offguardian--2020-06-17--Facebook using “fact-checkers” to censor dissent on Covid19

Facebook has flagged our article “ It ’ s all bullshit ” : 3 links sinking the Covid narrative ” as ‘ false information ’ , based on nothing but a single ‘ fact check ’ website , which does not even claim the information is ‘ false ’ , but merely quibbles over terminologies to justify claiming the information is ‘ misleading.
’ This is what you see today if you try to access that article on Facebook : And if you click on the ‘ see why ’ button you get taken here , to the website of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” .
Of course , they ’ re not independent – they ’ re actually funded by Facebook .
They are also funded by the “ Credibility Coalition ” , an NGO focused on “ common standards for information credibility ” .
The Credibility Coalition are also funded by Facebook .
And twitter .
And google .
And a whole host of unsavoury sounding NGOs .
So , with the idea that “ health feedback ” are anywhere close to “ independent ” firmly debunked , let ’ s see what they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s important to note what is actually being “ fact-checked ” here .
It is not that the three documents were leaked .
It is not the accuracy of the quotes used .
It is not the statistics cited .
In fact , not a single factual claim is being called “ false ” .
In short , Facebook is well aware that 90 % of the article is perfectly provably true .
In fact , it ’ s not our article they ’ re allegedly fact-checking , it ’ s another article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on one of the same sources we do .
The “ fact-check ” is entirely devoted to just one of three leaks we describe – the report from German Interior Ministry employee – and even then focuses solely on its provenance rather than its content .
In essence , what is being “ fact-checked ” is not the report itself , but where it came from .
Nowhere in this ‘ rebuttal ’ does it claim the ‘ German Ministry employee ’ was lying or making provably false statements .
Neither does it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the “ independent scientists ” who co-authored the report .
Instead , it uses diversionary language claiming the document ’ s main author , Stephan Kohn , was simply sharing his “ private opinion ” and was not authorised to speak for the government .
The author of the document is Stephan Kohn , a politologist and employee of Germany ’ s Interior Ministry in the KM 4 department for the Protection of Critical Infrastructures .
However , Kohn ’ s analysis was not requested by the Interior Ministry , as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Germany ’ s Interior Ministry issued a press release stating that the employee had disseminated his “ private opinion on the corona crisis management ” and that the “ elaboration was carried out outside the area of responsibility as well as without assignment and authorization ” .
This approach should be hauntingly familiar to anyone who has been following the OPCW whistleblower story .
Where expert witnesses contradicting the official narrative on Douma were claimed to merely be “ disgruntled ex-employees ” who were in Syria of their own accord and “ never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All these claims have since been shown to be lies .
In addition to these irrelevant obfuscations , the article uses weasel words to construct a flimsy counter-argument : Note that they only back three years in time , and not all the way to 2000 or 1998 , both of which had very similar excess death numbers .
Note also they say “ coinciding with ” , and not “ caused by ” .
This allows them to cite all the excess deaths in Europe , despite statistics showing that huge numbers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ causes – including the lockdown limiting access to healthcare and increasing poverty .
They are using excess deaths caused by the lockdown , to argue against the accuracy of a report warning that the lockdown will cause excess deaths .
It is going full Orwell .
And it is utterly disgusting .
This article simply does not offer any justification for dismissing our article reporting Kohn ’ s words as ‘ false information ’ .
The information is NOT demonstrably false , it is merely contentious , in that the data is open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the article admits that itself – only able to label the claim as “ misleading ” or “ unsupported ” .
Nowhere do they use the word “ disinformation ” or “ misinformation ” or “ false information ” .
Not once .
And yet that is the label facebook has stuck on it .
Facebook is not suppressing this article because it contains false information at all , it is censoring it because it offers an interpretation of facts that does not support the current mainstream dogma .
This is censorship , @ @ @ @

OffG
Facebook has flagged our article “It’s all bullshit”: 3 links sinking the Covid narrative” as ‘false information’, based on nothing but a single ‘fact check’ website, which does not even claim the information is ‘false’, but merely quibbles over terminologies to justify claiming the information is ‘misleading.’
This is what you see today if you try to access that article on Facebook:
And if you click on the ‘see why’ button you get taken here, to the website of Health Feedback, an “independent fact-checker”.
Of course, they’re not independent – they’re actually funded by Facebook. They are also funded by the “Credibility Coalition”, an NGO focused on “common standards for information credibility”.
The Credibility Coalition are also funded by Facebook. And twitter. And google. And a whole host of unsavoury sounding NGOs.
So, with the idea that “health feedback” are anywhere close to “independent” firmly debunked, let’s see what they have to say.
Firstly, it’s important to note what is actually being “fact-checked” here.
It is not that the three documents were leaked. It is not the accuracy of the quotes used. It is not the statistics cited. In fact, not a single factual claim is being called “false”.
In short, Facebook is well aware that 90% of the article is perfectly provably true.
In fact, it’s not our article they’re allegedly fact-checking, it’s another article in the publication NewsPunch, which relies on one of the same sources we do.
The “fact-check” is entirely devoted to just one of three leaks we describe – the report from German Interior Ministry employee – and even then focuses solely on its provenance rather than its content. In essence, what is being “fact-checked” is not the report itself, but where it came from.
Nowhere in this ‘rebuttal’ does it claim the ‘German Ministry employee’ was lying or making provably false statements. Neither does it challenge the credentials, competence or honesty of the “independent scientists” who co-authored the report.
Instead, it uses diversionary language claiming the document’s main author, Stephan Kohn, was simply sharing his “private opinion” and was not authorised to speak for the government.
The author of the document is Stephan Kohn, a politologist and employee of Germany’s Interior Ministry in the KM 4 department for the Protection of Critical Infrastructures. However, Kohn’s analysis was not requested by the Interior Ministry, as the article claims. On 10 May, Germany’s Interior Ministry issued a press release stating that the employee had disseminated his “private opinion on the corona crisis management” and that the “elaboration was carried out outside the area of responsibility as well as without assignment and authorization”.
This approach should be hauntingly familiar to anyone who has been following the OPCW whistleblower story. Where expert witnesses contradicting the official narrative on Douma were claimed to merely be “disgruntled ex-employees” who were in Syria of their own accord and “never part of the fact-finding mission”.
All these claims have since been shown to be lies.
In addition to these irrelevant obfuscations, the article uses weasel words to construct a flimsy counter-argument:
According to EuroMOMO, the number of excess deaths coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic was twice the number that occurred during the unusually deadly flu seasons of 2017, 2018, and 2019 (Figure 1).
Note that they only back three years in time, and not all the way to 2000 or 1998, both of which had very similar excess death numbers.
Note also they say “coinciding with”, and not “caused by”. This allows them to cite all the excess deaths in Europe, despite statistics showing that huge numbers the excess deaths were due to other causes – including the lockdown limiting access to healthcare and increasing poverty.
They are using excess deaths caused by the lockdown, to argue against the accuracy of a report warning that the lockdown will cause excess deaths.
It is going full Orwell. And it is utterly disgusting.
This article simply does not offer any justification for dismissing our article reporting Kohn’s words as ‘false information’. The information is NOT demonstrably false, it is merely contentious, in that the data is open to multiple interpretations.
In fact, the article admits that itself – only able to label the claim as “misleading” or “unsupported”. Nowhere do they use the word “disinformation” or “misinformation” or “false information”. Not once.
And yet that is the label facebook has stuck on it.
Facebook is not suppressing this article because it contains false information at all, it is censoring it because it offers an interpretation of facts that does not support the current mainstream dogma.
This is censorship, pure and simple.


offguardian--2020-06-18--Collateral Murder and the Assange Indictment

When the superseding indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia against Julian Assange on May 23 , 2019 , there was one glaring omission .
It was an achievement , it might even be said the achievement , that gave the WikiLeaks publisher and the organisation justified notoriety .
Collateral Murder , as the leaked video came to be called , featured the murderous exploits by the crew of Crazy Horse 1-8 , an Apache helicopter that slew 11 people on July 12 , 2007 in east Baghdad .
Among the dead were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fixer , Saeed Chmagh .
As WikiLeaks announced at the time , “ Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act , without success since the time of the attack .
The video , shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight , clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers .
Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
” It is worth remembering at the time that the current stable of media outlets , including the New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different : that the video was purposely edited by WikiLeaks to convey maximum public impact while giving the impression of US venality in battle .
Patriotism , and the blinding of the record , comes first .
This conveniently sidestepped the vacillations taking place in the Pentagon over the incident and its recording .
Dean Yates , who was Reuters Baghdad chief at the time , recalls in horrid vividness the unfolding events , including the seizure of Namir ’ s cameras and the US military statement : “ Firefight in New Baghdad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insurgents , detain 13.
” As Yates , who has been painfully silent over this episode , told the Guardian , On the return of the tampered cameras , no evidence of insurgent activity , or clashes with US forces , were evident .
Yates and a Reuters colleague subsequently met two US generals responsible for overseeing the investigation , all off record , of course .
They were told of the request by Crazy Horse 1-8 to engage “ military-aged males ” supposedly armed and acting “ suspiciously ” .
Photographs of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] launcher , where produced .
Yates was left wondering “ how much of that meeting was carefully choreographed so we could go away with a certain impression of what happened.
” For a time , he conceded , “ it worked ” with poisonous effect .
What niggled was the revealing of some footage from the camera of Crazy Horse 1-8 , a miserly three minutes .
Cue the permission sought by the Apache to engage on seeing Namir crouching with his long-lens camera , supposedly mistaken for an RPG .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scene , ostensibly to assist , was airily dismissed by the generals as an act of aid for insurgents .
Yates , disturbed , was left with the mistaken impression that Namir had somehow been responsible for his own demise and those of his companions .
In the meantime , Reuters persisted in their vain attempts to secure the full video , even as they continued good faith off-the-record meetings with the US military for reasons of safety .
Yates wished to break the arrangement on the video ; his superiors thought otherwise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began to show .
Sleeplessness crept it .
When the video was released on April 5 , 2010 , Yates was with his family walking in Cradle Mountain national park , Tasmania .
The video casts a shadow over the indictment , despite being a screaming omission .
It is crude , expressive , and unequivocal in disclosing a war crime and its cold-blooded execution .
It codifies a form of deliberate , incautious violence .
It reveals breathe taking cruelty at play : “ Look at those dead bastards ; “ Nice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” .
Barrister Greg Barns , a tireless advisor to the Australian Assange Campaign claimed it to be “ very much part of the broader prosecution case [ because of what it illustrates about the US rules of engagement ] and it is one of the many reasons to oppose what is happening to Assange ” .
Australian politicians otherwise unaccustomed to distract themselves from the teat of the US imperium have also noted the potency of the video , and the act of evading it in the indictment .
“ The omission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the indictment surprised me , ” suggested Australian Greens Senator Peter Whish Wilson of the Parliamentary Friends of the Bring Julian Assange Home Group , “ but on reflection of course it ’ s not in the US government ’ s interests to highlight their own injustices , deceit and crimes.
” The effort to indict Assange for espionage charges is fatuous but dangerously calculating : to bury a narrative ; to make history , at least as it is told by the leakers , disappear .
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He lectures at RMIT University , Melbourne .
Email :

