Archives For COVID-19

Actorvist, Alyssa Milano Claims Masks Offer Greater Protection Than Guns

January 4, 2021 — Leave a comment

“Defund the Police” Alyssa Milano has offered unsolicited advice to anti-maskers in a swipe at gun owners.

The Daily Wire unpacked the nonsensical anti-gun Twitter tirade where the Milano, keyboard warrior and actorvist, asserted that

 “Anti-maskers are the same people who think they need an AR-15 for ‘protection.”

This was followed by her “shouting to the bleachers” in an apparent attempt to make herself better heard, writing,

“LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK: A MASK WILL PROTECT YOU *MORE* THAN AN AR-15 WILL.”

Conflating questionable protections against COVID-19 with the effectiveness of guns as a deterrent against an aggressive assailant, is false equivalence.

The logical fallacy may have garnered Milano attention, but her use of it isn’t impressive.

For me, Milano’s appeal to faulty logic joins the “either/or” Joebama train of fear, election campaign which preached the falsehood of “vote for me or face certain death at the hands of COVID, climate change, racists and Nazis, man!”

This also furthers serious concerns about how COVID-19 is being used by the Leftist “elite” to expand their influence, control and financial power base.

Further to this, surely her anti-gun rant inadvertently equates gun-toting criminals with a virus, and therefore comes under the Leftist banner of “hate speech”, intolerance, bigotry and fascism?

Noting Milano’s hypocrisy in high definition, The Daily Wire referenced a Fox News piece from September reporting Milano’s reliance on local police.

According to Fox, Police were called by Milano’s neighbour because said neighbour was concerned about a “a man dressed in all black, walking in the woods between our properties with a gun.”

Milano’s husband then rang the police in order to ‘find out when they were arriving.’

The gun toting man turned out to be a ‘hunter stalking squirrels with an air rifle.’

Entering 2021, be sure not to overlook the hypocrisy.

The lived-out message from our would-be overlords hasn’t changed:

There’s one rule for those who wish to rule us, another for those they wish to rule.

Come the zombie apocalypse or anything close in equivalence, be assured of this fact: following any celebrity’s advice outside exceptions like Denzel Washington in ‘The Book of Eli’, will prove to be as stupid a move, as Hollywood’s spate of unoriginal, “avant-garde” films, that drip with all the trimmings of California’s Radical Leftist social engineering industrial complex.

First posted on Caldron Pool, 30th December 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

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Federal M.P. George Christensen’s “No” to Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccinations is a win for Civil Liberties

December 14, 2020 — Leave a comment

In a letter to the Prime Minister, George Christensen (LNP – Dawson) has requested Scott Morrison ‘consider legislation or regulation to ban coercive measures by private companies or state governments that seek to restrict service to those who choose not to receive the [COVID-19] vaccine.’

Christensen’s bold public stand is a reply to QANTAS executive, Alan Joyce’s November fiat, requiring customers, regardless of age and susceptibility to the virus, be denied service if they didn’t cough up proof of having received a vaccination against COVID-19.

While not breaking ranks with Scott Morrison’s leadership in response to the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis, Christensen, joins Craig Kelly in breaking free from under the shadow of fear cast by bureaucrats, and corporations manipulating the deadly coronavirus for the cameras.

Exceptions to Christensen’s proposal for legislation would include ‘high-risk cohorts of the community, such as aged care homes’ where ‘vaccinations may be required prior to entry just as it is with the influenza vaccine.’

As Caldron Pool has consistently warned, the denial of freedom to trade, think, assemble, speak, and worship, for not meeting arbitrary laws that infringe on Classical Liberal freedoms in the name of civil rights, turns a war against the virus into a war against the people.

The denial of livelihoods will, has and is already affecting lives.

The implementation of authoritarian rule starts with laws demanding proof of an oath, party membership, “approved” melanin, or “approved” ethnicity. In the case of a mandatory COVID-10 vaccine, ‘it begins with travelling on an aircraft. It [will] end with trying to buy bread.’

