An accessible YouTube summary of much of the report below below by a Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Medical School is available here.
At the end of January, just as China was admitting the full extent of the Wu Flu pandemic it had kept under wraps for weeks in hopes it could get away with not shutting its economy even if it meant tens of thousands dead (in the end, it failed) we reported that since 1990 the top 1% has bought $1.
Amazon appears to have banned Cernovich's movie Hoaxed, a film that details the fake news phenomenon and the consequences of media misinformation, from its Prime Video service.
Long term readers will recall the Philip Cross Affair. A Wikipedia Editor named “Philip Cross” was relentlessly conducting a propaganda operation. It had two prongs; the first was continually to denigrate the Wikipedia entry of all public figures who opposed military intervention in the Middle East, removing positive information and adding mainstream media slurs in real time as they were made. The second and less noted prong was to big up the Wikpedia entries of right wing mainstream media figures, removing negative information and adding a positive spin.
Wikipedia eventually banned “Philip Cross” from making edits related to UK political figures.
The incredible thing about “Philip Cross” was that he never took a single day off. From 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018 “Philip Cross” edited Wikipedia every day, including Christmas days, for 1,721 days. I can claim to be the person who first brought the “Philip Cross” operation to a wide audience, and here are my series of articles on the subject:
If you are new to this, I really do commend that series as a fascinating glimpse into the information wars that lie behind what you read on the internet. The BBC World Service even made a radio programme about Philip Cross.
Being the BBC it downplays the affair in a number of ways – crucially, it gives several examples to show that Philip Cross’s edits are harmless, and not a single example of his thousands of vicious edits, such as his editing my Wikipedia entry to call my wife a stripper.
The BBC also disingenuously claim that the fact that Cross edited Paul Dacre’s entry shows he did not only edit anti-war figures. They fail to point out that that his edits to Paul Dacre were all designed to glorify Dacre, the Daily Mail’s editor until recently, whereas his edits of anti-war figures were designed to do the opposite.
But the BBC report does correctly state that the “Philip Cross operation” turns out to be an organised neo-con group operating behind the persona of Philip Cross, who is a real vulnerable person with health issues. George Galloway correctly says he was given information from a concerned close relative of Cross who believes he is being exploited. I can confirm that is true. I was also given the opportunity to meet the close relative but I declined as I saw no point in duplicating the effort and causing further stress.
Galloway believes this was a paid operation. It appeared to have very close links to the Times newspaper and to the Euston Manifesto group. James Harding, Times editor, had his page lovingly edited 118 times by the “Philip Cross” operation, largely to remove or rebut criticisms.
James Harding is of course currently editor of Tortoise magazine.
So who were the editors working behind the group name of “Philip Cross”?
For me, the most fascinating and insufficiently explored avenue of the Philip Cross affair was the question of his Twitter followers. “Philip Cross” had a twitter account which never did anything interesting. He simply retweeted articles by right wing journalists; that was the majority of his output. Very occasionally he would add a one line comment. There was nothing remotely original or interesting, even to a person who shared the right wing views of the “Philip Cross” persona, until the operation was exposed.
Yet this extremely dull twitter account by this obscure unwell man, which never tweeted anything original or witty, had among its 200 followers a collection of establishment figures and, most notably mainstream media journalists. Why on earth would Tristram Hunt and James le Mesurier of white helmet jihadis fame find it worthwhile to follow this obscure account? Above all, why did a whole slew of MSM “journalists” follow an account of no original interest at all?
There is no other possible conclusion than that these figures were aware of the “Philip Cross” operation when it was still apparently nothing but an extremely obscure man who liked obsessively editing Wikipedia and retweeting Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch (his most frequent tweets). My intuition is – and this is not fact, but a working hypothesis that fits known facts to date – that the many MSM journalists who were, for no apparent reason, following the obscure “Philip Cross” twitter account, were not merely au fait with, but a part of, the Wikipedia editing operation that hid behind “Philip Cross” and his IP address.
So here are those MSM followers of the “Philip Cross” twitter account as noted by me on 21 May 2018. Note Dani Garavelli.
DANI GARAVELLI. I had quite forgotten until reminded by Leftworks. Once reminded, I recall that I was getting fed up typing up names and almost left her off as a nobody, writing for a publication nobody reads any more. I am glad I did not.
So why was Dani Garavelli one of “Philip Cross”‘s devoted Twitter followers from when the “Philip Cross” operation was still secret?
Garavelli was recently commissioned by James Harding (remember him above?) for Tortoise Magazine to write a hit piece with the aim of destroying Alex Salmond’s reputation by appealing to the #Metoo movement, evoking sympathy for the accusers and restating prosecution evidence while simply ignoring defence evidence.
