Author Archives: marcia

And Now, What about Your Money?

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G. Edward Griffin on the Federal Reserve – and What Happens Next to Money

July 10, 2020 Mountain Top Revival 4

G. Edward Griffin re-tells the story of how and why the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 at a secret meeting on Jekyll Island. He explains how money is created and how the present system is destroying the purchasing power of money through a process called inflation. He explains why there is no hope of stopping this process until a significant segment of the population (perhaps 15%) understands the scam and pushes back politically. In the meantime, people will accept any insult to their liberties in order to survive, which is the reason why one crisis after another is scientifically engineered. Confusion and fear is the secret weapon of tyrants. -GEG

from:    https://needtoknow.news/2020/07/g-edward-griffin-on-the-federal-reserve-and-what-happens-next-to-money/

There is a Reason We Need Oxygen…

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China: Two 14-Year Old Boys Died While Wearing Masks in Gym Class

July 14, 2020 NY Post 0

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Two Chinese students collapsed and died within a week of one another while wearing face masks during gym class. While there was no autopsy, one of the boy’s father said he believes the mask his son was required to wear played a role in his death. Though it’s not known whether the masks were responsible, several schools in Tianjin and Shanghai have canceled physical education exams. -GEG

Two Chinese boys dropped dead within a week of one another while wearing face masks during gym class, according to a report.

The students, who were both 14, were each running laps for a physical examination test when they suddenly collapsed on the track, Australian outlet 7News reported.

One of the teens was only minutes into his gym class when he fell backward April 24 at Dancheng Caiyuan Middle School in Henan province, according to the outlet.

“He was wearing a mask while lapping the running track, then he suddenly fell backwards and hit his head on the ground,” his father, who was only identified as Li, told the outlet.

His dad said teachers and students tried to help him, to no avail.

The death certificate listed the cause as sudden cardiac arrest, but no autopsy was performed, the outlet said.

The boy’s father said he believes that the mask his son was required to wear to school played a role in his death.

“I suspect it was because he was wearing a mask,” he said, adding that “it couldn’t have been comfortable wearing a mask while running.”

Read full article here…

from:   https://needtoknow.news/2020/07/china-two-14-year-old-boys-died-while-wearing-masks-in-gym-class/

Use Cash – Defy the System

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THE BIS AND DIGITAL “CURRENCY”
Babylon’s Banksters

THE BIS AND DIGITAL “CURRENCY”

July 13, 2020 By Joseph P. Farrell

G.B. spotted this article, and offered a few tangential but important comments. Essentially, it’s an “update” to the Bank of International Settlements’ plans to roll out digital currency, ultimately to replace cash:

BIS Innovation Hub: The Gradual March To Central Bank Digital Currency Continues To Advance

Essentially, there are two important points to note. Firstly, various central banks are already engaged in a limited roll-out of digital currencies:

The initial phase of the project saw Hub’s opened up in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore. An operational agreement was signed with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in September 2019, followed by an agreement with the Swiss National Bank in October. The Hub in Singapore began operations in November.

With phase one completed, the BIS have now moved into the second phase which they warned was going to happen when the Hub first launched. Accompanying the release of this year’s Annual Economic Report, the institution announced that the Hub is expanding to new locations in both Europe and North America.

Over the next two years, the Bank of England will be opening a centre, along with the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank and four Nordic central banks (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland). A ‘strategic partnership‘ will also be formed with the Federal Reserve System.

East and West may appear divided in the geopolitical sphere, but in the world of central banking they are very much united behind the common goal of the Hub.

As the BIS outlined in a press release, the expansion will ‘allow Innovation Hub to spur central bank work across multiple fintech pillars‘. General Manager Agustin Carstens confirmed that the ‘new centres will expand our reach significantly and help create a global force for fintech innovation‘.

The second, and much more important point to note, is that the goal is both to digitize liquid assets and cash and essentially free this digitized currency from any connection to tangible and real assets, and to incorporate the “unbanked” or “underbanked” population of the world, some billion and a half people, into this system:

What central banks (in line with state legislatures) are not going to do is simply outlaw cash when CBDC’s become available. I believe what they want is for banknotes to dwindle to a level where they can make the argument that the servicing costs of maintaining the cash infrastructure outweigh the amount of cash still in circulation and being used for payment.

An Access to Cash report published in the UK last year warned that because of bank branch closures and the decline of ATM’s, Britain’s cash network was at real risk of collapsing. Introduce a CBDC into the equation and you can see how cash will soon be deemed nonviable. Those who might opt to use cash over a digital currency would eventually have no other option than to transfer their money into a CBDC.

One of the main goals of global planners is to target what they call the ‘unbanked‘ or the ‘underbanked‘. In other words, those who exist largely outside of the financial system and trade anonymously. The BIS Annual Report declared that 1.7 billion adults and hundreds of millions of firms ‘are tied to cash as their only means of payment‘. That is one fifth of the world’s population that central banks are seeking to bring into their world – a digital only construct in which the only alternative is a life of destitution.

Essentially, the central banking fraternity will want to be able to pinpoint the abolition of cash on the advancement of technology and the changing payment habits of the consumer, thereby taking the emphasis off themselves.

With regards to changing consumer behaviour, the unproven fear perpetuated throughout the media that cash could transmit Covid-19 has successfully managed to undermine cash to the point where a large swathe of people have stopped using it. The latest statistics from Link show that in the UK transaction volume is down 47% on this time last year.

Over time, central banks will be able to use a sustained reduction in demand for cash to their advantage. As Yves Mersch of the European Central Bank mentioned in May, ‘if our customers, the people of Europe signalled a change in payments behaviour, we would want to preserve their direct link to the ultimate owner of our currency by maintaining their access to central bank liabilities‘.

There are three problems here.

Firstly, notice where the earliest trials of digital currency were held: Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Singapore. As G.B. noted in the comments of the email accompanying the article, each place has been a hub of massive financial scandal and fraud in recent years. And as I and Catherine Austin Fitts have repeatedly warned, a move to a digital currency is a move to something which, in effect, is not a currency at all, simply because of the implied ability of central banks, at the push of a button, to modify the value of that currency at will. Say you leave your place of work with 15,000 digibooboos being deposited in your account. On your way home, you decide to stop and get some groceries. But Mr. Central Banskter needed some extra digibooboos to cover his margin calls, which amount to just a few quadrillions of digibooboos, so he decides simply to create more digibooboos at the push of a button. By the time you arrive at the checkout lane in the grocery store, the robocashier informs you that your grocery bill, which just a few seconds ago might have cost a mere 200 digibooboos, now comes to 14,000 digibooboos, leaving you to ponder whether or  not to buy your groceries and figure out  how to pay your mortgage (which, incidentally, is also digitized along with the title to your house), or abandon your purchase of mystery 3d-printed meat and GMO potatoes, and pay your mortgage (pronto!) before it too becomes too expensive to pay. You decide to do the latter, and rush to the nearest morgautpaycen (mortgage automated payment center), which informs you that, woops, your mortgage payment is now 15,500 digibooboos. Frantic, you try transferring money from your savings account to your transactions account, only to be told that Microsh*t corporation is interrupting the transaction to update the morgautpaycen system (and your “vaccine tatoos”) with the latest updates; please standby, this will take just a few minutes, and do not cancel the transaction. By the time this has ended, a line has formed, and you make the transfer and rush home, only to find the robosheriff has arrived and repossessed your home. In fact, it’s already been sold and people are already moving into it.

Think I’m exaggerating? Well, don’t forget the roll of currency speculators and banksters in driving the German hyper-inflation of the 1920s so they could make huge amounts of money.  In short, a digital currency frees the central banksters and speculators from the necessity of having to use far slower and clumsier methods of the manipulation of stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies in order to manipulate currency and other types of value. They will be able to do all of that at the push of a button; it’s a convenient way for the banksters to walk away from all their frauds and crimes, probably of an intergenerational nature. It’s Venice all over again, on steroids.

You might as well paint a big target on yourself and all you own, and say, “Here, take it, it’s yours.”

There’s a second problem: the U.S. constitution, which has that curiously worded phrase that only Congress has the power to “make” and “coin” money. Clearly, a digital “currency’s” fulfillment of this provision is at least debatable on a number of grounds.

