offguardian--2020-08-19--If you are reading this, you might be a conspiracy theorist

If you are reading this , you might be a conspiracy theorist If you ’ re reading this , then you ’ ve probably been called a conspiracy theorist .
Also you ’ ve been derided and shamed for questioning the “ science ” of the Covid debacle .
The idea of science is now a badly corrupted idea .
In a nation , today , ( the USA ) which in educational terms ranks 25th globally in science skills and reading , and well below that in math ; all one hears is a clarion call to science .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Malta , Portugal , and right about the same as Kazakhstan .
But in a nation that no longer reads , and *can* no longer read , it is not surprising that knowledge is absorbed via the new hieroglyphics of gifs ( interestingly the creator of gifs wanted it pronounced with a soft g the more to sound like a peanut butter brand ) and memes .
So-called ‘ response memes ’ are the new version of conversation , and most register and communicate ( sic ) confusion .
As beer ad marketers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after consuming a six pack is pretty much the standard target ideal for advertising .
And it relays a message that six pack confusion is actually a good and perhaps even sexy state in which to find oneself .
Education is for those with money , those who can afford the proper foundational skills to get into Harvard , MIT , Cal Tech and the Stanford .
For everyone else science is Star Trek .
But I digress .
The point is that most Americans imagine that they revere science , and they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But they think of it in cult terms , really .
Its a religion of sorts .
The only people who don ’ t are those ‘ real ’ religious zealots , Dominionist and Charismatic Christians ( like Mike Pompeo , Mike Pence , Rick Perry , Betsy DeVos et al ) who hold positions of enormous power in the US government under the least scientific president in history .
The Christian right doesn ’ t like any science , ANY science .
But for most of that target demographic ( the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cry is to “ trust the science ” …even the great Greta says to “ trust the science ” .
The problem is , science is not neutral , its as politicized as media and news and the pronouncements of celebrities .
In May 2020 , The Lancet published an article revisiting the 1957 and 1968 Influenza pandemics .
To date , Covid 19 has not reached the million death marker in the US And yet we are seeing the most draconian lockdowns in modern history , the total suspension of democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially in the U.S. and UK ) unprecedented .
I wrote about some aspects of this on my blog here , mostly touching on the cultural effects Allow me to quote The Lancet again .
I remember the 68 Hong Kong flu .
I was in my last year of high school .
The summer after was Woodstock , the ‘ summer of love ’ .
Not a lot of social distancing going on .
But we are past numbers and statistics having any real meaning .
The Covid narrative is now in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perspective is utterly predictable .
Liberal outlets that have the inside track to government are seen to be reinforcing the mainstream story ( VOX , Slate , Huff Post , The Guardian and Washington Post ) .
In a recent VOX article the message was only a sociopath would NOT wear a mask and that the ‘ science ’ was unanimous .
Of course its no such thing .
But the message of sites like VOX , or Daily Beast , or Wa Po or the truly reprehensible Guardian , are always going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message ’ .
The same is true for what passes for moderate news organs like the NY Times , ABC News , The Hill , and BBC .
There has been virtually no dissenting opinions expressed in these rags .
All these news outlets are given clear messages by the spin doctors in government , by the White House , and by contacts within the State Department and Pentagon .
And by the advertising firms employed by the state ( such as Ruder Finn ) .
The WHO , the CDC , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of any size hires advertising firms .
The WHO , which is tied to the United Nations , is a reasonably sinister organization , actually .
Just picking up a random publication from the WHO , on what they call ‘ the tobacco epidemic ’ and you find on page 33 the following chapter heading “ Objective : Effective surveillance , monitoring and evaluation systems in place to monitor tobacco use.
” Reading further and all this is really saying is that the populace of any country is best put under surveillance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you see .
But back to the science .
Here is a small trip down memory lane… Institutions of medicine , global and national possess no more integrity than your average NGO ( Amnesty International , Médecins Sans Frontières , Oxfam et al ) .
And that means not very much .
To understand the nature of institutional corruption one must understand Imperialism .
The institutions of Imperialist nations are going to further Imperialist ideology .
( see Antonio Gramsci , ideological hegemony ) .
The US is not in the business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate just hit 2.1 million .
Officially .
Making the total something over forty million .
Its much higher in reality .
Nobody has work .
There is no work and we are at the start of a period of massive evictions , foreclosures , and delinquencies — and the homeless population will soon reach Biblical proportions ( in some cities , such as Los Angeles , its already Biblical ) .
Will be simply of a magnitude never before seen .
Hence the authoritarian policing of lockdowns in , for example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practice run .
The ruling class in western nations knows full well this is coming .
And one wonders if it ’ s not , in fact , a part of the plan ( oh here is where someone says conspiracy theory…probably Louis Proyect ) .
Yes it ’ s a fucking conspiracy theory .
It is a theory based on evidence , however .
Why are the US and UK and a host of other countries deliberately ensuring a massive depression ?
Because they care about your health ?
They are worried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Has the US ever demonstrated a concern with your health and well being before ?
Remember how many discretionary tax dollars go to health care and how much to defense .
Conspiracies do occur .
The denial of that fact seems to be a hallmark of the pseudo or false left .
Does the suspension of democratic process not cause this soft left any problems at all ?
Look at Sweden , at Belarus…no lockdown and no problem .
It should be noted that there are a great many terrific doctors in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But they are not the system .
The system is run for profit .
Alfred Willener wrote an interesting book in 1970 , analysing May 68 in France .
He analyses the answers students gave to various questionnaires they responded to .
The section regarding science is worth quoting .
I doubt seriously one would get such responses today in any European or North American country .
The contemporary indoctrination regards science is acute .
And the media abounds in junk science .
Click bait science .
And this is where most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is a paper put out by one of the founders of the World Economic Forum , Klaus Schwab , called The Great Reset .
The conclusion of the book reads… In other words , a mortality of .06 % is simply not commensurate with the extreme measures the governments of the world ( the West in particular ) are taking .
There is no question , none , that those measures , the lockdown , the masks , the distancing , and the attending *diseases of despair* , will kill more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus itself .
This is not even to begin discussing the psychological harm done , in particular to children .
And not just harm to children , but severe harm to the most vulnerable .
What is being internalized by children is three fold .
One , there is something inherently sick and contagious about ME .
Two , everyone MIGHT be a threat to my health .
And three , obey authority , because you don ’ t want to end up like those smelly homeless people were are trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personally .
They tend to blame themselves .
Even in the comparative sanity of Norway , where I reside , children are increasingly anxious about the world .
How could they not be ?
All this for a health risk of .06 % .
But it is more than just the decimation of the economy in the US and UK .
It is a dismantling of the culture .
One in three museums closed because of Covid will not re-open .
Ever .
Where does all that art go ?
Just a guess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it up at wholesale prices .
The predictable outcome of these lockdowns , certainly in the US , is a guaranteed minimum income .
Very minimum .
Restrictions on travel , all freedom of movement in fact , will not soon return to normal .
Various forms of surveillance and tracking , as well as health certifications , are the goal of the state .
Also , if this pandemic succeeded so well , with so little resistance , why not have another ?
And there is another aspect to the SWAT mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society is becoming alarmingly hypochondriacal .
Children are kept out of school for runny noses .
If all kids with snotty noses were kept out of class , nobody would get an education .
There is a dire future of two or three generations now developing and maturing with very weak immune systems .
So that if a natural mutation takes place one day , from a Corona virus or any other , a genuinely serious pandemic could kill tens of millions .
The collapse of retail is accelerating .
This is emerging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shops will remain , in fact , except luxury stores in select gated areas .
The rest will be online and probably rudimentary .
The culture and the economy are being strip-mined and recreated for a select clientele .
The collapse of the economy means the collapse of the bottom 90 % or so .
The very richest men and corporations on the planet are making huge profits .
And yet , there are precious few voices of dissent to the master narrative in the US .
In Norway , the lockdown was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sparsely populated country and one hardly noticed it save for the kids being home and not in school .
But schools reopened and the Prime Minister actually made a speech apologizing , in effect , for an *unnecessary* lockdown .
She had been frightened .
But now , with a mild uptick in positive cases the country is considering stricter limitations on travel .
Why ?
There is no uptick in deaths , only in positive test results .
The fact remains the virus attacks the aged and the already sick .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Norwegian government doesn ’ t want to be seen as disobedient .
They don ’ t want to not follow the grand plan provided by western agencies and experts .
Even if they seemingly don ’ t really believe it .
But clearly the groupthink pressure is powerful and small nations do not want to be singled out for bucking the *science* .
There are economic coercions threatened , tacitly , as well .
The pressure to conform is huge and it takes a Herculean effort — both individually and as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ *experts* seem to have a hard time admitting they were wrong .
The science has been consistently wrong from day one .
As I say , this is now allegory .
Or fable .
There is nothing reasonable or rational in the lockdown measures of the US and UK and NZ .
Or anywhere .
And this is not even to touch upon the criminality of the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates buying public influence and visibility .
Not trained in any medical discipline , Gates has somehow made himself one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deconstruct Gates ’ language is to find a disturbing quality of authoritarian hubris .
Gates utters declarations as if he were God speaking to his flock .
All from a man who has done little save steal from his partners and exploit the poor of India and Africa .
One of the most striking aspects of this whole last few months has been the enormous and coordinated effort the Gates machine has put into rehabilitating his image .
If you google “ Crimes of the Gates Foundation ” for example , you will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crimes and another half dozen articles ridiculing those who question Gates motives , his profit from vaccines , or even his alignment with eugenicists ( depopulation adherents ) – all are derided as , yes , conspiracy theorists .
If you dare to question the rushing of an untested vaccine you are called an anti-vaxxer .
My children are vaccinated .
I just don ’ t like the idea of a hurried untested vaccine produced for a virus that needs no vaccine .
And one promoted by a creepy millionaire .
But clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The pastel cardigan is everywhere .
And yet , his favorable rating in recent surveys is around 56 % .
That is actually not very high given the amount of self-promotion involved .
It ’ s better than Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Biden , though .
Gates is not likeable .
No amount of spin can change that .
The final factor to note is the Trump effect .
Many liberals would literally rather see dead in the street if it meant discrediting Trump .
It is no longer quite a zero @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hatred of Trump is now at a religious level , too .
And behold , the opposition is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris .
If you want a window in the black heart of Biden , watch and/or listen to his testimony around the Waco inferno .
The inherent sadism and lack of humanity is glaringly apparent .
These are the servants of capital .
This is a class-based assault .
The wealthy will not be fined for not wearing a face-covering on their private beaches , or dinner parties at the @ @ @

