{"id":273235,"date":"2023-09-13T07:02:15","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T07:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273235"},"modified":"2023-09-14T13:14:16","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T13:14:16","slug":"the-criminalization-of-dissent-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273235","title":{"rendered":"The Criminalization of Dissent (continued)"},"content":{"rendered":"

CJ Hopkins \u2013 Off-Guardian Sept 12, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

So, the Berlin State Prosecutor has launched another criminal investigation of me. Apparently, I\u2019m being charged with reporting on the original investigation of me that the Berlin State Prosecutor launched in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What happened is, the prosecutor visited my blog and read a column I published in July,\u00a0The Criminalization of Dissent (Revisited)<\/em><\/a>, which included screenshots of the alleged \u201chate-crime\u201d Tweets that the original criminal investigation is based on, and that resulted in the\u00a0Order of Punishment<\/a>\u00a0that the Berlin District Court handed down two weeks ago. So, the prosecutor opened a new criminal investigation and sent my attorney an official notice explaining the gravity of the additional charges.<\/p>\n

The charges are of the utmost gravity. I am officially accused of \u201crelativizing\u201d or \u201cminimizing\u201d the crimes of the Nazis \u2026 by republishing the two Tweets that I originally tweeted.<\/p>\n

Here, once again, are the Tweets \u2026<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Translation: \u201cThe masks are ideological conformity symbols. That is all they are. That is all they have ever been. Stop acting like they have ever been anything else, or get used to wearing them.\u201d The hashtag reads, \u201cThe masks are not a benign measure.\u201d Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right, I just published them again. I am going to explain why I published them again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to explain the Tweets again.<\/p>\n

I have explained them in several previous columns. I have explained them to\u00a0Matt Taibbi of\u00a0Racket News<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Max Blumenthal of\u00a0The Grayzone<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0James Freeman,<\/a>\u00a0Patrick Henningsen<\/a>,\u00a0Elena Louisa Lange<\/a>,\u00a0Dirk Pohlmann<\/a>, and\u00a0Christine Black at\u00a0Brownstone Institute<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(forgive me if I\u2019m forgetting anyone).<\/p>\n

I explained them to Stefan Millius of\u00a0Weltwoche<\/a><\/em>, and to another journalist at a big Swiss newspaper.<\/p>\n

My attorney has explained them, in German, to the prosecutor, and to German audiences on\u00a0Kontrafunk<\/a>.\u00a0RT published a piece<\/a>\u00a0explaining them.<\/p>\n

I believe they have been exhaustively explained.<\/p>\n

Not that they ever really needed explanation. You would have to be a certified moron to believe they \u201cminimized,\u201d or \u201crelativized,\u201d or in any way made light of the crimes of the Nazis. You and I are not certified morons. Neither is the Berlin State Prosecutor. Neither is the District Court of Berlin. Not to put too fine a point on it, the charges are horseshit, and everyone involved knows it. They are a blatant pretext to crackdown on dissent.<\/p>\n

OK, now let me explain why I just published the Tweets again, knowing full well that the Berlin State Prosecutor is probably going to read this column, become extremely agitated, and charge me with additional \u201chate crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, I am not a glutton for punishment. I\u2019m not at all enjoying my introduction to the so-called \u201cGerman legal system.\u201d It is taking up my time. It is making me angry. It is upsetting my wife, which I do not appreciate. It is costing me a lot of money. It has forced me to ask other people for money, which is something I do not like to do. It\u2019s screwing with my sleep. It is distracting me from my work. And so on. Which is exactly the point.<\/p>\n

The goal of horseshit prosecutions like mine (and those of many other dissidents currently) is (a) to punish us for speaking out against \u201cNew Normal\u201d totalitarianism by making our lives as miserable as possible, (b) to make examples of us to discourage others from speaking out, and (c) to intimidate us into shutting the fuck up.<\/p>\n

Totalitarians, fascists, and other power freaks are essentially just glorified schoolyard bullies. They may cloak themselves in the mantle of the law, but their modus operandi is brute force. Beneath all the bullshit, their message is simple: \u201ceither do what we say, or we will hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, prepare yourself, because I\u2019m going to give you some advice. I do not generally like to do that, but, in this case, I\u2019m going to make an exception.<\/p>\n

Never, ever, give in to a bully. The second you do, that bully owns you. What the bully wants, more than whatever he is demanding, more than anything else in the world, is your fear. The bully interprets your fear as respect, because the bully doesn\u2019t understand respect. The bully craves your fear, and your obedience, because they reify the bully\u2019s \u201cauthority.\u201d They enable the bully to feel powerful and important. The bully needs to feel \u201cpowerful\u201d and \u201cimportant\u201d because the bully feels weak and unimportant, and afraid. All fascists are essentially cowards. They are cowards, and nihilists, who hate themselves, and fear themselves, and hate and fear life, which is why they are so obsessed with controlling everything.<\/p>\n

