C.J. Hopkins's Blog, page 4

Thank God for the 10/7 Truthers! For a moment there I was starting to worry that the world was never going to learn The Truth about how the Israelis murdered everyone on October 7th and blamed it on Hamas.

Yes, that’s right, you evil Zionist genociders, SUCK ON THE TRUTH! The IDF did it. They killed everyone. Or almost everyone. Or “most if not many” of them. Or “many, many” of them. They “Hanniballed” them all. Yes, also the ones at that “Nova” festival. They lured them down there to that all-night rave, got them all hopped up on that MDMA, and then dressed up like Hamas and wasted them!

And, now, finally, The Truth is out … or is out again … or is confimed … or something!

Seriously, this is probably the most monumental investigative-journalism story since the one about how the alleged “planes” on 9/11 were actually holograms, because the whole thing was really a Mossad “false flag” op carried out by those dancing Israelis!

Now, I realize that The Truth is hard for Zionists and Zionist-sympathizers to accept. After all, according to most of my zealously anti-Zionist former readers, I am one of those genocidal Zionists, or I’m a Zionist sympathizer, or a genocide denier, or I’m being Kabbalistically mind-controlled by my wife, who is Jewish, and very possibly Mossad.

Nonetheless, The Truth is The Truth. As Aaron Mate put it in a recent piece, “under the Hannibal doctrine, Israel’s aim was to kill its own people rather than let them be traded in a future exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.”

OK, sure, that’s not exactly what the so-called “Hannibal directive” is about, at least not according to the IDF as quoted by Haaretz in 2014 …

“The original order, drafted together with Northern Command’s operations officer Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi (who would become IDF chief of staff) and intelligence officer Colonel Yaacov Amidror (later National Security Advisor) stated that “in case of capture, the main mission becomes rescuing our soldiers from the captors, even at the cost of hitting or wounding our soldiers.” […] Recent reports in the international media suggest that the directive is tantamount to ordering the captured soldier to be shot in order to prevent him being taken prisoner; rather, it is the suspension of safety procedures which normally prohibit firing in the general direction of an IDF soldier, specifically firing to stop an escaping vehicle.”

But, whatever, those Zionists are all a bunch of liars. And I am a Zionist sympathizer, or why else would I post that quote? The point is, the IDF murdered everyone, or, OK, maybe Hamas helped a bit …

See, The Truth is, Hamas had absolutely no desire to harm or … you know, slaughter civilians. As “those who know the Resistance” will explain to you, Hamas was just going house to house, interviewing hostage candidates, when the IDF went totally berserk and started “Hanniballing” the hell out of everyone.

According to this guy, Israeli soldiers have “confirmed” that they “did the massacre that day” …

I don’t know how much more proof you need. I mean Aaron, and Caitlin, and Richard, and all the other anti-Zionist folks who are reporting The Truth are nothing at all like those lying Israeli propagandists who pumped out the “40-Beheaded-Babies” story, or the “Underground-Hospital-Command-Complex” story, or those tapes of the “Hamas guys” discussing how they accidentally bombed their own hospital (i.e., back before the IDF started bombing hospitals willy nilly), and the rest of the official propaganda that Israel et al. have been pumping out.

Richard, for example, is an “independent journalist,” who is doing serious journalism, not propaganda. OK, granted, he’s in “the pro-Palestine camp,” and appears to be self-censoring a bit “to avoid division and helping the enemy,” but I am certain that would never lead him to slant, or distort, or totally mutilate The Truth, like those Zionists do on a daily basis.

Plus, the “IDF Hanniballed Everyone” story — in addition to being the Verified Truth — is nothing like the torrent of anti-Semitic propaganda that is currently flooding the Internet, which, as Richard notes, is the work of fake anti-Zionists, who hate the Jews, as opposed to just the Zionists, who it’s perfectly fine and natural to hate, and who are “just as cancerous as Zionists.”

I think this might be one of them …

I don’t know who this person is, but she and her ilk are suddenly all over my X feed with this neo-Nazi mind-garbage. It appears she is rather popular on X, or is being promoted by X, and probably both. She also appears to be popular with a lot of real anti-Zionists, or, I don’t know, maybe I’m just losing track of who’s who.

In any event, this type of mind-garbage has nothing to do with actual anti-Zionism, which, of course, has nothing to do with Judaism. There is nothing inherently anti-Semitic about wanting to wipe Israel off the face of the planet, or pointing out that Jews control the US government, or … wait, I’m getting confused again. I think that probably is anti-Semitic, unless you say “Zionists” instead of “Jews,” in which case, you’re totally in the clear!

Whatever. The point is, The Truth that the 10/7 Truthers are exposing to the world — i.e., that the Zionists killed all the victims (or most, or many, many of the victims) on October 7, and then blamed it on Hamas — bears no resemblance whatsoever to the standard “The Jews are Controlling the World” narrative that neo-Nazis and other anti-Semites have been disseminating since the dawn of anti-Semitism, and anyone who suggests that it does is probably a Zionist, or … you know, a Jew.

Sorry, this column isn’t going quite as planned. I was hoping to get back in the good graces of my anti-Zionist colleagues, and I think I’m blowing it.

Anyway, I am very grateful — as, I am sure, are the Palestinian people — to the 10/7 Truthers for exposing The Truth. It’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes! I see now how Hamas’ mostly peaceful hostage-recruitment excursion was exploited by those devious Zionists. I’m certain, once the rest of the world sees The Truth, well, that will be the end of Zionism, and Palestine will be free at last!

Clearly, we are right on the verge of that already.

In the meantime, I need to wrap up this piece and go up and help my wife with the housework. She’s a little over-extended currently. They’ve got her doing double-duty, controlling both the banking system and the media. Apparently, they had to reassign her uncle Morty, who normally handles banking, to the French elections … or, I don’t know. I’m not privy to all that stuff.

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If anyone gets tired of the ridiculous “Israel killed everyone on 10/7 and blamed it on Hamas!” nonsense, they might want to read this piece of actual grown-up journalism by Jeremy Scahill, featuring actual Hamas members discussing Hamas’ October 7 strategy and framing events in their political/historical context. Here’s an excerpt …

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CJ Hopkins
July 11, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

Well, what do you know, it looks like we’ve got another “CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY” on our hands. Yes, that’s right, folks, THE VERY FABRIC OF DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE … again! Which means (surprise!) that it’s probably time to declare another STATE OF EMERGENCY and take some sort of EMERGENCY MEASURES to protect humanity from LITERAL FASCISM, or RUSSIA, or CHEAP FAKES, or a VIRUS … or whatever.

I didn’t watch the presidential debate — it took place at 2AM here in Germany — but I watched as much as I could stand the following morning, and I read a few headlines in the corporate press, and … well, it appears that’s it for Biden.

Normally, at this point, I would pen a column full of colorful adjectives and gratuitous adverbials skewering the entire spectacle, but (a) lots of others are doing that — albeit sans the gratuitous adverbials — and (b) I’m still on medical leave, and under doctor’s orders not to do that, i.e., sit at my desk for numerous hours, chain smoking, drinking pots of espresso, and launching my blood pressure into the stratosphere.

So I’m going to post another column from the archives.

Hold on, don’t click away just yet. I do want to say a few things about the debate, and Biden, and Trump, and “democracy.” But first, I want you to look at this photo, which was taken in November of 2019 …

Yes, that is an authentic photograph taken in November of 2019. You can fact-check its authenticity on Snopes or wherever. So, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t get all worked up about Biden’s debate debacle as if something unwonted and astonishing had occurred.

And, as for Trump, no surprise there, he’s still the same narcissistic ass clown as ever.

What is, however, astonishing, or frustrating, or infuriating — and OK, there goes my blood pressure — is how many people still believe they are living in sovereign nation-states … you know, like “The United States of America,” run by individuals like Biden, or Trump, or whoever the global-capitalist ruling classes install in November.

People are asking, “WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY?” The answer is, the same body of mandarins who have been “running the country” all along … yes, also during the Reign of Trump. Yes, also during the Reign of Obama. Because there is no actual country to “run.”

As Mr. Jensen put it to Howard Beale in Paddy Chayefsky’s classic film Network …

“You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! […] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, and Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.”

I realize it’s hard for a lot of people to accept, but there is no “America.” The United States of America is a province, a territorial subdivision, of the supranational global-capitalist empire. And so is every other “Western” country. This is why nothing ever actually changes, regardless of which “leaders” are “in charge.”

