What’s Going on in Ukraine? Part 4: The Corona Connection (2)

Introduction

The previous parts of this series have discussed the Western and Russian narratives surrounding the conflict in Ukraine. The Western narrative, as usual, is full of untruths about the situation in Ukraine, ignoring intervention by the West and pretending that the bombing of civilians in Donbass doesn’t exist. The Russian narrative is more in line with reality as it acknowledges Western aggression and the suffering of people in the Donbass. However, the Russian government’s promotion of the Official Covid Narrative, including lockdowns and forced ‘vaccinations’, mean scepticism of the Russian government is warranted. This situation has led people to speculate about the role of orchestration in the Ukraine conflict.

The Model Before the Official Covid Narrative

One of the key questions relating to the current situation in Ukraine is how we assess foreign policy – and particularly questions of international collusion – in the wake of the Covid 19 scam. Prior to Covid 19 it was accurate to frame foreign policy around Western imperialism and resistance to that imperialism as the model. Imperialist invasions took place in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, imperialist subversion in Syria, imperialist occupation in Palestine, and imperialist coups in Honduras and Bolivia. All of these events had significant economic and resource gains for Western elites. On the other hand, independent minded governments resisted this subversion. This included Islamic governments (like Iran), right wing governments (like Russia), secular Arab governments (like Iraq or Syria) and left wing governments (like Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia).

In particular, once Russia began to regain some economic and military strength after the disaster of the 1990s, they began to slowly push back against the West. It is worth noting, however, that Putin’s views have become more hostile to the West over time and he did not begin his tenure as implacably anti-Western. For example, in a New York Times interview in 2003, Putin expressed his desire for good relations with the US, while considering the war in Iraq as an error:

I have already mentioned strategic stability. The United States and Russia remain the strongest nuclear powers. Our interests in the sphere of fighting radicalism and terrorism coincide, and we are very much concerned about the radicalisation of certain countries and certain regions. Our common interest lies in counteracting one of the main threats of the 21st century – proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

[…]

You know our attitude toward the war in Iraq; I have made it public. I said from the very beginning and still believe that it was a mistake. This is why there is no surprise for us about the situation that has taken shape because we foresaw the development of the situation there just exactly as it is developing now. First of all, this has to do with the political aspect, the collapse of the statehood, as you correctly mentioned. How could one imagine a different course of events in case the Saddam Hussain regime is dismantled? Of course, statehood is destroyed. How can it be otherwise? But what do the special services have to do with it?
Vladimir Putin

Putin became more hostile as the lack of cooperation from the West and the disdain for Russian interests became more and more obvious with the expansion of NATO and the undermining of the government of Bashar Al Assad, a long time Russian ally. Russia militarily intervened in Syria (with the permission of the Syrian government) to fight the Western supported terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al Nusra and the White Helmets.

Collusion and Competition?

However, both sides complying with the Covid Narrative raises questions about this model of geopolitical competition. The fact is that almost all countries (excluding Belarus, Sweden, and some African countries whose leaders died in mysterious circumstances) went along with lockdowns and all Western countries, Russia and China supported the jabs. The question at issue here is the idea of global conspiracy in the creation of a fake pandemic in order to institute a global control grid of digital IDs, transhumanism, and full spectrum authoritarian control, broadly called ‘The Great Reset’.

The fact that the vast majority of countries complied with these anti -health directives in the name of health has to arouse suspicion. If a few countries had done lockdowns, or many countries had done them but for a short period, incompetence would seem a more plausible explanation, but the sheet length of the life destroying lockdowns combined with sinister legislation suggests the possibility of conspiracy.

In reality, there is evidence that both phenomena exist simultaneously: geopolitical maneuvering is real, but so is a push towards some sort of ‘great reset’ type scenario among certain elite groups. The best model to adopt to understand the current scenario is one in which countries are competing within themselves (largely the West, Russia and China) while all supporting some aspects of a digital control grid. Groups like the World Economic Forum have relevance within this matrix, as they drive an ideological agenda forward and facilitate liaison between different elites (Davos, etc.).

The best analogy I can think of is this: In the 19th century, all the major European states (France, Germany, Britain et al.) supported the concept of having colonies. However, they all competed over who had the most colonies and therefore the most access to natural resources, cheap labour etc. Sometimes these countries would come together and make agreements regulating colonialism (a form of collusion) but they would also try to undermine each other’s imperial power. In this analogy the belief in colonies and the collusion would equal agreeing on the great reset and colluding at meetings such as Davos, whereas the competition plays out in areas such as Ukraine and Syria for dominance by different powers.

Relevance of Imperialism

Only seeing one side of the coin as real leads to mistakes in analysis. Ultimately I don’t think all geopolitical competition has disappeared with the Covid narrative, regardless of the elements of bizarre international agreement on the issue. Different interests of different countries – such as economic or geostrategic – still function as a relevant mode of analysis.

The Western (that is, US and its lackey countries such as the UK, etc) imperialist drive inevitably brings it into conflict with other countries. The imperialist nature of the West – that is, their need and ability to exploit peripheral countries – is not something that can be arbitrarily abolished as it evolved out of the capitalist system and the dominance of these powers over that system. In fact, there is ample evidence of the continuation of imperialist warfare and exploitation despite ‘Covid-19’ (see my previous article on ‘Mass Murder ‘In The Middle of a Deadly Pandemic”).

One of the countries it must come into conflict with is Russia, despite the similarities in domestic policy between the two powers when it comes to Covid 19. Despite some claims to the contrary, Russia is not an imperialist power, and it is misleading to portray it as such just because it invaded Ukraine. Just because one country militarily intervenes in another does not automatically make that intervention ‘imperialist’ unless you want to argue absurdities such as Vietnam being an imperialist power (as they invaded Cambodia in the 1970s). Russia is not economically powerful enough to compete as an imperialist state and it does not have masses of finance capital it can use to exploit other countries through neocolonialism. Instead, it is a middling country that finds itself in conflict with the West because they constantly threaten Russia’s borders.

These conflicting interests remain real and cannot be ignored as a driver of Western and Russian actions. The fact that these conflicting interests exist means that theories of direct collusion (such as collusion to create a distraction in Ukraine, for example) are less plausible unless there is direct evidence. There is enough reason for the two powers to compete without having to use direct collusion as an explanation.

