Category Archives: On the Road to Serfdom ?

The West’s Moral Decay: Cannibalism Normalized?

via New Scientist

“New archaeological evidence shows that ancient humans ate each other surprisingly often – sometimes for compassionate reasons. The finds give us an opportunity to reassess our views on the practice”


IT IS the ultimate taboo: in most societies, the idea of one human eating another is morally repugnant. Even in circumstances where it could arguably be justified, such as when a plane crashed in the Andes in 1972 and starving passengers ate the dead to survive, we still have a deep aversion to cannibalism. One of the survivors, Roberto Canessa, has since described the passengers’ actions as a “descent towards our ultimate indignity”.
Ethically, cannibalism poses fewer issues than you might imagine. If a body can be bequeathed with consent to medical science, why can’t it be left to feed the hungry? Our aversion has been explained in various ways. Perhaps it is down to the fact that, in Western religious traditions, bodies are seen as the seat of the soul and have a whiff of the sacred. Or maybe it is culturally ingrained, with roots in early modern colonialism, when racist stereotypes of the cannibal were concocted to justify subjugation. These came to represent the “other” to Western societies – and revulsion towards cannibalism became a tenet of their moral conscience.
A slew of recent archaeological discoveries is now further complicating how we think about human cannibalism. Researchers have unearthed evidence suggesting that our hominin ancestors ate each other surprisingly often. What’s more, it seems that they weren’t always doing so for the reasons you might expect – for sustenance or to compete against and intimidate rivals – but often as funerary rituals to honour their dead.
Like it or not, then, cannibalism is an important part of our story. This isn’t to say that we should change our attitudes towards it. But understanding its deep roots might shift our perspective on the few cultures that still practise cannibalism today, albeit only occasionally, such as the Aghori, a Hindu ascetic sect in India that does it in pursuit of transcendence. Above all, these discoveries invite us to reconsider our revulsion to cannibalism in the context of our evolutionary past.

Behold the West’s latest outrage—debating the undebatable and defending the indefensible. Cannibalism, once the vilest of violations, is now served up as a thought experiment for the liberal palate. It’s not enlightenment; it’s ethical insanity. The sanctity of human life, chewed up in the cogs of moral relativism, is spat out as a “cultural preference.”

This is not a slippery slope; it’s a nosedive into the abyss. The normalization of atrocities marches forward, with pedophilia disgracefully queued for a rebrand. Society’s moral fabric isn’t just fraying, it’s being shredded by the day. Western liberalism, once a bastion of purported high values, is now an echo chamber where the deviant becomes mainstream if whispered enough times.

We must draw the line with an iron fist. The time for nuanced debate is over—this is a fight for our collective soul. We reject this mockery of human dignity, and we condemn the architects of this madness. We stand defiant, ready to reclaim our humanity and protect the most vulnerable. It’s time to restore sanity, shun the shadow of relativism, and rekindle the flames of unyielding, absolute moral truth.

It’s Now The People vs. The Banks

BY AKRAINER

[Originally published on Alex Krainer’s Substack]

What’s the driving force behind the agenda?

I attempted to shed some light on this question in an article I published in August 2020. The title gives it away, “Covid 19: the banking cartel is driving the agenda,” but let me elaborate with a shortened version of that article here.

For many months during 2020 and 2021, the media and “health” authorities have relentlessly promoted fear-inducing narratives about the alleged Covid 19 “pandemic,” sensationalizing the emergency nearly 24/7 while ignoring and censoring hundreds, perhaps thousands of experts who diverged from the official versions of news. Supposing that we were up against a “once-in-a-century” pandemic that nobody could have predicted (ehm..), one would expect a lively debate among experts about how best to tackle the crisis. Journalists might have sought out as many domain experts as possible so we could arrive at the clearest possible understanding of the new health challenge and how to confront it. Effective treatments should have been promoted, celebrated, screamed from the rooftops. But that’s not what happened.

Public health measures – virtually identical in most nations – were handed down from the World Health Organization through shadowy bureaucratic hierarchies that claimed a monopoly on science and truth. All discussion was discouraged while hundreds of experts were being aggressively silenced. Several effective treatments like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were identified, but officialdom was outright hostile to any mention of them.

Doctors and patients have been strongly discouraged from using such remedies and in some nations HCQ was abruptly pulled from the market. In Australia, prescribing HCQ has even been made a criminal offence. Instead, the authorities forcefully pushed the hastily developed, untested, experimental vaccines, all for a disease which was lethal for only 0.004% of the population (even by the overinflated U.S. CDC statistics).

Officialdom’s puzzling entrenchment

Within a few months of the “pandemic,” the utter incoherence of the official positions became so obvious that they lost all credibility with much of the population. But rather than changing tack, officialdom only became more deeply entrenched in their own contradictions, turning increasingly aggressive with ever more restrictive “public health” measures as the media escalated the ‘project fear’ propaganda to nauseating proportions.

We insist: the edifice is sound, do not believe your lying eyes, do not do your own research!

The situation became surreal: how can seemingly intelligent, learned people remain so stubbornly attached to a narrative that was as obviously flawed? Why did the media continue for months relentlessly inciting fear and hysteria over a mild flu virus? In addition to the American and British media, I had followed the media reports in Croatia, Spain, France and Italy – it was the same thing everywhere: all Covid, all the time, with nonstop fearmongering and calls for compliance with increasingly silly “measures.” Did everyone worldwide just go insane? If it wasn’t science and logic informing the public health measures, then what was it? And then it hit me…

The curious case of the IMF loans for Belarus

Back in June 2020 I noted that Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko publicly snubbed a $940 million line of credit from the International Monetary Fund. He rejected it because the IMF conditioned the loan on Belarus imposing a strict Covid 19 lockdown policy and a curfew. At the time I thought it was very strange that the IMF would offer loans to a nation while at the same time setting conditions which would severely impair that nation’s ability to repay.

Apparently, a number of other nations received similar offers from the IMF and/or the World Bank, but it was only thanks to Mr. Lukashenko disclosing it publicly that we knew about the Covid 19 conditionality attached to such offers. Significantly, Lukashenko mentioned on several occasions that the IMF negotiators wanted Belarus to do “like in Italy.” Other nations and governments who accepted the money may have quietly agreed to the conditionality which they forgot to disclose to the rest of us.

As of April 2020, 85 nations had requested financial assistance from the IMF. Deeply in debt and with severely damaged economies, most governments around the world needed loans, making them prey to the dictates of money power. To secure the needed funds they may have agreed to shutting down their economies, restricting their population’s freedom of movement, created Stasi-like contact-tracing structures and closed down the schools.

We must aggressively use the testing and tracing capacity “we’ve built”

Further evidence that the agenda is being driven by the bankers was an Op-Ed in the New York Times by Neel Kashkari, the president of Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, calling for the government to issue strict 4- to 6- week shelter-in-place orders “for everyone but the truly essential workers.” Kashkari advocated that the lockdowns should be as comprehensive and strict as possible and done aggressively, using “the testing and tracing capacity we’ve built…”

Banking cartel’s fingerprints could also be found in the document “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” published by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010. On page 18, under the heading “Lock Step,” the document presciently describes our current reality as “A world of top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.” The scenario envisions a “pandemic the world had been anticipating for years…” And then we did have that “pandemic,” as well as “the world of top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership.”

Napoleon Bonaparte understood all too well that “When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation.” In each nation, we seem to be opposed by some government bureaucracy. But while those bureaucracies and the officials who work there are becoming the targets of public resentment, it is critical that we recognize the puppeteers behind the agenda that’s playing out.

There can be little doubt that the enemy is the international banking cartel headquartered in the City of London and on Wall Street, together with their agencies like the Bank of International Settlements, the IMF, World Bank, the global systemically important banks and institutions like the World Economic Forum, big pharma corporations, World Health Organization, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI and numerous others.

As Lord Acton warned over a century ago, “the issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” This fight is now upon us. It might be the ultimate struggle for humanity’s emancipation or our final enslavement. To prevail, we must understand our true enemies and the financial, economic, political and social structures that are enabling their agenda.

Planning wars and more wars

The Rockefeller Foundation document further revealed that they have clearly anticipated our pushback and have surely planned diversions to misdirect our grievances toward the visible enablers of their top-down authoritarian rule. One of the greatest means of diversion are wars [sadly, that prediction came true in the meantime]. We must therefore guard against believing that our enemies are the Russians, the Chinese or whomever the logic of divide-and-rule would pit us against .

When our governments tell us that we face a grave threat from another nation, send troops to its borders or warships near its shores, we must demand they stand down. We must also guard against demonization of other nations and their leaders because they frequently lead to military escalation (think Saddam Hussein, Moammar Ghaddafi, Bashar al Assad…). Ron Paul warned us that “It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.” I explained the systemic roots of the West’s war lust in this article: “Deflationary Gap and the West’s War Addiction.”

