Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 504
October 12, 2022
Kiev Introduces Rolling Blackouts and Stops Exporting Electricity to Europe as Western Media Still Claims Russia is the One Suffering
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
The fighting in Ukraine has escalated this week, as Russia has reportedly started a new bombing campaign against key infrastructures in many cities inside Ukraine as a response to an alleged bombing of a key Crimean bridge.
If one only gets their “news” from the Corporate Media, it would appear that this is an act of desperation by Putin in a failing war for Russia.
As of the time of writing this article, here are the headline stories in the U.S. Corporate Media via Google News:
One of these headlines is from The Independent in the UK:
If you live in “Western Europe,” does this editorial represent your sentiment on this war? Are you prepared to “make the sacrifices” this winter to not be “held hostage by Russia?”
Here are what should be the real headlines for the past few days as this war quickly escalates, but that the Corporate Media is either not reporting or only reporting as non-headline news.
First, Kiev’s power grid was so badly damaged in these recent attacks, that the capital city of Ukraine is now going through rolling blackouts, and the Ukraine Energy Ministry announced yesterday that it had to stop exporting electricity to Europe, as energy supplies for Europe are quickly disappearing:
Energy Ministry: Ukraine forced to stop exporting electricity to EuropeRussia’s mass missile strike on Ukraine that struck heat generation and electrical substations on Oct. 10 forced Ukraine to stop exporting its electricity to the European Union in order to stabilize its own grid starting Oct. 11, the Ministry of Energy said.
The ministry didn’t specify a date for export renewals.
Ukraine’s electricity system was integrated into the European grid in March to cut off the country from its electricity dependency on Russia, and Belarus in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“Russia continues to carry out energy terror against Ukraine and intensifies energy pressure on the European Union,” Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said. (Source.)
Kiev introduces rolling power blackoutsResidents of the Ukrainian capital and Kiev Region will experience power outages of up to four hours under a new schedule of rolling blackouts introduced by the grid operator.
The measure was introduced on Tuesday and is aimed at “balancing the power system and avoiding large-scale blackouts,” privately-owned energy company DTEK announced on Tuesday. It cited instructions it received from the national transmission system operator, Ukrenergo.
The rotating outages will affect both industrial consumers and regular citizens, and was introduced after a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure on Monday. Ukrenergo called on people to dial down their use of electricity to decrease the load on the grid. On Monday evening, it claimed there was a 26.5% drop in consumption in the capital and surrounding region, compared to an average autumn day.
The company urged users to keep consumption low during peak evening hours, and said it ordered operators in Kiev, Chernigov, Zhitomir, and Cheboksary to introduce rolling blackouts, which will be in force for several days.
Issues with basic utilities such as electricity and water were reported by Ukrainian media in many parts of the country following the strikes.
Moscow states that the strikes were in retaliation for what it described as a series of “Ukrainian terrorist attacks” on Russian infrastructure. Key facilities were damaged in nearly a dozen Ukrainian regions, according to Kiev. (Source.)
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Cannabis and America’s Broken Justice System
The Cannabis Question
PBS (2021)
Film Review
The film begins by introducing the “father” of cannabis research Israeli professor Raphael Mechoulam. He was the first scientist (in the sixties) to isolate and eventually synthesize the active psychoactive ingredients in the cannabis plant – THC, CBD and several other cannabinoids. His lab went on to discover the human endocannabinoid system in 1988.
According to filmmakers, there are cannabinoid receptors on every organ in the body, and they control the release of most neurotransmitters. The most abundant receptors in the brain, cannabinoid receptors are essential in managing stress. It’s now believe a breakdown in the endocannabinoid system triggers post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Medicinal cannabis first became legal in California in 1996. Lobbying by parents of children with refractory epilepsy would subsequently bring cannabidiol (CBD) to market in the state. Unlike THC, CBD doesn’t make you high. It has been a great boon to the 33% of seizure patients who don’t respond to seizure medication.
At present cannabis (in states where it’s legal) is a multibillion industry. Meanwhile someone is arrested every 15 seconds in states where it remains illegal.
Cannabis is also illegal under federal law, the Controlled Substances Act, which Nixon enacted in 1970 (despite expert advice he received to decriminalize it). Federal prosecutors ceased charging offenders for cannabis possession during the Obama administration.**
Since 2000, 40,000 Americans, mostly low income people of color (owing to deliberate targeting by police), have been arrested for cannabis-related crimes (mainly possession). lThe film details the sad experience of a Black veteran with PTSD arrested in Alabama. Despite an Arizona medical card allowing him to legally posses medicinal cannabis, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
Medicinal cannabis (which is safer and more effective than opiates) is most commonly used for pain. It’s also purchased for anxiety relief and PTSD.