Relevance of Global Elites

While we should be careful in attributing every action during the ‘Covid-19 pandemic’ to conspiracy, there is some evidence for that position. The fact that the US government ran a pandemic exercise called Event 201 “which predicted a global pandemic caused by a novel Coronavirus just months before the Covid-19 outbreak” – is suspicious. (Interestingly, there was also a Monkeypox simulation exercise). Ultimately I find it difficult to explain the Covid-19 scam through opportunism alone, given the fact that a large number of states went along with it for such a long period of time. Particularly the clear transhumanist drive present within all aspects of the Covid agenda shows a unified elite ideology being driven by individuals like Klaus Schwab, leader of the World Economic Forum.

Organisations like The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum are using Covid-19 to push sinister global agendas. In fact, this barely qualifies as a ‘conspiracy’ since they are open about the fact that this is what they are doing (Schwab literally wrote a book called ‘The Great Reset’, how much more open do you want?). Bill Gates clearly wants to use the ‘pandemic’ to push vaccines, one of his most notable interests, and there is also evidence he has an interest in depopulation. Schwab argues for a transhumanist future under the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution‘, where human beings meld with technology and where genetic editing is normalised. Covid-19 is considered a method to bring about this future. Groups like the WEF and BMGF infiltrate and fund initiatives within states (for example, the WEF uses the Young Global Leaders program to groom people into its ideology, whereas the BMGF uses money to fund initiatives it supports).

The weaknesses of focusing mainly on these organisations is that they do not have direct methods of enforcement (militaries, police forces, etc.) that can force the population to obey. Only states have those. States have to have some interest in imposition of the policies also to ensure their implementation. So what we have, in my view, is a system based on mutual overlapping interests. This includes between governments, global institutions (WHO, WEF, BMGF etc) and big corporations such as Big Pharma, Big Tech and the arms companies. These mutual overlapping interests involve means by which to control the population (vaccine passports, Digital ID’s, lockdowns, smart cities, technocracy) as well as transhumanism (the US and UK governments are interested in ‘human augmentation’), and of course the big corporations benefit through increased profit and mandated markets for their products.

Conclusion

There are both circles of overlapping and competing interests when it comes to understanding the operations of the modern world and neither can be dismissed out of hand as an influence on the behaviour of states. Ultimately Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine can be explained via traditional geopolitical motives. However elites in most countries (including Russia) have an interest in the transhumanist digital control matrix being pushed by such elites. Contra to some claims in the independent media, I see no evidence that Russia is opposed to the fundamentals of transhumanist technocracy.

Roe vs Wade & Abortion Rights Protest 26th June 2022

There was a protest called at short notice after the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade ruling in the US. For clarity, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade doesn’t make abortion illegal, it means it isn’t a constitutional right. It will be banned in all the hardcore conservative states but will remain legal in the liberal states.

Bad Takes from Right Wing Men

In the wake of this ruling there have been a billion bad takes on Twitter from pro-life men, quite a few of whom I follow due to their anti-lockdown and anti-forced jab stance. Most of them are making the argument that it’s people’s fault (primarily women, obviously) for having constant promiscuous sex with a bunch of unknown partners.

This of course completely ignores the reality of rapists and abusive men who will use sabotaging birth control as a means of coercive control over their partners. It also ignores the fact that the ‘young people are going around shagging lots of different people’ is more of a media constructed reality than actual fact. The highly sexualised culture and 24/7 access to violent, misogynist pornography makes the current generations such as millennials look as if they are having loads of sex. Surveys however do not back up that contention, instead they show that millennials have less sex than previous generations. Of course I’m not claiming there is nobody doing this before someone steams in with the strawman.

Then of course, there is the classic of men going around calling pregnancy an inconvenience. Note guys: if it can literally kill you, it doesn’t qualify as an inconvenience.

Supporting or Opposing ‘The Great Reset’?

People are arguing whether this supports the current agenda which we could broadly called ‘The Great Reset’. I use this term for convenience, broadly meaning the pushing of digital identity and transhumanism. Some people are arguing that the ruling is against the great reset because it opposes the depopulation agenda, others because it leads to more decentralisation (as it allows states to decide on abortion and not the federal government).

I’m not really convinced by such arguments for a few reasons. I acknowledge that depopulation is a goal of some members of the elite and that there is elite interest in the topic. For example, Bill Gates’ famous claims:

If we do a really great job on new vaccines, healthcare, reproductive health services, we could perhaps lower [projected population growth] by 10-15%…
Bill Gates

[Note: contrary to ‘fact checker’ claims, I am not making any claim in this particular argument other than that Bill Gates wants population growth to decrease and that he has an interest in these kinds of topics].

There are of course also examples of deliberate sterilisation policies that have been carried out by certain governments, examples of which are too numerous to list. However these efforts have generally been targeted at certain groups especially racial minorities and disabled people so they would not qualify as a full on depopulation plan.

There is also the new evidence coming out about sperm quality and the Covid 19 jabs which has been widely publicised on outlets such as Children’s Health Defense and Substack. Igor Chudov has also highlighted declines in birth rates after the jab rollout. However whether this is a depopulation plan is not proven. There are other explanations – for example that they were determined to push this product obsessively for other reasons (vaccine passports and other control measures) and because it wasn’t tested properly it had this effect.

The downsides to any depopulation argument occur when we look at things from a country based level. A country will be in a weak position if it has a low military/working age population compared to its elderly population. This has been a significant problem in countries such as Russia. Despite some claims to the contrary which completely dismiss the idea of geopolitics, different countries do have different interests despite agreement on the Covid Narrative. This can be seen in the current situation in Ukraine. This would provide an incentive for any country to avoid going along with a deliberate plan. (Depopulation arguments probably deserve their own post).

I can understand a ruling towards decentralisation being seen as a positive but there are difficulties here as well. I don’t know why we would consider state governments any less corrupt than federal to be honest.

It seems much more likely that this ruling will fit in well with what the psychopaths want to achieve. The actual original ruling in Roe vs. Wade used logic that is not intuitive:

the Court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Overturning a privacy rights based ruling doesn’t seem like a good thing.

I am not a lawyer and I don’t have a particular expertise in assessing legal arguments but this article seems worthy of note.

The state in which Jessica lives prohibits and criminalizes abortion for any reason, defining a fertilized egg as a person. Jessica tells her friends and family that she had a miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy. One of her roommates doesn’t believe her and reports her to the local police for having had an abortion.

