State of Plague, Part 1:Disease-Mongering as Militarized Trojan Horse for Globalization and Surveillance
The plague-stricken town, traversed throughout with hierarchy, surveillance, observation, writing; the town immobilized by the functioning of an extensive power that bears in a distinct way over all individual bodies - this is the utopia of the perfectly governed city. The plague (envisaged as a possibility at least) is the trial in the course of which one may define ideally the exercise of disciplinary power. In order to make rights and laws function according to pure theory, the jurists place themselves in imagination in the state of nature; in order to see perfect disciplines functioning, rulers dreamt of the state of plague.
~Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Read Part 2 , Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 , Part 9 and Part 10
By Adriana Gamondes
Reporting from the Grave
In struggling to explain a new and imminently dangerous political shift in the US, Tom Engelhardt of Tom Dispatch writes,
Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.
Tom Dispatch has been an important media source for the following report and I generally agree with the substance of the article—1% elections, demobilization of Americans, privatization of everything and the security state as fourth branch of government. I agree on every count except one—that any of this is new or lacks a name.
Like Engelhardt, only moreso, I also feel out of my depth with the issue of militarized “globalization” as it relates to the pharmaceutical crusade against consumer rights. Others have named these things separately and I’ve waited patiently for years for leading political analysts and activists to put the pieces together.
But it finally dawned on me that this is the type of reporting that can only happen from the bottom—from sources with little to lose but themselves—both because the view from political purgatory has a certain clarity and because activists and analysts who focus on broader political scopes generally have other life and death issues hinging on their ability and agency to get a their perspectives into the wider media. When they go down, so does the range of issues they might be rare voices for.
And let’s face it—the vaccine safety and policy reform campaign is more cautionary tale than inspirational activism narrative at this point. If Howard Zinn were alive today, the movement might be added to his list of tragic causes silenced by power and buried by history. Each attempt to improve things has been met at every pass with more system degeneration—from the erection of the disastrous Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP, “vaccine court”) to the Lilly rider and the Bruesewitz decision, crushing Omnibus rulings, the expansion of the childhood schedule to nearly 70 doses, the digging in of heels on mercury in flu shots and vaccines supplied to the third world, an exploding “autism drug” market further disincentivizing environmental research, the merging of aggressive front groups with a privatized state security apparatus, and finally the current campaign to legislate compulsory vaccination.
Even with recent successes against removal of personal exemptions in Oregon and Washington, state crusades against vaccine exemptions continue to spread, federal enforcement still looms, and vaccine safety and autism activists seem farther away from original goals. To make matters worse, in the case an individual is disabled by vaccination—an indisputed risk of a technology ruled “unavoidably unsafe” by the Supreme Court and the reason for the existence of the VICP— the treatment of the disabled in the US, including disabled veterans, is increasingly lethal and deplorable. And even those few awarded compensation in vaccine court would most likely be ineligible for medical exemptions under progressively narrowing parameters set by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
In terms of being the voice of change, those of us with dead and injured family members are, by all appearances, dead and buried ourselves except for the fact that every crackdown and step backward correspond to an increase in the number of Americans who view vaccine safety as a research priority or who suspect the tech is not as safe as claimed. Those shifts were inevitable but hardly victories since the aim had been to better the system before the damage, cost and jaundice spread.
All of this eventually led me to the realization that the war against balanced public health reporting in the US—one that effectively turns the subject into a career-burning swan song for any prominent journalist or public figure who dares to question the paradigm— is overwhelmingly political and has far less to do with protecting health or even industry profits than protecting the paradigm itself and its multiple unstated applications.
The use of public health campaigns for purposes other than actual public health could be seen as a sort of coercive tied selling. Except that, with the vaccine program, we’re arguably getting a side of targeted killings, drones, hegemony and expansionism, mass surveillance, radical economic programs including the privatization of education, an increasingly captured media, and yet another rationale for domestic militarization.
In other words, public health reform isn’t merely a secondary cause that would necessarily gain ground on a wave of political reconstruction if only, say, Citizens United were rolled back, if environmental protections were improved, if Halliburton-style privatization schemes were cut from the taxpayer teat, if regulatory capture could be curtailed, or if media and academia reclaimed freedom from corporate bondage, etc. Intead it’s a linchpin issue and perpetual entry point for the rest to stay as is or grow worse. In the battle to retain rights, addressing those being threatened under the guise of public health is not an avoidable morass but, at this moment, only the “dead” will name it.
Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP
The Vaccine Program’s Suicide by Agenda Ballast
By now, most of the country is aware that those dissenting from official public health doctrine on vaccination are facing potential threats of jail (USA Today, Washington Post, LA Times), segregation (National Public Radio), fines and civil suits (Forbes). The public has seen the media celebrating state child removal as a tool of vaccine enforcement (Daily Kos), along with the chilling proposal that children belong not to parents but to the state (USA Today).
It seems unlikely that all this is happening due to an outbreak of measles that seems to have run its course, was far smaller than last year’s, has so far involved zero deaths in the US, and is largely attributable—like the 2010 pertussis spike— to vaccine failure, not a drop in uptake. The fact that the current rash of state campaigns to remove exemptions followed directly on the heels of several whistleblower disclosures regarding vaccine inefficacy and the link between vaccination and autism suggests triggers other than measles might be pushing the agenda forward—one apparently bent on locking down consumers before whistleblower hearings set for spring potentially lead to mass opt-outs.
