“You Must Be an Anti-Semite”

by Paul Cudenec, The Acorn
January 15, 2024

If you think free speech is a really good thing

If you fear the future that censorship may bring

If you think Mark Zuckerberg is a pawn of the CIA

If you don’t believe whatever the western leaders say

If you march and chant “from the river to the sea”

If you say you’ll keep fighting until Palestine is free

There’s just one explanation, right there in black and white

You must be an antisemite, you must be an antisemite

These lyrics to a song by the brilliant David Rovics, from his new album Notes from a Holocaust, really put their finger on the way that a certain term has been instrumentalised to the point of utter absurdity in the interests of silencing dissent.

Over the last few months we have all got used to hearing that it is “anti-semitic” to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, that being anti-Zionist is the same thing as being “anti-semitic“, that “false equivalence” between murders of Jews and by Jews risks “anti-semitic effect“.

David Rovics is Jewish and, while that doesn’t stop him from being accused of being “anti-semitic“, it does at least help him to see through the fraudulent nature of the insult.

As we have reported previously in The Acorn, the smear has for many years been wielded as a weapon to stifle criticism not just of Israel, but of the global criminocracy in general.

And it’s about time that we all took a leaf out of the Rovics songbook and, while remaining alert to the toxic threat of actual anti-semitism and other prejudiced attitudes, called out this blatant gaslighting.

Is it really “anti-semitic” to write a booklet exploring the power and activities of the Rothschilds, while carefully stressing that this is being done despite rather than because of their Jewish identity?

Is it really “anti-semitic” to write about the enormous influence wielded by globalist financier George Soros, given that he is Jewish?

Is it really “anti-semitic” to criticise the financial excesses of Goldman Sachs in the light of the fact that it is “a Jewish firm founded by Jews”?

Is it really “anti-semitic” to continue to investigate the “transgender” industry, even when several prominent funders turn out to be Jewish?

Is it really “anti-semitic” to write and stage “a morality tale about modern capitalism, a story of greed and financial trickery that left countless ordinary people impoverished or homeless” if the central characters, the Lehman Brothers, are Jewish?

Is it really “anti-semitic” to paint a mural declaring that “The New World Order is the enemy of humanity”, in which some of the depicted criminocrats are Jewish – and is it really “anti-semitic” to defend that mural from attack?

Is it “anti-semitic” to suggest that if the definition of what is “anti-semitic” is expanded way beyond most people’s understanding of the term, it is hardly surprising that a “rise in anti-semitism” can subsequently be identified and further instrumentalised?

Is it “anti-semitic” to point out that the victims of this instrumentalisation will not only be the non-Jews whose honest opinions will be criminalised and silenced, but the Jews who will be frightened into clinging to the gaslighters for protection against a majority outside world that they have been tricked into imagining is opposed to them as individuals and communities, rather than to the global mafia that oppresses and manipulates Jews and non-Jews alike?

[Audio version]

Connect with Paul Cudenec Winter Oak website | substack

Cover image credit: geralt

The End of Privacy Is Near

by Dr. Joseph Mercola
November 17, 2023

Story-at-a-Glance

“CITIZENFOUR” is a documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It came out in 2014, but it’s even more pertinent today than it was then
In January 2013, when documentary film director/producer Laura Poitras received an encrypted email from a stranger who called himself “Citizen Four”
In June 2013, Poitras flew to meet Snowden at the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong, together with columnist Glenn Greenwald and Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill. After four days of interviews, Snowden’s identity was made public at his request
Today, Snowden’s warnings ring truer than ever. Artificial intelligence now scours social media, podcasts and videos for key words identifying “anti-vaxxers,” for example. It doesn’t even matter if they agree with what you’re writing or saying. The mere inclusion of certain words will get you axed from the platform
Next, the plan is to eliminate privacy altogether by requiring a digital identity to access the internet

“CITIZENFOUR” is a documentary about U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. It came out in 2014, but it’s even more pertinent today than it was then, so if you haven’t seen it, I urge you to do so.

The Snowden story began in January 2013, when documentary film director/producer Laura Poitras received an encrypted email from a stranger who called himself “Citizen Four.” Snowden reportedly chose this codename “as a nod to three NSA whistleblowers who came before him: Bill Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe and Thomas Drake.”

Poitras had already spent several years working on a film about monitoring programs in the U.S., and had been placed on a secret watch list after her 2006 film “My Country, My Country,”¹ a documentary about Iraqis living under U.S. occupation. In his initial email, Snowden wrote:

“Laura. At this stage, I can offer nothing more than my word. I’m a senior government employee in the intelligence community. I hope you understand that contacting you is extremely high risk and you’re willing to agree to the following precautions before I share more. This will not be a waste of your time …

The surveillance you’ve experienced means you’ve been ‘selected’ — a term which will mean more to you as you learn about how the modern SIGINT system works.

For now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject line you type, and packet your route, is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited, but whose safeguards are not.

Your victimization by the NSA system means that you’re well aware of the threat that unrestricted secret police pose for democracies. This is a story few but you can tell.”

Summary of Snowden’s Journey

In June 2013, Poitras flew to meet Snowden at The Mira Hong Kong, together with columnist Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, an intelligence reporter for The Guardian. After four days of interviews, Snowden’s identity was made public at his request.

Within two weeks, the U.S. government demanded Snowden’s extradition. Facing prosecution in the United States, Snowden scheduled a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and applied for refugee status.

He managed to depart Hong Kong, but became stranded at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow when his passport was canceled. There he remained for 40 days, until the Russian government finally granted him asylum.

The Greatest Weapon of Oppression Ever Built

The U.S. government implemented Stellar Wind, a program to actively — and illegally — spy on all Americans within days of the 2001 9/11 attack. Ten years later, in 2011, construction began on a NSA data center in the Utah desert. It’s now the largest surveillance storehouse in the U.S.

In his correspondence, Snowden warned Poitras that “telecommunication companies in the U.S. are betraying the trust of their customers.” Through Stellar Wind, all phone calls and text messages were being intercepted and stored, and the Stellar Wind program has only expanded from there.

The NSA not only intercepts American citizens emails, phone conversations and text messages, but also Google searches, Amazon.com orders, bank records and more.

“We are building the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man,” Snowden wrote, “yet its directors exempt themselves from accountability … On cyber operations, the government’s public position is that we still lack a policy framework. This … was a lie.

There is a detailed policy framework, a kind of martial law for cyber operations created by the White House. It’s called ‘Presidential Policy Directive 20’ and was finalized at the end of last year.”

Linkability, the Key to Control — and Entrapment

As explained in the film, a key aspect of control through surveillance is the linkability of data. One piece of data about you is linked to another piece. For example, your bus pass can be linked to the debit card you used to buy the pass. Your debit card is also linked to all other purchases.

With two key pieces of information — WHERE you went on a given day, and WHEN you made purchases, they can determine who you spoke with and met up with by linking those data points with those of other people who were in the vicinity at the same time. And that’s without even using your cellphone data.

When all these various data points are aggregated — location data, purchases, phone calls, texts, social media posts and more — you end up with a collection of metadata that tells a story about you. However, while the story is made up of facts, it’s not necessarily true.

For example, just because you were standing at a particular street corner does not mean you had anything to do with the crime that was reported on that same corner at the time you happened to be there. The problem is, your data could be used against you in that way.

The January 6 prisoners are a perfect example of how bits and pieces of data can be misused. Many have now spent years in jail simply because their cellphone data showed them as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

State Power Versus the People’s Power to Oppose That Power

When asked by Greenwald why he decided to become a whistleblower, Snowden replied:

“It all comes down to state power against the people’s ability to meaningfully oppose that power. I’m sitting there every day, getting paid to design methods to amplify that state power.

And I’m realizing that if the policy switches that are the only thing that restrain these states were changed, you couldn’t meaningfully oppose [them].

I mean, you would have to be the most incredibly sophisticated tactical actor in existence. I’m not sure there’s anybody, no matter how gifted you are, who could oppose all of the offices and all the bright people, even all the mediocre people out there with all of their tools and all their capabilities.

And as I saw the promise of the Obama administration be betrayed … and in fact, [how they] actually advanced the things that had been promised to be sort of curtailed and reined in and dialed back … As as I saw that, that really hardened me to action …

We all have a stake in this. This is our country, and the balance of power between the citizenry and the government is becoming that of the ruling and the ruled, as opposed to the elected and the electorate.”

A Decade Later Snowden’s Words Ring Truer Than Ever

“I remember what the internet was like, before it was being watched, and there’s never been anything in the history of man like it,” Snowden said.

“You could have children from one part of the world having an equal discussion, where they were sort of granted the same respect for their ideas and conversation, with experts in a field from another part of the world on any topic, anywhere, anytime, all the time.

It was free and unrestrained. And we’ve seen the chilling of that, and the changing of that model towards something in which people self police their own views. They literally make jokes about ending up on ‘the list’ if they donate to a political cause, or if they say something in a discussion. It’s become an expectation that we’re being watched.

Many people I’ve talked to have mentioned that they’re careful about what they type into search engines, because they know that it’s being recorded, and that limits the boundaries of their intellectual exploration.”

Today, after the extreme ramp-up of censorship, surveillance and harassment we’ve endured since the COVID pandemic began, Snowden’s warnings ring truer than ever.

Artificial intelligence now scours social media, podcasts and videos for key words identifying “anti-vaxxers,” for example. It doesn’t even matter if they agree with what you’re writing or saying. The mere inclusion of certain words will get you axed from the platform.

Snowden’s worst fears have indeed come true, and today most people have come to realize just how dangerous this kind of blanket surveillance can be. Countless individuals whose only “crime” was to share their story of how the COVID shot ruined their lives have had their posts censored and social media accounts shut down.

Canadians whose only “crime” was to donate a few dollars to a peaceful protest had their bank accounts frozen. Small companies and nonprofit organizations with the “wrong” viewpoints have had their online payment services cancelled, effectively strangling their ability to make a living and keep the operation going.

Others have been debanked without recourse, including yours truly. My CEO and CFO and all of their family members also had their accounts and credit cards canceled, apparently for no other reason than the fact that they work for me. In other words, guilt by association.

Will the Internet as We Know It Disappear in the Next Year?

I recently posted an interview with investigative journalist Whitney Webb in which she talks about the next steps in the ramp-up of tyranny. The World Economic Forum has warned we may face a cyberattack on the banks before the end of 2024. That means we almost definitely will, seeing how they like to announce plans ahead of time.

Such a cyberattack will not only destroy the current banking system and usher in programmable central bank digital currencies. It will also eliminate privacy online by requiring everyone to have a digital identification tied to their ISP.

The principles of “know your customer” (KYC) will be imposed on everybody for everything, and anything that doesn’t have that will be made illegal under National Security justifications.

Essentially, what we’re looking at is a cyber Patriot Act, which will allow for the unfettered surveillance of everyone’s online activities, and the ability to restrict or block access to the internet. As noted by Webb, “The internet as you know it will not exist after this happens.”

The goal is to surveil all online activity in real time and have AI perform predictive policing to prevent crime before it happens. At that point, all bets are off. Data points alone may land you behind bars. Thought-crimes will also have ramifications, potentially resulting in the seizure of private property and/or removal of “privileges” previously understood as human rights.

A Global Infrastructure Has Been Built

During their first meeting with Snowden in Hong Kong, he explained that a global infrastructure, built by the NSA with the cooperation of other governments, was already in place. That was 10 years ago, so you can imagine how it’s grown since then.

At that time, that network was already automatically intercepting every digital communication, every radio communication and every analog communication. This blanket siphoning of data allows the NSA and others that have access to the network to retroactively search an individual’s communications, even if all they have is a single identifier. Snowden explained:

“So for example, if I wanted to see the content of your email … all I have to do is use what’s called a selector, any kind of thing in the communications chain that might uniquely or almost uniquely identify you as an individual.

I’m talking about things like email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, credit cards, even passwords that are unique to you that aren’t used by anyone else.

I can input those into the system, and it will not only go back through the database … it will basically put an additional level of scrutiny on it moving into the future that says, ‘If this is detected now or at any time in the future, I want this to go to me immediately,’ and [it will] alert me in real time that you’re communicating with someone. Things like that.”

According to Snowden, the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has “the most invasive network intercept program anywhere in the world.” That program, Tempora, intercepts all content, in addition to metadata, on everything and everyone.

Snowden also describes the “SSO,” which stands for Special Sorters Operations. The SSO passively collects data across networks, both in the U.S. and internationally. Domestically, this is done primarily through corporate partnerships.

“They also do this with multinationals that might be headquartered in the U.S. whom [they can] just pay into giving them access,” Snowden said. They also do it bilaterally with the assistance of other governments.

You’re Being Spied Upon Everywhere

Snowden also pointed out some of the many ways in which you’re being spied upon by the digital devices around you. As just one example, all VoIP phones, which transmit calls over an IP network such as the internet, have little computers inside of them that can be hot mic’d even if servers are down. As long as the phone is plugged in, someone can use it to listen in on your conversations.

Within days of their first meeting in Hong Kong, Greenwald and Poitras were publishing stories about the NSA’s illegal blanket spying domestically and internationally. CNN Live reported:

“Another explosive article has just appeared, this time in the Washington Post … that reveals another broad and secret U.S. government’s surveillance program.

The Washington Post and The Guardian in London reporting that the NSA and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

The Post says they’re extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.”

Greenwald also made numerous live news appearances. In one, he stated:

“In 2008, they eliminated the warrant requirement for all conversations, except ones that take place among Americans exclusively on American soil.

So they don’t need warrants now for people who are foreigners outside of the U.S., but they also don’t need warrants for Americans who are in the United States, communicating with people reasonably believed to be outside of the U.S.

So … the fact that there are no checks, no oversight about who’s looking over the NSA’s shoulder, means that they can take whatever they want, and the fact that it’s all behind a wall of secrecy, and they threaten people who want to expose it, means that whatever they’re doing, even violating the law is something that we’re unlikely to know until we start having real investigations and real transparency into what it is that the government is doing.”

Beyond Transparency

At this point, we’re beyond merely needing transparency. The intent to surveil and control every move we make and thought we express is now being openly expressed.

We can just assume that any digital devices can and probably are collecting data on our activities and whereabouts, and that those data are nowhere near held private and can be used against us in myriad ways.

Everyone must now choose between freedom and enslavement, and the option to choose freedom is rapidly closing.

Today, a decade after Snowden broke the dam of secrecy around the global surveillance scheme, we have but one choice left, and that is to actively reject that system by changing how we live our day to day lives. Everyone must now choose between freedom and enslavement, and the option to choose freedom is rapidly closing. Putting off making that choice is itself a choice.

Rejecting the control system means reverting back to “dumb” appliances and devices to the extent you’re able. It means getting savvier about privacy technologies such as deGoogled phones and computers² that cannot spy on you. It means using cash as much as possible and rejecting CBDCs and digital tokens. As noted by Whitney Webb in the interview I linked to earlier:

“There’s a huge need for to divest from Big Tech as much as possible, and it needs to happen quickly, because the choice is either participate in the system being designed for you by crazy people and become a slave, or don’t become a slave. And if you don’t want to be a slave, you have to invest now in Big Tech alternatives, unless you want to live a completely analog life …

The easiest route is to go the slavery route, and that’s how they’ve designed it on purpose. The whole selling point of that system is that it’s convenient and easy. So, obviously, it’s going to take some work to go the other route, but the future of human freedom depends on it so I think it’s a pretty easy choice.”

Connect with Dr. Joseph Mercola

Cover image credit: CDD20

See Related:

Five Ways to Prepare for the Online Privacy Crackdown

The Free Speech Scare

“War and censorship go together because it is wartime that allows ruling elites to declare that ideas alone are dangerous to the goal of defeating the enemy…”

~~~

“The war, however, was of domestic origin and targeted at Americans themselves…”

~~~

“The Red Scare mutated a century later to become the virus scare in which the real pathogen they tried to kill was your willingness to think for yourself.”

The Free Speech Scare

by Jeffrey A. Tucker, Brownstone Institute
July 21, 2023

It was a strange experience watching the House hearing in which Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was testifying. The topic was censorship and how and to what extent federal government agencies under two administrations muscled social media companies to take down posts, ban users, and throttle content. The majority made its case.

What was strange was the minority reaction throughout. They tried to shut down RFK. They moved to go to executive session so that the public could not hear the proceedings. The effort failed. Then they shouted over his words when they were questioning him. They wildly smeared him and defamed him. They even began with an attempt to block him from speaking at all, and 8 Democrats voted to support that.

This was a hearing on censorship and they were trying to censor him. It only made the point.

It became so awful that RFK was compelled to give a short tutorial on the importance of free speech as an essential right, without which all other rights and freedoms are in jeopardy. Even those words he could barely speak given the rancor in the room. It’s fair to say that free speech, even as a core principle, is in grave trouble. We cannot even get a consensus on the basics.

BREAKING – EXPLOSIVE: @RobertKennedyJr puts Democratic Congress members trying to censor him in their place with fiery open remarks during a hearing to expose censorship. It's shocking that in the United States of America, people are being censored for speaking the truth! WATCH! pic.twitter.com/MKQMk2INAu

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) July 20, 2023

It seemed to viewers that RFK was the adult in the room. Put other ways, he was the preacher of fidelity in the brothel, the keeper of memory in a room full of amnesiacs, the practitioner of sanity in the sanatorium, or, as Mencken might say, the hurler of a dead cat into the temple.

It was oddly strange to hear the voice of wise statesmen in that hothouse culture of infantile corruption: it reminded the public just how far things have fallen. Notably, it was he and not the people who wanted him gagged who was citing scientific papers.

A PHD level explanation of the important of free speech to democracy from @RobertKennedyJr. pic.twitter.com/S0HxIDLvLA

— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) July 20, 2023

The protests against his statements were shrill and shocking. They moved quickly from “Censorship didn’t happen” to “It was necessary and wonderful” to “We need more of it.” Reporting on the spectacle, the New York Times said these are “thorny questions”: “Is misinformation protected by the First Amendment? When is it appropriate for the federal government to seek to tamp down the spread of falsehoods?”

These are not thorny questions. The real issue concerns who is to be the arbiter of truth?

Such attacks on free speech do have precedent in American history. We have already discussed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 which led to a complete political upheaval that swept Thomas Jefferson into the White House. There were two additional bouts of censorship folly in the 20th century. Both followed great wars and an explosion in government size and reach.

The first came with the Red Scare (1917-1020) following the Great War (WWI). The Bolshevik Revolution and political instability in Europe led to a wild bout of political paranoia in the US that the communists, anarchists, and labor movement were plotting a takeover of the US government. The result was an imposition of censorship along with strict laws concerning political loyalty.

The Espionage Act of 1917 was one result. It is still in force and being deployed today, most recently against former President Trump. Many states passed censorship laws. The feds deported many people suspected of sedition and treason. Suspected communists were hauled in front of Congress and grilled.

The second bout occurred after the Second World War with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Army-McCarthy hearings that led to blacklists and media smears of every sort. The result was a chilling of free speech across American industry that hit media particularly hard. That incident later became legendary due to the exaggerations and disregard for the First Amendment.

How does the Covid-era censorship fit into this historical context? At Brownstone, we’ve compared the wild Covid response to a wartime footing that caused as much trauma on the homeland as previous world wars.

Three years of research, documents, and reporting have established that the lockdowns and all that followed were not directed by public health authorities. They were the veneer for the national security state, which took charge in the month of February 2020 and deployed the full takeover of both government and society in mid-March. This is one reason that it’s been so difficult getting information on how and why all of this happened to us: it’s been mostly classified under the guise of national security.

In other words, this was war and the nation was ruled for a time (and maybe still is) by what amounts to quasi-martial law. Indeed, it felt like that. No one knew for sure who was in charge and who was making all these wild decisions for our lives and work. It was never clear what the penalties would be for noncompliance. The rules and edicts seemed arbitrary, having no real connection to the goal; indeed no one really knew what the goal was besides more and more control. There was no real exit strategy or end game.

As with the two previous bouts of censorship in the last century, there commenced a closure of public debate. It began almost immediately as the lockdowns edict were issued. They tightened over the months and years. Elites sought to plug every leak in the official narrative through every means possible. They invaded every space. Those they could not get to (like Parler) were simply unplugged. Amazon rejected books. YouTube deleted millions of posts. Twitter was brutal, while once-friendly Facebook became the enforcer of regime propaganda.

The hunt for dissenters took strange forms. Those who held gatherings were shamed. People who did not socially distance were called disease spreaders. Walking outside without a mask one day, a man shouted out to me in anger that “masks are socially recommended.” I kept turning that phrase around in my mind because it made no sense. The mask, no matter how obviously ineffective, was imposed as a tactic of humiliation and an exclusionary measure that targeted the incredulous. It was also a symbol: stop talking because your voice does not matter. Your speech will be muffled.

The vaccine of course came next: deployed as a tool to purge the military, public sector, academia, and the corporate world. The moment the New York Times reported that vaccine uptake was lower in states that supported Trump, the Biden administration had its talking points and agenda. The shot would be deployed to purge. Indeed, five cities briefly segregated themselves to exclude the unvaccinated from public spaces. The continued spread of the virus itself was blamed on the noncompliant.

Those who decried the trajectory could hardly find a voice much less assemble a social network. The idea was to make us all feel isolated even if we might have been the overwhelming majority. We just could not tell either way.

War and censorship go together because it is wartime that allows ruling elites to declare that ideas alone are dangerous to the goal of defeating the enemy. “Loose lips sink ships” is a clever phrase but it applies across the board in wartime. The goal is always to whip up the public in a frenzy of hate against the foreign enemy (“The Kaiser!”) and ferret out the rebels, the traitors, the subversives, and promoters of unrest. There is a reason that the protestors on January 6 were called “insurrectionists.” It is because it happened in wartime.

The war, however, was of domestic origin and targeted at Americans themselves. That’s why the precedent of 20th century censorship holds in this case. The war on Covid was in many ways an action of the national security state, something akin to a military operation prompted and administered by intelligence services in close cooperation with the administrative state. And they want to make the protocols that governed us over these years permanent. Already, European governments are issuing stay-at-home recommendations for the heat.

If you had told me that this was the essence of what was happening in 2020 or 2021, I would have rolled my eyes in disbelief. But all evidence Brownstone has gathered since then has shown exactly that. In this case, the censorship was a predictable part of the mix. The Red Scare mutated a century later to become the virus scare in which the real pathogen they tried to kill was your willingness to think for yourself.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Connect with The Brownstone Institute

Cover image credit: Prettysleepy & OpenClipart-Vectors

Diana West on Dr. Robert Malone’s “Tantrum-Esque Defamation Lawsuit” Against Dr. Peter Breggin, Ginger Breggin & Dr. Jane Ruby

“The point is, separately, in different venues, the Breggins and Jane Ruby are individuals who rose to the challenge to try to inform a brutalized public about what turns out to have been a war: a war of fear, fraud and bioweaponry waged against us by own government. Their contributions were, are and will continue to be vitally important to the flow of essential and also life-saving information.

Ask yourself: Why would anyone want to deflect these valuable contributors from their important vocations?…”

Wake Up to Free Speech

by Diana West
originally published June 18, 2023
republished June 24 at Peter and Ginger Breggin Exposing the Global Predators

Do you remember how hard it was to get good information, especially in 2020, back at the Beginning of the End? It is hard still, but it was much worse before so many of us had delved into the sciences with a doggedness we never mustered in high school; before we had learned to see into the geysers of government and media disinformation about the “plandemic,” the “scamdemic,” the garbage-demic, to take apart and stomp on all of the Big Lies we were and are still beset by. And that was even before the government’s biochemical attack on the world via “mRNA vaccine” had begun.

The totalitarian-style censorship and disinformation which government, media and social media imposed upon us were (are) catastrophic and also fatal in all too many cases. That’s why when we learn, through arduous court-ordered FOIA research or congressional hearings or secret interviews or confessions … or autopsies that we were right to doubt and disbelieve and not comply, there are dead bodies, broken homes, ruined lives and a shattered future to embitter our vindication. To intensify our rage. That’s why Dr. Robert Malone’s openly stated goal in 2023 to use the courts to have a “chilling effect’ on debate in the public square, which he’s trying to rebrand as “defamation,” is so disturbing, bizarre and fraught with peril.

Malone’s interlocuters-turned-“defendants” are Dr. Peter Breggin, Ginger R. Breggin and Dr. Jane Ruby — outlandish words to write about such worthies. I don’t recall exactly when in the dark of lockdown I first came upon them. I do remember Dr. Jane’s exciting reports on the then-new Stew Peters Show, her tenacity, her blinking neon commitment to finding the truth, were an immediate godsend. At some point, too, I matched with the Breggins, Dr. Peter Breggin, “Conscience of Psychiatry,” and his wife and co-author Ginger Breggin, benefiting enormously from their warm and civilized discourse, which included (bonus) two interviews with me about American Betrayal. I was delighted to learn my book had inspired the Breggins to dig into the research that became their 2021 success, COVID 19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey.

The point is, separately, in different venues, the Breggins and Jane Ruby are individuals who rose to the challenge to try to inform a brutalized public about what turns out to have been a war: a war of fear, fraud and bioweaponry waged against us by own government. Their contributions were, are and will continue to be vitally important to the flow of essential and also life-saving information.

Ask yourself: Why would anyone want to deflect these valuable contributors from their important vocations? So what if they said something, many things, with which you disagree, even violently disagree? So what if they reject and even rebut your theories? So what if they engage you in a veritable “war of words”? To quote vintage Michelle Malkin, “Boo-the-heck-hoo.” Argue. Gnash your teeth. Write a rebuttal. Quote Voltaire. Exult in the First Amendment. But this — resorting to the punitive enforcement mechanism of a defamation lawsuit — is not right. Asking for $25 million in damages is an outrage. Such aggressive lawfare is akin to dropping a cluster bomb. The landscape that was is no more.

As many know, I am referring to the tantrum-esque defamation lawsuit D. Robert Malone has brought against the Breggins and Jane Ruby. I wrote a book about 15 years ago called The Death of the Grown-Up, which employs the metaphor to explore chaos and decline in our time. However, the absence of bona fide adults is not just a metaphorical problem. We could really use some grown-ups here. To wit:

If there happens to be an adult in the vicinity of Dr. Malone’s circle, please, could you instruct the “inventor of the mRNA vaccine” to pack his marbles and come home from the playground? Given the catastrophic impact of his precious invention as deployed by the governments of the world, he’s surely the last man on earth who should be trying to exert a “chilling effect” on anything — and especially not on the speech of doctors and scientists. People are dying from these shots all around. We need help. Debate. Breakthroughs. Not silence, not fear of being dragged to court for speaking up. Sticks and stones, anyone? Like Rick said in Casablanca, the problems of three (or four) little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world; however, if Malone were to win this lawsuit, American jurisprudence would feature a jihad-style trip-wire on public debate by public figures on public issues. Then again, if the First Amendment and American tradition count for anything at all anymore, the court will rule decisively against Malone. One man’s “defamation” will be everyone else’s free speech.

But at what cost? Stories of case-related censorship and acrimony buzz around the erstwhile medical freedom movement. Wouldn’t it be a better use of everyone’s time to try to figure out how to heal mRNA-injected humanity?

It was about half-way through 2021 when Dr. Malone showed his face in public discourse. Remember the weird thrill that rippled through the battered band of shot-resisters? Look: the mRNA inventor was throwing shade, some, anyway, on the mass injection program at that time in full-throttle- enforcement. Yes, to be sure, Xyklon B isn’t for everybody….How exciting? I’m not sure what psychological buttons Malone’s arrival on the scene pushed; as I think back on it now, such enthusiasm doesn’t make a lot of sense. After all, he didn’t come forward expressing remorse, as lots of great inventors have done before him, rueing their sometimes literally earth-shaking inventions, from the atom bomb and the Kalashnikov, to the office cubicle and the labradoodle. Notably, “The History of mRNA Vaccines” still unfolds under a spray of lovely pink blossoms here on Malone’s website.

Nor did he arrive on the medical freedom scene waving an antidote to mRNA technology, which, they say, has now been “delivered” into 70 percent of humanity and linked to a scale of death and injury that is unimaginable.

Kristen Napolillo asked Malone on Twitter: “What are you doing to find a way to blunt the effects of your invention?”

One thing about quoting Dr. Robert Malone: There is no need to underscore or add anything.

On June 8, 2023, Dr. Malone set forth his legal thinking on Substack:

My criteria for taking legal action has been whether or not someone seems to be doing significant reputational damage, while also factoring in the quirky nature of various clauses in defamation law.

It’s almost touching, isn’t it, to see someone who “invented the mRNA vaccine” fretting about “reputational damage”?

In some cases I have proceeded to delivering a cease and desist and that was enough. Dr. Richard Fleming was one such case. I sent him a letter, and he stopped. Seems rational enough. Thank you, Richard (and I seriously mean that).

Again, no comment necessary — but I do want to write that again: Thank you, Richard (and I seriously mean that).

He continues:

Turns out that response is the exception rather than the rule. Others double down, go public, get even nastier and more personally vindictive.

No! Can you beat that? Malone sends out a “cease and desist” and some people … refuse?

So then you have the same dilemma. Act on it or not. Fish or cut bait. First stop is to ask a mutual colleague to intervene. In almost all cases they refused. So you then pay the lawyer to prepare and file the suit. And in some cases the accused gets even nastier, and seeks to cause yet more pain.

It’s a marvel but he soldiers on:

There are all of the armchair quarterbacks, some of who are employers, friends or associates with the ones doing the harassment and defamation. “Why are you suing the ____ (fill in the blank)!!??!!” “You just want to destroy the medical freedom movement!” (whatever that is). “You are just doing it for money!” (what a horrible business plan that would be, given the paltry odds of winning a defamation lawsuit).

“Fill in the blank”? Somehow, I feel bidden to provide photos of the people, the experts, including an eminent doctor, the writers and commentators, the human beings whom Dr. Malone has just turned into a blank.

Now, let him rip.

No, I am suing because I am having something taken from me, and it is both wrong and illegal. My reputation, my peace of mind, and that of those close to me. Cyberstalking, cyberbullying, malicious defamation. These things are wrong. They are not what civilized, mentally healthy people do to each other. And they often seem to involve some odd perverse obsession.

But it is also true that hate and defamation is a very good business model and a great way to build up a follower base. People are building their audiences by employing this strategy based on tall tales, lies, name calling and hate. But maybe, just maybe, if I win a case, this will become a disincentive for those prone to this sort of behavior in the future, directed towards me or to others.

And then there are the ones that are shunning me because I am (legally) fighting back against those that are doing this to Jill and I [sic]. That part is a real mind-bender for me. Somehow fighting back against those who are aggressively cyberstalking and defaming me on a daily basis makes me the bad guy. Now if that is not pretzel logic, I do not know what is.

I suppose, in an intellectual sense, it is a fascinating question to ponder – what makes these people behave in this way? Why do haters hate? Why do others support them? I do not have an answer, only informed speculation. Personally, I think it somehow relates to the mental state of other types of stalkers, such as the ones that shot President Regan [sic] and John Lennon. And it clearly relates to envy, jealousy, and greed. Spreading hate can be quite lucrative in the age of the internet, where attention seeking behavior can be monetized. So there is that. (Emphasis added.)

I have no quip to make when the rhetoric is so troubling. Consider seriously that Dr. Malone has first blanked the names of the Breggins and Jane Ruby, and then created an escalating series of fantastical enemies, from imaginary cyberstalkers, cyberbullies, malicious defamers, to not civilized, not mentally healthy people, to haters with a mentality “somehow related” to that of notorious violent criminals: John Hinkley and Mark David Chapman, the former, the attempted-assassin who wounded Ronald Reagan and paralyzed James Brady; the latter, the assassin of John Lennon.

Still, no one around him has put a hand on his shoulder and said, Enough.

—

Let’s pick up on p. 13 of a recent Motion to Dismiss by Dr. Peter Breggin and Ginger R. Breggin.

(Here is a recent Motion to Dismiss by Dr. Jane Ruby. Here is the original Malone Complaint. Here is how it all began.)

The Breggin Motion is discussing the thirteenth bulleted item in Malone’s Complaint. This Item 13 contains four separate allegations of defamation purported to be found in an online interview of Dr. Breggin by Pete Santilli.

From the Breggins’ Motion to Dismiss:

Malone alleges that Breggins stated: Dr. Malone is part of the “Deep State” oppressors. Dr. Malone’s concept of mass formation psychosis is calculated to protect the “mass murderers of COVID-19.” Dr. Malone is a Hitler apologist and “excuser.” “Malone wake up to history.”

The Breggins:

When examining the entire interview of Dr. Breggin on this show, nowhere in the show can it be found that Dr. Breggin made the statement that Malone atrributes to him that he is a part of the “Deep State oppressors.”

Malone’s allegations that Breggin stated that “Dr. Malone’s concept of mass formation psychosis is calculated to protect the `mass murderers of COVID-19′ is actually Breggin talking about Dr. Desmet, not Dr. Malone.

And lastly, nowhere in this recorded interview (or anywhere else for that matter) can it be found where Dr. Breggin ever stated that Dr. Malone is “a Hitler apologist and excuser.”

First of all, may I say (shout): Who cares! Say what you will! These are public commentators debating the onset of totalitarianism in our time. Hitler, Stalin, Mao are the totalitarian all-stars, at least up to now, and are gonna come up. Boo-the-heck-hoo. Still, there is a crucially important legal (and moral) point here: The Breggins’ brief states that certain of these quotations are not to be found on video, or anywhere else. If this is true — and I cannot find them, either — the Malone Complaint includes false allegations. Put that in your syringe and shoot it. What will the judge say about that?

And now this:

Moreover, the only quote that can be found to be semi-accurate, “Desmet, Malone, wake up to history,” is a pejorative at best, and an admonition even, but it is not defamatory.

No, it is not. But ponder the legal mind that sees fit to include such an innocuous comment, with its pleasantly archaic rhetorical flourish, into a defamation brief. Ponder the scientific mind that hopes for a “chilling effect.” Frankly, if Dr. Robert Malone is so darn worried about reputational damage, he should drop this stupid lawsuit ASAP and wake up. Wake up to free speech.

Connect with Diana West

Connect with Peter & Ginger Breggin

Cover image credit: stevepb, pixabay

They’re Coming to Take You Away

…When the monolithic narrative that is all they have been taught lies in ruins, they will replace it not with a rational, informed alternative – for they will know of none – but with whatever satisfies the rage of a population that realizes, too late, that it has been hoodwinked.

Woe to the freedom-haters when the lion they think they have tamed turns its fury on the liberal society that soothsayers like Zelikow and Lipstadt still imagine they are defending!”

by Michael Lesher, Brownstone Institute
May 9, 2023

Suppose I tell you in advance that the essay you are reading is meant to startle you. And suppose I suggest, by way of demonstration, that two people as loosely connected as the leader of the “COVID Crisis Group” and Joe Biden’s “Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism” – both of whom have recently offered recommendations for improving political life in the United States – are in fact determined to unravel American freedoms.

Would you be surprised?

Well, if so, that is exactly the startling fact I am trying to bring to your attention. True, you may not have heard that the 34 COVID-19 “experts” headed by one Philip Zelikow (last seen justifying the concealment of information about the 9/11 attacks) and anti-Semitism “ambassador” Deborah Lipstadt – perhaps best known for slandering scads of Jewish survivors of the Nazis as “soft-core” Holocaust deniers because they objected to the massacre of 1,462 of Gaza’s civilians nine years ago – are both out to dismantle the Bill of Rights. But if you haven’t, it isn’t because they’ve been coy about their objectives.

Take the Zelikow panel. Its new book on “the lessons learned from COVID-19” openly conflates the federal government’s management of a respiratory virus with “wartime” – thus rationalizing the executive branch’s preemption of democratic government. Not only that, Zelikow and his band of “experts” explicitly call for the consolidation of power in the hands of an unelected “health security enterprise” that would control, among other things, a “systematic biomedical surveillance network.” And in case you can’t guess who is likely to benefit from the snooping, the panel goes on to praise the coercive experimental drug program that gave us the COVID-19 “vaccines” – “a bargain at $30 billion,” according to the editors of the Washington Post – signaling at one stroke the experts’ contempt for the Nuremberg Code and their subservience to Big Pharma.

As for Lipstadt, she has launched her attack on the First Amendment by redefining “anti-Semitism” so as to include an extraordinary range of political speech. Her first step in that transformation is the familiar trick of confusing criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Jewish bigotry. But her second step is newer and, arguably, even more disturbing: she tars all denigration of Jews with the hot-button label “conspiracy theory.”

Let’s be clear: however noble the pretext of opposing Jew-hatred, it should be obvious that once you characterize anti-Semitism as a “conspiracy theory” you have made a case for censorship. As Lipstadt herself explained to Jane Eisner of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism (in an interview printed in the latest AARP Magazine but not available online): “[I]t’s a conspiracy theory that Jews control the media, the banks, the election process, etc. If you believe that there is a group controlling these things, then essentially you’re saying that you don’t believe in democracy.”

