Alex Gutentag, “Revolt of the Essential Workers,” Tablet Magazine, October 25, 2021.[96] Ibid.[97] Clint Rainey, “Unions can’t agree on vaccine mandates. Here’s where nurses, pilots, teachers, and others stand,” Fast Company, October 13, 2021. Found (Jan 25, 2022) at: https://www.fastcompany.com/90685563/unions-cant-agree-on-vaccine-mandates-heres-where-nurses-pilots-teachers-and-others-stand%5B98%5D Freddie Sayers, “Inside the Austrian lockdown: We explore the world’s first lockdown for the unvaccinated,” UnHerd, December 31, 2021. Found (January 17, 2022) at: https://unherd.com/2021/12/inside-the-austrian-lockdown-2/%5B99%5D Maroosha Muzaffar, “Three arrested after scaling fence of Australian Covid quarantine compound in middle of night,” The Independent (UK), December 1, 2021.[100] “Inside Australia’s Covid internment camp,” UnHerd with Freddy Sayer, UnHerd News, December 2, 2021Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://unherd.com/thepost/inside-australias-covid-internment-camp/%5B101%5D Ibid., p. 17.[102] Amnesty International Report 2020/21(Amnesty International Ltd.: London, 2021), p. 14. [103] Ibid., p.18-19.[104] Ibid., p. 29.[105] Ibid. p. 30.[106] Ibid. p. 34.[107] Ibid. p. 51.[108] Ibid. p. 55.[109] Daniel Munevar, “A Debt Pandemic: Dynamics and implications of the debt crisis of 2020,” Briefing Paper, European Network on Debt and Development, March 2021., p. 2 and figure 14 p. 11.Found (Jan 8, 2022) at: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/eurodad/pages/2112/attachments/original/1622627378/debt-pandemic-FINAL.pdf?1622627378%5B110%5D Ibid.[111] Derek Headey, et al., “Impacts of COVID-19 on childhood malnutrition and nutrition-related mortality,” The Lancet, Vol 396 August 22, 2020. Published Online July 27, 2020. Found (Jan 8, 2022) at: https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31647-0.pdf .[112] Michael Rothfeld and J. David Goodman, “New York Spent $1 Billion on Virus Supplies. Now It Wants Money Back.” New York Times, Dec. 17, 2020. Found (January 24, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/nyregion/new-york-ppe-refunds.html%5B113%5D Michael Schwirtz, “The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 20 Patients.” New York Times, April 2, 2020. Found (January 24, 2022) at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort.html%5B114%5D Jamelle Bouie, “The Racism at the Heart of Trump’s ‘Travel Ban’,” New York Times, February, 4, 2020.Found (Dec 20, 2021) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/opinion/trump-travel-ban-nigeria.html%5B115%5D Sam Levin, “Coronavirus: could the US government’s quarantine and travel ban backfire?,” The GuardianFebruary 2, 2020. Found (Dec 20, 2021) at:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/coronavirus-us-quarantine-travel-ban-response%5B116%5D “How Government Screwed Up Coronavirus Response From masks to tests, suppression to stimulus,” Reason,March 30, 2020. Found (December 20, 2021) at: https://reason.com/podcast/how-government-screwed-up-coronavirus-response/[117] “Trump says would love to see businesses re-open by Easter” Reuters March 24, 2020. Found (December 20, 2021) at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-trump-easter/trump-says-would-love-to-see-businesses-re-open-by-easter-idUSKBN21B2XW%5B118%5D Annie Karni and Donald G. McNeil Jr., “Trump Wants U.S. ‘Opened Up’ by Easter, Despite Health Officials’ Warnings,” New York Times,March 24, 2020. Found (Dec 20, 2021) at:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-easter.html%5B119%5D Scott Atlas, A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America, (New York: Bombardier Books, 2021).[120] “Trump accused of ‘fomenting rebellion’ after ‘LIBERATE’ tweets,” aljazeera.com April 18, 2020. Found (Jan 15, 2022) at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/trump-accused-fomenting-rebellion-liberate-tweets-200417223606672.html%5B121%5D Bobby Cuza, “As Crisis Abates, Planned Field Hospitals Vanish Before Admitting a Single Patient,”NY1 April 23, 2020.Found (Jan 3, 2022) at: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/04/23/coronavirus-field-hospitals-that-weren-t%5B122%5D “Trump calls Michigan protesters, some armed, ‘very good people’” Aljazeera.com, May 1, 2020. Found (Jan 15, 2022) at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/1/trump-calls-michigan-protesters-some-armed-very-good-people%5B123%5D Craig Timberg, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Moriah Balingit, “Protests spread, fueled by economic woes and Internet subcultures,” Washington Post, May 1, 2020. Found (January 15, 2022) at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/01/anti-stay-home-protests/%5B124%5D Quint Forgey, “Newsom: Recall win shows Dems should ‘stiffen our spines’ on Covid action,” Politico, September 16, 2021. Found (Jan 17, 2022) at: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/16/newsom-recall-win-covid-restrictions-512132%5B125%5D “Oct. 20-26, 2021, Washington Post-Schar School Virginia poll,” Washington Post.com, Oct 29, 2021. Found (Jan 17, 2022) at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/oct-20-26-2021-washington-post-schar-school-virginia-poll/1ad60e58-0bc2-404d-80e6-0f8ff5fba246/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2Also see: Domenico Montanaro, “A bad omen for Democrats and 4 other election night takeaways,” NPR.org, November 3, 2021. Found (Jan 17, 2022) at:https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051713890/election-analysis-virginia-new-jersey-democrats%5B126%5D Glenn Youngkin, “Parents matter in education – Virginia election will decide fate of students, schoolsThe most basic obligation of any Virginia school is to provide all children a high-quality education,” Fox.com, November 1, 2021. Found (Nov 2, 2021) at: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/virginia-parents-student-schools-youngkin-glenn[127] Anya Kamanetz, “Why education was a top voter priority this election,” NPR.org, November 4, 2021.Found (January 17, 2022) at: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/04/1052101647/education-parents-election-virginia-republicans%5B128%5D Dana Goldstein and Noam Scheiber “As More Teachers’ Unions Push for Remote Schooling, Parents Worry. So Do Democrats.” New York Times, January 8, 2022. Found (January 8, 2022) at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/teachers-unions-covid-schools.html%5B129%5D Aaron Navarro, “Why many House Democrats are retiring or moving on before the next election,” CBS News, January 4, 2022. Found (January 22, 2022) at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-house-democrats-are-retiring-or-moving-on-before-the-next-election/

