Eyes Wide Shut

[LipeRN]

For me it was 2018 when I received horrible advice from “my” oncologist regarding a treatment plan for my stage 4 cancer. oh and he also asked me how I wanted to spend my final days on earth and if I’d discussed it with my family - (told him I wanted to spend my final days on earth walking on his f***ing grave, and never went back to him) Found a more enlightened oncologist (who prescribed traditional stuff) and an integrative physician (who prescribed the non traditional stuff) - researched and read, refused to comply if it didn’t seem in my best interest- I am “cancer free” (are we ever cancer free?) - soon I will be 4 years in remission.

[Jason]

WTC 7. Watching a 47 story steel framed structure implode into dust on 9/11, despite the fact nothing struck it. Just as now, critical questions by the media were never asked, much less pursued. It was very obvious someone very powerful was spoon feeding a bogus narrative to a largely brain dead American populace.

[CaliforniaLost]

I am posting verbatim my response to eugyppius when he (or she) had a similar thread in early Jan. It was a stream of consciousness screed sent while I was sitting through another pointless conference call, so it is a bit disjointed.

I'm a cynic, shaped by my youth. My 4th grade teacher was a pedophile and the school tried to cover it up while he was touching my friends, two preachers at my Baptist church were caught with their pants down with parishioners, and my Boy Scout troop leader was caught lying about his own Eagle Scout accomplishments. My wife works with autistic children and the studies and trends from that part of Healthcare are ridiculous, I trust no one. With this COVID scam, first, only 20% of the Diamond Princess cruise ship ended up getting sick when confronted by a "novel" virus, then the lack of people collapsing in the street was another major red flag, and the fact that only the old and infirm suffered severe illness made this obvious to me the whole thing was a Plandemic. Add in my own personal research on coronaviruses during lockdown, the lack of effective coronavirus vaccines in the past, the past studies on mask efficacy and the flip flop by Noble Liar Fauci, the "Warp speed" bs, it was obvious to those who looked at the information dispassionately that the world was under assault from a massive pyschops. However, I am an engineer, my life revolves around reading studies and understanding statistics, I'm not surprised most people lack the ability to comprehend was is being published and how many studies and "analysis " are gamed. I was surprised by the Press, though. Until I dug into the Bill and Melida Gates Foundation, and the amount of Pharma advertising dollars, then it is obvious. Twitter and FB are now obviously owned by the Deep State and have been since at least 2016, but the rest of the press folding is nothing but amazing to me, they literally have no soul.

[Allen]

I cut my teeth on the massive amount of corruption and profiteering and Pharma con jobs back in 2004 with the Avian Flu hoax. They tried the same play, with mostly the same cast of characters, in 2009/10 with the swine flu hoax.

I spent a lot of time in both instances trying to alert people throughout the community to the realities of these frauds. Each time there was tremendous push back followed by acknowledgement that these were indeed scams. However it seems that there is a bizarre psychotic thirst for this hysteria in our present culture as after each fraud was proven it only needed a few years passing for these very same folks to become ready to accept a new one.

Once you have explored the details of these frauds it is easy to identify the scam as it is happening.

The playbook is pretty much the same, they simply refine the techniques. Not so easy to convince others of the scam as they are bombarded with fear porn 24/7.

I have to say that the "messaging" is far more comprehensive, insidious and sophisticated with Operation Covidius than all others before by quantum leaps.

That and they produced the cadavers this time through an array of medical democides (remdesivir, neglect, midazolam, ventilators, etc.) which solidified the fear mechanisms in the masses.

It's breathtaking really to witness the grip of fear this had and still has on millions and a vast number of these people will be damaged for life. The shadow of this psychosis will follow them to their graves. This is particularly true among the "educated" classes who now have a warped sense of purpose beyond the dull, aimless wanderings of Academia.

As for the Covid™ fable of 2020 itself, it was and is a nasty lie- all of it from top to bottom. All of the exaggerated and repeated fear-based messages from the media and government agencies this past year were just part of the advertising campaign for the pharmaceutical industry’s newest lucrative product- mRNA “vaccines” which they plan to roll out as new medical “miracle cures” for a variety of “ailments”, e.g. new line of “cancer vaccines.”

Every single one of the media bullhorns that were blasting the Covid fiction for the past year have direct financial ties to Pharma Inc. It’s not exactly accurate to say Pharma uses its power to influence the news- more to the point it is Pharma that writes the script. Pharma and it’s investors own “the news” and you will speak the Pharma gospel if you wish to maintain your position of privilege- it goes without saying.

And when we speak about Pharma this cannot be separated out from the investor class who rakes in oceans of taxpayer wealth through numerous Pandemic Ponzi Schemes with Pharma as it’s “offering” and its Trojan Horse.

"Covid-19" is a business plan not a medical emergency. Now more than ever it’s important to understand the economics of vaccines. Traditional systems of vaccine procurement and distribution are rapidly giving way to vast public–private supply chains. Despite annual revenues approaching US$1 trillion, the industry has been unable to reverse a declining rate of profit and finds itself in a perpetual state of crisis.

In Fall/Winter of 2019 all stocks of Big Pharma companies were in steep decline. This changed dramatically in Spring 2020 as we now know. The experimental gene therapy mRNA drugs are set to become the most lucrative drugs in medical history. Pharma depends on its “blockbuster drugs” to remain profitable and appealing to investors. It is not an exaggeration to say that without these “blockbuster drugs” the Pharma industry implodes.