And there’s the trouble. After all, an overt attack on democracy isn’t a viewpoint; it isn’t even an expression of run-of-the-mill bigotry. It’s a threat to the state. And it follows, if you accept Lipstadt’s formulation, that anyone the government can label an “anti-Semite” may now be punished in the same way the Biden administration is already punishing people who protested the presidential election results of November 2020. Note, too, the selective parameters of the offense: blaming Donald Trump’s election on the Russians is presumably “legitimate” speech; but accusing a “group” of controlling “the election process” can land you in jail – that is, when the “group” is not an official enemy but a favored minority, and when that “process” has reached results endorsed by those in power.

So the Zelikow panel and Ambassador Lipstadt can’t be accused of hiding their illiberal goals. Like the Democratic lynch mob that denounced Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger on the floor of Congress last March for revealing the extent of government censorship of Twitter, these propagandists quite openly assert that surveillance is good for us, while free speech is entirely too dangerous to be entrusted to mere citizens.

“Ordinary folks and national security agencies responsible for our security,” Congressman Colin Allred lectured Taibbi, “are trying their best to find a way to make sure that our online discourse doesn’t get people hurt, or see our democracy undermined.” It’s pretty breathtaking to watch an African-American liberal solemnly declare that the CIA and the FBI are the true guardians of democracy – not to mention his defense of the security state’s behind-the-scenes censorship of political speech. But what’s even more ominous is that not a single prominent Democratic politician nor a single pundit in mainstream liberal media has repudiated anything the congressman said.

Is it any wonder, then, that no one in mainstream media has mentioned the totalitarian tendencies implicit in the COVID Crisis Group’s recommendations for “pandemic” regulation via dismantling democracy, or in Ambassador Lipstadt’s appeals to the public to “discredit” anti-Semitism by recasting it as a criminal conspiracy?

Of course it isn’t. And that is my point. That is my motive in writing in tandem about these two apparently disparate subjects, connected only by the facts that both of them involve recent public declarations and that both of them represent attacks on fundamental liberties.

Because the truth is that condemning freedom is now so entirely respectable that it’s happening practically everywhere – under every possible pretext, almost any day, from just about any left-liberal institution that claims to care about the public good. Close your eyes, and you can hardly tell whether what you’re hearing is coming from a Democratic Party stalwart or from an old-line Soviet apologist explaining why Andrei Sakharov or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Yuri Orlov is really, notwithstanding the accuracy of what he’s been saying, a threat to the state who deserves to be muzzled or jailed.

And the media’s silence about it all is as ominous as the Orwellian nattering of the freedom-haters themselves.

Take another look at the Zelikow panel’s assessment of the US government’s performance during the “COVID crisis.” Writing about what the “experts” praise or blame in their report, the Washington Post never once mentions the crippling of the US working-class economy due to arbitrary confinements and business shutdowns, the educational damage done to a whole generation of children through needless school closures, the reckless suspension of representative democracy in four-fifths of our states, the medically unjustifiable trauma caused by “mask mandates,” or the undermining of the national healthcare system through an obsessive focus on one respiratory virus while more serious issues were sidelined for over a year. As far as the Post is concerned, the real outrages of the COVID coup never happened at all.

Even when the experts and the editors do manage to notice something sinister, they go out of their way to miss the point. The Zelikow panel specifically notes the “four pandemic planning exercises” staged by the US government barely a year before the announcement of the COVID-19 outbreak. And it offers a few technical criticisms of the proceedings.

But neither the panel nor the Post editors’ congratulatory summary of its conclusions addresses the fact that the exercises – which omitted any suggestion for using repurposed drugs as early treatment for a novel virus, as in all previous influenza-like outbreaks – made a point of discussing the importance of thought-policing social media. That prescription for censorship became a grim reality after March 2020. But you’d never know it from reading the Zelikow panel’s assessment of the government’s mistakes in addressing the “pandemic.”

And Lipstadt? She claims to be a passionate defender of free speech. But that didn’t stop her from smearing Senator Ron Johnson as a “white nationalist sympathizer” because of his politically incorrect comments about Black Lives Matter. And when that issue made it to the op-ed page of the New York Times, it was only to further demonize Johnson; Lipstadt’s slander got a pass.

Why do I worry so much about this? Well, first of all because an attack on freedom is an attack on all of us.

But I think there is a special reason for alarm. It’s not just that our ruling elites believe that we, the people, need to be stripped of our right to free expression. I’m afraid that the freedom-haters clustered around our figurehead President are not even aware just how thin the ice is onto which they’re propelling us. Their position (taking the most charitable possible view of it) runs something like this: if the public isn’t exposed to views of which the censors disapprove, hoi polloi will meekly accept whatever policies are imposed on them (for their own good, of course).

But the censors are wrong. The fabric of American political life has been strained to such tautness that a single acute crisis might rupture it altogether. And if that happens, people who have been deprived of reasonable dissent will not shrink from violent opposition; on the contrary, they will embrace it. When the monolithic narrative that is all they have been taught lies in ruins, they will replace it not with a rational, informed alternative – for they will know of none – but with whatever satisfies the rage of a population that realizes, too late, that it has been hoodwinked.

Woe to the freedom-haters when the lion they think they have tamed turns its fury on the liberal society that soothsayers like Zelikow and Lipstadt still imagine they are defending!

Michael Lesher is an author, poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. A memoir of his discovery of Orthodox Judaism as an adult – Turning Back: The Personal Journey of a “Born-Again” Jew – was published in September 2020 by Lincoln Square Books. He has also published op-ed pieces in such varied venues as Forward, ZNet, the New York Post and Off-Guardian.

Connect with Brownstone Institute

Cover image credit: InspiredImages

Decentralized Communication: Networks, Platforms and Protocols That Are Being Developed to Address the Root of the Censorship Problem

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
March 15, 2023

As the internet clampdown begins, people are finally beginning to wake up to the need to find alternative communication platforms. But if the masses are just herded from one centralized platform to another, has anything really changed at all?

Join James for today’s important edition of #SolutionsWatch where he examines some of the many decentralized communication networks, platforms and protocols that are being developed to address the root of the censorship problem.

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Substack / Download the mp4

Show Notes

The Media Matrix

Mass Media: A History (online course)

Email – #SolutionsWatch

EuroVPS

Qortal.org

What is the Qortal Project?

Ernest Hancock Interview’s Jason Crowe – Freedom’s Phoenix

Bastyon.com/corbettreport

About Bastyon

Salting Your Data – #SolutionsWatch

nostr.com

Nostr Explained Visually for Beginners

BTC111: Nostr – Decentralized Social Media & Bitcoin w/ William Casarin

minds.com/corbettreport

Interview 1357 – Bill Ottman on Minds.com

Minds introduces nostr functionality

Connect with James Corbett

Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics

by Yaffa Shir-Raz, Ety Elisha, Brian Martin, Natti Ronel & Josh Guetzkow
sourced from Minerva, a Review of Science, Learning & Policy
November 1, 2022

Abstract

The emergence of COVID-19 has led to numerous controversies over COVID-related knowledge and policy. To counter the perceived threat from doctors and scientists who challenge the official position of governmental and intergovernmental health authorities, some supporters of this orthodoxy have moved to censor those who promote dissenting views. The aim of the present study is to explore the experiences and responses of highly accomplished doctors and research scientists from different countries who have been targets of suppression and/or censorship following their publications and statements in relation to COVID-19 that challenge official views. Our findings point to the central role played by media organizations, and especially by information technology companies, in attempting to stifle debate over COVID-19 policy and measures. In the effort to silence alternative voices, widespread use was made not only of censorship, but of tactics of suppression that damaged the reputations and careers of dissenting doctors and scientists, regardless of their academic or medical status and regardless of their stature prior to expressing a contrary position. In place of open and fair discussion, censorship and suppression of scientific dissent has deleterious and far-reaching implications for medicine, science, and public health.

Introduction

The emergence of COVID-19 has led to a proliferation of disputes and disagreements over COVID-related knowledge and policy (Liester 2022), including the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (van Helden et al. 2021), restrictive measures taken by most governments such as social-distancing, lockdowns, contact-tracing and mask requirements (Biana and Joaquin 2020), the use of certain treatments of the disease and the exclusion of others (Mucchielli 2020), the safety and efficacy of vaccines against COVID-19, and the implementation of “vaccine passes” in many countries (Palmer 2021). Harambam (2020) has referred to these disputes as the “Corona Truth Wars.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, while governments and health authorities argued that restrictive lockdown policies were necessary to deal with the pandemic and prevent deaths, many scientists and medical practitioners questioned the ethics and morality of such tactics, including Nobel laureates and leading physicians and scholars (e.g., AIER 2020; Abbasi 2020; Bavli et al. 2020; Brown 2020; Ioannidis 2020a; Lenzer 2020; Levitt 2020). Furthermore, from early 2020, increasing numbers of scientists and doctors argued that the pandemic, as well as morbidity and mortality figures, were being inflated and exaggerated (Ioannidis 2020; Brown 2020); that the extreme policies and restrictions violated fundamental rights (Biana and Joaquin 2020; Stolow et al. 2020); and that governments were using fear campaigns based on speculative assumptions and unreliable predictive models (Brown 2020; Dodsworth 2021). Some scholars, medical practitioners and lawyers have pointed to biases, concealment and distortions of vital information regarding COVID-19 morbidity and mortality rates that misled policymakers and the public (AAPS 2021; Abbasi 2020; AIER, 2020; Fuellmich 2020; King 2020).

It has been argued that much of the discussion around the COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized (Bavli et al. 2020), and that science and scientists are being suppressed due to political and economic interests (Bavli et al. 2020; King 2020; Mucchielli 2020). This criticism has grown, especially following the start of the COVID-19 vaccine campaign. Criticism was made regarding the hastiness with which the mRNA vaccines were granted Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA even for children; the quality of the clinical trials that led to the authorization of the vaccines (including violations of research protocols and evidence of fraud); the lack of transparency regarding the process and data that led to the authorization; the inflation of efficacy estimates; and the minimization or ignoring of adverse events (Doshi 2020, 2021; Fraiman et al. 2022; Thacker 2021).

Critics have argued that the scientific and policy discourse surrounding COVID-19 has not been carried out on a level playing field due to censorship and suppression of views contrary to those supported by medical and government authorities (Cáceres 2022; Cadegiani 2022; Liester, 2022; Mucchielli 2020). Some governments and tech corporations, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn, have taken measures to censor contrary viewpoints, arguing that views challenging government policies are dangerous misinformation, and therefore censorship is justified to protect public health (Martin 2021).

The present study explores the phenomenon of censorship of dissent from the point of view of well-known scientists and doctors who were censored for their heterodox views on COVID-19, in order to learn about the range of tactics that have been used to censor and silence them, as well as the counter-tactics they have used to resist these attempts.

Censorship of COVID-19 Heterodoxy

To describe a view or position on COVID-19 as heterodox implies the existence of an orthodox position, which here refers to the dominant position supported by most major governmental and intergovernmental health agencies. Liester (2022) provides a list comparing what he refers to as the dominant versus dissenting views with respect to COVID-19, which includes the origin of SARS CoV-2 (zoonotic vs. laboratory), mask mandates (will prevent spread vs. will not prevent spread), early treatment with drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (ineffective and dangerous vs. effective and safe), the usefulness of lockdown measures and other restrictions (effective and beneficial vs. ineffective and harmful), COVID-19 vaccines (safe and effective vs. unsafe and dangerous), and COVID-19 vaccine mandates and passports (necessary and ethical vs. harmful and unethical). While it may be true that none of these dominant positions have been universally adopted by all governments worldwide to the same degree or down to every last detail, nevertheless a dominant or orthodox position on all of these issues can be identified on a country-by-country basis with strong similarities across national borders.

It is worth noting that orthodox positions can change. For example, by mid-Spring 2020, discussion of the laboratory origins of SARS-CoV-2 was forbidden on certain social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook (Jacobs 2021). More recently the lab-leak theory has since gained more legitimacy, especially following articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Harrison and Sachs 2022), Frontiers in Virology (Ambati 2022) and Vanity Fair (Eban 2022) as well as a statement by WHO director-general Ghebreyesus, who commented on an interim report by the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, saying that all hypotheses need to be considered and criticizing the report for inadequate assessment of the lab-leak hypothesis (WHO 2022). Another example relates to the necessity of mask wearing: US officials such as the director of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Anthony Fauci, are on record recommending against universal mask wearing in March 2020, only to change their position in April to recommend universal mask wearing and mandates (Roche 2021).

Since early 2020, there has been an upsurge of complaints about censorship by individuals and groups presenting heterodox COVID-related viewpoints and information, with even more complaints in 2021 following COVID-19 vaccine rollouts. Many instances involve social media censorship, including the removal of accounts (“deplatforming”) or blocking the visibility of a user’s content without informing them (“shadow banning”) (Martin 2021).

While complaints regarding scientific censorship and suppression preceded the pandemic (Elisha et al. 2021, 2022; Martin 2015), a new feature of the COVID era is the prominent role played by information technology companies such as Facebook and Google (Martin 2021). One prominent example was the down ranking of the Great Barrington Declaration’s website by Google (Myers 2020). The Declaration, spearheaded by three epidemiologists at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities, was released in October 2020 (Kulldorff et al. 2020) and signed by many notable scientists and doctors, including the Nobel Prize laureate Michael Levitt. It argued against universal lockdowns in favor of focusing on protecting vulnerable groups. However, to reduce exposure, Google altered its search algorithm (Myers 2020). In February 2021, Facebook deleted a page set up by a group of scientists involved with the declaration (Rankovic 2021). In April 2021, YouTube removed a recording of an official public hearing on the pandemic that featured Florida governor Ron DeSantis and the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. One of them, Prof. Kulldorff, who is one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious disease experts in the world, was himself censored by Twitter in March 2021 (Sarkissian 2021). Though his tweet saying that not everyone needs the COVID-19 vaccine was not taken down, he was warned, and users have been prevented from liking or retweeting the post (Tucker 2021).

Similar cases abound. For example, the research-networking site ResearchGate removed physicist Denis Rancourt’s article about masks (Rancourt 2020), and in 2021, it banned him entirely (Jones 2021). In July 2021, LinkedIn suspended the account operated by Dr. Robert Malone, an internationally recognized virologist and immunologist, an action repeated by Twitter in December 2021 (Pandolfo 2021).

These are just some of the many examples of censorship related to COVID-19. Beyond the large scale of the censorship phenomenon, and the wide involvement of tech companies in it, another unique characteristic of COVID-related censorship is its targets. Many of the doctors and researchers being censored by the world’s biggest technology companies are not fringe figures. As in the examples above, these are mainstream scientists, many of them leading experts working in prestigious universities and/or hospitals, some of whom have authored books and published dozens or even hundreds of papers and whose studies have been widely cited. Some of them are editors of scientific/medical journals and some are heads of medical wards or clinics.

This heavy censorship was done with the encouragement of governments (Bose 2021; O’Neill 2021), which cooperated with tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. For example, on March 7, 2022, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on tech companies to report “health misinformation” to the federal government and to step up their efforts to remove it (Pavlich 2022). Subsequently, e-mails released from legal proceedings have documented the ways in which government officials directly coordinated with tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to censor doctors, scientists and journalists (Lungariello and Chamberlain 2022; Ramaswamy and Rubenfeld 2022). In December 2021, an e-mail from the fall of 2020 was released via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. It revealed a behind-the-scenes effort by Francis Collins, then head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to his colleague, Anthony Fauci, head of NIAID, to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration and disparage its authors. In the email, Collins told Fauci that “this proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists … seems to be getting a lot of attention,” adding that “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?” (Wall Street Journal 2021).

Practices of censorship have also been used by the Israeli Ministry of Health (IMOH) and media against doctors and researchers whose views run counter to institutional orthodoxy. One such example is the Israeli Public Emergency Council for the Covid19 Crisis. The organization, which consists of leading doctors and scientists, was targeted by the IMOH and the media numerous times, including attacks on individual members of the organization (Reisfeld 2021).

Censorship, the Backfire Effect and Public Outrage

COVID-19 censorship is, in part, an exclusion of the views of dissident experts as well as citizens who question the standard position. This type of censorship has been a feature of many other controversial areas in science and medicine, such as AIDS, environmental studies, fluoridation, and vaccination (Delborne 2016; Elisha et al. 2021, 2022; Kuehn 2004; Martin 1991, 1999; Vernon 2017). In fact, censorship has a long history, and its purpose is to suppress free speech, publications and other forms of expression of unwanted ideas and positions that may be perceived as a threat to powerful bodies such as governments and corporations.

Censorship of opposing or alternative opinions and views can be harmful to the public (Elisha et al. 2022), especially during crisis situations such as epidemics, which are characterized by great uncertainties, since it may lead to important views, information and scientific evidence being disregarded. Furthermore, the denial or silencing of contrary views can elicit public mistrust (Gesser-Edelsburg and Shir-Raz 2016; Wynne 2001). Studies have indicated that in situations of risk, especially risk that involves uncertainty, the public prefers full transparency of information, including different views, and that providing it does not raise negative reactions in terms of behaviour, but rather, helps reduce negative feelings and increases the public’s respect for the risk-assessing agency (De Vocht et al. 2014; Lofstedt 2006; Slovic 1994). As Wynne (2001) warns, institutional science’s attempts to exaggerate its intellectual control and use knowledge as justification for policy commitments, while ignoring its limits, only alienates the public and increases mistrust.

Moreover, censorship can be counterproductive, in essence backfiring, because it can lead to greater attention being paid to the censored information, foster sympathy for those being censored and promote public distrust of the actors and agencies engaged in censorship (Jansen and Martin 2003, 2004, 2015). This is especially evident in the internet age. While information technology companies such as Google and Facebook play a prominent role in the attempts of governments and authorities to censor dissenting positions on COVID-19 (Martin 2021), it is a serious challenge to achieve this completely. Their visibility in the mainstream media and in web search results can be curtailed, but there are too many alternative communication options to prevent dissenters from communicating their positions (Cialdini 2016). Therefore, attempts to silence and censor critics can sometimes backfire.

Considering the extent of censorship reported during the COVID-19 era, and in particular the number of accomplished doctors and scientists censored and silenced, as well as the extensive involvement of tech companies, on the one hand, and governments, on the other, it is worthwhile investigating this phenomenon. The present study is designed to explore the subjective perceptions of well-credentialed, highly accomplished mainstream doctors and scientists who have experienced censorship and/or suppression after expressing non-orthodox positions regarding the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they dealt with it. Through interviews, we examine censorship tactics used by the medical establishment and the media (both mainstream and social media), and the counter-tactics employed by their targets.

Method

The study is a qualitative one (Aspers 2004), which aims to identify internal perceptions from the point of view of those who have experienced the phenomenon under question.

Participants

Study participants include 13 established doctors and scientists (12 men and 1 woman), from different countries around the world (viz., Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, UK and US). Of these, 11 have formal medical training from a variety of fields (e.g., epidemiology, radiology, oncology, cardiology, paediatrics, gynecology, emergency room management) and two are research scientists without medical degrees (in the areas of risk management and psychology). All participants hold either an MD or PhD degree, and four hold both. Most of them are well known in their fields, with a proven research background that includes many academic publications. We used a purposeful sampling method, i.e., a non-probabilistic sampling according to which a deliberate selection is made of individuals who could teach us about the phenomenon under study (Creswell 2012). To preserve the respondents’ anonymity, details that might lead to their identification are omitted.

Research Tool and Procedure

The study is based on in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. The questions focused on the respondents’ stance towards COVID-19 that was seen as controversial, events they experienced due to their stance, the implications of these events for their professional and personal lives, and their responses to these events.

Recruitment was done in several ways. First, through a Google search we located the contact details of doctors and researchers known for their critical stances toward COVID-19 pandemic measures and policies. Second, we used the “snowball” method to reach other respondents. The initial contact with the respondents was by email, in which we explained the purpose of the study and asked for their consent to be interviewed anonymously. The interviews were conducted via Skype, Zoom or telephone, and lasted about an hour and a half on average. Each respondent was asked to sign an informed consent form. The interviews were recorded and transcribed.

Data analysis and coding were based on identifying the key issues that emerged from the interviews, while classifying and grouping them into meaningful categories. We assured the reliability and validity of the study by applying different methods. The analysis of the data was discussed by all of us as an expert peer group, and different sources of data served as triangulation of the data (e.g., documents and correspondence provided to us by the interviewees). Quotes in the text are provided for illustrative purposes (Creswell 2012).

Findings

Study participants reported being subject to a wide variety of censorship and suppression tactics used against them by both the medical establishment and the media, due to their critical and unorthodox positions on COVID-19. They also described the counter-tactics they used to resist. We divide the findings into two sections, the first describing censorship and suppression tactics and the second describing the counter-tactics used by our participants.

Silencing Dissent: Censoring and Suppressing Tactics

Tactics of censorship and suppression described by our respondents include exclusion, derogatory labelling, hostile comments and threatening statements by the media, both mainstream and social; dismissal by the respondents’ employers; official inquiries; revocation of medical licenses; lawsuits; and retraction of scientific papers after publication.

Exclusion

Respondents reported how, at a very early stage of the epidemic, when they just began to express criticism or their different position, they were surprised to discover that the mainstream media, which until then had seen them as desirable interviewees, stopped interviewing them and accepting opinion pieces from them:

Neither X nor Y [two central newspapers in the respondent’s country] wanted to publish my articles. Without a proper explanation. Just stopped receiving articles. It was quite blatant, that they stopped accepting articles expressing a different opinion from that of the ministry of health (MOH). The number of journalists who can really be talked to, who are willing to listen to another opinion, to publish, has been greatly reduced, and most health reporters today are very biased towards the MOH (#10).

Denigration

Respondents reported that exclusion was only the first step: shortly after that they started being subjected to defamation by the media, and disparaged as “anti-vaxxers,” “Covid deniers,” “dis/misinformation spreaders” and/or “conspiracy theorists”:

After that report came out…, I was front page of the Sunday Times… it said… X [the respondent name], a professor in A [the institution this respondent works in] is co-author of anti vax report… I was now, yeah…, I was told I was anti-vaccine (#9).

I have been vilified.… I’ve been called a quack…, an anti-vaxxer and a COVID denier, a conspiracy theorist (#13).

Recruiting “Third Parties” to Assist in Discrediting

One prominent tactic our respondents claim was used by the media to discredit them was the use of seemingly independent “third party sources,” such as other doctors, to undermine them, for example by writing defamatory articles:

I was shocked at what came out the next day in The Wall Street Journal… So here we had three of the most senior doctors with hundreds and hundreds of publications and scientific credibility to our resumes and …a major media outlet allowed a junior doctor to publish who has no academic standing or track record…[and] have him publish a defamatory piece (#6).

Another “third party” source used by the media, according to our respondents, was “fact-checking” organizations, a practice that is ostensibly meant to verify published information to promote the veracity of reporting. However, some respondents alleged that the fact-checking groups were recruited and operated by corporate or other stakeholders to discredit them and try to discredit the information they presented:

…the fact checkers are a source of misinformation, so though it may review something and say, Dr. X said something, but… they make a counterclaim. The counter claims are never cited in the data… they all trace back to the vaccine manufacturers or the vaccine stakeholders (#6).

you get the fact checkers… They tried to discredit S, but also, because I was a co-author, they were picking on me…, and all this sort of stuff and… discredit by association… (#4).

As seen in the second example above, some of the participants said that those “fact-checking” groups were used to discredit and defame not only the researcher or doctor who presented a contrarian opinion or information, but also others who were associated with them.

Some respondents said that the media persecuted them to the point of blackening their name at their workplace, resulting in their dismissal, or that they were forced to resign:

I lost my job…, I was working for the last 20 years in X [the institution’s name]… And so, the media started coming to X… there was a concerted effort to… ruin my reputation, even though, this is unbelievable, they had the lowest death rate basically in the world, and the doctor who brought it to them, gets vilified and slandered. So, I left on my own… My reputation was slandered. I mean the level of treatment that I didn’t expect and abuse I would say (#1).

Online Censorship

Some respondents reported being censored on social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Google, LinkedIn), and said some of their posts, tweets, videos or even accounts were taken down by the networks.

My YouTube videos were being taken down. Facebook put me in jail, “Facebook Jail.” And I found that I was being de-platformed everywhere (#1).

I’ve always had videos, just my teaching material I’ve been putting up on YouTube…, but I also started to put up materials around this just sort of talking through some of the research… looking at the vaccine efficacy data… YouTube started taking it down. And so now …, I cannot post, I can’t even mention vaccines, because within seconds, as soon as I’m actually trying to upload the video, YouTube will say this video goes against our guidelines… (#3).

I got terminated from TikTok… All of a sudden, I was permanently banned because presumably I had a community violation (#2).

I’m currently on my sixth twitter account…the last one was shut down supposedly for a tweet about X’s lab [the name of the lab], but it was coming. I ruffled too many feathers (#2).

As can be seen in the above examples, respondents noted that the removal of their materials from social networks was accompanied by a notice claiming they had violated the “community rules.” They emphasized that these were academic materials, backed up scientifically:

I became aware that an academic YouTube video that I had put together regarding the paper in the XXX journal … was pulled down by YouTube, and I received a notice that it had violated terms of the YouTube community… without ever having any terms of use from YouTube that would explain what types of terms would be applied to a four PowerPoint slide scientific video…(#6).

One of the respondents reported on censorship even in Google Docs, which means that even private communications are being censored:

Google Docs started restricting and censoring my ability to share documents… This is not Twitter throwing me off like they did. This is an organization telling me that I cannot send a private communication to a colleague or to a friend, or to a family member… (#1).

Censorship and Suppression by the Medical and Academic Establishment

Some of the respondents reported that they were subjected to defamation by their own institution, with the apparent intention to harm their reputation and careers. For example:

…in [my country], we have approximately 55,000 physicians. My name appeared on the official website of the Ministry of Health, that I’m the only person, one medical doctor who is… distributing disinformation… (#12).

There was a concerted effort to… ruin my reputation even though, this is unbelievable, they [the hospital where I work] had the lowest death rate basically in the world (#1).

Some participants also said that they had received a clear message from the institution where they worked that they were not allowed to identify themselves with the institution when giving an interview or a testimony or expressing their views—in some cases as a condition of renewing their contract.

I gave X (a certain treatment) testimony, and that kind of went viral. And the hospital was not happy because my affiliation had shown up… They offered me a new contract. They said …, we got some new terms for you, because my old contract was not restricted. The new one basically had like seven or eight restrictions of my first amendment rights… basically I couldn’t talk to the press, I couldn’t speak in public…, unless I said, these are my opinions not that of my employer… It was a relatively short conversation. I said that’s never going to happen, I’m never going to sign that thing, and we said goodbye (#9).

In some cases, respondents reported that following a position or criticism they expressed, they were dismissed from their institution, or were notified that their contract would not be renewed.

I was told that my contract [at the medical clinic] wasn’t going to be renewed… There’s a whole variety of checklists for the contract not to be renewed, there must be a due process, and the first red flag is that there was no due process. I asked specifically was there a board vote…, and the answer was no, and I said… why is this action being taken, and their response was “no reason”… [Later] I received a letter from [X] University saying that I was stripped of my professorship, with no due process, with no faculty senate, nothing…. Then, I received a…letter from [Y] University, again no due process, no faculty senate, no explanation (#6).

Similarly, respondents said they were summarily dismissed or disqualified from prestigious positions, such as serving on leading health or scientific committees, or editing medical journals, without due process or transparency:

… the director general of the Ministry of [X] approached me … and said that the Minister had reached an agreement with the Ministry of Health, that he was putting a representative on the [prescription drug] basket committee …, and she said all fingers had pointed to me… Then comes a phone call after a week, and she says, “listen, your name was already passed on as a request of the Minister to the Basket Committee, and has been disqualified unequivocally because you oppose [COVID] vaccinations in children”… I was shocked… Until then the responses I received were from the bottom. This is a response from the top (#11).

…there was a whole series of actions taken again with no due process and no explanation so… I received a notice from the [medical association] that I was being stripped from a committee position… I received a letter from a journal…where I was the editor in chief, being stripped of the editorship, again with no due process, no phone calls no, tractable explanation… I received a letter from the National Institutes of Health being stripped from a longstanding committee position, I was on the committee for several decades and was stripped off of that, again no phone call, no due process, no explanation (#6).

In one case, the respondent had learned that his country’s parallel to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) intervened and asked the university to “examine” his “case”:

…my university president invited me to talk about “corona”. In that meeting, I was informed… that the [The equivalent health authority to the CDC in the interviewees’ country] had written a letter to the president, asking him to examine my case because, according to the ministerial letter, I was going public with methodologically questionable things. According to the president, the university has never received similar requests before… (#12).

Some of the interviewees said that the health establishment had not only blackened their reputation and taken serious measures against them but also cooperated with the media and made sure to spread the information about those measures through them:

You know the news release came out, I’m a prominent physician in the United States, so, in fact, I believe the health system drafted a press release that went out, that they were suing me, and so the topic came up [during the press interview], “so are you being sued, and… what’s your reaction?” (#6).

Official Inquiries

Some doctors reported on official inquiries launched against them, such as investigating or threatening to withdraw their medical license:

…my license was investigated… At that point in time, I felt that the medical board was being weaponized… My license ended up getting investigated… three times now, each time… without any punishment or reprimand or anything… But it merely points to the fact that it’s very easy to get censored or cancelled (#2).

Following a post I wrote about the adverse events … I received a letter from the Committee of X [the name of the committee]. Allegedly they asked me for the details of these patients (the patients the interviewee reported in his post had adverse events), but if it was genuinely a real wish on their part, then it was not this committee, which in fact deals with Y [the definition of the committee’s activities] that would have asked me for the details, but a real official from the Ministry of Health. I answered them through A [my lawyer], a more legal and less medical reply. This is basically a committee without powers. I do not think I am even allowed to pass on the names of patients to them. It can be given to a relevant party, a district doctor… I will be happy to talk to them (#2).

One of the respondents reports that a million-dollar lawsuit was filed against him:

And then my wife calls me and says that the health system is suing us for over a million dollars, so I have just put together teams of attorneys and scrambled them into court… And … the charge is that is that I’m violating terms of my separation agreement, specifically that the health system is being brought into my media presentations, and I’ve never made any [such] statements (#6).

Another respondent reports on a police search conducted at his private clinic in his home:

The [medical board] showed up unexpectedly one day without a warrant to search my house, which was listed in their records as my office, to do a medical office inspection, which doesn’t require a warrant [in my country]. I told them it’s my business office and I don’t see patients there and they have no business coming in there (#7).

Retraction of Scientific Papers

Some researchers and doctors recounted how their research had been retracted by the journal after publication:

And then, five days before the FDA pediatric meeting on vaccination, [the publishing company] pulls the paper out of the National Library of Medicine and says that they are retracting it. And the explanation, they tell us a few days later, is that they think they didn’t invite the paper to begin with. And I can tell you as an editor, the paper was clearly welcomed, and it went through the standard peer review process. The only way they can legally pull a paper out of the National Library of Medicine is if it’s scientifically invalid, and that wasn’t the claim (#6).

So I submitted it to X [the name of the journal] … and well, this was a desk rejection … Actually, at least for me the arguments were kind of, say, from my perspective, there were no solid arguments… I don’t know why this was rejected, and then I submitted it to several other channels… and then I stopped to trying to publish it in the scientific literature. It’s published as a pre-print (#8).

Another theme that arose repeatedly during the interviews was that research critical of COVID-19 policies and orthodoxy were treated in ways the interviewees had never encountered before in their careers. This included having papers rejected from journals (often multiple times) without peer review, the journal review and publication process taking many months longer than typical for the journal, and even having papers rejected from pre-print servers such as MedRXiv:

At the beginning of the pandemic, we were getting a lot of stuff published. It wasn’t in any way challenging the orthodox narrative… and then we did this analysis on [X] and then when that happened, oh my God they went ballistic, we got attacked. That work never got published. This is where the censorship—we’d already had some problems because we were publishing other work on the case data, and it was being automatically rejected from any of the medical journals, anything like that. And that was when our stuff started to get rejected from arXiv and medRxiv…the only place we could get any of this stuff published, was we just put it on ResearchGate (#4).

In one case, an interviewee said he felt so threatened by the medical establishment that he refrained from putting his name on papers he co-authored with other researchers, and that those whose names do appear on the papers were trying to hide or stay under the radar until the paper was published:

We’ve got a paper that’s ready to come out in [an important journal], and the group that published it has been hiding for a year… Now, I can’t be on the paper you know (#5).

Counter-reaction: Fighting Back

The respondents noted that their initial reaction to the attacks and censorship was shock and surprise, since for the first time in their lives they felt excluded from the scientific/medical community, attacked by the media and sometimes by their employers, and/or disparaged as “conspiracy theorists” who endanger the public health. Yet, despite the censorship, the personal attacks and defamation, the dismissals, the damage to reputations and the economic price, all respondents nevertheless stated that none of it deterred them, and they decided to fight back, using various counter-tactics.

First Reactions: Shock and Surprise

Most respondents describe their initial reaction to the persecution and censorship they experienced as shock. Some said that they felt threatened, and for the first time, excluded from the scientific/medical community:

I was speechless. It does not happen to me. I did not imagine. It was terribly threatening to me all those attacks … it took me a month to recover from the understanding that this is the country we live in… I was in shock… I was surprised… My heartbeat I think was 200 per minute (#11).

As someone who has been an integral part of the [health] system, and knows the role holders personally – the rift I feel is very heavy (#1).

Respondents said that they felt that the threats, dismissals and attacks against them were in fact an attempt to silence them, just because their opinions were not aligned with those dictated by the authorities:

…everything was done initially to suppress my voice, because I was the only one screaming (#1).

Some respondents said they felt that the censorship and unprecedented attacks they experienced were especially vicious because those who did it knew they were valued and influential:

…they were actually trying to silence me in the media… it appears on the surface, that lawsuit basically was an attempt to censor me… I’m a frequent contributor on Fox News, I just testified in the US Senate…, my advice is valued all over the world, and I think it was a parochial attempt… to censor me…(#6).

Determined to Fight

Our respondents stated that the censorship and suppression they experienced made them want to fight back and make their voices heard more, on the grounds of freedom of speech and their concern for public health.

It’s an interesting question what I feel I’m paying. Because I feel there are [costs]. The fact is that I almost left. Why did I stay? Because I realized that there was a price that I was not willing to pay – that they would shut me up. (…) (#11).

To me the most important question is why do I (keep) doing this? Because if I do not live according to my values and freedom of speech, then I will not live. That’s why I am doing it (#9).

Some of them even noted that the attacks on their reputation made them even more determined and eager to expose the information that was being censored.

Actually, it makes me more determined. I’m a little bit of a pit bull. So, we’re going to keep getting the word out (#2).

Some of the respondents said they decided to take official or legal actions against the organizations that censored them:

I will file suit for breach of contract, since we had a publication contract and they signed it and they accepted… they’re going to be sued for tortious interference that they’ve actually interfered with the business of publishing valid scientific information… I imagine this is going to be quite injurious and high profile to [the publisher] (#6).

I do have a Freedom of Information request into all the entities that stripped me of various credentials and positions in order to start to uncover what is stimulating all of this… (#2).

The respondents’ counter-reactions were expressed in several ways: a desire to disclose the act of censorship and the information that was censored, which they claim is evidence-based; use of alternative channels in order to spread their positions and views in relation to COVID-19 publicly; establishment of support networks with colleagues; and development of alternative medical and health information systems. That is, they created a kind of a parallel world to the mainstream establishment.

Exposing the Censorship

Some respondents stressed that they wanted to expose the censorship act itself. For instance:

I got in contact with a few powerful people, and they referred me to the Media Resource Centre in Washington, which is a non-profit to fight censorship. I told them what had happened. And they already wrote up an article about it. That article is now being put up on different sites. I did an interview on One American News Network. I kind of brought that to the world (#1).

Using Alternative Channels

Respondents noted that when they understood that they were censored by the mainstream media, they decided to use alternative channels, such as social media platforms, to spread their position and contrary information and voice their opinions in public:

Fortunately, I built up a little bit of a Twitter Following… 34,000 or something like that…, so you can get the message out (#4).

Some of the respondents said that to protect themselves, they were forced to open “secret” telegram or anonymous Twitter accounts. Although they express frustration, they are still doing it in order to spread information. For example, one participant noted it is absurd that scientists should keep secret telegram accounts so that the government does not revoke their licenses or damage their reputations:

…my credentials from that aspect [are] really unusual… A working doctor that has that combination… That’s why I have to be careful when I’m on Twitter… because if you’re smart enough to realize there is only a small group of doctors in the world that have got that [combination]… I put a tweet and I put it on my secret telegram channel as well… Ridiculous! We’ve got secret telegram accounts, I mean, we’re scientists running secret telegram accounts, so we don’t get taken out by the government. What is going on? (#5).

