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Police linked to hacking campaign to frame Indian activists (wired.com)
165 points by Tozen on June 19, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 50 comments



worth providing (again) a list of the indian government's extensive fuckery with the internet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India


Wait till you see CHina and other countries

This is nothing new with Police forces worldwide, the UK police has been accused of infiltrating many environmental activists before and this happened last year too:

Met police accused of using hackers to access protesters' emails

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/21/ipcc-investi...


Wow its almost like the police are an institution designed purely to protect those with money and power from the poor who want to change things for the better


If only you knew.

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Bear with me here because I know this is long, but from a programming perspective, think of it like this:

Imagine that people like Musk and others are right and "chances are" we DO live in a "simulated reality" program.

Eventually inhabitants of this program start realizing "something's not quite right about our program – it's like there's a bug in it or something".

Other inhabitants: "Actually, it only SEEMS like a bug, but in fact, at BEST is a virus purposely introduced into the program by those with less-than-best intentions, and at WORST, it's actually a not-too-often-discussed-in-polite-society core-component of the program itself."

This "way of looking at things" will come in handy when considering the historical relevance of words like "mother" and "board" in reference to its modern applications to things like "computing" (think "fractals").

============================================================

As an undergrad I took a class in a then-burgeoning field of study called "Law & Economics" ... aside from being one of the more interesting classes I took, it introduced 3 theories of law.

Two of them were "the official narrative" and one of them, the "unofficial" less-popular one of the three, was something the professor felt inclined to introduce and talk about because he felt it was important.

The unofficial view was that the legal system was designed as a matter of fact to purposely overwhelm the common man with a tsunami of often self-contradicting laws specifically to bewilder those who felt they were "afforded protection under the law" and had the nerve to actually have trust and faith in it as an institution without the benefit of an "official safari guide", ie, a lawyer.

Now ... what happens if "the common man" is naive enough to believe the legal system is fair and just and affords everyone the same protection?

Let's take a look at history:

Cops are referred to as [L]aw [E]nforcement [O]fficers, and membership in Masonic lodges is quite common and considered an unspoken "side thing" that needs to be attended to in order to advance careers.

This was such a conflict-of-interest-suggesting problem in England that there was a public outcry and in the late 90s they actually passed laws mandating that police in England needed to publicly disclose membership in Masonic lodges so barristers could identify potential conflicts of interest after one too many shady cover-ups; this legal arrangement was predictably met with covert resistance and about a decade later the requirement was waved at the behest of a prominent British politician "because no evidence of corruption or undue influence was discovered" WHEN IN REALITY the EXACT OPPOSITE happened in the history that led up to the introduction to the law ... the only reason such activity waned during the introduction of the law was that police/barristers/judges/politicians who were also masons were "put on blast" in a very public manner.

The height of this "WTF is going on in our society?!?" may very well have been during the "free trial period" of the Parliament version of C-SPAN that C-SPAN offered it's American audience decades ago, during which the highlight was undoubtedly a live-streamed Parliament session held to address an unfortunate loophole that was exploited in British law regarding "freedom of religious expression": a voodoo practitioner used it as a defense argument when the mutilated body of a boy was found floating in the River Thames.

While you would THINK this was an "open-and-shut" voting session, to the bewilderment of some, a member of Parliament actually stood up (despite the insistence of his nearby peers who immediately grabbed him by the sleeves (although a few actually immediately got up and walked away in an effort to distance themselves from him) and unsuccessfully tried to pull him back down to his seat while they could be clearly heard muttering, "WILL you SHUT UP! This is not the time and place for this sort of thing!" before the audio feed got "mysteriously interrupted" for 5-10 seconds.

Despite their insistence, said Parliament member insisted on standing up regardless and started ranting about how "People don't understand" and "since the foundation of civilization itself, certain things have always been (and, by implication, "need to continue to be") done in a "certain way" ..." ("???")

What relevance is this?

To join Masonic lodges one of the requirements is that members need "to be of sound mind".

Sounds "innocent enough" until you sit down and contemplate how that phrase could be abused by people who consider themselves more clever than the common populace ... people like, for example, those of a psychopathic inclination, who have brains structurally-different enough from the general populace that one researcher suggested that the notion of "physical mutation" needs to be re-examined in order to account for mutations in the brain that modern science now allows for the observation of in ways that were not possible when "mutation" was first defined.

For example, "of sound mind" SUGGESTS "mentally balanced" but immediately Masonic instruction introduces candidates to a hint that this is not at all the case.

