Saturday, December 19, 2020

How the State Spreads Mass Hysteria

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The history of mass hysteria, or mass sociogenic illness is fascinating. Cases of mass hysteria have been documented since the Middle Ages. Let me just mention a few of the more recent cases.

When a radio play by Orson Welles, War of the Worlds, was broadcasted in 1938 shortly after the suspension of the Munich agreement, the play allegedly caused panic among listeners, who thought that they were under attack by Martians.

Another intriguing case is an episode of a Portuguese TV show called Strawberries with Sugar. In the episode, the characters were infected by a life-threatening virus. After the show, more than three hundred students reported similar symptoms as the ones experienced by the TV show characters such as rashes and difficulty breathing. Some schools even closed. The Portuguese National Institute for Medical Emergency concluded that the virus did not exist in reality and that the symptoms were caused by mass hysteria.

Similarly, on Emirates flight 203 in September 2018, dozens of passengers started to believe they were sick after observing other passengers with flu-like symptoms. As a consequence of the panic, the whole flight was quarantined. In the end only a few passengers had a common cold or the seasonal flu.

It is well known that there exist nocebo effects, which are the opposite of placebo effects. Due the placebo effect, a person recovers from an illness because she expects to do so. When we suffer a nocebo effect, on the other hand, we get ill just because we expect to become ill.1 In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the expectation can cause the symptoms. Anxiety and fear exacerbate this process.2

Mass hysteria can cause people to have symptoms. Moreover, hysteria, be it collective or not, makes people behave in ways that prudent persons not affected by the hysteria would likely consider absurd. It is open for empirical research to investigate if and to what extent the world has been suffering from mass hysteria during the covid-19 epidemic.3 We all have seen people hoarding toilet paper, wearing masks while driving alone in cars, or have heard stories of people virtually not leaving their houses for months. We also know people who are scared by the virus even though their own risk of death is minuscule.

While investigating the possibility of a corona mass hysteria is certainly interesting, I would like to focus here on a more fundamental question; namely, the extent to which the existence of the state can exacerbate mass hysteria. Certainly, there can be cases of mass hysteria in a free society, due to the negativity bias of the human brain. We focus on negative news and suffer psychological stress when we think we are not in control. This may happen also in a free society when negative news prevail. Yet in a free society there exist certain self-corrective mechanisms and limits that make it more difficult for mass hysteria to spiral out of control.

As a corrective mechanism, there exist well-known strategies to reduce fear and anxiety. In a free society people are free to make use of these strategies. One can release tension from one’s body through sports and exercises. Moreover, it is essential to find distractions from the negative news and socialize. In a free society these distractions abound.

It is true that hysteria can lead people to inflict enormous harm on themselves and others. Yet in a free society there exists an essential limit to the havoc caused by mass hysteria, and this limit is private property rights. In a free society mass hysteria cannot lead to a massive violation of private property rights by the state, simply because the state does not exist.

Moreover, while anyone in a health hysteria may voluntarily close his business, wear a mask, or stay at home, in a free society no one can force others who do not succumb to the hysteria to close their businesses, wear masks, or quarantine. A small minority who continue to live their normal lives and are free to do so can be a wake-up call to those who succumbed to the mass hysteria, especially the borderline cases. Imagine that a small group of people continues to go shopping, to work, to breath freely, to meet with friends and family, and that they do not die. Others may then follow their example and the group of hysterics shrinks.

While the destruction inflicted by mass hysteria is limited by private property rights in a free society, such limits do not exist when there is a state.4 Indeed, a well-organized group that has succumbed to mass hysteria may get control of the state apparatus and impose measures on the rest of the population and inflict untold harm. The possibility of mass hysteria is an important reason why the institution of the state is so dangerous.

Moreover, while in a free society there are mechanisms that reduce mass panics, mass hysteria can be exacerbated by the state for several reasons:

First, the state can and, as in the case of the covid-19 epidemic, does prohibit and diminish those activities that reduce fear and anxiety, such as sports and diversion. The state actually fosters social isolation, contributing to anxiety and psychological strain, ingredients that spur mass hysteria.

Second, the state takes a centralized approach to dealing with the source of the hysteria, in our case the perceived threat of a virus. The state imposes its solution, and in consequence there is no or very reduced experimentation to solve the problem. People who have not succumbed to the hysteria and oppose the state’s approach are suppressed. They cannot demonstrate alternative ways to confront the “crisis,” because these alternative ways are prohibited by the state. As a consequence, groupthink increases and the hysteria feeds itself, as no alternatives are shown to people.

Third, in a state, the media is often politicized. News outlets and social media platforms have close relationships with the state. Media outlets may be directly owned by the state, as are public TV channels, they may need state licenses to operate, they may look for the goodwill of state agencies, or may simply be staffed with people who were educated in state schools. These news agencies and social media platforms engage in massive negative news campaigns, intentionally scare people, and suppress alternative information. If people listen to, watch, or read negative and one-sided stories all day, their psychological stress and anxiety increases. Mass hysteria sponsored by a biased media sector may run out of control.

Fourth, negative news from an authoritative source is especially harmful for psychological health and produces anxiety. If there exists in society an institution of total power such as the state that intervenes in the lives of people from birth to death,5 the announcements of its representatives acquire weight. Many people attach great authority to these representatives and to the warnings of state institutions. So, when a doctor such as Anthony Fauci speaks in the name of the state and tells the people to worry and wear masks, it becomes easier for mass hysteria to develop than would be the case in a decentralized society.

Fifth, the state sometimes actively wants to instill fear in the population, thereby contributing to the making of mass hysteria. In fact, during the first months of the corona epidemic, an internal paper of the German Department of the Interior was leaked to the public. In the paper, the experts recommend that the German government instill fear in the German population. The paper recommends increasing fear with three communication measures. First, the authorities should emphasize the breathing problems of covid-19 patients, because the human beings have a primordial fear of death by suffocation, which can easily trigger panic. Second, fear should also be instilled in children. Children could get infected easily when meeting with other children. They should be told that when they in turn infect their parents and grandparents these could suffer a distressful death at home. This measure intends to invoke feelings of guilt. Third, authorities should mention the possibility of unknown long-term irreversible damage after a corona infection and the possibility of the sudden deaths of people who were infected. All these measures were intended to increase fear in the population. Fear, at the end, is the foundation of every government´s power. As H.L. Mencken put it:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

To sum up: mass hysteria is possible in a free society, but there are self-correcting mechanisms. The harm such hysteria may inflict is limited by the enforcement of private property rights. The state amplifies and exacerbates mass panics, causing tremendous havoc. What are local, limited, and isolated outbreaks of mass hysteria in a free society the state can convert into a global mass hysteria. Unfortunately, there is no limit to the damage mass hysteria can do to life and liberty if it takes hold of the government, as the state does not respect private property. The unscrupulous violation of basic liberties during the corona epidemic is a case in point. The possibility of mass hysteria is another reason why the state is such a dangerous institution to have.

1.In a famous case a man tried to suicide himself. He thought he was swallowing twenty-nine capsules of an experimental drug. However, they were in reality placebos. But he was thinking he would be killing himself. He arrived at the hospital with extreme low blood pressure and other serios symptoms. When the doctor of the medical trial arrived and told him that he had taken just placebos, the man recovered within fifteen minutes.

2.During the Spanish flu panic contributed to deaths that otherwise would not have occurred.

3.Keep in mind that the psychological strain on and the anxiety suffered by the population during the lockdowns was tremendous.

4.For the psychology of masses and their irrationality see the classical work of Gustave Le Bon.

5.A related point regards the consequences that come with a population that stopped believing in God and started to believe in the state instead. When people turn away from religion and stop believing in a life after death, they start to fear death more. A strong fear of death is another factor contributing to panics, disorders, and mass hysteria. As Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn has put it: “It is difficult to fear death if one is very pious. It is difficult not to worship health if one fears death. It is difficult to enforce general health without large scale state intervention and it is equally difficult to imagine increased state intervention without a loss of liberties.” The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large (Milkwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1943), pp. 38–39.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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The End Is Coming Very Soon, and Few Americans Are Willing To Do Anything To Stop It

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“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.”

