Please, download the whole PDF and save it as your reference, where the full text of this research is available. If you like the content of this material, feel free to share it with others and communicate its content lavishly. The distribution of this research is free.
If you wish to make a voluntary contribution to our work, please donate here: your contribution is hoped-for, yet not mandatory!
Download the PDF: Mandatory Vaccination: Law and Bioethics
For the first part (as well as some introductory notes), see here: Mandatory Vaccination part 1: the Legal Aspect
Part 2: Mandatory Vaccination: the Political Aspect
7. The Political Stake
[…] At the
level of political decisions, while we have a narrative that “we are
taking painful but necessary measures” but “we are all in this together”, none
of this is true. In the section on The Deniers of Science (4.2) we have
reported extensively on the incompatibility of measures with the medical point
of view and on their ineffectiveness – indeed it is argued by researchers that
these measures worsen the spread of the virus.
How
can we be “all together in this”
if everything stops for us while they keep going as usual in everything? […] The wealthiest people in the world have already seen
their earnings grow higher by some billions of dollars during the pandemic
crisis, […] while 40 million people in the USA alone have lost their jobs and the global economy is counting many trillions in financial
loss. Even relatively wealthy people of the pre-Covid era are now joining the
poorer majority, broadening the gap between the two extremes. And all this is
unfolding as police brutality and restrictions of civil, democratic and human
rights are leading the world down a dark totalitarian path.
The political decisions applied in Greece are not taken by the Greek
government, with the exception of some small details. It is not only that
Greece, after the imposition of the 3rd memorandum and its economic hijacking,
is officially a country under custody which cannot take any decisions without
the “troika’s” approval (officially, under Law 4336, Government Gazette 94, 14/8/2015, par. C, p.
1014). It is also that, although it was
claimed that we were entering uncharted territory, many of the measures
taken were decided alike by many countries and/or were introduced at a very
early stage. The important thing in this case is the fact
that these decisions (on lockdowns, vaccinations, etc) have been justified by
Covid 19, but have been made long before the Covid-19 outbreak. Interestingly,
many of these decisions have been initiated by organisations which do not have
the necessary jurisdiction and are not subject to any accountability.
Coronavirus seems to be a fluke that accelerates pre-existing plans.
7.1. Digital
Vaccination Passport : official goal since 2018
The goal of a common Vaccination Record and of
“immunity passport” has been under official planning for three years
now by the European Commission (the
non-elected Directory of the EU). Its relative plan Roadmap on Vaccination
was initiated in 2018, with actions to be completed through to 2022. In this Roadmap, many actions are planned, among which are the
following: First, to “Examine the feasibility of developing a
common vaccination card/passport for EU citizens” – the action starts in
2019 and is to be finalized in 2022 with the Commission’s announcement of specific recommendations towards achieving
this aim. Second, to “develop EU guidance for establishing and upgrading
comprehensive electronic immunisation information systems for effective monitoring
of immunisation programmes”. Third,
to “develop guidance to overcome the legal and technical barriers impeding the
interoperability of national immunisation information systems”. Fourth, to “counter online vaccine
misinformation and develop evidence based information tools and guidance to
support Member States in responding to vaccine hesitancy, in line with the Commission Communication on tackling online
disinformation”. [we referred to these attempts in
the first part]. Fifth, to “strengthen existing partnerships and collaboration with
international actors and initiatives, such as the WHO, Gavi” etc.ith the
Commission Communication on tackling online disinformation”.
In the context of this collaboration, the Global
Vaccination Summit was held on the 12th of
September 2019, by the European Commission and the World Health Organisation,
in which many leaders and private partnerships participated. This is when the
aforementioned actions and priorities were declared, among
which the renewed Agenda for Immunity 2030, stressing as its basic
message: Everyone. Everywhere. At every Age. As far as the attention
paid by World Health Organisation for safety and for the respect to the
international rules is concerned, I will just mention a recent example. During
the Ebola virus crisis at West Africa, the WHO adjudged that “it is ethically acceptable to offer
unproven interventions that have shown promising results in the laboratory and
in animal models but have not yet been evaluated for safety and efficacy in
humans as potential treatments or prevention”!
7.2. GAVI: the
world alliance for the vaccines
[…] …the European Commission provided €300
million to GAVI, in order to boost children’s vaccinations all over the world
and to raise the vaccines’ stock globally. That €300 million is part of the €1.5 billion raised at the
fundraising event “Worldwide Reaction for Coronavirus” organised by the Committee
on May 4 2020, and were withheld by the EU Neighbourhood, Development and
International Collaboration Instrument, (NDICI). Who is GAVI? GAVI (Global Alliance
for Vaccines and Immunisation) is a not-for-profit, public–private global
health partnership with its headquarters in Geneva. “The GAVI model has been designed so as
to elicit funds and expertise by bringing together governments and vaccine
producers, as well as the basic UN organisations, public health institutions and research academies,
the private sector and civil society,
so that human lives are saved and public health is protected through broadened
access to new and not sufficiently administered vaccines in poor countries”.