Binoy Kampmark
When the superseding indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia against Julian Assange on May 23, 2019, there was one glaring omission. It was an achievement, it might even be said the achievement, that gave the WikiLeaks publisher and the organisation justified notoriety.
Collateral Murder, as the leaked video came to be called, featured the murderous exploits by the crew of Crazy Horse 1-8, an Apache helicopter that slew 11 people on July 12, 2007 in east Baghdad. Among the dead were Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and a driver and fixer, Saeed Chmagh.
As WikiLeaks announced at the time, “Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.”
It is worth remembering at the time that the current stable of media outlets, including the New York Times, preferred to see something rather different: that the video was purposely edited by WikiLeaks to convey maximum public impact while giving the impression of US venality in battle. Patriotism, and the blinding of the record, comes first.
This conveniently sidestepped the vacillations taking place in the Pentagon over the incident and its recording. Dean Yates, who was Reuters Baghdad chief at the time, recalls in horrid vividness the unfolding events, including the seizure of Namir’s cameras and the US military statement: “Firefight in New Baghdad. US, Iraqi forces kill 9 insurgents, detain 13.”
As Yates, who has been painfully silent over this episode, told the Guardian,
“The US assertions that Namir and Saeed were killed during a firefight was all lies. But I didn’t know that at the time, so I updated my story to take in the US military’s statement.”
On the return of the tampered cameras, no evidence of insurgent activity, or clashes with US forces, were evident. Yates and a Reuters colleague subsequently met two US generals responsible for overseeing the investigation, all off record, of course. They were told of the request by Crazy Horse 1-8 to engage “military-aged males” supposedly armed and acting “suspiciously”.
Photographs of AK-47s and an RPG [Rocket-propelled grenade] launcher, where produced. Yates was left wondering “how much of that meeting was carefully choreographed so we could go away with a certain impression of what happened.” For a time, he conceded, “it worked” with poisonous effect.
What niggled was the revealing of some footage from the camera of Crazy Horse 1-8, a miserly three minutes. Cue the permission sought by the Apache to engage on seeing Namir crouching with his long-lens camera, supposedly mistaken for an RPG.
The appearance of the van later in the scene, ostensibly to assist, was airily dismissed by the generals as an act of aid for insurgents. Yates, disturbed, was left with the mistaken impression that Namir had somehow been responsible for his own demise and those of his companions.
In the meantime, Reuters persisted in their vain attempts to secure the full video, even as they continued good faith off-the-record meetings with the US military for reasons of safety. Yates wished to break the arrangement on the video; his superiors thought otherwise.
The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder began to show. Sleeplessness crept it. When the video was released on April 5, 2010, Yates was with his family walking in Cradle Mountain national park, Tasmania.
The video casts a shadow over the indictment, despite being a screaming omission. It is crude, expressive, and unequivocal in disclosing a war crime and its cold-blooded execution. It codifies a form of deliberate, incautious violence. It reveals breathe taking cruelty at play: “Look at those dead bastards; “Nice”; “Good shoot’n”.
As Christian Christensen remarked:
These particular images were, in many ways, the crystallization of the horrors of war.”
Barrister Greg Barns, a tireless advisor to the Australian Assange Campaign claimed it to be “very much part of the broader prosecution case [because of what it illustrates about the US rules of engagement] and it is one of the many reasons to oppose what is happening to Assange”.
Australian politicians otherwise unaccustomed to distract themselves from the teat of the US imperium have also noted the potency of the video, and the act of evading it in the indictment.
“The omission of the leaked Collateral Murder footage from the indictment surprised me,” suggested Australian Greens Senator Peter Whish Wilson of the Parliamentary Friends of the Bring Julian Assange Home Group, “but on reflection of course it’s not in the US government’s interests to highlight their own injustices, deceit and crimes.”
The effort to indict Assange for espionage charges is fatuous but dangerously calculating: to bury a narrative; to make history, at least as it is told by the leakers, disappear.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]


