657: Follow the Science - Uncovering Government Censorship & Corruption During COVID-19 Lockdowns

Brian Nichols  0:10  
Did we follow the science? Or did the lockdowns go viral? Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, Happy Wednesday there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on our board. Number one episode I am as always your humble host. Joining me live from our Stratus ip studio with your lovely he's an adult let cyber attacks or outdated Business Technology put your company at risk. Learn more at the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash Stratus ip. Brian, why are you out in Indiana? Because if we remember correctly, weren't you out in Philadelphia? Yes, yes, I was actually in Philadelphia for quite a while but much like millions of folks across the United States when COVID-19 hit the country and then our random, arbitrary rules were put in place by our elected officials declaring who was essential who was not essential. I decided to move as well. And I got out of that blue city much like so many other folks because yes, the lock downs, which I'm told didn't happen, okay. That's why I moved. I'm telling you it happened. And yes, they did, in fact, go viral. Now, I was working on an awesome, awesome program that's been behind the scenes. I do a lot of PR and marketing for them. And I'm so excited to actually get to the point now where we have a product ready to rock and roll. And if you want go ahead and get a sneak peek well here we're getting ready to have things rocking, Rolling Rolling in February to join us talking about that joining us from the sound mind Creative Group Hawk, Jensen hawk. Thanks for joining us back here in The Brian Nichols Show.

Hawk Jensen  2:02  
Yeah, great to have you. Thanks for having me.

Brian Nichols  2:04  
Absolutely. Thank you for joining us and thank you for Yes, doing quite literally the Lord's work you have been spending hours, days, weeks months in I'm sure some very isolated shelter under lock and key trying to get this superduper important project finished which is Yes. Follow the science. lockdowns going viral. But before we get there was a favorite. reintroduce yourself to The Brian Nichols Show audience and also who is the sound mind Creative Group?

Hawk Jensen  2:36  
Sure, yeah. My name is Hawk Jensen. I'm a lifelong filmmaker was started out in California for a bunch of years like you I relocated January 2021. I originally from New Hampshire. And like a lot of smart folks, I have returned to New Hampshire. But a lot of amazing people here in New Hampshire now. So I'm of the East Coast once again. But yeah, so I, let's see, I would say somewhere in the late 20s, I got a phone call from a fellow filmmaker who was in a couple of them who were greatly concerned about what was going on. Thinking that this this is about everything that we were experiencing, sort of we watched this flatten the curve turned into sort of a mission drift into sort of this perpetual lockdown, zero tolerance for COVID, and whatnot. And we were like, This just doesn't add up. I mean, between our reasonable critical thinking, skills and our own intuition as artists, something was wrong. And we wanted to make film about it, we actually start off thinking maybe we make a documentary, and then actually expanded promptly into five episode series that we're developing. But we've gotten the pilot done, we made a speculative pilot, the first episode, and but we also realized that we all worked in the Hollywood industry, and that if we wanted to continue working, we may need to be careful with Kancil culture. So we formed an anonymous group called the sound mind creative group. So a founding member of that, and that there was an original group of us that started it, and it expanded to quite a few real top notch professionals and we've been pushing things out, I was tapped as the director. I'm a trained commercial director, I wrote in television for a long time and then gotten to documentaries after that. And a certain point, it was pretty clear that in order to helm this project, I'd have to go public and I've been making controversial projects, supporting freedom of expression for years and years and years. Which, who knew that that would make me kryptonite in the eyes of Hollywood but I was I had already crossed that bridge. So I was like, alright, I'll go public and we can and but we have this amazing team and we've been working like crazy on this thing. And I would call it ambitious because we didn't just want to make there's there's many documentaries coming out right now people can grab any camera or a couple of pundants grab some footage, throw it together. We wanted to make something that was had legs was ever mean, have entertainment value had characters that were were engaging there was the hero's journey, and can intercut that with the traditional tech talking heads. So we've got we've got this really amazing project. So as you said, it's, it's fun and we, you know, we named it follow the signs like, Alright, let's do that. And, and so we really focus in the pilot on the first sort of the the origin story, or the the, or the ordinary world of the hero's journey, like, what Where were you when this all started in that January to the March 2020 phase? And then this idea of, you know, this idea, well, there's this virus, oh, this sounds kind of dangerous. Oh, you know, but I gotta totally zero, you know, flatten the curve, flatten the curve, or that led to lockdown. And then it was just one thing after another after another. So we really kind of look at the pilot, that whole series of things, the things that we never went back to talk about, and weren't allowed to talk about the time. So that's really the focus of that be produced by this group, sound mind creative group. And, and just, and we're really excited, because we're coming out with our sneak peek preview on February 8, and we're going to be screening with all our original donors, and inviting new people to join us that you can find that at, follow the science series.com. And, yeah, we're excited to be finally getting this thing out the door. And when you when you make a film, you basically live, eat and breathe it. So if I've been in basically a time capsule of 2020 I feel like I'm still in 2020 because I've just been talking to people about it. We interviewed 20 People in the course of all that. The main scientist, the backbone of this is Jay Bhattacharya. And he of course, it's becoming quite prominent these days, thanks to you on musk and his efforts of the Great Barrington declaration. So I'm sure we can get into that a little more in a bit but but that's what I'm up to. That's my my, my filmmaking career took a hard turn just like everybody's career took a hard turn with this giant, Viral Lock Down response that everyone you ever met and everywhere everywhere you've ever been, also have to deal with it. So that's where we are.

