tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70983492024-03-10T15:24:28.656-04:00Kirby MountainUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1939125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-27815768652405310162024-02-29T10:39:00.005-05:002024-03-10T15:19:15.000-04:00A brief note on the name of Phoenix Park<p>The Irish is <i>fionnuisce</i>, which Ó Dónaill & Ua Maoileoin’s dictionary defines as “<a href="https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fb/fionnuisce" target="_blank">uisce locha nó abhann</a>”, water of a lake or river. <i>Uisce</i> is water, and <i>fionn</i> (white, fair) in this context means clear. <i>Fíoruisce</i> is spring water (<i>fíor</i> means true, in this context pure).</p>
<p><i>Uisce beatha</i>, of course is whiskey, which is more commonly called <i>fuisce</i>, which is a gaelicisation of the English, which itself is from the Gaelic <i>uisge</i>. Macbain’s 1911 etymological dictionary of Gaelic notes that “Stokes suggests the possibility of <i>uisge</i> being for <i>*uskio-</i>, and allied to Eng. <i>wash</i>.” Rounds.</p>
<p>“Tiers, tiers and tiers. Rounds.” (<i>Finnegans Wake</i> page 590) Tears when they are copious are <i>uisce cinn</i>, head water.</p>
<p>Tears in general are <i>deora</i>. An exile is <i>deoraí</i>. Exile is <i>deoraíocht</i>. Nice connection, although Macbain, citing Stokes again, says the latter may come from “un-countried”, something like <i>dí-bhrughacht</i>, whereas <i>deor</i> (the singular form) is related to Greek <i>dákru</i> (i.e., δάκρυ) and Latin <i>lacrima</i> (<i>dacrima</i> in early form) and thus cognate with the English.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-22364308817041400522024-01-10T16:02:00.008-05:002024-02-09T10:25:34.694-05:00Quick server load monitor and alert<p>In crontab:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><code style="font-family: courier;">*/5 * * * * cat /proc/loadavg > /path/to/lafile.txt
<br />1,6,11,16,21,26,31,36,41,46,51,56 * * * * wget -q -O - '[url:]lafile.php'</code></p>
<p>The loadavg command is thus run every 5 minutes, and the php file is run 1 minute later. The output of loadavg is a single line, eg:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><code style="font-family: courier;">0.75 0.35 0.25 1/25 1747</code></p>
<p>The 1st value is the average load over the past minute, the 2nd value over the past 5 minutes, and the 3rd over the past 15 minutes. (The 4th value is the number of currently running processes out of the total number of processes, and the last value is the ID of the last process used.)</p>
<pp>The php file:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><code style="font-family: courier;"><?php
<br />$loadavg = "";
<br />if (file_exists('/path/to/lafile.txt')) {
<br /> date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');
<br /> $latime = date("g:i:s a, d F Y", filemtime('/path/to/lafile.txt'));
<br /> $loadavg = file_get_contents('/path/to/lafile.txt');
<br /> preg_match('/(\d\.\d\d) (\d\.\d\d) (\d\.\d\d)/', $loadavg, $lamatch);
<br /> if ( $lamatch[2] > 4 ) {
<br /> require_once('/path/to/PHPMailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php');
<br /> $mail = new PHPMailer();
<br /> $mail->setFrom("[from@email]", "Sender");
<br /> $mail->addAddress("to@email", "Recipient");
<br /> $mail->Subject = "Server Load Alert";
<br /> $mail->Body = $latime . ":\n\n 1-minute load average: " . $lamatch[1] . "\n 5-minute load average: " . $lamatch[2] . "\n15-minute load average: " . $lamatch[3];
<br /> $mail->send();
<br /> }
<br />}</code></p>
<p>The php file gets the modification time and the first 3 values from file.txt, and if the 2nd value (ie, 5-minute load average) is more than the number of CPUs of the server (eg, 4), it sends an e-mail alert.</p>
<p>It may be possible to combine these into a single shell script with the use of awk, but I'm not familiar with it. Also, the mail() function instead of PHPMailer could be used.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-86482193407618598842023-12-18T12:04:00.004-05:002023-12-18T12:04:53.558-05:00Anti-Semitism Appeals to Intellectuals Because It Feels Like an Idea<p><a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/arts-culture/2023/12/anti-semitism-appeals-to-intellectuals-because-it-feels-like-an-idea/"><i>Adam Kirsch writes at </i>Mosaic<i> (excerpted):</i></a></p>
<p>Gary Saul Morson’s characteristically learned and insightful <a href="" target="_blank">essay on Dostoevsky</a> raises the question of how a writer with such a profound understanding of good and evil could fall prey to such a rudimentary moral failing as Jew-hatred. As Morson says, the implications of this question go far beyond Dostoevsky himself. His example reveals one of the most troubling qualities of anti-Semitism, here and now as in 19th-century Russia: its shamelessness. Many people who congratulate themselves on their benevolence, and would be deeply ashamed of being exposed as racist or homophobic, take a certain pride in hating Jews.</p>
<p>This is not simple hypocrisy. Rather, it is a sign that anti-Semitism is differently constituted from other kinds of prejudice, so that to those who harbor it, it doesn’t feel like a prejudice at all. Instead, it feels like an idea. ...</p>
<p>The German intellectual Wilhelm Marr coined the term “anti-Semitism” in a book published in 1879, the same year that <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> began to appear as a serial in a Russian magazine. For Marr, anti-Semitism wasn’t a heart-hatred but a principled hostility to “Semitism,” an ideology supposedly espoused by all Jews. In The Victory of Judaism Over Germandom, Marr wrote that “the Jewish spirit and Jewish consciousness have overpowered the world,” echoing Dostoevsky’s complaint that Jews were responsible for the triumph of European “materialism.” ...</p>
<p>In treating the Jews as a synecdoche for all the developments in modern civilization that they detested, anti-Semites belonged to a very long tradition. As David Nirenberg shows in his excellent book Anti-Judaism, Jews were being used for this purpose even in ancient times. But it was Christianity that made it one of the fundamental habits of the European mind. Starting with the apostle Paul, who said that Judaism was based on the letter that killeth and Christianity on the spirit that giveth life, Western self-criticism has often taken the form of attacking its own Judaizing tendencies. This useful technique makes it possible to recall Christians to their duty while suggesting that they are not really at fault, since they have been led astray by Jews or Jewish values.</p>
<p>Thus for Dostoevsky, the rise of capitalism in the 19th century meant that Christians were giving into the Jewish vice of “blind, carnivorous lust ... for personal accumulation of money.” Similarly, Marr wrote sarcastically that “the Jews are the best citizens of this modern, Christian state,” meaning that Germany had institutionalized the Jewish vice of materialism. Today, Israel often serves the same rhetorical function for Europeans, who like to accuse the Jewish state of the things they are most ashamed of in their own history, from nationalism to colonialism to genocide. ...</p
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-3667054489244401112023-12-12T12:20:00.012-05:002024-01-10T10:05:09.431-05:00An example of age-old Jew-hatred masked as secularist liberal/progressive critique<p><i>“Matt Morley” on Facebook, as engaged by “Olaf Errwigge”</i></p>
<p>============</p>
<h2>October 17</h2>
<p>THE ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD IS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY. GIVE PALESTINE BACK TO ITS PEOPLE!</p>
<p>====</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>One state, then.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>I think we may be past that now, the people of the lie might have to leave! I'm personally in favour of methodically defunding and dismantling the "Jewish state", but perhaps if there was a policy of mandatory intermarriage then the Khazars might at least have partial authenticity! And I'm only half-joking!</p>
<p><b>Dale Dickinson</b>
<br>Bad idea</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>There are very few good options, my friend!</p>
<p><b>Иван Спасић</b></p>
<p>Historically Palestine belongs to Jews also, they are settled there for at least 3000 years. They were genocide by Muslims (religious exile, not national, if you do not except that being Muslim is nation as people from Bosnia want it to be true) in last 1000 years. The problem is that they have to live together, none of them have the right to ethnically clean state. The Middle East was the original melting pot of nations thousands of years before the USA took that label.</p>
<p>Also, a huge part of the problem is that western secret services are putting oil on fire in the Middle East for the last 100 years to be able to control it, so just pull Anglo-Saxons out of there and leave people to deal with their troubles alone and we can have peace. Most people in the Middle East just want to be left alone, there was almost no terrorism there before western money made it. They were warrior nations, but from the times they all become Muslims there were no major wars until GB took some of the land in North Africa and Middle East.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b></p>
<p><i>Иван Спасић</i> Ivan, the notion that the "Jews" even exist is a fabrication, as is their fictional "history" in the "Bible". I put all these things in quotation marks because too many take them as established facts when they are far from such! The problem is that there is a difference between what most people think when they hear "Jews" compared to, say, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus etc. They know perfectly well that the latter terms are devoid of ideas of "race", and are reckoned only in terms of faith and sometimes culture.</p>
<p>This is exactly how we should be thinking of "Jews", but instead we have this introduced notion of "race" or "ethnicity" which underpins the continuing falsehood that there is some connection with the "Jews" or (God preserve us!) "Israelites" of the "Bible". No such connection exists, as many truthful "Jewish" scholars will tell you quite openly. Modern "Jews" are simply a converted cult made up of various proselytized groups, across the Mediterranean coast into Spain, Ethiopia and Yemen, but mostly from the various Turkic peoples who populated the kingdom of Khazaria, which was contemporaneous with Byzantium and the early Arab Muslim expansion.</p>
<p>All these were converts to an abominated version of the Judaic Pharisee cult of Roman-occupied Palestine, the word "Jew" and the term "Judaic" springing from the Roman word Judea as a small eponymous province which encompassed roughly the southern half of the area within the current West Bank borders, according to most accounts. That is to say, the Hebrew cult of Jehovah (one of many) had found a home there during the later Babylonian period and set up a temple, naming themselves after the "biblical Judah", eldest son of "Jacob-Israel".</p>
<p>By the time of the Romans the original beliefs had become refashioned into an unrecognizable form, and the original people and whatever gene-pool there had been were swallowed up into the melting-pot of the Greco-Roman Middle East. The language they spoke was not Hebrew but a mixture of Aramaic, Greek and Latin, and very likely this would have been the language of "Jesus" and his "apostles". This is where the fictional account of a "lost people" arises from, and THIS gained new currency amongst the converted Khazarians when their kingdom collapsed, as they spread out across Eastern Europe from the Baltic to southern coasts of the Black Sea.</p>
<p>The rest has become, in this case, Ashkenazi history...
<p>============</p>
<h2>October 19</h2>
<p>Codified "racial purity", a "chosen people", grab for "living space", hateful "othering" of humanity...remind you of anything? 🐍</p>
<p>====</p>
<b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>The expulsion of Jews from Muslim countries throughout the 20th century? Not to mention of course the Nazi genocide culminating a millenium or so of scapegoating and pogroms?</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>The so-called "expulsion of Jews" from Muslim countries was, for the most part, a voluntary migration driven by the reward of jobs, money and land in Palestine, unlike the forced exodus of Palestinians from the very same land! As for the "millenium or so of scapegoating and pogroms", we must begin with the fact that the "Jews" are nothing more than a nation of Turkic religious converts who follow the amoral precepts of a long-expired fanatical Judaic cult, precepts to aid in the struggle to hold power in a small province of the eastern Roman Empire, with whom they have NO genetic or direct historical connection, nor of culture or language. There is NO such thing as a "Semitic people", and therefore NO such thing as "anti-semitism". These are the people of the lie, behind whom the collective West hides its collective guilt for its invention and the atrocities it has produced!</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Besides, either you have missed the obvious point of my post, or clumsily attempted to avoid it by invoking one of the many falsehoods used to justify that which can never be justified!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Ah, so Jew-hatred is both wholly justified and nonexistent! All those pogroms, including the one last week in Israel itself, aren't real because the victims themselves are lies!</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Hatred between peoples is only hatred, you can't give it special status by adding another name to it. Do you think it more likely that Palestinians hate "Israelis" because they're "Jews", or because they have unjustifiably colonized, terrorized and abused them in the name of a fictitious history, and engineered the theft and destruction of all that was once their nation? Don't try to be clever, there is only one original violation of human rights here, no quid pro quo!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Their nation? They lived under Ottoman rule and then British. That doesn’t justfiy their displacement, but their claim of a nation is no more valid than that of the Zionists. Jews always lived in Palestine as well. And the Arab Palestinians would have had a nation alongside the Jews in 1948 but wanted more. Then all of Israel’s neighbors attacked the Jewish state in 1948 and again in 1967. They rather blew it.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> You're cherry-picking to avoid getting at the heart of the problem. Of course people of many faiths lived together in Palestine, that was precisely the virtue of being a land that was part of what was essentially an empire that was itself the expression of a fraternal faith. That is NOT the same thing as an organized group of religious thugs in league with arrogant Christian mysticists in a far away place, making deals and drawing up contracts based on nothing but lies!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>One-fourth of the Israeli population is not Jewish.</p>
<p><b>Barry Schier</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge.</i> About 3/4 of the Israeli population is Jewish. (About 1/5 of the Israeli population is Arab / Palestinian, whose average income is only about 2/3 of similarly educated / situated Israeli Jewish counterparts, according to Israeli Jewish media, e.g., Jerusalem Post). Moreover, a significant (and growing) percentage of Israeli Jews ({10%)) are Haredim (I e. Orthodox Jews, many who devote full-time (with rabbis comprising a tiny percentage) reading, etc., Jewish texts instead of working for a paycheck and whose female household members usually are homemakers / baby makers in that very sexist subreligion.). Also included in the statistics (thus pulling down the Israeli Jewish "average" figures are Sephardic and North African Jews, near Eastern (especially emigrants from Iran and Arab countries) who are subject to discrimination among Israel Jews. Moreover, during one self-billed protest-march, 30,000 in this country claiming to be non racist and democratic chanted and carried banners against the immigration admission into Israel of Falashim (as Ethiopian / Black Jews call themselves, while Israel's dominant (i.e., of Euroamerican background / ancestry);population calls them "Schwartza,'s" -- Yiddish /Hebrew word with translation / connotion of "darkies".</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Meanwhile in Muslim-majority countries, Jews were expelled.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Please provide sources for that statement?</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>It’s obvious that you know nothing.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> It's obvious you just like saying sh*t without backing it up, it's obvious you're prone to ad hominem attacks whenever someone makes a statement you don't agree with, it's obvious that you're an attention-seeking pathetic little jerk!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>It's not a hidden history. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world">Jewish exodus from the Muslim world - Wikipedia</a></p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Educate yourself bro’.
<p>============</p>
<h2>October 22</h2>
<p>ON THE NOTION THAT THERE IS A "SEMITIC RACE" OF "CHOSEN PEOPLE" AND THAT THEREFORE "ANTI-SEMITISM" EXISTS AS A COROLLARY OF "RACISM" AND "HATE-SPEECH"</p>
<p>The word "Semitic" originated as an arbitrary designation for a group of similar languages assumed to have been spoken across the near or middle east in pre-Christian times, i.e. before the influences of Greek, Latin, Turkic and formalized Arabic. While the Bible and the Koran are principally codified fables, exaggerated to compel cohesion against paganism and a destructive, anarchic society, both are based on the supposed Mosaic traditions and the Torah of the "Jewish faith". Through a complex series of actual historical macro-events (which need not be told here), this almost entirely unsupported and tenuous group of writings introduced a number ideas which have been twisted into modern misconstruction. In this case, returning to the word "Semitic", we find that the inventors of the term were engaged in the attempt to identify the ancient figures and peoples of the Christian Bible in terms of modern linguistic "descendants".</p>
<p>They decided to reference the fable of Noah and the "Great Flood" as the starting point, using his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth as the precursors. Hence Shem becomes Semite and Semitic, bound up with false notions of language and ethnicity. Ancient Hebrew, which was an aural language (these were illiterate times, for the greater part of the population!), has NO CONNECTION to modern "Israeli" save that which comes from the scant and far more recent writings of the Christian era. Most material has, at its root, the Greco-Roman "Judaic" culture, and the Pharisaic cult which was the last remnant of that expression. Those who point to the Khazars and Sephardic groups are correct, for all these were proselytised converts, with no genetic, historical, cultural or linguistic lien with the fables they inherited. "Judaism" is a religious cult, not a race or ethnicity!</p>
<p>====</p>
<b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>A people that don’t exist, yet hated as a people for millennia. You only prove the need for a Jewish state, a refuge from hate like yours.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Excuse me, but...where is the "hate" in anything I've said?</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Maybe it was your complete denial of Jewish history and identity.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> That comes down to a matter of historical accuracy versus belief! It has nothing to do with irrational ideas of "hate"! You seem to be dedicated to belief in a "Jewish history and identity" while I have my own, qualified opinions about those things. If anything, you have a hatred of the contradiction I and others present to you, since it clearly impacts on your fixed perspective. You defend this to the point of aggression and insult and I strongly suggest you consider the level of your own "hate" before accusing others!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>You're telling Jews what to think about themselves, that their own sense of identity is a lie.</p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> He is just explaining history.
<br>What kind of id*iot are you?</p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Get a brain bro’.</p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Zionism is the issue here. It is a political, secular movement. Has nothing to do with true Jews who have lived in peace with Muslims and Christians for hundreds of years.
<br>Get yourself educated!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Medina Cheatle</i> — Except when those Muslims and Christians have needed a scapegoat. Except when the Arab Palestinians decided they couldn’t tolerate them. That’s history, too. Even so, Jews and Muslims live together in peace in Israel, where about 20% of the population is Muslim.</p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> 10% of Palestinians are Christian, in fact the oldest in the world. If you google who caused the most wars in history it is the Christians, followed by Buddhist with Muslims
<br>way down on the list.
<br>The people causing the trouble are the Zionists who are Khazarian or Ahkenazi Jews.
<br>They are from the area of Turkey and Khazakstan.
<br>This is why they are white.
<br>They have no genetic link to Hebrews.
<br>Historically they converted to Judaism for political reasons.
<br>It is interesting they claim ‘God’ gave them this land when in fact 90% of Israelis are non rabbinical.
<br>Many Israeli rabbis are against the Zionists and are speaking out on social media. One well known one is Rabbi Weis.
<br>Netanyahu is immensely unpopular.
<br>It is interesting that there were huge protests planned in Israel against him. Now he has immense support. Hmm!
<br>There is absolutely no way security failed. Even a fox cannot get through it. Six hours for a soldier to respond.
<br>Really?
<br>This is to ‘justify’ genocide.
<br>This was either a False Flag operation or a deliberate stand down.</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Medina Cheatle</i> — Historically, they were persecuted for centuries, even when they were completely integrated. You may well be right about Netanyahu allowing the latest pogrom to occur, but the fact is it did occur.</p>
<p><b>Medina Cheatle</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> True Jews were persecuted. However, not Zionists as their movement is around one hundred years old. Zionism is a secular political movement.
<br>These are the trouble makers. Khazarian
<br>Jews were from Turkey and converted to Judaism for political reasons. They have no genetic link to Hebrews. That is why Israelis are white. They claim their ‘God’ gave them the land and yet 95% of them is non rabbinical !
<br>What a joke.
<br>They are the true terrorists!
<br>Rabbi Weis is just one of many rabbis who has spoken out against these thugs, along with Professors Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, who have both been banned from entering Israel or Gaza by the Israeli government.</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Medina Cheatle — Now do Muslims and Christians.
<p>============</p>
<h2>October 24</h2>
<p>Almost without exception, those who attack my posts on "Israel" with the greatest vitriol will end by saying something which alludes to their "history", their "identity" or special status in the world. This is tantamount to saying "because God says so!", no matter which way you break it down.</p>
<p>It is an insult to humanity !</p>
<p>=====</p>
<b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>What is so special about the Arab Palestinians, then? They didn't have a nation before 1947, either.</p>
<p><b>Helgrit Bruce</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> the so called israel is on the land whichwas palestina. you confound something</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Yes, it was a region of the Ottoman Empire.</p>
<p><b>Kirsty Allen</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine">History of Palestine - Wikipedia</a>
<br>The occupiers may change, but the people that remained there are the indigenous people</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Well, Jews, descended from the original Canaanites, had remained there.</p>
<p><b>Kirsty Allen</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> and do you see the Jews that remained there championing Zionism? No! Because they are Palestinian!</p>
<p><b>Matthew Fox</b>
<br>The land was populated with people who were olive and darker complected. Europeans were placed there. walk through tel aviv and you will see blonde hair and blue eyes everywhere.
<br>how did that Happen in under 100 years time?</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Matthew Fox</i> — Maybe pogroms and persecutions and expulsions contributed.</p>
<p><b>Matthew Fox</b>
<br>enough to become 86% of the population?
<br>that's a Lotta blue eyed, pale complected people being persecuted</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Well, yes.</p>
<p><b>Catherine Atchison</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> yes they did. Which is why Israelis are cutting down their olive trees, because it proves they've been there for generations</p>
<p><b>Catherine Atchison</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Ashkenazi jews are European and their dna can be traced to 4 maternal dna lines- all from ukraine/Poland region</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Catherine Atchison</i> — And the other Palestinians?
<p>====</p>
<b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Welcome Olaf everybody, one of my biggest fans! As you can tell, he comes from the "because God says so" side of the argument, and he'd like to know what is so special about the Arab Palestinians. Let's start with the fact that they've never demanded something which wasn't already theirs to begin with, and never needed to think of themselves as a nation until the British and the Zionists had already hoodwinked them out of the greater part of their national heritage! Anyone else like to chat with Olaf?</p>
<p><b>Lynn Faulkner</b>
<br><i>Matt Morley</i> It's a waste of time to have a meaningful conversation with anyone whose mind is closed.</p>
<p><b>Rhonda Even Weber</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> What are you a jew?</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Ouf! It's always a good idea to put such words in quote marks! Helps fool the algos and posits the terminology as arguable from an existential point of view. This allows debates such as "how can there be such a thing as "antisemitism" when there is no such thing as a "Semitic race"...", for example!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Lynn Faulkner</i> — You can say that again!
<p>============</p>
<h2>November 22</h2>
<p>There is no "Jewish race"!</p>
<p>Even if we accept that "Jews" have an "identity", it is simply wrong to suggest that this should give inalienable rights over another's property and heritage based upon invention. The only correct way to describe what is essentially an adherent of just another mythocentric cult is not "Jew" or even "Jewish". The word we should use is Judaist, which I do not place between speech marks since this is the proper parallel to the terms Christian or Muslim.</p>
<p>There are no "histories" that hold up to scrutiny, nor is there any meaningful connection between modern "Jewish" people and whatever comprises the fables told about ancient kingdoms and personalities. In short, you cannot hold both the myths and the secular reality of "Jewish" expression to be true, and this is the very sophistry which Zionism has delivered, to our chagrin!</p>
<p>You will note the direction in which this leads us: to remove the power wielded by those who use "antisemitism" as a blunt instrument to defend the Zionist cause, it is necessary to tell the whole truth. There are no "Jews", no "Semites", no "chosen people", there is no "Israel", no "Judah and Samaria", no "right to exist" and no "Yahweh"! To reiterate, there is NO "Jewish race"!</p>
<p>There is nothing but a dangerous, conflated fiction constructed out of whole cloth by a Pharisaic cabal sequestered in Greco-Roman Judea, a part of an empirical province long known as Palestine. And, of course, there is no such thing as "antisemitism", so when we say "from the river to the sea", we mean the reinstatement of a land for people of all faiths without Zionist overlords and modern-day Pharisees!</p>
<p>====</p>
<b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Then there are no "Palestinians" either.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> That is a different discussion, and is not relevant here!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>But the argument against Jewish identity is being made on behalf of those Palestinians. Why bother, if both are fictions?
<p>============</p>
<h2>December 9</h2>
<p>Reality check:</p>
<p>NO-ONE is "born Jewish", just as no-one can be "born" Christian or Muslim. So let's talk about Zionism...again!</p>
<p>====</p>
<b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Well, actually one is. It is not a matter of religion.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> It is entirely a matter of religion, and the cult behaviour instilled by the Talmudist tradition from birth. You have been taught to think of yourself as a "separate people", and to behave in a manner which is hateful towards the rest of humanity, as well as insulting the intellect by pretending this is a question of race. This is so close to Aryanism it's unfunny, and most of the world has no tolerance for it anymore. Every time you claim to be a "chosen race", every time you invoke the angry God of a twisted, fabulist history with which you have NO connection, you are simply pissing people off, mightily!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Nobody asks whether you're "religious" during a pogrom. As you so clearly express it, the caricature is that every Jew, including those pretending not to be – by changing their name and converting to the preferred religion, even joining the anti-Jew mob – is a threat and needs to be purged. You even throw in those who question your assumptions and reasoning.
<p><b>Alfred Cassis</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> no olga it is not, it's a mater of who's in charge imposing an attitude</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> How long is it going to take to get through to you? Your ingrained habit of throwing up the "antisemitism" argument at every turn simply does not have any credibility to it, and never did! As long as you insist on conflating your cult religion (Judaism) with an entitled racial characteristic (linguistic semitism) people will feel insulted when debating you. This means YOU are responsible for the impression YOU create in the minds of "others", especially since that "othering" (using words like "goy"') is the STARTING POINT of every argument you make. If we were dealing with just another weird religion that held no implied threat we would merely have debates about the nature of God, and how ridiculous it is to insist that yours is superior to anothers. Perhaps we might have to invent the word "Judaophobia" for antipathy towards the cult, and as with "Islamophobia" remember that we are talking about a faith which informs a culture that is universal and multicultural (like Christianity). But the way you're going right now you are inviting hatefulness by CREATING IT FIRST!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Matt Morley</i> — That's rather the defining characteristic of bigotry: blaming the victim for your hatred of them. How can you seriously deny that Jews have been hated for centuries? And when did I ever use the word "goy"? I'm not the one "othering". I'm not the one justifying historic bigotry with paranoid fantasies.</p>
<p>====</p>
<p><b>Dale Dickinson</b>
<br>Here is the reality Mat, your prejudicial hatred aside, one can be born a Jew and never actually follow Judaism. It's an odd bit of nomenclature can mean a both a people and a religion.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>That belief is PRECISELY what is wrong, and saying so does NOT constitute "prejudicial hatred", merely disdain of sophistry and assumed privilege. It's not about people, it's about what they do to others without conscience, something which comes under a different kind of "nomenclature" eg. "war crimes"! Tell me, and everyone else for that matter, is it Arabs you despise, Muslims in general, or both? Your expressions of "prejudicial hatred" have been quite clear at times, especially when you reference your operational experience in the field!</p>
<p>============</p>
<h2>December 14</h2>
<p><b>Steve Dench</b>
<br>December 6<p>
<p>Dr. Areilla Oppenheim at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, did the first extensive DNA study in 2001 of Israelis & Palestinians, and concluded that the emigrants on ships to Palestine before it became Israel were of Mongol 40% & Turkish 40% genome. There was no Semetic blood associated to the original Hebrews from the Middle East of 4,000 years ago in Jerusalem or Biblical territory.<p>
<p>This was confirmed by another DNA project by Dr. Eran Elhaik at the McKusick-Namans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the John Hopkins University of School of Medicine in 2012. His conclusions were the same!<p>
<p>The Askenanzi did not ever migrate out of the Middle East!<p>
<p>At the same time extensive DNA evidence found the Palestinians to be 80% more or less, Semitic blood in their ancestors who were found therefore to be the real Israelites.<p>
<p>The white Jews whose ancestors embarked on ships in 1882 to Palestine before it was named Israel aren't Israelites. These White Eastern European descendants of German, Russian, Polish, Austrian, Georgian, etc., are impostors claiming to be Gods Chosen Ones, but are descendants of the old Khazars from the Khazarian Caucus, & they have been denying this scientific evidence as they have made up myths of their own histories, which already many Americans believe throughout one whole century, i.e. Scofield Bible.<p>
<p>The real history of the new established "Israel in 1947" is no secret today!</p>
<p>====</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>So what? "White" people aren't allowed in the Middle East? But the fact is, there are many genetic studies showing that Arab Palestinians and Jews are more closely related to each other than to any other groups.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Olaf Errwigge There ARE NO "JEWS", only Judaists, a religious cult no different to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism...or Mormonism for that matter. There IS NO "JEWISH RACE", not even a distinct ethnicity. The history is bunkum, the "language" an invention, and the tenuous genetic links are due to intermarriage more than anything else. No-one is listening to your lies any more! And if you think you can twist ANY of that into some rant about "antisemitism", I tell you that doesn't exist either. We can, and we WILL IGNORE YOU, and continue to insist on restoring Palestine to those who were robbed of it!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>Then what were all those pogroms about?<p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>Ignorance, division, conquest...and "The invention of the Jewish People", to become an un-lanced boil on arse of humanity, driving everyone mad to this day!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>I suppose you think the Nazi murder of some 6 million Jews was another self-serving tall tale?</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br>I believe the true story is tragic enough, not just for the "Jewish" victims, and if 6 million is the accepted round number (I don't accept), then about a quarter were shot and buried in Ukraine (that I DO accept) along with a significant number of others in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Roumania, Ruthenia, Moldova, Hungary and Bulgaria. I also believe that the Zionists worked hand in hand with the Nazis to decide who would and who would not be allowed to leave Germany, a plan which involved influence and large sums of money, and promises of oil from the Middle East and the Caucasus when Nazi Germany took on the Soviets. And I believe that, yes, since the end of the war the truth has been buried under the Zionist obfuscation that is the "self-serving tall tale" of the "Shoah", and all the policies they continue to push for to prevent open and honest debate!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>And you accuse Jews of making things up. Good reminder, though, that Jew-hatred was (and obviously is) widespread, that the Nazis had (and would still have) a continent full of willing executioners.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Nothing stated above is "made up", it speaks very directly to the historical facts regarding the deaths of around 2 million "Jewish" people at the hands of actual Nazis in those countries! Moreover, none of those people would ever have thought of themselves as being "Jewish" first and, say, "Ukrainian" second if no-one had attacked them for their faith alone! Don't you get it?</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br><i>Matt Morley</i> — That's exactly my point. No matter how integrated or secular you may be, society will always define you as a Jew. And when it needs a scapegoat, you're it. That's not a myth created by Jews, but historical reality driven by myths like yours.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> That IS the point indeed, and it is caused by ignoramuses, right-wing rabbis, Zionists and the "Jewish" media, all of whom continually rehash the false history of "Jewish" continuity and superiority, all bound up in the perpetual pseudo-tragedy of a "lost people", abused wherever they go for being who they are NOT! The whole damn thing is a fraud!</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>You see? You're scapegoating: The Jews deserve what they get, because they insist on reminding people how they've been persecuted for centuries. Or just insist on being Jews. Or are simply seen as Jews because their history hasn't been completely erased. Most of all for you, probably, they reject your pseudohistories as laughable on their face, which sense of identity you point to as an air of superiority. I think I asked earlier if you apply the same contempt for a group's self-identity to others, particularly for example the Arab Palestinians? Because if "the whole damn thing is a fraud", then it is indeed "the whole damn thing". Until you need a scapegoat to be able to live with yourself.</p>
<p>============</p>
<h2>January 8 (2024)</h2>
<p>The next time somebody accuses you of "antisemitism" or "sympathy for terrorists" in regard to your support for Gaza and the Palestinian people, just say this:</p>
<p>"It is the Judaist-Talmudic cult and its modern expression in the century and a half old Zionist movement that is responsible for all of this. "Israel" is a dangerous fiction which needs to be quashed, and the land claimed for the "Jews" returned forthwith to the Palestinian people and their descendants. This is simple historical justice, a perspective which even a great many "Jewish" people agree with.</p>
<p>What do you have to say to them?"</p>
<p><b>Olaf Errwigge</b>
<br>He sez, proving himself to be a proterrorist antisemite.</p>
<p><b>Matt Morley</b>
<br><i>Olaf Errwigge</i> Since that is the only perspective you have, you are a pathological supporter of actual state terrorism, ethnic cleansing and mass murder. I do NOT support Hamas, and have never said anything that could be interpreted as such. As for "antisemitism", that is a meaningless concept which has been discussed before, and your cynical use of that falsehood underscores your own uninformed bigotry. You have no originality and no opinion worthy of engagement. GFY!
