They are making an example of Novak Djokovic. Here’s why.

By Kit Knightly

Source: Off-Guardian

Tennis star Novak Djokovic is being deported from Australia, after losing his final appeal the WTA’s top-ranked player will not be allowed to defend his Australian Open title.

It was reported this morning that an Australian court had refused Djokovic’s appeal against the cancellation of his visa, and as such he’s being put on a plane and flown out of the country.

To be clear: This is all because he’s not “vaccinated” against Covid19, and vocally speaks out against the practice. The government have clearly and publicly admitted as much…but we’ll get to that.

The rejection of Djokovic’s medical exemption and subsequent deportation has been accompanied by a wave of vitriol in the press the likes of which we have rarely seen.

One Australian sports presenter was “accidentally” recorded calling him a “lying, sneaky arsehole” in a video that was later “leaked” to the press.

The Spectator has one piece which is nothing more than a slew of ad hominem and mockery, against not just Djokovic but all “anti-vaxxers” and “conspiracy theorists”, calling the Serbian a “conspiracy super-spreader”. They have another blaming his “arrogance for his downfall”.

The Daily Mail ran a story headlined: “Welcome to the Wacky World of Novak Djokovic… and meet his equally wacky wife!”, and two more opinion pieces claiming his arrogance has “trashed his reputation” and calling him “a loser”.

The Guardian‘s Australian Political Correspondent Sarah Martin defends the decision and jokingly refers to it as a “no dickheads” immigration policy, attacking Djokovic’s “anti-science god complex” and calling him an “all-round jerk”.

The childish name-calling just doesn’t end. Even his fellow players are sticking the boot in.

Stefanos Tsitsipas attacked Djokovic for attempting to “play by his own rules”, adding “A very small minority chose to follow their own way. It makes the majority look like they are all fools”, which is at least true, but not in the way he means it.

Spanish star Rafael Nadal said Djokovic should just follow the rules like everyone else, perhaps flashing the kind of attitude which allowed a fascist dictator to stay in power in his country for 40 years.

Some players, at least, have come to Djokovic’s defense, including Australia’s own Nick Kyrgios, who has said he is “ashamed” of the way Australia has handled the situation and chastised other players for not showing solidarity with Djokovic.

But why is this happening? Why are they trying to punish such a public figure, and why now?

Well, firstly, I’m not sure it is about punishing Djokovic, and not just because getting to leave Australia is an odd thing to be considered any kind of punishment these days.

Rather, it’s about the performance of punishing him. It’s about making an example of him. Not so much preventing him from playing, as much as denying him a platform.

The Australian government basically admits that in their legal justification for cancelling the visa.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Djokovic had been barred from entry for “breaching the rules…it’s as simple as that.” But he is either mistaken or lying, as he directly contradicts the case presented to the appeal court by the government.

Yes, the visa was first cancelled on a technicality about incorrect information but, a judge overruled that decision, allowing Djokovic to enter the country.

That’s when Immigration Minister Alex Hawke stepped in to personally revoke the visa under section 133 of the Immigration Act 1958.

Under this (worryingly vague) legislation, the Immigration Minister is granted the power to cancel any visa at all, if:

the Minister is satisfied that it would be in the public interest to cancel the visa.

This was the argument put to the appeals court, that the minister can expel anyone, for anything, if he believes it to be in the best interests of the public.

That’s public interest, NOT public health.

Hawke admits in his written statement that Djokovic presents a “negligible risk of Covid19 infection” to those around him. So it’s nothing to do with protecting people from infection or stopping the spread of the virus.

Public statements from officials suggest that they consider any “anti-vaxxer” to be a threat to the public interest by undermining the vaccination programme. Thus they can justify barring entry to Djokovic (or, it should be said, any other “anti-vaxxer”) under the guise of “public interest”.

It’s about control, it almost always is.

In short, the government are scared that Djokovic’s very presence in the country is a threat to their neo-fascist lockdown.

If you look closely at the media messaging, there’s more than a little fear behind the wall of abuse and mockery.

Article after article is at pains to point out that “the majority of normal Australians want the Joker gone”, or some variation on that sentiment. Somewhat desperately selling the line that nobody agrees with, or supports, Djokovic’s position.

A statement which is given the lie by the regular huge protests taking place all across Australia’s major cities (like this one, just this weekend, in Sydney).

The Australian government are worried they’ve turned their country into a powder keg of public resentment, and that the slightest social spark could set it off. Increasing the size of the (already huge) protests against the lockdowns and vaccine mandates, maybe even tipping the country into full-blown chaos.

One of the Spectator articles mentions that Australians have been living in a “police state” for two years, and then vaguely references the subsequent public anger, even whilst attempting to downplay it, misrepresent its cause, and turn it against the unvaccinated.

Australia has fallen. Peace, prosperity and freedom have been sacrificed on the altar of “safety”, and Covid “vaccination” has become a quasi-religious rite in their country, even more so than the rest of the world.

As such, the unvaccinated are slandered, punished, threatened and othered at every turn. Locked down, locked up and locked out.

Can you only imagine what could happen if people found out it was all for nothing? Or that the heaven-sent vaccines aren’t the magical solution to all that ails us?

In this kind of political climate they simply can’t afford to have an “anti-vaxxer” on national television, healthy and athletic and winning championships against a field of vaccinated rivals.

Especially when three vaccinated players have already dropped out with “breathing difficulties”

Before anyone accuses me of a surfeit of cynicism, let’s review the actual words of Alex Hawke from the appeal procedure [our emphasis]:

I consider that Mr Djokovic’s ongoing presence in Australia may lead to an increase in anti-vaccination sentiment generated in the Australian community, potentially leading to an increase in civil unrest of the kind previously experienced in Australia

Elsewhere Djokovic is described as a “talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment”.

This kind of brutal treatment of publicly unvaccinated famous faces will likely only intensify. It’s already spreading from country to country, with France announcing Djokovic will not be allowed to defend his French Open title unless he gets vaccinated.

It seems pretty clear that the public shaming of Djokovic is a power-play to secure what they perceive as their own tenuous grip on the narrative, one that could have far-reaching consequences moving forward.

Consider, Djokovic is not barred from entry just for being unvaccinated, but also because he has publicly spoken out against vaccination.

Australia is now not only requiring you be “fully vaccinated” to enter the country, but has barred someone for even expressing anti-vaccine sentiment.

It’s no longer enough to conform by action, you must now conform by speech.

Next is thought, but even they would never try to legislate against that…right?

What they REALLY mean by “living with Covid”

Why are media dialling back on the Covid hysteria? Is it because the “pandemic” is really over? Or is it an important part of the gaslighting process?

By Kit Knightly

Source: Off-Guardian

The past few days, even weeks, have seen a definite alteration in the media’s attitude to the Covid “pandemic”.

There have been numerous examples of what, if the media were not so tightly controlled, might be referred to as “dissent”. But, since the media is tightly controlled, we must call it an apparent change in the message.

Famously, Dr Steve James, a consultant anaesthetist, confronted UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid over the weakness of the science supporting vaccine mandates. Note this was actually aired on Sky News:

A few days ago Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, went on Good Morning America to discuss the “Omicron” wave, and ended up pointing out that most “omicron deaths” have multiple co-morbidities.

In another interview, with Fox News, Dr Walenksy said the CDC was going to publish data on how many people had died of Covid, and how many died with it.

This begs a series of important questions.

  1. Why is the director of the CDC (seemingly) engaging with these Covid skeptic arguments after two years of pretending they don’t exist?
  2. Why would Sky News air, and then tweet out, the video clip of a doctor challenging the health secretary?
  3. Why is the Guardian running headlines like “End mass jabs and live with Covid, says ex-head of vaccine taskforce” and quoting medical personnel who say we need to “treat Covid like the flu”?
  4. Why are new studies being promoted that claim T cells from ordinary colds can “protect you from Covid”?

There’s no denying the messaging, the deceleration of the narrative. There’s a new thread being woven into the story: “living with Covid”.

For over a month that has been a popular buzz phrase all over the Western press.

On December 1st, Forbes headlined:

Why Endemic Covid-19 Will Be Cause For Celebration

An article which argued, among other things, that “Endemic Covid-19 will be no worse than seasonal flu”. This sentiment has been repeated ad nauseum across multiple outlets.

We already mentioned the Guardian article from January 8th, there’s also an earlier one from Dec 5th titled “From pandemic to endemic: this is how we might get back to normal”.

CNBC ran three almost identical stories on this topic in the space of two weeks:

On New Year’s Day, Vox had a piece titled:

Despite omicron, Covid-19 will become endemic. Here’s how.

Bloomberg is reporting that Omicron signals the end “of the acute phase of the pandemic”.

Just yesterday the New York Post headlined: “COVID will become endemic by later this year, ex-Biden task-force head predicts”, and USA Today asked The pandemic is changing. Will omicron bring a ‘new normal’ for COVID-19?

And earlier today Channel 4 opined that “Covid in 2022” means “learning to live with the virus”.

The messaging isn’t just media-based, either. Reports are coming out that “living with Covid” is going to be the UK government’s strategy moving into 2022, with an official publication on this topic expected “within weeks”.

So, “living with the virus” is going to be added to the Covid phrasebook alongside “flatten the curve” and “the new normal”. But what does it actually entail?

When they say “living with Covid”, what do they really mean?

Well, firstly, let’s not make the mistake of trusting any government, media, or “expert”, just because they start telling 20% of the truth.

They are liars, they have an agenda, this is always true, you should always be aware of it, even when – or especially when – they are suddenly telling you what you want to hear.

They have not seen the light, they are not correcting their mistakes, they not finally seeing sense, and they are not switching sides.

There have been no Damascene conversions. There is no wave of guilty consciences sweeping through the elite.

They have an agenda. They always have an agenda.

You should also dispel all notions of “getting back to normal” from your mind. That isn’t happening.

How do we know? Because they said so.

