Posted originally on the CTH on February 17, 2023 | Sundance
The announcement by President Trump with his intent to visit East Palestine next Wednesday, followed moments later by a reversal announcement from FEMA stating they will now offer support to East Palestine, do not seem coincidental.
The Biden administration, including the EPA, FEMA and Transporation Secretary, was likely very worried about the optics of getting blasted by President Trump very visibly next week for their lack of urgency and concern. Moments after Trump announces his visit, FEMA reverses their prior denial of aid. lol
In a joint statement released Friday night, DeWine and FEMA Regional Administrator Thomas C. Sivak said the agency would deploy a Regional Incident Management Assistance Team (IMAT) to Columbiana County starting Saturday, along with a senior response official. The workers will “support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing assessments of potential long-term recovery needs.”
[…] DeWine had previously requested federal help, and today the Department of Health and Human Services announced toxicologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be journeying to East Palestine to assist with public health testing. However, the governor’s request for FEMA assistance was initially denied, with the agency apparently telling his office the current situation “[did] not quality for assistance.” (read more)
Posted originally on the CTH on February 17, 2023 | Sundance
According to Fox News President Trump is planning a visit to East Palestine, Ohio, next week to show support for the community in the aftermath of a massive toxic chemical spill, the result of a Norfolk Southern railroad derailment.
The East Palestine community and surrounding region are very concerned about the toxic chemicals that were leaked into the environment as a result of the decision to detonate the toxic cargo, and intentionally burn off the chemicals as a form of containment.
Despite state and federal assurances, small streams and rivers have shown major wildlife impacts including dead fish, frogs and other aquatic creatures. In turn, this raises alarms about water and air quality from the chemical release. “Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine requested HHS and CDC assistance on Feb. 16, after being denied aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA told DeWine Ohio isn’t eligible for disaster assistance, even amid the derailment.”
OHIO – Former President Trump will travel to East Palestine, Ohio next week to visit the area and members of the community as they grapple with the aftermath of the train derailment that led to a large release of toxic chemicals, Fox News has learned.
A source familiar with the former president’s plans told Fox News that Trump plans to travel to East Palestine on Wednesday to meet with members of the community. The source said Trump, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign in November, has a strong relationship with the people of Ohio.
Trump’s planned visit comes after a train derailment on Feb. 3, when about 50 cars on a Norfolk Southern Railroad train carrying vinyl chloride derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, a small community that is located along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
The company opted to release the gas from the derailed cars, releasing potentially deadly fumes and other dangerous chemicals into the air, to prevent a disastrous explosion. Local residents were told to evacuate the area during the release, but were assured it was safe to return on Feb. 9.
Residents of the East Palestine community have reported severe symptoms from toxins and chemicals that have seeped into the air and waterways since the derailment on Feb. 7. (read more)
The timing of the visit will be good for keeping public awareness of the issue at the forefront. I can well imagine this entire region will need a great deal of long-term support; especially if the railroad begins to soften in its obligations to the community.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 17, 2023 | Sundance
In 2010 and 2011 the Hillary Clinton State Department, working with NATO allies (particularly France), triggered a crisis in Libya during the Obama administration’s intentional effort to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power. This was a key element to the Arab Spring (Islamist Spring or Color Revolution) that flowed from the Cairo, Egypt, speech of President Obama a year prior.
Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samanta Power (R2P) were the architects of the destabilization plan. After the country was destabilized and thrown into severe violent crisis by the U.S. support for radical Islamists in eastern Libya (Benghazi region), President Obama then signed (Feb, 2011) a national emergency declaration in regard to the destabilized Libya his administration created.
Five years later, in April 2016, President Obama expanded the Libya emergency declaration to extend the 2011 declaration and envelop a larger portion of North Africa, under the auspices of expanded threats from AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). This extension allowed the state dept to frame actions in neighboring Egypt, and block any effort to counteract Obama’s mid-east policy which was established to support the Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2016 it was presumed Hillary Clinton would win the election and continue the policy.
Today, a full twelve years after Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destabilized Libya throwing it into a tribal civil war, Joe Biden signs an executive order continuing the extension of the U.S. National Emergency with regard to Libya {White House Link}.
[…] “The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and measures are needed to protect against the diversion of assets or other abuses by members of Qadhafi’s family, their associates, and other persons hindering Libyan national reconciliation.
