offguardian--2020-10-17--Great VIRAL Debate: Round 1: Dr Anderson’s First Response

We kick off Round One of The Great VIRAL Debate , following on from Opening Statements .
Our participants , Drs Anderson and Rancourt , will now take turns responding to one another .
Dr Piers Robinson is our chair .
Off-Guardian is your host .
The proposition under debate is : Dr Anderson , arguing for the proposition .
He ’ s responding to Dr Rancourt ’ s opening statement and first response : In response to the opening statement and first response by Denis , let me first list the matters on which I agree .
I agree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can and should be determined by “ unbiased scientific enquiry ” ; that there are “ large numbers of [ unexplained ] excess all cause deaths ” in many jurisdictions ; that the infection fatality ratio ( IFR ) is “ a scientific question , which can not be answered merely by using socio-political inferences ” ; and that IFRs ( the fatality rate of all infected , not just those presenting as ill ) must be distinguished from the initially inflated case fatality ratios ( CFRs ) .
Given the nature of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strong , often tending to abusive – few are likely to change their minds based on our arguments .
Yet our agreement on the need for independent scientific arbitration is important because readers will have reference to our sources and perspectives .
Nevertheless I say Denis is in error in several matters of method and substance .
On method , his first error is to introduce personal anecdotes in an attempt to prove a general proposition : “ I do not know anyone who knows anyone who has died of this thing ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not be very dangerous .
This proves nothing , any more than the fact that I do personally know of such deaths and illnesses .
Trying to prove the general from the particular is a basic logical fallacy .
His second error is to mix insinuations of a global conspiracy ( without evidence ) with an argument over ‘ virulence ’ which founds itself on scientific evidence .
The vague back-text undermines his scientific logic and provides an alternative ‘ escape route ’ in case his recourse to science fails ( i.e .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is another ‘ obvious ’ cause ’ ) .
The third problem is his cherry picking of scientific estimates .
All the scientific reports ( including Ioannidis , on whom Denis relies ) admit a large degree of uncertainty over many aspects of COVID-19 .
That means we should have regard to the range of scientific estimates on COVID IFRs .
I did that in my opening , citing a range of 0.2 % to 1.3 % , with a consensus of between 0.5 % and 1 % .
The seasonal flu IFR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % .
In substance , Denis relies for his ‘ no worse than a flu ’ argument on Ioannidis , corroborated by some correspondence he had with an academic friend , Joseph Audie .
He also claims the Washington based CDC revised its estimates in September to fit in with Ioannidis .
Yet Denis does not report these cherry picked sources accurately .
John Ioannidis is a scientist who ( with colleagues including Jay Bhattacharya ) has engaged in political lobbying of the Trump administration since mid-March , to prevent a ‘ lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harmless ’ view vs likely economic damage .
Several of his arguments are now touted by Trump ( see Stephanie Lee ) .
But his COVID19 predictions are poor .
On 17 March Ioannidis predicted “ about 10,000 deaths ” in the USA from COVID-19 .
By that time the US government had reported just 121 deaths , one month later it was 38,000 deaths , six months later more than 200,000 .
In mid-July Ioannidis revised upwards his IFR estimate to a median 0.27 % – but as much as “ 0.90 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per million ” .
That is , a median rate almost 3 times the seasonal flu .
Audie ’ s letter mentions this but Denis does not .
Denis also wrongly claims that the US CDC in September revised its IFR estimates to figures “ comparable to and smaller than ” that of the 2009 Swine Flu .
Not so .
The 10 September CDC report cited by Denis says it relies on the European IFR calculations by Hauser et al , which range from 0.5 % to 1.4 % .
The Audie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in July presented “ a second and higher estimate of 0.65 % ” , a figure confirmed in late September by congressional testimony from CDC Director Robert Redfield : So is the “ massive and coordinated information and recommendation ( propaganda ? )
campaign ” mentioned by Denis ( i ) that of Ioannidis and Trump , who play down the epidemic , or ( ii ) that of the CDC , which cites international studies to maintain that COVID19 is 6.5 times more deadly than the seasonal flu ?
The US state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On the new matters raised by Denis in his 17 October response , first there was no need for me to “ tar ” , him as a ‘ pandemic denier ’ .
He does that himself in his Facebook group ‘ Denis Rancourt denying everything ’ , where he says “ I deny climate , vaccine , face masks , COVID-19 , medicine , pedagogy , … everything !
” Denis spends some time on why he thinks so many people have died in aged care homes in the COVID era .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of aged care .
But we know the Swedish voluntarist and ‘ herd immunity ’ approach did not work .
Swedish health official Anders Tegnall admitted in August that older people in Sweden were worst hit than those in neighbouring countries ( Holroyd 2020 ) .
My emphasis on public health systems is not simply about a “ funding model ” , but about values and systems .
I have explained this in several articles and it has relevance for the important debate about the costs of ‘ lockdowns ’ , which are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , plus child nutrition and schooling .
So health systems remain at the root of the important debate about ‘ costs of the virus vs costs of the lockdown ’ .
A British tabloid story in July , citing an unpublished government report , headlined ‘ 200,000 deaths ’ in Britain from the ‘ lockdown ’ .
Most of these were said to be in delayed health care .
