Why are some respected alt-media embracing a police state?
Catte Black
It should be obvious by now to anyone that the covid19 pandemic, whatever its origins, is being used to fast forward a “new normal” world of unparalleled government power, surveillance and curtailment of individual liberty.
We are looking already at:
- Compulsory DNRs for some elderly.
- Biometric chips or bracelets to monitor whether or not you have permission to be outside your home or engage in work
- Drone surveillance as normal.
- Apps on your phone that can detect any breach of the self-isolation policy.
- Huge new police powers of arrest and detention for anyone suspected of carrying the virus.
- Suspension of elections for indefinite periods at government discretion
And this is only the starter course. We can be pretty sure they are currently just easing us in. The real stuff will be rolling along in the next months or maybe years (depending on how quickly they feel able to get this on)
This is the fabric of nightmare. A worst-case horror story that is the absolute quintessence of everything the alt-media is supposed to oppose.
Surely, you would think, any self-respecting alt-media person would be opposing this with everything they have while they still have a voice.
Well, some of us are of course. And we’re going to be posting links to other sites currently doing great work challenging this rollout.
But, weeks into this crisis, there are some very prominent voices still refusing to either question the official narrative of the pandemic or unequivocally condemn the fast dawn of the “new normal” Brave New World.
We’ve held off from confronting this for a while now. We figured people needed time to adjust or wake up to the reality of what was happening. It’s shocking after all, and deeply disorienting, and different individuals need different amounts of time to get their bearings when something that shakes their worldview comes along.
But adjustment time is long over by now.
Let’s also be clear, we’re not condemning people for simply disagreeing with us. We expect disagreement on some issues. It’s a source of strength for all of us.
But this is not about relatively minor differences of opinion or interpretation.
This is sophisticated analysts, with resources and experience, failing to condemn, and even supporting, what amounts to de facto international martial law.
This is Labour activists who mere weeks ago were calling Boris Johnson a murderer and psychopath, now cheering as he is handed total control of their lives and their children’s lives.
This is respected journalists, commentators and academics who loudly condemned the cynical lies about WMDs or ‘chemical attacks’ in Douma, the fake videos and fake White Helmets, suddenly and uncritically accepting the veracity of every government virus narrative, every unsourced video and media meme that has #covid19 as a hashtag.
This is people who have campaigned against the Patriot Act for 19 years, signing off on the new US anti-covid19 legislation without a murmur; who know that governments always abuse their powers, thinking they somehow just won’t abuse these.
This is people who know about Guantanamo and who have seen Julian Assange humiliated and abused, somehow thinking the people who did these things won’t use the new post-covid police state to do them even more.
This is something more than simple denial. It’s – what?
Are they simply paralysed with fear, either of the hyped-up virus, or the scary dystopia we are all suddenly inhabiting? Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Is it still possible some of them will wake up or unfreeze and see what is going on?
Are some of them gatekeepers, sleeper assets being activated in this extreme situation specifically to divert and delude the questioning and sceptical people who tend to follow them?
Well, I guess we can’t completely rule that out, can we, though I wouldn’t want to make that claim about anyone.
Are some just being self-serving and shallow, playing at being dissident while the price was low enough? Did they think writing a popular alt media blog was an easy way to be cool, but never had any intention of standing by any of it once it got a bit risky to do so?
I mean you are not gonna get that coveted slot on RT or Buzzfeed by taking on this major ‘new normal’ narrative are you? So that’s a factor potentially.
You can see the appeal of just sitting on the fence and talking in vague terms about how this fascism malarkey is a bit worrying, but stopping short of actually condemning it. That way you keep the option open to be ‘radical’ again once it looks safe enough to do so, but also don’t risk your comfy and lucrative relationship with the Establishment Left, who are all eagerly embracing the new age of mass incarceration and really want you to do the same.
Are some, as has been unkindly suggested, just too stupid to see what’s going on? Do epidemiology stats hurt their brains? Does thinking too much take up valuable psychobabble time? Is it hard to see the black clouds of tyranny rolling in when your head is too firmly planted in your own delightfully quirky posterior?
Or – we have to ask this – are a number of them simply, well, fascists? Do they actually support tyrannical top-down authoritarianism? Has their beef with the PTB merely been that they themselves are not currently high enough up that hierarchy? And do they see the covid19 rollout as some sort of revolution that will launch them and their chums into the positions of sweet supremacy they always knew they deserved?
Easy to preach permanent lockdown and biometric implant slavery when you figure none of it will apply to you and your family, I suppose.
All of these potential explanations may be the answer in some cases. And there could be a hundred other reasons besides.
But, in the end, do the explanations really matter? Do they change anything? Excuse anything?
The fact is these people stood at the barricades cheering and rallying the masses until the tanks could be seen rolling down the street – when they promptly upped and went over to join them.
Is there anything else to be said about that?
And where do we go from here?
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why is there more discussion from the british empire in this comment thread than from americans? this is moon of alabama, after all. and why have all of you removed the unanswered potential ill effects of 5G from the conversation? the potential ill effects of ignoring the need of a national discussion regarding the antics within the democratic party? the potential ill effects of the handling of this economic crisis. the potential ill effects of an upcoming unverifiable election of our next president. fraudulent elections of our congress and senate. treasonous actions within our judicial branch. talk of taking down the united states navy, after obama and clinton took down the united states army, to be replaced by the united states air force and the pentagon which are not working under the auspices of our national constitution?
An excellent artilce. Hang in there. We are going to need sites like this in the coming days.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/17/euro-a17.htm
This Trotskyist website seems to welcome lockdowns or at least rage against attempts to go back to work. No revolution in history was ever organised from a lockdown, people have to be able to move about with some degree of freedom. Political organisation and protest action except over the Internet (where it is particularly easy for the state to observe it) is impossible under lockdown. Of course maybe the WSWS does not actually want a revolution at any level other than paying lip service to it.
You ask why so many “progressive” and “alternative” commentators don’t go along with your position on the COVID-19 epidemic.
Have you considered they may be correct?
You write: “Do epidemiology stats hurt their brains?”
Try looking in the mirror on that one.
As an early critic of the official story of 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks, it OBVIOUSLY occurred to me – and many others – that this epidemic may have nefarious origins and be part of a nefarious plan. But there’s no conclusive evidence either way on that – and while interesting and important, there’s a sense in which it’s irrelevant. That’s because we’re not dealing with an atrocity that’s happening, finished and now should be properly investigated. We’re in the middle of a pandemic with the potential to cause death, worldwide, on a scale we haven’t experienced for many generations.
Off Guardian seems to wobble between outright denial that the pandemic is a serious health issue, obsessing about the civil liberties implications of remedial measures (a worthy and important subject, but scarcely an alternative policy) and obsessing about Bill Gates and the malign influence of Big Pharma and the elites you believe responsible for the crisis.
All very interesting for folk with time on their hands, but not the main game right now. The most pressing questions of the moment include: What to do about the pandemic? How to respond? How to get through the crisis and make a better world? You don’t seem to have answers to those questions – nothing more satisfactory, at any rate, than the ridiculous, ignorant buffoonery of Trump, Bolsonaro or Boris Johnson (back in February).
In February Australian policy was also all over the place. Our bogan Federal government seemed all set to follow the lead of the USA and Britain (we usually do). In this case, following UKUSA meant buggering around, big-noting our supposedly world-leading accomplishments and ignoring the tough but effective measures taken already by China and other east Asian countries that were clearly reducing the spread of this often-fatal disease, fast.
What happened next was a popular revolt. The Australian people – in unison with the medical community who would face the epidemic on the front lines – made its majority opinion clear via social media. We didn’t want to be the fly when the windscreen arrived, even though it still seemed a long way off. We demanded action.
By the time there was sufficient momentum for tough action, Australia’s COVID-19 rate of new recorded infections was growing ~10% per day (doubling ~ every week). Since the national lockdown, the rate of new infections is down to 1% per day. Our national debate is now shifting to whether we aim for full eradication or not. My preference is the former, but the issues aren’t black and white. There are arguments both ways.
Most important, however, Australia now has time to think. Time to see if effective cures can be developed – and properly trialled and evaluated. Time to contribute to scientific global efforts to better understand and combat the virus. Time to have an informed discussion about the next phase of national action – much easier now we’re not riding a roller coaster of new infections that’s out of control.
I love Britain and it grieves me very deeply to see the British people going through hell and still not seeing the other side of the flames. The stupidity and indecisiveness of the Tory Government is substantially to blame, but those in the community – such as you – who’ve downplayed the need for urgent remedial action to stem the spread of SARS-CoV-2 must accept your share of responsibility.
In the memorable words of Oliver Crowell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible
you may be mistaken.”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
Please read that and also what these experts say.
Hi Will. I have read tat article, some days ago.
Please make your point if you have a point to make.
the point I’d make is that this is a case of, to quote the article’ ‘hyped-up virus’. Another way to put it is that this is the first virus with its own PR machine
What to do about the pandemic? Fully isolate the vulnerable and let the virus pass through the rest of the population as quickly as possible. Herd immunity will then be achieved as quickly as possible and the vulnerable can then stop isolating. All the lockdowns are doing is kicking the can down the road. Unless you’re happy with the idea of on-off lockdowns until some dodgy, rushed vaccine can be discovered, the virus is going to go through the population whether we like it or not. Yes, people will die. People die every year from various causes. It is tragic but we don’t stop living our lives because of it.
Hi Chilcot. Thanks for your suggestion.
I’m reminded of the famous quip that opinions are like assholes; everyone has one.
In this case, I’m interested in the opinion of the authors of this website. They never seem to say how they’d cope wit this crisis and what the consequences would be in terms of human lives. In that regard, they remind me of various commentators working for the Murdoch media, at least in Australia, whose impatience to get everyone back to work is matched only by their reluctance to say how many lives they estimate will be lost if we follow their advice.
Have you thought about your own opinion and that your opinion may be wrong? Unless you are an expert in the field, and OG has quoted many, then why should your pleas for mass hysteria be seen as any different to those in the MSM?
We are in the computer age where individual treatment plans are possible and individuals can self isolate without too much trouble, yet the most vulnerable – those in nursing homes – are still in those homes and still dying, they are not self isolated and the rest of us who are not vulnerable are not helping them by self isolation. I could go on.
I don’t know whether we are allowed to post links to third party websites here, but maybe try reading this and educting yourself on the expert opinions that differ to your own? Just an idea.
I was trying to post this: https : // swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19 /
I’ve told you my opinion. What is yours? Lockdown until a vaccine is available? That might be acceptable to you, maybe less acceptable to other Australians. What if they refuse to obey? Harsh crackdowns? Martial law? How many lives would be lost as a direct result of that policy? Contrary to what the media might like us to believe, people do die from causes other than Coronavirus. Suicides will rise, drug abuse will rise, as will domestic abuse.
And what if a vaccine can’t actually be made, what then? Lockdown forever?
Or do you have some magic formula for when the lockdown can actually be lifted? If so I’d be interested to hear it.
Eradication of SARS-CoV-2 within Australia and New Zealand may well be possible and I believe that would be the ideal in the short term. If achieved, it would raise issues re returning to open travel with infected countries. But there should be no problem accepting visitors from countries that have also pursued eradication successfully. What we lose in tourists from Britain etc by forcing them into quarantine before letting them loose, we could probably gain in additional hassle-free tourism from China and other East Asian nations.
Longer term, while we can’t know the future, ttreatments for COVID-19 that take away its sting may well be developed, This is what’s happened wit AIDS in recent decades. More time will help establish which are the most efficacious treatments. Trump is another asshole with an opinion on this (and every other) topic. He picks his medicines by hunch – and broadcasts his ill-informed opinion to the entire world. But nations which are genuinely coping with the outbreak have the luxury of waiting until we have scientific results on which to base our decisions about the best treatments.
I’m sceptical that a safe and effective vaccine protecting against SARS-CoV-2 will be developed and successfully trialled any time soon, if at all. I get the impression coronaviruses are rather hard to tame with the somewhat crude medical practice of vaccination. There is still no vaccine for the common cold. But I could be wrong about that. Cargo Cultists are sometimes right. Occasionally ships do arrive, laden with nice things that work like magic..
Britain and the USA have far fewer options than Australia. Eradication may already be beyond their reach – especially given the very low quality of their national governments. Flattening the curve to reduce stress on the health system may be the best they can do. In practice, I imagine that will entail a partial lockdown lasting many, many months. In other words, a poor health outcome combined with a poor economic outcome.
Alternatively they could stop trying to control the disease, let it rip and accept the deaths of a few million people. This would be a major social trauma on a large scale but hey, most of the casualties will be over 55! On current form, the failed “leaders” of these two nations will pin the blame on scapegoats. China and the WHO are the current favourites. By the time this is over they may be blaming Mexicans. Islamic terrorists, Palestinians, socialists and environmentalists too. Anyone but themselves..
If we are talking about the UK, there is virtually no chance that deaths would be in the millions. Even Neil Ferguson’s original model (which has been criticized by many scientists) only predicted 500,000 deaths. He subsequently admitted that as many as half to two thirds of those 500,000 may have died anyway (poor health and/or old age). And that was with a “let it rip” strategy. Properly isolating the vulnerable would reduce that still further.
You also have to balance the lives lost due to the lockdown. These will be harder to quantify but they will, nevertheless, take place. Suicides will increase, as will drug abuse and domestic abuse. These effects will grow the longer the lockdown persists. This is not about lives vs money, it’s lives vs lives.
Yes, there could be millions of COVID deaths.. even in Britain – let alone the USA. There probably won’t be, because I suspect both nations will wobble indecisively between shut down measures and relaxation – over a period that could last many months, stretching into years.
These are the WHO stats for the UK yesterday (16th April 2020):
Now check the comparable stats for the UK exactly a month ago (16th March 2020):
It’s true the rate of new infections has been slowing in recent days, but it’s still running at ~5% new infections per day (doubling roughly every fortnight). Mortality is appallingly high – one of the worst ratios in the world. Sure, it isn’t exact – many factors make the mortality rate both an under and overestimate. Nursing home deaths are apparently not included in the stats Britain gives to the WHO – so it may turn out the UK’s mortality rate has been underestimated overall and even it’s higher than 13%!
Anyhow who lives in Britain and is blasé about this is very foolish. The idiotic PM, who actually bragged about shaking the hands of COVID-19 patients before his stint in hospital, set the national standard. This website is in the same league, its puerile obsession with a few demonised personalities (most notably Bill Gates) drowns out rational analysis of the dire predicament we all face. For Off Guardian to publish this article, sneering at other “alternative” websites that ARE giving the subject of COVID-19 careful and rational consideration, is the height of cheek.
You can’t publish these stats and ignore the grossly manipulated way they are collated. The new laws are making it virtually certain that a high proportion of all cause mortalities will be designated either WITH or OF covid19, even if there was no positive PCR test, and even if there was a positive PCR, absent any symptoms, and the decedent died of some other cause.
This makes a near nonsense of all recent stats.
Hi Admin1
I surely can cite stats from the World Health Organisation. They are published daily and represent the most authoritative data on COVID-19 that we have at a global level. Of course, they’re subject to ongoing refinement and even very occasional retrospective correction (that just happened with Wuhan’s mortality data).
If you want to say you don’t believe these stats, how inaccurate do you think they are? If the alleged inaccuracy is small (say 10%-20%) it makes little difference to my overall argument. As I mentioned, the likelihood is they actually underestimate COVID-19 mortality because in the case of the British WHO stats in particular, the stats relate only to hospital deaths; nursing home deaths and deaths at home don’t get recorded as COVID-19 fatalities.
Anyhow, may I infer from your response that your main issue is disbelief in the official statistics? Do you accept that if the WHO stats are even approximately accurate, the situation in Britain is dire – and that urgent action to reduce the rate of new infection is indeed necessary? That would narrow down the area of disagreement to the veracity of official statistics and provide the basis for future agreement. Or are you so committed to your stance that the COVID-19 crisis has been over-hyped that you’re looking for any argument, however, implausible, to prop up your preconceived position?
Syd, may I suggest you check out our various other pieces, all this has been covered before.
To quickly get you up to speed, new infection statistics are more or less meaningless since they are only testing hospitals and other hot seats of infections. These places are not representative of overall population. As has been pointed out by experts featured in previous pieces, what is required are tests of representational populations, like they conducted in Iceland (which gave a very different picture of this virus).
Here’s a piece about death statistics, to get you going on that.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/05/covid19-death-figures-a-substantial-over-estimate/
Thanks, A2
“new infection statistics are more or less meaningless since they are only testing hospitals and other hot seats of infections. ”
Yes. In that regard, casualty figures based almost entirely on hospital data are significant UNDERESTIMATES of the true total.
“what is required are tests of representational populations”
Correct. It’s one of the prerequisites of an adequate response plan. That info would be a big help.
Iceland? It is indeed something of a model although there are a still a trickle of new infections as of now. But testing is only part of the reasons they give for their success. Other measures which countries such as Britain haven’t done methodically or for as long were also crucial. See this article (a little dated, but the best I could find in English in a quick search).
Britain has a muc larger population than Iceland, of course. Controlling an epidemic is harder. On the other hand, it is also an island and there’s really no excuse for mortality rates much higher than Germany. Face it – your government has been lacklustre, slow to act and not even pushed along by a population demanding action. Part of the reason for that is voices such as yours sneering at (a) the very existence of a crisis and (b) social distancing measures that have been shown to be highly effective in controlling spread.
To some extent, we get the governments we deserve. Maybe you deserve Boris Johnson and the Brexit First brigade? I’m sad because a lot of the people I love will suffer and many will die because of Britain’s collective folly.
Rather than extending this thread until it disappears into the right hand margin, How about revisiting this dispute on May 16th?
I cited the official WHO stats for Britain for March 16th and April 16th in a post above. Let’s see how things look from the vantage point of the next month.
I’ve followed “alternative media” for decades, and I’ve seen a lot of sites come and go. Some remain. I can forgive sites that gets things wrong. We all do that. It’s a confusing complex world and making sense of it all isn’t easy.
What I don’t appreciate is when sites (or individual journalists) shift positions dramatically without acknowledging the shift. Even worse, for me, is when journalists and their media are unwilling to admit error even when its become embarrassingly obvious. That’s just plain bloody minded.
If it becomes apparent the COVID-19 crisis IS much more serious than you’ve argued, it’ll be to your credit if you admit that ti your readers.
I think there are several misconceptions in your reasoning. Firstly, new infections per day is absolutely meaningless unless you account for how many are actually tested each day. If you test 20,000 on one day and 200,000 the next one you will undoubtedly find far more cases the second day but it does not mean they are all new infections. It is well known that the UK has been deficient in testing compared to other nations and the testing is being ramped up. A better measure would be the percentage of tests that gave a positive result.
Secondly the mortality rate you quote is only for confirmed cases. I don’t know what the situation is in Australia but, in the UK, since testing is so limited only the most serious cases are actually being tested. If you only test among the cases that are serious enough to be hospitalized then you have a massive sampling error. Most cases of Covid-19 are either mild or completely symptomless. The exact number asymptomatic cases is still one of the big unknowns about this disease but you could probably divide your mortality rate of 13% by anything from 10 to 200 to give a better indication of the actual mortality rate.
In addition, Syd, to your important observations here, let’s ask “What If?”:
What if the viral infection does not generate antibodies in significant enough number to confer individual immunity let alone herd immunity?
What if the antibodies it does provoke do not protect against the virus (if it is a virus!)?
What if we spread an illness that will end up killing people because we refused to confine ourselves to our apartments and homes?
What if some fool refuses to wear a mask in a congested place like a NYC subway car or supermarket and ends up coughing out pathogens on people at risk. (That designation, really is MOST people, as we all have so-called underlying conditions and have to breathe in environmental toxins or consume them (like Glyphosate) in our foods and water?). Why is it asking too much to wear a fucking mask in public and save other peoples’ lives?
I agree that the CIA et al. are using this pandemic — as they do with everything — to manipulate, control, repress, and those must be resisted. But …. here’s another What If:
What if it was not predominantly Black people and Latino/a in the U.S. who were dying in great numbers of this disease? Would white people worry a bit less about temporary impositions to their holy right to congregate and spread pathogens to each other (and from there to everyone else you come into contact with) ?
I’d wear a condom during intercourse even though I thought their HIV assertions were wrong, to protect my lover just in case I was wrong. Is temporarily wearing a mask such an incredibly intrusive violation of someone’s sacred right?