Early masonic verbal instruction ritual implores the candidate to strive to "do what's right" ... but WRITTEN instruction clearly indicates that they mean to "do what's RITE" as in according to ritual.

If candidate's ask, they are simply told that the word "right" actually was written as "rite" back in the days when Masonic ritual was constructed.

But the problem is that if you actually do any research into the origins of the word "right" ... this explanation is only PARTIALLY true ... the adjective is "riht" and the adverb is "rihte" ... or Germanic origin, not "Olde English" (English in general has a Germanic structure but in this case the word itself is literally Germanic in origin) ... and the word itself stems from the Latin "rectus" ... which "sounds like" ... "wrecked us" ... as in "doing the "right" thing is what wrecked us" ...

To "wreck" is to "ruin" as in "ancient ruins" like the Pyramids of Giza.

This in turn is where one of the supposed origins of what is introduced to candidates as the "Lion's paw" stems from: https://m.facebook.com/Three.Hearts.Church/photos/pat-robert...

The problem, as it relates to the context of this post, is twofold:

(1.) "Lion's" within the context of abusing the "of sound mind" requirement "sounds like" ... "Lyin's" ...

This then introduces yet another issue that the psychopathically-inclined criminal element has been shown to be likely to take advantage of: the word "lying" in English means BOTH to "lie" as in to misrepresent the truth AND to "lie" as in to "lay down".

In Masonic ritual, in the third degree the candidate who is "lying" down (there are too many hidden cryptic messages in the film "Falling Down" to get into here) is "raised up from his dead-state lying" by the "lion's/lyin's /G\R.I.P. to a perpendicular right/rite angle state ... "G" is "seven" so the implication is "(s)even Lion(s) R.I.P." ... but no, the candidate is subliminally instructed that "perhaps even lion(s) R.I.P." but "there is no rest for the wicked" and he is now subconsciously instructed to "stop lying wrong" (flat) and begin a new life where he can start "Lion/lyin'" as a right/"rite" angle/"angel" ... aka "if you're going to do Lion/lyin' stuff, learn to do it the right/rite way.

What does this have to do with anything?

This:

(2.) The "Lion's paw" ... though CLAIMED to be depicted from "ancient Egyptian mystery rites" ... has no basis in this origin myth and instead came about when brothers in Scotland Yard wanted to inform their brethren of this new advancement in crime scene analysis called "fingerprint analysis"; the "Lion's/lyin's paw" thus is a sort of "wink wink" suggestion by Scotland Yard to fellow "members of the craft" that "Look, we're doing this new thing now, so if you're going to do stuff we don't want to know about at places you'll lie about being when things you'll also lie about happened, if you're going to touch things at such scenes, make sure you pick stuff up in the following manner with your knuckles so as to not leave behind fingerprints, because from now on fingerprints will put you at the scene no matter how good you think you may be at "Lion/lyin'" stuff.

As if though THAT wasn't enough to get you to think about the subject matter more skeptically, the presiding authority in England is the United Grand Lodge of England, or "U.G.L.E. Mother (Lodge)" which "sounds like" ... "ugly mother".

As in "[Fre(e/a)K]ali-Ma-sons of the "Ugly Mother" ... aka "Kali" to the Thug/G\33$ ... "Thug(s-even)33$ a cult the British Empire was not only well aware of during it's height but also considered a priority threat (one stationed British officer actually went back and tried to convince prominent members of British politics that if their sophistry-based philosophy were to ever infect British thinking, it would eventually corrupt the British Empire and lead to its ruin).

Thuggees, in turn, believed in a unique philosophy where they saw themselves not as "the bad guys" but rather as "the good guys" who were "doing their victims a unique favor" by helping them "reincarnate to their next life faster" so they could escape the karma of their current life; for taking such a risk in a society that "didn't understand and disapproved of their cult's teachings" they felt they rightfully "deserved a reward" for taking it upon themselves to take a risk and "help" their victims reincarnate to their next life.

What did Thuggees specialize in?

https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/article/202108the-cabl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_George_Floyd

The above victim was prey to a rather particularly vicious form of "of sound mind" dickery, namely, while EVENTUAL coroner's reports indicated he died of a heart attack most likely from the constant "on-again, off-again" pressure to his carotid artery (which doesn't "seem like" a choke but in fact is a rather advanced, particularly nasty form of a choke that cuts off the supply of blood/oxygen to the brain (https://judoinfo.com/chokes/) and forces the heart to go into overdrive ... then to slow down to regulate BPM when the pressure is released ... then to speed up again when the pressure is put on the artery again ... then to ... and so on ... if you don't think this is such a big deal, if you consider yourself "somewhat athletic", to to a gym with resistance machines and try something called a "Peripheral Heart Training Circuit" ...)

