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The Masks Are Coming Off

January 21, 2021

I had intended to start the New Year with a heart-warming piece entitled, “2021: The Year of Censorship of Dissent”. It would have been a somewhat prophetical piece, shocking some readers with predictions of a coming crackdown on dissent, and causing others to hoot with laughter because they haven’t quite caught up with the times we are in. You know, the types who say things like “Oh perrrlease! Social Media companies are private companies and they have the right to decide who they allow on their platform” and “Stop making out it’s the gulag” etc.

Unfortunately, my plans were scuppered by the fact that media and social media companies — let’s call them Global Pravda — have come out of the blocks even earlier than even I anticipated, and have been censoring left right and centre. As a result, my intended “prophetical” utterance seems like yesterday’s news.

We’ve had the censoring of Talk Radio on YouTube. Although this was then restored after intervention at the highest level, I understand some of the wonderful conversations between Mike Graham and Peter Hitchens are still banned. YouTube have also banned videos from extremely qualified scientists around the world, including two lengthy interviews given in English by one of the most qualified microbiologists on planet earth, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi.

We’ve then seen the President of the United States being banned from Facebook, Instagram and more recently Twitter. I am no fan of Donald Trump, but it is clear that he has never used these platforms to “incite violence” – the excuse given for his ban –, and it is obvious that there something else going on there. And we’ve also seen numerous conservatives and scientists who oppose or question the mass quarantining of healthy people literally losing hundreds of Twitter followers in the last few days…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Deconstructing Civilization

July 19, 2020

Deconstructing Civilization

Old paper mill, Oregon City, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

“Our confidence in our ability to direct the course of events has been severely eroded by the experiences of the twentieth century. Several disastrous wars have occurred, against all efforts to prevent them, and even the United Nations has been almost totally unsuccessful in achieving the peaceful world that was its founding vision. We seem powerless to control crime, urban deterioration, overpopulation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation. These experiences suggest that there is a grand dynamic in history that goes largely where it will and is highly resistant to efforts made to redirect it.”
Muddling Toward Frugality, Warren Johnson, 1979

It’s hard not to like George Orwell. And it’s hard not to admire Arnold J. Toynbee. But I didn’t expect to find myself disagreeing with both of them on an issue (let’s call it, thanks to Warren Johnson, a “grand dynamic in history”) that both Orwell and Toynbee clearly agree on.

Well, maybe I suspected that point of disagreement with Toynbee, the famous world historian. But not with Orwell, the fighter for Spanish democracy and the author of 1984.

It’s been over thirty years since I first read Toynbee’s Civilization on Trial, published in 1948. And one couldn’t help but feel—not just Toynbee’s accrued historical erudition—but the Nazi death camps and the American atom bombs behind the urgency of his writing.

In his book, Toynbee says explicitly that the “two congenital diseases of civilization” are “War and Class.” He goes on to say that “recent technological inventions of the modern Western middle class” have now made “Class . . . capable of irrevocably disintegrating Society, and War of annihilating the entire human race.”

Well, nothing to disagree with there.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Orwell Cancelled? Journalist Says “Vile” Author Aided Nazis

July 9, 2020

Orwell Cancelled? Journalist Says “Vile” Author Aided Nazis

“Orwell was a total fraud.”

OLIVER BUNIC/Getty Images

Despite being dead for 70 years, George Orwell may become the latest public figure to be cancelled after a left-wing journalist called him a “vile man” who aided the Nazis with his strident criticism of Stalinist Russia.

Yes, really.

“In addition to being a gov snitch, fraud George Orwell spent WWII demonizing the USSR as it defeated Nazism,” tweeted Ben Norman.

“As the Red Army sacrificed millions fighting Hitler, and as the Nazi regime shoved Jews into gas chambers, Orwell was writing Animal Farm. Vile man,” he added.

Norton followed up by denouncing the 1984 author as a “reactionary who hated communists more than fascists” before claiming Orwell “didn’t actually believe in free speech. He wanted to take away the free speech of communists. Orwell was a total fraud.”

Respondents pointed out that criticizing Stalinism, which killed multiple times more people than Nazism, doesn’t make one a fascist enabler.

“Orwell cancelled. Stop reading Orwell everybody. There is nothing you are allowed to learn from his books. Ben says,” tweeted Ryan McGoverne.

“This is my favourite cancellation yet. Top 10 of the last hour anyway,” said Alex Boyd.

Norman was also accused of historical inaccuracies.

“To believe this is to be completely ignorant of the history of WWII,” remarked one Twitter user. “Stalin was completely fine with everything Hitler was doing up until the Germans invasion of USSR in 1941. Also the Red Army was not alone in defeating the Nazis.”