Perhaps Catte could develop more the specific horrors she sees actually coming down — such as mandatory vaccinations with Bill Gates’s add-on of microchips (I’m with you there, and have written a good deal about that). Here in New York, we’re trying to stop the spread of the illness (and yes, I think that 5G and Wi-Fi in general have something to do with breaking up the hemoglobin/iron pick-up of Oxygen molecules, resulting in oxygen starvation throughout the body) and will get around to opposing the government and pharmaceutical industry’s crackdown when we’re able to shake off the dust and see if there are enough of us still alive in the months to come to take them on.
I can’t believe I’m reading this even though written almost 6 months ago!
Gee Sid, you really are sound asleep eh? You are exactly the type of mysterious, (either seriously naive or, just untrustworthy and treacherous) person, hosting some of those Alt-media sites, which this article targets.
Put your hideous, dehumanizing enslavement facemask on and f*#% off. You’re clearly a brainwashed and brain-dead fool and have nothing helpful; to contribute to any discourse relating to the most fundamental God-given right of freedom and human rights bestowed on every living human being since the beginning of time. Those core human rights are clearly being rapidly and permanently erased under the guise of what is clearly a just ruse, about an alleged viral pathogen, purported to be the most ‘deadly’ pandemic in history, spreading and infecting the entire global population; yet you obviously don’t think such basic rights are important. Not even your own right to freedom, which is clearly being trampled into the ground right now, by the jack-boot of your authoritarian, LYING and treasonous government, who is in lockstep with the UN and their appalling totalitarian NWO agenda of total control and enslavement of the entire human population.
The most atrocious agenda ever dreamed up, let alone unleashed, that will control everything you and your loved ones and your descendants will be allowed, or not allowed to do. Including basic rights such as whether or not you will be allowed to be a member of society, or even the right to be alive, for the rest of your miserable lives; if you allow it to proceed unchallenged.
For God’s sake man, WAKE THE F*#% UP!
Anyone with half a brain cell recognises astroturfing.
Hey NWO troll, bugger off
“how to get through the crisis and create a better world”
Interesting how you connect the crisis and a supposedly better world. It doesn’t seem a logical connection. Would this be a carbon-neutral world perchance?
Do you subscribe to the view that the Earth has become sentient and chosen to punish humanity with a virus?
Great quote. But Why aren’t you asking yourself that same question?
I can’t believe I’m reading this even though written almost 6 months ago!
Gee Sid, you really are sound asleep eh? You are exactly the type of mysterious, (either seriously naive or, just untrustworthy and treacherous) person, hosting some of those Alt-media sites, which this article targets.
Put your hideous, dehumanizing enslavement facemask on and f*#% off. You’re clearly a brainwashed and brain-dead fool and have nothing helpful; to contribute to any discourse relating to the most fundamental God-given right of freedom and human rights bestowed on every living human being since the beginning of time. Those core human rights are clearly being rapidly and permanently erased under the guise of what is clearly, nothing more than a ruse complete with a very convincing hysterical propaganda campaign, about an alleged viral pathogen, purported to be the most ‘deadly’ pandemic in history; spreading and infecting the entire global population. Yet you obviously don’t think such basic rights are even important. Not even your own right to freedom, which is clearly being trampled into the ground right now, by the jack-boot of your humanity loathing authoritarian, LYING and treasonous government, who is in lockstep with the UN and their appalling totalitarian NWO agenda of total control and enslavement of the entire human population. It’s called the ‘2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’ and has been planned since 1970 under the original title of ‘Agenda 21’. You can see it all on the UN’s website. Also on the Davos WEF website, where you’ll also find all the nice and friendly sweetly worded, but sinister details about the pre-planned and society resetting Covid-19 pandemic. (BTW: been up since 2017).
This is the most atrocious agenda and scam ever dreamed up, let alone unleashed. It will allow the globalist Malthusians of the deep state to control everything you and your loved ones and your descendants will be allowed, or not allowed to do. Including basic rights such as whether or not you will be allowed to be a member of society, or even the right to be alive, for the rest of your miserable lives; if you allow it to proceed unchallenged.
For God’s sake Sid, WAKE THE F*#% UP!
Caitlin Johnstone is the worst for me. That phoney ‘I’m just an Oz girl calling it like I see it’ persona looks pretty broken now. She’s spent this crisis hedging her bets and trying to stay in with the likes of Aaron Mate, talking about how sometimes we might need fascism, while keeping her options open to become anti-establishment again when it looks safe. She’s being funded and managed, even if she isn’t bright enough to realise it.
Fuck you talkin’ bout! She the bomb and you some nobody.
Who are these respected Alt-Media sites you refer to? If your speaking about, Rense, Breitbart, Zero-hedge or the like then they never had any respect to begin with and the fact they have gone full blown msm fear porn and build a narrative with anecdotal evidense should surprise no one that hasn’t been living under the Criminal Elites Propaganda spell. Do people really need confirmation bias in order to know whats right?
Conspiracy theory: Was Boris on Easter break or was he really in hospital? We need to know.
Aspnaz in hospital not ill but on an easter break!
Moon of Alabama has just gone bizarre, questioning nothing and behaving like a sheep dog. Today the blogger even admits to deleting a comment from someone who argued against wearing masks. Plenty of respectable scientists argue against wearing masks, usually because there is no evidence that they make a difference, even from trials. Isn’t alt media suppsed to question everything? For me, one of the main reasons for not wearing a mask is to show the world that you don’t buy into the mass hysteria.
Why would you care weather a mask works when all you want to do is to catch the virus and get it over with. Yes, yes, you can catch it multiple times, it will be here forever blah blah, I don’t believe that either. With such rubbish tests being used to detect the virus, I am not believing anything about this until we see the end game.
Moon of Alabama is also doing fear porn, posting lies on the site to pretend that overall death rates are going through the roof, but they just don’t, we have been there already with Korea, Italy etc, the overall death rates (all causes of death) do not go through the roof.
The only thing I know for sure is that the people will either rise up and stop this in the next couple of weeks or we will never be going on holiday again, seeing our children again, seeing our friends again without getting the government’s permission and paying for it.
I think we should respect the fears other people have. Regardless if the fear is justified or not. When someone thinks that masks are important, then it is understandable that comments that advise the contrary get deleted.
B is just doing his best, he is afraid himself. Fear is human. When you are one of those who are not afraid, then be happy. I am happy, but I regret others are not happy.
If the MoA blogger is afraid, which I very much doubt, he is not going to help himself by getting others to join his hysteria. MoA then becomes a lunatic asylum: it is not far off.
it does not help, I agree. But I understand that older people are simply afraid of dying of a ‘killer virus’.
there’s the choice between safety and truth. To follow the path of safety will never lead to truth. To follow the path of truth will never be save. The path of truth is determined by trust. To build trust is twofold: either by a belief system which you can pray to, or by knowledge or true science.
Well, seems that I am banned from MoA (most of my comments get deleted anyway). ISomeone ‘Pft’ posted some fascination material re Mikovits. By the time I read it and refreshing .. and it’s gone!
Mikovits-the science
[lots of unsourced bullshit deleted.
Ptf – if you want to continue commenting here please do so with facts, not with obvious nonsense – b.]
Posted by: Pft | May 9 2020 7:41 utc | 112
Wow! – It was a pretty fascinating post. Unattributed (if not written by Pft whoever he is) – but anyway, who the fuck would want to continue commenting on Moon of Alabama now that it has degenerated to this little fascist propaganda blog.
No dissent allowed. Bernhard bullshit only (sourced or unsourced – but bullshit nevertheless).
It was at one time a good site but I have not been visiting it regularly this year for the reasons you state: no difference of opinion is allowed, dissent is deleted rather than to encourage more interesting comments, opinions and occasionally good links to other sites. Like we have here.
Added to which of course, since Stooge Starmer became Leader of the Labour Party – he has not mounted an iota of opposition, demanded an urgent recall of Parliament, challenged the Government on the Bill and has not even expressed any concerns about it. This Government must be delighted: No opposition from the Leader of the Opposition, No MSM challenge (with the exception of sites like this), the over willingness to comply by the Sheeples. What is deeply concerning is the way the Police are seriously misusing their powers in some areas of the country. You are right, there is something really sinister to this especially as the Government’s figures are totally unreliable and suspect considering they are not testing.
In the MSM investigative journalism is a thing of the past now. Nobody wants to be the voice of dissent except Peter Hitchens who is leading an admirable charge. John Irving the Author said in his book “My Movie Business” that, in effect, there is massive collusion in the MSM so, if one gives your book a bad review they all follow suit. Not only that, but they quote from the negative review clearly never having read the book themselves. This Lock Down is a massive Big Brother exercise to rid ourselves of the cumbersome elderly population which, as the NHS say, is such a burden on their resources, to track civilians to impose Big Brother style surveillance.
I have revisited the Government’s TV campaign “Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives”. Well, it says it all really. Save Lives is the emotional blackmail – if you don’t do as we say, people will die. Yet, the group of citizens, the 75yrs+ with two or more co-morbid conditions which constitute the majority of the deaths, the NHS is refusing to admit them to hospital and Residential Homes are reporting that GPs have stopped visiting elderly people in their homes and others say GPs are also refusing to do home visits when required. Saving Lives? I don’t think so. They are just absolving the NHS of doing their jobs which is to treat people at the point they need it. Heroes? Never. Euthanasia and Eugenics outfit? Yes.
Put this in the context of the fact that the majority of hospital in the UK are virtually empty and the Nightingale has only 3 patients in it, something with the Government data is seriously corrupt. I also note that yesterday, Matt Hancock said the Government were no longer going to buy the ventilators on the basis that “the treatment of Covid 19 is more complex” – since when? It’s not what the rest of the world is saying. This is doublespeak for “We don’t have a CV-19 crisis so we aren’t going to spend the money”. I would like to see a campaign of mass, peaceful, disobedience which I would join if there were one. The Lock Down has just been extended for a further three weeks.
Dangerous times indeed.
As to the ventilators, more and more medical experts are saying that ventilators are doing more harm than good ! There are a few articles saying the rate of death is higher for those on ventilators than for those treated with alternatives. Part of this is due to the fact that ventilators actually weaken and damage the lungs !!
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-some-doctors-are-moving-away-ventilators-virus-patients-n1179986
https://www.livescience.com/too-much-ventilator-use-for-covid19-coronavirus-patients.html
Hi Marvin, thanks for these articles, they are very interesting in the current climate.
Stooge Starmer, indeed. Tried to play up his left-wing protesting youth while campaigning to be leader, but when you’ve got a knighthood and 5 mil in the bank or property, and are on the greasy ladder, you aren’t going to risk it with too much protesting, and he won’t.
Instead, he’s concentrating on covering up as much as possible the revelations in the leaked Labour Party report, which show what we all suspected was going on, that a concerted anti-Corbyn campaign was going on directed from the very heart of the Labour Party itself.
No wonder Tom Watson jumped ship, like the rat he is.
Check out Chris Williamson’s Twitter feed, where you may hopefully find a link to the report that is still working. I notice now that (surprise surprise) Sir Blair Starmer’s first priority is to find the whistleblowers, and not punish those who have been exposed.
https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW
Hi Mike, Thanks. You know, they always tend to blame the ‘left’ of the Party don’t they when this clearly shows it’s the Right that not only interfered to block Labour winning the General Election at a time when the Country badly needed the Labour Party Manifesto and Corbyn as Leader but wow, the hatred towards some to the Left such as Diane Abbot is extraordinary – the bullying, racisim, sexism is beyond belief. You are right though, Stoogie seems to be intent on going after the whistleblowers rather than the actors who sought to bring down Labour at the General Election. However, the report was properly commissioned given the gravity of the conduct described and interference in electioneering. Richard Burgeon, a brilliant Labour MP and part of the Socialist Labour Group, in a tweet, summed up exactly what action should be taken. I am not on twitter but I picked it up at The Canary. BTW even the Torygraph gave Richard Burgeon a really good write up following his being ousted as Shadow Justice Secretary. Now that says something. Oh for Rebecca Long-Bailey to be Leader of the Opposition.
Beautiful write….i do believe..it is All of the above…i do know some crossed over because they thought the Other side had better cookies..they expect to be rewarded..they will be sadly disappointed..& deservedly so….others..crossed out of fear, turned chickenshit when the going got crazy…& some have always been fakes, little yesmen for the feds..thinking a betrayal would demoralize us into submission..
I believe that China is handing quite a lot of money to alt media to represent their point of view in a way that they see as fair. I do not have a problem with that as I would do the same if I were making that decision. However, my perspective is that any political party that kills their people to get into power, ie the CCP, do not understand “fair” and should not be trusted to behave in a way that is “fair”.
You ‘believe’ that, do you? Any evidence? As for homicidal political parties, I give you the US Democrats (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria etc )and the Republicans, (Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan etc).
CCP killed tens of millions of their own people to get into power, killed tens of millions of their own people to stay in power, they are now killing foreigners with their virus.
Don’t be silly, racist and fact-free.
The US Deocrats are fair game but not the CCP? Is that fair?
The COVID-19 narrative originates from Main Stream Media (MSM) and the MO is tried and true fear mongering, the twisting of facts and mis/disinformation. The order to look over there, not here, or look over here not there.
Make up a sinister new name, COVID-19 (it’s SARS CoV 2, a mutation of SARS CoV 1, we know what it is) make it an unknown, incurable disease. Warn people they will die. And report it globally day and night, in every organ they own, nonstop. For those who think it may not be as bad as MSM tells them it is, add state force.
The mass response to COVID-19 is irrational fear, based on what they conveniently read, live streamed on their conveniently programmed cell phones. Tuned in and dropped in.
Humans respond to irrational fear like deer in headlights, paralyzed and froze in place. Stay at home orders become easy and comfortable.
Humans respond to rational fear by taking flight or fight.
But what happens when those of us who are rational are prevented by force from doing either?
Jennifer, added to which of course, Parliament has been suspended. Think back to when Parliament was successful in setting back a No Deal Brexit. What did Bozo say? He said he was going to make changes to Parliament so that sort of thing could not happen again. Well, here’s the start of it. Parliament’s job is to hold the Executive to account. No Parliament. No Accountability. Cue, now’s the time to bring in those changes to start the eradication of democracy. Starmer isn’t a fit Leader of the Opposition – I believe Jeremy Corbyn would have been demanding the urgent recall of Parliament and an urgent review of the Coronavirus Bill. Starmer? Still blathering on about ‘correcting mistakes’ – like all but martial law is a mistake?
Hungary have gone one step further and essentially turned their country into a dictatorship !! They have indefinitely suspended all elections and have granted more powers to the President !
Marvin, Orban, since in power, has implemented Fascist policies and also, just like his mentor A***f H*****r, he has put in place policies against ethnic minorities and immigrants. It doesn’t surprise me that he has used this to become a Fascist Dictator. He is, of course, one of Bozo’s close circle of international politicians. Be afraid, be very afraid!
We should be seeing this as a test of the people, not of our leaders. Will the people fail the test or will they be spurred into action and rise to and overwhelm the challenge? I don’t want to pre-judge because things can change so quickly, but we will discover in the comming weeks.
As Bob(?) has already suggested, we should all be writing to our MPs demanding a recall.
It should not be beyond the wit of the relevant authorities to organise testing of all MPs, and get them driven from their homes to Parliament (using tested drivers), and of course test the essential staff needed to run the place (but they should keep the bars closed!).
Not that the tests mean much, but having the test there would mean they had no excuse not to do it.
Heh, heh… “The mass response to COVID-19 is irrational fear, based on what they conveniently read, live streamed on their conveniently programmed cell phones. Tuned in and dropped in.”
Deciphered definition of “COVID-19”: Covert-video-#19…
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” ― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Controlled Opposition in the Truth Movement
https://www.natureofhealing.org/controlled-opposition-truth-movement/
People have a lot of stuff to worry about and deal with at the moment. Give them some time to sort out what the hell is going on and figure out where they stand. The genuinely anti-authoritarian will come around, and those who were never anti-authoritarian in the first place will likewise reveal themselves.
It’s guaranteed that this pandemic will be used by governments, corporations, financial institutions and establishment connected people and entities to consolidate power and put into play civil liberties reducing agenda they have been waiting to unleash.
But not all of them will be overt. Many, likely most of them, will be more subtle.
Repression and social control in the west has to date been done mainly indirectly and using psychological mind fuckery. It will be done via PATRIOT ACT type bills, social media censorship and algorithmic tweaking, media propaganda as social control, opt in smart phone surveillance and tracking apps “for your safety and security” that will gradually be integrated into the OS…etc.
They will probably hold off on rolling out permanent Gestapo-like overt police state apparatuses, at least until Yellow Vest type protest movements become ubiquitous.
Of course I could be wrong about this. We shall soon find out what surprises are in store for us. At any rate, how this will all play out is far from clear yet and jumping the gun and going full throttle with the finger pointing condemnations and shrill hysteria, before people have even had a chance to process the emerging new reality, isn’t going to change anyone’s mind.
…Time..is something we don’t have…this very scenario has been broadcast Far & Wide for Decades by those who could See it Coming….Seriously Look at them..the Rollout is Rapid…& Time is the First thing we are loosing….
Step back and analyze what you just said. Fear and panic, of course there is always time. They call it history and it ebbs and flows. In the end we will chose freedom.
I’m still shocked at how easy it was Presstitute Corps to brainwash the exceptional American & EU electorate for decades. I call it a dangerous naiveté that will eventually come back to bite them in the as$. It just boggles the mind.
Now, if only I could get the fcuk off this insane planet before the sh!t hits the fan. 🤔
Where are you, Starship Enterprise?
Beam me the fcuk up! This place is about to blow. 👀
^^^ I meant “how easy it was for the Presstitute Corps to…”
Police Interactions with SEPTA Riders During COVID-19
“Two videos circulating Friday morning give a glimpse into the disturbing reality faced by transit riders in Philadelphia. In one, a man who appears to be a SEPTA supervisor orders riders off a bus, some with face coverings, stating “if you don’t have a mask you cannot ride public transportation.” In another, no less than seven Philadelphia police officers are shown dragging a transit rider off a bus, apparently for not wearing a face mask.”
Enjoy the police state.
“Why are some respected alt-media embracing a police state?”
The answer to all Federalized fear mongering and associated press panic can be found here: >
Excerpted from: Representativeness heuristic – Wikipedia
“The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty.[1] It is one of a group of heuristics (simple rules governing judgment or decision-making) proposed by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the early 1970s. Heuristics are described as “judgmental shortcuts that generally get us where we need to go – and quickly – but at the cost of occasionally sending us off course.”[2] Heuristics are useful because they use effort-reduction and simplification in decision-making.[3] “
Complete text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristic
I down voted for referencing Wikipedia.
Hello Jay Khaye: Well… People have been hoodwinked into rejecting the veracity or accuracy of Wikipedia for many years. I often use Wikipedia as a reference. The site is easily accessible to most web-browsers, and the references sections often lead to more insightful – related information.
I appreciate your reasons for a down vote…
Stats on INSEE website, showing the cumulative number of deaths in France from 1st March until 30th March, for this year and two previous years
2020 – 57,441
2019 – 52,011
2018 – 58,641
So not as high as 2018. As France is a couple of weeks further on into this pandemic, I believe that the ONS will show something like this tomorrow, when they release the figures for week ending 4th April. 2020 will move up the list on average, for latest 6 years (2015-2020) – but still won’t get to 2015 or 2018 levels.
Click for INSEE page link
The ONS figures are out – https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020
They do show a spike in overall deaths and higher than the 5 year average. I am certain that many could however be attributed to fear and anxiety. People are also avoiding hospital for fear of catching the ‘virus’ and then may die from something that otherwise could have been avoided.
To be honest, the U K figures are out of synch with the rest of the world. I for one take them with a pinch of salt considering we are not testing, considering the Government has just cancelled the order for ventilators, considering they are classifying all deaths as Covid 19 even when it has been heart failure, stroke, kidney failure etc. This Government are, quite frankly, making it up as they go along. Also, a large majority of hospitals in the UK are largely empty. The cancellation of the ventilator order should demonstrate that the crisis or number of seriously ill is not as reported by the Government when the empty hospitals are factored in – we are being told a pack of lies.
Remember the ONS will also be recording some deaths twice due to the way the records and stats are recorded. It was mentioned on this site a while back. Then as Jo says below – not all deaths recorded as corvid deaths – are corvid deaths ! A person local to me put up a death certificate of a corvid fatality. The person entered hospital on the 5th April, had a positive test back on the 7th April and then died on the 8th April. That was a rapid death considering people with Corvid tend to be ill for a week or two at least. On the death certificate the first primary cause of death was put down as Corvid 19. The mitigating circumstance mentioned after – was asthma !!
