A Bugger’s Life

June 22, 2025 Leave a comment

What’s bugging Harry Caul?

Harry, a professional eavesdropper, is being paid to spy on a woman having an affair. But something he overheard makes him question whether he can remain a detached listener.

Harry and his crew use powerful microphones to record a conversation between the woman and her lover as they walk around a crowded San Francisco square. Later, after filtering out background noise on the tape, Harry replays a cryptic phrase in the recording. He imagines it to mean that the woman is being targeted to be murdered by his client.

Listening to his conscience, already replaying guilt and shame from a previous snooping assignment, Harry looks for a way out, for a way to not have blood on his hands. To offload his responsibility, he confides to a priest in a confessional, the oldest form of eavesdropping:

I’ve been involved in a job that may bring misfortune to two young people. It’s happened before. What I do has caused harm to someone. I’m afraid it will happen this time too. I’m not responsible for it. I can’t be responsible for it. 

The conversation in the park and in Harry’s soul takes place in the 1974 film by Francis Ford Coppola – a tense thriller and character study titled The Conversation.

Gene Hackman (God rest his soul) plays Harry Caul, ‘the best bugger on the West Coast.’ Harry is obsessed with technology and works in a world where privacy can be bought and sold using it.

On-the-job Harry, a surveillance expert, is an invader of privacy. He gets paid to move in close, take pictures, and record private conversations with electronic devices. But Harry has a paranoid fear of anyone being up close and personal with him.

Harry guards his privacy. He lives in a sparsely furnished apartment that is secured by three locks and an alarm system. It’s his fortress. He uses a payphone to make personal calls and lies about having a home telephone. Alone, Harry spends time playing his saxophone along with jazz records. Jazz is the music of individualists and loners.

Harry looks like a regular Joe. He easily fits into crowds and isn’t noticed while snooping. But Harry isn’t public. The enigmatic Harry stays emotionally detached from others, cut him off from the rest of the world as though he’s not really a part of it yet. This suggested in his last name “Caul,” the thin membrane that surrounds a fetus until it is born. His translucent raincoat suggests the caul.

Harry’s work is intrusive, but he wants protection from the same. He avoids below-the-surface relationships with people in his industry, his coworker Stan (John Cazale), and Amy, the mistress he supports and visits at random times.

Harry records private moments between humans. But the guarded Harry can’t or won’t expose himself to another human. His involvement with Amy (Teri Garr) is not a relationship nor intimacy. Harry shows up on his birthday and Amy thinks it is a good time to get to know Harry, to know his secrets. But Harry says he has no secrets to his secret lover. Harry is distant even from the person he is physically closest to.

As with the priest, Harry off loads his conscience and distances himself from the detrimental effects of his work. When Stan wants to speculate about the meaning of the conversation between Ann and Mark on the tapes, Harry insists that it is just a job and that it is unprofessional to get too curious or assume anything. How ironic for the intensely curious Caul!

Stan: It wouldn’t hurt if you filled me in a little bit every once in awhile. Did you ever think of that?
Harry Caul: It has nothing to do with me! And even less to do with you!
Stan: It’s curiosity! Did you ever hear of that? It’s just g*ddamn human nature!
Harry Caul: Listen, if there’s one sure fire rule that I have learned in this business is I don’t know anything about human nature. I don’t know anything about curiosity. That’s not part of what I do.

The man who hires Harry is Martin Stett (Harrison Ford). Stett is the assistant to Harry’s client, the director (Robert Duvall). Initially, Stett is friendly. But when Harry refuses to hand over the tapes, he becomes intimidating and warns Harry to “be careful.” He surveils Harry at the surveillance tech convention.

After a party at his workshop, Harry spends the night with Meredith (Elizabeth MacRae), a woman he has just met. He finds out the next morning that the tapes have been stolen. Stett had Meredith steal the tapes.

Stett tells Harry that they couldn’t wait for the tapes. He then tells Harry to come to the director’s office to hand over the photographs and collect his money. There, Harry meets the director and realizes that the woman he has been spying on is the director’s wife. The taped conversation now seems to signal the worst for the woman.

After leaving the office, Harry decides to get involved. His Catholic conscience kicks in and so does his covert curiosity. He surveils the lovers in a hotel room and . . .

I’ll stop there, with the basic elements of the film. You can watch the movie, experience the intrigue, check out the enigmatic Harry Caul character, and find out what’s bugging Harry Caul.

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Some questions and thoughts:

Does Harry’s method of recording reality, a cryptic conversation here, turn out to be flawed?

Does anyone who views or hears another from a distance – do they know that person? Or, do they only hear and see what they want to.

Do devices divine truth?

Does Harry compartmentalize his work-self from his conscience so as to maintain his addiction to snooping?

Does Harry become a pawn in another scheme?

Does Harry become a “partner in crime” that he so wanted to avoid?

Does the overflowing toilet scene signify the ugly truth coming to the surface?

How does super snoop Harry end up at the end of the movie? What’s his psychological state? What does his utter helplessness represent?

In the end, with what’s left intact, does Harry Caul find what is ‘bugging’ him? Does Harry come up empty?

Why would a Christian and book reader like me watch this movie? Well, for one reason, it is a great movie.

The Conversation, written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola between the Godfather movies, is a tense thriller and character study. The 1974 film is not like most of the pathetic and mindless flicks of today. There are no superheroes, no CGI, no WOKE agenda, no gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence. The violence that does occur is presented as an off-stage event like in Greek tragedies.

See the called-out elements of its PG rating here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/parentalguide/?ref_=tt_ov_pg#certificates

The movie was shot using long lenses and camera positions on rooftops. You get the idea of watching at a distance and of surveillance cameras panning scenes.

