Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jun 16, 2023 16 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Many say it doesn't matter where COVID-19 came from, but it does. The cover-up of its origin typifies institutional rot. Our leaders have been lying and persecuting whistleblowers. Such rampant abuses of power threaten our democracy and civilization.

nypost.com/2023/06/15/we-…
Now, it’s up to Congress to demand answers from the intelligence community and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci.

How long did they know?

And why did they keep it a secret?
In February of this year, the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, told a reporter that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

Why, then, didn’t he say something sooner?
The cover-up was vast and insidious.

Our sources were terrified to tell us what many had long suspected.

They only did so because they are as outraged as the American people should be and felt a moral obligation to speak out.
Not only did the highly infectious respiratory virus kill millions, but the response to it also shut down businesses and schools, upended societies, and caused enormous collateral damage.
Governments threw out their pandemic playbooks, which until COVID-19 had centered around voluntary measures and protecting high-risk groups — not long-term school and business lockdowns and mask mandates.

Why?
And, in the name of public safety and preventing “vaccine hesitancy,” governments declared war on free speech.

Facebook censored The New York Post’s accurate February 2020 op-ed pointing to a lab leak as the cause.
Twitter kicked journalists off its platform.

And the White House menacingly threatened Facebook and Twitter with extinction, in the form of revoking their license to operate, if they didn’t censor “often-true content,” including stories of vaccine side effects.

Why?
For the last six months, we have seen whistleblower after whistleblower come forward bravely, as the law allows, only to be punished.

FBI officials punished whistleblowers for exposing the agency’s targeting of innocent Americans for “domestic terrorism” and “violent extremism.”
China deserves plenty of blame for what happened.

The Wuhan lab had repeatedly failed to maintain proper safety levels.

And totalitarian societies, by punishing dissent, can’t self-correct in the way democracies can.

But powerful US officials enabled the disaster.
In 2014, President Barack Obama had banned the “gain of function” research that likely caused the pandemic.

Fauci and his collaborators violated the spirit if not the letter of the law by sending that research to China, and spinning it as something other than gain of function.
The abuse of power is pervasive in the federal government.

Congress must act now to create an independent and bipartisan commission on the origins of the COVID pandemic, and why US government officials participated in its cover-up.
Congress also must take immediate action to defund and dismantle the Censorship Industrial Complex, whereby contractors of the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation demand that Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms censor disfavored… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
And Congress must establish stronger oversight of its biomedical establishment.

The worshipful news media coverage of Fauci is particularly appalling in retrospect, now that we know that he personally sought to squelch the lab leak hypothesis for self-interested reasons.
The greatest change of all must be in the way Americans view their leaders and institutions.

We must be much more suspicious of the official narrative.
The people who cry “disinformation” are, often, trying to censor accurate but inconvenient truths.

And the people who accuse others of “spreading conspiracy theories,” are, as we have just seen, often conspiring to spread disinformation.

/END

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More from @shellenberger

Dec 18
Biden says there’s no “sense of danger” in the repeated invasions of the air space above homes and military bases by unidentified drones. That’s a ridiculous and terrifying lie. Of course there is. Protecting our air space has been one of America’s highest priorities for 80 years Image
From Biden to Mayorkas to DOD spokesperson, the US government officials are flagrantly lying to the American people and nobody knows this more than US military base commanders and the men and women who work in the military.
If you are in the military, Intelligence Community, or other US government agency and know something about these drones, please contact me to shine the light on the wrongdoing.

Encrypted email: michaelshellenberger@proton.me

I will go to prison to protect my sources.
Read 11 tweets
Dec 14
Biden officials @AliMayorkas & John Kirby said, " We have not seen drones penetrate restricted airspace" and "There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted airspace," but US officials have reported drones at Langley, Edwards, Earle, & many other sites.
Drones penetrated restrict airspace at Langley, Norfolk, Edwards, and Nevada National Security Site.

This was heavily reported and so it's very odd for Kirby to make his claim on Thursday and for Mayorkas to repeat it on Friday.

wsj.com/politics/natio…
Now perhaps Kirby and Mayorkas were only referring to the recent drone sightings in New Jersey.

But in NJ there are official reports from Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle of drone incursions in recent weeks.

nypost.com/2024/12/12/us-…Image
Read 7 tweets
Dec 7
There is an epidemic of white police officers killing unarmed black men, we must block the puberty of children born in the wrong bodies to prevent them from killing themselves, the Russians control Trump through a sex blackmail operation, the Covid vaccine prevents infection, millions or billions will die from starvation and harsh weather from climate change, there's no way a Covid virus could have escaped from a lab, mass migration improves societies with no trade-offs, it's best for addicts if we give them hard drugs to use in special sites downtown, we need the government to fight misinformation online in order to save democracy, Biden is sharper than ever, Kamala is 100% prepared to be president, and anyone who disagrees is racist, sexist, and/or fascist.

While many Americans are increasingly and at least partially aware that all of the above are lies, we are still a long way from coming to grips with their enormity, their monstrous consequences, and the totalitarian ways in which the mainstream news media, many employers, and governments demanded that we believe them. Current and former heads of state, our most-trusted journalists, and full professors at Ivy League universities created and propagated those Big Lies, repeatedly, for years, even after they had been thoroughly debunked, sometimes within days or hours of them being made, by people who ruling elites then sought to bankrupt, shame, and ostracize.

There has not yet been a proper accounting of the very many abuses of power, including the Big Lies, by elected officials, the media, and other governing elites during the Woke Reign of Terror (2013 - 2024). That accounting will need not only to thoroughly debunk all of the major lies, it will also need to explore why elites created and perpetuated them, why so many people believed them, why they lasted for so long, and what can be learned from them, both separately and how they worked together as a whole, constituting the worldview of the people who run Western societies and nations. Historians, sociologists, psychologists and many others will, for centuries, study the Work Reign of Terror as a uniquely irrational and self-destructive period in America's history. Hopefully something good, including wisdom, courage, and improved self-governance, will come out of those studies and reflections.
Woke Religion: A TaxonomyImage
Woke Psychopathology: A TaxonomyImage
Read 4 tweets
Nov 22
The Australian PM @AlboMP wants global censorship to counter misinformation. But only free speech can counter misinformation. Please share this to affirm your opposition to his awful bill!
Was the censorship bill a head fake to jam through Digital ID? 🤔
👀 Image
Read 6 tweets
Nov 21
I am concerned about the impact of social media on children, but this bill is a Trojan horse to create digital IDs, which is a giant leap into the totalitarian dystopia depicted in "Black Mirror," and already in place in China. And @AlboMP has proven censorial and untrustworthy.
Read 7 tweets
Nov 18
Lovers of free speech just scored victories in the US, EU, and Ireland. But now we’re in pitched battles in Britain & Australia, which is at dire risk of trying to censor the entire planet. This is about all of us, so I’m flying down. Share this to show solidarity. LFG!!! Image
I am headed directly to Canberra to meet with other free speech lovers and the wise and just representatives of the Australian people, who I am confident will kill the @AlboMP governments aggressive and hostile assault on the freedom that enables democracy and all other freedoms.

Australia belongs to its people and it is up to them and their representatives to decide whether they want to remain a liberal democratic nation or instantaneously become a totalitarian one.

But it is the duty of friends of Australia to bluntly warn that @AlboMP is pushing a censorship law that would not only end free speech for Australians but also be viewed as a hostile assault on the free Internet worldwide by people in other nations, including in the US, its best ally.

x.com/shellenberger/…
@AlboMP Here is the text from the law that makes clear that the @AlboMP censorship law would apply to the entire global Internet.
Read 5 tweets

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