Liberal Russophobia and War Propaganda

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Image: PRIMICIAS

By Margaret Kimberley

Source: Black Agenda Report

U.S. liberals are the worst perpetrators of Russophobic behavior. They are most likely to follow the dictates of corporate media and the democratic party and proudly take part in discriminatory acts. But foolish bans of anything Russian are just the most visible indication that war propaganda is at the root of the hysteria.

The city of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prohibit discrimination based upon race, color, gender, disability, religion, and national origin. Such discrimination is prohibited by most cities, states, and the federal government as well. But one wouldn’t know that due to a plethora of discriminatory acts carried out against Russian nationals. The latest perpetrator is the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) , which announced that citizens of Russia and Belarus who reside in those countries will be barred from participating in the Boston marathon taking place on April 18, 2022. The war in Ukraine, years of Russiagate hysteria, and corporate media demonization of Vladimir Putin and all Russians have led to this moment of dubious distinction.

The weaknesses of what passes for a left wing movement have been fully exposed ever since Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Of course many people who are called leftists and even those who consider themselves as such are in fact just liberals. They do not stand against imperialism as any leftist ought to do. The eight-year long U.S./NATO scheme to use Ukraine as a weapon against Russia should be universally condemned by anyone claiming to be in that cohort. Leftists can have principled disagreement about Putin’s decision, but they should not ignore the culpability of the U.S. and NATO and their support for the 2014 coup which overturned an election and put neo-Nazi groups in power.

Their confusion on Russia and Ukraine is emblematic of their confusion about so many other issues. The faux left are a highly problematic group, making common cause with the democratic party wing of the war party, and ignoring the war crimes committed by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden. Not only do they fail to ask, “What about?,” but they have no critique of the U.S. role which instigated this crisis. They say nothing about the U.S. and its NATO allies refusing to engage in negotiations which might end the suffering of the Ukrainian people they claim to care about so much.

So deep is the rot that they say nothing about increasingly blatant and bizarre examples of Russophobia. Russian cats cannot enter international cat shows, a Russian singer was fired from the Metropolitan Opera when she refused to denounce her government, an orchestra canceled a festival featuring the music of Russian composer Tchaikovsky, and a tribute to space exploration removed the name of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin from the program.

It is tempting to snicker about the denial of recognition to Russian cats, but the lack of opposition to the Boston marathon action is shameful indeed. People who see themselves as enlightened, and even intellectually and morally superior to others are silent in the face of an obviously unfair and illegal act.

The BAA is typical of U.S. elite organizations. It makes a big show of proving itself diverse and equitable by establishing a Boston Runners Collaborative whose mission is “… expanding access to running and walking in Boston with a focus on communities of color.” The outreach was in part motivated by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery , whose memory is not certainly not honored by phony shows of racial solidarity. So the BAA used the cold blooded murder of a Black man to jump on a superficial liberal bandwagon and illegally banned people who live in a country their government is telling them to hate.

Of course the BAA is not alone. Politicians, pundits and corporate media all tell us to “stand with Ukraine” and to call Putin a war criminal. American presidents are never connected to war crimes, even when they invade Iraq and kill thousands of people, destroy Libya and kill thousands of people, or enact sanctions and steal government assets that kill thousands of people. The war criminal category is only deemed appropriate for leaders the U.S. doesn’t like.

U.S. liberal elites are as much in the thrall of the dictates of their leadership as the members of January 6th mob who attacked the capital. Their critical thinking skills are practically non-existent, or they go along to get along, or silence themselves due to cowardice. The end result is much worse than a Russian missing a race.

The blue and yellow flags and whipping up of hysteria have a very important and dangerous aim. The goal of the propagandists is to get the country in the mood for war. When the slippery slope gets steeper and the public are convinced that the use of “tactical nukes” or other such nonsense is acceptable, the entire world will be at risk.

Perhaps the plight of Russian and Belarusian athletes isn’t viewed as an important human rights issue. Of course world leaders do much worse to millions more people. But every acceptance of what may seem to be a minor slight can lead to major implications. Liberalism itself is a great danger. The censoring of left voices in media and the conscious effort to disappear all but the state narrative are liberal led efforts and lead to dehumanizing whomever the president and his friends in corporate media may choose to target.

So let the Russians run. Acquiescing to this misguided effort will lead to greater dangers in the future.

On the Edge of a Nuclear Abyss

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By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

Two days after Russia attacked Ukraine and the day before Vladimir Putin put Russia on nuclear alert, I wrote a little article whose first sentence was: “Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia.”

It was an intuition based on my knowledge of U.S./Russia history, including the U.S engineered coup in Ukraine in 2014, and a reading of current events.  I refer to it as intuition, yet it is based on a lifetime’s study and teaching of political sociology and writing against war.  I am not a Russian scholar, simply a writer with a sociological, historical, and artistic imagination, although my first graduate academic study in the late 1960s was a thesis on nuclear weapons and why they might be someday used again.

