Just came across an example of what your article covers from a link provided by Karloph1 to a Michael Hudson article from March this year. He has a talent for mischievous irony.
"As the Americans euphemistically describe these NATO-sponsored trade and financial sanctions in Orwellian doublespeak, Europe has “freed itself” from dependency on Russian gas by importing U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) at prices three to four times higher, and divesting itself of its business linkages with Russia, and moving some of its major industrial companies to the United States (or even China) to obtain the gas needed to produce their manufactures and chemicals."
Newspeak is such a powerful political tool. A classic example is the word "communist". In America it has now become an adjective of abuse that is used completely out of political context by the ignorant. Ditto everywhere with the word "fascist".
With the way the government here, and the in US, have been gaoling whistleblowers, it is likely that this word, which to me denotes a hero, will soon be understood in people's minds to denote a criminal.
Another contradictory term that is used far too often by politicians is the phrase "in the national interest" this almost inevitably denotes secretive information that the public needs to be informed about, in the national interest!
I can see why 'communist' would be used - and it has a background in McCarthyism which didn't happen over here. Yes, they will try to change our understanding of 'whistle blower' but today we must celebrate the release of one of those: Assange - the ultimate whistle blower and hero. The 'national interest' is probably a remnant from the Second World War when it was more credible. Thinking people will deconstruct it in an instant. Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.
Holocaust denial is a strange one. Its a subject that fills one with intrepidation less you get the Ken Livingstone treatment. Ken Livingstone mentioned the Haavara agreement in 2018 albeit in simple terms. Who betide he who mentions the anti Jewish immigration policies in Britain and in the US in the 1930s. Norman Finkelstein covers the matter of the holocaust in a couple of books. Up until the 1970s it was generally perceived as part of world war 2 and known as the shoah amongst the Jewish populace to what happened to European Jews. By the 1970s the West German government had recognised Israel as being the successor state of the victims of the holocaust and agreed reparations. The reparations and pension payments continue to be made by the German government to Israel. Israel received a couple of years ago, for free, German made submarines again by way of compensation. Anyway, Finkelstein argues that the holocaust started to take on a uniqueness in the 1970s for a very good reason: Israel was occupying Arab lands and people and it was difficult to perpetrate the image of Israel as a victim nation hence the usurpation of the shoah by the successor state. The definitive study of Jewish dead was carried out by Raul Hilberg. The inherent contradictions in Nazi Germany have allowed some to question whether there was a deliberate extermination policy. It may seem strange but probably about 600000 German troops were part Jewish. The so called Mischling. The Luftwaffe General Erich Milch was part Jewish and Emil Maurice, Hitler's former chauffeur and friend was the great grandson of a Jewish theatre hall owner. He was made an "honorary Aryan". The most bizarre contradiction was the existence of a Jewish hospital in Berlin throughtout the war where all of the patients were Jewish whilst a few miles away millions of Jews were being exterminated.
You come up with some great informative stuff - thanks. I've done lots of research into the holocaust as part of my study of 'conspiracy theories'. It does not surprise me that politics has played a big part in the creation of the 'holocaust narrative'. I am aware that some people believe that the Nazis never had an intention to exterminate all Jews: they just wanted to get rid of them - as Livingstone said. I simply don't know if that is true or not. But poor Livingstone was simply stating accepted historical facts about the relationship between Nazis and Zionists. But in our age stating the truth is risky. What grates on the historian in me is that we are probably being deprived of a much better understanding of the Second World War and the relationship between the Jews and the Nazis in it. I can want to know about such things while strongly condemning the Nazi murder of millions of Jews.
"is it really possible that one hundred percent of a hundred thousand demonstrators are conspiracy theorists;"
Oh, hell, yes. LOL It just depends on what they're demonstrating FOR...
The people who AREN'T "comspiracy theorists" are the millions of front-line doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, virologists and geneticists who confirmed that Covid 19 was real and not a "hoax" like hundreds of thousands of "conservatives" and Trump cultists claimed. And it wasn't caused by 5G cellular like one whack job tried to convince me on Moon of Alabama.
