2024 ICYMI
Something of an overview; highlighting articles that newer readers may have missed first time round, but which are still very relevant, and in some cases provide important context for posts to come
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
I don’t quite know what I would have thought if you had told me, at the start of 2024, that by the end of the year I would have posted over a hundred articles on a Substack. I had previously occasionally thought about publishing some of what I was writing to people, but it wasn’t until March of this year that I finally took the plunge.
I wanted a way of including supporting information — links, visual material and footnotes — for what I was writing. And, of the platforms that I knew about, Substack seemed like the best choice. It still does.
Initially at least, my main aim was to share output with the leaders — and others — at the church I attend. The first post that I published was this letter, which raises issues that, even to this day, no-one from the church leadership seems to want to engage with:
I do find the lack of response genuinely odd, given that I am essentially asking about the application of a sermon preached at church, something which I had thought was to be encouraged. Members of the congregation are invited to submit questions to our fairly regular “Grill the Preachers” sessions held after the evening service. And prior to 2020, when I occasionally submitted a question by email,1 I would generally receive a thoughtful and considered response within a few days.
But while Dear Church Leaders — which soon became Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else) — grew out of the covid era, I made a decision early on to diversify the subject matter. This was partly to help people see the bigger picture, and partly because I know from personal experience that covid seems to be something of a stumbling block to many, not least my own church leaders!
Given that the Substack has particularly gained traction during the past couple of months, I thought it worth putting together this end-of-year post:
to provide something of an overview of where I am coming from
to highlight articles that newer readers may have missed first time round, but which are still very relevant, and in some cases provide important context for posts scheduled for the New Year
I hope it helps.
The most-read posts — which are all covid-related — can be found here:
But it is other articles that I particularly want to highlight in this post.
The bigger picture
In terms of articles discussing the big picture, I think this is a contender for the most significant:
And if you appreciate posts with plenty of biblical input, I recommend these on Romans 13:
And this one on Jeremiah:
I have some related material on Jeremiah in the pipeline for the New Year.
For the sake of children
One of my main motivations for speaking out is for the sake of children, including my own, who will have to live in the world being shaped by recent and current events.
I have been — and still am — particularly dismayed at the lack of people speaking up for children in the context of the covid era, not least those in the church charged with their safeguarding. This post highlights many of the issues:
The rise of authoritarianism
The rise of authoritarianism has been a running theme. One of the reasons I have focused on the “covid pandemic” is because it points to something bigger, namely a concerted agenda to control people in the name of a perceived global crisis, a theme to which I shall return in forthcoming posts.
This short article features a parable I wrote in the context of the above:
It is so important to realise that a wolf in sheep’s clothing really does look like a sheep, and is thus sometimes very hard to spot, especially for those who are not looking particularly hard.
This related piece is based on the original coat of arms of the Fabian Society, which features… a wolf in sheep’s clothing:
This post features Melvin Tinker’s 2018 book That Hideous Strength: a deeper look at how the West was lost, and lessons we can learn from communist Eastern Europe:
And this series of articles shows how the powers-that-be are working to transform Western society into something like that in China:
As I noted in the article, the push for such a transformation is not a hidden conspiracy, but something that the oligarchy is quite open about. And I think the content of those four Stakeholder Communism? posts is sufficiently important that I have scheduled an additional single post featuring the four parts as one whole.
The “climate emergency”
I could of course rewrite the introductory paragraph to the last section with just a single change…
The rise of authoritarianism has been a running theme of recent articles. One of the reasons I have focused on the “climate emergency” is because it points to something bigger, namely a concerted agenda to control people in the name of a perceived global crisis, a theme to which I shall return in forthcoming posts.
I particularly recommend this post, my first one on climate:
And this one, which compares and contrasts climate and covid:
There is a strong case to be made that:
the aim of the “covid pandemic” was technocratic control through mRNA injections and “vaccine passports”. “For our health.”And there is a strong case to be made that
the aim of the “climate emergency” is technocratic control through carbon credits and 15-minute cities. “For the planet.”“Global crises.” Requiring global solutions. And technocratic control. There are so many parallels, as detailed in the above article. In both cases, corporate interests and financial motives explain a lot. And the desire for technocratic control is consistent with the push for Digital ID and the Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The latter feature prominently in this post:
Various other climate-related posts can be found in the climate section:
The short post on Greta Thunberg — one of a number of actors on the world stage — is particularly instructive I think.