<p>============</p>
<p><i>Note: </i>Matt’s denial of Jewish ties to Palestine echos a recent speech by Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, as reported <a href="https://www.jns.org/assad-no-evidence-six-million-jews-were-killed-in-the-holocaust/">here</a> and with comment <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/12/22/bashar-al-assad-rant-no-evidence-holocaust-u-s-aided-nazis/">here</a>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-59533836203780341752023-11-30T11:18:00.000-05:002023-11-30T11:18:12.441-05:00Resolution reaffirming the State of Israel’s right to exist<p>Whereas the Jewish people are native to the Land of Israel;</p>
<p>Whereas throughout history and across the reign of multiple kingdoms, the Jewish people were persecuted and expelled from the Land of Israel, forced to live as minority diaspora communities in other lands;</p>
<p>Whereas Jewish diaspora communities were historically violently persecuted in, and in some cases expelled from, other countries throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia due to their religion;</p>
<p>Whereas the Nazis attempted to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe during the Holocaust, murdering 6,000,000 Jews during this time;</p>
<p>Whereas this genocide provided new urgency to re-establish a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people following the Holocaust, where they would not be a vulnerable minority, where they could freely practice their faith, and where something like the Holocaust could never happen again;</p>
<p>Whereas the modern State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948;</p>
<p>Whereas even after the establishment of the State of Israel, other countries and terrorist entities continued to attack Israel, reject its right to exist, and call for its destruction; and</p>
<p>Whereas Israel is the only Jewish State, and therefore, despite persistent external threats, the existence of Israel provides Jews a place to live free from persecution and discrimination: Now, therefore, be it</p>
<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the House of Representatives—</p>
<div style="margin-left:20px;"><p>(1) reaffirms the State of Israel’s right to exist;</p>
<p>(2) recognizes that denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism;</p>
<p>(3) rejects calls for Israel’s destruction and the elimination of the only Jewish State; and</p>
<p>(4) condemns the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel.</p></div>
<p><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/888/text">https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/888/text</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-64705129697951541902023-10-28T15:44:00.004-04:002023-11-11T10:07:51.793-05:00A Brief History of Palestine Since World War I<p>The lands currently known as Palestine/Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon were regions of the Ottoman empire for some 400 years.<br /><br />The Ottoman empire ended with, along with internal challenges, its defeat in World War I. France took control of Syria & Lebanon (as a single entity), Britain of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine (as separate entities) (Treaty of Sèvres, 1920). Palestine was intended for “the establishment ... of a national home for the Jewish people, ... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (Balfour Declaration, 1917).<br /><br />Jordan (Transjordan) was established as independent from Iraq, and Lebanon as independent from Syria, all of these countries recognized as increasingly independent through the 1920s and ’30s until the final withdrawal of France and Britain after World War II.<br /><br />The League of Nations mandate for Palestine (1920) was superseded by the United Nations partition plan (1947) for two independent states, Jewish and Arab. Civil war between Jewish and Arab communities ensued. When the British Mandate expired in 1948, the Jewish state of Israel was declared, and the recently formed (1945) League of Arab States, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, as well as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, invaded, resulting in an expansion of Israel (recognized internationally as the 1949 “Green Line” and later the “pre-1967” border) and occupation of the remaining areas meant for an Arab state by Jordan (West Bank) and Egypt (Gaza).<br /><br />Arab militants continued raids through the 1950s and ’60s, with corresponding responses by Israel.<br /><br />In 1956, Israel joined Britain and France to attack Egypt in their attempt (which failed) to regain control of the Suez Canal after its nationalization by Egypt. While in Gaza, Israel killed hundreds of Arab militants (or just young men) in Khan Younis and Rafah.<br /><br />In 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran (the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea) to Israeli shipping, and Israel attacked Egypt (the “Six-Day War”). Jordan and Syria joined with attacks on Israel. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza from Egypt. The Arab League reiterated its policy of no recognition of and no peace or negotiations with Israel.<br /><br />In 1973 (the “Yom Kippur War”), Egypt attempted to retake the Sinai Peninsula and Syria the Golan Heights. The rest of the Arab League helped them, as did the Soviet Union. Israel pushed them back, but eventually both Israel and Egypt decided to make peace. Israel withdrew back to roughly the Golan Heights as before. With the 1978 Camp David Accords, Israel ceded the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt recognized Israel. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981.<br /><br />In 2005, Israel removed Jewish settlers and withdrew from the Gaza Strip.<br /><br />In 2006, the Hamas movement became the elected government for the Arab Palestinians and in 2007 expelled the rival Fatah movement from Gaza. Israel and Egypt put Gaza under blockade. In 2014, Hamas launched attacks on Israel and Israelis, and Israel attacked Gaza to destroy Hamas’s military infrastructure and operations.<br /><br />Hamas, as well as the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, continued rocket attacks and incursions against Israel and Israelis.<br /><br />In 2023, Hamas attacked Israel with thousands of rockets and an invasion by some 2,500 fighters, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-23489171008961486322023-10-12T13:42:00.002-04:002023-10-15T14:31:30.759-04:00Forgotten, but not yet gone<p>Forgotten, but not yet gone.<br /><br />Progress is the insult done by each generation on the previous one.<br /><br />(The first line is from <i>Our Like WIll Not Be There Again: Notes from the West of Ireland</i> by Lawrence Millman (1975). The second line paraphrases a line from <i>The Trouble With Being Born</i> by Emil Cioran (1973) that was used as an epigram to one of Millman’s chapters.)</p><p>“The Blasket people call their departure from their island “the vanishing.” … In a sense, they are living beyond their own disappearance.’<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-25644619088911584962023-08-19T16:36:00.005-04:002024-02-24T11:17:30.765-05:00Ag caint ar gaoil<p>Ó <i>Caisleáin Óir</i> le Séamus Ó Grianna (1924):</p><p>« ‘A mháthair mhór’, arsa Séimí, i ndiaidh a theach chun an bhaile, ‘an bhfuil gaol ar bith againne do bhunadh Mháirtín?’</p><p>« ‘Is fada amach é’, ar sise. ‘Fan go bhfeice mé. Seáinín Mór agus Conall Ó Fríl clann an deirféar is a dearthár; Micheál Sheáinín agus Tarlach Chonaill an dá ó; d’athair agus Máirtín an dá fhionnó; tusa agus Babaí [iníon Mháirtín], dearfaidh mé, an dá dhubhó. … Tá fréamh eile ghaoil nó dhó ag Séimí anseo do chlann Mháirtín. Tá mise agus Síle Chuirristín — go ndéana Sé a mhaith ar na mairbh — clann an bheirt dearthár; fear an tí seo agus Máirtín an dá ó; Séimí agus clann Mháirtín an dá fhionnó. … Tá tuilleadh ann. Gaol mhuintír na Brád. Bríd Chéillín agus Nualaitín an clann is ó; Peigí Tharlaigh Dhuibh agus Croíán ó is fionnó; bean an tí seo agus bean Mháirtín fionnó agus dubhó; Séimí anseo agus clann Mháirtín dubhó agus glún taobh amuigh de sin.’ »</p><p>(Seáinín Mór and Conall Ó Fríl are the children of a brother and a sister [1st cousins], their sons Micheál Sheáinín and Tarlach Chonail are 2nd cousins [<i>dá ó</i>], their sons, your father and Máirtín, are 3rd cousins [<i>dá fhionnó</i>], and you and Babaí are 4th cousins [<i>dá dhubhó</i>]. … Síle Chuirristín and I are the children of brothers [1st cousins], the man of this house and Máirtín 2nd cousins [<i>dá ó</i>], Séimí and the children of Máirtín 3rd cousins [<i>dá fhionnó</i>]. … The Bráds: Bríd Chéillín and Nualaitín are child and grandchild, Peigí Tharlaigh Dhuibh agus Croíán grandchild and greatgrandchild, the woman of this house and Máirtín’s wife greatgrandchild and greatgreatgrandchild; Séimí and the children of Máirtín greatgreatgrandchildren and further out.)</p><p>(The first relation is established through the fathers (who are 2nd cousins), the second through the fathers’ mothers (who are 1st cousins), and the third through the children’s mothers (who are 3rd cousins once removed.)</p><p style="text-align: center;">[[[[ ]]]]</p><p style="text-align: left;">“Cousin” in Irish is <i>col ceathar</i>. <i>Col</i> refers to impediment to marriage (the reason Séamí is asking how related he is to Babaí), and <i>ceathair</i> refers to 4, that is, 4 degrees of separation: self, parent, grandparent, parent’s sibling, cousin. <i>Col cúigar</i> (5) is 1st cousin once removed, <i>col seisar</i> (6) is 2nd cousin, <i>col seachtar</i> (7) is 2nd cousin once removed, <i>col ochtar</i> (8) is 3rd cousin, <i>col naonúr</i> (9) is 3rd cousin once removed.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Similarly, the degree of relation can be expressed as, for example, <i>Tá siad a dó is a dó</i>, They are cousins; <i>Tá siad a dó is a trí</i>, They are cousins once removed.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Also: <i>Is iad an treas glúin iad</i>, They are second cousins (of the 3rd generation). This derives from the simple use of <i>glúin</i> for generation of descent, for example, <i>an dara glúin ó Micheál Sheáinín</i>, the 2nd generation after Micheál Sheáinín. (<i>Glúin</i> also means “knee”.)</p><p style="text-align: left;">In the above passage, yet another way of describing relations is used, based on <i>ó</i> (originally <i>úa</i>), meaning “grandson” or “grandchild”, as in surnames, for example, Ó Grianna, as <i>mac</i> means “son”, which is also used in surnames. (For women’s surnames, Ó and Mac are replaced with Ní and Níc, respectively. Second cousins, both grandchildren of the same grandparents, are <i>an dá ó</i>. <i>Fionnó</i> is “great-grandchild”, and 3rd cousins are <i>an dá fhionnó</i>. (<i>Iarmhó</i> is another word for great-grandchild.) And <i>dubhó</i> is “great-great-grandchild” and 4th cousins are <i>an dá dhubhó</i>.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Dinneen actually quotes the above passage extensively in the dictionary entry for <i>ó</i>. He provides some other examples of usage as well: <i>Táimíd i n-ó le chéile</i>, we are cousins; <i>Táimíd i n-ó amháin</i>, we are first cousins; <i>Táimíd ar (or idir) dá ó</i>, we are second cousins; <i>Táimíd i dá ionn-ó le chéile</i>, we are third cousins; <i>Tá siad i dá dhubh-ó</i>, they are fourth cousins.</p><p style="text-align: left;">A third cousin may also be referred to as <i>dhá ó</i> and a fourth cousin as <i>trí ó</i>.</p><p style="text-align: left;">An etymological question is the origin of <i>fionnó</i> and <i>dubhó</i>, which appear to mean white cousin and black cousin. <i>Fionnó</i> was originally <i>ionn-ó</i> (as in the example provided by Dinneen), suggesting legitimacy, that is, marriage is possible. Perhaps as <i>ionn</i> became <i>fionn</i>, so <i>dú</i> became <i>dubh</i>. <i>Dú-ó</i> would suggest what is natural, that is, marriage <i>idir dá dhubhó</i> is proper, fitting.</p><p>From <i>Caisleáin Óir:</i> « ‘Ta sibh saor ar cháin’, arsa Donnchadh Mór, ‘ó rachas sibh taobh amach de na fionnóí.’ » (You are free from censure since you have gone past 3rd cousins.)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-55006730660223221822023-08-05T14:34:00.002-04:002023-08-05T17:42:16.636-04:00Excerpts from a couple of essays in Tablet magazine<p><b><i>From “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/culture-of-transgression">The Culture of Transgression</a>,” by Michael Lind, July 31, 2023</i></b></p>
<p>Everywhere we see our political, cultural, and financial elites bankrolling activists to dismantle traditions. While flags and slogans celebrating racial or sexual identity are proudly displayed by Western governments and corporations, overt displays of national patriotism are regarded by establishmentarians on both sides of the Atlantic as vulgar and distasteful. Religions tend to be viewed with distrust and contempt by the trans-Atlantic elite, unless their premodern teachings have been modified into alignment with the views of the campus left. The Western canon, instead of being enlarged to include unjustly excluded authors, has been jettisoned, and liberal education has been replaced by ideological indoctrination in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI).</p>
<p>Iconoclasm is nothing new in history. The term was coined to describe the controversy over icons in medieval Byzantium, and has come to mean any attack on cherished traditions and familiar imagery. Radical Protestant reformers broke the stained glass and smashed the statues of Mary and the saints. The Taliban dynamited Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in 2001, and later ISIS destroyed many ancient Mesopotamian monuments and statues.</p>
<p>In most historic cases, programmatic iconoclasm has been temporary and accompanied or followed by the fabrication of new traditions and the imposition of new orthodoxies. In communist Russia, the statues of the czars went down and statues of Lenin and Stalin went up. ...</p>
<p>But the cancellation of the Great Books curriculum has not led to a new consensus canon featuring minority, female, and nonbinary authors along with a smaller number of “dead white males” who are deemed acceptable. Instead, much of the energy of woke jihadists goes into purging or censoring existing works of art and thought—rewriting the novels of Roald Dahl, for example—or randomly parachuting nonwhite or “queer” characters into movie remakes instead of creating something new.</p>
<p>The cultural ferment in contemporary North America and Europe does not feel like an interregnum between one cultural regime and a stable successor. It feels like a permanent revolution.</p>
<p>Put another way, the Western elite culture of transgression is an example of antinomianism, not iconoclasm. Unlike iconoclasm, antinomianism is not a temporary campaign of destruction of older iconography and traditions to clear the way for the imposition of new canons and orthodoxies. Derived from the Greek words meaning “against” and “law” or “norm,” the term antinomianism refers to the view that all laws and norms are oppressive always and everywhere, and that the act of transgression in itself is virtuous, if not holy. ...</p>
<p>At the moment, the fashionable justifications invoked by the elite antinomian vandals attacking Western society from within are climate change, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and “anti-fascism” as a catchall category. Upper-middle-class young men and women who throw paint at artistic masterpieces or glue themselves to trains claim they are defending the earth’s environment, but they could just as well say they are fighting white supremacy or patriarchy. They are acting out the ethos of a Western elite culture that believes the act of transgression itself is virtuous; the alleged goal of the transgression is merely an excuse.</p>
<p>Call it “the culture of transgression” of the dominant overclass in North Atlantic democracies. The three saints of transgression are the illegal immigrant, the transsexual, and the woman who proudly celebrates abortion. All three are idealized by our revolutionary ruling class precisely because they violate traditional norms—the traditional norm of patriotism, based on the legitimacy of the city-state or nation-state or kingdom and its laws and borders; traditional gender norms; and traditional family norms, which celebrate the capacity of women to give birth and to nurture their infants and of men to provide for them. Most of what is called “progressivism” today is really transgressivism.</p>
<p>y now the antinomians in Western nations have won their war against tradition in every realm. The members of the credentialed corporate-government-nonprofit-academic-media oligarchy, along with billionaire entrepreneurs and bankers who themselves are usually born into managerial-professional families, are almost all modernist in their aesthetics, libertine in their views of sex and recreational drug use, and dismissive of nationalism and patriotism and religion, which they regard as mental diseases of the lower classes. They work in offices designed by trendy “starchitects” decorated with abstract art, and often live in postmodern homes designed to be sterile, off-putting, and the very opposite of petty bourgeois comfort.</p>
<p>Having vandalized every premodern tradition, the elite antinomians of the modern West now don’t know what to do next. What should rebels against the bourgeoisie rebel against when the bourgeoisie has fallen?</p>
<p>The answer, it is increasingly apparent, is to rebel against the proletariat. Instead of shocking the bourgeoisie, our post-bourgeois managerial overclass now delights in shocking the working class. ...</p>
<p>Whatever working-class “normies” believe and enjoy, the most influential tastemakers of the trans-Atlantic ruling class denounce and seek to ban, using one of their three or four specious all-purpose justifications. ...</p>
<p>By declaring the democratic preferences of the working class a danger to society, the West’s oligarchs justify subjecting their enemies to pervasive surveillance and other counterextremism measures originally designed for foreign terrorist groups. ...</p>
<p><b><i>From “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama">The Obama Factor</a>,” by David Samuels, August 02, 2023</i></b></p>
<p>[<i>Note: There’s a lot of (counterfactual) anti-Putin/Trump crap in this piece, which rather plays right into the very stuff the authors critique. Samuels is also offended by Obama’s supposed minimization of American exceptionalism, but he equates that exceptionalism with empire, which Obama clearly embraced (to great harm).</i>]</p>
<p>... By then, it was clear to any informed observer that the Obamas’ continuing presence in the nation’s capital was not purely a personal matter. To an extent that has never been meaningfully reported on, the Obamas served as both the symbolic and practical heads of the Democratic Party shadow government that “resisted” Trump—another phenomenon that defied prior norms.... The election of Joe Biden in 2020 gave the Obamas even more reasons to stay in town. ...</p>
<p>Near the end of June, for example, Politico ran a long article noting Biden’s cognitive decline, with the coy headline “Is Obama Ready to Reassert Himself?”—as if the ex-president hadn’t been living in the middle of Washington and playing politics since the day he left office. Indeed, in previous weeks Obama had continued his role as central advocate for government censorship of the internet while launching a new campaign against gun ownership, claiming it is historically linked to racism. Surely, the spectacle of an ex-president simultaneously leading campaigns against both the First and Second Amendments might have led even a spectacularly incurious old-school D.C. reporter to file a story on the nuts and bolts of Obama’s political operation and on who was going in and out of his mansion. But the D.C. press was no longer in the business of maintaining transparency. Instead, they had become servants of power, whose job was to broadcast whatever myths helped advance the interests of the powerful. ...</p>
<p>At bottom, <i>Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama</i> [by David Garrow] is a tragic story about a young man who was deeply wounded by the abandonment of both his white mother and his Black father—a wound that gifted him with political genius and at the same time made him the victim of a profound narcissism that first whispered to him in his mid-twenties that he was destined to be president. It is not hard to see how Garrow has come to believe that Obama’s ambition proved to be toxic, both for the man and for the country. ...</p>
<p>My own read of Obama has always been that he was a skillful elite-pleaser with a radical streak that did in fact emerge from the anti-imperialist politics of the 1970s, the foundational claim of which was that equality trumps freedom. ...</p>
<p>Progressive theology is built on a mythic hierarchy of group victimhood which has endured throughout time, up until the present day; the injuries that the victims have suffered are so massive, so shocking, and so manifestly unjust that they dwarf the present. Such injuries must be remedied immediately, at nearly any cost. The people who do the work of remedying these injustices, by whatever means, are the heroes of history. Conversely, the sins of the chief oppressors of history, white men, are so dark that nothing short of abject humiliation and capitulation can begin to approach justice.</p>
<p>It goes to say that nothing about the terms of progressive theology is original. It is the theology of Soviet communism, with class struggle replaced by identity politics. In this system, Jews play a unique, double-edged role: They are both an identity group and a Trojan horse through which history can reenter the gates of utopia.</p>
<p>Ghettos were invented for Jews. Concentration camps, too. How can Jews be “privileged white people” if they are clearly among <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/a-list-of-communities-obliterated-during-black-death">history’s victims</a>? And if Jews aren’t white people, then perhaps lots of other white people are also victims and therefore aren’t “white,” in the theological sense in which that term gains its significance in progressive ideology. Maybe “Black people” aren’t always or primarily Black. Maybe the whole progressive race-based theology is, historically and ideologically speaking, a load of crap. Which is why the Jews are and will remain a problem. ...</p>
<p>[Obama] was the guy chosen by history to put something in the American goldfish bowl that made all the fish go crazy and eat each other: America’s emerging oligarachy cementing its grip instead of going bust. The rise of monopoly internet platforms. The normalization of government spying on Americans. Race relations going south. Skyrocketing inequality. The rise of Donald Trump. The birth of Russiagate. It all happened with Obama in the White House. ...</p>
<p>[<i>The interview:</i>]</p>
<p>DS: What do you see as the connection, if any, between the personal lives of powerful men and their public lives, based on your years of research on Dr. King, and your experience writing about Obama?</p>
<p>DG: I think one can in large part, in King’s case, say these were sort of two separate lives. Because he lived it that way. He lived it as two separate lives.</p>
<p>DS: Might one make the same case about Obama, but in reverse? It seems clear that Obama leads an exemplary, highly controlled private life, consuming exactly seven almonds while watching The Man in the High Castle or Draymond Green highlights on ESPN for stress relief.</p>
<p>DG: Right. Yes.</p>
<p>DS: In fact, I can make the case that Obama’s public life was the amoral part, beginning with the toleration of genocide in Syria and the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens, and extending to wide-scale illegal surveillance and spying, and his now becoming the spokesperson for gutting the First Amendment in favor of government censorship of large tech platforms. ...
<p>DS: So Obama starts out as an eloquent opponent of the Patriot Act, etc., etc. By the end of his presidency, his people are unmasking intercepts of his political opponents every day, and the FBI is spying on Donald Trump.</p>
<p>DG: That’s right. ...</p>
<p>DS: What interests you most about Obama today?</p>
<p>DG: The number one thing about Barack this past five years is how completely he’s vanished.</p>
<p>DS: Why is he living in the center of Washington, D.C., then?</p>
<p>DG: Well, how much time is he spending there as opposed to Martha’s Vineyard? I have no idea.</p>
<p>DS: Between July Fourth and Labor Day, sure. The rest of the year, he lives in a large brick mansion in Kalorama. Doesn’t it strike you as weird that he’s an ex-president, he’s comparatively young, and he’s living in the center of Washington, D.C.? The original excuse was that Sasha had to finish school. Then you could say, “Well, the opposition to Trump needs a figure to rally around.” But now Sasha has graduated from USC, Trump is gone, Joe Biden was elected present, but he’s still there.</p>
<p>DG: I never see any mentions of him.</p>
<p>DS: Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I mean, I have heard from more than one source that there are regular meetings at Obama’s house in Kalorama involving top figures in the current White House, with Secret Service and cars outside. I don’t write about it because it’s not my lane. There are over a thousand reporters in Washington, and yet there are zero stakeouts of Obama’s mansion, if only to tell us who is coming and going. But he clearly has his oar in.</p>
<p>DG: I don’t follow the Iranian stuff super, super carefully, but I have been puzzled at the Biden administration’s continuing attachment to the Iran deal.</p>
<p>DS: The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration. Obama is. He doesn’t even have to pick up the phone because all of his people are already inside the White House. They hold the Iran file. Tony Blinken doesn’t.</p>
<p>DG: Rob Malley was the guy on that.</p>
<p>DS: Rob Malley is just one person. Brett McGurk. Dan Shapiro in Israel. Lisa Monaco in Justice. Susan Rice running domestic policy. It’s turtles all the way down. There are obviously large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington.</p>
<p>Which to me is a very odd and kind of spooky arrangement. Spooky, because it is happening outside the constitutional framework of the U.S. government, and yet somehow it’s been placed off the list of permitted subjects to report on. Which is a pretty good indicator of the extent to which the information we get, and public reactions to that information, is being successfully controlled. How and by whom remain open questions, the quick answer to which is that the American press has become a subset of partisan comms.</p>
<p>DG: I’m going back to something you said 20 minutes ago. From the get-go, I know enough intelligence community stuff that from the first time I saw it, I realized that Christopher Steele’s shit was just complete crap. It was bad corporate intelligence, even. It was nonsensical.</p>
<p>DS: What scared me back then was coming to understand that a new milieu had been created consisting of party operatives, the people in the FBI and the CIA who are carrying out White House policy, and the press. It is all one world now. And that’s something people still seem loathe to admit, even to themselves, in part because it puts them in a state of dissonance with this new kind of controlled consensus that the press maintains, which is obviously garbage. But if you question it, you’re some kind of nut. ... Now the question becomes, why are they still fixated on Iran after the Iran deal failed, its premises are exploded? And who are “they,” exactly?</p>
<p>DG: Well, for Barack, everything has to be a success. Everything has to be a victory. I mean, I’m not a health policy expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve always thought that the whole Obamacare thing was, in large part, a fraud. It’s a great achievement for the health insurance industry.</p>
<p>DS: Obama reluctantly started talking about health care because it was Hillary Clinton’s issue in 2008, and then they were like, “Well, you have to have a healthcare plan, because Hillary has her big healthcare plan.” It was like, “All right, fine, I’ll have one too.” ...</p>
<p>DS: I think future historians are going to look at the Obama presidency and see it as the moment when this new oligarchy merged with the Democratic Party and used the capacities of these new technologies and the power of this new class of people, the oligarchs and their servants, to create a new apparatus of social control. How far they can go with it, what the limits are … you see them trying to test it out every week or so. ... So if Obama is the first U.S. president from the periphery of empire, he’s also the first president from the billionaire-foundation-NGO complex, which makes him the perfect mediating figure between the progressive part of the party, the billionaires, and the security state. ...</p>
<p>DS: As someone who has been a serious student of this subject for the past 45 years, how consequential is the court’s decision to overturn <i>Roe</i>?</p>
<p>DG: It’s a class issue. That’s the number one thing. Even before <i>Roe</i> [and https://kirbymtn.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-threat-to-abortion-and-reproductive.html<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama"></a>], if you were a woman who had your life together and could get yourself to New York, you were fine. If you had the time and the ability to buy yourself a plane ticket to New York City, you were fine. Anybody from the Rio Grande Valley needed to get, past tense, to San Antonio or Austin to get an abortion. And that’s what we’re looking at now, is that it’s a travel challenge, because there’s going to be this whole swath of states—Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas—where folks are going to need to get to New Mexico, Colorado, or Illinois. ...</p>
<p>[T]he problem with the reproductive rights movement, going all the way back to Mrs. Sanger in the teens and the ’20s, is that the activist population has no connection to the beneficiary population. Because the beneficiary population is generally poverty-class women who have messed-up lives—and, in some circumstances, abusive life situations. But they are working-class or poverty-class people for whom the ability to get out of Pittsburgh, just to use the local geography, to fly out of Pittsburgh, would be a humongous challenge for them. They can take the bus around Pittsburgh, but how do you get to the airport? How do you get a ticket? Where do you go? Do you have an internet connection at home? ...</p>
<p>DS: So how do you talk all this foundation-land, community-organizer shit and then preside over the transformation of the country into a Gilded Age oligarchy? Maybe I just answered my own question: Obama is the Magic Negro of the billionaire industrial complex. And targeting Jews as outsiders and pushing them outside the circle was the way that the Gilded Age oligarchy consolidated itself in America, back then and also now. ...</p>
<p>DS: [I]magine telling Harry Truman, “Hey, why don’t you sell that old house and buy three or four huge mansions in Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii and Washington, D.C., and rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in sweetheart deals with big corporations while you’re vacationing on rich people’s yachts?” ...</p>
<p>DG: Everybody, especially white folks, thought that having a Black family in the White House would be cure for the legacy of American racism. Now there’s no question in anybody’s mind that on that score, that scale, the presidency was a total failure. But why are race relations, at least as people perceive them or imagine them, ostensibly well worse today post-Floyd than they were in 2008? ...</p>
<p>DS: [T]he point where race relations in America turned sour wasn’t with George Floyd in 2020; it was with BLM in 2014, and that’s squarely during Obama’s second term ...</p>
<p>DG: I think it’s inescapable that Barack’s success in ‘08 is rooted in white people seeing him as an easy ticket toward racial absolution. It’s a need that white people in this country have. And what we’re still seeing week after week now for these past two or three years, especially with places like the Times and the Post, is that this white need for absolution was not cured by the Obama presidency. ...</p>
<p>DS: The protagonists of the grand drama of race in America are the cultural and actual descendants of the Puritans, not Black people—who, as Americans, mainly desire the same things that other Americans do, like safe streets and decent jobs and health care and not to die prematurely from heart disease. White Puritans have more elevated concerns.</p>
<p>DG: Exactly. For them, 200-year-old statues are more important than five-year-old Black children. ...</p>
<p>DS: What do the Obamas and their circle have in common with each other? They are Ivy League people, who ran away from whatever they came from in order to become members of the credentialed elites, whose loyalty is to the system that gives them prestige—or rather, gives prestige to their degrees, of which they are the holders. Once they pair off and reproduce under the seal of Harvard or Yale, they may find it seemly to donate money to an NGO that offers microloans to female entrepreneurs in Pakistan. So why should Obama, the ultimate winner, carry on the charade that he’s part of a community, whatever that means, with these people? He’s happy to go on NPR and talk about meaning or Marilynne Robinson novels or whatever, to make the wine moms identify with him, so he can put one over on them. Just don’t ask him to visit the hospital when you get cancer, because he’ll be hanging out on someone’s yacht, with the other winners. ...</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-36863215452112078432023-07-27T19:03:00.002-04:002023-07-28T07:54:24.238-04:00“Mar a chaith mé laethanta saoire an tsamhraidh”<p>Bíonn an t-úrscéal <i>Diosco Dé</i> le Séamas Mac Annaidh (Coiscéim, 2006) ag spaisteoireacht thart faoi samhradh mar teagasc Béarla i gcampa Tuirceach an bliain 1999. Tá sé mar bheadh cuntas taistil nó cuimhní cinn seachas úrscéal ann. Cúpla uair tá leaideanna go mbeidh eachtra mór ag forbairt, ach leanann an scéal go dtí eachtranna eile sa champa, i rith na turais, teannas agus comhcheilg idir na múinteoirí Gaeilge, na pearsantachtaí ar na múintoirí uile (Béarla agus Tuirceach) agus ar na daltaí nua gach coicís, an dúshlán ar an ceannais an an champa a choinnigh gabháil i gceart is go sabháilte.</p>
<p>Is as Doire atá an scéalaí agus a chailín Astrálach, agus tá siad ag filleadh (.i. pilleadh) chun an champa cá bualadh iad le chéile an bhliain roimhe. Tar éis naoi mí i nDoire, tá siad araon ag dúil le am ar cósta na mara Mharmara a chaitheamh.</p>
<p>Ni féidir a inis níos mó faoin scéal gan nochtadh an cúis go bhfuil sé seo cén úrscéal maith, mar ar deireadh is úrscéal an-tochtmhar é. Go cáiréiseach, fíonn an Annach an léitheoir isteach le scéal an scéalaí féin.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-43211064111667163202023-07-26T18:40:00.003-04:002023-07-27T11:11:46.249-04:00Climate change–fueled weather demands action now, sez Sarah Copeland Hanzas — annotated<p><i>Sarah Copeland Hanzas was a Vermont House member for 18 years before being elected as Secretary of State in 2022. This commentary, reproduced here in full with notes following, was published in several news outlets (without the notes).</i></p>
<p>Vermonters have always rallied to protect and care for our friends and neighbors in a crisis. I am grateful for Governor Scott’s calm and measured response when Vermont is in crisis. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Governor Scott followed the science and took the appropriate steps, despite considerable opposition,<a id="cita" href="#fna"><sup>a</sup></a> to keep Vermonters safe and to prevent a greater tragedy. Now, we need the same courage and focus as we grapple with flood recovery and take action to address the underlying forces of climate change<a id="citb" href="#fnb"><sup>b</sup></a> that drove its severity. </p>
<p>So far this summer, Vermont has seen a record heat wave in May,<a id="citc" href="#fnc"><sup>c</sup></a> the state’s worst air quality in history in June, and recently a record rainstorm<a id="cite" href="#fne"><sup>e</sup></a> that dumped as much as two months of normal rain on towns around the state in just over a day. </p>
<p>And this is clearly the new normal<a id="citf" href="#fnf"><sup>f</sup></a> for Vermont as the impacts of global warming hit us. Nolan Atkins, the former chair of the atmospheric sciences department at Vermont State University said: “In a warmer world and a warmer climate, [we should expect] these more frequent and more intense weather events.” </p>
<p>Yet despite the science, and clear evidence of increasingly severe weather, the Governor has vetoed every major piece of climate legislation the Vermont Legislature has put before him in recent years. We need Governor Scott to direct state agencies to recognize the climate emergency and treat climate action with the same emergency response and focus we are seeing right now during the floods, and that we did during Vermont’s Covid response.<a id="citg" href="#fng"><sup>g</sup></a></p>
