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Watch “Talking About Stoicism 139 Keep Your Mind Where Your Feet Are” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
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Operation NorthwoodIn case you have forgotten with whom we are dealing.
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against American citizens that originated within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to both stage and actually commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets,[2] blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The possibilities detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban immigrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas,[2] hijacking planes to be shot down or given the appearance of being shot down,[2] blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.[3] The proposals were rejected by President John F. Kennedy.[4][5][6]
Fidel Castro had taken power in Cuba in 1959 and began allowing communists into the new Cuban government, nationalizing U.S. businesses and improving relations with the Soviet Union, arousing the concern of the U.S. military due to the Cold War. The operation proposed creating public support for a war against Cuba by blaming it for terrorist acts that would actually be perpetrated by the U.S. Government.[1] To this end, Operation Northwoods proposals recommended hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:
The desired result from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.
Several other proposals were included within Operation Northwoods, including real or simulated actions against various U.S. military and civilian targets. The operation recommended developing a “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”, which involved the bombing of civilian targets themselves, which was to be blamed on the “irresponsible” Cuban government to paint a false image of Fidel Castro and misinform the American public.
The plan was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense. Although part of the US government’s anti-communist Cuban Project, Operation Northwoods was never officially accepted; it was authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. None of the false flag operations became active under the auspices of the Operation Northwoods proposals. Similar operations were carried out inside Cuba as part of Operation Mongoose.
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Scandal Behind the FDA Fake Approval of Pfizer Jab
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
There is no control group after Pfizer offered the product to placebo participants before the trials were completed.” Read that again, slowly. Pfizer tests destroyed their own control group mid-stream! And its six month rollout of the mRNA jab worldwide has resulted in catastrophic side effects which have been totally officially ignored. Is this “science” Dr Fauci?
US vaccinologist and a developer of the mRNA technique, Dr Robert Malone, has accused the FDA of playing a “bureaucratic shell game” with their supposed early approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. He cites the two separate FDA letters, “There is a letter for Pfizer and a letter for BioNTech. The New York Times and the Washington Post got it wrong. The authorization is not for Pfizer. The authorization is for BioNTech, and it will only be initiated at the time BioNTech product becomes available…”
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO30August2021.php
By F. William Engdahl
Image: Janet Woodcock M.D. ACTING COMMISSIONER OF FOOD AND DRUGS – FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATIONAttribution: Credit: US FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. Unless otherwise noted, the contents of the FDA website (www.fda.gov) — both text and graphics — are not copyrighted. They are in the public domain and may be republished, reprinted and otherwise used freely by anyone without the need to obtain permission from FDA. Credit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the source is appreciated but not required. https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-organization/janet-woodcock
The US Government regulator for drugs, the Food and Drug Administration, has just announced that it has voted full approval for the mRNA genetic vaccine of Pfizer and BioNTech, or did they? This supposed new status is being used by the Biden Administration and many states and companies to impose mandatory vaccinations. The notoriously conflicted Biden covid adviser, Tony Fauci of the NIAID, using that ruling, is calling for national mandatory vaccination for the country. What is not being revealed is the cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interest between the FDA and the major drug companies, including Pfizer, that stand behind the rushed approval. And it’s not full approval for Pfizer’s jab, only for BioNTech’s legally different vaccine. .
“…final stamp of approval”?
On August 23 as the FDA announced full approval for the Pfizer mRNA gene-edited substance. Or not quite, when the full papers of FDA are studied. Fauci, whose NIAID has financial interest in the vaccine, referred to the FDA decision as the “final stamp of approval.” It is however anything but final or an impartial, scientific rigorous medical evaluation. Rather it is a politically-motivated decision by an FDA that is corrupt beyond the imagination of most people.
Backtracking on its statement in 2020 that it would hold normal FDA advisory committee hearings with independent experts to discuss the Pfizer application for full approval, now the FDA told the British Medical Journal that they did not believe a meeting was necessary ahead of granting full approval of what is the most controversial vaccine in modern history. The BMJ quotes Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who serves as a consumer representative on the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, “These [FDA] public meetings are imperative in building trust and confidence especially when the vaccines came to market at lightning speed under emergency use authorization.”
Witczak continued with the alarming note, “It is already concerning that full approval is being based on 6 months’ worth of data despite the clinical trials designed for two years. There is no control group after Pfizer offered the product to placebo participants before the trials were completed.” Read that again, slowly. Pfizer tests destroyed their own control group mid-stream! And its six month rollout of the mRNA jab worldwide has resulted in catastrophic side effects which have been totally officially ignored. Is this “science” Dr Fauci?
