thelibertybeacon--2020-07-19--The Human Immune System – the unsung hero of the hour

The human immune system is the enemy – well , from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry anyway because as it is bad news for profits .
Hence the effort to downplay , devalue , ignore or even sabotage it .
as we have witnessed throughout the Coronavirus .
We have winesses many more deliberate or accidental “ errors ” besides throughout this fiasco as this article , translated from the original German by Back to Reason , who is well worth a visit for more informative and thought-provoking articles .
Coronavirus : Why everyone was wrong The immune response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thought The original article was published in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche ( World Week ) on June 10th .
The author , Beda M Stadler is the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern , a biologist and professor emeritus .
Stadler is an important medical professional in Switzerland , he also likes to use provoking language , which should not deter you from the extremely important points he makes .
This article is about Switzerland and it does not suggest that the situation is exactly the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measures according to local situations .
And I advocate for looking at real data rather than abstract models .
I also suggest to read to the end , because Stadler makes crucial points about testing for Sars-CoV-2 .
The coronavirus is slowly retreating .
What actually happened in the past few weeks ?
The experts have missed basic connections .
The immune response against the virus is much stronger than we thought .
This is not an accusation , but a ruthless taking stock [ of the current situation ] .
I could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic .
I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about Covid-19 to virologist and epidemiologist .
I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus .
Firstly , it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel .
Secondly , It was even more wrong to claim that the population would not already have some immunity against this virus .
Thirdly , it was the crowning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have Covid-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever .
But let ’ s look at this one by one .
At the end of 2019 a coronavirus , which was considered novel , was detected in China .
When the gene sequence , i.e .
the blueprint of this virus , was identified and was given a similar name to the 2002 identified Sars , i.e .
Sars-CoV-2 , we should have already asked ourselves then how far [ this virus ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can make human beings sick .
But no , instead we discussed from which animal as part of a Chinese menu the virus might have sprung .
In the meantime , however , many more people believe the Chinese were so stupid as to release this virus upon themselves in their own country .
Now that we ’ re talking about developing a vaccine against the virus , we suddenly see studies which show that this so-called novel virus is very strongly related to Sars-1 as well as other beta-coronaviruses which make us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colds .
Apart from the pure homologies in the sequence between the various coronaviruses which can make people sick , [ scientists ] currently work on identifying a number of areas on the virus in the same way as human immune cells identify them .
This is no longer about the genetic relationship , but about how our immune system sees this virus , i.e .
which parts of other coronaviruses could potentially be used in a vaccine .
So : Sars-Cov-2 isn ’ t all that new , but merely a seasonal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer , as all cold viruses do — which is what we ’ re observing globally right now .
Flu viruses mutate significantly more , by the way , and nobody would ever claim that a new flu virus strain was completely novel .
Many veterinary doctors were therefore annoyed by this claim of novelty , as they have been vaccinating cats , dogs , pigs , and cows for years against coronaviruses .
2 .
The fairy tale of no immunity From the World Health Organisation ( WHO ) to every Facebook-virologist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous , because there was no immunity against it , because it was a novel virus .
Even Anthony Fauci , the most important advisor to the Trump administration noted at the beginning at every public appearance that the danger of the virus lay in the fact that there was no immunity against it .
Tony and I often sat next to each other at immunology seminars at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda in the US , because we worked in related fields back then .
So for a while I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since he was a respectable colleague of mine .
The penny dropped only when I realised that the first commercially available antibody test [ for Sars-CoV-2 ] was put together from an old antibody test that was meant to detect Sars-1 .
This kind of test evaluates if there are antibodies in someone ’ s blood and if they came about through an early fight against the virus .
[ Scientists ] even extracted antibodies from a llama that would detect Sars-1 , Sars-CoV-2 , and even the Mers virus .
It also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant impact in areas in China where Sars-1 had previously raged .
This is clear evidence urgently suggesting that our immune system considers Sars-1 and Sars-Cov-2 at least partially identical and that one virus could probably protect us from the other .
That ’ s when I realised that the entire world simply claimed that there was no immunity , but in reality , nobody had a test ready to prove such a statement .
That wasn ’ t science , but pure speculation based on a gut feeling that was then parroted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t a single antibody test that can describe all possible immunological situations , such as : if someone is immune , since when , what the neutralising antibodies are targeting and how many structures exist on other coronaviruses that can equally lead to immunity .
In mid-April , work was published by the group of Andreas Thiel at the Charité Berlin .
A paper with 30 authors , amongst them the virologist Christian Drosten .
It showed that in 34 % of people in Berlin who had never been in contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immunity against it ( T-cell immunity is a different kind of immune reaction , see below ) .
This means that our T-cells , i.e .
white blood cells , detect common structures appearing on Sars-CoV-2 and regular cold viruses and therefore combat both of them .
A study by John P A Ioannidis of Stanford University — according to the Einstein Foundation in Berlin one of the world ’ s ten most cited scientists — showed that immunity against Sars-Cov-2 , measured in the form of antibodies , is much higher than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a conspiracy theorist who just wants to swim against the stream ; nontheless he is now being criticised , because the antibody tests used were not extremely precise .
With that , his critics admit that they do not have such tests yet .
And aside , John P A Ioannidis is such a scientific heavy-weight that all German virologists combined are a light-weight in comparison .
Epidemiologist also fell for the myth that there was no immunity in the population .
They also didn ’ t want to believe that coronaviruses were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer .
Otherwise their curve models would have looked differently .
When the initial worst case scenarios didn ’ t come true anywhere , some now still cling to models predicting a second wave .
Let ’ s leave them their hopes — I ’ ve never seen a scientific branch that manoeuvred itself so much into the offside .
I have also not yet understood why epidemiologists were so much more interested in the number of deaths , rather than in the numbers that could be saved .
As an immunologist I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the human organism , which has built a tried and tested , adaptive immune system .
At the end of February , driving home from the recording of [ a Swiss political TV debate show ] , I mentioned to Daniel Koch [ former head of the Swiss federal section “ Communicable Diseases ” of the Federal Office of Public Health ] that I suspected there was a general immunity in the population against Sars-Cov-2 .
He argued against my view .
I later defended him anyway , when he said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spread of the pandemic .
He suspected that children didn ’ t have a receptor for the virus , which is of course nonsense .
Still , we had to admit that his observations were correct .
But the fact that every scientist attacked him afterwards and asked for studies to prove his point , was somewhat ironic .
Nobody asked for studies to prove that people in certain at-risk groups were dying .
When the first statistics from China and later worldwide data showed the same trend , that is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years old got sick , everyone should have made the argument that children clearly have to be immune .
For every other disease that doesn ’ t afflict a certain group of people , we would come to the conclusion that that group is immune .
When people are sadly dying in a retirement home , but in the same place other pensioners with the same risk factors are left entirely unharmed , we should also conclude that they were presumably immune .
But this common sense seems to have eluded many , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deniers ” just for fun .
This new breed of deniers had to observe that the majority of people who tested positive for this virus , i.e .
the virus was present in their throats , did not get sick .
The term “ silent carriers ” was conjured out of a hat and it was claimed that one could be sick without having symptoms .
Wouldn ’ t that be something !
If this principle from now on gets naturalised into the realm of medicine , health insurers would really have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could now claim to have whatever disease to skip school , if at the end of the day one didn ’ t need symptoms anymore to be sick .
The next joke that some virologists shared was the claim that those who were sick without symptoms could still spread the virus to other people .
The “ healthy ” sick would have so much of the virus in their throats that a normal conversation between two people would be enough for the “ healthy one ” to infect the other healthy one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ what is happening here : If a virus is growing anywhere in the body , also in the throat , it means that human cells decease .
When [ human ] cells decease , the immune system is alerted immediately and an infection is caused .
One of five cardinal symptoms of an infection is pain .
It is understandable that those afflicted by Covid-19 might not remember that initial scratchy throat and then go on to claim that they didn ’ t have any symptoms just a few days ago .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a story of “ healthy ” sick people , which stokes panic and was often given as a reason for stricter lockdown measures , just shows how bad the joke really is .
At least the WHO didn ’ t accept the claim of asymptomatic infections and even challenges this claim on its website .
Here a succinct and brief summary , especially for the immunity deniers , of how humans are attacked by germs and how we react to them : If there are pathogenic viruses in our environment , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — are attacked by this virus .