Creating Social Support Networks

Some of the respondents revealed that they created support networks of fellow scientists, physicians, lawyers and politicians with similar views and opinions. These networks were used not only to exchange information, but also to receive support and empathy from “outsiders” like them, to make new friends and create a new community:

…it’s been really nice to make a whole and growing network of friends in life, who know those truths as well. I feel like I’m making a new community with new friends that I can talk to that understand the world, understand the corruption, and really can navigate this stuff. So, at the same time that I woke up with a whole new collection of colleagues and friends, but a lot of us are outside of science… (#9).

And then there were a few colleagues that came on board… And all of a sudden, I had some big heavyweights, academic leaders advocating for my work (#1).

Developing Alternative Medical and Health Information Systems

Beyond their activities in disseminating information and data, some of the respondents noted that they are working to establish new alternative platforms and organizations dedicated to developing and providing health information and medical treatments—including new journals and non-profits, instead of the existing ones, which they claim have failed and disappointed. They explain this as a means of coping with the censorship and suppression they experienced due to their opposing positions, which grant them a sense of hope and a feeling that they are building “a new world”:

I have a new thing in life. N and I, we started the X organization…, whose sole mission is to try to figure out and help people to treat COVID. And I think we’ve done a real service to the world (#9).

…there’s a lot of talk about starting a journal… Tess Lawrie started The World Council for Health. There is increasing amount of talk about starting a new health system. Like, people want to go to hospitals where the doctors can be doctors and not the other role of all these regulations and corrupt agencies, so you know, there is maybe a new world that will form…(#4).

Discussion

The purpose of the present study was to explore the subjective perceptions of accomplished and well-credentialed mainstream doctors and scientists who have experienced censorship and suppression after expressing heterodox COVID-related views, to examine tactics used by the medical establishment and the media and the counter-tactics employed by their targets.

The respondents in our study reported on a wide variety of censorship and suppressive tactics used against them by the media (including the mainstream media and social media companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok) and the medical establishment. Tactics used by the media include derogatory comments and labels, often using ostensibly independent “third-party” sources such as anonymous “fact-checkers” or other doctors, and online censorship involving the removal of their social media and internet contents and accounts, in some cases repeatedly after they opened new accounts. Some of the respondents reported that the media have been persecuting them to the point of blackening their names in their workplaces.

The tactics used by the medical establishment also include defamation and intimidation; retraction of scientific papers after publication; dismissal or adverse changes to employment contracts; aggressive actions aimed at sabotaging other significant roles of the individual, such as participating in important committees or serving as editors of scientific journals. Some respondents reported a targeted thwarting of their careers and harming of the reputations they had built over the years, while consistently stripping them of all the positions they held. Some reported being subject to abusive formal proceedings, such as investigations and attempts to revoke their medical licenses, and in one case even being sued for a large sum of money.

As for the reactions of the respondents to these censorship tactics, contrary to what has been found in previous studies, in which, out of fear of being marked as “anti-science” or “anti-vaxxers,” some of the doctors and scientists said that they refrain from expressing their critical position on controversial issues such as vaccines (e.g., Elisha et al. 2022; Kempner 2008; Martin 2015), the scientists and doctors in our study did not self-censor themselves, despite the heavy price many of them paid professionally and financially. According to the respondents, after the initial shock, they decided to fight back using a range of methods, from framing the actions taken against them as censorship and trying to expose the censored information and the censorship act itself, to mobilizing support and building supportive networks of friends, colleagues, and followers, which, they reported, were constantly growing. Moreover, the respondents announced that they were developing alternative health systems as well as alternative channels that would allow free dissemination of information and professional positions. The sampling method was unlikely to pick up doctors and scientists who kept a low profile or who quickly became silent at the first sign of danger, which may partly explain why all the interviewees resisted attacks. It will also not capture doctors and scientists who disagree with aspects of the official orthodoxy but are too afraid to speak out.

Despite the power held by governments and corporations, the ability to censor is limited, especially in the digital age, since even if the traditional “gatekeepers”—journalists in the popular media and editors of scientific journals—censor opposing opinions and information, opponents will still be able to spread them through alternative outlets. As Jansen and Martin (2003, 2004, 2015) have shown, exposing censorship can sometimes lead to public outrage, and powerful interests who undertake it often try to prevent or reduce this outrage using various methods, mainly by defaming and delegitimizing the targets of censorship.

Indeed, the censorship tactics reported by our respondents are consistent with those identified in Jansen and Martin’s (2015) framework on the dynamics of censorship, including:

Cover-Up—Our findings show that this tactic was very prominent, which is not surprising, since, as Jansen and Martin noted, if people aren’t aware of censorship, they are not upset about it. The cover-up tactics included various methods. For example, using third-party sources such as other doctors or “fact-checkers” to discredit dissident scientists and doctors. Since these sources are portrayed as independent, they help mask the real sources behind the censorship.
Devaluation—This tactic was described by our study respondents and included various aspects, such as publishing false and disparaging claims about them, dismissing them from work in academia or medical institutions, and stripping them of various senior positions—all actions that were felt by our respondents to be intended to undermine their credibility and legitimacy. The tactic of devaluation, also known as a “negative campaign” or a “smear campaign,” is often used by corporations, and its aim is to harm the reputation of an individual or a group (Griffin 2012; Lau and Rovner 2009). Smear campaigns help distract public attention from the content of the targets’ message and deflect the discussion from the criticism or allegations raised and instead focus the attention on those raising these allegations.
Reinterpretation—This tactic involves framing censorship as a means of “protecting the public” from the dissenting doctors and scientists, portraying them as “misinformation spreaders” endangering public health in a time of crisis. This framing echoes attempts by policymakers in other areas to justify censorship by arguing that contradictory information might confuse the public and cause panic (Clarke 2002; Frewer et al. 2003; Sandman 2007; Gesser-Edelsburg and Shir-Raz 2016).
Official Channels—As our respondents described the censorship actions taken against them were only part of a wider range of silencing and repressive actions, which also included formal proceedings, such as investigating or withdrawing their medical licenses, suing them or ordering a police search of their homes.
Intimidation—The respondents interpreted all the above tactics as being intended to intimidate and deter them from continuing to publish their views and criticism, and also single them out in a way that implicitly invites harassment by others and serves as an example to other doctors and scientists. Some of our respondents noted they were intimidated to the point they felt it necessary to use an assumed name to continue operating on social media and/or avoid putting their names on papers they co-authored.

Our findings regarding how the study participants responded to censorship tactics are also consistent with the counter-tactics described by Jansen and Martin (2015).

Exposure—The respondents sought exposure of both the censored information and the censorship itself, for example by raising an alarm about the attacks on them through their social media accounts or other platforms. They noted that even if their accounts were repeatedly removed, they opened new ones or moved to other channels or platforms. In addition, they insisted on continuing to try to publish papers in the scientific literature, regardless of the rejections and retractions, and even if the publication involved working on studies without getting credit for the publication.
Validation—Our respondents repeatedly stressed their use of evidence-based information and reliable data, as well as their credentials, thus associating themselves with science. They portray themselves as warriors whose mission is to fight against misinformation and censorship by the medical and public health establishment.
Interpretation—Our respondents framed the media and the establishment’s efforts as censorship and referred to their own efforts as attempts to present valid information for interested readers.
Redirection—Following the personal and professional attacks they experienced, some of our respondents coordinated a public response, seeking to mobilize their supporters, turning to fellow scientists and doctors, and creating alliances and cooperation networks.
Resistance—Despite the initial shock, all the respondents said they decided not to succumb, but rather to resist and fight back.

Our findings echo arguments made in previous studies on the suppression of dissent in controversial areas, such as vaccination (Elisha et al. 2021, 2022; Cernic 2018; DeLong 2012; Gatto et al. 2013; Martin 2015; Vernon 2017), AIDS, environmental studies, and fluoridation (e.g., Delborne 2016; Kuehn 2004; Martin 1981, 1991, 1999). Similar to those studies, our research findings indicate significant involvement of the media and the medical establishment in censorship and suppression of dissenters.

Yet, there are three main differences. First, when it comes to COVID-related knowledge, the censorship tactics used against dissenters are extreme and unprecedented in their intensiveness and extensiveness, with scientific journals, and academic and medical institutions taking an active and involved part in censoring critical voices. In fact, as one of our respondents indicates, even pre-print servers and academic social networking sites censor scientific papers that do not align with the mainstream narrative, and this seems to be a growing trend. One recent example is a study report by Verkerk et al. (2022), which analyzed a survey of over 300,000 people in 175 countries who had elected to not receive COVID-19 vaccines, which was removed from ResearchGate.net after 9 days citing a breach of their terms and conditions (World Council for Health 2022). Furthermore, what our respondents describe goes way beyond censorship, and includes a wide range of suppression methods intended to destroy their reputations and careers, solely because they dared to take a different position from that dictated by the medical establishment.

Second, while previous studies have also indicated isolated cases where researchers and doctors with flawless résumés and even senior academic or medical status were censored if they dared express dissenting opinions, the current study shows that in the case of COVID, censoring doctors and researchers of this stature has become a regular phenomenon. The participants in our study, as well as those mentioned in the introduction and many others not included in our sample, are not fringe scientists. Most of them are leading figures: researchers and doctors who prior to the COVID-19 era had a respectable status, with many publications in the scientific literature, some of them with books and hundreds of publications, some headed academic or medical departments, some of them were editors of medical journals, and some had won significant awards. Nevertheless, as our findings show, they were not protected from censorship, nor from the suppression and defamation campaign launched against them. This fact indicates that the message is that no one is exempt from censorship and no academic or medical status, senior as it may be, is a guaranteed shield against it.

The third prominent difference found in our study is the significant role played by media organizations during the COVID pandemic, and especially tech information companies, in censoring contrary positions. On a practical level, those who hold the power have greater ability and opportunities to control knowledge and information dissemination, and through this, to set and control the agenda. While our findings do not show the direction of the relationship between these interest holders, they may indicate collaborations between the medical establishment and these companies. Recently released documents from court cases indicate that at least some of this censorship is orchestrated by government officials (Lungariello and Chamberlain 2022; Ramaswamy and Rubenfeld 2022). Our findings also indirectly point to other stakeholders involved in the censorship phenomenon evident in the current crisis, especially pharmaceutical companies. While our study examined the subjective perceptions of those targeted by censorship rather than the involvement of stakeholders and other interested parties, our respondents’ reports echo findings from other studies, conducted both prior to the COVID-19 era (Ravelli 2015), and more recently (Mucchielli 2020), which indicate the extensive involvement of pharmaceutical and information tech corporations in silencing information and studies that may be unfavourable to them. Given the central role of these corporations alongside policymakers in health authorities and governments globally, a major concern is that substantial interests, including financial and political ones, as well as interests related to reputation and career, may lay behind the suppression efforts. The interest of the pharmaceutical corporations in controlling the discourse regarding COVID-19 is self-evident. For example, as some of our participants indicated, one of the main unresolved COVID-19 controversies is related to early treatment with repurposed drugs, and it has been claimed that highly unusual measures were taken to prevent physicians from using them (Physicians’ Declaration 2021). As Cáceres (2022) notes, this alleged unwarranted termination of that initial debate may have had enormous economic (e.g. green light for vaccines and new drugs under emergency use authorization), financial (e.g. huge gains for the largest corporations) and political consequences (e.g. global restrictions of individual freedoms).

The tech information companies also have strong interests in controlling the discourse regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in June 2021, it was revealed that Google, which was accused of silencing the theory the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has funded virus research carried out by a Wuhan-linked scientist, Peter Daszak, through its charity arm, Google.org, for over a decade. Google has also invested one million dollars in a company that uses epidemiologists and big-data analytics to forecast and track disease outbreaks. The British Medical Journal has revealed that Facebook and YouTube’s “fact-checking” process relies on partnerships with third-party fact-checkers, convened under the umbrella of the International Fact-Checking Network (Clarke 2021). This organization is run by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism school whose main financial supporters include Google and Facebook.

As for policymakers’ personal interests, a US government watchdog group has been demanding key data on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s financial and professional history, claiming that “During the pandemic, Dr. Fauci has handsomely profited from his federal employment, royalties, travel perks, and investment gains,” yet it is not public what his salary was during these two years, nor what stocks and bonds he bought and sold in 2020 or 2021, as he influenced COVID policies, or what he received—or didn’t receive—in royalties. As noted earlier, a FOIA request in the US revealed that Fauci was told by Francis Collins, then head of the NIH, to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration and disparage its authors (Wilson 2021). Roussel and Raoult (2020) found similar conflicts of interest among French doctors who took a public stand against the use of hydroxychloroquine.

Censorship undermines public trust in authorities, especially if the information hidden and later on revealed might have cost human lives, such as during pandemics, which involve diseases, treatments and vaccines (Gesser-Edelsburg and Shir-Raz 2018). In addition, censorship and manipulation of information are inconsistent with the essence of science, since scientific inquiry requires discourse and vigorous debate. Indeed, researchers have warned that instead of being debated, COVID controversies are being used to fuel polarization, often leading to the demonization and censorship of alternative perspectives and the imposition of mainstream views as if they were absolute truth (Cáceres 2022; Marcon and Caulfield 2021).

Cáceres (2022) has argued that the fact that the debate was silenced and alternative positions were censored is in fact a diversion from “normal science” (Kuhn 1962), which assumes that different explanations and answers to facts of scientific interest normally emerge, and have the opportunity to be resolved in conventional scientific debate. Such diversion from “normal” scientific praxis, Cáceres maintains, suggests that “non-scientific” influences are at work. This diversion is especially concerning when the voices silenced are those of a mounting number of leading and renowned scientists and doctors. The drive to censor and dismiss dissenting opinions by labeling them as “misinformation” shares close similarities with scientific “boundary work,” wherein scientific power and authority is maintained by demarcating certain fields of scientific inquiry as out of bounds and discrediting them as essentially unscientific (Gieryn 1999; also see Harambam 2014). Creating a false consensus by censoring information and preventing scientific debates might lead scientists, and thus also policymakers, to sink into the ruling paradigm, causing them to ignore other, more effective options to cope with the crisis or perhaps even prevent it. Such a “consensus” leads to a narrow worldview, which impairs the public’s ability to make informed decisions and erodes public trust in medical science and in public health (Cernic 2018; Delborne 2016; Martin 2014, 2015; Vernon 2017).

The main limitation of the study is that the findings are based on the subjective perspectives of interviewees. It is possible that if we included more heterogeneous groups, we would come to somewhat different interpretations. Therefore, we recommend conducting further studies among larger groups of professionals who suffered censorship, to expand our knowledge and perhaps suggest effective ways to mediate the struggle over freedom of information in general and especially in times of crisis.

One main contribution of this study is in giving voice to scientists and doctors who raise questions, doubts or criticism in controversial areas in public health and science, especially during times of crisis. At the same time, we seek to raise awareness of the increasing use of censorship practices and aggressive tactics of suppression, targeting even leading figures who dare to criticize or doubt the dictated “consensus.” Censorship and silencing practices can have far-reaching consequences, manifested in the violation of freedom of speech and of ethical principles, harming science, and potentially risking public health and safety (Elisha et al. 2022). Researchers have already warned that the COVID-19 crisis confirms previous concerns about the deleterious implications of censorship (Cáceres 2022; Mucchielli 2020). We concur with Cáceres’ assertion that censorship and dogma are foreign to true science and must be abandoned and replaced by open and fair discussion.

References

AAPS. 2021. Blood clotting needs to be watched with all COVID vaccines, states the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). Cision PR Newswire, April 5. .https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blood-clotting-needs-to-be-watched-with-all-covid-vaccines-states-the-association-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons-aaps-301262360.html.
Abbasi, Kamran. 2020. Covid-19: Politicisation, “corruption”, and suppression of science. BMJ 371: m4425. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4425. Article
AIER. 2020. AIER hosts top epidemiologists, authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. American Institute for Economic Research, October 5. https://www.aier.org/article/aier-hosts-top-epidemiologists-authors-of-the-great-barrington-declaration/.
Ambati, Balamurali K., Akhil Varshney, Kenneth Lundstrom, Giorgio Palú, Bruce D. Uhal, Vladimir N. Uversky, and Adam M. Brufsky. 2022. MSH3 homology and potential recombination link to SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site. Frontiers in Virology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fviro.2022.834808/full. Article
Aspers, Patrik. 2004. Empirical phenomenology: An approach for qualitative research. London School of Economics and Political Science, Papers in Social Research Methods, Qualitative Series no 9.
Bavli, Itai, Brent Sutton, and Sandro Galea. 2020. Harms of public health interventions against covid-19 must not be ignored. British Medical Journal 371: m4074. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4074. Article
Biana, H. T., and J. J. B. Joaquin. 2020. The ethics of scare: COVID-19 and the Philippines’ fear appeals. Public Health 183:2–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2020.04.017. Article
Bose, Nandita. 2021. Exclusive: White House working with Facebook and Twitter to tackle anti-vaxxers. Reuters, February 20. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-white-house-exclus-idUSKBN2AJ1SW.
Brown, Ronald B. 2020. Public health lessons learned from biases in Coronavirus mortality overestimation. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 14(3):364-371. Article
Cáceres, F. Carlos. 2022. Unresolved COVID controversies: “Normal science” and potential non-scientific influences. Global Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2022.2036219. Article
Cadegiani, Flávio A. 2022. Active actions against competitive anti-COVID drugs? The case of the anti-androgens demonstrated through a highly biased randomized clinical trial with virtually undisputed directed objectives, followed by compromised editorial integrity providing overprotection for the authors of the trial to avoid exposure of its critical issues. ResearchGate, 22 June. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13732.76160.
Cernic, Mateja. 2018. Ideological constructs of vaccination. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Vega Press.
Cialdini, Robert. 2016. Pre-suasion: A revolutionary way to influence and persuade. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Clarke, Laurie. 2021. Covid-19: Who fact checks health and science on Facebook? BMJ 373:n1170. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n1170. Article
Clarke, Lee. 2002. Panic: Myth or reality? Contexts 1(3):21–26. Article
Creswell, John W. 2012. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Delborne, Jason A. 2016. Suppression and dissent in science. In Handbook of Academic Integrity, ed. Tracey A. Bretag, 943–956. Singapore: Springer. Chapter
DeLong, Gale. 2012. Conflicts of interest in vaccine safety research. Accountability in Research 19(2):65–88. Article
De Vocht, Melanie, An-Sofie, Claeys, Verolien, Cauberghe, Mieke, Uyttendaele, and Benedikt, Sas. 2014. Won’t we scare them? The impact of communicating uncontrollable risks on the public’s perception. Journal of Risk Research 19(3):316–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2014.971336. Article
Dodsworth, Laura. 2021. A state of fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic. London: Pinter & Martin.
Doshi, Peter. 2020. Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—let’s be cautious and first see the full data. BMJ Opinion, November 26. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/26/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-lets-be-cautious-and-first-see-the-full-data/.
Doshi, Peter. 2021. Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—we need more details and the raw data. BMJ Opinion, January 4. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/04/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-we-need-more-details-and-the-raw-data/.
Eban, Katherine. 2022. “This shouldn’t happen”: Inside the virus-hunting nonprofit at the center of the lab-leak controversy. Vanity Fair, March 31. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy.
Elisha, Ety, Josh Guetzkow, Yaffa Shir-Raz, and Natti Ronel. 2021. Retraction of scientific papers: The case of vaccine research. Critical Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2021.1878109. Article
Elisha, Ety, Josh Guetzkow, Yaffa Shir-Raz, and Natti Ronel. 2022. Suppressing scientific discourse on vaccines? Self-perceptions of researchers and practitioners. HEC Forum. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-022-09479-7. Article
Fraiman, Joseph, Juan Erviti, Mark Jones, Sander Greenland, Patrick Whelan, Robert M. Kaplan, and Peter Doshi. 2022. Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA vaccination in randomized trials. Vaccine 40(40):5798–5805.
Frewer, Lynn, Steve Hunt, Mary Brennan, Sharron Kuznesof, Mitchell Ness, and Chris Ritson. 2003. The views of scientific experts on how the public conceptualize uncertainty. Journal of Risk Research 6(1):75–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/1366987032000047815. Article
Fuellmich, Reiner. 2020. Cease and desist papers served on Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten by Dr. Reiner Füllmich. https://drive.google.com/file/d/17X4GmMXn_m-vDwqEy9vMhbNqzodAEW3b/view.
Gatto, Mariele, Nancy Agmon-Levin, Alessandra Soriano, Raffaele Manna, Ramit Maoz-Segal, Shaye Kivity, Andrea Doria, and Yehuda Shoenfeld. 2013. Human papillomavirus vaccine and systemic lupus erythematosus. Clinical Rheumatology 32(9):1301–1307. Article
Gesser-Edelsburg, Anat, and Yaffa Shir-Raz. 2016. Risk communication and infectious diseases in an age of digital media. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Book
Gesser-Edelsburg, Anat, and Yaffa Shir-Raz. 2018. Communicating risk for issues that involve “uncertainty bias”: What can the Israeli case of water fluoridation teach us? Journal of Risk Research 21(4):395–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1215343. Article
Gieryn, Thomas F. (1999). Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Griffin, Hannah. 2012. Keep it clean? How negative campaigns affect voter turnout. Res Publica—Journal of Undergraduate Research 17:6.
Harambam, Jaron. 2014. Contesting epistemic authority: Conspiracy theories on the boundaries of science. Public Understanding of Science 24(4):466–480.
Harambam, Jaron. 2020. The corona truth wars: Where have all the STS’ers gone when we need them most? Science and Technology Studies 33(4):60–67.
Harrison, Neil L. and Jeffrey D. Sachs. 2022. A call for an independent inquiry into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119(22): e2202769119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202769119.
Ioannidis, John P. A. 2020. Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures. European Journal of Clinical Investigation 50(4):e13222. https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13222. Article Google Scholar
Jacobs, Emily. 2021. Twitter won’t confirm if users can post about lab leak COVID origin theory. New York Post, May 28. https://nypost.com/2021/05/28/twitter-wont-confirm-users-can-post-about-covid-lab-leak-theory/.
Jansen, Sue Curry, and Brian Martin. 2003. Making censorship backfire. Counterpoise 7(3):5–15.
Jansen, Sue Curry, and Brian Martin. 2004. Exposing and opposing censorship: Backfire dynamics in freedom-of-speech struggles. Pacific Journalism Review 10(1):29–45. Article
Jansen, Sue Curry, and Brian Martin. 2015. The Streisand effect and censorship backfire. International Journal of Communication 9:656–671.
Jones, Will. 2021. Professor Denis Rancourt banned from ResearchGate for warning of harms of masks. The Daily Sceptic, April 10. https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/04/10/professor-denis-rancourt-banned-from-researchgate-for-warning-of-harms-of-masks/.
Kempner, Joanna. 2008. The chilling effect: How do researchers react to controversy? PLoS Medicine 5(11):e222. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050222. Article
King, Eshani M. 2020. Covid-19: Science, conflicts and the elephant in the room. BMJ 371:m4425.
Kuehn, Robert R. 2004. Suppression of environmental science. American Journal of Law & Medicine 30:333–369. Article
Kulldorff, Martin, Sunetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya. 2020. Great Barrington Declaration. https://gbdeclaration.org.
Lau, Richard R., and Ivy Brown Rovner. 2009. Negative campaigning. Annual Review of Political Science 12:285–306. Article
Lenzer, Jeanne. 2020. Covid-19: Group of UK and US experts argues for “focused protection” instead of lockdowns. BMJ 371:m3908. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3908.Article
Levitt, Michael. 2020. Nobel prize winning scientist Prof Michael Levitt: Lockdown is a “huge mistake”. YouTube, May 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl-sZdfLcEk.
Liester, Mitchell B. 2022. The suppression of dissent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 11(4):53–76.
Lofstedt, Ragnar E. 2006. How can we make food risk communication better: Where are we and where are we going? Journal of Risk Research 9(8):869–890. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669870601065585. Article
Lungariello, Mark and Samuel Chamberlain. 2022. White House, Big Tech colluded to censor ‘misinformation’: lawsuit. New York Post, Sept. 1. https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/white-house-big-tech-colluded-to-censor-misinformation-lawsuit/.
Marcon, Alessandro R., and Timothy Caulfield. 2021. The hydroxychloroquine Twitter war: A case study examining polarization in science communication. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i10.11707. Article
Martin, Brian. 1981. The scientific straightjacket: The power structure of science and the suppression of environmental scholarship. The Ecologist 11(1):33–43.
Martin, Brian. 1991. Scientific knowledge in controversy: The social dynamics of the fluoridation debate. New York: State University of New York Press.
Martin, Brian. 1999. Suppression of dissent in science. Research in Social Problems and Public Policy 7:105–135.
Martin, Brian. 2014. Censorship and free speech in scientific controversies. Science and Public Policy 42(3):377–386. Article
Martin, Brian. 2015. On the suppression of vaccination dissent. Science and Engineering Ethics 21(1):143–157. Article
Martin, Brian. 2021. Covid information struggles. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 10(7):16–26.
Mucchielli, Laurent. 2020. Behind the French controversy over the medical treatment of Covid-19: The role of the drug industry. Journal of Sociology 56(4):736–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783320936740. Article
Myers, Fraser. 2020. Why has Google censored the Great Barrington Declaration? Spiked, October 12. https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/12/why-has-google-censored-the-great-barrington-declaration/.
O’Neill, Jesse. 2021. White House working with social media giants to silence anti-vaxxers. New York Post, February 19. https://nypost.com/2021/02/19/white-house-working-with-social-media-to-silence-anti-vaxxers/.
Palmer, Sarah. 2021. Digital green pass, vaccine passport, EUDCC: What is it and who can use it? Euro News. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2021/06/09/digital-green-pass-vaccine-passport-eudcc-a-guide-to-post-pandemic-travel-documents.
Pandolfo, Chris. 2021. Twitter suspends Dr. Robert Malone, “inventor” of mRNA vaccines and COVID-19 vaccine skeptic. Blaze Media, December 29. https://www.theblaze.com/news/twitter-suspends-dr-robert-malone-inventor-of-mrna-vaccines-and-covid-19-vaccine-skeptic.
Pavlich, Katie. 2022. The surgeon general is calling for dangerous censorship, again. Townhall, March 9. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/03/09/the-surgeon-general-is-calling-for-censorship-again-n2604269.
Ramaswamy, Vivek and Jed Rubenfeld. 2022. Twitter becomes a tool of government censorship. August 17. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-becomes-a-tool-of-government-censors-alex-berenson-twitter-facebook-ban-covid-misinformation-first-amendment-psaki-murthy-section-230-antitrust-11660732095.
Rancourt, Denis G. 2020. COVID censorship at ResearchGate: Things scientists cannot say. Ratical.org, June 5. https://ratical.org/PandemicParallaxView/COVID-censorship-at-ResearchGate-2.pdf.
Rankovic, Didi. 2021. Facebook deletes epidemiologists behind the Great Barrington Declaration. Reclaim the Net, February 8. https://reclaimthenet.org/facebook-deletes-epidemiologists-behind-the-great-barrington-declaration/.
Ravelli, Quentin. 2015. La stratégie de la bactérie: Une enquête au coeur de l’industrie pharmaceutique. Paris: Seuil.
Reisfeld, Smadar. 2021. Can the COVID-19 vaccine’s most troubling side effect be easily prevented? Haaretz, October 14. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-can-the-covid-19-vaccine-s-most-troubling-side-effect-be-easily-prevented-1.10294071.
Roche, Darragh. 2021. Fauci says masks “not really effective in keeping out virus,” email reveals. Newsweek, June 2. https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effective-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals-1596703.
Sandman, Peter. 2003. Four kinds of risk communication. The Synergist—Journal of the American Industrial Hygiene Association April: 26–27. https://www.psandman.com/col/4kind-1.htm.
Sarkissian, Arek. 2021. DeSantis tears into YouTube, claiming censorship. Politico, April 12. https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/04/12/desantis-tears-into-youtube-over-claims-of-censorship-1373586.
Slovic, Paul. 1994. Beyond numbers: A broader perspective on risk perception and risk communication. In Acceptable evidence: Science and values in risk management, eds. Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander, 54–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stolow, Jeni A., Lina M. Moses, Alyssa M. Lederer, and Rebecca Carter. 2020. How fear appeal approaches in COVID-19 health communication may be harming the global community. Health Education & Behavior 47(4):531–535. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198120935073.Article
Thacker, Paul D. 2021. Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial. BMJ 375:n2635. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2635. Article
Tucker, Jeffrey A. 2021. Twitter censors famed epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff. AIER, March 29. https://www.aier.org/article/twitter-censors-famed-epidemiologist-martin-kulldorff/.
van Helden, Jacques, Colin D. Butler, Gulliaume Achaz, Bruno Canard, Didier Casane, Jean-Michel. Claverie, et al. 2021. An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The Lancet 398:P1402–P1404. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02019-5. Article
Verkerk, Robert, Christof Plothe, Naseeba Kathrada, and Katarina Lindley. 2022. Self-reported outcomes, choices and discrimination among a global COVID-19 unvaccinated cohort. Authorea. https://doi.org/10.22541/au.165556998.84120061/v1. Article
Vernon, Leonard F. 2017. How silencing of dissent in science impacts women: The Gardasil story. Advances in Sexual Medicine 7:179–204. https://doi.org/10.4236/asm.2017.74015. Article
Wynne, Brian. 2001. Creating public alienation: Expert cultures of risk and ethics on GMOs. Science as Culture 10(4):445–481. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505430120093586. Article
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. 2021. How Fauci and Collins Shut Down Covid Debate. Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-collins-emails-great-barrington-declaration-covid-pandemic-lockdown-11640129116.
WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). 2022. Preliminary report, June 9. Geneva: World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/publications/m/item/scientific-advisory-group-on-the-origins-of-novel-pathogens-report.
World Council for Health 2022. ResearchGate pulls control group survey preprint, June 17. Bath, UK: World Council for Health. https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/vijesti/izjave/researchgate-control-group/.

Download references

Funding

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. No funding was received for conducting this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Yaffa Shir-Raz
Raphael Recanati International School, IDC, Herzliya, Israel
Yaffa Shir-Raz
Department of Criminology, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Jezreel Valley, Israel
Ety Elisha
Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
Brian Martin
Department of Criminology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Natti Ronel
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Institute of Criminology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Josh Guetzkow

Download PDF here or here.

Published with permission under creative commons license: Shir-Raz, Y., Elisha, E., Martin, B. et al. Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics. Minerva (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4

Connect with Article Authors

cover image credit: Movidagrafica

Conspiracy Author David Icke Banned From EU, Labeled a “Terrorist”

Was set to speak at event in Amsterdam this weekend.

by Paul Joseph Watson, Summit News
November 4, 2022

Conspiracy author David Icke has been banned from entering the EU and designated as a “level three terrorist,” according to his son Gareth Icke.

The public speaker and former BBC television host was due to attend an event in Amsterdam this weekend, but will now reportedly be prevented from entering any country in the European Union for a period of two years.

“Received an email from the Dutch. My dad, David Icke, has been banned from entering the EU for two years,” tweeted Gareth Icke. “They claim he is a “level three terrorist,” he added.

Received an email from the Dutch. My dad, David Icke, has been banned from entering the EU for two years.

They claim he is a “level three terrorist”.

— Gareth Icke (@garethicke) November 3, 2022

“The old man is banned from entering the Netherlands,” wrote Icke in another tweet. “Zero convictions, zero crimes committed. Banned by the government. Wow.”

The old man is banned from entering the Netherlands.
Zero convictions, zero crimes committed.
Banned by the government
Wow.

— Gareth Icke (@garethicke) November 3, 2022

Icke had been set to feature at an event called Together for the Netherlands, but far-left activist groups complained to the government and demanded he be barred from entering the country.

The municipality of Amsterdam also asked the Dutch IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service) “to investigate whether Icke can be refused entry to the country,” an appeal that was apparently successful.

The municipality complained that Icke had made “anti-Semitic statements in the past that are unacceptable and deeply hurtful,” although it didn’t cite any specific examples.

The same authority even asked that if Icke had been allowed into the country, his speech at the event “be closely monitored by the Public Prosecutor to assess whether criminal statements are being made.”

Questions about the event were also asked in the Dutch parliament.

It remains to be seen what justification Dutch authorities actually used to ban Icke from speaking in the country, and why the ban also reportedly applies across the entire European Union.

Icke was previously deplatformed by multiple Big Tech platforms for opposing lockdown and vaccine mandates.

Some respodents to the news asserted that Icke had been banned for being outspoken against former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his role within the World Economic Forum.

This is why the Netherlands has banned David Icke from entering the country… deeming him a level 3 terrorist… because he exposed Mark Rutte and the WEF plans… pic.twitter.com/lXx3iXpJ3a

— Pelham (@Resist_05) November 4, 2022

Connect with Summit News

David Icke: Twitter Has Suspended Me AGAIN

by David Icke
October 30, 2022

Twitter has suspended me AGAIN. We tested out the ‘new’ Musk ‘free speech’ Twitter by starting a new account, DavidickeOfficial, but almost immediately Musk’s Twitter deleted it.

This meme was my first post before suspension …

Connect with David Icke

Do as We Say or Lose Your Money and/or Your Account

by Joseph P. Farrell, Giza Death Star
October 19, 2022

You may recall the “Occupy Wall Street” movement from a few years ago that occurred in the wake of the 2008 “bailouts” and the subsequent exposure of corporate shenanigans in Congress and by a few intrepid reporters. Our very own friend and colleague Catherin Austin Fitts was warning about missing money in the federal budget, to the tune of trillions of dollars. Another friend of mine was close to the scene of the action in New York City, and joined the protests, and informed me that they were not really a group of radical people, but simply people of all political stripes and varieties, and pretty much all demographics, that were saying “enough!” to government-issued corporate privilege and power.

Thus, what was unique about the protests at the time – though few noticed it and even fewer commented about it – was that the protests were genuinely populist. Populism is usually taught as a “bad thing” in modern American quackademia, and the Occupy Wall Street protests were a living lesson in why, for the protests brought together people both of left-wing and of right-wing political and cultural leanings, and all under the banner of protest against growing corporate power, and its indifference to the country and culture as a whole. It was the first outward and visible sign of an inward and cultural transformation that was beginning to take place: everyone was fine with ‘capitalism,’ but there were limits, and corporations and the government itself had crossed the line of those limits.

Occupy Wall Street, like all such movements, was quickly targeted by radical elements and agents provocateurs in an effort to radicalize what was otherwise a spontaneous movement and derail it. From a certain standpoint, those efforts were successful, but the movement and, more importantly, the perceptions and sentiments behind it, did not disappear, the merely reemerged in another guise, and when they did reemerge, lo and behold, the numbers had grown: the perception and sentiments had spread, and gained new recruits.

This past Monday I blogged about a French intelligence analysis that places the USSA as the principal enemy of France, and in the article about that report, I also noted that globaloneyism itself is implicated in that analysis, i.e., that globaloneyism is a principal enemy of the national and cultural interest of France. Whether or not this is an accurate assessment of the French intelligence analysis, I believe it to be an accurate representation of the basic paradigm shift represented by the Occupy Wall Street movement, and whatever it may have transformed into at present, namely, the perception that the roots of globaloneyism are in the international business class; their own publications have emphasized that they want a borderless (and hence, culture-less) world in which to conduct business and transact freely. It sounds nice, but the reality of it is that it means everything is oriented only for profit, and anything standing in the way of that – religion, culture, family, ethnicity, sex, you name it – must be weakened and destroyed. And such cultural expressions as freedom are also a threat. The cultural and political commentator Dr Steve Turley sums up this whole approach – of both sides – with the very apt aphorism: Globalism is not a civilization, it’s a system, and that is ultimately why it is rapidly losing its appeal. It’s merely the “businessman’s” version of Communism, with all its international pretentions and aspirations.

The cancel culture has emerged from this whole approach, and we’re seeing examples recently with Paypal’s sudden announcement that if you used their service and espoused “views” they didn’t like, they’d fine you $2500.00. Paypal’s stock quickly suffered, with the company backtracking a bit, but nonetheless, a corporation had arrogated to itself the right to decide what you think, and to fine you if you didn’t think appropriately: welcome to the world of the World Economic Forum, the world of BIS chief Augustin Carstens, the world of der Hochklaus von Blohschwab, of Baal Gates, George Soros… of SPECTRE.

Now apparently JP Morgan Chase has cancelled the checking account of a religious charity for being… well, a religious charity that they apparently don’t like:

JP Morgan Cancels Religious Nonprofit’s Checking Account, Demands Donor List as Condition for Reconsideration

The charity is headed by former Republican US Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas, who noted:

In a post at Restoring America, Brownback, a former Republican U.S. senator and governor from Kansas, said that CCRF is “diverse” and “bipartisan,” and represents “people from every faith and walk of life. Its Advisory Board, he noted, “includes members who are Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Latter-Day Saints, and Muslim.”