Research indicates that 9% of heavy cannabis users become addicted to it and experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop it.
*Prior to 1970, it was technically legal to use cannabis although legal cannabis was prohibitive expensive owing to a stamp tax Congress enacted on hemp in 1937. See The Politics of Hemp
**Owing to jury nullification (juries’ refusal to return guilty verdicts for unjust laws). See Obama Quietly Legalizes Marijuana
October 11, 2022
French Finance Minister: US taking advantage of EU energy crisis
Getty Images / halbergman
RT
Washington is selling gas to the EU for four times what it charges at home, the French finance minister says
The US should not be allowed to dominate the global energy market while the EU suffers from the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has warned.
“The conflict in Ukraine must not end in American economic domination and a weakening of the EU,” he said, speaking at the National Assembly on Monday.
Le Maire said it’s unacceptable that Washington “sells its liquefied natural gas at four times the price that it sets for its own industrialists,” adding that “the economic weakening of Europe is not in anyone’s interest.”
“We must reach a more balanced economic relationship on the energy issue between our American partners and the European continent,” Le Maire said.
Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, Russia was the EU’s largest gas supplier, responsible for about 45% of the bloc’s gas imports. However, due to sanctions imposed on Moscow in recent months, Russian gas supplies to the EU have decreased significantly.
Facing an energy crisis, EU countries have rushed to fill their storage facilities – the level of reserves in underground storages was close to 91% as of Monday, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe. The storage sites are largely filled by liquefied natural gas (LNG), and are currently at their highest seasonal levels since at least 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. However, LNG imports from overseas cost much more than gas supplied via pipeline from Russia under long-term contracts, and energy prices in the bloc continue to rise.
The EU has considered setting a cap on natural gas prices for all suppliers, but a number of countries are opposed to this. Norway, a non-EU state but a partner in the European Economic Area (EEA) and one of EU’s major gas suppliers, recently warned that a step such as this could aggravate the situation, forcing exporters to divert supplies to other markets.
[…]
Via https://www.rt.com/business/564457-us-seeks-economic-domination-eu/
Pfizer Admits mRNA Jabs Never Tested for Transmission
Taking Back Our Freedoms
Yesterday, Janine Small, Pfizer’s President of International Developed Marketstestified before the European Parliament’s COVID-19 Committee.
Through her, Pfizer finally admitted what so many experts have known and been censored for saying: the mRNA “vaccines” were never tested for transmission before being released on the market.
That is, the main manufacturer (and it has been Pfizer’s product that has been predominately used in all Western countries, including Canada) has admitted they never had any evidence to support the claim that getting the mRNA “vaccines” meaningfully reduces your chances of spreading the virus.
Canadians will remember that Prime Minister Trudeau, Health Minister Yves Duclos, Chief Medical Officer Theresa Tam, and all of their provincial counterparts repeatedly claimed that vaccination was necessary in order to stop transmission. In order to not be selfish and “protect grandma”.
That was all a lie.
As TBOF has reported, we knew it was a lie because neither Canadian or US federal officials could show any evidence for this at court or in public hearings under oath.
Now we know straight from the manufacturer’s mouth.
The COVID-19 “vaccine” narrative is rapidly falling apart now. Just last week, Florida’s Surgeon General released a study noting that men under the age of 50 who get the mRNA “vaccine” have an increased 86% chance of death from a cardiac event (relative to someone who does not get the jab). Florida now outright advises against use of the mRNA “vaccine“.
[…]
Via https://tbof.ca/pfizer-admits-mrna-jabs-never-tested-for-transmission/
Washington’s Biological Research Laboratories
Internationalist 360°
U.S. laboratories created, developed and operating under Pentagon leadership are scattered throughout Africa, Latin America and practically all the countries that made up the former Union of Socialist Republics. It is estimated that at least 200 biological research laboratories worldwide are financed by Washington.
The presence of U.S. specialists in the construction of chemical and biological weapons, especially in post-Soviet territory, is part of the evidence of the objectives of U.S. administrations to carry out a policy of maximum pressure against the Russian Federation. In these facilities, U.S. agencies are working on creating and modifying pathogens of deadly diseases, for their probable use, either in the military field or in sabotage actions within the broad field of the so-called hybrid wars.
