NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

The Siracusa Principles state that restrictions on human rights under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) must meet standards of legality, evidence-based necessity, proportionality, and gradualism.

Are our rights being violated unnecessarily in the context of stickers on the floor at the supermarket telling you exactly where to stand when lining up at the cash register. The “one-way aisles” telling you which way to walk as you do your shopping. The infrared thermometer guns pointed suggestively at your head before you enter a public building, as if such a device could actually detect a fever within a fraction of a second of “scanning.” The following article, written by investigative journalist, James Corbett, might bring light and ideas to these unanswered questions. – Marvin Ramírez.

by James Corbett

August 15, 2020 – You know about “security theatre,” right? That’s the kind of take-off-your-shoes-and-belt nonsense that was instituted at the airport post-9/11 to give passengers the feeling that the government was protecting them from those dastardly Al-CIA-da terrorists.

Of course, these measures do nothing to actually prevent terrorism. Even the MSM mouthpiece media was forced to admit that the TSA never caught a single terrorist with such practices.

But that’s not the point. These procedures are only there to give the impression that agencies like the TSA are actually keeping the public safe.

Well, guess what? As we transition from the post-9/11 “homeland security” paradigm to the post-Covid “biosecurity” paradigm, there is now an equivalent to the security theatre phenomenon taking shape: biosecurity theatre.

I know you’ve noticed it already. The stickers on the floor at the supermarket telling you exactly where to stand when lining up at the cash register. The “one-way aisles” telling you which way to walk as you do your shopping. The infrared thermometer guns pointed suggestively at your head before you enter a public building, as if such a device could actually detect a fever within a fraction of a second of “scanning.”

Of course these gadgets and procedures are not meant to stop the spread of any infectious pathogen. They are merely there to make the public feel better.

Even The Bezos Post is aware of how ridiculous this all is. As Anna Fifield recently noted in a report on how Beijing is coping with the “new normal,” the biosecurity precautions that are being put in place in China’s capital are demonstrably useless.

“Security guards with temperature guns man the gates at supermarkets and residential compounds, pointing them at the wrists of every person who wants to enter. This is largely a formality, as the reading often does not reflect reality. This reporter has recorded temperatures in the low 80s on several occasions, yet was alive enough to walk through the gate.”

Yes, that’s the essence of biosecurity theatre: it’s “largely a formality” and “does not reflect reality.”

But as ridiculous as all of this biosecurity theatre is, it just got 1000x more ridiculous.

Effective August 1st, the state of Wisconsin is requiring all state employees to wear face masks in state facilities. But the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is going one step further: the department is requiring its employees to wear face masks during teleconferences . . . even when they’re at home alone.

That’s right, people who are sitting at a computer by themselves with no conceivable possibility of spreading any sort of pathogen are being required to mask up. And why? Because, as Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole reminded DNR workers in a July 31st email, they are “set[ting] the safety example which shows you as a DNR public service employee care about the safety and health of others.”

They’re not even pretending this is about health or safety at this point. The point of this exercise is (in their own words) to shape public expectations of “acceptable” behaviour in the new biosecurity paradigm.

Talk about theatre.

But there’s a deeper level to all of this. The post-9/11 security theatre, for instance, was not just about justifying the budget of bloated agencies like the TSA. It was also there to reinforce the narrative.

“Why are these jackbooted thugs at the airports frisking octogenerians in wheelchairs, making people empty their colostomy bags and generally treating passengers like inmates during a prison lockdown? It must be because the terror threat is real! Thank goodness for those kind-hearted TSA agents keeping us safe from the big bad terror bogeymen.”

Similarly, the Covid World Order biosecurity theatre is there to reinforce the narrative of the Big Bad Virus.

“So why is everyone suddenly forced to wear masks (even in Zoom meetings from home)? Why are we all standing on social distancing stickers in line at the supermarket checkout? Why are students’ desks being encased in perspex? Why are security guards with infrared thermometers checking everybody entering office buildings and other crowded spaces? It must be because the corona threat is real! Thank goodness for those valiant government employees who are working to keep us safe from the big bad viral bogeyman.”

But in fact it’s even worse than that.

In the terror paradigm, at least the “terrorists” were identifiable bad men with evil intentions. According to the terror narrative, these were people who consciously set out to cause death and destruction. Security agencies can and do treat everyone as a potential terrorist because they can claim ignorance of people’s intentions until a thorough examination is done. But in our own mind, we know that we are not terrorists and that if we were to be accused of terrorism it would be a false charge.