Those who read through to paragraph 20 might have noticed the same report was said to have predicted 500,000 COVID19 deaths “ if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the population unchecked ” ( Knapton 2020 ) .
Public health matters .
Find out more about our two eminent debaters here Track the debate ’ s progress in our Coronavirus Debate Section .

We kick off Round One of The Great VIRAL Debate, following on from Opening Statements. Our participants, Drs Anderson and Rancourt, will now take turns responding to one another. Dr Piers Robinson is our chair. Off-Guardian is your host. The proposition under debate is:
SARS-COV-2 merits suppression measures in order to combat the virus rather than the herd/community immunity approach
Dr Anderson, arguing for the proposition. He’s responding to Dr Rancourt’s opening statement and first response:
In response to the opening statement and first response by Denis, let me first list the matters on which I agree.
I agree that the danger and contagion of COVID19 can and should be determined by “unbiased scientific enquiry”; that there are “large numbers of [unexplained] excess all cause deaths” in many jurisdictions; that the infection fatality ratio (IFR) is “a scientific question, which cannot be answered merely by using socio-political inferences”; and that IFRs (the fatality rate of all infected, not just those presenting as ill) must be distinguished from the initially inflated case fatality ratios (CFRs).
Given the nature of western opinion on many big debates – strong, often tending to abusive – few are likely to change their minds based on our arguments. Yet our agreement on the need for independent scientific arbitration is important because readers will have reference to our sources and perspectives.
Nevertheless I say Denis is in error in several matters of method and substance.
On method, his first error is to introduce personal anecdotes in an attempt to prove a general proposition: “I do not know anyone who knows anyone who has died of this thing”, he says, suggesting it cannot be very dangerous. This proves nothing, any more than the fact that I do personally know of such deaths and illnesses. Trying to prove the general from the particular is a basic logical fallacy.
His second error is to mix insinuations of a global conspiracy (without evidence) with an argument over ‘virulence’ which founds itself on scientific evidence. The vague back-text undermines his scientific logic and provides an alternative ‘escape route’ in case his recourse to science fails (i.e. ‘where there are excess deaths there is another ‘obvious’ cause’).
The third problem is his cherry picking of scientific estimates. All the scientific reports (including Ioannidis, on whom Denis relies) admit a large degree of uncertainty over many aspects of COVID-19. That means we should have regard to the range of scientific estimates on COVID IFRs. I did that in my opening, citing a range of 0.2% to 1.3%, with a consensus of between 0.5% and 1%. The seasonal flu IFR is commonly said to be about 0.1%.
In substance, Denis relies for his ‘no worse than a flu’ argument on Ioannidis, corroborated by some correspondence he had with an academic friend, Joseph Audie. He also claims the Washington based CDC revised its estimates in September to fit in with Ioannidis. Yet Denis does not report these cherry picked sources accurately.
John Ioannidis is a scientist who (with colleagues including Jay Bhattacharya) has engaged in political lobbying of the Trump administration since mid-March, to prevent a ‘lockdown’, based on his ‘relatively harmless’ view vs likely economic damage. Several of his arguments are now touted by Trump (see Stephanie Lee).
But his COVID19 predictions are poor. On 17 March Ioannidis predicted “about 10,000 deaths” in the USA from COVID-19. By that time the US government had reported just 121 deaths, one month later it was 38,000 deaths, six months later more than 200,000. In mid-July Ioannidis revised upwards his IFR estimate to a median 0.27% – but as much as “0.90% in locations exceeding 500 COVID-19 deaths per million”. That is, a median rate almost 3 times the seasonal flu. Audie’s letter mentions this but Denis does not.
Denis also wrongly claims that the US CDC in September revised its IFR estimates to figures “comparable to and smaller than” that of the 2009 Swine Flu. Not so. The 10 September CDC report cited by Denis says it relies on the European IFR calculations by Hauser et al, which range from 0.5% to 1.4%. The Audie letter bemoans the fact that the CDC in July presented “a second and higher estimate of 0.65%”, a figure confirmed in late September by congressional testimony from CDC Director Robert Redfield:
The preliminary results on the first round show that a majority of our nation—more than 90 percent of the population—remains susceptible … [and] that the overall COVID-19 infection fatality rate (IFR)—the share of Americans infected by the virus who will die as a result—is about 0.65 percent. (in Sullum, 29 September)
So is the “massive and coordinated information and recommendation (propaganda?) campaign” mentioned by Denis (i) that of Ioannidis and Trump, who play down the epidemic, or (ii) that of the CDC, which cites international studies to maintain that COVID19 is 6.5 times more deadly than the seasonal flu? The US state is clearly divided on the matter.
***
On the new matters raised by Denis in his 17 October response, first there was no need for me to “tar”, him as a ‘pandemic denier’. He does that himself in his Facebook group ‘Denis Rancourt denying everything’, where he says “I deny climate, vaccine, face masks, COVID-19, medicine, pedagogy, … everything!”
Denis spends some time on why he thinks so many people have died in aged care homes in the COVID era. I welcome his suggestions for the reform of aged care. But we know the Swedish voluntarist and ‘herd immunity’ approach did not work. Swedish health official Anders Tegnall admitted in August that older people in Sweden were worst hit than those in neighbouring countries (Holroyd 2020).