In short, we must not be distracted by the bullfighter’s red cloth: the ultimate culprits, the super-predator class, are the bankers: a handful of families and individuals who control and manage the present monetary system. We’ve no choice but to confront them. Today we are armed with truth and information that past generations could not have dreamt of. Today, we can make the difference and gift our children and their children a world of prosperity and liberty beyond anything what we can imagine at present. That struggle is worth every effort.

A random aside

Today I learned from a reliable source that Tucker’s in Moscow (3 Feb. 2024) with his crew. We might get that interview with President Putin after all – and a host of interesting reports from Russia!

Banks, Credit Card and Financial Firms are Searching Your Purchases

Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Faith leaders and religious liberty advocates are up in arms over news that the federal government encouraged banks and other financial institutions to search customers’ private accounts using the search term “religious texts.”

Tony Perkins (C), president of the Family Research Council, speaks during an interfaith roundtable on the Chinese Communist Party’s threat to religious freedom in Washington on July 12, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

The “religious texts” search term was among those federal officials asked financial institutions to use following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, a congressional source with direct knowledge confirmed to The Epoch Times on Jan. 18.

Other terms that were asked to use in the searches included “MAGA” and “Trump,” according to the House Judiciary Committee. Federal officials at the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department sought the data from such searches as part of their investigation of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Religious liberty advocates interviewed by The Epoch Times were unanimous in condemning the searches, which were conducted without judicially authorized search warrants.

“This is beyond alarming,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told The Epoch Times. “If we did a word search in history of the type of activities the Biden administration is engaged in, it would return words like ‘KGB,’ ’totalitarian,‘ ’repressive,’ ‘anti-democratic,’ and ‘grave threat to freedom.’”

Family Research Council is a Washington-based nonprofit advocacy group that works on behalf of traditional values, including and especially defense of the family and religious freedom.

The last place you would anticipate this kind of government intrusion into freedom of speech is America and yet it is rife with this administration and with the ‘deep state,’” Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver told The Epoch Times.

“It is a very serious concern and it should be a serious concern, no matter your political beliefs because if this is permitted, then it just depends on who is in power. This is what despotic governments do to suppress people that they don’t agree with,” he said.

Mr. Staver’s organization, Liberty Counsel, is an Orlando, Florida-based nonprofit religious liberty defense foundation.

‘Mockery of Our Laws’

Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel for the Plano, Texas-based First Liberty Institute, told The Epoch Times the searches exposed by the House panel represent a threat to religious freedom.

“It’s outrageous and frankly chilling that the federal government may be urging banks to monitor Americans for exercising their religious freedom by simply purchasing a Bible or other religious text,” Mr. Shackelford said.

Weaponizing the federal government against religious Americans freely exercising their constitutionally protected freedom is outrageous and a danger to all our freedoms. It makes a mockery of our laws. When religious people are attacked and religious freedom is not upheld, all other civil liberties—including economic freedom—soon start crumbling.”

“This news should serve as a wake-up call for every American,“ warned Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom. ”The revelation that the government is working with financial institutions to flag everyday American citizens as ’threats’ because they shop at Cabelas, Dick’s Sporting Goods, or buy religious texts is terrifying.

“No one should live in fear that law enforcement or a financial service provider will flag their account based on the exercise of their constitutionally protected rights.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in a Jan. 17 statement that the searches were sought by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in conjunction with the FBI.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) accused the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division of politically based prosecutions while questioning U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke during a House hearing about “Oversight of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division” in Washington on Dec. 5, 2023. (Screenshot via NTD)

Mr. Jordan wrote a Jan. 17 letter to Noah Bishoff, the former FinCEN director who is now the anti-money laundering officer for Plaid Inc., a San Francisco digital financial platform developer and marketer.

According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views,’” Mr. Jordan wrote.

“In other words, FinCEN used large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

Officials’ Testimony Sought

Mr. Bishoff was asked to provide testimony to the House Judiciary panel about the searches, as was Peter Sullivan, senior private sector partner for outreach in the Strategic Partner Engagement Section of the FBI.

“Freedom of Religion is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution,” Mr. Jordan told The Epoch Times. “It should frighten every American that the federal government is watching people based on their purchases. This is as wrong as it gets and we will continue to expose this blatant attack on faith and civil liberties.”

In a Jan. 17 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Mr. Jordan explained that Mr. Sullivan’s testimony “will help to inform the [House Judiciary] Committee and Select Subcommittee [on the Weaponization of the Federal Government] about the FBI’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; the FBI’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information; and the FBI’s general engagement with the private sector on law-enforcement matters.”

Congressional leaders also told The Epoch Times the searches warrant further investigation and corrective action.

FBI Director Christopher Wray looks over notes as he arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 10, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) also commented.

The Biden administration is bringing back ‘Operation Chokepoint’ from the Obama-Biden era to weaponize our financial system against their political opponents. House Republicans, under the leadership of Chairman Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee, will not tolerate this un-American abuse of power.” Mr. Emmer said.

He was referring to a Department of Justice investigation in 2013 of firearms dealers, payday lenders, and other businesses thought to be vulnerable to money laundering.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times that “digging through American citizens’ private financial transactions, based on political phrases, is a clear weaponization of the federal government and those responsible must be held responsible.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the searches “outrageous” and claimed “the Biden administration is using federal law enforcement to engage in financial surveillance of Americans. … Shockingly, the government is even monitoring people for purchasing religious texts like the Bible. This is an Orwellian invasion of privacy, and it should have never happened in the United States. Biden’s bureaucrats running this horrendous financial surveillance system must be held accountable.”

Similarly, Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) told The Epoch Times: “This is yet another example of the federal government being weaponized against Joe Biden’s political opposition, as well as people of faith. This sort of activity is highly concerning and warrants further investigation. I applaud the House Judiciary Committee for digging into this issue and I look forward to investigators exposing and rooting out this misconduct.”

Tactics of Marxism

Shea Bradley-Farrell is an international development professional and president of the Washington-based Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research, and Education. She told The Epoch Times that the searches are typical of the control measures used by totalitarian regimes to counter dissidents and other groups not approved by the authorities.

Weaponizing the federal government against private citizens for their political or religious beliefs is straight out of the playbook of Marxism, and was also used to identify, crush, and control the occupied peoples under the communist Soviet Union,” Ms. Bradley-Farrell said.

“As I explain in my book, ‘Last Warning to the West,’ these are totalitarian, police-state tactics used to impose ‘docility, discipline and controllability of subject populations. These are warrantless searches that violate the Fourth Amendment.”

A spokesman for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Australia to Ban Cash, Mandate ‘Digital Passport’ for Public

by Hunter Fielding via News Addicts

The Australian government is moving to ban all physical cash and mandate that all members of the public will require a “digital passport” to take part in society.

The World Economic Forum-infiltrated government is laying the groundwork for the establishment of “cashless societies” as part of a broader scheme to clamp down on public freedoms, according to a news report from Australia.

The government is claiming that the “digital passport” seeks to tackle “bad behavior” from dissenting citizens.

“Essentially it will work the same as a passport,” said the Today Show reporter.

“Australians will be forced to submit 100 points of identification like their driver’s license or their passport when using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.”

“Police will have access to those social media accounts and it’s all part of a crackdown on online abuse.

“Users could be liable for defamation suits or even criminal prosecution.

“It’s all part of a plan to stop users engaging in bad behavior.”

According to the global elite, “bad behavior” by social media users is any kind of dissent that opposes their radical agenda.

Watch:

Meanwhile, Australia’s largest banks are banning cash from their business operations and moving to a digital-only system.

Macquarie Bank, Australia’s fifth-largest bank, announced Friday it will phase out cash, cheque, and phone payments in 2024 as it transitions to digital-only transactions.

Australia is not the only state to have fallen under the totalitarian control of the globalist elite.

The European Parliament and member states have reached an agreement on the mandatory rollout of Bill Gates’ Digital ID which has inbuilt features designed to exclude people from participating in society if they do not comply with the globalist agenda.

For some time now, News Addicts has been warning the masses for years that a key plan in the globalist agenda involves Digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies to lock humanity in a digital prison

Meanwhile, the European Union has just admitted that we were right all along.

The elite has always denied these plans, describing anybody who dared to expose their plans as “conspiracy theorists” who need to be muzzled on social media, frozen out of society, and in some cases thrown in prison.

But now the globalists are making their move.

The TSA – The Guards of the Prison We Live In

Authored by James Bovard via The Mises Institute,

The TSA has been promising to end its boneheaded ways for more than 20 years. Flying out of Dallas International Airport last week, I ruefully recognized that all TSA reform promises are malarkey.

As I neared the end of a TSA checkpoint line, I saw two women loitering behind a roped off section for CLEAR, a new biometric surveillance program that works with 35 airports and coordinates with TSA. CLEAR involves travelers standing in photo kiosks that compare their faces with a federal database of photos from passport applications, driver’s licenses, and other sources. The Washington Post warned that airport facial recognition systems are “America’s biggest step yet to normalize treating our faces as data that can be stored, tracked and, inevitably, stolen.”