And finally, the third problem: What happens to all those wonderful digital “assets” if, say, the Socialist Peoples’ Parasite and Piracy Party of Zhi Ping Pong, Woe Phat (thank you Hawaii Five-O) and Wahn Beeg Rhat (thank you Uncle Scrooge and Karl Barks) decides to zap it all with an electro-magnetic pulse because they’re unhappy with the balance of payments  (they were the ones paid off by Mr. Central Bankster with the suddenly-created digibooboos that are now worth far less). Please take all disputes to accounting; issues are typically resolved in 10-30 business days.

I suppose then were back to old fashioned analogue things like cuneiform tablets and paper records.

In short, use cash folks, as much as you can.

See you on the flip side…

from:    https://gizadeathstar.com/2020/07/the-bis-and-digital-currency/

Some Considerations

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Masks: Have You Been Captured by This Psyop?

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I walked into my recently resumed Sunday morning dance class to hear one of the teachers, struggling to proclaim through her mask, “Freedom is the opportunity to do what’s right…so let’s do what’s right ladies, and do our part to end this pandemic.”

The phrase “what’s right” echoed in my mind like a haunting.

What if her “right” is different than mine? What if doing her “right” harms me? Does that still make it right? What is “right” anyway? Does it mean kind, good, just, accepted, evidence-based, popular?

In the absence of clear answers to these internal questions, her enthusiastic rallying-cry struck me as the propagation of Stockholm Syndrome, or identification with and defending the parentified aggressor.  …

I imagine that this woman is so sensitive to human suffering that she feels lionized to end it in the way that is most available to her and to encourage others to do the same. But is it her responsibility to champion the reduction in human suffering according to her adopted narrative? Or is her only responsibility to take care of herself in the way that makes sense to her?  …

Those who design public media and marketing efforts, i.e. expert propagandists like Edward Bernays, know human sensitivities and the concept of social responsibility well. They know that we long to be seen as “good people” in the eyes of authority and also as a competitive advantage over our wrong-doing, pain-causing, problem-making peers. 

…

To be right, to be good, to be loved

For generations, children the world over have been raised in authoritarian households, defined by hierarchical power dynamics, punished for deviant individual expression, and rewarded for sheepish compliance, ultimately disconnected from their own drives, interests, and intuition. As I wrote in my book, Own Your Self:

“At best, we were parented by “fair-weather parents” who were nice and kind or cold and sharp, depending on how our behavior suited them in the moment. At worst, we were abused, manipulated, or abandoned, left to feel like we were worthless or were some sort of an asset to be used. And this was how we learned what love is.  …  Remember that we are several hundred years into a medical paradigm that is basically an arena for warfare on the body (antibiotics, antidepressants, anti-hypertensives). We don’t care about the why; we just want the symptom to go away….

And this is how we learned to experience obedience and rule–following as a virtue. In our survival-based programming, we abandon ourselves, our needs, and even the investigation of our beliefs in a flight toward “doing the right thing.”  …

…That’s also why those who are shaming maskless civilians don’t exactly appear to be concerned for the well-being of those they are shaming, nor even concerned for their own health necessarily, but rather, are pouring from quite empty cups to garner a little hit of power.

Anatomy of a psyop

So if we, for the most part, share the same vulnerability — fear of authority, from which we also seek protection — what happens when, without any socioculturally ritualized passage into adulthood, we transfer that locus of authority from our parents to the government when we come of age?

Government, a word that etymologically means“to control.”

Control comes in many forms, and specifically, the tactic with the highest yield for domination is trauma-based mind control. The instrument of mainstream media, over which there are 6 ruling corporations, exists for the sole purpose of tell-a-vision programming of your conscious and subconscious mind toward behavioral compliance with government agendas. When all mainstream channels are telling you to look over here, you better believe it’s because they don’t want you to look over there, and because the headline-making event will likely set the conditions for the problem→reaction→solution of increased control and capture. This is why, the most important question to ask is, what is their ultimate plan, and how does granting or restricting a particular freedom serve that plan?

Rosie Koire has been a whistleblower for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals known as Agenda 21, a long-standing globalist effort toward one-world dominance that involves divesting the average citizen of his/her rights to individuality, bodily sovereignty, free commerce, and property ownership under the pretense of the greater good, preserving nature, and fair trade.   …

And, because the vast majority of us are still operating with our power center externalized from our being — traumatized and imprinted — and terrified of death, we are easily controlled.  …

Psychological operations (or “psyops”), which include the selective presentation of emotionally-provocative information for behavioral manipulation, have been employed by governments for decades to retain and advance population-based control and financial servitude. Project Mockingbird, Operation Paperclip, and MK-Ultra are but a few of the publicly acknowledged secret programs that included human experimentation that utilize brainwashing techniques to deceive, program, and manipulate behavior. Often, these operations seed our consciousness with divisiveness while overtly appearing to support societal victims.   …

For example, I bet you thought that the hard-won woman’s right to vote was a correcting of decades of systemic misogyny. I certainly did. When freedoms are selectively doled out, they are only offered because they serve a greater intention, as Aaron Russo details here, stating that women in the workforce allowed for taxation of the other half of the population and commandeering of the child for early-access conditioning. 

What does this have to do with Corona?

A new addition to questioningcovid.com, Kevin Ryan writes in his article, Is the Coronavirus Scare a Psyop that it shares these qualities with other historical fear-mongering for social manipulation psyops:

  1. Fear-based and globally directed
  2. Media saturation with bias toward fear
  3. Data manipulation and propaganda
  4. Censorship of opposing views
  5. Intelligence agency control of information
  6. Preceded by exercises mimicking the threat
  7. Series of claims made that are later proven false
  8. Response threatens democracy
  9. Large increase in wealth and power for a few; increase in social inequality
  10. Increased government control of the public and reduced individual freedoms
  11. Response kills far more than the original threat
  12. Evidence for manufactured events

You might also be shocked to learn that “manufactured events” or false flags involve crisis actors, fake footage, CGI, and the disseminated media talking points with associated censorship of any dissenting perspectives on these theatrical events passed off as news. Censorship can come from Gates- and Soros-funded fact checkers, but it can also come from your neighbor or a holier-than-thou FB commentor. It is the deputization of the average civilian that is necessary for suppression of those who might question the narrative, and this is how and why mind control is effective. We electively participate, police ourselves, and others in a dynamic evocative of sibling rivalry where one toddler kicks the other while tattling to mommy about how she’s not following the rules.

The story behind the story 

Never before in human history have the well been quarantined and everyone in the population of the world recommended to be masked. Never. 

What is going on here?  …

This confusion, obfuscation, and inconsistency is part of the psychological operation. …

If we are going to enact large-scale medical interventions for the “greater good,” I, for one, would like to see some quality science to support this novel approach to “wellness” and “health.”

So let’s take a look…

But first, a disclaimer, I don’t believe in germ theory because I know that, never in the history of mankind, has a virus been properly identified, purified, or demonstrated to cause an illness, according to conventional medicine’s own postulates. 

The history of so many “theories” originates with a fraudulent agent (Pasteur) offered the spotlight by (secret society) elite who wish to leverage certain “scientific” information in order to maintain population-based control, submission, compliance, and dependency on the pharmaceutical industry. What works better than to convince people to be scared, not only of their own bodies and other people’s bodies, but also of invisible demons that can attack you randomly. And there is nothing you can do except hide, and in a worst case scenario, present to the temple of the hospital for salvation. Oh, and you can also repeatedly inject yourself with unstudied chemicals and fetal and animal tissues for “protection.”

No.

The body is far more sophisticated than that, and there is far more innate purpose and psychoemotional meaning in our symptoms than the system would have you believe. In fact, Antoine Béchamp, Pasteur’s contemporary, and one of the original contributors to terrain theory (or lifestyle medicine), presented his findings in pleomorphism demonstrating that intracellular entities (microzymes) transform into and mobilize as tissue-specific bacteria when the body needs help clearing damaged tissue. And what we call viruses may be no more than bodily exosomes (also known as “viral like particles” because they are literally indistinguishable from what conventional medicine calls viruses), designed for detox-based, inter-individual and cross-kingdom communication of nucleic-based information. What we are calling“microbes” are the result and even the support of resolution of disease, not the cause. 