The refusal of the FDA and its Acting Director, Janet Woodcock, to convene its Drugs Advisory Committee for discussion of the Pfizer and BioNTech decisions is even more shocking as in June three members of that same panel resigned in protest for being disregarded in another drug approval. NPR network reported, “Three experts have now resigned from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee after the agency approved an Alzheimer’s drug called Aduhelm against the wishes of nearly every member on the panel.” One of the three, Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, in his resignation letter from the FDA Advisory Committee (June 10, 2021), wrote: “For both eteplirsen and aducanumab, the decisions by FDA administrators to ignore the Advisory Committee’s clear recommendations led to their approval of two highly problematic drugs that offered little evidence that they would meaningfully benefit patients…With eteplirsen, the AdComm (Advisory Committee) and FDA’s own scientific staff reported that there was no convincing evidence that the drug worked; both groups were overruled by FDA leadership… “
Now the FDA refusal to convene their advisory committee for the Pfizer decision is all the more astonishing in light of the fact that the Government Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in its official VAERS data bank for recording vaccine negative effects has recorded 8,508 reports of fatalities following the Pfizer mRNA shot in the past seven months, a number more than for all vaccines combined in the past 30 years. By denying a public hearing the FDA avoided any discussion of these alarming fatality numbers, let alone the tens of thousands of serious side-effects including heart attacks, blood clots, miscarriages, permanent paralysis following the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs. The public declaration by Fauci before approval that he expected it, is also unethical influencing, but that is the least of the crimes.
Faked Approval
It seems the FDA executed a clever ruse in which it issued separate rulings for a Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech vaccine which is widely used in the USA, and another ruling for the similar vaccine of Pfizer’s German-based partner and developer of the mRNA platform, BioNTech of Mainz. It is only BioNTech that got FDA approval, but conditioned on completion of a series of further tests on select groups including infants, pregnant women and youth, by 2027. The US vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, only got extension of its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), not full approval!
In their separate letter to Pfizer, the FDA stated, “…On August 23, 2021, having concluded that revising this EUA is appropriate to protect the public health or safety under section 564(g)(2) of the Act, FDA is reissuing the August 12, 2021 letter of (Emergency Use) authorization in its entirety with revisions incorporated to clarify that the EUA will remain in place for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the previously-authorized indication and uses…”(emphasis added).
Buried in a footnote in the letter the FDA admits there are two legally separate entities and vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine and BioNTech GmbH of Mainz with its own vaccine trade-named Comrinaty. The FDA writes that “The products are legally distinct with certain differences…” Legally distinct means two separate vaccines. If you find this confusing it is meant to be. Only under an EUA ruling is Pfizer presently exempt from vaccine liability. Some lawyers are calling the FDA ruse a classic “bait and switch” tactic, a form of fraud based on deception.
US vaccinologist and a developer of the mRNA technique, Dr Robert Malone, has accused the FDA of playing a “bureaucratic shell game” with their supposed early approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. He cites the two separate FDA letters, “There is a letter for Pfizer and a letter for BioNTech. The New York Times and the Washington Post got it wrong. The authorization is not for Pfizer. The authorization is for BioNTech, and it will only be initiated at the time BioNTech product becomes available…”
Adding to the bizarre irregularities, in their two separate letters, one to BioNTech and another to Pfizer, the FDA repeatedly deletes the location of the vaccine manufacturing they approve. Why that? Is it in China where BioNTech has a joint agreement with Fosun Pharma of Shanghai to jointly produce and market Comirnaty vaccine for COVID-19? Why do they need to hide that location data from the public? Would it expose the entire fraud?
FDA-Pfizer Conflicts of Interest
In 2019 Pfizer made a very conflicted appointment to its board of directors. It took Scott Gottlieb, who had just resigned as head of the FDA three months earlier. If this gives an appearance of a huge conflict of interest, it is. Alongside Gottlieb at Pfizer’s Board of Directors sits Dr Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who headed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation until 2020. The Gates Foundation is behind every single key part of the covid vaccine rush and owns stock in Pfizer to boot.
Another person who links Pfizer and Gates is Prof. Holly Janes, a bio-statistical expert in Gates’ hometown Seattle, at the Fred Huff cancer research center. Janes is also a member of the FDA Vaccine Committee until 2023. Notably, she co-designed the controversial trials for both Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines for Fauci’s NIAID from her Seattle center, which is also funded by the Gates Foundation.
Janes is Professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, known as Fred Hutch. Earlier she received Gates Foundation research money for a six year period when she worked for the Gates Foundation from 2006 to 2012 to develop “statistical and study design support for pre-clinical vaccine performance trials.” Prof. Janes also helped develop the program that tracks vaccine data at John Hopkins University.
The person who runs FDA as “Acting Director” is Janet Woodcock. To call her tainted is mild. She has been at FDA since 1986, almost as long as Fauci at NIAID. Woodcock was Biden’s choice to head FDA, but a massive opposition from 28 groups including state attorneys general and citizen groups forced him to name her “acting,” which does not need Congressional scrutiny.