<p>As the former co-chair of the Legislature’s Climate Solution Caucus, I traveled throughout the state listening to Vermonters’ concerns about the looming impacts of global warming and the urgent need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. I heard over and over that if we don’t act on climate and curb our emissions we will run out of time; we will be too consumed by the effects of climate change to focus on transitioning to renewable energy.<a id="cith" href="#fnh"><sup>h</sup></a> </p>
<p>I have seen our pragmatic Governor do a policy pivot when faced with an emergency. After the shooting threat in Fair Haven High School, he was a constructive and supportive partner for meaningful gun safety reforms. </p>
<p>It is time for the Governor to pivot on climate policy. There are a few simple things the Governor can do right now to make a difference and help Vermont be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And more importantly, prevent greater tragedy.</p>
<p>First, the Governor should direct his appointees on the Climate Council to shift to an emergency response.<a id="citi" href="#fni"><sup>i</sup></a> The most immediate and constructive action he could take at this moment is to make sure Vermonters whose heating systems were destroyed in the flood are encouraged and incentivized to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.<a id="citj" href="#fnj"><sup>j</sup></a> Let’s help provide loaner heating systems to get through the upcoming heating season and accelerate our investment in our green energy workforce. This will not only speed up Vermont’s green energy transition but also create jobs; we can combat climate change and help Vermont’s economy at the same time.</p>
<p>Second, direct his Agency of Natural Resources and Department of Public Service to become willing partners in implementing the Clean Heat Standard to help all Vermonters transition from fossil fuels for heating and cooling their homes and businesses. Over one-third of Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating and cooling our homes and businesses. Despite this, Governor Scott and his administration have inexplicably been an anchor in getting this groundbreaking initiative into action. </p>
<p>And third, support legislation to ensure Vermont gets 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by the end of the decade. With the passage of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, wind and solar power are cheaper than ever<a id="citk" href="#fnk"><sup>k</sup></a> and price competitive with new natural gas. Vermont needs to do its part to clean up its electric sector and end our environmentally unjust practice of importing our power from oil- and natural gas–burning plants in low-income communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. </p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s simple and easy, I understand firsthand the challenges rural Vermonters face in heating their homes and getting to work. But if we think transitioning to renewable heating and transportation is inconvenient or possibly a little more expensive, just look around at what we will be facing if we don’t.<a id="citl" href="#fnl"><sup>l</sup></a> Can we afford not to?</p>
<p>-------------------</p>
<p><a id="fna" href="#cita"><sup>a</sup></a>“despite considerable opposition” — Actually, the considerable opposition was that he wasn’t draconian and dictatorial enough.</p>
<p><a id="fnb" href="#citb"><sup>b</sup></a>“to address the underlying forces of climate change” — The earth revolves around the sun with a tilted axis, thus causing the seasons, and turns on that axis, thus causing day and night. These cause weather.</p>
<p><a id="fnc" href="#citc"><sup>c</sup></a>“Vermont has seen a record heat wave in May” — And then it was over. We’re looking at a rather cool end of July and early August.</p>
<p><a id="fnd" href="#citd"><sup>d</sup></a>“the state’s worst air quality in history in June” — Canadian forest fires, which we can hardly do anything about.</p>
<p><a id="fne" href="#cite"><sup>e</sup></a>“a record rainstorm” — Well, no, it wasn’t.</p>
<p><a id="fnf" href="#citf"><sup>f</sup></a>“clearly the new normal” — If you were born yesterday.</p>
<p><a id="fng" href="#citg"><sup>g</sup></a>“We need Governor Scott to direct state agencies to recognize the climate emergency and treat climate action with the same emergency response and focus we are seeing right now during the floods, and that we did during Vermont’s Covid response.” — That “emergency response” to Covid was futile and harmful, as indeed is almost all of the “climate legislation” that the legislature has passed. In fact, Montpelier, along with other towns on rivers regularly floods and businesses bounce back. But they are only now recovering from that Covid response and don’t have the resilience and resources they would have otherwise.</p>
<p><a id="fnh" href="#cith"><sup>h</sup></a>“transitioning to renewable energy” — From normal New England weather to CO₂ emissions as the culprit to renewable energy as the solution, this is a study in non sequitur. It is telling that as co-chair of the Legislature’s Climate Solution Caucus, she heard only people clamoring for what she is here clamoring for.</p>
<p><a id="fni" href="#citi"><sup>i</sup></a>“shift to an emergency response” — If everyone is already clamoring, it most certainly does not require an emergency response to force it on them. This “emergency response” is required precisely because people like to make their own decisions about how their homes are heated, weighing costs and benefits for their individual situation. Again, that “Covid emergency” was similarly imposed precisely to prevent people from making personal risk-benefit decisions, even to punish people for insisting on their right to make such decisions for themselves.</p>
<p><a id="fnj" href="#citj"><sup>j</sup></a>“replace fossil fuels with renewable energy” — What is she talking about? She means replacing systems that burn fuel on site to provide warmth with electric space heaters. Granted, in Vermont, much of that electricity is from Canadian hydro, but the expanded demand of electric heat (and cars) will be provided by burning natural gas, converting a fraction of the released energy to electricity, transporting that electricity over powerlines at further loss, and then converting it back to heat. The inefficiency compared to burning fossil fuels on site is staggering, not to mention insanely bad policy.</p>
<p>Furthermore, every Vermonter knows that they need to be prepared for power outages, which can sometimes last for days. Depending on electricity for anything that you don’t have to is simply foolish. You will effectively be replacing efficient fossil-fuel systems with increased reliance on fossil fuel–powered back-up generators.</p>
<p><a id="fnk" href="#citk"><sup>k</sup></a>“wind and solar power are cheaper than ever” — In fact, wind and solar are only getting more expensive. They completely depend on subsidies from taxpayers and ratepayers to be built at all.</p>
<p><a id="fnl" href="#citl"><sup>l</sup></a>“just look around at what we will be facing if we don’t” — And we close with the veiled threat, based on the false premises the whole essay started with. “We’ll make sure you can’t afford not to make the choices we make for you.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">[[[[ ]]]]</p>
<p><i>From </i>The History of Athens Vermont,<i> Lora Wyman, 1963:</i></p>
<p>«Freshets and floods occurred too frequently down the years to mention more than a sample of them. A few that did the most extensive damage to Athens were the freshet of Oct. 4, 1869; the great blizzard of Mar. 12, 1888; the floods of 1927, 1936; and the great hurricane of 1938. Practically all adults living today can remember the destruction caused by the hurricane of 1938. In Athens countless trees were blown down, the roof on Henry Ward’s milk house and one side of the barn were blown off. A small bridge near Camp Nai-neh-ta was washed away and abutments on others were weakened. About one-half mile of the main road to Cambridgeport, parallel with the brook above Brookside bungalow was washed away. Traffic was detoured around the road past the David Karlson farm. Two of Ned Wyman’s 10′ × 12′ chicken houses on the lower road, floated down stream, one lodging in a tangle of brush. Next morning, expecting to find the 50 or more chicks housed inside drowned, Mr. Wyman happily discovered them all perched on the roost above the water, waiting for breakfast.»</p>
<p><i>Also see:</i> <a href="https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/1816-year-without-a-summer/">1816: The Year Without a Summer</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-546567519565363012023-07-25T14:00:00.000-04:002023-07-25T14:00:15.646-04:00FBI source report on Burisma and the Bidens<p>Federal Bureau of Investigation: <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ fd_1023_obtained_by_senator_grassley_-_biden.pdf">CHS Reporting Document, FD-1023</a><br />Date: 06/30/2020</p>
<p><b>First Meeting with Burisma Executives in Kyiv, Ukraine 201S/2016.</b></p>
<p>... Pojarskii [Burisma CFO] said Burisma hired the former President or Prime Minister of Poland to leverage his contacts in Europe for prospective oil and gas deals, and they hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds or problems” ... CHS [confidential human source] asked why they (Burisma) needed to get CHS’s assistance regarding the purchase/merger of a US-based company when Biden was on their board. Pojarskii replied that Hunter Biden was not smart, and they wanted to get additional counsel. ...</p>
<p><b>Meeting with CHS, Ostapenko, and Mykola Zlochevsky [Burisma founder and CEO] in Vienna, Austria in 2016.</b></p>
<p>... CHS recalled this meeting took place around the time Joe Biden made a public statement about (former) Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin being corrupt, and that he should be fired/removed from office. CHS told Zlochevsky that due to Shokin’s investigation into Burisma, which was made public at this time, it would have a substantial negative impact on Burisma’s prospective IPO in the United States. Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, “Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.” ...</p>
<p>CHS advised Zlochevsky it would be problematic to raise capital in the US given Shokin’s investigation into Burisma as nobody in the US would invest in a company that was the subject ot a criminal investigation. CHS suggested it would best if Burisma simply litigate the matter in Ukraine, and pay some attorney $50,000. Zlochevsky said he/Burisma would likely lose the trial because he could not show that Burisma was innocent; Zlochevsky also laughed at CHS’s number of $50,000 (not because of the small amount, but because the number contained a “5”) and said that “it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.” ...</p>
<p>CHS told Zlochevsky that any such payments to the Bidens would complicate matters, and Burisma should hire “some normal US oil and gas advisors” because the Bidens have no experience with that business sector. Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden “was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter,” Zlochevsky needed to keep hunter Biden (on the board) “so everything will be okay.” CHS inquired whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should retain Hunter Biden; Zlochevsky replied, “They both did.” CHS reiterated CHS’s opinion that Zlochevsky was making a mistake and he should fire Hunter Biden and deal with Shokin’s investigation directly so that the matter will remain an issue in Ukraine, and not turn in to some international matter. Zlochevsky responded something to the effect of, “Don’t worry, this thing Will go away anyway.” CHS replied that, notwithstanding Shokin’s investigation, it was still a bad decision for Burisma to spend $20-$30 million to buy a US business, and that CHS didn’t want to be involved with the Biden matter. Zlochevsky responded that he appreciated CHS’s advice, but that “it’s too late to change his decision.” CHS understood this to mean that Zlochevsky had already had paid the Bidens, presumably to “deal with Shokin.” ...</p>
<p><b>2016/2017 Telephone call.</b> Shortly after the 2016 US election and during President Trump’s transition period, CHS participated in a conference call with Ostapenko and Zlochevsky. CHS inquired whether Zlochevsky was happy with the US election results. Zlochevsky replied that he was not happy Trump won the election. CHS asked Zlochevsky whether he was concerned about Burisma’s involvement with the Bidens. Zlochevsky stated he didn’t want to pay the Bidens and he was “pushed to pay”* them. ... Zlochevsky stated Shokin had already been fired, and no investigation was currently going on, and that nobody would find out about his financial dealings with the Bidens. CHS then stated, “l hope you have some back-up (proof) For your words (nemely, that Zlochevsky was “forced” to pay the Bidens). Zlochevsky replied he has many text messages and “recordings” that show that he was coerced to make such payments (See below, subsequent CHS reporting on 6/29/2020).</p>
<p><b>2019 Telephone call.</b> After the aforementioned 2016 telephone call, CHS had no interactions with Zlochevsky/Bursima [<i>sic</i>] whatsoever, until 2019. In 201 9, CHS met with Ostapenko in London to discuss various business matters (which had nothing to do with Zlochevsky, Burisma, or the gas/oil industry ... At some point during this meeting, Ostapenko advised CHS he was going to call Zlochevsky. At this time, CHS understood Zlochevsky was living somewhere in Europe (NFI). During the call, Zlochevsky asked CHS and/or Ostapenko if they read the recent news reports about the investigations in to the Bidens and Bursima ... CHS mentioned Zlochevsky might have difficulty explaining suspicious wire transfers that may evidence any (illicit) payments to the Bidens. Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the “Big Guy” (which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden). CHS asked Zloehevsky how many companies/bank accounts Zlochevsky controls; Zlochevsky responded it would take them (investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden). ...</p>
<p>On June 29, 2020, CHS provided the following supplemental reporting:</p>
<p>Regarding CHS’s aforementioned reporting that Zlochevsky said - “he has many text messages and ’recordings’ that show he was coerced to make such payments” - CHS clarified Zlochevsky said he had a total of “17 recordings” involving the Bidens; two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings only included Hunter Biden. CHS reiterated that, per Zlochevsky, these recordings evidence Zlochevsky was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired. Zlochevsky stated he has two “documents (which CHS understood to be wire transfer statements, bank records, etc.), that evidence some payment(s) to the Bidens were made, presumably in exchange for Shokin’s firing.</p>
<p>Regarding aforementioned Oleksandr Ostapenko (alternate spelling, Alexander Ostapenko), who originally introduced CHS into this matter, Ostapenko currently “works in some office for the administration of President Zelensky (NFI)”, and also works for Valery Vavilov, who is the founder/CEO of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology business BitFury. </p> <p>*CHS explained the Russian term Zlochevsky used to explain the payments was “poluchili” (transliterated by the CHS), which literally translates to “got it” or “received it”, but is also used in Russian criminal slang for being “forced or coerced to pay.”</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-12034300690826324372023-05-30T19:44:00.000-04:002023-05-30T19:44:01.719-04:00Statement of Justice Gorsuch<p><b>Arizona, et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al.</b><br /><br />This case concerns the “Title 42 orders.” Those emergency decrees severely restricted immigration to this country for the ostensible purpose of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The federal government began issuing the orders in March 2020 and continued issuing them until April 2022, when officials decided they were no longer necessary.<br /><br />If that seems reasonable enough, events soon took a turn. … [T]he federal government found itself in an unenviable spot—bound by two inconsistent nationwide commands, one requiring it to enforce the Title 42 orders and another practically forbidding it from doing so. … Now, almost five months later, the Court puts a final twist on the tale. It vacates the appellate court’s order denying the States’ motion to intervene and remands with instructions to dismiss the motion as moot. Why the sudden about-face? Recently, Congress passed and the President signed into law a joint resolution declaring that the COVID-19 emergency is over. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, too, has issued his own directive announcing the end of the public-health emergency underlying the Title 42 orders. Apparently, these developments are enough to persuade the Court that the Title 42 orders the government wished to withdraw a year ago are now as good as gone and any dispute over them is moot.<br /><br />I recite all this tortured procedural history not because I think the Court’s decision today is wrong. Nearly five months ago, I argued that the Court erred when it granted expedited review and issued a stay. As I explained at the time, I do not discount the States’ concerns about what is happening at the border, but “the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.” And the Court took a serious misstep when it effectively allowed nonparties to this case to manipulate our docket to prolong an emergency decree designed for one crisis in order to address an entirely different one. Today’s dismissal goes some way to correcting that error.<br /><br />I lay out the history of this case only because it is so typical. Not just as an illustration of the quandaries that can follow when district courts award nationwide relief, a problem I have written about before. Even more importantly, the history of this case illustrates the disruption we have experienced over the last three years in how our laws are made and our freedoms observed.<br /><br />Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.<br /><br />Federal executive officials entered the act too. Not just with emergency immigration decrees. They deployed a public-health agency to regulate landlord-tenant relations nationwide. They used a workplace-safety agency to issue a vaccination mandate for most working Americans. They threatened to fire noncompliant employees, and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement. Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed.<br /><br />While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent. Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them. In some cases, like this one, courts even allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of emergency-lawmaking-by-litigation.<br /><br />Doubtless, many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it. One lesson might be this: Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action—almost any action—as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force. We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree. Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties—the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes. We may even cheer on those who ask us to disregard our normal lawmaking processes and forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.<br /><br />But maybe we have learned another lesson too. The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government. However wise one person or his advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people that can be tapped in the legislative process. Decisions produced by those who indulge no criticism are rarely as good as those produced after robust and uncensored debate. Decisions announced on the fly are rarely as wise as those that come after careful deliberation. Decisions made by a few often yield unintended consequences that may be avoided when more are consulted. Autocracies have always suffered these defects. Maybe, hopefully, we have relearned these lessons too.<br /><br />In the 1970s, Congress studied the use of emergency decrees. It observed that they can allow executive authorities to tap into extraordinary powers. Congress also observed that emergency decrees have a habit of long outliving the crises that generate them; some federal emergency proclamations, Congress noted, had remained in effect for years or decades after the emergency in question had passed. At the same time, Congress recognized that quick unilateral executive action is sometimes necessary and permitted in our constitutional order. In an effort to balance these considerations and ensure a more normal operation of our laws and a firmer protection of our liberties, Congress adopted a number of new guardrails in the National Emergencies Act.<br /><br />Despite that law, the number of declared emergencies has only grown in the ensuing years. And it is hard not to wonder whether, after nearly a half century and in light of our Nation’s recent experience, another look is warranted. It is hard not to wonder, too, whether state legislatures might profitably reexamine the proper scope of emergency executive powers at the state level. At the very least, one can hope that the Judiciary will not soon again allow itself to be part of the problem by permitting litigants to manipulate our docket to perpetuate a decree designed for one emergency to address another. Make no mistake—decisive executive action is sometimes necessary and appropriate. But if emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others. And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.<br /></p><p>[<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-592_5hd5.pdf"><i>link (pdf)</i></a>]<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-12113706775426073362023-04-18T14:53:00.004-04:002023-05-09T09:48:45.465-04:00Wordfence and Wordpress caching plugins<p>(<i>Note:</i> This applies to self-hosted Wordpress installations, not blogs hosted by Wordpress.com.)<br /></p><p>Although the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/">Wordfence</a> security plugin claims to work with Wordpress caching plugins, such as <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/">WP Super Cache</a>, it does not operate as completely as it would otherwise. Namely, it may not process requests for pages for which a cached version is available. The two plugins both want to handle requests <i>before</i> Wordpress runs. If a requested page has a cached version available (i.e., html instead of php), Wordpress and thus Wordfence are not run. So if you want Wordfence to handle every request, the cache plugin needs to be set up to run <i>after</i>. What follows is the example of WP Super Cache. Apache 2.4, PHP 8.0, Wordpress 6.2, Wordfence 7.9.2, WP Super Cache 1.9.4.</p><p>In Wordfence, the firewall protection is enabled and the protection level is “extended”, such that “All PHP requests will be processed by the firewall prior to running.” This entails its adding a directive to the htaccess file of the Wordpress directory to prepend Wordfence.</p><p>But WP Super Cache in Expert mode also adds directives to the htaccess file to return cached html files if available instead of running Wordpress (and its huge resource demand). Thus, if the request is for a page that has a cached copy, it bypasses the Wordfence firewall.</p><p>For Wordfence to act on every request, WP Super Cache needs to be run in simple mode. And the advanced setting of “late init” (“Display cached files after WordPress has loaded”) needs to be turned on as well.</p><p>In summary, to allow the Wordfence firewall to work when cached files are returned, any caching plugin has to operate in PHP mode rather than via Mod_Rewrite in htaccess. Furthermore, it needs to operate after Wordpress is initialized.</p><p>On the other hand, serving cached html files is not only faster, but also avoids running PHP code, obviating the vulnerability that Wordfence protects against. As for DDoS attacks, your server should be providing that protection (and serving cached html pages makes it much more able to withstand such attacks).</p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-45495861964103468982023-03-31T10:40:00.002-04:002023-03-31T17:39:49.828-04:00Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation<p><i><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation">A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century</a>, by Jacob Siegel, Tablet, March 28, 2023 [excerpts]:</i></p>
<p>In 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had proof of a communist spy ring operating inside the government. Overnight, the explosive accusations blew up in the national press, but the details kept changing. Initially, McCarthy said he had a list with the names of 205 communists in the State Department; the next day he revised it to 57. Since he kept the list a secret, the inconsistencies were beside the point. The point was the power of the accusation, which made McCarthy’s name synonymous with the politics of the era.</p>
<p>For more than half a century, McCarthyism stood as a defining chapter in the worldview of American liberals: a warning about the dangerous allure of blacklists, witch hunts, and demagogues.</p>
<p>Until 2017, that is, when another list of alleged Russian agents roiled the American press and political class. A new outfit called Hamilton 68 claimed to have discovered hundreds of Russian-affiliated accounts that had infiltrated Twitter to sow chaos and help Donald Trump win the election. ...</p>
<p>In his last days in office, President Barack Obama [had] made the decision to set the country on a new course. On Dec. 23, 2016, he signed into law the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, which used the language of defending the homeland to launch an open-ended, offensive information war.</p>
<p>Something in the looming specter of Donald Trump and the populist movements of 2016 reawakened sleeping monsters in the West. Disinformation, a half-forgotten relic of the Cold War, was newly spoken of as an urgent, existential threat. ...</p>
<p>To win the information war — an existential conflict taking place in the borderless dimensions of cyberspace — the government needed to dispense with outdated legal distinctions between foreign terrorists and American citizens. ...</p>
<p>Step one in the national mobilization to defeat disinfo fused the U.S. national security infrastructure with the social media platforms, where the war was being fought. The government’s lead counter-disinformation agency, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), declared that its mission entailed “seeking out and engaging the best talent within the technology sector.” To that end, the government started deputizing tech executives as de facto wartime information commissars. ... In the fall of 2017, the FBI opened its Foreign Influence Task Force for the express purpose of monitoring social media to flag accounts trying to “discredit U.S. individuals and institutions.” The Department of Homeland Security took on a similar role. ...</p>
<p>It was not enough for a few powerful agencies to combat disinformation. The strategy of national mobilization called for “not only the whole-of-government, but also whole-of-society” approach, according to a document released by the GEC in 2018. “To counter propaganda and disinformation,” the agency stated, “will require leveraging expertise from across government, tech and marketing sectors, academia, and NGOs.”</p>
<p>This is how the government-created “war against disinformation” became the great moral crusade of its time. CIA officers at Langley came to share a cause with hip young journalists in Brooklyn, progressive nonprofits in D.C., George Soros–funded think tanks in Prague, racial equity consultants, private equity consultants, tech company staffers in Silicon Valley, Ivy League researchers, and failed British royals [<i>cf. “Gleichschaltung”</i>]. Never-Trump Republicans joined forces with the Democratic National Committee, which declared online disinformation “a whole-of-society problem that requires a whole-of-society response.” ... The American press, once the guardian of democracy, was hollowed out to the point that it could be worn like a hand puppet by the U.S. security agencies and party operatives. ...</p>
<p>What is coming into being is a new form of government and social organization ... A state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals, is being replaced by a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms. ...</p>
<blockquote>
When the blackbird flew out of sight,<br>
It marked the edge<br>
Of one of many circles.
</blockquote>
<p>In a technical or structural sense, the censorship regime’s aim is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule. That’s why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation. ... Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is. That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.</p>
<p>If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: <i>You cannot be trusted with your own mind.</i> ...</p>
<p><h2>I. Russophobia Returns, Unexpectedly: The Origins of Contemporary “Disinformation”</h2></p>
<p>The foundations of the current information war were laid in response to a sequence of events that took place in 2014. First Russia tried to suppress the U.S.-backed Euromaidan movement in Ukraine; a few months later Russia [reclaimed] Crimea; and several months after that the Islamic State captured the city of Mosul in northern Iraq and declared it the capital of a new caliphate. In three separate conflicts, an enemy or rival power of the United States was seen to have successfully used not just military might but also social media messaging campaigns designed to confuse and demoralize its enemies — a combination known as “hybrid warfare.” These conflicts convinced U.S. and NATO security officials that the power of social media to shape public perceptions had evolved to the point where it could decide the outcome of modern wars — outcomes that might be counter to those the United States wanted. They concluded that the state had to acquire the means to take control over digital communications so that they could present reality as they wanted it to be, and prevent reality from becoming anything else. ...</p>
<p><h2>II. Trump’s Election: “It’s Facebook’s Fault”</h2></p>
<p>... [I]t’s easy to forget that Republican officials and the party’s donor class saw Trump as a dangerous radical who threatened their business ties with China, their access to cheap imported labor, and the lucrative business of constant war. </p>
<p>The phenomenon was not unique to Trump. Bernie Sanders, the left-wing populist candidate in 2016, was also seen as a dangerous threat by the ruling class. But whereas the Democrats successfully sabotaged Sanders, Trump made it past his party’s gatekeepers, which meant that he had to be dealt with by other means.</p>
<p>Two days after Trump took office, a smirking Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that it was “really dumb” of the new president to get on the bad side of the security agencies that were supposed to work for him: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.” ...</p>
<p>Immediately after the election, Hillary Clinton started blaming Facebook for her loss. ... The press repeated that message so often that it gave the political strategy the appearance of objective validity ... The false yet foundational claim that Russia hacked the 2016 election provided a justification — just like the claims about weapons of mass destruction that triggered the Iraq War — to plunge America into a wartime state of exception. With the normal rules of constitutional democracy suspended, a coterie of party operatives and security officials then installed a vast, largely invisible new architecture of social control on the backend of the internet’s biggest platforms.</p>
<p>Though there was never a public order given, the U.S. government began enforcing martial law online.</p>
<p><h2>III. Why Do We Need All This Data About People?</h2></p>
<p>The American doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare famously calls for “winning hearts and minds.” ... When that fails, there is another approach in the modern military arsenal to take its place: counterterrorism. Where counterinsurgency tries to win local support, counterterrorism tries to hunt down and kill designated enemies. ...</p>
<p>The Pentagon built the proto-internet known as ARPANET in 1969 because it needed a decentralized communications infrastructure that could survive nuclear war — but that was not the only goal. The internet, writes Yasha Levine in his history of the subject, <i>Surveillance Valley</i>, was also “an attempt to build computer systems that could collect and share intelligence, watch the world in real time, and study and analyze people and political movements with the ultimate goal of predicting and preventing social upheaval. Some even dreamed of creating a sort of early warning radar for human societies: a networked computer system that watched for social and political threats and intercepted them in much the same way that traditional radar did for hostile aircraft.” ...</p>
<p>As Shoshana Zuboff writes in <i>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</i>, at the start of the war on terror “the elective affinity between public intelligence agencies and the fledgling surveillance capitalist Google blossomed in the heat of emergency to produce a unique historical deformity: surveillance exceptionalism.” ...</p>
<p>Those efforts culminated in January 2016 with the State Department’s announcement that it would be opening the aforementioned Global Engagement Center ... Just a few months later, President Obama put the GEC in charge of the new war against disinformation. ...</p>
<p>In the wake of the populist upheavals of 2016, leading figures in America’s ruling party seized upon the feedback loop of surveillance and control refined through the war on terror as a method for maintaining power inside the United States. ...</p>
<p>But those were just branding changes; the underlying technological infrastructure and ruling-class philosophy, which claimed the right to remake the world based on a religious sense of expertise, remained unchanged. The human art of politics, which would have required real negotiation and compromise with Trump supporters, was abandoned in favor of a specious science of top-down social engineering that aimed to produce a totally administered society.</p>
<p><b>For the American ruling class, COIN replaced politics as the proper means of dealing with the natives.</b></p>
<p><h2>IV. The Internet: From Darling to Demon</h2></p>
<p>... It is a supreme irony that the very people who a decade ago led the freedom agenda for other countries have since pushed the United States to implement one of the largest and most powerful censorship machines in existence under the guise of fighting disinformation. ... These people — politicians, first and foremost — saw (and presented) internet freedom as a positive force for humanity when it empowered them and served their interests, but as something demonic when it broke down those hierarchies of power and benefited their opponents. ...</p>
<p>Declaring the platforms guilty of electing Trump ... provided the club that the media and the political class used to beat the tech companies into becoming more powerful and more obedient.</p>
<p><h2>V. Russiagate! Russiagate! Russiagate!</h2></p>
<p>If one imagines that the American ruling class faced a problem — Donald Trump appeared to threaten their institutional survival — then the Russia investigation didn’t just provide the means to unite the various branches of that class, in and out of government, against a common foe. It also gave them the ultimate form of leverage over the most powerful non-aligned sector of society: the tech industry. The coordination necessary to carry out the Russian collusion frame-up was the vehicle, fusing (1) the political goals of the Democratic Party, (2) the institutional agenda of the intelligence and security agencies, and (3) the narrative power and moral fervor of the media with (4) the tech companies’ surveillance architecture.</p>
<p>The secret FISA warrant that allowed U.S. security agencies to begin spying on the Trump campaign was based on the Steele dossier, a partisan hatchet job paid for by Hillary Clinton’s team that consisted of provably false reports alleging a working relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian government. While a powerful short-term weapon against Trump, the dossier was also obvious bullshit, which suggested it might eventually become a liability. ...</p>
<p>[Disinformation] provided a means to attack and discredit anyone who questioned the dossier or the larger claim that Trump colluded with Russia. All the old McCarthyite tricks were new again. ...