My emphasis on public health systems is not simply about a “funding model”, but about values and systems. I have explained this in several articles and it has relevance for the important debate about the costs of ‘lockdowns’, which are mainly in delayed or denied health care, plus child nutrition and schooling.
So health systems remain at the root of the important debate about ‘costs of the virus vs costs of the lockdown’. A British tabloid story in July, citing an unpublished government report, headlined ‘200,000 deaths’ in Britain from the ‘lockdown’. Most of these were said to be in delayed health care. Those who read through to paragraph 20 might have noticed the same report was said to have predicted 500,000 COVID19 deaths “if the virus had been allowed to run through the population unchecked” (Knapton 2020). Public health matters.
Find out more about our two eminent debaters here
Track the debate’s progress in our Coronavirus Debate Section.


offguardian--2020-10-17--Great VIRAL Debate: Round 1: Dr Rancourt’s First Response

We kick off Round One of The Great VIRAL Debate , following on from Opening Statements .
Our participants , Drs Anderson and Rancourt , will now take turns responding to one another .
Dr Piers Robinson is our chair .
Off-Guardian is your host .
The proposition under debate is : Dr Rancourt , arguing against the proposition , responds to Tim Anderson ’ s Opening Statement from 10 Oct : Our opening statements were made separately , blindly .
We now proceed one after the other .
I am going first .
“ On the broad debate ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic denier ” .
I do not deny that there has been a large wave of deaths in an epidemiological context of viral respiratory diseases .
My focus has been to research why the all-cause-mortality-quantified excess deaths have been so different from one jurisdiction to the next ( state to state in the USA , province to province in Canada , region to region in France , country to country in Europe , and so on ) ; and the ways in which “ science ” and “ medicine ” are misused in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the propaganda by government public-health directives , law and enforcement .
“ On the proposition ” Tim advances that SARS-CoV-2 is undeniably more virulent than influenza , and that there is a “ scientific consensus ” on this point .
Both are demonstrably false .
Regarding virulence of the pathogen , Tim quotes incorrect early estimates of the infection fatality rate ( IFR ) , and does not quote the latest CDC summary of IFR values , nor does Tim quote the most complete critical review made by Professor Ioannidis ( see my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by stating : “ No responsible health official can afford to just cherry pick the most optimistic estimates.
” Regarding comparison to influenza , Tim fails to appreciate the complexity of the epidemiology of influenza , and the difficulty in calculating meaningful ( unbiased ) mortality burdens , using statistical models .
Average mortality from epidemic influenza varies 20-fold from locality to locality , and mortality from seasonal influenza varies 100-fold and more with age .
The highly-cited longitudinal field study of Loeb et al .
( 2000 ) found an influenza-outbreak case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % in 5 care homes in Toronto over 3 years , a hard number large enough easily to have been the nucleus of a pandemic propaganda campaign .
For other cities , Loeb et al .
noted [ 1 ] : There is also an extensive scientific literature showing that elderly people are not significantly protected from influenza by vaccination , despite the pressures of the massive vaccine industry on the scientific establishment .
Regarding “ Neoliberal failures and independent responses ” , I reject Tim ’ s simplistic proposition that a difference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neoliberal countries ( UK , USA , Sweden , Brazil ) ” and “ more independent countries ( China , Vietnam , Cuba , Venezuela , Syria ) ” is caused by decimated medical systems in the West versus responsible medical care management in his list of non-neoliberal ( communistic ? )
countries .
I expect that three factors are more important than Tim ’ s “ they promptly imposed protective quarantine measures ” , etc.
, to explain differences in excess all-cause mortality in the March-April catastrophe period .
I use all-cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unreliable .
First , an important factor in comparing Western and non-Western nations is the degree to which the elderly population is housed in care homes versus family homes .
There is little doubt that care homes are killing fields for viral respiratory diseases , and that WHO air-ventilation standards “ for Infection Control in Health-Care Settings ” are not being followed [ 2 ] .
Ventilation is crucial where there are groups of vulnerable people [ 3,4 ] .
Natural ventilation will be abundant in homes in hot climates .
Second , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particles , which are stable in air only in low absolute humidity conditions .
I have reviewed the relevant established science in my articles .
This explains : why viral respiratory disease transmission is highly seasonal and predominantly occurs in winter in mid-latitude countries , with reversal in our summer for mid-latitude Southern Hemisphere countries ( their winter ) .
Viral respiratory diseases virtually do not transmit in hot and humid ( equatorial ) countries , or in hot and humid seasons or environments .
For example , if you wanted high transmission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have to confine the interacting population to air-conditioned closed spaces .
Likewise , if you want summer transmission in hospitals , you have to air-condition the air in common areas , and reduce humidity “ to control mold and bacterial cultures ” , while not paying attention to ventilation as a means to remove aerosols .
Third , confinement , psychological stress , and social isolation of elderly people in care homes or elsewhere are deadly , as is introducing infected patients from hospitals into the care homes .
I have reviewed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In my papers and interviews , I have explained why we should interpret the March-April excess all-cause mortality events ( e.g.
, 30,200 accelerated deaths in France ) as having been caused by the government response measures , not any virus acting in an undisturbed society .
So , the simple idea that the funding model of the national health-care system explains the pandemic deaths is not a useful generalization .