[…]
… The GAVI partnership was founded in 1999 with a guarantee by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic non-profit foundation that
the billionaire Microsoft founder created 2 years before GAVI, in 1997.
GAVI is essentially managed by its 4 co-founders, the rest of them being UNICEF (United Nations International
Children’s Emergency Fund), the World
Health Organisation (WHO), and the World
Bank. The Gates Foundation actually determines GAVI’s course and
activities, as it is its second financial contributor, following the UK, as
well as the second contributor of
WHO together with the UK. GAVI is also WHO’s fourth
largest contributor for 2018-19 after the USA, the UK and the Gates Foundation
– the money seems to flow right back where it started! In other words,
when talking about GAVI, we refer to Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet.
7.2.a. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – and Trust
Warren Buffet,
the wealthiest man globally in 2008, gave 10 million shares to the Gates
Foundation, worth billions of dollars, accompanied by certain claims: he, Bill
and Belinda Gates would possess, apart from the philanthropic Foundation, an
investment trust, the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation Trust. So, there would be an investment sector and a
philanthropic entity financially and operationally mutually intertwined.
Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway,
is a multinational investment firm in portfolio companies, an equity
association that makes money by buying and selling companies and stocks.
Berkshire Hathaway owns shares in companies such as CocaCola, Apple, Barrick
Gold, J.P Morgan, Bank of America, General Motors, telecommunications firms,
Media groups, airlines (sold in 2020) and more. It has lately invested in
Amazon, while for the first time in 2020 it bought shares in pharmaceutical companies (Merck, Abbvie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, who recently acquired Celgene),
including 3,711,780 Pfizer shares
worth of $136.2 million.
Bill Gates, on the other hand, who is currently the second richest man on earth,
did not wait until 2020 in order to invest in the pharmaceutical industry, but
has done so since 2002, right after he created GAVI. Either through the Gates
Foundation or through his own investment company Cascade, he possesses shares of the biggest pharmaceutical
companies in the world, such as Merck,
Johnson&Johnson and Pfizer. This parallel activity,
offering donations to alliances such as GAVI so they can buy and promote drugs
and vaccines, which they in turn acquire from companies in which he happens to
be a shareholder, has raised criticism concerning
bioethics and conflict of interest. …
Gates has also been criticized for his advocacy of patents on drugs, which
raise prices and obstruct poor countries from getting cheap drugs and vaccines.
It is those expensive drugs and vaccines that the Gates Foundation, GAVI etc.
provide using the money he collects from governments and organisations, making
all (of them) better off and poor countries dependent on world-known
philanthropists, who then claim that, if patents did not exist, then they would
lack the motive to invest, and so drugs/vaccines would not exist in the first
place!
… Bill and Belinda Gates
Foundation bought shares of BioNTech, the small German
company that partnered with Pfizer for the making a Covid 19 vaccine, in
September 2019. Before that, it was the main investor of Vir Biotechnolog, a 2016-7 start-up company
researching mRNA technology vaccines, which is currently researching with
GlaxoSmithKline the development of antibodies treatment for Covid-19. In 2015
the Foundation also invested in CureVac,
with which it made more deals for funding
mRNA vaccine development!
However, pharmaceutical companies are not the only ones attracting
interest. The international delivery services corporation FedEx will make the distribution of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccine in
various countries, and has already started in the USA and Canada. In case you
are wondering, yes, Gates Foundation
holds shares in FedEx. [Now, let’s] follow the people. Such as Seth
Berkley, for example, GAVI’s CEO
since 2000. Before GAVI, Seth Berkley worked for the Rockefeller
Foundation, another charity organisation
which participates in projects related to public health and vaccination
since its establishment in 1913 – and also holds shares in pharmaceutical
corporations like Johnson&Johnson. Berkley was scientific supervisor for
programmes mainly implemented in the so-called Third World. During his tenure,
in 1996, the Rockefeller Foundation established IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative), a not-for-profit public-private partnership
aiming at the development of a vaccine for AIDS. The Gates Foundation is also
one of the financial contributors of IAVI.
Let’s now have a look at some very interesting initiatives.
7.2.b. Project ID2020
initiatives, foundations and… philanthropists we shall be distracted from our
subject. So, let us focus on Project
ID2020, a so-called alliance in the
form of non-profit organisation, created in 2016 so as to lead on the issue of citizens’
digital identity. The alliance’s principle is that, “the ability to prove one’s identity is a fundamental and universal
human right” and that, “Because we live in a digital era, individuals need
a trusted and reliable way to prove who they are, both in the physical world
and online.” …
Fundamental human right. There is an annual Summit organized in New York for
“identity leaders of the globe”. On the webpage for 2020’s summit, we read: “While
the pandemic has made it infeasible for us to gather in person, it has brought
digital ID technology into the public consciousness and given new urgency to
our collective work”. So, Summit Sessions Webinar Series were organized, with
subjects such as: “Good digital ID for all: how do we get there?”, and “Digital Immunisation Certificates:
designing for a NewEera in Global Health”. ID2020 alliance is closely
connected to United Nations’ program
Sustainable Development 2030 – the year set as time-limit for the
goal. Digital certificates have been at
the center of attention in this program since it was designed. However, we
became publicly aware of this debate only with Covid 19, in the context of
propaganda in favor of rather than a social debate about them (see here κι here).
