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Of Economic Crises and Pandemics: Facebook as Fact, Government as Truth, Big Pharma as God

December 30, 2022

Of Economic Crises and Pandemics: Facebook as Fact, Government as Truth, Big Pharma as God

If events since March 2020 have shown us anything, it is that fear is a powerful weapon for securing hegemony. Any government can manipulate fear about certain things while conveniently ignoring real dangers that a population faces.

Author and researcher Robert J Burrowes says:

…if we were seriously concerned about our world, the gravest and longest-standing health crisis on the planet is the one that starves to death 100,000 people each day. No panic about that, of course.”

No panic because the controlling interests of the global food system have long profited from a ‘stuffed and starved’ strategy that ensures people unnecessarily go hungry when corporate profit rather than need dictates policies.

US social commentator Walter Lippmann once said that ‘responsible men’ make decisions and must be protected from the ‘bewildered herd’ – the public. He added that the public should be subdued, obedient and distracted from what is really happening. Screaming patriotic slogans and fearing for their lives, they should be admiring with awe leaders who save them from destruction.

During COVID, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern urged citizens to trust the government and its agencies for all information and stated:

Otherwise, dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.”

In the US, Fauci presented himself as ‘the science’. In New Zealand, Ardern was ‘the truth’. It was similar in countries across the world – different figures but the same approach.

Like other political leaders, Ardern clamped down on civil liberties with the full force of state violence on hand to ensure compliance with ‘the truth’. Those who questioned the COVID narrative – including world-renowned scientists – were smeared, shut down and censored.

It was an internationally orchestrated campaign involving governments, the big tech companies, media and the WHO, among others.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Martial Law Is Unacceptable Regardless Of The Circumstances

July 29, 2020

Martial Law Is Unacceptable Regardless Of The Circumstances

Back in 2014, hundreds if not thousands of conservatives and liberty movement activists converged on a farm in rural Clark County, Nevada. The purpose was to protest the incursion of federal government agents onto the property of the Bundy family, who had defied pressure from the Bureau of Land Management to stop allowing their cattle to feed on “federal land” in a form of free ranging. It was a practice that had been going on for decades and one that was required for the Bundy farm to survive, ended abruptly by environmental laws protecting a tortoise.

The Bundy family had been improving on the area with aquifers and other measures for generations without interference. The claim by the BLM and other agencies was that the farmers were destroying wildlife habitat with their cattle, yet the Bundy’s land improvements had actually allowed wildlife to THRIVE in areas where animals would find life difficult or impossible otherwise.

The federal government became fixated on the Bundy’s, and decided to make an example out of them. Their defiance of the crackdown on their use of the land was met with extreme measures, including their cattle impounded, their farm being surrounded and sniper teams placed in the hills nearby. The liberty movement saw this as the last straw, and so reacted at a grassroots level. The concern was that Bundy Ranch could become another Waco. They locked and loaded and went to defend the Bundy’s.

I completely agreed at the time with the efforts surrounding Bundy Ranch and I still agree with them today. The federal government had overstepped its bounds on multiple occasions when it came to rural farmers in sagebrush country and everyone had finally had enough.

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

Here’s Why the Economy Won’t Recover–and No, It’s Not Covid-19 or the Lockdown

April 23, 2020

Here’s Why the Economy Won’t Recover–and No, It’s Not Covid-19 or the Lockdown

When reality and truth become the sworn enemies of society’s political and economic elites, the society is well and truly doomed.

The risks of Covid-19 and the lockdown have been explored across a wide spectrum of opinion. To hit just a few of too many to count:

— Permanent loss of civil liberties under the guise of “pandemic controls.”

— Failure of control measures to limit the pandemic in any sort of economically manageable manner.

— Schemes for ID Cards identifying those with antibodies may fail as immunity might be fleeting, or low antibody counts may not confer immunity.

These visible risks arise directly from the pandemic and efforts to control it, but the reasons why the economy won’t recover were in force long before the pandemic:

1. Unsustainable dependence on expanding debt to fund consumption as earned income stagnated.

2. Unsustainably high costs imposed by cartels, monopolies, insider-skims/scams, institutionalized fraud, hyper-financialization, exploitation, etc. (Please see What’s Collapsing Can’t Be Saved: Our Fraudulent Economy)

3. The economy-wide creation of self-serving simulations of trust, credibility, transparency and accountability as substitutes for actual trust, credibility, transparency and accountability.

This ceaseless spew of simulacra to cloak self-serving corruption is hidden from view lest the truth–that authentic trust, credibility, transparency and accountability have been dismantled because they inhibit the profiteering and exploitation of insiders and elites– undermine the entire status quo.