Another reason to watch is that Gene Hackman was a great actor. The character study involving a Catholic man who is self-isolating and who hears and views others from a distance – Hackman’s Harry Caul makes the movie.

Another is to consider the consequences of hearsay or of unfounded information, of surveillance versus participation, and of perception versus reality. Can we really know someone, their thinking, and their situation from a distance, from what others would have us believe?

And, there is the matter of someone listening without our knowledge. Though made in 1974, the issues of privacy the movie presents are relevant regarding you and I being surveilled today. The analog technology shown in the film has been replaced with digital technology that gains access to our private electronic communications, as through wiretapping or the interception of e-mail or cell phone calls.

We live in the age of digital technology that includes emails, texts, smart phones, and social media. How does Harry’s addiction to technology that supports his habit of seeing and hearing others at distance and his voyeuristic predilections affect him?

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Finding God in Stories | Office Hours, Ep. 15

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Scot Bertram talks with Clare Morell, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project, about the long-term effects of smartphone use on children and her new book The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones. And Benedict Whalen, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, continues a series on the life and work of American writer Mark Twain. This week, he discusses The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Clare Morell Helps to Keep Kids Free from Screens

Clare Morell Helps to Keep Kids Free from Screens – The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour – Omny.fm

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Filed under 2025 Current Events, movie, privacy, technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Have an Analog New Year

December 29, 2024 Leave a comment

I like my hand crank pencil sharpener. It doesn’t spy on me and report on what I am doing. It doesn’t try to sell me a new pencil when one is sharpened down to the nib. It doesn’t try to hack my pencil and steal it from me. It doesn’t need electric energy, Wi-Fi, a password, and app to use it. I don’t need to buy antivirus software. My analog hand crank pencil sharpener is a simple mechanical device that is noninvasive. I use it to sharpen pencils needed for the highlighting and marginalia of the physical books I read to expand my personal bandwidth.

My ’64 Chevy Impala – the first car I ever owned – had hand-crank analog windows and a Delco AM Push-Button Radio (which I tuned to Chicago’s WLS-AM 890). The Impala had mirrors and no cameras, screens, and distracting bells and whistles. The car was not dependent on a semiconductor chip or software engineering.

The Impala got me from point A to point B without tracking my whereabouts and driving habits with an embedded GPS transmitter and selling that data to a third-party data broker that sold it to my insurance company so they can adjust my rate based on my driving. The Impala didn’t invade my privacy by automatically storing text and call data from my cell phone. The car was not a rolling data territory.

The corded Touch-Tone wall phone hung on the wall of my parent’s kitchen used copper wires. It didn’t pretend to be a computer. It held no apps with choice architecture programming. It wasn’t a branch of cyberspace. The phone didn’t spy on me and data grab me. When the conversation was finished, I hung up the phone and walked away from it. It wasn’t an extension of me. It wasn’t omnipresent.

Back in the ‘50s, our black and white TV used “rabbit ears” to get the best possible reception. Aluminum foil was sometimes placed on the ends of the rabbit ears to enhance reception.

The original television technology used analog signals to transmit video and audio. It wasn’t connected to a cable or Wi-Fi. The programming had commercials but it didn’t ply me with the ads I spent time looking at in the weekly newspaper insert. It was a passive non-spying device.

I listened to 45s and LPs using a turntable. The devices used in the first third of my life have been analog. I was born some twenty years before the end of the analog age (the 1970’s when signals went from waves to digital 1’s and 0’s and the use of transistors in computers).

Having lived with analog technology, I prefer it over the “convenience” of “time-saving” digital devices. My reasons, echoed as concerns in the podcasts below, include not wanting to be spied on and exploited.

I do not want to be data-colonized by devices. I do not want to be an economic zone for more products and services and a mishmash of values. And, I do not want to be a product of That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis; the title comes from a poetic allusion to the Tower of Babel).

If you’ve read that story based on themes from Lewis’ lectures, you know about the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments or N.I.C.E. It was run by some masterminds who thought they knew best for everyone, increasing human efficiency to the point of human dissolution.

From The Devils in Our World – Official Site | CSLewis.com we read . . . N. I. C. E.’s . . .goal was “… the scientific reconstruction of the human race in the direction of increased efficiency …” (That Hideous Strength, 258). In The Abolition of Man’s more abstract terms, it was the power of some — the conditioners — over others; it was the conquest of nature and of human nature in particular through eugenics. Ultimately, it meant the abolition of man (63-64). (Emphasis mine.)

I am no fan of the digital technology because I see that the digital technology is no fan of me, a human.

Should human life be appropriated for data collection? Should an imposed alternate reality be tolerated for convenience and to ‘save’ us from boredom? Should we allow the “properties of being” to go the way of all totalitarian systems?

What do you get from your cell phone, your HD TV or the internet? Is it truth, beauty and goodness or is it isolation, loneliness, and nihilism streamed in 0s and 1s? Is it truth, beauty and goodness or is it materialism and modification of behavior?

I agree with Alexander R. Galloway, who considers the terms digital and analog in today’s world in his article Golden Age of Analog | Critical Inquiry: Vol 48, No 2, when he says  . . .

 If anything, the golden age of analog is happening today, all around us, as evidenced by the proliferation of characteristically analog concerns: sensation, materiality, experience, affect, ethics, and aesthetics. 

Analog concerns are human concerns whereas digital concerns are about data collection and modifying consumer’s behavior with choice architecture and ‘nudges” toward a profitable end for the “conditioners.”

I feel more secure and loved with a bookshelf full of classic books than with the bits and bytes of pseudo-reality that AI/ChatGPT promises.

Humans seek their own “profitable” ends via analog concerns. Have an analog New year.