If someone is immune , the battle with the virus begins .
First we try to prevent the virus from binding to our own cells with the help of antibodies .
This normally works only partially , not all are blocked and some viruses will attach to the appropriate cells .
That doesn ’ t need to lead to symptoms , but it ’ s also not a disease .
Because the second guard of the immune system is now called into action .
That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blood cells , which can determine from the outside in which other cells the virus is now hiding to multiply .
These cells , which are now incubating the virus , are searched throughout the entire body and killed by the T-cells until the last virus is dead .
So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person , it is not a virus that is detected , but a small shattered part of the viral genome .
The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Correct : Even if the infectious viruses are long dead , a corona test can come back positive , because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [ to be detected ] .
That ’ s exactly what happened , when there was the global news , even shared by the WHO , that 200 Koreans who already went through Covid-19 were infected a second time and that there was therefore probably no immunity against this virus .
The explanation of what really happened and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was clear that the immune Koreans were perfectly healthy and only had a short battle with the virus .
The crux was that the virus debris registered with the overly sensitive test and therefore came back as “ positive ” .
It is likely that a large number of the daily reported infection numbers are purely due to viral debris .
The PCR test with its extreme sensitivity was initially perfect to find out where the virus could be .
But this test can not identify whether the virus is still alive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this also led some virologists to equate the strength of a test result with viral load , i.e .
the amount of virus someone can breathe out .
Luckily , our day care centres stayed open nontheless .
Since German virologist missed that part , because , out of principle , they do not look at what other countries are doing , even if other countries ’ case numbers are falling more rapidly .
What does this all mean in real life ?
The extremely long incubation time of two to 14 days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days — should wake up any immunologist .
As well as the claim that most patients would no longer secrete the virus after five days .
Both [ claims ] in turn actually lead to the conclusion that there is — sort of in the background — a base immunity that contorts the events , compared to an expected cycle [ of a viral infection ] — i.e .
leads to a long incubation period and quick immunity .
This immunity also seems to be the problem for patients with a severe course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , i.e .
the accuracy of our defence system , is reduced the older we get .
But also people with a bad diet or who are malnourished may have a weakened immune system , which is why this virus does not only reveal the medical problems of a country , but also social issues .
If an infected person does not have enough antibodies , i.e .
a weak immune response , the virus slowly spreads out across the entire body .
Now that there are not enough antibodies , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our immune response left : The T-cells beginn to attack the virus-infested cells all over the body .
This can lead to an exaggerated immune response , basically to a massive slaughter ; this is called a Cytokine Storm .
Very rarely this can also happen in small children , in that case called Kawasaki Syndrome .
This very rare occurrence in children was also used in our country to stoke panic .
It ’ s interesting , however , that this syndrome is very easily cured .
The [ affected ] children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ i.e .
people who went through coronavirus colds .
This means that the hushed-up [ supposedly non-existent ] immunity in the population is in fact used therapeutically .
The virus is gone for now .
It will probably come back in winter , but it won ’ t be a second wave , but just a cold .
Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead , because the risk of something falling on their head is greater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Covid-19 .
If we observe a significant rise in infections in 14 days [ after the Swiss relaxed the lockdown ] , we ’ d at least know that one of the measures was useful .
Other than that I recommend reading John P A Ioannidis ’ latest work in which he describes the global situation based on data on May 1st 2020 : People below 65 years old make up only 0.6 to 2.6 % of all fatal Covid cases .
To get on top of the pandemic , we need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of at-risk people over 65 .
If that ’ s the opinion of a top expert , a second lockdown is simply a no-go .
On our way back to normal , it would be good for us citizens if a few scaremongers apologised .
Such as doctors who wanted a triage of over 80 year old Covid patients in order to stop ventilating them .
Also media that kept showing alarmist videos of Italian hospitals to illustrate a situation that as such didn ’ t exist .
All politicians calling for “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even knowing what the test actually measures .
And the federal government for an app they ’ ll never get to work and will warn me if someone near me is positive , even if they ’ re not infectious .
In winter , when the flu and other colds make the rounds again , we can then go back to kissing each other a little less , and we should wash our hands even without a virus present .
And people who ’ ll get sick nonetheless can then don their masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from this pandemic .
And if we still haven ’ t learned to protect our at-risk groups , we ’ ll have to wait for a vaccine that will hopefully also be effective in at-risk people .
Addendum : I am not the original author of this article , I translated it from German , as indicated at the very beginning .
The original author is Beda M Stadler , the original article is linked at the top .
I apologise for any typos , as noted in some of your comments .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ now .

The human immune system is the enemy – well, from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry anyway because as it is bad news for profits. Hence the effort to downplay, devalue, ignore or even sabotage it. as we have witnessed throughout the Coronavirus.
We have winesses many more deliberate or accidental “errors” besides throughout this fiasco as this article, translated from the original German by Back to Reason, who is well worth a visit for more informative and thought-provoking articles.
Steve
Coronavirus: Why everyone was wrong
The immune response to the virus is stronger than everyone thought
The original article was published in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche (World Week) on June 10th. The author, Beda M Stadler is the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern, a biologist and professor emeritus. Stadler is an important medical professional in Switzerland, he also likes to use provoking language, which should not deter you from the extremely important points he makes.
This article is about Switzerland and it does not suggest that the situation is exactly the same globally. I am advocating for local measures according to local situations. And I advocate for looking at real data rather than abstract models. I also suggest to read to the end, because Stadler makes crucial points about testing for Sars-CoV-2.
Warum alle falsch lagen Das Coronavirus verzieht sich allmählich. Was hat sich in den vergangenen Wochen eigentlich abgespielt? Die… www.weltwoche.ch Why everyone was wrong
The coronavirus is slowly retreating. What actually happened in the past few weeks? The experts have missed basic connections. The immune response against the virus is much stronger than we thought.
By Beda M Stadler
This is not an accusation, but a ruthless taking stock [of the current situation]. I could slap myself, because I looked at Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic. I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about Covid-19 to virologist and epidemiologist. I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus.
Firstly, it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel. Secondly, It was even more wrong to claim that the population would not already have some immunity against this virus. Thirdly, it was the crowning of stupidity to claim that someone could have Covid-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever.
But let’s look at this one by one.
1. A new virus?
At the end of 2019 a coronavirus, which was considered novel, was detected in China. When the gene sequence, i.e. the blueprint of this virus, was identified and was given a similar name to the 2002 identified Sars, i.e. Sars-CoV-2, we should have already asked ourselves then how far [this virus] is related to other coronaviruses, which can make human beings sick. But no, instead we discussed from which animal as part of a Chinese menu the virus might have sprung. In the meantime, however, many more people believe the Chinese were so stupid as to release this virus upon themselves in their own country. Now that we’re talking about developing a vaccine against the virus, we suddenly see studies which show that this so-called novel virus is very strongly related to Sars-1 as well as other beta-coronaviruses which make us suffer every year in the form of colds. Apart from the pure homologies in the sequence between the various coronaviruses which can make people sick, [scientists] currently work on identifying a number of areas on the virus in the same way as human immune cells identify them. This is no longer about the genetic relationship, but about how our immune system sees this virus, i.e. which parts of other coronaviruses could potentially be used in a vaccine.
So: Sars-Cov-2 isn’t all that new, but merely a seasonal cold virus that mutated and disappears in summer, as all cold viruses do — which is what we’re observing globally right now. Flu viruses mutate significantly more, by the way, and nobody would ever claim that a new flu virus strain was completely novel. Many veterinary doctors were therefore annoyed by this claim of novelty, as they have been vaccinating cats, dogs, pigs, and cows for years against coronaviruses.
2. The fairy tale of no immunity
From the World Health Organisation (WHO) to every Facebook-virologist, everyone claimed this virus was particularly dangerous, because there was no immunity against it, because it was a novel virus. Even Anthony Fauci, the most important advisor to the Trump administration noted at the beginning at every public appearance that the danger of the virus lay in the fact that there was no immunity against it. Tony and I often sat next to each other at immunology seminars at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda in the US, because we worked in related fields back then. So for a while I was pretty uncritical of his statements, since he was a respectable colleague of mine. The penny dropped only when I realised that the first commercially available antibody test [for Sars-CoV-2] was put together from an old antibody test that was meant to detect Sars-1. This kind of test evaluates if there are antibodies in someone’s blood and if they came about through an early fight against the virus. [Scientists] even extracted antibodies from a llama that would detect Sars-1, Sars-CoV-2, and even the Mers virus. It also became known that Sars-CoV-2 had a less significant impact in areas in China where Sars-1 had previously raged. This is clear evidence urgently suggesting that our immune system considers Sars-1 and Sars-Cov-2 at least partially identical and that one virus could probably protect us from the other.