... initial reports indicated he "died from a heart attack while on Fentanyl" AFTER he supposedly "died from a heart attack while on amphetamines" (because after all, when it's legal for you to lie, "fentanyl, amphetamines, same difference, right?") ... AFTER the initial "pre-official" report that he "died from a heart attack "while on crack" (again, when you're LEGALLY allowed to lie in your profession with no clear restriction as to under what circumstances and towards what aims ... amphetamines, crack – same difference, right?).

And here is where the depravity of the "L"aw "E"nforcement "O"fficer who purposely abuse the "Lion/Lyin'" system "of sound mind" comes into play: TECHNICALLY ... they THOUGHT they were going to get away with it because ... he did in fact have (a carotid-artery-choke-induced) heart attack ... "while on crack" ... because as you can see from numerous pictures of the incident ... the neighborhood he was in was poor and the street this incident had taken place on "hadn't been paved in a while" so ... the street was "cracked" and he happened to "technically" ... "be on ("A") crack" when it happened.

Yes, this is how the system is abused in the minds of its worst abusers.

Now as if THIS wasn't enough ... and if you STILL haven't gotten a sense of what is going on from all the "Dancing Coronavirus Nurses" who made dance routines so coordinated even professional entertainers were impressed (https://www.phillyvoice.com/ciara-level-up-jefferson-univers...) all the meanwhile claiming to be "overwhelmed" by "corona victims" all the meanwhile getting REPEATEDLY caught on camera with completely empty emergency rooms/shut down hospitals immediately after "news reports showed people lined up around the block just to get in to be treated for coronavirus" ...

Keep in mind "Anthony Fauci" is an anagram for "A Fun China Toy" (can't make this shit up) ...

Lookup the difference between the "Rod of Asclepius" and "The (Hospital) Staff of Hermes" ...

Hermes is literally, among other things, the "patron deity of thieves" ...

As in why military nurses lent to hospitals were making videos bursting in tears as they suggested that after all the forced unnecessary forced intubations (forced intubations cause tears in lung tissue which then gets more easily infected with Covid) they saw, it's "almost as if" the hospitals "were killing people on purpose" just to get the ~$40,000 bonus for Covid-related deaths PER PATIENT.

Same hospitals, same conditions, some nurses claiming their "so overwhelmed they don't have time to even go to the bathroom" (and yet seem to have enough time to practice highly-coordinated dance routines), meanwhile other nurses who were lent to the hospital by the military put their credibility and careers on the line and with real tears told the public "it's like at best they don't care and are letting people die, and at worst it's like they're killing them on purpose."

Working the system backwards from hospital "Staff" of Hermes/god of thieves to Thuggees to Free(a)Kali-Ma-sons of the "U.G.L.E. Mother Lodge" ... guess what the makeup of the majority of the U.G.L.E. was at the time of its formation?

Would you guess "doctors"?

Edit: not saying all police officers, doctors, nurses, or freemasons are even aware of let alone participate in this "hidden aspect" that seems to a pervasive, though often "under the surface" aspect of their existence, but it's not like there haven't been plenty of testimonies by members all these groups (which historically have intertwined) to the effect of "something's not quite right about this, but I just can't seem to put my finger on exactly what".


Most people in general don't understand the underlying mechanisms and historic reason for any of this stuff, like the police being instituted purely to hunt down escaped slaves

But nice writeup, tons of detail


Thank you –

And this doesn't even scratch the surface of yet further "of sound mind" fuckery like the "black male/black guy's/black eyes" club.

I feel we live in a "each one teach one" period of history and as a species, nothing will change for the better until enough of the whole is made aware so that things like this won't as easily slip under the collective consciousness, which is the main way "they" have historically "gotten away with it all".

https://twitter.com/icecube/status/1269953677248229378?lang=...

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As I can't seem to edit the original parent reply anymore, I'll put it here:

The other two theories of the legal system introduced in that class, ie, the "officially-accepted" ones, were:

1.) This is the best legal system known to human history and everything is fine in the larger scheme of things, nothing to worry about

and ...