Alex Salmond was of course an opponent of NATO bombing of Serbia and has been a staunch and outspoken opponent of UK military intervention in the Middle East. So who was editing negatively his Wikipedia profile? “Philip Cross” of course.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the British Establishment. Like a circle within a circle, like a wheel within a wheel, a never ending propaganda operation to control the population.
Once Garavelli’s execrable article was published by Tortoise (interestingly for free access by a magazine whose business model allegedly rests on its fierce paywall), the propaganda deluge online to hype it from MSM journalists and from UK government trolls was immense. Interestingly there was a third element – a whole raft of young paid employees of the SNP and a slew of similar wannabe SNP careerists. A fascinating amount of entryist penetration of the SNP has been exposed in this process.
It became obvious the political destruction of Alex Salmond is a major objective of the UK state, worth the potential burning of hitherto hidden assets. I paid close attention because the same forces were leveled against me in a hate storm for pointing out the very obvious deficiencies in the Garavelli article, facilitating a very successful online pushback by ordinary folk. That will be a subject to discuss another day.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
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One of the most effective tools in the arsenal of any MSM hack is to brand information questioning or contradicting the official narrative as a dangerous 'conspiracy theory'.
Here is one of the best investigative documentaries ever produced – as far as it goes. However, what it omits makes it one of the most dangerous as well. The praiseworthy part is that it reveals how the Chinese government secretly developed the corona virus in a bio-weapons laboratory in Wuhan, how the virus escaped into the population, and how the fish-market story was a crude cover up. The documentary’s analysis of China’s long-standing goal to destroy the US using non-military tactics also is on target. The problem arises when we realize there is no mention of the role played by forces inside the US. There is no mention of the CDC, the American based pharmaceutical industry, the Deep State, the US media, fake death statistics, deliberate destruction of the economy, or tycoon American billionaires such as Bill Gates who stand to profit beyond imagination.
This documentary becomes so focused on the threat of Chinese Communists and their operatives in the US that we forget about America’s own home-grown communists who go under the banner of Democrats, Republicans, Green Party, justice warriors, health officials, network news anchors, and all the obedient governors and mayors who eagerly use the exaggerated health threat to take away the last of constitutional liberties.
This is reminiscent of the Iran-Contra affair in the late 1980s when Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North admitted he had lied to Congress under oath, participated in illegal arms sales to Iran, diverted proceeds of those sales to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and was secretly creating a massive database to spy on all Americans. In spite of all this, he became an American hero in the eyes of the public, because he said he did these things to protect America from the threat of Communism in South America. Americans were not concerned about North helping to create a totalitarian government above all rules so long as it is done in the name of fighting Communism or some other great enemy.
Not much has changed since then. The database that North helped to design now is a monstrous reality in the name of fighting terrorism. On December 5, 2017, it was announced that Oliver North and Blackwater founder Erik Prince had teamed up to help Donald Trump create a secret spy agency that reports just to the President. This was to help the President overcome opposition from the Deep State and from Communist China.
Bottom line: Watch this documentary for the truth about what is happening in China and the fact that China’s leadership can hardly wait for the fall of America, but then reflect on the rest of the story, which is that America’s greatest threat comes from within, especially if Americans allow their government to become no different than the Chinese government.
While The Epoch Times began publishing reports of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus on Jan. 2, most outlets had yet to pick up on the story because of the CCP’s lockdown on information. Three months later, over 200 countries and territories have been infected and the CCP virus has caused over 85,000 deaths infecting at least 1.4 million, but information is murkier than ever.
“We’ve pretty much heard every rumor under the sun. We’ve heard every theory, every crazy rumor, we’ve heard all these different narratives,” said Joshua Philipp, award-winning investigative reporter and host of the show “Crossroads.”
The rumors aren’t by accident: The CCP has been actively engaging in a disinformation campaign, and media outlets around the world have parroted the propaganda. As a result, entire nations have been operating under false information as they try to battle the pandemicwithin their borders.
Screenshot of the documentary “Tracking Down the Origin of Wuhan Coronavirus.” (Courtesy Epoch Times)
Philipp and his colleages at The Epoch Times and NTD Television thought it their responsibility to sift through all the information available, verify it, and put it into one place. The result is the just-premiered documentary “Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus,” which is available to watch online. Less than two days after its premiere, the documentary has around 1.6 million views across different platforms.
The film “really tries to sift through all of the rumors, all of the truths, all of the falsehoods, and show people as accurate a picture as possible of what really happened and where this virus actually came from,” Philipp said.
