Category: culture

The Epstein Files: Were “Conspiracy Theorists” Right Again?

Anyone trying to convince you there is nothing there is either stupid or lying.

The biggest news story of our lifetime has dropped. So big, in fact, that it will make you reevaluate your entire world view. Over 3 million files were released in relation to Jeffrey Epstein, the “disgraced financier.” Now that we can see this is much darker than most had even imagined, “disgraced” seems like a nice way of putting it. And he was not a simple financier. His expertise, more specifically, was in organized crime – the connections, networks, and financing. He was a fixer, a middle man, a consultant for a network of global elites – heads of state, tech, finance, science, religion, intelligence, celebrities. He had his hand in every cookie jar you could think of. His toes dipped in every pond. The scope and power of his network and influence was immense. But he wasn’t at the top of the pyramid. We now know that he “represented” the Rothschilds, as his email to Peter Thiel said exactly that. And although we still don’t know exactly where he got all his money from, the files do contain a contract between him and the Rothschilds for $25 million. Additionally, more recently, Les Wexner has stated Jeffrey Epstein was a financial advisor to Élie de Rothschild and the Rothschild family in France.

There’s so much information to piece together that it’s hard to even know where to start. And so much brought to light that it’s difficult to process. Every time I look into anything just a little bit deeper, I realize it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rabbit holes are bottomless pits. I pause and wonder, “how the hell do I explain this to anyone who hasn’t read it?” This shit is crazy. It’s impossible to fit it into just one post. For now, let’s focus on an overview of Epstein and his operation.

To understand Jeffrey Epstein and his activities, it is important to understand his network of powerful contacts and the structures that protected him1. Those networks and structures did not begin with him, nor did they die with him1. Epstein is not a unique singular case. He is not an anomaly. Guaranteed, there exist more Jeffrey Epsteins that remain in the shadows, doing this kind of work, keeping the network alive and operational.

Let’s begin with the interview done by Steve Bannon. In the first 20 minutes, Epstein describes being on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation and knowing David Rockefeller personally. He says that David Rockefeller put him on the Trilateral Commission in the 1990s. The reason for this commission was that politicians in most countries were only elected for 4 or 8 years at a time. Thus, in order to have “stability and consistency,” (ie. to solidify power over a longer period) the most important people would be businessmen. And so, David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission of businessmen and politicians from three major continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Epstein then goes on to explain that most political leaders are only there because they can convince people to vote for them. They become world leaders because they are popular. They have no expertise or degrees in things like finance. Many of them are just good at what they do in terms of politics. They aren’t scientists, they’re not intellectuals, they’re not great thinkers – they’re politicians. In this way, he is revealing that politicians aren’t the ones really steering the ship. They are merely figureheads that placate the masses. Underneath this facade lies a tightly interlinked, powerful global network of finance, media, banking, intelligence, corporations, heads of state, and royalty. The coordination of this network is managed and developed by fixers and consultants like Jeffrey Epstein.

A recorded conversation from February of 2013 between Ehud Barak, and Jeffrey Epstein was also released in this batch of the Epstein files. Ehud Barak was the head of Israeli military intelligence before he became the Prime Minister of Israel in 1999, after which he became Israel’s Minister of Defense in 2007. This recording is from one month before he left office in March of 2013. The conversation revolves around Barak’s transition into the private sector, and it sheds a light on Epstein’s role as an outside fixer that mediates the lucrative success of private careers for former government officials. Instead of focusing on marketing his skills or knowledge, Epstein tells Barak to make a list of people who owe him favors – those who owe him their life, their job, etc. This is how people in government convert government power into personal financial power: by cashing in favors. The incentive in government is not to do what’s best for the country, but rather, to accumulate favors from outside entities, so that when transitioning into private life, those favors can be called in for lucrative deals. And this is the way it works everywhere. Placements on lucrative board seats, book deals, consulting agreements, funding from foundations and philanthropies, stock options, start-up capital, and etcetera is acquired not from government work, but from the things people owe you from your time in government. Throughout the conversation, Jeffrey Epstein is arranging, through his vast and powerful network, to broker board seats to the tune of several million dollars for Ehud Barak. However much money he made in government is dwarfed by the multimillions of dollars his friend Epstein can help him make afterwards by calling in IOUs. This was one of Epstein’s roles in this global network.

A major benefit of this network is insider trading. Epstein was able to gather sensitive economic information from top-ranking officials and businessmen. One example found in the files is Peter Mandelson, who was “for all intents and purposes deputy prime minister” of the UK. Mandelson was a top-level policy operative imbedded in the British government. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, he leaked highly sensitive government information, including advanced knowledge of bailouts and asset sales. In June of 2009, he sent Epstein a Downing Street memo on asset sales, with the comment: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.” Two months later, he leaked a confidential banking memo seconds after receiving it. Then in May of 2010, he tipped Epstein off about a €500 billion bailout, saying “[should] be announced tonight.” He even gave advance notice of PM Gordon Brown’s resignation, saying “finally got him to go today.”

Epstein was the fixer, and Mandelson was the inside man. Insider trading was another of Epstein’s roles.

Interestingly, Epstein also met with Zelensky a couple months before he rose to power as the president of Ukraine in May of 2019. Also in May of 2019, Zelensky solicited help from Epstein, saying Putin was being dismissive and claiming he’s run by Israelis. Five years prior, Epstein told Ariane de Rothschild in an email that “ukraine upheaval should provide many opportunities, many.” It would seem they planned on getting in on the Ukraine crisis, and profiting from the ensuing chaos and destabilization.

The files also contain a number of documents alleging that Zelensky is complicit in trafficking women and children, with one saying, “WHY IS THE MEDIA SO QUIET THAT UKRAINE IS INVOLVED IN THE EPSTEIN TRAFFICKING RING? JEAN LUC BRUNEL WASN’T IN UKRAINE FOR THE WEATHER, JUST SAYING HEY ZELENSKY!” Another file describes Jean Luc Brunel as “a model recruiter [who] was frequently around Epstein. Brunel would bring girls to Epstein. Many of the girls Brunel brought to Epstein had poor English language skills and appeared to be very young.”