2.) The system does in fact seem to have quite a few flaws, but these are unintentional, by coincidence, and they just "seem" to unjustly put the poor at a disadvantage, but this too is just an unfortunate series of coincidences and certainly not by the design of those who came up with the system in the first place


"Fuck it, might as well" include this bit also:

George Floyd: "Minneapolis" = anagram for "Mason pin lie"


>the UK police has been accused of infiltrating many environmental activists GCHQ does everybody, and it filters down through Special Branch to the lower levels of policing.

The irony is, you have noone to turn to when you are being done over by the Police and the state in general. The NHS, educational system, every tentacle of the state is all interlinked to the security services, I've had it since primary school because the state can not lose.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/09/mi5-policy-a...

And they wonder why individuals get radicalised and massacres occur!

If your parents were Govt employees, I sympathise, but there is a reason why Govt pay is so low, it keeps Govt employees lean and mean!


Growing up in the UK is like military basic training 24/7, I'm not surprised there are so many Private Pyle's.


> security researcher Zeshan Aziz found the recovery email address and phone number tied to the Pune police official’s name in the leaked database of TrueCaller, a caller ID and call-blocking app

Even though truecaller has accidentally done some good in this case, they are essentially a voluntary spyware.

https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting


The police remains firmly in hands of the state in India. No matter the party in power. They don’t serve people, they serve politicians.


> The police remains firmly in hands of the state in India. No matter the party in power. They don’t serve people, they serve politicians.

The statement is confusing to me. Usually, to say they serve politicians means that they serve a party, not the state.

They should serve the state, which is a creation of and responsible to the people. Serving a political party is corrupt and not serving the people; for example, in totalitarian and authoritarian countries, the police and other state institutions often serve the party.

Regardless, is there evidence of the police doing such things for other political parties?


The state ceases to be responsible to the people and exists of and for itself.


I don't understand. Could you go into more detail on how that addresses the issues raised by the top comment?


All institutions by design implicitly have a core, if unspoken "prime directive": self-preservation.

You could start an institution with the best intentions known to mankind, but if that institution doesn't preserve itself first and foremost, then all other stated official objectives become mute.

Now, if you have an institution that has a clearly stated objective (in addition to the core, unstated objective of self-preservation) like, "We discovered a cure for cancer and want to get it out to as many people affected by cancer in as quick and cost-effective manner as possible" ... this is all well and good.

But what if you have an institution with vague and seemingly implied but not technically-stated objectives that in effect are more of a "free to imagine/interpret them as you wish" sort of deal – for example, what are the "objectives" of the Indian government/law enforcement arm of the government other than the vague and practically-useless-for-being-held-accountable-for-performance, "We want to govern shit"?

What if you somewhere find on some Indian document an objective like, "To preserve law and order"?

What laws, written by who, for whose benefit, and what order, and again, for who?

Sounds like the caste system all over again.

Now what if they got more specific like, "To preserve law and order in order to encourage social stability" ... again ... stability FOR WHO?

Does the majority of the Indian population want "stability?"

Obviously not as they would most likely indicate they want social mobility to rise out of poverty.

The problem is ... their social mobility = overall social instability, especially for those aspects of Indian society who are "at the top of the social hierarchy" who also tend to correlate with "those who govern."

It's relatively easy to govern when you have state-provided homes and vacation homes and so on and the majority of the population lives in shacks.

Not so easy when the majority of the populace is relatively well off.

This then introduces the theory that George Orwell addressed in 1984: that tyrannical states, as an institution, eventually degenerate into doing nothing but attending to their "core objective" of self-preservation at all costs, and will purposely do things to keep the majority of the population perpetually poor so that the discrepancies of relative wealth can be used as a power mechanism (most people won't be bothered to think about higher-order abstract social constructs like "government" if they're too busy worrying about job stability or even worse, where their next meal will come from).

In furtherance of this "1984" approach to subduing the population, consider Modi's (and other politicians in that general area) constant "Oh no, another border skirmish with "the enemy" ... right around the times of internal political turmoil – basically, a convenient excuse to distract the internal populace and redirect it's attention to external "threats" to cultural homogeneity.

So then, as (for example in this case, but not at all exclusive to, as this tends to happen to ALL institutions – for example Universities of "Higher Learning" that wind up hoarding donations intended to help students in increasingly massive investment funds that sometimes rival professional Wall Street institutions) the Indian government degenerates into simply securing the primary (if unspoken of) directive of "continual self-preservation" ... the very subject of the government's "governing", ie, the general populace ... becomes a factor external to the Indian government itself (as well as its law-enforcement mechanisms).