I find it odd that Corvid-19 was put down as the primary cause when Doctors have said it is the Pneumonia you can get from it that is the killer !!
How many did they murder in nursing homes to get to that total would be my question.
What would Jesus do.
Weep.
comfort
He certainly would not let the panic and hysteria to cause fear.
Why are some quiescent of accepting of any tyranny that is couched in terms that to counter is to attract vilification, loss of carer and reputation and etc? There is a mindtrap along with the underlying threat – in which a virtue signalling identity has to be released – or allowed to run a blind eye.
The establishing of no go areas that cant be openly questioned without penalty is the imposition of officially and socially accepted narrative, that to question is to be excluded.
The reconsolidating of an officially enforced reality by denial and exclusion is like a rising flood in which survival seeks higher ground. I can have my own choice, but it may result in an indefinite house arrest without permission to access food, goods and services. Or I may be overridden chipped or vaxxed and killed while alive. Freedom is not at the body level – but ways to say NO to a lack of integrity are the expression and reinforcement OF an integrity. I don’t assign integrity to persons as to wholeness of being. Much of what is passed off is the wish to be seen as if we had it. This operates against addressing a disintegrity that has been uncovered within us but which is associated with our social support, financial security and personal survival.
I note that the ‘devil’s pact’ operates to keep fear’s conflict hidden in exchange for a role in the world of escape, overcoming or mitigation. But that when that breaks down, the fear cast outside grows like barbarians at the gates – while rising up from within as every kind of corruption – within which a conviction in guilt denies all possibility or even conceivability that all could be from mistaken identity – and thus correctable.
A mind trap is a lock-in made by thought given power. Any attempt to fight it, feeds it. But to open the whole thing to question is to invite perspective from a prior innocence of being – before time out of mind. But closer than distance. ‘Use it or lose it’ also applies to discarded qualities of intuition and curiosity.
Hummf.
Finaly someone with an clear vission and an good article, I liked it, and it covers almost everything.
I have for years warned people about sides and sites, its not befor something really majore happens they are forced or told to keep the line regarding following the official propaganda and I dont bother to name or shame them but most of the sites are run by either the Americans or people from or conected to the tribe, becaus thats why they are stil there, and most of them are controlled oposition, aka the 50 shades of gray, but as before I have some few lines, on of them is Palestina, to day, Corona and that one stil rules, then we have a lott of other stuff, like science to history, and I never claim to know everything, that is something of chasing an rainbows end in an reality where everything is more or less distorted and to find what happened isnt easy, because of the level of noice, and my last battlefield is consciousness, our alpha and omega, our own mind.
Humans have one formidable enemy, our own mind, and I use the warrior analogy since that is the oldest one, and that enemy is keept alive and kicking by what I know is the Inner dialouge, and that one is something most dont want to even admitt they have, that one is what we “program” our self with, and if we are not taking that monlouge serious and makes them self aware of that InnD you will sucumb to the propaganda and society at large and you will slowly eradicate your own genuine voice ( the problem with buddism, is when you reach the inner silence, you have just taken the first stepp, its what comes next that I have gone thru, but the obstacles are again formidable but that is another story, witch I just tuched with the InnD ), and some people claims this and that about sophisticated techs to brainwash us, its not, its just an constand hammering because eventually we all are affected by it, even I, but I am old enough to never take anything for granted untill I am certain, by the law of trust, but verify, if verifying is not easy, or riddleled with inconsitencys, I then know we are not given the entire story/event, and then I simply dont trust it, because you cant verify anything, videos to day is easy to fake, images was faked the day after they invented the camra obscure, and so on, but to the enemy, Internal Dialouge, never forget this, its that what makes propaganda so valuable for the people in charge, and after years of propaganda its hard to differentiate truth from lies, because the level of lies in so wast, all enmcompasing, from criddle to the grave.
This epidemic is not by it self an hoax, the truth is, this is the first time I can remeber the entire MSM jumped on this band wagon and have screamed constantly for months, bombarded with storys and of course some are genuine tragedies, but the level is stil within whats been normal for as long I can remeber, all this Flu pandemics are an part of our reality, and will be that into the future, but what differentiate this one is the sky high level of articles of it, when the last years they didnt wrote anything but this time its wall to wall coverage and people belive, that buggs me, and the masses never reflects upon that, is just curious how is it even possible, because people are distracted to such an extent they are becomed blind and deaf, and I know this time its become much more serious, not the virus but the propaganda, and this is just begunn, I know we are heading in for something much worse, an dystopian dickensian reality where conformity will be the new age religion.
I simply dont trust anyone anymore, I whom have been in this gamefor years are backing out, this is my last arena because I know we are loosing, and I on top of it, is just anoyed of the blindedness of people in general, and forget facts, its about emotions, reactions, and consensusses, truth and fact are just become obstacles not just for the MSM but the comon man, whoms reality have narrowed down to an key hole, and this what comes will change everything, we are indeed going down, I dont mean to scare you, if you are not already scared, you are doomed, and right now I do what I can to keep the people around me not from going nutts, and guard them, since the sites where we can counter the propaganda is dwindling I know we are loosing, and the truth is, nothing will happen untill everybody sees the same, and ther familys are dying our of starvation or been medicated to be zomies, and the rest of us whom refuses to be vaccinated will be keept in gages, and that to an thundering apluse of the comon man, because then we are the enemy, and that, is not an conspiracy tale, its becoming an fact, no matter what we give them of facts or counter opinions, when we are up against the MSM, the one whom setts the premisses for everything gone wrong, from wars to economic calmatys.
The solution, is revolution, divided we dont stand an chanse, united we will change, enerything.
Love life and take care.
I skipped a lot, since this time its about something fundamental, our mind, the rest about the Virus and what it is I have written and comented upon since it arrived.
Have an nice day.
peace
That photo with the three goons from Seattle – which of the three looks the most sinister and menacing? My vote goes for the one on the right.
He does look like he’s rarin’ to go, indeed!
I took your question into my heart and slept on it.
I may not express answer in a way that meets your question, but I have taken the journey of my own.
Living our own question is a way of knowing our own will and allowing its revealing to us in recognition and integration that connects us in life rather than dividing to separate.
—
In being brought to the uncovering of deeper fears we are unmasked of the mind in which they hid.
We operate to a large extent under narrative identity taken from and set over and against the judged and feared ‘other’ and world.
This ‘self’ operates as a set of filters and distortions within a collective set of ideas to which it is dependent, subordinate or downstream. If your identity is heavily invested, your investment will be heavily protected as yourself.
This is a social and personal masking reality. It is reality in terms of experience but not in terms of truth. Opening to truth is often disturbing and humiliating UNTIL an acceptance aligns both a peace and a natural (unaffected) humility.
In that sense everyone makes their own reality – but as a set of mutually agreed definitions that rarely enter an awareness that is predicated on them and by them – and so they are invisible set of socially reinforced protections against uncovering or being exposed in a humiliating and damning loss of face,
Not only to others from whom we have taken shared identity, but to ourselves.
The undermining of our sense of self and world is a sense of being trapped within appearances that used to work for us but somehow have changed or been changed to leave old ways of thinking obsolete or impotent. Scrabbling to make a new mask amidst a rising of such disturbance is the imposition of knowing lies by which to regain a sense of control and solidity over fear of loss.
The underlying purpose of the mask is to hide.
Both to hide from and to hide in or behind,
The mind of the ability to hide is ingenious and VERY fast.
We will not get in front of a deceit that is already framing even the intent to overcome it.
But the intent to do so can run as a script by which to seem virtuous or right by the stated intent.
An example:
Stage hypnosis: A man accepts suggestion that he is allergic to a substance – which he is not.
The allergic reaction occurs as a rash,
On being asked about it a backstory for its occurrence is immediately offered in response.
The masking pressure of the need to pass off as acceptable – is part of survival – but deeper than that – represents an underlying will to co-create our lives together, but expressed through the filters and demands of already active beliefs.
—
Just for myself I noticed how so many with whom I once felt part of a movement for cultural renewal with, have all fragmented and changed in so many ways as to be its own version of a tower of babel.
However in that experience is a deeper recognition of humanity as a love set in fear, is of a different order of connection than of transactional manipulations toward getting what we want.
Fear operates denial that then seeks reinforcement by seeking and finding alliances, armouring and disguises that can seem to be much deeper, stronger or real than they are while conditions support their playing out.
What seems to be one thing was merely a narrative device that reveals itself as many things aligned in temporary common cause. When Cause is flagged outside ourself it serves to hide or divert from trouble at home, or to be used as justification and leverage over self-doubt and division – such as to override and deny a voice to questions not given freedom to be asked and given answer.
All the above is relating to the censor and control of the Movement of being that is Cause within which we know – and share – existence, which is not IN time, but gives us our timing. The true of will is not coerced or coercive, and yet our first conscious experience of creative freedom was interpreted as separation from which we have not healed….
This post continues on
https://willingness-to-listen.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-are-we-accepting-tyranny.html
(Please note: Cited links below have an asterisk at the beginning – in order to move around the Spam filter)
Thanks Catte Black for this article and thanks to all working at OffG!
Yes, there is massive corruption (as user Fair dinkum/Apr 12, 2020 4:44 AM points out below).
But there is more to it: Catte Black asks why even respected alt media blogs fall for this (massively pushed) betrayal we experience now.
I’ll even now take an even more narrow picture: I now look at my friends and the people I meet more or less often: And a lot of them – who are definitely not paid by government or the pharma-gang – refuse to open their eyes. And they sometimes even attack you, calling you “crazy”.
And this is of course true also for many individuals, who run a respectable alt-blog.
Why is that so?
A) My explanation is: There are two reasons::
1) It’s what I call the “narrative cage“. All I could find to this is the “Overton window” – see Wikipedia for that.
I believe that people are unable to leave the “narrative cage” or the “Overton window” for two reasons:
a) Some hundred years ago a captain needed a Sextant and – at least – the polar star. If he had lost one of those things he would have got into a state of total panic. He would never reach a coat. And he and his sailors would probably die of hunger or thirst.
These four walls of the “narrative cage” (or the polar star) at least give your orientation and “security” (yes, a false and dangerous “security”, but the feeling of “security”)..
Also the social group you live in would ‘distance’ themselves from you “crazy” person –
*http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sheep-dog-trials-im-telling-you-the-man-and-the-do1.jpg
.
2) It’s “Identity“.
We all know the violence (of the last 200 years) of those who believe to have a (only fantasised) “national identity”
Some hundred years ago and -sadly – nowadays again we have the “religious identity”. Even Buddhist in Sri Lanka, Thailand, persecute, kill, destroy the livelihood of many of those, who follow other religions.
And, yes, there is (still!) the “identity” of colour of skin. So Obama is supposed to be a “black man” – though his mother is a 100 % “whitey”! And Obamas attitude is a 100 % “whitey” – and not at all “African”!
But nowadays there is another kind of “identity”: It’s the “Identity” by having a convolution of ‘cool’ opinions to this and that (CO2, the gender-thing, the refugees, the he/she is a despicable “righty” or a despicable “lefty” and so on). This ‘opinion-convolution-identity’ people are surrounded by friend of this same opinion-catalogue. And they don’t want to loose their friends or their social group. (Subconsciously) they want to belong somewhere
B) Now to an example for the “narrative cage” and/or “‘opinion-convolution-identity”: 911
In Shanksville the coroner never found a body, passenger luggage, part of a plane (turbine or one of the hundreds of passenger seats). He simply left.
But more than 10 years after 911 most of the people I discussed with refused to accept that there had never been a plane crash in Shanksville.
Unlike the later photos an early photo of the exploded side of the Pentagon showed the wall and the entrance door there still intact. How could a big Boeing enter that door without destroying it immediately?
But more than 10 years after 911 most of the people I discussed with refused to accept that there had never been a plane crashing into the Pentagon.
.
The Twin Towers: No less than videos with four (!) versions of planes hitting WTC” exist:
Morning news showed just an explosion of upper WTC2 – no plane.
The “dive plane” (ankle 42°) the horizontal flying plane (ankle 0°) – here a comparison
*http://www.septclues.com/ANIMATED%20GIF%20FILES%20sept%20clues%20research/7lastsecondsAlQuaedaDivebomber2.gif
And the “orb” (ankle 22°) – called so, because of the bad quality of the video the “plane” looks like an “Orb”.
Most videos are by logic fakes because they exclude each other. Producing false evidence is a crime in Washington DC, in the state of New York, in the USA (remember the warning of the Sheriff of “Sandy Hook”?). But no one has ever been prosecuted for producing faked evidence!
C) To this day I like the blog “What Really Happened” (WRH). But for the last 15 years WRH only poured hate over any article that cited the doubts of “no-planers”.
Unlike WRH I believe that “Moon Of Alabama” (MoA) is indeed corrupt.
It’s not only that several comments doubting the official narrative got censored on MoA (like my comment arguing that the director of WHO tricked with his numbers).
It’s also 3 months ago that MoA – in a primitive propaganda move – blamed Iran for bringing down the plane of Lockerbie. See: *https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/the-revenge-for-the-assassination-of-qassem-soleimani.html. (For Lockerbie see the translated article: *https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lochmann-verlag.com%2Flockerbienr67 – or original: “20 Jahre nach Lockerbie – CIA-Aktion als Terror” – *https://www.lochmann-verlag.com/lockerbienr67 ).
D) So back to being unable to see reality because of the “narrative cage” or this “identity (by opinion)” thing:
Did anyone who reads here swallowed it that there was a plane crash in Shanksville?
And/or there was a plane crash at the Pentagon?
And/or there were planes involved with the destruction of the Twin Towers?
Yes, you reader of OffG: “Research Your feelings, young Skywalker”!
http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sheep-dog-trials-im-telling-you-the-man-and-the-do1.jpg
Love it!
What’s a ‘cool’ opinion on CO2? That it’s a greenhouse gas and the current forcing of a near doubling in atmospheric levels is causing rapid climate destabilisation? That’s science, and it’s good to hear that science is considered ‘cool’.
CO2 is spiffing stuff. Plants can’t get enough of it. We should all breathe on plants a bit more as we pass them. Life couldn’t exist without it. Splendid stuff. We could have 10 X as much CO2 and be no worse off.
Nah, not really. CO2 at 4000 ppm might have been OK hundreds of millions of years ago when the sun was somewhat cooler, but today-exeunt omnes.
CO2 doesn’t de-stabilise the climate at the levels we have !
For D) No, No and double No.
useful insight here
@Watt
I already answered to Richard some time ago:
See: https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/16/panic-pandemic-why-are-people-who-should-know-better-buying-the-covid19-hype/#comment-128661
I recall that you were more than ordinarily deluded about anthropogenic climate destabilisation.
So, Cattle, what would you have us do? Go about business as usual? Have no social distancing or quarantine? Just let the virus overwhelm the healthcare system? How many people would have to die before you’d take action or should we take absolutely no action whatsoever?
Isolate the sick, aged and vulnerable and let the rest of us go about our business, given that 80% of those who contract the virus do not even suffer any symptoms. Let the timed cower at home, too, if they wish to. When enough of the population develops immunity, the virus can no longer spread. This is what is happening in Sweden, and there is no greater number of cases or deaths, and the healthcare system is not overwhelmed. I believe I have already had this disease and, while I agree that it was something of an ordeal, I got over it just by resting at home, and I am 63.
20 % of all those infected need hospitalization. The healthcare system will still be overwhelmed. The Swedes are beginning to regret they’re policy…
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485522-sweden-coronavirus-worst-death-count/
I am afraid the 20% hospitalization figure conflicts starkly with the results of a large-scale study conducted by Prof. Hendrik Street using a reasonably large random sample from the general population in a German town which shows, inter alia, the true mortality rate to be 0.37%. The 20% figure probably comes from placing those who are presenting severe symptoms (since these are the only cases tested), a minority of those infected, in the denominator, rather than all those infected uncluding those who present mild or no symptoms.
I stand corrected, I confused the number for hospitalized patients entering ICU.
In 2009 H1N1 – Swine Flu occured. It hit those under 65 the worst. Over 60.8 million cases were reported in the USA alone in one year with 274,304 serious cases resulting in people being admitted to the ICU. Between 700 – 1.4 billion worldwide contracted it in one year. In the USA it is thought to have killed between 151-700-575,400 people – so far there have only been 119,686 deaths from Corvid 19 and that includes a lot of false reports.
Did the world panic at what was another strain of the Spanish Flu – No. Did the world go into lockdown – no.
In the USA pediatric mortality from influenza is still less than it was in 2017 :https://gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/PedFluDeath.html
And the number of influenza / pneumonia deaths in the USA is still less than it was in 2017 : https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html
Did they have a lockdown then – no. Were they overwhelmed then – no.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. Covid is both more deadly and more contagious than H1N1. There’s also more herd immunity to the flu. Testing for and treatment of H1N1 was also far easier to do.
https://www.livescience.com/amp/covid-19-pandemic-vs-swine-flu.html
Would you prefer no measures were taken and we all just take our chances? Are you so eager to go back to work for your money grubbing boss that you’re willing to put your or your family’s lives at risk to do so? Enjoy the holiday, it’ll be over soon.
The mortality statistics speak to the fact that those at risk are exactly those at risk during normal flu season, and that the vast majority of healthy children and adults are at most at risk of contracting a mild flu-like infection, which passes uneventfully. Why must we keep adding to the misinformation? There is no public information source claiming anything but this, you are simply exaggerating and I don’t know why you would do that under the circumstances.
Extracted from the Live Science article cited by Toby McCrossin:
That’s a difference of TWO orders of magnitude!
Without going into any other factors, that difference alone should be sufficient to to quash any notion that these two diseases are similar in their impact on human populations.
The crux of the statistical situation is the denominator used in mortality rates. Until random testing for the presence of antibodies in the general population is done, no reasonable denominator can be extrapolated for a mortality rate.
Let’s wait until the devastating 1930’s-style depression hits the world and see which countries fare best and have the fewest deaths due to malnutrition, suicide etc. as a result of that depression, which will be a direct result of this global lockdown.
The depression was coming anyways, corona was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Other way around – the depression yes was coming anyway IN THE UK and a No Deal Brexit would have tipped us into that. The Government’s Lock Down is precisely designed to crash the economy so the true cost of a No Deal Brexit can be masked. There’s a lot of information being slipped under the radar due to this relentless propaganda campaign but leading economists have said (but not reported note) that Brexit will cause far more harm to the economy than CV-19
Plenty of economists were predicting a crash this year and none of them included covid in their calculations. The lockdown is a public health measure pure and simple. Without it the public health system would have collapsed already. Are the elites taking advantage of the situation? Absolutely, but don’t put the cart before the horse.
You have to admit, the Elites planned ahead for this exact occurrence with remarkable prescience. I personally think it’s a little naive to suggest that this event isn’t at least being exploited with remarkable forethought in mind.
Correlation is not causation. The powers that be in many countries were taken completely by surprise by the virus. Look at Trump’s pathetic attempts to blame China for the pandemic to deflect from his own criminally negligent response. Sure, the elites were prepared to take advantage of whatever crisis was next in store but to say they’ve manufactured this one is absurd.
Trump is not and never was the power that be in the US. Anyone who thinks the coordinated rollout of legislation was a panic reaction is probably getting paid to believe stupid things.
Al jazeera news has some interesting articles on how the lockdowns are already affecting the poorest in the world – especially in India and South America ! In South America it is now Dengue season as well !
I welcome this article as an expression and exploration of inner thought processes and feelings … because… if there is anything that we can hang on with confidence, it is ‘the work’ on ourselves, having an inner dialogue, developing our minds … along with our refusing to be “just” “ordinary” “citizens” in this myriad of superficial and deceitful voices that we’re surrounded with, in this most extraordinary of situations in world’s history.
(in short:) First and foremost, let us try to remain actual individuals with personality, and develop ourselves. The rest is likely to follow from it.
Wished you named them… Zerohedge Naturalnews Rense Breitbart are all Covid sellouts
Whats the connection between these sites do you suppose?
Intelligence agencies, what else?
The French site les-crises.fr is normally a little bit like Off-G but on this particular issue they have, sadly, gone into panic mode. They spend a lot of time laying into Prof Raoult and his chloroquine reserch.
Sheepdogging and the Alt-Media
I spent an hour reading comments on this article and its very odd that nobody mentioned the role that alt-media plays in sheepdogging for the oligarchs.