Half the articles talking about “living with Covid” go into detail about how things won’t really change. Take this one, from the Guardian yesterday:

‘Living with Covid’ does not have to mean ditching all protective measures

It outlines that Covid could become endemic soon, that the mass testing of asymptomatic people may be counter-productive and possibly should stop, but it doesn’t reverse course on masks or vaccines and leaves the door wide open for a new “variant” to jump-start more lockdowns in the future:

“Living with Covid” does not have to mean reversing every protective measure. If better ventilation and face masks reduce the impact of winter respiratory illnesses, that is a positive, even if the NHS is no longer under imminent threat of being overwhelmed. We will also need to remain vigilant about the threat from new variants, which could still cause big setbacks. There is no guarantee that another variant, more infectious and more virulent than Omicron, could emerge in the future. Scientists say that supporting global vaccination efforts will be crucial to securing the path to normality.

Masks, working from home, and social distancing in crowded settings could all be “sticking around”, according to one of the above CNBC articles. And “Covid Boosters could become like annual flu shots”.

Meanwhile, “experts” are warning that even once Covid is endemic we should prepare for “surges” every three or four months.

It seems “living with the virus” means maintaining the status quo, loosening a few restrictions, but leaving the path clear for new waves of fear porn should the need arise.

But why? Why are they doing this now?

It could be that there are splits and factions, fractures along the floors of the corridors of power. Perhaps some members of the great big club want to halt the Pandemic where it is, afraid that any more progress along the “Great Reset” path may imperil their own position or their own wealth.

Maybe.

What I see as more likely is that they sense they have over-extended themselves already, and that stretching further could break their entire story to pieces.

To use an apt metaphor, imagine the “Great Reset” agenda as an invading army, marching through town after town, winning battle after battle and burning as they go.

There comes a point where you have to stop. Your supply lines are pulled taut, your men are tired and numbers dwindling, and the occupied citizens are putting up more and more resistance. Push on now, and your entire campaign could crumble.

What you do in that situation is withdraw to a defensible position and fortify it. You don’t give back the land you’ve taken, or not much of it at least, but you stop pushing forward.

The people whose land you have invaded will be so glad the war is over, so tired of fighting, they’ll be so relieved by the respite before realising how much of their land you’ve taken away. They may even say “let them keep it, as long as they stop attacking us”.

That’s how conquest works, from the days of ancient Rome and beyond. A cycle of aggression followed by fortification.

When we switch from “pandemic” to “endemic”, we won’t be getting our rights back, the vaccine passes and surveillance and the culture of paranoia and fear will remain, but people will be so relieved at the pause in the campaign of fear and propaganda they will stop resisting.

They won’t push back, and the “New Normal” will literally become just that, normal.

Hell, they’ll probably greenlight funding for anything Bill Gates wants to do make sure “Covid is the last pandemic”.

And then, one day when people are nice and docile again, a new variant will come back, or we’ll need a “climate lockdown”, and the push for control of every aspect of our lives will start up again in earnest.

The best thing we can do is not fall into the trap.

The press politicians and Big Pharma didn’t all just realise the truth, they’re just using some small parts of truth they’ve been ignoring for two years to fortify their position.

But that doesn’t make it a bad thing.

The very fact they feel the need to do so shows that the resistance is building, and that they’re are trying to lull us into relaxing.

Now would be the worst time to stop fighting.

The Lesson of Covid: When People Are Anxious, Isolated and Hopeless, They’re Less Ready To Think Critically

People crowd along a street of Barcelona to buy books and roses at makeshift stands as Catalans celebrate the day of their patron saint, Sant Jordi. Emilio Morenatti | AP

The corporate media is not our friend. Its coverage of the pandemic is not there to promote the public good. It is there to feed our anxieties, keep us coming back for more, and monetize that distress. The only cure for this sickness? A lot more critical thinking.

By Jonathan Cook

Source: Mint Press News

When I criticize meddling in Syria by Britain and America, or their backing of groups there that elsewhere are considered terrorists, it does not follow that I am, therefore, a cheerleader for the dictatorship of Bashar Assad or that I think that Syrians should be denied a better political system. Similarly, when I criticize Joe Biden or the Democratic party, it does not necessarily follow that I think Donald Trump would have made a better president.

A major goal of critical thinking is to stand outside tribal debates, where people are heavily invested in particular outcomes, and examine the ways debates have been framed. This is important because one of the main ways power expresses itself in our societies is through the construction of official narratives – usually through the billionaire-owned media – and the control and shaping of public debate.You are being manipulated – propagandized – even before you engage with a topic if you look only at the substance of a debate and not at other issues: such as its timing, why the debate is taking place or why it has been allowed, what is not being mentioned or has been obscured, what is being emphasized, and what is being treated as dangerous or abhorrent.

If you want to be treated like a grown-up, an active and informed participant in your society rather than a blank sheet on which powerful interests are writing their own self-serving narratives, you need to be doing as much critical thinking as possible – and especially on the most important topics of the day.

Learning curve

The opportunity to become more informed and insightful about how debates are being framed, rather than what they are ostensibly about, has never been greater. Over the past decade, social media, even if the window it offered is rapidly shrinking, has allowed large numbers of us to discover for the first time those writers who, through their deeper familiarity with a specific topic and their consequent greater resistance to propaganda, can help us think more critically about all kinds of issues – Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Israel-Palestine, the list is endless.

This has been a steep learning curve for most of us. It has been especially useful in helping us to challenge narratives that vilify “official enemies” of the west or that veil corporate power – which has effectively usurped what was once the more visible and, therefore, accountable political power of western states. In the new, more critical climate, the role of the war industries – bequeathed to us by western colonialism – has become especially visible.

But what has been most disheartening about the past two years of Covid is the rapid reversal of the gains made in critical thinking. Perhaps this should not entirely surprise us. When people are anxious for themselves or their loved ones, when they feel isolated and hopeless, when “normal” has broken down, they are likely to be less ready to think critically.

The battering we have all felt during Covid mirrors the emotional, and psychological assault critical thinking can engender. Thinking critically increases anxiety by uncomfortably exposing us to the often artificial character of official reality. It can leave us feeling isolated and less hopeful, especially when friends and family expect us to be as deeply invested in the substance – the shadow play – of official, tribal debates as they are. And it undermines our sense of what “normal” is by revealing that it is often what is useful to power elites rather than what is beneficial to the public good.

Emotional resilience

There are reasons why people are drawn to critical thinking. Often because they have been exposed in detail to one particular issue that has opened their eyes to wider narrative manipulations on other issues. Because they have the tools and incentives – the education and access to information – to explore some issues more fully. And, perhaps most importantly, because they have the emotional and psychological resilience to cope with stripping away the veneer of official narratives to see the bleaker reality beneath and to grasp the fearsome obstacles to liberating ourselves from the corrupt elites that rule over us and are pushing us towards ecocidal oblivion.

The anxieties produced by critical thinking, the sense of isolation, and the collapse of “normal” is in one sense chosen. They are self-inflicted. We choose to do critical thinking because we feel capable of coping with what it brings to light. But Covid is different. Our exposure to Covid, unlike critical thinking, has been entirely outside our control. And worse, it has deepened our emotional and psychological insecurities. To do critical thinking in a time of Covid – and most especially about Covid – is to add a big extra layer of anxiety, isolation, and hopelessness.

Covid has highlighted the difficulties of being insecure and vulnerable, thereby underscoring why critical thinking, even in good times, is so difficult. When we are anxious and isolated, we want quick, reassuring solutions, and we want someone to blame. We want authority figures to trust and act in our name.

Complex thinking

It is not hard to understand why the magic bullet of vaccines – to the exclusion of all else – has been so fervently grasped during the pandemic. Exclusive reliance on vaccines has been a great way for our corrupt, incompetent governments to show they know what they are doing. The vaccines have been an ideal way for corrupt medical-industrial corporations – including the biggest offender, Pfizer – to launder their images and make us all feel indebted to them after so many earlier scandals like Oxycontin. And, of course, the vaccines have been a comfort blanket to us, the public, promising to bring ZeroCovid (false), to provide long-term immunity (false), and to end transmission (false).

And as an added bonus, vaccines have allowed both our corrupt leaders to shift the blame away from themselves for their other failed public health policies and our corrupt “health” corporations to shift attention away from their profiteering by encouraging the vaccinated majority to scapegoat an unvaccinated minority. Divide and rule par excellence.

To state all this is not to be against the vaccines or believe the virus should rip through the population, killing the vulnerable, any more than criticizing the US war crime of bombing Syria signifies enthusiastic support for Assad. It is only to recognize that political realities are complex, and our thinking needs to be complex too.

‘Herd immunity

These ruminations were prompted by a post on social media I made the other day referring to the decision of the Guardian – nearly two years into the pandemic – to publish criticisms by an “eminent” epidemiologist, Prof Mark Woolhouse, of the British government’s early lockdown policies. Until now, any questioning of the lockdowns has been one of the great unmentionables of the pandemic outside of right-wing circles.

Let us note another prominent example: the use of the term “herd immunity,” which was until very recently exactly what public health officials aimed for as a means to end contagion. It signified the moment when enough people had acquired immunity, either through being infected or vaccinated, for community transmission to stop occurring. But because the goal during Covid is not communal immunity but universal vaccination, the term “herd immunity” has now been attributed to a sinister political agenda. It is presented as some kind of right-wing plot to let vulnerable people die.

This is not accidental. It is an entirely manufactured, if widely accepted, narrative. Recovery from infection – something now true for many people – is no longer treated by political or medical authorities as conferring immunity. For example, in the UK, those who have recovered from Covid, even recently, are not exempted, as the vaccinated are, from self-isolation if they have been in close contact with someone infected with Covid. Also, of course, those recovered from Covid do not qualify for a vaccine passport. After all, it is not named an immunity passport. It is a vaccine passport.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has at least been open about the “reasoning” behind this kind of discrimination. “In a democracy,” he says, apparently unironically, “the worst enemies are lies and stupidity. We are putting pressure on the unvaccinated by limiting, as much as possible, their access to activities in social life. … For the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And we will continue to do this, to the end. This is the strategy.”