~ George Carlin

Is this country facing the end of times? Are the people in this country oblivious to any reality or truth, or are they simply consumed by ignorance, passivity, cowardice, and mediocrity? Will this onslaught of tyranny by the controlling class and the politicians continue unabated, or will enough wake up in time to stand against the total decimation of their lives, their property, their freedom, and their land? What could possibly motivate the masses to voluntarily accept their own servitude, a servitude that can only lead to their imminent demise?  Even the most simplistic life forms on this planet possess the basic instinct of self defense, so why is it that the supposed most intelligent of all living beings can be controlled and brutalized to the point of extinction, without lifting a finger to protect their own interests? Today in America, the people are drowning in a pool of their own blood, while their chosen masters are feasting on the remains.

There is very little time left to change this course we are on today, as this plot toward the great reset of the world is close at hand. In the past when liberty has been threatened, some fought back and won, but most sat back and waited, hoping others would come to their rescue, and save them from themselves. Every time threats have come and gone, there was less freedom and much more control. Each and every tyrannical event brought an assault against liberty that remained long after any so-called ‘return to normal’ was expected. ‘Normal’ has been forever changing, meaning every new normal resulted in less freedom and more authoritarian measures. That is until today, as now we face an end to any freedom, and a life of submission and enslavement. Unless and until the current ruling oligarchy is eliminated or weakened to the point of impotence, and by whatever means necessary, the tyranny will run its course until it has total control or the entire system collapses under its own weight.

Throughout history, kingdoms, states, and nations have come and gone. Empires reign, but always eventually fall.  After societal failure, a better system may be in place temporarily, as happened here in this country after the ousting of British rule, but due to power, greed, and weak and complacent populations, the collapse of societies has always been inevitable. This one is no different. The real question is how long will it last? Considering the ‘assumed’ founding, this nation has only existed for a little over 240 years. Historically speaking, this is a very short time indeed, but the march toward a totalitarian end is near. We are now on the brink of that precipice, with one foot already dangling over the cliff. There will be no return to ‘normal’ or any notion of freedom, unless a complete dismantling of this very flawed governing system is forthcoming. That can only happen if a majority of the people not only desire it, but also are willing to take any and all risk to regain their own independence.

At this stage, our probable downfall will not be due to the few evil oligarchs that are perpetrating this fraud called a ‘virus pandemic,’ it will be due to a complete abandonment of self-responsibility by the people themselves. This truth has to be acknowledged before any relief is possible. So long as blame is spread wide in order to appease the feeble psyche of the pitiful masses, and no accountability for one’s own life and existence is accepted, then no resolution will be attainable. We now live in a society that has lost its ability to function without rule. The herd is forever looking to find a master instead of looking to self. So long as this attitude is present in the majority, individual sovereignty will not prevail, and a population of order-takers and rule-followers will be the result. That cannot lead to freedom, but only to complete subjugation of the American people. Five hundred years ago, Étienne de La Boétie wrote “The Politics of Obedience and The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude.” The people of this country have voluntarily given up their freedom, and in the process have become obedient serfs. In this passage below, he summed up the essence of voluntary slavery through obedient behavior.

“It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty arouses in the hearts of those who defend it; but who could believe reports of what goes on every day among the inhabitants of some countries, who could really believe that one man alone may mistreat a hundred thousand and deprive them of their liberty? Who would credit such a report if he merely heard it, without being present to witness the event? And if this condition occurred only in distant lands and were reported to us, which one among us would not assume the tale to be imagined or invented, and not really true? Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude.”

How many times have Americans criticized those in other lands for allowing tyrants to rule over them without rising up to protect their own liberty? How many times have those in this country condemned totalitarian monsters across the world, and called for them to be removed or killed? How many times have Americans cheered for aggressive war against other nations because they lived under brutal regimes? How many times have Americans bragged about being exceptional, and falsely declared that they are freest people on earth? How many times has this American population allowed that same tyranny and brutality here at home and done nothing?

I can tell you, most all in this country are voluntarily allowing this takeover today, and are doing absolutely nothing to stop it. Civil disobedience and mass dissent would be enough to quell this onslaught of government lies, carnage, murder, and liberty destruction, but while you condemn others, you sit idle and watch your own freedom taken away without ever lifting a finger to stop it. Shame on all of you who refuse to disobey, and refuse to defend your own freedom!

The post The End Is Coming Very Soon, and Few Americans Are Willing To Do Anything To Stop It appeared first on LewRockwell.



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2020: The Year We Lost The Plot

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2020: The Year We Lost The Plot Tyler Durden Fri, 12/18/2020 - 23:00

To cut to the chase, we have gone and thrown out reason, rationality and proportionality this year...



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Friday, December 18, 2020

Movie Theaters Are On The Brink Of A Complete And Total Collapse

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Movie Theaters Are On The Brink Of A Complete And Total Collapse Tyler Durden Fri, 12/18/2020 - 09:17

The hits just keep on coming for movie theaters. With their businesses already thrashed by Covid, theaters are now having to deal with the threat of movies going "straight to streaming" and bypassing the box office altogether. 

Disney, for example, said that its Disney+ service would have 100 new titles per year and that 80% of these would bypass the box office.

Which means that theaters like AMC are going to be in a precarious position heading into 2021 regardless of what happens with the pandemic. There's currently 40,449 movie screens in the U.S., according to a new Bloomberg op-ed - a massive supply that will likely have to narrow in size even as people eventually start to trickle back to theaters. 

Even prior to the pandemic, box offices were struggling mightily. Box office sales adjusted for inflation have plunged over the last several years.

And post-pandemic, it's going to take theaters months - if not years - to get back to the occupancy they had prior to Covid. Some who used to go to movies simply won't go anymore, not only as a product of the pandemic, but also due to increased options in streaming. It simply won't be necessary anymore. 

Recall, it was just days ago we wrote about Warning Bros. deciding it was going to snub studios in favor of streaming services. We called it "a move that is almost certainly going to set off a devastating chain reaction for what's left of the movie theater industry" when Warner Bros. decided it is going to release its major movies next year in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time. 

Included in its list of films for next year will be major features, like the next installment of the Matrix series and DC Comics movie "The Suicide Squad", according to Bloomberg

Theaters used to have exclusive rights to films for up to three months, the report notes. But now, with most theaters either shut down or barren, studios are starting to shift their business models to protect the money they've invested in major films. Ticket sales are down 78% this year to $2.2 billion, according to Comscore. 

Ann Sarnoff, chief executive officer of WarnerMedia Studios, said: “We know new content is the lifeblood of theatrical exhibition. But we have to balance this with the reality that most theaters in the U.S. will likely operate at reduced capacity throughout 2021.”

In addition to gouging theaters, the new model could increase signups to HBO Max, which is owned by AT&T. HBO Max is competing with well known streaming services, like Disney+ and Netflix. 

Theaters have experimented with studios in trying to change their business model to adapt, as well. Several movie chains entered into agreements with Universal this year to narrow the time between movies hitting the theater and when it can be sold online. But we'll be surprised if theaters are able to do enough to offset what appears to just be the beginning of a dramatic shift that will pull new films out from their grasp heading into 2021.

And once the shift to streaming starts - despite whether or not we have a vaccine that works - we can't help but think that there's likely no chance that studios turn back to their legacy business models. 

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Brazil's Supreme Court Rules COVID Vaccine Can Be Mandatory

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Brazil's Supreme Court Rules COVID Vaccine Can Be Mandatory Tyler Durden Fri, 12/18/2020 - 11:33

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

The Supreme Court in Brazil has issued a ruling that could see state and local governments mandate the coronavirus vaccine, with the authority to issue fines and/or restrictions to those who refuse it.

Reuters reports that “Brazilians could be ‘required, but not forced’ by civil authorities to be vaccinated.

The report adds:

Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski wrote in the majority ruling that individuals refusing to take vaccines could face sanctions, such as the inability to partake in certain activities or to frequent certain locations.

Ten justices out of the 11-member court voted in favour of mandatory inoculation, with only one voting against it Thursday.

While a vaccine has not yet been approved in the country, polls indicate that around one-fifth of Brazilians do not intend to get a shot.