Worse, Chase gave Brownback and the charity no real explanation as to why the account was closed:

To this day, the NCRF does not have a clear reason as to why our account was closed after only three weeks. We certainly hadn’t made any transactions in that short amount of time that would have triggered any regulatory red flags.

Brownback said that he was “shocked and surprised” to learn that “someone from Chase eventually reached out to our executive director and informed him that it would be willing to reconsider doing business with the NCRF if we would provide our donor list, a list of political candidates we intended to support, and a full explanation of the criteria by which we would endorse and support those candidates.”

He argued that the demands for “this type of information” was “entirely inappropriate,” and unfortunately, not the first time a religious organization “has found itself facing sudden and unexplained account closures.”

Oh… we’ll reconsider doing business with you, just supply us your donor list!

Or to put that point differently: tell us everyone you associate with, and we might allow you to have an account.

That, folks, is tyranny… and let’s remember, it’s a Rockefailure bank.

You might want to think about this for a moment:

JP Morgan Fines and Penalties paid since 2000

And just in case you didn’t look closely:

Current Parent Company Name: JPMorgan Chase
Ownership Structure: publicly traded (ticker symbol NYSE: JPM)
Headquartered in: New York
Major Industry: financial services
Specific Industry: banking & securities
Penalty total since 2000: $36,129,269,434
Number of records: 222

TOP 5 OFFENSE GROUPS (GROUPS DEFINED) PENALTY TOTAL NUMBER OF RECORDS

financial offenses $26,619,328,020 112

consumer-protection-related offenses $6,363,346,750 37

competition-related offenses $1,855,919,125 13

government-contracting-related offenses $614,000,000 1

employment-related offenses $521,399,028 45

TOP 5 PRIMARY OFFENSE TYPES PENALTY TOTAL NUMBER OF RECORDS

toxic securities abuses $13,459,785,714 7

investor protection violation $6,212,471,206 75

mortgage abuses $5,362,675,000 5

banking violation $4,262,350,341 14

anti-money-laundering deficiencies $2,161,000,000 2

TOP 5 OFFENSE GROUPS (GROUPS DEFINED)	PENALTY TOTAL	NUMBER OF RECORDS
financial offenses	$26,619,328,020	112
consumer-protection-related offenses	$6,363,346,750	37
competition-related offenses	$1,855,919,125	13
government-contracting-related offenses	$614,000,000	1
employment-related offenses	$521,399,028	45

TOP 5 PRIMARY OFFENSE TYPES	PENALTY TOTAL	NUMBER OF RECORDS
toxic securities abuses	$13,459,785,714	7
investor protection violation	$6,212,471,206	75
mortgage abuses	$5,362,675,000	5
banking violation	$4,262,350,341	14
anti-money-laundering deficiencies	$2,161,000,000	2

That small local credit union is looking better and better… maybe it’s time to start cancelling the cancellers. No one wants Communism, and by the same token, no one wants corporatism and its version of soulless tyranny either. The old bailout adage has it that some banks are just “too big to fail.” I think the lesson is that some are just too big to function efficiently and within the law.

See you on the flip side…

Connect with Joseph P. Farrell

cover image credit: Clkr-Free-Vector-Images

The Genius Behind PayPal’s Bad Idea

by JP Sears, Awaken with JP
October 11, 2022

Here’s how PayPal’s decision to fine users $2,500 for misinformation went down.

Connect with JP Sears

Watch Stella Assange Slap the Mustache Off John Bolton’s War Criminal Face

by Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin’s Newsletter
October 5, 2022

Stella Assange just delivered a beatdown on one of her husband’s persecutors that was so scorched-earth demolishing I feel like I need a cigarette after watching it.

In an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange explained the threat her husband’s persecution poses to press freedoms around the world and the profound suffering his imprisonment has inflicted upon him. As some kind of bizarre counter-balance to the family of a persecuted journalist pleading for basic human rights, Morgan invited on John Bolton, the man who was the National Security Advisor to President Trump when Assange was imprisoned under a US arrest warrant. Which if you think about i is kind of like having a sex trafficking victim on your show and then bringing in Ghislaine Maxwell for a balanced perspective.

After Morgan introduced the segment and Assange laid out some facts of her husband’s plight, Bolton was given the floor to explain why persecuting a journalist for telling the truth is actually good and right. He went over the usual smearmeister talking points that Assange is not a journalist and endangered people around the world with his publications exposing US war crimes, adding that the possible 175-year sentence Assange stands to face if convicted under Espionage Act was inadequate, and that he hoped Assange “gets at least 176 years in jail for what he did.”

Stella responded by calling Bolton a war criminal, right to his bloodthirsty face.

“Well of course Ambassador Bolton is kind of the ideological nemesis of Julian,” Assange coolly replied. “He has during his time for the Bush administration, and later the Trump administration, sought to undermine the international legal system, ensure that the US is not under the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. And if it was Mr Bolton might in fact be prosecuted under the ICC: he was one of the chief cheerleaders of the Iraq War, which Julian then exposed through these leaks. So he has a conflict of interest here.”

“Well that’s ridiculous!” Bolton said with a nervous laugh at the accusation. “I have an opinion, so does Assange’s wife; I guess we both get to speak them. You know I think that what she fears is being brought to the United States and having Assange put under trial. If he’s innocent, if she can at least show reasonable doubt that he’s not guilty, he’ll go free. What’s she worried about?”

Morgan interjected that the concern is likely the chance of a fair trial, to which Bolton responded with a demand that Stella herself say that she didn’t believe her husband could receive a fair trial in the United States.

“Let her say that Julian Assange could not get a fair trial in America; let her say it,” Bolton replied.

“Well he cannot get a fair trial in America, because he is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act and he cannot bring a public interest defense,” Assange replied. “He cannot say ‘I published this information because it was in the public interest,’ precisely because it is under the Espionage Act. And it is the first time that a publisher has ever been prosecuted under this act, something that constitutional lawyers in the United States have been warning could happen for the past 50 years. And The New York Times and The Washington Post say this prosecution strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.”

Bolton replied, on no apparent basis, that The New York Times and The Washington Post were wrong and that their position on the Assange case is “dangerous”, and babbled some nonsense about Assange being a “hacker who breaks and enters into secure information.”

“Not even the US alleges that,” Assange replied, entirely correctly.

Find something in life you love doing as much as John Bolton loves trying to start wars. pic.twitter.com/M7zsAyMcCC

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) October 5, 2022

Ahh man, that’s the stuff. It’s so annoying to see this actual war criminal invited on mainstream news networks time and time again to drum up support for increased military aggression in every conflict the US empire is involved in from day to day, without ever being challenged or called out for what he is. For someone to say on mainstream television that he’s a war criminal who just doesn’t want people holding him accountable or shining a light on his crimes is a rare treat for anyone who’s been watching this monster operate all these years.

This is the man who just 24 hours prior to this writing put out an article titled “Putin Must Go: Now Is The Time For Regime Change In Russia,” just the latest in this psychopath’s relentless campaign to start World War III at every possible opportunity. It’s just so freakish and bizarre that there are people whose actual job is to continually work toward creating as much death and destruction in the world as they can, and that they are elevated to the forefront of public attention by the most prominent platforms in the world.

Coming up on #CNLive!
Oct 8 – 12pm EDT

Event: HANDS OFF #ASSANGE
Live from the DoJ

* @YoBenCohen
* @ChrisLynnHedges
* @JohnKiriakou
* @GarlandNixon
* @kgosztola
* @unjoe
* @CredicoRandy
* @dancohen3000
* Scott Ritter
* Steven Donziger

& more!

WATCH👇https://t.co/RgAmb1v5wX pic.twitter.com/H4p8iYPVXO

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) October 4, 2022

🇬🇧LONDON🎗️#SurroundParliament 1pm@DEAcampaign #HumanChain4Assange
w/ solidarity
actions 12h or:
🇦🇺MELB 11h
🇦🇺BENDIGO 11h
🇺🇲DC
🇺🇲DENVER
🇺🇲TULSA
🇺🇲SEATTLE
🇳🇿WELLINGTON
🇧🇪HAMBURG
🇫🇷PARIS 14h
🇨🇦OTTAWA
🇨🇦TORONTO
🇨🇦VICTORIA
🇲🇽MEXICO
🇿🇦PRETORIA
🇧🇷RIO(Online) 16h
🇮🇹Transprt🇬🇧

JOIN US? pic.twitter.com/gGlko9Rpff

— Candles4Assange 🔥🎗️🍀 (@Candles4Assange) October 1, 2022

This happens as Assange supporters prepare to demonstrate for his freedom on October 8th. In the UK a massive human chain to surround Parliament is scheduled for 1PM London time in a show of solidarity with the world’s most important journalist, and from 12PM to 3PM DC time there will be a demonstration at the US Department of Justice with appearances by some of the best humans in the world.

If you can’t attend live you can watch the London event online here and watch the DC event here (set an alarm on your phone right now so you remember). There will also be other Assange events scheduled at or around the same time; check out this link to find one in a city near you.

Connect with Caitlin Johnstone

Thousands of People to Form Human Chain Around U.K. Parliament to Demand Freedom for Assange

Over a dozen #HandsOffAssange protests have been planned in solidarity around the world.

by Elijah Cohen, The Mind Unleashed
October 1, 2022

Over 3,500 people have signed up to form a human chain around British Parliament on Saturday in support of Julian Assange.

More than 3500 people have already pledged to form a human chain to surround parliament in support of Julian Assange on October 8th #SurroundParliament #FreeAssangeNOW #HumanChain

Pledge to join now: https://t.co/zg2EJRXoCl #SurroundParliamentAssange pic.twitter.com/plWsPzqzvR

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 1, 2022

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has now spent more than three years in London’s HM Prison Belmarsh maximum security prison while fighting extradition to the United States.

He is awaiting word on whether he can proceed with his legal fight.

WATCH: Stella Assange Calls on Courage Everywhere in Support of Assange

On Saturday, October 8, 2022 at 1 pm, thousands of supporters will join hands in London to create a Free Assange Human Chain around British Parliament.

As part of a global campaign for Julian’s release, over a dozen international actions have been planned in solidarity, with U.S.-based supporters holding a rally at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC featuring several high-profile speakers.

Actions are also planned for Melbourne, Denver, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Ottawa, and Tulsa with more expected to be announced.

The D.C. protesters will be calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against Julian Assange while also denouncing the U.S. government’s campaign against Assange as supporters around the world demand Hands Off Assange!

The legal matter is in a crucial phase according to John Rees, who is helping to organize the event.

According to Bloomberg, Rees told the PA news agency: “We need to redouble our efforts to persuade the UK Parliament to intervene and halt Julian’s extradition.”

International Federation of Journalists leaders call to free Julian Assange whose prosecution is “a threat to all journalists” @IFJGlobal #FreeAssangeNOW https://t.co/EzaGk9rFkF pic.twitter.com/3H5xhph5jj

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 1, 2022

The demand for U.S. President Joe Biden to abandon Assange’s extradition case is being voiced by an increasing number of human rights groups, journalist organizations, legislators, politicians, and other campaigners.

+2000 journalists have a signed a statement in support of #WikiLeaks Julian Assange: “If the US government can extradite Assange for this, it will clear the way for governments to criminalize any of us, anywhere in the world” Sign: https://t.co/UtODznJSpt pic.twitter.com/v2OhZjhpw0

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 1, 2022

On Saturday, October 1, Assange supporters held a tweet storm across Twitter and other social media platforms drawing attention to Assange’s situation and the upcoming protests.

?️TWEETSTORM ALL DAY?️

Join in and help us spread the word about our upcoming #HandsOffAssange rally in DC on Oct 8th where we will #SurroundDOJ and demand they #FreeAssangeNOW⏳ pic.twitter.com/UFogo3WOFp

— Daniel Deceder⏳ (@danieldeceder) October 1, 2022

WATCH: The Chris Hedges Report: Julian Assange’s Father Speaks Out

To learn more, visit HandsOffAssange.com or search the #HandsOffAssange hashtag on Twitter.

Connect with The Mind Unleashed

Fauci, Top Biden Officials Subpoenaed in Lawsuit Alleging They Colluded With Social Media to Suppress Free Speech

Top-ranking Biden administration officials — including Dr. Anthony Fauci — and five social media giants have 30 days to respond to subpoenas and discovery requests in a lawsuit alleging the government colluded with social media companies to suppress freedom of speech “under the guise of combatting misinformation.”

by Megan Redshaw, The Defender
July 21, 2022

Top-ranking Biden administration officials — including Dr. Anthony Fauci — and five social media giants have 30 days to respond to subpoenas and discovery requests in a lawsuit alleging the government colluded with social media companies to suppress freedom of speech “under the guise of combatting misinformation.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry on Wednesday served third-party subpoenas on Twitter, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Youtube, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Schmitt and Landry on Tuesday filed discovery requests seeking documents and information from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Fauci, its director; White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy; and former Disinformation Governance Board executive director Nina Jankowicz.

Discovery requests also were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its director, Jen Easterly; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“In May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress free speech on topics like COVID-19 and election security,” Schmitt said in Tuesday’s press release.

Schmitt added:

“Earlier this month, a federal court granted our motion for expedited discovery, allowing us to collect important documents from Biden Administration officials. Yesterday, we served discovery requests and today served third-party subpoenas to do exactly that.

“We will fight to get to the bottom of this alleged collusion and expose the suppression of freedom of speech by social media giants at the behest of top-ranking government officials.”

Schmitt announced in a July 12 statement that Terry Doughty, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled in favor of a June 17 motion for expedited preliminary injunction-related discovery and set a timetable with specific deadlines for depositions.

According to Schmitt, government officials “both pressured and colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter and Youtube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation,’ which led to the suppression and censorship of truthful information on several topics, including COVID-19.”

“The Court’s decision cleared the way for Missouri and Louisiana to gather discovery and documents from Biden Administration officials and social media companies,” Schmitt said in a press release on Tuesday.

“The order states, ‘The First Amendment obviously applies to the citizens of Missouri and Louisiana, so Missouri and Louisiana have the authority to assert those rights,’” he said.

In a statement on Twitter announcing the court’s decision to grant the attorneys general’s request, Schmitt said, “No one has had the chance to look under the hood before — now we do.”

BREAKING: A federal court granted our request for discovery & documents from top ranking Biden officials & social media companies to get to the bottom of their collusion to suppress & censor free speech.

No one has had the chance to look under the hood before – now we do. pic.twitter.com/TzrxtC3piN

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 12, 2022

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President Mary Holland, who also serves as CHD general counsel, praised the ruling:

“CHD welcomes this groundbreaking ruling from Judge Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana to discover whether the Biden administration has violated the First Amendment through censorship.

“For two years, CHD and many other media outlets have not been able to comprehend the mechanisms whereby our major media platforms have ruthlessly censored, suppressed and distorted our information.

“Now, through the discovery process that the judge has allowed, we’ll find out how Meta, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have been colluding with the federal government to curb so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’ This is a new day.”

Fauci, CDC, White House press secretary and more must turn over documents

According to the press release, Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Biden and director of the NIAID, was asked to turn over any communications with social media platforms related to content modulation and/or misinformation, and to disclose all meetings with any social media platform related to the subject and to provide all communications with Mark Zuckerberg from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present.

Fauci also must turn over all communications with any social media platform related to the Great Barrington Declaration; the authors and original signers of the Great Barrington Declaration; Dr. Jay Bhattacharya; Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D.; Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, Sunetra Gupta, Ph.D.; Dr. Scott Atlas; Alex Berenson; Peter Daszak, Ph.D.; Shi Zhengli, Ph.D.; the Wuhan Institute of Virology; EcoHealth Alliance; and/or any member of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen,” including CHD chairman and chief legal counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is required to identify every officer, official, employee, staff member, personnel, contractor or any other person associated with the White House communications team who communicated or is communicating with any social media platform related to content modulation and/or misinformation — and to turn over those communications.

Jean-Pierre also must identify all persons who “engage[s] regularly with all social media platforms about steps that can be taken” to address misinformation on social media, which engagement “has continued, and … will continue,” as stated during an April 25 White House press briefing — and turn over all communications with any social media platform involved in such engagement.

Defendant Nina Jankowicz, who was tasked with heading up the Biden administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board” must provide all documents related to communications with social media platforms and content modulation and/or misinformation.

Jankowicz is required to identify the nature, purpose, participants, topics to be discussed and topics actually discussed at the meeting between DHS personnel and Twitter executives Nick Pickles and Yoel Roth scheduled on or around April 28.

The CDC is required to provide the names of every officer, official, employee, staff member, personnel, contractor or agent of CDC or any other federal official or agency who communicated or is communicating with any social media platform regarding content modulation and/or misinformation.

The CDC must disclose communications with any social media platform related to content modulation or misinformation, any meetings that took place with social media platforms related to content modulation and/or misinformation, and must identify all “members of our senior staff” and/or “members of our COVID-19 team” who are “in regular touch with … social media platforms,” as “Jennifer Psaki [former White House press secretary] stated at a White House press briefing on or around July 15, 2021.”

The agency must also disclose all “government experts” who are federal officers, officials, agents, employees or contractors, who have “partnered with” Facebook or any other social media platform to address misinformation and/or content modulation, including all communications relating to such partnerships.

Like Fauci, the CDC must turn over information and communications on the “so-called disinformation dozen,” Great Barrington Declaration, alternative news outlets and key experts and scientists who have spoken out against the government’s approach to treating COVID-19 or mandating face masks and lockdowns.

Meta (Facebook) was “commanded” to produce all communications with any federal official relating to misinformation and/or content modulation, to produce all documents and communications-related actions taken based in whole or in part on information received, directly or indirectly, from any federal official and to produce all communications and documents related to a list of search terms that include Kennedy’s name and/or the names of prominent doctors and physicians who were censored for their views on COVID-19.

Facebook also must disclose meetings, communications and documents related to remarks made by Psaki, who said the White House is “in regular touch with these social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team,” and regarding the White House’s efforts to flag “problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

Similar requests were made to other government officials and social media platforms, including Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Lawsuit alleges collusion to suppress disfavored speakers and viewpoints

Attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri in May filed a lawsuit alleging government defendants “colluded with and/or coerced social media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms by labeling the content ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation’ and ‘malinformation.’”

The count lawsuit alleges social media companies falsely labeled truthful content “disinformation” and “misinformation” and contends the suppression constitutes government action, violating free speech protected by the U.S. constitution.

The complaint also alleges that DHS’ Disinformation Governance Board was created “to induce, label, and pressure the censorship of disfavored content, viewpoints and speakers on social-media platforms,” and that HHS and DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act to “hold unlawful and set aside final agency actions” that are deemed to be an abuse of power and arbitrary and capricious.

The lawsuit provides several examples of truthful information that was censored by social media companies who later admitted the content was truthful or credible.

According to The Epoch Times, the lawsuit could help bring to light the Biden administration’s “behind-the-scenes efforts” to discourage the dissemination of information related to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origins and the efficiency of masks and lockdowns.

©July 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

Connect with The Defender

Documentary: The Reality Behind Conspiracy Theories and Domestic Terrorism

The Reality Behind Conspiracy Theories and Domestic Terrorism

A Canadian Patriot Review Film

by Matthew Ehret, Matt Ehret’s Insights
June 12, 2022

Where “conspiracy theories” were once understood to be the driving force of world history (both for good or for evil), today’s dumbed-down populus has increasingly become induced to believe that the term is synonymous with either insanity at best, or domestic terrorism at worst.

The fact is that the behaviorists attempting to “nudge” humanity into a Great Reset of technocratic feudalism have set their sights on “conspiracy theories” as the primary threat to their agenda which they assert, must be destroyed and subverted through a number of techniques enumerated as early as 2008 by Cass Sunstein (counsellor to Biden’s Department of Homeland Security) in his essay “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures“.

In this Canadian Patriot Review documentary produced and narrated by Ottawa film maker Jason Dahl, the true nature of “conspiracy theories” is explored from Ancient Rome, through the Golden Renaissance, American Revolution and our present age. Rather than seeing conspiracies as solely a negative term as is so often the case, we evaluate both evil as well as positive expressions of this fundamentally human process which literally means “two or more people acting together in accord with an agreed upon idea and intention”.

The film is adapted from the text written by Matthew Ehret titled ‘Will Conspiracy Theorizing Soon Get you Labelled a ‘Domestic Terrorist’?

Watch on Bitchute or Rumble

How Conspiracy Theorizing May Soon Get You Labelled a ‘Domestic Terrorist’

by Matthew Ehret, Canadian Patriot
February 15, 2021

If you are starting to feel like forces controlling the governments of the west are out to get you, then it is likely that you are either a paranoid nut job, or a stubborn realist.

Either way, it means that you have some major problems on your hands.

If you don’t happen to find yourself among the tinfoil hat-wearing strata of conspiracy theorists waiting in a bunker for aliens to either strike down or save society from the shape shifting lizard people, but are rather contemplating how, in the 1960s, a shadow government took control of society over the dead bodies of many assassinated patriots, then certain conclusions tend to arise.

Three Elementary Realizations for Thinking People

The first conclusion you would likely arrive at is that the United States government was just put through the first coup in over 58 years (yes, what happened in 1963 was a coup). Although it is becoming a bit prohibitive to speak such words aloud in polite society, Nancy Pelosi’s official biographer Molly Ball, recently penned a scandalous Time Magazine article entitled ‘The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Elections’ which admitted to this conspiracy saying:

“Even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream- a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.” (Lest you think that this was a subversion of democracy, Ball informs us that “they were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”)

Another conclusion you might come to is that many of the political figures whom you believed were serving those who elected them into office, actually serve the interests of a clique of technocrats and billionaires lusting over the deconstruction of western civilization under something called “a Great Reset”. Where this was brushed off as an unfounded conspiracy theory not long ago, even Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister (and neo-Nazi supporting Rhodes Scholar) Chrystia Freeland decided to become a Trustee of the World Economic Forum just weeks ago. In this role, Freeland joins fellow Oxford technocrat Mark Carney in their mutual endeavor to be a part of the new movement to decarbonize civilization and make feudalism cool again.

Lastly, you might notice that your having arrived at these conclusions is itself increasingly becoming a form of thought-crime punishable in a variety of distasteful ways elaborated by a series of unprecedented new emergency regulations that propose extending the definition of “terrorism”. Those implicated under the new definition will be those broad swaths of citizens of western nations who don’t agree with the operating beliefs of the ruling oligarchy.

Already a 60 day review of the U.S. military is underway to purge the armed forces of all such “thought criminals” while McCarthyite legislation has been drafted to cleanse all government jobs of “conspiracy theorists”.

Another startling announcement from the National Terrorism Advisory Bulletin that domestic terrorists include: “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority [and] perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.”

While not yet fully codified into law (though it will be if not nipped in the bud soon), you can be sure that things are certainly moving fast as, before our very eyes, the right to free speech is being torn to shreds by means of censorship across social media and the internet, cancelling all opinions deemed unacceptable to the ruling class.

The Conspiracy to Subvert Conspiracy Theorizing

This should not come as a surprise, as Biden’s new addition to the Department of Homeland Security is a bizarre figure named Cass Sunstein who famously described exactly what this was going to look like in his infamous 2008 report ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (co-authored with Harvard Law School’s Adrien Vermeule). In this under-appreciated study, the duo foresaw the greatest threat to the ruling elite took the form of “conspiracy theorizing” within the American population using as examples of this delusion: the idea that the government had anything to do with the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, or the planning and execution of 9-11.

Just to be clear, conspiracy literally means ‘two or more people acting together in accord with an agreed upon idea and intention’.

The fact that Vermeule has made a legal career arguing that laws should be interpreted not by the “intentions” of lawgivers, but rather according to cost-benefit analysis gives us a useful insight into the deranged mind of a technocrat and the delusional reasoning that denies the very thing which has shaped literally ALL of human history.

In their “scholarly” essay, the authors wrote “the existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be.” After establishing his case for the threat of conspiracies, Sunstein says that “the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups”.

Not one to simply draw criticisms, the pro-active Sunstein laid out five possible strategies which the social engineers managing the population could deploy to defuse this growing threat saying:

“(1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counter speech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counter speech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help”.

(I’ll let you think about which of these prescriptions were put into action over the ensuing 12 years.)

Cass Sunstein was particularly sensitive to this danger largely because: 1) he was a part of a very ugly conspiracy himself and 2) he is a world-renowned behaviorist.

The Problem of Reality for Behaviorists

As an economic behaviorist and lawyer arguing that all “human rights” should be extended to animals (blurring the line separating human dynamics from the law of the jungle as any fascist must), Sunstein has spent decades trying to model human behavior with computer simulations in an effort to “scientifically manage” such behavior.

As outlined in his book Nudge (co-authored with Nobel Prize winning behaviorist Richard Thaler), Sunstein “discovered” that people tend to organize their behavioral patterns around certain fundamental drives, such as the pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain, and certain Darwinian drives for sex, popularity, desire for conformity, desire for novelty, and greed.

One of the key principles of economic behaviorism which is seen repeated in such popular manuals as Freakonomics, Nudge, Predictably Irrational, The Wisdom of Crowds, and Animal Spirits, is that humans are both biologically determined due to their Darwinian impulses, but, unlike other animals, have the fatal flaw of being fundamentally irrational at their core. Since humans are fundamentally irrational, says the behaviorist, it is requisite that an enlightened elite impose “order” upon society while maintaining the illusion of freedom of choice from below. This is the underlying assumption of Karl Popper’s Open Society doctrine, which was fed to Popper’s protégé George Soros and which animates Soros’ General Theory of Reflexivity and his Oxford-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).

This was at the heart of Obama’s science Czar John Holdren’s call for world government in his 1977 Ecoscience (co-written with his mentor Paul Ehrlich) where the young misanthrope envisioned a future utopic world governed by a scientifically managed master-class saying:

“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime- sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable”.

The caveat: If Darwinian impulses mixed with irrational “animal spirits” were truly all that animated those systems which behaviorists wish to map and manipulate (aka: “nudge” with rewards, punishments), then a scientific priesthood would indeed be a viable and perhaps necessary way to organize the world.

Fortunately, reality is a bit more elegant and dignified than behaviorists wish to admit.

Why Computer Modellers Hate Metaphysics

On a closer inspection of history, we find countless instances where people shape their individual and group behavior around sets of ideas that transcend controllable material impulses. When this happens, those individuals or groups tend to resist adapting to environments created for them. This incredible phenomenon is witnessed empirically in the form of the American Revolution, Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings, Civil Rights movements, and even some bold manifestations of anti-lockdown protests now underway around the world.

Among the most troublesome of those variables which upset computer models are: “Conscience”, “Truth”, “Intentions”, “Soul”, “Honor”, “God”, “Justice”, “Patriotism”, “Dignity”, and “Freedom”.

Whenever individuals shape their identities around these very real, though immaterial (aka: “metaphysical”) principles, they cannot be “nudged” towards pre-determined decisions that defy reason and morality. Adherence to these principles also tends to afford thinking people an important additional edge of creative insight necessary to cut through false explanatory narratives that attempt to hide lies behind the appearance of truth (aka: sophistry).

As witnessed on multiple occasions throughout history, such individuals who value the health of their souls over the intimidating (and extremely malleable) force of popular opinion, will often decide to sacrifice personal comfort and even their lives in order to defend those values which their minds and consciences deem important.

These rare, but invaluable outliers will often resist policies that threaten to undo their freedoms or undermine the basis of their society’s capacity to produce food, and energy for their children and grandchildren. What is worse, is that their example is often extremely contagious causing other members of the sheep class to believe that they too are human and endowed with unalienable rights which should be defended.

The Intentions Ordering World History

Perhaps, most “destructive” of all is that these outlier people tend to look for abstract things like “causes” in historical dynamics shaping the context of their present age, as well as their current geopolitical environment.

Whenever this type of thinking is done, carefully crafted narratives fed to the masses by an enlightened elite will often fail in their powers to persuade, since seekers after truth soon come to realize that IDEAS and intentions (aka: conspiracies) shape our past, present and future. When the dominating intentions shaping society’s trajectory is in conformity with Natural Law, humanity tends to improve, freedoms increase, culture matures and evil loses its hold. Inversely, when the intentions animating history are out of conformity with Natural Law, the opposite happens as societies lose their moral and material fitness to survive and slip ever more quickly into dark ages.

While sitting in a jail in Birmingham Alabama in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described this reality eloquently when he said:

“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust… One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”

From Plato’s organization of his Academy and efforts to shape a Philosopher King to beat the forces of the Persian Empire, to Cicero’s efforts to save the Roman Republic, to Augustine’s battles to save the soul of Christianity all the way to our present age, conspiracies for the good and counter-conspiracies for evil have shaped history. If one were to begin an investigation into history without an understanding that ideas and intentions caused the trajectory of history, as is the standard practice among history professors dominant in todays world, then one would become incapable of understanding anything essential about one’s own reality.

It is irrelevant that behaviorists and other fascists wish their victims to believe that history just happens simply because random short-sighted impulses kinetically drive events on a timeline- the truth of my claim exists for any serious truth seeker to discover it for themselves.

Back to our Present Sad State of Affairs

Now we all know that Sunstein spent the following years working as Obama’s Regulatory Czar alongside an army of fellow behaviorists who took control of all levers of policy making as outlined by Time Magazine’s April 13, 2009 article ‘How Obama is Using the Science of Change’. As the fabric of western civilization, and traditional values of family, gender, and even macro economic concepts like “development” were degraded during this period, the military industrial complex had a field day as Sunstein’s wife Samantha Power worked closely with Susan Rice in the promotion of “humanitarian bombings” of small nations under Soros’ Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

After the Great Reset Agenda was announced in June 2020, Sunstein was recruited to head the propaganda wing of the World Health Organization known as the WHO Technical Advisory Group where his skills in mass behavior modification was put to use in order to counteract the dangerous spread of conspiracy theories that persuaded large chunks of the world population that COVID-19 was part of a larger conspiracy to undermine national sovereignty and impose world government.

The head of WHO described Sunstein’s mandate in the following terms:

“In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are using a range of tools to influence behavior: Information campaigns are one tool, but so are laws, regulations, guidelines and even fines…That’s why behavioral science is so important.”

Today, hundreds of Obama-era behaviorists have streamed back into influential positions of government under the new “scientifically managed”, evidence-based governance coming back to life under Biden promising to undo the dark days of President Trump.

Ideologues who have been on record calling for world government, the elimination of the sick and elderly (see Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emmanuel’s Why I Hope to Die At 75), and population control are streaming back into positions of influence. If you think that anything they have done to return to power is unlawful, or antithetical to the principles of the Constitution, then these technocrats want you to know that you are a delusional conspiracy theorist and as such, represent a potential threat to yourself and the society of which you are but a part.

If you question World Health Organization narratives on COVID-19, or doubt the use of vaccines produced by organizations like Astra Zeneca due to their ties to eugenics organizations then you are a delusional conspiracy theorist.

If you doubt that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide or that implementing the Paris Climate accords may cause more damage to humanity than climate change ever could, then you must be a conspiracy theorist.

If you believe that the U.S. government just went through a regime change coordinated by something called “the deep state”, then you run the risk of being labelled a delusional threat to “the general welfare” deserving of the sort of treatment dolled out to any typical terrorist.

It appears that the many comforts we have taken for granted over the past 50-year drunken stupor called “globalization” are quickly coming to an end, and thankfully not one but two opposing intentions for what the new operating system will be are actively vying for control. This clash was witnessed in stark terms during the January 2021 Davos Summit, where Xi Jinping and Putin’s call for a new system of win-win cooperation, multipolarity and long-term development offset the unipolar zero-sum ideologues of the west seeking to undo the foundations of industrial civilization.

Either way you look at it, conspiracies for good and for evil do exist now, as they have from time immemorial. The only question is which intention do you want to devote your life towards?

Connect with Matthew Ehret at Substack

Connect with Matthew Ehret at The Canadian Patriot

Suppressing Scientific Discourse on Vaccines? Self-perceptions of Researchers and Practitioners

The deliberate dismantling of science didn’t start two years ago

by Josh Guetzkow, Jackanapes Junction
May 19, 2022

In late 2019, I joined two other Israeli criminologists and a health risk communications expert in a research project to study the suppression of scientific dissent around the topic of vaccines. At the time, none of us could have ever imagined what was looming right around the corner.

Two of them (Natti Ronel and Ety Elisha) had written a review of a Hebrew-language book called “Turtles All The Way Down,” which was a critical review of vaccine safety science. The thing about the book is that it was published anonymously, as the author(s) feared the potential retribution that might ensue.

Their review was published in the Hebrew-language journal, Medicine (Refuah), which is the journal of the Israeli Medical Association, sort of like the Israeli equivalent of JAMA. I won’t go into how it ever got published in the book review section, but the review simply focused on the absurdity of a scientist who felt the need to publish a scientific book anonymously due to fear of the consequences. Ironically, the publication of the review caused a huge uproar (you can read more about that here where it was covered in Science), and the review itself was retracted, or more precisely it simply disappeared from the on-line version of the journal.

So we started a project to study the phenomena of scientific censorship and suppression of scientific dissent in the field of vaccines by interviewing scientists and doctors who had either had their papers retracted or who had faced attempts to suppress their views. Notably, the only retracted papers in the field of vaccinology that we could identify all raised questions about the safety of vaccines. And this was all BEFORE the COVID pandemic hit. (We’ve got another one that covers the COVID period that should be coming out fairly soon.)

In other words, everything it describes happened before the pandemic. The censorship and suppression we’ve witnessed these last two years already existed — it has only kicked into overdrive. The deliberate dismantling of science didn’t start two years ago.

If it isn’t clear why criminologists would be interested in this topic, consider the following general definition of crime: force or fraud in the pursuit of self-interest.

So without further ado, you can read both papers embedded (hopefully) below:

Elisha, Guetzkow, Shir-Raz and Ronel. 2022. “Suppressing Scientific Discourse on Vaccines? Self-perceptions of researchers and practitioners.” HEC Forum. [Download PDF] or [Read/Download PDF]

Elisha, Guetzkow, Shir-Raz and Ronel. 2021. “Retraction of scientific papers: the case of vaccine research.” Critical Public Health. [Download PDF] or [Read/Download PDF]

Connect with Josh Guetzkow

cover image credit: Pezibear / pixabay

Get Ready to Be Muzzled: The Coming War on So-Called Hate Speech

by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
May 18, 2022

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.”
—Benjamin Franklin

Beware of those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech.

Especially be on your guard when the reasons given for limiting your freedoms end up expanding the government’s powers.

In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, carried out by an 18-year-old gunman in military gear allegedly motivated by fears that the white race is in danger of being replaced, there have been renewed calls for social media monitoring, censorship of flagged content that could be construed as dangerous or hateful, and limitations on free speech activities, particularly online.

As expected, those who want safety at all costs will clamor for more gun control measures (if not at an outright ban on weapons for non-military, non-police personnel), widespread mental health screening of the general population and greater scrutiny of military veterans, more threat assessments and behavioral sensing warnings, more surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities, more “See Something, Say Something” programs aimed at turning Americans into snitches and spies, more metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices at soft targets, more roaming squads of militarized police empowered to do random bag searches, more fusion centers to centralize and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies, and more surveillance of what Americans say and do, where they go, what they buy and how they spend their time.

All of these measures play into the government’s hands.

As we have learned the hard way, the phantom promise of safety in exchange for restricted or regulated liberty is a false, misguided doctrine that serves only to give the government greater authority to crack down, lock down, and institute even more totalitarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Add the Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board” to that mix, empower it to monitor online activity and police so-called “disinformation,” and you have the makings of a restructuring of reality straight out of Orwell’s 1984, where the Ministry of Truth polices speech and ensures that facts conform to whatever version of reality the government propagandists embrace.

After all, it’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth.

Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act.

If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

It’s been a long time since free speech was actually free.

On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak.

In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—may allow.

That’s not a whole lot of freedom, especially if you’re inclined to voice opinions that may be construed as conspiratorial or dangerous.

This steady, pervasive censorship creep clothed in tyrannical self-righteousness and inflicted on us by technological behemoths (both corporate and governmental) is technofascism, and it does not tolerate dissent.

These internet censors are not acting in our best interests to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns. They’re laying the groundwork now to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

The internet, hailed as a super-information highway, is increasingly becoming the police state’s secret weapon. This “policing of the mind” is exactly the danger author Jim Keith warned about when he predicted that “information and communication sources are gradually being linked together into a single computerized network, providing an opportunity for unheralded control of what will be broadcast, what will be said, and ultimately what will be thought.”

What we are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideas—legitimate or not—and the people who espouse them.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.

Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry—mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all—we have nowhere left to go and nothing left to say that cannot be misconstrued and used to muzzle us.

Yet what a lot of people fail to understand, however, is that it’s not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you think that is being tracked and targeted.

We’ve already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime legislation that cracks down on so-called “hateful” thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on various subject matter.

With every passing day, we’re being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called “government speech.”

