Reposted from the Fabius Maximus Blog
By Larry Kummer, Editor / 16 April 2020
Summary: COVID-19 teaches us about the propaganda and arrogance that hobble us. The cost in lives and money might be worthwhile if we learn from it and make a better America.
A nation lit only by propaganda
This “it’s China’s fault” campaign (details here and here) is eerily similar to the hysteria whipped up – manufactured – by the US government against Iraq before the 2003 invasion. The press were uncritical cheerleaders. Much of the US public became a mob (or more accurately, a flock). Calmer voices pointed out that the evidence was weak and that we were being manipulated. Manipulated again, as we were with the Tonkin Gulf incident and the invasion of Afghanistan (9/11 was plotted in Germany, with training in Florida).
The same tactics are being used against us again. Again with equally obvious motives – to arouse people against a new Cold War foe (to justify our massive military spending) and distract people’s attention from the massive failures of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The saddest aspect of these campaigns is how easily our elites stage them. Can a people so easily manipulated and so unwilling to learn from experience govern themselves?
Climate Science to the rescue
Many climate scientists have been vocal during the pandemic, with unsolicited offers of their expertise. For instance, in this article by James Annan (h/t to Climate Etc). Here is the money paragraph.
“We have been doing a very straightforward MCMC calibration of a simple SEIR model (equivalent of energy balance box model in climate science, pretty much). The basic concept is to use the model to invert the time series of reported deaths back through the time series of underlying infections in order to discover the model parameters such as the famous reproductive rate R. It’s actually rather simple and I am still bemused by the fact that none of the experts (in the UK at least) are doing this. I mean what on earth are mathematical epidemiologists actually for, if not this sort of thing? They should have been all over this like a rash.”
Well, something here is like a “rash.” When a layperson is “bemused” that experts are not doing what seems obvious to him, it probably means that he should ask an expert and dial down the self-confidence. In the climate wars, such statements often precede “analysis” showing that there is no greenhouse effect or that the world is totally doomed really soon.
The staff at CDC and WHO frequently discussed this issue that bemused Annan, explaining that R0 is of little use for laypeople. It is a variable, not a model parameter in the sense Annan appears to use it. Rather than being simple to calculate, R0 is complex. It varies by circumstances and can change over time. The CDC often cites a paper saying that it is “easily misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied.”
More broadly, there are many fields using quantitative models (e.g., macroeconomics). Personally, climate scientists are among the last I would consult. The most obvious similarity of climate models to epidemiological models of COVID-19 is the Imperial College model made famous by Prof. Neil Ferguson. Created 13 years ago, undocumented code, unvalidated, lacking peer-review (per Ferguson) – but it made headlines and had a massive influence on UK public policy. Although it now appears grossly flawed (as seen in the “actual results don’t matter” justifications), it made him famous and resulted in a shower of grant money.
More broadly, the COVID-19 crisis has followed the same pattern as the public climate wars. Experts are center stage. Then they are displaced by a wider pool of authorities. Then wild claims by laypeople dominate, displacing actual experts (such as those at the IPCC and WHO). The climate wars reached that point after 3 decades. COVID-19 reached that stage in only 14 weeks, as claims that “It Is China’s Fault” increasingly dominate the news. This suggests that our dysfunctional response to major crises results from deeper problems in our society. If not fixed, we might have difficulty coping with more serious threats than COVID-19.
For More Information
Ideas! For some holiday shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a powerful and disturbing story about “Birth of a Man of Steel …for the Soviet Union.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Reforming America: steps to a new politics, about the importance of clear vision, and especially these…
- Important advice: Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America. About “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.
- Important: Our leaders so often lie, but we still believe them.
- Swear allegiance to the truth as a step to reforming America.
- We live in an age of ignorance, but can decide to fix this – today.
- Ways to deal with those guilty of causing the fake news epidemic.
- The secret source of fake news. Its discovery will change America.
- We have been blind, but can learn to see.
- A new phase of the epidemic begins with propaganda.
