It’s time once again to check for Ministry of Propaganda updates, which like Windows and iOS is constantly being updated to counter new threats and enhance the user experience (heh).
Much like the other operating systems that underpin our daily lives, the core functions of the MoP don’t change much. My chart from 2007 remains an instructive summary of MoP operations, with the only changes being Mr. Buffett is now buying oil companies and social media corporations are now major media players.
The core mission of the Ministry of Propaganda isn’t just to push a desirable narrative–it’s to mystify the underlying dynamics of a system that benefits the few at the expense of the many by promoting a self-serving worldview (weltanschauung) that explains how the world works in a way that protects the interests of those in power.
As science fiction author Philip K. Dick explains in the quote below, the MoP narrative isn’t just a cloak thrown over the underlying dynamics, it’s the creation of an entire universe / worldview, including contexts for understanding what’s going on, establishing what’s valuable and what isn’t, and what behaviors enhance status and which ones marginalize us.
The Ministry of Propaganda isn’t monolithic: various factions compete to push their self-serving narratives. As Dick noted, this includes governments, corporations, religious and political groups, each of which understands that once the populace accepts their worldview, their power is cemented in realms far above mere force.
A key mechanism in establishing a dominant worldview is the think-tank or equivalent self-serving body claiming authority over what’s true / false and important / unimportant. This can be authority over the “correct” interpretation of spiritual texts, economic policies, healthcare “standards of care,” geopolitical goals, etc.
Since humans are innately social, status-striving beings, hierarchies of authority and power are the air we breathe. Those who establish themselves as authorities don’t just gain power, they cement their power on the basis of their authority rather than on loyalty or competence.
The enormous powers of social media and traditional media to promote claims of authority have generated a deranging snarl of conflicting agendas and narratives. Various centers of power collaborate on pushing worldviews that benefit their interests, but this isn’t entirely coherent. The one thing all participants in the Ministry of Propaganda agree on is our power is deserved and must be defended against all threats, which includes hostile entities inside and outside the national borders.
This fragmented, constantly shifting cacophony of competing authorities is destabilizing. As the tectonic plates of worldviews collide, the edges crumble and people naturally seek the safety of some core set of beliefs, in effect “circling the wagons” in an attempt to restore some internal stability.
We see this in the intense political polarization of this era (see chart below). To make sense of the competing claims of authority, we reduce the perimeter of what’s defendable, putting more of the world into “outside enemies” (them) and reserving the “safe, trusted place” for fewer of “us.”
With so many competing factions in the Ministry of Propaganda, there’s a proliferation of propaganda such that there is literally nothing left but PR. In a universe constructed of nothing but agit-prop and PR, we all have our favorites examples. James Bond picks up his Nokia phone. Even though nobody’s seen a Nokia phone in ages, if you want to be cool like Bond, go buy a Nokia phone.
Marketing is the MoP’s entire universe. Everybody’s selling something to gain or maintain power, status, mindshare or the ultimate prize, the dominant worldview.
To ease the confusion, please download the latest updates from the Ministry. These updates replace all that misinformation, misdirection, and blatant marketing with the, ahem, facts, or the correct interpretation of the facts. (We had to destroy the village in order to save it. OK, got it.)
While it’s fun to sort all the propaganda into various boxes, we would do well to look for what all the marketers / MoP players seek to mystify. In my analysis, what must be mystified at all costs boils down to the unsustainability of 1) the current consumption of resources, 2) the current method of creating capital so the few can buy up the planet’s most valuable assets, 3) neocolonialism, the modern replacement for the old model of occupation and exploitation by force, and 4) neofeudalism, the economic / social /political arrangement in which the majority of the populace are modern-day serfs with extremely limited agency and power which they are told is limitless.
“You can be anything you choose to be!” Or at least your digital avatar can do so, and that’s practically as good as actually having agency and power in the real world. Or so we’re told, mindlessly, endlessly without pause or respite.
Among the more notorious advocates of authoritarian lockdown measures during the COVID‑19 pandemic has been Dr. Leana Wen, a medical doctor, former Baltimore health commissioner, contributing writer for the Washington Post, and CNN medical analyst.
She gained notoriety for explicitly advocating social punishment of unvaccinated people as a means of coercing them into getting vaccinated, even if they chose to remain unvaccinated because they had already acquired superior natural immunity. She based her position at the time on the false claim that the fCOVID‑19 vaccines would stop transmission of SARS‑CoV‑2, the coronavirus that causes the disease.
I discussed this in my article “The Official Ignorance of Natural Immunity to SARS‑CoV‑2”, which was the second installment of my multi-part series exposing how the “public health” and mainstream media establishments were systematically deceiving the public about natural immunity versus the effectiveness of vaccines to manufacture consent for the policy goal of achieving high vaccine uptake.
In that article, I documented how on March 12, 2021, Leana Wen declared on CNN that, for people who hadn’t been persuaded yet to accept vaccination, “we need to make it clear to them that the vaccine is the ticket back to pre-pandemic life.”
Dr. Wen expressed deep concern that, with states already having begun to drop lockdown measures and open society up, “the window to do that”—meaning to coerce people into getting vaccinated—“is really narrowing”. As she elucidated (emphasis added):
We have a very narrow window to tie reopening policy to vaccination status. Because otherwise if everything is reopened, then what’s the carrot going to be? How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine? So that’s why I think the CDC and the Biden administration needs to come out a lot bolder and say, “If you are vaccinated, you can do all these things. Here are all the freedoms that you have.” Because otherwise, people are going to go out and enjoy these freedoms anyway.
You can watch her advocate the systematic violation of individuals’ right to informed consent in the video embedded in this tweet of hers:
I’m very concerned that we won’t reach herd immunity in the US because of vaccine complacency—not anti-vax people but those who need to be incentivized & see what’s in it for them. We need to clearly message vaccination = ticket to pre-pandemic life. pic.twitter.com/9tXw9C3bP0
The premise of her argument that people should be coerced into getting vaccinated was the falsehood that the vaccines would prevent transmission. This misinformation was also propagated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As I also document in that article, the message that the vaccines would prevent transmission was implicitly communicated to the public with the CDC’s declaration on March 8, 2021, that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear a mask or maintain social distancing in public or in private gatherings.
The message that natural immunity offered no protection against infection and transmission was also implicitly communicated by the CDC’s refusal to inform people who had already recovered from SARS‑CoV‑2 infection that they had acquired immunity and therefore were at far lower risk of becoming infected and transmitting the virus.
A New York Times headline celebrated the discrimination against unvaccinated people, including the naturally immune, with the headline “Let the Unmasked Gatherings Begin”! The article quoted CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky telling the public that “a growing body of evidence” told us that fully vaccinated people could resume normal activities “at low risk to themselves”, saying nothing about people who’d already recovered from infection being able to do so.
Dr. Wen’s comment on March 12 advocating coerced vaccination was part of a criticism of the CDC’s policy update telling fully vaccinated people they no longer had to wear masks. Her concern was that unvaccinated people—including the naturally immune—would just act like they were vaccinated to be able to participate normally in society.
The CDC expanded its discrimination against other unvaccinated people on May 13, telling the public that once you’ve been fully vaccinated, “you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.” The message to unvaccinated people with natural immunity, by contrast, was to “find a vaccine.”
In a Twitter post announcing the updated policy guidance, Walensky stated, “If you are fully vaccinated against #COVID19, you can now start doing things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. You can participate in indoor and outdoor activities – large or small – without wearing a mask or physically distancing.”
If you are fully vaccinated against #COVID19, you can now start doing things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. You can participate in indoor and outdoor activities – large or small – without wearing a mask or physically distancing. https://t.co/P6hzrFTbxwpic.twitter.com/AncZ6Wt5ci
— Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) May 13, 2021
President Joseph R. Biden also took to Twitter to threaten, “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. The choice is yours.” That order went for naturally immune people, too.
The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.
Neither the CDC nor Biden were extreme enough in their efforts to systematically violate the right of individuals to informed consent with policy measures to coerce people into getting vaccinated, in Dr. Wen’s view.
The extremity of Leana Wen’s authoritarian position extended to her views on the masking of children.
On Twitter on May 28, 2021, Wen advocated mandatory masking of unvaccinated children—including those with natural immunity—at summer camp.
BREAKING: New CDC guidance on summer camp guidance is out. 1) Most importantly, masking outdoors isn't required any more. 2) If everyone is vaccinated, no need for masks. 2) Masking indoors is "strongly encouraged"–which I think should be "required" if some are unvaccinated. https://t.co/MTZFax6GxR
The same day, she criticized the governor of Georgia for prohibiting schools from making mask use mandatory for children.
Georgia is PROHIBITING schools from requiring masks, even when unvaccinated remain at risk (and kids under 12 cannot yet be vaccinated). https://t.co/vKaza5gtth
On June 14, she made a display of her son Eli “practicing his mask-wearing” at home in anticipation of his first day of summer camp. (Note in the photo that the mask is not properly fitted, leaving large gaps at the side.)
Today is the first day of summer camp! Eli is practicing his mask-wearing (outdoors, masks aren't needed, but masks should still be required indoors for unvaccinated people around others not yet vaccinated.) pic.twitter.com/ujJSlzf8qT
On July 9, she praised the CDC for recommending mandatory masking of unvaccinated children. “I am really glad that they have said that masks are going to be required for unvaccinated children over the age of two”, she said, describing mandatory masking as “essential”.
My reaction to the CDC’s new guidelines on reopening schools: Glad they are requiring masks indoors for unvaccinated students & teachers and ramping up testing. However, this is another case where proof of vaccination is needed. Without it, mask mandates should stay in place. pic.twitter.com/xhoEEdur0D
But then, within four months since telling fully vaccinated people that they no longer needed to wear a mask, the CDC’s own data established that outbreaks could occur among fully vaccinated people. By the end of July 2021, it was already apparent that the emerging data were falsifying the repeatedly communicated message from the entire “public health” establishment that the vaccines would provide durable protection against infection and transmission.
That month, CDC researchers learned of a large outbreak in Massachusetts in which 74 percent of COVID‑19 cases were in fully vaccinated people. Furthermore, they observed that the amount of virus shed by vaccinated people was just as high as with the unvaccinated, implying equal contagiousness.
This finding prompted to CDC at the end of July to flip-flop and return to advising fully vaccinated people to start masking up once again.
Leana Wen took to the media to criticize the CDC again, this time for conveying what she felt was a confusing message by reversing its guidance. In a Washington Post article on July 29, Wen acknowledged the CDC’s “research showing that vaccinated people who become infected with the delta variant carry a similar amount of virus to those who are unvaccinated and infected”, which “suggests that vaccinated people could be carriers and therefore capable of spreading the coronavirus to family members”.