Notice that the lies and stupidity here emanate from Macron: he is not only irresponsibly stoking dangerous divisions within French society, he has also failed to understand that the key distinctions from a public health perspective are between those with immunity to Covid and those without it and those who are vulnerable to hospitalization and those who are not. These are the most meaningful markers of how to treat the pandemic. The obsession with vaccination only serves a divide and rule agenda and bolsters pandemic profiteering.

Crushing hesitancy

The paradox is that these narratives dominate even as the evidence mounts that the vaccines offer very short-term immunity and that, ultimately, as Omicron appears to be underscoring, many people are likely to gain longer-term immunity through Covid infection, even those who have been vaccinated. But the goal of public “debate” on this topic has not been transparency, logic, or informed consent. Instead, it has been the crushing of any possible “vaccine hesitancy.”

I have repeatedly tried to highlight the lack of critical thinking around the exclusive focus on vaccines rather than immune health, the decision to vaccinate children in the face of strong, if largely downplayed, opposition from experts, and the divisive issue of vaccine mandates. But I have had little to say directly about lockdowns, which have tended to look to me chiefly like desperate stop-gap measures to cover up the failings of our underfunded, cannibalized, and increasingly privatized health services (a more pressing concern). I am also inclined to believe that the balance of benefits from lockdowns, or whether they work, is difficult to weigh without some level of expertise. That is one reason why I have been arguing throughout the pandemic that experts need to be allowed more open, robust, and honest public debate.

It is also why I offered a short comment on Prof Woolhouse’s criticisms, published in the Guardian this week, of national lockdown policies. This evoked a predictably harsh backlash from many followers. They saw it as further proof that the “Covid denialists have captured me,” and I am now little better than a pandemic conspiracy theorist.

Framing the debate

That is strange in itself. Prof Woolhouse is a mainstream, reportedly “eminent” epidemiologist. His eminence is such that it also apparently qualifies him to be quoted extensively and uncritically in the Guardian. The followers I antagonize every time I write about the pandemic appear to treat the Guardian as their Covid Bible, as do most liberals. And they regularly castigate me for referring to the kind of experts the Guardian refuses to cite. So how does my retweeting of a Guardian story that uncritically reports on anti-lockdown comments from a respectable, mainstream epidemiologist incur so much wrath – and seemingly directed only against me?

The answer presumably lies in the short appended comment in my retweet, which requires that one disengage from the seemingly substantive debate – lockdowns, good or bad? That conversation is certainly interesting to me, especially if it is an honest one. But the contextual issues around that debate, the ones that require critical thinking, are even more important because they are the best way to evaluate whether an honest debate is actually being fostered.

My comment, intentionally ambiguous, implicitly requires readers to examine wider issues about the Guardian article: the timing of its publication, why a debate about lockdowns has not previously been encouraged in the Guardian but apparently is now possible, how the debate is being framed by Woolhouse and the Guardian, and how we, the readers, may be being manipulated by that framing.

Real, live conspiracy

Interestingly, I was not alone in being struck by how strange the preferred framing was. A second epidemiologist, Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician at Harvard who serves on a scientific committee to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), saw problems with the article too. Unfortunately, however, Prof Kulldorff appears not to qualify as “eminent” enough for the Guardian to quote him uncritically. That is because he was one of three highly respected academics who brought ignominy down on their heads in October 2020 by authoring the Great Barrington Declaration.

Like Woolhouse, the Declaration offered an alternative to blanket national lockdowns – the official response to rising hospitalizations – but did so when those lockdowns were being aggressively pursued, and no other options were being considered. The Guardian was among those that pilloried the Declaration and its authors, presenting it as an irresponsible right-wing policy and a recipe for Covid to tear through the population, laying waste to significant sections of the population.

My purpose here is not to defend the Great Barrington Declaration. I don’t feel qualified enough to express a concrete, public view one way or another on its merits. And part of the reason for that hesitancy is that any meaningful conversation at the time among experts was ruthlessly suppressed. The costs of lockdowns were largely unmentionable in official circles and the “liberal” media. It was instantly stigmatized as the policy preference of the “deplorable” right.

This was not accidental. We now know it was a real, live conspiracy. Leaked emails show that Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president, and his minions used their reliable contacts in prominent liberal media to smear the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. “There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises. I don’t see anything like that online yet – is it underway?” a senior official wrote to Fauci. The plan was character assassination, pure and simple—nothing to do with science. And “liberal” media happily and quickly took up that task.

The Guardian, of course, went right along with those smears. This is why Prof Kulldorff has every right to treat with disdain both the Guardian’s decision to now publish Prof Woolhouse’s criticisms – so very belatedly – of lockdown policy and Prof Woolhouse’s public distancing of himself from the now-radioactive Great Barrington Declaration even though his published comments closely echo the policies proposed in the Declaration. As Prof Kulldorff observes:

Hilarious logical somersault. In the Guardian, Mark Woolhouse argues that [the] UK should have used focused protection as defined in the Great Barrington Declaration, while criticizing the Great Barrington Declaration due to its mischaraterization by the Guardian.”

Reputational damage 

If we put on our critical thinking hats for a moment, we can deduce a plausible reason for that mischaracterization.

Like the rest of the “liberal” media, the Guardian has been fervently pro-lockdown and an avowed opponent of any meaningful discussion of the Great Barrington Declaration since its publication more than a year ago. Moreover, it has characterized any criticism of lockdowns as an extreme right-wing position. But the paper now wishes to open up a space for a more critical discussion of the merits of lockdown at a time when rampant but milder Omicron threatens to shut down not only the economy but distribution chains and health services.

Demands for lockdowns are returning – premised on the earlier arguments for them – but the formerly obscured costs are much more difficult to ignore now. Even lockdown cheerleaders like the Guardian finally understand some of what was clear 15 months ago to experts like Prof Kulldorff and his fellow authors.

What the Guardian appears to be doing is smuggling the Great Barrington Declaration’s arguments back into the mainstream but trying to do it in a way that won’t damage its credibility and look like an about-face. It is being entirely deceitful. And the vehicle for achieving this end is a fellow critic of lockdowns, Prof Woolhouse, who is not tainted goods like Prof Kulldorff, even though their views appear to overlap considerably. Criticism of lockdowns is being rehabilitated via Prof Woolhouse, even as Prof Kulldorff remains an outcast, a deplorable.

In other words, this is not about any evolution in scientific thinking. It is about the Guardian avoiding reputational damage – and doing so at the cost of continuing to damage Prof Kulldorff’s reputation. Prof Kulldorff and his fellow authors were scapegoated when their expert advice was considered politically inconvenient, while Prof Woolhouse is being celebrated because similar expert advice is now convenient.

This is how much of our public discourse operates. The good guys control the narrative so that they can ensure they continue to look good, while the bad guys are tarred and feathered, even if they are proven right. The only way to really make sense of what is going on is to disengage from this kind of political tribalism, examine contexts, avoid being so invested in outcomes, and work hard to gain more perspective on the anxiety and fear each of us feels.

The corporate media is not our friend. Its coverage of the pandemic is not there to promote the public good. It is there to feed our anxieties, keep us coming back for more, and monetize that distress. The only cure for this sickness? A lot more critical thinking.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MASS PSYCHOLOGY & FALSE SOLIDARITY

View of crowd covering ears

By Kingsley L. Dennis

Source: Waking Times

It is always necessary to critically question our assumptions and the information that informs our social behaviour. In this light, I intend to cast a glance over current social manifestations regarding how the pandemic has been redefining our social patterns and relations. I will also be examining these patterns from the perspectives of mass psychology, mental intoxication, and a reprogrammed solidarity. According to Prof. Mattias Desmet,[i] the four conditions that allow mass formation – popularly referred to as crowd psychology – to emerge are: a lack of social bonds; people experiencing life as meaningless or senseless; free-floating anxiety; and free-floating frustration and aggression. In recent years, going back decades, these conditions have been building up within our modern societies. As I mentioned in a previous essay,[ii] social anxiety and psychological suffering were already growing exponentially even before the pandemic outbreak of 2020. The foundations for establishing a mass psychology were existent in many, if not most, of our industrialized societies and cultures before the traumatic experience of the current pandemic. At such junctures of psychological vulnerability, a shift of attachment – that is, a transference of identification – can be achieved rapidly. What has likely occurred within the past 18 months has been a widescale process of reprogrammed solidarity.

Prof. Mattias Desmet believes the world has experienced a huge, global ritual that has established a new form (a recalibrated form) of social bonding. Desmet also states that this newly arrived mass psychology is a manner of compensation for many years of extreme individualism where people felt they needed to seek out new and different collective bonds of solidarity. This new solidarity frees people from their prior isolationism and atomization. It is a socially programmed and managed method of social re-gathering. And it is being accomplished on a worldwide scale. Also, it is being brought into being through a form of ritual. Rituals are not only for religious or sacred circumstances. By definition, a ritual is ‘a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence.’[iii] That is, they are a range of actions performed according to a prescribed order. And that ‘prescribed order’ can come through agreement or imposition – or a mixture of both. Participation in rituals also develop a degree of loyalty to the group/grouping through adherence to and the performing of acts that support the main narratives. These acts of obedience (behaviour sets) can be regarded as rituals, similar to how more familiar religious rituals are performed to denote loyalty to a specific religious faith. When social acts are performed through an emotional attachment of ritual, a form of ‘hypnotic allegiance’ is established that is then extremely hard to break away from. This can then lead to a form of misplaced ethics that can cause people to engage in acts of self-sacrifice in order to uphold what they have been led to believe is their ethical position. People caught up within the mass hypnosis are made to sincerely believe that the mainstream narratives are correct and that they are right to be following and supporting them – even when the evidence points to the contrary. In other words, such people strongly believe in the moral rightness of their position, and this gives them a more powerful sense of solidarity and justification. Similarly, during the Crusades each side felt they were doing ‘God’s work’ by engaging in mass slaughter. What we see here is a condition of misplaced ethics.