offguardian--2020-06-18--Lies, Damned Lies and Covid19

Lies, Damned Lies and Covid19

Growing up as I did in the Cold War , I still experience a special kind of shudder whenever I come across an anecdote like that of Katya Soldak , whose Soviet nursery school teacher once showed her class a photograph clipped from a Western newspaper , “ depicting skinny [ Russian ] children in striped robes walking in a straight line.
” The capitalists who printed that picture wanted people to think Soviet children were “ treated like prisoners , ” the teacher declared angrily , “ when in reality the kids were on their way to a swimming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nice story ( thought little Katya ) — except that “ I had never even seen a pool… .
[ T ] hey existed in my mind as does an exotic animal or an unvisited city.
” A time capsule from a remote dystopia ?
Think again .
Staring at me right now from the latest quarterly newsletter of my alma mater , the University of Virginia , is an identical piece of bad-is-good fakery : a photograph of an involuntarily isolated graduate student named Kalea Obermeyer , accompanied by a caption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seated alone on a trunk in the confines of a cramped dormitory room , clumsily swathed in a surgical mask , “ shelters in place ” in “ her most secure housing during the pandemic.
” Being an honest sort , I have considered whether I ought to write to the editors of my old university ’ s magazine , accusing them of playing toady to democracy-destroying propagandists .
Should I remind these so-called educators of the young that the term “ shelter in place ” is properly applied to air raids , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a cruel hoax when pressed into service to describe what is actually an illegal quarantine ?
That the young woman in the photograph is not “ sheltered ” but confined ?
That pandemics have occurred many times before , and that what ’ s new this time around is not the flu but the police state ?
That the governor ’ s order placing this student ( and the rest of the citizenry ) under virtual house arrest is probably unconstitutional ?
And that while she ’ s stuck in her room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discern — a whole host of local bus drivers , contract workers and university employees , including dining hall service workers who ’ ve labored there for decades , are all out of jobs ?
I ’ d like to write all that , and more , to the purveyors of this bit of fake news .
But I suspect I ’ d be wasting my time .
Mainstream media have recycled so many lies about COVID19 that by now every respectable editor with enough sense to come in out of the rain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is supposed to make the rest of us believe .
And heaven help the dissenters !
Thus the once-respectable Atlantic , after months of promoting coronavirus hysteria , has published a kind of palinode that admits virtually every charge made by critics of lockdown policies — but still winds up gloomily insisting on the freedom-haters ’ moral supremacy , facts or no facts .
The authors ( Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer ) grudgingly concede the growing evidence that going outdoors , instead of being cooped up for months at a time per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of infection .
They also admit that those who enforce our confinement clearly don ’ t believe their own hype about “ social distancing ” : police are “ crowding protesters together , blasting them with lung and eye irritants , and cramming them into paddy wagons and jails.
” They even point out that the police themselves rarely bother separating from one another .
But ultimately none of that matters to the liberal Atlantic : it ’ s “ obvious ” — evidence be damned — that just “ standing in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of increased transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
” Who says so ?
Why , Anthony Fauci does .
And what about all the evidence that COVID19 , never anywhere near as deadly as officials originally assured us it was , is on the way out ?
Here , too , the Atlantic ’ s paladins admit the facts but refuse to draw the obvious conclusion .
They note that “ the outbreak has eased in the Northeast , ” the hardest-hit section of the US ; that new cases have leveled off or declined in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that “ hundreds of public-health professionals signed a letter this week declining to oppose the protests [ against police brutality ] ‘ as risky for COVID19 transmission . '
” They even admit that in Georgia and Florida , two states that enforced lockdowns least and opened up earliest , the numbers of new infections have been “ relatively flat.
” In the face of so much good news , what are right-thinking police-state enthusiasts to do ?
“ [ T ] he US is not going to beat the coronavirus , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the article ’ s key paragraph .
“ Collectively , we slowly seem to be giving up.
” Now there ’ s a specimen of doublethink even Orwell missed : victory is surrender ; lockdown is safety ; hysteria is virtue .
So I ’ m not planning to write to the editors at my alma mater — at least , not about that propagandists ’ playground known as COVID19 .
When rights-trampling , economy-busting general incarceration is the fashion in the Land of the Free , when lying is good sense and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” my old ideas of rational persuasion start to look like a parasol in a monsoon .
Instead , I am going to do a bit of ranting about words — the elements that lies are made of .
I do this because I am sure the twisting of language to cloak political and economic skullduggery — which I take to be the worst evils of the coronavirus outbreak — will be glossed over in future mainstream accounts .
And I do it because the politicians who tore up the Bill of Rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world to the brink of another Great Depression are not likely to change their spots — and unless we insist on calling their actions by their right names , we will be defenseless against their future machinations .
“ Political language , ” Orwell reminded us , “ is designed to make lies sound truthful…and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
” Well , here are some choice examples of “ pure wind ” that made “ lies sound truthful ” over the past three months : Shelter in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ term stands in synecdoche to all the rest .
“ Shelter in place ” originated in US Civil Defense regulations in the context of a possible nuclear attack ; over the following decades , the term evolved to mean any emergency order to “ take cover until the coast is clear on order of officials.
” But it has never had the slightest connection with disease control .
An order that restricts the movement of someone who is not ill , but who is suspected of contact with someone who is , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are laws that regulate slapping quarantine orders on people — to say nothing of an entire population — and the governors and mayors who were bent on lockdowns clearly didn ’ t intend to be constrained by anything as pedestrian as the law .
So they dug up this irrelevant phrase and plastered it over their arbitrary confinements of huge numbers of citizens — in violation of quarantine statutes , without a court order , and without even a semblance of public debate — hoping nobody would notice the compounding of official malfeasance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worth taking a moment to imagine how this trick must have been hatched in the bowels of some executive mansion .
I can picture someone like New Jersey governor Phil Murphy ( last seen claiming that the constraints of the Bill of Rights weren ’ t part of his job description ) barking at his aides , “ Damn it , there ’ s got to be something to justify locking up the whole state without going through those pesky quarantine procedures !
” And I can see a harried assistant , having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jogging into an office with the term “ shelter in place ” and a rather sheepish explanation that , well , it ’ s not about infection control , and doesn ’ t really have anything to do with the present situation , but it does say “ in place ” and , um , “ shelter ” and , you know…and anyway , for God ’ s sake , there isn ’ t anything else !
And then it ’ s not hard to imagine the boss ( who knows the media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working the words “ shelter in place ” into his next public address , confident that few mainstream reporters will ask him where the phrase came from .
The imagined details are less important than the obvious fact that “ shelter in place ” could not have been sprung on us by way of an innocent error .
The term had to be found , and the officials who found it would necessarily have known what it meant , and therefore that its use in the context of a viral epidemic would constitute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and I mean anyone — who has employed the phrase “ shelter in place ” over the last three months has been repeating a lie .
It ’ s as simple as that .
Every public health care official who has used the phrase is a scoundrel ; every “ journalist ” who has used it is a shameless propagandist ; every politician who has used it is an imposter who , in my view , deserves to be impeached or voted out of office forthwith .
Social distancing .
This one runs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second .
The phrase was nonexistent , or at best obscure , until rather recently ; when officials of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention used it in a 2007 advisory memorandum , they felt obliged to explain the term in a footnote : Note that this definition does not include keeping people six feet apart , stifling them with surgical masks , or barring them from inviting family members to their apartments .
Evidently , not even the germophobes at the CDC were prepared to contemplate so brutal a disruption of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , the same memorandum stressed the importance of “ [ r ] espect for individual autonomy ” and “ each individual ’ s general right to noninterference , ” adding that even in the event the government did close office buildings or restrict access to shopping malls , “ [ a ] process should be in place for objections to be heard , restrictions appealed , and for new procedures to be considered prior to implementation ” — something never even remotely attempted during the last three months .
In other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means whatever the changing whims of our governors would like it to mean , as they continue to exercise “ emergency ” powers in what is clearly not an emergency .
Meanwhile , the use of the term gives a false patina of scientific legitimacy to unprecedented government intrusions into the most basic interactions of human life .
The timing of the successive redefinitions of the phrase is itself instructive .
In my own state of New Jersey , masks were not required as a component of “ social distancing ” until mid-April @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the number of new cases in the region was already leveling off .
( Masks remain mandatory in public as of this writing , even though the infection rate has fallen almost to pre-outbreak levels . )
Allow that point to sink in for a moment : “ social distancing ” took on a more extreme and divisive definition at just the moment that , by any rational calculation , restrictions should have been reduced , if not removed altogether !
And the most recent fiats from the governor suggest that nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ permitted any time soon — regardless of the facts .
This implies that , at bottom , “ social distancing ” is not intended to serve any genuine medical purpose .
It ’ s much better understood as an instrument of political repression — a way of keeping people apart and preventing any sort of public organizing .
I don ’ t consider it an accident that the “ phased reopening plan ” being peddled by nearly all media “ experts , ” and routinely attributed to Johns Hopkins University , was in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gottlieb , a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute — the right-wing think tank that served as a major cheerleader for the Iraq invasion of 2003 and whose recent initiatives include efforts to sharply reduce federal spending on health care .
That AEI is in no hurry to help small businesses reopen or to keep working people from losing their jobs will come as no surprise .
What needs emphasis is that if such an outfit couldn ’ t hide its agenda behind the medical-sounding phrase “ social distancing , ” it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiatives past the general public and into practice .
But while we ’ re all creeping around with our faces wrapped like mummies , turned away from each other whenever possible , staying at least six feet apart , and speaking only when spoken to , how are we supposed to mount effective political opposition as the high rollers play their favorite games ?
Emergency .
Though it ’ s not often reported this way , the United States largely suspended democratic government back in March , when some 40 state executives declared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quasi-dictatorial powers to act without legislative approval or legal process .
They did this by invoking each state ’ s version of the Emergency Health Powers Act , a controversial piece of legislation crafted in the nervous aftermath of the September 2001 attacks and supposedly designed for a coordinated response to a massive act of bioterrorism .
The American Civil Liberties Union was not alone back then in condemning the bill as “ replete with civil liberties problems ” and “ a throwback to a time before the legal system recognized basic protections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t utter a peep when governors across the nation effectively scuppered democracy in the face of what , however threatening , didn ’ t even arguably resemble a catastrophic bioterror attack .
If that strikes you as a flagrant abuse of the word “ emergency ” for questionable political purposes — and it should — you ain ’ t seen nothing yet .
On June 4 , New Jersey ’ s Governor Murphy issued his third consecutive extension of what was supposed to be a thirty-day “ state of emergency ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on March 9 .
What was the “ emergency ” this time around ?
In the governor ’ s own words : “ there has now been a decrease in the rate of reported new cases of COVID19 in New Jersey , in the total number of individuals being admitted to hospitals for COVID19 , and in the rate of reproduction for COVID19 infections in New Jersey.
” Got that ?
New cases , hospitalizations , even the “ rate of reproduction ” for the virus are all on the wane throughout Murphy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been for months . )
Yet in today ’ s Newspeak , that ’ s an “ emergency ” — enough to justify another month of democracy-free rule by executive fiat .
And I ’ m the Maharaja of Mysore… I won ’ t even bother writing about that most buffoonish of phrases , “ flattening the curve.
” If that ever meant anything ( which I doubt ) , it means literally nothing , or more accurately less than nothing , when applied ( as it is now ) to an outbreak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll only note that if the lockdown enthusiasts had been able to specify an actual goal , in intelligible language , they would have done so from the start .
They couldn ’ t — because their true objectives were political , not medical — so they offered us a magical-thinking cartoon image instead .
They must be hoping we still haven ’ t noticed .
As always , fraudulent language goes hand in hand with fraudulent political posturing , of which the Atlantic article I ’ ve already mentioned — oozing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cops while oblivious to the Constitution-defying antics of Governors Cuomo , Murphy , Whitmer et al .
— is a rather rank example .
In a similar vein , Ross Douthat ’ s recent op-ed in the New York Times is an interesting confession of liberal dishonesty in the service of a slightly different form of liberal dishonesty .
Douthat correctly complains about members of the “ public health establishment ” who condemned anti-lockdown protesters just weeks ago as a dangerous death cult , but are now bowing and scraping before the parallel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tying themselves in ideological knots ” in the process .
Douthat ’ s indictment of highbrow hypocrisy on this score is so accurate that it is worth quoting at length : All this is perfectly true .
But with a pinch more honesty , Douthat might have concluded that “ the original theory ” was a sham to begin with .
If the Right Thinkers had been telling the truth when they herded us all into captivity back in March , they ’ d still be yelling “ obey or die !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Douthat interprets their inconsistency as a surrender to the virus ; he can ’ t admit that the Right Thinkers ’ real battle was never against COVID19 .
It was against us .
The same conclusion stares us in the face from the Right Thinkers ’ eulogizing of protests against police brutality — or , rather , from what their encomiums to those protests consistently omit .
The demonstrations spearheaded by Black Lives Matter focus on police-state tactics employed by uniformed enforcers of the will of the State ; the much-maligned anti-lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employed by political officials of the State itself .
The connection between the two sets of protests should be obvious .
But have you heard any of the high-profile liberals who are paying homage to Black Lives Matter breathe a single word to the effect that these different groups of protesters ought to combine their efforts , or at least to coordinate their campaigns in order to increase their political effectiveness ?
Of course not — and in my view , that ’ s the real reason behind the hypocritical nonsense being spouted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merely sneered when the protesters were white working people .
As long as Black Lives Matter continues to observe the double limitation that has so far marked its demonstrations — protesting only along racial lines , and only against the police — the ruling class ’ s left-wing will go on blessing it , because it won ’ t constitute too large a threat to established order .
If the demonstrations start to talk about the rights of all people to be free of arbitrary confinement as well as violence , of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a living as well as staying out of prison , the evils of all officials who stand in their way…well , that will be a horse of a different color .
Remember the snapshot of congressional Democrats kneeling in pious rows with those silly kente stoles around their necks ?
That was styled as a “ protest , ” but don ’ t kid yourselves : if Pelosi & Co. were genuinely horrified about police racism , they would have done something about it years ago .
I think those Democratic heavyweights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t realize it ’ s confronting a broader issue than racist police violence .
As I write this , the US is teetering simultaneously on the edge of its worst financial collapse since the 1930s and on the brink of a descent into quasi-dictatorial rule .
Sectarian protests , however justified , won ’ t halt that descent .
General political resistance just might .
And liberal pundits are scared to death that protesters , black and white , progressive and conservative , might figure out that they ’ re really fighting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I can write is going to penetrate the minds of people who have drunk the lockdown Kool-Aid and will hear , in my dissection of the fraudulent language used by “ public servants ” to foment poverty and to shred the Bill of Rights , only some sort of “ coronavirus denial.
” So let me say it clearly : the coronavirus epidemic is real .
Okay ?
It exists — but saying it exists is a mere truism .
Iraq exists too , and it was once ruled by a particularly vicious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst atrocities were committed with extensive US support is mentioned far less often than it should be .
But it is still true that the American and British publics were tricked into endorsing a criminal invasion of that country on the strength of false claims .
And no assortment of after-the-fact apologetics can turn those lies into truths .
The same holds for COVID19 and its flagrantly deceitful handling by nearly everyone involved : politicians , reporters , pundits , public health “ experts.
” ( The US leadership of my own Orthodox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Yes , this is a highly contagious respiratory infection that can have serious effects on unusually vulnerable people .
But beyond that , just about everything we were told about COVID19 has turned out to be false .
We were told the virus would kill millions in the US alone , and that was false .
We were told lockdowns would make it go away , and that was false .
We were told we would only be confined until the rate of new cases leveled off , and that was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outbreak lasted no state government would tolerate any sort of public gathering for any reason , and that was false .
We were told that anyone who questioned the wisdom of the draconian restrictions foisted on us by our governments was a crypto-Nazi whose real goal was to kill off the weak — and that was false , not to mention slanderous .
Most unforgivably of all , we were told — and told , and told — that morality was entirely on the side of the democracy-destroyers .
That was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did the lockdowns violate state laws and make a mockery of the US Constitution ; not only did they deprive at least tens of millions of Americans of their basic liberties ; not only have they cost millions of people their jobs and thrust the country into its worst economic straits since the 1930s — on top of all that , they have sown untold misery around the world , as mushrooming numbers of poor people experience acute food shortages and millions of children face the interruption of vital medical supplies .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these facts , they still subvert reality by pretending that all this suffering is a result “ of the coronavirus.
” That ’ s simply another lie .
It would be as true to say that millions died in Nazi gas chambers as a result of the rise of Soviet communism .
( The putative threat of “ the Bolsheviks ” was a crucial theme in the anti-Semitism that underpinned the Nazi “ Final Solution.
” ) The truth , of course , is that the coronavirus didn ’ t cause these hardships @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Politicians chose to inflict them .
And unless we keep that knowledge alive , we will never be able to hold those responsible to account — nor prevent a repetition of such behavior in the future .
“ The beginning of wisdom , ” said Confucius , “ is to call things by their proper name.
” Katya Soldak and her nursery school classmates could not dismantle their country ’ s ruling Communist Party , but they could refuse to call a prison camp a health resort .
Surely we can refuse to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sole purpose is to swindle us .
At present our civil liberties are under serious assault , as is the very principle of democracy .
Can ’ t we call those ugly things the names they deserve ?
I know what I am proposing is more difficult than it sounds .
The enemies of honesty in politics have vast resources at their disposal , and they are not shy about abusing them .
Already the UN ’ s euphemistically-named Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression , David Kaye , has openly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acknowledging that social media “ platforms are serving as stand-ins for government authorities ” in an effort to curb unwanted political protest .
The dishonesty infects even small details : the Washington Post , like most US media outlets with paywalls , makes an exception for COVID19 , “ providing this important information about the coronavirus for free ” ; but the Post ’ s only story on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ’ s reversal of the governor ’ s mass-confinement order that contains the court ’ s explanation of its ruling is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article .
Evidently , stories that promote coronavirus hysteria constitute “ important information , ” while stories that lend support to dissenters do not — not even when they concern the reasoning of the highest court of a major state .
So yes , the COVID19 game is rigged — as games run by our rulers usually are .
But false depictions of reality have power only to the extent honest people allow themselves to be deceived .
Powerful politicians , and their tame pundits , are plainly betting that the public can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novel virus .
But the thing we should fear the most is irrational submissiveness , what Max Weber called “ the cowardly will to impotence.
” The moral of the Emperor ’ s new clothes is as relevant as ever : a single honest voice can unravel the most elaborately designed fakery .
People who demand the truth may be outnumbered .
They can not easily be overcome .