After years of Bernie Sanders being a dedicated sheepdog for the oligarchs, that pattern should be clear to many people.
The role of a political sheepdog is to allow a safe amount of opposition on safe subjects (safe for the oligarchs), let people experience a comparative sense of freedom (for a little while), encourage complainers to use up their spare energy and money, and then herd them back into the barn, after they are too drained and demoralized to be a threat to the oligarchs.
To spot sheepdogging you need to estimate where the limit is on opposition, which seems safe and inconsequential to the oligarchs, and then see who frequently crosses that line. Even more important, see who systemically crosses to the line on all critical issues. Even outspoken Tulsi Gabbard was silent on some critical issues.
There is some overlap between sheepdogging and the deep, deep state sites that Charlotte Russe described in her comment about this article on Apr 12, 2020 at 6:36 PM. However they have significantly different roles: the sheepdog’s job is to allow some opposition while keeping it from getting out of control, and the deep, deep state site’s job to circulate propaganda among the demographics that have some resistance to being suckered.
Sheepdogging is more subtle than simple gatekeeping, and therefore more difficult to spot and dangerous to the public well-being.
I believe that most alt-right and alt-left media outlets are paid sheepdogs or deep, deep state sites working directly or indirectly for the oligarchs.
A journalist, who protects their career by carefully avoiding the forbidden lines, separating acceptable subjects from unacceptable subjects, is indirectly working for the oligarchs by avoiding the subjects most likely to shift the status quo.
An unfortunate reality is that expecting to make a good living from journalism is to start down the slippery slope towards being compromised into becoming an extension of the status quo.
* * * *
As the stakes get higher, and the servants of the oligarchs become more proficient in encouraging corruption, the percentage of truly independent journalists is shrinking. An additional factor is that the wealthier the oligarchs become, then the more money they can afford to spend on corrupting people who formerly opposed them.
Its getting harder and harder to find a site worth reading, which isn’t trying to twist my mind into a pretzel, and then get me to shoot myself in the foot. Eventually I learned how to resist that pressure, but resisting it wastes valuable time and energy. So as soon as they do it to me several time, enough to define a pattern, I stop reading those sites. I hope OffG tells me about a few good news sites I haven’t looked at yet.
It seems highly likely that the oligarchs would object to having it exposed that the hysteria about the virus is a well orchestrated, self-serving, power grab – this is too big of a deal to just laugh off criticism about it. While the virus is real, and people are really dying from it, the hysteria is intentionally manufactured and used to further hidden agendas. So looking to see who is speaking up about this issue should be useful in separating the sheepdogs from the independent journalists.
Of the sites speaking up about this issue, the ones that are minimizing the scope and implications of the virus-hysteria power grab would be the deep, deep state sites.
* * * *
I agree that the bottom line is whether a journalist is fully reporting on the virus-hysteria power grab, or not.
However as stewards of journalism it would be useful to note and track which journalists are completely avoiding the subject, which change their stance on an issue as the sheepdogging cycle progresses, and which are putting a spin on the issue to minimize its significance.
So far alt-media has mostly failed to effectively counter the MSM narratives – the metric is what percentage of the population is adamantly supporting the MSM narratives.
Countering sheepdog journalists and deep, deep state journalists will require different techniques, so the first step is identifying their specific kind of role in supporting the status quo.
Excellent comment. Should be an article! As you say, many of these false-flaggers were already showing their true colors in the last few years. I was halfway surprised by some of them last year, but I’m not surprised by the latest final convergence.
False-flaggers always create serious-sounding arguments about irrelevant details. In this case, arguing about the “biowar” origin of the virus distracts us from arguing about the real war, which is the lockdowns.
RogerB and Polistra: Both are excellent comments.
I think it is important to determine the origin of this virus.
But that is also principal subject matter of an info war against China. And that is a total tangle that obscures other more immediate concerns: What is actually happening in each person’s own country (and internationally) that affects citizens lives and even survival.
That can wait. And its determination is entirely out of plebes like us.
What possible benefit will “we the people” get from determining who did it at this time?
Why insisting on this irrelevant-at-the-moment narrative?
What is in our hands (and the clock is ticking folks) is to use what remains of our rights to demand reliable and meaningful data on the progress of this virus.
The stress on our health care system (remember folks that is the ‘reason’ we are to become literally a “herd” of homosapiens with cattle monitoring systems) is determined by a very simple equation:
I = Number of infected
H = Number of infected requiring health care support
Stress factor = H divided by I. H/I. Simple basic math even the double digit iq set can perform.
What is H?
Correction: What is I (the number of infected)
I don’t actually see any stress on the NHS yet this lock down is all about protecting them and not saving lives.
What is the actual rate of infections?
Unlike the red herring blog post blizzard arguing about provenance and nature of the beast and patronizing lectures (looking at your “B” of deep deep MOA) to readership, one would expect universal demand across the board in alt space for testing to determine the actual infection rate.
This proposed police state will live or die by that number.
And they refuse to get an accurate number.
I agree with that. The public are distracted and misled by confusing numbers, and anyone who questions the confusions, or the reasons for the confusions, or demands clearer or more relevant or more consistently arrived at statistics, is accused by some gatekeeper or just panicked types of treating the virus as a “hoax.”
Excellent introduction to the many forms of sheep dogging. Thank you!
Great comment overall. I will definitely share with my bluepilled contacts.
While I’ve never believed the hype that this was a virus that justified these kinds of lockdown measures, and have been a very staunch opponent of the lockdown, I have also had the feeling that there’s something strange going on regarding this whole situation surrounding the virus, which I have not yet been able to put my finer on with certainty.
I think the above article also suggests a puzzlement with how an awful lot of people are not responding as you would expect them to, people who you would have thought would object to the kind of things going on at present, who don’t seem to be doing so.
And I have got two or three explanations which I think are pretty solids one, but also a third of fourth, which I’ve actually only come to in the last week and I really don’t know if is the truth or not, but would explain a lot of people’s unexpected behaviour if it is.
The easy two, or “solid ones”, are firstly that I think because of the speed with which the media scaremongering (which may not have been deliberate, but just due to the people reporting themselves getting scared) set in, which I think is partly due to the fact we’ve got this unprecedented online media and instant connectedness and instant news now we never had before, is that the message got across very loud and clear from the outset, that this was mainly a threat to the old.
And that triggered alarm bells for an awful lot of people, for two reasons that also didn’t exists half as much even 5 or 10 years ago as they do now.
Which are that firstly, now we have an unprecedented number of working women with children, there’s been an absolutely massive trend of using parents/grandparents for childcare, which is partly to save a lot of money, but also partly because of trust, being able to leave one’s children with their grandparents knowing they are totally safe.
So there is this absolutely enormous motivation to protect granny/granddad, not just for their own sake, but because the whole family structure is now depending on them greatly, when it wasn’t all that much even 10 years ago.
And the people who are in this situation, are very often the middle class people like journalists and MPs even in many cases, and it could be some might even feel they would have to give up their job if the parents they are using for childcare were suddenly gone.
And I’d presume this is pretty much the case in the US and the Western world generally.
So that may be why the usual outspoken pundit or activist A or B is keeping stumm, and going along with it, because very possibly they have got a partner or someone around them who is saying “yeah, you might be right, this might be an overreaction, maybe covid-19 isn’t so deadly, but what if you are wrong and granny/grandad dies, we are then going to be in deep stuff….”
So of course anybody who isn’t in that life scenario won’t be much aware of it, but millions are, and a lot of them are journalists, politicians and decisions makers.
Then secondly, in the UK at least, and probably around Europe too – not sure about America – there are an awful lot of people now – I think at least 5 million in the UK when I last checked – who are carers for old people – i.e. the at risk group.
And what being a carer means (very tough job that it can be, I am well aware, maybe the toughest job imaginable at times, and well underpaid) is that as tough as it may be (it depends what physical/mental shape the old person is in, so for some it’s very tough, for others it isn’t all that tough, but still can be very “imprisoning”, a 24/7 role quite often) it also gives a fair amount of economic security.
So unless you have given up a job to care for somebody which you were very well paid in, and was secure, a lot of people (possibly 5 million or more) are actually depending for their economic stability on the old person they are caring for staying alive.
Whereas the people who are in neither of those situations are probably thinking “stop this lockdown immediately! – you’ve made me a prisoner, and you are ruining my goddam life!!!” (I’m pretty much thinking that way personally).
Then as to the Labour party being about the most feeble “opposition” imaginable.
Firstly, obviously there is in probably many cases this concern about granny/granddad looking after someone’s kids – and bear in mind, it might not be the MP’s children, but could be a brother or sister or even friend who is in this “I need granny/granddad for childcare while I go to work” scenario.
But there’s another factor too, which is the “PC left”, the Blairite majority in the Labour party, and most of the rest also, is still in shock after the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, and now after several successive defeats is fearing it will never get into power again, and they may see this as a means of getting rid of Boris Johnson, as with the fixed term parliament act and so on, it’s likely to be about 4 or 5 years before they’ll get another chance.
And if they think they can get rid of Boris Johnson, they probably think they may also be able to get another referendum and stop Brexit, which appears to be a desire so powerful amongst the Blairites who dominate Labour, that they will stop at absolutely nothing to try to make that happen.
So they may be thinking that if they can keep encouraging Boris Johnson to keep this lockdown going for as long as possible, they can get him to dig himself into an economic hole so deep, he will be forced to resign and hopefully call another election, as the mess that may come out of this could be deep enough to trigger a no confidence vote.
Because the Guardian are also motivated in exactly the same fanatical way to get rid of Boris Johnson and stop Brexit also, so that would explain their absolutely relentless propaganda, and even if they can’t get rid of Johnson, many articles there are pushing for changes they want, like more funding for the NHS and so on.
So all those are pretty powerful reasons I’d say for most of the media and politicians on all sides continuing to support these measures, and similar considerations may apply in the US where the political left wants desperately to get rid of Donald Trump.
Finally, I just want to float my other theory that I have felt from the beginning that there was something strange going on.
And I’m still not sure, but my theory (I’d already had) got support, when the Guardian the other day reported a retrospective study on several hundred covid-19 patients which had suggested up to 36% of them were getting some kind of neurological damage, like dizzy spells, headaches, or possibly even minor strokes.
Because firstly, I suspect like millions of others I have probably got covid-19 and quite a long time ago.
I’ve definitely got something, and though my symptoms are tolerable, I’ve noticed that I am struggling to deal with certain kinds of information, mainly arithmetical, with which I previously had no problem. In fact I have always been unusually good at arithmetical kinds of problems, and have been able to do since young calculations in my head that the average person would probably need a calculator for.
But since I’ve had these symptoms, I’ve really struggled, though my verbal ability doesn’t seem much affected, but you see that’s a different part of the brain than the numerical part.
So as I believe an awful lot of the population has got this thing, and obviously quite a few of the politicians have already tested positive and developed symptoms, most obviously of course Boris Johnson himself, I wonder if this is actually compromising the numerical reasoning ability of lots of people, and so they are unable to get to grips with the stats.
If that is the case, that a lot of people have got this thing, and it is making them struggle with arithmetical reasoning they didn’t before, that would also explain why there’s this kind of “impenetrable wall” which the alternative figures just aren’t getting through.
It’s like a temporary blindness regarding statistical information, which I think I’d have myself also, if I hadn’t fought so hard to work these things out. And I got confirmation that I wasn’t crazy coming up with my own figures, when they were confirmed by the various articles here, regarding the studies in Japan and so on saying this was only about as deadly as seasonal flu or thereabouts.
1of7billion
Interesting comments. On the latter point my immediate thoughts are vast sections of the UK population are not numerate or particularly good at statistical analysis. Very much like a widespread lack of appreciation of history and basic geography. It all adds up to inability to think critically, link up events and understand lives beyond our own small worlds. In short, people cant understand simple things unless they are spoonfed – and even then they block it out if it doesnt fit in with predetermined narratives.
I left school 35 years ago with hardly any qualifications but that education prepared me far better than what I see now. What is frustrating is I see amazing creativity and intelligence in the young – but they are flashes of talent, unexplored and undeveloped towards the areas where a difference needs to be made.
Fifty percent of the UK population, by definition, are of below median intelligence. But from experience living there, those who are below that line, many far below, make up for it in belligerence, particularly when shickered. The UK is the most class dominated and exploited society this side of the USA, its bastard offspring.
Thanks for the reply Loverat (hey, if you really are, there’s no need to boast about it you know!)
Seriously, yes, that’s totally true about the lack of numerical/statistical ability, but I bet even though you mention lack of formal qualifications you still have a better grasp of arithmetic than the younger people do now, and I reckon a lot of them in the House of Commons in particular probably struggle with their multiplication tables even, so to make these kind of analyses of stats is “way above their pay grade” (but sadly, not above their salary, which is thus wholly undeserved).
I think this is very much a consequence of the dumbing down of the education system, which has been going on on for a *very* long time.
And e.g. Boris Johnson himself, is totally non-scientific in background, did English literature and classics at Oxford, so that *really* does not help in a scenario like this, it is positively dangerous in fact now as we’re seeing for a PM to not be very highly scientifically aware.
Personally, I think this disaster shows that if our politicians cannot pass a pretty stiff test (and formal qualifications aren’t even any proof they have that ability, as you imply) proving they are able to handle basic numerical and statistical information (and this is pretty basic) and follow scientific arguments generally, they should be sacked, because these are truly matters of life and death.
I think there is a very strong case now for all members of parliament to be put through a regular and ongoing education program, to ensure they all have adequate statistical, legal and scientific understanding, without which they cannot surely be expected to be able to make competent decisions, and if they can’t pass these tests, they should be sacked, barred from continuing as MPs.
I think that’s a totally reasonable expectation, because that is true in every other professional career – those wishing to keep their licence to practice have to keep abreast of current developments by attending regular courses – because when their votes and decisions can have absolutely catastrophic consequences if they get it wrong, then we are entitled to expect to be governed and represented by the smartest people, not a collection of educational failures in the sense that even if they have a politics or sociology or history degree or whatever, that’s no proof whatsoever they aren’t in general retards, and above all in any case lacking in commonsense.
Like yourself, I think formal qualifications (unless they are in some tough science like maths, physics or engineering or whatever) are overrated, and commonsense is the most important “qualification” (but which apparently can’t be taught), and Bill Gates for example, formerly the richest man in the world, does not have a degree.
Degrees are all the time assumed to be evidence of intelligence in the possessor, but I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of the people who have them are idiots in almost every way.
Whether with formal qualifications or not, we need the smartest and wisest people in our society as politicians/leaders, not some of the dumbest, which is what we appear to have now.
And in fact, Boris Johnson is not one of the dumbest, but his lack of scientific background does in my view seriously call into question his ability to make decisions in a situation like this, and the absence of which is thus also making him far too dependent on “scientific advisors”, but without feeling confident enough to scrutinise them, as a science trained person would be.
I bet an awful lot of people on here have a fairly strong suit in science in some way, even if it’s mostly self-taught – I do – which is why they feel competent to challenge “the experts”, which Boris Johnson therefore you see almost certainly does not.
In addition critical thinking is no longer taught and is now frowned upon ! Children are taught to follow the narrative and to not question it !
Re: your comments about impaired mental functions, I have been experiencing this for years now but put it partly down to age (I am pushing 60) and to having a highly stressful care job. Bu tI have noticed other people much younger also complaining about e.g. how easily they are losing short term memory e.g. you come in to a room and forget why you did so.
Part of this may also be due to an accelerating consumer culture now more fragmented and aggressively garish than anything I ever knew in youth.
On the topic of why people are not openly questioning the virus narrative, there is another reason that is much more mundane and final: they will be relentlessly ostracised if they do so and may even lose their jobs. This is similar to the position after 9/11 except that back then, dissent WAS allowed under the label “conspiracy nut”. This time the stakes are much higher and the MSM can rely on scare mongering about putting livers in immediate danger through doubt. I can assure you that if you work in the care sector, you are given especially emphatic orders about protective practices. Should you opely express doubt about the whole thing, you will be fired on the spot.
Sorry – I was going to say a bit more about how younger people are experiencing this loss of mental function. The speeded up consumer culture is part of it. But I think that the constant downward trend of rights and protections for workers is having an effect. Yong people now are living in the kind of unstable and intimidating world that people of my age thought was banished for ever. And while their life options shrink, they are still being bombarded by all this glitzy consumer crap. Hence they are experiencing the strain.
“On the topic of why people are not openly questioning the virus narrative, there is another reason that is much more mundane and final: they will be relentlessly ostracised if they do so and may even lose their jobs.”
George Mc – thanks for the reply, yes, that’s a massive point you make, and I’d add to it, by saying that there are even a lot of very wealthy and secure people who are some level of celebrity, whom one is surprised are not objecting, but I think that’s to do with the also unprecedented “social media tyranny.”
You know – according to the polls, there’s a lot of public support for this lockdown, though I don’t trust polls much, but even if it’s 50% (they claim about 80%+ I think), people with celebrity will be very alert that they aren’t targeted by the “Twitterati”, and as Peter Hitchens puts it “have slime pelted all over them/him.”
Which if you think about it comes back to “protecting their jobs/careers/money” just the same as those who are dependent on grandparents for childcare and maybe even old people they are caring for to be financially secure/comfortable.
So I suspect that after the lockdown ends, if there is a lot a economic fallout, job and business loss, and there is certain to be chaos in the form of all these absolutely massive handouts the government has in my view madly committed itself to, there are suddenly going to be an awful lot of people dissenting and saying they thought it was a bad idea all along, including I wouldn’t be a bit surprised a lot of the Labour politicians, because they won’t then have anything to lose.
On the positive side, I think it’s pretty obvious the way he’s talking, Donald Trump wants to lift the lockdown asap (he’s talking about it being “the toughest decision maybe he’ll ever make”), and so when the US does it, that will give every other Western leader the excuse to do it also, and whatever reasons he comes up with (probably economic ones) they’ll likely copy almost verbatim.
So personally I’ve given up thinking Boris Johnson or whoever is going to make any decisions, because frankly he and the rest of them are trying to protect their jobs too, so all they are going to do (which is what they already did) is say “well this is what they did/ have done in every other country” so that’s their excuse then if it all goes wrong again.
Johnson can then successfully argue that he did “no different than what Labour would have done” and that then gets him off the hook for any disasters that ensue, at least in theory.
So perhaps the really good news is that once the PC Labour left, “the Blairites”, and the Guardian see that this is not going to get rid of Boris Johnson or stop Brexit they won’t be tempted to try it or support it again.
As that is the part that really bothers me, that if the authorities think they can do this and get away with it to stop the spread of any disease, what’s to stop them doing it next year again if they think the seasonal flu is bad.
Though personally I think they’ll risk riots if they try that again – I think they’d be risking them now if they tried to enforce this lockdown more strictly, which I don’t think they are doing – where I’m living I think at least 50% of the people are taking very little notice of it, but of course as there’s no school or work for most people there’s far less activity anyway.
There just isn’t a lot of logic in this, any way you look at it, it’s panic/hysteria driven, based on the idea that we can stop a virus spreading, when we can’t, any more than they stopped the HIV virus spreading, which currently has around 37 million infected, with up to 1 million a year still dying from it, and no vaccine has been developed yet even though it’s been around for nearly 40 years.
I mean, how can granny/granddad (if that’s who they are trying to protect, which logic suggests they must be, as it is that age group that is most at risk) ever not get exposed to this, if they are looking after school age children who are bound to carry this (or something else) sooner or later?
And also, as this virus probably circulated widely before the authorities even knew about it, lockdowns are totally useless anyway, because by the time they do one, millions will usually have already been exposed to it.
I almost hope that the economic fall out is pretty bad, because I think the authorities need to be shown a clear message that they don’t dare ever do anything like this again, simply because of the economic chaos and destruction they will inevitably cause.
My guess is this will be over within a month, and Trump will end it first – maybe after one or two other European countries, or point at Sweden who didn’t much have it or whatever, but don’t have thousands of dead bodies piling up on the streets – only 899 deaths there so far, and as we know, they haven’t necessarily even in the majority of cases been *caused* by covid-19.
I can remember further back, that if you were not in favour of The Falklands War (you were not supporting “our boys”), you were a traitor and an outcast. Wise dissenters kept their dissent to themselves. There was no social media then, of course.
I also remember too at that time that the media went crazy like it is now. If I remember correctly, the FM service of Radio 4 basically became a 24 hour rolling war news service, with presenter Brian Redhead apparently loving every minute of it. (I’d quite admired him up to that time).