Through this lens, the facts stack up as such:
  1. there is no new disease in the world, only patented fragments
  2. all available tests for covid-19 are unreliable and scientifically invalidated
  3. associated statistics on incidence and mortality are fraudulent

But, even if we return to the chess board to play the germ theory game, the science of facial covering and even surgical masks (that were never designed for viral-sized fragments but rather for the much larger mycobacterium tuberculosis), speaks for itself. As excerpted from Stand For Health Freedom:

Mandatory Masks Can Cause Considerable Harm and Are Not Proven Effective
(See Link for excerpt)

And to sample from the extensively referenced writing of Dr. Rancourt: 

No RCT [randomized controlled trial] study with verified outcome shows a benefit for HCW [health care workers] or community members in households to wearing a mask or respirator. There is no such study. There are no exceptions.

Likewise, no study exists that shows a benefit from a broad policy to wear masks in public…

Furthermore, if there were any benefit to wearing a mask, because of the blocking power against droplets and aerosol particles, then there should be more benefit from wearing a respirator (N95) compared to a surgical mask, yet several large meta-analyses, and all the RCT, prove that there is no such relative benefit.

Masks and respirators do not work.

So, if, according to establishment organizations, and published science itself, this is not an effective, necessary, or even safe intervention, then why is this happening?  It’s happening because we are letting it happen.  …

We have been taken hostage and our civil liberties stripped by the globalist agenda of an uncredentialled technocrat who comes from eugenicist stock and has no medical or scientific expertise, dictating international “health” policy while he invests in GMOs, 5G networks, and is the top peddler of vaccines the world over. Houston, we have a problem. Can you see how the dots connect and that this may never have actually been about a virus?

To those people, masks are a part of a ritual, and that ritual serves further control and ultimately biopolitical capture of the human body through:

  • dehumanization: a mask covers essential facial features, limits freedom of speech, and evokes illness and danger imprints
  • perpetuation of fear and vigilance: masks remind us that we are still in the “time of the virus” and that we must remain afraid, even as we engage in normative behaviors
  • submission signaling: obedience is now demonstrated visibly, so that those who are non-compliant are exposed
  • recruitment of the healthy: while the medical industry has captured most of the world population through toxicant-induced disease, the healthy can be entrapped when they too are recruited for the greater good
…

It’s time to Own Your Self

The first step to reclaiming your power from a system that does not reflect your values or serve your interests is to take responsibility for your health. With whistleblowers, dissenting physicians, and citizen activists speaking out, it’s clear that there is not a consensus around this unprecedented medical intervention. And wherever there is polarization, there must be choice. There is no place for mandated medicine in a free country. …

It shouldn’t be hard to imagine that, even if you agree with mandated masks as a condition for participation in society, there may come a time when you don’t agree with a bodily mandate. When a certain “safety measure” strikes you as inappropriately invasive. And then what? The precedent for commandeering of choice may already be in place.

Resources:

While many businesses have signage stating masks are required to adhere to mandates, consumers do have the choice to wear or not wear a mask in the majority of locations. Most county ordinance afford exemptions from mask wearing without required documentation (in accordance with HIPAA/ADA).

The following script may be used to help empower consumers to exercise the choice that is in their health’s best interest.

Consumer Script

As you enter a store to respectfully shop and / or seek services, in many cases, employees will not inquire or mention the mask requirement. In the case that you are told masks are mandatory or asked to put one on, here is an example script:

Business: Masks are mandated in our store. Do you have one you can put on? 

Individual: I am health exempt from wearing a mask. (Or: I have a medical exemption).

After stating an exemption, in the majority of cases(>95% in our experience), most businesses will be aware of the ramifications of questioning you further and will allow you to proceed.

Business: What is your exemption, can you explain it further?

Individual: The state (or local) mandate exempts individuals that have a medical or behavioral condition or disability. Here is a copy of the exemptions (print a copy of your local exemption list to bring with you).

Business: Can you explain your medical condition further?

At this point if the conversation continues, you can ask to speak to a manager, choose to educate the individual or spend your dollars elsewhere.

As you see fit, you may also choose to share your experience with friends and family or on social media, as well as educate yourself on discrimination rights and practices in public and business settings.

Individual: No, I respectfully will not. It is private information and I am not required to disclose that information.

References

from:    https://kellybroganmd.com/masks-have-you-been-captured-by-this-psyop/

And Now (drum roll) The Plague in China

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Suspected case of BUBONIC PLAGUE registered in China, days after Mongolian outbreak

5 Jul, 2020 17:59 / Updated 3 days ago
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Suspected case of BUBONIC PLAGUE registered in China, days after Mongolian outbreak
FILE PHOTO. © Global Look Press / DPA / Arved Gintenreiter
A suspected case of bubonic plague has been registered in China’s north, according to local health authorities. The news comes after two similar cases were detected in neighboring Mongolia.

The case was registered at a hospital in China’s Inner Mongolia region, its health commission said in a statement on Sunday.

This prompted a third-level warning of a potential epidemic in the region. The alert comes into force immediately and will be in place until the end of this year. It’s believed the patient in question is suffering from the bubonic form, which causes swollen lymph nodes, and is considered to be the most easily treated variant of the disease.

The plague also has a pneumonic and an extra-deadly septicemic form that can kill a victim within a day.

Earlier this week, two people also tested positive for the bubonic plague in neighboring Mongolia.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, the potential return of the dreaded plague is definitely the last thing the world needs. So far, Covid-19 has infected nearly 11.5 million people, killing more than 530,000 of them.

Yet the toll from coronavirus is dwarfed by that of the plague, which has caused pandemics at least three times in the course of history. It has an extremely high mortality rate, at around 95 percent, and caused the deaths of tens of millions before healthcare evolved enough to treat it. The last such pandemic was in the 19th century, and it hit China and India particularly hard.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 cases of the plague are still registered worldwide each year, with many of them originating in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

from:    https://www.rt.com/news/493871-china-suspected-bubonic-plague/

And Check out  Dr. Joseph Farrell’s News and Views From the Nefarium for July 8, 2020 where he discusses this article:

Dr. Mercola On Bill Gates

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(This is a long article, but definitely worth the read or go to THE CORBETT REPORT with James Corbett and watch the 4 PART EXPOSE.)

Deconstructing Bill Gates’ Agenda

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola Fact Checked
  • June 13, 2020

(Check Out James Corbett’s Series on Bill Gates which is referenced n this article:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL7YKya_R1ROsNF2UO_qxyREWxsZiqGJc8&time_continue=4&v=igx86PoU7v8&feature=emb_logo  )

Story at-a-glanc

  • Gates has used his staggering wealth to buy control, and he’s done it under the cloak of “charity.” A significant piece of that control is the control over population growth. Gates’ family also has a long history of supporting eugenics
  • According to Gates, the global population could be lowered by 10% to 15% if we “do a really great job on new vaccines, health care [and] reproductive health services.” His theory is that as health improves, families opt to have fewer children
  • In 2017, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance — founded by the Gates Foundation in partnership with the WHO, the World Bank and vaccine manufacturers — decided to provide every child with a digital biometric identity to ensure 100% vaccine coverage
  • Gates has also invested in the development and implementation of biometric identification programs tied in with digital currencies
  • Ultimately, the plan is to connect everything together — our identity, finances, medical data, vaccine records and more — at which point we will be 100% enslaved

In “How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health,” I featured Parts 1 and 2 of investigative journalist James Corbett’s report on this unelected global health czar.

Part 1 reviewed how Gates ended up in a position to monopolize global health, despite his lack of health or medical education. In Part 2, he laid out Gates’ plan to vaccinate the global population against COVID-19 (although there’s no reason to imagine the plan would remain limited to a single vaccine).

Here, in Parts 3 and 4, which you’ll find in the playlist above, Corbett dives into the motives, ideology and connections of Gates that appear to have shaped and are driving his post-COVID-19 plans for the world — plans that include an unprecedented campaign to control the global population in its totality, from cradle to grave.

Population Control Is a Chief Aim

As noted by Corbett, Gates has used his staggering wealth to buy control, and he’s done it under the cloak of “charity.” A significant piece of that control is the control over population growth.

