Saturday, November 28, 2020

Investment Choices

 Investing In Our Future,


​Diana Johnstone: The Great Pretext ... for Dystopia​  
Thanks Eleni
​  ​I would describe the WEF as a combination capitalist consulting firm and gigantic lobby.  The futuristic predictions are designed to guide investors into profitable areas in what Schwab calls “the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)” and then, as the areas are defined, to put pressure on governments to support such investments by way of subsidies, tax breaks, procurements, regulations and legislation.  In short, the WEF is the lobby for new technologies, digital everything, artificial intelligence, transhumanism.
​  ​It is powerful today because it is operating in an environment of State Capitalism, where the role of the State (especially in the United States, less so in Europe) has been largely reduced to responding positively to the demands of such lobbies, especially the financial sector.  Immunized by campaign donations from the obscure wishes of ordinary people, most of today’s politicians practically need the guidance of lobbies such as the WEF to tell them what to do.
​  ​In the 20th century, notably in the New Deal, the government was under pressure from conflicting interests.  The economic success of the armaments industry during World War II gave birth to a Military-Industrial Complex, which has become a permanent structural factor in the U.S. economy.
​ ​It is the dominant role of the MIC and its resulting lobbies that have definitively transformed the nation into State Capitalism rather than a Republic.​..
​  The WEF can be seen as analogous to the MIC.  It intends to engage governments and opinion manufacturers in the promotion of a “4IR” which will dominate the civilian economy and civilian life itself.
​  ​The pandemic is a temporary pretext; the need to “protect the environment” will be the more sustainable pretext.  Just as the MIC is presented as absolutely necessary to “protect our freedoms,” the 4IR will be hailed as absolutely necessary to “save the environment” – and in both cases, many of the measures advocated will have the opposite effect.​..
  But the real danger of all power going to the Reset lies not with what is there, but with what is not there: any serious political opposition.
  ​The Great Reset has a boulevard open to it for the simple reason that there is nothing in its way.  No widespread awareness of the issues, no effective popular political organization, nothing.  Schwab’s dystopia is frightening simply for that reason.  
​  ​The 2020 presidential election has just illustrated the almost total depoliticization of the American people.​..​ There were no real issues debated, no serious political questions raised either about war or about the directions of future economic development. The vicious quarrels were about persons, not policy.​..
​  A revival of democracy could stem from organized, concentrated study of the issues raised by the Davos planners, in order to arouse an informed public opinion to evaluate which technical innovations are socially acceptable and which are not.​..
​  ​Unless faced with informed and precise critiques, Silicon Valley and its corporate and financial allies will simply proceed in doing whatever they imagine they can do, whatever the social effects.​..
​  ​The political distinctions between left and right, between Republican and Democrat, have grown more impassioned just as they reveal themselves to be incoherent, distorted and irrelevant, based more on ideological bias than on facts.  New and more fruitful political alignments could be built through confrontation with specific concrete issues.
We could take the proposals of the Great Reset one by one and examine them in both pragmatic and ethical terms.​..
  ​Health and “well-being”. Here is where the discussion should heat up considerably. According to Schwab and Malleret: “Three industries in particular will flourish (in the aggregate) in the post-pandemic era: big tech, health and wellness.”  For the Davos planners, the three merge.
​  ​Those who think that well-being is largely self-generated, dependent on attitudes, activity and lifestyle choices, miss the point. “The combination of AI [artificial intelligence], the IoT [internet of things] and sensors and wearable technology will produce new insights into personal well-being. They will model how we are and feel […] precise information on our carbon footprints, our impact on biodiversity, on the toxicity of all the ingredients we consume and the environments or spatial contexts in which we evolve will generate significant progress in terms of our awareness of collective and individual well-being.”
​  ​Question: do we really want or need all this cybernetic narcissism?  Can’t we just enjoy life by helping a friend, stroking a cat, reading a book, listening to Bach or watching a sunset?  We better make up our minds before they make over our minds.​..
  What about human work?
“In all likelihood, the recession induced by the pandemic will trigger a sharp increase in labor-substitution, meaning that physical labor will be replaced by robots and ‘intelligent’ machines, which will in turn provoke lasting and structural changes in the labor market.”​...
  ​“As consumers may prefer automated services to face-to-face interactions for some time to come, what is currently happening with call centers will inevitably occur in other sectors as well.”
​  ​“Consumers may prefer…”! Everyone I know complains of the exasperation of trying to reach the bank or insurance company to explain an emergency, and instead to be confronted with a dead voice and a choice of irrelevant numbers to click.​   Perhaps I am underestimating the degree of hostility toward our fellow humans that now pervades society, but my impression is that there is a vast unexpressed public demand for LESS automated services and MORE contact with real persons who can think outside the algorithm ​ , not simply cough up preprogrammed fixes.​..
  I maintain, consumer demand would merge with the desperate need of able-minded human beings to earn a living.  The technocrats earn theirs handsomely by eliminating the means to earn a living of other people.​..
​  ​And incidentally, a guy riding a delivery bicycle is using renewable energy.  But all those robots and drones?  Batteries, batteries and more batteries, made of what materials, coming from where and manufactured how?  By more robots?  Where is the energy coming from to replace not only fossil fuels, but also human physical effort?...​ 
​  ​“Whereas in the past, humans had to struggle against exploitation, in the twenty-first century the really big struggle will be against irrelevance… Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a new ‘useless class’ – not from the viewpoint of their friends and family, but useless from the viewpoint of the economic and political system. And this useless class will be separated by an ever-growing gap from the ever more powerful elite.”   ​ ...
  “In the end, warfare is a time competitive process, where the side able to decide the fastest and move most quickly to execution will generally prevail.  Indeed, artificially intelligent intelligence systems, tied to AI-assisted command and control systems, can move decision support and decision-making to a speed vastly superior to the speeds of the traditional means of waging war. So fast will be this process especially if coupled to automatic decisions to launch artificially intelligent autonomous weapons systems capable of lethal outcomes, that a new term has been coined specifically to embrace the speed at which war will be waged: hyperwar.”
​  ​Americans have a choice.  Either continue to quarrel over trivialities or wake up, really wake up, to the reality being planned and do something about it.
​  ​The future is shaped by investment choices.  Not by naughty speech, not even by elections, but by investment choices.  For the people to regain power, they must reassert their command over how and for what purposes capital is invested.
​  ​And if private capital balks, it must be socialized. This is the only revolution – and it is also the only conservatism, the only way to conserve decent human life. It is what real politics is about.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/24/diana-johnstone-the-great-pretext-for-dystopia/