Throughout the files, it becomes apparent that Epstein had many connections to “model recruiters” and scouts who were constantly finding young women for him. There were plenty of people emailing him about young girls, sending pictures of them, discussing getting in touch with them, and whether or not Epstein was interested in them. A recurring theme is promises being made to these girls about modeling contracts and acting careers. Epstein’s connections to Hollywood also played a role here. In one email from June 20, 2010 he told a girl, “Brett Ratner is going to film a big movie, snow white, I would love to take photos of you in a snow white costume. You can get it from the costume store.” To which she replied, “Will get it!” Then, on July 9, 2010, the former CEO of Barclays and JP Asset Management, Jes Staley emailed Epstein saying, “That was fun. Say hi to Snow White.” Epstein replied, “what character would you like next”? Another email to Epstein on July 10, 2010 reads, “the snow white was f..ed twice as soon as she put her costume”. It would seem Mr. Staley has a thing for Disney characters, as his reply to Epstein was, “beauty and the beast”; and another document in the files that appears to be written by a victim states, “The disgusting Mr. Staley if anyone ever calls me tinkerbell again I will lose my mind. He left bloody marks on my arms from his belt…”

This brings us to the part of Epstein’s operation that has gotten the most attention: human trafficking. This is another of Epstein’s roles. In order to expand the network, make deals, make his clients happy, gather intel, acquire kompromat, and push an agenda forward, one thing he offered was young beautiful women. Through his network, he could secretly and discretely fulfill the desires of those in powerful positions. And since this was done discretely, it didn’t matter how immoral or illegal it might be. Epstein could get whatever was desired – girls? Boys? Doesn’t matter how young. Torture? Murder? Epstein was the man that could provide. There may not necessarily be any smoking guns in the files, but there’s a preponderance of evidence pointing to this being the case. There is a lot of documentation of similar stories, as well as evidence in Epstein’s own emails, and the emails and messages of those close to him that may have been co-conspirators. In one email, Epstein wrote, “I loved the torture video.” The recipient, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, has recently stepped down from his position as chairman and CEO of DP World due to the revelation of his email exchanges with Epstein. In another email, someone seems to have attempted to blackmail Epstein for bitcoin, claiming that “somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro, two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G. Both died by strangulation during rough, fetish sex”:

It’s blatantly obvious that Epstein preferred very young girls. In one email, he tells a recruiter that a 24 year old girl looks too old. In fact, there are plenty of emails about girls being too old. During Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial in connection to Epstein and sex trafficking, one victim claimed she became “too old” at 18. In that trial, victims alleged to be groomed and abused from as young as 10 years old. While going through the files, I’ve read mentions of children as young as 7 and 8. One email that stands out as particularly strange is of someone emailing Epstein a picture of someone’s 5 year old daughter. Curiously, Epstein emailed a prominent lawyer to ask about the legality of “sex tourism” with minors:

But how did Jeffrey Epstein get away with all of this for so long? Yes, he was well-connected to many of the most powerful people in the world, but that isn’t even the full story. Mainstream reporting on Epstein was, at one time, relatively open about his ties to intelligence. British media reported as early as 1992 and throughout the early 2000s that he had ties with both US and Israeli intelligence1. With his close ties to powerful connections in the UK, it is now also believed that he had ties with British intelligence as well. Given that Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, also had deep ties to multiple different intelligence agencies, this isn’t far-fetched. Additionally, there are FBI documents released in the files with claims he was trained as an Israeli spy. Not only that, but there is a text conversation where Epstein says, “going into a scif talk tomorrow.”

Another file shows this same conversation in a different format, with Epstein’s name unredacted, but Bannon’s name redacted

What is a SCIF, you may ask? From Google’s AI overview: “SCIF stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. It is a secure, accredited, and enclosed area within a building, ship, or temporary site designed to prevent unauthorized personnel from eavesdropping on or accessing high-level classified intelligence.” If Epstein is going into a SCIF, he has access to high-level intelligence. In addition to all that, Alex Acosta, who served as US attorney for Southern Florida during Epstein’s 2008 “sweetheart deal,” had been told by unspecified figures at the time that he needed to give Epstein a lenient sentence because of his links to “intelligence”1. He also later disclosed that he had signed off on the deal because Epstein “had belonged to intelligence”1. Jeffrey Epstein had backers and benefactors powerful enough that he had a Get Out of Jail Free card, giving him basically untouchable status. Finally, it seems that Epstein was somehow tipped off when the FBI launched a renewed federal investigation into his sex trafficking operation on December 6, 2018. Documents in the files reveal that on that same day, Epstein purchased six 55-gallon drums of sulfuric acid. While there are legitimate uses for sulfuric acid, this amount is a little excessive to say the least. The files also reveal that their usual order seemed to be about two drums every one and a half to two years. Suddenly tripling that is curious, especially on that particular day. As for illegitimate uses, sulfuric acid could be used for destroying evidence (human remains, for example). It is more than likely that Epstein operated at a very high level in intelligence.

Circa 1990, former CIA officer and Iran-Contra whistleblower, Bruce Hemmings, said the following – and I believe it offers pertinent insight into not only intelligence agencies at large, but Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in particular:

Who are these people?… They are in and outside [the] CIA. They are… Right Wing Republicans, …Democrats, mercenaries, ex officio Mafia and opportunists within the group. They are CEOs, they are bankers, they are presidents, they own airlines, they own national television networks… and they do not give a damn about the law or the Constitution or the Congress or the Oversight committees except as something to be subverted and manipulated and lied to.

They abhor sunlight and love darkness. They deal in innuendo and character assassination, and planted stories, the incomplete thought and sentence. They burn and shred files if caught, they commit perjury, and when caught they have guaranteed sinecures with large US corporations.

If you let them, they will take over not only [the] CIA but the entire government and the world, cutting off dissent, free speech, a free media, and they will cut a deal with anyone, from [the] Mafia to Saddam Hussein, if it means more power and money. They stole $600 billion from the S&L’s and then diverted our attention to the Iraqis… They flooded our country with drugs from Central America during the 1980s, cut deals with Haro in Mexico, Noriega in Panama, and the Medillin and Cali cartels, and Castro, and recently the Red Mafia in the KGB.

