Does the COVID-19 Response Constitute Torture?
In 1973, Amnesty International included Albert Biderman’s "Chart of Coercion" in its report on torture, declaring these techniques the universal tools of torture and coercion. As Harvard psychiatrist and trauma specialist Judith Herman would later write, “The [coercive] methods that enable one human being to enslave another are remarkably consistent.”
Here is some of Biderman’s work on psychological manipulation and his “Chart of Coercion,” all of which clearly relates to the COVID-19 response:
1) Isolation techniques — Quarantines, social distancing, isolation from loved ones and solitary confinement
2) Monopolization of perception — Monopolizing the 24/7 news cycle, censoring dissenting views and creating barren environments by closing bars, gyms and restaurants.
3) Degradation techniques — Berating, shaming people (or even physically attacking) those who refuse to wear masks or social distance, or generally choose freedom over fear.
4) Induced debility — Being forced to stay at home and not be able to exercise or socialize.
5) Threats — Threatening with the removal of your children, prolonged quarantine, closing of your business, fines for noncompliance with mask and social distancing rules, forced vaccination and so on.
6) Demonstrating omnipotence/omniscience — Shutting down the whole world, claiming scientific and medical authority.
7) Enforcing trivial demands — Examples include family members being forced to stand 6 feet apart at the bank even though they arrived together in the same car, having to wear a mask when you walk into a restaurant, even though you can remove it as soon as you sit down, or having to wear a mask when walking alone on the beach.
8. Occasional indulgence — Reopening some stores and restaurants but only at a certain capacity, for example. Part of the coercion plan is that indulgences are always taken away again, though, and they’re already saying we may have to shut down the world again this fall.
~ Jim Kost