Indeed, a meeting1 in May 2009 between Sir Paul Nurse, then-president of Rockefeller University, Warren Buffet, David Rockefeller Jr., George Soros, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey, revolved around how these billionaires could use their wealth to curb population growth — without the input or interference of government agencies.

According to an article2 in The Sunday Times, they met at the request of Gates to discuss “joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.” The article continues:

“Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. ‘We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different — maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,’ he said … Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority …

Another guest said there was ‘nothing as crude as a vote’ but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat … ‘They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.’”

According to Gates, the global population could be lowered by 10% to 15% if we “do a really great job on new vaccines, health care [and] reproductive health services.” His theory is that “as health improves, families choose to have less children … As you improve health, within a half generation the population growth rate goes down.”

Vaccines to Reduce Fertility

Alas, as Corbett notes,3 “the idea of using vaccines as sterilization agents — even without the public’s knowledge or consent — is not conspiracy lore, but documentable fact.”

He points out an excerpt from the Rockefeller Foundation’s 1968 annual report4 and five-year review, which under the heading “Problems of Population,” states that “very little work is in progress on immunological methods, such as vaccines, to reduce fertility, and much more research is required if a solution is to be found here.”

To address the problem, the Rockefeller Foundation vowed to solicit and fund “established and beginning investigators to turn their attention to aspects of research in reproductive biology that have implications for human fertility and its control.”

In 1972, the Rockefeller-funded Population Council joined forces with the World Health Organization, creating the Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation, and in 1995, the task force reported they had developed a prototype of an anti-hCG vaccine that would prevent women from carrying a baby to term.

In the early 1990s, “a series of scandals over WHO-led vaccination programs in the Third World led to allegations that tetanus vaccines in places like the Philippines5 and Kenya6 were being laced with hCG in order to implement population control by stealth,” Corbett says. The subsequent controversy chilled campaigns promoting population control via vaccines.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation revived the concept during its 2012 Summit on Family Planning in London, when it was announced the foundation will fund research, development and deployment of “injectable contraceptives,” aimed at the developing world.

“But the Gates were not content to stop there,” Corbett says. “In 2014 it was announced that Microchips Biotech, Inc., a company in Lexington, Massachusetts, had developed a new form of birth control: ‘a wireless implant that can be turned on and off with a remote control and that is designed to last up to 16 years.’

According to MIT Technology Review, the idea originated when Bill Gates visited Robert Langer’s MIT lab in 2012 and asked him if it would be possible to create an implantable birth control device that could be turned on or off remotely.

Langer referred Gates to the controlled release microchip technology he had invented and licensed to MicroCHIPS Biotechnology, and the Gates Foundation granted $20 million to the firm to develop the implants.

Reducing population growth has, by Gates’ own admission, been a core mission of the Gates Foundation since its inception. But in order to really understand what Gates means by ‘population control,’ we have to look beyond the concept of controlling population size. At its most fundamental level, the ‘population control’ that Gates speaks of is not birth control, but control of the population itself.”

Controlling the Population Through Technology

Part 3 continues by reviewing the work of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, which was founded by the Gates Foundation in partnership with the WHO, the World Bank and various vaccine manufacturers.

In 2017, Gavi decided to provide every child with a digital biometric identity, which would simultaneously store the child’s vaccination records. Without such a system, a 100% immunization rate simply cannot be reached, Gavi CEO Seth Berkley stated.

Shortly thereafter, Gavi became a founding member of the ID2020 Alliance, alongside Microsoft and the Rockefeller Foundation. In 2019, Gates again collaborated with Langer to develop a novel vaccine delivery method using fluorescent microdot tags — essentially creating an invisible “tattoo” — that can then be read with a modified smartphone.

“It should be no surprise, then, that Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers — in their scramble to produce the coronavirus vaccine that, Gates assures us, is necessary to ‘go back to normal’ — have turned to a novel vaccine delivery method: a dissolvable microneedle array patch,” Corbett says.

“As in so many other aspects of the unfolding crisis, Gates’ unscientific pronouncement that we will need digital certificates to prove our immunity in the ‘new normal’ of the post-coronavirus world is now being implemented by a number of governments.”

Corbett also reviews the rapid development and implementation of biometric identification programs tied in with digital currencies. Undoubtedly, the plan is to connect everything together — your identification, personal finances, medical and vaccination records. Most likely, it will also be embedded on your body, for your own “convenience,” so you cannot lose it. Never mind the fact that everything that can be hacked at some point has been or will be.

“The ID control grid is an essential part of the digitization of the economy,” Corbett says. “And although this is being sold as an opportunity for ‘financial inclusion’ of the world’s poorest in the banking system provided by the likes of Gates and his banking and business associates, it is in fact a system for financial exclusion.

Exclusion of any person or transaction that does not have the approval of the government or the payment providers …

The different parts of this population control grid fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The vaccination drive ties into the biometric identity drive which ties into the cashless society drive.

In Gates’ vision, everyone will receive the government-mandated vaccinations, and everyone will have their biometric details recorded in nationally administered, globally integrated digital IDs.

These digital identities will be tied to all of our actions and transactions, and, if and when they are deemed illegal, they will simply be shut off by the government — or even the payment providers themselves.”

Indeed, if you think online censorship is bad, consider a world in which your online activity is tied to your biometric chip with all your finances and personal data. What easier way to silence people than to block access to their own money? I’m sure there are many other ways in which such a system could be used to control any and all individuals.

“Only the most willfully obtuse could claim to be unable to see the nightmarish implications for this type of all-seeing, all-pervasive society, where every transaction and every movement of every citizen is monitored, analyzed, and databased in real-time by the government.

And Bill Gates is one of those willfully obtuse people,” Corbett says. “This Gates-driven agenda is not about money. It is about control. Control over every aspect of our daily lives, from where we go, to who we meet, to what we buy and what we do.”

Gates Family History

What drives a man who is rich beyond imagination to spend his life devising schemes to control the human population? Corbett asks. Surely, something other than money must be driving Gates’ insatiable lust for control. To answer that question, Corbett surveys Gates’ family history.

Both his great-grandfather, J.W. Maxwell, and his grandfather, Willard Maxwell, were bankers. Gates’ grandmother, Adele, was a prominent civic leader. His mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, served as director of several companies, including First Interstate Bancorp and KIRO-TV of Seattle. She was also a regent at the University of Washington, and served on the board of the United Way of America.

Gates’ father, William H. Gates, Sr., was a prominent lawyer who co-founded a powerful law and lobbying firm. He also served on several corporate and organizational boards, and headed up Planned Parenthood. As noted by Corbett:7

“From his mother’s banking family he inherited a ‘nose for the dollar,’ as one childhood friend’s father called it. From his hard-driving legal-minded father, he learned the value of legalizing business arrangements … A ‘nose for the dollar’ and a knowledge of how to use the legal system to get what you want were not the only things to emerge from Bill Gates’ childhood, however.

His parents also encouraged discussion about the family’s charity work and the causes they held close to their heart. As Gates revealed to Bill Moyers in 2003, those causes included ‘the population issue’ which sparked a lifelong interest in ‘reproductive health’ …

The topic is particularly controversial, because ‘population control’ and ‘reproductive health’ have been used for half a century as a euphemism for eugenics, the discredited pseudoscience that holds that certain families are fit to be leaders of society by virtue of their superior genes …

As transparent as it seems to us today that this ideology was a self-serving self-justification for the ruling class, it was quickly taken up as the great social crusade of the early 20th century …

A common eugenicist argument was that the scarce resources of society should not be used to support the lower classes, as that only encouraged more of their kind. Instead, life-saving medical care and intervention should be rationed so that those resources can be best put to use elsewhere.

So-called negative eugenicists even took things further, with some, like famed playwright George Bernard Shaw, calling for people to be called before a state-appointed board to justify their existence or be put to death.”

Gates Drives the Modern Eugenics Agenda

As noted by Corbett, eugenics was shunned following the second World War thanks to the atrocious acts of the Nazi’s, yet support for it didn’t die out. Instead, the concept of eugenics simply changed into discussions about population control and reproductive health.

“It is worth questioning why this man, who openly muses about death panels and the trade-offs of providing health care to the elderly, is to be taken completely at face value in his attempts to slow population growth in the third world or to handle a coronavirus health crisis that primarily affects the elderly.

