Trevor Fleming is the latest free speech victim and victim of corporate cowardice. This Lululemon executive posted a link on Instagram to California artist Jess Sluder who designed a T-shirt featuring “bat fried rice.” Lululemon promptly fired him. The shirt’s a joke but the likely source of the Coronavirus pandemic were live bats kept at a filthy Wuhan wet market.
Laura-Lynn Tyler-Thompson covers the STOP THE LOCKDOWN citizens protest at Vancouver City Hall, April 17.
Dear Reader,
Being
a book collector for many years I also have amassed a substantial
number of MSM Newspapers over past decades. This front page story in
British Columbia’s “Province” newspaper from October 21, 1999 is a prime
example of what we’re now going through globally as the controlled
media finally was able to come up with the Mother of all “viruses” story
in their attempt to terrorize and scare the shit out of everyone on the
planet.
Over
twenty-one years ago they were already predicting a potential 51,000
deaths from a “predicted” global pandemic that could only be prevented
with a “new flu vaccine, made from fertilized chicken eggs.” We can see
now that the Gates’s and the WHO and the Fauci’s of the world have come a
long way from “fertilized chicken eggs”!
One
of the more unsettling things about this massive hoax is how so many of
the population, for whatever reasons, are refusing to question the
narrative and simply succumbing to “social distancing” and “face masks”
and all the rest of the Orwellian regulations being set in place by the
criminals behind this incredible scam. Those working in the shadows
appear to have judged the make-up of the masses fairly well – at least
for the moment.
How
long it will take before the resistance begins to manifest is anyone’s
guess. In the interim time I suggest that folks get out their old, worn
copies of The Monkey Wrench Gang and do a little refresher reading.
Feel
free to share this story if you wish. I’m not under any “bail
conditions” at this time and who knows when the courts will be returning
to work.
Continue to Question Authority and fight for Justice and Freedom,
Sincerely,
Arthur TophamPub/EdThe Radical Press“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998”———-
51,000 of us coulddie in the flu pandemic
A top health official says up to 51,000 Canadians could die in a
global flu outbreak predicted to hit within 10 years if Canada can’t
quickly mass-produce a vaccine.
“We estimate that, if there’s not a vaccine available, that the next
pandemic will cause between 9,000 and 51,000 deaths in Canada,” Dr. John
Spika, director of infectious diseases at Health Canada’s Laboratory
Centre for Disease Control in Ottawa, said last night. “Obviously, one doesn’t want to be fear-mongering, but at the same time it’s something that one needs to prepare for.”
The prediction of a pandemic influenza outbreak sweeping the globe
within the next decade is based on data showing three to four flu
pandemics – each with a new virus to which no one has immunity – hit the
world every 100 years. Pandemics
occurred in 1892, 1918, 1957 and 1968. The pandemic of 1918-19 is
believed to have killed up to 40 million. The relatively mild virus of
the 1968 pandemic killed about 4,000 Canadians.
It’s estimated such a virus would take about three months to spread
to Canada from wherever it originates. The first peak of the disease
hitting the population would happen two to four months later. It takes a minimum of three months to produce the first lot of any new flu vaccine, made from fertilized chicken eggs.
So the virus would be infecting Canadians long before there was
enough vaccine to inoculate the entire population. It would take 10
months, using current vaccine production measures to vaccinate all
Canadians. Dr. Allison McGreer, director of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, asked:
“Do we really want to have 16 million fertilized eggs on hand at all
times, or is there some way we’re willing to take a little bit of hit
and not spend as much money up front?
“If we thought that the 1918-19 flu pandemic was around the corner,
then we would be right to be terrified, but that’s not likely to
happen.”– Southam News
April 17, 2020
7:35 AM EDT
If there is one positive thing that can be said about this terrible plague we’re enduring, it is that now and then, it gives the Trudeau government some really, really great ideas.
Sure it was only a couple of weeks ago that the Liberals came up with the idea that they — a minority in Parliament, remember — should give themselves the power to tax and spend for the next two years, without having to get parliamentary approval. It was a truly brilliant idea, except that it ignored the fact that approving government spending is one of the most important functions of Parliament. Take away its authority over spending and the House of Commons might just as well be any old bingo hall, or with a little imaginative renovation, a one-of-a-kind Costco store.
Now, compliments of Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc, we learned that the Liberal government is contemplating legislation to make it an offence to, as a CBC report put it, “knowingly spread misinformation that could harm people.” In plain language, this government is openly thinking of making itself the official censor of what can and cannot be said about COVID-19. Pure brilliance again, don’t you agree?