Considering that 1/3 of US children are now living in poverty, it’s disturbing that the same seemingly progressive media outlets decrying municipal violation traps, state child snatching for profit and the criminalization of American life are simultaneously stumping for mandates. Since this is also happening in conjunction with a campaign for a universal adult mandate and tracking program, and while there are nearly 300 vaccines in the approval pipeline, this could eventually push even the most compliant consumers past their limits and into legal standoffs that most can’t afford.
But some might argue that, in the post 9/11 disaster capitalism era, triggering mass dissent might be part of the scheme, or at least easily enfolded into it. The list of corporations profiting from prison labor should be a prime illustration. From Truthdig: "Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, AutoZone, Bank of America, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chevron, the former Chrysler Group, Costco Wholesale, John Deere, Eddie Bauer, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fruit of the Loom, GEICO, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, Hoffmann-La Roche, International Paper, JanSport, Johnson & Johnson, Kmart, Koch Industries, Mary Kay, McDonald’s, Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Sarah Lee, Sears, Shell, Sprint, Starbucks, State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, UPS, Verizon, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart and Wendy’s."
In our increasingly militarized, scanned, surveilled and economically battered society, the state has means to more easily crush public resistance than at any time in history. The result would certainly be a boon for privatized probation corporations, privatized prisons and privatized foster care used in some regions to balance budgets. But what exactly would it do for faith in preventive medicine?
Borrowing a term from Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, the current assaults on consumer rights are an act of “politicide” in two senses— one intentional and the other unintended. First, it’s an attempted “integrity assassination” of independent science that rightfully watchdogs the safety and efficacy of vaccination, and an attempt to outlaw a diverse consumer safety movement. But it’s also an inadvertent manual for political suicide on the part of vaccine industrialists and public health authorities responsible for sustaining the vaccine program.
In his novel Dark Green, Bright Red, Gore Vidal wrote “…all the great impatient men who eventually strangle for lack of air in the stratosphere of indulged will. Men who must tumble down and, in the tumbling, smash, if not themselves, the beloved image of their dreaming.” Or put more directly, the vaccine industry and public health proponents, over-ballasted with too many interlocking political and corporate agendas, are in the process of smashing, if not themselves, then any remnant of trust in public health.
The agenda ballast goes far beyond domestic mandates and, consequently, the distrust has gone global. On May 16th, 2014, President Obama’s top counterterrorism and homeland security advisor Lisa Monaco penned a letter to the deans of 13 schools of public health vowing that the CIA will cease using vaccine campaigns abroad as cover for military and surveillance missions. Monaco’s letter surfaced a few days later, on May 18th. From Fox News:
President Obama's top counterterrorism advisor has vowed that the CIA will no longer be able to use vaccination programs as cover for intelligence operations like those the agency carried out prior to the killing of Usama bin Laden in 2011.
Lisa Monaco announced the policy change last week in a letter to the deans of 13 schools of public health. Monaco's letter said that the CIA has agreed to stop using vaccination programs and workers for intelligence purposes. The agency has also agreed not to use genetic material obtained through such programs.
The educators had written to Obama last year protesting the use of immunization programs as a front for espionage. The most prominent program [emphasis added]was run by Dr. Shakil Afridi, who offered hepatitis vaccinations in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad as cover for his CIA-backed effort to obtain DNA samples from children at a compound where bin Laden was later killed during a 2011 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs. Afridi was convicted and sentenced by a Pakistani court to 33 years in prison for treason. The sentence was later overturned and Afridi faces a retrial.
In 2012, the United Nations suspended a polio vaccination effort in Pakistan after gunmen killed several health workers. Taliban militants accused health workers of acting as spies for the U.S…
The CIA's use of a vaccine program to spy on bin Laden's compound undercut Obama's own high-profile speech to the Muslim world in 2009, in which he touted U.S. efforts to slash the growth of polio in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. With Obama administration assurances, Muslim scholars in two international groups issued religious decrees urging parents to vaccinate their children.
Notice the pluralization and time frame from the Fox News excerpt above: “vaccination programs as cover for intelligence operations…like those the agency carried out prior to the killing of Usama Bin Laden in 2011.”
The BBC reported that backlash against vaccine campaigns abroad before and after the Neptune Spear mission to kill Bin Laden was driven mostly by the reported connection between immunization drives and drone strikes in Pakistan—also plural. Until details are declassified or leaked, we’re left to envision troops of health workers doubling as spies, gathering local intel throughout target zones in Pakistan or elsewhere to coordinate strikes that have reportedly killed an estimated 1,147 civilian “unknowns”, including hundreds of children, in order to target an estimated 41 suspected combatants— a rate of 28 civilian deaths per presumed combatant.
Justice for 9/11 clearly isn’t served by misuse of health programs and further civilian deaths, nor is domestic safety. As Wikileaks recently disclosed, an internal CIA analysis of the drone program rates the so-called targeted killings of “High Value Targets” as less than a success for reasons other than the “unintentional” civilian casualty rate. The program, analysts conclude, does not consistently reduce insurgency. Add to this reports that several terrorist attacks have occurred since the National Security Agency has been engaging in mass data collection, and that the CIA “Torture Report” has concluded that “enhanced interrogation techniques”— techniques such as waterboarding, beatings, isolation, extreme exposure and, as journalist Seymour Hersh charged, rapes of children in front of their mothers—did not prevent a single act of terrorism.
