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The West Must Never Again Go Totalitarian

The West Must Never Again Go Totalitarian

Authored by Joakim Book via The Brownstone Institute,

The West can never again go totalitarian. 

We…

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The West Must Never Again Go Totalitarian

Authored by Joakim Book via The Brownstone Institute,

The West can never again go totalitarian

We saw it happen generations ago. We fought two of humanity’s most destructive wars and faced the horror of industrial-scale extermination. Never again, said the world’s peoples in the late 1940s, and they began the difficult task of uncovering all that had been done, all that had gone wrong. 

The mass graves, the German and Soviet labor camps, the Japanese massacres in the Far East, America’s internment camps, the secret police and the mutilations, the ever-present threat of violence hanging over every member of society. We saw the personality cults around Hitler or Stalin for what they were, the blatant ideologies for what they had resulted in. 

When the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, and with it the remains of the Evil Empire that had put it there, we discovered more horror. The archives of East Germany and the Kremlin showed that informants were everywhere happily giving up information – real or invented – on their fellow humans. We found more bodies. We learned that under enough fear and pressure, human life wasn’t worth anything. When push came to violent shove, bonds of family and community meant nothing. 

The error of this terrifying history is to think that this was a problem of “the other,” someone far away who is nothing like us. Asks Thorsteinn Siglaugsson in a recent article: ”How do you find your inner Nazi? And how do you get him under control? Most people would have participated in the atrocities of their time, had they been put in that position – or at least sat by and allowed them to happen.”

In The Gulag ArchipelagoSolzhenitsyn’s oft used and highly relevant phrase says that the line between good and evil passes “right through every human heart.” The passage goes on, and Solzhenitsyn digs even deeper into the most horrifying self-reflection a man can reach: the line of good and evil goes through all human hearts, mine included, “This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”

It oscillates. What is evil isn’t always an identifiable thing, a clear enemy, but a blurry line that moves and becomes clear only in hindsight. History is hard like that. It’s us, but in the past, doing things we couldn’t imagine ourselves doing. Yet millions of our prior selves did. Are we really confident enough that with the right external circumstances “we” wouldn’t once again?

We received a small-scale test with the upheaval of societies in the last three years. Many of us wonder both what went wrong in the Covid saga and how the future will look upon the events that took place. Are the anti-vaxxers the unsung heroes who stood up against unjust tyranny, or the new 9/11-truthers nobody really cares about? Are the lockdowners wise lifesavers who hadn’t yet perfected a tool that the future takes for granted as obvious and necessary? Only on a long enough historic timeline will we know. 

Take the following segment from Michael Malice’s The While Pill: A Tale of Good And Evil, a newly released and much-needed account of the Soviet Union’s totalitarianism: 

“Even if the man on the street felt something wasn’t quite adding up, it was very difficult for him to get the full picture – especially in a culture where questioning authority could have deadly consequences for oneself and one’s entire family. The newspapers were filled with boasts about enormous achievements of production and the success of heroic ‘Stakhanovite’ workers, yet there were no clothes in the stores and no food on the shelves.”

Even to the regular Joe (or Vladimir…), something wasn’t adding up: 

“Sure the papers might make mistakes or have a bias, but they couldn’t realistically be filled with lies, week after week, year after year. … Only crazy people would think that there was a conspiracy to control the news and what information reached the public. The only possible logical alternative was that someone must have been keeping the productive socialist bounty from reaching the people. It had to be the wreckers.”

The echo of 2020-22 intrudes, too close for comfort. For is not this precisely what happened to us?

In the early days of Covid, the newspapers were filled first with outrageous disaster porn and fear-mongering and later with “boasts about enormous achievements of production and the success of heroic [Big Pharma] workers,” all the while there were “no clothes in the stores and no food on the shelves.” Everyone took outlandish personal actions, yet the catastrophic numbers shot higher and higher.

