Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 516
September 13, 2022
Court Orders Bill Gates and Indian Government to Respond to Lawsuit
An Indian court ordered Bill Gates, the Indian government and the Serum Institute of India — the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer — to provide formal responses relating to a case filed by the father of a 33-year-old doctor who died after receiving AstraZeneca’s Covishield COVID-19 vaccine.
An Indian court ordered Bill Gates, the Indian government and the Serum Institute of India — the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer — to provide formal responses relating to a case filed by the father of a woman who died after receiving AstraZeneca’s Covishield COVID-19 vaccine.
The High Court of Judicature at Bombay set a Nov. 17 deadline for the responses and scheduled a hearing for the same day.
In a lawsuit filed in February, Dilip Lunawat alleged his daughter, Snehal Lunawat, died March 1, 2021, of complications arising from the Covishield vaccine. He is seeking compensation of ₹1000 crores (approximately $126 million).
According to the lawsuit, Lunawat “lost his elder daughter. His loss can neither be explained in words nor can be compensated in terms of money. Only some sort of succour can be done by awarding compensation.”
Defendants in the case include Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute; Bill Gates, in his role as partner in the development of the Covishield vaccine; the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; the Indian State of Maharashtra; India’s drug controller general; the former director of the All India Institute of Medical Science and others.
A lawyer representing Gates reportedly appeared before the High Court to accept the notice.
33-year-old doctor died due to ‘rare blood-clotting event’ following vaccination
Snehal Lunawat was a 33-year-old doctor and senior lecturer at the SMBT Dental College & Hospital in Maharashtra State. According to her father, she was compelled, as a health worker, to get the Covishield vaccine.
On Jan. 28, 2021, Snehal received the Covishield vaccine, which is produced by the Serum Institute. Her father claims his daughter had received assurances the vaccines were entirely safe and posed no risk to her health.
However, her father stated, Snehal developed severe headaches and vomiting while attending a workshop just days after receiving the vaccine, resulting in her hospitalization. There, doctors said that she was suffering from bleeding in the brain, low platelet count and blood clot formation.
After 14 days elapsed without her condition improving, Snehal’s family transferred her to another hospital, where she died eight days later.
Snehal experienced a “rare blood-clotting event,” a complication that resulted in her blood platelet count decreasing due to increased bleeding in her brain.
According to the lawsuit, these adverse reactions have been found to be related to the AstraZeneca and Covishield COVID-19 vaccines in some countries.
Download for Free: Robert F. Kennedy’s New Book — ‘A Letter to Liberals’
Lawsuit claims vaccination occurred based on ‘false narrative’
The lawsuit names the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for its role in helping to speed up the process of manufacturing and delivering up to 100 million doses of Covishield for distribution in India and various developing countries.
In the lawsuit, Lunawat “blamed the Government and others for misrepresenting the facts about the COVID-19 vaccine by making false claims about its safety and ‘forcing’ medical practitioners to take the vaccine.”
Lunawat said his daughter was convinced to receive the vaccine as a result of an “alleged false narrative.”
The lawsuit characterized interviews given by Indian public health officials in the nation’s media as contributing to this “false narrative,” naming several of these interviews, including one by Dr. VG Somani, drug controller general of India, that was broadcast on Jan. 4, 2021, and during which Somani claimed, “the vaccines are 110 percent safe.”
It was “on the basis of such false narratives and misrepresentation by the senior authorities … and its implementation by the state authorities without any proper verification, [that] health workers like the lawsuiter’s daughter was compelled to get the vaccine,” the lawsuit states.
Aside from the named defendants, the lawsuit also calls for action to be taken against social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, and mainstream media for their role in disseminating the “false narratives” and for allegedly suppressing information about the adverse effects, inefficacy or failure of the vaccines.
The lawsuit requests a declaration that Indian state authorities are responsible for Snehal’s death, calls on authorities to publish the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines and to take steps to stop further deaths of citizens as a result of their adverse effects, and urges the authorities to demand compensation from the Serum Institute.
Lunawat said he is seeking justice for his deceased daughter and for “many more people who are likely to be murdered” due to vaccine injuries.
Doctor’s death was subject of a WHO investigation
This was not the first time that Snehal’s family succeeded in getting the media to tell her story — the incident first became known in India due to her family’s efforts to have an investigation launched regarding her death.
