It’s astonishing how much media attention has been given to the story of the Russian-American Jewish writer Masha Gessen and the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Named in honour of the German Jewish political thinker Arendt, who’s best known for coining the phrase ‘banality of evil’ in her report of the 1961 trial of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, the prize is awarded annually by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the City of Bremen in Germany.
At the end of last year, it was announced that Gessen had been awarded the prize, only for it then to be reported that it had been withdrawn on account of an incendiary article Gessen had written for the New Yorker magazine. Eventually it transpired that the prize had not in fact been withdrawn, but merely that the prize ceremony had been downgraded.
Gessen then complained on Twitter that journalists hadn’t been contacting her to ask her about the story, which led to her being overwhelmed by media attention. Gessen, a LGBT campaigner who identifies as ‘non-binary’, characterised it as a free-speech issue, but wasn’t quite so keen on freedom of speech when it came to journalists’ reporting of it, because she insisted they refer to her by her chosen pronouns ‘they/them’ rather than by her biologically correct pronouns (‘she/her’). So not free speech, but ‘compelled speech’.
In one of the many interviews she’s since conducted, Gessen suggested that she’s the victim of a ‘new McCarthyism’.
Well, it’s a funny way of trying to repress her, by spreading her opinions all over the media. Gessen has herself described the episode as “an attempt to silence me that failed”.
In the New Yorker article that started the controversy, as part of a discussion of the ways in which the Holocaust is remembered, Gessen described Gaza as a ghetto: “Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in a Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany.” She added that the ghetto is now being “liquidated”.
In response to this article, the Chairman of the German-Israeli Society of Bremen wrote to the Heinrich Böll Foundation to complain that Gessen’s language demonstrated a “deep-seated prejudice” against Israel and to insist that the Arendt prize should be withdrawn. The Foundation pulled out from supporting the prize ceremony (as did the City of Bremen), but insisted it would still give her the award. There was still a ceremony, but a small, insignificant one. So hardly a major scandal.
What made the story into a big one was the fact that a Left-wing writer had been denied full expression of the Left’s favourite subject, the oppression of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. ‘Progressive’ media outlets, who had shown themselves uninterested in the question of free speech when it concerned criticism of Covid measures, the climate narrative or gender-related issues, suddenly discovered that they cared a great deal about the subject after all.
In the Guardian, Samantha Hill, who has written a book about Hannah Arendt, commented that “the irony is almost too thick to cut”, arguing that Arendt would not herself qualify today for the prize given in her name on account of her own opinions about the State of Israel – which might be correct, but isn’t really relevant, because the prize had not in fact been withdrawn.
In the New Statesman, the feminist commentator Susan Neiman described Gessen as a “distinguished and courageous writer [who] is prepared to call out repression where they [sic] see it”, and “the most prominent among a growing list of Jewish women who have been lambasted in Germany for criticising the Israeli Government”, among them Neiman herself. Neiman also condemned “the misogynistic tone conveyed in the media’s dismissive contempt for our arguments”. Neiman might want to ‘check her thinking’ here, since she seems to have decided that the ‘non-binary’ Gessen counts as a woman when it suits her case.
Gessen clearly thought she was being original in describing Gaza as a “ghetto”. As she said in one of her interviews about the story, “The question I had to ask when writing this was ‘Why hadn’t this comparison been made before?’”
Well, it has been. Repeatedly. Gaza was first compared to a ghetto (specifically the Warsaw Ghetto) by the Jewish Labour MP Oona King after a fact-finding trip to the region in 2003. After Israel attacked Gaza at the end of 2008 in response to rocket attacks by Hamas, there were multiple comparisons in the media with the Warsaw Ghetto. In a debate in the House of Commons, the Jewish Labour MP Gerard Kaufman compared Hamas “militants” to “Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw Ghetto”. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Richard Falk said Israel’s actions in Gaza “evoked the worst kind of memories of the Warsaw Ghetto”.