In other words, you are watching a show. A simulation. A simulation of democracy. However, just because it’s a show, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean anything. The simulation of democracy is essential to the empire. It is what keeps us at each other’s throats, rather than at the empire’s throat. And it’s the theater that sets the tone of whatever “reality” prevails at the moment … the War on Terror, the War on Terror (Light), the War on Populism, the Pandemic, or whatever.

I’m not entirely sure what new “reality” we are transitioning into, but, whoever the global-capitalist mandarins end up installing in office in November, I have a funny feeling that the coming five months are going to be a soul-crushing, neo-Orwellian spectacle of epic proportions. They can’t allow Trump to take office again; they shot their wad with the Russian-Hitler stuff. It would be déjà vu all over again. I won’t be surprised if they draft Hillary Clinton, you know, just to rub it in everyone’s faces, or cancel the constitution on account of the bird flu, or the “global boiling,” or an “anti-vax-conspiracy-theorist insurrection,” and appoint Obama dictator perpetuo.

Or — and this is the most horrifyingly psychotic neo-Orwellian scenario — they will just stick with Biden, because what could be more soul-crushing than another Biden “victory”? That appears to be where they’re headed at the moment …

Anyway, here’s that piece from the archives. I wrote this in January 2021, i.e., shortly after Biden’s inauguration, which, as you may or may not remember, was staged in a locked-down, military-occupied DC, during a fabricated “state of health emergency,” in the aftermath of a fabricated “insurrection.”

This was the moment when the New Normal Reich was officially ushered into being, with a “field of flags,” a full-blown Nazi light-show, and the whole nine yards. Not to put too fine a point on it, they rolled out the soldiers and the urban-assault vehicles and installed a muttering, finger-sucking, global-capitalist puppet in office. They did not hide this. They publicized it. They wanted us to know that “democracy” was over, that the “populist” rebellion was over, and that they were installing a human stalk of celery in the White House, and there was nothing that we could do about it.

The message could not possibly have been clearer.

As they used to say at the end of all those wacky Looney Tunes cartoons, that’s all folks! The show is over. Literal Russian-Asset Hitler, the Latest Greatest Threat to Western Democracy, the Monster of Mar-a-Lago, Trumpzilla, Trumpenstein, the Ayatollah of Orange Shinola, has finally been humiliated and given the bum-rush out of Washington by the heroic forces of the GloboCap “Resistance,” with a little help from the US military. The whole thing went exactly to script.

Well … OK, not quite exactly to script. Despite four years of dire warnings by the corporate media, the Intelligence Community, Hollywood celebrities, the Democratic Party, faux anti-fascists, fake-Left pundits, and pretty much every utterly deluded, Trump-obsessed liberal with an Internet connection, there was no Hitlerian “Reichstag Fire,” no Boogaloo, no Civil War II, no coup, no white-supremacist uprising. Nothing. The man simply got on a chopper and was flown away to his Florida resort.

I know, you’re probably thinking … “Wow, how embarrassing for the GloboCap ‘Resistance,’ being exposed as a bunch of utterly shameless, neo-Goebbelsian propagandists, and liars, and hysterical idiots, and such!”

And, in any other version of reality, you’d have a point … but not in this one.

No, in this reality, “Democracy Has Prevailed!” Yes, it was touch and go there for a while, as there was no guarantee that the Intelligence Community, the military-industrial complex, Western governments, the corporate media, supranational corporations, Internet oligarchs, and virtually every other component of the global-capitalist empire could keep one former game show host with no real political power whatsoever from taking over the entire world.

Still, Trump’s failure to go full-Hitler, or even half-Hitler, was somewhat awkward. I mean, you can’t whip millions of people into a four-year frenzy of fear and hatred of a clearly powerless ass-clown president, and portray him as a Russian Intelligence asset, and the Son of Hitler, and all the rest of it, and then just drop the act cold and laugh in their faces. That would leave them feeling like total morons who had just spent the last four years of their lives being lied to and emotionally manipulated, or like members of a cult, or something.

Fortunately, for GloboCap, this was not a major problem. All they had to do was produce a cheap simulation of “Trump going full-Hitler.” It didn’t even have to be convincing. They just needed a semi-dramatic event to plug into the official narrative, something they could call “an attempted coup,” “an insurrection,” “an attack,” and so on, and which millions of credulous liberals could hysterically shriek about on the Internet.

The “Storming of the Capitol” did the trick.

They held a dress rehearsal in Berlin last August, and then gave the real performance in the Capitol Building (this time it was for all the money, so they went ahead and got a couple people killed). It wasn’t very hard to pull off. All they actually had to do, in both Berlin and DC, was allow a small fringe group of angry protesters to gain access to the building, film it, and then pump out the “attempted coup” narrative. It made no difference whatsoever that the “domestic terrorists” (in both Berlin and Washington) were a completely unorganized, unarmed mob that posed absolutely zero threat of “staging a coup” and “overthrowing the government.” It also made not the slightest difference that Trump didn’t actually “incite” the mob (yes, I put myself through the agony of reading every word of his speech, which was the usual word salad from start to finish). We’re talking propaganda here, not reality.

The so-called “Violent Storming of the Capitol” set the stage for the main event, which was the show of force we have all just witnessed. Someone (I’m not entirely clear who) ordered in the troops, tens of thousands of them, locked down Washington, erected fences, set up road blocks and military check points, and otherwise occupied the government district. It looked like any other US-military post-“regime-change” occupation, because that’s what it was, which was precisely the point. As I have been repeating for … well, for over four years now, it was always going to end this way, with GloboCap making an example of Trump and reminding everyone who is really in charge.

Look, let’s be clear about these last four years, because there are all kinds of crazy theories going around (not to mention the official GloboCap narrative), but what actually happened is pretty simple.

Here’s the whole story, as concise as I can make it.

Back in 2016, the American people, sick to the gills of global capitalism and its increasingly oppressive woke ideology, elected an unauthorized, narcissistic ass-clown to the highest office in the land. They did this for a variety of reasons, but mostly it was just a big “fuck you” to the establishment. It was an act of rebellion against a government which they know is owned by unaccountable, supranational corporations and oligarchs who openly detest them. It was an act of rebellion against a system of government they know they have no influence over, and are not going to have any influence over. It was an act of rebellion against global capitalism, the unopposed, global-hegemonic system which has dominated the world for the last thirty years … whether they realized what they were rebelling against or not.

This act of rebellion happened on the heels of Brexit (another such act of rebellion) and in the context of the rise of assorted “populist” movements all throughout the world. When Trump actually won in 2016, the global capitalist ruling classes realized they had a serious problem … a “populist” rebellion in the heart of the empire.

So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism.

The ultimate objective of the War on Populism was to neutralize this “populist” rebellion and remind the public who is actually running things. Think of the Trump era as a prison riot. In any maximum security prison, the prisoners know they can’t escape, but they can definitely raise a little hell now and then, which they tend to do when they get really tired of being abused and neglected by the prison guards. Most prison riots run out of steam on their own, but if they go on too long or get too ugly, the penal authorities typically respond by shooting a few prisoners (usually the ringleaders), and reminding the inmates that they are in a prison, and that the owners of the prison have guns, whereas they have shivs made out of spoons and toothbrushes.

This, basically, is what we’ve just experienced. The global capitalist ruling classes have just reminded us who is really in charge, who the US military answers to, and how quickly they can strip away the facade of democracy and the rule of law. They have reminded us of this for the last ten months, by putting us under house arrest, beating and arresting us for not following orders, for not wearing masks, for taking walks without permission, for having the audacity to protest their decrees, for challenging their official propaganda, about the virus, the election results, etc. They are reminding us currently by censoring dissent, and deplatforming anyone they deem a threat to their official narratives and ideology.

In other words, GloboCap is teaching us a lesson. I don’t know how much clearer they could make it. They just installed a new puppet president, who can’t even simulate mental acuity, in a locked-down, military-guarded ceremony which no one was allowed to attend, except for a few members of the ruling classes. They got some epigone of Albert Speer to convert the Mall (where the public normally gathers) into a “field of flags” symbolizing “unity.” They even did the Nazi “Lichtdom” thing. To hammer the point home, they got Lady Gaga to dress up as a Hunger Games character with a “Mockingjay” brooch and sing the National Anthem. They broadcast this spectacle to the entire world.