Clearly, somebody must have been ruining the good men’s neatly laid plans, those who chanted messianic faith in “two weeks to flatten the curve.” They told us what to do; it got worse than they said; somebody must be wrecking the process. 

did my pandemic part, many people reasoned: I masked and desanitized and kept my distance and vaxxed myself over and over to Fauci’s delight. Yet, the pathogen kept spreading and people kept dying and I even got sick, again and again – something the rulers repeatedly said was impossible. And then it wasn’t, which they said was always going to happen. 

It felt scripted, of course. When I for Brownstone reviewed Mattias Desmet’s great book on totalitarianism last summer, I wrote that toying with objective truth is precisely what totalitarian regimes do:

“The collective hums together and upholds the rules, no matter how insane or ineffective at achieving their supposed aim. Totalitarianism is the blurring of fact and fiction, yet with an aggressive intolerance for diverging opinions. One must toe the line.”

It matters not whether the charge holds water or has logic on its side; it just has to stick, by endless repetition if need be. Like all propaganda. In the last few years surely, there must have been some evil group of detractors undermining the Party’s good efforts. Those fifthly pandemic wreckers, the anti-vaxxers! They are nothing; less than nothing, and it’s OK to blame them!

Replace “wreckers” with anti-vaxxers, the media’s boasts of Soviet production with today’s establishment elite’s never-ending yapping about vaccine efficacy or lockdown effects or responsible monetary policy, and Malice’s distant history feels much closer to our recently lived-through present. 

We might still have food on the shelves — though of worse quality and at much higher prices. We might still have the ability to move and work and travel, but heavily circumscribed, always at risk of canceling and always with papers showing the number of needles in your arm, or your scarred heart tissue. Nobody is torturing us (yet anyway) and for the most part we have some semblance of rights and freedoms remaining. 

But we’re closer to that horrific totalitarian world today than we were, say five years ago. Or perhaps it was just always there, calmly waiting to be unleashed like Solzhenitsyn implied. 

What Malice’s book so expertly chronicles is that elites can be wrong. Wrong in facts, wrong in morals. It is possible that whole sways of intellectuals, scientists, journalists, professionals, and civil servants can be deceived and deluded, for decades stubbornly refuse to admit their error. 

The 1930s US intelligentsia’s view of Comrade Stalin and the Soviet Union is one such episode. The warmongering early 2000s in Britain and the US, though far from unopposed by the public, is another. 

Nothing shows this better than my own field of economics, riddled with wrong calls and embarrassing prediction errors. The Great Moderation of stable growth, low inflation and unemployment, circa 1990 to 2007, is another collective bout of madness and mistaken optimism.

Four years before the Great Recession began, Nobel laureate Robert Lucas gave a presidential address to the American Economics Association saying that macroeconomics had succeeded: “its central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.” In the summer of 2008, already nine months into the recession and merely weeks before Lehman Brothers collapsed, Olivier Blanchard, then at the IMF, published “The State of Macro is Good.”

The year 2020 marked the beginning of just another such episode of collective insanity. It will take some time and soul-searching before we can once again view the errors of our time the way we now view the “adulation of Stalin’s professed ideology,” or laugh at them like we do the crooks in The Big Short

But Malice’s message is ultimately optimistic. “I’m not saying nothing bad ever happens,” he confesses, but that evil isn’t almighty, doesn’t have to win. It might take a while, but even for the West’s most malevolent elements, the “costs are just going to be too much for them to bear – and they’re going to fold.” 

One day, a future chronicler might look upon the Covid era with the same deep incredulity that Malice’s readers look upon the Soviet Union. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 01/28/2023 - 19:30

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Carnival Cruise Line enforces a key main dining room rule

Cruisers love to debate every aspect of eating in the main dining room, but Carnival has drawn a line in the sand on one key issue.

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For most people on a Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC, or Norwegian  (NCLH) - Get Free Report cruise the main dining room serves as a gathering and reset point. 

During the day families and friends may go off in different directions, but on most nights they gather in the main dining room for a multicourse dinner experience that generally takes about 90 minutes.