Though the CLEAR program is purportedly voluntary, TSA agents at Washington National Airport recently threatened long delays for any passenger who refused to be photographed by CLEAR, including U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). Merkley said that TSA falsely claimed there were signs notifying people that the facial scans are optional. But the clock is ticking down on seeking voluntary cooperation. TSA chief David Pekoske announced in March that “eventually… we will require biometrics across the board.”

“Idle hands are the tool of the devil,” as the old saying goes, and the same is true of cell phones. I raised my phone camera, snapped a few shots of the women, and the howling commenced.

“What are you doing?” screamed a young woman wearing a CLEAR jacket.

“You can’t take my photo!”

“But you’re scanning people’s eyeballs,” I replied. What could be more intrusive?

“That doesn’t matter because you can’t take our photo – it’s not allowed!”

She sounded as if I had desecrated a federal temple.

I gave her a Chesire cat smile. With her three-inch artificial fingernails, I wondered if she planned to audition for a Dracula movie. Her colleague speedily exited, perhaps to summon police to end my assault. But if airport officials had sought to seize those photos, they would have faced a legal ruckus.

The queue finally reached the stern middle-aged TSA dude sitting behind plexiglass who checked identification and boarding passes. He stared at my driver’s license and then gave me an intense look. TSA considers a “cold, penetrating stare” a terrorist warning sign, but I assumed this guy was above suspicion. I was tempted to ask how many TSA Watch Lists included my name thanks to TSA bashes I wrote for New York Times, USA Today, New York Post, Washington Times, and other publications. Was this TSA dude reading about how the TSA chief denounced me in 2014 for “maligning” TSA agents?

TSA protocols make flying vexing without making travelers safe. As I approached the luggage scanner, I removed my wallet and stuffed it in the bottom of my carry-on bag. More than 500 TSA agents have been fired for robbing passengers. In July, three TSA agents at Miami International Airport were arrested because they pilfered property “while the passengers were distracted with their own screenings and not paying attention to their items,” the New York Post reported. A TSA agent admitted to partnering with another TSA employee to steal a thousand dollars a day, including grabbing cash from wallets sent through TSA x-ray systems.

TSA decrees are wildly inconsistent, but every command is presumed sacrosanct. Flying out of Washington Dulles Airport the prior week, I was told to keep my laptop in my courier bag. Fine by me. In Dallas, a TSA drill sergeant wannabe barked orders for everyone to remove their laptops and lay them out before sending through the x-ray machines. TSA agents have been caught selling stolen laptops on eBay, so I tried to keep an eye on my computer.

TSA lunacy also obliged me to modify my attire. Instead of good ol’ blue jeans, I was , wearing Dockers. Prior to entering TSA’s Whole Body Scanner at Washington National Airport for a recent flight, I did everything right – emptied my pockets, removed my belt and boots, and sported a friendly smile (ok, not that friendly). But as I exited the scanner, a TSA supervisor grimly announced, “We have to do a supplemental patdown.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” I groused.

He pointed to the large screen next to the scanner that showed the problem: an illuminated thin line directly in front of my groin.

“That’s the zipper on my pants,” I exclaimed.

“Sir, we have to do a supplemental patdown. If you want it conducted in a private room, we can do that,”came the rote TSA reply.

“Hell no. Let’s do it where the TSA surveillance cameras record the search.”

Never, ever go into a private room with TSA agents.

A tall, heavyset TSA agent with his hair tied in a bun atop his head came up and began vigorously grappling my ankles. Did TSA agents have a daily quote for groping or what? As I left the checkpoint, I muttered about TSA standing for “Too Stupid for Arby’s.”

Dockers were slightly less likely to trigger this boneheaded alert than blue jeans. But it wasn’t my fault that TSA screeners failed to detect 95 percent of the test bombs and weapons during covert tests by federal inspectors.

I had no trouble in the Whole-Body Scanner in Dallas last week, but my carry-on bag failed the TSA inspection.

A beefy young female agent hoisted my bag and carted it to the end of the checkpoint area. She was the final participant in the gauntlet of village idiocy that I had to pass before reaching my plane. She summoned me to explain its contents and my depravity. “Is there anything sharp in this bag?”

“No,” I replied. Geez, how much did TSA pay for x-ray gizmos that were more obtuse than a presidential speechwriter?

She unzipped my bag and began pawing through it. In lieu of a machete, she found a small half-full jar of peanut butter.

“You can’t take liquids on a flight,” she announced solemnly.

“It’s peanut butter. It’s not liquid.”

“It’s liquid and it’s prohibited,” was her decree. Did TSA covertly classify peanut butter as a bioweapon, or what?

“Ya, whatever,” I said as I abandoned the jar to federal custody.

Chatting with another jaded traveler as I put my boots back after clearing the checkpoint, he asked if I was upset about losing my peanut butter.

I smiled: “I’ll settle accounts with TSA later.”

Global Digital Infrastructure Just Launched

Authored by Kit Knightly via off-guardian.org,

Last week the United Nations Development Program officially launched their new initiative promoting “Digital Public Infrastructure” (DPI) around the world.

The “50in5” program – so-called because it aims to introduce DPI in fifty countries in the next five years – began with a live-streamed event on November 8th.

For those of you unsure what “Digital Public Infrastructure” is, the 50in5 website is quite clear:

Digital public infrastructure (DPI) – which refers to a secure and interoperable network of components that include digital payments, ID, and data exchange systems.

There’s nothing new there, for anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention. Digital identity and digital payment systems are self-explanatory (and we’ve covered them before). “Data Exchange Systems” essentially means national governments will share identity and financial records of citizens across borders with other nations, or indeed with global government agencies.

The key word is “interoperable”.

As we have written before, the “global government” won’t be one single health care system, identity database, or digital currency – but dozens of notionally separate systems all carefully designed to be fully “interoperable”.

As well as being a project of the UNDP, UNICEF, and the Inter-American Development Bank, the 50in5 is funded by various globalist NGOs and non-profits including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and (indirectly through an NGO called “Co-Develop”) the Rockefeller Foundation.

The eleven counties taking part in the program so far are Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Moldova, Norway, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Togo. A careful spread from every continent, including first, second, and third-world nations.

It is a list noteworthy for including NATO, EU, and BRICS members. Interesting implications on supposed “multipolarity” there.

In related news, on the exact same day the 50in5 program launched, the European Parliament and Council of Europe agreed on a new framework for a region-wide European Digital Identity (eID) system.

According to the official press release [emphasis added]:

The revised regulation constitutes a clear paradigm shift for digital identity in Europe aiming to ensure universal access for people and businesses to secure and trustworthy electronic identification and authentication. Under the new law, member states will offer citizens and businesses digital wallets that will be able to link their national digital identities with proof of other personal attributes (e.g., driving licence, diplomas, bank account). Citizens will be able to prove their identity and share electronic documents from their digital wallets with a click of a button on their mobile phone.

This comes on the back of announcements that the European Central Bank is moving on to the “next phase” of its Digital Euro plans this month. The digital euro will – according to former IMF (and apparent numerology nut) Christine Lagarde – afford some “limited control” over people’s spending.

India, another BRICS nation, has been at the forefront of DPI development for years, and now articles are appearing in publications like Forbes, claiming “India Has A Digital Infrastructure, America Needs One”.

At the same time, China is making strides toward ending online anonymity, while Western politicians like Nikki Haley say we should be doing the same.

As the world focuses on Hamas and Israel, the global re-organization phase of the Great Reset is just quietly going about its business. Building a net and waiting to tighten it.

At Best, the Future Looks Like Medieval Serfdom

Ed. Note: The experiment came to be known as Mice Utopia. The experiment proved that the survival of the individual and the survival of the specie through procreation are ultimately the only driving forces of life. The end of specie life is reached at the point of affluence, when the purpose of life has no purpose. In the Utopia, when the basic needs are satisfied by magic means, the colony of life disintegrates on its own. Internecine fights, sexual deviances, apathy are the predictable outcome of “the good life”. And it ends with the death of life.

Are we approaching that Utopia on a global scale? In a few affluent societies, like the Roman Empire, this Utopia was attained at the very top of society and, like on cue, it was followed by societal decadence and destruction. Is the new era of technology-created abundance, robotic labor and unlimited supply of life’s necessities the end point of civilization as we know it? … It kind of looks like it, doesn’t it?

***************************************************************

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

As a general rule I find that whenever the public scrutinizes any particular agenda being promoted by governments and globalists, their first response is to act indignant, much like a narcissist would do when they are up to no good and they get caught.

“How dare you” question their intentions and suggest they might be nefarious?

How dare you suggest they are anything other than loving and benevolent?

Our “leaders” have only ever wanted the best for us, right?

They only want our lives to become safer, more comfortable and more convenient – This is what truly motivates your average elitist, right?

Obviously history tells us a far different story, and it boggles my mind when anyone tries to argue that things are different today compared to 100 years ago, 300 years ago, or 1000 years ago. There is nothing new under the sun. There will always be tyrants attempting to gain more and more power and those tyrants will always lie to the public, claiming they are good people with our best interests at heart.