Regardless of whether you read Revelation literally or metaphorically, the “get vaccinated against COVID-19 or else”, is mark of the beast territory.

Especially when hypocritical would-be anti-Christs in business suits, or fanatic activists with a power fist are selling it.

Christensen’s careful “no” to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations is a potential win for civil liberties.

(Full transcript and copy of the letter is available via Caldron Pool).

First published on Caldron Pool, 12th December 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

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The U.S. Election Debacle Is the Result of Democrat Disaster Porn

November 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

The COVID Reflex & the Mechanization of the Masses

Under the shadow of Democrat encouraged civil unrest, and Covid-19, the 2020 election was always going to be a close call.

Temporarily set aside valid concerns about voter fraud. Then consider the climate of fear that has been battering voters non-stop since January.

Leftist politicians and activists went from attacking pro-active, anti-COVID conservative governments with “that’s racist”, to “they knew and didn’t do anything to save lives.”

Go back to the debates. The Biden/Harris campaign maximized COVID-19 for political gain. Biden was propped up as the adult, taking Covid-19 seriously, while Trump was portrayed by the feckless legacy media as irresponsible, and reckless.

Aided by Big Tech, Doctors were silenced, while keyboard warriors asserted themselves as life-saving experts.

Anyone who presented a well-reasoned argument that countered the approved narrative, was censored.

When this was questioned, with the help of leftist funded “fact-checkers” hiding behind the word “Independent” (not to be confused with impartial), Big Tech told us that this censorship was “for the greater good” because it was about “saving lives.”

As has been suggested by others on various platforms, the consequence of this is that people have voted against Trump as though he was a) responsible for COVID-19 and b) was the virus itself.

Since 2016 the Democrats have been playing a zero-sum game. (Found in the murderous ambition of Antifa and BLM.) It wasn’t beyond them to pave Biden’s road to the White House with fear and the bodies of COVID victims.

Covid-19 may not have been designed to remove Donald Trump from the White House, but the Left was quick to weaponize COVID-19 as a means to do so.

As Amanda Prestigiacomo put it,

‘This election is not like anything we’ve seen before, with well over 65 million mail-in ballots cast, relaxed rules. (COVID panic porn vital here.) The chaos is a feature, not a bug. Trump needs to challenge everything. I think he will. His supporters can’t be disenfranchised.’

COVID-19 propaganda porn created a COVID reflex. Disaster porn has been the bedrock of the Democrat platform since Hillary Clinton failed to move into the White House after Barrack Obama, the leftist lord-of-lords and king-of-kings, ended his tenure.

The “vote for us, or face certain death at the hands of COVID and racists” equation appears to have been a winning formula.

This says nothing positive about American voters who appear to have voted in fear, because of falsehoods and fake news, over against facts, faith, and freedom. Victims of a successful, corrupt Democrat scare campaign.

The COVID reflex is the result of propaganda; vicious political maneuvering. It’s what Jacques Ellul called psychological warfare.

To illustrate this, Ellul pointed to the different levels of aid provided by the United States, and the Soviet Union to under-developed countries in the 1960s.

 ‘The United States gave three times as much assistance as did the Soviet Union; but thanks to propaganda, it is the Soviet Union who is regarded as the great helper and benefactor in whom one can put one’s trust.’ (Propaganda, 1965:134)

Ellul warned that the dangers in doubting the power of propaganda led to propagandists manipulating and implanting within the public a conditioned reflex. 

He deduced that ‘the propagandist seeks automatic responses; to induce action without consideration; mass movement without thought.’ (ibid, 300 & 302)

Enemies of this mechanization of the masses were ‘organic groups.’

This is why genuine dictatorships, and totalitarians undermine families, authentic churches, and traditional community assemblies.

The only way for the masses to be manipulated is to replace these groups with ‘new primary groups’; political action groups, parties, unions, where ‘the individual can be trapped and made ready for propaganda.’