The “allies” who set up
the goal of ID2020 are not unknown to us yet: GAVI, Microsoft, Rockefeller
Foundation, Accenture and Ideo-Org. Accenture is a multinational consulting firm offering technological
and other support to businesses (i.e. software development) and creating
biometric accessibility platforms and tools (i.e. face recognition). As the
company states, new technologies of biometric access will
help us get rid of complex pass-cards which require passcodes as well as paper
based passports, but also get rid of fraud and crime. This way, it is argued, “we
promote accessibility and also help people authenticate their identities, using
a mature technology thanks to the proliferation of smartphone” (see here). IDEO
is a global design company that “focuses
on people and their needs” … IDEO was funded in 2010,
by the Gates’ Foundation for an action to improve life in Africa, while
Accenture has collaborated in the past with Microsoft (Bill Gates’ super giant)
and have funded charity events together.
[…]
7.2.c. Event 201
Event 201 is an
exercise, a simulation on what would happen and how the world should react in
the event of a coronavirus pandemic affecting humans’ upper respiratory system.
The event took
place on the 18th of October
2019 in New York , and was organised by
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and Johns
Hopkins University (also funded by the Gates Foundation). These partners’
interest on pandemics is established. Johns
Hopkins has organised another three pandemic simulations in the past, in 2001, in 2005 and in 2018 (another simulation script was written by the
Rockefeller Foundation in 2010, entitled Scenarios
for the Future of Technology and International Development, which was
refuted in a very amusing way by Ellinika Hoaxes Greek fact-checker) The World Economic Forum along with the Commons Project Foundation have launched the so-called Common
Pass System, a system for digital registration that will issue health
certificates to travelers so that these certificates
follow the same standards globally. This project was launched in 2018, a time when the newly established company Commons
Project received funding from Rockefeller Foundation (the company has
many more interesting backers, such as Blackrock). The Common Pass System
is presented today as a solution to the problem Covid 19 poses on traveling. …
At the Event 201 simulation discussion table [we see participants working
for]: the UN, the World Bank, the Marriott International hotel chain, the Henry
Schein medical chain, the ANZ bank, the Edelman public opinion firm, Lufthansa
Airlines, multinational package delivery and supply chain management company
UPS (with shares in the Gates Foundation), the pharmaceutical company Johnson
& Johnson (also with shares owned by the Gates Foundation), NBS Media, and
two government officials from China and Singapore. Also some […] have worked
for the US Government, the CIA and the NSC, and the second with experience with
the WHO, GAVI, the Rockefeller Institute and the World Bank.
One look at the CVs of the participants will prove that most are
old acquaintances, from positions at the WHO, the UN, WTO, the Impact 2030
Initiative, and from the management of the Embola pandemic in West Africa. It’s
the same, select few that have worked so well together in the past…
In sum, “the scenario illustrates
the very critical role that global business and public-private partnerships
play in preparing for and responding to the pandemic” (introduction). The conclusions of this simulation have
been published, yet these discussions themselves and the very scenario of this
simulation are most intriguing – and freely uploaded. “We don’t want to give
the impression that traditional public health measures are not valuable,
because they absolutely are. … But in a severe fast-moving pandemic it may not
be possible to contain the pandemic through these kinds of traditional
measures. That’s why prior planning and promotion of routine private-public
cooperation in advance of the next pandemic is really critical”, they said at
the closure of the exercise in October 2019. Fundamental
conclusion of this exercise was the
necessity of private-public sector partnerships and on a global scale. … To
create a unified system of data recording, … “States are going to want to be able to decide for themselves, so one of
the challenges will be ensuring that we are using an existing [international]
mechanism, such as the WHO or the UN will be the base of operations are…,
…making sure that states are stepping up to tell people what it is they are
doing, what the decisions are… so that
there can be pressure there on ensuring that states are actually doing what the
larger plan needs to be” (discussion
1). To define which economic activities are important
to maintain, and which corporations are “too big to fail”. To support state
from collapsing, cause this could trigger turmoil and uprising. To start
immediately their efforts towards vaccine development in a cetralised effort
and funding of pharmaceutical companies,
and to speed up its production with the use of technology – activation
of CEPI that was set up for this reason three years ago (discussion
3, and 1). To maintain trade and travel in any way
possible.
The last discussion concerned the
field of information and of combating “fake news”, which deserves some
reference on its own (discussion
4). In Event 201’s scenario, social networking
platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) suspend accounts that disseminating fake
news in order to avoid panic and non-compliance to the measures. In some
countries, they even shut down the internet or made arrests. The proposals
given in response to the above scenario were, again, unanimous, and were based
on the importance of internet and social media because “this is where people
are getting their information from”. So, the proposals were the following. To
use technology, more specifically algorithms, to direct towards good information. “Shutting down the internet will create more panic and unrest. … we
must not shut them down but take them on our side”. … The moment to assert that they [social media] are a technology
platform and not a broadcaster is over. They have to broadcast accurate info
and partner with the scientific and health community and flag good info”!