And this post — which I put in the Media section given it relates to the BBC — is also climate-related:
Follow the money
“Following the money” is often a good strategy for working out what is going on. In that context, I recommend this post:
And this one:
One of the best ways of pushing back is to raise awareness.
The video featured here is also worth watching:
Corporate interests and financial motives again provide a running theme. In this case, the invisible governors steer countries towards war. Defence contractors profit from the conflict. And then building contractors profit from the rebuilding of what has been destroyed. Meanwhile the authorities and the media misrepresent our “enemies” and tell us that we go to war in the name of “defending democracy”.
The phrase “the invisible governors” comes from Edward Bernays whose 1928 book Propaganda features in this post, which I regard as being among the most important I have written:
Medical matters
As I read (past tense) more widely in the context of the covid era, I began to realise that much of what we were seeing was not new, and that it extended to many areas of health and medicine:
This post, subtitled “from vaccine evangelism to ‘going natural’”, describes part of my journey in relation to vaccines:
I followed it up with this a few months later:
If you have connections to young people suffering from anxiety or depression, I particularly recommend this article:
The battle for truth
The battle for truth in the context of medicine is of course but one component of a much bigger battle for truth:
I have long been aware that much of the knowledge that we now take for granted was once a minority report:
And that people will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to avoid admitting error:
But prior to 2020, I would have thought that Christians, who claim to follow the one who is the Truth, would be among the first to acknowledge when they had made mistakes. It is, as I understand it, a normal, necessary and integral part of the Christian life.
I have thus found it extraordinary that so many fellow believers, who I had assumed shared a concern for truth, have essentially looked the other way in the context of the deception of the past few years. Even now, many show little or no interest in engaging with the issues, let alone acknowledging error. And I find it somewhat ironic that it was shortly after I wrote — and shared — the above Error hates Truth article that the staff and wardens at the church I attend asked me not to write to them any more…
Though it was not as though much had actually changed. Only a few weeks earlier I had put out this post, which I think is among those that I would appreciate most as a reader, not least for the musical input:
As to the sound of silence, I am reminded of this piece, featuring a short story by James Thurber who is perhaps best known for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:
The media
Linked with the battle for truth — and of course almost everything else — is the mainstream media.
And, not least for the reasons outlined in this post…
I have learned to be much more sceptical of “news” as it is presented to us. Particularly when members of the Trusted News Initiative — founded by the BBC — are involved.
It is also worth bearing in mind how Wikipedia has changed:
And that a London-based private limited company incorporated in 2013 is actively involved in the simulation of “crisis incidents across multiple platforms for emerging security needs in the UK, Middle East and worldwide”:
To my mind, the question is not so much whether some of what we see in the news is being manipulated but to what extent it is happening. (That is one of the reasons I highlighted the Greta Thunberg post earlier.)
But in any case, it’s not as though the “false flag” is a new concept. And to anyone who says, “But we are not at war”, I ask, “What do you know about fifth generation warfare?”
Psychology
Last but not least, I have sought to show the substantial role that behavioural psychology has played in the events of recent years:
The application of behavioural psychology is exemplified in this short post on the push for covid vaccination:
And this one on Biderman’s Chart of Coercion:
In terms of the bigger picture, I particularly recommend:2
I do increasingly wonder just how fearful we should actually be about the things that our authorities and media try to convince us to be scared of. I find the Tony Benn clip in the article particularly instructive. The fearmongering didn’t start (or end) with covid.
Dear Church Leaders most-read articles
Some posts can also be found on Unexpected Turns
The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem
I generally attend services in the morning, and so I am not usually at church for the Grill the Preachers sessions
I originally wrote Reflections on Fear (and Behavioural Insights) in part to provide context for a post on compliance, which is still in the pipeline. I do plan to finish that article at some stage, but I regard plenty of other topics as being a higher priority, at least for now.