This meant automated mechanization (ibid, p. 98). Examples include the Nazis’ strategy in banning Homeschooling, and undermining Sunday School with laws instructing parents to enlist their children in the Hitler Youth. Moa and Lenin’s political re-education mantra ‘each must be a propagandist for all.’ (ibid, p.82)

The point of this, Ellul states, is ‘to make the masses demand of the government what the government has already decided to do.’ (ibid, p.132)

Come back to the U.S. election, and four years of Democrat scare campaigning. The climate of fear successfully established conditions and controls. Covid-19 just gave the political establishment the impetus it needed to deploy hysteria and its subsequent, “vote for us, or face certain death” brain washing, to move the people against its political enemies.

As economics Professor Gary Galles concluded in his article for the Mises Institute,

‘The 2020 election results will be a test of earlier liberal/progressive “investments” in modifying how Americans think about things. But at this point, perhaps more important will be whether, after the fact, people recognize how much they have been manipulated, which is the first step to thinking more accurately, which must precede learning to effectively resist that manipulation.’

This COVID reflex may have given Joe Biden and the Democrats the edge over Trump. Fear is a powerful motivator. Much more so than freedom.

The globalist elite, and their bureaucratic caste friends in Washington D.C know this, and they strip-mined it for every ounce of political gain they could squeeze out of it.

The COVID reflex is a direct product of Leftist propaganda. More concerning than a Biden/Harris Presidency is this mechanization of the masses, and I’m almost convinced that the U.S. election results are proof of it.

First published on Caldron Pool, 7th November, 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Jacques Ellul, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , , ,
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The Govern-mental Either/Or Fallacy Re: Covid-19 Lockdowns

October 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

Here’s my two cents worth on the over-extension of economic lockdowns and bizarre justifications for totalitarian Covid-counter measures.

It’s one thing to agree that COVID-19 is a serious crisis. It’s another to follow along blindly, as if that crisis was not being exaggerated by politicians who see a bit of easy power grabbing in it.

The either/or logical fallacy assumes there’s no alternative. In the COVID-19 case, we’re now being told by the WHO, in a significant backflip from their previous up, and down prescriptions, that there is.

1 Corinthians 2:15: ‘The spiritual person judges all things…’

1 Peter 5:8-9: ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.’

2 Timothy 1:7: ‘…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.’

Romans 8:15: ‘For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Proverbs 4:23: ‘Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.’

 

Photo by marianne bos on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020

In Political Theology, Politics , ,
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Why Chris Uhlmann’s MSM Broadside into Victorian Labor’s Totalitarianism, Vindicates Discerning Citizens

September 22, 2020 — Leave a comment

Nine news political editor, Chris Uhlmann has launched an MSM broadside into the self-sabotaged, and slowly sinking, Victorian government.

Uhlmann took aim at the Victorian Premier, labelling the Andrews’ government’s oppressive COVID-19 response as ‘panic-stricken.’

In the piece published by the Sydney Morning Herald, Uhlmann accused Daniel Andrews of ‘destroying the village in order to save it,’ writing

‘nowhere in [Australia’s] often-opaque democracy has a less transparent court system, bureaucracy, police force or government than Victoria.’

Adding,

‘The people there have been badly served, even as some revelled in the servitude. Its systems of power have combined to deliver the wanton destruction of its vibrant society. Its government has condemned its people to a poorer future, to higher unemployment, more poverty and less opportunity.’

He reasoned that since most deaths have occurred in nursing homes, nursing homes should be better protected: ‘If you are going to throw a ring of steel around anything it should be around aged care homes, not Melbourne.’

Uhlmann also predicted a ‘global reckoning of governments,’ arguing that COVID-19 countermeasures were ‘doing more damage than the disease.’

He explained that ‘economic destruction imposed by governments will deliver millions into poverty, driving internal and external conflicts.’

Subsequently, poverty-stricken states ‘turning inward’ will push the world towards ‘more division, anger and polarization.’