And so “success” (as in maximizing profits) in America is now a game of creating believable facsimiles of what was once authentic. Like all mammals, humans retain a sixth sense–commonly referred to as the “sniff test”, i.e. something doesn’t feel right–and so the simulacra are only partially successful in making us believe institutions are trustworthy, credible, transparently operated and governed in a way that enforces accountability.

As a result, the more all our dominant institutions press their claims of legitimacy, the more they erode their legitimacy.

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

Dave Collum’s 2019 Year In Review: “I Fought The Fed, And The Fed Won”

December 21, 2019

Dave Collum’s 2019 Year In Review: “I Fought The Fed, And The Fed Won”

Authored by David B. Collum, Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology – Cornell University (Email: dbc6@cornell.edu, Twitter: @DavidBCollum),

“I hope David comes to his senses.”

~ Nassim Taleb (@nntaleb), best-selling author and Professor at NYU

Every year, David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year’s is no exception.

Contents

  • Introduction
  • About the Author–A Brief Autobiography
  • Contents
  • Sources
  • Creation of the Year in Review
  • My Personal Year
  • Investing
  • Almond-Eyed Aliens and Other Conspiracy Theories
  • Gold
  • Bitcoin
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • The Fed and Repo-Madness
  • Share Buybacks
  • Climate Change
  • The Jeffrey Epstein Affair
  • Thoughts on College
  • Political Correctness–Collegiate Division
  • Political Correctness–Adult Division
  • Political Correctness–Youth Division
  • Political Correctness–Corporate Division
  • Civil Liberties
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Books

The whole beast can be downloaded as a single PDF here, for those who prefer to do their power-reading offline.

If it happened this year & mattered, it’s covered in here…

Introduction

It is that time of year again when I sit down and, in a frenzied stream of subconsciousness, bang out my view of the world. It’s my 11th chronicling of human folly and anthropogenic global idiocy (AGI).1 It’s like when Forest Gump jogs: I start writing, go on too long, and then just stop. Forty years of writing about organic chemistry has taught me that you do not understand something till you finish writing about it. Constrained by time—you can’t write an annual synopsis in May—I have made sure to sacrifice quality not length.

“Huge fan. Please continue to remain above the din.”

~ Guy Adami (@GuyAdami), trader and commentator on CNBC’s Fast Money

*I am the din, Guy.

Figure 1. An original by Candace E. Cornell (my wife) dedicated to Jeff Macke (my Bud and the Banksy of Wall Street).

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

BigBrotherWatch: Facial Recognition ‘Epidemic’ in the UK

August 25, 2019

BigBrotherWatch: Facial Recognition ‘Epidemic’ in the UK

BigBrotherWatch: Facial Recognition ‘Epidemic’ in the UK

At TruePublica we have written endlessly about the continued slow strangulation of civil liberties and human rights in Britain. We have warned about the rise of a techno-Stasi-state where technology is harnessed and used against civilians without any debate or indeed any real legal framework.  We have alerted the public on the illegal mass data collections by the government and subsequent loss of much it by MI5 who should not have had it all in the first place. We warned against ‘digital strip searches‘ – an activity of the police of the victims in rape cases, and the fact that Britain is becoming a database state. At TruePublica we have tried to press home the story that surveillance by the state on such a scale, described as the most intrusive in the Western world – is not just illegal, it’s immoral and dangerous. (see our surveillance database HERE).

Here is more evidence of just how dangerous and out of hand this creeping surveillance architecture is becoming. An investigation by Big Brother Watch has uncovered a facial recognition ‘epidemic’ across privately owned sites in the UK. The civil liberties campaign group has found major property developers, shopping centres, museums, conference centres and casinos using the technology in the UK.

Millions of shoppers scanned

Their investigation uncovered the use of live facial recognition in Sheffield’s Meadowhall, one of the biggest shopping centres in the North of England, in secret police trials that took place last year. The trial could have scanned the faces of over 2 million visitors.

The shopping centre is owned by British Land, which owns large areas within London including parts of Paddington, Broadgate, Canada Water and Ealing Broadway. Each site’s privacy policy says facial recognition may be in use, although British Land insists only Meadowhall has used the surveillance so far.

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

Is the World Becoming Less Free?

January 30, 2018

Is the World Becoming Less Free?

Erosion of the rule of law and various civil liberties are causing the world to be a less free, less prosperous place.