They ruin their detractors and they fear the truth. If they can, they will blackmail you. Sex, drugs, deals, whatever it takes.

-Quoted in Webb1

In the world of espionage, there exists the acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise/Coercion (blackmail), Ego. These are motivations for espionage, and are used in counterintelligence as well as recruitment to motivate individuals to betray their country, company, organization, etc. In short, these are the four main pillars used to coopt people into joining a cause. It seems to me that Epstein was able to use these very effectively in his own operations. He had access to vast finances for funding which gave him an enormous amount of influence; and he had cameras everywhere while running a sex trafficking ring in order to compromise and coerce those in powerful positions, if need be. The sex trafficking may have also played into Ego, as powerful people were able to “live on top of the world” as it were, and fulfill their deepest desires, no matter how depraved.

Honestly, the release of the files has been done in such a way that makes it difficult to digest. Over 3 million files all at once, with no structure, no context, no categorization, no guidance for any coherent connections. The UI is clunky and on the surface the whole thing looks sloppy. But it makes me wonder if this was not, in fact, deliberate. The Trump administration has been dragging their feet, reluctant to release any of the files. Early on, they announced that they would, but have since tried to walk it back, again and again. They say these 3 million are half of the files, but within the files, an FBI email exchange says there are over 16 TB of data. Supposedly, that means these 3 million files actually only make up 2% of the files. It is also important to keep in mind that only FBI files will be released to the public. Anything the CIA has will stay hidden away.

Internet sleuths are still going through the files and finding more and more every day. There is just so much to piece together. Anyone trying to convince you there is nothing there is either stupid or lying. This is the biggest news story of our lifetime.

  1. Webb, Whitney. One Nation Under Blackmail Vol. 1. Trine Day LLC, 2022. ↩︎

Home

Everything back home looks pretty much the same, but at the same time, this place is unrecognizable.

I’ve finally arrived back home. It feels strange to be back. Everything is the same but oddly different. There’s an ominous tension in the air that wasn’t there before. I feel like I’ve stepped into some kind of mental institution.

I’ve been wondering why I’ve felt this way, and I’m confident it’s because of the rules and restrictions surrounding COVID. They were – and are – baffling. I can’t find any logic behind most of them, and none of these things were necessary in Japan. And then I looked at the narrative of the media in Canada, and it started making sense. The propaganda here is incredibly strong. I didn’t expect that this would ever happen in this country. I watched a video of Trudeau stating, “we will get out of this pandemic by vaccination,” and I thought, ‘wow. That didn’t age well.’ And then I realized that clip was from only a few days prior. What? Is it not common knowledge that the vaccinated are still spreading the disease? I thought we’d known this for over a year now. The vaccinated can contract the virus. They can transmit the virus. And they have the same viral load as the unvaccinated. How is it even conceivable that the vaccine could stop anything? Especially in the face of Omicron.

But the thing about propaganda is that it’s like an illusion. If you’re standing where intended, you’re under the spell. For me, not being in Canada for all that time meant I was not standing in that intended spot. I’m a fresh frog who’s been tossed into a Canada-sized pot of boiling water, while the other frogs haven’t taken notice of the drastic change in temperature. And what I was witnessing was unbelievable.

And there’s an explanation as to why: Astroturfing, censorship, and the merger of state, media and tech. Astroturfing is a relatively new method that the establishment uses to carefully construct a narrative designed to manipulate people’s opinions. This is when political, corporate and special interests disguise themselves to publish comments, reviews, ads, and articles to elevate their own agenda, and smear or “debunk” anyone who disagrees with them. Their goal is to convince people that there’s widespread support for, or against, an agenda when there isn’t. It’s a type of artificial reality they construct around you. Sometimes Astroturfers intentionally shove out so much confusing and conflicting information as to make it nigh impossible to tell what’s true. A few easy identifiers for astroturfing include when the terms crank, quack, nutty, lies, paranoid, pseudo, and conspiracy are used. They claim to “debunk” myths that aren’t myths at all. In our current climate, they repetitively use the term “anti-vaxxer.” Seeing any of these terms should be a red flag to think twice about what’s being presented. I highly recommend watching this video for more information. In it, Sharyl Attkisson states that these methods are “now more important to [special] interests than the traditional lobbying of congress. There’s an entire industry built around it in Washington.” And this was in 2015.

Next, let’s look at the Trusted News Initiative. The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) began in 2019 when the BBC brought together Big Tech and other large media companies including Facebook/Instagram, Google/Youtube, Twitter, Microsoft, Reuters, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Washington Post, just to name a few. People were losing trust in established mainstream news sources (after realizing they were being lied to repeatedly), and the TNI wanted to bring corporations together and rectify the situation globally. The original goal of the TNI was to stop “disinformation which threatens human life or disrupts democracy during elections.” On the surface, this doesn’t necessarily seem nefarious, but there are major conflicts of interest at play here. Government tax money (ie. YOUR money) is given to Big Pharma, which spends a massive amount advertising with TNI corporations, who, as it so happens, also have investments in Big Pharma, and some of that money eventually makes it back to select politicians. Even before the pandemic, they had reported that anti-vaxxers were gaining traction on social media as part of a “fake news” movement that was spreading “misleading and dangerous information”. Then, after the pandemic began, that turned into stopping so-called “disinformation” about the vaccine. They went on to disseminate massive amounts of pro-vaccine messages, while demonizing the unvaccinated to force compliance.