Also worthy of note was Uhlmann’s damning, critical assessment of modern Australians,

While the ‘disease has revealed the character of our leaders’, it has ‘hammered home some uncomfortable truths about us as a people. As a nation we seem comfortable with authoritarianism and too many relish the role of prefect.’

Caldron Pool’s editor-in-chief, Ben Davis, applauded Uhlmann, stating,

“The whole situation highlights, not only just how dangerously deaf we can be if the narrative frightens us enough, but how willing we are to part with our freedoms and rights in exchange for the promise of safety, whatever devastating impacts may follow.”

Davis added,

“While it’s great that people are slowly beginning to ask the same questions Caldron Pool’s writers were asking six months ago, the real questions at this point are, how much damage has been inflicted and to what extent can we actually recover? Questions we might not have had to ask if the MSM had the foresight of our writers, and our warnings had been taken seriously.”

Uhlmann’s Sydney Morning Herald piece is a criticism of the bureaucratic caste’s COVID-19 disregard for civil liberties.

It vindicates the concerns of discerning citizens who, from the start of the lockdown craze, raised awareness about the lack of assurances from politicians concerning the preservation of civil liberties.

Caldron Pool have been asking these same questions, and positing the same warnings about the consequences of dubious anti-CV-19 authoritarian measures since March. We were behind the eight-ball from day one, while “fact-checkers,” and Leftists dismissed us as right-wing conspiracy theorists spreading misinformation.

As we’ve said from the beginning, there’s two sides to the coronavirus. The actual crisis, and the crisis manufactured by bureaucrats for the cameras.

Andrews’ COVID-19 response emulates Sisyphus.

The Victorian Premier is determined to keep going in one direction, applying the same damaging, flawed methods over and over again, despite (as Uhlmann pointed out) there being other options, and more information about the virus available than there was in March.

There is also a thin line between governments waging a war against the crisis, and governments waging a war against people caught up in that crisis.

Uhlmann is right. Andrews and other ‘will-to-power premiers’ have crossed that line, and the majority of Australians let them do it.

#Democracydiesindarkness

First published on Caldron Pool, 16th September, 2020.

Image: ABC Australia.

Background image: Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Australia, Australian History, Political Theology, Politics , ,
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Australia Gives More Funding to Controversial Anti-COVID-19 Drug

August 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

It might surprise the self-righteous, Covid-1984 surveillance and speech police, that Australia’s Healthy Minister, Greg Hunt, has been funding research into the “controversial” drug hydroxychloroquine.

According to an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald in early June, ‘the federal government was increasing funding for research into hydroxychloroquine, announcing that it was giving $170,020 [sic] as part of a $66 million dollar investment into a range of research projects to fight COVID-19.’

Contra to many a Soc-Med armchair expert, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute director Professor Doug Hilton ‘defended the research, stating ‘what we’ve learnt is that if you provide hydroxychloroquine to very sick patients, you have to do so carefully. I think there is still a huge amount of scientific debate on the usefulness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and I think there is absolutely required to be more clinical trials.’ (SMH)

Professor Hilton doesn’t consider the drug a cure, or a treatment, but said that ‘if you look at the scientific evidence, and if you read the papers rather than simply reading the tweets about hydroxychloroquine, I think the consensus is it could well be an extraordinarily-useful preventative.’ (ibid)

Hunt backed the research despite the WHO halting its own study, as a result of safety concerns, which were raised in a Harvard affiliated study published by The Lancet medical journal, claiming to have ‘conclusively proven’ that hydroxychloroquine was risky and ineffective against COVID-19.

Since publication that ‘study has had its validity’ challenged ‘after [two] corrections were published with the journal taking the unusual step of putting an ‘expression of concern’ on it.’

According to the SMH, ‘Australian scientists poked holes in it, pointing out that the study seemed to include more Australian deaths than have actually occurred. Along with a range of other issues that have now been identified, with almost 200 scientists signing an open letter raising concerns about the study.’