Michael Lesher
Growing up as I did in the Cold War, I still experience a special kind of shudder whenever I come across an anecdote like that of Katya Soldak, whose Soviet nursery school teacher once showed her class a photograph clipped from a Western newspaper, “depicting skinny [Russian] children in striped robes walking in a straight line.”
The capitalists who printed that picture wanted people to think Soviet children were “treated like prisoners,” the teacher declared angrily, “when in reality the kids were on their way to a swimming pool in their bathrobes.”
Which was a nice story (thought little Katya) — except that “I had never even seen a pool…. [T]hey existed in my mind as does an exotic animal or an unvisited city.”
A time capsule from a remote dystopia? Think again.
Staring at me right now from the latest quarterly newsletter of my alma mater, the University of Virginia, is an identical piece of bad-is-good fakery: a photograph of an involuntarily isolated graduate student named Kalea Obermeyer, accompanied by a caption blandly informing the reader that the woman seated alone on a trunk in the confines of a cramped dormitory room, clumsily swathed in a surgical mask, “shelters in place” in “her most secure housing during the pandemic.”
Welcome to Pravda, COVID19 style.
Being an honest sort, I have considered whether I ought to write to the editors of my old university’s magazine, accusing them of playing toady to democracy-destroying propagandists.
Should I remind these so-called educators of the young that the term “shelter in place” is properly applied to air raids, not to “pandemics,” and is a cruel hoax when pressed into service to describe what is actually an illegal quarantine?
That the young woman in the photograph is not “sheltered” but confined? That pandemics have occurred many times before, and that what’s new this time around is not the flu but the police state? That the governor’s order placing this student (and the rest of the citizenry) under virtual house arrest is probably unconstitutional?
And that while she’s stuck in her room — for no good reason I can discern — a whole host of local bus drivers, contract workers and university employees, including dining hall service workers who’ve labored there for decades, are all out of jobs?
I’d like to write all that, and more, to the purveyors of this bit of fake news. But I suspect I’d be wasting my time.
Mainstream media have recycled so many lies about COVID19 that by now every respectable editor with enough sense to come in out of the rain knows perfectly well what he or she is supposed to make the rest of us believe. And heaven help the dissenters!
Thus the once-respectable Atlantic, after months of promoting coronavirus hysteria, has published a kind of palinode that admits virtually every charge made by critics of lockdown policies — but still winds up gloomily insisting on the freedom-haters’ moral supremacy, facts or no facts.
The authors (Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer) grudgingly concede the growing evidence that going outdoors, instead of being cooped up for months at a time per lockdown fiats, actually reduces the risk of infection.
They also admit that those who enforce our confinement clearly don’t believe their own hype about “social distancing”: police are “crowding protesters together, blasting them with lung and eye irritants, and cramming them into paddy wagons and jails.”
They even point out that the police themselves rarely bother separating from one another. But ultimately none of that matters to the liberal Atlantic: it’s “obvious” — evidence be damned — that just “standing in a crowd for long periods raises the risk of increased transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” Who says so? Why, Anthony Fauci does.
And what about all the evidence that COVID19, never anywhere near as deadly as officials originally assured us it was, is on the way out?
Here, too, the Atlantic’s paladins admit the facts but refuse to draw the obvious conclusion. They note that “the outbreak has eased in the Northeast,” the hardest-hit section of the US; that new cases have leveled off or declined in the great majority of states; and that “hundreds of public-health professionals signed a letter this week declining to oppose the protests [against police brutality] ‘as risky for COVID19 transmission.'”
They even admit that in Georgia and Florida, two states that enforced lockdowns least and opened up earliest, the numbers of new infections have been “relatively flat.”
In the face of so much good news, what are right-thinking police-state enthusiasts to do?
“[T]he US is not going to beat the coronavirus,” Madrigal and Meyer groan in unison in the article’s key paragraph. “Collectively, we slowly seem to be giving up.” Now there’s a specimen of doublethink even Orwell missed: victory is surrender; lockdown is safety; hysteria is virtue.
So I’m not planning to write to the editors at my alma mater — at least, not about that propagandists’ playground known as COVID19. When rights-trampling, economy-busting general incarceration is the fashion in the Land of the Free, when lying is good sense and wrecking lives is “health care,” my old ideas of rational persuasion start to look like a parasol in a monsoon.
Instead, I am going to do a bit of ranting about words — the elements that lies are made of. I do this because I am sure the twisting of language to cloak political and economic skullduggery — which I take to be the worst evils of the coronavirus outbreak — will be glossed over in future mainstream accounts.
And I do it because the politicians who tore up the Bill of Rights and thrust the US and much of the world to the brink of another Great Depression are not likely to change their spots — and unless we insist on calling their actions by their right names, we will be defenseless against their future machinations. “Political language,” Orwell reminded us, “is designed to make lies sound truthful…and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Well, here are some choice examples of “pure wind” that made “lies sound truthful” over the past three months:
Shelter in place. The fraudulent use of this term stands in synecdoche to all the rest. “Shelter in place” originated in US Civil Defense regulations in the context of a possible nuclear attack; over the following decades, the term evolved to mean any emergency order to “take cover until the coast is clear on order of officials.” But it has never had the slightest connection with disease control.
An order that restricts the movement of someone who is not ill, but who is suspected of contact with someone who is, is called a “quarantine.” But there are laws that regulate slapping quarantine orders on people — to say nothing of an entire population — and the governors and mayors who were bent on lockdowns clearly didn’t intend to be constrained by anything as pedestrian as the law.
So they dug up this irrelevant phrase and plastered it over their arbitrary confinements of huge numbers of citizens — in violation of quarantine statutes, without a court order, and without even a semblance of public debate — hoping nobody would notice the compounding of official malfeasance with verbal fakery.
It’s worth taking a moment to imagine how this trick must have been hatched in the bowels of some executive mansion.
I can picture someone like New Jersey governor Phil Murphy (last seen claiming that the constraints of the Bill of Rights weren’t part of his job description) barking at his aides, “Damn it, there’s got to be something to justify locking up the whole state without going through those pesky quarantine procedures!”
And I can see a harried assistant, having rummaged for hours in the archives, jogging into an office with the term “shelter in place” and a rather sheepish explanation that, well, it’s not about infection control, and doesn’t really have anything to do with the present situation, but it does say “in place” and, um, “shelter” and, you know…and anyway, for God’s sake, there isn’t anything else!
And then it’s not hard to imagine the boss (who knows the media better than his subordinates do) triumphantly working the words “shelter in place” into his next public address, confident that few mainstream reporters will ask him where the phrase came from.
The imagined details are less important than the obvious fact that “shelter in place” could not have been sprung on us by way of an innocent error. The term had to be found, and the officials who found it would necessarily have known what it meant, and therefore that its use in the context of a viral epidemic would constitute a fraud.
Thus, anyone — and I mean anyone — who has employed the phrase “shelter in place” over the last three months has been repeating a lie. It’s as simple as that. Every public health care official who has used the phrase is a scoundrel; every “journalist” who has used it is a shameless propagandist; every politician who has used it is an imposter who, in my view, deserves to be impeached or voted out of office forthwith.
Social distancing. This one runs “shelter in place” a close second. The phrase was nonexistent, or at best obscure, until rather recently; when officials of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention used it in a 2007 advisory memorandum, they felt obliged to explain the term in a footnote:
Social distancing refers to methods for reducing frequency and closeness of contact between people in order to decrease the risk of transmission of disease. Examples of social distancing include cancellation of public events such as concerts, sports events, or movies, closure of office buildings, schools, and other public places, and restriction of access to public places such as shopping malls or other places where people gather.
Note that this definition does not include keeping people six feet apart, stifling them with surgical masks, or barring them from inviting family members to their apartments. Evidently, not even the germophobes at the CDC were prepared to contemplate so brutal a disruption of human life just thirteen years ago.
In fact, the same memorandum stressed the importance of “[r]espect for individual autonomy” and “each individual’s general right to noninterference,” adding that even in the event the government did close office buildings or restrict access to shopping malls, “[a] process should be in place for objections to be heard, restrictions appealed, and for new procedures to be considered prior to implementation” — something never even remotely attempted during the last three months.
In other words, “social distancing” really means whatever the changing whims of our governors would like it to mean, as they continue to exercise “emergency” powers in what is clearly not an emergency. Meanwhile, the use of the term gives a false patina of scientific legitimacy to unprecedented government intrusions into the most basic interactions of human life.
The timing of the successive redefinitions of the phrase is itself instructive. In my own state of New Jersey, masks were not required as a component of “social distancing” until mid-April, by which time it was clear that the number of new cases in the region was already leveling off. (Masks remain mandatory in public as of this writing, even though the infection rate has fallen almost to pre-outbreak levels.)
Allow that point to sink in for a moment: “social distancing” took on a more extreme and divisive definition at just the moment that, by any rational calculation, restrictions should have been reduced, if not removed altogether! And the most recent fiats from the governor suggest that nothing like ordinary companionship is going to be permitted any time soon — regardless of the facts.
This implies that, at bottom, “social distancing” is not intended to serve any genuine medical purpose. It’s much better understood as an instrument of political repression — a way of keeping people apart and preventing any sort of public organizing.
I don’t consider it an accident that the “phased reopening plan” being peddled by nearly all media “experts,” and routinely attributed to Johns Hopkins University, was in fact produced under the leadership of Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute — the right-wing think tank that served as a major cheerleader for the Iraq invasion of 2003 and whose recent initiatives include efforts to sharply reduce federal spending on health care.
(Dr. Gottlieb, who until recently was Trump’s Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, now sits on the boards of pharma heavyweights Pfizer, Illumina and Tempus — so it’s not hard to see where his interests lie.)
That AEI is in no hurry to help small businesses reopen or to keep working people from losing their jobs will come as no surprise. What needs emphasis is that if such an outfit couldn’t hide its agenda behind the medical-sounding phrase “social distancing,” it would stand little chance of slipping its initiatives past the general public and into practice. But while we’re all creeping around with our faces wrapped like mummies, turned away from each other whenever possible, staying at least six feet apart, and speaking only when spoken to, how are we supposed to mount effective political opposition as the high rollers play their favorite games?
