PP NewsBrief: 2021-02-05
We need to begin to reclaim control over the institutions which have such oversized roles in our lives. As you read this people work tirelessly to see to it that you are dumb and docile. Let's stop them.
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AOC compared to Jussie Smollett after her ‘near-death’ riot experience revealed as hiding from POLICE in office OUTSIDE Capitol
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is being compared to the actor who staged an attack on himself, after her account of fearing for her life during the January 6 riot was fact-checked, exposing that she wasn’t in the Capitol building.
The hashtags #AlexandriaOcasioSmollett, along with #AOCLied, trended on Wednesday, following a fact-check of AOC’s (D-New York) Instagram livestream two days prior by OAN journalist Jack Posobiec. During her emotional one-and-a-half-hour-long talk, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she was not in the Capitol building during the riot to begin with, but continued to claim that she experienced a life-threatening situation.
When Ocasio-Cortez denounced it as a “manipulative take on the right,” Posobiec posted a map, with arrows pointing to the Capitol as well as two other office buildings across the road. One of them is where AOC’s own office is located, and where she claimed she “thought I was going to die” during the January 6 events. Another is where she ended up sheltering inside the office of Rep. Katie Porter (D-California) after leaving her office on the instructions of the Capitol Police."
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Acronyms are ‘symptoms of white supremacy’, says San Francisco public schools’ art dept, after dropping its abbreviation
It benefits the ruling elite for us to see that belief as emblematic of the "other side" rather that what it likely is: an absolutely fringe view published by a newspaper as clickbait.
"The San Francisco Unified School District Arts Department has decided to abandon its acronym, apparently in a bid to end racism – but many Twitter users have failed to appreciate this historic step forward for equality.
Formerly known as ‘VAPA’, short for ‘Visual and Performing Arts’, the department announced that going forward it would be referred to as the SFUSD Arts Department because “acronyms are a symptom of white supremacy culture,” a local ABC affiliate reported.
The name change is a “simple step” that can be taken to ensure families from all backgrounds “better understand who we are,” explained the department’s director, Sam Bass. He said the move, which comes at a time when San Francisco schools remain shuttered due to Covid-19 restrictions, was part of a policy aimed at “prioritizing antiracist arts instruction in our work.”
Elaborating on the new name, which also uses an acronym, Bass stressed that he didn’t want to “alienate” those who may not speak English and therefore are unable to understand what ‘VAPA’ stands for. He did not explain how the same individuals could comprehend the meaning of ‘SFUSD Arts Department’."
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Is China Preparing To Blitz The Moon?
"For most of the last decade, the Chinese regime has been peddling the idea that its manned Moon program may not start until around 2030. This appeared to be confirmed by Chinese revelations that its main Moon mission space launch vehicle (SLV), the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) Long March-9, would not be in service until about 2030.
But now it is possible to assess that China may get there well before 2030. China began to reveal a possible acceleration of its Moon plans in November 2018, when it revealed a new 5-meter diameter manned SLV with a three parallel booster configuration, like the 63-ton to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Few details were revealed at the time, not even its name, so Chinese space enthusiasts dubbed it the “921 Rocket” after China’s manned “921 Program” from 1992.
Then, in September 2020, an official subordinate to the Armaments Department of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Liberation Army, which controls China’s space program, officially confirmed for the fist time that China had an active manned Moon program, and was developing a new manned Moon Lander, and the new manned SLV. This is the 921 Rocket designed to loft about 70 tons to LEO, and about 25 tons to the Moon.
It is possible that future versions of this SLV will feature reusable first stages like Falcon Heavy, helping China to significantly reduce the cost of sending people and supporting payloads to the Moon.
The interest and attention paid to this new rocket caused some Chinese observers to speculate that the Long March-9 program has possibly been abandoned. But this was put to rest by a Nov. 26, 2020 report in China Daily that stated, “China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp [CASC] has estimated that about 10 Long March 9s will be needed each year from 2030 to 2035 in China to serve the nation’s robust demand for heavy-lift rockets.”
This means that the Chinese regime may be planning to build 60 of its Long March-9 super heavy space launch vehicles (SLVs) over a period of six years. This has huge implications for China’s ambitions to build a dominant presence on the Moon and to begin colonizing Mars."
If we allow ourselves to be drawn into another foolish Cold War & Space Race we will be shutting the door on any hope for getting the boots of the elite to cease stamping upon our faces for at least a generation but likely far longer. Space is the ultimate playground for the elite: they are free to do as they wish, unencumbered by the pesky masses shackled to the planet's surface.