As previously reported by The Defender, Snehal’s family initially reached out to the Indian government and the Serum Institute requesting her death be investigated, as it was registered as an adverse event in India’s “Adverse Event Following Immunisation” (AEFI) database.
However, a satisfactory response was not provided, prompting the family to reach out to the World Health Organization (WHO), which then investigated the incident.
Due to pressure from the family and the intervention of the WHO and the All India Drugs Network, the AEFI committee on Sept. 25, 2021 — following nearly seven months of delay — accepted the claim that Snehal’s death was vaccine-related. The committee issued a report on Oct. 2, 2021.
This was only the third vaccine-induced death recognized by AEFI. The process of reporting vaccine-related deaths to the AEFI database is reportedly “not easy.”
Other Indian court cases are investigating vaccine injury claims, role of Bill Gates
Snehal’s death is not the only high-profile Indian legal case concerning vaccine injuries or seeking damages against Gates and others.
As reported by The Defender, another case, Yadav v. Maharashtra, also before the Bombay High Court, was filed in late 2021, by the mother of the deceased, Shri Hitesh Kadve, who was “unwillingly” vaccinated on Sept. 29, 2021, and died that same day due to an adverse reaction from the Covishield vaccine.
The family of the deceased is also seeking damages against Indian public health bodies and officials, Poonawalla and Bill Gates, referred to in the complaint as a “mastermind” and as a “habitual offender of mass murder by vaccination in conspiracy with Government officials.”
The Indian Bar Association — an informal group of Indian lawyers (the Bar Council of India is India’s official bar association) — lists several other recent legal developments requiring Indian government and public health officials to respond to claims regarding deaths allegedly resulting from COVID-19 vaccines.
For instance, India’s Supreme Court on Aug. 29 issued notice to the country’s central government, requesting a response in the case of two children said to have died as a result of vaccine adverse effects.
On Aug. 10, the high court of the Indian state of Kerala ordered the Indian government to immediately develop guidelines for the issuance of compensation to the victims of vaccine injuries and side effects, with the government telling the court that such policies are currently in the process of being formulated.
And earlier this year, the Kerala High Court requested a response from the Indian government in the case of a 19-year-old woman who died allegedly as a result of the vaccine.
Indian doctors lead initiative declaring ‘international medical crisis’ due to vaccine injuries, deaths
As lawsuits make their way through India’s courts, a group of Indian doctors are leading an initiative to draw attention to COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries and deaths.
More than 400 doctors and medical professionals from 34 countries on Sept. 10 held a press conference during which they declared an international medical crisis arising from “diseases and death associated with the ‘COVID-19 vaccines.’”
The declaration, which emerged from concerned doctors and medical professionals in India, makes eight “urgent” demands, including calling for an immediate stop to the administration of COVID-19 vaccinations and the investigation of all deaths involving previously healthy individuals.
The Serum Institute of India is not only the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold, but it also produces more than half of the world’s vaccines that are administered to babies.
[…]
The Collapse of the Han Dynasty and 350 Years of Disunity
Episode 20: The Age of Disunity
Foundations of Eastern Civilization
Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)
Film Review
According to Benjamin, the last decades of the Han Dynasty were characterized by corruption and infighting between the three groups of competing elites: the emperor’s eunuchs, the hereditary nobility and the Confucian bureaucrats. Simultaneously there was also substantial peasant unrest, most notably the Yellow Turban Rebellion (184-205 AD). Ultimately the empire was overrun by militarized nomads, just as Rome was.
After the last Han emperor was deposed in 220 AD, power fell into the hands of regional governments and warlords. Cao Cao, one of the most powerful, is best known for settling landless peasants on state forms. After employing Xiongu horse archers as mercenaries, he also resettled them in Shanxi province in northern China.
Several warlords attempted to reunify China, only to be thwarted by their rivals. In 220 AD Cao Cao’s son Cao Pi unsuccessfully attempted to reunify China as the Wei Dynasty.