Emergency. Though it’s not often reported this way, the United States largely suspended democratic government back in March, when some 40 state executives declared “health emergencies,” granting themselves quasi-dictatorial powers to act without legislative approval or legal process.
They did this by invoking each state’s version of the Emergency Health Powers Act, a controversial piece of legislation crafted in the nervous aftermath of the September 2001 attacks and supposedly designed for a coordinated response to a massive act of bioterrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union was not alone back then in condemning the bill as “replete with civil liberties problems” and “a throwback to a time before the legal system recognized basic protections for fairness.”
Nevertheless, liberal media didn’t utter a peep when governors across the nation effectively scuppered democracy in the face of what, however threatening, didn’t even arguably resemble a catastrophic bioterror attack.
If that strikes you as a flagrant abuse of the word “emergency” for questionable political purposes — and it should — you ain’t seen nothing yet.
On June 4, New Jersey’s Governor Murphy issued his third consecutive extension of what was supposed to be a thirty-day “state of emergency” he had originally declared — unilaterally — on March 9.
What was the “emergency” this time around? In the governor’s own words: “there has now been a decrease in the rate of reported new cases of COVID19 in New Jersey, in the total number of individuals being admitted to hospitals for COVID19, and in the rate of reproduction for COVID19 infections in New Jersey.”
Got that? New cases, hospitalizations, even the “rate of reproduction” for the virus are all on the wane throughout Murphy’s jurisdiction. (And have been for months.) Yet in today’s Newspeak, that’s an “emergency” — enough to justify another month of democracy-free rule by executive fiat.
And I’m the Maharaja of Mysore…
I won’t even bother writing about that most buffoonish of phrases, “flattening the curve.” If that ever meant anything (which I doubt), it means literally nothing, or more accurately less than nothing, when applied (as it is now) to an outbreak that is demonstrably almost over.
I’ll only note that if the lockdown enthusiasts had been able to specify an actual goal, in intelligible language, they would have done so from the start. They couldn’t — because their true objectives were political, not medical — so they offered us a magical-thinking cartoon image instead. They must be hoping we still haven’t noticed.
As always, fraudulent language goes hand in hand with fraudulent political posturing, of which the Atlantic article I’ve already mentioned — oozing crocodile tears over the excesses of the cops while oblivious to the Constitution-defying antics of Governors Cuomo, Murphy, Whitmer et al. — is a rather rank example.
In a similar vein, Ross Douthat’s recent op-ed in the New York Times is an interesting confession of liberal dishonesty in the service of a slightly different form of liberal dishonesty.
Douthat correctly complains about members of the “public health establishment” who condemned anti-lockdown protesters just weeks ago as a dangerous death cult, but are now bowing and scraping before the parallel behavior of Black Lives Matter, “tying themselves in ideological knots” in the process.
Douthat’s indictment of highbrow hypocrisy on this score is so accurate that it is worth quoting at length:
[T]he original theory behind a stern public health response — that the danger to life and health justified suspending even the most righteous pursuits, including not just normal economic life but the practices and institutions that protect children, comfort the dying, serve the poor — has been abandoned or subverted by every faction in our national debate…. There is no First Amendment warrant to break up Hasidic funerals while blessing Black Lives Matter protests, and there is no moral warrant to claim that only anti-racism, however pressing its goals, deserves a sweeping exception from rules that have forbidden so many morally important activities for the last few months.
All this is perfectly true. But with a pinch more honesty, Douthat might have concluded that “the original theory” was a sham to begin with. If the Right Thinkers had been telling the truth when they herded us all into captivity back in March, they’d still be yelling “obey or die!” at every crowd that defies lockdown orders.
Douthat interprets their inconsistency as a surrender to the virus; he can’t admit that the Right Thinkers’ real battle was never against COVID19. It was against us.
The same conclusion stares us in the face from the Right Thinkers’ eulogizing of protests against police brutality — or, rather, from what their encomiums to those protests consistently omit.
The demonstrations spearheaded by Black Lives Matter focus on police-state tactics employed by uniformed enforcers of the will of the State; the much-maligned anti-lockdown protesters have been objecting to police-state tactics employed by political officials of the State itself.
The connection between the two sets of protests should be obvious. But have you heard any of the high-profile liberals who are paying homage to Black Lives Matter breathe a single word to the effect that these different groups of protesters ought to combine their efforts, or at least to coordinate their campaigns in order to increase their political effectiveness?
Of course not — and in my view, that’s the real reason behind the hypocritical nonsense being spouted in support of BLM by establishmentarians who merely sneered when the protesters were white working people.
As long as Black Lives Matter continues to observe the double limitation that has so far marked its demonstrations — protesting only along racial lines, and only against the police — the ruling class’s left-wing will go on blessing it, because it won’t constitute too large a threat to established order.
If the demonstrations start to talk about the rights of all people to be free of arbitrary confinement as well as violence, of all ordinary Americans to be able to work for a living as well as staying out of prison, the evils of all officials who stand in their way…well, that will be a horse of a different color.
Remember the snapshot of congressional Democrats kneeling in pious rows with those silly kente stoles around their necks?
That was styled as a “protest,” but don’t kid yourselves: if Pelosi & Co. were genuinely horrified about police racism, they would have done something about it years ago. I think those Democratic heavyweights knelt to pray that BLM doesn’t realize it’s confronting a broader issue than racist police violence.
As I write this, the US is teetering simultaneously on the edge of its worst financial collapse since the 1930s and on the brink of a descent into quasi-dictatorial rule. Sectarian protests, however justified, won’t halt that descent. General political resistance just might. And liberal pundits are scared to death that protesters, black and white, progressive and conservative, might figure out that they’re really fighting the same enemy.
Of course, nothing I can write is going to penetrate the minds of people who have drunk the lockdown Kool-Aid and will hear, in my dissection of the fraudulent language used by “public servants” to foment poverty and to shred the Bill of Rights, only some sort of “coronavirus denial.”
So let me say it clearly: the coronavirus epidemic is real. Okay? It exists — but saying it exists is a mere truism. Iraq exists too, and it was once ruled by a particularly vicious dictator — though the fact that his worst atrocities were committed with extensive US support is mentioned far less often than it should be.
But it is still true that the American and British publics were tricked into endorsing a criminal invasion of that country on the strength of false claims. And no assortment of after-the-fact apologetics can turn those lies into truths.
The same holds for COVID19 and its flagrantly deceitful handling by nearly everyone involved: politicians, reporters, pundits, public health “experts.” (The US leadership of my own Orthodox Jewish community has been just as bad.) Yes, this is a highly contagious respiratory infection that can have serious effects on unusually vulnerable people. But beyond that, just about everything we were told about COVID19 has turned out to be false.
We were told the virus would kill millions in the US alone, and that was false.
We were told lockdowns would make it go away, and that was false.
We were told we would only be confined until the rate of new cases leveled off, and that was false.
We were told that while the outbreak lasted no state government would tolerate any sort of public gathering for any reason, and that was false.
We were told that anyone who questioned the wisdom of the draconian restrictions foisted on us by our governments was a crypto-Nazi whose real goal was to kill off the weak — and that was false, not to mention slanderous.
Most unforgivably of all, we were told — and told, and told — that morality was entirely on the side of the democracy-destroyers. That was a lie of breathtaking proportions.
Not only did the lockdowns violate state laws and make a mockery of the US Constitution; not only did they deprive at least tens of millions of Americans of their basic liberties; not only have they cost millions of people their jobs and thrust the country into its worst economic straits since the 1930s — on top of all that, they have sown untold misery around the world, as mushrooming numbers of poor people experience acute food shortages and millions of children face the interruption of vital medical supplies.
And even as mainstream media begin to admit these facts, they still subvert reality by pretending that all this suffering is a result “of the coronavirus.”
That’s simply another lie. It would be as true to say that millions died in Nazi gas chambers as a result of the rise of Soviet communism. (The putative threat of “the Bolsheviks” was a crucial theme in the anti-Semitism that underpinned the Nazi “Final Solution.”)
The truth, of course, is that the coronavirus didn’t cause these hardships, at least not by itself. Politicians chose to inflict them. And unless we keep that knowledge alive, we will never be able to hold those responsible to account — nor prevent a repetition of such behavior in the future.
“The beginning of wisdom,” said Confucius, “is to call things by their proper name.”
Katya Soldak and her nursery school classmates could not dismantle their country’s ruling Communist Party, but they could refuse to call a prison camp a health resort. Surely we can refuse to cooperate in the use of language whose sole purpose is to swindle us. At present our civil liberties are under serious assault, as is the very principle of democracy. Can’t we call those ugly things the names they deserve?
I know what I am proposing is more difficult than it sounds. The enemies of honesty in politics have vast resources at their disposal, and they are not shy about abusing them. Already the UN’s euphemistically-named Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, has openly applauded censorship of lockdown critics, even acknowledging that social media “platforms are serving as stand-ins for government authorities” in an effort to curb unwanted political protest.
The dishonesty infects even small details: the Washington Post, like most US media outlets with paywalls, makes an exception for COVID19, “providing this important information about the coronavirus for free”; but the Post’s only story on the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s reversal of the governor’s mass-confinement order that contains the court’s explanation of its ruling is behind the same paywall as every ordinary article.
Evidently, stories that promote coronavirus hysteria constitute “important information,” while stories that lend support to dissenters do not — not even when they concern the reasoning of the highest court of a major state.
So yes, the COVID19 game is rigged — as games run by our rulers usually are. But false depictions of reality have power only to the extent honest people allow themselves to be deceived.
Powerful politicians, and their tame pundits, are plainly betting that the public can be manipulated by the fear of a novel virus. But the thing we should fear the most is irrational submissiveness, what Max Weber called “the cowardly will to impotence.”
The moral of the Emperor’s new clothes is as relevant as ever: a single honest voice can unravel the most elaborately designed fakery. People who demand the truth may be outnumbered. They cannot easily be overcome.