Well, actually, no. Don’t even think of it. Better still, to borrow a phrase from Greta Thunberg: how dare you? There is already a government that has that power, and in some cases brutally exercises it. That is the government of the Communist Party of China.
And what has it done with that power? It barred telling the truth about COVID-19, and instead told lies about it. On the where it happened, when it happened, how it happened and how it spread, the Chinese government confounded, confused and lied about a plague that has now hobbled the whole planet. And China “officially reprimanded” the doctor who initially tried to warn people about the coronavirus, and who, with dread irony, actually died from it. (A postmortem apology followed from the government. That surely helped.) Admire the Chinese government if that’s your thing, but on this subject, it is not an example to be followed.
So, let’s tap this serpent of an idea on its little head before its fangs emerge and it develops a real appetite. The problem with government having control over what is said and written, completely aside from it being the utter contradiction of a liberal democracy, is that governments — especially on a matter such as this pandemic — are simply not competent enough to know what is right and what is wrong.
What is required for a government to pass a law against misinformation? To begin with, it presumes an infallible authority that’s able to make judgments on what is, or is not, correct information. Even worse, it presumes the government has the ability to make judgments on a matter that, incontestably, is not yet fully understood by anybody.
This virus is new. The investigation of its nature, transmission, the best policies to confront it, the extent of the response to it, even the nature of the response — all of these elements are, at best, in an incomplete and early stage of understanding.
Experts have varying degrees of skill and knowledge. If experts disagree, which happens often, will some of them be silenced? In actuality, a divergence of opinions can be seen as a path to the full truth emerging. But this cannot happen if the government gags those who may seem to be wrong at the present moment.
On the purely political front, there are equal objections to giving government censorship powers. Governments take to extensions of their power like bears to honey. The more power they get, the more they believe they alone should exercise it. Power swells the ego. Add more power, and if you follow the analogy, a little balloon soon thinks it’s the Hindenburg. And a government swollen with power does not like other voices.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau barred the leader of the Opposition from joining talks with other opposition leaders because, in Trudeau’s own memorable words, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer “disqualified himself from constructive discussions with his unacceptable speech earlier today.”
Yet it is not for Trudeau, or any other prime minister, to determine what is “acceptable speech” from his constitutionally positioned critic, the leader of the Opposition. Nor is it proper for this minority government, which has had enough struggles of its own over misinformation — on masks, on screening at airports, on our relative security from the pandemic — to decide what the rest of us can, and cannot, say or write about this unique crisis.
National Post
It’s not difficult to imagine productive things the Canadian government could be doing to respond to a virus that has caused more than 1,000 deaths in the country, infected tens of thousands of Canadians, and shut down the economy.
Passing a law dictating what people can and cannot say about SARS-CoV-2 is not one of those things.
The government could be using its power to secure personal protective equipment for health-care workers, facilitate an increase in testing capacity, and clear regulatory red tape that stands in the way of efficient vaccine research.
There is no question these steps could be helpful, and they are just three examples of many. Then, why oh why are federal politicians instead using their time to make plans to censor online expression about a pandemic that could use more creative ideas, not fewer.
Why are federal politicians using their time to make plans to censor online expression?
A sample of what Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc has to say on the matter of criminalizing the online spread of ideas the government deems dangerously untrue: “This is not a question of freedom of speech. This is a question of people who are actually actively working to spread disinformation, whether it’s through troll bot farms, whether (it’s) state operators or whether it’s really conspiracy theorist cranks who seem to get their kicks out of creating havoc.”
Realizing that the people running the country believe that freedom of speech doesn’t apply — even as a consideration — in cases where they don’t like the speech in question … well, it’s scary, especially in the middle of a frightening crisis that makes government power grabs seem deceptively innocuous.
It sounds great to crack down on dangerous “cranks” pushing “disinformation.” Until you realize that a couple of months ago, anyone who was suggesting COVID-19 could and would spread through community transmission here — a notion Canadian public health leaders were scoffing at — would have been considered such a “crank.” Just a couple of weeks ago, anyone stating that wearing a mask in public was useful in stopping the spread of COVID-19 would also have been deemed a crackpot by the feds’ standards. Thankfully Mr. LeBlanc hadn’t yet come up with a law that would have shut them up.
As we have seen with this pandemic, the government doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth — it’s barely competent enough to recognize the truth when the truth is hitting it on the head. Do you really want that entity to have the power to decide which ideas about COVID-19 are valid and may be voiced and which ones are wrong and must be punished?