Propaganda rules America! Read all about it!
Propaganda by Edward Bernays (1936). “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky (2002). “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
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Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise (feat. L.V.) [Official Music Video]
Just for the fun of a second go…
Hope this gets through… really.
cheers
The China fault campaign seems to be based on pretty substantial information and evidence.This doesn’t suggest they orchestrated for it to happen but within the parameters of how their society runs were pretty reckless in any efforts to try to contain it once they were aware that there was a problem. I don’t really see how the China fault discussion ties in with the rest of the post. The fact that experts exaggerate a threat in order to impose an agenda on the population is very familiar territory for climate realists but somehow equating that to a China’s fault campaign seems hardly equivalent. Scientists in cahoots with media and governments manipulate and misrepresent data all the time. I have been bitterly disappointed how willing people have been to give up basic freedoms to the government during this time but am not surprised because a whole generation of people have been softened up into compliance by 20 years of climate change propaganda.
Well, Larry Kummer never fails to disappoint. I suppose he is given air time here, just for folk like me to be able to see how flawed his arguments actually are. Hopefully, the West is planning on containing Red China and the CPC, preferably economically, but by absolute force if necessary.
The covid mass hysteria shows that we learned nothing despite having spent trillions on the climate scam.
I don’t see any “mass hysteria.” I see Americans who were shocked and saddened by what happened to Italy, and wanted to make sure that didn’t happen here.
One month or so on, those same shocked and saddened Americans are now eyeing the political leaders here with scowls and raised eyebrows, drumming on the metaphorical table top with their fingers and tapping their toes impatiently. We will not put up with this much longer.
I too am appalled at how easy it is to get most people onside in a panic. When Dick Cheney wanted to scare Americans into attacking Iraq, he was able to do it without speaking any outright lies. He was asked, Is Saddam trying to make nuclear weapons? and he replied, we just don’t know. Which was technically true. Condoleezza Rice just said, we don’t want’ the smoking gun to be a nuclear weapon. See? Technically true. Their argument was, we don’t have to prove it. We don’t have to even try to prove it. If we can imagine that it might happen (and we have authority), that is justification enough to invade Iraq, kill thousands of people and install an American regency. And it was. The real cost of obviating the imaginary threat was dwarfed by the imaginary cost of the imaginary threat.
Climate change alarmism is similarly like a bizarre application of the logic inherent in Pascal’s Wager. If climate change alarmists are right about climate change, humanity is doomed by 2100. If they’re wrong, well, we probably shouldn’t have granted them all that money and prestige, and fooled the Germans into putting up all those wind turbines. Safer to assume they’re right, pal.
You leave out several well known facts.
1) Saddam had WMD programs at one time. Both chemical and nuclear.
2) We had evidence that Saddam hadn’t given up on his desire to build WMDs. Both chemical and nuclear.
We didn’t need to prove that he was trying to build such weapons in the here and now.
And never forget the plane hijack school that was run at several Iraqi military bases during the 1990s. 60 Minutes even did a segment on that.
Indeed MarkW, and in addition to the fact that he had such programs at one time, he actually used the chemical weapons on his own people previously. So we knew he had previously had the chemical kind and that he continued to pursue both chemical and nuclear ones. While we didn’t know what level of success he had in pursuing them, you can bet that if left to it, eventually he would succeed and he wouldn’t be afraid to use it (as he’d done previously with the chemical weapons).
He also used them against Iran during that war.
There were many lies of people supporting the Irak status quo and the “Saddam is bad but at least we know him”, or “he brings stability to the ME”.
One of the most inane lie what that Saddam was “un laïc”, that he supported separation of State and religion or that he was atheist. (Because Bass is socialism and socialism is against religion influence on politics.)
Another was that Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism.
The arguments of people opposing war were debunked. Nothing was discussed. They never came out clear and no “journalist” asked them about their lies.
That does not mean war was the best option or that it was done intelligently. But at least admit that what we have been told by the so called neutral, anti-Bush experts was BS.