Cruise lines have more small tables, so in many cases you're not sitting with strangers as often as you would have been in the past, but dinners in the main dining room remain an important part of cruising. 

Dinner brings everyone on a trip together and creates shared memories even when days are spent in different places.

Related: Carnival Cruise Line CEO openly talks about adding unpopular fee

The main dining room , of course, is not the only option. You can opt for specialty dining or the buffet, or you can just grab a pizza. Still, with the capacity to serve the entire ship across multiple seatings, the main dining room dinners remain a crucial part of the cruise experience on Carnival, Royal Caribbean (RCL) - Get Free Report, MSC, and Norwegian sailings.

Cruisers, of course, love to debate any changes and rules that are enforced or not enforced in the main dining room. Thousands of social-media posts argue how and whether each cruise line enforces its dress code, with some people wanting to wear shorts, hats or flip-flops while others lament that passengers no longer wear tuxedos on formal nights.

Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) - Get Free Report Brand Ambassador John Heald recently touched off a debate, however, when he outlined on his Facebook page one rule that Carnival does enforce.

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Dinner in a cruise ship main dining room is an elaborate affair.

Image source: Nora Tam/South China Morning Post via Getty

Don't be late for your Carnival main dining room time

Heald spends most days answering questions from Carnival's customers. Sometimes he shares notes that have been sent to him and solicits public response.

BOOK YOUR CRUISE NOW: Plan a dream cruise vacation at the best possible price.

In this case, he shared what happened to one family when it arrived 40 minutes late to its designated meal time. 

On our recent Pride cruise from Rome, we had a table of 10. After long days in port, we did not always make it on time for early seating and came into the main dining room at intervals. This really threw our servers off and therefore, OUR service suffered. One evening, we were all 40 minutes late That is all.. The restaurant manager told us we had to eat at the buffet or come back to see if there was a table available at the late seating.

Carnival, like most cruise lines, offers early and late seatings as well as "anytime" dining options. People who have a specific seating will eat at the same table every night, while people with flexible time seating will eat in a different dining room.

The family that arrived late shared more info with Heald.

That is not acceptable with teenagers. If Carnival puts a cruise together with long stays in ports then expect many to be late. We were punished for being 30 mins late. Unacceptable !!! You are monsters!

Carnival's brand ambassador tried to be understanding but also backed the main dining room management's decision.

I also understand as a parent myself that getting a family ready for dinner on time is not easy, especially after a long day in port. However, the waiter has not just this table to serve but others and moving back to serving appetisers while everyone else is about to be served their main course really can cause a massive dollop of stress for the waiter. If perhaps they had Your Time Dinning or late seating it might have been manageable but early seating, nope, I support what the Maitre D did by asking them to use the Lido or come back later for a table

Heald also posted a poll asking his followers to vote on whether directing guests who were 40 minutes late to their seating to the buffet was a correct choice. 

His followers overwhelmingly agreed with the cruise line: 97% agreed with the decision and 3% said the cruise line should have tried to accommodate the family. 

SAVE MONEY ON YOUR CRUISE: Let our travel experts get you booked and sailing.

A comment from Pam Miller Downey seemed to illustrate how most people felt about the issue.

"They were late...that means not on time..that means they eat somewhere else. Most people who are 40 minutes late wouldn't even dream of going to the MDR. They would automatially go to Lido or one of the other eateries," she wrote.

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Undeniable Toxic Ingredients In HPV Vaccines

Undeniable Toxic Ingredients In HPV Vaccines

Authored by Yuhong Dong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the series, "The HPV Vaccine:…

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Undeniable Toxic Ingredients In HPV Vaccines

Authored by Yuhong Dong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the series, "The HPV Vaccine: A Double-Edged Sword?" we will provide documented evidence of death and severe injuries linked with Gardasil, analyze the root cause of its harm, and offer solutions.

The Gardasil vaccine is linked to undeniable death and undeniable severe injuries as previously reported in this series of reports. An ingredient in Gardasil may contribute to these harms.