Brian Nichols  6:56  
Yep, truth. And to the point of why this is so important, what you guys are doing with this, this new, this new mini series here because back on Monday, here on the program, we had Jen Jacobson from beloved cheesecakes out in Oregon, she joined us on the show. And she was one of the what 1000s of business owners across the country who were directly impacted by the COVID 19 mandates. Now she was one of the business owners who fought back she said no, but there were countless business owners who they didn't have that luxury or they didn't have the testicular fortitude, shall we say, to to stand up and to fight back? And can you blame them, especially when you go to those really predominantly blue areas? It was tough. Like being in Philadelphia, it was tough not going along with the narrative, especially when it's your friends, it's your neighbors, who are the ones casting weird looks at you, because you're the one questioning why are we wearing masks outside? We're, we're drinking our drinks outside. I don't get this. And to ask that question. I wasn't a bad guy. Right. So I get that there must have been, you know, so many folks out there who just they were afraid to ask questions, and unfortunately, is impacted the livelihoods of so many folks. So let's go back. I know you haven't left there yet hog. But let's go to 2020. And talk about where this this entire series kind of started and what you've uncovered, as you've been digging through things that just truly have opened your eyes, that even while you're experiencing it firsthand, you just didn't realize to the depths and severity that was being caused and mayhem.

Hawk Jensen  8:38  
Yeah, well, it's a good question. I mean, I mean, to your point, it was interesting to really see panic set in all around us at the time, it was alarming to see how people's faculties of reasoning were just put on a shelf. And suddenly, whatever the chattering masses were saying everyone turned into, or sort of a regurgitation creature, they just sort of, they would regurgitate what they heard. It didn't matter if it didn't make sense. It didn't matter if it changed on a dime. I mean, back in the day when there wasn't I mean, mass don't have any effect. Now. Yes, mass do have in fact, there was a mobile LiDAR, oh, we gotta get people might as well tell a lie and tell everyone to do it. And then I was like, Okay, well, that doesn't mean they do have an effect. And they went back and forth and back and forth. Gosh, it's a big question. It's, I mean, one of the we have a pretty good array. We have a good cast for this. And we have Jay Bhattacharya. We have Dr. David Katz, from formerly of Yale who has a New York syndicated columnist. So we've been trying to have a nice broad array of scientists kind of coming from different directions and he's columns are in New York time. So we were trying to have something that was as apolitical as possible. We wanted to say well, what, what's going on? I mean, our our ability to ask questions are fun. A mental sort of core human quality of being curious, suddenly put us in some sort of like, suddenly anyone who was curious was some sort of dissident and now I'm very pro dissident, I'm very pro self expression. I'm a radical self expression as I have been for years. And I was like, Yeah, this is I mean, the ability to ask questions is what makes us human, and in fact, is the basis of science and the fact that, that even well regarded scientists like Jay Bhattacharya and who are raising the flag of like, hey, you know, policy isn't actually following the predominant science here why wait? Why don't we rethink our policies here? And and a the the type of responses that he was getting from the policymakers, but then the instantaneous of the news media, these are supposedly professional journalists who would just jump on and attack people to discredit them, which was shocking. All and then you had that sort of the mainstream level, and then all the way down to as you're saying, like you interact with people and, and they just would present compliance, this idea of like, I just want to know, I'm doing everything possible for the good of my community, which meant complying with whatever the latest issue of the day was. I mean, it was it. I mean, I like to think about the ventilator issue. Remember ventilators being the thing that was talking about I mean, Cuomo versus DeSantis, I've got spare spare ventilators all sudden, and you know, I've got spare, but it was all send them to you. And then Elon Musk was going to I'm going to wreak reconfigure everything to make ventilators. And then that lasted, I don't know, five, six weeks, and then no more. No one's ever gonna stop talking about it. Never discuss it again. It's, and there's reasons for it and and that's true of almost all those issues. As soon as it was no longer politically expedient for for compliance from the population, it would be dropped from the narrative. And if you've even asked about if you were just normally curious, somehow, you were to be an unperson. And, and cast out from society and that got worse and worse and worse for people's abilities. Like make earn a living got got harder and harder, essential versus non essential, and well, before the vaccines we get into the vaccine issue in later episodes. But it's uh, but, you know, we started off with the incredible economic devastation for people across the board. We have a woman, Angela Marsden, who has that was the pineapple, Pineapple Express Saloon in Los Angeles became famous with that her viral video. But then, you know, medical negligence, suddenly, every doctor or every every hospital is like, all they cared about with COVID-19 all other medical needs became secondary, and it was non issue and all of that. I mean, we're just starting to see that now today are starting to we've seen it, but it's getting worse and worse and worse, all this stuff that could have been avoided due to normal medical attention that got pushed aside by these by the essential medical workers. And then yeah, and then children's, I mean, this horrible horrible thing has been happening to children and the I mean, the huge amounts of suicide the huge amounts of drug addiction and, and incredible hardship, depression and loss of education and hundreds of 1000s of kids put into poverty and food insecurity all around the world, which is a great point that Jay Bhattacharya makes so it's it's been bad and our wanting to talk about and we wanted to establish that there were people who were questioning that at the time had a difference of opinion had well reasoned critical thought and subjective artistic intuition all pointing to something is wrong. I we did this

