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Eye 1

Contrived spectacles of "protecting and caring for the people"

Thomas Harrington
OffGuardian
Sat, 12 Sep 2020 05:52 UTC
President Bush

President Bush giving a speech to first responders in the aftermath of 9/11.
The 1970s marked an important turning point in the history of Western democracies. Having led their populations to the obscene carnage of World War II in reaction to Nazi aggression, the elites of North America and their non-communist European subjects understood — above all, for pragmatic reasons linked to the need to rebuild markets and industries — that it was in their interest to provide ordinary citizens of their societies with social and democratic rights and privileges seldom, if ever, seen in the history of humankind.

The effort was, for the most part, an enormous success. And therein lay precisely the problem: the masses who had grown up during the three decades following the war did not understand that the economic and governmental elites had no intention of allowing the regimes of supervised democracy of those years to evolve, over time, into true receptacles of the popular will.

The masses' inability to comprehend the implicit limits on their political agency was not a new problem. What was new were the restrictions on elite manoeuvrability imposed by the reality of the Cold War in this historical moment.

How could the elites resort to overwhelming violence, as they had traditionally done, to crush youthful rebellions in areas under their control when heavy-handedness of this type was precisely what they were criticizing day after day in their anti-communist propaganda?

Comment: See also:

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Attention

From terrorists to viruses: Dystopian progress

Edward Curtin
OffGuardian
Fri, 11 Sep 2020 05:41 UTC
world trade center covid
For anyone old enough to have been alive and aware of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and of so-called COVID-19 in 2020, memory may serve to remind one of an eerie parallel between the two operations.

However, if memory has been expunged by the work of one's forgettery or deleted by the corporate media's flushing it down the memory hole, or if knowledge is lacking, or maybe fear or cognitive dissonance is blocking awareness, I would like to point out some similarities that might perk one up to consider some parallels and connections between these two operations.

The fundamental tie that binds them is that both events aroused the human fear of death. Underlying all fears is the fear of death. A fear that has both biological and cultural roots. On the biological level, we all react to death threats in a fight or flight manner.

Culturally, there are multiple ways that fear can be allayed or exacerbated, purposely or not. Usually, culture serves to ease the fear of death, which can traumatize people, through its symbols and myths.
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Bizarro Earth

Lockdown rules turning Brits against each other


The Guardian
Fri, 11 Sep 2020 06:00 UTC
mask fine UK
© Toby Melville/Reuters
A worker wearing a protective face mask cleans a health sign at Waterloo station in London.
Mask-wearing and lockdown rules are now causing deeper social fractures than Brexit, according to a UK-wide study which suggests that the solidarity of the early weeks of the pandemic has given way to distrust.

Polling of 10,000 people found that half of mask-wearers in Britain (58%) have severely negative attitudes towards those who do not wear a mask, and the majority (68%) of people who did not break lockdown rules have strong negative views about lockdown rule-breakers.

Significant minorities of people who stuck to rules said they "hate" or "resent" people who do not. Twelve per cent of mask-wearers said they hated those who did not wear face coverings, and 14% of lockdown adherents hate rule breakers, the survey found.

Comment: The government has relentlessly depicted those questioning the lockdown as a threat to life, and so much of the responsibility for sowing division lies with them. However, the tide is turning, because as people are faced with losing their livelihoods and their freedoms, many more are beginning to question the official, nonsensical, albeit deadly, narrative:


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Eye 1

Canada's CBC owes the people of Palestine an apology

Karen Rodman
Mondoweiss
Fri, 11 Sep 2020 18:39 UTC
CBC the Current radio show logo
© CBC/Facebook
Logo for the CBC show 'The Current'
2000+ people have written to the CBC to condemn its deletion of the word Palestine and its subsequent apology for uttering the word Palestine.

Despite this public outcry, the Canadian publicly funded broadcaster continues to protest that the word Palestine falls outside its language standards.