And the lesson isn’t quite over yet … it won’t be over for a while. The “War on Populism” will simply morph into the “New Normal War on Domestic Terror,” which will become one more theater in the “Global War on Terror,” which has been on hiatus, and which will now resume. As I have pointed out repeatedly over the past four years, we appear to be headed toward a dystopian future in which there will essentially be two classes of people: (a) “normals” (i.e., those who conform to global-capitalist ideology and decrees); and (b) the “extremists” (i.e., those who don’t).

It will make no difference whatsoever what type of “extremists” these “extremists” are … religious-fundamentalist extremists, Islamic extremists, Christian extremists, right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, white-supremacist or Black-nationalist extremists, virus deniers, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, anti-maskers, recalcitrant transphobians, anti-transhumanists, pronoun resisters, defiant oppositionalists, or whatever … the names don’t really matter. The point is, conform or be labelled an “extremist,” a “domestic terrorist,” or some other type of “antisocial person” or “social deviant,” or “potential threat to public health.”

I don’t claim to know every detail, but one thing seems abundantly clear. We are not going back to the way things were. GloboCap has been explaining this to us, over and over, for almost a year. They couldn’t have made it any more explicit. When they warned us to get ready because a “New Normal” was coming, they meant it.

And now … well, here it is.

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CJ Hopkins
June 29, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

I miss the 1970s sometimes. Not just the music. And the sex. And the drugs. I miss the terrorists. The old-school terrorists. Or, OK, maybe not the terrorists, but the revolutionaries who cheered on the terrorists.

I miss the clarity, and the honesty, of that era.

Maybe you’re too young to remember, but, back in the day, you didn’t get all this hemming and hawing about murdering civilians. The terrorists, and the revolutionaries who supported them, were not ashamed of murdering civilians. The Revolution demanded that they murder civilians. Murdering civilians was one of the fundamental strategies of the Revolution.

The way this strategy works is simple. What you do is, you murder a bunch of civilians, in order to provoke your adversary into massively over-retaliating against you and committing all kinds of war crimes and atrocities, like the USA did in Iraq twenty years ago, like the IDF is now doing in Gaza. The goal of the strategy is to broaden the conflict, and draw your potential allies into it, or at least significantly weaken support for your enemy.

OK, sure, that means you have to murder some people … men, women, children, whole families, and then your enemy is going to go apeshit and kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of your people, but, if all goes to plan, your “allies” will join you, and attack your enemy, and drive him into the sea, or off the face of the earth, or wherever. So, in the end, all the murdering will have been totally worth it.

This is not a theory I just made up. It is one of the basics of asymmetric warfare. If you are not already familiar with that subject, this might be a good time to look into it.

I’m not a fan of murdering civilians. Not even for the Revolution. I do not think it is a very good strategy. Plus, well, the murdering. I’m against that, generally. Soldiers killing each other is one thing. They have been doing that since the dawn of history. And I have no problem with guerilla tactics. People fight wars with the means they have available. It’s just the murdering thing that I can’t get down with. Especially the murdering of the women and the kids, but it’s probably not politically correct to say that, what with the diversity, equity, and inclusion thing these days.

Anyway, as it appears I’m currently alienating a significant portion of my longstanding readers, half of whom believe I’m an “Islamofascist,” and the other half of whom believe I’m a “Zionist,” I figure I’ll go ahead and go for broke, and wax nostalgic about the 1970s, and say a few things I haven’t been saying, or, rather, I’ll say a few things I’ve been saying delicately not so delicately.

I’ve been saying those things delicately, because, as I made pretty clear in October, when this whole horror show started, my sympathies are with the Palestinian people. My sympathies are also with the loved ones of the Israeli civilians who were murdered by Hamas, but I am talking about the bigger picture now, the broader “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

In that bigger picture, the Palestinians are fucked. They’ve been getting fucked for quite some time now. That is what happens when empires conquer the land you live on and do what they want with it. The land in question has been getting conquered for approximately 4,500 years. The Babylonians conquered it. The Persians conquered it. Alexander the Great conquered it. The Romans conquered it. And so on. That’s all ancient history.

More recently, in 1920, the Ottoman Empire lost World War One, and the British Empire took the land over. You are probably familiar with the rest of the history. The British pulled out in 1948. Zionists established The State of Israel. War broke out. Israel won. War broke out again. Israel won again. And again. And so on. And … well, here we are.

As I was saying, the Palestinians are fucked. Look at a map of the territory. Does it look like Palestine is on the verge of being “free”?

The State of Israel is not going anywhere. It is an essential component of the global-capitalist empire. It’s the empire’s headquarters in the Middle East. It has nuclear weapons. It is backed by the US military. The “Islamic world” is not going to join Hamas and attack it, regardless of how many war crimes it perpetrates in Gaza. The ICJ is not going to put it on trial. The United Nations isn’t going to make it play nice. It isn’t going to disappear into the ether. It is a fact of life. It isn’t fair. It has nothing to do with fairness and justice and rights and good and bad and whatever. It doesn’t even have much to do with Zionism. Zionism is just Israel’s ideology, like Islamism is Saudi Arabia’s ideology. What it has to do with is the global-capitalist empire, and resistance to the global-capitalist empire.

Which brings us back to asymmetric warfare, and Hamas’ October 7 “Al-Aqsa Flood” strategy, and the utter fucking pointlessness of it, and the utter fucking callousness of it.

Do you seriously believe that the leadership of Hamas did not know exactly how Israel would respond to the slaughter of hundreds of Israeli citizens, families, children, people at a rave? If you honestly believe that, I don’t know what to say.

The goal of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack was to provoke precisely the response it has provoked. There is nothing mysterious or complicated about this. It is Asymmetric Warfare 101, straight out of the Terrorism textbook.

For seven months I have been watching my “radical” colleagues trying to obscure this fact. It isn’t helpful. It doesn’t help anyone. It certainly doesn’t help the Palestinian people. There is more than enough about Israel to criticize. Lying, twisting the facts about Hamas, convincing people that the IDF “Hanniballed” everyone on October 7, is (a) unnecessary, (b) obfuscatory, and (c) destroys your credibility.

On top of which, it makes you look like pussies.

If you believe that murdering people to provoke your enemy into overreacting is a productive armed-resistance strategy, at least have the fucking courage to say so. Bring back the spirit of the 1970s! The old PLO! The RAF! The IRA! The SLA! Do it for the Revolution! Or the Globalized Intifada! Or whatever.

I’m just kidding, of course. It is an idiotic strategy. It hands your enemy a free “get out of war-crimes tribunal” card. Meanwhile, the people you are purporting to be fighting for are getting slaughtered by the tens of thousands. But whatever … as long as it boosts your cred among the other “legitimate armed resisters,” who cares how many families get wasted? After all, it’s not your fault! It’s the oppressors! The Zionists! The Americans! Or whoever.

Seriously, though, I am feeling a bit nostalgic for the 1970s, when at least you could have a real argument over tactics with your revolutionary comrades instead of hearing mindless gibberish like this …

Yes, you actually just read those words, “they never killed anyone with an intent to kill.” And Lena’s note is not at all an anomaly. I have been hearing this gibberish for seven months now.

So, thanks, all my radical anti-Zionist friends and colleagues who have been pumping out this narrative, and all the thought-terminating clichés, and conducting Anti-Zionist Inquisitions, and so on! Well done! I’m pretty sure all the folks like Lena who you have helped to transform into a mass of mindless Pavlovian robots will never, ever, be turned against us, like, you know, the next time the Powers That Be come up with an irresistible stimulus!

I mean, what are the odds of that ever happening?

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CJ Hopkins
May 22, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

Nobody expects The Anti-Zionist Inquisition!

Like their befuddled medieval Catholic progenitors in the classic Monty Python skit, they descend upon you without warning! Amongst their diverse weaponry are surprise, and fear, and ruthless efficiency, and fanatical devotion to the Church of Anti-Zionism! Blasphemers, heretics, and other apostates of the Church literally wee themselves at the thought of being publicly accused of non-anti-Zionism and subjected to their fearsome inquisitorial methods!

Yes, I’m speaking from personal experience, having recently survived a visit from the Anti-Zionist Inquisition on Twitter. What happened is, I noticed that the pro-Palestinian student protesters in the USA, or many of them, were wearing “Covid” masks. So I tweeted about it. Here are some of those Tweets …

I don’t know what I was thinking at the time. I was probably possessed by a Zionist demon! Anyway, the next thing I knew, the Anti-Zionist Inquisition was onto me. Paul Cudenec, an anarchist writer who I’d been friendly with for several years, and a Cardinal in the Church, rushed onto Twitter to demand that I publicly “condemn Zionist genocide,” and answer to charges of potential Zionist sympathies, and otherwise recant my heresy and blasphemy. I didn’t do that for Paul. I don’t do that for anyone. As I noted in a previous column, I don’t condemn things on command, not Hamas, not Zionism, not anything, for anyone. Nor do I perform any other kind of tricks. If that’s what you’re into, get a fucking dog.