[…]
An interesting study carried out by the Complutense University of Madrid with researchers from the Department of Genetics, Physiology and Microbiology of the Faculty of Biological Sciences of this study center points out that “the Geneva Protocol of 1925 initiated the regularization of the production and use of biological weapons.
[…]
Despite the large number of signatory countries, this treaty has no verification system to ensure compliance, nor does it prohibit research with potentially dangerous biological agents.
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Deadly Map
In U.S. facilities around the world, work is being done to create and modify various pathogens of dangerous diseases, also intended for use in the military field. Such is the case of Kazakhstan, which has six U.S. facilities on its territory.
[…]
On the borders with Kyrgyzstan, the Kazakh government is building a high-level biological laboratory, which has been protested by the Kyrgyz inhabitants and which will join the 40 projects already being tested on lines dealing with pathogens from the animal world, which can cause various diseases: pests in their different varieties, turalemia, encephalitis and a number of other viruses specific to the Asian region, as well as projects under way to modify the bat coronavirus.
In Armenia, the Defense Threat Prevention Agency (DTRA) of the U.S. Department of Defense is carrying out a program in its laboratories in the South Caucasus country to create and integrate disease surveillance systems. 94 special technical complexes from Washington have been deployed in laboratories in Armenia, especially in the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the Ministry of Public Health, as well as in centers of the Ministry of Economy, the Emergency Ministry.
[…]
In Georgia, the Richard Lugar Center – named after the far-right Republican senator considered a bitter enemy of the former USSR – is a medical and military laboratory located on the outskirts of the capital city, Tbilisi. A U.S.-funded center with a large group of scientists, state-of-the-art facilities and high production capacity, it allows them to carry out experiments aimed at measuring the impact of pathogens and their effects on people, taking into account racial and ethnic factors, which constitute a serious danger for Russia, denounced in many forums. There is a U.S. representative on the board of directors of this center, which makes it possible to control that the funds allocated go in the direction of Washington’s interests. Moscow has, on more than one occasion, pointed out that it is concerned about the Pentagon’s activity of installing medical-biological laboratories in the immediate vicinity of Russian borders. In 2015 the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that “under the roof of the Lugar Center a medical research unit of the U.S. Army is operating” (4).
Azerbaijan, also located in the South Caucasus, has also been criticized for the installation of commercial companies – under the umbrella of the Pentagon – for biological research that unified enterprises of the Ministry of Health. In the case of Ukraine, I pointed out, in a work of the portal segundopaso.es, that with the financial and organizational support of Washington, after the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovich, the Ukrainian regimes have deployed in Ukraine a network of 30 biological laboratories for research and study of deadly diseases, especially pathogens and viruses that could be used in biological warfare. Indian media have alleged that these laboratories in Ukraine have been working on the creation of biological weapons of selective action targeting certain ethnic groups (5).
The Russian Ministry of Defense has pointed out that the so-called investment fund Rosemont Seneca Thornton, founded by Hunter Biden, son of the president of the current US President Joe Biden, together with the investment fund of the speculator George Soros have financed the biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine, which have the approval of the Pentagon (6) In early March 2022, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland – a known supporter of the Ukrainian ultra-right – declared before a Senate hearing that ‘biological research facilities’ have been operating in Ukraine, in response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio – Republican of Florida – about the presence of chemical or biological weapons in the country (7).
In the case of Africa, I briefly detail the presence of the United States with biological research laboratories in some countries of this continent. This is the case of Kenya, where the United States, through the Pentagon, is expanding the Kisumu and Kericho medical centers. Entities where 80 U.S. researchers are employed, who are working not only on endemic diseases, but also on a new vaccine “Gineos” to combat the so-called simian smallpox – monkeypox
[…]
Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/washingtons-biological-research-laboratories/
October 10, 2022
Twitter reverses censorship of Florida’s Surgeon General after backlash
By Christina Maas
Reclaim the Net
Twitter has reversed its censorship of Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo after public backlash.
Ladapo was censored by the platform after he posted a tweet advising men between the ages of 18-39 to avoid the Covid vaccine as it had, he alleged based on a study, been found to cause an 84 percent increase in death rate for that group.
Ladapo’s statement and report were released on Friday, with the Surgeon General adding Florida “will not be silent on the truth.”
The published guidance “recommends against the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines for males ages 18-39 years old.”
Ladapo said that “Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health. Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”
Twitter removed the post by the public official, claiming the tweet violated “Twitter rules.”
However, the post was reinstated on Sunday after backlash from the public.