BTW, I think I can trace it to about that time that the poppy nonsense started. Until that time, people of my generation, who had known no wars (Korea and Suez had taken place when we were too young) first became of war as a reality, rather than history.
Before then we might have gone along with the poppies for the sake of our parents, but we didn’t take it very seriously. But after Falklands, wearing a poppy in November became a badge of patriotism.
It is much the same with Brexit – those that supported it were scared to speak out due to the vitriol aimed their way – so they became the silent majority !
Gates is being deferred to as the oracle on all health matters.
He is treated with all the deference due a head of state.
He casually informs us that all 8 billion of us are going to have to have one of his vaccinations and will need a vaccination certificate from him to work, travel, or go out.
He is not a doctor. He is not a scientist. He is not even a university graduate.
Who elected him? Who put him in charge of health care? Who gave him the right to play God?
Who is he? Somebody who suppressed the competition and made a fortune out of a second rate monopoly operating system that somebody else invented.
He has been pushing his vaccinations for polio, malaria, and other conditions in hapless third world country for years, with reckless and shambolic trials on impoverished human guinea pigs that have left hundreds dead or permanently disabled.
He is the main cheerleader for complete lockdowns.
There is no scientific precedent for what is occurring now, and Gates’s big pharma does not exactly have a stellar record, to put it charitably.
People are being harassed for going outdoors. Yet fresh air and sunlight have long been recognised as a natural antibiotic and source of Vitamin D.
The main purpose of the current hullabaloo is to provide a smokescreen for the inevitable collapse of the financial and economic system and to institute a new normal longed planned by the Zionist Power Configuration.
Universal vaccination, microchipping and digital ID cards. 5G. A cashless society. GMO. Rigid censorship and surveillance, administered by Zuckerberg. Universal basic income. With draconian powers to deal with anyone who objects. All for our own good, of course.
‘They’ don’t need to microchip you if you have an iPhone. The iPhone means you’re micro-chipped. and digi-ID carded.
What I’m seeing so much of is people who were immediately skeptical of Rumsfeld and the military/security state in the aftermath of 9/11 are lionizing and adoring Fauci and the health agency officials, national and international. This has to do with the difference in the way that the educated view scientists as compared with soldiers, and it speaks of a great naivete which in itself is derived from ignorance of science and of the corruption and dogma of institutional Science.
Climate science is held up as the paradigm of the virtue of Science, but that field is one of the unusual ones that doesn’t appear to be dependent on and held in the sway of some large industry. Health science and medicine is probably the most staggeringly corrupt of all scientific areas, dependent on and held in the sway of the pharmaceutical industry and other medical industries, and you can bet that anyone who has risen in the hierarchy of national or world public health agencies would not have gotten there without compliance to the agenda of those industries. And lest you think, for instance, that Anthony Fauci has a pristine record, without even having to dig deeply into research I could tell you otherwise.
The world is full of technocratic solutions to ‘problems’ that don’t need to be solved (and which, of course, always profit certain industries immensely.) The classic is the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted each year on ridiculous fantasies of the West waging war with Russia and China. That is something that your typical intellectual can easily see through, but it is also something that is distant and remote. When it comes to that which, however, is close by, that threatens their physical health, most of these same people are ignorant enough to be propagandized into a state of terror equal to that of the masses who think with their amygdalas and adore the military.
…er, not by everybody it’s not.
No? Well, it’s promoting the sale of a lot of electric cars, for example, some of them quite expensive. Plus wind-turbines and solar panels. Al Gore is supposed to have made quite a few dollars out of the whole racket.
Now we are on the same page.
I saw Fauci wheeled out on Fox yesterday to lie and abuse China’s response to the outbreak. He’s a little place-man, having survived so long in the piranha pool of US politics. He knows what’s expected of him.
Lying about China’s response must have been particularily tough on fauci since his agenda is to celebrate the success of a authoritarian regimes response to such events. At least that was what was in the playbook of the scenarios drawn up the Global Business Network for the Rockefeller Foundation all the way back in 2010. Yes lots of planning has gone into the Plandemic.
The use of ‘authoritarian’ to describe China is Orientalist balderdash. China has a different civilization, history, society and collective consciousness from those of the West. Authoritarian better fits the USA, with its huge prison-industrial complex, corrupt and Draconian injustice system, incredible inequality, destroyed communities, killer cops, massive military and collective brainwashing.
Richard, at last someone has spoken the truth about the USA. There is too much wrong thinking about Russia and China – when they are fortunate enough to have two visionary and honest leaders. Scratch the surface of the American Dream and you find a third world petty Dictatorship, immense poverty and all the things you have stated. The UN Report is harrowing reading.
Exactly my thoughts for quite a while. I love Catte’s mind and her sharp writing style. She covered probably most of the possible motives out there. I would add just one more: mental bias (just that). People on the progressive left tend to be pro-science and therefore jump uncritically into believing what “the doctor says”, be it MD or PhD. They are very critical of corpo-governments, some of them go beyond right and left politics, seeing them as two sites of the same corporate coin. But when it comes to science, they suddenly, uncritically swallow everything and treat any reasonable doubt as if it comes from medieval, religiously brainwashed mind. Therefore they don’t question man made global warming idea (although some prominent scientists do), they don’t bother to look into vaccines, as if they were always sent by God – pure, uncontaminated and without profits. It was always stunning for me! As if they are completely incapable of criticism when it comes to science and become its obedient altar boys (and girls). Ironically! Since the science itself is based on critical thinking (or as an idea – should be). So, here it is again. The men in white coats know better, they will tell you everything, you just follow the instructions. And they do.
Climate science is questioned EVERY day by scientists. No theory is perfect, no model is 100% correct, although they can be useful. Science progresses, and old theories are replaced by the new, and hopefully, more accurate ones. Those who honestly question it are just doing science, but those who deny it, dishonestly, meretriciously and with disinformation and misrepresentation, are doing the very dirty work of the Right and the fossil fuel industry, or expressing their own ideological prejudices.
Climate Science is not science. There is nothing scientific about misrepresenting data to fit an agenda.
But that DOES NOT happen. Your slur is itself a crude misrepresentation, possibly a knowing lie.
Global Warming “science” makes voodoo mumbo jumbo look scientific.
It works, it’s peer-reviewed, it accords to the Laws of Physics, it is concurred with by ALL the Academies of Science and Scientific Societies on Earth and very nearly 100% of climate scientists, and is denied by hard Right ideologues and the fossil fuel industry.
Theres been no serious debate on CC, its been fed to the masses for thirty years and the reasons for it has changed half a dozen times as each one lost its credibility and now we’re blaming a gas which is heavier than air supposedly floating to the stratosphere creating a blanket effect which keeps the heat in. What a nonsense.
I like millions of others acknowledge the climate changes as it has done since the dawn of time otherwise we’d be living alongside dinosaurs, however when taxes are added to my each and every fuel bill I become suspicious of the agenda, where is all the money going? My answer to that is straight into the pockets of those who don’t deserve it as they’ve never worked in their sorry fraudulent lives.
I’ve had two friends in my home village contract this virus, one posted video from his hospital bed about how the virus “is a pig” but he was now on the road to recovery, 24 hours later he died in that bed, the other recovered and posted his ‘news’ on facebook, this is my only confirmation of the ‘virus’ at first hand.
I remain on 12 weeks lockdown due to my wife being highly vulnerable, I’m in the less highly vulnerable category, both of us suspect something is amiss but the chance of catching it imprisons both of us, like CC we’re all being oppressed by not having the whole truth and nothing but the truth will do.
It has NOT ‘changed’ half a dozen times. It has not ‘lost its credibility’ but been confirmed by modeling and evidence from the real world ie record global average temperatures, warming oceans, melting ice sheets and glaciers etc. The bit about ‘heavier than air’ in the ‘stratosphere’ (it’s the troposphere that counts), is bizarre, almost beyond belief, save if one has encountered Dunning-Krugerism already. I wish you and your wife good luck, and good health.
Its BS, the biggest lie told to mankind, ‘modelling’, computers only output according to the data input if thats biased so is the results, the whole thing began with ‘holes in the ozone’, then it became human caused through burning FF and now we have the unqualified 16 year old greta funbags looking for her niche to make money, the Al Gores with their malibu beach homes, the Maldives haven’t disappeared and the arctic and antarctic aren’t defrosting other than in their seasonal summers and the ‘modellers’ have now settled on a gas without which all life on Earth would disappear, is too heavy to float above the air and you swallow this garbage, you’re a mug of the first order and the reason half the world is in poverty, 30 years of intense lying has brainwashed you, a useful idiot.
I and several others in my family have PhD’s in various disciplines. When you work closely with academics and in Science you realise how flakey he data truely is and how easily it is manipulated to suit a narrative !Especially as years or research and thousands of pages of data have to be summarised in just six pages of a journal article !!
Tell me, Marvelous, what field do you have your doctorate in?
Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality
Arsebiscuits: Hmmmm….. Good one!
I was reading Carl Jung’s essay about James Joyce’s Ulysses’s and this sentence stuck out and relevant in describing the faux concern of this pandemic by the neurotically inclined.
Because true sentiment is destroyed and the hollowness must be covid over with paramount concern
I think the hysteria works because there are a lot of narcissists around, and such narcissists are so full of their own importance that a virus with the potential to deprive the world of their great insight and intellect must surely be stopped whatever the cost to liberty. I’d love to see a skeptical psychologists analysis of why a virus has totally freaked out historically rational commentators – fascinating.
Exactly that, narcissism and social media, the plague of the past ten years. It used to be called Ego. The poor darlings cannot imagine the planet without them, so they are willing to sacrifice everyone.
I definitely am getting that vibe with all the selfie videos of healthcare workers supposedly drained from the ‘utter chaos’. It’s a chance for a lot of people to get their fame and be adored as heroes of humanity.
NASSTY comment.
Let me guess you have a friend who is a nurse/doctor.
Richard – if they were as drained and worn out as they say, the last thing on their mind would be taking a selfie or making a video ! They would just want to go home and crash out !!
I’ve believed for a long time that medicine is the narcissist’s profession. I’ll be more precise about it. 99% or more of doctors could be diagnosed with with psychopathic or narcissistic personality disorders in my opinion.
From my experience its about a quarter. Others are just doing what mummy and daddy want, and there are plenty of humanitarians, fewer in surgery, particularly orthopaedics.
There are some good ones I have discovered while trying to research this plandemic. They seem quite disturbed by what are are seeing. Dr John Ioannidis
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6MZy-2fcBw
Dr Jay Bhattacharya -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UO3Wd5urg0&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0Eu9UUXnCO8H8-sweuZiqqp_5yK8B_tzhxM0ijptqbh8DbwWWfJcgHW_k
They seem to want to make a difference
Germs Bond – I’d definitely agree with that – particularly rife in Consultants and Psychiatrists. Let’s not forget Shipman and other GPs also. Don’t forget the nurses too. I rarely meet nurses that are either competent or committed.
Most that i met studying medicine at University, were just in it for the money. They couldn’t care less about the patients !!
I have tangled with a few that want to drop there superiority complex on me just because their wife is a nurse or they have a friend who is a Doctor. I hope I wasn’t to tough on them.
We are living at the true End of History. The capitalist Moloch is devouring the world, the global ecological Holocaust is proceeding apace, with accelerating effects and the 500 year reign of terror of the West over humanity is ending, in farce. The subconscious of individuals, the collective conscious of the species and whatever ‘morphic’ or ‘ nooetic’ influence there may be in action, all create a sense of dread, of impending doom. The powers that be are exploiting a nasty, new, potentially cultivated, disease to crack down, in preparation for war with China and Russia, and whatever further, ‘useless eaters’ eliminating bioweapons they have in reserve. I’d avoid any ‘vaccine’ for this disease like the plague, and get scripts for Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin and buy some zinc and eat a lot of oysters, myself.
Why bother trying to cling to the sinking wreckage of your old belief system. It was all a lie, Richard. Smell the coffee. The threat of war is over. Russia and China are in on it too. This is a new normal, new rules and a global government. They are going to lock you up forever to save you from viruses – and climate change.
You are about to get what you thought you wanted.
Narcissus can be taken as an archetypal myth for the mind obsessed and fixated in its own imaged thinking. It can thus cast out onto everyone and everything else the world it assigns and so run as the maker of a self-isilating and locked down ‘reality’ into which the true relational field cannot find entry or answer – even though it stands at the door and knocks.
The ability to maintain a private bubble is yet dependent on the very thing it denies … relationship. So all of those who THOUGHT they were in a real world of real relationships have been made aware of the lack of foundation to what is now realised not to be a solid place on which to stand – and so they reach for whatever offers support and cover for what they lack. Fear of death can bring this on.
Prepping for wtshtf is mostly set in terms of the body – but our fundamental resource is our Spirit – of unified will and purpose. It can SEEM that we unify against a fear or an evil and so can SEEM solid, but ‘seemings’ always fall apart at the seams.
Any judgement can spout from our own mouth as the expression of a fantasy of our own importance – all it takes is belief we are right – and all that takes is to cast the wrong out there and cry ‘foul! – or point at the ‘narcissist’.
Those who leverage the most from diagnosis are those who pass off as the knowledge or expertise to judge and define the disease or condition – for in setting up such a belief all else flows to reinforce it – at least until the results demand the recalibration of its parameters or the shift into a competing idea.
The power exercised by science in the ‘discovery’ of technologisable models was captured at its infancy. If the fittest theory survives in terms of accepted science, it is what fits the funding that follows the social support or demand, that follows the narratives of hopes and fears. Once hollowed out by a brutal indoctrination – the coverings of an institutional sentimentality are waved around like a magic wand.
Masking in humanity doesn’t invalidate a true humanity, but is does undermine faith in the humanity of science to reduce us all to a system of technologically operating controls.
Humanity may be less reliable than machine – but it can at least sometime align in shared truth! From which we can learn – even if we often don’t – because we believe we already know and so persist in what doesn’t work and cannot work – as if this time it might work!
A mind bubble of private judgement sets up ways of not being disturbed that operate as conditioned reflex – like a machine. Our social masking and interaction can thus operate – like a machine. That we are fitting our human being into a machine-world of technocratic, bio-tech, surveilled and controlled lockdown is a wake up message to Narcissus on the Big Screen of his world reflection.
We are always free to ignore and refuse what we are unwilling to accept – but is the game worth the candle?
How about you start calling out these people by their names instead of writing this time-wasting load of crap?
From where should they be called out – the kitchen? The bedroom? Where precisely?
How about in the actual article Alan instead of the passive aggressive shite we got. Just name the narcissists in alt media so we can be careful and be done with it.
Are you not able to tell the good from the bad by yourself?
I have to agree – i was looking for them to be named.
Also important to know that Omidyar Network is funding many outlets as well and Pierre is pushing adoption of global digital ID, which I believe is tied in with the anti-body certifictes. He owns the Intercept, which I discuss here, but is funding many other outlets. https://wrenchinthegears.com/2017/09/29/omidyar-the-intercept-impact-investing/
Great article Alison. I subscribed to your blog.
In the US most of the press has fallen in with the “Solutions Journalism” project, including higher-profile alternative press. They are set up to advance the transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution “social impact” poverty mining schemes. Background on my experience in Philadelphia here: https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/09/30/dont-let-impact-investors-capture-the-non-profit-activist-media/
‘Nickel and dimed’ were you?
Not sure what is meant by that?
Check Barbara Ehrenreich.
Yes, I’m familiar with the book, just not sure how it is relevant to my the linked post, which is about the rise of “Solutions Journalism” and impact media.
Tim Brooke Taylor (or as the under 40s call him “Tim Brooke Who?”) has died – naturally of coronavirus. I’m starting to think that “coronavirus” is just another expression for “death”.
Sorry to hear that. I am of a generation that enjoyed the ‘Goodies’…comedy has changed beyond recognition since those innocent days when a joke was judged on whether it was funny as opposed to whether it was politically correct.
One day we’ll be saying, “Comedy has changed beyond recognition since those innocent days when people could actually go outside and meet each other!”
I am also sorry to hear that. He was also famous (for some of us) in the radio series
I’m sorry I’ll Re\ad That Again”, and later “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue”.
He was 79 (17 July 1940). Not really all that old by modern standards, but of course, plenty of people do die around that age, and younger.
A well-known, much-loved victim is perfect for promoting the narrative though.
“Stay at home, or you might die like poor old Tim (*sniff*)”.
Pre-covid one would/might say..’Ah well, a good innings’. No fearful panic, at all.
Yup. I’m a recent convert to.. ‘The Catherine Tate Show’ Was screened on BBC1, if you don’t mind. Unbelievable now.
He was a very funny man. A highly gifted comic from the earliest beginnings of the Monty Python age. I couldn’t help noticing that the media steadfastly refuse to indicate in any of their obituaries whether he had any underlying sickness – apart from being quite old, of course…
I think everyone who has died since March 13 has died with Covid19, in fact the CDC now mandates that Physicians write up the death certificate that way regardless if they were even tested.
I wasn’t actually sure who the author of the article was referring to with her phrase “alt-media”. From the comments section, I can see that it may be a group of commentators I’m not familiar with. I will say, though, that the phenomenon she refers to has been very noticeable these last few weeks among those pundits and journalists of the “Alt Right” who have, these past ten years, sprung into the gap left by the left after its authoritarian turn. The absolute carbon-copy unanimity of a certain broad complex of “Alt Right” authors and broadcasters on this issue is quite striking. Raheem Kassam and the “Breitbart” authors generally (taking their cue from Steve Bannon); Alex Jones’s protegé Paul Joseph Watson; online “philosopher” Stefan Molyneux in Canada and prominent Trump cheerleaders like Mike Cernovich and Scott Adams. All these people share a basic “three-point stance” on the current “health crisis” which consists of (i) accepting more or less uncritically the most exaggerated (and now discredited) government and mass-media figures about potential fatalities and consequently accepting, in principle, the need for a total lockdown; (ii) spicing their new pro-authoritarianism (and preserving their “reps” as “critics of the system”) by sniping and snarking about certain obvious “excesses” associated with the current situation, such as the 1984-like mass clapping for the NHS or cases of police fanaticism and officiousness; (iii) setting themselves off from the “conformist mainstream” also in the second sense of giving to the current “we face a deadly invisible enemy” narrative the belligerent Trumpist twist “and so we need to go to war with China!” Just look at the media outlets of any of the people mentioned, it is always the same formula: “the medical threat is just as grave as The Guardian or the government says it is; the clapping and informing on neighbours is a bit excessive, though; and this all came from China, who must be made to pay!” It really is hard to credit that writers and commentators like Watson and Kassam who proved themselves subtle, incisive analysts of media manipulation and methods of government mind-control for so many years now seem to be falling for the most childishly transparent tricks of intimidation and obfuscation, such as the “Boris Johnson in intensive care” stunt or the systematically doctored mortality figures. I can only imagine that this coordinated “sacrificium intellectis” is some kind of tactical decision by the “Alt Right” to close ranks around Trump, who is a hostage now to his own technocrats, like Fauci and Birx, and the pillar of whose foreign policy is in any case “war (by one means or another) on China”
Alt media, or alternative media is an informal term for bloggers or vloggers or news outlets that are independently funded, usually by reader donations, and publish non-mainstream analysis of geopolitics and current events. It has nothing to do with ‘alt Right’.
if there can be left alt-media, why can’t there also be right alt-media? surely it’s worth acknowledging the distinction, if only so that you don’t mistake one for the other.
>Alt media, or alternative media is an informal term for bloggers or vloggers or news outlets that are independently funded, usually by reader donations, and publish non-mainstream analysis of geopolitics and current events. It has nothing to do with ‘alt Right’.
Hmmmmm…So you’re an admin here and yet you appear to be blithely unaware that there is absolutely nothing in the definition of “alt media” that you give which would exclude from the concept any number of sites conveying “Alt Right” ideas, i.e. that it is completely nonsensical for you to end your contribution with the words “It has nothing to do with Alt Right”. Almost all of the platforms I mentioned – Stefan Molyneux’s, Paul Joseph Watson’s etc. – do PRECISELY what you say, and are funded precisely in the way you describe, in your description .
I haven’t posted on OffGuardian before but I think I’m beginning to get an idea of what this place is about. It appears to be a gathering-place for people who were, maybe up until a couple of years, pretty typical and enthusiastic “Guardian”-readers but had to move indeed “off to the side” a little when the “Guardian” stopped being just the paper for “knit-your-own-yoghurt” North London social workers that it had been in the 70s and 80s and became a 24/7 full-volume propaganda foghorn for every variety and aspect of globalist social engineering.