​Here is a good political conversation starter:
Trump must pardon Snowden & Assange for helping expose ‘deep state,’ says Tulsi Gabbard amid chorus against war on whistleblowers
https://www.rt.com/usa/507952-gabbard-pardon-snowden-assange/

​4 years later? How pointless to look at computer code on Wisconsin voting machines now! ... er, on the other hand.
On October 30, 2020 2016 Green Party Candidate Jill Stein FINALLY won her groundbreaking case that gave her campaign the right to examine voting machine source code in Wisconsin.  
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/attention-trump-campaign-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-won-groundbreaking-case-october-gives-campaign-right-examine-voting-machine-source-code/

Donald Trump isn’t just playing golf, he is purging the Pentagon, ​by Thierry Meyssan​ ​​ (he's French)  Thanks Eleni
​  ​In the midst of the presidential election results, President Donald Trump undertook to purge the Pentagon of the rebel leaders. The first target was the Secretary of Defense, who kept lying to hide the real objectives of the general officers.
​  ​This movement of personnel is easy to interpret: since the announcement by the major media of an undivided victory of Joe Biden, the confessions of high-ranking civil servants recounting the way they sabotaged years of Jacksonian politics have multiplied [1] The ousted officials are suspected of covering them and even plotting to overthrow President Trump. On the contrary, the senior officials promoted are loyal to the current president and all share the conviction of close ties between the Clinton and Obama presidencies and the Muslim Brotherhood.  
https://www.voltairenet.org/article211645.html