For this reason, the national emergency declared on February 25, 2011, and expanded on April 19, 2016, must continue in effect beyond February 25, 2023. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13566.
This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. (read full)
QUESTION: I found it really interesting how you have used the coinage to ascertain the costs of wars and to confirm the history. You have shown coins that show even the opening of the Colosseum. Are there any that record the plagues in history?
Thank you for a free and interesting site.
PV
REPLY: Ancient coins have been used throughout the centuries. Here is a Roman Sestertius of the Roman Port of Ostia. Saint Peter’s Square is the entrance to St Peter’s. Bernini actually copies the idea of the two colonnades from Nero’s coin. Some did not understand the history and claimed that Bernini was symbolizing the embracing maternal arms of the Catholic Church. It was the Port of Ostia which was the entrance to Rome for all the ships around the world. Thus, Bernini used the Port of Ostia to symbolize that this was the entrance for all Christians from around the world.
There was a great plague that infected Rome which was brought from Asia exactly as was the case by invading armies who brought the Black Plague during the 14th century. Emperor Trajan Decius (249-251AD) and his oldest son Herennius Etruscus (251AD) were killed in battle against the invading Goths. His youngest son, Hostilian (251AD) died of the plague.
This coin was issued by Trebonianus Gallus (251-253AD) appealing to Apollo Salutaris who was believed to have been the god of healing. This was the Plague of Cyprian that infected the Roman Empire from about 249 to 262 AD. It takes its name from St. Cyprian, who was the bishop of Carthage. He was a historian who witnessed and described the plague. It is not known precisely what it was. But from the description, it may have been smallpox, measles, and perhaps a viral hemorrhagic fever along the lines of the Ebola virus. What we do know is that this plague weakened Rome during the 3rd century causing a widespread decline in the workforce. That resulted in food shortages for a lack of manpower to produce food for the Roman army itself. This contributed greatly to the collapse of the 3rd century.
The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180AD, was the first known pandemic impacting the Roman Empire. It was most likely contracted by soldiers who were returning from campaigns in the Near East and spread throughout the empire. Historians generally believe the plague was smallpox or possibly measles. In 169 AD, the plague most likely took the life of Roman Emperor Lucius Verus. It appeared, according to ancient sources, during the Roman siege of the Mesopotamian city of Seleucia in the winter of 165–166. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio at the time, the disease broke out again nine years later in 189 AD. That time he said it caused up to 2,000 deaths per day in the city of Rome. The total death count at the time ranged between 5 and 10 million. About 25T of those who contracted the plague died. This amounted to about 10% of the population.
A third major plague struck during the 6th century. Research has been conducted on skeletons that have survived. It has been confirmed that DNA from Yersinia pestis—the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death—was the cause of the Justinianic plague. This plague also became a pandemic that spread throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond.
What is significant about this plague is that it took place during a Volcanic Winter. There were the great volcanic eruptions that created the extreme weather events of 535–536AD during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527-565AD). A mysterious cloud appeared over the Mediterranean basin according to the historian Procopius of Caesarea (Procopius Caesarensis; c. 500-560 AD) who wrote: “The sun gave forth its light without brightness, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.” This was a volcanic cloud that blocked the sun. But it was not a volcano in that region. The cloud’s appearance created climate cooling for more than a decade. Crops failed, and there was widespread famine. This also sets in motion a pandemic known as thePlague of Justinian (541-542), which swept through the Eastern Roman Empire killing 5,000 to 10,000 people per day in Constantinople.
War has been the catalyst for disease. Why? The movement of populations from one region to another has historically spread disease. Even when the Europeans visited America, they brought diseases that killed many Indians. Likewise, Europeans who had sex with Indian women brought back to Europe Syphilis which did not previously exist in Europe. The Black Plague of the 14th century was brought about by the invading Tartars in Crimea. They began catapulting dead bodies into the Italian fort which then panicked and took the disease back to Europe.
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. Once again, it coincided with World War I.
What we must be on guard against as our World Leaders are pushing to war once again, this one will engage the entire world. The likelihood of another major pandemic will be huge. What will it be this time? Normally, we should expect it to be the Black Plague. However, with the genetic manipulation and gain of function these people have been toying with, we cannot rule out that this time will be along the lines of COVID where the vaccines failed to prevent anyone from contracting COVID and actually made most more vulnerable in the future.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 12, 2023 | Sundanc
It’s not just random data points. It is an alignment of multiple datapoints, appearing at random intervals, that all align in one very specific direction.