Among the skeptics is President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly warned of side effects from vaccinations and declared he is opposed to them.

“Nobody can force anybody to take the vaccine,” Bolsonaro said following the court’s decision, adding “We’re dealing with lives, where is our freedom?”

Sizeable numbers of Brazillians have continued to protest against the prospect of mandatory vaccinations, with Bolsonaro vowing not to buy any coronavirus vaccines, in contrast with the federal health ministry announcing in October that it intends to secure 46 million doses.

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Governing By Rage And Ridicule

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Governing By Rage And Ridicule Tyler Durden Fri, 12/18/2020 - 14:20

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Back in July, Yale University began a critical study on COVID vaccines.

But there was an interesting twist to Yale’s study: scientists weren’t looking at the actual vaccine candidates; instead they were studying how to most effectively convince people to take a vaccine.

One of the things they tested, in fact, was how guilt, embarrassment, and negative social stigma could pressure people into taking a vaccine, even if they have doubts or concerns about it.

In other words, the study examined if shaming people would be an effective way to compel everyone to take a COVID vaccine.

The results of that study have not yet been reported. But the mainstream media and Twitter mob have already decided that shaming people is the best approach to vaccine compliance.

As I wrote earlier this week, comprehensive trial results from a handful of vaccine candidates have only been published within the last week or so. But Twitter and the media have been essentially pre-shaming people for months.

CNN ran a story in early AUGUST, for example, entitled, “Covid-19 conspiracy theories: 6 tips on how to engage anti-vaxxers”.

This is the perfect illustration of pre-shaming.

There was practically zero data on any vaccine candidate back in August. Yet the luminaries at CNN had already decided that anyone who expressed concern was a conspiracy theorist.

And now that some vaccines have received emergency authorization, tactics have moved from pre-shaming to full blown rage and intimidation.

Fines and jail time are now being openly discussed in the United States, Europe, Australia, etc. And many prominent companies in the private sector have piled on, proposing rules that could forbid unvaccinated customers from airplanes or hotels.

I recently read an editorial in a British paper that went so far as to suggest that unvaccinated people should potentially be brought up on murder charges.

But as we can see, this approach is nothing new. There are countless other examples of their ‘rule by rage and ridicule’.

Just look at tax policy–

The Bolsheviks want to raise trillions of dollars in tax revenue; and they want to raise a good chunk of that money from large corporations and the richest citizens.

Now… one possible method might be to approach billionaires and CEOs as respected partners.

Explain to them that the country is in a deep fiscal hole, and ask if they’d be willing to make a financial sacrifice. Treat them with dignity and kindness, and vocally praise their generosity if they go along with it.

But that’s not how these people operate.

Instead, they threaten to nationalize entire industries, propose outright asset confiscation, and publicly ridicule wealthy people simply for being successful; they think Jeff Bezos is the worst scum of the earth.

Most strikingly they’ve managed to cast a dark cloud of suspicion on the entire idea of being rich.

When I was growing up in the 80s, every kid I knew wanted to be a millionaire. Becoming rich was a common aspiration in the West. And wealthy people used to be admired.

Now they’re despised.

These Bolsheviks have succeeded in shifting public opinion so much that wealth is now something you have to apologize for.

AOC sums it up the best when she says, “You don’t MAKE a billion dollars. You TAKE a billion dollars.” People actually believe this nonsense.

(This, coming from a person who sells ‘Tax the Rich’ sweatshirts for nearly $60 and books the revenue as tax-free campaign contributions.)

It’s a perfect example of rage and ridicule in action.

We’ve also seen this approach with social justice (heavens forbid someone commit the heresy of saying that all lives matter…)

We’ve clearly seen rage and ridicule over the past 9+ months of Covid lockdowns, because you now have the right to be pepper-sprayed by your fellow citizens if you’re not as terrified as they are.

We’ve seen a whole lot of rage and ridicule over the election, with Twitter mob and Bolsheviks creating their ‘enemies list’ of people who espouse different ideological views.

(Some prominent Bolsheviks have even called for a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” in the new Biden administration.)

And now we’re seeing this same rage and ridicule approach to vaccines.

These tactics have been extremely effective; they keep sane, normal people quiet for fear of being publicly maligned and ostracized.

  • You’re not allowed to talk about the vaccine.

  • You’re not allowed to talk about the election.

  • You’re not allowed to have an opinion about social justice (unless you’re groveling for forgiveness).

  • You’re not allowed to ask intelligent, informed questions.

  • Your assertions will always be baseless.

  • You will always be an evil conspiracy theorist.

  • Their assertions will always be true.

  • They will always be righteous.

And anyone who believes their talk of openness, compromise, healing, and unity is in for a rude awakening.

*  *  *

On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That's why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

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Colorado coroner outraged over 'inflated' COVID death tolls after finding gunshot victims were included in toll





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COVID-19 Testing Scandal Deepens



Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

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Thursday, December 17, 2020

Mike Rowe: I don't want to pay for your useless college degree

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(THE FEDERALIST) – In a Facebook post Monday, TV host and personality Mike Rowe denounced student loan forgiveness and encouraged people to reconsider taking on debt for a four-year degree that may not even land them a job.

"Many it seems, suspect that I'll be supportive of these efforts since I've written at length about the outrageous rise of college tuition and the scandalous ways in which hundreds of thousands of students have been conned into borrowing ridiculous sums of money to purchase degrees that never lead to an actual job," Rowe wrote. "Well, for the record, I do not support student loan forgiveness."

Sharing a National Review article on the issue, Rowe explained that forgiving student loans is not only unfair to those who have already sacrificed to pay off their loans but it "would send a terrible message to the very same universities that already gouge their customers with sky-high tuition."

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Twitter says it will remove all posts claiming vaccines can harm people

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(SUMMIT NEWS) – Twitter has declared that it will remove all posts that suggest there are any "adverse impacts or effects of receiving vaccinations," despite reports already emerging of health workers getting sick from taking Pfizer's coronavirus shot.

Twitter announced that beginning next week it will memory-hole any posts that "invoke a deliberate conspiracy" or "advance harmful, false, or misleading narratives" about vaccines.

"Using a combination of technology and human review, we will begin enforcing this updated policy on December 21, and expanding our actions during the following weeks," the company proclaimed.

Read the full story ›

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COVID-19 Destroys the Weakest and Poorest



Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

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27% of teachers are considering quitting because of Covid, survey finds



According to a new report, 59% of teachers do not feel secure in their school district's health and safety precautions.

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Will Vaccine Refusal Result in a Two-Tier Society?

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In the wake of reports from the UK that those who refuse to be vaccinated will be denied access to certain otherwise normal activities, concerns are ramping up that refusing the jab will result in being relegated to the societal trash heap. As reported recently in Reuters regarding Great Britain, “People who refuse a vaccine for COVID-19 could find normal life curtailed as restaurants, bars, cinemas, and sports venues could block entry to those who don’t have proof they are inoculated…”

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Why People Don't Trust Pfizer's COVID Vaccine

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Why People Don't Trust Pfizer's COVID Vaccine Tyler Durden Wed, 12/16/2020 - 23:10

Authored by Antony Sammeroff via The Mises Institute,

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?

Michael Shermer, a famous skeptic, was forced to admit that one of the reasons is that some of them are true. In his research he found that the fact that some conspiracy theories are real feeds people’s suspicion and makes them susceptible to the belief in others that are far less credible.

We are increasingly herded into taking a hard line on issues which are nuanced. One example of this is an apparent increase in two camps: some people are entirely against mainstream medicine while others will bend over backwards to mount an extreme defense of the indefensible excesses of Big Pharma.

Drugs save lives. Drugs are dangerous. These should not be controversial statements, nor do they contradict one another. According to the American Medical Association’s own figures, medical care has become the third leading cause of death in the United States, yet few would advocate a return to a time before we had modern medical care.

When the government is buying the drug no matter what and those companies are protected from liability for damages that may be caused by those drugs, it ceases to be surprising that people may question whether what is being offered up to them is safe or not.

One of the reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories about Big Pharma is because some of them are true.