If you are reading this, you might be a conspiracy theorist
John Steppling
“…a permanent modern scenario: apocalypse looms…and it doesn’t occur.”
Susan Sontag, AIDs and its Metaphors
“I should not misuse this opportunity to give you a lecture about, say, logic. I call this a misuse, for to explain a scientific matter to you it would need a course of lectures and not an hour’s paper. Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be one of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science. I rejected these alternatives.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Lecture on Ethics
If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably been called a conspiracy theorist. Also you’ve been derided and shamed for questioning the “science” of the Covid debacle.
The idea of science is now a badly corrupted idea. In a nation, today, (the USA) which in educational terms ranks 25th globally in science skills and reading, and well below that in math; all one hears is a clarion call to science. In reading skills the US placed below Malta, Portugal, and right about the same as Kazakhstan.
But in a nation that no longer reads, and *can* no longer read, it is not surprising that knowledge is absorbed via the new hieroglyphics of gifs (interestingly the creator of gifs wanted it pronounced with a soft g the more to sound like a peanut butter brand) and memes.
So-called ‘response memes’ are the new version of conversation, and most register and communicate (sic) confusion. As beer ad marketers know, the state of your brain after consuming a six pack is pretty much the standard target ideal for advertising. And it relays a message that six pack confusion is actually a good and perhaps even sexy state in which to find oneself.
Education is for those with money, those who can afford the proper foundational skills to get into Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech and the Stanford. For everyone else science is Star Trek.
But I digress. The point is that most Americans imagine that they revere science, and they ridicule anyone they think of as unscientific. But they think of it in cult terms, really. Its a religion of sorts. The only people who don’t are those ‘real’ religious zealots, Dominionist and Charismatic Christians (like Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos et al) who hold positions of enormous power in the US government under the least scientific president in history.
The Christian right doesn’t like any science, ANY science. But for most of that target demographic (the educated mostly white 30%), the cry is to “trust the science”…even the great Greta says to “trust the science”.
The problem is, science is not neutral, its as politicized as media and news and the pronouncements of celebrities.
In May 2020, The Lancet published an article revisiting the 1957 and 1968 Influenza pandemics.
The 1957 outbreak was not caused by a coronavirus—the first human coronavirus would not be discovered until 1965—but by an influenza virus. However, in 1957, no one could be sure that the virus that had been isolated in Hong Kong was a new pandemic strain or simply a descendant of the previous 1918–19 pandemic influenza virus. The result was that as the UK’s weekly death count mounted, peaking at about 600 in the week ending Oct 17, 1957, there were few hysterical tabloid newspaper headlines and no calls for social distancing. Instead, the news cycle was dominated by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik and the aftermath of the fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor in the UK. By the time this influenza pandemic — known colloquially at the time as “Asian flu” — had concluded the following April, an estimated 20 000 people in the UK and 80 000 citizens in the USA were dead. Worldwide, the pandemic, sparked by a new H2N2 influenza subtype, would result in more than 1 million deaths.
To date, Covid 19 has not reached the million death marker in the US And yet we are seeing the most draconian lockdowns in modern history, the total suspension of democratic process and a level of hysteria (especially in the U.S. and UK) unprecedented. I wrote about some aspects of this on my blog here, mostly touching on the cultural effects
Allow me to quote The Lancet again.
The subsequent 1968 influenza pandemic — or “Hong Kong flu” or “Mao flu” as some western tabloids dubbed it — would have an even more dramatic impact, killing more than 30 000 individuals in the UK and 100 000 people in the USA, with half the deaths among individuals younger than 65 years — the reverse of COVID-19 deaths in the current pandemic. Yet, while at the height of the outbreak in December, 1968, The New York Times described the pandemic as “one of the worst in the nation’s history”, there were few school closures and businesses, for the most, continued to operate as normal.
I remember the 68 Hong Kong flu. I was in my last year of high school. The summer after was Woodstock, the ‘summer of love’. Not a lot of social distancing going on. But we are past numbers and statistics having any real meaning. The Covid narrative is now in the realm of allegory.
The media perspective is utterly predictable. Liberal outlets that have the inside track to government are seen to be reinforcing the mainstream story (VOX, Slate, Huff Post, The Guardian and Washington Post). In a recent VOX article the message was only a sociopath would NOT wear a mask and that the ‘science’ was unanimous.
Of course its no such thing. But the message of sites like VOX, or Daily Beast, or Wa Po or the truly reprehensible Guardian, are always going to be to hammer away ‘on message’. The same is true for what passes for moderate news organs like the NY Times, ABC News, The Hill, and BBC. There has been virtually no dissenting opinions expressed in these rags.
All these news outlets are given clear messages by the spin doctors in government, by the White House, and by contacts within the State Department and Pentagon. And by the advertising firms employed by the state (such as Ruder Finn).
“Ad agencies are not in the business of doing science.”
Dr. Arnold S. Relman (Madison Ave. Has Growing Role In the Business of Drug Research, NY Times 2002)
The WHO, the CDC, and most every other NGO or government agency of any size hires advertising firms. The WHO, which is tied to the United Nations, is a reasonably sinister organization, actually.
Just picking up a random publication from the WHO, on what they call ‘the tobacco epidemic’ and you find on page 33 the following chapter heading “Objective: Effective surveillance, monitoring and evaluation systems in place to monitor tobacco use.”
Reading further and all this is really saying is that the populace of any country is best put under surveillance. It’s for their own good, you see.
But back to the science. Here is a small trip down memory lane…
Institutions of medicine, global and national possess no more integrity than your average NGO (Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam et al). And that means not very much.
To understand the nature of institutional corruption one must understand Imperialism. The institutions of Imperialist nations are going to further Imperialist ideology. (see Antonio Gramsci, ideological hegemony). The US is not in the business of helping Americans.
Modern monopoly forms better reflect that scientific knowledge, and its advanced application to production, are concentrated, ultimately, not in physical objects but in human beings and human interaction with those objects. It is monopoly of the labour power of the most highly educated workers, by both imperialist states and Multi National Corporations, that forms the ultimate and most stable base of imperialist reproduction. – Sam King (Lenin’s theory of imperialism: a defence of its relevance in the 21st century, MLR)
The idea of super-exploitation needs to be conceptually generalised at the necessary level of abstraction and incorporated in the theory of imperialism. Super-exploitation is a specific condition within the capitalist mode of production […] the hidden common essence defining imperialism. he working class of the oppressed nations/Third World/Global South is systematically paid below the value of labour power of the working class of the oppressor nations/First World/Global North. This is not because the Southern working class produces less value, but because it is more oppressed and more exploited. – Andy Higginbottom (Structure and Essence in Capital 1, quoted by John Smith Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century)
The US jobless rate just hit 2.1 million. Officially. Making the total something over forty million. Its much higher in reality. Nobody has work. There is no work and we are at the start of a period of massive evictions, foreclosures, and delinquencies — and the homeless population will soon reach Biblical proportions (in some cities, such as Los Angeles, its already Biblical). Will be simply of a magnitude never before seen.
Hence the authoritarian policing of lockdowns in, for example, New Zealand, suggests something like a practice run. The ruling class in western nations knows full well this is coming. And one wonders if it’s not, in fact, a part of the plan (oh here is where someone says conspiracy theory…probably Louis Proyect).
Yes it’s a fucking conspiracy theory. It is a theory based on evidence, however.
Why are the US and UK and a host of other countries deliberately ensuring a massive depression? Because they care about your health? They are worried we all might catch the flu? Has the US ever demonstrated a concern with your health and well being before?
Remember how many discretionary tax dollars go to health care and how much to defense. Conspiracies do occur. The denial of that fact seems to be a hallmark of the pseudo or false left. Does the suspension of democratic process not cause this soft left any problems at all? Look at Sweden, at Belarus…no lockdown and no problem.
It should be noted that there are a great many terrific doctors in the US. Dedicated and brilliant, often. But they are not the system. The system is run for profit.
With about three-fourths of Americans under lockdown, the unintended consequences will be vast. There has been a notable decrease in the number of heart attack and stroke patients arriving at hospitals, presumably because they are afraid of catching the coronavirus or of not finding a hospital bed. As the economy spirals downward, we can also expect an increase in mental health crises, domestic violence and suicides. While lockdown supporters say that to have a functioning economy, we must have good public health, the reverse is also true: To have good public health, we must have a functioning economy. – Alex Berezow PhD (Geopolitical Futures, 2020)