The key is being able to spot them. WATCH (1 min):
[BACKGROUND] … “This is where the RGA looks to have been recruited for a larger role in 2024 than was deployed in 2016. Keep an eye on Republican governors and how they position their advocacy and endorsements.” {GO DEEP}
An ideological alignment of individual people, institutions and organizations working in concert toward a common goal is not a conspiracy. Once the objective of the common interest is identified, all benefactory components operate individually. What becomes visible is the similarity of the actions.
This is where we see patterns and common actions taken toward a common goal. This reality is the context to understand how the political dynamic is constructed in opposition to Donald Trump, and more specifically how the America First policy platform of Presidential candidate Donald Trump is viewed as a common threat.
Individuals, institutions, government ‘stakeholders’, and generally all status-quo interests stand in opposition, as reflected in the historic Niccolò Machiavelli quote:
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
When the new system is constructed to the benefit of the many yet disrupts the status of the few (the proverbial elite) who benefit from retention of the old, those in the at-risk minority must pretend not to know things. Additionally, through passive aggressive undermining that same elite group frame their opposition to provide themselves plausible deniability.
It is in this political mix of eclectic interests where a person needs an intellectual filtration system, tuned to the granular nuances, in order to make sense of the landscape and see the big picture.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 12, 2023 | Sundance
Appearing on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Mike McCaul, discusses the ongoing Biden administration battle in the sky with balloons, objects and various Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s).
McCaul identifies China as the most likely culprit for sending the spy and surveillance equipment over North America, claiming the timing of the spycraft arrival against the backdrop of the military revealing the latest stealth bomber, the “B-21 Raider,” does not seem coincidental.
Additionally, because of course he does, Chairman McCaul notes that if we do not continue to send billions to Ukraine, then China and Russia will continue sending spy missions over the United States. The way we defeat the UFO’s is to send more money to Ukraine. That’s his logic, and he’s sticking to it. WATCH:
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Congressman Michael McCaul. He is the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Good morning to you.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-Texas): Morning, Margaret. Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to start on this unusual activity, three takedowns in eight days. In the case of the spy balloon, this was Chinese surveillance, according to the administration. On Friday, they put restrictions on six Chinese companies that allegedly helped China’s military build that balloon. Is this the right move, to just try to make it harder for them to get U.S. technology, or does Congress need to do something that’s more broad?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, it’s certainly the right move.
It will be one of my number one priorities, as the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in this Congress, to stop the export of technology to China that then goes into their most advanced weapons systems, in this case, a sophisticated spy balloon that went across three nuclear sites, I think it’s important to say, in plain view of the American people, you know, in Montana, the triad site, air, land, and sea nuclear weapons.
In Omaha, the spy balloon went over our Strategic Command, which is our most sensitive nuclear site. It was so sensitive that President Bush was taken there after 9/11. And then, finally, Missouri, the B-2 bomber, that’s where they are placed. It did a lot of damage.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is that what U.S. intelligence told you? They have been saying they mitigated the impact.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: They say they mitigated it.
But my assessment, and — and I can’t get into the detail of the intelligence document — is that, if it was still transmitting going over these three very sensitive nuclear sites, I think — I think, if you look at the flight pattern of the balloon, it tells a story as to what the Chinese were up to as they controlled this aircraft throughout the United States.
Going over those sites, in my judgment, would cause great damage. Remember, a balloon could see a lot more on the ground than a satellite.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you said you want to try to stop the export of technology that can be used by China’s military.
As a conservative, though, how much — this has to make you a little uncomfortable to have government try to control private business investment. How do you do that?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, we have what’s called an entities list. The Department of Commerce had jurisdiction over the office within their — the Department of Defense has one.
We need to harmonize those, make it more security-focused. You know, capital flows is one issue, but technology exports into China that they use to turn — that maybe eventually turn against us, we have to stop doing that.
And I think we can do it by sectors. They do it by companies now. Obviously, they identified the six. I think, shockingly, when the balloon was recovered, it had American-made component parts in there with English on that. It was made — you know, parts made in America that were put on a spy balloon from China. I don’t think the American people accept that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you believe that this was a strategic choice by Xi Jinping’s government in Beijing, or do you believe that it was just the left and right hand not knowing what was going on?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: When I saw the sites that it was flying over, it was very clear to me this was an intentional act. It was done with provocation to gather intelligence data and collect intelligence on our three major nuclear sites in this country.