It no longer sounds hyperbolic to me that madmen in the declining U.S. Empire might resort, like rats in a sinking ship, to first strike use of nuclear weapons, which is official U.S. policy.  My stomach is churning at the thought, despite what most experts say: that the chances of a nuclear war are slight.  And despite what others say about the Ukraine war: that it is an intentional diversion from the Covid propaganda and the Great Reset (although I agree it achieves that goal).

My gut tells me no; it is very real, sui generis, and very, very dangerous now.

The eminent scholar Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research agrees that we are very close to the unthinkable.  In a recent historical analysis of U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear weapons, he writes the following before quoting Vladimir Putin’s recent statement on the matter. “Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was a response to U.S. threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the U.S. would not be resorting to ‘A first strike’ nuclear attack against an enemy of America”:

Let me [Putin] explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems. And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It’s Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.” (Putin Speech, February 21, 2022, emphasis added)

Putin is absolutely correct.  It is why he put Russia’s nuclear forces on full alert.   Only those ignorant of history, which sadly includes most U.S. Americans, don’t know this.

I believe that today we are in the greatest danger of a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, something I vividly remember as a teenager.  The same feelings return.  Dread.  Anxiety.  Breathlessness.  I do not think these feelings are misplaced nor they are simply an emotional response. I try to continue writing on other projects that I have started but feel stymied.  The possibility of nuclear war, whether intentional or accidental, obsesses me.

In order to grasp this stomach-churning possibility within the context of Ukraine, we need to put aside all talk of morality, rights, international law, and think in terms of great power politics, as John Mearsheimer has so clearly articulated.  As he says, when a great power feels its existence is threatened, might makes right. You simply can’t understand world politics without thinking at this level.  Doing so does not mean justifying the use of might; it is a means of clarifying the causes of wars, which start long before the first shots are fired.

In the present crisis over Ukraine, Russia clearly feels existentially threatened by U.S./NATO military moves in Ukraine and in eastern Europe where they have positioned missiles that can be very quickly converted to nuclear and are within a few minutes range of Russia. (And of course there are U.S./NATO nuclear missiles throughout western and southern Europe.)  Vladimir Putin has been talking about this for many years and is factually correct.  He has reiterated that this is unacceptable to Russia and must stop. He has pushed for negotiations to end this situation.

The United States, despite its own Monroe Doctrine that prohibits another great power from putting weapons or military forces close to its borders, has blocked its ears and kept upping the ante, provoking Russian fears. This fact is not in dispute but is shrugged off by U.S./NATO as of little consequence.  Such an attitude is pure provocation as anyone with a smidgeon of historical awareness knows.

The world was very lucky sixty years ago this October when JFK and Nikita Khrushchev negotiated the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis before the world was incinerated.  Kennedy, of course, was intensely pressured by the military and CIA to bomb Cuba, but he resisted.  He also rejected the insane military desire to nuke the Soviet Union, calling such people crazy; at a National Security Council meeting on September 12, 1963, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a report about a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union which they wanted for that fall, he said, “Preemption is not possible for us.”

Such leadership, together with the nuclear test ban treaty he negotiated with the USSR that month, inter alia (such treaties have now been abrogated by the U.S. government), assured his assassination organized by the CIA.  These days, the U.S. is led by deluded men who espouse a nuclear first strike policy, which tells one all one needs to know about the danger the world is in. The U.S. has been very sick with Russia hatred for a long time.

After the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis, many more people took the threat of nuclear war seriously.  Today very few do.  It has receded into the ”unimaginable.” In 1962, however, as James W. Douglass writes in JFK and the Unspeakable:

Kennedy saw that, at least outside Washington, D.C., people were living with a deeper awareness of the ultimate choice they faced.  Nuclear weapons were real.  So, too, was the prospect of peace.  Shocked by the Cuban Missile Crisis into recognizing a real choice, people preferred peace to annihilation.

Today the reality of nuclear annihilation has receded into unconsciousness. This despite the recent statements by U.S. generals and the U.S. Ukrainian puppet Zelensky about nuclear weapons and their use that have extremely inflamed Russia’s fears, which clearly is intentional. The game is to have some officials say it and then deny it while having a policy that contradicts your denial.  Keep pushing the envelope is U.S. policy.  Obama-Biden reigned over the U.S. 2014 coup in Ukraine, Trump increased weapon sales to Ukraine in 2017, and Biden has picked up the baton from his partner (not his enemy) in this most deadly game.  It is a bi-partisan Cold War 2, getting very hot.  And it is the reason why Russia, its back to the wall, attacked Ukraine.  It is obvious that this is exactly what the U.S. wanted or it would have acted very differently in the leadup to this tragedy.  All the current ringing of hands is pure hypocrisy, the nihilism of a nuclear power never for one moment threatened but whose designs were calculated to threaten Russia at its borders.

The media propaganda against Russia and Putin is the most extreme and extensive propaganda in my lifetime.  Patrick Lawrence has astutely examined this in a recent essay, where he writes the same is true for him:

Many people of many different ages have remarked in recent days that they cannot recall in their lifetimes a more pervasive, suffocating barrage of propaganda than what has engulfed us since the months that preceded Russia’s intervention. In my case it has come to supersede the worst of what I remember from the Cold War decades.

Engulfed is an appropriate word.  Lawrence rightly points to this propaganda as cognitive warfare directed at the U.S. population (and the rest of the world) and notes its connection to the January 2021 final draft of a “diabolic” NATO study called “Cognitive Warfare.”  He quotes it thus: “The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,” . . . “Humans are the contested domain. Cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.”

