“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian. Penning this sentence ten years after the accession of Adolf Hitler to supreme power, these words reflected tough lessons soaked in blood. Bonhoeffer formed part of a small circle of resistance to the dictator in Germany, risking his life for an ideal.
It was a dark time in his homeland. Total war had engulfed the world, and a totalitarian regime was controlling the country. Bonhoeffer pondered how this came to be. He thought about the nature of evil, but came to the conclusion it was not evil itself that was the most dangerous enemy of the good. Rather, it was stupidity.
We have been reaching out to prominent voices across indy media, in hopes of starting a conversation about what is happening here in Russia. The great Mike Whitney, who is currently doing amazing work at The Unz Review, very graciously offered to interview us. Below we have republished the interview. Thank you again, Mike!
Question 1– I was under the impression that Putin opposed forced vaccination, but you say Russians are being coerced into getting jabbed. How does that work? Are the local governors acting unilaterally and imposing vaccine mandates behind Putin’s back or is there something else going on?
Riley Waggaman– Putin’s position on compulsory vaccination has arguably evolved over time. In March, he described such policies as “counterproductive.” Then, in early June, he said the vaccine would be available to anyone who “wants” it—while stressing authorities must do a better job of “clarifying the need” to get jabbed. Notably, he openly mocked some of the incentives (“free beer and sausage”) being used at the time by Western governments to entice people to roll up their sleeves. Two months later, Russia’s president argued vaccination should remain voluntary, while stipulating it was now “necessary” to create “different kinds of incentives” to increase uptake.
Whatever Putin’s personal views on mandatory vaccination may be, the reality is that Russia’s capital introduced the country’s first compulsory vaccination policy in mid-June, which required various business sectors to meet a 60% vaccination quota among employees. Workers who refused the shot were at risk of being suspended indefinitely without pay (or, in layman’s terms, “being fired”). Many other regions followed suit with similar (and even more stringent) mandates.
After the State Duma elections in late September, Russia’s regions began mass adopting vaccine mandates as well as QR-coded “health” passes. All 85 federal subjects of the Russian Federation now have compulsory vaccination rules (some more strict than others). For example, in Leningrad Oblast, all state, municipal and private organizations must ensure 100% of employees are fully vaccinated, or have a medical exemption or proof of prior infection in the last six months. Hold-outs will need to be tested every 72 hours. Do not be fooled by the loopholes: the same region ordered certain sectors to vaccinate 80% of their employees by September. The same strategy of incrementalism is being employed across Russia. Some parts of the country are even denying routine medical care to those without a QR code. One region recently announced that in four districts, all unvaccinated people would have to self-isolate—an “Austria-style” lockdown (which was actually inspired by a Tatarstan-style lockdown). In St. Petersburg and several other parts of the country, vaccination is now compulsory for all people over the age of 60.
Russia is now set to implement a nationwide QR code system to be used for nearly all aspects of “normal life.” Assuming the legislation passes the State Duma, these society-transforming restrictions—which will deprive the unvaccinated of freedom of movement and commerce, essentially making them second-class citizens—will come into force in February.
Are Russia’s regions acting against the wishes of the Kremlin as they tighten the screws on compulsory vaccination? Actually, all available evidence suggests quite the opposite. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 7 that “any measures that can encourage more people to get vaccinated are good.” A week later, Peskov accused unvaccinated Russians (the majority of the country) of making an “irresponsible” choice that “kills.” The Kremlin has been spouting this kind of puzzling, inflammatory rhetoric for months. On June 17, one day after Moscow announced its mandatory inoculation regime, Putin’s spokesman explained that the “principle” of non-obligatory vaccination “generally remains,” but Russians are not proactive enough about getting the shot. A day later, Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s consumer rights protection and human wellbeing agency (Rospotrebnadzor), described compulsory immunization as a “new tool” that can be utilized as the government sees fit.
Popova recently stated COVID restrictions will only end after “everyone” is vaccinated. With more than 50% of Russian adults still unvaccinated nearly a year after the country’s mass inoculation program began, how does the Russian government intend to make this happen?
Question 2– I’ve read quite a bit about the four main vaccines in the West, but know next to nothing about the Russian vaccines. Can you bring us up to speed on these injections? In particular, we’d like to know whether they use the same experimental “gene-based” technology that is employed by Pfizer, Moderna, J&J and AZ?