Why? Because they’re looking at what — what is our capability in the event of a possible future conflict in Taiwan? They’re really assessing what we have in this country. I find it extraordinary the timing of this flight as well, right before the State of the Union speech, and also right before Secretary Blinken was scheduled to meet with Chairman Xi.
I think it was very much an act of belligerence on their part. And perhaps they don’t care what — what the American people think about that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, I want to ask you.
You voted in the last Congress to provide a lot of assistance to Ukraine. But, this past week, at least 10 of your members, Republican members, introduced a bill called the Ukraine Fatigue Resolution to try to cut off aid.
How hard is it going to be to have a Republican-led House continue to help Ukraine?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I still believe, Margaret, there are many, on both sides of the aisle, a majority of the majorities in support of this.
We have — we have factions on the left and right that do not support Ukraine…
MARGARET BRENNAN: This WAS a Republican bill.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: … assistance, and that will probably continue.
Right. And I do think, for me, particularly, it’s — we have to educate, where has the money gone? You know, the audits that are in place right now, there are four of them on Ukraine funding. And we have to explain, why is Ukraine so important?
You know, what happens in Ukraine impacts Taiwan and Chairman Xi, that China’s aligned with Russia, Iran and North Korea against freedom, democracy in the West. And I think that’s a debate we’ll have, but I still feel very confident that we will give them the assistance they need.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I would like to see it faster, so they can win this faster.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you — you think Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, others who signed this need to be educated?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I — you know, look, we took Marjorie Taylor Greene into a briefing.
She was satisfied, I thought, with what — the controls that have been put in place on the spending. But I don’t think that they will be — ever be persuaded that this cause is something that they would support.
I think they have this false dichotomy that somehow we can’t help Ukraine beat back the Russians, who invaded their country and — and secure the border. We can do both. We’re a great nation. And the fact of the matter is, unfortunately, this administration has chosen not to secure the border. He can’t even control and secure our airspace now, it looks like.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman McCaul, thank you for your time today.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Thanks, Margaret. Thanks for having me.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 12, 2023 | Sundance
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi is looking for some additional research assistance [SEE HERE]. Specifically, after going a little deeper on the Twitter Files, Taibbi appears to be recognizing the visibility of the Fourth Branch of Government. He now needs to package the truth of it, in a way his former tribe will accept.
As a consequence, Taibbi is looking for (1) a reporter or academic with experience researching government contracts, and/or the funding of NGOs or academic research institutions; and (2) an infographics designer, preferably with experience in areas like ecosystem mapping.
Taibbi is a solid and inquisitive research journalist. However, he is still averse to recognizing Chicago Jesus as the originator of the modern issues he is outlining.
The issue of not accepting the Obama network as the structure that underpins the modern political surveillance state is common, even amid the tribe of walkaways from the progressive system.
Give him time, he’ll find see it.
From his current mission as expressed: […] “For decades, our government at least loosely complied with legislation like the Smith-Mundt Act, which prohibits aiming at the domestic population any official propaganda “intended for foreign audiences.” However, gloves came off in recent years.
In a remarkably short time since the end of the Obama presidency, the U.S. government has funded an elaborate network of NGOs and think-tanks whose researchers call themselves independent “disinformation experts.” They describe their posture as defensive — merely “tracking” or “countering” foreign disinformation — but in truth they aggressively court both the domestic news media and platforms like Twitter, often becoming both the sources for news stories and/or the referring authorities for censorship requests.
The end result has been relentless censorship of, and mountains of (often deceptive) state-sponsored propaganda about, legitimate American political activity. In the Twitter Files we see correspondence from state agencies and state-sponsored research entities describing everything from support of the Free Palestine movement to opposition to vaccine passports as illicit foreign propaganda. Some of this messaging devolves into outright smear campaigns, with efforts to denounce the organic #WalkAway hashtag as a Russian “psychological operation” serving as a particularly lurid example. The Hamilton 68 story (about which more is coming) hints at this dynamic.
The irony is the entire field of “disinformation studies” itself has the features of an inorganic astroturfing operation. Disinformation “labs” cast themselves as independent, objective, politically neutral resources, but in a shocking number of cases, their funding comes at least in part from government agencies like the Department of Defense. Far from being neutral, they often have clear mandates to play up foreign and domestic threats while arguing for digital censorship, de-platforming, and other forms of information control.