TNI corporations cleverly pretend to be giving you the news – the truth – but in actuality it’s essentially just a disguised advertisement – that isn’t actually concerned about the truth at all. Its purpose is to promote specific narratives and to silence any dissenting voices – by censoring, demeaning, de-platforming, delegitimizing, and de-licensing them. They became even more heavy handed in their approach when they decided that stopping so-called “disinformation” about the vaccine would include censoring any content that promoted “vaccine hesitancy.” And what might that mean? Anything that would make one hesitant to take the vaccine – any information, no matter how factual, was and is, to be quashed, silenced, “debunked,” de-legitimized, etc. What about adverse events? Not allowed to talk about them. People across social media have been demonized for even bringing up their experiences. At best, adverse events will be played down – the severity underreported, and language twisted to highlight positives and sweep negatives under the rug (as seen with myocarditis, when a number of publications tried to claim that it was mild and temporary – when this affects children, and young males in particular, at an alarming rate, can permanently damage the heart muscle, and is hospitalizing over 80% of those that have this adverse reaction (additional related video here)). This is a huge problem. How are people supposed to make informed decisions if they are being fed such heavily biased information? In Canada, by law, a healthcare professional is required to inform patients of the risks and benefits of each treatment option as well as the probabilities of success and failure. This is called informed consent, and it is actively being blocked by the TNI in regards to the vaccine.

The TNI also pays for “fact checkers” to run false fact checks and hit pieces on doctors, scientists and journalists who contradict the official narrative. Fact checkers may sound authoritative, but they often only have a bachelor’s degree, and can sometimes just be an intern with a high school diploma. Let that sink in for a moment. These people are fact checking doctors and scientists. And I have seen a number of doctors and scientists frustrated that fact checkers didn’t understand the literature on what they were “fact checking.” Two good examples are this article by Heather Heying, and Part III of this post by Joomi Kim. When Facebook was sued over their fact checks by John Stossel, they admitted in court that the fact checks were merely opinions (and therefore immune from defamation). And yet these opinions are presented in a misleading way, so that they are thought of as fact – why else call them fact checkers? Not only that, they argued that they should be able to do so because of freedom of speech. Imagine that. They get to curate and infringe upon the freedom of speech of others, and that should be protected by freedom of speech. Do I really need to point out that freedom of speech, by nature, isn’t supposed to be one-sided?

Remember when prominent biologists and doctors hypothesized that COVID-19 may have come from a lab? I do. I also remember when those people were smeared across the state/corporate press and Big Tech platforms for it. Now this is accepted as the most plausible explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This exemplifies how no one is not allowed to think or discuss ideas outside of the carefully constructed narrative. Only when something is brought into the fold of the narrative by Big Tech and the state/corporate news entities is it an acceptable topic. And when, or if, they do reluctantly bring something like this into the fold, it’s usually months or years behind the doctors and scientists who have been fighting to get the message out, or at the very least, just have a discussion. This isn’t news. It’s a façade. It’s global information control. They’ve stopped scientific discussion and debate. Doctors, who spend their time literally saving lives, are not and have not been permitted to even discuss the best way forward on how to continue to save lives. How can they possibly practice the most effective way to do so under such circumstances? The answer is obvious: They can’t. The TNI is forcing us to shoot ourselves in the foot. With a cannon. During a global pandemic.

Also in 2019, $600 million of taxpayer money was given by the Trudeau government to select Canadian news outlets. Select outlets, meaning whoever was in the position to choose the outlets had the power to pick the ones that would do exactly what they wanted. And the Trudeau Liberals were in that position. Instead of being able to choose which media companies to support, Canadians were forced to bail out media of the government’s choosing. And during this pandemic we’ve seen certain Canadian publications in lockstep with the narrative, doing the exact same thing as the TNI. They are easy enough to spot, if you keep an eye out for them.

One additional thing I’d like to point out is how many logical fallacies are used to prop up the validity of the constructed narrative. Just as Dr. John Campbell points out in his Ivermectin debunking video, people are taking the word of reporters and politicians rather than listening to doctors presenting data. This is an appeal to (false) authority. The media has been rife with pushing logical fallacies such as this. Appeals to authority, appeals to emotion, ad hominem attacks, false equivalencies, red herrings, poisoning the well, sweeping generalizations, post hoc ergo proptor hoc, are just some of the first that come to mind. It is important to keep these in mind when considering the validity of an argument. This is especially so with everything going on right now.

From studying propaganda in university, there is one rule that has always stuck in my mind: Everything in this world is neither good nor evil, but public opinion makes it so. That is to say, no matter what good or evil you wish to accomplish, warping public opinion makes it possible. You can convince them evil is good, or vice versa, through propaganda. You just need to nudge them psychologically until they’re standing in the right spot.

Now let’s get back to being in Canada. Everything back home looks pretty much the same, but at the same time, this place is unrecognizable. The values that Canadians held fundamentally dear to them have begun to dissolve, and sadly, for many, they have dissolved.

The Canadian “leaders” have circumvented parliament to enact policies and regulations that break multiple parts of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, effectively acting like some kind of dictatorship. Not only did they skirt the democratic process, but they also did not follow any of the other stringent rules set in place for overriding any part of the Charter. For example, no cost-benefit analysis was done for anything put in place at all. Our freedom of movement; freedom of conscience; freedom of assembly; freedom of association; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression; right to life, liberty and security of person (including our freedom of bodily autonomy and right to informed consent) have all eroded or have been discarded completely. This is illegal. What our government has done, and is doing, is illegal. And yet the media is in lockstep with the government on this. It’s insane. But luckily for Canadians, there may still be hope. The last surviving first minister to help write the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 is suing the federal government because of this. Our rights as Canadian citizens are not being upheld. They are being trampled upon by our so-called “leaders,” who are not being held accountable for any of their actions. Here is a video with Brian Peckford explaining his lawsuit and the situation in general. Every Canadian should watch that video. If our rights continue to erode, before we know it, we won’t have any. We will be subject to the whims of whoever is in power, no matter their wish. The Charter expresses our fundamental values – the values our country is based on. Human rights. And they are undemocratically being abandoned.

This is not the Canada that I once knew. I used to be proud to be Canadian. Life here now is a spinning circus. Democracy in this country has been revoked, in favor of a dictatorial regime. Scientific data, as well as our values, have been discarded for the whims of our “leaders.” And the media has convinced Canadians this is in their own best interest, when it could not be more the opposite. Is there truly no hope for our future?

Enter the truckers:

Perhaps I wasn’t the only frog noticing the hot water.

After Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau agreed to mandate all truckers be vaccinated to cross the border, the truckers responded, “no.” They decided to drive to Ottawa in protest of our current government’s overreach. They state, “To our Fellow Canadians, the time for political overreach is over.  Our current government is implementing rules and mandates that are destroying the foundation of our businesses, industries and livelihoods.” From the very beginning they have emphasized that this was a peaceful protest, and their rules for the protest include not entering any government building or property under any circumstances, treating all police officers with respect, keeping calm and not getting baited into conflict, and not making any type of threats.

Their Facebook group has been quickly growing since its inception. It’s over 760 000 users at the time of writing*. Not only that, the Gofundme has raised over $7 million. It’s difficult to pin down the actual number of truckers involved. Corporate media is downplaying the numbers, stating a few hundred or low thousands, while Trudeau has called them a “fringe minority.” The actual number is probably somewhere in the tens of thousands, with some in the group saying upwards of 50 000. There are American truckers joining in too, planning to cross the border to join their Canadian brothers and sisters in Ottawa. And let’s not forget all of the Canadians that are supporting the convoy, that have been greeting them from the side of the road, or from overpasses. Here’s a video with some highlights of the trip, and here’s another good one taken in Toronto. It is clearly far, far from a “fringe minority.” Nothing has unified Canadians like the Freedom Convoy has, at least in recent history, and most certainly not for the past two years. In fact, I can’t seem to remember a time where people seemed to be this united. I don’t think there has been an event in my lifetime as significant. It marks a chance for all Canadians to come together and voice their concerns, which have, for the past two years, been quashed into near silence. It’s the chance for Canadians of all walks of life to come together and stand up for their rights and freedoms.

Predictably, the state/corporate news is smearing them however they can. CityNews even reported that they were protesting unsafe road conditions, before facing a backlash from the public and having to edit the (written) story to specify that this was a separate protest from the gigantic one involving tens of thousands of truckers that they just so happened to miss. Then, when finally deciding to cover the actual story, they decided to broadcast that there would be “death and destruction” and likened it to the January 6th United States Capitol riot. They then went on to accuse the Gofundme of money laundering. There are also plenty of state/corporate news outlets that have claimed these are anti-vaccination protests, which is misleading. The vaccine is not the focal point of the protest – it’s the policies and regulations that have diminished the freedoms of Canadians that are the focal point. Framing the story in such a way is dishonest, and it mischaracterizes the movement. The CBC said there were protestors with confederate flags, and suggested that they were Nazis, but only moments later claimed that Russia may be instigating the protest. Maybe they’re Russian Nazis who want to restore the Confederacy? The story (which is quite comical) can be found here – and this video is also a great example of the TNI in action – reaffirming the narrative while pushing the vaccine. The conspiracy theories surrounding this protest put forward by the state/corporate media have been astounding. Any of this sound like an attempt to de-legitimize to you? Any of it sound like flooding people with tons of confusing and contradictory stories? Given what I discussed earlier, none of this should be surprising – but somehow it still shocks me. It’s uncanny to watch them try to create their own parallel, separate reality in real time. If you watch any footage of the convoy at all, the message is clear: Freedom for all Canadians. Restoration of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (This was a great livestream showing a bit of the first day in Ottawa.) I wish the truckers and everyone in Ottawa the best, and I hope this helps more and more people come to their senses and unite for our rights.

From video footage shot by a protestor, it appeared that this provocateur with the flag was pressured to leave by those in the trucker convoy, as he did not reflect, nor respect, the values of the movement. It’s rumored that, after the photo was taken, these two left together.

In conclusion, I’d like to be clear: my message is not no vaccination. It is that the policies, restrictions and regulations and the way they are enforced are far more harmful than the thing they claim to be protecting us from. It is that the corporate media and Big Tech companies have pretended to inform people while propagating and perpetuating madness instead. They have driven a wedge between the people of this country, isolated them, and battered them with disinformation. They have manipulated Canadians into blaming each other instead of blaming those responsible. The common scapegoat used everywhere is obvious: it’s the fault of the unvaccinated. Trudeau even stated that, “they don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynist, often racist.” Scapegoating such a diverse group of people with this inflammatory language is not only divisive and hateful; it’s dangerous. A leader shouldn’t be directing a nation’s anxiety, anger, fear and frustrations towards a particular population of its people. One needs only look back at the history of the 20th century to see why. Not only that, but those in positions of power who are making these policies aren’t even following them. As Thomas Sowell said, “it’s hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” The “news” media, politicians, as well as anyone else involved in this insanity need to be held accountable. In a court of law where applicable. And they should never be allowed in a position of power over anything ever again.

*the Facebook group has been deleted multiple times since I wrote this section. Videos of the convoy have been removed. This movement has been heavily censored by Facebook (and Instagram).


Resolution and Acclimation

My New Year’s resolution, and what’s changed.

Long time no see. Happy new year! How many people do you think make new year’s resolutions? Guaranteed, far less actually follow through with them. I’ve never seriously had any. But being in Japan has made me think that I ought to correct course, at least for this year, seeing as how things have been so different out here, and I couldn’t have possibly expected everything that’s happened thus far. So I took a moment to think about what’s missing. Lately, I’ve felt like something is off. There’s been a sort of frustration, and depression looming within me, probably amplified by the language barrier. What I’ve been lacking is a means of expressing myself. So this year my resolution is to find more outlets for creativity. I guess we can start right here. Writing is a therapeutic process, and it’s perhaps the only way I get to express myself anymore. But I haven’t written anything since my cat passed away. And the other problem is that the type of blog I wanted to create was one that’s polished, and not all that personal, so I feel like I can’t just sit down and write nonstop about what’s going on with me, and then actually post it without major overhauls. Maybe this one will be a little bit different. Sometimes detours are fun.