Alfred Willener wrote an interesting book in 1970, analysing May 68 in France. He analyses the answers students gave to various questionnaires they responded to. The section regarding science is worth quoting.
‘The scandalous fact is that, for all the means that science has put at our disposal, most people live not much better than in the Middle Ages’. The system benefits from science in the following way: through the atom bomb, through ‘the power of statistical research’, through computers, through the chemical industry being ‘in the hands of the state’, through space research. ‘In the end, you realize’, concludes one reasonably logical reply, ‘that technological progress, which makes economic growth possible, does not satisfy the fundamental needs of man and is used above all to maintain and strengthen the system’. Lastly, I should like to quote one quite unexpected reply, which forms the extreme point of pessimism: ‘ Everyone is oppressed by science.’ – Alfred Willener (The Action-Image of Society on Cultural Politicization)
I doubt seriously one would get such responses today in any European or North American country. The contemporary indoctrination regards science is acute. And the media abounds in junk science. Click bait science. And this is where most people have their opinions formed for them.
There is a paper put out by one of the founders of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, called The Great Reset. The conclusion of the book reads…
…at a global level, if viewed in terms of the global population affected, the corona crisis is (so far) one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced over the last 2000 years.”
In other words, a mortality of .06% is simply not commensurate with the extreme measures the governments of the world (the West in particular) are taking.
There is no question, none, that those measures, the lockdown, the masks, the distancing, and the attending *diseases of despair*, will kill more people by a factor of ten than the virus itself.
This is not even to begin discussing the psychological harm done, in particular to children. And not just harm to children, but severe harm to the most vulnerable.
What is being internalized by children is three fold. One, there is something inherently sick and contagious about ME. Two, everyone MIGHT be a threat to my health. And three, obey authority, because you don’t want to end up like those smelly homeless people were are trying to hard to avoid.
Children take things personally. They tend to blame themselves. Even in the comparative sanity of Norway, where I reside, children are increasingly anxious about the world. How could they not be? All this for a health risk of .06%.
But it is more than just the decimation of the economy in the US and UK. It is a dismantling of the culture. One in three museums closed because of Covid will not re-open. Ever. Where does all that art go?
Just a guess but probably very wealthy collectors will gobble it up at wholesale prices.
The predictable outcome of these lockdowns, certainly in the US, is a guaranteed minimum income. Very minimum. Restrictions on travel, all freedom of movement in fact, will not soon return to normal. Various forms of surveillance and tracking, as well as health certifications, are the goal of the state.
Also, if this pandemic succeeded so well, with so little resistance, why not have another? And there is another aspect to the SWAT mask police, and that is that western society is becoming alarmingly hypochondriacal. Children are kept out of school for runny noses. If all kids with snotty noses were kept out of class, nobody would get an education.
There is a dire future of two or three generations now developing and maturing with very weak immune systems. So that if a natural mutation takes place one day, from a Corona virus or any other, a genuinely serious pandemic could kill tens of millions.
It is not a speculation that there are people who prosper and even benefit during an economic crisis—as smaller business owners struggle, large corporations and banks benefit from huge government subsidies, giving them more power to buy failing small businesses, for example. And it is a fact that many of those people have enormous economic power to shape the policies that can benefit themselves. It is not a speculation that they would appreciate having strict measures of control against the people by limiting their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to travel, or by installing means of surveillance, check points and official certifications for activities that might give freedom to the people beyond the capitalist framework. It is not a speculation that they would benefit from moving our social interactions to the digital realm, which can commodify our activities as marketable data for the advertising industry, insurance industry and any other moneyed social institutions Including education, political institution, legal institution, and financial institution. Such matters should be seen within the context of the western history being shaped by unelected capitalists with their enormous networks of social institutions. – Hiroyuki Hamada (Wrong Kind of Green, April 2020)
The collapse of retail is accelerating. This is emerging as a monopolization of retail. Few shops will remain, in fact, except luxury stores in select gated areas. The rest will be online and probably rudimentary. The culture and the economy are being strip-mined and recreated for a select clientele. The collapse of the economy means the collapse of the bottom 90% or so.
The very richest men and corporations on the planet are making huge profits.
And yet, there are precious few voices of dissent to the master narrative in the US. In Norway, the lockdown was about five weeks. But its a sparsely populated country and one hardly noticed it save for the kids being home and not in school. But schools reopened and the Prime Minister actually made a speech apologizing, in effect, for an *unnecessary* lockdown. She had been frightened.
But now, with a mild uptick in positive cases the country is considering stricter limitations on travel. Why?
There is no uptick in deaths, only in positive test results. The fact remains the virus attacks the aged and the already sick. But this is very telling, I think. The Norwegian government doesn’t want to be seen as disobedient. They don’t want to not follow the grand plan provided by western agencies and experts. Even if they seemingly don’t really believe it.
(The saddest aspect is the voice of Dr. Mads Gilbert, a known advocate for Palestinian rights, who has weighed in on the side of fear. Why? I have no idea. But it is worth noting his predictions from March 2020 were staggeringly wrong.)
But clearly the groupthink pressure is powerful and small nations do not want to be singled out for bucking the *science*. There are economic coercions threatened, tacitly, as well. The pressure to conform is huge and it takes a Herculean effort — both individually and as a nation, to resist. And *experts* seem to have a hard time admitting they were wrong.
The science has been consistently wrong from day one.
As I say, this is now allegory. Or fable. There is nothing reasonable or rational in the lockdown measures of the US and UK and NZ. Or anywhere. And this is not even to touch upon the criminality of the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates buying public influence and visibility. Not trained in any medical discipline, Gates has somehow made himself one of the faces of the pandemic.
And to deconstruct Gates’ language is to find a disturbing quality of authoritarian hubris. Gates utters declarations as if he were God speaking to his flock. All from a man who has done little save steal from his partners and exploit the poor of India and Africa. One of the most striking aspects of this whole last few months has been the enormous and coordinated effort the Gates machine has put into rehabilitating his image.
If you google “Crimes of the Gates Foundation” for example, you will get ten different fact-checkers officially denying any crimes and another half dozen articles ridiculing those who question Gates motives, his profit from vaccines, or even his alignment with eugenicists (depopulation adherents)– all are derided as, yes, conspiracy theorists.
If you dare to question the rushing of an untested vaccine you are called an anti-vaxxer.
My children are vaccinated. I just don’t like the idea of a hurried untested vaccine produced for a virus that needs no vaccine. And one promoted by a creepy millionaire.
But clearly the Gates charm offensive is in overdrive. The pastel cardigan is everywhere. And yet, his favorable rating in recent surveys is around 56%. That is actually not very high given the amount of self-promotion involved. It’s better than Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Biden, though. Gates is not likeable. No amount of spin can change that.
The final factor to note is the Trump effect. Many liberals would literally rather see dead in the street if it meant discrediting Trump. It is no longer quite a zero sum game, though. But overall the hatred of Trump is now at a religious level, too.
And behold, the opposition is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. If you want a window in the black heart of Biden, watch and/or listen to his testimony around the Waco inferno. The inherent sadism and lack of humanity is glaringly apparent.
As for Kamala Harris:
As a San Francisco social worker, I sat on the school district committee that met with families of chronically truant students. Once, when we asked a student why he didn’t go to school, he said there was too much police tape and shootings at his school bus stop. Harris, as CA Attorney General, was putting parents/caregivers in jail if their child was chronically truant. Also as Attorney General, she denied a DNA test to Kevin Cooper, a very likely innocent man who came within hours of execution in 2004. – Riva Enteen (Counterpunch Aug. 2020)
These are the servants of capital.
The left should be emphasising the economic aspect of lockdown because it is the working class who are the principal victims of lockdown.”
Phil Shannon (Lockdown Skeptics, June 2020)
A Downing street tweet today:
We’re putting tougher measures in place to target serious breaches of coronavirus restrictions. Fines for not wearing a face-covering will double for repeat offences, up to £3,200.”
This is a class-based assault. The wealthy will not be fined for not wearing a face-covering on their private beaches, or dinner parties at the yacht club.