To respond to false information and leave no uncertainty or gap. “To have
centralized response: data, facts and key messages must be centralized
internationally. … We must flood the internet with the message we wish to pass,
to cooperate with telecommunications companies so that they know the message we
want them to portray. There are technological solutions: to create algorithms
to shift through info on social media so that people trust their source”. To
portray personal stories of people who got sick, who escaped death”. “In the US
people lost trust in social media after last elections, so we must put the right representatives on traditional media networks
so that they portray our side of the story … And to do daily briefings for
trust”… To have trusted organisations to recruit those representatives to
work with public”. Because people often know the facts yet the behavior
continues, we must incentivize people to
a certain behavior. And, finally, to talk about a “step-up on behalf of the
governments on enforcement of actions against fake-news, such as new
regulations, bringing people to the court to decide…”.
[…]
7.3 A
Premeditated Response
All the proposals
of the ‘experts’ in Event 201 have already been applied since 2020. The
measures for handling the crisis were not at all made on the spot, as
governments declared. Thus, it is no wonder that, measures taken in Greece (and
elsewhere), for example, had been voted at a very early stage (since 25/02/2020
in Greece) – unless they foresaw the pandemic!
[…]
7.3.a. Persecutions, suppression of freedom of press
and free expression.
This very moment
all over Europe, and elsewhere, authoritative measures beyond any imagination
are being implemented, denying citizens of all kinds of freedom. […] At the
same time, Administrative Inquiries under Oath have been initiated against
employees of Agios
Savvas hospital because they got infected with coronavirus! In Laiko hospital, management sent a document which states that “the Ministry of
Health has centralised communication and all employees are forbidden to make
any statements on mass media”.
[…]
All these actions seem to be in accordance with the Public Prosecutor’s circular which alerts for the keeping of measures, but
also for the penalisation of spreading
the disease (that is to say, the non-observance of the measures), as well as
the penalisation of any information about it which could be considered as “a
cause of concern among law-abiding citizens” or “incitement to disobedience”
(through the Internet as well, as we have previously mentioned in chapter
4.2.b.i. Science Deniers).
[…]
Doctors are also being persecuted in Europe for disagreeing with the
administration or with the danger of the virus. In France, professor Christian Perronne, head of the department of infectious diseases in Poincare hospital, at
Garches, was dismissed on the grounds that his stance against Covid19 “is
disputable”. Perronne stated, among other things, that his colleagues were paid
extra when they reported patients infected by coronavirus. Of course, this
event appeared in many European newspapers, labeling the professor as a “conspiracy theorist” – although scientists
of high social status are commonly referred to as “controversial”. The French
National Medical Association (CNOM) pressed charges and disciplinary persecutions against Perronne and
five other doctors and professors, including Didier Raoult, “for ambiguous
comments on pandemic Comid-19”. The rest of the doctors accused are Henri Joyeux , Nicole Delépine , Nicolas Zeller and Rezeau-Frantz. [The French Medical Association has some very
interesting views on various issues, such as digital tracking]. In addition, professor Jean- Bernard Fourtillan was arrested and
kept in a psychiatric institution. I will further expand on this later, as well
as on the case of the German doctor Wolfgang
Wodarg.
This is not a matter of censoring a different point of view. This is a
matter of persecution against a different scientific approach. In other words, persecution of science itself since, as
we all know, science advances only through debate, research, that is free
research and expression.
There is more on authoritarianism all over the globe: […] In the region
of Columbia (USA), a law has passed (not validated yet)
according to which underage individuals will be able to get vaccinated without
parental consent – even without informing parents at all. … In Germany a new law was enforced on 18t
November offering the minister of Health further responsibilities in order to
take decisions in the name of public health with a simple ministerial order.
The law was deemed necessary after a series of successful appeals of citizens
against measures in the states of Germany. Furthermore, “it is mandatory that
the hard opponents of the quarantine be taken to hospitals in the state of Baden–Württemberg”. […]
Censorship of the news thrives on all social networks and the media. …
It is not at all easy to know details about all these and we surely lack
information on this subject because whenever there is a discussion about all
those reactions, they are attributed to the triptych “extreme rightists,
conspiracy theorists, deniers”. Oddly enough, even if all these reactions were fascist, sprung out from conspiracy or
whatever else they might be, why
should we not be informed about them?
Banning free press is followed by the deliberate concealment of
information. For example, Greece has signed a contract with the data processing
company Palantir. This American
company “works on analyzing, processing, storing and mining data all over the
world, (…) and helps governments and law-enforcement authorities to cope with
huge amounts of data”. Initially funded by the CIA, it is involved with
anti-terrorist services, precautionary police surveillance and with biometrical
detection of future suspects.
According to an article, vouliwatch.gr
discovered this collaboration after a press release of the company on 7/12/20. However, the collaboration has neither been
announced by the Greek government nor has it been made public on the platform
for posting state contracts, as is undoubtedly required.