Riley Waggaman– There are several Russian COVID vaccines. Sputnik V, developed by the ministry of health’s Gamaleya Center, is by far the most commonly used drug, and so it’s the one that deserves the most scrutiny. Sputnik V is based on Gamaleya’s human adenovirus vector platform (Ad26 and Ad5), which is designed to transport genetic material into cells. If you examine the patent for Gamaleya’s influenza shot (which is posted on Sputnik V’s official website), the technology now being used for Sputnik V is openly referred to as a “genetic vaccine.”… Interestingly, Gamaleya’s director, Alexander Gintsburg, said there are no “significant” differences between Sputnik V and AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
A common claim made by Russian officials and the media is that there is no reason to worry about Sputnik V’s long-term safety because it is based on Gamaleya’s “proven” human adenovirus platform. The problem with this argument is that before Sputnik V, Gamaleya had repeatedly failed to bring a “genetic vaccine” to market. One attempt resulted in an embezzlement scandal, while other prototypes were never submitted for formal approval—suggesting they lacked the necessary safety and efficacy data to get the greenlight from regulators.
In terms of safety, how does Sputnik V’s stack up against Pfizer’s shot and other mRNA vaccines? It’s difficult to say. Russia does not have a VAERS-like database for reporting suspected adverse events among the general public. In fact, there is no regularly updated, publicly available data on any post-vaccination complications in Russia. It seems the Russian government’s position is that they do not exist. But doctors and lawmakers tell a different story, one supported by an informal database of suspected vaccine-linked deaths. Undeterred, authorities have compared these concerned citizens to “terrorists” and are now threatening “anti-vax” doctors with fines and even prison time, in essence making any medical professional who questions the vaccine a suspected criminal in the eyes of the Russian government.
There is another, equally alarming element to the Sputnik-mRNA vaccine comparison. There is now a huge body of evidence showing mRNA vaccines can cause serious side effects, and even death. But Sputnik V’s own developers openly support using Pfizer’s shot in Russia. Gamaleya’s Dmitry Shcheblyakov, who helped create Russia’s flagship jab, recently claimed there are clear “advantages” to mixing Sputnik V with “different vaccines made using different technologies.” Harvard-educated ex-Goldman Sachs banker Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which provides financing for Sputnik V, announced last month that joint research with Pfizer was already underway, and expressed confidence that a Sputnik/Pfizer cocktail will be a “very successful combination.” Similar “joint research” is reportedly being conducted with Moderna.
There are also questions about who, or what, is actually behind Sputnik V. In May 2020, Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, created a subsidiary—Immunotechnology LLC—to help “transfer technology” related to the vaccine. The CEO of Sberbank, Herman Gref, is part of JP Morgan’s International Council and is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees. Gref claims he got the vaccine in April 2020—which would make him one of the first people in the world to be injected with Sputnik V (in fact, months before it was even known as “Sputnik V”).
As Russians become increasingly worried about the “QR-ization” of their country, it’s worth noting that Sberbank is developing a QR code-based payment system, while Gref has been toying with the idea of creating a “Sbercoin” digital currency in partnership with JP Morgan.
Question 3– Your answer is so far-reaching, I’m not sure how to follow it up. First, you confirm that Sputnik V is a “genetic vaccine” which suggests that the risks of bleeding, blood clots and autoimmunity are the same in Russia as they are the US. Then, you say there is a connection between the creator of the Russian vaccine and Pfizer as well as with some “Harvard-educated ex-Goldman Sachs banker” whose organization “provides financing for Sputnik V”. Finally, you suggest that the funding for the vaccine operation may come from the “CEO of Sberbank, Herman Gref, is part of JP Morgan’s International Council and is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees.”
Your answer underscores the suspicion that these vaccines are the cornerstone of a much larger project aimed at restructuring the global economy and, perhaps, reducing the world’s population. Where does Bill Gates fit into the picture or does he??