Kamala Kabbalah

Joe Biden ’ s choice of Senator Kamala Harris of California as his vice-presidential running mate has not been universally well-received on the left .
Harris is seen by some as a conventional hawk , a Netanyahu apologist and a lawyer who punished African Americans .
A debate may be had as to whether these charges really stack up ; certainly Harris ’ s record is diverse rather than monochrome .
In her time in the Senate , Harris has voted for six out of eight military spending bills .
This July , unlike her former rivals for the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand – she voted with her other senatorial rival Michael Bennet against Bernie Sanders ’ amendment “ to reduce the bloated Pentagon budget by 10 percent and invest that money in jobs , education , health care , and housing in communities in the United States in which the poverty rate is not less than 25 percent ” .
On the other hand , last December , in one of her pair of rebellions , she joined Sanders in not voting for the 2020 military spending bill ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ withdrawn her candidacy .
Those named above also did not vote ( making up the only members of the Senate so to do ) , save Gillibrand , one of six senators who voted against , and Bennet who voted for .
When it came to specific issues , Harris opposed the Saudi war in Yemen and argued for rejoining the Iran nuclear pact , like all the other Democrat runners for the nomination .
Regarding Israel , Harris was excoriated for meeting officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee ( AIPAC ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not join the AIPAC ’ s vehement attack on allegedly anti-Semitic remarks by Rep Ilhan Omar who is Somali-American , declaring that “ like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus , I am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk ” [ quoted in The Jerusalem Post July 12th 2019 ] .
Harris opposes the Boycott , Divestment and Sanctions movement that targets Israel , but she is on record as speaking out against the annexation of West Bank settlements [ interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , along with her Democrat rivals , supports the two-state solution .
Without explicitly committing to recognition of a Palestinian state , she has written that “ Palestinians should be able to govern themselves in their own state , in peace and dignity , just as Israelis deserve a secure homeland for the Jewish people ” [ Council on Foreign Relations questionnaire , August 21st 2019 ] .
That seems indistinguishable from support for self-determination .
Harris ’ s husband is Jewish .
Some white commentators evidently feel no discomfort in judging a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Jamaican ) on race .
They discount the point made by the LA Times that “ …many black voters are wary of her 27 years as a prosecutor enforcing laws that sent African Americans to prison .
Often left unsaid is that Harris , a former state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney , did not play a role in passing those laws ” [ October 24th 2019 ] .
It may be true that California incarcerated a disproportionate number of black men during Harris ’ s time , but is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t hold a huge number of black people for very long periods ?
As a prosecutor , she will have had to deal with the defendants the police put before her .
It seems unhelpful to risk this becoming a proposal that Harris is “ the wrong kind of African American ” .
Harris ’ s record as a law officer and senator can be seen to bear comparison with any progressive lawyer and legislator in the country on homicide rates , domestic violence , sex crimes , gun crime and firearms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , LGBT+ rights , race bias in the police , immigration , trafficking , drug dealing convictions , possession offences , recidivism , social media rights , right-to-know access , truancy , environmental crime , transgender cases , corruption among public officers , business fraud , legal loopholes , mortgage foreclosure and locally on Propositions 8 and 21 .
In court , she has won billions of dollars for citizens from financial enterprises , speculators and fraudsters .
There is some evidence that she has sometimes temporised on the death penalty , parole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But there are few who take public roles that require far-reaching decision-making who do not find that those roles are apt to temper their beliefs and inclinations .
The balance of judgment ought not to condemn Harris out of hand .
Voters can not reasonably expect long-serving public officials to be meticulously consistent , preternaturally wise , hieratically noble and scrupulously on-message on a daily basis .
What ’ s more , it needs to be remembered that in politics , women , people of colour and progressives are judged by far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who only need to be idiosyncratic and/or combative to be seen as godheads .
Because of the nature of the executive roles taken by both Biden and Harris , they were more vulnerable to generalised attack from their rivals for the Democratic nomination than any of those rivals in the televised debates .
Someone in a thread on my Facebook page declared that Harris “ got taken to absolute bits by Tulsi Gabbard ” , but checking on the July 2019 debates shows no such case .
Gabbard ’ s remarks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over 130 minutes of debate time , were broad and unsupported .
It ’ s easy to throw out accusations that may or may not be true or fair .
As Jeremy Corbyn could confirm , it ’ s impossible to defend a career against amorphous assaults .
Harris was expected to expound her working method and philosophy in her own prescribed one minute .
She made a fair fist of it .
But let ’ s step back from the particular .
How close to an exemplary ideal do candidates need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by those whose votes they need ?
There ’ s an ancient saw about voting for Anyone But [ Name of Candidate ] .
Many of those who will vote – “ holding their noses ” in the cliché – for Biden and Harris may very well do so only to ensure that Trump and Pence are ejected from office .
Unusually this year , though , it ’ s hard to imagine there would be many votes for the incumbents in an Anyone But Biden and/or Harris camp .
But those seeking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enthusiasm than that , understandably .
The Republicans will certainly rake over the careers of both Biden and Harris ( respectively of 50 and 30 years ’ duration ) to find specific instances of useful ammunition .
Biden has plenty of well-aired inconsistencies to defend .
However , there is no richer pasture on which to spread manure than Trump ’ s record in office , which is why the general expectation is that he will attempt to rob the election of its legitimacy , both before and after November 3rd .
Meanwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ badly advised ) seek to propose an optimistic , positive , creative and restorative platform and stay aloof from dirty tricks .
Those who incline to vote Democrat but still bite lumps out of the nominees need to consider the extent to which they are merely being useful idiots for Trump .
Trump ’ s ideology – if such a creature may be discerned at all – is something that nobody with an iota of concern for her fellows wants to maintain in the White House .
Voting for the Democratic ticket is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a no-brainer .
Elsewhere in the world , questions of who rules are not always so clear-cut .
Even in nations where the regime is impervious to criticism , and opposition politicians are locked up and/or murdered , the spirit of fascist Italy lives on : “ Il Duce ha sempre ragione ” [ Mussolini is always right ] .
Iron rule sometimes rusts , though , and at present there are proliferating outbreaks of unrest in several countries .
Social media has proved an invaluable tool for those embarking on campaigns of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word about demonstrations quickly and in recording evidence of police or military brutality in response .
Governmental attempts to shut down these avenues have inevitably followed .
But periods of unrest are apt to fizzle out .
At least , Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and Carrie Lam of Hong Kong and Prayut Chan-o-cha in Thailand will hope so ( if they ’ re still in office when you read this ) .
Of the alternatives , it ’ s what ?
– settling for electoral challengers whether or not they come up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insurrection ?
There may be sound intellectual arguments in favour of the latter course , but to characterise it as perilous would be to understate its implications laughably .
What ’ s more , a global pandemic may not be the most helpful background to such a drastic endeavour .
If storming the Winter Palace has become more hazardous than it used to be , a programme systematically to disrupt the circumstances of the masters of international capital one-by-one might be more profitable .
Given that these people are in reality far more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that the President of the United States is still described as “ the most powerful man in the world ” is now a feeble joke – such a programme might be thought by some to do more for democracy ( and certainly more for climate change ) than the election of any number of well-intentioned politicians .
Britain made its contribution to the Black Lives Matter expressions of citizens ’ outrage and continues to host disruptions of traffic organised by Extinction Rebellion , but there ’ s little sense here that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to insufficient radical zeal among people living in a mild climate .
If not at the Trump level , these islands have certainly been governed by some divisive leaders , about whom history will be mindlessly partisan if it neglects to record that they were deeply loathed by quite substantial numbers of citizens .
I am thinking especially of Lloyd George , Churchill , Thatcher and Blair .
To join this group , Boris Johnson may need to go to war .
It ’ s interesting that , if opinion polling is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rarely think so ) , Trump has suffered a much greater drop in support than Johnson , though both of them have been widely denounced as hopelessly incapable of finding credible responses to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Furthermore , Johnson ’ s government has been found wanting across a range of policies and ( particularly ) the handling of unforeseen events , and indeed foreseeable ones such as school examinations and term reopenings .
Yet the Tory government maintains a decisive lead in these polls over the Labour opposition .
As the leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ held in some esteem by polled voters , his reported failure to cut through against Johnson ’ s erratic bumbling must say something deeper about the political climate in Britain .
A commentator on a Facebook page about polling that I manage characterised Starmer ’ s approach as “ promise nothing , say nothing , and hope the Tories wreck so many lives that nobody will vote for them ” .
Masterful inactivity is usually more effective in theory than in practice .
My own view may perhaps be shared more widely than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no hesitation in voting for Biden and Harris in the US , I see little prospect of my voting for a Labour party led by Starmer .
This is because the Democrats , though certainly not likely to seek all the societal change I would wish , would be sufficiently distinct from what has pertained over the last four years to make the decision simple .
But Starmer can be seen to be determinedly turning his party into the shell of New Labour that Tony Blair left in 2007 and that David Cameron @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : would I prefer a Tory government that I am expected to oppose or a Tory government that I am expected to support ?
That ’ s a no-brainer too .
I might even find myself voting for the Conservatives , just for the perversity .
For a differing opinion on this topic read Hiroyuki Hamada ’ s article here .