Yes, the deeper problem is gaslighting like this that claims that this isn’t China’s fault, and that this is all just meant to distract from Trump’s “failures.” No doubt you think the federal government should and does have dictatorial powers over any and all aspect of our society and economy.
So let’s see, China didn’t:
Censor doctors who tried to warn of the disease back in November and December.
Didn’t withhold live virus samples from the West.
Didn’t prohibit US CDC personnel from directly investigating the Wuhan epidemic.
Didn’t ban all domestic travel from Wuhan while allowing international flights to continue.
Didn’t instruct their surrogate companies in Australia to buy up all of the PPE and medical equipment they could find.
Didn’t tell the WHO and the world that Human-Human transmission WAS occurring in January.
Didn’t install a corrupt regime in WHO that deliberately ignored Human-Human transmission warnings from Taiwan because Taiwan is the “bad” China in their eyes.
Didn’t sell back PPE aid donated to them from European countries.
And you have the gall to lecture anyone on swearing allegiance to the truth?!
I have a two word response to your “truth.”
A complete load of propaganda dross and spew-tem.
But you have to realise, that this is exactly how the average leftist/democrat thinks and acts.
Another manic case of TDS, and the support of Chinese interests over American interests.
A perfectly dreary day here in central Indiana. Cold and wet and just plain oppressive. Kind of like this post.
Thankfully the wife made a big batch of chili. The perfect dish for such a day. When she makes meals that are best made in big batches she calls the neighbors and asks if they would like some but this time when she called she found out they had made a big pot of ham & beans and were about to call and ask if we wanted some.
I wish I could go over and spend some time with my friends and putter around doing something in his barn, but being a trucker being out dealing with people in different places all the time, I just won’t risk it. We can talk to each other from a distance when the weather is nice enough and that is the way it’s going to have to be for some time to come I’m afraid.
Then wild claims by laypeople dominate, displacing actual experts (such as those at the IPCC and WHO).
You mean these WHO experts:
WHO, Jan. 14
And the CDC “experts” who had faulty reagents in their test kits that rendered useless due to excessive false positives?
Gosh, tell us again how if we just apply the scientific method and finally compare the models to empirical data all of the CAGW nonsense will be behind us.
“WHO, Jan. 14”
That is actually a Reuters article Jan 14, headed
“WHO says new China coronavirus could spread, warns hospitals worldwide”
The quote from Maria Van Kerkhove is Jan 9th, and there is more to it:
“From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO’s emerging diseases unit.
The WHO is however preparing for the possibility that there could be a wider outbreak, she told a Geneva news briefing. “It is still early days, we don’t have a clear clinical picture.”
“And the CDC “experts” who had faulty reagents in their test kits…”
Well, WHO had supplied the rest of the world with test kits that worked.
Thanks for quoting exactly the same passage. And it was actually tweeted directly by WHO.
Just so you’re clear:
but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO’s emerging diseases unit.
Care to explain how it was so clear?
And this was after Taiwan’s warning on Dec. 31:
“Care to explain how it was so clear?”
She used her words carefully. “sustained human-to-human transmission”. That is the exact wording of
phase 4 alert level of a pandemic . And it is defined (here for flu):
“Human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to sustain community-level outbreaks has been verified”
At that stage (Jan 9th) the cases notified all seemed to be derived from contact with the original source region.
I quoted the whole story, which was obviously, as stated explicitly in the headline, about the WHO warning the world about a new danger. You selected one little bit to try to make it seem she was playing down the danger.
“You mean the same kits that were never offered to the US?”
Of course the US could have used the kits. Deborah Birx explains:
“On Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, also discussed why the United States had not adopted a test distributed by WHO as the CDC-developed test struggled.
“Because quality testing for our American people is paramount to us,” Birx said before suggesting that other tests have been inaccurate. “It doesn’t help to put out a test where 50% or 47% are false positives.”
Only an American test would do.