“This is an unacceptable and Orwellian move for narrative over fact,” said Bryan Griffin, the governor’s press secretary, in a further tweet.
[…]
Via https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-reverses-censorship-of-floridas-surgeon-general/
US Troops in Dispute with Their Terrorist Mercenaries in Syria
By Steven Sahihounie
Global Research
The US-employed terrorists, Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT), have turned against their partners, the US Army, stationed at al-Tanf base in the eastern Syrian desert. On October 4, the terrorists, who are employed as mercenaries by the US military, attempted to break out of the illegal US base using a large-caliber machine gun on the pickup truck they were driving. However, their break out was thwarted by the Syrian Arab Army who hold positions nearby and returned fire causing the MaT to retreat into the US base.
Russian Major General Oleg Yegorov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, reported the incident on Wednesday.
The US military had cordoned off al-Tanf base in the 55-kilometer deconfliction zone, shut down the internet, and ordered all mercenaries to lay down their arms and leave the base at once on foot. On September 27, to reinforce the message, US coalition aircraft flew over the area and broke the sound barrier to drive home their insistence that mercenaries who refuse US military orders must leave.
The military council of the MaT has rejected the US military’s decision to remove the former commander of the MaT and replace him with a man who is not a member of the MaT. The US-employed terrorists stated, “… that it rejects any foreign intervention in the appointment of its revolutionary leadership.” The MaT must not have understood that when you are on the payroll of the US military you are obliged to follow their orders. Equally, the US Army must not have understood that when you partner with Radical Islamic terrorists you cannot expect them to follow orders. As the saying goes, “When you feed a monster, it can turn to bite you.”
Al-Tanf is an illegal US military base in Homs province on the M2 Baghdad–Damascus Highway in the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border triangle. The outpost began in early 2016 under the command of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR). The MaT consists of at least 300 terrorists partnered with at least 200 US troops. The Syrian government has demanded the US leave its occupation of several bases in Syria.
According to Israeli defense sources, al-Tanf hosts around 350 military personnel and civilians, “including some British and French forces that were described as ‘intelligence experts.” CNN reported in August 2022, that there are approximately 900 US troops in Syria, with most of them split between the al-Tanf base and Syria’s eastern oil fields.
On September 29, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights sources reported that dozens of residents gathered near al-Tanf base to protest the coalition’s decision and called on its command to appoint any other officer from the faction instead of an outsider.
The previous leaderBrigadier General Muhannad al-Talaa was removed from his position by the US-led coalition late last month. The former colonel, who defected from the Syrian Arab Army, was the founder of the MaT in 2016. Without explicitly charging al-Talaa with any crimes, local speculation points to the former commander’s involvement in instances of corruption, weapon and drug trafficking, and other violations.
Sources say he was removed from his command because he had traveled to Turkey, where he has family living, and while there met with Turkish Intelligence officials. This would be an obvious violation of the chain of command in US military protocol and would border on spying charges.However, the same sources point to al-Talaa’s dismissal of corruption, smuggling weapons, and drug trafficking crimes. Al-Talaa worked with a core of corrupt terrorists within MaT, and if they were exposed by the US forces red-handed for weapons and drug smuggling, he would arrange for them to lay low for a period, and then he would engineer their return to full pay in the MaT. Al-Talaa became an expert at manipulating the system whereby every six months there is a change of American officers at al-Tanf.
Jordan had demanded that the US remove al-Talaa from command of the MaT, but their pleas were not heeded until now. The Jordanians became aware that it was al-Talaa and his group of criminal terrorists who were in control of the drug trade plaguing Jordan. This became a security threat to Jordan and its war on drugs. During al-Talaa’s final meeting with Jordanian military intelligence officers, they directly accused him of being a drug dealer. They had arrested Abu Hamza al-Khudair, a well-known drug dealer, who admitted that al-Talaa was aware of the drug smuggling to Jordan.
Jordan formally cut off humanitarian support to the Rukban refugee camp next to al-Tanf because of al-Talaa’s drug trafficking, but he remained in his post until he was recently removed.
The new leaderAl-Talaa was replaced by Muhammad Farid al-Qassem, a former captain who defected from the Syrian Arab Army and formed the al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade with support from the US.
Al-Qassem, who is a violent radical, has never been a member of the MaT. According to people from the al-Qaryatayn area, his hometown, he is a “cruel person” and will not be suitable to manage the civilians living in desperate conditions in the squalor of the Rukban camp.
