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Posts Tagged ‘covid-19’

Soylent Green is people; COVID-19 is old people « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on June 27, 2020

Tony Fauci knows the con. He knows COVID-19 is old people. But he’s busy
giving advice to the NFL and Major League Baseball about how to play
their seasons, while people are dying from the fear he promotes. Fauci
has no shred of shame. He’s a mouthpiece turned out by Bill Gates and
David Rockefeller.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/06/26/soylent-green-is-people-covid-19-is-old-people/

by Jon Rappoport

In the 1973 film, a NY police detective discovers the vastly overcrowded, poverty–stricken population of the city—who are being sustained on processed government food, called Soylent—are now eating humans who have died. That’s what Soylent Green is made of.

As I covered in my article (and spoke about) two days ago, open-source press reports reveal the “excess mortality” of 2020 is largely the result of elderly people dying in nursing homes.

This has nothing to do with a virus.

It has to do with patients who are ALREADY on a long downward health slide—then hit with the terror of an arbitrary and fake COVID-19 diagnosis, and then isolated and shut off from family and friends—in facilities where gross neglect and indifference are all too often the “standard of care.”

Death is the direct result.

The managers of pandemic information tell the big lie. They spin tales about “the virus” having a greater impact on the elderly.

No, the STORY about a virus has the impact. The terror has the deadly impact. The isolation has the deadly impact.

To an astounding extent, COVID-19 is a NURSING HOME DISASTER.

Mass murder by cruelty.

Memo to financial investigators: Calculate how much money government and private insurers are saving, because they don’t have to keep paying for the long-term care of all the old people who are dying premature deaths in nursing homes. The money number will be staggering.

Tony Fauci knows the con. He knows COVID-19 is old people. But he’s busy giving advice to the NFL and Major League Baseball about how to play their seasons, while people are dying from the fear he promotes. Fauci has no shred of shame. He’s a mouthpiece turned out by Bill Gates and David Rockefeller.

Evil permeates the COVID operation. The elderly in nursing homes are the primary target. Getting them to die earlier is the tactic, in order to pump up the fake COVID mortality numbers.

Without those phony numbers, the whole “pandemic” would be exposed in an hour.

I’ve said there were two key events in the foisting of the whole vicious COVID fiction—the Chinese regime locking down 50 million citizens overnight for no good medical reason, giving the green light to the World Health Organization and the CDC to “follow the new model”; and the Bill Gates-financed computer projection of deaths, put together by Neil Ferguson, who lied through his teeth when he claimed half a million people could die in the UK and two million in the US—thus supplying the final “rationale” for the lockdowns.

The third key event was and is the sustained attack on the elderly in nursing homes.

Kill these people with terror and isolation, and make the death numbers escalate.

Here are the open-source press reports I included in my article two days ago. There is an additional report at the end.

As of May 22, Forbes reports that, “…in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”

Washington Post, May 18: “The World Health Organization said half of Europe’s covid-19 deaths occurred in such facilities.”

Headline of same Post article: “Canada’s nursing home crisis: 81 percent of coronavirus deaths [in the country] are in long-term care facilities.”

The Guardian, May 16: “About 90% of the 3,700 people who have died from coronavirus in Sweden were over 70, and half were living in care homes, according to a study from Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare at the end of April.”

“Spain—The country was shocked at the end of March when the defence minister revealed that soldiers drafted in to disinfect residential homes had found some elderly people abandoned and dead in their beds.”

“…the regional governments of Madrid and Catalonia have been publishing their own figures on people who have died in care homes from the virus, or while exhibiting symptoms consistent with it.” [AKA, absurd eyeball diagnosis]

“In Madrid, the total for Covid, or suspected Covid, deaths since 8 March stood at 5,886 on Thursday. In Catalonia, it was 3,375. Between them, care home deaths in the two regions account for more than a third of all the coronavirus deaths in the country.”

And there was a great deal of early warning on the subject, if anyone from public health agencies wanted to pay attention—The Guardian, 13 April: “About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries…Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).”

These nursing home figures only give a partial picture. Consider the HUGE NUMBER of elderly, already ill people who are basically in the same situation at home—terrified by COVID propaganda, locked down, isolated; and then die—and also those who manage to make it to a hospital, where they are put on breathing ventilators, heavily sedated, and killed.

The Hill, undated (late April 2020), reporting on “data…gathered at Northwell Health, New York state’s largest hospital system. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) examines 5,700 patients hospitalized with coronavirus infections in the New York City region, with final outcomes recorded for 2,634 patients. The average patient age was 63 years old… For the next oldest age group, ages 66 years and older, patients receiving mechanical ventilation recorded a 97.2 percent mortality rate.”

COVID is old people. Pushed into death.

SOURCES:

* https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/06/24/covid-behind-the-global-nursing-home-disaster-and-the-case-number-scam/

* https://banned.video/watch?id=5ef3e20b672706002f2c43de

* https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1274170611280068615

* https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/tag/lockdown/

* https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/tag/neil-ferguson/

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#12d6083874cd

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2020/05/19/the-health-202-the-hopeful-news-about-moderna-s-coronavirus-vaccine-is-extremely-preliminary/5ec2e480602ff11bb118504f/

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-canada-long-term-care-nursing-homes/2020/05/18/01494ad4-947f-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/16/across-the-world-figures-reveal-horrific-covid-19-toll-of-care-home-deaths

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/half-of-coronavirus-deaths-happen-in-care-homes-data-from-eu-suggests

* https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/494274-nearly-half-of-all-patients-placed-on

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COVID: Behind the global nursing home disaster, and the case-number scam « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on June 25, 2020

Obviously, if you subtracted all these deaths from official COVID
statistics, you would have a completely different picture of the
so-called pandemic.

YOU WOULD HAVE A WORLDWIDE NURSING HOME DISASTER.

People all around the world, old people, who have traditional illnesses like flu and pneumonia, are being repackaged as COVID cases. Especially people in nursing homes, who are terrified by COVID propaganda and are intentionally isolated from friends and family…

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/06/24/covid-behind-the-global-nursing-home-disaster-and-the-case-number-scam/

by Jon Rappoport

Scandal. Tragedy. Ongoing crime.