All of which led to Al Jazeera publishing an article by Mark LeVine, a professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of California, in which he criticised the frequent comparison of Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto, which he pointed out had been a stage en route to extermination; Gaza, he insisted, is not that. “The use of highly charged historical comparisons that do not hold up to scrutiny unnecessarily weakens the Palestinian case against the occupation,” wrote LeVine, adding that they ignored Egyptian complicity and diminished Palestinian agency.
LeVine’s criticisms have done nothing to stop continued, even constant comparisons between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto by Left-wing commentators such as George Galloway and Tony Greenstein.
So Gessen’s comparison was far from the original observation she imagined it to be. Jewish Voice for Labour – the Corbynite pro-Palestinian Jewish group within the Labour Party, as opposed to the Jewish Labour Movement, which is the pro-Israel Labour Jewish group – entitled its report on the Arendt prize affair, ‘Masha Gessen’s prize for freethinking withdrawn for freethinking about Gaza‘. Leaving aside the error that the prize was not in fact withdrawn, it’s telling that Jewish Voice for Labour should describe as ‘freethinking’ the expression of a perspective shared pretty much universally by Gessen’s fellow travellers.
What would really have been freethinking would have been for someone who describes him- or her- self as ‘progressive’ to follow Mark LeVine in arguing that Gaza was not a ghetto.
If Gessen had really wanted to be original, she might have thought of using the term ‘ghetto’ to describe somewhere other than Gaza – for example the State of Israel (or indeed pretty much any Westernised country) when Covid restrictions were in force and the entire population were denied their freedoms.
In her article in the New Yorker, Gessen made it clear she understood that her comparison of Gaza with a ghetto wasn’t an exact parallel and that there were fundamental differences between them – in particular, that the Nazis claimed ghettos were necessary to protect the rest of the population from diseases spread by Jews (whereas Israel has argued that it’s necessary to isolate Gaza in order to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks).
In Nazi terminology, the Warsaw Ghetto was a Seuchensperrgebiet (‘epidemic quarantine area’). The Jews were walled in because the Germans were told they would otherwise infect them with typhus.
Well, the Covid restrictions that prevented people from leaving their homes and from exercising their rights to freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom to protest and freedom to travel, and the ‘vaccine passports’ (in Israel, the ‘green pass’) that prevented unvaccinated people from fully participating in society, were introduced on precisely the same grounds as those adduced by the Nazis for enclosing Jews in ghettos in occupied Europe – to protect the general public from an infectious disease spread by a class of people whom they considered to stand outside the bounds of normal society. So why did Gessen and her ilk not use the term ‘ghetto’ then? Why are they only interested in using it in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
It’s possible to be appalled by the current situation within Gaza while at the same time criticise the Left’s obsession with it. It’s not necessary to support the State of Israel’s current military operation in order to condemn Left-wing commentators for only ever making Holocaust comparisons with the actions of the State of Israel and never with measures taken by any other country, be it Saudi Arabia, Turkey or China (or indeed the USA). Why are there mass demonstrations about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza but not about the predicament of Afghan refugees in Pakistan or Sudanese in Chad or Venezuelans in Colombia?
Where Gessen is correct is in arguing that because the concept of crimes against humanity emerged from World War II and the Holocaust, any reference to these crimes – and any discussion of whether or not they have been committed – is by definition a comparison of the Holocaust to current events.
Gessen’s comparison of Gaza to a World War II ghetto is a microcosm of her main argument, that we should be allowed to compare aspects of the Holocaust with current events on the grounds that it’s only by comparing one event with another that it is possible to learn from history.
I think that’s reasonable. I’ve said as much myself in previous articles in the Daily Sceptic.
What has offended Gessen, and riled the ‘progressive’ media commentators who have supported her, is that German organisations such as the Heinrich Böll Foundation have obstructed Gessen’s efforts to make such a comparison.
“Where is the courage today?” asks Samantha Hill in her Guardian article, calling for the Foundation to take a moral stand.