Fushimi Inari, Kyoto

On Christmas eve, I sat on a bus headed for Kyoto, racing through tunnels and over highways. I peered through the window at the passing mountains splashed with lovely autumn colours: Deep greens, vibrant oranges, spots of yellow, reds here and there. It was hard to believe it was nearly Christmas. Not a speck of snow. In fact, it was quite warm. During the day (and even now), it sometimes gets up to around 15°C. This is not at all the winter I’m accustomed to. I was told that Kyoto would be colder, but I still couldn’t tell the difference. In Canada, the past few New Year’s in recent memory have been extremely cold. The one night with the most pressure to go out, party and have fun, and I’d rather just stay inside where it’s warm. Here in Japan, it’s customary to go to a shrine rather than go out drinking (though nowadays, many people do both). In fact, since the Japanese work so much, many of them take this time to continue working instead of doing anything celebratory. Needless to say my New Year this year was much different from any I could have possibly had back home. From Christmas to New Year, I visited more shrines and temples than I could even keep track of. And for New Year itself, I tried the traditional Japanese food for the occasion, Nabe.

Whenever I visit the big cities in Japan, one thing that always unexpectedly stands out to me is when I hear something other than Japanese. Especially when it’s spoken to me. When I went to Tokyo, staff tried to speak to me in English, which really threw me off because I had prepared Japanese in my head. Surprised and unsure how to respond, I stood there staring at them, like a deer in the headlights. I suppose after hearing only Japanese for so long, I’ve just grown used to it. Lately, I’ve started thinking of what I have and haven’t gotten used to here in Japan, and so I made a short list:

Things I’m used to:

  1. Hearing Japanese. Not only from people, but all of the audio that’s played everywhere here. Wherever you go, there are automated voices speaking to you in Japanese, from the subway to the ATM to the supermarket. When you walk around virtually any store here, there are advertisement videos playing loudly on a loop all over the place (which are very, very annoying). At first I was awestruck at how different it was that there were so many sounds playing everywhere. Now, I wear headphones when I shop.
  2. Paying my bills at the convenience store. This is actually very – dare I say – convenient.
  3. Crowded and chaotic subway stations. I realized in Kyoto that this doesn’t faze me anymore. When I first arrived in Osaka, I was floored by how many people there were going every conceivable direction. It was madness. At the time, trying to figure out how to navigate myself through all of that was a daunting task. Now, it all feels pretty normal to make my way through the crowds. (Though, the massive crowds during peak hours in the food court at the mall still scare me.)
  4. Super toilets. Nothing bad can be said about these. Every country should have them. Bidet? You got it, fam. But that’s not all. What angle do you want it at? What water pressure? Hot or cold? Do you want the seat warmer on? Turn that sucker up. How about the music? Louder?

Things I’m still not used to:

  1. Speaking Japanese. I’m still very much a beginner at Japanese. I can get by just fine as a tourist, but having any sort of meaningful conversation is still beyond me.
  2. The temperature outside. In the day it gets real warm (~15°C), and then at night it gets pretty chilly (~4°C). This is not even close to the usual winter weather I’m used to. It feels like I’m trapped in perpetual autumn. I didn’t even have a coat until about December, and when I take it with me during the day I feel like I don’t need it, until I’m leaving work at night and thankful that I brought it. I’m not complaining, though. It’s much better than the cold back home.
  3. The temperature of water in my kitchen. My kitchen sink has two possible temperatures: cold and liquid magma. Attempting to get anything in between is a fruitless endeavour.
  4. Squatters. The opposite of the super toilet. Man’s worst enemy. It still amazes me how, wherever you go in Japan, you either find a super toilet or a hole in the ground. Nothing in between.

And one final honourable mention: I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in Japan, but nothing was weirder than when I was at Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, and there was this tourist, nicely dressed, as though he was on a date, but with a stroller. Okay, fair enough; maybe he was there with his wife and kid. Nope. To my surprise, inside the stroller was a little brown dog, that looked like it gets better treatment than the queen. It had just been groomed; it’s fur was perfect, it had a nice little bow, and an expensive looking collar – like it was on a date. And as I watched him struggle to get the stroller around the temple, I just couldn’t get this image out of my head that this man was on a date with his dog at Kiyomizu.

And thus I’ve concluded this last decade by doing something completely different far from home. It’s been a long strange trip, but I’m so glad I made that first step. One day I decided to go to Japan, and then before I knew it, I was here. It doesn’t even feel like it’s been that long; but then, someone will ask me, “how long have you been in Japan?” and then I start counting the months, and I can hardly believe it. My initial plan was to come out here and travel all over Asia. Suddenly, I’ve made a life for myself here in Japan. It’s a shock for me to think about, but isn’t that what I wanted? I think it’s going to be harder to leave than I first expected.

First sunrise of the year in Japan

Frustrations and Realizations

The path starts here.

It’s a little overwhelming, suddenly not understanding anything. At first it’s okay; you’re in a new and exciting place, and it’s to be expected. But then time goes by, things aren’t all that new anymore, and finally, it sets in: you really don’t know anything.

Before I left Canada, I tried to learn some Japanese. I thought I knew enough to get by; if I was only traveling through here, that may have been the case. Being here to stay has hit me with the stark realization that I know nothing; and the language barrier can be very frustrating. Direct translations are terrible and nonsensical. Why does this chicken say south pole?! Only one of many unsolved mysteries. I pick up unknown things in the supermarket and try to Google Translate, but it just leaves me demanding, “what are you?!”

This has made it extremely difficult for me to balance my diet. In Canada I would look at different foods and think, “am I able to eat this?” before I came to a decision. Now, in addition to that, I first have to ask, “what in the world is this?” which usually leaves me guessing for long periods of time, and often to no avail.

So to compound my frustrations with the language barrier, I have also often felt sick for eating questionable things. There’s nothing more disappointing and frustrating than cooking a meal that seems healthy, only to have your body destroy itself over it. At times it’s left me wondering: am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? Am I where I’m supposed to be?

There have been countless times when I didn’t know where I went wrong. But not understanding is the first step to understanding. Maybe you don’t want to admit it, but things could always be better – and they could always be worse. Which are you going to focus on? To aim for? The path starts here. Focus on where you want your path to go, and walk it. And don’t be distracted by other paths; that’s how you lose your way.