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I’ve been asked about my take on AI. There is a lot to consider. Here are a few thoughts:

It is said that individuals who learn to harness AI tools will improve their lives. They say that new AI technologies will save us time, help us live smarter, and become super-productive unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

They say that AI will have the potential to help out with the boring and tedious stuff in our daily lives. And, that AI will solve complex problems including the fictitious “climate change crisis,” and offer a host of other benefits to mankind including massive amounts of information to make better informed choices. (Did you know that Computers Can’t Do Math?)

The downsides of AI/ChatGPT? There will be censorship of certain information and values leading to disinformation and misinformation – a machine’s type of ‘lying’. AI is capable of false narratives.

AI/ChatGPT has no ethics or morality but there will be bias no doubt favoring DEI, ESG, CRT, political correctness, and the green new scam. We all know the acronym GIGO.

MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy by Jim Rickards contains the warning

 . . . we must remain vigilant on the question of whose values will be promoted in the age of AI. As Rickards predicts, these systems will fail when we rely on them the most.

MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended. The peril is not in the algorithms, but in ourselves. And it’s up to us to intervene with old-fashioned human logic and common sense before it’s too late.

There is the possibility of AI/ChatGPT inventing fantasy or confabulation when there are missing links of data. From Confabulation in Brain Injury: Causes and Treatment:

Confabulation is a memory disorder characterized by the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive. It’s as if the brain, in its attempt to fill gaps in memory, creates a patchwork of experiences that may or may not have actually occurred. . .

Unlike lying, confabulation occurs without any intent to mislead. The individual genuinely believes in the truth of their statements, no matter how implausible they may seem to others. This can lead to a host of complications in personal relationships, professional settings, and even legal matters.

For all the proposed massive benefits of AI/ChatGPT, there is a real physical cost.

On Oct. 10, 2023 we were told that A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country:

A peer-reviewed analysis published Tuesday lays out some early estimates. In a middle-ground scenario, by 2027 new A.I. servers sold that year alone could use between 85 to 134 terawatt hours (Twh) annually. That’s similar to what Argentina, the Netherlands and Sweden each use in a year, and is about 0.5 percent of the world’s current electricity use.

A “green energy” grid is not able to handle charging a horde of EVs let alone power the semiconductors needed to store and process your personal data. The only good to come out of this: nuclear reactors will be built to handle base loads.

One of the “masterminds” behind “green energy”- Joe Biden – has created anti-oil and gas policies that “limit pipeline infrastructure and increased production on federal lands.” Natural gas prices have escalated because of this. Americans will suffer.

When temps drop this winter, AI/ChatGPT is not what’s needed. We need cheap and reliable energy.

Multiple Arctic outbreaks to affect more than 250 million in central, eastern US into mid-January

Going forward, I don’t see a need for AI/ChatGPT. Presumed to offer me a better self, I see AI/ChatGPT replacing thought and imagination with prescribed “answers.” We are not to think. We are to AI/ChatGPT.

Did the Greatest Story Ever Told come from AI/ChatGPT?

Will the greatest world ever known come about through AI/ChatGPT? No! That will happen when the New Jerusalem joins heaven and earth and we live in God’s immediate presence.

So, we use digital devices and AI/ChatGPT to save time. But what do we do with our saved time? Do we go back to a screen and throw away saved time? What does it mean to be “more productive”?

Digital technology and AI/ChatGPT seem to share the same ethics as Karl Marx:

“My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” – Karl Marx

“Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled.” – Karl Marx

Besides the abolition of private property, Karl Marx wanted to destroy five things: the family, individuality, eternal truths, nations, and the past. All of this is possible with AI.

Will AI/CHATGPT become the opium of the masses?

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead them.” — Vladimir Lenin

And the best way to do that today is via a digital medium that includes AI/ChatGPT.

A post-human world, packaged and sold as modern conveniences and life enhancing, is being delivered by digital technology.

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Still autonomous after all these years of data colonization? Asking for a friend.

In the present day, Big Tech is extracting resources from us, transferring and centralizing resources from people to companies. These companies are grabbing our most basic natural resources–our data–exploiting our labor and connections, and repackaging our information to control our views, track our movements, record our conversations, and discriminate against us. These companies tell us this is for our own good, to build innovation and develop new technology. But in fact, every time we unthinkingly click “Accept” on a set of Terms and Conditions, we allow our most personal information to be kept indefinitely, repackaged by companies to control and exploit us for their own profit. 

Data grab: the new colonialism

Data grab: the new colonialism of big tech and how to fight back – London School of Economics and Political Science

Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back a book by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias

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In October of 2022, I wrote “I’m becoming a neo-Luddite of sorts. I have a particular dislike for digital technology as it modifies the means of relating to ourselves, to those around us and to our world. Its dissociative medium detaches us from reality, thereby affecting identity, memory, perception, and truth.”

“The medium is the message.” -Marshall McLuhan 

With digital medium, have we transitioned from “lineal connections” to “configurations”? (McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 12)?

For McLuhan, it was the medium itself that shaped and controlled “the scale and form of human association and action”. Taking the movie as an example, he argued that the way this medium played with conceptions of speed and time transformed “the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure.” Therefore, the message of the movie medium is this transition from “lineal connections” to “configurations”

Respond: Marshall McCluhan, Chapter 1: The Medium is the Message | Matthew Marchewka

Does a digital medium deskill users over time? Are “tech bros” looking to deskill more users with AI/ChatGPT and do away with human workers? Are we to become Zeros in a world of 0s and 1s? Welcome to the binary new world.