W Stephen Gilbert
Joe Biden’s choice of Senator Kamala Harris of California as his vice-presidential running mate has not been universally well-received on the left. Harris is seen by some as a conventional hawk, a Netanyahu apologist and a lawyer who punished African Americans.
A debate may be had as to whether these charges really stack up; certainly Harris’s record is diverse rather than monochrome.
In her time in the Senate, Harris has voted for six out of eight military spending bills.
This July, unlike her former rivals for the Democratic candidacy – Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand – she voted with her other senatorial rival Michael Bennet against Bernie Sanders’ amendment “to reduce the bloated Pentagon budget by 10 percent and invest that money in jobs, education, health care, and housing in communities in the United States in which the poverty rate is not less than 25 percent”.
On the other hand, last December, in one of her pair of rebellions, she joined Sanders in not voting for the 2020 military spending bill; this was two weeks after she had withdrawn her candidacy. Those named above also did not vote (making up the only members of the Senate so to do), save Gillibrand, one of six senators who voted against, and Bennet who voted for.
When it came to specific issues, Harris opposed the Saudi war in Yemen and argued for rejoining the Iran nuclear pact, like all the other Democrat runners for the nomination.
Regarding Israel, Harris was excoriated for meeting officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in her office. However, she did not join the AIPAC’s vehement attack on allegedly anti-Semitic remarks by Rep Ilhan Omar who is Somali-American, declaring that “like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, I am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk” [quoted in The Jerusalem Post July 12th 2019].
Harris opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that targets Israel, but she is on record as speaking out against the annexation of West Bank settlements [interview for PodSaveAmerica April 17th 2019] and, along with her Democrat rivals, supports the two-state solution.
Without explicitly committing to recognition of a Palestinian state, she has written that “Palestinians should be able to govern themselves in their own state, in peace and dignity, just as Israelis deserve a secure homeland for the Jewish people” [Council on Foreign Relations questionnaire, August 21st 2019]. That seems indistinguishable from support for self-determination. Harris’s husband is Jewish.
Some white commentators evidently feel no discomfort in judging a woman of mixed heritage (Tamil Indian and Jamaican) on race. They discount the point made by the LA Times that “…many black voters are wary of her 27 years as a prosecutor enforcing laws that sent African Americans to prison. Often left unsaid is that Harris, a former state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, did not play a role in passing those laws” [October 24th 2019].
It may be true that California incarcerated a disproportionate number of black men during Harris’s time, but is there any state penal system that doesn’t hold a huge number of black people for very long periods? As a prosecutor, she will have had to deal with the defendants the police put before her. It seems unhelpful to risk this becoming a proposal that Harris is “the wrong kind of African American”.
Harris’s record as a law officer and senator can be seen to bear comparison with any progressive lawyer and legislator in the country on homicide rates, domestic violence, sex crimes, gun crime and firearms availability, transnational crime, hate crime, LGBT+ rights, race bias in the police, immigration, trafficking, drug dealing convictions, possession offences, recidivism, social media rights, right-to-know access, truancy, environmental crime, transgender cases, corruption among public officers, business fraud, legal loopholes, mortgage foreclosure and locally on Propositions 8 and 21.
In court, she has won billions of dollars for citizens from financial enterprises, speculators and fraudsters.
There is some evidence that she has sometimes temporised on the death penalty, parole access and body cameras for police officers. But there are few who take public roles that require far-reaching decision-making who do not find that those roles are apt to temper their beliefs and inclinations.
The balance of judgment ought not to condemn Harris out of hand. Voters cannot reasonably expect long-serving public officials to be meticulously consistent, preternaturally wise, hieratically noble and scrupulously on-message on a daily basis.
What’s more, it needs to be remembered that in politics, women, people of colour and progressives are judged by far more stringent standards than reactionary white men, who only need to be idiosyncratic and/or combative to be seen as godheads.
Because of the nature of the executive roles taken by both Biden and Harris, they were more vulnerable to generalised attack from their rivals for the Democratic nomination than any of those rivals in the televised debates.
Someone in a thread on my Facebook page declared that Harris “got taken to absolute bits by Tulsi Gabbard”, but checking on the July 2019 debates shows no such case.
Gabbard’s remarks, which accounted for just one minute of over 130 minutes of debate time, were broad and unsupported. It’s easy to throw out accusations that may or may not be true or fair.
As Jeremy Corbyn could confirm, it’s impossible to defend a career against amorphous assaults. Harris was expected to expound her working method and philosophy in her own prescribed one minute. She made a fair fist of it.
But let’s step back from the particular. How close to an exemplary ideal do candidates need to be in order to avoid being decried by those whose votes they need?
There’s an ancient saw about voting for Anyone But [Name of Candidate]. Many of those who will vote – “holding their noses” in the cliché – for Biden and Harris may very well do so only to ensure that Trump and Pence are ejected from office. Unusually this year, though, it’s hard to imagine there would be many votes for the incumbents in an Anyone But Biden and/or Harris camp.
But those seeking election hope to generate a little more enthusiasm than that, understandably.
The Republicans will certainly rake over the careers of both Biden and Harris (respectively of 50 and 30 years’ duration) to find specific instances of useful ammunition. Biden has plenty of well-aired inconsistencies to defend.
However, there is no richer pasture on which to spread manure than Trump’s record in office, which is why the general expectation is that he will attempt to rob the election of its legitimacy, both before and after November 3rd.
Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket will (unless badly advised) seek to propose an optimistic, positive, creative and restorative platform and stay aloof from dirty tricks. Those who incline to vote Democrat but still bite lumps out of the nominees need to consider the extent to which they are merely being useful idiots for Trump.
Trump’s ideology – if such a creature may be discerned at all – is something that nobody with an iota of concern for her fellows wants to maintain in the White House. Voting for the Democratic ticket is, to vast hordes of Americans, a no-brainer.
Elsewhere in the world, questions of who rules are not always so clear-cut. Even in nations where the regime is impervious to criticism, and opposition politicians are locked up and/or murdered, the spirit of fascist Italy lives on: “Il Duce ha sempre ragione” [Mussolini is always right].
Iron rule sometimes rusts, though, and at present there are proliferating outbreaks of unrest in several countries. Social media has proved an invaluable tool for those embarking on campaigns of civil disobedience, both in spreading the word about demonstrations quickly and in recording evidence of police or military brutality in response.
Governmental attempts to shut down these avenues have inevitably followed. But periods of unrest are apt to fizzle out. At least, Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and Carrie Lam of Hong Kong and Prayut Chan-o-cha in Thailand will hope so (if they’re still in office when you read this).
Of the alternatives, it’s what? – settling for electoral challengers whether or not they come up to your own high-minded expectations, or armed insurrection?
There may be sound intellectual arguments in favour of the latter course, but to characterise it as perilous would be to understate its implications laughably. What’s more, a global pandemic may not be the most helpful background to such a drastic endeavour.
If storming the Winter Palace has become more hazardous than it used to be, a programme systematically to disrupt the circumstances of the masters of international capital one-by-one might be more profitable.
Given that these people are in reality far more powerful than any dictator – and really, that the President of the United States is still described as “the most powerful man in the world” is now a feeble joke – such a programme might be thought by some to do more for democracy (and certainly more for climate change) than the election of any number of well-intentioned politicians.
Britain made its contribution to the Black Lives Matter expressions of citizens’ outrage and continues to host disruptions of traffic organised by Extinction Rebellion, but there’s little sense here that the state is threatened. This doubtless speaks to insufficient radical zeal among people living in a mild climate.
If not at the Trump level, these islands have certainly been governed by some divisive leaders, about whom history will be mindlessly partisan if it neglects to record that they were deeply loathed by quite substantial numbers of citizens. I am thinking especially of Lloyd George, Churchill, Thatcher and Blair. To join this group, Boris Johnson may need to go to war.
It’s interesting that, if opinion polling is to be credited at all (and I rarely think so), Trump has suffered a much greater drop in support than Johnson, though both of them have been widely denounced as hopelessly incapable of finding credible responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, Johnson’s government has been found wanting across a range of policies and (particularly) the handling of unforeseen events, and indeed foreseeable ones such as school examinations and term reopenings.
Yet the Tory government maintains a decisive lead in these polls over the Labour opposition. As the leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is supposedly held in some esteem by polled voters, his reported failure to cut through against Johnson’s erratic bumbling must say something deeper about the political climate in Britain.
A commentator on a Facebook page about polling that I manage characterised Starmer’s approach as “promise nothing, say nothing, and hope the Tories wreck so many lives that nobody will vote for them”. Masterful inactivity is usually more effective in theory than in practice.
My own view may perhaps be shared more widely than I imagine. While I would have no hesitation in voting for Biden and Harris in the US, I see little prospect of my voting for a Labour party led by Starmer.
This is because the Democrats, though certainly not likely to seek all the societal change I would wish, would be sufficiently distinct from what has pertained over the last four years to make the decision simple. But Starmer can be seen to be determinedly turning his party into the shell of New Labour that Tony Blair left in 2007 and that David Cameron assumed in 2010.
I ask myself: would I prefer a Tory government that I am expected to oppose or a Tory government that I am expected to support? That’s a no-brainer too. I might even find myself voting for the Conservatives, just for the perversity.
For a differing opinion on this topic read Hiroyuki Hamada’s article here.