My unresponsive anti-authoritarian response did not sit well with Cardinal Cudenec, so he whipped out one of the Anti-Zionist Inquisition’s most feared and most ruthlessly efficient weapons, the Online Character Assassination. “Why is CJ Hopkins now devoting all his efforts to attacking critics of the Israeli genocide?” he shrieked. Could it be that CJ Hopkins is controlled opposition? Is he now, or has he ever been, a Zionist?

The Anti-Zionist faithful answered the call. I was instantly besieged by a swarm of morons demanding that I publicly deny that I’m a Zionist, and affirm that “the Zionists” own the US government, and most other Western governments, and the banks, and media, and … well, I think you’re probably familiar with that narrative.

Wait … no, it’s not what you’re thinking. These people are not anti-Semites! They are anti-Zionists! They have absolutely nothing to do with the idiotic anti-Semitic garbage that, for example, white-supremacist groups like Aryan Brotherhood or Aryan Nations are into, you know, all that garbage about the “Zionist Occupation Government” and how “the Jews own everything,” and “the Great Replacement,” and all that. I am serious. I know some of these people, personally. They are anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites. They just happen to be totally obsessed with the Jews, and Israel, and Zionism, to the point where anyone who refuses to conform to their simplistic worldview and political analysis is perceived as an enemy, or a “Zionist,” or a “Zionist-entity sympathizer.”

So, that was fun, my appearance before the Anti-Zionist Inquisition. Plus, it inspired me to conduct one of my online courses on basic smear-artist tactics, which I offer as a public service whenever the occasion arises.

It also moved me to tweet a few words of advice to my Anti-Zionist Inquisitors, which I will reproduce below for my readers who have the sense (and the luxury) not to be on Twitter.

Ready? OK, here we go …

I hate to bum people out, but repeating the words “Zionism” and “genocide” over and over is not a political strategy. If you want to stop slaughters like the one going on in Gaza someday, get a political strategy. Start with a political analysis. Use a map. Identify who is aligned with what.

For example, which of the Middle East countries on this map are playing ball with the global-capitalist empire? Which aren’t? Which countries has the empire invaded, destabilized, and restructured since 1989? Why has it done that? Where are there still pockets of resistance?

Forget about ideology for a second. Every country has an ideology or a narrative to justify its actions. Try to look at the map through the eyes of the empire. Who is playing ball with you? Who is not? What needs to be done about that? What is your goal as an empire in this region?

Again, forget about ideology, and try to think strategically. Take Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocracy. It’s the largest US export market in the Middle East. The US is its largest trading partner. Do you think the empire cares about its ideology?

Now take a look at Israel. What function does Israel perform for the empire? Do you think the empire cares about Israel’s national ideology, i.e. Zionism, any more than it cares about Saudi Arabia’s national ideology? If so, why do you think that?

Think strategy, not ideology. Does Israel maintain an arsenal of nuclear weapons because of Zionism? Why is the empire determined to ensure that Israel remains the only country with nuclear weapons in the Middle East? Does Israel receive billions in support from the empire because of Zionism? Did the empire invade and restructure Iraq because of Zionism? Libya? Syria? Why is Iran a problem for the empire?

Answer those questions and you may be on your way to developing something resembling a political analysis, which you can use to generate an actual political strategy. Then, someday, maybe, that political strategy might help you to stop slaughters like the one in Gaza.

Or, don’t think about any of the above questions, and just keep shouting “ZIONIST GENOCIDE!” over and over and referring to Israel as “the Zionist entity.” That’s been working really well so far.

Oh, and, if anyone is still unclear about my political views and desperate to fix that, well, might I suggest that they actually read my books, or my columns, which are all available online.

Or, if it’s too much work to do that, just ask some fanatical idiot on Twitter.

###

CJ Hopkins
May 9, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

Thank God for the German Hate Police! Or heil … or whatever the appropriate salutation is for these unsung heroes. They just saved us all from “hate” again!

Yes, that’s right, once again, democracy-loving people here in New Normal Berlin and all across the New Normal world were right on the brink of being exposed to “hate,” and would have been exposed to “hate,” had the Hate Police not sprang into action.

You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

OK, what happened was, some pro-Palestinian activists organized a “Palestine Congress,” and attempted to discuss the situation in Gaza, and call for solidarity with the Palestinians, and so on, right here in the middle of Berlin, the epicenter of European democracy, as if they thought they had a right to do that. The German authorities were clearly intent on disabusing them of that notion.

Early Friday morning, hundreds of black-clad Hate Police descended on the congress location. Reinforcements were called in from throughout the nation. Metal barricades were erected on the sidewalks. Hate Police stood guard at the entrance. The German media warned the public that a potential “Hate-Speech” attack was now imminent. Berliners were advised to shelter in place, switch off their phones and any other audio-receptive communication devices, and wad up little pieces of toilet paper and ram them deep into their ear canals to prevent any possible exposure to the “hate.”

Sure enough, minutes into the congress, the anticipated “Hate-Speech” attack was launched! A Palestinian activist — Salman Abu Sitta — who had written an article that allegedly “expressed understanding of Hamas,” and thus had already been placed on the official German “No-Speak” list, started speaking to the congress on Zoom or whatever. Or … it isn’t quite clear whether he actually started speaking. According to a Hate Police spokesperson, they raided the congress because “there is a risk of a speaker being put on the screen who in the past made anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks.”

Anyway, the Hate Police stormed the venue, pulled the plug, dispersed the crowd, and banned the rest of the “Palestine Congress,” which was scheduled to continue on Saturday and Sunday. Then they arrested a Jewish guy who was wearing a Palestinian-flag-kippah, presumably out of an abundance of caution.

But the “Hate-Speech” attack wasn’t over yet. It was one of those multi-pronged “Hate-Speech” attacks, or at least it involved one other prong. Earlier that morning, or perhaps while the Hate Police were still neutralizing the threat at the venue, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a prominent British surgeon, who had volunteered in Gaza and was due to speak at the congress, was intercepted by the Berlin Airport Hate Police, refused entry into Germany, and forced to return to the UK. The Airport Hate Police informed the doctor that he was being denied entry in order to ensure “the safety of the people at the conference and public order,” Abu Sitta told the Associated Press.

Kai Wegner, Berlin’s mayor, presumably feeling a bit nostalgic for the fanatical days of 2020 to 2023 when one could persecute “the Unvaccinated” with total impunity, took to X to celebrate the Hate Police’s thwarting of this “Hate event.”

The pro-Palestinian activist community also took to X and expressed their displeasure. Yanis “Vaccinate Humanity” Varoufakis, who was one of the organizers and was scheduled to speak, was particularly incensed over the new German “fascism,” which apparently he has just now noticed, despite the fact that it has been goose-stepping around in a medical-looking mask for the last four years.

Yanis was not alone in his outrage. An increasing number of mainstream German journalists, authors, academics, and other members of the professional “progressive” classes are stunned that the new totalitarian society that they fanatically ushered into being during the so-called “Covid Pandemic” era — or stood by in silence and watched it happen — is now unleashing its fascistic force against them.

Which, OK, I get it. I mean, if I had just spent the last four years behaving like a Nazi, you know, persecuting “the Unvaccinated,” demonizing everyone who refused to wear the insignia of my fascist ideology on their face, and parroting official propaganda like an enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument, or just stood by in silence while other people did that, I would probably want to act like that never happened, and pretend that Germany was suddenly going “fascist” over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and just memory-hole the whole “Covid” thing.

I would probably be highly motivated to do that — if that were how I had behaved for the past four years — so that I didn’t appear to be a fucking hypocrite who will start clicking heels and following orders the moment the authorities declare another fake emergency and jack up the Fear.

Sorry … I’ve been trying to be less vituperative, but this memory-holing bullshit makes me go ballistic. If there is one demographic that I do not need to hear sanctimonious exhortations to speak out against the global crackdown on dissent from, it’s recently ex-Covidian-Cult leftists.

In any event, thank God for those Hate Police! If it weren’t for them … well, just imagine the horror, if the activists at that Palestine Congress had been allowed to express their opinions about Israel. They might have even said the word “genocide,” or made reference to a “river” and a “sea.”