There’s a reason for this organisational fastidiousness. Gessen and her allies appear to be unaware of the German legislation (Section 130 of the federal German criminal code) that criminalises the ‘relativisation’ or ‘downplaying’ (in German, verharmlosen) of the Holocaust by comparing it to current events. Their ignorance of the law undermines their arguments.
Robert Höschele is – like Gessen – a Jew who was born and brought up within the Soviet Union. They share the experience of having spent their formative years in a totalitarian society. Höschele’s family emigrated to Germany in 1981, the same year as Gessen’s family left Russia for the USA. Höschele now lives in Bavaria, which in the winter of 2020-21 imposed a ‘hard lockdown’, with much more severe restrictions than in the U.K. People were forbidden from leaving their homes to exercise, or to leave them at all between 9pm and 5am.
In Munich in February 2021 Höschele delivered an officially sanctioned speech at an anti-lockdown protest, in which he stated that in the so-called ‘free state’ of Bavaria, three-quarters of a century since the liberation of concentration camps such as Dachau (a mere dozen miles from Munich), “laws are passed that prescribe the internment of people”.
As Höschele has since pointed out, ‘internment’ means imprisonment without charge or without intent to file charges, so was a term that accurately described the situation in Bavaria during the winter of 2020-21.
Nonetheless, Höschele has been prosecuted and convicted under Section 130 of the federal German criminal code for the crime of ‘relativising’ the Holocaust. Höschele has appealed his conviction: his letter of appeal currently sits with the Bavarian Supreme Court, unanswered. It might well sit there for months, even years. Meanwhile, the verdict against him remains “valid but not executed”. He’s facing 90 days in prison. As Höschele puts it, “it’s like waiting in a judicial limbo written by Kafka himself”.
Höschele is far from alone. A number of other campaigners against the German Covid measures have been prosecuted under Section 130 for comparing them to the actions of the Nazi regime. Legislation intended to prevent Holocaust denial by neo-Nazis would appear to have been weaponised by the German authorities to silence their critics. The sword of Damocles is suspended above them in long, drawn-out prosecutions which have the effect of keeping them quiet and frightening away others from following their path. As the saying goes, the process is the punishment.
In a previous article in the Daily Sceptic I mentioned that the Holocaust survivor Vera Sharav is being prosecuted by the State of Bavaria for a speech at the commemoration in Nuremberg of the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code in the summer of 2022. “Those who declare that Holocaust analogies are ‘off-limits’ are betraying the victims of the Holocaust by denying the relevance of the Holocaust,” she declared.
Sharav, who spent three years of her childhood in a concentration camp, is now back home in the USA but the case continues. A Holocaust survivor being prosecuted for ‘Holocaust denial’. Now that’s really irony that’s “too thick to cut”.
Another victim of Section 130 is the American playwright and satirist C.J. Hopkins, who lives in Berlin. (Hopkins isn’t Jewish, although his wife is.) Last summer Hopkins was convicted for displaying an image of swastika on top of a medical mask on the cover of his book The New Normal Reich, which according to the state prosecutor amounted to “disseminating propaganda, the content of which is intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organisation”. In fact, Hopkins was lampooning what he saw as the neo-Nazi tendencies of the German Covid regime. The stated grounds for Hopkins’s conviction are so clearly the opposite of the truth that it’s impossible to reach any conclusion other than that the prosecution was motivated by a desire to find an excuse to scare him into silence. Which has worked, to an extent, because he’s said that once he’s finished appealing his case, he’ll be leaving the country.
One might reasonably wonder why Gessen herself isn’t being prosecuted under Section 130, given that she repeated her Holocaust comparisons in Germany in an official context after her prize had been awarded.
Gessen’s non-prosecution adds further weight to the argument that Section 130 is weaponised by the German authorities specifically against critics of their Covid measures.