That’s when I realised that the entire world simply claimed that there was no immunity, but in reality, nobody had a test ready to prove such a statement. That wasn’t science, but pure speculation based on a gut feeling that was then parroted by everyone. To this day there isn’t a single antibody test that can describe all possible immunological situations, such as: if someone is immune, since when, what the neutralising antibodies are targeting and how many structures exist on other coronaviruses that can equally lead to immunity.
In mid-April, work was published by the group of Andreas Thiel at the Charité Berlin. A paper with 30 authors, amongst them the virologist Christian Drosten. It showed that in 34 % of people in Berlin who had never been in contact with the Sars-CoV-2 virus showed nonetheless T-cell immunity against it (T-cell immunity is a different kind of immune reaction, see below). This means that our T-cells, i.e. white blood cells, detect common structures appearing on Sars-CoV-2 and regular cold viruses and therefore combat both of them.
A study by John P A Ioannidis of Stanford University — according to the Einstein Foundation in Berlin one of the world’s ten most cited scientists — showed that immunity against Sars-Cov-2, measured in the form of antibodies, is much higher than previously thought. Ioannidis is certainly not a conspiracy theorist who just wants to swim against the stream; nontheless he is now being criticised, because the antibody tests used were not extremely precise. With that, his critics admit that they do not have such tests yet. And aside, John P A Ioannidis is such a scientific heavy-weight that all German virologists combined are a light-weight in comparison.
3. The failure of modellers
Epidemiologist also fell for the myth that there was no immunity in the population. They also didn’t want to believe that coronaviruses were seasonal cold viruses that would disappear in summer. Otherwise their curve models would have looked differently. When the initial worst case scenarios didn’t come true anywhere, some now still cling to models predicting a second wave. Let’s leave them their hopes — I’ve never seen a scientific branch that manoeuvred itself so much into the offside. I have also not yet understood why epidemiologists were so much more interested in the number of deaths, rather than in the numbers that could be saved.
4. Immunology of common sense
As an immunologist I trust a biological model, namely that of the human organism, which has built a tried and tested, adaptive immune system. At the end of February, driving home from the recording of [a Swiss political TV debate show], I mentioned to Daniel Koch [former head of the Swiss federal section “Communicable Diseases” of the Federal Office of Public Health] that I suspected there was a general immunity in the population against Sars-Cov-2. He argued against my view. I later defended him anyway, when he said that children were not a driving factor in the spread of the pandemic. He suspected that children didn’t have a receptor for the virus, which is of course nonsense. Still, we had to admit that his observations were correct. But the fact that every scientist attacked him afterwards and asked for studies to prove his point, was somewhat ironic. Nobody asked for studies to prove that people in certain at-risk groups were dying. When the first statistics from China and later worldwide data showed the same trend, that is to say that almost no children under ten years old got sick, everyone should have made the argument that children clearly have to be immune. For every other disease that doesn’t afflict a certain group of people, we would come to the conclusion that that group is immune. When people are sadly dying in a retirement home, but in the same place other pensioners with the same risk factors are left entirely unharmed, we should also conclude that they were presumably immune.
But this common sense seems to have eluded many, let’s call them “immunity deniers” just for fun. This new breed of deniers had to observe that the majority of people who tested positive for this virus, i.e. the virus was present in their throats, did not get sick. The term “silent carriers” was conjured out of a hat and it was claimed that one could be sick without having symptoms. Wouldn’t that be something! If this principle from now on gets naturalised into the realm of medicine, health insurers would really have a problem, but also teachers whose students could now claim to have whatever disease to skip school, if at the end of the day one didn’t need symptoms anymore to be sick.
The next joke that some virologists shared was the claim that those who were sick without symptoms could still spread the virus to other people. The “healthy” sick would have so much of the virus in their throats that a normal conversation between two people would be enough for the “healthy one” to infect the other healthy one. At this point we have to dissect what is happening here: If a virus is growing anywhere in the body, also in the throat, it means that human cells decease. When [human] cells decease, the immune system is alerted immediately and an infection is caused. One of five cardinal symptoms of an infection is pain. It is understandable that those afflicted by Covid-19 might not remember that initial scratchy throat and then go on to claim that they didn’t have any symptoms just a few days ago. But for doctors and virologists to twist this into a story of “healthy” sick people, which stokes panic and was often given as a reason for stricter lockdown measures, just shows how bad the joke really is. At least the WHO didn’t accept the claim of asymptomatic infections and even challenges this claim on its website.
Here a succinct and brief summary, especially for the immunity deniers, of how humans are attacked by germs and how we react to them: If there are pathogenic viruses in our environment, then all humans — whether immune or not — are attacked by this virus. If someone is immune, the battle with the virus begins. First we try to prevent the virus from binding to our own cells with the help of antibodies. This normally works only partially, not all are blocked and some viruses will attach to the appropriate cells. That doesn’t need to lead to symptoms, but it’s also not a disease. Because the second guard of the immune system is now called into action. That’s the above mentioned T-cells, white blood cells, which can determine from the outside in which other cells the virus is now hiding to multiply. These cells, which are now incubating the virus, are searched throughout the entire body and killed by the T-cells until the last virus is dead.
So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left. Correct: Even if the infectious viruses are long dead, a corona test can come back positive, because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [to be detected]. That’s exactly what happened, when there was the global news, even shared by the WHO, that 200 Koreans who already went through Covid-19 were infected a second time and that there was therefore probably no immunity against this virus. The explanation of what really happened and an apology came only later, when it was clear that the immune Koreans were perfectly healthy and only had a short battle with the virus. The crux was that the virus debris registered with the overly sensitive test and therefore came back as “positive”. It is likely that a large number of the daily reported infection numbers are purely due to viral debris.
The PCR test with its extreme sensitivity was initially perfect to find out where the virus could be. But this test can not identify whether the virus is still alive, i.e. still infectous. Unfortunately, this also led some virologists to equate the strength of a test result with viral load, i.e. the amount of virus someone can breathe out. Luckily, our day care centres stayed open nontheless. Since German virologist missed that part, because, out of principle, they do not look at what other countries are doing, even if other countries’ case numbers are falling more rapidly.
5. The problem with corona immunity
What does this all mean in real life? The extremely long incubation time of two to 14 days — and reports of 22 to 27 days — should wake up any immunologist. As well as the claim that most patients would no longer secrete the virus after five days. Both [claims] in turn actually lead to the conclusion that there is — sort of in the background — a base immunity that contorts the events, compared to an expected cycle [of a viral infection] — i.e. leads to a long incubation period and quick immunity. This immunity also seems to be the problem for patients with a severe course of the disease. Our antibody titre, i.e. the accuracy of our defence system, is reduced the older we get. But also people with a bad diet or who are malnourished may have a weakened immune system, which is why this virus does not only reveal the medical problems of a country, but also social issues.
If an infected person does not have enough antibodies, i.e. a weak immune response, the virus slowly spreads out across the entire body. Now that there are not enough antibodies, there is only the second, supporting leg of our immune response left: The T-cells beginn to attack the virus-infested cells all over the body. This can lead to an exaggerated immune response, basically to a massive slaughter; this is called a Cytokine Storm. Very rarely this can also happen in small children, in that case called Kawasaki Syndrome. This very rare occurrence in children was also used in our country to stoke panic. It’s interesting, however, that this syndrome is very easily cured. The [affected] children get antibodies from healthy blood donors, i.e. people who went through coronavirus colds. This means that the hushed-up [supposedly non-existent] immunity in the population is in fact used therapeutically.
What now?
The virus is gone for now. It will probably come back in winter, but it won’t be a second wave, but just a cold. Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of Covid-19.
If we observe a significant rise in infections in 14 days [after the Swiss relaxed the lockdown], we’d at least know that one of the measures was useful. Other than that I recommend reading John P A Ioannidis’ latest work in which he describes the global situation based on data on May 1st 2020: People below 65 years old make up only 0.6 to 2.6 % of all fatal Covid cases. To get on top of the pandemic, we need a strategy merely concentrating on the protection of at-risk people over 65. If that’s the opinion of a top expert, a second lockdown is simply a no-go.