To be fair to Norman, he does appear to be a supporter of free speech and an opponent of deplatforming.

However, this once again underscores how “cancel culture” is not merely just pushback on opinions considered to be “offensive”.

Orwell died in 1950 and his legacy as an icon of anti-authoritarianism has held firm over the last 70 years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Orwell & Huxley’s Warnings to the World

June 10, 2020

ORWELL & HUXLEY’S WARNINGS TO THE WORLD

As George Orwell neared his death, he made one final warning to planet Earth and every human on it. Scarily, we are seeing human beings demand their own enslavement and that of others which was exactly what Orwell said would happen.

The woman interviewing Orwell from his death bed asked if he demonstrated that he had the ability to face some of these unpleasant facts. Orwell replied:

“I think that allowing for the book being after all a parody, something like 1984 could, actually happen. This is the direction the world is going in at the present time. In our world, there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self basement. The sex instinct will be irradiated. We shall abolish the orgasm. There will be no loyalty except loyalty to the party (the government/ruling class) but always there will be the intoxication of power.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot, stamping on a human face. Forever.”

As David Icke said, “Stop acquiescing to power.”

Orwell’s eerie warning is coming to fruition right before our eyes and even “freedom-loving” Americans are allowing it, even cheering for it to happen. “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on YOU,” Orwell said.

Yet we have people in the “land of the free” calling for martial law and the use of violence to put down dissent. We have violent people stealing, looting, and rioting to protest police violence. We see people defend the military for firing on innocent people on their own porch. We have people demanding free speech be eliminated because they don’t like what’s being said. We have people get outraged the second they read something that disagrees with the brainwashed bias in their mind (cognitive dissonance.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China’s Covid Cover-Up, Economic War And The Elites Who Benefit

May 6, 2020

China’s Covid Cover-Up, Economic War And The Elites Who Benefit

“Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge, which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible…” – George Orwell, 1984

The problem with wars, beyond all the death and destruction they cause, is that they are almost never fought for the reasons that governments claim. In most cases there is an underlying agenda which the public may or may not discover many decades later, and such agendas are NOT for our benefit. Wars rarely erupt over mere unplanned circumstance. Wars are rarely random.

War is a tool for social engineering because it creates widespread crisis for the unprepared masses, and as the unprepared scramble for safety, the state can institute authoritarian powers they never could have asserted in peacetime. Not only this, but in our modern era over the past century there has been a distinct pattern following the aftermath of each war in which power and governance is centralized. Every time disaster strikes, the proposed solution is centralization and global government. You would think the political elites would offer some new ideas after 100 years, but no, they only have one idea that they try to sell to us relentlessly.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Don’t Trace Me, Bro” — Just Say No to Contact Tracing

May 1, 2020

“Don’t Trace Me, Bro” — Just Say No to Contact Tracing

Contact Tracing? Really? That’s the next big government program to push for total surveillance over our lives. Now the real fallout from the Coronapocalypse comes to light.

The very people who created a fake pandemic out of faulty statistics, media fear-pimping and the rankest of propaganda are now pushing the total surveillance state to protect us (them?) from the next crisis.

James Corbett from the Corbett Report just published an excellent video discussing ‘contact tracing’ as promulgated by (who else?) the Clinton Global Initiative to create an army of new Brown Shirts to assist our wise and benevolent leaders in managing us like livestock.

James is urging us not to use their Orwellian term, and I agree with him. But the best way to do that is to make fun of it and them.

I propose just looking at them and saying, “Don’t Trace Me, Bro.”

As always when they want to herd us towards a terrible idea they first have to come up with a harmless sounding euphemism for it. Either that or just call it a war that we’re going to fight and win together, you know, for kids!

But this was always the plan with this virus. We can speculate as to why this has been done, why it was directed from the commanding heights of our society but, in the end, that speculation is irrelevant.

This is happening, it’s here and they are now working to square the circle. The goal is to finish off the last vestiges of anonymity and individuality started with the destruction of financial privacy during the Clinton Adminstration, which was wrapped in the classic government phrases “Know Your Customer” and “Anti-Money Laundering”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Can a French Touch Pierce a Neo-Orwellian Farce?

March 1, 2020

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Can a French Touch Pierce a Neo-Orwellian Farce?

By offering asylum to the persecuted publisher of WikiLeaks, France’s Macron would enhance his status in myriad European latitudes and all across the Global South, writes Pepe Escobar.