When that doesn’t work and the citizenry remains skeptical, the tyrants go on the attack, accusing the public of “conspiracy theory.” This is meant to mock and shame free thinkers into silence – You don’t want to stand out, right? Why risk being ostracized from society? Why risk becoming a meme?

This tactic is rooted in the notion that the corporate media and government officials represent the mainstream, and therefore they represent the majority, and the majority represents reality. None of this is true or relevant, of course. Only facts matter. Sophistry is meaningless. Opinions are meaningless. The truth should be the goal, and if it’s not someone’s goal then they must be a purveyor of lies and should not be taken seriously. There are only two paths to take, there is no in-between.

I will admit there is some value to the “conspiracy theory” accusation because whenever the establishment uses it, it’s a sure sign that you are too close to the target and they are getting nervous. They could simply try to outline any evidence they might have to prove that your position is wrong, but they don’t really do that. Instead of debating your arguments and evidence, they try to undermine you as a valid critic and inoculate the public against your ideas before people ever get a chance to hear them. This is the behavior of villains, not benevolent and caring leaders.

I mention this dynamic because there is one agenda above all others that is aggressively defended by the establishment media, and anyone who remotely questions it is automatically persecuted as a “conspiracy nut” or “denier.” I am of course talking about the climate change agenda.

I have thoroughly debunked the idea of man-made climate change in previous articles and I won’t be spending time on that here.

Instead, I want to examine the end goal of climate change policies – The ultimate solution, which is NOT to save the planet, but to dominate the populace.

The names used for the climate change “reset” vary, but it is often referred to by globalists and the UN as Agenda 2030 or Sustainable Development Goals. These programs wear a facade of environmentalism but they are ALL rooted in economics. That is to say, all climate change efforts exist to destroy industry and trade and establish a government/corporate partnership to dominate production. Climate change is a Trojan Horse to introduce authoritarianism.

I believe one of the most important aspects of Agenda 2030 for globalists is something called the “15 Minute City”; a project which involves hundreds of city mayors from across the US, Europe and Asia working closely with groups like the World Economic Forum. Any mention of this idea in a negative light and the media erupts with anger as well as mockery as if it’s not a real issue worthy of debate.

The establishment paints an interesting picture of 15 Minute Cities – A Utopian future in which everything you need is only a short walk away and private transportation is superfluous (or banned). You might even live in mega-complex, much like a giant mall where you also work. You could spend months within one square mile of space, never having to leave for anything.

It’s no mistake that this idea was pushed hard during the pandemic lockdowns. The public was awash in fear propaganda over a virus with a 99.8% survival rate and that fear made the unthinkable idea of staying at home all the time suddenly thinkable. Media pundits continue to call the connection between covid lockdowns and climate lockdowns a conspiracy theory, but the idea is openly admitted in UN and WEF white papers.

Some people argue that most cities are already “15 Minute Cities” with necessities all within walking distance of their homes. These folks don’t understand what a 15 Minute City really is. As numerous establishment descriptions of the project note, it’s not just about convenience or close access, it’s about changing every aspect of our current philosophy of living. It’s not about gaining amenities, it’s about making an array of sacrifices in order to appease the gods of carbon emissions.

The 15 Minute City is more like a recipe, containing every single ingredient of the climate change and covid lockdown agendas in a single comprehensive Orwellian vision. It includes removing motor vehicles, removing private transportation and roads, smart city and AI monitoring of each person’s electricity usage, monitoring of product consumption and “carbon footprint”, biometric surveillance within a compact and stacked urban landscape, the cashless society concept, equity and inclusion cultism, population control, etc.

It is the culmination, the end game; a massive prison with no bars. A place where you are conditioned to grow accustomed to artificial limitations on privacy, no civil liberties, no private property, and no work options or mobility. You are tied to the land and the land is owned by the state (or corporation). If you want a historic comparison, the closest I can find is the feudal system of Medieval Europe.

Within these cities you are a labor mechanism, nothing more. You will never be allowed to own your own property and thus own your own labor. Everything you have is given to you by the state and can be taken away by the state if you defy them. You might be able to leave the village or community you are tied to for a time, but this will change with increasing restrictions on the public’s movement according to the dictates of climate ideology.

As long as you are productive and submissive you will be give the things you need to survive, but never to thrive. In the case of a technocratic feudal system you would not have any guarantees that the state would need your services. At least in feudal Europe a peasant was seen as valuable resource because of limited population. In a world where many people are considered “population excess”, you could easily be replaced and booted out of the city to starve and die.

In 2016 the World Economic Forum published a document titled ‘Welcome To 2030. I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy, And Life Has Never Been Better.’ The article was meant to promote a concept called the “sharing economy” which was first publicly fielded to the press at Davos. The article describes a “hypothetical” future in which a communistic system has ended all private property in the name of saving the planet from climate change. The benefits? Well, like all communistic systems, the big lie is that you will get to work less and most things will be free. This is how collectivist ideals have been sold to the populace for generations and it NEVER works the way the establishment claims.

The WEF has been promoting the sharing economy for years, but when it went mainstream and was widely criticized as dystopian, the media once again flipped the “conspiracy theory” switch and attacked anyone exposing the implications.

Multiple platforms published the article in 2016 but many have since taken it down (Forbes appears to have erased their published copy, for example). They are pretending as if the agenda never existed, probably because the article contains some revealing admissions, including a hint at the 15 Minute City concept. From the article:

My biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city. Those we lost on the way. Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology. Those who felt obsolete and useless when robots and AI took over big parts of our jobs. Those who got upset with the political system and turned against it. They live different kind of lives outside of the city. Some have formed little self-supplying communities. Others just stayed in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages.
Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. Nowhere I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me”

In other words, the globalists imagine a future were the malcontent free thinkers and people replaced by AI are outcasts, scratching and scraping out a meaningless existence in the wastelands of the old world. To stay in the bosom of the new world you will be required to give up all freedom, even freedom of thought. Keep in mind, this article is supposed to be a “positive” promotion of the shared economy and 15 Minute-related cities. Yet, this excerpt sounds more like a threat.

It’s important to understand that these compact cities will not be designed for your comfort. They will not be designed so that you can have all the amenities you have today closer to your fingertips while also providing “sustainability.” That’s how the globalists try to sell it, but that’s not what it will be. Rather, these cities will be designed to better CONTROL you, so that you can be forced to make the sacrifices they say are necessary for sustainability to be possible.

They are erroneously billed as “decentralized communities,” but they are the exact opposite – They are utterly centralized, like a hamster cage where you are the pet. The core philosophy behind them is dependency. If you live in a place which is specifically constructed to eliminate your ability to provide for yourself, then you are a slave. Though, to be sure, even slavery can be made to look noble if people are convinced that their chains are necessary for the good of the planet.

The “Establishment” IS Desperate – The Thought Police Act

Authored by Iain Davis via The Disillusioned Blogger,

In Part 1 we contrasted the popular misconceptions about so-called “conspiracy theorists” with the well-grounded demographic research done on the individuals who, collectively, have had that pejorative label slapped on them. The demographic research reveals that there is no such thing as an identifiable group of people who can legitimately be called “conspiracy theorists.”

The research also finds no credible evidence that people branded “conspiracy theorists” are prone to hold extremist views or have underlying psychological problems or pose a threat to democracy. These claims are all canards levelled against anyone who questions the Establishment and the power it has amassed.

We noted that political scientist Joseph Uscinski, who is perhaps the foremost scientist in the field of “conspiracy theory” research, cited the work of philosopher Neil Levy as a “simple and consistent standard” by which academics could “demarcate between conspiracy theory and [real or “concrete”] conspiracy.”

Professor Levy’s “simple and consistent standard” was first outlined in his article “Radically Socialized Knowledge and Conspiracy Theories.” In it, he pointed out that “conspiracies are common features of social and political life, common enough that refusing to believe in their existence would leave us unable to understand the contours of our world.” Levy therefore proposed that academics need a way to differentiate between the rational acceptance of acknowledged conspiracies and the supposedly irrational claims made by people who suspect conspiracies that haven’t been officially approved for discussion.

Levy suggested that “[r]esponsible believers ought to accept explanations offered by properly constituted epistemic authorities.” As we explained in Part 1, he defined the epistemic authorities as:

[. . .] the distributed network of knowledge claim gatherers and testers that includes engineers and politics professors, security experts and journalists.

In his listing of “journalists” as epistemic authorities, Levy was almost certainly referring to journalists who work in the state controlled or corporate-owned legacy media (LM), not to journalists in the independent media, who are frequently labelled conspiracy theorists.

Independent media is broadly defined as:

[. . .] news media that is free from influence by the government or other external sources like corporations or influential people.

Similarly, in Levy’s view, only the “right” scientists and engineers are welcomed as “epistemic authorities.” For example, he categorically stated:

Few responsible intellectuals reject the explanation of 9/11 that cites the conspiratorial actions of a group of terrorists under the direction of Osama Bin Laden[.] [. . .] [M]ost of us have little doubt that it is true.