In nursing homes, elderly people are already on the edge of the cliff, suffering from long-term illnesses and years of toxic medical treatments…but now you terrify them with COVID propaganda…then you actually label them “COVID”, WITH NO JUSTIFICATION…then you isolate them completely…they’re all alone…no contact with family and friends…what do you expect will happen to these fragile, heavily drugged people?

As of May 22, Forbes reports that, “…in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”

Washington Post, May 18: “The World Health Organization said half of Europe’s covid-19 deaths occurred in such facilities.”

Headline of same Post article: “Canada’s nursing home crisis: 81 percent of coronavirus deaths [in the country] are in long-term care facilities.”

The Guardian, May 16: “About 90% of the 3,700 people who have died from coronavirus in Sweden were over 70, and half were living in care homes, according to a study from Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare at the end of April.”

“Spain—The country was shocked at the end of March when the defence minister revealed that soldiers drafted in to disinfect residential homes had found some elderly people abandoned and dead in their beds.”

“…the regional governments of Madrid and Catalonia have been publishing their own figures on people who have died in care homes from the virus, or while exhibiting symptoms consistent with it.” [AKA, absurd eyeball diagnosis]

“In Madrid, the total for Covid, or suspected Covid, deaths since 8 March stood at 5,886 on Thursday. In Catalonia, it was 3,375. Between them, care home deaths in the two regions account for more than a third of all the coronavirus deaths in the country.”

And there was a great deal of early warning on the subject, if anyone from public health agencies wanted to pay attention—The Guardian, 13 April: “About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries…Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).”

There are two con jobs going on here, as huge numbers of these elderly patients have died and are dying.

The first is the COVID-19 diagnosis, which is either made on the absurd basis of simply eyeballing the patient and seeing general signs of illness, such as shortness of breath and flu-like symptoms; or by test, which I’ve explained is completely unreliable, because it registers positive on all sorts of germs in the body that are irrelevant.

But once the COVID diagnosis is made, then medical authorities claim the deaths of so many patients in nursing homes are occurring because the COVID virus naturally has more impact on the elderly and infirm.

Nonsense. There is no need to invoke the coronavirus to explain why these people in nursing homes are dying.

People all around the world, old people, who have traditional illnesses like flu and pneumonia, are being repackaged as COVID cases. Especially people in nursing homes, who are terrified by COVID propaganda and are intentionally isolated from friends and family…

And in fact are dying of their long-term multiple medical conditions, plus years of treatment with toxic drugs…

Plus the terror of COVID, plus complete isolation, plus filthy conditions in some facilities, plus inattention and outright brutality on the part of nursing home staffs, plus breathing ventilators and sedation in some cases —

Not a virus.

No need to invoke a virus as an explanation.

No need at all.

Obviously, if you subtracted all these deaths from official COVID statistics, you would have a completely different picture of the so-called pandemic.

YOU WOULD HAVE A WORLDWIDE NURSING HOME DISASTER.

And the first order of business would be to go into these places and clean them up and straighten them out and in many cases make arrests of the personnel.

As a number of nursing home patient-advocacy groups have pointed out, the main monitor on what goes on in these homes, and the main source of protection for patients is: visiting families and friends, who keep a careful eye on things.

But because the fake COVID diagnosis immediately leads to locking down the facilities, friends and families can’t come in. They’re shut out.

For the planners of this false pandemic, it all works out. COVID death numbers rise, case numbers rise. Phony numbers to the core.

But real and tragic deaths.

People pushed into death by the concocted IDEA of a virus, by a STORY about a virus.

SOURCES:

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#12d6083874cd

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2020/05/19/the-health-202-the-hopeful-news-about-moderna-s-coronavirus-vaccine-is-extremely-preliminary/5ec2e480602ff11bb118504f/

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-canada-long-term-care-nursing-homes/2020/05/18/01494ad4-947f-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/16/across-the-world-figures-reveal-horrific-covid-19-toll-of-care-home-deaths

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/half-of-coronavirus-deaths-happen-in-care-homes-data-from-eu-suggests

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A Covid-19 Vaccine Is Being Rushed to Market for the November Election – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 25, 2020

Furthermore, any American considering vaccination for COVID-19 coronavirus should avoid signing hold-harmless clauses in consent forms because important rights would be waived should malpractice occur.  Vaccination of individuals who are at high-risk to develop side-effects and are less likely to positively respond to vaccination may not be good candidates for immunization. 

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/no_author/covid-19-vaccine-being-rushed-to-market-for-november-election/

Vaccination Will Be Biggest Healthcare Decision Americans Ever Make; National Health Federation Introduces Code-Of-Federal Regulations-Compliant Vaccine Consent/Refusal Form

 

According to news sources at least one COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine may be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration before the November 2020 election. 

The decision to vaccinate will likely be the biggest healthcare decision any American will ever make in their lifetime.  Will Americans voluntarily line up and get immunized against the COVID-19 coronavirus?  The vaccine will have been rushed to market.  All of its side effects won’t be known till millions of Americans have been vaccinated. 

The National Health Federation teams with investigative health journalist Bill Sardi to introduce a regulatory-compliant consent form that will help protect consumers from any pitfalls in the vaccination process.

Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) states that Americans in a clinical study must give their written consent to any medical treatment such as vaccination.  Since vaccines gain licensure from the FDA by passing through 3  out of 4 safety trials, the side effect ratio is never truly known till the vaccine is used widely by millions.  All Americans who receive the vaccine will still be enrolled in surveillance studies (Stage-4) and subject to the CFR protections. 

According to Title 21 of the CFR, informed consent requires candidates for vaccination to be given the right to refuse vaccination; have the right to confidentiality (privacy) that their vaccination data will not be shared with other parties without their consent; and have the right to know if there are any alternatives to vaccination.

Furthermore, any American considering vaccination for COVID-19 coronavirus should avoid signing hold-harmless clauses in consent forms because important rights would be waived should malpractice occur.  Vaccination of individuals who are at high-risk to develop side-effects and are less likely to positively respond to vaccination may not be good candidates for immunization. 