Oh Nick, why didn’t you look at the tweet link? Would you like to know what it said on Jan. 14? Note the date because your claim is that everything changed after Jan. 9.
Do you see any hedging there? Do you see the word “sustained” there? Are you going to try to deflect again by claiming that it used the word “preliminary” or that it came from China and was only reproduced through the official WHO twitter account?
Please cite where I “made it seem she was playing down the danger.” I was pointing out that she was wrong and I referenced the warning from Taiwan which you not so curiously avoided. I realize that you have a blind faith in authority, but I’m simply pointing out the failure of experts. Sorry that disturbs you so much.
“Could” is not the same as “offered,” but I’m sure your careful word choice was unintentional. I’ll even cite a source that I’m sure you find authoritative, Snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-coronavirus-test/
But for the sake of argument let’s say they had turned the kits down, care to explain how that makes the “experts” at CDC look any better? That, after all, was my point which you tried to turn into two different straw men. First that working kits (which were German BTW, not WHO-generated) from WHO somehow makes up for their earlier failures, and second that American arrogance somehow vindicates a failure of CDC experts.
Thanks tsk tsk! That puts an end to the ‘careful’ weasel wording!
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1217043229427761152&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fmattvespa%2F2020%2F03%2F26%2Fis-this-why-who-peddled-chinas-propaganda-on-wuhan-coronavirus-n2565648
WHO tweet, Jan 14
The point remains that society today is riddled with advertising/propaganda.
Women and some men and many undecideds spend a lot of money on cosmetics. Many of these are basically a slurry of mud, with addition of chemicals with pseudo-chemical names. People do this in huge numbers because advertising is heavy, clever and merciless. If you do not use cosmetics, society will reject you.
Another example is alternative medicine including hot whoppers like oversell of multi-vitamins, frauds like homeopathy, natural herbs and spices with magical powers like sitting in a pyramid. It is all so fake, fake, fake, but people go along with it because advertising tells them to. Day after day, night after night.
There is gun culture backed by 50 years of Hollywood movies which by some strange, unwritten social contract, makes it near compulsory for a movie to include gun use. Not in-your-face advertising, but powerful and taking a horrible daily toll of lives. Accept the gun as a familiar part of life and soon you accept recreational drugs as a familiar part of life.
Alcohol use is similarly propelled by advertising.
So is your choice of laundry detergent and dozens of other daily products about whose safety you do not have a clue. But TV tells us it is OK, even lovable.
One can go on and on because examples are abundant.
Take a good look around, then do an inventory asking “How does advertising guide my life?” You might be astounded when you do it thoroughly. Geoff S
Women have used cosmetics since the days of Pharaoh, and Americans have owned and used firearms long before movies and mass media existed.
You know who really gets fooled by Hollywood movies and TV? People who watch them and think Americans are “decadent” and easily manipulated. They go right on believing that until they receive a boot in the ass, courtesy of those “decadent” Americans.
Geoff
There is little doubt that advertising is a tool to get unthinking people to buy things they probably wouldn’t otherwise buy. If people just remember that advertising is about getting people to part with their money, rather than promote a social good, then they will have the proper perspective on the continuous barrage of advertising at all levels of their life, but especially entertainment.
It seems that, at least in American culture, sex and violence are like the Homeric Sirens. What is interesting is that many of the Hollywood stars, who have become rich shooting up the Silver Screen, give lip service to the role that they believe firearms play in causing real violence. None of them have the moral integrity to decline a well-paid role that ends up advertising the things they complain about.
The goal of the vast majority of advertising is to get people to buy our product instead of the other guys. The evidence that advertising increases over all spending is weak at best.
So now you’re back to thinking the IPCC are experts? What happened to your epiphany that they are liars who are corrupting science?
Larry Kummer announces his epiphany regarding the IPCC, in March 2019
And you think the IPCC are experts? That simply shows you know nothing.
A bit more on my previous comments:
To this very day, the IPCC has failed to perform the most basic task in any assessment of climate change, which is to answer the question of, “What will happen if we do nothing?”