Dr. Leroy Hulsey, a now-retired professor and department head of structural engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, led a multi-year study in which he and his team of engineer PhDs examined the structural collapse of World Trade Centre 7 (WTC 7). The conclusions they arrived at in their peer-reviewed report thoroughly contradicted the official 9/11 narrative. It seems unlikely that Prof. Levy would consider Dr. Hulsey to be a responsible intellectual or an “epistemic authority.”

In his article, Levy opined that allegedly irrational “conspiracy theorists” could be identified by virtue of the fact that they disagree with the properly constituted epistemic authorities. Therefore, he claimed, their arguments and any evidence they presented should be dismissed. He wrote:

[K]nowing that a proffered explanation conflicts with the official story (where, once again, the relevant authorities are epistemic) is enough for us rationally to reject the alternative.

But there is nothing “rational” about rejecting an explanation simply because it is offered by people with whom you disagree.

Presumably, like Levy, Uscinski would consider himself an “epistemic authority” in the field of conspiracy theory research. Thus, it is not surprising that, in light of Levy’s “simple and consistent standard,” Uscinski concluded:

[P]roperly constituted epistemic authorities determine the existence of conspiracies. [. . .] If the proper authorities say something is a conspiracy, then it is true; if they say it is a conspiracy theory, then it is likely false.

That is to say, “official” narratives are considered true by default, and anything that calls them into question is, by default, a “conspiracy theory.” The term signifies to other intellectuals—who don’t question the pronouncements of the state—that evidence which potentially undermines official narratives is, by definition, false. This conclusion is, of course, a load of nonsensical, fallacious gibberish.

Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory label is so widely applied these days that it has stuck. The legacy media (LM), in particular, has successfully deployed it as a tool of propaganda. Simply by spouting the words “conspiracy theory,” the LM have convinced the public to ignore any and all evidence that questions power.

Here’s one such example. Following serious allegations of rape and sexual misconduct it brought against the comedian, author and political commentator Russell Brand, the LM immediately exploited the situation by criticising Brand’s opinions and everyone who shared them.

The BBC published Rachel Schraer’s article Russell Brand: How the comedian built his YouTube audience on half-truths just four days after the allegations were first reported by, among others, the BBC.

The opening paragraph to the article reads:

The first time Russell Brand really dipped his toe into the water of conspiracy theories, in early 2021, the effect was swift [. . .]. It won him a new income stream and a fresh army of fans.

Rachel Schraer

We are told that Brand discusses “conspiracy theories.” This is a coded social signal from Schraer and the BBC to their readers and audience that everything Brand says should be discounted without examination—including any evidence he may cite. This should be done for no other reason than Schraer and the BBC have labelled Brand a conspiracy theorist.

In addition, the BBC casts the people who share Brand’s views as conspiracy theorists who should be equally ignored.

Furthermore, the suggestion is made that Brand is peddling “conspiracy theories” as some sort of grift. According to Schraer, the idea that independent media, such as Brand’s “Stay Free” channels, can be directly funded by its audience—in this instance through viewer number contingent advertising revenue—without compulsion is “evidence” of his dubious motives. (Apparently the BBC is vehemently opposed to the free market of ideas.)

Schraer explained what got the Brand ball rolling:

The door to this new fan base might have creaked open when Brand first discussed “the Great Reset” — a vague set of proposals from an influential think tank to rebuild the global economy after Covid.

The lame evidence Schraer cited to support her contention that the Great Reset is just some “vague set of proposals” was another BBC article. Five journalists contributed to this piece, which was published in 2021 as part of the BBC’s “Reality Check” series.

Collectively, the five BBC Reality Check “journalists” exposed their own deceit in the second and third paragraphs:

Believers spin dark tales about an authoritarian socialist world government run by powerful capitalists and politicians — a secret cabal that is broadcasting its plan around the world.

Despite all the contradictions in the last sentence, thousands online have latched on to this latest reimagining of an old conspiracy theory [. . .].

The problem is that no one accused by the Reality Check team of being a “Great Reset” conspiracy theorist has ever alleged that the Great Reset plan was a “secret” or that the planners are a “secret cabal.” The fact that the well-known World Economic Forum (WEF) has broadcast its plans around the world obviously excludes the possibility that the plans were “secret” or even that the have acted secretively.

The contradiction was a fabrication of the BBC Reality Check journalists’ own making. It was seemingly inserted to support their accusation that those who criticised the WEF’s Great Reset were alluding to a “secret cabal.” In reality, the critics were openly pointing their fingers directly at the WEF and its partners. No suggestions of a “secret cabal” or “secret plans” were ever made.

The BBC’s evident intention was to impugn critics of the Great Reset by falsely claiming that their views were illogical, speculative assumptions and were therefore “conspiracy theories.” The BBC propagandists created this myth themselves in order to deliberately mislead their readers. This is the very definition of disinformation.

The Reality Check team then reported that the Great Reset initiative was launched by King—then Prince—Charles as a plan to remodel the global economy. They talked about the WEF’s undemocratic “power to lobby [. . .] for ideas which could potentially transform the global economy.” They added that the WEF and its Davos delegates have “huge influence on world events.” They even raised the point that there are legitimate concerns about the potential impact of digital technology—vigorously pushed in the Great Reset—”on civil liberties and jobs.”

In short, the BBC Reality Check team gave a reasonable account of the arguments put forward by those whom they then dismissed out of hand by labelling them “conspiracy theorists.” The BBC “journalists” performed this trick by making up a reported opinion about “secret cabal[s]” and then falsely ascribing it to Great Reset critics.

In order to deter their readers from any further examination of the Great Reset, the BBC’s alleged journalists claimed that the Great Reset itself was “light on specific detail.” This, again, was pure disinformation.

The same journalists had to admit the existence of a published book called COVID-19: The Great Reset. In it, co-authors Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret wrote:

[O]ur objective was to write a relatively concise and simple book to help the reader understand what’s coming in a multitude of domains. [. . .] The reference information appears at the end of the book and direct attributions have been minimized [in the text].

The references include links to WEF documents such as “COVID-19 Risks Outlook A Preliminary Mapping and Its Implications.” This is just one document that forms part of the WEF’s extensive alleged risk-mapping program. The mapping program, in turn, informs the WEF’s highly detailed Strategic Intelligence, which the WEF claims will enable it to “make sense of the complex forces driving transformational change across economies, industries, and global issues.”

There really isn’t any facet of economy, industry, or indeed any global issues or aspects of our lives for which the WEF doesn’t already have a detailed, self-serving, transformational plan. The BBC’s claim that the Great Reset lacks “specific detail” is absurd. The plan couldn’t be moredetailed or specific.

Rachel Schraer’s subsequent assertion—that the Great Reset represents a “vague set of proposals”—was complete nonsense based upon the BBC’s own propaganda. The objective was to convince BBC readers that criticism of the Great Reset is a “conspiracy theory.” It is self-evident that both Schraer’s and Reality Check’s articles served as a defence of the WEF’s Great Reset.

We have still other good reasons to question Schraer’s judgement.

Dr Simon Goddek, a scientist who turned to journalism and has questioned the safety and efficacy of the COVID jabs—thereby excluding himself from Uscinski and Levy’s “epistemic authorities”—shared a black-humoured joke as a social media meme. It showed the ageing physical decline of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. Goddek quipped, “[w]as it her shots, mRNA or Meth?”

This joke was subsequently picked up by BBC Verify propagandist Shayan Sardarizadeh, who re-shared it with the comment: “4 million views for this nonsense from a blue tick conspiracy theorist.” Goddek’s post was indeed “nonsense”—because it was a joke.

When Schraer re-posted Sardrizadeh’s comment, she displayed a woeful lack of comprehension and a notable lack of a sense of humour. She added her own inane interpretation with this absurd headline:

Breaking: Conspiracy theory-peddlers blame the Passage of Time on Vaccines.

This may seem like a trivial matter. But it’s not. Like Marianna Spring, Rachel Schraer is another BBC specialist disinformation reporter. That Schraer apparently can’t tell the difference between a joke and “disinformation” certainly brings her alleged “specialism” into question.

To fully appreciate how the “conspiracy theory” label is deployed by the legacy media (LM), we can look at the recent video by journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil, who is a former editor of the Sunday Times, an ex-BBC presenter, and the current chairman of the Spectator. When he left the BBC, Neil was reported to have been “at the heart of the BBC’s political coverage for the best part of three decades.”

Andrew Neil

In a discussion with Sam Leith, the Spectator’s literary editor, about the Russell Brand allegations, Neil lamented that social media had enabled too many people—most of whom he considered to be stupid—to express their opinions. Based on this comment, it is evident that, if Neil is familiar with the work of Uscinski and Levy, he would probably consider himself a journalist member of the so-called “epistemic authorities.”

Neil spoke about the four-year investigation conducted by the legacy media that eventually produced the Brand allegations. He described it in glowing terms and noted that the independent media—which he called “the alternative media”—had neither the “resources nor the expertise to do” such an exhaustive investigation.