But in the biosecurity paradigm people are being accused of spreading a viral pathogen. According to the health authorities, there’s no way to know if you are an “asymptomatic carrier” unless you are tested (multiple times, even). So maybe you are a biosecurity threat. If an agent of the state performs an examination and deems you to be a carrier of the deadly SARS-Cov-2 (or whatever Gates and his minions are dreaming up for “Pandemic II”), how could you refute it? In this case, your intentions don’t matter. You can protest your innocence all you want, but the tests don’t lie.

Of course, the tests do lie. But again, that’s the point. It’s like another feature of the old fashioned security theatre: the metal detectors that operators can trigger to go off at will, or the drug sniffing dogs that can be signaled to give a false alert. When the state wants to detain someone in the future, claiming that their target “tested positive” for *insert scary-sounding virus here* will be all the justification needed for most normies to go along with their incarceration.

In the end, biosecurity theatre is not as harmless as its name might imply. It is part of the societal conditioning that we are being subjected to. The social engineers hope this conditioning will train us to:

1. a) believe in the seriousness of the biosecurity threat presented by SARS-Cov-2 (or whatever virus they tell us to fear next);
2. b) comply with agents of the state and other authority figures in whatever tests and screenings that are required to access any given space; and
3. c) create the uncertainty in us that anyone—even ourselves—could be a grave threat to public safety without even knowing it.

And now, as we are seeing in Melbourne, in Auckland, and in other places around the world where the public have seemingly lost their mind over the “existential threat” posed by this “deadly virus,” there are all too many who are willing to move from biosecurity theatre to biosecurity totalitarianism.

The public is being softened. And the worst is yet to come.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear readers:

One thing that no one will convince is not true is the fact that the media is the mind control apparatus that serves the elite to make us believe a reality that does not exist. The following article, written by Tyler Durden of Via SkWealthAcademuy, an investment and education blog, designed for critical thinkers, is one of those pieces that make you think and help you remove the veil that the mainstream media has covered you with your eyes, so you can’t see. – Marvin Ramírez.

by Tyler Durden

Via SKWealthAcademy,

“In order to control public opinion of the masses, the ruling class should “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments [soldiers’] bodies.”

– Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”

– Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)

Recently, the media has made stories about the public health disaster of Sweden’s no lockdown policy in order to discredit the only science-based approach to Covid-19 undertaken by any nation in the world.

There have been a lot of false and misleading stories about the failures of Sweden’s no lockdown policy and Sweden officials’ choices to not shut down businesses in Sweden, only to suggest that the elderly vulnerable population self-quarantine, and to allow for the normalization of life under these conditions.

No businesses were ordered to close, and GDP in Sweden is forecast to shrink by 4 percent. A 4 percent annual shrinkage in GDP is 1000 times more preferable to the annual pace of a 32.9 percent drop in GDP forecast in America just this past quarter.

If the most human interaction is happening in Stockholm, the most densely populated city in Sweden with a central population of 1.5M and a metropolitan population of over 2.4M, then their no-lockdown, normal-life approach was a resounding success.

Sweden’s logical, science-based approach starkly contrasted with the totalitarian, misanthropic ruling class’s approach to restrict the movements of everyone, including fully-abled healthy people with strong immune systems, and legislating mandated stay-at-home orders for large swaths of entire nations, orders.

In response to Sweden’s success rates with its no lockdown policy, the Western mass media deployed a pre-emptive counterstrike by releasing hundreds of articles about the grave “failure” of Sweden’s no lockdown policy and disseminating these articles to millions of websites online.

I’ve created Charts:

[Top]: When we compare the mortality rates of Covid-19 in Sweden v. the US, including all data until the end of July, the US’s mortality rate of Covid-19 in the age group of less than 39 years of age was 0.58 percent, more than 1,230 times greater than the 0.00047 percent mortality rate of Sweden. In the age demographics of 40-59 and 59-69, the death rate in the US from Covid-19 versus Sweden was respectively 215 times and 211 times greater than Sweden.

[Bottom] Compare Sweden’s mortality rate for different age demographics compared to the US mortality rate for the common flu. For the comprehensive age group of all ages less than 60 years of age, the Swedish mortality rate of Covid-19 is less than 1/3rd of the American mortality rate for the common flu.