COVID-19 vaccination will likely be voluntary in the beginning, and mandatory thereafter, just as State and Federal government health agencies did with social distancing, face masks and quarantine.  Manufacturers of COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines are producing a quantity of vaccines for the entire population.

There are many other things that informed consent should reveal to those who are considering immunization, such as the name and production lot number of the vaccine and the estimation of the numerical chance of benefiting from vaccination (i.e. how many need to be vaccinated to prevent 1 infection or prevent 1 death).  Furthermore, those who are vaccinated should always be given a copy of the consent form to take home.

One report indicates availability of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 was important to 68 percent of Americans surveyed.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Consent/Refusal Form is available from Knowledge of Health Inc.  Proceeds go to the National Health Federation vaccine rights defense fund and the libertarian website LewRockwell.com.  Two copies of the 18-page consent form available for $12.95 (shipping included).  The consent form can be ordered online at www.covid19consent.com or by sending a check or money order for $12.95, payable to Knowledge of Health, 1502 Foothill Blvd, Suite 103, La Verne, CA 91750. 

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Were COVID-19 and COVID-20 Created in a US Lab?, by Larry Romanoff – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on June 24, 2020

“Manipulating viral genomes is now routine, and it is easy to create new viruses that jump host species in the laboratory in the course of apparently legitimate experiments in genetic engineering. It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube.

https://www.unz.com/article/were-covid-19-and-covid-20-created-in-a-us-lab/

It was amusing to watch the emergence of this debate on the US-China stage. The Chinese were understandably unwilling to be blamed for the emergence of a virus in which they had no part, and thus reacted strongly to accusations the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. The Americans proved to be even more terrified at the possibility of scientific proof that the virus escaped from one of their bio-labs, and resorted to the only weapon they had which was to turn up the volume on blaming China. There were two main reasons for this state of affairs:[1] The US was the only country known to contain all the varieties that were being spread worldwide.[2] The US is the only nation in the world known to have repeatedly used biological weapons on other countries, beginning with North Korea and never ceasing. Of even more damning consequence is the known locations of about 400 American bio-weapons labs spread throughout the world, to say nothing of the pathetically-lax institution at Fort Detrick.[1][2][3]

Moreover, Trump recently claimed he could kill the entire population of Afghanistan within days. “Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone and this is not using nuclear. It would be over in – literally, in 10 days.” Biological weapons would seem the only alternative. Hemorrhagic Fever and Hantavirus worked for the US in North Korea; perhaps also Afghanistan.[4][5][6] Mr. Trump later denied intention to carry out his threat, but let’s dispense with the fiction of the US having no biological weapons and that Fort Detrick and the 400 foreign labs are performing only benevolent “peace medicine” functions. If it were China with the above history and SARS, MERS, AIDS, EBOLA, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 first erupted in the US, the Americans would claim this as 100% proof that China was responsible. It cannot be a surprise that much of the world today is naturally tending to lay these outbreaks at America’s doorstep.

But returning to our topic of man-made COVID-19 or COVID-20, it seems everyone has been a little too eager to dismiss the possibility (or probability) of these viruses having a (human) helping hand.

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute for Science in Society cites a Journal of Virology report (Feb 2000)[7] that described a method for inducing desired mutations into coronavirus to create new viruses. “Manipulating viral genomes is now routine, and it is easy to create new viruses that jump host species in the laboratory in the course of apparently legitimate experiments in genetic engineering. It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube. Using a technique called ‘molecular breeding’, millions of recombinants can be generated in a matter of minutes. These can be screened for improved function in the case of enzymes, or increased virulence, in the case of viruses and bacteria. In other words, geneticists can now greatly speed up evolution in the laboratory to create viruses and bacteria that never existed in all the billions of years of evolution on earth.”[8] It wasn’t widely publicised, but Dr. Ho called for a full investigation into the possible genetic engineering and dissemination of the SARS virus.[9]

Then another article in which the author explained that scientists eager to dispel the notion of an artificial origin, do so by pointing out that these new coronaviruses didn’t reflect their computer simulations, the author stating, “To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV-2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently.” However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. “So the fact that COVID-19 didn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered.”[10]

The article further states that “[The] authors of the Nature Medicine article seem to assume that the only way to genetically engineer a virus is to take an already known virus and then engineer it to have the new properties you want. On this premise, they looked for evidence of an already known virus that could have been used in the engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Since they failed to find that evidence, they stated, “Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” But Dr Antoniou told us that while the authors did indeed show that SARS-CoV-2 was unlikely to have been built by deliberate genetic engineering from a previously used virus backbone, that’s not the only way of constructing a virus. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells.

“This selection can be done either with purified proteins or, better still, with a mixture of whole coronavirus (CoV) preparations and human cells in tissue culture. This preparation of phage, displaying on its surface a “library” of CoV spike protein variants, is then added to human cells under laboratory culture conditions in order to select for those that bind to the ACE2 receptor. This process is repeated under more and more stringent binding conditions until CoV spike protein variants with a high binding affinity are isolated. Once any of the above selection procedures for high affinity interaction of SARS-CoV spike protein with ACE2 has been completed, then whole infectious CoV with these properties can be manufactured. Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research.”

There is, incidentally, another possible way that COVID-19 could have been developed in a laboratory, but in this case without using genetic engineering. This was pointed out by Nikolai Petrovsky, a researcher at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. Petrovsky says that coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don’t do anything noticeable. “The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus. Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”

Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/virus-biological-us-army-weapons-fort-detrick-leak-ebola-anthrax-smallpox-ricin-a9042641.html

[2] https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/the-u-s-is-the-world-leader-of-bio-weapons-research-production-and-use-against-mankind/

[3] https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-bio-labs-in-ukraine-production-of-bio-weapons-and-disease-causing-agents/5605307

[4] https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936

[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/why-did-donald-trump-say-he-could-kill-10-million-afghans/11342794

[6] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/08/21/604070/US-President-Donald-Trump-Afghanistan-war-win-without-nuclear-weapons

[7] http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/10627550

[8] https://www.i-sis.org.uk/SAGE.php

[9] m.w.ho@i-sis.org.uk

[10] https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19383-where-did-the-covid-19-virus-come-from

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The Most Important Paper I’ve Ever Written – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 23, 2020

All things considered, vitamin D optimization is likely the easiest,
least expensive and most beneficial strategy that anyone can do to
minimize their risk of COVID-19 and other infections in the coming
months. Health authorities are already warning of a second wave of
COVID-19 in the fall, which means the time to start addressing your
vitamin D level is NOW.