Now, what is that "external factor" of the general populace itself most likely to be viewed as?

1.) An external aspect of the internal reality of government and it's mechanisms that needs to be further integrated

2.) An external oddity that can be viewed as an item of curiosity during times when the government has no particular urgent matters to attend to, or ignored when it does have other, more urgent matters (such as self-preservation) to attend to

3.) A possible threat to the continuity of "keeping things as they are"?


> What laws, written by who, for whose benefit, and what order, and again, for who?

Written by the people of India through their democratic process. It's not a mystery or of questionable legitimacy.


> Written by the people of India through their democratic process. It's not a mystery or of questionable legitimacy.

India has an illiteracy rate of nearly 1/4, and one of the highest among adults on the planet: https://world.time.com/2014/01/29/indian-adult-illiteracy/

I HIGHLY doubt that that segment of Indian society had ANYTHING to do with the writing of any laws.

Likewise, it's doubtful they were minded as the intended primary beneficiaries of such laws when they were written by a minute segment of the remaining 3/4 of Indian society, keeping in mind that many members of that remaining 3/4 ALSO complain of systematically-rampant corruption.


Regarding police and politicians and the state, you will find this paper from the 80s insightful: https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-abstract/23/4/484/2194...

Police in India serves the elected powers, always. The Indian state has always been authoritarian, more so in recent times. Given the nature of how power is shared and exercised at different levels in India, it’s easy to call Prime Minister a fool and get away with it - and many do. But you dare not publicly call your local municipal councilor that, or these days, the Chief Minister.

A recent example from

1. West Bengal: https://m.thewire.in/article/culture/pure-or-profane-roddur-...

2. There’s no shortage of such vindictiveness from the UP government and its CM: https://m.thewire.in/article/government/up-police-arrests-19...

3. From Maharashtra: https://groundreport.in/who-is-actress-ketaki-chitale-arrest...

A great recent movie exploring this aspect of the police and the state in India is Nayattu, available on Netflix: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayattu_(2021_film) This movie was scripted by an ex-cop and makes a sympathetic case for the sort of daily negotiations the cops are involved in. The “hunted” from the title are literally other cops.

Many Tamil movies have been exploring the police-politician nexus for a few decades now. Sathya (1989?) comes to my mind.

This is an incomplete list, and doesn’t really explore the causes of the violence, but I think in many cases it can be linked to the parties in power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_police_brut...

Another overview of why the police in India are particularly susceptible to political pressure: https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/javee...

> They should serve the state, which is a creation of and responsible to the people. Serving a political party is corrupt and not serving the people;

Well, that’s Indian police for you. Designed to be corruptible even before we had a republic.


> The Indian state has always been authoritarian

Unless you mean something different than what authoritarian usually means, you are overlooking decades of democracy.


I just gave you a bunch of examples of the politicians using the police to restrict or restrain the Indian people in some manner in contravention to constitutional principles over the past few decades.

Sure, India is not a fully authoritarian state, but the folks elected have always had such tendencies. The current government still has to contest elections (and still loses them at state level), but you wouldn’t deny they are authoritarian. And many state governments (controlled by different parties of different political persuasions, as I have listed above) display the same tendencies: authority exercised via coercion and arbitrary rules.

Democracy and authoritarianism are not opposites. They occupy a spectrum - democracies can display authoritarian characteristics and vice versa.


I'd highly recommend re-reading 1984.

When dealing with those supporting authoritarian governments, you need less bigthink and more simplethink.

Worlds like "spectrum" are bad-think-party-no-nos that lead to job-ouchies.


In this case it’s different from “they are serving whoever is ruling”. This time they’re serving a particular party and a particular ideology.


This is true everywhere, not just India


Not at all.


Sounds like you have watched too much bollywood. Talk to one of your relatives or friends of friends who's in the police force and come back.

For those who are unaware: one of the forces with big political interest in India is the middle east. The middle east runs a shadow government in India; its two arms are bollywood and the Indian mafia (look up D-company[1]). Before the rise of Modi, they used to churn out shitloads of bollywood movies where the mafia is humanized and police and politicians were always the bad guys... which serves as a recruiting tool for the mafia and demonizes the police and the government.