The point is, never give in to a bully. Never reify a bully\u2019s \u201cauthority.\u201d If you do, you will find yourself sucked into the bully\u2019s sadistic, nihilistic \u201creality.\u201d You will be playing by the bully\u2019s rules. And that is all \u201creality\u201d actually is, a set of rules we agree to play by, or, in this case, do not agree to play by.<\/p>\n

So, getting back to my criminal case, and the Berlin State Prosecutor\u2019s latest attempt to bully me into shutting up and demonstrating my \u201crespect\u201d for the \u201cauthority\u201d and \u201cpower\u201d of the Berlin State Prosecutor, fuck that. I do not respond well to threats. I do not take orders from totalitarians and fascists, or any other type of authoritarians or bullies. So that is why I have republished those Tweets, and why I will continue to republish those Tweets every time the German authorities threaten me with additional criminal charges for refusing to obey their \u201cauthority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, I am under no illusions. I expect the prosecutor to file new charges and issue further threats, which I will defy, which will lead to additional charges, and so on. I am not looking forward to that, but I don\u2019t have any other choice, not if I want to be able to respect myself.<\/p>\n

If you have any doubts about whether that will happen (i.e., an endless cycle of new bullshit criminal charges stemming from my repeated refusal to respond to the German authorities\u2019 bullying), well, let me tell you about another dissident the German authorities are currently persecuting. I\u2019ll do it quickly, and then I\u2019ll let you go.<\/p>\n

As many of my readers are aware, I am presently holed up in an undisclosed location in the Italian countryside. Michael Ballweg, the founder and lead organizer of the\u00a0\u201cQuerdenken\u201d<\/a>\u00a0movement, was also here for a while. Michael, who is an excellent cook, whipped up some delicious \u201cextremist\u201d dinners, after which we all sat around \u201cdenying Covid,\u201d \u201cconspiracy theorizing,\u201d brainwashing each other with \u201cRussian propaganda,\u201d and \u201cdelegitimizing the state,\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n

Late at night, when the other \u201cextremists\u201d were sleeping, Michael and I discussed our criminal cases.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s case is a bit more serious than mine. Michael just spent nine months in jail. The German authorities have seized his assets, and frozen all his funds, so he is homeless, and bankrupt, and they are prosecuting him for attempted fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion, or, in other words, for launching a protest movement.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with Michael and Querdenken, you can read the official propaganda disseminated by the usual \u201cmainstream\u201d media or the Intelligence officers who edit Wikipedia, or \u2026 here\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0Spiked\u00a0<\/em>article<\/a>\u00a0to start you off. Then, go ahead, do your own research.<\/p>\n

The most absurd aspect of Michael\u2019s case is the German authorities\u2019 \u201ctheory of his crimes.\u201d According to this theory, Michael\u2019s devious scheme was to commit serious fraud by \u2026 well, basically, launching a nationwide protest movement that was certain to get a ton of media attention and incur the wrath of the German authorities.<\/p>\n

As any criminal mastermind will confirm, the best way to commit major fraud is to absolutely infuriate the government by organizing a series of massive protests, and generate tons of media attention, because you definitely want as much publicity as possible while you are defrauding your unsuspecting supporters of their voluntary donations to your cause.<\/p>\n

Seriously, this is their \u201ctheory of the crime,\u201d which would make Michael Ballweg the most idiotic and incompetent fraudster in the history of fraud.<\/p>\n

I could go on about his case, and mine, or those of the numerous other dissidents that are currently being made examples of, and about the broader GloboCap crackdown on dissent, which is happening, not just in New Normal Germany, but all throughout the New Normal Reich, but I need to end here and go water some plants. I am serving as \u201ccaretaker\u201d of this thoughtcriminal sanctuary, and I take my responsibilities seriously.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll keep you (and the Berlin State Prosecutor) posted on my further \u201chate crimes.\u201d In the meantime, best wishes from somewhere in Italy!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel,\u00a0Zone 23<\/a>, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his\u00a0Consent Factory Essays<\/a>\u00a0are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at\u00a0cjhopkins.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0consentfactory.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For describing Covid face masks as \u201csymbols of conformity\u201d and claiming they are \u201cnot a benign measure\u201d, a German court convicted CJ Hopkins of \u201cminimizing\u201d Nazi crimes and sentenced him to a \u20ac3,600 fine (about 3,800 American dollars) or up to three years in jail. Here he explains why he has just republished the tweets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":272589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273237,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273235\/revisions\/273237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/272589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}