What happened in 2020 was simply that the flu was re-branded and repurposed- the term "Covid-19" was invented to turn the seasonal virus into the equivalent of the mythical “Al-Qaeda” meaning to terrorize the population with the false construct of a boogeyman.

This was done as the Western economies were in total free fall in late 2019 and the plan to digitize the economies of The West had to be rushed through lest the collapse be seen for what it was- the by-product of decades of Ponzi schemes by the Wall St. parasites and their allies.

The Virus™ is superfluous, just like the Swine Flu scamdemic of 2009. All they needed to do was create the perception of a pandemic/mass panic with staged Hollywood productions, doomsday models, and the fraudulent PCR test to manufacture the cases/falsely attributed as “Covid deaths.”

"Covid-19" deaths follow the same age/risk stratification and seasonal curve of flu/pneumonia at the same time that flu inexplicably vanished from the face of the earth while all pneumonia deaths were suddenly called “Covid” using mass death certification fraud.

Without the fear-mongering propaganda campaign no one would’ve noticed anything unusual about the last two flu seasons because there was nothing unusual, except for the criminal, murderous, and utterly unscientific lockdown policies in response to the non- existent threat.

[Diana Pinkstock]

I began to get involved in politics after realizing our country was in trouble. I kept hearing that 9/11 was an inside job. I thought they were nuts and conspiracy theorists. Finally, I set out to prove they were wrong, only to prove to myself that I had be deceived. After weeping mournfully for several months, my world view began to crumble. I began to question everything I thought I knew, the preverbiale rabbit hole.

In the process, I have discovered the lies within psychiatry, with their toxic medications which actually cause chemical imbalances, thanks in part to Dr. Peter Breggin's informative books and website. The truth about allopathic medicine, cancer ( see "The Truth About Cancer" docu series) and the vaccines. This was such an eye opener, having been a nurse who had totally bought into it all.

I could go on and on about the myth of overpopulation, climate change, GMO's, chemtrails, false flag attacks, the federal reserve, UN Agenda 21/2030, the false left/right paradigm, our public education system, etc... Needless to say, I knew from the beginning of the plandenic that it was a scam.

[Darice Bourke]

I have as long as I can remember been sceptical of the pharma industry. I have never had a flu shot. I have had the routine vaccinations for tetanus etc.

My gut has always been my guide and my inner voice screamed at me. Never take any flu shot.

I was almost seduced by the narrative, thinking well everyone is getting the jab maybe I’m a fringe nut case. So I delved into the data, or lack of data and lack of well structured trials. I continued to come back to a not for me conclusion.

Neighbors and friends were pushing against my stance. My husband was my rock and agreed that this shot wasn’t safe.

I can’t really speak to anyone who has had the shot because I feel so frightened for them and don’t want to scare them, but I’m growing more worried as the real time data and adverse numbers pour in. 300% increase in miscarriage and so many other categories of adverse events starting to show up.

I did try to sway some of my closest friends away from the jab but they said “Why would the government try to hurt us? It makes no sense.”

My response was the testing hasn’t been rigorous enough especially since this is such new technology.

I hope I’ve been wrong all along and don’t have to bear witness to my loved ones, friends and community suffer after effects from the rushed vaccinations. Stay safe and take care of your body.

[Judith Brown]

I worked as an aid worker in Africa and Middle East. In both places there were issues that surprised me as what I saw I didn’t expect to see. In South Lebanon in 1995 I went to visit a project that was helping women with PTSD. The women lived under Israeli occupation and were regularly bombed. One woman started talking about a bomb falling - it had large pieces of shrapnel snd one piece beheaded her small son. I suffered trauma as a result of just listening to her and I can still see her face as she was talking. About the same time I saw the new graves at Qana after bombs had stuck a bomb shelter killing over 100 people many of them children. The UN tried to stop the story getting out but eventually a peacekeeper gave a video to Robert Fisk who reported it in the Times. Because the story got out Boutros Boutros Ghali didn’t get a second term as Secretary General of the UN. I started to read and investigate because I thought that there must be a reason I could understand to explain why my government was not supporting the Lebanese. Eventually I came to realise that my British government did evil things. Once you have looked over the parapet you cannot turn back. Sometimes I think life would be simpler if you didn’t understand but I’d rather be where I am now.

[David]

The total trashing of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration followed by the censoring and shaming of Prof Byram Bridle, a professor of vaccinology after he went on TV and explained that a big mistake had been made with the vaccines as the spike protein did not stay put in the shoulder muscle but travelled throughout the body. This has since been confirmed by Prof Bakhdi. These are ethical scientists not conspiracy theorists. So that and the ongoing censorship and silencing of many like Dr Peter McCullough and the founders of the Canadian Covid Care alliance and the FLCCC. My lifelong scepticism comes from my mother's experience - she was offered Thalidomide by her doctor and refused. And we know how Thalidomide worked out.

[Art]

It was whist at uni studying pharmacology that I reasised all medicine did was treat symptoms NOT causes.

This led me to a real journey of discovery.

I’ve lived 40+ years without any antibiotics/ antifungals/ ibuprofen/ paracetamol etc.

the terrain theory really works in practice.

Here is an article Iwrote in May 2020.

Research terrain theory vs germ theory.

Most who have died from the virus have had comorbidities.

Many of which are almost totally preventable (eg type 2 diabetes - £20 billion yearly spend).