I agree that the Western countries are vicious and irresponsible towards their own populations .
I believe the highest-level driver is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two eminent debaters here Track this debate ’ s progress in our Coronavirus Debate Section

We kick off Round One of The Great VIRAL Debate, following on from Opening Statements. Our participants, Drs Anderson and Rancourt, will now take turns responding to one another. Dr Piers Robinson is our chair. Off-Guardian is your host. The proposition under debate is:
SARS-COV-2 merits suppression measures in order to combat the virus rather than the herd/community immunity approach
Dr Rancourt, arguing against the proposition, responds to Tim Anderson’s Opening Statement from 10 Oct:
Our opening statements were made separately, blindly. We now proceed one after the other. I am going first.
“On the broad debate” Tim tars me as being a “pandemic denier”. I do not deny that there has been a large wave of deaths in an epidemiological context of viral respiratory diseases.
My focus has been to research why the all-cause-mortality-quantified excess deaths have been so different from one jurisdiction to the next (state to state in the USA, province to province in Canada, region to region in France, country to country in Europe, and so on); and the ways in which “science” and “medicine” are misused in the palpable global propaganda campaign, including the propaganda by government public-health directives, law and enforcement.
“On the proposition” Tim advances that SARS-CoV-2 is undeniably more virulent than influenza, and that there is a “scientific consensus” on this point. Both are demonstrably false.
Regarding virulence of the pathogen, Tim quotes incorrect early estimates of the infection fatality rate (IFR), and does not quote the latest CDC summary of IFR values, nor does Tim quote the most complete critical review made by Professor Ioannidis (see my opening statement). Tim follows this by stating: “No responsible health official can afford to just cherry pick the most optimistic estimates.”
Regarding comparison to influenza, Tim fails to appreciate the complexity of the epidemiology of influenza, and the difficulty in calculating meaningful (unbiased) mortality burdens, using statistical models.
Average mortality from epidemic influenza varies 20-fold from locality to locality, and mortality from seasonal influenza varies 100-fold and more with age. The highly-cited longitudinal field study of Loeb et al. (2000) found an influenza-outbreak case fatality ratio (CFR) of 8% in 5 care homes in Toronto over 3 years, a hard number large enough easily to have been the nucleus of a pandemic propaganda campaign. For other cities, Loeb et al. noted [1]:
Rates of pneumonia as high as 42% and case-fatality rates exceeding 70% have been reported in outbreaks due to influenza virus. [their references 8 through 10]
There is also an extensive scientific literature showing that elderly people are not significantly protected from influenza by vaccination, despite the pressures of the massive vaccine industry on the scientific establishment.
Regarding “Neoliberal failures and independent responses”, I reject Tim’s simplistic proposition that a difference in “COVID deaths” between “neoliberal countries (UK, USA, Sweden, Brazil)” and “more independent countries (China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria)” is caused by decimated medical systems in the West versus responsible medical care management in his list of non-neoliberal (communistic?) countries.
I expect that three factors are more important than Tim’s “they promptly imposed protective quarantine measures”, etc., to explain differences in excess all-cause mortality in the March-April catastrophe period. I use all-cause mortality because the attributed-death statistics are notoriously unreliable.
First, an important factor in comparing Western and non-Western nations is the degree to which the elderly population is housed in care homes versus family homes. There is little doubt that care homes are killing fields for viral respiratory diseases, and that WHO air-ventilation standards “for Infection Control in Health-Care Settings” are not being followed [2]. Ventilation is crucial where there are groups of vulnerable people [3,4]. Natural ventilation will be abundant in homes in hot climates.
Second, viral respiratory disease transmission operates via aerosol particles, which are stable in air only in low absolute humidity conditions. I have reviewed the relevant established science in my articles. This explains: why viral respiratory disease transmission is highly seasonal and predominantly occurs in winter in mid-latitude countries, with reversal in our summer for mid-latitude Southern Hemisphere countries (their winter). Viral respiratory diseases virtually do not transmit in hot and humid (equatorial) countries, or in hot and humid seasons or environments.
For example, if you wanted high transmission in Texas in the summer, you would have to confine the interacting population to air-conditioned closed spaces. Likewise, if you want summer transmission in hospitals, you have to air-condition the air in common areas, and reduce humidity “to control mold and bacterial cultures”, while not paying attention to ventilation as a means to remove aerosols.
Third, confinement, psychological stress, and social isolation of elderly people in care homes or elsewhere are deadly, as is introducing infected patients from hospitals into the care homes. I have reviewed the established relevant science in my articles. In my papers and interviews, I have explained why we should interpret the March-April excess all-cause mortality events (e.g., 30,200 accelerated deaths in France) as having been caused by the government response measures, not any virus acting in an undisturbed society.
So, the simple idea that the funding model of the national health-care system explains the pandemic deaths is not a useful generalization. I agree that the Western countries are vicious and irresponsible towards their own populations. I believe the highest-level driver is geopolitical.
Find out more about our two eminent debaters here
Track this debate’s progress in our Coronavirus Debate Section
Footnotes:
1 https://www.cmaj.ca/…
2 https://www.who.int/… (WHO seems to have filed this under “Water sanitation hygiene”, rather than highlight its relevance to COVID.)