​These are never-Trump Republican officials getting sued.
Sidney Powell sues Georgia officials, alleging massive scheme to rig election for Joe Biden
Prominent defense lawyer says scheme centered around modern 'ballot stuffing' hidden by voter machine algorithms.
​  ​The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta on behalf of several Georgia residents, electors and Republican Party officials and named Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and state election board members as defendants.  
​  ​The 104-page complaint asked the court to issue an injunction "prohibiting the Governor and Secretary of State from transmitting the currently certified results to the Electoral College based on the overwhelming evidence of election tampering."  
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/sidney-powell-sues-georgia-officials-alleging-massive-scheme-rig-election
​  Dr. Navid Keshavarz-Nia, is an experienced cybercrimes investigator and digital security executive, who has worked with the CIA, NSA, FBI, and U.S. military counterintelligence. In addition to his work with U.S. intelligence agencies Dr. Keshavarz-Nia works on cyber security and fraud with financial giants like Deutsche Bank and Stripe.
  Within the documents filed by Sidney Powell in Georgia Wednesday, Dr. Keshavarz-Nia shares this bombshell assessment in his affidavit.  Ms. Powell has some high-powered experts in support of her court filings.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/27/renowned-data-and-cyber-crimes-expert-concludes-2020-election-results-were-fraudulent/

​Quoth Jim Kunstler​:
The deadline for adjudicating the janky election is soon upon us, and upon the SCOTUS justices, so the country will know shortly whether it has become the Honduras of the north. In a just universe, the SCOTUS would invalidate the election results in several states and send the matter into the House of Representatives as the constitution stipulates. Heads would explode from sea to shining sea as heroes of the Resistance — Brennan, Comey, Weissmann, Strzok, and many more — realize they will not be getting their get-out-of-jail-free cards after all.  
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/president-swamp/

​COVID Equals Groundhog Day, Ilargi, at The Automatic Earth
​  ​Lockdowns are popular among failed and failing politicians, because they see it as a failsafe measure (there’s nothing more extreme). But that is only because they have never moved beyond the “COVID is the only problem we have” mindframe.
​  ​Still, even then, it would be wise to recognize these measures as arbitrary. That’s why they differ from one place to another; they make it up as they go along, guided by their limited understanding of the issue.

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2020/11/covid-equals-groundhog-day/

​"Don't Tread On Me"​
NY Gym Owner Rips Up $15,000 Lockdown Fine On Live TV: "We Will Not Comply"
Dinero got hit with the extraordinarily hefty fine following a confrontation in which roughly 50 business owners attending a meeting inside the gym refused to allow a pair of sheriffs and a health inspector entry to the building without a warrant.  
"They picked a fight with a Marine and a whole bunch of patriots," the gym owner said in a separate interview with WBEN, before pointing out that “The Constitution protects those rights.”  
Dinero, speaking with Fox anchor Sandra Smith, reiterated that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lockdown edicts infringe upon his rights
 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ny-gym-owner-rips-15000-lockdown-fine-live-tv-we-will-not-comply

Johns Hopkins published then deleted an article questioning the U.S. coronavirus death rate
The university stands by the study but said the article was leading to the spread of 'misinformation'
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/johns-hopkins-published-then-deleted-study-questioning-us-coronavirus

​The Hopkins article says things that are easy to make into "misinformation"::
​  These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.
This comes as a shock to many people. How is it that the data lie so far from our perception?
https://web.archive.org/web/20201126163323/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