I’m shocked by the apparent ignorance of Gessen and her supporters about these Section 130 cases. But then, because Höschele, Sharav, Hopkins and others spoke out against the Covid restrictions, they’re regarded by mainstream media as beyond the pale; their cases remain unreported there. So we read instead about the ‘silencing’ of someone who has had her prize ceremony downgraded.
That said, Gessen has an important point to make, and if she’s the one to get publicity for it – whatever the reason – then it would be churlish to complain. Gessen is critical of the German attitude to Holocaust memorialisation, for good reason. By forbidding any comparison of the Holocaust with current events, the German state is placing it on a pedestal, beyond the bounds of historical discussion. Germany is trying to control its own history.
As Gessen says:
If the whole rationale for maintaining Holocaust memory is the pledge to learn from history, then how do you learn from history if you place an event outside of history, if you say that it cannot be compared to anything that is going on now?
I would argue that the only way to learn from history is constantly to be checking back to see if that thing we swore we would never do again… is happening again. Or if we’re seeing the warning signs, the beginning of it.
And elsewhere:
In order to learn from history, we have to compare. We are not better or smarter or more educated people than [those] who lived 90 years ago. The only thing that makes us different from those people is that in their imagination the Holocaust didn’t yet exist and in ours it does. We know that it’s possible. And the way to prevent it is to be vigilant, in the way that Hannah Arendt and other Jewish thinkers who survived the Holocaust were vigilant.
Unfortunately, Gessen hasn’t been quite so vigilant as she would like to imagine. She never noticed the comparison between the beginnings of the Holocaust and the restrictions on freedom imposed in the name of ‘combating’ Covid: the erosion of human rights, the silencing of dissent, the transformation of the media into a propagandising tool, the corruption of science and the scapegoating of the unvaccinated comparable to the discrimination against Jews (and other marginalised groups) in 1930s Germany. For someone who’s lived through and written about totalitarianism, Gessen seems remarkably unaware of its ‘warning signs’. Gessen has some good ideas, but she can’t see how they might apply outside the narrow worldview of her political bubble.
Still, if anything good has come out of the Hannah Arendt prize story and all the attention Gessen has been given, it’s that the importance of learning from the history of the Holocaust has been accorded the public attention that it deserves but has all too often been denied.
Andrew Barr is the founder of Jews for Justice, which campaigns for freedom of speech and civil liberties from a Jewish perspective. The group can be contacted by email. Find Andrew on X and on his Substack page the Journal of a Dissident Jew.
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We can’t have it both ways though.
I’m not responsible in any way for Britain trading slaves a few hundred years ago. So, neither can I be proud of the brilliance of Shakespeare or Elgar.
If the misdeeds of our ancestors are no reflection on me then neither are their achievements.
It’s not a reflection of you. However that doesn’t mean you cannot honour the people who did extraordinary things to shape the direction of the country you where born in, nor should we erase the misdeads of others, lest we repeat the same mistakes. But in some form or another, the culture that we inherited from our ancestors shapes us whether we realise it or not.
Thats precisely the argument of those who throw the accusation of white privilege and inherent racism.
I personally don’t agree with it, but that’s what they keep throwing at white people.
Baffled by the downvotes.
I’m glad I live in England as it seems like a decent country, relatively speaking, and allows me to live a pleasant life in general, albeit things seem to be in overall decline now. But I am only “proud” of those of my personal achievements that have come through making effort and exercising self discipline – and even then I’m not at all sure that too much “pride” is healthy.
Surely one recognises both misdeeds and achievements past and present, and tries to avoid the misdeeds and aspire to similar achievement.
Perhaps whoever wrote that sentence didn’t really mean pride but simply celebrating what people generally agree to be good about a country.
It may be something to do with, if I may say so, a perception of a slightly ‘preachy’ tone?
That’s funny, because whenI hear Douglas Murray, that’s exactly rhe feeling I get.
In any case, I think it’s mostly due to the cognitive dissonance.
In any case it’s pure.logic. if you can be proud of your nation due to its past achievements then you can feel shame too. No amount of down votes is going to change that.
