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Best of the Web: The Psychology of Totalitarianism: Technocracy's 'Science Of Social Engineering'

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Technocracy News
Mon, 20 Jun 2022 17:02 UTC
Professor Mattias Desmet
Professor Mattias Desmet
Professor Mattias Desmet, a Belgian psychologist with a master's degree in statistics, gained worldwide recognition toward the end of 2021, when he presented the concept of "mass formation" as an explanation for the absurd and irrational behavior we were seeing with regard to the COVID pandemic and its countermeasures.

He also warned that mass formation gives rise to totalitarianism, which is the topic of his new book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Desmet's work was further popularized by Dr. Robert Malone, whose appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast was viewed by about 50 million people.

But as the search term "mass formation" exploded in popularity, Google responded by manipulating the search engine results in an attempt to discredit Desmet and show people in their search results information that would cause them to discount the importance of this work. Why? Because Google is at the core of the global cabal and movement toward totalitarianism.

Comment: Dr. Mercola's interview with Prof. Desmet:

Further reading:

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Pirates

Best of the Web: Purchase of prime North Dakota farmland tied to Bill Gates sparks outrage

Ken Martin
Fox News
Fri, 24 Jun 2022 16:44 UTC
bill gates buy farmland north dakota
© iStock/Getty ImagesTractor spraying pesticides on farmland and Bill Gates
Bill Gates is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the country with some 269,000 acres in dozens of states

A recent purchase of 2,100 acres of prime North Dakota farmland by a group tied to billionaire Bill Gates has some in the state concerned that they are being exploited by the ultra-wealthy.

Gates owns some 269,000 acres across dozens of states, according to last year's edition of the Land Report 100, an annual survey of the nation's largest landowners. The Microsoft co-founder is considered to be the largest private owner of farmland in U.S. He owns less than 1% of the nation's total farmland.

In question is a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms.

Comment: This is the latest in a long string of purchases. The grand plan is not hard to see.

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Sun

Best of the Web: Climate scientist says humans cause less than 0.05°C of global warming and warns of 'anarchy' from 'delusional' net zero policies

Chris Morrison
The Daily Sceptic
Fri, 24 Jun 2022 14:02 UTC
Professor Hermann Harde
With Germany scouring the world for supplies of oil and gas and firing up dormant coal power stations, one of its most distinguished atmospheric scientists, Professor Hermann Harde, has castigated politicians for reacting to increasingly shrill climate horror stories and "believing they can save the world". Many of the research studies and "horror scenarios" are not based on a secure physical foundation, he says, "but rather represent computer games that reflect what was fed in". The idea that humans can control the climate with their CO2 emissions is said to be an "absolute delusion".

In Professor Harde's view, there exists considerable doubt about a "scientifically untenable thesis" of purely human-caused climate change, "and it is completely wrong to assume that 97% of climate scientists, or even more, would assume only anthropogenic warming". In his view, climate and energy policy can only gain popular acceptance when they are based on reliable knowledge, "and not on speculations or belief". Harde retired a few years ago from Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg as Professor of Experimental Physics after a long career in science academia.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Best of the Web: Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, national abortion right

Alex Swoyer and Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Fri, 24 Jun 2022 19:06 UTC
abortion rights activists
© AP Photo/Jacquelyn MartinAbortion-rights activists react following Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases.
The Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, ruling Friday that Roe v. Wade was wrong from the start and that the issue should be taken out of the courts and returned to the states.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said nearly a half-century of trying to make Roe work has proved futile, with Americans still sharply divided. Failing in both legal scholarship and its goal of settling passions, he said it's time to cast the decision aside.

"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," he wrote. "Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences."

Comment: More from RT:
Missouri has banned performing or inducing an abortion except in case of "medical emergency" under a "trigger law" activated by the Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v Wade's federal abortion protections on Friday.

The top court's decision cleared the way for states to adopt their own laws governing abortion. A 2019 law passed by the Missouri legislature, which declares that "no abortion shall be performed or induced upon a woman, except in cases of medical emergency," is explicitly set to take effect after the Supreme Court "has overruled, in whole or in part, Roe v Wade."

The so-called trigger law has been activated by state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who signed it into action in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on Friday, declaring it a "monumental day for the sanctity of life."

The law makes performing or inducing an abortion a class B felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison. Unlike many laws governing abortion, it does not make exceptions for rape or incest. Additionally, it does not allow the prosecution of women who receive abortions.
See also:

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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Lithuania's blockade of Kaliningrad receives no support from West, Russia prepares 'practical' response

John Helmer
Dances With Bears
Wed, 22 Jun 2022 12:00 UTC
lithuania
© John Helmer
The action the Lithuanian government implemented over the weekend to stop Russian trains carrying sanctioned cargos into Kaliningrad is regarded in Moscow as a long anticipated move, prompted among Lithuanian officials by the British government. The initial Lithuanian embargo action has been followed by a second one this week extending the blockade to trucks and road transport. Neither action has been publicly announced by the Lithuanian government.

The first news came from Anton Alikhanov, the governor of the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, following a notice sent to him by Lithuanian officials. That notice has not been published.

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda (lead image) has said nothing.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte announced through the British Broadcasting Corporation that the blockade was not a blockade because only some cargoes were halted, and because "Lithuania is complying with the sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia for its aggression and war against Ukraine " . She also told the British state radio "it was important not to overreact".

Comment: In a rather prescient article published less than a week ago, St. Petersburg sets the stage for the War of Economic Corridors, Pepe Escobar wrote that "wars from now will be fought about: transportation corridors - and not territorial conquest."