The advice to wear sunscreen while getting “incidental” sun exposure is medically irrational and incorrect, since sunscreen filters out the very ultraviolet rays that trigger vitamin D production in your skin.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/joseph-mercola/the-most-important-paper-dr-mercola-has-ever-written/

By

Mercola.com

All things considered, vitamin D optimization is likely the easiest, least expensive and most beneficial strategy that anyone can do to minimize their risk of COVID-19 and other infections in the coming months. Health authorities are already warning of a second wave of COVID-19 in the fall, which means the time to start addressing your vitamin D level is NOW.

We also have a pandemic of vitamin D deficiency, as more than 1 billion individuals worldwide, across all age groups, are deficient in vitamin D.1,2,3,4 Vitamin D deficiency has now been identified as a significant risk factor for positive COVID-19 status,5,6 severe COVID-19 infection7,8,9,10 and death thereof.11,12 I discuss this in “Vitamin D Is Directly Correlated to COVID-19 Outcome.”

In one study,13,14 which looked at data from 780 hospital patients in Indonesia, those with a vitamin D level between 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) and 30 ng/mL had a sevenfold higher risk of death than those with a level above 30 ng/mL. Having a level below 20 ng/mL was associated with a 12 times higher risk of death.

To improve your immune function and lower your risk of viral infections, you’ll want to raise your vitamin D to a level between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/mL by fall. In Europe, the measurements you’re looking for are 150 nmol/L and 200 nmol/L. If vitamin D levels were increased in the global population, tens of thousands of people may be saved if or when COVID-19 reemerges.

While prospective controlled studies demonstrating vitamin D’s effectiveness in COVID-19 are still lacking, there are many such studies underway. You can review the status of these trials on clinicaltrials.gov.15 As of early June 2020, more than 20 studies had been launched to investigate the benefits of vitamin D against COVID-19.

The Most Important Paper I’ve Ever Written

For the last three weeks, I have been writing a comprehensive report on vitamin D in the prevention of COVID-19. The report has been reviewed by many vitamin D scientists for accuracy. This was done to develop a resource that everyone can share to help educate others. We will soon be launching a campaign to educate and inspire everyone, everywhere, to start optimizing their vitamin D level NOW. Please download my paper here, and share it with everyone you know.

The purpose of this report is to help you understand why it is so important to optimize vitamin levels for healthy immune functions and then provide you with a detailed strategy of how to do that. This report can be used as a tool to teach your friends, family and community about why and how to be prepared for the next pandemic.

In it, I review the science of how your immune system works, and the regulatory role of vitamin D. I also explain how vitamin D reduces your risk of COVID-19 specifically, and how it helps suppress and control both acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and cytokine storms, which is a primary cause of death in COVID-19.

Darker-Skinned Individuals Need More Vitamin D

Vitamin D optimization is particularly important for dark-skinned individuals, as the darker your skin, the more sun exposure you need to raise your vitamin D level. Increased skin pigmentation reduces the efficacy of UVB because melanin functions as a natural sunblock.

If you’re very dark-skinned, you may need to spend about 1.5 hours a day in the sun to have any noticeable effect. For many working adults and school-age children, this simply isn’t feasible. Read the rest of this entry »

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Even if COVID-19 Goes Away, the Economy Isn’t Going Back to “Normal” | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on June 18, 2020

When the pandemic is over, it will not mean a reset of fundamental equity and credit values to the market price levels on the eve of pandemic levels. The period was already the late afternoon if not twilight of a long and virulent asset inflation. All the malinvestment which is now coming to light during the pandemic—whether in shale oil, the aircraft industry, auto industry, international supply chains, China and emerging markets, European export sectors, or commercial real estate—is surely worth some serious downgrade in aggregate valuations from the peak of the last cycle. This further write-off is highly relevant to credit paper.

https://mises.org/wire/even-if-covid-19-goes-away-economy-isnt-going-back-normal?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=ea219ce0fc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-ea219ce0fc-228343965

Speculative frenzy in the midst of recession is not a new phenomenon. Yet the extent of the “madness” this time might well beat records in the small sample size available from the history laboratory. The combination of extreme monetary radicalism and a receding supply shock has proved to be a potent toxic, impairing mental processes in ways described by the behavioral finance theorists. The pandemic stock “bubble” and resumed hectic demand for risky credit paper provide illustrations.

Speculative narratives which would normally encounter much rational skepticism are now riveting investors. Perhaps the most fantastic of these is that the Fed’s credit paper purchase programs amount to a gift to the US corporate sector even larger than the business tax cuts of 2018. A sister narrative concerns European Central Bank (ECB) gifts to Italy. In fact, the gift element is much smaller than at first sight—this is not manna from heaven, but a transfer which imposes burdens on donors and recipients. These programs distort market signals in ways (especially stimulating even higher leverage ratios in the meanwhile) which will worsen the global credit and banking crisis likely to erupt before full economic expansion resumes.

Past Speculative Frenzies

Two notorious past market frenzies during recessions came to an end with the eruption of credit and banking crisis. First was the US stock market frenzy of winter 1930. The Dow Jones index rose 50 percent from November 29 to April 30 and was back to within 20 percent of that level on the eve of the Wall Street Crash. Then there was the oil (and wider commodity) market bubble of spring and summer 2008 (though US recession had already started in November 2007). The oil price peaked at $145 per barrel, followed by a collapse to below $40 the following year. The 1930 frenzy succumbed to the grim news of emerging credit (especially bank) defaults in the US and then, crucially, in Germany; the 2008 frenzy yielded to the subprime mortgage crisis coupled with the European banking crisis.