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AEI senior fellow Christine Rosen, author of The Extinction of Experience. In the technological age, we too often see basic human activities, from reading and writing, to shopping and conversing, as obstacles to efficiency that must be overcome, simplified, or replaced. And while digital technology has provided many benefits, it has also come with unintended consequences for our habits of mind and social interactions. Rosen argues that we need a “new humanism” that puts the human person front-and-center and encourages people to regularly “touch grass.” 

Keeping it Real – Law & Liberty

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Do you know that Congress has passed a law to shut off your car?

 Vehicle monitoring software could soon use ‘kill switch’ under the guise of ‘safety’ – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

Do you know about another digital trend that needs to be reversed: Going Cashless.

“It’s Just Not Right”: Major Venues Now Punishing People For Using Cash Vs. Plastic | ZeroHedge

The potential benefits of central bank digital currency or CBDC are being discussed by the “masterminds” of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We will be told that using CBDC will be more convenient, but for whom?

CBDCs create a “digital trail”, IMF’s handbook notes. Our data – transaction histories and user demographics — could be collected and stored. AND, our CBDC accounts could be restricted or blocked by the powers that be or AI as a form of a social credit system and digitally based conformity.

If instituted, say goodbye to privacy and, perhaps, your balance. Welcome to the Binary New World and the surveillance State.

Please don’t tell me it’s more convenient to use digital.

Gold and silver and even the fiat dollar are analog assets. They can’t be hacked.

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“A September report by Mozilla News’ *Privacy Not Included team called modern cars the “worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy.”

“The team researched 25 car brands and concluded, “Every car brand we looked at collects more personal data than necessary and uses that information for a reason other than to operate your vehicle and manage their relationship with you.

“They can collect super intimate information about you — from your medical information, your genetic information, to your ‘sex life’ (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car — in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through ‘inferences’ about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.”

Your Car Stores Your Text Messages – Law Enforcement Can Retrieve Them Anytime, Following Federally Rejected Lawsuit | The Gateway Pundit | by Stefanie Ladner, The Western Journal

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The new law would change the definition of “electronic communications surveillance provider” via an amendment to vastly expand what Goitein describes as “the universe of entities that can be compelled to assist the NSA.”

Tell your representatives to vote NO on massive expansion of domestic surveillance state – U.S. businesses to be forced to serve as NSA spies – NaturalNews.com

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For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers’ phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn’t quite believed that last argument—until now.

Are Phones Making the World’s Students Dumber? – The Atlantic

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Invasive Technology – Smart Dust

Is the fog Smart Dust?

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‘They hate people’: Bleak tech billboards spark angst in San Francisco

Request a Consumer Disclosure Report

Access your file and learn more about the personal information LexisNexis Risk Solutions maintains about you in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

Home – LexisNexis Risk Solutions Consumer Disclosure

Is AI/ChatGPT “extremely dangerous to our democracy?”

Multiple local news stations say the same thing verbatim

Is AI/ChatGPT and Facebook extremely dangerous to our humanity?

Ungar-Sargon: “Of Course Mass Immigration Raises The GDP, It Makes Oligarchs Unbelievably Wealthy.”

Filed under privacy, Technocracy, technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

The Next Few Minutes

August 5, 2023 Leave a comment

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

― Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1970 quote from Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era

A totally controlled society will arrive in the next few minutes. It will be made possible by advanced digital technology that asserts “almost continuous surveillance over every citizen” and maintains “up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen”. Authoritarians will take what we have allowed and use it for their purposes.

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me’.”

― science fiction author Philip K. Dick

Biometrics, facial recognition systems, eye sensors and voice scanners record and track our unique physical characteristics. We have allowed our personal data and privacy to be plundered with our use of Smartphones, Smart home technology, and telemetrics in our cars. Smart devices are designed to interact with their environment using context awareness.

“Context-awareness is a system or system component’s ability to gather information about its environment at any given time and adapt behaviors accordingly. Cameras, microphones and Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers, radar and LIDAR sensors are all potential sources of data for context-aware computing. A context-aware system may gather data through these and other sources and respond according to pre-established rules or through computational intelligence.”

Note the last bit. “Computational intelligence” is AI or “Artificial Intelligence” (Thank you Kamala Harris!).

Digital gizmos, marketed to the end user as a means of greater control, convenience, and increased productivity and efficiency, will be used by a centralized system that is contextually aware of the end user and will “respond according to pre-established rules or through “computational intelligence.”

The “more controlled society” will be here in the next few minutes. Our individual privacy will be obliterated in the next few minutes. Smart devices will turn on us. Our future is being programmed for us. The digital controlling apparatus – a Big Brother police state with “pre-established rules” – is being completed as I write this.

Why isn’t any of this all over the news? Why aren’t we hearing about FedNow and the July launch of the central bank digital currency infrastructure? Why aren’t we hearing about 15-minute cities and social credit scoring systems like what is being used in Communist China? Why aren’t we hearing about being controlled with digital currency, digital IDs, biometric IDs, facial recognition, biased AI, and one’s internet history? Isn’t the media supposed to be exposing what is actually going on?

“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.”

― Glenn Greenwald

Is what I am saying science fiction? Alarmism? Conspiracy theory?

“. . . a beast of a system is quietly being built that will be used to surveil humanity, severely limit human freedom, and coerce and control human behavior. This is not an isolated pet project by a handful of bad actors; it’s a coordinated movement to control and weaponize our data.”- They’re constructing the perfect beast: Who is able to make war with him? | Stand for Health Freedom (See pdf article below.)

In the next few minutes our world will be reconstructed and restricted with digital technology. Human dignity will be reduced to data bits and bytes. We are entering a new era of dehumanization – digital dehumanization.

You will definitely want to watch the videos below so you are informed and so you can take precautions. And so you can tell your representatives, with specific knowledge, that you do not consent to a digital takeover of your life.