The Spectator YouTube channel that Neil heads has 304K subscribers. By comparison, Russell Brand has 6.6M YouTube subscribers. Consequently, his channel had considerably more resources than does the Spectator. However, following the alleged LM investigation of Brand, YouTube demonetised his account, so now Brand’s channel resources are flagging by comparison.

Unlike the independent media, which is almost entirely funded by reader and audience donations, the legacy media (LM) is funded by either corporate advertising or, in the case of the BBC, coercive license fees. UK print news media has been declining for years as people increasingly consume news online. In addition, state broadcasters, such as the BBC and Channel Four, are shedding UK viewers in their millions.

Nonetheless, as Neil observed, LM budgets are enormous compared to the shoestring income cobbled together by the independent media. That stark contrast hasn’t stopped the Establishment, which relies on the LM for its propaganda and owns most of it, from panicking.

Their panic explains the commissioning of the Cairncross Review—intended to provide some sort of rationale for propping up the LM.

Ironically, the Cairncross Review concluded that the LM needed “new sources of funding, removed from direct government control.” Of course, genuinely independent news media have already achieved new sources of funding by going directly to their audiences, some of whom value the independent viewpoint enough to support it financially.

Dame Cairncross (DBE, FRSE, FAcSS) apparently considered the independent media funding model to be rubbish. She ruled it out because, as she put it, “the stories people want to read may not always be the ones that they ought to read.” She practically declared that what the public “ought to read” should be stipulated by the “epistemic authorities.”

Instead, Cairncross determined that “the creation of a new Institute for Public Interest News” was needed. To ensure this new overseeing body would be “independent,” Dame Cairncross recommended that it “build strong partnerships with the BBC” and be funded by the UK government.

Her suggestion meant that, just like the current independent media, the LM of the future would be funded by the public. The difference between the two funding models was that Cairncross’s would not be voluntary but achieved through enforced taxation. Through the new body she envisioned, instead of the public choosing which media outlets they want to support the “epistemic authorities” and the government would decide for them.

What Frances Cairncross ultimately recommended was state regulation of the internet as a means of protecting the LM from public opinion. These regulations would tell the people which media outlets they should “trust” and, hopefully, prevent them from supporting the “wrong” media.

Dame Cairncross’ review dovetailed perfectly with the progress of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) through parliament. In her Review, she wrote:

The government will want to consider these recommendations in the context of its parallel work on online harms, disinformation and digital competition, to determine whether the recommendations set out here should be pursued separately or as part of broader packages of measures. In particular, it is for government to determine how best to design and execute policy relating to the activities of the online platforms, including any regulatory oversight. This Review is neutral [. . . .]

Neutral?

The OSA has passed all UK parliamentary reading stages and should receive Royal Assent any day now. It has established Ofcom as the internet regulator. The purpose of the Act is supposedly to improve public safety online—especially child safety. But it is patently obvious that the real objective of the OSA is to stop people from sharing information on social media that the government wishes to prevent from being shared—the article you are reading, for example.

The OSA will limit the online reach of the independent media. Accomplishing this aim is of vital importance to the Establishment—all the moreso because public interest in the LM’s online news reporting is also plummeting.

In addition, the OSA provides significant protection for each of the regulated media organisations that the state controls and categorises as a “recognised news publisher.” This means every legacy outlet plus favoured “independent” media outlets such as Bellingcat, which is also funded by the Establishment.

So, given its protective care and vast resources, what alleged “expertise” did the LM bring to its investigation of Russell Brand, do you suppose? For a full account of that claimed journalism, you can read this article. But perhaps I should warn you in advance that, while the allegations against Brand are very serious and should be investigated by the police, the LM “team” disappointingly didn’t present a shred of real evidence to support those reported allegations.

Worse, the LM evidently fabricated purported evidence to mislead its readers and viewing audience, thereby undermining the accounts of the potential victims.

Yet, according to our Andrew Neil over at the Spectator, for the legacy media to have expended its considerable resources over a period of four years to produce this voluminous research (which we can call hamfisted detritus) requires great “expertise.”

In the Spectator interview, Leith asked Neil for his opinion about the possibility that the LM had launched a coordinated attack on Brand. Here is how Neil replied:

There’s no virtue to it at all[,] and the people who are pushing this line, that there’s a kind of conspiracy to do him down, are the very people who believe in all sorts of conspiracies as well. That vaccinations put little microchips into our bodies, that the Bush administration was really behind 9/11, and all the other nonsense. Of course, naturally we live in a world run by lizard people. We all know who they are [the lizard people], the mainstream media knows who they are, we’re just too frightened to point out the lizards among us. They’re conspiracists on everything now.

It is possible, though hard to substantiate, that a tiny minority of people labelled as conspiracy theorists believe there are microchips in the COVID shots. While the advent of motes makes this claim at least feasible, the vast majority of people who questioned the jabs—and who were also labelled as conspiracy theorists by the “epistemic authorities”—were more concerned about the experimental status, the potential unknown risks and the questionable efficacy of the jabs, not to mention the absence of any completed trials.

Neil’s tiresome “lizards” refrain was based solely on the opinion of one prominent so-called “conspiracy theorist,” David Icke, whose extremely speculative hypothesis of the “Sumerian Anunnaki” was based upon his interpretation of a few Gnostic texts—the Nag Hammadi, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.—and the work of scholars such as Zecharia Sitchin.

No one who seriously questioned the COVID jabs, including tens of thousands of UK doctors and nurses, did so because they thought the royals were lizards. Nor, for that matter, did the structural engineers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks question the official account of 9/11 because they imagined that former US President Bush is a shape-shifting, pan-dimensional reptile.

Let us step back and ask: If Andrew Neil is, as he claims, the intellectual superior of anyone who suggests there may have been a coordinated LM attack on Brand, then why does he overlook the clear-as-day fact that the allegations against Brand were reported simultaneously by almost the entire legacy media on both sides of the Atlantic? Doesn’t such an absolute fact, such irrefutable evidence, point to at least the possibility of planned coordination?

And because that is the case, we are left with only one conclusion: Neil deliberately used a tried-and-true propaganda technique called the straw man argument. That is, he attributed preposterous beliefs to people he disagrees with in order to falsely “debunk,” with contrived ease, arguments they had never made. This technique is also called logical fallacy.

He then used a related technique termed “composition fallacy” to manipulatively claim that the opinion of one person whom he labels a conspiracy theorist (he is referring to Icke without naming him) represents the views of everyone he labels a conspiracy theorist. This is an extremely common LM tactic.

Did Neil say anything about the common suspicion of a possible coordinated attack on Brand? Yes, he did:

[Conspiracism] is a defence that is quite hard to deal with, because it is so ludicrous. It is a defence that doesn’t need facts. It is a culture in which Russell Brand lived and profited, or at least did until YouTube pulled the plug on his revenues. So that’s what they deal in, they don’t deal in the gathering of evidence. [. . .] All these conspiracy theorists can have their absurd opinions about what’s really going on here with Russell Brand, but to establish what’s going on, to produce the evidence, takes investigative journalism.

It is worth reiterating yet again that the investigation into the Brand allegations provided nothing but allegations. This does not mean that the allegations aren’t true. But the LM journalists have not provided anything approaching the “evidence” that Neil claims exists.

Notice that Neil used the word “ludicrous” to signal to his audience that the people he calls “conspiracy theorists” hold ludicrous beliefs. But think about it: His claim was based on his own ludicrous assertions and logical fallacies—not on any actual evidence.

So, if we are to take Neil at his word and “establish what’s going on,” then we need to look at the “evidence” in the hope of establishing some “facts.”

OK, let’s do that. It is a fact that, following publications of the allegations, the LM did not immediately set about finding further evidence to support the possible victims’ claims. Instead, the LM turned its attention to attacking the “conspiratorial” views of Brand and his followers.

Example #1. As soon as the allegations against Brand were published, the BBC wrote that he had “developed a cult following” and had “dabbled in conspiracy theories.” To those charges the BBC added the scintillating “fact” that Brand had built a following during the alleged COVID-19 pandemic because he “discussed conspiracy theories surrounding the disease.”

Example #2. Two days later, using the same alleged “cult” theme, the Metro published an article titled “From Covid denial to mainstream media hatred – Inside Russell Brand’s conspiracy-fuelled cult online following.”

Example #3. A couple of days after that, on the other side of the planet, Australia’s ABC News claimed that Brand’s followers respond to his “rants” simply because he is “controversial” and that his audience is comprised of “people chasing conspiracy theories.”

Example #4. Following the allegations against Brand, the UK government decided that it should express its opinion on a potential criminal investigation. No less than the Prime Minister’s office issued an official statement declaring that “these are very serious and concerning allegations.”

The examples are endless. We don’t have space to cite them all. How odd, then, for Andrew Neil to have claimed in his interview that no one “could give a monkey’s _ _ _ _” about Russell Brand. The “evidence” thoroughly contradicts Andrew Neil. It appears that the entire LM, from all four corners of the globe and the UK government, are very interested in the Russell Brand allegations.