On our way back to normal, it would be good for us citizens if a few scaremongers apologised. Such as doctors who wanted a triage of over 80 year old Covid patients in order to stop ventilating them. Also media that kept showing alarmist videos of Italian hospitals to illustrate a situation that as such didn’t exist. All politicians calling for “testing, testing, testing” without even knowing what the test actually measures. And the federal government for an app they’ll never get to work and will warn me if someone near me is positive, even if they’re not infectious.
In winter, when the flu and other colds make the rounds again, we can then go back to kissing each other a little less, and we should wash our hands even without a virus present. And people who’ll get sick nonetheless can then don their masks to show others what they have learned from this pandemic. And if we still haven’t learned to protect our at-risk groups, we’ll have to wait for a vaccine that will hopefully also be effective in at-risk people.
Medinside.ch, Beda M Stadler
Addendum: I am not the original author of this article, I translated it from German, as indicated at the very beginning. The original author is Beda M Stadler, the original article is linked at the top. I apologise for any typos, as noted in some of your comments. I have corrected hopefully most of them now.


thelibertybeacon--2020-07-19--Left-wing Teaching Unions holding parents & children to ransom

America ’ s teachers ’ unions are composed of racialized political activists who indoctrinate rather than educate our children .
For the past 40 years , teachers have been radicalizing and imposing their extreme left values , sold as “ progressive ideologies , ” on our children .
Mirroring the Marxist Black Lives Matter model , the teachers ’ unions and BLM both demand the destruction of all heroes , symbols and statues to facilitate their total rewrite of history .
The “ plan ” includes imposing hyper-sexualized norms on our children with complete disregard and disdain for their parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unions demand our children be led down the road to Marxism , which will help ensure the destruction of the nuclear family unit along with traditional family values .
It is clear that US teacher unions possess a frightening amount of power and need to be broken up , just like Jimmy Hoffa ’ s Teamsters Union in the 1950s and ‘ 60s .
In the LA school district , the California Teachers Union ( CTU ) has decided to keep schools closed this fall .
The CTU is also making extortionate political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an end to charter schools ( which are autonomous , often-parent led , and largely non-unionized ) and money in the form of gigantic federal subsidies , ahead of the needs and rights of students .
The CTU uses any opportunity , especially the global coronavirus pandemic , to slam Trump and influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election .
During an interview on John Catsimatidis ’ s radio show , Randi Weingarten , the head of the American Federation of Teachers ( AFT ) Union , a member of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , threatened parents that “ there ’ s no way ” schools will reopen in the fall unless her union ’ s demands are met .
Weingarten – a regular donor to the Democratic Party – is also demanding massive federal funding before reopening schools in the fall , all while fashionably attacking President Donald Trump .
Not to be left behind , the propaganda rag known as the New York Times recently had their most talented fearmongering race-baiters and propagandists launch into another anti-Trump screed titled ‘ Trump Threatens To Turn Pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When in doubt , blame Trump .
One must ask if this is about what is best for our children , or is this about evil political operatives who have an agenda to see Biden elected president of the USA ?
The debate to reopen schools in the US has become more about politics than about actual science .
The left ignores the fact that while the number of new infections has increased , the 7-day average number of Covid deaths has dropped from 2,232 in mid-April to 724 deaths as of July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent decrease , which is terrific news .
The left also ignores the fact that there has been no discernible spread of Covid-19 by children below 12 and no mortalities of children below 15 at all .
In fact , while America is still arguing about reopening its schools , most children in Asia and Europe are already back in school .
These countries have focused on hygiene , hand washing , social distancing and testing .
Recently , many countries in Asia and Europe have even gone as far as to drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts have found no correlation showing that children transmit Covid-19 to adults .
This week , a German study reported schools have a low coronavirus infection rate .
The results showed that “ the dynamics of the virus spreading have been overestimated ” and that schools did not develop a high transmission rate after reopening in May .
In the German study of 2,045 blood samples taken from 13 school districts , Professor Reinhard Berner , the clinic director of the Clinic and Polyclinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of the Dresden University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ This means that a silent , symptom-free infection in the pupils and teachers examined by us has so far occurred less frequently than we suspected .
These results of the investigation provide evidence that virus transmission in families is not as dynamic as previously thought .
More than 20 of the subjects examined had at least one proven corona case in the family ; however , antibodies were found in only one of these study participants , which would mean that the majority of schoolchildren did not experience any infection themselves despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finding must also be taken into account when it comes to deciding on measures to limit contact.
” Not allowing schools to reopen hurts children .
It is likely to cause educational and socialization problems and to deprive the most vulnerable , low-income and special-needs children of nutritious meals and a place to escape their dysfunctional and often abusive households .
In response to the teachers ’ unions push to “ defund the police ” a week ago , Bill de Blasio , New York ’ s mayor , pulled 600 specialist anti-crime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streets .
Has the plan worked ?
No .
A one-year-old boy was murdered in NYC .
The plan is an epic failure that has and will cost the lives of our children .
In the last week , at least 21 children were murdered in America .
Our biggest cities are no longer safe .
Enough is enough – people need to fight this madness .
Stop the push to demonize and defund our police .
Our law enforcement officers need to be supported , not dehumanized .
Yes , there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad doctors , bad teachers , bad bankers and bad people in every profession .
Just as a perfect socialist Utopian green new deal doesn ’ t exist , perfect humans don ’ t exist either .
Civil society demands unity , not anarchy that features shrieking minorities who use fascist tactics to impose Marxist values on the majority .
While I disagree with the massive boycotts the majority are planning against major “ woke corporations ” for their phony virtue signaling , identity politics and discriminatory practices , the time for people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culture needs to end now if we are to restore democracy , liberty and the American dream for everyone because black lives and , in fact , all lives matter more than political agendas and the left ’ s repugnant agenda-driven opportunism .
Time , work & Christianity are ‘ white people ’ things ?
US GOVERNMENT-FUNDED museum now promoting crackpot ‘ anti-racism ’ theories What a riot !
Minnesota requesting White House aid is like kid calling Dad after wrecking family car while driving drunk Who are the real racists ?
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hide their own bigotry ( TLB ) published this article from RT-USA News with our sincere appreciation for making this perspective available .

America’s teachers’ unions are composed of racialized political activists who indoctrinate rather than educate our children.
For the past 40 years, teachers have been radicalizing and imposing their extreme left values, sold as “progressive ideologies,” on our children. Mirroring the Marxist Black Lives Matter model, the teachers’ unions and BLM both demand the destruction of all heroes, symbols and statues to facilitate their total rewrite of history.
The “plan” includes imposing hyper-sexualized norms on our children with complete disregard and disdain for their parents’ normative values. The teachers’ unions demand our children be led down the road to Marxism, which will help ensure the destruction of the nuclear family unit along with traditional family values.
Reopening schools
It is clear that US teacher unions possess a frightening amount of power and need to be broken up, just like Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters Union in the 1950s and ‘60s. In the LA school district, the California Teachers Union (CTU) has decided to keep schools closed this fall.
The CTU is also making extortionate political demands, such as defunding the police, an end to charter schools (which are autonomous, often-parent led, and largely non-unionized) and money in the form of gigantic federal subsidies, ahead of the needs and rights of students. The CTU uses any opportunity, especially the global coronavirus pandemic, to slam Trump and influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
During an interview on John Catsimatidis’s radio show, Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Union, a member of the AFL-CIO and a staunch Democratic Party activist, threatened parents that “there’s no way” schools will reopen in the fall unless her union’s demands are met. Weingarten – a regular donor to the Democratic Party – is also demanding massive federal funding before reopening schools in the fall, all while fashionably attacking President Donald Trump.
Not to be left behind, the propaganda rag known as the New York Times recently had their most talented fearmongering race-baiters and propagandists launch into another anti-Trump screed titled ‘Trump Threatens To Turn Pandemic Schooling Into A Culture War’. When in doubt, blame Trump.
One must ask if this is about what is best for our children, or is this about evil political operatives who have an agenda to see Biden elected president of the USA?
The debate to reopen schools in the US has become more about politics than about actual science. The left ignores the fact that while the number of new infections has increased, the 7-day average number of Covid deaths has dropped from 2,232 in mid-April to 724 deaths as of July 14, 2020 – a near 70 percent decrease, which is terrific news.