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On Wednesday, July 26, 2023 I attended webinar Two Sides of the Same Coin –
Digital IDs and CBDC.

“WASHINGTON — In June, the WHO announced it is looking to adopt the European Union’s Digital COVID Vaccine Certificate (EU DCC) model for its proposed “Global Digital Health ID” as part of the new pandemic treaty. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is beavering away on a plan to establish a global Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) which when combined with a Global Digital ID will transform the way the international, national, state, and local economies function; enable non-representative, unaccountable, centralized, global governance; and promote the establishment of a social credit score like that oppressing citizens in Communist China.

Already in Europe, many of the proposed policies in the text are being rolled out by public health agencies and institutions. For example, the use of a “European Digital ID,” initially intended to track COVID vaccine status is rapidly expanding — and becoming mandatory — for many services like banking and transportation.”

Webinar | Two Sides of the Same Coin: Digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currency (rumble.com)

Co-Host and Moderator

Frank Gaffney, Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy; Vice-chair for the Committee on the Present Danger: China; Host, Securing America with Frank Gaffney on RAV, and author of “The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party and Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World”

Co-Host and Panelist

Reggie Littlejohn, Esq., President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, Co-Chair of the Stop Vaccine Passports Task Force; Member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, Graduate of Yale Law School.
— TOPIC: Trapped in the Digital Gulag by Digital IDs and CBDCs

Panelists

Nick Corbishley, Journalist, Author of “Scanned: Why Vaccine Passports and Digital IDs Will Mean the End of Privacy and Personal Freedom”
— TOPIC: Digital IDs, A Prerequisite for CBDCs

Kevin Freeman, Host of “Economic War Room with Kevin Freeman”; President, National Security Investment Consultants Institute; author, “Secret Weapon”, “Game Plan,” “According to Plan,” and “Pirate Money: Discovering the Founders’ Plan for Economic Justice and Defeating the Great Reset” (soon to be released).
— TOPIC: Disrupting CBDC with the money used by Pirates

Leo Hohmann, Veteran Investigative Reporter; Author, “Stealth Invasion”; Contributor, FrontPage Magazine, LifeSite News, Zero Hedge, the Drudge Report, Technocracy.News, Canada Free Press, Global Research, The Gateway Pundit, World Net Daily
— TOPIC: The Beast System Is Coming Whether You Want It Or Not

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They’re constructing the perfect beastDownload

Action>>>>Remind your lawmakers to protect your First Amendment right to free speech by signing Stand for Health Freedom’s petition at link below.

They’re constructing the perfect beast: Who is able to make war with him? | Stand for Health Freedom

“This Is a Digital Prison…It’s a Global Government” – Dean Michele Bachmann on the Global Effort to Eliminate Our Freedom

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Ownership in a Digital Economy. Nothing You Own is Really Yours. A Digital Kibbutz?

Have a Nice Future Podcast Nothing You Own is Really Yours

(Example to consider: new cars operate with telemetric software that is owned by the car company. Telemetric software monitors and controls the car. If globalists/WEF has its way with car companies, “15-minute cities” and Green Energy restrictions mean your car will not operate if you go beyond the boundaries set for you.)

Nothing You Own is Yours

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“The New Agenda” / “Agenda 2030” coming to a phone near you!

All new Samsung Galaxy phones come pre-installed with the UN Agenda 2030 app.
“We are working on getting back on track for the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda” it says.
Time to stop buying Samsung phones.

Are you ready for “The New Agenda”? – by Peter Imanuelsen (substack.com)

“The New Agenda” / “Agenda 2030” coming to a town near you!

Destruction of the environment and of life forms in the name of Climate Change comes from the UN Agenda 2030 that nobody voted for.

The Dutch government wants to seize 3000 farms to meet new climate goals.
Ireland plans on slaughtering 200 000 cows to meet new climate goals.

Immanentizing the eschaton:

Bill Gates push for DIGITAL ID with $1.27 billion donation to Agenda 2030 ”Global Goals” (substack.com)

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Who’s in control?

Puppet Masters of the Pandemic. Part 1: What Did The CIA Do in Wuhan?” (substack.com)

The above is worldwide control. Below, a discussion about what’s going on in the U.S. – the CIA is a world power that is not accountable to congress or the citizens of our country. Topics include virus/vaccine control, de-population agenda, WEF, Henry Kissinger, and more.

Puppet Masters of the Pandemic: Part 2. How The CIA and Global Oligarchy are Building the New Normal (rumble.com)

~~~~~~

Don’t wait. Start now. Do not relent…Tell your representatives today that you will not abide digital tyranny!
…Silence Is Assent.
…Compliance Is Consent.
…Cooperation Is Suicide.
…Obedience Is Cowardice.

~~~~~~

Let’s take a close look at the Life Skills of the administrative state.

BROWNSBURG, Ind. — Four staffers at a Brownsburg elementary school, who investigators say told a 7-year-old student to eat his own vomit or failed to report the incident, have now been terminated or have resigned from their position with the school.

At a Brownsburg Community School Corporation meeting on Monday night, the school board approved the termination or resignation of four staffers involved in a lunchroom incident where a special-needs student was mistreated and subjected to eating his own puke.

According to court documents, the lunchroom incident occurred on Feb. 16, although the school said officials weren’t aware until the late evening of April 12.

According to the Brownsburg Police Department, Seymour advised a 7-year-old Life Skills student that, if he vomited, he would have to eat whatever he threw up.

The child, on a tray provided by Taylor, indeed vomited, at which point Kanipe provided the child with a spoon.