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The Case Against Lockdown: A Reply to Christopher Snowdon
"We can quibble about the reliability of industrial-scale PCR testing, whether the “second wave” in Europe and America has been ameliorated by naturally acquired immunity and whether deaths due to other diseases have being wrongly classified as deaths due to novel coronavirus. But that is largely beside the point. Sceptics could concede all of Snowdon’s points—acknowledge that the threat posed by SARS-CoV-2 is every bit as grave as the most hard-line lockdowners say it is—without endangering the central limb of our argument. Our contention is that the whole panoply of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that governments around the world have used to try and control the pandemic—closing schools and gyms, shutting non-essential shops, banning household mixing, restricting travel, telling people they can’t leave their homes without a reasonable excuse, etc.—have been largely ineffective.
Sure, there are some peer-reviewed studies published in reputable journals seeming to show that these measures reduce COVID-19 infections, hospital admissions, and deaths. (See here, for instance.) But most of these rely on epidemiological models that make unfalsifiable claims about how many people would have died if governments had just sat on their hands—and some of these models have been widely criticised. The evidence that lockdowns don’t work, by contrast, is not based on conjecture but on observing the effects of lockdowns in different countries. (You can review 30 of these studies here.) What these data seem to show is that the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in each country rises and falls—and then rises and falls again, although less steeply as the virus moves towards endemic equilibrium—according to a similar pattern regardless of what NPIs governments impose.
The factors that affect a population’s vulnerability to the disease are things like distance from the equator, previous exposure to other coronaviruses, and genetics, not how nimble or smart their political leaders are. (Although the timely introduction of port-of-entry controls for visitors from China may have contributed to the low COVID mortality in some Asian and Oceanic countries.) If lockdowns work, you’d expect to see an inverse correlation between the severity of the NPIs a country puts in place and the number of COVID deaths per capita, but you don’t. On the contrary, deaths per million were actually lower in those US states that didn’t shut down than in those that did—at least in the first seven-and-a-half months of last year. Trying to explain away these inconvenient facts by factoring in any number of variables—average age, hours of sunlight, population density—doesn’t seem to help. There’s no signal in that noise."
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Denmark to pioneer digital vaccine passports to restart normal life
"Denmark’s government has said digital vaccine passports will be used “in three, four months” to restart life in the country. And by the end of February, Danes can check their status online and print off their vaccination certs.
Speaking in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Finance Minister Morten Bodskov said Danish companies needed to get back on track to kickstart the nation’s economy – and a digital vaccine passport was a key part of that.
“It will be the extra passport that you will be able to have on your mobile phone that documents that you have been vaccinated,” Bodskov said. “We can be among the first in the world to have it and can show it to the rest of the world.”
The government plans to work with business bodies like the Confederation of Danish Industries, which represents Denmark’s major companies, and the Danish Chamber of Commerce to get the new system into place."
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Capitol Police officer who shot & killed Ashli Babbitt unlikely to be charged – reports
"Investigators looking into the shooting don’t believe they will find enough evidence to charge the Capitol Police lieutenant involved, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and NBC news all reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources.
The Capitol Police and the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, while the Department of Justice did not respond to inquiries, NBC reported. The outlet did get a statement from the attorney representing the officer, who has not been identified.
Mark E. Schamel told NBC that his client “used clear appropriate use of force. It's not even a close call,” adding: “I think it's his heroism and his restraint that saved lives.”"
Shooting unarmed people is OK now and violence against property is totally unacceptable. Your betters have decided.
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Elon Musk says his Neuralink startup has a brain-chipped MONKEY who plays video games
Soon we could all be "happy monkeys" playing video games at mercy of some billionaire...
"Elon Musk has claimed that one of his startup companies has a testing facility where a very happy lab monkey with a brain chip implant can play video games.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made the claim during a livestream for fans on the invitation-only conference app Clubhouse on Sunday evening, during which he spoke about his neurotechnology company Neuralink.
“We have a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull with tiny wires who can play video games with his mind,” Musk claimed, adding, “You can’t see where the implant is and he’s a happy monkey.”"
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Biden ending US ‘support for offensive operations’ in Yemen doesn’t mean actual end to war, skeptics caution as activists rejoice
"While peace activists cheered the news that the US will be ending its support for Saudi-led “offensive operations” in Yemen, that’s a far cry from actually ending the six-year war that began with Barack Obama’s tacit blessing.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan previewed the Yemen announcement ahead of President Joe Biden’s major foreign policy speech on Thursday, telling reporters the decision “extends to the types of offensive operations that have perpetuated a civil war in Yemen that has led to a humanitarian crisis,” and that it does not apply to US operations against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The news was immediately hailed by peace activists, who praised Biden even as they admitted they didn’t know all the details."