Woodcock was directly responsible for the FDA approval of deadly opioids over the objections of her own scientists and other advisors. Two decades ago as head of the FDA unit responsible, Woodcock was instrumental in the approval of a powerful opioid, Zohydro, even though the FDA’s own scientific advisory committee voted 11-2 to keep the drug off the market because it was unsafe. The online Drugs.com writes, “Hydrocodone (Zohydro) can slow or stop your breathing. Never use Zohydro ER in larger amounts, or for longer than prescribed. .. Swallow it whole to avoid exposure to a potentially fatal dose. Hydrocodone may be habit-forming, even at regular doses.” Woodcock later approved the sale of a high-strength narcotic pill, OxyContin, as “safer and more effective than other painkillers” based on the false claims of the now bankrupt manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. Some 500,000 Americans have since died as a result of opioid addiction.
Woodcock clearly is the key FDA person behind the duplicitous August 23 Pfizer decision, seeing to it that there were no public advisory hearings to review relevant data. It would be relevant to know what discussions or communications went on with her former boss, now Pfizer director, Scott Gottlieb.
Why?
There are many unanswered questions in this twisted tale of corruption at FDA and Pfizer. Was this theater rushed through by the Biden Administration to accelerate the forced vaccination of millions of Americans uncertain or skeptical of taking an emergency or experimental jab? Why is there such an incredible pressure from mainstream media and politicians to vaccinate every man, woman and now child in the US? Are the vaccines really safe if there are so many dire cases of adverse events after the Pfizer jab? Why did the FD refuse to allow its independent vaccine committee to weigh in?
It is worth noting that as of August 14 Pfizer does not mandate vaccines for its own employees. Also the Biden White House does not mandate vaccines for its staff. These are all serious issues that demand serious and honest answers.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Fake Approval, FDA, mRNA, Pfizer Jab | Leave a Comment »
The Benevolent Fascism of Australia, Part I | The Libertarian Institute
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
With QR codes and contact tracing, the discussion of further surveillance of Australians to minimize the spread of COVID-19 will be accepted an condoned. And in the case of the war on drugs, placing members of the public on lists and denying them travel and the ability to mail or receive items from abroad will continue. In time we will have quaint memories of a more liberal time as the future brings far more dire and extreme measures of law and order.
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-benevolent-fascism-of-australia-part-i/
by Kym Robinson
Australia is in the news.
The images of police officers imposing themselves on the citizenry has drawn the attention of international critics. It has also raised admiration for those who have big government inclinations. Some have declared that Australia has fallen as a free society, that it should now be considered a police state. Australia, however, already had a history as a police state. The balance between individual freedom and an overbearing government has been one of constant, uneven sways over time and it usually takes a crisis to bring down the full weight of authoritarianism. And most Australians have always been fine with this.
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested both individuals and governments, and shown their true nature. The pandemic response has revealed a dangerous dependence that all of us have been forced to place on government monopolies, from health and infrastructure to security and in many cases, income. The lockdown culture of not only Australian state governments but governments the world over have shown an irrational and reactionary impulse to rule and control, not just to stop a virus but crush dissent itself. They claim it is for all of our health; it is scientific and it’s to save as many lives as possible. No room for debate, only obey and do as one is told. It is the science of law, order, and health.
In practice it has been random, arbitrary, inconsistent, unscientific and some lives really do seem to matter over others. The police have been a crucial element in the fight against the citizenry during the pandemic. It’s been the police that have enforced laws that have destroyed the economy and put lives indirectly in jeopardy. Last year entire apartment towers in Melbourne were instantly quarantined and the individuals inside only access to the outside world was via the police. Those trapped were treated as criminals and were sacrificed in an attempt to “flatten the curve.” Melbourne itself would soon suffer an almost indefinite lockdown cycle. The curve was never flattened.
Following the trend in liberal democracies, partisan politics alleviate blame from specific government departments. The police and experts are viewed as amoral objects who are wielded by incompetent and power hungry politicians. Regardless of the political leadership these technocrats, officials and police officers remain the same. Australia has a history of governance via experts and panels. The politicians usually help legitimize such measures when it comes to excessive policing. It is not a political leadership problem, it is a problem from the ground up. Morality, right and wrong, are exercised by the individual. “Just doing a job” or “Just following orders” is a coward’s shield by which to hide beneath.
It is not just an Australian phenomenon to see the police inserting themselves more and more into the citizen’s day to day. It is however an Australian tradition to lean heavily onto policing for numerous crises. The police are an important tool for the state and federal governments in Australia and act as the aggressive arm to both impose and implement policy while also to protect the government itself. Australia projects itself as a free society that values human rights, but at times in its own history it has a patchwork of authoritarianism which is more common than many wish to admit.