3 https://academic.oup.com/…
4 https://academic.oup.com/…


offguardian--2020-10-17--New book warns of danger of Kamala Harris presidency

With the 2020 US presidential election less than a month away , there is widespread speculation concerning Democratic nominee Joe Biden ’ s mental and physical fitness at 77 years of age if he were to defeat incumbent Donald Trump on November 3rd .
The former Vice President and Senator from Delaware would surpass his opponent as the oldest to ever hold the office of the presidency if victorious , while his generally acknowledged cognitive decline has led many to question whether he is even capable of serving a single term .
Given the concerns about his health , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Senator Kamala Harris , would become his successor has put the controversial former prosecutor and California Attorney General ’ s own politics under scrutiny , though not to a degree sufficient with the odds she could very well become commander-in-chief in the near future .
Trump himself suggested it was the hidden motivation behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ’ s recent introduction of a 25th Amendment commission on removing a “ mentally unfit ” president to enable the replacement of an incapacitated Biden with Harris after the election .
Even Saturday Night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor first debate performance as a Harris term in-the-making — but as journalist Caleb Maupin explains in his new book Kamala Harris and the Future of America : An Essay in Three Parts , the prospect of her becoming president is no laughing matter .
Maupin ’ s ambitious essay surpasses the redundant analysis of the vice-presidential nominee by placing her political success in a broader historical context while forewarning the unique danger of a budding Harris administration waiting in the wings .
The majority of the critical examinations of Harris during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outwardly “ progressive ” figure in stark contrast with the reality of her career as a ruthless criminal prosecutor turned establishment politician .
While that is true , Maupin ’ s analysis takes an important step further by formulating the rise of Harris , who is the first Jamaican and South Asian-American nominee on a major party ticket , as the culmination of the US left ’ s failures in the last several decades resulting in its present deteriorated state preoccupied with liberal identity politics .
More specifically , a result of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 1960s and 70s which had long-term consequences for progressive politics in America today .
Although not a biography , Maupin does link Harris ’ s psychological profile , personality traits and upbringing with her political career which he parallels with the life stories of previous presidents and other political figures .
Born in 1964 , Harris was raised in a hub of the organized left in the Bay Area by immigrant parents who were politically active during her early childhood in Northern California .
While not a communist , her estranged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Stanford University professor and Marxian economist whose work influenced the progressive domestic reforms in his native island country during the administration of Prime Minister Michael Manley , a democratic socialist who introduced land redistribution , socialized medicine and free education until Jamaica ’ s neocolonization by the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) decimated the Carribean nation with enormous debt , as explored in the documentary Life and Debt ( 2001 ) .
Young Kamala grew up attending civil rights protests in Berkeley with her parents until their bitter divorce which resulted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Maupin dares to ask — is her chosen career path as a criminal prosecutor and top legal officer disproportionately locking up black men unconsciously motivated by a vendetta against her father ?
Could it even explain her thinly-veiled contempt for the progressive politics she now pretends to uphold as a politician ?
Maupin also argues that Harris was likely groomed for her present role as Biden ’ s running mate by the Clintonite wing of Democratic Party once it became apparent Hillary was not in a position to run again in 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Hamptons with elite party donors and apparatchiks .
Despite her own early exit from the primaries after a knockout blow in the debates delivered by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii who sharply criticized her record as a prosecutor , Harris was already vetted by the party leadership to be Biden ’ s heir apparent .
For the Democratic establishment , she is the perfect choice to derail the emerging progressive faction of the party led by Bernie Sanders which champions a similar brand of the social democratic politics championed by her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ geopolitical implications , as the world is still reeling from the four years spent ravaged by the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton ’ s State Department which oversaw the wholesale destruction of several nations in the global south .
We can only expect the same regime change policies from Harris if she is cut from the same cloth .
Maupin then uses Harris and her Berkeley upbringing to explore the history of leftism in the United States , tracing the New Left ’ s ceding of leadership roles to students and marginal groups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle back to the influence of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory .
The philosophical movement of intellectuals and academics associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt , Germany , otherwise known as ‘ critical theory ’ , put forward that both capitalist societies and Marxist-Leninist states like the Soviet Union were equally rigid “ totalitarian ” systems .
The interdisciplinary sociological school viewed Marx ’ s prediction of revolutionary emancipation in the 20th century as an evident failure and rejected the historical materialism of orthodox Marxism , arguing that forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dominant ideology of the ruling class represented in mass media which produced false consciousness in the working class .
Theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse attempted to reformulate Marxism with Freudian psychoanalysis and other disciplines while critiquing mass consumer culture and modern technology .
As the impact of the Frankfurt School gave rise to the New Left in the US and Western Europe , mass social movements became housed in the universities instead of the factories .
This was favorable to the ruling class , as student-led counterculture revolts were much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revolution organized by the workers .
If any authentic revolutionary leaders did emerge , they were quickly neutralized .
After the student protests of 1968 , the New Left withdrew further to its comfort zone in the realm of ideas and out of the streets , which was perfectly alright with the powers that be since they were intellectuals who denounced Marxism-Leninism .