A former MaT commander at al-Tanf said, “There are suspicions that al-Qassem is also involved in smuggling operations through his deployment points.” The media source close to the coalition agreed, adding that the new commander is also accused of involvement in “a murder and other violations.”
Sources close to the base thought that al-Qassem was chosen because he is an outsider, and will not support the criminal activity his predecessor was involved in, and the Jordanians would accept working with him. However, he has a troubled past with the US military when he was kicked out of the Pentagon training program in 2017 for violations. After that, he began working with the CIA on another program that dealt with terrorist training for the US-led coalition and American military forces in Syria.
[…]
Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-troops-dispute-their-terrorist-mercenaries-syria/5795812
The Wisdom of Crowds
The Wisdom of Crowds
By James Surowiecki
Anchor Books (2005)
Book Review
This book confirms what I have believed for more than two decades: namely that groups (given the right circumstances) always make better decisions than individual experts.
The book opens by describing the famous 1906 experiment by Darwinian eugenicist Francis Galton which unwittingly disproved his own theory (that only a “well-bred” few were capable of governing) in which he asked fairgoers to guess the weight of an ox.*
Surowiecki describes three types of problems groups are asked to solve:
Cognition problems – those that have or will have definitive solutions (who will win the Super Bowl, where’s the best place to build a new swimming pool)Coordination problems – those that require people to coordinate their behavior others (students looking for the best parties to crash, drivers seeking to avoid freeway congestion)Cooperation problems – getting diverse people to work together even when individual self-interest dictates they shouldn’t (paying taxes, dealing with pollution).Groups perform best in solving cognition problems. According to Surowiecki the value of expertise in Western society is over-rated. Two specific examples he gives are investment advisors, who (except for Warren Buffet) consistent fail to outperform the market and psychologists, who are worse at predicting violent behavior than the general public.
The Wisdom of Crowds stipulates that for groups to make good decisions they must meeting the following criteria:
They have rules to maintain order and coherence.They’re diverse (to enhance perspective and preserve independence of opinion).They’re not too big.They’re independent – the best way for a group to be smart is to encourage each person to be as independent as possible.They don’t expect people to modify their individual position to make everyone else happy.The books gives numerous examples of groups that have made good decisions and a few that have made disastrous ones. My favorite example is the old TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, in which contestants who asked the studio audience for help had a 91% chance of being right (in contrast to a 65% chance when they asked an expert).
The worst decision in the book is the Mission Management Team decision (not to investigate potential heat shield damage) leading to the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster. According to Surowiecki, it was based on a common error (failing to preserve member independence) small groups make in solving cognition problems.
Examples of effective group work in solving coordination problems are the Linux open source operating system** and the decentralized assembly lines adopted by most US car manufacturers.
Examples of effective group work in solving cooperation problems are paying taxes and keeping sidewalks free of snow. Despite all their anti-tax rhetoric, Americans are much less likely than European to evade paying tax.
The book includes an extensive discussion on the absence of good group governance in US corporations, which Surowiecki feels has a negative effect on their productivity. I found this section less useful, in that it makes some naive assumptions about Wall Street being a “free market.”
For example, this section focuses mainly on manufacturing without mentioning that the preponderance of US manufacturers moved their plants overseas between 1970 and 2000. Likewise it makes no mention (in discussing Wall Street bubbles) of the role of the Federal Reserve in flooding Wall Street with cheap credit nor of corporate CEOS buying back company shares to artificially increase share prices.
*The group average was only off by one pound,
**First introduced in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, the software code on which Linux operates is freely accessible to all users and open to suggestions for improvement via the Free Software Foundation.
October 9, 2022
What If the Truth Never Comes Out
Julie Ponesse
Epoch Times
This is the question that seems to be on the minds of many these days.
The attempt to reach “zero-COVID” was a colossal failure. Original claims of mRNA vaccine efficacy have reportedly been shown to be based on falsified data. Excess mortality is spiking across the globe. And the Canadian government finally admits they have a multi-million dollar contract (pdf) with the World Economic Forum for Traveler Digital ID. What was fiction and then conspiracy theory is now reality.
Many believe we are approaching a tipping point, that we are on the verge of a revelatory storm, that the truth is finally coming out.
And yet most people still believe in the narrative, still cling to the idea that lockdowns and masking were necessary and effective, that their questioning friends are unstable “anti-vaxxers,” that government is noble and mainstream media unimpeachable. And from the files of the truly unfathomable, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is now urging doctors to prescribe drugs and even psychotherapy to their noncompliant patients. The tipping point is hardly a sure thing.