offguardian--2020-08-21--WATCH: Spanish Doctor Shoots Down Covid19 Myths

A doctor being interviewed on Spanish television clearly went off-script and used his air time to fact-check the press , contradict the fear porn and question the need for a vaccine .
In peculiarly affirming spectacle Dr Luis de Benito , from the El Escorial Hospital in Madrid , had scathing words for the media ’ s coverage of the Covid19 pandemic , and a reassuring message for those of us afraid the entire medical establishment had lost its collective mind .
After he questioned official statistics , said fear was being deliberate inculcated and suggested a vaccine would not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and was cut short by the studio .
Here are some choice quotes .
On the surge of new cases : The data can deceive and confuse us .
In health centres we administer only PCR tests so we will find many positives [ … ] we classify these positive tests as “ Covid19 ” [ … ] we are creating confusion by announcing “ Covid19 cases are increasing !
” , but in fact that is not true [ … ] at the moment we see an increase in cases , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in testing.
” On the need for a vaccine : On the planned second lockdown : Measures have been put in place to confine everyone in September by making them believe they have behaved irresponsibly over the summer [ … ] It ’ s more profitable for people not receive care [ … ] strategically it works , but we [ health care workers ] don ’ t believe it ’ s right or practical from a medical point of view.
” Our thanks to the people who sent this video to us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cummins for uploading and translating it .

A doctor being interviewed on Spanish television clearly went off-script and used his air time to fact-check the press, contradict the fear porn and question the need for a vaccine.
In a peculiarly affirming spectacle Dr Luis de Benito, from the El Escorial Hospital in Madrid, had scathing words for the media’s coverage of the Covid19 pandemic, and a reassuring message for those of us afraid the entire medical establishment had lost its collective mind.
After he questioned official statistics, said fear was being deliberate inculcated and suggested a vaccine would not be necessary the interview turned overtly confrontational and was cut short by the studio.
Here are some choice quotes. On the surge of new cases:
The data can deceive and confuse us. In health centres we administer only PCR tests so we will find many positives […] we classify these positive tests as “Covid19” […] we are creating confusion by announcing “Covid19 cases are increasing!”, but in fact that is not true […] at the moment we see an increase in cases, but that is only because of an increase in testing.”
On the need for a vaccine:
Well, of course it’s always profitable to talk about a vaccine, especially after having inculcated the fear to believe it is necessary.”
On media-backed hysteria:
The first thing we need to vaccinate against is fear because of all the social panic we have created. We doctors are perplexed by this.”
On the planned second lockdown:
Measures have been put in place to confine everyone in September by making them believe they have behaved irresponsibly over the summer […] It’s more profitable for people not receive care […] strategically it works, but we [health care workers] don’t believe it’s right or practical from a medical point of view.”
Our thanks to the people who sent this video to us on social media, and YouTuber Ivor Cummins for uploading and translating it.


offguardian--2020-08-22--Are You Ready for the “No One Could Have  Known” Routine?