Is the present frenzy in recession different?

As a reference point, on average US stocks in mid-June 2020 are back to their prerecession peak (the National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER] estimates February 2020 as the start of the recession). But a group of “pandemic stocks”—in businesses whose profits gain directly from pandemic, such as online retailing, cloud computing, pharmaceuticals, video conferencing and communication in cyberspace more generally, and computer games, and in businesses whose monopoly power is potentially enhanced in the long run by the knockout of financially crippled competitors—have experienced rises in their prices to far above the level at the cyclical peak. The nearest counterpart to this “bubble” in pandemic stocks is the boom in war stocks during the period of US neutrality in World War I.

Similar to the boom in war stocks, this pandemic stock boom is occurring in the context of rampant monetary inflation. A key difference is that inflation does not for now show up in goods markets.

In the case of war, competition from the military sector (munitions and armed forces) for scarce resources (most of all labor) means that prices rise immediately across a broad range; in a pandemic, labor exits the supply-crippled civilian economy, but mainly for the purpose of staying safe at home. Demand from the sectors mounting defences against COVID-19 (medical services, pharmaceuticals, constructors of safeguards for social distancing) is quite modest.

Even so, the prospect of high goods inflation in the aftermath of pandemic may already be triggering some demand for real assets including stocks, especially those earning a present or prospective stream of monopoly rents (several of these found among the pandemic stocks).

The optimists tell us that there is no frenzy. Markets are responding rationally to news that the recession is already over (the NBER may indeed date the end May 2020). A strong economic recovery is now in process, as COVID-19’s offensive has been “beaten back.” This should gain new momentum into the winter as the present lull or truce is followed by a victory peace, meaning the arrival of effective cures and vaccines.

What look like hot speculative conditions in the marketplace now could morph into a prolonged “bull market” (a euphemism for sustained asset inflation). Examples of this phenomenon in the small sample size of history include the great asset inflations of 1922–28 or 1962–66, which both started early in the recovery from serious recessions (but not right at the beginning).

This spin is all a tall order. Yes, the NBER may well determine that the recession is over. This, however, would be a case of meaningless measurement.

If one superimposes a massive supply shock and a subsequent rapid easing (of the supply constraints) on an already endogenously determined decline of business spending amid massive accumulation of malinvestment and financial excesses during the long preceding period of asset inflation (say, 2012–19), what will come into view? Most likely a fitful economic expansion, with an initial bounceback of private consumption from lockdowns but with business spending and international trade remaining depressed.

The emergence of sustained strong economic expansions such as accompanied the long asset inflations in the 1920s and 1960s will depend in part on victory over COVID-19. Also, however, there must be a victory for creative capitalism. Growing capital shortage amid the exposed obsolescence of much capital stock accumulated during the previous cycle should go along with high rates of return at the frontier of new investment opportunity.

The Pandemic Exposes the Bubbles

When the pandemic is over, it will not mean a reset of fundamental equity and credit values to the market price levels on the eve of pandemic levels. The period was already the late afternoon if not twilight of a long and virulent asset inflation. All the malinvestment which is now coming to light during the pandemic—whether in shale oil, the aircraft industry, auto industry, international supply chains, China and emerging markets, European export sectors, or commercial real estate—is surely worth some serious downgrade in aggregate valuations from the peak of the last cycle. This further write-off is highly relevant to credit paper.

The optimists retort that this time is different because of the extent to which the Fed and Uncle Sam are bailing out “the whole system.” But there is much fiction here.

Yes, the Fed under the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) can draw on up to $500 billion from the Treasury in compensation for aggregate losses on credit paper that it buys under its array of asset purchase programs. Such compensation, however, only covers a fraction of the total paper to be purchased, which is an even smaller fraction of the total high-risk credit in the US and global economy.

The Fed under these programs is essentially a price taker, not a price maker, even though the belief that the Fed is in there may be fueling the price of credit paper in the midst of frenzy. In the event of bankruptcy, the Fed will not be graciously renouncing its claims in favor of all other creditors. Nor will it be automatically rolling over all proceeds from credit paper together with interest in its portfolio into new paper from the same issuer.

Back to the laboratory of history: if we do hear an echo as the present episode of speculative frenzy in recession fades, it may well come from a big “credit event.” This would likely start in either the emerging markets (including China) or Europe (think of Italy). The edifice of the Mnuchin Treasury-Powell Fed credit market protection schemes would crack under the impact.

 

Be seeing you

 

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Just To Be Clear — The Covid-19 Vaccine Will Be Rigorously Tested – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

Just like CDC contaminated COVID test kits.

Don’t be intimidated by the philosophically impoverished. Their bluster is their only tool against you.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/allan-stevo/just-to-be-clear-the-covid-19-vaccine-will-be-rigorously-tested/

By

Some people claim that the Covid-19 vaccine will not be rigorously tested. That’s a lie.

I worked for a software company once that didn’t test its code in a testing environment. They tested their code “in production.” That worked until it didn’t. Everything fell apart. Customers lost millions. It was the most awful product release I’ve ever witnessed.

Similarly, the Covid-19 vaccine will be tested in production. Notable examples come to mind when people talk about testing vaccines in production.

1955 — Cutter Labs Polio Vaccine Catastrophe 

As reported in the Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine “In April 1955 more than 200,000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.”

1955-1970 — Japanese SMON “Epidemic”

Smithsonian Magazine recalls  the 1955-1970 epidemic of subacute myelo-optic neuropathy (SMON), which mystified and terrorized many, though ultimately proving to be medically induced. While not due to a vaccine, the concern is similar. Examples of “cure as cause,” are legion. Johns Hopkins, in a 2016 published study, pointed to medical intervention as the third leading cause of death over an eight year period. At 250,000 deaths per year, medical error surpasses the CDC reported third leading cause of death — respiratory diseases, which claim 150,000 Americans a year. The Johns Hopkins team claimed the CDC does not effectively collect data on medical error.