Her concern nevertheless remained “that the unvaccinated could be a danger” to her and her family. By her dizzying reasoning, it was only because of “unvaccinated” people that she, a fully vaccinated person, “could contract the coronavirus and bring it back to my vulnerable family members.”
On Twitter, she summarized her criticism by describing the CDC’s reversal as “confusing” and “muddled”, curiously arguing despite her acknowledgment of the data showing that fully vaccinated people were spreading the virus that indoor mask mandates were needed “not because the vaccinated are suddenly a problem, but because we don’t trust the unvaccinated to voluntarily do the right thing.”
She did not explain how it could logically be the case that only unvaccinated people posed that risk to her given that vaccination did not work to stop transmission.
While acknowledgment of cellular immunity, as distinct from the humoral immunity provided by antibodies, had been practically nonexistent in the public messaging of the “public health” establishment until then, suddenly, in August 2021, the CDC and other “authorities” appeared to discover that, even if someone’s antibody levels waned and failed to protect them against infection, they would still be protected against severe disease and death due to cellular immune responses!
Curiously, that never crossed their mind when the public message was that natural immunity must be weak and short-lived since antibodies were observed to rapidly wane from peak levels seen post-infection.
It also never crossed their minds to inform the public that this rapid decline is normal and expected after recovery from acute infection. As I cover in great detail in my series on the superiority of natural immunity, the claims of short-lived natural immunity, propagated by the CDC and others, were falsified by studies demonstrating natural immunity to be robust, broad, and durable, with the induction of immunological memory capable of rapidly churning out antibodies as necessary in the event of reexposure.
The public messaging shifted from telling everyone to get vaccinated as a selfless social duty to protect others by preventing the spread of the virus to telling everyone get vaccinated to protect themselves against severe disease.
On CNN on August, 2021, Walensky reassured that the data continued to indicate that being fully vaccinated was protective against severe illness and death from the then-predominant Delta variant of SARS‑CoV‑2. “But what they can’t do anymore”, Walensky said, “is prevent transmission.”
That was disingenuous. By saying “anymore”, she was implying that the loss of sterilizing immunity, meaning protection against infection and transmission (as distinct from protection against disease), was a function of the newly predominant Delta variant, but it was primarily a function of the vaccine and their inability to induce durable sterilizing immunity regardless of the variant.
Meanwhile, on major social media platforms, it remained prohibited to tell the truth. For example, Google continued its policy whereby YouTube videos saying that “that COVID-19 vaccines are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19” were subject to deletion and the users to deplatforming. (YouTube quietly dropped this and other prohibitions of truth-telling earlier this year.)
Leana Wen continued her advocacy of masking of children.
On August 10, she quoted a New York Times article saying, “If we send children to school without masks, we increased their risk of acquiring #covid19. Some could suffer illness or die. If we close schools, millions of children will suffer learning loss….” Her comment was, “Hence the solution: Keep schools open, with masking.”
"If we send children to school without masks, we increase their risk of acquiring #covid19. Some could suffer illness or die. If we close schools, millions of children will suffer learning loss…."
Six days later, she argued in favor of masking children in “all schools in this country”. On August 16, she argued on Twitter that “Masking in schools reduces #covid19 transmission” and suggested that parents whose children go to schools that “do not require masking” should organize to make mask-wearing “the norm”.
Masking in schools reduces #covid19 transmission. If schools do not require masking, parents should still mask kids—at least with a 3-ply surgical mask. Talk to other parents in the class to see if mask-wearing can be the norm. Insist on contact tracing & testing. @kaitlancollinspic.twitter.com/WI2fhBzeUU
On August 21, expressing agreement with a comment by former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, she said that it was “Exactly right” to equate being “anti-mask”—a euphemism inclusive of anyone opposed to mandatory masking of children—with being “anti-science” and “basically pro-virus and anti-child.”
"The politicians who are taking the side of anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-science are basically pro-virus and anti-child." @DrTomFrieden to @Acosta@CNN.
Fast forward to March 2020. By this time, Leana Wen had surrendered to the reality that the vaccines do not prevent transmission and that people needed to start getting back to living their lives normally anyway. On March 22, she said on Twitter, “For those who don’t agree that the vaccinated can return to pre-pandemic normal, I ask: What should we all do? Perpetual masking? Forever not dining out, avoiding large weddings & indoor gatherings, etc? Virtually everything has risk, and zero covid is not a viable strategy.”
For those who don’t agree that the vaccinated can return to pre-pandemic normal, I ask: What should we all do? Perpetual masking? Forever not dining out, avoiding large weddings & indoor gatherings, etc? Virtually everything has risk, and zero covid is not a viable strategy.
Now, recall that the CDC had been recommending that people wear cloth or surgical facemasks to protect themselves and others. The CDC had specifically told people not to wear an N95 mask in order to preserve them for health care workers. The CDC only stopped recommending the use of cloth masks in favor of surgical or N95 masks in January 2022.
Leana Wen bluntly alluded to the rationale for this change in a tweet on March 23, stating that “simple cloth masks are little more than facial decorations” and “have no place against extremely contagious variants”. People should “ideally” opt for an N95, instead, she suggested.
Yeah, you wear masks indoors until we're in the clear. It's… get this… a cheap piece of cloth, and it does a great job of keeping us safe.
This was not because “the science” on masks had “changed”. It was what many people were saying from the start. It was what many people on social media were banned for saying, just as many were banned for pointing out that the claims by “public health” officials that the vaccines would provide durable protection and stop transmission were unsupported by scientific evidence. To oppose the CDC’s recommendation for children in school to wear a cloth mask was “anti-science”, “pro-virus”, and “anti-child”, Wen had previously suggested.
Now she was admitting that simple cloth masks do practically nothing to protect the wearer or stop the wearer from spreading the virus to others. Her evolving position on mask use didn’t stop there. She also came around to acknowledging another truth that opponents of the policies she advocated were banned from saying on social media: that forcing children to wear masks can harm them.
On August 23, the Washington Post published an article by Wen under the headline: “I’m a doctor. Here’s why my kids won’t wear masks this school year.”
She stated, “It became clear that the goal I’d hoped for—containment of covid‑19—was not reachable. This coronavirus is here to stay.” Her “benefit-risk calculus” for her own children had changed. “I was willing to limit my children’s activities for a year or two but not for their entire childhood.”
That it was a mistake to singularly focus on avoiding COVID‑19 is precisely what many people censored on social media had been saying when speaking out in opposition to the policies that Leana Wen had previously advocated. It was the central message of The Great Barrington Declaration, whose scientifically credentialed authors experienced censorship for speaking out against the authoritarian lockdowns.
Wen listed a number of ostensible rationalizations for her change of view on the masking of her own children. It was the Omicron variant now, which was more contagious and caused milder illness. Most people, including most children, had already been infected with the coronavirus. Her children were now fully vaccinated.
She continued:
Now that they are full vaccinated, we do not plan to limit their activities, and—like most parents in their school—will not be masking them in the classroom.
I accept the risk that my kids will probably contract covid‑19 this school year, just as they could contract the flu, respiratory syncytial virus and other contagious diseases.
Then she disclosed another reason why she would no longer be forcing her own kids to wear a mask:
Masking has harmed our son’s language development, and limiting both kids’ extracurriculars and social interactions would negatively affect their childhood and hinder my and my husband’s ability to work.
While she had previously dismissed anyone who opposed the policies she advocated as not just “anti-mask” but “anti-science” and “anti-child”, she added: “To be clear, my family’s decision not to mask our kids should not be mislabeled as being antimask; we would never stigmatize other parents and caregivers for the difficult choices they must make.”
That, of course, was a bald-faced lie. She had in fact stigmatized other parents for the difficult choices they must make about what is in the best interests of their children’s health, calling them insulting names and advocating policies specifically to penalize them for making choices that were different from hers.
She closed by saying that her changed approach “reflects the evolution of the pandemic and the acknowledgment that avoiding covid-19 cannot be the singular metric of people’s overall health and well-being.”
That it was a mistake to singularly focus on avoiding COVID‑19 is precisely what many people censored on social media had been saying when speaking out in opposition to the policies that Leana Wen had previously advocated.
Yet here now we have this prominent advocate of mandatory masking of children in schools disclosing that her own child had been harmed from having to wear a mask all the time.
Both of my kids are starting school next week.
Now that they are fully vaccinated, we do not plan to limit their activities.
And — like most parents in their school — we will not be masking them in the classroom.
She disclosed additional details on Twitter. “In my case,” she shared on August 24, “I have the ‘before’ and ‘after’. After my son’s school went mask optional, there was a profound change in speech and social development after he (& nearly all of his class, including his teacher) took off masks.”
(Note that she observed this in reply to a comment criticizing that personal anecdotes do not establish causation, with the specific example cited of the belief of many parents that vaccination is what caused their child’s autism. Wen’s appropriate point about gaslighting equally applies to parents of autistic children who likewise saw the “before” and “after”.)
She added, “Yes, this is anecdote. But it feels like gaslighting when others are telling parents that we don’t know what’s causing problems for our kids, when we have seen it for ourselves. Recognizing that masks COULD have harm for SOME is all that a lot of parents are asking for.”
Thank you for sharing your story. In my case, I have the “before” and “after”. After my son’s school went mask optional, there was a profound change in speech and social development after he (& nearly all of his class, including his teacher) took off masks.
(Following up on the point about autism, note that then CDC Director Julie Gerberding admitted on CNN in 2008 that vaccination can cause encephalopathy manifesting as symptoms of autism. She was referring to the case of a girl named Hannah Poling, who had been developing normally but regressed into diagnosed autism after receiving nine vaccine doses at once at nineteen months of age. The long-time director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, Dr. Frank DeStefano, acknowledged in an interview in 2018 that “it’s a possibility” that vaccines could cause autism in genetically susceptible individuals, but that the problem is it’s “hard to predict who those children might be”, and research designed to identify underlying cofactors that place certain children at greater risk of vaccine injury is “very difficult to do”.)
The same day, former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams took to Twitter to deny that masks can harm children. “I’m saying, after 2 years and millions masked, show me the data that says it delays speech. Because I can’t find it.”
So to be clear, 1) your response to my concern that black people are woefully under vaccinated, which undermines YOUR own argument that we needn’t concern ourselves with adults getting sick because they have access to vaccines, is that that is merely a distraction?!
Of course, it is easy to say that evidence does not exist that forcing masks on children causes harm when policymakers forced masks on children in the absence of studies to determine the benefits versus risks.
In response to Adams, Wen retorted, “Those data don’t exist yet. Neither do data that school mask mandates (especially w/cloth masks), in a time of omicron, saves lives. That’s why where the US has landed—allowing individual choice—is sensible. Allow parents to decide what’s best for their kids, masks on or not.”