I like conspiracy theories more than most, but there are plausible theories and implausible theories. 99 percent of "conservatives" believe in implausible theories.
You start trusting the average citizen to be right about anything and you're in for a world of hurt.
I have what I call the "Four-Fold Truths". It sounds Buddhist, but it's not. They are:
1) Everything you know is wrong, i.e., factually incorrect.
2) Everything you believe in is wrong, i.e., factually incorrect.
3) Everything you're doing is wrong, i.e. , objectively against your best interests.
4) If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to die, sooner than you hoped and probably sooner than you expect.
These truths are objectively 98 percent true for 98 percent of the human species. Because, as Timothy Leary pointed out, 98 percent of human behavior is robotic. The hard part is determining which behavior isn't.
Hey - thanks Richard, I do appreciate your input - I don't always have time to respond but I do now. I never believed Covid to be a hoax though I am aware that many other people did. But after the first scary week, having done lots of research, I realised that something fishy was going on. This virus, I came to realise, was not anywhere near as deadly as the establishment was making out - so my considerable on line investigations showed. But I was also informed by 'observations'. At one point here in the Scottish Borders, 64 people had been hospitalised for what unreliable tests claimed was Sars - CoV- 2. The countryside returned to the middle ages and some people felt they had to wear masks while out jogging. I was banned from walking my dog down one country lane in case I infected people in the vicinity. This was a madness of sorts - but I didn't go along with it. I wrote lots of songs about it, lost friends because of it but I never accepted the propaganda.
I can't accept your claim that 'everything you know/believe is wrong' and that therefore everything you are doing is wrong and against your own interests'.
That may apply to some people some of the time but not as a general rule - imho.
I was interested in your reference to Timothy Leary and robotic behaviour because I studied a Scottish Philosopher, John MacMurray, who held similar views. But MacMurray employed the term 'habitual' rather than robotic to describe much of human behaviour. And I think he was right: most of our behaviour is habitual rather than rationally calculated.
My own approach back in March-April, 2020, was based on facts. Bernhard at MoA had done a post on Covid which referenced a Medium article by a non-medical guy here in San Francisco named Tomas Pueyo who did some research on the proper way to handle viral epidemics. He explained the epidemiological models and the relevant statistics.
The second article explains the difference between mitigation and suppression. The US and many other countries failed because 1) they didn't have a protocol for test, trace and isolate; and 2) they didn't do suppression fast enough or consistently enough. And he also covers the impact on Democrats vs Republicans since already the partisan divide - initiated by Trump cultists - had poisoned the US response.
Coronavirus: Learning How to Dance (A 2-Part Article)
In this one he covered how various countries were reacting and which ones did it right.
He showed the proper approach, using South Korea as an example which had gone through SARS 1 and MERS, so they had a rapid response protocol in place down to the neighborhood level to do "test, trace and isolate." The US, despite warnings for the past decade or two, had absolutely nothing in place - and a moron President who declared it was "just the flu."
Having been following preppers on Youtube for a while, I knew epidemics were a possible threat, although I never expected one to actually occur. So when masks were mentioned, I did my own research via Google. I found studies done BEFORE Covid about the efficacy of masks which showed that N95 were effective at 95%, surgical masks were only 50% effective, and random fabric as merely 10-50% effective.
I ordered 10 masks from China and because of the delivery delay (since China was consuming a lot of them) another 10 from LA Police Gear which was selling them for the ridiculous price of $7 each. I also adopted the hand-washing protocol used by medical personnel.
Since I was already self-isolated by mostly staying in my room working on the computer every day, I didn't have to worry about being on contact with people for ten minutes or more daily.
I wore the mask when going out on errands even though I had read that one was unlikely to catch a infectious dose in the open air, because I was heading to a store and didn't want to bother to take it off and put it on again. It fogged my glasses until I discovered a chemical wipe that minimized that.