1976 — Untested Swine Flu Vaccine  

The 1976 and 2009 stories of untested vaccines offer detailed lessons for our era in their foolhardy similarity.

“This is a story about one time over 40 years ago when poor decision-making on the part of the government led to the unnecessary vaccination of about 45 million citizens,” reports Smithsonian Magazine.

There was a novel form of the flu that killed a US solder in February 1976. The flu that was expected that fall was widely reported to be an outbreak unlike anything seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu.

Smithsonian Magazine goes further “To avoid an epidemic, the CDC believed, at least 80 percent of the United States population would need to be vaccinated. When they asked Congress for the money to do it, politicians jumped on the potential good press of saving their constituents from the plague.”

“The World Health Organization adopted more of a wait-and-see attitude to the virus… They eventually found that the strain of flu that year was not a repeat or escalation of the 1918 flu, but ‘the U.S. government was unstoppable.’”

President Ford was up for re-election that fall and something had to be done. A Salon report from 2009, cautioning President Obama against mass vaccination continues with the story:

“1976 was the year of the U.S. Bicentennial. 1976 was a presidential election year. 1976 was two years after Watergate caused Nixon’s resignation, and one year after the fall of Saigon. The U.S. government, both Republicans and Democrats, had never been held in such low esteem. Practically every elected official felt an overwhelming itch that patriotic year to do something to get the public thinking of them as good guys again. A swine flu pandemic was an opportunity on a plate. What better way to get into the good graces of the voters than to save them from a plague?

“Knowing the Republican president would not, could not veto a bill he requested, the Democratically controlled House attached $1.8 billion dollars in welfare and environmental spending to the flu bill.

“The 1976 to 1977 flu season was the most flu-free since records had been kept; a condition that was apparently unrelated to the vaccination program. The Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 1976 never took place.”

Once informative on the topic of caution around inherently risky medical intervention such as needless vaccines, Salon, The New York Times, and NPR have all fallen silent, as mass vaccination campaigns have mystifyingly become yet another liberal shibboleth.

2009 — Untested Swine Flu Vaccine 

As reported by Buzzfeed, and not too many other outlets, “Dozens of NHS workers are fighting for compensation after developing narcolepsy from a swine flu vaccine that was rushed into service without the usual testing when the disease spread across the globe in 2009. They say it has destroyed their careers and their health.”

It’s a story of government employees naively trusting that everything would be okay if they received a vaccine that had been rushed through testing.

Tested in Production — Taking A Lesson From Other Industries 

Since the Covid-19 vaccine will be tested in production, with very little preliminary testing, it’s worth taking lessons from other industries that have entities that regularly test in production in order to determine how best to effect this end goal.

Best Practices for Testing In Production — E-mail Communication 

When testing in production, a good feedback loop is needed. A direct email address to the manufacturer, ideally read daily by all members of the team that developed the product is helpful.

These emails can’t be filtered by customer service, marketing, or the product team. That risks only a few emails being sent along. The data from these emails can’t be compiled into a document and passed along. They can’t be filtered through a doctor that determines if the data is useful. They can’t be filtered through some obscure government compensation program.

All raw data needs to get to all the right people as quickly as possible, if critical infrastructure is going to be tested in production.

In such a situation, where a vaccine is tested in production, the recipient needs to be handed a piece of paper that says the equivalent of “If ANYTHING seems different, e-mail this address immediately.” Oversampling must be preferenced over undersampling.

If there is going to be success in an effort to test in production, then as much as possible, the research and product teams who developed the vaccine and their executive leadership team need to receive the email of the mother crying at 2 a.m. over her suddenly unhealthy baby, or the son trying to figure out why his mother suddenly took a turn for the worse 11 hours after getting a vaccine.

Best Practices For Testing In Production — Telephone Communication  

Better than an email, because sometimes written words can’t convey what a voice can, is a cell phone number answered by someone on that team 24-7.

We can’t have the kind of feedback loop we have now around vaccines and expect a test in production to work. There has to be a little more skin in the game before a vaccine is tested in production.

Best Practices For Testing In Production — Full Disclosure, Clearly Presented   

There has to be full disclosure and informed consent along the lines of “We don’t know how well, if at all, this vaccine works, and we don’t know how safe, if at all, this vaccine is. You may be dead tomorrow because of this vaccine. This vaccine may disable you for life. We really don’t know.”

It must be plain language. Not legalese. It would be best if it were written by a pipe fitter or a stevedore during his lunch break. It should seek to be about as honest and direct as the European tobacco carton warnings showing photos of tumor-filled lungs and gum cancer lesions.

The Key To Achieving The Manhattan Project Of Vaccines 

It can be taken a step further if those involved in the vaccine manufacture process want to get feedback from the vaccine as quickly as possible and to have as safe and effective of a vaccine as possible, a “Manhattan Project” of vaccines, as some have suggested.

It’s not in the development that the Manhattan Project of vaccines becomes helpful, it’s in the rollout, in the introduction, in the feedback loop, in the follow through. Responsibility, however, is anathema in our era. Drug manufactures have sizable teams dedicated to the mitigation of risk, and the socialization of harm. These are modern-sounding, alternate terms for the age-old concept of “avoiding responsibility.” The responsibility avoidance teams at vaccine manufacturers often rival the size of those teams that help develop the product and those who help in the follow through with the product.

Development work may include patient sampling, virus isolation, virus characterization, standardizing, manufacturing, releasing, manufacture scale up, validation, safety, efficacy, monitoring of adverse events, and regulatory review and approval. Responsibility avoidance might include legal, marketing, lobbying, post-vaccination trials, medical liability insurance, product liability, post-marketing, and scheduling.

Since avoiding responsibility is so written into the DNA of large corporations, and large institutions, fresh ideas like those mentioned in this paper are needed if a Manhattan Project of vaccines is to make any headway.

To expand that thinking, at the time of vaccination with the untested vaccines, if a patient has a problem, in addition to an email address, the following can be provided to a patient in order to facilitate the feedback loop: the personal cell phone, spouse’s personal cell phone, home address, and vacation home address of all executives, government officials, spokespersons, and media sources who endorse the vaccine should be provided to a patient both on a handout and in electronic form.