Brian Nichols  13:30  
episode me and Rob Hawk, I'm sorry butcher. This but this is this is like, golden is an example I did this episode April 17 2020, COVID 19 versus the economy could a crumbling economy cause more deaths than COVID-19 With economist Daniel J. Mitchell. Now, that episode I did. I got so much hate. I could not believe it. I mean, I had like, guys that were in my wedding. Basically like verbally disowning me because of this episode, like, Do you not care what you eat? Why aren't you listening to the experts? And I'm like, Dude, it's like this. This is part of the process is questioning the experts in that is science, not just this weird, arbitrary group think and let me ask you about this because you mentioned the Great Barrington declaration and Jay Bhattacharya was one of the folks who led the charge there. But they were the folks that in the medical industry or the the more I say the scientific community who stood up and they said no, this there are alternatives to what has been this groupthink approach to how to deal with COVID. And you mentioned the attempt to unperson people. It's insane, man, like I see it firsthand. You see it firsthand. We all have seen it. And yet it was it was just completely like yep. unperson Do it. And it scared me a little bit to see how quickly people that I thought were rational, like just logical people know, they were emotional beings who will turn on a dime, so long as they're felt afraid enough by the person on TV, who's making them feel more afraid than they're supposed to be?

Hawk Jensen  15:20  
Well, absolutely, I mean, there seems to be I think we can't underestimate how much I think it's a combination of a few things, I think, a the internet, the use of the Internet the last 20 years, and the way it rewired our brains, and you know, culminating in the smartphone, which we always have here, you know, as I think Elon Musk was the one where we're all essentially cyborgs. Now, I think there was a grand rewiring that occurred, that we can't, we're not quite sure, what is it what it's done, but it somehow really changed people's ability to, you know, use it or lose it if you're not using your critical thinking, if you so like, like with navigation, no one can read maps, no one actually knows where they're going. They have they don't actually have like, the conceptual understanding of like, yes, this map is a symbolic representation of where I'm going. And I have to sort of take that understanding and transpose it to my actual physical motion of getting from one place to another. It just became this thing that go left, go right, go straight. You know, Uber, get in, you guys get into the car, and it just take you somewhere and poof, you're there. It's effectively the same thing as a transporter somehow, that really, I think, comes in pretty major variable, where people just well, it's on the TV, and it's on the internet. And that's what I'm learning from and that's how I that how do I know what's going on? I think that aspect. You know, I'm very much anti, I mean, I was a big, I've made a lot of projects, trying to end the drug war and the decriminalization of marijuana. But I also think, you know, what are the things we don't talk about is the fact that marijuana is all over the country now. And it was gullibility that comes with chronic use, I'll just put it that way. I feel like it's something that could be talked about more, but I you know, but I think it's just an example of all these variables came together and everyone just fell for it. They just fell for it without any question or regard for clear and obvious discrepancies in the presentation. I mean, they will even if things flop even over the flip flop, they would just go with it. They just didn't it the fear was that great. And I mean, I worked I've done a lot a lot of work with dissidents, I'm most of my filmmaking work on my sort of freedom expression work, a lot of it was all sudden around dissidents. I myself basically a dissident at this point, I would imagine. And but it's, you know, the a dissident is nothing more than a free thinking individual freely expressing, regardless of the suppression that's coming their way. And that's, that's what authoritarian regimes