The left also ignores the fact that there has been no discernible spread of Covid-19 by children below 12 and no mortalities of children below 15 at all.
In fact, while America is still arguing about reopening its schools, most children in Asia and Europe are already back in school. These countries have focused on hygiene, hand washing, social distancing and testing. Recently, many countries in Asia and Europe have even gone as far as to drop social distancing limits. In France, experts have found no correlation showing that children transmit Covid-19 to adults.
This week, a German study reported schools have a low coronavirus infection rate. The results showed that “the dynamics of the virus spreading have been overestimated” and that schools did not develop a high transmission rate after reopening in May.
In the German study of 2,045 blood samples taken from 13 school districts, Professor Reinhard Berner, the clinic director of the Clinic and Polyclinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of the Dresden University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, concludes:
“This means that a silent, symptom-free infection in the pupils and teachers examined by us has so far occurred less frequently than we suspected. These results of the investigation provide evidence that virus transmission in families is not as dynamic as previously thought. More than 20 of the subjects examined had at least one proven corona case in the family; however, antibodies were found in only one of these study participants, which would mean that the majority of schoolchildren did not experience any infection themselves despite an infection in the household. This finding must also be taken into account when it comes to deciding on measures to limit contact.”
Not allowing schools to reopen hurts children. It is likely to cause educational and socialization problems and to deprive the most vulnerable, low-income and special-needs children of nutritious meals and a place to escape their dysfunctional and often abusive households.
Defund the police
In response to the teachers’ unions push to “defund the police” a week ago, Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor, pulled 600 specialist anti-crime police officers off the city’s streets.
Has the plan worked? No. A one-year-old boy was murdered in NYC. The plan is an epic failure that has and will cost the lives of our children. In the last week, at least 21 children were murdered in America. Our biggest cities are no longer safe.
Enough is enough – people need to fight this madness. Stop the push to demonize and defund our police. Our law enforcement officers need to be supported, not dehumanized. Yes, there are bad cops, but there are also bad doctors, bad teachers, bad bankers and bad people in every profession. Just as a perfect socialist Utopian green new deal doesn’t exist, perfect humans don’t exist either.
Civil society demands unity, not anarchy that features shrieking minorities who use fascist tactics to impose Marxist values on the majority. While I disagree with the massive boycotts the majority are planning against major “woke corporations” for their phony virtue signaling, identity politics and discriminatory practices, the time for people to speak out is now.
It’s time for a national review of public school curriculums. It’s time to break these powerful unions. It’s time to increase funding of charter schools that allow parents to decide what is being taught to their children.
Cancel culture needs to end now if we are to restore democracy, liberty and the American dream for everyone because black lives and, in fact, all lives matter more than political agendas and the left’s repugnant agenda-driven opportunism.
_________
Also from RT
*********
(TLB) published this article from RT-USA News with our sincere appreciation for making this perspective available.
Featured image credit © Getty Images / Scott Heins
About the author


thelibertybeacon--2020-07-19--War on the Suburbs: How HUD’s Housing Policies Became a Weapon for Social Change

War on the Suburbs : How HUD ’ s Housing Policies Became a Weapon for Social Change There are few things more synonymous with the American way of life than the suburbs .
While certainly not without problems , the suburbs have been home to middle class Americans since the end of World War 2 , and even before .
But the suburbs are under attack from certain elements of the left as a source of social inequality and ( what else ? )
“ white privilege ” and “ white supremacy.
” If you are alarmed by this article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Because these elements of the American left seek nothing more than the total destruction of your way of life , from the people who live in your communities to the types of houses that you live in to the places where you will be allowed to shop and how you get from one place to another .
The policy is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing ( AFFH ) , but beyond this specific HUD policy , there ’ s a philosophical and political attack on suburbs that goes well in excess of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without mincing words , a War on the Suburbs in America .
It is a war not against a geographical location or a type of housing or community , but an attack on a way of life .
Most people are aware of the existence of the Department of Housing and Urban Development , but don ’ t think much about it .
However , HUD has a lot more ambition than you might think : Under the Obama Administration , they made it their mission to radically change the makeup of America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just a program .
It ’ s a directive and a sort of raison d ’ etre for the entire Department .
Effectively , the program requires any town or other jurisdiction receiving federal housing funds to keep track of statistics with regard to race , disability , familial status , economic status , English proficiency , and other categories .
Any discrepancy between the community ’ s records and those of targets set by the federal government is considered evidence of discrimination and funds might be withheld .
AFFH isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is a profoundly totalitarian system that forms the bedrock of HUD ’ s war on the suburbs .
While the alleged inspiration for this is – what else ?
– “ equality ( of outcome ) , ” the truth is much more hard nosed .
The War on the Suburbs serves the dual purpose of both punishing those who do not kowtow to the totalitarian aims of the Democratic Party as well as further atomizing these communities , breaking them up , urbanizing them and making them easier prey for big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has moved away from AFFH , or at least the Obama Administration ’ s interpretation of it , under the Trump Administration .
The changes greatly dismayed the Obama-era HUD Secretary Julián Castro , who said they did nothing less than gut what AFFH was under the Obama Administration .
While the new way of doing AFFH was challenged in court , the courts sided with the administration for once .
However , threats of AFFH resurfacing have come up during Joe Biden ’ s 2020 presidential campaign .
Tucker Carlson discussed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s plan to continue the regulation : How Did the War on the Suburbs Start ?
The War on the Suburbs began under President Barack Obama .
Obama himself was an opponent of suburban sprawl and declared in February 2009 that the days of suburban sprawl were “ over.
” Obama ’ s rhetoric – urban-centric – can often be contrasted with that of the previous Democratic President , Bill Clinton , who self-consciously and ostentatiously sought ways to connect with suburban and rural voters .
In comparison , Obama appointees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from big cities in blue states .
The term they use is “ smart growth.
” This effectively means forcing more and more Americans to live in higher density areas .
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Undersecretary Ron Sims , Transportation undersecretary for policy Roy Kienitz , and the EPA ’ s John Frece all favored this agenda .
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was quite straightforward in his language : the administration sought to “ coerce ” Americans out of cars and onto light rail .
The stimulus package passed by the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focused largely on light rail , which only benefits Americans living around a handful of larger cities .
Such policies have little chance of passing through legislation .
However , there are administrative and bureaucratic means to foist these programs on American citizens .
Bureaucratic czars can simply deny funding to cities and states that are not in compliance with the diktats of the president ’ s agenda .
Europe , the UK in particular , provides an example of what houses will look like when the urbanite proponents of “ smart growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ house size in the UK is a scant 800 square feet .
83 percent of home buyers prefer the single-family home commonly associated with the suburbs when house shopping , according to the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders .
Beyond aesthetics or a “ green ” politic , there is another reason why those favoring a strong role of big government and those who cheer for “ woke ” big corporations might prefer to see the suburbs committed to the dustbin of history : the suburbs represent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represent a highly bureaucratized form of living with much less individual ownership .
Put in simple terms , urbanites are more atomized , more controlled by central authority and have less skin in the game – perfect consumers , perfect employees .
There is an element of class war here : the ideological issues that play the best in suburbs ( roads , wages , schools , housing prices ) are effectively the issues of the middle class .
Compare with the agenda advanced by the Democratic Party since the lame duck years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ gender ” ideology , amnesty for illegals and racial grievances .
The latter of these are largely the purview of affluent , professional-managerial class types who tend to congregate in America ’ s urban centers .
Finally , the rise of the War on the Suburbs coincides with a rise in suburban voters going red .
While this trend has been underway since 1966 , it was largely reversed under both Obama and Clinton .
However , Scott Brown ’ s election to the Senate in 2010 , and Mitt Romney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heralded the beginning of a move by suburban voters to the Republican Party .
The difference has been even more pronounced at the state and local level where governors , senators and congressmen have won office thanks to overwhelming support from the suburbs .
Democrats are right to fear the suburban edge .
Even though there has been explosive growth in urban areas over the last decade , it is mostly concentrated in what are mostly cities in name only – Ft. Worth , Phoenix , Charlotte , Houston – rather than classically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philadelphia or San Francisco .
Thus , the War on the Suburbs is ultimately a political weapon .
Predictably , even establishment conservatives have joined in this pile on .