The UK government’s publicised opinion was followed up by emailed letters from Dame Caroline Dinenage DBE MP to numerous social media and online news sites, including the Chinese-owned TikTok and the video hosting service Rumble, requesting that Brand be demonetised on those online platforms.

Caroline Dinenage is Baroness Lancaster of Kimbolton, a leading member of the Establishment and a member of the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Support Select Committee. It is no surprise that this very committee was instrumental in creating the Online Safety Act. Moreover, when the baroness was the Minister of State for Digital and Sport from February 2020 to September 2021, she had ministerial responsibility for guiding the passage of the Online Safety Bill toward becoming the Online Safety Act.

The common law concept of “innocent until proven guilty,” which Neil conceded was an important principle of UK liberal democracy, seems to mean practically nothing to Dinenage.

The notion is bandied about in some quarters of the LM that Dinenage was acting independently. That may be true. But why, then, did she use the official House of Commons letterhead for her correspondence?

As yet, there has been no official statement from the Culture, Media and Support Select Committee on the allegations against Brand. Reportedly, it has merely acknowledged that only “some” of the letters sent out under its name were approved. Considering that all the letters under its letterhead were shameful examples of rank authoritarianism, the fact that any of them were apparently approved indicates the dictatorial tendencies of the Select Committee as a whole.

What actual facts have been established?

First, it is a fact that the LM has exploited the allegations and has deployed the composition fallacy to discredit both Brand’s and his social media followers’ opinions.

Second, it is a fact that the allegations about Brand emerged at the same time that the Online Safety Bill passed its final reading stage. The Brand allegations grabbed all the headlines, leaving virtually no room for prominent coverage of the imminent UK censorship law by the LM. Thoroughly distracting the UK public.

Third, it is a fact that the purpose of the Online Safety Act is to shore up the dwindling reach of the LM and censor its independent media competition.

Fourth, it is a fact that Brand and his followers are considered part of the independent media, which the LM accuses of being conspiracy theorists.

Fifth, it is a fact that formative figures in the UK government have used the allegations published by the LM to attempt to limit the reach of someone who has millions of followers and whom they accuse of being a conspiracy theorist.

Sixth, it is a fact that limiting the reach of popular conspiracy theorists is exactly what the Online Safety Act is designed to achieve.

There is solid evidence supporting each of these facts. So, what did Andrew Neil, a presumed member of the “epistemic authorities,” make of the facts and supporting evidence that he insists he and the entire legacy media he champions hold so dear? In his Spectator interview, Neil had this to say:

I think because Russell Brand’s position, in terms of a variety of conspiracies, is very similar to their conspiracies, they regard him as he’s one of us. So, regardless of what he’s accused of, we need to rally behind him. We need to get behind him, they’re trying to pick us off. I mean, don’t forget, they’re conspiracy theorists so therefore they are paranoid. They’re not just paranoid, they do know most sensible people are against them. And I think it’s a kind of rallying defence to look after one of their own.

The Spectator interview was posted on the September 23rd, after the Dinenage letters and the LM reports we’ve just discussed were published. In other words, Neil had mounds of material at his fingertips, but he chose to discard all the evidence and ignore the numerous facts pointing to a possible political motive for the global legacy media’s and UK government’s pursuit of Brand. Instead, he simply cast all the evidence and facts aside and dove into his “conspiracy theory” accusations.

This is a classic case of how the “conspiracy theory” label is applied by people, such as Neil, who do not wish to acknowledge contradictory evidence or facts. The “conspiracy theory” charge enables Neil and his legacy media cohorts to create what they pretend are unquestionable narratives, which they expect their readership and viewership to “trust” on the flimsy basis of their laughable, self-aggrandising claim to be “epistemic authorities.” It should be noted that this is precisely what “the Science™” of conspiracism decrees.

When Sam Leith, Neil’s interviewer, pointed out that so-called conspiracy theorists cannot be categorised by any single political ideology, Neil didn’t pause to consider the implications of his underling’s accurate statement.

Rather, he embarked on an anecdotal reminiscence as if trying to justify his bizarre conspiracy theory view. Having dismissed all evidence to the contrary, he falsely asserted that conspiracy theory lies only on the extremes of politics and that the far left and the far right (conspiracy theorists) all believe essentially the same thing.

He opined that both alleged extremist wings, and therefore all of the conspiracy theorists he imagines, hate liberal democracy. His conclusion:

People like Russell Brand are no friends of liberal democracy and neither are his supporters.

As we discussed in Part 1, this is mindless proselytising. Entrenched Establishment elitists seriously expect us to accept that the people who most fiercely protect and seek to exercise our democratic right to question power are all extremist conspiracy theorists.

Neil apparently believes that liberal democracy is embodied by the public’s trust in the Establishment’s “epistemic authorities.” Consequently, in his evident view, anyone who challenges the “authorities” and their pronouncements and edicts is undermining liberal democracy. But what he is describing is actually the polity of a totalitarian fascist state—a complete inversion of liberal democracy and the principles it is supposedly based upon.

It is evident that, from Neil’s perspective, only stupid people—conspiracy theorists—question epistemic truth, as presumably defined by his narrow, authoritarian class. He views all such stupid people as unintelligent extremists who seek to destroy the social order he disingenuously calls liberal democracy.

Anyone who uses the “conspiracy theory” label does so, not because they value the evidence, the facts or the dialectic, but because they will not countenance any challenge to their worldview or any dissent from their claimed authority.

The “conspiracy theory” charge is an authoritarian propaganda construct, intentionally created to censor legitimate, fact-based opinion.

It is time we stand up to the “epistemic authorities” and reject their elitist, authoritarian pretence of intellectual superiority.

It is time to insist that all evidence is discussed, that all the facts are established and reported to the public.

It is time to reject the state propagandist’s “conspiracy theory” canard.

Is Putin in Cahoots with the Globalists?

Interview with Riley Waggaman
MIKE WHITNEY via unz

Question 1— In many parts of the world, Vladimir Putin is admired for his outspoken defense of national sovereignty. But on the domestic front, many of Putin’s policies seem to align with those of the Western globalists. As you note in a recent post at Substack Putin just “signed a decree on the creation of a ‘digital’ domestic passport,” which many people think will pave the way to technocratic tyranny. Am I exaggerating the risks of digital ID here, or is this development pose a serious threat to personal freedom?

Riley Waggaman— Imagine if the United States started issuing digital driver’s licenses that could be used as an official form of ID. What would the reaction be? I suspect a lot of Americans would feel “worried”, for lack of a better term. And not without good reason.

The digital passport system being implemented in Russia is deserving of the same skepticism.

First some context: Russia has a “domestic passport” that basically functions as a national ID. You use your domestic passport to open up a bank account, when you have to interact with the local bureaucracy, etc. etc. It’s an important document that you need to do ordinary, everyday things.

The digital passport has been billed as an electronic copy of the domestic passport, accessible via smartphone (via the State Services portal, Gosuslugi). The government is still deciding in what situations/scenarios the digital passport will be accepted as a valid form of ID.

Proponents of this digital document say it’s more convenient than a paper ID, and perhaps they’re right. The problem of course is that modern conveniences can lead to all sorts of unpleasantness, and with time these unpleasant things can even become “normal”.

The fact that this ID will be linked to the State Services portal (Gosuslugi) is certainly cause for concern and it’s easy to imagine how digital passports could be used (and abused) by the Russian government—or any government, for that matter. All in the name of convenience.

Of course, the authorities promise that digital IDs will never be made mandatory. Well, I’m old enough to remember when the Russian government promised that Covid vaccination would be 100% voluntary…

Question 2— Russia appears to be spearheading the transition to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) with its creation of the “digital ruble”. In your opinion, what are the potential pitfalls of such a plan?

Riley Waggaman— Excluding the possibility of imposing a full-spectrum digital gulag, the digital ruble has no obvious benefits. I would say the same of all CBDCs, of course.

Some claim that the digital ruble is a very necessary, prudent, and brilliant way to bypass Western sanctions. This is untrue. The Bank of Russia has a fully functional Financial Messaging System (SPFS) that operates independently from SWIFT. Here are a few RT.com headlines for your consideration:

All of these articles are about SPFS and were published long before the Bank of Russia announced its intention to develop the digital ruble in October 2020.

I’m puzzled as to why so many westerners who claim to understand the dangers of CBDCs think the digital ruble is somehow “different”. The Bank of Russia’s CBDC has been almost unanimously condemned by the country’s most prominent commentators in the alternative/conservative media space. Even mainstream outlets like Tsargrad have published scathing take-downs of the digital ruble.

Meanwhile, in English-language “alternative media”, we are blessed with the profound postulations of deep thinkers like Simplicius who write nipple-hardening purple prose about how amazing and anti-globalist the Bank of Russia is, and why the digital ruble is super hip and cool.

I just don’t understand why English-language commentary (all non-Russian commentary, actually) is so far removed from what patriotic Russians living in Russia are saying about their own country, in Russian.