The local police investigate Jessica for what they believe is a possible violation of the state’s law criminalizing abortion. Based on the initial investigation, police officers determine that Jessica wanted to terminate her pregnancy and was trying to find the “abortion drug.” They obtain a warrant to search her phone. On her phone, they discover evidence that she searched for information about abortion and purchased mifepristone and misoprostol. These drugs can cause an abortion, but they are also used to help women complete the process of miscarriage. They also find evidence of when she had her last period on a period-tracking app, which further substantiates that she was pregnant for 11 weeks. The evidence obtained from Jessica’s phone is used to prosecute her for violating the state’s law criminalizing abortion.

There is also the question of creating divisions within the country and trying to undermine any possible unity, which could be a motive. As well as a further pile on to the Covid/Ukraine/Monkeypox/God-knows-what narrative mixer we are currently part of in 2022.

Protest Footage

Footage is available from this protest on my Youtube and Bitchute accounts. The protest was a short event, about 45 minutes long, with a pretty good turnout for a short notice protest. I have footage of a few of the speeches on the channel about abortion rights in Latin America, disability and abortion and the strategy being pursued by anti-abortion activists.

Postscript: An Actual Solution

Youtube content producer A Slightly Twisted Female posted the below on her channel for a new project that she will be producing:

Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

As such, I will now turn my attention towards developing a menstrual extraction protocol which would allow women to safely, and inexpensively, extract menstrual contents of their uterus. This is an old midwifery technique that has been used to traditional caregivers since time immemorial, and it’s time to return this wisdom back to women, where it belongs.

I will be reaching out to my contacts of traditional midwives, particularly midwives who serve the Amish and Mennonite communities local to my area in order to develop a protocol for menstrual extraction that can be shared with women across the globe.

Please please consider helping to support my mission by sending a donation so I can develop this protocol for vulnerable women.

I am posting this here to give this project more amplification as it is the kind of solution that we should be supporting – reliance on ourselves and not big pharma and returning to these forms of traditional knowledge that have been taken away from women. In fact we need this kind of knowledge to spread for things other than just this one issue.

Leicester Protest With John O’Looney: 4th June 2022

I saw this protest advertised on the Stand Up X website and thought I’d go being as Leicester isn’t far away and there were actually trains running. The main focus of this protest was a 20 minute or so speech from John O’Looney.

For anyone who is not familiar with John O’Looney, though I assume most readers are, he is an undertaker who came to question the Covid Narrative through his work. Basically, his main observations are as such:

O’Looney states he observed no increase in overall death in 2020 while we were allegedly ‘in the middle of a deadly pandemic’;
He also states he saw a massive increase in death for the first 12 weeks of 2021 (i.e. during the beginning of the Covid 19 jab rollout).

He did an interview which was posted on Bitchute and got a large amount of views which outlined his perspective as an undertaker. It was originally published in September 2021.

It was a small protest in Leicester city centre, at the ‘Clock Tower’. 100-150 people standing around in a circle in the square. I recognised some attendees from Birmingham protests I have been to before.

This was the only anti-covid narrative protest I have been to where there was quite a lot of people disagreeing with the protesters. There were quite a few people who shouted stuff like ‘follow the science’ and ‘you want to kill people’ at the protest. Yes those literal actual tropes. Some guy even ripped up a copy of ‘The Light’ Paper. There were some other people who were more willing to take the leaflets and papers. Someone else engaged one of the protesters on the topic of collapsing athletes, due to the below sign:

Woman holding sign behind her back reading 'How Many Footballers Have to Drop Before the Penny Does?'

There were some overlap in attendees and speakers with the Birmingham and Wolverhampton protests I previously attended.

If you want to watch footage from the protest, it is uploaded on my Youtube and Bitchute accounts, including the full speech by John O’Looney.

The Psychological Quirks of Complicity Theorists

R. M. Allen, 2022

Abstract

Given the high level of compliance with official narratives advocated by the state and the mainstream media, it is worth analysing the psychological basis for such beliefs. There are several reasons why people may be psychologically prone to believing in these complicity theories. These fall under the categories of economic motivations, a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance, and high levels of mainstream media consumption.

Introduction

According to polling data, 25% of Americans believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the assassination of President Kennedy (Jensen, 2013). Furthermore, 16% of Americans believe that elite pedophile Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide (Shamsian, 2019). These are examples of complicity theories – “a theory that unquestionably accepts the standard explanation for an event offered by the political, religious, social or economic apparatus of the time or the main stream media” (Urban Dictionary, 2020). This article will examine the psychological basis of these beliefs. Many articles – both popular and academic – have been written regarding psychological motivations for belief in so called ‘conspiracy theories’ (for example, Cichocka, Douglas, and Sutton 2017). However, much less critical work has been done analysing complicity theories. Nevertheless, there are important hints in the literature on conspiracy theories that elucidate the psychology of complicity theorists.

Economic Reasons

Economic and educational factors are a key driver in complicity theory belief. Evidence indicates that more highly educated and economically well off people are more likely to be complicity theorists (Zitelman, 2020; Pierre, 2019). There are important psychological reasons for this. Being economically well off discourages criticism of the current political and economic system, as one is not inclined to criticise a system one is personally benefiting from. This drives those better off financially to be more accepting of the latest narrative from the government and mainstream media. Economic gain can also drive some groups – particularly those such as journalists, politicians and bureaucrats – to believe complicity theories. For example, journalists who bring forward evidence of conspiracy are much less likely to be published in the mainstream media, meaning that they will lose out financially. Higher levels of education also predispose one to complicity theories, partly for the economic reasons outlined above, but also because it gives one a longer period of exposure to official government narratives, therefore ingraining those narratives more closely into the individual psyche.

Levels of Mainstream Media Consumption

The mainstream media is the main disseminator of complicity theories in Western societies. The function of the mainstream media in Western society is to provide effective ‘narrative control’ for the current rulers (Johnstone, 2022). Furthermore, mainstream media serves as an effective echo chamber, with only a very narrow range of debate allowed. For example, in March 2020, questioning of lockdowns was practically non existent in the mainstream media. High levels of consumption of this complicity theory content will have the psychological effect of reinforcing belief in complicity theories, as well as the belief that everyone else believes in complicity theories (Seong, 2021).

A Need to Believe

A need to believe in the fundamental goodness and worthiness of the state and nation that they have been taught to believe in is a key influence on the complicity theorist. Entertaining the notion of conspiracy – such as, for example, that the CIA had John F. Kennedy assassinated – causes cognitive dissonance in the complicity theorist (Cherry, 2022). The complicity theorist cannot both hold that the American state is democratic and free and that a deep state exists that is capable of murdering the President. The underlying needs of the complicity theorist to both maintain their belief in the generally good (if imperfect) nature of the current state of affairs and to avoid cognitive dissonance causes them to unfairly dismiss evidence of conspiracy.