Brownsburg school staffers fired after 7-year-old student forced to eat his own vomit | Fox 59

BROWNSBURG, Ind. — A law firm representing the family of a 7-year-old special needs student who was told to eat his own vomit by school staff at Brown Elementary revealed that the student’s family wasn’t notified about the abuse until two months later when media reports shed light on the incident.

[Attorney Catherine Michael of Connell Michael Kerr LLP] said the family has only been provided limited information about the abuse but was shown a video that shows the child being provided a spoon by Debra Kanipe, a Life Skills instructional aide at Brown Elementary. In the video, both Kanipe and Sara Seymour, a Life Skills teacher, stand on each side of the student as the child is told to eat his own vomit off a lunch tray. (Emphasis mine.)

Brownsburg special needs student told to eat his own vomit by school staff (fox59.com)

“The 7-year-old student is challenged by autism, memory issues and communication, according to [Attorney] Michael.

Attorney hired by parents of Brown Elementary student | wthr.com

The attorneys for the special needs student in Brownsburg say this whole situation is part of a much bigger problem.

You may remember the story of a seven-year-old boy at Brown Elementary School who police say was forced to eat his own vomit by two school staffers on February 16th, all while three others stood back and watched, never reporting the situation.

Attorneys for the family, Catherine Michael and Tammy Meyer, say this doesn’t surprise them and isn’t anything new.

“Special education abuse is actually becoming far more common,” says Catherine Michael on WIBC’s Kendall and Casey show, “we’re talking about this case now, but Tammy and I have handled many cases where unfortunately, it’s not caught on camera.”

Attorneys for special needs Indiana student says abuse is a big problem | 95.3 MNC (953mnc.com)

Radio interview of attorneys:

Kendall & Casey – 08/02/2023 on 93.1 WIBC (FM) Indianapolis

Catherine Michael & Tammy Meyer talk about Brownsburg Special Needs abuse case (1:03:20);

(Extra:  31:00:00 Mike Pence skewered)

Kendall & Casey – 08/02/2023 – YouTube

~~~~~

~~~~~

Informed Dissent:

COVID propaganda timeline, March-April 2020 (substack.com)

The Unwitting Coup: Was the Response to COVID Effectively a Coup by the Western Intelligence Community? (michaelpsenger.com)

COVID-19 Vaccines and Informed Consent (substack.com)

God help us:

NIH Appoints Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo as Replacement for Dr. Fauci as New Head of NIAID – Known Advocate for COVID Lockdowns, Vaccine and Mask Mandates, and Critic of Hydroxychloroquine | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

Dr. Robert Malone explains to Grant Stinchfield why the Government is tracking Americans who do not have the Covid-19 vaccine.

How the Government is tracking Unvaxxed people — and Why (rumble.com)

Farage says small businesses that won’t go cashless are having accounts shut down – David Icke

~~~~~

Fundamental Trans-formation

WOW: Award-Winning Barack Obama Biographer Drops Several “Eyebrow-Raising” Claims About Ex-President in Interview Including that Obama FREQUENTLY Fantasized about Gay Sex to Former Girlfriend | The Gateway Pundit | by Cullen Linebarger

https://youtu.be/GjWEJdK4y9s

Obama biographer: Barack ‘repeatedly fantasizes about making love to men’… – Revolver News

Malik Obama Did It Again: Tweets Brother Barack Obama “Must Be Gay”

~~~~~

Climate Change Madness:

Climate Change Obsession Is a Real Mental Disorder – WSJ

The World Health Organization’s Climate Neurosis – WSJ

Bernie Sanders Now Asking DOJ to Prosecute People in the Fossil Fuel Industry for Dissenting on Climate Change | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance

It Ain’t So Easy Being a Green – YouTube

Why EVs Are ‘Piling Up’ at Dealerships, Despite Massive Taxpayer Subsidies – Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org)

“The globe is boiling! The globe is boiling!”

Earth just experienced its lowest temperature in 6 years.

The Concordia Research Station in Antarctica recorded a provisional low temperature of -117.76ºF (-83.2ºC) on July 25, marking the world’s lowest temperature in six years. 

ESG supports slavery.

“Ze humans are to blame.”

The Truth About the Left’s Climate Fearmongering – YouTube

What you don’t know won’t hurt you?

Wikipedia may delete entry on ‘mass killings’ under Communism due to claims of bias (telegraph.co.uk)

Note the media’s script . . .

Donald Trump’s Lawyer Handles Hostile Liberal Reporters with Pure Class – YouTube

Filed under 2023 current events, cultural Marxism, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, social engineering, socialism, The Great Reset, totalitarianism, WEF, WHO, World Economic Forum Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s Our Digital Destiny?

January 15, 2023 Leave a comment

A recent trip to a modern eatery has me wondering about our digital destiny.

Last Sunday I visited a “Test Kitchen” in my area. There, under a single roof, three separate kitchens offered three different low-priced menus. I had lots of choices, as shown on the order touch screen.

I poked out my choices and then “Checkout”. The screen told me to swipe or insert my credit card or use a mobile app to pay. I was taken aback. I came prepared to pay cash.

Not only was there no cash drawer, there was no human interface. Humans were scurrying around back in the kitchen filing orders. But I was forced to conduct business with a machine.

I understand the implications of hiring humans to deal with cash registers. There is the search for and interviewing of willing and able prospective employees. There is the decision to hire people who can add and subtract and think on their feet. There is the training of new hires to understand the system and to be customer friendly. There is the constant monitoring of the cash drawer for pilfering, and more. To those time-consuming aspects of hiring, add the cost of incentives, hourly salary, and benefits. Business sense would act to cut out the middle man – the counter person.

Outside forces also work to cut out human engagement. Idiotic COVID mandates created social distancing guidelines. Empathy was sold as hiding faces behind masks and staying away from people including your aged and dying parents.