[…]
7.3.b. Authoritarianism and Censorship
[…] The debate over China [and its successful
dealing with Covid 19] is not coincidental. When in 2018 I happened to hear
that in China there is strict surveillance, with cameras installed in the
streets so as to identify faces, I did not believe it. So, I searched for more
information and realized it was true; indeed, people’s daily activities are
digitally recorded in China (if they run red lights, if they throw rubbish, if
they help elderly people cross the street!). These recordings are automatically
used to add or remove “social credit”:
these points affect people as to whether they will be allowed to travel, rent a
house or receive welfare assistance. At
that time, this program was still in an experimental phase, and that phase was
due to end in 2020, when it would be implemented throughout the whole country.
I was struck by the fact that this was not widely known in the West, and that
there had been no protests or criticism against this extreme surveillance of
citizens through technology. Admittedly,
I made rather ‘malicious’ thoughts that western governments are letting China
experiment, since this is not yet acceptable in the West due to our political
system and culture, and when the time is right, they will use the already
tested technology in their countries as well. The broad scope of the debate
today as to how successful the Chinese model has been in fighting against the
pandemic, and the advertising of mobile tracking
applications through which we will be constantly watched, all in the name of
public health, makes me even more suspicious. That is because this is a choice of our political system: a choice towards autarchy, instead
of a choice for redistribution of wealth which would be realised through the
strengthening of primary healthcare. This very strengthening of healthcare is
what all scientists, ‘controversial’ or not, agree is absolutely necessary in
this healthcare crisis. And this is a choice taken well before the
pandemic, as I have already proven earlier in the text, and we are being
reminded of it at any given chance:
Citizen concerns over privacy and establishing
accountability in business and legal structures will require adjustments in
thinking, (Klaus Schwab, chairman
of the World Economic Forum (WEF), statement from his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2016].
We referred earlier in this research project to Nadhim Zahawi, the British Minister responsible for vaccinations, who argued that
vaccinations would not be mandatory but that there would be an “immunity passport” and, probably, a mobile
application to connect it with the doctor, but also with restaurants, bars and
cinemas. So, China lands on Europe much faster than I thought. He also
stated that “Google, Facebook and Twitter
should do more to fact-check opposing views of vaccines”. These statements
were made at the end of November. And on the 3rd of December Kathimerini newspaper notes with surprise: “In an unprecedented move, Facebook announced that it will be deleting
posts which contain false allegations about vaccines, so as to act against
rumors that aggravate the pandemic”.
[…]
7.3.c. “Far-right – conspiracy theorists – deniers”:
the convenient triptych
The coronavirus
pandemic has been, indeed, a serendipity for the global and domestic elite, indeed
one anticipated, that they had often ‘warned us’ of, offering ‘solutions’ which
serve plans well thought-out long before. The fear for the most vital things of
all, life and health, is a primary and determining factor for success. It is
the fear of death that has
established religions and ignited metaphysical quests since the beginning of
humanity. Nonetheless, the most
effective weaponry for the implementation of those plans is the triptych “far-right
– conspiracy theorists – pandemic deniers”, or else, “fake news”. As we
have seen, censoring whoever disagrees had already been suggested during the
simulation Event 201 as a method of fighting against “fake news” that put the
implementation of measures at risk. Yet, in order for the majority of people to
accept censorship, it was vital to put into operation psychological and ideological suppression mechanisms against
adversaries. Those who have done research on the subject long before and
have been studying societies and human behavior for years, were once more ahead
of us. Suppression mechanisms, before
being implemented on ‘adversaries’, targeted at another social group through
propaganda: liberals, anarchists and leftists. When it was declared from
the very beginning that “whoever objects
to the measures belongs to the extreme right”, there wasn’t the slightest
reaction! That was a brilliant trick
which ensured that there would be no
reaction at all for quite a long time. We live in a historical period (the
last decade or so) in which political juxtaposition is not about some political
or financial counter-proposal; in which the unifying element between political
parties and resistance groups are the two interrelated issues of migration and
(anti)fascism, and no other. So, people’s attention has been intentionally
directed towards the traditional
enemy, that is fascists/ultranationalists/the far-right,
only that now propaganda mechanisms defined as such whoever expressed any doubt regarding … absolutely
questionable measures! Any doubts? Remember that among the proposals made at
Event 201, there is also that of Stephen Redd, Director for the Center for Preparedness and Response at the American
CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention):
We have to recognize that we are all
susceptible to misinformation based on our prior beliefs and experience, and I
think that, with the social media platforms, there is an opportunity to
understand who it is that’ s susceptible, in what form of misinformation. I
think there is an opportunity to collect data from that communication mechanism.