Ready for another rendition of the “ no one could have known ” routine made famous by all the self-proclaimed liberals who shamelessly went along with the Neo-Cons planned and lie-supported destruction of the Middle East nearly two decades ago ?
As in “ no one could have known ” that by shutting down life as we know it to focus obsessively on a virus mostly affecting what is still a relatively small number of people at the end of their lives ( yes , oh squeamish ones we must summon the courage to talk about Quality Adjusted Life Years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would : 1 .
Cause economic devastation and hence excess deaths , suicides , divorces depressions in much larger numbers than those killed by the virus .
2 .
Provide an already monopolistic and predatory online retailing establishment with competitive advantages in terms of capital reserves and market share that will make it virtually impossible at any time in the near or medium future for the country ’ s and the world ’ s small and even medium-sized businesses to ever catch up to them .
And that this will plunge huge sectors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with all that this portends in terms of additional death and human suffering .
3 .
Cause greatly increased misery and countless additional deaths in the so-called Global South where many people , rightly or wrongly , depend on the consumption patterns of us relatively fortunate sit-at-homers to make it through the week .
4 .
Destroy much of what was attractive about urban life as we know it and lead to a real estate collapse of extraordinary proportions , turning even our few remaining showplace cities into crime-ridden reserves of ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state and local governments , already struggling before the crisis , and unable to print at money at will like the Feds , to cut their already insufficient budgets at a time when their broke and stressed constituents need those services more than ever .
6 .
Push “ smart ” monitoring of our lives , already intolerable for anyone still clinging to memories of freedom in the pre-September 11th world , to the point where most people will no longer understand what people used to know as privacy , intimacy or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 7 .
Train of a generation of children to be fearful and distrustful of others from day one , and to view bending to diktats “ to keep them safe ” , ( no matter how empirically dubious the actual threat to them might be ) , rather than the courageous pursuit of joy and human fullness , as the key goal in life .
We will also no doubt be told that no one could have imagined or known at the time : That governments often make policy on the basis of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or flat-out false .
Because they know ( Karl Rove spilled the beans in his famous interview with Ron Susskind ) that by the time the few conscientious researchers out there get around looking past the hype to debunk their initial storylines , the structures favorable to them put into place on the basis of the false narrative will have been normalized , and thus be in no danger of being dismantled .
That our educational institutions , already failing miserably in the essential democratic task of educating the young to engage in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different than their own , will only further promote dehumanization of “ the other ” through ever-greater reliance on the disembodied practices of remote learning .
And that this , in turn , will only encourage the further growth of the “ drive-by shooting ” approach to “ coping ” with new and challenging ideas seen so often in our public “ discussions ” in recent years .
That further fomenting the alienated and alienating educational practices mentioned above will make than it easier than it already is for our oligarchs to enhance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daily lives and long-term destinies through divide and rule tactics .
That according to the Institute for Democracy and Election Assistance ( IDEA ) fully twos thirds of elections scheduled to be held since February have been postponed due to COVID .
And that this does much to accustom citizens and populations to the idea that one of their few remaining democratic rights can essentially be taken away on the basis of bureaucratic whims , creating a dangerous “ new normal ” that obviously favors the interests of established centers of power .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ more proportionate , culture-saving and dignity-saving ways to live safely and much more fully with the virus .
That Anthony Fauci has a well-documented tendency to see every health problem as being amenable to expensive pharmaceutical solutions ( some might even call it corruption ) , even when other less intrusive , less expensive , and equally effective therapies are available .
That the recent history of using vaccines to fight respiratory infections has been ineffective when not grotesquely counterproductive .
That during the first half of the 20th century the infectious disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culminating in 1952 with a devastating toll of 3,145 deaths and 21,269 cases of paralysis in a US population of 162,000,000 , almost all of the victims being children and young adults .
The danger then to the under-24 population ( some 34 million ) of being infected ( .169 % ) paralyzed ( .044 % ) or killed ( .0092 % ) far outstripped in percentages and , obviously , severity anything COVID is doing to the same age group .
And yet there was no talk of blanket school closures , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sports or , needless to say , lockdowns or masking for the entire society .
That the world lost some 1.1 million people in the 1957-58 Asian flu epidemic ( more than the present COVID number of 760,000 ) , with some 116,000 in the US ( .064 % of the population ) and the world similarly did not stop .
That the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 killed between 1 and 4 million worldwide and some 100,000 in the US ( .048 % of population killed ) and that life similarly was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place in the middle of it .
That the decisions to get on with life in all of these cases were probably not the result , as some today might be tempted suggest , of a lack of scientific knowledge or lesser concern for the value of life , but rather a keener understanding in the more historically-minded heads of that time that risk is always part of life and that aggressive attempts to eliminate this most ubiquitous human reality can often lead to severe unwanted consequences .
That there were many prestigious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who told us as early as March that this virus , while new , would in greater or lesser measure behave much like all viruses before it and fade away .
And , therefore , the best way to deal with it was to let it run its course while protecting the most vulnerable people in society and letting everyone else live their lives .
That significant information platforms banned or sidelined the views of these high-prestige scientists , while aggressively circulating the words of jokers like Neil Ferguson at Imperial College , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mortality ( the latest in a career full of stupid and alarmist , but not coincidentally , pharmaceutical-industry-friendly predictions ) , gave politicians the pretext for setting in motion perhaps the most aggressive experiment in social engineering in the history of the world .
That just as the levels of mortality from the virus were diminishing rapidly in the late spring and early summer of 2020 , thus raising hope for a much-needed return to normality , there was seamless bait and switch in the major media from a discourse centering on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the curve ” to one centered on the absurdly utopian ( and not coincidentally vaccine-oriented ) goal of eliminating new “ cases ” .
That having the news media focus narrowly and obsessively on the growth of “ cases ” when 99 % + of them are completely non-life-threatening was journalistic malpractice of the highest order , comparable to , if not exceeding in its sinister effect that which was generated by the media ’ s wholly unsubstantiated talk of mushroom clouds and WMD two decades ago , talk that led ( so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of millions and the destruction of entire civilizations in the Middle East .
That government and corporate power holders , having successfully habituated people to engage in major solidarity-destroying social changes through the repetition of the largely meaningless term “ case “ , will surely come to rely on it and other breathlessly repeated , albeit largely empty , signifiers to paralyze society at will , especially at those times when the people appear to be waking up and coming together to demand a change In the existing balance of social power .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to demonstrate , hydroxychloroquine is , when combined with other similarly affordable drugs , a safe and rather effective early-stage treatment for COVID 19 .
That the negative studies on hydroxychloroquine effectiveness published at two of the most prestigious medical journals in the world The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine , and which were adduced time and again at a key moment in the early debate of possible COVID treatments to debunk the drug ’ s effectiveness , were found to be based on forged data sets .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ play the game of perception lag with false information to achieve long-term structural changes ) That suggesting world-class professional athletes in their 20s and 30s , or even their less talented and less fit high school and college counterparts , were running a risk of mortal consequences in even minimal numbers by playing in the midst of the COVID spread was , in light of known age-related numbers on the disease ’ s lethality , at best ridiculous and , at worst , a very cynical fear-mongering ploy .
Repeat after me , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these things ” and then check your screen to see , as citizens of Oceania , whether you are supposed to be worried this week about the threat from Eurasia or Eastasia .
And , of course , I ’ d be remiss if I didn ’ t remind you to mask up real tight , especially in light of the CDC numbers — you ’ ll have to forgive here for breaking with the rich tradition of pure panic-driven narrative and moving to the realm of empirical figures — which tell us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ everything must change ” crisis : • 0.011 % of the US population under 65 have died of COVID • 0.005 % of the US population under 55 have died of COVID • 0.0009 % of the US population under 35 have died of COVID • 0.0002 % of the US population under 25 have died of COVID • 0.00008 % of the US population under 15 have died of COVID And as for the most “ high risk ” people ?
• 0.23 % of the US population over 65 have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried to sell it otherwise , this thing has very little , if anything , to do with great-grandma ’ s Spanish flu of 1918 .
Indeed , it not even completely clear if it is cumulatively worse in terms of loss of life than the influenzas outbreaks of 1957-58 or 1968-69 that most everyone slept through .
But , I guess that doesn ’ t matter when there ’ s a narrative to keep .
Might it be time to ask if there might be something else afoot with all this ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hispanic Studies at Trinity College in Hartford , Connecticut and the author of the recently published book , Livin ’ la Vida Barroca : American Culture in a Time of Imperial Orthodoxies .