Absent evidence that broken treaties on human rights and medical ethics have been effective in improving the safety of Americans, it might appear that these operations are some kind of vast, maccabre experiment. In fact, about the only thing advanced by the torture program— other than acting as a key recruiting tool for militant extremists— was government funded research on the “science of torture.”
By the same token, the one vaccination drive used as cover for a military operation the public knows about— the Bin Laden mission— couldn’t have produced immunity to the disease being vaccinated for. In an article from 2012 titled The Imperial Mind, Glenn Greenwald wrote,
Americans of all types — Democrats and Republicans, even some Good Progressives — are just livid that a Pakistani tribal court (reportedly in consultation with Pakistani officials) has imposed a 33-year prison sentence on Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who secretly worked with the CIA to find Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Their fury tracks the standard American media narrative: by punishing Dr. Afridi for the “crime” of helping the U.S. find bin Laden, Pakistan has revealed that it sympathizes with Al Qaeda and is hostile to the U.S. (NPR headline: “33 Years In Prison For Pakistani Doctor Who Aided Hunt For Bin Laden”; NYT headline: “Prison Term for Helping C.I.A. Find Bin Laden”). Except that’s a woefully incomplete narrative: incomplete to the point of being quite misleading.
What Dr. Afridi actually did was concoct a pretextual vaccination program, whereby Pakistani children would be injected with a single Hepatitis B vaccine, with the hope of gaining access to the Abbottabad house where the CIA believed bin Laden was located. The plan was that, under the ruse of vaccinating the children in that province, he would obtain DNA samples that could confirm the presence in the suspected house of the bin Laden family. But the vaccine program he was administering was fake: as Wired‘s public health reporter Maryn McKenna detailed, “since only one of three doses was delivered, the vaccination was effectively useless.” [author’s emphasis] An on-the-ground Guardian investigation documented that ”while the vaccine doses themselves were genuine, the medical professionals involved were not following procedures. In an area called Nawa Sher, they did not return a month after the first dose to provide the required second batch. Instead, according to local officials and residents, the team moved on.”
Political media analyst and Manufacturing Consent author Noam Chomsky called the use of vaccination campaigns as cover for military operations — particularly truncated campaigns— “criminal”:
…one consequence of their actions was to—there is always in these societies serious concern about what outsiders, Americans, are up to when they come in and start, you know, sticking needles in people and so on. It’s always there. Takes a lot of work to overcome that hostility. And it was being overcome in Pakistan. Now it’s gone. They will not permit people to come in carrying out vaccinations. Polio is almost gone in the world. Pakistan is one of the last places where it survives. OK, we’re encouraging the spread of polio. And as one commentator pointed out—back to the Yemeni in the Senate—one of these days, people are going to look at this crippled child and say, "You did it to us." And you can guess what’s going to happen then.
The loss of trust in medical philanthropy has already happened for multiple reasons, one of which is the quality of vaccines being distributed in the third world (discussed later). But however understandable the resistance, this dissent has perpetually been doubled back as yet more drone-justifying spin characterizing Muslims and people in developing countries as hysterical, superstitious, a threat to progress, science and survival of the species and therefore expendable. And it’s been too easy to simply transfer that model to domestic resistance and double it back as further justification to scrap civil freedoms while refusing to address actual complaints.
It’s just another example of how seemingly failed policies have been highly successful in terms of unstated goals, much like the Bush administration lie that torture was producing intel on Sadam Husein’s production of weapons of mass destruction that was nevertheless effective in getting the US into a war of aggression. Likewise, certain foreign public health operations, while travesties in terms of their stated purposes, were successful in an ulterior sense. Could this also be true for the failures of US public health policy? Is health the real objective of forcing consumers to the biotech trough and, if not, what is?
Global vaccine profits, which have risen exponentially in just a few years—from 6 billion in 2006 to nearly $30 billion by 2013 and with projected profits of $100 billion by 2020—only partly explain the intensity of the public health crusade. Taking vaccine industry defender Seth Mnookin at his word—since he scoffs at the idea that financial incentives could be driving the push to expand the vaccine market— there remains a question of whether vaccination has been somehow militarized not just abroad but domestically.
The campaign for compulsory vaccination, if anything, might be an illustration of how some of it goes hand in hand. Part 2 explores the question of whose hands might be drawing the net and why.
Adriana Gamondes is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism and one of the blog’s Facebook administrators.
"...The question one should be asking I believe is at what point does one become more interested in the preservation of others than oneself and become an activist. Is it when a particular issue becomes personal, or does it stem from an altruistic sense of moral justice and political necessity? Or is it both?"
The answer I would give may not be a palatable one, but I'm going to say it anyway (great questions by the way).
I completely agree with you that denial is a form of self-preservation. Denial provides that security blanket for all of us at one point or another as we proceed on this journey. When one becomes 'awakened' to truth or to realities not known prior, that awakening may take different forms of acceptance.
At times, as with my own personal experiences, the awakening process can be so utterly profound as to leave me dumbfounded, grasping tenuously to the realities I THOUGHT I knew, but feeling that security blanket slipping through my fingers at the same time. I did NOT want to let go of that blanket and try as hard as I might, I was finally compelled to let go of ALL reality as I once knew it. Acceptance was KEY and for me, this has been the hardest part of my own personal journey.