The deletion and apology

On August 18, in an interview on the CBC's The Current, the guest anchor, Duncan McCue introduced his guest, Joe Sacco, referencing Sacco's work in Bosnia, Iraq and Palestine. Joe Sacco, is a graphic novelist, and the creator of a work called Palestine, and was being interviewed regarding colonization and resource extraction.

Comment:

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Stock Down

Newsflash: Flu is killing more people than Covid - has been for months

Kit Knightly
OffGuardian
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:31 UTC
covid
A report from the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that since at least June 19th, more people in the UK have been dying of influenza than Covid19.

This, of course, is despite the fact that "Covid19 deaths" are incredibly vaguely defined.

Under UK law a person only has to test positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus at any point in the 28 days prior to their death for "Covid19" to be on their death certificate, a policy which totally ignores the fact the majority of Sars-Cov-2 infections are completely symptomless (and has already resulted in huge over-counts).

Meanwhile boring old influenza is lumbered with having to actually contribute to the death before being added to the death certificate. And nevertheless, for three straight months, the UK has recorded more flu deaths than Covid deaths.

See this graph:
covid flu
"Ah", some of your may be saying, "this is just evidence that the lockdown, social distancing and masks have worked."

But that is obviously not the case. Clearly, if these measures did anything to halt viral transmission, the flu deaths would have gone down as well. They have not. They are right in line with the five-year average.

Despite social distancing and wearing masks and hand sanitizer on every corner...the spread of the flu virus has not halted one bit in its usual annual progress through society.

Ergo - the "emergency measures" have little to no impact on viral transmission.
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Handcuffs

Worst mayor: After 105 days of riots, Portland's Wheeler orders police to stop using tear gas

Simon Marks
The Post Millennial
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 17:19 UTC
wheeler portland riot

Police in Portland have been trying to control and suppress rioting for over 100 days. Now Mayor Ted Wheeler has told police to stop using tear gas.
Police in Portland have been trying to control and suppress rioting for over 100 days. Now Mayor Ted Wheeler has told police to stop using tear gas.

Wheeler instructed his officers to give up this method of keeping peace even after rioters tried to set his apartment building on fire, forcing him to move house in order to protect the other residents and families in the building.


Wheeler said "It's time for everyone to reduce the violence in our community. We all want change. We all have the opportunity and the obligation to create change. We all want to focus on the fundamental issue at hand. Justice for black people and all people and colour.

"That's why as police commissioner, effective immediately, and until further notice I'm directing the Portland Police Bureau to end the use of CS gas for crowd control."

Instead, he asks that a more less-lethal method of crowd control be implemented to prevent the rioters from committing arson, murder, and violent acts. This despite the fact that riots have plagued Portland for over 100 days.

The Portland Police Bureau had only been permitted to use the gas in life saving emergencies.

Wheeler told rioters that "if they're launching the tear gas against you, they're launching the tear gas against me."

Comment: Oregon voters are fed up and feel police aren't using enough force.
According to the survey, 66% of participants said they didn't approve of the Portland protests and most believed they've been harmful to Black Portlanders, race relations and police reform efforts. Just 28% believe they are helpful to Black Portlanders and slightly less deemed them beneficial on the other fronts.

More than half of the surveyed voters said they believed the protests were mostly violent, 42% felt Portland police weren't using enough force "when dealing with protesters" and the majority felt the word "riot" rather than "protest" best encapsulated how they would describe the demonstrations.

The poll found that about 60% of Oregon voters disapprove of how Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has responded to protests. But it found similar numbers disapprove of the response to protests by President Donald Trump and by Gov. Kate Brown - who have taken diametrically opposed stands on the role of federal officers, the merits of dialing back police's role in public safety and the role of Trump supporters and white supremacists in spurring violence.

But Wheeler at 30% received the lowest approval percentage of the three and Trump, at 39%, the highest.