Let's shift the lens to the beautiful Pyrenees in Europe where sheep were cherished for their wool, nourishment, and companionship. However, a mysterious sheep illness occurred around a decade ago.

Mysterious Post-Vaccine Sheep Illness

In August 2006, an outbreak of bluetongue disease quickly spread to European countries causing a state of emergency.

Bluetongue disease, caused by bluetongue virus (BTV), affects ruminants, mainly sheep, with symptoms of fever, hemorrhages, depression, edemas, and generalized cyanosis, easily observed on the tongue, which explains the disease name.

The totally unexpected outbreak caused by a newly emerged BTV serotype led to a massive compulsory European vaccination campaign implemented between 2007 and 2010. The administered vaccine contained a new ingredient not used in previous BTV vaccines—aluminum (Al)—with 2.08 milligrams per milliliter as the adjuvant, in addition to inactivated BTV.

Bluetongue vaccination campaign administered in a sheep farm in Normandy, France, 2008. (Leitenberger Photography/Shutterstock)

The campaign seemed to effectively halt viral spreading, however, during the same vaccination period, a series of previously unreported severe diseases emerged in France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and Spain, featuring weakness and various neurological symptoms. Veterinarians were stumped, as no known disease explained the tragedy.

Sheep Study Identifies the Problem

Dr. Lluis Lujan, an associate professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, conducted a sheep study to determine the cause of the unusual diseases.

A total of 21 sheep were assigned into three groups (red, yellow, and green) with seven in each group as follows:

  1. The red group received commercial sheep vaccines containing aluminum hydroxide.
  2. The yellow group received the equivalent dose of aluminum dissolved in water (Alhydrogel®, an aluminum-based adjuvant).
  3. The green group was administered a neutral saltwater solution.

Surprisingly, both the animals from the red and yellow groups became significantly more aggressive and showed more stereotypes and higher stress.

Sheep from the red and yellow groups became significantly more aggressive. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

The detected level of aluminum found in the lymph nodes in the lumbar spinal cord was much higher in both the aluminum-only (yellow) and the vaccine group (red) compared with the control group, indicating that aluminum created an extra burden needing to be processed by the sheep.

This explained the phenomenon that the sheep illness occurred only after the aluminum was added to the vaccine as an adjuvant. "So for me, yes—the reason why the animals get sick after vaccination is how the body deals with aluminum," Dr. Lujan stated in a documentary film "Under the Skin," available on Epoch TV.

The idea is not only about sheep. We are looking for something that could be happening in humans.

'Placebo' Trial Participant Had 40+ Symptoms

The Phase 3 clinical trial for Gardasil (FUTURE II study) began in 2002. A particularly large number of participants were recruited in Denmark.

Gardasil clinical trial participant, Sesilje Petersen, developed severe fatigue and a total of 40 symptoms after the second and third shots.

"It was the biggest problem because I was a student at the university and it was very difficult for me to attend the classes as I fell asleep almost daily," Sesilje said. "I wrote a list with all my symptoms—there were more than 40 symptoms, and some of them had been severe. I had a tumor on my pituitary gland."

"I received a letter and was invited to this study and it sounded very interesting. So I decided to participate," recalled Sesilje.

Sesilje kept the information brochure that the participants received at the beginning of the study. It said that the vaccination had already been carefully tested for safety and did not have any serious side effects.

The information about the placebo turned out to be a lie. "It says here that the placebo was saline—the Danish word for saltwater," she said.

Aluminum: A Toxin in Vaccines for 90 Years

Sesilje's "saline" placebo contained something highly unusual—aluminum (Al), an adjuvant commonly used in modern vaccines.

She was obviously misinformed about the study design and was unaware of what she was receiving. Prior to participating in the Gardasil study, Sesilje knew that she could not tolerate deodorants containing aluminum.

"We were not informed about the use of aluminum. The word aluminum was not given to us either in the procedure or in their phone consent form." Sesilje said.