Significant historical periods include
230 – 280 AD – Three Kingdoms period, with the rival Wei kingdom in the North, Shu kingdom in the West and Wu kingdom in the East.265 AD – the Jin Dynasty captures the Wei kingdom, ruling until 420 AD. They very briefly rule the other two kingdoms as well, but the fleeting Jin Empire collapses due to a conflict with their own civil service.281 – 305 AD – brutal civil war involving all of China.311 AD – Xiongnu nomads take advantage of continuing civil unrest, to sack the former capitol of the Eastern Han Dynasty at Luoyang. In 316, they sacked Changan.304 – 437 AD – era of the 16 kingdoms, characterized by o one of continual war with Xiongu nomads.420 – 589 AD – Period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, featuring significant in southern China, previously isolated from the major dynasties.439 – 534 AD – Shaanxi settlers from Manchuria adopt Han culture and re-established the Wei Dynasty in northern China.581 AD – militarily superior Sui Dynasty finally reunifies China. The first Sui emperor Wendi, also China’s first Buddhist emperor,* eliminates many of the cruel punishments enacted under the Legalist dynasties.** His son Yangdi builds the Grand Canal linking the Yellow and Yangtze River.*Buddhism first reached China during the first century AD. During the Age of Disunity, many Chinese Buddhists temples and monasteries and made pilgrimages to India. Chinese Buddhists periodically experienced vicious attacks by Confucian elites. The celibacy practiced by Buddhist monks was viewed as “unfilial” (under Confucianism, one has a duty to parents and ancestors to produce an heir).
**Legalism was a school of political philosophy that competed with Confucianism and Daoism during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). See China: Ancient Civlization Born in Isolation
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
September 12, 2022
Free Speech Doesn’t Matter If Propagandists Decide What People Say
By Caitlin Johnstone
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they’re informed.
None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don’t know they are propagandized.
Living in a liberal western democracy means having the freedom to criticize the tyranny of your government, but instead spending your time criticizing the tyranny of foreign governments who your government doesn’t like.
Free speech in a liberal western democracy means you have the freedom to say whatever you want about the abuses of your government, and the press has the freedom to hammer you with propaganda to ensure that you never do.
In a liberal western democracy you are free to criticize your government, but instead you are propagandized into criticizing the impotent puppets who get rotated in and out of office while your government continues doing all the same evil things regardless of who gets elected.
In liberal western democracies you are free to call the president “Drumpf” or “Brandon”, but you are not free to know who’s actually calling the shots in your country underneath the official government.
In liberal western democracies people say, “I’m so glad I don’t live in a country like Russia or China where people are forbidden to criticize their government. I live in the west, where I’m free to criticize Russia and China all I want.”
It doesn’t matter if you have freedom of speech if those in power can control what you will say. And in liberal western democracies, this is exactly what happens.
We grow up saturated with US empire propaganda in the west. We marinate in it. It pervades our consciousness. But because it’s all we’ve ever known, most of us don’t even notice it.
We think it’s normal that we’re always told our government is on the good and righteous side of every international conflict. We think it’s normal that we hear constantly about the tyranny of foreign governments while only occasionally hearing about bad things our own government did years ago (but it was an innocent mistake and it’ll never happen again).
“If we were being propagandized, I’m sure we’d have heard about it in the news,” we tell ourselves.
But the news is the propaganda. And it will never report on that bombshell story.
Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. In controls how the public thinks, acts, votes and behaves, but hardly anyone ever talks about it. Because the sources they’ve been trained to look to for information never say anything about it.
So people say what’s on their mind, after what’s on their mind has been carefully curated by the imperial narrative managers who are responsible for controlling what information goes into their mind.
And they say it with complete freedom. Sure if what they’re saying goes against the interests of the western empire they won’t be allowed to speak on any large platforms where they might infect the mainstream herd with wrongthink, and sure if what they’re saying is really inconvenient they might get banned from even speaking on any of the major online platforms, but they still get to speak. Alone, where no one can hear them. Preferably into a hole in the ground.
And everyone else gets to ingest the mainstream swill. The authorized narratives that get amplified on traditional media and by the algorithms of Silicon Valley. The authorized narratives which mask the abuses of their own government — foreign and domestic — while magnifying and exaggerating the abuses of empire-targeted governments.
That’s why when some people hear my objections to the empire, they say “Well at least where I live we’re allowed to criticize our government!”
And that’s why I reply to them, “Okay. But you don’t.”
If speech wasn’t free people would realize they’re being oppressed, but if people started using their speech to voice real grievances about real power, they would swiftly discover that their speech is being ignored and power is doing as it likes. So inconvenient speech is curtailed by propaganda, by censorship, by algorithm manipulation and by media marginalization.
People are kept hopelessly enslaved by giving them the illusion that they are free, and any voice which interrupts that illusion is silenced by whatever means necessary.
That’s what free speech means in a liberal western democracy. You can say whatever you like, as long as it’s what they like.
