We’ll be okay, right? We’re still complying.
by Not Sure
Sun 17 Oct 2021
This is a recent headline from the British newspaper, The Guardian. ‘Tyranny’: US rightwingers portray nightmare vision of Australia’s Covid response. The article was accompanied by a photo of protesters in New York, waving an American flag. Mask mandates were being protested. Some people at the rally carried Australian flags and cried, “Save Australia.” Here’s a quote:
Many Australians were puzzled by what seemed a sudden, unbidden show of support, but this spectacle was the culmination of a months-long effort in conservative US media to portray Australia’s coronavirus response as having brought the country to the brink of authoritarianism.
Polling suggests that Australians overwhelmingly support vaccine mandates, but prominent figures on the American right have had crucial assistance from their counterparts across the Pacific in creating a dystopian image of the country, which they have wielded as a weapon in the polarised pandemic politics of the US.
According to the article, Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have “aggressively” pursued the idea of an Australian dystopia and have been joined in by voices from the fringes of the far-right such as Tommy Robinson and Andy Ngo.
We’re not supposed to remember news that’s older than two weeks. Just enjoy the whiplash of rapid change and conflicting explanations. But I do recall stories from the recent past and I don’t need the memory of an elephant. The Hill and the BBC are not right-wing publications and The Atlantic is far to the left. They all had something to say recently about Australia’s infringement on the rights of its citizens in “the fight against Covid.” (It is possible that the BBC thought the deployment of the military was a good thing.)
Australia's COVID overreaction could come to US (Sept 13, 2021)
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/571620-australias-covid-overreaction-could-come-to-us
Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty (Sept 2, 2021)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/
Covid in Sydney: Military deployed to help enforce lockdown (July 2021)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718
Here is some coverage about Australia from mainstream publications in 2020:
Australians could be detained or forced into treatment to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Here's how
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-03/coronavirus-ag-flags-rarely-used-biosecurity-powers/12020034
'It's a global dictatorship!' The bizarre 1am email sent to the ENTIRE NSW police force questioning the state's oppressive coronavirus lockdown
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8925735/The-1am-email-sent-ENTIRE-NSW-police-force-questioning-coronavirus-lockdown.html
Dentist JAILED for treating 41 patients when she was meant to be in coronavirus quarantine isolation
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8928755/Dentist-Natalia-Nairn-jailed-skipping-coronavirus-quarantine-work.html
Buried deep within The Guardian article is an offhand reference to something that is happening in the state of Western Australia right now. You’ll likely miss it if you read the article, so I will give you the details. The WA police force have introduced an app called G2G Now. This is from the WA government website:
The G2G app is a tool that helps WA Police protect the community by conducting remote, virtual in-app checks on people in quarantine. The app uses facial verification technology and phone location data to ensure people in quarantine remain at their registered address throughout their quarantine period.
When users receive a push notification to check-in, they have a 5-minute window to take a photo of themselves. The app then matches the image and location with the person's registered details to ensure compliance with their quarantine direction.
If you miss your check-in window, you will be sent a second check-in request shortly after the first one.
If you miss this second request, the app will prompt you to give a reason. Police will then determine what further action, if any, is required, such as follow-up calls or a physical check-in.
The entire point of The Guardian article is to mock anyone who thinks the Democrats within the U.S. government might try similar draconian measures on U.S. citizens because “no governing Democrat has introduced any comparable restrictions.” I guess the reporter doesn’t know that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation that would require all U.S. travellers taking domestic flights to present proof of vaccination or that President Biden has given a deadline of November 22 for all federal employees to be fully vaccinated or that New York City’s Democratic mayor told the city’s school teachers they must be vaccinated or go on unpaid leave.
****
Today’s Redux is another excerpt from Alan Watt’s November 15, 2020 talk entitled, “All Hail The Elect, Self-Anointed, Self-Appointed.” In this talk, Alan describes how the country “over there” is painted as oppressive. One’s own country is always the ideal, our freedoms unassailable. He paraphrases the famous Ronald Reagan quote about the scariest words one can hear, “I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
****
In 2015, the British army created a Facebook army, the 77th Brigade, a special unit skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age. This is from a 2018 Wired Magazine article, “The Army needed to be out on social media, on the internet, and in the press, engaged, in the reciprocal, real-time business of being first with the truth, countering the narratives of others, and if necessary manipulating the opinion of thousands concurrently in support of combat operations.”
In the spring of 2020, Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nick Carter revealed that the 77th Brigade is involved in countering misinformation online relating to Coronavirus but assures that this isn’t being directed at British citizens or at UK organizations. Their target is Russian propaganda. Who believes that?
A plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes.
****
Alan Watt cautioned us to use our judgment with all sources and when he read something from Global Research he often prefaced it with something like “they lean to the left,” but GR recently published an article well worth reading entitled Behind NATO’s ‘Cognitive Warfare’: ‘Battle for Your Brain’ Waged by Western Militaries:
Western governments in the NATO military alliance are developing tactics of “cognitive warfare,” using the supposed threats of China and Russia to justify waging a “battle for your brain” in the “human domain,” to “make everyone a weapon.”