In it, Philipp pieces together the development of the virus and includes interviews that shed light on the Chinese regime’s actions and intentions.
Lives at Stake
It should be very telling that the nine-person panel the CCP created to address the pandemic, once it finally acknowledged the virus in January, is filled with propaganda officials, said China affairs columnist Gordon Chang in the documentary.
Many countries have accepted or bought faulty equipment from China, for example, and “they’re getting duped,” Philipp said.
“And, of course, this is because they don’t understand the Chinese Communist Party, they don’t understand how [the CCP] works, and, even as we speak right now, the Chinese Communist Party is claiming it’s over in China when it’s not.”
China affairs columnist Gordon Chang. (Courtesy of Epoch Times)
“And what that means is, as they open things up and reopen flights, there’s a major risk to other countries,” Philipp said.
“If [these countries] don’t have accurate information, then what can they base their information on?”
As the documentary shows, the CCP’s delay in sharing information about the virus with other countries was not mere oversight. And beyond covering up the epidemic, China’s current actions and disinformation continues to endanger lives around the globe. The CCP has gone from denying the existence of the virus to spreading as many lies as it can to obscure the truth.
“This is an issue of human life,” Philipp said.
Why Would the CCP Lie?
From the beginning, the CCP has not been forthcoming.
“We don’t know what’s there, but the fact that the Communist Party is covering this up should trouble us deeply,” Chang said.
Those unfamiliar with the CCP will likely be shocked to discover the regime’s motives.
Philipp’s investigation of the CCP virus in this documentary goes back to the outbreak of SARS nearly two decades ago. The CCP tried to cover up the SARS outbreak as well, and The Epoch Times was one of the few media to expose this. There is precedent of the regime being untrustworthy in the event of an epidemic.
Philipp has been researching the CCP since 2008, and gave an example of its military approach to shed light on how the CCP can profit off this pandemic most consider a tragedy.
“One important thing to understand is they talk about war without morals. They talk about ‘unrestricted warfare’: war that does not take into account any concept of human rights, human dignity, human life. It is victory by any means. There is nothing they will not do, and we see the same thing in many parts of their system, including the medical system where altering the human genome is not a big deal to them,” Philipp said.
The documentary’s experts remind us: this is a nation that currently holds at least 1 million of its own people in concentration camps.
“They don’t care about human life when it comes to this regime—we’ve seen that in their human rights abuses,” Philipp said.
Epoch Times investigative journalist Joshua Philipp. (Courtesy of Epoch Times)
The documentary shows another link to SARS, and how one of China’s top virus experts’ study of SARS at the Wuhan Institute of Virology led to breakthroughs in creating a coronavirus to infect humans. But to what end?
“The Chinese Communist Party has been very open about its biological warfare ambitions, they don’t even try to hide it. And it’s been a huge injustice that people have not held them to stronger account than they should have, because the Chinese Communist Party is able to act with impunity and nobody criticizes what they do,” Philipp said.
The documentary is a comprehensive look at what the virus is and what has happened, and Philipp hopes it can allow nations to make better-informed decisions.
Dr. Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. (Courtesy of Epoch Times)
“At the very least, we can provide this as a package of information that will inform the entire world exactly where this virus came from, and exactly what needs to be done going forward,” he said.
“And at the very least, they will be more cautious when dealing with the Chinese Communist Party, especially at this time.”
“People’s lives are at stake and we find it very necessary to do this kind of work,” he said.
Talking Points
The information is perhaps more vital than ever, because while countries are turning to the World Health Organization for information, WHO is turning to the CCP.
General Robert Spalding, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former National Security Council senior strategy director, was in China when SARS broke out; he was evacuated, but he knows what a cover-up looks like. How the CCP handled the SARS cover-up is exactly how they have handled this one. He is among several experts who say the CCP clearly has no intention of ending the epidemic or curing the virus.
Senior investigative Epoch Times reporter Joshua Philipp in New York City. (Courtesy of Epoch Times)
“You can see that the WHO is essentially following the Chinese Communist Party’s guidelines,” Spalding said.
The WHO isn’t the only organization doing so; international organizations to individual academic institutions around the world are afraid to say something that may anger the CCP. In recent weeks, Philipp had reached out many well-known scientists who once suggested the virus causing this mysterious COVID-19 disease was created in a lab, but they no longer wanted to talk.
From the beginning, the CCP prevented organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying the origin of COVID-19, Gordon Chang said.
The CCP’s actions speak to a problem deeper than the virus.
“Every country has diseases, but in China they become national emergencies and global emergencies, because the real disease here is communism,” Chang said.