As can be observed in the bottom chart, the overall Covid-19 mortality rate for Sweden’s population was skewed by nearly all Covid-19 deaths occurring in the above 70-year old demographic, with the majority of Sweden’s Covid-19 deaths occurring in those older than 80 and 90 years of age!

I created the above graphics, using official data of both the US Centers for Disease Control and Folkhälsomyndigheten, the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

Despite this scientific evidence of the Swedish approach as the most effective combined dual health and economic-based approach in the entire world, the Western media lies and propagandizes Sweden’s approach as a horrific failure.

“Sweden has nearly 10 times the number of COVID-19-related deaths than its Nordic neighbors”,

“Sweden’s coronavirus death rate is nearly 6 times that of neighboring Norway and Finland”,

“A Very Swedish Sort of Failure”, and

“Sweden’s Coronavirus Experiment Has Well and Truly Failed.”

These non-scientific and non-mathematical based stories ensure that the maximum amount of people around the world remain completely unthinking, obedient slaves to State mandated, martial-law style lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, in which the consequent social isolation from others would not only produce devastating financial and psychological effects but also have the added bonus, for the ruling class, of producing a mental state among the global population extremely receptive to hate and fear.

Nearly no one died in Sweden who was under the age of 60 from this virus.

Quoting statistics should not be used when one knows that their use will paint biased, misleading views of the actual situation, yet the mass media engages in such deception with no qualms about doing so.

Sweden possessed a Covid-19 death rate six times higher than Finland and Norway because

(1) Sweden’s elderly population was much greater than the elderly population of either of those two nations; and

(2) As small as was Sweden’s mortality rates were for all age groups except the elderly, Finland and Norway’s mortality rates were even more minute.

Consequently, compare minute to minute statistics, a 6 times higher mortality rate is very easy to manufacture and can be extremely misleading.

If one country reports six deaths out of 100,000 and another country reports 36 deaths out of 100,000 and both nations have populations under 10 million people, reporting a mortality rate six times higher in the former nation versus the latter nation is truly misleading. Now if both nations had populations over 150M people and this were still the case, then it would be okay to report such a statistic as there would be much more truth in such a stat.

As is evident in the bottom chart, the bulk of deaths from coronavirus in Sweden happened in the over 70 year old demographic, but particularly in the over 80 year old category. If a nation has many more elderly citizens, percentage wise than another nation, then of course its overall mortality rate will be much higher, as its overall mortality rate will be greatly skewed by its large elderly population. This is why it would be fake science to extrapolate the high mortality rate of Covid-19 in Lombardy, a region with a high percentage of elderly, to the entire nation of Italy.

The most effective propaganda convinces the victims of the propaganda that they came to the conclusions contained within the propaganda on their own merit, and that they were not ordered to embrace such false beliefs.

Bernays stated in 1925 that for propaganda to be effective, it has to fall under the category of information for which the public has “neither the time nor the inclination to search for facts” because the facts “are not readily available.” 

Quite sadly, this pillar of disseminating effective propaganda is not even necessary today given the century of brainwashing and dumbing down of society that has taken place since 1925. Today, most people do not want to spend even two minutes of time to vet information as wrong or true when the information to do so is readily available.

Instead, society at large prefers to have the parasitic ruling class think for them and tell them what to believe.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear readers:

Did you know that if you don’t follow the state’s orders to obey everything they say – during this so-called epidemic, regardless of whether it goes against your own freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and God, you are working against the state economy? So you are a criminal in thought, as described by investigative journalist James Corbett, in the following article, which I hope you fully enjoy and learn something new from it. – Marvin Ramírez

by James Corbett

August 1, 2020

Have you entered a store without the mandated mask affixed to your face?

Visited a friend in violation of a lockdown order?

Frequented a New York bar that didn’t offer “substantive” food to go with your beer?

Congratulations! You’re a thought criminal!

And here’s the best part: There are more thought criminals being born every day!

What am I talking about? The counter-economy, that’s what!

As you’ll no doubt remember from my previous writing on the subject, counter-economics is not what the Pentagon does to cook its books each year. No, it’s both an idea and a practice that was pioneered by Samuel Edward Konkin III, everyone’s second favourite Canadian emigre anarchist.