Pre the pandemic we were spending £142 billion on the NHS. Despite this every chronic disease numbers are rising. 1:2 getting cancer, 1:5 children getting eczema.... I could go on and on ....

Big pharma has highjacked health. You are no good to them if you are really well or dead. Where they want you is in the middle- managing your condition because thats how you make money....( I speak from personal professional experience of 38+ years on this)

Most doctors get 7-8 hours of nutrition tuition in their 7 years of training..., and you still hold them to be knowledgable in that!

BACTERIA / FUNGI / VIRUSES ETC....

ARE THEY THE ONLY THING YOU NEED FOR DISEASE?

If you are a gardener or know a good one they will know compost makes plants grow well.

What turns your kitchen scraps onto compost?

Bacteria & fungi!

So tell me why the VERY SAME organisms in intimate contact with your plants don’t destroy your plants, seeds & seedings?

If its the presence or absence of bacteria then ofcourse they are VERY present in the compost!

I feel qualified professionally & personally as someone who hasn’t had ANY antibiotics or anti fungals or anti i virals since 1979 and I know lots of others also who live by the rules that exist in nature!

Eg a chunk of cucumber left from your lunch put on the compost heap will rot and become compost in a few months.

Bacteria and fungi make that possible.

You take the compost and plant cucumber seeds in it where the bacteria and fungi are in intimate contact with the plant and not only do they not destroy the plant but actually nourish it ( as every good gardner knows).

So why are the very bugs that destroyed your chunk of cucumber not destroying your cucumber plant?

Want to know why? Its the terrain theory!

Cucumber on the compost heap is dying and nature needs it being composted.

Your cucumber plant is growing and there is no need to finish it off.

Lower forms of life eg bacteria, fungi etc are here to return things back to earth that need returning.

They are not out to get you only to do their job. If you have lived in a way that you have become toxic then there is a job for the “germs” to return your unwanted junk back to the soil. There is actually symbiosis! ( a jain principle in action).

Ofcourse if you are grossly toxic then at some point nature may say that the whole of you needs returning back to the soil.

Ditto when your life force is spend as in old age and your time comes to depart into the next world.

[Hanna]

I’ve been wondering this so much as well, thanks for starting this discussion. I think I was primed to be skeptical because of a dangerous medical error that occurred during childbirth, we were initially lied to and that made it clear to me that advocating for informed health choice is imperative. The big red flags came with the abusive, coercive rhetoric coming from politicians and trickling down into community discourse. Also as a survivor of assault as a woman I’ve found that discerning abuser tactics is necessary for navigating this world. All sorts of alarms starting going off. After that it was all down hill.

[Nix]

my husband was wide awake way before me and i used to ridicule his theories and beliefs. oh how wrong was I! for me the scales fell off my eyes when the pandemic shenanigans started to take place. it reminded me of my country in the eighties when socialism was ravaging. i saw first hand the propaganda, lies and censorship and i started questioning first the pandemic response and then everything else. i have not looked back.

[Brien]

The pivotal point that brought about a shift in my worldview was the 2016 election of Donald Trump. I was as surprised as the rest of the world at his election. I didn’t vote for him, primarily due to his personality and what I considered to be a lack of qualifications for the office, the two qualities that most likely got him elected. Anyone watching the mainstream media in the US the day after the election watched grown men and women wailing and sobbing uncontrollably in front of the cameras, en masse and all day long(and the next day), just as if they had all been informed of the loss of their entire families to a tragic accident. Two days later that unconsolable grief turned into uncontrollable rage, again in front of the cameras, as if there had been a discovery that the tragic accident had instead been a serial murder, and the name of the perp was known to everyone. The uncontrollable rage lasted for 4 years and I believe continues to this day. It was accompanied by a massive campaign to unseat a duly elected President using the full powers of the deep state government working in collusion with the mainstream media and, increasingly, corporate America. This represented a seismic change in the nature and character of the US that I had known for over 60 years.

What I witnessed during election week 2016 was the start of an awakening that prompted a deep reflection on a new reality which was in fact an old reality that had now been “outed”. It was much more than a reflection on the Donald Trump phenomenon, which per se was always just a side show. The real issue was what was really going on and who was behind it? What had really occurred was that America’s enemies had been forced out of the closet by Donald Trump and his populist movement. What Barack Obama had tried to accomplish clandestinely was now open warfare.

Fast forward to 2020. A bio weapon released by the Chinese and co-developed with the US. A global plandemic. A Coup. A globalist elite conspiracy to destroy national sovereignty and freedom using medical tyranny, fear and propaganda. All a continuation of what began to be revealed by the election of 2016 in the US.

[Joe Silvestrini]

I run most of what I hear through my personal BS detector, a list of reasonable questions to evaluate what I heard. In this case it broke the machine! I was pre-med in college but did not go to med school but have always had an interest in infectious diseases. I read books on Yellow Fever, Ebola, Spanish Flu, AIDS and most recently Polio, since I wanted a better context and prospective on Covid. For example, "the novel coronavirus". What do I know about this? Corona viruses were some of the first viruses imaged in the 1930's so there is good information on these viruses. The novel thing I was not sure of so I did more online research. Info was thin on the "novel" at the time but this only interested me more to do more research on this. As per the "millions will die" I knew then that this was BS in an unprecedented way. This is not Spanish flu, this is not 1918, we do not have a world war going on, we do not have millions displaced by conflict and we have modern medical care. (little did realize at the time that this was the same system that was fanning the flames of "we're all going to die") Then my research for "novel" came across some of the first info that this was man made. Then the lying Dr Fauci showed up on my TV screen just like he did during the AIDS epidemic. I started calling him Dr Showboat during the AIDS epidemic since he loved the camera and actually said nothing about the disease or transmissibility. Then I knew, really knew, this was going to go badly. Then they started reporting "cases" Cases, without a context? Made no sense to me since the proper metric is % of positives against number tested. The media loved this and jumped on board to scream and terrify innocent people and children that did not know any better. Masking, social distancing lockdowns all made no sense and did not have any scientific basis, I knew because I looked and researched beyond the crap the media was spewing and they did not even bother.