A pivotal part of my own awakening was witnessing our son's vaccine reactions. Given that I'd already been warned about vaccines by a friend of mine, I soon realized as we were watching our son's reactions that I'd BEEN WARNED, yet I'd not taken heed. I hadn't bothered to research the issue of vaccination PRIOR to having our son vaccinated. WE WEREN'T FORCED INTO VACCINATION; THIS WAS OUR CHOICE. So you can imagine how I felt and I live with that guilt to this very day. Those vaccines caused injuries to our son (as many here have witnessed to a greater degree), but those injuries WERE VOLUNTARY on my part. I allowed it to happen, even though our new pediatrician was FINE with us not vaccinating, or selectively vaccinating. It was entirely up to us.
Eventually, I realized via this vaccine issue that there is very little truth down here - about anything! And once I realized that, I ended up remembering a lot of things that had happened to me as a child - events that occurred many years before that had highly traumatized me.
So, in part, I don't think you become an activist until/unless something happens to you and/or to a loved one, which compels you to ACT, i.e., to become an activist.
The problem that I see with the human race, however, is this sort of egocentric issue wherein one may feel compelled to act on an issue of which is personal to that individual, for whatever compelling reason, but then there's this inclination to disregard what others may be dealing with.
In other words, voting for someone into office who may agree with you on the vaccine issue, but that same figurehead may be someone who strives to use his/her political power to strip someone else's rights away from THEM.
I find it rather sad that there are some in our 'camp' so to speak who would vote for an individual who is all for pro choice/informed consent, but not care one whit that this same figurehead may not feel the same about gay rights.
Spiritual growth is realizing that not just one's own personal issues are important; that ALL individuals deserve liberty and freedom of choice!
So how utterly ironic that there are 'some' in our camp who would have no problem voting someone into office who is pro choice/informed consent, but couldn't care less if that same individual isn't inclined to accept gay rights as an individual right as well.
And I have to say, I've seen quite a bit of this type thinking on our side of the fence, which truly saddens me.
All souls were created equal, but there's always been that one group of individuals who deem themselves more worthy than most...
Posted by: Bayareamom | April 15, 2015 at 12:49 PM
Truthseeker wrote: "It is merely evil, not necessary, to murder millions of people in the guise of 'protecting' millions of people. Who gets to say which ones are expendable? And, if so, what is to stop you from becoming one of the next 'expendables'? Whether it is the collateral damage of war, vaccines, or economic policies, we are seeing what it looks like when 'necessary evil' rules the world. Whenever some scary 'they' is held up as the next bogey man, the next great threat to peace and survival, we can know we are being had."
I'm grateful for the insights here-- too many to list-- but most of all encouraged that this is something many have already put deep thought into.
Posted by: Adriana | April 14, 2015 at 07:32 PM
Allow me to be religious for a moment, because sometimes it's all that gives me peace and security in these dark times.:
"Psalm 7:14-17
Whoever is pregnant with evil
conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit they have made.
The trouble they cause recoils on them;
their violence comes down on their own heads.
I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;
I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High."
Posted by: CD | April 14, 2015 at 03:26 PM
Bang on, Truthseeker...and thank you.
Posted by: Bayareamom | April 14, 2015 at 01:33 PM
The corruption of public health agenda was very apparent in the treatment of aids, when the fda supported the blood banks who didnt want the expense of testing. And so grandma got a hip replacement and an infection that took her life. And a heart surgery patient got infected and gave it to his wife. Many hemophiliacs. And a public health official in ny saying he was more worried about high blood pressure than aids in the scourge of the disease.
In dr Horowitz book Why cant I Get Better, he talked about discovering Babesiosis (a protozoal disease transmitted by ticks) in several lyme patients in the Hudson Valley and notified the local public health officials and their upsetting response.
Posted by: greyone | April 14, 2015 at 12:00 PM
"The unthinkable is now unfolding before our very eyes, but I hold true to the fact that the unthinkable, when it starts to unfold before so many, is the ONLY way most people will finally awaken.
I do believe the sleeping giant is awakening, but perhaps only because the true horror of what many of us have already suspected, is finally before the eyes of many."
This, in a nutshell, is why I believe God allows this, and all other evil to progress to the point where it is undeniable and we will turn from it - in horror and dismay - once and for all.
Whether from greed, power or any other motive, when one is willing to view others as worth less or expendable one has ventured into the realm of evil. Sadly, too many have been induced into this terrible no man's land by philosophical reasonings that it is all for 'the greater good'. This has always been the great lie, from the serpent in the garden to now: 'Trust me. it might seem sorta mean to rebel against the very Creator who made you and gave you everything you need and more, but you will be better off if you take my way.' Or 'Trust me. It might seem sorta mean to wreak massive destruction upon foreign lands because our leaders say they are 'bad guys', but it is a necessary evil'.
It is merely evil, not necessary, to murder millions of people in the guise of 'protecting' millions of people. Who gets to say which ones are expendable? And, if so, what is to stop you from becoming one of the next 'expendables'? Whether it is the collateral damage of war, vaccines, or economic policies, we are seeing what it looks like when 'necessary evil' rules the world. Whenever some scary 'they' is held up as the next bogey man, the next great threat to peace and survival, we can know we are being had. Because it is always evil that claims that harming or killing others is necessary. We are called, by He whom IS good, to give up our lives for others, not to take others' lives so that we can be 'safe'.
