Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 580
April 7, 2022
‘Farm-Free’ Lab Food Catastrophic for Human Health and the Environment
By Vandana Shiva Farming without farmers, farming without biodiversity, farming without soil, is the vision of those who have already brought us to the brink of catastrophe.
How can we heal our relationship with food in the age of artificial food?In response to the crises in our food system, we are witnessing the rise of technological solutions that aim to replace animal products and other food staples with lab-grown alternatives.
Artificial food advocates are reiterating the old and failed rhetoric that industrial agriculture is essential to feed the world.
Real, nutrient-rich food is gradually disappearing, while the dominant industrial agricultural model is causing an increase in chronic diseases and exacerbating climate change.
The notion that high-tech, “farm free” lab food is a viable solution to the food crisis is simply a continuation of the same mechanistic mindset which has brought us to where we are today — the idea that we are separate from and outside of nature.
Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to “stuff” that can then be constituted in the lab.
In the process, both the planet’s health and our health have been nearly destroyed.
Industrial agriculture is re-inventing its future based on “fake farming” with “fake food,” with chemicals and GMOs, surveillance drones and spyware.
Farming without farmers, farming without biodiversity, farming without soil, is the vision of those who have already brought us to the brink of catastrophe.
This is why artificial meat, invested in by the giant tycoons of factory farming, is not a viable alternative. They are just additional sources of profit for the same players and take political power away from regenerative farmers and local communities.
These modes deny the essential symbiotic relationships between humans, plants, animals and microorganisms and, in turn, deny their potential to maintain and regenerate the web of life.
Food is the web of life and we cannot separate food from life. Similarly, we cannot separate ourselves from the Earth.
Solutions to our global crises already exist and they come from building cultures of interconnection and regeneration, as well as healing our relationships with food, nature and community.
We need to become aware of the connections that hold the opportunity to regenerate the Earth, our health, our food economies and food cultures through real agriculture that cares for the Earth and for people.
Real food is not created in a laboratory but comes from biodiverse farms that take care of the land by embracing a regenerative agriculture model.
We must therefore work actively to renew and regenerate the Planet by participating in ecological processes of reciprocity and restoring biodiversity.
For this to happen, the act of eating must once again become an ecological act, so that the false solutions proposed by the advocates of artificial food, which do nothing to counter the profit-driven agri-food industry, do not create further crises.
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The Beginning of the End for Mercury in Dentistry
We are witnessing the beginning of the end for the use of mercury in dentistry worldwide, following two monumental advancements.
Story at-a-glance:
Two monumental advancements signal the beginning of the end for the use of mercury in dentistry worldwide.The Fourth Conference of the Parties of the Minamata Convention on Mercury agreed to amend the treaty March 25 to call for the end of the use of amalgam in deciduous teeth of children under 15 and pregnant and breastfeeding women.According to Charlie Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice, the amendment will take effect Dec. 25.Envista, the last publicly traded manufacturer of dental amalgam in the U.S., in the third quarter of 2021 stopped manufacturing amalgam products that may contain mercury.Now that Evista has stopped manufacturing mercury fillings, and a worldwide position to stop the use of amalgam in children and pregnant and breastfeeding women has been adopted, the end of mercury dental fillings is near.We are witnessing the beginning of the end for the use of mercury in dentistry worldwide, following two monumental advancements. The hard work of Consumers for Dental Choice, and the ongoing support of all of our readers, have brought us to this place and will protect the health of future generations.
The Fourth Conference of the Parties of the Minamata Convention on Mercury agreed to amend the treaty March 25 to call for the end of the use of amalgam — or mercury fillings (also known, misleadingly, as “silver” fillings) — in deciduous teeth of children under 15 and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
According to an email from Charlie Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice to me, the amendment will take effect Dec. 25. “This treaty amendment, plus the ongoing exit of the major amalgam manufacturers creates the momentum we need to wipe out amalgam use. On to victory!” Brown added.