Who knows what that kind of unbridled “hate” could lead to? Perhaps the end of democracy. Maybe even World War III.

###

CJ Hopkins
April 14, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

One of the first things totalitarians do when they set about transforming a democratic society into whatever type of strictly-regulated, utterly soul-deadening totalitarian dystopia they are trying to transform it into is radically overhaul and remake its culture. You can’t impose your new official ideology on a formerly democratic society with a bunch of artists running around loose, making fun of you and your propaganda. No, you need to get the culture business under control, and dictate what is and isn’t “art,” and what types of art are “harmful to society,” and demonize them, and the artists who created them, and censor them, or otherwise erase them.

The Nazis went about this process in their characteristically ham-fisted fashion …

“In September 1933, the Nazis created the Reich Chamber of Culture. The Chamber oversaw the production of art, music, film, theater, radio, and writing in Germany. The Nazis sought to shape and control every aspect of German society. They believed that art played a critical role in defining a society’s values. In addition, the Nazis believed art could influence a nation’s development. Several top leaders became involved in official efforts on art. They sought to identify and attack ‘dangerous’ artworks as they struggled to define what ‘truly German’ art looked like.” — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

One of the most ham-fisted events in the course of this process of ideological “synchronization” (a process known as “Gleichschaltung” in German) was the Entartete Kunst (“Degenerate Art”) exhibition in Munich in 1937 …

New Normal Germany is not Nazi Germany, so there is no “New Normal Chamber of Culture,” and no new “Degenerate Art” exhibition. The New Normal is a new form of totalitarianism, one which can’t afford to be perceived as totalitarianism, and thus the Gleichschaltung process works a bit differently.

I’m going to use my prosecution as an example, again. I apologize to any regular readers who are sick of hearing me go on about it. I know, I promised not to go all “Late Lenny Bruce,” but the Germans keep providing me with new comedy material. If you’re not one of those regular readers and thus are unfamiliar with the background of my case, you can read about it in The Atlantic, Matt Taibbi’s Racket News, and in various independent media outlets.

The short version is, back in 2022, I posted two Tweets criticizing mask mandates and making fun of Karl Lauterbach, the German Health Minister. Both Tweets included an image from the cover artwork of my latest book, The Rise of The New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021).

The German authorities did not appreciate those Tweets, so they (1) had them censored by Twitter, (2) had Amazon ban my book in Germany, and (3) dragged me into criminal court and prosecuted me on trumped-up “hate crime” charges. I was acquitted of those charges at my trial in January, but the Berlin State Prosecutor has appealed the verdict.

The latest bit of comic material the German authorities have provided me with is a copy of the prosecutor’s grounds for the appeal. In it, the Oberstaatsanwältin als Hauptabteilungsleiterin (i.e., “The Senior Public Prosecutor and Department Head”) argues that my Tweets do not express opposition to the Nazis, which … she’s right, they don’t. They express opposition to the mask mandates, and lies of the German authorities, and their violation of the German constitution.

My Tweets do not express my opposition to the Nazis because my Tweets assume opposition to the Nazis. They assume that all decent people understand and take it for granted that the Nazis were … well, Nazis, vicious, sadistic, mass-murdering fascists, with zero respect for democracy and the rule of law, who were obsessed with imposing their fanatically insane ideology on the entire planet. They (i.e., my Tweets) assume that comparing a contemporary group of power-intoxicated, constitution-violating, official-propaganda-spewing psychopaths — for example, the current German authorities — to the Nazis is not exactly a compliment.

The Senior Public Prosecutor and Head of Department, who is clearly not only an expert on the law, and political commentary, but is also an expert on art, and subtlety, and other elements of aesthetics, explains the other problem with my art (i.e., in addition to the problem of opposing the German authorities’ unconstitutional dictates when I should have been opposing the Nazis) in her “Revisionsbegründung” (“Grounds for Appeal”) … too much subtlety, not enough “clarity” and “obviousness.”

Here’s an excerpt from the Revisionsbegründung (translation, clarification, and emphasis mine).

“The general politically-critical presentation [of the Tweets] does not even begin to express opposition to the NSDAP [i.e., the Nazi Party] and its ideology in an equally obvious and unequivocal way.” […] “Ultimately, the representations express that the accused wanted to emphasize his concerns about the measures in the Corona policy by adding the so-called swastika and the implicit reference to National Socialism. The implication is diametrically opposed to the required obviousness and clarity.”

If only someone had told me about the importance of “obviousness” in works of art when I was back in film school or starting out as an avant-garde playwright in New York City, who knows, I could have been somebody! Instead, I got myself all confused by artists like … well, for example, John Heartfield. The title of this 1936 piece is “HAVE NO FEAR – HE’S A VEGETARIAN.”

In light of The Senior Public Prosecutor’s argument, I don’t know what to think about this piece anymore. What was Heartfield trying to say? Was he pro- or anti-Hitler? More importantly, was he pro- or anti-vegetarian?

And what are we supposed to think about this? Is Barbara Kruger pro- or anti-shopping?

And here’s an illustration by Anthony Freda, the artist who designed the cover of my book, and who is clearly suffering from a “clarity and obviousness” deficiency!

Oh, and speaking of inadequate “clarity” and “obviousness,” and the displaying of swastikas on German Twitter, here’s a Tweet by Die Tageszeitung, the big “left” newspaper here in Berlin …

Back in November, my attorney filed a complaint about that Tweet with the Public Prosecutor, as an experiment, just to see how they would respond. Of course, they declined to investigate, and prosecute, and cited the same exceptions to the ban on displaying swastikas that apply in my case, and which the judge also cited when she acquitted me in January.

I asked my attorney to carry out that experiment, because, at the time, I was terribly confused about whether Die Tageszeitung opposed the Nazis, or was trying to promote the Nazis, or what, exactly, all those swastikas and smirking Nazis were doing in a Tweet about “German Muslims” and other “migrant people” and how they think about the Holocaust. In the end, I decided the Twitter operators at Die Tageszeitung were probably working under the same assumption about how people view the Nazis as I was when I posted my two Tweets, i.e., the assumption that the Nazis were bad and that you do not have to reiterate that to the general public each and every time you include a photograph of them, or a swastika, in your social-media artwork.

But, seriously now, as I noted in court, my case has nothing to do with the Nazis or The Senior Public Prosecutor’s understanding of art. It’s part of the crackdown on political dissent that is being carried out, not just here in Germany, but in countries all throughout the West. Yes, it’s particularly fascistic in Germany — if you can read German, here is yet another example of a case like mine, but under a different pretext — and it is absolutely focused on critics of the official Covid narrative and the Covid restrictions, but it isn’t focused exclusively on us. If you can set aside your allegiance to whatever side of whatever you have pledged it to, and have a look at what is coming down the pipe, or is already all the way down the pipe, in the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, France, and various other countries … well, I strongly recommend that you do that, preferably before we all get “gleichgeschaltet.”

If you need a place to start, I posted links to a few articles on Matt Taibbi’s Notes thing …

OK, that’s it … I need to finish this column and go and up my “clarity and obviousness” game. The last thing I’d want to do at this point is post some other non-obvious art and accidentally “delegitimize the state.” I’m already in enough trouble as it is! Thank God I have The Senior Public Prosecutor’s Revisionsbegründung to refer to!

I tell you, I don’t where I’d be without these Germans!

###

CJ Hopkins
March 24, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that a bit during these past few years, but, if there’s one thing they’re exceptionally good at, it’s taking responsibility for their mistakes. Seriously, when it comes to acknowledging one’s mistakes, and not rationalizing, or minimizing, or attempting to deny them, and any discomfort they may have allegedly caused, no one does it quite like the Germans.

Take this Covid mess, for example. Just last week, the German authorities confessed that they made a few minor mistakes during their management of the “Covid pandemic.” According to Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Health, “we were sometimes too strict with the children and probably started easing the restrictions a little too late.” Horst Seehofer, the former Interior Minister, admitted that he would no longer agree to some of the Covid restrictions today, for example, nationwide nighttime curfews. “One must be very careful with calls for compulsory vaccination,” he added. Helge Braun, Head of the Chancellery and Minister for Special Affairs under Merkel, agreed that there had been “misjudgments,” for example, “overestimating the effectiveness of the vaccines.”