Some of Pfizer’s History

A 2004 advert for Zoloft claimed that over 16 million Americans were affected by social anxiety disorder. But here’s the thing: a study conducted by Pfizer (the manufacturer) discovered that participants did a lot better overcoming social anxiety with “exposure therapy,” including counseling with a primary care doctor about their symptoms and homework to learn how to identify and break through social habits and fears, than people who took their drug.

When the Upjohn Company (now Pfizer) developed Minoxidil, a drug that was originally manufactured to lower blood pressure, they found that it could cause hair regrowth in some balding patients. So they simply switched the marketed effect for the so-called side effect, and they had a drug for balding which just so happened to lower blood pressure.

The ALLHAT Study (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attacks Trial), was intended to compare the effectiveness of four drugs in preventing complications form high blood pressure. It was originally intended to continue for between four and eight years, but part of it was stopped prematurely because those participants assigned to Cardura (manufactured by Pfizer) were developing significantly more cardiovascular complications than those taking a diuretic. At the time the results were published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), about $800 million worth of Cardura was being sold each year—but the diuretic was proving more effective at preventing high blood pressure complications at a seventh of the cost. Taking advantage of the fact that most doctors weren’t aware of the research, Pfizer hired damage-control consultants. The American College of Cardiology (ACC) issued a press release recommending that doctors “discontinue use” of Cardura but mere hours later downgraded its wording to “reassess.” Could this be something to do with Pfizer contributing more than $500,000 a year to the ACC?

Whoever funds the study comes out on top. Companies commonly use positive results from head-to-head trials to encourage doctors to prescribe their drug rather than a competitor’s. When the authors of a Journal of Psychiatry survey looked at the trials, they found a curious thing: in five trials that were paid for by Eli Lilly, its drug Zyprexa came out looking superior to Risperdal, a drug made by the company Janssen. But when Janssen sponsored its own trials, Risperdal was the winner three out of four times. When it was Pfizer funding the studies, its drug Geodon was best. In fact, this tendency for the sponsor’s drug to come out on top held true for 90 percent of the more than thirty trials in the survey.

A 2017 article noted that “prices for U.S. made pharmaceuticals have climbed over the past decade six times as far as the cost of goods and services overall.” In a famous case Mylan was able to increase the price of the EpiPen by more than 450 percent, adjusting for inflation, between 2004 and 2016 - despite the epinephrine in each injection costing only around $1 - because they were the only legal supplier of the product. This example, while extreme, is unfortunately not exceptional. Pfizer, Biogen, Gilead Sciences, Amgem, AbbieVie, Turing Pharmaceutical, Envizo, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals (to name a few) all seem to have benefited from price gouging by obtaining legally protected monopoly power over certain healthcare products.

The covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer - having bypassed the usual 5–10 years of safety testing - may well be completely harmless, but so long as this kind of tomfoolery continues to be common within the medical field we can expect ever more skeptical people to be labeled by their critics as “antivaxx.”

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Year Zero

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Year Zero Tyler Durden Wed, 12/16/2020 - 23:50

Authored (mostly satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

2020 was GloboCap Year Zero. The year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly what happens when anyone challenges them.

In the relatively short span of the last ten months, societies throughout the world have been transformed beyond recognition. Constitutional rights have been suspendedProtest has been bannedDissent is being censored. Government officials are issuing edicts restricting the most basic aspects of our lives … where we can go, when we can go there, how long we are allowed to spend there, how many friends we are allowed to meet there, whether and when we can spend time with our families, what we are allowed to say to each other, who we can have sex with, where we have to stand, how we are allowed to eat and drink, etc. The list goes on and on.

The authorities have assumed control of the most intimate aspects of our daily lives. We are being managed like inmates in a prison, told when to eat, sleep, exercise, granted privileges for good behavior, punished for the slightest infractions of an ever-changing set of arbitrary rules, forced to wear identical, demeaning uniforms (albeit only on our faces), and otherwise relentlessly bullied, abused, and humiliated to keep us compliant.

None of which is accidental, or has anything to do with any actual virus, or any other type of public health threat.

Yes, before some of you go ballistic, I do believe there is an actual virus, which a number of people have actually died from, or which at least has contributed to their deaths … but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any authentic public health threat that remotely justifies the totalitarian emergency measures we are being subjected to or the damage that is being done to society. Whatever you believe about the so-called “pandemic,” it really is as simple as that. Even if one accepts the official “science,” you do not transform the entire planet into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare in response to a health threat of this nature.

The notion is quite literally insane.

GloboCap is not insane, however. They know exactly what they are doing … which is teaching us a lesson, a lesson about power. A lesson about who has it and who doesn’t. For students of history it’s a familiar lesson, a standard in the repertoire of empires, not to mention the repertoire of penal institutions.

The name of the lesson is “Look What We Can Do to You Any Time We Fucking Want.” The point of the lesson is self-explanatory. The USA taught the world this lesson when it nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. GloboCap (and the US military) taught it again when they invaded Iraq and destabilized the entire Greater Middle East. It is regularly taught in penitentiaries when the prisoners start to get a little too unruly and remember that they outnumber the guards. That’s where the “lockdown” concept originated. It isn’t medical terminology. It is penal institution terminology.

As we have been experiencing throughout 2020, the global capitalist ruling classes have no qualms about teaching us this lesson. It’s just that they would rather not to have to unless it’s absolutely necessary. They would prefer that we believe we are living in “democracies,” governed by the “rule of law,” where everyone is “free,” and so on. It’s much more efficient and much less dangerous than having to repeatedly remind us that they can take away our “democratic rights” in a heartbeat, unleash armed goon squads to enforce their edicts, and otherwise control us with sheer brute force.

People who have spent time in prison, or who have lived in openly totalitarian societies, are familiar with being ruled by brute force. Most Westerners are not, so it has come as a shock. The majority of them still can’t process it. They cannot see what is staring them in the face. They cannot see it because they can’t afford to see it. If they did, it would completely short-circuit their brains. They would suffer massive psychotic breakdowns, and become entirely unable to function, so their psyches will not allow them to see it.

Others, who see it, can’t quite accept the simplicity of it (i.e., the lesson being taught), so they are proposing assorted complicated theories about what it is and who is behind it … the Great Reset, China, the Illuminati, Transhumanism, Satanism, Communism, whatever. Some of these theories are at least partially accurate. Others are utter bull-goose lunacy.

They all obscure the basic point of the lesson.

The point of the lesson is that GloboCap - the entire global-capitalist system acting as a single global entity - can, virtually any time it wants, suspend the Simulation of Democracy, and crack down on us with despotic force. It can (a) declare a “global pandemic” or some other type of “global emergency,” (b) cancel our so-called “rights,” (c) have the corporate media bombard us with lies and propaganda for months, (d) have the Internet companies censor any and all forms of dissent and evidence challenging said propaganda, (e) implement all kinds of new intrusive “safety” and “security” measures, including but not limited to the physical violation of our bodies … and so on. I think you get the picture. (The violation of our bodies is important, which is why they love “cavity searches” in prison, and why the torture-happy troops at Abu Ghraib were obsessed with sexually violating their victims.)

And the “pandemic” is only one part of the lesson. The other part is being forced to watch (or permitted to watch, depending on your perspective) as GloboCap makes an example of Trump, as they made examples of Corbyn and Sanders, as they made examples of Saddam and Gaddafi, and other “uncooperative” foreign leaders, as they will make an example of any political figurehead that challenges their power. It does not matter to GloboCap that such political figureheads pose no real threat. The people who rally around them do. Nor does it make the slightest difference whether these figureheads or the folks who support them identify as “left” or “right.” GloboCap could not possibly care less. The figureheads are just the teaching materials in the lesson that they are teaching us.

And now, here we are, at the end of the lesson … not the end of the War on Populism, just the end of this critical Trumpian part of it. Once the usurper has been driven out of office, the War on Populism will be folded back into the War on Terror, or the War on Extremism, or whatever GloboCap decides to call it … the name hardly matters. It is all the same war.

Whatever they decide to call it, this is GloboCap Year Zero. It is time for reeducation, my friends. It is time for cultural revolution. No, not communist cultural revolution … global capitalist cultural revolution. It is time to flush the aberration of the last four years down the memory hole, and implement global “New Normal” Gleichschaltung, to make sure that this never happens again.