The plan was easy to implement in Greece (and other countries that I
know of) since the parliamentary Left lent its unified support to … ‘good
information’, and so did the newspapers and websites that support them. So did
a number of leftists, anarchists and others on social networks. The existence
of ‘fascists’ in this conjuncture offered new meaning to the disappointed and
heavily betrayed by the recent referendum/coup-d-etat Greeks, and the new
dipole was re-created in the core of inactive movements. Any political
opponents were labeled as far-right, conspiracy theorists were slandered as weirdos and deniers that are against science: all of them offered the perfect
ground to bury any different opinion, and the war juxtaposition was brought to
the fore once more: “You’re either with us, or with the enemy”.
The confrontation became
ideological and had nothing to do with science or facts and figures. … Data is accessible to everyone – it just takes a bit of research.
But they refuse to do that research because “that’s what covidiots say”. This is no science, this is faith
[…]
I personally believe that ideological
retrenchment is much stronger than facts and science, because it gives us an
identity and a sense of belonging – which are psychologically indispensable.
Ideologies influence people in the same way faith does those who are religious:
although they represent love, whoever is not a believer or is a believer of
another religious doctrine is often an enemy. The same applies to ideologists:
controversy with an “extreme rightist” causes reactions which have nothing to
do with logic, reason or science, but with people’s emotional state, since the
latter can be easily manipulated. That is why ideologies have also been
characterised as “political religions” (as analysed here, p. 340 or 360-367).
7.3.d Ideological enemy and self-censorship
“Fascism begins
with the thought that everybody else is an idiot.” (Paul Valery, French
poet)
Categorisation of
‘dissidents’ in the threefold “far-rightists – conspiracy theorists – deniers”
(including religious fundamentalists as well) automatically puts them in the
class of idiots. And this is the treatment: ridicule, irony, devaluation. […] This is actually the method used by
paid fact-checkers: they report an argument with a huge introduction on
websites and views that are vaguely related to the topic in an attempt to
ridicule and deconstruct it, and then engage to the original subject through
lies and inaccuracies. And they do this whilst fattening their wallets on the
way. Ideologists, however, doing the same, don’t make any money and undermine themselves as well as their
future.
Why are they undermining themselves? Firstly, because they support fascism. The first step towards
fascism is the belief that the Other is stupid. Secondly, by supporting or remaining indifferent towards censorship
of Others –because “they are idiots”– you’re not defending the foundation of
any healthy and democratic society: freedom of expression and free information.
Don’t you even feel the danger for you, your claims, your future struggles,
when censorship will have become the new norm? … After all, if anyone is really
stupid or engaged in conspiracy theories, where exactly is it written that they
should have fewer rights than you? Let’s not forget that the first censorships
of the ‘policemen’ on Facebook on political issues (in Greece at least) were
made in posts regarding activist’s posts on environmental issues. The very
institution of fact-checkers on
Facebook started to be implemented in 2019 in Greece, together with their
official funding. Or did you imagine that the world’s elites
with their authoritarian aspirations introduced internet censorship because
they want to restrict the … fascists?
And thirdly, because of expanded self-censorship. Ridicule and slander
have spread amongst people who avoid saying what they think so as not to be
called “sprayed” – another fashionable underestimation of the Other originated
in chemtrails’ debate. Self-censorship,
however, the imposition of restrictions on freedom of expression through the
fear of fellow human beings, domination of fear in other words, should raise
alarm bells for those who want to fight fascism. Or did you imagine that
civilized societies of the 20th century that embraced or tolerated
fascism in the past did so overnight, happily and voluntarily?
[…]
The truth is that most, if not all, of conspiracy theories that I have
heard from come from their opponents. Eventually, the left, the progressive centre and antifascists have adopted a
phraseology imposed on them by mainstream propaganda: the leftists themselves
are self-censored so as not to be called ‘sprayed’ by their leftist friends.
The same, of course, applies to much of the traditional right. Not that there
are no conspiracy theorists. Of course there are, and it is a pity that they
are censored: some theories are really entertaining. So what do you want, a
society of unanimity? […] The absolute identification of dissidents with
conspiracy theorists, apart from being arbitrary, is also extremely convenient
for the rulers. So, for example, if you object to the imposition of wearing a
mask outdoors, a measure without scientific reason as we analyzed above, you
are characterized as “denier”, and automatically anything else
dictated by the triptych.
[…]
Certainly, this somewhat incomprehensible attitude has an
interpretation: it is the deep-rooted
need of humans to belong to a group and, in fact, help them to delimit it
on the basis of a specific enemy: the
enemy sometimes gives more meaning and coherence, especially when the
latter tends to lose its references. We know this especially from nationalism
studies, but of course it is not limited as a human tendency there (for more,
see chapter 2 of my book National Identity in the Era of Globalisation). In the end, as the
enemy has been summed up in the devil’s triad, this makes people forget their
own motto: Us today, tomorrow you!
* * *
This is extremely important to watch out for. On the one hand, it is expressed that, removing of fake news from the internet “is
not censorship but removal of dangerous content”. “One in three [in
Britain] have been exposed to anti-vaccine
messages”, euronews writes: the word “exposed” indicates that this is something dangerous.