For example, to this very day, the IPCC has not said, “Under a Business as Usual situation in which no further measures are taken, there is a 50 percent chance global warming will be less than X, a 5 percent chance global warming will be less than Y, and a 95 percent chance that global warming will be less than Z, by the year 2100.”
That is a absolute disgrace. The IPCC dishonest and/or incompetent to not be able to make that straightforward analysis. I made that analysis more than 15 years ago:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2006/04/complete_set_of.html
And I think it’s already pretty clear that my analysis is going to hold up reasonably well, particularly with regard to anthropogenic CO2 emissions:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2017/07/mark-bahner-vs-wigley-and-raper-science-2001-vs-ipcc-rcps.html
The fact that Larry Kummer, after more than a decade, apparently still does not comprehend the IPCC’s dishonesty and/or incompetence, merely shows that my comment to him that he is a “clueless amateur” (which apparently got me banned from his blog) is completely correct.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
It’s China’s fault.
…
So what are you trying to say Walter? 😉
It’s not over until the fat lady sings and I think it’s worse than we know and we’ve been scammed again. My layman $.02.
The fat lady is at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 in a bad way, because she is obese, and obesity seems to be a standout factor in COVID-19 mortality, … after age. If she’s elderly and obese, … well, … she might not be the one who sings, I’m afraid. It’ll be the young, skinny lady’s show this time.
I like alternative viewpoints
If you don’t read and absorb them how can you possibly know how to spot the insane members of the crowd
I love this site but I also read on the CBC, rabble.ca and even the Tyee at times
How else can you recognize the enemy if you can observe and identify their beliefs?
james annaan’s model has the advantage of being Less wrong than
the other models being used.
The shortcoming he found in other models is real.
Fabius Maximus lost me several years ago with his gloom and doom pronouncements about having reached peak oil.
I agree that there is something bad going on with the Covid-19 hysteria, but it is more like a mass delusion than propaganda.
500,000,000 entrants came into the global workforce in 2000 when China joined the WTO. The CCP runs the show. Apart from that, Chinese culture sees China in a certain way (as the center of the world). We all owe them tribute from their point of view. The West took certain actions with respect to China, and relocated production there to an excess. It is time for a reassessment and re-balance.
Now this plague comes out of China, and the West within 8 weeks sees how vulnerable it has made itself. It is time for action, but instead we have put ourselves and our economy into an induced coma. We’ll come out of this poorer, wiser, and ultimately stronger, but it will take a while. The experts who told us everything was fine for the last twenty years will continue to talk that talk. Shame on us if we listen to them.
We should not trust projections. They are hypotheses. They need to be tested. They need experiments and observations. We should act only on empirical evidence.
Absolutely agree. I’m tired of feeling the need to defend brave soldiers from both sides of the Atlantic fighting and dying to protect our freedom from the likes of Saddam.
We have done this to ourselves:
“New Chinese export restrictions are exacerbating the chronic shortage of protective gear in the U.S. Face masks, test kits and other medical equipment bound for the U.S. are sitting in warehouses across China unable to receive necessary official clearances, some suppliers and brokers told The Wall Street Journal.
“Chinese officials have said the policies, instituted this month, are intended to ensure the quality of exported medical products and to make sure needed goods aren’t being shipped out of China. They have created bottlenecks at a time of urgent need, according to the suppliers, brokers and the State Department memos.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-surges-in-some-asian-countries-that-had-been-lightly-hit-11587031743
Fine, block all Chinese imports of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. America is capable of manufacturing our own. Besides, China is intentionally shipping defective equipment and improperly made pharmaceuticals, have been for a long time, and each time it is pointed out they simply reply with a wafting of empty hands and a “So sorry”. Cut them off at the knees. As for their road&belt financial scheme, time for all their patsies to default, en-masse and watch the renminbi go down the squatter. They want to play global unconventional war games? Lets play.