“Australian police forces were similarly founded on violence: racist violence, imperial violence and settler colonial violence. Some of the earliest forms of state policing were established with the specific purpose of extending the colonial frontier.”- Amanda Porter, Senior fellow at Melbourne Law School.
Many historians on colonial Australia consider that the early policing models were not based upon British community methods and organization but instead were a paramilitary model that was used during the same period to impose imperial oppression in Ireland. A lot of these traditions have remained in Australian policing and in how the various governments have continued to wield it. Public health and safety mandates are often the fixture of policing in Australia along with the ever aggressive War on Terror.
Beyond the state level Australia has numerous federal agencies that are granted great powers which obey the Department of Home Affairs and will in the coming years grow more powerful in reach, focus, and powers. The boundaries of colonial expansion may have been fulfilled but those into the individuals private life and against their rights are a frontier that Australian police agencies are continuing to encroach upon. To understand the Australian “police state” we must also understand certain aspects of Australian history and social norms that have made the modern situation possible and why it really is neither unusual or unexpected.
Australians are now in a society where they need to tune in to government officials to find out what they can and cannot do. It is a nation that is run on press conferences, where most Australians watch the television with an obedience to find out the infection and death numbers while hanging on to every word of experts and government ministers. In a recent incident those from regional NSW found themselves under lockdown mandates with only a tweet as the official announcement. The tweet posted at 3pm and stated that by 5pm all of regional NSW would be in a 7-day lockdown. The police perpetrated an ever active enforcement on those who do not have Twitter or didn’t hear about such a spontaneous announcement.
While Australia is in the media abroad, most Australians are oblivious to the condemnation and the risk that lies ahead for them. It is a future uncertain but with the promise of safety nets and blankets provided by a scientific government of planners and scientists. It is a government that is based upon altruistic welfare and reactionary impulses, while also being steered by careful trends of academic hubris. It is a nation of public servants and an ever dependent public. The police exist to protect not so much the individual (and certainly not freedom) but the nation state itself. And in an expression of true democracy, perhaps the mob of the majority welcome and embrace this because many are apart of it in some way.
“Australia’s federal constitution does not protect fundamental human rights nor does it regulate the use of force by the police. Australia‘s federal rules on police use of force generally comply with international standards although an amended law in New South Wales allows use of firearms against suspected terrorists where no imminent threat is perceived.”- Policing Law, The Law on Police Use of Force Worldwide
Medical State
For the advocates of government, especially an all powerful one that is responsible for every aspect of human life, a powerful and active police force is crucial. It is the ugly truth that confuses utopian governance with the dystopian truths of practical history. In the past, besides aspects of moral puritanism, the individual’s health and body was their own domain. But in the modern era of public health we are seeing the unification of the health and police state.
Australia has a populace that believes in the existence of a public health system. It is an ideological abstract which is rarely challenged. It is considered a right to all Australians to have access to “free health” regardless of any failings, scarcity, and prohibition of choice that such a system presents. Because of this the individual’s body becomes a shared entity, one that the state is expected to care for and in many aspects control. Despite the majority wanting such a powerful health system, the past belief in individual body autonomy still lingers in the minds of even the advocates of public health.
So Australia is going through a cross roads between human rights and the call for greater power to the healthcare system over the public and individuals themselves. The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the conflict between these two perspectives. Those who advocate public health as a right also want the individual to have the right of health autonomy. The reality is that a powerful public health system controls what medication and treatment an individual has access to. It also creates extended waiting periods and it has the ability to determine treatment based on wider concerns than the individual’s own health. Those concerns often being cost, time, resources, and the fatigue-availability of health practitioners.
It is an almost impossible fight for individual liberty when public health is entrenched in Australian society as a “collective good.” The wider implications of costs, shortages, and a lack of alternative treatments are disregarded in favour of a one-payer system that homogenizes and centralizes medicine. It is assumed that a free market of health would leave the poor under the bus and become expensive but it is the health state that creates dependence and makes it harder for many to actually get treatment, not to mention lengthy waiting periods and a lack of accountability when things go wrong.
The police and at times the military have been used to quarantine entire cities and states, separate families, and treat individuals as criminals because they “may” be sick. This is the new reality that health mandates and a powerful health state brings with it. Whatever pretence of human rights is lost and ignored because it is declared a crisis. Just as the War on Terror allows the police to trample on the freedoms that terror organizations threaten, a powerful police state can snatch those liberties away in the name of security. In matters of public health the individual is isolated and condemned as being selfish and placing others at risk, should they seek independence and autonomy. So as is in the War on Terror, those who question government overreach or act differently are marginalized as being a threat to the wider community.