fear. And that's, that was perfected by many authoritarian regimes, the former Soviet Union regimes, the current collectivist regimes, other style of regimes, you know, not necessarily a leftist ideology, but this idea of utilizing fear to control the mind to to take leave with your senses of your of your critical thinking, and basically do what you're told and comply. And watch happen. You know, I, I've actually been basically from day one, I had one, maybe one or two days, like, oh, there's this virus, it sounds kind of dangerous. But all everything happened around it, like, Oh, this is it. This is the great to rewire humanity. And we, I mean, we fast forward to say, I'm very optimistic. Personally, I have a great hope that the absurdity of everything we've been going through is so acute, that a whole new world of individuals are awakening. I mean, we were all in the quote unquote, Freedom Movement, and the liberty movement and whatnot. And we roll with people who already have a strong sense of individuality. But there are people in communities all around the world who aren't exposed to anything we do, or any of our ideas, who's who have watched what's happening. And they're like, something doesn't make sense. Yep. That little that that cog of critical of a thing, at least one click good enough, that's the activation. And they're like, this doesn't make sense. That's the awakening of the inner dissident. And I have a feeling myopic, and sort of optimistic view is that a huge grand new sort of enlightenment is is, is basically we're watching it happen. I feel that the mobsters and thugs who are in charge of what we're seeing, will eventually get pushed back. And we will and we'll see we'll see a new era of peace and prosperity and openness and discovery. Just kind of fast forward to how I feel about the world but, but we need good story. And we need good representation of what happened. So this this show this, this pilot episode of follow the science and lockdowns and liberty or sorry, that was the original working title. It was yeah, that was go viral. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  19:42  
I've caught myself like 10 times,

Hawk Jensen  19:44  
don't worry. Yeah. I mean, we it's a good retrospective. I mean, it walks us through sort of that whole experience of one thing at a time and Clifton Duncan, who was a Broadway actor, and was effectively forced out because he wouldn't comply. He's our he's our sort of our hero, sort of lead character. And he works with a fella named Nick Hudson, Nick Hudson, is our science communicator. And he, Clifton kind of asks the questions go through the process of trying to understand what happens. He's curious, he's curious what happens. And he's going through the process. So we sort of learned with him and go through the journey with Clifton. And one of the things I've noticed just, we do these test screenings, I'll show it to some people. And, you know, as a filmmaker, anything like this is a work of art. You just want to know if people think, Oh, is it good? Or is it working for you? Or, you know, do you like the coloring or whatever it's like, you're you want a little bit of feedback, just in terms of like it was working. Yet I get on with zero of that. Anyone watching this? They just immediately turned to me. And they just say, oh, yeah, I remember that time for me. This, I was thinking this, and I had these questions. And then this happened. And then that happened. And you see that everyone just boiling over, they don't realize that there was so much they want to say themselves. And they were too scared to do so. So what this project is doing is bringing that back to the surface and forcing that conversation in a good and healthy way, in the way that we should have had at the time of what happened, why it happened and need it didn't have to happen the way it did.

Brian Nichols  21:11  
I have a here on the screen. So February 22 is when the official premiere takes place. But you mentioned there's a sneak peek Yeah, to happening there on February 8 For some of the original donors. So if folks want to go ahead and get involved, though, with the the premiere here at the end of February Hawk, how do they go ahead and do that?