We are seeing what the world looks like when we believe that lie. It is my hope, and prayer that more people will wake up to this and will reject the supposed 'utopia' that all war brings, whether it is a war between nations or the 'war on poverty' the 'war on cancer' the 'war on terror' or any other futile, money-sucking, wealth-building, people-destroying war they may come up with next. Most likely it will be a war on some deadly plague, and we will be expected to fearfully surrender what little remaining personal liberty we have and allow our neighbors to be abused, locked up or killed in order to keep us 'safe'. May we stand up to this great evil.
Personally, because I believe that God is good, I think that, as this excellent article alludes to, those with hidden, nefarious agendas are being brought from their dark little corners out into the light.
May honest people every where reject the satanic suggestion that only 'I' matter and all others are expendable. May we stand up for our loved one, our neighbor, and that third world man, woman or child who is no more a threat than you or I. When will we learn how easy it is to stage events, 'create' enemies and justify any act of aggression an aggressor is determined to take?
May we reject the myth of 'the greater good' and embrace, instead, the true good, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. It is only when we stop calling evil 'good' that we will be able to demand that evil be stopped.
Posted by: truthseeker | April 14, 2015 at 11:50 AM
Bayareamum
Your point about people not WANTING to believe in Evil is a crucial one. The wanting and wishing instead for a world which is comprehensible, a world which fills us with hope and clarity and which relies on trust, lies at the heart of the human condition and seems to be vanishing daily.
The world we are living in at present seems incomprehensible to many. Denial is indeed powerful, but it also a self preserving act. The question one should be asking I believe is at what point does one become more interested in the preservation of others than oneself and become an activist. Is it when a particular issue becomes personal, or does it stem from an altruistic sense of moral justice and political necessity? Or is it both?
Either way mainstream debate is patently no longer allowed. That is Evil. That is personal.
I asked a friend to whom do our children belong, the State or ourselves. he replied simply, if the State is supporting them then they belong to the State. Logical, but to me a vision of Hell.
Posted by: patricia | April 14, 2015 at 08:22 AM
@Adriana:
"...unfortunately the evidence that these things are really happening-- evidence hard enough for the public to shake off the chronic numbness caused by distracting media scaremongering-- always seems to happen at the 11th hour..."
Brilliant article, by the way, Adriana...
If I may, and if I understand your above statement correctly, then I would say I respectfully disagree. Here's why:
I can use what happened to me as a sort of metaphorical situation. I was warned by a friend of mine back in the mid 1980's about vaccines. My friend was an ardent Mothering magazine supporter/reader. She espoused all the parental child-rearing ideals we typically call the 'crunchy' movement of today. She believed in co-parenting/attachment parenting...a very holistic way of child-rearing versus what our Western culture typically eschews.
I listened politely, but ultimately decided at the time of our child's birth that we would fully vaccinate, according to schedule. Admittedly, I had a few reservations, but I went along with the program because of my fear-based conditioning.
So I cannot say I was unaware of this issue at the 11th hour. I'd been properly/accurately warned, but my fear and denial is what motivated me to vaccinate our son.
Dr. Robert Mendelsohn and many others have been warning about this 'medical time bomb' for a long, long time. Dr. Benjamin Rush warned about medical tyranny. He stated the following:
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom."
"...Those are the words of Dr. Benjamin Rush, noted physician, medical professor and an early surgeon general to all Continental armies. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Rush represented Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress, but not before establishing himself as a popular physician and professor in Philadelphia. A noted humanitarian, Rush was also an important writer, having authored the first American textbook on Chemistry and ultimately contributing several essays to newspapers applauding the Patriot cause.
But his passion was medicine, and in particular - as the above quote attests - the right of a free society to choose their own healthcare path. So much was he against what he viewed as government ineptitude that he ultimately resigned his post as surgeon general because of the way medical care was being mismanaged among the troops..."
http://www.naturalnews.com/034892_Benjamin_Rush_medical_freedom_Constitution.html#ixzz3XFD0ZUvw
The problem, I don't believe, is that this is unraveling at the eleventh hours. The issue seems to be the level at which a slumbering giant finally awakens and this is usually when the issue has become so apparent so as not to be denied.
"Reality is often scoffed at, Illusion is King!"
I came across this saying during some of my research and given some of the other 'realities' I have been forced to contend with in my own personal life, I cannot state enough how much meaning the above has to me.
Dr. Mitchell Fleisher says it best:
"It requires a certain modicum of emotional and spiritual maturity and integrity to confront your own limitations of knowledge and understanding, face truths as they arise, and expand one's consciousness."
The tyranny we are all witnessing at this time has been in our midst for a very, very long time. MANY have warned of its existence and have tried to awaken that slumbering beast, but those efforts have, generally speaking, been met with a decided turn of the cheek (for a great many reasons). Denial is a powerful, POWERFUL emotion. The average human does not want to readily admit that true evil exists.
But I assure you, it does.
Evil has always been in our midst. But it's been that sort of elephant in the room that no one wants to admit is there. Sort of like an invisibility cloak, only now the image is becoming less transparent.