It is not a too distant future in Australia where individuals may be forced to take medication against their will, receive procedures that they do not want, or are denied access to friends and families based upon health status. The public health system has become so important that the private citizen has little choice and say over their own body. The imperial approach and dominion over the individual is always done with a benevolent parental tone, assuming that all individuals are childlike or a risk to everyone else. That is the hallmark of the public health system in the first place, a one way street with little regard to individual needs, wants, and complexities.
The emergency powers of government allows it to disregard international laws and domestic laws that it has promised to uphold. These are the special, exceptional powers of all government, not just Australia’s. War allows a nation to declare martial law, impose curfews and grant itself extraordinary powers. The health crisis and mandates are treated as if the rule of law never really existed. It is an illusion that dupes those who romance government and believe that it stands for human rights. But it always serves itself and grows. The health state is just another aspect of the leviathan’s reach and control.
Just as a person consuming or selling “illicit materials” is considered a public threat regardless of their actual actions, so too can the benign existence of those individuals who do not want the same medical procedures or medications, whether because of ethical reasons or because it may be a direct danger to their health. Elements within the wider community have recently reported on such individuals and tar them as being selfish and “super spreaders” of the virus, which is apparently the greatest threat to human existence. “Dobbing is the new patriotism,” as one commentator put it.
Because a large part of the populace supports the government regardless of political affiliation and consider the experts the absolute authority regardless of human rights and individual liberty, the health state has a large community of active ‘dobbers’ who will inform the police on businesses, families, and people that are defying the mandates and rules that are constantly being amended during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Those doing the “dobbing” are often doing it because they genuinely believe that those in breech of such laws are dangerous and reckless or as is often cited, being selfish. And in other instances a more cynical aspect of jealousy and spite likely steer the dobber’s actions.
One police officer during the last South Australian state lockdown claimed that their phone lines were non-stop with members of the public reporting number plates of vehicles driving during the period or giving information on those who were suspected of being in breech of the lockdown. In 2020 wives were informing on their husbands who dared to sneak in a late night dog walk and beach goers were filmed swimming on their own in the sun. It is not just a legal problem but a cultural one.
Why is all of this talk about public health so important? Because it is one key aspect of modern Australian culture, the ingrained importance of the government to most people and what empowers the police force in their present conduct. The sword and spear of the Australian government are their police forces and the military. Both are becoming more of a Swiss Army Knife apparatus with so many uses to be wielded, removing the key conceptual function of such entities. The public belief in what the police and military do or should do is often in contrast with the reality of what they are being asked to do and continue to do.
The anti-lockdown protests in Australia have become a divisive issue. The protesters are accused of being “conspiracy theorists” and “anti-vaxxers” in an attempt to label them as simpletons. While some some certainly are, not all. Such simplified claims ignore very real grievances and frustrations. Those sympathetic and wary of police powers can see a heavy handed response and a media backlash that has not given a balanced perspective. In an age where diversity and being inclusive is promoted when it comes matters of political opinions, dissent about one’s own health is not allowed.
The war on the virus has created a paranoia and obsession with defeating an entity through laws and violence against individuals. It is the belief that more government can somehow make people healthy and safe. Just like the War on Terror it looks to erode the freedom that it boasts to safeguard and instead empowers the police state to the point that a nation becomes a prison full of either compliant and eager subjects who believe in such measures or those who are forced to suffer it despite their instincts and desires for liberty (or to be left alone).
What empowers the police state is its benevolent claim of safety and security. Public health is extremely important to the Australian government and the wider public. To question the public health system is taboo and often political suicide. It is a civic religion. The wider implications and dangers of such a system are ignored and denied and inevitably more funding and overhauls are demanded. This in turn gives all control to the government in regards to individual and community health. Because no real free market exists, regulations are so extensive and so many laws are in place that not only are alternatives impossible but people become dependent on the government for all their needs. In a pandemic this empowers the government during and after to such a point that it is impossible to turn off the spigot of dependence.
Lock in Hospitals of World War Two
About Kym Robinson
Some times a coach, some times a fighter, some times a writer, often a reader but seldom a cabbage. Professional MMA fighter and coach. Unprofessional believer in liberty. I have studied, enlisted, worked in the meat industry for most of my life, all of that above jazz and to hopefully some day write something worth reading.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Australia, Fascism, Lockdown, NSW | Leave a Comment »
Australia Has No Bill Of Rights, And It Shows – by Caitlin Johnstone – Caitlin’s Newsletter
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
One of the most controversial recent developments in Australia’s escalating government overreach (and potentially the most consequential in the long term) has been the hasty passing of a new law greatly expanding government surveillance powers which allows law enforcement to hack into people’s devices and collect, delete, or even add to and alter the data therein, as well as take control of their social media accounts, supposedly “in order to frustrate the commission of serious offences online.”