Treaty amendment protects the most vulnerable
The Minamata Convention on Mercury encompasses a broad package of mercury reduction and elimination measures worldwide. In an intense three-year campaign from 2010 through 2013, the umbrella global alliance founded by Consumers for Dental Choice, the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, succeeded in securing a strong amalgam plan in the treaty.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury entered into legal force in 2017, triggering conferences of the parties to implement it worldwide. At the first Conference of the Parties of the Minamata Convention, held in Geneva in October 2018, Brown challenged the world to equal or exceed the new amalgam policy of the European Union, which banned the use of mercury fillings in children under 15 and in pregnant and breastfeeding women, effective July 1, 2018.
The worldwide campaign to end amalgam for children — as a springboard to ending its use entirely — reached another major milestone at the March Conference of the Parties. With Africa and the EU leading the way, governments around the world have signaled that they’re no longer willing to put the most vulnerable at risk from mercury fillings. In a news release, International Pollutants Elimination Network representative Gilbert Kuepouo said:
“This breakthrough decision is the beginning of the end of dental amalgam use around the world. There is finally official acknowledgment that mercury fillings can have adverse health effects on women and children. Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin, and it cannot be justified any longer to place it in the mouth of women and children.”
European Commission, FDA recommend against amalgam
Signs that the world is coming together to phase out dental mercury have been increasing in recent years. In a report released by the European Commission in August 2020, it’s stated:
“The review undertaken makes clear that the phase out of the largest remaining use of mercury in the EU — dental amalgam — is technically and economically feasible … Therefore, the Commission will present to the European Parliament and the Council in 2022 a legislative proposal to phase out the use of dental amalgam.”
In September 2020, the U.S. FDA also issued a safety communication to warn about the use of dental amalgam in certain high-risk populations. The FDA warned that the following groups “may be at greater risk to the potential adverse health effects of mercury exposure”:
The warning came due to concerns that these populations could be exposed to harmful levels of mercury vapor from the fillings, and the potential for mercury to convert to other harmful mercury compounds in the body. In addition, they cited concerns about whether “the degree of accumulation of mercury from dental amalgam results in negative (adverse) health outcomes.”
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/end-mercury-dentistry/
US Officials Admit They’re Literally Just Lying To The Public About Russia
Caitlin Johnstone
NBC News has a new report out citing multiple anonymous US officials, humorously titled “In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid“.
The officials say the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out “intelligence” about Russia’s plans in Ukraine that is “low-confidence” or “based more on analysis than hard evidence”, or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.
The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass to justify an invasion, about Putin’s advisors misinforming him, and about Russia seeking arms supplies from China.
Psyops in the U.S. targeting the public used to be illegal, even though the way they got around it was to plant stories in the foreign press. But over the last five years beginning with Russiagate & now Ukraine, it is clear that U.S. public is fair game: https://t.co/gcEWoCZbkB
— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) April 6, 2022
Excerpt, emphasis mine:
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.
It’s one of a string of examples of the Biden administration’s breaking with recent precedent by deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia. The administration has done so even when the intelligence wasn’t rock solid, officials said, to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin off balance.
So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.
Another example of the Biden administration releasing a false narrative as part of its “information war”:
Likewise, a charge that Russia had turned to China for potential military help lacked hard evidence, a European official and two U.S. officials said.
The U.S. officials said there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia. The Biden administration put that out as a warning to China not to do so, they said.
On the empire’s claim last week that Putin is being misled by his advisors because they are afraid of telling him the truth, NBC reports that this assessment “wasn’t conclusive — based more on analysis than hard evidence.”
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450GB of ‘Deleted’ Hunter Biden Laptop Material to Be Released Within Weeks
Ryan DeLarmeUnderground NewswireA whistleblower who’s fled the United States for Switzerland has vowed to drop ‘450 gigabytes of deleted material‘ from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which he says he also gave the Washington Post, New York Times, and Sen. Chuck Grassley – all of whom he says sat on it for months.
For the past two weeks, former Steve Bannon War Room co-host Jack Maxey has been hiding in Zurich, where he told the Daily Mail he’s been working with IT experts to dig more data from Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell,’ and that he’ll post it all online in a searchable database in the coming weeks.
Maxey says the data includes 80,000 images and videos, and more than 120,000 archived emails.
“I came here so that we could do a forensic examination of Hunter’s laptop safely in a country that still respects human liberty and the ideals of liberal democratic principles,” he told the Mail. “I do not believe this would have been possible inside the United States. We had numerous attempts on us from trying to do things like this there.”