Larry started copying his blogs here some time ago. He started off with the assumption that consensus Catastrophic Anthropo Global Warming was essentially largely settled science and that sceptics had a point or two and what was needed was the two sides to get together in a collegial manner and hammer out something better.
He got himself a good education here, and I commented on one of his later offerings that it was good to see that he had come to be less sure of himself on CAGW. WUWT has had that effect on many ‘settled science’ visitors and I give kudos to those that come here and argue and learn and keep us honest. Sadly too few do. However, this article is a demonstration that Larry has a dyed in the wool rigidity and he really hasn’t altered his thinking at all. I was deceived. He’s not a learner, he is a teacher.
This posting is the worst he’s brought here. He’s even got Trump Derangement Syndrome, he’s an apologist for China and WHO and has reverence for the IPCC stronger than ever. There are millions of Larry Kummers out there. We can get his thoughts 24 hrs a day from CNN, NBC and most of the other networks. He doesn’t see that climate is a vehicle for a new world order.
He displays only shame for his country. Yeah, he touched on some things done that weren’t well thought out, but he has no praise for the unique marvel that this country is on many many fronts. It saved the asses of Europe twice in two world wars and even stood the vanquished back up on their feet and gave them economies they never would have had. Ditto China to a fault! It is the most generous, productive, innovative country on earth. It took us to the stars… Bad show Larry. Hey, Im not even Anerican, How ’bout that.
It’s China’s fault was a response to China’s behaviour.
President Trump on why he used the term ‘China virus’
“I don’t regret it, but they accused us of having done it through our soldiers, they said our soldiers did it on purpose, what kind of a thing is that?” Trump said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News. “Look, everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn’t make any more of a big deal out of it. I think I made a big deal. I think people understand it. But that all began when they said our soldiers started it. Our soldiers had nothing to do with it.”
It’s continued because of the Chinese governments behaviour to avoid all responsibility for it’s spread and possible escape from a lab.
Walter? Walter? You’re being very immature, Walter. It’s Trump’s fault. Or maybe it was those Italians with their names that all end in vowels.
Well, look it’s not my fault. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there.
@Amadeus 48 is correct. You are trying to distract us from the true strategic issue.
Dealing with the pandemic is merely tactical. We will devise tests, find cures, create vaccines.
The strategic issue is the arrogant, oppressive, imperialistic, reactionary, racist, Chinese Communist Regime.
The theory we worked on for the last 30 years was that if China were incorporated into the international economic system, and if it grew rich, it would develop a broad middle class. That class would in turn push the regime towards liberalism (Abraham Lincoln, not Nancy Pelosi) in economic, social, and political matters.
What has happened confounded all of those expectations.
You may not want a cold war with China, but you have one. And you have decide to fight it and win or surrender and give up you freedom and prosperity.
Which will it be?
“We have been doing a very straightforward MCMC calibration of a simple SEIR model (equivalent of energy balance box model in climate science, pretty much). The basic concept is to use the model to invert the time series of reported deaths back through the time series of underlying infections in order to discover the model parameters such as the famous reproductive rate R. It’s actually rather simple and I am still bemused by the fact that none of the experts (in the UK at least) are doing this. I mean what on earth are mathematical epidemiologists actually for, if not this sort of thing? They should have been all over this like a rash.”
Really. Could we have that in English.
He might as well have said:
“Forty-one manestically spaced grouting brushes were arranged to feed into the rotor slipstream a mixture of high S-value phenylhydrobenzamine and 5% remanative tetryliodohexamine. Both of these liquids have specific pericosities given by P=2.5Cn6.7 where n is the diathetical evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is Chlomondeley’s annular grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of metaploar refractive pilfrometer (for a description of this ingenious instrument, see Reference 1), but up to the present, nothing has been found to equal the transcendental hopper dadoscope (2). ”
See, I can be bemused too.
Then there’s Isaac Asimov’s paper on “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline.”