In fact, a study by Doshi et al. found that participants in the Gardasil trials were not adequately informed that the placebo was amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate (AAHS). The trial participants were told they could receive a "placebo" without being informed of noninert ingredients (AAHS). This raises serious ethical concerns about the trial conduct.

Aluminum was first used in human vaccines in 1932 and was the only adjuvant used in licensed vaccines for approximately 70 years. This controversial compound is still used as an adjuvant in vaccines, however, what is its actual role?

Aluminum is the third most abundant metal in the earth’s crust and is widely present in the environment—in plants, soil, water, air, food, and pharmaceuticals. It is present in an ionic form as Al3+.

The absorption of aluminum depends on several factors such as the pH level and the presence of organic acids (citrate, lactate).  It is absorbed in a proportion of only 0.1 to 0.3 percent by the gastrointestinal tract in the upper intestine.

However, when aluminum is injected into our muscles in the formulation of a vaccine, it is nearly 100 percent absorbed. It then travels and crosses the blood-brain barrier and accumulates in our brain and other organs.

Aluminum is especially harmful to our brain and nerves, as it plays multiple roles in the clumping of harmful substances (β-amyloid, tau protein) in the brain, leads to the death of brain-protective cells called astrocytes, and disrupts the "protective wall" around the brain resulting in more vulnerability to harmful substances.

Christopher Exley, an English professor of bioinorganic chemistry, is one of the most knowledgeable and widely-cited aluminum researchers in the world, with over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers published on aluminum and over 12,000 citations.

Renal failure patients dialyzed have developed encephalitis linked to excessive brain buildup of aluminum. Those who passed away had a tenfold higher level of aluminum in gray matter, leading to fatal brain diseases in 30 to 50 percent of cases. Their brain symptoms were correlated with their blood aluminum levels, including issues of speech, coordination, cognition, and fatal seizures.

As a potent toxin, aluminum can severely harm multiple human body systems. Aluminum's toxic effects on our nerves, lungs, muscles, gut, kidneys, and liver have been well documented.

Dietary absorbed ionic aluminum can leave our body through the kidneys, however, most antigen-aluminum mixtures in vaccines are too large for the kidneys to expel out of our body. Accordingly, vaccine aluminum exposure poses a much higher safety risk than dietary aluminum.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a placebo is defined as "an inactive pill, liquid, or powder that has no treatment value." The well-established toxic properties of aluminum therefore suggest that aluminum cannot constitute a valid placebo.

Toxicity Makes Aluminum an Adjuvant

Almost all modern diseases have their origin in a disturbed immune system. No other drug intervenes in the immune system as intensively as vaccines. The role of vaccine components in human immunity is discussed without taboos in the scientific community.

The gold standard to evaluate the effectiveness of a vaccine is based on the antibody level generated. In the beginning, people were not satisfied with a pure inactivated virus to provoke an immune response and wanted to find a substance to help boost immunity and generate a more robust response with longer-sustained antibodies—that is the adjuvant.

Aluminum was found to be a strong adjuvant.

According to Mr. Exley, "The known toxicity of aluminum is almost certainly a contributor to the success of aluminum-based salts as adjuvants."

A 2016 Nature study provided insight into the cellular toxicity induced by aluminum used as an adjuvant in clinically-approved human vaccinations.

When we inject a vaccine with aluminum into the muscle, we can only imagine what physical and chemical reactions will be triggered. At the very beginning, there may be little response at the injection site. The only reaction may be due to the damage caused by the needle.

"When the vaccine is injected deeply into the muscle tissue, aluminum ions begin to dissolve and start attacking the surrounding cells," Mr. Exley stated in the documentary "Under the Skin."

"So depending upon that rate of dissolution, you will get the degree of cytotoxicity—cell toxicity," he said.

The aluminum ions kill our normal healthy cells and as those cells die, they release chemical messengers, which call for help from the other immune cells.

Immune cells react immediately and start to attack anything suspicious at the vaccination site. A fierce battle takes place.