When do Complicity Theorists Become Conspiracy Theorists?

Nevertheless, there are certain conditions under which a complicity theorist will consider an explanation that could be classed as a conspiracy theory by any reasonable definition. These cases usually occur when the complicity theory supports one side of the ‘two party illusion’, that is, one side of the false paradigm that has been set up within the extremely limited debate allowed within the mainstream media (Cristian, 2020). Another circumstance under which conspiracy may be considered is when it involves another country constructed as an ‘enemy nation’ by the mainstream media – for example Russia, Iran, or Venezuela. For example, the idea that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to get elected in 2016 is an excellent example of these phenomena. By definition, this claim, if true, involved a conspiracy. Yet a large number of people who are usually complicity theorists believed in this conspiracy wholeheartedly, despite the fact that many other conspiracies they reject are backed by far more evidence.

Conclusion

The topic of complicity theories and the kind of individuals that believe them requires much more research to draw substantive conclusions. Nevertheless some preliminary conclusions can be drawn from the literature which suggest important reasons for beliefs in complicity theories separate from their truth.

Declaration of Conflicts of Interest

The author received no pay for this article and therefore has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Sources

Cherry, K. (2022) ‘What Is Cognitive Dissonance?’, VeryWell Mind, at https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012, accessed 29th May 2022.

Cichocka, A., Douglas, K., and Sutton, R. (2017) ‘The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26 (6), pp. 538-42, at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5724570/, accessed 29th May 2022.

Cristian, R. (2020) ‘Jimmy Dore Interview – Voting In A Broken System, The Two-Party Illusion & Tulsi Gabbard’, The Last American Vagabond, at https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/jimmy-dore-interview-voting-in-a-broken-system-the-two-party-illusion-tulsi-gabbard/, accessed 2nd June 2022.

Jensen, T. (2013) ‘Democrats and Republicans Differ on Conspiracy Theory Beliefs’ Public Policy Polling, at https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/polls/democrats-and-republicans-differ-on-conspiracy-theory-beliefs/, accessed 29th May 2022.

Johnstone, C. (2022) ‘They’re Worried About The Spread Of Information, Not Disinformation’ at https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/theyre-worried-about-the-spread-of?s=r, accessed 30th May 2022.

Mantik, D. (2022) ‘Gagné Desperately Dispenses CPR for the Lone Gunman (Part 1)’, Kennedys and King, at https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/gagne-desperately-dispenses-cpr-for-the-lone-gunman-part-1, accessed 29th May 2022.

Pierre, J. (2019) ‘What Makes People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?’, Psychology Today, at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/201904/what-makes-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories, accessed 29th May 2022.

Seong, J. M. (2021) ‘Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories? Network Diversity, Political Discussion, and Conservative Conspiracy Theories on Social Media’, American Politics Research, 49 (5), pp. 415-31, at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353352480_Who_Believes_in_Conspiracy_Theories_Network_Diversity_Political_Discussion_and_Conservative_Conspiracy_Theories_on_Social_Media

Shamsian, J. (2019) ‘Almost half of Americans now believe the conspiracy theory that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was murdered’, Business Insider, at https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epstein-kill-himself-poll-2019-11?op=1&r=US&IR=T, accessed 29th May 2022.

‘UtterSpace’ (2020) ‘Urban Dictionary: Complicity Theory’, Urban Dictionary, at https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Complicity%20Theory, accessed 29th May 2022.

Zitelman, R. (2020) ‘How Many Americans Believe In Conspiracy Theories?’ Forbes, at https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2020/06/29/how-many-americans-believe-in-conspiracy-theories/?sh=41be9a255e94, accessed 29th May 2022.

Palestine Protest 15th May 22

I attended a protest for Palestine on the 15th May. The day before, there was a protest in London that had been planned on the anniversary of the Nakba of 1948. I didn’t go to London but some footage can be seen here.

The protest also took place after the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

It was a pretty small protest. It was due to start at 2pm, but at this time there was hardly anyone there.

Small number of Palestine protesters in Victoria Square. One man on the left stands waving a flag .

More people began to trickle in after 2pm, so the crowd became closer to 150 people.

Protesters holding signs reading "Gaza: End the Siege", "Free Palestine".

Initially the protest was in the square proper, but it was moved to make it more visible to passers by.

There was both chants being led and some speeches. Some children (I’m guessing under the age of 10) also led chants, which I didn’t film as I don’t want to put that online (I try to avoid filming children if possible).

Footage can be found on my Youtube and Bitchute accounts.

The Snobbery of the Covid Narrative and Its Functions

Introduction

The Official Covid Narrative, the idea that Covid-19 is an extremely dangerous disease that requires severe mitigation strategies such as lockdown, views human beings as simply disease carriers. However, some categories of people are viewed more as disease carriers than others by the official narrative, and specifically by the believers in that narrative. The narrative itself is inherently linked to certain middle and upper class attitudes about the working classes and their beliefs and pursuits. This is seen through the demonisation of working class people for carrying out ordinary everyday activities and for being sceptical of big pharma.

The Great Unwashed

From 23 March 2020, near the entirety of the country was compliant with Boris Johnson’s draconian lockdowns. As someone who was a sceptic of the narrative from the beginning, it was depressing and almost hopeless to see the state of the country at that time.

The first possible signs of actual social life came about through the suggestion of V.E. Day anniversary celebrations. 8th May 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, so at that point the British people had endured about 6 weeks of lockdown. This was the first sign of life in the country since the beginning of the tyranny.

This is when the middle class handwringing started. The idea of celebrating V.E. Day does not suit middle class Remainer sensibilities, as they consider it to be too nationalistic. They already had a negative conception of the ‘insular’ working class who largely voted for Brexit, so they were already psychologically primed for mass demonisation. And now the working class were to commit the mortal sin in the minds of middle class hypochondriacs: going outside to celebrate a holiday.

Furthermore, there were images of packed beaches from the late spring and summer of 2020. The media salivated over these images, mocking and cursing those who went to the beach. This article provides an example of such strategies, entitled ‘Bournemouth raises alarm as huge crowds ignore COVID advice and flock to the coast’. People having a good time in good weather is now considered to be a ‘major incident’.

The Great Unjabbed

Since the rollout of the Covid 19 injections to the population at large, the demonisation has been squarely aimed at the unjabbed. The official narrative had divided the population into two halves: the virtuous ‘fully vaccinated’ (and now ‘boosted’) populations, and the selfish, evil ‘unvaccinated’ who are subhuman vectors of disease.