No less an institution than The American Conservative , founded by Pat Buchanan , has put forward the notion that the suburbs and the single-family housing unit are a Big Government program that need to be abolished .
This article does little more than put a market-friendly spin on the vitriol produced by the various left-wing sources cited .
It is a striking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a number of reasons that people choose to live in suburbs , but they can mostly be boiled down to two : First , you don ’ t have to share a wall with anyone or have your neighbor ’ s house a whopping six feet away .
Second , the suburbs are a much safer place to live – and thus , a far better place to raise a family – than the urban cores .
This is , according to those who wish to destroy your way of life , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ white privilege.
” If we have henceforth covered the mechanisms by which urbanites wish to destroy the suburbs , consider this an exploration into the ideology they will use to do so .
“ White privilege , ” as with other aspects of so-called “ critical race theory , ” is , in practice , a form of racial demonization whereby whites ( and , increasingly , non-black minorities , in particular Asians and affluent Hispanics ) are painted as unworthy of their property and position in life .
Any disparity in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any other ethnic group ) is treated as de facto evidence of discrimination and racism .
Rarely mentioned is that whites are actually third by income with regard to race ( behind East Asians and Indians ) .
When broken down by nationality , whites appear in only three of the top ten slots with regard to income in a list dominated by Asians .
In the next ten ( i.e.
, the top 20 ) there are only another three white nationalities represented .
Thus , “ white privilege ” theory is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we are being less generous , is an outright , propagandistic lie .
Remember all of this the next time you read “ rich ” and “ white ” paired together as a lazy political smear .
Once the suburbs are branded as “ racist , ” it then becomes a matter of public policy to attack them and dismantle them as communities .
This is what is behind the attack on the suburbs in general , but single-family housing units in particular .
Single-family housing units are currently the epicenter of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Suburbs .
Charlotte , North Carolina has sought to eliminate single-family housing units entirely .
Minneapolis , Minnesota , who in mid-2020 were in the process of eliminating their police department , was able to successfully eliminate single-family housing units by a 12-1 vote .
For its part , some in Albuquerque ( not exactly the picture of urban density ) have suggested banning backyards .
There has been an attempt to retcon the history of single-family housing units as “ racist.
” An article on Chicago Unheard , a left-wing education blog @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ mask off ” terms : wanting your kids to go to a good school or live in a nice neighborhood is racist .
Part of this is a general sleight-of-hand by the affluent , professional-class American left , which long since ditched concerns with income and the working class for racial fetishization : “ racism ” no longer means what everyone thinks it does ( i.e.
, actions and attitudes reflecting racial bigotry ) , but rather the definition used by campus radicals : an invisible power structure that , like phlogiston @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The News & Observer , the main newspaper in the Greater Raleigh area , likewise put the question into bold , stark terms informed by the spate of left-wing rioting in the United States , starting in the summer of 2020 : destroying single-family housing is the next phase in the war against the American way of life .
The article calls not just for the allowance of multi-family housing units , but active attacks on single-family housing units .
Leading lights in the Democratic Party likewise championed the destruction of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker , Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro .
For their parts , Cory Booker claims to live in a $ 435,377 , detached , single-family unit in Newark , though it ’ s not clear that he actually lives there – or , indeed , in Newark at all .
Elizabeth Warren lives in a $ 3.6 million home in Cambridge , Massachusetts .
No word on whether or not they would be selling those to move into a quadruplex , which underscores another important point : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the suburbs will , as usual , not have to live with the consequences of the policies they support .
They will be able to use their wealth to insulate themselves .
The battle against single-family housing units is philosophically in alignment with the broader War on the Suburbs : Any neighborhood whose demographics do not match those desired by ideologically motivated government bureaucrats is going to be destroyed .
The weapon is the Section 8 housing benefit and we already have a rather famous example of a community destroyed by it : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Ferguson , Missouri as the place where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by a police officer .
Brown had threatened and attacked the officer after robbing a nearby store .
None of this mattered much to the rioters , however .
They destroyed the city in an orgy of violence that came in three waves : First , August 2014 , after the initial shooting .
Second , late November and early December , after a grand jury found that there was no evidence to indict officer Darren Wilson on any charges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave of rioting in August 2015 , on the anniversary of the shooting .
Section 8 has played a key role in transforming communities like Ferguson from close-knit suburbs into violent , atomized hellholes .
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the matter , detailing how the reasonably comfortable middle-class suburb was transformed into the high-crime area where police were forced to constantly patrol .
The New York Times buries the lede and notes toward the very bottom that “ like other older suburbs , Ferguson has lost a fair share of more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken their place.
” Time does not mince words : Its article on the phenomenon was called “ How Ferguson Went From Middle Class to Poor in a Generation.
” Within 20 years , the town went from majority white with low unemployment and poverty rates , to majority black with 13 percent unemployment and doubled poverty in a decade .
One of the reasons ?
Ferguson ’ s zoning laws do not prohibit high-density housing structures , which made it an ideal target for destruction by Section 8 .
As America ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there has been a concerted attempt to move the underclass out and into low-rent suburbs with little political clout .
What we can expect to see under a new Democratic administration is effectively the weaponization of the urban poor to bust up the suburbs and throw them into chaos .
Ferguson isn ’ t the only place where this is happening .
An extensive dive into the subject on City Journal , which called for the end of housing vouchers entirely , discusses how many working-class black families who left the cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to leave cities , are encountering the same social dysfunction in their new suburban homes .
The genesis of Section 8 as the primary means of government housing funding comes during the Nixon Administration .
Whereas previously the government had preferred to build housing projects ( which obviously come with problems all their own ) , the Nixon Administration preferred Section 8 for two reasons : First , it favored the free market ( to an extent ) over straight government intervention .
Second , it did not require maintenance costs to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many government programs , it quickly became a cash cow for those who knew how to game the system while leaving those it was intended to help high and dry .
It also had the impact of creating ghettos in suburbs where once there was none .
Former Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has stated that Section 8 vouchers replace “ vertical ghettos with horizontal ones.
” The impact goes far beyond simply increased crime , though that would surely be enough .
EMTs are routinely called for the same kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vague complaints of nonspecific malaise .
Schools are destroyed by an influx of problem pupils .
Gang crime emerges where once there were none .
The increased crime comes with increased social costs , all of which must be borne by the working-class families who inhabited the area before the legion of Section 8 tenants were dumped on their community .
The sum total of all of this is that property values decline .
Another unintended consequence is increased segregation .
Where poverty-level blacks who have just moved out of impoverished urban neighborhoods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the result is white flight .
Ferguson is an example of this .
The point isn ’ t to beat up on Ferguson .
It is simply that Ferguson is a well-known place in America for all the wrong reasons that is also an emblematic example of what Section 8 and high-density housing units can do to a formerly stable , safe , working-class community .
The fight goes even beyond the single-family housing unit and into the entire layout of suburbia .
The Wall Street Journal notes that urbanists have a fixation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ underused train systems , downtown condominiums , hotels , convention centers , sports stadia and ‘ star-chitect ’ -designed art museums , often at the expense of smaller business , single-family neighborhoods and local shopping areas.
” There is a growing hostility toward the yard and the garden .
The New York Times ran a piece denouncing your lawn as racist and contributing to global warming .
In what is perhaps the most extreme form of hostility toward the suburban way of life , in March 2020 , The Atlantic ran a piece @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the nuclear family .
The article discusses the extended family as a backdrop , mostly to point out the “ unnatural ” ( whatever that means ) character of the nuclear family .
When it comes down to solutions , the mask slips : Brooks suggests that we replace our families of birth with families of choice , effectively bringing the atomized , hyper-individualistic , “ choice ” of the free market to the family unit .
This represents yet another attempt at atomization : Replacing blood families with what are effectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are necessarily more vulnerable to victimization and predatory activities by both big business and big government .
This might at first seem a bit far afield from the matter of housing , but it is not .
The attack on the suburbs must be seen in the broader context of an attack on the American way of life .
It is not an attack on buildings , but rather an attack on a lifestyle – one enjoyed or aspired to by the overwhelming majority of Americans .
The affluent , protected classes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are in no danger .
It is the average American who will suffer .
Just as the decline in the quality of public schools has left the affluent , who can send their children to private schools , unscathed , so will the destruction of the middle-class suburb leave unscathed those who can afford to live in gated communities , behind high walls , well insulated from the consequences of their politics .