Worse, messages from these institutions are parroted more or less automatically by our corporate press, which has decided that instead of a network of independent/adversarial newspapers and TV stations, what the country needs is one giant Voice of America, bleating endlessly about “threats to democracy.” I’ve come to believe a sizable percentage of reporters don’t know that their sources are funded by the government, or that they’re repeating government messaging not just occasionally but all the time. The ones who don’t know this truth need to hear it, and the ones who knew all along need to be exposed. This project is about both of those things, too.
Foreign state media is labeled on platforms like Twitter.
I want to put labels on our own propaganda, and need your help to do it.”
President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; that system was created by President George W Bush and VP Dick Cheney. Instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum.
The intelligence apparatus does not want their public-private partnership, between government and big tech social media, interfered with. President Obama steps forth in April 2022 to put an exclamation point in place, saying the public-private partnership he created must control the information. WATCH:
I cannot emphasize strongly enough; how close this collective demand is to a similar construct in Orwell’s 1984 prediction of “The Ministry of Truth.” Indeed, if you follow the need for government control of information its logical conclusion, these demands by the U.S. deep state architects are identical.
I also hope readers can see this speech for what it is. THIS is exactly what we were warning about when the shadows were moving feverously in the past several weeks {GO DEEP}. The catchphrases “disinformation”, “misinformation” and “malinformation” are being cited by President Obama in that speech. Where did that lingo come from? THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY {SEE HERE}
At the top of all critical issues we must understand, share and keep focus on, the issue surrounding the free flow of information is the most critical.
Free speech, social media platforming, user bans, censorship, demonetization, financial targeting of Canadian truckers, Elon Musk purchasing Twitter then reveals the Twitter files, our ability to communicate, the culture war, the digital identity issue, heck, even your ability to read this, all of it, surrounds the central component of information.
This is the big war. Controlling, labeling, emphasizing, downplaying, removing, information; everything else is downstream from this fight.
While President Obama talked about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation, it was only a week prior when the White House officially admitted to creating misinformation, disinformation and malinformation as part of their strategic campaign against Russia in Ukraine. NBC news gleefully embraced the strategy {SEE HERE}.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has an official agency mission {SEE HERE} to “help the American people understand the scope and scale of Mal, Dis, and Misinformation activities,” and Google/DuckDuckGo/Big Tech have officially aligned with both U.S. government interests promising to target, remove and penalize any entity engaged in Mal, Dis and Misinformation activities.
Putting aside the creation of lies to advance a strategic geopolitical objective, the bigger admission in the U.S. government is that much of the information coming to the American public – from them – is manufactured, false, fabricated and wrong.
Simultaneous to this admission of manufactured lies, the platforms of Big Tech and social media are saying they will target, remove and block any content that contradicts the official government position. The govt boldly admits they lie, and social media states they will block anyone who refutes those lies.
In the case of Google, the dominating search engine for information over the internet, they state it is an infraction against their policy to espouse a claim “that contradicts official government records.” Yet, the U.S. government is officially admitting the information they are creating for the government records, is self-admittedly false….. and now in comes DuckDuckGo with the assist.
Not wanting to overinflate the CTH position, but this admitted reality is exactly why we have taken the following position.
…”There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”. There is only information you accept and information you do not accept. You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.”…
There are only two elements within the public discussion of information, truth and not truth.
In an era filled with “fact-checkers” and institutional guardians at the gates of Big Tech, let me explain exactly why it is important not to accept the speech rules of the guards.
When you accept the terms “disinformation”, “misinformation” or the newest lingo, “malinformation,” you are beginning to categorize truth and lies in various shades. You are merging black and white, right and wrong, into various shades of grey.
When your mind works in the grey zone, you are, by direct and factual consequence, saying there is a problem. You are correct; however, this is where people may make a mistake. That problem is supposed to be there.
It is not a solution to the problem to try and remove the grey simply because it takes too much work to separate the white pixels from the black ones.
You were born with a gift, the greatest gift a loving God could provide. You were born with a brain and set of natural instincts that are tools to do this pixel separation, use them.
If you define the grey work as a problem you cannot solve on your own, you open the door for others to solve that problem for you. You begin to abdicate the work, and that’s when trouble can enter. The sliding scale of Pinocchios is one of the most familiar yet goofy outcomes.