When returning from errands, I would wash my hands and wipe down any packages brought back with hydrogen peroxide which kills virus in seconds. As a result of the hand-washing, the usual flues I would catch a couple times a year disappeared. I didn't have a cold for almost three years since 2020. The one I did have was the result of over-eating, a bout of constipation and the lowering of my immune system that usually occurs as a result as I know from experience.
I got all the vaccinations and boosters. I never had a reaction to them. I also followed Dr. Eric Topol on Twitter and then his Substack. He related in detail all the studies done on Covid and the vaccines. They proved conclusively that vaccines work, that the virus was mutating, occasionally in major ways and sometimes less so, so additional variant vaccines were necessary.
As for the conspiracy theories about the Wuhan lab, there was never one iota of evidence - and AFAIK there still isn't. China explicitly denied any such possibility - especially because no live viral sample ever existed there, only genetic codes - and every study done as to the distribution of the initial viral epidemic in China shows no concentration around the lab but only concentrations around "wet markets".
The entire problem with the Covid epidemic was caused by Donald Trump, the morons who follow him, a crap media that can't report anything accurately or truthfully, and a crap government that both lies and is incompetent at everything.
I handled it intelligently, not moronically, and have still yet (AFAIK) to catch it. Today I don't bother with the mask even at stores because I'm still not near other people long enough to catch it, I still wash my hands, and because I remain isolated and the incidence is low enough I can pretty much ignore it, even though there are still thousands of cases occurring daily. It's hard to know how many cases since no one is actually tracking it except in the aggregate any more.
As for my claim, I'll reiterate that it applies to the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time, although obviously not all parts equally to every individual.
As for MacMurray, it's not "habit", it's genetics. Humans are just slightly more evolved chimpanzees. The difference, while significant, is as you are probably aware a mere 1.5% in genetic variation. Add to that the Bell Curve which explains that fifty percent of humans are dumber than the other fifty percent (and many are MUCH dumber), and you have a recipe for species failure.
Just came across an example of what your article covers from a link provided by Karloph1 to a Michael Hudson article from March this year. He has a talent for mischievous irony.
"As the Americans euphemistically describe these NATO-sponsored trade and financial sanctions in Orwellian doublespeak, Europe has “freed itself” from dependency on Russian gas by importing U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) at prices three to four times higher, and divesting itself of its business linkages with Russia, and moving some of its major industrial companies to the United States (or even China) to obtain the gas needed to produce their manufactures and chemicals."
That is so, so funny - thank you Dude.
Newspeak is such a powerful political tool. A classic example is the word "communist". In America it has now become an adjective of abuse that is used completely out of political context by the ignorant. Ditto everywhere with the word "fascist".
With the way the government here, and the in US, have been gaoling whistleblowers, it is likely that this word, which to me denotes a hero, will soon be understood in people's minds to denote a criminal.
Another contradictory term that is used far too often by politicians is the phrase "in the national interest" this almost inevitably denotes secretive information that the public needs to be informed about, in the national interest!
I can see why 'communist' would be used - and it has a background in McCarthyism which didn't happen over here. Yes, they will try to change our understanding of 'whistle blower' but today we must celebrate the release of one of those: Assange - the ultimate whistle blower and hero. The 'national interest' is probably a remnant from the Second World War when it was more credible. Thinking people will deconstruct it in an instant. Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.
Holocaust denial is a strange one. Its a subject that fills one with intrepidation less you get the Ken Livingstone treatment. Ken Livingstone mentioned the Haavara agreement in 2018 albeit in simple terms. Who betide he who mentions the anti Jewish immigration policies in Britain and in the US in the 1930s. Norman Finkelstein covers the matter of the holocaust in a couple of books. Up until the 1970s it was generally perceived as part of world war 2 and known as the shoah amongst the Jewish populace to what happened to European Jews. By the 1970s the West German government had recognised Israel as being the successor state of the victims of the holocaust and agreed reparations. The reparations and pension payments continue to be made by the German government to Israel. Israel received a couple of years ago, for free, German made submarines again by way of compensation. Anyway, Finkelstein argues that the holocaust started to take on a uniqueness in the 1970s for a very good reason: Israel was occupying Arab lands and people and it was difficult to perpetrate the image of Israel as a victim nation hence the usurpation of the shoah by the successor state. The definitive study of Jewish dead was carried out by Raul Hilberg. The inherent contradictions in Nazi Germany have allowed some to question whether there was a deliberate extermination policy. It may seem strange but probably about 600000 German troops were part Jewish. The so called Mischling. The Luftwaffe General Erich Milch was part Jewish and Emil Maurice, Hitler's former chauffeur and friend was the great grandson of a Jewish theatre hall owner. He was made an "honorary Aryan". The most bizarre contradiction was the existence of a Jewish hospital in Berlin throughtout the war where all of the patients were Jewish whilst a few miles away millions of Jews were being exterminated.