People swept up within a mass or crowd psychology tend to protect and maintain it whether consciously or unconsciously. This is why they are most likely to reject any contrary information when it is presented to them; or will reject even the chance for such information to be presented. This amounts to a state of mild induced hypnosis which has shifted from an external identification to a self-maintained state. That is, people engage in the process of their own induced hypnosis. This may sound implausible to some people, yet we need to observe the conditions that were present to allow such states of hypnosis. Part reason for this is that many of the people who accepted the slippage into the formation of a mass psychology were already experiencing psychological discontent. This could come from perceiving a lack of life purpose and meaning; a dislike of their jobs; general restlessness and anxiety; and similar issues related with their previous life status. In such cases, the way to break the hypnosis is not by trying to persuade such people to return to their ‘old normal’ ways, which they were not happy with previously, but by searching out ways to alleviate the source of their psychological discontent. And this suggests a radical transformation in our social and cultural systems and ways of living. Furthermore, it points to a shift away from increasing materialism, automation, and technological dependency into a path that celebrates more the beauty and meaning in being human.

Mass Hypnosis of Solidarity

Persons susceptible to mass psychology are less likely to be responsive or sensitive to rational argument and debate. It is because they did not fall into line with the main narrative through reasoning but rather through a form of ‘mental intoxication’ that triggered a transference of social bonding to the newly established mass solidarity. Such triggers are generally most effective when they are presented through emotional states – these are often based upon fear; (in)securities; and mortality. When such fear-related triggers are heightened and expanded through widescale media coverage, then most, if not all, alternative narratives are discredited, discarded, and ignored. When within such heightened emotional states, cognitive decisions become overruled by inter-personal circumstances. Importantly, the state-supported narrative (the new consensus) gives people an object to connect their anxiety with. They have a mental representation of what is the cause of their anxiety. Their previous condition of free-floating anxiety has now become anchored, and people feel they are then better able to control their frustrations. To take away their belief in the dominantly imposed narrative would confront the person with their initial unease and psychological discontent. For this reason, it is difficult to break or stop such collective psychological formations once they have been established. Once the psychological patterning and emotional identification has been constructed it is then difficult to deconstruct – a significant collective solidarity has been established that imprints the mass mind.

Another factor that strengthens the mass psychology is that the imposed mainstream narratives appear to speak in one collective voice. They are clearer in what they represent and appear to come from a place of unified agreement (i.e., all state actors and state-affiliated actors are showing public agreement). It is important that there is no public disagreement on the narratives. This sense of external clarity further strengthens the issue as a ritualistic act – a hypnotic formation. The other voices that speak out against the dominant imposed narratives are not regarded or seen as coherent because they speak in many, varied voices. This is usually because they come from many and varied sources that have liberty to say things in different ways. Yet this seeming lack of narrative coherency is weaker at confronting or opposing the hypnotic collective. Those people who remain uncertain and not yet fully decided are then more liable to choose the ‘crowd narrative’ because the mass storyline falsely appears as more solid. Those people caught within the mass programming believe themselves to be expressing their own opinions when in fact there has been a clever sleight-of-hand in that they have been provided with a set of pre-formed ‘opinion bundles’ that they can then put forward as their own. Such people are therefore not expressing personal opinions arrived at through individual critical questioning but rather conditioned ‘thought bundles’ provided through the programming techniques built into the establishment of the psychological collective mass. The mass hypnosis of solidarity comes with a pre-prepared collection of opinion sets for bulk dispersal. However entrenched this situation appears, there is always the possibility for counteracting the collective hypnosis.

Regathering our Unity

It is important that those people who see, perceive, and understand the contradictions and falsity in the mass narratives continue to speak out. Hypnosis can be lessened or weakened through continual exposure to rational information, even when that information opposes the narratives of the mass psychology.

The first step in countering the mass psychosis is to disconnect people’s anxiety from the ‘object’ that people were persuaded to transfer their identification to. This can be understandably difficult when the mainstream media is not at your availability but is working to maintain the hypnotic imprinting of the mass narratives. One way, however, that works to make this disconnect is by presenting a scenario – an ‘object threat’ – that may be greater than the one used in the original collective imprinting. For example, if people realized that the current ‘health crisis’ could lead to a condition of totalitarianism, then this realization could be sufficient to awaken people from their hypnosis as they still have the cognitive capacity to grasp that the social condition of totalitarianism is a graver threat than a biological agent with low mortality rate.

The real issues, and the one that creates a fertile ground for inducing a mass psychology in the first place, is the lack of social bonding in our societies and a perceived lack of meaning. This perceived lack of meaning and purpose in everyday life is what produces the feeling of ‘free-floating’ anxiety. The danger here is that a populace under the sway of mass psychology – mass induced hypnosis – is more likely to support or go along with a totalitarian regime that maintains this mass hypnosis. This was one of the reasons why Germany’s National Socialism (the Nazi regime) was so successful in its aims.

The people who were less susceptible to hypnosis of mass psychology tended to be those who disagreed with the ideology behind it or had more experience in using critical analysis of social phenomena, and/or were more aware of the processes of social conditioning and the uses of mainstream propaganda. They were much more capable of spotting from the onset how the narratives of the mass psychology were treating people as mere biological units to be moved around the board. The question that now needs to be asked is: how can those people who stand apart from the mass hypnosis be able to unify? Those who can speak out against the mass hypnosis need to connect together. And their advantage is that they are unified through an understanding whilst remaining diverse in their backgrounds, belief structures, identities, etc. Such people can find cohesion in perspectives whilst remaining as diverse and independent individuals. This diversity and individual independence bring greater strength than a collective mass that has been unified through the programming of a false solidarity.

It is important that those people with perceptive cognition recognize that a global ritual has been set into motion that has as its goal the ‘retraining’ of the populace into welcoming upon them a new civilizational model. The willing compliance to adopt this new model of order, at the local, regional, national and global level, will sever humanity from its own biological and constitutional roots. In order to move forward as human beings, we will likely need to reject certain materialistic futures offered to us. These offers will come with promises of comfort and convenience; yet they will hide an underbelly of human disconnect and the loss of the human spirit. If a deal is made with the devil, then we can be sure that our souls will be collected without delay. And the great truth that gives humanity its strength is that the human soul and spirit can never be taken without our willing compliance. In that, by denying them our willing compliance we strengthen our unity by default. The unity established through conscious awareness is always greater energetically than the perceived unity through unconscious programming. If the fewer are aware, and conscious of what is being attempted by the mass hypnosis, then this shall energetically give us a stronger unity. And the way to break the mass hypnosis is by aligning with a greater truth that shall gradually resynch and recalibrate the energetic vibration of the collective.

HOW HYPNOTISTS (AND MASS MEDIA) HACK YOUR MIND TO CONTROL YOUR BEHAVIOR

By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

I’m a committed advocate of freedom, personal liberty, pharmaceutical free health, bodily autonomy, and free-thinking, which, apparently, puts me at odds with the majority. As shocking as it is, these basic standards of a good life, which have governed humans for centuries, are suddenly being portrayed as selfish and even dangerous.

How does an individual come to view personal sovereignty as a detriment to themselves and to society, especially when that society is so obviously sick and dysfunctional? How does one come to see their own body as a threat to the world at large, and a playground for experimental science?

People ask me these questions all the time, and the best way to explain what’s happening is to look at how mind control, social engineering, propaganda, and hypnosis affect the mind and steer the individual away from individualistic and self-governing behavior. The hysteria so prevalent today only makes sense when you recognize that most people are truly not thinking for themselves, but are instead programmed to run scripts and programs that have been prepared for mass consumption.

By looking at how hypnotism works, for example, you can begin to understand what’s really happening today, and more importantly you can begin to understand how your own life is affected by the environment we’re in.

Here’s a look at how hypnosis (and mass media) hack your mind to control your behavior.

First of all, let’s acknowledge the power of hypnosis. Therapeutic hypnosis is widely used clinically for the management of pain, depression, anxiety, stress, phobias, and habit disorders, such as smoking.

Stage hypnotists are well-known for inducing some extraordinarily illogical and ridiculous behavior in their subjects. In a matter of minutes, an accomplished stage hypnotists can get complete strangers to do absurd things like believe their hands are glued together, forget their own name, lose the ability to drink water, to be unable to see a person or object right in front of their face, to jump up and yell something bizarre when they hear a code word, and on and on.

Hypnotism is real, and anyone is susceptible to it, in varying degrees. In the following clip, hypontist Keith Barry explains what it takes to hypnotize a person… any person. He explains that a subject needs to be intelligent, as a key requirement for hypnotism is the ability to focus on the imagery, speech and commands of the hypnotist. He gives us a simple exercise to show that certain people can be more or less susceptible to hypnosis.

YouTuber Derek Banas explains the process of how to hypnotize someone. Firstly, you must hold the belief that hypnosis is real and that it will work, then you must build a rapport with the subject, have them place their full attention on you, completely focusing at all levels on one thing. When their attention is completely focused, the subject is ready to be led into trance, which involves giving repeated simple commands and suggestions, until they are told to close their eyes and fully relax.

There are variations of this, including different techniques, although the process is essentially uniform.

You act with authority and confidence. You direct all of their attention on to one thing, You repeatedly tell the subject that they are being hypnotized. You lead them into trance with repetitive language and directives, while directing the movements of their eyes.

As the subject undergoes this process they are making a series of micro-agreements along the way, essentially giving the hypnotist deeper access to consent. The attention is focused along with repetitive and downwards inflecting suggestions while their eyes are trained on a specific object, like a swinging watch, for example. Doing this brings the subjects brainwaves closer and closer to an alpha state, the most hypnotic brainwave state.

The confidence and rapport of the hypnotist serves to bypass what is known as the critical factor, which is considered the gateway between the conscious and subconscious mind. It is believed that 95+% of our behavior is governed by the subconscious mind, and bypassing the critical factor moves the subject from analytical thinking toward emotional and unconscious thinking, forgoing logic and reason. Essentially, the subject’s nervous system is either overloaded, or made to completely relax, and high emotions such as lust or fear are the most effective emotional energies to bypass the critical factor. A hypnotist does this by presenting with authority and certainty, thereby giving the subject the freedom to relax into a subconscious or automatic mode of behavior.

The physical signs of hypnosis include dilated pupils, relaxed breathing, eyes wanting to close, skin flushes and other subtle physiological signs. When a person is deep in an alpha brainwave state, a hypnotic state, their conscious, rational mind is effectively switched off, and they become incredibly open to suggestion, making it possible to implant ideas and behaviors into them, which the subject will adopt without critical thinking.

Hypnotherapist Marc Marshall explains this in more detail and in the context of our global situation, discussing how the amygdala is also hijacked to bypass the critical factor, taking over a person’s fight or flight responses.

“Let me pull back the curtain a bit on how this process works and show you what has happened and is continuing to happen in this current emergency. Many of you have witnessed what hypnotists call an instant or shock induction. These are the dramatic inductions that many stage and street hypnotists use to induce a trance state (hypnosis) in their volunteers. It literally takes just a few seconds for this to happen. What the hypnotist typically does is cause a firing of that portion of the brain known as the amygdala. We literally hijack the amygdala which is responsible for the “fight/flight/freeze” mechanism of our bodies. It is in this split second of time, that the subconscious mind is looking for a program that will provide an appropriate response. Nancy Moyer, MD., describes it as When stress makes you feel strong anger, aggression, or fear, the fight-or-flight response is activated. … It happens when a situation causes your amygdala to hijack control of your response to stress. The amygdala disables the frontal lobes and activates the fight-or-flight response.” It is this most basic of instinctual responses that is responsible for our survival as a species. It is caused by the release of cortisol, a powerful stress hormone.

There are several extremely critical parts of this phenomena of amygdala hijack that are the essence of what I am seeing and which concerns me. As stated above, the amygdala disables the frontal lobe of our brains. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that controls important cognitive skills in humans, such as emotional expression, problem solving, memory, language, judgment, and sexual behaviors. It is, in essence, the “control panel” of our personality and our ability to communicate. We lose our ability to make rational judgements, our stress increases and dramatic physical changes take place in our bodies. Most importantly, we become and remain highly suggestible in this highly aroused state. Our subconscious minds are seeking to find that “program” that will free us from this threat and we take that cue from the perceived leaders.” ~Marc Marshall

That’s a short synopsis of how a hypnotist brings someone into a suggestive trance, and here’s an excellent video of this process, and a demonstration of what a hypnotist can influence a person to unconsciously do.

The keys to the process of inducing hypnosis are the projection of confidence and authority, capturing the full attention of the subject, using repeated trance inducing language and repeated suggestions, bypassing the critical factor, and inducing an alpha brainwave trance.

Confidence, authority, repetition, suggestion and trance induction.

Now, back to how mass media uses this very skillset to induce mass hypnosis and generate widespread unconscious and controllable behavior.

Firstly, the primary medium for blasting non-stop cable news into your brain is TV. Television itself is well-known to rapidly induce alpha brain wave states in the viewer, bringing them into a hypnotic trance automatically, typically affecting the function of the frontal lobe within an astonishing 90 seconds, and bypassing critical thinking.

“If you’ve ever experienced a mind fog after watching television, you’re not alone.

The brain has four modes that it operates in, and four brain wave patterns. Delta is when you’re deep asleep, Theta is when you’re in light sleep, Alpha is awake but relaxed, it’s the mode of thinking that you are in when you’re in the most heightened state of suggestibility, and then there’s Beta, the highest functioning mode like when you’re reading a book or you’re having a very stimulating conversation.” ~Pseudology: The Art of Lying

This presentation explains this in greater detail.

Furthermore, the graphic design elements commonly used in news presentations serves the purpose of capturing one’s full attention and jarring the nervous system into an overloaded state. Think about the various moving parts and messages the screen at any given moment during a regular broadcast. While the anchor is speaking about one thing, you’ll see side-scrolling text at the bottom talking about an entirely different issue, with evolving background graphics, typically emphasizing the colors red and blue, which are subconsciously regarded as the colors of authority and trust.

Also, they commonly use swirling spheres and circles, graphics are used much in the same way that hypnotist uses a watch or a pen as a point of eye fixation to capture the full attention of the viewer.

Here’s a perfect example:

Now, if you look at marketing in general, it is a confidence game. That is, marketers will attempt to sell you anything at all while pretending it is the most amazing and life-changing thing ever. TV infomercials come to mind.

Mass media is a confidence game (con-game), meaning that the anchors, reporters, experts and pundits are adept at presenting any information with absolute and total confidence. Colin Powell did this when he showed up at the UN with a vial of white powder and told everyone in the room that Saddam Hussein was going to kill everyone. It’s difficult to disbelieve someone who presents with such confidence, and psychopaths are the best at this, and know to exploit their victims’ trust by over exaggerating confidence.

The top news anchors will never let their confidence down, and they’re marketed in such a way as to manufacture rapport with the audience. They’re seen in heart-warming town hall segments relating to the common man, out in nature celebrating life, and out on the town kissing babies. Here’s everyone’s favorite, Anderson Cooper, being portrayed as a humanitarian. Such a likable guy!

Finally there is the detail of suggesting and commanding the viewer to believe or to do certain things. In hypnosis, when the critical factor is bypassed, it allows access to the subconscious mind where what are known as ‘pillars of belief’ are implanted. Below the rational, critical thinking part of the mind is a deep sea of beliefs which govern most behavior. Once a subject is in an induced trance, the news repeats ideas, suggestions and beliefs, ad nauseam until the viewer basically becomes a parrot and information repeater. You see these people everywhere today.

Final Thoughts

More than ever before, those of you who believe in freedom, as I do, are called to gather your strength, sovereignty and power to stand up for these timeless moral values. It is of critical importance to recognize that the world has been deliberately lulled into a hypnotic state and fed beliefs and ideas about how things should be or how we should address crisis.

If you understand what is happening, and if you understand how all of this plays a role in shaping your own life, beliefs, and behaviors, you’r better equipped to take back control of your life.

The Real Flu/Covid Threat: Jabbed Super-Spreaders

By Stephen Lendman

Source: StephenLendman.com

Indisputable evidence shows that a pandemic of the jabbed exists, not among refuseniks as falsely reported.

Shunning Pharma toxins helps protect and preserve health. The other way around weakens and destroys what’s too precious to lose.

Jabbed individuals comprise a significant majority of flu/covid outbreaks.

In increasing numbers of countries and local communities, the jabbed comprise up to 80% or more of the total.

Since mass-jabbing began last December, they caused a 1,000% increase in adverse events — including deaths — compared to pre-2020 data, noted scientist Jessica Rose explained.

Jabs generate what’s called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).

It enables a virus to enter bodily organs and cells that causes health-destroying diseases.

Instead of protecting against pathogens, antibodies instead let foreign particles enter the body and weaken immunity.

According to an unreported Pfizer document hidden from public view — ignored by MSM — jabbed individuals “shed…spike protein particles” through bodily fluids, breath and skin, infecting others around them.

When unjabbed individuals without natural immunity come in close contact with their jabbed counterparts, they’re vulnerable to infection from what they shed and spread.

Persona non grata on propaganda MSM — except to demean him — Dr. Robert Malone invented mRNA and DNA technology used in toxic Pfizer and Moderna jabs.

Earlier he expressed “grave concerns about the lack of transparency of side effects, censoring of discussion, and lack of informed consent that these bring.” 

He explained that their hazardous “spike protein causes severe problems (including) bleeding disorders, blood clots throughout the body and heart problems.” 

They show up in individuals jabbed with the gene-altering technology.

Their lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) risk pathologic neuro-inflammation that can cause multiple sclerosis, ALS, cancer, heart disease and/or other serious diseases.

Last week, The Hidden Gateway host Justin Williams interviewed Malone.

He explained how mass-jabbing coercion by US/Western and other governments is destroying the health of countless millions of people.

In cahoots with Pharma, their dark forces, anti-public health handmaidens and MSM co-conspirators are mass-deceiving their people about all things flu/covid — especially about toxic jabs.

They’re “entic(ing)” them with incentives based on false promises, including in West Virginia, Malone explained.

“(T)hey had a shotgun lottery.”

“(I)n Canada, there was a policy of offering free ice cream to children to get them to take the jab even without their parents’ approval.” 

There have been numerous other examples of deceptively “unfair coercion” — illegal wherever used.

If jabs protect health as repeatedly claimed, why are incentives like million-dollar lotteries used?

Why are jabs administered free, why when payment was required for annual flu shots pre-2020?

Malone compared toxic mass-jabbing to illegal Nazi-era medical experiments — in the name of “experimental medical research” and extermination of unwanted untermenschen. 

Nothing about what’s going on is related to “the common good,” just the opposite, Malone stressed, adding:

Jabbed individuals are “super-spreaders” of health-destroying toxins to others.

As numbers of jabbed, double-jabbed and booster-jabbed individuals increase, the more widespread super-spreading becomes.

The jabbed are “spreading the virus like crazy” by close contact with others, including to members of their own family.

There’s nothing noble about what Malone called the “noble lie…paternalistic authoritarianism.” 

Some of the worst diabolical public health policies have gone on throughout the West and elsewhere for time immemorial.

The flu/covid mother of them all ongoing since last year was made-in-the-USA with diabolical aims in mind.

Examining the Methods and Means of COVID Propaganda Dissemination

By Gary Weglarz

Source: Global Research

It is useful to identify and examine the many facets and the all encompassing nature of American/Western propaganda systems in our efforts to better understand why so many people have great difficulty in sorting truth from fiction regarding the “covid pandemic” narratives.  The following outline and commentary are an effort to more clearly identify the ubiquitous nature of Western covid propaganda in order to better understand its impacts on the public mind.

One method of propaganda dissemination during the promotion of the covid narratives has been major medical journals printing false covid related disinformation posing as “science.”  Early in the propaganda operation both The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine had to retract fraudulent articles dismissing the efficacy and falsely inflating the danger of using hydroxychloroquine in treatment of covid patients. (1). MSM widely promoted the fraudulent claims, but of course expressed no interest in their subsequent retractions.

That two of the world’s most widely esteemed medical journals were both guilty of publishing what were essentially disinformation pieces rife with conflicts of interest and essentially constituting what MSM calls “fake news” shines a bright light on the corruption of objective science which has now been captured by powerful monied pharmaceutical and commercial interests.