By the way: The Bank of Russia has already reneged on its promise that it will never, ever “color” digital rubles so that they can only be used to purchase certain items. The central bank’s deputy chairman recently said that placing restrictions on how digital rubles can be spent is a real possibility—and one that will be explored in the future. (link) The digital ruble hasn’t even entered circulation yet, and the Bank of Russia is already open to “exploring” how this fun new tool of total control—endorsed by Davos, the IMF, the G20, etc. etc.–can be used to curb-stomp basic human dignity.

Question 3— Is Russia moving closer to mandatory vaccinations?
(Note: Here’s a quote from one of your recent posts:

Russia’s Ministry of Health wants to amend the National Preventive Immunization Calendar so that COVID vaccination could be mandatory for “vulnerable categories of citizens” whenever the country’s benevolent health authorities believe the “epidemiological” situation warrants another round of coercive injections…..

Of course, any new mandatory vaccination decrees would also apply to state employees, including teachers, doctors, military personnel, etc. Edward Slavsquat, Substack

Riley Waggaman— If Russia’s enterprising health ministry—which works tirelessly to safeguard public health—decides that “Covid” is “spreading” at an unacceptable rate, various categories of citizens will have to choose between getting vaxxed or losing their jobs. This is of course still voluntary vaccination because Russians get to choose whether they want to be employed or inject themselves with an unproven genetic goo developed in cooperation with AstraZeneca.

There are many highly intelligent intellectuals—like Aussie Cossack —who continue to pretend that Russia never had mandatory Covid vaccination, which is very brave considering that as of January 2023, there were still hundreds of Russians who were barred from working because they refused to be injected.

The Gamaleya Center continues to “update” its Covid vaccine, and the Russian government continues to shill this dangerous and barely tested trash to children Whether Covid vaccination will become as ubiquitous and “normal” as the annual flu shot (which is even shoved into the little arms of Russian children every year; I know because I had to sign a document forbidding the kindergarten nurse from injecting my 6-year-old son) is an open question. But you have to be impressively credulous to believe that the Russian government wants to keep Covid vaccination a purely voluntary affair. Russia’s health bureaucracy has a very poor track record when it comes to calling out Big Pharma/WHO scams. Did you know that you have to get an HIV test (an old school 80s Fauci scam) to get a work visa in Russia? Well, now you know.

Question 4— Here’s an excerpt from one of your recent posts that will surprise many readers who think that President Putin actually opposes the Davos crowd and their globalist agenda:

“To defeat globalism, Moscow is reluctantly but responsibly adopting the globalist agenda….

There is no way to stop the technological “progress” promoted by Davos, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, the UN, and the WHO, which is why Moscow must closely collaborate with all of these globalist organizations in order to maintain globalist parity with the Collective West—otherwise Russia won’t be able to protect herself from the globalists.”

And, here’s more from another post:

“…almost every joint declaration Moscow signs (whether it be a G20 Declaration, a BRICS Declaration, or just some word salad authored with the help of Beijing) includes a passage praising the vital roles of the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund? This seems like relevant information.

The Russian government has repeatedly said it has no intention of withdrawing from the WHO, the WTO, or even the IMF. It would be nice if Cerise could update his article to reflect this undeniable reality. Edward Slavsquat, Substack

You appear to be saying that—even though Russia is fighting the western oligarchy in Ukraine—it is still marching in lockstep with the globalists on matters of social policy. Can you expand on this a bit? And how does Putin fit in with all of this? Is he an unwitting accomplice or an eager participant?

Riley Waggaman— Is Moscow fighting the western oligarchy in Ukraine? Gazprom has been pumping gas across Ukraine since Day 1 of the SMO. And that’s not the only natural resource that Russian “entrepreneurs” are desperately transiting through Ukrainian territory.

I have yet to read about a western-backed Ukrainian oligarch having his home vaporized by a Russian missile. Actually, it’s a doubtful that a single western oligarch, anywhere, has been inconvenienced by the SMO. On the contrary, it has been a wonderful money-making opportunity—for Russian oligarchs as well.

But to address the second part of your question: Anyone who follows Russian-language media knows that Moscow is in near-total lockstep with the West when it comes to soul-crushing technocracy and other forms “safe and convenient” societal progress. Actually, an objective observer would recognize that Russia is far ahead of the West in implementing “digitalization” shilled by Davos and other celebrated anti-globalist organizations.

Putin has done nothing meaningful to slow this process down. Actually, by allowing glorious patriots like Herman Gref to spearhead AI, biometrics, QR-coded cattle-tagging, facial recognition systems, “sustainable development”, and other trendy tech-development in Russia, Putin is an unapologetic accomplice in all the unsavory madness pestering Russia and every other country.

Seriously, just look at how the Russian government treats schoolchildren(like diseased, suspicious cattle), and you will begin to understand where this country is headed. Children are the future, after all!

Question 5— Can you summarize your views on the Covid-19 vaccine?

It’s bad.

Question 6— You say that “Russians are not too keen on Russia’s Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina”. According to you: “The socialists, the monarchists, the neo-soviets, the conservatives, the military hardliners—with few exceptions,… all despise Elvira and her digital rubles.”

Later in your article you say: “(Elvira) Nabiullina is a symbol of pursuing an economic policy contrary to Russia’s interests.”

That’s pretty harsh criticism. Can you explain what’s going on? Why would Putin reappoint someone to such an important position who –many feel– is implementing a globalist agenda?

Riley Waggaman— The second quote is actually from Nakanune.ru, which is a left-leaning independent news outlet based in Yekaterinburg. Excluding state-funded media, every news outlet in Russia hates Elvira Nabiullina and thinks she’s a globalist stooge who is actively working to destroy Russia. The conservatives, the Orthodox hardliners, the Communists, the Neo-Bolshiviks, the nationalists—they all despite Nabiullina. This is a fact and why it is never conveyed to non-Russian “alternative news” consumers is a massive mystery.

I haven’t the slightest idea why Putin nominated this Yale World Fellow graduate for another term as the Bank of Russia’s governor, even though she is awful and nobody likes her. Probably this is part of Putin’s ingenious strategy to defeat the globalists with a programmable CBDC 100% controlled by an IMF-obedient central bank that operates independently from the Russian state.

Question 7— In our last interview, you delivered a stirring summary of our current epoch saying:

“I am often reminded of that unsettling line from Alexis de Tocqueville: “I go back from age to age up to the remotest antiquity; but I find no parallel to what is occurring before my eyes: as the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.”

With each passing day it seems we are being forcibly severed from our own past. We are being “retrained” to accept a new civilizational model. It’s happening at the local, regional, national and global level. It is tearing apart families.

I do believe we are facing an evil that has no equal in human history.” Edward Slavsquat Substack

Judging from the response, I think there are a great number of people who feel the same as you do… My final question to you is this: Do you still feel as pessimistic as you did then?

Riley Waggaman— Mike, I would like to thank you (again) for that interview—it remains the most-read post on my blog. As you probably recall, the realities of Russia’s “public health” policies lacked “accuracy” (I’m trying to be charitable here) in 2021, and I think our internet exchange paved the way for a more fact-based, nuanced discussion about Russia’s “Covid response”.

Actually, I’m quite optimistic in the sense that I have accepted that there isn’t a 5-dimensional omnipotent white hat Twitter account that will save me from the Western Satanists, and I will have to save myself—which is actually relatively painless, easy, and even fun. I would even describe my current outlook as hopeful. But

I fully understand the pessimism of someone who is sick of the US government, or any western government; someone who looks longingly at the Russian government as an alternative. The problem with this curious way of thinking is that according to official data,around 30% of Russians live on less than $10 a day, Russia is facing a catastrophic demographic crisis (and it’s hard to think of a more basic metric for gauging the health and of a nation), and the Russian government is a fanatical proponent of policies that are chipping away at the last vestiges of basic human dignity. It’s true that the Russian government isn’t on board with the tranny agenda; that’s a nice footnote to admire as Russia’s birthrate circles the drain.

But again, I am an optimist. I have been able to connect with like-minded individuals here in Russia, and all over the world, and my life has greatly improved as a result. I am able to live the life I want to live without having to make obscene excuses for the inexcusable.

We should all be guided by truth, friendship, and love, and why the so-called “alternative media” is so obsessed with carrying water for governments who offer the world nothing but more of the same (sadness) is truly amazing. Enough already. We have everything we need.

Note: Most of the images are from Riley Waggaman’s Substack account Edward Slavsquat

Maui Fire Survivors – Must See, Dramatic Video Footage

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

A lot of reports and video footage is now coming out from survivors of the Maui fire earlier this month.

Many survivors are claiming that the police prevented people from escaping, with some claiming that they only survived because they did NOT obey police orders, while others did, and died.

This was a very emotional video for me to put together. I am not going to offer any commentary, but let the video speak for itself.

WARNING: Graphic images of people dying and a lot of profanity throughout.

This on our Bitchute channel, and will also be on our Telegram channel. It is only 17 minutes long.

Note by the Author: I apologize that there are a few seconds of black screen that I did not catch in the final edit.