offguardian--2020-06-19--From Toxic Food to Agrarian Disaster: Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap

During the early days of the coronavirus lockdowns , in some quarters there was a certain degree of optimism around .
Although millions of people were suffering , the hope was that the Covid-19 crisis would shine light on societal and economic systems across the world , exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism .
There was a belief that people working together with their respective governments could start building a fairer capitalism and more sustainable economies .
However , we see exactly the opposite taking place .
In the UK , we now witness a post-Brexit trade deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US that could see a lowering of food and environment standards , despite the Conservative government pledge that it would not compromise on standards in these areas .
The government now proposes that chlorine-washed chicken , beef treated with growth hormones , pork from ractopamine-injected animals and many other toxic foods produced in the US will be allowed into the UK .
Sanctioning the entry of ( chemical-resistant ) GM crops and GM food are also likely to be part of any deal .
It would effectively mean sacrificing UK farmers ’ livelihoods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s health to suit the bottom line of US agribusiness corporations .
The UK isn ’ t the only country that US agribusiness has set its sights on .
World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘ helped ’ to get back on their feet after the various coronavirus lockdowns .
This ‘ help ’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms are implemented and become further embedded .
Ranil Salgado , mission chief for India at the IMF , says that when the economic shock passes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ returns to its path of undertaking such long-term reforms .
But haven ’ t ordinary Indians already had enough of these ‘ structural adjustments ’ and their impacts ?
Rural affairs commentator P Sainath has highlighted the desperate plight of migrant workers in India .
He notes that millions of rural livelihoods have been deliberately snuffed out over a period of many years , sparking an agrarian crisis .
As a result of lockdown , tens of millions went back to their villages but there is no work there because rural jobs have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ migration in the first place .
The US has been pushing to bring Indian agriculture under corporate control for a long time .
Further ‘ reforms ’ would serve to accelerate this process .
US agribusiness wants to force GMO food crops into the country , further displace peasant farmers thereby driving even more people to cities and ensure corporate consolidation and commercialisation of the sector based on industrial-scale monocrop farms incorporated into global supply chains dominated by transnational agribusiness and retail giants .
Like the UK , India is also involved in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this deal goes through and India capitulates to US demands , it could devastate the dairy , poultry , soybean , maize and other sectors and severely deepen the crisis in the countryside .
India could also see GMO food flooding the country and the further corporate consolidation of the seed sector .
The article ‘ Perils of the US-India free trade agreement for Indian farmers ’ published on the grain.org website highlights what could be in store .
In the wake of India deciding to not participate in the Regional Comprehensive Economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have had devastating consequences for farmers and the food system .
the article concludes : Any such trade deal will be for the benefit of powerful agribusiness giants and will reinforce the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of these corporations .
It would also send millions more to the cities in search of jobs that are just not there .
This will be the result of the ‘ reforms ’ demanded by the World Bank and IMF .
If lockdown has shown anything , it is that many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities have failed to establish a firm foothold .
They are marginalised and employed in the worst jobs working long hours for minimal wages .
The fragility of their position is demonstrated by the reverse migrations we have witnessed and the callous treatment they are used to was demonstrated by the government ’ s attitude to their plight under lockdown .
The various lockdowns around the globe have also exposed the fragility of the global food system , dominated by long-line supply chains and global conglomerates – which effectively suck food and wealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nations .
What we have seen underscores the need for a radical transformation of the prevailing globalised food regime based on a system of agroecology which reduces dependency on external proprietary inputs , distant volatile commodity markets and patented technologies .
It would help to shorten chains , increase crop diversity , improve diets , regenerate soils , support food sovereignty , re-localise production and consumption and boost local economies , which in India would stem the flow of people moving to the cities and would even create livelihoods for those who have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the type of system that Prof Michel Pimbert and Colin Anderson of Coventry University in the UK advocate .
In contrast to corporate-driven trade deals , centrally controlled hi-tech innovations , people-free farming , drones replacing bees , genetically engineered crops and a future of synthetic lab-based food , the two academics argue : Instead of trade deals hammered out behind closed doors above the heads of ordinary people by elite interests , the authors state that deliberative , inclusive processes like citizens ’ juries , peoples ’ assemblies and community-led participatory actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ types of processes that should guide all economic sectors , not just agriculture .
Processes underpinned by a vision for a better , more just world that can only be delivered by challenging capitalism ’ s dispossessive strategies which fuel India ’ s agrarian crisis and the types of human and environmental degradation and exploitation we see across the globe .

