Restriction of Movement/Activity
IN THE words of Gandhi, first they ignore you; then they ridicule you; then they attack you; and finally, you win. But this can be a laborious process, and ultimate triumph over an authoritarian regime may be hard to foresee. Mainstream media keep approved narratives at the forefront, censoring and suppressing critical perspectives or inconvenient truths.
However during the covid debacle various means of bypassing state and corporate censorship have emerged. ‘A Stand in the Park’, open gatherings of ordinary people in their local park to stand for freedom, was one of the first and has spread across the country. ‘Yellow Boards’ were displayed on busy roundabouts. Stickers proliferated on lampposts. The Light, a free newspaper funded and distributed by volunteers, and independent websites such as TCW have played an important role in confronting propaganda and getting an ‘alternative’ analysis and commentary out there.
In some areas the awakening movement has been particularly effective: Totnes in Devon, Stroud in Gloucestershire, Hull, the Sussex coast (excluding woke Brighton) and Cornwall, among others. London, sadly, is relatively asleep. Those huge rallies against lockdown were largely attended by people who had travelled in by train or bus. Only in certain suburbs was there an appreciable resistance. One of these was Carshalton, where I had lived since 1994.
On January 4 2021, after the government, police and judiciary quashed protests, six of us arranged to meet on Carshalton High Street. This was against the rules at the time, and we felt nervous whenever a police car passed. Steadfastly, we met there every Thursday for at least an hour, our number soon reaching double figures. In March a pharmacy next to our meeting place opened for Covid-19 vaccinations, and sometimes we exchanged derisory comments with people in the queue (‘nutters’ from them, bleating noises in retort).
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Read MoreToo many questions remain unanswered: why did Sweden come out of the pandemic better than other countries without having endured a lockdown? Why were masks imposed when scientific studies repeatedly demonstrated that they were unnecessary? Why was discrimination introduced between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated when it was clear that vaccines were incapable of blocking the transmission of the infection? And why, since the lockdowns, has there been such a high excess-death rate in Europe?
Such questions have motivated Multi-polar, a small German online magazine, to fight for the disclosure of Robert Koch Institute (RKI) documents. RKI is the prestigious German equivalent of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This institute is meant to provide the scientific basis for the public health (and lockdown) decisions of the German government. It also has extensive influence on smaller neighbouring countries, such as Austria, where RKI’s suggestions are regarded as the gold standard for health policy.
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Read MoreFederal managers paid out more than $500,000 in settlements to employees suspended under vax mandates, records show. The payments were disclosed at the request of Conservative MP Ted Falk (Provencher, Man.) who opposed mandatory vaccination as a breach of Charter rights.
Cabinet in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons detailed payments totaling $509,746 in damages and compensation to employees wrongly denied legitimate exemptions. One employer, the Department of National Defence, compensated three employees with “damages under the Canadian Human Rights Act on grounds of discrimination based on religion,” said the Inquiry.
The figures were tabled at the request of MP Falk who asked, “What are the total expenditures on compensation, severance packages and settlements to employees who were impacted by the government’s requirement during the Covid-19 pandemic that federal public servants provide proof of vaccination?”
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Read MoreFederal airport screeners predict millions more Canadians will fly over the next year but are making no promises on reducing wait times. The forecast follows a 33 percent increase in mandatory fees paid by travelers to cover security costs.
“Even before the pandemic presented unique and unprecedented wait time challenges Canadian civil aviation industry stakeholders expressed a clear and resounding desire for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to strive for a more ambitious wait time service level,” managers wrote in a report tabled in Parliament.
The Authority claimed on average 89 percent of passengers wait less than 15 minutes in security lineups. “Longer wait times will occur during peak periods,” wrote the Authority. It did not disclose worst-case wait times at individual airports.
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Read MoreToday on the Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel, Rachel speaks with Alex Van Herk, one of the Coutts Three found guilty last week of mischief over $5,000 for his role in the Coutts border blockade. Van Herk, who faces up to 10 years in prison, says sentencing is expected in September.
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Read MoreFor the second year in a row, Canadians’ interest in electric vehicles has declined, with fewer than half of Canadians now saying they plan to make their next car purchase an electric vehicle.
According to a recent survey conducted by AutoTrader, respondents who did express interest in buying an EV for their next vehicle, primarily cited the high cost of fuel as their main motivator.
Other motivators include environmental friendline
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Read MoreThe World Health Organization (WHO) again sounded the alarm about bird flu last week, warning it has an “extremely high” mortality rate among humans.
The disease, the H5N1 avian influenza virus — also known as “highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A,” and simply as “bird flu” — can pass among some animals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Read MoreChildren who started school in the early days of the pandemic will have worse exam results well into the next decade. That’s according to a study released this morning by the London School of Economics, the University of Exeter and the University of Strathclyde. Researchers predict that 60 per cent of pupils will achieve worse than a grade five in their English and Maths GSCEs in 2030, considerably more than the numbers achieving poor marks today.
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Read MoreWe all remember the harrowing “Look them in the eyes” (LTITE) messaging campaign of early 2021, aimed at levering compliance with Covid restrictions. By means of a series of videos and posters, we were confronted with close-up images of acutely unwell patients in intensive care units, ominous music and a voiceover beseeching us to tell them, nose-to-nose, that we never break the rules. Deploying materials that were heavily infused with behavioural science strategies (‘nudges’), frightening and shaming an already overly scared population into obedience, this advertising initiative was widely considered to be the most controversial – and unethical – of all the public health communications during the Covid event. But who were the key actors responsible for inflicting the LTITE campaign on the populace?
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