Soon the academy would be dominated by an even more pessimistic and “ anti-authoritarian ” ideology , postmodernism , which rejected the value of all universal truths and grand narratives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maupin emphasizes that the intelligentsia of the New Left were actively supported by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) through its clandestine Congress for Cultural Freedom ( CCF ) program during the Cold War , which sought to subvert the sympathies of liberals and the non-communist left with the Soviet Union through the covert funding of prominent literary magazines , journals , international conferences , modern art exhibitions , and other cultural activities .
The objective was to promote an intellectual consensus on the Western left that the Soviet Union was to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was indisputably successful .
Meanwhile , the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commissions of the 1970s exposed how in the previous decade the CIA had played an enormous role in introducing drugs to the counterculture as part of its domestic espionage against the anti-war movement in Operation Midnight Climax , a sub-program of Project MK-Ultra , where the Bay Area became a petri dish for its human experimentation .
With the drug culture came the popularization of eastern mysticism and eventually , the New Age movement .
As it happens , the relationship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s intellectuals goes back to its origins .
One of the most prominent idealogues of the Frankfurt School , Herbert Marcuse — often referred to as the “ father of the New Left ” — spent almost a full decade during the 1940s working for the Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) , the precursor to the CIA , and as an anti-Soviet intelligence analyst in the US State Department .
This was not just during wartime but continued well after WWII was over in West Germany until 1951 when Marcuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a professor at universities on the east coast , the same year that the CCF was founded .
However , one interesting fact that Maupin overlooks is that while Kamala Harris was growing up in Oakland in the 1960s , Marcuse relocated his teaching career out to the west coast at the University of California , San Diego ( UCSD ) , where his work continued to be cited as an influence by the middle-class student activists and radicals of the counterculture as the left drifted further away from the socialist countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Herbert ’ s Hippopotamus : Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise examines Marcuse ’ s time in Southern California in the late 60s .
Prior to his work in the OSS , in Weimar Germany the young Marcuse had been a pupil of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as his mentor infamously joined the ascendant Nazi Party , though the relationship came to an end once Marcuse ’ s own academic career was obstructed by the Third Reich in the early 1930s .
One of the major thinkers associated with the New Left promoted by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Heidegger ’ s , Hannah Arendt , who penned one of the most seminal and harmful works in equating the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany as twin pillars of authoritarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism .
In particular , Maupin takes aim at Arendt ’ s essay Eichmann in Jerusalem : A Report on the Banality of Evil where she famously observed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann ’ s thoughtless conformism and ministerial disposition in his lack of remorse for his atrocities while covering his trial .
Maupin interprets her notion as implicitly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every ordinary hardworking person is a potential fascist , therefore anyone who would try to organize them for a collective cause is a threat to society .
This cynical , psychoanalytic definition of fascism as rooted in what Adorno called the “ authoritarian personality ” replaced the Marxist economic understanding .
Yet in spite of her work , Arendt controversially participated in the shameful post-war apologia and rehabilitation of Heidegger ’ s reputation .
Critics might say that Maupin ’ s diagnosis of the Western left as the manipulated brainchild of Western intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ espousing a form of vulgar Marxism .
Indeed , it is a touchy subject for those too personally connected to the artistic and intellectual milieu of the time to accept the undeniably significant role played by the CIA in subverting leftist politics , arts and culture in the second half of the twentieth century .
Some on the left will inevitably try to dismiss his analysis by likening it to the right-wing canard of “ cultural Marxism ” spoken of by paleoconservatives simply because of the overlap in mutual subjects of criticism .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of truth at the heart the right ’ s mostly fictitious narrative of Western Marxism ’ s control of academia but unfortunately , what they misinterpret as a plot to “ subvert Western culture ” was hatched at CIA headquarters in Langley , Virginia — not the former Soviet Union .
Today ’ s pseudo-left which recoils working people is truly an imposter generated by the CIA ’ s cultural cold war program to replace actual Marxism , the real casualty of the pervasiveness of Western Marxism in universities .
Others may find @ @ @ @ @ @ @ School and thinkers of the New Left to be too dismissive of their contributions .
Ironically , Adorno ’ s worthwhile conception of “ actionism ” applies to the left-wing anti-intellectualism and leaderless , spontaneous voluntarism of the very movement to which the Frankfurt School gave birth and is even more relevant per Maupin ’ s thorough description of what he calls the “ synthetic left ” today .
Look no further than the ‘ propaganda of the deed ’ which dominates Antifa and the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests this year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ articulated the predicament of revolutionary politics in his day being restrained by the gap between thought and action , or One could say the mantra of the Western left now seems to be taking action without any thought whatsoever .
Or as Lenin wrote in What is to be Done ?
, If the idea that Kamala Harris represents an apotheosis of the New Left ’ s failures feels like a bit of a stretch , it is only because the examination warrants further inquiry which Maupin should continue in his work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
Nevertheless , in just a little over 125 pages he manages to comprehensively piece together the trajectory of the Western left from the end of WWII to what can only be described as its “ stinking corpse ” today , a term once used by Rosa Luxembourg to describe the treacherous Social Democratic Party of Germany ( SPD ) after it voted to support the imperialist bloodbath of WWI in 1914 .
Maupin ’ s use of Harris and the environment she grew up in as a springboard to investigate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a formidable exploration that is desperately needed at a time where the American people are faced with the probability of enduring yet another destructive administration and no authentic left to represent it .
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst .
His writing has appeared widely in alternative media .
Max may be reached at

Max Parry
With the 2020 US presidential election less than a month away, there is widespread speculation concerning Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness at 77 years of age if he were to defeat incumbent Donald Trump on November 3rd.
The former Vice President and Senator from Delaware would surpass his opponent as the oldest to ever hold the office of the presidency if victorious, while his generally acknowledged cognitive decline has led many to question whether he is even capable of serving a single term.
Given the concerns about his health, the likelihood that Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, would become his successor has put the controversial former prosecutor and California Attorney General’s own politics under scrutiny, though not to a degree sufficient with the odds she could very well become commander-in-chief in the near future.
Trump himself suggested it was the hidden motivation behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent introduction of a 25th Amendment commission on removing a “mentally unfit” president to enable the replacement of an incapacitated Biden with Harris after the election.
Even Saturday Night Live recently joked about Biden’s poor first debate performance as a Harris term in-the-making — but as journalist Caleb Maupin explains in his new book Kamala Harris and the Future of America: An Essay in Three Parts, the prospect of her becoming president is no laughing matter.
Maupin’s ambitious essay surpasses the redundant analysis of the vice-presidential nominee by placing her political success in a broader historical context while forewarning the unique danger of a budding Harris administration waiting in the wings.
The majority of the critical examinations of Harris during the campaign have critiqued her rebranding as an outwardly “progressive” figure in stark contrast with the reality of her career as a ruthless criminal prosecutor turned establishment politician.
While that is true, Maupin’s analysis takes an important step further by formulating the rise of Harris, who is the first Jamaican and South Asian-American nominee on a major party ticket, as the culmination of the US left’s failures in the last several decades resulting in its present deteriorated state preoccupied with liberal identity politics. More specifically, a result of the defeats suffered by the so-called New Left of the 1960s and 70s which had long-term consequences for progressive politics in America today.
Although not a biography, Maupin does link Harris’s psychological profile, personality traits and upbringing with her political career which he parallels with the life stories of previous presidents and other political figures.
Born in 1964, Harris was raised in a hub of the organized left in the Bay Area by immigrant parents who were politically active during her early childhood in Northern California.
While not a communist, her estranged Jamaican-American father, Donald Harris, is a Stanford University professor and Marxian economist whose work influenced the progressive domestic reforms in his native island country during the administration of Prime Minister Michael Manley, a democratic socialist who introduced land redistribution, socialized medicine and free education until Jamaica’s neocolonization by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decimated the Carribean nation with enormous debt, as explored in the documentary Life and Debt (2001).
Young Kamala grew up attending civil rights protests in Berkeley with her parents until their bitter divorce which resulted in her Indian-American mother gaining sole custody. Maupin dares to ask — is her chosen career path as a criminal prosecutor and top legal officer disproportionately locking up black men unconsciously motivated by a vendetta against her father? Could it even explain her thinly-veiled contempt for the progressive politics she now pretends to uphold as a politician?
Maupin also argues that Harris was likely groomed for her present role as Biden’s running mate by the Clintonite wing of Democratic Party once it became apparent Hillary was not in a position to run again in 2020, citing a 2017 closed door meeting in the Hamptons with elite party donors and apparatchiks.
Despite her own early exit from the primaries after a knockout blow in the debates delivered by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii who sharply criticized her record as a prosecutor, Harris was already vetted by the party leadership to be Biden’s heir apparent.
For the Democratic establishment, she is the perfect choice to derail the emerging progressive faction of the party led by Bernie Sanders which champions a similar brand of the social democratic politics championed by her father. This could also hold disastrous geopolitical implications, as the world is still reeling from the four years spent ravaged by the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton’s State Department which oversaw the wholesale destruction of several nations in the global south. We can only expect the same regime change policies from Harris if she is cut from the same cloth.
Maupin then uses Harris and her Berkeley upbringing to explore the history of leftism in the United States, tracing the New Left’s ceding of leadership roles to students and marginal groups while discarding labor rights and the class struggle back to the influence of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory.
The philosophical movement of intellectuals and academics associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, otherwise known as ‘critical theory’, put forward that both capitalist societies and Marxist-Leninist states like the Soviet Union were equally rigid “totalitarian” systems.
The interdisciplinary sociological school viewed Marx’s prediction of revolutionary emancipation in the 20th century as an evident failure and rejected the historical materialism of orthodox Marxism, arguing that forces of economic change were undermined by the dominant ideology of the ruling class represented in mass media which produced false consciousness in the working class.
Theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse attempted to reformulate Marxism with Freudian psychoanalysis and other disciplines while critiquing mass consumer culture and modern technology.
As the impact of the Frankfurt School gave rise to the New Left in the US and Western Europe, mass social movements became housed in the universities instead of the factories. This was favorable to the ruling class, as student-led counterculture revolts were much easier to control in comparison with a revolution organized by the workers. If any authentic revolutionary leaders did emerge, they were quickly neutralized.
After the student protests of 1968, the New Left withdrew further to its comfort zone in the realm of ideas and out of the streets, which was perfectly alright with the powers that be since they were intellectuals who denounced Marxism-Leninism. Soon the academy would be dominated by an even more pessimistic and “anti-authoritarian” ideology, postmodernism, which rejected the value of all universal truths and grand narratives. How did this all happen?