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Psychology: Pretending There Is Nothing Wrong
"“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
In 2011 there was a devastating nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant in Japan. An “investigation” concluded that:
“its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture, our reflexive obedience, our reluctance to question authority, our devotion to sticking with the programme”.
However, there is nothing specifically Japanese about these attitudes. A similar mindset explains many of the issues discussed in other posts. This post is the first of two giving some insights into why we behave as we do. Why do powerful people in governments and corporations commit so many crimes? Why do people tolerate a government that commits war crimes? Why do people turn a blind eye when large corporations repeatedly carry out unethical activities? Why is it we are so easily misled?
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Psychologists have recognised that our beliefs are an important part of how we see ourselves. We prefer to receive information that confirms our existing views or beliefs, because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Psychologists use the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ to describe a situation where people feel uncomfortable because they are presented with evidence that contradicts their existing beliefs. We try to find ways to deal with this discomfort, either by ignoring the information, or by using faulty logic to justify our existing beliefs. This is known as ‘confirmation bias’, and is often divided into three main areas.
Firstly, biased search is where we actively seek out information that supports our existing views. Most newspaper readers will be aware that they choose a newspaper where the writers express similar views to their own.
Secondly, biased interpretation is where we interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting our existing position. We also find reasons to dismiss evidence that contradicts our beliefs, by convincing ourselves that the source was unreliable.
Finally, biased memory is where we remember information that supports our existing beliefs, and forget information that contradicts them. Over time, most people forget the detail of what they have learned. They create a framework of understanding, or a framework of knowledge. This is like a general overview of how we see the world. If new information is consistent with this framework, it fits into the framework easily, reinforces the framework, and might be remembered. If new information does not fit easily into the framework then we don’t know what to do with it, so it will tend to be dismissed and quickly forgotten.
Affection for beliefs seems to be similar to affection for people. Recent research has shown that some parts of the brain are de-activated when thinking about people we love. In particular, some of the areas responsible for critical thinking. The same appears to be true when thinking about beliefs. Our brain treats differently any information that might challenge our beliefs. The effect seems to be stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. This is particularly the case where people believe in a powerful ideology, or a big idea, such as ‘markets’. We are mostly unaware of how deeply these big ideas affect the way we think. Confirmation bias can lead to a situation where people will continue to believe something, even when it is strongly contradicted by the evidence."
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The People Vs Navalny: Russia Draws Red Lines To Foreign Meddling In Its Sovereign Affairs
"The flag-bearer of Western influence and globalists in Russia, Alexey Navalny, has been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison for grossly disregarding the terms of his suspended sentence.
The initial sentence was for 3.5 years, but he has already served a part of that term under house arrest. The absurdity of the situation is that his initial sentence was related to corruption – something he allegedly fights against.
Despite claims by MSM and Western diplomats that Navalny is subject to political persecution, his proven and known ties to Western Intelligence were not part of the case.
Just recently, on February 1st, videos were released online showing the joyful cooperation between Navalny’s team and foreign intelligence services. To put it plainly – Navalny’s team requested information from British Intelligence. It planned to employ that “dirt” to hinder Russia’s interests, both internal and external. His Anti-Corruption Foundation, furthermore, promised to work against Russian business, and to promote British companies. For that, these would be paid hefty sums when he, ultimately, somehow managed to come to power. To achieve that, Navalny’s people vowed to stage mass protests, spread propaganda and strike behind the scenes deals with the elites. It can’t be corruption, if it’s for a “good cause”, right?
As further evidence of this foreign support and pressure, at least 20 diplomats from various countries, including the US, made an appearance when Navalny’s case came up in the Moscow Court hoping to pressure the court in his favour thereby meddling in Russian internal affairs. The massive media propaganda campaign was also plain to see."
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The Tragic Vision: Making the Best of Things
"“Life is tragic,” James Baldwin wrote, “simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.” Baldwin was expressing the tragic vision of human life. This vision has been a consistent feature of great art and literature throughout history, confronting universal themes of death, time, chaos, futility, the absurd, evil, unmitigated suffering, and the built-in constraints of the human condition from which any transcendent heroism must invariably proceed, and upon which all genuine religious experience is based. In the typical tragedy, the protagonist comes up against the cruel and indifferent forces of the universe and loses, but in the process discovers a deeper human capacity for resilience that can sustain a sense of meaning through future struggles. The tragic hero transcends limitation by accepting it and gaining knowledge of their own flaws and limitations in the process.