Put more clearly, when you accept the terminology “disinformation”, you accept a problem. The problem is then the tool by which authorities will step in to make judgements. Speech, in its most consequential form, is then qualified by others to whom you have sub-contracted your thinking.
When you willingly sub-contract information filters to others, you have lost connection with the raw information. CTH was founded upon the belief that truth has no agenda, nor does it care about you, your feelings, or your opinion of it. It just sits there, empirically existing as evidence of information in its most pure form.
The search for truth, in all things, is the mission objective of this assembly. Often, we don’t like the truth; often, the truth is bitter, cold, challenging and even painful to accept. However, the truth doesn’t care. Information in its most raw form is ambivalent to your opinion. If you struggle to accept these things, that’s when you need grey. The New York Times is not called the “grey lady” accidentally.
Personally, I am an absorber of information – perhaps on a scale that is unusual. But I do not discount information from any form until I can put context to it and see if the information makes sense given all the variables present. When something doesn’t feel right, it’s almost always because it isn’t right.
Often, I find myself struggling in the grey and complex. It is not unusual to spend days researching, digging, clarifying a situation, only to discover the path to finding the truth is in another direction entirely. Erasing everything and starting over is frustrating, but it is genuinely the only approach that works; and often finding truth is supposed to be difficult, that’s why it is rewarding.
In the digital information age, we are bombarded with information. It is easy to be overwhelmed and need to find something or someone who has better skills at separating the black grains from the white ones. All opinions in this quest should be considered; thus, it is important to allow the free flow of information.
I am not necessarily a speech absolutist. There is some language that needs to be constrained if we are to participate in a respectful society, with grandma’s rules and knowing the audience. The CTH has guidelines for comments for this exact reason. However, those constraints need to be based on a set of inherent values. When it comes to information it is important to draw a distinction from speech.
There needs to be an open venue for all information. Unfortunately, when we begin to apply labels or categorization to information, there’s an opportunity for information to be manipulated – even weaponized. Saul Alinsky spent decades pondering the best techniques to weaponize information and speech. Alinsky’s intentions, in the endeavor to change society by changing how language and information was used, were not good. He devoted his completed rulebook book to Lucifer.
Be careful about anyone saying we need to label or categorize information in order to control or remove speech from the discussion.
You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a God-given brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.
Unfortunately, the collectively aligned group of U.S. Govt, the Intelligence Community and now Big Tech, are saying they will put every roadblock they can muster in your way as you attempt to navigate through the misinformation they control.
Team Obama built the system, and now Team Obama are defending the system.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 11, 2023 | Sundance
Given the recent events at GBNews, I was very interested to see and hear the Neil Oliver monologue this week, to see if the issues of censorship, control and weaponized cultural Marxism would be part of his focus.
In his unique way, Oliver does approach the subject, by targeting the larger social Marxist effort to control speech and language. Oliver talks about how accurate words are diminished by those who overplay them in order to achieve political gains. Additionally, how the politically correct (culturally Marxist) intents of the progressive movement, intentionally downplay very real and dangerous outcomes by ignoring events that should be described by the words they overuse.
Oliver also applies the process to the attacks against his own speech. As Oliver notes, he is now labeled as a “far right-wing racist and antisemite”. Stay with this and you can see how the overarching dynamic of the past several weeks in U.K. politics is being deconstructed by Oliver’s application of common sense. WATCH:
[Transcript] – The slow creep of ugliness into the language of public debate is impossible to ignore. It is a truly sad state of affairs, a degradation of the quality of discourse, that should finally give us pause, make us stop and take a long hard look at the reality presently being forced upon us.
But the fact is we have grown accustomed to the knee-jerk application of lazy slurs and the smearing of reputations, to the casual abuse of those around us with some of the vilest accusations imaginable.
Racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobe, anti-Semite – the list of tags is long. But just as the ceaseless printing of money has utterly devalued our currencies, so the machine-gun spraying of labels, powerful labels once reserved for specific behaviours, deliberate crimes with malice aforethought, has rendered once lethally effective words all but meaningless.
Even more worrying, the overuse and misuse of words distracts from real crime, real abuse, and real discrimination. Real crimes of racism, committed against people black, white and brown, for racism, neither knows nor respects any colour bar are lost in the haze whipped up by the ceaseless misuse of “racist” in relation to anything and everything.