“Australia is not a free country. Westerners are trained to believe that that’s what you call any wealthy English-speaking nation with liberal cultural values, but really it’s just a continent-sized US military base with kangaroos. Human rights are only allowed where they are convenient, which is why they are continually disintegrating.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/australia-has-no-bill-of-rights-and
The Australian government has been on the receiving end of more and more criticism for its Covid response lately, not just domestically but from overseas.
There’s a lot to criticize, from soldiers patrolling state borders and policing the streets of Sydney, to people being arrested for merely posting about lockdown protests on social media, to police accessing QR tracing information and firing projectile weapons at lockdown protesters, to news broadcasters naming and shaming Covid patients who violate isolation orders, to the frequently ineffective hotel quarantine system for travellers being replaced with purpose-built quarantine facilities and Orwellian surveillance apps. The states of both Victoria and New South Wales have begun moving toward reopening after the Delta variant proved zero-Covid goals unattainable even amid strict lockdowns, but will do so by adding Australia to the growing list of nations that have implemented the dangerously authoritarian policy of vaccine passports.
And there are other aspects of this trend which have nothing to do with Covid. One of the most controversial recent developments in Australia’s escalating government overreach (and potentially the most consequential in the long term) has been the hasty passing of a new law greatly expanding government surveillance powers which allows law enforcement to hack into people’s devices and collect, delete, or even add to and alter the data therein, as well as take control of their social media accounts, supposedly “in order to frustrate the commission of serious offences online.”
Critics tend to lump this sweeping surveillance state escalation in with authoritarian policies related to the pandemic, but the bill makes no mention of Covid; its proponents cite its utility in fighting terrorism and child exploitation. Indeed this bill, which will certainly lead to myriad abuses, is just the latest in a continuing expansion of government surveillance powers in Australia that has been going on for years. This video from The Juice for example was made in 2018 criticizing Canberra’s assault on encryption:https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eW-OMR-iWOE?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
In reality, while the pandemic has certainly been a major factor in exacerbating civil rights erosion, Australia’s Covid response has simply added to a problem that had already existed and was already getting worse. The 2019 CIVICUS Monitor, a global research group that tracks fundamental freedoms in 196 countries, downgraded Australia from an “open” country to one where civil space has “narrowed”, citing new laws to expand government surveillance, prosecution of whistleblowers, and raids on media organizations.
And this ongoing trend can be largely traced back to the fact that Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective. Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006:
Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world. Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.
Why then is Australia the exception? The answer lies in our history. Although many think of Australia as a young country, constitutionally speaking, it is one of the oldest in the world. The Australian Constitution remains almost completely as it was when enacted in 1901, while the Constitutions of the Australian states can go back as far as the 1850s. The legal systems and Constitutions of the nation and the Australian colonies (and then states) were conceived at a time when human rights, with the prominent exception of the 1791 United States Bill of Rights, tended not to be protected through a single legal instrument. Certainly, there was then no such law in the United Kingdom, upon whose legal system ours is substantially based. This has changed, especially after World War II and the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but by then Australia’s system of government had been operating for decades.
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ @caitozFriendly reminder that while 61 percent of Australians believe they have a bill of rights, Australia remains the only developed western democracy without one. There’s literally nothing in place to stop our government from abusing these measures. #auspol World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_UpdatesAustralian governments are aggressively promoting #COVIDSafe, a mobile phone application that will supposedly assist in monitoring and containing the spread of the coronavirus, despite unanswered questions about privacy. https://t.co/JLd0iPTdIb https://t.co/JLd0iPTdIbMay 9th 202074 Retweets163 Likes
The state of Victoria has a Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, which supposedly includes rights like freedom of movement and peaceful assembly, but such protections have been unceremoniously dismissed as state premiers harnessed sweeping powers hardly anyone was even aware they possessed and began imposing strict laws to get the virus under control.
Officials have been rewarded for these drastic actions with thunderous public support, and until a few months ago the Australian government enjoyed soaring levels of approval from a very collectivist-minded population who overwhelmingly desired the elimination of the virus even if it meant trading some freedoms. Approval of those strict measures has dipped significantly since the Delta outbreak, but a majority of Australians still believe lockdowns and other restrictions are at appropriate levels for the time being. The absence of any federal restrictions on state governments’ ability to limit personal freedoms has allowed premiers to chase this public support regardless of potential long-term consequences.
Australia is not a free country. Westerners are trained to believe that that’s what you call any wealthy English-speaking nation with liberal cultural values, but really it’s just a continent-sized US military base with kangaroos. Human rights are only allowed where they are convenient, which is why they are continually disintegrating.
The first mistake in believing that Australia is a free country is believing that it is free. The second is believing that it’s an actual country. As Julian Assange put it shortly before the Australian government allowed him to be silenced and then imprisoned for journalism exposing US war crimes:
“I love my birth country Australia but as a state it doesn’t exist. Here is why it had its prime-minister denounce me, moved to cancel my passport, secretly passed data on me to US intelligence and has never made representations on my behalf. It is owned by US+UK corporations. Before WWII Australia was dominated by the UK–of which it was a colony. After the war it subordinated itself U.S. hegemony. A brief attempt at an independent Australian foreign policy in 1975 resulted in a US+UK backed constitutional coup.”