That the Gates agenda is being driven by a eugenicist ideology is suggested by multiple lines of evidence, both historical and current,” Corbett says.8

Like the Maxwell/Gates family, the Rockefeller family has also been funding and promoting eugenics around the world. They even funded the Eugenics Record Office, a department of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor New York.9

As explained on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory website,10 the Eugenics Record Office “was devoted to the collection and analysis of American family genetics and traits history records.” The studies “collected information such as inborn physical, mental and temperamental properties to enable the family to trace the segregation and recombination of inborn or heritable qualities.”

William Welch, the founding director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, sat on the Eugenics Record Office board of directors, and the Rockefellers sponsored eugenics researchers at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Germany, including Ernst Rüdin, who drafted Nazi Germany’s forced sterilization law.

When the American Eugenics Society closed its doors, its long-time director, Frederick Osborne, became the president of the Population Council — another Rockefeller-funded organization. In his 2009 book, “Showing Up for Life,” Gates Sr. expresses his admiration for the Rockefellers’ decades’ long commitment to and involvement in public health, including their support of vaccination programs.

Epstein’s Controlled Breeding Program

“But the most salacious hints of a deeper agenda are not to be found in the Gates’ public associations, but in the associations that they have tried to hide from the public,” Corbett says. One curious and highly suspicious connection is Gates’ apparent involvement with the now-infamous sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

While Gates has denied knowing Epstein, media reports claim they met on multiple occasions, and were in discussions about co-creating a charitable fund with seed money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase. Corbett notes:

“According to The Times, Gates emailed his colleagues about Epstein in 2011: ‘His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me.’

Epstein’s will even named Boris Nikolic — a Harvard-trained immunologist who served as the chief scientific advisor to both Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and who appears in the sole publicly known photo of Epstein and Gates’ 2011 meeting at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion — as the backup executor of Epstein’s estate.

It is not difficult to see why Gates would try to distance himself from his relationship with a child sex trafficker … But, as it turns out, the attempt to suppress the Gates-Epstein story may have been an attempt to suppress the revelation of an altogether different shared interest …

The already scarcely believable Jeffrey Epstein story took another bizarre turn in August of 2019, when it was reported that Epstein ‘Hoped to Seed the Human Race With His DNA.’11

As The New York Times explained, Epstein’s plan to impregnate 20 women at a time at his New Mexico ranch in order to ‘seed the human race with his DNA’ — plan he told to a number of the ‘scientific luminaries’ he kept in his orbit — put a modern gloss on a very old idea.”

One of those scientific “luminaries” was George Church, a Harvard geneticist who received funding for various projects from Epstein’s foundation, and who brought forth a proposal for a “genetics dating app.” Epstein and Gates both funded a startup company seeking to use gene editing to eliminate diseases.

It’s Time to See the Global Agenda for What It Is

“We cannot expect an answer about Bill Gates true motives to come from Gates himself. By this point the question of Bill Gates’ intentions has been buried under the combined weight of hundreds of millions of dollars of paid PR spin,” Corbett says.

“Now we must confront the question of why this man is motivated to build such a web of control — control over our public health agencies. Control over our identities. Control over our transactions. And even control over our bodies …

We must confront the possibility that this quest for control comes not from a selfless spirit of generosity that never seemed to exist before he became a multi-billionaire, but from the same drive for money, the same desire for domination and the same sense of superiority that motivated him on his way up the corporate ladder.

But if the answer to the question “Who is Bill Gates” is “Bill Gates is a eugenicist,” that tells us some important things about the world that we are living in … If Bill Gates is a eugenicist, driven by a belief in the superiority of himself and his fellow wealthy elitists, then what we are facing is not one man, or even one family, but an ideology.

This is not a trivial point. One man, whatever his wealth, can be stopped easily enough. But even if Bill Gates were to be thrown in jail tomorrow, the agenda that has already been set in motion would continue without missing a beat.

An entire infrastructure of researchers, labs, corporations, governmental agencies and public health bodies exists … driven by the belief of all those millions of people working for these various entities that they are truly working in the best interest of the people.

No, an ideology cannot be stopped by stopping one man. It can only be stopped when enough people learn the truth about this agenda and the world of total, pervasive control that is coming into view. If you have watched all four parts of this exploration on Bill Gates, then you are now one of the most informed people on the planet about the true nature of this agenda …

If you have made it this far, it is incumbent on you to help inoculate those around you against the corrupt ideology of Bill Gates and all those who seek to control the population of the world. You must help to spread this information so that others have a chance to see the bigger picture and decide for themselves whether they are willing to roll up their sleeves and accept what is coming, or not.”

from:   https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/06/13/bill-gates-agenda.aspx

Hurricane off the East Coast

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Tropical cyclone organizing off North Carolina, expected to break another 2020 Atlantic hurricane season record

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Tropical cyclone organizing off North Carolina, expected to break another 2020 Atlantic hurricane season record

A new tropical cyclone is organizing off the coast of North Carolina, U.S. on July 9, 2020. Environmental conditions are conducive for development, and a tropical or subtropical cyclone will likely form later today or tonight — NHC gives it 80% chance of formation in the next 48 hours.

If it gets named — next name in line is Fay — it will be the earliest 6th named storm formation in the Atlantic Ocean on record. The current record holder is Franklin on July 22, 2005.

Just a couple of days ago, on June 6, the basin had another record-breaker — Tropical Storm “Edouard” – the earliest 5th named storm in the Atlantic on record. The previous record-holder for the 5th named storm was Emily on July 12, 2005.

According to Dr. Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at CSU specializing in Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts, the first 5 Atlantic named storms of 2020 generated a measly 6.7 ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy — ACE — an integrated metric that accounts for intensity and duration).

Only 2 Atlantic hurricane seasons on record (since 1851) have had less ACE from 1st 5 storms of the year: 2017 and 1988.

Basically, the first 5 Atlantic named storms of 2020 have been quite weak and of relatively short duration, Klotzbach noted.

The Colorado State University (CSU) has chosen six analogs for its July seasonal hurricane forecast: 1966, 1995, 2003, 2008, 2011, and 2016. All of these years had above-average Atlantic hurricane activity and were generally characterized by cool neutral ENSO or La Nina conditions and warm tropical Atlantic.

Another reason for the active CSU Atlantic hurricane season forecast is odds of El Nino this summer/fall are extremely low. Tropical eastern and central Pacific remain cooler than normal. Atmospheric circulation is looking more La Nina-like with suppressed convection near the dateline.

Low pressure off the coast of North Carolina at 12:10 UTC on July 9, 2020. Credit: NOAA/GOES-East, RAMMB/CIRA

At 12:00 UTC on July 9 (08:00 EDT), the low pressure area (expected to become Tropical Cyclone “Kay”) was located about 96 km (60 miles) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has given it 80% chance of formation through the next 48 hours.

An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate this system later today.

The thunderstorm activity is currently located well east and northeast of the low’s center, but only a small increase in organization or a reformation of the center closer to the thunderstorm activity could result in the formation of a tropical or subtropical cyclone later today or tonight, NHC forecaster Brown noted.

The low is expected to move northeastward or north-northeastward near or just offshore of the North Carolina Outer Banks later today and then along the mid-Atlantic coast tonight through Friday night (local time), July 10.

Regardless of development, the system is expected to produce locally heavy rainfall that could cause some flash flooding across portions of eastern North Carolina, the coastal mid-Atlantic, and southern New England during the next few days.

Gusty winds are also possible along the North Carolina Outer Banks today, and along the mid-Atlantic and southern New England coasts Friday and Saturday.

Featured image: Low pressure off the coast of North Carolina at 12:10 UTC on July 9, 2020. Credit: NOAA/GOES-East, RAMMB/CIRA

from:     https://watchers.news/2020/07/09/tropical-cyclone-organizing-off-north-carolina-expected-to-break-another-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-record/

THE Virus – Some Considerations

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My investigation of COVID-19

Jon Rappoport     July 7, 2020

This is one of those investigations in which you ask yourself, IS THE PHENOMENON, AS DESCRIBED, REAL? That’s where I started. At this point, I’ve written well over 150 articles about COVID-19.

And of course, the phenomenon is not real.

Most people wouldn’t be able to grasp that. They’re stuck at the gate, saying, PEOPLE ARE DYING, IT MUST BE THE VIRUS.