You come up with some great informative stuff - thanks. I've done lots of research into the holocaust as part of my study of 'conspiracy theories'. It does not surprise me that politics has played a big part in the creation of the 'holocaust narrative'. I am aware that some people believe that the Nazis never had an intention to exterminate all Jews: they just wanted to get rid of them - as Livingstone said. I simply don't know if that is true or not. But poor Livingstone was simply stating accepted historical facts about the relationship between Nazis and Zionists. But in our age stating the truth is risky. What grates on the historian in me is that we are probably being deprived of a much better understanding of the Second World War and the relationship between the Jews and the Nazis in it. I can want to know about such things while strongly condemning the Nazi murder of millions of Jews.
"is it really possible that one hundred percent of a hundred thousand demonstrators are conspiracy theorists;"
Oh, hell, yes. LOL It just depends on what they're demonstrating FOR...
The people who AREN'T "comspiracy theorists" are the millions of front-line doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, virologists and geneticists who confirmed that Covid 19 was real and not a "hoax" like hundreds of thousands of "conservatives" and Trump cultists claimed. And it wasn't caused by 5G cellular like one whack job tried to convince me on Moon of Alabama.
I like conspiracy theories more than most, but there are plausible theories and implausible theories. 99 percent of "conservatives" believe in implausible theories.
You start trusting the average citizen to be right about anything and you're in for a world of hurt.
I have what I call the "Four-Fold Truths". It sounds Buddhist, but it's not. They are:
1) Everything you know is wrong, i.e., factually incorrect.
2) Everything you believe in is wrong, i.e., factually incorrect.
3) Everything you're doing is wrong, i.e. , objectively against your best interests.
4) If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to die, sooner than you hoped and probably sooner than you expect.
These truths are objectively 98 percent true for 98 percent of the human species. Because, as Timothy Leary pointed out, 98 percent of human behavior is robotic. The hard part is determining which behavior isn't.
Hey - thanks Richard, I do appreciate your input - I don't always have time to respond but I do now. I never believed Covid to be a hoax though I am aware that many other people did. But after the first scary week, having done lots of research, I realised that something fishy was going on. This virus, I came to realise, was not anywhere near as deadly as the establishment was making out - so my considerable on line investigations showed. But I was also informed by 'observations'. At one point here in the Scottish Borders, 64 people had been hospitalised for what unreliable tests claimed was Sars - CoV- 2. The countryside returned to the middle ages and some people felt they had to wear masks while out jogging. I was banned from walking my dog down one country lane in case I infected people in the vicinity. This was a madness of sorts - but I didn't go along with it. I wrote lots of songs about it, lost friends because of it but I never accepted the propaganda.
I can't accept your claim that 'everything you know/believe is wrong' and that therefore everything you are doing is wrong and against your own interests'.
That may apply to some people some of the time but not as a general rule - imho.
I was interested in your reference to Timothy Leary and robotic behaviour because I studied a Scottish Philosopher, John MacMurray, who held similar views. But MacMurray employed the term 'habitual' rather than robotic to describe much of human behaviour. And I think he was right: most of our behaviour is habitual rather than rationally calculated.
My own approach back in March-April, 2020, was based on facts. Bernhard at MoA had done a post on Covid which referenced a Medium article by a non-medical guy here in San Francisco named Tomas Pueyo who did some research on the proper way to handle viral epidemics. He explained the epidemiological models and the relevant statistics.