It is only in the course of this inflammation triggered by aluminum that the silent antigens are now also taken seriously and are transported away by specialized immune cells. Those silent viral proteins are also identified by immune cells as enemies and specific antibodies are produced to bind them.

Dr. Lluis Lujan in the "Under the Skin" HPV documentary. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times, courtesy of Ehgartner & Moll Filmproduktion GmbH & Co.)
Tyler Durden Sat, 10/14/2023 - 08:10

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This new McDonald’s China menu item is a meat lover’s dream

The fast-food giant has delivered a new sandwich, and you might want to ask your doctor about it before you eat it.

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While the Big Mac has the word "big" in it, McDonald's hasn't really staked a major claim as the fast-food chain for people looking for the meatiest sandwiches.

Arguably, at least in the U.S., Burger King and Wendy's (WEN) - Get Free Report have stronger claims to that dubious title. 

Wendy's, for example, has the Dave's Triple and the Big Bacon Classic Triple on its menu while it also lets customers order a burger with a total of four hamburger patties if they so choose.

The menu at Restaurant Brands International's  (QSR) - Get Free Report Burger King features a Triple Whopper, which actually contains fewer calories (1,170) than the two-patty Bacon King. Burger King will also sell you a four-patty burger, but you have to make that order in person, not through the chain's app or website.

Wendy's does not appear to limit how many patties you can add to your sandwich, at least when you order through Uber Eats. In theory, if you want 25, or maybe 50, burger patties on your Baconator, the chain will allow it — although at some point wrapping the burger will become a problem.

For its part, McDonald's features a triple cheeseburger on its regular menu, but that's made from three regular-size (1.6-ounce or 45-gram) patties. The biggest item by meat weight is the Double Quarter Pounder, which offers a full half-pound of beef. 

Like its rivals, MCD (probably) will sell you more burger patties if you ask at its counter. It allows extra patty sales through its app on some sandwiches, but not others. The chain also maxes out at three patties (although customers could likely order more in-person as there does not appear to be a policy preventing that). 

All these burgers, however, pale in comparison to a massive sandwich the chain has been selling in China.

A regular Big Mac seems modest compared to some hamburgers.

Image source: Cate Gillon/Getty Images

McDonald's builds a bigger Mac

McDonald's locations around the world — especially in Japan and China — seem to equate the American brand with massive burgers. A new burger from the chain's locations in China sets a new standard when it comes to massive sandwiches, although the burger patties do get some help/

"McDonald's China's Bu Su Zhi Ba Double Layer Beef Burger is a mouthful of meat that puts U.S. patties to shame. True to its name, which translates to German Sausage Double Beef Burger, this item packs two burger patties and two sausages between its buns. This gives customers a protein-heavy dish, with little more than a layer of mustard to round it out — it doesn't contain any of the more traditional McDonald's toppings like lettuce, tomato, or pickles," Mashed shared.

The fast-food giant has never offered sausages in its U.S. restaurants and it has only sold hot dogs on a very limited basis in the U.S. McDonald's founder was famously against the chain selling hot dogs because people would not know what was inside them.

China shows McDonald's the way

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski actually visited some of his chain's locations in China this year. He talked about what he learned during the company's second-quarter earnings call.

"Visiting China truly brought to life the power of a highly digitized economy and our potential for global growth moving forward. With about 90% of our business currently coming through digital channels in that market, it was remarkable to see how the market has forged digital relationships with customers," he said.

Kempczinski was also impressed with other aspects of the company's operations in China.

"China is also making tremendous progress in running the restaurants more efficiently, all with the use of data and technology. This will provide great learnings for the rest of our system," he added.

The chain is also innovating in the delivery space in the market.

"Another recent example of innovation I was able to see firsthand during my visit to China is the use of food lockers at busy locations with high in-store traffic. Upon arrival, delivery couriers can quickly unlock the designated locker and grab the customer's order without even entering the restaurant, removing friction for both the kitchen and the courier," Kempczinski said.

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