I question myself. I have my doubts. But then I leave work, and suddenly it hits me. Holy shit. I’m in Japan. I made it. Goal accomplished. Dream fulfilled. Time to live it. What’s funny is that of all the different things here, the strangest feeling I get is when I’m leaving work. I step out of English immersion, and cross the threshold into a world overflowing with an entirely foreign language. It’s like being hit by a brick wall of Japanese. And so, every once in a while, I get this feeling: “whoa, I’m really here.” And it all seeps in that I’ve been taking steps in the right direction. I’m out here carving this path for myself, and I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I’ve been accomplishing my goals all along. How strange that I never noticed before.

At the beginning of my blog I asked a few questions: “What am I doing here? Should I be here? Is this what’s right for me?” And here I still find myself asking the same sorts of things today. Everyone seems to ask these questions at some point or another. When we do, it’s easy to be stricken with anxiety over all of the different options we’ve faced in life. What if we chose differently? Could our lives have been better? There are infinite possibilities we could mull over, but let’s be real here. Do any of them really matter? Not at all. Even if life may have been better otherwise, it ultimately doesn’t matter in the slightest. We can’t live in the past. And if we try, we will surely miss out on what’s most important: living here and now. We have to start from here, because here is where we are. Make the best of your situation from here on out. Especially if that’s what you’ve been griping about not doing before. Take the path towards something better. Time to trailblaze.

Why Are You Where You Are?

Why did I come to Japan? What a difficult question. And I get asked it every day. How often do you get asked, “why are you where you are?” Strange to actually think about, isn’t it? In one sense, I made a decision to come here, so here I am. But in another, there was so much that went into this. First, I needed a simple answer to satisfy my students that barely spoke english, but I also wanted to contemplate my honest answer.

The short answer: this place is different. The long answer: that’s what I wanted. I wanted to throw myself alone into a foreign world and see how I fared. Am I someone who sinks or swims? Jump into the deep end and figure it out. There was a part of me back home that was unfulfilled. And so I left to start looking. Not for something out there, but within myself. Looking for my dreams, passions, love, happiness, excitement and wonder. Looking for something to challenge everything that I know. Looking for myself. I know I’m around here somewhere…

I went all the way to the other side of the planet to explore myself. And, undoubtedly, the experience has been nothing short of extraordinary. My job teaching has been great so far. Many days I come home knowing that I helped students learn English, yet feeling like I somehow didn’t do any work. Where I’m living now is also breathtakingly beautiful. Surrounded by mountains and the inland sea, this port town is famous for udon. Not only have I been able to take in amazing views, but the food has been absolutely delicious. I ride my bike around the city, seeing new things, hearing foreign sounds, and smelling mouthwatering food. It’s like nowhere I’ve been before, yet it has some things that are reminiscent of my hometown. Though they call this the country, to me this is the suburbs – with fields of crops here and giant buildings there. I remember when Brampton was full of open fields. Now it’s all housing. It makes me wonder if and when a similar fate will overtake this place.

I’ve been constantly trying many different things, but I’ve found a few restaurants that I really like, especially a certain western-style one. Amongst the excitement of everything new, I found myself in want of something comfortable. I think I now fully understand why China Towns always pop up everywhere in the West. In a world suddenly so unfamiliar, it’s nice to have a place that feels like home.

Not knowing Japanese in the smaller parts of Japan is difficult, but the experience is very rewarding. When I’m actually able to speak to and connect with people, I feel like I’ve somehow made a breakthrough. But there’s still so much to learn. And that keeps driving me forward. It’s a constant challenge that I’m here to overcome. It’s the challenge of discovering more about myself the hard way. Will I sink or will I swim?

Piercing the Veil

We have all sorts of ideas built into us, which seem unquestioned and obvious. Going forward, it is necessary for us to reexamine common sense. Our ideologies greatly influence our perception.

As I said previously, I had been thinking that there was so much to explain before I would get to delve into what I wanted to. I was going around in circles, wondering how I got into each of these subjects, and how to start explicating them; perception, consciousness, psychology, religion, culture, history, perception again. All of these things are inextricably interconnected with one another, but where I’ve decided to begin is here:

When I learned about history growing up, I used to think about how stupid people once were to make such grave mistakes, to allow certain things to happen, to kill and die in such ways. After years of studying, I have come to realize that we are not any wiser now than we were before. What I’ve learned from history is that nobody ever learns from history. But maybe I can give you something to think about. Just as in our past, today there are misconceptions underlying a lot of our thinking. The behaviour that we were brought up to believe is acceptable isn’t necessarily sane, rational, or what’s best for us. Once an ideology is accepted, new observations are seen through the lens of that ideology – everything becomes perceived in its imagery and articulated in its vocabulary. None of these new observations can undermine the belief system, and new “facts” generated by the ideology constantly lend further support to it¹. For those believers, the world becomes shaped by the ideology and their perception of it. Thus, in both the past and present, it is through certain ideologies that we humans have vehemently suppressed the truth and oppressed those who seek it – in the name of another “truth.” Part of the problem lies within thinking that the truth is something that we can cling to, as if it were some unique material object; as though it were something that you could obtain and then hold onto forever. We are all (and have always been) products of our time; different periods of time come with their own dominant modes of thinking, their own vices, virtues, and unique cultural atmosphere. The problem is that the misconceptions in our current time period are harder to spot, because being involved in the cultural atmosphere can be blinding, deafening, and numbing. The phrase “hindsight is 20/20” also comes to mind. Looking back is much different than being there. It is therefore easier if I start with an example from the past.

Let’s begin by briefly looking at the life of Galileo Galilei. Galileo was a mathematician that also made inventions and discoveries in physics and astronomy. He created a telescope that could see farther than anything people could get their hands on at the time and with it, as well as with his expertise, he discovered ironclad evidence that the Earth revolved around the Sun (as Copernicus had previously theorized). This had big implications for the knowledge and beliefs of people at the time. Everyone believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun revolved around it. As far as they were concerned, the Bible proved it in Genesis, chapter 1, verses 17-18, which said unequivocally of the Sun, Moon and stars that: “God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness”². There was not a single word about the Earth revolving around the Sun to make day and night. Galileo was mindful of the Church and the consequences of going against it, at least for a while. The discovery didn’t come back to haunt him until he was an old sickly man. At this point, he was taken in by the Inquisition and, as with all cases of heresy, his only lifeline was to abjure. Anyone who refused to do so when accused of heresy would be confirming their heresy and the only solution left was burning at the stake. In order to be given the opportunity to save oneself by rescinding, the court had to be satisfied that the defendant wished to make good his errors with all his body and soul². Torture was often used for this purpose. The only reason Galileo was not subjected to the regular cruelties of the Inquisition was because of the people he knew and the fact that he was old and ill. After he renounced his findings, he was confined to house arrest, and his book (as well as others on the same topic) was banned. The Inquisition stopped Galileo from spreading his ideas for ever. The world stood steadfast in its belief that the Earth stood still and the Sun moved around it.