Well, people are always dying. It’s very easy to repackage their deaths under a new label. And those that are dying for new reasons…you can track down those reasons, too. In a few places, it’s pollution, in another place it could well be a previous vaccine campaign, and so on. In New York, a lot of people are dying premature deaths because they’re put on breathing ventilators and heavily sedated.

As I laid out in several key articles, proper procedures of viral discovery were never carried out in China or anywhere else. There is no convincing proof researchers ever found a new virus.

Therefore, every piece of so-called information coming from “new virus” has no foundation whatsoever. For example, the diagnostic tests. Tests for what? And then, the case numbers would be meaningless as well.

But again, these facts are hard for people to swallow. They want to believe. They believe they must believe. It’s a theocracy.

In the set-up, there are two positions you can take. You can stand outside the whole illusion and expose it; or you can enter the illusion and then show internal contradictions and lies and false pictures, within the fraud.

For instance, the case numbers. I’ve explained ways the CDC and other agencies are fiddling them, inflating them. I’ve also stood outside the whole case number game and pointed out it’s without meaning, because, again, the existence of a new virus hasn’t been proven. The tests, all of them, are supposed to be evidence of the presence of the virus.

You can be OUTSIDE or INSIDE. Or both.

Let’s say someone publishes a photo of 510th Street in New York during rush hour. You can simply say there is no 510th Street in New York. Or you can look at the details of the photo. You can say, “You see that man wearing a fleecy winter coat and a long scarf? Now look behind him. There are three girls wearing bikinis waiting for a bus. Doesn’t that seem odd?”

You can also make a circumstantial case. That’s a third aspect of an investigation. “Look, this man accused of check forgery has been convicted three times in other states for the same crime. He worked for his uncle, who went to prison for forgery in France. Right now, he lives above a store where a check forger is turning out fake checks.”

I’ve done that with the virus—showing that, back through history, the so-called discovery of a new virus, and its promotion, have been used to obscure, and stand in for, other forms of killing. Industrial pollution, forced starvation, purposeful contamination of water supplies, treatment with highly toxic medical drugs and vaccines. The story about a virus protects the killers.

As you can see, I’m explaining all this in a very straightforward way. Now. But in 1987, when the issue was AIDS and HIV, and I was writing a book on the subject, I waded through a mass of confusion for months. The confusion was caused by me being inside the picture and not knowing there was an outside. When I finally realized what was going on, a large number of seemingly disparate pieces of information clicked into place. I saw the landscape. I saw what was in it, and I could stand away from it and look at it as a whole.

As a fourth consideration, you could examine the history of the teachings that train and predispose people to believe in a phenomenon that is not real. In this case, teachings about germs. Teachings that indicate germs are as dangerous as nitroglycerin. Teachings that claim disease comes directly from germs—ignoring, for example, the fact that people have intrinsic immune defenses. Mind control through germ theory is a long story that I’m just briefly mentioning. But it’s very useful to see how indoctrination works in the background; when the next big epidemic is announced, most people immediately fall in line. They’re confirming what they’ve been taught to believe. It’s another church.

There was the church of HIV, the church of West Nile, the church of SARS, Swine Flu, Zika, Bird Flu, and so on.

Speaking of teachings—one of the most important predispositions that people cling to like life rafts is: one effect, one cause. The effect would be COVID-19, and the cause would be the coronavirus. But the effect is not One Thing. As I stated above, people are actually dying as a result of different conditions…which have different causes. Grasping this produces a very beneficial explosion that scatters much mind control.

Another predisposition is the illogical notion that the effect proves the cause. “Well, look at the all the lockdowns (effect); therefore, the cause, the justification must be the dangerous virus.” Nonsense. Aristotle exposed that fallacy a long time ago.

“But…but I don’t care. People are dying, it must be the virus. I believe.”

Yes, people believe. When has that not been the case?

And when they believe, they ask a few typical questions. “But what about the people dying in Italy?” They are the BUT WHAT ABOUT people. They always have another WHAT ABOUT. Or they’ll say, “There was a boy who suddenly died in Montana, how do you explain that?” The HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN people.

I explain what I can, based on evidence I’ve put together. I don’t know what happened to the boy in Montana or the girl in India or the mother in Mongolia. But I do know there is no particular reason to assume the virus was the cause of death.

True believers tend to put things together this way: the news reports an unusual death; it’s impossible to understand what happened from the account; unusual effect must equal an unusual cause; the COVID virus would be unusual; therefore, the virus caused the unusual death. Preposterous, but there it is. You can take a sledgehammer to that pillar of dull thought, and you won’t knock it down in a hundred years.

Then we come to the question of conspiracy. This can also be called: who benefits? People mistakenly assume that a conspiracy is like a bank robbery. A small number of people walk into a bank and take the money. They benefit. But in a conspiracy, there are compartmentalized beneficiaries, and they aren’t all plotting together. Most beneficiaries see an opportunity and they take it.

Drug companies make money on the vaccine and the drugs used to treat COVID-19 patients. State governments receive federal money to “fight the virus.” Researchers win promotions. Public health agencies obtain more funding, and more power. Financiers buy up devalued properties at bargain prices. At the top of the ladder, key plotters contrive selling the story of a new killer virus, because they intend to use it to lock down the planet. Why? Because they want to torpedo economies and move in on the wreckage and build a new economic, social, and political world order. It doesn’t take thousands or millions of people—all in the know—to foist a conspiracy. Far from it.

An investigation of a story makes the story fall apart. You see it in a different light. You no longer believe the central narrative. You keep asking deeper questions about basic assertions contained in the story, and your answers produce more collapses of the cement that holds the story together.

Finally, for now, there is the matter of individual choice and responsibility. Individuals can believe or not believe. There is always that option. People are not doomed to accept an oppressive narrative imposed on them. If that were the case, there would be no point to human thought or action. We would forever be victims. This is not the case. It never was. Some people are dedicated to the notion that there is no way out of the dungeon of external control. Their dedication to this proposition has great tonnage. For them. They purposely ignore the fact that, down through history, there has been an enormous struggle to establish individual freedom, and this war has been astonishingly successful—relative to older despotisms and tyrannies. In fact, their choice, now, to walk around spraying doom of whatever brand they want to sell is evidence of that freedom. I’m not impressed by doom. I’m impressed by freedom. We are in yet another fight for it now. I’m impressed by individuals who use their freedom to make their best vision into fact in the world. My investigations are aimed at exposing the power players who plot and fight against freedom.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

from:    https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/07/07/my-investigation-of-covid-19/

To Mask or Not To Mask?

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Scientific Information on Masks Against COVID-19

David Crowe
June 5, 2020
Version 4

Masks are being widely recommended as protection against the COVID-19 virus, both to protect the wearer from infection, and to protect others from wearers who do not know that they are infected. Trouble is, most of the scientific evidence and recommendations are against the use of masks by the general public. Despite this they are increasingly mandated. In some places you cannot walk around outside without a mask, in others you cannot go inside a public space without a mask. Workers are often mandated to wear them. And now airline passengers, no matter the length of their flight.

Evidence for the use of Masks

The strongest evidence for the use of masks is a Cochrane Collaboration review. Seven studies from the era of SARS found that mask-wearing was highly effective in case-control studies, although this type of study is subject to bias because the control arm is simply a representative group, unlike in a placebo controlled trial (very difficult with masks). For example, if the cases are sicker than the controls, they may behave differently, including in wearing a mask.

Of the seven papers, five studied only health-care workers, and this article does not question whether health care workers should wear masks. This leaves only two papers. One provided no socio-economic or health data on the case versus control groups, leaving open the possibility that there were significant differences. The last study confirmed this, the cases (who had been diagnosed with ‘probable’ SARS, i.e. without a SARS test) were significantly sicker before SARS than the controls, which makes sense because people who were diagnosed with SARS tended to have pre-existing health conditions, just as is found with COVID-19. Mask wearing and hand washing were more common in controls, resulting in the conclusion that they were protective. But attending farmer’s markets was also ‘protective’. In reality this probably just reflects the better health of the control group. Really sick people may avoid the use of masks because it interferes with their breathing when they already have problems. This possibility was not considered by either paper.