<p>The claim that Russia hacked the 2016 vote allowed federal agencies to implement the new public-private censorship machinery under the pretext of ensuring “election integrity.” People who expressed true and constitutionally protected opinions about the 2016 election (and later about issues like Covid‑19 and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan) were labeled un-American, racists, conspiracists, and stooges of Vladimir Putin and systematically removed from the digital public square to prevent their ideas from spreading disinformation. ...</p>
<p>And here’s the climax of this particular entry: On Jan. 6, 2017 — the same day that Brennan’s ICA report lent institutional backing to the false claim that Putin helped Trump — Jeh Johnson, the outgoing Obama-appointed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that, in response to Russian electoral interference, he had designated U.S. election systems as “critical national infrastructure.” <b>The move placed the property of 8,000 election jurisdictions across the country under the control of the DHS.</b> It was a coup that Johnson had been attempting to pull off since the summer of 2016 ...</p>
<p><h2>VI. Why the Post-9/11 “War on Terror” Never Ended</h2></p>
<p>... Twitter had the chance to stop the Hamilton 68 hoax before it got out of hand, yet chose not to. Why? The answer can be seen in the emails sent by a Twitter executive named Emily Horne, who advised against calling out the scam. Twitter had a smoking gun showing that the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), the neoliberal think tank behind the Hamilton 68 initiative, was guilty of exactly the charge it made against others: peddling disinformation that inflamed domestic political divisions and undermined the legitimacy of democratic institutions. But that had to be weighed against other factors, Horne suggested, such as the need to stay on the good side of a powerful organization. “We have to be careful in how much we push back on ASD publicly,” she wrote in February 2018.</p>
<p>The ASD was lucky to have someone like Horne on the inside of Twitter. Then again, maybe it wasn’t luck. Horne had previously worked at the State Department, handling the “digital media and think tank outreach” portfolio. According to her LinkedIn, she “worked closely with foreign policy reporters covering [ISIS] … and executed communications plans relating to Counter-[ISIS] Coalition activities.” From there she became the director for strategic communications for Obama’s National Security Council, only leaving to join Twitter in June 2017. Sharpen the focus on that timeline, and here’s what it shows: Horne joined Twitter one month before the launch of ASD, just in time to advocate for protecting a group run by the kind of power brokers who held the keys to her professional future.</p>
<p>It is no coincidence that the war against disinformation began at the very moment the Global War on Terror (GWOT) finally appeared to be coming to an end. Over two decades, the GWOT fulfilled President Dwight Eisenhower’s warnings about the rise of a military-industrial complex with “unwarranted influence.” It evolved into a self-interested, self-justifying industry that employed thousands of people in and out of government who operated without clear oversight or strategic utility. It might have been possible for the U.S. security establishment to declare victory and move from a permanent war footing to a peacetime posture, but as one former White House national security official explained to me, that was unlikely. ... He described “huge incentives to inflate the threat” that have been internalized in the culture of the U.S. defense establishment and are “of a nature that they don’t require one to be particularly craven or intellectually dishonest.”</p>
<p>“This huge machinery was built around the war on terror,” the official said. “A massive infrastructure that includes the intelligence world, all the elements of DoD, including the combatant commands, CIA and FBI and all the other agencies. And then there are all the private contractors and the demand in think tanks. I mean, <i>there are billions and billions of dollars at stake.</i>” ... But it was not enough to sustain the previous system; to survive, it needed to continually raise the threat level. ...</p>
<p>Today, to keep America safe, it is no longer enough to invade the Middle East and bring its people democracy. According to the Biden White House and the army of disinformation experts, the threat is now coming from within. A network of right-wing domestic extremists, QAnon fanatics, and white nationalists is supported by a far larger population of some 70 million Trump voters whose political sympathies amount to a fifth column within the United States. But how did these people get [radicalized]? Through the internet, of course, where the tech companies, by refusing to “do more” to combat the scourge of hate speech and fake news, allowed toxic disinformation to poison users’ minds. ...</p>
<p>Americans are no longer presumed to have the right to choose their own leaders or to question decisions made in the name of national security. Anyone who says otherwise can be labeled a domestic extremist.</p>
<p><h2>VII. The Rise of “Domestic Extremists”</h2></p>
<p>A few weeks after Trump supporters rioted [<i>sic</i>] in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Robert Grenier wrote an article for The New York Times advocating for the United States to wage a “comprehensive counterinsurgency program” against its own citizens.</p>
<p>Counterinsurgency, as Grenier would know, is not a limited, surgical operation but a broad effort conducted across an entire society that inevitably involves collateral destruction. Targeting only the most violent extremists who attacked law enforcement officers at the Capitol would not be enough to defeat the insurgency. Victory would require winning the hearts and minds of the natives — in this case, the Christian dead-enders and rural populists radicalized by their grievances into embracing the Bin Laden–like cult of MAGA. ...</p>
<p>“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots. They start with words,” Clint Watts [who headed up the Hamilton 68 initiative] proclaimed in 2017 when he testified before Congress. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations.” Watts is a career veteran of military and government service who seems to share the belief, common among his colleagues, that once the internet entered its populist stage and threatened entrenched hierarchies, it became a grave danger to civilization. ... The standard Watts and others introduced, which quickly became the elite consensus, treats tweets and memes — the primary weapons of disinformation — as acts of war. ...</p>
<p><h2>VIII. The NGO Borg</h2></p>
<p>In November 2018, Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy published a study titled “The Fight Against Disinformation in the U.S.: A Landscape Analysis.” The scope of the paper is comprehensive, but its authors are especially focused on the centrality of philanthropically funded nonprofit organizations and their relationship to the media. ... To save journalism, to save democracy itself, Americans should count on the foundations and philanthropists — people like eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Open Society Foundations’ George Soros, and internet entrepreneur and Democratic Party fundraiser Reid Hoffman. In other words, Americans were being asked to rely on private billionaires who were pumping billions of dollars into civic organizations — through which they would influence the American political process.</p>
<p>There is no reason to question the motivations of the staffers at these NGOs, most of whom were no doubt perfectly sincere in the conviction that their work was restoring the “underpinning of a healthy society.” But certain observations can be made about the nature of that work. First, it placed them in a position below the billionaire philanthropists but above hundreds of millions of Americans whom they would guide and instruct as a new information clerisy by separating truth from falsehood, as wheat from chaff. Second, this mandate, and the enormous funding behind it, opened up thousands of new jobs for information regulators at a moment when traditional journalism was collapsing. Third, the first two points placed the immediate self-interest of the NGO staffers perfectly in line with the imperatives of the American ruling party and security state. In effect, a concept taken from the worlds of espionage and warfare — disinformation — was seeded into academic and nonprofit spaces, where it ballooned into a pseudoscience that was used as an instrument of partisan warfare.</p>
<p><b>Virtually overnight, the “whole of society” national mobilization to defeat disinformation that Obama initiated led to the creation and credentialing of a whole new class of experts and regulators.</b> ...</p>
<p>Everywhere one looks now, there is a disinformation expert. They are found at every major media publication, in every branch of government, and in academic departments, crowding each other out on cable news programs, and of course staffing the NGOs. There is enough money coming from the counter-disinformation mobilization to both fund new organizations and convince established ones like the Anti-Defamation League to parrot the new slogans and get in on the action.</p>
<p>How is it that so many people could suddenly become experts in a field — “disinformation” — that not 1 in 10,000 of them could have defined in 2014? Because expertise in disinformation involves ideological orientation, not technical knowledge. ...</p>
<p>It is not unusual that a government agency would want to work with private corporations and civil society groups, but in this case the result was to break the independence of organizations that should have been critically investigating the government’s efforts. <i>The institutions that claim to act as watchdogs on government power rented themselves out as vehicles for manufacturing consensus.</i></p>
<p>Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the fields that have been most aggressive in cheerleading the war against disinformation and calling for greater censorship — counterterrorism, journalism, epidemiology — share a public record of spectacular failure in recent years. The new information regulators failed to win over vaccine skeptics, convince MAGA diehards that the 2020 election was legitimate, or prevent the public from inquiring into the origins of the Covid‑19 pandemic, as they tried desperately to do.</p>
<p>But they succeeded in galvanizing a wildly lucrative whole-of-society effort, providing thousands of new careers and a renewed mandate of heaven to the institutionalists who saw populism as the end of civilization.</p>
<p><h2>IX. Covid-19</h2></p>
<p>By 2020, the counter-disinformation machine had grown into one of the most powerful forces in American society. Then the Covid‑19 pandemic dumped jet fuel into its engine. In addition to fighting foreign threats and deterring domestic extremists, censoring “deadly disinformation” became an urgent need. To take just one example, Google’s censorship, which applied to its subsidiary sites like YouTube, called for “removing information that is problematic” and “anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations” ...</p>
<p>President Biden publicly accused social media companies of “killing people” by not censoring enough vaccine disinformation. Using its new powers and direct channels inside the tech companies, the White House began sending lists of people it wanted banned, such as journalist Alex Berenson. Berenson was kicked off Twitter after tweeting that mRNA vaccines don’t “stop infection. Or transmission.” As it turned out, that was a true statement. The health authorities at the time were either misinformed or lying about the vaccines’ ability to prevent the spread of the virus. In fact, despite claims from the health authorities and political officials, the people in charge of the vaccine knew this all along. In the record of a meeting in December 2020, Food and Drug Administration adviser Dr. Patrick Moore stated, “Pfizer has presented no evidence in its data today that the vaccine has any effect on virus carriage or shedding, which is the fundamental basis for herd immunity.”</p>
<p><i>Dystopian in principle, the response to the pandemic was also totalitarian in practice.</i> In the United States, the DHS produced a video in 2021 encouraging “children to report their own family members to Facebook for ‘disinformation’ if they challenge U.S. government narratives on Covid‑19.” ...</p>
<p>Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum and <i>capo di tutti capi</i> of the global expert class, saw the pandemic as an opportunity to implement a “Great Reset” that could advance the cause of planetary information control: “The containment of the coronavirus pandemic will necessitate a global surveillance network capable of identifying new outbreaks as soon as they arise.”</p>
<p><h2>X. Hunter’s Laptops: The Exception to the Rule</h2></p>
<p>The laptops are real. The FBI has known this since 2019, when it first took possession of them. When the <i>New York Post</i> attempted to report on them, dozens of the most senior national security officials in the United States lied to the public, claiming the laptops were likely part of a Russian “disinformation” plot. Twitter, Facebook, and Google, operating as fully integrated branches of the state security infrastructure, carried out the government’s censorship orders based on that lie. The press swallowed the lie and cheered on the censorship.</p>
<p>The story of the laptops has been framed as many things, but the most fundamental truth about it is that <i>it was the successful culmination of the years-long effort to create a shadow regulatory bureaucracy built specifically to prevent a repeat of Trump’s 2016 victory.</i> ...</p>
<p>While the laptop is the best-known case of the ruling party’s intervention in the Trump-Biden race, its brazenness was an exception. The vast majority of the interference in the election was invisible to the public and took place through censorship mechanisms carried out under the auspices of “election integrity.” The legal framework for this had been put in place shortly after Trump took office, when the outgoing DHS chief Jeh Johnson passed an 11th-hour rule — over the vehement objections of local stakeholders — declaring election systems to be critical national infrastructure, thereby placing them under the supervision of the agency. Many observers had expected that the act would be repealed by Johnson’s successor, Trump-appointed John Kelly, but curiously it was left in place.</p>
<p>In 2018, Congress created a new agency inside of the DHS called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that was tasked with defending America’s infrastructure — now including its election systems — from foreign attacks. In 2019, the DHS added another agency, the Foreign Influence and Interference Branch, which was focused on countering foreign disinformation. As if by design, the two roles merged. Russian hacking and other malign foreign-information attacks were said to threaten U.S. elections. ...</p>
<p>The latitude inherent in the concept of disinformation enabled the claim that preventing electoral sabotage required censoring Americans’ political views, lest an idea be shared in public that was originally planted by foreign agents.</p>
<p>In January 2021, CISA “transitioned its Countering Foreign Influence Task Force to promote more flexibility to focus on general MDM [misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation],” according to an August 2022 report from the DHS’s Office of Inspector General. <i>After the pretense of fighting a foreign threat fell away, what was left was the core mission to enforce a narrative monopoly over truth.</i> ...</p>
<p>Kept a secret from the public, the switch was “plotted on DHS’s own livestreams and internal documents,” according to Mike Benz. “DHS insiders’ collective justification, without uttering a peep about the switch’s revolutionary implications, was that ‘domestic disinformation’ was now a greater ‘cyber threat to elections’ than falsehoods flowing from foreign interference.”</p>
<p>Just like that, without any public announcements or black helicopters flying in formation to herald the change, America had its own Ministry of Truth.</p>
<p>Together they operated an industrial-scale censorship machine in which the government and NGOs sent tickets to the tech companies that flagged objectionable content they wanted scrubbed. That structure allowed the DHS to outsource its work to the Election Integrity Project (EIP), a consortium of four groups: the Stanford Internet Observatory; private anti-disinformation company Graphika (which had formerly been employed by the Defense Department against groups like ISIS in the war on terror); Washington University’s Center for an Informed Public; and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab. ...</p>
<p><h2>XI. The New One-Party State</h2></p>
<p>... Not so long ago, talk of a “deep state” was enough to mark a person as a dangerous conspiracy theorist to be summarily flagged for monitoring and censorship. But language and attitudes evolve, and today the term has been cheekily reappropriated by supporters of the deep state. For instance, a new book, <i>American Resistance</i>, by neoliberal national security analyst David Rothkopf, is subtitled <i>The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation</i>. ...</p>
<p>Faced with an external threat in the form of Trumpism, the natural cohesion and self-organizing dynamics of the [ruling] class were fortified by new top-down structures of coordination that were the goal and the result of Obama’s national mobilization. ...</p>
<p>What do the members of the ruling class believe? They believe, I argue [<i><a href="https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/05/data-driven-defeat-information-versus-interests-in-afghanistan/">link</a></i>], “in informational and management solutions to existential problems” and in their “own providential destiny and that of people like them to rule, regardless of their failures.” As a class, their highest principle is that they alone can wield power. If any other group were to rule, all progress and hope would be lost, and the dark forces of fascism and barbarism would at once sweep back over the earth. While technically an opposition party is still permitted to exist in the United States, the last time it attempted to govern nationally, it was subjected to a years-long coup. <b>In effect, any challenge to the authority of the ruling party, which represents the interests of the ruling class, is depicted as an existential threat to civilization.</b> ...</p>
<p><h2>XII. The End of Censorship</h2></p>
<p>The public’s glimpses into the early stages of the transformation of America from democracy to digital leviathan are the result of lawsuits and FOIAs — information that had to be pried from the security state — and one lucky fluke. If Elon Musk had not decided to purchase Twitter, many of the crucial details in the history of American politics in the Trump era would have remained secret, possibly forever.</p>
<p>But the system reflected in those disclosures may well be on its way out. ... The ultimate goal would be to recalibrate people’s experiences online through subtle manipulations of what they see in their search results and on their feed. The aim of such a scenario might be to prevent censor-worthy material from being produced in the first place.</p>
<p>In fact, that sounds rather similar to what Google is already doing in Germany, where the company recently unveiled a new campaign to expand its “prebunking” initiative “that aims to make people more resilient to the corrosive effects of online misinformation,” according to the Associated Press. The announcement closely followed Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ appearance on a German podcast, during which he called for using artificial intelligence to combat “conspiracy theories” and “political polarization.” Meta has its own prebunking program. ...</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the military is developing weaponized AI technology to dominate the information space. According to USASpending.gov, an official government website, the two largest contracts related to disinformation came from the Department of Defense to fund technologies for automatically detecting and defending against large-scale disinformation attacks. The first, for $11.9 million, was awarded in June 2020 to PAR Government Systems Corporation, a defense contractor in upstate New York. The second, issued in July 2020 for $10.9 million, went to a company called SRI International.</p>
<p>SRI International was originally connected to Stanford University before splitting off in the 1970s, a relevant detail considering that the Stanford Internet Observatory, an institution still directly connected to the school, led 2020’s EIP, which might well have been the largest mass censorship event in world history — a capstone of sorts to the record of pre-AI censorship.</p>
<p>Then there is the work going on at the National Science Foundation, a government agency that funds research in universities and private institutions. The NSF has its own program called the Convergence Accelerator Track F, which is helping to incubate a dozen automated disinformation-detection technologies explicitly designed to monitor issues like “vaccine hesitancy and electoral skepticism.” ...</p>
<p>In March, the NSF’s chief information officer, Dorothy Aronson, announced that the agency was “building a set of use cases” to explore how it could employ ChatGPT, the AI language model capable of a reasonable simulation of human speech, to further automate the production and dissemination of state propaganda.</p>
<p>The first great battles of the information war are over. They were waged by a class of journalists, retired generals, spies, Democratic Party bosses, party apparatchiks, and counterterrorism experts against the remnant of the American people who refused to submit to their authority.</p>
<p>Future battles fought through AI technologies will be harder to see.</p>
<p><h2>XIII. After Democracy</h2></p>
<p>Less than three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, <i>The New York Times</i> published an important article titled “The First Amendment in the age of disinformation.” The essay’s author, Times staff writer and Yale Law School graduate Emily Bazelon, argued that the United States was “in the midst of an information crisis caused by the spread of viral disinformation” that she compares to the “catastrophic” health effects of the novel coronavirus. She quotes from a book by Yale philosopher Jason Stanley and linguist David Beaver: “Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing.”</p>
<p>So the problem of disinformation is also a problem of democracy itself — specifically, that there’s too much of it. <b>To save liberal democracy, the experts prescribed two critical steps: America must become less free and less democratic.</b> This necessary evolution will mean shutting out the voices of certain rabble-rousers in the online crowd who have forfeited the privilege of speaking freely. It will require following the wisdom of disinformation experts and outgrowing our parochial attachment to the Bill of Rights. This view may be jarring to people who are still attached to the American heritage of liberty and self-government, but it has become the official policy of the country’s ruling party and much of the American intelligentsia. ...</p>
<p>To a ruling class that had already grown tired of democracy’s demand that freedom be granted to its subjects, disinformation provided a regulatory framework to replace the U.S. Constitution. By aiming at the impossible, the elimination of all error and deviation from party orthodoxy, the ruling class ensures that it will always be able to point to a looming threat from extremists — <i>a threat that justifies its own iron grip on power</i>.</p>
<p>A siren song calls on those of us alive at the dawn of the digital age to submit to the authority of machines that promise to optimize our lives and make us safer. Faced with the apocalyptic threat of the “infodemic,” we are led to believe that only superintelligent algorithms can protect us from the crushingly inhuman scale of the digital information assault. The old human arts of conversation, disagreement, and irony, on which democracy and much else depend, are subjected to a withering machinery of military-grade surveillance — surveillance that nothing can withstand and that aims to make us fearful of our capacity for reason.</p>
<p><center>[[[[ ]]]]</center></p>
<p><i>Babylon Bee:</i> <a href="https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-fight-fascism-by-arresting-political-opponents">Democrats Vow to Arrest As Many Political Opponents As It Takes to Defeat Fascism</a></p>
<p><i>RT:</i> <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/573882-uk-artificial-intelligence-threats/">UK to use AI to detect foreign threats</a>. “The AI unit will also be used to target distributors of alleged ‘disinformation’.”</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-5090559742479827792023-03-25T09:41:00.001-04:002023-03-25T09:41:48.611-04:00Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts ClubFrom the last 10 or so minutes of <a href="">episode 104, August 4th, 2021, of Weird Studies</a>:<p>
<p>Phil Ford: There’s a specificity to Sgt. Pepper’s, that it is something rather than something else. That is a very surprising thing to find in a piece of truly popular culture, like really really popular culture. And that is, it’s an incredibly aestheticist piece of art, like it is a piece of art that doesn’t argue so much for the total autonomy of imagination and the artwork as it just does it. It just substantiates it. And it’s all about the total freedom and autonomy of the imagination to go where it <i>will</i> go. ...</p>
<p>It is an album that asserts “all power to the imagination”. And that was maybe a more popular utterance in 1967 than it is in 2021. But listening to it and the degree of open-hearted acceptance of what is and the willingness to find beauty in anything and for that beauty to be enough. For that beauty not having to serve some kind of function, it doesn’t have to get in line and start marching, it doesn’t have to rap anything, it doesn’t have to build anybody’s brand, and it sure as shit doesn’t have to play into somebody’s political agenda. That degree of freedom that it models and that it imagines is something that is – to use a very over-used word – is subversive. In an age now that feels to me that all of the major voices in our culture are about negating exactly that freedom.</p>
<p>JF Martel: Yes ... You kind of hit it there, because when we talk about art as being apolitical, we don’t mean that art exists in a separate realm. It’s funny, because you just said that “all power to the imagination” first of all was used as a slogan by the ... ’68 revolutionaries and students – it’s funny how in a sense this call to the apolitical, to the imagination, has a commonness[?] free of all the machinery of history and politics. The assertion of the freedom of the imagination is itself the most subversive claim you can make. ...</p>
<p>It exists in itself for no reason, and that precisely is what makes it subversive. That’s precisely what makes it irreducible to anybody’s ideology. ...</p>
<p>Phil: I feel I should jump in here and say that when I talk about the autonomy of the imagination, or the autonomy of the aesthetic, that doesn’t mean that it is in a realm separate from politics. —</p>
<p>JF: Exactly, that’s my point—</p>
<p>Phil: What it means is that it turn into anything. It can turn into politics, or it can turn into sex, or it can turn into a blue door, it can turn into fucking anything. But it is not determined by any of the things it could turn into. ...</p>
<p>JF: ... I may seem like I’m contradicting myself but ... The cover of the album establishes a kind of tribe, or lineage, or party. ... It’s making a statement that flowing underneath the surface of what we call the social-political landscape, subterranean currents assert themselves retroactively in moments like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that suddenly not only is the earlier Beatles material reinvented in that album, but Aleister Crowley in a sense finds new [affordances?], channeled in a new way through the album, merely by being present on the cover of the album. Marilyn Monroe is there ... suddenly everything about her changes in light of the fact that she’s on the cover of this album, which is performing the operation we’ve been describing in this show: It’s calling forth a people ...</p>
<p>So the truly autonomous, let’s say, apolitical and yet deeply political work of art is always calling forth a people that doesn’t yet exist. And it’s not just calling for that people out of the future or out of the present, calling forth those of the listeners who will get it, it’s also calling out of the past, a lineage, a tribe, that by its very existence substantiates a world that does not yet exist.</p>
<p>Phil: Yeah, which is a political kind of thing to do, to define a people, but it’s defining a people of the imagination, and everybody can join. It’s like this album isn’t calling <i>you</i> – are you in the Sgt. Pepper Party? – which is a kind of party of the imagination ... It is, from a certain point of view, an enormous political act, to ask the world to join this people, but without defining it and without defining, like demands or like a 12-point program for change or whatever. It’s a political act of a very sixties kind, and there haven’t been many such acts like that since. It is an extraordinarily generous-hearted act to the extent that it doesn’t feel like politics at all ...</p>
<p>It’s very difficult to imagine politics as it is actually enacted in the world without the spirit of hatred, without the spirit of division. Like to define a people, you have to define it against something, and then the people that you define has to be compared favorably to the people who are outside, that you’ve othered, right? Somehow the Beatles managed to articulate a vision of the Sgt. Pepper party that doesn’t do that. ...</p>
<p>JF: There’s only one prerequisite.</p>
<p>Phil: And that is?</p>
<p>JF: It’s having a lonely heart.</p>
<p>Phil: How you figure?</p>
<p>JF: Well, a loneliness. You have to be able to extract yourself, transcend the collectivizing organic vicissitudes of your time. You have to access the untimely. And you can only do that alone. But what happens when you do that, when you take that lonely flight, is that you find yourself in a kind of angelic company that transcends time. Yeah.</p>
<p>Phil: Yeah.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-82591158879440871702023-01-14T18:50:00.000-05:002023-01-14T18:50:04.647-05:00Worldwide Lockdown, March–May 2020<p><i><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1238971734063226881.html">Compiled by CJ Hopkins, Consent Factory</a></i></p>
<p>"As well as enforcing quarantine measures, the law also allows the authorities to force people to be vaccinated, even though there is currently no vaccination for the virus." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching-emergency-coronavirus-law">thelocal.dk/20200313/denma…</a></p>
<p>“During the state of emergency, people will only be allowed out on to public streets for the following reasons: to buy food, basic or pharmaceutical items; to attend medical centres; to go to and from work ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/spain-government-set-to-order-nationwide-coronavirus-lockdown">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"Police are patrolling the streets to ensure we only leave our homes for work and health-related reasons ... we must fill and carry certificates stating our reasons. If caught out without a certificate, we will be fined and face up to three months in jail. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsweek.com/italy-life-quarantine-red-zone-coronavirus-house-three-weeks-1492273">newsweek.com/italy-life-qua…</a></p>
<p>"Spain, the worst-affected European country after Italy, announced on Saturday that citizens would be confined to their homes for 15 days unless they had to buy food or medicine" ... or, you know, "go to work." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/100m-europeans-on-lockdown-as-countries-battle-coronavirus">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"We are going to take the powers to make sure that we can quarantine people if they are a risk to public health, yes, and that’s important." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/15/police-arrest-coronavirus-patients-ignoring-quarantine-12400302/">metro.co.uk/2020/03/15/pol…</a></p>
<p>"If you want to leave the house, you now have to print off a document to explain to police your timing, destination and motive." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/life-lockdown-parma-italy-coronavirus">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"There are also plans for soldiers to protect quarantine zones with the police, if that ever came into force." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-more-than-10-000-armed-forces-staff-put-on-standby-11958144">news.sky.com/story/coronavi…</a></p>
<p>"Israel has authorized the country’s internal security agency to tap into a vast and previously undisclosed trove of cellphone data to retrace the movements of people who have contracted the coronavirus and identify others who should be quarantined ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/world/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-cellphone-tracking.html">nytimes.com/2020/03/16/wor…</a></p>
<p>“We are at war – a public health war, certainly but we are at war, against an invisible and elusive enemy,” Macron said, outlawing all journeys outside the home ... anyone flouting the new regulations would be punished, he said. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/coronavirus-spain-takes-over-private-healthcare-amid-more-european-lockdowns">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"The interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said 100,000 police officers would be deployed to enforce the lockdown ... Macron said that if necessary, the government would legislate by decree ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/france-at-war-how-parisians-are-coping-with-life-under-lockdown">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>“We will intervene where necessary to make sure that people respect the confinement decree.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-lockdown-eu-belgium-germany-adopt-measures">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"The Ministry of Defence is to double the size of the military’s civil contingency unit to create a 20,000-strong Covid support force ... the armed forces need to be prepared for the threat of a breakdown in civil order." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/18/10000-extra-troops-to-join-british-armys-covid-support-force">theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/m…</a></p>
<p>"The new force — made up of 10,000 military personnel who are regularly deployed to civilian activities, plus an extra 10,000 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic — has been placed at 'high readiness'." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.ft.com/content/5e464066-6946-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3">ft.com/content/5e4640…</a></p>
<p>“We have the ability to do martial law ... if we feel the necessity.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-california-prepared-enact-martial-215237009.html">news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-ca…</a></p>
<p>"Police and immigration officials would be able to place people in 'appropriate isolation facilities' under plans." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51938879">bbc.com/news/uk-politi…</a></p>
<p>"Standby orders were issued more than three weeks ago to ready these plans, not just to protect Washington but also to prepare for the possibility of some form of martial law." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-top-secret-plans-if-coronavirus-cripples-government-1492878">newsweek.com/exclusive-insi…</a></p>
<p>"Twitter will remove tweets that run the risk of causing harm by spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19 ... it will be applying a new broader definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/twitter-to-remove-harmful-fake-news-about-coronavirus">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"Some 100,000 police have fanned out across France to enforce the lockdown, with people allowed out of their homes only to buy groceries, go to work, exercise alone or seek medical help." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/19/woman-bundled-ground-police-breaking-lockdown-paris-12423747/">metro.co.uk/2020/03/19/wom…</a></p>
<p>"He is in a specially cleaned area designated for those who should be self-isolating." Minister Quayle said, "we cannot allow our critical health services to become overwhelmed and must have the means to prosecute those who choose to act irresponsibly." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-51974140">bbc.com/news/world-eur…</a></p>
<p>"Dane County, Wisconsin residents now have a method to report violations of the governor's ban on gatherings of 10 or more people." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://wkow.com/2020/03/19/heres-how-to-report-gatherings-of-10-or-more-people-to-authorities/">wkow.com/2020/03/19/her…</a></p>
<p>"Germany’s 83 million citizens have been told they risk being confined to their homes from Monday unless they behave responsibly this weekend." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/behave-or-face-strict-coronavirus-lockdown-germans-told">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"These [social restrictions] would need to be in place for at least most of a year. Under such as policy, at least half of the year would be spent under the stricter social distancing measures." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-self-isolation-cases-social-distancing-advice-boris-johnson-a9413836.html">independent.co.uk/news/health/co…</a></p>
<p>Suppression, which requires “social distancing of the entire population,” can save more lives and prevent hospitals from becoming extremely overburdened. But it needs to be maintained “until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more).” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21181694/coronavirus-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years">vox.com/science-and-he…</a></p>
<p>"The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/20/europe/italy-military-coronavirus-intl/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/03/20/eur…</a></p>
<p>"As of Wednesday, the camps have been locked down from 7pm to 7am. In the daytime, only one person is allowed out per family, and the police control their movements." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/21/fears-catastrophe-greece-migrant-camps-lockdown-coronavirus">theguardian.com/global-develop…</a></p>
<p>"The National Guard is expecting a rapid increase in unit activations over the next few weeks, leaders said at the Pentagon Thursday, filling roles like coronavirus testing and potentially law enforcement." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/03/19/guard-activations-expected-to-rapidly-increase-could-be-used-for-law-enforcement/">militarytimes.com/news/your-army…</a></p>
<p>"[T]he U.S. military is preparing forces to assume a larger role in the coronavirus response, including the controversial mission of quelling 'civil disturbances' ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsweek.com/inside-us-militarys-plans-stop-civil-disturbances-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-something-they-1493485">newsweek.com/inside-us-mili…</a></p>
<p>“These provisions will be enforced" ... “the violation of any provision of [the] order constitutes an imminent threat and creates an immediate menace to public health.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/new-york-90-day-stay-home-order-what-it-means">theguardian.com/us-news/2020/m…</a></p>
<p>'When MK Yoav Kish (Likud) sought to clarify whether she meant a total lockdown or curfew, Sadetsky replied ... “A lockdown and personal monitoring of people, and a total halt to personal freedoms.”' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-total-suspension-of-individual-freedom-inside-israel-s-secret-coronavirus-debate-1.8690950">haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…</a></p>
<p>"A final option: 'Permanent changes in our behavior that allow us to keep transmission rates low' ... that could include strict policies of testing and quarantine for anyone who comes down with COVID-19 — or even long-term bans on large gatherings." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/03/21/coronavirus-exit-strategy-could-be-months-or-years-away/">nypost.com/2020/03/21/cor…</a></p>
<p>"The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023">politico.com/news/2020/03/2…</a></p>
<p>Germany has issued a "contact ban, limiting interactions of more than 2 people ... there will be fines of up to €25,000 for those not keeping a 2 meter distance between people. The measures will be enforced by police and stay in place until April 19." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-germany-bans-meetings-of-more-than-two-people/a-52874174">dw.com/en/coronavirus…</a></p>
<p>"The Justice Department is using the COVID-19 outbreak to press for sweeping new powers that include being able to detain Americans indefinitely without a trial." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://reason.com/2020/03/21/justice-department-reportedly-asks-congress-for-indefinite-detention-powers-to-fight-coronavirus/">reason.com/2020/03/21/jus…</a></p>
<p>"Quebec City police have arrested a woman, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, for being out in the city's Limoilou neighbourhood despite being under a quarantine order."<br/>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-police-arrest-covid-19-1.5505349">cbc.ca/news/canada/mo…</a></p>
<p>"Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he’s considering his most drastic move yet ... moving certain people at risk to isolation shelters.<br/>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241401496.html">miamiherald.com/news/coronavir…</a></p>
<p>Counter-terrorism troops have been redeployed across Italy to beef up police ... patrol cars are circulating in every major city with a voice warning citizens over a loudspeaker not to leave their residences ... “Go back into your homes,” the voice warns. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-19-is-coming-on-fast-lock-the-fck-down-or-end-up-like-italy">thedailybeast.com/covid-19-is-co…</a></p>
<p>"Some police departments in California plan on using drones to enforce a coronavirus lockdown and to, in part, monitor the homeless population." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/tech/southern-california-police-use-drones-amid-coronavirus-lockdown">foxnews.com/tech/southern-…</a></p>
<p>"A woman in Spain was arrested after she was caught visiting the home of a man she had met on a dating app, breaking mandatory home confinement rules put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsweek.com/woman-arrested-spain-visiting-man-dating-app-lockdown-1493677">newsweek.com/woman-arrested…</a></p>
<p>"Prime Minister Édouard Philippe gave a national address to give details of the new rules ... [French citizens] must have their 'justification' paper - signed, dated and with the time they have left home - to show if stopped by the police or gendarmes." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/mar/24/coronavirus-live-news-updates-us-trump-uk-lockdown-global-deaths-cases-covid19-latest-update">theguardian.com/australia-news…</a></p>
<p>"The UK government has sent a mass text message to as many phones as possible, urging citizens to stay at home during the coronavirus lockdown: “CORONAVIRUS ALERT. New rules in force now: you must stay at home. Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/coronavirus-uk-gov-text-message-phone-lockdown-contact-number-a9420346.html">independent.co.uk/life-style/gad…</a></p>
<p>"This is not about retribution," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained. “This matter is going forward — we are in a live exercise here to get this right.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.globalresearch.ca/secretary-state-mike-pompeo-admits-covid-19-live-exercise-president-trump-comments-i-wish-you-would-have-told-us/5707223">globalresearch.ca/secretary-stat…</a></p>
<p>"The Government is set to publish its coronavirus bill in Parliament this week. It gives officers from the police and immigration powers to detain people in appropriate isolation centres if they are a risk to public health." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/18318214.coronavirus-new-powers-detain-refusing-isolate/">theargus.co.uk/news/18318214.…</a></p>
<p>"One area of concern is that the powers detailed under the bill, as published, remain in force for two years ... among the most draconian possible powers is for police, public health and immigration officers to detain people suspected of having Covid-19." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/23/uks-emergency-coronavirus-bill-will-put-vulnerable-at-risk">theguardian.com/society/2020/m…</a></p>