Print and web based legacy media such as the NYT, WAPO, Guardian, BBC, etc. have all been engaged in credulous daily promotion of the “official” covid narratives. They have done so while refusing to publish counter-narratives even by world renowned scientific experts, and while shaming, demeaning, and ridiculing any who question the “official science” of the CDC and WHO.

The official covid narratives are also promoted daily on all mainstream television news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX, PBS, BBC, etc. as well as on their web-based presence on platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Adding to the seamless nature of public exposure to the official covid propaganda narratives are their constant presence in mainstream print (and web based) specialty and/or alternative media such as  Daily Beast, Politico, TYT, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, National Geographic, Scientific American. (2)

The radio airways provide yet another means for our ingestion of the endless daily repetition of the official covid propaganda narratives.  These include of course all MSM radio affiliates, ubiquitous talk radio, and of course NPR. (3)

As if one has not been subject to enough official covid propaganda by bedtime, the late night comedians continue the daily onslaught often during their monologues.  A standard format in this aspect of propaganda promotion is that one must have properly ingested one’s daily dose of covid propaganda in order to “get the joke” and thus be able to identify with one’s favorite comedian.  Covid propaganda is simply the background “wallpaper” on the shows of the “hip” late night comedians such as Trevor Noah, Steven Colbert, John Oliver, etc.  

However, propaganda as “humor” sometimes moves beyond simple recitation of official narratives and the shaming of the unvaccinated.  In some cases it engages in the more sinister openly proclaimed dehumanization of the unvaccinated as “other” to be shunned, scorned and even denied medical care as evidenced by the recent monologue comments of late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel. (4)

Sports reporting both web and radio based also act as outlets for official covid narratives, including the shaming of those who question such narratives and/or who refuse to be vaccinated.  This is true of sports pundits for a variety of outlets.  Youtube based sports pundit Rich Eisen recently used his platform to confront Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors basketball team because Green dared to defend the right of one of his team-mates Andrew Wiggins to exercise his freedom to make his own decision on rejecting a vaccine.  Wiggins has since succumbed to pressure and accepted the vaccine. (5)  

Escaping the pernicious presence of the official covid narratives is virtually impossible unless one simply swears off all contact with the major forms of Western media. 

Censorship & Demonization of Dissenting Voices 

To insure proper absorption of the official propaganda narratives a regime of outright censorship has become normalized.  This includes the removal of specific  examples of “offending” material from web based platforms like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, etc. This sort of open censorship, of even expert scientific opinion, has become part of the so called “new normal.”  Offenders are often put on notice that further such violations of “community standards” for example, will lead to further sanctions.

Youtube interviews with world renowned scientists have been demonetized and/or  removed due to such scientists simply sharing their own scientific opinion.  This is done should that expert opinion differ from the “official narrative” according to the censors employed by Tech platforms. One of the co-inventors of the mRNA vaccine technology Dr. Robert Malone experienced such censorship several months ago. (6)  Three days after being censored and removed from Youtube for expressing his concerns about the safety of vaccines delivered by technology he helped create, Wikipedia suddenly rewrote Dr. Malone’s biography in the process hiding his contribution to the creation of mRNA technology. (7).  One can be forgiven for wondering if this was done by Wikipedia in a nod to Orwell’s 1984 “Party” maxim – “Ignorance is Strength.”

Complete de-platforming on web based social media of well respected voices is also now becoming normative.  A recent example is the complete removal from Youtube of the site of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s Children’s Health Defense and Dr. Mercola’s medical site, along with others who challenge the official covid narratives. (8).  Similar removal/de-platforming of medical professionals and scientists on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other web based media have also occurred.  

Another area of web based censorship is the removal of user generated Facebook groups created by those wishing to share their negative post-vaccination reactions with others given the silence and lack of support from within the medical community itself for such individuals. (9).  Multiple such user groups have been banned from Facebook for simply providing a forum for users to share their own personal experiences.

The impact of such overt censorship has been to put all who post material and opinions on platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter to consciously engage in self-censorship in order to not risk being de-platformed.  News and analysis sites like Jimmy Dore, Dark Horse Podcast, Joe Rogan, and many others now openly discuss avoiding using or discussing certain words, phrases, or topics related to the official covid narratives that might lead to “warnings” or de-platforming.  Self censorship has become yet another aspect of our new normal.  

An invisible and too seldom discussed stealth method of the censorship of any of us who are questioning the official covid narratives is the Big Tech use of internet search algorithms designed to suppress or completely hide the existence of the material challenging official narratives.  I find my own Google searches for topics such as “covid vaccine adverse reactions” end up providing endless pages of material  simply censoring out and/or debunking the very idea that such adverse events could be anything but “fake news.” 

I have found that the suppression of any articles questioning the official narratives that isn’t presented as “fake news” is almost virtually complete in my own Google searches.  This means one must know before one searches the actual name of the post you are looking for or of the name of an alternative independent media site like Global Research or OffGuardian, because it appears that Google will now routinely use its algorithms to do everything in its power to avoid taking you to anything but articles and sites supporting the official narratives.

We now live in a world in which MSM outlets across all platforms routinely refuse to publish general articles, opinion pieces, video interviews, or even reference peer reviewed scientific journal articles by world renowned scientists if that material diverges from the official CDC/WHO opinion and stated policy.  One cannot help but note the rather seamless nature of this entire propaganda operation.  It is indeed impressive from a prospective of totalitarian narrative control. 

However, even this massive ability to dominate narrative construction and dissemination appears not to be sufficient in the opinion of those at the helm of the oligarch controlled structures of media power.  Thus independent popular media platforms are subject to what appear to be well orchestrated and coordinated attacks from MSM outlets should they report material that questions or in any way challenges MSM covid reporting. 

A recent example of such attacks was the MSM wide disinformation campaign aimed at popular Youtube personality Joe Rogan who self-reported his own positive Ivermectin experience in treating his covid.  His use of Ivermectin was not only widely panned and demeaned across MSM, but was also routinely intentionally and deceitfully distorted to suggest he had used the “animal version” of the drug scornfully referred to in MSM reports as a “horse dewormer.”  This disinformation was widely disseminated even though Rogan had clearly stated he received the Ivermectin prescription from his own doctor. (10).  

Such MSM attacks are designed to intimidate and although they likely did no significant damage to someone with Rogan’s large audience base, they may certainly cause others in independent media who have smaller audiences to hesitate to share their own similar experiences for fear of such negative repercussions. 

Such attacks by MSM, and censorship by Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, are now normative even when reporting the results of peer reviewed scientific journal articles that suggest possible efficacy of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in covid treatment.  Clearly it is not “the science” that MSM is protecting with such attacks, but the official propaganda narrative.

Medical professional organizations, medical licensing boards, hospitals and related entities are now literally threatening doctors with loss of hospital privileges and/or license to practice for simply having and sharing a medical opinion that diverges from the official narratives. (11)

Newsweek reported “a joint statement issued by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Pediatrics” pointed out quite clearly exactly what type of “medical opinion” by a practicing physician might endanger his/her license to practice.  “The evidence that we have safe, effective and widely available vaccines against COVID-19 is overwhelming. We are particularly concerned about physicians who use their authority to denigrate vaccination at a time when vaccines continue to demonstrate excellent effectiveness against severe illness, hospitalization and death.” (11)

The need for such an overt threat from these higher levels of the medical establishment makes clear that at least some physicians retain both independence of thought and the moral integrity required to form their own opinion.  However, the issuance of such a ham-handed threat based upon clearly unscientific and unsupported reassurances of “vaccine safety” suggests that these higher echelons of the medical establishment in the United States are now captive to monied interests, thus completely undermining the integrity of American medical practice.

My own medical care is through a large southern California university based consortium.  I recently asked my physician if she would prescribe a prophylactic dose of Ivermectin that I could keep on hand should I begin to develop covid symptoms.  She explained she was not allowed to do so, but that she would forward my request to the consortium’s “infectious disease specialist” who promptly responded that my doctor could not in fact prescribe Ivermectin for me because “the reliable evidence available does not support the use of Ivermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19.”  My own research into the available information on Ivermectin suggests this contention is clearly not accurate, but there is of course no recourse to challenge this institutional policy.

I cannot help but reflect on the irony that this same medical practice can and does continue to prescribe statin medications for their patients in spite of the now massive scientific research indicating that “the reliable evidence does not support” statin use for a large percentage of those who will continue to be put on statins, in spite of the many known dangerous side-effects.

Although I have great respect for my own primary care physician, she is literally not allowed to practice medicine independently in treating covid, but must instead seek permission to simply prescribe a globally used medication known to be safe that has clearly shown great efficacy around the world in covid treatment.  Instead the official opinion of the higher-ups controlling my physician’s medical practice appears to be “If you get sick enough show up at the ER, but otherwise we refuse to treat you.” Needless to say even while refusing to issue an Ivermectin script, I continue to receive regular email notices from my medical consortium reminding me to “schedule my covid vaccination.” 

Many doctors are now expressly forbidden from publicly discussing or reporting vaccine adverse reactions, and are forbidden to use their professional expertise in order to treat their own patients should that entail prescribing officially “demonized” medications such as Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.  Why Do So Many Believe the Official COVID Narratives?

Clearly we have never seen such draconian attempts at controlling the treatment options available to physicians and thus to their patients.  Nor have we seen the professional opinions of highly respected front-line acute-care medical providers who actually “treat” covid on a daily basis overtly demeaned in MSM.  Bedside acute-care physicians are thus being thwarted using overt threats to their licensure in order to enforce such “new normal” Orwellian control. 

Meanwhile, the demonization of the unvaccinated in MSM using these widely varied methods of propaganda dissemination is now ubiquitous.  There are now two relatively new categories of “human beings” inhabiting planet earth – the righteous and obedient “vaccinated” and the unclean, unworthy and dangerous “unvaccinated.”  This represent the latest in oligarchy’s endless efforts at “divide and conquer.”   