NATO is developing new forms of warfare to wage a “battle for the brain,” as the military alliance put it.
The US-led NATO military cartel has tested novel modes of hybrid warfare against its self-declared adversaries, including economic warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, and psychological warfare.
Now, NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded cognitive warfare. Described as the “weaponization of brain sciences,” the new method involves “hacking the individual” by exploiting “the vulnerabilities of the human brain” in order to implement more sophisticated “social engineering.”
****
In this talk Alan says, “The target of everything is you. That's how authoritarian systems really rule. They don't want you to know you're being ruled. Before you were born you were ruled.” He also said, “The Great Reset idea was the big agenda. They weren't going to let people [countries] pull out of the EU or the US pull out of the climate agreement.” He mentions a documentary he watched where economists connected with the World Economic Forum expressed disappointment that the 2008 crash hadn't brought on austerity. Small businesses pulled economies back. Guess who's being closed down in this Great Reset?” So now we have a handful of corporations in control. Monopolies. “Higher costs for basic energy and food stuffs. All extras out the window. That's sustainability.” “Well, it's Covid you know...”
****
The French have protested the Pass Sanitaire needed to get into cafés, bars, restaurants, hospitals, museums, galleries, and on trains, planes, and coaches. It is also legally required by employers, to ensure that all contracted workers have one too. Depression is high among the French people but according to the World Economic Forum’s website the French government is offering free therapy to its citizens.
I stumbled on a website recently called The Violin Channel. It says it’s the world’s number one classical music news source. There I learned that a German concert series will use sniffer dogs as a Covid-19 precaution. The dogs have been trained by the Bundeswehr, Germany's combined armed forces to identify the COVID-19 virus. At first it seems like a “fake” news piece floated by the 77th Brigade for some reason I cannot discern, but I found a related piece on Reuters. Perhaps it’s true. After all, last year MIT announced it was working on an app that could detect Coronavirus based on cough sounds and “Pandemics could be a thing of the past.” The Western Australia police force could use the app to round up citizens who should be under house arrest, er, I mean in quarantine, taking selfies whenever required.
In Northern Ireland, between July 2020 and September 2021, 8,600 Ivermectin tablets were seized by the Medicines Regulatory Group (MRG.) The MRG said it would also "shut down websites and social media pages making false claims about health products related to Covid-19". And in related news, Forbes reported that there is a clown shortage in Northern Ireland due to Covid-19 restrictions. “When Covid-19 happened, everyone was forced to go into lockdown, travel restrictions came into force and crowds became a big no-no, so there was less and less need for clowns.”
****
The Chinese Social Credit System is coming to your country. Alan says, “Folk will stick on Facebook even when they know it’s bad for them. Dangerous. Collecting all their data. You are your worst enemy. You’re putting all your data up there. Everyone in this Brave New World must be completely predictable... The internet is not your friend. It never was.”
I saw a black and white picture of a group of people facing a wall, about to be shot by a firing squad. The caption said, “We’ll be okay, right? We’re still complying.”
© Not Sure
Additional reading:
‘Tyranny’: US rightwingers portray nightmare vision of Australia’s Covid response
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/10/tyranny-us-rightwingers-portray-nightmare-vision-of-australias-covid-response
About the G2G Suite - Western Australia Police Force
https://g2ghub.com.au/about
COVID-19 coronavirus: G2G Now frequently asked questions
https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-the-premier-and-cabinet/covid-19-coronavirus-g2g-now-frequently-asked-questions
Inside the British Army's secret information warfare machine
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains-information-warfare-military
77 Brigade is countering Covid misinformation
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/77-brigade-is-countering-covid-misinformation/
British army creates team of Facebook warriors
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/31/british-army-facebook-warriors-77th-brigade
Behind NATO’s ‘Cognitive Warfare’: ‘Battle for Your Brain’ Waged by Western Militaries
https://www.globalresearch.ca/behind-nato-cognitive-warfare-battle-brain-waged-western-militaries/5758601
Military leaders saw pandemic as unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians, Forces report says
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-leaders-saw-pandemic-as-unique-opportunity-to-test-propaganda-techniques-on-canadians-forces-report-says
German Concert Series Uses Sniffer Dogs as COVID-19 Precaution
https://theviolinchannel.com/german-concert-series-trials-sniffer-dogs-as-coronavirus-precaution/
Clown Shortage In Northern Ireland Due To Covid-19 Restrictions
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/10/05/clown-shortage-in-northern-ireland-due-to-covid-19-restrictions/?sh=680da9752770
Are Social Credit Systems Coming To The West?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/traceyfollows/2021/10/07/are-social-credit-systems-coming-to-the-west/?sh=daaffbc17e7c
Coming soon: America's own social credit system
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/565860-coming-soon-americas-own-social-credit-system?rl=1
China’s Social-Credit System Arrives on British Shores
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/chinas-social-credit-system-arrives-on-british-shores/
Uber To Start Banning Passengers With Low Ratings
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/29/728005817/uber-to-start-banning-passengers-with-low-ratings