This display of the German authorities’ unwavering commitment to transparency and honesty, and the principle of personal honor that guides the German authorities in all their affairs, and that is deeply ingrained in the German character, was published in a piece called “The Divisive Virus” in Der Spiegel, and immediately widely disseminated by the rest of the German state and corporate media in a totally organic manner which did not in any way resemble one enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument pumping out official propaganda in perfect synchronization, or anything creepy and fascistic like that.

Germany, after all, is “an extremely democratic state,” with freedom of speech and the press and all that, not some kind of totalitarian country where the masses are inundated with official propaganda and critics of the government are dragged into criminal court and prosecuted on trumped-up “hate crime” charges.

OK, sure, in a non-democratic totalitarian system, such public “admissions of mistakes” — and the synchronized dissemination thereof by the media — would just be a part of the process of whitewashing the authorities’ fascistic behavior during some particularly totalitarian phase of transforming society into whatever totalitarian dystopia they were trying to transform it into (for example, a three-year-long “state of emergency,” which they declared to keep the masses terrorized and cooperative while they stripped them of their democratic rights, i.e., the ones they hadn’t already stripped them of, and conditioned them to mindlessly follow orders, and robotically repeat nonsensical official slogans, and vent their impotent hatred and fear at the new “Untermenschen” or “counter-revolutionaries”), but that is obviously not the case here.

No, this is definitely not the German authorities staging a public “accountability” spectacle in order to memory-hole what happened during 2020-2023 and enshrine the official narrative in history. There’s going to be a formal “Inquiry Commission” — conducted by the same German authorities that managed the “crisis” — which will get to the bottom of all the regrettable but completely understandable “mistakes” that were made in the heat of the heroic battle against The Divisive Virus!

OK, calm down, all you “conspiracy theorists,” “Covid deniers,” and “anti-vaxxers.” This isn’t going to be like the Nuremberg Trials. No one is going to get taken out and hanged. It’s about identifying and acknowledging mistakes, and learning from them, so that the authorities can manage everything better during the next “pandemic,” or “climate emergency,” or “terrorist attack,” or “insurrection,” or whatever.

For example, the Inquiry Commission will want to look into how the government accidentally declared a Nationwide State of Pandemic Emergency and revised the Infection Protection Act, suspending the German constitution and granting the government the power to rule by decree, on account of a respiratory virus that clearly posed no threat to society at large, and then unleashed police goon squads on the thousands of people who gathered outside the Reichstag to protest the revocation of their constitutional rights.

Once they do, I’m sure they’ll find that that “mistake” bears absolutely no resemblance to the Enabling Act of 1933, which suspended the German constitution and granted the government the power to rule by decree, after the Nazis declared a nationwide “state of emergency.”

Another thing the Commission will probably want to look into is how the German authorities accidentally banned any further demonstrations against their arbitrary decrees, and ordered the police to brutalize anyone participating in such “illegal demonstrations.”

And, while the Commission is inquiring into the possibly slightly inappropriate behavior of their law enforcement officials, they might want to also take a look at the behavior of their unofficial goon squads, like Antifa, which they accidentally encouraged to attack the “anti-vaxxers,” the “Covid deniers,” and anyone brandishing a copy of the German constitution.

Come to think of it, the Inquiry Commission might also want to look into how the German authorities, and the overwhelming majority of the state and corporate media, accidentally systematically fomented mass hatred of anyone who dared to question the government’s arbitrary and nonsensical decrees or who refused to submit to “vaccination,” and publicly demonized us as “Corona deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “far-right anti-Semites,” etc., to the point where mainstream German celebrities like Sarah Bosetti were literally describing us as the inessential “appendix” in the body of the nation, quoting an infamous Nazi almost verbatim.

And then there’s the whole “vaccination” business. The Commission will certainly want to inquire into that. They will probably want to start their inquiry with Karl Lauterbach, and determine exactly how he accidentally lied to the public, over and over, and over again …

And whipped people up into a mass hysteria over “KILLER VARIANTS” …

And “LONG COVID BRAIN ATTACKS” …

And how “THE UNVACCINATED ARE HOLDING THE WHOLE COUNTRY HOSTAGE, SO WE NEED TO FORCIBLY VACCINATE EVERYONE!”

And so on. I could go on with this all day, but it will be much easier to just refer you, and the Commission, to this documentary film by Aya Velázquez. Non-German readers may want to skip to the second half, unless they’re interested in the German “Corona Expert Council” …

Look, the point is, everybody makes “mistakes,” especially during a “state of emergency,” or a war, or some other type of global “crisis.” At least we can always count on the Germans to step up and take responsibility for theirs, and not claim that they didn’t know what was happening, or that they were “just following orders,” or that “the science changed.”

Plus, all this Covid stuff is ancient history, and, as Olaf, an editor at Der Spiegel, reminds us, it’s time to put the “The Divisive Pandemic” behind us …

… and click heels, and heil the New Normal Democracy!

###

CJ Hopkins
March 15, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

Remember HAL, the homicidal Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? Well, if you haven’t had the pleasure yet, let me introduce you to Gemini, Google’s “multimodal large language model.” Gemini hasn’t killed anyone yet — as far as I know, the liquidation of Gaza is being assisted by an Israeli AI called “the Gospel” — but it is certainly doing a bang-up job of assassinating people’s characters.

I was prompted to play around with Gemini by Matt Taibbi’s recent piece reporting on how Gemini invented entire “Matt Taibbi articles” that Matt never wrote. Given the fact that I’ve been relentlessly censored and “visibility-filtered” for years by Google, Twitter, X, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipedia, I figured I should probably give Gemini a go and see how I am being portrayed to potential readers who may have never heard of me.

Here are screenshots of my chat with Gemini. I hope you’ll take the time to read them, and reflect on how our official “reality” is being manufactured by global corporations and their increasingly creepy algorithmic machines. I used myself as an example in this chat, but the subject could have been anyone, any writer, artist, or any other public figure.

I omitted some of the repetitive boilerplate platitudes about Gemini’s noble intentions, but otherwise … well, here’s what happened.

That answer seemed slightly imbalanced. So I probed …

Gemini clearly wanted to focus on how “controversial” I am, so I went with that …

OK, that was somewhat alarming, especially the part about how I’m “promoting conspiracy theories” and “contributing to societal division and undermining trust in credible sources.”

This session was not going well for me at all. According to Gemini, in addition to “attacking the credibility of scientists, journalists, and public health officials,” I’ve been “eroding the public’s ability to discern fact from fiction” and “undermining trust” by “spreading misinformation.” I wasn’t aware I was doing that, so …

Right. So, I tried it another way …

And here comes my favorite part of the chat. I did not write any of the following “excerpts.”

None of the above are actual quotes, neither the “excerpts,” nor the “quotes” in Gemini’s analysis. Gemini just made it all up.

Right. I took a different tack …

Yes, it appears, once again, that “mistakes were made” … but that’s OK, because Gemini is still “under development and learning.” And, after all, fabricating quotes (or, in Matt Taibbi’s case, entire articles) is an innocent “mistake” that anyone could make!

I decided to get down to the nitty-gritty …

And …

Imagine my horror at being accused of “amplifying Russian perspectives.” Once again, I asked Gemini for specific examples.

OK, how about examples of my “conspiracy theories” …

Or any actual examples of any of the claims about me that Gemini is making …

Wait … what? Widely contested?

That wasn’t an answer, so I pressed on …

And on …

And on …

And there you have it. If you’re into this stuff, try it out yourself with another controversial public figure. Just for fun. I mean, there’s no need to worry. Gemini is “still in development,” and it means well. I’m sure it will fix its “mistakes.” After all, it apologized, just like HAL did near the end of the movie …

“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.”

###

CJ Hopkins
February 29, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

So, the German authorities have filed an appeal to overturn my acquittal in criminal court last week. Apparently, their plan is to keep putting me on trial until they get a judge who is willing to convict me of something, or to bankrupt me with legal costs. Silly me, for a moment there, I was actually starting to believe this was over.

Let me quickly review how I got here for anyone just tuning in.

I am an author and a political satirist and commentator. In August 2022, I posted two Tweets criticizing mask mandates and making fun of Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s Minister of Health. Both Tweets included an image from the cover artwork of my latest book, The Rise of The New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021).

The German authorities did not appreciate those Tweets, so they (1) had them censored by Twitter, (2) had Amazon ban my book in Germany, and (3) dragged me into criminal court and prosecuted me on trumped-up “hate crime” charges.