This cognitive warfare, however, has a longer history in cutting edge science.  For each successive decade beginning with the 1990s and a declaration from President (and ex-Director of the CIA) George H. W. Bush that the 1990s would be the Decade of Brain Research, presidents have announced additional decades long projects involving the brain, with 2000-2010 being the Decade of Behavior Project, followed by mapping of the brain, artificial intelligence, etc. all organized and funded through the Office of Science and Technology Project (OSTP) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  This medical, military, and scientific research has been part of a long range plan to extend MK-Ultra’s mind control to the population at large under the cover of medical science, and it has been simultaneously connected to the development and funding of the pharmaceutical industries research and development of new brain-altering drugs.  RFK, Jr. has documented the CIA’s extensive connection to germ and mind research and promotion in his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.  It is why his book is banned from the mainstream media, who do the prime work of cognitive warfare for the government.  To put it clearly: these media are the CIA.  And the issue of U.S. bio-weapons research and development is central to these many matters, including in Ukraine.

In other words, the cognitive warfare we are now being subjected to has many tentacles connected to much more than today’s fanatical anti-Russian propaganda over Ukraine.  All the U.S. wars of aggression have been promoted under its aegis, as have the lies about the attacks of September 11, 2001, the economic warfare by the elites, the COVID crisis, etc.  It’s one piece.

Take, for example, a book written in 2010 by David Ray Griffin, a renown theologian who has written more than a dozen books about 9/11.  The book is Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.  It is a critique of law professor Cass Sunstein, appointed by Obama to be the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.  Sunstein had written an article with a plan for the government to prevent the spread of anti-government “conspiracy theories” in which he promoted the use of anonymous government agents to use secret “cognitive infiltration” of these groups in order to break them up; to use media plants to disparage their arguments.  He was particularly referring to those who questioned the official 9/11 narrative but his point obviously extended much further.  He was working in the tradition of the great propagandists.  Griffin took a scalpel to this call for cognitive warfare and was of course a victim of it as well.  Sunstein has since worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) on COVID psychological responses and other COVID committees.  It’s all one piece.

Sunstein’s wife is Samantha Power, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations and war hawk extraordinaire.  She gleefully promoted the U.S. destruction of Libya under the appellation of the “responsibility to protect,”  a “humane” cover for imperialism.  Now she is Biden’s Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an arm of the CIA throughout the world.  It’s all one piece.

The merry-go-round goes round and round.

I have gone off on this slight tangent to emphasize how vast and interconnected are the players and groups on Team Cognitive Warfare.  They have been leading the league for quite some time and are hoping their game plan against Team Russia will keep them there.  So far they are winning, as Patrick Lawrence says:

Look at what has become of us. Most Americans seem to approve of these things, or at least are unstirred to object. We have lost all sense of decency, of ordinary morality, of proportion. Can anyone listen to the din of the past couple of weeks without wondering if we have made of ourselves a nation of grotesques?

It is common to observe that in war the enemy is always dehumanized. We are now face to face with another reality: Those who dehumanize others dehumanize themselves more profoundly.

Perhaps people are too ignorant to see through the propaganda. To have some group to hate is always “uplifting.” But we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions, even when those actions are just buying the propaganda and hating those one is told to hate. It is very hard to accept that the leaders of your own country commit and contemplate unspeakable evil deeds and that they wish to control your mind. To contemplate that they might once again use nuclear weapons is unspeakable but necessary if we are to prevent it.

I hope my fears are unfounded.  I agree with Gilbert Doctorow that the Ukraine-Russia war separates the sheep from the goats, that there is no middle ground.  This is not to celebrate war and the death of innocent people, but it does demand placing the blame squarely where it belongs and not trying to have it both ways.  People like him, John Mearsheimer, the late badly missed Stephen Cohen, Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Pepe Escobar, Patrick Lawrence, Jack Matlock, Ted Postol, et al. are all cutting through the propaganda and delivering truth in opposition to all the lies.  They go gentile with fears of nuclear war, however, as if it is somewhat possible but highly unlikely, as if their deepest thoughts are unspeakable, for to utter them would be an act of despondency.

The consensus of the experts tends to be that the U.S. wishes to draw the Russians into a long protracted guerrilla war along the lines of its secret use of mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1979 and after. There is evidence that this is already happening. But I think the U.S. strategists know that the Russians are too smart for that; that they have learned their lesson; and that they will withdraw once they feel they have accomplished their goals. Therefore, from the U.S./NATO perspective, time is reasonably short and they must act quickly, perhaps by doing a false flag operation that will justify a drastic response, or upping the tempo in some other way that would seem to justify the use of nuclear weapons, perhaps tactical at first.

I appreciate the input of the Russia experts I mentioned above.  Their expertise dwarfs mine, but I disagree. Perhaps I am an excitable sort; perhaps I am one of those Patrick Lawrence refers to, quoting Carl Jung, as too emotional and therefore incapable of clear thinking. (I will leave the issue of this long held but erroneous western philosophical belief in the division of emotions and thoughts for another day.)  Perhaps I can’t see the obvious that a nuclear war will profit no one  and therefore it cannot happen. Yet Ted Postol, MIT professor of technology and international security, while perhaps agreeing that an intentional nuclear war is very unlikely, has been warning of an accidental one for many years.  He is surely right on that score and well worth listening to.

But either way, I am sorry to say, perhaps because my perspective is that of a generalist, not an expert, and my thinking is informed by art as much as social science and history, my antennae pick up a very disturbing message. A voice tells me that the danger is very, very real today.  It says:

Beware, we are on the edge of a nuclear abyss.

Humilitainment: How to Control the Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions

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By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”—Professor Neil Postman

Once again, the programming has changed.

Like clockwork, the wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis has shifted gears.

We have gone from COVID-19 lockdowns to Trump-Biden election drama to the Russia-Ukraine crisis to the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings to Will Smith’s on-camera assault of comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards Ceremony.

The distractions, distortions, and political theater just keep coming.

The ongoing reality show that is life in the American police state feeds the citizenry’s voracious appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.

Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today: as long as we are distracted, entertained, occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).

“Living is easy with eyes closed,” observed John Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.

“We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.

Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.