And 2) Once again you’re using a well worn arguing tactic here- “but the toddlers!” Most kids aren’t toddlers, and I’m certainly not arguing for masking them. I’m saying, after 2 years and millions masked, show me the data that says it delays speech. Because I can’t find it.
Of course, that forcing children to wear masks could harm some of them was precisely what many people she had previously dismissed as “anti-child” were saying from the start. It is among the concerns that social media companies prohibited people from expressing, citing the policy recommendations that Leana Wen advocated as the basis for their censorship.
To cite YouTube again as an example, the Google-owned video platform had long prohibited “Claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects.” This is among the prohibitions that YouTube has since dropped from its community guidelines.
It is an encouraging sign that an extremist like Dr. Wen can come around to the view that risk-benefit assessments need to be individualized and mask use voluntary, and it is good to see her confronting Jerome Adams for trying to gaslight parents into disbelieving their own experiences and empirical evidence. It is just sad that her son, by her own account, became harmed by the very intervention she had so fervently argued should be forced upon school children.
An apology from Wen to other parents of children harmed by the policies she advocated has not, to my knowledge, been forthcoming. Her son has my sympathies.
Before President Orange Crush broke every liberal on the planet, it wasn’t considered so tragic to have an opinion that differed from the prevailing narrative: in fact, in some cases, differing opinions were welcomed and supported.
It’s not that I haven’t lost a lot of personal attachments since my son was killed: from former best-friends, to relatives, when I started speaking out against Bush and his wars, it just seems that some of those that rushed in to fill that void, are rushing out with the tide of corporate disinfo, and demonization, now.
I seem to recall, a time not of “good old days” because those are mostly a myth; Situationally, times can be good, or bad, depending on time, place, and/or circumstances. But I do remember times when we could disagree with someone, then lay out why we held our beliefs and resume normal relations whether agreement was reached, or not. No longer! Now, it’s “you don’t stand with Ukraine: BUZZ OFF!” Or, “you didn’t get the hokey-pokey—you’re not welcome at our event, home, or social media wall.” People have fallen for the Bush line, “you’re either with us, or against us.” This phenomenon is true, even if you agree with someone 90% of the time, if there’s that tiny 10%, you become the banned, the erased, the misleader, the pariah.
Growing up during the Vietnam War is what formed my basis for mistrusting government and media. The distrust I had for these rotting institutions was solidified after 9/11/01, where, it seemed to me, a mom in Southern California, that not one person was telling the truth. An icon like Phil Donahue was kicked of of MSNBCia for questioning the rush to war in Iraq.
My grandchildren’s generation will be formed by Covid and that angers me, as well. The always confusing, at times harmful, and mixed-messages we all received harmed our children, the most, I think. Along with the closure of their schools: the mental toll may never be able to be fully determined.
This reminds me of a time when my daughter was getting a few good friends together to meet at the local (closed) school to play kickball out in the fresh-air and sunshine. You might say these 3-4 families were in our “affinity” group. The children were running around, having fun, not hugging or spitting in each other’s mouths. The very next thing we knew, the school-district had plowed up the baseball diamond we used for this safe-recreation. The children witnessed that: sunshine, play, fresh-air, and good health were criminalized for a population that had very little risk, but paid a high-price.
As you may have surmised, by the time Covid-19 rolled around, I was hyper-critical of the prevailing narrative. My opinions were not formed by cable, or legacy media outlets like the WashedUp Post, or NY Slimes. By February 2020, I already had trusted friends, colleagues, comrades, and news sources and not one of them were corporate, or profited off of the lockdowns, or mandates.
Now, though, instead of honest debate, or democratization of information, we have the de-platform, or no-platform era. The evil nanny state has entered a new phase: one where we disobedient children cannot even be allowed to be exposed to information that is not sanitized, or scrubbed for our “protection,” This is what annoys the heck out of me. Technocrats and bureaucrats are conspiring against me to funnel me, and, us all into one big, miserable reality. I am not having any of it.
Meta (jackass) Corp (Facebook and Instagram) have scrubbed Robert Kennedy, Jr’s organization Children’s Health Defense from its platforms, and I am not okay with that, either. Even though I don’t agree 100% with everything they do, or say, I think they have important things to do, and say. In my opinion (oh dear), more people should be exposed to the information that CHD disseminates, not less.
So, since the CDC has quietly made lockdowns, masks, and mandates, disappear, finally catching up with CHD, does that mean that Meta (jackass) Corp will be taking down its pages, as well? Somehow, I doubt it.
I have never told anyone what to think, or not to think; and/or what to put in their body, or not—I always offer my own opinion and post what I am doing. People are free to do, or not do, what they want with one caveat: properly informed choices. As long as billionaires and bureaucrats prevent access to a wide variety of information, informed consent is not a possibility.
On August 1st, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the beginning of a new campaign — #ThinkBeforeSharing. Intended to help counter and stop the spread of what it claims is harmful disinformation and conspiracy theories online.
They say, quite matter-of-factly, “The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a worrying rise in disinformation and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories can be dangerous: they often target and discriminate against vulnerable groups, ignore scientific evidence and polarize society with serious consequences. This needs to stop.”
Later quoting the UNESCO director general who says,
“Conspiracy theories cause real harm to people, to their health, and also to their physical safety. They amplify and legitimize misconceptions about the pandemic, and reinforce stereotypes which can fuel violence and violent extremist ideologies.”
Going on to affirm,
“A new campaign helps you learn how to identify, debunk, react to and report on conspiracy theories to prevent their spread. Check out the infographics and social media pack below and help spread the word that facts matter and no one is to blame. Thinking critically and being informed about conspiracy theories is key to challenging them.
This UNESCO campaign is implemented jointly with the European Commission, Twitter and the World Jewish Congress.”
Surly these would be noble sentiments, if they were genuine. But as you continue to peruse through the infographics it becomes quite apparent that the architects of this campaign only have one interest in mind: stifling public discourse, and discrediting anyone who dares to challenge the status quo narrative.
Indeed, upon browsing through the material provided it quickly establishes an air that only the supposed authorities are to be trusted, they would never lie to you or purposefully peddle false information. No, only those with whom the establishment has deemed fair, just, and honest are to be trusted. While seemingly encouraging critical thinking, they demand that you toss aside any critical thinking skills and blindly trust the figures whom you are told represent the best interests of everyone. While going on to paint anyone who disagrees and/or promotes alleged conspiracy theories as a dangerous bigot, and how one should react if you encounter one these dangerous people and their harmful ideas.
It is a carefully crafted package on how to identify “wrong think”. The latest salvo in the ongoing information war, paired with just enough of a Limited Hangout to appear good natured to the unaware.
In this special edition of The Free Thought Project’s Conspiracy Fact Series, we will dive into this latest propaganda effort to refute some of its key logical fallacies, before providing a number of examples of true conspiracies’ in order to demonstrate exactly why these kind of campaigns are antithetical to their stated purpose.
First of all, let us address the broadest question; What is a conspiracy theory? Put plainly, it is a hypothesis postulating that a conspiracy has or is taking place. And what is a conspiracy? A conspiracy is defined as follows:
An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
A group of conspirators.
An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
Conspiracies happen daily, and most places have laws regarding them within their legal code. Conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to traffic illicit material, etcetera, happen regularly and are charges faced by individuals within the legal system. And technically speaking, until law enforcement gathers enough evidence to prove that individuals participated in such a plot, the allegations against them would be considered conspiracy theories.
Of course the allegation ceases to be a theory when you have evidence. But somewhere along the line in our common discourse the term conspiracy theory has taken on a new meaning, it has become equated with “fake news”, insinuating that the mere postulation that one or more individuals may be involved in a conspiracy is in and of itself preposterous. An idea to be denied and ridiculed outright. This goes against logical thinking and is simply not the case. In reality this is what would be referred to as a thought terminating cliché.
Right at the start, in the second infographic dedicated to how to identify conspiracy theories, we are told one way to determine if a story is a conspiracy theory or not is to check the author. If they are connected to a reputable media outlet or organization then they are to be trusted.
You mean like so-called reputable organizations like the New York Times or the Washington Post who carried stories demonizing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and peddling the unfounded conspiracy theory that it was “Russian disinformation” when it was in fact 100% true? Or those who pushed the thoroughly debunked Russiagate election meddling hoax? Both which we backed by seemingly trustworthy officials in the intelligence community who were then proven to be either incredibly incompetent at their jobs or outright liars.
It then goes on to say that trustworthy authors will use verifiable facts and evidence from academic or scientific research. And yet this flies in the face of corporate media practices during the COVID-19 pandemic when they refused to even consider the research of some of the world’s top virologists, epidemiologists, and other reputable medical professionals from esteemed institutions; such as those of The Great Berrington Declaration or Dr. John P. A. Ioannidis, one of the most esteemed in his field, who critiqued the establishments response to COVID-19 such as lockdown policies. Who in hindsight have clearly been proven right. Or the literal hundreds of medical studies providing evidence that such interventionist policies provided little benefit, while simultaneously carrying with them an incomprehensible amount of suffering and destruction.
Where was the harsh criticism for all those who claimed that should one receive a COVID-19 vaccine they will not catch the virus and will not get sick, which is now a demonstrably false statement. And according to former CDC director Dr. Deborah Birx, a statement in which they knew was false from the beginning.
It also goes on to link so-called conspiracy theories and those who espouse them to hate, racism, and anti-Semitism. While this is certainly true in some circles and such beliefs should be ardently condemned and disavowed, one has to keep in mind that the true purpose of the UN campaign isn’t merely to target untrue conspiracy theories, but rather to discredit ANY dialog dissenting from the status quo. And it has been an emerging tactic in recent years to unfairly and incorrectly link any critique of the establishment to hate and racism as a means of discrediting it without engaging in debate.
The UNESCO diagram then goes on to assert that linking allegations of wrongdoing to Jewish individuals such as the Rothschild family, George Soros, or the state of Israel, is tantamount to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The logical fallacy here is that the majority of criticism towards those such as the aforementioned has nothing to do with the fact that they are Jewish, and everything to do with the fact that they are powerful, notably corrupt, globalist insiders with a known history of manipulating economies and governments.
Similarly with regard to the settler-colonial state of Israel, the crimes of the Zionist regime are apparent for all to see. With reputable human rights organizations such as Amnesty International condemning the nation as an apartheid state for its heinous crimes against humanity committed in occupied Palestine; and whos intelligence service is arguably among the most corrupt in the world right along with our own CIA. Criticisms of such atrocities are not leveled due to the jewishness of the nation’s inhabitants, but rather due to the fact that such heinous acts are abhorrent.
No government should be free from criticism, especially those committing acts of ethnic cleansing. And attempting to dismiss such valid criticisms by exploiting the perpetrators Hebrew lineage is equally as despicable.