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now
https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
You'll notice his projection of fatality rates is pretty close to what it turned out to be.
Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
The second article explains the difference between mitigation and suppression. The US and many other countries failed because 1) they didn't have a protocol for test, trace and isolate; and 2) they didn't do suppression fast enough or consistently enough. And he also covers the impact on Democrats vs Republicans since already the partisan divide - initiated by Trump cultists - had poisoned the US response.
Coronavirus: Learning How to Dance (A 2-Part Article)
https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-learning-how-to-dance-b8420170203e
Coronavirus: The Basic Dance Steps Everybody Can Follow
https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-the-basic-dance-steps-everybody-can-follow-b3d216daa343
In this one he covered how various countries were reacting and which ones did it right.
He showed the proper approach, using South Korea as an example which had gone through SARS 1 and MERS, so they had a rapid response protocol in place down to the neighborhood level to do "test, trace and isolate." The US, despite warnings for the past decade or two, had absolutely nothing in place - and a moron President who declared it was "just the flu."
Having been following preppers on Youtube for a while, I knew epidemics were a possible threat, although I never expected one to actually occur. So when masks were mentioned, I did my own research via Google. I found studies done BEFORE Covid about the efficacy of masks which showed that N95 were effective at 95%, surgical masks were only 50% effective, and random fabric as merely 10-50% effective.
I ordered 10 masks from China and because of the delivery delay (since China was consuming a lot of them) another 10 from LA Police Gear which was selling them for the ridiculous price of $7 each. I also adopted the hand-washing protocol used by medical personnel.
Since I was already self-isolated by mostly staying in my room working on the computer every day, I didn't have to worry about being on contact with people for ten minutes or more daily.
I wore the mask when going out on errands even though I had read that one was unlikely to catch a infectious dose in the open air, because I was heading to a store and didn't want to bother to take it off and put it on again. It fogged my glasses until I discovered a chemical wipe that minimized that.
When returning from errands, I would wash my hands and wipe down any packages brought back with hydrogen peroxide which kills virus in seconds. As a result of the hand-washing, the usual flues I would catch a couple times a year disappeared. I didn't have a cold for almost three years since 2020. The one I did have was the result of over-eating, a bout of constipation and the lowering of my immune system that usually occurs as a result as I know from experience.
I got all the vaccinations and boosters. I never had a reaction to them. I also followed Dr. Eric Topol on Twitter and then his Substack. He related in detail all the studies done on Covid and the vaccines. They proved conclusively that vaccines work, that the virus was mutating, occasionally in major ways and sometimes less so, so additional variant vaccines were necessary.
As for the conspiracy theories about the Wuhan lab, there was never one iota of evidence - and AFAIK there still isn't. China explicitly denied any such possibility - especially because no live viral sample ever existed there, only genetic codes - and every study done as to the distribution of the initial viral epidemic in China shows no concentration around the lab but only concentrations around "wet markets".
The entire problem with the Covid epidemic was caused by Donald Trump, the morons who follow him, a crap media that can't report anything accurately or truthfully, and a crap government that both lies and is incompetent at everything.
I handled it intelligently, not moronically, and have still yet (AFAIK) to catch it. Today I don't bother with the mask even at stores because I'm still not near other people long enough to catch it, I still wash my hands, and because I remain isolated and the incidence is low enough I can pretty much ignore it, even though there are still thousands of cases occurring daily. It's hard to know how many cases since no one is actually tracking it except in the aggregate any more.
As for my claim, I'll reiterate that it applies to the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time, although obviously not all parts equally to every individual.
As for MacMurray, it's not "habit", it's genetics. Humans are just slightly more evolved chimpanzees. The difference, while significant, is as you are probably aware a mere 1.5% in genetic variation. Add to that the Bell Curve which explains that fifty percent of humans are dumber than the other fifty percent (and many are MUCH dumber), and you have a recipe for species failure.
Cheers Richard