Oh, yes, things are about to get “normal.” Extremely “normal.” Suffocatingly “normal.” Unimaginably oppressively “normal.” And I’m not just talking about the “Coronavirus measures.” This has been in the works for the last four years.

Remember, back in 2016, when everyone was so concerned about “normality,” and how Trump was “not normal,” and must never be “normalized?” Well, here we are. This is it. This is the part where GloboCap restores “normality,” a “new normality,” a pathologized-totalitarian “normality,” a “normality” which tolerates no dissent and demands complete ideological conformity.

From now on, when the GloboCap Intelligence Community and their mouthpieces in the corporate media tell you something happened, that thing will have happened, exactly as they say it happened, regardless of whether it actually happened, and anyone who says it didn’t will be labeled an “extremist,” a “conspiracy theorist,” a “denier,” or some other meaningless epithet. Such un-persons will be dealt with ruthlessly. They will be censored, deplatformed, demonetized, decertified, rendered unemployable, banned from traveling, socially ostracized, hospitalized, imprisoned, or otherwise erased from “normal” society.

You will do what you are told. You will not ask questions. You will believe whatever they tell you to believe. You will believe it, not because it makes any sense, but simply because you have been ordered to believe it. They aren’t trying to trick or deceive anybody. They know their lies don’t make any sense. And they know that you know they don’t make any sense. They want you to know it. That is the point. They want you to know they are lying to you, manipulating you, openly mocking you, and that they can say and do anything they want to you, and you will go along with it, no matter how insane.

If they order you to take a fucking vaccine, you will not ask what is in the vaccine, or start whining about the “potential side effects.” You will shut up and take the fucking vaccine.

If they tell you to put a mask on your kidyou will put a fucking mask on your fucking kid. You will not go digging up Danish studies proving the pointlessness of putting masks on kids.

If they tell you the Russians rigged the election, then the Russians rigged the fucking election.

And, if, four years later, they turn around and tell you that rigging an election is impossible, then rigging an election is fucking impossible.

It isn’t an invitation to debate. It is a GloboCap-verified fact-checked fact.

You will stand (or kneel) in your designated, color-coded, social-distancing box and repeat this verified fact-checked fact, over and over, like a fucking parrot, or they will discover some new mutant variant of virus and put you back in fucking “lockdown.” They will do this until you get your mind right, or you can live the rest of your life on Zoom, or tweeting content that no one but the Internet censors will ever see into the digital void in your fucking pajamas. The choice is yours … it’s is all up to you!

Or … I don’t know, this is just a crazy idea, you could turn off the fucking corporate media, do a little fucking research on your own, grow a backbone and some fucking guts, and join the rest of us “dangerous extremists” who are trying to fight back against the New Normal. Yes, it will cost you, and we probably won’t win, but you won’t have to torture your kids on airplanes, and you don’t even have to “deny” the virus!

That’s it … my last column of 2020. Happy totalitarian holidays!

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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

A Record 61% Of Restaurants, 35% Of Small Businesses Can't Pay December Rent

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A Record 61% Of Restaurants, 35% Of Small Businesses Can't Pay December Rent Tyler Durden Wed, 12/16/2020 - 19:30

Another day, another restaurant doomsday story.

According to the latest Alignable Rent Poll, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for small businesses everywhere to pay their rent in full and on time, given the latest COVID resurgences. The need for more federal funding is also becoming more pronounced for many of these businesses, according to the poll. 

These findings are based on the most recent Alignable Rent Poll conducted among 9,204 small business owners from 11/21-11/23/2020.  Here are the highlights:

  • Several B2C industries are devastated – 61% of restaurants can’t pay their rent this month. That’s up 19% from 42% in November.
  • 35% of U.S. small businesses couldn’t pay their rent this month, up 3% from 32% in November. 
  • Beauty salons (46%) and travel/hospitality businesses (43%) round out the Top 3 most-affected businesses, but many others are in trouble. 
  • Looking at demographics, minority-owned businesses are suffering the most, as 49% of them reported that they could not afford their rent in December. That figure is 5% higher than it was in November.
  • Women-owned businesses are also struggling (38% of those have not paid their rent, up 3% from 35% last month). 

Overall, 35% of small business owners reported that they couldn't make rent this month (up 3% from 32% in November). For minority-owned businesses, the struggle is even more pronounced: nearly half (49%) report being unable to cover their rent in December. That figure jumped 5% from 44% in November.  For women-owned businesses, 35% couldn't make rent in November and now that percentage is up to 38% in December.

Looking at different sectors, it's clear that money is growing even tighter in many B2C industries, and paying rent is becoming increasingly more challenging.

Restaurants/bars top the list in December with 61% unable to cover their rent. (And that's up 19% since November).

Nearly half of beauty salons (46%) had trouble paying the rent, as did 43% of travel/hospitality businesses. 

High percentages of small business owners in other industries also couldn't pay their rent in full, on time:

  • 41% of gyms
  • 40% of retailers
  • 40% of massage therapists
  • 36% of entertainers
  • 32% of construction/home services firms.

Most noted that increasing restrictions based on COVID resurgences are causing more problems for them -- and limiting the kind of revenue they can make for the rest of the year, and perhaps, beyond.

Rent Woes Across The U.S. & Canada
While 35% of U.S.-based small businesses are unable to pay December rent, small businesses in a variety of states are even more cash-strapped.

In Canada, the rate is even higher - 37% of Canadian small business owners said they couldn't make December rent, 1% higher than in November. Here's the breakdown by state for those matching or exceeding the overall, national U.S. average:

  • NY -- 43%
  • AZ -- 43%
  • IL -- 42%
  • OR -- 42%
  • WA -- 40%
  • MD -- 40%
  • NJ -- 39%
  • PA -- 39%
  • CA -- 37%
  • VA -- 36%
  • GA -- 36%
  • MN -- 36%
  • FL -- 35%
  • SC -- 35%

The following states are still struggling, but not as much as those listed above:

  • TX -- 34%
  • MI -- 34%
  • OH -- 32%
  • MA -- 31%
  • CO -- 29%
  • NC -- 27%
  • MO -- 20%

Shifting from the U.S. to Canada, the survey witnessed a range of rent payment rates across the provinces. On one extreme, small businesses in British Columbia appear to be weathering the COVID storm a bit better, with only 30% of them reporting that they couldn't afford to pay rent in full and on time. However, the situation is more severe in other parts of Canada: 43% of small businesses in Alberta, and 42% in Ontario reported not making December rent. 

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"Great Reset" - 61% Of Nations Have Decimated Liberty With COVID Restrictions



An international human rights group has warned that the majority of nations across the globe have implemented COVID related restrictions that have severely eroded the liberties of their citizens.

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Hero or Traitor?

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Guest Post by John Stossel

Hero or Traitor?

President Donald Trump should pardon Edward Snowden.

Who?

I know, it’s embarrassing — Assange, Manning, Snowden… Who did what?

I got them confused before I researched this topic. National security isn’t my beat. I finally educated myself this month because I got a chance to interview Snowden, the CIA/NSA employee who told the world that our government spied on us but lied to Congress about it.

Now Snowden hides from American authorities.

We talked via Zoom.

Fourteen years ago, when Snowden worked for the CIA, and then the NSA, he signed agreements saying he would not talk about what he did. I confronted him about breaking his promise.

“What changed me,” he answers, “was the realization that what our government actually does was very different than the public representation of it.”

The NSA’s mass surveillance program was meant to find foreign terrorists. When congressmen asked NSA officials if, without warrants, they collected data on Americans, they lied and said, “No.”

“There was a breathtaking sweep of intentional knowing public deception,” says Snowden. “We’re capturing everything that your family is doing online.”

I asked Snowden if his co-workers had qualms.

“In private, some said, ‘This is crazy. I’m not sure this is legal, but you know what happens to people who talk about this.'”

What does happen?

Nothing terrible, said President Barack Obama, who claimed Snowden could have revealed the government’s lawbreaking legally. “There were other avenues available,” he told reporters.

“What he said was incorrect,” Snowden tells me.

Government officials protect themselves by discrediting those who reveal inconvenient truths. Previous whistleblowers lost their jobs. Some were shocked to be subjects of dawn raids by federal police with guns drawn.