This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

“Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the government’s brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment as things happening to other people.

The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

This explains how we keep getting saddled with leaders in government who are clueless about the Constitution and out-of-touch with the needs of the people they were appointed to represent.

This is also what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.

Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.

In totalitarian regimes where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.

In countries where tyranny hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.

Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism, the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.

As George Orwell recognized, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses.

In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.” In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).

Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake.

Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.

In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.

Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the guise of entertainment and news.

Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.

While television news cannot—and should not—be completely avoided, the following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV news.

1. TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is worth reporting. Although there are still some good TV journalists, the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television “news” hosts at face value, it is your responsibility to judge and analyze what is reported.

2. TV news is entertainment. There is a reason why the programs you watch are called news “shows.” It’s a signal that the so-called news is being delivered as a form of entertainment. “In the case of most news shows,” write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful book, How to Watch TV News (1992), “the package includes attractive anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to hold the audience, the creation of the illusion of intimacy, and so on.”

Of course, the point of all this glitz and glamour is to keep you glued to the set so that a product can be sold to you. (Even the TV news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products, everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although the news items spoon-fed to you may have some value, they are primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be sold to advertisers.

3. Never underestimate the power of commercials, especially to news audiences. In an average household, the television set is on over seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves to be in control of their media consumption, are not really bothered by this. But TV is a two-way attack: it not only delivers programming to your home, it also delivers you (the consumer) to a sponsor.

People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated and have more money to spend. They are, thus, a prime market for advertisers. And sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Such commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost more to produce than the news stories themselves. Moreover, the content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of the news stories, cannot be ignored. Most commercials are aimed at prurient interests in advocating sex, overindulgence, drugs, etc., which has a demoralizing effect on viewers, especially children.

4. It is vitally important to learn about the economic and political interests of those who own the “corporate” media. There are few independent news sources anymore. The major news outlets are owned by corporate empires.

5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts. Because film footage and other visual imagery are so engaging on TV news shows, viewers are apt to allow language—what the reporter is saying about the images—to go unexamined. A TV news host’s language frames the pictures, and, therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is often determined by the host’s commentary. TV by its very nature manipulates viewers. One must never forget that every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but the edited form of the event. For example, presenting a one- to two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a TV talk show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage is a regular staple on news shows. Add to that the fact that the reporters editing the film have a subjective view—sometimes determined by their corporate bosses—that enters in.

6. Reduce by at least one-half the amount of TV news you watch. TV news generally consists of “bad” news—wars, torture, murders, scandals and so forth. It cannot possibly do you any harm to excuse yourself each week from much of the mayhem projected at you on the news. Do not form your concept of reality based on television. TV news, it must be remembered, does not reflect normal everyday life. Studies indicate that a heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is much more dangerous than it actually is.

7. One of the reasons many people are addicted to watching TV news is that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, which gives the illusion of participation in American life. But an “opinion” is all that we can gain from TV news because it only presents the most rudimentary and fragmented information on anything. Thus, on most issues we don’t really know much about what is actually going on. And, of course, we are expected to take what the TV news host says on an issue as gospel truth. But isn’t it better to think for yourself? Add to this that we need to realize that we often don’t have enough information from the “news” source to form a true opinion. How can that be done? Study a broad variety of sources, carefully analyze issues in order to be better informed, and question everything.

The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, a populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all.

It’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and push back against the real menace of the police state.

If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows more absurd by the minute.

A World At Odds: The Great Principles Wipe

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By Phil Butler

Source: New Eastern Outlook

The world of analysts has missed something critical, something fundamental for explaining what’s going on. We’re so focused on the symptoms of the great reset that’s been going on, that we’ve overlooked that which will reveal the end game. The techniques, the strategies being used, their breadth, and the essence of the psychological warfare being waged – let us know dangerous these days are. The Russians are not simply fighting to preserve Russia, they’re the footsoldiers standing against the beast. The real beast in the hearts of evil men.

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Mask, or no mask. Vaccine, or no vaccine. The pandemic awakened the suspicions of millions that something other than a serious influenza epidemic is going on. But the conspiracy that was too big to be a genuine conspiracy, was meant to be unbelievable. The bug itself, likely manufactured in a Biolab by our own government, seems to have been engineered to be contagious enough, just deadly enough, to erase our principles. This bug, the manipulation of the pandemic, it set the world at odds with itself. And what about climate change? Do you think that the elites running this shit show would pass up yet another chance to befuddle us? Climate science, or climate hoax – we’re at odds even over fundamental physics. Are you sensing it, the dastardly strategies at work, I mean? I am sure many of you do. But, I am also sure most people have no conception of the depth of the mind games being played today.

We’re undergoing a morality and mind wipe no psychothriller novelist ever imagined. The idea came to me like a bolt, snapping me from a deep sleep last night. Something about all that’s been going on has gnawed at me, as I am sure it has you, for months now. And now I know what it is. We’re being prepared for those artificial wombs that Aldous Huxley conjured up for his post-dystopian Utopia in the novel Brave New World. We must have been totally blinded, not to have seen and felt it before. Trangenderism, the United States creating gender-free passports, and Walt Disney’s company being boycotted over what American moms are calling “grooming” their kids to be victims of pedophiles. A Supreme Court nominee the other day, said in her confirmation hearings the other day, that she could not define what a woman is. Think about this for a moment. Supreme court justices are the most powerful and influential officials in the U.S. government. They are justices for life, appointed to interpret the law!