I began to tell people that this really was BS and offered reasoning instead of hysteria. I became the lunatic, the crazy denier, I could see it in their eyes. What does he know that CNN does not? He is crazy. Since then I have written off some friends and family that went lunatic, they seem to want to be terrified and terrified their children and not look any further into it. To those of my good friends and family I am now hearing that I was right and I thank them with a smile.

I am now telling them about the vaccine lies. Onward with the truth!!

[PatriotMama]

I am a natural skeptic, or maybe I just trust what I see with my own eyes, so I never bought any of this at all. I also have an incredibly narcissistic, gaslighting, cruel father so it feels like what has been done all over the world is what my father did to our family my entire life, which is maybe why I’m so infuriated. My mother has dementia and has been in a memory care home since May 2019. Before Covid, it was a really good answer , for her care, to get her away from my father, and the staff was really excellent. And then Covid hit, they shut down, and I truly feel like humanity towards others just absolutely died. I knew something was wrong w my Mom when I would call, she stopped doing the things she loved all of a sudden, became wheelchair bound, incontinence, very non verbal, and it was very fast, too fast for just dementia progression. My mother had Covid late Dec 2020, and then was force vaccinated by my Dad in Feb 2021. I had questions about natural immunity, overloading her immune system so soon w a vaccine after a natural infection, not to mention MRNA and a rushed untested vaccine. She had 5 falls in 7 days after being vaccinated. And even after every resident in the facility was vaccinated, they still wouldn’t open back up. It took me over 3 months of fighting w county/state health, the Governor and the national director of the care home company to be able to see her in person. The mother I found had lost 50 lbs, had been medicated so heavily she had tremors, how she did not die I will never know. In that year closed away from us her 5 carat Tiffany engagement ring that she NEVER took off went missing, but we were never told, I don’t even think they noticed. I was threatened by the staff if I tried to touch her I would be denied access again. And my father excoriated me for pushing to see her and making “everyone’s life more difficult”. I was thankfully able to get her on hospice care immediately for severe protein malnutrition, but that year of isolation and inhumanity has done its damage along w dementia. Combine that with fighting for a daughter who works in healthcare to get a religious exemption and still be able to work, as well as a son in the military who was quite literally force vaccinated with no chance to even file an exemption or have informed consent, and then deployed, trapped on a carrier out to sea and forced to be boosted, then thrown in confinement a week later when he and his entire crew tested positive with no symptoms, and I am just trying to fight back in every way I can, by being informed, relentless and unafraid.

[Steph]

I really woke up in 2016 when President Trump ran for office. I watched his speeches which were full of hope, optimism, and common sense, and then watched/read the MSM and saw how vastly different they portrayed what he said. Then the Podesta emails on Wikileaks happened and I heard Jake Tapper tell us that it was illegal for us to read Wikileaks, that we had to let journalists read it and tell us what was in it. Then I heard Mika on Morning Joe say that it was the journalists job to tell us what to think. And that was the end of that - no more listening to the MSM for me.

[Rob (c137)]

A quick summary of myself and also of my girlfriend waking up:

I've always been skeptical of anything in this CRAPitalist system, so the convid was clear after a few days, seeing the average age of death being around life expectancy. The toilet paper wars was also quite dumb, a self fulfilling prophecy.

911 inside job, jfk was not killed by Oswald, guldf of Tonkin was a lie, ww1 was a setup, and so on. It only seems crazy to those that don't believe that powerful people lie, cheat, and steal.

The only new thing was learning that virology is a fraud. A bit of a shock but it did explain a lot of the confusion I had seen over decades of that 'science'. https://viroliegy.com/

My girlfriend woke up , got off the fence when she saw the highwire interview with physician assistant Debra Conrad and the broken vaers system! That made her realize that there's no honest safety reporting, which skewed her view of the clot shots.

These days we have fun spotting the fake news and moronic narratives 🤑 🦠🤡🌎

[David]

I smelled a rat from the beginning. I don't buy politicians giving medical advice. I don't trust government officials. I don't trust meds that have no been properly tested. I don't trust the medical profession very much. I don't do everything my doctor tells me to do. Mot of them live in a very small medical box and can't seem to think outside of their little box. I'd be dead if I did everything my doctor told me to do. I have lost three siblings to Covid? and I'm supposed to be scared of it. I'm 77 and have escaped it for two year. I never wear a mask. It's a tool for the great reset. Lie after lie after lie! Dave L.

[INTJ Architect]

The WMD story didn't sound quite right at the time, but I never looked into it. In 2006 a friend gave me a dvd copy of Loose Change and my mind was blown. After that I started going down the federal reserve/fiat currency rabbit hole. Then found James Corbett. I thought after all of that my brain was immune from the mind blowing.