I understand why Snowden feared “proper” channels.

Instead, he took documents to journalists. The world learned the truth.

American officials said Snowden’s leaks put lives at risk. But in the eight years since then, they’ve never given any clear examples.

“They constantly tell us, ‘This is for your safety (and) to investigate terrorists,'” says Snowden. “Barack Obama’s own investigations found that it didn’t stop a single terrorist attack.”

At the time, the NSA did claim that mass surveillance stopped terrorism.

Richard Ledgett, former deputy director of the NSA, said NSA programs contributed to stopping 54 terrorist attacks.

“That makes me feel safer when I hear that,” I say to Snowden.

“We want to believe it’s true,” Snowden responds, “but it’s not. The government itself no longer makes these claims that it stopped 54 plots.”

In fact, the government no longer claims it stopped any attacks.

All of this made me realize — Snowden got screwed.

“Aren’t you pissed off?” I ask. “(Former Director of National Intelligence) James Clapper lied to Congress and he wasn’t fired! Now he works for CNN. (Former NSA director) Keith Alexander wasn’t fired. Now he’s on Amazon’s board! They made out; you’re in exile.”

“If you’re one of these ‘made men,'” answers Snowden, “You face a very different flavor of justice.”

Snowden went to Hong Kong to give reporters the data that showed the NSA had lied. He asked 27 countries to grant him asylum, without success. He tried to fly to Ecuador. When his plane stopped for a layover in Moscow, U.S. officials revoked his passport. He’s been stuck in Moscow for seven years now.

If he returns to America, then Snowden will almost certainly be jailed.

“I can be very much at peace with the choices that I’ve made,” he says. It was the right thing to do, and it has made things better. Some of these programs have been halted.”

In 2013, Donald Trump was asked about Snowden. He said, “This guy is a bad guy and there is still a thing called execution!” But this year, President Trump said he’d “look at” giving Snowden a pardon.

“I think it’s clearer and clearer that what I did was the right thing to do,” Snowden tells me. “History has a way of exonerating the truth.”

Sometimes, anyway.

Snowden did a good thing. He deserves a pardon.

Julian Assange deserves one, too.

John Stossel is author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.” 



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Betrayal of faith: Muslim Pro and the U. S. military

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Faithful Muslims are required to pray five times a day, facing toward Mecca.  In our smartphone era, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with an app that reminds the Muslim user that it’s time to pray, and conveniently uses GPS data to direct the user toward Mecca from anywhere in the world.  Muslim Pro is the most popular app to do these and other helpful things for members of Islam, and has been downloaded some 98 million times. 

When a person downloads an app that is advertised to do a certain function, the question of what else it might be doing in the background rarely arises.  If the app is free, most people are aware at some level that the developer must make money somehow, typically through advertising.  But rarely does the typical user even read the boilerplate that sometimes appears during installation, because it would take a lawyer to figure out what it means, and all the relevant information might not even show up in the user agreement.  So there is an implied agreement or good-faith assumption on the part of the user, that the app developer won’t do anything with the user’s data that the user would object to.

Users of Muslim Pro received a shock last month when the Motherboard column of the website Vice revealed that through a third-party vendor, Muslim Pro had sold location data on its users to contractors for the U. S. military.  True, the data was “anonymised,” meaning that names and other explicit identifying information was stripped from the data before it was sold.  But if a contractor obtains data from several different anonymised sources, it is often a fairly straightforward matter to “de-anonymise” the data and identify specific individuals.  If an anonymous individual spends a lot of time at a particular street address that can be associated independently with a particular name, so much for anonymity. 

Although no one has traced any specific military actions to the use of Muslim Pro data, users of the app have every right to feel betrayed.  Muslims aren’t the only religious group using faith-related apps.  Just to pick a random example, the Catholic radio network Relevant Radio has developed an app that assists users in saying the Rosary and pursuing other devotional practices.  Imagine how users of that app in a Christian-hostile country would feel if they discovered that the network was selling location data gleaned from the app to representatives of the country that was persecuting them.  Betrayal is a mild word.

After Vice revealed the practice, Muslim Pro announced that it was cutting off its association with X-Mode, the company that was buying location data from Muslim Pro and other apps and selling it to contractors who specialise in providing intelligence data to the U. S. military.  For its part, X-Mode encourages developers who provide data to insert warning phrases in their user agreements.  Even if such verbiage was provided by each of the 400 or so apps that X-Mode obtains data from, it is unlikely that most users would even read it. 

I will admit that the first time I heard of a special watch that informed the wearer of the correct direction to pray toward Mecca, it struck me as incongruous, to say the least.  Here was a practice of a 1400-year-old faith being aided by up-to-date technology.  But religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people, and as technology advances and provides conveniences and assistance for every part of life, it’s understandable that religious practices would take advantage of it too. 

The Muslim Pro-X-Mode revelation is a good example of how compartmentalising is encouraged by the way large-scale technical systems work.  Most religions deal with the whole person, one at a time.  This is the opposite tendency of the way a company like X-Mode operates:  stripping identifying information from bits of location data and selling it wholesale to similar organisations that deal in dehumanised blocks of information, which however can be easily reversed to reveal the location of any particular individual.

Those who handle the data along the way — the programmers and managers and salesmen — easily forget that the only reason their data is valuable is because it pertains to human beings.  They would rather think about correlations and data quality and other mathematical measures, than to consider that just possibly, one of the bits of data they sell may be used to end the life of a human being. 

I am not a pacifist, and I realise that war is sometimes the least bad alternative in certain situations.  But historically, one of the most common practices a warring nation will adopt against a rival nation is to convince its own people that the rivals are not really human, but are something less than human — animals, maybe, or even just numbers in a census record somewhere.  In anonymising the location data Muslim Pro collected, X-Mode unwittingly carried out that first step in making it easier for someone else to treat human beings as less than human.  What looked like a good thing — removing personal identifying data — turned out to be the first step in a process that wound up as a betrayal.

Information technology is an unavoidable part of our lives now, and can be the source or driving force behind many benefits.  Without computers and anonymised testing, we would not be looking forward to getting vaccines for COVID-19 within a year of the virus’s spread to humans.  But those who use data derived from humans must never forget the humans behind the data, and everyone working in such fields needs to exercise their moral imaginations enough to ask, “Supposing I was a user, are we doing anything that I’d object to?”  And if the answer is yes, don’t just shrug and go on about your business.

Karl D. Stephan is a professor of electrical engineering at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. This article has been republished, with permission, from his blog, Engineering Ethics, which is a MercatorNet partner site. His ebook Ethical and Otherwise: Engineering In the Headlines is available in Kindle format and also in the iTunes store.

The post Betrayal of faith: Muslim Pro and the U. S. military appeared first on MercatorNet.



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The Covid Vaccine and the Commercial Conquest of the Planet

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For the past 30 years, I’ve written about the dangers and ineffectiveness of vaccines, including the new COVID vaccine.

I’ve written about cutting edge nanotechnology research and its use, in vaccines, as implanted sensors, which would surveil body and brain processes in real time, and also send instructions to the body and brain.

I’ve written about the absurdity of basic vaccine theory; the unproven notion that the body needs a “rehearsal,” in order to prepare for the “real disease.”

I’ve written about how vaccines, in suppressing the immune system and its full inflammatory response, also suppress the outward signs of diseases, thus presenting a false picture of conquest of those diseases—when in fact the overall health and vitality of the body are reduced.

I’ve written about how criminal word games are played. For example, vaccines causing brain damage in children are shunted into a category called “autism”; and then, researchers claim autism is a separate disease with a genetic cause.

I’ve written about the destructive effects of a hundred years of wall-to-wall promotion of the one-disease-one-germ lie.

I’ve written about DNA vaccines permanently altering the genetic makeup of the recipients.

I’ve written about vaccines used to cause miscarriages in women when they later become pregnant.

But this article is about something else.

It’s about the dawn of a new pharmaceutical era, which was born the moment the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine was approved.

This marks the first time RNA technology deployed in a drug or vaccine has been dragged across the finish line and conditionally certified as safe and effective—which it is not.