Colin Todhunter
During the early days of the coronavirus lockdowns, in some quarters there was a certain degree of optimism around. Although millions of people were suffering, the hope was that the Covid-19 crisis would shine light on societal and economic systems across the world, exposing some of the deep-rooted flaws of capitalism.
There was a belief that people working together with their respective governments could start building a fairer capitalism and more sustainable economies.
However, we see exactly the opposite taking place. In the UK, we now witness a post-Brexit trade deal being negotiated behind closed doors with the US that could see a lowering of food and environment standards, despite the Conservative government pledge that it would not compromise on standards in these areas.
The government now proposes that chlorine-washed chicken, beef treated with growth hormones, pork from ractopamine-injected animals and many other toxic foods produced in the US will be allowed into the UK.
Sanctioning the entry of (chemical-resistant) GM crops and GM food are also likely to be part of any deal.
It would effectively mean sacrificing UK farmers’ livelihoods, the environment and the nation’s health to suit the bottom line of US agribusiness corporations.
The UK isn’t the only country that US agribusiness has set its sights on. World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various coronavirus lockdowns.
This ‘help’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms are implemented and become further embedded. Ranil Salgado, mission chief for India at the IMF, says that when the economic shock passes, it’s important that India returns to its path of undertaking such long-term reforms.
But haven’t ordinary Indians already had enough of these ‘structural adjustments’ and their impacts? Rural affairs commentator P Sainath has highlighted the desperate plight of migrant workers in India. He notes that millions of rural livelihoods have been deliberately snuffed out over a period of many years, sparking an agrarian crisis.
As a result of lockdown, tens of millions went back to their villages but there is no work there because rural jobs have been extinguished – the reason for urban migration in the first place.
The US has been pushing to bring Indian agriculture under corporate control for a long time. Further ‘reforms’ would serve to accelerate this process. US agribusiness wants to force GMO food crops into the country, further displace peasant farmers thereby driving even more people to cities and ensure corporate consolidation and commercialisation of the sector based on industrial-scale monocrop farms incorporated into global supply chains dominated by transnational agribusiness and retail giants.
Like the UK, India is also involved in trade talks with the US. If this deal goes through and India capitulates to US demands, it could devastate the dairy, poultry, soybean, maize and other sectors and severely deepen the crisis in the countryside.
India could also see GMO food flooding the country and the further corporate consolidation of the seed sector. The article ‘Perils of the US-India free trade agreement for Indian farmers’ published on the grain.org website highlights what could be in store.
In the wake of India deciding to not participate in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, another trade deal that would have had devastating consequences for farmers and the food system. the article concludes:
It would be inconsistent, and a slap in the face, to now start US-India trade talks that will pose much bigger challenges for India’s rural communities and agriculture sector. Such a deal would greatly compromise India’s huge diversity of local seeds and plants which are conserved and reused by millions of Indian farmers year after year. It will also destroy India’s hope for food sovereignty.”
Any such trade deal will be for the benefit of powerful agribusiness giants and will reinforce the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of these corporations. It would also send millions more to the cities in search of jobs that are just not there. This will be the result of the ‘reforms’ demanded by the World Bank and IMF.
If lockdown has shown anything, it is that many of those who sought better lives in the cities have failed to establish a firm foothold. They are marginalised and employed in the worst jobs working long hours for minimal wages. The fragility of their position is demonstrated by the reverse migrations we have witnessed and the callous treatment they are used to was demonstrated by the government’s attitude to their plight under lockdown.
The various lockdowns around the globe have also exposed the fragility of the global food system, dominated by long-line supply chains and global conglomerates – which effectively suck food and wealth from the Global South to the richer nations.
What we have seen underscores the need for a radical transformation of the prevailing globalised food regime based on a system of agroecology which reduces dependency on external proprietary inputs, distant volatile commodity markets and patented technologies.
It would help to shorten chains, increase crop diversity, improve diets, regenerate soils, support food sovereignty, re-localise production and consumption and boost local economies, which in India would stem the flow of people moving to the cities and would even create livelihoods for those who have returned to the countryside.
It is the type of system that Prof Michel Pimbert and Colin Anderson of Coventry University in the UK advocate.
In contrast to corporate-driven trade deals, centrally controlled hi-tech innovations, people-free farming, drones replacing bees, genetically engineered crops and a future of synthetic lab-based food, the two academics argue:
Agroecological innovations… are being driven largely from the bottom up by civil society, social movements and allied researchers. In this context, priorities for innovations are ones that increase citizen control for food sovereignty and decentralise power.”
Instead of trade deals hammered out behind closed doors above the heads of ordinary people by elite interests, the authors state that deliberative, inclusive processes like citizens’ juries, peoples’ assemblies and community-led participatory actions are urgently needed.
It is these types of processes that should guide all economic sectors, not just agriculture. Processes underpinned by a vision for a better, more just world that can only be delivered by challenging capitalism’s dispossessive strategies which fuel India’s agrarian crisis and the types of human and environmental degradation and exploitation we see across the globe.


offguardian--2020-06-19--5 Facts BBC’s “The Salisbury Poisonings” Forgot to Mention