  The problem with PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing for SARS-CoV-2 is a problem of where the limits of sensitivity and specificity are set. Each cycle amplifies "positive" tendencies of the test. If you have to wait to 35 cycles to get a "positive", the chances are 97% that it is a false-positive. 
Most US labs are performing 35-40 amplification cycles, testing at the end, and reporting that as an absolute fact. 
   All of the specimens that would have been positive at 15 cycles, likely "clinically relevant positives" will show as positive, but so will the "positives" from 30-cycles and up, which are mostly amplified noise.
  That is why there is a clinical push for the rapid tests, antigen tests, which are much less sensitive, and may miss a few pre-symptomatic early infections, but won't create a lot of false positives. 
  PCR tests with an upper threshold of 25 cycles would be more like this, but still much slower.
Landmark legal ruling finds that Covid tests are not fit for purpose. So what do the MSM do? They ignore it​   (It's an EU matter)
​ ​The conclusion of their 34-page ruling included the following: “In view of current scientific evidence, this test shows itself to be unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that such positivity corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”    
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/507937-covid-pcr-test-fail/

​What does advertised "vaccine efficacy"​ mean?
​  ​When the risks of an event are small, odds ratios can be misleading about absolute risk. A more meaningful measure of efficacy would be the number to vaccinate to prevent one hospitalization or one death. Those numbers are not available. An estimate of the number to treat from the Moderna trial to prevent a single “case” would be fifteen thousand vaccinations to prevent ninety “cases” or 167 vaccinations per “case” prevented which does not sound nearly as good as 94.5 percent effective. The publicists working for pharmaceutical companies are very smart people. If there were a reduction in mortality from these vaccines, that information would be in the first paragraph of the announcement.  
https://mises.org/wire/what-covid-vaccine-hype-fails-mention

​  Please take this very seriously. The 1975-1976 Swine Flu vaccine killed more people than the swine flu. 
It's the basis of the stories about "getting the flu from the vaccine". 
It was a rush-job vaccine in a perceived emergency after some early flu fatalities in US military personnel..
​  Side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine won't be a 'walk in the park,' doctors warn
The vaccines in final stages of trial are said to induce symptoms similar to the virus.
​  ​"We really need to make patients aware that this is not going to be a walk in the park,” Fryhofer said during a virtual meeting with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an outside group of medical experts that advise the CDC. “They are going to know they had a vaccine. They are probably not going to feel wonderful. But they’ve got to come back for that second dose.”  
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/side-effects-covid-19-vaccine-wont-be-walk-park-doctors-warn

​Ilargi at The Automatic Earth also sends this article about the UK giving its most vulnerable subjects "4 months of free vitamin-D".
(The fine point is that this is a 400 IU dose, the minimum USRDA, so little as to never have been shown helpful in any medical study for any purpose. Doses for immune support are higher than for bone formation support. It takes A LOT to get blood levels up into normal range.) 
400 IU (10 microgram, 1/100th milligram) is the dose you give if you need to show vitamin-D not working. 
I'm a scientist. I have done medical research. This is how "science" is done if you know you need to show a failure.
(Notice that 4 months of 400 units per day is about 48,000 units cumulative winter dose of vitamin-D. It is less than a single day's dose in the study I reference below, which gave this as a daily dose for 14 days or more, attempting to get vitamin-D levels into the mid-normal range.)
More than 2.5m people in England to get free vitamin D
Care home residents and clinically vulnerable to be offered four-month supply

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/28/more-than-25m-people-in-england-to-get-free-vitamin-d-supply?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

​From my 11/25/20 post​ 
 It's a small study, but it helps define vitamin-D dose for hospital inpatients, or anybody who needs to get vitamin-D levels up quickly. 60,000 units per day is 12 of the 5000 unit pills of vitamin D3 that we can buy at the store. That's the daily dose for about 2 weeks. Most people got into the mid-normal range on this dose and nobody's level went above the normal range. The people who got vitamin-D cleared the virus sooner, based on repeat testing. Thanks to commenter "Amazed".
https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/12/postgradmedj-2020-139065