The Cato Institute has, in cooperation with the Canadian Fraser Institute and the German “Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit,” assembled a comprehensive 396-page report on human freedom in the world. Overall, governments worldwide have reduced the level of freedom in recent years.

The Link between Individual Liberty and Prosperity

Freedom of movement, expression, and information, as well as the rule of law, have seen the largest decreases since 2008.

Since 2008, the global Human Freedom Index (HFI) has gone down to 6.93/10 from 7.05/10. According to Ian Vasquez and Tanja Porčnik, who drafted the report, important factors for the score were performances in the categories regarding individual and civil liberties, as well as economic liberty. When it comes to the latter, the researchers point out that the individual liberty is very much linked to economic prosperity: the freest countries show a higher GDP per capita ratio compared to those with very low levels of individual freedom. Hong Kong, which ranks second in Cato’s Human Freedom Index, is a noticeable exception on this point.In total, twelve major categories determined the overall freedom score of a country. The Cato Institute found that particularly in the area of freedom of movement, expression, and information, as well as the rule of law, have seen the largest decreases since 2008. “In many parts of the world, freedom is under assault, with nationalism, populism, and hybrid forms of authoritarianism being sold as viable alternatives. As such, the largest deteriorations in freedom have occurred in Syria, Egypt, Venezuela, Belize, and Greece,” says Tanja Porčnik.

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

Arizona Citizens Tracked In Facial Recognition Database In First Step For REAL ID Implementation

December 6, 2017

Arizona Citizens Tracked In Facial Recognition Database In First Step For REAL ID Implementation

Arizona citizens are now in a government database that uses facial recognition technology to track them simply for getting a driver’s license. This allows federal and local law enforcement to use the “perpetual lineup” of suspects not accused of a crime to see if someone is wanted for a crime, Arizona Capitol Times reported.

The state says that the program is to prevent identity theft and fraud. Here’s how it works according to Arizona Capitol Times.

After someone at the Motor Vehicle Division takes your photo, your face is scanned by a system based on a proprietary algorithm that analyzes facial features. The system compares your face against the 19 million photos in the state’s driver’s license database to look for similarities. If an image is similar enough, the system will flag it for further review.

The program is an effort that is part of a nationwide initiative called the REAL ID Act that was created by Congress in 2005 as a response to the September 11th terror attacks. The system allows the state to comply with the federal act, which increased standards for identification documents. Although the REAL ID Act does not explicitly call for facial recognition, it does maintain that states need to take measures to reduce fraud.

The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) already has publicly boasted about the success with more than 100 cases it has taken to court for fraud using the technology, which has been in place since early 2015.

But the use of the system to prevent identity theft isn’t what people are worried about; the problem is the lack of oversight in government programs that allows anyone with access to look into the database. As such, state-run facial recognition databases are dangerous and can lead down a slippery slope to allow other operations the technology wasn’t intended for.

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

Supreme Court to Debate Warrantless Collection Of Cellphone Records in Huge Fourth Amendment Battle

November 29, 2017

Supreme Court to Debate Warrantless Collection Of Cellphone Records in Huge Fourth Amendment Battle

In one of the most important Fourth Amendment battles of the digital age, the Supreme Court is preparing to tackle a case involving law enforcement accessing cellphone records without a warrant.

On Wednesday the US Supreme Court is scheduled to address the case of Carpenter v. United States to determine whether or not law enforcement should be required to obtain a warrant before accessing the cellphone records of an individual. The case deals with a set of armed robberies that took place between December 2010 and March 2011. Several men worked together to rob RadioShack and T-Mobile stores in the Michigan and Ohio areas, stealing cell phones and holding store employees and customers hostage in the process.

A couple of the men were arrested and quickly confessed afterwards. However, one man remained at large. With one of the suspect’s phones in their possession, the FBI gained access to”transactional records” from various wireless carriers for 16 different phone numbers contained within the phone. These records contained all the location info and call records made to and from the phone. Using the “cell-site records” pulled off the phone, the FBI was able to locate and arrest the final suspect, Timothy Carpenter. He was charged and convicted by a jury of aiding and abetting robbery that affected interstate commerce, and aiding and abetting the use or carriage of a firearm during a federal crime of violence. Carpenter now faces life in prison for his crimes.

The FBI gained access to the cell-site records using provision set forth by the Stored Communications Act, which was passed in 1986 to deal with the protection of information stored digitally.