Next, in the “prebunking and debunking” portion, the campaign goes on to completely contradict itself. In order to empower people to be more resilient against dastardly conspiracy theories they encourage the use of rational thinking and questioning, while in the very next sentence asserting that a key trait of conspiratorial thinking is the suspicion of official accounts.
They then begin to take aim at COVID-19 specifically, continuing in its overbearingly hubristic tone. Deriding what is described as deceptive conspiracy theories that ignore scientific evidence and falsely blame individuals and groups not responsible for the pandemic. Listing four major red flags that one should look out for.
They include;
Claims that the virus was artificially created (e.g. in a laboratory) by people with a specific interest. (e.g. reducing world population)
Claims that the virus was spread intentionally or its natural spread augmented to harm as many people as possible (e.g. through 5G signals)
Claims that vaccines and cures are intentionally withheld to not disrupt the spread and harm as many people as possible.
Claims that certain sanitary measures to counter the spread of the virus are used to intentionally harm or control society (e.g. vaccines, masks)
This is compounded by what we know regarding gain-of-function research that took place in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in which documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act prove that the United States was in fact funding gain-of-function research on ‘Bat Coronaviruses Likely to Infect Humans’. In direct contradiction to Dr. Fauci’s sworn testimony before Congress.
What’s more, the shady ties and practices of EcoHealth Alliance, who partnered with the USAID and NIH in Wuhan, raises further concerns. Including an EcoHealth whistleblower, former Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, publicly accusing EcoHealth of being a cutout for the CIA citing a conversation with its President Peter Daszak.
Additionally, asserting that effective treatments for COVID-19 weren’t suppressed by the medical establishment are demonstrably false as well. Look at Ivermectin for example. It is an undeniable fact that as Ivermectin — which has won awards for its effectiveness in treating human ailments and was widely praised as a “wonder drug” in the years prior to COVID — gained more recognition that the medical establishment and mainstream media virtually went to war to discredit it and vilify anyone who promoted it, despite a growing body of evidence it can be effective against COVID-19.
A slew of mainstream press including but not limited to MSNBC and Rachel Maddow, The Hill, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, New York Daily News and others all spread an easily debunkable outright lie about a rural hospital becoming overwhelmed with a flood of ivermectin overdoses. And when the lie was exposed they were not only spared the ire of the “fact checkers”, but refused to retract it at all.
CNN lambasted Joe Rogan for his use of Ivermectin after catching COVID, unfavorably framing the drug as a “horse dewormer”, defaming Rogan and going so far as to alter the lighting of his Instagram video to make him appear more sick than he was.
Following the incident, CNN’s chief medical advisor Dr. Sanjay Gupta joined Joe Rogan on his podcast and was confronted about the defamatory statements. Ultimately conceding that the network made a mistake. However, after the episode aired, CNN’s Don Lemon yet again doubled down on their skewed coverage.
Finally, the assertion that certain measures definitely weren’t utilized as a means of controlling the population is also easily refuted. Again, by the admission of the very same people responsible for doing so.
An article penned in the UK Telegraph on 14th May, 2021 by the papers Associate Editor Gordon Rayner titled Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists specifically details the accounts from several doctors in the UK governments Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour lamenting their overt use of fear as a means of controlling the population and enforcing lockdown mandates.
Similar techniques were also carried out elsewhere such as in Canada. Where documents from the Canadian Joint Operations Command revealed how the military saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques against the domestic citizenry without the approval of the presidential cabinet, utilizing some of the same information warfare tactics deployed in Afghanistan.
Reported by the Ottawa Citizen;
The plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, also known as CJOC, relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. The campaign called for “shaping” and “exploiting” information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.
In Israel, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz was caught on a hot mic admitting that restrictions such as the ‘Green Pass’ vaccine passport is meant to incentivize compliance with vaccine mandates on the population, touting the inaccurate “pandemic of the unvaccinated” trope. This was weeks after a major Israeli study confirmed once again that natural immunity is just as if perhaps not more effective than the jab. Now more than a year later and the social consequences of such policies have played a major role in tearing the country apart.
Fast forward to today and justification for vaccine passports and forced vaccination has been completely demolished, as in the United States the CDC has once again updated their guidelines now instructing policy to make no differentiation between vaccinated and unvaccinated. Creating quite the awkward situation for the thousands of people who were fired from their jobs, removed from school, harassed, and otherwise segregated and discriminated against for exercising bodily autonomy.
Speaking of the United States, rest assured much of the aforementioned manipulations apply here as well. Such as when A study from the US National Library of Medicine found that researchers at Yale University were testing propaganda messaging for the COVID-19 vaccine six months prior to its rollout. This was the exact same kind of messaging that was later adopted by media and government officials using some of the most classic propaganda tactics of shame, fear, anger, and embarrassment to coerce individuals into injecting themselves with the experimental shot.
Corroborated by a batch of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in March of this year which reveals clearly a conspiracy of collaboration between the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and various mainstream media outlets to push a jab propaganda campaign.
With all this talk of state and corporate collusion conspiring to commit propaganda campaigns, it seems no better time than to transition into the final portion of this treatise. It has been shown above that the UN’s latest initiative is at best logically inconsistent and full of holes, and at worst deliberately disingenuous.
Yet further still to exemplify the true insidious nature of what is fundamentally at its core a campaign which implores individuals to abandon their faculties of rumination and trust only the official approved version of events as recounted to them by persons and institutions with perhaps the most sordid track record of dishonesty known to man.
So we will provide a few examples of so-called conspiracy theories that are now accepted common fact. Truths that, if the UN had their way with this model of thinking, would still be relegated to the realm of tinfoil hat nonsense despite the veracity behind them.
1.) Mockingbird Media
Of course having just mentioned propaganda operations we would be remiss not to mention first and foremost one of the most notable, far reaching, and still active conspiracies of the last several decades — Operation Mockingbird. As detailed in part one of this series, titled How Truth Was Destroyed So Americans Would Crave Propaganda, we concisely outline in great detail the hard evidence proving the United States corporate media apparatus is subservient to the intelligence community. Fully infiltrated by and under the influence of the Central Intelligence Agency.
From the early days of ad manipulation in the 1920s and the father of propaganda himself Dr. Edward Bernays, to the Nazi origins of CIA media influence operations imported to the US via Project Paperclip; To the 1975 Church and Pike congressional committees, and the explosive investigation by renowned journalist Carl Bernstein, and even a myriad of leaked and declassified documents through to the modern day. The empirical evidence establishes the irrefutable fact that the mainstream corporate media by and large operates at the behest of state interests exerting undue influence on the public as purveyors of propaganda.
2.) Provocation Operations
Governments are, by their very nature, two things incontrovertibly; pathological liars, and monopolies on violence. Nowhere is this better seen than with warfare. Nations concocting untrue narratives to manufacture consent and justify military assaults on their adversaries is almost as old as time itself. Though only recently was the concept of false flag attacks ushered from the realm of tinfoil hat lunacy to the accepting arms of the mainstream.
For the longest time if you claimed that the government staged an attack against itself and framed its rival in order to justify military intervention abroad you would be considered crazy, “They would never do that!” detractors would exclaim. However as pointed out in Part two of this series, in the midst of the fervor of US/ NATO backed warmongering in Eastern Europe, government officials through their own accusations outright confirmed that false flag attacks indeed do happen.
But of course us “conspiracy theorists” didn’t need the pontifications of Jake Sullivan to know that. The historical proof of false flag operations has been out in the open for anyone willing to research for decades. As we elaborated in our article, whether it be the Nazis’ Operation Himmler to justify the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War Two; The Israeli military blunder in Egypt known as The Lavon Affair; Or the infamous Operation Northwoods. In which officially declassified documents prove the CIA had planned to orchestrate a campaign of terror attacks against innocent Americans to justify an invasion of Cuba at the height of the Cuban missile crisis — the official admission of false flag operations by government officials is but the most recent example of conspiracy theory becoming openly acknowledged as conspiracy fact. But one that was a fact all along.
3.) Mass Surveillance
One of the more tame yet no less prolific conspiracy theories that has been around since at least the 1930’s is the allegation that the government is spying on you. For decades accusations abound that the feds were able to track every conversation and know everything we do. And for decades such an argument would have one labeled as a paranoid lunatic.
But in the spring of 2013 everything changed. That’s when a young contractor by the name of Edward Snowden leaked explosive documents to journalist Glenn Greenwald revealing the scope of an illegal mass surveillance program conducted by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) known as PRISM.
Since then, Snowden has become a household name, as well as the various real life conspiracies of warrantless mass spying that he helped to uncover. In the years since, various other spying scandals have occurred which have vindicated Snowden even further, Now, the government can even spy on you through your TV. But it was Snowden’s revelations in and of themselves that vindicated all who came before him. The so-called conspiracy theorists who had for so long tried to expose the government’s longstanding practice of spying on their own citizens. Whether it be PRISM, The Echelon Affair of the late 1990s, the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation (or it’s modern counterpart), going as far back as 1895, as revealed by renowned journalist Meyer Berger in a 1938 article for The New Yorker, and again in a 1955 New York Times exposé on wiretapping. Evidence abounds proving the conspiracy theories were conspiracy facts.
4.) Inhumane Experiments
Throughout the entirety of the coronavirus pandemic proponents of mandatory medical intervention have constantly made the case that the experimental injection is 100% safe, and the oh so virtuous multinational pharmaceutical corporations who stand to make billions upon billions of dollars off of it, who certainly don’t have a long documented track record of corruption, would never mislead the public about their health. That it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory to ever question whether or not the federal government and their corporate cohorts would engage in such malfeasance as to put our health at risk, or even worse, to deliberately endanger the public’s well-being.
Despite this however, as The Free Thought Project reported in January of 2021, there are a myriad of facts stretching back decades exemplifying precisely why blind trust for these authorities either federal or corporate is ill advised. They can and often have put citizens at great risk for their own benefit.
In this comprehensive analysis, we outlined hundreds of instances corroborated by official government documents of blatant wrongdoing. Including but not limited to, unethical radiation experiments on handicapped children and infants; Clandestine military operations exposing Americans to carcinogenic substances; Eugenics based forced sterilization; Knowingly allowing the spread of syphilis throughout African American communities; Kidnapping and torturing American citizens during the MK ULTURA program; hundreds of germ warfare tests on the unconsenting public; Agrochemical corporations deliberately exposing Americans to cancer causing herbicides; Distributing contaminated doses of polio vaccine; and much, much more.
But if the UN had their way, you wouldn’t know any of this. It would be dismissed as wrong think and censored, leaving us all none the wiser.