Leaving the irrationality of this narrative aside for a moment, here is a large dose of snobbery behind the demonisation of the ‘unvaccinated’. The reality is, people from poorer communities and racial minorities are much less likely to have taken the jabs than middle class white people.

Official government data is contested when it comes to how many people have actually taken the jabs. The government likes to cite a figure of 5m ‘unvaccinated’, making the uninjected quite a small minority. The Expose has used another government document to contest this, claiming this document shows that in fact 15.3m eligible people have not taken a single dose.

Even according to the more official data, however, take up is lower in poorer and ethnic minority communities. The website OpenSafely.org gives data on vaccine coverage in the UK (and is linked and used as a source by the BBC, so it’s establishment approved). Their charts clearly show that ethnic minorities and more deprived areas have a lower vaccination take up. Even if the numbers themselves are overshot per The Expose above, I doubt that the trends themselves are inaccurate.

The demonisation of the ‘unvaccinated’ thus has a clear class element.

There is also another aspect to this which we saw strongly during the Brexit argument and that is the ‘working class are stupid’ aspect. The Guardian published an article called ‘Understanding, not judgment, should shape our response to those who remain unjabbed’ which is full of the kind of talking down beloved of middle class British liberals.

By way of getting to the heart of it all, a PowerPoint presentation she sent me made mention of “historic lack of trust in public institutions including health services within some groups and communities”. In some black communities, she said, people’s relationships with authority are so poor that that some have chosen to be vaccinated well away from where they live and work, “because they’re almost embarrassed to be vaccinated, thinking their community isn’t behind them.” She paused. “There’s no easy fix. We just keep on talking.”

The implication of this article is that we need some nice middle class liberals to go and talk to these ‘stupid’ black people who don’t trust authority. There’s no consideration here that people may have actually said no and mean no and have the agency to do so.

This is the flipside to the demonisation of the ‘unvaccinated’ as subhuman – they can either be maliciously subhuman, in that they are purposeful granny killers, or they can be stupidly subhuman, in that they require enlightenment by the evangelists of the Covid Cult.

Alongside this narrative, the traditional ‘working class activity’ snobbery continued, with people attending the Euro 2020(1) football tournament being demonised for their attendance. Meanwhile, Wimbledon – of more middle class interest happening at the same time – did not cause the same demonisation from the middle class dominated media.

The Covid Scam Is An Attack on Working People

There is a more serious point to all of this snobbery, which is that the Covid narrative is an attack on ordinary working people in a multitude of ways. This attack is justified through this snobbery in the minds of the petty middle class, who are already inclined to view the working class as ignorant Brexit voters who ruined their nice holidays in Marbella.

Lockdown is a war on the working class. Firstly, it is an attack on the rights of the working class to congregate and organise politically in order to represent their interests, as well as to protest against the governments and corporations imposing poor working conditions and wages on them.

Lockdown is also an economic war against the working class and a massive transfer of wealth upwards from ordinary people. Multiple sources have highlighted this massive growth in wealth, including many that are supporters of the Official Covid Narrative. According to inequality.org:

The world’s billionaires have seen their wealth surge by over $5.5 trillion since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, a gain of over 68 percent. The world’s 2,690 global billionaires saw their combined wealth rise from $8 trillion on March 20, 2020 to $13.5 trillion as of July 31, 2021, drawing on data from Forbes.

Global billionaire total wealth has increased more over the past 17 months of the pandemic than it did in the 15 years prior to the pandemic. Between 2006 and 2020, global billionaire wealth increased from $2.65 trillion to $8 trillion, a gain of $5.35 trillion.

Whereas Oxfam reports:

With unprecedented support from governments for their economies, the stock market has been booming, driving up billionaire wealth, even while the real economy faces the deepest recession in a century. In contrast, after the financial crisis in 2008, it took five years for billionaire wealth to return to its pre-crisis highs.

Worldwide, billionaires’ wealth increased by a staggering $3.9tn (trillion)
between 18 March and 31 December 2020.28 Their total wealth now stands
at $11.95tn, which is equivalent to what G20 governments have spent
in response to the pandemic. The world’s 10 richest billionaires have
collectively seen their wealth increase by $540bn over this period.

Working class wealth has nosedived due to the lockdowns. Workers have been forced to work from home and this has increased their exploitation according to Ted Reese:

Much of the workplace has been moved to the home, saving capital costs on office space; pushing running costs such as electricity and water bills onto workers; and making them work longer hours, all combining to deepen the rate of their exploitation. About 30% of remote workers in a UK survey said they were working more unpaid hours than before lockdown, with 18% reporting at least four additional unpaid hours a week. According to an ADP Research Institute study, employees globally are now working 9.2 hours per week of unpaid overtime on average, up from 7.3 hours in a year.

The terrible inflation we are currently observing – at least partially caused by the lockdowns – is another aspect of war on the working class. The middle classes can weather this inflation through higher wages and the money they accrued while getting paid free cash on furlough. This isn’t an option for the working class.

The mandatory Covid injections implemented by the establishment are also an attack on the bodily integrity of the working class. The government forced care home workers to take these injections or they would be fired. Care home workers are poorly paid members of the working class, with an average wage of £8.50 an hour. They are also primarily women. Care home workers were fired from their jobs for not taking these injections in December 2021, or were forced to leave and find other work. Although the mandate was later repealed the damage was done in terms of lost wages and jobs. Other countries are still implementing such policies.

Snobbery also allows for the demonisation of resistance to the authoritarian project launched in the name of ‘fighting Covid’. This has been seen most notably in the case of the ‘Freedom Convoy’. The Convoy emerged in Canada in response to Justin Trudeau’s particularly authoritarian Covid measures. In response other convoys have taken inspiration for their own movements including in the UK. Due to the fact that this movement is founded by working class people, it has been demonised by people in the media and their woke left allies. The movement has been smeared as ‘white supremacist’ (despite the clear participation of people of all races).

The portion of the left that hates the working classes has also been brought in to smear the convoys as ‘right wing’. One example is previously respected anti-imperialist commentator Ben Norton, who has been demonising people opposed to the injection mandates:

Tweet from Benjamin Norton reading "The trucker convoy in Canada is so obviously a rightwing operation astroturfed by conservative billionaires. It's absurd seeing some "leftists" pretend otherwise."

The same line is being parroted by the liberal media that the likes of Norton claim to oppose. The Conversation ran a hit piece on the truckers, claiming that because they aren’t virtue signalling about ‘transphobia’ they don’t care about freedom and that they want the freedom to kill people because they reject mandating an experimental injection. This demonisation helps to keep the middle classes in the Covid propaganda bubble.