Galileo was lucky in his exchange with the Inquisition. Others were not so fortunate. You see, the theologians of the Church in those days were accorded the same respect that we now accord scientists, professors, and doctors. We think that they are the real authorities; they’ve learned, they’ve experimented, they have knowledge; they’re the wisest people in our society! A few hundred years ago, so were the theologians, and they had the same sense of responsibility toward the community as our great scientists and physicians have today³. For them, the perceived problem of the time was heresy, which would damn you to hell forever and ever, all eternity, where the most unimaginable horrors would torture you without end. On top of that, it was like a contagious disease; if someone were to come down with heresy, it would soon spread to others. And so, they had to act quickly and decisively in order for this disease not to spread. Thus, the humanitarian and merciful church fathers got together to decide how to stop this. They knew there was an eternal life beyond the grave, and so perhaps, just like a cancer before it spreads and destroys the whole body, it might have to be cut out (or even burnt out). The pain on the part of the patients would be a small price to pay for having gotten rid of it. The body was thought of as only a temporary vessel for the soul, which lasted forever. If you could save the soul, what happened to the body didn’t matter. So they decided that they had to torture these people, because they might, in the middle of this extreme experience, recant. And if they didn’t recant, then they should be burned at the stake, because there’s a chance that in the agony of burning, they will finally ask God for forgiveness and everything will be alright³. They will thus be saved.

Now realize that the intentions of the perfectly responsible inquisitors was to be merciful, as they were acting on the best knowledge they had in their day³. The ostensible aim of the Inquisition was to protect society from harm, and while it flourished, it didn’t offend the sensibilities of most people¹. Don’t you see how this could happen at any time? What happened to Galileo can happen at any time. The inquisition can happen at any time. Genocide can happen at any time. These are things we humans are capable of. Each of us. These problems are an occurrence in human behaviour. It just takes the right parameters: a certain attitude, thought process and environment.

To help illuminate this next point, I wish to share with you a quote from C. G. Jung:

…if the doctor wishes to help a human being, he must be able to accept him as he is. And he can do this in reality only when he has already seen and accepted himself as he is. Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life, it requires the greatest art to be simple. And so, acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem, and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar – that I forgive an insult – that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all – the poorest of all beggars – the most impudent of all offenders – yea the very fiend himself – that these are within me? And that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness. That I myself am the enemy that must be loved. What then?

Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed. There is then no more talk of love and long suffering. We say to the brother within us: Raca, and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world. We deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves. And had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.

The problem is that there is this dark side within all of us, and within the current dominant culture, nobody is willing to accept it. With our attitudes and the ways we’ve been thinking, we have this need to separate the Self (viewed as good) from the Other (viewed as evil), but what we don’t realize is that they are actually the same thing; and they are within us all. We have become divided against ourselves – in an inner conflict paralleling the conception of a cosmic conflict between an absolute good and an absolute evil³. We think we can be all positive with no negative. We deny and reject what we believe is the evil part of ourselves, and then project it onto others. And then someone arises who says, “aha! Look! I have found the bad, the evil. It is over there, in them!” and they point to a scapegoat. Then everyone, trying to rid themselves of evil, works to destroy the scapegoat without realizing their folly. And afterwards, we look back on those people as the ones having done evil the entire time. But no one learns anything.

We cannot fight this other side of ourselves. Pitting yourself against yourself creates an irresolvable problem. Attempting to remove the negative from the positive is an insoluble task. There cannot ever be only positive. How do you know positive without knowing negative? Or negative without positive? Good without evil? They are both a part of the same thing, like the two poles of a magnet. Even if you cut a magnet in half, it still has both poles. In the same way, we cannot remove the side of us responsible for what we consider evil. We have this mindset where we feel that having a war against something is a way to solve a problem. It is completely erroneous thinking, but through our culture, this is the way it’s come to be. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on Christmas, the war on the police – we’ve been bombarded with this language in the news over and over and over again. So we end up declaring war on everything; but all we’ve done is created an insoluble problem and further complicated it with poor solutions. These “wars” can’t be won; they can only be perpetual. And thus there is a war within ourselves, which we think is justified. We deny the evil within us – the part capable of the things we fear- and then we project it outwards onto others until we, ourselves, become that which we fear most. What we need to realize is that as humans, we are all capable of this, and if we don’t come to terms with it, these are the actions we will keep repeating time and time again. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions – especially when those good intentions come from a self-righteous entity. But all conflict has its resolution in an underlying unity. The one most in need of your love, kindness and acceptance is you. Unify yourself. We cannot change anything unless we accept it.

We have all sorts of ideas built into us, which seem unquestioned and obvious. Going forward, it is necessary for us to reexamine common sense. Our ideologies greatly influence our perception, and we must accept ourselves and what we are capable of wholly. In our current state, wherein we are divided against ourselves, the suppression of truth (or at least of better ideas) can happen at any time. Galileo brought forth fresh observation and reasoning, but was oppressed for it. Likewise, the Inquisition can happen at any time. Those accorded with a certain respect and prestige with regard to their knowledge can be horribly erroneous in their thinking and solutions for perceived problems. Finally, and most importantly of all, – I repeat – the one most in need of your love, kindness and acceptance is you.

yin_and_yang

Sources:

¹ Szasz, Thomas. The Manufacture of Madness.

² Næss, Atle. Galileo Galilei, When the World Stood Still.

³ Watts, Alan. Various lectures.

Jung, Carl Gustav.