Soon after Trump was elected I read Code Red: Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century, and once again had that hugely disorienting feeling. For whatever reason I found the revelations in that book the most disturbing that I had found to date. There were a few very dark years for me that followed until I was able to yank myself out, at least partially.

In my mind, in many ways the covid fiasco is child's play compared to some of the other things I've learned over the years. I now mostly just stay informed as a form of amusement. People ask why I don't watch tv and I say real life is much more interesting/entertaining.

[Danny Adornato]

ISIS-Syrian war, after seeing Muslims and Christian soldiers in the Syrian Arab Army fighting side by side against ISIS and hearing from Christians in Syria that Assad was the only one protecting them that is when I knew the mainstream narrative was false. The now proven fake "gas attacks" also sealed the deal for me.

[Astrid Nordness]

My dad was in advertising. He would always say that anytime someone tried to “sell” you something with fear it was something you did not need nor want.

I’ve been super skeptical since 911. I truly woke up after being damaged by a tetanus shot in 2007. Took me 6 years to get over that. I was warning my cousin in Canada at Christmas of 2019 that there would come a day that I would not be able to cross the border without proof of vaccination status. She laughed at me. I was actually shocked that it happened as fast as it did.

[Stefano]

It started in two stages for me: circa 2000 when U.K. government changed the legislation around small one man companies (as disguised employees), the legislation drafted being so bad that its been 20+ years of arguing in the courts (not that MPs or governments cared that this destroyed small firms - despite the endless sound bites to the contrary). Second stage was when for fun I thought I would laugh at climate warming deniers websites and soon realised that the models the whole climate change agenda its based on are crap! And do not describe a multi-variate problem, plus the 97% scientific consensus is a load of !! That meant when Covid came around I was primed to look for the evidence and detail to question the narrative. It didn’t take long (March 20) to realise it was rubbish and that I would be following the same independent and uncomfortable track as before.

Generally at work I’m the trouble shooter and not the most welcome of engineers on any given job.

[Brandon is not your bro]

🤔…. My grandparents fled communism (Russia)and my other set from Czechoslovakia, near the turn of the century. I heard many stories before they passed away . They were so happy to be here, but suspicious along with my parents. As a little girl JFK was killed and further confirmed be careful of the government. Various incidents, Vietnam war, my sister and brothers’ friends never came back and if they did some were not right. and then 911. My father saw the smoke from New Jersey, called me and said Your world with never be the same , I am old but be careful. He served in Ww2 and before he died he spoke how he was always haunted by the Japanese planes and the bombs. I ended up in medical research which has some shady stuff As we all know now.

Medical school then private practice. Drug reps, big pharma, referrals from doctors who expect your loyalty, scammy hospitals and their contracts . Then this. I have sons in medical school, they have heard the stories as well. I am old now and told them to be careful. This pandemic bullshit is the opposite of what I have been taught in medical school and am saddened because many doctors know better but as always follow the money 💰💰💰💰.

[Mk]

My daughter’s first reaction to a vaccine as a child was an eye opening experience. I have always been skeptical by nature, and all of the events happening over the past 3-4 years have made me question everything. Recently though, we tried to get a medical exemption for our daughter for these jabs because of her previous reactions. Even my cousin who is a doctor wouldn’t give her an exemption and sent her to an allergist to be tested for reactions to known jab ingredients. The allergist who would only speak to us in a whisper in the exam room told us she was afraid to give exemptions and was retiring soon to avoid all of this. She gave my daughter prednisone and an epi pen to take with her to her jab appointment. My doctor cousin and his doctor wife proudly announced they had vaccinated their 13 year old son before there were any EUAs for children. I thought he was “smart.”If anything, people now know that doctors are not all intelligent. Doctors are brainwashed or scared to lose their livelihoods. Doctors need to refuse to go along with this insanity. What doctor actually believes there is no natural immunity? Patients believe their doctors .It all stops when the doctors stop complying.

[Monica Hughes PhD]

Trying to figure out what was real started early. Was an introvert and not afraid to go against the crowd. Was occasionally bullied for that. Childhood trauma/gaslighting, medical abuse of my mother in childhood, similar struggle with husband later on in my late 30s. My opinion is that early events that create independence from an intellectual and social perspective tend to be transformative.

[Alan Morse]

LBJ woke me in 1964. 'Nuff said. It's just gotten darker and darker ever since.

[Andrew Holland]

For me it was having slightly elevated cholesterol and being told by my doctor it was likely I would need statins. I started looking into it and found the science regarding carbohydrates, elevated blood sugar and heart disease. I tried the keto diet (following heavily science based people and their research) and then morphed to an unprocessed, low carb approach. The impact on my health was profound. I am, at 42, now in better shape than I was in my early 30's. The certainty from my doctor that fat and cholesterol were the problem and then seeing the research that countered that, and my own results made me much more sceptical of current medicine. That was my first peek behind the curtain and it has only expended since then.

[Kat Sienk]

Vaccine injured child. Medical freedom mama who spent time fighting childhood vax mandates at the state level in 2019. At which time the relationship between vaccine manufacturers and democrat party politicians became crystal clear. They know the harms they are causing and they don't care. Party loyalty is of the utmost importance. They lie to our faces and there seems to be little consequence (so far). Incidentally, most of us mamas were registered Dems at the time and most, if not all, dropped that affiliation very quickly. When SARS COV2 hit, medical freedom mamas knew exactly what was happening. Same playbook, on a much larger scale.