Just as with other truths that exist, but many do not want to BELIEVE exist. Other Beings exist outside the human realm, but that TRUTH is not yet accepted by many. And again, this has no less to do with massive societal conditioning than any other truth which has been suppressed from the masses.
Seeing isn't always believing, until it become so readily apparent so as not to be denied.
Posted by: Bayareamom | April 13, 2015 at 10:13 PM
Thank you, Adriana. It seems too unbelievable to be true, but unfortunately, I do believe that's how it has gotten this far. I'm old, and I really do understand that as a generation is confronting its own passage from the scene, it's common to think the world is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket. But something tells me it's not that personal at all ...
I will look forward to the next installment. You younger folks: we really are counting on you. Love, Gammie
Posted by: Denise Anderstrom Douglass | April 13, 2015 at 08:46 PM
They gave one Hep B vaccine, not the series and then moved on.
Lucky kids that they moved on.
and it tells us that Hep B is hardly a big deal in Pakistan, or any where else for that matter.
Posted by: Benedetta | April 13, 2015 at 08:35 PM
"Once you know"-- do you mean Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine"?
If so, she's the source for the "disaster capitalism" reference here. Klein's take is part of the heart of this series, at the center of Dianne Ravitch's view of corporatized ed privatization known as Common Core. The fact that it's probably the theme of the entire era reminds me a little of the film Close Encounters, where random people receive "messages" and gather for an alien landing. Except in this case, the "messages" are catastrophic personal experiences, the spaceship is the concept of neoliberal schemes and the "aliens"-- who've sent out not-so-mysterious signals since at least WWII-- are transnational corporate conglomerates.
Posted by: Adriana | April 13, 2015 at 06:48 PM
Well I never ever thought as a child I would be seeing the world through such doom. All we try to do now is refuse vaccines and try and avoid capitalism where possible.I believe people are now even trying to avoid registering the birth of children so as to stay of the radar..it`s here for sure.
Great article sums up my life!!
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | April 13, 2015 at 06:22 PM
Thanks, Jeanette, you're the best. Just called. I truly don't think many older folks realize just how many vaccines are recommended for children now or how many children are NOT doing well educationally or even physically. It's just mind blowing.
Posted by: Concerned momma | April 13, 2015 at 05:58 PM
And the WAY to enhance surveillance and exert control under the guise of Homeland Security? Electromagnetic fields from toxic towers (an as-yet unindicted co-promoter in autism). If there was a competition for mind-boggling corruption at the expense of our health, one must add this one to the list - an industry touted by Cisco as becoming $ 19 TRILLION dollars annually within 10 years.
America, along with it's Constitution, has irreparably blown a gasket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soIvrkfKg-I
Posted by: Art of Autism | April 13, 2015 at 05:56 PM
Bob-- "sometimes the findings hold up. But often they won't. That's science." That is science in all its glory. But obviously what's being asked of us is blind faith.
Bayareamom-- unfortunately the evidence that these things are really happening-- evidence hard enough for the public to shake off the chronic numbness caused by distracting media scaremongering-- always seems to happen at the 11th hour.
Posted by: Adriana | April 13, 2015 at 05:48 PM
Jeannette-- really well stated.
Posted by: Adriana | April 13, 2015 at 05:38 PM
This is brilliant and terrifying.
I am reminded of an amazing book by a woman author who pointed out that the powers that be get all their ducks in a row waiting for a crisis then come in filling the panicked void as the "big daddy" and not shocked like the rest of us---and exploiting it to get what they have wanted all along --motivated by control and greed. I cannot for the life of me remember what the book was called but it was one word and explained the premade patriot act provisions just waiting for a disaster like 9-11 and the amazing ability to parlay that unrelated to Iraq event into an invasion of Iraq in order to transfer major funds to Halliburton and get control of the pipeline ---and the way the 2008 banking crisis was manipulated to end up with handouts to the banks. It is no stretch at all to think the Ebola or measles "crisis" was intended to be far worse (hey maybe they believe their own lies agout measles etc coming back in force?) but they rolled out their strategy anyhow. If anyone can think of the book please post it . I think it is highly relevant and of we are aware of it we can have our counter plan ready when they rule out or take advantage of the next panic. As if what we face with our children were not big enough itself but when people finally realize it they will try to use it to excuse something worse if we do not anticipate it and stop it in its tracks. Wake up America. There is cyanide in the koolaid and poison in the vaccines .
Posted by: once you know you can't unknow | April 13, 2015 at 05:29 PM
I wonder what those incensed by the use of vaccination campaigns in ways that engender distrust think about something like mercury being considered an "indispensable" ingredient in vaccines? Aluminum, and so on? I suppose they probably don't let themselves look at it, truly stop and see it, or they are practiced in living with double standards or something.
Where I'm at, I'm having a hard time being certain it is possible to avoid the use of vaccination in ways that engender distrust, though I'm pretty certain our authorities can do less harm, and with respect for right of choice firmly in place, maybe even with results most will happily prefer over alternatives.