In An Agorist Primer, Konkin explains that “All (non-coercive) human action committed in defiance of the State constitutes the Counter-Economy.” That’s a deceptively simple definition, so let’s tease out some of the nuance here:

• “Non-coercive” is important because murder, theft, assault, fraud, extortion and other forms of coercion are not part of the counter-economy, but, as Konkin notes, are simply “other forms of statism.”
• “Human action” is important because, as Konkin was at pains to stress, counter-economics is not a dry, dusty theory to be discussed in a philosophy classroom, but an idea that can only be realized in practice.
• And “in defiance of the State” is important because the purpose of counter-economics is to undermine, and, eventually, shrink the state out of existence.

So, you walk into a store without a mask in defiance of your city’s ordinances? Congratulations! You’re a practicing counter-economist.

You pay a barber under the table to cut your hair despite lockdown orders to the contrary? Congratulations! You’re a practicing counter-economist.

You’re a business owner who fails to implement the government-mandated physical distancing and disinfection standards in your workplace? Congratulations! You’re a practicing counter-economist.

Now, this idea could be extended to the point of inanity. Yes, you could technically be a counter-economist if you drive 51 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, but such action is less likely to be an attempt to undermine the authority of the state and more likely to be an attempt to get to a dental appointment on time.

A key part of counter-economics is that this “human action committed in defiance of the state” is consciously directed action. Its purpose is to defy the state, or to carve out a space for people to interact and transact with each other in ways that defy the state’s edicts. This space—the truly free market, unfettered by concern for the state and its mandates—is the agora. Derived from the Greek word for the marketplace, the agora is the space where counter-economic activity flourishes. (But you already knew that, right?)

As Konkin puts it: “The goal is living in the agora and the path is expanding Counter-Economics.”

It should now be apparent how applicable these ideas are to our current situation.

Take the recent demonstration in Berlin. Depending on which source you rely on, there were thousands or hundreds of thousands of Germans that just took to the streets of Berlin to protest the stifling coronavirus restrictions in their country. But this wasn’t just a protest, it was human action in defiance of the state. Note well: These Germans didn’t protest these restrictions by writing scholarly papers on the situation or starting an online petition. They physically took to the streets in defiance of the very orders they were opposing. That is counter-economics in action.

Or take the recent action by Defending Utah, a liberty-minded organization based in Utah. To protest local face mask ordinances they began a regular Thursday event whereby interested members would be texted the location of a particular grocery store and a particular time. At the appointed time, members of the group would all enter the store without masks. They can’t be stopped on their way in because there are simply too many of them, and they can’t be ignored by the establishment mouthpiece media, who have to resort to smearing them instead. That is counter-economics in action.

There are plenty of other examples. Like the Texas salon owner who cut hair in defiance of lockdown orders and who chose jail time rather than make a court-ordered statement that she was wrong and selfish. Or the New Jersey businessmen who were thrown in jail for refusing to shut down their gym despite statewide shutdown orders.

You see? This whole COVID-1984 phenomenon is giving plenty of otherwise ordinary, obedient tax cattle the chance to become counter-economists. It is growing the agora.

But it needs to be restated: All of these counter-economic activities that are happening as a natural response to the lockdowns and restrictions mean nothing if they are not consciously directed counter-economic activity. If people are not aware of the importance of their decisions, if they don’t understand why we must expand the agora and broaden popular support for unsanctioned activities, then they will be easily led back into the system at the first convenient on-ramp.

If the state slackens the rules here or creates some leeway there, then people will—as usual—take the path of least resistance.

“Sure, we could form trading communities outside of the purview of the state. We could begin building up alternative currencies, supporting local businesses, disconnecting ourselves from the Big Brother enslavement grid . . . but that seems like a lot of work. And what if we get caught? What if we face resistance? What if we get a bad social credit score! No, much safer to just sign up for our new Digital Dollar account with the Fed and receive our monthly UBI payment. Of course, it means we’ll have to roll up our sleeve for the coronavirus vaccine and keep our COVI-PASS app up to date, but what’s the harm in that? At least we’ll be taken care of!”

It’s impossible to argue that the counter-economic path is going to be an easy one, because it’s not. But for those who care about human freedom, it’s the only path. And, as the technology of control available to the state increases in sophistication—from brain chips to 5G to gene editing—the agorist path becomes even more important. It is not exaggeration to say that there will be no humanity as we’ve known it by the end of this century if the would-be societal controllers get their way.

The choice of whether or not we grow the agora is quickly becoming an existential one.

In the end that choice is ours to make, but we better make it quickly. Are we counter-economists committed to growing the agora and ending the state? Or are we merely tax cattle to be slaughtered when the state deems us to be sufficiently fattened?