5/5/21: OUR DESCENT INTO DISSENT
MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS
Many people who listen to Ground Zero know that I have been aggravated by the Cancel Culture. The enforcement of thought crime in this country is something you would see in communist countries like China. I even commented that there has been no time in history where the good guys have censored or shut down thoughts or even creative expression.
What comes next is usually show trials, and even erasing someone entirely making someone an “unperson.”
When I speak of this tyranny there are some people that nod their heads and smile. Then they back away thinking that this is some conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact.
One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent. Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system.
I have been noticing that news organizations like CNN or MSNBC just can’t let go of the ghost of the Trump presidency. It is as if they need a Satan in their cult of intellectual supremacy. It is no longer part of political discussion — it is now become political mental illness.
I can no longer watch or even listen to the news anymore especially CNN as their newscasts have turned into the two minutes of hate that George Orwell talked about in 1984.
Their focus is all about the January 6th insurrection, their support for Liz Cheyne, systemic racism, and vaccine hesitancy becoming part of the antivaxx movement.
CNN once did a report on “who teaches us to hate” — and I am sure they were ready to point the finger at anyone but themselves. They are even in the business of dedicating entire segments to Fox news — where they go over Tucker Carlson’s talking points and ridicule them like critical parents.
The shaping of the public into antagonistic tribes works commercially. It works politically, but it is also shaping an algorithm that we cannot escape from; in fact, if you want to form an extreme conspiracy theory, you can say that it is mesmerism and ritualism hell bent on creating extremist and radicalized Americans.
You can even say it is Satanic.
My wife Janine purchased a book for me called, “Manufacturing Consent.” It was sitting on the coffee table on top of the mail, so I decided to pick it up and read a bit of it.
The book explains the techniques that the commercial media uses to promote and defend the economic, social and political agendas of the ruling elites. These techniques included portraying victims as either worthy or unworthy of sympathy.
The techniques also include narrowing the debate in a way that buttressed the elite consensus and intentionally failing to challenge the intentions of the ruling elites or the actual structures of power.
I can’t count how many times I have seen posts on the internet that have people saying that the media reports that George Floyd died when a cop knelt on his neck for over 9 minutes and yet some unnamed white guy has the same thing done to him and the media ignores it.
Well, the answer is more than obvious –which story is more likely to conjure chaos?
News and commentary is no longer a means to inform but it is business that wants your attention. It is no longer enough to inform without bias– it is now a tool for psychological warfare.
This is the product that fuels the 24-hour cable news stations, and internet platform that are owned by a handful of corporations, they are in the information control business and their job is to not only shape the algorithm of information but to vilify those who wish to report the other side of the story.
The corporate money changers, control the distribution of news and information and mine our personal data on behalf of advertisers, political campaigns and the government.
I know it may be cliche to say this but, the mass media has degenerated into not only a purveyor of gossip, but they also spin conspiracy theories and salacious stories — and lately they avoid important stories in order to find stories that ominously create a climate of hate.
I have noticed that opinions and prejudices are skillfully catered to and reinforced, with the aid of a detailed digital analysis of our proclivities and habits, and then sold back to us.
People gladly will listen to things broadcast to them that they believe — rather than what is truth and most of the time truth is an inconvenient pill to swallow.
They need to package the hate and sell it to you otherwise they may lose their rating points. They may lose the control of the data and that algorithmic echo chamber.
The public is unable to speak across the manufactured divide. It is mesmerized by the fake dissent of the culture wars and competing conspiracy theories. Politics, under the assault, has atrophied into a tawdry reality show centered on political personalities. Civic discourse is defined by invective and insulting remarks on the internet. Power, meanwhile, is left unexamined and unchallenged. The result is political impotence among the populace.
The result is the manufactured consent of the populace to hate certain thoughts and have sympathy or prop up the ideas they wish to push.
If any of this is questioned it becomes dissent. While dissent is part of a healthy democracy — the media and very powerful entities have now made dissent and act of “extremism.”
In the “New Normal” if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous “extremist. This state Ideology has now been broadcast by the media — and everyone is surrendering their common sense to state sponsored propaganda.
Social platforms on the internet have now invented a new category of “extremists” in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being a dissenter or anyone who seeks out to delegitimize the state in a way that endangers security,” like speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called “New Normal.
Jokes are out, satire is out, stating that you pray for a cure to COVID-19 is out — nothing is allowed except that which manufactures the agenda of the elite.