There are so many more examples of alleged conspiracy theories throughout the decades to mention that were once ridiculed and now openly accepted as fact. The Business Plot of the mid-1930’s literally conspired to overthrow the Roosevelt presidency and install a fascist dictatorship in the United States. The CIA trafficking drugs into urban communities is such a widely known fact now that that it’s featured as a key plot point in movies and prime time FX dramas and no one bats an eye. You get the point.
The notorious saga of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is perhaps one of the most egregious examples. Before the case became public knowledge if you were to try to have a serious conversation about high level government officials, up to and including intelligence agencies, the President of the United States, end even royalty, being tied to an international child trafficking and pedophilia ring you would run the risk of being institutionalized. But since the Epstein saga has unfolded so dramatically the whole world is now well aware of that fact. And for the astute observer, the conspiracy theorist, they were already well aware of it. Looking at instances such as Jimmy Savile in the UK, The Finders, the NXIVM cult, the Catholic church, and so on just to name a few all point to a very deep rooted and sadistic web of child trafficking and abuse among the world’s most powerful.
If we went by the United Nations advice, blissfully believing the official story, completely credulous and entirely dependent on the proper authorities, how much of this information would we actually know? How much of the world would still be secreted away from us? There is no virtue in being willfully ignorant. No matter how much the social engineers of civilization attempt to convince you otherwise. The lesson remains the same — always question authority.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Dr. Robert Malone discussed his defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post, why he thinks corporate media is “alarmed” and where he thinks Dr. Anthony Fauci will go after he retires from his government jobs in December.
The Washington Post: Where Democracy Dies in Darkness
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped develop the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines, is seeking $50.35 million in compensatory and punitive damages from The Washington Post for alleged defamation.
Malone, an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures, on Aug. 19 filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, owned by Jeff Bezos, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
Malone’s defamation claims arise from a Jan. 24 article by The Washington Post — “A vaccine scientist’s discredited claims have bolstered a movement of misinformation.”
The article, published one day after the “Defeat the Mandates” rally in Washington, D.C., draws on Malone’s speech at the event.
Malone is demanding a jury trial.
In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Malone discussed the lawsuit, claims made about him by the mass media and also the establishment’s efforts to stifle so-called “conspiracy theories” and “misinformation.”
Malone also discussed developments around Monday’s announcement by Dr. Anthony Fauci that he will retire from his government positions in December.
Post took remarks from Malone’s ‘Defeat the Mandates’ speech ‘out of context’
Malone’s lawsuit describes him as “an internationally recognized scientist/physician and the original inventor of mRNA vaccination as a technology, DNA vaccination, and multiple non-viral DNA and RNA/mRNA platform delivery technologies.”
According to the complaint, he is “the leading contributor to the [mRNA] science exploited by Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations to create the alleged ‘vaccines’ for the novel coronavirus.”
The lawsuit alleges, “WaPo falsely accused Dr. Malone of fraud, disinformation, dishonesty, deception, lying to the American public, lack of integrity, immorality and ethical improprieties.”
“The gist of the article is that Dr. Malone is unfit to be a medical doctor and scientist [and] exposed Dr. Malone to public ridicule, scorn, and contempt, and severely prejudiced Dr. Malone in his employment,” the lawsuit states.
Malone told The Defender that while multiple mainstream media outlets have made defamatory statements against him, those published by The Washington Post were particularly egregious, resulting in the lawsuit.
“What we have done together with my attorney is, we went through and identified the most high-profile, egregious defamatory statements in the major press outlets,” said Malone, listing stories published by The New York Times, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and The Scientist, in addition to The Washington Post.
Malone sent cease-and-desist letters to the publications, which he said “were representational” of the defamatory claims made against him in the mainstream media.
According to Malone, all five outlets “denied that there was any merit to our defamation and cease-and-desist request, denied “any claims or liability” for anything they published about him and declined to take any action, such as retracting the articles in question or publishing corrections.
Out of these though, the story published by The Washington Post was the most extreme example of defamation, Malone said.
Malone told The Defender:
“In the case of The Washington Post, they had made these statements regarding what I had said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and then also the usual ‘spreader of misinformation’ [claim].
“They directly used terms like ‘lying’ [and] statements about misinformation. That just made it so that particular case was the most clear and the most compelling. And that’s why we decided to go with that one as the initial case.”
Malone added:
“They never used the term ‘disinformation.’ It’s always ‘misinformation.’ They rarely, if ever, identify what that ‘misinformation’ constitutes … they just throw it out as a characterization.”
According to Malone, The Washington Post took his remarks “out of context” and then “refuted” them “with information that the CDC had recently published on their MMWR [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report] page, which is not peer-reviewed.”
The newspaper twisted his remarks that “the vaccines are not working,” he said:
“What I clearly, unequivocally said is the vaccines are not working with Omicron. They are not preventing infection, replication and spread of this virus. I said nothing about death and disease, because I knew that was still controversial.
“What The Washington Post did was call me a liar, because the CDC had published just recently … that the vaccines were still effective at reducing death and disease from the virus.”
According to Malone, “There are many videos of the speech, so this can all be played out in court. The speech was very consciously written, knowing that I was likely to be attacked by ‘fact-checkers’ and others,” he said.
The lawsuit states that on June 7, Malone served The Washington Post “with written notice advising WaPo that the Statements in the Article were false and defamatory and demanding that the Statements be retracted and/or corrected and removed from the Internet,” which the newspaper refused to do.
Instead, according to the complaint, The Washington Post “chose to increase Dr. Malone’s damages by republishing the Article,” an action Malone, in his interview with The Defender, characterized as “adding even more fuel to the fire.”
The lawsuit quotes verbatim several specific instances of alleged defamation in The Washington Post article, including:
Malone’s claims have been “discredited” and his views constitute “misinformation.”
“Robert Malone stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before thousands of anti-vaccine and anti-mandate demonstrators [and] repeated the falsehoods that have garnered him legions of followers.”
“‘Regarding the genetic COVID vaccines, the science is settled,’ [Malone] said in a 15-minute speech … ‘They are not working.’ The misinformation came two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first studies.”
Malone’s “claims and suggestions have been discredited … as not only wrong, but also dangerous.”
“There is a huge market for misinformation … The way he’s framed in the conspiracy-theory world is that he’s a courageous whistleblower rather than someone who is spreading misinformation — and it’s only enhancing his profile.”
“While Malone is a brilliant scientist who has a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge about vaccines, there is reason to be concerned about how his newfound stardom could be a public health risk.”
“There’s a risk we’re all facing when he’s not accurately representing the information.”
“On [the Joe Rogan Experience], he promoted an unfounded theory called ‘mass-formation psychosis,’ telling Rogan that a ‘third of the population [is] basically being hypnotized’ into believing what the mainstream media and Anthony S. Fauci report on the vaccine.”
“Malone has weaponized bad research.”
“With his increased profile in recent weeks, some are calling on him to take a step back and reflect on the damage his misinformation is causing.”
Based on these statements, the lawsuit argues that “the qualities WaPo disparaged — Dr. Malone’s honesty, veracity, integrity, competence, judgment, morals and ethics as a licensed medical doctor and scientist — are peculiarly valuable to Dr. Malone and are absolutely necessary in the practice and profession of any medical doctor and scientist.”
The lawsuit alleges The Washington Post “ascribes to Dr. Malone conduct, characteristics and conditions, including fraud, disinformation, misinformation, deception and dishonesty, that would adversely affect his fitness to be a medical professional and to conduct the business of a medical doctor.”
In doing so, the lawsuit reads, “WaPo was well-aware of Dr. Malone’s expertise and experience … intentionally ignored Dr. Malone’s credentials and stature, and chose to impugn his standing in the medical and scientific communities.”
Malone said The Washington Post’s intentions were evident to him from the first time they reached out to him, prior to publishing the article. Referring to Timothy Bella, who authored the piece, Malone told The Defender:
“[There was] something about the way this guy was approaching it and the fact that it was The Washington Post. I knew [it] was absolutely not going to be a friendly story.
“And so I said ‘no.’ I was very careful not to say ‘no’ in any way that would prejudice him. But I just said it wasn’t going to be possible.”
Malone referred to a prior experience being contacted by a reporter for The Atlantic before they ran a story about him, an experience that showed him how journalists from such media outlets often attempt to mislead individuals like him when first approaching them for an interview.
According to Malone:
“What they do is, they say. ‘I just want to be your friend and put out your story.’ They may say something to the effect that they acknowledge that I’ve been maligned in prior stories, and then they gain your confidence.
“It’s really a confidence game. We use the term ‘con artists’ … and many of these journalists, in my opinion, that seek to gain one’s confidence in this way really are con artists. That’s how they play it.”
According to Malone, Bella reached out to a colleague of his, who Malone infers is the same individual “that had made a negative comment in the Atlantic piece anonymously.”
The lawsuit addresses this, stating:
“WaPo blindly relied upon and republished statements of ‘sources’ that WaPo knew were unreliable, including sources known to be wildly biased and to have an ax to grind against Dr. Malone and who were intent on ruining his reputation.”
The lawsuit also describes how the newspaper’s president, Stephen Hills, “got in on the calumny” by tweeting, in reference to Malone, that “a vaccine scientist’s discredited claims have bolstered a movement of misinformation.”
You really can’t make this stuff up. Idiocoracy is here. A vaccine scientist’s discredited claims have bolstered a movement of misinformation https://t.co/ANBxv19ZWB
“Readers of the Article and followers of WaPo on Twitter immediately understood the [article’s] statements to convey the intended and endorsed defamatory gist and meaning: that Dr. Malone is a disreputable medical professional, that he should lose his license, that he is dishonest and dangerous, that he spreads lies and misinformation, and that he engages in fraud and disinformation.”
Such claims, “including [the article’s] direct and powerful accusations of ‘fraud’ and medical disinformation,” are considered “fighting words,” which are actionable under Virginia law, the suit argues.
The scope of potential damage to Malone’s reputation is also estimated in the lawsuit, which states that “in addition to publishing the Article in print and on its website, WaPo and its agents conspicuously published the Article to a third target audience — 19,703,612+ Twitter followers.”
In addition, the lawsuit states, “The Article was republished millions of times in Virginia [the state where the suit was filed], including by WaPo and its agents and followers, by Politico and its agents and by many others, most notably Democratic Party operatives.”
WaPo coordinated false narrative with Biden administration, lawsuit alleges
Claims of political motivation on the part of The Washington Post figure prominently in the lawsuit, which alleges:
“WaPo manufactured the story line and coordinated the false narrative with the Biden Administration and its agents and operatives with the specific purpose to target Dr. Malone.
“WaPo did not seek the truth or report it. Rather, WaPo betrayed the truth for the sake of its institutional bias and desire to support the political operations and machinations of the Biden Administration.”
In his interview, Malone highlighted the significance of this particular aspect of the lawsuit. He said:
“If this [lawsuit] is allowed to proceed … what we’re likely to see come out of discovery is further granularity about the interaction between The Washington Post and, by extension, a number of other corporate media outlets that are very aligned with the current administration and [its] political interests.