Maxey said that after contacting DailyMail.com about the laptop last year, black suburban SUVs appeared outside his house, and former US intelligence officer friends he shared copies with told him they received strange calls.
‘I showed this to a friend of mine in desperation in February [2021] because nobody would listen to me. No news organizations would take it. In fact, the very first major news organization to take it was the Daily Mail,’ he said.
‘Very dear friends of mine, the sharp tip of the spear, were making welfare calls to me every day, basically to see if I was still alive.‘ -Daily Mail
One former intelligence agency senior staffer allegedly told Maxey after he received the hard drive two years ago “If you don’t release enough of this, so that they know you can release all of it, I’m telling you brother, you’re a dead man.”
After receiving this advice, he began posting caches of emails and other material from the laptop on various file sharing sites – only to find the links removed within an hour.
“There were five drop boxes: two in the United States, one in New Zealand, two in the UK. All the same drop boxes in which they tell us child pornography is shared around the globe without any consequence because they can’t look at it,” he said, adding: “These are all Five Eyes countries, English speaking countries in an intelligence sharing agreement. And they were all ripped down.”
“??So this means that our intelligence services, who still have not even acknowledged that they have Hunter Biden’s laptop, were obviously diligently doing cache searches across the internet to find out if any of this stuff was being released. That should terrify every single decent person in the West.”
[…]
Eye-Witness Report from Donbass: How the War Looks From the Russian Side
Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja Vandenvende]
Sonja Van den Ende
Covert Action Magazine
As the war in Ukraine rages on, I visited the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as an embedded reporter with the Russian army.
Both of the republics are the trigger of the current conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared their independence on February 24, 2022, something a lot of people were waiting for since the CIA backed coup in Ukraine of February 2014. That coup had resulted in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and new laws forcing the Ukrainian language on Russian-speaking residents. Luhansk and Donetsk consequently voted on their independence and Ukraine attacked them, precipitating the war.
European support for the so-called Maidan coup was considerable: the Dutch MP Hans van Baalen from the ruling Dutch VVD party (Mark Rutte), for example, was at the protests that helped trigger the coup, as was the former Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt. Both were seen cheering on the crowds, surrounded by right-extremists on the stage, shouting “democracy.”
A View From Eastern UkraineThe first stop in my own journey was in Donetsk, where we were welcomed by the head of the Republic Denis Pushilin.
We were welcomed at the place where on March 15, a few days before, there was a rocket attack by the Ukrainian army (in collaboration with various battalions such as the Azov). Twenty-three people died in the attack, including children and more than eighteen people were injured. The people were waiting in line to get money from an ATM.
“People were waiting in line near an ATM and were standing at a bus stop,” Denis Pushilin said, “There were children among the dead.” Pushilin added that the casualty count would have been much higher had the rocket not been downed.”
The rocket attacks were largely ignored in the western media along with many other attacks on the people of the Donbass during the long eight-year conflict.
The Maidan “color revolution” was undertaken for the benefit of Western countries. My home country, the Netherlands, closed several poultry companies immediately after the coup and sponsored a large poultry company in the Ukraine.
Prior to the Russian invasion, EU citizens could buy “cheap” chicken and eggs from the Ukraine, where the employees of the Ukrainian company received very low wages. The Dutch poultry company in Ukraine is now bankrupt, partly due to the conflict.
Moscow and the DPR republic said that Ukraine’s army fired a Tochka-U missile at the residential area in Donetsk, which is what caused the destruction.
The Tochka-U missile is a is a Soviet practical ballistic missile. The missile itself can be used for precise strikes on enemy tactical targets, such as control posts, bridges, storage facilities, troop concentrations and airfields.
The fragmentation warhead can be replaced with a nuclear, biological or chemical warhead. The solid propellant makes the missile easy to maintain and deploy.
Above is a photo of the Monument of Angels, a monument in memory of the many children who have been victims of attacks by the Ukrainian army since 2014.
Ministries have reported the high number of children killed to various human rights organizations, such as UNICEF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. But to this day, it hasn’t been publicized.