I’m unsure, like others, about how “proud” one should be.
I’m pleased ti be British and also pleased that my Grandfather ( who was killed when my father was only 1 year old) was an Anglo-Indian. Good old Raj.
I am well aware of things that should not have happened at numerous points in the past, but see absolutely no reason why I should feel “shame” about anything which happened long before I was born.
But if you think it appropriate in California to shovel half a million dollars of taxpayer’s money to anyone who has an ancestor who was a slave, should there not be an appropriate scheme that works in the opposite direction?
How much compensation should black Californian taxpayers stump up, for not having grown up like a Haitian or Liberian?
I can’t find any preachy tone, just an expression of a personal view accompanied with what seems like a logical argument.
“But I am only “proud” of those of my personal achievements that have come through making effort and exercising self discipline – and even then I’m not at all sure that too much “pride” is healthy.”
There is a degree of over-thinking going on here, or perhaps not enough.
Unfortunately tof although you state that you are proud of your personal achievements you fail to acknowledge that these are to some large degree a result of your heritage.
It is not just our genes which shape who we are but the history that comes through the generations and subtly influences how we currently live, feel and act.
Why on earth did Bliar set the ball rolling with unlimited immigration? Why have successive governments ramped it up? The reason is very simple – in order to undermine and indeed collapse the very idea of Britishness?
At the moment we are still defined as a people by our inherent Britishness in the same way that many long-standing nations are defined by acknowledged national characteristics – French, Germans, Dutch and so on.
Whether you like it or not the “pride”you feel now is derived in no small part from those who have lived and died before you in these islands.
We should learn from the apparent misdeeds of our ancestors and rightly and greatly celebrate their successes and achievements.
To assume that who and what we are now is simply down to our intelligence and inherent decency is hubris of the worst sort.
“No man is an island.”
Indeed. Of course I recognise that everything I achieve is made possible to differing degrees by what and who has gone before. I am thankful for that and I think feel as strongly as you do that English culture and European culture must be preserved. If you want to call that pride then I’m proud (certainly not ashamed) – but I take pride to mean you are in part taking personal credit for something and I can’t do that – as Stewart points out the other side of the coin is not feeling shame for things other people have done.
Anyway I think this is semantics and we are on the same page as far as what would like to see from the future and what sadly is likely to happen
While that may be true in a general, abstract sense, I think that my individual characteristics, the decisions I make on how to live my life and how I chose to act are a far, far bigger factor on my behaviour than whatever prior generations did or did not do. So what Shakespeare or Newton did hundreds of years ago is sort of irrelevant to my behaviour and nothing to be particularly proud of. Like TOF says, admire, for sure. But proud?
I’m not a big fan of national pride.and tribes in general. I think these notions are used to manipulate people and concentrate power. I understand people’s need to have a shared identity and sense of belonging, but at the level of the nation state in particular it comes at a steep price, in my view.
I know I’m in a minority on this.
I like this, and the picture’s awesome too. ”Real eyes realise real lies”. Once you’re awake you can’t go back to sleep, though many have been awake since the start.
”They know this was never about health.
They know there is a bigger agenda playing out.
They know their history, their psychology and can read journal articles.
They know that all the tools which enabled this are still in place and are being strengthened as others move on.
They know Dr Bloomfield has been representing NZ at WHO meetings to contribute to this strengthening.
They know people are still dying and being harmed by what has been done.
They know that until the harm is acknowledged, treatments can’t be considered, nor justice sought, and the world can’t “move on”.
They know that there will be ongoing ramifications for years, if not for decades or generations to come.
They know that worldwide all-cause mortality is rising, birth rates are falling and something is killing us off.
They know that the people who have colluded to cause this damage and death are still in positions of authority and knew what they were doing.
They know there is more to come, and it is only a matter of time before the next ‘pandemic’ is declared.”
https://nzdsos.com/anti-vaxxers-move-on/
Excellent …. thanks for posting
Did you write that Mogs , it’s spot on I’m afraid
, I listened to the Delingpod & James is 100% behind Andrew Bridgen while Toby adds a few nuance’s about AB to dilute his bang on message ( which I guess he has to ) however AB,s info is correct ! I would stake my life on it !!