So, in conclusion there are two papers in this review that claimed that wearing masks was protective against SARS, but one admits that the control group was significantly healthier than the case group, and the other paper is silent on this important source of bias.

Jefferson T et al. Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Jul 06; (7)CD006207.

There are also the hamsters, however. No, Hong Kong University did not find a source of hamster sized surgical masks, but in an unpublished paper, they describe putting a surgical mask over the air flow between a cage of RNA positive hamsters and a cage of RNA negative hamsters, and documenting that a higher proportion of the RNA-negative hamsters became RNA-positive when there was no mask over the airflow. It is not clear why the researchers believe their studies can be extrapolated directly to people. Although newspaper articles claim that the paper has been released, not even the Hong Kong University press release, the institution where the work was performed, provided any details about its location.

HKU hamster research shows masks effective in preventing Covid-19 transmission. HKU. 2020 May 18.

More recently a paper in Lancet identified 172 observational studies (not randomized trials) that they claimed supported social distancing or mask wearing. Of the 44 they examined in detail, 35 studied health care workers, 8 studied close contacts (e.g. a household with an ill person, traced contacts of a person with a positive test) and only 3 studied public spaces (one studied all three, hence the numeric discrepancy). Of those 3 papers one studied distance versus infection risk on airplanes, and another was included in the Cochrane study, above. The third paper, as yet not peer-reviewed and published, was focussed on contact tracing, but did note that of two couples discovered to be both positive through contact tracing (out of 404 close contacts of 9 COVID-19 cases), one took a lot of precautions (mask, separate bedroom, separate bathroom) while the other did not, lending no clarity to the mask debate.

Chu DK et al. Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2020 Jun 01.

A heavily promoted paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine (Ads on Twitter paid for by McMaster University in Canada) claims in the title that “Cloth Masks May Prevent Transmission of COVID-19”. They admit that, “cloth does not stop isolated virions”, but claim that since virus particles are always attached to droplets, that research on transmission of bacteria can be useful. Many of the masks tested in experiments they referenced had 3 to 6 layers of cloth. They also admit that the only randomized trial (discussed below) showed that cloth masks increased influenza-like illnesses in health care workers who wore them for long periods of time. They ignore the Korean research (also discussed below) that concluded that, “Neither surgical nor cotton masks effectively filtered SARS–CoV-2 during coughs by infected patients”. Finally they conclude their promotion of cotton masks by admitting that, “Whether wearing a mask of any sort in a community context protects oneself or others is unknown”. Maybe this paper should be in a section of its own, “Papers that want masks to work but cannot prove it”.

Clase CM et al. Cloth Masks May Prevent Transmission of COVID-19: An Evidence-Based, Risk-Based Approach. Ann Intern Med. 2020 May 22.

Evidence against the use of Masks

A very recent review of the literature that was published in the CDC journal, “Emerging Infectious Diseases” did not find evidence that handwashing or masks were protective against influenza. Masks did not help infected people reduce their risk of infecting others, nor reduce the risk of uninfected people contracting influenza.

“In this review, we did not find evidence to support a protective effect of personal protective measures or environmental measures in reducing influenza transmission…Hand hygiene is a widely used intervention and has been shown to effectively reduce the transmission of gastrointestinal infections and respiratory infections. However, in our systematic review, updating the findings of Wong et al., we did not find evidence of a major effect of hand hygiene on laboratory-confirmed influenza virus transmission…We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility…It is essential to note that the mechanisms of person-to-person transmission in the community have not been fully determined. Controversy remains over the role of transmission through fine-particle aerosols.”
Xiao J et al. Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings-Personal Protective and Environmental Measures. Emerg Infect Dis. 2020 May 17; 26(5).

A Korean study put masks on COVID-19 infected people and did not reduce the transmission of viral RNA when patients coughed with a mask on.

“Neither surgical nor cotton masks effectively filtered SARS–CoV-2 during coughs by infected patients.”
Bae S et al. Effectiveness of Surgical and Cotton Masks in Blocking SARS-CoV-2: A Controlled Comparison in 4 Patients. Ann Intern Med. 2020 Apr 6.

Adverse Consequences of Masks

Adverse consequences of masks are most obvious among health-care workers, where use is more controlled, but members of the general public who voluntarily wear masks for extended periods of time may experience similar problems.

A study in BMJ showed that people who were told to wear cloth masks for extended period of time (for purposes of this study) had higher rates of influenza-like illness than other health care workers but could decide if and when to wear masks, and higher rates than those wearing surgical masks. Even among health care workers, mask wearing could be counter-productive.

“The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI [influenza-like illness] statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm [workers who followed standard practice, which could sometimes include mask wearing]. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.”
MacIntyre CR et al. A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers. BMJ Open. 2015 Apr 22; 5(4): e006577.

A study from Singapore found an increased risk of headaches, indicative of oxygen deprivation, among health care workers. This may or may not apply to the general public who generally wear masks that are less tight fitting (and therefore less effective).

“A total of 158 healthcare workers participated in the study. Majority [126/158 (77.8%)] were aged 21-35 years. Participants included nurses [102/158 (64.6%)], doctors [51/158 (32.3%)], and paramedical staff [5/158 (3.2%)]. Pre-existing primary headache diagnosis was present in about a third [46/158 (29.1%)] of respondents. Those based at the emergency department had higher average daily duration of combined PPE exposure compared to those working in isolation wards [7.0 vs 5.2 hours] or medical ICU [7.0 vs 2.2 hours]. Out of 158 respondents, 128 (81.0%) respondents developed de novo PPE-associated headaches. A pre-existing primary headache diagnosis (OR = 4.20 and combined PPE usage for >4 hours per day (OR 3.91) were independently associated with de novo PPE-associated headaches. Since COVID-19 outbreak, 42/46 (91.3%) of respondents with pre-existing headache diagnosis either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the increased PPE usage had affected the control of their background headaches, which affected their level of work performance.”
Ong JJY et al. Headaches Associated With Personal Protective Equipment – A Cross-Sectional Study Among Frontline Healthcare Workers During COVID‐19. Headache. 2020 05; 60(5): 864-877.

Opinions against the use of Masks

WHO has stated that is no benefit to healthy people wearing masks in public, and there is only limited evidence that masks help when in contact with a sick person.

“There is limited evidence that wearing a medical mask by healthy individuals in the households or among contacts of a sick patient, or among attendees of mass gatherings may be beneficial as a preventive measure. However, there is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.”
Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19. WHO. 2020 Apr 6.

Dr Jenny Harries, a Deputy Chief Medical Officer from the UK, warns that because most members of the public use one mask for an extended period of time, when they take it off at home and put it on a non-sterile surface it becomes contaminated.

“What tends to happen is people will have one mask. They won’t wear it all the time, they will take it off when they get home, they will put it down on a surface they haven’t cleaned. Or they will be out and they haven’t washed their hands, they will have a cup of coffee somewhere, they half hook it off, they wipe something over it. In fact, you can actually trap the virus in the mask and start breathing it in. Because of these behavioural issues, people can adversely put themselves at more risk than less.”
Baynes C. Coronavirus: Face masks could increase risk of infection, medical chief warns. The Independent. 2020 Mar 12.

Jake Dunning, head of emerging infections and zoonoses (animal to human transmission of disease) at Public Health England added that,

“[there is] very little evidence of a widespread benefit [from wearing masks]…Face masks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good universal hygiene behaviour in order for them to be effective.”
Baynes C. Coronavirus: Face masks could increase risk of infection, medical chief warns. The Independent. 2020 Mar 12.

The University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) does not recommend that the public wears masks, because they do not work, they may reduce other preventive measures, and they risk the supply of masks for healthcare workers.

“We do not recommend requiring the general public who do not have symptoms of COVID-19-like illness to routinely wear cloth or surgical masks because: There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission Their use may result in those wearing the masks to relax other distancing efforts because they have a sense of protection We need to preserve the supply of surgical masks for at-risk healthcare workers.”
Brosseau LM et al. COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data. CIDRAP. 2020 Apr 1.

An experienced ER nurse (RN, MSN) examined the data when her grandchild’s pre-school decided that even toddlers need to wear masks, and her literature review produced a lot of information against mask wearing, and she showed that the seven papers by the CDC in support of mask wearing are irrelevant to the subject.