War on the Suburbs: How HUD’s Housing Policies Became a Weapon for Social Change
By: Sam Jacobs
There are few things more synonymous with the American way of life than the suburbs. While certainly not without problems, the suburbs have been home to middle class Americans since the end of World War 2, and even before. But the suburbs are under attack from certain elements of the left as a source of social inequality and (what else?) “white privilege” and “white supremacy.”
If you are alarmed by this article, that’s a good thing. Because these elements of the American left seek nothing more than the total destruction of your way of life, from the people who live in your communities to the types of houses that you live in to the places where you will be allowed to shop and how you get from one place to another.
The policy is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), but beyond this specific HUD policy, there’s a philosophical and political attack on suburbs that goes well in excess of any single policy. There is, without mincing words, a War on the Suburbs in America. It is a war not against a geographical location or a type of housing or community, but an attack on a way of life.
What Is Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing?
Most people are aware of the existence of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but don’t think much about it. However, HUD has a lot more ambition than you might think: Under the Obama Administration, they made it their mission to radically change the makeup of America by attacking the suburbs.
AFFH isn’t just a program. It’s a directive and a sort of raison d’etre for the entire Department. Effectively, the program requires any town or other jurisdiction receiving federal housing funds to keep track of statistics with regard to race, disability, familial status, economic status, English proficiency, and other categories. Any discrepancy between the community’s records and those of targets set by the federal government is considered evidence of discrimination and funds might be withheld.
AFFH isn’t just “social engineering.” It is a profoundly totalitarian system that forms the bedrock of HUD’s war on the suburbs.
While the alleged inspiration for this is – what else? – “equality (of outcome),” the truth is much more hard nosed. The War on the Suburbs serves the dual purpose of both punishing those who do not kowtow to the totalitarian aims of the Democratic Party as well as further atomizing these communities, breaking them up, urbanizing them and making them easier prey for big business and big government alike.
HUD has moved away from AFFH, or at least the Obama Administration’s interpretation of it, under the Trump Administration. The changes greatly dismayed the Obama-era HUD Secretary Julián Castro, who said they did nothing less than gut what AFFH was under the Obama Administration. While the new way of doing AFFH was challenged in court, the courts sided with the administration for once.
However, threats of AFFH resurfacing have come up during Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Tucker Carlson discussed the effects of AFFH, as well as Biden’s plan to continue the regulation:
Americans are fleeing urban areas in huge numbers. Big cities are just too mismanaged, they’re too dangerous. Unless you’re very rich or very poor, you’re getting out. New York City lost 53,000 people in 2019 – they will lose far more than that this year. Most of these refugees have relocated to the suburbs, where they imagine they are safe from the effects of disastrous urban policy. But they’re not. Democrats want to abolish the suburbs. They are too clean and nice, therefore by definition, they are racist. The Biden campaign has highly specific plans on how to do this. It’s called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, it’s a HUD regulation, it was written during the Obama Administration. Biden’s advisor’s plan to enforce it. It will cut off critical federal funds from municipalities unless those municipalities submit to federal control of urban planning. Towns will be ordered to abolish zoning for single-family housing – because single-family homes, needless to say, are racist. Low-income, federally subsidized apartments will go up in the suburbs. It’s a good bet you won’t see any of this, you won’t see projects being built in Aspen or Martha’s Vineyard or anywhere else Eric Holder vacations. But in your neighborhood? Oh yeah.
How Did the War on the Suburbs Start?
The War on the Suburbs began under President Barack Obama. Obama himself was an opponent of suburban sprawl and declared in February 2009 that the days of suburban sprawl were “over.” Obama’s rhetoric – urban-centric – can often be contrasted with that of the previous Democratic President, Bill Clinton, who self-consciously and ostentatiously sought ways to connect with suburban and rural voters. In comparison, Obama appointees at HUD and EPA tended to come from big cities in blue states.
The term they use is “smart growth.” This effectively means forcing more and more Americans to live in higher density areas. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Undersecretary Ron Sims, Transportation undersecretary for policy Roy Kienitz, and the EPA’s John Frece all favored this agenda. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was quite straightforward in his language: the administration sought to “coerce” Americans out of cars and onto light rail. The stimulus package passed by the president to the tune of $8 billion focused largely on light rail, which only benefits Americans living around a handful of larger cities.
Such policies have little chance of passing through legislation. However, there are administrative and bureaucratic means to foist these programs on American citizens. Bureaucratic czars can simply deny funding to cities and states that are not in compliance with the diktats of the president’s agenda.
Europe, the UK in particular, provides an example of what houses will look like when the urbanite proponents of “smart growth” get their way – the average house size in the UK is a scant 800 square feet.
83 percent of home buyers prefer the single-family home commonly associated with the suburbs when house shopping, according to the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders.
Beyond aesthetics or a “green” politic, there is another reason why those favoring a strong role of big government and those who cheer for “woke” big corporations might prefer to see the suburbs committed to the dustbin of history: the suburbs represent individual aspiration and decentralized control. Cities represent a highly bureaucratized form of living with much less individual ownership. Put in simple terms, urbanites are more atomized, more controlled by central authority and have less skin in the game – perfect consumers, perfect employees.
There is an element of class war here: the ideological issues that play the best in suburbs (roads, wages, schools, housing prices) are effectively the issues of the middle class. Compare with the agenda advanced by the Democratic Party since the lame duck years of the Obama Administration: climate change, “gender” ideology, amnesty for illegals and racial grievances. The latter of these are largely the purview of affluent, professional-managerial class types who tend to congregate in America’s urban centers.
Finally, the rise of the War on the Suburbs coincides with a rise in suburban voters going red. While this trend has been underway since 1966, it was largely reversed under both Obama and Clinton. However, Scott Brown’s election to the Senate in 2010, and Mitt Romney’s failed campaign in 2012, heralded the beginning of a move by suburban voters to the Republican Party. The difference has been even more pronounced at the state and local level where governors, senators and congressmen have won office thanks to overwhelming support from the suburbs.
Democrats are right to fear the suburban edge. Even though there has been explosive growth in urban areas over the last decade, it is mostly concentrated in what are mostly cities in name only – Ft. Worth, Phoenix, Charlotte, Houston – rather than classically dense urban areas such as Boston, Philadelphia or San Francisco. Thus, the War on the Suburbs is ultimately a political weapon.
Predictably, even establishment conservatives have joined in this pile on. No less an institution than The American Conservative, founded by Pat Buchanan, has put forward the notion that the suburbs and the single-family housing unit are a Big Government program that need to be abolished. This article does little more than put a market-friendly spin on the vitriol produced by the various left-wing sources cited. It is a striking indictment of movement conservatism.
Safe Streets Are a Form of White Privilege
There are a number of reasons that people choose to live in suburbs, but they can mostly be boiled down to two: First, you don’t have to share a wall with anyone or have your neighbor’s house a whopping six feet away. Second, the suburbs are a much safer place to live – and thus, a far better place to raise a family – than the urban cores.
This is, according to those who wish to destroy your way of life, a form of (what else?) “white privilege.”
If we have henceforth covered the mechanisms by which urbanites wish to destroy the suburbs, consider this an exploration into the ideology they will use to do so. “White privilege,” as with other aspects of so-called “critical race theory,” is, in practice, a form of racial demonization whereby whites (and, increasingly, non-black minorities, in particular Asians and affluent Hispanics) are painted as unworthy of their property and position in life.
Any disparity in outcomes in favor of whites (or any other ethnic group) is treated as de facto evidence of discrimination and racism. Rarely mentioned is that whites are actually third by income with regard to race (behind East Asians and Indians). When broken down by nationality, whites appear in only three of the top ten slots with regard to income in a list dominated by Asians. In the next ten (i.e., the top 20) there are only another three white nationalities represented. Thus, “white privilege” theory is, at best, misguided and, if we are being less generous, is an outright, propagandistic lie.
Remember all of this the next time you read “rich” and “white” paired together as a lazy political smear.
Once the suburbs are branded as “racist,” it then becomes a matter of public policy to attack them and dismantle them as communities. This is what is behind the attack on the suburbs in general, but single-family housing units in particular.