Thanks for the link Mogs. Excellent.
Our Prof Fenton facing the John Campbell treatment. Too much truth backed up by data on YT will do that. Silence those truth-spreaders, they’re a public menace and risk screwing up our evil plans!
”Perhaps if the voices of us “conspiracy theorists” with our “bizarre claims” (at the start of 2021) that the vaccines could kill had not been censored, while claims that the vaccines were 100% effective were widely promoted, then the thousands of deaths and injuries from the vaccines would have been avoided. And people like Lisa Shaw, Michelle Barlow, Zion, and Stephen Wright – none of whom had any medical need to take his vaccine – would still be alive today.”
https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/when-real-misinformation-kills
“The Prime Minister set out plans to make it easier for British farmers to diversify their incomes, such as through setting up farm shops on their land,”
So when we take your farm off you, you’ll have so kind of income at least!
Farm shops selling electricity from solar panels and edible insects?
re:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12085321/Expanding-ULEZ-scheme-wont-effect-slashing-lung-cancer-rates-TfLs-analysis-states.html
Every time the person who identifies as the leader of the Labour Party opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it. What a liability he and his Party are.
How will imposing
penaltiessurcharges on people who just want to live their life, respectfully and lawfully, in relative peace improve health?Will there be a financial sliding scale
penaltysurcharge imposed – in the interests of health and, oh yes, that misbegotten aim of ‘not overwhelming’ the ‘beloved’ NHS – on every day to day activity?Just imagine, a
penaltysurcharge just to enter an ale house – £7.25 anyone?Or, entering a fast food venue – is £4.75
penaltysurcharge reasonable?Don’t even think of entering a sweet shop – an automatic
penaltysurcharge of £2.65 may be the going rate!Of course, we should all be
forcedcoerced and manipulated to pay thepenaltiessurcharges in order to improve everyone’s health and to avoid being labelled selfish and anti- good health.Remember that famous saying:
’No one is safe until everyone is safe.’
An excellent post. Spot on. Kneel is a disaster waiting to happen.
And of course with Ranting as his number two what could go wrong?
Thanks hp
The petitions committee have requested the Government respond again to the petition ‘Hold a parliamentary vote on whether to reject amendments to the IHR 2005’ only this time directly address the request of the petition: –
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/635904
Who defines truth? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQry8hZQu0I published by JC, around 5 1/2 minutes.
Yesterday evening Todd Callender & Dr Theresa Long were the guest speakers at the MD4CE meeting. We were updated on a court case Todd filed, which so far hasn’t been thrown out because it has a constitutional element. Dr Long updated us about the impact of the mandates on the health of previously fit & healthy young men & women & the consequences of the policies of the last few years on the military itself.
What is indisputable is the personal toll that diagnosing & attempting to treat these serving personnel is having on Dr Long. Her compassion shines brightly.
The recording of the meeting can be viewed here: https://rumble.com/user/cbkovess
Todd & a group of like minded individuals has bought CloutHub, meaning that it is a truly free speech social media platform & welcomes members with every opinion which will not be censored.
You can sign up for an account here: https://app.clouthub.com/#/onboarding/signup/nameform
If you want to, you can find me there.
Plus Ca Change!!?
(the ‘official’ announcement)….
”Today, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Dr. Monica Bertagnolli as Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s preeminent biomedical research organization. Dr. Bertagnolli is a world-renowned surgical oncologist, cancer researcher, educator, and physician-leader who has the vision and leadership needed to deliver on NIH’s mission to seek fundamental knowledge and promote human health.”