[Livewire]

Just this plandemic, but I knew there were other systems working long ago. For now, I'll stay with the plandemic.

I knew after two weeks the whole thing was a lie or rather there was a hidden agenda. My wife asked me how I knew? First, when I actually figured out the percentages vs beds in the hospitals did not equate and the percentage of people with covid vs population in the state. Often the two weren't anywhere close to one another. When they got caught every time the correction only went one direction. Physics doesn't work that way. When fluctuations happen they happen both directions. When it only fluctuates one way? It's malfeasance. The biggest tell? Intelligent people don't speak the way they do. Intelligent people speak in terms of keeping people calm example :" we don't have all the answers, but are diligently working on it ", but what we were hearing was information that would constantly keeping you on your toes or your heels. Constantly off balance. Intelligent people speak in terms of attempting to keep people calm. Otherwise you run the risk of destabilizing societies.

Then came the mask mandates. It's amazing how many people still fall for this nonsense. The idea that wearing a pair of underwear on your face or two would be better is absolute horse shit. It even says so on the back of the product. Lastly - censorship. Censorship and the methods they call for are designed to strip citizens rights- nothing more

[Doug Graham]

I feel like I have always had a little bit of skepticism built in (especially re:govt). I was actually taught history in school and there are so many examples of govt going wrong (not room here to list). I am especially skeptical when govt offers things for "free" and really pushes it too. Started, for me, I think, with the flu shot. I thought they were pushy then... This is way worse! And as Adam Corrola recently said, "What have you guys been right about?". If we all go the same way (putting all our eggs in one basket!), and they're WRONG, what then? People have capacity (and right) to make their own decisions, what they believe is best for them after weighing all the risks and benefits, and then they have to accept and live with the results of those choices. That is life, and that is freedom! Yes, even the freedom to be wrong (but it was your choice, no one else's). Read Thomas Sowell. And let us "live not by lies" (another great book!)

[Witzbold]

1. Institutional coverup of abuse in Catholic Church

2. Non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction

3. Nationalisation of private sector losses in Great Financial Crisis

4. Trump Derangement Syndrome

5. Non-existent election rigging by Russia

[Havakuk]

From a Christian faith perspective, long questioned many aspects of mainstream culture / values / narratives. Always a reluctant user of Pharma products; then discovered medical industry "knew" (disseminated) nothing (useful) about causes of high BP, other than Pharma interventions; began research journey >> primal >> LCHF >> ketogenic lifestyle, exercise, sleep etc. Then: Global Warming Con — as an engineer, not hard to see right through thinly veiled politicised "consensus". Then Brexit — which is incidentally part of the reason why UK is presently much freer of Covax narrative cf. mainland EU right now — not because of the political change, per se, but because half the nation already wrestled with mainstream political shenanigans, right from 2016 until 2019 election — EYES WIDE, WIDE OPEN… Then Covid — again as an engineer and a research doctor, with a biochemically-trainsed spouse-in-the-house, it's been a horror show for us, one strand at a time : the closest I can related to is Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass…

[Scotty]

I was awakened when I was 18 and heard a sound bite from 1970 from Ted Kennedy telling a group of senior citizens that the republicans wanted to take away their social security.

They never did any such thing nor want to and it’s been like that my entire life. Lies and fear and fear and lies to get what they want done.

They’ve been infiltrated by communists who play the long game and are trying to bring this country down. Looking at the unchecked wholesale open borders in Mexico tells you everything.

Them never needing Covid tests. These illegals being shuttled around the country daily to all parts and corners of this country. They are given money and ID’s and they are taking over little by little.

Covid was a scam from the very beginning because of the whole preposterous narrative they tried to sell.

Jumping from a bat at a wet market. Straining to believe anything the Chinese put out there. Bending over backwards to always make excuses for Covid and masks and social distancing when they are proved to not work.

The whole thing is a farce

[Alan]

I worked for the Department of State for many years - I know I should have resigned but I stayed until retirement

I remember reading a CIA report (now easily obtained from wikileaks) in 1992 that claimed that the president of Haiti, Aristide, had been in a mental institution in the early 1980s. Only years later did I learn Aristide had never even been in Canada at the claimed time frame. Aristide was overthrown in a coup in 1991 and it became clear to me that the CIA reported falsehoods in order to create the illusion that foreign policy decisions were justifiable. Later I was working at the Embassy in Managua and I can remember seeing the leading opposition presidential candidate leaving the ambassador's office. The night of the election as the vote counts began the Embassy issued a decree claiming voter fraud. It became obvious that Ortega had legitimately won the election.

[Peg]

My first realisation that there was something amiss in this world came when Kennedy was killed and there have been many instances since that have confirmed it. As far as covid was concerned I found it incredibly suspicious that the government were willing to pay 80% furlough payments to people. Totally bizarre 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Thinking for Myself]

I started to wake up during the Obama presidency. I expected things to change but it just seemed the same It felt like we had a one party system the Dems and Republicans seemed to be the same. Then covid hit and a month into it I called bullshit on the whole thing. The messaging coming from Fauci and others was so vague and inconsistent and they were doing nothing for early treatment. Not to mention some states forcing covid positive patients into nursing homes, the most vulnerable to this disease. Why wasn’t this stopped? It was never about public health it seemed to be about control and a higher death count put more fear into the public. The censorship is inexcusable. There’s no discussion just shut down anyone who disagrees. No discussion. Now, my eyes are wide open, I see it clearly and I will remain aware and awake and will fight back on whatever level I can. This has been pure evil.