The fact that my contribution has gotten the three replies it has, though – one from someone (yourself) failing to understand how “non-mainstream analysis of geopolitics and current events” from a conservative point of view could possibly qualify as “alternative media analysis” at all; another from someone (Milosevic) who writes like a man standing gape-mouthed, blinking and baffled as the first glimmers of realization dawn on him that maybe there really is such a thing as a blogging and vlogging community that comments on and discusses current events from a perspective that is not left-wing (though it sounds like it might still take Milosevic a year or two to register the fact that this neo-conservative blogging and vlogging community has been by far the fastest-growing section of this community for about ten years now); and another from someone (Koba) contending that anyone who even glances at any media that do not appear on a certain list of “approved” (implicitly “left-wing-approved”) sources should be banned from participating in any discussion like this (i.e. discussions about the evils of lists of “approved sources”) – has convinced me that “OffGuardian” does indeed mean “a little off to the side of The Guardian as it now exists but still casting shy lovelorn glances in the direction of that organ of “les bien-pensants de la gauche morale” that it used to be.
It also explains a feature of Ms Black’s article that wrinkled my brow somewhat as I read it but that I omitted to comment on myself . (It was commented on, by another reader, and the comment earned the – I see now, predictable – blast of abuse from the author). The article does indeed render itself useless by failing to specify a single one of the “alternative media” platforms that it critiques. As I say, in the light of the quite staggeringly “cliquey” and ideologically parochial responses to my own reply to the article, I now understand the mechanism behind this failure. Ms Black felt she could rest assured, in writing this article, that her readers – yourselves – would know exactly which bloggers and vloggers she was referring to when she wrote of “alt media” because in your little community (just as in the community of MSNBC viewers in the US or, dare I say it, in the community of Guardian readers in the UK) the reading matter of anyone and everyone likely to read her will consist ENTIRELY AND EXCLUSIVELY of the small group of pundits and commentators that Ms Black herself religiously reads. You, her readers, will, she feels confident, all nod and murmur with the sage expressions of the initiated when someone takes critical issue with some article that’s just appeared in Glenn Greenwald’s “Intercept” but look completely baffled when someone makes reference to information disseminated through, say, the AmazingPolly YouTube or even, very probably, through the Twitter of Ann Coulter, as if the person pointing to these sources were guilty of some ridiculous non-sequitur and were
citing the lyrics of a Lady Gaga song as an official communiqué from the Place Beauvau.
??
To say I’m bemused by this rant is putting it mildly. You insult OffGuardian and its readership on the grounds of two responses to your original post (Milosevic was actually replying to Admin 1’s comment); and Admin 1’s comment was, as usual for them, offering helpful clarification. And you regard two innocuous replies as “staggeringly ‘cliquey’ “?
I shall just point out that underneath your original post there are two symbols – a ‘thumbs up’ and a ‘thumbs down’. You might care to look at the tally there. Not that I care, but do you still feel that your irrational attack is justified?
Alexander, welcome and I hope you will stick around. I enjoyed reading what you wrote, even though I’m probably one of the targets, definitely having been a confirmed yoghurt knitter at one time, although I’m in recovery now.
Off-G is a dissenting voice, I like to think, and no harm at all in having dissent within the dissent, so long as it isn’t vicious or ad hominem, which yours wasn’t.
I didn’t necessarily agree with everything you wrote, but I enjoyed reading it; the experience was a bit like reading Peter Hitchens (not that I am saying you are like him).
I personally don’t pay much attention to labels like alt-left or alt-right or alt media. They come and go and change meanings.
The alt-right is just a term used by/for the new far right groups who want to be held as distinct from the more traditional. They are alternative and alt is short for alternative.
Alternative media is media distinguished from traditional media as Admin points out. Some of this alternative media is right wing, some is left, some may be harder to pin down. Due to the whole stupid left/right anachronism, different people will have different views as to what is left, right or indeterminate.
So, alt-rght will have alt-media, alt-left will also have alt-media. The point is, alternative media is not mainstream, it does not have traditional revenue streams and is typical aimed at people with alternate views (whatever they may be). The thesis of the piece is why do outlets that take alternative views on a range of issues suddenly fall lockstep with the mainstream view.
I think you need to get over the use of the word “alt”. You are falling into an association fallacy: “alt-right has alt-media therefore alt-media is alt-right.”
As an aside, and rather amusingly in my opinion, the right refers to the alternative left as “ctrl left” as a play on words derived from keyboard layouts.
>You are falling into an association fallacy: “alt-right has alt-media therefore alt-media is alt-right.”
Actually, what I was pointing out in all of the posts I have made was that YOU people are falling into just this fallacy, or rather a fallacy precisely analogous to it: to you “alt-media” is simply synonymous with “media to the LEFT of the mainstream media”; at best, some of you appear to be willingly grudgingly to concede that there has been a sort of “establishment-critical” narrative developed recently that relies on values like “national identity” and “tradition” and that might, at a pinch, be mentioned in the same breath as the “establishment-critical” narrative that relies on values like “solidarity” and “universal human liberation”.
I base myself, in saying this, on pretty much all the “alternative media” sources that I see specifically named in the posts and replies above mine. The users of OffGuardian seem occupied by such platforms as Democracy Now, The Canary, Noam Chomsky and Consortium News, all definitely extreme left-wing (you may consider the fourth and last to be an exception but I have seen Robert Parry held up as a paragon by the left-wing ideologue Glenn Greenwald). Even the “right-wing” sources mentioned are right-wing sources that endear themselves to the New Left by constantly lambasting Israel. Of course, the topic of this whole discussion is the FAILURES of these “alternative media” sites, specifically as regards the “pandemic” hoax. But MY point is: it is really only the failures of THESE sites – the diffuse, independent “gauchosphere” – that concern you at all. That “Alt RIGHT” platforms should come down on the side of authoritarianism here seems to most of you, I’m sure, a self-evidence and simply beneath your notice.
As someone who has never had any sympathy or affinity with the left, it seems to me that the opposite is the case. There is nothing the least bit surprising in people who have ALWAYS worshipped the Moloch of Big Government – whatever sort of populistic, “communard” sheen they might have tried to give to this Moloch – should be grovelling in the dirt before it now that this Moloch has shaken off its drowsiness of the past few years and realized that it could just wrest back, overnight, everything that it looked, since 2016, like it might have to concede to the restive “deplorables” under cover of a fig-leaf no more substantial than an inflated seasonal flu bug. The last three weeks in the US have given, after all, to Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez just about everything they ever wanted – state tutelage of every aspect of the life of every citizen, each of whom will first be kept alive for an indefinite period on state handouts and then systematically milked by taxation to pay for this indefinitely long period when they were held like cows in their stalls – and all the signs are that Starmer and even the neo-Marxist Corbynite wing of the Labour Party will now also get everything they want without an election, as the “crisis” “necessitates” the formation of a uniparty “Government of National Unity”.
It seems to me that the FAR more interesting question is why “alternative media” in whose circles there never existed the least empathy for or ideological commitment to the State – media that had spent years characterizing the British, the French, the German and the (pre-Trump) US states as institutions of systematic “race treachery” implementing a systematic “great replacement” of these countries’ populations by more pliable populations shipped and flown in from the Third World should suddenly become so credulous of statistics issued by the UK or US governments and even (as Paul Joseph Watson did) become sentimental about the “illness” of the latest globalist puppet to occupy No 10 Downing Street. OffGuardian users, however, understandably find THIS question absolutely and entirely UNinteresting, because it’s a settled matter for you that, as one of you has put it, everyone to the right of Peter Hitchens is a “gobshite” whose views and behaviour are beneath contempt and therefore beneath critical analysis.
Actually, what I was pointing out in all of the posts I have made was that YOU people are falling into just this fallacy, or rather a fallacy precisely analogous to it: to you “alt-media” is simply synonymous with “media to the LEFT of the mainstream media”
I do not fall into that trap at all. I consider alternative media alternative because it is not part of the mainstream corporate funded media.
I honestly do not care where the media falls on the left right spectrum as to whether it is alternative or not. The two are not coupled. Some people may view only the left as truly alternative, I find unsophisticated. And let’s be honest, a lot of the right take exactly the same view of the left.
I read left and right wing media, but am generally put off by the extremes of both. However there is still nuance because of the pure range of subjects with which people may have opinions. E.g. I used to like Zero Hedge, mostly for it’s financial reporting, but not some of it’s other positions.
Of course there are motives for both the far left and right to support the current events as authoritarianism is an obvious mechanism to accomplish the goals of each group. There’s no surprise there.
Also, I am not OffG, I just happen to read it and occasionally (a lot more often lately) post in the comments section. I just strongly disagree that alternative media and alternative right are the same thing.
Also, Zero Hedge (right wing) and MoA (I’d say centrist) have been mentioned aplenty of late. For my money Zero Hedge may be compromised, but I don’t think the same of MoA.
Is the ‘gauchosphere’ inhabited by the gauche, in which case I qualify, or gauchos, in which case I must count myself out, as my horse is indisposed? Or is it a typo, for the ‘grouchosphere’, which I could not join, unless they rejected my application?
oh, I see what your problem is — you’re a moron.
Alex the fact you ever listened to gobshite PJW shows that you too should butt out of things
ASSUME NOTHING, BELIEVE NOBODY, AND CHECK EVERYTHING.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to carefully scrutinize all hyped events. We should all adopt the mentality of a forensic scientist and recite this “ABC” mantra: assume nothing, believe nobody, and check everything.
Unfortunately, billions are still mesmerized by the mainstream media news. It’s hypnotic effect is super-powerful and has the capability to convince most to accept every official narrative. However, the ranks of the more discerning are demanding independent news. Don’t despair, this large segment of the population has NOT been abandoned by the security state. The intelligence agencies know there’s a large percentage of the population who will no longer listen to mainstream media news. Enter “independent media” comprised of an assortment of “pseudo-independent” websites and YouTube channels. Come on now, did you think the national security state would leave anyone out.
Of course, the supposed “independent” sites are more sophisticated and nuanced, inasmuch as “crude” mainstream media news has been tuned-out by millions. The intelligence agencies, never deterred
developed more sophisticated venues which I refer to as simply “deep-deep state” sites. Actually, these sites do have a name within the intelligence community they’re labeled as “limited hangouts.”
Let me explain, the term limited hangout is “spy jargon” for a gimmick frequently used by intelligence agencies to circulate a narrative or disinformation by developing a trustful and believing audience. As I previously stated, these sites are established if the security state can longer rely on the mainstream media news to “misinform” a specific but vital segment of the population. Consequently, the intelligence agencies develop independent sites feigning a particular ideology. These sites cover the entire political spectrum–Left and Right.
The security state knows the viewers who would be attracted to independent political sites are more discerning, so in order to garner trust and establish a sizeable audience they must volunteer “bits of the truth” while still withholding significant facts. The eager alternative news viewer desperate for fresh info is enamored by these “slithers of verity” thus becoming increasingly intrigued with information never mentioned on mainstream media news. Hence, the audience is hooked–never thinking they’re viewing a more intricate “deep-deep state contrivance.”
Don’t get me wrong, anyone can be fooled. These well-setup sites might not be on fancy schmancy cable news channels, but they’re elegantly “manned or womaned” (I don’t want to be excused of being anti-female) by intelligent well-trained deep state operatives. No doubt, these sites were initially a gamble, and many were developed with funds from wealthy backers with longstanding ties to the security state. After awhile, some sites actually catch-on and become quite successful building audiences of hundreds of thousands who dutifully donate cash, thus the viewers are sustaining “deep-deep state” sites. Many of these sites, become profit making enterprises while developing millions of unwitting followers. Who can ask for anything more. The best “performers” are clever, cunning, and quite adroit at knowing how to couch info in a way which develops mass consensus for specific sentiments or beliefs. These emotional feelings are subsequently interweaved and layered with a running ideology providing little bits of the truth.
So when Catte Black asks: “Are some of them gatekeepers, sleeper assets being activated in this extreme situation specifically to divert and delude the questioning and sceptical people who tend to follow them?”
The answer is yes, they’ve been gatekeepers for years. They’re like germs which can’t be seen unless placed under a microscope. However, the fervent desire by the security state and the Davos ghoul crowd to push the panic pandemic agenda is allowing us, if we “wish” to see the security state microbes better known as assets without the use of a magnifying glass. The consistent relentless chirping by independent popular sites about the horrors of the panic pandemic should give you pause. Each site hyperbolizes the event to heighten the panic, but cleverly devises a way to shape an ideology around this terror for their own political expediency or suitability. However, the end result is always the SAME–promoting terror and the acceptance for subjugation.
JUST AN HORS D’OEUVRE
The panic pandemic is a mere hors d’oeuvre in a masterfully orchestrated smörgåsbord of psychological terror. All to achieve a willingness for subjection. In order for this “panic feast” to extract the greatest amount of agitation it needs to be interspersed and not consumed entirely at one buffet. Other events or psychosadistic festivities will occur attempting to produce even greater anxiety. Germ phobia generating mass hypochondria compounded by thanatophobia proved to be a winner in slapping down the hip and self-righteous–you know, those independent thinkers who of their own free will eagerly fall
in line.
Outstanding post – you got a lot in there.
Thanks
I agree with ‘clickkid’: an outstanding post.
Once again, Charlotte nails it with style. Democracy Now may be one example: you know they will never cover 9/11 or the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK. We have been supplied with another Litmus Test with which to discern truth.
Charlotte, you should explain why you don’t believe this site is compromised by the Deep State, since your logical argument above doesn’t exclude it.
My personal view is that there are Deep State personas operating on this site, trying hard to bring it into disrepute with outlandish claims. Some of you will know as to whom I am referring to, the Admins certainly do.
My post, is an observation or a general analysis of independent media primarily relating to how they’re reporting and reacting to the COVID-19 panic pandemic. But as one commentator did astutely point out, there’s an interesting correlation between the lack of introspection or “hesitation” to analyze the motives behind the promotion of excessive panic and the same lack of introspection when
reflecting on other past hyped and questionable events.
What’s especially interesting, is that each past suspicious and hyped event ultimately resulted in a greater loss of liberty. My conclusion, is that many independent commentators are actually deep state assets who are replicating the mainstream media’s position in a more nuanced way.
Now getting back to your question are you referring to the bloggers on this site and their comments, or the actual site itself.
Please name names. Otherwise the great analysis is basically worthless.
Your comment is ludicrous–make your own assessment based on the general guidelines of the analysis. Put your own thinking cap on…..
No, my comment is not ludicrous. Yours is. What are you afraid of?
I’m not doing a report card for security state websites. I’m merely pointing out their tactics, and that they operate a slew of full of shit dumbass websites and Youtube channels, which any person with half a brain can figure out. WTF is wrong with you. Why do you want to know which crap-ass sites they should remove. Too damn bad, let the national security state figure it out.
” which any person with half a brain can figure out. WTF is wrong with you. ”
Tut Tut. If any person with half a brain can figure out which sites you are talking about, then what in the world is the point of this post, or of your comment? They would have figured all of this out on their own.
“Why do you want to know which crap-ass sites they should remove. ”
Obviously the reason I want to know what sites you are talking about is so that I become more skeptical and realize I am being lied to by someone.
Who should remove the crap-ass sites? Me?
You have ceased making sense.
In fact, many have already figured it out. I’m just pinpointing what many already know.
“Obviously the reason I want to know what sites you are talking about is so that I become more skeptical and realize I am being lied to by someone.”
You seem like a pretty wise cookie, I’m sure you’ll be able to compose your own list of sellout sites…..
“I’m just pinpointing what many already know.”
No, you’re not ‘pinpointing’, you’re generalising because it’s safe, and doesn’t expose your supposed knowledge of specifics to testing or criticism.
There is no logical reason for not naming names.
It should not be necessary for Charlotte Russe to name “names”. You are acting like a troll wanting “names” in order perhaps to trip her up if she were to name a particular site or blog.
Russe is describing scenarios which should be familiar to most Off-Guardian readers by now because these are scenarios that have been repeated over time. Once the Deep State latches onto something that time and again brings success, even if that success comes less than 50% of the time, it will keep using it in other environments regardless of whether those particular environments favour success or not. Examples are the various Color Revolutions that TPTB employ around the world even though in some countries (China and Iran come to mind) they continually go nowhere. The TPTB thinking goes: if Color Revolutions succeed in Ukraine, they’re bound to succeed somewhere else and everywhere else, they just need more time and more money and perhaps more snipers.
The same goes for Deep State attempts to undermine and corral news blogs and sites, and individual commentators, over time: if one blog can be brought over to the Dark Side, then all can be brought over. Every site including Off-Guardian.org is at risk. That is one reason why Russe does not need to name sites: we should all be vigilant. We should not expect others to be vigilant for us.
“You are acting like a troll wanting “names” in order perhaps to trip her up if she were to name a particular site or blog. ”
Jen, in what way would Russe be “tripped up”? If names are named of sites already working for the Deep State, how does that “trip up” anyone, since these sites are, obviously, known to the Deep State, since they are already running them. Right? No news for the Deep State there. The only ones “tripped up” are the innocents who continue to believe they are reading genuine alternative new sites?
“Russe is describing scenarios which should be familiar to most Off-Guardian readers by now because these are scenarios that have been repeated over time”
Jen, in that case what is the point of Russe’s post? If everyone already knows what she is talking about.
“That is one reason why Russe does not need to name sites: we should all be vigilant. We should not expect others to be vigilant for us.” Yes, we should all be vigialnt. And then we should share the results of our vigilance. Russe’s and your secretive style—despite the many good points made—in the end serve to increase paranoia without any gain in the form of specific info.
In short, Russe is basically crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater. When the frightened audience shouts back “Where??” Russe says “You work it out for yourself” as she runs away in a presumably safe direction. Pfui!
Great point, Harriet. Really the only one that needs to be made. The thuggish, expletive-filled response from Ms Russe proves that you struck a nerve. And the nerve – to say it even more explicitly than you have – was this one: the breadth of Ms Russe’s reading and viewing (and I think this also goes for the author of the article that she praises so fulsomely, assuming they are not the same person anyway) is probably comparable to that of the reading and viewing of the typical OffGuardian reader which, I am sad to have to acknowledge, looks like it’s probably comparable to that of the reading and viewing of the typical Guardian reader. In other words, she – just like Ms Black (again, assuming that they’re not the same person) – concerns herself regularly and religiously with the utterances of Democracy Now!, Glenn Greenwald and a few other purportedly “independent alternative news media” and feels certain that all those she is addressing concern themselves regularly and religiously with these utterances as well. Absolutely no one whom Ms Black expects to read her article would ever imagine that she’d be referring to, say, Alex Jones’s “InfoWars” or “ZeroHedge” when she speaks of “alt media” because they know Ms Black (and Ms Russe) and know that their reaction on hearing that someone might have paid attention to Alex Jones or David Icke or even Ann Coulter on this (or any) issue would be pretty much indistinguishable from the reaction of a New York Review of Books sub-editor on hearing that someone voted for Donald Trump. In other words, don’t bother with these people, Harriet. They’re “off-Guardian”. But the blinkered lefty apple is never going to fall too far “off” from the tree.
I would like to vote that the above commenter is a state disinfo troll.
Oh, come on!
I still don’t understand why Russe doesn’t state what she is talking about. There has been a fair amount of online discussion of Glenn Greenwald and his relationship to The Intercept. So no news from Russe there. I assume she is referring to other sites, but which ones? When someone comes along and accuses Julian Assange of being a limited hangout, I do have problems with that and reckon I am dealing with la-las. Assange is literally hanging on by a thread, headed for an early grave. Or is all of that a fake news narrative, per Russe? Is that what she is talking about? What in the world does she, a lowly commenter at Off Guardian, have to fear from being specific about her charges? Absent some specifics for reality checking, her post is just a wild denunciation that generates more paranoia.
I too would like to know as i am not aware of all the alternative sites out there, so i would like to know which ones are just following the narrative and are therefore not worth bothering with !!
Sounds like a balanced view to me rather than being a blind ‘lefty’ or ‘righty’, where you come across as a far left one liner who thinks his opinion is not up for debate just like the rest of the most recent ‘left’, do you mask up for protests?
Excellent analysis.
Excellent analysis Charlotte. This explains a great deal of what I have observed recently.