The Battle for Single-Family Housing
Single-family housing units are currently the epicenter of the battle in the War on the Suburbs. Charlotte, North Carolina has sought to eliminate single-family housing units entirely. Minneapolis, Minnesota, who in mid-2020 were in the process of eliminating their police department, was able to successfully eliminate single-family housing units by a 12-1 vote. For its part, some in Albuquerque (not exactly the picture of urban density) have suggested banning backyards.
There has been an attempt to retcon the history of single-family housing units as “racist.” An article on Chicago Unheard, a left-wing education blog, details the ideology in stark, “mask off” terms: wanting your kids to go to a good school or live in a nice neighborhood is racist. Part of this is a general sleight-of-hand by the affluent, professional-class American left, which long since ditched concerns with income and the working class for racial fetishization: “racism” no longer means what everyone thinks it does (i.e., actions and attitudes reflecting racial bigotry), but rather the definition used by campus radicals: an invisible power structure that, like phlogiston, explains every instance of disparate outcomes.
The News & Observer, the main newspaper in the Greater Raleigh area, likewise put the question into bold, stark terms informed by the spate of left-wing rioting in the United States, starting in the summer of 2020: destroying single-family housing is the next phase in the war against the American way of life. The article calls not just for the allowance of multi-family housing units, but active attacks on single-family housing units.
Leading lights in the Democratic Party likewise championed the destruction of the single-family housing unit at the norm, including 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro. For their parts, Cory Booker claims to live in a $435,377, detached, single-family unit in Newark, though it’s not clear that he actually lives there – or, indeed, in Newark at all. Elizabeth Warren lives in a $3.6 million home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. No word on whether or not they would be selling those to move into a quadruplex, which underscores another important point: The affluent progressives who champion the destruction of the suburbs will, as usual, not have to live with the consequences of the policies they support. They will be able to use their wealth to insulate themselves.
The battle against single-family housing units is philosophically in alignment with the broader War on the Suburbs: Any neighborhood whose demographics do not match those desired by ideologically motivated government bureaucrats is going to be destroyed. The weapon is the Section 8 housing benefit and we already have a rather famous example of a community destroyed by it: Ferguson, Missouri.
The Sad Tale of Ferguson
Most Americans know of Ferguson, Missouri as the place where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by a police officer. Brown had threatened and attacked the officer after robbing a nearby store.
None of this mattered much to the rioters, however. They destroyed the city in an orgy of violence that came in three waves: First, August 2014, after the initial shooting. Second, late November and early December, after a grand jury found that there was no evidence to indict officer Darren Wilson on any charges. Finally, there was a third wave of rioting in August 2015, on the anniversary of the shooting.
Section 8 has played a key role in transforming communities like Ferguson from close-knit suburbs into violent, atomized hellholes. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the matter, detailing how the reasonably comfortable middle-class suburb was transformed into the high-crime area where police were forced to constantly patrol. The New York Times buries the lede and notes toward the very bottom that “like other older suburbs, Ferguson has lost a fair share of more affluent residents, and lower-income families have taken their place.”
Time does not mince words: Its article on the phenomenon was called “How Ferguson Went From Middle Class to Poor in a Generation.” Within 20 years, the town went from majority white with low unemployment and poverty rates, to majority black with 13 percent unemployment and doubled poverty in a decade.
One of the reasons? Ferguson’s zoning laws do not prohibit high-density housing structures, which made it an ideal target for destruction by Section 8.
As America’s larger urban centers become more gentrified, there has been a concerted attempt to move the underclass out and into low-rent suburbs with little political clout. What we can expect to see under a new Democratic administration is effectively the weaponization of the urban poor to bust up the suburbs and throw them into chaos.
Ferguson isn’t the only place where this is happening. An extensive dive into the subject on City Journal, which called for the end of housing vouchers entirely, discusses how many working-class black families who left the cities to escape the problems that cause everyone to leave cities, are encountering the same social dysfunction in their new suburban homes.
The genesis of Section 8 as the primary means of government housing funding comes during the Nixon Administration. Whereas previously the government had preferred to build housing projects (which obviously come with problems all their own), the Nixon Administration preferred Section 8 for two reasons: First, it favored the free market (to an extent) over straight government intervention. Second, it did not require maintenance costs to be born by the government.
As with many government programs, it quickly became a cash cow for those who knew how to game the system while leaving those it was intended to help high and dry. It also had the impact of creating ghettos in suburbs where once there was none. Former Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has stated that Section 8 vouchers replace “vertical ghettos with horizontal ones.”
The impact goes far beyond simply increased crime, though that would surely be enough. EMTs are routinely called for the same kind of people clogging urban hospital emergency rooms with vague complaints of nonspecific malaise. Schools are destroyed by an influx of problem pupils. Gang crime emerges where once there were none. The increased crime comes with increased social costs, all of which must be borne by the working-class families who inhabited the area before the legion of Section 8 tenants were dumped on their community. The sum total of all of this is that property values decline.
Another unintended consequence is increased segregation. Where poverty-level blacks who have just moved out of impoverished urban neighborhoods move into comparatively affluent white suburbs, the result is white flight. Ferguson is an example of this.
The point isn’t to beat up on Ferguson. It is simply that Ferguson is a well-known place in America for all the wrong reasons that is also an emblematic example of what Section 8 and high-density housing units can do to a formerly stable, safe, working-class community.
Beyond the Single-Family Housing Unit
The fight goes even beyond the single-family housing unit and into the entire layout of suburbia. The Wall Street Journal notes that urbanists have a fixation on “expand[ing] often underused train systems, downtown condominiums, hotels, convention centers, sports stadia and ‘star-chitect’-designed art museums, often at the expense of smaller business, single-family neighborhoods and local shopping areas.”
There is a growing hostility toward the yard and the garden. The New York Times ran a piece denouncing your lawn as racist and contributing to global warming.
In what is perhaps the most extreme form of hostility toward the suburban way of life, in March 2020, The Atlantic ran a piece by David Brooks attacking the very existence of the nuclear family. The article discusses the extended family as a backdrop, mostly to point out the “unnatural” (whatever that means) character of the nuclear family. When it comes down to solutions, the mask slips: Brooks suggests that we replace our families of birth with families of choice, effectively bringing the atomized, hyper-individualistic, “choice” of the free market to the family unit.
This represents yet another attempt at atomization: Replacing blood families with what are effectively “Uber for families.” Such people are necessarily more vulnerable to victimization and predatory activities by both big business and big government.
This might at first seem a bit far afield from the matter of housing, but it is not. The attack on the suburbs must be seen in the broader context of an attack on the American way of life. It is not an attack on buildings, but rather an attack on a lifestyle – one enjoyed or aspired to by the overwhelming majority of Americans.
The affluent, protected classes, connected to the halls of power, are in no danger. It is the average American who will suffer. Just as the decline in the quality of public schools has left the affluent, who can send their children to private schools, unscathed, so will the destruction of the middle-class suburb leave unscathed those who can afford to live in gated communities, behind high walls, well insulated from the consequences of their politics.
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About the Author: Sam Jacobs grew up in Southern New England, probably the part of the country with the weakest gun culture. However, from a young age he believed firmly in the right of self defense and the right to keep and bear arms. This, coupled with 12 years of education in public schools and an argumentative nature, meant that he was frequently getting into debates with his teachers about the virtue of the Second Amendment. A precocious student of history and the Constitution, Jacobs became interested in both the practice of armed self defense throughout history as well as the philosophical underpinnings of the Second Amendment. Jacobs has an affinity for the individual and the common man against centralized forms of power and elites, whether they be in the government or the private sector. In particular, he is interested in the ways in which private companies work to subvert the legislative process and to undermine American freedoms outside of normal legal channels. He considers the resolution of how corporate power can hem in Constitutional freedoms to be the most pressing political question of our age. The private sector and the public sector are increasingly indistinguishable from one another, both because of behind-the-scenes corporate chicanery that undermines the legislative process and because private companies are rapidly becoming far more powerful than the federal government. Thus, it is more important than ever to both fight the incursion of private companies into our government and to become independent and self-reliant enough to make it difficult for private companies to hem in your rights. So Sam believes. Jacobs is the lead writer and chief historian with Ammo.com, and is the driving intellectual force behind the content in the Resistance Library. He is proud to see his work name-checked in places like Bloomberg, USA Today and National Review, but he is far more proud to see his work republished on websites like ZeroHedge, Lew Rockwell and Sons of Liberty Media. How many firearms does Sam own and what’s his everyday carry? That’s between him and the NSA.
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