<p>"People who intentionally spread the coronavirus could face criminal charges under federal terrorism laws, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official said Tuesday. ... 'Threats or attempts to use COVID-19 as a weapon against Americans will not be tolerated.'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/coronavirus-terrorism-justice-department-147821">politico.com/news/2020/03/2…</a></p>
<p>"A police force has defended using a drone camera to shame people into not driving into a national park during the lockdown, while another force said it was introducing roadblocks to stop drivers heading to tourist hotspots." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/uk-police-use-drones-and-roadblocks-to-enforce-lockdown">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"Humberside Police has created an online reporting portal where people can send details of those not following social distancing rules." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2020-03-26/humberside-police-creates-online-portal-to-report-people-not-social-distancing/">itv.com/news/calendar/…</a></p>
<p>"An Austin, Texas based technology company is launching 'artificially intelligent thermal cameras' that it claims will be able to detect fevers in people, and in turn send an alert that they may be carrying the coronavirus." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/epg8xe/surveillance-company-deploying-coronavirus-detecting-cameras">vice.com/en_in/article/…</a></p>
<p>"As the jogger struggled with police, screaming for help, she was filmed by residents who had absolutely zero sympathy for her plight. 'What's not fair is that you go out running, you bloody idiot!', shouted the woman apparently filming the encounter." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://en.as.com/en/2020/03/21/videos/1584804866_376286.html">en.as.com/en/2020/03/21/…</a></p>
<p>"Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic ... involving world leaders, health experts and international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/26/gordon-brown-calls-for-global-government-to-tackle-coronavirus">theguardian.com/politics/2020/…</a></p>
<p>"South African police enforcing a coronavirus lockdown have fired rubber bullets towards hundreds of shoppers queueing outside a supermarket in Johannesburg ... the police used whips to get the shoppers to observe social distancing rules." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/south-africa-police-rubber-bullets-shoppers-covid-19-lockdown">theguardian.com/world/2020/mar…</a></p>
<p>"President Trump said Saturday he may announce later in the day a federally mandated quarantine on the New York metro region, placing “enforceable” travel restrictions on people planning to leave the New York tri-state area because of the coronavirus." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/28/coronavirus-latest-news/">washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/…</a></p>
<p>"Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday. On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York and demand 14 days of self-quarantine." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/rhode-island-police-to-hunt-down-new-yorkers-seeking-refuge">bloomberg.com/news/articles/…</a></p>
<p>A Police force has had a surge in calls from people reporting neighbours for "going out for a second run" and "gathering in their back gardens." ... "We are getting (dozens of) calls from people who say 'I want you to come and arrest them'. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-52052830">bbc.com/news/uk-englan…</a></p>
<p>"Police with batons and guns have moved in to protect supermarkets on the Italian island of Sicily after reports of looting by locals who could no longer afford food." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.it/20200329/we-have-to-eat-sicilian-police-crackdown-on-locals-looting-supermarkets">thelocal.it/20200329/we-ha…</a></p>
<p>"The National Guard will be deployed to enforce a mile-radius coronavirus “containment area” in overwhelmed New Rochelle ... the National Guard will enforce the mandated closure of 'large gathering areas' — including schools and houses of worship." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/national-guard-deployed-to-ny-community-with-nations-largest-cluster-of-coronavirus/">nypost.com/2020/03/10/nat…</a></p>
<p>"From a technological perspective, the coronavirus pandemic is one massive testbed for surveillance capitalism ... governments are rolling out surveillance measures, all in the effort to ensure that policies of mass behaviour modification are successful." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonchandler/2020/03/23/coronavirus-could-infect-privacy-and-civil-liberties-forever/#1bc99ce9365d">forbes.com/sites/simoncha…</a></p>
<p>"New Zealanders have become so keen to report their neighbours for breaking coronavirus lockdown rules that police on Monday said a website dedicated to addressing the issue crashed soon after going live." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/03/30/covid-19-police-site-crashes-as-kiwis-turn-into-shutdown-snitches">thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news…</a></p>
<p>"New York City residents who break social distancing rules will be subject to fines up to $500, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday ... he also announced that NYPD and MTA workers would do checks of subway cars and force riders off cars that are too crowded." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/03/29/new-yorkers-who-break-social-distancing-rules-will-now-face-fines-up-to-500-1269545">politico.com/states/new-yor…</a></p>
<p>"Anyone who leaves their house without a reasonable excuse could spend up to 6 months in prison and face an $11,000 fine under a directive [that] gives police sweeping power to enforce restrictions designed to limit the spread of coronavirus in Australia." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/six-months-in-jail-11-000-fine-for-leaving-home-without-a-reasonable-excuse-20200330-p54fg8.html">smh.com.au/national/nsw/s…</a></p>
<p>'A coronavirus app that alerts people if they have recently been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus "could play a critical role" in limiting lockdowns ... but the academics say no-one should be forced to enroll - at least initially.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52095331">bbc.com/news/technolog…</a></p>
<p>"As coronavirus lockdowns have been expanded globally, police across the world have been given licence to control behaviour in a way that would normally be extreme even for an authoritarian state." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/01/extreme-coronavirus-lockdown-controls-raise-fears-for-worlds-poorest">theguardian.com/global-develop…</a></p>
<p>"It is likely that we are not heading towards a general deconfinement in one go and for everyone," Prime Minister Philippe told parliament ... the interior minister noted 359,000 fines for violating the lockdown had been issued since lockdown began." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.france24.com/en/20200401-france-issues-more-than-350-000-fines-for-lockdown-violations-as-coronavirus-death-toll-mounts">france24.com/en/20200401-fr…</a></p>
<p>'Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned he would order the country's police and military to shoot dead anyone "who creates trouble" during a month-long lockdown of the island of Luzon enforced to halt the spread of the coronavirus.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/dead-duterte-warns-violating-lockdown-200401164531160.html">aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/d…</a></p>
<p>'French interior minister Christophe Castaner warned that "roadblocks would be set up on major highways and axes and extra police, gendarmes or soldiers dispatched to train stations and airports to verify the documents of anyone stopped out and about."' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/02/coronavirus-live-news-global-cases-latest-updates">theguardian.com/world/live/202…</a></p>
<p>"Around the world, police forces are testing how far to go in punishing ordinary behavior." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/world/australia/coronavirus-police-lockdowns.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/02/wor…</a></p>
<p>"Western governments aiming to relax restrictions on movement are turning to unprecedented surveillance to track people infected with the new coronavirus and identify those with whom they have been in contact." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-and-europe-turn-to-phone-tracking-strategies-to-halt-spread-of-coronavirus-11585906203">wsj.com/articles/u-s-a…</a></p>
<p>"If a person becomes infected, the app will automatically send a push notification to anyone they have crossed paths with in the past two weeks, to warn them of the risk of infection." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.de/20200402/privacy-mad-germany-turns-to-app-to-track-virus-spread">thelocal.de/20200402/priva…</a></p>
<p>"Google will use its mammoth collection of mobile location data to measure whether people across the globe are following government directives ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2020/04/03/google-wielding-its-vast-troves-of-phone-tracking-data-in-virus-fight-1271290">politico.com/states/new-yor…</a></p>
<p>"Traffic along I-95 was slowed for miles at the Florida-Georgia border Sunday after a checkpoint was put in place to screen for travelers coming from COVID-19 hot spots on the East Coast ... the Florida Highway Patrol is facilitating the checkpoint 24/7." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2020/03/29/screening-checkpoint-at-florida-georgia-border-slows-traffic/">news4jax.com/news/local/202…</a></p>
<p>"There is potentially a much larger, and more fraught, role for the armed forces in this crisis: They might need to backstop and backfill police forces ... clearly, this step would be momentous." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/start-preparing-national-guard-personnel-to-backfill-police-forces--now/2020/04/01/971b11d4-7425-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html">washingtonpost.com/opinions/start…</a></p>
<p>'Police arrested 3 people in Brooklyn after they “failed to maintain social distancing” ... an informant observed a group of people “hanging out” and the defendants “refused to leave the location and disperse” despite the informant asking them to do so.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://theintercept.com/2020/04/03/nypd-social-distancing-arrests-coronavirus/">theintercept.com/2020/04/03/nyp…</a></p>
<p>"Residents who have been in contact with coronavirus patients but refuse to isolate themselves are being made to wear ankle bracelets ... another man was put under house arrest after he went out shopping despite having tested positive for the coronavirus." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/kentucky-coronavirus-residents-ankle-monitors-trnd/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/…</a></p>
<p>"A man who boasted that he spent two hours walking through his local hospital to see how bad things were for himself has been jailed for three months" for "causing a public nuisance and breaking emergency movement restrictions." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/03/man-jailed-visiting-hospital-no-good-reason-facebook-boasts-12503535/">metro.co.uk/2020/04/03/man…</a></p>
<p>"Having the right antibodies to the virus in one’s blood — a potential marker of immunity — may soon determine who gets to work and who does not, who is locked down and who is free." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-antibodies.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/04/wor…</a></p>
<p>"Snitches are emerging as enthusiastic allies ... phoning police and municipal hotlines, complaining to elected officials and shaming perceived scofflaws on social media." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://time.com/5814488/businesses-not-following-shutdown-orders/">time.com/5814488/busine…</a></p>
<p>"In European countries under coronavirus lockdowns, a multitude of aspiring watchmen seem to feel that their moment has finally come, with untold numbers keeping an eye on their neighbors’ every move and reporting them to the authorities if they slip up." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-lockdown-snitches-thrive-in-europe-reports-watchmen-spying-neighbors/">politico.eu/article/corona…</a></p>
<p>“In this early phase of isolation, people’s awareness is quite high, but the longer it goes on, their frustration at not being able to do what they want will grow. The real test will be in two or three weeks’ time. How long can we keep a lockdown going?” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/04/uks-covid-19-lockdown-could-crumble-as-frustration-grows-police-warn">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"Tunisia has deployed a police robot to patrol the streets of the capital and enforce a lockdown ... 'PGuard' calls out to suspected violators of the lockdown: 'What are you doing? Show me your ID. You don't know there's a lockdown?'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://news.yahoo.com/tunisia-robocop-enforces-coronavirus-lockdown-141209123.html">news.yahoo.com/tunisia-roboco…</a></p>
<p>"The consequences for not following the 'Stay at Home' order for Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Douglas, and Jefferson counties [Colorado] is a Class 1 misdemeanor. It carries a penalty of up to a $5,000 fine and 18 months in jail." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.coloradocitizenpress.com/18-months-in-jail-and-a-5000-fine-for-violating-newest-stay-at-home-order/">coloradocitizenpress.com/18-months-in-j…</a></p>
<p>"Germans risk being fined up to €500 for standing too close to each other." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.de/20200403/coronavirus-germans-to-be-fined-up-to-500-for-breaking-social-distancing-rules">thelocal.de/20200403/coron…</a></p>
<p>"Individuals could be jailed for six months and/or fined $11,000, plus a $5,500-per-day fine if they keep breaking the rules." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-06/coronavirus-enforcement-covid-19-gathering-laws-state-territory/12124334">abc.net.au/news/2020-04-0…</a></p>
<p>"A man paddle boarding near the Malibu Pier was arrested Thursday after authorities said he disobeyed lifeguards and violated a statewide stay-at-home order ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/paddle-boarder-arrested-in-malibu-after-flouting-coronavirus-closures">latimes.com/california/sto…</a></p>
<p>"... people are only allowed out of their homes for absolutely essential trips and everyone needs a signed, dated and timed form every time they step out." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.fr/20200401/jail-and-house-arrest-what-happens-to-people-who-break-frances-lockdown-rules">thelocal.fr/20200401/jail-…</a></p>
<p>"Could immunity passports create a kind of two-tier society, where those who have them can return to a more normal life while others remain locked down?" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/health/immunity-passport-coronavirus-lockdown-intl/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/hea…</a></p>
<p>"Married life got off to an unexpected start for a pair of newlyweds in South Africa when police showed up to the party ... all 50 wedding guests, the pastor who conducted the ceremony, and the newlyweds themselves were promptly arrested." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52183152">bbc.com/news/world-afr…</a></p>
<p>"Local police in the U.S. are arresting people who fail to comply with social distancing and stay-at-home orders." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/04/06/arrested-for-violating-coronavirus-stay-at-home-mandates-police-are-jailing-alleged-scofflaws/#4899298368a4">forbes.com/sites/alexandr…</a></p>
<p>"There are seven legitimate reasons to leave home under France’s current lockdown restrictions. They can all be found on the government’s official permission form, which people must carry on them at all times when outside." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thelocal.fr/20200406/coronavirus-lockdown-can-you-tick-off-several-boxes-on-your-permission-form">thelocal.fr/20200406/coron…</a></p>
<p>"On April 2, 2020, the Danish Parliament passed a new law that makes it possible to shut down websites and impose fines or imprisonment on persons who publish information on Covid19 that does not follow the authorities' guidelines." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://newsvoice.se/2020/04/danmark-forbjuder-corona-policy/">newsvoice.se/2020/04/danmar…</a></p>
<p>"Authorities in Paris have banned exercise outside during the day ... the new rules are in force between 10:00 and 19:00 local time." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52202700">bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world…</a></p>
<p>"Checkpoints will be set up around a number of locations, police say ... people [will] be stopped and asked about where they [are] headed." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12323313">nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl…</a></p>
<p>"A 101-year-old German woman escaped her senior home in violation of a nationwide lockdown to visit her daughter on her birthday ... the officers allowed the woman to see her daughter – from behind the patrol car’s window – before bringing her back." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/world/german-woman-violates-coronavirus-lockdown">foxnews.com/world/german-w…</a></p>
<p>"Gardaí are to launch a nationwide policing operation to discourage people from leaving their homes and travelling to holiday locations over the Easter weekend ... patrols are also to be stepped up at key locations such as parks and natural beauty spots." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0407/1129175-policing-operation-easter/">rte.ie/news/2020/0407…</a></p>
<p>"... a recent report from Pew Research showed that 93% of the world’s population lives in countries and territories that are subject to movement restrictions." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/06/countries-banning-internal-travel-for-easter-to-reduce-coronavirus-spread/#5ffac7b0644a">forbes.com/sites/jamesasq…</a></p>
<p>"One day, daily routines will be started up again, step by step. But there is no effective date on which everything will be the way it used to be. Even once the ‘contact ban’ has been lifted, there will be new rules," Berlin Mayor Michael Müller said. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://berlinspectator.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-in-germany-restrictions-are-here-to-stay/">berlinspectator.com/2020/03/31/cor…</a></p>
<p>"The next phase is not a return to normality. It is learning how to live with the pandemic - possibly for quite a long time ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/world/europe/coronavirus-lockdowns-restrictions.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/08/wor…</a></p>
<p>"What the new normal will look like is unclear, though it is likely to involve mandatory masks in public and smartphone apps tracking contact with people who are potentially infected. Going back to work and traveling might be contingent on test results." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/world/europe/coronavirus-lockdowns-restrictions.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/08/wor…</a></p>
<p>"... what has been so remarkable to those of us who have been in the science field for so long is how important behavioural change is and how amazing Americans are in adapting to and following through on these behavioural changes." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/us-says-mitigation-efforts-are-working-raising-hopes-of-defying-worst-case-scenario">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"Police in Texas are searching for an 18-year-old girl who claimed to have tested positive for and to be 'willfully spreading' the coronavirus ... the teenager faces a charge of making a terroristic threat." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-teen-faces-terror-charge-threatening-spread-coronavirus-police-say-n1177951">nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t…</a></p>
<p>"America’s top coronavirus expert has warned Covid-19 is the new normal – and that the killer virus might never go away." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/07/top-coronavirus-expert-warns-new-normal-might-never-go-away-12522661/">metro.co.uk/2020/04/07/top…</a></p>
<p>"Security officers in several African countries have been beating, harassing and, in some cases, killing people as they enforce measures aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52214740">bbc.com/news/world-afr…</a></p>
<p>"World Health Organization executive director Dr. Michael Ryan said surveillance is part of what’s required for life to return to normal in a world without a vaccine." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/08/after-coronavirus-ai-could-be-central-to-our-new-normal/">venturebeat.com/2020/04/08/aft…</a></p>
<p>"White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/kushner-coronavirus-surveillance-174165">politico.com/news/2020/04/0…</a></p>
<p>"East Asian countries have demonstrated that a robust regime of surveillance is essential to fighting a pandemic. Western democracies must rise to meet the need for 'democratic surveillance' to protect their own populations." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-04-06/coronavirus-and-future-surveillance">foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-…</a></p>
<p>"It’s an extraordinary moment that might call for extraordinary surveillance methods." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://theintercept.com/2020/04/02/coronavirus-covid-19-surveillance-privacy/">theintercept.com/2020/04/02/cor…</a></p>
<p>"Australia will deploy helicopters, set up police checkpoints and hand out hefty fines to deter people from breaking an Easter travel ban ... Police said they will block roads and use number plate recognition technology to catch those infringing the bans." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/10/coronavirus-live-news-global-deaths-near-95000-as-boris-johnson-leaves-intensive-care">theguardian.com/world/live/202…</a></p>
<p>"Forces will move to an 'enforcement phase' rather than issuing advice ... Pembrokeshire council said it would help police catch those visiting second homes in the area, including those who arrive late at night to try and evade officers." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-52233618">bbc.com/news/uk-wales-…</a></p>
<p>"A former Colorado State Patrol trooper was handcuffed in front of his 6-year old daughter on a near-empty softball field Sunday by Brighton police officers enforcing social distancing rules." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-officer-arrested-park-throwing-ball-daughter-due/story?id=70032966">abcnews.go.com/US/police-offi…</a></p>
<p>"Bobby Edwards, of Boynton, Florida, was arrested last week after police say he landed on the island without proof of accommodations ... officials warn that those wanting to come to Hawaii with no accommodations may not make it out of the airport." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/hawaii-mayor-to-arrested-florida-man-youre-a-covidiot/">nypost.com/2020/04/08/haw…</a></p>
<p>"Officers say they responded to a synagogue in Monsey after receiving complaints. They found 30-50 men praying together. Eight were arrested for disorderly conduct. Police say they will arrest more people if the gatherings continue." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-update-8-arrested-in-monsey-for-violating-social-distancing-emergency-orders/">newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/04/09/cor…</a></p>
<p>“'These drones will be around the City with an automated message from the Mayor telling you to STOP gathering, disperse and go home,' the police department said." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/coronavirus-surveillance-is-entering-dystopian-territory">vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/c…</a></p>
<p>"Dr. Fauci acknowledged the government is considering issuing Americans certificates of immunity from the coronavirus ... in parts of China, citizens are already required to display colored codes on their smartphones indicating their contagion risk." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/fauci-coronavirus-immunity-cards-for-americans-are-being-discussed-178784">politico.com/news/2020/04/1…</a></p>
<p>"A video shows what appears to be four police officers, backed by about six more, forcibly pulling a man not wearing a face covering off of a SEPTA bus ... the video appears to exemplify SEPTA’s new police-enforced mandate that riders wear face coverings." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://whyy.org/articles/viral-video-shows-police-forcibly-enforce-mask-mandate-on-septa-bus/">whyy.org/articles/viral…</a></p>
<p>"Apple Inc. and Google unveiled a rare partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert users if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19 ... it has the potential to monitor a third of the world’s population." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-10/apple-google-bring-covid-19-contact-tracing-to-3-billion-people">bloomberg.com/news/articles/…</a></p>
<p>"A Louisville resident—not diagnosed with COVID-19 but living with someone who had been—got a court-ordered GPS tracking monitor ... in New Orleans' Acadia Parish, anyone outside between 9pm-6am will have to present a permission slip from their employer." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://reason.com/2020/04/08/covid-19-patients-and-their-families-are-being-put-on-police-enforced-lockdown/">reason.com/2020/04/08/cov…</a></p>
<p>'Police will record the license plates of residents who attend church on Easter and report them to health departments for quarantine ... "Health departments are going to come to your door with an order for you to be quarantined for 14 days," -Gov. Beshear' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/04/10/kentucky-to-record-churchgoers-license-plates-amid-coronavirus/">nypost.com/2020/04/10/ken…</a></p>
<p>"The French police have come down hard, responding to perceived lapses in the confinement rules with beatings, harassment, humiliation and intimidation ... “It’s like a prison,” said Drissa Fofana, an out-of-work construction worker." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/europe/coronavirus-paris-suburbs.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/10/wor…</a></p>
<p>"In a video circulating on French social media, a young man in the suburb of Les Ulis can be heard screaming in pain during a police 'check' for a missing release form. 'He was savagely beaten with truncheons, fists and kicks until he fell to the ground.'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/europe/coronavirus-paris-suburbs.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/10/wor…</a></p>
<p>"... the officer then demands he puts his hands on his head and handcuffs him ... [he] is then told he faces arrest for “breaking Covid guidelines” ... the officer threatens to spray him if he does not comply." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-say-sorry-after-video-18078933">manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-m…</a></p>
<p>"Police in Frankfurt were attacked by men with stones and iron bars while enforcing social distancing measures to stop the spread of coronavirus, authorities said on Saturday." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dw.com/en/germany-police-attacked-while-enforcing-social-distancing-measures/a-53098580">dw.com/en/germany-pol…</a></p>
<p>"Police have arrested 28 people throughout Maryland for violating Gov. Hogan's executive orders related to coronavirus, as of yesterday afternoon." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://wjla.com/news/local/update-28-arrested-in-maryland-for-violating-coronavirus-orders">wjla.com/news/local/upd…</a></p>
<p>"In California, a federal judge denied a San Diego church's request to hold an Easter service, even with social distancing measures including possibly requiring members to wear hazmat suits." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/11/coronavirus-easter-kansas-kentucky-restrict-religious-gatherings-church/2975593001/">eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nat…</a></p>
<p>"Technology firms are processing confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation ... Palantir, founded by rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, is working with Faculty, a UK artificial intelligence startup, to consolidate government databases." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"Once a person has been confirmed to be infected, their close contacts could automatically be traced ... the infected person’s compliance with lockdown instructions could be tracked using digital tools that monitor individual travel and behavior patterns." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/coronavirus-pandemic-surveillance-privacy-big-data/">foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/cor…</a></p>
<p>"The counter-terrorism analogy is useful because it shows the direction of travel of pandemic policy ... Your cell-phone signal could be used to enforce quarantine decisions. Leave your apartment and the authorities will know." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/coronavirus-pandemic-surveillance-privacy-big-data/">foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/cor…</a></p>
<p>"Residents in Riverside County, CA, are now required to wear face coverings and could face a fine of $1,000 per violation per day if the mandate is ignored. 'This is a valid order and enforceable by fine, imprisonment or both,' said Sheriff Chad Bianco." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsweek.com/california-county-fining-residents-1000-not-wearing-face-masks-public-1496692">newsweek.com/california-cou…</a></p>
<p>'A family claimed a 500-mile round Lake District trip was acceptable if they wore masks and gloves, police said. The family were criticised as "absolute idiots" and called "clowns" after the force posted about it on Twitter.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-52277535">bbc.com/news/uk-englan…</a></p>
<p>"A 70-year-old township man was arrested twice on Saturday after police alleged he tried to enter two different Wawa convenience stores without a mask and became belligerent ... he was charged with second-degree terroristic threats during an emergency." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://eu.app.com/story/news/2020/04/13/coronavirus-nj-unmasked-toms-river-man-70-arrested-twice-one-day-wawa-stores/2985892001/">eu.app.com/story/news/202…</a></p>
<p>'A woman in Victoria says she was left feeling “heartbroken” and like a criminal after uniformed police officers carrying weapons interrupted her father’s funeral over the Easter long weekend to enforce social distancing rules.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/14/totally-disrespectful-police-interrupt-funeral-while-enforcing-social-distancing-rules-over-easter-weekend">theguardian.com/australia-news…</a></p>
<p>'The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/growth-in-surveillance-may-be-hard-to-scale-back-after-coronavirus-pandemic-experts-say">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>'Protesters rallied to reopen North Carolina ... at least one was arrested. “You are in violation of the executive order,” said police. “You are posing a risk to public health. If you do not disperse, you will be taken and processed at Wake County jail.”' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241999131.html">newsobserver.com/news/politics-…</a></p>
<p>The Raleigh, North Carolina Police Department issued this Tweet, announcing that no one is allowed to protest, as it "violates the Governor's Executive Order." <span class="entity-image"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVl73AMWAAgiqHZ.png" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="/web/20210901235813im_/https://threadreaderapp.com/images/1px.png" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVl73AMWAAgiqHZ.png"></a></span></p>
<p> "Officers have become public health police, breaking up crowds at stores ... the department has mobilized the Citywide All-Out Task Force, which is usually assembled to flood high-crime areas and other assignments." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/coronavirus-nypd-social-distancing.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyr…</a></p>
<p>"A South Australian couple was hit with a hefty fine from cops for nonessential travel amid the pandemic after the pair posted vacation snaps from 2019 on Facebook ... the couple was warned that if they 'posted any more photos,' they would “be arrested." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/couple-fined-for-posting-old-photos-during-coronavirus-lockdown/">nypost.com/2020/04/14/cou…</a></p>
<p>"Attorney Beate Bahner challenged Germany's coronavirus regulations in the Constitutional Court and failed. Now she has been taken to a psychiatric facility." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.heidelberg24.de/heidelberg/coronavirus-heidelberg-klage-anwaeltin-beate-bahner-regeln-gericht-psychiatrie-polizei-eilantrag-13640822.html">heidelberg24.de/heidelberg/cor…</a></p>
<p>"Ms Bahner submitted a 36-page urgent motion to the Constitutional Court regarding the unlawfulness of all 16 German federal states' Coronavirus measures ... [her] interview for "incitement to commit criminal acts" is scheduled for Wednesday 15 April. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/coronavirus-lockdown-german-lawyer-detained-opposition">ukcolumn.org/article/corona…</a></p>
<p>"Police in Berlin broke up a large birthday gathering in the early hours of Monday ... a 16-year-old girl was celebrating with 31 other people ... all 32 party attendees [are] being investigated for criminal offenses." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-bust-16th-birthday-party-amid-coronavirus-lockdown/a-53108322">dw.com/en/berlin-poli…</a></p>
<p>"Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures and it is about protecting the public." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-misinformation-disinformation-law-1.5532325">cbc.ca/news/politics/…</a></p>
<p>'The UK's health secretary, Matt Hancock, has suggested "something like an immunity certificate or a wristband" in the future.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-could-biometric-id-cards-offer-the-uk-a-lockdown-exit-strategy-11970628">news.sky.com/story/coronavi…</a></p>
<p>"Attempting to issue some kind of immunity certificate to millions of Americans would be unprecedented." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/492699-what-are-immunity-passports-and-how-could-they">thehill.com/changing-ameri…</a></p>
<p>"The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI) is working on a digital certificate, [that] lets individuals prove (and request proof from others) they’ve recovered from the novel coronavirus or have received a vaccination, once one is available." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.coindesk.com/covid-19-immunity-passport-unites-60-firms-on-self-sovereign-id-project">coindesk.com/covid-19-immun…</a></p>
<p>"[T]he drones use computer vision systems to monitor temperatures and heart and respiratory rates of people from above and single out people sneezing or coughing ... Draganfly also sees a possible security use around borders or critical infrastructure." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.businessinsider.com/draganfly-pandemic-drone-will-detect-people-infected-with-coronavirus-2020-4">businessinsider.com/draganfly-pand…</a></p>
<p>"Mobile phone tracking software could be compulsory if not enough Australians voluntarily download the application to help in coronavirus case tracing." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-government-mobile-tracking-app-could-be-compulsory-scott-morrison/c52d3c23-dc65-4942-b878-269f59e7d8dd">9news.com.au/national/coron…</a></p>
<p>'The three-page document, entitled "what constitutes a reasonable excuse to leave the place where you live", is designed to help police enforce the emergency restrictions that came into effect three weeks ago and are set to be extended.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-52312560">bbc.com/news/uk-englan…</a></p>
<p>"[T]here is a danger that these new, often highly invasive, measures will become the norm around the world ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-tracking-citizens-phones-coronavirus-2020-3">businessinsider.com/countries-trac…</a></p>
<p>"Developers in several European countries are working on similar apps to inform people quickly when they have been in contact with someone who is infected with the virus, as part of a pan-European privacy preserving proximity tracing (Pepp-PT) initiative." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-under-control-in-germany-as-some-countries-plan-to-relax-lockdowns">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>'Norway unveiled its Smittestop app, which will notify users if they have been less than 2 metres from an infected person for more than 15 minutes. “To get back to a more normal life ... we all have to make an effort and use this app,” PM Solberg said.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-under-control-in-germany-as-some-countries-plan-to-relax-lockdowns">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"Officials say they routinely saw people visit the skatepark, even children accompanied by their parents, according to the San Clemente Times ... city officials followed in the footsteps of other cities and filled the skatepark with 37 tons of sand." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/04/17/coronavirus-san-clemente-skatepark-37-tons-sand-social-distancing/">losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/04/17/cor…</a></p>
<p>"In one [Michigan] county, anyone deemed a 'carrier and health threat' can be detained by police and taken to an Involuntary Isolation Facility." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/michigan-judge-authorizes-arresting-people-on-suspicion-of-covid-19-illness">lifesitenews.com/news/michigan-…</a></p>
<p>'Imagine an America divided into two classes ... "It will be a frightening schism,” a World Health Organization special envoy on Covid-19 predicted. “Those with antibodies will be able to travel and work, and the rest will be discriminated against.”' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/coronavirus-america-future.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/18/hea…</a></p>
<p>"Riots have broken out in Paris amid anger over police 'heavy-handed' treatment of ethnic minorities during the coronavirus lockdown." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235307/Riots-break-suburbs-Paris-amid-anger-French-police-heavy-handedness-lockdown.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"... law enforcers have killed 18 people in Nigeria since lockdowns began on 30 March. Coronavirus has killed 12 people, according to health ministry data." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52317196">bbc.com/news/world-afr…</a></p>
<p>'Police must prepare for a “more volatile and agitated society” after the end of the UK’s coronavirus lockdown, a senior officer has warned.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-mental-health-crime-unemployment-lockdown-end-police-a9471316.html">independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…</a></p>
<p>'Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on Monday told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that protests of stay-at-home orders that violate state social distancing rules organized through his social media platform qualify as "harmful misinformation" and will be taken down.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://thehill.com/homenews/media/493649-zuckerberg-says-stay-at-home-protests-organized-through-facebook-qualify-as#.Xp2y5LM15B8.twitter">thehill.com/homenews/media…</a></p>
<p>"Saxony is threatening to get court orders to commit those refusing to respect the coronavirus lockdown to psychiatric facilities." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/panorama/Sachsen-droht-Quarantaene-Verweigerern-mit-Psychiatrie-article21707984.html">n-tv.de/mediathek/vide…</a></p>
<p>"Riot police in Peru have blockaded a major highway and fired teargas into crowds of people attempting to flee the capital city and return on foot to their rural hometowns as the country’s strict coronavirus lockdown entered its sixth week." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/peru-riot-police-highway-teargas-coronavirus-lockdown">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"NYC police arrested three men outside a closed Brooklyn synagogue ... officers were dispatched to the synagogue in response to calls of New Yorkers not social distancing, NYPD’s top uniform cop Terence Monahan said." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-police-enforcing-coronavirus-social-distancing-restrictions-arrest-3-outside-synagogue">foxnews.com/us/nyc-police-…</a></p>
<p>"A policeman has been suspended after he was filmed 'threatening to make something up' so he could arrest a man for breaching coronavirus lockdown laws." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8238131/Lancashire-policeman-caught-video-threatening-make-arrest-man-suspended.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"A man was brought into custody Sunday after police were called to Main Street in Port Jefferson for a report of a large group of people not practicing social distancing ... [the man] 'refused a request to social distance or put a mask on,' police said." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://patch.com/new-york/portjefferson/li-man-cited-breaking-coronavirus-mask-rule-police">patch.com/new-york/portj…</a></p>
<p>"Facebook is blocking anti-quarantine protesters from using the site to organize in-person gatherings ... [it] has removed protest messages in California, New Jersey and Nebraska from its site, a company spokesperson said Monday." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/facebook-shuts-down-anti-quarantine-protests-at-states-request-196143">politico.com/news/2020/04/2…</a></p>
<p>UPDATE: "Louisville residents who have been in contact with coronavirus patients but refuse to isolate themselves are being made to wear ankle bracelets ... Jefferson County courts has set up an on-call judge for these types of cases." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/kentucky-coronavirus-residents-ankle-monitors-trnd/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/…</a></p>
<p>"A Connecticut police department is using a drone equipped with virus-detecting technology to help battle the coronavirus ... the department also plans to use drone technology to enforce social distancing at beaches, train stations, parks and other areas." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/04/22/connecticut-cops-use-pandemic-drone-to-fight-coronavirus/">nypost.com/2020/04/22/con…</a></p>
<p>"A company in the U.S. has adapted a drone so that it can be used by police to measure people’s temperature from nearly 200ft away, as well as monitor their heart and breathing rates." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/22/police-use-drone-make-sure-people-obeying-social-distancing-12591529/">metro.co.uk/2020/04/22/pol…</a></p>
<p>"The police are deploying technology to help stop spread of coronavirus among the homeless population ... while hovering above, the drone [plays] a recording that says, 'members of the public are reminded to keep a safe distance of six feet from others.'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/fort-worth-police-deploy-drones-to-remind-homeless-about-social-distancing/2354753/">nbcdfw.com/news/coronavir…</a></p>
<p>"New York City residents submitted 14,000 complaints to the city’s police about people violating social-distancing rules enacted to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-has-gotten-14-000-complaints-about-social-distancing-violators-11587482276">wsj.com/articles/new-y…</a></p>
<p>"Over the weekend, a large gathering of Amish was broken up by police, with one person getting arrested, another issued a summons ... Police were called to the property after someone called them to report a violation of the state’s stay-at-home orders." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailywire.com/news/police-break-up-amish-barn-party-after-someone-snitches-on-them-for-violating-social-distancing">dailywire.com/news/police-br…</a></p>
<p>"Landing AI has created a new workplace monitoring tool that issues an alert when anyone is less than the desired distance from a colleague ... these [surveillance] systems flag up warnings in real time when behaviors deviate from a certain standard." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/17/1000092/ai-machine-learning-watches-social-distancing-at-work/">technologyreview.com/2020/04/17/100…</a></p>
<p>"In the video, the cops can be seen flying the drone to survey the beach from above before finding the unaware sunbather and the closing in on him while riding quad-bikes." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11447452/quad-bike-cops-drone-sunbather-beach-breaking-lockdown-italy/">thesun.co.uk/news/11447452/…</a></p>