Little by little, Americans have been conditioned to accept routine incursions on their freedoms.

This is how oppression becomes systemic, what is referred to as creeping normality, or a death by a thousand cuts.

It’s a concept invoked by Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist Jared Diamond to describe how major changes, if implemented slowly in small stages over time, can be accepted as normal without the shock and resistance that might greet a sudden upheaval.

Diamond’s concerns related to Easter Island’s now-vanished civilization and the societal decline and environmental degradation that contributed to it, but it’s a powerful analogy for the steady erosion of our freedoms and decline of our country right under our noses.

As Diamond explains, “In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism… Why didn’t they look around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?”

His answer: “I suspect that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper.”

Much like America’s own colonists, Easter Island’s early colonists discovered a new world—“a pristine paradise”—teeming with life. Yet almost 2000 years after its first settlers arrived, Easter Island was reduced to a barren graveyard by a populace so focused on their immediate needs that they failed to preserve paradise for future generations.

The same could be said of the America today: it, too, is being reduced to a barren graveyard by a populace so focused on their immediate needs that they are failing to preserve freedom for future generations.

In Easter Island’s case, as Diamond speculates:

“The forest…vanished slowly, over decades. Perhaps war interrupted the moving teams; perhaps by the time the carvers had finished their work, the last rope snapped. In the meantime, any islander who tried to warn about the dangers of progressive deforestation would have been overridden by vested interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs depended on continued deforestation… The changes in forest cover from year to year would have been hard to detect… Only older people, recollecting their childhoods decades earlier, could have recognized a difference. Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm.”

Sound painfully familiar yet?

We’ve already torn down the rich forest of liberties established by our founders. It has vanished slowly, over the decades. Those who warned against the dangers posed by too many laws, invasive surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids and the like have been silenced and ignored. They stopped teaching about freedom in the schools. Few Americans know their history. And even fewer seem to care that their fellow Americans are being jailed, muzzled, shot, tasered, and treated as if they have no rights at all.

The erosion of our freedoms happened so incrementally, no one seemed to notice. Only the older generations, remembering what true freedom was like, recognized the difference. Gradually, the freedoms enjoyed by the citizenry became fewer, smaller and less important. By the time the last freedom falls, no one will know the difference.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls: with a thousand cuts, each one justified or ignored or shrugged over as inconsequential enough by itself to bother, but they add up.

Each cut, each attempt to undermine our freedoms, each loss of some critical right—to think freely, to assemble, to speak without fear of being shamed or censored, to raise our children as we see fit, to worship or not worship as our conscience dictates, to eat what we want and love who we want, to live as we want—they add up to an immeasurable failure on the part of each and every one of us to stop the descent down that slippery slope.

We are on that downward slope now.

The contagion of fear that has been spread with the help of government agencies, corporations and the power elite is poisoning the well, whitewashing our history, turning citizen against citizen, and stripping us of our rights.

America is approaching another reckoning right now, one that will pit our commitment to freedom principles against a level of fear-mongering that is being used to wreak havoc on everything in its path.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, while we squabble over which side is winning this losing battle, a tsunami approaches.

Connect with The Rutherford Institute

cover image credit: CDD20

James Corbett’s Solutions Watch: How to Get Around the Digital Iron Curtain

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
March 24, 2022

As the battle lines are drawn in the new cold war, a digital iron curtain is descending across the internet. Governments are increasingly cracking down on the net and attempting to limit what websites you can access. Today James walks you through some basic steps you can take to draw back the curtain and peek at the information that the censors don’t want you to see.

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Minds / Odysee or Download the mp4

SHOW NOTES:

EU bans RT, Sputnik over Ukraine disinformation

Russia blocks access to Facebook and Twitter

Russia blocks Instagram over ‘death to invaders’ posting rule; files criminal case against Meta

How Do I Find Broken Links? – Questions For Corbett #075

How to Find Deleted Videos – Questions For Corbett #081

Censorship: Rejecting a One-Sided Argument

Putin meets ‘old friend’ Kissinger visiting Russia

Episode 416 – SHOCKING Document Reveals Trudeau’s REAL Plan!

Speeding Up Evolution | Putin calls for transforming Russia into digital, AI tech

Sputnik V: What you’re not being told

Russia’s Gamaleya Research, UK-Swedish Astrazeneca Sign Memorandum of Cooperation in COVID-19 Fight

RT on Odysee / BitChute

Connect with James Corbett

cover image credit: geralt / pixabay

Things Get Serious: Dutch Critic Arrested

by Uwe Alschner, Children’s Health Defense Europe
March 19, 2022

Willem Engel is a scientist and one of the most prominent critics against the disproportionality of the measures against the so-called Corona pandemic in the Netherlands. In addition to his Viruswaarheid site, which publishes information that critically examines and questions the narrative of the pandemic, Willem Engel has established a reputation as an activist on the streets as well as in the courtroom. In doing so, he may have caused some discomfort for Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, whose credibility is already severely tarnished.

Welkom bij de politiestaat der Nederlanden. Als mensen het systeem door hebben worden ze opgesloten. #freeWillem #demonstratie #politiebureau #marconiplein pic.twitter.com/SEjJr4brcv

— Dorien Rose Duinker (@dorienrose) March 16, 2022

On March 16, 2022, Willem Engel was suddenly arrested like a felon on the open street and handcuffed. What exactly he was accused of did not seem to be clear to the surprised Engel. His companion, who documented the event on video, asked irritably whether such a harsh crackdown on a law-abiding citizen was proportionate.

Two things seem remarkable in this context:

Willem Engel, together with his partner and lawyer Jeroen Poels, had recently documented the Dutch government’s close ties with the World Economic Forum in an extensive broadcast, also discussing aspects such as eugenics and treason. Head of government Rutte was probably not amused by this.

Then, a day before the arrest, posts suddenly appeared on Twitter accusing Willem Engel of spreading misinformation and calling him a “Putin supporter”.

Dear @TwitterSupport @TwitterSafety please delete @dancalegria as this account is constantly spreading fake news about Covid19 + the war in Ukraine and also supports Vladimir Putin in his crime against humanity.#pleaseactnow #banforlife #stopit pic.twitter.com/jDUPjKbPGj

— Norbert Dikkeboom (@NDikkeboom) March 14, 2022

As a result, the police are said to have received numerous complaints against Engel, prompting them to intervene. However, there is official confirmation of this only insofar as the officers spoke of charges against Engel during the arrest.

Today, after I became aware of what had happened, I wrote the following email to the Ambassador of the Netherlands in Berlin, Ronald van Roeden:

His Excellency Ronald van Roeden

Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Federal Republic of Germany
Klosterstrasse 50
10117 Berlin

by eMail: bln@minbuza.nl
by Fax: +49 30 2095 6401

Dear Mr. Ambassador
Dear Madam and Sir,

With some astonishment I have received the news that the Dutch citizen Willem Engel has been arrested under pretext and taken to Hoogvliet prison in Rotterdam.

According to unconfirmed reports, Mijnheer Engel is accused of inciting crimes against public institutions. In view of the extraordinarily peaceful and affectionate way of expressing himself over many years, these accusations seem more than doubtful. The suspicion arises that Willem Engel may have become inconvenient to authorities because of his persistent criticism of what were, in effect, unscientific and disproportionate measures to “contain” the “pandemic,” and therefore the imprisonment may have been an intimidation and a “warning shot.”

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is home to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Deprivation of liberty without cause would be extraordinarily embarrassing for this very reason. Also, constructing a reason for arrest would be wholly inappropriate for a member state of the European Union, which is a signatory to the UN Charter on Human Rights.

All that Willem Engel has done in the past two years has been to uphold the right to life, liberty and security of all people under Article 3 of the UN Charter on Human Rights, Article 30 of which prohibits all members from abusing human rights to deny other rights to their citizens.

I therefore ask you, as representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Federal Republic of Germany, to use your influence in the Netherlands to work for the observance of human rights in general and in particular for the observance of human rights in the case of Willem Engel. Please keep me informed about the progress of the case!

With the expression of my highest consideration

Dr. Uwe Alschner

Those who wish to send encouragement and expressions of solidarity to Willem Engel can send them to this address:

PI Hoogvliet (Stadsgevangenis)
Koddeweg 100
3194 DH Hoogvliet Rotterdam.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children’s Health Defense Europe.

©March 2022, Children’s Health Defense Europe, A.S.B.L.. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, A.S.B.L.. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense Europe? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Senta Depuydt and the Children’s Health Defense Europe team. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

Connect with Children’s Health Defense Europe

DuckDuckGo Search Engine Is Now Manipulating Results — Brave Search and Presearch Are Still Committed to Providing Unbiased Search Results

Brave Search and Presearch say they don’t censor search results

The announcements followed DuckDuckGo ending its neutrality.

by Tom Parker, Reclaim the Net
March 10, 2022

After DuckDuckGo announced that it would be abandoning its years-long commitment to “unbiased” search results by down-ranking “Russian disinformation,” two alternative search engines, Brave Search and Presearch, have committed to not censoring their search results.

Brendan Eich, the CEO of Brave Software (the company behind the privacy-focused Brave browser, Brave Search, and other products), told journalist and producer Naomi Brockwell that Brave Search doesn’t censor its results and detailed how Brave Search is expanding its own search index.

Currently, over 90% of Brave Search’s queries are provided by its independent search index which was built from scratch. Eich noted that Brave Search currently relies on Bing for the less than 10% of queries where it doesn’t have good results and acknowledged that this fallback “could be censored.”

“We’ll get to full independence,” Eich added. “Fallback necessary rn, but fades.”

Eich continued by noting that Brave Search has an “Info” link above each search results page (which shows whether all the search results on the page came from the Brave Search index) and a “Search results independence” percentage in Brave Search’s settings (which shows the percentage of all Brave Search results that currently come from its independent index).

Presearch, a private, decentralized, blockchain-powered search engine, also tweeted that it “doesn’t censor.”

Presearch added: “That’s the power of decentralized, unbiased search. The need for decentralized, unbiased search will only grow from here.”

As Presearch notes in its tweets, its search indexes are built and hosted by a decentralized network of node operators. It’s also open-source which means users can contribute code that’s shown its search results pages.

In addition to the commitment to not censoring their results, both search engines have several unique aspects and features that enhance your search experience.

Brave Search has search shortcuts (which let you quickly jump to search results on a specific site), visual autosuggest, search filters (that let you filter by format, date, country, and more), featured snippets, and shelves that highlight recent news and videos.

Presearch has an integrated PRE cryptocurrency that’s used to reward node operators and users and can be staked by advertisers who want to display ads against specific keywords. It also has knowledge panels, a news shelf, a video shelf, quick links to related articles and related searches, search filters (that let you filter by image, video, or news), and quick links for conducting your searches via other sites.

You can start searching with Brave Search here.

You can start searching with Presearch here.

Connect with Reclaim the Net

Jan. 6 Defendant Takes His Own Life, Died of ‘Broken Heart,’ Family Says

Matthew Perna, 37, was prosecuted for his 20-minute walk through the US Capitol

by Joseph M. Hanneman, The Epoch Times
February 27 (updated February 28), 2022

Matthew L. Perna, a Pennsylvania man prosecuted for his 20-minute walk through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, took his own life on Feb. 25 due to “a broken heart” and a justice system that “killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his family said.

Perna, 37, of Sharpsville, was due to be sentenced on April 1 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a plea agreement on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering, and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. One charge is a felony and the others are misdemeanors.

Perna learned that prosecutors would seek an even longer jail sentence based on “domestic terrorism deterrence,” Julie Kelly of American Greatness wrote on Twitter on Feb. 27.

“His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his online obituary reads.

“He didn’t break, touch, or steal anything. He did not harm anyone, as he stayed within the velvet ropes taking pictures,” the obituary said. “For this act, he has been persecuted by many members of his community, friends, relatives, and people who had never met him.”

‘His Spirit Died’

“The constant delays in hearings and postponements dragged out for over a year,” the obituary said. “Because of this, Matt’s heart broke and his spirit died, and many people are responsible for the pain he endured.

Geri Perna, Matthew Perna’s aunt, said the tragedy was “beyond devastating.”“Matt did not have a hateful bone in his body. He embraced people of all races, income brackets, and beliefs, never once berating anyone for having different views.”

“He was the kindest person you ever met,” she told The Epoch Times. “He was not like some of those rioters who went there acting obnoxious. No, that wasn’t our Matthew.”

Geri said the family never understood why the U.S. Department of Justice filed a felony charge in the case.

“He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have an altercation with police officers. He didn’t break anything or steal anything or take anything,” she said.

The prosecutor’s sentencing recommendations haven’t been posted online yet. Charging documents said Perna and Stephen Ayres entered the Capitol at 2:47 p.m., nearly 30 minutes after Congress adjourned due to rioting, and nearly an hour after Vice President Mike Pence’s motorcade was seen leaving the Capitol, court records show. Perna remained in the building for 20 minutes, filming with his phone.

At one point during his time in the Capitol, according to a government “statement of facts,” on Jan. 18, 2021, Perna “became frustrated and, using a metal pole, tapped on a window of the Capitol building.” Court records don’t allege that he damaged the window or any other property, or committed any violent or disruptive acts.

Prosecutors wrote that Perna wore a red Make America Great Again sweatshirt and chanted “USA! USA! USA!” while filming with his phone.

Perna later uploaded an 8-minute video to Facebook, in which he allegedly said, “It’s not over, trust me. The purpose of today was to expose Pence as a traitor.”

Two unnamed informants who said they were familiar with Perna called the FBI on Jan. 13, 2021, after recognizing him in videos posted online. One alleged that Perna purchased a handgun in the previous several months, court records show. There is no indication Perna had any type of weapon with him on Jan. 6, even if the informant’s allegation was true.

The second informant “believed he [Perna] was a conspiracy theorist and supported Q-Anon,” the FBI said in court documents. Prosecutors described Q as a “sprawling, discredited, anti-establishment conspiracy theory” that says the world is run by “a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles and child traffickers.”Two unnamed informants who said they were familiar with Perna called the FBI on Jan. 13, 2021, after recognizing him in videos posted online. One alleged that Perna purchased a handgun in the previous several months, court records show. There is no indication Perna had any type of weapon with him on Jan. 6, even if the informant’s allegation was true.

Charging documents said the ‘Q’ theory is a “false belief.”

Perna approached the FBI on Jan. 14, 2021, as soon as he heard that his photo was posted as No. 73 on the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted list. He met with agents at his home the same day. He told them the Capitol doors were wide open when he approached the building, and that a group behind him and Ayres was pushing forward to get in.

Matthew Perna went to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 to “peacefully stand up for his beliefs,” the obituary said.

Matthew Lawrence Perna was born in March 1984 to Lawrence and Veronica Perna. He graduated from Sharpsville High School in 2002 and later earned a degree from Penn State University. He taught English to children in Thailand and South Korea, his obituary said. He traveled widely in Europe, Asia, South America, India, and around the United States. His mother, Veronica ‘Roni’ Perna, 59, died in March 2015.

Jan. 6 Takes a Grim Toll

One prominent Jan. 6 defendant took to Twitter on Feb. 27 to say he understands the pressure that Perna must have felt with his case dragging on so long.

“I don’t know Matthew Perna, haven’t studied his case or accusations against him. But he’s killed himself & I understand why,” wrote Brandon Straka, the founder of the WalkAway campaign that encourages liberals to leave the Democratic Party. “I had the same thoughts many times this past year. The deafening silence of Republicans & conservative media for ppl dragged through this hell is unbearable.”

Straka was sentenced in January to three years of probation and fined $5,000 as part of a plea agreement on one count of engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in a Capitol building.

Perna’s suicide is a grim reminder of the ongoing toll from Jan. 6 and its aftermath.

Read the full article at Epoch Times

Connect with The Epoch Times

cover image sourced from Matthew L. Perna obituary

The New York Times’ Disgraceful and Deceitful Attack on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

by Edward Curtin, Behind the Curtain
March 2, 2022

The New York Times, floundering in the deep waters of truth and desperately trying to stay afloat in the shallows by continuing its history of lying for its CIA masters, has just published a front page of propaganda worthy of the finest house organs of totalitarian regimes. Right below its February 26, 2022 headline denouncing Russia and Putin as evil dogs pursuant to the American empire’s dictates concerning Ukraine, it posts an unflattering photo of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sandwiched between American flags with the title of its hit piece, “A Kennedy’s Crusade Against Covid Vaccines Anguishes Family and Friends.”

It’s an exquisite juxtaposition: Putin as Hitler and Kennedy as a junior demon, suggestive of the relationship between C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters. Evil personified.

The Times is big into anguish these days, not only for Nazis in Ukraine and upper class apartment hunters who can’t find a place for less than a few million, but for Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s family and friends. It’s very touching. That his sister, Kerry Kennedy, would harshly criticize him once again is genuinely pathetic, but of course she has to add how much she loves him, ostensibly to take the sting out of her inability to remain sisterly silent.

If he is so wrong about his work with Children’s Health Defense and his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, rather than ripping him to the press, why doesn’t she or her siblings, who agree with her, write a comprehensive article or book refuting his facts?

They don’t because they can’t; so the next best thing is to criticize their brother to media glad for any way to disparage the Kennedys. One senses a very weird masochistic family dynamic at work.

Kennedy’s siblings do not seem to understand why the media have been attacking him for years. His stance on vaccines and Anthony Fauci are the cover story they use to criticize him, and his siblings don’t get it. That their brother has become a major thorn in the side of the CIA escapes them, the CIA that has caused so much devastation to their family and the world. The CIA that has been deeply involved in the global vaccine push, working with medical technocrats like Anthony Fauci, billionaires such as Bill Gates, the military, media, Big Pharma, the World Economic Forum, etc. Calling your brother brilliant while ignoring his book’s searing, evidence-based indictment of the intelligence-run Covid-19 operation is more than sad, especially when doing so to The New York Times, the CIA’s paper of record together with The Washington Post.

Character assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is what the CIA and its media mouthpieces have been doing for years. This has become more and more necessary as they have realized the great growing danger he poses to their agenda. Calling him an anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist, and names far worse, is part of a concerted smear campaign to turn the public away from his message, which is multi-faceted and supported by deep research and impeccable logic. Like his father and uncle, he has become an irrepressibly eloquent opponent of the demonic forces intent on destroying the democratic dream.

The Times article by Adam Nagourney is a blatant hatchet job filled with sly jabs, innuendos, and ignorant lies. As is par for the course, his hack piece completely avoids Kennedy’s arguments but relies on a form of social gossip that substitutes for logic and evidence. He seems to have learned much from The National Enquirer and The New York Post’s “Page Six” whose styles the NY Times has emulated.

Nagourney tells the reader that RFK, Jr.’s work as the face of the vaccine resistance movement has “tested,” “rattled,” “anguished,” and “mystified” family, friends and his Hollywood crowd; that this man “of the often troubled life” …. “has effectively used his talent and one of the most prominent names in American political history as a platform for fueling resistance to vaccines that could save countless lives.”

Translation: Kennedy, a Hollywood hobnobber and former drug addict, is so mentally unbalanced that he will betray his family and friends and kill people with medical advice that runs counter to the truth.

No evidence is required to establish this “truth,” just Nagourney’s word and those of those he can get to say the same thing, in other words. Such as:

His conduct ‘undercuts 50 years of public health vaccine practice, and he’s done it in a way I’ve never see [sic] anyone else do it,’ said Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. ‘He is among the most dangerous because of the credibility of who he is and what his family name has brought to this issue.’

Notice the implication: that these experimental mRNA so-called vaccines have been around 50 years and Kennedy is against all vaccines, both of which are false.

Furthermore, Nagourney says RFK, Jr. not only “inveighs” against vaccines, especially Covid vaccinations, but has adopted other weird “unorthodox” views (implication: orthodox views are good) over the years.

One is his claim that Sirhan Sirhan did not kill his father Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Nagourney might do a smidgen of research and discover that Kennedy is correct; but doing so would disrupt the flow of his ad hominem attack. All serious writers on the case know that the senator was not shot by Sirhan; they know there are deep CIA connections to the assassination. The evidence conclusively proves, as the autopsy has shown, that Sirhan was in front of the senator when he fired his pistol but RFK was shot from the rear at very close range with all bullets entering his body from the rear. Nagourney either knows nothing about the assassination or is dissembling the facts, which must be “unorthodox.”

Sounding like a U.S. government spokesmen telling the press something is true without an iota of evidence, he writes the following sentence as if it were true simply because he wrote it, while making sure not to mention the book’s title – The Real Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy – a brilliant, deeply researched and sourced book The Times will not review:

In a best-selling new book, he claimed that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who is President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, were in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry to profiteer off dangerous vaccines.

Notice Nagourney’s insidious method. State RFK’s claim as if it’s false because Nagourney stated it, when in fact it is so abundantly true and backed up by massive evidence that if Nagourney dared to engage in actual journalism by checking Kennedy’s book he would discover it. But his job is not to search for truth but to defile a man’s reputation. He accuses Kennedy of circulating false information on the coronavirus and the vaccines but of course doesn’t say what that is or why it is false.

His entire article is an ad hominem attack by statement with the author cunningly hidden behind deceitful objectivity.

He writes:

To the public distress of his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, Mr. Kennedy invoked Anne Frank, the young German-Dutch diarist who died in a Nazi prison camp, as he compared government measures for containing the pandemic with the Holocaust at that rally in Washington.

However, that is not what he said. He said that during the Holocaust Anne Frank could hide for a while and others could flee out of Germany, but with the new “turnkey totalitarianism” being introduced today, which is technological, it will be harder to escape, for every aspect of life will be monitored by the authorities in a digital dystopia. Such a perspective is in no way unusual, for it is shared by many scholars of technology and only the most naïve would consider it eccentric. His point and words were twisted to serve others’ purposes and to paint him as an insensitive Holocaust denier. Here’s what he said:

What we’re seeing today is what I call turnkey totalitarianism. They are putting in place all of these technological mechanisms for control we’ve never seen before. It’s been the ambition of every totalitarian state since the beginning of mankind to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought and to obliterate dissent. None of them have been able to do it. They didn’t have the technological capacity.

Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did. I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died … but it was possible.

Yet his sister Kerry also ripped him for making a statement that was clearly true if you accept his argument about the technological lockdowns in progress. You can disagree (I don’t) but to impugn his intentions and his words is really despicable, but Nagourney adds it to his ad hominem attacks, making sure to include his sister Kerry’s Tweet:

Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and repulsive. I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric.

Nagourney: “ Even his most prominent critics say they do not doubt his sincerity, even as he has become one of the most prominent spreaders of misinformation on vaccines.”

Translation: RFK, Jr. means well but he’s deluded.

Big Daddy Fauci is introduced to tell the young whippersnapper the following after Kennedy delivered a briefing at The National Institutes of Health:

When it was over, Dr. Fauci walked Mr. Kennedy out of the conference room.

“I said, ‘Bobby, I’m sorry we didn’t come to any agreement here,’” he said. “‘Although I disagree factually with everything you are saying, I do understand and I respect that deep down you are really concerned about the safety of children.’ I said that in a very sincere way.”

Condescension and sincerity overflow as the “conspiracy theorist” patient is told by the good doctor that he means well but needs help.

Then, making sure to include The New York Times endlessly repeated CIA talking point, our no-nothing author writes:

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his uncle, in 1963, when Robert was 9, helped foster a modern culture of conspiracy theories. Now, many of the arguments that Mr. Kennedy has embraced — including that Dr. Fauci is part of a “historic coup d’état against Western democracy” — recall the theories of a secret assassin helping Lee Harvey Oswald from the grassy knoll in Dallas.

That it was the CIA that weaponized the use of the term “conspiracy theory” in a 1967 dispatch – #1035-960 – in order to disparage those questioning The Warren Commission and it’s cover-up of the CIA’s role in JFK’s assassination is another fact that our fair-minded scribe conveniently omits while insidiously implying that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. Yes, there are magic bullets and magical tricks used to make sure RFK, Jr. is seen as a “sincere” nutcase.

RFK, Jr. has been and is an astute critic of the CIA and all its machinations, including its involvement in the assassinations of his uncle JFK, his father Senator Robert F. Kennedy, its involvement in the COVID propaganda, and in its extensive deadly deeds and disinformation at home and abroad. His critical siblings praise him for his great intelligence and political acumen but seem clueless themselves. So they ally with the same media that have been stenographers for the CIA. The Kennedy family may be very well known, but in these ways they are very typical of American families that are divided by those who know and those who don’t know who the real devils are.

But let me make two final points about this sickening piece of character assassination.

RFK, Jr. has spent decades as an environmental lawyer fighting the pollution of our air, earth, and water. In other words, the pollution also of human beings who live in nature while nature lives in us. Some people know the outside and the inside are connected. Yet Nagourney bemoans the tragic turn he took from such good work with the environment to such terrible work with Children’s Health Defense and vaccines. He writes:

The swerve in Mr. Kennedy’s career, from the environment to vaccines, is particularly startling because for many family members and other Kennedy associates, Robert Kennedy Jr. is the sibling who most recalls the level of charisma and political appeal of his late father.

Startling? No, very consistent for one who can think. There is an obvious link between the major corporate polluters of the outside environment and the major polluters of human bodies. Big pharmaceutical, oil, chemical, agribusiness, military, etc. are an interrelated lot of criminal enterprises despoiling all life on earth. Kennedy’s lifetime work has followed a natural trajectory and underlying it all is his critique of the CIA and its media accomplices, such as The New York Times.

Yes, those family and friends who say he’s brilliant are right, and he is following in his father’s footsteps in ways they do not grasp; for he is able to connect the dots, diagnose the patterns, and expose with facts the criminal syndicates that are destroying democracy and so many lives.

The reason The New York Times publishes hit pieces like this and does not review his recent books is because his critique of these nefarious forces has gained a large audience and as a result many people are awakening to the truths concealed by the likes of “the paper of record” with its propaganda.

Hit pieces like Nagourney’s should cause anyone reading it intense “anguish.” There is nothing “mystifying” about it.

It’s simply disgraceful and deceitful.

Connect with Edward Curtin

cover image credit: Adam63 / Wikimedia Commons

The Mind Control Police: The Government’s War on Thought Crimes and Truth-Tellers

by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
February 15, 2022

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”— George Orwell

The U.S. government, which speaks in a language of force, is afraid of its citizenry.

What we are dealing with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it is conspiring to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority.

All of us are in danger.

In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

In the government’s latest assault on those who criticize the government—whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought—the Biden Administration has likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists.

The next part is the kicker.

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest terrorism bulletin, “These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

You see, the government doesn’t care if what you’re sharing is fact or fiction or something in between. What it cares about is whether what you’re sharing has the potential to make people think for themselves and, in the process, question the government’s propaganda.

Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers.

For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

According to one FBI latest report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.

This latest government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative.

You don’t have to be a Joe Rogan questioning COVID-19 to get called out, cancelled and classified as an extremist.

There’s a whole spectrum of behaviors ranging from thought crimes and hate speech to whistleblowing that qualifies for persecution (and prosecution) by the Deep State.

Simply liking or sharing this article on Facebook, retweeting it on Twitter, or merely reading it or any other articles related to government wrongdoing, surveillance, police misconduct or civil liberties might be enough to get you categorized as a particular kind of person with particular kinds of interests that reflect a particular kind of mindset that might just lead you to engage in a particular kinds of activities and, therefore, puts you in the crosshairs of a government investigation as a potential troublemaker a.k.a. domestic extremist.

Chances are, as the Washington Post reports, you have already been assigned a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—so police are forewarned about your potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether you’ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.

In other words, you might already be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere—Main Core, for example—that identifies and tracks individuals who aren’t inclined to march in lockstep to the police state’s dictates.

As The Intercept reported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies have increasingly invested in corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.

Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.

And then at the other end of the spectrum there are those such as Julian Assange, for example, who blow the whistle on government misconduct that is within the public’s right to know.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks—a website that published secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources—was arrested on April 11, 2019, on charges of helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access and leak more than 700,000 classified military documents that portray the U.S. government and its military as reckless, irresponsible and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

Included among the leaked Manning material were the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), a quarter of a million diplomatic cables (November 2010), and the Guantánamo files (April 2011).

The Collateral Murder leak included gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The driver’s two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.

In true Orwellian fashion, the government would have us believe that it is Assange and Manning who are the real criminals for daring to expose the war machine’s seedy underbelly.

Since his April 2019 arrest, Assange has been locked up in a maximum-security British prison—in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day—pending extradition to the U.S., where if convicted, he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.

This is how the police state deals with those who challenge its chokehold on power.

This is why the government fears a citizenry that thinks for itself. Because a citizenry that thinks for itself is a citizenry that is informed, engaged and prepared to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, which translates to government transparency and accountability.

After all, we’re citizens, not subjects. For those who don’t fully understand the distinction between the two and why transparency is so vital to a healthy constitutional government, Manning explains it well:

When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and heartbreaking tragedies occur – too often on a breathtaking scale that can leave societies wondering: how did this happen? … I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship. There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state.

This is why the First Amendment is so critical. It gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of arrest, isolation or any of the other punishments that have been meted out to whistleblowers such as Edwards Snowden, Assange and Manning.

The challenge is holding the government accountable to obeying the law.

A little over 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in United States v. Washington Post Co. to block the Nixon Administration’s attempts to use claims of national security to prevent The Washington Post and The New York Times from publishing secret Pentagon papers on how America went to war in Vietnam.

As Justice William O. Douglas remarked on the ruling, “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

Fast forward to the present day, and we’re witnessing yet another showdown, this time between Assange and the Deep State, which pits the people’s right to know about government misconduct against the might of the military industrial complex.

Yet this isn’t merely about whether whistleblowers and journalists are part of a protected class under the Constitution. It’s a debate over how long “we the people” will remain a protected class under the Constitution.

Following the current trajectory, it won’t be long before anyone who believes in holding the government accountable is labeled an “extremist,” relegated to an underclass that doesn’t fit in, watched all the time, and rounded up when the government deems it necessary.

We’re almost at that point now.

Eventually, we will all be potential suspects, terrorists and lawbreakers in the eyes of the government.

Partisan politics have no place in this debate: Americans of all stripes would do well to remember that those who question the motives of government provide a necessary counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where politicians choose to lead.

We don’t have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights of all individuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.

Never forget: what the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.

What the First Amendment protects—and a healthy constitutional republic requires—are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.

The right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, once again, we find ourselves reliving George Orwell’s 1984, which portrayed in chilling detail how totalitarian governments employ the power of language to manipulate the masses.

In Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.”

Much like today’s social media censors and pre-crime police departments, Orwell’s Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the other government agencies peddle in economic affairs (rationing and starvation), law and order (torture and brainwashing), and news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).

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

Connect with The Rutherford Institute

cover image credit: geralt / pixabay

GoFundMe Unable to Stop Donations to Freedom Convoy

by Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
February 5, 2022

Ottawa: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms regrets to advise that GoFundMe has refused to release millions of dollars in donations intended for the 2022 Freedom Convoy. GoFundMe has deleted the truckers’ Canada’s Freedom Convoy fundraiser for allegedly violating its terms, stating the “peaceful demonstration has become an occupation” now.

Alternative funding has been set up using the Christian platform GiveSendGo, to Freedom Convoy 2022.

As of press time, donations on the new platform were over USD $1.1 million.

GoFundMe originally made a statement that “no further funds will be directly distributed to the Freedom Convoy organizers – we will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities verified by GoFundMe.”

The statement was later updated to say any leftover, not refunded donations would be distributed to GoFundMe approved charities selected by the Freedom Convoy organizers with GoFundMe’s approval. Donors were told they could submit a full request for refund until February 19, 2022.

Under intense public pressure, announcements that some US Governors will investigate GoFundMe under deceptive practices laws, and threats of a truck convoy going to the GoFundMe headquarters, within hours GoFundMe changed their website statement, and announced it would be refunding donors automatically.

The CEO of GoFundMe Tim Cadogan has reportedly previously campaigned for vaccines and covid relief payments.

GoFundMe declared the truckers’ Freedom Convoy in violation of the Terms of Service and stated the donations page has been “removed from the platform.”

This fundraiser reportedly raised the second highest amount of donations in GoFundMe history, at over $10 million Canadian.

“We are pleased that the unprincipled conduct of GoFundMe, which is based on a false and defamatory narrative, is not going to stop freedom-loving Canadians from supporting the truckers’ peaceful protests,” states Allison Pejovic, one of the Justice Centre lawyers currently in Ottawa with the Freedom Convoy.

Connect with Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

Facing Massive Charge-Back Fees GoFundMe Changes Direction; Will Automatically Refund Freedom Convoy Donations

by Sundance, The Last Refuge
February 5, 2022

First things first… The crowdsourcing business called GoFundMe has destroyed their business model. If they remain in operation, they will be a shell of their former status. Wait a few months and you’ll see it. That is the scale of self-destruction chosen by the organization as an outcome of their political decision to freeze and redirect donor contributions of the Freedom Convoy protest. GoFundMe is done.

That said, GoFundMe justified their decision based on a definition of the Ottawa Freedom Convoy protest as an unlawful “occupation”. However, the same GoFundMe supported the Seattle “occupation” in 2020 known as CHAZ/CHOP. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s political alignment.

The backlash against the crowdfunding company was fast, massive and direct. Facing legal action, U.S. state lawsuits and massive charge-back fees from outraged donors contesting refunds through their banks and credit cards, GoFundMe had an overnight change in position:

(Updated Statement Here)

The Freedom Protest will continue without missing a beat. The Truckers in Ottawa and around Canada are representing the majority of the Canadian people. Despite leftist Canadian media attempting to control the narrative against the Freedom movement overall, Middle Canadians can see through the nonsense, and they know which position is on the right side of history. The Freedom Convoy is winning!

The alternative crowdsourcing platform GiveSendGo has been overwhelmed by donations to FreedomConvoy2022 HERE. Their web service is overwhelmed with supporters. I’m sure they are also experiencing the snarky bot attacks from professional leftists and disruptions from the collaboration of North American govt. intelligence agencies. As a result, if you go to the site, you might experience a delay.

Meanwhile, several U.S. State Attorneys are looking into the deceptive and fraudulent business practices of GoFundMe. American readers might wonder why conservative Canadian government officials and various State Premiers are not taking legal action.

Within the answer to that inquiry, we realize the structural issue of the Conservative Party in Canada. They are controlled opposition who actually support leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Ezra Levant has been pointing out the Conservative Party issues for many years. Today he highlights the Canadian political “illusion of choice” problem by noting the absence of Conservative pushback.

Americans have our own reference points for the issue Levant is highlighting. However, the scale of the UniParty fraud in Canada is fundamentally much greater than currently exists in the U.S.

We in the United States have gone through a focused purging and challenging of conservative fraud since the Tea Party rose up to confront politicians in 2009 and 2010. The 2010, 2011, 2012, Tea Party evolved into the 2015, 2016 MAGA party that supported Donald Trump.

In the U.S. we have slowly been removing corrupt republican politicians (House and Senate) since the 2010 primary races. We still have a long way to go, but we are slowly removing them. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Dan Crenshaw and many more are on the current 2022 target list.

Unfortunately, Canada has yet to begin this type of widescale political purge. That is why the current state of Canadian politics is so weak. However, the Freedom Convoy is providing the spark that just might be the Canadian version of the 2010 Tea Party influence.

We are right beside you Canada. We are cheering for you and supporting you in all ways possible.

Connect with The Last Refuge

cover image includes creative commons work of Malkay62

GoFundMe Labels Ottawa Freedom Protest “Unlawful Occupation”, Will Not Release Funds Except to Divert to Authorized Charity Like Black Lives Matter

All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th, 2022
using this dedicated refund form. (LINK)

by Sundance, The Last Refuge
February 4, 2022

Well, there goes the entire business model of the GoFundMe organization.

In a rather jaw-dropping development, the crowdfunding organization is taking the position that Canadian officials have labeled the Canadian Freedom Convoy protest as an “illegal occupation” of the city of Ottawa. As a result, GoFundMe will not release the funds to the organizers of the protest, and will, instead, only transfer those funds to an authorized and credible charitable organization like “Black Lives Matter”.

The statement in Full:

♦ GoFundMe supports peaceful protests and we believe that was the intention of the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser when it was first created.

♦ We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.

To ensure GoFundMe remains a trusted platform, we work with local authorities to ensure we have a detailed, factual understanding of events taking place on the ground. Following a review of relevant facts and multiple discussions with local law enforcement and city officials, this fundraiser is now in violation of our Terms of Service (Term 8, which prohibits the promotion of violence and harassment) and has been removed from the platform.

Organizers provided a clear distribution plan for the initial $1M that was released earlier this week and confirmed funds would be used only for participants who traveled to Ottawa to participate in a peaceful protest.

Given how this situation has evolved, no further funds will be directly distributed to the Freedom Convoy organizers — we will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities verified by GoFundMe.