…this is the same Dr who tweeted in October 2020….”We all love Nobel prediction season….but I know who deserves the Peace Prize our colleague Tony Fauci..he’s been awesome for a long time….”
or…June 2021….tweeted..,.”we can protect people with weakened immunity if everyone else gets vaccinated…”
She was a strong proponent of Public Health Establishments efforts to censor covid ‘misinformation’ …. praising the then Surgeon General, Murthy , who at the time was demanding tech companies should share data on misinformation offenders’….
…and the cherry on the cake…
@TheChiefNerd
Biden plans to nominate Dr. Monica Bertagnolli as the new head of the NIH.
From 2015-2021, Bertagnolli received more than 116 grants from Pfizer, totaling $290.8 million. This amount made up 89% of all her research grants.
LOL…I’m shocked I tell you shocked!!!
“From 2015-2021, Bertagnolli received more than 116 grants from Pfizer, totaling $290.8 million. This amount made up 89% of all her research grants.”
Pfizer must be delighted at this return on their investment.
VonDer liar at the European Commission two days ago….…
”the report shows that a growth model centred on fossil fuels is simply obsolete”
…and they clap!!?
we are doomed!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiBMKpaXIdE
Fond er lying ‘s speech is just that – packed full of lies. It is essentially the Communist Manifesto updated and rewritten for the 21st century.
Apparently Europe is to become a “climate neutral continent.” I tend to believe that if our climate is taken away we will all be dead. And wtf is “climate neutral?”
The speech, or Manifesto pronouncement is a staggeringly grotesque parody of real life and as stated above literally packed full of lies :
“Last year in Europe we produced more energy from unreliables than we have ever produced from fossil fuels.”
Is that right fond er lying? Could I see your sums?
Actually the complete lack of shame and self-awareness is horrific to behold.
Guetzkow
@joshg99
Interesting Twitter thread from Josh Guetzkow…..
“Was the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine clinical trial a bait-and-switch?
There were >44,000 people in the trial, but only ~250 of them were given doses made with a new manufacturing method (‘process 2’) that was used to make enough doses to sell around the world.
To our knowledge, the safety and efficacy comparison they planned to do with those 250 subjects has never been published and has not been released in the FOIA’d documents that Pfizer submitted to the FDA. Was the comparison ever done? Where are the results?
Keep in mind that one of the major changes in the new production process was using bacterial cDNA to upscale production of mRNA. @Kevin_McKernan’s
analysis of vaccine vials found unacceptably high levels of leftover bacterial DNA.
Pfizer’s 6-month report to the FDA doesn’t include the process 2 comparison, but it does show a significantly higher serious adverse event rate in placebo subjects after they were given the vaccine compared to the original vaccine group, “as expected.” Why was it expected?
In addition, a recent Danish study found significant variability in the rate of serious adverse events across 52 different lots of Comirnaty. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13998
Business of the House 11/05: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z1YS9TLdGE&list=WL&index=4 Might have been mentioned before – about a minute or so; how to say “no”, without actually saying so, a cynic might say.
Nationalism has earned itself a bad repute after the behaviour of the European powers (not just Germany) over the last couple of centuries. But it does not follow that the French or the Germans, the English or the Spanish, always have to be at each others´ throats any more than we would expect siblings to be. We are a gregarious species and, after families then tribes, nations come next, usually defined by a common language. As with siblings, sometimes there´s a flare-up at puberty before we reach the sanity of adulthood and maybe the 19th/20th centuries were the puberties of nation states.
It looks as though the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, SouthAfrica) have realized this but America remains stuck in adolescence wanting to boss the world of its fellow nations around. And the European nations are behaving like minnows threatened by a an immature, aggressive gang-leader. Each nation should grow up and, while taking pride in its culture, abandon violence as a means of settling disputes with other nations.
Contrary to the globalists´ pretensions, humans need families, tribes, nations: they are the natural evolution of societies and, despite the hiccups of national development, we should now be able to manage a nation´s growth with pride in its culture and achievements but with humility and manners in its dealings with other nations. We can´t get rid of nations: it goes against human evolution and anyone with experience will tell you it´s futile to fight against nature.