<p>"The secretive 77th Brigade of the British Army is involved in countering coronavirus misinformation online ... the unit was set up in 2015 to specialise in "non-lethal" forms of psychological warfare ...” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thenational.scot/news/18398012.defence-chief-says-77th-brigade-countering-covid-misinformation/">thenational.scot/news/18398012.…</a></p>
<p>"Homeless people have faced fines or arrest for failing to comply with coronavirus lockdown restrictions ... a woman living in a Delhi shelter said “we have heard that homeless people have been rounded up by the police from the streets and taken to camps.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-homelessness-featu/homeless-people-treated-as-criminals-amid-coronavirus-lockdowns-idUSKCN22527I">reuters.com/article/us-hea…</a></p>
<p>"Federal guidelines for helping slow the spread of coronavirus call for people experiencing homelessness to either be sheltered in large 'congregate' shelters, like recreation centers or auditoriums, or in encampments like the one in Fort Collins." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/22/coronavirus-deaths-grow-homeless-community-advocates-demand-action/5138413002/">eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nat…</a></p>
<p>"A French woman was reprimanded by police for displaying a banner with the words “Macronavirus, when is the end?” The incident follows several others in which residents who have displayed banners with “political overtones” have been visited by the police." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.rt.com/news/486824-woman-france-macronavirus-banner/">rt.com/news/486824-wo…</a></p>
<p>“A dramatic increase in technological surveillance is a 'price worth paying' ... Covid-19 is not an ideology, and rebalancing the contract between citizens and the state to take advantage of the capabilities of new technologies is not capitulation.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/surveillance-a-price-worth-paying-to-beat-coronavirus-says-blair-thinktank">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"The Home Secretary will underscore her warning to stay indoors with the threat of beefing up the police's powers to enforce social distancing. A source close to Patel told the Daily Express: 'We are seeing a worrying increase in people moving around.'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8255553/Priti-Patel-warn-selfish-rule-breakers-stop-flouting-coronavirus-lockdown.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"It was mere months ago that data privacy was becoming more clearly defined in corridors of power ... now, that consensus is being replaced with a new reality: Less data privacy, not more, may be what’s best for public health." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://fortune.com/2020/04/20/privacy-surveillance-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-tracking/">fortune.com/2020/04/20/pri…</a></p>
<p>"Officers have made 78 arrests and issued 1,637 fixed penalty notices in Scotland since 27 March. "If you are out and about, officers may ask you why ... please, explain your individual circumstances, listen to their instructions and obey the law." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-52410389">bbc.com/news/uk-scotla…</a></p>
<p>"Police have recorded 477 prosecutions, 3844 warnings and 131 youth referrals, Coster said - as well as fielding more than 55,000 reports of breaches from members of the public." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-police-report-423-covid-19-alert-level-4-lockdown-breaches-in-just-24-hours.html">newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala…</a></p>
<p>"As of this afternoon, officers had handed handed out 214 fines to people who were out and about without good reason ... the force is receiving up to 150 calls a day from people who believe they have seen someone ignoring the regulations." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/leicestershire-police-chief-reveals-more-4076713">leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-new…</a></p>
<p>"More than 10,000 people have been arrested in the state in connection with the violation of lockdown ... nearly 80,000 personnel of Rajasthan Police and 20,000 home guards have been deployed across the state to ensure compliance of the lockdown." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/over-10000-people-arrested-in-rajasthan-so-far-for-violating-coronavirus-lockdown-police-829462.html">deccanherald.com/national/north…</a></p>
<p>"A woman says she was 'named and shamed' by neighbours after she fell asleep and missed the weekly clap for carers tribute to NHS staff and key workers." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-woman-named-and-shamed-by-neighbours-on-facebook-for-not-joining-clap-for-carers-11978192">news.sky.com/story/coronavi…</a></p>
<p>"German police wearing riot gear and face masks clashed with dozens of protesters demonstrating in central Berlin against the coronavirus lockdown on public life." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257013/Germany-police-arrest-100-protesters-Berlin-demonstrating-against-lockdown-measures.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"[P]ublic unrest has been breaking out across the world by frustrated people demanding an end to the coronavirus stay-at-home measures. This includes Russia, Germany, Brazil, the USA and India. In France there were reports of gangs fighting police ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11454210/french-coronavirus-riots-gangs-attacking-cops-and-burning-schools/">thesun.co.uk/news/11454210/…</a></p>
<p>"Thousands of protesters descended on the Wisconsin State Capitol on Friday as they called for coronavirus restrictions implemented by Gov. Tony Evers to be lifted."<br/>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/494593-thousands-gather-without-social-distancing-to-protest-wisconsins-stay-at">thehill.com/homenews/state…</a></p>
<p>"The California Highway Patrol said Wednesday that it is temporarily banning rallies at the state Capitol and other state facilities because of the pandemic." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.kusi.com/california-highway-patrol-bans-rallies-and-protests-due-to-coronavirus-lockdown/">kusi.com/california-hig…</a></p>
<p>"San Diego County police say three people protesting beach closures were arrested in Encinitas, California, on Saturday for violating health orders ... the arrests occurred after [they] ventured off the sidewalk and into the beach's sand." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/25/3-arrests-beach-protest-san-diego-county-moonlight-beach/3028200001/">eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nat…</a></p>
<p>"Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/what-covid-revealed-about-internet/610549/">theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…</a></p>
<p>'German police on Saturday busted two underground hair salons operating in violation of the country’s lockdown orders during the coronavirus pandemic. "People were having their hair done,” police said.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/world/german-underground-hairdressing-salons-shut-down-coronavirus">foxnews.com/world/german-u…</a></p>
<p>"It took five hours for Australians to download the COVIDSafe app at a rate the Government expected would take five days ... COVIDSafe uses Bluetooth to record anonymised IDs from users who are within 1.5 metres of each other for about 15 minutes." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-27/coronavirus-tracing-app-covidsafe-one-million-downloads/12187806">abc.net.au/news/2020-04-2…</a></p>
<p>"Governments around the world are weighing different privacy-enhancing designs, with some saying a [contact tracing] app would be voluntary to begin with, but not ruling out making it compulsory." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.coindesk.com/coronavirus-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-adoption-rates">coindesk.com/coronavirus-co…</a></p>
<p>"The Administration has classified all its discussions about COVID-19, and it later denounced Politico for reporting that the White House was in talks with tech firms to create a national coronavirus surveillance system." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/can-we-track-covid-19-and-protect-privacy-at-the-same-time">newyorker.com/tech/annals-of…</a></p>
<p>"Palantir, a secretive data-analytics firm ... has a contract from the Administration to build a database to track the spread of the virus. Palantir is known for its work with the NSA and ICE, where its software is used to track undocumented immigrants." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/can-we-track-covid-19-and-protect-privacy-at-the-same-time">newyorker.com/tech/annals-of…</a></p>
<p>"Authorities have been quick to insist the masks do not have to be medically approved ... decision-makers have stressed the psychological importance of wearing a face covering, saying it sends out a signal to people who might come too near." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/germans-could-be-fined-up-to-10000-for-not-wearing-face-masks-coronavirus">theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…</a></p>
<p>"The app will help, just by ensuring authorities know they can contact people quickly when there is an infection, so they can trace us and warn us that we need a test.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6152259538001">skynews.com.au/details/_61522…</a></p>
<p>"There will be a huge risk that data would live on well beyond the pandemic, giving governments and corporations easy access to information about people’s movements and healthcare needs that eclipses what they now have." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-26/privacy-americans-trade-off-trace-coronavirus-contacts">latimes.com/politics/story…</a></p>
<p>'The application will only be used during the pandemic, the companies said. But it's unclear when the health emergency will be over. Social distancing could be necessary "into 2022 .... resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024."' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-contact-tracing-technology-could-threaten-privacy-jobs-health-resources-2020-4">businessinsider.com/coronavirus-co…</a></p>
<p>"We may need to reevaluate how we think about 'contact' and 'tracing' and ask: can we strip them of their moral and punitive overlays? We have to break the social and cultural associations of the past to use these tactics most effectively in the future." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/12/999186/covid-19-contact-tracing-surveillance-data-privacy-anonymity/">technologyreview.com/2020/04/12/999…</a></p>
<p>"While governments and tech companies are working on voluntary [tracking] tools ... companies could make [such] tools mandatory ... employees [would] wear badges, key rings or wristbands embedded with inexpensive Bluetooth beacons." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.ft.com/content/caeb250b-8d8b-4eaa-969c-62a8b58464aa">ft.com/content/caeb25…</a></p>
<p>"In the UK, nearly two-thirds of people polled are in favour of using mobile data to track coronavirus sufferers and those they come into contact with—a reflection, perhaps, of the public’s desperation to see lockdown rules lifted." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/alasdairlane/2020/04/27/state-surveillance-coronavirus-tracking-tech-and-the-threat-to-civil-liberties/#19c3d110311f">forbes.com/sites/alasdair…</a></p>
<p>"Senior Greek officials explained that popular destinations will open for business once strict lockdown measures are relaxed. However, international visitors will have to provide immunity certificates or health passports to be allowed into the country." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/11489100/greece-holiday-july-british-tourists/">thesun.co.uk/travel/1148910…</a></p>
<p>"Authorities in India have debuted a unique device meant to detain those who are not cooperating with a coronavirus lockdown while maintaining social distancing. The device appears to resemble a claw-like grabber that many use to pick up trash." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/world/india-coronavirus-lockdown-police-device-no-contact-violator-chandigarh">foxnews.com/world/india-co…</a></p>
<p>"When someone tests positive, authorities can siphon up the patient’s location data and contacts, making it easy to 'quarantine the right people' ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/cyber-intel-firms-pitch-governments-on-spy-tools-to-trace-coronavirus.html">cnbc.com/2020/04/28/cyb…</a></p>
<p>"[T]he pandemic has brought surveillance cameras closer to people's private lives: from public spaces in the city right to the front doors of their homes — and in some rare cases, surveillance cameras inside their apartments." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/asia/cctv-cameras-china-hnk-intl/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/asi…</a></p>
<p>"Questions about the precise role of the UK’s domestic spy agency in key decisions about the NHSX’s choice of a centralized app architecture means privacy concerns are unlikely to go away — with Gould dodging the committee’s questions about GCHQ’s role." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/uks-coronavirus-contacts-tracing-app-could-ask-users-to-share-location-data/">techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/uks…</a></p>
<p>"My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups ..." - NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/nyregion/hasidic-funeral-coronavirus-de-blasio.html">nytimes.com/2020/04/28/nyr…</a></p>
<p>"Authorities in a Spanish coastal resort have apologised after spraying a beach with bleach in an attempt to protect children from coronavirus ... the bleach 'killed everything on the ground, nothing is seen, not even insects.'" <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52471208">bbc.com/news/world-eur…</a></p>
<p>"Gov. Gavin Newsom will order all beaches and state parks closed starting Friday after people thronged the seashore during a sweltering weekend despite his social distancing order ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/04/30/coronavirus-california-governor-order-beaches-state-parks-close/3054555001/">eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/n…</a></p>
<p>"CTP UK warns that the impact of COVID-19 and social isolation could make society’s most vulnerable more susceptible to radicalization ... people concerned that someone they know may be at risk from being radicalized by extremists are urged to seek help." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/counterterrorism/police-warn-of-greater-risk-of-radicalization-during-covid-19-lockdown/">hstoday.us/subject-matter…</a></p>
<p>"'Protecting the public against infection takes precedence over everything, including the [May Day] demonstration' ... Participation in unauthorized demonstrations is currently a crime." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/friedrichshain-kreuzberg/walpurgisnacht-und-1-mai-an-diesen-stellen-koennte-es-heute-und-morgen-zwischen-polizei-und-chaoten-knallen">bz-berlin.de/berlin/friedri…</a></p>
<p>"Instead of de-escalation and tolerance, the rules 'have to be interpreted more strictly this year,' [the Interior Senator] announced. Demonstrations should not 'become the Ischgl of Berlin'. 5000 police officers are reported to be on duty." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/friedrichshain-kreuzberg/1-mai-in-berlin-demo-verbot-wegen-corona-linksradikale-planen-proteste">bz-berlin.de/berlin/friedri…</a></p>
<p>"While the usual left-wing protesters have vowed to observe social distancing, others are plotting a 'hygiene demo' which typically attracts conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who scorn the lockdown measures." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8276993/German-extremists-hijack-1-protests-demand-end-lockdown.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"The [German] government plans to introduce a corona immunity card ... the Infection Protection Act allows the state to force people who are contagious or "suspect" to quarantine, or forbid them "to enter certain places ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/coronavirus-immunitaetsausweis-regierung-1.4892945">sueddeutsche.de/politik/corona…</a></p>
<p>"Just hours after announcing it would be relaxing lockdown measures aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus, Malaysia arrested hundreds of migrant workers and refugees in a crackdown on Covid-19 ‘red zones’." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3082529/coronavirus-hundreds-arrested-malaysia-cracks-down-migrants">scmp.com/week-asia/poli…</a></p>
<p>'“The time for educating people into compliance is over,” [the Chicago Mayor] said. “Don’t be stupid. If you host a party, promote a party, or go to a party, we are not playing games. We mean business, and we will shut this down one way or another.”' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/chicago-police-step-up-stay-at-home-order-enforcement/2265744/">nbcchicago.com/news/coronavir…</a></p>
<p>"Police have had to bust up hundreds of parties in the last few days ... since the country moved from level 4 to level 3 last week, police say they've had 1200 reports of mass gatherings." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/05/coronavirus-hundreds-of-level-3-parties-busted-by-police.html">newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala…</a></p>
<p>“The excuse of the pandemic has meant the threshold for justifying arrests under terrorism laws has dropped further ... it has also become almost impossible to get a court hearing to determine whether an action is illegal or unconstitutional." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/how-safe-is-it-really-privacy-fears-over-india-coronavirus-app">theguardian.com/world/2020/may…</a></p>
<p>'A New Jersey high school teacher was caught on video shouting at teenagers playing football in a park that they should “die a long, painful death” from the coronavirus.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/27/watch-teacher-tells-teens-in-park-they-deserve-painful-death-from-coronavirus/">mercurynews.com/2020/04/27/wat…</a></p>
<p>"The NYPD’s enforcement of social distancing over the weekend included a tense fracas in the East Village ... Officer Garcia wrestles [the bystander] to the sidewalk, repeatedly slapping his head and punching him, as another cop moves in, the video shows." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/05/03/taser-wielding-cop-attacks-bystander-during-social-distancing-bust/">nypost.com/2020/05/03/tas…</a></p>
<p>"Facial biometrics could be used to help provide a digital certificate – sometimes known as an immunity passport – proving which workers have had Covid-19 ... proposals, which have reached pilot stages in other countries, could be executed within months." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/03/coronavirus-health-passports-for-uk-possible-in-months">theguardian.com/politics/2020/…</a></p>
<p>'The U.S. government is getting its vaccine supplies ready in anticipation of a working cure. Two separate orders signed off on May 1, 2020, total $100 million and specify needles and syringes “for a COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Campaign.”' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/05/04/us-preps-for-covid-19-mass-vaccination-with-110-million-on-needles-and-syringes/#920da0326266">forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…</a></p>
<p>"A Dallas salon owner was sentenced to seven days behind bars Tuesday for disobeying coronavirus shutdown orders." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dallas-salon-owner-gets-7-days-jail-reopening-during-coronavirus-n1200836">nbcnews.com/news/us-news/d…</a></p>
<p>'A SWAT team used an armored vehicle to raid a Texas bar that opened for business in defiance of the coronavirus lockdown, eighty-sixing the owner — and six heavily armed “vigilantes” who were defending her, according to reports.' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://nypost.com/2020/05/06/swat-team-arrests-armed-vigilantes-helping-bar-defy-lockdown/">nypost.com/2020/05/06/swa…</a></p>
<p>"American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said Thursday they will soon require passengers to cover their faces during flights, following the lead of JetBlue Airways." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://apnews.com/445ac414e3be792cbcd885b8c1eb2b28">apnews.com/445ac414e3be79…</a></p>
<p>"The [United States’] economic distress came into greater focus on Friday, offering a snapshot unseen since the Great Depression." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/08/business/economy/april-jobs-report.html">nytimes.com/interactive/20…</a></p>
<p>"A four-legged robot will be patrolling Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park to remind people of safe distancing measures starting from Friday ... GovTech has enhanced Spot with various functions such as remote control, 3D-mapping and semi-autonomous operations ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/robot-reminds-visitors-about-safe-distancing-measures-in-bishan-ang-mo-kio-park">straitstimes.com/singapore/robo…</a></p>
<p>“There has been a distinct warming up to human-less, contactless technology,” Anuja Sonalker, CEO of Steer Tech, said. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine/">theintercept.com/2020/05/08/and…</a></p>
<p>"Dramatic footage has surfaced of a woman being pulled away from her screaming son by a number of police officers while protesting during the coronavirus pandemic ... [and] dragged into a police van as her screaming son is torn from her arms." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/coronavirus-australia-dramatic-arrest-of-a-mother-protesting-in-sydney-shocks-bystanders/news-story/b628c2ba966d54a4170cc5288bddc088">news.com.au/national/nsw-a…</a></p>
<p>"The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) has published a step-by-step guide for law enforcement agencies to identify 'fake news' and videos intended to spread panic through hatred and communal violence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/coronavirus-police-get-a-guide-to-detect-fake-news/article31544474.ece">thehindu.com/news/national/…</a></p>
<p>"Tensions are increasingly flaring in black and Hispanic neighborhoods over officers’ enforcement of social-distancing rules, leading officials to charge that the NYPD is engaging in a racist double standard as it shift[s] to a public health role ..." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/nypd-social-distancing-race-coronavirus.html">nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyr…</a></p>
<p>"In German cities, thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday against the coronavirus restrictions ... several wore the armbands with the yellow Star of David used to identify Jews in the Nazi era ... the police ordered 'compliance' over loudspeakers." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/berlin-koeln-stuttgart-muenchen-anti-corona-demos-in-ganz-deutschland-diese-leute-haben-es-nicht-verstanden_id_11973532.html">focus.de/politik/deutsc…</a></p>
<p>"'Liberation is a decision for the police based upon the circumstances of the individual incident,' a [police] spokesperson said. "The police can detain any person to protect the public from risk of harm." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-52599855">bbc.com/news/uk-scotla…</a></p>
<p>"California’s counties are building an army of 20,000 'contact tracers' ... the goal is to track and trace every person in the state who may have been exposed, then quickly isolate and test them." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/06/coronavirus-inside-the-bay-areas-growing-army-of-disease-detectives/">mercurynews.com/2020/05/06/cor…</a></p>
<p> "The steps under consideration ... face masks, surgical gloves, immunity passports, on-the-spot blood tests and sanitation disinfection tunnels ... all-biometric check-in systems ... passengers will need to show some type of immunity document/passport." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2020/05/10/future-air-travel-four-hour-process-self-check-in-disinfection-immunity-passes/">forbes.com/sites/ceciliar…</a></p>
<p>"Two screaming toddlers watched on as their father was dramatically dragged to the ground by police at a tense anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne on Sunday ... three other officers then pulled the pram with the distressed children away from the father." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8305067/Man-anti-lockdown-protest-Melbourne-dragged-ground-police-kids-cry.html">dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…</a></p>
<p>"Nashville Police have charged a man who was under quarantine with escape for leaving the homeless shelter at the Nashville Fairgrounds ... according to the arrest affidavit, [he] was quarantined on Thursday after testing positive for COVID-19 on Monday." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://cbs6albany.com/news/police-man-who-tested-positive-for-covid-19-charged-with-escape-for-leaving-quarantine">cbs6albany.com/news/police-ma…</a></p>
<p>"Passengers on Ryanair will have to ask permission to use the toilet under new rules laid out by the airline ... [they] will undergo temperature tests at the airport, must wear face masks, and wash their hands and use hand sanitiser in terminals." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/12/ryanair-flights-resume-coronavirus-rules-july">theguardian.com/business/2020/…</a></p>
<p>"Los Angeles County’s stay-at-home orders will 'with all certainty' be extended for the next three months ... when beaches reopen this week, face coverings will be required when not in the water, and sunbathing won’t be allowed." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-beaches-reopen-los-angeles-county-move-toward-new-normal">latimes.com/california/sto…</a></p>
<p>"A German ministerial adviser has been sacked for circulating a report that described coronavirus as a 'false alarm' and accused the government of causing 'a large number of avoidable deaths' through its lockdown." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-adviser-sacked-for-report-on-lockdown-peril-jjzvpvrq9">thetimes.co.uk/article/german…</a></p>
<p>"Police have now charged a homeless man for violating the lockdown, according to Court News ... the man was accused of leaving the place where he was living, which was ‘no fixed abode’." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/12/now-the-corona-cops-are-arresting-the-homeless/">spiked-online.com/2020/05/12/now…</a></p>
<p>"The US Senate has voted to give law enforcement agencies access to web browsing data without a warrant, dramatically expanding the government’s surveillance powers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxxvk/senate-votes-to-allow-fbi-to-look-at-your-web-browsing-history-without-a-warrant">vice.com/en_us/article/…</a></p>
<p>"A video of police grabbing a woman and pushing her to the ground as her child looks on has turned up the heat on law enforcement ... the incident began when the woman was stopped from boarding a train because she was wearing her face mask incorrectly." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-york-police-subway-mask-brooklyn-video-a9514116.html">independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…</a></p>
<p>"Robots and drones equipped with infrared cameras could patrol holiday destinations and enforce social distancing rules under new EU plans ... alongside infection tracing mobile apps. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8318971/Robots-equipped-infrared-cameras-patrol-holiday-destinations-new-EU-plans.html">dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar…</a></p>
<p>"Piers Corbyn used a megaphone to tell the crowd that the pandemic was a 'pack of lies to brainwash you and keep you in order' ... he [was] arrested under the Health Protection Regulations, which make gathering in a group of more than two people illegal." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coronavirus-protests-hyde-park-london-jeremy-corbyn-piers-brother-lockdown-a9518341.html">independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/…</a></p>
<p>'A tourist was arrested after he posted beach pictures on Instagram when he was supposed to be in quarantine ... "authorities became aware of his posts from citizens who saw posts of him on the beach with a surfboard, sunbathing, and walking around."' <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/hawaii-arrest-coronavirus-trnd/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/…</a></p>
<p>"Miami Beach Police have arrested a woman after, they said, she violated an emergency order that does not allow people on the beach ... video showed [her] sitting in the sand while holding a sign that read, 'We are free,' Sunday afternoon." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.foxnews.com/us/miami-beach-we-are-free-sign-arrested-coronavirus-order">foxnews.com/us/miami-beach…</a></p>
<p>"Video footage shows police officers beating eight handcuffed Romani men and one 13-year-old boy for allegedly having a barbecue outside one of their houses. Several policemen and gendarmes, in and out of uniform, take part in the collective punishment." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/police-covid-19-pandemic-excuse-abuse-roma-200511134616420.html">aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio…</a></p>
<p>It was nightfall along the Hudson and people were still out on a warm Saturday night, mindful that a Stay at Home order for New York City and the metro area has been extended ... more than 2,000 social distancing patrols and supervisors were out in force." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://abc7ny.com/health/nyc-parks-filled-with-people-as-police-patrol-social-distancing/6188082/">abc7ny.com/health/nyc-par…</a></p>
<p>"Hundreds of protestors gathered in Warsaw’s Old Town in the early afternoon ... police blocked the planned march, saying in a statement published on Twitter that public gatherings are still banned under the government restrictions." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-poland/police-use-tear-gas-on-polish-protestors-demanding-businesses-reopen-idUSKBN22S0T0">reuters.com/article/us-hea…</a></p>
<p>"The federal government has ramped up security and police-related spending in response to the coronavirus pandemic, including issuing contracts for riot gear ... [it] also extended special contracts for coronavirus-related security services." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://theintercept.com/2020/05/17/veterans-affairs-coronavirus-security-police/">theintercept.com/2020/05/17/vet…</a></p>
<p>"... the [smart] helmet could do any of the following: measure the temperature of a specific individual [or] people in larger crowds; scan a person's QR code for personal data; spot people in the dark; or recognize people using facial recognition." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-italy-holland-china-temperature-scanning-helmets-2020-5">businessinsider.com/coronavirus-it…</a></p>
<p>"A 'lockdown rollover' of 50 days on and 30 days off should be introduced until 2022, say British scientists ... month-long intervals of relaxed social distancing would be followed by much more austere measures lasting almost twice as long." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/lockdown-rollover-of-50-days-on-and-30-off-until-2022-is-way-to-beat-coronavirus/ar-BB14kq7G">msn.com/en-gb/news/cor…</a></p>
<p>"Close to 39 million Americans have lost their jobs in just nine weeks. The rate of weekly losses has slowed sharply from its peak of 6.6m at the start of April but remains at levels unseen since the 1930s Great Depression." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/21/us-unemployment-figures-jobs-lost-coronavirus">theguardian.com/business/2020/…</a></p>
<p>"Matt Hancock stopped short of confirming jab would be mandatory when asked at today’s Downing Street press conference, but he didn’t rule it out either." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/21/matt-hancock-hints-coronavirus-vaccinations-compulsory-12740982/">metro.co.uk/2020/05/21/mat…</a></p>
<p>“The details they provide the authorities will allow them to be traced ... if their planned accommodation does not satisfy the authorities, arrivals will be put up in facilities arranged by the government, the Home Office says." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/22/uk-arrivals-8-june-quarantine-for-14-days-coronavirus">theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/m…</a></p>
<p>"The power to impose fines on people who disobey exists under emergency legislation ... another detail to be decided on is whether spot checks will be carried out on people at home to make sure they are not secretly going out or working as normal." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/matt-hancock-healthy-people-isolate-tracked-a4448376.html">standard.co.uk/news/uk/matt-h…</a></p>
<p>"'Disaster' ... Malibu Beaches Overwhelmed By Visitors Not Wearing Masks ... the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has instituted horse patrols on the sand." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://deadline.com/2020/05/malibu-beaches-overwhelmed-by-mask-less-visitors-health-department-vows-action-1202937636/">deadline.com/2020/05/malibu…</a></p>
<p>"AiRISTA’s platform allows employers to continuously upload a record of close encounters to a corporate cloud, providing an up-to-date list of presumed social distancing violators that would double as a detailed record of workplace social interactions." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://theintercept.com/2020/05/25/coronavirus-tracking-bracelets-monitors-surveillance-supercom/">theintercept.com/2020/05/25/cor…</a></p>
<p>"Millions of Indians have no choice but to download the country’s tracking technology if they want to keep their jobs or avoid reprisals." <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210901235813/https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1001360/india-aarogya-setu-covid-app-mandatory/">technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/100…</a></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-69095541024725936972022-11-05T12:30:00.006-04:002022-11-06T16:13:00.442-05:00Responses to Emily Oster’s plea for ‘covid amnesty’<p><b><a href="https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/emily-osters-no-good-really-bad-terrible" target="_blank">emily oster's no good, really bad, terrible idea</a></b>
<br><i>"when we were in the dark about covid" is not a useful excuse for bad behavior</i>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/32715357-el-gato-malo" target="_blank">el gato malo</a></b></p>
<p>... just to be clear, emily is not advocating forgiving “those who deliberately spread misinformation” (though she does seem a bit confused about just who that might be) but her “we were all in the dark and people said lots of things and some wound up right and some wrong and we all just need to get over it and move on as recrimination is not useful” take rings hollow and false here.</p>
<p>what does this serve?</p>
<p>why should we forgive those who through stupidity, cupidity, and fear spent 3 years denying 100 years of evidence based science to attack our lives and livelihoods?</p>
<p><i>oh, no worries! i'm sure you had your reasons?</i></p>
<p><i>you were "just following orders"?</i></p>
<p><i>you were just doing what the authorities said?</i></p>
<p>because i seem to remember a whole pile of excuses that sounded an awful lot like that being rejected back in the late 40’s.</p>
<p>and i must agree with that take and take issue with emily. ...</p>
<p>it is precisely BECAUSE following vicious, evil orders is so easy in times of fear and that humans break and bow to authority with such ease that there must be sharp penalties, reputational and otherwise, for so doing.</p>
<p>otherwise, you're just greasing the rails for next time.</p>
<p>it’s the low energy path of submission, and freeing it from consequence serves only to render it a path more followed. ...</p>
<p>even if we accept this “we were in the dark” line of reasoning it still makes no sense.</p>
<p>1. we were not in the dark. we had 100 years of evidence based pandemic and epidemiological guidance and guideline upon which to rely. some tried to follow these bodies of canon and were shouted down by those seeking to do exactly what that guidance admonished against. that is lack of knowledge abrogating actual knowledge and panic driven superstition superseding evidence. equating those two viewpoints as “equivalent” is pure nonsense.</p>
<p>2. even if truly no one knew anything, then this is a reason for humility, not stridence. the base case is always “respect others and their rights. do not panic. don’t do anything crazy or drastic without a very sound reason.” that’s not what happened. a bunch of terrified anti-science loons got loose with global government and pushed literally unprecedented in human history programs of societal and economic upheaval that flat out broke the world while, predictably, having zero effect on the pandemic. guys, you took you lead from china. china. <b>the precautionary principle does not state “every time you get scared, do the most radical thing you can think of it if feels like safety.”</b> that is precisely what it warns against. such excursions into superstitious supplication of pseudoscience are not evidence based epidemiology. they are not even sanity. and again, calling that an equivalent viewpoint to “we need strong, data-driven evidence to take such outlandish actions” (presuming they are permissible at all, itself deeply questionable) is pure nonsense.</p>
<p>3. the presumption of prerogative to force upon others the unfounded desires of “those in the dark” fails inherently on every metric germane to sustaining a free society. “we didn’t know, so we took your rights away just in case” is not much of justification. this lays claim to “emergency powers” of dictatorial nature and is exceedingly dangerous as a societal foundation. it’s also incompatible with the basic idea of a republic in which the rights of the individual stand paramount to the whims of the state or the mob. this ought be especially so in emergencies with low information for what could be more likely to work vast harm than great power to coerce usurped and wielded by “those in the dark”? again, this is not a viewpoint that can be granted equivalence to a system that respects rights. doing so is, yet again, pure nonsense. ...</p>
<p>of all the people who should have had the confidence to follow data over diktat, should not a trained professor of data handling rise to the fore?</p>
<p>but this failed. and if we would avoid such failure in the future, perhaps a bit of culpability ought be spread around.</p>
<p>as an economist, surely ms oster must understand incentives. if there is no cost to having acted poorly, rashly, and without consideration or information despite the ill effects it had on others, are we not just subsidizing more such antisocial activity in the future? ...</p>
<p>but this gets more complex: being wrong is one thing. OK, you made a mistake. and this, i can forgive so long as it was YOUR mistake. but when you take that mistake and make it mine by forcing upon me actions and restrictions to which i do not consent and to threaten the lives and livlihoods of me and mine because you’re running around half-cocked and have no respect for the rights of others, well, that’s something altogether different, isn’t it? ...</p>
<p>getting a disease wrong is one thing, but presuming the coercive dispensation to take whatever your “conclusion” is (especially if you are “in the dark”) and force it upon the rest of us because it makes you feel less frightened (or perhaps allows you to savor the dark frisson of being beastly to others while telling yourself you’re a good person for doing it) is not something you get amnesty for.</p>
<p>there is a sleight of hand in the thinking here like somehow having misunderstood a pandemic excuses the mass scale abrogation of rights and reason.</p>
<p>it doesn’t.</p>
<p>such ideas are anathema to the persistence of a free society.</p>
<p>and this is not where team oster came down. ...</p>
<p>even had they been right on covid and NPI’s or anything, they still had no right to do this. they had no right to take over media, social and otherwise and censor it. that is “the dark.” they had no right to lock you down, mask you up, and force an ill-tested and ill-effective jab on people as predicate for basic freedoms.</p>
<p>and all the people who favored that, who brayed and cheer led for it, they are guilty too. and i just cannot see “just dropping the matter” because they’d like it to go away now. ...</p>
<p>if you got rolled by this, got jabs you did not want, and suffered as many did, well, so long as you did not advocate forcing this on others, you already have my forgiveness. you were a victim here.</p>
<p>but as soon as you cross the line into advocating coercive policy or willful data suppression, that’s a whole separate issue.</p>
<p>being wrong is no crime nor even is being bullied into acquiescence.</p>
<p>but forcing others to join you is.</p>
<p>knowingly suppressing data and spreading lies is. ...</p>
<p>if you wielded the whip hand of of the covidian crusader i’m sorry, but i don’t care if you were “in the dark” as that is no excuse. it stands rather as indictment.</p>
<p>having done so out of ignorance (or worse the sort of dark desire to act the dictator or demagogue by assuming a faux moral mantle to vilify and attack others) makes you a hazard and precisely the sort of actor that ought be penalized, not accommodated.</p>
<p>society must develop an immune system to you.</p>
<p>forgiving such would be past enabling and into ennobling anti-social action and technocratic science perversion. ...</p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><b><a href="https://ajkay.substack.com/p/amnesty-is-not-the-solution-to-disastrous" target="_blank">"Amnesty" Is Not the Solution to Disastrous Policy Decisions</a></b>
<br><i>And "gloating" is not the motivation for calling them out</i>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/8943947-aj-kay" target="_blank">AJ Kay</a></b></p>
<p>... I write today in response to Emily Oster’s most recent Atlantic article entitled, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/" target="_blank">Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty</a>: We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”</p>
<p>The piece starts with a lively anecdote by Emily in which her family is hiking outdoors in cloth masks, and her son screams at another small child for getting too close to him.</p>
<p>“These precautions were totally misguided,” she said, “But the thing is: We didn’t know.”</p>
<p>Two things right off the bat: They weren’t ‘precautions’ because the Precautionary Principle requires us to weigh the costs of implementing any ‘precaution’ with the same critical eye as not. We didn’t do that.</p>
<p>And, of course, <i>we absolutely did know</i>.</p>
<p>That’s just the first paragraph in Emily’s pseudo-conciliatory piece, which is littered with precisely the same kind of gaslighting, self-interested double-speak that landed us here. ...</p>
<p>Emily says, “Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic.”</p>
<p>We were never facing a grabbag of completely disorienting situations and unknowable outcomes. Our positions were clear and fully aligned with this list of things we knew by or before March 2020:</p>
<ul>
<p> <li>COVID has a clear risk-stratification skewing dramatically toward the elderly</li></p>
<p> <li>COVID is not nearly as deadly as once feared</li></p>
<p> <li>Panic, stigmatization, mandates, and politicization are anathema to public health</li></p>
<p> <li>We have immune systems, and natural immunity exists</li></p>
<p> <li>Missing school hurts kids, especially disadvantaged ones</li></p>
<p> <li>Isolation of anyone is cruel and harmful</li></p>
<p> <li>Loneliness kills</li></p>
<p> <li>The media profits off fear-mongering</li></p>
<p> <li>Health is not just about disease avoidance</li></p>
<p> <li>Masks don’t work + faces are important</li></p>
<p> <li>Forcing people to die alone is inhumane</li></p>
<p> <li>Lockdowns are human rights violations</li></p>
<p> <li>Informed consent is essential</li></p>
<p> <li>Bodily autonomy is paramount</li></p>
<p> <li>Incentives incentivize</li></p>
<p> <li>Shutting down manufacturing causes supply chain disruptions</li></p>
<p> <li>Supply chain disruptions threaten economic stability</li></p>
<p> <li>Science doesn’t advance by “following”</li></p>
<p> <li>Panicked people don’t make rational decisions</li></p>
</ul>
<p>Acknowledging the truths above would’ve been enough to keep probably 90% of the harm from occurring. But not only were they ignored, they were suppressed, despite rational people screaming them from the rooftops. ...</p>
<p>“In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.”</p>
<p>Luck was not a factor. Just a dash of common sense was sufficient for most, and the lion’s share of the wrongs perpetrated were absolutely moral failings, not least of all because one could not promote the prevailing narrative without obfuscating the truth. </p>
<p>A team led by Dr. Tom Inglesby, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and including D.A. Henderson, the man credited with eradicating smallpox, wrote the following in 2006:</p>
<p><blockquote>
«Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.»