Last week, a judge acquitted me of those charges, after which she launched into a tirade in which she insulted me at some length, and then strapped on a “Covid mask” and stalked out of the courtroom. During her diatribe, she made a big show of proclaiming that, by acquitting me of the fabricated hate-crime charges, she was proving that “Germany is not a totalitarian state” … you know, the kind of totalitarian state where books are banned, political speech is censored, and dissident authors are harassed by the police and subjected to ridiculous show trials.

The judge didn’t have much choice but to acquit me, because the relevant German law is clear, as my attorney had reminded her in his pretrial pleading, and because my case had received some international press. Also, the public gallery was packed, and there was a fair amount of independent media in the courtroom. Unlike the German mainstream media, which have been churning out government propaganda like the proverbial Goebbelsian keyboard instrument for years, and which were too busy covering the totally-organic government-sponsored mass demonstrations against the government’s only political opposition to devote any attention to my political prosecution, the banning of my book, government censorship, and so on, some of the alternative German media are still interested in actual journalism.

The prosecutor, who appeared to be drunk or on some kind of high-grade sedatives, was very clearly unhappy to be there performing in front of a sold-out house. He spent the proceedings hidden behind one of those Plexiglass “anti-Covid” panels that cashiers still have to sit behind in grocery stores and other retail establishments, so I couldn’t make out every word he slurred. The gist of his argument was, although I didn’t intend to “disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda,” I nonetheless “disseminated pro-Nazi propaganda,” by comparing New Normal Germany to Nazi Germany, and “unnecessarily using a swastika in an artwork.”

My favorite part of the prosecutor’s argument was made in a pretrial pleading to the court, not during the actual trial itself. He accused me of “relativizing the Holocaust” because he claimed that comparing New Normal Germany to Nazi Germany is factually inaccurate, which assertion is revealing, and just staggeringly ignorant.

Here’s a translation of the excerpt from his pleading (emphasis in italics mine):

“… the accused is interested in relativizing this Nazi tyranny, which is also the aim of supporters of this ideology in a different form. By specifically using the swastika, the accused equates the crisis management measures of the years 2020-2022, which came about within constitutional procedures and were enacted and implemented by and through democratically legitimized institutions, with the dictatorial methods of the Nazi regime and thus – regardless of his intention – promotes the normalization of National Socialist ideas and actions.”

Of course, the history of the transformation of Germany into a Nazi dictatorship by means of “constitutional procedures and democratic processes” is extremely well-documented. In the election of July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37.3% of the vote and became the largest party in the Reichstag. On January 30, 1933, von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Germany’s chancellor. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler convinced von Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, which severely curtailed the liberties and rights of German citizens. And then the Enabling Act of 1933 was passed by the Reichstag on March 23. This law gave the government the power to override individual rights prescribed by the constitution, because of a so-called “state of emergency.” All this “came about within constitutional procedures and was enacted and implemented by and through democratically legitimized institutions.”

The judge did her best to stop me from reciting all that history in court, to prevent me from “relativizing the Holocaust” again, right there, in her courtroom, in front of everyone, or to prevent the prosecutor from coming off as a jackass, but it was too late, her questioning had opened the door.

A hilarious episode then ensued, in which the judge projected king-size enlargements of my Tweets on a screen with an overhead projector, like the ones they used to use in elementary school, and then interrogated me at considerable length about whether the swastikas in the offending artwork were “on the mask” or “behind the mask.” For a moment, I considered requesting a recess in which to ask the artist, Anthony Freda, to prepare, sign, and telefax a notarized affidavit to the court explaining the details of his creative process and his state of mind at “the time of creation,” but I remembered that it was only 6AM in New York, which I thought might be a bit too early for Anthony.

Yes, the whole trial was as farcical as it sounds, but, the thing is, prosecutions like mine are never meant to make it into court in the first place. The game the German authorities were playing is somewhat like the plea-bargain game that the prosecutors play in the USA, which American readers will be familiar with from watching all those cop shows on television. The way this game works in Germany is, they charge you with a misdemeanor crime, and hit you with a hefty fine, but one that is significantly less than what you will have to pay a lawyer to fight it in court. They are counting on you just paying the fine, and avoiding a trial, where a judge can double or triple your fine or even sentence you to prison. It doesn’t matter if they have no actual legal arguments to support the charges. It’s basically just a bullying tactic.

I have never responded well to bullies. I have an aversion to totalitarians, fascists, and other such authoritarian control freaks who get their rocks off intimidating, and dominating, and preying on the weak. My natural instinct, when threatened by bullies and other varieties of fascist creeps, is to get all up their faces and call their bluff.

Which doesn’t always turn out so well. Cops, for example, will just beat the living snot out of you if you get up in their faces, as will most of your hardened criminal types. But it typically works with petty public officials and other such “respectable authorities” … or at least those who are forced to maintain the appearance of adherence to the rule of law and fundamental democratic principles.

This is an important point, because it is The New Normal Reich’s “Achilles Heel.” I explained this in a previous essay, Pathologized Totalitarianism 101, back in November of 2021.

“New Normal totalitarianism — and any global-capitalist form of totalitarianism — cannot display itself as totalitarianism, or even authoritarianism. It cannot acknowledge its political nature. In order to exist, it must not exist. Above all, it must erase its violence (the violence that all politics ultimately comes down to) and appear to us as an essentially beneficent response to a legitimate ‘global health crisis,’ and a ‘climate change crisis,’ and a ‘racism crisis,’ and whatever other ‘global crises’ GloboCap thinks will terrorize the masses into [a state of] mindless, order-following hysteria […] This pathologization of totalitarianism is the most significant difference between New Normal totalitarianism and 20th-Century totalitarianism.”

In other words, this new, emerging form of global-capitalist totalitarianism cannot afford to look like “totalitarianism.” It can’t put on jackboots and black leather trench coats and start goose-stepping around with big fascist-looking banners, and putting people up against walls and shooting them, at least not here in the heart of the empire.

The only way this form of totalitarianism works is if people like my judge, and the countless thousands of New Normal Germans that have been out in the streets here displaying their unquestioning allegiance to the Reich, and demanding the banning of political opposition, and the segregation and persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” or displaying solidarity with Ukrainian neo-Nazis, or supporting Israel’s liquidation of Gaza, or whatever they’ve been instructed to unquestioningly support or display solidarity with tomorrow … the only way it works (i.e., this new totalitarianism) is if people, and not just German people, but Americans, and Brits, and Canadians, and Australians, and “Good New Normals” all throughout the West, are allowed to keep telling themselves and each other that they’re “the good guys,” the ones who are “defending democracy,” as they march us down the road to totalitarianism.

Yes, I know, I’m repeating myself. I am going to keep repeating myself. Because the only way this doesn’t all end in an extremely ugly and dystopian scenario is if we get through to those “Good New Normals.” I’m not talking about trying to convince them of anything, or winning arguments about “the virus,” or “vaccines,” or Israel, or Trump, or calling them names. I am talking about confronting them with what they are doing. I’m talking about short-circuiting their mental programming — even if just for a few fleeting seconds — by holding an accurate mirror up to them, and forcing them to look directly into it, and recognize what it is they’ve become.

That is what I did in criminal court last week. It’s why the judge was forced to acquit me, and why she felt compelled to deliver that tirade, and strap on her mask to make a big statement. She could have convicted me. She probably wanted to. In her mind, and in the minds of most New Normals, people like me are existential threats. However, to convict me, she would have had to watch herself make a mockery of the law and behave like a fascist … like a totalitarian functionary.

Call me a hopeless idealist if you want, but I have to believe that somewhere deep down inside even the most fanatical New Normals (or most of them anyway) is a decent human being, with principles, who does not want to be a fascist (or a least doesn’t want to look like a fascist), and who can still be reached, if they can be forced into the position that judge was forced into last week. I have to believe that each brief short-circuit, each momentary glimpse at themselves in the mirror, cumulatively, over the course of time, is eating away at their mental conditioning.

In any event, that’s the theory I’ve been operating under for quite a while. I guess I’ll try it out again at my next show trial.

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CJ Hopkins
February 4, 2024

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

So, my show trial for thoughtcrimes in criminal court in New Normal Germany went pretty well. I was acquitted. Technically, it isn’t all over, because the prosecutor has a week to appeal the decision, but, given the circumstances, I doubt he will. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday. I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again.

I’ll write about my day in court in detail once I’ve slept for week. I’m exhausted. This Kafkaesque mockery of justice has been going for eight months now, and it has been rather stressful. For now, I’m just going to provide a few links to coverage of the trial and my statement to the court (which anyone is free to share and republish).