Mind cleansing. The great erasure of our morality is what is happening right now. The elites in North America and in Europe have joined hands in some kind of ritual, with plans for the final takeover of Earth. And Russia is the biggest hurdle in the way of this. But also, another facet of the overall wipe – Putin bad, or Putin good, that kind of ideological dilemma. But the reader should not simply take my word here. Read the sort of academic papers the Rothschild advisors and the Queen Mother’s men would be reading. Start with “Wiping the Slate Clean: Psychological Consequences of Physical Cleansing,” which discusses how cleaning your hands with disinfectants helps absolve you morally, of past transgressions. No, I am not joking. Those billions of hand sanitizer bottles at every store, restaurant, and office have a secondary effect. I know, more to think about. But while you are thinking, here is a direct quote from this research. See if you can deduce any correlations or benefits for this Bold New World being built:

“These findings show that the psychological impact of cleansing goes beyond the conceptual metaphor of moral cleanliness (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). The metaphoric notion of washing away one’s sins seems to have generalized to a broader conceptualization of “wiping the slate clean” (Lee & Schwarz, 2010b). This allows people to remove unwanted residues of the past, from threats to a moral self-view (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006) to doubts about recent decisions (Lee & Schwarz, 2010b) and worries about bad luck (Xu et al., 2011).”

The ‘clean slate,” is the point I am driving at here. In order for the elites waging total war on the Russians to succeed in their ultimate plan, western societies (first) must be under total control, in harmony, willingly compliant to whatever the technocrats and their benefactors dictate. Think of this as the indoctrination young children get when they first go to a religious school. Everything is being broken down and eradicated so that something else can take the place of former reality, morality, and faith. I told you, it’s diabolical what’s going on. And I think Putin and his people know this, but hesitate to reveal the inconceivable nature of it all.

What’s taking place in the world right now is the start of the final battle for the planet, which begins with the warring within our own hearts and minds. What we see happening is an overriding strategy based on what the ancient philosophers called tabula rasa, or clean slate. This is the idea that we are born without built-in mental content, and that experience and learning imprint our desires, fears, love, hate, morality, etc. The reader might ask now, “How can these elites wipe our slate clean to imprint their orders into us now, after years or decades of experiences?” It’s a logical question, but an easy one to answer.

While these theories of the soul and the self have been bounced back and forth for centuries in the works of philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the concept of the “inconceivable” iterated by Diogenes Laërtius (3rd Century AD) weighs on the mind-wiping taking place in the media, in society, and with the individual right now. Our perception is what is being wiped clean so that it can be rewritten. The philosopher writes:

“Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impressions on wax made by a seal; and perception they divide into, comprehensible and incomprehensible: Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation.”

The strategy, as it were, is all focused on where the source of knowledge is. First, all sources must be called into question. This is where the term “Fake News’ came in. First, anybody who did not talk nicely about Donald Trump became a fake news outlet. We all thought this was both funny, and correct, and we adopted the idea and the term wholeheartedly. But, as we see with the Ukraine crisis, news and information from Russia is totally banned, censored, and non-existent in the western psyche. And here’s where the real evil genius part comes in.

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Russia sympathetic sources of information, or those input channels, are not “good sources,” this is being established. Meanwhile, in America, people are getting the final touch of mind mopping via contrived incidents like the recent Academy Awards circus involving actor Will Smith and comedian Chris Rock. And, many other moral crises are being interjected before the final mind fuck. Half and half, like masks versus no masks, and climate change over climate hoax, Americans’ morality is being rubbed raw by the big rubber, gummy eraser of the controlling elites. And this, my friends, will lead to the powerful world order to literally dictate good and evil, right and wrong through the worldly version of what 11th-century philosopher Avicenna called the “perfect source of knowledge.” Their aim is to become, our source, our gods, our everything.

Look at how it rolls out. Western theorists and analysts, cringing because Vladimir Putin cites historical facts, or insists on legal precedent. The new generation ignorant of even 9/11 or the so-called “war on terror” is being indoctrinated. At the same time those who have experienced things like Vietnam or the Cold War, we’re being reprogrammed. Our principles are being wiped off of our cerebrums, like the spilled milk of belief in God, country, or the long-lost quest for peace. Mickey Mouse is a transvestite. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not vanquish torturing Nazis, he becomes one. And anyone who cannot be reprogrammed must be obliterated.

Finally, at the core of this wiping our slates clean strategy the original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance experiment seems to be in motion. On the one side, the elites seem convinced that humanity is capable of being totally alienated from past knowledge. And on the other, this veil cannot be applied because it is impossible for us to forget things like gender, ethnicity, the past, our complexion, or fact, as it were. Perhaps the ruling elites who have conjured up with gigantic brainwashing scheme, truly do feel like gods. Maybe their power to market and sell products and war has deluded them. At least I pray they are deluded. I pray the Russians and the other two-thirds of the world abstaining from the game, win out in the long run. I, for one, am not ready for a Brave New World of artificial wombs.

THE ANTI-STATIST: A REBEL FOR OUR TIMES

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By Gary Z McGee

Source: Waking Times

“One man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny.” ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

All flag worshipers have the same unhealthy religion: statism. Flag worship is a nationalist’s false idol. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sieg-heiling Nazi or a little kid singing the pledge of allegiance. It’s all parochial symbolism digging its tentacles into contemporary ideals. It leads to blind conformity, indoctrinated complacency, bloated pride, war, and people all too happy to choke on the blue pill of blind obedience to an outdated chain of command.

Flag worship is a psychosocial hang-up. It works because we are social creatures. But what begins as a symbol for unifying people becomes a symbol for dividing people when it is taken too seriously or too pridefully.

In a world of 195 nation states, all with their own flags, it behooves us to use the same reasoning that Aristotle used when he said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” and then apply it to the concept of flags. Better to entertain a flag without accepting its authority. That’s what anti-statists do. And so, anti-statists are free under all banners.

Statism keeps the world divided. Divided people are easier to control. As Maximilien Robespierre surmised, “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret in tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” Anti-statists teach us how not to be ignorant statists. They teach us how to rise above our cultural conditioning and how to become well-informed free-range humans instead.