I worry because my so called extremist sins can get me banned on face Book or You Tube — they get me taken off the air in some states — and what is most disconcerting is that people see it as normal –there are many that just act as if there is no threat to silencing those who work hard to do serve up real and honest information that tries not to create the tribal hate that has been successful for many people in the media.
There are a lot of people that think I am joking — or overreacting. I am not; in fact, I fended off my paranoia for some time — and I don’t like making myself the news — but when you feel like little by little you are being sabotaged I have to take to the air while I still have to opportunity to say that right now is the time to declare what you truly value.
I value my freedom of speech but the people decide whether or not i have the freedom of reach. Anyone who has been placed in Facebook Jail or has been banned from any social platform knows exactly what I am talking about.
You can’t always count on things in an age of uncertainty — that is why it takes hard work and support to keep things operating in a way that is efficient and informative.
Ask yourself why there is such a obsession with labeling people “Covid Deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers.” How can we continue to function as a society when we are constantly hearing about how racist we are? Is it really healthy to treat skepticism with disdain when the subject of “global warming” comes up.
Those who label others don’t even realize how hateful and prejudiced they sound.
People who think outside the box are now becoming vilified.
This type of labeling and hate led to witch trials, and eventually show trials in Soviet Russia,
i don’t think people are ready or comfortable with being labeled enemies of the state — but those who think creatively and want the other side of the story are becoming just that.
California State Senator Richard Pan, authored an op-ed in the Washington Post where he states “Anti-vax extremism is akin to domestic terrorism.”
He was also quoted in quoted in the Los Angeles Times where he states:
“These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public…We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions. Our democracy and our lives depend on it…They’ve been building alliances with white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and others on the far right.”
Peter Hotez who constantly appears on CNN as one of their experts pulled the Russian conspiracy card when he said in Nature magazine:
The United Nations and the highest levels of governments must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States. Efforts must expand into the realm of cybersecurity, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures. The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counter-offensive.”
This overreaction makes it sound like that this is war. It is not a matter if vaccine hesitancy — it is that people are being beguiled by Russians and propaganda that needs to somehow be neutralized by the united nations or some other body that does not legislate laws in the United States.
How can this type of extremism not be addressed by the media? Because it is state sponsored propaganda that the frightened sheep are eating up.
Hotez, is the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.
He appeared on MSNBC to address the issue of incentive people to get the shot with financial compensation he stated:
“When people are clamoring for vaccines in India and in Brazil, it just makes us look like a nation of sulky adolescents. … So if it’s absolutely necessary, sure, although it’s tough to swallow.”
He was commenting on a recent survey from UCLA that showed that roughly one-third of unvaccinated people said a $100 cash payment would make them more likely to get a shot.
There are plenty of incentives being offered in places of employment– and we can’t forget that you can get a hot Krispy Kreme donut if you show your vaccine card.
A few days ago there was a report that women’s menstrual cycles were changing after they received the vaccine.
Since then, hundreds of people have commented on the report, and women continue to express concern about long and heavy periods and changes in cycle timing. They are also concerned about fertility issues as well.
Inflammation from the vaccine has triggered an estrogen response, which could be the link between certain women having heavy periods after the vaccine.
Dr. Heather Huddleston was asked by reporter Kate Larsen “Do you think the vaccine is harmful to women who are experiencing these cycle changes, and does it affect fertility?” 
Huddleston replied “No. So what I would say is that just in the same way that some women and men have had a sore arm, after the vaccine, or maybe felt tired, maybe had even a low grade fever, these are all things that people experienced in a very short term way after the vaccine. And within a few days, people are back to normal. That is a transient reaction to the vaccine. And it’s a representation of your immune system being activated. If, and it’s still a big if. But if these menstrual cycle changes are also sort of linked into that upregulation of the immune system that we’re seeing, then I would view that in the same way I would view a sore arm. It’s a nuisance, it’s troubling in that moment, but it’s not a representation of something that’s going to continue. It’s not a representation of any sort of permanent harm or damage. There is no reason to think there’s reason to be concerned over time, and there’s no reason to think that there’s any impact on fertility.”
The “if, and it’s still a big if” relates more to the following sentence than to previous ones. What kind of language is “sort of linked into”? And to suggest that changes in menstruation can be viewed in the same way as a sore arm seems astonishingly flippant. But obviously there are vested interests at stake here.
This is unbelievable— doctors are being flippant about concerns while others are demanding pathological tyranny over the vaccine.