The Manhattan Project Of Vaccine Safety  Read the rest of this entry »

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Ominous Convergence – Kunstler

Posted by M. C. on May 30, 2020

The Progressive Left has indulged and excused sentiments like that for years. (Remember New York Times editorial board hire, Sarah Jeong, tweeting “#CancelWhitePeople” and “dumbass fucking white people”?) What if those maledictions are acted out? Does the Left, including the Democratic Party, want to ignite a race war in America on top of a second great depression in a plague year?

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/ominous-convergence/

James Howard Kunstler

And so, with the unjust killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the quest for cosmic justice resumes — that is, the justice that settles all the scores of racial grievance for all time, which, of course, is unlikely to be satisfied by any means. Mr. Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck for eight minutes with the full force of his weight while three other officers stupidly stood by watching and failed to intervene until Mr. Floyd was dead.

This time, there was no ambiguity in the killing, unlike the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that sparked a season of riots. Video from a bystander’s phone shows Officer Chauvin stupidly killing Mr. Floyd. The four policemen have reportedly been fired (NBC News), but no one has been charged yet. Two days of protests and nighttime riots have commenced in that city and are now spreading to cities around the country. With Memorial Day in the rearview mirror, you might say, as the old song goes, that summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the streets.

It appears that the Progressive Left is all for letting it rip. Their chief signaling device, The New York Times, ran this headline today: “National Guard Called as Minneapolis Erupts in Solidarity for George Floyd.”

That sounds to me a bit like a stamp-of-approval for a lawlessly violent response to an act of official stupidity. Is The Times in solidarity with the mayhem? Which raises some questions: how much rioting, looting, and arson will be enough to satisfy that sense of solidarity in the quest for justice? Three nights? Three weeks? Three months? Will it cease if and when Officer Chauvin is charged with murder or manslaughter? How much rioting, looting, and arson will the authorities in other cities allow to rip before they move to forcefully stop it? Does all this disorder amplify itself in a feedback loop as it plays out?

Those would be tough questions in ordinary times, but we’re in an extraordinary convergence of crises that includes an unresolved Covid-19 pandemic, an unprecedented economic collapse, and the furious after-effects of a failed political coup that steeped the nation in delusion, institutional breakdown, and factional enmity. Black America is not the only group in the land that has an axe to grind.

For instance, with over 30-million suddenly unemployed, facing bankruptcy one way or another, maybe even eviction and hunger, and tens of thousands of small businesses failing, what will be the public mood if the stock markets keep shooting up and up and up, as they’ve been doing for a month? Those rising share values, which enrich a tiny percentage of the public, are a direct result of the Federal Reserve inflating the national debt by “printing” money-from-thin-air. It comes in the form of bonds, the interest on which ultimately has to be paid by taxpayers. Many will not fail to notice that it smells like a scam. Will the economically floundering public revolt against it? Will they take to the streets and start burning down things other than police stations and AutoZones?

Could all that intersect with black street violence in cities across the land? A hint was suggested in cable TV video of rioters on the streets in Minneapolis hoisting a sign that said “kill all white people!” The Progressive Left has indulged and excused sentiments like that for years. (Remember New York Times editorial board hire, Sarah Jeong, tweeting “#CancelWhitePeople” and “dumbass fucking white people”?) What if those maledictions are acted out? Does the Left, including the Democratic Party, want to ignite a race war in America on top of a second great depression in a plague year?

Once cycles of violence are set in motion, they are very difficult to stop. The animosities between different groups in the USA are not so different in character from what’s been seen in other places around the world in recent times: the strife in Northern Ireland, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the civil war in Lebanon, the factional fighting in Libya, Syria, Iraq. All of them grew out of quests for cosmic justice, and all of those conflicts produced lasting damage to the societies they inflamed.

Donald Trump may appear poorly suited to presiding over such a national crackup. Many will accuse him of instigating it. Whatever he does is liable to be construed as wrong by half the nation, whether he acts decisively to put down actual insurrection, or dithers inconclusively while cities burn. His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, appears even less credibly capable of managing a crisis. He is, in fact, a Potemkin candidate for president, a stalking horse for forces and persons mysteriously awaiting emergence in Milwaukee around mid-August. It looks like some people will have to start deciding some things.

Be seeing you

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Dr Brownstein | There Is Still Hope Out There……..And We Are Taking Time Out To Re-Group

Posted by M. C. on May 28, 2020

Keeping the road to mandatory vaccination clear.

https://www.drbrownstein.com/there-is-still-hope-out-there……..and-we-are-taking-time-out-to-re-group/

To My Loyal Readers-

I want to let you know that we have been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to stop making any statements about our treatment protocols of Vitamins A, C & D, as well as nutritional IV’s, iodine, ozone and nebulization to support the immune system with respect to Coronavirus Diseases 2019 (COVID-19).

According to this letter:

“It is unlawful under the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C Sec. 41 et seq. to advertise that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made. For COVID-19, no such study is currently known to exist for the products or services identified above. Thus, any Coronavirus-related prevention or treatment claims regarding such products or services are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. You must immediately cease making all such claims.”

What this means is that I will not be able to blog, post, tweet, email, etc. for a while. We have temporarily put all Social Media platforms in ‘hibernation’ for the time being.

With that being said, there are a few things I want you to know:

– My office, the Center for Holistic Medicine, is NOT closing. I am still here and so are my colleagues! We are committed to taking good care of our patients and we are continuing to accept new patients, as well. Feel free to email us at: info@centerforholisticmedicine.com

– Due to the COVID crisis, we have had staff members take a leave of absence in order to quarantine at home. We are doing our best to answer the phones, but we simply do not have the ability to answer all the calls right now. For that I apologize. We are asking for your patience and please know we are doing our best in these trying times. If you need to get a hold of us or make an appointment, email us at: info@centerforholisticmedicine.com

– I am reading every single email and message your are sending me. I am touched beyond words. The uplifting messages mean more than I can say. I appreciate your kindness and support during these difficult times.