These human rights organizations only report if it is in their own interest, that is, if their Western donors instruct them to report on it. The monument was at the city park of Donetsk and from there we could hear the aerial sounds of attacks, either from the Ukrainian or Russian army, because Mariupol is not very far away from Donetsk.
We visited a school that was attacked by the Ukrainian army a few days ago. The school was partly destroyed and two teachers died instantly, again by a rocket attack.
The city authorities said that Ukrainian troops also attacked a residential area in Horlivka (Gorlovka). Two houses were destroyed. The city is often shelled by Ukrainian troops collaborating with Nazi battalions. When you drive and walk to the city, you can see that the city has been the scene of fierce battles. It has been on the frontline since 2014.
The school principal said that schools all over Donetsk have been targeted by the Ukrainian army, which work closely with the Azov regiment.
[…]
April 6, 2022
‘Natural Immunity Works and Pfizer Knows It,’ FDA Document Dump Reveals
On The Hill’s “Rising,” journalist and political commentator Kim Iversen shared revelations from the latest batch of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine documents, released April 1 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The latest batch of Pfizer documents, released April 1, confirm Pfizer knew natural immunity was as effective as the company’s COVID-19 vaccine at preventing severe illness.On Monday’s segment of The Hill’s “Rising,” journalist and political commentator Kim Iversen said the documents also revealed the vaccine could not be verified as safe for pregnant women or women who wanted to bear children, and that myocarditis was a known adverse reaction to the vaccine.
The documents were part of the court-ordered release of 340,000 pages of documentation submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by Pfizer in its application for Emergency Use Authorization of its vaccine.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request in August 2021, from Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, the FDA initially sought to delay full release of the documents for 75 years, but a federal judge mandated their release within eight months.
The FDA released 11,000 pages on April 1.
In the discussion with “Rising” co-hosts Robby Soave and Ryan Grim, Iversen identified the “first bombshell” in the documents: the fact that “natural immunity works, and Pfizer knows it.”
Iversen said:
“The clinical trial data showed those with a previous COVID infection had no difference in outcome than those vaccinated. In the limited trial, none of the vaccinated nor those with previous infection resulted in severe disease as defined by either the FDA or the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].”
The FDA defines severe COVID as a case requiring oxygen support. The CDC defines it as a case requiring hospitalization.
“There were zero cases of severe COVID in the natural immunity group, whether they were vaccinated or not,” Iversen said.
Iversen also said the data showed infection rates of any kind were “statistically identical” among the vaccinated and those with natural immunity.
She said:
“Yet rather than say people with natural immunity don’t seem to need the vaccine — which is what they’ve been saying in Europe, for example — Pfizer instead spun their conclusion and said, ‘final efficacy results show that the vaccine provided protection against COVID-19 for participants with or without evidence of prior infection.’”
Adverse effects on younger subjects
The clinical data also show Pfizer was aware of now well-documented issues of more severe reactions among younger subjects.
Iversen said:
“Another revelation from the documents was that adverse reactions were more frequent and more severe in younger groups.
“The document reads, ‘reactogenicity and adverse events were generally milder and less frequent in participants in the older group [55 and over] compared with [the] younger group and overall tended to increase with increasing vaccine dose.’”
“The study itself was for 16 and above, so the side effects were more frequent and more severe in people under 55, even though we know the younger you are the less likely you are to experience severe COVID,” Iversen said.
Iversen cited data from the Lancet showing 16-year-olds have a 99.993% chance of surviving COVID; 30-year-olds a 99.943% chance of surviving; and 50-year-olds a 99.572% chance.
“Only with the 60-and-older group,” Iversen summarized, “is there a drop below 99% survival rates.”
Consent form shows Pfizer was aware of myocarditis, fertility issues
According to a consent form for trial participants included in the document release, Pfizer knew of concerns regarding myocarditis and explicitly mentioned the possibility of an impact of the vaccine on women’s reproductive health.
Iversen said the form lists several possible side effects, including myocarditis, “which many of us know about, but the document says the rate of occurrence is 10 in 100,000 people, and they don’t specify age or gender, so that’s much higher than previously reported rates of 1 in 50,000 people.”
“Also,” she said, “we know the bulk of those cases are in younger males, so when controlling for age and gender the risk significantly increases.”