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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Groomers: Pennsylvania drag queen who 'works with LGBT youth' charged with 25 counts of child pornography

Katie Daviscourt
Post Millenial
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 15:17 UTC
Brice Patric Ryschon Williams
A Pennsylvania drag queen has been charged with 25 counts of child pornography following a two-year long investigation from the Attorney General's Office, according to Tri-State Alert.

Brice Patric Ryschon Williams, of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania has been charged with 25 counts of felony class 2 child pornography and 18 counts of criminal use of a communications facility. Williams is being held on a $100,000 bail at Franklin County Corrections.

In May 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children submitted a tip to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General's Child Predator Section after finding child pornography on a Dropbox. The investigation resulted in authorities finding 49 files of children under the age of 18 performing sexual acts.
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Seismograph

Best of the Web: Powerful earthquake kills at least 1,150 in Afghanistan (UPDATE)


BBC
Wed, 22 Jun 2022 11:44 UTC
quake
© BAKHTAR NEWS AGENCYTaliban officials and residents survey the damage to homes in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province after a major earthquake.
A powerful earthquake has killed at least 920 people and left hundreds more injured in Afghanistan, Taliban officials have said.

Pictures show landslides and ruined mud-built homes in eastern Paktika province, where rescuers have been scrambling to treat the injured.

In remote areas, helicopters have been ferrying victims to hospitals.

Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada said hundreds of houses were destroyed and the death toll was likely to rise.


Comment: Update June 24

The New Arab reports:
A devastating earthquake in crisis-hit Afghanistan this week resulted in at least 1,150 deaths, according to figures from state media on Friday.

damage
The death toll from a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan continued to climb days after it turned brick and stone homes into rubble, killing 1,150 people and wounding scores more, according to the latest figures carried in state media on Friday.

The country of 38 million people was already in the midst of a spiralling economic crisis that had plunged millions deep into poverty with over a million children at risk of severe malnutrition.

The magnitude 6 quake has left thousands without shelter.

State media reported that close to 3,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged in Wednesday's earthquake.


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Book

Best of the Web: The Psychology of Totalitarianism: Reviewing Mattias Desmet's New Book Part 1

Harrison Koehli
ponerology.substack.com
Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
book cover
I've been eagerly awaiting Mattias Desmet's new book ever since his podcast appearances delineating the "mass formation" hypothesis regarding COVID-19 and the subsequent announcement the book's English translation: The Psychology of Totalitarianism (PT). Desmet is a practicing psychoanalyst and professor of clinical psychology in Belgium, and he brings a level of insight to his analysis that is sorely lacking in many other commentators. I highly recommend readers get the book. It's an essential addition to the library of ponerology.

In this and subsequent posts I will be summarizing the book's main points, correlating and comparing them to ideas from Lobaczewski, and responding to the very few bits I take issue with.

The book itself is divided into three sections: "Science and Its Psychological Effects," "Mass Formation and Totalitarianism," and "Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview." As Desmet points out in the Introduction:
...part 1 and part 3 of this book only marginally refer to totalitarianism. It is not my aim with this book to focus on that which is usually associated with totalitarianism — concentration camps, indoctrination, propaganda — but rather the broader, cultural-historical processes from which totalitarianism emerges. This approach allows us to focus on what matters most: Totalitarianism arises from evolutions and tendencies that take place in our day-to-day lives. (PT, p. 8)
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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: Putin: Unipolar order has ended, West headed for 'change of elites' as Russia emerges stronger

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 17 Jun 2022 02:44 UTC
LeydenPutin
© APEU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen • Russian President Vladimir Putin
Update(11:00am ET) Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed in further remarks given before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that anti-Russian sanctions have only come back to hurt the people of the EU and the West broadly, amid soaring gas and food prices, inflation fears, and severe supply chain shortages. He declared the end of the unipolar world as we know it, saying, "Over the past decades, new powerful centers have been formed on the planet [...] each of them develops their own political system and public institutions, implements their own models of economic growth, and, of course, has the right to protect themselves, to ensure national sovereignty. We are talking about real processes, about truly revolutionary, tectonic changes in geopolitics, global economy, the technological sphere, in the entire system of international relations". And more, according to a state-backed media translation:
The Russian president criticized the European Union over the decision to impose anti-Russia sanctions, calling it "crazy" and "not well thought out". Putin said that their goal was to crush the Russian economy in one go, but that they have failed to achieve this.

Instead, EU politicians delivered a serious blow to their own economies, prompting high inflation, the president stressed. He estimated the costs of the "sanctions fever" to be around $400 billion this year alone and noted that the measures will become a burden on regular people's shoulders.
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Attention

Best of the Web: Children suffering multiple viral infections at once, experts think lockdowns compromised immunity

Harriet Alexander
Daily Mail
Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:07 UTC
flu infection 2022
The influenza virus normally peters out in the warmer months (see red line, from 2019). In 2019, infections peaked in the 10th week of the year, in March. But this year (blue line), it has remained constant and not gone away, to the consternation of scientists
Children are turning up in doctors' clinics infected with as many as three different types of viruses, in what experts believe is the result of their immune systems being weakened from two years of COVID lockdowns and mask-wearing.

Medical staff have come to expect a surge in cases of flu and severe colds during the winter.

But they are reporting that there is not the usual downturn as summer approaches - and they suspect it could be due to the strict pandemic practices.

Furthermore, some of common strains of the flu appear to have disappeared, flummoxing scientists.

Comment: See also:

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