Clearly much appears to be at stake in the opinion of said global oligarchy.  The uber-wealthy and their public representatives seem to be pushing all of their chips to the center of the table as they place massive bets on this covid propaganda campaign.  Those bets are wagered against the credibility of what now amounts to almost all Western institutions.  Given the completely fatuous nature of the official covid narratives one can assume a significant level of desperation must exist among our global elites.  They appear to be dedicated to finding some means, any means, that might allow them to maintain their own power and control in the world.  A world in which a literal “house of cards” global economy, combined with ever greater ecosystem degradation and dis-regulation, is able less and less to ensure their continued future dominance.

Manipulation of Data and Definitions to Support the Propaganda Narratives 

One cannot help but notice the importance of language in any propaganda operation.  Words have meaning, as do those sets of words we call “definitions.”  What are we to make of the WHO changing the definition of “herd immunity” so that herd immunity is no longer achieved through a population being exposed to a pathogen and developing a protective immune response, but rather is now to be understood in terms of “vaccines?”(12) 

The new WHO definition reads: “herd immunity,’ also known as ‘population immunity,’ is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.” (12)  Since when has this EVER been the definition of herd immunity?  Answer, since the WHO changed the definition during the covid propaganda operation. 

In a public presentation the WHO director general explained this Orwellian decision to change the definition using suitably Orwellian double-speak: “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic.  It is scientifically and ethically problematic.” (12)  

Of course the simple unassailable “reality” here on planet earth is that we have as a species ALWAYS relied historically over endless millennia on the development of herd immunity by surviving whatever pathogen we were collectively exposed to.  It is only at this very moment in time, in the midst of the covid propaganda operation, that it has ever been necessary to “deny” that rather elementary fact of our collective human history.  

Additional examples of changing an official institutionally based definition to support the covid propaganda narratives is the CDC changing its definition of both “immunity” and “vaccine.” (13)

A final example on altering definitions and of data manipulation is the WHO changing how the actual cause of death on death certificates is reported, done clearly in order to inflate covid deaths thus promoting the official “pandemic” narrative. (14) (15). These changes smack of a Three-Stooges level of slapstick absurdity when it comes to simple common sense.  Under the new rules one could have essentially been perfectly healthy one moment, but had just been exposed by proximity to someone with a covid infection the next, or given a false-positive PCR at 45 cycles, and then immediately struck by a bolt of lightening and killed.  Then, by the new definitions, while in defiance of all common sense, the coroner would be given enough wiggle room so that he could still make a case for “death by covid” on one’s death certificate. (16)  “Orwellian” doesn’t quite do justice to this level of unscientific absurdity.

Manipulation of what constitutes a covid ‘case’ has been an essential propaganda tool in creating the “impression” of a pandemic. The pandemic hysteria itself is based more than anything upon fraudulent “false positives” obtained with the PCR test.  MSM quickly shifted early in the propaganda rollout from concern about supposed covid deaths, to focusing more on such false-positive “cases” which they dishonestly portrayed as actual illness. These daily touted “cases” appear to be primarily people registering a false positive on a PCR test given at a grossly inflated and therefore meaningless 35-45 cycles.  

Massive numbers of such false positive or “asymptomatic cases” were thus created out of thin air.  Voila!  Instant proof of a pandemic.  Most of these supposed “cases” were admittedly “asymptomatic,” but not because they had a mild version of the illness. They were most likely asymptomatic because they were not sick at all.  Thus the pandemic narrative has been fueled by simply defining “well people” as “sick people” based upon a known fraudulent testing regime. (17)

How do we know the use of PCR testing at 35-45 cycles was known by authorities to be fraudulent?  Because now that the vaccine program has been rolled out the vaccinated are only given PCR tests at a reasonable 28 cycles, while the unvaccinated continue to be subjected to the fraudulent 35-45 cycle PCR testing. (18). This of course deceptively insures that the unvaccinated continue to generate completely asymptomatic false positives, and can then be made to appear to be driving the spread of the illness.  

Meanwhile the vaccinated are much less likely to test positive given their testing is now, indefensible by any scientific measure, conducted at the lower 28 cycle threshold when compared to the unvaccinated conducted at 35-45 cycles.  The MSM promotion of the “trust the science” phrase has become simply a new addition to Orwellian “double-speak.”  To the Party slogans from Orwell’s book 1984, “War is Peace,” “Love is Hate,” and “Ignorance is Strength,” we can now officially add “Trust The Science.”

Covid death numbers have been even further inflated by the use of false positive PCR tests to label patients who are already terminally ill from other diseases (i.e. cancer, COPD, renal failure, etc) as “covid deaths” in official reporting because they died within 28 days of a meaningless fake ‘false positive’ PCR test.  Even in the complete absence of covid symptoms a hospice patient dying from another illness can be called a “covid” death in official data collection. (19)

Further distortion and manipulation of data in support of the official narratives involves not counting someone as “vaccinated” until 14 days after the “second dose” in two dose vaccines.  Thus someone who dies after the first dose, or within 14 days of the second dose, is “defined” as “unvaccinated” and can be counted fraudulently in that category. (20). This of course further promotes the narrative that it is mainly the “unvaccinated” who are being hospitalized and are dying.  One is hard pressed to imagine a more blatantly corrupt and amoral “public health policy.”  This is a policy which is designed of course to minimize the association between the vaccines and post-vaccination deaths, while simultaneously blaming the unvaccinated as being those who are hospitalized and dying. 

The weekly updated VAERS data from the CDC clearly shows massive numbers of both serious adverse vaccine reactions and deaths though it is known to vastly undercount such events.  However this highly concerning VAERS data is being silently ignored by the CDC itself, the MSM, the political class, and most of the medical establishment. (21). Meanwhile a consistent propaganda theme is one of omission in which the MSM either completely fails to report on such obviously important health data, or dismisses the idea that the VAERS reports themselves justify any further scrutiny.

A party interested in truth rather than in promoting propaganda would surely ask where autopsies are for those who died unexpectedly in close proximity to vaccination.  The MSM in support of the official narrative simply of course never poses such a logical straight forward question, as it would unravel the entire charade.  Clearly if the CDC does not “look for” possible links between vaccinations and unexpected deaths it will certainly be guaranteed “not to find them.”  

One is reminded how NIST proclaimed there were no explosives involved in the demolition of the three World Trade Center buildings, only to have to admit that they NEVER LOOKED for any evidence of explosives.  The CDC is taking the same tack in simply refusing to do autopsies on the many thousands who have died post-vaccination while the MSM pretends any discussion of such deaths is “fake news” by “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers.”

Another rather telling mode of propaganda promotion is the complete fabrication out of thin air of “news” that supports the covid narrative. This involves the subsequent spreading of such fabricated stories throughout MSM, and even failing to retract them once they are proven completely false. A recent such fabricated article in the magazine Rolling Stone that was widely repeated throughout MSM is a case in point. (22).  The story was that ERs in Oklahoma were overrun with people over-dosed on the livestock version of Ivermectin, thus denying even gunshot wound victims access to emergency care.  The story was shown to be a complete fabrication.  It was an obvious disinformation piece, yet was credulously repeated throughout MSM.  

This episode in blatant “fake news” propaganda, since it supported the official narratives demonizing Ivermectin, of course aroused no noticeable concern among those who proclaim to find such fake news unacceptable. The MSM pundits and the big tech platforms supposedly devoted to censoring “fake news,” appeared to have no problem with this blatantly fabricated disinformation piece posing as news.  Clearly fake news in support of the propaganda operation is simply standard operating procedure.  Another example of “the new normal.”  

Invisible Psychological Operations 

In a previous article I discussed the implications of Terror Management Theory (TMT) in promoting and assisting the public’s unconscious acceptance of the official covid propaganda. (23)  I continue to think that TMT offers an important window into understanding how the manipulation of our natural fears of death makes us more vulnerable to being propagandized.  It does so by over-riding one’s normal ability to think critically and rationally when such death fears are being repeatedly triggered day after day. 

Reminders of death and our mortality, delivered both consciously and unconsciously, have shown in hundreds of TMT experiments to increase unconscious support for, and greater compliance with, our underlying cultural norms.  This drives the population toward an unconscious position of becoming more trusting of institutional authorities, causing people to engage in more compliant behavior with the dictates of such authorities.

When recalling the initial propaganda images out of China depicting people standing in public places who suddenly simply fell over dead I am reminded of the astute observation made by Daniel Boorstin in his 1962 book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.”  As Boorstin explained, “Strictly speaking, there is no way to unmask an image.  An image, like any other psuedo-event, becomes all the more interesting with our every effort to debunk it.”

Are those being propagandized more likely to believe the images they see with their own eyes?  Or to believe those of us who are trying to “unmask” and “debunk” those images?  The power of such covid propaganda images should not be underestimated, in part because they seamlessly trigger the TMT “death fears” that so effectively short-circuit our ability to think clearly and critically.  Images of people falling over dead, images of piles of bodies, images of hospitals over-run, images of the faceless masked, are immensely powerful propaganda tools because of their deep psychological impacts often experienced not only consciously, but also at quite unconscious levels. 

Lastly, and perhaps the most frightening aspect of these psychological propaganda operations comes from large segments of the population being vulnerable to the covert behavioral modification techniques associated with simply “being connected” in our modern web-based world.  Professor Shoshana Zuboff provides a very detailed and chilling examination of the operant/instrumental conditioning techniques now routinely used by what she terms “surveillance capitalism” in her book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power” (24)  

Professor Zuboff painstakingly outlines the almost unimaginable extent to which big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook are surreptitiously capturing (“rendering” as Zuboff calls it) vast amounts of our personal data from literally all electronic web based devices.  However, it is not the loss of privacy that is of greatest concern in her analysis.  Rather, it is the ever increasing ability of big tech companies to compile, aggregate and with ever more powerful AI tools to utilize that data in order to shape and change our behavior through means that are literally beyond our own conscious awareness.  

Behavioral change is accomplished utilizing these ever more powerful AI tools in conjunction with continuously analyzing the behaviors and responses of billions of people across the globe. It is the ability to analyze personal opinions, then provide a new psychological “reward” or “punishment,” and then again measure those opinions, over and over with ever more powerful tools, in close to real-time, that poses the most dangerous threat to our ability to resist propaganda.  This level of “shaping” and “manipulating” the public mind both for the profit of corporations which Zuboff refers to as surveillance capitalism, and in service to the hidden agendas of the State intelligence apparatus, is not part of some future sci-fi world, but is an invisible aspect of our current reality, whether we are aware of that reality or not.