China’s German Embassy has correctly identified the source of the extreme anti-China propaganda – the Henry Jackson Society, a British intelligence disinformation operation (registered as a British charity) cooperating with American neo-cons. This is the source of the mad war drive to sue China for $3 trillion.
Their propaganda has been extreme in Bildzeitung.
The intent is obvious – to prevent Trump and Xi cooperating.
Shades of MI6’s Sir Dearlove’s Iraq WMD Dossier, also the source of Brennan’s and Comey’s Steele Dossier and Russiagate.
Trump characterized then Brit Ambassador Dorach as “wacky” and a “pompous fool” who we will “no longer deal with.” Dorach confessed in his leaked cables that he was “cultivating” everyone in the President’s social circles and inside the administration to “flood the zone” in order to control the President’s responses to issues of war and peace. It seems this ploy is still in play.
For an overview of British policy, see House of Lords document
Select Committee on International Relations UK foreign policy in a shifting world order
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldintrel/250/25002.htm
We do seem to have a member of that esteemed House at WUWT, with more anti-China propaganda.
Is WUWT now an organ of the British House of Lords? Flooding the climate zone?
What about the Bilderbergs, the Trilateral Commission, and the Black Helicopters?
Everyone knows, that any fact a socialist doesn’t like is propaganda.
At least he didn’t blame it on the Jews this time.
Walt? There are no black helicopters, they are painted flat matte green. 😉
dumdum, you forgot to mention how the Henry Jackson Society were instrumental in the JFK assassination and faking the moonlandings! Come on, if you are going to go conspiracy-tard, go full conspiracy-tard (don’t listen to Kirk Lazarus, he’s bought and paid for by the Bilderbergs).
Mob is, at least in Antipodean terms, acceptable for a lot of sheep. It is usually used for a lot of sheep either being driven for slaughter or when being brought down from the high country for sheering. Either way they are being driven to where they do not have any idea where or for what purpose.
But “theirs not to reason why” Richard.
Wow, talk about propaganda. How much did China pay for this pile of crap?
I doubt they paid anything. The useful idiots are glad to do this kind of stuff for free.
They think that if they pile up enough brownie points, they’ll get to be first in line for the goodies after the regime change.
I think a serious look should be taken at his financials, and those of his “employer”. China has been using several forms of “payola”(old people will remember what that was) to insinuate themselves into all manner of places in American media, government and academia. Time to treat them like the enemy they publicly proclaim themselves to be.
It is not propaganda to blame China. It started in China that covered it up as long as possible and put their people out to infect the world while hiding knowledge of the virus as long as possible.
As for models and statistics Dr. Fauci stated if someone came in with heart trouble and the virus he would record the virus as the cause of death. If that happens often the statistics cannot be useful. And models are notorious for being wrong as opposed to actual data.
I want to see investigations into cause of death listed for all deceased in New York going back to January 1st. Lets us see just how widespread the lying has become.
Whether the virus was released by an infected worker from the BSL4 laboratory (likely) or from the wet market (less likely, wrong species of bats for SARS-CoV-2), patient zero’s wife contracted the disease from him. This was early December. Then, Taiwan issued a warning that WHO rejected on human transmission at the end of December.
China knew from very early on that human transmission was happening. They killed the messengers and destroyed evidence. The most telling aspect is that China restricted INTERNAL travel while denying that it could be transferred from person to person. Yet, they allowed international travel from Wuhan for many additional weeks. China acted in a criminal fashion and is responsible for many thousands of deaths and untold damage to the world economy. WHO has been their disinformation partner.
I share the concern about reliance on authority. The CDC did not permit private labs to work on testing at the beginning because or our regulations, and that mistake has also caused massive damage.
We need good statistically sound testing of populations in hot spots and more broadly to build on the early data generated by Stanford. It is urgent to re-open economies in a safe manner and to restore freedom of movement and association. Restoration of as much of the old normal as possible with due respect for practices to reduce the spread of infectious diseases will be good, but basic freedoms are critical to a just and humane society.