– We will get through this. Keep in mind, the vast majority—over 99% of us will survive Cornavirus and move on. At CHM we are committed to providing the best health care that we are capable of and we will continue to do just that.

– Let me know how you are doing! Tell me about your success stories of good health at: info@drbrownstein.com. As I stated above, every post will be read!

– I will still be in contact with you, just to check-in, while we spend this time to re-group.

– Don’t worry! I will DEFINITELY be back! I already have PLAN B ready to go.

To All Our Health!
~DrB

Be seeing you

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The ceaseless culture war against Hungary – spiked

Posted by M. C. on May 28, 2020

According to the narrative, Hungary’s enactment of emergency measures meant that the normal process of parliamentary democracy had disappeared forever. It is worth noting that other governments that enacted emergency powers in response to the Covid pandemic were not accused of such malevolent intent. Why was Hungary held to a different standard? The answer was devastatingly simple. ‘Orban cannot be trusted’, Western observers implied. It was really another way of saying: ‘We don’t like him.’

What comes of not grabbing your ankles for the EU.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/27/the-ceaseless-culture-war-against-hungary/

Frank Furedi

 

If you listen to the Western media, you might think that in the weeks following the outbreak of Covid-19 the government of Hungary had transformed itself into a brutal dictatorship. There was a constant stream of articles claiming that democracy had died in Hungary. Opinion pieces insisted that the Hungarian government had exploited people’s concerns about the pandemic to impose a 1930s-style authoritarian dictatorship.

The Covid pandemic has reinvigorated the Culture Wars in various different ways. And these alarmist accounts of democratic backsliding in Hungary were a key theme in these Culture Wars. On the anti-sovereigntist wing of the cultural conflict, Hungary was held up as symbolic of an ideology of evil.

In early May, the mistakenly titled US-based advocacy group Freedom House offered up an obituary on Hungarian democracy. In a report it asserted that, because of the emergency laws it passed in relation to Covid-19, Hungary should not be considered a democracy anymore. Given Freedom House’s longstanding hostility to the Hungarian government, its verdict was hardly surprising. The problem was that this verdict was uncritically repeated in the media. At times it seemed that almost the entire Western media were ganging up against this supposed new dictatorship.

The Economist responded to Hungary’s enactment of a state of emergency by claiming that Viktor Orban, the prime minister, ‘has in effect become a dictator – in the heart of Europe’. The Guardian declared that the ‘world must not let Hungary get away with this power grab’. Writing in the EUobserver, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, claimed that Hungary was now a dictatorship and therefore the EU had ceased to be a bloc of democratic states.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ben Kelly ranted that ‘if the EU cannot rein in Hungary’s dictator Viktor Orban, it will rot from the inside’.

 

‘Nothing can justify this destruction of people’s lives’

According to the narrative, Hungary’s enactment of emergency measures meant that the normal process of parliamentary democracy had disappeared forever. It is worth noting that other governments that enacted emergency powers in response to the Covid pandemic were not accused of such malevolent intent. Why was Hungary held to a different standard? The answer was devastatingly simple. ‘Orban cannot be trusted’, Western observers implied. It was really another way of saying: ‘We don’t like him.’

Strikingly, these opinions did not change when, in late April, Die Welt reported that legal experts in the European Commission had said that they saw no reason to act against the supposedly authoritarian powers the Hungarian parliament granted to the Hungarian government. Inconvenient truths about Hungary are always met with a wall of silence in most of the Western press. If, on the other hand, these experts had said the opposite, there would have been wall-to-wall opinion articles praising their judgment and condemning Hungary.

And now there has been a development. This week, the Hungarian government initiated procedures to end the state of emergency. It will end on 20 June. This means Hungary has acted more speedily than many other governments to bring to a close its Covid measures. Will those who spread the idea that Hungary had become a dictatorship acknowledge that they were wrong? Will they apologise for their slanderous statements about Hungary? Don’t hold your breath. It really doesn’t matter what the Hungarian government does; its adversaries in the West will always portray it as a dangerous dictatorship threatening European values.

No doubt, some might argue that Hungary is rescinding these laws precisely because of the international pressure they put on it. But of course, supposedly authoritarian dictatorships are not known for giving up their powers just because of some criticism in the foreign press. ‘Hungary still isn’t a democracy’, others will no doubt cry. In which case, why did it need the emergency powers in the first place? Why didn’t it just carry on being the dictatorship it already was, in the Hungary-haters’ eyes?

 

Why the people must take back control

In the current Culture Wars, Hungary has become a kind of lightning rod through which the negative sentiments of the Western cultural establishment – especially their anti-sovereigntist views – can be expressed. Throughout most of Europe and the Anglo-American world, the hegemony of the cultural elite remains intact. It is rarely questioned. Though millions of people resent the values of these elites, very few have the voice or the courage openly to question them. When they do – for example, in the vote for Brexit – they are bombarded with immense pressure to shut up and know their place. That is the case even in Trump’s America, where millions feel they have to mind what they say.

In Hungary, support for the Hollywood, Netflix, Big Tech globalist value system is quite weak. Of course, given its broad influence, the global media does have some influence in Hungary. But it is not hegemonic. Consequently, the people and their representatives are able to express opinions and values that are vilified in many parts of the Western world. In the eyes of the Western media, the refusal of the Hungarian government to accept the moral authority of the leaders of the EU or of the Hollywood woke consensus is a kind of cultural heresy. Like the Stalinist heresy-hunters of the 20th century, the globalist culture warriors will use everything in their power to humiliate their opponents and force them to fall in line with the ‘right’ way of thinking.

The cultural elites’ obsession with Hungary is not entirely about Hungary. Whenever a British, German or American newspaper editor or observer denounces the ‘dictatorship’ in Hungary, they are also indirectly attacking movements and politicians in their own countries who oppose the prevailing cultural norms. That is why those of us who supported Brexit in the UK, and who call for the valuation of national sovereignty in countries around the world, have a real interest in supporting Hungary against its Western detractors.

Frank Furedi’s How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century is published by Bloomsbury Press.

Be seeing you

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