Conclusion

One function of lockdowns was a massive transfer of wealth to the rich from the poor and working class. The political acceptability of such a project – in the UK in particular – was maintained through the demonisation of the working classes.

What’s Going on in Ukraine? Part 3: The Corona Connection (I)

Introduction

The first two posts in these series discussed the current situation in Ukraine from the point of view of geopolitics and an anti-imperialist critique of Western actions. However, while the points made in those posts were based on factual evidence, there is one point that hasn’t been discussed so far. That is the fact that this Ukraine narrative swooped in and almost completely eclipsed the Corona nonsense that we have been dealing with for the past 2 years. This part will discuss the reality of Russia, Covid 19 and the Sputnik V ‘Vaccine’.

The Reality of Russia and Covid

In order to begin looking at this question, we need to start with Putin’s views on Corona and what policy positions he took during the ‘deadly pandemic’. Unfortunately it remains a fact that the Russian government supported the ‘deadly pandemic’ narrative. Here are some examples of the Russian policies towards Covid 19.

Russia used lockdowns as a means to ‘control the virus’ during the ‘first wave’ of Covid 19. These lockdowns – as well as a ban on foreign travelers to Russia – began to be introduced near the end of March 2020. This legislation, signed in April 2020 by Vladimir Putin, outlines fines of 300,000 to 700,000 roubles as a punishment for spreading false information regarding the situation regarding Covid 19. Violating quarantine is also a criminal offense according to this law if people become ill with Covid 19 due to the breach and can be punished with prison time.

Furthermore, Moscow introduced a ‘pass system’ for travel in April 2020, a draconian move that fits in well with later measures such as vaccine passports:

On April 11 [2020], Mayor Sergei Sobyanin signed a decree, introducing special digital passes to travel around Moscow and the Moscow Region using personal or public transport. This measure was imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus as much as possible.
TASS

The Russian lockdown did not last as long as in some other countries. There were also fewer lockdowns there than elsewhere but there was another regional lockdown in Moscow as late as October 2021, demonstrating that Russia has not given up on that policy position. This regional lockdown disputes any argument that Russia did a lockdown because it was ‘duped’ by other actors.

The Sputnik ‘Vaccine’, Vax Passports and Forced Jabs

As well as promoting a large number of Corona policy positions, Russia also developed their own ‘vaccine’ against Corona. According to the Sputnik Vaccine website:

Sputnik V is the world’s first registered vaccine based on a well-studied human adenovirus vector platform [similar to the Oxford/AstraZenena jab developed in the UK]. It has been approved for use in 71 countries with a total population of 4 billion people.
The vaccine’s efficacy is 97.6%, based on the analysis of data on the incidence of coronavirus among Russians vaccinated with both vaccine components between December 5, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

There hasn’t been a large amount of discussion about the Sputnik V ‘vaccine’ in the West. Most criticism of these jabs has focused on the Pfizer, followed by the Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen.

It would be off topic to perform a detailed analysis of the harms of the Sputnik V injections, and the lack of discussion and information coming out of Russia on these jabs makes it difficult to assess. Given the similarity between the Sputnik V and AstraZeneca, which has been admitted to cause blood clots (among other things), we cannot assume it is safe.

There are in fact some hints about the dangers of these Russian jabs. Mark Crispin Miller has been doing a series over the past couple of months where he documents people who ‘died suddenly’ with no cause of death or a cause in line with proven jab side effects. He also compiled one of these for Russia:

Those of us who’ve noticed the appalling toll of those “vaccines” worldwide have naturally been hoping that the jabs administered in Russia (and in China) aren’t so dangerous; but that’s evidently wishful thinking. Since Russia has no public database, like VAERS, we must rely on Russian press reports of “sudden deaths,” most of them with no cause noted, while two were due to strokes, and one to (what else?) COVID.

Riley Waggaman has also examined the risk of the Sputnik V injections as one of the few commentators to analyse Russia during the current Covid madness. He pointed out that the makers of the Sputnik jab were cooperating with Big Pharma entities such as Pfizer. He adds that there have been large numbers of safety signals indicating that Sputnik is not safe:

Data from other nations using Sputnik V suggests that while the drug is not the most dangerous COVID shot on the market, it’s still far from harmless.
A recent article that reviewed the adverse event tracking systems from Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay and the Philippines concluded that, in terms of the frequency of mild and severe side effects, Sputnik V is comparable to foreign vaccines.

Russians seem much more sceptical of the Covid jabs than in many other countries. The Our World in Data website indicates that as of April 23 2022 the Russian population is only 50% ‘fully vaccinated’. Furthermore take up rates were initially extremely slow. By May 2021, the amount of Russians that had taken at least one dose of a Corona ‘vaccine’ was only 9.52% of Russia’s population. (Compare this to high take-up in England for example where over half of the population had taken at least one jab by the end of May). A poll from Levada Center on ‘Vaccination’, printed on the 9th August 2021, showed a ‘vaccination’ rate for Russians of 24% in their sample. However, their polling over time shows a consistent 55% of the Russian population who have not taken the jabs and do not have any plans to take them (another 19% in this poll stated that they were planning on getting the injections).

In order to increase uptake among the population, the Russian government has used a wide range of strategies, many of which are coercive. In the above article on Russian jab take-up, the Mayor of Moscow, Sobyanin, complains that the measures taken to encourage Russians to get jabbed are failing:

What’s more, we are vaccinating in polyclinics, in shopping centres we are vaccinating, now in parks we are vaccinating, now even 1 thousand roubles will be paid to pensioners, in order that they can go shopping, only if they will be vaccinated – but there is no one.
Sergei Sobyanin, Mayor of Moscow

In response to the weak take up, the government applied coercive pressure, forcing service sector workers to get jabbed. Moscow Times reports the following back in June 2021:

Moscow has rolled out one of the world’s most ambitious mandatory vaccination schemes, requiring 60% of all service sector workers — more than 2 million people — in the capital to be fully vaccinated within the next seven weeks. [..]
Several other Russian regions have followed suit and announced similar mandatory vaccination rules for service sector workers and civil servants.
Businesses in the service sector must ensure 60% of their customer-facing staff get vaccinated with one of the four coronavirus vaccines approved for use in Russia. At least 60% must have received a first dose by July 15, and the same proportion must be fully vaccinated by Aug. 15.
Moscow Times

Furthermore, vaccine passports have been in operation in many Russian regions. The official St. Petersburg administration website gives an outline:

From November [2021] a new system will be introduced for residents and guests of the city. This is because of the seasonal rise in the quantity of people made ill by coronavirus infection. What kind of documents will be present? QR Code on previous infection (period of use – 6 months), QR Code on Vaccination (period of use – 1 year), medical exemption (for those who cannot be vaccinated). It will be necessary for you to have your passport!