All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th, 2022 using this dedicated refund form. (LINK)

The Canadian government and law enforcement officials worked earnestly to Alinsky and label the voices of Middle Canada as violent extremists. It appears that official effort has paid dividends, as the money for the protest group has been cut off as the result of an arbitrary definition applied by the totalitarian state.

Madness.

Sickening…

There aren’t enough words to encapsulate this dynamic appropriately.

However, now that government has successfully branded the protesting group as an unlawful and violent occupying group, the Canadian authorities are now able to use extreme measures to counter the “threat to democracy” they represent.

This is a major, albeit ideological, escalation by the totalitarian state.

Connect with The Last Refuge

cover image credit: toronto99

Joe Rogan Up Against ‘Powerful Interests,’ as More Musicians Threaten to Remove Music From Spotify

“Do you really think it’s a coincidence that days after Neil Young’s music was pulled off of Spotify he debuts a 4-month free trial to any person who wants to sign up for Amazon music — who has struggled to gain market share and has long-standing connections with all of the big money people in the game?”

by Megan Redshaw, The Defender
February 1, 2022

Joe Rogan in an Instagram video Monday addressed the growing controversy surrounding his podcast — “The Joe Rogan Experience” — telling fans he’s not interested in talking to people who have only one perspective. He also said he has a problem with the term “misinformation.”

Rogan’s statement came as the streaming platform Spotify on Sunday announced new rules designed to “combat” the spread of COVID “misinformation” on its platform.

The new rules came after a handful of musicians, including Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist Nils Lofgren and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music catalogs from Spotify, in an effort to force Spotify to choose between their music or Rogan’s podcast. Author Brené Brown also joined the protest, stating she won’t release new episodes of her Spotify-exclusive podcasts “until further notice.”

Spotify last week agreed to remove Young’s music.

“We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to covid-19 since the start of the pandemic,” a Spotify spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement. “We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”

Saagar Enjeti, Washington correspondent at The Hill, said there could be more going on behind the scenes. Investment firms who own the music catalogs — and who also have ties to pharmaceutical companies — may be calling the shots.

“The people speaking out may be doing so organically, but it also happens to coincide with the financial or oligarchic interests of some very, very rich people,” Enjeti said in a “Breaking Points” episode that took a “deep dive into the hedge funds behind the campaign by Neil Young and others to cancel Rogan and boost other music services such as Amazon music.”

Rogan, Spotify’s star podcaster, signed a $100 million deal in 2020, giving the streaming service exclusive rights to his show. The podcast, available only on Spotify, reached No. 1 globally last year, the company said last month.

What used to be misinformation, now accepted as fact

According to Rogan’s 10-minute video, his podcast was accused of “spreading dangerous misinformation,” citing specifically his interviews with Dr. Peter McCullough and one with Dr. Robert Malone.”

Rogan said:

“Dr. Peter McCullough is a cardiologist and he’s the most published physician in his field in history. Dr. Robert Malone owns nine patents on the creation of mRNA vaccine technology and is at least partly responsible for the creation of the technology that led to mRNA vaccines.

“Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people and they have an opinion that’s different than the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.

“I had them on and because of that those episodes, in particular, those episodes were labeled as being dangerous, they had dangerous misinformation in them.”

Rogan said the issue he has with the term “misinformation” is that “many of the things we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact.”

Rogan explained:

“For instance, eight months ago if you said if you get vaccinated you can still catch COVID and you can still spread COVID, you would be removed from social media. They would ban you from certain platforms. Now that’s accepted as fact.

“If you said, I don’t think cloth masks work, you would be banned on social media. Now that’s openly, repeatedly stated on CNN.

“If you said, I think it’s possible that COVID-19 came from a lab, you would be banned from many social media platforms. Now, that’s on the cover as Newsweek.”

Rogan said all of those theories that “at one point in time” were banned, were openly discussed by McCullough and Malone who were accused of spreading dangerous misinformation.

Rogan said he wanted to make the video because he feels “people have a distorted perception” of what he does.

“I’m not trying to promote misinformation,” Rogan said. “I’m not trying to be controversial. I’ve never tried to do anything with this podcast other than just talk to people and have interesting conversations.”

Are Amazon and Hedge Funds trying to cancel Rogan?

In a video posted Jan. 31 on YouTube, Enjeti said there is more than meets the eye when it comes to musicians like Young pulling their catalogs from Spotify.

“The original impetus for Neil Young’s demand was a letter he posted on social media saying Spotify could either have Neil Young or Joe Rogan, but that letter was almost immediately deleted after it was posted,” Enjeti said.

“Who is demanding this? Enjeti asked. “Is it Neil Young or is it the people who own his music?”

Enjeti explained:

“You see a recent trend in the music business it that iconic artists such a Neil Young sell their catalogs to big-money groups who then reap the profits in perpetuity. Young actually sold his catalog in Jan. 2021 to a company called Hipgnosis. Now Hipgnosis is a $1 billion company that recently announced an ownership agreement with Blackstone.”

Enjeti said Blackstone is focused on taking over single-family housing and turning America into a nation of renters, but it also has interests everywhere.

“Blackstone, BlackRock and these big private equity giants are ruthless in their pursuit of profits and they’re savvy political players who know how to play the game,” Enjeti said. “They have all sorts of ties to the pharmaceutical industry, including announcing the former CEO and chairman of Pfizer would be joining Blackstone as a senior advisor.”

“Do you really think it’s a coincidence that days after Neil Young’s music was pulled off of Spotify he debuts a 4-month free trial to any person who wants to sign up for Amazon music — who has struggled to gain market share and has long-standing connections with all of the big money people in the game?” Enjeti asked.

“Open your eyes to see possibilities you may not have imagined,” Enjeti said. “At first it was simple, just Neil Young taking a stand.”

Now a lot of people with big money and a big agenda who would just so happen to profit if Rogan went down are speaking out, Enjeti added. “Joni Mitchell has come out and said she is going to stand in solidarity with Neil Young.”

Mitchell on Sept. 13, 2021, struck a publishing deal with Reservoir Media, Inc. (RMI). The top 10 owners of RMI are large private equity and investment firms.

Lofgren, who on Jan. 30 announced he was joining fellow musicians Mitchell and Young in their Spotify boycott, also does not own his music catalog.

Lofgren’s catalog was purchased on Dec. 16, 2021, by Sony Entertainment. The top 10 owners of Sony Group Corp. are large investment firms.

Enjeti said:

“You give into the mob, you give them an inch, they will keep coming. Will Spotify really be able to withstand up to the pressure? Who knows? Principles are not going to save you in this instance. Only money will.”

Enjeti said people better hold on to their seats and “hope that Joe prevails on this one,” as he is up against more powerful interests than many realize.

New Spotify rules don’t define ‘misinformation’

As part of its new rules, Spotify said it would add a content advisory to any podcast episode discussing COVID amid accusations it was allowing misinformation to spread on its platform.

The advisory will direct listeners to a “dedicated COVID-19 Hub,” which is described as a “resource that provides easy access to data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources.”

Spotify said this is the first content advisory of its kind and will roll out in the next few days.

The streaming giant also announced it will begin testing ways to highlight its platform rules to raise awareness around “what’s acceptable” and to help creators understand their accountability for the content they post on the platform.

The statement did not say who determines what is and is not misinformation and what is considered a “trusted source.”

Rogan said he supports Spotify putting a disclaimer on controversial podcasts about COVID and encouraging listeners to speak to their physicians.

©January 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

Connect with Children’s Health Defense

cover image credit: CDD20 / pixabay

The Government’s Kill Switch for Your Car, Your Freedoms and Your Life

by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
February 1, 2022

“A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power.”
— Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

If we haven’t learned by now, we should beware of anything the government insists is for our own good.

Take the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Given the deteriorating state of the nation’s infrastructure (aging highways and bridges, outdated railways and airports, etc.), which have been neglected for years in order to fund America’s endless wars abroad, it would seem like an obvious and long overdue fix.

Yet there’s a catch.

There’s always a catch.

Tucked into the whopping $1 trillion bipartisan spending bill is a provision requiring automakers to prescribe a “federal motor vehicle safety standard for advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology, and for other purposes.”

As Jason Torchinksky writes for Jalopnik:

It’s pretty clear that the goals of this section of the law are to reduce drunk driving fatalities and crashes via still-undetermined technological tools that somehow are able to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” and/or “passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration described in section 163(a) of title 23, United States Code,” and if either or both of these conditions are proven to be positive — if the car thinks you’re drunk, then it may “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.”

As expected, the details are disconcertingly vague, which leaves the government with a wide berth to sow the seeds of mischief and mayhem. For instance, nowhere does the legislation indicate how such a so-called “kill switch” would work, what constitutes a driver who is “impaired,” and what “other purposes” might warrant the government using such a backdoor kill switch.

As former Rep. Bob Barr explains:

Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares. First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.

This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents… The lack of ultimate control over one’s vehicle presents numerous and extremely serious safety issues… If that is not reason enough for concern, there are serious legal issues with this mandate. Other vehicle-related enforcement methods used by the Nanny State, such as traffic cameras and license plate readers, have long presented constitutional problems; notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.

Once again, the burden of proof is reversed, and “we the people” find ourselves no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty but suspects in a suspect society.

These “vehicle kill switches” may be sold to the public as a safety measure aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the roads, but they will quickly become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to put the government in the driver’s seat while rendering null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Indeed, when you think about it, these vehicle kill switches are a perfect metaphor for the government’s efforts to not only take control of our cars but also our freedoms and our lives.

For too long, we have been captive passengers in a driverless car controlled by the government, losing more and more of our privacy and autonomy the further down the road we go.

Just think of all the ways in which the government has been empowered to dictate what we say, do and think; where we go; with whom we associate; how we raise our families; how we live our lives; what we consume; how we spend our money; how we protect ourselves and our loved ones; and to what extent our rights as individuals can be displaced for the sake of the so-called greater good.

In this way, we have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by such science fiction writers as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.

In keeping with Dick’s darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state—which became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s futuristic thriller Minority Report, which was released 20 years ago—we have been imprisoned in a world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few skulls to bring the populace under control.

Minority Report is set in the year 2054, but it could just as well have taken place in 2022.

Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, Spielberg’s unnerving vision of the future is fast becoming our reality.

Both worlds—our present-day reality and Minority Report’s celluloid vision of the future—are characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage.

Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity—has become a guiding principle of modern society.

The courts have shredded the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary America.

We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. Much of the population is either hooked on illegal drugs or ones prescribed by doctors. And bodily privacy and integrity has been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

We’re on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, our cars. As if the government wasn’t already able to track our movements on the nation’s highways and byways by way of satellites, GPS devices, and real-time traffic cameras, performance data recorders, black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications will monitor our vehicle’s speed, direction, location, gear selection, brake force, the number of miles traveled and seatbelts use, and transmit this data to other drivers, including the police.

In this Brave New World, there is no communication not spied upon, no movement untracked, no thought unheard. In other words, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Herded along by drones, smart phones, GPS devices, smart TVs, social media, smart meters, surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, online banking, license plate readers and driverless cars, we are quickly approaching a point of singularity with the interconnected technological metaverse that is life in the American police state.

Every new piece of technologically-enabled gadget we acquire and technologically-boobytrapped legislation that Congress enacts pulls us that much deeper into the sticky snare.

These vehicle kill switches are yet another Trojan Horse: sold to us as safety measures for the sake of the greater good, all the while poised to wreak havoc on what little shreds of autonomy we have left.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re hurtling down a one-way road at mind-boggling speeds to a destination not of our choosing, the terrain is getting more treacherous by the minute, and we’ve passed all the exit ramps.

From this point forward, there is no turning back, and the signpost ahead reads “Danger.”

Time to buckle up your seatbelts, folks. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

Connect with The Rutherford Institute

cover image credit: Maklay62 / pixabay

Authoritarian Madness: The Slippery Slope From Lockdowns to Concentration Camps

by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
January 27, 2022

“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwald, the Auschwitzes—all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.” — Rod Serling, Deaths-Head Revisited

In the politically charged, polarizing tug-of-war that is the debate over COVID-19, we find ourselves buffeted by fear over a viral pandemic that continues to wreak havoc with lives and the economy, threats of vaccine mandates and financial penalties for noncompliance, and discord over how to legislate the public good without sacrificing individual liberty.

The discord is getting more discordant by the day.

Just recently, for instance, the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and deploy the National Guard “to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”

In other words, lock up the unvaccinated and use the military to determine who gets to be “free.”

These tactics have been used before.

This is why significant numbers of people are worried: because this is the slippery slope that starts with well-meaning intentions for the greater good and ends with tyrannical abuses no one should tolerate.

For a glimpse at what the future might look like if such a policy were to be enforced, look beyond America’s borders.

In Italy, the unvaccinated are banned from restaurants, bars and public transportation, and could face suspensions from work and monthly fines. Similarly, France will ban the unvaccinated from most public venues.

In Austria, anyone who has not complied with the vaccine mandate could face fines up to $4100. Police will be authorized to carry out routine checks and demand proof of vaccination, with penalties of as much as $685 for failure to do so.

In China, which has adopted a zero tolerance, “zero COVID” strategy, whole cities—some with populations in the tens of millions—are being forced into home lockdowns for weeks on end, resulting in mass shortages of food and household supplies. Reports have surfaced of residents “trading cigarettes for cabbage, dishwashing liquid for apples and sanitary pads for a small pile of vegetables. One resident traded a Nintendo Switch console for a packet of instant noodles and two steamed buns.”

For those unfortunate enough to contract COVID-19, China has constructed “quarantine camps” throughout the country: massive complexes boasting thousands of small, metal boxes containing little more than a bed and a toilet. Detainees—including children, pregnant women and the elderly— were reportedly ordered to leave their homes in the middle of the night, transported to the quarantine camps in buses and held in isolation.

If this last scenario sounds chillingly familiar, it should.

Eighty years ago, another authoritarian regime established more than 44,000 quarantine camps for those perceived as “enemies of the state”: racially inferior, politically unacceptable or simply noncompliant.

While the majority of those imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, forced labor camps, incarceration sites and ghettos were Jews, there were also Polish nationals, gypsies, Russians, political dissidents, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.

Culturally, we have become so fixated on the mass murders of Jewish prisoners by the Nazis that we overlook the fact that the purpose of these concentration camps were initially intended to “incarcerate and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”

As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum explains:

“Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were political prisoners—German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats—as well as Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of ‘asocial’ or socially deviant behavior. Many of these sites were called concentration camps. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.”

How do you get from there to here, from Auschwitz concentration camps to COVID quarantine centers?

Connect the dots.

You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is not about COVID-19. Nor is it about politics, populist movements, or any particular country.

This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.

The slippery slope begins in just this way, with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps.

The danger signs are everywhere.

Claudio Ronco, a 66-year-old Orthodox Jew and a specialist in 18th-century music, recognizes the signs. Because of his decision to remain unvaccinated, Ronco is trapped inside his house, unable to move about in public without a digital vaccination card. He can no longer board a plane, check into a hotel, eat at a restaurant or get a coffee at a bar. He has been ostracized by friends, shut out of public life, and will soon face monthly fines for insisting on his right to bodily integrity and individual freedom.

For all intents and purposes, Ronco has become an undesirable in the eyes of the government, forced into isolation so he doesn’t risk contaminating the rest of the populace.

This is the slippery slope: a government empowered to restrict movements, limit individual liberty, and isolate “undesirables” to prevent the spread of a disease is a government that has the power to lockdown a country, label whole segments of the population a danger to national security, and force those undesirables—a.k.a. extremists, dissidents, troublemakers, etc.—into isolation so they don’t contaminate the rest of the populace.

The world has been down this road before, too.

Others have ignored the warning signs. We cannot afford to do so.

As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free:

“Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people‑—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies’, without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.”

The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.

They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”

The warning signs were there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.

“Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”

Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”

In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed or killed, life was good.

Life is good in America, too, as long as you’re able to keep cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, while distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.

Indeed, life in America may be good for the privileged few who aren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed or killed, but it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.

Which brings me back to the present crisis: COVID-19 is not the Holocaust, and those who advocate vaccine mandates, lockdowns and quarantine camps are not Hitler, but this still has the makings of a slippery slope.

The means do not justify the ends: we must find other ways of fighting a pandemic without resorting to mandates and lockdowns and concentration camps. To do otherwise is to lay the groundwork for another authoritarian monster to rise up and wreak havoc.

If we do not want to repeat the past, then we must learn from past mistakes.

January 27 marks Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a day for remembering those who died at the hands of Hitler’s henchmen and those who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps.

Yet remembering is not enough. We can do better. We must do better.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the world is teetering on the edge of authoritarian madness.

All it will take is one solid push for tyranny to prevail.

Connect with The Rutherford Institute

cover image credit: dimitrisvetsikas1969 / pixabay

The Day Jake Tapper Sold His Soul to Pharma

There’s a reason CNN’s Jake Tapper is intent on branding me a “menace” and “a liar,” and why he refuses to debate me on the merits of facts and scientific evidence. Here’s the back story.

by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense
January 6, 2022

Apparently, appalled by robust sales of my bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper — in lieu of critically reviewing the work — used his Twitter feed to unleash a barrage of ad hominem insults against me.

Breaking with the traditional restraints of journalistic neutrality, professional propriety and intellectual rigor, he branded me “dangerous,” a “menace,” a “liar,” a “grifter,” a fraud, “unhinged” and more.

But Tapper’s defamations hang in the atmosphere without substantiation or citation. If I’m a liar, then what was my lie? If I’m a grifter, then what is my personal profit or advantage? If I am a fraud, then where is my inaccurate statement?

I concede that I’m a dangerous menace, but only to the pharmaceutical industry, its captive technocrats and its media toadies.

When I responded to his slander with a respectful tweet inviting him to debate me, Tapper declined, explaining he would not debate a “conspiracy theorist.” Characteristically, he neglected to cite any conspiracy theory he believes I promoted.

And is it credible to dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist unworthy of debate? After all, I am founder and former president of the world’s largest water protection group, and founder and current chairman of one of the largest children’s health advocacy groups.

I’ve won hundreds of successful lawsuits, including milestone victories against Monsanto, DuPont, Exxon, Smithfield Foods and leading polluters from the chemical, carbon, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. (Many of these also initially dismissed me as a “conspiracy theorist.”)

My current book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” may be the most heavily footnoted volume to ever sit atop global best-seller lists for six consecutive weeks. With 500,000 copies sold, it has attracted a whopping 5,500+ five-star reviews (92%).

Despite extreme hostility toward this volume from mainstream media and the medical cartel, no one has yet identified a factual inaccuracy in its 250,000 words.

If my book is baseless conspiracy theories, then shouldn’t Mr. Tapper welcome an opportunity to correct me with facts or arguments that go beyond name-calling?

Allow me, then, to offer my own theory for Mr. Tapper’s apoplexy.

Many people make Faustian bargains during their lives, trading personal integrity for material advantage. Oftentimes the metamorphosis occurs as a gradual erosion of moral fiber. Occasionally it happens in an instant; a man stands at a moral crossroads and chooses the dark side.

I happened to have a front-row seat when Jake Tapper had his moment of moral crisis. I’m guessing his fierce vitriol toward me is a reaction to his embarrassment that I was witness to the instant when Mr. Tapper chose career over character.

In July 2005, Jake Tapper was ABC’s senior producer when the network ordered him to pull a lengthy exposé on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) secret 2000 Simpsonwood conference.

Here is the background:

In 1999, in response to exploding epidemics of autism and other neurological disorders, CDC decided to study its vast Vaccine Safety Datalink — the medical and vaccination record of millions of Americans, archived by the top HMOs — to learn whether the dramatic escalation of the vaccine schedule, beginning in 1989, was a culprit. CDC’s in-house epidemiologist, Thomas Verstraeten, led the effort.

Verstraeten’s initial data run suggested that mercury-containing hepatitis B vaccines — administered during the first month of life — were associated with a wide range of neurological injuries, including a dramatic 1,135% rise in autism risks among vaccinated children.

Verstraeten’s findings propelled CDC into DEFCON 1. The agency’s top vaccine officials summoned 52 pharmaceutical industry leaders, the foremost vaccinologists from academia and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and public health regulators from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), CDC, World Health Organization (WHO) and European Medicines Agency to a secret two-day meeting at the remote Simpsonwood retreat center in Norcross, Georgia, to strategize about how to hide these awful revelations from the public.

In 2005, I obtained the explosive transcripts of this meeting and was about to publish excerpts in Rolling Stone (Deadly Immunity, July 18, 2005). Those recordings, ironically, portrayed these leading kingpins of the vaccine cartel poised at their own moral brink, and chronicled their collapse into corruption over two sickening days of debate.

Most of these individuals were physicians and regulatory officials who had committed their lives to public health out of idealism and deep concern for children. Verstraeten’s data confronted them with the fact that the cumulative mercury levels in all those new vaccines they had recommended had overdosed a generation of American children with mercury concentrations over a hundred times the exposures the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered safe.

In recommending a vast battery of new vaccines for children, public health regulators had somehow neglected to calculate the cumulative mercury and aluminum loads in all the new jabs.

Dr. Peter Patriarca, the then-director of the FDA Office on Vaccine Research and Review, expressed the general feeling of horror when he asked why no one had calculated the cumulative mercury exposure to children as policymakers added this cascade of new vaccines to the childhood schedule: “Conversion of the percentage thimerosal to actual micrograms of mercury involves ninth-grade algebra. What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?”

In the tense days leading up to the Simpsonwood conclave, children’s health champion Dr. Ruth Etzel of the EPA pleaded with her fellow public health leaders to publicly admit they made a terrible mistake by inadvertently poisoning American children, and to repair the damage.

Dr. Etzel urged AAP and the government regulators to handle the crisis with the same honesty and public remorse that Johnson & Johnson had demonstrated on discovering toxic chemicals in its Tylenol formulations:

“We must follow three basic rules: (1) act quickly to inform pediatricians that the products have more mercury than we realized; (2) be open with consumers about why we didn’t catch this earlier; (3) show contrition. If the public loses faith in the Public Health Services recommendations, then the immunization battle will falter. To keep faith, we must be open and honest and move forward quickly to replace these products.”

Confronted with scientific proof of their role in the chronic disease calamity, the cabal did exactly the opposite. The shocking Simpsonwood transcripts show Dr. Patriarca and the other public health panjandrums warning each other of their reputational liabilities, their vulnerability to litigation by plaintiffs’ lawyers and potential damage to the vaccine program.

Dr. Patriarca cautioned that public disclosure of CDC’s explosive findings would make Americans feel that the FDA, CDC and vaccine policymakers had been “asleep at the switch” for decades in allowing Thimerosal to remain in childhood vaccines.

Over two days of intense discussion, these Big Pharma operatives and government technocrats persuaded each other to transform their disastrous error into villainy — by doubling down and hiding their mistake from the public.

Tapper saw an early draft of my Rolling Stone story and proposed that, in exchange for exclusivity, he would do a companion piece for ABC timed to air on the magazine’s publication day.

Tapper spent several weeks working on the story with me and a team of enthusiastic ABC reporters and technicians. During his frequent conversations with me over that period, he was on fire with indignation over the Simpsonwood revelations. He acted like a journalist hoping to win an Emmy.

The day before the piece was to air, an exasperated Tapper called me to say that ABC’s corporate officials ordered him to pull the story. The network’s pharmaceutical advertisers were threatening to cancel their advertising.

“Corporate told us to shut it down,” Tapper fumed. Tapper told me that it was the first time in his career that ABC officials had ordered him to kill a story.

ABC had advertised the Simpsonwood exposé, and its sudden cancellation disappointed an army of vaccine safety advocates and parents of injured children who deluged the network with a maelstrom of angry emails.

In response, ABC changed tack and publicly promised to air the piece. Instead, following a one-week delay, the network duplicitously aired a hastily assembled puff piece promoting vaccines and assuring listeners that mercury-laden vaccines were safe.

The new “bait and switch” segment precisely followed Pharma’s talking points. “I’m putting my faith in the Institute of Medicine,” ABC’s obsequious medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson, declared in closing. Two pharmaceutical advertisements bracketed the story.

After that piece aired, I called Jake to complain. He neither answered nor returned my calls.

During the 16 intervening years, Pharma has returned Mr. Tapper’s favor by aggressively promoting his career. Pfizer shamelessly sponsors Tapper’s CNN news show, announcing its ownership of the space — and Mr. Tapper’s indentured servitude — before each episode with the loaded phrase: “Brought to you by Pfizer.”

Under the apparent terms of that sponsorship, CNN and Tapper provide Pfizer a platform to market its products and allow the drug company — a serial felon — to dictate content on CNN.

This arrangement has transformed CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper into a propaganda vehicle for Pharma and effectively reduced Mr. Tapper to the role of a drug rep — shamelessly promoting fear porn, confusion, and germophobia, and ushering his audience toward high-yield patent pharmaceuticals.

Tapper’s main thrust during the pandemic has been to promote levels of public terror sufficient to indemnify all the official lies against critical thinking.

All that Pharma money naturally requires that Mr. Tapper kowtow to Dr. Fauci, and the CNN host’s slavishness has helped make Tapper’s show the go-to pulpit for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director.

It’s a safe place for Dr. Fauci to hit all Jake’s reliable softballs out of the park.

“The bootlicking competition at CNN is pretty nauseating,” observed investigative journalist Celia Farber who has chronicled Dr. Fauci’s mismanagement at NIAID for more than 25 years. “It’s ruinous for both democracy and for public health.”

Another journalist has compared Tapper’s mortifying on-air servility toward Dr. Fauci to the adulation of a loyal and obedient canine. “It’s like a dog watching a chess match,” says former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson. “So much intensity and so little understanding.”

Tapper has gone two years without asking Dr. Fauci a single tough question. He has covered up Fauci’s involvement with Wuhan, suppressed news of vaccine injuries, gaslighted the injured, and defended every official orthodoxy on masks, lockdowns, social distancing, vaccines, remdesivir, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

He has never asked about the public health, mental health, and economic costs of lockdown, about the disproportionate burdens of Dr. Fauci’s policies on minorities, the working class and the global poor.

He has never asked Dr. Fauci to explain why countries and states that refused Dr. Fauci’s prescription have consistently experienced dramatically better health outcomes. For example, why are U.S. death rates 1,000x the death rates of African countries like Nigeria and Indian states that widely use hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin? Mr. Tapper simply never allows contrary views on his show.

He continues to extol COVID vaccines as a miracle technology that individuals can take four times and still both get and spread the illness.

“He never calls Dr. Fauci on his vacillating science-free pronouncements,” said Farber. “Dr. Fauci seems to be able to paralyze the curiosity features of Tapper’s brain.”

Tapper has to ask Dr. Fauci why, under his direction, America suffered the world’s highest body count. With 4.2% of the global population, our nation suffered 15% of COVID deaths.

Instead, he functions as high priest of every official orthodoxy, working to deify Dr. Fauci and anoint all his absurd, vacillating and contradictory pronouncements with papal infallibility. The sure way to earn Tapper’s indignation is to criticize Dr. Fauci.

Here are just a few examples of Mr. Tapper’s brazen deceptions:

On Feb. 2, 2021, Tapper “debunked” claims that baseball great Hank Aaron may have died from a COVID shot. The home run king submitted to a CDC-staged press conference 17 days earlier. Tapper assured his audience that the Fulton County coroner had determined Aaron to have died from “natural causes.”

When the Fulton County coroner subsequently denied ever having seen Aaron’s body, much less performed an autopsy, Tapper refused to correct his story.

In August 2021, Tapper gave Dr. Fauci a platform to spread the rumor that deluded Americans were poisoning themselves with a “horse medicine” called ivermectin.

In an Aug. 29, 2021 interview, Dr. Fauci told Tapper, “There’s no evidence whatsoever that that works, and it could potentially have toxicity… with people who have gone to poison control centers because they’ve taken the drug at a ridiculous dose and wind up getting sick. There’s no clinical evidence that indicates that this works.”

Tapper never corrected Dr. Fauci. He never pointed out that there were by then 70 peer-reviewed studies demonstrating ivermectin’s miraculous efficacy against COVID.

He didn’t dispute Dr. Fauci’s characterization of ivermectin as a horse medicine by noting that the drug had won both a Nobel Prize and WHO’s listing as an “essential medicine” for its miraculous efficacy against human illnesses, and that people have consumed billions of doses with no significant safety signals.

Mr. Tapper never thought to ask Dr. Fauci if he was trying to discourage use of a cheap, effective drug that might compete with his experimental vaccines.

Instead, Tapper abjectly parroted Dr. Fauci’s talking points: “Poison control centers are reporting that their calls are spiking in places like Mississippi and Oklahoma, because some Americans are trying to use an anti-parasite horse drug called ivermectin to treat coronavirus, to prevent contracting coronavirus.”

It mattered not to Tapper that both Mississippi and Oklahoma officials quickly denied that anyone in their state had been hospitalized for ivermectin poisoning. Tapper never corrected his false story.

On Sept. 14, 2021, Tapper obligingly gave Dr. Fauci a platform to dispute rapper Nicki Minaj’s worry that COVID vaccines may affect fertility. Dr. Fauci simply declared, “The answer to that, Jake, is a resounding no.”

As usual, Tapper did not ask Dr. Fauci to cite a study to support this assertion. He never pointed out to Dr. Fauci that all of the COVID vaccine manufacturers acknowledge that their products are not tested for effects on fertility, or that recent data has shown dramatic upticks in miscarriages and pre-eclampsia in vaccinated women.

Nevertheless, based upon Dr. Fauci’s word alone, CNN rushed on to defame and discredit the rapper and to assure the public that Minaj was wrong. Dr. Fauci, after all, had spoken!

It’s easy to see how two years of such obsequious deference emboldened Dr. Fauci in November 2021 to declare that “I represent science.”

There are too many other examples of Tapper’s uncritical promotion of government and pharma falsehoods to even summarize. These are not harmless lies. Each of them has potentially disastrous consequences for public health.

The term “psychological projection” describes the uncanny precision with which a certain sort of person applies the very pejoratives to others that most accurately depict their own shortcomings.

When Mr. Tapper calls me “unhinged,” a “menace to public health,” a “fraud,” a “liar,” is he falling victim to projection?

The critical functions of journalism in a democracy are to speak truth to power, relentlessly expose official corruption, and to forever maintain a posture of skepticism toward government and corporate power centers.

What Jake Tapper does is the opposite of journalism. Tapper, instead, aligns himself with power, and makes himself a propagandist for official narratives and a servile publicist for powerful elites and government technocrats.

No wonder his fury at those who challenge their narratives.

Connect with Children’s Health Defense

cover image credit: “Jake Tapper-Caricature” by DonkeyHotey — licensed under CC by 2.0

The Hounding of Julian Assange Leaves Honest Journalism With No Refuge

by Jonathan Cook, jonathan-cook.net
sourced from Activist Post
December 29, 2021

The message sent to journalists could not be clearer or more chilling: what happened to Assange could happen to you too

Middle East Eye – 17 December 2021

It is no accident that Julian Assange, the digital transparency activist and journalist who founded Wikileaks to help whistleblowers tell us what western governments are really up to in the shadows, has spent 10 years being progressively disappeared into those very same shadows.

His treatment is a crime similar to those Wikileaks exposed when it published just over a decade ago hundreds of thousands of leaked materials – documents we were never supposed to see – detailing war crimes committed by the United States and Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These two western countries killed non-combatants and carried out torture not, as they claimed, in the pursuit of self-defence or in the promotion of democracy, but to impose control over a strategic, resource-rich region.

It is the ultimate, ugly paradox that Assange’s legal and physical fate rests in the hands of two states that have the most to lose by allowing him to regain his freedom and publish more of the truths they want to keep concealed. By redefining his journalism as “espionage” – the basis for the US extradition claim – they are determined to keep the genie stuffed in the bottle.

Eyes off the ball

Last week, in overturning a lower court decision that should have allowed Assange to walk free, the English High Court consented to effectively keep Assange locked up indefinitely. He is a remand prisoner – found guilty of no crime – and yet he will continue rotting in solitary confinement for the foreseeable future, barely seeing daylight or other human beings, in Belmarsh high-security prison alongside Britain’s most dangerous criminals.

The High Court decision forces our eyes off the ball once again. Assange and his supposed “crime” of seeking transparency and accountability has become the story rather than the crimes he exposed that were carried out by the US to lay waste to whole regions and devastate the lives of millions.

The goal is to stop the public conducting the debate Assange wanted to initiate through his journalism: about western state crimes. Instead the public is being deflected into a debate his persecutors want: whether Assange can ever safely be allowed out of his cell.

Assange’s lawyers are being diverted from the real issues too. They will now be tied up for years fighting endless rearguard actions, caught up in the search for legal technicalities, battling to win a hearing in any court they can, to prevent his extradition to the United States to stand trial.

The process itself has taken over. And while the legal minutiae are endlessly raked over, the substance of the case – that it is US and British officials who ought to be held responsible for committing war crimes – will be glossed over.

Permanently silenced

But it is worse than the legal injustice of Assange’s case. There may be no hack-saws needed this time, but this is as visceral a crime against journalism as the dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials back in 2018.

And the outcome for Assange is only slightly less preordained than it was for Khashoggi when he entered the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. The goal for US officials has always been about permanently disappearing Assange. They are indifferent about how that is achieved.

If the legal avenue is a success, he will eventually head to the US where he can be locked away for up to 175 years in severe solitary confinement in a super-max jail – that is, till long past his death from natural causes. But there is every chance he will not survive that long. Last January, a British judge rejected extraditing Julian Assange to the US over his “suicide risk“, and medical experts have warned that it will be only a matter of time before he succeeds.

That was why the district court blocked extradition – on humanitarian grounds. Those grounds were overturned by the High Court last week only because the US offered “assurances” that measures would be in place to ensure Assange did not commit suicide. But Assange’s lawyers pointed out: those assurances “were not enough to address concerns about his fragile mental health and high risk of suicide”. These concerns should have been apparent to the High Court justices.

Further, dozens of former officials in the Central Intelligence Agency and the previous US administration have confirmed that the agency planned to execute Assange in an extrajudicial operation in 2017. That was shortly before the US was forced by circumstance to switch to the current, formal extradition route. The arguments now made for his welfare by the same officials and institutions that came close to killing him should never have been accepted as made in good faith.

In fact, there is no need to speculate about the Americans’ bad faith. It is only too apparent in the myriad get-out clauses in the “assurances” they provided. Those assurances can be dropped, for example, if US officials decide Assange is not being cooperative. The promises can and will be disregarded the moment they become an encumbrance on Washington’s ability to keep Assange permanently silenced.

‘Trapped in a cage’

But if losing the extradition battle is high stakes, so is the legal process itself. That could finish Assange off long before a decision is reached, as his fiancee Stella Moris indicated at the weekend. She confirmed that Assange suffered a small stroke during a hearing in October in the endless extradition proceedings. There are indications he suffered neurological damage, and is now on anti-stroke medication to try to stop a recurrence.

Assange and his friends believe the stroke was brought on by the constant double strain of his solitary confinement in Belmarsh and a legal process being conducted over his head, in which he is barely allowed to participate.

Nils Melzer, the United Nations expert on torture, has repeatedly warned that Assange has been subjected to prolonged psychological torture in the nine years since he fled into Ecuador’s embassy in London seeking asylum from US efforts to persecute him.

That form of torture, Melzer has pointed out, was refined by the Nazis because it was found to be far more effective at breaking people than physical torture. Moris told the Daily Mail: “[The stroke] compounds our fears about [Assange’s] ability to survive the longer this long legal battle goes on. … Look at animals trapped in cages in a zoo. It cuts their life short. That’s what’s happening to Julian.”

And that indeed looks to be the prize for US officials that wanted him assassinated anyway. Whatever happens to Assange, the lawless US security state wins: it either gets him behind bars forever, or it kills him quietly and quite lawfully, while everyone is distracted, arguing about who Assange is rather what he exposed.

Political prisoner

In fact, with each twist and turn of the proceedings against Assange we move further from the realities at the heart of the case towards narrative distractions.

Who remembers now the first extradition hearings, nearly two years ago, at which the court was reminded that the very treaty signed by Britain and the US that is the basis for Assange’s extradition explicitly excludes political cases of the kind being pursued by the US against Assange?

It is a victory for state criminality that the discussion has devolved to Assange’s mental health rather than a substantive discussion of the treaty’s misapplication to serve political ends.

And similarly the focus on US assurances regarding Assange’s wellbeing is intended to obscure the fact that a journalist’s work is being criminalised as “espionage” for the first time under a hurriedly drafted, draconian and discredited piece of First World War legislation, the 1917 Espionage Act. Because Assange is a political prisoner suffering political persecution, legal arguments are apparently powerless to save him. It is only a political campaign that can keep underscoring the sham nature of the charges he faces.

The lies of power

What Assange bequeathed us through Wikileaks was a harsh light capable of cutting through the lies of power and power of lies. He showed that western governments claiming the moral high ground were actually committing crimes in our name out of sight in far-off lands. He tore the mask off their hypocrisy.