“If one can establish that these corporate media outlets were operating with directions and, in some cases, capitalization by the federal government, then we meet the criteria for those organizations acting as a surrogate for the federal government and … suppressing free speech on behalf of the government.”
This would carry constitutional implications, according to Malone:
“The federal government … cannot circumvent freedom of speech, First Amendment restrictions, by employing surrogates such as [the] corporate press or Big Tech.
“What we observe is the remarkable alignment over time between the positions taken particularly by the Biden administration, but also going back to the Trump administration.
“So it transcends left and right. This is not a left versus right issue. This is an administrative state issue.”
It’s also a part of a broader pattern, according to the lawsuit, which refers to “the sheer number and nature of the hit pieces published by WaPo since 2020.”
According to the complaint, “WaPo and its agents harbor an institutional hostility, hatred, extreme bias, spite and ill-will towards Dr. Malone and other medical professionals … who speak the inconvenient truth about COVID-19 and the so-called ‘vaccines.’”
Doubling down on its claims, The Washington Post reprinted aspects of the story on several occasions, according to the lawsuit, including on July 30, in an article that “falsely repeated that Dr. Malone ‘spread discredited information about coronavirus vaccines.’”
According to Malone, such republication — especially once a cease-and-desist letter has been served to the publication — “constitutes clear evidence of malice.”
Lawsuit: WaPo ‘acted with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth’
Malone’s lawsuit seeks $50 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, recovery of legal costs, and prejudgment and postjudgment interest of 6% per annum beginning on Jan. 24, the date the article was published.
In seeking these damages, the lawsuit alleges The Washington Post “published the Statements with actual or constructive knowledge that they were false or with reckless disregard for whether they were false,” adding the newspaper “acted with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth.”
The lawsuit further claims Malone suffered “injury to reputation (past and future), insult, pain and mental suffering (past and future),” in addition to “special damages, including lost income, career damage and impairment of future earnings capacity.”
Career damage includes “los[t] business and income, lost public appearances due to perceived reputational risk … and impact upon [Malone’s] prospects for career advancement.”
Malone told The Defender that The Washington Post article “is often cited by physicians when presented with data from their patients about the risks of the [COVID] vaccine, and comments where patients are asking their physicians to just listen to what Dr. Malone has been saying.”
“What they get back,” according to Malone, are claims that “Dr. Malone spreads misinformation, according to The Washington Post.”
As a result, Malone said, “The Washington Post article succeeded … in its intention, which was to delegitimize [me], at least for those that are wrapped up in this kind of groupthink world … to not have to account for the information that I have been sharing over the last year and a half.”
The lawsuit also cited defamatory postings made by Twitter users in response to The Washington Post article, claiming among other things that “Malone is an anti-vaxx disinfo diva” and calling for medical professionals like Malone to “start losing licenses.”
According to the lawsuit, “Read as a whole, the Statements represent an egregious attack on Dr. Malone’s character, experience, standing in the medical community, and the truth.
The lawsuit argues that “Dr. Malone’s mission is to ensure vaccine safety [and] his goal is to save lives,” and that he “discovered short-cuts, database issues, obfuscation and, frankly, lies told in the development of” the COVID-19 vaccines.
Malone said if he prevails, society stands to benefit more than he will personally:
“Am I ever going to have my reputation corrected by prevailing in a lawsuit against The Washington Post? It would be minor. I think the proper term is ‘Pyrrhic victory.’
“But in terms of the broader implications for our government and the American experiment, establishing that it’s not acceptable for the government to employ its intelligence agencies or surrogates in the media to suppress information … would be a huge step forward for the right of free speech for individuals and super important as we move into this new media environment where things are not centralized … and where alternative voices are going to become among the most important information streams.”
Corporate media ‘alarmed’ by loss of control over messaging
In his interview, Malone remarked on recent efforts by the United Nations and the World Economic Forum (WEF), and also social media platforms, to further restrict and police “conspiracy theories” and alleged “misinformation,” predicting that alternative voices will find themselves in a stronger position of prominence “in the next couple of years.”
He told The Defender:
“We are now moving into a time where there is a great hunger for accountability.
“I think the big underlying message here, as we look forward over the next two years, is going to be the slow erosion of the power of corporate, centralized corporate media and the emergence of a much more balkanized media landscape in which users select the information streams that they wish to subscribe to.
“It will be increasingly difficult to control the narrative in the way that it’s been done in the past because of this balkanization.”
Major institutions and media outlets are increasingly alarmed by this, according to Malone:
“I think that what we are not seeing [on the part of major media outlets and institutions] is a reaction to loss of message control.
“Damage to the WEF is damage to [French President] Emmanuel Macron, damage to [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau and the prime minister of New Zealand and the leadership in Australia. So all of that has to be controlled and they have to recapture control of the storyline.
“You’re seeing a more global effort to recapture control of the messaging and the storyline by these global players that have been partially damaged.”
Malone highlighted the role of major investment funds like Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street, which due to their significant ownership stakes in multiple companies across many industries — ranging from the media to banks to pharmaceuticals — leads to a situation where they “all function as one company” due to their “common ownership.”
Citing an example of such attempted control of the narrative, Malone argued that Google’s search algorithms have recently altered the results of searches containing the term “mass formation psychosis,” which he famously expressed during his interview with Rogan.
Malone said the Rogan interview is itself now “very hard to find, even though it’s probably got well over 100 million views … you can’t find it on Google.”
He described such actions as “a concerted effort to deny the validity” of the “mass formation psychosis” hypothesis, and of himself and other scholars who have promoted it, including researcher Mattias Desmet.
Malone cited recent attacks against professor of health policy Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN analyst who, ironically, is also a frequent Washington Post contributor.
Wen, who previously supported stringent COVID-19 countermeasures and vaccine mandates, has come under fire from her peers for now supporting a more moderate approach.
Fauci resigning early to avoid ‘witch hunt’?
Malone also addressed Fauci’s announcement Monday that he will step down from his position in December, rather than at the end of the Biden administration, as he had previously claimed.
Malone suggested that with the high likelihood that the House of Representatives, in particular, may flip to Republican control following the midterm elections, there is a strong chance there will be “significant investigations in the House come January.”
According to Malone, “The common explanation is that Fauci got out of the job now so that he could avoid being called to testify by the new Congress in January.”
But Malone dismissed these claims. “He’s going to be called no matter what,” he said.
Instead, by announcing a December departure, Fauci seeks to achieve two benefits, according to Malone. One possible benefit is that his departure will help the Democrats, because “the polling [likely] shows that Tony Fauci is a major problem for the Democratic Party heading into the midterms.”
The other potential benefit, Malone said, is that “it will give him the opportunity to select his successor and get that successor confirmed prior to the new House and Senate being convened.”
A departure at that point could allow Fauci to entirely avoid providing Congressional testimony, according to Malone.
“I suspect he steps up,” Malone said, “The pathway is the World Health Organization, a senior position at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, or CEPI [the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations].” “These are the pathways” followed by former public health officials from the U.S. and other countries, he said.
What this would mean, Malone told The Defender, is that Fauci “might well resist U.S. Congressional subpoenas for his testimony on the grounds that he’s doing very important work on the world stage now and that he has no time to waste on Republican ‘witch hunts,’ or some sort of messaging like that.”
No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.
On August 24, the Biden administration announced yet another massive military aid package to Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion. It will take months, and in some cases years, for this military equipment to reach Ukraine. In another sign that Washington assumes the conflict will be a long war of attrition it will give a name to the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and make it a separate command overseen by a two- or three-star general. Since August 2021, Biden has approved more than $8 billion in weapons transfers from existing stockpiles, known as drawdowns, to be shipped to Ukraine, which do not require Congressional approval.
Including humanitarian assistance, replenishing depleting U.S. weapons stocks and expanding U.S. troop presence in Europe, Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s February 24 invasion. War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts.
The militarists who have waged permanent war costing trillions of dollars over the past two decades have invested heavily in controlling the public narrative. The enemy, whether Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin, is always the epitome of evil, the new Hitler. Those we support are always heroic defenders of liberty and democracy. Anyone who questions the righteousness of the cause is accused of being an agent of a foreign power and a traitor.
The mass media cravenly disseminates these binary absurdities in 24-hour news cycles. Its news celebrities and experts, universally drawn from the intelligence community and military, rarely deviate from the approved script. Day and night, the drums of war never stop beating. Its goal: to keep billions of dollars flowing into the hands of the war industry and prevent the public from asking inconvenient questions.
In the face of this barrage, no dissent is permitted.CBS News caved to pressure and retracted its documentary which charged that only 30 percent of arms shipped to Ukraine were making it to the front lines, with the rest siphoned off to the black market, a finding that was separately reported upon by U.S. journalist Lindsey Snell. CNN has acknowledged there is no oversight of weapons once they arrive in Ukraine, longconsidered the most corrupt country in Europe. According to a poll of executives responsible for tackling fraud, completed by Ernst & Young in 2018, Ukraine was ranked the ninth-most corrupt nation from 53 surveyed.
There is little ostensible reason for censoring critics of the war in Ukraine. The U.S. is not at war with Russia. No U.S. troops are fighting in Ukraine. Criticism of the war in Ukraine does not jeopardize our national security. There are no long-standing cultural and historical ties to Ukraine, as there are to Great Britain. But if permanent war, with potentially tenuous public support, is the primary objective, censorship makes sense.
War is the primary business of the U.S. empire and the bedrock of the U.S. economy. The two ruling political parties slavishly perpetuate permanent war, as they do austerity programs, trade deals, the virtual tax boycott for corporations and the rich, wholesale government surveillance, the militarization of the police and the maintenance of the largest prison system in the world. They bow before the dictates of the militarists, who have created a state within a state. This militarism, as Seymour Melman writes in The Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline, “is fundamentally contradictory to the formation of a new political economy based upon democracy, instead of hierarchy, in the workplace and the rest of society.”
“The idea that war economy brings prosperity has become more than an American illusion,” Melman writes. “When converted, as it has been, into ideology that justifies the militarization of society and moral debasement, as in Vietnam, then critical reassessment of that illusion is a matter of urgency. It is a primary responsibility of thoughtful people who are committed to humane values to confront and respond to the prospect that deterioration of American economy and society, owing to the ravages of war economy, can become irreversible.”
If permanent war is to be halted, as Melman writes, the ideological control of the war industry must be shattered. The war industry’s funding of politicians, research centers and think tanks, as well as its domination of the media monopolies, must end. The public must be made aware, Melman writes, of how the federal government “sustains itself as the directorate of the largest industrial corporate empire in the world; how the war economy is organized and operated in parallel with centralized political power — often contradicting the laws of Congress and the Constitution itself; how the directorate of the war economy converts pro-peace sentiment in the population into pro-militarist majorities in the Congress; how ideology and fears of job losses are manipulated to marshal support in Congress and the general public for war economy; how the directorate of the war economy uses its power to prevent planning for orderly conversion to an economy of peace.”