On top of coercion, the Russian government has been involved in demonisation of those who are sceptical of the jabs.

Using such measures, the Russian government has been able to increase uptake, with another more recent Levada Centre poll showing that now only 36% of Russians have no plans to take the jabs [as this number was consistently above 50% before the above coercive measures were applied, it is a reasonable extrapolation to assume some of the 55% in previous polls were coerced into the jabs].

A Spoke in the Pro-Russia Narrative

Some commentators on the current Ukraine issue have offered a more pro-Russian narrative, in line with what Putin offered himself as an explanation for his actions (combating NATO aggression and protecting the people of Donbass – see Part 2). Certainly, as previously examined, this pro-Russia narrative is much closer to the truth than the pro-Western narrative, which holds that Putin invaded Ukraine because he is a madman bent on bringing back the Soviet Union.

However, the fact that the Russian state is willing to impose things like lockdowns and ‘vaccine’ passports on its population, as well as promoting and distributing a clearly unsafe injection to millions of Russians means that the Russian state and Putin are not benign actors.

Part 4 (hopefully the final part) will discuss the interconnections between Covid and Ukraine.

What’s Going On In Ukraine? Part 2: Putin’s Take

Introduction

Western media outlets have been promoting a particular perspective on the Ukraine conflict, but also on Vladimir Putin himself. Western media have a long history of attempting to demonise foreign leaders as ‘madmen’: for example Kim Jong Un or Bashar Al-Assad. This is done to obscure any reasons or motivations that a leader may have had for doing something to downplay any Western role, but also to set up a susceptibility to belief in possible future false flags (for who would gas their own civilians other than an unhinged maniac?) In fact, however, Putin has laid out his logic for the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, and this is what we are going to examine here.

A Note of Caution

Many people like to strawman individuals who are sceptical of the Ukraine narrative. So let’s state the obvious for the record: just because Putin says something, it does not mean it is true. Nor does it automatically mean that it is Putin’s sincere motive. This is blatantly obvious to everyone except MSM ideologues and their followers, but I will state it just in case. We should apply scepticism and critical thinking to Putin’s claims in the same way we apply them to Western claims.

Putin’s Speech on the ‘Special Military Operation’

Putin gave a 28 minute speech announcing his ‘Special Military Operation’ (his words) in Ukraine. The speech can be found with English subtitles here. I have summarised the main points below:

Putin’s speech starts with criticism of Western governments for expanding NATO closer to Russia’s borders, and claims that he wanted to work with the West on the issue of security. However, he follows up by stating that his proposals were rejected. To explain this, he goes back to the 1980s and the failing Soviet Union, which allowed the US to assert complete dominance. He then lists examples of the US/NATO unilateral military actions. He starts with the bombing of Belgrade by the US, then discussing Libya and Syria and then the invasion of Iraq. While discussing these examples he emphasises the illegality under international law.

He believes Russia in the 1990s was willing to be a partner, but instead of taking this on board the West tried to destroy Russia by supporting terrorism in the Caucasus. Putin insists that he has continued to make attempts to get NATO to not expand further but has failed. He then claims that the USSR was not fully prepared for war against the Nazis and that Putin will not make the same mistake. NATO has hardened its position against Russia, and so Russia must react to the threat. It is a matter of “life or death” for Russia, and NATO have crossed his red line.

Putin then returns to the topic of Donbass. Putin says that Russia has been trying to resolve the conflict there for 8 years but has failed and so is taking military action. He then adds that the West is supporting Nazis in Ukraine, and the threat being posed by NATO in Ukraine makes Russia’s actions defensive. They have been asked for help by the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. In order to protect them, Ukraine will be denazified and demilitarised but the territory will not be occupied. He tells Ukrainians he is not concerned with them but those who are in charge of the country.

Putin’s Truth Claims

If we apply our knowledge of history to Putin’s factual claims (rather than his motives, which are more difficult to assess, or the morals of his actions) we will find that Putin makes a large number of truth claims and reasonable extrapolations.

Point #1: NATO did expand to be closer to Russia’s border. Instead of just having united Germany in their alliance they added ex-Soviet countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as several ex-Warsaw Pact countries (such as Bulgaria, one of the most pro-Moscow Soviet states).

Point #2: NATO has destroyed multiple countries, including those highlighted by Putin (Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria). Putin reasonably extrapolates from this that NATO is a threat to Russia’s security. A military alliance that has a long history of being aggressive and murdering civilians is an obvious threat, especially since the West has lied about and demonised Russia. The situation in Syria is of particular relevance given that Russia intervened to help the Syrian government fight Islamic extremism.

Point #3: The Ukrainian Neo-Nazi problem. Putin is correct that Ukraine has a significant problem with Neo-Nazis. The mainstream media, while they have talked about Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, downplay the issue. Supporters of the Ukrainian government generally say that all Western countries have fascist/white supremacist groups, so that the fact that they exist in Ukraine is normal, if undesirable. They also complain that talking about the Neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine we are supporting Putin.

However, they ignore the fact that these groups (such as the Azov Battalion) are embedded within the Ukrainian military. They openly wear Neo-Nazi symbols, such as the ‘Wolfsangel’, which would not be allowed in any military organisation that was not infiltrated by Nazi influence, including Russia’s.

Even when they acknowledge the fact that it is embedded within Ukraine’s national guard forces, they generally state that it is a very small group and therefore not relevant. However, precisely how many of these Neo-Nazis there are is not they key question, it is their influence that is most relevant. The official Ukrainian National Guard account tweeted out a video of an Azov fighter dipping bullets in pig fat to kill Muslims:

Tweet from Richard Medhurst "The Ukrainian National Guard greasing bullets in pork far to kill Muslims with. Just right there on Twitter for you to see. And they say the "Neo-Nazi/racist forces in Ukraine" is a myth" Medhurst is responding to a tweet stating "Azov fighters of the National Guard greased the bullets with lard against the Kadyrov orcs".

More importantly, this article from Max Blumenthal and Alexander Rubenstein outlines the ways in which Neo-Nazi groups have significant influence over the government. It points out that Zelensky, when initially elected, tried to get the neo-Nazi brigades in Zolote to disarm, only to be threatened with more violence.