It’s quite fitting that the – imperially pre-determined – judicial fate of Julian Assange is being played out in Britain, the home of George Orwell.

As chronicled by the painful, searing reports of Ambassador Craig Murray, what’s taking place in Woolwich Crown Court is a sub-Orwellian farce with Conradian overtones: the horror…the horror…, remixed for the Raging Twenties. The heart of our moral darkness is not in the Congo: it’s in a dingy courtroom attached to a prison, presided by a lowly imperial lackey.

In one of Michel Onfray’s books published last year, “Theorie de la Dictature” (Robert Laffont) – the top dissident, politically incorrect French philosopher starts exactly from Orwell to examine the key features of a new-look dictatorship. He tracks seven paths of destruction: to destroy freedom, impoverish language, abolish truth, suppress history, deny nature, propagate hate, and aspire to empire.

Michel Onfray in 2009. (Alexandre López, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

To destroy freedom, Onfray stresses, power needs to assure perpetual surveillance; ruin personal life; suppress solitude; make opinion uniform and denounce thought crimes. That sounds like the road map for the United States government’s persecution of Assange.

Other paths, as in impoverishing language, include practicing newspeak; using double language; destroying words; oralizing language; speaking a single language; and suppressing the classics. That sounds like the modus operandi of the ruling classes in the Hegemon.

To abolish truth, power must teach ideology; instrumentalize the press; propagate fake news; and produce reality. To propagate hate, power, among other instruments, must create an enemy; foment wars; and psychiatrize critical thinking.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On the 70th anniversary of Orwell’s death: The danger of third parties “curating” and “fact checking” our info

January 22, 2020

On the 70th anniversary of Orwell’s death: The danger of third parties “curating” and “fact checking” our info

Political writer George Orwell, who died Jan. 21, 1950

It is a dangerous practice: Government, corporations, universities, news outlets and “experts” curating our information so that we cannot access, see or believe that which they determine we should not access, see or believe.

If anyone had suggested to Orwell, or the American founders, that we would invite this sort of manipulation and control of our information, they wouldn’t have believed it.

The idea was first introduced on the national stage by President Obama in October of 2016 right before the presidential election. He insisted that somebody needed to step in and “curate” our information in the “Wild, Wild West” internet environment.

Nobody had been clamoring for any such thing.

So the challenge for those who came up with this bright idea– in my opinion in an effort to control news and information– was to convince the public to accept something very un-American: their information being shaped and censored by others.

Watch Attkisson’s Tedx talk: Astroturf and Manipulation of Media Messages

This feat was accomplished in concert with the anti-fake news effort, started in September 2016 through a nonprofit called First Draft. (First Draft was funded by Google, owned by Alphabet, run by Eric Schmidt, a major Hillary Clinton funder and supporter.) The anti-fake news effort was also an effort by special interests to step in and control news and internet information.

In a relatively short period of time, they had us. Curate our information, we cried. Block “untrue” news reports and blogs! Fact check political ads and certain politicians! Remove selected social media accounts! We invited special interests and political players to control our information under the guise of knowing what’s best for us.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Roger Waters Stunned At Assange’s Plight: “Orwell & Huxley Were Both Right”

October 30, 2019

Roger Waters Stunned At Assange’s Plight: “Orwell & Huxley Were Both Right”

Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has been an outspoken advocate for Julian Assange, but the most recent sight of the reporter’s physical and mental health, at his recent court appearance, has Waters stepping up his criticism of the establishment’s slow-assassination of the exposer of US war crimes.

Referring to a UK judge’s decision on Monday to deny the WikiLeaks founder a delay in US extradition proceedings, Waters proclaimed:

“Orwell and Huxley were always arguing about who had the closest view of what dystopia might look like in the future… I think we got a lot of both.”

As RT summarizes, the world described by George Orwell in ‘1984’ was one of mass surveillance and paranoia, where anyone could be snatched off the street by the state and made disappear for ‘wrongthink’. In ‘Brave New World’ Aldous Huxley, on the other hand, described a future where mass entertainment and the easy availability of pleasure-giving drugs made dissent virtually impossible.

“We have the ‘Big Brother’ Orwellian dystopian nightmare, it happened two days ago in that magistrate’s court,” he explained to RT.

And, exposing our ‘Brave New World’-isms, Waters points out that:

“You only have to look out in the street and see the people, the walking dead going by… and taking absolutely no notice of the fact that this journalist is being murdered by our government.”
“And we walk by with our earbuds in… clicking away on our iPhones as we walk unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring through our lives, and allow this bullshit to take place in our names, in our courts,” Waters concluded.