Minimum wage laws increase the use of robots. (What’s next? Minimum employee laws with DEI hiring requirements? Governments can’t pilfer tax money from robots.)

My recent trip to a modern eatery was a trip to a vending machine. The machine took my order. The machine took my payment and the machine took my phone number so it could text me when my order was ready. How nice of the machine to do this!

The machine later texted me asking about my “recent experience”. The text contained radio button choices but no comment space for actual opinion.  I deleted the text. I didn’t want to be part of the machine’s feedback loop.

For me, human interface is enriching, and even when the person behind the counter has purple hair, nose and mouth jewelry, tattoos and an attitude. My attitude comes from following Jesus and reading about his interactions with people that included Samaritans, self-righteous types, and sinners.

A man-man interface is what I look for in a “recent experience” and not a man-machine interface. That is why I prefer eating at diners. There, at least, I’m part of a community and not just a node in a network.

Another “recent experience” left me concerned about our digital destiny. Last fall I received an email from the church I had been attending. The email asked for my opinion. It contained an online poll with, as I recall, over a hundred questions with radio button choices and some comment spaces.

The poll questions ranged from quality of pastoral care to aspects of ministries involving children, youth and adults to questions of homosexual involvement and whether political topics should be addressed from the pulpit.

I didn’t take the poll. My first thought was “Why did the three priests and vestry need to send out a poll to know the status of things in the church?”  Apparently, they didn’t know the status and didn’t know the people of the church or the mind of God for that matter.

And like the test kitchen text, I was asked to provide feedback about my “recent experience” into the system. Was this done to hone the church into an efficiently run operation and a satisfactory customer experience?

There was never any reason to keep me at data’s length. If anyone in that church wanted my opinion they could come up and ask me – face to face, just as Jesus did with his disciples: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And then individually: “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” (Luke 9: 18-20)

And my understanding of the Christian church is a human-to-human engagement with the Living Lord and not a relationship with a business or corporation with bills to be paid and customers and stockholders to be mollified and handled.

Where am I going with all this? Honestly, I’m trying to be vigilant on my watch. I see the benefits of digital technology and I also see how digital technology can be used to condition, control and denigrate humanity. I see how digital technology polarizes just about everything including the user.

I am old enough to remember a time when digital devices were not around. There was no constant pinging and no bits and bytes clamoring for attention like carnival attractions. Vending machines were the man-machine interfaces. In 1964 I could put a dime into the machine for a bottle of pop. It was a simple hassle-free transaction. Buy anything today via digital means and one is constantly hounded to buy more and to provide feedback.

Back then, instead of a tracking device carried on my person that constantly wanted to sell me something there was a phone on the wall with a cord that limited its reach.

There was no need for a usernames and passwords. Friends used nick names.

Instead of logging onto web sites with two-pass authentication using purchased security software on a purchased laptop I walked to the library to check out books.

Instead of online banking I received paper statements that I used to reconcile my accounts.

Instead of social media I had neighborhood, school, and church friends. There was no façade of community that social media offers.

Instead of the internet of things I had books, games, LPs and 45s, a transistor radio, and lots for room for imagination. I can’t say that digital technology has improved my “recent experience” with regard to any of the above interests.

And, if the gov’t wanted to spy on me, they would send a couple of guys in overcoats and have them sit in a parked car across the street. And to monitor my phone calls, a wiretap order from a judge would be needed. In this digital age I’m not sure who is spying on me. Maybe the FBI and CIA are surveilling my every word and association.

Working as an engineer for most of my life, I understand how digital technology and the internet of things (IoT) supports engineering projects and a business’s bottom line. There are benefits galore. But the IoT doesn’t bolster my bottom line. Human connectivity, for me, is more desirable than being on a network with me as one of its nodes. Thankfully, that was my experience at work.

When I announced my retirement, managers and coworkers mentioned that they were grateful for my efforts and the time they spent working with me. Chirag, manager of the comms group I was part of, called me when he heard I was retiring. We had had many conversations on MS Teams regarding projects and some personal topics. We talked about my move to Indiana among other things.

During my call with Chirag, I said that he was the best manager I had worked with during my time with the company. I told him that he was personable and easy to talk to. He had listened to what I said and worked on solutions to issues I raised. I thanked him for my time working with him. I never felt managed. I felt engaged.

Chirag’s’ reply to my comments: “I treat people like humans.”

I’m not a sentimentalist. I don’t want to go back in time. But over time I have sensed a growing loss of the analog human-to-human interface for . . .. digital efficiency’s sake. Organic human connections are being disconnected. This loss is occurring not only in everyday transactions such as self-checkouts at stores but also in a politically determinative sense.

With increasing connectivity, I see digital communications acting to divide, isolate, and condition people “efficiently” for political ends. We saw this with the creation of digital vaccine credentials such as “VaxPass”. We see this with gaslighting bots on Twitter warping reality. We see this with the brainwashing, weaponization, hostilities, and persecutions that have come about as people share their thoughts on social media. More digital destruction is beaming our way.

5G towers are going up everywhere and with them, ways to monitor and manipulate the public. Janet Yellen, the worst Secretary of the Treasury ever, is working to do away with physical cash (and the corresponding human to human transactions). Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is coming and so is social credit scoring using smartphones and facial recognition software. Working on a digital chain gang will become a reality. Our digital destiny is the Inhumanity of Things.

*****

You must view this, especially as the 5GW information involves digital matters:

5th Generation Warfare: History, Modern Context, and (Some) Solutions

Steps to fight 5th generation warfare:

Take care of your weapon – your mind.