Instead of continuing down the road of trying to disarm or weaken the Neo-Nazi presence in the country, Zelensky came to accept and promote it.

Putin is also correct when he points to the West’s support for such Neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. This was most obvious during the 2014 coup, when US figures like Victoria Nuland and John McCain met with far right individuals such as Oleh Tyahnybok.

Point #4: The killing of civilians in Donbass. Many critics of Putin’s actions are simply ignoring the Donbass region, pointing to alleged war crimes by the Russians but ignoring the same in the Donbass.

Contrary to the mainstream media, which acts as if Russia started the conflict in Ukraine, there was already a war in Ukraine. This is the conflict between the Kiev government and the separatists in the Donbass region. In short, the separatists in Donbass wish to be independent from the Ukraine government due to their hostility to Russian speakers. The Ukraine government has committed violence against those areas wishing to be independent, including killing many civilians. Independent journalists such as Patrick Lancaster have documented this through video footage and interviews.

Of course, the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine are part of this campaign to terrorise civilians in the Donbass, given that they see Russians as ethnically inferior to Ukrainians.

Conclusion

Putin has highlighted many points in his speech that are factually true, and form a rational basis for invasion of Ukraine (regardless of one’s moral stance on the question). NATO aggression in other countries and the expansion of such a military alliance is a logical reason for Putin’s actions and explains them without having to resort to calling Putin a maniac or madman. Whether he is sincere about denazifying Ukraine remains to be seen, although it is valid to sceptical of this claim due to Putin’s authoritarianism (though, pace Western media claims, he is is not a fascist or Neo-Nazi).

Part 3 of this article will discuss the biggest and most difficult questions of this whole Ukraine issue and that is its connection with the Covid narrative. There is a large debate in independent media about Putin’s stance on ‘The Great Reset’ and his alleged opposition or support for this. Part 3 will look at the evidence.

Cost of Living Crisis Protest Birmingham 2nd April 2022

The People’s Assembly organised another round of protests against the rising costs of living in the UK (although of course, issues like inflation are not just affecting the UK). This included another Birmingham protest. The previous action took place on the 12 February, although there was also supposed to be an action on the 5 March. No one turned up to this action other than a few activists with tables (I have a couple of videos on my channel, see here).

There was a larger selection of speakers at this event with a presence of a few hundred people. This included some people from the crowd as well as many union, climate activist, etc speakers that you would expect to appear at a bread and butter left wing event such as this.

Several unions were represented with the University and College Union and the Musicians’ Union as well as others. There were housing campaigners speaking as well as pensioners and climate activists (of course, there is a bit of a contradiction here with the fuel costs issue).

https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1510295099741249537

I thought the speeches at this one were a little bit better than the previous one, though there was some left wing/woke liberal nonsense involved in some of them, including references to Brexit (I really don’t get why anyone is talking about Brexit at this point) and the ‘pandemic’ and ‘Covid’ being the cause of things that were actually caused by lockdowns. For example, this speaker talks about the legitimate issues caused by lockdowns for jobbing musicians, but frames it as if it was caused by ‘the pandemic’ as some sort of disembodied entity not connected to government policy. So ultimately the root of the issue still was not attacked.

The Birmingham Stop the War leader Stuart Richardson also talked about the Ukraine issue and how that was affecting prices. Although placing sanctions on Russia will clearly exacerbate this issue I do not see it as a root cause, rather the government/elites will try to blame Putin for what they created. While any Russian retaliation is understandable in the context of sanctions the media will pretend it is all down to Putin being a ‘maniac’ and ‘madman’ (and hell, maybe Maddow was right about Russians wanting to freeze us to death?)

I spoke in my previous article on this issue about the difficulties relating to this issue of the cost of living, and I am still not sure how to resolve it:

I don’t want working class people to have to pay more money for energy bills etc., especially since they were the primary victims of lockdowns. I think that is fairly obvious. The question is how we tackle the problem. In general, even though I disagree with capitalist economics I have become a lot more sceptical of calling on the (capitalist) state to do anything about anything, since they will just use it to push more pain onto working people (a good example is the environment: while it’s clear that many things humans are doing are negatively affecting the environment, any state action is likely to be more authoritarian nonsense that will punish the working class like carbon based digital IDs). Unlike libertarians I believe that this authoritarianism is inherently interlinked with the capitalist system.

Alternative systems within the current one such as opting out as much as possible and doing other things within the freedom based community are a good idea. However, they are difficult to implement in practice given that people still have to survive within the current system (e.g. people have to go to work full time, leaving limited time and energy for alternatives). Such suggestions can come across as a bit naïve in some cases though I advocate them where realistically possible.

There is due to be further protests on the cost of living issue with a protest taking place on June 12 in London.

Footage from the protest has been uploaded to Bitchute.

Oh and the award for the worst protest sign:

Woman in mask holding sign stating "Is this really Building Back Better?".

Assange Wedding Footage

I was able to attend the Assange wedding celebration/protest outside Belmarsh prison on the 23rd March. I have some footage which I will post samples of below.

About 150 people turned up outside the prison.

The independent media people present (that I saw) were Craig Murray, Gordon Dimmack, Mohammad Elmaazi, and Resistance GB. Chris Hedges was also there which I wasn’t expecting.

Craig Murray spoke to some of the media (primarily Gordon Dimmack, see below) regarding his exclusion from being a witness at the wedding. Apparently, he was considered a threat to the prison by the British state:

Murray also talked about the meaning of the Assange wedding.

You can see the crowd in the video below:

The microphone was set up next to the tent. Julian Assange activist Truman read out some messages from worldwide Assange supporters.

After that there were more formal speeches. Chris Hedges gave a 13 minute speech that can be seen in this video where he talks about the collapse of the rule of law and the power of the ruling elite, as well as the need for mass civil disobedience:

Gordon Dimmack and Daniel Fooks were also invited up to give short speeches.

The police were mostly standing around looking bored and preventing anyone from getting too close to the prison. They would shoo people out of the road but that was about it. However, when ‘Lean on Me’ started playing through the stereo at around 3.40pm, the police decided to be extremely petty and turn of the music, claiming that it violated Greenwich by-laws.

After that the police started standing in the road and being more in your face about their presence. So that there was a line of 3-4 police keeping people on the street and not the road and generally trying to look more intimidating. I am not sure what the point was since before they turned the music off there hadn’t been any issues with the crowd but it seemed to me to be an exercise in willy waving from the officers.

Further footage is available on my channel.