While the Modi government has tried to take action against this, even as of 2018, movie like Sanju[2] was made which is based on the life of a bollywood actor who was charged for his involvement in the 1993 Bombay Bombings[3]... but the movie shows him as a good guy. In real life, the actor has served the mafia with various mafia-protagonist movies such as Munna Bhai MBBS and Vastaav and is one of the Indian superstars who has deep links with the mafia.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Company

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanju

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bombay_bombings


It might be helpful to back up your perspective with data, or better frame your argument. As it stands, your comment doesn’t add much to the conversation.

A few things in particular: - Crime is a problem in India. The Wikipedia article has a decent overview (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_India). But so is police and government corruption. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India) - To call a criminal organization a shadow government is hyperbolic. Similarly calling the romanticizing of crime — a common entertainment trope — a conspiracy, seems a bit much. - The actor you use as an example was convicted for acquiring weapons from people involved with the Bombay Bombings. He was never accused of being involved in the bombings himself (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Dutt). I’m not sure I follow the accusation of serving the mafia by acting as a criminal in a movie.


> Crime is a problem in India.

Yes, primarily by the mafia and drug cartels, run by the middle east.

> But so is police and government corruption.

One of the reasons (among others) is the mafia which corrupts the police.

> To call a criminal organization a shadow government is hyperbolic.

What does that even mean? The Indian mafia has been killing businessmen, politicians and police... and uses threats, violence and bribes to run things their way in goverment and the police force. That is exactly what shadow government is.

> He was never accused of being involved in the bombings himself

I will let BBC do the talking here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-21873316

> I’m not sure I follow the accusation of serving the mafia by acting as a criminal in a movie.

State sponsored propaganda in foreign nations is not easy to grasp for the simple-minded.


I almost never watch Bollywood. Some of the reasons why I hold the opinions I do can be explained partly by the references listed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31795739


You do realize that you say that you are not influenced by Bollywood movies but the comment you refer to here references Bollywood movies as sources, right?


I refer to Tamil and Malayalam movies, not Bollywood (and these are only one among many sources I mention). Like I said, Tamil movies have been exploring criminal-politician-state nexus for a few decades now, although that doesn’t stop the Tamils from electing famously authoritarian governments themselves.

I don’t buy the argument that mafia or middle eastern emigre have influenced these potrayals in Tamil cinema since the 70s and 80s. It’s the local politics that did. Maybe there’s merit to the argument about Hindi films (I don’t know), but not Tamil.

You couldn’t be more mistaken if you confuse the South Indian film industry (then centered around Madras/Chennai) with the Hindi film industry (Bollywood, centered in Bombay/Mumbai).


In my mind, it's a predictable outcome of nationalism, which puts the 'nation' (who is that, exactly?) ahead of individuals. Notice that the US Declaration of Independence says that goverment is instituted by the people to protect their human rights and liberty - government exists to serve individuals - that's the purpose, not some 'nation'.

As soon as they start talking about a nation, it's an excuse to sacrifice others to the interests of 'the nation' - which of course means the interests of a few people, spun and presented to make them like it's the interests of a quasi-divine entity.


That's not what nationalism means. Nationalism means an ethnic group ("nation"/"people") taking over a state ("country")

You are talking about statism like USSR and PRC.

Also, the US Constitution is very much collectivist in tone

> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

It was written by Federalists like Hamilton who gave the central government financial control of the whole country, which has been deeply abused (Commerce Clause) for centuries .

The individual rights stuff was added by anti-Feseralists in the Bill of Rights, to rein in the main Constitution a bit.


> Nationalism means an ethnic group ("nation"/"people") taking over a state ("country")

That is what I mean - that's what the Hindu nationalists are openly doing and advocating in India.

> the US Constitution is very much collectivist in tone

Yes, and very different from nationalism. We can cooperate. Nobody is advocating some libertarian extreme.

> The individual rights stuff was added by anti-Feseralists in the Bill of Rights, to rein in the main Constitution a bit.

That may be true but it's not the truth. It was added by everyone, no less than the rest of the Constitution. Clearly, Americans have considered themselves, and have been considered to be, individualists for a long time. You're also skipping the Declaration of Independence, and much much more.


Individualism is great, but people live in societies along with other people, and that's not going to change. And when people live near each other, mechanisms are needed to prevent their individual actions and desires from conflicting and causing problems for everyone.

One such mechanism is the nation. A "nation" is when you take the instincts people naturally feel towards members of their family/tribe, and through education and propaganda you apply those instincts to a much larger group (the "people"). Doing this helps people get along and keeps society functioning by making its members feel responsible for their fellow citizens. But when the "nation"/fake tribe is given an "enemy" or a father figure, that's when the trouble starts.