When they default to protecting/promoting profit, ego, image, and likely "vision," after significantly disabling 30+ times more infants than paralytic polio harmed in epidemic years, likely then involving suppressed iatrogenic factors, and then deny or lie about it in unabashedly brazen political showmanship (however they have convinced themselves to go along with it), it looks to me like they (the corporations and their captured institutions, their major shareholders, I guess) are at best dangerously stuck in old approaches, but my neighbors and myself are being bombarded by carcinogenic, energy sucking EMP radiation (to make our energy usage more "green" and apparently to make it easier in L.A. to fine water restriction violators, etc., more incentive to have a water problem continue, I think), we're being told flu vaccine is a duty to get even as they're saying it's not appearing to do much good, and while not saying that they also aren't looking, really looking for potential harm...most, don't even know what's been put on their walls, or what's in the injection. I swear most people are defaulting to living by an instinct that tells them keeping their eyes mostly shut will at least protect their sanity...but I am hoping this mandate push is "political suicide" and that it's waking more people up...
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | April 13, 2015 at 04:53 PM
I think Dr. Gaunt was just stating the obvious-- there have been no attempts to fix the problems, just a doubling down of spin and turning to force. And I agree with what he wrote from the perspective that preventive medicine is a separate concept from the reality of existing products manufactured by reigning industry. At some point, an enterprising green tech company could come up with a safe method of preventing malaria that was never before conceived. You never know. The fact that it's unlikely to happen under the current oligopoly is another matter, but I appreciate Lawrence Solomon's exercise of holding out hope for better while still shooting holes in the existing cheap and dirty.
Posted by: Adriana | April 13, 2015 at 04:05 PM
Not an MD-- thank you for the insights and you make a great point. To some extent, I think the extremist media campaign reflects the fact that the public has developed tolerance to the rabble-rousing fear spin of 9/11 and WMD that was so handy for justifying assaults on privacy, etc. What's strange is that the polls show the approach isn't working, yet it continues. So the fact that the media is talking over our heads and against public opinion could be a sign that, while public response still matters on a local level and pushing these laws state by state is easier than taking the radical measure of overriding state rights on the issue, it will come to that "if need be." In that sense, the message might be seen as an internal wag-the-dog echo chamber memo between the corporate media and captured federal legislators. Since progressives are perceived to love "science" and not so much war, disease-mongering provides the justification for liberal reps to get on board.
John-- my interest in this really started with a quote from NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller in the Seattle Times regarding Gates' media holdings. You get the sense of tidily coordinated profit schemes and more-- a sort of overarching vision justifying all of it. It's really the "vision" that worries me.
Posted by: Adriana | April 13, 2015 at 03:24 PM
@Concerned momma,
Maybe someone has set up a more convenient contact list? But this links to members of the state education committee where the bill is being considered next:
http://sedn.senate.ca.gov/
The whole senate (maybe not with public contact info for all):
http://senate.ca.gov/senators
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | April 13, 2015 at 03:21 PM
Dr. William Gaunt:
So you recommend fixing the "serious" problems with vaccines to restore public trust. But the minor ones caused by the immune system reacting over-zealously to the vaccines with encephalitic brain damage (autism) and sensitization to vaccine ingredients resulting in a huge percentage of Americans suffering from autoimmune disease are minor and you think they can keep brushing them under the carpet?
Vaccines cannot be made safe. NONE of the vaccine-preventable diseases is common, serious, and untreatable enough to justify vaccines. As difficult and radical as that sounds to most Americans, it is the truth to which we will eventually come, just on the basis of so many millions so severely damaged by vaccines, numbers which the vaccine industry just can't hide and deny forever.
Posted by: cia parker | April 13, 2015 at 03:14 PM
Just a small sample of "group think" that passes in today's media as information for the masses:
Editorial in NY Post on Sunday titled: Uncle Sam's Science.
"First it was high cholesterol, which the nation's top nutrition panel recently declared is no longer a "nutrient of concern". Now reports from the Washington Post, the scientific consensus on whether Americans eat too much salt is shifting.
"There is no longer any valid basis for current salt guidelines" that recommend no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day .. so why (asks a researcher at the New England Journal of Medicine) are we still scaring people about salt".
OK, the debate's far from settled. Both sides agree that too much salt in the diet is dangerous. But they have very different ideas about just how much is too much.
Salt guidelines have been in effect for more than three decades, but the advisable tartet numbers has shifted over the years.
All of which should remind us that even the most overwhelming scientific consensus .. whether on healthy diets or, yes, even climate change .. is still a work in progress.
Sometimes the findings hold up. But often they won't. That's science.
Federal officials, in particular, need to stop pushing the idea that tentative findings are hard fact. For decades, the feds pushed the Food Pyramid diet .. only to eventually realize they'd gotten it almost exactly wrong.
All too often, you just have to take what the scientists say with a large, er, grain of salt"
-------------------------------------
I only mention this because .. just one week ago .. the same "editors" at the NY Post .. labeled RFK an "anti-vaccine wacco". Their reasoning for "demonizing" RFK .. because he refuses to accept the "overwheming consensus of scientists" that shows no link between thimerosal and autism.
Ya can't make this stuff up.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | April 13, 2015 at 02:07 PM
Can't find the list someone provided of Calif Senators #'s. Please repost!
Posted by: Concerned momma | April 13, 2015 at 02:06 PM
"The sky is blue, the earth is round, vaccines are safe, listen to grandma Hilary..."
other words of Clinton wisdom...
I believe Hilary once stated she was named after Sir Edmund Hilary, who first climbed Mt. Everest.