Via https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/free-speech-doesnt-matter-if-propagandists
‘Democracy’: The Primary US Export
Jairo I. Fúnez, PhD @Jairo_I_Funez
The Muslim Times
Today is a good day to remind everyone that the US is a settler colonial state & an empire, one that has organized coups throughout the world to maintain neo-colonial arrangments in place. Today we sadly remember another Sept. 11, when a US-backed coup overthrew Salvador Allende.nd Granada … 1983 … and all Central American States one by one…
and that is just the Americas …
Via https://themuslimtimes.info/2022/09/12/american-democracy-exported/
NZ finally bows to reality of covid-19 restrictions
Orange Traffic Light in front of Parliament Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Seemorerocks
Covid-19 traffic light system, vaccine mandates and most mask requirements to end
The Covid-19 Protection Framework – also known as the traffic light system – will end tonight at 11.59pm, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.
This means all mask-wearing requirements will be removed, except for in healthcare and aged-care facilities.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z3qXeLrBzOI
The most recent health advice was that with the lowest cases and hospitalisations since February, the population well vaccinated, and expanded access to anti-viral medicines, New Zealand was in a position to move forward, Ardern said.
Here are the key details:
Only those who test positive for Covid-19 will be required to isolate for seven days and household contacts will no longer be required to – but must daily test using a RAT beforehandAll government vaccine mandates are set to end in two weeks on 26 SeptemberVaccination requirements for incoming travellers and air crew will also be removedSupport for business and workers will continue through leave support paymentsAll New Zealanders aged 65 and over and Māori aged 50 and over will have automatic access to Covid-19 anti-virals if they test positiveFrom Tuesday, case and hospitalisation number reporting becomes weekly, not dailyArdern said people may still be asked to wear a mask in some places but it would be at the discretion of those managing the location, not a government requirement.
The Ministry of Health would continue to provide guidance on mask use, and use would continue to be encouraged in places like public transport and when visiting vulnerable people – but it was no longer a requirement, she said.
“We do not want to ask more of you than the evidence tells us we should – that does not mean you shouldn’t wear a mask or judge others who do, so please do respect those who choose to wear masks.
“People will use masks for their own individual reasons. They may personally be vulnerable, they may have events they may not want to be unwell for, they may not have had Covid-19. We all just need to respect everyone’s individual decisions.”
However, the government would bring back mask use if the circumstances demanded it, Ardern said. She would still personally choose to wear a mask on a plane and in some other circumstances, she said.
The additional measures around ongoing use of masks in some settings and isolation periods would still be covered by the epidemic notice and would continue to be reviewed regularly, Ardern said.
Vaccination requirements would also be at the discretion of employers.
“The only current mandates were for health and disability workers but with high vaccine rates now coupled with high numbers of people having had the virus themself, it’s now safe for them to conclude,” Ardern said.
It was the first time in three years that a case in a household will no longer mean everyone stays home, Ardern said.
“Instead we simply ask that household contacts undertake a daily RAT test, if you’re negative you can continue to go about your work, life and schooling as normal.”
Evidence showed moving down to a five-day isolation period could result in 15 percent to 20 percent more cases being released while infectious, also increasing hospitalisations, Ardern said. “We don’t believe now is the time to do this,” she added.
“We’re keeping the seven days because we know that actually that removes the likelihood of people being out in the community while infectious – it limits it … seven days gives us a level of protection and assurrance that we’re not unnecessarily growing those numbers.”
Travellers arriving into New Zealand will still be encouraged to return test results on day 0/1 and day 5/6, but it will not be a legal requirement.
“We will continue to offer follow-up PCR tests and genome sequencing of positive cases amongst travellers because this is an important part of monitoring for variants. We’ll also use targeted surveillance at the border to keep a check on new variants,” Ardern said.
“To date, we aren’t seeing any uptick in community cases – high vaccination rates and covid cases globally mean many people coming here are vaccinated or have had the virus and so pose less risk.”
Covid-19 Minister Ayesha Verrall has also announced today an additional purchase of 40,000 more anti-viral medicine courses, expected to enter New Zealand in the next few days.
She also said the government would continue to monitor testing and the international situation and would maintain preparedness for variants.
The work announced as part of the variant planning continued and it was about preparedness and understanding the capabilities required should we need to stand those up in future, Verrall said.
Effort was being put into the role of scanning what was happening internationally and public service chief executives had recently tested to ensure their roles and responsibilities were clear should a pandemic response be needed again in future, she said.
