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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https://bangordailynews.com/2020/04/18/act-out/maine-air-has-become-noticeably-cleaner-during-pandemic-experts-say/
any chance to make themselves heard..
More nonsense from the “Great” Fabius Maximus Blog.
Please NO MORE thread from Mr Kummer.
. . . from the article:
“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.”
I sure wish those two uneducated boys with the bicycle shop in Dayton, OH had “dialed down the self-confidence” and relied on the Great Universities in the US and France to develop an airplane that actually worked. /s
Speaking of propaganda, Kummer’s narishkeit is strictly Democrat Party propaganda”
“‘Costliest Government Coverup of All Time’: Growing Confidence among U.S. Officials That Coronavirus Emerged from Lab” By Tobias Hoonhout • April 16, 2020 • https://www.nationalreview.com/news/costliest-government-coverup-of-all-time-growing-confidence-among-u-s-officials-that-coronavirus-emerged-from-lab/
***
Democrats have been largely dismissive of claims of Chinese duplicity, instead focusing criticism on the Trump administration’s response. “The reason that we are in the crisis that we are today is not because of anything that China did, not because of anything the WHO did, it’s because of what this president did,” Senator Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) said Tuesday.
=====================================================
Here is the emes:
“Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China’s efforts to compete with US” By Bret Baier, Gregg Re | Fox News | April 16, 2020
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources
EXCLUSIVE: There is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China’s attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China’s government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.
This may be the “costliest government cover-up of all time,” one of the sources said.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus – a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there – was bat-to-human and that “patient zero” worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
* * *
What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government.
Documents detail early efforts by doctors at the lab and early efforts at containment. The Wuhan wet market initially identified as a possible point of origin never sold bats, and the sources tell Fox News that blaming the wet market was an effort by China to deflect blame from the laboratory …
U.S. Embassy officials warned in January 2018 about inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab and passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
* * *
Sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered. …
* * *
On Thursday, China’s foreign ministry pushed back on the suspicion that the virus escaped from the facility, by citing statements from the World Health Organization that there is no evidence the coronavirus came from a laboratory.
* * *
China “100 percent” suppressed data and changed data, the sources tell Fox News. Samples were destroyed, contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled. …
There were doctors and journalists who were “disappeared” warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission. China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.
Additionally, the sources tell Fox News the World Health Organization (WHO) was complicit from the beginning in helping China cover its tracks.
* * *
The same Democrats who are now claiming that Trump didn’t do enough back in February, back in February were complaining that he was doing too much.
Society learn a lesson? Larry Kummer hasn’t even learned from the failure of *his own* propaganda, extolling what a wonderful job the health organizations were doing on the disease back in January. And now that the pandemic is being contained by ruinously expensively lockdowns all across the Western world, he singles out *Trump* as the source of all failures, as if the biggest government missteps in the US weren’t done by the very agencies he’s been lauding, or as if the ruinous lockdown policies weren’t in place in most of the Western world.
Here’s how Kummer described the situation back on January 25th: “The amazing news is the rapid and powerful response of our public health systems. This is evidence that we have built a better world…”
It goes on to share the wisdom of the WHO, including their determination on Jan 23rd that the worldwide risk was “moderate” and their committee deciding on Jan 24th that it was too early to consider it a “public health emergency of international concern”
On February 25th, a month later, Kummer is extolling the blockbuster good news from China. Uncritically accepting the Chinese numbers as reported by WHO, he confidently expects things to be much better in the West. All thanks to WHO and fellow travelers. “The combination of global organization and high tech has allowed preparations during the past 54 days of an unprecedented speed and scale. Without these, by now we might be in the midst of a devastating global pandemic.”
Naturally, the next paragraph damned Trump for proposing cuts to WHO and the “Pan American Health Organization”, which previously had not been mentioned as doing anything related to the pandemic. This is “madness” in the midst of a epidemic to Kummer’s eyes, even though (like past proposed costs) it was unlikely to actually happen once Congress got their hands on it. At no point did he say how much money WHO actually needed to do their job, what the fair share of the US should be for that international organization, or why he considered them underfunded when he thinks they’re doing such a bang up job, providing good counsel as opposed to all those “doomsters” out there who think something terrible is going to happen.
Well, if the pandemic hasn’t been devastating, the countermeasures certainly have. No doubt Kummer feels that WHO and the scrupulously honest CCP have covered themselves in glory, while all blame for the Western World voluntarily diving into economic depression belongs solely to Donald Trump, since Orange Man Bad. From where I sit, Kummer’s laudatory praise for WHO in late January and late February have aged very badly indeed.
Larry Kummer hasn’t even learned from the failure of *his own* propaganda
Having read many of his articles posted here at WUWT I can honestly say, he never does. He keeps repeating the same failed arguments as if they’re some brilliant new insight, having learned nothing from the last time he repeated those failed arguments.
Kummer
You claimed, “… distract people’s attention from the massive failures of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 epidemic.” You have become too used to reading MSM ‘journalism.’ Your assertion is lacking the specifics of Trump’s failures, and cited references to support them.
From my perspective, he is acting against his instincts and following the advice of medical professionals. He has done what essentially all the other major countries in the world have done, and what the governors of most US states are doing. For embargoing travelers from China, the day after WHO announced that the Wuhan Flu was a pandemic, he was called a xenophobe and worse by pundits. This was about two weeks after both China and WHO denied any evidence of person-to-person transmission, and before there were any Kung Flu deaths in the US. And, his actions, whether you personally approve or not, has resulted in per capita cases and deaths that are within at least an order of magnitude of what has occurred in Western European countries that acted independently. As it is, the statistics are strongly and negatively influenced by what has happened in New York City; that is largely the responsibility of the mayor of NYC!
I don’t know whether you are looking for a scapegoat, or are just acting out your impulses because of TDS, but trying to blame Trump comes across as more of a screed than an objective analysis.
As to China’s culpability in spreading the disease, their lying and alleged destruction of evidence, and allowing thousands of citizens to travel worldwide when they had reason to believe they carried the disease, makes a strong case that they knew they had a tiger by the tail and failed to warn the world.