Maupin emphasizes that the intelligentsia of the New Left were actively supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through its clandestine Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) program during the Cold War, which sought to subvert the sympathies of liberals and the non-communist left with the Soviet Union through the covert funding of prominent literary magazines, journals, international conferences, modern art exhibitions, and other cultural activities.
The objective was to promote an intellectual consensus on the Western left that the Soviet Union was to be opposed as much as capitalism and it was indisputably successful.
Meanwhile, the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commissions of the 1970s exposed how in the previous decade the CIA had played an enormous role in introducing drugs to the counterculture as part of its domestic espionage against the anti-war movement in Operation Midnight Climax, a sub-program of Project MK-Ultra, where the Bay Area became a petri dish for its human experimentation. With the drug culture came the popularization of eastern mysticism and eventually, the New Age movement.
As it happens, the relationship between the CIA and the New Left’s intellectuals goes back to its origins.
One of the most prominent idealogues of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse — often referred to as the “father of the New Left” — spent almost a full decade during the 1940s working for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and as an anti-Soviet intelligence analyst in the US State Department. This was not just during wartime but continued well after WWII was over in West Germany until 1951 when Marcuse immigrated to the United States to work as a professor at universities on the east coast, the same year that the CCF was founded.
However, one interesting fact that Maupin overlooks is that while Kamala Harris was growing up in Oakland in the 1960s, Marcuse relocated his teaching career out to the west coast at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where his work continued to be cited as an influence by the middle-class student activists and radicals of the counterculture as the left drifted further away from the socialist countries and the working class. The documentary Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise examines Marcuse’s time in Southern California in the late 60s.
Prior to his work in the OSS, in Weimar Germany the young Marcuse had been a pupil of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as his mentor infamously joined the ascendant Nazi Party, though the relationship came to an end once Marcuse’s own academic career was obstructed by the Third Reich in the early 1930s.
One of the major thinkers associated with the New Left promoted by the CCF was a former lover of Heidegger’s, Hannah Arendt, who penned one of the most seminal and harmful works in equating the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany as twin pillars of authoritarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism.
In particular, Maupin takes aim at Arendt’s essay Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil where she famously observed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s thoughtless conformism and ministerial disposition in his lack of remorse for his atrocities while covering his trial. Maupin interprets her notion as implicitly concluding that lurking underneath the surface of every ordinary hardworking person is a potential fascist, therefore anyone who would try to organize them for a collective cause is a threat to society.
This cynical, psychoanalytic definition of fascism as rooted in what Adorno called the “authoritarian personality” replaced the Marxist economic understanding. Yet in spite of her work, Arendt controversially participated in the shameful post-war apologia and rehabilitation of Heidegger’s reputation.
Critics might say that Maupin’s diagnosis of the Western left as the manipulated brainchild of Western intelligence agencies is oversimplistic, conspiratorial or risks espousing a form of vulgar Marxism.
Indeed, it is a touchy subject for those too personally connected to the artistic and intellectual milieu of the time to accept the undeniably significant role played by the CIA in subverting leftist politics, arts and culture in the second half of the twentieth century.
Some on the left will inevitably try to dismiss his analysis by likening it to the right-wing canard of “cultural Marxism” spoken of by paleoconservatives simply because of the overlap in mutual subjects of criticism.
Nonetheless, there is a small kernel of truth at the heart the right’s mostly fictitious narrative of Western Marxism’s control of academia but unfortunately, what they misinterpret as a plot to “subvert Western culture” was hatched at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia — not the former Soviet Union. Today’s pseudo-left which recoils working people is truly an imposter generated by the CIA’s cultural cold war program to replace actual Marxism, the real casualty of the pervasiveness of Western Marxism in universities.
Others may find Maupin’s assessment of the Frankfurt School and thinkers of the New Left to be too dismissive of their contributions.
Ironically, Adorno’s worthwhile conception of “actionism” applies to the left-wing anti-intellectualism and leaderless, spontaneous voluntarism of the very movement to which the Frankfurt School gave birth and is even more relevant per Maupin’s thorough description of what he calls the “synthetic left” today.
Look no further than the ‘propaganda of the deed’ which dominates Antifa and the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests this year.
In Thesis on Feuerbach, Karl Marx articulated the predicament of revolutionary politics in his day being restrained by the gap between thought and action, or
philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”
One could say the mantra of the Western left now seems to be taking action without any thought whatsoever. Or as Lenin wrote in What is to be Done?,
without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”
If the idea that Kamala Harris represents an apotheosis of the New Left’s failures feels like a bit of a stretch, it is only because the examination warrants further inquiry which Maupin should continue in his work, regardless of the outcome of the 2020 election.
Nevertheless, in just a little over 125 pages he manages to comprehensively piece together the trajectory of the Western left from the end of WWII to what can only be described as its “stinking corpse” today, a term once used by Rosa Luxembourg to describe the treacherous Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) after it voted to support the imperialist bloodbath of WWI in 1914.
Maupin’s use of Harris and the environment she grew up in as a springboard to investigate the shortcomings of the Western left generally is a formidable exploration that is desperately needed at a time where the American people are faced with the probability of enduring yet another destructive administration and no authentic left to represent it.
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at [email protected]