Wastewater testing would also be brought in for the border – particularly at airports, Verrall said.
The latest modelling now took greater account of “hybrid immunity” – vaccines combined with previous infections – and currently suggested the possibility of just one smaller wave later this year, she said.
Via
NZ finally bows to reality of covid-19 restrictions
September 11, 2022
When Will Covid Reporting Start to Tell the Truth?
By Guy Hatchard
TWO and a half years into the Covid saga, the public is still faced with an information blackout. The data is very concerning indeed, but no one in parliament or the MSM wants to get in front of it. Instead many are still stuck stoking the fear factor. As Professor Vinay Prasad, an American haematologist-oncologist and health researcher, wrote a few days ago: ‘Legitimising irrational anxiety is bad medicine’.
Early on in our efforts to publicise the dangers of biotechnology medicine, I had an email exchange with Jesse Mulligan, a popular commentator with RNZ Afternoons. His perspective on Covid vaccination was as follows.
December 6, 2021: ‘I feel like anybody aiming to critique such an obviously positive public health measure should begin and end their messaging reminding people that any risks/flaws in the vaccine are minor compared to the horrific impacts of getting Covid . . . I don’t have the time to correspond with you on this at length but, for what it’s worth, if you’re putting people off getting a largely safe vaccine by what you’re writing about it, I think you need to review how you approach writing these messages.’
Mulligan quoted from Ministry of Health directives and had also read some questioning scientific articles, but he could not get past the conclusion that vaccination was an obvious public good and for this reason he declined to have me on his show.
The ‘obvious public good’ narrative has come in for some recent criticism. The BMJ printed an opinion piece in July entitled Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise? Or try this referenced substack article which reports that the negative harm/benefit ratio in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials has been acknowledged in a scientific journal article. In other words there is more harm than benefit.
For me, the central early point of pandemic misinformation has been the underlying assumption that biotech medicine interventions could be safe. There really was little or no evidence to justify such an attitude, in fact, as I have discussed, there was a great deal of published pre-pandemic evidence to justify caution.
Given the central role of DNA in human physiology, altering its function was from the outset potentially catastrophic. We are now facing Covid vaccine outcomes which not only involve serious individual adverse effects, but also potentially affect whole populations into the longer term. These outcomes include:
· Elevated excess all-cause death rates and lowered longevity
· Lowered birth rates and fertility
The evidence for these is patchy because governments are not rushing to publish data, but it is still very convincing. So concerning in fact, that the Israeli government has covered up key data and scientific conclusions.
The latest comprehensive evidence for Covid vaccine-induced excess all-cause mortality can be found in this analysis: Excess mortality in Germany 2020-2022.
It is extraordinary that this perilous new normal has found its way into advertising messages, but not into serious commentary. Today I watched a TV ad for a funeral home which arranges alternative and appropriate funerals for those dying young, whilst a British Heart Foundation appeal featured a young woman collapsing on the football field. It did so to encourage donations.
Sudden deaths among all ages are being normalised in the public’s mind because they really are happening at a rate that dwarfs the past, as insurance data confirms. However here in New Zealand we are still being subjected to puerile government advertising devoid of scientific caution. Like this Ministry of Health promotion which turned up this morning:
GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER – I’ve had three shots, do I really need another booster? Current evidence shows your protection against severe infection slowly decreases over time – GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER
No mention of safety, no mention of efficacy, and the term ‘current evidence’ used as if this advert is scientifically up to date and reliable. It isn’t.
Why is it so unfashionable to be concerned about rising death rates and lowered birth rates? You might find a clue in this frightening pre-pandemic article from the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report. Are higher death rates good news for people with this kind of perspective? We hope not.
We are clearly on a learning curve here. The poor vaccination outcomes were not anticipated, the adverse effects were initially disbelieved on principle and blamed on misinformation.
It is understandable that in the uncertain early days of Covid, people the official MoH narrative, but continuing to do so now doesn’t fit the published scientific narrative or the public data. Caution was and is a very scientific strategy, it never deserved bad press.
Those offering advice to the public need to be more discerning if they wish to contribute to the well being and longevity of our society. MSM language has become extreme, and it is increasingly polarising without foundation in science.
There is still a chance for journalists to cover the pandemic with an open mind. It is happening elsewhere. GB News for example has gained one of the largest prime-time news audiences in the UK. Why not initiate a more open public debate? Cooling rhetoric and decreasing polarisation can only lead to better outcomes. Fresh air never harms anyone – it can save lives.