What if we never reach it? What if the guilty are never held to account? What if we forget only to transgress again and again?
Anecdotes of the harms of the last two years are palpable but ignored. Patients complain of symptoms their doctors won’t acknowledge. Citizens tell stories the media ignores. Family members try to open dialogue only to be shut down. The stories are told but, for the most part, they aren’t being heard.
I recently interviewed Trish Wood who moderated the Citizens’ Hearing about the harms of our public health response to COVID-19. She wrote that, a week later, she still felt shaken by the magnitude of what she heard: the damage done to careers, families, and children by the blinkered approach of public health experts. She heard the stories of doctors who were silenced when trying to advocate for patients, people whose lives were forever changed by vaccine injury, and, most tragically, stories of those like Dan Hartman, whose teenage son died following mRNA vaccination.
Trish wrote powerfully about the importance of taking account of embedding the acknowledgment of these harms in our collective moral conscience. Her words are, dare I say, reminiscent of Elie Wiesel’s.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, at a time when the world was so morally injured, so eager for a new start, Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel saw it as his responsibility to speak for those who had been silenced. At a time when most could not bear to remember, Wiesel could not bear to forget. He wrote:
“I believe firmly and profoundly that whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness, so those who hear us, those who read us must continue to bear witness for us. Until now, they’re doing it with us. At a certain point in time, they will do it for all of us.”
Weisel’s words are hauntingly poignant for our time.
Those who tell the stories of the injured knowing they will be ignored, who advocate for patients only to be censured, who highlight the children who have died by suicide rather than from COVID-19 only to be silenced do it because they believe that a cry in the dark will eventually be heard. And even if it isn’t, they feel obligated to testify on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves.
I apologize if my reference to Nazi atrocities offends you. My aim in making the comparison is not to be irreverent but purposeful. True, the atrocities of our time are not identical to those of 1930s and ’40s Europe. But they don’t need to be to learn important moral lessons from them. Wiesel’s promise of “never again” was not just to past victims of atrocities but to all future victims as well.
This is how the battle will be fought now, whether the truth about the last two years will be dragged into the open or revised into oblivion. We are already seeing backpedaling among our officials, whose mishandling of the pandemic is undeniable.
But that is beyond my point. We have relied for too long on institutions to do the remembering for us, to generate moral responsibility on our behalf. In the era of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, personal accountability has been trained out of us. We were taught to believe that institutions would act as our surrogate moral conscience, taking account and making apology for us. I don’t deny the importance of collective responsibility. But sometimes moral injury is personal, done by individuals to one another, and the accountability needs to happen in kind.
There are few who are not personally complicit in the harms of the last two years. And the temptation to put on the armor of the bystander is powerful, to say we weren’t involved, that we “had no choice.” But complicity is a form of moral action, sometimes the most powerful there is.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if our moral slate could be wiped clean, if we could be absolved of all the hurt we have caused? But this doesn’t honor the truth, and it’s not the way we exercise our humanity.
What if the truth never comes out?
It may not.
But if it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be because we ignored those crying out to us, because we stood behind a shield of compliance and deference. The road back to freedom, unity, and reconciliation starts with testimony and accountability, and we need to take those painful first few steps now.
[…]
Via https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-if-the-truth-never-comes-out_4781933.html
After Major Backlash, PayPal Says It Won’t Seize $2,500 From Users if They Spread ‘Misinformation’
NWO Report
Posted BY: Cristina Laila
After major backlash, PayPal reversed course and said they will not be fining people $2,500 for spreading ‘misinformation.’
In its newly updated policy, PayPal announced it will begin fining users $2,500 directly from their accounts if they are found to be spreading “misinformation.”
In 2020, PayPal changed its policy and users were compelled to agree to a $2,500 PayPal fine if they violated the PayPal acceptable use policy.
On September 26th, the financial service announced some changes to certain agreements.
Trending: The First Shots of Nuclear War Have Been Fired!Starting November 3, 2022, PayPal is expanding the existing list of prohibited activities to include the sending, posting, or publication of messages, content, or materials under its Acceptable Use Policy.
“Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s) as outlined in the User Agreement,” said PayPal.
Users will be subject to a financial penalty if they violate the revised policy in any way, including by spreading false information, engaging in discrimination against the LGBTQ community, posing a risk to user safety, and so on.
The company reversed course after major backlash.
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our team is working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” PayPal said in an email to the Epoch Times.
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