I’d also like to put forward an observation of my own. Not only do these limited hangouts masquerade so effectively that they become recipients of substantial reader donations, the readers comments on these sites are also used as contextual source data for Natural Language Processing algorithms (e.g. Amazon Comprehend) This is a statistical tool often used in marketting to determine whether an advert achieved the desired response from a given demographic, for example. It examines the language directed towards a context (an advert, news report or essay, anything really) and provides statistics on the feedback, such as the positive or negative tone, the key phrases or ‘products’ that were mentioned. They use it to guage what works and what doesn’t, but of course it requires a great deal of user provided data with context to produce any useful analysis.
It’s interesting that some of the responses to your post should immediately ask you to provide a shopping list…
An oddly insightful post from someone who assiduously defended Bernie Sanders and his campaign over at the WSWS website.
Yes, that’s correct, I promoted Bernie’s social justice platform as a vehicle for elevating political consciousness and I was excoriated regularly on WSWS for doing so, in spite of saying from the start that once Bernie is cheated out of the nomination his supporters should stay home or vote Third Party.
Yes, you were indeed excoriated by the ill-mannered lot that regularly comments on WSWS, and I called them on their BS in their replies to you on a few occasions. What I find odd is that you didn’t apply your primary rule “question everything” to Sanders.
My quibble is that you still refer to him being as having been “cheated out” of the nomination rather than realizing it was rigged from the beginning and with his full co-operation. This was evident from his performance after Super Tuesday and especially in the last debate where he refused to take on Biden. He was throwing the fight all along. Not that this stopped the DNC from pulling out its dirty tricks. I’m surprised that got past you given your original post above. According to Open Secrets three of his top contributors during the period from 1989 to 2020 were Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft. To paraphrase a comment I saw on Twitter, people ended up contributing almost two hundred million dollars to Sanders so that he could endorse a right-wing Democrat.
As to his raising political consciousness, I think it will more likely result in political demoralization. People are going to feel “Bern-ed” again.
But to stay on topic here, I haven’t read the WSWS for almost a month now. They are participating fully in promoting the coronavirus panic to the point where it almost seems like they are revelling in it. It immediately got the point where 19 out 20-21 articles would have coronavirus or covid-19 in the headline. I gave up once I saw too many articles where they predicted death tolls in the millions and a host of others calling for lockdowns. I did scan the headlines a few days ago. Lots of hyperbolic language about the rising death toll, scant mention of police state measures.
This is mainly what caused me to stop reading them and it gave me an inkling that is best described in you post above. That and feeling like I was chased off by the cultists in the comments threads when I tried to participate in the conversation. Any comment that is not along the lines of “Brilliant article, comrade” seems to be a target for vitriol over there.
Actually none of Bernie’s treachery was overlooked by me. I subsequently commented to that effect on WSWS, but at that point was already shadowbanned. As I stated previously, Bernie’s platform was a useful tool for elevating political consciousness to a politically “unconscious” US public. Even Sanders duplicity is a teachable moment.
On an April 10 thread entitled: “Bernie Sanders supporters: please reclaim your agency, and vigorously” I posted the following comment:
In the novel “1984,” BETRAYAL is the fundamental theme explaining how authoritarian societies deploy perfidy to psychologically manipulate the fearful and ignorant. A repressive culture encourages everyone to betray each other. This destroys trust heightens alienation and fear. In such an environment an obedient population knows any act of betrayal will be fiercely punished.
Against the backdrop of the novel “1984” and the theme of “betrayal” one can better understand the machinations of the corrupt Democratic Party. In fact, to really understand the American political system it’s imperative to be mindful that the corrupt political duopoly is really a corrupt political “monopoly” with slight variations. Both are right-wing neoliberal imperialist parties.
Any working-class, working-poor, or debt ridden student believing that genuine change can occur hanging onto the coattails of fraudulent political politicians is like partaking in a whirling dervish dance spinning in circles but never going anywhere.
History should tell the working-class that all political campaign promises, especially those made to the “down-and-out” will be immediately abandoned once the political snake slithers into office. Party bosses, know the public is becoming wise to all the insidious shenanigans and are choosing to stay home rather than vote.
Enter Bernie Sanders who 2016 was a bit of a surprise to those in power, but in 2020 is usefully deployed as a Democratic pied piper.
The relentless attacks over the last three years against the Orangeman allowed the public to forget that the Obama/Biden administration was a reactionary pile of crap “betraying” every campaign promise.
Here’s just a few highlights:
Obama relentingly attacked the press and whistleblowers. The Committee to Protect Journalists, said of Obama’s media attacks, “In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.”
Obama Nominated John Brennan as CIA director who under oath lied to the public about mass surveillance practices.
Obama’s bailout during the 2008 financial crisis laid the groundwork for the 2020 crash. Obama/Biden oversaw the transfer of trillions to the most wealthiest and none of the financial crooks were ever prosecuted. The economic devastation resulted in miserly for millions.
Obama/Biden heightened the war in Afghanistan and expanded two wars into seven. More than 500,000 were slaughtered in Syria, more than 10,000 in Libya, tens of thousands in Yemen, and more than 10,000 in Ukraine. And if the slaughter in Eastern Europe was not enough Biden, Obama’s point man, seized the moment to make sweetheart multi-million dollar deals for his son Hunter.
CIA Obama/Biden let the intelligence agencies run the White House. No one was ever held responsible for torture In fact, Obama allowed the CIA to interfere with the Senate investigations into torture.
On basic social reforms like healthcare Obama/Biden were a total failure. The Affordable Care Act was written by the healthcare insurance lobbyists. The premiums are exorbitant and the deductibles are outrageous.
These are just a few highlights of an administration promising “hope and change,” but substituted those promises with unemployment and eviction.
If we focus specifically on Biden’s political career we’ll totally understand why sellout Obama chose “the snake” to be his running-mate. During Biden’s 40 year political career every reactionary piece of legislation was promoted to secure a sweetheart deal for either his brother or son. Biden’s vote for the Iraq war demonstrates the actions of a bloodthirsty creature who convinced other Democrats to support the preemptive attack of Iraq. Biden’s payoff was a multi-million dollar government construction contract for his brother in Iraq. How much is genocide worth. I’ll answer that–trillions……
The insidious wheelings and dealings of the corrupt political duopoly is the backdrop for the Sanders campaign which promised so much. However, The purpose of Bernie’s candidacy was NEVER to win the nomination, but to gather together millions of voters who might never vote for the Democratic Party’s “chosen” nominee. It should be mentioned, that I supported Bernie, and was highly criticized for doing so by the Left, and excoriated regularly on WSWS before they shadowbanned me (so much for Marxist freedom of expression ).
I supported Bernie, because his social justice platform was a vehicle to raise political consciousness. I did say from the start, that when Bernie is cheated out of the nomination voters should stay home or vote Third Party.
The following comment was posted approximately a month ago after a Democratic Primary Debate, It was never seen since it was posted on WSWS and at that point I was already shadowbanned:
Apprehensive Bernie refuses to fight back. Sanders, never called Biden a liar, crook, and war criminal. Mainstream media news outlets glossed over Biden’s untruths by mocking Bernie who cited Biden’s anti-working-class legislative history.
Bernie neglected to point out that every piece of anti-working-class legislation promoted by Biden was a payoff for a lucrative deal for his brother or son. In the case of Iraq, Biden’s brother received a multi-million dollar construction contract to rebuild it. First you advocate for the destruction, devastation, and genocide of a country and its population, and then you secure a government contract for your brother to rebuild it. Sounds like a war criminal to me.
Bernie never mentioned that the bankruptcy bill Biden pushed to screw over the working-class secured a high-paying job at a bank for his son Hunter. And let’s not forget Ukraine and Burismo–more than 10,000 died in a 2014 CIA coup, but for Biden it became another opportunity to suck out millions for his son.
Bernie, never mentioned any of this as he stood there shaking his head from the podium. And since Bernie fully embraced Russiagate, he foolishly backed away from criticizing Bidens warmongering.
Biden, arrogantly smirked and told Bernie the large turnout at the primaries were for “him.” Cowardly lion Bernie, didn’t shout back and say the primaries were rigged.
Bernie should’ve said–let me tell you how it was done: In Iowa a Shadow app was deployed to miscalculate the votes and to thwart the campaign’s momentum; in Texas massive voter suppression was implemented by closing numerous polling centers in working-class pro-Sanders communities; in California ballots are still being counted, but more than 700,000 were already discarded. Bernie should have continued by saying what also needs to be discussed is the collusion which occurred within the DNC when Obama told Buttigieg and Klobuchar to drop out, but told Warren to “stay in”causing a loss in Massachusetts and Minnesota.
And of course, let’s not forget sellout Clyburn (part of the Clinton/Obama ghoul gang) who was tempted to endorse Bloomberg, but in the end rallied all other black sellouts persuading their downtrodden black constituency to vote for racist Biden. And most importantly, we can’t overlook the power of the state-run mainstream media news propaganda machine. This slimy machine creates false narratives and pounds them into the viewers psyche, in the same way they demonize foreign leaders prior to every regime change war.
Cowardly Bernie, is not brave enough to say the collusion against his campaign by the national security state was greater than anything which supposedly was done by the Russians in 2016. Bernie, could not say this since he fully accepted and promoted the concocted Russiagate narrative.
So the cowardly lion Bernie, stood behind the podium shaking his head and saying he would “unify” behind a liar, war criminal, and thief.
I agree with you on the points in your reply, and I am well aware of the Obama/Biden record. As I said my disagreement is with the idea that Sanders was cheated. I don’t believe his objective was to win. Glen Ford sums it up better that I can in his most recent article on Black Agenda Report.
I hope you understand that I am saying this in the spirit of an open discussion, and that it is not my intent to insult you or your intelligence. This is an “agree to disagree” situation. As I said before, a quibble. No more than that.
I am interested in the shadow banning by WSWS. How did you deduce this was happening? I don’t doubt your conclusions. I don’t agree with their policy of moderating comments before they are posted so I’m not surprised. I’m simply curious about what they’ve been up to with your comments and why you think they are doing it.
It’s not that difficult to determine that you’ve been shadowbanned. Your comment appears accepted– it’s no longer in pending status, but it never actually appears on the thread–no one sees it–capiche.
As to why I was shadowbanned, my point of view differed with there’s over Bernie and then over the panic pandemic. It appears, Marxists and capitalists share one thing in common–a belief in censorship.
That’s especially amusing, in so far as WSWS post numerous articles complaining about being banned or censored.
Getting back to Bernie–in a way it’s irrelevant whether his intentions were duplicitous from the start, inasmuch, as his platform showed the working-poor that the corrupt political duopoly only serves the interests of their wealthy donors. However, it’s unfortunate that the mainstream media news has terrified the marginalized into believing that brain dead war criminal Biden is their savior against boogeyman Trump when in effect Biden/Trump are on the same fuck you working-class team.
I guess you could argue that requiring comments be submitted for approval before being posted is censorship. I once had a comment denied. A totally harmless one merely explaining a lawn sign I mentioned in a post that someone asked about.
I’ve kind of been wondering about their operation for a while. It’s difficult to find info about the writers on that site. They only list names without even a short blurb bio to give an idea of their background. Some of the things they write make me think that they don’t spend much time with the working class.
Sorry to drag this out, but I wouldn’t say Sanders’ sheepdogging is irrelevant because his platform never strayed from vague, broad denunciations always pulling back from any specific analysis except for calling out Amazon. And what a hoodwink that turned out to be. He didn’t say anything that most Americans probably don’t already know. Stuff you’d probably overhear in any bar with a blue collar clientele. His platform mainly appealed to the politically naive hence his strong support among younger voters. I suspect older voters felt like I did – it’s hard no to like what he’s saying, but I’ve seen this con run before.
I don’t think he’s going to end up raising many people’s political consciousness. Many are going to just give up. I think one could argue that he has lowered political consciousness by using the word socialism to described capitalism. Promoting that kind of confusion can only have a detrimental effect. It sets things back by burdening people with one more thing they have to unlearn.
“I don’t think Bernie’s going to end up raising many people’s political consciousness. Many are going to just give up.”
Maybe giving up on a “con game” is in itself raising consciousness. It’s like a hooked gambler in a casino getting hit with the epiphany “OMG this fucking place is rigged.”
In the end, perhaps ideological terms like socialism or capitalism are not important. After all, you inferred you’re skeptical and have doubts about WSWS and their true Marxist intentions.
It could be, that the answer to the current “mess” requires an eclectic mix of political ideologies and not a cult-like belief in an improbable hardline. And no one is willing to admit or discuss that possibility because it’s too complicated to clarify, or it doesn’t fit into the existing ready made categories–just a thought.
That brings to mind a comment I posted on WSWS that caused a great deal of ire prior to being banned. I suggested that a powerful Third Party should be established incorporating numerous groups with similar but not identical beliefs. My thinking was that change will only occur if you have leverage to force “genuine” concessions, and that type of leverage will never happen until there’s a large enough organization to challenge the existing power structure.
After awhile, I also realized the concept of “socialism or barbarism” is a contradiction inasmuch as if the entire worldwide capitalist system collapsed it would be replaced by barbarism. History has proven that when civilizations collapse they’re superseded by barbarity which lasts for quite some time.
Think about it— the Dark Ages is categorized as the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Italian Renaissance that’s approximately from 500 to 1500 AD.
“Maybe giving up on a “con game” is in itself raising consciousness. It’s like a hooked gambler in a casino getting hit with the epiphany “OMG this fucking place is rigged.””
That’s certainly something to hope for, but I’m not as optimistic. When I say that I think voters will realize the game is rigged and give up I mean I think that they will give up altogether and join the ranks of the almost half of eligible US voters who don’t vote.
Did your comments about the coronavirus panic make it onto the comments threads at all? According to Emma Goldman, Lenin told her that free speech is a “bourgeois notion”.
As far as how the SEP and others you would expect to know better fell into line with the promotion of the panic, I wonder if it’s a more simple explanation than deep state involvement. That they are just showing their intellectual limitations. That they are conventional thinkers in the main despite being able to go beyond that at times on certain issues.
Regarding the “true Marxist intentions” of the writers at the WSWS I’m not in any position to assess that. What I see there is a lot of boilerplate language in the articles, denunciations of news outlets unless they publish something that fits into the SEP’s agenda in which case they are cited as reliable sources and Socialist snobbism which I first encountered 25 years ago with members of the SWP. Although I agree with their criticisms of identity politics and the metoo movement they avoid discussions of racism and sexism which seem to hit some sore spots with them, and the denunciations become too shrill. When I said earlier that they seem to be revelling in the corona-panic I meant that they appear to be hoping that this will finally expose the true nature of capitalism and the working class will come running into the arms of the SEP. And all the while calling for the same authoritarian measures that have since been implemented. There’s a lot of delusional thinking going on over there (especially in the comments section) despite some genuinely good political analysis. Even though this fits into what you described in your original comment, I don’t think it’s deep state influence. It feels more cultish than manufactured.
Concerning the dark ages, that’s an expression from a (pardon the buzzword) eurocentric point of view. That period was quite less dark in other parts of the world, namely Africa, the Middle East and Asia. But I get your point. And sloganeering is always problematic, usually turning out to be rank manipulation. The Bolsheviks cynically co-opted anarchist slogans while engaging in repression of anarchists. As if the choice was as simple as Socialism or barbarism (meaning everything else).
“When I say that I think voters will realize the game is rigged and give up I mean I think that
they will give up altogether and join the ranks of the almost half of eligible US voters who don’t vote.”
More than 110 million don’t vote. So in effect, the NO VOTE POLITICAL PARTY always wins by a landslide. The “no vote party” is an eclectic mix of folks all sharing in one belief they’re dispassionate or apathetic about the two private corrupt political organizations–R/D. Which for all practical purposes is actually ONE corrupt political party.
It’s hard to say, what will happen down the road to all the disaffected Bernie supporters. However, one thing is for certain the political system is too “calcified.” Under these conditions, genuine change is an improbability without organized mobilized groups willing to tenaciously demonstrate–sort of like the Yellow Vest Protest Movement, and then you’d need to take it one step further and establish a political
party open to attracting “free-thinking” antiwar workers and students while ABANDONING the cult-like mentality you described which is prevalent in all political organizations.
The threads on WSWS were informative before the website became COVID-19 obsessed. The articles do sort of follow a formula. I’m not saying that’s bad, it’s just a fact. You’re correct when you say they’re not fans of the #Me Too movement, or any form of identity politics. I agree with them about identity politics. It’s deployed as a distraction and in the end the number of affluent women or bourgeois blacks in positions of power means nothing if they’re neoliberal warmongers, ie. Obama or Hillary. Oh, isn’t it just lovely war criminal “drooling Joe” is determined to pick a woman running mate.
The bottomline–don’t look for answers or saviors in electoral politics. Whoever manages to slither into office even with the best intentions will quickly sellout–the temptations are too great. And in any case, most only secure political positions because they’re groomed and financially backed by the security/surveillance/corporate state.
What’s that truism : “Politics is show business for ugly people” or, was it “If you want a friend get a dog.”
Boris Johnson’s video Dancing With Mr D has just been released despite the D-notice /sarc. The nurses on the ICU ward could not resist the chance of a knees up with their illustrious guest from Number Ten Downing Street. British Pathé News has the newsreel live on the young persons’ application TikTok right now so you can keep up that wartime spirit!
Am waiting for them to issue the gas masks.
The important part of it is alt-MEDIA, so many plants and disinfo among some good work in there, by their fruits ye shall know them, in this case by their conclusions which can be hard in itself to find since they usually employ dialectic confusion strategy. What they DON’T say is where there conclusions are. Oh and Assange is just a limited hangout, a commonwealth(slavery) aka british agent who was used for destabilization and election manipulation, nothing more. He had hypnocourier Pamela Anderson delivering and receiving messages between himself and Mi6. The so called “leaks” were minimal and random if you went through them, it was mostly the theater of embassy we’ve had the last few years. Dude’s skeevy.
Assange always ends up in the UK no matter what happens so yes an MI6 stooge but his main work was laying the groundwork for the CIA’s Arab Spring operation.
‘
“Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring ‘catalysts’
‘The rights group singles out WikiLeaks and the newspapers that pored over its previously confidential government files, among them the Guardian, as a catalyst in a series of uprisings against repressive regimes, notably the overthrow of Tunisia’s long-serving president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/13/amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring
Le Arabe Spring eau de source Langley.
It wasn’t Pamela Andersen, it was Putin (and/ or Trump) in drag.
Because Bill Gates says so!
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/conspiracy/bill-gates-has-been-controlling-who/
People, who consider themselves intelligent, and I would also consider intelligent, are clueless when it comes to understanding the nature of mass media. It doesn’t exist to reflect public opinion, it exists to shape public opinion. It has always been that way, since the invention of the printing press, and with town criers before that. People I talk to have done ZERO research of their own – they just accept that a killer virus is on the loose.
Figure taken from Office of National Statistics in UK of Deaths from Respiratory disease for the first quarters of the last 7 years: –
2020 – 22,877
2019 – 23,336
2018 – 29,898
2017 – 25,800
2016 – 22,802
2015 – 28,969
These figures would therefore include deaths from flu, colds, pneumonia & Covid19
2020 is second lowest, and is only 0.35% higher than 2016 figure
Anyone with basic maths skills can work these figures out for themselves – from official sources!!
I’d welcome a discussion on these figures & what people think they mean.
Personally I believe they show nothing other than +/- normal
People haven’t a clue and you’re right. Search engines is another: they offer you a limited number of words (often suggesting those words, BTW) from which they offer you a limited number of answers (and in Google’s case, try to sell you a product). It’s simply a more refined version of the way the media has always worked.
Hi Basher, you make a valid point, but currently the data only goes up to the 27th of March.
The first week that those figures may change markedly, starts with the numbers coming out Tuesday morning and weekly thereafter.
I suspect there will be excess deaths starting to show, but then we need to establish roughly how many excess deaths there may be, then establish if they are all COVID deaths, or are some people dying of fear/panic/stress etc (which some very preliminary information from Italy/Spain is trying to discover)
Digging out some of that information may take time and effort
I’ll be doing the maths every week. My main point is that available evidence shows the above facts, full stop. But the media lie by omission by not showing this. They are more keen on scaremongering, for which there is either no evidence or merely anecdotal evidence. It took me 15 mins to add up those numbers from ONS website. A journo could do it, but won’t or isn’t allowed to print them. It really doesn’t matter how many deaths are stated as Covid19, because frail old people, at the end of their lives will be finished off by whatever virus is currently doing the rounds. Right now it is what they are calling Covid19.