On the other hand, it is often implied that people who create “fake news” or
express them may be violent or more likely to have some psychopathology. This trend, given the
fact the role of the Media is to prepare the public to accept future government
decisions, is worrying. In Germany, hospitalisation of those who do not
accept quarantine has already been voted. Elsewhere, it has taken place without
any specific legal framework in place: Professor
Jean-Bernard Fourtillan was arrested in France on December 7
and held in a psychiatric hospital after speaking out against vaccines and
appearing in the documentary Hold Up, which was labelled conspiracist. This forcible incarceration “reminds us of Stalin when imprisoning
dissidents in psychiatric hospitals”; it is a barbarity that we must not allow,
said French virologist Montagner (here, at 7:30).
Let us not forget: history has a tragic tendency to repeat itself.
7.3.e. The true goal of silencing and (self-)
censorship
Self-silencing,
however, of the wider anti-authoritarian and progressive people did not aim at
censorship. In reality, (self)censorship
is an intermediate stage in the service of another purpose: pausing of any
movement and reaction. It is a fact that, traditionally, these are the
groups that revolt, protest and, above
all, react en masse and in an organized
way. Organisation and momentum of protest is the greatest fear for
those who wish for societies of unanimity and enforcement. So, the primary goal
is the fixation of the militant part of the society, the one that traditionally leads mobilisations and entrains others as
well.
[…]
Event 201 made it very clear: ‘good information’ is extremely important for discipline towards the measures. Why are
they afraid that ‘bad’ information will challenge the measures? Aren’t citizens
able to judge and evaluate scientific evidence when there is transparency and
honesty? Or do the measures simply have nothing to do with science and with
tackling the virus?
7.3.f. Two examples of ‘far-rightists’ and ‘conspiracy
theorists’
It seems that,
the trend of naming “extreme-rightist” whoever does not fit with to the current dominant narrative has been very fashionable in recent years. In April 2020 we
witnessed it once more with the documentary
Planet of the
Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs and produced by
Michael Moore. … the documentary’s
critics, orchestrated by ecological organisations and people actively
involved in the promotion of RES, engaged in an intense campaign of slander and
censorship from the outset. On the one
hand, the creators were described as “extreme right”, “racist” and “climate
change deniers”. … On the other hand, there have been calls to take down
the documentary off the Web because, as they claimed, it spreads false news on a topic that is a matter of “life and death”
for people and therefore very dangerous. … The important thing to emphasize
here is that this defamation (extreme-rightists, etc.) seems to be chosen in
recent years as a permanent method of slander and discrediting. I guess it is
considered very effective, or just convenient.
Our second example is that of
the German doctor Wolfgang Wodarg.
Dr Wodarg argues that the virus is not as serious as it appears and that the
reactions to it are at least excessive, or perhaps an exercise of terror. He
was expelled from Transparency International
Germany for his allegations and his statements were widely dismissed as
false. In fact, the president of TIG said that he made this decision because
Wodarg was interviewed by radical media and journalists who “often work with
conspiracy theories, anti-democratic and sometimes anti-Semitic prejudices”. We
can see that, because it is not easy to call Wodarg himself as extreme-rightist
or conspiracy theorist, he is accused of being interviewed by a group who have
been associated with what fits the profile of the extreme right!
[…]
The above characterisations and reactions are significant, especially if
one knows who the scientist in question is. Wolfgang Wodarg is a doctor and a member of the German Social
Democratic Party (SPD). In 2010
he was chairman of the Council of Europe
Health Committee. As chairman of the committee, he “accused the World Health Organisation
(WHO) of upgrading a simple flu virus so that pharmacists could sell vaccines
because many of its executives work in them as consultants [conflict of interest]. … However, Wolfgang Vodarg did not stick to the vague accusations but
took the issue to the Council of Europe for consideration”. But he was not the
only one to raise the issue.
In June 2010, Fiona Godley, director of the
leading medical juornal BMJ (published by the British Medical Association),
wrote in her introductory note that, some
experts who advised WHO in relation to the pandemic, had financial relations
with the pharmaceutical companies which sold antivirals and vaccines and this
obviously determined the strategy. … According to the report, there are
so-called “sleeping contracts”
of states with pharmaceutical companies which are only activated in the
case that the WHO upgrades a virus to pandemic
level. Some of the effects of the pandemic were traumatic: distorting health care priorities
across Europe, squandering huge sums
of public money, causing unwarranted
fear among Europeans, and creating
health risks through vaccines and drugs that may not have been adequately
controlled before being licensed through express procedures … Reports from
many European countries showed that there
was pressure on governments to speed up conclusions in order to proceed with
large contracts, that suspicious practices were followed in relation to
vaccine prices, which were not made available under ‘normal market conditions’,
and that there have been attempts to shift responsibility for vaccines and
medicines that may not have been adequately controlled by national governments.