In the words of Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff to Barack Obama, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Emanuel first said this during the 2008/2009 financial crisis… meaning that politicians can use a crisis as an opportunity to push through radical ideas that would otherwise never be accepted.
Late last month, Emanuel uttered the same words on ABC News This Week, admonishing politicians to not let this crisis go to waste either… and use it as a springboard to pass sweeping policy changes while people are too terrified to care.
And at this point in the pandemic it’s pretty clear that plenty of governments are absolutely not letting this crisis go to waste. Here’s a roundup of what’s happening around the world:
Philippines: “Shoot them dead”
In 2016 the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, was elected on a “tough on crime” platform.
He wanted to bring back hangings for criminals convicted of murder and rape.
After being elected, Duterte said that drug traffickers, drug dealers, and even drug users should be shot dead in the street.
Other government officials insisted Duterte was exaggerating, just using theatrics to get his point across.
But sure enough, thousands of alleged drug dealers and users have been killed since 2016. Some were killed by police, and others by vigilantes.
Now the Philippines, like most of the world, is on lockdown to try to prevent the spread of CoronaVirus.
And in Duterte’s own words, “if there is any trouble” enforcing the lockdown, or people who ignore the rules, police should “shoot them dead.”
This is happening at a time when Hong Kong is experiencing its second wave of Covid outbreaks. So the government started requiring new arrivals to strap on a wristband in order to ‘geofence’ people into their quarantine areas.
Once you arrive to your destination (your hotel, apartment, etc.) you have one minute to walk around so that the GPS tracker can map out the perimeter. And if you leave the area, the authorities are immediately alerted.
Violators face up to six months in prison and fines up to USD $3,200.
This is probably going to become the standard in the West, and I’ve been told by a source in Hong Kong that the World Health Organization is trialing these bracelets for release in western countries.
Poland: Mandatory selfie photos
Poland’s government developed a special app where users are forced to upload selfie photos to prove that they are inside and not violating the lockdown.
It’s called the “Home Quarantine” app, and it’s required for people returning to Poland from abroad who must self-quarantine for 14 days.
When the app requests a photo, users have twenty minutes to upload a selfie from inside their home, or the police come knocking.
Russia: 100,000 cameras with facial recognition across Moscow
After Russia’s Duma (parliament) voted in early March to allow Vladimir Putin to defy constitutional term limits and continue to seek re-election as President, the government has now deployed a network of 100,000 cameras with facial recognition in the streets of Moscow to track individuals who are supposed to be in quarantine.
Violations in Russia can carry severe penalties, up to seven years in prison.
Furthermore, even spreading what the government deems as ‘fake news’ about Covid-19 could result in up to five years in prison.
India: Flights and trains suspended, supply chain breaks down
India’s government ordered its population to quarantine last month… and then shut down the country’s primary transportation systems.
The government suspended both domestic flights and train travel, apparently not realizing that millions of people would be stranded and unable to return home to self-quarantine.
Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that supply chains in India have also started to break down, causing shortages of certain foods.
Singapore: tracking everyone else you meet
Singapore’s government is using bluetooth and GPS data from its citizens mobile phones to map who everyone comes into contact with. They at least have announced that they will publish the source code of the tracking app.
Land of the Free: Ankle bracelets on, medical privacy off
Massachusetts, Alabama, and Florida have abandoned medical privacy laws, and officials are now informing the police and paramedics which homes have a resident who tested positive for Coronavirus.
South Africa: Bride and Groom arrested at their own wedding
A wedding that took place despite a nationwide ban on public gatherings in the South African state of KwaZulu Natal was broken up by police last weekend.
All 50 guests, plus the minister performing the service, and the bride and groom, were arrested and hauled off to jail.
Understandably, I imagine many readers might think, “Well that was stupid and a little bit selfish to hold a public gathering at a time like this.”
I agree. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that basic freedoms: freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, privacy, etc. have gone out the window, all over the world.
Laws and constitutions everywhere are being violated. And while most of the discussion about this pandemic is ‘when will the public health emergency subside,’ and ‘when will the economy go back to normal,’ there’s hardly any discussion about “When will our freedoms be restored?”
It’s hard to imagine they’re going to stop the GPS tracking, the facial recognition, the criminal ‘fake news’ penalties, and the countless other ‘emergency measures’ anytime soon.
Think about it– 9/11 was nearly two decades ago and we’re still dealing with the freedom-eroding consequences of that event.
So we have to be honest with ourselves about this pandemic– the longer these freedoms are restricted, the more unlikely they’ll ever be restored.
Tyler Durden Fri, 04/10/2020 - 22:55