This was supported by the New York Times in mid-June, which added that ‘the experts who wrote The Lancet also criticized the study’s methodology and the authors’ refusal to identify any of the hospitals that contributed patient data, or to name the countries where they were located.’

In a rejection of the scientists concerns of the study’s claims against hydroxychloroquine, as of today, there is, and has been no independent review of its data, methodology and source material.

To add insult to the potentially massive injury the study has done across the globe, it remains live on The Lancet’s website.

The Australian Health Minister has been interested in hydroxychloroquine as a probable treatment or preventative for COVID-19 since March.

9news’ A Current Affair stated in April that Hunt had imported a ‘large supply’ of ‘hydroxychloroquine for doctors to use them with patients who are in hospital.’ Noting that ‘the advice Mr Hunt and the government have received is that experts are “cautiously hopeful” hydroxychloroquine can have an impact.’

Quoting from the same interview, Medical Republic dropped Donald Trump’s endorsement of the drug next to side-affects reported by French political magazine Le Point, and blamed Trump’s endorsement for ‘disastrous off-label use’, while stating in the same article that medical professionals were ‘prescribing hydroxychloroquine for themselves, other doctors, and their families.’

The implication that thousands of highly educated medical professionals are prescribing hydroxychloroquine, based squarely on Donald Trump ‘endorsing the drug’ is ludicrous.

Taking all this into account, it’s not a stretch to say that the politicisation of hydroxychloroquine isn’t the handiwork of Donald Trump, it’s the result of Leftist bureaucrats, and spin-doctors looking to deny Donald Trump a fair go at seeking re-election.

Look at how increasing anecdotal evidence is being suppressed by Silicon Valley as part of Big Tech’s ongoing support of The World Health Organisation.

Note well how Big Tech are supporting the same organisation that cheered on people calling Donald Trump and Scott Morrison’s travel bans on China, “racist”.

This is the same organisation that was more concerned about giving the Chinese virus a politically correct name instead of backing quarantine procedures that would have saved lives and livelihoods.

The same organisation that issued an authoritarian fiat back in February/March, with the justification that naming the virus from its point of origin – as has been tradition across the globe – was now apparently “racist”.

The same organisation that ‘kow-tows’ to the Communist Chinese Party, as Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer told Sky News in May, by running interference for the CCP in ‘a fight against any attempt to hold the CCP accountable.’

The Australian Government’s early move to supply hydroxychloroquine, and their funding of research into the drug as a weapon against COVID-19 is a condemnation of those suppressing anyone mentioning the word.

Hunt’s backing is justifiable. The sacrifice of medical professionals, patients, and freedom of speech isn’t.

Lives are riding on the research into hydroxychloroquine. The suppression of any data that could help speed up this research betrays a catastrophic contempt for human life.

Additional references:

The BBC: Hydroxychloroquine being ‘discarded prematurely’, say scientists

Note:

This is the third in a series of articles I’ve written on this subject. Social Media Companies have shadow banned each one.

First published on Caldron Pool, 10th August 2020.

Photo by Halacious on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Politics , ,
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Dennis Prager Backs Anti-COVID-19 Drug HCQ Saying That “The Left is Weaponizing Medicine”

August 10, 2020 — 1 Comment

In his latest fireside chat, Dennis Prager addressed the politicisation of hydroxychloroquine.

The founder of PragerU said he was “disturbed by the mockery of Doctors who believe hydroxychloroquine and zinc can help people in the very earliest stages of covid.” He also stressed the importance of zinc, in its use alongside HCQ, noting a series of interviews with at least one Doctor talking about his experience working with COVID-19 patients.

The opposition to HCQ, “which is overwhelmingly on the Left, is political,” he said. Powered almost entirely by an hysterical hatred of Donald Trump, who recommended it early on.