In short, the H1N1 flu pandemic was declared by the WHO in an
unwarranted upgrade to the epidemic that struck Mexico in 2009. There were many
reactions at the time, and states finally began to declare an end to the ‘pandemic’
a few months later, with a total of 20,000 deaths. The issue of undermining
public health by “faked pandemics” (a threat to health) was specifically
discussed at the Council of Europe. Many countries were
left with the stock of vaccines they
had rushed to buy, such as Greece with the famous orders of the then Greek
Minister of Health, Mr. Avramopoulos from Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline of 24
million vaccines (more than twice the population of Greece) worth 300 million
euros in the midst of a “fabricated panic”. … In any case, the WHO never published
any data on “conflicts of interest” and dismissed the allegations as conspiracy
theories. However, Wolfgang Wodarg again submitted a
request in 2020, which was signed by dozens of scientists, to review the
policies for Covid 19 vaccines in European institutions. Despite his being
proven right in the past, he still receives a lot of pressure and polemics, as
well as slander.
Similarities between 2009 and today extend to the actors involved.
People like Mr. Sotiris Tsiodras
(the equivalent of Dr Faucci in the US), who handled the ‘crisis’ in 2009 in a
completely wrong way, are back in the spotlight. […] GlaxoSmithKline is not an unknown company to Mr. Tsiodras: right
at that period, a research project was approved and funded by GlaxoSmithKline, with Mr. Tsiodras been
the scientific director! But even Hoffmann-LaRoche, which produces Tamiflu, is
not unknown to Mr. Tsiodras, who directed another of its funds in 2019. The
newspaper Dimokratia has revealed that: in
May 2019 Mr. Tsiodras received money from Pfizer for “unspecified services”,
and in February 2020 from GlaxoSmithKline. Tsiodras was also appointed “scientific
officer in the European program Horizon
2020, amounting to 150,000 euros, for
the study of the pandemic, sponsored by the software company Exus Software”;
again in 2020 he was funded for his scientific support in the treatment of
coronavirus by an unspecified “special account for research funds”. Interestingly
enough, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia lacks any reference to Mr. Tsiodras’ involvement in the 2009 crisis!
[…]
However, there is a strong contradiction here. On the one hand, every
point of view that differs even slightly from the dominant narrative is
characterized as superstition, conspiracy theory, obscurantism, etc., and Others are violently erased from our
screens. On the other hand, statements made by the former head of Israel’s
Space Security, Haim Essed, on aliens and galactic federations, were published in
TV channels and the Media without been considered conspiracies! And when
entertainers and all sorts of TV personas
hug in the studios (with ordinary employees wearing masks in the same shot),
well, then it’s just a Sunday. For some strange reason, in this case the Public
Prosecutor did not intervene for the obvious violation of the measures, as he
did when a citizen published his own video with data on coronavirus.
The new ‘normal’ is
already here
Epilogue
Compulsory vaccination is prohibited. Imposition of medical acts
constitutes torture. Consent requires information. Experiments on the
population were condemned by the Nuremberg trial. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately, it is not simple enough. There’s a reason behind all Laws
and Treaties and their long standing enactment. There is a reason why human
dignity, value and freedom are mentioned at the first articles of all
constitutions and conventions. The reason is the effort of humans to be, apart
from animals of instinct, spiritual beings as well. This is the unsuccessful
but continuous effort of Humanity. Human dignity is the first to be violated at
every instance, which is why it needs preferential protection. […]
The issue, of course, is much simpler when it comes to compulsory
vaccination. You can do and believe whatever you want to.
… You can be proponent or opponent of these
vaccines. The question is, what is your position on compulsory vaccination?
What is your position on an unconstitutional illegal law? What is your position
on the violation of the Code of Medical Ethics, on the medical practices of
Nazism? How do you approach human dignity? This is the issue, and no other. We
can talk for hours quoting scientific articles that support one side or the
other. But when they will not allow anyone to work or move, when they try to
force children and teachers to be vaccinated with the experimental (or any
other) vaccine, will you stand up for the rights of your fellow human being? […]
Ultimately, we have to
decide: are we responsible adults or not?
The history of Humanity is a constant effort to develop our culture and
to transform (rather sublimate) our innate impulses and needs. The authorities
on the other hand constantly try to address our instincts, grooming and
encouraging them, always according to their interest. And so our history
oscillates between outbursts of horror and crimes against humanity, by humanity
itself driven by few individuals, and in periods of development of civilisation
and peace. The current government wants us to be responsible adults when it wants
to transfer its responsibility to us, but sees vulnerable minors when it wants
to justify the fact that it hides the facts and guides information. Today, once
again –neither for the first time nor the last– we are called to stand as adults and be responsible for ourselves and
the children who depend on us, for their future, or to accept their Paternalism, the master state that knows best
and tends for our welfare. If we do not want a master state, we must definitely
fight censorship. Yet, that is not enough. The only adult, responsible
attitude, is to take responsibility for our actions and beliefs. Individually
but also collectively, in defense of society and solidarity. And now, that we
have retrogressed to the basics, free research, free speech, freedom of
information, are once more our absolutely necessary duties.
* * *
In any case, I shall finish this unexpectedly large survey with a
slightly light note on this: I personally think to consider seriously on the
example set by the president of Pfizer himself, who replied to the question, why was he not been vaccinated yet
(18:30):
I don’t want to have an
example of cutting the line!
Happy New Year
Nelly Psarrou
January 7, 2021