Already surveillance capitalism has shown the ability to surreptitiously modify and shape human thinking and behavior in marketable ways in pursuit of profit.  These operations are being conducted by the same big tech companies Edward Snowden outed almost a decade ago for their deep cooperation with and connections to the Western intelligence apparatus.  These were intelligence agencies engaged in propaganda operations aimed at Western citizenry. (25)  Much has changed in the world since Snowden shed light on these operations, including the development of ever more powerful AI based programs that capture our personal data, monitor our behavior, AND then shape our behavior beyond our human awareness. 

Zuboff’s book, Snowden’s revelations, and the implications of that convergence deserve a much more thorough detailing and discussion in the future.  However, I will for today end with what I feel is perhaps the most insidious aspect of what is implied through this coalescence of unseen forces.  Which is that we can be both surreptitiously monitored, and our thinking and behavior shaped, in what increasingly approaches close to real-time fashion.  Connected to the ubiquitous “web,” our thoughts and behaviors are no longer our own.  They can be, and are being, manipulated and modified outside of the realm of our conscious awareness.  This is not being done to meet our needs, but rather to meet the agendas of those who comprise a new class of “surveillance capitalists” who work in conjunction with the massive power of the Western intelligence gathering services.

In spite of all the wide-ranging aspects of the covid propaganda promotion I detailed earlier, I don’t think any of them alone or in combination hold as much potential to control and shape public consciousness as the ever more powerful tools of surveillance capitalism combined with the means and methods of the intelligence services.  

It is inconceivable to me that these tools are somehow not in continuous use 24/7, monitoring real-time public responses on web platforms and social media, to our searches, to what we read, to what we share with others, to our comments, spanning everything from new lockdown measures in a particular city, to the loosening of restrictions somewhere else, from responses to various forms of vaccination mandates in one part of the country compared to another, etc. 

No doubt there is consistent monitoring and evaluation examining which AI based interventions are most effective in “tuning, herding, nudging and shaping” (24) our perceptions and behaviors toward the propaganda ends of the oligarchic system of control.   For a very simple unsophisticated example it is child’s play for Facebook using the tools already at its disposal to insure you see nothing but posts from your Facebook “friends” who have gotten the vaccine, and no material from anyone who refused it.  This can be done in an effort to shape your behavior toward the desired end of you “making your own decision” to eventually do what you are being manipulated to do, to get the vaccine.  Why wouldn’t you submit to the vaccine since literally “all of your ‘friends’ are doing so” and since not doing so will put you in the cognitively uncomfortable position of now being in a publicly demonized “out group.”

I fear however that Zuboff’s and Snowden’s revelations portend something much darker and more sinister than my simple and rather obvious example touches upon.  A world in which much of humanity is manipulated, shaped, and controlled in both thought and behavior 24/7 without conscious awareness that this is happening.  Our thoughts someone else’s, but experienced as our own.  We don’t really need more information or another whistleblower like Edward Snowden to know where we stand.  What we do need is a much deeper familiarity and understanding of these hidden tools and processes in order to unmask them, publicize them, and resist their ever growing impacts.

*

Gary Weglarz retired in 2014 from practice as a clinical social worker.  He worked with, and learned from, Alaskan Native peoples who were attempting to heal the damage inflicted by the collective ongoing intergenerational trauma of colonization.  Currently he is engaged in research and writing regarding the relationship between past mass trauma in Western societies, and the subsequent colonial violence that has characterized the behavior of Europe and her colonies. He was actively involved in Central American solidarity efforts throughout the 1990’s, traveling with human rights delegations to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia. 

Notes

(1) https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giuseppe-Calcaterra/publication/343379182_An_expression_of_concern_on_research_misconduct_during_the_corona_virus_disease-2019_pandemic/links/5f7037c492851c14bc9a53e5/An-expression-of-concern-on-research-misconduct-during-the-corona-virus-disease-2019-pandemic.pdf

(2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/breakthrough-infections-do-not-mean-covid-vaccines-are-failing/

(3) https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/

 (4) https://nypost.com/2021/09/08/jimmy-kimmel-says-unvaxxed-americans-dont-deserve-icu-beds/

(5) https://www.nbcsports.com/video/rich-eisen-warriors-draymond-green-wrong-about-covid-19-comments

(6) https://www.yahoo.com/now/single-most-qualified-mrna-expert-173600060.html

(7) https://thebl.com/us-news/wikipedia-censors-real-inventor-of-mrna-technology-over-vaccine-warnings.html

(8) https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/09/29/youtube-is-banning-prominent-anti-vaccine-activists-and-blocking-all-anti-vaccine-content/

(9) https://twitter.com/peterrowen_/status/1376798789097377792?lang=en

(10) https://www.yahoo.com/now/joe-rogan-considers-suing-cnn-190606533.html

(11) https://www.newsweek.com/medical-boards-threaten-doctors-spreading-covid-misinformation-decertification-1629157

(12) https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/verify-changes-who-definition-herd-immunity-not-secret/507-f90c0199-c88e-4c66-8313-b4ae6e2a72ad

(13) https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html

(14) https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/02/counting-covids-deceptive-deaths/

(15) https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/Guidelines_Cause_of_Death_COVID-19.pdf

(16) https://cbs12.com/news/local/man-who-died-in-motorcycle-crash-counted-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-report

https://www.globalresearch.ca/anyone-any-disease-alberta-counted-covid-case/5757739

(17) https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/03/repeat-after-me-the-pcr-tests-dont-work/

(18) https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/18/who-finally-admits-pcr-tests-create-false-positives/

(19) https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/questions-over-the-accuracy-of-how-the-state-tracks-covid-deaths/283-0b1b7b6c-695e-4313-92cf-a4cfd7510721

(20) https://www.globalresearch.ca/cdc-allows-hospitals-classify-dead-vaxxed-people-unvaccinated/5757502

(21) https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-cdc-deaths-injuries-covid-vaccines/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9470f062-0cf2-4251-ae09-99ed0c9dbe0d

(22) https://firstdraftnews.org/articles/rolling-stones-botched-ivermectin-story-raises-questions-about-the-nature-of-misinformation/

(23) https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-do-so-many-believe-official-covid-narratives/5752602

(24) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight For A Human Future At The New Frontier Of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff, 2019.

(25) https://theintercept.com/collections/snowden-archive/

Corporate Media Largely Silent as Millions Protest Vaccine Mandates Worldwide

By Matt Agorist

Source: The Free Thought Project

When protests in the United States happen that help the establishment in some way, whether by stoking divide or pushing an establishment agenda, corporate media is all over them, bombarding us with news of packed streets. However, when massive crowds take to the streets to have their anti-establishment voices heard, it’s crickets on FOXSNBCNN.

Such is the case recently as millions of people across the world have taken to the streets to protest the draconian laws which segregate society and deprive people of their freedoms over their choice in taking a vaccine they may not even need.

Such is the case recently as millions of people across the world have taken to the streets to protest the draconian laws which segregate society and deprive people of their freedoms over their choice in taking a vaccine they may not even need.

One place, in particular, that is currently seeing massive protests is Italy whose government just passed the strictest vaccine mandate in Europe. Starting on October 15, Italy begins enforcing the new workplace green pass requirement. If employees cannot show proof of vaccination, they will not be allowed to go to work nor will they be able to enter any public places like restaurants, theaters, gyms, etc.

If an Italian citizen misses five days of work by failing to comply with the new mandate, the government forces their employer to stop paying them. If employees are caught working without a green pass, the state will extort them to the tune of $2,100 per instance.

Naturally, moves like this have pissed a lot of people off. It is well known now that the antibodies from the covid vaccines fade over time, which is why Israel is now requiring boosters for all of their citizens. It is also well known that immunity from natural infection is far superior to the vaccine.

A person who had the jab back in January and likely has very few antibodies left is considered “green.” However, at the same time, a person who may have caught covid last month and recovered, thereby drastically reducing their ability to catch and spread the disease, is considered a threat and cannot go to work or public places. There is zero logic in these mandates, which prove one thing — they are about control — not your safety.

This is why people are in the streets across the country and all over Europe and Australia. Civil disobedience is their only option left as they are forced out of their jobs, denied entry into public places, and forbidden from travelling.

As the mainstream media refuses to question the idea behind mandating vaccinations, they have made their role clear in this tyranny as enablers. This should come as no surprise either given the money that pours into their coffers from the ones who stand to gain the most from vaccine mandates — big pharma.

As we are currently witnessing with their silence in regard to vaccine mandate protests, it is no secret that the pharmaceutical industry wields immense control over the government, big tech, and the media. It is their control which keeps this and any other negative press about their products from seeing the light of day. However, most people likely do not know the scope of this control.

As Mike Papantonio, attorney and host of the international television show America’s Lawyer, explains, with the exception of CBS, every major media outlet in the United States shares at least one board member with at least one pharmaceutical company. To put that into perspective: These board members wake up, go to a meeting at Merck or Pfizer, then they have their driver take them over to a meeting with NBC to decide what kind of programming that network is going to air.

We have even reported incidents in which reporters have been cut off by the network for mentioning the connection on air. In a clear example of how beholden mainstream media is to the pharmaceutical industries who manufacture and market these drugs, FOX News’ Sean Hannity was recorded in 2018, blatantly cutting off a reporter who dared mention Nikolas Cruz’s reported association with antidepressants.

In the report below, Papantonio explains how the billions of dollars big pharma gives to mainstream media outlets every year is used to keep them subservient and complicit in covering up the slew of deadly side effects from their products.

As we can see with the current censorship and narrative control in regard to those questioning the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, big pharma wields massive control over the information you are allowed to talk about and consume. Once we zoom out and see the entire situation, it becomes exceedingly evident as to why Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the rest of Big Tech, have made it their mission to wipe out any and all content that questions the “official narrative.”