Riley Waggaman–Gates definitely fits into the picture.Russia’s former health minister, Veronika Skvortosva, is a board member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB). Created by the World Health Organization and World Bank, the GPMB has received generous funding from Gates (who is also a top contributor to the WHO, of course). Guess who else is on GPMB’s board? Anthony Fauci, as well as Chris Elias, President of the Bill & Melinda Gates’ Global Development Program. As RFK Jr. detailed in his newly released book, GPMB serves as
the real-life authoritative collective for imposing rules during the upcoming pandemic. This so-called “independent” monitoring and accountability body’s purpose was to validate the imposition of police state controls by global and local political leaders and technocrats, endorsing their efforts to take the kind of harsh actions that Gates’s simulation modeled: subduing resistance, ruthlessly censoring dissent, isolating the healthy, collapsing economies, and compelling vaccination during a projected worldwide health crises. […] In June 2019, about twenty weeks before the start of the COVID pandemic, Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, summarized the conclusions of GPMB’s pandemic report, warning that “we are entering a new phase of high impact epidemics” that would constitute “a new normal” where governments worldwide would strengthen control and restrict the mobility of citizens.
Does any of that sound familiar?
In January 2020, just a few months before the world was turned upside down by COVID lockdowns and restrictions, Skvortsova resigned as Russia’s health minister as part of a shake-up of Putin’s cabinet. A week later she was appointed the head of Russia’s federal biomedical agency (FMBA). As head of the FMBA, she played an integral role in the early days of Russia’s COVID response, and later produced data showing Moscow had been overwhelmed by the “Delta strain”. Her findings provided some much-needed “science” to justify the capital’s highly unpopular compulsory vaccine mandate. As health minister, Skvortsova presided over a years-long data manipulation scandal involving fraudulent mortality rates. The fraud was so blatant that the Russian government even admitted that their books were cooked (the country’s regional governors were blamed and thrown under the bus by Dmitry Medvedev).
As for “COVID-triggered” economic restructuring: the Russian government has openly embraced the World Economic Forum’s Fourth Industrial Revolution. In October, the Russian government and the WEF signed a memorandum on the establishment of a Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Russia. Russia has already adopted a law allowing for “experimental legal regimes” to allow corporations and institutions to deploy AI and robots into the economy, without being encumbered by regulatory red tape. Returning to Gref and his digital Sbercoin: Russia’s central bank is already planning to test-run a digital ruble that, among other nifty features, could be used to restrict purchases.
Many are probably aware of UN Agenda 2030. Well, there is a Moscow 2030 plan, and it’s quite extraordinary. The blueprint for Russia’s capital calls for “genetic passports” that can be used to administer “gene therapies.” A document envisioning life in Moscow by the end of the decade also talks about “implanted medical digital devices” that can be used by insurance companies to calculate health insurance payments. It seems these ambitions won’t be limited to Moscow. In the last half of 2019, Russia’s State Duma commissioned a report to investigate the “conflict-free development” of a “new generation of technologies” (such as “genome editing”) in order to create a “new type of society.”
Question 4– I have a hard time believing that a Russian patriot, like Vladimir Putin, would go along with– what amounts to– a takeover of the country by foreign elites, the banker Mafia and the global drug cartel. Is he oblivious to what is going on right beneath his nose or are other factors at play?
Riley Waggaman– Wherever Putin stands on this, surely he must realize that the Russian government is pursuing hugely unpopular policies, first with coercive vaccination, and now with the proposed QR-ization of the country. State Duma Deputy Deputy Mikhail Delyagin recently warned that the adoption of a nationwide digital health “ausweis” would amount to a “coup d’état” that would hand external management of the country over to “Big Tech and Big Pharma through the WHO.” The reason I bring this up is because, at least as I understood his comments, Delyagin does not believe Putin is directly involved in what is happening and fears the Russian president will end up taking the blame for any social and/or economic chaos that may lie ahead (Delyagin: “When these feral oligarchs come to power, when this feral medical mafia comes to power, Russia will not exist! There will be no one to defend Russia! If Putin signs this law, who will defend Putin? I’ll name two dozen, but what about the rest? Help yourself, protect yourself and Russia from a coup d’état!”). If this is the case, it is imperative to stop these dangerous, destabilizing policies before they spark serious upheaval in Russia.
In truth, it’s hard to argue Putin is a clear ally in the fight against experimental drug mandates or the World Economic Forum’s twisted vision for the future. In January, the Russian president gave an address at the WEF in which he called for “expanding the scale of [COVID] testing and vaccinations” around the world. He went on to state that a “high-quality structure” must be created to help overcome “social imbalances” that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. “State budgets and central banks” should play a “key role” in quickly restoring the global and national economies, Putin explained.
Isn’t this just a fancy way of saying Build Back Better?