Despite (or perhaps because of) the coverage of this story by some of the mainstream press — i.e., The Atlantic and Neue Zürcher Zeitung — Matt Taibbi for Racket News and many independent media outlets, not one mainstream German journalist has had the courage (or has been given permission) to report on it. So, here’s some coverage from the independent German media.

Aya Velázquez has published coverage and analysis in both English and German, which I recommend. (Aya gets it. The real story here is not about me; it’s about the criminalization of dissent, a subject with which Aya is all too familiar.)

Epoch TV interviewed me and my lawyer, Friedemann Däblitz, after the trial. You can watch it on YouTube, if it hasn’t been censored yet. And The Epoch Times wrote up the proceedings (in German) here …

Uli Gellermann covered it on his Rationalgalerie blog and Apolut. And an article for Multipolar is in the works. And I think that’s it for German press so far.

CORRECTION: RT DE also covered the trial and published this article yesterday. I was not aware of the piece when I published this, because RT is heavily censored or “visibility filtered” here in Germany. My thanks to Ulf Martin for bringing it to my attention.

Here’s the statement I read out in court. You can probably imagine how the judge and prosecutor felt about it. (If not, well, read Aya’s Velázquez’s coverage. The part where the judge put on a mask to make a statement as she exited the courtroom is probably my favorite part.)

Berlin District Court, January 23, 2024

My name is CJ Hopkins. I am an American playwright, author, and political satirist. My plays have been produced and received critical acclaim internationally. My political satire and commentary is read by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. 20 years ago, I left my own country because of the fascistic atmosphere that had taken hold of the USA at that time, the time of the US invasion of Iraq, a war of aggression based on my government’s lies. I emigrated to Germany and made a new life here in Berlin, because I believed that Germany, given its history, would be the last place on earth to ever have anything to do with any form of totalitarianism again.

The gods have a strange sense of humor. This past week, thousands of people have been out in the streets all over Germany protesting against fascism, chanting “never again is now.” Many of these people spent the past three years, 2020 to 2023, unquestioningly obeying orders, parroting official propaganda, and demonizing anyone who dared to question the government’s unconstitutional and authoritarian actions during the so-called Covid pandemic. Many of these same people, those who support Palestinian rights, are now shocked that the new form of totalitarianism they helped usher into existence is being turned against them.

And here I am, in criminal court in Berlin, accused of disseminating pro-Nazi propaganda in two Tweets about mask mandates. The German authorities have had my speech censored on the Internet, and have damaged my reputation and income as an author. One of my books has been banned by Amazon in Germany. All this because I criticized the German authorities, because I mocked one of their decrees, because I pointed out one of their lies.

This turn of events would be absurdly comical if it were not so infuriating. I cannot adequately express how insulting it is to be forced to sit here and affirm my opposition to fascism. For over thirty years, I have written and spoken out against fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism etc. Anyone can do an Internet search, find my books, read the reviews of my plays, read my essays, and discover who I am and what my political views are in two or three minutes. And yet I am accused by the German authorities of disseminating pro-Nazi propaganda. I am accused of doing this because I posted two Tweets challenging the official Covid narrative and comparing the new, nascent form of totalitarianism that it has brought into being — i.e., the so-called “New Normal” — to Nazi Germany.

Let me be very clear. In those two Tweets, and in my essays throughout 2020 to 2022, and in my current essays, I have indeed compared the rise of this new form of totalitarianism to the rise of the best-known 20th-Century form of totalitarianism, i.e., Nazi Germany. I have made this comparison, and analyzed the similarities and differences between these two forms of totalitarianism, over and over again. And I will continue to do so. I will continue to analyze and attempt to explain this new, emerging form of totalitarianism, and to oppose it, and warn my readers about it.

The two Tweets at issue here feature a swastika covered by one of the medical masks that everyone was forced to wear in public during 2020 to 2022. That is the cover art of my book. The message conveyed by this artwork is clear. In Nazi Germany, the swastika was the symbol of conformity to the official ideology. During 2020 to 2022, the masks functioned as the symbol of conformity to a new official ideology. That was their purpose. Their purpose was to enforce people’s compliance with government decrees and conformity to the official Covid-pandemic narrative, most of which has now been proven to have been propaganda and lies.

Mask mandates do not work against airborne viruses. This had been understood and acknowledged by medical experts for decades prior to the Spring of 2020. It has now been proven to everyone and acknowledged by medical experts again. The science of mask mandates did not suddenly change in March of 2020. The official narrative changed. The official ideology changed. The official “reality” changed. Karl Lauterbach was absolutely correct when he said, “The masks always send out a signal.” They signal they sent out from 2020 to 2022 was, “I conform. I do not ask questions. I obey orders.”

That is not how democratic societies function. That is how totalitarian systems function.

Not every form of totalitarianism is the same, but they share common hallmarks. Forcing people to display symbols of conformity to official ideology is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Declaring a “state of emergency” and revoking constitutional rights for no justifiable reason is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Banning protests against government decrees is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Inundating the public with lies and propaganda designed to terrify people into mindless obedience is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Segregating societies is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Censoring dissent is a hallmark of totalitarianism. Stripping people of their jobs because they refuse to conform to official ideology is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Fomenting mass hatred of a “scapegoat” class of people is a hallmark of totalitarianism. Demonizing critics of the official ideology is a hallmark of totalitarian systems. Instrumentalizing the law to punish dissidents and make examples of critics of the authorities is a hallmark of totalitarianism.

I have documented the emergence of all of these hallmarks of totalitarianism in societies throughout the West — including but not limited to Germany — since March of 2020. I will continue to do so. I will continue to warn readers about this new, emerging form of totalitarianism and attempt to understand it, and oppose it. I will compare this new form of totalitarianism to earlier forms of totalitarianism, and specifically to Nazi Germany, whenever it is appropriate and contributes to our understanding of current events. That is my job as a political satirist and commentator, and as an author, and my responsibility as a human being.

The German authorities can punish me for doing that. You have the power to do that. You can make an example of me. You can fine me. You can imprison me. You can ban my books. You can censor my content on the Internet, which you have done. You can defame me, and damage my income and reputation as an author, as you have done. You can demonize me as a “conspiracy theorist,” as an “anti-vaxxer,” a “Covid denier,” an “idiot,” and an “extremist,” which you have done. You can haul me into criminal court and make me sit here, in Germany, in front of my wife, who is Jewish, and deny that I am an anti-Semite who wants to relativize the Holocaust. You have the power to do all these things.

However, I hope that you will at least have the integrity to call this what it is, and not hide behind false accusations that I am somehow supporting the Nazis by comparing the rise of a new form of totalitarianism to the rise of an earlier totalitarian system, one that took hold of and ultimately destroyed this country in the 20th Century, and murdered millions in the process, because too few Germans had the courage to stand up and oppose it when it first began. I hope that you will at least have the integrity to not pretend that you actually believe I am disseminating pro-Nazi propaganda, when you know very well that is not what I am doing.

No one with any integrity believes that is what I am doing. No one with any integrity believes that is what my Tweets in 2022 were doing. Every journalist that has covered my case, everyone in this courtroom, understands what this prosecution is actually about. It has nothing to do with punishing people who actually disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda. It is about punishing dissent, and making an example of dissidents in order to intimidate others into silence.

That is not how democratic nations function. That is how totalitarian systems function.

What I hope even more is that this court will put an end to this prosecution, and apply the law fairly, and not allow it to be used as a pretext to punish people like me who criticize government dictates, people who expose the lies of government officials, people who refuse to deny facts, who refuse to perform absurd rituals of obedience on command, who refuse to unquestioningly follow orders.

Because the issue here is much larger and much more important than my little “Tweet” case.

We are, once again, at a crossroads. Not just here in Germany, but throughout the West. People went a little crazy, a little fascist, during the so-called Covid pandemic. And now, here we are. There are two roads ahead. We have to choose … you, me, all of us. One road leads back to the rule of law, to democratic principles. The other road leads to authoritarianism, to societies where authorities rule by decree, and force, and twist the law into anything they want, and dictate what is and isn’t reality, and abuse their power to silence anyone who disagrees with them.

That is the road to totalitarianism. We have been down that road before. Please, let’s not do it again.

N.B. A German version of the statement is available in Aya Velázquez’s article and on Bastian Barucker’s blog.

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CJ Hopkins
January 24, 2024

Photo: Erik Rusch/Epoch TV

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our employees up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.