It’s not necessary to imagine, in the abstract, what sort of damage this kind of censorship would do. The scenario has already played out in China.
In December 2019, ophthalmologist Li Wenliang tried to sound the alarm in China about a mysterious new virus that was causing SARS-like symptoms. Within days, he was picked up by police and reprimanded for “making false comments on the Internet.” He died of COVID-19 six weeks later.
The scenario has already played out in China
A recent report by researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy showed that a day after Chinese doctors issued their warning about the illness, China’s most widely used social media app, WeChat, quickly blacklisted related terms, including “SARS outbreak in Wuhan” and “Unknown Wuhan pneumonia.” (WeChat doesn’t have a lot of competition since the Chinese government blocks access to Facebook and Twitter.)
While the deadly disease was spreading through China’s Hubei province, WeChat was censoring instructions and advice about wearing face masks and washing hands — information that would have saved lives but was deemed fake news by Chinese authorities at the time.
Doubtless it is obvious that this is an example Canada should not follow. One man’s whistleblower is another man’s havoc-wreaking conspiracy theorist. Allowing one of those men to impose criminal penalties on the other is a damaging way to deal with the difference.
It is true that there are scammers out there taking advantage of the fear generated by the pandemic, trying to make a buck by posing as people or institutions they aren’t.
But it is also true that there are already laws on the books to punish and prevent this foul flavour of fraud.
Don’t add on a new law that will leave skeptics — a group that has grown in number as the government’s flubbed response to COVID-19 has become evident — even more distrustful of government than they already are.
This is a matter of free speech. And during a pandemic, free speech and the unimpeded flow of information can mean the difference between life and death.
Let’s hope the federal government finds safer ways to keep itself busy.
• Email: soupcoff@gmail.com | Twitter:
Vancouver City Hall Covid Lockdown Protest, April 17, 2020
Coronavirus Lockdown Protest March, April 19, 2020 – Vancouver, Canada.
We’re planning to do this next Sunday 2:00 pm as well. I’ll send an email later about that. — Brian Ruhe
Author of the article:David CarriggPublishing date:8 hours ago • 2 minute read
Susan Standfield, inspired by the Operation Gridlock movement south of the border, decided to join a small anti-COVID restrictions protest on Sunday afternoon.
Standfield — who co-founded the Hope in the Shadows calendar that raises money in the Downtown Eastside — said her household income had dropped by 80 per cent since a state of emergency was declared in British Columbia last month to try and curtail the spread of COVID-19 infection.
“I saw something going on in Ohio, and then D.C., with Operation Gridlock. So I thought let’s go,” said Standfield.
Operation Gridlock is a protest movement across the U.S. in which protestors demand the governors of their states lift or loosen stay-at-home and other COVID-19 restrictions in the nation that has seen the most COVID-19 deaths. On Sunday, there were protests in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Washington.
The protest in Kitsilano on Sunday attracted about 25 people, carrying an array of of placards. Standfield, wearing a ball-cap saying Silenced, had a sign “I don’t want to be an unpaid teacher. No more lockdowns.”
The group was standing in close quarters and did not attract any positive reaction from passersby while Postmedia News was present.
Standfield said she contacted the Vancouver Police Department two hours before the protest to let them know. This was the third anti-restrictions protest in Vancouver. Last Sunday’s protest made use of the #endthelockdown tag in several of its placards.
The following day, B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix described the protesters as “marginal” and asked that they be ignored.
Standfield said several police officers escorted the protest group from Burrard and 1st Avenue, south to 4th, west to Yew Street, then north to Cornwall.
She believed countries like Sweden, South Korea and Belarus had done a better job than Canada and British Columbia with managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Lots of countries are doing it more strategically, more surgically, protecting weak people, but keeping the economy going,” Standfield said.
As of April 18, there were 579 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C., of whom 169 were recovering in hospital. Eighty-one people have died from the infection, that is passed through coughing and sneezing.
Last week, provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said it would be at least three weeks before any restrictions were lifted.
Close to six million people have applied for COVID-19 emergency aid benefits across Canada in the past month.
![VANCOUVER, BC., April 19, 2020 - Anti social distancing protesters at Burrard St and 1st Ave during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Vancouver, BC., on April 19, 2020. (NICK PROCAYLO/PNG) 00061095A ORG XMIT: 00061095A [PNG Merlin Archive]](https://postmediavancouversun2.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/png0419nsocialprotest-01.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&w=564)