Together with veteran journalist John Pilger, the Pink Floyd frontman hosted a rally for Assange in front of the British Home Office in September, that went unreported by every single British newspaper.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth Alive?Why Don’t We Hear Much About Julian Assange?

September 11, 2019

Is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth Alive?Why Don’t We Hear Much About Julian Assange?

In Orwell’s dystopian fiction 1984, the government’s mission through the Ministry of Truth is to supply its people with news, entertainment, books, films, plays and songs, packed with the information it wants the people to know. It constructs lies to fit the narrative it wishes to establish and sets about rewriting historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line.

Have we slept walked our way into 1984 with the curious witchhunt of Julian Assange?

From the time Wikileaks published Collateral Murder in 2010, exposing the slaying of Iraqi civilians at the hands of merciless US Apache soldiers, in what became the biggest news story of its time, the United States has wanted Julian Assange silenced and forgotten.

He has lived in a state of confinement since May 2010 when he was arrested and jailed in the United Kingdom, lived under house arrest for a further 18 months in England and then sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy from June 2012 .Yet many people think Assange was in a position where he could simply walk free.

Has there been a well crafted smear campaign to dehumanise Assange and coax the public into forgetting him? How else could he have been detained within two tiny rooms devoid of sunlight for more than six years without public commentary and concern? The apparent dismantling of Assange’s character and disinformation has been thorough. Most people do not know the specifics of his case, but “believe” he is an arrogant rapist and an ungrateful, badly behaved houseguest, smearing faeces on the embassy walls and being cruel to his cat. These disputed claims are now so well accepted it’s inconceivable that they could actually be lies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

USSA Social Credit: The U.S. Denied Entry to Student Because of His Friend’s Social Media Posts

August 29, 2019

USSA SOCIAL CREDIT: THE U.S. DENIED ENTRY TO STUDENT BECAUSE OF HIS FRIEND’S SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

A Harvard student has been denied entry to the United States because of what one of his friends posted on social media. Ismail Ajjawi reportedly had his visa canceled after hours of questioning at Boston’s airport by the USSA.

Silicon Valley is already hard at work manipulating behavior, taking on the role of anauthoritarian government, and attempting to punish people for not acting the way they see fit. But it’s gone a step further. The government is now rejecting entry to the country for foreigners based on their friends’ actions and social media posts. This is the dystopian future George Orwell warned us about in his iconic book, 1984.

Written 70 years ago, 1984 was Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984, the year, has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever.

Ajjawi’s friends posted “political points of view that oppose the United States, reported CNET. The U.S. government is obviously probing visa applicants’ social media profiles and punishing people for their friends’ opinions. Ajjawi, from Lebanon, didn’t actually do anything wrong. He’s “guilty by association.” The U.S. government is one of totalitarian control and wants ultimate power over everything, including your very thoughts and opinions. This is a truly horrific time in human history.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson Michael McCarthy said in an emailed statement that he couldn’t offer specific details on Ajjawi’s case due to confidentiality clauses. “This individual was deemed inadmissible to the United States based on information discovered during the CBP inspection,” he wrote. Ajjawi, who got a scholarship to study in the U.S., returned home to Lebanon over the weekend. He and the university are working to resolve the matter before classes start next Tuesday.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Just When You Thought Surveillance Tech Couldn’t Get Any More Orwellian…

June 14, 2019

Just When You Thought Surveillance Tech Couldn’t Get Any More Orwellian…

One of my favorite TV shows was Person of Interest. In that show, a genius programmer was hired by the government to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) computer to tap into and analyze communication feeds and predict activities that may pose a threat. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, things spun out of control; the system that was designed to benefit society was not always beneficial to citizens.

As amusing as it is to watch escapist fiction such as this, it’s not so enjoyable when you realize it’s no longer fiction. China has already developed the infrastructure to envelop their citizens in this protective surveillance net and has begun that slippery slope of using AI to not only catch activities deemed undesired by the government – it’s starting to take action against those observed.

In the city of Shenzhen (and most likely others), when an offender is observed jaywalking via video surveillance, they will publicly humiliate you by showing your face on screens located around the city. Now that’s bad enough but they’re going a step further. Those identified will have their cell phone ‘pinged’ and be sent an immediate fine.

By the way, Intellifusion, the company behind the AI system involved is in talks with WeChat and Seina Weibo (China’s equivalents of Facebook and Twitter).

The surveillance state is expanding, and even children are not exempt.