Russia has a second COVID vaccine that the rest of the world wants, but not the USA. 
It aims to give a more robust immune response against SARS-CoV-2. 
https://www.rt.com/russia/508033-epivaccorona-vaccine-release-december/

​  ​Russell Kirk goes so far as to claim that the dividing line in contemporary politics hinges on this difference in understanding, stating that “on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.”
​  ​A purely material outlook on human existence will of course lead to certain policy prescriptions, especially in the face of a pandemic. To deny the spiritual existence of man is to deny the possibility of life after death—only the void of annihilation awaits...
​  ​The Associated Press reports on the horrific conditions in nursing homes around the country that may have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of residents in excruciating and horrific circumstances, as their families have been forbidden from caring for them. What’s more, it seems many patients simply withered away, their spirits broken from being locked in veritable solitary confinement with no contact with friends or family for months.
​  ​Medical central planning that doesn’t even recognize the spiritual and social aspect of human existence has caused the deaths of untold numbers of people around the country, perhaps more than the virus itself in the long run.
​  ​Our vaunted leaders may act like pure materialists when it comes to their dictatorial decrees obliterating society and our very humanity, but on some level they obviously understand the importance of their own spiritual health. Why else would the leaders of California be breaking their own rules to dine at luxurious restaurants or flying to Hawaii for meetings and not be content with takeout and Zoom like the rest of us peasants? But what else can be expected from a system of top-down control?
​ ​Humans are both material and spiritual beings. Just as we have material needs that central planners cannot anticipate, so too do we have spiritual needs that can only be filled in a myriad of ways that central planners cannot plan for, especially when they don’t even recognize they are needs at all. When they are not fulfilled, our physical health suffers just as assuredly as if we had a virus. The social and communal aspects of human life, whether a holiday dinner with family, going to church, having a wedding, or even the mundane relations of everyday life are not mere luxuries that can be dispensed with, they are human life itself.
https://mises.org/wire/lockdowns-destroy-what-makes-us-human

​Freedom of Religion is a fundamental American right. (Maybe that Gym Owner has a case)
Supreme Court strikes down Cuomo's COVID restrictions on religious services in New York
Court rules 5-4 that restrictions violated First Amendment
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/breaking-supreme-court-strikes-down-cuomos-covid-restrictions-religious

Thankful for Freedom

4 comments:

  1. insights into personal well-being. They will model how we are and feel […] precise information on our carbon footprints, our impact on biodiversity, on the toxicity of all the ingredients we consume and the environments or spatial contexts in which we evolve will generate significant progress in terms of our awareness of collective and individual well-being.”
    ​ ​Question: do we really want or need all this cybernetic narcissism?
    Humble deeds would do these things and for good reasons. To raise awareness, improve health, lower carbon footprints, and track the people who get infected and/or die from vaccinations. When we start keeping track of the vaccinations, then we will know the true efficacy, infection rates, and death rates. Conscious Consumerism will change everything and humble deeds is Conscious Consumerism.

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    1. Also, humble deeds will encourage more people to garden, and recycle, and vote, and protest. It will be a game about Revolution and it will actually create a Revolution in real life. And Bankers, and Monsanto, and Bill Gates, and Warpigs should be quite worried.

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    2. Waiting to have vaccines and see the effects may be a missed opportunity for action, in this case, refusing a messenger-RNA vaccine 9genetic engineering0.
      This will be a personal choice, but the history of novel, rushed vaccines is a history of unanticipated harms.
      It may be that the people keeping track will not share the true vaccine statistics with us this time, also.
      As for myself, I've determined that I will not accept a "vaccine" that works through mRNA reprogramming my cellular machinery. I just feel that is a Rubicon, which should not be crossed.

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  2. Growing your own food is now a potentially-revolutionary act, as is stockpiling your other necessities, because any revolution stops when food, water and fuel run out in the revolutionary camp.

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