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

Ron Paul: Vote All You Want, the Secret Government Won’t Change

September 10, 2016

Ron Paul: Vote All You Want, the Secret Government Won’t Change

In a recent episode of his web show, the Liberty Report, Ron Paul discussed the Department of Homeland Security’s decision last month to take a more active role in U.S. elections. Secretary Jeh Johnson said he was “considering whether elections should be classified as ‘critical infrastructure,’ affording them the same kinds of enhanced protections that the banking system and the electrical grid receive,” POLITICO reported.

The potential move came on the heels of the notorious DNC leak in July, which exposed intentions within the Democratic Party to manipulate the primary race against Senator Bernie Sanders. Politicians and the media quickly blamed the hack on Russia, failing to cite conclusive proof of their allegations yet spawning the narrative that the Kremlin and other foreign threats could compromise U.S. elections.

On his show, Paul took issue with the notion that the Department of Homeland Security, an agency riddled with incompetence and failed objectives — case in point, the TSA — is capable of securing U.S. elections.

Speaking on DHS’s decision to become more involved in the process following the DNC hack, Ron Paul offered a scathing indictment of the federal organization, arguing it will capitalize on troubling events to seize power:

“They may have false flags and they may do a lot of things, but no matter how an emergency comes up, they’re going to make use of it. And the use of it isn’t to say ‘Hey, how are we going to protect the American people?’ 

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

 

Vladimir Putin Speaks Honestly

November 2, 2015

Vladimir Putin Speaks Honestly

Russia’s president is a refreshing contrast to the liars who inhabit Western governments and Western media. The agenda of the Russian government is peace and international cooperation under the rule of law. Washington’s agenda is hegemony.

President Putin endeavors to lead the world to peace, while the neoconservatives who control Washington’s foreign policy try to drive the world to war. Contrast the crazed statements that flow from Washington comparing President Putin to Hitler, suggesting his assassination, and calling for shooting down Russian military aircraft with President Putin’s appeal that Washington abandon its hegemonic agenda and submit to international law and international cooperation. As President Putin has emphasized, for Washington “international cooperation” means submission to Washington’s will.

President Putin repeatedly states that governments must govern in accord with the people and not function as a decree-issuing body in accord with interest groups disrespectful of the people.
Throughout the West we see the increasingly unresponsive behavior of government. In the United States careful studies conclude that, despite elections, the American people have essentially zero input into the policies decided in Washington. In Greece, the government is coerced to impose on the Greek people policies dictated by large German banks supported by the German and EU governments. In Portugal, the socialists who won the election were told by the conservative president that they would not be permitted to form a government. In the UK, a senior military official stated that the military would not permit Jeremy Corbyn to form a Labour government should the Labour Party win the election. The United States government threatens the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina for representing the interests of the voters who put them in office instead of Washington’s interests. The United States government has destroyed American civil liberty with its unconstitutional mass surveillance, indefinite detention without charges, and murder of US citizens without due process of law. Dissent itself is in the process of being criminalized.

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

The Civilisation of Capitalism

October 22, 2015

The Civilisation of Capitalism

This piece was written for The Cobden Centre by Vishal Wilde. Vishal Wilde is a finalist studying for a BSc (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics & Economics (Economics major) at the University of Warwick. He wishes to spend his life fighting for and defending freedom. He is a Freelance Journalist (writing, most recently, for the Market Mogul), he writes Poetry, Science-Fiction and Fantasy and conducts independent academic research in Economics, Political Science and Philosophy. He is a Research Consultant for Fantain Sports, Pvt Ltd. (a tech startup based in India). He has previously written research articles and blogged for the Adam Smith Institute.

‘The Civilisation of Capitalism’: Schumpeter on Rationality and its relevance to the ideal of a free society

In Joseph Schumpeter’s (1942) Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy , Chapter 11 is entitled ‘the Civilisation of Capitalism’. There, he argues that the culture fostered by Capitalism has been responsible for the ‘rationalisation’ of society, as we know it. Rather than quoting Schumpeter word-for-word, I’d encourage people to read that short chapter. We can derive inspiration from Schumpeter’s thoughts in making the case for free markets and a free society.

Intuitively, one would expect the individual living in a free society to be more intelligent and rational than his counterpart in a hypothetical, centrally planned Utopia (like Plato’s Republic). In a predominantly centrally planned economy, where there is deprivation of civil liberties, choices have already been made on our behalf whereas in a free society, people have more choices. The typical individual in the former will, most likely, be more naïve than his counterpart in a freer society and in the latter more rational. The freer society is, the greater the sphere in which people can develop the appropriate mental faculties for optimising outcomes.