Rampant, unchecked militarism, as historian Arnold Toynbee notes, “has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations.”
This breakdown is accelerated by the rigid standardization and uniformity of public discourse. The manipulation of public opinion, what Walter Lippman calls “the manufacture of consent,” is imperative as the militarists gut social programs; let the nation’s crumbling infrastructure decay; refuse to raise the minimum wage; sustain an inept, mercenary for-profit health care system that resulted in 25 percent of global Covid deaths — although we are less than 5 percent of the world’s population — to gouge the public; carries out deindustrialization; do nothing to curb the predatory behavior of banks and corporations or invest in substantial programs to combat the climate crisis.
Critics, already shut out from the corporate media, are relentlessly attacked, discredited and silenced for speaking a truth that threatens the public’s quiescence while the U.S. Treasury is pillaged by the war industry and the nation disemboweled.
You can watch my discussion with Matt Taibbi about the rot that infects journalism here and here.
The war industry, deified by the mass media, including the entertainment industry, is never held accountable for the military fiascos, cost overruns, dud weapons systems and profligate waste. No matter how many disasters — from Vietnam to Afghanistan — it orchestrates, it is showered with larger and larger amounts of federal funds, nearly half of all the government’s discretionary spending. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the U.S. debt to over $30 trillion, $6 trillion more than the U.S. GDP of $24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spend more on the military, $813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.
An organization like NewsGuard, which has been rating what it says are trustworthy and untrustworthy sites based on their reporting on Ukraine, is one of the many indoctrination tools of the war industry. Sites that raise what are deemed “false” assertions about Ukraine, including that there was a U.S.-backed coup in 2014 and neo-Nazi forces are part of Ukraine’s military and power structure, are tagged as unreliable. Consortium News, Daily Kos, Mint Press and Grayzone have been given a red warning label. Sites that do not raise these issues, such as CNN, receive the “green” rating” for truth and credibility. (NewsGuard, after being heavily criticized for giving Fox News a green rating of approval in July revised its rating for Fox News and MSNBC, giving them red labels.)
The ratings are arbitrary. The Daily Caller, which published fake naked pictures of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was given a green rating, along with a media outlet owned and operated by The Heritage Foundation. NewsGuard gives WikiLeaks a red label for “failing” to publish retractions despite admitting that all of the information WikiLeaks has published thus far is accurate. What WikiLeaks was supposed to retract remains a mystery. The New York Timesand The Washington Post, which shared a Pulitzer in 2018 for reporting that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to help sway the 2016 election, a conspiracy theory the Mueller investigation imploded, are awarded perfect scores. These ratings are not about vetting journalism. They are about enforcing conformity.
NewsGuard, established in 2018, “partners” with the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as corporations such as Microsoft. Its advisory board includes the former Director of the CIA and NSA, Gen. Michael Hayden; the first U.S. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary general of NATO.
Readers who regularly go to targeted sites could probably care less if they are tagged with a red label. But that is not the point. The point is to rate these sites so that anyone who has a NewsGuard extension installed on their devices will be warned away from visiting them. NewsGuard is being installed in libraries and schools and on the computers of active-duty troops. A warning pops up on targeted sites that reads: “Proceed with caution: This website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability.”
Negative ratings will drive away advertisers, which is the intent. It is also a very short step from blacklisting these sites to censoring them, as happened when YouTube erased six years of my show On Contact that was broadcast on RT America and RT International. Not one show was about Russia. And not one violated the guidelines for content imposed by YouTube. But many did examine the evils of U.S. militarism.
In an exhaustive rebuttal to NewsGuard, which is worth reading, Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News, ends with this observation:
NewsGuard’s accusations against Consortium News that could potentially limit its readership and financial support must be seen in the context of the West’s war mania over Ukraine, about which dissenting voices are being suppressed. Three CN writers have been kicked off Twitter.
PayPal’s cancellation of Consortium News’ account is an evident attempt to defund it for what is almost certainly the company’s view that CN violated its restrictions on “providing false or misleading information.” It cannot be known with 100 percent certainty because PayPal is hiding behind its reasons, but CN trades in information and nothing else.
CN supports no side in the Ukraine war but seeks to examine the causes of the conflict within its recent historical context, all of which are being whitewashed from mainstream Western media.
Those causes are: NATO’s expansion eastward despite its promise not to do so; the coup and eight-year war on Donbass against coup resisters; the lack of implementation of the Minsk Accords to end that conflict; and the outright rejection of treaty proposals by Moscow to create a new security architecture in Europe taking Russia’s security concerns into account.
Historians who point out the onerous Versailles conditions imposed on Germany after World War I as a cause of Nazism and World War II are neither excusing Nazi Germany nor are they smeared as its defenders.
The frantic effort to corral viewers and readers into the embrace of the establishment media — only 16 percent of Americans have a great deal/quite a lot of confidence in newspapers and only 11 percent have some degree of confidence in television news — is a sign of desperation.
As the persecution of Julian Assange illustrates, the throttling of press freedom is bipartisan. This assault on truth leaves a population unmoored. It feeds wild conspiracy theories. It shreds the credibility of the ruling class. It empowers demagogues. It creates an information desert, one where truth and lies are indistinguishable. It frog-marches us towards tyranny. This censorship only serves the interests of the militarists who, as Karl Liebknechtreminded his fellow Germans in World War I, are the enemy within.
This past May, Rand Paul, the Senator from Kentucky, did something that made a lot of sense. Before a vote to send another $40 Billion to Ukraine, Paul demanded language that would create oversight for that money.
Most of Congress was furious with him for daring to put restrictions on U.S. funding for the proxy forces in Ukraine. One of his peers who was most upset with him was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
As former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter writes for Consortium News, three weeks after Schumer forced that bill through and got the money for the proxy war in Ukraine, something funny happened,
…[O]n July 14, Andriy Shapovalov, a Ukrainian civil servant whose salary was paid for by U.S. taxpayer monies, convened a “round table” in Kiev on ‘countering disinformation.’ Shapovalov …published a list of the names of 72 people whom he accused of deliberately spreading disinformation about Ukraine. Shapovalov labeled them ‘information terrorists,’ adding that Ukraine was preparing legislation so that such people can be prosecuted as ‘war criminals.’”
They want the power to call people war criminals for printing something Ukraine doesn’t like, and you can bet that the U.S. supports this outrageous policy.
Ritter continued,
The “round table’ was organized by the U.S. Civil Research and Development Fund (CRDF Global Ukraine), an ostensible nonprofit organization authorized by U.S. Congress to promote ‘international scientific and technical collaboration.’ It is supported by the U.S. State Department, some of whose officials sat in attendance.”
This committee was organized by a U.S.-backed nonprofit, and State Department officials were in the room.
Who exactly do they want to call information terrorists who should be prosecuted as war criminals? “One of the people singled out by Shapovalov as an ‘information terrorist’ targeted for criminal prosecution as a ‘war criminal’ was none other than Rand Paul,” reported Ritter. So Sen. Paul is being called a war criminal for trying to get some oversight on the billions of dollars sent to Ukrainian Nazis.
The senator from Kentucky isn’t the only U.S. politician on the list. An obscure New York Senate candidate named Diane Sare also appears on the list of information terrorists.
But how did she get on there?
Ritter wrote, “On May 31, Diane Sare, a LaRouche candidate challenging Schumer for his Senate seat in November, filed 66,000 signatures — well over the 45,000 required by law — with the New York State Board of Elections, thereby getting her name on the ballot.” Do you think, perhaps, that Sen. Schumer might have some say on that list?
Everyone in the U.S. should be repulsed at the idea of people being labeled “terrorists” or “war criminals” for standing up to U.S. propaganda about the proxy war in Ukraine. But beyond that, we should be more disgusted by the Senate Majority leader using taxpayer money to seemingly go after his political opponents.
Who is the U.S. and its proxy government in Ukraine to tell people what is and is not the truth? That’s like Fred Durst telling you what is and is not good music.
Lee Camp is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and activist. Camp is the host of Behind The Headlines’ new series: The Most Censored News With Lee Camp. He is a former comedy writer for the Onion and the Huffington Post and has been a touring stand-up comic for 20 years.
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was founded by the BBC in July 2019. While TNI claims to promote democracy and freedom, its purpose for being is global information control
Partners in the initiative include global media outlets such as The Washington Post, Reuters, The Associated Press, AFP, the Financial Times and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and Big Tech partners such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft
TNI was formed mere weeks after a Reuters Institute report revealed trust in U.S. media had slipped to an all-time low of just 29% — the lowest of the 46 countries included. Clearly, people were going elsewhere for the facts, and that probably had everything to do with the creation of TNI. They have no control over alternative media, so they needed a comprehensive way to shut them all down
By suppressing information about early treatment and the adverse effects suffered from the COVID shots, TNI partners have played a direct role in the destruction of lives. In short, TNI is the converse of “trusted news.” It is the very “fake news” it claims to combat
In addition to TNI, Google also has a similar program going on, called the Google News Initiative, which includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry. The Google News Initiative is partnered with advertising agencies in a program called Trusted News for Trusted Advertising (TNTA), to ensure advertisers don’t have their ads associated with “false or misleading news,” thereby allowing them to “regain control of the media on which they publish the advertising”
What is the Trusted News Initiative (TNI)? As you may have discovered, Orwellian doublespeak is rampant these days, and many organizations are named in complete opposition to their intended purposes. Such is the case with the TNI as well.
As explained in the video above, created by Steve Kirsch’s Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), TNI is an organization created for the purpose of global information control. It was founded by the BBC in July 2019,1,2,3 mere months before the COVID pandemic shattered all semblance of free speech rights.
Partners in the initiative include global media outlets such as The Washington Post, Reuters, The Associated Press, AFP, the Financial Times and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and Big Tech partners such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, just to name a few.4,5
TNI Formed as Trust in Mainstream Media Hit Rock Bottom
As astutely noted by Elizabeth Woodsworth in The Liberty Beacon,6 TNI was formed mere weeks after a Reuters Institute report revealed trust in U.S. media had slipped to an all-time low of just 29% — the lowest of the 46 countries included. Canadians trust in mainstream media was only slightly better at 45%.
Also supporting the distrust in the media is an even more appalling recent Gallup Poll.7 Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news. Jimmy Dore goes into more details below.
This massive slip “can only mean that people are going elsewhere for their news,” Woodsworth said. And that probably had everything to do with the creation of TNI. They realized people didn’t trust mainstream media anymore and were looking elsewhere for the facts.