The consent form also states, “the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine on sperm, a pregnancy, a fetus or a nursing child are not known.”
Iversen pointed out how the press and public officials have demonized vaccine hesitancy among younger women and the parents of teen girls.
“Despite these scientists admitting in this consent form that they simply do not know, it has been espoused as fact that the vaccines don’t have any adverse effects on reproduction whatsoever,” Iversen said, “but the fact is we simply don’t know.”
Iversen suggested the main impact of the document release would be to provide more evidence to the “anti-mandate legal defense” efforts of parents who do not want their children to be vaccinated.
Watch the full episode here:
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/natural-immunity-pfizer-fda-document-dump/
U.S., Western sanctions on Russia BACKFIRE: Ruble now backed by gold and gaining strength while the dollar’s purchasing power evaporates
Russian rubles backed by gold and commodities – while the US dollar is backed by nothing.
Tuesday, April 05, 2022 by: JD Heyes
(Natural News) In the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Western world, led by the United States, imposed what was said to be a crippling regime of economic sanctions on Moscow.
Joe Biden’s handlers took to his Twitter account to announce: “As a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble. The Russian economy is on track to be cut in half. It was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this invasion — and soon, it will not even rank among the top 20.”
As a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble.
The Russian economy is on track to be cut in half.
It was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this invasion — and soon, it will not even rank among…
View original post 582 more words
NO SOUP FOR YOU! Russia will only export food and fertilizer to “friendly” countries
Putin isn’t bluffing: the West will pay.
Tuesday, April 05, 2022 by: Ethan Huff
(Natural News) Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Russian security official who previously served as the nation’s president,is warningthat Russia might limit its vital food exports exclusively to countries that it considers “friendly.”
As it faces continued aggression from the West in the form of sanctions, Russia is responding with a reminder to NATO that it producesmany thingsthat the West needs, which Western leaders seem to have forgotten.
Russia’s first priority is taking care of its own people –what a conceptand a stark contrast to United States leaders, which take care of everyone elseexceptactual Americans. After that, whatever Russia has left over will be exported to its friends and allies.
Cutting off North America and the European Union from agricultural inputs, Medvedev said in a Telegram post, is a useful and effective way to retaliate…
View original post 506 more words
Ukraine stages more ‘killings’ of civilians: Russia
Kiev is attempting to frame Russia, the Defense Ministry says
Ukrainian security services have staged more alleged killings of civilians in several towns and villages to make headlines in the Western media and accuse Moscow of war crimes, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Tuesday.
Moscow insists that same tactics have been used by Kiev to blame Russian forces for atrocities in the town of Bucha last week.
“The troops of the 72nd Ukrainian Main Center for Psychological Operations conducted another staged filming of civilians allegedly killed by violent actions of the Russian armed forces in order for it to be distributed through the Western media,” the ministry’s spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing.
According to “confirmed information,” the filming took place in the village of Moschun some 23km northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Monday, he insisted.
Similar false flag operations have been carried out by the Ukrainian side in the cities of Sumy, Konotop and elsewhere, Konashenkov added.
On Saturday, Ukraine distributed graphic footage of multiple corpses lying in the streets of the suburban town of Bucha northwest of Kiev, saying that they were executed by Russian troops.
Moscow, which insists that it is not targeting civilians during its operation in Ukraine, has rejected those accusations as a provocation and a false flag operation by Kiev.
It pointed out numerous inconsistencies in the Ukrainian story, including the fact that the video emerged several days after the Russian forces withdrew from Bucha, and that the local mayor didn’t mention any killings in his video address declaring the “liberation” of the city.
Despite Russian arguments and Moscow’s attempt to call a UN Security Council session, the West has immediately picked, who to blame for the purported atrocities. US President Joe Biden has demanded a “war crimes trial” for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the EU promised to send its experts to aid Ukrainian authorities in collecting evidence at the site.
Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against Ukraine in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two rebel regions by force.
[…]
Via https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/russia-claims-ukraine-stages-more-killings-civilians-fast-news
Lockdowns were not just an untested public health measure. They were a new paradigm of governance.