We desperately need open, frank dialogue about what is happening in Russia right now–discussions which are conspicuously absent in the vast majority of “indy media.” I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I’m shocked that so few seem to be asking any questions.
Question 5– In Russia, we see the same red flags that are appearing across the West; coerced vaccinations, suspension of civil rights, and the steady slide towards authoritarianism. To what extent do you see these developments as a primordial struggle between good and evil?
Riley Waggaman– I am often reminded of that unsettling line from Alexis de Tocqueville: “I go back from age to age up to the remotest antiquity; but I find no parallel to what is occurring before my eyes: as the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.”
With each passing day it seems we are being forcibly severed from our own past. We are being “retrained” to accept a new civilizational model. It’s happening at the local, regional, national and global level. It is tearing apart families.
I do believe we are facing an evil that has no equal in human history. We are in completely unchartered and extremely dangerous territory. Still, there are lessons, and warnings, we can take from history. The worldwide introduction of digital health passes bears a striking resemblance to the global adoption of international passports after WW1. Your passport is a WW1 relic. It was supposed to be a temporary document to control the flow of refugees and keep out enemy spies. It wasn’t so temporary though, was it?
The Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig wrote at length about what this new system of control meant for those who had lived in pre-war Europe: “Human beings were made to feel that they were objects and not subjects, that nothing was their right but everything merely a favor by official grace. They were codified, registered, numbered, stamped… The humiliations which once had been devised with criminals alone in mind now were imposed upon the traveler, before and during every journey.”
He added: “Always I had to think of what an exiled Russian had said to me years ago: ‘Formerly man had only a body and a soul. Now he needs a passport as well for without it he will not be treated like a human being.’”
Now we are all suspected biohazards, on top of being potential criminals. At this point, are the “unjabbed masses” even viewed as human beings in the eyes of our global overlords? Even those who dutifully got their booster shot must now realize their freedoms will not be returned to them. That’s not how it works. Duma Deputy Delyagin touched on this in his video appeal to Russians:
“They are already talking to us in the same way they usually talk to animals. The state now speaks so boorishly to the people. This is how they talk to the population of the occupied territories, who for some reason do not understand that they are occupied.”
A remarkable observation, one that applies to almost the entire world.
I have a young son. He is a Russian citizen. I would like him to be treated as a human being.
The situation is extremely grim. Personally, I believe there is a deep spiritual element at play. How do we stop this profound evil?
In Curacao—a Caribbean island, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands—an emergency law just became effective that basically takes Curacao’s people back to slavery days.
The law forbids people to protest, computers/phones can be seized without a warrant, people are forbidden to express criticism (!) in any way, shape or form (even thoughts and feelings). Property can be confiscated, house searches are allowed without any ID necessary, phone-taps are allowed without any warrant. And so on and so on. People who disagree will be deported to some unknown place.
Plato taught us that the purpose of life is to know, love, and serve the Good, which is at once Reality itself, its source, and the power by which we know and love it. Plato also taught us that, as humans are communal, they know, love, and serve the Good together in communities, especially the larger community of the polis or city. For Plato and the philosophia perennis as a whole, Reality is the Good and the Good is Reality, and as such the foundation and purpose of both personal and political life.
But what is Reality, and how do we know it? No one grappled with this question more deeply than Plato, giving us the classic distinction between what appears and what is. The Good is both What Is and the perfect self-awareness of What Is, and so the distinction doesn’t apply to It. But you and I are not the Good, and this otherness puts us at some distance from it, in the space between which, as it were, the Good makes its appearance. The whole point of Platonism is to reduce this distance as much as possible, such that for all intents and purposes, we become one with the Good and thus with Reality. When the philosophers who are to rule the city have obtained this unity through rigorous formation and years of contemplation, they order the city so that those living within it are enabled to become as united with the Real and the Good as possible. Otherwise, as Plato makes clear, tyrants, those who put their desires in the place of the Good and their dictates in the place of Reality, will rule a city of unreality unto self-destruction.