> Individualism is great, but people live in societies along with other people, and that's not going to change. And when people live near each other, mechanisms are needed to prevent their individual actions and desires from conflicting and causing problems for everyone.

People have done that without nationalism very successfully!

> instincts people naturally feel towards members of their family/tribe

People can feel all sorts of things, and nationalists like to claim the special, irrefutable case of 'natural' - 'it's just nature, who can argue with that?' In truth they are just irrational prejudices of some people have at some moment, based on false assumptions and facts, having little to do with reality. For example, people 'naturally' discriminated against Catholics in the US, until they 'naturally' didn't! The prejudices change all the time, within and between people.

> and through education and propaganda you apply those instincts to a much larger group (the "people")

So you are advocating manipulating and lying to people?

> Doing this helps people get along and keeps society functioning by making its members feel responsible for their fellow citizens.

What is that based on? Most places get along fine without it.

> But when the "nation"/fake tribe is given an "enemy" or a father figure, that's when the trouble starts.

It's inevitable - as soon as you have a fake 'us', you have a fake 'them'.


> People have done that very successfully without nationaliam

Of course, nationalism is not the only way. You can unify your society based on religion, brute force, a common enemy, etc. Generally these methods aren't even mutually exclusive.

> to claim the special, irrefutable case of 'natural'

Loyalty to family and tribe is natural, because it's an instinct that has been honed by millions of years of evolution. Applying that loyalty to a much larger group (the nation) is a a recent, artificial innovation.

> manipulating and lying to people

Have you ever seen a law? Touched a law? Seen a law? Heard a law? No, and you don't know anyone who has? Yet laws are real, they can send you to jail. Laws, like nations, are social constructs; they exist as long as society collectively believes in them.

> most places get along fine without it

Almost all modern countries are nationalistic to a significant degree.

> a fake 'them'

Of course, buy that doesn't mean you automatically hate the 'them' and want to genocide them. My neighbors across the street are a 'them' relative to my family, I don't want to murder my neighbors.


> Of course, nationalism is not the only way. You can unify your society based on religion, brute force, a common enemy, etc. Generally these methods aren't even mutually exclusive.

No, you can unify them on universal human rights, on believing in each other's freedom, which is what has unified the US (again, see the Declaration of Independence), almost all of Europe, the entire advanced democratic world. It's achieved levels of unity undreamed of in history - again, just look at the EU! Look at the US-Europe relationship! US-Japan, etc.

> Loyalty to family and tribe is natural, because it's an instinct that has been honed by millions of years of evolution.

Same claim I addressed before. Just repeating it doesn't change it.


In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America [a Nation], When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people [a People -> a Nation] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God [religion] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator [religion] with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed [note that it is the governed as a collective People who give their consent, not individuals. If you think your government sucks but everyone else likes it, the majority can overrule your individual objection], --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People [People again] to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism [brute force - it's not necessarily a good thing. In fact, all alone it leads to nothing but despotism. But it works], it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [public good - the good of the People as a whole, not just of individuals. https://www.etymonline.com/word/public].

He has forbidden his Governors [through brute force] to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. [brute force]

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public [belonging to the People] Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. [brute force]

He has dissolved [brute force] Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness [brute force] his invasions [brute force] on the rights of the people [People -> Nation].

He has refused [brute force] for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise [People -> Nation]; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without [brute force], and convulsions within [brute force].

He has endeavoured to prevent [brute force] the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing [brute force] the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners [distinction between Foreigners and not-Foreigners; People -> Nation]; refusing [brute force] to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions [brute force] of new Appropriations [brute force] of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. [brute force]

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [brute force]

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass [brute force] our people [People -> Nation], and eat out their substance [brute force].

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies [brute force] without the Consent of our ["our" -> People -> Nation] legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [brute force]

He has combined with others to subject us [brute force] to a jurisdiction foreign [foreign -> outside the Nation, not of the People] to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws [the laws of the People and the Nation]; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: [brute force]

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: [brute force]

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: [brute force]

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: [brute force]

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [brute force]

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province [neighboring - not part of the Nation, not of the People, but not an enemy either], establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: [brute force]

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: [brute force]

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. [brute force]

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [brute force]

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [our people -> People -> Nation]. [brute force]

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. [brute force]

He has constrained our fellow Citizens ["our fellow Citizens" -> People -> Nation] taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country ["their Country" -> a Nation, with a People], to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren ["Brethren" - analogy to family/tribe. A People], or to fall themselves by their Hands. [brute force]

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers [our frontiers - the limits of the territory claimed by the Nation. They are "ours," they belong to the People], the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. [brute force]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury .[brute force] A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people [a People].