As Nietzsche famously explained, “State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people.’” Anti-statists are here to remind us that we are NOT the state. We are free individuals who require others to be free so that we can remain free. It really is that simple. As Albert Camus said, “I rebel, therefore we exist.”

Statism only functions when unhealthy, divided individuals create an us-versus-them mentality. It cannot continue if people are healthy and connected. It cannot continue if people realize that freedom is paramount. In short: statism fails when enough people achieve a sense of freedom and wellbeing despite the state.

So how do you know if you’re a statist or not?

Here are seven tell-tale signs you may be a statist:

1.) You are a statist if you believe that you need a ruler to rule over you.

2.) You are a statist if you believe that you require permission to be free.

3.) You are a statist if you blindly worship a flag.

4.) You are a statist if you believe that violence is the solution to problems.

5.) You are a statist if you believe that people should be forced into doing things without their consent.

6.) You are a statist if you believe that an authority should make decisions for you.

7.) You are a statist if you believe in comfortable obedience over uncomfortable freedom.

Anti-statism is an alien concept in our world, even though statelessness can be extended to all living beings “in principle” and “in theory,” at its irreducible bedrock nature, it is exceptionally difficult to be sovereign and stateless. This is because the entire world is plagued with the disease of statism. Statism is so second-nature to our existence that we never question it.

We might as well be fish questioning water. But we are NOT fish. We are human beings with the ability for deep logic, higher reasoning, and basic common sense. As Alvaro Koplovich quipped, “A man without a government is like a fish without a bicycle.” Fish do not need bicycles. Just like mankind does not need government, though he is conditioned to think he does.

People are unlikely to question a system they’ve been indoctrinated into, even if that system goes against common sense, the golden rule, and the non-aggression principle. People are more likely to stick to what they’ve been conditioned to believe, whether that belief is judicial, political, religious or all three (statism).

Overcoming statism takes a particular flavor of courage that doesn’t readily exist in the average person. It’s a kind of courage that must be birthed through great psychological upheaval and the death of one’s cultural conditioning. It must be nursed and cultivated daily, lest it slip back into passivity or typical, ineffective, and outdated modes of courage. It must be guided by a unique and daring flavor of leadership: a radical leadership that checks and balances constructs of power and teaches others how to do the same. This is Anti-statism.

Freedom begins by overcoming false truths. A false truth is any belief that is deemed invalid according to universal laws. It’s our responsibility alone to figure this out. Nobody else can do it for us. It’s our responsibility alone to question what we’ve been taught.

What’s crucial to understand is that the concept of freedom is almost entirely psychological in nature. In today’s day and age, it is less about breaking free physically (from harsh overt slavery), and more about breaking free psychologically (from comfortable covert slavery). Breaking free psychologically is rising above the cultural conditioning and reconditioning our condition.

The anti-statist does this with pluck and aplomb, acting as both a beacon of light for those stuck in the dark (confused and disoriented) AND as a beacon of darkness for those blinded by the light (culturally conditioned).

Anti-statists force us to look into the cultural mirror. They teach us how to pour the statist Kool Aid down the sink. They teach us how and why to deny any authority that claims we need permission to be free. They teach us how to disobey inauthentic leadership and how to embrace authentic leadership instead. They teach us how to become leaders who teach others HOW to think rather than WHAT to think.

Where statism is comfortable slavery, anti-statism is uncomfortable freedom. The anti-statist is free and uses that freedom with the soul intent to free others. They escape tyranny by freeing others through the symbol of their own freedom. Thus, freedom begets more freedom.

As the folks at Academy of Ideas said, “Contrary to what statist propaganda teaches, freedom cannot be imposed on us from above, nor is it created or destroyed at the ballot box. Freedom emerges at a societal level when enough of us recognize its value and structure our lives accordingly.”

Freedom must find its limit in justice and justice must find its limit in freedom. Otherwise, we either find ourselves living in a free-for-all state of chaos where anybody can do anything without any consequences (like the movie The Purge), or we’re living in a violent authoritarian state with oppressive laws and the illusion of freedom (like statism). Ideally, freedom balanced with justice and justice balanced with freedom is the healthiest way.

Here are five anti-statist tactics to overcome statism:

1.) Don’t ask for permission to be free.

2.) Don’t pay for the guards to guard you.

3.) Learn self-defense and honor the nonaggression principle.

4.) Vote with your feet: Don’t vote in, vote out.

5.) Don’t rely on government; govern yourself.

(Further reading: The Best Way to Manage Slaves (and how to avoid becoming one.)

Though anti-statists are born into a profoundly sick society, they decide not to be a part of it. They decide to live in the “real” world, a world not tainted by the unhealthy culture that the false system has created. Although the unhealthy culture is something the anti-statist must deal with, it is not something they must be a part of unless they choose to.

The anti-statist takes up the mantle of freedom despite authority so that you, your mother, your daughters, and even your granddaughters can one day be free from the powers of false men. They feel it is their own responsibility, as truly free humans, to do something about the unhealthy state of affairs because nobody else will. Nobody else seems to have the capacity to do what the anti-statist can do.

A wise man once said, “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.” Thus, anti-statists refuse to do nothing. They don’t waste time talking about being good men. They ARE good men. They will not allow evil to triumph. Even if that means they must make the goody-two-shoes and snowflakes of the world uncomfortable. Even if that means they must be amoral in the face of shortsighted morality and blind immorality.

When the laws of a nation-state are moral and just, the anti-statist follows them. When they are immoral and unjust, the anti-statist breaks them. This is because the anti-statist has become a self-ruling, self-overcoming, amoral agent unto himself. He can see through the nationalism that blinds the statist and, for that reason, he is a forerunner regarding the healthy and progressive evolution of the species.