</blockquote></p>
<p>For whatever reason, to whatever end, the powers that be implemented policies that ran counter to everything we knew about public, mental, social, developmental, and immunological health, as well as virology, epidemiology, and pandemic management.</p>
<p>And we knew it. ...</p>
<p>Emily’s diagnosis of the problem is: “The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat … Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people wracked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.”</p>
<p>Are you kidding, Emily? The backlash to this article was not a result of some trivial scorekeeping fixation. These policies hurt people. They killed people. </p>
<p>And it’s misleading to even talk about “choices” because, in most cases, we didn’t have any (at least not legally). Masks were mandated. Testing was mandated. Vaccines were mandated. Travel was restricted. These “choices” were imposed upon people. </p>
<p>And the worst part is that we absolutely knew better.</p>
<p>And we’re not going to allow people to claim they didn’t.</p>
<p>Not because of “points” but because we don’t want it to happen again. ...</p>
<p>You can’t blame “fog of war” when you walk around with a fog machine mounted to your back. Likewise, “We were in the dark!” loses plausibility when you block everyone’s access to the light switch.</p>
<p>The reason I refuse to accept calls for “amnesty” is not because I am vengeful.</p>
<p>It’s because granting “amnesty” leaves the people who have already been crushed by the weight of these decisions vulnerable still. ...</p>
<p>If they really want society to recover from the last two going on three nightmarish years, Emily et al are going to have to dig a little deeper. Pleas for forgiveness ring hollow when there’s no acknowledgment of error. “But we didn’t know!” is just more of the same self-interested trope we’ve been spoon-fed for years.</p>
<p>Because we did know.</p>
<p>And we have receipts.</p>
<p>And we’re going to keep showing them for as long as it takes to begin the actual recovery. </p>
<p>Because while Emily may want forgiveness, what we want is for this to never, ever happen again.</p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><b><a href="https://woodhouse.substack.com/p/osterism" target="_blank">Osterism</a></b>
<br><i>When you want to move on from the damage you helped cause but haven't told the truth about it</i>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/32813354-ewoodhouse" target="_blank">E.Woodhouse</a></b></p>
<p>Dr. Emily Oster, the Brown University economist who spent a good part of the pandemic response denying that her own data indicted the uselessness of masking kids in schools, published an article in The Atlantic today, calling for “a pandemic amnesty.” Short version: Let’s chalk up the devastation caused by fear-driven policies to benign ignorance and good intentions. ...</p>
<p>Oster’s implicit claim that next-to-nothing was known about SARS-CoV-2 – and therefore all the pointless, unethical, & illegal things people were forced to do are understandable – isn’t the pathway to healing, because it’s dishonest. Inexplicably, she denies that, from the get-go, we knew (for example)</p>
<ul>
<p> <li>covid’s risks were highly skewed toward sick elderly people,</li></p>
<p> <li>plexiglass & masks don’t stop viruses,</li></p>
<p> <li>school closures are harmful, and</li></p>
<p> <li>exposure quarantines & contact tracing are useless.</li></p>
</ul>
<p>She also defends things like closing beaches as “hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.” This twisted thinking - this Osterism, I’ll call it - both a) denies the truth about what was known, and b) excuses doing the worst, most non-sensical and predictably harmful things in the name of not knowing.</p>
<p>If an out-of-touch professor were the only person pushing such ideas, we could ignore it. Unfortunately, other vocal credentialed experts - not to mention public officials, school & church leaders, and friends/family members who embraced all manner of superstitious and harmful mitigations - have a similar mindset.</p>
<p>Osterism in any form will never, ever lead to healing, nor will it prevent this nightmare from happening again. ...</p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.eugyppius.com/p/emily-oster-proposes-a-pandemic-amnesty" target="_blank">Emily Oster proposes “a pandemic amnesty,” suggests that “we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID”</a></b>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/15736836-eugyppius" target="_blank">eugyppius</a></b></p>
<p>I don’t know much about the American pandemic pundits, but I gather that Brown University economist and “parenting guru” Emily Oster is far from the worst of them. Her Twitter timeline suggests she spent the early months of the pandemic terrified about the virus until school closures took their toll on her kids, at which point she repositioned herself as a kind of lockdown moderate, opposing the worst of the hystericist excesses while validating their central premises whenever possible to save face with friends and colleagues.</p>
<p><blockquote>
«April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes. We all wore cloth masks that I had made myself. We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks. Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”</p>
<p>«These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.»
</blockquote></p>
<p>The thing is, Emily Oster, that we did know. We’ve studied respiratory virus transmission for years. All the virologists and epidemiologists who aren’t total morons knew your 2020 mask routine was crazy and they just didn’t care. They wanted you to do it anyway, because they thought that if they got you to act paranoid and antisocial enough, your insane behaviour might have some limited effect on case curves. Joke’s on you, and it’s sad you still haven’t realised.</p>
<p><blockquote>
«[T]here is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long: The health risks of in-school spread were relatively low, whereas the costs to students’ well-being and educational progress were high. The latest figures on learning loss are alarming. But in spring and summer 2020, we had only glimmers of information. Reasonable people—people who cared about children and teachers—advocated on both sides of the reopening debate.»
</blockquote></p>
<p>No, reasonable people could see already in March 2020 that SARS-2 posed no measurable threat to children. There was never any honest debate to be had about this.</p>
<p>«We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. … [W]e need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.</p>
<p>«Moving on is crucial now, because the pandemic created many problems that we still need to solve.»</p>
<p>I’m sorry somebody called you genocidal, Emily Oster. That must’ve been tough for you. You know what’s also tough? Getting your head kicked in by riot police because you had the temerity to protest against indefinite population-wide house arrest.</p>
<p>Or being fired from your university job and banned in perpetuity from the premises because you uploaded a video to social media complaining about the onerous and expensive testing requirements imposed upon unvaccinated staff. Or being confined to your house and threatened with fines because of personal medical decisions that had no chance of impacting the broader course of the pandemic in the first place. But somebody called this woman genocidal in French and she’s ready to move on, so it’s all good.</p>
<p>Emily Oster may have said a few reasonable things in the depths of her pandemic moderation, but she can take her proposal for pandemic amnesty and shove it all the way up her ass. I’m never going to forget what these villains did to me and my friends. It is just hard to put into words how infuriating it is, to read this breezy triviliasation of the absolute hell we’ve been through, penned by some comfortable and clueless Ivy League mommyconomist who is ready to mouth support for basically any pandemic policy that doesn’t directly affect her or her family and then plead that the horrible behaviour and policies supported by her entire social milieu are just down to ignorance about the virus. We knew everything we needed to know about SARS-2 already in February 2020. The pandemicists and their supporters crossed many bright red lines in their eradicationist zeal and ruined untold millions of lives. That doesn’t all just go away now. </p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><b><a href="https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/lets-declare-a-pandemic-amnestynot" target="_blank">“Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty”—Not</a></b>
<br><i>Let’s not declare a pandemic amnesty. Let’s declare a real pandemic inquiry.</i>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/82753189-michael-p-senger" target="_blank">Michael P Senger</a></b></p>
<p>... The article is about as pathetically transparent as it is self-serving. Gee, I wonder what Oster did and said during Covid for which she might want amnesty ...</p>
<p>First, no, you don’t get to advocate policies that do extraordinary harm to others, against their wishes, then say “We didn’t know any better at the time!” Ignorance doesn’t work as an excuse when the policies involved abrogating your fellow citizens’ rights under an indefinite state of emergency, while censoring and canceling those who weren’t as ignorant. The inevitable result would be a society in which ignorance and obedience to the opinion of the mob would be the only safe position.</p>
<p>Second, “amnesty,” being an act of forgiveness for past offenses, first requires an apology or act of repentance on the part of those who committed the offense. Not only has no such act of repentance been forthcoming, but in most cases, establishment voices like Oster’s have yet to stop advocating these same policies, much less admit they were wrong. With no accompanying act of contrition, these calls for “amnesty” in light of rapidly-shifting public opinion have a real ring of fascist leaders calling for “amnesty” after losing the War.</p>
<p>Third, there’s some question as to whether Oster herself really did know better at the time. Like many other mainstream Covid voices, Oster had long been closely attuned to Covid data showing that these mandates did not work, yet she often seemed reluctant to share that data insofar as it contradicted the mainstream orthodoxy that mandates were necessary. In that sense, the policy prescriptions of Oster and those like her may have had less to do with ignorance than with cowardice, tribalism, and “following orders,” which can’t be considered acting “in good faith.”</p>
<p>And that leads to the ultimate problem, from a legal perspective, with Oster’s call for “amnesty” for the advocacy of totalitarian policies during Covid: The implicit assumption that all those who advocated lockdowns, mandates, censorship, and an indefinite state of emergency, all the way up the chain of command, did so in good faith. If those who advocated these policies are simply presumed to have done so out of well-meaning ignorance, then any inquiry into the many outstanding questions as to the origin of these policies—and the underlying motivations of highest-level officials who promulgated them—is foreclosed.</p>
<p>The implicit assumption is that, owing to their socioeconomic status, the superficial cutesiness of public health, and the panic surrounding the pandemic, all those who advocated these mandates must have done so in good faith. But this argument presupposes that the “pandemic” was a natural phenomenon, like a tsunami, which would have inevitably led to panic. On the contrary, studies have long shown that it was the mandates themselves that caused the public to panic, making them believe their chances of dying of Covid—which never had an overall infection fatality rate much higher than 0.2%—were hundreds of times greater than they really were. Further, there’s a growing mountain of evidence that the handful of key officials who led the initial push for unprecedented lockdowns and mandates did not, in fact, do so in good faith.</p>
<p>Our institutions are in serious need of restoration after the incalculable damage that’s been done to them during the response to Covid. But we forget, at our peril, that those institutions weren’t built with flowery words and good intentions. They were built with blood, sweat, and tears, by those who fought for them with their lives. Let’s not declare a pandemic amnesty. Let’s declare a real pandemic inquiry.</p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><b><a href="https://emilyburns.substack.com/p/with-whom-does-emily-oster-want-an" target="_blank">With whom does Emily Oster want an amnesty? Moms, so they will return to the democratic fold</a></b>
<br><i>Just another cynical attempt to ask women to forget the harms of the last few years.</i>
<br><b><a href="https://substack.com/profile/32776246-emily-burns" target="_blank">Emily Burns</a></b></p>
<p>... The political establishment—left and right—want desperately to move on, to pretend the last 30 months didn’t happen. With very few exceptions (Ron DeSantis, Kirsti Noem, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Ron Johnson, and a few others, later), they betrayed their core values. Many Republicans and so-called Libertarians quickly capitulated the primacy and importance of individual liberties. Whereas supposedly equality-loving democrats embraced policies that in no uncertain terms screwed women, children and the poor. The 2020 democrat campaign slogan might as well have been “protect the rich, infect the poor.” Or “only the rich need to learn.” They’d all very much like that you forget about that. They’d like to go back to the fights they know how to fight, the golden oldies that turn the bases out, and turn us against each other. ...</p>
<p>First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states. Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit the freedoms that really count. That while Democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of our living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose the real threat.</p>
<p>The problem for Emily is that while the hardcore democrat base of women voters never questioned any of these policies, others did—and they incurred significant personal costs for doing so.</p>
<p>An embarrassing portion of well-educated women acted as the regime’s stormtroopers. They sicced social media mobs on any who dared to voice a question, much less dissent. The pain of having family, friends and neighbors turn on them for voicing an opinion or asking a legitimate question caused many women to seek out others with similar questions.</p>
<p>In so doing, we found a smart, snarky, data-driven community pushing back hard on the totalizing power of a government trying to re-define reality. In some cases women were the generals, in others we were the infantry, going forward and taking constant fire from above, so that some recently discredited truth might once again retake its rightful place in the sun of acceptable opinion.</p>
<p>Emily Oster would like us to forget that. But we can’t—and I hope we won’t—because we were there bringing the government’s own data to shine a light on the lies it so ceaselessly manufactured. These weren’t lies of omission, they were lies of commission. They were lies that were wrought by smelting the credibility of science and medicine in the fires of politics to create weapons wielded by the powerful against us. They literally called us terrorists for our opposition.</p>
<p>Now, after having been called terrorists by our governments for arguing for the well-being of our own children, Dr. Oster wants us to forget that. In asking us to forget, she beseeches those who strayed from the flock to return, to believe that it is not their shepherd who takes them to slaughter that would do them harm, but the wolf lurking unseen in the shadows of the wood. So now we must talk about abortion.</p>
<p>What Democrats, and their credibility-launderers like Oster want women to do, is to put two things on the scales. On one side is the fear of a loss of access to abortion services. They hope that their female base will forget that rather than living in 1972, with limited access to contraception, we live in 2022, where contraception that is more than 99% effective is inexpensive and widely available, even if paying out of pocket; that this contraception includes abortion pills, which can be accessed anywhere in the country by mail up to 10 weeks of gestation. They want you to forget about the interstate commerce clause which would make hindering this nearly impossible—even, or especially, with a conservative court. They want you to forget that a flight to an abortion-providing state is at most a $200 plane ride away. Or that should you fail to secure an abortion, the worst-case scenario results in a baby you choose to give up for adoption. They want you to forget that if they [anti-abortion politicians] win the senate, they would still have to overturn the filibuster and the important political stabilization that the 60-vote threshold provides. </p>
<p>They want you to forget that they failed to legally codify access to abortion for 50 years. And they want you to forget that there is no way on earth they are going to give up the only issue they have to reliably stoke fear, drum up dollars, and drive women to the polls. Not a chance in hell.</p>
<p>On the other side is the harm that was done to your children, to you, to your community over nearly three years. On the other is the fear of a loss of access to abortion services. What they are hoping is that their female base will believe the lie that Dr. Oster is peddling, that it was all just an unfortunate mistake, and could never happen again. It’s in the past! Don’t worry about it. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t a mistake. It was a political calculation, and on the cost side of that equation was the education and welfare of our kids—and so much more. The people who made this calculation wagered that the fear that they could drum up around access to abortion could be used to distract women from the manifold harms these policies caused to children and/or that they could craft a narrative that would mask the truth. If you understand the cynicism of that decision, you have to expect the same cynicism on the other side of the equation. ...</p>
<p>The narrative that conservatives seek to limit access to abortion in order to keep women down is a just that—a story. In order to prop it up, fetuses had to be literally dehumanized, and the narrative bolstered with overtly anti-natal supporting philosophies, philosophies which, in their anti-natalism rob life of most of its meaning for most people. For women, this anti-natalism is expressly anti-mother, hence, anti-feminine, transforming motherhood—one of the few truly transcendent human experiences—into a dupe’s prison.</p>
<p>That said, I remain pro-choice, fundamentally because after the past two+ years, all I want is the government smaller and weakened in every possible capacity. I don’t want the government legislating or coercing morality (we’ve had quite enough of that over the past few years) any more than I want it coercing medical decisions. Further, I believe that the vicissitudes of life can make such government interventions result in dangerous corner cases.</p>
<p>But despite being pro-choice, I have become a single issue voter. My vote this cycle is a vote for vengeance against the party that kept my kids masked for two years; that robbed me of my best friends, and strained every relationship I have; that caused us to move to an entirely different part of the country; that perverted a discipline that I love, and which I use to navigate my life (science); and that then lied about doing it, and called me a terrorist for being upset about it. After this cycle, my vote will always be for the party that represents the most decentralized power structure, and the greatest respect for individual rights and responsibility. For me, the new f-word is “federal”.</p>
<p>While I can only speak for myself, my experience has been that in the aftermath of our leaders’ decision to break and reset the world, there are new coalitions forming. I don’t think I’m alone in my efforts to try to better understand the positions of others who became my “comrades in arms”—and I have felt that reciprocated, with the possibility of compromise arising out of mutual respect and in the face of a greater perceived mutual threat. At the moment, I think this is only happening on the “right”. But if the democrats get the drubbing that looks likely in the mid-terms, this will also happen on the left; it’s why this drubbing needs to happen. Such a shake-up can only be to the good. Indeed, our leaders may yet have gotten a “Great Reset”—just not the one they were hoping for. ...</p>
<p>Moms in general, and stay-at-home moms in particular, played a very significant part in the grassroots pushback of COVID policy malfeasance. I believe this was due to three key things. First, COVID policies created many more SAHMs, as the exigencies of virtual school made work impossible. Second, these SAHMs experienced the harmful impacts of COVID policies directly for years in their own lives, and in those of their children. Third, I think that SAHMs ended up being a very important and vocal minority because they could be. You can’t fire or cancel an SAHM, and there is significant power in not being anonymous.</p>
<p>As women, we have felt far more acutely than at any time in the past what it really means for government to interfere in our lives—controlling whether our children go to school, whether we can socialize, or go to a gym, or a restaurant, how many people can be invited to our home, whether we can spend holidays with family, whether we can run our businesses. These are all violations, violations of our personal liberty that harmed us, our children, and our communities, and which were done solely in service to political power. We have internalized this, and many will not be quick to forgive.</p>
<p>Emily is asking us to forgive a mistake. There was no mistake. There was a political calculation that harmed us, but even more, that harmed our children. The harm was considered acceptable because those who undertook it, took the votes of women for granted. They assumed they could lie and manipulate us into believing these harms were necessary, or barring that, unintentional. If we, as women, want our votes to be courted in the future by either party, we must vote to punish the past three years treachery. ...</p>
<p><center>(((( o ))))</center></p>
<p><a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/emily-osters-plea-bargain/" target="_blank"><b>Emily Oster’s Plea Bargain</b></a>
<br><i>Shuck-and-jive from America’s broken thinking class, the people who pretend to know better than everybody else.</i>
<br><a href="https://kunstler.com/writings/clusterfuck-nation/" target="_blank"><b>James Howard Kunstler</b></a></p>
<p>By now, everybody and his uncle has seen Emily Oster’s plea for “pandemic amnesty” in The Atlantic magazine, a house organ of the people in America who know better than you do about … really … everything. Emily’s wazoo is so stuffed with gold-plated credentials (BA, PhD, Harvard; economics prof at Brown U) it’s a wonder that she could sit down long enough to peck out her lame argument that “we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”</p>
<p>Emily wasn’t “in the dark.” She had access to the same information as the Americans who recognized that everything the public health authorities, the medical establishment, and many elected officials shoveled out about Covid and its putative remedies and preventatives was untrue, with a patina of bad faith and malice — especially when it was used to persecute their political adversaries.</p>
<p>These dissenters turned out to be “right for the wrong reasons,” she declared, the main reason being that they were not aligned in good-think with the Woke-Jacobinism of her fellow “progressives” at Brown U, and academics all across the land, who were righteously busy destroying the intellectual life of the nation, making it impossible for the thinking class to think.</p>
<p>Let’s face it: every society actually needs a thinking class, a cohort able to frame important issues-of-the-moment that require argument in the public arena to align our collective thoughts and deeds with reality. America used to have a pretty good thinking class, with a pretty good free press and many other platforms for opinion — all animated by respect for the first amendment to the Constitution.</p>
<p>The thinking class destroyed that by vigorously promoting a new censorship regime in every American institution, shutting down free speech and, more crucially, the necessary debate for aligning our politics with reality. Hence, America’s thinking class became the torchbearers of unreality, in step with the Party of Chaos which held the levers of power. This included the powers of life and death in the matter of Covid-19.</p>
<p>These were the people who militated against effective early treatment protocols (to cynically preserve the drug companies’ emergency use authorization (EUA) and thus their liability shields); the people who enforced the deadly remdesivir-and-ventilator combo in hospital treatment; the people who rolled out the harmful and ineffective “vaccines”; who fired and vilified doctors who disagreed with all that; and who engineered a long list of abusive policies that destroyed businesses, livelihoods, households, reputations, and futures.</p>
<p>How did it happen that the thinking class destroyed thinking and betrayed itself? Because the status competition for moral righteousness in the sick milieu of the campus became more important to them than the truth. In places like Brown U, what you saw was an escalating contest for status brownie-points, which is what virtue-signaling is all about. And the highest virtue was going along with whatever experts and people-in-authority said — the pathetic virtue of submission. Anything that got in the way of going along — such as differences of opinion — had to be crushed, stamped out, and with a vicious edge to teach the dissenters a lesson: dissent will not be tolerated!</p>
<p>Some thinking class. The case of Emily Oster should be particularly and painfully disturbing, since she affects to specialize, as an economist, on “pregnancy and parenting” (her own website declares), while the Covid regime of public health officialdom she supported instigated a horrendous pediatric health crisis that is ongoing — it was only days ago that the CDC added the harmful mRNA “vaccines” to its childhood immunization schedule for the purpose of conferring permanent legal immunity for the drug companies after the EUA ends, a dastardly act. Where’s Ms. Oster’s plea to the CDC to cease and desist trying to vaccinate kids with mRNA products?</p>
<p>The CDC is still running TV commercials (during World Series ballgames!) touting its “booster” shots when only weeks ago a top Pfizer executive, Janine Small (“Regional President for Vaccines of International Developed Markets”), revealed in testimony to the European Union Parliament that her company never tested its “vaccine” for preventing transmission of SARS CoV-2. The CDC under Director Rochelle Walensky is still extra-super-busy concealing or fudging its statistical data to obfuscate the emerging picture that MRNA “vaccines” are responsible for the shocking rise of “all-causes deaths” in the most heavily-vaxxed nations. In short, the authorities are to this minute still running their whole malign operation.</p>
<p>Notably, Ms. Oster’s plea for amnesty and forgiveness, showcased in The Atlantic, omits any discussion of accountability for what amounts to serious crimes against the public. A whole lot of people deserve to be indicted for killing and injuring millions of people. At the heart of her plea is the excuse that “we didn’t know” official Covid policy was so misguided. That’s just not true, of course, and is simply evidence of the thinking class’s recently-acquired allergy to truth. The part she left out of her petition for pandemic amnesty is: <i>We were only following orders</i>.</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-29079886043210433542022-10-24T13:47:00.001-04:002022-10-24T17:42:36.365-04:00Militarized advertising and public relations and the imperative of war<p>From <i>The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order 1905–1922</i>, Edmond Taylor (Doubleday, 1963):<br /><br />«Two world wars and a decade of cold war between the West and the Communist-bloc nations have made us all familiar with the miscellaneous manipulations and unpleasantnesses that for purposes of administrative or journalistic convenience are lumped under such headings as “psychological warfare” or “political warfare.” … The words are relatively new, and so of course are some of the techniquest, but the basic tactical patterns go back to the dawn of human history. …<br /><br />«During the first world conflict, however, these black arts of war (and of diplomacy) were practiced so systematically and on such an unprecedented scale that they virtually constituted a new dimension of warfare. For the first time in history, elaborate specialized machinery was set up to furnish unorthodox support to the conventional operations of armies, foreign offices, and police departments. That peculiar modern phenomenon, the psychological (or political) warrior – the militarized version of the advertising man or public relations expert and the bureaucratic cousin of the professional revolutionary – was born.<br /><br />«At the beginning of the war the emphasis, at least in the propaganda field, was defensive rather than offensive, and focused on the home front (in itself a new concept). … As Professor Harold A. Lasswell remarks in his classic work, <i>Propaganda Technique in the World War</i>, “propaganda is a concession to the willfullness of the age.” In the twentieth century – or at least in its first decade – men could no longer simply be ordered to give up their right to private happiness at a ruler’s whim; they had to be persuaded. The spread of literacy and the development of rapid mass means of communication facilitated the task of persuasion. Naturally – though at first glance paradoxically – the worst propaganda excesses were committed in the Western democracies, where the common man was, in Lasswell’s terminology, the most “willful.”<br /><br />—————<br /><br />«One type of Western morale-building propaganda which proved to be particularly self-defeating and even traumatic in the long view was the abusive appeal to the latent idealism of the masses through slogans such as The War to End War (originally inspired by H. G. Wells) and Make the World Safe for Democracy (derived from President Wilson’s message to Congress of April 2, 1917). No doubt the politicians who thus exploited the hopes of their peoples with these high-sounding but demagogic pledges of a better world were the first victims of their own propaganda; the unending wonder, when we look back upon it, is how intelligent and cultivated men – including a trained historian – could ever have deluded themselves into believing that prolonging the sordid massacre in Europe would make it possible to build a better world. The apathy and skepticism of the Western masses a generation later, when confronted with Hitler’s naked threat to the survival of their most elementary freedom, can be traced in good measure to the overdoses of war medicine that the new witch doctors had brewed for their fathers between 1914 and 1918.<br /><br />«Even more deadly in its ultimate effects than the propaganda of misdirected idealism was the propaganda of hate. Again the democracies were the worst offenders. In France a kind of forgery mill, supported by secret government funds, ground out fake photographs of German atrocities to back up the no-less-cold-bloodedly fabricated news reports of Belgian babies with their hands wantonly hacked off, of women with their breasts cut off by German bayonets or sabers, of factories for making soap out of human corpses. The British were a trifle more subtle, but hardly more scrupulous in exposing the outrages of the savage “Hun” …. Twenty years later the scars left on the public mind by this wartime atrocity propaganda – which of course was speedily exposed after the fighting ended – were still so inflamed, that American newspaper correspondents in Europe had the greatest difficulty in persuading their editors to print authenticated reports of authentic Nazi atrocities.<br /><br />«As the war advanced, the propaganda activity of the chief belligerent powers became increasingly intensive and organized. … In all the belligerent countries the propaganda bureaus worked more or less closely with the General Staff, with the military censors, with the secret police and intelligence services and with an extensive volunteer (sometimes covertly subsidized) network of journalists, writers and politicians. The end result was a series of what amounted to immense – and immensely powerful – lobbies with a vested interest in fighting the war to the bitter end; the remorseless pressure of these bellicose lobbies on both the German and the Entente governments seems to have been a substantive factor in blocking the movement for a compromise peace that was launched so promisingly by the [new] Emperor Karl in March 1917.<br /><br />«The political warfare activities of the several belligerents, aimed at demoralizing or splitting up their enemies, were an even greater impediment to peace negotiations. … As the deadlock continued, each side became increasingly irresponsible and unscrupulous in attempting to foment revolution behind the enemy’s front. Every racial or religious minority, every disaffected social category became the target of subersive incitements and appeals. Every group hatred, fear, or greed was played upon; every irredentist ambition was encouraged. Generally, it was only the most extreme minority leaders who would accept to work for, or with, the enemies of their nominal fatherland. Sometimes, however, the heavy-handed repressiveness of the wartime dictatorships – or hatred of the war itself – drove previously responsible and moderate minority leadership into collaborating with the enemy; in such cases it inevitably turned extremist, and in the process sometimes succeeded in committing its new allies to more radical objectives than they had originally contemplated.<br /><br />«The career of Thomas G. Masaryk, the son of a Bohemian coachman who became the founder and first President of the Czechoslovak Republic, was a case in point. …»<br /><br />—————<br /><br />“To the Bitter End”<br /><br />«… For the Bolsheviks, the awakening was terrible. As a starter the Central Powers demanded that Russia cede Poland and the Baltic territories. Recognition of Finnish independence was soon added to the conditions. Then came the crusher: Russia must also recognize the independence of the Ukraine, which had been proclaimed by the anti-Bolshevik and pro-German local government in Kiev on January 1 [1918]. Some of the Austrian and even German delegates felt that the precarious Soviet regime was being strained to the breaking point, but this did not worry General Ludendorff, the occult dictator of Germany and the real author of the Brest-Litovsk diktat. “Paranoia had him in its grip,” declares John W. Wheeler-Bennett in his masterly <i>Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace</i>, and the diagnosis seems plausible. Ludendorff’s ultimate aim was the total dismemberment of Russia and though this objective implied the final liquidation of the Romanov dynasty it had seemingly been approved by the Kaiser. In fact, according to Wheeler-Bennett, a dangerous rivalry had developed among the minor German royal or princely houses over the distribution of the expected Eastern spoils …»</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-88206424948443631142022-09-07T18:56:00.001-04:002022-09-07T18:56:21.469-04:00Glenn Greenwald on the censorship regime<p>The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet – by a consortium of DC Dems, billionaire-funded "disinformation experts," the US Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations – is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood.</p>
<p>A series of "crises" have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views, and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming. Trump's election, Russiagate, 1/6, COVID and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression.</p>
<p>During the failed attempt in January to force Spotify to remove Joe Rogan, the country's most popular podcaster – remember that? – I wrote that the current religion of Western liberals in politics and media is censorship: their prime weapon of activism.</p>
<p>But that Rogan failure only strengthened their repressive campaigns. Dems routinely abuse their majoritarian power in DC to explicitly coerce Big Tech silencing of their opponents and dissent. This is *Govt censorship* disguised as corporate autonomy.</p>
<p>There's now an entire new industry, aligned with Dems, to pressure Big Tech to censor. Think tanks and self-proclaimed "disinformation experts" funded by Omidyar, Soros and the US/UK Security State use benign-sounding names to glorify ideological censorship as neutral expertise.</p>
<p>The worst, most vile arm of this regime are the censorship-mad liberal employees of big media corporations (<a href="https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__" role="link">@oneunderscore__</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny" role="link">@BrandyZadrozny</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz" role="link"> @TaylorLorenz</a>, NYT tech unit). Masquerading as "journalists," they align with the scummiest Dem groups (<a href="https://twitter.com/mmfa" role="link">@mmfa</a>) to silence and deplatform.</p>
<p>It is astonishing to watch Dems and their allies in media corporations posture as opponents of "fascism" - while their main goal is to *unite state and corporate power* to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control.</p>
<p>A major myth that must be quickly dismantled: political censorship is not the by-product of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies.