Neuenschwander P. Healthy People Wearing Masks to Stop Corona Not Supported by Science. Jennifer Margulis. 2020 May 13.

Conclusions

Evidence is largely against mask-wearing by the general public. It is generally seen as ineffective, may take attention away from other protective measures, will reduce the supply of masks for healthcare workers, and may cause harm when worn for extended periods of time.

© Copyright July 7, 2020. David Crowe

from:    https://theinfectiousmyth.com/coronavirus/Masks.php

Consciousness and Plants

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The Science of Plant Intelligence Takes Root

July 1, 2020

Jack Fox-Williams, New Dawn
Waking Times

For centuries, Western philosophy has viewed animals and plants as unthinking automatons. The famous 17th (century) scientist and philosopher, Rene Descartes, maintained that non-human organisms cannot reason or feel pain; they are robotic machines that purely act on impulse.1

While science has recently proven that animals are intelligent creatures, capable of logical thinking and emotional experience, the notion that plants possess a similar kind of intelligence is largely disregarded by the scientific community. It is assumed that because plants do not possess a brain, they have no conscious experience.

 

 

Goethe and other thinkers through history observed that plants constitute an intelligent life-form, develop symbiotic relationships with other organisms, and can respond to complex changes in the environment. While the scientific community explains the intelligence of plant behaviour in terms of electrical and chemical responses to sensory stimuli, others believe that plants could provide a valuable insight into other forms of consciousness.

One of the most famous scientists to observe plant intelligence was the English naturalist, geologist and biologist, Charles Darwin.2 While Darwin is most prominently known for the theory of evolution, he was deeply fascinated by the behaviour of plants and made a valuable contribution to the botanical sciences. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Darwin maintained that plants are not unthinking automatons but highly complex and receptive organisms. In one of his last works, The Power of Movement in Plants, published in 1880, Darwin suggests that the root of the plant operates in a similar way to the neural networks found in lower animals, receiving information about the external environment and communicating it to other areas of its structure, writing:

“It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed (with sensitivity) and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs and directing the several movements.”3

Unfortunately, Darwin’s observations were rejected by leading scientists of the time, particularly the eminent plant physiologist Julius Sachs. He labelled Darwin an amateur scientist who performed careless experiments and acquired misleading results. However, in-depth analysis of plants is beginning to reveal they possess highly developed neural systems and even utilise the same neurotransmitters we do.

Modern Science & Plant Intelligence

While it is easy to dismiss these findings as pseudoscience, more and more scientists are recognizing that plants exhibit brain like-functions and make sentient decisions. In 2009, researchers Dieter Volkmann, Stefano Mancuso, Peter W Barlow and Frantisek Baluska, published an article in the journal Plant Signal Behaviour entitled “The ‘root-brain’ hypothesis of Charles and Francis Darwin” in which they examined Darwin’s root hypothesis and whether current scientific literature supports his theory.

Based on complex analysis of scientific data, they concluded that “recent advances in chemical ecology reveal the astonishing complexity of higher plants as exemplified by the battery of volatile substances which they produce and sense in order to share information with other organisms about their physiological state.”4 According to the paper, plants can recognise self from non-self and roots, even secrete signalling exudates that “mediate kin recognition.” Moreover, plants are “capable of a type of plant-specific cognition, suggesting that communicative and identity re-cognition systems are used, as they are in animal and human societies, to improve the fitness of plants and so further their evolution.”

…  One of the most interesting scientists to have undertaken research into plant intelligence is Monica Gagliano, associate professor at the University of Western Australia. In 2014, she conducted a series of experiments using Mimosa Pudicas plants to work out whether plants ‘memorize’ changes in their environment.

In order to test her hypothesis, she placed the plants in pots and then loaded each one onto a specially designed plant-dropping device. Each plant was dropped from a height of six inches, sixty times in a row at five second intervals. The plants would fall onto a soft foam to prevent them from bouncing, with the drop quick enough to cause the plants to curl up their leaves. Since the plants were not harmed in any way, Gagliano wondered whether they would eventually realize the drop did not signify an external danger. After a short amount of time, she found that “some individuals did not close their leaves when fully dropped.”The plants realized that falling from six inches would not cause them any harm and no longer curled their leaves.

Members of the scientific community were cynical of Gagliano’s findings, suggesting the plants merely became exhausted. Gagliano disproved this theory by taking a group of plants and placing them in a shaker in order to deplete them of energy. She found that the plants still curled their leaves, indicating they only became unguarded when dropped from a height to which they had become accustomed.5

Gagliano’s research has significant implications in terms how we see plants. The fact that they respond differently to situations that present no harm to those that do, implies plants recall sensory information and ‘memorise’ changes around them. While there is much uncertainty as to how plants recall this information, Gagliano believes it could be representative of a distributed intelligence operating entirely different to the mammalian brain.

This corresponds with Rupert Sheldrake’s ‘morphic resonance’ hypothesis that memories are not stored in the brain but in a universal informational field. …   Examples like this suggest memory may not be an entirely neurological phenomenon but exists in other forms; this may explain why plants are able to memorise information without possessing a physical brain structure.6

The notion that plants operate within a wider intelligence network is supported by recent experiments in plant communication. …

Plant Sentience in Shamanic Cultures

The belief that plants constitute an intelligent life form is commonplace in shamanic cultures, particularly those found in South America. As Michael Winkelman, Associate Professor at Arizona State University states, “the self-identifications with the broader universe, particularly personification of the sentient cosmos which is a hallmark of ecopsychology, is a fundamental aspect of shamanism.” 

…  Many people who have ingested Ayahuasca, an entheogenic brew made from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine in South America, report telepathic communication with plants, animals and people during the experience; the natural world becomes personified as an animated fractal intelligence that is constantly adapting, changing and evolving. …

In this sense, recent experiments into plant intelligence prove what shamanistic cultures have known all along – that plants are intelligent, sensitive and sentient life-forms.9 By observing their behaviour, we can learn more about the natural world and the complexity of all living things. Although modern science provided us with tremendous technological innovation and development, the reductionist belief that animals and plants are ‘mechanical’ in their nature, rather than a dynamic expression of intelligence and consciousness, has disconnected us from our environment and thus ourselves.

A Challenge to Outmoded Paradigms & Thinking

There are significant social, philosophical and religious implications for plant intelligence. It challenges the anthropocentric and monotheistic view that humans are the only species with a mind and a soul – we are not the most important entity in the universe but part of an interconnected web of life.

…(he independent scholar, author, teacher, and speaker on sacred plant medicine Stephen) Buhner notes:

“The older, reductive, mechanistic paradigm that looked at the earth as a ball of non-sentient resources, we do with as we please, has reached its limits. It is destroying the ability of most life forms to endure, and the eco-systems of the planet. Younger and less mentally restrictive scientists in every field are finding that the world around us is far different than the picture that reductionists have created and taught us to believe. All life is intelligent, none of it is mechanical, and you cannot use the ecosystems of the planet as resources for unlimited extraction.”11

Plant intelligence also forces us to reconsider the nature of consciousness. Mainstream science currently posits the idea that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain (it is generated by the brain). When we die, the brain ceases to operate, and consciousness switches off. In this reductionist perspective, plants and animals possess a very limited consciousness since their brains are not as neurologically complex. But the fact of the matter stands that modern science does not understand the mystery of consciousness and the process by which neural pathways, which are non-conscious, become self-aware as a complex web of connections in the brain. If plants have the ability to recall sensory information, socially communicate with each other, and respond to complex changes in the environment, we are forced to rethink our current models of consciousness. It may be the case that the human brain constitutes a very specific expression of consciousness, and intelligence manifests across a broad spectrum of life with plants possessing their own unique form of awareness which modern science does not currently understand.

To conclude, there is increasing evidence suggesting plants are an intelligent life-form. Recent scientific experiments indicate that plants are able to retain sensory information, respond to complex changes in their environment and even communicate with one another via complex biological networks. While we have yet to fully understand how plant intelligence works, these experiments challenge the orthodox scientific view that plants are non-sentient, and intelligence only emerges via neural pathways in the brain.

…

An interview with Stephen Harrod Buhner accompanies this article and can be read inside the same issue of New Dawn.

from:    https://www.wakingtimes.com/2020/07/01/the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/