[Laura Hills]

Scepticism about medical research, watching how Big Food captured high prestige cardiology by funding while endocrinology was neglected. Thevicious attacks on anyone promoting low carb.

Data manipulation to shape Climate narrative as exposed by Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts.

Note Australian establishment and academia have cancelled disidents with extreme measures.

Listening to BBC do an in depth piece on African muti that was utterly unrealistic and ignored both human harms(I watched a patient while his liver dissolved to a membrane filled with blood at autopsy; the prediliction for the body parts of people with albinism) and the use of endangered animals and flora). About 2002.

The investigation of the Las Vegas shooting: totally obvious lies from the FBI.

On Wuflu: ignoring the data from the Diamond Princess

[Duchess]

I got Lyme disease. It became chronic. The only doctor to help me was one that they tried to get his license taken away. When Didier Raoult came out with HCQ and Zpak, and was ignored, coupled with Fauci getting in front of Trump fast enough to make your head spin to say HCQ was dangerous/unproven, I knew it was a lie. HCQ and Zpak are used for chronic Lyme. on it for years. Until another combination of antibiotics pretty much got me back to somewhat normal...but I knew HCQ is not dangerous. I also knew Ivermectin not dangerous. and when they took down that Indian paper re: finding a furin cleave and HIV in February within 24 hours, knew it was a bioweapon. Planned.

[Mike]

Jose Canseco published a book, Juiced, in the early 2000s about the rampant use of steroids in baseball. I read it in high school. It seemed believable, but the media trashed him as a lunatic (that’s not entirely inaccurate).

Then, as the years went by, MLB started testing. And the anonymous testing numbers sure gave credibility to Jose. Then players started getting suspended, many were players named in the book (such as Rafael Palmero).

However, Canseco was completely off about Roger Clemens. He painted him as a choir boy. I assume that Jose had some type of financial deal worked out for that.

That’s when I learned to be skeptical of the media. Of course, we (the USA) were invading Iraq at the time for “WMDs”, but I wasn’t following that too closely back then (whoops!).

[Paul Breslaw]

Within the space of a couple of weeks in March 2020, nearly all the so-called developed countries implemented very similar lockdown protocols. These affected whole populations most of whom, it was already known, would have been barely affected by the newly arrived disease. At the same time, these same governments set aside vast sums of money to pay these not-at-risk people to stay at home and do absolutely nothing. Not one single government even offered home treatment suggestions (beyond paracetamol) to those citizens affected by the disease. Any possible treatments (with the exception of hospital administered hexamethasone) were immediately villified in the media. It was as if they were all following a script.

And this is a world that can't even agree which side of the road to drive on.

The media had not a single critical word to say about this insane global policy.

[shasta]

Global Warming

[New Zealand Energy]

For me it was climate change.

In my younger formative years I watch Al Gores inconvenient truth and bought into the narrative fully.

While working in the oil & gas industry I was very concerned about flaring. One evening I sat down in my office, cleared the whiteboard, wrote CO2 in the center and started from first principles. It didn't take too long to find some contradictions in the narrative, particularly around CO2 historically lagging not leading temperature.

After a couple of years of digging into this I came to the conclusion that CO2 does create some warming effect, however climate sensitivity to CO2 is low and there are may other far more influential factors.

Incidentally the IPCC technical reports also came to this conclusion and have subsequently increased their levels of uncertainty over successive reports. However the summary for policy makers was always certain and sensationalist.

This is akin to reading the appendix of the Pfizer trials and then comparing these underwhelming results to their media releases and the proclamations of our politicians.

Anything that our political class dives into with vigor these days should warrant large doses of skepticism.

[Dave T]

I graduated high school in 2001 and up to that point (and for some time after) I lived a predominantly ignorant life. All I cared about was me and fitting in, which involved alcohol among other things. It was at some point down the road that I was introduced to a documentary called Loose Change that offered what I perceived as irrefutable evidence that there was more to the 9/11 story than what we were told by our government and media and what most people believed. From that point forward I've been in this rabbit hole and questioning most everything presented to me from self-proclaimed authorities/authoritative sources.

As of today, it's hard to understand how the glaringly obvious collusion between big-tech, corporate media, big business, and governments around the world is imperceptible to so many out there living their blissfully ignorant lives. I can't help but wonder how many of them choose, even if on a subconscious level, to remain in an ignorant state as a means of self-preservation. I imagine it to be something like The Matrix.

[Patrick Kodran]

Like Jason, my awakening occurred in 2012, when I was convalescing from injuries resulting from a serious auto accident. This time period afforded me the opportunity to spend many dozens of hours viewing the evidence from experts in construction and demolition related to the collapse of the WTC buildings. But the most telling aspect of this evaluation by experts in the field, was how their analysis was vilified by the MSM. Just as in the recent pandemic, those expressing views counter to the prevailing narrative went from being well respected, well credentialed experts in their fields to being labelled conspiracy theorist and crackpots.