He showed that the many millions who took to the streets in cities around the world in 2003 because they knew the US and UK would commit war crimes in Iraq were right to march. But he also confirmed something worse: that their opposition to the war was treated with utter contempt.

The US and UK did not operate more carefully, they were not more respectful of human rights, they did not tread more lightly in Iraq because of those marches, because of the criticism beforehand. The western war machine carried on regardless, crushing the lives of anyone who got caught up in its maw.

Now with Assange locked up and silenced, western foreign policy can return comfortably to the era of zero accountability that existed before Assange shook up the whole system with his revelations. No journalist will dare to repeat what Assange did – not unless they are ready to spend the rest of their days behind bars.

The message his abuse sends to others could not be clearer or more chilling: what happened to Assange could happen to you too.

The truth is journalism is already reeling from the combined assaults against Khashoggi and Assange. But the hounding of Assange strikes the bigger blow. It leaves honest journalism with no refuge, no sanctuary anywhere in the world.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. This originally appeared in the Middle East Eye.

Connect with Jonathan Cook

cover image credit: hafteh7 / pixabay

U.N. Taking Down Private Websites – Domain Level Censorship

by Christian Westbrook, Ice Age Farmer
November 2, 2021

The U.N. Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) is now responsible for taking entire privately hosted websites offline, as they seek to take total control of the flow of information and establish their “Great Narrative.” CTED notifies domain registrars of “extremist” sites — i.e., those that promote narratives they don’t approve of — and the sites can no longer be found.

This reflects a new level of internet censorship, but it is not just publishers who are in the crosshairs…it is all of us. Christian breaks it down in this Ice Age Farmer broadcast.

Telegram: https://t.me/iceagefarmer
Bitchute: https://bitchute.com/iceagefarmer
Odysee: https://odysee.com/@iceagefarmer

Connect with Ice Age Farmer

cover image credit: geralt / pixabay

London’s Blueprint for Technocracy

by Matt, What About the Roads
October 1, 2021

Last week we covered Telosa, a technocratic metropolis slated to be home to 5 million people by 2060. Previously we’ve investigated plans to turn Nevada into a hub of technocracy. These stories need telling but we by just looking into the future we can miss sight of the fact that the truth the technocratic city is already here.

For better or worse, London has long been considered one of the world’s great cities. It has produced many of the world’s great artists, writers, and thinkers. Many of the world’s most renowned museums are here, housing priceless historical artifacts and works of art. London’s palaces, parks, gardens, and squares make it an architect’s playground.

Conversely, London is also known as a place where freedom and privacy are nearly extinct. It is one of the world’s most surveilled cities, ranking second globally in CCTV cameras per square (1,138) and third in CCTV cameras per person (73 per 1,000). The city’s police have recently purchased facial recognition technology in order to process historic images from these CCTV cameras as well as social media platforms and other sources. This is in addition to the Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology already deployed in the city.

But this is just one small part of life in one of the world’s most technocratic and surveilled cities. In 2018 the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan launched Smarter London Together, his roadmap to make London “the smartest city in the world.” This initiative builds on an older so-called roadmap from 2013, the Smart London Plan which was rolled out by then mayor and current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. This perfectly illustrates how politicians may come, go, and move around while the technocratic agenda moves forward without resistance.

Jumping to 2020 we find the Smart London Board, the group which helps bring the objectives outlined in the Smarter London Together road map to fruition, developing the Emerging Technologies Charter, “a set of criteria that digital innovations based on artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, virtual reality and more should meet if they are deployed in the capital.” Meeting the criteria established by this charter is not mandatory in order for new technology to actually be deployed however. This is important to note in order to properly interpret what is laid out in this document.

The most recent version of the charter was published last week. The Mayor, an avowed globalist committed to fulfilling to The Great Reset agenda, says that the charter will play a significant role in the economic and social recovery of London. Let’s examine what that recovery will look like.

The document opens with praise for London already being one of the leading technocratic cities on the planet, highlighting the city as a hub for the research, development, and innovation of 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI). The charter claims this infrastructural is all in place to insure fast download speeds and rapid data processing capabilities. In reality, this is the infrastructure needed for the ruling class to manage all aspects of life, including the human body itself.

The charter then goes on to list the four principles for implementing technology in London.

Be Open

When trialling and deploying emerging technologies, the government will aspire to “work in the open” wherever possible and will describe what the technology is, what it can do, why it is being used and, “where appropriate”, the legal and ethical basis for doing so in what they call “Plain English.”

Translation: the government will work behind closed doors as much as possible, illegally and unethically as often as they feel like it.

When the government says Plain English they mean short words and short sentences meant for anyone with a 9 year old’s reading comprehension skills. In other words, the government will be deploying highly complicated technology, only telling you about it when they feel like it, and when they do, they’ll speak to you like you’re a child.

They also totally promise to speak with local communities, protect personal data, and give regular updates about their undertakings in the name of being open.

There is no mention about being open about the negative effects of 5G on the human body or ethical problems surrounding virtual reality.

Respect Diversity

The second principle of the Emerging Technology Charter contains the usual banal platitudes about diversity and inclusiveness found at the center of any globalist or technocratic statement. However, there is one very telling detail here which reveals how this agenda paves the way for a two-tiered society. Amidst all the concerns about considering people from all walks of life, there is room to exclude others:

For public bodies, setting out how the technology or service meets the Public Sector Equality Duty for example…if certain groups are excluded from the benefit of new technologies, the technology should have a clear reason why it does not serve these groups.

Who are these certain groups? The charter doesn’t clarify but at a time when the UK government is currently trying to bypass Parliament in an effort to implement vaccine passports via the backdoor it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to know who this is reserved for. In this technocratic surveillance system a resident of or visitor to London will need a digital vaccine certificate to take part in public life. If this comes to fruition it is only a matter of time until the vaccine certificate is rolled into a digital wallet for a blockchain-based Central Bank Digital Currency.

Today it is just different colored wristbands to differentiate between “vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” students. Tomorrow, with just the flip of a switch or push of a button these bureaucrats behind the Emerging Technology Charter and Smart London Board will be able to disconnect anyone they deem unworthy of having access to these so-called beneficial new technologies.

Be Trustworthy With People’s Data

“London requires safe, secure, and useful ways of using and sharing data which build trust among our partners and citizens,” claim the authors of the charter. The principle goes on to list all of the ways in which they promise to ethically collect, review, and store data, including biometric data.

This is perhaps the most blatantly disingenuous section of the charter. Not only because following this charter is entirely voluntary to begin with but because it leaves out two crucial facets of how data is already collected and used in the United Kingdom.

The first is the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the English equivalent of the National Security Agency (NSA). The GCHQ collects, reviews, and stores an incomprehensible amount of data on the British public with little to no accountability or oversight and yet the Emerging Technology Charter makes no mention of this fact. So, even if those who follow the charter absolutely respected the privacy of Londoners it would be a moot point unless the mass surveillance of the CQHQ was ended.

Second, is the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known as the Snoopers Charter. This law enables the government to lie in court with impunity by enshrining parallel construction in law. It works like this:

Parallel construction occurs when the Government learns of criminal activity through one source, but then gives the information to a law enforcement agency to “reconstruct” the investigation so that the origin of that second investigation is different from the original source.

Again, even if the Emerging Technology Charter was made mandatory and truly protected the privacy of everyone in London it wouldn’t prevent the government from using that data to it’s advantage with the members of the public none the wiser as to how it was really collected.

Be Sustainable

What technocratic guideline would be complete without a pledge to sustainability? “London wants new technologies to be as sustainable as possible [and] contribute to the Mayor’s goal to be a net zero carbon city,” according to the charter. And when does the Mayor want London to be a net zero carbon city by? 2030 of course.

The lives of all Londoners will be recorded, listed to, analyzed, catalogued, tracked, traced, and controlled in Khan’s smart city but at least it will be done sustainably. And by sustainably we are to presume this means whatever it takes to further centralize and control the resources of the planet into fewer and fewer hands as part of what James Corbett calls the The 100 Trillion Dollar Bankster Climate Swindle.

The situation in London illustrates just how easily new technologies of control can be slotted into our existing infrastructure. That way, neither the residents riding the Underground or the tourist snapping pictures of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace can just go about their business without feeling the noticing the enslavement grid being built around them. Until one day when they can’t board their flight for lack of a health certificate, buy tickets to a play because the CCTV caught them running a red light, or buy meat because they’ve exceeded their monthly sustainable food allotment. But by then it’s already too late.

Connect with What About the Roads

Dangerous Speech Versus Free Speech; Mobs of Ignoramuses

by Jon Rappoport, No More Fake News
September 30, 2021

“For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” George Washington, 1783

Many, many people believe that spreading COVID falsehoods can be so dangerous that censorship is absolutely necessary.

This view happens to be the central refuge of liars.

It turns out that big-time liars always want to censor their opponents. It’s the only leg they have to stand on. In an atmosphere of free discourse, they would fall.

And of course, who decides what is false and what is true? Who hangs out that shingle and makes judgments that affect the lives of millions of people?

There is an astounding level of ignorance here: many people believe “the truth” should carry the day. Once it is established, there is no need to permit freedom of speech.

These people have a very low ceiling of understanding. They’ve never explored what freedom of speech is all about. They’re citizens in name only.

“If someone says the vaccine is harmful, people will be dissuaded from taking it. That would be dangerous.”

Putting aside the fact that the vaccine is a destroyer, free speech implies living with danger. The remedy is intelligence and knowledge. The only workable remedy is raising people’s ability to consider all sorts of judgments, opinions, and conclusions, without being irrationally swayed to one side or another.

Otherwise, we have Fascists on parade. Mobs of clueless ignoramuses.

Once upon a time, there was a never-never land called Dolt with millions of traffic lights. A writer penned, “Always cross the street when you’re facing a red light. Stay on the curb when the light is green.”

Outrage followed. The writer was censored for dangerous speech.

The rulers and their followers were so impressed with this victory, they established a national task force to root out falsehoods of all kinds and censor them. Pursuing this path, the society turned into a police state. And the majority of people approved.

We’re heading in that direction now.

“Strange it is that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free speech but object to their being ‘pushed to an extreme,’ not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.” John Stuart Mill, 1859

It’s no surprise that modern civilization, intellectually based on a fool’s version of “science,” has built science as a new religion, with all the restrictions that organized religions have enforced.

After all, when the teachings of a man called Jesus were incorporated into a powerful Church, that Church set about censoring, imprisoning, torturing, and burning dissidents. As if Jesus would have approved.

Centuries later, people were shocked to learn this Church was rife with pedophile priests. I would be shocked to learn the Church isn’t filled with pedophiles.

Many are the OTHER secret crimes the men in power today are committing, given that they’re already relentlessly pushing a highly destructive vaccine into the arms of a billion people.

They HAVE TO demand censorship of dissidents.

So no, I’m not surprised that the press and social media and politicians are trying to censor COVID information which doesn’t serve their purposes.

Consider this. A week ago, at a standard FDA conference to discuss recommending COVID boosters, several scientists testified that convincing data to support the additional shots were entirely lacking. Two leading in-house FDA scientists had just resigned because they opposed the push for boosters. And finally, the FDA committee as a whole rejected the present need for boosters.

Yet the following day, the head of the NIH, and the White House itself, ignored the FDA and said that boosters were coming. Even the FDA was effectively censored.

There are thousands of scientists all over the world who strenuously oppose the official COVID narrative, and they can’t even get a glance from editors of medical journals, when they submit papers.

Talking news heads are feeding the population fast-food COVID science—a manufactured product consisting of synthetic bullshit about cases, deaths, the virus, the vaccine. It’s cardboard. And no dissenters allowed.

Since I stopped writing for mainstream and so-called alternative outlets in the early 1990s, I’ve gone my own way. As of this writing, I’m still here. My videos have been taken down. My site was hacked. We restored it. I’m still here.

I take freedom of speech seriously. No matter what.

Only low scum want to censor us. They make an absurd pretense of claiming WE’RE liars. But we don’t want to censor THEM. That’s called a clue.

Right now, as I write this, Australian men with balls, union construction workers, are staging an insurrection against their union bosses, who are colluding with corrupt politicians to enforce COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates. The workers are facing off against cops in the street. This is one of the biggest stories in the world.

The New York Times and the Washington Post and the news networks should be leading with it and covering breaking developments wall to wall. Instead, they’re downplaying and hiding it. These news whores and their pimps are holding the line for Fascism.

I’ll close, for now, with this story. Months ago, an “alternative journalist” approached me, urging me to stop saying the pandemic virus doesn’t exist.

I sized up the complaint. It seemed to have several roots. One, I was “confusing people,” who couldn’t decide what to believe. Two, there were far more important COVID issues that needed to be explored. And three, that journalist was receiving emails citing my work and asking for clarification—and this was bothersome, especially when the emailers agreed with me.

The journalist off-handedly and blithely assumed I would obey and stop writing about the existence of the virus.

Of course, I reacted oppositely. I always do. I dig deeper and farther along the track I’m pursuing. In this case, I found and wrote about more evidence for the non-existence of the virus.

That issue happens to be CENTRAL and BASIC to the whole COVID story. And if writing about it confuses some people, that’s what happens when free speech is still possible. There’s nothing wrong with confusion. It’s productive. It’s supposed to be a prelude to more profound understanding.

I’m not running some sort of operation that seeks uniformity.

That journalist was trying to censor me by having me censor myself.

No dice.

“He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.” Wendell Phillips, 1870

Those fools who can only “opt for the truth” will never grasp the meaning of the 1st Amendment. They’ll never see the freight train of Fascism coming.

Connect with Jon Rappoport

cover image credit: 愚木混株CDD20 / pixabay

Just a Conspiracy Theory

by Jeremy Nell, Jerm Warfare
September 20, 2021

I miss the good old days when I was labelled something simple like ‘racist’ by the pitchfork-wielding mobs.

Even cartoonists – the supposed bastions of political incorrectness – have lost their irreverence by becoming postmodern perpetuators and protectors of the establishment.

I am reminded of the time when a cartoonist told me, over the phone, that I’m a misogynist because I said that feminism is irrelevant in the West. My wife, who was sitting next to me, laughed at him because she agrees with me. Obviously, my wife is also a misogynist.

Or the time when the mainstream media hilariously tried to frame me as a homophobe because I jokingly called the South African justice system ‘gay’.

These days, the labels are a lot more boring.

Currently, “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorist” are in fashion.

I’ll ignore “anti-vaxxer” because being opposed to Covid clotshots isn’t even remotely controversial. I am healthy but must get injected with a mRNA cocktail that has no long-term safety trials, for a pathogen whose existence is imaginary, manufactured by a company whose profits are being boosted by millions of masked sheep living in fear?

That’s a no from me, Bob.

Being labelled a “conspiracy theorist” is also boring, but it’s a bit more fun than “anti-vaxxer”.

Because it says something about the person saying it.

And that something is blissful ignorance. Bad people don’t do bad things. Everything must be taken at face value. Rainbows and unicorns and bunnies frolicking in the meadows.

Pigeonholing somebody as a “conspiracy theorist” is a compliment because it’s an admission that the recipient is engaging in critical thinking.

And thinking critically is prohibited, these days.

Even the New York Times doesn’t want you to think critically and to, instead, blindly trust the authorities.

Stop thinking critically?

Think critically about that.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

The following is a list of conspiracy theories. Bad people didn’t do anything bad. Nobody conspired. Happiness and cupcakes.

The million Tutsis who were massacred by the Hutu government in Rwanda, were conspired against.
The tens of millions of Soviets, who were starved to death by Stalin’s government, were conspired against.
The CIA conspired against Americans by secretly giving LSD to unsuspecting individuals to test mind control.
US president Lyndon Johnson conspired against Americans when he said that American ships had been attacked by the Vietnamese, in order to gain support for America’s artificial entry into the Vietnam War. No such attack happened.
Tobacco companies conspired against the entire world, for decades, by hiding links between smoking and cancer.

I can go on, but I’ll be here all month. The point is that the above examples are not conspiracy theories.

They are conspiracies.

And the critical thinkers who originally smelt a rat and began theorising about what was going on, were – wait for it – conspiracy theorists.

Thank goodness for conspiracy theorists.

By all means, label me one.

Connect with Jeremy Nell

images credit: Jeremy Nell, Jerm Warfare

JP Sears: The People Who Want Censorship

The People Who Want Censorship

by JP Sears, AwakeningWithJP
August 7, 2021

In this video you’ll see what the people are like who want censorship. A unique breed of people who are allergic to freedom…

Follow JP Sears on YouTube

Facebook Goes Full Big Brother With New “Extremism” Warnings

Pop-ups mark an all-time high for creepiness from the internet giant.

by OffGuardian
July 2, 2021

Have you been reading things you shouldn’t online? Have you found yourself feeling frustrated and angry at the corruption of the ruling class, wealth inequality or the general state of the world?

Well then, the chances are good you’ve accidentally been exposed to “misinformation” or “extremist content” spread by “violent groups” in order to manipulate you.

But don’t worry, Facebook is on the case. Simply report the offensive and upsetting materials to your local content controller, and then contact their pre-approved counsellors for immediate de-programming.

If it’s not you that’s been exposed to harmful content, but a loved one, and they’re proving resistant to the proper un-extreming methods, then Facebook is here to help there, too.

Simply confidentially report your friend or family member to the proper authorities, and they’ll take it from there.

Remember that divergence of opinion is dangerous. Under no circumstances consume content that differs from your state-mandated opinions.

Report all infractions, refuse to see harmful facts, be sure to distance yourself from those who refuse to be corrected, for their own good and yours.

And have a nice day.

Connect with OffGuardian

Facebook Insider Who Leaked ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’ Docs Morgan Kahmann GOES ON RECORD After Suspension

by James O’Keefe, Project Veritas
May 27, 2021

One of two Facebook Insiders featured in Project Veritas’ recent #ExposeFacebook series that revealed the company’s censorship of vaccine concerns on a global scale has officially come out of the shadows.
Data Center Technician Morgan Kahmann felt compelled to speak out publicly and shine a light on Facebook’s decision to hide their censorship plans from users.
Kahmann informed Project Veritas of a Facebook decision to suspend and remove him from his office pending an “Investigatory Meeting” with Human Resources. Meeting was called off at the last minute.
Kahmann: “What happened was I was at work, and I got a message from my supervisor, out of the blue, basically saying ‘go ahead and wrap up your area and clean up your stuff, gather your personal belongings and meet me in a meeting room in the lobby of the building.’ They’re basically going to have me meet with the investigative team and grill me on this whole situation.”
Kahmann was able to secure additional internal Facebook documents before his suspension that confirm the “vaccine hesitancy” algorithm is live and being implemented globally across Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Kahmann hopes more are inspired to Be Brave, and Do Something about the wrongdoing they witness inside Big Tech, media, and government.
Kahmann has set up a fundraiser on the Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo to support his wife and children as he attempts to move forward in his now uncertain future.

Kahmann is one of two Facebook insiders that came to Project Veritas with this information, and he explained in an interview how he found out about his suspension.

“What happened was I was at work, and I got a message from my supervisor, out of the blue, basically saying ‘go ahead and wrap up your area and clean up your stuff, gather your personal belongings and meet me in a meeting room in the lobby of the building,’” Kahmann said. “They’re basically going to have me meet with the investigative team and grill me on this whole situation.”

Kahmann also explained to Project Veritas what motivated him to blow the whistle on Facebook’s wrongdoing in the first place.

“What would happen if this [Facebook Vaccine Hesitancy Comment Demotion policy] was scaled larger and scaled to Twitter and the internet as a whole is way worse than anything that could happen from me getting fired from my job,” he said. “To me, that, it far outweighs that. Because it’s about more than me. It’s about really everyone in the world.”

Before being suspended, Kahmann secured additional internal Facebook documents showing that the Big Tech giant’s “vaccine hesitancy” policy has now been fully implemented.

He says that by doing what he did, more brave patriots working inside powerful institutions will come forward when they witness corruption.

Kahmann has officially launched a fundraising campaign on the Christian website, GiveSendGo, to support his family in these difficult times. He says it is the best form to support him now.

“I think that the main reason why people don’t want to come out [as whistleblowers] — because what if I, you know, I have two kids, I have my wife, and if I lose my job, it’s like ‘what do I do?’ But that’s less of a concern to me.”

Connect with Project Veritas

NYU Professor Fights Back Against the Academic Crybullies

by James Corbett, The Corbett Report
April 21, 2021

Mark Crispin Miller teaches a course on Mass Persuasian and Propaganda at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development for 20 years. He is now suing 20 department colleagues for libel after they signed a letter to the dean of his school demanding a review of Miller’s conduct. Today we talk to Miller about his course, his views, his libel suit, and the state of free speech in the era of increasing COVID tyranny.

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Minds / Odysee / YouTube or Download the mp4

SHOW NOTES:

MarkCrispinMiller.com

“Masks Don’t Work” by Denis Rancourt

Change.org petition: Under attack at NYU, Mark Crispin Miller needs your support for academic freedom

MCM’s libel lawsuit, complete (thus far)

Help Mark Crispin Miller sue for libel (GoFundMe)

Nope, Aristotle Did Not Say, “It Is the Mark of an Educated Mind to Entertain a Thought Without….”

Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance Dehaven-Smith

Masking ourselves to death: Part 1 of 3

The Gray Lady Winked

James Corbett & Ryan Cristian: COVID-19 Censorship, Technocracy & The Amazing Country Of Digital Gulag

by Ryan Cristian, The Last American Vagabond
March 15, 2021

Joining me today is James Corbett, here to discuss his recent censorship as well as ‘Digital Gulag’ being built around us, and the importance of why we must act now, today, in order to stop this rising technocratic state.

(https://www.rokfin.com/TLAVagabond)
(https://odysee.com/@TLAVagabond:5)
(https://www.bitchute.com/channel/24yVcta8zEjY/)

Video Source Links:

In Chronological Order:

https://www.corbettreport.com/our-digital-gulag/

https://web.archive.org/web/20041026051927/wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/Report/NBIC_pre_publication.pdf

https://www.corbettreport.com/solutions-for-resisting-technocracy/

https://www.corbettreport.com/derrick-broze-on-opting-out-of-technocracy/

https://www.corbettreport.com/2017-the-year-of-technocracy-confirmed/

https://www.corbettreport.com/bigoil/

5 NIH/National Library of Medicine studies from 2004-2020 all finding verifiable health effects from wearing a face mask, including scientifically verified reduction is blood oxygen level:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29395560/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32590322/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15340662/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26579222/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31159777/

Cloth Mask Study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/

SOME of the mask studies on efficacy:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v1

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749214

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/188/8/567

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/

https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-13-06-oa-0201.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/

https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bio/23/2/23_61/_pdf/-char/en

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01658736

https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/0195-6701(91)90148-2/pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493952/pdf/annrcse01509-0009.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20200717141836/https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25776/rapid-expert-consultation-on-the-effectiveness-of-fabric-masks-for-the-covid-19-pandemic-april-8-2020

https://www.nap.edu/read/25776/chapter/1#6

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/54/7/789/202744

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599448/

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-020-01704-y

https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/jide/journal-of-infectious-diseases-and-epidemiology-jide-6-130.php?jid=jide

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1130147308702355

NYU Professor, Mark Crispin Miller: The Latest Victim of Cancel Culture

Canceling Critical Thinking

by Del Bigtree, The HighWire
March 8, 2021

Video available at The HighWire BitChute and Brighteon channels.

NYU Professor, Mark Crispin Miller, is the latest victim in the era of cancel culture.

During his popular “Propaganda” class, Miller offered his students information from both sides of the mask discussion, citing scientific evidence and promoting critical thinking on the divisive topic.

What happened next might shock you…

Citizens for Free Speech Defends High School Principal Who Was Suspended for Promoting Free Speech to Students

CFFS Supports High School Principal Suspended for Promoting Free Speech to Students

by Patrick Wood, Citizens for Free Speech
March 8, 2021

PRESS RELEASE

March 8, 2021

Barton Thorne wanted his students to be aware of the prospect of losing their right to speak and be heard in the era of “cancel culture”, and his high school immediately illustrated his point—by canceling him.

Thorne is the principal of Cordova High School in Shelby County, TN, and when he delivered his weekly video address to staff and students in January, just days after the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, his message was clear: Beware the suppression of online speech and expression that does not conform to the prevailing orthodoxy of the moment.

It was a message not well-received by district administrators, who placed Thorne on paid leave after receiving complaints about the video’s contents. The district’s message was, in turn, not well-received by Citizens for Free Speech (CFFS).

“Here you have a high school principal,” stated CFFS founder and director Patrick Wood, “who is trying to advise his students of the importance of listening to all voices and viewpoints, who then has his own voice silenced by the school district for saying so. It’s unconscionable.”

The video message recorded by Principal Thorne warned that actions taken by the Big Tech social media platforms in limiting or banning online commentary today could have far-reaching implications for young students in their not-too-distant future.

“I’m only getting into this because as a young person, this is your future. You have a future ahead of you, and you will be developing your ideas and your values and the ways that you want to express yourself. But because these entities—Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Apple—are so powerful, and they have unilaterally made a decision of what you can and cannot see on their platforms, that’s a major issue and I want you to understand that.

“I want you to understand the problem that’s going to face you and your generation if there is no longer a marketplace, a free exchange of ideas.”

Thorne’s video address also referenced past cases of First Amendment suppression gone very wrong, including the Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, TX in 1993.

“What happens if one day a different group of people thinks that my religion is different, or funny, or should be brought into control, or should be filtered?” Thorne pondered. “Take that into speech. Maybe right now I’m in the norm, maybe right now my speech is not too outlandish, or too crazy…but what if a different group comes into power that no longer likes what I have to say, or how I think, or if they begin to think that I’m extreme?”

That question, according to Wood, is the most important one.

“There has been a sizable shift in the political winds in recent months, if not years,” explained the CFFS director, “and what was once considered acceptable speech then, is not considered acceptable now. If we allow a small monopoly of people to control what people can say and what they can hear, who’s to say it won’t be our own speech that is not acceptable six months from now? Or six years from now? It’s a dangerous game they’re playing.”

After serving a six-week suspension, ended only by a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf for violating his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Thorne was finally reinstated as principal. Despite returning to his position, Thorne’s lawsuit goes on, in part to help restore his tarnished reputation, and in part to demonstrate to his students the importance of defending one’s constitutional rights—which was the precise topic of his video address to begin with.

For more information about CFFS please visit www.CitizensForFreeSpeech.org.

Contact:

Bob Frantz

National Director of Communications

bob.frantz@citizensforfreespeech.org

‘We Do Not Censor Books’: New York Public Library Refuses to Cancel Dr. Seuss

Numerous other libraries follow suit.

by Paul Joseph Watson, Summit News
March 5, 2021

The New York Public Library is refusing to cave to the woke mob and cancel Dr. Seuss, asserting that it does not and will not censor books.

Last week, a far-left group called Learning for Justice forced the publisher of the books, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, to cease printing and licensing six of the works, asserting that they promoted “white supremacy.”

That prompted an immediate backlash, with sales surging on Amazon by a whopping 5.7 million percent.

Numerous libraries across the country have also stated that they will not remove the titles from their shelves.

The latest to do so is the New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, with spokeswoman Angela Montefinise telling the media, “As with all public libraries the New York Public Library does not censor books.”

The copies that are stocked in the library will continue to be circulated until they “are no longer in acceptable condition,” according to Montefinise.

Libraries that serve the Bronx, and Staten Island, the Brooklyn and Queens have also all vowed to keep the books in circulation.

The Denver Public Library in Colorado followed suit, releasing a statement that said, “The freedom of choice in what a person decides to read is here to stay and the value of reading for any child is critical in their development.”

As we highlighted earlier, eBay has banned private sellers from listing the books on its marketplace, claiming that they contain “offensive material.”

Meanwhile, conservatives continue to ask the question; Is there one example in human history where the “good guys” have censored or destroyed books?

RFK Jr. Opens ‘CIA Can of Worms’

by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola.com
February 27, 2021

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

February 10, 2021, Instagram banned the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for “sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines”
The real reason Kennedy is being censored is because he understands and exposes the global technocratic agenda that is pushing us toward global totalitarianism
The corporate media are indistinguishable from the CIA when it comes to matters of domestic and foreign matters. The CIA has also played an important role in furthering the technocrats’ agenda of global domination since its inception
Big tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon are also deeply connected to the military-industrial-intelligence complex. They serve important surveillance and data harvesting functions without which the technocratic agenda cannot not be realized
The core of the technocratic power structure includes entities such as the Trilateral Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, the Aspen Institute, the Atlantic Institute, the Brookings Institute and other think-tanks

February 10, 2021, Instagram banned the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an attorney, founder of Children’s Health Defense, and co-founder and president of the environmental group, River Alliance. According to Instagram, his account was removed for “sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”1

This comes as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention over the past year, when privately owned social media companies started censoring users in earnest, often at the request of government officials, thereby qualifying themselves as bona fide instruments of fascism.

As described in “Fascism Definition With Examples,”2 a hallmark of fascism is an economic system in which government controls private corporations and where “a central planning authority directs company leaders to work in the national interest, which actively suppresses those who oppose it.”

The welfare of the population at large is subjugated in such a system in order to achieve “imperative social goals.” This could, for example, be the goal to vaccinate the entire population against COVID-19, which will ensure the vaccine industry can profit rather than go bust. Public health be damned.

Of course, the entire premise of a mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is that it will protect people and prevent unnecessary deaths from the virus. But a hidden, underlying agenda is revealed by the fact that injuries and deaths from the vaccine are either suppressed or shrugged off as collateral damage in the name of the greater good.

In other words, dying due to poor health is unacceptable and must be prevented with a vaccine, whereas dying in good health and at a young age due to vaccine injury is a perfectly acceptable price to protect the vulnerable. The end result is the same: People die. The only differences are how and why people die, and whether or not big business, which funds politicians, can profit in the process.

Don’t Trust the Medical or National Security Establishment

In the August 2020 Ron Paul Liberty Report above,^3,⁴ Kennedy talks about evidence suggesting his father, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated by a CIA agent hired as a security guard.

He goes on to review some of the history of the CIA — how it was initially established as an espionage organization tasked solely with intelligence gathering, only to transform into a paramilitary agency engaged with the overthrowing of democracies around the world and other nefarious and antidemocratic activities.

He also touches on the infamous CIA program called MK Ultra, in which individuals are brainwashed to carry out orders, including murders, against their own will.

CIA and Corporate Media Are One and the Same

The CIA’s role in the current flood of censorship may be more significant than most people imagine. In the Off-Guardian article,⁵ “Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms,” Edward Curtin highlights the close ties between the CIA and corporate mainstream media.

He cites Douglas Valentine’s book, “The CIA as Organized Crime,” in which Valentine states that “The CIA and the media are part of the same criminal conspiracy.” Curtin describes the media as “stenographers for the national security state’s ongoing psychological operations aimed at the American people,” adding that:

“For all practical purposes when it comes to matters that bear on important foreign and domestic matters, the CIA and the corporate mainstream media cannot be distinguished.”

While information warfare and psyops have been par for the course for a long time, it’s only in recent years that more people have started really noticing it, and it’s only become blatantly obvious in the past year or so, thanks to the rapid expansion of individuals, groups and topics being silenced.

In the past year, even licensed medical doctors and award-winning scientists have undergone the modern version of being tarred and feathered online, followed by expulsion from their web-based communities for the crime of asking commonsense questions and speaking truth to power.

Guilt by Headline

The aim and purpose of the kind of information warfare we currently find ourselves embroiled in is to “win the hearts and minds of the American people and pacify them into victims of their own complicity,” Curtin writes. Again, with regard to COVID-19, the purpose is clearly to get everyone to buy into the necessity of getting vaccinated and to reject objections, no matter how logical.

That the CIA-run media, medical establishment and national security apparatus are all working in tandem on this issue, and using classic propaganda tactics, is unmistakable. Curtin writes:⁶

“Just the other day The New York Times had this headline: ‘Robert Kennedy Jr. Barred From Instagram Over False Virus Claims.’ Notice the lack of the word alleged before ‘false virus claims.’ This is guilt by headline.

It is a perfect piece of propaganda posing as reporting, since it accuses Kennedy, a brilliant and honorable man, of falsity and stupidity, thus justifying Instagram’s ban, and it is an inducement to further censorship of Mr. Kennedy by Facebook, Instagram’s parent company …

This is one example of the censorship underway with much, much more to follow. What was once done under the cover of omission is now done openly and brazenly, cheered on by those who, in an act of bad faith, claim to be upholders of the First Amendment and the importance of free debate in a democracy. We are quickly slipping into an unreal totalitarian social order.”

Curtin disagrees with journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Chris Hedges, who argue that social media companies really don’t want to censor but are pressured into it by hubris-filled, power- and control-hungry corporate media personalities.

There’s more to it than that, Curtin says, pointing out that “These companies and their employees do what they are told, whether explicitly or implicitly, for they know it is in their financial interest to do so.”

He argues that they’re all “part of a large interconnected intelligence apparatus — a system, a complex — whose purpose is power, wealth, and domination for the very few at the expense of the many,” and that, it is this that makes the CIA and media “parts of the same criminal conspiracy.”

Who Pulls the Levers of Control?

“To argue that the Silicon Valley companies do not want to censor but are being pressured by the legacy corporate media does not make sense,” Curtin says, because:

“These companies are deeply connected to U.S. intelligence agencies, as are the NY Times, CNN, NBC, etc. They too are part of what was once called Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s program to control, use, and infiltrate the media. Only the most naïve would think that such a program does not exist today.”

Indeed, many suspect Facebook is the public-friendly version of DARPA’s Lifelog, a database project aimed at tracking the minutiae of people’s entire existence for national security surveillance purposes.⁷ The Pentagon pulled the plug on Lifelog February 4, 2004, in response to backlash over privacy concerns.⁸ Yet that same day, Facebook was launched.⁹ Coincidence?

Whether by fluke or pre-inception collaboration, there can be no doubt that Facebook now fulfills the Lifelog purpose of surveilling, tracking and data mining its users both on- and offline.

Similarly, Google, Amazon, Twitter and other major tech companies are also tied to the “military-industrial-intelligence-media complex,” to quote Curtin’s term. All provide invaluable surveillance and censorship functions, and without them, the totalitarian control system we now find ourselves caught in wouldn’t be possible.

“The truth is the Internet was a military and intelligence tool from the very beginning and it is not the traditional corporate media that gives [tech companies] its marching orders,” Curtin writes.¹⁰

“That being so, it is not the owners of the corporate media or their employees who are the ultimate controllers behind the current vast crackdown on dissent, but the intelligence agencies who control the mainstream media and the Silicon Valley monopolies …

All these media companies are but the outer layer of the onion, the means by which messages are sent and people controlled. But for whom do these intelligence agencies work? Not for themselves.

They work for their overlords, the super wealthy people, the banks, financial institutions, and corporations that own the United States and always have.

In a simple twist of fate, such super wealthy naturally own the media corporations that are essential to their control of the majority of the world’s wealth through the stories they tell. It is a symbiotic relationship.”

Operation Mockingbird: The Great Reset

What Curtin is talking about is the same elite 0.001% of the global population I’ve written about before in articles such as “Oneness Versus the 1%,” “What You Need to Know About the Great Reset,” “The Global Takeover Is Underway,” “The Plan for a Global System of Slavery,” “The Pressing Dangers of Technocracy,” “Technocracy and the Great Reset” and many others.

While the specific identities of the individual string-pullers are difficult to discern, what’s clear is that there is an international “deep state” whose plans are implemented in a coordinated fashion around the world, seemingly at a moment’s notice, as we saw when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

Within days, all the world’s leaders sang the same tune. The same message was stated in dozens of languages, often verbatim, as if they were reading the same cue card. Looking at global nongovernmental agencies makes it easier to ascertain who these cue card writers might be, as they form a vast, intertwined web that keep circling back to each other.

We can discern, then, that the core of this technocratic power structure includes entities such as the Trilateral Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, the Aspen Institute, the Atlantic Institute, the Brookings Institute and other think-tanks, just to name some of the most obvious.

Members of these exclusive “clubs,” many of which are by invitation only, include leaders from major industries, corporate media, political offices and the military-industrial complex.

As noted by Curtin, “They are the international overlords who are pushing hard to move the world toward a global dictatorship.” The CIA, as you might suspect by now, has also been part of this “deep state cabal” from the very beginning.

And, if the CIA and corporate media are two sides of the same coin, we can deduce that the global psyop currently underway has the purpose of ensuring the successful implementation of the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution — two terms that describe different aspects of the same agenda of enslavement.

While it may seem unrelated to some, the vaccine agenda does play an important part in this scheme, especially long term, which is why anti-vaccine voices are now being slapped down at a furious pace. It’s not the sole reason for their silencing, however.