Anyway, it’s a mess.
So what to do about all this? If you listen to social media comments from people in the northern hemisphere the answer is that Australians should wage a civil war against their government, which from where I’m standing is hilarious partly because they’re talking about a populace whose entire cultural values system is built around being laid back and unbothered, and partly because most of those commenters are Americans living directly under the single most tyrannical regime on earth who have yet to put their much-touted Second Amendment toward practicing what they preach.
There’s a lot that’s going to have to shift before Australians gain stable protections for their civil liberties, which will necessarily have to include not just some kind of bill of rights but becoming an actual republic and finally getting that ugly old woman off our coins and ending the illegitimate US military occupation here once and for all. This will not happen until there’s an expansion in public consciousness of the need to do this, which may or may not be born out of conditions getting a lot worse before they get better. It may also be born out of a critical mass of Australians deciding they’re fed up and beginning a real push toward becoming a free country.
Bottom line the answer to the question of what needs to happen for Australia to move toward health is the same as the answer everywhere else: we’re just going to have to wake up. Human consciousness wants to awaken, and it will shake us in whatever ways we need to be shaken in order to make that happen. This is a hell of a time to be alive.
_________________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Australia, Bill of Rights, Democracy | 1 Comment »
The World’s Deadliest Terrorist Group: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix – by Caitlin Johnstone – Caitlin’s Newsletter
Posted by M. C. on September 10, 2021
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/
The CIA just casually discussed sinking a boat full of Cuban refugees and planting bombs in Miami and blaming Castro, but you’re bat shit crazy if you suspect such agencies may have had similar discussions about other geostrategic situations and decided to go through with it.
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There’s more public criticism of ordinary people taking ivermectin than there is of planet-dominating power structures driving humanity to armageddon.
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Nobody who supports internet censorship does so because they’re worried they themselves might consume dangerous words and believe them, it’s always to protect other people from dangerous words. It’s about the most megalomaniacal, emotionally stunted desire anyone could possibly have.
They see themselves as responsible adults who can be trusted to independently sort out truth from falsehood, but see other people as infants who cannot be trusted to do this. This is nothing other than garden variety narcissism.
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Internet censorship via monopolistic government-tied tech corporations isn’t just a problem because of free speech issues, it’s a problem because the way it’s applied is completely uneven and power-serving: politicians and the mass media circulate disinformation constantly without ever being censored. It’s not just silencing people, it’s actually shifting power upwards.
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There is no path forward for humanity on this planet without complete female reproductive sovereignty.
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Imagine if the world’s deadliest terrorist group got their hands on drones and cruise missiles and nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers and circled the planet with hundreds of military bases and began waging wars and destroying any country which disobeyed their dictates.
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No, Texas conservatives aren’t like the Taliban. No, US government authoritarianism isn’t like China or North Korea. You know what it’s like? It’s like America. It says so much that the most corrupt and destructive nation on earth keeps comparing its homegrown depravity to foreign nations.
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It’s crazy how there are guys whose whole entire job is trying to get large number of people killed by mass military violence and we just let that be a thing like it’s a perfectly legitimate way for someone to be.
“Hey why does that mustache guy keep trying to get large numbers of people violently killed?”
“Oh he’s just one of those war starty guys.”
“What?? Why are there war starty guys??”
“I dunno. Isn’t that normal? I just assumed it was normal to have war starty guys.”
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Every single soldier who died in Afghanistan died in vain. Don’t make up sugary fairy tales about it, just stop letting it happen.
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Are soldiers working under the US empire the worst people in the world? No. But in terms of moral standing you’d have to rank someone who murders foreigners on behalf of imperialists and war profiteers below most of the people in your average prison.
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“If it wasn’t us waging all these wars and killing all those people it’d be someone else” sounds very much like the sort of thing an abusive tyrant would say.
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There’s no good reason to respect the analysis of anyone who thinks China’s behavior on the world stage is worse than or equally as bad as America’s.
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Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no bill of rights of any kind. Most people are unaware of this, including most Australians. What you’re seeing in Australia is simply what happens when you add a pandemic response on top of a nation with no foundational legal protection from government overreach. That’s why our Covid measures are so notoriously harsh relative to other western countries.
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Modern gods are corporations and banks, faceless inhuman entities whose agendas of growth and conquest supercede even the wishes of their own executives. Our gods are insatiable devourers controlled by no one. Our gods have no heads.
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At a time when our species is hurtling toward its own demise we ought to be coming together and working in unison to avert disaster, and it says so much about the power of propaganda that we are instead doing the exact opposite.