This is happening because DC Dems and the US Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse. They're explicit: “The issue is not that the companies before us todayare taking too many posts down. The issue is that they’re leaving too many dangerous posts up.”</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1567292638524571648">https://twitter.com/i/status/1567292638524571648</a></p>
<p>But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is "journalist" take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. *These* are the authoritarians. <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1567292900312064000">https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1567292900312064000</a></p>
<p>This is the frog-in-boiling-water problem: the increase in censorship is gradual but continuous, preventing recognition of how severe it's become. The EU now legally *mandates censorship of Russian news. They've made it *illegal* for companies to air it.</p>
<p>So many new tactics of censorship repression have emerged in the West: Trudeau freezing bank accounts of trucker-protesters; Paypal partnering with ADL to ban dissidents from the financial system; Big Tech platforms openly colluding in unison to de-person people from the internet.</p>
<p>All of this stems from the classic mentality of all would-be tyrants: our enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble. That's what made the Sam Harris confession so vital: that's how liberal elites think.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1567293629462372352">https://twitter.com/i/status/1567293629462372352</a></p><p>This is why I regard the Hunter Biden scandal as uniquely alarming. The media didn't just "bury" the archive.
CIA concocted a lie about it (it's "Russian disinformation"); media outlets spread that lie; Big Tech censured it – because lying and repression to them is justified!</p>
<p>The authoritarian mentality that led CIA, corporate media and Big Tech to lie about the Biden archive before the election is the same driving this new censorship craze. It's the hallmark of all tyranny: "our enemies are so evil and dangerous, anything is justified to stop them."</p>
<p>How come **not one media outlet** that spread this CIA lie – the Hunter Biden archive was "Russian disinformation" – retracted or apologized? This is why: they believe they are so benevolent, their cause so just, that lying and censorship are benevolent.</p>
<p>The one encouraging aspect: as so often happens with despotic factions, they are triggering and fueling the backlash to their excesses. Sites devoted to free speech – led by Rumble, along with Substack, Callin, and others – are exploding in growth.</p>
<p>But as these free speech platforms grow and become a threat, the efforts to crush them also grow – exactly as <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC" role="link">@AOC</a>, other Dems and their corporate media allies successfully demanded Google, Apple and Amazon destroy Parler when it became the single most-popular app in the country.</p>
<p>It is hard to overstate how much pressure is now brought to bear by liberal censors on these free speech platforms, especially Rumble. Their vendors are threatened. Their hosting companies targeted. They have accounts cancelled and firms refusing to deal with them. It's a regime.</p>
<p>In even the most despotic nations, the banal, conformist citizen thinks they're free. As Rosa Luxemburg said: "he who does not move, does not feel his chains."
Of course the Chris Hayes's and Don Lemon's think this is all absurd: Good Liberals threaten nobody and thus flourish.</p>
<p>The measure of societal freedom is not how servants of power are treated: they're always left alone or rewarded. The key metric is how dissidents are treated. Now, they are imprisoned (Assange), exiled (Snowden) and, above all, silenced by corporate/state power (dissidents).</p>
<p>For more than a month, I've removed myself from the news cycle and The Discourse because my only priority right now is my family, my kids and my husband's health. But distance brings clarity.</p>
<p>This censorship mania consuming Western liberals is deeply dangerous – and growing.</p>
<p>As I've often said, the media outlets screaming most loudly about "disinformation" are the ones that spread it most frequently, casually and destructively (NBC/CNN/WPost, etc).</p>
<p>It's equally true of those now claiming to fight "fascism": real repression comes *from them.*</p>
<p>I'm going to remain detached until the health crisis in our family is resolved. But internet freedom and free speech are not ancillary causes. They are central. This was the core cause of the Snowden reporting.</p>
<p>Without a free internet and free speech, dissent is an illusion.</p>
<p>Above all, stay focused on who your real enemies are.</p>
<p>They're not your neighbors who have been deceived into supporting the wrong party or wrong ideology. They are victims of the repression, which is all about maintaining a closed system of propaganda that can't be challenged.</p>
<p>The worst of all - the most repugnant and despicable - are those calling themselves "journalists" while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry.</p>
<p>Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the "journalist" label. Read them with full skepticism, or just ignore them.</p>
<p>Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.</p>
<p>—<a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1567290905039708160"><i>Twitter</i>, 6 September 2022</a> <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-47458477066689062422022-09-07T14:58:00.018-04:002023-08-25T10:51:42.560-04:00Ivermectin doses<p>According to the <a href="https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/" target="_blank">Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance</a>, the basic dose of ivermectin is 0.2 mg/kg/day. That is the usual dose of ivermectin for most parasitic infections, typically repeated the next day or the next week. It may also be taken prophylactically every month or so. The same dose (by weight) can be used in children weighing at least 15 kg, ie, 33 pounds. See the drug information at <a href="https://www.uptodate.com/contents/ivermectin-systemic-drug-information/print" target="_blank">UpToDate</a>.</p>
<p><i>Opinions differ on whether ivermectin should be taken on an empty stomach or with a meal, although some studies have shown that the latter increases its absorption.</i></p>
<p>Ivermectin comes in 3-mg pills and multiples (eg, 6 mg and 12 mg).</p>
<p>One kg is 2.2 pounds. So the basic dose of 0.2 mg/kg is 3 mg per 33 pounds body weight, ie:</p>
<ul>
<li>9 mg for someone who weighs around 99 pounds</li>
<li>12 mg for someone around 132 pounds</li>
<li>15 mg for someone around 165 pounds, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>The dose can be repeated as often as weekly for prevention.</p>
<p>After exposure, the basic dose can be doubled, to 0.4 mg/kg, ie:</p>
<ul>
<li>18 mg for someone who weighs around 99 pounds</li>
<li>24 mg for someone around 132 pounds</li>
<li>30 mg for someone around 165 pounds, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>This or the smaller dose is then repeated after 48 hours.</p>
<p>Either dose can also be used when sick, repeated after 48 hours or, if still sick, repeated daily for up to 7 days until symptoms subside.</p>
<p>The daily dose when sick can even be increased to 0.6 mg/kg, ie:</p>
<ul>
<li>27 mg for someone who weighs around 99 pounds</li>
<li>36 mg for someone around 132 pounds</li>
<li>45 mg for someone around 165 pounds, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>For “long covid”, the FLCCCA-recommended dose is 0.2–0.3 mg/kg daily for 2–3 weeks, ie:</p>
<ul>
<li>9–15 mg for someone who weighs around 99 pounds</li>
<li>12–18 mg for someone around 132 pounds</li>
<li>15–21 mg for someone around 165 pounds, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>That is also the FLCCCA-recommended dose for post–mRNA injection recovery, daily for up to 4–6 weeks.</p>
<p>As for cost, larger-dose pills are cheaper. For example, at the Indian supplier misleadingly called <a href="https://mycphealth.com/catalog/stromectol/" target="_blank">Canadian Pharmacy Online</a>, 120 mg of ivermectin cost, at the time of writing, $87.60 as 40 3-mg pills, $61.80 as 20 6-mg pills, and $36.90 as 10 12-mg pills. <a href="https://www.ivermectin.com/">Ivermectin.com</a>, which claims to ship from the USA, sells only 12-mg pills: 50 (600 mg total) for $105, 100 (1,200 mg total) for $190.</p>
<p><i>And remember to make sure you get enough vitamin D!</i></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-17938801545322375382022-08-26T09:56:00.010-04:002023-03-30T11:25:27.840-04:00Consent Factory: New Normal Fascism<p>13/01/2017: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/">Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works</a><br>
10/07/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/07/10/the-united-states-of-fascism-hysteria/">The United States of Fascism Hysteria</a><br>
08/08/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/08/08/the-war-on-white-supremacist-terror/">The War on White Supremacist Terror</a><br>
20/08/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/08/20/manufacturing-mass-fascism-hysteria/">Manufacturing Mass Fascism Hysteria</a><br>
03/09/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/09/03/the-future-of-the-spectacle-or-how-the-west-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-reality-police/">The Future of the Spectacle … or How the West Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Reality Police</a><br>
04/10/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/10/04/trumpenstein-must-be-destroyed/">Trumpenstein Must Be Destroyed!</a><br>
21/10/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/10/21/the-putin-nazis-are-coming-again/">The Putin-Nazis Are Coming (Again)!</a><br>
05/11/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/11/05/the-ministry-of-wiki-truth/">The Ministry of Wiki-Truth</a><br>
19/11/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/11/19/reclaiming-your-inner-fascist/">Reclaiming Your Inner Fascist</a><br>
18/12/2019: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2019/12/18/the-year-of-manufactured-hysteria/">The Year of Manufactured Hysteria</a><br>
13/01/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/01/13/world-war-iii/">World War III</a><br>
27/01/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/01/27/dead-president-walking/">Dead President Walking</a><br>
10/02/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/02/10/bernie-sanders-commie-kill-swarm/">Bernie Sanders’ Commie Kill Swarm</a><br>
21/02/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/02/21/subcomandante-bloomberg/">Subcomandante Bloomberg</a><br>
09/03/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/03/09/the-great-chinese-bat-flu-panic-of-2020/">The Great Chinese Bat Flu Panic of 2020</a><br>
18/03/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/03/18/covid-19-global-lockdown/">Covid-19 Global Lockdown</a><br>
26/03/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/03/26/the-war-on-death/">The War on Death</a><br>
13/04/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/04/13/brave-new-normal/">Brave New Normal</a><br>
04/05/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/05/04/virus-of-mass-destruction/">Virus of Mass Destruction</a><br>
20/05/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/05/20/brave-new-normal-part-2/">Brave New Normal (Part 2)</a><br>
01/06/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/06/01/the-minneapolis-putsch/">The Minneapolis Putsch</a><br>
10/06/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/06/10/the-worst-literal-hitler-ever/">The Worst Literal Hitler Ever</a><br>
29/06/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/06/29/the-new-pathologized-totalitarianism/">The New (Pathologized) Totalitarianism</a><br>
20/07/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/07/20/globocap-uber-alles/">GloboCap Über Alles</a><br>
29/07/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/07/29/the-white-black-nationalist-color-revolution/">The White Black Nationalist Color Revolution</a><br>
09/08/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/08/09/invasion-of-the-new-normals/">Invasion of the New Normals</a><br>
02/09/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/09/02/new-normal-gleichschaltung-or-the-storming-of-the-reichstag-building-on-29-august-2020/">New Normal Gleichschaltung, or: The Storming of the Reichstag Building on 29 August, 2020</a><br>
20/09/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/09/20/the-war-on-populism-the-final-act/">The War on Populism: The Final Act</a><br>
13/10/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/10/13/the-covidian-cult/">The Covidian Cult</a><br>
27/10/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/10/27/the-last-days-of-the-trumpian-reich/">The Last Days of the Trumpian Reich</a><br>
10/11/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/11/10/the-war-is-over-globocap-triumphs/">THE WAR IS OVER … GLOBOCAP TRIUMPHS!</a><br>
22/11/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/11/22/the-germans-are-back/">The Germans Are Back!</a><br>
08/12/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/12/08/wheres-the-hitler/">Where’s the Hitler?</a><br>
16/12/2020: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2020/12/16/year-zero/">Year Zero</a><br>
11/01/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/01/11/are-you-ready-for-total-ideological-war/">Are You Ready for Total (Ideological) War?</a><br>
24/01/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/01/24/thats-all-folks/">That’s All Folks!</a><br>
08/02/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/02/08/the-new-normal-war-on-domestic-terror/">The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror</a><br>
23/02/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/02/23/the-vaccine-disinformation-war/">The Vaccine (Dis)Information War</a><br>
08/03/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/03/08/the-new-normal-phase-2/">The New Normal (Phase 2)</a><br>
22/03/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/03/22/the-new-normal-reality-police/">The New Normal “Reality” Police</a><br>
29/03/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/03/29/the-unvaccinated-question/">The “Unvaccinated” Question</a><br>
21/04/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/04/21/the-covidian-cult-part-ii/">The Covidian Cult (Part II)</a><br>
03/05/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/05/03/the-criminalization-of-dissent/">The Criminalization of Dissent</a><br>
25/05/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/05/25/greetings-from-new-normal-germany/">Greetings from “New Normal” Germany!</a><br>
20/06/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/06/20/manufacturing-new-normal-reality/">Manufacturing (New Normal) “Reality”</a><br>
29/06/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/06/29/the-war-on-reality/">The War on Reality</a><br>
14/07/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/07/14/the-approaching-storm/">The Approaching Storm</a><br>
19/07/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/07/19/the-propaganda-war-and-how-to-fight-it/">The Propaganda War (And How to Fight It)</a><br>
31/07/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/07/31/the-road-to-totalitarianism/">The Road to Totalitarianism</a><br>
13/08/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/08/13/the-propaganda-war-part-ii/">The Propaganda War (Part II)</a><br>
02/09/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/09/02/the-covidian-cult-part-iii/">The Covidian Cult (Part III)</a><br>
12/10/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/10/12/the-great-new-normal-purge/">The Great New Normal Purge</a><br>
31/10/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/10/31/new-normal-winter-is-coming/">(New Normal) Winter is Coming</a><br>
22/11/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/11/22/pathologized-totalitarianism-101/">Pathologized Totalitarianism 101</a><br>
16/12/2021: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2021/12/16/the-year-of-the-new-normal-fascist/">The Year of the New Normal Fascist</a><br>
18/01/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/01/18/the-last-days-of-the-covidian-cult/"><b>The Last Days of the Covidian Cult</b></a><br>
04/02/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/02/04/attack-of-the-transphobic-putin-nazi-truckers/">Attack of the Transphobic Putin-Nazi Truckers!</a><br>
20/02/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/02/20/the-naked-face-of-new-normal-fascism/">The Naked Face of New Normal Fascism</a><br>
07/03/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/03/07/revenge-of-the-putin-nazis/">Revenge of the Putin-Nazis!</a><br>
27/03/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/03/27/springtime-for-globocap/">Springtime for GloboCap</a><br>
09/05/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/05/09/the-rise-of-the-new-normal-reich/">The Rise of the New Normal Reich</a><br>
25/05/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/05/25/monkeypoxmania/">Monkeypoxmania</a><br>
20/06/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/06/20/the-federal-republic-of-new-normal-germany/">The Federal Republic of New Normal Germany</a><br>
22/07/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/07/22/the-normalization-of-the-new-normal-reich/">The Normalization of The New Normal Reich</a><br>
06/08/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/08/06/the-unvaccinated-question-revisited/">The “Unvaccinated” Question (Revisited)</a><br>
26/08/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/08/26/new-normal-germanys-geisterfahrer-geist/">New Normal Germany’s Geisterfahrer Geist</a><br>
31/08/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/08/31/the-rise-of-the-new-normal-reich-consent-factory-essays-vol-iii-banned-in-germany-austria-and-the-netherlands/">The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III, banned in Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands!</a><br>
03/10/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/10/03/the-morning-after/">The Morning After</a>
16/10/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/10/16/the-gaslighting-of-the-masses/">The Gaslighting of the Masses</a>
13/11/2022: <a href="https://consentfactory.org/2022/11/13/the-road-to-totalitarianism-revisited/">The Road to Totalitarianism (Revisited)</a><br></p>
<p><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation">A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century</a>, by Jacob Siegel: «The crime is the information war itself, which was launched under false pretenses and by its nature destroys the essential boundaries between the public and private and between the foreign and domestic, on which peace and democracy depend. By conflating the anti-establishment politics of domestic populists with acts of war by foreign enemies, it justified turning weapons of war against Americans citizens. It turned the public arenas where social and political life take place into surveillance traps and targets for mass psychological operations.»Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-46331975178020228402022-07-28T11:05:00.004-04:002022-07-28T11:09:12.726-04:00Agriculture (and Energy) Revolutions<p><span>The First, or Neolithic, Agricultural Revolution was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible. [Also the beginning of centralized government and social hierarchy]</span><br /><br /><span>The Second, or British, Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the nineteenth century as the population more than tripled to over 35 million.</span><br /><br /><span>The Third Agricultural, or Green, Revolution is the set of research technology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s that increased agricultural production in parts of the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including high-yielding varieties of cereals, agrochemicals, controlled water supply (usually involving irrigation), and newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization. … It contributed to widespread reduction of poverty, averted hunger for millions, raised incomes, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced land use for agriculture, and contributed to declines in infant mortality.</span><br /><br /><span>The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation.</span><br /><br /><span>(<i>above from Wikipedia</i>)</span><br /><br /><span>Obviously, there have been adverse consequences for the environment and other animals, but you can't just outlaw it without an alternative in place (and support for the transition, eg, to large-scale organic agriculture) that can sustain what it created. But that's what much of the new "green" agenda is doing, particularly in energy, pushing (much) less efficient technologies (requiring more resources – both materials and land – and infrastructure) that are therefore even more harmful to not only people but also the planet as a whole.</span><br /> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-15161625170747755582022-07-16T12:17:00.002-04:002022-07-16T12:17:45.855-04:00“Ethics” in a moral vacuum; or an hubristic pile of false premises and untested assumptions<p><b>Compulsory moral bioenhancement should be covert</b><br />Parker Crutchfield<br />Assistant professor in Medical Ethics, Humanities, and Law<br />Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo<br /><i>Bioethics</i> 2018;33:112–121<br /><a href="https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/bioe.12496">doi:10.1111/bioe.12496</a><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">. . . . .<br /></p>The present issue is not whether the public health program of administering moral bioenhancement ought to occur; it’s a matter of how it should occur. Let us suppose that if it were to occur overtly, it would occur similarly to vaccination programs for children: At the age where the moral bioenhancement is safe and effective, children would receive the moral bioenhancement from their pediatrician or family physician or community health department, and that would be that. That information would then go on their health records, and they’d go on with their more moral lives. Let us also suppose that if the program were administered covertly it would be conducted in similar fashion. When children are scheduled to receive vaccinations, they are at the same time given the moral bioenhancement, but neither the children nor their parents or guardians are told about the moral bioenhancement and it doesn’t go in their health records. The administration of it could be double- or even triple‐blinded, so that only a few individuals are aware of the moral bioenhancement. Everyone would go on with their lives unaware of the moral bioenhancement. The question is: Which is the most ethically desirable scenario? I argue it is the second scenario, in which the moral bioenhancement is administered covertly.<br /><p style="text-align: center;">. . . . .<br /></p><p>Consider first the fact that as compared to a covert moral bioenhancement program that is blind to everyone except few, an overt program would reduce the expected utility of the program. This is because if people knew that they were being morally bioenhanced, at least some of them would fail to receive the bioenhancement. They would request exemptions from the policy on the grounds that it conflicts with their religion or their personal convictions, or they would falsely believe that the moral bioenhancement leads to various disorders or diseases unrelated to the intervention. People would slip through. Some would slip through because of failing to pay attention, while others would outright refuse the intervention. That this would happen is obvious when we consider policies on vaccination or quarantine: People refuse vaccines or otherwise fail to get them, and people slip through quarantines and other methods of isolation.<br /><br />If the moral bioenhancement were overt, the expected utility would be less than it would be if it were covert. It’s not that the utility of preventing ultimate harm is less; it’s that the expectation that the moral bioenhancement will succeed in preventing it is lower. The more people that avoid the compulsory moral bioenhancement, the lower is the expectation that ultimate harm will be prevented. If the program were covert, people would be unaware of the intervention, and so would not be in a position to avoid it, resulting in many fewer people failing to receive the intervention.<br /><br />Both overt as well as covert compulsory moral bioenhancement programs would restrict the range of moral attitudes, dispositions and behaviors of its participants. The range of moral attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors that would be restricted would be the same for both types of program, as it is the intervention upon these that is presumably necessary to prevent ultimate harm. So the extent to which the interventions themselves are liberty‐restricting, the liberty restrictions will be equal between a covert and an overt program. But for overt compulsory moral bioenhancement programs, participants would also know that their moral attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors are being intervened upon. Some of these people who know that their moral capacities are being restricted, will desire to not be so restricted. Thus, the desires of these people will be frustrated, which results in suffering.<br /><br />If the program were covert, the people who desire to not have their moral capacities restricted wouldn’t be aware of any restriction, so, from their perspective, the desire to not be restricted wouldn’t be frustrated, which means they wouldn’t suffer from knowing that they are participating in a compulsory moral bioenhancement program.<br /><br />… The same point could also apply to other public health programs, such as those that require people be vaccinated. Some people desire to not be vaccinated. When these people knowingly receive a vaccination — to attend school, for example — their desires are frustrated, and this frustration causes suffering. If it were possible to achieve all of the benefits of vaccination without having to cause the suffering that results from believing that one is vaccinated, then that would be preferable to actual vaccination procedures. … A covert compulsory moral bioenhancement program is less liberty‐restricting than a similar overt program is. …<br /><br />Moreover, given that the expectation of preventing ultimate harm is lower for an overt program, the potential for more significant liberty restrictions is greater, as our liberties may be more likely to be restricted by our harsher environments that result from having undergone ultimate harm. And upon one’s death from ultimate harm, one’s liberties are fully restricted — dead people have no liberties.<br /><br />… A covert program better promotes equality, because by keeping the program covert to everyone, the program ensures that all participants are treated equally. It is totally impartial. In an overt program, it would remain open that some populations are in a better position to avoid the intervention, such as those that could easily afford the penalties imposed for refusing, or those that do not rely on public health clinics.<br /><br />Another potential source of unequal treatment is that likely many physicians would disagree with the policy, putting them in a better position to refuse to administer the moral bioenhancement. Based on this variance of attitudes within physicians, it is likely that the treatments would be administered unequally.<br /><br />Similarly, a covert program would be fairer than an overt program. Because everyone would receive the moral bioenhancement, there is no population that would be forced to bear a disproportionate burden. … An overt program, however, may encourage others to find ways to avoid receiving the enhancement, meaning that they wouldn’t be required to bear any burden, which is unfair.<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">. . . . .<br /></p><p>[A] compulsory moral bioenhancement program does violate autonomy, but only if the program is overt. If a person is compelled to participate in a moral bioenhancement program, and the person believes that the new moral capacities — including the new desires, values, and other attitudes — are caused by the enhancement, it is much more difficult to see how the person would embrace these capacities as their own. The knowledge that some of one’s moral capacities are the result of manipulation by another agent undermines trust in their authenticity. Thus, an overt program is likely to violate the authenticity condition. If the moral bioenhancement is covert, one is in a much better position to embrace the new capacities as one’s own. Though the new capacities are in fact not one’s own, there are fewer obstacles to embracing them as one’s own, such as the knowledge that they are not. … So, if a moral bioenhancement is compulsory, to best preserve authenticity, it is preferable for the program to be covert.<br /><br />Even if a moral bioenhancement program does diminish a person’s autonomy, there is no implication that to do so is wrong.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098349.post-36109058113087387922022-07-06T15:27:00.002-04:002022-07-06T17:49:15.536-04:00The Battle Against the Bland<p>
Paul Kingsnorth, <i>Real England: The Battle Against The Bland</i> (Portobello
Books, 2008) (excerpts):
</p>
<p>
“Leaving things alone these days is a sign of failure. Control, utility, is
all, and progress means having fewer and fewer places to hide.”
</p>
<center>· · ·</center>
<p>
“This report [<i>The State of the Countryside 2020</i>, Countryside Agency,
2003] is worth remembering because it is an excellent reflection of how
farming and rural life are viewed by the office-bound political and business
classes who are deciding its future. The underlying assumptions of this
report, and of this class, are so huge that they are, paradoxically, almost
hard to see.
</p>
<p>
“They assume that the business ethos of the city is applicable to the country
side. They assume that people are prepared to accept a countryside in which
the barns are empty of cows but full of ‘choice managers’. Above all, they
assume one huge and untrue thing: that, in essence, the countryside is the
same as the town. It is a green business park, with the same pace of life,
experiential framework, morality and ethos as the town. It is the city with
more trees, less pollution and a lot more free parking, and anyone
sufficiently sentimental to imagine otherwise is just not being competitive
enough.”
</p>
<center>· · ·</center>
<p>
“‘I’ll tell you what scares the shit out of Tesco,’ says Peter [Lundgren,
Lincolnshire farmer]. ‘It’s not the farmers – they can squash us. It’s
not the government – they’ve bought them. It’s the consumers. If they
decide to go somewhere else, Tesco is stuffed, and they know it. That’s where
the power is. I wish more people would realise it.’”
</p>
<center>· · ·</center>
<p>
“I am told by those who want to improve me, and direct me, that my standard of
living has increased in the last thirty years – I have the benefit of new
roads, runways, street lights, wheelie bins, health centres, houses and cars,
as well as access to more gadgets and electronic wonders than apples on a
tree. But ironically, as my ‘standard of living’ has increased so the quality
of my life has dramatically decreased because of noise pollution, light
pollution, air pollution, traffic jams, no policemen, the disappearance of the
family doctor, litter, agitation, regulation, speeding lorries, junk food,
supermarkets, dumbed-down television, political correctness, mindless
development, materialism out of control, and the number of career politicians
who clearly have never done a proper day’s work in their lives.” [Robin Page,
<i>The Decline of an English Village</i> (Bird’s Farm Books, 2004 (30-year
edition))]
</p>
<p>
“‘There can’t be a rural culture without farming,’ [Page] says, decisively.
‘There would be culture, but it wouldn’t be a rural culture. It would be a
suburban and an urban culture. I call it urban colonialism. We are having
urban values imposed on us, which I don’t like at all. When white people go up
to black people and impose their views on them, that is said to be not wanted
and culturally and racially objectionable, and then you tell me that you’re
doing me a favour by doing that to me. It’s a version of ethnic cleansing, is
what it is. I think it’s a disgrace.’”
</p>
<p>
[Other groups – both rural and urban, and in between – fighting
“regeneration” in the book also use the term “ethnic cleansing”: the erasure
of everything outside of the homogenized money culture (run by a ministry).]
</p>
<p>
“… [M]ore and more people seem to feel themselves part of a minority. Some of
them, like London’s Chinese community, or other ethnic minority communities,
genuinely are. England’s traditional farmers are too. Yet your average
white-skinned, mainstream English person often feels beleaguered too. …
</p>
<p>
“They can close down a hundred pubs, build on acres of green fields, destroy
entire industries, raze meaning from the landscape and call it investment. We
are in the grip of the tyranny of this minority [‘of the chain stores, the
developers, the agri-businesses, the big landowners’]: not a minority defined
by its race or religion, but by its power and wealth. They run the show, and
their lack of accountability makes all those who don’t share their bounties
feel discriminated against.”
</p>
<p>
”‘They're fucking gangsters in suits.’” [Danny Woodards, grocer, Queen’s
Market, Upton Park, East London]
</p>
<center>· · ·</center>
<p>
“Preserving these things, ensuring that they continue to live, would not help
us in our slavish and unquestioning journey up the global economic ladder.
None of them makes quick bucks, and some make no bucks at all. And when we
finally become a nation in which that is reason enough to shrug our shoulders
and let them all go … well, you decide whether that makes us a global success
or a local failure, or whether the two are strangely interdependent.”
</p>
<p>
“Across the country, we are confining real life to the margins; pushing it
beyond the balance sheet; dismissing it; destroying the valuable and the
irreplaceable.
</p>
<p>[<i>cf.</i> the unverified in Joanna Kavenna’s novel <i>Zed</i> (Faber & Faber, 2019)]</p>
<p>
“We are doing so because we must grow. We must develop, and regenerate, and
push forward. We must consume and profit and invest and the end goal, while
unclear, must not be discussed, and must certainly not be questioned. We are
in competition with other nations who must do the same things, and there is
not time for questioning. We are UK plc, and we compete in a global
marketplace. We are serious people now, with no time for whimsy. Whimsy does
not pay, and never has.
</p>
<p>
“As we move forward in pursuit of the siren of growth, we unleash a flattening
of our history, heritage, landscapes and cultures. We tear up our orchards,
bulldoze our markets, sell off our farms and our public squares. Big
government and big business combine to steamroller people and places, for the
good of the country, and those who object are pushed out to the margins, to
cling to what remains of colour and character. That character clings on where
it is not, yet, worth the time and effort it would take to extinguish it. But
its time will come. It will be regenerated, because there is no other way.
</p>
<p>
“As I pointed out in the first chapter, the changes that are affecting England
are no accident, and neither are they anything unusual in global terms. Global
consumer capitalism is unleashing the same forces on every nation on Earth,
and each of them, in its own way, is experiencing the same sandblasting of the
special, the same razing of the real.”
</p>
<p>
“Delhi, England, Beijing, Prague, Melbourne, anywhere else you care to look …
this ‘development’ – this beast which crushes all before it and calls
that crushing progress – is the real enemy now. It existed before Marx,
before Adam Smith, before trades unions, before the stock market. Back in the
1830s, [William] Cobbett called it simply ‘the Thing’, but it was ancient even
then.
</p>
<p>
“This is not about Left versus Right. This is about the individual versus the
crushing, dehumanising machine, whether that machine is represented by the
profit-hungry corporation, the edict-issuing state or – today’s global
reality – a powerful alliance of the the two. The machine may come at us
from ‘Left’ or ‘Right’; the twentieth century has given us many examples of
both variants. But wherever it comes from, it always overshadows any mere
individual who stands near it.”
</p>
<p>
“The Thing has dehumanised us, and we are all increasingly dependent on it for
succour. We expect. We demand. We are like children.”
</p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com