[…]
Via
When will Covid reporting start to tell the truth?
When Will Covid Reporting Start to Tell the Truth
By Guy Hatchard
TWO and a half years into the Covid saga, the public is still faced with an information blackout. The data is very concerning indeed, but no one in parliament or the MSM wants to get in front of it. Instead many are still stuck stoking the fear factor. As Professor Vinay Prasad, an American haematologist-oncologist and health researcher, wrote a few days ago: ‘Legitimising irrational anxiety is bad medicine’.
Early on in our efforts to publicise the dangers of biotechnology medicine, I had an email exchange with Jesse Mulligan, a popular commentator with RNZ Afternoons. His perspective on Covid vaccination was as follows.
December 6, 2021: ‘I feel like anybody aiming to critique such an obviously positive public health measure should begin and end their messaging reminding people that any risks/flaws in the vaccine are minor compared to the horrific impacts of getting Covid . . . I don’t have the time to correspond with you on this at length but, for what it’s worth, if you’re putting people off getting a largely safe vaccine by what you’re writing about it, I think you need to review how you approach writing these messages.’
Mulligan quoted from Ministry of Health directives and had also read some questioning scientific articles, but he could not get past the conclusion that vaccination was an obvious public good and for this reason he declined to have me on his show.
The ‘obvious public good’ narrative has come in for some recent criticism. The BMJ printed an opinion piece in July entitled Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise? Or try this referenced substack article which reports that the negative harm/benefit ratio in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials has been acknowledged in a scientific journal article. In other words there is more harm than benefit.
For me, the central early point of pandemic misinformation has been the underlying assumption that biotech medicine interventions could be safe. There really was little or no evidence to justify such an attitude, in fact, as I have discussed, there was a great deal of published pre-pandemic evidence to justify caution.
Given the central role of DNA in human physiology, altering its function was from the outset potentially catastrophic. We are now facing Covid vaccine outcomes which not only involve serious individual adverse effects, but also potentially affect whole populations into the longer term. These outcomes include:
· Elevated excess all-cause death rates and lowered longevity
· Lowered birth rates and fertility
The evidence for these is patchy because governments are not rushing to publish data, but it is still very convincing. So concerning in fact, that the Israeli government has covered up key data and scientific conclusions.
The latest comprehensive evidence for Covid vaccine-induced excess all-cause mortality can be found in this analysis: Excess mortality in Germany 2020-2022.
It is extraordinary that this perilous new normal has found its way into advertising messages, but not into serious commentary. Today I watched a TV ad for a funeral home which arranges alternative and appropriate funerals for those dying young, whilst a British Heart Foundation appeal featured a young woman collapsing on the football field. It did so to encourage donations.
Sudden deaths among all ages are being normalised in the public’s mind because they really are happening at a rate that dwarfs the past, as insurance data confirms. However here in New Zealand we are still being subjected to puerile government advertising devoid of scientific caution. Like this Ministry of Health promotion which turned up this morning:
GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER – I’ve had three shots, do I really need another booster? Current evidence shows your protection against severe infection slowly decreases over time – GET YOUR SECOND BOOSTER
No mention of safety, no mention of efficacy, and the term ‘current evidence’ used as if this advert is scientifically up to date and reliable. It isn’t.
Why is it so unfashionable to be concerned about rising death rates and lowered birth rates? You might find a clue in this frightening pre-pandemic article from the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report. Are higher death rates good news for people with this kind of perspective? We hope not.
We are clearly on a learning curve here. The poor vaccination outcomes were not anticipated, the adverse effects were initially disbelieved on principle and blamed on misinformation.
It is understandable that in the uncertain early days of Covid, people the official MoH narrative, but continuing to do so now doesn’t fit the published scientific narrative or the public data. Caution was and is a very scientific strategy, it never deserved bad press.
Those offering advice to the public need to be more discerning if they wish to contribute to the well being and longevity of our society. MSM language has become extreme, and it is increasingly polarising without foundation in science.
There is still a chance for journalists to cover the pandemic with an open mind. It is happening elsewhere. GB News for example has gained one of the largest prime-time news audiences in the UK. Why not initiate a more open public debate? Cooling rhetoric and decreasing polarisation can only lead to better outcomes. Fresh air never harms anyone – it can save lives.