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All of humanity’s problems are ultimately due to a misperception of the way things are.
Propaganda causes us to misperceive reality in a way that benefits establishment power structures, so we don’t rise up and use the power of our numbers to put an end to the ecocidal, omnicidal status quo which oppresses and exploits us.
Advertising causes us to misperceive our own bodies and the source of real contentment, leading to the obsessive consumption habits necessary for turning the gears of capitalism.
Ego causes us to misperceive our own experience of consciousness and the information which enters our minds through the senses, leading to the suffering and dysfunction which ultimately underlies all abuses in our world.
What we need, then, is clear seeing, both outwardly and inwardly. An end to government secrecy and the mass-scale manipulations which distort our perception of reality. An end to restrictions on psychedelic tools which help people behold their inner processes with lucidity. A greatly elevated prioritization of self-honesty and self-reflection to help us see through the ego’s illusions.
We can’t move toward health until we can see where we’re going.
_______________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CIA, ivermectin, Taliban, Terrorist Group | Leave a Comment »
Greenwald: The ACLU, Prior To COVID, Denounced Mandates And Coercive Measures To Fight Pandemics
Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2021
While such a scheme is different in degree from vaccine passports let alone vaccine mandates — which the ACLU is now championing — its rationale for opposing such a system is fully applicable: “there are serious civil liberties and civil rights harms from making workplace decisions on that basis,” adding: “any immunity passport system endangers privacy rights by creating a new surveillance infrastructure to collect health data.”
by Tyler Durden
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) surprised even many of its harshest critics this week when it strongly defended coercive programs and other mandates from the state in the name of fighting COVID. “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” its Twitter account announced, adding that “vaccine requirements also safeguard those whose work involves regular exposure to the public.”
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: ACLU, Coercive, Glenn Greenwald, Vaccine Mandates | Leave a Comment »
Watch “ACLU Flips! Vaccine Passport Obsession Accelerates” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: ACLU, Glenn Greenwald, Vaccine Passport | Leave a Comment »
The political architecture of the new Middle East
Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2021
The post-Syrian war Middle East is taking shape. Everything would change: Syria would join the Russian-led military coalition and be de facto protected by it. Lebanon would be placed under joint Russian-US tutelage but occupied militarily by France. Iraq would replace Lebanon as a regional mediator. Iran would be admitted to the Mediterranean.
Without realizing it, France is laying the groundwork for its next fiasco: President Macron keeps repeating President Biden’s rhetoric: he will not help any state to build itself, but all of them to fight against terrorism. This is the slogan of the International Coalition in Iraq and Syria, which has not stopped for 7 years to massacre civilians and guide the jihadists. It was also the doubletalk of President Biden to justify the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the resurgence of Daesh. In short, it is always the way we talk when we want to ravage states.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article213966.html
by Thierry Meyssan
This article is a follow-up to
“Why a Yalta II?“, June 15, 2021.
“Biden-Putin, a Yalta II rather than a new Berlin“, June 22, 2021.
Moscow and Washington are preparing the reorganization of the Levant that they drew up during the Geneva meeting (known as “Yalta 2”) on June 16. The aim is to draw conclusions from the terrible Western military defeat in Syria without humiliating the United States.
According to this peace agreement, Syria would be placed in the Russian zone, while Lebanon would be shared between the West and Russia.
The Baghdad and Cairo summits
We are moving towards a withdrawal of the US army from Iraq so that this country becomes a mediator, a neutral zone, instead of Lebanon. Iraq has therefore convened a summit in Baghdad with seven of its neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Emirates, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey). France managed to join the participants both as a representative of the West and as a former colonial power.
The former director of the Iraqi secret service and now Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kazimi, showed his great knowledge of regional issues and his ability to maintain the balance between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran. Despite several contacts over the past year and more conciliatory rhetoric, these two powers have not known how to resolve their multiple disputes, particularly in Yemen.
The Baghdad meeting was an opportunity to display an alliance between President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi (Egypt) and King Abdullah II (Jordan) to manage (not solve) the Palestinian problem. It was immediately followed by a meeting in Cairo of the two heads of state with their Palestinian counterpart, President Mahmoud Abbas. The latter was all the more conciliatory as he is aware that, from now on, no Arab country will come to the aid of his people. It is not possible to demand justice for 70 years while betraying all those who help you.
The French presence has been interpreted as an announcement of a military intervention by Paris after the U.S. withdrawal. President Emmanuel Macron is said to have ambitions to deploy troops in Lebanon to defend western interests as the country comes under joint US and Russian tutelage.
Turkey was dragging its feet throughout the summit.
Translation
Roger Lagassé
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Lebanon, Levant, Mustafa al-Kazimi, New Middle East, Yalta 2 | Leave a Comment »