According to Prager, “we’re going from hysteria to hysteria all based on a lie.”  He pointed to Russian Collusion, which turned out to be a hoax, and the contradiction between the message and practice of apocalyptic climate change advocates, who claim the sky is going to fall if we don’t revert back to stone age existence within twelve years.

Calling the hysteria over HCQ “phony”, he said “I believe this, because I’ve been taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc as a preventative.” He added, that HCQ has been around for fifty years, and there’s people who’ve been taking it for decades. For instance, “when anybody who goes to a place where there’s Malaria. It’s side-affects, such as heart arrhythmia, are rare occurrences.”

Highlighting the irony of the “Left, who hate Big pharmaceutical companies” being in agreement with big pharmaceutical companies over HCQ, Prager illustrated that Left’s position was hypocritical. The hatred for Trump, seems to have trumped the hatred for Big Pharma. Since it’s “big pharma who’s really against HCQ, because it’s unbelievably inexpensive.”

This unholy alliance appears to based on a mutual hatred of the president. Trump has said that Big Pharma ads against him are retribution for lowering the price of drugs, and being the first president to do so. Trump tweeted, “Big Pharma is taking ads against me because I am MASSIVELY lowering your drug prices, which is obviously not good for them; Medicare premiums will also be going down.”

Fox news reported that the PhRMA trade association said it was willing to talk to the Trump administration about lowering the cost of drugs, but refused to sign on to policies that “allowed foreign governments to set drug prices.”

‘This refers to a component of one of the president’s executive orders, known as the “favored nations” policy, which would require Medicare to purchase drugs at the same prices paid by foreign countries, which the president said would prevent the U.S. from continuing to subsidize the cost of research and development for the entire world.’ Fox added.

This supports Prager’s point, not just about the weaponisation of medicine, but also the “corruption of science.” In a bold follow up he stated that the Left’s “hatred of Trump has perverted their ability to see reality. I believe that there is blood on the hands of all the doctors, all the media people, who are keeping people, who are in the early stages of COVID-19 from taking HCQ”

The fireside chat recalled how doctors have been removed from their posts, and had posts removed from social media for advocating a second medical opinion on HCQ. It recounted how those doctors are being ridiculed unprofessionally, by professional colleagues.

Echoing the sentiments of anyone up to date on the HCQ saga, Prager said, “I’m angry. I’m angry because people are dying because of the Left; people are dying because of the New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN. People are dying because of doctors who’ve decided to politicise science. I’m not for HCQ becuase Donald Trump recommended it. I’m for it, because it works.”

As for evidence, Prager cited the Times of India, saying “the second largest country in the world in terms of population, more than 5,000 Indian police officers in Mumbai were given a prophylaxis drug meant to prevent COVID-19. They’re giving it to health workers. All the people on the front line in India are being given hydroxychloroquine. India doesn’t care about Donald Trump. India doesn’t care about Left and Right, it cares about saving lives.”

Prager then outlines magazines who’ve been pressured into publishing negative studies of HCQ, and questions the long term affects of precedents involved in using science as a veil to censor anything that challenges Leftist ideology.

His 30 minute fireside chat can be viewed here.

He’s right and he inadvertently backs everything I’ve written on this subject in the past two weeks.

In case you missed those – (and it’s likely you have, because Social Media platforms are shadow banning Caldron Pool’s HCQ content) – here are the links:

1. Big Tech Spin Doctors Ban Viral Video of Real Doctors Offering a Second Opinion on COVID-19

2. Using the COVID-19 Crisis For Political Gain Has Precedent

3. Australia Increases Funding of Research Into ‘Controversial’ Anti-COVID-19 Drug

If November produces a Democrat president, don’t be surprised if COVID-19, the Marxist Black Lives Matter political party rallies, and Antifa thugs showboating for the media – as they tear up Democrat run cites – completely disappear from view.

Lives are riding on the research into hydroxychloroquine. The suppression of any data that could help speed up this research betrays a catastrophic contempt for human life.

© Rod Lampard, 2020
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