This presented a serious problem, as they had no control over alternative media. How then would they shut down undesirable facts and theories that might jeopardize the smooth transition into the New World Order? Enter TNI and a new cadre of “fact checking” organizations to wrangle the unruly masses back into the brainwashing line.
Promoting ‘Freedom and Democracy’ Through Censorship
According to TNI, its first order of business was to “promote freedom and democracy” by preventing foreign interference in the 2020 election. However, TNI’s mission didn’t end there. Its Big Pharma backers had a vaccination agenda right from the start, and TNI has been instrumental in promoting that agenda and upholding their financial interests.
In 2019 — before we knew anything about the COVID shots to come — TNI warned that “anti-vaxxers are gaining traction” and that online platforms would need to intervene using algorithms to suppress the growing anti-vaccine movement.
In addition to suppressing undesirable vaccine content, TNI also floods online users with pro-vaccine messages to drown out what little opposition is left. As noted by VSRF, from the start, TNI sought to normalize the use of this experimental gene transfer technology, despite a mountain of unanswered questions about the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology.
Suppressing early treatment successes was also part of the vaccine agenda, as early treatment options posed a direct threat to the Emergency Use Authorization of these experimental shots.
To that same end, TNI also fueled hatred against the unvaccinated, and hired so-called “fact checkers” to publish false fact checks and hit pieces on those who questioned the sanity and safety of pandemic countermeasures, such as masks and lockdowns, or raised concerns about the experimental shots.
We’re Made to Pay for Our Own Destruction
Hundreds of outspoken doctors and scientists — including experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford — have been banned and deplatformed over the past two and a half years.
No matter how prestigious their careers, they’ve been labeled “dangerous” and targeted for neutralization. Many have lost their careers. They’ve been ousted from professional associations and stripped of their medical licenses.By suppressing information about early treatment and the adverse effects suffered from the shots, TNI partners have played a direct role in the destruction of lives. In short, TNI is the very ‘fake news’ it claims to combat.
Thousands of vaccine-injured people have also been accused of spreading “misinformation” and have been targeted for elimination from social media, while mainstream media (MSM) have roundly ignored their plight and pleas for recognition and help.
As noted by VSRF, by suppressing information about early treatment and the adverse effects suffered from the shots, TNI partners have played a direct role in the destruction of lives. In short, TNI is the converse of “trusted news.” It actually creates and promotes mis- and disinformation. It is the very “fake news” it claims to combat.
And “Who’s paying for this harmful suppression of science?” VSRF asks. The answer: YOU are. We all are, through our taxes. Government has spent billions of tax dollars to promote the experimental COVID jabs, which benefits no one but Big Pharma, various patent holders and investors.
Legacy Media Is on the Wrong Side of History
In a June 25, 2021, article, unidentified staff at TrialSite News commented on the shocking censorship that was already becoming apparent:8
“Since time immemorial, those with power have used it to control those without. In the modern world, big government and big tech represent the seats of power when it comes to who is allowed to say what. Of course, many think that ‘private companies’ can regulate speech in any way they see fit. But from either an ethical or legal point of view, this is false …
Legally, the Supreme Court has long held that when a private company creates something that functions as a public square (think of a company town), the First Amendment comes into play.
Way back in April 2020, it was already clear that the then-existing online socio-political censorship was going to expand into the world of science, medicine, and academia in the new COVID-19 era. On April 1 of that year, early in the pandemic, Foreign Policy took a look at these questions in a piece titled, ‘Coronavirus Has Started a Censorship Pandemic’9 …
[D]isallowing good-faith medical information because the public can’t be presumed to properly weigh claims is infantilizing said public, along with dismantling the free speech culture …
The efforts now underway to completely suppress positive data associated with early-onset treatment prospects such as ivermectin or the squelching of any discussion of vaccine safety issues is completely unacceptable in a civilized, democratic market-based society. Those perpetuating such offenses are in fact on the wrong side of history.”
And who are the ones perpetuating these offenses? The TNI, for sure. TNI partners have censored and tried to ruin the reputations and careers of fully qualified and licensed public health experts, doctors and scientists — all in the name of protecting you, the audience, from the life-saving information these experts are trying to share. In her closing remarks, Woodsworth says:10
“Regarding COVID-19, Dr. Piers Robinson, co-director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, has judged, ‘It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that this is probably one of the biggest propaganda operations that we have seen in history,’ concluding ‘what happens is down to how people resist and how much force and coercion the authorities use.’
Indeed, the very foundation of democracy is that public wisdom should be consulted and given its head in self-rule. The public has the constitutional right to full information to form and express its own conclusions and does not need a coordinated TNI to corral and contain it.
It is utterly outrageous that the voices the public needs from the top public health figures at its best universities are being denied to its hearing. A far superior job of investigative reporting is being done by the hard-working alternative media researchers without Big Pharma’s blood-stained advertising dollars.”
Organized Control
The reason the TNI has been so effective in shutting out opposing views is because all of the partners work together in a highly-organized manner. When one identifies a piece of “misinformation,” the order to quash it is shared across platforms. The same goes for the official narrative. Everyone supports and promotes it, no matter how illogical.
A debunking piece by one legacy media partner is used as “proof” by another, and Big Tech platforms, of course, have unprecedented ability to suppress unwanted content and push “official” or approved content to the front using algorithms alone.
As for who actually decides what the official narrative is supposed to be, your guess is as good as mine. What we do know is that wealthy and powerful interests control media worldwide.
Two major media controllers are BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, which combined own a vast majority of the world’s assets, including media companies. Another is Bill Gates, whose self-serving “donations” ensure media treat him like a medical expert (or climate expert, or nutritional expert, or agricultural expert) when, in reality, he’s just promoting ideas that will make him a ton of money.
TNI’s Not-so-Trustworthy Sources
And what about TNI’s “trusted sources”? Aside from other TNI partners and their fact checkers, trusted sources are the public health agencies, such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Every one of these agencies has a long “rap sheet” when it comes to corruption and errors in judgment, and their unreliability have been highlighted time and again over the course of the COVID pandemic. They’ve broken a long list of rules and regulations intended to ensure public safety, and rewritten others on the fly — again without following proper protocols.
Time and again, people have scratched their heads, saying, “How can they do that? That’s not lawful. They CAN’T do that!” Well, the reality is, they used to be merely corrupt, but now they’re completely lawless. And no one is stopping them.
Decisions made by the FDA, CDC, NIH and the WHO over the course of the pandemic have been downright shocking in their absolute absence of any moral compass. They’ve repeatedly deferred to Big Pharma and blatantly ignored even the most basic of safety protocols, putting even babies lives at risk.
In the past, we’d expect the Fourth Estate — journalists with integrity — to expose the kind of fraud and lawlessness these agencies are engaging in. But sadly, legacy media, just like nearly every federal regulatory agency, has been captured by the military industrial complex.
Legacy media is no longer the “free press.” It certainly is in no way shape or form your trusted source of news. Those days are long gone. They are completely captured; hardly a sentence is uttered that isn’t directed to them by the government and repeated parroting by all of legacy media in all their varied forms.
Google News Initiative
In addition to TNI, Google also has a similar program going on, called the Google News Initiative, which includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry.
The Google News Initiative is partnered with advertising agencies in a program called Trusted News for Trusted Advertising (TNTA),11 to ensure advertisers don’t have their ads associated with “false or misleading news,” thereby allowing them to “regain control of the media on which they publish the advertising.”
This is wrong on so many levels. Advertising and news/editorial departments are not supposed to be mixed, period. They are intended to operate independently, not as complements or supporting helpmates. The very fact that newspapers are failing and ad revenue is dropping makes the entire press corps susceptible to doing whatever the advertisers want.
And, online, advertisers include the CDC and NIH, as evidenced by their many ads on social media. So, the TNTA program is really all about building revenue. It has nothing to do with providing trustworthy news.
Several other copycats also exist that have nearly the same name as TNI. There’s the Trusting News Initiative, the Trust Project, the News Integrity Initiative, the Journalism Trust Initiative, you get the idea.12 Some share partners with the TNI, further widening the media network of controlled news.
Add to that NewsGuard and scores of fact-checking organizations, all of whom work in tandem to promote the official narrative while suppressing opposing views. As I’ve stated before, NewsGuard received startup funds13 from the Publicis Groupe, one of the largest PR companies in the world, which serves the needs of several of the largest drug companies in the world.
Last but not least, there’s a tightly woven web of interlocking “fact-checking” agencies that work for advertisers in an effort to manipulate the news in favor of the advertisers or other entities with vested interests, such as governments and health organizations.
This web of fact-checkers is funded by hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars. I believe this was planned long before the pandemic, and their goal is to steer the news into a second horn for advertisers. Not surprisingly, the drug industry has one of the largest advertising budgets, which is part of why you can’t get the truth about drugs and health from the legacy media or any of these fact-checkers.
TNI and Hitler’s Principles
In his Substack article, “Propaganda, Corporatism and the Hidden Global Coup,” Dr. Robert Malone describes the TNI thus:14
“The TNI uses advocacy journalism and journals to promote their causes. The Trusted News Initiative is more than this though; if you go back to Hitler’s basic principles, the members of the TNI are using these core principles to control the public.”
Hitler’s basic principles are described in the book, “Propaganda and Persuasion,” and are listed as:15
Avoid abstract ideas — appeal to the emotions
Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases
Give only one side of the argument
Continuously criticize your opponents
Pick out one special “enemy” for special vilification
I believe Dr. Malone is onto something. These principles have certainly become media norms over the past couple of years. Who knows — perhaps I was picked to be a “special enemy for special vilification” because the TNI and those who pull their puppet strings are all Nazis. I didn’t expect it to be that simplistic, but who knows?
We’re all getting an education in psychopathy these days, and there’s nothing normal about psychopathic logic. Their brains are wired differently and you won’t be able to understand their motivations no matter how hard you try. Is this perhaps why so many decisions handed down to us make no rational sense, either from a scientific, medical or humanitarian perspective?
If it’s true that many of those who are trying to take over the world in a global coup are in fact on the psychopathic spectrum, then our response needs to be suitably appropriate.
Appropriate responses when faced with a psychopath include keeping your emotions in check (as they seek to manipulate your emotions); standing your ground in an assertive manner; not buying into their stories (especially not victim stories); and paying attention only to their actions, not their words.16,17
To be more precise, most experts have one primary suggestion for dealing with a psychopath, and that is, “Don’t.”18 Since we’re talking about media here, that’s a fairly simple action item. Just turn them off, and find alternative news sources that aren’t tainted by blood money and an overt attempt for global slavery.
You owe it to yourself and your family to take control of your health and avoid these propaganda tools and restrict your information to truly trusted and vetted sources.
After the Crash 