There have been recent reports of atypical clusters of Covid-19 deaths in care homes.
It struck me that there are a number of reasons why this might be happening. I shall attach links here and then make my points based on what is in those links.
https://www.bgs.org.uk/resources/covid-19-managing-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-care-homes
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng159/resources/critical-care-admission-algorithm-pdf-8708948893
1. The residents are more than likely to be finding the lockdown measures very stressful and upsetting leading to physical and mental decline. The BGS guidance recommends confinement to restricted areas or to private rooms and no contact with family and friends in accordance with social distancing measures. The guidance says that if Covid-19 is suspected, staff should wear gloves, gowns and face masks. It isn’t altogether clear whether staff would wear PPE when dealing with all residents or just suspect cases. But being confronted with someone in such attire would certainly be very distressing and frightening for many elderly, confused people.
2. It is clear from reading the BGS guidance that it is in the hands of the care home staff “in phone or video consultation with GPs etc” to identify ‘assumed’ Covid-19 cases. Care home staff are advised to obtain the necessary medical equipment and learn how to read vital signs to help with the assessment. There is no mention of any professional medical personnel visiting suspect cases in person. Care home staff should look for certain characteristics of infection e.g. cough, raised temperature, but need to be aware that infected residents “may also commonly present with non-respiratory tract symptoms such as new onset/worsening confusion or diarrhoea”. So, basically all the things that may affect elderly, confused and distressed residents, and could apply to any infection.
3. Based on what the care home staff observe and their remote discussions with GPs a decision is made about the appropriateness of hospitalisation. As it states in the BGS guidance, it may be appropriate to go down the route of my second link above when ‘difficult decisions may have to be made’. As most elderly people in care homes would fall into the higher clinically frail bracket we can see from the chart what that means for them….all without a direct medical evaluation.
4. I don’t know whether such deaths are subject to any post mortem or ‘Covid-19’ tests (for what that is worth) or whether they are recorded as Covid-19 deaths based on assumption.
My conclusion is that it should come as a surprise to no one that the numbers of residents in care homes are unable to survive the current regime and protocols. And I should add that the BGS guidance suggests to me that far too much medical and emotional responsibility is being placed upon hard-working and stressed care home staff.
“…hard-working and stressed underpaid care home staff” more than likely.
Perfectly stated – even if unintended. But that’s the beef.
JudyJ Residential care homes have reported that GPs are no longer visiting care homes. It is likely a lot of the residents have a virus but not Covid-19 -e.g. sickness and diarrhea, MRSA, the flu or bronchial conditions due to spending all day stuck in a chair with a low level of care as residential homes operate on a ratio of say 1 carer to every 10 patients (maximum profiteering you see). The NHS has also said that elderly people will not be admitted to hospital, I believe whatever state their health is in even if it’s a legitimate reason for hospital admission. So, since the majority of deaths are in the frail elderly, the NHS is refusing to treat them – euthanasia/eugenics by any other name. How does anyone know, without testing, that any of these elderly patients have CV-19 it is just assumed. The NHS have frequently publicly stated in the past 10 years that the elderly patients should be placed in residential homes rather than admitted to hospital in order to save their own resources. Now the NHS take a monstrous £140bn of public money. Where the hell is it going?
Indeed, Jo. The irony of course is that we are told that the whole point of the ‘lockdown’ is to protect the elderly when it’s doing anything but.
For many years now GPs have been refusing to attend to residents in care homes unless paid extortionate financial retainers.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3276760/GPs-refuse-visit-elderly-care-homes-unless-paid-fees-100-000-year.html
I have often seen ambulances outside local care homes which I’ve just assumed are attending because of an emergency. But it is now becoming apparent that care home management would often have to call an ambulance simply because ‘caring’ GPs refuse to attend, even for routine matters.
JudyJ – this is an interesting article and quite shocking really. The question that is never addressed by the NHS is what is it doing with the £140bn of public money it takes? When it comes to the NHS in this country, they seem to, for some reason, be able to obfuscate their gross incompetence and their gross financial mismanagement – they get the emotional responses going. I doubt if we’ll ever get an answer. GPs are now extremely highly well paid so have had a massive pay rise but for less work. Nice work if you can get it.
Someone on a forum for a site local to me, said 4 had died in her care home. When someone asked if they had been tested, she said the Paramedics diagnosed it !! So they aren’t confirmed Corvid deaths – they are just deaths from an or several respiratory diseases !
Marvin
Yes, the whole situation is a mess and all we seem to be bombarded with to justify Government actions are very arguable statistics.
The tests themselves are not reliable and, from what we know, are deficient in evidence that they can distinguish between Covid-19 and other common coronaviruses; ‘Covid-19’/coronavirus may be present but not produce any symptoms; some diagnoses are based on subjective opinion; all people dying who test positive, or are assumed to have been infected with Covid-19, are classified as Covid-19 deaths whether or not it contributed to their death; many IC doctors (certainly in the US) are suspecting that unnecessary use of ventilators may be killing many patients, and some believe that patients would benefit more just from straight oxygen without the need for risky invasive mechanical intervention. Add to the mix significant numbers of elderly or vulnerable people who have been classified as qualifying for ‘end of life’ care rather than clinical treatment and we can see why the Covid-19 death tally is meaningless.
I agree with RTB, plus I think the deaths started to ramp up in April, so one would need to look at the corresponding weeks in April in previous years to compare.
Yep. Agree. But all we can look at is the actual evidence available. I, for sure, will be analyzing these figures tomorrow, when they are released. I’m gonna have a look at official figures from France (where I live) today, and I’ll post some info later, hopefully
Can you remind me where in France you live? Just idle curiosity really, as I was in Provence recently, when the lock-down came into force. I was in a relatively sleepy small town not too far from AIX, and things were relatively relaxed at that time, with no police or army to be seen enforcing anything. People were being fairly compliant anyway, from what I could gather.
(I’m back in England now).
Sorry, that should be Aix! AIX was an IBM UNIX variant that I used to work with!
Aix features in “Hussar On The Roof” , a French film from 1995 set during a cholera epidemic of the 1830s. Cheesy but one of my favourites.
Hi Mike,
I live in the former region of Limousin, about an hour north of Limoges. I’m lucky to live in the middle of nowhere, in a detached house – therefore our lives really haven’t changed that much. My oldest is home from Lycée, so thats really nice – to be all together.
Been looking today for French numbers, equivalent to the figures released by ONS in the UK. INSEE, who is kind of a national stistics office seem to only release ‘number of death’ figures for previous years. Shame – it would have been interesting to put those figures, which are probably two weeks further on, alongside UK figures as comparison.
Further to what I posted i’ve found this page on INSEE website, showing the cumulative number of deaths in France from 1st March until 30th March, for this year and two previous years
2020 – 57,441
2019 – 52,011
2018 – 58,641
So not as high as 2018. As France is a couple of weeks further on into this pandemic, I believe that the ONS will show something like this tomorrow, when they release the figures for week ending 4th April. 2020 will move up the list on average, for the 7 years as listed above – but still won’t get to 2015 or 2018 levels.
forgot to include link:
Here
Mike just so. However, what we are not going to know is how many of those deaths are Covid related. They are all going to be classified as Covid deaths whatever the cause is. Let’s see
Apparently in the UK someone dies of something 600,00o plus times per year.
That’s an average of 11538 per week dying of something.
The problem seems to be that currently 10k of people have died of something since ???
Is this on top of the 11538 per week average in the UK or is it part of the total.
I’m not sure anyone knows because the Medical/Coroner profession is busy with trying to prevent deaths as opposed to nailing down who died of what.
For myself I am interested not in the numbers but the reason why at the moment New York gets hammered but relative size cities don’t?
Of course cities are close up and concentrated but so are some parts of other cities.
Clusters by density of population doesn’t seem to fit.
Is there a particular Covid virus that only attacks richer environs?
I wonder what the difference is in Italy between rich-ish Milan and poorish southern big towns and cities?
It’s like it’s a virus of the well off and well travelled.
Or it could be that’s how it started.
As for the PTB embarking on a course of control what’s new?
The UK has the most surveillance cameras per head of population in the world.
Ironically the London police were arresting members of the public six months ago for not revealing their faces for the benefit of Facial Recognition Cameras.
Let’s put it this way – any country that allows shops and businesses to put metal spikes in their doorways to prevent the homeless sheltering from the wind and rain then that is the mark of what they 9 the public ) will ‘ tolerate’ and by crikey the British have tolerated and voted for Neo Liberal right wing governments for the past forty plus years.
It’s very hard to change mentalities like that even in this current crisis.
The truth is the crackdown started many tens of years ago in the West and more tools are coming out of the box ” shovel ready ” and will be used as even after this all ends or is resolved Capitalism cannot be questioned or changed.
Ask Jeremy or Bernie and I’m sure Starmer an ex lawyer will assist the harbingers of the new system in selling it to the masses.
Nothing has really changed – same tune – different piano.
“Is this on top of the 11538 per week average in the UK or is it part of the total?”
For sure, the figures up to week 13 of 2020 show zero, in relation to EXTRA deaths. I know these figures are still early into the current panic, but surely they would show at least the average, for this 7 year period, not 0.35% off being the lowest, being that they say it is serious enough to put almost the entire human race on lockdown.
Trouble is these ONS stats are already 10 days old when they are released – the media can’t be calmed with them. They just say – ah that was then…..
My wife was talking to two UK healthcare worker friends this weekend – one is a doctor, one is a midwife in a big non-London hospital – They both said that everything is very, very quiet. Taking that first hand evidence – where is the surge in the figures going to come from?
“Is this on top of the 11538 per week average in the UK or is it part of the total?”
For sure, the figures up to week 13 of 2020 show zero, in relation to EXTRA deaths. I know these figures are still early into the current panic, but surely they would show at least the average, for this 7 year period, not 0.35% off being the lowest, being that they say it is serious enough to put almost the entire human race on lockdown.
Trouble is these ONS stats are already 10 days old when they are released – the media can’t be calmed with them. They just say – ah that was then…..
My wife was talking to two UK healthcare worker friends this weekend – one is a doctor, one is a midwife in a big non-London hospital – They both said that everything is very, very quiet. Taking that first hand evidence – where is the surge in the figures going to come from?
Cumbria is one of those comparatively hard hit areas which doesn’t add up !! There are no major cities and most areas are rural ! Also Liverpool, which has a large Chinese community, has lower numbers than most cities, even though it hosted the people brought from the cruise ships, some Spanish resorts and had a large football match just before the lockdown measures were implemented !
And the fact that governments and the media started on the pandemic hype before the numbers were as high as they are now and when, therefore the figures showed even less to worry about, was a big red flag !!
“Are some, as has been unkindly suggested, just too stupid to see what’s going on? Do epidemiology stats hurt their brains? Does thinking too much take up valuable psychobabble time? Is it hard to see the black clouds of tyranny rolling in when your head is too firmly planted in your own delightfully quirky posterior?”
I’ve listened to “alternative media” barking at airplanes for over 50 years. They bark, and bark, and bark, until they are as hoarse as a ragged dog in the night. The airplanes continue to recklessly fly around; to pollute the nether lands and never-minds of mass hypnosis and hysteria.
There are scant few investigative journalists, anymore. Hard core factual reporters and analysts end up censored or hopelessly imprisoned like Julian Assange.
The mass media has unwittingly joined Mr. Assange in communal self-exile and prison…
For some perspective from very recent history: (( are mine))
The quotes below relate to the 80,000 flu deaths in America during the 2017-2018 flu season.
“This year’s flu season is on track to be the deadliest one on record, ((killing an estimated 4,000 Americans every week.”))
“ a CDC report revealed that another 17 children died from the flu during the week ending on February 24, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths up to 114.”
The final total for the U.S. 2017-2018 flu season would be – “186” pediatric deaths.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5455221/Worst-bad-US-flu-season-illnesses-decline.html
https://www.markettradersdaily.com/is-covid-19-really-worse-than-the-flu-a-look-at-the-numbers/
http://bhhstoday.org/2547/home/news/the-breakdown-of-this-years-nasty-flu-season/?print=true
Back in 2018, i and my family all experienced a very bad flu – no idea which one it was. But a lot of people i knew suffered it. It seems strange that in a regular year we all know at least a few people who have been off with the flu – this year during a supposed pandemic – we know no-one !!
The icnarc report audits critical care use in England, Wales and NI.
“Currently 100% of adult, general critical care units participate in the CMP. Other specialist units, including neurosciences, cardiac and high dependency units, also participate.”
https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/About
Up to April 9th they have been notified of 4690 ICU admissions and 871 deaths of people with confirmed covid-19.
https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports
I suggest everyone read the report.
I’d also suggest that 871 is the real (hospital) death toll.
It’s also worth watching the ONS overall registered deaths.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
It will be difficult to game that figure without creating death certificates for people who never lived.
Although if lockdown carries on much longer there’s going to be a rise in deaths from a myriad of causes.
All I read is Covid19. Is Nobody dying of pneumonia ??
no – not dying of heart disease, cancer, falling off a mountain, drowning, jumping off a cliff edge – no – it’s covid19 mania – very serious with no known cure
Technically anyone dying of covid-19 IS dying of pneumonia.
But in the UK they’ve changed the guidelines so that anyone dying with any symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection can be counted as a ‘corona death’ even if the infection has been confirmed as something other then corona and they haven’t tested positive for corona.
And they’re retroactively applying the new lax guidelines to deaths that have already happened, bundling them together and announcing them as ‘daily’ death totals.
They are also dying of a disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, as the Chinese reported two months ago, at least.
If they’re developing DIC it’s likely the result of sepsis which is likely the result of pneumonia.
There’s no mechanism for a respiratory disease to trigger more severe complications like DIC/sepsis/ARDS/cytokine storm except pneumonia.
The Chinese data/analysis that first brought to light the possibility of these complications is literally an analysis of ‘Corona pneumonia’ complications.
I’m very skeptical about the “There is no pneumonia!” posts that are popping up here and there.
It’s not unusual for elderly/immunosuppressed people with pneumonia to present without showing typical symptoms (fever, cough etc.).
Any medical professional who’s worked with the elderly should know that.
The same is true of sepsis in the same demographics (presenting without typical symptoms).
And to be clear sepsis and subsequent DIC is a potential consequence of any infection in elderly or immunosuppressed people, regardless of infection location or whether it’s viral, bacterial or even fungal.
Just as ARDS is a potential consequence of any pneumonia regardless of which microbe caused it.
The latest Chinese attack on the west is the TikTok app, which is mind-controlling British and American nurses and forcing them to abandon their duties and jive manically until they drop, in some contagious version of St Vitus’ dance.
The tech press is all abuzz with allegations that TikTok is Chinese spyware. Meanwhile the MSM is busy trying to explain away the pandemic of dancing nurse videos… ABC for example: Nurse Brings Joy to Many by Dancing on TikTok… Actually the Barmy Brits who applaud the NHS each night love the videos, too. It doesn’t occur to them to put 2+2 together. How many hours of preparation go into these videos in which nurses around the world compete with each other in cringeworthy choreography?
I must be so mean to deny them their hours of relaxation while they take a break from the tsunami of death, while gravediggers excavate Central Park, to cope with the virus that the U.S. WHO envoy says “will stalk the human race” for years to come. Meanwhile, I just cain’t stop dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’.
Dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’. Ugh… plop.
They have time because the hospitals are empty.
“Daddy, what did you do in the Covid war?”
“I danced darling; I took part in the Covid Britain’s Got Talent series.
We got as far as the quarter-final (East Midlands Region).
(*gulp*) – it was the proudest moment of my life.” (wipes away tear).
“Daddy, what were your patients doing while you pranced around like a prat?”
“Er, … patients?” (shakes head, with puzzled look).
On a side not about social platforms – in Hong Kong, the activists have moved onto virtual protests. They are now using Animal Crossing as a platform – so much so that China has pulled it from the shelves in a bid to crack down on them !!!
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/animal-crossing-hong-kong-protests-coronavirus
‘Activists’-treacherous compradores on the US payroll. Friends of Uighur terrorist butchers, among other unsavoury types.
Not to worry everyone- The Cure is coming- “spiderman is having us for dinner tonight.”
Who didn’t see this coming?
Gates Foundation enlists Novartis, GSK, others in COVID-19 fight
By Jenni Spinner
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has brought together a collective of life-sciences companies in an effort to accelerate development, production and delivery of COVID-19 treatments, tests and vaccines. The initiative is designed to pool the organizations’ assets, resources and knowledge necessary to tackle solutions in response to the global pandemic.
$$$$$$$$
Industry companies contributing resources and knowledge to the COVID-19 collective include BD, Boehringer Ingelheim, bioMerieux, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Gilead, GSK, J&J, Merck (MSD), Merck (Merck KGaA), Novartis, Pfizer and Sanofi.
$$$$$$$$
Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, said leadership of his company feels an obligation to look for and take advantage of opportunities to collaborate on COVID-19 solutions. “In addition to the individual contributions companies are already making, collective action is critical to ensure any promising studies into vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics are quickly scaled to people around the world who are affected by this pandemic,” he said.
$$$$$$$$
Mark Suzman, Gates Foundation CEO, added that partnering with companies enables his organizations and other groups pursuing COVID-19 solutions to tap into a well of valuable industry knowledge. “The private sector is where the technical skills from discovery to clinical trials to commercialization know-how sits,” he said. “ We look to harness that knowledge and experience, combine it where possible, to connect with national regulators and the World Health Organization to see if we can help flatten the curve of this pandemic and make sure the results reach everyone around the world, particularly those at highest risk and the poorest.”
$$$$$$$$
https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2020/03/27/Bill-Gates-big-pharma-collaborate-on-COVID-19-treatments
God only knows what they are going to put in that vaccine, oops, you all died after a year….sorry, but thanks for all your wealth.
Probably some kind of sterilisation.
Children of Man. ‘Humane’.
Combined with chemical lobotomy.
Been done already.
Isn’t the world comfortable with only one billion (ten million Gods Upon the Earth and the rest serfs)inhabitants.
A BIG LIE by Herr Suzman. BigPharma is NOT where ‘discoery’ occurs. In the USA most novel drug discovery is made in publically financed research, then the discoveries are handed over to the private sector,(in return for political contributions and lucrative retirement jobs), for profiteering. Big Phrma spends MUCH more on advertising and share buy-backs that research. They are blood-sucking, capitalist, parasites after all.
Health Warning: Noro Virus in the wild:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/need-boris-health-health-nation/
”Pearson was listed in Spiked in 2007[9] as one of many journalists who had been duped by the anti-MMR campaign.”
She was outside the big Pharma tent in 2007, she is clearly making up for it now.
Spiked is PURE disinformation, and they are DEFINITELY on the BigPharma payroll.
Bojo’s PR stunt seems to have gone well, with the totally expected propaganda piece at the end of it. The hypocrisy in this is beyond breathtaking…
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1249336590482243585
(does he look like someone who supposedly has had a serious illness and this week has supposedly spent three days in an intensive care unit?)
There must be a D-Notice banning publication of Bojo’s video dancing with the nurses.
He probably got some makeup hints from the Donald–fresh faced and ever blond. Fools everybody!
It get’s even better, Rob. Johnson not only had a serious illness but in his tweet he thanks the NHS for ‘saving his life’!!
judyj, you’ve said you’re in Wales, but to someone in south west France you are ‘up north’.
Stay well; and perhaps just as importantly at the moment, try to stay sane in these insane times.
I’m doing my best but it’s sure a challenge!
Keep well yourself.
😀
judyj, you are not alone. There are millions and millions of us out there who are with you. Just look at the increased traffic on this web site (including the increase in trolls, because the psychos are so afraid).
Grow food if you are able to. Be prepared for anything. But mostly have faith in your fellow human beings.
It’s not going to be easy, but we will get through this.
Trust me.
RobG thanks for this. Not for one minute, not one, do I believe Bozo was every in intensitve care – the story kept changing, he was on oxygen, sitting, out of intensive care in a day etc etc. I guess the staff have signed the Official Secrets Act. However, nice cover to get public sympathy isn’t it? It also gets him out of taking any responsibility for any of this given the mess he has made of it and given the shambles of his Press briefings being unable to answer the most simple of challenging questions. He is a man that has no and never has had any interest in responsibility – he is well out of his depth not only as Prime Minister but also in situations such as these.
I think he was in hospital but he wasn’t very ill. They have to go OTT on his care because of who he is. If it were joe bloggs from Burnley, he would just be left at home to get on with it !
Banned word of the week: ‘Seasonal’