[…]
Via
When will Covid reporting start to tell the truth?
Food Banks “Overwhelmed” As Cost Of Living Pushes More Into Poverty
NWO Report
Posted BY: ZeroHedge
But this wasn’t supposed to happen. We are being told that unemployment is very low, even though that is not actually true. And we are also being told that the inflation rate is still only in the single digits, and of course that is not exactly true either. All over the country, middle class Americans are watching their lifestyles be absolutely eviscerated by the cost of living crisis, and an increasing number of them are turning to food banks. So we are seeing very long lines at food banks in major cities from coast to coast, and we are also seeing very long lines in rural locations such as northwest Montana…
Across the Flathead, food pantries are facing emptier shelves and scarcer donations as demand for their services grows.
“Our numbers have definitely been increasing,” Ann Bohmer, co-manager of the Columbia Falls Food Bank, said. “[There’s been an] influx of people and a shortage of supplies.”
The Columbia Falls Food Bank is now “overwhelmed” by the level of demand that it is experiencing, and unfortunately the same thing can be said for countless other food banks across the nation…
Trending: Enough Already: Release the J6 Political PrisonersThe problem of overwhelmed and understocked food banks is not unique to northwest Montana. Food and gas prices are skyrocketing across the country, forcing Americans to pinch pennies and limit purchases. As of last month, grocery store prices were up 10.8% from the same time last year. While supermarket tabs are getting higher, lines at food pantries are getting longer, as Americans struggle to put meals on the table.
You should never, ever look down on those that need to use local food banks.
Because the truth is that with a few bad breaks you could soon need to use one yourself.
Prior to this new economic crisis, a woman in the Phoenix area named Tomasina John had never visited a food bank before, but now her local food bank is an indispensable lifeline for her family…
Tomasina John was among hundreds of families lined up in several lanes of cars that went around the block one recent day outside St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John said her family had never visited a food bank before because her husband had easily supported her and their four children with his construction work.
“But it’s really impossible to get by now without some help,” said John, who traveled with a neighbor to share gas costs as they idled under a scorching desert sun. “The prices are way too high.”
Sadly, economic conditions have forced dozens of food banks all over the country to either shut down or reduce services at a time when they are needed more than ever.
Here are just a few examples…
Elsewhere in the United States, rising prices have forced dozens of charitable nonprofits to shutter, temporarily close, or reduce services. This spring, Nashville’s Little Pantry closed down after five years of operation. New Jersey’s Angels Community Outreach announced a temporary closure due to supply shortages. And Utah’s Tooele Food Pantry canceled an important food drive because of staffing and logistical issues. Among the food banks that remain open, some are putting limitations on how often people can visit and how much food they can get.
If our food banks are under this much financial stress already, what will things be like a year from now?
That is something to think about.
Across the Atlantic, they are dealing with similar problems in the UK…
Food banks are running out of supplies amid an “overwhelming” surge of new people falling into hardship during the cost of living crisis, with some charities forced to turn away families in need.
As I discussed yesterday, an unprecedented energy crisis has much of Europe on the verge of a full-blown economic collapse.
Energy bills have soared to unprecedented heights, and the cost of living has become extremely oppressive. As a result, many in the UK are now skipping meals on a regular basis…
Four out of 10 Universal Credit claimants have admitted to missing meals over the summer in order to keep up with rising costs, research shows.
Some 41% of people on benefits admitted to skipping meals over the past three months, with a further 38% claiming to have had just one meal or gone a whole day without eating because they couldn’t afford to buy enough food.
The research was conducted by The Trussell Trust, Britain’s biggest food bank charity, which surveyed 1,846 UK adults claiming benefits between August 10 and 31 via YouGov.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.
We are being repeatedly warned that the food shortages in Europe will soon get far worse.
But this nightmare won’t just be isolated to Europe. There will be widespread food shortages all over the globe in 2023, and the head of the UN says that it is likely that there will be “multiple famines” next year.
So why aren’t more people getting prepared?
Top government officials all over the planet are openly telling us that there will be food shortages in 2023, but the vast majority of the people out there seem to assume that everything is going to work out just fine somehow.
Just because we have always had plenty of food in the past does not mean that we will have enough food in the future.
According to the World Food Program, 828 million people all over the world go to bed hungry each night, vast numbers of people in Europe are already being forced to skip meals because of rising food costs, and children are literally starving to death in Africa right now.
But here in the United States we will be immune from the global food crisis because we are so special, right?