Many people today, particularly the religiously inclined, still agree with Plato that knowing and loving Reality and the Good is the purpose of life, but not many think that political life should be based upon spiritual or even moral reality. Liberalism (in both the classical and late-modern versions) is responsible for this change, as it teaches that the purpose of politics is to provide a secure space and the economic/legal (free-market exchange, constitutional law) provisions and communal (family, school, church, etc.) resources by which individuals can freely work out for themselves the difference between appearance and reality and choose to live according to their conclusions without coercion. People in political power are not authorized to impose their view of the Good and the Real on everyone else, which is what we didn’t like in the bad, pre-liberal old days. It’s not that it wouldn’t be a great thing if we all came to agreement on the highest good and the most real, if that were to occur through the free pursuit of truth and individual happiness, but even then, no established religion or confessional political order would follow. The secular, pluralistic city is the best one, we know now, for it secures the blessings of liberty and freedom for all requiring only a modicum of shared principles, such as not killing each other over disagreements about the Good and the Real, educational and economic opportunity for all, and not taking other people’s stuff. Plato helped us to recognize the connection between the search for the truth about the Good and political peace and happiness, but he went too far when he authorized the political community to establish and impose the Good on its citizens. We cannot force people to move from appearance to Reality.
Imagine the Holocaust is happening again. Only this time, it’s on a planetary scale. And there aren’t any Allies coming to the rescue—because they’re just as guilty as the Axis.
Now imagine people are telling you sharing evidence of that atrocity is making them uncomfortable. They want to change the subject; they want to agree-to-disagree.
How would you feel when you’re doing everything in your power to prevent more human beings from being massacred, and most people don’t want to hear about it, don’t want to think about it, don’t want to even consider the snowballing scientific data because it contradicts the worldwide propaganda campaign being scripted by the very entities committing these crimes against humanity?
I know that sounds hyperbolic. That’s what purveyors of the Biggest Lie in world history count on. It is too titanic, too ridiculous to be believed.
All of their mouthpieces tell you so. They tell you we’re “anti-vaxxers.” They tell you we’re “conspiracy theorists.” They tell you we’re spreading “misinformation.” They tell you we’re “right-wing extremists,” “Deplorables,” and “Trump voters.”
They tell you not to listen to us. They tell you we can’t be trusted. They tell you THEY are your “single source of truth.”
I know genocide—in this case, democide—isn’t a topic you bring up in polite conversation. But I’m not polite. Because being “polite” when you know people are being medically liquidated makes you an accomplice to murder, and I will not go gentle into that bad night.
“And how about that totalitarianism spreading around the globe like, hmm, well, like a highly contagious virus?”
“Or did you hear about Dr. Mengelfauci funding savage experiments on beagles where the sadists slashed their vocal chords so they wouldn’t be annoyed by the dogs’ screams while their faces were being devoured by sand flies until they died?”
“Speaking of Pfizer, why do you think the FDA asked a federal judge to give Pfizer until 2076 to release its vaccine data? Don’t you think they’d want to share proof for their claims of safety and efficacy with scientists if they have so much confidence in their product?”
“Isn’t it odd how the entire world fell under a spell simultaneously after being subjected to a comprehensive fear campaign and suddenly forgot about concepts like natural immunity, hard scientific data, freedom of speech, individual rights, and the hazards of authoritarianism?”
Soul traps. The lures are the lusts and hungers of this life. The [soul], exploring the newfound freedom of the energetic world, finds himself able to visit his friends and enemies, to see their innermost being and thoughts, even to converse with them in ways that their elemental selves cannot perceive. He is in danger, but he does not know it, for he has not ascended. He is still ensnared by his lust. Soon he will be shown something that perfectly fulfills his most en and cherished desires, desires he has never fulfilled. Unable to resist the chance to do it at last, he enters by a golden door into eternal captivity.
The passage is from Whitley Strieber’s “The Key”, a purportedly true account as related by Streiber of an encounter with a mysterious humanoid being who simply knocked on the door of his Toronto hotel room at 3am on June 6, 1998, entered his suite and told him about mankind’s place in the cosmos and his inescapable fate.
Strieber’s account may be a synthesis: partly “true” (in that he believes it occurred as he relates it), part visioning, part somnambulistic dream state. Whatever emanates from the mind of Whitley Strieber, it originates from some realm outside of our Cartesian, materialist notion of consensus reality.
He reminds me of that other prophetic visionary of yesteryear: Rudolf Steiner, whom as I wrote previously, spent much of his life in a hypnogognic state, possibly without even realizing it.
Steiner and Strieber. Odd that. They are both talking about the same thing. The idea that the souls of humanity could be captured in a technological machine, where they would wander forever, believing they have omniscience, even Godhood.