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Red Pill

Sweden's success: Low positive test rate 'vindicates coronavirus strategy'


The Times
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 12:00 UTC
sweden
© MARTIN VON KROGH/GETTY IMAGES
Sweden registered its lowest rate of positive coronavirus tests yet even as its testing regime has been expanded to record levels, in what some experts regard as a vindication of its comparatively unintrusive Covid-19 strategy.

Over the past week the country carried out more than 120,000 tests, of which only 1.3 per cent identified the disease. At the height of the pandemic the proportion was 19 per cent.

Johan Carlson, an epidemiologist and the director of the Swedish public health agency, said that Swedes seemed to be benefiting from widespread immunity because of the decision not to impose a full lockdown during the first wave.

Comment: Summit News reports:
"Sweden has gone from being the country with the most infections in Europe to the safest one," Sweden's senior epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell commented to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"What we see now is that the sustainable policy might be slower in getting results, but it will get results eventually," Tegnell clarified.

"And then we also hope that the result will be more stable," he added.

[...]

Last week, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control confirmed Sweden's drop in infection rate, with only 12 cases per million, compared to 18 in neighbouring Denmark and 14 in nearby Norway.

At the peak of the Sweden's outbreak, it was seeing 108 new infections per million people, as it pursued a "herd immunity" strategy.

The figures also show that out of 2500 randomly selected and tested people in Sweden, none tested positive, compared to 0.9 percent positive in April, and 0.3 percent in May.

"We interpret this as meaning there is not currently a widespread infection among people who do not have symptoms," said Karin Tegmark, deputy head of the Public Health Agency of Sweden.
See also:

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Hammer

The New Normal is wrecking New York City

Taleed Brown
American Institute for Economic Research
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00 UTC
New York City
America's been under quarantine how long now, since March? And we're still being asked to wear a face shield and snorkel to pay a T-mobile bill. But worse than that inconvenience is probably the 32.9% collapse in GDP for Q2, the millions of people who are out of work, or partially employed, the kids who have to suffer through this cancerous attempt at social distance learning.

This collective fight against the coronavirus, which was supposed to be two weeks to flatten the curve, has to be one of the most socially destructive impositions our country has ever faced.


Comment: New York, arguably the US's greatest city, is now, in six short months, a shell of its former self; the lives of millions denigrated, and on the way to further dissolution.

The dark power that a few authoritarian leaders have to control the many - with Lies - is on full display.

At the very least these leaders should be ousted from office for their egregious incompetence. But ideally, they ought to be tried in a court of law for gross malfeasance, and manslaughter, for all the residual knock-on effects of their dreadfully wrong policies.

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Airplane

Cov-idiocracy: Flight cancelled because 'child refuses to wear facemask'

Helen Coffey
The Independent, UK
Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:40 UTC

Comment: No, you're not dreaming, this isn't a spoof article, nor is it fake news. This is your world today...


WestJet
© Getty Images
'It's unlike anything I have ever witnessed, let alone experienced,' says father of two.

A WestJet flight in Canada was cancelled on Tuesday after a dispute broke out about children wearing masks.

Safwan Choudhry was travelling from Calgary to Toronto with his wife and two daughters, aged 19 months and three years old, when the incident occurred.

Just before take-off, a flight attendant approached the family and demanded that his three-year-old daughter, who was eating a snack, put on her mask, according to Choudhry.

Comment: See also:

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Cell Phone

Twitter expands election misinformation policies

Chris Mills Rodrigo
The Hill
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:24 UTC
twitter logo icon
© Getty
Twitter announced Thursday that it is expanding its policies targeted at limiting election misinformation.

The platform will now label or remove posts that prematurely call an election winner.

In the rules, set to go into effect Sept. 17, Twitter will either label or remove content "claiming victory before election results have been certified" or seeking to "prevent a peaceful transfer of power."

Comment: It's nice of Twitter to announce how it will use its bias against Trump voters before the actual election. Notice it references "transfer of power," like they've preordained a Biden win.

See also:

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