Take actions to make the tools of 5GW irrelevant

Raise your children to have good values and not the values the state wants them to have

Grow your community. Create networks of friends.

Create white space – terrain and obstacles that slows down enemy advances, including privacy.

Communications – decrease reliance on cellular and internet communication. Get away from using Smartphones – intelligence collection sensors. There is no more effective tool used against the American people than the smartphone.

The internet is nothing more than data going through servers. The “Cloud” is your data on someone else’s computer.

Meshtastic

*****

Feedback loops – Here’s something you should be sensitive to. Your kids might be getting affirmation from all the wrong places:

Social Media May Alter Brains of Children — Study

Habitually checking social media as a young teenager is linked to hypersensitivity to peer feedback and may potentially lead to permanent changes in the brain’s reward and motivation centers, neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina suggested in a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics. 

The study looked at a group of 169 teens as their brains developed between the ages of 12 to 15 and their self-reported use of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

When those with usage the researchers classed as “habitual” – meaning they checked their accounts 15 or more times a day – played a game that modeled feedback in the form of peer approval, they became increasingly sensitive to that feedback.

*****

 “ . . . a terrifying item buried within the Biden-McConnell “infrastructure” legislation, which passed in August 2021. According to [Congressman Bob] Barr, the government will now have the power to shut off your vehicle if they determine you are partaking in any “illegal” activity.

Does anyone really believe the Biden Regime will not abuse this newly obtained power?”

BIG BROTHER WILL WATCH YOU DRIVE: Disgusting Infrastructure Bill Installs KILL SWITCHES in All New Vehicles, Turns America into a POLICE STATE (thegatewaypundit.com)

*****

Informed Dissent:

Kaufman Institute for Coincidence – YouTube

Bhakdi/Burkhardt pathology results show 93% of people who died after being vaccinated were killed by the vaccine (substack.com)

Learn aboutpropaganda and the pejorative “Conspiracy theorist” from Mark Crispin Miller, Ph.D.:

“COVID-19 is unquestionably the largest, most sophisticated propaganda operation in history. Psychological techniques were extensively used during 2020 to incite fear and panic in the population, while other persuasion strategies were used to get people to support and defend COVID measures such as masking, isolation, social distancing, lockdowns and jab mandates.”

COVID-19 is the largest, most sophisticated propaganda operation in history – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

‘Died Suddenly’? More Than 1-in-4 Think Someone They Know Died From COVID-19 Vaccines – Rasmussen Reports®

Modeling Gone Bad. – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

Holy smokes… Dr. McCullough claims 1,598 suffered cardiac arrest since vaccination compared to 1,101 in prior 38 YEARS… – Revolver News

“CDC’s VAERS safety signal analysis based on reports from Dec. 14, 2020 – July 29, 2022 for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines shows clear safety signals for death and a range of highly concerning thrombo-embolic, cardiac, neurological, hemorrhagic, hematological, immune-system and menstrual adverse events (AEs) among U.S. adults.”

CDC Finally Releases VAERS Safety Monitoring Analyses For COVID Vaccines | ZeroHedge

FLASHBACK: Canadian Numbers Confirm US Report on Excess Number of Deaths in Millennials Following Forced COVID Shots (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

HUGE: Lead Author of Peer-Reviewed Research Re-Examining Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Vaccine Trials Calls for Immediate Suspension Due to Serious Adverse Events (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

631 hospitals at risk of closure, state by state (beckershospitalreview.com)

Mother Blames Covid Vaccine and Government After Son Develops Blood Clots in His Brain 9 Days Following Vaccine – Son Now Has More Clots and a Damaged Heart (thegatewaypundit.com)

Mainstream gatekeepers have been completely wrong about everything for three years yet they are incapable of learning from their mistakes

The Great Double Down – by Toby Rogers – uTobian (substack.com)

FINALLY!!: PENTAGON CANCELS VACCINE MANDATE… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Don’t Fall For Fauci’s “Trust The Science” Scam—Here’s Why The “Science” Is Actually Fake | Evie Magazine

Project Veritas Strikes Again: Pfizer scientist admits the unthinkable on hidden camera… they all knew… – Revolver News

The Censorious Scott Gottlieb Was a Major Influence on Lockdowns  ⋆ Brownstone Institute

17% of teens had heart symptoms after second Pfizer COVID jab: new study – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

livestock and companion animals are getting the jab . . .

Dr. Malone shares dire warning: mRNA vaccines are being injected into our food supply… – Revolver News

McCullough: Vaccinated Can Spread mRNA and Spike Protein to Other People (theflstandard.com)

The numerous mandates birthed by the onset of the Covid-19 scenario were all designed to deliberately break the global economy and crush small businesses as well as break people’s minds, will and the social fabric, in order to “build back a better society” that conforms to the dystopian visions of the psychopaths waging this class war. . ..

Put simply, Covid-19 was not a widespread medical emergency, it was a money laundering scheme, a massive psychological operation and a smoke screen for a complete overhaul and restructuring of the current social and economic world order.

COVID-19: A Global Financial Operation (2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com)

*****

IT’S STARTING – YouTube

Congress Declares Any Member Who Refuses To Bow To The Bust Of Zelensky Will Be Thrown Into A Fiery Furnace | Babylon Bee

Quantum Dot, digital currency

Dr. Stella Immanuel | A New Year’s Message of HOPE + The Connection Between 5G, Luciferase, MIT, Quantum Dots, CBDCs, Epstein, Gates & Great Reset | “Don’t Be Scared, But Be Prepared.” – Dr. Stella Immanuel (rumble.com)

Dr Stella, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), 5G technology,

Fundamental Transformation Taking Shape:

Filed under 2023 current events, Communication, Digitalization, social engineering Tagged with , , , , , ,