[SL]

I have worked for the government for nearly three decades. I have seen high level politicians up close and many are not good human beings. There is lying and corruption throughout government. I have learned not to believe what they say unless I can verify the facts behind their statements. Usually, the facts run against their statements. I have also learned that doctors and other so called experts are wrong much of the time. A good example was my daughter's pediatrician (actually one of the pediatricians at the practice) just telling me flat out lies about vaccines and Omicron last month (my daughter had COVID as did the rest of us). She was insisting that we the parents get our boosters immediately and that we needed to get my 11 year old daughter vaccinated as soon as possible because kid are at serious risk of severe disease from Omicron and that vaccination is much better than natural immunity. Fortunately, thanks to people like you, I know better. It was ridiculous bald faced lies. What if I had cancer and I depended on someone like this doctor to guide me back to health and provide me top notch medical advice? I would stand no chance and probably end up dead. The people who lead us are disappointing frauds much of the time. My opinion of humanity is pretty low. By the way, my daughter ran a low grade fever for a few days and then was perfectly fine.

[DaCon]

First time I read about some strange new virus was in late November or early December 2019. Didn't think of it to much. Then at one of our venues some of our guests started repeatedly visiting with masks. One women I knew works in genetics research institution in the city. That's when I started paying a little more attention. In late January I visited an international fair and everyone avoided the Chinese pavilion and all staff there where masked and somewhat anxious and desperate because no one would talk to them. At that time the official news was downplaying the issue, somewhat denying that this virus will ever be an issue here (in Germany). That's when I started paying attention very closely.

From that point on the official narrative was always somewhat opposite to what I read. Official news cycle seemed to lag by at least four weeks. For example they denied the usefulness of masks only to flip on the issue later. Science said that this type of pandemic lasts at least three years. Government anounced a 14 day lockdown and promised everything back to normal after that. Nothing they ever said was coherent with anything I read elsewhere.

Then government and media started using a different language with a lot of fear mongering and lockdown measures tightened. Now, I've run a lot of ad campaigns, election campaigns. I know how to do propaganda and I'm well educated on psyOps methods. I started to see patterns in how government and media communicated the pandemic that sounded all to familiar.

Then it got worse when they started to push the vaccine as the single solution to the problem, only to pull it (AstraZeneca) for younger people shortly after. That's when I started digging into the literature on mRNA, the immune system and virology in detail.

Thanks to this failed government propaganda attempt, I now know a lot about antiviral nutrition, have changed my lifestyle quite fundamentally for the better and I'm fully aware of the seriousness of the chimeric pathogen and it's likely origin.

So in retrospect it was a constant cognitive dissonance within me that I tried to cope with by finding more information.

The more government and media went down the psyOps route, the more sceptical I got.

But I was only able to process all this, because of a rock solid science based university education. And I grew up in East Germany so I know how a totalitarian regime sounds, evolves and eventually collapses.

That's why I'm still very optimistic on the social part of the problem.

On the medical side (spike toxicity issues) I'm somewhat worried though. But precision medicine will advance with this unfortunate opportunity.

[academic adjacent]

I've been conditioned to be critical of official narratives since high school, so I was always going to question every aspect of this one. I know the mainstream media is owned by corporations and are largely stenographers of power. When I saw the Chinese and U.S. governments pointing fingers at each other as the source of the virus, I immediately began to research its origins. Then, I researched the relative effectiveness of masks, the infection fatality ratio, and then the safety and efficacy of the vaccinations.

[Biró István]

Discovering the upside down food pyramid a decade ago and the corrupt reasons for the bs guidelines since the last century. Big food+ big pharma hijacked the health of our society. Since consuming the opposite of their recommended diet my health improved, metabolic syndrome kept under control. That was a huge eye-opener. Also I worked in press as a photo editor and my family had two generation of doctors: this combination gave me a unique perspective on authority and trusting systems. In 2020 in a few weeks it was clear there is too much bullshit around the story of CV19, and thorough research was needed. (scientific studies, independent doctors, and not government, let alone mass media. Not following blindly the official narrative can be life-saving/life-changing...

[JJ]

I was a bit slower to wake up... But there were sort of itches in my brain. 9/11 then the missing WMD in Iraq. Millions in the streets protesting and the war happened anyway. Then in late 2005 I was mystified by house price trends in parts of the US and I was told to shut up, US house prices can't fall nationwide. Then no one went to jail after 2008. Then Obama became drone striker in chief. Then Brexit, then Trump and especially the media reaction "those voters are all racists". All the while curious why so many of my grandparents lived well into their 90s but my parents and my generation had so many weird auto immune and cancer type illnesses. Why thyroid medicine is so unbelievably common in nearly every woman I know. Autism. ADHD. Opioids. The pandemic then just blew it all open further. Also the scandals in the Church. I'm now just working on getting the toxins out of my system but it's probably too late.

[Joshu's Dog]

It's almost certainly an outlier here, but for me it was nothing to do with health. 10 years ago I read a book called "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" by Sir David MacKay, which basically, for me, blew the lid off of the lie that renewables were going to replace fossil fuels. Yet all politicians to this day keep repeating this mantra. I then started finding that if you poke around many areas of bureaucratic (nee scientific) consensus you find funny little rabbit holes. I still have not come to the conclusion what the common thread is, if there is any, but I do think Malthusianism is a plausible explanation when elites do palpably irrational things. ie., They might be "intensely relaxed" about shrinking the population in a controlled way

[Suzanne Wooden]

I have been skeptical since a little girl. We lived in Kuwait and the news was so different from American news that I questioned what was the truth. My skepticism just grew from there and became more personal when misdiagnosed and brushed off during two illnesses. It is a struggle to trust Doctors at all anymore, probably never will now.