The BBC ’ s new drama “ The Salisbury Poisonings ” concluded over the weekend .
A three-part story “ based on actual events ” , claiming to tell the story of the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018 .
It ’ s exactly what you ’ d expect .
Schlocky tat .
Poorly researched , badly written and woefully factually inaccurate .
The Guardian gave it four stars .
Because of course they did .
Because when you ’ re dealing with government-backed narrative everything that reinforces it must be described as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the hallmarks of propaganda , that no story which supports the propaganda – however ridiculous – can ever be questioned , criticised or disputed .
There ’ s room for an in-depth review , and indeed Craig Murray has done a fine job deconstructing the series .
But here , I just want to focus on everything they don ’ t tell you .
Here are five key facts the BBC simply forgot to mention .
Alison McCourt and her family were walking in Salisbury town centre when they came upon the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the early afternoon .
They were , supposedly , the first people to discover the pair , and Alison and her family stopped to provide aid .
Her daughter Abigail was given a special award .
There ’ s no reason for the BBC to omit this information .
Except that Alison ’ s full name is Colonel Alison McCourt OBE .
And she ’ s the Chief Nursing Officer of the British Army .
Maybe the BBC thought that the Chief Nurse of the British Army strolling past during the ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military-grade ” nerve agent was just too unlikely to be believed .
Which is fair .
Craig Murray , with his usual dry humour , likens it having James Dyson knock on your door asking for directions just as your vacuum cleaner breaks down .
But it ’ s actually quite a lot less likely even than that .
After all , Dyson vacuum cleaners do exist , and lots of people do own them , but – until March 2018 – “ novichok ” was entirely hypothetical .
Novichok didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all , until it popped up just yards away from one of the few people trained to deal with it .
Weird the BBC wouldn ’ t mention it .
But it gets weirder .
Toxic Dagger was a military training exercise involving the Defence Science Technology Laboratory ( DSTL ) and 40 Marine Commando Brigade .
It trains special forces on how to deal with chemical , biological or neurological weapons .
The DSTL headquarters is in Salisbury .
That Russia should attempt to use a neurological agent to assassinate a former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ middle of a neurological weapons training exercise is unlikely .
That it should also happen in the same city where the exercise is taking place apparently proved too much for the BBC to handle .
Best to just ignore it .
Pablo Miller is a former soldier in the Royal Tank Regiment , a diplomat with an OBE , and possibly current MI6 agent .
He lives in Salisbury and was Sergei Skripal ’ s handler .
Miller ’ s name was first mentioned in a report for the Telegraph in the days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from which Miller ’ s name has now been totally removed .
It was later revealed by a Channel 4 reporter on twitter , that the government had issued a D-notice on “ Sergei Skripal ’ s MI6 handler ” : [ For our international readers , a “ D-notice ” , is an act by which the government directs the media to not mention certain facts which they claim might somehow endanger national security .
It is not censorship , they ’ re quite clear about that . ]
Sergei Skripal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighbour , and the subject of government gag , orders didn ’ t make it into the BBC ’ s drama either .
Which is weird , because Mark Urban is a BBC employee .
He is their diplomatic editor , and personally fronted much of the coverage of the Skripal case when it was breaking news .
As Craig Murray points out , despite the series ’ regular use of real news footage , and despite it being a BBC production , Mark Urban is never seen once .
He ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ literally writing the book on the case .
What ’ s doubly strange about this , of course , is that Mark Urban was in the same Royal Tank Regiment as Pablo Miller .
In fact , they joined on the same day , from the same officer training course .
He revealed , months after the event , he had regularly been interviewing Sergei Skripal in the months and weeks before his alleged poisoning .
He claimed it was “ for a book ” .
The book in question was released in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Skripal Files : The Life and Near Death of a Russian Spy ” .
( The Guardian gave that a good review too ) .
What he would have called it , and indeed what it would have been about , had the poisoning not happened we ’ ll just have to guess .
It would likely have been very dull , and not sold all that well .
5 .
Sergei Skripal ( likely ) still worked for MI6 All the talk about Sergei Skripal has been he was a quiet retiree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sleepy Salisbury .
Of course , that narrative is somewhat challenged by the facts his MI6 handler is his next-door neighbour , and he ’ s just a handful of miles from the UK ’ s military research laboratories .
Mark Urban ’ s book gives us even more interesting details – such as the fact Skripal ’ s house was purchased for him by MI6 , and he had a special phone he used to contact his “ team ” at UK intelligence .
All of this paints a picture of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least kept on the back burner , by British Intelligence .
The Blogmire has an excellent article breaking all this down , including asking the most pertinent of questions : How conceivable is it that the house purchase by MI6 , for one of their double agents , did not have some kind of security measures in place , including CCTV cameras ?
Shouldn ’ t there be CCTV footage of the alleged assassins walking right up to the door and spraying/spreading/smearing the nerve agent on the door handle ?
Of course , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question .
They don ’ t mention any of this at all , despite it all being in a book written by their own diplomatic editor .
Clearly , the makers of the program were given a brief : Take all these harsh angular facts , and force them together into some kind of coherence .
Obfuscate where you can , invent when you must .
Their job is to spread a digestible story .
As such , they leave out everything that could implicate the British state , or anything which challenges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rational level .
They don ’ t explain how the most toxic substance in the world only affected 5 people in four months , despite contaminating a hotel room , a restaurant , a pub and at least two trains .
They don ’ t explain why , even after one of their officers was taken ill , Salisbury police were guarding the Skripal ’ s house without any protective equipment .
They don ’ t mention the ties to Christopher Steele and Orbis Security , or the original reports of fentanyl overdose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the bottle Charlie Rowley claims to have found was wrapped in cellophane ( and therefore never opened ) .
Or any of the other myriad details which render the “ official version ” obvious , absolute nonsense .
We ’ ll never know exactly who at the BBC decided to omit all these details .
But we can make a pretty good guess as to why .

Kit Knightly
The BBC’s new drama “The Salisbury Poisonings” concluded over the weekend. A three-part story “based on actual events”, claiming to tell the story of the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018.
It’s exactly what you’d expect. Schlocky tat. Poorly researched, badly written and woefully factually inaccurate.
The Guardian gave it four stars. Because of course they did. Because when you’re dealing with government-backed narrative everything that reinforces it must be described as having value. It’s one of the hallmarks of propaganda, that no story which supports the propaganda – however ridiculous – can ever be questioned, criticised or disputed.
There’s room for an in-depth review, and indeed Craig Murray has done a fine job deconstructing the series. But here, I just want to focus on everything they don’t tell you.
Here are five key facts the BBC simply forgot to mention.
1. Alison McCourt
Alison McCourt and her family were walking in Salisbury town centre when they came upon the Skripals convulsing quietly on a park bench in the early afternoon. They were, supposedly, the first people to discover the pair, and Alison and her family stopped to provide aid. Her daughter Abigail was given a special award.
There’s no reason for the BBC to omit this information.
Except that Alison’s full name is Colonel Alison McCourt OBE. And she’s the Chief Nursing Officer of the British Army.
Maybe the BBC thought that the Chief Nurse of the British Army strolling past during the (alleged) first-ever use of a “military-grade” nerve agent was just too unlikely to be believed. Which is fair.
Craig Murray, with his usual dry humour, likens it having James Dyson knock on your door asking for directions just as your vacuum cleaner breaks down. But it’s actually quite a lot less likely even than that. After all, Dyson vacuum cleaners do exist, and lots of people do own them, but – until March 2018 – “novichok” was entirely hypothetical.
Novichok didn’t officially exist in the real world at all, until it popped up just yards away from one of the few people trained to deal with it.
Weird the BBC wouldn’t mention it. But it gets weirder.
2. Toxic Dagger
Toxic Dagger was a military training exercise involving the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and 40 Marine Commando Brigade. It trains special forces on how to deal with chemical, biological or neurological weapons.
Toxic Dagger ran from February 20th – March 12th 2018.
Sergei Skripal was “poisoned” on March 4th 2018.
The DSTL headquarters is in Salisbury.
That Russia should attempt to use a neurological agent to assassinate a former double agent right smack dab in the middle of a neurological weapons training exercise is unlikely. That it should also happen in the same city where the exercise is taking place apparently proved too much for the BBC to handle.
Best to just ignore it.
3. Pablo Miller
Pablo Miller is a former soldier in the Royal Tank Regiment, a diplomat with an OBE, and possibly current MI6 agent. He lives in Salisbury and was Sergei Skripal’s handler.
Miller’s name was first mentioned in a report for the Telegraph in the days following the Skripal’s alleged poisoning, from which Miller’s name has now been totally removed.
It was later revealed by a Channel 4 reporter on twitter, that the government had issued a D-notice on “Sergei Skripal’s MI6 handler”:
About the only decisive public move by the authorities has been to censor MSM via a D Notice last week from fully identifying Mr Skripal’s MI6 handler living nearby… — alex thomson (@alextomo) March 12, 2018
[For our international readers, a “D-notice”, is an act by which the government directs the media to not mention certain facts which they claim might somehow endanger national security. It is not censorship, they’re quite clear about that.]
Sergei Skripal’s MI6 handler being his next-door neighbour, and the subject of government gag, orders didn’t make it into the BBC’s drama either.
And neither did…
4. Mark Urban
Which is weird, because Mark Urban is a BBC employee. He is their diplomatic editor, and personally fronted much of the coverage of the Skripal case when it was breaking news. As Craig Murray points out, despite the series’ regular use of real news footage, and despite it being a BBC production, Mark Urban is never seen once.
He’s not even listed as a consultant despite literally writing the book on the case.
What’s doubly strange about this, of course, is that Mark Urban was in the same Royal Tank Regiment as Pablo Miller. In fact, they joined on the same day, from the same officer training course.
He revealed, months after the event, he had regularly been interviewing Sergei Skripal in the months and weeks before his alleged poisoning. He claimed it was “for a book”.
The book in question was released in October 2018 under the title “The Skripal Files: The Life and Near Death of a Russian Spy”. (The Guardian gave that a good review too).
What he would have called it, and indeed what it would have been about, had the poisoning not happened we’ll just have to guess. It would likely have been very dull, and not sold all that well.
5. Sergei Skripal (likely) still worked for MI6
All the talk about Sergei Skripal has been he was a quiet retiree, living out his later years in sleepy Salisbury. Of course, that narrative is somewhat challenged by the facts his MI6 handler is his next-door neighbour, and he’s just a handful of miles from the UK’s military research laboratories.
Mark Urban’s book gives us even more interesting details – such as the fact Skripal’s house was purchased for him by MI6, and he had a special phone he used to contact his “team” at UK intelligence.
All of this paints a picture of a man still very much employed, or least kept on the back burner, by British Intelligence.
The Blogmire has an excellent article breaking all this down, including asking the most pertinent of questions:
How conceivable is it that the house purchase by MI6, for one of their double agents, did not have some kind of security measures in place, including CCTV cameras?
Shouldn’t there be CCTV footage of the alleged assassins walking right up to the door and spraying/spreading/smearing the nerve agent on the door handle?
Of course, the BBC don’t ask this question. They don’t mention any of this at all, despite it all being in a book written by their own diplomatic editor.
Clearly, the makers of the program were given a brief: Take all these harsh angular facts, and force them together into some kind of coherence. Obfuscate where you can, invent when you must.
Their job is to spread a digestible story.
As such, they leave out everything that could implicate the British state, or anything which challenges the story on even the most basic rational level.
They don’t explain how the most toxic substance in the world only affected 5 people in four months, despite contaminating a hotel room, a restaurant, a pub and at least two trains. They don’t explain why, even after one of their officers was taken ill, Salisbury police were guarding the Skripal’s house without any protective equipment.
They don’t mention the ties to Christopher Steele and Orbis Security, or the original reports of fentanyl overdose being redacted after the fact, or that the bottle Charlie Rowley claims to have found was wrapped in cellophane (and therefore never opened). Or any of the other myriad details which render the “official version” obvious, absolute nonsense.
We’ll never know exactly who at the BBC decided to omit all these details. But we can make a pretty good guess as to why.