‘Sexist’ and ‘misogynist’ are likewise bandied about with wild abandon, used almost without exception now for the purposes of silencing unwanted voices, frightening the fainthearted back into their boxes.
Real contempt for the female sex, made manifest, for example, in the coordinated, wholesale rape of underage, white, working-class female children in towns up and down the country abandoned to their fates by authority in its every guise, police, councils, judiciary, government, and entirely overlooked, blind eyes and deaf ears turned. The words that might rightly have been used to describe what was going on were made absent. Instead, all that greeted the news of all that evil and misery was state-sanctioned silence.
Victims of the horror and those who knew about it and sought to raise the alarm and seek justice were shouted down. Those few actually brave enough to point fingers at the guilty were themselves labelled racists. That’s the reality of where we end up when words are overused or misused. Paradoxically, real crime is left to thrive. “Racist” and “misogynist” are words with actual and precise meanings … their use should sound alarm bells to alert us to real horror, real abuse … like that going on for decades in Rotherham, Telford, Oldham and scores of other towns.
That abuse of young girls has not stopped, either and won’t stop while those who could and should be doing something about it find apathy and lack of meaningful concern and action less damaging to their career advancement and political ambition. More and more we live in a society in which keeping the head down or looking the other way feels, to many, like the only option when to speak out, far less to do something, risks being carpet-bombed with the usual verbal abuse.
Real misogyny is at the root too of the blatant and gratuitous misuse of “transphobe” as well. Men speaking up in support of women fighting to preserve the vital sanctity of women-only spaces – toilets and changing rooms, prisons, refuges and the rest – do not receive the full force of the transphobe label.
In another example of misogyny, that insult, along with its even uglier twin TERF is applied most aggressively towards women.
Transphobe – a word properly descriptive of aversion to and hatred of trans people is therefore deliberately misused … and ceaselessly and relentlessly … not to make easier the lives of trans people but to shame, bully and dismiss women voicing concerns that only a handful of years ago would have been regarded as unquestionable common sense.
All of this means real racists and misogynists can go about their brutal business almost unchallenged, while the once powerful and meaningful words, dread words, are pepper sprayed into the faces of anyone and everyone seeking to ask questions of authority, to draw attention to dangerous societal misalignments and to raise the alarm about overreach and mission creep.
Verbal weaponry for use in emergency has been willfully and carelessly repurposed for one thing and one thing only, which is the silencing of debate.
Most important to notice is the certainty that none of this is accidental … nor is it the product of a natural evolution of human behaviour. On the contrary, this choreographed and whipped up name-calling … and let’s face it, name-calling is what it truly is … deploying the oh-so effective tactics of the school playground that none of us apparently outgrow … has been deliberately orchestrated and massively ramped up during these past two or three years of unprecedented change.
It has been done on purpose and the name-calling has been led and driven by government, by nudge units and the rest of the little wizards tasked with the psychological manipulation and perversion of society.
It really got going with “anti-vaxxer”, “covidiot”, “covid-denier” and “granny-killer” that became the round-the-clock stock in trade not just of government ministers but most effectively from the mouths of familiar TV journalists and other media figures.
As with “racist”, “misogynist” and “transphobe” the panoply of pandemic epithets were the childishly effective bludgeon used to try and knock any and all dissent or downright disobedience on the head.
As well as about silencing and controlling, it has been about division. Lockdowns and social distancing kept us physically apart, but even more sinister now is the way we are being set at each other’s throats, fracturing and damaging the very fabric of society.
Again, the ceaseless overuse … of terms like anti-vaxxer … rendered them utterly meaningless. People who had taken the products pushed as vaccines … and been harmed by them and then left in want of recognition, help and compensation … were routinely dismissed as anti-vaxxers, an allegation requiring exquisitely complex mental gymnastics in search of any sense whatsoever.
Anyone questioning the claims as to the safety and effectiveness of those medical products is still automatically defamed as a “covidiot” or a “granny-killer”, or a “covid-denier”.
And yet even though reams of peer-reviewed literature are out there now making plain the reality of harm and risk from taking those products, still the c-words are bandied about.
And again, as with the rest of the name-calling, it’s all about silencing dissenting voices and seizing and maintaining control of narratives.