The Real Threat Kennedy Poses

As Curtin points out in his article, Kennedy is not censored simply because he’s raising questions about vaccines, Bill Gates or the drug industry in general. No, it’s because he’s a direct threat to the highest echelon of this hidden global power structure that seeks to take control:¹¹

“His critiques suggest something far more dangerous is afoot: the demise of democracy and the rise of a totalitarian order that involves total surveillance, control, eugenics, etc. by the wealthy led by their intelligence propagandists.

To call him a super spreader of hoaxes and a conspiracy theorist is aimed at not only silencing him on specific medical issues, but to silence his powerful and articulate voice on all issues.

To give thoughtful consideration to his deeply informed scientific thinking concerning vaccines, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc., is to open a can of worms that the powerful want shut tight.

This is because RFK, Jr. is also a severe critic of the enormous power of the CIA and its propaganda that goes back so many decades and was used to cover up the national security state’s assassination of both his father and his uncle.

It is why his wonderful recent book, ‘American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family,’ that contains not one word about vaccines, was shunned by mainstream book reviewers; for the picture he paints fiercely indicts the CIA in multiple ways while also indicting the mass media that have been its mouthpieces.”

According to Kennedy, the CIA murdered his father. The reason they did was because he was a powerful and popular politician who, like Curtin says, “could have … tamed the power of the CIA to control the narrative that has allowed for the plundering of the world and the country for the wealthy overlords.”

In other words, he knew the CIA was the figurative center pole holding up the pole tent, and if you yank that out, the roof caves in. They couldn’t let that happen.

Connecting the Dots

Kennedy discusses many of the same topics covered in the Ron Paul Report in his much longer interview with Patrick Bet-David, above. In both interviews, he reviews his family’s tragic yet heroic history, but he also gets into the topic of vaccine safety and the folly of ignoring published science showing there are significant problems — and the fact that the medical establishment refutes and denies these problems without ever presenting any actual counter-evidence.

Kennedy also discusses data suggesting the COVID-19 lockdowns may have caused more deaths than the virus itself, as well as the civil rights issues involved. Like many other experts, he believes the lockdowns are scientifically indefensible and will kill far more people than COVID-19.

Based on a recent cost-benefit analysis¹² of global lockdowns, Kennedy is correct. Data suggest the cost for lockdowns in Canada — in terms of Quality Adjusted Life Years and Wellbeing Years — is at least 10 times greater than the benefit.

In Australia, the minimum cost is 6.6 times higher, and in the U.S., the cost is estimated to be at least 5.2 times higher than the benefit of lockdowns. So, yes, pandemic measures are robbing the public of more life and fruitful years than this virus ever could.

In his interview with Bet-David, Kennedy also delves into known side effects of vaccines that in turn drive a highly profitable chronic illness industry, the lack of safety studies for vaccines, the irresponsible practice of testing vaccines against false placebos such as another vaccine, and the vaccine industry’ indemnity agreement with Congress that further prevents safe vaccines from ever being developed.

He also talks about the aggressive advertising of drugs and vaccines which, as a side effect, allows drug companies to influence media coverage of their products; the questionable integrity of Dr. Anthony Fauci; how mortality data are conflated to falsely inflate influenza deaths as a marketing ploy to sell flu vaccines; the dangers of 5G, modern-day electronic surveillance and social media’s data harvesting; and the detrimental influence of Bill Gates’ so-called philanthropy.

As Curtin notes, Kennedy’s observations, which help people connect the dots, ultimately point people to the core problem of our day, which is a hidden control structure that is seeking to destroy the American Constitution and rob us of our rights and freedoms, if we let them.

At the end of the day, that’s what all of this censorship is about. That hidden power structure does not want us to realize what’s being done to us, because then we might rebel. And, if that happens, the jig is up, since there are far more of us than there are of them.

A Well-Informed Humanity United Is the Answer

This is precisely why we must never stop seeking out and sharing this type of information. Those who buy into the propaganda are quite literally helping their soon-to-be jailers erect the prison bars around them. It’s self-destructive, which is why we need to help those we care about to understand the bigger picture and not get locked into details of differing opinions that don’t matter.

As noted in Kennedy’s October 24, 2020, online speech,¹³ “International Message of Hope for Humanity” — which kicked off a day of protest against the coup d’état by the technocratic elite — we must shed our imaginary fears, reject media fearmongering, insist on freedom of speech and engage in the democratic process.

“The only way we can win it is with democracy,” he said. “We need to fight to get our democracy back, to reclaim our democracy from these villains who are stealing it from us. Notice the people who are getting richest from this quarantine are the same people who are censoring criticism of the quarantine.”

Kennedy also stressed another crucial point, namely the need to unify. We must put aside our quibbles over nonessential things like race, religion and political affiliations, and stay laser-focused on the real enemy.

“What the Big Tech villains … want us to do is fight with each other. They want Blacks fighting against whites. They want republicans fighting against democrats. They want everybody polarized. They want everybody fragmented because they know that if we all get together, we’re going to start asking questions and those are questions they can’t answer …

If you’re a republican or democrat, stop talking about that. Stop identifying yourself. The enemy is Big Tech, Big Data, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the medical cartel, the government totalitarian elements that are trying to oppress us, that are trying to rob us of our liberties, of our democracy, of our freedom of thought, of our freedom of expression, of our freedom of assembly and all of the freedoms that give dignity to humanity …

The free-flow of information, the cauldron of debate, is the only thing that allows governments to develop rational policies in which self-governance will actually work and triumph.

You are on the front lines of the most important battle in history — the battle to save democracy, freedom, human liberty and human dignity from this totalitarian cartel that is trying to rob us, simultaneously, in every nation in the world, of the rights that every human being is born with …

And I pledge to you: I will go down dying with my boots on, fighting side-by-side with all of you to make sure that we return these rights and preserve them for our children.”

And, that, right there, is why Kennedy, like his father and uncle before him, is a target for elimination by the technocratic-CIA-media-drug-industrial-political-military complex. The good news is that the more people know and understand who the real enemy is, the lower the risk is for those in the know.

After all, the CIA cannot assassinate an entire country, or the entire world. At a certain point, silencing people becomes moot because too many people know the truth already. I believe this is the case with Kennedy at this point, which is why the worst they can do is try to limit his reach on social media. And with your help, even those efforts will ultimately fail.

Read more at Mercola.com

White House Enlists Social Media Giants to Suppress Vaccine ‘Misinformation’

As concerns about vaccine safety grow, the Biden administration is enlisting Big Tech’s help in removing social media posts that deviate from “officially distributed” COVID-19 information.

by Megan Redshaw, J.D., The Defender
February 22, 2021

The White House is asking Big Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to “clamp down on chatter that deviates from officially distributed COVID-19 information,” according to the New York Post and other news reports.

Reuters reported that Biden, concerned that “fear about taking the vaccine has emerged as a major impediment” to his administration’s pandemic plan, wants help from the social media moguls to keep “misinformation” from going viral.

“Vaccine hesitancy is a huge obstacle to getting everyone vaccinated and there are no larger players in that than the social media platforms,” a White House source told Reuters late last week.

Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain had previously said information questioning the COVID vaccine has caused others to question the vaccine. But the news out of Washington last week was the first sign that officials are directly engaged with Silicon Valley in censoring social media users, according to Reuters.

“Social media tycoons are now openly serving as government surrogates in censoring factually accurate information that departs from government policies and pronouncements,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., co-founder and chair of Children’s Health Defense.

The Biden administration wants to make sure that unfavorable material does not start trending on social media or become an even broader movement, citing concerns over a recent anti-vaccine protest at Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium which was organized through a Facebook page.

“We are talking to [social media companies] … so they understand the importance of misinformation and disinformation and how they can get rid of it quickly,” a White House source explained.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-N.Y.) last week criticized social media companies in a tweet accusing Facebook and Twitter of moving too slowly in responding to targeted harassment of people getting vaccinated and what Blumenthal described as “dangerous conspiracy theories.”

A spokesperson for Facebook told Reuters the company has reached out to the White House to offer any assistance they can provide and recently announced a new policy to remove COVID information the company deems false, along with pages, groups and accounts that repeatedly spread such material.

Twitter stated the company is in “regular communication with the White House on a number of critical issues including COVID-19 misinformation.”

Google did not comment on engagement with the White House but did point to a company blog on how it stops the spread of misinformation.

In August, 2020 Children’s Health Defense filed a lawsuit charging Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and several fact-checking organizations with censoring truthful public health posts and for fraudulently misrepresenting and defaming the children’s health organization.

The complaint alleges that Facebook has insidious conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry and health agencies and raised detailed factual allegations regarding the CDC, CDC Foundation, and WHO’s extensive relationships and collaborations with Facebook and Zuckerberg calling into question Facebook’s joint action in a censorship campaign with the government.

Earlier this month, Kennedy’s Instagram account was deplatformed without advance notice for what the media claimed were “false COVID claims” or “vaccine misinformation.” Some reports falsely characterized Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer.”

Kennedy unequivocally rejects those characterizations. He wrote in response to Instagram’s censorship:

“Every statement I put on Instagram was sourced from a government database, from peer-reviewed publications and from carefully confirmed news stories. None of my posts were false. Facebook, the pharmaceutical industry and its captive regulators use the term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as a euphemism for any factual assertion that departs from official pronouncements about vaccine health and safety, whether true or not. This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply.”

As Kennedy has stated numerous times, “for a democracy to function, civil debate of issues — including vaccine science — must be allowed. Censorship of that debate is anathema to democracy.”

Many reports have raised serious questions about the safety of COVID vaccines, including adverse reactions and other possible long-term complications that deserve debate, Kennedy said.

The Defender reported in January that a Florida doctor died three days after receiving Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. An expert on blood disorders at Johns Hopkins said in an interview with The New York Times, “I think it is a medical certainty that the vaccine was related.”Earlier this month, the CDC announced it was investigating the death of a 36-year-old doctor in Tennessee who died from an extremely rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome one month after getting his second dose of a COVID vaccination.

Drene Keyes, whose death is under investigation, died hours after receiving her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. She experienced flash pulmonary edema likely caused by anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, which some have experienced after receiving the COVID vaccine.

According to new data released Friday, as of Feb. 12, 15,923 adverse reactions to COVID vaccines, including 929 deaths, have been reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System since Dec. 14, 2020. One-third of reported deaths occurred within 48 hours of receiving the COVID vaccine.

“While social media companies are private entities with rights to censor information they don’t like, the involvement of the government in censorship efforts implicates the First Amendment,” Kennedy said.

Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

RFK, Jr. Responds to Instagram’s Removal of His Account

RFK, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed Wednesday. Dozens of media outlets reported the censorship, saying the account was removed over “vaccine misinformation,” a characterization Kennedy unequivocally rejected.

by Children’s Health Defense Team, The Defender
February 11, 2021

Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed without advanced notice. Dozens of media outlets reporting on this censorship asserted the account was removed over “false COVID vaccine claims” or “vaccine misinformation.” Some reports referred to Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer.”

Kennedy, founder, chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense,” unequivocally rejects those characterizations as false and misleading.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), including Kennedy, advocates for vaccine safety and health freedom. CHD’s mission is to end childhood health epidemics by exposing the causes, eliminating harmful exposures, holding those responsible accountable and seeking justice for those harmed.

As Kennedy has said many times, for a democracy to function, civil debate of issues — including vaccine science — must be allowed. Censorship of that debate is anathema to democracy.

Kennedy and Mary Holland, CHD president and general counsel, issued the following statements on Instagram’s removal of Kennedy’s account:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“The pharmaceutical industry is hastily creating vaccines using taxpayer money and untested technologies. These include a rash of risky new products that are exempt from liability, from long-term safety testing and that have not received FDA approval. Emergency Use Authorization is a mass population scientific experiment. If it has any prayer of working, it will require extraordinary scrutiny from the press and the public.

“Instead, the mainstream media and social media giants are imposing a totalitarian censorship to prevent public health advocates, like myself, from voicing concerns and from engaging in civil informed debate in the public square. They are punishing, shaming, vilifying, gaslighting and abolishing individuals who report their own vaccine injuries.

“Anyone can see that this is a formula for catastrophe and a coup d’état against the First Amendment, the foundation stone of American democracy.”

Mary Holland, President of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy. Children’s Health Defense and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provide critically needed information on environmental culprits, including vaccines, that are linked to many chronic diseases that now affect 54% of America’s children. Dr. Anthony Fauci has made it clear that young children will be included in COVID-19 vaccination plans even though children have almost zero risk of serious COVID-19 illness. CHD feels strongly that children should not take on 100% risks of vaccine injuries with 0% benefit.

“The sad reality is vaccine injuries can and do happen. The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database has more than 11,500 COVID-19 vaccine adverse event reports including more than 500 deaths in just six weeks since the vaccination campaign began. Why would Instagram censor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s platform and call it ‘misinformation’? Why now?

“Instagram deplatformed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Hirewire host, Del Bigtree, just 15 minutes before they were to air the webinar, ‘COVID Vaccine on Trial, If You Only Knew’ highlighting COVID concerns, injuries, mechanisms and other facts from four MDs, several Ph.D.s and leaders from the vaccine-injured community. COVID-19 vaccines use novel technology never before used in a human population. With that comes great unknown risks. The people of the world deserve to have this crucial information to protect their health and that of their children.”

Indian Farmers’ Protests: Twitter Withholds, Then Restores, Prominent Accounts by Government Order

by Samaya Anjum, Global Voices
sourced from Activist Post
February 5, 2021

On February 1, Twitter temporarily blocked people in India from viewing more than 250 accounts that appeared to express support to the farmers’ protests that have rocked the country for the past four months. The accounts were restored around six hours later.

Twitter then told news agency ANI that it withheld the accounts in response to a request from India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT to block accounts that had tweeted the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide for making “fake, provocative, and intimidatory tweets.”

The US-based platform explained its decision by pointing to its policy of withholding content in certain countries, which it employs when it receives “a request from an authorized entity” in that jurisdiction.

A source speaking under the condition of anonymity told The Hindustan Times said that Twitter decided to restore the accounts after concluding that the content withheld was “speech and newsworthy.”

The Indian government then lashed at Twitter, saying it may take action against the company if does not comply with its orders. A statement said:

Twitter cannot assume the role of (a) court and justify non-compliance. […] Twitter being an intermediary is obliged to obey the directions as per the satisfaction of authorities as to which inflammatory content will arouse passion and impact public order. Twitter cannot sit as an appellate authority over the satisfaction of the authorities about its potential impact on derailing public order.

Among those suspended from Twitter on February 1 was India’s prestigious magazine The Caravan. The publication’s executive editor Vinod K. Jose told Buzzfeed news that Twitter’s decision to withhold their official account is the “latest in a long list of targeted attacks” that had been mounted on the publication for pursuing important stories.

Activists and organizations that have been posting updates from the protests were also caught on the Twitter crackdown on Monday. Some of them were large popular accounts, such as @Tractor2twitr, @Kisanektamorcha, and @bkuektaugrahan.

The mass suspensions were deplored by the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, who labelled it as a “shocking case of blatant censorship”. The organization added: “By ordering these blockings, the Home Affairs Ministry is behaving like an Orwellian Ministry of Truth who wants to impose its own narrative about the farmers’ protests.”

Many journalists in India have also condemned the action, such as Sania Farooqui:

Today’s special in Censorship Nation: Twitter India blocks multiple accounts https://t.co/klpkuWmrUz via @geetaseshu

— Sania Farooqui (@SaniaFarooqui) February 1, 2021

Notable journalist Rana Ayyub tweeted:

We are talking about Emergency in Myanmar but nobody is talking about the undeclared emergency in India. Journalists, activists charged with sedition for reporting on the farmers protest, their twitter accounts suspended, the world cannot afford to ignore this dictatorship

— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) February 1, 2021

Farmers joined in sit-in protests near the capital. 5 December 2020. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Randeep Maddoke. CC0 Public Domain.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers in many parts of India have been protesting against liberalizing agriculture reforms approved by the country’s parliament in September 2020. Farmers’ unions and organizations say the reform, which among other measures removes subsidies and protections against big corporations, will endanger their livelihoods.

Thousands of farmers have camped for months outside New Delhi demanding the laws be repealed. Authorities have filed several sedition charges against activists and journalists since the demonstrations began, and have imposed internet shutdowns.

The protests drew global attention this week after international popstar Rihanna tweeted about the issue:

why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest https://t.co/obmIlXhK9S

— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 2, 2021

The following day, Meena Harris, the niece of United States’ Vice President Kamala Harris, also took to Twitter to condemn the internet shutdowns.

And on February 4, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg expressed support for the protests on a Twitter thread in which she also shared a “protest toolkit” — a document with resources for those wanting to familiarize themselves with the farmers’ or help with organizing.

The Delhi police then said it will investigate the toolkit’s authors, who are thus far unknown.

Many Indians, including politicians, Bollywood stars, and cricketers condemned the tweets by foreign personalities.

In a statement released on February 3, India’s Ministry of External Affairs also commented on the foreign personalities’ expressions of support: “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible.”

cover image: Indian farmers’ protest in December 2020 via Wikimedia Commons by Randeep Maddoke.
CC0 Public Domain.

Twitter Senior Executive Vijaya Gadde Details Plans for Political Censorship on a Global Scale

by Project Veritas
January 18, 2020

See also:

Twitter Insider Secretly Records CEO Jack Dorsey Detailing Agenda for Further Political Censorship

Connect with Project Veritas

Big Tech Cleans House! – Everything We Want You To Think

by JP Sears, AwakenWithJP
January 12, 2021

Original video available at AwakenWithJP YouTube channel.

[As a service to protect truth from censorship and to share widely, mirrored copies of this video are available at Truth Comes to Light BitChute, Brighteon, Lbry/Odysee channels. All credit, along with our sincere thanks, goes to the original source of this video. Please follow links provided to support their work.]

Join JP’s Mailing List: https://awakenwithjp.com/joinme

The ‘War On Terror’ Comes Home

by Ron Paul, Ron Paul Institute
January 11, 2021

Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly. It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.

Many Americans viewed this assault on social media accounts as a liberal or Democrat attack on conservatives and Republicans, but they are missing the point. The narrowing of allowable opinion in the virtual public square is no conspiracy against conservatives. As progressives like Glenn Greenwald have pointed out, this is a wider assault on any opinion that veers from the acceptable parameters of the mainstream elite, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, this is partly an attempt to erase the Trump movement from the pages of history, but it is also an attempt to silence any criticism of the emerging political consensus in the coming Biden era that may come from progressive or antiwar circles.

After all, a look at Biden’s incoming “experts” shows that they will be the same failed neoconservative interventionists who gave us weekly kill lists, endless drone attacks and coups overseas, and even US government killing of American citizens abroad. Progressives who complain about this “back to the future” foreign policy are also sure to find their voices silenced.

Those who continue to argue that the social media companies are purely private ventures acting independent of US government interests are ignoring reality. The corporatist merger of “private” US social media companies with US government foreign policy goals has a long history and is deeply steeped in the hyper-interventionism of the Obama/Biden era.

“Big Tech” long ago partnered with the Obama/Biden/Clinton State Department to lend their tools to US “soft power” goals overseas. Whether it was ongoing regime change attempts against Iran, the 2009 coup in Honduras, the disastrous US-led coup in Ukraine, “Arab Spring,” the destruction of Syria and Libya, and so many more, the big US tech firms were happy to partner up with the State Department and US intelligence to provide the tools to empower those the US wanted to seize power and to silence those out of favor.

In short, US government elites have been partnering with “Big Tech” overseas for years to decide who has the right to speak and who must be silenced. What has changed now is that this deployment of “soft power” in the service of Washington’s hard power has come home to roost.

So what is to be done? Even pro-free speech alternative social media outlets are under attack from the Big Tech/government Leviathan. There are no easy solutions. But we must think back to the dissidents in the era of Soviet tyranny. They had no Internet. They had no social media. They had no ability to communicate with thousands and millions of like-minded, freedom lovers. Yet they used incredible creativity in the face of incredible adversity to continue pushing their ideas. Because no army – not even Big Tech partnered with Big Government – can stop an idea whose time has come. And Liberty is that idea. We must move forward with creativity and confidence!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: New York Times Declines My Rebuttal to Defamatory Op-Ed on COVID Vaccines

New York Times Declines My Rebuttal to Defamatory Op-Ed on COVID Vaccines

On Dec. 30, 2020, the New York Times published an opinion piece by my niece, Dr. Kerry Meltzer. Although the piece contained factual errors and defamatory accusations, the Times declined to publish my letter to the editor correcting those false claims.

by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense
January 5, 2021

The “right of reply” — the opportunity to defend oneself against public criticism in the same venue where that criticism was published — is a constitutional right in some European countries and in Brazil. The BBC’s editorial guidelines state:

“When our output makes allegations of wrongdoing, iniquity or incompetence or lays out a strong and damaging critique of an individual or institution the presumption is that those criticized should be given a “right of reply,” that is, given a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations.”

Even where there is no legal right, respectable journalistic outlets, including the New York Times, have traditionally regarded it as their moral, ethical and professional obligation to publish the replies by people who have been criticized in their pages.

The Times, which claims to encourage the expression of “a diversity of views” on its letters page, formerly extended this courtesy automatically to public figures who suffered criticism in its pages. But the paper draws the line at anyone who questions orthodoxies promoted by the ascending Medical Cartel. The practice of reporting only facts and opinions that comply with official narratives has long been de rigueur in electronic media outlets dependent on Pharma advertising revenues.

On Saturday, my niece published an error-filled and defamatory article about me on the Times editorial page. I immediately submitted the thoroughly sourced letter below.

Yesterday, the Times let me know that they would decline to print my reply.

Orwellian censorship and the gaslighting of dissent in service to the interests of Big Pharma has more recently become universal in the liberal print and online news sites once presumed to be the antidote to corporate subversion of democracy.

In May 2019, three of my other family members similarly defamed me in a long article in Politico. Politico likewise declined to print my thoroughly sourced reply.

Neither of these long critiques by my family members cite a single example of a factual error by me. Their complaint is that I question official pronouncements about vaccine safety.

It’s a bad omen for democracy when citizens can no longer conduct civil, informed debates about critical policies that impact the vitality of our economy, public health, personal freedoms and constitutional rights. Censorship is violence and this systematic muzzling of debate which proponents justify as a measure to curtail dangerous polarization is actually fueling those divisions.

It is most ironic to me that it is self-identified liberals and liberal journals — once the most energetic first amendment champions — who are most fiercely calling for censorship. It is self-identified human rights advocates who are supporting government policies that trample our constitutional rights. We might recall, at this strange time in our history, my father’s friend, Edward R. Murrow’s warning that: “The right to dissent … is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail to totalitarianism.”

As Murrow predicted, the imposition censorship has masked the systematic demolition of our constitution including attacks on freedom of worship (including abolishing religious exemptions and closing churches), freedom of assembly, private property (the right to operate a business), due process (including the imposition of far reaching restrictions against freedom of movement, education, association with notice and comment rule making) and the 7th amendment right to jury trials (in cases of vaccine injuries caused by corporate negligence).

Those policies are obliterating the middle class, shifting trillions of dollars to billionaires, dismantling all the social programs created by Democrats since the New Deal and sweeping away the obstacles against our country’s dark slide into authoritarian plutocracy anathema to every value of democracy, liberalism and humanity.

Here’s my letter — which the New York Times refused to publish — in response to the op-ed by my niece, Dr. Kerry Meltzer:

Without offering any examples of factual errors, my niece, Dr. Kerry Meltzer, accuses me of spreading “vaccine misinformation,” a term currently applied to any statement that departs from official pronouncements, regardless of its truth.

The term’s traditional definition might encompass Kerry’s claim that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is safe because it caused life threatening anaphylaxis in only 11 of 2.1 million recipients (1/200,000). Rate of adverse events, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is 1 in 42 — based on the first week’s distribution of more than 200,000 vaccines, with more than 5,000 reports of individuals incapacitated to the point that they missed work or had to seek medical attention. This outcome is likely to increase, as clinical trials for both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines suggest that the second shot of the vaccine series leads to far higher injury rates.

Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines use a novel vaccine technology never before used on human subjects. On Sept. 25, I wrote a letter to Dr. Fauci — who Kerry cites as her reliable authority for vaccine safety — warning that the polyethylene glycol (PEG) -coated nanoparticles in the mRNA vaccines were likely to cause anaphylaxis in vulnerable recipients. Dr. Fauci ignored that warning.

FDA now acknowledges that PEG is the probable culprit in the anaphylactic reactions. The COVID pandemic is the third time since Dr. Fauci arrived at National Institutes of Health that the federal government rushed out vaccines for a potential pandemic.

In 1976, 45 million Americans received a vaccine for a disease that didn’t exist, before hundreds of cases of paralyzing Guillain Barre’ syndrome resulted, ending the program.

In 2009, rushed vaccines for swine flu caused seizures in 1/100 Australian children and 1,300 cases of debilitating narcolepsy in European children before the program was discontinued. A month earlier, Dr. Fauci appeared on TV to assure the world that the vaccines were safe.

The mRNA vaccines are experimental drugs with potential for long-term harm. It’s only prudent to demand — as I have — proper testing and to treat the claims of interested government and industry officials with appropriate skepticism.

Spiro Skouras, Banned From Twitter, in Conversation With Helen of Destroy on Censorship & Medical Tyranny

Covid-1984: Censorship & Medical Tyranny (with Spiro Skouras)

by Helen of Destroy
sourced from Activist Post
January 4, 2021

Welcome to 2021, the theatrical performance for which 2020 was merely a dress rehearsal. If you haven’t been deplatformed yet, don’t worry, you will be. That is, unless we can get our shit together as a species and work together to pry the boot off our faces. The sooner we do that, the better.

Spiro was recently booted off Twitter for wrongthink. There’s a lot of that going around these days, no matter how meticulously-researched one’s content is. We are an information war – don’t bring a plastic fork to a drone strike.

‘Like,’ share, & subscribe if you got something out of this content, because it probably won’t be around much longer. Download this (& the other videos on both of our channels) & repost it to your own channel or platform.

Spiro’s channels:
BC: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/spiro/
Parler: https://parler.com/profile/Spiros/posts
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKOQNYoZjaa_8V0uPOueeQ

Helen’s channels:
helenofdestroy.com
BC: https://bitchute.com/helenofdestroy
YT: https://youtube.com/helenofdestroy
Twitter: @velocirapture23

NYU Professor Under Fire for Mask Comments Files Libel Lawsuit

by Janet Phelan
sourced from Activist Post
December 4, 2020

A NYU professor has filed a lawsuit against a number of his academic colleagues, alleging libel after an uproar of official reaction ensued when one of his students called for his firing based on in-class comments he had made on the utility of masks.

The pleadings, filed in the Supreme Court of the state of New York on November 30, 2020, stated that a letter signed by nineteen of Professor Mark Crispin Miller’s academic colleagues included “numerous misstatements of ‘fact’ maliciously intended to portray plaintiff in a negative light” and intended to “diminish, if not destroy, his professional reputation and standing.”

In a modern day rendition of the silencing of Socrates, the furor surrounding Professor Miller began shortly into this semester at New York University. Miller has for many years taught a course on propaganda in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication, in which he discusses current events and historical trends in the light of their propagandist purposes. This semester, he states he had encouraged students to research the scientific utility of masks.

One student took public issue with Miller’s mask comments and launched a Twitter campaign against him, stating that he was “spouting dangerous rhetoric that serves to cultivate fear and confusion during a pandemic” and called for his firing.

I hope @nyuniversity, @nyusteinhardt, and @mccNYU agree that this professor should not be trusted with educating and advising students, and I hope they take immediate steps to relieve him of these duties. 8/

— Julia Jackson (@julia_jacks) September 21, 2020

First, his department chair, Rodney Benson, tweeted his thanks, saying “We as a department have made this a priority, and are discussing next steps.”

At that point, the University disseminated a cautionary email to Miller’s students, which he states was sent out prior to any conference or consultation as to the veracity of Jackson’s claims. According to Miller, Department Chair Benson then pressured him to cancel the propaganda course for next semester.

A month later, the letter from Miller’s colleagues, condemning Miller’s actions, was sent to Dean Jack Knott and to Provost Katherine Fleming.

And Miller became the subject of a review board hearing.

Professor Miller’s political activities and viewpoints have sparked prior attention from NYU. An effort spearheaded by Miller to stop a physical expansion by NYU ended up in court, several years ago. He is also a named plaintiff in a class action suit concerning NYU’s mismanagement of the faculty’s retirement plans.

Earlier this year, Miller was called in to the Office of Equal Opportunity to explain some comments he had made in articles concerning transgender politics, including this one. Miller has unequivocally stated that he bears no animus towards transgender individuals and that his comments reflected concerns that the transgender movement had eugenics implications. He was quickly exonerated by the OEO concerning these statements.

Interestingly, the letter from the NYU colleagues to the University tries to resurrect these concerns and states that Miller has engaged in “direct mockery and ridicule of trans individuals” as well as “discrimination” and that he has created “an unsafe learning environment.” While paradoxically stating their support for academic freedom, the signers of this letter, all of whom are academics “…call on Steinhardt and University leadership to publicly support the NYU community and undertake an expedited review, as per the Faculty Handbook and Title IV, of Professor Miller’s intimidation tactics, abuses of authority, aggressions and microaggressions, and explicit hate speech, none of which are excused by academic freedom and First Amendment protections.” Curiously, the letter gives no concrete examples to support these allegations.

Read more…

cover image credit Cdd20 / pixabay

Ron Paul: On Coronavirus, We Must Not Allow Politics to Dictate Science

On Coronavirus, We Must Not Allow Politics to Dictate Science

by Ron Paul, Ron Paul Institute
November 23, 2020

In these past couple of weeks, two important studies have been published that could dramatically increase our understanding of the Covid-19 disease. Adding to the science of how we understand and treat this disease is something that should be welcomed, because properly understood it can save lives.

The only problem is that because the results from these two studies challenge what the media has established as conventional wisdom about the disease, the reports are at best being ignored and at worst being openly distorted by the mainstream media.

This is in my view a dangerous and foolish subjugation of science to politics and it may well end up causing many more unnecessary deaths.

First is the Danish mask study, which was completed several months ago but was only recently published in a peer-reviewed journal. The study took two groups and gave the first group masks to wear with instruction on how they should be used. The other group was the mask-free control group.

The study found that coronavirus spread within the statistical margin of error in each group. In other words, wearing the mask did little if anything to control the spread of the virus.

As the wearing of masks is still being mandated across the country and the globe, this study should be reported as an important piece of counter-evidence. At the very least it might be expected to invite a rush of similar studies to refute or confirm the results.

However, while mostly ignored by the media, when it was covered the spin on the study was so strange that the conclusion presented was opposite to the findings. For example, the Los Angeles Times published an article with the headline, “Face mask trial didn’t stop coronavirus spread, but it shows why more mask-wearing is needed.”

Similarly, a massive new study conducted in Wuhan, China, and published in the respected scientific journal Nature, reports that asymptomatic persons who have tested positive for Covid-19 do not pass on the infection to others. Considering that mask mandates and lockdowns are all based on the theory that asymptomatic “positive cases” can still pass on the sickness, this is potentially an important piece of information to help plan a more effective response to the virus.

At the least, again, it should stimulate additional, far-reaching studies to either confirm or deny the Wuhan study.

We do know, based on information from widely-accepted sources as the CDC and World Health Organization, that lockdowns can have a very serious negative effect on society. On July 14th, CDC Director Robert Redfield told a seminar that lockdowns are causing more deaths than Covid.

So if there is a way to continue fighting Covid and protecting those most at risk while drastically reducing deaths related to lockdowns, isn’t this worth some consideration? Isn’t this worth at least some further research?

Well, not according to the mainstream media. They have established their narrative and they are not about to budge. The two studies are fatally flawed, they report. Of course that might be the case, but isn’t that an argument to attempt to replicate the studies to prove it?

That would be the scientific approach. Sadly, “trust the science” has come to mean “trust the narrative I support.” That is a very dangerous way of thinking and can prove to be deadly.

“You Must Be an Anti-Semite”

The End of Privacy Is Near

Story-at-a-Glance

The surveillance you’ve experienced means you’ve been ‘selected’ — a term which will mean more to you as you learn about how the modern SIGINT system works.

Your victimization by the NSA system means that you’re well aware of the threat that unrestricted secret police pose for democracies. This is a story few but you can tell.”

Summary of Snowden’s Journey

The Greatest Weapon of Oppression Ever Built

“We are building the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man,” Snowden wrote, “yet its directors exempt themselves from accountability … On cyber operations, the government’s public position is that we still lack a policy framework. This … was a lie.

There is a detailed policy framework, a kind of martial law for cyber operations created by the White House. It’s called ‘Presidential Policy Directive 20’ and was finalized at the end of last year.”

Linkability, the Key to Control — and Entrapment

State Power Versus the People’s Power to Oppose That Power

“It all comes down to state power against the people’s ability to meaningfully oppose that power. I’m sitting there every day, getting paid to design methods to amplify that state power.

And I’m realizing that if the policy switches that are the only thing that restrain these states were changed, you couldn’t meaningfully oppose [them].

And as I saw the promise of the Obama administration be betrayed … and in fact, [how they] actually advanced the things that had been promised to be sort of curtailed and reined in and dialed back … As as I saw that, that really hardened me to action …

We all have a stake in this. This is our country, and the balance of power between the citizenry and the government is becoming that of the ruling and the ruled, as opposed to the elected and the electorate.”

A Decade Later Snowden’s Words Ring Truer Than Ever

“You could have children from one part of the world having an equal discussion, where they were sort of granted the same respect for their ideas and conversation, with experts in a field from another part of the world on any topic, anywhere, anytime, all the time.

Many people I’ve talked to have mentioned that they’re careful about what they type into search engines, because they know that it’s being recorded, and that limits the boundaries of their intellectual exploration.”

Will the Internet as We Know It Disappear in the Next Year?

A Global Infrastructure Has Been Built

“So for example, if I wanted to see the content of your email … all I have to do is use what’s called a selector, any kind of thing in the communications chain that might uniquely or almost uniquely identify you as an individual.

I’m talking about things like email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, credit cards, even passwords that are unique to you that aren’t used by anyone else.

You’re Being Spied Upon Everywhere

“Another explosive article has just appeared, this time in the Washington Post … that reveals another broad and secret U.S. government’s surveillance program.

The Washington Post and The Guardian in London reporting that the NSA and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple.

The Post says they’re extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.”

“In 2008, they eliminated the warrant requirement for all conversations, except ones that take place among Americans exclusively on American soil.

So they don’t need warrants now for people who are foreigners outside of the U.S., but they also don’t need warrants for Americans who are in the United States, communicating with people reasonably believed to be outside of the U.S.

Beyond Transparency

See Related:

The Free Speech Scare

Diana West on Dr. Robert Malone’s “Tantrum-Esque Defamation Lawsuit” Against Dr. Peter Breggin, Ginger Breggin & Dr. Jane Ruby

They’re Coming to Take You Away

Decentralized Communication: Networks, Platforms and Protocols That Are Being Developed to Address the Root of the Censorship Problem

Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics

Abstract

Introduction

Censorship of COVID-19 Heterodoxy

Censorship, the Backfire Effect and Public Outrage

Method

Participants

Research Tool and Procedure

Findings

Silencing Dissent: Censoring and Suppressing Tactics

Exclusion

Denigration

Recruiting “Third Parties” to Assist in Discrediting

Online Censorship

Censorship and Suppression by the Medical and Academic Establishment

Official Inquiries

Retraction of Scientific Papers

Counter-reaction: Fighting Back

First Reactions: Shock and Surprise

Determined to Fight

Exposing the Censorship

Using Alternative Channels

Creating Social Support Networks

Developing Alternative Medical and Health Information Systems

Discussion

References

Funding

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Download PDF here or here.

Conspiracy Author David Icke Banned From EU, Labeled a “Terrorist”

Was set to speak at event in Amsterdam this weekend.

David Icke: Twitter Has Suspended Me AGAIN

Twitter has suspended me AGAIN. We tested out the ‘new’ Musk ‘free speech’ Twitter by starting a new account, DavidickeOfficial, but almost immediately Musk’s Twitter deleted it.

This meme was my first post before suspension …

Do as We Say or Lose Your Money and/or Your Account

The Genius Behind PayPal’s Bad Idea

Watch Stella Assange Slap the Mustache Off John Bolton’s War Criminal Face

Thousands of People to Form Human Chain Around U.K. Parliament to Demand Freedom for Assange

WATCH: Stella Assange Calls on Courage Everywhere in Support of Assange

WATCH: The Chris Hedges Report: Julian Assange’s Father Speaks Out

Fauci, Top Biden Officials Subpoenaed in Lawsuit Alleging They Colluded With Social Media to Suppress Free Speech

Fauci, CDC, White House press secretary and more must turn over documents

Lawsuit alleges collusion to suppress disfavored speakers and viewpoints

Documentary: The Reality Behind Conspiracy Theories and Domestic Terrorism

A Canadian Patriot Review Film

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.”
—Benjamin Franklin

All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th, 2022
using this dedicated refund form. (LINK)