Savage Minds

Monica Smit, founder of activist group Reignite Democracy Australia which opposes the Victorian government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, discusses her 2021 arrest, detention and the charges brought against her of incitement for urging people to attend anti-lockdown protests. Having spent twenty-two days in solitary confinement for refusing to sign the draconian bail conditions—extreme conditions which have since been appealed and revoked—Smit, recently recognised as Australia's first political prisoner, still faces criminal charges for her human rights activism. Here she elaborates the political machinery within Australia today that refuses to come clean on “the science” that many politicians fabricated to justify what she deems to have been unecessary lockdowns and draconian police actions taken against peaceful protests. Working with internationally respected experts and organisations to form a new global platform, Reignite World Freedom, Smit clarifies her endeavour to educate the public around the planet as to how they too can pushback against the globalist agenda in a post-Covid-19 world where the left has utterly failed to take up the mantle of defending human rights leaving the political right, as she views it, to undertake this task. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, discusses current public health measures and how the COVID-19 pandemic, now an endemic, has been handled—from the misguided WHO recommendations, to national policy responses, to lockdowns, and vaccine mandates. Bhattacharya analyses how the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 was politically framed and wrongly assumed by some to be capable of stopping virus transmission noting how countries like Israel had vast case outbreaks even with high vaccination rates. Bhattacharya details how vaccine discrimination grew out of wrong-minded public health policies based on vaccine falsehoods within the US where officials ignored the fact that those who had already recovered from having contracted COVID-19 had pretty good protection against getting sick again, stating: “Essentially they introduced…legalised discrimination against the unvaxed on the basis of a scientific falsehood: the idea that the vaccine could stop transmission.” Observing how the lockdowns were a complete failure in stopping the spread of the virus while there were viable alternatives for protecting the elderly, Bhattacharya vituperates how the lives of the poor, the vulnerable, and the working class worldwide were devastated. He cites a UN report from 2021 that documents how 230,000 children died as a result of the economic dislocation caused by lockdown in South Asia—starvation effectively—something he maintains was utterly predictable. Criticising “policy contagion” on the world stage and the conflicts of interest presented by Anthony Fauci’s roles in virus mitigation and in funding high-profile immunologists and virologists like Jeremy Farrar who are involved in setting COVID policy, Bhattacharya maintains that there is a conflict of interest between those who fund the science and those on the receving end of this funding who set public health policy given that these scientists will be afraid to speak up. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Topher Field, political commentator and Australian documentary filmmaker, discusses the politics and public health decisions that led him to make his latest documentary, Battleground Melbourne (2020). Historicising what happened during Melbourne’s lockdown and the ensuing mask mandates, vaccines and vaccine mandates, Field criticises the propaganda and theatre that has been elaborately disseminated by mainstream media and curated by Big Tech such that no discussion or democratic protest can take place. Noting how in many western nations and Australia alike people have expressed quite reasonable concerns about the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccines being rolled out, Field details that the cost-benefit analysis we were promised is not supported by the data. Explaining how he and others took to the streets of Melbourne to stand up to Daniel Andrews (Premier of Victoria) demanding the human rights that many western democracies have denied their citizens, Field notes the irony of how lockdown became Andrews’ Machiavellian tool for pitting the police and the “laptop class” against the working class where all groups are simply trying to survive and do their jobs. Criticising how evil is represented in popular entertainment, Field vituperates the propaganda created by governments and media the world over that pushed immoral laws and mandates that conditioned people towards fear and away from critical thinking, observing, “People who do evil things are people who do what they are told for the most part and the worst evils in history…have been done by people who were acting in accordance with the law and doing what they were told.” Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

George Christensen, a former Australian politician, discusses the disastrous political decisions made during the pandemic including the lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccines, vaccine passports and discrimination within Australia since early 2020. Focussing on the loss of liberty, Christensen notes that at the height of the pandemic the case fatality ratio was far too low to justify the lockdowns. Noting the hokum lent to the mask and vaccine mandates, Christensen queries why lockdown became a go-to model from one country to the next despite the science not justifying such draconian tactics. Criticising the power of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Christensen vituperates how the WEF instigated the Great Reset, influencing world leaders who parroted the WEF mantra on lockdown while this organisation, a vast collection of the wealthiest companies (eg. Big Tech, the weapons industry, major media, Big Pharma, the insurance industry, etc) on the planet, aggressively pushed lockdown. Christensen analyses the vast power of the WEF, observing how the editorial narrative in mass media is being driven by the corporate sector which has its hands in every level of government, healthcare, public policy, corporate media, and Big Tech. Major media and Big Tech, Christensen notes, have been instrumental in controlling the social and political narrative by curating what is published within major media and what permitted to be uttered and shared on social media. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Caitlin Roper, activist, writer and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout, discusses her forthcoming book to be published this autumn by Spinifex Press, Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The Case for Resistance (2022). Roper outlines the burgeoning industry of “sex dolls” and the more recent emergence of child sex abuse dolls where many companies now offer the customisation of these dolls based on photos of actual girls. Elaborating the widespread support for these dolls and the academic research that views these dolls as the solution to men’s sexual “deprivation," Roper criticises how these dolls are framed as the panacea to women and girls being raped with some supporters stating, “It’s better a robot than a real child.” Roper discusses the wider patriarchal context that supports the objectification of women and girls that prioritises men’s needs in a cultural context that depends upon the idea that women and girls are less than human. Pointing out the paradox where recent social movements have superficially recognised women’s and girls’ rights (eg. the #metoo movement, narratives of consent, etc.), Roper notes the steep disconnect from the wider societal support of the sex doll industry, pornography, and the sex trade. Roper vituperates, “They’re completely at odds. You can’t be fighting the mistreatmeant and exploitation of women while simultaneously encouraging their dehummanisation.” Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Az Hakeem, a Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor in Psychiatry & Applied Psychotherapy who ran a specialist gender dysphoria service in the NHS for twelve years, discusses gender dysphoria and the politicisation of this condition within what has become its own lobby. Discussing his involvement with the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, a group of clinicians based in the UK and Ireland, calling for a greater understanding of the effects of sex and gender in healthcare, Hakeem notes how he and his colleagues are concerned about the current overthrow of reality by gender ideology, especially as children are being put on a trajectory of hormones and surgery. He also explores the theatre of organisational “support” offered by the medical community vituperating the Royal College of Psychiatrists that issues statements supporting “gender” treatments even rough it failed to ask its psychiatrist members and fellows within the College for their opinions on this subject. Hakeem maintains that most psychiatrists do not share the official mantra of the RCP. When asked where scientific evidence exists that demonstrates an enhancement of quality of life resulting from “gender affirming” surgeries or hormones, Hakeem answers, “There is no evidence,” elaborating how there are no follow-up studies on this demographic within the NHS, thus allowing the propagation of false narratives (eg. that those who are refused treatment will commit suicide) to bend pubic opinion on this subject. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Vaishnavi Sundar, a writer and self-taught filmmaker from Chennai, discusses her film Dysphoric (2021) that explores the social, medical, and institutional constructions of “gender identity” and her forthcoming film Behind The Looking Glass (2023) that gives voice to the women who's partners “transition.” Analysing the influence of western theories within India in recent decades, Sundar addresses how the theories of “gender identity” have come to infect academia, NGOs, the fields of psychology and human rights advocacy, and even the very groups most affected by this narrative and its medical procedures, the Dalits (those born into India’s most marginalised castes). While Dalits have faced enormous violence and oppression on the subcontinent for thousands of years, Sundar notes that it is precisey this groups which has become the target for “gender identity” in the transitioning of India’s most oppressed who view “queerness” and “transgender identity” as an escape route from historical economical, political and social oppression. Where “transgender” ideology has taken hold of the more socially affluent in the west, Sundar notes that in India many Dalit women captured by the “gender identity” myth view this narrative as a panacea, an escape from the brutal reality of being female and impoverished in India today. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Mary Lou Singleton, midwife, nurse practitioner and medical freedom activist, discusses the foundational myths buttressing Covid-19 virus mitigation—from the medical, public and political policies—in detailing what she witnessed in her practice. Singleton discusses the political underbelly that virus mitigation shares with the gender identity movement and the recent US Supreme Court decision which upended Roe v Wade while noting the misogyny that leaves women’s bodies expropriated by both political valences. Singleton elaborates how the right wants to restrict the women’s and girls’ freedom to somatic autonomy and reproductive healthcare and the left in unable to define what a women is while catering to regressive sexual stereotypes. Tracing the threads between the pseudo-science spun by legacy media during the past two-and-a-half years of the coronavirus pandemic and the propagation of similar medical hokum regarding gender ideology, Singleton addresses our current era’s most troubling reality where science has been repressed in the name of political decisions and medical totalitarianism. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation, discusses the state of legacy media and the urgent need for critical media literacy today. Reviewing how corporate media covers the news filling its pages with junk food news stories that perpetuate stories of “billionaires in space” and Hollywood scandals, Huff notes how propaganda often thrives on censorship, noting that the best propaganda is largely true but is often missing certain crucial elements that would allow the public to analyse issues more in-depth. Huff elaborates how legacy media uses public concern for “disinformation” to regain control of the narrative by proclaiming anything that does not mirror establishment media as “fake news.” Huff states that this is a transparent twist on censorship and the curation of information. Reviewing the conflicts of interest within organisational alliances that inform legacy media content, Huff scrutinises the Disinformation Governance Board, chaired by co-author of the Patriot Act, Michael Chertoff, and Facebook’s official fact-checker, the Atlantic Council, a lobby arm of NATO. Huff surveys recent neoliberal political narratives that pretend that “fake news” was uniquely a problem during Donald Trump’s presidency while he vituperates the “reactionary control of the narrative” which he claims is “another form of propaganda that wants to get people to accept the notion that there is a form of censorship that’s good for us.”  Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Nolan Higdon, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, discusses his latest book co-author with Mickey Huff, Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (Routledge, 2022). Covering the cultural performance of “social justice,” Higdon argues the need for critical thinking skills while noting how social media gives users a “delusion of power” whereby they believe themselves to be an authority on all topics such that when disagreement occurs, blocking has become the default means of interaction. Higdon focusses upon the importance of constructive communication and for individuals to learn how to have their ideas challenged and, at times, to being uncomfortable by fomenting productive relationships of communication instead of the present-day dumpster fire that social media encourages. Considering big tech’s hold over information, Higdon historicises the involvement of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in everything from mass surveillance tools to drones to the internet while noting how big tech is quite happy to do business with whomever is in power while trafficking in the “progression of neoliberal capitalism.” Higdon elaborates how major media and big tech have misrepresented working-class criticisms of the economic shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic by spinning the January 2021 demonstrators in Washington, DC as “white supremacists” and “gun nuts,” marginalising any discussion of class. All this while big tech silently removes social media accounts and certain information from the internet. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe