I’m not sure whether to call Freddie deBoer’s outburst a cri de coeur or a diatribe but it’s certainly a thought-provoking reaction:
You know personally I’ve been achingly specific about my critiques of social justice politics, but fine – no woke, it’s a “dogwhistle†for racism. (The term “dogwhistle†is a way for people to simply impute attitudes you don’t hold onto you, to make it easier to dismiss criticism, for the record.) But the same people say there’s no such thing as political correctness, and they also say identity politics is a bigoted term. So I’m kind of at a loss. Also, they propose sweeping changes to K-12 curricula, but you can’t call it CRT, even though the curricular documents specifically reference CRT, and if you do you’re an idiot and also you’re a racist cryptofascist. Also nobody (nobody!) ever advocated for defunding the police, and if they did it didn’t actually mean defunding the police. Seems to be a real resistance to simple, comprehensible terms around here. Serwer is a guy who constantly demands that he and his allies be allowed to do politics on easy mode, but he’s just part of a broader communal rejection of basic self-definition and comprehensible terms for this political tendency. Also if you say things they don’t like they might try to beat you up. Emphasis on try.
I haven’t bothered to reproduce the copious links in the passage above but they are, indeed, copious.
I like Freddie’s writing a lot, even when I don’t agree with it. And he’s one of those rare people who doesn’t seem to let ideological tribalism stem his criticism.
Whatever it means,
CryptoFacist has a ring to it.
With connotations of great power spanning centuries.
I wonder if they have gear.
For reasons I cannot comprehend, the US and the West is undergoing a general cultural unraveling and a kind of self-cannibalization. Western achievement is repudiated by Westerners, the apt-titled WEIRD. There has been a complete inversion of morals and values.
What is especially dismaying is the ease in which Western populations have submitted, in panic, to dictators. Australia is literally a Stasi horror show, complete with mass house arrests, continuous cell phone tracking of individuals, random house searches, complete border closings… At least they aren’t yet machine gunning protesters. Or at least they haven’t admitted to it publicly.
All aspects of our culture are corrupted. We used to laugh at the inane art business, at frauds like Jackson Pollock, but now The Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its trained volunteers and guides last month, who were mostly older white women, to diversify its staff. As a child of the 60’s, I thought the goal was to judge people by their character, not the color of their skins. Man, was I confused.
Our educational system from K to post doc is corrupted. People are hired and promoted for political reasons without regard to qualifications. I have sat on search committees and watched the process in dismay. Once a young woman on the search had a hysterical fit, literally, because one candidate was an Evangelical. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it and he were bad.
Candidates must sign affidavits that they believe in Progressive politics and values, and must supply witnesses to their purity of thought.
If a teacher insists that 2 + 2 = 4, the banshees will descend demanding a blood sacrifice.
Climate science is a fraud. Researchers are bought and sold by the pound. And the West is de-industrializing in obedience to the ranting of a brain-damaged, abused teenage girl. (On the other hand, I really liked “The Messenger,” especially Milla Jovovich, who was equally mad.)
Is it possible the anti-vaxxers are right? Are the covid vaccines poison? Is it a scheme to reduce world population? Paul Erhlich and John Holdren wrote a book recommending mass sterilization via the water supply. Have I shortened my life by being vaxxed? I sit and wonder if the crazies are right. I seriously doubt it, but the possibility cannot be taken off the table. That is how bad our government is.
Is this how the Western Empire collapsed, how the USSR collapsed, how Christianity collapsed? Russia may well end up as the last refuge of the West. Our own Helms Deep and Rohan. But where are the riders?
Look up Antonio Gramsci and the process should become clearer to you.
“If a teacher insists that 2 + 2 = 4, the banshees will descend demanding a blood sacrifice.”
Two math teachers as pts yesterday. Since boy genius was a math major, did OK on his Putnam, we have always been interested in Math. I always chat extra with math teachers. They still teach 2+2=4. No one gets upset. With the high school math teacher we talked about whether or not they are to increase the difficulty of their high school calculus curriculum. Students who have gone on to high level institutions going into math heavy majors, like physics or engineering, thought that the local high school calculus course was not very good prep.
I still sort of like Freddie’s writing. I think that he has gotten kind of full himself at times though.
Steve
I think Bob Sykes “diatribe†was far better than Freddie’s. It lists many of the twisted ways our culture and politics has evolved. In fact our present day reality is hardly recognizable from what was considered tradition, truth, goodness only a few decades ago.
So, in today’s social environment gender is not attributed to biology, but to one’s own whimsical determination. Education’s foundation is cemented in by indoctrination, rather than critical thinking, factual content, embraced by uncensored exchange of opinions and information. NDAs are being demanded by school boards should parents want to look at a school curriculum. Huge life changing issues like climate change is weighed down by “settled science†advocates, where new information, evidence, or contradictions to their science are dismissed – and nowadays not even published. Racism is exploited and rubbed raw so healing is impossible. Lawlessness is ignored if it helps the progressive agenda – where communities can be looted or burned down with few consequences. At the same time an election protest is called an insurrection, with people being incarcerated indefinitely in sub-human conditions, restrained from seeing legal counsel/family, medical treatment withheld along with proper hygiene – basically political prisoners held under tons of human rights violations in our own country. Ballots destroyed and machines wiped of their election logs (way before the 22 months they were to be held after an election), in the midst of half the country questioning the validity of the last election. Where is the right and wrong of what is going on today?
Finally, why, are vaccinations being forced on people, world-wide, while stats are being wildly altered to raise or lower virus numbers at the discretion of the CDC or other public health officials like in Pennsylvania? If these vaccines are so worthy of universal distribution, why are they failing so dramatically in their endurance to sustain any kind of protection or viral load? Why are adverse reactions and deaths being minimized, covered up, or considered “misinformation†when revealed? Finally, why does the,CDC Director now say herd immunity is impossible? Is it because these leaky vaccines have made it impossible to achieve a robust, longer lasting immunity that a natural immunity would have given us?
I don’t think it’s anything nefarious. I think it’s the “politician’s paradox”:
1. Something must be done!
2. X is something.
3. Do X
“I don’t think it’s anything nefarious…â€
Dave, I do think these vaccines have an agenda other than trying to safeguard people from a virus. There are simply too many questionable actions and variables surrounding their speedy introduction into people’s lives: too much big pharma profit to be made: too much suppression of other anti-virals that have successfully treated COVID; too much repudiation of any and all of the thousands of medical professionals who see the hazards in these vaccines, and the benefit of the anti virals.
All three vaccines have bypassed lengthy clinical trials which would have investigated long term side effects. Also, the CDC and FDA, IMO, are compromised departments, in that funding and people sitting on their boards are “nefariously†commingling with each other. Maybe that’s why the latest CDC comparison of vaccine immunity and natural immunity was so flawed, and downright inaccurate. Their report was sloppily done showing vaccine immunity better than natural immunity, while a much larger, more appropriately done trial in Israel showed the exact opposite – something like 20X better natural immunity than that seen in vaccine immunity. Just the fact these “leaky†vaccines are presiding over who goes where, who is allowed to retain their job, and now with the vaccine efficacy waning, and fears being once again stoked, calling for more jabs to entitle people to freely go about their lives – I see no endpoint to this virus and mandated vaccines ever letting go of their control over people.
Thank you for providing a touchstone for what the crazy people on the right believe. Just in case you are still reachable by anything other than conspiracy sources.
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/covid-19-vaccine-long-term-side-effects
Steve
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I would add it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If you expedite trials, you’re being reckless. If you take time, you’re not doing anything in an emergency.
Below is one of the many testimonies, regarding the adverse effects from the vaccine, that is either non-reported or under-reported:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kZhsgEHrI0
“I would add it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t†situation. If you expedite trials, you’re being reckless. If you take time, you’re not doing anything in an emergency.”
I know you try to avoid taking sides but in this case you are wrong. You might have been correct taking this approach in January but we now have the largest, long trial in history. We have not seen a late bad effect from a vaccine since at least 1960.
If you want to logical and adhere to principles then you wanted the full phase 2 and 3 trials to take place. They did. The one shortcut they took was vaccinating 3-4 weeks apart on the first and second shots. We more typically wait 8-12 weeks, but people were dying. However, this is more about efficacy than safety. Now we know the vaccines are among the safest ever introduced.
What is really going on is politics. Remember it was the right who actually accused the drug companies, or someone, of delaying the release of the vaccines to harm Trump’s re-election efforts. They wanted them released earlier. Now that they are out and they dont want to get vaccinated they make up stuff, including that they were not tested long enough. Follow the history.
Steve
There was no call from the so-called “right†to release the vaccines early. What was questioned was why big pharma apparently waited until after the election to release their positive clinical findings about the vaccines. That was interpreted as “political manipulation†by conservative fractions. Also, Biden and Harris excoriated the vaccines before the election, and now are mandating them once they are in power – that change of heart shows the depth of their hypocrisy.
Trump, OTOH, encouraged alliances between private and govt. entities to facilitate the creation of a vaccine. He has continuously supported taking these vaccines, along with early treatment from other anti virals the Biden Administration has prohibited. Just recently Trump renewed his support for vaccination, while also saying he didn’t support mandating they be taken.
In the meantime more physicians (not Steve) are citing the deceptive practices and clinical trials behind these vaccines – especially Pfizer. Their misuse of flawed data, their financial connections to the CDC and FDA, the alteration of definitions designed to alter data, their cover-up of adverse reactions and deaths from these vaccines is criminal.
The swine flu vaccine, for instance, only had double digit deaths – 25 – and around 500 instances of Guillian-Barr Syndrome before the vaccine was pulled 10 weeks into the government’s mass vaccination attempts. Only 25% of the population was thought to have been a part of that aborted fiasco. Today, according to VAERS, we are well over that estimate of deaths, somewhere around 18,000 here in the U.S. and more in the EU. The adverse effects number over 800,000 – some 27,000 where the disabilities are permanent. Birth defects associated with the jab are almost 600. And…some assert VAERS, being a voluntary and complex system to report into to, only has captured a mere 1% of what is really going on with this virus.
Basically, the political gyrations and pharma exploitation surrounding this era of mass forced vaccinations is unconscionable, especially in those under 18. If truth ever manages to have a larger public platform, this segment in our medical history will be looked upon with shame and horror!
BTW, the supposed “efficacy†of these vaccines is abruptly waning causing the need for a 3rd jab to be considered fully “vaccinated.†The safety of these vaccines is proving to be false. The only true byproduct of mandated vaccinations is to strip people of their own health decisions and freedoms.
You still dont understand what VAERS is do you? I have to assume it is because you dont want to know.
” other anti virals the Biden Administration has prohibited”
What are those? We still use HCQ and Ivermectin upon request. No evidence they work but not worth fighting (literally) with pts and family over. We use all of the anti-virals for which there is evidence showing they work.
“In the meantime more physicians (not Steve)”
AFAICT this is less than 5% of physicians. Big overlap with those selling Covid “cures”.
Steve
Interesting. How many mRNA vaccines have been in widespread use since 1960?
Note that I have had two doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine plus a booster. I assessed the risks and decided my risks from contracting COVID-19 exceeded my risk from the vaccine but I am sympathetic with those who assess the risks differently than I.
My own view is that I think the states have been remiss in not imposing vaccine mandates on their populations and the federal government has been remiss in not limiting interstate transportation. While I don’t think it is within the president’s power to restrict interstate transportation so that only people who have been fully vaccinated may legally travel from state to state by executive order I think it’s within the Congress’s power to enact a law to that effect.
I also think the president is wasting time by trying to do things that exceed his power by executive order.
Steve,
I know a lot about VEARS. Do you?
The AMA seems to be the public voice of physicians. However, it’s membership has been declining over the years – <20% membership. And, according to those physicians not inclined to join it’s because government mandates have gotten in the way of their practice and their patients. As for physicians trying to prescribe ivermectin or HCQ, they have been harassed by licensing boards. Even pharmacies are refusing to fill these anti viral prescriptions when one is written (especially Walgreens & CVS, which are vaccination hubs). I don’t know why you are so misinformed!
As for the efficacy of ivermectin please look at the Brownstone Institute for confirmation of the many studies done on this anti viral.
Then there is the following excerpt from visiontimes.com, dealing with surveys done regarding MD’s professional opinions of COVID vaccines:
“However, the AAPS survey questions the results of the AMA survey as it reveals that a majority of physicians have declined COVID-19 shots.
The poll saw the participation of 700 physicians and highlights the fact that physician support for mass inoculation campaigns is not as unanimous as some assert. Eighty percent of unvaccinated physicians stated that the risk from the vaccines exceeds the risk of the disease. Thirty percent admitted that they had already contracted the infection.
Some of the other reasons cited by physicians for not getting vaccinated include unknown long-term effects of the vaccines, the experimental nature of the vaccines, reports of deaths following inoculation, blood clots among vaccinated people, use of aborted fetal tissue, and availability of effective early treatment.
“It is wrong to call a person who declines a shot an ‘anti-vaxxer’… Virtually no physicians are ‘anti-antibiotics’ or ‘anti-surgery,’ whereas all are opposed to treatments that they think are unnecessary, more likely to harm than to benefit an individual patient, or inadequately tested,†AAPS executive director Jane Orient said in a statementâ€
Dave- We have tested on humans as far back as at least 2017. The results were good but not superior enough to merit producing them. Besides which you would need a proposed mechanism at least some lab based evidence to show why they should be different. We have a fair bit of experience with other m-RNA based therapies. We dont see late developing problems.
https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/862895da
jan- Why do I bother? Yes, Became aware of VAERS many years ago when I was more heavily involved in critical care. You dont appear to know much about it or you wouldn’t talk about it the way you do.
“Eighty percent of unvaccinated physicians stated that the risk from the vaccines exceeds the risk of the disease.”
In surveys it looks like over 90% of practicing docs are vaccinated. So as I said you are dealing with about 5% of doctors who believe what you do. (At my network and the other 50 or so hospitals for which I have good info it is running about 98%.)
““However, the AAPS survey questions the results of the AMA survey as it reveals that a majority of physicians have declined COVID-19 shots.”
Sigh. Ok, did you read this AND understand it? This was an internet survey mostly to members of AAPS. It was not random.
Again, there are lots of other surveys other than the AMA survey. Also, I know about the AAPS.
“The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative non-profit association that promotes medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, vaccine and autism connections, and homosexuality reducing life expectancy. ”
It’s the same group that thinks Obama was using mass hypnosis, physicians should not work with any kind of insurance (not just Medicare/Medicaid), supports indoor smoking and opposes EMRs.
“The AMA seems to be the public voice of physicians. However, it’s membership has been declining over the years – <20% membership. "
I dont belong. It is mostly academic types in it. They dont make mandates that get in the way of caring for my patients. That would be JCAHO and the DOH.
"As for physicians trying to prescribe ivermectin or HCQ, they have been harassed by licensing boards."
Anyone lose a license? Some state boards are talking about sanctioning people for putting misinformation online. Stuff like the vaccines dont work. There is also an effort to make sure people know that when you look at all of the studies, not just a select few, there is no evidence it works. Walgreens and CVS are private entities. No one would order them to not fill those scripts but guess it is nice to see some people taking a moral stand against grifters. Regardless, this was not govt mandated.
"As for the efficacy of ivermectin please look at the Brownstone Institute for confirmation of the many studies done on this anti viral."
Yes. I have said this many times. I have read the studies that show it works and also, unlike you, the ones that show it does not work. I talk with my ID folks who regularly read sources I dont. There are a lot of poor studies that show it works and a lot of poor studies that show it does not. There is one pretty good study that shows it does not and there are more underway. So in general when something works well we tend to notice right away. We noticed that with steroids. So my bet is that it either does not work or if it does work it has a fairly small effect.
But there is good news. Your kind of doctor, the kind you trust, has developed a detox treatment for those who erred and got vaccinated.
In one TikTok video that has received hundreds of thousands of views, Carrie Madej, an osteopath based in Georgia, falsely claims a bath containing baking soda, epsom salts and the cleaning agent borax will “detox the vaxx†from anyone who has received a jab.
Steve
Steve, the only thing I agree with you on is your comment, “Why do I bother,†as it describes how I feel about many of your commentaries. IMO, the close-mindedness reflected in your opinions is only second to how patronizing you are to those having contrasting POVs.
I am simply relaying to you what evidence based medicine tells us. Sorry if you think that is close minded. If you ever want to discuss any particular articles that you think constitute proof of your beliefs happy to tell you what is wrong with the studies and why the huge majority of physicians dont accept them. This would require you to actually read the stuff you cite and I know there is no way in hell you do much of that. Which is actually the difference between the two of us, among other things. I actually read the literature. I can (and have in the past) tell you why something is a good or bad study.
Out of curiosity do you really know what p value means? Why it is overused and often wrong? How about confidence intervals? RCT vs IV studies? What controls are and why randomization matters? What it means when we say a small study is underpowered? Did you ever read medical literature on any kind of regular basis before Covid?
Steve