Thomas Harrington
Ready for another rendition of the “no one could have known” routine made famous by all the self-proclaimed liberals who shamelessly went along with the Neo-Cons planned and lie-supported destruction of the Middle East nearly two decades ago?
As in “no one could have known” that by shutting down life as we know it to focus obsessively on a virus mostly affecting what is still a relatively small number of people at the end of their lives (yes, oh squeamish ones we must summon the courage to talk about Quality Adjusted Life Years when making public policy) we probably would:
1. Cause economic devastation and hence excess deaths, suicides, divorces depressions in much larger numbers than those killed by the virus.
2. Provide an already monopolistic and predatory online retailing establishment with competitive advantages in terms of capital reserves and market share that will make it virtually impossible at any time in the near or medium future for the country’s and the world’s small and even medium-sized businesses to ever catch up to them. And that this will plunge huge sectors of the world-wide economy into serf-like ruin, with all that this portends in terms of additional death and human suffering.
3. Cause greatly increased misery and countless additional deaths in the so-called Global South where many people, rightly or wrongly, depend on the consumption patterns of us relatively fortunate sit-at-homers to make it through the week.
4. Destroy much of what was attractive about urban life as we know it and lead to a real estate collapse of extraordinary proportions, turning even our few remaining showplace cities into crime-ridden reserves of ever more desperate people.
5. Force state and local governments, already struggling before the crisis, and unable to print at money at will like the Feds, to cut their already insufficient budgets at a time when their broke and stressed constituents need those services more than ever.
6. Push “smart” monitoring of our lives, already intolerable for anyone still clinging to memories of freedom in the pre-September 11th world, to the point where most people will no longer understand what people used to know as privacy, intimacy or the simple dignity of being left alone.
7. Train of a generation of children to be fearful and distrustful of others from day one, and to view bending to diktats “to keep them safe”, (no matter how empirically dubious the actual threat to them might be), rather than the courageous pursuit of joy and human fullness, as the key goal in life.
We will also no doubt be told that no one could have imagined or known at the time:
That governments often make policy on the basis of information they know to be largely unsubstantiated or flat-out false. Because they know (Karl Rove spilled the beans in his famous interview with Ron Susskind) that by the time the few conscientious researchers out there get around looking past the hype to debunk their initial storylines, the structures favorable to them put into place on the basis of the false narrative will have been normalized, and thus be in no danger of being dismantled.
That our educational institutions, already failing miserably in the essential democratic task of educating the young to engage in productive conflict with those whose ideas are different than their own, will only further promote dehumanization of “the other” through ever-greater reliance on the disembodied practices of remote learning. And that this, in turn, will only encourage the further growth of the “drive-by shooting” approach to “coping” with new and challenging ideas seen so often in our public “discussions” in recent years.
That further fomenting the alienated and alienating educational practices mentioned above will make than it easier than it already is for our oligarchs to enhance their already obscene levels control over our daily lives and long-term destinies through divide and rule tactics.
That according to the Institute for Democracy and Election Assistance (IDEA) fully twos thirds of elections scheduled to be held since February have been postponed due to COVID. And that this does much to accustom citizens and populations to the idea that one of their few remaining democratic rights can essentially be taken away on the basis of bureaucratic whims, creating a dangerous “new normal” that obviously favors the interests of established centers of power.
That Sweden and other countries developed much more proportionate, culture-saving and dignity-saving ways to live safely and much more fully with the virus.
That Anthony Fauci has a well-documented tendency to see every health problem as being amenable to expensive pharmaceutical solutions (some might even call it corruption), even when other less intrusive, less expensive, and equally effective therapies are available.
That the recent history of using vaccines to fight respiratory infections has been ineffective when not grotesquely counterproductive.
That during the first half of the 20th century the infectious disease of polio was a constant danger, culminating in 1952 with a devastating toll of 3,145 deaths and 21,269 cases of paralysis in a US population of 162,000,000, almost all of the victims being children and young adults. The danger then to the under-24 population (some 34 million) of being infected (.169%) paralyzed (.044%) or killed (.0092%) far outstripped in percentages and, obviously, severity anything COVID is doing to the same age group. And yet there was no talk of blanket school closures, cancelled high school, college and pro sports or, needless to say, lockdowns or masking for the entire society.
That the world lost some 1.1 million people in the 1957-58 Asian flu epidemic (more than the present COVID number of 760,000), with some 116,000 in the US (.064% of the population) and the world similarly did not stop.
That the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 killed between 1 and 4 million worldwide and some 100,000 in the US (.048% of population killed) and that life similarly was not stopped. Indeed, Woodstock took place in the middle of it.
That the decisions to get on with life in all of these cases were probably not the result, as some today might be tempted suggest, of a lack of scientific knowledge or lesser concern for the value of life, but rather a keener understanding in the more historically-minded heads of that time that risk is always part of life and that aggressive attempts to eliminate this most ubiquitous human reality can often lead to severe unwanted consequences.
That there were many prestigious scientists, including Nobel prize winners, who told us as early as March that this virus, while new, would in greater or lesser measure behave much like all viruses before it and fade away. And, therefore, the best way to deal with it was to let it run its course while protecting the most vulnerable people in society and letting everyone else live their lives.
That significant information platforms banned or sidelined the views of these high-prestige scientists, while aggressively circulating the words of jokers like Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, whose stupid and alarmist predictions of COVID mortality (the latest in a career full of stupid and alarmist, but not coincidentally, pharmaceutical-industry-friendly predictions), gave politicians the pretext for setting in motion perhaps the most aggressive experiment in social engineering in the history of the world.
That just as the levels of mortality from the virus were diminishing rapidly in the late spring and early summer of 2020, thus raising hope for a much-needed return to normality, there was seamless bait and switch in the major media from a discourse centering on the logical and laudable goal of “flattening the curve” to one centered on the absurdly utopian (and not coincidentally vaccine-oriented) goal of eliminating new “cases”.
That having the news media focus narrowly and obsessively on the growth of “cases” when 99%+ of them are completely non-life-threatening was journalistic malpractice of the highest order, comparable to, if not exceeding in its sinister effect that which was generated by the media’s wholly unsubstantiated talk of mushroom clouds and WMD two decades ago, talk that led (so sorry brown people) to the deaths of millions and the destruction of entire civilizations in the Middle East.
That government and corporate power holders, having successfully habituated people to engage in major solidarity-destroying social changes through the repetition of the largely meaningless term “case“, will surely come to rely on it and other breathlessly repeated, albeit largely empty, signifiers to paralyze society at will, especially at those times when the people appear to be waking up and coming together to demand a change In the existing balance of social power.
That as numerous existing and emerging studies seem to demonstrate, hydroxychloroquine is, when combined with other similarly affordable drugs, a safe and rather effective early-stage treatment for COVID 19.
That the negative studies on hydroxychloroquine effectiveness published at two of the most prestigious medical journals in the world The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, and which were adduced time and again at a key moment in the early debate of possible COVID treatments to debunk the drug’s effectiveness, were found to be based on forged data sets. (see earlier entry on how power centers play the game of perception lag with false information to achieve long-term structural changes)
That suggesting world-class professional athletes in their 20s and 30s, or even their less talented and less fit high school and college counterparts, were running a risk of mortal consequences in even minimal numbers by playing in the midst of the COVID spread was, in light of known age-related numbers on the disease’s lethality, at best ridiculous and, at worst, a very cynical fear-mongering ploy.
Repeat after me, “no one could have possibly known these things” and then check your screen to see, as citizens of Oceania, whether you are supposed to be worried this week about the threat from Eurasia or Eastasia.
And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you to mask up real tight, especially in light of the CDC numbers — you’ll have to forgive here for breaking with the rich tradition of pure panic-driven narrative and moving to the realm of empirical figures — which tell us that up until this point in our “everything must change” crisis:
0.011% of the US population under 65 have died of COVID
0.005% of the US population under 55 have died of COVID
0.0009% of the US population under 35 have died of COVID
0.0002% of the US population under 25 have died of COVID
0.00008% of the US population under 15 have died of COVID
And as for the most “high risk” people?
0.23% of the US population over 65 have died of COVID
Though they’ve tried to sell it otherwise, this thing has very little, if anything, to do with great-grandma’s Spanish flu of 1918.
Indeed, it not even completely clear if it is cumulatively worse in terms of loss of life than the influenzas outbreaks of 1957-58 or 1968-69 that most everyone slept through. But, I guess that doesn’t matter when there’s a narrative to keep.
Might it be time to ask if there might be something else afoot with all this?
Thomas S. Harrington is a professor of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and the author of the recently published book, Livin’ la Vida Barroca: American Culture in a Time of Imperial Orthodoxies.


offguardian--2020-08-22--Covid Positive – Messages of Hope

Covid Positive – Messages of Hope

The image above is called Sanity , Her Son , and the Credulous and was sent us by an artist from Washington State named Jordan Henderson We ’ re publishing it because we think it ’ s a powerful visual representation of our current situation – and a powerful message of the importance of celebrating the spirit of human warmth and connectedness that is currently under attack .
Recently our Admin pointed out to us a conversation BTL where some of our regular and respected commenters were regretting a lack of positive message from us over the covid19 New Normal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that some affirmation is needed during this spiritually draining time .
So – here is our new category “ Covid Positive ” .
A place for people to post their own positive experiences – large or small .
• Do you have information about a demo being planned – tell us below and we will help publicize it • Did you have an affirming experience of solidarity with other non-pod people you ’ d like to share ?
• Do you have writing , artwork , anything that expresses that human warmth and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • Anything else positive , hopeful or affirmative of the human spirit you would like to share ?
Post links or info below or email us at [ email protected ] and we will publish the best ( the ones we like most ! )
ATL .
Here ’ s the artist ’ s commentary on his painting : This painting is the culmination of a long , careful , visual exploration of the world that I see today , the world that I see when I go to get groceries , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only looks boring because we are used to it , we see it everyday , but the prosaic has never been more than a deceptively simple facade for a fascinating place where nearly everything we do has spiritual , and ethical significance .
Often we must observe the everyday world with great care to perceive these things , but sometimes they surface in an obvious manner .
Imagine throwing dust on an otherwise invisible person , masks are like that ; power struggles , and beliefs are now proclaimed , for all to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And here ’ s the image again – stay positive and sane !

The image above is called Sanity, Her Son, and the Credulous and was sent us by an artist from Washington State named Jordan Henderson. We’re publishing it because we think it’s a powerful visual representation of our current situation – and a powerful message of the importance of celebrating the spirit of human warmth and connectedness that is currently under attack.
Recently our Admin pointed out to us a conversation BTL where some of our regular and respected commenters were regretting a lack of positive message from us over the covid19 New Normal psyop.
Fair enough. We agree that some affirmation is needed during this spiritually draining time.
So – here is our new category “Covid Positive”. A place for people to post their own positive experiences – large or small.
Do you have information about a demo being planned – tell us below and we will help publicize it
Did you have an affirming experience of solidarity with other non-pod people you’d like to share?
Do you have writing, artwork, anything that expresses that human warmth and connectiveness currently being so nakedly attacked?
Anything else positive, hopeful or affirmative of the human spirit you would like to share?
Post links or info below or email us at [email protected] and we will publish the best (the ones we like most!) ATL.
Here’s the artist’s commentary on his painting:
This painting is the culmination of a long, careful, visual exploration of the world that I see today, the world that I see when I go to get groceries, or run an errand. The mundane world only looks boring because we are used to it, we see it everyday, but the prosaic has never been more than a deceptively simple facade for a fascinating place where nearly everything we do has spiritual, and ethical significance. Often we must observe the everyday world with great care to perceive these things, but sometimes they surface in an obvious manner. Imagine throwing dust on an otherwise invisible person, masks are like that; power struggles, and beliefs are now proclaimed, for all to see, with a prominent symbol.
And here’s the image again – stay positive and sane!