Sadly, Hilary was nearly eight years old when this occurred, but in her world it still makes complete sense, and she does not think anyone in the USA is smart enough to figure it out.
Posted by: cmo | April 13, 2015 at 01:48 PM
"...They cannot believe it, because it is just too awful to believe. Perhaps we should print out copies of the most egregiously worded articles from what were once considered reliable, trustworthy, "independent" media sources. The offensive articles are like shoddy, scary caricatures that would never, in the past, have been thought to have been reflective of reality by anyone reading them. These articles seem more worthy of placement in The Onion as they are so horrific, they seem impossible to believe..."
And there you have it. The real agenda is not simply borne of a financial gain by those at the top - the so called Powers That Be. Dr. Archie Kalokerinos knew, Dr. Russell Blaylock knows and so do many others, most of whom will not readily voice their opinion on this subject for fear of retaliation, or worse.
The unthinkable is now unfolding before our very eyes, but I hold true to the fact that the unthinkable, when it starts to unfold before so many, is the ONLY way most people will finally awaken.
I do believe the sleeping giant is awakening, but perhaps only because the true horror of what many of us have already suspected, is finally before the eyes of many.
Posted by: Bayareamom | April 13, 2015 at 11:02 AM
Dr. William,
Are you for real? They will never opt to slow down the program. Vaccines are a growth market for them and they will never opt to make them safer or to reduce the schedule based even on risk benefit. Citizens need to rally and protest now! This whole thing is accelerating out of control and too many kids are getting disabled. If Education (in CA) does not understand that, I don't know who would!
Posted by: Truthseeker2 | April 13, 2015 at 10:16 AM
Choose the better option: (A) Forced vaccinations for everyone or (B) Fix serious vaccine problems to improve the public's trust in vaccines
Posted by: Dr. William Gaunt | April 13, 2015 at 09:54 AM
Not an MD
In January, at the beginning of a flood of articles on the topic of "a single discredited study" I highlighted an article deriving from the Gates Foundation which had been "curated" on "Upworthy"
http://www.ageofautism.com/2015/01/upworthy-lies-about-the-wakefield-lancet-paper.html
This seemed to be the first manouevre in the present political round. Actually, "the single discredited" study trope disappeared from the mainstream media almost as rapidly as it appeared, and perhaps it wasn't working very well.
What is known is that Gates Foundation hands out large amounts of money to the media, presumably expecting something back. And no doubt all this stuff can be characterised by the participants as philanthropy.
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2011/02/21/questions-asked-bill-melinda-gates-foundations-1b-media-donation
Many of us may consider to be something else.
Posted by: John Stone | April 13, 2015 at 09:48 AM
Good morning, Adriana. I always look forward to your brilliant articles, and this one is particularly timely and important. I find myself impatient to read Part Two.
Many people have been struggling with the largest elephant in the room in this entire matter: the inexorable push by captured public health authorities, and faux/captured medical associations, and paid industry talking heads, and paid attorneys toward compulsory vaccination of everyone on the planet from cradle to grave, without sympathy or plan to exempt, or to aid, those who have already fallen and been harmed, or prevent those who have an inability to remove light and heavy metals from their own bodies from being harmed, and the use of military force, threat of imprisonment, or worse, to achieve those goals.
What I have read in print, from numerous mainstream media outlets, no less, is beyond my comprehension. That a single article can appear simultaneously in multiple media outlets-- identically -- without any additional thought added, as if the vitriolic content it contains is somehow rendered tolerable and acceptable due to repetition alone, confounds and disturbs me greatly. Media articles calling for the jailing of parents, removal of their children, online shaming of parents and their children, legal action against "anti-vaxxers", could be considered emotionally abusive in itself by any rational person. How is this kind of media reporting permitted, and why would anyone in their right mind want to enrich any of these media outlets with a single penny by purchasing a subscription for them?
There are so many bought out, behind-the-scenes players in this awful reality, that it would take nothing less than the full realization of what is happening by the masses, to help slow down or curtail the agenda. I can understand why so many are unwilling to open their eyes to this agenda. They cannot believe it, because it is just too awful to believe. Perhaps we should print out copies of the most egregiously worded articles from what were once considered reliable, trustworthy, "independent" media sources. The offensive articles are like shoddy, scary caricatures that would never, in the past, have been thought to have been reflective of reality by anyone reading them. These articles seem more worthy of placement in The Onion as they are so horrific, they seem impossible to believe. Today, people have become painfully aware of what online and in person bullying leads to, so perhaps we can use these awful articles (some of which you have linked to above) to open their eyes to the horrible truth. These articles of hatred must be shown to our legislators as well, as proof positive that we are not the ones overreacting-- the media and their puppet masters are.
Posted by: Not an MD | April 13, 2015 at 09:20 AM
But it all boils down to that one simple question........
To whom do our children belong, to ourselves or to the State?
Posted by: patricia | April 13, 2015 at 09:01 AM
I look forward to knowing that answer!
Meanwhile I am stuck watching, The sky is blue, the earth is round, vaccines are safe, listen to grandma Hilary, on the campaign trail.
Has it ever occurred to us Americans that for years and years that there are some people that knows how to work the system and are picking out our candidates for us, so no matter who we vote for they all are almost the same.
Posted by: Benedetta | April 13, 2015 at 08:42 AM