The ugliness and attempted bullying is everywhere. Perhaps the granddaddy of them all right now – the Swiss Army knife of insults – is right wing. Everyone and everything standing in defiance of the narratives about Covid, the war in Ukraine, the so-called climate crisis, 15-minute cities, is instantly and automatically right wing.
Real old-fashioned right-wingers must be revolving like revolutionaries in their graves at the butchery of a term that was once upon a time actually descriptive of a political position. Fearing the loss of cultural and community cohesion in the face of mass immigration is automatically right-wing, as well as racist, of course. Brexit is right-wing. Love of country is right wing. Gardening is right-wing, and also racist, and so too the English countryside and being good at maths.
After a lifetime of skirting around politics … avoiding the whole sordid business like something left behind on the pavement by a passing canine … I got out of bed one morning a couple of years ago to find I was right-wing too, apparently.
Not just old fashioned, stick in the mud middle of the road right-wing, mind you … but frothing at the mouth, swivel-eyed, ultra-far-right, right-wing.
I achieved this feat by … not moving at all in any direction. I have stayed where I have always been – which is to say in the land of those cynical of politics and politicians of all stripes and therefore politically homeless for a lifetime – while some sort of undetected shifting of the tectonic plates moved the old world out from under my feet and off into the distance never to return.
Articles about me in the newspapers used to describe me as “long-haired” and “Scottish”. Nowadays I’m mostly known to the MSM as right-wing conspiracy theorist Neil Oliver. It’s laughable, but there we are.
I said Right Wing was the granddaddy or at least the catch-all. But of course, that would be to overlook the many megaton explosive power of the a-word … which is ‘antisemite’. Arguably as ubiquitous as racist “antisemite” has an edge of lethal sharpness.
To be labelled antisemitic is to be allegedly guilty of one of the oldest and ugliest sins of all.
Last week a piece in the Guardian raised the spectre of antisemitism, political journalist Peter Walker nudging it as close to me as he dared after I spoke on this channel about the erosion of the thousand-year-old British constitution by one Parliament after another.
It was quite a leap, I can opine that much – but then you’d expect some convoluted reasoning from a Social Justice obsessed newspaper.
It was also imaginative dot-connecting to invite readers to infer anti-semitism in a monologue about the British constitution.
But there you go – it appears antisemitism nowadays, like sexism, misogyny, transphobia and far-right politics, is in the eye of the beholder.
Here’s the thing: as I said at the top … ugliness … unspeakable ugliness … has slithered into our public discourse like sewage from a burst pipe. It has been no accident … rather a deliberate campaign based upon application of the oldest and most childish tactic in the book … that of baseless name-calling … to shore up the defences around official narratives that are collapsing like sandcastles in the face of an incoming tide.
In the process – once important and precisely descriptive words have been utterly compromised until they mean everything and also nothing. After all, if everyone is a right-wing misogynist antisemite, then no one is.
Just as they tried to distract us, from the erosion of our liberties, right under our noses, by fear porn and nudge units … their lockdowns, face masks, forever war and climate crisis … so we are losing sight of real crimes of violence against women, abuse and discrimination on the grounds of race and the persecution of ancient faith and culture.
The truth is that we are over this now. We have had a gut full. We have seen the attempted manipulation, the wordplay and the rest … and we are not fooled for a moment. Words matter at the deepest level of our relationships with one another. Our language is what makes us human and makes possible our society and civilisation. We must reclaim the words like everything else and keep talking sense to one another.
And at the end of the day, if we must be back in the playground again, there’s this: Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names will never hurt us.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 11, 2023 | Sundance
Apparently, there is an influx of “unidentified objects”, somewhat similar to surveillance balloons, coming from the Pacific into U.S. and Canadian airspace.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier today a third “unidentified object” was shot down over Canadian airspace in the Yukon territory. The third high altitude object was tracked by the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and intercepted by U.S. military F-22 fighters in coordination with the Canadian military.
(CBS News) – An “unidentified object” which “violated “Canadian airspace” was shot down over Canada Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed. The object was shot down by a U.S. military F-22 over the Yukon, Trudeau said.
A U.S. official previously confirmed to CBS News Saturday that the object was detected by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and appeared to be a “high-altitude balloon.”
Trudeau tweeted that “Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled” after he “ordered the take down” of the object by NORAD.
In a statement to CBS News, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the object was detected over Alaska on Friday night, and then monitored by two F-22 fighter jets with the assistance of the Alaska Air National Guard. (read more)
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