Hawk Jensen  21:29  
Yeah, so if you go to the website, follow the science series.com. We're having this wonderful, we're having a sneak peek preview, we'd love for people to join, we just ask for a small donation to get credentials. And I and I believe we're going to I believe this is we're in the middle negotiating this, but we're gonna be doing it with his great, we have a great streamer. We haven't signed the document. So we have a great streamer that's going to be doing it but they're gonna give like a one month free subscription as part of it. But really excited to show it give people an opportunity to give feedback we want we actually were given it as a as a test screening of sorts so that we can hone the process. We're excited to have people see, does it resonate with them? Does it does it represent their views? What more would they want to see? And yeah, and we're raising funds for the finishing project. It was an ambitious project, we went we shot high. And we've raised a significant amount of money, we're doing a little bit more fundraising to finish it proper, but really excited for our premiere in Florida in with Tom Woods, who was our one of our big supporters in the early days. And we'll be doing that in Orlando on February 22. But, but the sneak peek preview on February 8 that follow the science series.com. We'd love to have people join and be part of the audience and be part of the discussion and give us feedback and make it a better project and push back against tyranny.

Brian Nichols  22:41  
There we go. And this is something that I am personally invested in both because I've worked with you guys, but also because I live this and I think a lot of other folks out there who are listening are nodding in agreement right now saying yep, I you know, listen to the hawk go through that. Yep, I had my moments I had, you know, XYZ were questions popped up. And you weren't allowed to ask the questions. And if you were, you know, we maybe you were D platformed. Or you are unperson. So it is important for us to be able to have these conversations. Now, this is something we talked about with our good friend, Caleb Franz about the importance of writing history now. Because if we're not setting the record straight, you know darn certain that those who are experts, they're gonna go out of their way to try and make it a point that well, their narrative, they did the best they could that they were trying, you know, throughout the entire process to follow the science. No, no, no, we are going to show exactly how the actual science was ignored, it was not allowed to be discussed, and many times was completely censored. And using government means to censor to that's the part that I think a lot of folks aren't even paying attention to. But unfortunately, that's a conversation for a different day, because we're already hard pressed for time. So I know we already got a couple of the call to actions here. But what about if folks want to get Go ahead, continue the conversation with you? Where can they go ahead find you? And also where can they go ahead and support the amazing group that is a sound mind creative group as you guys are getting towards your final fundraising push?

Hawk Jensen  24:06  
Yeah, well, just going to follow the science series.com that takes you to there's a fundraiser page we just started our second our latest phase of fundraising. So there's a great place to give some dollars there. We can certainly use them and you know, we shot we sang for this. We we have swung for the fences with this. There's a there is a wonderful wry sense of humor. There are cartoons animations that are really amazing. We wanted to make sure we capture the imagination of young people who are grew grew up in this or still growing up in this and have that alternative perspective presented, codified evergreen for decades to come. We want this to be something that kids and adults and scientists want to watch again and again again to help hone that narrative. So yeah, please please be part of our sneak preview audience and go to follow the science series.com And consider giving a donation we appreciate the time and the support

Brian Nichols  25:00  
Absolutely. Well, Hawk thank you again for for joining the program. And folks, thank you for joining us because I know if you've made it this far in the program, well, you're invested and as you should be. So if you are as invested, as I know you are, we'll go ahead and give today's episode of shares, I guarantee you're going to find at least one other person in your friends list who is going to be just as invested, maybe even more than you were and then they'll share and then they'll share and then who knows, maybe we'll have millions of people who actually know the real science of what happened here during the past three years of COVID insanity. Also, with that being said, Go ahead, follow me on Twitter and Facebook at BT Nichols liberty, by the way, did you know we have a brand new free ebook that just came out if you want to either run for local election, for the first time run for reelection, whatever it may be our brand new ebook How to Win your local election, we'll show you everything you need to know to crush said election from forming your campaign team to voter outreach, messaging, fundraising, and more, head to the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash win local and grab your free copy today. Other than that, guys, I will go ahead and include right here over I guess here over here somewhere, our recent episode we had with Jen Jacobson, I want you guys to hear the story directly from the mouth of a business owner who they were facing the COVID-19 insanity. So go ahead, check that episode out. And by the way, if you are joining us here in the video version of the show, which I know 99% of you are listening to the audio version of the show, so head over to YouTube, Rumble or Odyssey do me a favor while you're there, hit the subscribe button and a little notification bell so you don't miss a single time we go live but with that being said, that's all we have for you. Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for aka Jensen. We'll see you tomorrow

Disembodied Voice of Matt Ultan, Vocal Artist Extraordinaire  26:43  
and then into The Brian Nichols Show. Find more episodes at the Brian Nichols show.com

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