– See more at: http://www.cobdencentre.org/2015/10/the-civilisation-of-capitalism/#sthash.DwTGy8Vx.dpuf

On Patriot Act Renewal and USA Freedom Act: Glenn Greenwald Talks With ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer

May 28, 2015

On Patriot Act Renewal and USA Freedom Act: Glenn Greenwald Talks With ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer

Even in the security-über alles climate that followed 9/11, the Patriot Act was recognized as an extreme and radical expansion of government surveillance powers. That’s why “sunset provisions” were attached to several of its key provisions: meaning they would expire automatically unless Congress renewed them every five years. But in 2005 and then again in 2010, the Bush and Obama administrations demanded their renewal, and Congress overwhelmingly complied with only token opposition from civil libertarians.

That has all changed in the post-Snowden era. The most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act are scheduled to “sunset” on June 1, and there is almost no chance for a straight-up, reform-free authorization. The Obama White House has endorsed the so-called “reform” bill called the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House by an overwhelming majority. Yet the bill fell three votes short in the Senate last week, rendering it very unclear what will happen as the deadline rapidly approaches.

Unlike many privacy and civil liberties groups, the ACLU has refrained from endorsing the USA Freedom Act and instead is advocating for allowing the Patriot Act provisions to sunset — i.e., to die a long overdue death rather than being “reformed.” Meanwhile, almost all of the 86 “no” votes in the House were based on the argument that the USA Freedom Act either does not go far enough in limiting the NSA or that it actually makes things worse.

I spoke yesterday with the ACLU’s Deputy Legal Director, Jameel Jaffer, about what is likely going to happen as the June 1 deadline approaches, whether the USA Freedom Act is a net positive for privacy supporters, and what all of this reform means for Edward Snowden’s status. The discussion is roughly 20 minutes and can be heard on the player below; a transcript is also provided.

 

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

Want to Roll Back Bill C-51?

May 20, 2015

Want to Roll Back Bill C-51?

So does OpenMedia. Internet freedom group launches plan to ‘turn this debate on its head.’ First in a series.

It’s clear Canadians are deeply unhappy with the way the federal government views the privacy rights of its citizens. Last week, Bill C-51 passed in the House of Commons. It’s now before the Senate and is expected to become law within weeks.

This is a piece of legislation so extreme that experts say it will lead to widespread violations of our charter rights.

Today, OpenMedia, which advocates for more Internet freedom, is launching a privacy plan aimed at rolling back Bill C-51, ending government-supported surveillance and restoring the privacy rights of Canadians.

The report, entitled Canada’s Privacy Plan, was the result of a crowd-sourced survey that gathered input from more that 100,000 Canadians. More than 10,000 of you used thiscrowdsourcing tool to provide detailed input on how you want to tackle our privacy deficit.

Bill C-51 has been widely criticized by Canadian civil liberties advocates. Among other things, it permits federal departments to exchange the private information of Canadians, and makes it easier for police to restrict the movement of suspects.

But Bill C-51 is just one aspect of the alarming privacy deficit the government has created. In the last 12 months, we’ve seen stunning revelations about how the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE) — the agency that collects foreign security intelligence from the Internet — is spying on Canadians’ private online activities and on private emails that Canadians send to members of Parliament.

And we’ve seen Justice Minister Peter MacKay’s online spying Bill C-13 become law, despite opposition from 3 in 4 Canadians.

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

Edward Snowden Calls Canadian Intelligence Oversight Among ‘Weakest’ In Western World

March 6, 2015

Edward Snowden Calls Canadian Intelligence Oversight Among ‘Weakest’ In Western World

U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden criticized the inadequate oversight of Canada’s intelligence operations on Wednesday, calling its framework “one of the weakest” in the Western world.

In a live chat moderated by CBC Radio host Anna Maria Tremonti, Snowden touched on the topic of mass surveillance and its potential impacts on Canadians’ civil liberties.

“Canadian intelligence has one of the weakest oversight frameworks out of any Western intelligence agency in the world,” Snowden said in a video link from Russia.

 

“It’s pretty amazing that we have the Canadian government trying to block the testimony of former prime ministers, you know, who’ve had access to classified information, who understand the value of these programs.”

Four of the country’s former prime ministers — Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Joe Clark, and John Turner — added their voices to the debate last month, calling for increased oversight over Canadian intelligence to balance proposed sweeping changes in Bill C-51.

They pointed out the “lack of a robust and integrated accountability regime” impedes their overall effectiveness, making it difficult to meaningfully assess the efficacy and legality of Canada’s national security agencies.”

“This poses serious problems for public safety and for human rights,” they said in a statement.

 

 

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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