But no matter. Bill Gates and other elite planners and money titans have won what for them is a great victory.

Because RNA vaccines are much faster, easier, and cheaper to produce than traditional vaccines.

Instead of years in the making, they can be developed in months.

And this means…bonanza.

Whole lists of so-called diseases—West Nile, Bird Flu, Zika, Swine Flu, SARS—can now be brought to soaring profits by making RNA vaccines to “prevent them.”

And not only that, a whole parade of older vaccines—hepatitis, measles, seasonal flu, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, etc., can be recast with brand new updated RNA versions.

Researchers can pretend to discover a whole slew of “new viruses” that require RNA vaccines jammed into the marketplace in record time.

Don’t forget the domesticated animal market; RNA vaccines for every conceivable invented purpose sold to big corporations that operate cattle, pig, chicken, and fish “factories.”

We’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars. More dollars than Amazon dreams of.

This is why the Pfizer RNA COVID vaccine is first in line, and why the Moderna RNA vaccine is next.

Quick, easy, and cheap RNA technology will mean endless numbers of new vaccines. And therefore, a day will come when every person routinely takes a DNA test to establish a profile, and every profile will be fitted to customized sets of vaccines.

In the same way that cosmetics are designed for every shade of skin tone, vaccines will be designed for every DNA profile.

The whole apparatus will be a highly dangerous and ineffective hoax, but what else is new? Vaccines have been a hoax since the beginning. We’re talking about MONEY.

So much money, pharmaceutical companies will be bankrolled directly by governments, after a currency reset makes new money invented out of thin air replace the old “thin air money.” Patients will receive all these vaccines “for free.” Governments will pay the vaccines companies.

UNLESS THESE LUNATICS ARE STOPPED.

Unless the people rebel and refuse the vaccines—no matter what.

If you think the futuristic vaccine-world I’m describing could only be a fantasy, what would masks, distancing, lockdowns, and planetary destruction of national economies have been called 15 years ago?

Think of past vaccines as giant clunky IBM computers sitting in empty rooms…and future vaccines as cell phones carried by billions of people.

Because RNA technology opened the door to faster, easier, and cheaper production.

What remains the same—past, present, and future—is FREEDOM.

The natural right to say NO. And mean it, come hell or high water.

CODA: What could be more awkward and foolish than the Pfizer regimen for their COVID vaccine? A first shot followed by a later booster.

I don’t care how many apps and reminders are built into this system. The fall-off from the first shot to the second will be enormous. People will opt out, after they experience severe adverse effects from the initial injection. They’ll forget to show up according to the prescribed schedule.

As I’ve detailed, the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials of their vaccines were only designed to prevent mild illness—a cough, or chills and fever. Not serious illness. Not hospitalization. Not death. And cough, chills, and fever cure themselves. No need for a vaccine.

But none of this makes any difference to the vaccine kings. They and their public health colleagues can easily rig COVID case numbers in a downward direction—and then claim the success of the vaccine is the reason and the cause.

No, commercially speaking, the point of gaining approval of the vaccine was planting the flag of RNA technology in the marketplace.

This is the equivalent of building the first railroad tracks, digging the first big canals, flying the first air freight carriers.

New markets, new products, new customers, new money.

Marry these with a vast weakening of human vitality and a strengthening of control over populations, through vaccination, and you have the fascist Holy Grail.

Resistance and revolt are not luxuries.

They’re necessities of life.

Reprinted with permission from Jon Rappoport’s blog.

The post The Covid Vaccine and the Commercial Conquest of the Planet appeared first on LewRockwell.



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Epidemiologist at Yale Provides Testimony on Hydroxychloroquine for Treating Covid-19

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We are living in a day in age where social media “fact-checkers” are patrolling the internet calling into question information, science, opinion and testimony from countless amounts of doctors and scientists, as well as independent media outlets who source this information, simply because it opposes the information that we are getting from the World Health Organization(WHO) for example, or other government health authorities. One great example to illustrate this point is Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug, according to many, that can help treat COVID-19 patients.

This idea has been a common theme throughout the pandemic, which begs the question, if it’s true, why wasn’t the drug administered and made available for doctors to use and treat COVID patients during this pandemic? Why was it ridiculed by mainstream media and why did Facebook fact-checkers claim that Hydroxychloroquine was not useful, and possibly dangerous? Facebook fact checker Health Feedback, for example, states that there is no evidence that hydroxychloroquine can cure or prevent COVID-19.

Recent testimony from Dr. Harvey Risch, MD, PhD, Yale Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health is one of many, who in my opinion seem to represent a large majority, says otherwise. He provided an evidence based presentation for safe early outpatient HCQ treatment for high-risk Covid-19 patients to reduce hospitalizations and mortality.

Senators and colleagues: thank you for convening this hearing. We all understand the endemic disease that we are facing, that we have to face it head-on and not hide from it hoping that it will go away. I want to give you my perspective.

In May of this year I observed that results of studies of a drug suggested to treat Covid, hydroxychloroquine, were being misrepresented by what I thought at the time was sloppy reporting. We have heard from Dr. McCullough how Covid disease progresses in phases, from viral replication, to florid pneumonia to multi-organ attack. Viral replication is an outpatient condition, but the pneumonia that fills the lungs with immune-system debris is hospitalizable and potentially life-threatening. We have also heard how each phase, each pathologic aspect of the disease, has to have its own specific treatments that apply to its own biologic mechanisms. Thus, I was frankly astounded that studies of hospital treatments were being represented as applying to outpatients, in violation of what I learned in medical school about how to treat patients.

We are now finally coming to address why over the last six months, our government research institutions have invested billions of dollars in expensive patent medication and vaccine development but almost nothing in early outpatient treatment, the first line of response to managing the pandemic. It is not that we lacked candidate medications to study, we have had a number of promising agents. But I believe that the early-on conflation of hospital with outpatient disease served to imply that treatment of outpatient disease had been studied and found ineffective. This illogical premise motivated me to look at the evidence for outpatient treatment.

We are now finally coming to address why over the last six months, our government research institutions have invested billions of dollars in expensive patent medication and vaccine development but almost nothing in early outpatient treatment, the first line of response to managing the pandemic. It is not that we lacked candidate medications to study, we have had a number of promising agents. But I believe that the early-on conflation of hospital with outpatient disease served to imply that treatment of outpatient disease had been studied and found ineffective. This illogical premise motivated me to look at the evidence for outpatient treatment.

I reiterate: we are considering the evidence for early treatment of high-risk outpatients to prevent hospitalization and mortality. That is it. Treatment starting in the first five days or so after the onset of symptoms. Treatment of older patients or patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, lung diseases, kidney diseases, immune-system diseases, survivors of cancer etc. These are the people most likely to die from Covid, and they are the people most needing protection. I have sought to obtain reports of every study of every medication pertaining to early treatment of high-risk outpatients. I monitor the literature daily. And what I have found is actually quite remarkable. What I have observed is that while there have been positive reports about a number of drugs, every study of outpatient use of one drug, hydroxychloroquine, with or without accompanying agents, has shown substantial benefit in reducing risks of hospitalization and mortality.

These studies break down into two major types. The first is double-blinded, randomized controlled trials, and the second is non-randomized but still controlled trials. You have heard from various government and scientific personalities that randomized controlled trials provide the strongest form of evidence. Many of these people have also claimed that randomized trials provide the only trustworthy form of evidence. There is some truth in these assertions, but there is also lots of falsehood. We know for example that the great majority of drugs used to treat heart diseases were established with non-randomized trials. Cholesterol-lowering drugs were in widespread use before randomized trials were ever done. Azithromycin, the most commonly used antibiotic in children, was not established by randomized trials. The idea that only randomized trials provide trustworthy evidence is a simplistic notion that may sound good in theory, but the comparison between randomized and non-randomized trials is something that has actually been extensively studied in the medical literature. I am an epidemiologist because even though I love biological theories, I develop them all the time to study how nature works, but it is from the human empirical data that we learn how indeed nature works.