But that’s not all there are plenty of Americans that are eager to get back to normal and yet they are now being blamed for the spike in COVID infections in some states– even though these Americans were told that if they were vaccinated they can go mask less, even though businesses were told that if they follow guidelines they would not be forced to shut down again.
Again this is a product of political divide where the mainstream media has generated anger against those who wish to get back to normal making them out to be right wing dissenters and praising those who still diligently cling to the restrictions that are literally being lifted by the CDC and others.
Why are they doing this? It is again virtue signaling.
Diligence against COVID-19 remains an expression of political identity—even when that means overestimating the disease’s risks or setting limits far more strict than what public-health guidelines permit.
In surveys, Democrats express more worry about the pandemic than Republicans do. People who describe themselves as “very liberal” are distinctly anxious. This spring, after the vaccine rollout had started, a third of very liberal people were “very concerned” about becoming seriously ill from COVID-19, compared with a quarter of both liberals and moderates, according to a study conducted by the University of North Carolina political scientist Marc Hetherington. And 43 percent of very liberal respondents believed that getting the coronavirus would have a “very bad” effect on their life, compared with a third of liberals and moderates.
President Biden spent 30 seconds frantically looking for a mask he left in his pocket before his outdoor rally in Georgia this week — saying he’d be “in trouble” without it — despite being fully vaccinated.
“I can’t find my mask!” he could be heard saying, initially drowned out by the loud welcome music of Jackie Wilson’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”
First lady Jill Biden joined him in his desperate search as he repeated his plea, taking the same folder to flick through and also bending down to look on the floor.
It was like watching an old man who has lost his glasses walking around blind in a panic.
When you have a President who speaks to the American people about important issues and panics when he can’t find his mask –even when he has been vaccinated –what message does it send?
Last year, when the pandemic was raging and scientists and public-health officials were still trying to understand how the virus spread, extreme care was warranted. People all over the country made enormous sacrifices—rescheduling weddings, missing funerals, canceling graduations, avoiding the family members they love—to protect others. Some conservatives refused to wear masks or stay home, because of skepticism about the severity of the disease or a refusal to give up their freedoms. But this is a different story, about progressives who stressed the scientific evidence but now they are veering away from it — the science is saying that we are getting closer to the end; that we can achieve herd immunity by being vaccinated but then there are those that are demanding that masks be worn even after the vaccine is administered and others are saying that the vaccine prevents nothing and that mask will be worn — where is the line between the science and the political overreach?
There is a line between the public health and the idea that those who wish to take life with risks are enemies of the state.
For many progressives, extreme vigilance was in part about opposing Donald Trump.
Now Donald Trump is gone –and as i said earlier CNN and other liberal media outlets are hanging on to his ghost–and those pathological experts that still hold a grudge do not want to relinquish their power –and the media wishes to squeeze every little rating point out of the public who are still scared little bunnies.
Scientists know a lot more about how COVID-19 spreads—and how it doesn’t. Public-health advice is shifting. But some progressives have not updated their behavior based on the new information. And in their eagerness to protect themselves and others, they may be underestimating other costs. Being extra careful about COVID-19 is (mostly) harmless when it’s limited to wiping down your groceries with Lysol wipes and wearing a mask in places where you’re unlikely to spread the coronavirus, such as on a hiking trail.
But vigilance can have unintended consequences when it imposes on other people’s lives. Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren’t supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning.
Now what could possibly be stoking the political flames of this virus?
What could possibly breed the idea that those who are trying to get on with their lives are enemies of the state?
Even when we are told that the COVID-19 vaccines are widely effective and have become widely accessible, many progressives continue to listen to voices preaching caution over relaxation. Anthony Fauci recently said he wouldn’t travel or eat at restaurants even though he’s fully vaccinated, despite CDC guidance that these activities can be safe for vaccinated people who take precautions.
This is why those who are now being treated like enemies of the state are now confused either things are better or they aren’t –this is pathological tyranny and people who continue to push it need to be exposed and told to get back to normal — it is like we have to deprogram those who have been beguiled by a cult.
Now we have to wait for their trauma to be over but those who were nasty about mask wearing never cared about the trauma they have caused — nor do they even acknowledge the arbitrary nature of the security theater that is still being pushed by the media.
The inability of society to agree on a common set of facts means the media has failed already.
People have always used fear for intimidation of the subordinates or enemies and shepherding the tribe. I believe the media is responsible for traumatizing people about COVID-19 and now it is obvious that it has always been a political issue rather than a health issue.
What is happening now makes it blatantly obvious.