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren [the British and Americans were once a common People, as they shared the same Nation, the British Empire]. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity [one People]. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation [Separation - the injustices promulgated by Britain require the American People to separate from the British People, and form a new Nation], and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends ["them" != enemies].

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world [religion] for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People [People] of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War [brute force], conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence [religion], we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor [a People].

-----

Of course, rights and freedom are essential, they are all over the Declaration. But nationalism and the other stuff are also mentioned many times. In the future, I would avoid making grand, sweeping statements about historical documents whose contents you are unfamiliar with.


This is nothing new with Police forces worldwide, the UK police has been accused of infiltrating many environmental activists before and this happened last year too:

Met police accused of using hackers to access protesters' emails

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/21/ipcc-investi...


Police in India are corrupt bastards for the most part. None of this suprises me, their power and actions have gone unchecked for a long time


Well, this is nothing new with Police forces worldwide, the UK police has been accused of infiltrating many environmental activists before and this happened last year too:

Met police accused of using hackers to access protesters' emails

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/21/ipcc-investi...


I've lived in three countries that each couldn't have been more different from the others and in every one of them the police fucking suck.

I don't know anything about the indian police specifically and never thought about them before but when I saw the title my first thought was "yeah sounds about right."


This was also how they got the guy who found evidence the CIA was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks.

https://www.soundcloud.com/media-roots/amerithrax-the-cia-in...


Just on practical grounds, it's essentially impossible for Bruce Ivins to have been the culprit in the 9/18 and 10/09 anthrax mailings (two separate events, the first round going to media outlets and the second to Congressional offices), as Fort Detrick didn't have the required material to manufacture the stuff. His convenient suicide prior to being named as a suspect made any risk moot of a repeat of the failed effort to blame Steven Hatfill (who won $6 million in a defamation lawsuit over the bogus allegations by Justice 7 FBI). If Hatfill had 'committed suicide' it's pretty clear they'd have closed the case then as well.

As far as who did have the means, well, after the revelations about the scale of the Soviet bioweapons progam by a pair of defectors in the early 1990s, various US agencies worked to replicate some of their 'advances in the field', such as preparation of highly aerosilizable dry anthrax powder, in programs which ran through at least 2000, named Jefferson, Clear Vision, maybe a few others, in violation of BWC treaty obligations not to manufacture bioweapons (they claimed it was for 'studying defenses'). Notably Fort Detrick wasn't involved with any of that; it was a place in Ohio contracted to the CIA called Battelle Memorial Institue that did the actual work, apparently. That's likely where the material in the letters was sourced from, although it's anyone's guess whose bright idea it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Clear_Vision

All of Ivin's colleagues at Fort Detrick know he didn't have the means and some said so publicly later, although the FBI slapped the whole place with a gag order for years.


Ironically, Hatfill turned into a Trump inside team member promoting hydroxychloroquine and the attempted 2020 election coup, causing more damage than the anthrax attacks.


TMPRSS2 activity in vitro vs in vivo are two different kettles of fish


My bad, I was thinking of zinc and cathepsin but cathepsin is synergistic with TMPRSS2


Although this particular case study is interesting, I don't think it makes sense to talk about these things as isolated. It seems quite likely that all police forces are likely to have small-to-large, naturally forming cells of corruption that frame activists. The authorities do not like activists.

Consider that the US is running a massive, blatantly unconstitutional (unless unreasonable searches just doesn't mean anything) popularly disliked spying campaign. We seem to have reached the point where every opposition presidential candidate can assume they'll be targeted by the spy network (Trump was wiretapped, Biden has faced the investigation of his son & there are no hints that the politicians regret these moves).

With that in the backdrop as what the president is being hit with, it seems pretty obvious that activists would be targeted with framing or at least parallel construction of frivolous charges. And that is in the US, bastion of liberty. The rest of the world is probably worse.

The news here is that we can find out about it and get good records kept, I suppose.


Obama, also extensively wiretapped.


If you think the journalists reporting news to your population and the corporate-funded lobbies are bad, imagine the journalists and activists in foreign countries paid for by your corporate-political interests.

They do not need to be "framed" to be caught. They are criminals in the target country even for doing their jobs. This is why China bans them outright... and India has been doing a pretty good job culling them.




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