If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine, go ahead and do so.
Meanwhile, the food lines are getting longer and longer, and crops are failing all over the planet.
[…]
Pro-Western Bots Behind Vast Majority of Russia-Ukraine Tweets Studied, New Report Finds
Sputnik News
A bombshell report has revealed that one of the largest bot armies ever discovered was secretly working to advance Western interests in NATO’s ongoing proxy war on Russia in Ukraine.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide who studied 5.2 million tweets published in the weeks after Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine have published an alarming new study which found that 60% to 80% of those posts were shared by fake accounts – and 90% of them were in favor of Kiev.
According to their groundbreaking research, fake accounts using hashtags like #IStandWithUkraine, #IStandWithZelenskyy, and #ISupportUkraine were utilized en masse to perpetuate myths like the “Ghost of Kiev” – a non-existent pilot that pro-Ukraine influencers held up for months as an example of supposed anti-Russian gallantry before the Kiev regime’s military quietly acknowledged he never existed.
Such bots were deployed at key moments in the conflict, like when fighting began in Mariupol and when Russia gained a foothold in its first major Ukrainian city, researchers found.
According to information compiled by the Stanford Internet Observatory and Graphika, one pro-US page targeting Central Asian social media users went as far as doctoring a photograph of Puerto Rican actress Valeria Menendez in an effort to convince audiences that there were real human beings behind the influence campaign.
The impact that networks of such bot accounts may have had on public perceptions surrounding the Ukraine proxy war has yet to be determined.
But with Western audiences increasingly preoccupied by more immediate issues like the energy crisis spawned by anti-Russia sanctions or the lack of drinkable water in US cities such as Jackson, Mississippi, polls show that interest in the Ukraine conflict has fallen at least twenty-fold since late February – and it’s likely that the bots’ operators have experienced a serious decline in engagement.
[…]
The Historical Origins of Buddhism
Episode 19: Origins of Buddhism
Foundations of Eastern Civilization
Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)
Film Review
Benjamin begins this lecture with some background on the Indus Civilization from which Buddhism arose. First emerging around 2300 BC, the first Indus civilization collapsed in 1700 BC, possibly due to earthquakes that changed the course of the Indus River. Beginning around 1500 BC, there was a steady migration of Indo-Europeans from the Iranian Plateau to the Indus Valley. As they became the dominant ethnic group, their Brahmins (priests), introduced a complex cosmology of Vedic (Hindu) deities and a strict class (caste) system.[1]
In the 6th century BC, a radical Hindu sect emerged, [2] characterized by extreme mysticism, rigid discipline and yogic meditation. Like Daoists, they taught there was a spark of divine energy inside everyone, also that the soul had the ability to end the cycle of reincarnation through the accumulation of good karma. Widespread adoption of these new beliefs led tens of thousands of gurus to wander the country in their efforts to escape reincarnation. Siddharta Gautama (563-438 BC), the founder of Buddhism, was one of these gurus.
After preaching his first sermon in Benares around 500 BC, Siddharta began recruiting disciples and setting up monasteries to teach this new belief system (which he never intended to be a religion).[3] Like Jainism (which also emerged during this period), [4] it rejected the caste system, which proved immensely popular with lower class Hindus.
Under the Mauryan Empire, which reunited India in 322 BC, Siddharta was officially deified as the “Buddha” (one who has achieved a perfect state of enlightenment). Ashoka, who ruled India from 263-232 BC, made Buddhism the official state religion and sent Buddhist missionaries as far north as Bactria and as far south as Sri Lanka.
[1] The initial caste system included Brahmins (priests), Khutrayas (nobility and warriors), Varshyas (artisans and merchants) and Sudras (landless peasants and serfs). Dalits (untouchables), who were charged with disposing of dead animals, were only added later.
[2] Benjamin credits rapid urbanization, which dispensed with the need for ritual sacrifices to guarantee good harvests, for the appearance of the new religion.
[3] The main Buddhist teachings are known as the Four Noble Truths:
Suffering dominates human existence.Suffering is caused by desire.Suffering can be extinguished (and Nirvana attained) by extinguishing desire.Desire can be extinguished by following the 8-fold path: rights views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration).[4] Jainists, who teach everything on earth has a soul, go to extreme efforts (wearing masks, filtering their water and sweeping the path ahead of them) to avoid killing small insects and microorganisms.
The Most Revolutionary Act
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