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | April 4, 2022
Aletho News
From the lepers in the Old Testament to the Plague of Justinian in Ancient Rome to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, covid represents the first time ever in the history of managing pandemics that we quarantined healthy populations.
While the ancients did not understand the mechanisms of infectious disease—they knew nothing of viruses and bacteria—they nevertheless figured out many ways to mitigate the spread of contagion during epidemics. These time-tested measures ranged from quarantining the sick to deploying those with natural immunity, who had recovered from illness, to care for them.
Lockdowns were never part of conventional public health measures. In 1968, 1-4 million people died in the H2N3 influenza pandemic; businesses and schools never closed, and large events were not cancelled. One thing we never did until 2020 was lockdown entire populations. And we did not do this because it does not work. In 2020 we had no empirical evidence that it would work, only flawed mathematical models whose predications were not just slightly off, but wildly off by several orders of magnitude.
These devastating economic consequences were not the only major societal shifts ushered in by lockdowns. Our ruling class saw in Covid an opportunity to radically revolutionize society: recall how the phrase “the new normal” emerged almost immediately in the first weeks of the pandemic. In the first month Anthony Fauci made the absurd suggestion that perhaps never again would we go back to shaking hands. Never again?
What emerged during lockdowns was not just a novel and untested method of trying to control a pandemic by quarantining healthy people. If we view lockdowns outside of the immediate context in which they supposedly functioned in early 2020, their real meaning comes into focus.
Changes ushered during lockdowns were signs of a broader social and political experiment “in which a new paradigm of governance over people and things is at play,” as described by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. This new paradigm began to emerge in the wake of September 11, 2001.
The basic features were already sketched back in 2013 in a book by Patrick Zilberman, professor of the history of health in Paris, called “Microbial Storms,” (Tempêtes microbiennes, Gallimard 2013). Zilberman’s description was remarkably predictive of what emerged during the first year of the pandemic. He showed that biomedical security, which was previously a marginal part of political life and international relations, had assumed a central place in political strategies and calculations in recent years.
Already in 2005, for example, the WHO grossly over-predicted that the bird flu (avian influenza) would kill 2 to 50 million people. To prevent this impending disaster, WHO made recommendations that no nation prepared to accept at the time—including population-wide lockdowns. Based upon these trends, Zylberman predicted that “sanitary terror” would be used as an instrument of governance.
Even earlier, in 2001, Richard Hatchett, who served as a member of George W. Bush’s National Security Council, was already recommending obligatory confinement of the entire population. Dr. Hatchett now directs the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an influential entity coordinating global vaccine investment in close collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. CEPI is a brainchild of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Like many others, Hatchett regards the fight against Covid-19 as a “war,” on the analogy to the war on terror. I confess that I took up the martial rhetoric early in the pandemic: in a March 2020 piece entitled, “Battlefield Promotions,” I issued a call to action encouraging medical students to stay involved in the covid fight after they had been sent home. While the piece had some merit, I now regret my deployment of this military metaphor, which was misguided.
A kind of overbearing medical terror was deemed necessary to deal with worst-case scenarios, whether for naturally occurring pandemics or biological weapons. Agamben summarizes the political characteristics of the emerging biosecurity paradigm:
1) measures were formulated based on possible risk in a hypothetical scenario, with data presented to promote behavior permitting management of an extreme situation; 2) “worst case” logic was adopted as a key element of political rationality; 3) a systematic organization of the entire body of citizens was required to reinforce adhesion to the institutions of government as much as possible. The intended result was a sort of super civic spirit, with imposed obligations presented as demonstrations of altruism. Under such control, citizens no longer have a right to health safety; instead, health is imposed on them as a legal obligation (biosecurity).
This is precisely the pandemic strategy we adopted in 2020. Lockdowns were formulated based on discredited worst-case-scenario modeling from the Imperial College London, which predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S.
As a consequence, the entire body of citizens, as a manifestation of civic spirit, gave up freedoms and rights that were not relinquished even by the citizens of London during the bombing of the city in World War II (London adopted curfews but never locked down). The imposition of health as a legal obligation was accepted with little resistance. Even now, for many citizens it seems not to matter that these impositions utterly failed to deliver the public health outcomes that were promised.
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The Most Revolutionary Act
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