You may think there must be some kind of check-and-balance system built in to ensure that children would be protected so that they wouldn’t suffer the same consequences as an adult. You’d be wrong.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nineteen Eighty-Four Turns 70 Years Old In A World That Looks A Lot Like The Book

May 14, 2019

Nineteen Eighty-Four Turns 70 Years Old In A World That Looks A Lot Like The Book

This month, George Orwell’s legendary novel Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 70 years old, and the warnings contained within the story are now more relevant than ever. Orwell’s predictions were so spot on that it almost seems like it was used as some type of accidental instruction manual for would-be tyrants.

In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, there is an all-encompassing surveillance state that keeps a watchful eye on everyone, in search of possible rebels and points of resistance. Censorship is the norm in this world, and is so extreme that individuals can become “unpersons” who are essentially deleted from society because their ideas were considered dangerous by the establishment. This is an idea that is very familiar to activists and independent journalists who are being removed from the public conversation for speaking out about government and corporate corruption on social media.

Orwell is famous for coining the term “double-speak,” which is a way to describe the euphemistic language that government uses to whitewash their most dirty deeds. For example, in Orwell’s story, the ministry of propaganda was called the Ministry of Truth, just as today the government agency that was once known as “The Department of War,” is now called the “Department of Defense.”

There was also never-ending war in Orwell’s story, the conditions of which would change on a regular basis, keeping the general population confused about conflicts so they give up on trying to understand what is actually going on. Some of these predictions were merely recognitions of patterns in human history, since the idea of “unpersons” and war propaganda is nothing new. However, Orwell had an incredible understanding of how technology was going to progress over the 20th century, and he was able to envision how technology would be used by those in power to control the masses.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Orwell Goes Retail: Stores Now Track Where You Shop… And Sleep

April 28, 2019

Orwell Goes Retail: Stores Now Track Where You Shop… And Sleep

In news that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, retailers are now tracking not only where are you shop, but also where you sleep, according to a new Bloomberg article.

For instance, Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, Texas used information and location data from customers’ phones to determine that a lot of shoppers own pets. Using this data, it went on to install water fountains, babysitting stations and photo op stations for customers and their pets. As a result, the time customers spent in the mall grew by 40%.

One shopping Center in Chicago found it was drawing customers from Asian neighborhoods, so it filled one of its vacancies with a high-end Asian specialty grocery. And even Dunkin’ Donuts is getting in on the trend. It employed phone data to make sure that the 278 new stores it was opening wouldn’t steal customers from existing locations.

These few clues that retail owners are getting from customers’ phones are one of the last chances brick-and-mortar shops have at trying to salvage their industry. They’re buying this mobile phone data hand over fist in order to help determine where people shop, eat and see movies. They’re also looking to see where customers go before and after going to the mall. It helps them look at personal details and paint a picture of the demographic that shops with them. It also helps them advertise.

But aside from transforming the industry, this is raising privacy concerns. The idea of being tracked – surprise – makes some people uneasy (how that is not “all” is beyond comprehension). All the companies interviewed for the article said that they don’t use any information that can identify individuals, but due to lax regulation, they’re really on the honor system to keep their word. So, we’re absolutely positive they’re doing the right thing…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EU is Steadily Moving Towards Creation of 1984-Style Ministry of Truth

March 16, 2019

EU IS STEADILY MOVING TOWARDS CREATION OF 1984-STYLE MINISTRY OF TRUTH

The European Parliament passed a recommendation calling Russia “the main source of disinformation in Europe” and appealing for increased funding for the EU’s East StratCom Task Force, which already got 1.1 million euros in 2018.

HINT: The East StratCom Task Force is a EU body focused on so-called proactive communication of EU policies and activities in the Eastern neighbourhood (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) and beyond (Russia and further).

The passed document says that East StratCom Task Force as well as its two task-force subdivisions dealing with the southern neighborhood and Western Balkans, should get “adequate financial and personnel resources which are still required, aimed at the significant increase of their potential, effectiveness, professionalism, institutional continuity and quality of work, as well as safeguarding them against political meddling by officials and countries that back Russian disinformation.”

Furthermore, it called on EU member states “to ensure that electoral laws take into account possible threats stemming from disinformation campaigns” and urged them to “adapt their electoral rules on online campaigning and to monitor and evaluate the transparency features in relation to political advertising introduced by the online platforms.”

The suggestions also include support for “independent and diverse Russian-language media in the countries of the Eastern Partnership and beyond” and “to focus on the EU accession countries and partners in the EU neighborhood by assisting them in their efforts to counteract hostile propaganda and disinformation activities.”

The formal justification of the moves suggested in the document is based on the mainstream media narrative that Russia every day carries out disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks, aimed at increasing tensions within the EU and its member states.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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