Where statists believe that you require permission to be free, anti-statists understand that you are required to be free. Where the statist believes that only the state can provide and protect one’s freedom, the anti-statist understands that it is the sole responsibility of each individual to provide and protect their own freedom and often it must be taken away from the state. As William Blake said, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another Man’s.”

At the end of the day, it comes down to taking personal responsibility. The anti-statist teaches us all that it is our sole responsibility to realize how we are caught up in the song and dance of an extremely dangerous religion known as statism. Statism is an avalanche of outdated cultural conditioning that has divided the world for too long. It is high time that we break the cascade of divisiveness.

If, as Voltaire warned, “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible,” then the anti-statist’s rebuttal is: if enough snowflakes take the responsibility to distance themselves from the avalanche, then there is no avalanche.

WHY IS NON-CONFORMITY YOUR GREATEST ASSET IN THESE STRANGE TIMES?

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By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

Have you noticed that in most of the great works of dystopian science fiction and cinema there’s a recurring theme of mass conformity to uncomfortably rigid and enforced social norms?

There’s always an impenetrable bureaucracy which has reduced the masses to statistical averages to be more efficiently managed. The system is never benign and loving, because paradoxically, at the top of the pyramid there always resides a single individual ruler, who is invariably psychotic, having no contact with reality. His psychosis is mirrored by the masses, and paradoxically, the individual is overrun by the mass so the the mass can be overrun by an individual.

The citizen-collective in these stories is intrinsically recognized as inhuman, unnatural, malignant and dangerous. It is compassionless, irrational, illogical and excessively emotional. To behold such a well-behaved and compliant hive stirs the primal fear of dying before death, of not-living while alive, and of an existence devoid of meaning.

The hero in these stories is always the lone individual who finds it unbearable to subjugate his autonomy to the herd. As much as he understands the consequences for non-conformity he simply cannot refuse the risk of rebellion, and is compelled to covertly express his distinctiveness. Once he experiences the thrill of making some small departure from the standard, he is thereby morally obliged to further differentiate himself, ultimately arousing the fury of the state which aims to brutally suppress him in order to maintain its position of absolute authority.

George Orwell’s 1984 is a favored example of this because the book takes you inside the mind of someone who cannot resist the pull of inner authenticity, self-integrity and truth. Aroused by truth and love, the protagonist, Winston Smith, is simply incapable of squashing his internal drive towards individuation from the party-mind, and sets out on a futile endeavor to experience the joys of having a genuine human existence… if only for a moment.

“So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.” ~Winston Smith, 1984

I won’t spoil it for you, but it doesn’t go well. He gets a short glimpse of what life could be like outside of the prison of total obedience, but is quickly punished. And horribly so.

Our natural drive towards individuation and authenticity is such a powerfully buoyant force that to subjugate it requires a tremendous counter force. Fear is typically what does the trick. Fear is the glue that holds the collective together.

What many people don’t realize is that this same story plays out metaphorically in our personal lives all day everyday, and without a proper understanding of how the mind seeks safety amongst the tribe, we’re at the mercy of the default programs running in the subconscious mind.

This is where we are wired to conform to the group, because the subconscious mind is the survival-seeking mechanism at the root of consciousness, and it compels us to pursue the safety of not being rejected, abandoned, ridiculed or ostracized. It looks at what everyone else is doing and it imitates, emulates, copies, and mimics the most common behaviors it sees in the tribe around us, now matter how insane or psychotic they are.

It has the faulty perception that to exist outside of the tribe is fatal, when in today’s society, the opposite is true.

But the good life lies beyond the herd, because by its very nature, the herd is a reduction to an average. It is by definition mediocre.

Just look at the quality of the average today. Unhealthy, unhappy, broke, dissatisfied, depressed, emotional, disconnected, dysfunctional and delusional. Being average here is deadly.

The good life is found in your authenticity and individuality. This is the part of you that has access to those non-average, non-mediocre experiences which make life worth living and inspire you to live deeply into your definition of success. Without the nuances of individual experience and authentic expression, life is dull, stupid, frightful and boring.

Culturally we have a history of valuing the individual in his own right. We’ve always revered him over the collective and credit the ingenuity and creativity of individualistic, non-conformist thinking for shaping the system and circumstances which built the foundation of the prosperity we enjoy today. This is reflected in a few excellent quotes from some of our most revered American authors, speaking from a time when there was no herd mentality, only individuals collaborating to build something unique:

“All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.”~James Fenimore Cooper

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” ~Henry David Thoreau

“They [conformists] think society wiser than their soul, and know not that one soul, and their soul, is wiser than the whole world… Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members… Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist… Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Again, your best, most prosperous life is dependent on your willingness and ability to differentiate yourself from this sick tribe. The subconscious, however, wants you to feel safe, which is not the same thing as being safe, nor happy. And this is why your individuality is essential to real happiness and prosperity. It represents the drive to express your most extraordinary qualities, which is required to bring your true nature to completion.

Carl Jung elucidated this process of individuation, which is the psyche’s journey toward full maturation and independence. Individuation is, as he put it is, ‘to divest the self of false wrappings.’ The false wrappings of today’s world are revealed in how you self-sabotage and how you hold yourself back from your potential.

What repetitive behaviors do you engage in that you wish you didn’t? Where did the programs for these behaviors originate? Are they yours by choice, or are they learned from others, perhaps your family or tribe of origin? What do you repeatedly do, or not do, that takes your further and further from living the life you deserve and desire?

Here’s a final quote by Carl Jung on the importance of expressing your uniqueness and allowing for your individuation.

“Insofar as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists. Let it band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes – it is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.

Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally shortsighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well disciplined mob can do in the hands of a single madman… People go on blithely organizing and believing in the sovereign remedy of mass action, without the least consciousness of the fact that the most powerful organizations in the world can be maintained only by the greatest ruthlessness of their leaders and the cheapest of slogans.” ~Carl Jung