In The Hero and the Blues, the novelist and critic Albert Murray compares Greek tragedy to the blues tradition in black American culture: “Not unlike ancient tragedy, it would have the people for whom it is composed and performed confront, acknowledge, and proceed in spite of, and even in terms of, the ugliness and meanness in the human condition. It is thus a device for making the best of a bad situation.”1 Making the best of things is part of growing up. This applies to individuals as well as cultures. In his 1964 book of essays Shadow And Act, Ralph Ellison attributes the moral decline of the post-Reconstruction era to the “anti-tragic approach to experience” that effectively cut away the nation’s “deep probing doubt” and its “sense of evil,”2 enabling the moral brittleness that made racist atrocities easier to abide. Without a sense of tragedy we are left with shallow utopian idealisms, abstractions, and generalities that reject the harsh realities of human experience by blaming them on someone or something else. This has the effect of aggravating the problems they were meant to solve. As Murray observes, there is no shortage of “totalitarian systems which began as freedom movements.”3 The irony of repressing the metaphor of tragedy is that we end up making life more tragic.
Even in our age of COVID, modern life seems almost perfectly designed to repress the tragic vision. Digital technologies and social media platforms stave off boredom at the cost of nullifying our sense that time is real and the present moment is all there is. The image takes precedence over reality. Dating apps, for example, eschew the necessary awkwardness and bottomless terror of approaching beautiful strangers while flesh-and-blood human beings become little more than profile pictures or thumbnails to be summarily judged, categorized, and swiped left or right. If anyone gets “weird” with us—meaning if anyone expresses some kind of human frailty in our direction—we can “ghost” them, extricating their existence from our consciousness. Cancel culture is merely an extension of this fickleness, and it is evident in the stories we tell ourselves. A quick scroll through Netflix yields mostly escapist fantasies incapable of dealing with the complexity and ambiguity of our emotional lives, and even many dramas are rendered unreal by their tear-jerking sentimentality which milk and manipulate emotions more than confronting or accepting them. The entire self-help industry, whatever its utility in getting people out of bed, is predicated on denying human limitation, and if you don’t become rich, enlightened, or preferably both, like the other 99.9 percent of humans on Earth, the implication is that it’s your fault. This is the anti-tragic approach at its core; the notion that everything bad can be overcome and everything good has been earned.
The denial of tragedy inevitably results in the denial of what makes us human, snipping the invisible thread that connects us to the lives of other people and draining the individual of moral gravity. It’s no wonder, really, that Jordan Peterson’s lectures on confronting our inner demons and cleaning one’s room quickly became so popular, in contrast to prevailing narratives that portray those demons as some political or cultural identity group which must be externally vanquished.
Likewise, an impulse has emerged across the political spectrum—from woke to MAGA—that attributes any undesirable outcome in the world to some nefarious individual or group that must be righteously inveighed against, and anyone who exercises constraint or expresses doubt is stigmatized as a traitor, a phony progressive, RINO, Uncle Tom, corporate shill, or whatever else. Society’s problems are understood as the product of bad intentions and bad people, who are conveniently imagined to be whichever politicized stereotype or caricature happens to irritate us the most—the redneck or the hippie, the globalist or the capitalist, the black hoodlum or the white racist. The obvious and parsimonious answers to the problems we face (that we are experiencing entropy like every society in history) are exchanged for self-satisfying conspiracy theories which accelerate our decline. The breakdown of mutually agreed-upon reality gives way to zero-sum narrative warfare between political and cultural tribes with each narrative providing such meaning and identity to its believers that you can’t get a damn word in about anything meaningful or interesting without offending the sensibilities of someone nearby. This is politics as salvation; the absence of tragedy. The upshot is that nothing gets done while the public grows increasingly bitter and resentful."
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Video: Weirdo Bill Gates Calls For ‘Global Alert System’ Ahead Of ‘Next Pandemic’
"Gates proclaims “We also need new capabilities, including a global alert system and infectious disease first responders, or what I like to call a pandemic fire squad.”
Perhaps this hazmatted ‘fire squad’ will have total global authority to bend you over and anal swab you whenever and wherever they demand.
Gates certainly seems to be envisioning a new international global authority ahead of his promised ‘next pandemic’.
Gates touts what he calls “mega testing diagnostic platforms” which he says will be capable of testing ‘20% of the entire population every week’.
He also promises plenty of new vaccines ‘due to the mRNA platform‘, which will enable them to be produced more quickly and in more volumes."
Things are progressing as predicted...