And we have huge amounts of empirical data to show that randomized trials and their corresponding non-randomized trials give the same answers. Dr. Tom Frieden, previously Director of the CDC, in 2017 wrote an extensive essay in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that non-randomized trials can provide fully compelling evidence, especially when they are done carefully to account for reasons why patients received the drugs, and importantly, when circumstances are such that the cost of waiting for randomized trials involves major sickness and mortality as we have been experiencing this year. But Dr. Frieden’s essay, as authoritative as it is, provides only snapshots of the empirical evidence for his observations. The real evidence comes from a meta-analysis of meta-analyses done by the Cochrane Library Consortium, a British international organization formed to organize medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions. The Cochrane investigators examined what involve tens of thousands of comparisons between randomized trials and their non-randomized counterparts and found that the two types of studies arrived at virtually identical conclusions. This is the real evidence about why good non-randomized trials comprise evidence every bit as important as randomized trials. Large amounts of consistent empirical data are the evidence, not plausible but simplistic assumptions, no matter who says them.

So what did I find about hydroxychloroquine in early use among high-risk outpatients? The first thing is that hydroxychloroquine is exceedingly safe. Common sense tells us this, that a medication safely used for 65 years by hundreds of millions of people in tens of billions of doses worldwide, prescribed without routine screening EKGs, given to adults, children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, must be safe when used in the initial viral-replication phase of an illness that is similar at that point to colds or flu. In fact, a study by researchers at the University of Oxford showed that in 14 large international medical-records databases of older rheumatoid arthritis patients, no significant differences were seen in all-cause mortality for patients who did or did not use hydroxychloroquine. The Oxford investigators also looked at cardiac arrhythmias and found no increase for hydroxychloroquine users. This was in more than 900,000 hydroxychloroquine users. This is examined at length in my paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology in May. Now, the FDA posted a warning on July 1 on its website about hydroxychloroquine used in outpatients, but we can discuss this later; the FDA has had no systematic evidence in outpatients and erroneously extrapolated from hospital inpatients to outpatients, what I said earlier was invalid.

About studies of hydroxychloroquine early use in high-risk outpatients, every one of them, and there are now seven studies, has shown significant benefit: 636 outpatients in São Paulo, Brazil; 199 clinic patients in Marseille, France; 717 patients across a large HMO network in Brazil; 226 nursing-home patients in Marseille; 1,247 outpatients in New Jersey; 100 long-term care institution patients in Andorra (between France and Spain); and 7,892 patients across Saudi Arabia. All these studies pertain to the early treatment of high-risk outpatients—and all showed about 50 percent or greater reductions in hospitalization or death. The Saudi study was a national study and showed 5-fold reduction in mortality for hydroxychloroquine plus zinc vs zinc alone. Not a single fatal cardiac arrhythmia was reported among these thousands of patients attributable to the hydroxychloroquine. These are the non-randomized but controlled trials that have been published.

Now we also know that all of the outpatient randomized controlled trials this year also together show statistically significant benefit. These six studies comprised generally much younger patients, only a fraction of whom were at high risk, so they individually had too few hospitalizations or deaths to be statistically significant. But they all suggested lower risks with hydroxychloroquine use, and when they were analyzed together in meta-analysis as my colleagues and I found, this lower risk was statistically significant across the studies.

We have spent the last six months with formal government policies and warnings against early outpatient treatment, with large government investments in vaccines and expensive new treatments yet to be proven and almost no support of inexpensive but useful medications, and a quarter of a million Americans have died from this mismanaged approach. Even with newly promising vaccines, we have almost no information about how they will perform in older and high-risk patients, in whom respiratory virus vaccines are known to have weak efficacy; it will be a number of months before they become widely available; and we don’t know how long vaccine immunity will last, or even if the vaccines will work for the newly increasing mutant strains of the virus. As I have said on many occasions, the evidence for benefit of hydroxychloroquine used early in high-risk outpatients is extremely strong, and the evidence against harm is also equally strong. This body of evidence dramatically outweighs the risk/benefit evidence for remdesivir, monoclonal antibodies or the difficult to use bamlanivimab that the FDA has approved for emergency use authorizations while denying the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine. This egregious double standard for hydroxychloroquine needs to be overturned immediately and its emergency use authorization application approved. This is how we will get on the road to early outpatient treatment and the major curtailment of mortality. Thank you.

Why This Is Important: The thoughts shared above have been a common theme throughout this pandemic. For example, Dr. Anthony Cardillo, an ER specialist and the CEO of Mend Urgent Care, has been prescribing the zinc and hydroxychloroquine combination on patients experiencing severe symptoms associated with COVID-19. In an interview with KABC-TV, Cardillo stated:

Every patients I’ve prescribed it to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free…So, clinically I am seeing a resolution…We have to be cautious and mindful that we don’t prescribe it for patients who have COVID who are well, he said. “It should be reserved for people who are really sick, in hospital or at home very sick, who need that medication. Otherwise we’re going to blow through our supply for patients that take it regularly for other disease processes.”

According to Cardillo, it’s the combination of zinc and hydroxychloroquine that does the job. “[Hydroxychloroquine] opens the zinc channel” allowing the zinc to enter the cell, which then “blocks the replication of cellular machinery.”

This was also hinted to by the testimony from the Yale professor.

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, said in a video interview that a cocktail of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc Sulfate and Azithromycin are showing phenomenal results with 900 coronavirus patients treated.(source)

These are just a few examples out of many. The issue is that these opinions and this type of evidence and testimony was blocked and censored by various social media outlets, and deemed “fake news.”

Over the last few months, I have seen academic articles and op-eds by professors retracted or labeled “fake news” by social media platforms. Often, no explanation is provided. I am concerned about this heavy-handedness and, at times, outright censorship. –  Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH

This has also recently been emphasized by Dr. Kamran Abbasi, executive editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal, editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine. He is editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and JRSM Open. He recently published a piece in the BMJ, titled “Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science.”

Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

The UK’s pandemic response relies too heavily on scientists and other government appointees with worrying competing interests, including shareholdings in companies that manufacture covid-19 diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccines. Government appointees are able to ignore or cherry pick science—another form of misuse—and indulge in anti-competitive practices that favour their own products and those of friends and associates.

The stakes are high for politicians, scientific advisers, and government appointees. Their careers and bank balances may hinge on the decisions that they make. But they have a higher responsibility and duty to the public. Science is a public good. It doesn’t need to be followed blindly, but it does need to be fairly considered. Importantly, suppressing science, whether by delaying publication, cherry picking favourable research, or gagging scientists, is a danger to public health, causing deaths by exposing people to unsafe or ineffective interventions and preventing them from benefiting from better ones. When entangled with commercial decisions it is also maladministration of taxpayers’ money.

Politicisation of science was enthusiastically deployed by some of history’s worst autocrats and dictators, and it is now regrettably commonplace in democracies. The medical-political complex tends towards suppression of science to aggrandise and enrich those in power. And, as the powerful become more successful, richer, and further intoxicated with power, the inconvenient truths of science are suppressed. When good science is suppressed, people die.

Concluding Remarks: We are at a point in time where decisions made by the government, which are supposedly done in our best interests, are completely influenced by powerful corporations that seem to dictate government policy in some sort of way. This has been a problem for quite some time, and combined with big tech this ‘medical industrial complex’ is able to influence the thoughts, minds, perception and overall consciousness of the masses when it comes to COVID and various other topics.

Do governments really execute the will of the people? When will we draw the line? Is it really justifiable for people who don’t get vaccinated to lose their rights and freedoms they were accustomed to prior to the pandemic? Why are so many doctors and scientists who oppose these measures being censored and unacknowledged?

COVID-19, just like 9/11, is forcing more people to ask questions about how our world really operates and whether or not governments actually execute the will of the people.

At the end of the day we have to ask, why are controversial topics so poorly covered and ridiculed by mainstream media? Why do so many of us have so much trouble looking at new information, especially information that contradicts what we believe and have been made to believe? Why do polarizing sides trigger us so deeply? Why do we accept the invitation to fight? Will our sense-making be much easier and effective if we are clam, centered within self, clearer of our own bias’ and more open to communicating with empathy? Perhaps it’s time we do that?

Reprinted with permission from Collective Evolution.

The post Epidemiologist at Yale Provides Testimony on Hydroxychloroquine for Treating Covid-19 appeared first on LewRockwell.



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